How It Ends... Begin the Begin

This blog started in 2004 with my motivation to inform friends and family about news of the election in an effort to bring down the reign of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Didn't work out so well. With help from my Mother-in-Law (blogger code name Old Fogey), Cracks continued to stay vigilant for a couple of years after that defeat. But soon, the various and sundry twists and turns of life took our attentions to other focuses (namely, for me, the birth of my son and becoming the sole breadwinner of the family). And thusly, Cracks publishing came to a halt (though occasional bouts of anger at the latest antics of the Bush/Cheney administration would elicit a post from time to time).

So, in the aftermath of this week's historic election outcome, I'm now making it official: Cracks in the Facade is retired.

No doubt there will be shenanigans from the Right Wing Noise Machine that will need to be beat down, and President Obama (god, I love saying that) and Vice President Biden (that too!) and their administration will make mistakes from time to time that will need progressive voices to help remind them of their course. But the hardcore political blogging life is behind me now, and I will find other avenues to add my voice when and where it is needed.

If you're a Facebook user, you can be my friend and follow me there. (I haven't totally gotten the blogging bug out of my system, and I occasionally add links to interesting and relevant news bits.) I'm also an occasional Twitter user, and you can follow my tweets here.

Now, time to begin the begin...

 
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Amen, Brother Cafferty

CNN's Jack Cafferty on John McCain (via AmericaBlog):

John McCain graduated 894th in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. His father and grandfather were four star admirals in the Navy. Some have suggested that might have played a role in McCain being admitted. His academic record was awful. And it shows over and over again whenever McCain is called upon to think on his feet.

He no longer allows reporters unfettered access to him aboard the "Straight Talk Express" for a reason. He simply makes too many mistakes. Unless he's reciting talking points or reading from notes or a TelePrompTer, John McCain is lost. He can drop bon mots at a bowling alley or diner -- short glib responses that get a chuckle, but beyond that McCain gets in over his head very quickly.

I am sick and tired of the president of the United States embarrassing me. The world we live in is too complex to entrust it to someone else whose idea of intellectual curiosity and grasp of foreign policy issues is to tell us he can look into Vladimir Putin's eyes and see into his soul.

George Bush's record as a student, military man, businessman and leader of the free world is one of constant failure. And the part that troubles me most is he seems content with himself.

He will leave office with the country $10 trillion in debt, fighting two wars, our international reputation in shambles, our government cloaked in secrecy and suspicion that his entire presidency has been a litany of broken laws and promises, our citizens' faith in our own country ripped to shreds. Yet Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been.

I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.

 
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The Visual Highlight of My Week

Sure, Obama had the world at his feet this week and there are loads of pictures you can choose from that to treasure, but I love the fact that John McCain had to make an impromptu stop at a grocery store in Pennsylvania to hold a press briefing in front of the cheese aisle to quell the questions about his view of the surge.

 
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Obama Boyz

Lil' F and I are modeling Mrs. F's Obama t-shirt, which is available in lots of colors.

 
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Screw the Bowling

Barack's got game where it counts -- on the court!

 
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Mrs. F's Obama Shirt

Mrs. F got inspired recently to upload a T-shirt design to Zazzle based on the iconographic imagery created by Shepard Fairey earlier this year, and she presented it to me as a Father's Day gift. I dig it a lot in part because of the Fairey image, but also the way that Mrs. F was able to distill it down into a simple woodblock-like image in black against a white shirt (or, in my case, an orange shirt -- Zazzle gives you loads of options, and it's a pretty sweet site).

Initially, she was just going to keep the design private, but I exhorted her to spread it to the masses (with a little help from me). She gets some green back from Zazzle for every shirt purchased, and if you follow this link I'll also get some money via an associates account. Everything that we make (I'm sure it will be a pittance) will be donated to the Obama campaign.

Consider this an open thread till late October... (or until I feel like getting bloggy again)

 
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The Truth About Barack Obama

After reading this from Steve Benen over at Crooks & Liars, which found that 11 percent of respondents in a poll still think Barack Obama is a Muslim (which, it should be said, is nothing to be ashamed of, but it's wrong), I was a little disheartened that our Idiocracy is still misundereducated (Benen also points to a Ben Smith post over at Politico that notes this is actually a smaller percentage than the 18 percent who believe that the earth revolves around the sun). Sigh.

But there's a new video over at YouTube that breaks down the falsehoods that have been swirling around Senator Obama into very easily digestible, lowest common denominator rebuttals (with a few sassy anti-Clinstone jibes to boot) that should be understood by most viewers (I don't have much hope for the Earth Revolvers):

 
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Amen, Brother Leonard

Commenting on news that former Senator Phil Gramm has continued working as a lobbyist for the Swiss bank UBS up until mid-April while at the same time advising John McCain on economic matters, Andrew Leonard at Salon's How the World Works blog writes:

Maybe I've just been paying attention to this particular thread of the American narrative of politics and the economy for too long, but it still strikes me as shocking that the same man who spearheaded legislation deregulating energy futures trading (which facilitated Enron's misdeeds), and the repeal of e Glass-Steagal's separation of investment and commercial banking, is a major influence on John McCain's economic agenda, and has simultaneously been working for the banking industry to prevent Congress from passing legislation that would give ordinary Americans a leg up in dealing with the mess that Wall Street has caused.

In a campaign where we have been endlessly obsessed by such trivia as what John Hagee or Jeremiah Wright might think about Jews or AIDS when neither man is going to have any influence at all on how McCain or Obama would govern, Phil Gramm's opposition to allowing judges to rewrite mortgage terms for Americans facing foreclosure seems far more relevant to the real lives of Americans than just about anything else the candidates are saying or doing. I don't care whether Obama's grand-uncle really helped to liberate Buchenwald instead of Auschwitz or whether Hillary Clinton's reference to Bobby Kennedy's assassination was pure evil or just dumb. But I do care about evidence that demolishes the fantasy that John McCain is some kind of maverick independent who might represent a change in direction from the economic policies pursued by Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes. In an election year where everyone is putting "the economy" at the top of the priority list, the employment priorities of McCain's longtime buddy and top advisor could hardly be more relevant.

 
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More of Hillary's Base

From Kentucky, via Al Jazeera:



There's been a fantasy out in the Pacific Northwest of Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia seceding from their respective unions and creating a nation called Cascadia. I'm wondering if creating a nation of Appalachia and appointing Hillary as its leader might not be such a bad idea -- she'd be able to spend all her time shooting shotguns, downing shots whiskey, and pacifying the folks who really care for her.

 
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Hillary's Base

(hat tip to John Cole at Balloon Juice)

But it doesn't matter any more. Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee for all intents and purposes.

 
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