Got Hope?

Yes we have!

and

Yes we can!

Ready to Barack the debate?

My husband left for a dinner, a going away dinner for one of the doctors on their staff. Turns out that he did his studies in Tunisia because his family lived there when he was young, so even though he is French and has been practicing here, he cannot anymore. They tried everything short of getting the media involved, but no go. Before he left, I warned him that I'd be getting up in the middle of the night?

"It's on? I thought there wasn't going to be any debate." He said this in French, since he is French. He knows this from me, but he'd know even if I were not American. Everyone over here knows. They all support Barack, too.

"Yup," I said, "It's back on, and McCain's going to suffer."

"But, I thought --", he looked confused, but no more than he has about a million times since the beginning of this election cycle.

"He took a hit for proving his campaign is tactical and not ideological, and it's back on. Damage is done, though. Besides, Obama was going to do it anyway," I explained. "He pointed out quite presidentially that major shit happens when you're president, and you can't call a time out from all the other major stuff to handle a crisis. You've got to be able to do more than one thing at once, and delegate."

He nodded. Emboldened, I continued, "Obama was going to fly to Mississippi and do it anyway, questions from the audience presented by the --"

"Moderator?" he finished helpfully, nodding.

"Right."

So, are we ready to Barack the debate? Yes we are!

....


A candidate riddle

Q: Which presidential candidate has nuts in his cheeks?

A: McSquirrel... and his friend Sarah Nutkin.

I can't wait for my friend to get her OpEd published to explain that, but I give her full credit for a brilliant idea already! You'll see.

And to this day, if you meet Nutkin up a tree and ask him a riddle, he will throw sticks at you, and stamp his feet and scold, and shout--

"Cuck-cuck-cuck-cur-r-r-cuck-k!"

Poor Katie Couric, she'd better stay away from that tree!

....

Palin interview with CBS's Katie Couric

Ooh, maybe she should have stayed away from the press after all.

Day 1

Day 2

The snickers are growing, soon to become the uncontrollable laughter in church everyone tries to suppress. Guffaws for the gaffes. They're still trying to be polite over here, covering the story, anyway. In today's Le Monde, the headline announces:

Politique étrangère : Sarah Palin essaye de redorer son blason

It basically means that she's trying to get her shine back. Which pretty much means that she got a little tarnished. The photo of Palin in New York City yesterday they chose to run with the piece says it all.

Yah.

La gouverneure de l'Alaska est notamment revenue sur des propos qu'elle avait tenus lors d'une précédente interview, selon lesquels la proximité de son Etat avec la Russie contribuerait à renforcer ses compétences diplomatiques. Sa saillie du 11 septembre, sur ses voisins russes qui étaient si proches "qu'on pouvait même voir la terre russe de l'Alaska", est devenue une réplique comique, utilisée entre autres dans l'émission satirique Saturday Night Live. "C'est marrant qu'un tel commentaire ait été ainsi moqué par la presse", a réagi M^me Palin.

Um, they caught the irony that she thinks it's funny how the press is making fun of her reply that her being able to see Russia from Alaska gives her foreign policy and diplomatic experience. Yah, not much is getting past our friends outside the continental US, even if it sails over Palin's head. Yah, and that passport thing came up. You know, how her parents didn't give her a backpack and tell her to see the world, and how she has always worked, even two jobs, until she had her kids.

Well, this former single mother, who went to college (and graduated in Barack's class from Barnard-Columbia) and grad school on scholarship, and had to resort to government assistance (yah, it's true) when her son was a year old, still managed to take him to see friends in Europe, twice, before he was through kindergarten. Things have gotten better for us, but we've had our close calls, and, somehow, he's still going on trilingual and on his third passport at 17.

Yah, you know, Sarah, it's kind of, well, a question of priorities and not settling for the day to be clear enough to see across the strait to experience a foreign country. I hate to tell you, but there's just nothing like travel, even for this book worm. And, I've never looked into the local public library's policy on banning books.

So, back to Le Monde's observations.

Dans la première partie de cette interview, diffusée mercredi, M^me Palin n'avait pas été en mesure de répondre à certaines questions. Elle a notamment fait l'impasse sur une question portant sur les liens entre Rick Davis, directeur de campagne de McCain, et Freddie Mac. Elle n'a pas non plus réussi à donner un exemple des initiatives de régulation économique de John McCain.

Yah, and there, well they seem to have noticed that she wasn't able to answer some of Couric's questions.

And they weren't really the hard ones she might face if she gets to Washington.

Yah, it's not really very good. But, Kathleen Parker of The National Review Online has a suggestion in her article today, "Palin Problem: She’s out of her league".

She suggests that Palin bow out, citing Trig and the challenges of caring for a newborn, "Do it," she says, ''for your country."

Poor McSquirrel and Sarah Nutkin. Winter is about to set in early in the wood.
....