enter joe the plumber

so, this was the "new mccain" in action, huh? the third, and, thank god, final debate between mccain and obama has come and gone, and as a result, my sanity has also come and gone. this debate saw the emergence of "joe the plumber." joe the plumber is an angry, bald, white, working man, a plumber from ohio. a couple of days ago, he angrily questioned obama on his tax policy. joe the plumber wondered why he would get a tax increase if he where to make more than 250,000 dollars a year. mccain latched on to this, and threw him and his comments into the debate. wow. here is a man getting angry over a theoretical. "if he were to make more than 250,000." what are the chances that a plumber is going to make more than 250,000 a year? it says so much about the ignorance of many working americans that they get angry that rich people may be taxed! these guys don't identify with their economic situation. rather, they identify with the economic situation they hope to be in someday. this is insanity "hey liberal, don't take the money i don't have!"

angry "working people" (ie, dumb white idiots) were quoted extensively in today's globe. someone stated "we have a choice between a black guy and a republican." man.

mccain mentioned ayers. he started by saying "i don't care about some washed up terrorist," and then proceeded to show how much he cared by talking about it. now that i think of it, doesn't that phrase "washed up terrorist" apply to mccain? mccain is surely walking on thin ayers when he has to invoke such gibberish.

again, no mention of the poor. you would think we didn't have any. but the phrase the middle class again made several appearances.

in a shocker, obama actually mentioned the fact that labor leaders are being murdered in columbia. sadly, he left out the fact that columbia receives the most u.s. military aid of any country in latin america. might there be some connection between these two bits of information? obama also said that he would like to "spread the wealth around." this drew the usual "class warfare" response from mccain. i know a good way to spread the wealth around; reduce the military budget. oh, that's right; obama wants to increase it. well, it was a good thought.

well, here we are. we have a population of white working people who don't want the rich white people they hope to become to be taxed to help out the working people they actually are. despite all of obama's efforts to emphasize his white mother from kansas and his small town upbringing, millions of americans still won't vote for the "black guy." but then, what should we expect from a country that was built to a large degree by mixed race slaves? the one drop rule is still very much with us, and has mixed with anti-arab bigotry to produce even more stupidity than can usually be found during the run up to an election. obama has not strongly answered the attacks, and sadly, may be winning because of his inaction. it is a testament to the ineptitude of the bush administration and mccain's own inadequacies that obama may well win.

manny ramirez is out. he did all he could, hitting 13 for 25 with 11 walks in eight playoff games. that means that he reached base 24 of the 36 times he came to bat. he hit 4 home runs in the 8 games with 10 rbi's. his 28 post season home runs are the most in the history of baseball. in 53 regular season games with la, he hit 396, with 17 home runs and 53 rbi's. along with bonds in 02 and ortiz in 04, it was the greatest postseason performance i have seen in 20 years of watching baseball. where will he end up next?

let the bidding begin. it brings to mind babe ruth's line about making more than the president...

"i had a better year than he did."

viva manny.