As only George Saunders can…

So, when Barack Obama says he will put some lipstick on my pig, I am, like, Are you calling me a pig? If so, thanks! Pigs are the most non-Elite of all barnyard animals. And also, if you put lipstick on my pig, do you know what the difference will be between that pig and a pit bull? I’ll tell you: a pit bull can easily kill a pig. And, as the pig dies, guess what the Hockey Mom is doing? Going to her car, putting on more lipstick, so that, upon returning, finding that pig dead, she once again looks identical to that pit bull, which, staying on mission, the two of them step over the dead pig, looking exactly like twins, except the pit bull is scratching his lower ass with one frantic leg, whereas the Hockey Mom is carrying an extra hockey stick in case Todd breaks his again. But both are going, like, Ha ha, where’s that dumb pig now? Dead, that’s who, and also: not a smidge of lipstick.

…

Now, let’s talk about slogans. Ours is: Country First. Think about it. When you think of what should come first, what does? Us ourselves? No. That would be selfish. Our personal families? Selfish. God? God is good, I love Him, but, as our slogan suggests, no, sorry, God, You are not First. No, you don’t, Lord! How about: the common good of all mankind! Is that First? Don’t make me laugh with your weak blinking! No! Mercy is not First and wisdom is not First and love is super but way near the back, and ditto with patience and discernment and compassion and all that happy crap, they are all back behind Country, in the back of my S.U.V., which— Here is an example! Say I am about to run over a nun or orphan, or an orphan who grew up to become a nun—which I admire that, that is cool, good bootstrapping there, Sister—but then God or whomever goes, “It is My will that you hit that orphaned nun, do not ask Me why, don’t you dare, and I say unto thee, if you do not hit that nun, via a skillful swerve, your Country is going to suffer, and don’t ask Me how, specifically, as I have not decided that yet!” Well, I am going to do my best to get that nun in one felt swope, because, at the Convention, at which my Vice-Presidential candidate kicked mucho butt, what did the signs there say? Did they say “Orphaned Nuns First” and then there is a picture of a sad little nun with a hobo pack?

My officemate and I cackled back and forth about this thing for most of the morning.

Paul Slansky’s rant over at Huffington Post (entitled “Why Does John McCain Hate America So Much?”) pretty eloquently sums up my feelings about the dangers of Sarah Palin:

The country has just endured the worst leadership in modern history, and no lessons have been learned. Despite what we have witnessed over the past eight years, tens of millions of people are willing to instantly repeat the same mistake and elect another sadistic ignoramus to national office because she’s able to hide these qualities behind the deceptive dazzle of charisma. This cannot be allowed to happen.

That John McCain is a shameless panderer who’ll do anything to get elected president has become increasingly obvious over the eight years he’s spent reversing every principled position he’d ever taken. That John McCain has renounced every shred of honor that ever attached to him is clear to anyone who bears witness to the parade of scummy lies he calls his advertising campaign — a campaign that no less a bottom feeder than Karl Rove said has gone “one step too far” by “attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent truth test.” That John McCain has cravenly sold his soul for a prize that he doesn’t even seem to want for any reason other than just to have it is undeniable to anyone who looks into his now-dead eyes. He’s a walking corpse.

Read the whole thing — it’s got great pacing and tone for a piece on a liberal blog (where the quality of writing is usually pretty pedestrian.)

Shizzam! More people need to get this into their domes: just because McCain talks a big game about tax cuts doesn’t mean that anyone but a very, very small group of people would actually get a tax cut under a McCain Presidency. This NYTimes Magazine article on the ins and outs of Obama’s economic plan drives home the fact that Obama really is “the tax cutter in this race.”

All told, Obama would not only cut taxes for most people more than McCain would. He would cut them more than Bill Clinton did and more than Hillary Clinton proposed doing. These tax cuts are really the essence of his market-oriented redistributionist philosophy (though he made it clear that he doesn’t like the word “redistributionist”). They are an attempt to address the middle-class squeeze by giving people a chunk of money to spend as they see fit.

Is this going to make everyone in America who doesn’t make $250k/year suddenly see the light? Probably not. Could it possibly change the minds of at least some Thomas Franks-style GOPers? Sure—but only if they find out about it. That means a big push from the Obama campaign.

Apparently, it’s hard to make fun of Barack Obama:

Why? The reason cited by most of those involved in the shows is that a fundamental factor is so far missing in Mr. Obama: There is no comedic “take” on him, nothing easy to turn to for an easy laugh, like allegations of Bill Clinton’s womanizing, or President Bush’s goofy bumbling or Al Gore’s robotic persona.

“The thing is, he’s not buffoonish in any way,” said Mike Barry, who started writing political jokes for Johnny Carson’s monologues in the waning days of the Johnson administration and has lambasted every presidential candidate since, most recently for Mr. Letterman. “He’s not a comical figure,” Mr. Barry said.

Jokes have been made about what Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton really thought about Mr. Obama during the primaries, and about the vulgar comments the Rev. Jesse Jackson made about him last week. But anything approaching a joke about Mr. Obama himself has fallen flat.

I gotta say, I take a certain amount of comfort in the idea of a Democratic candidate for President who it’s hard to mock…

w00t! w00t w00t! w00t!