In A Certain Mood

With the Irish bookies already paying off on an Obama win, I'm going to go ahead, knock on doors, remind everyone I see to vote, and start thinking about what's going to happen after January.

John McCain's expression in the last debate looked a lot like the expression of a man who really, really wanted to be president, and instead, won't. The race will tighten and loosen, but the early voting trends, the electoral vote distribution, the devasting Powell endorsement, the Republicans having to fight hard for Indianna, North Carolina, North Dakota, Georgia, and West Virginia (while, sadly, it's looking like Alaska is the new West Virginia), Obama's extremely well-organized and funded ground game (Christ, the pressure!) in all of this, little or nothing adds up to a McCain victory.

Outright fraud and initimidation by Republican operatives like 2000 and 2004 is much less of a threat when the race isn't tight, and really, it isn't.

You can imagine a scenario where McCain-Palin will win: we're attacked by unemployed alien terrorists with space dirigibles, the Dow doubles and everyone goes into the upper tax bracket, Obama's been a clown killer all along, stuffing the corpses under the crawl space with their giant shoes poking up through the joists and giving him away at the last minute; maybe the clouds break and Sarah Palin is divinely crowned Queen of the kingdom of God, just like in her dreams.

You will see the Republicans double down on the racist coding, the strip-mall fascism, the fear-flinging desperation which would work if their theory that most Americans really are small-minded, greedy, lily-livered, pinch-faced tools is correct.

It isn't. With a lot of work in the next two weeks, we're going to win.

And here's what had me thinking that my first order of business is creating a list.

What list?, you ask, noting the recently headless fellow in the illustration above. What am I, some latte-sipping, Honda-driving Robbespierre? I will admit I'm harboring images: Rep. Henry Waxman, in a Grand Inquistor's robes and hat, with unlimited powers to accuse and incarcerate without Habeus, the kind the Bush Administration so ably demonstrated democracy needs to survive. Ox carts parked on K Street, readied with handcuffs. Peoples' trials presided over by an old crone in a bonnet, who raises a crooked finger to mark enemies of the Republic, her accusations wickedly accurate and cheerlessly sarcastic and delivered in a dry, cackling voice as Bill Kristol is dragged off to the Bastille, his pristine white wig with pink highlights falling into a pile of ox shit on the ground as the villagers pelt him with rotten heirloom tomatoes.

Almost regrettably, I have to remind you that Barack Obama's rather too bright to indulge us in the scene above, even metaphorically. The call for unity is genuine, and urgent. The business of the country is too serious for street denunciations or reeducation camps, no matter how much fun and righteous and deserved that would be.

But I'm still thinking of that list. It is, at least, a list of Plutocrats and tools who spent the last eight years injuring the people, looting the treasury, erasing our historical liberties and endangering the Republic. For the moment, I'll just say that number 3 on that list is Bill Kristol.