More Absurdities from The Plumber and Palin

The 21st century’s Everyman, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher is, like almost every century’s common man icon, a bigot. The man that John McCain singled out as representing “us” is a religious zealot brand of bigot and he has been hired by the right-leaning US website Pajamas TV to go to Israel as a war correspondent and to report back to its conservative base. Wurzelbacher said he was going to let "Average Joes" share their stories. He said he would get the real story of what is happening. "Being a Christian I'm pretty well protected by God I believe,” Mr. Everyman said. He then stepped back from his exalted position at the right of God and said, ”That's not saying he's going to stop a mortar for me, but you gotta take the chance.” The real story, Sam, is that people on both sides of the Gaza strip are getting killed and horribly killed. The real story is that people in Israel and Palestine are just like you who also believe they’ve got the inside track on what God wants. The real story is that your being a Christian isn’t going to protect you from stupidity, bigotry or death any more than a Jew being a Jew or a Muslim being a Muslim will give him special powers and consideration and protect him from being a total and complete asshole. The real story is we know the real story. However, it would be good if God delivered the world from zealous Christians getting in the way in Israel and gumming up the works even more than the Jews and Muslims have done. Particularly zealous Christians like Sam Wurzelbacher who simply want to live in fame one minute longer while calling it “doing good”. And then we have Sarah Palin still out seeking celebrity and notoriety in the political spotlight. Now she’s making the rounds blaming everyone from Katie Couric to Caroline Kennedy for the fact that she was an ignorant embarrassment to the Republican Party during her unfortunate moment as a Vice President candidate. Palin said Katie Couric only asked her about what newspapers she read in order to make it seem as though she was ignorant. Although she still couldn’t name any papers she read. And Palin said Tina Fey made it sound as though her unmarried teenaged pregnant daughter and boyfriend were unmarried pregnant teenagers. She said the media had unfairly scrutinized her and had not done so with Caroline Kennedy because of her “class”. Well, I have to admit, Caroline Kennedy is classy in a way Palin would give an eye to be. But apparently, that’s not what Palin meant. Perhaps she doesn’t know what “scrutinize” means...because Kennedy has been scrutinized all her life like Sarah Palin can only dream of being scrutinized. That’s scrutinized, Sarah, not sanitized. Is there a chance Sam the Plumber and Sarah Palin could get married so as not to make two families irreparably arrogant, ignorant, socially inept, narrow minded and fanatic?

Notable Frank Rich Lines from Yesterday’s NYT

New York Times Op/Ed columnist Frank Rich said it all yesterday when he described George W. Bush as “smaller than life”. Noting that Americans like their failed presidents to be close to Shakespearean in their tragedy, Rich said, “Here, too, George W. Bush has let us down. Even the banality of evil is too grandiose a concept for 43. He is not a memorable villain so much as a sometimes affable second banana whom Josh Brolin and Will Ferrell can nail without breaking a sweat. He’s the reckless Yalie Tom Buchanan, not Gatsby. He is smaller than life.” Rich cites the White House Website and its effort to inflate Bush’s woeful terms as president with something like adequacy: ”A booklet recounting ‘highlights’ of the administration’s ‘accomplishments and results’ (has) big type, much white space, children’s-book-like trivia boxes titled ‘Did You Know?’ and lots of color photos of the Bushes posing with blacks and troops...this document is the literary correlative to ‘Mission Accomplished.’” Rich goes on to say, “But the brazenness of Bush’s alternative-reality history is itself revelatory. The audacity of its hype helps clear up the mystery of how someone so slight could inflict so much damage. So do his many print and television exit interviews. The man who emerges is a narcissist with no self-awareness whatsoever. It’s that arrogance that allowed him to tune out even the most calamitous of realities, freeing him to compound them without missing a step. The president who famously couldn’t name a single mistake of his presidency at a press conference in 2004 still can’t. The crowning personality tic revealed by Bush’s final propaganda push is his bottomless capacity for self-pity. ‘I was a wartime president, and war is very exhausting,’ he told C-Span.” And to heal himself, Bush goes to military hospitals. Once again, it’s all about George W. Bush. As Rich points out, “incredibly enough, it’s his own healing he is concerned about, not that of the grievously wounded men and women he sent to war on false pretenses. It’s ‘the comforter in chief’ who ‘gets comforted,’ he explained (to Charles Gibson) by ‘the character of the American people.’ The American people are surely relieved to hear it. With this level of self-regard, it’s no wonder that Bush could remain undeterred as he drove the country off a cliff,” Rich said. During the GWB tenure in the White House, we heard many times about the president’s belief in God, about how God guided him, about his faith. But as Frank Rich says, “This presidency was not about Him. Bush failed because in the end it was all about him.”

Frank Rich is Upset at Obama’s Pick of Warren

It’s an honor to be chosen to deliver the invocation at a president’s inauguration. And this morning in his New York Times Op/Ed column, Frank Rich sees in Obama’s choice of The Reverend Rick Warren, a foreshadowing that Obama may have his own inclination to spend earned capital (as in, George W. Bush’s famous declaration that he had earned capital in his campaign and he intended to spend it). Rich is not sanguine about this omen and he is not sanguine about the Rev. Warren. Well, first, Frank, Barack Obama is going to hit some false notes since he is a mortal like the rest of us, so chill out, for God’s sake. It’s early in the game. And it’s true, The Rev. Warren is surely a lightning rod for everyone in the gay community who is looking to be offended. The man has been offensive to gays to a fare-thee-well. But second, I cannot think of a single person in the God-business that I personally would want to be God’s stand-in at Obama’s inauguration. All ordained persons are suspect. Maybe the Dalai Lama. The thing is, all God-biz guys have an agenda. And they are all going to be offensive if you just take the time to look under the hood. Any person who has decided to make a career out of explaining God to the rest of us is a bigot. Rich quotes gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson who said: “I’m all for Rick Warren being at the table but we’re talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most-watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation. And the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I know.” Okay, now I’m offended. I would like to point out to all God-biz persons that the God we all pray to is One Unchanging Unknowable All-Knowing God. It’s the men and women of the cloth who have differing issues, agendas and talking points. And if Bishop Robinson thinks he knows God, he’s delusional as well as bigoted. But, that said, I also think that anyone standing before the world, and being watched by the world who asks that God bless this nation and the world is doing a good deed. And the moment that Reverend Warren invokes God’s blessing, we all should offer our own prayer and say AMEN!

Shawn Campbell’s Post on Twitter a Winner

Campbell said, “The White House has neither confirmed nor denied the President's plan for joining the Zappos Dodgeball team.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! And apparently, the popular online shoe store really has one. The news from Baghdad just gets better and funnier. The New York Times reported this morning: “Calling someone the ‘son of a shoe’ is one of the worst insults in Iraq. But the lowly shoe and the Iraqi who threw both of his at President Bush, with widely admired aim, were embraced around the Arab world on Monday as symbols of rage at a still unpopular war. In Saudi Arabia, a newspaper reported that a man had offered $10 million to buy just one of what has almost certainly become the world’s most famous pair of black dress shoes. A daughter of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, reportedly awarded the shoe thrower, Muntader al-Zaidi, a 29-year-old journalist, a medal of courage. In the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, people calling for an immediate American withdrawal removed their footwear and placed the shoes and sandals at the end of long poles, waving them high in the air. And in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, people threw their shoes at a passing American convoy.” Later in the article, the NYT said, “In Syria, Mr. Zaidi’s picture was shown all day on state television, with Syrians calling in to share their admiration for his gesture and his bravery. In central Damascus, a huge banner hung over a street, reading, ‘Oh, heroic journalist, thank you so much for what you have done.' ‘It’s the talk of the city,’ said Ibrahim Mousawi, a Beirut journalist and political analyst affiliated with Hezbollah. ‘Everyone is proud of this man, and they’re saying he did it in our name.’” Well done, George. Finally, in the last days of his term as President of the United States, George W. Bush has unified the Middle East.

Will the Prez Get the Message in Iraq?

President Bush has said he doesn’t read newspapers. So he probably didn’t read Frank Rich’s scathing account in the New York Times yesterday of his eight years in office. But can he fail to get the message sent yesterday by an Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at him? Bush’s trip to Baghdad was called “a valedictory visit” today in the NYT. As in, a fare-thee-well and god-bless excursion to the country he forced an unnecessary war on, a country which will equate his name with “failure” and “war monger” in future history books. But never mind those details, Bush went to Iraq to sanctify the recently-adopted security agreement between the United States and Iraq which includes a commitment to withdraw all American forces by the end of 2011. In his delusional state, Bush may have made his trip believing that finally he would be gifted with the flowers and candy that Dick Cheney predicted would greet the US invaders back in 2003. Instead, a shoe narrowly missed hitting him in the head. Of course the Iraqi journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at Bush was wrestled to the ground and beaten until he cried for mercy. But not before shouting in Arabic with the first shoe, “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!” And, “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!” with the second shoe. Will George W. Bush now get the message? No. Of course not. His insanity shields him from understanding the enormity of his culpability in the failed Iraq war or in America’s downward spiral. So, he made a joke about the shoes incident. He said, “All I can report is it is a size 10.” He then said, as the man’s screaming could be heard outside, “That’s what people do in a free society, draw attention to themselves.” And Bush went on to say that his war strategy known as “the surge” was “one of the greatest successes in the history of the United States military.” In closing, President Bush said about the war, “There is still more work to be done, but with this security agreement, the courage of the Iraqi people, and the Iraqi troops and the American troops and civilian personnel, it is decisively on its way to be won.” Perhaps after January 20th, George W. Bush and Sarah Palin will form a comedy duo to tour Iraq to bring glad tidings and laughter to all the grateful people in Iraq’s free society where they can draw attention to themselves.

Repubs Thumb Their Nose at Auto Makers

Let them eat cake Republican Senators said last night and voted down the auto bailout. And although the little guys in Detroit and the car company suppliers don’t deserve to suffer, it’s difficult to have sympathy for an industry that has shot itself in the foot the way the three big auto companies have done. The Big Three—General Motors, Ford and Chrysler—can’t pay their suppliers again...it happens every year. Which means the suppliers, in effect, are forced to lend the big guys money to get through the crisis. But this time the banks are not willing to lend the suppliers money; hence the day of reckoning has arrived. One sits back and looks at this dilemma and wonders why The Big Three has chosen to pay their execs billions of dollars in salary, freebies and bonuses instead of paying their suppliers. And the answer is, because they wanted the money themselves and saw no reason why they should pay their bills when they could get away with not paying their bills. And that should surprise no one. Since that’s the way people with money operate. The little guy has always had to offer discounts to the rich to get them to pay up. And even so, the little guy inevitably has to wait 90 days or more to get his money. Of course an auto industry collapse would bite everyone in the ass. But still, it’s been a long time coming and it was inevitable. But as an aside, I must say that every time Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stands up in the Senate and says anything, it irritates me. Yesterday, he said, “This is going to be a very, very bad Christmas for a lot of people as a result of what takes place here tonight.” Sentimental nonsense! The war in Iraq has made bad Christmases for the past five years. The Bush administration policies have made bad Christmases for the past eight years. Wall Street excesses and failures have made bad Christmases as long as one can remember. All US Presidents and every leader in the world have made bad Christmases. So don’t whine with that bad Christmas crap from the floor of the United States Senate, Harry, because you know what? Christmas has been officially recognized in America only since 1836 when Alabama made it a holiday. Oklahoma was the last state to recognize Christmas in 1907. And the first people to settle in these United States didn’t like the idea of celebrating Christ’s birth at all because it was “papist”. And another thing, Harry, you know as well as I do that a bailout for the auto industry in some form or another will be figured out by the US government within the next 30 days. That's just the way of things. And another ‘nother thing, it wouldn’t hurt a single Christian to cut back on Christmas buying and just go to church. That’s all I’m saying.

Feds Say JJ,Jr. is Blaggo’s Candidate 5

By me, it fits like a glove. The Feds say Jesse Jackson, Jr. is “ambitious”. There’s an understatement for you. I say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. There is not much that The Reverend JJ, Sr. has not been willing to do to throw himself into the limelight. In 1968, JJ, Sr. appeared on the Today Show wearing the blood-stained shirt he wore the day before when he claimed to have been with Martin Luther King when King was shot. There are those who dispute Jackson’s time line. Whether it’s true or not, his Today Show appearance is typical of JJ, Sr’s lifelong modus operandi. His son, Jesse Jackson, Jr. is a powerhouse in Chicago. But he’s not a strong contender politically in the state of Illinois. Evenso, JJ, Jr. is enough of a big noise in Chicago that when Barack Obama was thinking about running for the Illinois Senate, he went to JJ, Jr. and asked if he had eyes on the seat. Jackson said he did not, and he gave Obama his blessing. The New York Times reports this morning that Jackson changed his mind and now wants to claim Obama’s Senate seat. The NYT quoted Al Kindle, a South Side Chicago political consultant who said: “Jesse has wanted to be Obama’s heir apparent ever since Obama won the Senate seat.” Kindle helped Obama in the 2004 race. He added that since then, JJ, Jr. “has tried to reposition himself to appeal to a broader audience.” The NYT said, “Specifically, federal authorities said, Mr. Jackson is ‘Senate Candidate 5,’ associates of whom, the governor said in a wire-tapped conversation, were willing to raise money for Mr. Blagojevich in exchange for the seat.” Jesse Jackson, Jr. said “I did not initiate or authorize anyone at any time to promise anything to Governor Blagojevich on my behalf. I never sent a message or an emissary to the governor to make an offer, to plead my case or to propose a deal about a U.S. Senate seat, period.” That’s probably true. He wouldn’t have to be that overt. Everyone in Chicago knew JJ, Jr. wanted to replace Obama. It is also true that I am biased against The Reverend Jesse Jackson. I don’t like his methods or his manner and I am very ready to assume the worst about his son. The Blaggo tapes don’t look good for Jackson, Jr. The NYT said, “Of those alluded to, the affidavit’s implications seemed especially troubling for Mr. Jackson, or Senate Candidate Five. According to the document, Mr. Blagojevich told advisers last Thursday that he was giving Mr. Jackson “greater consideration” to replace Mr. Obama because Mr. Jackson would raise money for him, “upfront, maybe.” Yup, I believe it. By my observation, it’s the way the Jacksons do things.

Every Comic in the World Thanks You, Blaggo

Illinois governor Rod R. Blagojevich’s lawyer told reporters that the governor was "very surprised and certainly feels that he did not do anything wrong." Well, there you have it. That’s the main problem. Even after Blaggo was taped by federal agents saying, (re trying to sell Barack Obama’s Illinois senate seat to the highest bidder), “I’ve got this thing and it’s [expletive] golden. And I’m just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing. I’m not going to do it. And I can always use it. I can parachute me there”, no doubt the Gov truly thinks he did nothing wrong. Not unlike George W. Bush who believes his only wrongdoing over the past eight years may possibly be that he was unprepared for the war in Iraq, which he promoted, defended and started. Under state law, the Illinois governor has to name a replacement for Senator Obama who resigned his lllinois senate seat with two years remaining in his term. But as United States attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said (yeah, the guy who prosecuted Scooter Libby), “the (Blagojevich) conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave.” Blaggo’s predecessor, Governor George Ryan was also indicted for corruption. Last month Blaggo said he believed President Bush should commute Ryan’s sentence of 6-1/2 years. “It would be a ‘fine decision’, Blaggo said. And lest we forget, Jack Ryan (no relation to George Ryan) had to quit his run against Obama four years ago because of a sex scandal. “I don’t believe there’s any cloud that hangs over me,” Blagojevich told reporters recently, “I think there’s nothing but sunshine hanging over me.” Right. And it surely is his kind of town, Chicago is. His kind of razzmatazz, and it has, all that jazz.

Shinseki Pick, A Thumb in Rumsfeld’s Eye

Obama’s choice of 38-year-career-Army man General (ret.) Eric K. Shinseki for Secretary of Veterans Affairs is perfect for a couple of reasons. First, the troops love him for telling the truth early on in the Iraq war. Shinseki said the invasion of Iraq would take several hundred thousand soldiers. Which estimate secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld and deputy secretary of defense Paul D. Wolfowitz pooh-poohed. But as the Iraq war descended into a no-win debacle, Shinseki was proved absolutely right. And, second, just as importantly, Shinseki was wounded in Viet Nam and knows the problems faced by returning vets and particularly wounded returning vets. As if Shinseki rising from the ashes of the Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney failure in Iraq were not enough of a lest-we-forget moment, we have this morning’s headline in the New York Times to remind us of the horrible decision by Bush and Co. to use mercenaries in Iraq: “Plea by Blackwater Guard Helps Indict Others”. The largest “security contractor” in Iraq (read, mercenary thugs), Blackwater, which was started by South Carolina far-right religious zealot, Erik Prince in 1997, and which contracted out as many soldiers-for-hire in Iraq as the volunteer army had in Iraq, has long been the subject of horror stories about its misuse of power. The worst of which was in 2007 and implicated six Blackwater guards. This morning, the NYT says: “In pleading guilty to manslaughter, the sixth security guard, Jeremy P. Ridgeway of California, described how he and the other guards used automatic rifles and grenade launchers to fire on cars, houses, a traffic officer and a girls’ school. In addition to those killed, there were at least 20 people wounded. The six guards were employed by Blackwater Worldwide, the largest security contractor in Iraq.” The Blackwater company has not been charged although it is no secret that Erik Prince and his protégé “Focus on the Family” religious zealot James Dobson believe that private Christian militias should rise up and take over the ungodly, unholy US government. However, this Blackwater black eye will no doubt slow down their planned religious war, particularly since Prince and Dobson no longer have a right-wing partisan zealot in the White House.

Op/Ed Writers Write—That’s Their Job

But even Frank Rich just turns the crank, at times. This morning’s New York Times Op/Ed column being one of those times. Back from a two-week vacation, Rich tells us that Obama’s economic team choices may fit David Halberstam’s original meaning of the title of his book, “The Best and Brightest”. Rich says Halberstam was being ironic with his description of the JFK team. They may have been bright but they surely weren’t the best. And they lead us into the Viet Nam war that “would destroy the presidency of Lyndon Johnson and inflict grave national wounds that only now are healing.” Then Rich points to Obama’s choice of Lawrence Summers as his top economic adviser and Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary and rips them apart for being bright, but hubristic, highhanded and worst of all, for being the protégés of President Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who, according to Rich, is responsible for the “toxic mortgage-derivatives on Citigroup’s books” because he was asleep on the job. Rich says: “Washington’s cheerleading for our new New Frontier cabinet superstars has seldom been interrupted by tough questions about Summers’s Harvard career or Geithner’s record at the Fed.” Both of which, Rich claims, were less than wonderful and in Geithner’s case, possibly led to Lehman Brothers’ demise Okay. So? What’s it been, a week since Obama let the world know who his top job choices are? Washington has “seldom” asked tough questions? Is it possible there might still be time? Come on, Frank. I’m aware you had to churn something out for today’s column and I’m aware you probably had to write something negative about a couple of Obama’s choices lest you fall into the cheerleader camp. Still, your tag line gave you away when you wrote, “In the end Obama chose Paul Volcker as chairman of his Economic Recovery Advisory Board. This was a presidential decision not only bright but wise.” Right. Rich actually thinks Geithner and Summers are decent enough choices. And as Rich himself pointed out earlier in his column, “Well, nobody’s perfect. Given that John McCain’s economic team was headlined by Carly Fiorina and Joe the Plumber, the country would be dodging a fiscal bullet even if Obama had picked Suze Orman.” Bottom line: Frank Rich earned his fee for the week and the rest is blah-blah-blah.

Mr. Ratfucker Wants to Have a Quiet Word

It’s been a long time since Mr. Ratfucker has found a need to speak out. So long, in fact, that some Ratbang readers may not even recognize the name. Mr. Ratfucker is happy to elucidate. Way back when the Ratbang Diary was called the Ratfuck Diary, a particularly dim numnut had a particularly irritating wild hair up her nose and called the Ratfuck blogger Mr. Ratfucker. In the instant, Mr. Ratfucker came into being. This morning, Mr. Ratfucker would like to note that he finds it most annoying when some readers comment on ancient Ratbang posts and then take the blogger to task for being behind the times. Mr. Ratfucker wonders if it has never occurred to these benighted readers of old posts to look at the date of the post before making a comment? And while he’s at it, Mr. Ratfucker would like to comment on the doubts of some persons that Hillary Clinton will take the Secretary of State appointment or that in fact she wants it, what nonsense! The name of a considered appointee is never leaked by a President Elect if that person has not said he/she will accept the appointment if named. It would not surprise Mr. Ratfucker to find out Barack Obama had asked Mrs. Clinton to be his SOS the day after he won the candidacy, contingent on the outcome of the vetting of both Mr. and Mrs. Clinton. It would further not surprise Mr. Ratfucker to find out Mrs. Clinton had accepted immediately. Mr. Ratfucker thanks you for your time.

Blah, Blah, Blah

Now that the election is over and the pundits and op/ed writers are rummaging around for things to mull over and write about, their output has largely become tortured ruminations and boring blah-blah-blah. Tom Friedman is a classic example. From his halcyon days of being considered a dynamic force in the future of the middle east--his 2006 trip to Syria and subsequent columns on how to handle Syria, for example—through his spiraling down into ego-centered rants and nonsense, now today he is pontificating about Barack Obama possibly choosing Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and telling us of his “worries” on that score. “Is Obama considering Mrs. Clinton for this job in order to get her off his back or as a prelude to protecting her back?” Friedman asks. (Among other deadly failings, Friedman glories in his turns-of-phrase and stand-up comic one-liners.) Then he tells us that he, Tom Friedman, knows more than anyone about what a relationship between a Prez and a Secretary of State should be because he covered James Baker when Baker was GHW Bush’s SOS. The world must be aware, Friedman says, that an SOS speaks for the Prez. An SOS and Prez must be totally in each other’s back pocket, their world-view must be identical with nary a disagreement between them...ever. And Friedman, from his high perch as know-all-see-all sage relates his concerns. Journalists and talking heads must not be allowed to see “daylight” between the Prez and SOS or they will jump on the flaw and tear them to shreds. “When it comes to appointing a secretary of state, you do not want a team of rivals.” Why not? one wonders. Who is Friedman to assume that the Baker-Bush model is the optimum form that must be followed? Who is Friedman to assume that two smart people cannot have different ideas and also arrive at a consensus that will indeed change things for the better? When will Tom Friedman realize he's become a has-been hack? Once again, Tom Friedman has fed 750 words into his laptop, emailed them to the NYT and gotten a check. And blah-blah-blah.

Fear Not, Politics Is Still A Gapers’ Delight

As Frank Rich points out this morning in his Sunday Morning New York Times Op/Ed piece: “Election junkies in acute withdrawal need suffer no longer.” The presidential race may be over but, ”The cockfight among the losers has only just begun. The conservative crackup may be ugly, but as entertainment, it’s two thumbs up!” The Repubs are blaming each other, the fact that Bush is an inept dolt, the clueless McCain campaign and the rampant greed of the GOP for their defeat. But Rich says the problem is more fundamental than that. “The G.O.P. ran out of steam and ideas well before George W. Bush took office and Tom DeLay ran amok, and it is now more representative of 20th-century South Africa during apartheid than 21st-century America. The proof is in the vanilla pudding. When David Letterman said that the 10 G.O.P. presidential candidates at an early debate looked like ‘guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club,’ he was the first to correctly call the election.” The Repubs have been in denial for decades. They think they can hoodwink voters into believing they are inclusive and pro-minority by talking about it rather than being pro-minority. Rich notes that, “a conservative Wall Street Journal editorialist asked whether “the G.O.P. doesn’t in fact have a perception problem, that it is no longer viewed as a big tent.” “A perception problem? Hello — how about a reality problem? The reason why they are promoting Palin and the recently elected Indian-American governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, as the party’s ‘future’ is not just that they (Jindal and Palin) are hard-line social conservatives; they are also the only prominent Republican officeholders under 50 who are not white men.” To me, the most unsettling thing in the Frank Rich article was this Gallup poll finding: 45% of Americans want to see Sarah Palin have a national political future while only 52% do not. Almost half of the Americans who just witnessed Sarah Palin running for Vice President and saw her being stupid, ignorant, pandering, corrupt, silly, hate-spewing and a right-wing religious zealot into the bargain, say they would be pleased for her to have a future in Republican politics. And the worst of it is that although it’s nice to see the GOP in such moronic disarray, still, as the Frank Rich tagline says: “At a time of genuine national peril we actually do need an opposition party that is not brain-dead.”

So...How Many Days Now...70?

This is going to be difficult. One could not help shouting a Dan Ackroyd-ism at Sarah Palin on TV yesterday: Sarah, you ignorant slut! And Karen Hughes on CNN’s Situation Room...where’d she come from and what’s she been doing since her days as Bush’s counselor and holder of the world’s silliest title, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy? Talk about ignorant! She’s still defending George Bush but now she’s also mouthing gummy platitudes about how wonderful president-elect Barack Obama is in his blackness. (Oh please! tell me born-again-stupid Hughes is not going to manage Palin’s born-again-crass political career. Although it would be a boon for the comics.) And George Bush all over the news...unrepentant and unapologetic as ever, but acting like he had finally come to terms with his failures by saying maybe he does regret a couple things...the dead-or-alive thing, and the sailors who put up the “Mission Accomplished” sign which had nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq. Ugh! Seventy more days of baboon-speak. And the Republicans acting like 8 years of the worst administration since Nero never happened, while preening and puffing themselves up. And even talking about how the Republicans now have to get back to the business of showing the world how to run a smaller, more restrictive government that will be advantageous to the rich. And Grandpa McCain on Leno being (I hear) cute and self-deprecating. I couldn’t watch it. Gack and gag! Nor, I’m almost positive, will I be able to watch the ignorant slut on Larry King tonight. After these walking-on-eggshells, sappy, 70 days of clueless folk saying mindless things are over, how long will the Obama honeymoon be? Someone on CNN said it would be very long. We’ll know the honeymoon is over when the pundits, politicians and comics lay aside the fact that Obama is black and start ripping him apart like every president that has gone before him.

I Like Judge Judy, But She Made a Bad Call

Larry King’s guest last night was Judith Sheindlin, the 66-year-old peoples court firebrand who was a family court judge in New York City, but on cable TV as "Judge Judy" is actually an arbiter not a judge. You either like Judge Judy or hate her. I like her. People who know Judith Sheindlin say that in real life, she is nothing like the persona she inhabits on her Judge Judy show. People say she is a nice older lady who is soft-spoken. Last night, appearing to have had yet another face lift (she surely rivals Larry King in that department), but looking very pretty in a bright green jacket and light green dress, Judge Judy talked about Barack Obama. She is a fan of Obama’s and said she thought his wife Michelle would be a "dynamite" First Lady. She also disagreed with people who said Mrs. Obama would put her well-known ambition on the shelf while her husband is President of the United States and would concentrate on being a mom and First Lady—as in, take a leaf from Laura Bush’s manual on how to be the wife of a President. Sheindlin, who has five children by two marriages said Michelle Obama need not choose between her own ambitions and being a dutiful First Lady. “She can do both,” Sheindlin said. True. And these days, few people will find fault with a First Lady who has her own agenda and power base. Then, having given her unqualified support to Barack and Michelle Obama, Judith Sheindlin went off her trolley. Larry King asked how she felt about Sarah Palin. Sheindlin said Palin is smart, she said Palin was blind-sided by the McCain team. Sheindlin said Palin was unduly maligned by the press. She said Palin is an accomplished person who was a good Mayor, a good Governor, a good mother and was thrown under the bus by everyone. Sheindlin said the potshots taken at Palin by the pundits, the press, the politicians, and by people in general were “disrespectful”. Oh please! That’s crap! As Judge Judy herself so often declares, “If it doesn’t make sense, it isn’t true.” Sarah Palin may be canny and a quick study, but she is not intelligent. And into the bargain, she is ignorant and woefully arrogant about her ignorance. Sheindlin feels Palin was taken advantage of like a lamb led to slaughter. And nothing could be farther from the truth. If there is anything admirable about Sarah Palin at all--and though I marvel at her hubris, I personally do not find it admirable--but if one can find self-absorption and hubris admirable, one has to admire the way Sarah Palin took advantage of the morons who tapped her to be John McCain’s running mate. From the moment she took the fateful phone call advising her she was being considered as a candidate for Vice President of the United States, Sarah Palin grabbed the opportunity and milked it for all it was worth. Not for her country-- had she been thinking of her country, she would have said “No thanks” to the McCain crew-- but for a shot at becoming the next American idol on some stage, any stage, somewhere, anywhere. It may be that Sheindlin is amused by the stupidity of the old pols who had totally wrongheaded ideas about women in general. It may be that Sheindlin is captivated by a ballbusting female who doesn’t give a rat’s behind (another Judge Judy locution) about playing by the rules, particularly rules invented by old men who want to go back to living in the 1950’s. But I suspect that Judith Sheindlin was giving voice to some knee-jerk reactions she’d had to Sarah Palin. I suspect Sheindlin had not done any research on Sarah Palin and was simply standing up for another mother of five who had decided women don’t have to stay in the kitchen. Had Judge Judy been faced with Sarah Palin in her court, she would have ripped her to shreds for being silly, dumb, a bad mother, egocentric, uncaring, manipulative and crass.

The Big Exhale

What a relief! And I just want to say to all those black Repubs who now are talking about what a great day it is that a black man has been elected president: SHUT UP and go hide in a hole! You should be ashamed of yourselves for backing the worst president we have ever had, and for wanting to continue the ignominy that the Republican Party had sunk into. To his credit, Barack Obama never ran for president as a black man. He ran as a proud American. And he has given all of us the enormous gift of being able to be proud of America again. If John McCain had not run as a wounded veteran, he would have had a much better campaign. McCain would not have won, of course, but his campaign would not have been the total embarrassing spectacle of bad taste that it was. As if the disastrous terms of Republican presidents Richard Nixon and George W. Bush were not enough, John McCain added his campaign to the list of GOP mistakes and infamies. Bill Maher was on Larry King Wednesday night. He said we would never be rid of Sarah Palin. He said she would be around in 30 years when she is 74, either in politics or show biz. And that may be true. Sarah Palin is one of those freakish personalities who do not care what they have to say or do as long as they have an audience. Yesterday, she complained that she had wanted to deliver a concession speech Tuesday night and was not allowed to. Speechwriters had written two speeches for her, a victory speech and a loser’s speech. Campaign strategists wisely said No. John McCain needed no help to lose this election. He was going to lose. He was carrying on his back George Bush, the arrogance of the Republican Party, the Party’s eight years of failed policies, the Iraq war, his age, his infirmities, his temperament, his reputation as a loose cannon and his nasty wife. And then, as if to ensure that he not only lost the election but that he lost while people laughed at him, he chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. I think most people, me included, would be content to let Sarah Palin go back to Alaska to live out her days in repentance and doing good works. But everyone knows that is not in the Palin DNA. That is why the Repubs are now letting the Sarah Palin story out of the box. They may not be able to pull her off the stage, but they can show how stupid she is. Comics already are saying they are going to miss George W. Bush. They are saying it’s going to be difficult to find stuff to satirize with Barack Obama. But they will always have Sarah Palin.

Palin’s Medical Records

Oh I do love this! Repub Vice President candidate Sarah Palin won’t, or at least hasn’t, as of this moment, released her medical records. We suspect it’s not her physical medical records she doesn’t want to reveal. We suspect it’s psychological records she wants to keep secret. We suspect she’s on no-nonsense psychiatric meds for her no-nonsense psychiatric problems. Which, of course, makes no matter either way to the election on November 4th. But it matters alot if Miss Know-nothing Moron expects to have a career in politics after this election. And the medical records will come out...you know they will. Oh goody! Something to look forward to after this coming Tuesday.

Duh!

The New York Times reports this morning: “A growing number of voters have concluded that Senator John McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, is not qualified to be vice president, weighing down the Republican ticket in the last days of the campaign, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.” No kidding! The Vice President of the United States has only two duties defined in the Constitution, 1) Taking over for the Prez if he becomes incapacitated, dies or is put in jail, and 2) Being President of the Senate. When asked what the Vice President does, Palin couldn’t come up with the answer. Even she knew it would be impolitic to say, “Wait for the President to die,” which, needless to say, is her concept of the job. “All told,” the NYT went on to report, “59 percent of voters surveyed said Ms. Palin was not prepared for the job, up nine percentage points since the beginning of the month. Nearly a third of voters polled said the vice-presidential selection would be a major factor influencing their vote for president, and those voters broadly favor Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee.” In addition to the voters deciding Palin is a know-nothing. self-aggrandizing fool (okay, those are my words), the NYT said that the fact McCain picked Palin, gave voters “much more confidence in Mr. Obama to pick qualified people for his administration than they did in Mr. McCain.” Now that John McCain has inflated the persona of Sam the Unqualified Non-Plumber to the point that Sam/Joe is thinking about running for Congress, voters may also be worried that McCain would appoint him to the position of Secretary of State. Actually, if McCain had an internal monitor to oversee his impulses, which he doesn't, he too would be worried about his choices. Palin has decided to blow off the McCain advisers and go her own way saying what she wants, whenever she wants. And everyman Joe-the-Plumber (Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher) stood up a McCain rally yesterday. And McCain's decision to go on Larry King to complain and whine was not a good choice either. They are being likened to the cranky old Muppets codgers, Statler and Waldorf.

Tell Me They Are Fucking Joking!

I was channel surfing last night, late. I am fairly sure it was on Jay Leno. But in any case, there was a bunch of very earnest, pundit-types sitting around a table with Leno, one of whom was David Gregory. And someone (need I say, a Republican male) made the totally deadpan assertion that the Repubs were considering the possibility they might lose the election on November 4th, to the point that they were talking about Sarah Palin as a candidate for President in 2012. I don’t remember if anyone guffawed because I hooted and drowned out the TV. But when I was able to breathe again, I heard this someone say that Sarah Palin was a totally believable candidate for president, that people loved her, that she knew about running governments, that the US of A was now ready to have a woman president and that in four years Sarah Palin could learn a lot. Is this idea really being floated? How insane is that! Considering that Hillary Clinton is alive and well. Although, now that I think of it, it does sound like a typical Repub plan. The first George W. Bush term as President was so horrible, the Repubs had to perpetrate fraud to make him president a second time. When the war in Iraq showed early-on that it was a bad idea and there was no way on God’s green earth that it could be won, the Repubs threw a few billion more dollars into it and killed a few more thousands of American soldiers to prove they hadn’t just been wrong, they had been really wrong. When John McCain saw that he was losing in the polls and needed a strong person to run with him as Vice President, he chose Sarah Palin, an aging ex-beauty-queen, who was despised in Alaska as both a Mayor and Governor and had nothing to recommend her except that the far-right Christian zealots thought she was dandy. And now that Sarah Palin is being credited with John McCain’s failing candidacy and people running his campaign are calling her a “diva” and saying she is the reason his polls went into the toilet, the Repubs are talking about running her for President in 2012. Yup...now it all makes sense. Repub credo: If it was horribly wrong, badly thought out, badly executed, a total and complete mistake, guaranteed to fail, insanely stupid, silly, and wrongheaded, then do it again to prove it wasn’t an accident the first time.

Grandpa in Shirt Sleeves

McCain campaigned in Cedar Falls, Iowa today. He stood before a small (compared to the 100,000 people cheering Obama in Denver, CO) enthusiastic crowd on a darkened stage. He was in shirtsleeves. The power had failed and the air conditioning wasn’t working. His campaign hoped people and the press wouldn’t see the power failure as a metaphor. But it is a metaphor. McCain looked like an old man with failing powers. He chafed at Obama’s obvious popularity and the fact he was drawing huge crowds. "He's measuring the drapes”, McCain said, chiding Obama for seeming overconfident. McCain said his own campaign is “doing fine”, even in the face of a Newsweek poll released yesterday showing Obama with a 13-point lead nationally. McCain said he’s going to increase the money spent in Iraq, he’s going to lower taxes, and he’s going to balance the budget. How? He didn’t say except he alluded to lowering the Capital Gains tax. Then he made a small, but telling slip. He said, “IF I win the election....” John McCain has always previously said, “When I win the election”. And Grandpa in shirtsleeves in Iowa on a dimly-lit stage with no air conditioning again brought up his war injuries. Today just happens to be the 41st anniversary of the day John McCain was shot down in Viet Nam. It reminded me of hearing white-haired World War I vets talking about World War I in 1954. I was a guide at the UN at the time. The United States had been involved in the Korean War from 1951 to 1953. We guides were told we couldn’t call it a “war”. We had to say “the Korean conflict”, if we said anything at all. And that was 36 years after WWI. I tried to be diplomatic with the grandpas in shirtsleeves, but those Vets seemed so old, WWI was so far in the past and their experiences so irrelevant in the face of the problems the world faced in 1954. Today, John McCain again suggested that the fact that he was injured in the Viet Nam War and spent 6 years in a POW camp prepared him to be President of the United States. How? He didn’t say. McCain lauded Sarah McCain. “I don’t defend her,” he said. “I praise her.” Sarah Palin is so upset with the McCain campaign that yesterday she said she’s going to “go rogue” and go out on the campaign trail and say exactly what she wants to say, and the hell with the McCain advisors. McCain said, “She is exactly what Washington needs.” How? He didn’t say.