You Stay Classy, Washington D.C.

Looks like the "great orator" continues to rely on the teleprompter. This time, he actually thanked himself during a St. Patrick's Day speech. This was apparently due, not to Obama's narcissism, but rather to his reading of whatever was put in front of him.

Wasn't that a punchline in Anchorman: The Ron Burgandy Story?

Pssst...you're the president now...take off the training wheels.

Remind me again why Bush, McCain, Palin, et. al were considered to be so dumb?

Hat tip: Infidels are Cool

Now There's Something You Don't See Every Day: A Hypocritical Liberal

Yes, the title drips with sarcasm. I just ran across this from Bonnie Fuller. Fuller has never been one to let little things like logic get in her way, but this one was a bit much. I don't have anything against Michelle Obama. In fact it's hard to think of anything I care about less than her biceps. But I have to take issue with a couple of things.

First of all, most of what's there is just an ad hominem attack. It translates roughly to "against the man." That's when you attack the person rather the view the person holds, generally because it's usually easier to attack the person. The idea is that if you can prove the person unacceptable in some way, people will assume the person's position is unacceptable, too. Fuller here goes after David Brooks of the NY Times, calling him a "sore loser" and speculating that he has "girly-man arms" and is just jealous. Again, it's easy to attack a person. I could, for example point out that Michelle Obama at times looks a little like she might be a guy in drag. Or that at other times, she looks like a younger version of Aunt Esther (LaWanda Page) from "Sanford & Son." ("Barack, you fish-eyed fool!") But I wouldn't do that.

The other thing that irks me about Fuller is that she goes on to talk about Michelle Obama's place as a female hero:

Because if there's one thing this country needs right now besides a strong and principled president instituting change, it's a superhero, and the non-sexist American public will take a female one.

There's a long history of strong female warriors in Western culture, from the goddess Athena who was a wise warrior (how Michelle-like), to the the Brit chick Boadicea, to young French babe, Joan of Arc, to Queen Elizabeth 1 to tough bicepped protector-mom, Sarah Connor in Terminator to Xena, the Princess Warrior to ... WonderWoman.

So...let me get this straight. Fuller is championing the strong, female warrior.

Really?

I just have to ask: where was this sentiment when another strong female was running for vice-president? I mean, arguably, Sarah Palin fits the definition of strong female warrior much more than Michelle Obama does. Palin quite literally could bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and never, never let you forget you're a man. (Admit it, you were singing along with that.) And yet, Fuller was one of Palin's most vehement critics (again, mostly ad hominem attacks). She even went so far as to criticize Palin's running for office because--good heavens!--her daughter Bristol might end up in the spotlight. This is supposed to be evidence that Palin running for office proves she is a bad mother. Can you imagine?! A president or vice-president's child in the spotlight?! It's a good thing that never happened to the Bush twins, or Chelsea Clinton, or Patti Davis, or Ron Reagan, Jr., or Amy Carter, or Susan Ford (who had her prom in the White House!), or Tricia Nixon, or Julie Nixon, or Luci Baines Johnson, or Caroline Kennedy, or John John Kennedy, or even Magret Truman. And that's just the presidential children...

I'm always irked by those who swear up and down that they are feminists, damn it, and yet are so willing to lay down those principles when a strong woman comes along with whom they disagree ideologically. Fuller is one of the worst kind of hypocrites--one who, at her core, truly believes she isn't one.

Oh, Enough Already!!

What is it about Sarah Palin that bring out the assholishness in people? I used to find Andrew Sullivan interesting to read. Now he just seems petty and a little pathetic. Especially when he can't find anything else to write about other than whether or not Sarah Palin was lying about how she named her daughter Bristol.

First, I have to say: who gives a shit? Pssst....the election's over.

Second, although he's big enough to correct himself with an update, he just can't let it go, adding a second update saying "on the other hand, many readers have written to say that Palin was highly unlikely to have known of ESPN in high school. It was only founded in 1979 and became widely known only in 1982." Really? That's the best you can do? Well, seing as Palin was still in high school in 1982, I'm not sure what that's supposed to prove. In addition, it wouldn't surprise me that someone who was interested in sports broadcasting (in fact, Palin eventually got her bachelor's in communication) might just know about a 24-hour sports broadcasting network. But that's just me. I think "highly unlikey" is a huge stretch, and either a show of bias or a lame attempt to save face. I don't find it unlikely that a graduating student interested in profiling for the FBI might know about Quantico and the Behavioral Sciences Unit, even before CSI became "widely known." I don't find it unlikely that a student interested in the historical Jesus might have read a few books on the subject, even before The DaVinci Code became "widely known." And I don't find it unlikely--especially not "highly"--that a student interested in sports and broadcasting would know a little something about ESPN before it became "widely known." Frankly, it sounds like Palin did more research coming up with her daughter's name than Sullivan did for his post.

Yeah, I said it.

Typical...

Here's the AP Headline (I kid you not):

Mother of Palin Daughter's Boyfriend Arrested

Attend an inflammatory preacher's church for twenty years? No ties there. Serve on a couple of boards with a former domestic terrorist? No ties there. Former fundraiser's a felon? The same fundraiser who was instrumental in setting up the administration of the governor who was just accused of selling your soon-to-be-empty senate seat? Move along, nothing to see here. But the mother of your daughter's boyfriend? That's worthy of a headline with your name in it. My god! You might as well be joined at the hip!

Maybe we should look at Obama's father's brother's sister's boyfriend's babysitter's hairdresser, and see what dirt we can dig up there.

"And All The Women In My Family Are Female."

Petitedov has a post on the alleged threatening remarks yelled about Barack Obama during a Sarah Palin rally in Scranton.

One of the things that struck me was the defense offered up by Jeff Sonderman, the Metro Editor of The Scranton Times-Tribune, the paper that "broke" the story:

“We stand by the story. The facts reported are true and that’s really all there is.”

This is what's known as a tautology. That is, since the word "fact" means "true," you're comparing synonyms. It's like saying "All the women in my family are female." It's not only faulty logic, it's redundant. What Sonderman essentially said was "All the true things we reported were true." Of course that says nothing about things that may not have been true.

I'm Sure It Won't Be Long...

before we see a headline like this:

We're Pretty Sure Palin Would Be Lying If She Had Said Some Stuff That We Were Hoping She Would.

The latest, from CNN (big surprise there) has the headline "Palin Never In Iraq, Campaign Now Says."

As NewsBusters points out, though, she never actually claimed she was ever in Iraq!

This is getting ridiculous, and it's beyond excusable. Palin never claimed she was in Iraq. "Palin officials" never claimed she was in Iraq. It seems that the only one who ever actually claimed she was in Iraq is an unnamed "Palin aide in Alaska." So, let me get this straight--the credibility of the entire story rests on someone who could possibly be some high-schooler doing an internship in the governor's office after school and most likely didn't know the difference between Kuwait (where Palin did visit) and Iraq?

The Boston Globe has a little more, and handles it a little better:

Following her selection last month as John McCain's running mate, aides said Palin had traveled to Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq to meet with members of the Alaska National Guard. During that trip she was said to have visited a "military outpost" inside Iraq. The campaign has since repeated that Palin's foreign travel included an excursion into the Iraq battle zone.
They still don't report when these things were said, or by whom, but I noticed that in one case, they use the term "Iraq battle zone," which it appears she did, by visiting a military installation on the border.

At least the Globe makes it clear that she only went to the border because she wasn't allowed to go any further.

But she did not venture into Iraq, Osborn said. "You have to have permission to go into a lot of areas, and [the crossing] is where her permissions were," he said.

The last thing that struck me is that both papers seem to imply that her occasional claim of traveling to Ireland, although technically true, should be discounted because it was only a refuelling stop. In nearly the same breath, though, even though she was in a potentially dangerous area on the border of Iraq, visiting troops that, as a matter of course, had to go into Iraq, she somehow can't count that because she technically didn't cross the border, as if she had somehow managed to do a hokey-pokey and put her left foot in and shook it all about, all of this wouldn't be an issue.

If anyone has any legitimate story with quotes from Palin herself or a named source, saying that Palin went into Iraq, would you send them to me, or post the links in the comments section?

UPDATE: I guess I need to read more carefully. It looks like Palin did cross into Iraq, however briefly. The NewsBusters uses a quote from the CNN article that appears to have been changed (another "stealth edit"?). The line in question, as quoted by NewsBusters, says

"The Boston Globe reported Saturday that Palin visited the Iraqi side of a border crossing -- but never journeyed past the checkpoint."

The CNN version?

"The Boston Globe, however, reported Saturday that in response to questions about the trip, Alaska National Guard officials and campaign aides said Palin did not go past the Kuwait-Iraq border."

I have no proof that CNN changed their copy, but the Globe article seems to indicate that she did, in fact, enter Iraq proper.

"Her visit to Iraq itself..." (bold mine)

"Palin did not stay the night in Iraq..." (bold mine)

Why say that unless she was there during the day?

Whatever. Maybe we should stop being nit-picky and look at the candidates for president. Can we start listing the trips that they've made? I guess we could start with Obama's vacation to Bali, where he worked on his book, or maybe his trip to Germany to speak in front of the Germans while electing not to meet with actual Americans...wait, do those count?

Eh...

So I watched the season premiere of Saturday Night Live last night. Random thoughts:

1) Tina Fey really does look a lot like Sarah Palin. It freaked me out a little at first.

2) Speaking of Sarah Palin, they didn't give her too hard of a time. I think there was maybe a half-dozen or so. And I could count the Obama jokes on one hand. Oh no, wait...no I couldn't BECAUSE THERE WEREN'T ANY!! Not one. (Maybe I missed one...anyone?) I find that a little strange that this close to a presidential election that SNL chose to poke fun at only the Republican VP candidate. Granted, the opening sketch also made fun of Hillary "third place" Clinton, but she's not running, is she.

3) Casey Wilson is hot in that "Will you be my girlfriend and wear oversized tee shirts and white socks a lot?" kind of way.

4) What was going on with that camera work? Whoever was running things seemed to have them on the wrong person, and things seemed to be framed oddly.

5) The joke they stole from themselves (the locker room pep talk, originally with Peyton Manning) was weak. It's a long drive to the punchline, and when you know what's coming it's even longer.

6) Phelps stumbled once or twice, but did better than I thought he would. He's no Manning, though. (Manning's fake United Way commercial for SNL is hysterically funny.)

7) Really? No Obama jokes? In the couple of months you've been off the air, you couldn't come up with one thing to poke fun at? You couldn't get Tim Meadows to come back and do a bowling sketch or something?

8) Making fun of home schooling AND public education...sweet.

This Is News???

I really expected more from The Washington Post.

I mean, really? The thrust of the headline and the opening is that Palin somehow made a gaffe in her statements.

Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."

The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself.

Yeah. Except that's not what she said. She said that they would defend people from the enemies (not the Iraqis) who did those things. The paper is making the assumption (or hoping that readers will) that since the troops were "Iraq-bound" that she was talking about "the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein." Obviously that's not true for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that that government, and Saddam Hussein, no longer exist. So she's clearly not talking about them. The paper knows this, though, as the very next line explains:

But it is widely agreed that militants allied with al-Qaeda have taken root in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.

Oh, so you mean al-Qaeda, which did plan, carry out, and rejoice in the deaths can actually be found in Iraq, where those Iraqi-bound troops seem to be bound for? And so the troops might defend the innocent (which I would argue includes the Iraqi people/government themselves) from al-Qaeda in Iraq?

Isn't that what she said???

Shit like this really pisses me off because it preys upon ignorance of both facts and language. And the Post should know better.

The rest of it has problems, too, but not as bad as this.

UPDATE: Ace (and others) beat me on this because I was doing stupid things, like e-mailing this info to Ken and going to work. As it turns out, that line about al-Qaeda taking root in Iraq? It was a stealth edit. It wasn't there in the first draft.

Person Sarah Palin

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There Are Probably A Few Sarah Palin Bikini Photos Out There Somewhere...

...but this isn't one of them.

The picture, allegedly of Palin in a red, white, and blue bikini, holding a gun has been "making the rounds." In the digital age, people should really know better, but I've already seen a number of posts on various sites describing the photo and then demanding "explain that!"

One word...photoshop.

Right Wing News has the goods on the fake and the original.

Why I Like Sarah Palin

I'll add to this as I think of things.

1. She's hot. Hair-up, glasses, naughty-librarian hot. (I had to get that one out of the way. C'mon, you knew I was thinking it.)

2. She plays nice with others.
She's teamed up with Democrats, and gone up against Republicans. Nice.

3. She follows through on her campaign promises. (She lowered her salary and reduced property taxes by 60%.)

4. She makes real change, railing against wasteful spending and unethical politicians, even those on the same side of the aisle. She gets things accomplished...and quickly.

5. She can see the difference between her personal beliefs and those of her constituents. (For example, she believes marriage should be between a man and a woman, but has vetoed a measure that would deny benefits to same-sex couples.)

6. Experience? If you measure experience in terms of accomplishments (see 2-5) as opposed to simple time frames, I'd say she's not nearly as inexperienced as her critics would lead you to believe.

7. She seems very practical. I really like that. Her history seems to indicate that she does what needs to be done, what's best for the people, not necessarily the party.

More on Experience

I was reading Linda Bergthold on HuffPo regarding Sarah Palin. I'm always struck by that attitude (and maybe it's the circles I move in, but I see it sooooo much more in Dems) when someone believes in something so completely that they can't even imagine that someone would see it differently. I see it a lot in reporters and academics. Regardless, I really had a hard time with Bergthold's piece:

I think we will look back at today as the day when the Republicans most certainly lost the Presidency.

I think she's half-right. This is the day that decides the election. I'm just not so sure this is going down as a loss for the Republicans.

In choosing Sarah Palin of Alaska for Vice President, the Republicans have made a cynical but clever choice. At least they think it is clever. She is a woman, young (44 years old)

So...she's a young, good-looking minority...

a Governor (only two years)

So...she's run a state. (The largest one in the nation, by the way. More than twice as large as the next largest.) And Obama has run how many states? (Hint: it rhymes with "zero.")

a mother (five children)

So...check me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Obama hasn't passed up a chance to get his two moppets in front of the cameras, to show what a great family man he is. Frankly, I'm impressed that she can run a family of five and hold down a job like Governor.

pro-life, and pro-gun.

Yes she is...that's why she's a Republican.

But what is she not? She is NOT pro-choice.

What?! How dare she?! You mean a woman might find abortion wrong? (See. This is that lack of acknowledgement of the other side of the argument that I was talking about.)

She has NO national experience. She has never been under the intense scrutiny of a national campaign.

This is true. You could say that she is a change from those same old politicians that we're all used to. You might even say she is a change we can believe in.

She is under investigation for some incident in Alaska that is messy and personal.

I'm sure any pertinent details about this will come out, but I would be careful dwelling on this if I were the Obama campaign, especially considering the stench of scandal after scandal around Obama himself.

She has no international experience. Her experience governing is in a very small state,

As opposed to Obama's vast international experience, I guess. How many times did he go to the Middle East, again? And as I pointed out, Alaska is the largest state. I think what Bergthold means is a sparsely-populated state. But even then, it's more populous than Wyoming, Vermont, and North Dakota, and it's in the same neighborhood as South Dakota...oh, and Deleware--the state represented by VP candidate Joe Biden.

famous for its "Bridge to Nowhere" kind of political graft. Her Republican colleague in that state, Senator Ted Stevens has been indicted for corruption.

Now Bergthold is just being intelectually dishonest. She's trying to associate Palin with Stevens, graft, and the "Bridge to Nowhere," as if Palin is guilty by association. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think it's a stretch to even call Stevens a "colleague." Palin is well-known for fighting (with Democrat Eric Croft, with whom she filed an ethics complaint against State Attorney General Gregg Renkes) against ethics violations and "pork" projects. "In the roughly three years since she quit as the state's chief regulator of the oil industry, Palin has crushed the Republican hierarchy," and she enjoys--depending on what poll you look at--somewhere between a 70-90 percent approval rating. The truth is that while Obama likes to talk about change, Sarah Palin has already implemented many changes of that type. Oh, and I'll give you one guess which Alaska governor cancelled that "Bridge to Nowhere" that Bergthold mentioned...

I think Bergthold needs to check her pants...something smells like it's on fire.

I like Palin. If this election is about change, the one who really represents change and reform is Sarah Palin. I think the Dems made a huge mistake in not including Hillary Clinton on the ticket, and it opened the door for Sarah Palin. But that's how these things work--chance. If not for a speech given at the 2004 Democratic Convention, there's not a chance in hell that Barack Obama would be where he is now.

By the way...all this "no one knows her" business? Notice the date and title of the Weekly Standard article I linked to above: "The Most Popular Governor" 7/16/07 (emphasis mine).

UPDATE: Someone pointed out to me that despite Bergthold trying to link the "Bridge to Nowhere" to Palin (she, in fact, canceled it), maybe we should lay it in the lap of those who voted for it...including Senator Barack Obama. (According to factcheck.org, McCain "tried, unsuccessfully, to add a 'sense of the Senate' amendment to the bill, stating a general objection to earmarks; in the end he voted against the legislation.")

And You Never Let Robin Drive the Batmobile

I think the Obama campaign is going to have a tough time criticizing the choice of Sarah Palin as VP, considering Obama himself has experience issues.

The McCain ticket is Batman and Robin. The Obama ticket is Robin and Batman.