• In The Culture Warriors Get Laid Off, Frank Rich reminds us of some glad tidings amidst all the recent rotten headlines:

  Here, at last, is one piece of good news in our global economic meltdown: Americans have less and less patience for the intrusive and divisive moral scolds who thrived in the bubbles of the Clinton and Bush years. Culture wars are a luxury the country — the G.O.P. included — can no longer afford.

• The interesting thing to take away from the The 20 Worst Foods in America 2009 is that even the sit-down restaurants and innocent sounding menu items (dishes that use words like “salad” and “chicken”) can be loaded with fat, cholesterol and calories. If you’re trying to eat healthy food, it’s not enough to just stay away from the fast food joints, and surprisingly enough, some of the worst offenders are those family restaurants with the ferns and brass rails — maybe places like TGIFridays and Chilis are best avoided as well. (And speaking of gross food, if you haven’t yet seen Supersize Me, you can now catch it on Hulu!)
• The 25 Most Influential Liberals In The U.S. Media is an interesting list. I was surprised to have not heard of a few of them (and in at least one case, by who is considered to be liberal).
• It’s good to see Joe Biden out there stumping for Amtrak. This country needs good passenger rail service, and Amtrak has been neglected for far too long.
• A Hand in the Health Debate is an interesting perspective on health care reform from Eugene Robinson (why MSNBC doesn’t put him out in front more often than they do is a mystery to me. He’s smart, funny, and he has one of the coolest voices since James Earl Jones):
  

  What is relevant is that I have good insurance, which I obtain through my employer, and haven’t paid a dime out of pocket for my treatment. If I were among the 46 million Americans who are uninsured, I’d be looking at a huge hospital bill. No one should face financial ruin because of a mishap with a fork and an avocado. The way we ration health care now — according to the individual’s ability to pay — is immoral, and if higher taxes are needed to ensure that no one has to choose between health and bankruptcy, I’ll pay. That was my position all along, but now it’s personal.

  What’s changed is that I also feel more strongly about the ability to make my own choices. I decided where I would be treated and, ultimately, what would or wouldn’t be done. I’m willing to pay for that, too.

• UK Street View Has Arrived and Brits are celebrating — by finding celebs and playing Where’s Waldo? (but they’ve still got some catching up to do!)
• This one makes me laugh every time I think about it: Tucker Carlson doesn’t think Jon Stewart is funny. Gee, Tucker, I wonder why? Is it because you’re a drama queen, or is it because you’re still smarting from that asswhuppin’?
• I’m still blown away by this: Do you remember John Tyler? You know, our 10th president. A long time ago. Way back in the days of Tippecanoe and Tyler too. Back when the only way to take a picture was with a daguerreotype. Well, would you believe he still has a living grandson? Wow!
• And finally, what would we do without Improv Everywhere? I weep at the thought of it! Here’s the latest, Subway Art Gallery Opening:

Obama reaches out to deaf community, …and reaches out to a stranger. Supporting the troops, Esquire, Global Electoral College, Self-described conservative/libertarian/whatever and son of William F. Buckley, Christopher Buckley

Videos: AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka on Racism and Obama, It’s Never too Late for Change, Joe Biden: John McCain is no maverick!, Joe Biden on kitchen table issues (note callous mavericky response!), Israelis for Obama, You can’t ignore the economy!, Bruce Springsteen, Ralph Stanley, Joe Biden: this election is about you, not us!, Four Days in Denver, Dueling Rallies, Ohio, Change the World

(updates possible as the weekend winds down…)

Anyway, my point is to be calm and consistent, and don’t try to score the gotchas or the zingers, because your opponent is inexperienced and has a lot to prove, so chances are she’ll be overreaching. If you just keep hitting the ball back to her, she’ll eventually screw up — and she doesn’t need any help from you to do so. So be chill and mellow.

(And in the case of Obama, this goes doubly, because John McCain is flailing all over the place, like a drunk trying to find the door in the dark, AND he’s got a pissy temper. He’ll totally play the John McEnroe to your Björn Borg, if you’ll just let him.)

Obama: McCain’s Lobbyist Campaign, Community Organizing, Education, On Letterman, 1982, What is Change?, On Tax Plans, What Economy Are You Talking About?, McCain’s Fundamentals, Another four?, Equal Pay, Old Boys Network, Hope

Biden: America Needs More

McCain: Bloodthirsty Warmonger, On GOP Diversity, Bush-McCain Republicans, Hot Blooded!, The First Family of War, Going for the Pedophile Vote, Squirming, Protecting Sex Offenders, John McCain’s Lies, Recycled Bush, Lies exposed, Women’s Issues, Out of Touch, McCain’s Honor, On Palin’s Experience, Subtle Racism, Rove: McCain has gone too far, Rape Kits, Medical Records, Romney on McCain, Who’s better off?, Fall From Grace, McCain is a Republican, Carly Fiorina, Buh-Bye, Carly!, Stay the Course!, Invented the Blackberry, Lying Their Way to the White House, ABC: McCain Flip-Flops, WHAT? Spain is in Europe?!?

Palin: Forced Gestation, Pentacostal, Wolf Hunting, Sound Familiar?, Bridge to Nowhere, Palin is a Liar, Book Banning, Charging Rape Victims, Hardball: Who is She?, The Bush Doctrine, Drags Out an Old Canard, Pork is Yummy!, On Special Needs, Pray For Us, Sarah!, The Todd, Her First Ad

Rachel: Lipstick, The Fundamentals Are Strong, Commissions

Palin spoofs: Palin in Four Minutes, Vlog, Palin is a Liar, Gina Gershon, The famous SNL skit

Stewart: McCain 2008 = Bush 2000, John McCain, Reformed Maverick, McCain’s Acceptance Speech, Palin is the Bush Doctrine, McCain’s Change?, Generic Off

Colbert: Repo Man, How Dare You?, McCain Attacks Obama

Bill Maher: New Rules (Republican Convention), New Rules (Cities vs. Small Towns), With Paul Begala

Craig Ferguson: Cut to the Chase

The Young Turk: It’s Not Just George Bush

(Michael) Palin for President!

Scary warmonger gets ripped off

• Dick Cheney will be visiting the Chattanooga area later this month. Hopefully, he won’t have access to any guns.

• An aide-mémoire for the poor souls who struggle to recall what happened before this week.

• A question of judgment.

• Oh, the confusion! (”In Dick Morris’s defense, he is a lying sack of …” — well, just watch!)

• LEGOd Video Games!

• Fightin’ Joe Biden!

• Sometimes Samantha Bee is funny and sometimes she makes me laugh out loud.

• Hahaha — McCain $$$ being sent to Obama campaign (maybe that will teach them not to steal?)!

• Awesome! McCain gets Rickrolled! (Ha — when are they going to drop that green screen?!?)

• Ugh. That greedy bastard.

The crowd went wild when Bill came out and wouldn’t let him speak for the first several minutes he was on the stage. Clearly, he’s as popular as ever with the party faithful, and his speech demonstrated one reason why. Bill Clinton, is one of the greatest public speakers in modern politics. He still takes my breath away.

Here’re a the key lines from Clinton’s remarks this evening: “Everything I learned in my eight years as President and in the work I’ve done since, in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job” and “Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world. Ready to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Barack Obama is ready to be President of the United States.”

You can read his remarks as prepared here and watch the video here.

And then Joe Biden came out. Wow. What a bio. His beautiful mother, Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden was there in the crowd to hear him speak — what a rock and an inspiration! Joe speaks like regular people and is a great storyteller. He slipped at one point and started to call John McCain “George” — an honest slip, I think, but also quite on-message.

Joe talked about dignity and respect. He discussed Barack Obama’s accomplishments in Illinois and DC, as well as how he learned about Obama when they were both on the campaign trail together. He also talked about his friend, John McCain, who wants to take this country “in the wrong direction.”

Here’s my nomination for the line of the night: “These times require more than a good soldier. They require a wise leader.” And then he really got rolling…

Here are the prepared remarks, and more videos.

And as if that weren’t enough to work the Democrats into a frenzy, then Barack Obama, his badass self, showed up! He thanked the entire Biden family for being on board, complemented his wife on her great convention opener, gave Hillary props for “rock[ing] the house the other night,” and then gave Bill Clinton mad props as well. And then Barack and the whole Biden family filled the stage as the room rocked out to Bruce Springsteen.

Wow. What a night. Tomorrow, Obama will turn it up to eleven…

As far as Bush’s stupid war goes, I wish Biden had not voted to go along with it, but in a city full of Chickenhawks, at least the Biden family has not shied away from making a personal investment in the war: Joe’s son, Beau, is set to be deployed in Iraq starting in October.

Biden has a long and strong history with unions and blue collar voters. And unlike John McCain (and potential running mate, Mitt Romney), Joe Biden doesn’t have any trouble counting his homes — he has just one, in Wilmington, Delaware, where he’s lived his whole career. He commutes to D.C. on the train every day (yay for being an Amtrak fan!), and doesn’t even have the means for multiple homes, as his net worth is reportedly just $150,000. This man, from humble beginnings in Scranton, PA — a guy who goes home every night and who spent years as a single parent — knows the value of a hard day’s work and understands the struggles of Americans who are losing ground in the Bush/McCain economy.

I think Obama and Biden will make a good team — that both of them will work hard for the American people in the coming years. They are both intelligent, curious, learned people who have known hard times and have shown dogged determination to achieve the goals they have set for themselves. They did not get to ride on the coattails of their rich fathers or wives to get them ahead in the world, but rather, they figured out how to get there on their own. This is the kind of talent I want to see in the White House next year.

—-

BTW, there were two HUGE reasons that Hillary was never in the running:
1) Hillary was all too happy to go after a fellow democrat in the primary. If Biden provided fodder for the McCain campaign, Hillary would have given them an embarrassment of riches!
2) Bill. Bill refused to be vetted (he doesn’t want to talk about his presidential library donors) and he proved to be an uncontrollable liability during the primary.

Also, I think it’s worth pointing out this irony: if it weren’t for the die-hard Hillary supporters (and their Joe-Lieberman-for-Connecticut-like attachment to a single person over a common goal), we might have ended up with a female on the ticket — the first woman to ever have a serious shot at the VP job! But their scary insistence that Hillary was the only acceptable choice for either spot on the ticket might have created a fear of alienating already-angry voters even further, taking all other women out of serious consideration. What a sad situation! And what a sad state of affairs for feminism (does the elevation of a single woman to great heights and expectations — to the exclusion of any other women — even qualify as feminism?)!