“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. 

The McCain campaign today circulated a memo predicting a huge post-convention bump in the polls for Barack Obama. “He should get anywhere from an eleventy-thousand to 15-kerbillion point bump” according to Sarah Simms, strategic advisor to the McCain campaign. “Anything less than that would clearly  indicate Obama’s abject failure to connect with the American people. Reporters and commentators on all broadcast networks are expected to accept the McCain campaign’s prediction at face value, and have already scheduled 4 weeks of “Obama didn’t perform as well as expected” coverage between mid-September and early November. When reminded by a reporter that “eleventy” isn’t an actual number, Simms replied “John McCain knows a thing or two about numbers; he had plenty of time to count the days he was locked up in a Vietnamese hell hole with only rats and bark to eat.” 

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.

I remember when we were kids, and we were losing a game of four square, the sun would conveniently be in our eyes. That’s why we lost. It wasn’t because we sucked.

Anyone notice how Hurricane Gustav has conveniently prevented George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, the two least popular men in the Republican Party (if not the country), from speaking at the Republican Convention today? If they were anyone else, I might suspect they were exploiting a disaster for political purposes. But since these people have never done anything like that before, I’m sure they only have the interests of the citizens of New Orleans at heart. Thank God.

**UPDATE– Since the hurricane failed to deliver the blow the Media had hoped for (CNN’s now calling themselves the “election center” again, after being the “hurricane center” just yesterday), Bush is going to have to speak today (Tuesday). This reminds me of the times in the Eighties when I was supposed to do homework but got sidetracked by Robotech and He-Man. Then, of course, I had to ride my bike around the block a few times before dinner. And after dinner, there was always Three’s Company or the Cosby Show. Then, probably because of the bike riding, I was tired. Who could blame me? In the midst of self-hate and panic the next morning, I would sometimes see rainclouds gathering beyond the avocado tree in our backyard. I would pray for a hurricane or a twister to cause massive carnage and destruction so I wouldn’t have to face an angry teacher. But since this was Los Angeles, I never had that kind of luck. I always had to own up to my mistakes. But I always had a two hour school bus-ride to either do my homework or (almost as often) to think up a good excuse.

Maybe when he speaks at the convention (well, not really AT the convention, he’ll be putting in a brief cameo on video from the White House) Bush will offer one hell of an excuse tonight for the last eight years. One we haven’t already heard a thousand times, I mean.