The Stoning of John Edwards

First off, probably a quarter to half of the people currently wringing their hands over Edwards’ extramarital affair have cheated, are cheating, or will cheat on their own spouse.

It’s not the kind of thing you’re supposed to talk about in polite company and it runs contrary to a lot of romantic/religious notions that people have, but monogamy is a fairly recent invention and is by no means natural. I’m just saying, keep in mind the ridiculous level of hypocrisy at work here.

Yes, he lied. Yes, it could have hurt his party’s chances, although it’s probably better that this distraction didn’t surface during the primaries. I do understand the disappointment of the people who defended him in good faith. You could even argue that people expect better-than-average behavior from their politicians, although the current gang of thugs and robber barons in power certainly speaks against that.

However, most of the sanctimonious commentators criticizing him would not have done any differently in his situation, and quite a few of them are in his situation.

Statistically, there is a significant portion of high-ranking politics/news people that have stories of infidelity of their own, so I’m assuming that we’ll soon see hundreds of these people come out and admit their own affairs in the name of honesty. Come on, who wants to go first?

*chirp!* *chirp!*

Through the looking glass: surreal campaign ads

First, this laugably bad ad. It appears that the McCain campaign’s latest attack is “Obama wants to Photoshop his face onto Mount Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty”. Incredibly juvenile, but it would work if your average McCain voter knew what a Photoshop was.

Secondly, there’s this video, “The One”.

Twist ending : “Paid for by John McCain 2008″. Really? Are… are you sure, official McCain Youtube channel and JohnMcCain.com?

I see two possible messages McCain could be trying to get out here.

He might be trying to say “Vote for Obama”, which is bizarre and likely not a winning strategy for McCain. Then again, his campaign, his party, and a good portion of the news media appear to be under the influence of hallucinogenic substances.

At this point I wouldn’t be that surprised if Bush went on a puppy-kicking spree only to have McCain come out and defend him, blame it on Obama and the Liberal Media, and say that this type of situation shows he’s “ready to lead” and his opponent is “naïve”. Somehow, it would probably even work, and the media would spend the next two days asking questions like “Voting for McCain : good idea, or great idea?” and “The Liberal Media’s biased reporting: should we stop favoring Obama?”.

Anyways. The other message, the one McCain is more likely trying to push with the world-leader imagery and the glorification of his opponent, is something along the lines of “Obama is the Antichrist”. That might make sense in the mind of Americans who consider reading forwarded emails to be ‘research’, but those people already have lists of contradictory reasons why they’re afraid of him.

In any case, I’m pretty sure the Antichrist is actually supposed to get elected. If McCain was a good Christian and he really believed what he’s trying to scare people into believing, he’d have to make sure the Antichrist won the election or he’d be standing in the way of Prophecy.

On the other hand, if he was a good Christian he probably wouldn’t be ridiculing Moses to make a political attack.