I'm Toby. Scott and Andrew Patrick were kind enough to allow me to contribute to Spitball Politics. I look forward to many fun posts about how we liberals and progressives are destroying America with our godless, tree-hugging ways.

Oh, and a shameless plug: Visit my personal blog too.

Keep it real.

Update: Sorry, Patrick, for the gaffe. Hopefully that will be my one and only for me on this blog!

For those of us who spent our formative years entrenched in the 80s. What would happen if politics were somehow mixed up with our old school college movies?

A 1980s TEEN SEX COMEDY BECOMES POLITICALLY UNCOMFORTABLE.

Click through for the whole thing.

Okay so the media won't let go entirely of Wright and I saw this and had to share.

We let soundbites manipulate us. Even those of us who think of ourselves as fair and balanced are not immune. So, take what you see on TV whether it be Fox, CNN, or PBS with a salt lick. In case you didn't know.

Ht to Kansas Bob: Soundbite Manipulation

This has absolutely nothing to do with politics, but I thought I'd throw it up here. If any of you are Twitter, feel free to add me (and most likely, Scott and Pat) to your Twitter feed.

My Twitter name is: tobypartridge

I'll leave it to my fellow posters as to whether or not they want to post theirs here....

From last week's This Modern World:

Click the comic for bigger.

NPR posted a story about Wikipedia graffiti on the entries for Clinton, Obama, and McCain. I mean it's things like this that make me hate the internet. I love that something like Wikipedia exists and I realize that this is the drawback to it, but honestly people, GROW UP!

There are robots that catch the blatant stuff, but human editors are policing the entries constantly. If you want to post opinion get a blog (we did). If you want to up facts fine, just do your research. Stuff like this:

Vozick also says that the discussion page associated with Obama is plagued by people asking why his profile doesn't include his Muslim faith. "The Muslim faith ... the discredited madrassa story: That goes in there all the time, I would say at least once a week ... 'Why doesn't it say that Barack Obama was a Muslim, is a Muslim, is going to be a Muslim, has Muslim family?'"

As far as the most offensive thing she's seen in two years of monitoring Obama's page, Vozick recalls a summer evening, late at night, when she visited the page. "There was a picture there of naked men, black men in a sauna. ... It wasn't there very long, but it was put back a couple of times."

Just gets my blood pressure up. And yes if it were McCain it would make me just as mad. In fact his entry isn't safe either.

"McCain doesn't attract as visceral a reaction," he says. "Hillary — even long before she ran for president — she's always been an incendiary figure. ... As the election goes on, [McCain's page] will get more and more active, because of reasons of pure partisanship."

Despite its positive tone (Honestly, who could disagree with it?), I can't get past the glaring typo...

Oops.

Olbermann on the whole "issue:"

A couple thoughts:
When did Clinton suddenly become an advocate for guns? If I didn't know any better, I would swear she was pandering to Pennsylvania voters. Never!

I can't say that I like Obama's latest lines about Clinton. Pointed and at times humorous, one could say that they are justified. But to me, it smacks of childish politics. I liked it better when he was above all that. This is the real cost of the prolonged Democratic race: it has nowhere to go but down.

But... I find it heartening that Clinton was jeered when she brought up the controversy again.

Since the topic of guns came up yesterday, I thought this commercial appropriate to post. MSNBC refused to run it, as it was too "controversial." Is it?

Not a lot of solid information there, but does that help, Crom?

is supporting Obama. He's not my favorite man in the world (far from it), but I can't help but agree with him here.

Well, that sounded good last year, but over the past two months, the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting. I guess the debate last week was the final straw. I've watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name "Farrakhan" out of nowhere, well that's when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the "F" word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama's pastor does -- AND the "church bulletin" once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not the church bulletin!

This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER!

Hillary Clinton appeared on Countdown last night and posited the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction (a la Eisenhower), though not in as many words. While I see what she's getting at, I don't think such a strategy would work this time around. The Soviets and the the Extremolamicerrorists (or whatever we're calling this nebulous enemy) are two radically different threats. While the Soviets could be counted on to do what was in their best interests -- i.e., not destroy themselves -- the current enemy cannot. We are currently dealing with a group who has no regard for their own lives and in fact, in many cases, pursue death with frightening zealotry. I shudder to think of what might happen if the US adopts a neo-MAD policy. What quicker way, in the minds of our enemies, to meet those 72 virgins and send the infidels to hell (or rather, the Islamic equivalent), than to start a nuclear war?

Tom Hanks is endorsing Barack Obama.

But this commercial put out by the RNC is still pretty painful to watch.

ht: Marc Ambinder

What ever you think of his politics, he was a smart man and a good commentator. He passed away this morning from a heart attack related to obesiity.

Olbermann really puts McCain's comment into context. Good stuff.

An interesting article on Keith Olbermann.

Obama's first general election ad:

You know it's not really an election year until JibJab makes a cartoon about it!

Click through to view.

Roger Simon at Politico weighs in on The New Yorker's recent cover:

... [T]his is what is called the Idiot’s Veto: If a single person might not get a joke, then you should not tell the joke. All humor (and everything else) should be reduced to the lowest common denominator just to make sure nobody misunderstands anything.

This would, of course, remove a lot of the humor from life. Shows like “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report,” both of which are almost pure satire, would have to go off the air. And the late-night comics would have to shut up. And many writers would have to stop writing. All in order to have an idiot-proof society.

What say you? Is the cover offensive? Good satire? Bad satire?

Sen. Elizabeth Dole, a Salisbury Republican, introduced an amendment to add Helms, who died July 4, to the title of a $50 billion bill considered Wednesday in the Senate. Her measure never came up for a vote.

Helms, a deeply conservative Republican from Raleigh, was the frequent nemesis of gay activists. "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy," he once said.

* edit Incidentally and thanks to Sid, the bill was for global AIDS relief.

Now I get naming stuff after dead politicians, even recently dead politicians and especially recently dead unpopular politicians. Legacy is important to some. If you're going to do it though, shouldn't you pick something that makes sense?

While it's true that the quote comes from the 80's (which doesn't excuse it's ignorance) and that Senator Helms worked later in life to soften his opinion, this just leaves me scratching my head. Does it make sense to anyone else?

on Obama's speech in Berlin. I about died laughing when the apple sauce came crashing down.

Hilarious ACTUAL titles of emails I received. These are riddled with Phish and Scams galore, but as time has proven again and again...Spam email titles are sometimes better than the porn they offer...

BREAKING NEWS: Bush To Rename The Patriot Act!
BREAKING NEWS: British Penny Actually Worth More Than One Dollar!
BREAKING NEWS: Senator John McCain Wishes To Have Sex With Model Heidi Klum, Others!
BREAKING NEWS: Paris Hilton Initially Denies Having Inverted Nipples!
BREAKING NEWS: Aliens Abducted By Michael Jackson!
BREAKING NEWS: The Meat Wars: Jessica Simpsons Shirt Tees-off Pam Anderson!
BREAKING NEWS: The Incredible Hulk: George Bush!
BREAKING NEWS: Shocking Video Shows Spongebob And Gay Sex!
BREAKING NEWS: Home Office to Deport Anyone With IQ Below 100!
BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump Missing: Feared Kidnapped!
BREAKING NEWS: [audio] Church Group Offers Homosexual New Life In Closet!
BREAKING NEWS: Russia, Forget About Georgia's Old Borders!
BREAKING NEWS: Oprah Found Sleeping In The Streets!
BREAKING NEWS: Italy Knocked Out Of Euro 2008!