Yo, Tin Man, Telephone Call for You...

Thanks to K.A. for this great team photo. Barack looks ready to lead, Sarah is cute in her pigtails, Joe will roar on command and John has managed not to catch his pants on fire yet. You don't want to know who's behind the curtain.

Have you gotten your robo call yet? We are not liketly to receive them here in Shmalifornia, but they've probably already started in Florida, in Missouri, in Ohio, in Pennsylvania. Phone rings, you say hello, and a ghetto voice gives you this message: "Yo! We homies loves our Barack Obama! We needs yo vote! When we wins, we's gonna git even!"

Chubby Checker said it: How low can you go?

No, The Great Plotnik does not believe Osama bin Laden killed John Kennedy. No, he does not think aliens landed in Arizona in 1953 and propogated with local jackrabbits. No, he does not think the US Army created AIDS.

But anything is possible, when leaders of a country have an evangelical zeal. Maybe America isn't Iran, or Israel, or China. But when those in power believe their vision has been handed down on stone tablets by God Himself, anything is possible. Any means, regardless of how corrupt or indefensible, is justified in order to remain in power, to stay the course.

It's not a good sign when someone as level headed as TGP is ready to believe the Republicans would do anything at all, short of a military coup, to retain power. He would prefer to think the way he used to, which was that all governance is a matter of compromise and that each side will always bend a bit here, sway a bit there, and in the end come up with a method the entire country can get behind.

But Plotnik lives in America, not Oz. So expect the robo call. How low can you go? There appears to be no bottom.