If "Help" is at the grave marker's base, it's too late

Should we call it, yet?

The buzzards are circling over the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Each has had to give the axe (undoubtedly with pressure and empathy) to campaign insiders who each could stand some lip-replacement surgery.

Name-calling, back-biting, knockdown, drag-out, pastor-run-amok campaign battles are a sight to see. It’s probably even nicer to see on someone else’s pay-per-view, which is exactly what Sen. John McCain decided to do this weekend by visiting Iraq; hide and watch.

It’s time to practice a little “good ol’ boy” diplomacy, while the Democratic youngsters play nasty politics. Let their underlings implode and St. Juan de Arizona will try to establish some “street cred” across the globe.

Time-out for a tiny Texas two-step

McCain’s endorsement from Pres. Bush (which was preceded with a little jig while waiting for McCain’s morning Geritol to kick in), was merely the pilot episode of how the Republicans will run the election circus.

Gramps is playing the “presumptive Republican candidate” role to the hilt. He has months to develop the patriarchal persona the GOP will demand when and if “an incident” occurs. If you want to know what “an incident” is, read the earlier blogs, dammit.

Oh, all right, “an incident” is what Republicans need to actually pull off a victory in the outside chance that no Floridian goblins are trusted with vote-counting duties.

Something as trivial as U.S. troop movement out of Iraq just when Latin American countries (one of them our ally) are posturing to blow each other to hell, for instance, wouldn’t hurt McCain — the soldier.

Anybody up for dominoes?

As if McCain’s goodwill mission isn’t enough to build conspiracy theories on, Bear Stearns crumbles and sells to JP Morgan for a pittance. Some financial pros think it could result in a downward-zooming domestic calamity, with other banks following suit.

Now that’s being in the right place at the right time, Sen. McCain. Being elsewhere — any elsewhere — when an economy teeters is wise if you’re a candidate who doesn’t need to fight for his next meal like Clinton and Obama.