Dobson Fails To Get Satan To Rain On Obama's Parade But McCain Ready To Turn Gustav Into A Photo-Op

I've said for months that in mid-October when McCain's numbers are still struggling to get into the low 40's, he'll go with the ultimate strategy: the Manchurian candidate will try tarring Obama as the anti-Chist. I've been told they've thoroughly tested this strategy in small backward towns in Tennessee and Kentucky and that it works fairly well on people with 2-digit IQs, much of the GOP's southern base. I still don't see how that's going to get McCain's numbers from, say 38-39 up above 45. But you probably already saw McCain's One video. To a sane person it looks like a joke. To the Buy Bull thumpers, it's deadly serious. They even have their crazed websites up and e-mail chains going.

One of the worst of the charlatan preachers fleecing the 2-digit IQ flock is Jimmy Dobson, head of a GOP Front operation called Focus on The Family. Although they have now scrubbed it from their website, one of Dobson's more heinous lieutenants, Stuart Shepard, a former weatherman turned crooked religionist, tries persuading church-goers to pray for rain on the night Obama gave his acceptance speech in an outdoor arena. God must have heard and overruled Satan, because it was the most beautiful night of the year. And Dobson was foiled. What kind of a man asks God to send torrents of rain so hard that it will block out network TV coverage so no one will be able to see or hear Obama's speech during the convention? Shepard defended his nutty video in an interview with KOAA. Anyway, the actual video they scrubbed is below.

Maybe God was pissed off enough that He decided to send Gustav towards America, just in time to disrupt the Republican Convention in St Paul. First McCain was thinking he could turn the coming disaster in his favor by using it as an excuse for Bush to not show up at the Convention, because, after all, Bush has always been so concerned about victims of hurricanes. Last time there was a big one, in fact, he and a certain Arizona senator were so busy eating birthday cake that they didn't bother doing anything at all while the residents of New Orleans were drowning.

Since then, though, McCain has been talking about scrapping the convention altogether (or at least postponing it until Rove can run another week of negative ads smearing Obama) and staging some kind of show of concern by the Forces of Evil for the folks who get hit by the Hurricane God is sending to show how much he disapproves of Republicans. Yes, they're hoping to "turn Republicans into Red Cross-type volunteers who would help collect donations, food and goods for storm victims."

McCain, who just made the most cynical choice of running mates in American history, showing absolutely zero regard for the good of the country, yapped on Fox about his campaign motto being "America First" and how "helping people during an emergency will take precedence over accepting the nomination... It wouldn't be appropriate to have a festive occasion while a near-tragedy or a terrible challenge is presented in the form of a natural disaster." SO instead McCain will go down to the Gulf Coast and try to capitalize on the problems while getting in the way-- seriously in the way-- on rescue operations. He's really a disgusting excuse for a human being. He did the same thing when there was flooding in Iowa. Does McCain think natural disasters are sent solely to provide him with opportunities for campaign backdrops?

It is genuinely revolting to think of a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane as a marketing op, but this is, after all, a country run by a man who let himself be photographed carrying a fake turkey to feed soldiers in Iraq. So I wonder if the Obama team has given any thought to what a spectacular PR coup this will be. And the bar for Republicans to "succeed" is particularly low. All Bush needs to do is to ensure that less than 1836 Americans end up drowning in their own waste, as they did the last time a hurricane struck during a Republican presidency to declare Operation Hype The Hurricane a triumph.

Meanwhile, brutally authoritarian-type police sweeps of the Twin Cities are seeing round-ups of potential protesters already-- kind of like Communist China's response to peaceful protesters at the Olympics. There is a problem with postponing the convention, though. If they change the date, does that mean that all the Republican senators and House members who had "previous appointments they couldn't get out of" that week, can now come? I mean would it really be a Republican Convention without Gordon Smith, Susan Collins, Ted Stevens, Pat Roberts, Mike Johanns, Roger Wicker, John Sununu, Liddy Dole... not to mention half the Michigan Repug congressional delegation? And of course there's the Larry Craig problem. They finally persuaded him to stay away from the city where he so grievously disgraced himself and exposed their collective hypocrisy, but the following week, he'll be in court in St. Paul for another appeals hearing. So... would he actually miss the convention and the parties (and the party boys) if he was actually in town? McCain better decide what's gonna be worse, Larry Craig or Gustav.