McCain and Weekends

John McCain Hard At Work

Going his pal Joementum one better, John McCain rested on the sixth and seventh day and doesn't work weekends... or, apparantly, weekdays either, as he hasn't voted in the Senate since April 8. Not that Obama and Clinton will get gold stars for attendance either. Obama last voted June 4 -- the day after the last primary, and you may recall he had a bit more competition through April and May than McCain did.

Some of us old timers remember how Michael Dukakis spent weeks sitting at his governor's desk, which even he now says was a big mistake in this must-read from the UK that talks to several of the presidential losers. Makes me wish someone would write a new version of Irving Stone's They Also Ran, a collection of thumbnail biographies of presidential losers. There's a lot to write about since Wendell Willkie.

Perhaps the would-be author can begin work on the John McCain chapter soon.

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I remember hearing an NPR interview with George Carlin a couple years back when they discussed Seven Dirty Words, played an excerpt, and bleeped the seven words! Surreal, and I'm sure George appreciated the irony.

But other than Seven Dirty Words, the media isn't discussing George Carlin's politics:

How many networks have shown some of his most groundbreaking social commentary such as the following:

Religion is the biggest load of bullshit ever sold.

The U.S. loves to bomb countries filled with little brown people.

Both political parties are owned and operated by corporations.

Instead of putting drug dealers in jail, we should execute the bankers who launder the drug money.

Golf is an elitist, pretentious sport and homeless people should be given the golf courses to live on.

Not that I agree with Carlin's entire platform; I never got that golf=elitist image in my head because my dad golfed -- still does, six days a week -- at a regular guy, bowling alley on the side, kids welcome nine hole course and not Karl Rove's country club:

Karl Rove attacked Barack Obama as “the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.”

Must not be Augusta National. Which makes me think of Obama as the Tiger Woods of politics...

Since Carlin wrote the bit 35 years ago, an eighth word has started to move into the Never Say On Television category. Mark Twain and Mel Brooks both used it.

You can't call Barack Obama that word; Ralph Nader says he's trying to talk white. (Great scoop for our old pal M.E. Sprengelmeyer of the Rocky Mountain News, who lots of us writer-types got to know while he was in Iowa full-time for months on the caucus trail.) But why all the attention to Nader, when Cynthia McKinney and especially Bob Barr are going to be bigger factors? They each have something Nader doesn't: Barr has a constituency, largely inherited from Ron Paul. McKinney has race-gender identity politics and somewhat of a party organization, as opposed to the tiny handful of Nader's few remaining personal loyalists.