Things are getting ugly for the McCain campaign, and the mud slinging is gearing up earlier than the McCain folks would have liked. But mud is not the only thing the McCain campaign is launching through the air; prayers of desperation are coming fast and furious. Here are McCain's top ten Hail Mary's.

10) DNA evidence surfaces that proves Osama Bin Laden and Barack Obama are 14^th cousins twice removed.

9) DNA evidence surfaces linking John McCain as a descendent of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings - McCain initiates media assault accusing Obama of playing the race card against McCain and his 1/2064 African American ancestry.

8) The Flux capacitor is finally discovered - economic and energy woes evaporate - McCain is able return to his strong on war drumbeat.

7) Obama steps out of the Presidential race, revealing that he is in fact the Messiah and that he has decided to honor the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

6) Sarah Palin steps down as VP and is replaced by Dick Cheney's gay daughter. Overnight, radically new coalitions are formed at a head spinning rate, the American Idol crowd loves it and McCain wins in a squeaker.

5) Sarah Palin steps down and John McCain names Chris Angel as his new running mate. Days before the election John McCain appears at the Bellagio in Vegas walking on water.

4) John McCain promises that if elected, he will immediately step down and make Sarah Palin president.
Just enough of the Hillary scorned are wooed by the crafty old Maverick.

3) John McCain breathes an actual fireball during the Tuesday night Presidential debate. Obama is forced to concede that McCain would make an "awesome" Commander in Chief.

2) Acting on a tip from John McCain, George Bush pulls Osama Bin Ladin out of a Pakistani cave - Fox News is there.

1) John McCain accepts defeat in the race for the US Presidency, but makes a heroic comeback as the President of Pakistan. He still has nukes, he still gets to fight terrorism and he gets to wear a uniform again.

Chicken dinner was the plan on Pa Olsen's Colorado farm in 1945 and he sent his mother-in-law out to do the dirty work. She grabbed young chicken Mike, got him by the neck, the ax swung and she botched the job. Like unlucky chickens everywhere, Mike went careering madly around the farm without his head. If a chicken with its head cut off can be lucky - Mike was. He somehow survived the decapitation with his brain stem in tact. Accused of being a hoaxer, Pa Olsen had his chicken oddity verified at the University of Utah and by the Guinness Book of World Records. Olsen then went on a whirl wind, barnstorming tour of the United States (joined by a two headed sheep and a few other barnyard freaks). Mike was fed through a syringe and by all accounts roosted and strutted like any other full headed chicken. Chicken Mike ran around the country for eighteen months before luck caught up with him and he choked on a corn kernel and passed into lore.

John McCain is just wrapping up the eighteenth month of his Presidential Campaign. Eighteen months of surprising new directions and unpredictable behavior have him challenging Chicken Mike's record for running around the country without a head. All of the foxes and the hens and the sheep and wolves in Washington quieted down this week as it looked like the Wall Street barnyard was about to go up in flames. These situations call for a line of bipartisan water buckets and calm assurance - not a headless chicken looking to bask in the glow.

Strangely enough, the most pressing political question of the current presidential campaign was first struck upon by Mel Brooks more than thirty years ago: Where the white women at?

The Democratic primary and now the general election have brought a new found concern (for some) and focus upon women's rights. But like most things in this election, there is little room for intelligent discussion of the issue. What exactly is the status of the glass ceiling? Is it a question of American politics or American culture or both that has thus far prevented the rise of an American Angela Merkel,  Margaret Thatcher or Benazir Bhutto? All three rose to heads of state as leaders of their individual parties.  Perhaps parliamentary lawmakers are more likely to recognize substance than is the general electorate of our country. There is no shortage of impressive female U.S. representatives, senators and governors in our country, but thus far none deemed worthy to take hold the reigns of our country - or even ride shotgun.

Does our country view women's rights as a universal issue or a special interest? The ascendency of Obama over Hillary follows a historical pattern established in the 1960s. The Civil Rights Movement and Civil Rights Act both trumped and inspired the women's rights movement. The Civil Rights Act passed, the Equal Rights Act stalled. The nomination of Sarah Palin also follows a historical pattern of empty, token gestures toward equality of the sexes.

Does it make me an elitist if I don't think the ‘average person' should be the vice president of the United States? 

The Palin interview with Charlie Gibson felt like watching a bright undergraduate accidentally show up for a PhD thesis defense: confident posturing, thoroughly rehearsed responses and an overwhelming sense that she has no idea what she is talking about. You can't blame the average citizen for not knowing what is described by the "Bush Doctrine" - but Palin's ignorance was and is astonishing. This is not a spell potato(e?) sized gaffe, it's a dangerous insult to the nation.

And what of the torturous reverse engineering that went into her Abraham Lincoln based explanation of  the  Youtube sermon: "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God, that's what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan." ?

 Lincoln referred  to the tragic brother versus brother, cousin versus cousin nature of our Civil War when he said:

Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.

Palin claims to have intended this same sentiment in her sermon. The inference would then be that she feels our current enemy might also be on God's side; that Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Sunni terrorists, Shia terrorists and any other IED planting insurgents might also be doing "God's will." I would never presume to know God's will," she told Charlie Gibson. But at about 2.45 into the Youtube video Palin  seems to have a different  philosophy regarding the will of God when she says: "We can work together to make sure God's will is done."

Palin has every right to believe the War in Iraq proceeds according to her God's plan or that like Bush believes, the war is a Crusade of sorts. But swallowing the revisionist, disingenuous gloss she put on the "God has a plan" sermon goes down like a horse pill. I just wish she had the strength to stand honestly by her convictions, to let the American people know that she would be a Commander in Chief who would rely more heavily on God's plan than on a knowledge of foreign affairs and that her faith sometimes allows her to know God's will. It must be a great comfort and source of confidence to her - of the sort that gives rise to Bush Doctrines.

The upside of sleeping with a corpse is the slim chance of an unwanted pregnancy.  The Republican Party of George Bush and John McCain is a freshly stiffened corpse.  How long will its members lie in bed with it?

A quick guide to William Faulkner's "A Rose For Emily:"

Miss Emily is an inhabitant of the old guard Southern aristocracy, a single generation removed from the Civil War, she stubbornly clings to a world and way of life that no longer exists. Miss Emily is a victim of the twilight. Raised to believe in a world that has rotted completely, but has not quite crumbled.  Even in the bloom of youth, she cannot find a proper suitor because there is no future for her kind.  Eventually, she makes the only marriage bed she can. Every night, shut away in a back bedroom, she embraces the corpse of a poisoned scoundrel - her lover. The townsfolk can all smell the rot, but can't yet admit Miss Emily's hideous truth. Instead, they slip out at night tossing quick lime around her house to hide the reek. Years pass and the reek fades.  The town goes on living with Miss Emily's terrible secret.  Not until she dies is the bedroom door broken down and the corpse, little more than a stain in the middle of the bed, is finally removed.

There is a damp odor coming from the house of today's Republican Party. Breathe it in...No to science. No to diplomacy. No to strategy. No to innovation. No to individual liberty. No to the Constitution. Yes to  torture.  No to intellect. No to reason. No to the internet. No to public health. No to open minds. No to new ideas. The stench needs to be knocked down and the Republicans are getting the quick lime out. Rumor mongering, fear mongering, anti-intellectualism, politicized Christianity, veiled racism and vulgar nativism are thrown around to hide the truth.

Hopeful, fearsome, Riefenstahlian propaganda or choreography of the new world order -- the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics were nothing if not overwhelming. The conventions have a tough primetime act to follow. No sky jogging, no LEDs, no day-glo lycra -- just a man, a mic, and a message. Obama will surely deliver a rousing speech, McCain will sleepwalk through a wooden Minneapolis extravaganza; and then we'll go right back to flash polls and daily sniping.

Made for TV spectacle has a death grip on presidential politics. This is no novel claim or original discovery, but it feels particularly sad and final this time around. Careerist pundits are set on full-thrust vomit mode, so that even the occasional insight is tough to take. Ideas are not valued. Those millions and millions of dollars raised by both candidates need to be spent, and network and cable channels will oblige with a guaranteed ninth inning thriller. 

Just like the O.J. trial created junkies for courtroom entertainment; we now crave the adrenaline rush of the 2000 Gore/Bush election. Both campaigns, the press, poll workers, vote counters and voting machine manufacturers all know that anything goes and anything can happen. What parts of this election will end up in a courtroom? I don't need hope in a candidate as much as I need renewed hope in the process. Any more punditry on my part and the self loathing will finally be unbearable.  So...

The bombs and bullets flying within a far away autonomous region of the Republic of Georgia suggest that George Bush's concept of a global "War on Terror" should be back on the front burner when it comes to Presidential politics.

The domestic debate surrounding our war in Iraq is rightly centered on how we should go about ending things. Withdrawal timelines or pathways to victory? What is a withdrawal, what is a victory?  The candidates will refine their solutions and avoid pinning themselves down in the face of ever-changing facts on the ground. But fading fast to historical background are our reasons for waging war, the very concept of the "War on Terror"" and the precedent it sets for future conflicts.

This election cycle has essentially reduced these issues to a single catchall phrase:  judgment. One man voted for war and one man voted against the war - choose your side and move on to discussions of how to end things neatly. There seems to be a generally agreed upon notion that dwelling on the rational for war is an exercise in crying over spilled milk - what's done, is done -- now is a time for decisive leadership.

Photo by Chris McConnell

Judge Larry Burns of the United States District Court of Southern California has rescued the Mt. Soledad cross (for the time being) from the clutches of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. This represents the most substantial courtroom defeat in twenty years for those seeking to have the cross removed. Most residents of San Diego want the cross to remain -- though I suspect even more are simply exhausted by the "long and torturous legal history" leading up to this latest decision. On the other hand, the Mt. Soledad controversy has served as a fascinating backyard lesson in civics and Constitutional law.

I've got two dogs in this fight. I've never known Mt. Soledad without the cross, it pleases the eye and the heart says it belongs. But I also happen to think the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause are the primary reasons the United States is the Land of the Free -- a 43-foot cross on public land troubles the conscience and the mind. And so if ever a judge could muster up the wisdom of Solomon, one would hope it would be Judge Burns. The entire ruling is a fairly entertaining read -- but here are a few choice extracts from Judge Burns' opinion.

"What we see depends on what we look for."

Photo: Richard Bolt

The Governator, The Gunfighter and The Brother In-Law

A Dramatic Work In Progress

The Players

Arnold - The Governor

Maria - His Wife

Their Children

Clint Eastwood - Former California State Parks Board member - terminated by Schwarzenegger, former Mayor of Carmel, The Gunfighter

Bobby Shriver - Maria's brother, Santa Monica Councilman, and former California State Parks Board member - also terminated

 The Scene:

The Governor's breakfast table. Arnold and Maria look great, even this early. Super fit and lovely Schwarzenegger children bound to and fro the table. Arnold lays his paper down, suddenly serious.

John McCain talks about victory in Iraq. He has not given a coherent description of "victory in Iraq" - but claims victory is a moral necessity, as well as imperative to our security. Barack Obama's 16-month timetable is now being "refined." This is a politically calculated move to the center or a continuation of Obama's promise that the US  "must be as careful getting out of Iraq as it was reckless going in."

Either way, it's a vague policy at best.