The reluctant and heavy heart
The simple truth is that Obama should stay on vacation for another week. His poll numbers will shoot up dramatically. The thing is, McCain has absolutely nothing without demonizing Obama. He can't offer any huge brilliant ideas because he really doesn't have any. He's not generating any enthusiasm among his supporters. And yet the race is neck and neck because the usual readymade off-the-rack "My opponent (insert name of Democrat here) is a raging liberal who will raise your taxes and San Francisco and France."

It works remarkably well, particularly on the raw cookie dough that is the Uninformed Conservative Brain. Anybody who, at this point, thinks that Obama is a Muslim. There is no candy-coating it. They are idiots.

But everybody's sick to death of this thing already and we haven't even hit the conventions yet. It's all silliness at this point. And I could give a crap about the Religious Forum thing that happened over the weekend (Obama was never gonna come out of that thing on top, even if John McCain showed up blind drunk with his pants around his knees). And, apparently, there is some controversy over whether or not John McCain "cheated" at this event by not being in his sound-proof booth before coming out and playing Family Feud. I could give a shit.

I agree with this guy:

But the fact that McCain may have had a slight advantage isn't what caught my eye. What did was how sanctimonious his campaign got when asked about the situation by the press. Here's the New York Times:

Nicolle Wallace, a spokeswoman for Mr. McCain, said on Sunday night that Mr. McCain had not heard the broadcast of the event while in his motorcade and heard none of the questions.

"The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous," Ms. Wallace said.

That's pretty bold, isn't it? The assumption is that McCain is above question in this, and basically every, situation because he is a former prisoner of war.

Look, I respect John McCain's experience in Vietnam. Don't assume otherwise because I'm a DFH blogger. But this sort of thing happens all the time. McCain always insists that he doesn't like talking about his POW experience ("One of the things I've never tried to do is exploit my Vietnam service to my country because it would be totally inappropriate to do," he once said), and the mainstream media always buys it. But in actuality McCain has made his war service the centerpiece of many of his advertisements and videos, and he discusses it regularly.

For example, when Obama criticized McCain for not supporting the more generous version of the GI Bill that recently passed Congress, McCain responded, "I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did."

I had the same reaction, and I've been seeing more and more of this (most hilariously, last week when Sean Hannity used McCain's time in a POW camp as an excuse for him cheating on his crippled first wife, a good seven years after he'd returned from Vietnam). And I hope that somebody asks him about it, hopefully somewhere public where the cameras can show McCain completely lose it and turn into the terrible asshole he's rumored to be behind closed doors. Personally, it makes me sick and it's such a crybaby pussy move. "McCain's budget doesn't make any sense, and will actually spiral the US further into debt." "YOU DARE QUESTION A FORMER PRISONER OF WARR?????"

This won't get us anywhere, and it showed itself last week with McCain dancing solo on the whole Georgia/Russia thing. Threatening Russia (while we have no military whatsoever to do anything) is a really dumb idea, dumber than even Bush. It's a sad day when George W. Bush makes you look like an undiplomatic idiot.

Anyway, since Jon Stewart is our country's most respected newsman, I hope he can get on the case with this dumb Military Service thing. The Reluctant Warrior John McCain cannot stop talking about how he doesn't like talking about his POW camp experience, or working it into every other sentence, which it pains him to do, but he'll do it anyway, if only to tell you that he doesn't like to do it. Maybe Giuliani can teach him the subtleties of working in little nuggets like that ("Well, as the mayor during the 9/11 attacks, I can tell you that the shrimp scampi is excellent here.")