This Blog Needs To Lighten Up!

Seth Grahame-Smith's tongue-in-cheek endorsement of The Mighty Quinnette is LOL (laugh-out-loud) funny. This faux-Dumbo endorsement of The Mighty Quinnette's obvious strengths as a VP candidate probably will be adopted by The Geezer's campaign as talking points for the Dumbo ticket in 2008. If this is (fair & balanced) burlesque, so be it.

[x The Huffington Post]
8 Reasons Sarah Palin Is More Qualified Than Barack Obama
By Seth Grahame-Smith

Sarah Palin (sp?) has ignited the presidential race and fired up the GOP — as evidenced by three women at the RNC who took the time to print the words "We," "Love," and "Sarah" on pieces of paper and tape them to the backs of their t-shirts. Sarah's even won the backing of the level-headed Rep. Michele Bachmann (R- MN) — not exactly known for toeing the party line. Clearly, the liberal left realizes that it can't match this kind of unbridled enthusiasm for its candidate. So what are they doing? Attacking her character. Questioning her qualifications. Imagine a political group attacking an opponent because it can't win on the issues or the record. It's disgusting.

So let's set the record straight. Sarah Pahlen (sp?) is not only more qualified for the Oval Office than Barack Obama — she might just be the most qualified political candidate in our nation's history:

1. Putting Country First - Her membership in the Alaska Independence Party proves that she's exactly the kind of leader America needs: the kind that will always put country first — even if that country happens to be The Republic of Alaska. Obama claims he loves America — but has he ever loved it enough to favor seceding from it? It's called tough love, Senator. Look into it.

2. Independence - Sarah hates indicted Senator Ted Stevens, but raised money for him. She hates the "bridge to nowhere," but supported it. She wants to shatter Hillary's glass ceiling, but wears t-shirts touting the size of her boobs. We're dealing with an innovative politician; one who refuses to be categorized. Obama may call himself the candidate of "change," but Sarah Pailen's (sp?) entire political life has been about saying one thing, and then doing another. Now that's "change we can believe in."

3. Family Values - This is someone who's not afraid to preach abstinence for your daughter, even though her own unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. This is someone who's not afraid to hop on a plane from Texas to Alaska while she's in premature labor. This is someone who's not afraid to hit the campaign trail with a 5-month-old special needs baby. That's what I call dedication to family. Obama, on the other hand? A Muslim.

4. Intellect - Yes, Sarah recently admitted that she didn't know exactly what it was the Vice President did. Yes, she wants creationism taught in public schools. Yes, she doesn't believe global warming is manmade. But I'd like to point out the fact that she wears glasses — and that's not something dumb people generally do. Obama? No glasses.

5. Military Affairs - As Governor, Pollen (sp?) is authorized to deploy Alaska's National Guard in times of emergency. And while the Guard's Adjunct General admits that she plays no role in national defense, and isn't briefed on military exercises, the fact is — she's been photographed holding a machine gun, while Obama has yet to wield so much as a .38 for the cameras. When it comes to keeping me safe, that's all I need to know.

6. Foreign Affairs - While Obama likes to take Middle East tours, meet with Europe's leaders, and brag about his running mate being the foreign policy voice of the Senate, he can't hold a candle to Palenn's (sp?) understanding of today's complex, dangerous world. Yes, Sarah admitted that she hadn't paid much attention to the war in Iraq, but she knew enough to rightly call it a "task from God." Yes, she's only left North America once in her life, but her experience as a local sportscaster gave her the ability to follow events as they unfold at lightning speed. And as Cindy McCain pointed out, while Barack Obama was sipping lattes in Cambridge Square, Sarah Pinkston (sp?) was staring down the barrel of Putin's Kalashnikov — a one woman wall keeping America safe from invasion.

7. Restoring America's Image - Who better than a former beauty queen to add some new luster to America's battered image? Paylen (sp?) will take a proverbial can of Aqua Net to our nation's unruly hair, and apply liberal (no pun intended) amounts of blush to Lady Liberty's cheekbones. In a word, she'll dazzle the world with her charm and style. Even the most anti-Western extremists will melt when they see the People and Vanity Fair spreads of Sarah warming her fur-lined extremities over burning science textbooks. And how would Obama restore our leadership in the world? The question we should be asking is: why does he only have two children, while Sarah has at least twice that number? What does Senator Obama have against America's children?

8. Her Soul - In one 15-minute meeting, and one follow-up phone call, John McCain was able to determine that Sarah was more than his running mate — she was his "soul mate." Not only that, but that she was more qualified to be a heartbeat away from the Oval Office than any Republican on earth. Yes, this is a testament to the power and quickness of McCain's decision making. But it's also a testament to the power of Sarah Payton's (sp?) soul. As a Muslim, it's not even clear that Obama has a soul.

So is Sarah Pillston (sp?) qualified to be Vice President? To be one bad biopsy away from being the most powerful human being on earth? To lead America back to prominence and prosperity, while keeping us safe from a world of ever-changing threats?

In her own words: "Yup...yup."

[Seth Grahame-Smith (born Seth Jared Greenberg) is a film/television writer/producer living in America's Heartland, Los Angeles, CA. He's the founder of The Department of Homeland Apology, a grassroots initiative calling for an apology from President George W. Bush for the offenses of his two terms. He's also founder of the groups Democrats for Levi Johnston, Progressives Against Progress, and Please, Steve Doocy, Commit Suicide Already. His new book is Pardon My President: Ready-to-Mail Apologies for Eight Years of George W. Bush.]

Copyright © 2008 HuffintonPost.com, Inc.

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Murphy Brown's Revenge

The Cobra remembers Potatoe-head's feigned outrage at 1988's popular sitcom, "Murphy Brown," when the Candace Bergen character, unmarried, had a child out of wedlock. O, the moralistic outrage from the illiterate VP candidate at this insult to family values. Now, the Dumbos must grapple with their own insult to family values in real life. The Mighty Quinnette is not a sitcom character, nor is her poor, poor daughter. The irony here is that The Geezer must grapple with a pregnancy out of wedlock issue in his campaign in 2008. Think back to the Turd Blossom-managed campaign in 2000. During the South Carolina Dumbo primary, Turd Blossom's operatives spread rumors throughout the Palmetto State that The Geezer had fathered an illegitimate daughter of color. The Big Lie worked despite the fact that the McCains had adopted a baby girl from Bangladesh. The Dubster defeated The Geezer in the SC primary and the rest, as they say, is history. If this is (fair & balanced) antiphrasis, so be it.

[x NY Fishwrap]
Life Of Her Party
By Maureen Dowd

For many years, reality was out of vogue with Republicans. They ignored the reality of Iraq and Katrina, of Pakistan and Osama bin Laden.

When confronted with their colossal carelessness around the globe and here at home, their mantra was, as Rummy put it, “Stuff happens.”

Now reality, in all its messy, crazy, funky glory, has flooded the party, in the comely, crackling form of Sarah Palin.

Unable to stop the onslaught of wild soap opera storylines erupting from the Palin family and the Alaska wilderness, McCain campaign adviser Steve Schmidt offered caterwauling reporters a new mantra: “Life happens.”

Indeed, it does. Only four days into her reign as John McCain’s “soul mate,” or “Trophy Vice,” as some bloggers are calling her, on the ticket known as “Maverick Squared,” Palin, the governor of Alaska, has already accrued two gates (Troopergate and Broken-watergate), a lawyer (for Troopergate), a future son-in-law named Levi (a high school ice hockey player, described by New York magazine as “sex on skates”), and a National Enquirer headline about the “Teen Prego Crisis” with 17-year-old daughter Bristol.

It seems like a long time since Vice President Dan Quayle denounced Murphy Brown for having a baby out of wedlock, bemoaning a “poverty of values.” It also seems like a long time — and another McCain ago — that Republicans supporting W. smeared the old John McCain by spreading rumors that he had fathered an illegitimate black child.

This week, the anti-abortion forces celebrated the news of Bristol’s pregnancy, using it as further proof that their beloved Governor Palin — who will no more support sex education than polar bears — was committed to the cause.

Since John McCain played craps first and sent the vetters to Alaska afterward, Republicans have been defending Governor Palin by saying that, while she has no foreign policy experience — except, as Cindy McCain pointed out, that “Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia” — she has a lot of domestic policy experience as a supercharged P.T.A. and hockey mom.

As more and more titillating details spill out about the Palins, Republicans riposte by simply arguing that things like Todd’s old D.U.I. arrest or Sarah’s messy family vengeance story will just let them relate better to average Americans — unlike the lofty Obamas.

“If this doesn’t resonate with every woman in America, I’ll eat my hat,” Bill Noll, an Alaska delegate whose daughter got pregnant at a young age and kept the baby, told The Times’s Ashley Parker.

Even as they push Sarah Barracuda as the glamorous but tough hunting and fishing mom who can juggle it all — she’s the only nominee, as Fred Thompson bragged in his convention speech, “who knows how to properly field dress a moose” — they rant at reporters who wonder how she will juggle it all and question some of her judgments.

At a Washington, Pa., rally on Saturday, as her two other daughters stood with her, Ms. Palin left Bristol baby-sitting Trig, who has Down syndrome. “Then we have our daughter Bristol,” the new conservative Republican star said. “She’s on the bus with the newborn. ... It’s his naptime, so he is with his big sister on the bus. But we thank them for being here.”

And this while Bristol was still absorbing the shocking news that she was about to turn into tabloid roadkill — and oh, yeah, she’s getting married sooner rather than later.

When you make a gimmicky pick of an unknown, without proper vetting, there’s bound to be a sticky press conference sooner or later. I watched it happen with Ferraro and Quayle, and I watched Mondale and Poppy Bush curdle with embarrassment but plow through.

The political unknowns, of course, want that tantalizing brass ring, so they’re not always completely forthcoming about their skeletons, if they’re lucky enough to be ineptly vetted. This is ironic, since the nominee who gets blindsided with these crises — Did McCain really know that this Palin reality show was about to pop and swallow his convention — is presenting them to voters as the most trustworthy people to inherit the nuclear codes.

Because Ferraro grabbed at the chance, without revealing to Mondale’s incompetent vetting team how damaging some of her husband’s financial imbroglios could be, she went from being a female icon to part of the reason it’s taken a quarter-century for another party to take a chance on a woman.

When McCain gets in trouble, he pulls out the P.O.W. card. Now Republicans are pulling out the sexist card.

Hillary cried sexism to cover up her incompetent management of her campaign, and now Republicans have picked up that trick. But when you use sexism as an across-the-board shield for any legitimate question, you only hurt women. And that’s just another splash of reality.

[Maureen Dowd is a Washington D.C.-based op-ed columnist for The New York Times. She has worked for the Times since 1983, when she joined as a metropolitan reporter. In 1999, Dowd was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her series of columns on the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Dowd received a B.A. in English from Catholic University in Washington, D.C.]

Copyright © 2008 The New York Times Company

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The Geezer's McMoment

One of this blogger's favorite historians is Northwestern's Garry Wills. Wills takes us back to 1972, when George McGovern (D-SD) dumped his VP choice, Tom Eagleton (D-MO). In this prelude to the current Palin soap opera, investigative reporters discovered that Eagleton had received ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), known as "shock treatments" in the early 1960s. In the fallout, George McGovern accepted Eagleton's "withdrawal" and replaced him with R. Sargent Shriver (JFK's brother-in-law). As a veteran of a few ECT treatments (This blog's contents reveal how well that works.), this blogger recommends a few ECT treatments for The Geezer after his own VP pick. If this is a (fair & balanced) jolt, so be it.

[x NY Fishwrap]
McCain’s McGovern Moment
By Garry Wills

One of the most bizarre political events I ever attended was the second Democratic nominating convention of 1972. It was held in August at a Washington hotel ballroom, not in a big arena like the Miami Beach Convention Center, where the party had nominated George McGovern for president four weeks earlier.

All the elements of a normal convention were there, but in a shrunken condition. There were token delegations from all the states, each with its upright name-standard. The nominating and seconding speeches were delivered, followed by a full roll call, an acclamation and an acceptance speech — delivered by R. Sargent Shriver, who officially became Mr. McGovern’s new running mate. Perfunctory balloons were dropped and a band prodded false cheer from the delegates. This sheepishly formal charade had to be gone through, since the man nominated at the regular convention, Thomas Eagleton [1929-2007], had been forced off the ticket two weeks after winning the nomination.

The original ticket was not so far from this year’s Republican pair. Mr. McGovern, the senator from South Dakota, was a decorated (Distinguished Flying Cross) war pilot. His running mate was a young politician (a 42-year-old man) about whom little was known. He had been the youngest attorney general and youngest lieutenant governor of his state (Missouri), but he had served only two-thirds of his first term in the Senate. The McGovern team had not vetted him thoroughly, and he had not told the man at the top of the ticket about a potentially embarrassing fact: he had hospitalized himself three times in the early 1960s for nervous exhaustion, and twice he had been given electroshock therapy — a treatment more common and better regarded at that time than it is now.

There should, perhaps, be no prejudice against the healthy practice of seeking therapy, but the prejudice existed then. Mr. McGovern, when the facts came out, tried to stay loyal to his pick, saying he supported him “a thousand percent.” But the talk and rumors and jokes became an insurmountable distraction to the campaign, and the candidate had to ask Senator Eagleton to leave the ticket. Hence the huggermugger conventionette in Washington.

The lesson for succeeding races was that a vice presidential candidate should be thoroughly vetted — a lesson apparently neglected by Senator John McCain.

Perhaps Senator McCain knew everything that has, with dizzying suddenness, emerged about his vice presidential pick, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska — that she was a director of a political committee in support of Ted Stevens, the Alaska senator now under indictment; an initial supporter of the so-called bridge to nowhere; an appointer of a man who had been officially reprimanded for sexual harassment as the public safety commissioner in Alaska; a mother of an unwed and pregnant 17-year-old; and other things being ferreted out by the minute. But it is an insult to Senator McCain’s intelligence to think even half of these or other matters were known to him before he chose her.

Perhaps Senator McGovern should not have deserted Tom Eagleton. Perhaps Senator McCain should stick by Governor Palin. But if he does soldier on with her by his side for a while, will he end up having to call another midget convention like the one that had to be cobbled together to nominate Sargent Shriver? That is hardly in his best interests.

Perhaps Governor Palin, realizing that and trying to minimize her own humiliation in coming days, should withdraw before she is nominated and let Senator McCain turn again to one of his more experienced options. We should remember that Senator Eagleton went on to serve honorably after his withdrawal, both during his time in the Senate and in charitable work after he retired from public office. He died last year, respected and beloved.

[Garry Wills won a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for his book, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America, which describes the background and effect of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863. Wills is an emeritus professor of history at Northwestern University. Wills attended a Roman Catholic seminary, but did not enter the priesthood. He received his PhD in classics from Yale in 1961. In 1995 Wills received a LHD from Bates College. He also received an honorary doctorate from the College of the Holy Cross. In 1998, he won the National Medal for the Humanities. He has also won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Wills' book, Nixon Agonistes, landed him on the master list of Nixon political opponents. John Leonard said in The New York Times that Wills "reads like a combination of H. L. Mencken, John Locke and Albert Camus." Wills' most recent book is What the Gospels Meant.]


Copyright © 2008 The New York Times Company

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Wasilla: Where The Women're Fertile, The Men're Dudes, And The Children Fend For Themselves

Wobegon Boy can slice and dice on a par with The Butcher of Broadway. Keillor not only rips The Dubster and The Dickster for their fraudulent actions, but he gets right to the heart of of our political choice in 2008. He uses the Minnesota senatorial race as a case study. The incumbent, Norman Coleman (R-MN), is challenged by Alan (Al) Franken. Wobegon Boy examines Stormin' Norman and finds him wanting. However, Franken is haunted by a number of lame jokes from his show-biz career as a comedy writer and performer. In addition, Franken got into difficulty with the IRS over back taxes. Wobegon Boy wonders if Minnesotans will give Stormin' Norman a pass for his lame performance as the key Senate watchdog on government waste. Coleman has turned a blind eye on the Iraq contractor heist. Will Minnesotans care? Will the electorate care that The Mighty Q is miseerably unqualified? If this is the (fair & balanced & new) American Dilemma, so be it. (Pace, Gunnar Myrdal)

[x Salon]
Who Wants To See Sarah Palin As The Next President?
By Garrison Keillor

The Republicans are meeting down the hill from my house, helicopters are pounding the air, and there are more suits on the streets and big black SUVs and a brownish cloud venting from the hockey arena where the convention is assembled. A large moment for little old St. Paul, which is more accustomed to visitations by conventions of morticians and foundation garment salesmen and the Sons of the Desert, and so we are thrilled. It makes no difference that the city is Democratic. What matters is that, for a few days, TV will show a few pictures of the big bend in the Mississippi, the limestone bluffs, the capitol and cathedral, and a tree-shaded avenue or two, and some of the world will know that we exist.

Too bad that the Current Occupant and Mr. Cheney canceled their St. Paul appearances so they could focus on hurricane-threatened New Orleans and lend their expertise to rescue operations. As it turned out, they weren't needed, which has been generally true for a long time. Their reporting for duty now only served to remind everyone of what happened three years ago. And Mr. McCain, as of this writing, seemed torn between coming to St. Paul to address the convention and comforting hurricane victims in Mississippi, if any could be found.

Meanwhile, he posed a stark question for voters to ponder: How much would you like to see Sarah Palin of Wasilla, Alaska, as the next president of the United States? And what does the question say about Mr. McCain's love of the country that she might suddenly need to lead? No need to discuss these things at length, really. The gentleman played his card, a two of hearts. Make of it what you will.

The challenge for Republicans is how to change the subject from the dismal story of Republican triumph the past eight years and get voters to focus on, say, the old man's war record or Mrs. Palin's perkiness or the oddity of the skinny guy's last name. If they can succeed there, they can win this thing.

The Senate race in Minnesota is a good example. The Republican, Norm Coleman, has scored points by whooping up a couple tiny scandalettes — some old jokes that, like a lot of old jokes, aren't so funny, and a tax snafu by some bookkeeper with dandruff on his shoulders — against Democrat Al Franken, which may yet succeed in distracting voters from Coleman's important role as whistle-plugger in the $23 billion Iraq scandal.

From 2003 to 2006, Coleman was chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is responsible for investigating, among other things, "fraud, waste, and abuse in government contracting," and on his watch, the subcommittee held no hearings on the disappearance of billions of tax dollars into "reconstruction projects" in Iraq that didn't seem to reconstruct anything whatsoever. Bundles of newly minted $100 bills on pallets in Baghdad that simply vanished. No-bid contracts lavished on people with connections. What may be the biggest case of war profiteering in the history of buzzardry.

The PSI is a big hammer. It's the subcommittee Joe McCarthy used to go after the U.S. Army and Sen. John McClellan used to go after labor racketeers with the young Bobby Kennedy as chief counsel, but as the Coleman subcommittee it went after federal employees who were traveling business class instead of economy, meanwhile money was pouring out of the Treasury for any Republican who could write "Iraq" with fewer than two spelling errors, and an old Bush retainer was appointed special inspector general to oversee the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, but without authority to oversee money spent on reconstruction by the Pentagon, which was where most of the money went. All of this Sen. Coleman watched with a cool eye, and he now calculates that Minnesota voters won't have the attention span to read a story with a lot of dollar amounts and acronyms like PSI and IRRF and SIG. Maybe, maybe not.

The simple truth is that, while more than 4,000 Americans gave their lives in the war in Iraq, the war was an enormous financial opportunity for neocons and their friends, and Sen. Coleman was a passive observer of one of the biggest heists in history. The cynicism is staggering to the normal person. He was the cop who busted the hot dog vendor for obstructing the sidewalk while the McGurks were cleaning out the bank. This is no joke. A crook is walking around looking for votes. And the truth is marching on.

[Garrison Keillor is an author, storyteller, humorist, and creator of the weekly radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." The show began in 1974 as a live variety show on Minnesota Public Radio. In the 1980s "A Prairie Home Companion" became a pop culture phenomenon, with millions of Americans listening to Keillor's folksy tales of life in the fictional Midwestern town of Lake Wobegon, where (in Keillor's words) "the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all of the children are above average." Keillor ended the show in 1987, and 1989 began a similar new radio show titled "American Radio Company of the Air." In 1993 he returned the show to its original name. Keillor also created the syndicated daily radio feature "A Writer's Almanac" in 1993. He has written for The New Yorker and is the author of several books, including Happy to Be Here (1990), Leaving Home (1992), Lake Wobegon Days (1995), and Good Poems for Hard Times (2005). His radio show inspired a 2006 movie, "A Prairie Home Companion," written by and starring Keillor and directed by Robert Altman.

Keillor graduated from the University of Minneosta in 1966. His signature sign-off on "The Writer's Almanac" is "Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."]

Copyright © 2008 Salon Media Group, Inc.

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