I am ASTOUNDED

That John McCain is in a dead heat with Barack Obama.

This is insane. John McCain, Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, et al., have been blatantly and openly LYING for weeks now. People have called them on it, but no one seems to care. Anything Obama or Biden or anyone on the left says is immediately fact checked to within an inch of its life, but clearly the right gets a free pass.

Exhibit A: The big one, Sarah Palin's Bridge to Nowhere. I guess there was a proposal to build a ludicrously expensive bridge to an island with like fifty people on it. At the get-go, Sarah Palin supported this bridge. God knows why. Congress then came in, and said "um...this bridge is sort of a stupid idea. There's no way you're going to recoup this money." So Palin agreed with Congress, at the very last minute. Now she's stamping around claiming she had always been against the bridge. People brought up that she, well, wasn't. She continues to claim that she was. Nobody seems to mind much.

Exhibit B: Barack Obama recently said "you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," in reference to McCain trying to pretty up his Bushy politics in "change" and "Palinism." The McCain campaign decided this was a sexist reference to Sarah Palin and flew into a rage, accusing Obama of gross sexism and demanding an apology. This is ludicrous. As Obama pointed out on Letterman, taking the analogy to its logical extreme, Palin would actually be the lipstick, and McCain's policies would be the pig. This is clearly the McCain campaign grasping at straws against its opponent. Also of interest is that McCain used this exact same expression against Hillary Clinton during the primaries; no one cried sexism then.

Exhibit C: There was an ad in the past couple of days that states that "Barack Obama supports comprehensive sex education for kindergartners. Learning about sex before learning how to read?" This, again, is a blatant lie. What Obama supported was a reform in sex education for the K-12 set, dealt with "age-appropriately." The only mention of kindergartners in the whole program would be for tactics to avoid sexual predators. Is McCain against teaching kids how to not be molested? That's what this ad is really implying.

Exhibit D: John McCain keeps saying that Obama wants to raise taxes; however, Obama's tax policy would actually include 80% of the citizenry having LOWER taxes, particularly those in the lower and middle classes. Only 10% of the population would have higher taxes, and that's almost solely the super-rich.

Exhibit E: Sarah Palin is supposedly the anti-earmark champion, having railed against them while governor, and neglecting to mention that she requested over $27 million dollars in earmarks as mayor of Wasilla. Yes, Obama got more money for Illinois in earmarks, and Biden got more for Delaware. How is that different? Neither of them are pretending to have been constantly anti-earmark. Neither of them are lying.

The fact of the matter is, the McCain/Palin team have devolved into a team of liars and knuckle-dragging politicians. The reason is, this battle HAS to be fought personally for them to have any chance. Even leading GOP strategists claim that if this is solely about the issues, Obama wins hands down. People aren't sold on Obama though, so the GOP has to make it personal for them to have a fighting chance.

Speaking of issues, let's take a really quick look at what Barack Obama supports:

A timely withdrawal from Iraq.
Repeal of the Bush tax cuts.
Education reform.
Universal health care (or at least very close).
Increased environmental regulation and alternative energy research.
Net neutrality.
Guest worker programs.
Federally funded faith-based programs.
Denuclearization.
Increased attention to Darfur.
Increased diplomacy and tact in foreign relations.

Let's compare this list to what John McCain supports:

Indefinite involvement in Iraq.
Drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Preserve.
Keeping the Bush tax cuts.
Overturning Roe v. Wade and revoking the right to choose.
Deregulation of net neutrality.
Less comprehensive sex education / "abstinence only" education.
Cutbacks of GLBT rights, including marriage.
Repeal of federal minimum wage laws.
Privatizing social security.
Potential reinstatement of the draft.

Polls have shown that Americans overwhelmingly support what Barack Obama is championing; McCain's platform is staggeringly close to George W. Bush's, a point of view that is almost universally condemned, here and abroad.

The point here is that Barack Obama is doing exactly what he said he would at the start of this; he's running a clean campaign, and working for the people. He's staying above the fray and focusing on the issues. Unfortunately, John McCain kind of sucks, and is therefore lobbing punches into him, even though he's taking the high ground and not fighting back. And don't even get me started on Sarah Palin. I just...come on, America. Most of the rest of the world agrees, and actually, based just on policies, most of the country agrees that Barack Obama is the right choice. Why isn't he leading in a landslide? Is it because he's black? Is it because of those vicious lies about him being a Muslim and lying about being a Christian? Is it because his middle name is Hussein? I'll tell you what it is: it's all of that. It's because folksy John McCain and hockey mom Sarah Palin are able to paint Barack Obama as "the other," a creepy, "not-like-us" foreigner. That's the problem. America is so hung up on image and race that they just may let a senile old man and a right-wing lunatic take control of a country that so dearly needs a tender hand, a leadership team that will infuriate the rest of the world, and will, pardon my pessimism, but almost surely will begin America's slow, inexorable decline into post-Roman obscurity.

So come on, America. Obama/Biden '08. At this point, it's not about comfort. We get it. He can be cold sometimes. He's black. He's young. But he's so very right for our country. If there was ever a time to put aside your reservations and dive in, to sacrifice something for your country, now is the time. All these people talking about sacrifice...now is the time. Sacrifice a little bit of personal preference for the man that will take America where it needs to go. I beg of you. Please.

Post-script:
I just stumbled across the following quote, which pretty much sums up the problem here:

"I will be honored to vote for such a great American as John McCain. I do not agree with many of his ideas, but I respect him to death." - metsarma, supposedly an Independent commenter on a Politico article written by Fred Thompson.

Post-post-script:
In her recent Charlie Gibson interview, Sarah Palin calmly suggested that war with Russia is a possibility. God help us all.