I Don't Like You Either

Sarah Palin and the Wingnuts: "Proud to be Dumb & Easily Cowed"

by Blue Stockings | Ken Layne at Wonkette noticed  patrician right-wing princess Peggy Noonan's post arguing that McCain won the debate also spent several paragraphs arguing that Sarah Palin is as dumb as a brick.  (He doesn't disagree with the part about Palin.)   Noonan may be right wing, but she's also "an east coast" elitist.  So hilarious that Republicans and Republican shills accuse liberals of elitism.....

A Local Story: Mark Foley's Replacement ---Now With His Own Scandal?

by Teh Nutroots | As Jon says, Mahoney's old school.  His dangerous liaison was a woman who worked as his, um, "staffer."  Thanks so much, Mahoney, for proving---as if John Edwards hadn't taken care of that---that Dems can be hypocrites just as much as Republicans.  I'd say the whole thing was stupid, but if you make a selling point of your faith and virtuousness, you got to stand behind it.

Racist Attacks Emerge from GOP; Teh Nutroots Sez: "Let the Base be the Base"

by Teh Nutroots | Like the Obama-as-shoeshine-for-Palin gambit, this emerged from McCain supporters and certainly not from the campaign.  This, though, is what they are made of.  What's astonishing is the gleeful stupidity of the propounder, who never seems to have reflected that people of color within her own group might find this a tad offensive.  Click here to "enjoy" the "joke."

The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps -- instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of "Obama Bucks" -- a phony $10 bill featuring Obama's face on a donkey's body, labeled "United States Food Stamps."

The GOP newsletter, which was sent to about 200 members and associates of the group by e-mail and regular mail last week, is drawing harsh criticism from members of the political group, elected leaders, party officials and others as racist.(Press-Enterprise)

Colbert on the Final Debate

David Frum Takes on Rachel Maddow; Has His Arse Handed to Him

by Teh Nutroots | ....and doesn't even know it.  This is, of course, the man who gave the world "the axis of evil" and who feels that The Colbert Report isn't "serious" enough.  Of course, only a self-important humorless git could have said this about his career as a speech-writer for Bush:

"I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything." (truthout)

Seriously, watch this:

A Klassy Salute to Sarah from Her Supporters

by Teh Nutroots | ....Obama imagined as a 1950's style shoeshine, cleaning Sarah Palin patent leather pump while she smiles obliviously.  Click and "enjoy."   This, then, is the "wit" of the Republican wingnut base, in other words "the Republican base" (otherwise known as the Republican rabble, or riff-raff.)   

And yeah.  I'm a proud elitist.  I don't have any use for willfully stupid bigots.

10,000 McCainiacs: Jon Stewart Looks at the Roused Rabble

Former Python John Cleese: Michael is No Longer the Funniest Palin

by Nicholas | 

Bonus Pythonage below, for those who wish to learn or reminisce:

Jon Swift is Afraid: Obama Will Censor Free Speech

by Blue Stockings |  Goodie goodie, more Swiftian goodness from the master!

“Conservative-friendly media better get ready,” warns Brian C. Anderson. “Should Barack Obama win the presidency and the Democrats control Congress, as now seems likely, they will launch a full-scale war to drive critics — especially on political talk radio — right out of legitimate public debate.”

He cites some shocking proof of Obama’s intention to curtail the free speech rights of conservatives. When the NRA tried to run ads targeting Obama, his lawyers sent “bullying” letters to stations that ran them, according to Anderson. If Obama is elected, lawyers will be free to send bullying letters to anyone they want. You will have to be careful of what you say or write lest a lawyer get wind of it and fire off a bullying letter.....

National Enquirer has Another Exclusive; Right Wingers Show What They're Made Of

by Teh Nutroots |  Right. I wasn't going to touch this.  But the Far Right's Finest weren't going to let it go. I realise that most of them are stressed out from being betrayed by reality.  They've lost their bearings in the face of the coming realignment.  They're clinging to their guns and the Rovian Republican Jesus.  They're bitter and shit-scared anticipating the final ass-kicking humiliation that's to come when all they stand for is kicked to the curb by the economic meltdown and the next election.  And after that, the slide into irrelevance. 

It's kinder just to pretend not to notice.

But there are some lines nobody ought to cross. 

It started with an article in The National Enquirer.  I won't quote from it---read it yourself if you want more---but it's easy to summarise.

Shorter  National Enquirer (via Memeorandum);

So it seems that Obama's childhood friend and "mentor"---introduced to Barack when Barack was 10, or two years older than when Ayers was doing his terrorism thing--- is an admitted sexual deviant who molested children and practiced bondage. 

Draw your own conclusions.

The Right's Finest rushed right in.  Want to know what they had to say?

Colbert: ""You want to see the real John McCain? Hit a baseball into his yard.""

The word is POW and "fellow prisoners."  Is he telling us he's a prisoner of something else?

Frum's War at National Review

by Blue Stockings | David Frum----former speechwriter to Bush and the man who brought you "axis of evil"---is having to defend his conservatism from the likes of the Virgin K-Lo because he has dared to criticize the egregious Palin.  Lord.  "I Get So Weary of This," the piece is called. 

Possibly it is bad form for me to acknowledge this reality....Perhaps it is our job at NRO is tell our readers only what they want to hear, without much regard to whether it is true. Perhaps it is our duty just to keep smiling and to insist that everything is dandy - that John McCain's economic policies make sense, that his selection of Sarah Palin was an act of statesmanship, that she herself is the second coming of Anna Schwartz, and that nobody but an over-educated snob would ever suggest otherwise.  (Frum)

Glad you worked that out, David Frum.

Frum is waking up to the same reality as other conservatives:  that the Corner is a blog for pushing Republican talking points and Republican propaganda with the sole goal of keeping a discredited regime (which Frum helped enable, and then turned on) in power.

Monegan Comments on Troopergate

Via Taylor Marsh:

Sarah Palin has taken a "big blow to her credibility," but also her "campaign promises," stated Monegan, the man Palin fired who is at the center of "Troopergate." So much for "the maverick."... But on Sarah Palin drones, oblivious to the fool she has made of herself, not to mention the disastrous professional damage she has done to herself by being ill-equipped, under qualified, and overly arrogant. (Taylor Marsh)

 Meanwhile, Palin says that the report clears her of unethical activity.  Not so, but it doesn't matter much.  Needless to say, the morons who constitute the "Palin base" aren't fazed in the least.

Memeorandum has Palin commentary.

OMG, HITCH has endorsed Obama

by The Puppet Mistress | Wow.  To quote from Bret Harte:

Do I sleep? do I dream?
Do I wonder and doubt?
Are things what they seem?
Or is visions about?

First Christopher Buckley and now Christopher Hitchens?  The Nation says it: 

This is how bad it has gotten for John McCain....

Yes, he has lost the Christophers.

Just as an aside, I wonder how Buckley and Hitchens like being lumped together?  Not at all, I'll bet.  Anyway, here's the Hitchens article:

VOTE FOR OBAMA:  MCCAIN LACKS THE CHARACTER AND TEMPERAMENT TO BE PRESIDENT.

It therefore seems to me that the Republican Party has invited not just defeat but discredit this year, and that both its nominees for the highest offices in the land should be decisively repudiated, along with any senators, congressmen, and governors who endorse them.

While it's hard for me to take in, Hitchens---like Buckley---has always been one of the conservatives I've always liked as a personality (shut up) and I'm feeling ever so slightly vindicated as a result for going on liking him even though he's so very wrong in so very many ways.  Hitchens says:

Snark-O-Rama: A Compendium of Mordant Commentary On Current Events

by Teh Nutroots & The Puppet Mistress |  Today we implement what we hope will be a regular feature:  a round-up of bloggers who hate teh stupid as much as we do. 

At Balloon Juice, John Cole:

Wise People Suck.  At Saddleback, John McCain named John Lewis as one of the "wise men" on whom he'd rely during his Administration.  Now this wise man has a few wise words about the tactics being used by McCain & Palin, speaking "as one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement."

The Bride to Nowhere.  McCain's chief of staff would rather he suffer "an honorable defeat" than be disgraced by Palin's continuing antics.  John Cole laconically sums up how McCain and their neocon "helpers" created this unruly monster.  "Pitbulls don’t know when to stop biting," the piece begins....

Deb has always wondered that the GOP's Plan A was to lose this election.  If not, it's clear they've got a Plan B. See John Cole's piece, The Fall Guy.

Where's The Atlantic's Econoblogger Meagan McArdle?

by Blue Stockings | The greatest economic crisis in history and where's The Atlantic's free market lovin' econoblogger?  First---so inconvenient---she had to recover from an unfortunately timed two-week bout with the flu.  Like Brad, we don't want to draw any unkind inferences.

And now, on a weekend when the entire global economy is apparently balancing on the edge of a razor....she's catching up on her reading.   Susan of Texas had the same thought we did.

Why do I have the feeling Megan McArdle is feverishly pouring through her old textbooks to find a way to mitigate how Alan Greenspan, Milton Freeman, and Wall Street were so very wrong?

We don't pick on procrustean libertarian analyst Meagan too much because those snarkmeisters at Fire Meagan McArdle and Susan of Texas at The Hunting of the Snark do a bang-up job.  We don't hate her for being wrong about everything all the time; we hate her for posturing as an Obama supporter so that she "concern troll" him while getting credit from her commenters for being fair and balanced. 

One really does get a picture of McArdle frantically reading Friedman, Galbraith, Krugman, & others trying to work out where it all went wrong.  In lieu of giving her readers the benefit of her own reflections, she's giving them a couple of semester's worth of homework.  She even advisers her readers to read Mandelbrot!  At least that's honest.  It's all going to come down to the fault of those "faulty probability models" used by "market wizards."

The Booing of Sarah Palin

by Teh Nutroots | The New York Times' "Slapshot" covered this, but we prefer Deb's piece:  "Hockey Mom Gets Booed at Hockey Game."  Deb's posted the video.  Boy howdy, did she ever.

Wonkette comments:

Hey McCain-Palin campaign: not to say “we told you so,” but in fact to say “HA HA TROLLOPS, we told you so,” Sarah Palin was not received well by Philadelphia hockey fans tonight when she dropped the ceremonial first puck at the Flyers’ season opener. Liberal gotcha journal the New York Times describes the chorus of boos as “resounding (almost deafening).” This video is staggering. We’re fairly certain that the arena music is turned up louder in a vain attempt to drown out the SONIC WALL of booing.

But then...John Cole kind of put it into perspective.  I hate it when that happens.

For the record, I would not read into anything regarding the booing.  This is Philly.  Remember this?

Atrios, calling it a "stupid stunt," also says it was inevitable. 

Anyway, as everybody knows Philadelphia fans boo everyone. How much Sarah Palin's booing was political (as in, we hate Palin), how much of it was just booing the injection of politics into the game, and how much was simply booing because that's what Philadelphia fans do I have no idea. The point is that from the moment it was announced everyone knew she was going to be booed.

Whatever, there is now footage all over the internet of what sounds like every hockey fan in Philly booing Sarah Palin.  So ha ha ha anyway.  I felt kind of bad for the kid.  Like Atrios said, Palin shouldn't have dragged her into it. 

"Hillary" Must be So "Proud"; Meanwhile, the REAL Hillary Continues to Support Real Democrats

by Blue Stockings | From HillBuzz:   Clinton supporters sharing evidence for RICO case against Obama campaign

Sorry; as a supporter of lifelong Democrat Hillary Clinton I followed the stories closely at the time, and while I would agree that some Obama operatives were a bit overzealous, I don't believe a word of it.  And I love Hillary, so I believe she wants what's best for the country----which doesn't include attempts to destroy Barack Obama a few critical weeks before the election.

I accuse "Hillbuzz" of taking Hillary Clinton's name in vain.   

Here's my latest correspondence from HillPac, sent out under Hillary's name (titled valuable allies):

I have three great friends I want to introduce you to. But John, Eric, and Rick aren't just great friends -- they're great leaders. They are honored veterans   who will be valuable allies to Barack Obama and Joe Biden in   Congress.
                               
John Boccieri from Ohio is a friend and a genuine hero who served four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who will work to bring the troops home. Eric Massa from New York served 24 years on active duty in the Navy, and served in every operational area the Navy sails in. Both John and Eric   are running great races and can help us grow our Democratic   Majority.
                               
Rick Noriega from Texas joined the Army in 1979, and later served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Texas Army National Guard. After 9/11, he was deployed for fourteen months including one year in Afghanistan. I hope to have Rick alongside me in the Senate.
                               
I know John, Eric, and Rick well. I know they'll provide valuable leadership on national security issues and help us end the war in Iraq responsibly, face new challenges abroad, and restore the reputation tarnished by eight years of George Bush and John McCain-style foreign policy.
                               
That's why I'm happy to introduce them as the next three candidates on HillPAC's 2008 slate, and I hope you will join me in supporting them.

So I'd like to "thank" those "Hillary" "supporters," "Clinton" "Democrats," and McCain "Democrats" for doing their all to put increasingly erratic McCain and the truly egregious, Cheney-like-power-abuser Sarah Palin in the White House.  It won't work, of course, but it certainly will make some people out there who don't know that this isn't being instigated by Hillary think less of her. 

PS.  See Deb's article on the Rezko "revelations" here.

Donate to HillPac to help support these candidates here.

Memeorandum has more hopeful nonsense from Obama's desperate/pathetically vindictive opponents. 

This Just In: Sarah Palin Abused Power

by Blue Stockings | Quelle surprise!  We've got a result in Troopergate.  At Open Left, Chris Bowers deadpans:

Unsurprisingly, the report which Palin tried to block through lawsuits, stall through non-cooperation, discredit through personal attacks against the investigators, isn't very good for Palin.

As Jack and Jill Politics puts it, "While she’s on the campaign trail, whipping up bigoted frenzies being described as “renewing” the GOP base, the Good people of the state of Alaska got busy putting their Governor in check."  Ha, ha, it's true---all of it!

The Anchorage Daily News reports:

A legislative investigation has concluded that Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power in pushing for the firing of an Alaska state trooper who was once married to her sister, or by failing to prevent her husband Todd from doing so.

Here are some of the findings:

Colbert & David Gergen: Gergen Discusses John McCain's Negative Campaigning; Wants Him to Rein in Palin

by Teh Nutroots | Says Gergen---Reagan's Director of Communications, among much else--- "He's a better man than that." 

Great clip---the footage of Ragin' Cajun James Carville explaining in Carvillese (Carvillois?)  why he thinks McCain's campaign is over would be enough all by itself to make it worthwhile.

The Daily Show: Fox News Reports

It must suck to realize you've been wrong about everything all along.  No wonder they seem a bit mental.

Frank Schaeffer: "McCain's Attacks Fuel Dangerous Hatred"

by The Puppet Mistress | Schaffer's provisional "J'Accuse!" is printed in The Baltimore Sun.  In it, Schaeffer refers darkly to what many of us are beginning to fear:  that McCain and Palin are helping to incite people who might be all too inclined to feel justified in resorting to violence.  It's happened before, "my friends."

In pertinent part, it says:

John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as "not one of us," I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence....

John McCain: In 2000, as a lifelong Republican, I worked to get you elected instead of George W. Bush. In return, you wrote an endorsement of one of my books about military service. You seemed to be a man who put principle ahead of mere political gain.

You have changed. You have a choice: Go down in history as a decent senator and an honorable military man with many successes, or go down in history as the latest abettor of right-wing extremist hate....

Stop! Think! Your rallies are beginning to look, sound, feel and smell like lynch mobs.

John McCain, you're walking a perilous line. If you do not stand up for all that is good in America and declare that Senator Obama is a patriot, fit for office, and denounce your hate-filled supporters when they scream out "Terrorist" or "Kill him," history will hold you responsible for all that follows.

John McCain and Sarah Palin, you are playing with fire, and you know it. You are unleashing the monster of American hatred and prejudice, to the peril of all of us. You are doing this in wartime. You are doing this as our economy collapses. You are doing this in a country with a history of assassinations. 

[S]top stirring up the lunatic fringe of haters, or risk suffering the judgment of history and the loathing of the American people - forever.

We will hold you responsible.  [More]

For those interested, his official website is here.

Wake up, moderate Republicans.  You & the McCain campaign have met the enemy---and they are you. 

Memeorandum has more blogger discussion.

Even Republicans are Startled by the Hardcore Base; McCain Trying to Douse the Flames

by Blue Stockings | The ones who don't go on the internet really may not know their own.  Quite a lot of voters simply dismiss the "Obama is, or at some time, may have been associating with a known terrorist" [now a university professor] attack ads.   A Fox poll says 2/3 of voters say that the Ayers business makes no difference to their votes.

Just to hammer home the point, though, there’s one more poll that McCain should really take a look at. It says that two thirds of voters just don’t care about the Ayers story, and it’s not influencing their vote.  The remaining third are Republicans who wouldn’t vote for Obama anyway.  The poll was put out by Fox News.

I can’t think of any other way to get the point through McCain’s head; people could care less, they want to hear talk on the economy!  (Comments from Left Field)

It's what I'll call, because I'm an elitist, the lower third---the hard 'n crazy core---who are scaring sane people, including Republicans.  Among the lower third, the level of rage is getting scary. 

Videos taken of people heading into McCain-Palin rallies have shown individuals who label Barack Obama as a terrorist, a communist and a threat to the well-being of the country. At a town hall meeting in Wisconsin on Thursday, several attendees urged the Republican nominee to attack his opponent on the Ayers issue and Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who McCain himself has said should be off limits.

The rabid nature of the scene has startled longtime political observers and even former associates of McCain himself. (Sam Stein)

Jon Stewart on Palin & Last Week's Debate

NY Daily News

"Have you noticed how [Palin's] rallies have begun to take on the characteristics of the last days of the Weimar Republic? In Florida, she asked 'Who is Barack Obama?' Hey, lady, we just met YOU five f-ing weeks ago."

Troopergate: Out of Little Transgressions Grows the Disposition to Commit Greater Ones....

by Blue Stockings | News from Alaska, via Mudflats:

The Alaska Supreme Court today rejected an attempt by a group of six Republican legislators to shut down the Legislature’s investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin.

The ruling means that Steve Branchflower, the investigator hired by the Legislative Council, will release his report as scheduled on Friday.

But that's "only the first hurdle"----the Legislative Council still needs to vote to release the results of the report to the public.  Alaskans for truth, do your duty.

 

Such information as we are receiving on "Troopergate" is turning out to be quite the story.  Can't wait for the movie.  Based on today's New York Times article, it's a cautionary tale told in the traditional manner (by transposing the sort of abuses of power that we have seen play out in the larger sphere to the office of a small town public official.) 

Sarah Palin Compared to Bush

From Whiskey Fire, Oct. 1:

[S]he is exactly like George W. Bush, but lacks his good points. That is, she is an even worse liar.

McCain Calls Obama "That One"

Via Ambinder. As opposed, I guess, to "the One"?  But DAMN, that was obnoxious.

Sarah Palin Laments "Bridge to Nowhere"

Letterman Won't Let Up: Messages from Sarah Palin; Palin Recaps Herself

thanks, Wonkette....

Gwen Ifill: "Palin Blew Me Off" in Veep Debate

by Nicholas | We all noticed it, of course. Ifill---who was preemptively accused by the desperate, increasingly shrill far right contingent of being too partisan to moderate fairly---withheld comment and even any hint of an eye-roll when Palin ignored the questions and stuck to her script.  I was personally offended that Ifill never really called her on this, even while understanding the reason.

But now, on Meet the Press, Ifill had this to say (via Think Progress):