Presidential poses.

In his tad piquant analysis of the debate, Julian Sanchez offers a penetrating view into the psyche of our President-- "For as the debates are also making clear, the president exists in a strange parallel realm, a kind of Lake Woebegone version of America, where all the deficit reduction packages are strong, all the WMDs are good looking, and all the students reached by NCLB are above average." It isn't that Bush is an optimist-- being a cynic, I, myself, am quite the closet optimist. The problem is that Bush has "completely lost touch with reality", as Seymour Hersh said gravely in his award acceptance speech at the Letelier-Moffit Human Rights Awards ceremony last month.

Meanwhile, outside of Bush's R. W. Bradford takes Republicans to task for their posturing on "principles", noting that "during the past 34 years, government spending has grown significantly faster when a Republican has sat in the White House". Security analyst Ivan Eland thinks the Bush administration's beloved missile shield does more for Bush's job security than it would for our homeland security. So far, however, the most accurate description of the Bush team's foreign policy is the potty-mouthed Team America version (which I cannot repeat and you will just have to see).

While I was generally disappointed by the movie, I found slight comfort in Trey Parker's strong words about the coming election-- not the language I would use, but far be it from me to censor. When asked how he felt about the coming presidential election, Parker replied:

"I would care more if it was like one guy that was just like ok. This guy is awesome. This guy can really help out the country. Then I would care. Right now you kind of have two shit heads, so it is kind of like you can vote for shit head one or shit head two. You know it is like, well you are going to the movie theatre and you can either see without a paddle or some other shitty movie on. Without a paddle 2. I don't know what I am going to do."

Granted, you can acknowledge the low quality of the candidates while also understanding that one of them-- John Kerry-- is less reactionary and dangerous.