He hadn’t anchored the Evening News in nearly three decades, but Walter Cronkite set the standard for serious, authoritative network news. The stuff he covered was the biggest stuff of the 20th Century: from WWII to JFK, Apollo to Vietnam, Chicago ‘68 to Watergate and the slow rot of America beginning in the mid-1970s. MORE »

Robert McNamara accomplished many things in his long life, from revitalizing Ford Motor Co. with a new line of safe compact cars to decades of work to alleviate global poverty and reduce the risk of nuclear war. But he dies today as the “architect of the Vietnam War,” and it seemed the whole rest of his life was a good faith attempt to make up for that awful karma. MORE »

• ROBERT McNAMARA IS DEAD: Jesus, anybody else feel like dying in the next week or two? Because now is clearly the time to do it! Robert McNamara prosecuted America’s hopeless adventure in Vietnam on behalf of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson; he also did many other things, which nobody remembers on account of the war. [Washington Post]

• We interrupt this “coverage” of the 2008 Democratic National Convention to report that John “Walnuts” McCain, when asked by Jay Leno this evening how many houses he owns, responded in a serious tone, “I spent 5½ years in a prison cell; I didn’t have a house.” It is unknown whether the studio audience laughed in response.

The only thing that would cheer us up if Bill Kristol loses next year’s Pulitzer Prize for commentary would be a victory for Washington Post “moderate liberal” columnist Richard Cohen instead. If you haven’t been following this guy recently then you know NOTHING. Oh, the prose-poetry of his sentences! One gorgeous conjunction masterfully gives way to a brilliant proper noun, brought to life by an effervescent transitive verb and wrung to a world-historical clincher with yet another brilliant proper noun. Recently, Cohen has told us about his “keen eye” and the wretched “tattoos” plastering our children these days. In today’s column, Cohen shares the following: John McCain is a maverick, while Barack Obama is a youth! MORE »

Here’s a new “biographical” ad from John McCain, where we learn — get this — that while a bunch of hippie anarcho-pinkist fags like 7-year-old Barack Obama spent five years mud-fucking on the AIDSy grounds of Woodstock in the 1960s, McCain was at a subprime torture hotel in Vietnam. The ad concludes with a number of inspirational messages that will surely drive voters to his corner, such as “John McCain doesn’t always tell us what we hope to hear” and “Don’t hope for a better life.” This rhetoric. We are overcome. [YouTube]

Meet General Wesley Clark, the secret GOP operative with the black, beady eyes of a born sociopath. (Or Jim Lehrer.) After spending four years windsurfing with John Kerry in Hell, he came back to remind America why he should never open his yap on the teevee. This weekend on Face the Nation, he said that John McCain’s experience riding in a fighter plane did not translate into preparation for executive office — which, while completely true, met with utterly predictable outrage. MORE »

Tran Trong Duyet is a Vietnamese retiree and “amateur ballroom dancer.” He’s one of those foreign folks that the Western press describes with such words as “sprightly,” like when, say, Barbara Walters interviews the Dalai Lama and calls him “cute” or “adorable.” Ha ha, wacky old Asian men! You just want to fold them into a sparkly lunchbox and take them home as a present for your kitty cat. But in Duyet’s case, he would proceed to beat the shit out of your cat, which is what he did to John McCain as head of the Hoa Lo prison — the “Hanoi Hilton” — during WALNUTS!’ famous Captivity. Let’s see what cute things he has to say! MORE »

Thanks to Wonkette hippie operative “Joe” for sending us a shot of this hippie protest sign, which is exactly correct. The hippies did save John McCain, so that he could come back to abandon his newly crippled wife.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON SABBATH READING: Here is today’s selection for Wonkette’s Sunday Afternoon Sabbath Reading, for you to enjoy after church and before your pot roast supper. It’s the tale of how John McCain married a swimsuit model in 1965, adopted her two children, had another child with her, and grew so bored with domestic life that he asked to fight in Vietnam. While in captivity, his wife became mildly crippled in a car accident, leading John McCain to cheat on her repeatedly when he returned, until finally he abandoned her — in a “mid-life crisis” that he had, yes, 28 years ago — for a young, gorgeous beer heiress whose father could make him a Congressman. Pissed about Hillary? Vote McCain! [Daily Mail]

Some dingbat state Republican leader says John McCain is “kind of like Jesus.” Because they were both born 2,000 years ago? No! It’s because, according to Georgia Republican Party chairwoman Sue Everhart, John McCain never denounced the United States when he was a war prisoner — just like Christ, when he was in ‘Nam. Ha ha, but McCain did denounce the United States. Explore the idiocy, after the jump. MORE »