prematurely grey

I think it’s safe to say that I’m in love with Joe Biden.

Joe Biden is so awesome, just reading what he said yesterday makes me want to tell all seven of my faithful readers about him. For example:

“John McCain says he wants to spend another $130 billion this year to give tax breaks to people whose income is over $250,000,” Biden explained. “Now look — these are patriotic Americans, they’re not bad guys… But ladies and gentlemen, we want to take that $130 billion and give it to people making under $150,000 as families, people who are making 40 and 50 and 60 and 80 and 100 thousand dollars who are struggling just to keep their kid in college, struggling just to stay in their home, struggling just to pay the bills.” [emphasis added]

But wait, there’s more!

He said this at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. The second I saw, “Canton, Ohio” in the link from MSNBC’s First Read, well, you knew it was going to be good. But great? Come on, Joe. You’re shitting me. You were a halfback?

Fanfuckingtastic!

Some of you may have already heard about my new proactive strategy to help get Obama elected by pimping Joe Biden. Ladies (sorry, this isn’t directed to you gentlemen), Joe Biden is the kind of guy you totally would have slept with. Period. Paragraph.

Think I’m exaggerating? Try this on:

Before the event, Biden toured the Hall of Fame, broadly grinning as he walked around the various exhibits. He did get emotional at one, however — a booth displaying the Purple Heart of former Pittsburgh Steeler Rocky Bleier, a Vietnam war veteran. In 1972, Bleier had visited the hospital room where Biden’s sons, Beau and Hunter, were recovering from injuries sustained in the car crash that killed his first wife and infant daughter. Biden later told the crowd that Bleier was “one of my great heroes.” And he also said he had hoped to come to the hall under different circumstances.

“I was hoping to be doing this as an inductee,” he said. “When I realized I couldn’t do it, I decided I might as well run for vice president.”

OMG! He’s sensitive! He has a tragic history! He’s funny! He’s the hero in a Judy Blume novel!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new hero. The Familiar Stranger is here to stay! All My (Grand)Children is turning into an episode of Law and Order, anyway. Who gives a shit if creepy Todd will testify or not?

There are days when even I can understand why Sarah Palin believes she’s qualified to be vice president. They come when I foresee a situation and think of strategies for dealing with it, even though the situation remains hypothetical. Some people call this process “planning.”

Today, Aftermath Ike hit Texas. And part of me wanted to scream, “Jesus, why don’t you put me in charge of FEMA? I would have gotten those fucking trucks full of assets out of Fort Worth and San Antonio. I would have said, “Hey, drive on the feeder roads once you get to the 610 Loop, because anyone who’s ever been to Houston knows the highways flood. It’s not rocket science to drive those truck from San Antonio.”

Here’s the deal: journalists are pissed because they haven’t been allowed to observe the Bolivar (pronounced Boll-i-ver) Peninsula. This is where the worst of the worst took place. And who doesn’t have a good answer for why no one’s been allowed in? That’s right. Our very own Governor Good Hair, Mr. 39% himself.

Then there’s the finger pointing. FEMA says the state was supposed to distribute the assets. Texas says FEMA was supposed to do it. Then somebody (I can’t keep this straight) says, “No, the local governments are supposed to do this?” WHAH? The local governments are supposed to handle getting the ice and water and MREs to their dazed citizens, the ones who didn’t leave and didn’t, for whatever reason, get themselves a 72 hour supply of food and water?˜ Yeah, that sounds like a great plan.

There are different ways of telling every story, I suppose. Looking through the Houston Chronicle blog, lots of grocery stores are opening up (with limited supplies), 500,000 people have power now, and you could drive on the highway downtown. (But why would you want to go there? The streets are littered with glass.) Latest update–four Starbucks are open. (Any idea how 4 Starbucks are going to handle 2 million people?) Apparently, the American way of life will continue in Houston.

But Aftermath Ike is here for a while in Galveston and Orange and Port Arthur. And part of recovering from the recovery will be talking about performance of officials like Rick Perry who call the people who didn’t evacuate “knuckleheads.”

Shit! After all the reading and watching and thinking, I can’t find the heartbreaking quote, the one that would damn Rick Perry to an even hotter hell than the one he’s headed for. It was an interview with a woman who stayed behind, one of the non-evacuating knuckleheads. And why didn’t she evacuate? She’d already spent all her money evacuating her family for Gustav. She couldn’t afford to evacuate. There are other reasons people don’t evacuate, some of them pretty pathetic. But to lump all of these people, these dazed and devastated people, together as knuckleheaded, well, I really am shocked that Perry didn’t get the VP nod. Guess you can’t put lipstick on a pig..

You know what’s really great about the Meltdown on Wall Street? It gives Grandpa McAngrypants something else to clean up. Having another mess, one with global consequences and triggers we really can’t predict, since the people of the Earth (which is what I think I’ll start calling the reality based community) have never been able to communicate so quickly*, is a lucky break for him. The idea that he was going to clean up Washington was becoming, well, laughable.

So, in quick succession, here are a few clips that my favorite sites posted this morning. I’m beginning to see my role as a collage artist. Obviously, there are different types of blogs out there. There are the great journalistic ones such as Talking Points Memo. Then there’s the hardest working man in the blogosphere–Andrew Sullivan–my new bff. Who knew that a gay conservative British Catholic who actually chooses to live in Washington and I would have so much in common? And then there’s my hero John Coles. Another lapsed Republican. Wait a minute! Is there a theme here? Is this all just me working through my Republican heritage?

Back to Mr. Clean (who would be a terrific sponsor for All My (Grand)Children).

Clip Number Five: In Which Our Heroine’s Aging Guardian Tells Us What Needs Cleaning

Thanks to Talking Points Memo for posting this. I can’t watch CNN; thanks for saving me the trouble.

But wait, there’s more.

Clip Number Six: In Which God Speaks

Speaking from down here 150 miles outside Aftermath Ike (but in its actual command center), I can tell you that there’s a difference between a job for Mr. Clean and a once in a century event.

*I’ve been reading What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe this summer. I’m still in the first third of the book (John Quincy Adams’ presidency), but it’s already made me think a great deal to how communication technology transforms the political process. Too much to go into now, but I’ll add that this is the first presidential election with a robust Internet. Meaning, the Internet is the primary driver for political communication in 2008. It hadn’t reached this level in 2004 or 2006 (but the George Allen macaca remark was the harbinger). The other communication medium that’s dominating 2008 is the cell phone, obviously. Basically, between the two, new information is ubiquitous. You can’t escape it. Hence, Palinmania.

Here’s another clip that really helped me make it through the day. I actually saw this on TV last night. Was recording Obama on Letterman (the un-McAngryPants–will try to post a clip for those of you who wake up and get on the treadmill at 5:30 am, thus missing the world of late night TV. Yes, I’m still the same person I always was. I’d rather watch TV in the wee hours than get stuff done during the day. Maybe that’s why it’s Sarah Palin up there instead of me. That, and believing in the Rapture.).

Clip Number Two: In Which a Heretofore Third Rate Host Is Revealed to Be a Champion of Democracy

Who knew, who the fuck knew, that this guy was going to turn out to be the Thurlow Weed of 2008?*

*I’m just messing with you. Tim Russert was the Thurlow Weed of 2008. Not sure which publisher we’re dealing with here, but it has the feel that a new newspaper getting off the ground in 1824 might have had. Yes, I just went all Andrew Jackson on you. Can you handle it?