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No, not that L Word. This is a different one, but one which, at least in the political sphere, seems to be just as taboo.

Here’s a hint. Remember when Obama suggested to some people at a rally that if they wanted to decrease the amount of gas they used, they should make sure their tires were properly inflated and their engines were tuned up? McCain (and every other Republican, by some odd coincidence) yukked it up over how Obama’s energy plan was all about getting those tires inflated. They were even offering “Obama Energy Plan” tire inflation gauges for donations of $25 to the McCain campaign. As of the writing of this post, the offer was still up:

Obama’s response to this latest bit of levity from the right was just perfect:

I’m sure you caught the “l word” in there, but if not, I’ll make it easier in my next example. The McCain campaign put out this new video today:

Here’s a piece of a Los Angeles Times article on the video and the Obama campaign’s response to it:

The Obama campaign immediately denounced the ad.

“This ad is a lie and it’s part of the old, tired politics of a party in Washington that has run out of ideas and run out of steam,” said spokesman Hari Sevugan.

The Obama campaign has been smarting from McCain’s attack on his celebrity, which compares the Illinois senator to Paris Hilton. The charge is that Obama lacks the experience to lead the nation and is out of touch with most people’s economic difficulties.

To support its claim, the McCain campaign cites two Obama votes in favor of a budget resolution. Obama’s yes vote means he voted in favor of ending the Bush tax cuts, “effectively raising taxes on those making $41,500 in total income.”

The Obama camp has repeatedly complained that McCain is distorting Obama’s position on taxes. The vote was for a non-binding budget resolution that did not include any tax increase, though it does assume that the Bush tax cuts will end. It bears no relation to the tax plan that Obama has announced, his campaign said.

“Even though a host of independent, nonpartisan organizations have said this attack isn’t true, Sen. McCain continues to lie about Sen. Obama’s plan to give 95% of all families a tax cut of $1,000, and not raise taxes for those making under $250,000 a single dime,” the Obama campaign argued. “The reason so many families are hurting today is because we’ve had eight years of failed Bush policies that Sen. McCain wants to continue for another four, and that’s what Barack Obama will change as President.”

Finally, this isn’t coming from the Obama campaign, but check out McCain’s bronze medal win on tonight’s Countdown:

“John McCain either lies or can’t tell the difference between reality and stuff he dreamed or imagined. Those are not two good options.” I say we stick with option 1. If we start labeling these obvious falsehoods as cases of McCain getting confused, they’ll claim we’re playing the age card — the wrinkly, white-haired age card. If we accuse McCain of lying (which is what I think he’s doing most of the time, except in the cases where he starts repeating words like he’s lost his place), their only real defense will be to say that the Senator just misspoke… again. Those self-proclaimed errors are going to add up pretty quickly if they’re not willing to admit to just making shit up.

This may take a while to load, and it’s of rather low technical quality, but what the hey — give it a try. I tried turning it into a video file, but the supposedly transparent background (with the speckly bits I failed to remove) turned black when I opened it in Camtasia. It seems that once you’ve exported the hundred or so layers you’ve created to ImageReady, it’s too late to fix the background. That meant that I couldn’t add the sound effects I’d been planning (an opening “My friends,” a popcorn pop for each bandage going on, a nice tearing noise for their removal, and maybe some evil cackling for the big surprise ending), but that’s OK, since I’ve already blown the evening on this thing. The “special effects” for the Bottoms Up, Johnny post only took a couple of minutes and came out a hell of a lot better, it seems to me. So, not so long story about as short as I can make it, I’ve just uploaded it as a gif. Enjoy!

College was a long, long time ago, but I still remember the important stuff, like drinking games. I was always pretty bad at the skill portion of Quarters, but I didn’t really have a problem with that — it just meant I got to drink more. In fact, I rarely bothered with such things as pointing to other players with my elbow. I’d point with my finger and… ooops! time to drink again. Silly me.

Being a vidiot, my favorite drinking games have always involved the eye of hell. Being a vidiot and a Bob, my all-time fave would have to be Hi Bob.

I’ve just come up with a drinking game of my own, and it’s not unlike Hi Bob, which took advantage of the fact that a certain phrase showed up rather a lot in the scripts for Bob Newhart’s sit-coms.

Think about it — what’s on the eye of hell all the time these days, and what phrase does one hear repeated over and over?

I think you may have already figured it out based on the image above. The name of the game is My Friends, and the rules are just like those of Hi Bob: whenever McCain intones that famous phrase, everyone has to down a shot. Be warned, however, that when Johnny Mac is having particular trouble dealing with the text of his speech, he may say it fairly often. In fact, I’ve heard him throw it into a single sentence as many as three times. It’s apparently his version of “um.”

Because of this, the game is often kind of short.

Dear Karl,

Remember back in 2000, when John McCain won the New Hampshire primary and it looked like he was going to roll on to the Republican nomination? Remember what you did to add a little friction to his momentum?

Rove invented a uniquely injurious fiction for his operatives to circulate via a phony poll. Voters were asked, “Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain…if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?” This was no random slur. McCain was at the time campaigning with his dark-skinned daughter, Bridget, adopted from Bangladesh.

It worked. Owing largely to the Rove-orchestrated whispering campaign, Bush prevailed in South Carolina and secured the Republican nomination. The rest is history — specifically the tragic and blighted history of our young century. It worked in another way as well. Too shaken to defend himself, McCain emerged from the bruising episode less maverick reformer and more Manchurian candidate.

You know how good you are, don’t you Karl? McCain knows it too, and that’s why he’s taking the advice of you and your acolytes, even after stating in 2000 that there must be “a special place in hell” reserved for you lot.

I’ve got a little tip for you, and I think it’s going to help McCain big-time. What if we spread a rumor that Barack Obama has two black babies? Can you imagine how that would trash his image? Having two black babies is twice as bad as having one. Nobody’s going to vote for Obama when they hear about this, whether it’s true or not.

Two. Black. Babies. Wow.

I’m just amazed you didn’t come up with this one yourself, Karl. I hope you’re not going soft in your old age.

My last post made reference to this advert from the McCain campaign:

The claim that Obama went to the gym rather than visiting wounded military personnel, was, of course, utter crap. Was it a lie? You could say so, but it was more a matter of implication than falsehood. That is, it implied that Obama decided that, since they wouldn’t let him bring in cameras and use the troops as campaign props, he decided it wasn’t worth his while to visit them at all. Had they come out and said that in the ad, it would have been a lie, but instead, all they did was imply it.

But now it’s come out that, whether Obama had made the visit or not, the McCain camp was ready to attack him for whichever choice he made:

What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was…wait for it…using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that’s political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents—a lie.

That’s inexcusable.

Is he in the kitchen?

Is he at the beach?

Is he on the Straight Talk Express?

Maybe he’s at a town hall meeting, saying “my friends” two to three times per sentence. Is that where he is? No?

Is he with the troops?

If he isn’t with the troops, why not? Does he, or anyone for that matter, have an excuse for not being with the troops right now? Who the hell does he think he is? Just what are his priorities? Would he be willing to lose the war in order to win an election? Maybe he’d rather eat a pulled pork sandwich than spend time with the troops. Perhaps he thinks that getting an hour or two of sleep each night is time better spent than time spent with the troops. What’s more important: calling Cindy Lou a hussy for wearing too much makeup, or spending time with the troops? Think of the time he’s spent over the years brushing his teeth, or wiping his ass after taking a crap. That’s time that could have been spent with the troops. But it seems he had other, more important things to do.

I think he may be a Communist. What else would explain this obvious disdain he has for the troops?

I used to have a decent amount of respect for John McCain. Back in 2000, he was a Republican I could have actually considered voting for. Of course, he was pushed out of the race by the kind of dirty tricks that would later be used against quite a few Democrats.

I lost a lot of respect for him when he strongly backed Bush in ’04. This was the guy whose people had used the religious right and ugly rumors to push him out of the way four years earlier. This time around, the Democratic nominee was one of his closest friends in the Senate. There was even talk of McCain as Kerry’s running mate. But McCain stuck with Bush, Bush’s war and Bush’s alliances, clearly hoping the party would view 2008 as McCain’s turn.

Since then he’s brown nosed the right, started talking nonsense in support of a nonsensical war, cozied up to the religious fanatics he’d previously attacked, and in general tried his damnest to be just like the jack-off who cheated him out of the nomination before. And now this.

Clearly, there’s a lot of editing in there, so maybe the context of what he’s saying here might allow one to see it in another light, but I kind of doubt it. Fuck him.