McCain, full of it, decides to make it up, ala Saint Ronnie

Instead of actually answering the question of what being a Christian means to him, McCain instead threw out something about being "saved" and then launched into a sappy made-for-TV yarn about a guard tracing a cross in the dirt during McCain's imprisonment in Vietnam.

Except he used to tell it as happening to someone else. And the entire thing is lifted from and Alexander Solzhenitsyn novel.

The entire event at which this occured, some sort of summit on faith at Brokeback Mountain Church, or Saddleback or something, headed by pop-preacher Rick Warren, was a sham from the get-go.

First of all, Warren had billed this as an historic moment when the two candidates appeared together for the first time, and announced his intention of avoiding the classic "hot button" issues and "gotcha" questions, instead focusing on issues of concern for all those of faith, AIDS, global warming, and poverty.

Instead he asked no questions about AIDS, no questions about global warming or the environment, and DID ask loaded questions about abortion, and Supreme Court justices.

First of all, it should sicken any American to realize that we've come to a point where any candidate for the presidency (or any elected office, for that matter.) has to go before the public and proclaim just how big a Christian he is and pass a quiz on whether he can say the right words to prove it.

Secondly, the questions were loaded questions transparently designed to favor McCain, as when they were asked about there being too much partisanship in D.C. and what instances they could cite where they bucked their own party to do what was best. The entire thing could have been written by McCain, as it polished his dubious reputation as a "maverick" (voting with Bush over 90% of the time.)

Then an even stupider questions on whether "evil" is real and exists, and (get this), the candidate would, "ignore it, negotiate with it, confront it, or defeat it."

That's not a serious question folks. I'm sorry.

Obama, to his credit, pointed out that there's evil done all over, including in our cities and everywhere else, avoiding the trap of going for comic-book attempts to paint entire nations or religions as "evil" that much be destroyed.

Obama stuck to reality.

Not McCain. "DEFEAT IT!" he instantly said to the squeals of delight from the simple-minded in the audience. Then went on to make his usual belicose John Wayne act saying that he'd, "go to the gates of hell" to bring down bin Laden, yada, yada, yada.

That got the audience all revved up too. Simple comic book notions, John Wayne movie dialogue to sooth their fear that the world may actually be changing and that they just MIGHT have to adjust their thinking to deal with it. McCain is great at assuring them that nothing's changed, and he's a super hero minus the tights.

An absurd display.

There's more, but I can barely stomach it all, as when he started whining about government spending being the problem, (NOT of course, the trillions of dollars of tax revenue given away to the very wealthy, and NOT the billions spent every week in Iraq.) It's congress "squandering our children's future" by spending millions to study bear DNA. (Hey Americans! Look over there!)

The idea that anyone could suggest, while pledging to never raise taxes on anyone, that we can somehow continue to spend hundreds of billions, even trillions of dollars on military boondoggles around the globe, while doing NOTHING to raise revenues or expect sacrifice from the very wealthiest in our country, is not only stupid and reckless, it's simply dangerous. A recipe for disaster.

We've seen how it's worked. We've tried it for 8 long years. And there's people sitting there cheering for more??

This campaign is so insane that it's difficult to try to grasp. It's tough to write about because there's so many hundreds of examples and statements and stupid appeals to people's STUPIDITY and shallowness and insecurity, that it both makes my head hurt and makes me despair that Americans even deserve to avoid going down the tubes.

As long as people sit, fat, dumb, ignorant, uninformed, close-minded, paranoid, afraid, and clinging to some warped idea that America is God's favorite country, and therefore can't fail, can't lose, and will never suffer a serious economic crisis, then we're going to get more of the same.

More of the same snake oil, put out by frauds and liars, in order to ensure that the gates of the treausury remain wide open to those who've paid admission, and that all the rules are written by, and for, those who already have great power and wealth.

And if we're too stupid to realize that, then we deserve whatever we get.