Change at last and damn expensive

Herbert Hoover must have been a fairly intelligent man from the accounts of his early career and only entered history as a buffoon because the commonplaces and clichés of his era suddenly became absurd. George W. Bush, on the other hand, started out as a buffoon and is now morphing into a cariacature of a satire of a bad joke.

Only an utterly tone-deaf and, I repeat, autistic humanoid could possibly have emitted the phrase ‘just fine’ in referring to the U.S. economy on October 6, 2008, even as a long-term prediction. But W did so and not only will feel no regret, an emotion starkly absent from his composition, but will sleep soundly tonight and awake at cock’s crow refreshed.

With the Republican Party trapped inside its own turgid fantasy world, we should have anticipated the unveiling of a prankster like Palin, who any day now will appear in a harlequin hat with a dozen hanging bells to be plinked in tune as she expresses each of her dozen concepts. Five-year-olds will soon be able to squawk along with her memorized talking points.

However, 800-point drops in the Dow Jones can be bracing even for those weaned on Saint Ronald and Morning in America. Feels more like late afternoon just now, and the polls are beginning to tell some remarkable tales. A friend sent me a tidy list: Washington Post/ABC: Obama by six in Ohio, 51 to 45. [From The Washington Post]:

Wall Street Journal/NBC: Obama by six nationally, 49-43. Ditto CNN: Obama 53, McCain 45, which adds, “Only 24% of those polled approve of President Bush’s job performance, an all-time low for a CNN survey.”

PPP: North Carolina, Obama by 50-44.

Suffolk: Obama by 51-39 in Virginia, compared to a dead heat 10 days ago.

New Hampshire (SurveyUSA): Obama by 53-40.

And for dessert the imminent humiliation of the horrible, loathesome, repugnant and not nice Sen. Saxby Shameless—er, Chambliss of Georgia, now barely ahead of his challenger, 46-44. Chambliss, a true Rovian disciple who should be placed in stocks and assaulted with putrid vegetables, was the creep who bin Laden-baited triple amputee Max Cleland.

About time. It only took collapse.