We love political cartoons, and Bill Mitchell, a former newspaper cartoonist who’s abandoned print media for the online world (gotta love animated GIFs), is one of our favorites. Check out his great work if you haven’t before.

Earlier, we posted a political cartoon dealing with the staggering cost ($5k/second) of the Iraq war and the farce of the U.S. economic stimulus plan.

Now here’s one about the proposed gas tax holiday, which some presidential hopefuls support. Note that Barack Obama is conspicuously absent below.

Shameless pandering, anyone? Fill ‘er up!

Cartoon source: here. More Mitchell here.

Remember when he was touted - and touted himself - as a maverick?

Well, those days are long gone for Sen. John McCain, a.k.a. Bush 2.0, who moved to shore up his support among conservatives by pledging Tuesday to nominate strict-constructionist judges to the federal bench.

“It will fall to the next president to nominate hundreds of qualified men and women to the federal courts, and the choices we make will reach far into the future,” the will-be Republican presidential nominee said.

“My two prospective opponents and I have different ideas about the nature and proper exercise of judicial power,” added McCain, speaking at Wake Forest, in reference to Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

“We would nominate judges of a different kind, a different caliber, a different understanding of judicial authority and its limits.”

Continue reading this article …

The more he opens his mouth, the clearer it becomes that John McCain’s views on global affairs are rather consistent with those of the great George W. Bush.

Much like Bush, McCain sees the world in oppositional terms - us vs. them, good vs. evil. He speaks of taking the lead “in fighting the transcendent issue of our time” - an unending, undefined crusade against “evil.”

Really, we could end this post right now. But we’ll continue.

During the Cold War, the new, central tenet of neo-conservatism emerged - that America is locked in a battle with evil. The U.S.S.R. was evil - but this hazardous way of framing any and all conflict has prevailed ever since.

Bush’s foreign policy - his refusal to think for more than five seconds about any situation or consider diplomacy, his outright dismissal of the United Nations, his increasingly aggressive nuclear posturing - is a function of this.

John McCain maintains the same outdated, epically disastrous world view, no matter how “maverick” or “independent” he fancies himself.

DON’T KID YOURSELF: George W. Bush and his aspiring successor, John McCain, share the same bellicose, inherently dangerous world views, no matter what “criticism” the latter supposedly has regarding the former’s policies.

Like many conservatives during and since the Cold War, Sen. McCain has embraced this “moral” attitude that the United States is a force defending all that is good, battling the forces of evil. As if it could possibly be that simple.

• He has morphed this into an laughably simplistic, strategic guidebook.

• He rejects negotiation and coexistence out of hand. Even if this means mass casualties, unending conflict and unstated goals.

• He confuses our enemies - Sunni Al-Qaeda with Shiite Iranian extremists - not because he’s old (well, maybe a little for that reason), but thanks to the narrow-minded ignorance that assumes evil is a single, uniform entity.

John McCain may lambast Donald Rumsfeld and nitpick Bush on foreign policy, but that’s all it is. The fundamental principles, or lack thereof, are essentially the same, and cannot be allowed to continue in such reckless fashion if our once-respected nation is to repair its relationships with the rest of the world.

In a world of ambiguity, marred by deep-rooted and rapidly-transforming threats such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation and, yes, global warming, such a dumbed-down, overly nationalistic approach will inevitably fail.

It has, and it will. Vote for this man at your peril.

Miss South Carolina 2007 is on board the Straight Talk Express! Ashley Zais, a beauty queen and graduate of Wofford College, will serve as John McCain’s intern coordinator at the Republican Senator’s campaign’s HQ.

John McCain met Ashley Zais last year when he gave a speech at South Carolina’s Newberry College, where her father serves as president.

Ashley Zais: Reason #1 (of 1) to apply for a John McCain campaign internship!

Ashley Zais’ father is Mitchell Zais, a retired Army general, and a man who McCain became friendly with after Zais published a piece in 2006 critical of how Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon had handled the Iraq war.

Man. Imagine if Bill Clinton had interns that looked like this. Sorry, that was sort of crass. But come on, you know you were already thinking it.

You know those motivational posters you sometimes see in offices or even people’s bedrooms? The ones talking about synergy and optimism, determined to get you excited about the day? Or to hang in there when times are tough?

Well, all three of the remaining presidential candidates want nothing more than to convince you they are the one that can inspire, unite and create the brightest of futures for this great nation. If only it were that easy.

Here’s a look at some faux motivational posters we’d like to see starring Sens. John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (and a bonus poster featuring the infamous, antiquated White House red phone) …

Here’s a preview of tomorrow’s Pennsylvania primary. Oh, wait, it’s just a preview of tonight’s wrestling bout between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Yes, WWE Raw will stop at nothing for ratings, and tonight will be pitting the presidential candidates and Democratic senators against each other as they settle their differences the American way - in a pro wrestling ring.

The preview, which will likely mark the high point of a publicity stunt destined to be a train wreck when it actually plays out, appears below…

We’ve learned that three candidates themselves will also appear in taped messages, parts of which appear below. John McCain, for the record, is channeling the likes of Ric Flair, then Triple H, and finally Hulk Hogan. Outstanding.

Always blame the intern John McCain’s campaign said it was a “low-level, unpaid staff debacle” that resulted in a bunch of Food Network recipes being pawned off as Cindy McCain’s on the candidate’s official web page.

Man. First the McCain girls, now this. Is nothing sacred in this world?

As first observed this weekend the Huffington Post, then further lampooned in the graphic below by celebrity news site TMZ, a John McCain intern apparently decided it was time to add the experience of Rachael Ray to the Arizona Senator’s policy team. Hmm. We knew something about her Ahi Tuna was fishy.

Boooooo!

The McCain campaign apologized for the recipe yoinking. They steadfastly stand by the Iraq war and their head-scratching economic policies du jour, however.

A spokesperson said in a statement that Cindy’s “recipes” have been generating “a tremendous amount of public interest” and they’re working on getting this part of the site back up - maybe with actual recipes by Cindy McCain.

The tone of this long, dramatic presidential campaign began shifting a few weeks ago. There was no defining moment, but a gradual decline - one that has many thinking we have just another set of disappointing candidates.

Forgetting his staunch Iraq war positions and those gaffes in the Middle East for a moment, John McCain’s ideas on domestic policies, especially regarding the financial industry, have erased any optimism that may have existed about him providing anything resembling sound economic stewardship.

Of course, the Democrats’ bitter battle has made the questions surrounding John McCain seem tame - and even boosted the GOP nominee’s standing.

Barack Obama was dinged by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and while he bounced back and reshaped the debate, his unfortunate comments about church-goers and gun owners in Pennsylvania dealt him another blow.

What he said is true, and makes perfect sense in a broader context - but the way Obama said it could easily give offense in rural America. There’s also an indignant air about him when he responds to harsh criticism.

Finally, there’s Hillary Clinton, who has gone too far in the way she has gone on the offensive with a relentless string of attacks against him since.

By unleashing everything in her arsenal against Obama, she managed to cut off coverage of her flat-out lying about Bosnia, or the duplicity of Mark Penn.

But she very well be causing irreparable damage in the process.

Rather than defusing the situation, taking the high road and talking about issues, Hillary Clinton - she of the $109M in earnings since 2000 - calls Barack Obama elitist, patronizing, out of touch and so much more.

Whether we can pull ourselves out of this mire remains to be seen. If we can’t, we may look back to the five-plus weeks between the Mississippi and Pennsylvania primaries as the turning point when McCain moved ahead to stay.

So it turns out the McCain Girls are manufactured, a total hoax. Which is not too hard to believe, and probably good for the girls themselves, because anyone who makes up a YouTube song in support of John McCain needs serious help.

The McCain Girls are the product of the website 23/6, which wanted to make fun of the campaign-song phenomenon popularized in 2007 and 2008.

They hired three girls to sing a pro-John McCain spoof, “It’s Raining McCain,” then followed it up with an encore, “Here Comes the McCain Again.”

The McCain Girls: Not really John McCain fans. Phew.

The president of 23/6, Sarah Bernard, confessed to the joke, telling the New York Times that “We were pretty amazed that after the video came out, people were confused as to whether or not it was real. That’s when I think we said ‘Hey, can we actually pull off a hoax here? How long can we keep it going?’”

The candidate himself had lauded the McCain Girls, a trio of singing and dancing campaign supporters, are wonderful and entertaining. Given his flair for irony, whether he actually got the joke remains entirely up for debate.

On a related note, one wonders just how long the Republican nominee for president can keep up the similar fraud of his supposed patriotism.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney and former Gov. Mike Huckabee have both promised to do everything they can to get Sen. John McCain elected president.

But both are also busy plotting, positioning themselves not only as the best vice president material for John McCain, but also as strong candidates on their own merits looking ahead to 2012, writes RealClearPolitics’ Reid Wilson.

Mitt Romney has been readily involved so far, and as more Americans focus on the economy, the better he may look. McCain may need a Vice President with real economic credentials, although animosity is still said to exist between the two.

Mike Huckabee, too, is staying active, and brings a level of executive experience that even McCain lacks. Although some fiscal conservatives aren’t fans, social conservatives would love this addition to a John McCain-led ticket.

BANK ON IT: If John McCain loses in November, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney will fight it out for the Republican nomination four years from now.

Their potential starting points? Drum roll… Iowa and New Hampshire! Both swing states, and two of only three (with N.M.) to flip from 2000 and 2004.

Look for Huckabee or Romney to set up shop in Des Moines and try to lock down those seven electoral votes for McCain - and start building the brand for 2012.