McSame.

Yes, so perhaps you've heard... we're going to have another new governor here in New York. More than a bit flabbergasting, I must admit. With the coincidence of daylight savings time starting last Sunday, I kept wondering all week if I were merely sleepwalking and that things would be less bizarre when I finally came to, but no... this was the week that was. You've heard way too much about the Spitzer thing, I'm sure, and I will not add any weight to that burden other than to briefly visit one event that took place last weekend. It was the annual Gridiron dinner, a "press yucks it up with the President" type of affair. Bush was there, singing a clumsily satirical version of "The Green, Green Grass of Home" (penned by someone on the public payroll, no doubt) in which he made light of some of his administration's most monumental failings, from the circumstances surrounding the deliberate distortion of intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq war, to Hurricane Katrina. Spitzer was in the room, by that time well aware that his political goose was cooked, and I can only wonder what ran through his head as he listened to mister 15 percent yodeling his way to the end of a disastrous presidency, not a care in the world.

No doubt about it... the ravages of the last eight years touch Dubya very lightly indeed. I doubt he's losing any sleep over the million or so dead in Iraq, the nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers killed, the countless wounded and displaced, etc., etc., to quantify merely one of his major crimes. And after all, why should he care? There's virtually no chance he'll be held to account for Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, Haiti, or any of the other disasters on his watch, to say nothing of the current economic meltdown... no Nuremberg for him, no Hague, not even an attempt at impeachment or censure. Jesus, the news about Spitzer's pricey dates was barely 24 hours old before the morons in our state legislature and senate began calling for his impeachment. Meanwhile, our intrepid congressional leaders won't touch the i-word with a twenty foot pole. This may be the essential difference between the two parties.

What a media spectacle this year is turning out to be. As the final fragments of plaster fall from the edifice that is imperial America, Bush is seen gleefully tap-dancing, breaking into song, and waxing poetic on the "romance" of combat in Afghanistan. And what of the man - the anointed successor - who will inherit Bush's wars, his recession, his crumbling federal infrastructure? Well, McCain represents nothing so much as a third Bush term, one that will carry the expanded powers of the executive to a new and dangerous magnitude of "unitary" authority. The only difference may be that, whereas Bush is as unfeeling as a hollow tin soldier, McCain passionately believes in the necessity and efficacy of war. And if he and his advisors may be taken at their word, a McCain administration will mean more foreign interventions, more military action, and more international brinkmanship with respect to countries that can actually fight back, like Russia and China.

So, with all the flashing lights and full-throated hollering the 24-hour news cycle throws at you, don't lose sight of the only good reason to vote this fall: keeping that hothead out of the White House.

luv u,

jp