Kerfuffle

I love a good Bullwinkle reference

First we get moose and squirrel...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
From Russia With Gov
www.thedailyshow.com

Words have consequences. Violent words have violent consequences.

Talking to you, Sarah Palin.

Remember this?  It was on your website until ealrier today:

You have fucking crosshairs marked over Congressmens' districts!  Crosshairs!  Like in "shoot a gun at them" crosshairs.  This thing was up for months.

And now someone took you up on it and made a direct hit.  It's called assassination.  Nice going Sarah.  Just scrubbing this graphic from the site doesn't make it -- or its underlying intent -- go away.

No matter how you try to paint over your hateful rhetoric with your offer to pray for U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on your Facebook page, you are complicit in her assassination attempt.  You know it, I know it and the rest of the world knows it.  The blood of a sitting United States Congresswoman, a federal judge, and others may not be on your hands, but it sure as hell splattered on you and your political lemmings.

If any good comes out of this tragedy, it will be that people finally see you and your followers for what they truly are:  ignorant, violent asshats. 

I think you've done enough damage to the country, Ms. Palin.  Please go away.  Far, far away. 

"If they all vote, and you don't, they win and everyone loses."

Indeed, the party of corporate America seems to have created an interesting franchise in the Tea Party.  It's essentially a wholly-owned subsidiary of the GOP, just like it's promotional partner FOX News.  And one has to give them credit where credit is due:  once again they are playing  low-information (or, frankly, low intellect) voters for fools as they sway them toward voting against their own best interests.  Kind of a recurring theme.  Of course, they found something that works (along with obstructionism), and they are sticking with it.  I guess it's the best strategy given they don't really have any new ideas to move forward, only plans to regress, repress, and widen the income gap (see 2001-2008).

[h/t Political Carnival]

Maybe if she wasn't such a mean girl, she'd have more friends...

From DK...

Funny.

 

And, yes, I've been a slacker in terms of posting things that include, umm, actual writing.  Soon.  Promise.

How about a FOX News Chyron that tells me something I don't already know?

Sure it's a Photoshopped Chyron.  It may also be prophetic.

George Will does his erudite best to point out the perils of embracing common ignorance as a political strategy

Like him or not, George Will is a damn good writer in terms of the technical craft of op-ed journalism.  The man is articulate and well-spoken, and he knows how to translate his thoughts beautifully into print.  I've met him on several occasions, had lunch with him once, and even had a few beers with him at a Cubs game.  He's actually a pretty nice guy.  Nonetheless, I tend to disagree with him most of the time.

That said, Will made clear a couple points about the current embrace of "teh stupid" in his Washington Post column today.

First, with regard to the possibility of a Sarah Palin candidacy...

Barry Goldwater, whose seat John McCain occupies, chose to run with Bill Miller, a congressman from Lockport, N.Y., near Buffalo. Miller, Goldwater cheerfully explained, annoyed Lyndon Johnson. After the Goldwater-Miller ticket lost 44 states, Miller retired to Lockport, where he practiced law and lived in dignified anonymity until his death in 1983. Although he had served as an assistant prosecutor of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg and spent seven terms in Congress, no one suggested he should be considered for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination.

Yet Sarah Palin, who with 17 months remaining in her single term as Alaska's governor quit the only serious office she has ever held, is obsessively discussed as a possible candidate in 2012. Why? She is not going to be president and will not be the Republican nominee unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states. 

And on the rise of anti-intellectualism these days that seems to be actually chasing away smart people from the Republican core...

America, its luck exhausted, at last has a president from the academic culture, that grating blend of knowingness and unrealism. But the reaction against this must somewhat please him. That reaction is populism, a celebration of intellectual ordinariness. This is not a stance that will strengthen the Republican Party, which recently has become ruinously weak among highly educated whites. Besides, full-throated populism has not won a national election in 178 years, since Andrew Jackson was reelected in 1832. 

Remember when people said they liked George W. Bush because he seemed like a guy you'd enjoy having a beer with?  Bush did a great job of masking his Ivy-league, silver spoon upbringing so as to appear to be a man of the common folk.  Brilliant marketing.  (It helped, of course, that he truly wasn't the brightest bulb on the Bush family tree, to be sure.)  That was actually a leading item the criteria some people used to consider him worthy of the highest office in our nation and, arguably, in the world.

Sadly, that explains a lot about the whole Sarah Palin thing.  But it makes me wonder.  Do these same people want to go to a doctor who they know finished last in his class at an off-shore, unaccredited medical school?  Do they want a person flying their American Airline jet who learned to fly on an X-Box?  I mean, really, what's up with that?  Why would you want an intellectual lightweight with little real experience (and who quit her only real political office half-way through to go on the talk-for-money circuit) to be President of the United States?

Back again to H. L. Mencken... "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."  Or their intelligence, it seems.

[h/t to DemFromCT at DK for pointing me to the column.]

What is this, high school? Of Sarah Palin, Rahm Emanuel, satire, and f***ing retards

I've been schooled by some very well-meaning friends about my occasional use of the word "retarded."  I wrote a post defending the word, as if it is defensible.  I must agree that, to many, many people, it is insensitive at best and offensive and hateful at worst.  I get it.

America's air-headed conservative sweetheart, Sarah Palin, doesn't like the word and it's variations either.  Unless it is uttered by someone she is afraid to piss off, or she uses it herself.  She called for the firing of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel when he used it to refer to progressive Democrats.  But she sees it as satire when used by El Rushbo.

I thought if you went to several universities to cobble together a single broadcast journalism degree, you would understand what "satire" means.  I guess not.  But what can you expect from someone who has to scrawl and then actually use notes on her own hand.  Hilarious!  And it's not even satire!  But this from Stephen Colbert sure is... and it's really well-done satire...

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sarah Palin Uses a Hand-O-Prompter
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

Well played, Mr. Colbert.  I especially like the "hand-o-prompter" line.  So many on the right have parroted criticism on Barack Obama for using a TelePrompTer, forgetting that every president -- or corporate big shot -- uses them when they want to stay with a pre-written speech.  Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address on the backs on envelopes, the TelePrompTer of his day, for chrissakes. Do people think politicians and other important speakers deliver major addresses extemporaneously?  I don't think our previous president could order at the Taco Bell drive-thru without notes.

But writing stuff on your hand?  WTF?  Of course, since she is prone to releasing "statements" on her Facebook page, I guess this shouldn't be too much of a surprise.  Yet, this is the person people still think should be our next president?  What... is Miley Cyrus not interested in running?  Are we all suddenly 14 years old again?

Which brings me to another piece of brilliant satire from last week's Saturday Night Live.  Andy Samberg nails the whole Rahm Emanuel thing...

Samberg seems to take a page from the Glenn Beck playbook for his satirical inspiration:  "I'm just saying what other people are thinking."  That's the great thing about satire; it allows a point to be made clear in a way that is both humorous and deadly accurate.  It's a rhetorical or literary device, though, and not an excuse for being an ass.  It's also not something you can claim retroactively after you say something incredibly hateful, offensive, or just plain ignorant.  Sorry Rush.  Sorry Glen.  It's only satire when you have that as an objective before the fact.

I gotta run. I have class and I need to write my discussion points on my arm.

Give the gift of security to your overly-paranoid loved one this Christmas!

I mean, honestly, what could possibly go wrong with one of these? 

Nothing says "I love you" more than giving someone an accident waiting to happen.

Endorsed by Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney!

[h/t Bob P.]

One of the things I am thankful for: We still have Sarah Palin to laugh at. Bless her heart; she brings so much joy and laughter to me also too

Indeed, Sarah Palin is the gift that keeps on giving.  And like all good things, sometimes one can just have too much also, you bet.  I have one conservative friend who likes to advance the opinion that I am afraid of Ms. Palin whenever i make light of her. apparently ignorance and shallowness  "You really fear her, don't you?" TR wrote on my Facebook page a few weeks ago.  Umm, no.  Hardly.

It's become a conservative meme:  Democrats really fear her; they are obsessed with her.  While I doubt the first part of that thought, I reluctantly agree that liberals do seem kind of consumed with the half-term-then-quit former Alaska governor.  I can't speak for everyone, but my fixation is due to the fact that she is so fucking hilarious.  Not intentionally, mind you, but she is a walking cartoon.  Unfortunately, she is also a sad commentary of how we seem to pick candidates in this country these days.  To hell with gravitating toward someone who is really smart, since it would appear that intellectualism and competence are bad words (at least in Republican circles).  People cite Palin as being "real" and "for liberty" and "of the people."  Oh my fucking god are you fucking kidding me?  Really?  That's your basis for seeing her as a viable candidate?  Wow.

Fortunately, she is still easily duped.  During the book-signing tour this week, the Canadian version of The Daily Show, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, sent a "correspondent", in character to interview Palin.  While her handlers detected a rouse, Madame Palin herself didn't. she just saw another press opportunity...

So, yes, I do have a slightly unhealthy fixation on Sarah Palin.  I admit it.  I can't help it... she's such a fucking dolt.  As the comedians like to say, the jokes just write themselves.  I am thankful this Thanksgiving that in these troubled times, we have Sarah Palin to laugh at.

You betcha.

Palin says her "facts" are better than AP's facts while Amazon dumps her book, pre-release, into the bargain bin also, too

To read Ron Fournier and some of the other Associated press political writers out of Washington DC is to know that these days the AP is tacking right.  That's one of the things that makes this so funny...

From HuffPo...

Former Alaska Governor lashed out at the Associated Press Sunday for doing a fact-check on her memoir, "Going Rogue."

"Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the AP somehow nabbed a copy of the book before it was released," she wrote on her Facebook page. "They're now erroneously reporting on the book's contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed during the campaign and afterwards. We've heard 11 writers are engaged in this opposition research, er, "fact checking" research!"

The AP reported that Palin's account often contradicted her record as well as current events. Her depiction of the McCain campaign is also frequently at odds with internal campaign emails.

Even funnier:  the book isn't officially released until tomorrow, but over at Amazon, it's already in the bargain bin for $9.00 (You Save: $19.99 (69%).  Before it's actually released.  Before it's fucking released.  HA!

Incidentally, this is the same book that had El Rushbo lauding it as one of the "most substantive books" on policy he'd ever read.  Seriously, Boss, you need to get yourself a library card and do a little more book learnin'. 

The bargain bin!  Before it's released!  Really.  Best that she stick to Facebook.