I Don't Like You Either

The Daily Show: Even More Growing Anger at AIG

What? Hiatuses happen. Anyway, we're back and with a vengeance.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Notorious AIG - Congress Wants to Blame Someone
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Daily Show Full Episodes Important Things w/ Demetri Martin Political Humor

The Charisma of Bobby Jindal

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Obama's Congressional Address & Jindal's Response
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Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Craziest..Press Conference...EVAH (Blagojevich & Burris)

Via HuffPost, where you can read Jason Linkins' write-up. ""Please do not allow the allegations against me to taint this good man," Blagojevich said, futilely...""

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Snark O' the Day: World O' Crap Reviews a Review Coulter's Latest [ Guilty]

Er, Coulter?  Ann Coulter?  Oh.  Yeah.  We remember Ann Coulter.

Ann’s wardrobe consists entirely of black cocktail dresses from ”Skanks ‘R Us.”  You know, the title of her book reminds me of that pretentious Calvin Klein perfume ad from the ’80’s with the slogan, “If obsession is a sin, let me be guilty.”  In Ann’s case, I guess the line would be, “If an obsession with demonizing half the country is a sin, let me be guilty, and then send me to Gitmo for the rest of my life.”  Ah, Coulter, the smell of it.  Smells like tobacco breath, stale gin, and desperation.

Department of Valedictions: Meanwhile, Kristol Waves a Fond Farewell to Cheney....

Cheney is a douchebag wrapped in an enigma and dipped in a mystery, but Bill Kristol is still just a douchebag.  Amazingly, Fox News viewers and others still listen to him, proving that what we suspected about them all along is TRUE.

From Think Progress, this delightful wingnuttery on the half-shell:

Dennis Prager Wants Minorities to Apologize for The Sins of Fellow Minorities

Apparently, in Prager's universe white Christians, especially white Christian males, are always apologizing.  Who knew? 

Prager thinks it's about time for minorities to "express shame."  Prager himself, as you can see, has none.  

Clif at Sadly, No! sees this one off in Town Hall of Shame.

Basically it appears that Prager thinks that individual members of minority groups should apologize for the bad things that other members of that group did which forced the majority to enact discriminatory laws against the entire minority group and then feel vaguely guilty years later for doing so....

Olbermann: They're All the Worst Person in the World

Keith Olbermann hits "the conservative trifecta," says Danny Shea, with O'Reilly winning the gold medal, Hannity winning the silver, and Will coming in last with the bronze.

Bill Ayers on "Hardball"

Here's "the washed-up old terrorist," as McCain called him, speaking for himself but also with strange prescience.  Highlights:

Asked about his reaction to Palin's "palling around with terrorists remark, Ayers said: "I thought it was outrageous and profoundly dishonest, and I chose not to react to it at the time."

Ayers added, "I was on a board with President-Elect Obama, we did live in the same neighborhood, but the dishonesty of the narrative is that if you can place two people in the same room or prove that they took a bus downtown together, that they're somehow responsible for one anothers politics, policies, outlook, and behavior, and that seems to me to be patently absurd."

Tweety concluded that  "Ayers is a changed man." Uh, as Jason Linkins said, make of that what you will.

Snark O' the Day: Obama's Birth Certificate---The Ongoing Questions

Now that Obama has a real scandal on his plate, this birth certificate one looks sort of sad and sketchy and tattered.  At the rate we're going the Right will be calling for impeachment before he's inaugurated.... But anyway, here's Gavin M. bringing the eyerolling fun. 

Peggy Noonan: "At Least Bush Kept Us Safe" (A Wall Street Christmas Carol)

Peggy Noonan hasn't seen any sign yet of this "recession" thing everyone keeps banging on about---her corner of the world looks pretty comfy and business-as-usual and full of affluent Christmas shoppers to her---and she and her ilk are feeling a bit nervous because now that Bush is going, some menace or threat might saw off the branch on which their designed-by-Hermes silk cocoons are suspended and crush their way of life under its collective heel.  

Judicial Watch: Clinton Ineligible to be Secretary of State!!!!!!!!

With Judicial Watch on the case, can anything save Hillary now?  BZZZZZZT!  She's out---and on a technicality!

Gawker has the nutshell version of the underlying law.  ABOVE WHICH NO ONE, NOT EVEN HILLARY CLINTON, IS!!

Dept of Valedictions: Bloggers on Bush on Bush

As DaveNoon says,  "I suppose everyone has a punch-the-wall-with-your-face moment in this interview."    The transcript is here.

The Rude Pundit nailed perfectly its most remarkable aspect.

Wingnuts in the Nutshell: William Kristol

by Teh Puppet Mistress |

Before he Goes [Kristol]

Nutshell version:  Bush could perform a real service to me and other discredited neocons by (1) lying some more; and (2) pardoning the worst offenses of his minions so that no one connected with his administration can discredit us further.

Snark O' the Day: Best Sarah Palin Moments? Three Videos--Let's Call Them "Dumb, Dumber & Dumbest"

Thanks, Sarah! Bye

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

The Daily Show's Best Sarah Palin Moments

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

And then there's this:

Snark O' the Day: "Raging" "Impotent" Netroots, Eh?

by Blue Stockings |  I don't think so.  But it's a meme that's emerging since the Lieberman thing and the media are running it for all it's worth.  Here's a piece by James Kirchick in The New York Daily News to prove it, all "Obama isn't afraid of the raging, impotent netroots because Joe Lieberman blah blah netroots furious rah rah blah dee blah blee." Read it yourself. 

The "Spite Caucus": One Right Wing Woman's Personal Journey...

by Damozel  | ....wielding Jonah Goldberg's hilarious, oxymoronic diatribe as her personal weapon of choice.  As chronicled by Gavin M. of Sadly, No!, this tale is (partly, though only partly) the tale "of her New York rampage, baying through the streets with book awave."

Colbert Report: The Imaginary Warfare Between Blacks and Gays

BraveNewFilms: Joe Lieberman Must Go!

Via Crooks & Liars:

Jane Hamsher Responds to Sarah Palin's Slam Against Liberal Bloggers

by Blue Stockings |  The Caucus:

Ms. Palin directed most of her media criticism at liberal bloggers, whom she twice called, “those bloggers in their parents’ basement just talkin’ garbage.”

After reeling off a list the credentials of liberalism's most formidable, Hamsher asks:

How would Sarah feel if someone called her an ignorant, freeloading bubble headed piece of trailer park trash whose daddy told the AP she spent the weekend scrambling to return her stolen clothes to the RNC?

Bill Maher's New Rules for 11-7: Republicans Must Not Spend the Next Four Years Plotting to Bring Down Obama

by Nicholas | A great post-election wind-up at Real Time.

Crooks and Liars has the complete transcript.  Best line:

The hard core Republican base is like a stalker. Rejection just makes them crazier.

Well, there's this:

Note to Palin: How Can People Miss You if You Keep Hanging Around?

by Blue Stockings |  She's already gabbling to the media about 2012. 

Less than a week after she and John McCain lost their bid for the White House, a combative Sarah Palin on Monday night launched a full-scale media blitz that strongly suggests she's already on to Plan B...

More Tales from the Nutterdammerung: Are You a Socialist or a Dupe?

by Teh Nutroots & Damozel | Roy Edroso has a post up at The Village Voice about the division of opinion on the right about the end of the world as they know it:

When the end came, rightbloggers were at first torn as to its meaning.

"When Will They Ever Learn?" Apparently, Never

by The Puppet Mistress | Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Nachos:

If you were worried the Republicans might finally wake up after two straight ass-kickings, and realize the right-wing schtick isn't working anymore, rest easy.

The House Republicans have just selected their new leadership team. John Boehner (R-Oompa Loompa) will stay in charge of the dwindling Republican minority, but the second and third in commands will now be Eric Cantor and Mike Pence, two congressmen whose loyalty to the far right is only rivaled by their own stupidity.

Otto Man has a February 2007 Tweety interview of Cantor to prove it!

He also said:

There are many things to be excited about with the election of Barack Obama, but the emergence of Republican-on-Republican violence is certainly at the top of my list.

Ours too. 

"Landslide"/"Mandate" v. "Not a Landslide/Not a Mandate"

by The Puppet Mistress |  Blue Texan points out that the right wingers have suddenly raised the bar for what constitutes a mandate.  All things considered, Obama's historic win was...historic.

I think a "landslide" probably should be reserved for any EV count over 400. By that measure, it wasn't a landslide. But...

• Obama received the most votes of any presidential candidate in history -- over 63M, besting W's 62M in 2004.
• Obama received a higher percentage of votes (53%) than George W. Bush in '04 or '00, than Clinton in '96 or '92, and more than St. Reagan in 1980 (50%). He matches George HW Bush's mark in '88 -- and posted the highest percentage by a Democrat since LBJ's 61% in 1964.
• Obama received more electoral votes (364) than George W. Bush in '04 (286) and '00 (271), more than Carter in '76, and more than Nixon in '68, Kennedy in '60, and Truman in '48.
• Obama brought with him increased gains in the Democratic Senate and House -- the first time Democrats have extended their majorities in back-to-back elections since the 1930s.

Bottom line: the size of Obama's win crushes either of W's, who posted two anemic, 1-state wins, and lost the popular vote in 2000. And this is the guy who they chriped for years about having a "mandate" and was going to remake the country with permanent majorities for the GOP and Peggy Noonan was savoring.

He also links to this excellent nutshell summary of how McCain managed to lose it all.

BTW, the blogger formerly known as "Captain Ed" a/k/a "Special Ed" had a different interpretation of the data.  Or, as Whiskey Fire puts it, "Nation Apathetic about Obama, If You Look at Data Like a Moron."

Arrested Development, Republican Style: Defeated Wingnuts Gibber, Rave, Point Fingers, Threaten, Screech, Shake Their Tiny Fists at the Cosmos, Etc.

by Blue Stockings | Sadly, No! has published what might be the definitive post on wingnut rage, fear, and screeching. 

Why are they so afraid all the time?  What are they so afraid of?  Is chronic craven fear really the trait that distinguishes the crazy-asses of the Republican base from normal people?

So it seems.  I've finally worked out the answer to the question:  Why, oh why do they hate us liberals so?

They hate us for our fearlessness. 

They're in a perpetual state of bug-eyed rage and panic, alternating with fear and fury.  How it must gall them that liberals don't share their fear of the monsters under the bed; that we have, in fact, put away childish things and moved on. 

Governing from the Center of the Wingnut Continuum

by Damozel | Here's a post by Roy Edroso at Alicublog.  It's full of truth:

Matthew Yglesias observes that the cry of "he must govern from the middle" is already going up. But these people don't know where the middle is. The government owns a majority interest in several heretofore private banks, is embroiled in foreign adventures for which it cannot pay, and, from the looks of the various referenda results, is riven with significant cultural divisions. It looks more like Lord North's Britain than what we usually think of as America. The new President is better advised to seek solutions rather than some mythical center line to toe.

Have a look at the prominent conservative thinkers (I know, I know) who are working on a conservative "game plan", trimming like little Clintons in search of the Joe the Plumber vote that brought John McCain all the way to 163 electoral votes. They're looking for the middle because they have nothing else to do. It's a fittingly harmless occupation for people who are not going to be making policy anytime soon.

The fact is, the dialogue of conservatives moved so far to the right under Bush---driven by various blowhards and nutjobs, while the more tempered conservatives kept opportunistically quiet as long as they got tax cuts for this silence---that what these people think of as "The Center" remains far to the right of even a moderate Democrat---or even some moderate Republicans.  They've lost any sense of where the true center lies.  On the wingnut continuum, Andrew Sullivan is a wild-eyed liberal.

I expect that everything that the (according to Paul Krugman and me) far-from-far-left Obama does while in office will cause them to fume and rage impotently.  Obama wasn't my first choice---I admit I initially preferred John Edwards and then Hillary---but now I've seen more of him, I'm all for Obama.  I would like for his to be a popular administration.  But here's the thing: he's never going to be able to please the wingnut base and I hope he won't bother to try. 

Snark O' the Day: The Palinites

by Teh Nutroots | Angry wingers gird up their nuts to defend the honor of St. Palin.  Check out TBogg's response: By Joe the Plumber’s hammer, by the sons of Wasilla, you shall be avenged. 

The Right: Rage, rage Against the Dying of the Light!

by John Q | And great was the Snoopy-dancing and blowing of raspberries among these guys based on the results of one lone Zogby poll giving McCain a 1% lead. 

To which Gavin M. replies:

It must be difficult not being able to draw continuities between DARK TIME and LIGHT TIME, such that when the sun unexpectedly goes down in the evening it’s EATED BY THE SUN-EAT SERPENT, and when it startlingly comes up in the morning it’s MIRACLE HOORAY LIGHT. And then ONO! IT’S EATED BY THE EAT SERPENT, and then O HAI, IT’S MIRACLE HOORAY LIGHT, and on and on throughout your whole gaping lessoff existence — a ‘lessoff’ being like a moron except not even one.

We can be thankful that for most of us, here in the most advanced civilization the world has ever known, with unparalleled opportunities for self-refinement and the pursuit of practical reason, when something weird and unexpected arises — such as an election poll that gives a result unreflected by any other such poll — we go “Dude, that’s actually weird,” and are like, “You know, maybe there’s a reason.”

At this point a prediction is in order, and we feel that we can give it with some confidence. Barack Obama may win the presidential election, or else not win. We predict that this will depend on two things: cause and also effect — and that it will not be the result of building an airstrip out of palm fronds and sitting in a wicker control tower wearing a set of headphones made out of two halves of a coconut shell, willing the planes to come and deliver a bounty of cargo.

Of this we are greater than 97.2% sure.

In the meantime, the McCain camp has sent out a memo on the surge that is occurring during the final hours of the campaign.  Ambinder's got the whole thing right here.  Read it your self.  Ambinder says:

The last thing the McCain campaign needs on election day is demoralized Republicans. Hence this memo, which recapitulates what Davis and co. said on a conference call with reporters this morning.

I will tell you something that I probably shouldn't.  It irritates my co-bloggers. 

I for one wouldn't care that much whether Obama wins or loses if the times were even slightly less desperate.  He's got plenty of presidential bids left in him. 

McCain and Palin and the GOP deserve  to have to unscramble the mess that Bush has made.  If I thought there was a chance either one of them could fix even one of the problems without making it even worse, I'd be all for it.  The best we can hope for is a president who can steer a steady course through a typhoon of Bush-related consequences.   Whatever he does, whichever ticket occupies the Oval Office and environs is going to be damned if they do and if they don't. 

We Don't Like You Either: Scary Rictus-Grinning Bill Kristol (The Daily Show Interview)

Talk about your Halloween horror shows....

HuffPost:

Bill Kristol knocked his own paper, the New York Times, on "The Daily Show" last night, and repeated his prediction that John McCain will win the White House on Tuesday.

Jon Stewart joked with the error-prone Kristol, who he has mocked before, "You can't look at past performance as a predictor, otherwise you wouldn't be, obviously, still a pundit."

"You're reading The New York Times too much, Jon," Kristol told Stewart, only for Stewart to remind him that he works there. "Oh, it's a very fine newspaper — on one day of the week.

Biden's Orlando Interview

by The Puppet Mistress |  I'm going to agree with Thers:

Pretty much all you need to know about why the GOP is losing this election is to be found in the high-fiving among "conservatives" about this interview where a ridiculous local TV host from Orlando asks Joe Biden completely asinine leading wingnut questions about why Barack Obama is just like Karl Marx. Biden came across like a grownup; the interviewer looked like, well, someone from the Onion News Network, only not funny and all too real.

The only part where I disagree is this:  the self-satirizing interviewer was funny.  I doubt it did Biden any harm with non-Republicans.