W.R. Marshall: The Game Changer

Column by W.R. Marshall

As a longtime political writer (not that length matters), I’ve become a member of the elite media, or media elite — take your pick. And as a member of the elite media I have access to sources the non-elite media can only dream of – and my sources in the McCain campaign have come through elitely.

With time running short and the rancid smell of desperation in the air, the McCain crusaders are pulling out all the stops with a brand-new, game-changing stump speech. They believe it will not only rouse the rabble (not that they need any help with that), but should bring in the undecided voters. (“Undecided voter” is campaign jargon for “f#*@ing morons.”) I also have it from the same elite media-serving sources that the brain trust at McCain HQ has such high hopes for this speech, they believe there will be wholesale defection from the Obama camp; or as they call it, “lemmings running back up the cliff.”

They unveiled this speech last night in Springfield and, from everything I’ve heard, it exceeded expectations.

Here is a bit of it:

“My friends, I needed a new heel for my shoe, my friends, so I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, my friends, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. Give me five bees for a quarter, you’d say. Now where were we, oh ya. The important thing was, my friends, that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because if the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones, my friends …”

Breathtaking, I know. There are rare moments in poli … excuse me, my phone’s ringing …

… OK, that was a source and former McCain campaign insider. (He now works at the Waffle House in Tempe, Ariz.; he was in charge of VP vetting.) Apparently, the above quoted passage is not from a new stump speech by John McCain, but from an old one by Abraham Simpson.

See, this just goes to show you; even the media elite — elite media — can get it wrong.

Frankly, I’m a little embarrassed. I’ve been following Abe Simpson’s career for some time. I was on his campaign bus when he ran for president in 2000. I thought the wording of this most recent speech was a little familiar, but we hear so many of these speeches – and this isn’t an excuse – it can be a little confusing sometimes. I, and all my elite-media sisters and brothers, would never knowingly credit one candidate with another’s words.

I know Abe Simpson to be not only a war hero, but a decent man, a man of … excuse me again …

… OK, I’ve just been told Abe Simpson is not running for president.

Then who hell is that guy who’s been palin’ around with that woman who lives suspiciously close to Russia …