Monkey Idols Made of Gold: definitely not jewishConsidering that religion and ethnicity are such sensitive issues in this election year, it might not help Obama to have the vocal support of an Indian politician named Brij Mohan Bhama, who will hold an eleven-day prayer for Obama’s victory in New Delhi. Not that there is anything wrong with the Hindu faith—aside from the lack of protein and scrumptious Chipotle barbacoa beef, *droooooooooool*—but (O?)-Bhama made headlines around the world, including the right-winger-frequented Drudge Report.

As if this weren’t enough, Bhama sent a giant golden monkey idol to Obama’s office, and explained to the media, “Obama has deep faith in Lord Hanuman and that is why we are presenting an idol of Hanuman to him.” (Jesus fucking Christ.)

An Indian-American (not American Indian) representative for Obama accepted the golden monkey love idol on the senator’s behalf, saying, “Obama has extended his thanks for the support.” This was gracious, and rejecting the gift might have caused offense to Indian-American voters, as well as the fine people at Dell tech support.

A significant chunk of the U.S. population believes that Sen. Barack Obama is an anti-Christian foreign weirdo with heretical religious beliefs and a mystical power to brainwash the masses. USA Today reported that a tenth of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim, including 14 percent of Republicans and a fifth of rural Americans. For God’s (and/or Allah’s) sake, 10 percent of Democrats believe that he’s a Mecca-kneeler-towarder-fives-times-per-dayer.

Republicans are counting on this perception in November. You won’t hear Sen. John McCain say it—and to McCain’s credit, he has chastised right-wingers who pathologically utter the name “Barack Hussein Obama” as a scare tactic—but the whisper campaigns have gone on for months.

Apparently Obama carries a miniature Lord Hanuman lucky charm with him, which is why Bhama gave him the golden idol in the first place. (Don’t tell Focus on the Family leader James Dobson, who criticized Obama earlier this week for “deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology.”) But when it came to generating publicity for his candidate of choice, Bhama should have kept the monkey in his pants.

Not many people enjoy both country music and gangsta rap. The average country fan doesn't want to listen to black people complain about the ghetto, and the average rap fan doesn't want to hear some cracker-ass cracker talk about his truck and dead dogs. But thanks to Snoop Dogg and Willie Nelson, Americans can finally cross the racial divide and realize that all of our problems can be solved with giant heaps of marijuana. In the new video "My Medicine," Snoop sings about being "high all day, every day," and Willie -- who also boasts a legendary consumption of cannabis -- assists on guitar.

You thought that Obama would bring this country together? Nah, it's all about Willie and Snoop. And mountains of grass. Don't step on the grass, Sam.

Monday, June 16, 5:01 p.m.: Robin Tyler and Diane Olsen, who wRobin Tyler And Diane Olsen: Harbingers of the Obama Antichrist Kingdomon their California Supreme Court case to get married, are the first gay couple wed at the Beverly Hills Courthouse. The mayor of San Francisco officiates at the wedding of a lesbian couple in their eighties. (The ceremony was delayed because one of the octogenarian's dentures was stuck in the other's birth canal. Surgeons arrived promptly.) In heaven, Jesus cries and contemplates suicide, but settles on slashing his wrists in the bathtub with a Gillette Venus Vibrance Soothing Vibrations Razor for Women.

Tuesday, June 17, 8 a.m.: According to Agence France Presse (which is, let us not forget, French, and therefore will be referred to henceforth as Agence Freedom Presse), courthouses and clerks across California issued a "tidal wave of marriages" to same-sex couples, including Star Trek actor George Takei, who commands his new husband to immediately "beam up—you know where." Elsewhere in Hollywood, William Shatner contemplates facing the forbidden, sultry truth that resides—has always resided—at the bottom of his soul and the center of his loins, but concludes, "I can't do it, Captain... I... just... don't... have... the... power."

9:30 a.m.: Thousands of gay couples are now officially married. Experts suggest that half of the couples in state will wed, along with nearly 70,000 from other states. Right-wing radio personalities shriek that heterosexual marriage will cease to exist due to the "gay agenda," whatever that is.

9:37 a.m.: Heterosexual marriage ceases to exist. Millions upon millions of Californian adults file for divorce and commence sodomizing one another. (According to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, this turn of events is "inexplicable and vicious." He then paused to wipe his semen-drenched beard with one hand and give Anderson Cooper a reach-around with the other; Lou Dobbs masturbated while videotaping his colleagues, although he was unable to focus due to having Larry King's shriveled member inside of him) A homosexual orgy of biblical proportions stretches from San Diego to Santa Cruz, winning the Guinness World Record for "consecutive leapfrog train." Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who enters his Junior costar Danny DeVito, proclaims himself "the Terminator—of your ass."

10:55 a.m.: The California State Senate dissolves the California Supreme Court, which is promptly replaced with the Rules Committee of the North American Man-Boy Love Association. (In unrelated news, former Malcom in the Middle star Frankie Muniz dies of severe rectal bleeding. He should have never agreed to literally become "Malcolm in the Middle.")

12:46 p.m.: No longer satisfied with their newfound addiction to homosexual lovemaking, Californians turn their sexual attention to household pets, exotic zoo animals, seagulls, livestock, and Robin Williams. The entity formerly known as the California Supreme Court legalizes human-beast marriage, but only for same-sex humans and beasts.

2:19 p.m.: Every pregnant woman in California secures an immediate abortion, no matter how many months their fetus has had to develop, because procreation is a symbol of the Time That Once Was and Must Never Be Spoken Of. Everyone under the age of 60 is sterilized, either by chemicals or blades, which isn't actually necessary considering that everyone is exclusively fucking those of their own gender, but you can never be too safe.

3:39 p.m.: The American Family Association challenges the California Supreme Court decision; the U.S. Supreme Court immediately takes the case, but the plan backfires on the social conservatives when Justices Scalia and Alito realize that Justice Roberts is a pretty handsome guy for 53. (He's no John Edwards, of course, but somehow he is both rugged and boyish, which drives Clarence Thomas absolutely insane.) The Supremes rule that Christianity is illegal and shall henceforth be replaced with the Temple of Phallus.

3:45 p.m.: Sen. Barack Obama announces that he is the Antichrist, made flesh by the devil seed of Lucifer and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had tons of gay sex. Sen. John McCain bows to Obama's awesome Satanic power, pledges all of his delegates to the Democratic nominee-in-waiting and then desperately suckles upon the younger black man's scrotum, which tastes like a combination of honey and rose petals.

5:26 p.m.: The United Nations acknowledges King Obama as Supreme Leader of the World.

5:27 p.m.: The white race is enslaved. Islam owns the earth.

5:28 p.m.: Jesus Christ returns from the astral plane, defeats the Kingdom of Beelzebub with his Majestic Sword of Glory, liberates the captives, raises the dead from their graves, and reigns for a thousand years of tranquility and light. (The scrapes on his wrists have healed. He didn't really want to die anyway; he just wanted the girls at school to notice how much they hurt his feelings when they ignored him.) Nobody ever has gay sex again, because heaven on earth is gay enough already. Seriously. You remember the last five minutes of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King? It's just like that. Only gayer.

As a straight white guy with a propensity for boozing, I feel qualified to observe that not only is everyone (at least) a little bit gay; everyone is (more than) a little bit racist. It doesn’t matter if you’re white, black, brown or tangerine; if you are a human being, you hold a few conscious or subconscious prejudices. And you’re a little bit gay.

Sen. Barack Obama’s speech on racial tension seems to have rescued his campaign from the liability of his radical pastor. He criticized whites for ignoring racial injustices such as our prison population and unequal public schools, but also hammered black leaders for their simmering resentments against Caucasians who have rejected bigotry for generations. It was a major break from conventional identity politics, and has received widespread praise as the most forthright commentary in decades, but a complete abandonment of America’s racial tensions might exceed our limited human capacity.

The speech came at an especially meaningful time for me. Over the last ten monthsYes We Can Stop Gentrification? I’ve lived in a mostly black neighborhood in Brooklyn, which has prompted a large degree of soul-searching. Although I lived in Washington, D.C. for six years, I spent most of the time in the “affluent” northwest quadrant. (Oh, there are so many fun words amongst real estate professionals that substitute for illegal ones: “young professionals,” “trendy,” “middle-class,” “lots of families,” “safe.”)

When I moved to New York, I only had two days to find an apartment. Rents in “affluent” neighborhoods with numerous “young professionals” are considerably higher than in “up-and-coming” neighborhoods. Whereas I lived in a luxury building in D.C. with a gym, pool, doorman, deck, chandeliered lobby and (most lavish of all) dishwasher, I was suddenly—thanks to my desperate rush and journalist’s budget—in a neighborhood where the only appetizing-looking restaurant is a McDonald’s, save for a Mexican eatery that gave me a gastrointestinal holocaust.

The real estate agent assured me that the neighborhood is “safe” and “middle-class,” but since I moved a few people have been murdered around the block and numerous delis have been robbed at gunpoint. Police sirens and car alarms blare throughout the night. Even the graffiti is graffitied. Drug dealers sometimes hang out at the self-service laundry, which might be okay if A) I hadn’t stopped smoking marijuana after college, and B) the drug they’re selling were marijuana.

Although I have not been threatened or mugged, I have notified my landlord that I am not renewing my lease. I will soon move to either a “nice” part of Brooklyn or “Manhattan below Harlem,” despite the exorbitant rents. Except here’s the thing: “nice” and “below Harlem” are fancy ways of saying “white,” or at least “whiter.” I don’t like to admit this; it makes me feel dirty, which is saying something.

Of course, I’m leaving because of the crime, and there’s nothing discriminatory about wanting to stay bullet-free. If the gangsters were white, I wouldn’t want to live around them either—and Little Italy is too touristy anyway.

But I can’t deny that part of my motivation for leaving is that I feel like an outsider. It’s not that I feel endangered walking down the street, or at least not most of the time, but I can feel eyes staring at me in the grocery store and subway station. I frequently remind myself that it’s a matter of class instead of race: poor whites are just as likely to commit crime as poor blacks, and it’s not like anybody wants to be poor. And it’s really not that bad here—a little “shady” (yet another word) but hardly an urban war zone, as Hollywood would have us believe. I play Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes inside my brain, trying to reassure myself that it’s important—for the good of my character and my country—to challenge my comfort zone. This is exactly what Obama urged last week.

When I first moved here I hoped that I would make a ton of friends, understand another culture and transcend the social barriers that have segregated our country long after the demise of Jim Crow. Unfortunately I haven’t gotten to know anyone, and have felt increasingly isolated. I could have tried harder, I suppose, but there’s an awkward cultural gulf between us. The neighbors are very nice people—they always offer to help if I’m carrying too many groceries or packages, which I would never expect of “affluent” snobs on the Upper West Side—but I can sense the tension in the air.

The tension stems from this, as some of the longtime residents have explained to me with a tone that is (usually) kind and patient, but frustrated: just as “young professionals” tend to prefer neighborhoods with other “young professionals,” the people who live in ethnic neighborhoods—and mine is largely Caribbean—are very proud of their cultures, and don’t always view Starbucks and luxury condos as signs of progress.

Often they view such things as harbingers of skyrocketing rents and dissolution of their tight-knit communities. I’m not the only “young professional” who has moved here recently, and many longtime residents fear the cultural onslaught of gentrification. Some believe there are positives, for example an influx of cash into local businesses and (supposedly) more police protection.

However, they don’t necessarily want their jerk chicken stands replaced with organic vegan restaurants and sushi fusion; they don’t necessarily want their churches replaced with $1,000 per month fitness clubs; they don’t necessarily want their way of life replaced with yoga-practicing, smoothie-sipping, insufferable bourgeois bohemian freakiness, which has happened over and over in this city. Just as “young professionals” don’t want to live in a “certain kind” of neighborhood, we aren’t always welcome in the first place. (Yesterday I heard one resident say to another as I walked by: “more white people—not a good sign.”)

Segregation was one of the most horrendous evils of our history, and Obama’s words are beautiful as usual. It might be harder for us to embrace one another’s culture, however, than to simply ignore one another’s skin color. We are all afraid of something and weak in some way—everyone gravitates toward the familiar—but human nature isn’t always the problem; sometimes it’s the limits of our nature.

Te’DeVan “Rocketman” Kurzweil is the quintessential Jewish New Yorker bohemian weirdo. A six-foot-seven-inch faith healer, freestyle rapper and former nude comedian, Te’DeVan is a local legend who makes his living in tips from those whom he cures and entertains. (I first interviewed him for New York Press in 2002 when he tried to convince everyone in Times Square that terrorists were operating a Queens grocery store.)

Now he is taking his message to the national stage through a bizarre presidential campaign. He has garnered supporters at numerous music festivals and university campuses—from California to Tennessee to Washington, D.C.—and on the Internet at his personal blog.

Six feet seven inches of presidential candidate: RocketmanAre Americans ready for a six-foot-four Jewish faith healer as their leader? Can you "heal" this nation with your supernatural abilities?

Actually it is six-foot-seven-inch Jew. See how the media is already lying trying to diminish my physical size? Because everyone knows that height matters in political campaigns.

I would not consider my healing to be mine, but rather God's healing. With enough willpower, clarity of mind, and compassion we can all heal this country.

Are you running an actual campaign or is this a work of performance art?

I am not honestly sure if the two differ these days.

When you don't have a lot of money or the high brand name visibility, you have to incorporate a high level of entertainment to get everyone's attention.

Are you registered as a candidate in any state? Can people actually vote for you?

Our team of lawyers is attempting to get me registered as a candidate, but the combination of ageism and anti-Semitism might make this a serious challenge. Since we live in a democracy, of course people can vote for me and my wing-mate Smiley along with our ever-expanding Infinite Cabinet. People are voting for me as a write-in candidate while other people are merely voting for me in their hearts and minds.

Anti-Semitism is keeping you off the ballot? What?

Ageism, not anti-Semitism. The Constitution supposedly says you have to be 35 years old, but the government doesn't really follow the Constitution anymore on most matters. To follow it because I am not of legal age seems absurd to myself and the Infinite Cabinet.

He's no Lieberman: Te’DeVan's running mate Who the fuck is "Smiley"?

He is a lifeguard, Ferris wheel operator, bouncer and philosopher, currently residing in New Jersey until we get the biodiesel buses ready to roll. His first words to me on top of a beach pier across from a police station were: "Hey, you want to start a revolution?"

My response was "Hell to the yeah." A great friendship was forged.

What is your platform?

1) Stop killing people we don't know. Start helping people we do know right at home who are struggling with healthcare, the economy and the price of education.

2) Fess up to global warming and take serious initiatives to clean up the planet. We need clean air, water, and organic apple pie.

3) End the war on drugs. If we can't keep drugs out of prisons, why are we spending billions to keep them out of the country? Decriminalize pot. We have too many people going to jail for this -- it's flooded the courts and it's a waste of taxpayers' money. In many cases, prescription pills are more dangerous gateway drugs.

4) It's insane how many people we have in prison. We went from a prison population of 300,000 in 1981 to 2.1 million in 2004. At that rate, by 2027 we'll have 14.7 million people in prison. That is absurd.

5) Lower the voting age to 12. We will settle for 16. If we're going to turn these kids into pill poppers, we might as well make them lever-pullers, especially if we're going to try them as adults for murder.

6) Bring sexy back to the White House. Justin Timberlake was onto something. All these other politicians don't know how to act.

7) Give out three million college scholarships. Being educated and being in debt should not go hand in hand.

Eyes like Isaiah and a beard like Moses: Te’DeVan the prophetWhat inspired the campaign?

Once the primaries are over, it's business as usual for the major candidates. Issues become forgotten. Voters focus on the next pop star instead. Who can blame them? We have unlimited choices of shampoos and conditioners but only two choices for our world leader.

How are you using the Internet to campaign?

We are using MySpace, Facebook, Tribe, and YouTube, and we're selling the campaign on eBay. Smiley said that if big tobacco and the oil companies can buy a campaign, why not the American taxpayer? So eBay just might save the American democracy.

What do you mean, you're "selling the campaign"?

Politicians are bought and sold all the time. Campaigns are commodities. They spend over $300,000,000 to get a job that pays about $400,000. Obviously something is skewed here. I don't know of any servant position-public or private-that pays less then .013 of what it costs to obtain it. That is total insanity.

We are offering a service to bring back democracy in America. We will spend the money on biodiesel buses, food, and video equipment to document our great adventure.

What is your most memorable campaign experience so far?

I would say the overwhelming response we received at Bonnaroo (a music festival in Tennessee) where the other candidates dared not tread. We got some coverage from Current Television and Country Music Television. A lot of hands were shaken and pictures were taken. A lot of support was pledged.

Are people volunteering to help your campaign? Do you have any kind of staff?

We have staff working around the clock. We can't even keep up with all the different efforts. The staff is affectionately known as the "Infinite Cabinet" and is always expanding.

I think it's gonna be a long long time: On the campaign trail How many states have you campaigned in? How many do you plan to campaign in?

We have Infinite Cabinet members in all the states, including overseas, spreading the word about our campaign and the Infinite Cabinet. I am pushing to focus mainly in Hawaii knowing full well that surfers love us and that victory will be assured. Of course, the Infinite Cabinet in their infinite wisdom have a different plan of action.

How have colleges responded to you showing up and spreading the gospel to students?

We have rocked the college campuses hard, but until last month we were understaffed. We move more rapidly than plates of cocaine through the White House. And sometimes we garner too much attention. We're the bad boys of American politics. Just like the Pistons back in the days of Isaiah.

You have told me that you consult with psychic advisors. What do they say about your political quest?

According to our spiritual consultants, we are certain to be a factor in the outcome amongst the spirits polled in the Gallup poll. There is a margin of error of about three to five percent. We are certainly one of the most unique and all-encompassing campaigns, and we are going the long haul to the finish line.

What do you want to accomplish with this campaign?

We want to galvanize the apathetic, disenchanted, disenfranchised masses. We want to make the election prospects better for politicians who actually want to enact changes. We want to say, "Your vote may not always count but your voice certainly does, so speak up."

Best:

"Certainly it's a reminder that 'the troops' are hardly marching in lockstep behind the Bush/McCain perpetual war agenda."
—Matthew Yglesias on U.S. soldiers' greater support for antiwar candidates

Worst:

"How dare anyone unilaterally decide when to turn the page on history, papering over real inequities and suffering constituencies in the promise of a feel-good campaign? How dare anyone claim to unify while dividing, or think that to rouse U.S. youth from torpor it’s useful to triage the single largest demographic in this country’s history: the boomer generation—the majority of which is female?"
—Robin Morgan on Barack Obama

(Wow, the use of italics actually makes the woman who once advocated "man-hating" as an "honorable and viable political act" sound more unhinged. How is that even possible?)

Super Tuesday was a clear victory for Sen. John McCain, who now has 300 more delegates than former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. After the landslide McCain boasted, "Although I've never minded the role of the underdog ... I think we must get used to the idea that we are the Republican Party front-runner." (Apparently McCain is now using the Royal "We.")

On the Democratic side things are far less certain. Sen. Hillary Clinton captured the big prizes -- California and New York -- but Sen. Barack Obama scored more delegates. Major media outlets are crowning Hillary as the Super Tuesday winner, but she had previously sworn to have the nomination locked up by now. Time is much kinder to Obama, and a possible Gore/Edwards endorsement could seal the deal.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee performed much better than expected, capturing many states in the South. Prior to Super Tuesday prominent analysts believed that Huckabee would drop out of the race today, but he has vowed to continue his campaign, angering the Romney camp because splitting the vote makes McCain's cakewalk that much cakier.

(In related news, at this very moment Mike Huckabee moaned with a drool-oozing grin: "Mmmmmmm.... caaaaaake....")

The voters have spoken....

Annnnnnnnnnd they're still speaking. A victor has been declared in only one state, West Virginia, where Mike Huckabee has secured the Republican delegates. The Romney campaign accused Huckabee and McCain of striking a "shady" deal to deprive the Mormon millionaire of votes. Romney also compared McCain to former Sen. Bob Dole, the failed 1996 GOP nominee. 

Obama has increased his prospects by nine percent since yesterday. He and Hillary are equally likely -- 49 and 50 percent respectively -- to secure the most votes. But voters in liberal strongholds Los Angeles and New Jersey have had trouble voting due to missing and malfunctioning machines. 

If you truly have no life, you can look at this slide show of polling places. At least it beats looking at the crumbling stock market. Will it even matter whom we elect when everyone resorts to cannibalism?

Super Tuesday is off to a dramatic start, as if primary voting in twenty-four states were not dramatic enough. Drudge is reporting that Los Angeles residents are unable to vote because of missing equipment. This could have a huge effect because California is the most important state in the union for delegates. (Let the conspiracy theories commence!)

On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are wrestling for victory but many polls give McCain the edge. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is looking more like a VP contender. UPDATE: Huckabee wins West Virginia. Figures.

On the Democratic side, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton, who suffered a coughing fit during a discussion on health care, are neck-and-neck. Seventy-five percent of overseas absentee votes are for Obama.

Related: CNN has a state-by-state guide for primary expectations. Yesterday Jewcy reported that former Sen. John Edwards and former VP Al Gore will jointly endorse Obama sometime after Super Tuesday, according to an Obama campaign source.

Reason to Believe in God: "[A] father decided there was no other way to save his 2-year-old son from a blazing apartment fire than to drop him out of a fourth-story window. ... He was caught safely by an off-duty police officer who just happened to be in the neighborhood."

Reason Not to Believe in God: "Meet the Spartans narrowly conquered Rambo to nab the top spot in the weekend box office, according to studio estimates Sunday."

Last week I appeared on MSNBC to discuss political humor. Apparently I was supposed to analyze campaign bloopers instead of making jokes. The segment turned into something of a train wreck. (At least I looked terrific!)

By the way, the second McCain joke was unplanned, uncalled for and I actually feel bad about it. Seriously, I've lost sleep. Senator John McCain is an American hero and I am a sissy, spoiled bitch who deserves to get his ass kicked. Please, sir, punch me in the face -- it would be an honor.

In our previous installment, we criticized right-wing blowhard Michelle Malkin for suggesting that poor college students should refrain from sex if they can't afford to raise children. (But if they're poor and married, they should go crazy?) To be fair, let's find a smart conservative quote and a dumb liberal quote today.

Best:

"Talking about a strong border is one thing. It's when you get into enforcing the law—which means deport—that you lose people's votes. Oddly enough, people resent the idea that you might throw their mother out of the country."
—Grover Norquist in Rolling Stone

Worst:

"Republicans, to their shame, will trumpet McCain's experience over Obama's..."
—Alec Baldwin in Huffington Post

(To their shame? Isn't that a legitimate talking point?)

Best:

"This was the worst movie I've ever seen, so bad that I hesitate to label it a 'movie' and thus reflect shame upon the entire medium of film. [The directors] do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it. They are not filmmakers. They are evildoers, charlatans, symbols of Western civilization's decline..."
—Josh Levin on Meet the Spartans

Worst:

"How about trying self-restraint? It’s free."
—Michelle Malkin on college students who can't afford birth control

Related: Premature Education

Sarah Silverman, everyone's favorite sexy Jewish comedian, appeared on boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel's show to deliver a special message: she's fucking Matt Damon. (Surprise guest: Matt Damon, giving his best vocal performance since EuroTrip.)

On Jesus
Jerry Kellman in Busted Halo

"The biggest lesson was learning the nature of who Jesus was historically, not as God and being resurrected, but as the person he was and living as a Jew in a Jewish world."

Related: Why I Love the Bible

On the Book Irreligion
Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times

"The volume gets off to a bracing start ... by succinctly showing how Darwin’s theory of natural selection and free-market economics provide well-confirmed alternative explanations for the evolution of complex systems."

Related: Why Are Atheists So Angry?

On John McCain
Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic

"The era of legal, authorized torture in America is coming to a close. ... And it is more than fitting that a man who endured torture at the hands of America's enemies should now be picked to restore American honor after the disgrace of Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld."

Related: National Review's Stupid Defense of Torture

On Edwards Ending His Run
Christopher Beam in Slate

"Even when I agreed with the message, I bristled at the brazen insincerity —or appearance thereof—of the messenger."

Related: About That Genuine Quality, John Edwards

On Giuliani Ending His Run
Michael Weiss in Pajamas Media

"What he had was 9/11, but his idol Churchill had World War II and that wasn’t enough either to win an election in 1945."

Related: Giuliani As Judge Doom

Last week Jewcy reported on Mitt Romney's cringe-inducing racial pander, quoting lyrics from "Who Let the Dogs Out?" and referring to "bling bling." On Monday night Jon Stewart analyzed the same video clip and commented on a similar pander to Jewish voters from Rudy Giuliani, who incidentally is dropping out of the race and endorsing John McCain. (Finally! Proof that we don't control everything!)

On Nepotism
Frank Schaeffer in Huffington Post

"Nowhere is this division [between 'peasants' and royalty] more apparent than in who serves in our military and who does not."

Related: Join the Israeli Army or Lose the Right to Vote

On the State of the Union
Fred Kaplan in Slate

"As with his previous State of the Union addresses, this was not seen as a time to face reality. ... Maybe the president believes that saying something makes it close to true."

Related: Flip-Floppy on Genocide

On Endorsements
Will Bunch in Attytood

"So let's make the boldest choice we can, in 2012 if it's too late for '08: To chuck endorsements altogether. ... [L]et informed voters do their thing. Make up their own minds."

Related: Barack Obama for President

Sissy Nation: How America Became A Culture of Wimps And StoopitsSissy Nation: How America Became a Culture of Wimps and Stoopits (Virgin Books, on sale February 6) is one of the funniest books you will ever read -- if you aren't a sissy. Author John Strausbaugh, a contributor to the New York Times, unloads on every target that has infuriated him over the last fifty-six years of his existence: left-wing political correctness, right-wing religious fundamentalists, the obesity epidemic, the anorexia epidemic, the neutering of NASA and the death of brazen American individualism.

If you believe in anything whatsoever, Strausbaugh will probably offend you, but the fact that you are offended is his point. Jewcy interviewed Strausbaugh by e-mail. (Some of his answers are cut-and-pasted from the book, but we're too Sissy to ask him to paraphrase.)

The book seems like a primal scream, something that has been repressed for a very long time. How long has this rage festered inside of you?

Sissies repress. You calling me a Sissy? I've been ranting about our increasing Sissitude for years, but I didn't know that's what it was. It took time for me to realize that these separate rants were all reactions to mutually reinforcing aspects of one big trend. So I wrote Sissy Nation, my unified field theory of Sissitude.

Continue reading...

On Communism and Scientology
Mark Oppenheimer in the Huffington Post

After writing a Boston Globe piece on latter-day apologists for Maoism, Oppenheimer compares the extremists' groupthink to Scientology.

Related: If Tom Cruise Were Jewish

On Ageism
Sen. John Kerry in the National Journal

Sen. Barack Obama, often pegged as the "kiddie candidate," is older than Bill Clinton, JFK and Teddy Roosevelt were upon taking office, and older than Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King, Jr. at the heights of their intellectual brilliance.

Related: Will the Election Hinge on Hairstyles?

On Secular vs. Secularist Judaism
David Deutsch in the Forward

Today's young Jews embrace pop-culture-friendly "secular" Judaism, but have no use for the militantly anti-religious "secularist" Judaism of the twentieth century.

Related: How to Raise an Ideological Warrior

On Abortion
Hadley Freeman in the Guardian

The female protagonists in blockbuster films such as Knocked Up and Juno never truly consider whether to terminate their pregnancies, unlike women in the real world who search their souls over this difficult decision.

Related: You Can Have An Abortion

On Drinking Sewage
Eilene Zimmerman in Slate

We have the technology to purify our waste -- and to save our planet, we must gulp it down. (There you have it, folks: environmentalism is shitty.)

Related: Environmentalists Are the New Communists

Over the weekend Sen. Barack Obama crushed Sen. Hillary Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic primary. Pundits are hailing Obama's victory speech (below) as one of his very finest -- it's infinitely more impressive than those "uhhhhhhh"-ridden debate performances. Now Sen. Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy, JFK's daughter, have endorsed Obama.

The Clintons will change focus from attacking Obama -- clearly a losing strategy -- to reminding voters of America's economic prosperity in the 1990s. But it might be too late. A Clinton campaign worker tells me: "Super Tuesday really is going to be a nightmare..."

A nightmare? Wasn't it a "fairy tale" a couple weeks ago?