Required pre-dated levity....

So tonight is the hyped "big night". The debate between vice-presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. There's been so much spin in the past week on both sides you could probably power a small town with the centrifugal energy. I expect, as a lot have said, that Palin will try to divert most questions to her on stories/talking points, while Biden will be over-selfconcious from trying not to gaffe. In the meantime the unimitable Rude Pundit is on a tear better than I've seen. You must read this for a fun and scandalous laugh before the date. Here's just a teaser from it (UPDATE edited for extra-overthetop rudeness)...

"I don't wanna fuckin' hear about this dink anymore. I don't wanna know about how she went to five different safety schools before squeezing out a vanity degree like a turd from a constipated old man. I don't wanna hear about her <too rude for here> baby. I don't wanna hear about her knocked-up teenage daughter. I don't wanna hear about her fuckin' redneck husband. Fuck them. They are the ones who need to be led, not the ones who need to be leading. So I don't give a fuck about what Bush with boobs here has to say about jack shit. And you know what else? I don't wanna hear about the wisdom of small town America. You know where the Founders spent their time? In the cities. In Paris. In London. Small towns? That's called 'isolation.' And it's bullshit political talk for 'white,' Gwen. Oh, do I sound elitist? If it's elitist to want to elect people who actually have a thought in their head about more than whether or not to name the next child 'Remington' or 'Colt,' then, fine, fuck me, it's elitist.

Click here for the whole shebang...

Second required pre-debate reading albeit a little more gentile is Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone article about Palin....

Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV — and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.

Click here for the whole article....

(Hat Tip to John Cole's awesome Balloon Juice blog)