I had kind of a long day yesterday, and I just couldn't bring myself to write an angry takedown of baldfaced political propaganda feebly disguised as a smarmy children's book. But I'm well-rested now, and Meghan McCain's smarmy-sounding children's book, My Dad, John McCain is still here waiting for me.

But unlike the over-protective nitpickers at Wonkette, I won't question Ms. McCain's authorial decisions on what to leave in and what to leave out of this streamlined version her father's story. You can't expect a child to want to hear about a father abandoning his family to start a new one, any more than you can expect a child of that second batch to acknowledge her half-siblings' existence in print. And as for the whole POW thing, if Pulp Fiction taught us anything, it's that explaining the details of a father's experience at the greasy yellow hands of those slopes can have a formative effect on a young child's outlook.

Instead I'll note without comment that Ms. McCain is a hugger, as evidenced by this photo from her campaign trail blog, where she re-enacts the cover image of her book with Sen. Joe Lieberman.

And that the illustrator for her book, Dan Andreasen, has a talent for capturing the inner spirit of the doddering, grey-haired lapdogs of American agribusiness, as evidenced by his portrait of Orville Redenbacher, which graces every ConAgra-produced box.

Details leak about presumed worst book ever [wonkette]
Simon says, this is the second piece of official McCain lit we're putting out: My Dad, John McCain [simonsays.com]
"Watching a Town Hall from the Straight Talk Express" [mccainblogette.com]
Talent | Dan Andreasen [danandreasen.com]