Rolling Stone put a wicked hit on John McCain this week. If you buy the long, heavily reported piece, McCain comes off as an ungrateful son of privilege equal to George Bush: a mean, spoiled, shameless opportunist whose Navy career amounted to a string of self-inflicted failures that he only overcame through intervention by his well-connected family. In terms of pure infliction of damage, it's the nastiest takedown story on either presidential candidate so far.

Of course, this is Rolling Stone, and the author makes no bones about his liberal bias. Throughout the piece, you'll find yourself constantly asking if this is the lefty version of a Swift Boat hatchet job. The sources advocating on behalf of McCain are few and far between.

But it's also hard to dismiss, since it's loaded with name-brand Republicans with no apparent ax to grind, other than the mutual belief that McCain's a sizable piece of shit.

Read it for yourself. Either way, it's a remarkable story.

State Sen. Rosalind Kurita's lawyer urged a federal judge today to put her name back on the Nov. 4 ballot as the Democratic nominee. After a three-hour hearing, Judge Robert Echols said he'd rule early next week.

Attorney James Bopp criticized Democrats for claiming "carte blanche authority" to choose nominees any way party bosses see fit. He said the party executive committee violated Kurita's constitutional rights by tossing out her 19-vote primary victory over Tim Barnes.

"They want to claim now that votes in a primary mean nothing," Bopp said. "Instead of all votes counting, none of the votes count. Elections are about fulfilling the will of the people. The will of the people is that Senator Kurita be the nominee of the Democratic Party. She had the fruits of her victory, and they have been ripped away from her."

But state law leaves it up to political parties to decide their nominees, according to the lawyers for the other side. They said Democrats could have flipped a coin to pick their nominee if that's what they wanted to do.

"There were no smoke-filled rooms, sir, no backroom deals. This was an open process," said Brant Phillips, the party's lawyer. In fact, he argued, the judge would violate the party’s First Amendment rights by ruling in Kurita's favor. Democrats are exercising their right not to associate with her, he said.

Echols didn't reveal which way he's leaning during his questioning of the lawyers. But the betting here by all the legal experts at Pith is that he'll dismiss Kurita's lawsuit, finding this to be a political question, not one for courts to decide.

At least Kurita will have gained a little more publicity for her write-in campaign. The Nashville media were out in force to cover today's hearing

Saving America one wasteful expenditure at a time

The Tennessean reports today that it will cost us a mere $350,000-$500,000 to look stupid! That's the expected cost for the January 22 referendum to make English the official language of Metro government.

Never mind that it's a mere vanity play on behalf of Councilman Eric Crafton to suck up to voters pissed about immigration. Never mind that it will do little except make government more confusing to non-English speakers. Never mind that this could have all been avoided if Mayor Karl Dean hadn't used a technicality to keep it from the November ballot. And never mind that it will make relocating business pause to think, "Hey, do we really want to hang out with weird rednecks?"

In a time of economic collapse, when Metro government will need every extra penny it has, we're about to blow $350,000-$500,000 for nothing -- other than the chance to look like morons.

And we wonder why people hate government?

A sign of the times: A billboard in West Plains, Missouri.

That's what I'd call a nest egg

As the Dow plunges and investors scoop up stocks shedding value after a week of losses, there seems only one safe bet these days: Beer. I’m not talking about alcoholic escapism. Compared to WorldCom, Enron, or Delta Airline stocks, beer cans are a better investment. Call it the 401-Keg Plan.

A friend of mine who used to work for a hedge fund in Dallas sent me these figures: If you invested $1,000 in WaMu, you'd have $91.28 now. If you invested $1,000 in Freddie Mac, you’d have $21.29. A stockholder with $1,000 in Fannie Mae would be lucky to have $20 left. If, Heaven forbid, you owned some United Airlines stock when they declared bankruptcy six years ago, well, you get the idea.

Ah, but beer, on the other hand, is a sounder purchase than any of these investments. If you drank $1,000 worth of beer last year, then turned the cans into an aluminum recycler for the refund, you’d have $214 and a fun year. So drink up!

By now you all know about the bizarre lawsuit that the Scene and I are facing regarding this story about a stripper named Michelle Peacock who was arrested for offering to "manually stimulate" undercover Metro cops last year at Deja Vu strip club.

We probably shouldn’t comment here, except to point out this link to a legal blog that has an interesting take on the matter. They argue that because our reporting was based on public documents, something called the “fair report” privilege applies, and we’re in the clear. Here’s a snippet:

The “fair report” privilege does not extend to a report of a judicial proceeding that includes “any defamatory comments or observations.” The Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled last year that the privilege did not apply to a TV news report which included information from anonymous sources and a private conversation with a police officer. Lewis v. Newschannel 5 Network, 238 S.W.3d 270.

But in commenting on Peacock's alleged mid-afternoon handjobs, The Nashville Scene didn't say anything that was not in the police reports. So the privilege clearly applies.

See you in court!

A tender debate moment

I watched the Nashville debate with the throngs camped out on the patio at the Belmont Bongo Java, and when John McCain responded to a young black man's question about the bailout with the line, "You probably never heard of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac before this,” the crowd let out a collective groan of disgust. Granted, the assemblage was made up exclusively of Obama supporters, and the grandfatherly McCain might have said that to any questioner under, say, 50, but it was an awkward moment nonetheless.

So I was surprised when the post-debate coverage picked up on McCain's now infamous "that one" statement, but made no mention of the Fannie/Freddie remark.

Well, the story has some legs on the Internet, as Wonkette reported yesterday. Apparently the, uh, questioner in question was Oliver Clark, a Tennessee State University graduate with a degree in poli-sci. Not surprisingly, Clark—who's currently working on his second master's degree—had heard of Fannie and Freddie. Since being hounded by media, he decided to post answers to questions on his Facebook page, seen here on MSNBC.com's First Read.

Here's his answer to the question everyone wanted to ask: How did he feel about Sen. McCain stating, "You probably never heard of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac before this?"

Well Senator, I actually did. I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent person. I have a bachelor degree in Political Science from Tennessee State, so I try to keep myself up to date with current affairs. I have a Master degree in Legal Studies from Southern Illinois University, a few years in law school, and I am currently pursuing a Master in Public Administration from the University of Memphis. In defense of the Senator from Arizona I would say he is an older guy, and may have made an underestimation of my age. Honest mistake. However, it could be because I am a young African-American male. Whatever the case may be it was somewhat condescending regardless of my age to make an assumption regarding whether I was knowledgeable about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The first 45 seconds of this partisan attack video are infuriating. After some shaky hand-held shot of Sarah Palin stumping at a rally in Strongsville, Ohio, onscreen comes an older man sporting a bucket hat.

As he's beginning to explain the reasons behind why he made a sign comparing Obama to Osama, Bucket Hat is cut off by the narrator. "Is he a terrorist?" he asks. Bucket Hat waves the camera away, shaking his head saying "You want a soundbite, forget it."

Getting your political enemies to hang themselves is a delicate art. It requires gaining their trust, asking probing, non-threatening questions and then biting your tongue, lest you come off looking like a confrontational dick.

The above video is one demonstration of how NOT to go about it. Sure, Bucket Hat eventually offers a maddeningly terse and insane quote (Obama is a "one-man terror cell"). But a glimpse into the mind that equates a prospective Presidential candidate with a man responsible for the deaths of thousands is too fascinating a thing to waste on pithy soundbites ("fascinating" in this instance being a synonym for "terrifying").

In other words: LET BUCKET HAT TALK.

Thanks to this narrator's line of questioning, no doubt cribbed from the Bill Maher Handbook on Smarm and Condescension, it's a treat we'll all be denied. Keep watching if you like. But only for a primer on how to engender sympathy for those you wish to embarrass.

As soon as Bob Schieffer scooted his boots at the Ryman, we just knew trouble was a-brewin' in hillbilly heaven. And sure enough: here's The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith closing up the honky-tonks with his "The Red State, Blue State Blues," recorded here with country singer Sarah Darling and her Black River Music Group label chief Jimmy Nichols. It made its world premiere Wednesday on the show.

The verdict? On the scale of political novelty tunes by vacationing network newsmen, it's not bad—somewhere between Walter Cronkite's "Wisconsin Delegation Polka" and Howard K. Smith's "Our Love's in the Tank (With Mike Dukakis)." But it's not a rump-rocker on the order of MC Morley Safer's "Bitches in the Front, Bush Doctrine in the Rear."

Though the Dow dropped below 9,000 today, and the Bush administration is considering buying into banks to stabilize lending, here's an even bigger sign that we're screwed:

The National Debt Clock has run out of digits.

You may recall the New York City landmark that keeps a running tab on the national debt, and also calculates your family's obligation in covering it -- that would be $86,000. But when it was launched in 1989, no one anticipated the debt would break the lofty $10 trillion mark, so it wasn't built with that many digits.

Alas, we've now achieved this soaring figure, but the clock can't count that high. Operators expect to have it rebuilt by next year. I think we can all agree we're going to need it.

The Metro Council has decided to put off changing the late fee scheme of the water department. So before you click to a more interesting post or start surfing for nekkid ladies, let me explain why this is bad.

Right now, no matter how big or small your water bill is, you will be charged a flat $10 fee if you pay it late. For elderly people on fixed incomes or folks of small means who are more likely to pay bills late, this fee is a killer. Many water bills are under $15 bucks a month, so sometimes the fee effectively doubles the monthly tally.

The most egregious part of this is why the council put off voting on a bill that would have changed the fee scheme. From The Tennessean:

But the council delayed voting on the bill Tuesday amid concerns that changes would jeopardize $5 million in late fees that the city relies on to finance some water services.

So basically Metro water is so strapped for cash that it has to soak (heh) some of the people who can least afford these extra costs. This is in addition to other bill fatteners like the dreaded storm-water fee. There is also very likely going to be an increase in Nashville water prices coming sometime in the near future.

The council has been assured that Mayor Dean is working on a new plan to keep the Metro utility’s head above water (double heh!) without the $10 flat fee.

Metro councilman Sam Coleman, who introduced the legislation that got killed this week, tells the daily that if Dean doesn’t come through with the new proposal, he’ll reintroduce his bill.

This should be interesting to watch. Metro water hasn’t had a significant rate increase in some time, and from what I hear, the aqua-infrastructure is crumbling. The flat late fee may soon be a thing of the past, but I fear that something just as expensive will take its place.

How pathetic does the Tennessee Democratic Party look now? The economic turmoil is giving Democrats hope for victories in unlikely places around the country. Even Elizabeth Dole and Mitch McConnell may be on the ropes. Here, though, Lamar Alexander is enjoying a free ride, with only the hapless Bob Tuke in the way of his reelection.

Tennessee Democrats can thank Gov. Phil Bredesen, who is very quick to offer bad political advice to any and all. It was Bredesen who told Mike McWherter not to challenge Alexander. That was back when there still was time to raise enough money to mount a credible challenge. McWherter wrung his hands for a while, long enough to make it impossible for any other serious contender to run, then bowed out. The New York Times reports:

Democrats say they feel confidently ahead in five Senate races where they hope to pick up Republican seats, and they believe their candidates are running competitively in seven more.

Tennessee could have been one of those states. If Democrats can't recruit a serious statewide challenger in an obviously Democratic year, then they ought to fold up their big tent and disband.

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Some folks—particularly the liberal, elite, East Coast "Gotcha!" media—seem to assume that most dyed-in-the-wool country stars would favor a Republican candidate. (And, frankly, so do we.) So when word got out that Toby Keith, the man behind such songs as "American Soldier" and "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (the Angry American)," was on the Obama bandwagon, the media were abuzz.

Well now, the Scene has heard a rumor that Tim McGraw and Faith Hill were spotted at Al Gore's house Tuesday night for a post-debate fundraiser that was briefly attended by Obama himself—which would not be surprising, since we've also heard that Tim and Faith are committed Obama supporters.

Interestingly, the press pool reports made no mention of the celebrity couple's appearance. Has anyone else heard anything about this?

If Barack can just tie up the Charlie Daniels endorsement, I think he's got this thing licked.

This may be the weirdest story of the political season. Talking heads on Fox rail against "liberal," "elitist" Newsweek for not retouching Sarah Palin's cover photo.

Links to the various Obama covers can be found here.

Rosalind Kurita is up with this spot on cable TV, playing the political martyr and asking voters to strike a blow against party bosses by supporting her write-in candidacy. The odds are heavily against her, and not only because it's an expensive and time-consuming proposition to educate and motivate voters to take the trouble to write in someone's name. It would be almost impossible for even an overwhelmingly popular politician. And let's face it, Kurita isn't popular at all.

Here's an incumbent who outspent her primary opponent by a margin of better than 2 to 1 and still had to go harshly negative in the stretch run to eke out a 19-vote victory. How popular is that?

Kurita casts herself as victim, but we're guessing voters aren't buying it. They probably tired long ago of this little melodrama and wish Kurita would just go home.