Sarah Palin: Quitting Rogue, Hardly An American Life

Posted by on November 20, 2009 at 1:59 pm. 2 Comments :

Sarah Palin’s book tour is sweeping across the nation. Thousands of Tea Baggers are enduring long lines and inclement weather for a chance to see their new heroine and get her signature on the book that was ghost written for her. However, not all of these appearances are going as planned. In Indiana, Palin left her supporters in the lurch. People who had purchased books and were issued wristbands assuring them a signature, ended up booing her and protesting as she departed. They should not have been surprised. One thing Palin is known for is quitting before her job is done.
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This just in: Palin apologizes to Indiana fans:

I’ve been told that yesterday there were supporters in Noblesville who stood in long lines for hours in the cold and rain, and the book signing event ended without a chance to say hello to everyone who showed up. I am so sorry. We are working on a solution for those who were left behind. I apologize.

A solution for those left behind? I thought they were doomed.
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The cover of Palin’s book says more about her than the 400 pages inside. The decision to title it “Going Rogue” could not be more revealing. First of all, let’s take a look at what “rogue” means:

  1. A dishonest, knavish person; scoundrel.
  2. A playfully mischievous person; scamp: The youngest boys are little rogues.
  3. A tramp or vagabond.

Furthermore, the colloquially meaning of “going rogue” usually refers to an animal (elephant; GOP?) with an abnormally savage or unpredictable disposition. It may also refer to a person who is uncontrollable or out of the mainstream. Are these really the sort of positive representations that Palin intended?

It is also notable that the subtitle of her book is no more original on her part than the ghost written talking points and fabrications in the interior. I found fifteen other books subtitled “An American Life.”

This is an interesting congregation: Ben Franklin, Oral Roberts, Ronald Reagan, D.W. Griffith, Burt Lancaster, Martha Washington, Joe Papp, Andrew Mellon, Jeb Magruder, Condoleezza Rice, Sinclair Lewis, Jesse Owens, Ben Hogan, Daniel Boone, and (Friend Of The Devil) Jerry Garcia.

In that company, Palin seems a slight bit diminished. How exactly does serving half a term as governor and deep-sixing a presidential campaign translate into American icon status? For good or ill, everyone else listed above has undertaken something for which they will be remembered. I still can’t think of anything Palin has done that would be worth recalling – except for her contribution to the career of Tina Fey and other comedians. For that reason alone I am fervently hoping she runs in 2012, and taps Glenn Beck or Michael Steele as her number two.

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Prayer For Fox News

Posted by on November 20, 2009 at 12:09 pm. 3 Comments :

Psalms 31:18

Pray For Fox NewsSome repulsive, extremist right-wingers have been promoting an overtly hostile message that they culled from the Bible. It is a blatant threat to President Obama and his family. I’m sure they think it’s funny. It is “inspired” by a verse from Psalms, 109:8, and reads…

108:8, “May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.”
108:9, “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.”

This express desire for assassination exposes the intrinsic hatred and perverse patriotism that has infected the American right. It is a view that is reflected in their Tea Bagging and their media mouthpiece of choice, Fox News. Well, all I can say is…

“Let the lying lips be put to silence.”

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The Tea Party Nation Is Revolting

Posted by on November 19, 2009 at 3:55 pm. 2 Comments :

This just in: The Tea Party Nation will be holding their first convention in Nashville, TN, this coming February. This AstroTurf gathering of Baggers should prove to be a lively affair with panels on how to disrupt town hall meetings, forums on the similarities between President Obama and Hitler, workshops on promoting fake issues to protest, and media tutorials led by Fox News anchors.

“The convention is aimed at bringing the Tea Party Movement leaders together from around the nation for the purpose of networking and supporting the movements’ multiple organizations principle goals.”

As a special treat, Sarah Palin has just been announced as their keynote speaker. That should bring the Baggers out in force. The Tea Bagging will be televised. The Baggers are indeed revolting (have you ever eaten with one of them?). And what could be more exciting than to spend three days with these folks:

The Tea Bagger contingent will provide plenty of opportunity to learn about the many important issues facing the nation. And who better than these motivated and engaged citizens who represent the best of the right-wing and the Republican Party. This is, after all, the party for which it has just been revealed that a majority don’t believe that President Obama was legitimately elected. A new PPP poll asked the question:

“Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?”

Amongst Republicans only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% – an outright majority – saying that ACORN stole it. That would mean that ACORN would have stuffed about 10 million ballots. But the Tea Party Nationalists have no more problem accepting such nonsense than they do doubts that the President is an American citizen, or that “death panels” exist in the health care bill, or that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, or that Marxists are running loose in the halls of the White House.

All of this insures that the first ever conference of Tea Baggers should be a real hoot. Boy, I wish I could be there.


Now We Know What Sarah Palin Reads

Posted by on November 19, 2009 at 2:54 am. 1 Comments :

Last year, Sarah Palin famously flubbed a softball from Katie Couric. It’s actually not even precise to call it a softball. It was more of a floating feather on a windless day. Couric simply asked Palin what she reads. That was the question that Palin was incapable of responding to coherently.

Now, a year later, the mystery is solved. Palin was interviewed by Sean Hannity yesterday. Hannity came prepared with a bushel full of feathers to lob at Palin, but thanks to his crackerjack investigative skills, he managed to extract a truly newsworthy revelation:

Palin: I read Newsmax and the Frontiersman and the Wall Street Journal and everything online. I absorb the news via many, many sources.

She would have to absorb the news like a ShamWow in order to read “everything” online. However, she does do a good impersonation of the ShamWow pitchman by mentioning first the magazine, Newsmax. Her book, Going Rogue, is currently being peddled by Newsmax as bait to lure subscribers. I’m sure they appreciate the plug. The other two publications she reads are her hometown Wasilla rag and Rupert Murdoch’s financial paper. Need I remind you that Palin’s book is published by Murdoch’s HarperCollins?

This is the woman that virtually every conservative pundit is describing as the terror of liberals and Democrats. They are mostly echoing the sentiments of Bill O’Reilly whose Talking Points yesterday were devoted to “Why the Left Fears Sarah Palin.” The only problem is, I can’t find anyone on the left who is afraid of Sarah Palin. To the contrary, she is a great source of amusement to all the lefties I know. If anyone is afraid of Palin, I think it is the Republican Party. A recent CBS poll shows that only 43% of Republicans think Palin is qualified to be president. And 48% don’t even want her to run (more than the 44% who do). And that’s just Republicans.

In my highly unscientific poll of liberals I know personally, 100% are praying for her to run and win the Republican nomination. They’re not fearful, they’re giddy.

For the record: The DNC has conveniently complied a list of errors and falsehoods in Palin’s book, “Going Rogue.”


Fox Uses False Video (Again) To Inflate Sarah Palin’s Crowd

Posted by on November 18, 2009 at 5:58 pm. NO Comments :

Just one week ago, Jon Stewart exposed Sean Hannity for inserting video of a rally last summer to make a less successful rally this month look like it was well-attended. It was a blatant distortion that could not plausibly have happened by accident. Nevertheless, that is exactly the excuse Hannity coughed up, as he sought to trivialize the affair and sweep it under the rug. I wonder how Fox News will explain it this time.

ThinkProgress has caught them red-handed again. The video below was introduced by Fox anchor Gregg Jarrett saying…

“Sarah Palin continuing to draw huge crowds while she’s promoting her brand new book. Take a look at…these are some of the pictures just coming into us. You can see the lines earlier had formed this morning. There’s a crowd of folks.”

The problem is that this video clearly shows Palin at a campaign event last year, not a current stop on her book tour. McCain/Palin signs are plainly visible in the audience. But Jarrett’s commentary identifies these images as “just coming in.” It should also be noted that Jarrett is considered by Fox to be an actual “news” anchor, not a part of their editorial programming, like Hannity.

Following the takedown by Stewart, Fox and their apologists insisted it was an innocent mistake and that they had no intention of being deceptive. But how many times does this need to happen before their alibis are dismissed for the lies that they are? Real news enterprises do not misrepresent events to advance their agenda. You will notice that they have never made a mistake like this that increased the size of a Democratic rally. The dishonesty of Fox News seems to have no lower boundary. Before too long we should expect it to look something like this:

Update: Fox News has responded to this latest Faux pas by typically blaming a lowly editor:

“This was a production error in which the copy editor changed a script and didn’t alert the control room to update the video,” Michael Clemente, senior vice president of news at FOX, sad [sic] this evening. “There will be an on-air explanation during Happening Now on Thursday.”

That’s twice in two weeks. And on different programs. This is either intentional or a pattern of incompetence. Perhaps they should schedule a daily program to make their on-air explanations so they don’t have to interrupt their mistake-filled propaganda.


Bill O’Reilly Doesn’t Care About The Constitution

Posted by on November 18, 2009 at 11:40 am. 3 Comments :

The Big “O” of Fox News let it slip on his program yesterday. While it has been apparent for years, Bill O’Reilly finally admitted on air his utter disdain for America and its values. We have always known that he has little knowledge of the Constitution, and now we know why – he just doesn’t care.

This accident of candor is revealing on a number of levels. Obviously, the literal meaning of his remarks are repugnant. But his justification transcends common idiocy. O’Reilly tells Judge Andrew Napolitano that he doesn’t care about the Constitution because the Constitution isn’t there and the Judge is. So as far as O’Reilly is concerned, if the Constitution isn’t physically present, it is irrelevant. Don’t bother to cite the Constitution or advocate its provisions around O’Reilly unless the two of you are standing in the National Archives Building in Washington, DC. O’Reilly went on to call the Judge a pinhead for having the audacity to bring Constitutional law into a discussion about Constitutional law.

O’Reilly has demonstrated his aversion to Constitutional principles on many occasions. He opposes dissent unless it’s by Tea Baggers. He imposes religion via his defense of marriage and his annual War on Christmas nonsense. He disposes of fourth and fifth amendment rights for those he preemptively declares are guilty until proven innocent.

At least now it’s out in the open. From her on out, anytime he makes one of his tortured arguments about his twisted perspective on freedom or liberty, we can remind him and his flock what he confessed here. He really doesn’t care.

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The Newsmax Dream Ticket: Palin/Beck

Posted by on November 17, 2009 at 7:00 pm. 4 Comments :

This is just too delicious not to pass on. The uber-rightist magazine/web site, Newsmax, has been flapping hard for Sarah Palin since she fell from her nest in Alaska and took wing. They are presently hawking her new book as a free premium with a one year year subscription to their magazine. And if you don’t want a subscription, you can still buy the book for $4.95, a $25.00 discount from the retail price. Shipping and handling is $5.95, a dollar more than the book itself.

But here’s the fun part, Newsmax asked Palin about her future plans and specifically inquired as to whether she would entertain the idea of running on a ticket with Glenn Beck. They described it as their “dream ticket.” Palin’s response:

“I can envision a couple of different combinations, if ever I were to be in a position to really even seriously consider running for anything in the future, and I’m not there yet,” Palin tells Newsmax. “But Glenn Beck I have great respect for. He’s a hoot. He gets his message across in such a clever way. And he’s so bold – I have to respect that. He calls it like he sees it, and he’s very, very, very effective.”

That’s the dream ticket for NewsMax: Hockey Mom/Hoot 2012. I think it may be my dream ticket too.


Comparing Sarah Palin To Howard Dean

Posted by on November 17, 2009 at 11:43 am. 1 Comments :

Yesterday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Time Magazine editor-at-large and senior political analyst, Mark Halperin sought to make a comparison between Sarah Palin and Howard Dean. Commendably, the show’s co-hosts would have none of it. Mika Brzezinski said flatly that it was “not the same.” Joe Scarborough went even further:

Joe Scarborough: “It is such a disservice to compare Sarah Palin, in any aspect to Howard Dean. Yes, because that is an insult to Howard Dean’s intelligence.”

Fox Nation and other rightist webizens are aghast at Scarborough’s slap at Palin. But do you think they ever bothered to actually compare the two?

Sarah Palin: Howard Dean
Attended four universities before attaining a degree in journalism. Earned a BA in political science at Yale and medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Miss Wassila and third runner up in the Miss Alaska pageant. Stock broker on Wall Street.
Brief stint as a sportscaster for local Anchorage TV. Practiced family medicine in Vermont.
Served two-terms as Mayor of Wassila, AK. Elected to the Vermont House of Representatives and later, lieutenant governor.
Quit half way through her first term as Governor of Alaska. Served six terms as Governor of Vermont.
Selected by John McCain as VP candidate. Ran for the nomination of the Democratic Party for President.
Went Rogue. Was elected to chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee.

The similarities are mind-boggling. Scarborough was quite right to admonish Halperin for his simplistic and incorrect analysis. But the bigger issue here is how someone like Halperin can be accorded the respect and authority of an editor’s role at Time Magazine. Exactly how low are their standards?


The Communists In Glenn Beck’s Pointy Little Head

Posted by on November 16, 2009 at 10:58 pm. 2 Comments :

This is going to be brief because Glenn Beck really speaks for himself.

GLENN BECK, 11/12/09: I’ve been very consistent on all of this stuff. But they don’t even look at any of that. In fact, the claims that I make about socialist Marxism, et cetera, et cetera, communist, I’ve only charged that there was one communist in the White House, in the administration, one. I have not made a claim that there’s more. Only one.

GLENN BECK, 8/31/09: Why does the president have so many Marxists, socialists, radicals and self-proclaimed communists advising him?

GLENN BECK, 10/17/09: It is not a crime to admire communist murderers, but to me – pardon the pun – it is kind of a red flag. But even more chilling than all the admiration is the fact that so many in and around our nation’s capital and the White House, in the halls of power, adhere to the tenets of socialism, Marxism, and communism.

GLENN BECK, 10/26/09: I have made an unchallenged case that there were and are communist revolutionaries, socialists, Marxists, people that follow Chairman Mao, people that do not believe in the free market system, people that are radicals that have been appointed by Obama to the executive branch positions in government.

Beck frequently claims that he would immediately correct any mistake, but we really can’t hold him to that. If he actually had to correct his lies and misstatements, how would he have time to do his show?


Glenn Beck’s Cast Of Racists and White Supremacists

Posted by on November 16, 2009 at 4:57 pm. 9 Comments :

The case was made long ago that Fox News is a haven for racism and hate. So many of the network’s presenters have been caught expressing repulsive views that they should just stop pretending and pull their sheets out of the closet.

Let’s give Glenn Beck a taste of his own medicine. He revels in phony guilt by association scams, but he is also vulnerable to them. Sam Stein at the Huffington Post has done some investigative work that documents what rational observers already know. His column itemizes a parade of purported hate mongers that Beck has featured on his radio and TV programs. People like…

  • Michael Hill, the founder and president of the League of the South.
  • Thomas Naylor, the secessionist head of the Second Vermont Republic.
  • Tom Woods, radical, pro-Confederate author.
  • Larry Pratt, the president of Gun Owners of America.
  • Roy Beck, the founder and president of NumbersUSA.
  • Charles Goyette, Phoenix-based radio host and 9/11 skeptic.

The research done by HuffPo’s Stein is a useful addition to accumulated evidence against Beck. Stein notes that Beck is well known for casting aspersions on his enemies based on associations he can make between them and other dubious figures. By that standard, Beck is the leading candidate for Grand Wizard in America today. And remember, Beck is the guy who called President Obama a racist. Beck is also the guy who has been on an obsessive campaign against African Americans in public service. Along with organizations that represent the interests of the poor, minorities, and workers, like ACORN and SEIU, Beck has attacked mostly black staffers in the Obama administration:

Anyone who thinks that the election of a black president put an end to the problem of racial prejudice in this country is terminally naive.