Sober up, kids.

We're approaching zero-hour for the 2008 election pretty quickly, which inevitably means that a lot of the people involved have completed the long and difficult process of losing their minds, and to a significant degree among the electorate, there's really no more vote-winning or losing going on. It's all over except for the screaming, as the saying goes.

Which, if you haven't noticed, people are doing a damned lot of. When it's all over except for the screaming, that also means that there's nothing else going on to distract you from the screaming. I think it's worth stopping for a moment and, on both sides, taking a little reality check of what's coming out of our mouths.

A story at Pajamas Media essentially promises the end of capitalism in the US as we know it, a depression, devastating restrictions of first amendment rights, and probably a marked decline in the quality of corndogs. Why not. This from the Pajamas Media that I once regarded as more cool-headed and objective and less prone to fits of panic than most news sources. Now they're just another biased online news source, and I can pretty easily see a time coming when I have to fact-check them just as rigorously as I have to check guys like DailyKos.

Speaking of whom...

They're not doing any better. Just when you thought they couldn't abandon thought for propaganda anymore because they were out of thoughts, someone writes this post about how Obama is going to change America and the world by sheer power of his blackness and photogeniety with children. Nobody's playing the racism card harder than the left is at a time when it is absolutely clear that it's not really a factor, and may actually be helping Obama.

I seem to be finding myself sadly alone in this political landscape because I don't actually believe that Obama is Jesus 2.0 or Satan Classic. I think it's time for people on both sides to acknowledge that he will not be the Messiah the Left expects, and he will not be the demon that the Right expects. Probably. There's always the off chance that he might actually pull one off, but that's not how the presidency works in anything but extremely rare cases.

If it sounds like I'm assaulting people's personal passions, then I think I'm striking exactly the right tone. This is politics. There are no saints, no angels, no demons, and everyone is a sinner. You don't make it to the national political stage without pulling some shit here and there, no matter who you are. There are no perfect people, no perfect policies, and absolutely no historical reason for anyone to expect either. Passion doesn't really have a place here, because it blinds people to those realities.

More than America needs a Maverick or a Messiah, right now it needs a couple hours of sleep, some coffee, and maybe the number of a rehab clinic.