A Blue View

Media Bias 1: Peggy Noonan Complains Media Trying To Make Palin Face Of The GOP

From the Huff Post:

Conservative columnist Peggy Noonan, who was a harsh critic of Sarah Palin during the campaign, now argues that the media is abetting the VP candidate's rise for their own reasons. On "Morning Joe" Thursday, Noonan said the press is trying to "take Sarah Palin and make her, subliminally, the face of the Republican party" -- to the party's detriment.

Sarah Palin's Turkey Pardoning Fiasco

The gore starts at around 2:00, while her comments at around 4:00 are particularly jarring:

Denial On Display

I hope more Republicans are in as much denial, and perform equally wrong post-mortems, as Bay Buchanan. If they do, then the Dems will be in power for a very long time.

Dick Cheney Indicted by Texas Grand Jury

From the SF Chronicle:

A South Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on state charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County's federal detention centers.

From KRGV TV:

Those RNC Clothes

If The Republicans Are Smart, Palin Is Done. Luckily, They're Not.

From Gallup:

Just 45% of Americans would like to see Sarah Palin become a major national political figure for many years to come, while a slight majority of 52% say they would not. These sentiments are sharply divided along partisan political lines.

Over three-quarters of Republicans would like to see the former vice-presidential nominee and current governor of Alaska become a major national political figure in the years ahead, in sharp contrast to the 43% of independents and 20% of Democrats who share that attitude.

Leno Interview With John McCain

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

What Palin Knows Or Does Not Know IS Important

Lawrence O'Donnell speaks the truth:

Fox News Knew Palin Didn't Know Africa Was A Continent & Kept Quiet

They were willing to potentially let an idiot move to within a 72 year old heartbeat of the Presidency:

All these McCain campaign leaks about Palin are doing her, and as this video shows, Bill Kristol, in:

"Clear evidence Palin cost John McCain votes"

From CBS News:

Pole Result

Cheney's Poorly Timed Support

Here's what Obama said (which he repeated at every rally yesterday) about Cheney's statement:

And here's the ad his campaign is now running:

Dick Cheney Does NOT Endorse Obama; He Picks McCain & "Talented" Palin

Good luck with thiw John!

Their Closing Arguments

President Palin, A Second Plane Has Just Hit The Towers ...

"My Friends" The Musical

Clever and well done!

Are The Politics Of Bigotry Over?

Another fascinating article by Matt Tabbi in Rolling Stone:

I have come to the 4th Congressional District in Colorado ... to cover the re-election campaign of Rep. Marilyn Musgrave. Musgrave was Sarah Palin before Sarah Palin, a turbocharged born-again supermom who went into politics because she couldn't stand all the naughtiness. Her first political gig was on the school board in Fort Morgan, where she devoted her energies to blacking out — literally blacking out — passages in sex-education textbooks. Later, as a state legislator, she pushed a concealed-weapon law that would have allowed guns on school grounds. She was a preposterous caricature of an evangelical politician, an Anita Bryant with a beer gut, but like Palin she was already on her way to a Major Elected Office by the time anyone thought to stop laughing. Her first act upon making it to Congress in 2003 was to introduce an amendment to ban gay marriage. She declared unequivocally — after 9/11 and the launching of two wars — that the union of same-sex couples is "the most important issue we face today."

Musgrave was re-elected twice by a 4th District that since 1972 has been among the most solidly Republican territory in America. Her grandstanding against buggery and other forms of extra-biblical recreation has helped earn her a 100 percent rating and a top spot on the American Conservative Union's list of the most right-wing members of Congress. She's a living symbol of the Era of Rove, when all a politician needs to do to get elected is go to church, make freckled babies and whine about how things are going to shit because some minority group is queering the deal.

That strategy has worked for a long time — but now, suddenly, things are different in places like the 4th District. Not only does the torch-bearing evangelical Colorado of Ted Haggard and James Dobson appear poised to turn its nine electoral votes blue for a nonwhite presidential candidate, but the congressional seat belonging to one of America's most celebrated gay-bashers in this once-impregnable Republican stronghold is also up for grabs.

If Musgrave is ousted in November, as polls suggest she'll be, it's worth asking just what exactly is going on. Has there been a sea change in the electorate? Is there a place on the American map where you can actually see the country outgrowing the politics of bigotry? <Continue reading.>

Joe The Plumber IS Sarah Palin

Once again the "fake" journalists at the Daily Show put the "real" journalists to shame: the point Stewart makes here about McCain's preference for elevating an unknown, blank (and empty) slate to a role of national prominence applies to both Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin:

Palin's Chances In 2012

McCain Camp Scapegoating Palin

From the Politico:

John McCain's campaign is looking for a scapegoat. It is looking for someone to blame if McCain loses on Tuesday. And it has decided on Sarah Palin.

In recent days, a McCain “adviser” told Dana Bash of CNN: “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone.” Imagine not taking advice from the geniuses at the McCain campaign. What could Palin be thinking?

Also, a “top McCain adviser” told Mike Allen of Politico that Palin is “a whack job.”Maybe she is. But who chose to put this “whack job” on the ticket? Wasn’t it John McCain? And wasn’t it his first presidential-level decision?

And if you are a 72-year-old presidential candidate, wouldn’t you expect that your running mate’s fitness for high office would come under a little extra scrutiny? And, therefore, wouldn’t you make your selection with care? (To say nothing about caring about the future of the nation?)

McCain didn’t seem to care that much. McCain admitted recently on national TV that he “didn’t know her well at all” before he chose Palin. But why not? Why didn’t he get to know her better before he made his choice? It’s not like he was rushed. McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination in early March. He didn’t announce his choice for a running mate until late August.

Wasn’t that enough time for McCain to get to know Palin? Wasn’t that enough time for his crackerjack “vetters” to investigate Palin’s strengths and weaknesses, check through records and published accounts, talk to a few people, and learn that she was not only a diva but a whack job diva?

But McCain picked her anyway. He wanted to close the “enthusiasm gap” between himself and Barack Obama. He wanted to inject a little adrenaline into the Republican National Convention. He wanted to goose up the Republican base. And so he chose Palin. Is she really a diva and a whack job? Could be. There are quite a few in politics ...

Palin Is A Scientific Ignoramus

Sorry I didn't post this at the time, but remember Sarah Palin's first "policy" speech on children with special needs?  Did you catch the scientifically illiterate statement Palin made in it?  Watch:

The thought of this creationist, scientific ignoramus having any say in government policies on science, technology or education scares the living daylights out of me.

It Came Down To Making "Palin look like a scripted robot or an unscripted ignoramus"

From Robert Draper:

The day after the ticket made its debut, it was August 30 ... I remember seeing Tucker Eskew ... wandering around the premises, looking somewhat lost. He and Wallace took charge of schooling the Alaska governor on message discipline. Two days later at the GOP convention, an adviser watched them coach Palin on how to answer routine press questions and warned Steve Schmidt that she was being overly managed. Three weeks later, Wallace arranged for the interview with her former CBS colleague Katie Couric, which proved to be a disaster. Meanwhile, Palin’s debate prep was going miserably, to the point where Schmidt had to peel off from McCain (who was having his own challenges responding to the financial crisis) and join Nicolle’s husband Mark Wallace in simplifying Palin’s prep so as to avert catastrophe. The latter efforts resulted in what one senior adviser would describe to me with palpable relief as “a campaign-saving performance.”

I’m sympathetic to Eskew and Wallace, and not just because they’re decent people. They’ve held their tongue from leaking what a couple of McCain higher-ups have told me—namely, that Palin simply knew nothing about national and international issues. Which meant, as one such adviser said to me: “Letting Sarah be Sarah may not be such a good thing.” It’s a grim binary choice, but apparently it came down to whether to make Palin look like a scripted robot or an unscripted ignoramus.

All Hail Joe And Palin

Most Outrageous Interview Of The Year

This is amazingly not from Fox News but an ABC affiliate in Orlando:

2012

 

Vlad & Boris Present 'Song for Sarah'

The boys are intrigued by Sarah's ability to see them from her house:

Sept vs. Oct Pallin Rallies Say It All

From the Las Vegas Sun:

The mood at September’s rally for Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin was electric, near fervent.

The crowd of 5,000 in Carson City shouted out “Sarah!” They hung on her every word. They offered earsplitting applause, even to a speech nearly identical to the one she had just delivered at the Republican National Convention.

Palin’s rally in Reno this week, just over a month since her first Northern Nevada visit, was different.

The fire department estimated the crowd at 3,000, but it felt smaller in the cavernous Reno-Sparks Convention Center, which holds 10,000. The crowd still clearly loved her — as at Sen. Barack Obama’s rallies, much of the preaching is done to the converted — but it did not pop with the same energy that was so palpable in September.

It’s something that’s happening across the country ... Now is not a happy time to be a McCain supporter.

There are depressing poll numbers, stories of political backbiting from McCain advisers, uneven television interviews by Palin. And those began before the news was filled with reports of the Republican National Committee’s $150,000 investment in Palin’s and her family members’ wardrobes.

“Most of us are exhausted,” said Bybee, who volunteers with the McCain campaign. “We’re tired. She’s been beat down by the media. We’ve been beat down by the media. We’re tired of fighting the big money out of Hollywood.”

She said Obama “has no experience. We don’t know who he is. Most of us are nervous. We’re scared to death.”

She said the difference in mood between the two events also lends itself to the seriousness of the time.

Not that the “lipstick on a pig” comment by Obama, which Republicans claimed was an attack on Palin, was completely forgotten. But the economic crisis and plunging stock market have overshadowed other events.

“We can’t be cheerleaders now,” Bybee said. “We’re the team now on the field.”

Still, she was proudly wearing a shirt that read, “I am Sarah Palin.”

Latest Romance Novel

Watch These Republicans DEFEND Obama

It's come to this: Obamcons Clelland & Hitchens are now actively defending Obama and criticizing their party's candidate!

"A Bloodbath" Inside The McCain/Palin Campaign

Trouble in Maverick-land:

From Ben Smith

She's lost confidence in most of the people on the plane," said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to "go rogue" in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.

"I think she'd like to go more rogue," he said.  

The Week In Political Cartoons

  

    

    

 

Hockey Mama for Obama

Thanks to A Blue View reader Diane for pointint out this amusing homemade video:

Palin Is A Major Drag

From the Wash Post:

A majority of likely voters in a new Washington Post-ABC News national poll now have unfavorable views of the Alaska governor, most still doubt her presidential qualifications and there is an even split on whether she "gets it," a perception that had been a key component of her initial appeal ...

Obama is up by a large margin among women, 57 to 41 percent in the new Post-ABC tracking poll. The senator from Illinois just about ties McCain among white women -- 48 percent back Obama, 49 percent McCain -- a group that President Bush won by 11 points four years ago and one that had shifted significantly toward the GOP this year after the Palin pick.

In polling conducted Wednesday and Thursday evenings, after the disclosure that the Republican National Committee used political funds to help Palin assemble a wardrobe for the campaign, 51 percent said they have a negative impression of her. Fewer, 46 percent, said they have a favorable view. That marks a stark turnaround from early September, when 59 percent of likely voters held positive opinions.

The declines in Palin's ratings have been even more substantial among the very voters Republicans aimed to woo. The percentage of white women viewing her favorably dropped 21 points since early September; among independent women, it fell 24 points.

More broadly, the intensity of negative feelings about Palin is also notable: Forty percent of voters have "strongly unfavorable" views, more than double the post-convention number. Nearly half of independent women now see her in a very negative light, a nearly threefold increase.

The shift in Palin's ratings come with a pronounced spike in the percentage of voters who see her as lacking the experience it takes to be a good president. Voters were about evenly divided on that question a month and a half ago, but toward the end of September a clear majority said she was not qualified. In the new poll, 58 percent said she is insufficiently experienced ...

GOP Strategist Criticizes Obama For Visiting Ill Grandmother

The Vet Who Did Not Vet

Palin 'Doesn't Know' If Abortion Clinic Bombers Are Terrorists

Palin As Cleopatra

A very intriguing, provocative column from conservative Kathleen Parker:

A brilliant 75-year-old scholar and raconteur confessed to me over wine: "I'm sexually attracted to her. I don't care that she knows nothing"  ... McCain had met Palin only once -- in February, at the governors' convention in Washington -- before the day he selected her as his running mate. The second time was at his Sedona, Ariz., ranch on Aug. 28, just four days before the GOP convention ...

One does not have to be a psychoanalyst to reckon that McCain was smitten. By no means am I suggesting anything untoward between McCain and his running mate. Palin is a governor, after all. She does have an executive résumé, if a thin one. And she's a natural politician who connects with people.

But there can be no denying that McCain's selection of her over others far more qualified -- and his mind-boggling lack of attention to details that matter -- suggests other factors at work. His judgment may have been clouded by . . . what?

That men are at a disadvantage when attractive women are present is a fact upon which women have banked for centuries. Ignoring it now profits only fools. McCain spokesmen have said that he was attracted to Palin's maverickness, that she reminded him of himself.

Recognizing oneself in a member of the opposite sex (or the same sex, as the case may be) is a powerful invitation to bonding. Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in the river, imagining it to be his deceased and beloved sister's. In McCain's case, it doesn't hurt that his reflection is spiked with feminine approval.

As my husband observed early on, McCain the mortal couldn't mind having an attractive woman all but singing arias to his greatness. Cameras frequently capture McCain beaming like a gold-starred schoolboy while Palin tells crowds that he is "exactly the kind of man I want as commander in chief." This, notes Draper, "seemed to confer not only valor but virility on a 72-year-old politician who only weeks ago barely registered with the party faithful."

... though it isn't over yet, it seems clear that McCain made a tragic, if familiar, error under that sycamore tree. Will he join the pantheon of men who, intoxicated by a woman's power, made the wrong call?

Had Antony not fallen for Cleopatra, Octavian might not have captured the Roman Empire. Had Bill resisted Monica, Al Gore may have become president, and Hillary might be today's Democratic nominee.

The $150,000 Wardrobe

Did you catch Hardball last night?  If not, Chris Mathews reported that Palin's $150k wardrobe costs $23k more than Joe the Plumber's house!  A clash of symbols wouldn't you say?

Palin Is Pushing People Overboard

From conservative Daniel Larison:

There is no question that critics of Palin have various reasons to dread Palin becoming one of the leaders of the zombified re-born conservative movement.  Some of this has to do with weariness with or lack of interest in culture war issues (I would say this describes Frum’s reaction), some of it is opportunistic at this late stage in the game, some of it is a deep aversion to anything that resembles uninformed populism (that’s Brooks’ reason), some of it is stylistic (professional writers cannot take much satisfaction when a public figure so badly butchers the language), but a large part of the hostile reception of Palin by Palin’s critics on the right is a genuine objection to an unqualified candidate unprepared for the post she seeks.  While her critics may have engaged in some self-serving rhetorical overkill, as I think Brooks certainly has, and even though most or all of them raised no such objections to Mr. Bush, they do seem to have learned something from the experience of the Bush administration in that they have concluded that “good instincts,” folksiness and ignorance are not what is needed. 

In the end, the selection of Palin was not only a desperate and cynical move designed mainly to mobilize core constituencies, but her candidacy quickly turned into nothing more than a vehicle for riling up the remaining true believers who still approve of Mr. Bush’s job performance.  If recognizing this obvious truth makes one a “me-too” conservative, you’re going to find a lot of people clamoring to acquire that designation.  Obama endorsers are a somewhat different story, as they are trying to jump on the popular bandwagon, but rather than wailing about the perfidy of the defectors and demanding to know what side people are on one might want to consider what it is about one’s own side that seems to have become so radioactive.  It’s all very well to say that the critics and defectors are rats deserting a sinking ship, but instead of worrying about that one might spend a bit more time considering how the ship came to be in this situation.  When in an imploding political system or an imploding political movement, it is usually more important to change conditions inside to keep people from fleeing than to wish them all good riddance while building higher walls.   

No Chemistry As The Knifes Start To Come Out

Chuck Todd provides a very candid assessment of the negative chemistry between McCain & Palin and implies the staff are starting to look out for themselves & their reputations as they start to abandon ship:

"I'd like my money back"

From the Politico:

The Republican National Committee’s $150,000 investment in Sarah Palin’s wardrobe has prompted some teeth gnashing among the party’s big donors about its political sensibility and a feisty debate among campaign finance specialists about its legality.

“As a Republican Eagle and a maxed-out contributor to McCain’s general campaign, I’d like my money back – he can still have my vote,” complained one irate donor on Tuesday.

“I’m not one who says a candidate shouldn’t wear fine clothes,” he added. “I’d just like to think they were successful enough in the private sector to have afforded their wardrobe with their own money, not the party’s or the campaign’s, which is really our money as contributors.”

Another big donor was sympathetic to the effort, but critical of the execution.

Hockey Mom Facade "Crumbles"

From the NY Times {before & after photos here}:

Sarah Palin’s wardrobe joined the ranks of symbolic political excess on Wednesday, alongside John McCain’s multiple houses and John Edwards’s $400 haircut, as Republicans expressed fear that weeks of tailoring Ms. Palin as an average “hockey mom” would fray amid revelations that the Republican Party outfitted her with expensive clothing from high-end stores ...

Such an image is unhelpful at this late stage of the general election, Republicans said, especially when many families are experiencing economic pain, and when the image applies to a candidate, like Ms. Palin, who has run for office in part on her appeal as an outdoors enthusiast and former small-town mayor who scorns pretensions.

“It looks like nobody with a political antenna was working on this,” said Ed Rollins, a Republican political consultant who ran President Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign in 1984. “It just undercuts Palin’s whole image as a hockey mom, a ‘one-of-us’ kind of candidate” ...

Republican officials said all the clothes would be given to charity after the campaign is over. If Ms. Palin kept the clothes, the $150,000 would have to be taxed as income, tax experts said.

Had the purchases been made by the McCain campaign, it would be a conversion of campaign money into personal use, which is prohibited. The same rule does not apply to money from party committees.

“The R.N.C. cleverly used the party committee’s money to avoid the liability that would have occurred if campaigns funds were used,” said Kenneth Gross, a lawyer who is an expert in campaign finance.

I think Ed Rollins was on to something as the chance to go after hypocrisy is just so alluring:

The Real Journalists

Once again, the Daily Show gang has put the "real" journalists to shame.  How come a bunch of comedians were the first to investigate what "executive" experience Palin actually derived from her years as Wasilla's mayor?  It's quite an eye opener. (Drew Griffin I hope you took notes on what Jason Jones did in case you ever get a re-do of your appalling Palin interview).

When Applying For A Job, It's A Good Idea To Know What The Job Entails

Another perfect example of why Palin is a bigger electoral drag on McCain than Bush. From ThinkProgress:

Yesterday, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) sat for an interview with KUSA, an NBC affiliate in Colorado. In response to a question sent to the network by a third grader at a local elementary school about what the Vice President does, Palin erroneously argued that the Vice President is “in charge of the United States Senate“:

Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”

PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.

Indeed, while Palin suggests that questions about what the Vice President does is something only her daughter Piper would ask, Palin herself asked this very question on national television in July. Apparently, she still hasn’t learned the correct answer.

Article I of the Constitution establishes an exceptionally limited role for the Vice President — giving the office holder a vote only when the Senate is “equally divided”:

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.

Moreover, the U.S. Senate website explains that the modern role of Vice Presidents has been to preside over the Senate “only on ceremonial occasions.”

... ThinkProgress obtained the following statement from Jim Manley, spokesman to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV):

This comment is all the more puzzling because this is at least the 2nd time she has said this. Gov Palin needs to re-read or perhaps read for the first time the Constitution. While the Vice President presides over the Senate, he or she is not in charge of it.

A Messsage For Sarah Palin

You Know Things Are Going Badly When

Your running mate is the butt of a joke placed on bus kiosks.  From Ben Smith:

The company Manhattan Mini-Storage, known for its politically-themed ads, cashes in on local antipathy to Sarah Palin in this photo sent in by a reader.

 

McCain: Palin Is A Counter To "Liberal, Feminist Agenda"

A New Way To Have Fun & Waste Time At Work

Go to www.palinaspresident.us and click around the screen.  Too bad they dont have a "Boss" button. Thanks to Diane for sending this to me.

When You Know You Are Losing

From Karen Tumulty:

There is now a pattern emerging from the McCain campaign and its surrogates. Instead of trying to persuade Americans who aren't in their camp (the sign of a campaign that thinks it can win), they are trying to de-legitimize them (the sign of a campaign that thinks it can't).

That's what you hear in Sarah Palin's disquisition in Greensboro, N.C., on "these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation." (So what does that say about the rest of the country?) That is what you hear in Nancy Pfotenauer's suggestion that there's a difference between Northern Virginia and "real Virginia." It is what you hear in Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann's crazypants rant about--well, I really don't know what. And it is what you hear in a robocall strategy that is as ridiculous as it is cowardly. (On that score, Republican Sen. Susan Collins deserves credit for calling for a stop to it in her state.)

On the other hand, here's what you do when you think you are winning, and you are looking at the challenges of governing at the end of a divisive campaign:

"This Is No Way To Start A Family"

A Feminist Majority Ad: