Your other editor Sara wrote earlier about how every governor candidate in Virginia has taken a shine to this hilarious & false idea that prison officials closely monitor third-grade test scores to determine how many jails they’ll need for the Dumbs in 15 years. But only Terry McAuliffe went ahead and made it into an insane teevee advertisement! The final product (which your male associate editor wrote about this morning at length for his NBC racketeering gig) proved to be McAuliffe’s most twisted, hilarious failed attempt at pretending to be a real human being yet, in a life and campaign defined by such attempts. “Pre-k now or prison later!” Nice one, sociopath! [NBC Washington]

A bunch of kids from Virginia went on a field trip to get a tour of the White House, but they got there late, and the President had a play date with the Pittsburgh Steelers so the White House was closed and all the children cried, which was exactly what he wanted. [NBC Washington]

A big “thank you” to the Republican party for picking this “new” political strategy, “Democrats Are Still Gay For Terrorists,” after they got bored with economics. Now we will have classic 9/11 fearmongering comedy videos all the time once again. MORE »

A deer, which was being chased by a pack of dogs, which was being chased by Sarah Palin and a fleet of helicopters, which was being chased by that same deer, smashed into the window of a Greek restaurant in Silver Spring and then went to hide out in the bakery of a Giant. [WTOP] MORE »

Here is a heartwarming story: a little boy- or girl-child writes to Barack Obama to say, “Hey man whatsup I want U 2 B purznit” (that is how children write today, in America). And Barack Obama, a man with infinite time and letter-writing resources, pens a unique personal response to each and every one of these precious children and signs it with a nice blue pen! Barack Obama is a magical patron of youngsters — like Santa, only real! Except that he is a fraud. MORE »

There’s really only one sentence in Lady Peggy Noonington de Rothschild’s Wall Street Journal column today worth reading, but it is, as les Française would say, un crescendo magnifique. (PSST: WE DON’T KNOW THE FROG WORD FOR “CRESCENDO.”) Allez: “The phrase I often worriedly think of when I see, on television, gross violence, cruelty, a vulgarity of character, erectile dysfunction ads, news reports that reflect a mean and cynical attitude toward America, and still-menacing if increasingly antique rappers is: The children are watching.” It is these problems five that our beloved frau hopes to see vanquished under the princely young president Africanus, whom the children frequently view on the television machine. [WSJ]

This video is magical: “Shawn Turschak of Chapel Hill was tired of someone stealing McCain-Palin campaign signs from his yard. Turschak, with a degree in electrical engineering, hooked up a third sign to a power source for an electric pet fence Monday and also put up a surveillance camera.” Look at the little Obama kid get ZAPPED like a ho and then run home to his father, Joe Biden. Ha ha! DAMN KIDS. [AP, YouTube]

• Use Obama’s math machine to calculate numbers ‘n such that relate to how many Saltines and cigarettes you can afford to steal, once you’re a hobo. [Ben Smith]
• Some dude at a theoretical Obama rally may have called erratic lying warmonger John McCain a “liar” and a “warmonger.”  [Marc Ambinder]
• Sarah Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, “Trooper” of Troopergate fame, used to run over wolves with his snowmobile and eat their entrails, for sport. And for laughs. [Daily Kos]
• October Surprise! The stars of the tween veterinary hospital docu-drama Gossip Girl shot a teevee ad about how many trucker hats they own in honor of Barack Obama. [CNN Political Ticker]
• Oh god someone named a newborn “Sarah McCain Palin.” This baby will never stop crying — nor should it. [Jonathan Martin]
• Someone yelled “louder” at Palin during a speech. But the screeching of the wind blowing through her sad, empty head was deafening, so what’s a gal to do except to yell back that dammit, this person should respect America’s veterans. [Crooks and Liars]

Nothing says “I hate Real Americans” like going to a public school, learning how to read and write, and having some basic knowledge of what’s going on in the world around you. That’s why the elitist “schoolchildren” who took part in the Scholastic Election Poll are obviously in the tank for fancy educated smart guy Barack Obama. MORE »

TNR’s Noam Scheiber has more on that clutch Sarah Palin doodle sheet he found in Wasilla, the one with all the pretty scribble-scrabble — you know, the type of thing parents tell their autistic children to make so that they can relax and drink scotch for an hour. Apparently that doodle sheet wasn’t just brainstorming — she told her mayoral “campaign manager” that it was an actual DRAFT for a campaign poster. Just words and shit everywhere! Obviously this didn’t come to fruition, but the unreadable doodle sheet would later inspire a cover of The Atlantic magazine. [TNR]

• THURSDAY FUN LINK: You’ve been waiting all morning! This week’s “Thursday Fun Link” was selected because we no longer can distinguish between “fun” and “brutal social/economic/political tales of terrible sadness.” Hooray! It’s about Nebraska’s “safe haven” law that lets people abandon their “out-of-control” children — up to 19 years old — at hospitals because they have no money or health care or access to psychiatric services and they have dead spouses OR because they’re lazy pieces of drunk shit. We’re looking forward to the Great New Depression, too! [NYT]