[Ed. note:  I’ve been saving these up for a week or more, since I’ve still been too sick to feel like blogging - or much else, for that matter.  Still haven’t shaken it.  Feh.]

Several new reasons to fire Penn over the last week:

First of all, that "3:00 AM" ad was just . . . fucking . . . stupid. 

Don’t insult my intelligence by attempting to pander to - what? "womanly" emotions or some shit?  "Worried-looking soccer mom slips into precious darlings’ bedroom to stand watch in the middle of the night" shtick punches all the wrong damn buttons.  It says that the campaign of the first viable woman candidate for president thinks I’m so stupidly knee-jerk that emotive imagery about "keeping the children safe" is what will sway my vote.

So much for Clinton as feminist archetype.

Aside from that, the script:  "Something’s happening in the world" - are you fucking kidding me?  I mean, really; that’s just as insulting to my intelligence.  If you’re going to go for the bed-wetting fear-addled constituency, at least offer up something as an example of the "something."  Oh, and here’s my response to that statement:  No shit.  Something’s been happening in the world, like, forever, but especially for the last seven years - and where the hell were you when it actually mattered?  Oh, that’s right - on the wrong side. 

And then, to imply without even any minimal argument (much less facts) to support it that Clinton is obviously the person I want answering that phone - well, really, sez who?  If you’re gonna tell me that I want it to be her, then at least do me the minimal courtesy of giving me a reason, however silly or transparent or fraudulent. 

But the kicker (I thought at the time) was that it was nothing more than a rerun of the infamous Mondale ad from 1984.  That was Roy Spence’s ad, and since Spence joined the campaign at the same time as Maggie Williams, I assumed that he stupidly thought 1) that his ad was so great the first time around that it should be recyled a quarter of a century later, and 2) that we were so stupid that we wouldn’t notice anyway.  Sorry, Roy; I guess I owe you an apology, since we now know that you weren’t responsible for the drivel this time around.  No, the singular honor of getting credit for [OMG, plagiarizing!] - the ad goes to the Idiot Boy "Chief Strategist."

No, that’s still not the kicker.

Worse, Penn - without overtly acknowledging that it’s his ad - wants credit for it for Clinton’s few recent wins.  This from the guy who’s telling anyone who’ll listen that he has no power in the Clinton campaign (and thus, nothing that goes wrong is his fault).  Poor Mark:  He’s just "an outside message advisor with no campaign staff reporting to [him]" and he has "had no say or involvement in four key areas — the financial budget and resource allocation, political or organizational sides."

Nice try, jackass.  Too late:  Ickes has already outed you and your overweening ego, demanding to be called "Chief Strategist."  Some "outside message advisor."

No, that’s still not the kicker.

The kicker is this:  The guy who got 3.8 million from the campaign in January alone - this allegedly brilliant "Chief Strategist" - was so fucking cheap that he couldn’t even film his own damn ad.  No, Idiot Boy buys eight-year-old stock footage from Getty Images, featuring a little girl who is now about to turn eighteen and - you guessed it - has been actively campaigning for Obama.  Oh, and who wants to partner with Obama’s campaign to make a new ad for him.

Fucking genius. 

And now, Idiot Boy’s going around crowing, "We broke [Obama’s] momentum completely."  Oh, Mark?  What about that little matter of Wyoming - with a 23% blowout for Obama?  To say nothing of the fact that your candidate now actually appears to have lost Texas.  Oh, and the projections that Mississippi will overwhelmingly go for Obama.

Of course, there’s much, much more:  This stupid "only McCain and I are CinC material" meme comes to mind, as do the "I won’t accept a caucus" meme and the "Obama’s pledged delegates are up for grabs, too" meme.  But those will have to wait, because I can only take so much of this guy at a time - and frankly, these days, I can only take so much of Clinton herself at a time, too.  Knowing what I know now, if New Mexico were still in play, I think we’d be voting for Obama.