Please please please bring

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Please, please, please bring back the subjunctive mood!!! I can’t take it. No more ‘if Governor Bush becomes president.’ Or ‘should Bush become the president.’ No ‘were Bush to be the next president.’ Not even the semi-heart-breaking ‘assuming Bush becomes the next president.’ We’re down to ‘when Governor Bush is sworn in …’ Ahhh! The fatal ‘is.’ I guess it depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is. But clearly it doesn’t mean anything good.

(Uggh! Candy Crowley on CNN just said the ‘Bush Era’.)

Okay, let’s go to the Talking Points doomsday grab bag.

1. A Talking Points quote of the day. This one from Lois Frankel, the Democratic Minority Leader of the Florida House of Representatives (basically the Sunshine state Dick Gephardt).

“Let’s take our energy. We’re going to fix those machines, we’re going to register those voters, we are going to learn to vote right and come two years, we will leave no chad behind.”

Leave no chad behind! I like it. Even sounds a little like a southerner saying ‘leave no child behind.’ (Try it. You’ll see what I mean.)

2. And now to the decision. If you only read one paragraph in the whole bundle of Supreme Court concurrences and dissents, read Section A of Justice Souter’s Dissent. (Hey, don’t be so lazy. It’s only one paragraph. Trust me, it’s worth reading.)

And the most stunning part of the Per Curiam brief (the majority opinion):

“The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint member of the Electoral College.”
Section II, B

Perhaps true. But still stunning.

3. Got an email today from a friend sending me a link to a Bush parody based on The Grinch. I went and looked at it and for the first ten seconds it seemed totally moronic (and I started to wonder about my friend). But he’s right. It’s actually really funny. Take a peek.

4. And finally, inevitably, a picture. This picture comes from The Hindu, one of India’s national newspapers. I think many newspapers must have a machine called a goof-alizer. These are special machines that you run a photo through and a relatively normal-looking person comes out looking like a complete doofus. Apparently The Hindu has a damn good goofalizer. See for your self.

What did I tell ya?

P.S. I promise: after this I will get over my hurt about Gore, grow up a bit, and stop making fun of how people look.

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