Hold, please, while I rip my eyes out

Awesome news today out of Gallup! The lowlights:

• A third of Americans are biblical literalists who believe that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word.
• In contrast, only 1/3 of Americans believe the theory of evolution is a scientific theory well supported by evidence.
• 45% believe God created humans pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago

Sometimes, it's difficult to believe in democracy.

Down with the South!

We've got a few must-read, virulently hateful anti-Red State pieces. Although not constructive, the catharsis has been mighty entertaining. Red meat, yummmmm.

Frank Rich: "On Moral Values, It's Blue in a Landslide"
As a congressman in 1997, Mr. Coburn [US Sen.-Elect, Oklahoma] attacked NBC for encouraging "irresponsible sexual behavior" and taking "network TV to an all-time low with full frontal nudity, violence and profanity being shown in our homes." The broadcast that prompted his outrage on behalf of "parents and decent-minded individuals everywhere" was the network's prime-time showing of Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List."

Ted Rall: "Confessions of a Cultural Elitist"
Though there is a religious component to the election results, the biggest red-blue divide is intellectual. "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" asked the headline of the Daily Mirror in Great Britain, and the underlying assumption is undeniable. By any objective standard, you had to be spectacularly stupid to support Bush.

Random Dude: "Fuck the South"
Let’s talk about those values for a fucking minute. ..Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It’s fucking Massachusetts, the fucking center of the gay marriage universe. Yes, that’s right, the state you love to tie around the neck of anyone to the left of Strom Thurmond has the lowest divorce rate in the fucking nation. Think that’s just some aberration? How about this: 9 of the 10 lowest divorce rates are fucking blue states, asshole, and most are in the Northeast, where our values suck so bad. And where are the highest divorce rates? Care to fucking guess? 10 of the top 10 are fucking red-ass we're-so-fucking-moral states. And while Nevada is the worst, the Bible Belt is doing its fucking part

Kerry pulling an Adlai Stevenson

Gotta say, I'm a little surprised by this:

"Sometimes God tests you," Kerry told the crowd at H20, a restaurant on the Potomac waterfront, according to an aide. "I'm a fighter, and I've come back before."

But I have to give my man props for throwing G-d into the mix. Nice move, JK, nice move.

Northeast elitism, defended

Here's an article articulating Democratic despair that I actually enjoyed. This rant won't serve the Democrats well in four years, but, for now, it's music to my ears:

Here's an interesting little factoid that I share at the risk of sounding, once more, elitist. (Sorry.) The United States ranks 14th out of 15 industrialized countries in per capita education spending. If we have an electorate incapable of thinking rationally about its own interests, who confuse politicians with old movie heroes, don't know much about history, and lap up the administration's lies about Iraq even after they've been repeatedly exposed as lies by the media, this might have something to do with never having been educated in the fundamental skills of critical thinking. (Note that Bush's much touted No Child Left Behind initiative, favoring rote learning and standardized testing, is the formula for an even more intellectually pacified and credulous electorate.)

But corporate America doesn't require an educated or critical citizenry. Quite the contrary. What it requires is a passive work force narrowly trained to perform specific occupations for decreasing wages, who will then overconsume lavishly in their leisure hours. It all works out rather well: Job dissatisfaction is placated by an endless succession of consumer crap (creating new jobs—though probably overseas—making more crap); intellectual boredom is assuaged by a steady diet of media crap (thanks to media deregulation); and any remaining critical stirrings are mollified by supersize portions of tasteless crappy food (thanks to an unregulated food industry). The result: a stupefied, overstuffed citizenry glued to pricey entertainment centers, whose national hobby is ridiculing Europeans for wanting shorter work weeks, resisting American imports, and denouncing the disastrous American policy in Iraq.

Assdrew Sullivan

Sorry for the lame pun, but this picture is damn funny. Apparently, Sully had a meltdown on Real Time with Bill Maher this week (about Noam Chomsky) and then proceeded to grab 'n' rub his arse as the credits rolled.

Left? Bah!

The news keeps getting better and better. Looks like the Democratic leadership is going to ignore the unsolicited advice of our very own Los Pants and go right. I introduce Nevada's Harry Reid, the likely replacement for Tom Daschle:

"Reid voted with Republicans to ban a procedure that opponents call partial birth abortion. In 1999, he was one of two Senate Democrats who voted against an amendment expressing support for the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. "

Mind you, I know nothing of this man. So he may be great, despite his abortion stance and douchey appearance. But there's arguably nothing I care about more deeply in politics than maintaining the ability for women to have legal abortions. Not a good sign.

Exit Polls

That sucked.
Hey, thanks for that early exit poll information -- it was really awesome for, like, four hours when I was allowing myself to feel that bizarre emotion called "hope." Made the crushing disappointment that much more throbbing.

Anyway, check out the national exit polls here. The base strategy prevails.

White people: 57% to 42% Bush
White men, 61% to 38% Bush
Black people: 89% Kerry
College grads: 50% Kerry, 48% Bush
Democrats: 89% Kerry, 10% Bush
Republicans: 93% Bush, 7% Kerry
Independents: 50% Kerry, 48% Bush
Jewish: 76% Kerry, 24% Bush (Bush +5% from 2000)

Also, it was nearly 60% turnout. Lots of conventional wisdom out the door this election (incumbent rule, high turnout helps Democrats, etc).

Polls

If the final result resembles anything like the first wave of exit polling (here), then doesn't that mean the end of the cottage industry of national surveys, at least for political purposes? Gotta give props to Mickey Kaus, who, if I'm recalling correctly, posted something on that very subject recently. Although, to be honest, I really dislike Mickey Kaus and would rather not give him credit for anything (ed - why? Because he does that annoying thing where he pretends to have an overbearing editor constantly criticizing his analysis? B2008 - Yes!).

Fight the war against Islam, err, terrorism

Check this out.
It's a Johnny Cash ditty spliced with pro-Bush video propaganda. As you would imagine, it features images of the military, babies, handsome white males, the evil mainstream media, lecherous Hollywood stars, menacing Arab men with machine guns, and, of course, the holy cross. Most disturbingly, the troglodyte that produced this mess apparently doesn't recognize the distinction between Islam and terrorism, as a blood-red "ISLAM" emerges from the background when the image of a hooded, KKK-looking terrorist dominates the screen.

Apparently, my conclusion that I had spent all my outrage was mistaken -- it's truly appalling.

Anger vs. Fear

Sure, it's not entirely accurate to sum up the preferences of the electorate in two competing emotions. But methinks this quote, by Newsweek's managing editor, Jon Meacham, on "Hardball" last night, rings true:

"I think this is going to be an interesting test between the powers of the emotions of anger and fear. I think that anger is driving the new voters, anger at Bush. I call them the Michael Moore voters...They have gotten irritated with Bush. They went out and registered. They`re motivated. Or people who are more fearful and believe that President Bush will do a better job ultimately of protecting the country than Senator Kerry."

Bloggers be stupid, yo

The Times' editorial section asked a collection of bloggers what they deemed to be the most important moment of the campaign. The answers? Some were insightful or interesting, but most were surprisingly simple-minded, self-serving, or just personal. A sample:

Joanne Jacobs - The Chechnyan/Russian terrorist attack.

Ann Althouse - John Kerry snapping at a question by a "regular American" by saying, "You're not listening."

PowerLine - MemoGate. (By the way, can we, collectively, stop adding the -Gate suffix to every news story that lasts more than 24 hours? Please?)

Instapundit - A Newsweek reporter saying that "the press wants Kerry to win."

J. Bradford Delong - Bush keeping Cheney on the ticket.

It's fashionable to attack the mainstream media (or, "MSM", in the blognoscenti parlance), but they sure seem to be a lot more well-informed and intelligent than this supposedly elite collection of bloggers. But that Wonkette sure is sassy!

If Kerry wins, the most important event was, by far, the first debate. I will not argue this. For Bush, it's less clear, although I tend to think the Swift Boat nonsense/Democratic convention failure will be what's remembered most vividly.