"Bush is out there right this very second stumping & sweating & blinkin

[LaPera]

fast and defending his useless hideous little war and hurling snide little invectives and completely fabricated exaggerations at John Kerry, and Kerry is returning the favor by casually mentioning how Bush has ruined the goddamn nation and decimated our self-respect and run roughshod over our international relations all while raping the environment like no president in history and racking up a world-record deficit and mangling the language like a child on too much Ritalin.

It has been, in short, the longest and most painful episode of "American Idol" ever, wherein the two finalists have belted every cheesy American standard and regurgitated every lame disco-era stage move and hit every warbly high note and sacrificed every shred of dignity and integrity and true individuality they might've once possessed, all in the desperate hope that you are finally sufficiently numbed to where you are finally ready press the right 800 number on your AT&T wireless service and place your stupefied vote.

We are almost there. We are so very on the cusp. This is where it all comes down to your intuition and your intelligence and a sheer force of will, your ability to overcome the media-induced nausea and deeply inbred American political ennui and hoist yourself out of this election stupor and go to your polling place and punch the little card or push the little button, and then pray you don't live in a state where the GOP has rigged the touch screens or shredded all the Democratic voter registrations as you think, wow, world's foremost democracy and yet why does it feel like I'm voting in, like, Yugoslavia? Why does it feel that this election is so incredibly messy and loaded and rife with snakes and spit and hissing corruption? Weird. Sad. Telling.

It has become surreal, this election. It has become beyond coherent. We are... http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/

[Zinfandel]

1. Extremely COOL! Morford is the best dude!