I was watching CNN this morning (yes, I am truly a glutton for punishment) and Candy Crowley comes on talking about the Obama's planned trip to Europe and to the Middle East.

How will this "total unknown" be judged overseas, says Candy.

And she was blabbing on about "how high risk it was" and "he couldn't afford to stumble" with his relative inexperience on the international scene.

Like for the last 7 years the US hasn't been stumbling around the world political scene worse then any drunk I have ever seen outside any bar at 2 AM New Year's night?

Then you pity, then you ignore....

Then you forgive and bring them back into the family.

That's my take on a version of the stages of grief, and how we should approach the PUMAs.

I see a lot of sturm und drang here, mostly of this form:

"It's definitely a democratic year, yet Obama is:"

1.    Tied in the polls
2.    Barely leading in the polls
3.    Can't get over 50%

Now, personally, I think it's too soon to care about the polls, and I am mostly concerned about the media. If they keep given McGaffe Central a free pass, and keep obsessing about total non-issues on the Obama side (satiric magazine covers) then I do think we have a reason to be "concerned."  He who controls the news-cycles controls the message.

There was a great piece on the news this morning, John McCain was interviewed on the Complete Bullshit Express, Oh, I mean the Straight Talk Express, about comments that surrogate Carly Fiorina made about insurance companies paying for Viagra and not birth control.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/poli tics/5882172.html

It was amazing to watch, McCain could barely control his anger, and looked like he wanted to rip the head off the female reporter, who calming keep pushing him for why he had voted twice to keep insurance companies from having to provide birth control but his surrogate Fiorina was expressing the other position.

I attended a gay wedding this weekend.

And, there was only ONE big difference in it.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/20 08/07/wolfson_to_fnc.html

Howard Wolfson is joining Lanny Davis at Faux news, to, as Howard put it:

""Fox has the largest audience in cable television -- many of its viewers are independents who will help decide the next election," said Wolfson of his decision. "It's critically important for strong progressives to be talking to and offering analysis to that audience."

For all those (understandably pissed-off) Clinton supporters, and us Obama supporters trying to talk some of them down off the ledge of voting for a Republic, I would like to suggest a change to the narrative a bit, since I hear a lot of "If you support McCain, you are voting to continue the policies of George W Bush?

It's clear, looking at the Republics, they already have their back against the wall, an unpopular and costly war, an economy already in a recession now heading for massive inflation, and a sitting Republic President with the worst approval numbers in modern history?

So, even though through no wisdom on their own, they choose the most electable candidate from their stunningly weak pack (I sure would rather be running against Mittens or Rudy-Rudy-Rudy) I'm hoping our candidate decides to hand Senator McCain and the rest of the Republic party an anchor and then shoves them in the lake while they are holding it.