Okay, I can *almost* understand the rationalization for providing Sarah Palin with a campaign wardrobe. ALMOST because while she and her husband are millionaires and have plenty of money to buy their own clothing, this before-and-after collage certainly shows that money does not buy taste.
But I’m just dying to hear how a $3000 Louis Vuitton handbag for her six-year-old daughter is spun by her handlers as another sign of what a down-to-earth, “Joe Sixpack” family they are. And…I also want the name, address and telephone number of the charity said bag gets donated to at the end of the campaign so that someone can verify that it did in fact get handed down to someone who really “needed” a $3000 purse.
And while we’re on the subject…today the New York Times reported that the highest-paid person inside the McCain-Palin campaign is not one of McCain’s closest and most-trusted political advisers, it’s Sarah Palin’s makeup artist.
For the five or six of you who don’t watch The Daily Show, this must-watch clip features a little visit to the pro-America, family-values community of Wasilla, Alaska.
Toward the end of the clip, the current mayor of Wasilla demonstrates that she doesn’t have any better grip of what her own job is than Sarah Palin does. But she probably shouldn’t expect any help from her predecessor, who still really doesn’t have any idea what the Vice President does except spend a lot of money on clothing:
The Republicans have been reduced to the equivalent of screaming “fire” in a crowded theater. Actually, it’s worse than that, because what they’re really doing is screaming “Nigger! Nigger! Nigger!” at the top of their lungs and then pointing fingers at the Democrats as if they were the guilty ones.
It is worse than pathetic. It is, in fact, somewhat ominous. As we move toward the denouement of these two long years of campaigning, as the margin in the polls grows wider and wider to favor Obama, one has to wonder if these people will become even more deranged. One seriously has to wonder if they will actually move to physical violence, and against whom. Obama himself does not seem to worry about his personal safety, but at this juncture it’s probably not the candidate who has to worry. It’s the people in Obama campaign offices, the people who work in Planned Parenthood clinics, the people gathered at Democratic campaign rallies who need to be concerned than an unhinged right-winger will start shooting, or leave a backpack full of explosives in a public space, or throw a Molotov cocktail into a campaign headquarters.
And I am genuinely concerned that for the next eight years, this will be the norm, not the exception, to how those people will continue to express their outrage at a black President. This is the culmination of all the angry polarization that has consumed the American public since Bill Clinton was elected in 1992. The right wing has been driven into a corner, and it will lash out at anyone and anything. They are beyond reason — just listen to them continue to spout the most ridiculous rhetoric about Obama, or watch those videos that went big-time over the weekend of McCain supporters screaming “Kill Him!” and “Treason”. They are frightening and they are very, very real.
What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.” He is “palling around with terrorists” (note the plural noun). Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.
The enabler has been Sarah Palin. Unfettered by McCain’s own personal reputation as “an honorable man”, she has been the point-person for the Rovian campaign people who are ultimately responsible for these tactics of fear-mongering and hate. She gets away with saying the most detestable things because of her “you betcha” accent and her fake eyeglasses and her little winks. Whether she really knows if what she’s saying is true or false, who can say, because it’s obvious she does what she’s told and is capable of little else. Nevertheless, she sells it with fervor (and a little sex), and the angry and stupid who are her political base eat it up with a big spoon.
Already there is talk that the response to Palin on the campaign trail is making some think that she is the right candidate to restore the Republicans in 2012. That this is her springboard to the top, and John McCain is the loser she will step on to get there. Given the response, given the readiness of so many Republican supporters to go to the very precipice of violence against Obama and their fellow Americans, it is something to consider with deep, deep apprehension.
I have said this in a couple of other places, but it is nothing less than brilliant that the job of publicly eviscerating Sarah Palin has been given to Katie Couric. For starters, it instantly obviates the slightest charge of sexism, as Palin herself readily admitted. Secondly, since much of America still thinks of sweet little Katie Couric as “America’s Morning Sweetheart”, the frothing-at-the-mouth right-wing bloviators have a hard time making the claim that Palin is being picked on by Commie Pinko New York Liberal Media Elites. Thirdly, and best of all, Couric hasn’t had to even ask a difficult or controversial question; she’s lobbing big, fat puffy softballs, so nobody can say that she is taking advantage of Palin’s complete and utter lack of experience.
I know everybody and his brother is linking to yesterday’s clip, but it really has to be seen to be believed:
Despite the McCain campaign’s strenuous objections, tonight we are apparently going to be treated to her being unable to name any Supreme Court case other than Roe V. Wade.
But now there’s a PR effort to make us think that she’s just lulling everybody’s senses and is somehow a brilliant debater who is going to slice and dice Joe Biden. She can’t answer questions about what newspapers she reads or what her running mate has done as a Senator, and somehow her ability to blow smoke out her ass is going to save her on Thursday night?
I have a five-spot that says by Monday morning next week she will be on her way back to Wasilla for good. Any takers?
As Jon Stewart said the other day, for those of who who have been living under a rock…CONGRATULATIONS We should all be so lucky right now.
Must have been a helluva day at CBS yesterday. Letterman sounded like he was going to walk down to the Evening News set and punch McCain in the snoot on live TV. But the real piece de resistance was Katie Couric’s interview with The Stupidest Woman In Alaska America.
Watch her seriously defend her “I can see Russia from my house” claim to foreign policy experience:
Then read the transcript of the slightly testy exchange over coming up with specific examples of John McCain’s non-existant record of fighting against deregulation:
Couric: You’ve said, quote, “John McCain will reform the way Wall Street does business.” Other than supporting stricter regulations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago, can you give us any more example of his leading the charge for more oversight?
Palin: I think that the example that you just cited, with his warnings two years ago about Fannie and Freddie – that, that’s paramount. That’s more than a heck of a lot of other senators and representatives did for us.
Couric: But he’s been in Congress for 26 years. He’s been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.
Palin: He’s also known as the maverick though, taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he’s been talking about – the need to reform government.
Couric: But can you give me any other concrete examples? Because I know you’ve said Barack Obama is a lot of talk and no action. Can you give me any other examples in his 26 years of John McCain truly taking a stand on this?
Palin: I can give you examples of things that John McCain has done, that has shown his foresight, his pragmatism, and his leadership abilities. And that is what America needs today.
Couric: I’m just going to ask you one more time – not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation.
Palin: I’ll try to find you some and I’ll bring them to you.
She’s a complete moron! She’s not qualified to be Senior Class President, let alone Vice President of the United States, or even Governor of Alaska…a job she already has! Are people in Alaska in general so fucking stupid that they could choose this woman as competent to run their entire state? Or does it just not matter to them and they were glad to give the job to the babe with the nice rack?
John McCain is a disgrace, but this woman has no business in public life whatsoever. If you vote for these two people in November, you should be ashamed of yourself.
It is a damn good thing that the Bush Administration chose to announce their agreement to pay the $700 billion ransom demand made by Wall Street over the weekend. If this had happened during the work-week, the pressure on Congress to Just.Do.Something. would have been overwhelming, especially after Ben Bernanke used the “nuclear option” on Congress to tell them just how serious this problem is. And, given that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bend over for Geroge Bush more than a Greenwich Village tranny during Fleet Week, they would have gone along in a snap. But the weekend gave every pundit known to humanity a chance to take a deep breath, sort out the details, and come to the conclusion that the bailout plan, as proposed, is FUCKING WACK.
If the Bush bailout plan were put into place without modification, you might as well cancel the November election, because Hank Paulson would be the de facto Ruler Of The Free World. With a blank check, zero accountability, and virtually unlimited authority to do whatever he wants to the American economy, and thus by extension the entire world, he might as well declare himself King Henry the First and be done with it. It was apparently not enough to hand over a trillion dollars to Halliburton, not to mention $9 billion(UPDATED: make that $23 billion)IN CASH to the gang posing as the Iraqi government, but with less than six months remaining in their administration, they needed to make sure that Paulson’s buddies on Wall Street got their welfare checks AND the option to buy up all the failing banks in America at a deep discount.
You know it’s a bad idea when even such Republican lickspittles as William Kristol go on record in the New York Times as calling it a duck. I have been collecting links all morning to the various and sundry politicians, pundits and other bloviating gasbags and here’s the lineup I have so far of people who have said the bailout is a Bad Thing:
Speakng of Kucinich, he has picked up on Krugman’s “Cash For Trash” line, and says he will introduce a counter-proposal to distribute the remaining good assets of the failed banks to each and every American citizen to the tune of the $2,300.00-per-person figure that has been bandied about as the per-capita cost of the bailout.
Meanwhile, Kucinich’s chief economic adviser from his primary campaign, University of Missouri Professor Michael Hudson, spoke about the crisis in this interview last week (pre-bailout announcement) with DemocracyNow.org (video here if you’re interested). He doesn’t even think the AIG bailout is a good idea…and he’s right.
At least Barack Obama isn’t ready to hand over all the money so easily, but he isn’t exactly stepping up to the plate yet either. The Boston Herald reports that he spent some time this weekend meeting with Warren Buffet, Larry Sanders, Paul Volcker and a bunch of other Serious People to get a better handle on the situation and maybe come up with something. But, seriously, Barry, you need to pull something out of your ass that isn’t just some rhetorical flourish on top of a wishy-washy do-nothing plan like the rest of your platform. Somebody tell me again why you think he’s better than McCain, because I still just don’t feel the love for him that you do. Running on “I’m not John McCain” isn’t much of a change, you know.
Much has been made of this e-mail from an unnamed Democratic congressman who isn’t too happy with the events of the last few days. He’s ready to vote for anything that “…would serve no useful purpose except to insult the industry, like requiring the CEOs, CFOs and the chair of the board of any entity that sells mortgage related securities to the Treasury Department to certify that they have completed an approved course in credit counseling… That would just be petty and childish, and completely in character for me. I’m open to other ideas, and I am looking for volunteers who want to hold the sons of bitches so I can beat the crap out of them. I think he’s on the right track myself, but over at MetaFilter the user named “Pastabagel” has a very salient reminder about spreading the blame for all this around. While I feel the Congress-critter’s pain, Pastabagel has a very valid point: we gave the Democrats back the majority to take care of this bullshit and they have let us down immensely. Republicans and Democrats alike need to be thoroughly beaten with sharp and pointy objects for their complicity in this clusterfuck.
And the general public? Well, we’ve been enjoying our bread and circuses, of course. The Pew Research Center’s weekly analysis of news content says that in the week of September 8-14, which is the week before the market tanked and people started to get nervous, 42% of all news coverage was devoted to some aspect of Sarah Palin, with nearly 25% of that coverage being about the “lipstick on a pig” comment, while the crumbling economy got 4% of the newsmedia’s attention. Forty-two fucking percent of their seemingly limitless time thrown away on some white-trash “hockey mom” who can “see Russia from her house”, while the millionaires line up for their bags of money taken directly from our pockets. We, the people of this country, also deserve a full measure of blame for this. And we’re going to get it. Soon.
I’m tellin’ ya, itr’s not just me who is noticing just what a crow can do for you. Today BoingBoing links to this New Scientist article that puts crows head-to-head against chimpanzees and decides that our black-feathered friends come out on top in the intelligence category.
Watch the above video where a crow uses a flexible length of something (a twist-tie, perhaps?) to try to lift a small basket full of food from a tube, then figures out how to bend it into a hook to accomplish the task. Smart. Very smart.
Now read this transcript of Charlie Gibson’s interview with Sarah Palin from last week, where it is patently clear that she is barely capable of speaking English, let alone forming a coherent sentence, and is merely parroting the talking points given to her by McCain’s campaign staff.
I don’t know about you, but I, for one, think the crow would probably make a better Vice President. Slap a pair of Tina Fey glasses on him and he’d kick ass at the polls!
I’m really trying not to get too involved in the frenzy over Sarah Palin, but I think this pretty well sums up why her daughter’s pregnancy is a relevant issue. Her mother MADE it an issue. It’s part of her platform, right along with teaching Creationism in public schools, banning books from the public library, calling the Iraq War “God’s Will”, and all of her other equally odious positions. Sure, the daughter is entitled to a degree of privacy, but she remains an object lesson of her mother’s hypocrisy as a political figure, and it raises questions about her suitability to hold public office. Let the girl alone, but the candidate needs to be called on the carpet.
In a similar vein, I also liked this editorial cartoon:
which rather deftly skewers the Republicans for their own two-faced approach to morality.
Sarah Palin HAS managed to do one thing for me — she’s almost made me change my mind about voting for Obama. I will still probably cast my vote for Kucinich come November, but the cynical pandering of McCain and the fundie freakshow fascism of Palin make BarryO look better and better by the second.
If this Republican ticket doesn’t simply scream “Leadership”, I don’t know what does.
Sorry I don’t have anything better to offer, but I spent the entire weekend uncontrollably laughing my ass off every time I saw yet-another-story about McGrumpy and Miss Alaska, so this was about the only thing I had.
That’s okay, though. I’m sure we have yet to see an end to the hilarity that has ensued.
