You know you haven’t got much to say about your opposition when you resort to condemning their logistics. First Fox News ran a “days since Barack Obama promised to appear on our show” clock. Now the Republican Party’s homepage is running their own countup clocks which count the days since Obama’s (a) visited Iraq, and (b) was invited to ten town hall meetings by John McCain.

Is the GOP sure it wants to play this game? The Democrats could easily respond with clocks of their own. Such as (dates are rough estimations):

1. “Days since John McCain flip-flopped on off-shore drilling: 2 days”

2. “Days since John McCain officially approved of torture: 730 days”

3. “Days since John McCain used 100 heavily-armed soldiers, 3 Blackhawks, 2 Apache gunships and a flak jacket to prove he could walk around an Iraqi marketplace without protection: 565 days”

4. “Days since the Iraqi marketplace he walked through was back under the control of insurgents: 330 days”

5. “Days since President Bush promised to fire whoever committed treason by outing an undercover CIA operative: 1,460 days”

6. “Days since President Bush vowed to capture Osama Bin Laden: 2,355 days”

7. “Days since President Bush vowed to rebuild New Orleans: 895 days”

8. “Days since President Carter called energy independence a national security matter, vowed to free us from Middle East oil, and was consequently mocked by Reagan and the next two generations of Republicans: 13,870 days”

9. “Days since President Truman tried to give Americans universal healthcare, but was rebuffed by Republicans in Congress: 21,900 days”

Etc…

Of course, none of that’s as important as Barack Obama’s travel itinerary or the burning question of whether he’ll stick to the five debates he’s offered McCain, or accept McCain’s invitation to ten.

“I believe that either today or tomorrow — and I’m not privy to his schedule — Sen. Obama will be landing in Iraq with some other senators” who make up a congressional delegation, McCain told a campaign fund-raising luncheon.“

First John McCain goads Barack Obama into visiting Iraq. Then, according to Reuters, John McCain leaks the timing of Obama’s Iraq visit. The same John McCain who had argued that the press reporting his son was serving in Iraq would make him a target.When asked whether this was another example of his foreign policy expertise, McCain couldn’t reply, as he was busy ordering a giant anvil from ACME. 

I think Paris Hilton just solved the energy crisis. I will now go into my room, get back into bed, and hope I wake up from this strange, strange dream.

I went to sleep, and woke up in Bizarro World. I actually agree with Fox News today: 

Hillary and Bill have hijacked the Denver convention, making it into a carbon copy of what it would have looked like had she won until the last possible moment. By the time Obama gets up to speak and put his stamp on the convention, Hillary will have had one prime time night all to herself. Bill will have pre-empted a second night. Hillary will have had all the nominating and seconding speeches she wants. And the roll call of the states would record, in graphic detail, how the voters of state after state rejected Obama’s candidacy in the primaries. Only then, after three and a half days of all Clinton all the time will the convention then, finally, turn to its nominee and allow him to have an hour in the sun!

And what leverage did the Clintons have to achieve all of this? None! Hillary could not have taken the convention by storm and any show of party disunity would marginalize her forever in the Democratic Party. Had she or her supporters tried to pull off distracting demonstrations or to recreate Lafayette Park in Chicago in 1968, she would have paid a permanent price among the party faithful for sabotaging Obama’s candidacy.

This Clintonian tour de force raises a key question about Barack Obama: Is he strong enough to be president or can he be pushed around? His failure to stand up to the Clintons makes one wonder how effective he will be against bin Laden, Iran, Chavez, or Putin.

Thank God for the Larry King show on CNN. Tonight he had four guests assess the first night of the Democratic National Convention. Michael Reagan, partisan right wing radio talk show host, Ben Stein, partisan right wing radio talk show host, and Lars Larson, partisan right wing radio talk show host. For balance, he gave us Republican congresswoman Marsha Blackburn.

I’d just finished watching Michelle Obama’s speech on my DVR, and I apparently got the wrong idea. When she spoke at length about how her father’s hard work and her mother’s hard work helped her and her brother succeed in life, I thought she was saying America rewards hard work. See what made me think that was when she said, among other similar aphorisms, “The only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work hard for them.” Apparently I was reading too much into that stuff, because when I flipped to Larry King afterward, I saw Lars Larson explaining what she really meant. According to Lars, what Michelle Obama really meant to convey with that story about hard work leading to success was the notion that “America’s not a place where you can get ahead if you try hard, and of course all of that is President Bush’s fault.”

Now, for a second that confused me. More than that, it angered me, the thought that I knew what I saw and here comes a guy who tells me it was actually the opposite of what I saw. But such anger is irrational. After all, this guy was wearing an expensive-looking jacket and his tie was neatly fastened around his doughy neck. More importantly, he was on television whereas I was sitting in anonymity on my couch in a comfortable (i.e. torn) t-shirt and boxers, wearing only one sock. Who would you trust?

Besides, there’s something intoxicating about the mind-numbing confusion that comes from Lars Larson telling me what I saw was the opposite of what I knew I’d seen. It was as though I could feel my brain cells throwing up their synapses in exasperation and just giving up. It felt just like popping bubble wrap with my feet. Only in my head, and with Lars’s feet.

Luckily, Larry King didn’t kill the buzz by asking Lars to, y’know, substantiate his analysis by citing a passage from her speech or anything. Rather, King said he would play a clip from Obama’s speech and then “accidentally” played a McCain attack ad instead. They all got a nice chuckle out of that mishap, a gleeful chuckle loud enough for me to hear over the sound of my own head banging against the wall.

I would’ve stuck around to see what Larry’s other 3 right wing guests had to say about that, but I sort of zoned out during the commercial and turned the channel to Matlock.

Chris Matthews has been increasingly willing to call Republican politicians out on their childish attempt to rename the opposition party. I take credit for this. I didn’t hear a single Media personality even mention this pathetic trend until my 2007 cartoon on the topic ran in the Washington Post (& everywhere else). Oh, and some other obscure comic called “Doonesbury” (you’ve probably never heard of it) may have also run a similar cartoon on the very same day as mine.