Our Ignorant Dolt of the Week ... Elizabeth Dole!

Liddy Dole ... C'mon down!

You are The Garlic's Ignorant Dolt of the Week, rubbing elbows with our previous winners, one of your colleagues, Michele Bachmann, and Republican Hack, Brad Blakeman.

It was a tough choice this week ... Liddy Dole, clearly, took the early lead, with her soon-to-be-campaign-folklore "Godless" campaign ad, but Mommy Moose came charging down the home stretch, with her stunning interpretation of the Constitution, seeking free passes from the media for throwing slime balls, but in the end, the vast soullessness of Liddy Dole won the day.

Why risk the eternal ridicule, Liddy?

I mean, charging your opponent, State Senator Kay Hagen, with being "Godless" is one of the lowest roads you can travel down, especially down there in bible-thumpin' country.

And hiring someone, to tag the end of that "Godless" ad, someone that, maybe, maybe not, sounds like Hagen to say "There is no God", that is way, way beyond the pale - paler than you must look before slathering on your make-up (which brings to mind a killer Barry Crimmins riff, from his "Prevarication Nation", when he hits Mrs. Bob Dole with "Liddy Dole (R- Mayberry) looked great, said little and kudos were again in order for her mortician, a true pro when working with a few gallons of rouge and an airbrush.")

You hired someone to fake Hagen's voice and say the words "There is no God".

This, with the knowledge that Hagen was a Sunday School teacher?

As if the rest of Ad wasn't specious enough - your deliberately lied in it.

It was documented the meeting Hagen attended, or which you cite, wasn't sponsored by Atheists, but rather an member of an Atheist group was also in attendance.

We know (now) how low-rent you are, but are you completely clueless as well?

Haven't you noticed how successful the Dead Campaign Express has been with their smearing association campaign?

Jesus, for all your pathetic, hopelessness, to launch such an ad, look what it got you;

The Charlotte Observer, in an editorial Thursday, noted;

This ad is something else, an attack on a Christian woman's faith against all evidence to the contrary. It is wrong. It may well backfire on Dole.

It has no place in N.C. politics. Unless she admits this egregious, shameful mistake and acts appropriately, Elizabeth Dole has no place in N.C. politics, either.

You're probably a little lucky there, Liddy.

If this was 50, or 100-years ago, being Tar Heel country, you'd probably would be tarred-and-feathered for such a hideous and very un-Christian-like charge.

Hmmm ... Maybe it is time to honor some of those old school traditions ...

Hagen is still kicking your ass.

Dole's Challenger Up In Polls After "Godless" Ad

A new Rasmussen poll, taken Wednesday after the Dole ad began airing, showed Hagan ahead of Dole 52-46. A new survey by Civitas, taken Monday through Wednesday, showed Hagan up by a smaller margin.

And you have given Kay Hagen the righteous hammer to beat you mercilessly, right through Tuesday, the Ninth Commandment;

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor

Well, I suppose you'll find something to do after next Tuesday, that is beyond being our IDOTW.

Hey, your hubby likes to watch television.

Why don't you get one of those Karaoke set-ups, pop in that Osborne song, "One of Us", and maybe, just maybe, you'll get it some day.


Bonus Liddy Dole IDOTW Riffs

Liddy's Slippers - The Truth About Elizabeth Dole

Seth Colter Walls: Dole Ad Fabricates Audio Of Opponent Yelling "There Is No God"

Kevin Drum: North Carolina Watch

Pam Spaulding: Elizabeth Dole unleashes outrageous 'Love of God' ad

Swopa: Elizabeth Dole Spits in North Carolinians’ Other Eye with Another “Godless” Ad

Tennessee Guerilla Woman: Elizabeth Dole Insults Godless Americans; There Goes the Atheist Vote (Video)

Tennessee Logan Murphy: Kay Hagan Sues Elizabeth Dole Over Despicable Ad

We Told You He Was Just Like Bob Dole

Well, it was School Daze out on the campaign trail today, with Barack Obama giving some schoolin' to Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain, including going to the Way Back Machine, to remind Fly Boy of his past position.

Here's the new Obama Ad, hitting Stumblin' Bumblin Johnny on Education;


From Sam Stein, over on The HuffPo;

Linking McCain to "ideologues," Obama declared in his speech Tuesday, "you certainly don't reform our education system by calling to close the Department of Education. That would just make it harder for us to give out financial aid, harder for us to keep track of how our schools are doing, and lead to widening inequality in who gets a college degree."

Republican officials and McCain staffers, meanwhile, are in full-out counter-attack mode, criticizing Obama for his education policies and claiming that the Senator is misrepresenting McCain's proposals on the matter.

"Senator Barack Obama's new campaign attack ad on education," wrote spokesman Tucker Bounds this morning, "claims that John McCain's economic plan will divert money from public education without any factual citation or basis." The campaign provided a list of resolutions increasing funding for federal education efforts that McCain supported.

But Bounds' statement made no mention of McCain's previous support for doing away with the Department of Education. Neither did two counter-attack emails blasted out by the Republican National Committee.

Hmmm ... "Calling to close the Department of Education"?

Holy Fingernails-scratching-down-a-blackboard Batman!

Over here teacher! ... Pick me! ... My hand is raised! ...

Ahh, the teacher chooses Greg Sargent, over on TPM;

Here's the full context of a CNN interview on December 11, 1994 (via Nexis), when Newt-mania was gripping the land:

FRANK SESNO: Senator McCain, would you favor doing away with the Department of Housing and Urban Development or the Department of Energy?

Sen. JOHN McCAIN: I would certainly favor doing away with the Department of Energy and I think that given the origins of the Department of Education, I would favor doing away with it as well. HUD had experienced many failures under both Republican and Democrat administrations and I would certainly want to revamp it from the bottom up, because, clearly, public housing in America is almost as big a disaster as the welfare program

WOW!

The Department of Energy (something tells me he's going to get a chalky eraser flung at his head on this one pretty soon) and the Department of Education!

Ready to dump'em faster then his first wife.

Now, was this in his Middle-Age Maverick period, or still part of the Early-Age Maverick time?

Certainly before he became an "Original Maverick".

And, who was the last Presidential candidate to embrace shutting down the Department of Education?

None other that that other Ball of Dynamo ...

Drumroll, please ....

Bob Dole!

From the PBS Newshour;

In 1980, Ronald Reagan ran for president with the promise that if he were elected, he would abolish the Department of Education. His opponent, President Jimmy Carter promised to protect the department, which he had created several years earlier. The department still exists, but the Republicans are gearing up to fulfill Reagan's promise.

Presidential candidate Bob Dole has said the funding for his $2.5 billion voucher program would come from ending Goals 2000 and cutting deep into the Department of Education's bureaucracy. On September 9, 1996, while campaigning in Georgia, Dole said "We're going to cut out the Department of Education." And the GOP Presidential platform reads:

"Our formula is as simple as it is sweeping: the federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula or to control jobs in the work place. That is why we will abolish the Department of Education, end federal meddling in our schools, and promote family choice at all levels of learning. We therefore call for prompt repeal of the Goals 2000 program and the School-To-Work Act of 1994, which put new federal controls, as well as unfunded mandates, on the States. We further urge that federal attempts to impose outcome- or performance-based education on local schools be ended."

And, what did we tell you about Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain back in January?

The Bob Dole For The New Millennium

Now, maybe Mommy Moose will come up with another whopper, like, lets put the Department of Education on eBay, or she'll go back to that school and have the students pray for a better Department of Education.

Or, the Rove Rats go to the old stand-by - another POW-POW- POW story...

You know, something like "John McCain knows all about schools ... He got a great education in a special school, for five-years, where they would beat you for the correct answers ..."


Bonus Schoolhouse Links

AP - Obama: "John McCain Doesn't Understand" Education

Steve Benen: OBAMA EYES DEBATE OVER EDUCATION....

Bob Cesca: Prepare To Yack Up Your Dinner

(H/T Bob - Here's The McCain-Rove Rats Response)

Retro Garlic: Someone Teach Arianna Huffington How To Use Google

I had a brief moment today, of feeling like the geeky guy, Riley, in 'National Treasure', that has the answer to a question of which neither of his two, more intelligent colleagues has, for the first (and, only) time in the movie.

The daily Huffington Post Daily Brief dropped in and, I see this headline;

John McCain: The Second Coming of Bob Dole

Hmmm ... That sounds mighty familiar ...

It linked to the post, by Arianna Huffington, "John McCain's Flashback Campaign", in which she, of course, paints Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain with the Bob Dole brush.

Again, this was today.

The Retro Part?

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - The Bob Dole For The New Millennium

Now, maybe she was real busy, and threw that post together on-the-fly.

But I'd like to think that she, or perhaps an assistant did a Google Search, you know, to see if there were any other John McCain-Is-Bob-Dole posts out there.

No, no references in her post to any.

Gee, how's about a tag, there, princess ... How much of an effort would that have taken?

Oh well ...


Bonus HuffPo Riffs

Breaking News! GM Cancels UAW In Favor of Adopting Huffington Post Business Model; Celebrities, Auto Enthusiasts and Bloggers To Build Cars For Free; Huge Spike In Profits Forecast

Retro Garlic: We Knew They Would Come Around

My, My, My ...

We had strong suspicions, that the longer Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain goes in this campaign, it will become more-and-more obvious, the similarities between Fly Boy and the former GOP flag-carrier, Bob Dole.











And today (yesterday, actually) author and journalist John Heilmann has a very thorough (i.e. long) article in New York Magazine;

Is John McCain Bob Dole?; Or is he Dwight Eisenhower? (Actually, that may depend on whether Barack Obama is Mike Dukakis or John Kennedy.) A handicapping

Here's a few clips;

So if McCain is no longer the bracing iconoclast he was in 2000, who the hell is he?

“I’ll tell you,” this person says. “He’s morphed into Bob Dole.”

This was not my first encounter with the McCain-is-Dole meme. I had first run across it back in January, on the night of the final Republican debate, in Simi Valley, California, when McCain’s crabbiness and sarcasm on stage had prompted a former GOP player now tilling the corporate field to make the comparison over dinner. As it turned out, the idea was also being promulgated sub rosa by a number of Mitt Romney’s senior strategists. A few days later, on the morning of Super Duper Tuesday, it popped out of Mitt’s own mouth. “There are a lot of folks that tend to think maybe John McCain’s race is a bit like Bob Dole’s race,” Romney snarked on Fox News. “That it’s the guy who’s the next in line; he’s the inevitable choice and we’ll give it to him, and then it won’t work.”

But few of the other likenesses between McCain and Dole can be spun so benignly. There’s the septuagenarian-ness (McCain is 71; Dole was 72 when he ran). There’s the physical frailty, courageously earned in war, that nevertheless serves as a constant reminder of his advanced years. There’s the legendary shortness of his fuse. (McCain has yet to have a full-on “Stop lying about my record” moment on the trail, but his testiness was on display the other day in a widely YouTubed confrontation on his campaign jet with the Times’s Elisabeth Bumiller.) There’s the firm conviction, as Time journalist Mark Halperin has noted, that “being on Meet the Press is more important than going to church—actually, that being on Meet the Press is going to church.”

Arizona Bob, perhaps, can be applied for SB John.

The Retro Part

The Bob Dole For The New Millennium

For, if they get Obama, it will be the Kennedy-Nixon Debate every single day of the campaign, McCain tripping over his Father Time beard, a skeletal-dust-filled suit laying in front of the voting stations by the time election day rolls around.

The youth and exuberance, the oratory skills, of Obama will paint the Straight Talk Express bus into a hearse, McCain's campaign posters into The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Hmmm ... Didn't Bob Dole have his own bag of war heroism, and his own deep Senatorial experience?

Once we get past the Dem's Primary, this is going to be so much fun ...


Bonus Stumblin' Bumblin' John Riffs

I Missed Home Ec For This!

Breaking News! MLK, Posthumously, Pardons McCain

Perrin On McCain, Clinton and Pornographic Ringtones

The Gift That Refuses To Stop Itself From Giving

He's A Senator - And A Dessert Topping!

Well, Well, Well ...

He's a Senator and a dessert topping
...

Word today is that Presidential hopeful, Senator John McCain broke out with a campaign vaudeville act, cracking jokes at a campaign event here in Boston, which, unfortunately (for the audience) there was no hook to pull him off stage.

From Steve Benen, at The Carpetbagger Report;

"I thought of these this morning after watching a clip ThinkProgress posted from a McCain campaign event in Boston. The senator, apparently doing a stand-up routine, didn’t get too much laughter with this material:

“If anyone has any doubts about my age, please spend some time with my mother. I want to tell you that last Christmas, she decided she wanted to drive around France, so she landed in Paris, went to rent a car, they said she was too old, so she bought a car and drove around France. And she’ll be 96 in just a few days. […]

“So, I’m compelled to tell the story of the two inmates in the state prison in the chow line. And one of them turned to the other one and said, ‘The food was a lot better in here when you were governor.’ (polite chuckles) That’s not a joke you can tell in some states in America. […]

“[After introducing former Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas], and from the great state of South Carolina, Sen. Lindsey Graham. After this meeting, if you’d like to talk to senator, either senator Graham, we will provide translators for any of you that need to, find them hard to understand. I find them hard to — anyway….

“Do you know the difference between a lawyer and a catfish? One is a scum-sucking bottom-dweller and the other is a fish. And so there goes the lawyer joke, the lawyer vote again. I thank all of you for being here.”

To which Benen then ponders "I’m trying to imagine what the reaction would be if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, campaigning in “liberal Massachusetts,” mocked people with Southern accents and suggested his audience might need interpreters to understand those from South Carolina."

Well, I have both written for comics, as well has having a brief period of time doing stand-up, so, let's give "Here's Johnny Boy" some new material to work with.

Many a comic, especially starting out, may choose to aim the humor at themselves, put themselves inside the jokes, you know, self-depreciating humor.

So, run with these "Here's Johnny Boy", I think you're audience will love'em ...

What's the difference between a real banker and Charles Keating?

The banker takes your money and gives you a receipt ... Keating gives you money and doesn't want a receipt

How many Charles Keatings' does it take to screw in a light bulb?

None - He'd rather do his fraud business in the dark

And since Here's Johnny Boy likes to sing little, humorous ditties, let's give him a new one, inspired from the Jazz Classic, Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" (we must, after all, keep in theme and commemorate The Keating Five)

And, yes, the song did have lyrics ...

Though I'm going out of my way
Just so I can pass the CYA Law of the day
Not a single word do we say
It's meant to cover-up Keating's pay-and-play

Stick to jumping sharks, Here's Johnny Boy, at least, until the Writer's Strike is settled and you can hire some pro's ...

Take my campaign ... Please!










Bonus Here's Johnny Boy McCain Riffs

Barry Crimmins: Rhymes with 'disdain'

Johann Hari: Don't be fooled by the myth of John McCain


Bonus Soundtrack

Dave Brubeck - Take Five