Surgical Strikes

Haven’t been able to compose a fully formed blog post in a few days, so here are a few half-baked ones:

• The two hallmarks of Dan 7.0 are 1) more sweater vests, and 2) tighter trousers. Not like 1980s glam metal tight, but not as baggy as I’ve been rockin’ for a long time. It also meant a slimmer-fitting pea coat for winter, which is nice but won’t fit accomodate both gloves in the pocket. So I now clip them together and let one dangle. Will this mean I don’t lose my gloves or that I just finally lose both instead of just the one? Stay tuned!
• Slow work day? Well, I just spent 10 minutes watching of people puking on Youtube. It started out innocently after a blog entry on Brent Scowcroft led me to search for footage of George HW Bush puking on the Japanese prime minister. Soon enough, I got here.
• A guy working at my local independent bookstore was wearing a shirt that said “Read Joyce.” He recommended I start with The Dubliners, and when I confessed I had Ulysses on my shelf but was intimidated by it, he said, “It’s just a book, it’s not going to hurt you.” I hope my retelling doesn’t make that sound snarky because it was actually delivered in a kind and reassuring way. So just a reminder this holiday season to buy local. And if you’re looking for books in Cambridge, shop at Porter Square Books.
• As for my non-Joyce reading, I got through 150 pages of Inifnite Jest last summer and the first four essays in Consider the Lobster this week and now, at the risk of speaking ill of the dead, I can safely say I’m good on David Foster Wallace. He was clearly incredibly smart and talented. I just find his stylistic choices  insufferable; the footnote thing reminds me too much of the guy I knew in LA whose “thing” it was to wear mismatched socks all the time.
• That said, his death is still very sad. DFW, not the sock guy. Sock guy’s doing fine.
• Got a mysterious email last night asking me to audition for a role on a popular Disney channel show. Turns out the email was meant for someone else. But for one brief moment, I really thought I was on the verge of becoming the next Mr. Belding. Ten years ago, maybe I could have been Screech…

A month or two ago, we had an extra squash and I decided to invent a soup. By some odd miracle, it turned out pretty delicious. I’m not usually one for sharing recipes on this blog — not because I feel they’re proprietary, just boring. But this month’s Simple Nourishtment newsletter contained a recipe that looked slightly similar to mine, and it inspired me to share this with the world. But since I find recipe posts not always the most scintillating, I’m going to try to jazz it up with an in-your-face attitude and jokes. I’m typing this out with no confidence that I can actually deliver squash jokes. But I guess we’ll find out in a minute.

1. Cut a squash in half, scoop out the seeds and set aside to accidentally burn while toasting later. Put the two pieces of squash in a pyrex dish and roast at 450 for, like, an hour or so. I did acorn squash face up and butternut squash face down. Basically cook it until it’s soft when you stab it with a fork. Just cook the shit out of it. If you can find squash without shit to be cooked out, that might save you some time. (See? Squash jokes are hard.)
2. Cut up a couple carrots, dice some ginger, add enough vegetable stock to cover, preferably homemade. I make my stock by saving vegetable scraps — carrot peels, onion skins, lettuce nubs, broccoli pantsuits, etc — and boiling with a peppercorn or two until the water seems brothy. It’s much better than store-bought, and costs you nothing but time. Simmer the carrots and ginger until everything’s squishy. Does using the word “squishy” in a recipe count as a joke? What if I use “squashy” later?
3. Scoop out the squash and put in food processor or blender. Add the carrots, ginger, and stock, blend until smooth. If it’s too thick, add more stock. If you’re too thick, try night classes. Dear god, is this what Henny Yougman’s cooking blog would look like?
4. Return everything to the pot, heat until it seems hot enough for soup. If it gets too thin, boil it down. If it gets too thick, add more stock. If it gets too squashy, order a pizza. (Take my soup — please!) Add salt, pepper, and a dab of butter. Season until it tastes awesome.
5. Eat it up.
6. Crap it out.
7. The end

Okay, I’m pretty sure I’m ready for the Food Network.

• A piece explaining why the four Harvard freshman douches at the Pats-Jets game were so douchey, and why it reminded me my much I have trust-funders eager to “drop the H-bomb.” Abandoned because most Harvard kids are actually harmless and because I didn’t want to be too much of a jerk.
• Revisiting a bad experience with a blogger who was total biatch after Kerry lost, patting myself on the back for not rubbing her nose in it this year, then rubbing her nose in it. Abandoned because I don’t like starting fights with bloggers, even with realy bad bloggers who also happen to be mouth-breathing look-at-me! types. And also because of the hypocrisy of the false high road. (NB: hypocrisy of false high road still achieved!)
• A note that Antonin Scalia on 60 Minutes reminded me of Wallace Shawn. Abandoned because I couldn’t find a Princess Bride photo that looked enough like Scalia to prove my point.
• A Youtube of a very wonderful childhood PSA that Meaghan discovered was actually Boston-specific. Abandoned because I had designs on starting a Boston-themed group blog and thought this would be a perfect post. But despite purchasing a domain name (and nearly $20 worth of web hosting!) I abandoned the blog idea, or at least indefinitely delayed it. I’ll post the YouTube here soon.
• A piece wondering what it meant that people suddenly felt comfortable talking to me about “ebonics” and “Chinamen.” Abandoned because I couldn’t wrangle a thesis. And because we elected Obama president and therefore ended racism. (Right?)
• A long-standing half-written post that I feel like one day I can clean up and submit to McSweeney’s, although the longer it sits there, the more certain I become it won’t be accepted if and I ever touch it. Which I don’t.

In other news, I’m now semi-obsessed with the nerdy and hilarious xkcd, as my friends are learning via email each time I come across one that applies to them. Highly recommended — and be sure to hover your cursor over it for a bonus popup message!

Hello, ladies, Dan Tobin here. How are you? Good, I hope. Well, I’m writing to ask you a small favor. As we progress through fall and into winter, you’ll no doubt be striving to insulate yourself from the cold. Jacket, gloves, scarf, hats. All very nice, all very useful. But when you get inside where it’s toasty warm, I have one request:

Keep the scarf on.

It’s a small request, but an important one. And everybody wins: you stay toasty and I get to see you wearing a scarf. With the shortened daylight hours and the cold weather sapping our spirits, seeings the pretty ladies of Boston wearing scarves indoors brings a ray of light to an otherwise dreary winter. So do me this favor and grant the world a simple act of maximum cuteness. In return, I will give you a nice smile and possibly a pie.

Yours truly,
Dan Tobin

Reading my main man Matt’s post on Obama’s victory as a triumph of marketing, I realized this was as good a time as any to wax poetic about an oddly overlooked decision the campaign made early on that I found pretty brilliant:

Right from the get-go, this became the symbol of Obama’s campaign. Every campaign is eventually defined by a bumper sticker or graphical representation of some sort. But Obama chose a color scheme and a font, right from the early days of the primary, and he ran with it. It became The Obama Font and The Obama Symbol, which was splashed on everything. It was a triumph of branding, and after a while, just showing the symbol with no words was enough to say “Barack Obama for President, 2008.” They smartly reocgnized the power of good iconogrpahy.

More than that, the choice took the approach that a political candidate, like everything else in 2008, is a product. Cynical, but true. And people like when their products have really cool packaging. Can you think of any other product that uses a simple, elegant, understated design model, who understand that slick packaging can get people increasingly excited about the product?

Welcome to the Barackintosh presidency. Not only does he use a Mac… he is a Mac.

Don’t wear big dark-framed glasses. It makes you look like you have a fake nose that’s attached to the glasses. And that’s okay if you want to look like MC Hammer on crack. But if you don’t use a work like looptid, try different glasses.

As we settle into the prelude to the actual Obama administration, I’ve been slowly working through the mind-blowingly awesome Newsweek “How He Did It” issue. If you’re a lowgrade political junkie or just an Obama fan, it’s really a must-read. I’m enjoying the print version (pretty pictures!) but it’s also online.

And to all the naysayers who instantly started doubting that Obama can heal the world, well of course he’s not going to fix everything. But he’s coming from the right place, and a lot of good is going to get done. Like his early signal that’s he’s going to shut down Guantanamo, hopefully allowing us to begin to turn the page on probably the worst offense of the last eight years (if you include torture as a subset of Gitmo, which I sadly do). Would John McCain have made this call when his election was not even a week old? Considering he strongly considered Mr. Double Guantanamo as his running mate?

Anyway, as you can see I’m having trouble settling back into the non-political posts. But I’m trying. We have Veteran’s Day of at work, so I gave myself a four-day weekend and spent yesterday being a real man: dishes, laundry, trip to Bed Bath & Beyond, and preparation of bouef bourgignon for my bread-winning spouse. It all turned out well, even if the garlic mashed potatoes were a minor disaster (not enough garlic, way too much cream). I just read that Julie & Julia book and now I want to up my cooking game, probably on the French side of things. Also, we participate in a meat CSA and we’ve let things stockpile, so our freezer now contains upwards of 20 lbs. of meat, much of it ground beef. So yesterday I bought a meatloaf pan, which means if anyone has a good recipe, I’ll play housewife and snatch that up. I feel like my mom’s recipe featured large spikes that connected with wires to the inside of the microwave and then poked into the meatloaf at key points. This is from when microwaves were supposed to replace ovens and you were advised to cook the Thanksgiving turkey in there.

They’re Gap socks, striped, and they’re a really good thickness. Not too thin, not too thick, good elastic. And you can’t find them any more. All the Gap socks they have now are too thin and too elasticky. I even went online to try to find last year’s model and failed. It’s rough.

Why socks? Well, I thought it would be nice is I could write one blog entry this week without making myself cry. (So far so good.) I just hadn’t fully realized how deeply invested I was in this election on a pure emotional level, and I certainly didn’t understand how deep the wounds of the Bush administration had been to me personally. And then to come out with a real sense of optimism… it’s like when the Red Sox won in 2004, except that it actually matters. The world will actually be affected, and the White Sox won’t come along and beat us next year.

So, after an election season that went on and on and on, I’m finally ready to put it to bed. I know I didn’t turn this blog into all politics all the time (until the last few weeks, that is). But I’m ready to go back interspersing the serious alongside the silly in what has become the Surgical Stikes model. With the election and broken blog distracting me, I forgot that Halloween was the five-year anniversary of this space. 3926 posts (and 8 more since). And my little shut-down really made me realize how tied to this thing I am. Just like a high school girlfriend, you can take it for granted, but as soon as the blog dumps you and threatens to go out with the captain of the basketball team, you suddenly realize how much she means to you and how you can’t live without her.

Anyway, I’m back. I have many things to say over the coming weeks/months/years; about generational changes in hip hop, about a guy in my office I irrationally hate because of his shoes, about stuff I like and dislike. More of the Red Sox posts will end up at Bugs and Cranks, and more of the politics will end up at The Reaction, although there’ll be plenty of cross-posting here, too. So it’s a new day for America, but for Surgical Strikes it’s pretty much the same day it’s been since I stopped writing 12 posts a day. Did I just blogg all over my shirt? I reckon I did.

From: Prexy43 [Bush]
To: LiberalJerkwad [Tobin]
Subject: what now? oh, that what now

First Tony Romo goes down, now this. Motherfucker.

Well, I gotta say, I was overwhelmed Tuesday. I never thought I’d live to see the day, and I’m still in shock — a Democrap won the popular vote, the Electoral College, a majority of votes, AND the White House? And he didn’t even need the Supreme Court or Ross Perot! If Mr. Cheney was capable of emotion, he’d be inconsolable. Me, I’m just bummin’. I mean, I’m starting to take this shit personally.

It’s not enough you had to hand the country to the Democraps, you had to go and do it landslide-style, with an expanding Congressional majority and states that are usually reliable for our team. Yeah, I’m looking at you, Indiana. Peyton Manning can go eat a dick as far as I’m concerned. And Virginia, deflowered and defiled by the Dems? Plus, you did it with a guy who was a million percent different from me in every way except that we both eat food and crap out crap. How can I not take that as a slap in my gorgeous face?

You know, I really, really believed in 2004 that I represented the beliefs of a majority of the United States. Sure, the elections were close, but I started to think more people agreed with my views than not. Two years later, I got worried, and now I don’t what to think. Was it all a lie? Did I only win in 2004 because I scared people and Kerry was a big ol’ dud? Did I only win in 2000 because my bro ran Florida and Mr. Rove tricked people into thinking I was a “compassionate conservative”? Were the last eight years more about shrewd and shameless campaign tactics than a widely popular ideology?

That’s for nerds to figure out. What we can work on now is what happens between you and me.

I started writing you a week after the 2004 election. It was a way for you to deal with your anger, your sadness, your ovehelming feeling that you’d misjudged your country and that the America you thought you lived in was a lie. Your secret hopes that we’d come around and fulfill our promise as a nation started to feel like a sad fantasy, and it was devastating to feel that. When I won, everything you’d feared about this country seemed like it had come true, and there was no way out.

So I started writing you emails to help you work through that, to channel your anger and sadness, to share it with others who felt just as betrayed, and who felt like maybe a little gallows humor would make it all hurt a little bit less, especially if you knew there were others who felt the same way.

Well, now we’ve got Prexy-elect Obama. I know you don’t think it’s magically all better just because the candidate you fell for 15 months ago actually won the damn thing. I know you feel hopeful and think irony is dead and suddenly emails from the Prexy don’t feel like the right medicine any more.

But sooner or later, you’ll need this space. Because you can kill all the monsters in the room, but as soon as come back, we’ll be regrouped and ready to steal your heart containers ago. It won’t be me any more, but like Ice-T said, there’ll be another one after me — a hustler. I don’t know if it’ll be Palin or Romney or whoever emerges from this clusterfuck as the next GOP standard-bearer. But in the end, you’ll still want this outlet, even if you no longer viscerally need it the same way you used to.

So you go soak it up for a while. Snark and sarcasm is not where you’re at right now, and if you can ride the positivity train for a while, even I can sign off on that. But whenever you’re ready to start dishing the satire, throwing the razor blades, ridiculing the ridiculousness, I’ll be right here waiting. Until then, god bless America. You pussy.

-W

I still haven’t had a chance to read many post-election reactions, but I read enough last night to know that Barack Obama’s historic win will be amply covered and contextualized by writers much better than me. In the heat of the moment I promised 1000 reasons for exultant joy, but for now I’ll just offer two, one about race, and one about America.

1.

In the runup to the election, I was listening to lot of Curtis Mayfield because I wanted socially aware black music with a strain of positivity. In the epic “(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below We’re All Going To Go,” he starts listing problems destroying the black community, then sarcastically points out that “Nixon says don’t worry.” Something about his tone really drove home for me how distanced the black community of the early ’70s felt from the presidency. After all, it was Nixon who relied on the “southern strategy” of exploiting white racism to win elections. Of course they felt disconnected.

Last night, as I watched a tearful Jesse Jackson and several black commentators trying to hold it together, I thought about people others they wished could have lived to see this day. For me, it’s Curtis (and Toot). Waiting for the T this morning, I tried listening to the outrageous optimism of “Move On Up” and it was all I could do not to start crying:

Just move on up, and keep on wishing,
Remember your dreams are your only schemes, so keep on pushing

There’s so much to be said about race and this moment, but for now I’ll just say this: keep on pushing.

2.

Saturday and Sunday we made calls for Obama, and there were plenty of people, but Tuesday was more striking. We heard a lot about Obama’s “ground game,” but seeing a packed room firsthand made me realize what was really happening. In this one call-center in Massachusetts, we had over 400 people choosing to skip a day of work to help elect Barack Obama. I dialed 250 numbers and I can’t say for sure that I produced a single vote, but something much bigger happened.

Every person in that room, just like in rooms across the country, on canvassing shifts, and at home logged on to the website — by participating in the process, we felt we had a stake in the campaign. And with a victory, we may just start to can feel like we have a stake in our government, too.Even if you didn’t get involved, there’s no such thing as a fair-weather supporter of the United States: you’re welcome to come aboard any time.

And that’s what our democracy was supposed to be: a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Today, for the first time in my life, it really feels that way, and I am hopeful for a brighter tomorrow and a better world.

Exultant joy for a thousand reasons… I’ll tell you all about some of them tomorrow. Tonight, we just bask.

I know a lot of people feel Election Day is a time when we should put aside politics and encourage everyone to vote no matter who for. Well, funk dat. Elections are ALL ABOUT politics, and one the one day it really matters, I ain’t putting no sock in it. I side with South Park: you should definitely vote, but only if you’re voting for my candidate. If you’re a McCain supporter, you know what, voting is hard, and when has one vote ever made a difference? Go to work, read about football, let someone else worry about it.

But if you want to turn the page on the last eight years, if you want to bring true change to America, if you want to take back your democracy and send a message to the world that America is a great nation… basically, if you want to see Barack Obama in the White House the way I do, then get out there and VOTE! Let’s make Barack Obama the next President of the United States.

Only prediction I’ll make here: Turnout is 40% higher than the 2004 total.

PS: My secret weapon is here. When the Red Sox and Celtics were on the verge of championships the last two years, we watched the deciding game with Jason and they won both times. We were separated for the 2008 Super Bowl and the result, while happy for him, was sad for us. So tonight we’ll be watching returns at Jason’s with fingers crossed; somewhere, Barack Obama just smiled a little

In Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, the Red Sox jumped out to an early lead against the Yankees, who’d thoroughly dominated the Sox for what seemed like eternity. In the 7th inning, we had a monstrous 8-1 lead, and yet not a soul in Red Sox Nation was comfortable. “They’re still the Red Sox,” we collectively thought. “They’re going to find a way to screw this up.” We thought back to our eighth inning lead in 2003 and how the Yankees came back to crush us like always.

Now Obama has a huge lead in the polls and his supporters are thinking, “He’s still a Democrat. He’s going to find a way to screw this up.” We even point to the optimism heading into 2004 and how the GOP crushed us like always. Of course, we now forget that John Kerry never had an 8-1 lead. It was more like we were heading into the 9th trailing 5-4, but instead of Mariano Rivera coming out, for some reason it was Paul Quantrill. “Oh, we can get to this guy,” we all thought. “We’ll totally win!” And then a few weak ground-outs later, Bush was reelected.

But we’re now staring at a 10-3 lead in the ninth and McCain’s staring hard at his bench, wondering if he should have pulled the trigger on Tim Pawlenty at the trading deadline. We could still lose this thing, no doubt, and there will be no counting of chickens. This is time to knuckle under, but not to panic. In 2004, Curt Schilling went directly from the Rolling Rally to Ohio to stump for Bush; the state went red and I’ve never forgiven him. This weekend the big Schill was stumping for McCain in New Hampshire, comparing McCain’s situation to being down 0-3 against the Yankees in 2004. As I see it, that’s the right series, but the wrong lesson.

* * *

I’ve blogged about what I’m doing for the campaign not to boast or try to make you feel badly, but hopefully to encourage anyone interested in the outcome of this election to, as James Brown once said, Get up, get into it, get involved. Until this weekend I’d given money, worn the button and T-shirt, and composed a lot of blog posts. I finally feel like I’m doing something, and I wish I’d done more. If you want your candidate to win this thing as badly as I want mine to, go make some Get Out The Vote calls from a call-center, from home, or even from work. The signs posted at our call center yesterday said, “Elections are won in the last 72 hours.” Polls don’t matter if your people don’t get out to vote. So tomorrow, vote. But if you really care, do what Meaghan and I are doing: take the day off from work, head to your local call center, and make a difference. Your children’s children will thank you.

Today I made 159 phone calls to Indiana voters. Only one called me back.

Yesterday we phone banked in the neighborhood, and it was a medium-sized operation but they provided phones for us to call New Hampshire. Today we went downtown to the Last Call for Change Headquarters where we called Indiana using our cell-phones. It was a much bigger operation and the Indiana voters were definitely a bit crustier. I was hung up on a few times, and the five McCain supporters I reached stayed on the line for a “What do you think of that?” moment. Each time, I merely said “Thanks for your time” and moved onto the next caller. This is Get Out The Vote. You don’t make your case, you don’t spend a lot of time on individual callers. I didn’t even ask who people were voting for, merely whether they were voting and if they knew where to go. If you enable a McCain/Nader/Barr voter, so be it. All in the name of good participatory democracy.

I can understand anyone being annoyed at a phone call from a stranger, especially if they live in a swing state. But one caller went above and beyond, actually checking her Caller ID (or using *69) to call me back on my cell-phone, leaving the following voicemail:

Of course, calling me back took a good amount of effort. I wonder if she’s given that kind of effort to campaigning for her chosen candidate? If not, maybe she should rethink which is a better use of her time, encouraging potential McCain voters to get out the vote or venting at someone obviously invested enough in Obama to skip an afternoon of football viewing.

I should also point out that she used the word “Obama” in her call two more times than I used the word “McCain” in my 159. In fairness, most of those calls were wrong numbers and error messages. But my script had nothing anti-McCain, or even pro-Obama, at least any more so than a button that says “Vote Obama!” The message I left on her voicemail began with “I hope you’ll be voting for Barack Tuesday” and ended with “Thanks for your support of Barack Obama” and in between provided details on where she’d be voting. Could be annoying, but it would be hard to say this was inflammatory or insulting stuff. Still, she felt the need to call back to say my preferred candidate is friends with terrorists.

I was trying to figureout what I’d do if I got a McCain GOTV the call, and probably I’d just say, “Thanks but no thanks.” Maybe if I was being really devious, I’d ask a lot of questions and waste the caller’s time so they wouldn’t use that time calling other potential McCainiacs. I could only hope to get this guy calling. But really, how pissed off and upset do you have to be to call back a phone banker? I don’t usually get a first-hand window into right-wing id, and I can’t say I’m a better person for hearing it today. But still, interesting.

Looks like we’re just where we were in 2000 and 2004, where no matter who wins, the people who voted for the losing side are going to be absolutely DEVASTATED. Bush never actually reached out to his opponents’ supporters, and things only got increasingly acrimonious. If it’s Obama left standing, I have a lot of hope he’ll at least make a good faith effort at healing. If it’s McCain… I’m less hopeful. But I’m also of the opinion that if we get to point of having to cross that bridge, there’ll be much, much bigger fish to fry. And I’m also hopeful we won’t ever get near that bridge.

If you haven’t seen the very amusing site YesWeCarve.com, it’s about to become as outdated as Christmas carols in January. And it’s a fun site to scroll through — nothing but photos from around the country of jack-o-lanterns carved into Obama and Obama-related patterns. There were a wide range of stencils available, and even though I hadn’t carved a pumpkin in four years, and even though I’d never carved one using a stencil, I chose a very ambitious pattern. Here’s an example of what the stencil I chose is supposed to look like:

Pretty snazzy, right? I told you, it’s a very amusing site. It’s the kind of site that makes you get delusions of grandeur, that makes you think, “Well, gee, I can do this!” Even if you have limited artistic skills, and even more limited pumpkin carving abilities. I had planned to send the photos to YesWeCarve. I had planned to make the image my facebook profile photo. I had big plans for that pumpkin. Unfortunately, the result looked more like Obama crossed with Nelson Mandela doing an Elvis sneer, sporting a cleft palate, squinting at the sun, and possibly dressed as a priest:

Guess I’ll focus my efforts into phone-banking instead. After a shift yesterday of calling New Hampshire voters at the local Electrical Workers union headquarters, the plan was to drive to New Hampshire today to knock on doors. But after solicitations in my inbox touted the chance to call battleground states that may be more in play, we’ve decided to spend the afternoon calling Ohio and North Carolina from the Last Chance for Change HQ in downtown Boston.

One of yesterday’s calls was to a woman named Fatima, and all I could think about was footage of McCain and Palin rallies where people in the crowd showed their support by shouting nasty things about Arabs and Muslims. I also thought about the the whispering campaigns about Obama being a secret Muslim, and the insinuation that this would be an affront to our American way of life. We all knew it would be like this, but it’s still amazing to see that it actually is like this. Starting Wednesday, I hope we can start to heal the wounds of this nasty, nasty campaign, not to mention the wounds of the last eight years. Fatima told me she’ll be voting for Obama Tuesday and thanked me for my call. Yes we can.

From: Prexy43 [Bush]
To: LiberalJerkwad [Tobin]
Subject: advice

Well, we’re into the closing hours of the campaign. In just a few days, someone else will have the word prexy in their title. You saw my kindergarten report card when you came for dinner and Ma & Pa’s — I don’t share well with others. So it’s my last weekend before we have prexy and prexy-elect. I’m gonna tear it up in a sober, evangelical Christian, Texas-by-way-of-a-couple-Ivies kinda way!

But before I start shotgunning Coors Cutters, lemme give you some advice — I mean, who’s won more presidencies in the last 15 years then Capital W? I’m batting 1000 in my two career at-bats. Even Nixon was only batted .667. So I’ve given McBain my advice, and I told Obama where he could stick it, but what about you, my email buddy of the last four years? What about your millions of peeps across the country who are wondering, “What does the prexy want me to do?” Well I’ve been to 538, I can smell what Barack is cookin’. You guys are going to win, I get it, it’s a done deal. So my advice to you is simple:

Do nothing. Kick back and relax and let the process play out.

I mean it, don’t get your hands dirty. Your guy’s going to win, just let him. Don’t get in the way, interfere with potential voters and bother them with reminders to vote, final pleas, detailed explanations about the stakes in this election, etc. Seriously, now is the time to sit back and watch the democracy run wild. Do you hate democracy? Of course you don’t. And what is more America than staying home and doing nothing and assuming someone else will do the heavy lifting for you?

Listen, the Red Sox had a big lead against the Yankees in 8th inning of the 2004 ALCS, and what happened? They went on to win! Well, Barack Obama is the Red Sox against the Yankees in the eighth inning of a Game 7. He has a lead in the eighth inning. What could possibly go wrong?

It’s going to be such a rout, frankly, that I think it would be insulting to keep working. Don’t give money, don’t make phone calls, don’t knock on doors, don’t tell your friends to vote. In fact, you don’t even need to vote. When has a single voter ever mattered? I’ll sure tell you when it won’t: Tuesday.

So I’m begging you, I’m pleading with you: SIT ON YOUR LEAD. DON’T DO ANYTHING. I MEAN IT.

Please?

-W

The Obama campaign recently informed me that the last four days before the election are the MOST CRUCIAL for composing satirical blog posts. “We need ordinary Americans like you to help skewer the hypocrisy and borderline racism of the McCain 2008 campaign,” it reads. “While phone banking and knocking on doors does accomplish something, this election will be won or lost depending on how many snarky blog entries you can compose before November 4.”

That’s why it was so upsetting to discover my blog had been spam-bombed and shut down by my hosting provider. This was clearly the work of McCain operatives, terrified that the seven readers of my Bush emails would in turn tell three friends (not apiece; three total) who in turn would tell one friend, for a total of 11 potential voters, almost certainly located in the battleground states of Massachusetts and California! I am public enemy #150,000,000.

So now to weed out the spam I’m going to have to be much more vigilant about comments, but it’s slow going. The only way I’ve found to add a captcha to WordPress is good, but it’s sort of like deciding to change the faucet on your bathroom sink and discovering that first you have to upgrade the plumbing for the entire house. And that’s the story of how Surgical Strikes became widgetized. For the six out of seven of you who don’t use NerdPress, don’t worry — your lives will not be much affected. I won’t censor, but I may have to moderate to weed out the mortgage consolidation and boner-pills comments.

Anyway, since the blogging may prove to be light over the next four days, I guess I’ll have to resort to phone banking and knocking on doors. I saw a lot of panicked hand-wringing over at The Stump and it made me wonder — if you’re that concerned about the outcome of the election, is blogging really the most effective use of your time to help Barack Obama? Why not, I don’t know, make calls to get out the vote in Ohio? I first starting sporting my Obama button even before Iowa, but when I talked to friends who’ve been canvassing in Virginia every weekend I realized just how little I’ve done. Wearing an Obama T-shirt and writing snarky blog entries has been a contribution, but a pretty darn weak one. (Although I have given plenty of cash, and was even among the first 100,000 donors.)

So we’re phone-banking tomorrow, driving to New Hampshire Sunday, and skipping work election day to make more phone calls. We’re making up for lost time, and taking a piece of that campaign. A lead in the polls? Nope, when the other guy’s lying on the ground, you kick him in the ribs and step on his neck. I’m ready to step on some neck. Are you?

With the election not yet foregone conclusion, one guaranteed winner will be the letter W. After eight years, the beleagured letter is eager to begin rebuilding its image.

In an exclusive 2005 interview, W explained to Surgical Strikes how the policies of George Bush had done astounding damage to its reputation. And that was before the economy tanked, Iraq worsened, the US attorney scandal broke, the extent of torture was fully revealed, Samuel Alito was confirmed, and Dick Cheney revealed that he is his own branch of government. The letter W’s reputation has not improved since that original piece.

“I’ll be honest, these last eight years have sucked,” said W’s publicist, the punctuation mark #. “Not only for America and the world, but for the letter W. January will be a fresh start — for America, and for the letter W.”

The letter has not been thrilled at being drafted for the McCain campaign alongside a vowel and consonant to form the POW acronym. But W feels this reference will dissipate regardless of who wins the election. And he’s optimistic that neither candidate would affect the alphabet like Bush did with W. “You could make the case that Obama could go by O,” said #, “but O is already well-defined by ‘O say can you see.’ And if any one person is going to lay claim, it would be Oprah, and she gives away cars and stuff.”

As W looks ahead, expect a big publicity push in websites emphasizing their www prefix. Williams College and the city of Wellfleet will receive substiantial subsidies, as will the nation of Wales. Also, director McG is in negotiations to remake the Sesame Street sketch about Bert being president of the National Association of W Lovers.

“Like the rest of the country, I’m just trying to put the last eight years behind me,” said W. “It may take a while to undo all the damage that was done, but we can do this. Like America, the letter W feels that change is indeed coming.”

The letter O could not be reached for comment.

From: Prexy43 [Bush]
To: LiberalJerkwad [Tobin]
Subject: fairness

Hey, if Obama wins, does that mean Condi’s next in line to be prez? Because once you go black…

Well, I’m starting to resign myself to the disaster. Even my old homie David Frum’s given up the ghost, telling my guys to go focus on the Senate and let Mac Attack sail off into the sunset of Mondales and Dukaki. I mean, technically he could still do this thing. All we’d need to do would be… um… okay, well, Mr. Rove’s out of ideas, too, and he’s smarter than Yoda. Should I be getting worried about some of the shit I didn’t coming back down the pike in an all-Democrap worls? I’d still get a pardon, right? He knows I was just kidding when I called him Osama, didn’t her? Come on — has anyone done more to help the Democratic party in 2008 than good ol’ Dubya? Pay it forward, sucka.

The thing that was really getting me down about Frum was the stuff that Fairness Doctrine thing. Basically, way back when, a bunch of commies set up this deal where TV and radio had to give equal time to both sides, D and R. Papa Reagan let that shit die, and things started getting awesomer and awesomer — we got Limbaugh and Hannity, Fox News and Michael Savage, and a conservative wave of unchecked awesomeness washed across the land.

End times may be upon us.

Obama’s been flapping his gums about “changing the tone in Washington” and “rising above partisan bickering,” and Frum thinks he’s gonna bring back the Fairness Doctrine. So now if you have an hour of right wingers yapping about how Obama’s a secret muslism double agent, you have to have another hour of chicks who don’t shave their legs pointing out that torture is against the law. That sucks! There’s good change and bad change, and this is definitely not the good kind.

So if you’re an undecided voter, just answer me this: do you really want to live in a world without constant right-wing ideology filling the airwaves? If a world with less Limbaughs scares you as much as it does me, vote McCain. Early and often!

-W