Cracked Window

I’m waiting for numbers. As in how my Portland precinct voted in the presidential election. Only county-by-county totals are available, though I know Barack Obama’s tally will be staggering. During the campaign, I saw only one John McCain sign in the neighborhood, and it was homemade. Obama signs, including this one in my yard, spread like dandelions. And nobody is taking them down.

News judgment is a fickle subjective beast. I spent most of my adult years exercising it, for better or worse.

Now I spend free moments judging others’ judgment, a cynical hobby for someone obsessed with national politics the last several years. During this time I’ve become an avid blog reader, while increasing my news consumption from the mainstream media.

I’m baffled why other media aren’t picking up a report posted today on the left-leaning TalkingPointsMemo.com. Maybe I haven’t looked hard enough, but I can’t find mention among major newspapers and television networks of arguably the presidential campaign’s most unusual human-interest story.

I’m glad the presidential debates have ended. Too much anxiety watching them, though they served their purpose in educating people about both candidates.

After the second debate, I read that eighty-six percent of Fox News viewers believed John McCain had won. That statistic may have been the second-most revealing element of the entire campaign. Objectively speaking, Barack Obama would have had to poop his pants and run awkwardly to the restroom to lose by that margin. So the number helps define the ideological zealotry of the Fox crowd and the blind irrationality it causes.

After closely following the mainstream media’s superficial coverage of the presidential campaign, I’m not surprised that much in Rolling Stone’s damning new portrayal of John McCain’s life and career isn’t widely known.

The piece feels like a hatchet job but only because the sheer volume of negative information is so shocking. I’ve read some of it elsewhere but mostly in bits. To see it aggregated in a single piece is jaw dropping.

Reading for me is breathing. A good story, fiction or non-fiction, is among life’s wonders. I like fiction because it opens another world and allows me to inhabit it. I like non-fiction because if well done, it illuminates truths otherwise beyond my reach.

All this brings me to Sarah Palin. The story she told at the GOP convention and reinforced by McCain and his staff is compelling in a superficial way. Buzz words such as hockey mom and reformer and maverick create a pleasing picture that people long to embrace.

John McCain’s inability to remember how many houses he owns is a gaffe that will prove more damaging than John Edwards getting a $400 haircut. Count on it. Especially because McCain, after consulting with his staff, said the number is at “at least four” when in fact it may be ten or more.

The Jed Report has produced a Google Earth tour of the properties. The Talking Points Memo details the ill-timed most recent purchase by Cindy McCain.

I don’t fault McCain for his wealth or lavish lifestyle, including hobnobbing with movie celebrities and flying around in his private jet. But not knowing how many houses he owns puts him way out of touch with the people he’s seeking to lead.

The McCain campaign’s response: the POW excuse, again, and another slam on Barack Obama for liking arugula. I like it too, so I must also be an elitist. I definitely know how many houses I have: one with a fat mortgage payment and home equity loan.

Now all we need is a photograph of McCain eating arugula, and he’ll be toast.

In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.

So proclaims John McCain. His short-term memory loss is, well, disturbing. Maybe Iraq doesn’t count. More disturbing are his efforts to interject himself into an international crisis for political gain. But then again, one of his top foreign policy advisers, Randy Scheunemann, was until recently a paid lobbyist for Georgia. Like McCain, he also was an energetic proponent of invading Iraq.

McCain and George Bush’s ties to Georgia run deep. And now comes speculation that Karl Rove may have a hand in what’s unfolding. Would anyone be surprised if it’s true?

I watch and listen to McCain closely. I’m baffled that someone who spent years as a prisoner of war, was tortured and confessed to crimes he didn’t commit, appears so eager to see our nation go to war — again.

At any moment I expect to see McCain rip away his face, a mask behind which lurks Dick Cheney.