IMPALIN’ — Stop Sarah Palin for President in 2012

Hemingway said that the problem with Henry Miller was that he got laid in the afternoon once and thought he invented it. Governor Mark Sanford got laid in Argentina two weeks ago and the way he continues to go on about it, you’d think he cracked cold fusion. The man won’t shut up. If Henry Miller talked about his sex life as much as Governor Mark Sanford talks about his sex life, people would have started thinking he was some kind of perv. So today Mark Sanford needed to amend the number of times he kissed the Spider Woman in the last year, for those of you keeping score at home. Now it’s five, including two overnights in New York, one for general fornication and one more - approved by his wife! - that was supposed to be just to talk about old times. Sort of an adultery exit interview. The fact that someone as unconscious as Jenny Sanford was in a position of authority at Lazard Frères makes it amazing that there’s a banking system at all. One thing Mark Sanford isn’t doing is resigning. Why? Because God Himself wants Mark Sanford to stay on as Governor of South Carolina. Just ask Mark Sanford: “Immediately after all this unfolded last week I had thought I would resign - as I believe in the military model of leadership and when trust of any form is broken one lays down the sword. A long list of close friends have suggested otherwise - that for God to really work in my life I shouldn’t be getting off so lightly.” And if anyone knows about getting off, it’s Mark Sanford. But more importantly, the Almighty insists that Mark Sanford stay in office. South Carolina is his punishment. Like when Job got boils. And the citizens get to help God help Mark Sanford be a better man. Which I think we can all agree is what public service is all about. “While it would be personally easier to exit stage left, their point has been that my larger sin was the sin of pride.” That and years and years of adultery. But mostly pride. Here’s what I always thought I kind of missed out on as a Catholic, instead of whatever horseshit Mark Sanford practices: Self-diagnosis. When it came to sin, we didn’t get to call our own balls and strikes like that. “If I walked in with a real spirit of humility then this last legislative term could well be our most productive one - and that outside this term, I would ultimately be a better person and of more service in whatever doors God opened next in life if I stuck around to learn lessons rather than running and hiding down at the farm.” Again, what else can we do for you, Gov. Sanford? I’m glad the taxpayers have this chance to let you improve yourself, but is that enough? Next time you’re boning someone in South America, can we hold your dick? Okay, now clearly Mark Sanford is just a twitching loon who should be locked up before he hurts someone. What’s cool is that he isn’t even out of office yet, and he’s already talking about God opening doors. Our former favorite disgraced Christian egomaniac, Sarah Palin, waited until the week after the election, when she told Fox News: “Faith is a very big part of my life. And putting my life in my creator’s hands - this is what I always do. I’m like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I’m like, don’t let me miss the open door. And if there is an open door in ‘12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plow through that door.” The open door to which they refer, of course, is from Revelation: “I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.” — Revelation 3:8 American Evangelicals love Revelation, because it doesn’t make a lick of sense and then everything explodes. Kind of like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen . But they love Revelation 3:8 most of all, because it sounds like God’s promise that you’ll win the lottery. Evangelical business advice always comes back to Revelation 3:8. God opens doors. Like this one: Your opportunity to buy these timeshares. God wants you to get rich working from home. The same way he opens the door to a Palin Administration. Immediately followed by the Apocalypse. Don’t say you weren’t warned. I’m not sure Mark Sanford’s going to like the door that God opens for him, though. According to Revelations 21:8, adulterers and liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. Forever. Even if you’ve been to Argentina, and gotten used to the heat, that’s still gonna hurt.

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Chris Kelly: God is My Doorman: Mark Sanford for Non-Christians

[/caption] Last week Governor Sarah Palin sent a series of messages from her favorite communication tool; her Twitter account. We’re often treated to little 140 character missives about the weather, or Trig’s first hair cut, or the latest score from the Anchorage Aces hockey game. But this series of three rapid-fire messages were regarding the subsistence fishing situation in Western Alaska. Let’s face it. Not a subject that grabs the headlines like naughty monkey pumps, or the outrage du jour about somebody’s idea of a joke. But this is one of those stories that will not go away, and is doing more to erode support for the governor in much of the state, than any of her other blunders. AKGovSarahPalin Good update re Rural Advisor John Moller’s recnt Emmonak trip, great news he reports; we’ll twitter assuming press won’t pick up good news. about 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry The snark is unmistakable. She assumes the media won’t report the “great news” simply because it’s “great,” and she knows and you know that the media has no interest in reporting the facts. They’re just out to get her. John Moller is Sarah Palin’s rural advisor. He took over the role when her last rural advisor quit amid rumors that she couldn’t get any face time with the governor. Moller was in the Western Alaskan village of Emmonak to discuss the topic on everyone’s mind these days - salmon. Salmon are the primary subsistence food, and the commercial salmon fishery is the primary income source for residents of the villages of the Lower Yukon River. Catastrophic problems exist, which start with the mismanagement of a fishery that allow tens of thousands of coveted king salmon to be tossed overboard as “bycatch” by large commercial pollock trawlers from Washington state. Not enough fish last summer meant not enough food last winter, and not enough income for heating and cooking fuel, supplemental food and supplies during the long, harsh winter. Luckily food drives, donations from around the country, support from churches and the blogging community were enough to keep the villages of the Lower Yukon from total disaster. Palin, after almost eight weeks of inaction, and tons of media pressure, finally flew out to one of the villages. She arrived with two evangelical preachers, one of whom was Billy Graham’s son Franklin Graham, boxes of private sector food with religious messages inside, and a plate of homemade cookies for effect. Anchorage videographer Dennis Zaki, who contracts with CNN, visited the small village of Emmonak last winter, during the crisis, to document the plight of rural Alaskans that came as a direct result of last summer’s disastrous fishing season. He wanted to go back this summer to follow up, and get a sense for how things might be looking for the winter ahead He made this trip on his own, funded entirely, as the last one was, by donations from private citizens. People were moved by the heartbreaking story of fellow Americans having to choose whether to keep their children and elders warm or fed, because they didn’t have enough to do both.. They became informed of the situation and donated to send Zaki to Western Alaska through a host of Alaskan progressive blogs. Only because of these efforts, the story went from isolated Alaskan rural villages, to the national media. CNN picked up the story last winter. Fishing season is upon us, and Alaskans were shocked to see what came across the Twitter wires just minutes after the previous tweet. AKGovSarahPalin John Moller just returned from Emmonak, reports 50% of residents have subsistence needs met already, others confident they can do the same. about 3 hours ago from web It was a miracle! 50% of residents had their subsistence needs met already? Others confident? This was quite unexpected, and good news indeed. Thiese reports came in from the governor while videographer Dennis Zaki was still in Emmonak, a village with a total population of only about 750 people. This report would be pretty easy to verify. The story Zaki tells, after hearing about the governor’s tweets is this. Last week Palin Tweeted that Emmonak had 50% of their subsistance quota [of king salmon]. I’ve heard all around town that that was false. So this morning I took a poll around town. Out of 66 people polled, 5 said they have met their quota. 51 said they have less then 50% of their quota. The limited time of the openings are making it hard to fish. Half of Emmonak residents do NOT have their subsistance quota, and according to nearly all of the residents I’ve spoken to, they have no idea if they can get their quota. Tribal leaders are angry at this false statement by John Moller. There is a high level of anxiety because the Y1 district could close to fishing at any time. According to Fish & Game, 75% of the kings this year have already made it upriver from here, so any chance of making money off them is slim to none again this year. Kings go for over $5 a pound, chums go for 50 cents. You can see why fishermen are not in a good mood. With only a 4 hour opening tonight for chums the fishermen that make their living from the sea, which is nearly every family in town, are going to only be able to catch just a small amount of fish. And that’s assuming there will be fish there tonight. There could be no fish.” These people get pissed when I tell them what Moller said about 50% having their quota. In a culture where the people are rarely outspoken in a negative way, came “The Hell with Sarah Palin,” from one angry resident. Frustrations are running high, and village residents are fearful of what the coming winter will bring. Instances of civil disobedience are being reported from the village of Marshall, where fishermen have been reported tonight out on the river, taking salmon illegally, to be assured that they will have enough to feed their families this winter. Questions arise about what this will do to the salmon returns next year, to villages farther upstream, and to our international treaty with Canada in which we guarantee a certain number of fish will make it across the border. “We were ready to make a statement. We were ready to send a message to the fishery managers, to the governor, and to big business - meaning the trawl fishery. That you waste, you know, you’re allowed to waste all this fish. We only take a small fraction of the runs,” said Nick P. Andrew Jr., a Marshall fisherman and member of the Ohagamuit tribal government. Andrew was one of six fisherman who took 100 king salmon from the river, despite the state’s closure of the fishery. But the bottom line is that the tens of thousands of fish being taken and discarded as waste by the factory trawlers are causing the bulk of the problem. As it stands now, there is no legal limit to the number of salmon that can be taken and thrown overboard dead, as bycatch. They can waste as much as they want, while Alaskans who have lived for thousands of years in the areas that these fish are headed, face hunger and poverty. The harsh reality is that winter is only a couple months away in this area of the world, and every fish that swims past the villages, and every Seattle factory trawler that dumps its salmon bycatch overboard, brings Emmonak and villages like it one step closer to economic and subsistence collapse. Right now, there is civil disobedience on the Yukon, there is disaster coming this winter and seasons beyond, and the leadership that is necessary to take Alaska’s fisheries back for its people is nowhere in sight. The Anchorage Daily News reports that the Commissioner of Public Safety and the Head of Wildlife Troopers were in meetings today. The head of the Department of Fish and Game was unreachable for comment. John Moller, the governor’s Rural Advisor is now on personal leave. And what about the governor herself? Really, I’d love to be able to get Palin on the phone to talk about this stuff. Haven’t interviewed her about it since February. Meanwhile, from the governor’s Blackberry, all’s well in the land of magical thinking. AKGovSarahPalin John also met w/CNN reporter while in Emmonak & shared welcomed GOOD NEWS of region…as a result, highly unlikely interview will air : ) about 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry More on Sarah Palin

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AKMuckraker: "The Hell With Sarah Palin" How Do Rural Alaskans Really Feel?

It was never a short or long range goal of mine to save the Republican party. But it came to me yesterday how they can do it. Now my altruistic side has got the better of me. It hit me after reading Maureen Dowd’s column in the Sunday New York Times. Here’s her final sentence: ” The Republican Party will never revive itself until its sanctimonious pantheon- Sanford, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Palin , Ensign, Vitter and hypocrites yet to be exposed- stop being two faced .” In just that short list of names, she covered illicit theatrical affairs, unwed teenage moms, cruel poorly timed dumping of first wives, drug addiction and stretching the truth. Add Larry Craig , Mark Foley, Ted Stevens and Jack Abramoff and you also add spicy alternative sex hookups, bribery, tax fraud, and fancy vacation houses. Now put them all together and what do you get? The new Republican Party image: From Grand Old Party to Big Old Party! The New BOP! All they have to do, to win over millions, is keep doing the things that they’re already doing only really embrace them. Voila! It’s their “new brand!” That’s where Maureen Dowd’s piece takes a wrong turn. She’s stuck in the old GOP, where they used to look down on the stuff they were secretly doing. In the all new BOP, they’re Two Faced and In Your Face! Just like Sara Palin said, when she shrugged off questions about her then pregnant unwed high school aged daughter; “Life happens!” Damn straight! “Because that’s the way we do it in the new BOP. The party that lives to love and loves to party! We’re the mid life crisis dawgs and playas, dressed for business but looking for fun. And shit yes, sometimes our teenage daughters get pregnant! Life’s for living! We do what we want, when we want and then find a way to explain it! We take no prisoners. Unless we can post their pictures with panties on their heads! We’re The New In Your Face Two Faced Shit Faced BOP. ” Actually I’m scared this might be a little TOO effective. More on Maureen Dowd

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Merrill Markoe: I Know How to Save the Republican Party!

So, like a month ago, David Letterman told some jokes. Some not-that-great jokes! And one or two of them were directed at Sarah Palin and her family. And so, in keeping with the prophesy, she let slip the dogs of aerial wolf-hunty outrage, and then everyone, everywhere was warblogging about it. Me, I said, “Lo, but this is some stupid nonsense. Sarah Palin, really, like Alex Pareene once said, you got to let the stuff slide, sometimes .” It doesn’t make mean jokes okay. It doesn’t make wrong stuff right. It’s just that sometimes, you have to appear to be above it all, untouched by the vulgar vagaries of late-night comedians and their captive audiences of claques. But the Sarah Palin fans, they could not be assuaged! And in many millions of emails, they asked me if I would “let the stuff slide” if it were directed at my kid. Many of them, budding late night comedians themselves, fell all over to come up with their own vulgar jibes, and I enjoyed them all. And the answer, my friends, is that I don’t know what I’d do if I were insulted in the same way by David Letterman. But I do know that the nation is not potentially counting on me to remain calm and level-headed in the case of crisis. If I flip out, and choke some fool in the middle of the street, guess what? The Republic will survive. But Sarah Palin — who wants to be president maybe? — will face madmen and cryptofascists and evil mullahs if she’s elected. And in addition to these madmen and cryptofascists and evil mullahs, she will also, as president, have to contend with people who aren’t on K Street. So, my advice to Sarah Palin would be to do as the old ad copy said: Never let them see you sweat . Don’t get involved in a land war with David Letterman. Let other people go crazyface on your behalf. Yet, this past week, some blogger no one had ever heard of did a photoshop putting the face of a talk show host no one had ever heard of on the body of Trig Palin . And now, all of these people that you had heretofore never heard of are famous, because Sarah Palin wouldn’t let the stuff slide. Even dumber, she said that the Photoshopping was a “desecration,” which means she believes Trig had been “divested of her sacred character.” Now I think Trig Palin is an awesome kid, but COME ON. That’s a really pretentious thing for a parent to say. Anyway, shortly after Sarah Palin went WARBONKERS on a blogger you never heard of, the entire internet responded in an even more vapid and juvenile fashion, and now there are stupid Photoshops everywhere, thanks to Sarah Palin, because that is what happens when you feed the beast with your stupid anger, instead of calmly letting some stuff slide and depriving the beast of oxygen. Yes, Sarah Palin has not learned and will probably never learn the important, presidential art of sometimes letting some stuff slide. And every other leader of the GOP knows this. And that is why when David Gregory or some such teevee talking-face asks any random GOP figure about whether or not Sarah Palin is a presidential contender or the “future of the Republican Party,” they all — EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM — say something like, “Uhhh…yeah? Sarah Palin? Boy, yeah. She’s just…great…we have so many great Republicans…uhhhh, yeah. Whole bunch of ‘em. Say? Have you heard about Haley Barbour?” Not Afraid To be Oversharey : Man, I’m not sure how I feel about Ross Douthat writing an article entitled ” The Way We Love Now. ” But hey, Mickey Kaus has been blogging for ten years, now. And somebody out there said, “Hey, let’s make an incomprehensible sequel to Transformers, with Egyptology, and robot boobs .” I guess we’re living in a brave new era of terrifying possibilities. My Ongoing Series On Demystifying The Political Press : I want to just point out, in Ceci Connolly’s defense, that the Washington Post has never made it a requirement that their reporters be smart enough to know the difference between the substance of an issue and the politics of an issue . Evidently, I mean. Straw Men Form Civil Liberties Group, Provide Obama With Political Cover : Via Spencer Ackerman , inquiring minds want to know: Who are these civil liberties groups who are said to have “encouraged” the Obama administration to enact a “prolonged detention system…through executive order.” [Would you like to follow me on Twitter ? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here .] More on Barack Obama

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Sarah Palin Battles The Internet (And The Rest Of Your Scritti Politti)

June 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of the pioneering Secret Policeman’s Ball series of benefit shows for Amnesty International. The anniversary is being saluted with a major film festival in Los Angeles and New York: June 11 - July 31. Huffington Post bloggers are providing extensive coverage of the festival. A tropical thunderstorm doused New York City as Amnesty International executives and administrators — and a few special invited guests — assembled at Lincoln Center on Friday evening for a private gathering to mark the East Coast opening of the Secret Policeman’s Film Festival — celebrating three decades of comedy and music in service of Amnesty’s efforts round the world. Surrounded by blowups of Tim Hetherington’s impassioned photos of challenged and transitional world cultures, Amnesty bigwigs in attendance included Executive Director Larry Cox, Deputy Executive Director Timothy Higdon, board member Simon Billenness and Sandee Borgman — who as Director of Entertainment Relations coordinates Amnesty’s outreach to the entertainment community. Amnesty’s guests included Paley Center curator Ron Simon, BAFTA-East Coast founder Freddie Ross Hancock, actress-musician Jill Hennessy and Secret Policeman’s Ball co-creator/producer Martin Lewis. In opening remarks about the anniversary, Lewis paid warm tribute to the team who energized the Secret Policeman’s Ball series singling out John Cleese for special praise as the instigator of the very first show. Lewis talked of the contributions of the comedic talents that Cleese had rounded up over the years including his fellow Pythons, Peter Cook & Dudley Moore; and of Cleese’s championing of emerging talents such as Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. Lewis also spoke of the inspirational import of the first musician he’d recruited to the Amnesty cause — Pete Townshend — and explained how Townshend’s musical contributions in 1979 and evident love for human rights “opened the door” for Lewis to recruit other musicians to the cause including Sting, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Phil Collins and Bob Geldof — which in turn led to Bono and U2, Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen and so many more musicians joining the human rights struggle. Lewis then introduced the new anthology film commissioned by Amnesty to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Secret Policeman’s Ball series — Triumph Of The Ball. “I wanted a title that would push Leni Riefenstahl’s work one notch lower in the alphabetical universe of film titles…” quipped Lewis. Triumph of the Ball — which will be screened during the festival in both Los Angeles and New York at the respective branches of the Paley Center for Media — is a Hellzapoppin’ style cavalcade of highlights from thirty years of Amnesty benefit shows and fund-raising projects — bringing together much more talent than could possibly fit in this paragraph (or even web-page). The aforementioned performers — yes — and then an explosion of other talent ranging from Kate Bush to Youssou N’Dour, Sarah Silverman to Russell Brand, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart to recent supporters Green Day, Daughtry and Nickelback. Essentially, as the Balls have grown and grown — from Ball to Other Ball to Third Ball and Biggest Ball … through Amnesty music tours Conspiracy of Hope (1986), Human Rights Now! (1988) and “new Balls” staged as recently as 2006 and 2008 — so too has the talent roster of celebrity Amnesty supporters. Scope the festival schedule online for more info. Following the screening, Amnesty’s Executive Director Larry Cox, paid tribute to the value of the entertainment shows in spreading the Amnesty message: Amnesty Executive Director Larry Cox speaking at Lincoln Center ( photo: Gregory Weinkauf ) “I just want to say a word of heartfelt appreciation for all of the many, many, many, many people over the years who have contributed to these projects, that have meant so much, not only to Amnesty International, but more importantly to the broader fight for human rights. “You know, from the very beginning, back in 1961 when Amnesty started, it struggled with the question of ‘how do you get the message out to people? How do you let people know that there’s a way they can really make a difference in the world?’ There’s a way they can change the world. ‘How do you get that message out beyond what the media will let you do? How do you reach people?’ And even though there were a lot of brilliant people thinking about that question in Amnesty, as far as I know, nobody ever thought that the answer might lie in a sketch about a dead parrot! “It really took Monty Python to show us the power of comedy. And it took these incredible musical artists like Bono, like Sting, like Joan Baez — who was one of the people that started Amnesty International USA — to show us the incredible power of music. And it took Martin Lewis to bring together both the comedy and the music, and to link it to the power of Amnesty. “It made a big difference, once we had The Secret Policeman’s Ball and The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball , and the Third Ball, and every sexual pun we could think of… And then — not to add another pun — but once the Ball got rolling, it just never stopped. It led to the other concerts, the Conspiracy of Hope , that incredible thing, and of course the Human Rights Now! tour. “In the process, what’s really important is that millions and millions and millions and millions of people who never would have thought about human rights got the message, and saw these incredible spokespeople saying, ‘Hey, this is about us. You can make a difference. You can do something about the horrors that you see every day.’ “I just want to say thanks once again to all the incredible people — both the artists who have been with us for a very long time, like the ones I mentioned, the ones you saw; but also the new people that Martin mentioned — we’re so blessed that people are continuing to lend their talents.” An intimate after-party at the nearby studios of Gibson Guitars offered the delightfully quasi-unhealthy combination of real New York pizza and real Belgian beer accompanied by an informal jam led by veteran David Bowie guitarist Earl Slick with session and road-dog veterans Benny Harrison (Fleetwood Mac, Aerosmith, The Band, Corey Glover) on piano; Tony Beard (Jeff Beck, Peter Frampton, CSN) on drums; Jeff Allen (Duncan Sheik, Avril Lavigne) on bass. Jill Hennessy sat in and delivered an alarmingly good cover of “Thunder Road”. Actress/musician Jill Hennessy performing at Amnesty’s after-party ( photo: Gregory Weinkauf ) David Bowie guitarist Earl Slick leading the after-party’s informal jam ( photo: Gregory Weinkauf ) MORE ON HUFFINGTON POST ABOUT THE FILM FESTIVAL • Having A Ball For Amnesty (includes ultra-rare film clips) • Even Bigger Balls Than Mark Sanford… • Smile and Say “Cleese!” - How the Secret Policeman Mocks, Rocks and Shocks • The Secret Policeman’s Film Festival: Be There — With Balls On! • 30 Years of Mocking and Rocking • Having a Secret Policeman’s Ball • And Now For Something Completely Different: The Secret Policeman’s Film Festival • Monty Python & The Holy Grail… of Human Rights • The Secret Policeman’s Film Festival! OFFICIAL FESTIVAL WEBSITE • The Secret Policeman’s Film Festival — Official Website

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Gregory Weinkauf: Amnesty Salutes Its Secret Policemen

Keith Olbermann presents the newest reality show to hit the airwaves, following Mark, Sarah, Bobby, John, and the trials and tribulations of the GOP 2012 field: Also on Daily Kos TV . Transcript below fold.

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The Real Republicans of 2012

NOTE: This post contains spoilers. Welcome to Sucker Punch, the only blog post that ranks the gaudiest moments on this week’s episode of True Blood. To introduce this week’s installment, “Scratches,” let me quote my favorite line: Sarah doesn’t whip out her pudding for just anybody. Yes, that’s what Reverend Steve Newlin says after his wife gives Jason Stackhouse a dish of sweetness. There’s so much to unpack there. For one thing, the quote comes right after Sarah and Steve kiss in front of Jason for a really long time. Like… long enough that somebody should light a cigarette. And then there’s the fact that earlier in the day, Jason and Sarah share a kneeling prayer over their mutual past as vampire sympathizers. It’s very tender, and it wins Jason a dinner invitation. He’s clearly the golden boy. But when Steve praises Sarah’s “pudding,” he’s not just talking dessert. Like… what does it mean to be chosen by the Fellowship? Does it mean Jason’s been “chosen” to hold the camera or “chosen” to wear the costume? The sexy shenanigans would be gauche enough if the Newlins were tax collectors, but since they’re religious leaders, their come-ons are delicious. And I think the Newlins know how sexual they sound. In True Blood , power always comes with devious wisdom. I can’t declare Pudding Time this week’s Sucker Punch, however, because it’s clear the Newlins have something crazier in store. Meanwhile, their dynamic with Jason parallels Maryann’s relationship with Tara: In both cases, powerful figures are reaching out to guilty souls, and their succor has strings. Both Tara and Jason are so hungry to belong somewhere that they overlook warning signs. Except that Tara’s waking up. It’s a relief to see her notice what a Bacchanal Maryann’s party has become, and Sucker Punch Honorable Mention goes to the return of the witch’s pig, relaxing in its own little playhouse. My quibble with this episode, however, is that Maryann’s arc is repetitive. Yes, Tara gets suspicious and the carousing intensifies, but we saw the black-eyed boogie last week in Merlotte’s. We need more information about what the revelry means . For all the ways Maryann stands still, however, Jessica zooms forward. She’s currently my favorite character on the show because her stories expertly balance Gothic excess and relatable emotion. Those romantic scenes with Hoyt are just so sweetly, truthfully awkward, and they remind us that no matter what the Fellowship says, certain vampires are more vulnerable than menacing. Ten points to Deborah Ann Woll for conveying Jessica’s swirl of deadly bloodlust and teenage jitters. Equal points to Jim Parrack, since he has to invent Hoyt’s tender side in two scenes. We have no reason to expect that Hoyt can be romantic, but the writing and the performance make it seem plausible right away. Romance doesn’t equal a Sucker Punch, of course, but I’ll tell you what does: Minotaur scratches. Not the ones that Daphne (Sam’s new waitress) has on her back, but the ones Sookie gets from the man-bull who attacks her in the woods. The Sucker Punch comes when Sookie gets healed. While she’s naked. In the back of Fangtasia. Being ministered by a little person with a remarkable knowledge of supernatural poisons. Watching Baby Doc shove her finger into Sookie’s back wounds is totally gross, but it’s awesome because the doctor is so casual that she might as well be fishing an earring out of her couch. And then we see Eric lurking in the background, popping a fang-on and looking so turned on he could pounce. Any scene that blends horniness, an odd doctor, and Sookie’s foaming mouth deserves to be our Sucker Punch of the Week. On that note: I just made a video arguing that True Blood deserves to be nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series. (Nominations are announced next month.) Whether you agree with me or think I’m crazy, you should totally watch me plead my case .

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Mark Blankenship: True Blood Sucker Punch: Episode Three

Vh1 makes a lot of money off of misbehavin’ ladies shakin their thang and getting hammered on its reality shows. But fear not, fellow etiquette lovers, Vh1 is also providing a solution to the crass behavior so callously encouraged on ‘Rock of Love Bus’ and ‘Real Chance At Love.’ They have taken those females and placed them under the tutelage of Ricki Lake - a veritable Emily Post I am sure you agree. Then they live in a house together and learn the finer arts of charm. Also, they get shit-faced and bitch slap each other. You can check out a new “Target Women” segment every Thursday during “infoMania” at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Current TV .

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Sarah Haskins: Target Women: Charm School

EDITOR’S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media. ___ Iran’s hardline president lashed out anew at the United States and President Barack Obama on Saturday, accusing him of interference and suggesting that Washington’s stance on Iran’s postelection turmoil could imperil Obama’s aim of improving relations. “We are surprised at Mr. Obama,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in remarks to judiciary officials broadcast on state television. “Didn’t he say that he was after change? Why did he interfere?” “They keep saying that they want to hold talks with Iran … but is this the correct way? Definitely, they have made a mistake,” Ahmadinejad said. Obama was strongly criticized at home and by many abroad, for his initial measured response to opposition allegations that Ahmadinejad was re-elected by fraud in the June 12 balloting and to the harsh crackdown on protesters. The Obama administration wants to improve contacts with Tehran, especially because of concern that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Since the election, opposition protesters repeatedly have clashed with security forces who beat them with batons, fired tear gas and water cannons and arrested hundreds of people. At least 17 people have been killed, in addition to eight members of the pro-government Basij militia, officials have said. The crackdown has pushed protesters off the streets, ending days of unprecedented demonstrations that saw hundreds of thousands of people demanding the election be canceled and held again. Many supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi have been shouting “God is great!” from the roofs of their homes _ a practice dating to the 1979 Islamic Revolution _ to register discontent with the regime. Members of the Basij have been raiding homes and beating residents in an attempt to stop the chanting, Human Rights Watch said Saturday. The group also said that authorities were seizing satellite dishes to prevent citizens from seeing news broadcast from overseas. Iranian officials have blamed the BBC, Voice of America and other news channels for fomenting unrest on behalf of Western governments. “While most of the world’s attention is focused on the beatings in the streets of Iran during the day, the Basijis are carrying out brutal raids on people’s apartments during the night,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the group’s Middle East director. “Witnesses are telling us that the Basijis are trashing entire streets and even neighborhoods as well as individual homes trying to stop the nightly rooftop protest chants.” On Friday, Obama hailed the demonstrators in Iran and condemned the violence against them. “Their bravery in the face of brutality is a testament to their enduring pursuit of justice,” Obama said. “The violence perpetrated against them is outrageous. In spite of the government’s efforts to keep the world from bearing witness to that violence, we see it and we condemn it.” In a separate show of defiance of international opinion, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi was quoted by the official news agency IRNA as accusing the Group of Eight countries _ including the United States _ of “intervening and hasty remarks.” G-8 foreign ministers on Friday called for an end to the violence in Iran and urged the authorities to find a peaceful solution. The Foreign Ministry also summoned Sweden’s ambassador to protest a break-in by demonstrators at Iran’s embassy on Friday, IRNA reported Meanwhile, opposition supporters, faced with a senior cleric’s demand that protest leaders be severely punished or even executed, enter the third week of their campaign against the election results in increasingly tight straits. Mousavi, who claims he actually won the vote, says he will seek official permission for any future rallies, effectively ending his role in street protests. The opposition may have little opportunity to keep momentum going within the limits of the law, and the international attention that appeared to bolster their morale could be waning. Also, Mousavi’s Web site, his primary means for communicating with supporters, remained down on Saturday; an aide told the Associated Press Friday that the site had been hacked. Mousavi said he would seek official permission for any future rallies, effectively ending his role in street protests organized by supporters who insist he won the election. “The problem is we have no one to lead us,” a 30-year-old resident of Isfahan told AP on Saturday on condition of anonymity because he feared government reprisal. “We are waiting for a new message, but Mousavi does not want to continue, because after all he is part of the system.” “People are angry and afraid,” he said. “They are afraid of the future and angry because they failed to achieve change with their ballots.” People continue to resist the government oppression, he said, although very few dare to defy the government on the streets due to massive police presence. But they continue to shout from the rooftops at night in Tehran and Isfahan, he said. The shouting was particularly loud after ruling clerics accused protesters Friday of challenging and opposing God with their dissent. Mousavi alleges he was robbed of victory through widespread and systematic fraud. The regime rejects the claim, refusing to consider new balloting, and on Friday, the Guardian Council _ Iran’s top electoral body _ proclaimed the vote the “healthiest” held since the revolution. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ruled out a revote. Since the election, opposition protesters repeatedly have clashed with security forces who arrested hundreds of people, including journalists, academics and university students. At least 17 people have been killed, in addition to eight members of the pro-government Basij militia, officials have said. The demonstrations petered out this week under an ever-intensifying crackdown. Mousavi, meanwhile, has sent mixed signals to supporters, asking them not to break the law while pledging not to drop his challenge. Amnesty International called the prospect of quick trials and capital punishment for some detainees “a very worrying development.” It said Iran was the world’s No. 2 executioner after China last year, with at least 346 known instances of people put to death. The group also called on the regime to release dozens of detained journalists it said faced possible torture. As the protests dwindle amid intensifying official pressure, the opposition may suffer from a decline in international attention. The protests and violence dominated Western news broadcasts for nearly two weeks, with the reports substantially bolstered by videos gleaned from Internet sites and by commentary from social networking sites. Such sites were a key pipeline for the opposition amid the tight restrictions on foreign media in the country. But along with the diminished action on the streets in Iran, other stories have arisen to siphon away attention _ especially the death of pop star Michael Jackson. Television coverage of Iran’s turmoil has fallen since Jackson’s death Thursday; on the Twitter micro-blogging site, Iran remained among the most discussed topics, but fell below Jackson and comments about the movie “Transformers 2.” ___ Heintz reported from Cairo; Associated Press writer Shaya Tayefe Mohajer in Cairo and Barbara Surk in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed to this report. More on Iranian Election

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Ahmadinejad Attacks Obama, Mocks The "Change" Mantra

NATIONAL: The Plusses, and Perils, of Facebook Rachel Kapochunas over at CQ has an interesting piece that will likely impact some campaigns in 2010, and many more in future cycles. The growing prominence of sites like Facebook is going to be a potential asset to candidates reaching out to their constituencies, but it is also an absolute boon to opposition researchers. NATIONAL: Ranking the Presidential Timber of Republican Governors NPR’s Ken Rudin decided to rank the GOP governors from 1-22 (for some reason, he did not demote a certain Southern governor named Sanford–he checks in at #9), in terms of their potential as presidential candidates. He ranks Tim Pawlenty at the top of the list, with recent Obama appointee and soon-to-be-former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman in the second position. Sarah Palin comes in ranked #7. In a humorous twist, Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons ranks dead last. Given the trainwreck that has been his tenure as governor, this seems understandable. Until you realize, of course, that it means that he ranks BEHIND Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is constitutionally precluded from running for President. RACE FOR THE HOUSE: A Microcosm of House Electoral History Give Rothenberg Report writer Nathan Gonzales credit for an outstanding piece–he looks at a unique region (the Ohio River Valley) and shows how dramatic the changes of the past few election cycles have really been. Once dominated (7 of 9 districts) by the GOP, the Democrats now hold seven of the nine seats, with most of those seats now securely in the blue column. IL-13: 2008 Sleeper Candidate Announces 2010 Rematch Good news for Democrats looking to expand the places where they can play offense in 2010. Scott Harper , who flew below the radar a bit and wound up giving Judy Biggert the biggest scare of her Congressional career, has launched his 2010 bid for Congress. Harper trailed Biggert by nine points (and some change) in 2008. NC-Sen: Another Poll Confirms Burr’s Brutal Political Standing Republican Senator Richard Burr has to be considered a vulnerable incumbent for 2010, as confirmed by a new poll from Insider Advantage. Burr is slugging along with favorables only at 39%, with unfavorables at 31%. Now, all the Democrats need is an actual candidate. Yesterday, Swing State Project hinted that former state senator Cal Cunningham (whose biography is very attractive) is about to get into the race. CA-10: Tauscher Confirmed–Game On For Special Election Now that Ellen Tauscher has been confirmed in her new role as an undersecretary in the State Department, the special election to replace her in the Bay Area-adjacent 10th district of California can begin. Given the Democratic lean of the district, it would appear that the real contest here will be in the Democratic primary. Though there are a load of Democrats looking at the race, there appear to be four leading candidates: longtime statewide officeholder John Garamendi , newly elected state Senator Mark DeSaulnier (who has Tauscher’s endorsement, according to his website), state assemblywoman Joan Buchanan , and an intriguing outsider candidate in twenty-something Anthony Woods , who has a biography that other candidates would kill for–a Harvard-educated Iraq War veteran who was discharged from the military because of DADT.

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Polling and Political Wrap-Up, 6/26/09

Here we go again: earlier this week, Sarah Palin worked herself up into a state of fury about a joke, this time about a doctored photo showing her holding a talk show host in her arms, cuddling him as if he were a baby. The photo clearly pokes fun at the talk show host, who is a huge Palin supporter. But since the original photo was of Palin holding her son, Trig, Palin is accusing the Photoshoppers of launching a malicious attack on her son. The mere idea of someone doctoring the photo of a special needs baby is appalling. To learn that two Alaskans did it is absolutely sickening. Linda Kellen Biegel, the official Democrat Party blogger for Alaska, should be ashamed of herself and the Democratic National Committee should be ashamed for promoting this website and encouraging this atrocious behavior. Babies and children are off limits. It is past time to restore decency in politics and real tolerance for all Americans. The Obama Administration sets the moral compass for its party. We ask that special needs children be loved, respected and accepted and that this type of degeneracy be condemned. Jeesh. Talk about tendentious in the extreme. Aside from Palin’s utter misinterpretation of the joke, she inaccurately claimed Biegel is “the official Democrat (sic) Party blogger.” In fact, Biegel is an independent blogger who covered the DNC in the blogger pool from Alaska. You can find Biegel’s blog here , not at the Alaska Democratic Party’s web site. Biegel, by the way, had quite the bite in her response to Palin: To those folks at a certain Palinbot site who think the picture above is of Trig, let me use a phrase many of you are familiar with… YOU FAIL AT LIFE!!!!!! It’s called “Baby Burke” because it’s Eddie Burke…basically his probable second-biggest fantasy about the Governor. So once again, Sarah Palin doesn’t get a joke, launches an angry, over-the-top attack, and gets her facts wrong — just like her loony Letterman outrage that generated a grand total of something like 12 protesters. But the right — or whatever remains of it — still loves her. Remember this?

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The outrage factory

It’s been a crazy rollercoaster of a week, and at the end of it, California can proudly state that not only do we no longer have the most embarrassing governor in the country, we are not even in the top three anymore! With the antics of Rod Blagojevich, Eliot Spitzer, and (now) Mark Sanford, we’ve slipped into fourth place in the state comedians look to for jokes. Or course, some might argue that Spitzer doesn’t belong in that category since he’s no longer governor of New York, but then the guy who replaced him started his term by admitting his own bedroom wandering, so I’m still going to include New York. Speaking of New York craziness, Albany appears to be mired in a schoolyard spat of its own, as duelling senates tried to hold two independent sessions (one Republican-led, one Democratically-led, both with gavels) — from the same room . You just can’t make this stuff up, folks. But back to Sanford’s problems for a moment, because Salon’s War Room gave their Quote Of The Day to anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist for his take on Sanford’s affair , which simply must be reproduced here for your enjoyment: “It does indicate that men who oppose federal spending at the local level are irresistible to women.” Um, OK. In other news, Rhode Island is getting a lot closer to changing their name. A bit of trivia: the smallest state in the Union has the longest official name. “The State Of Rhode Island And Providence Plantations” has always been their official name, but now a movement is on to pare this back to “The State Of Rhode Island” instead. Trivia fans everywhere await the outcome with bated breath. But there was also sadness this week, and I’m not talking about the deaths of entertainment icons from the 1970s. I am talking about the WashingtonPost.com website, which has booted out one of the best bloggers on the web. Dan Froomkin’s “White House Watch” column today will be the last one that appears on WashingtonPost.com. Froomkin has expressed interest in possibly moving the column elsewhere and continuing it, and I consider this a test of whether newspapers are (a.) smart enough to realize this is the way to modernize and move into the future of journalism, or (b.) dumb as a bag of hammers. WashingtonPost.com has obviously chosen the (b.) route. Because Froomkin’s column is a shining example of how newspapers could migrate from their print business model to the more interactive web-based model they need to be in to survive. Froomkin was fired, it was announced, because his “ratings” had dropped after Obama was elected. This is utter hogwash. In the first place, his column “White House Watch” (it started as “White House Briefing” but was changed later) was dedicated to putting the executive branch under a microscope and reporting what was there. Of course, the Bush White House was more fertile ground for this, especially towards the end. But Froomkin did not back off from examining Obama’s White House, and has been severely critical of Obama’s decisions on secrecy and openness and torture and accountability. The real reason his numbers dropped is that the editors stopped putting a link to his column on their front page. When Froomkin got progressively harder and harder to find, fewer and fewer people found him. In other words, his ratings dropped because they didn’t feature him as prominently anymore. This is the new online reality — your hit count depends on a link on the front page of the site. The more prominent, the higher your hitcount will be. But dark suspicions have been raised (mostly by his loyal readers) that Froomkin was fired because he dared to contradict one of the very conservative op-ed writers on the Washington Post payroll (the two entities, Washington Post and WashingtonPost.com are supposedly “separate,” I should mention). The Washington Post has become a safe haven for such ultra-conservative commentators (they not only have an ex-Bush speechwriter, but they also hired William Kristol after the New York Times got tired of him being so wrong so often). So, in keeping with this conservative bent, Froomkin had to go. This is pathetic and is an outrage. Anyone who agrees should contact the ombudsman at: ombudsman@washpost.com and let him know how you feel. What is truly pathetic is that the newspaper which a few decades ago brought down an American president is now not even worth reading anymore, because the only thing in it that isn’t the equivalent of Fox News is their cartoonist Tom Toles (who is excellent). A bastion of journalism has, quite literally (at least for me) been reduced to a cartoon. Pathetic. Let’s see… bring down a government, sell lots of newspapers… pack the staff with neo-cons in possibly the most liberal city in America, get ready for bankruptcy. No wonder newspapers are in such trouble, if this is the way they plan their business models. Anyway, I encourage everyone to read Dan’s last column , because come Monday it’ll just be an online memory.   Thankfully, we have quite a few impressive Democrats to choose from this week, which means a lot of Honorable Mentions before we get to the main event, awarding the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award. The first Honorable Mention goes to President Obama, for continuing the full-court press on healthcare reform. Obama gave his monthly press conference this week, and strongly defended the concept of a public option in the healthcare debate (no matter what you may have heard in the mainstream media). Then he went on ABC and did a primetime show to drum up further support for his ideas. Obama, it seems to me, has not fully reached his potential in the “bully pulpit” category, but he got a lot closer to that goal this week, and for that he deserves a nod. Also deserving of a nod, although it can be written off as sheer opportunism (for the cynical), is newly-Democratic Senator Arlen Specter, who came out strongly for a public plan in the health insurance debate (not surprisingly) in front of a union crowd. Hey, he may just be trying to hold onto his job, but his support is duly noted nonetheless. It’s more than some Democrats can say at this point (more on that in the next section). Senator Charles Schumer has hit his stride as well in the healthcare debate, and for strongly standing up for the public option, Schumer deserves an Honorable Mention as well this week. And, as a surprise for regular readers of this column, I also have to give credit to Majority Leader Harry Reid for saying in his weekly press conference what many Democratic groups have been waiting to hear — that “bipartisanship” (when it comes to healthcare reform in the Senate) — at best — is going to mean “three or four” Republicans vote with Democrats on the issue. Here’s his quote: We want to do a bipartisan bill. That’s not saying we need half the caucus to come with us. We need about three or four Republican senators to join with us to have a bipartisan bill. That’s what we would like. That’s my preference. And we’re going to continue working on that. I just completed a very, very informative, important caucus. We spent a lot of our time talking about health care. And there was not a single senator said, “Forget working with these clowns, let’s just go ahead and go to the reconciliation.” Everyone there, liberals, moderates, conservatives in my caucus, said, “Let’s try to come up with a bipartisan bill.” We’re going to continue to go down that road. . . . But remember — and I don’t want to bore everyone with this — but we have accomplished a great deal. Pundits have said we’ve accomplished more this first five months than any first-year Congress since Roosevelt — FDR. We’ve done some very difficult things, complicated things. And with each one of them, we’ve need — we’ve needed Republican support. We haven’t gotten much, but we’ve gotten enough to get them passed. And that’s how I look at this health-care bill. This is actually a pretty bold stance to take, when you consider the wet-noodle-instead-of-a-backbone stance other powerful Democrats have been taking (again, see the next section for details). This is a reversal of the normal state of affairs, since Reid’s backbone isn’t normally associated with the word “strong,” but I do have to give credit where credit has been earned, so Reid wins at least an Honorable Mention this week for (realistically) setting the “bipartisan” bar so low, which should end all that crazy talk about a bill passing with 70 or 80 votes in the Senate (which just ain’t gonna happen). Reid also beat back a filibuster attempt this week to get an Obama nominee confirmed, further evidence of spinal growth in the Senate Majority Leader. But the real Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award goes to the people on the front lines of this fight — the issues advocacy groups who have been putting their money where their convictions are, and have been advertising directly against Democrats (so-called “Democratic” senators in particular) who have come out publicly against the public option. These groups are numerous, and they’ve all been busy this week. Health Care for America Now! (HCAN) is not only running ads targeting wavering Democrats (whose campaign war chests are suspiciously stuffed with healthcare industry contributions), but also held a rally yesterday on Capitol Hill. Of course, with Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett dying on the same day, it didn’t even register on the mainstream media’s radar, but I mention it because there’s one more Democrat who deserves an Honorable Mention for showing up and talking to the crowd — Ohio’s Senator Sherrod Brown. Here is Brown from the rally : “The goal is not to write a bipartisan bill. The goal is to write a good bill.” But HCAN will have to share the MIDOTW award with MoveOn.org , Change Congress , the Progressive Change Campaign Committee , and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). MoveOn and Change Congress are both out with their own ads targeting weak Democrats on healthcare reform, and SEIU is working the phones randomly calling Californians to urge them to let Dianne Feinstein know that her recent remarks were not appreciated (details of all of this stuff are in the next section, by the way). I know SEIU is doing this because I was randomly called myself while writing this today. These groups, and others like them (apologies to any I’ve missed), are out there in the trenches in the healthcare reform battle. They are raising money and spending it wisely . They are making their voices be heard . Their goal is to put the fear of angry voters in Democrats who take millions from the healthcare industry in order to kill off reform. This is democracy, folks, and sometimes it ain’t pretty. The GOP, with millions from people fighting for the status quo, are unleashing their own ads . Which means, like I said, the liberal groups are all out on the front lines fiercely fighting for what they believe is right. Since Democrats in Congress have been rather slow to jump into this battle (or have even jumped in on the wrong side), they deserve commendation, and they all have more than earned their Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award.   I warn you, this is going to be a longer section than usual. Because, sadly, there’s a lot of disappointment to be spread around. It seems that Joe Conason has done my work for me this week. Because I really can’t add much to his recent column “The Sickening Addiction That May Kill Reform,” where he talks about the relationship of Democratic senators opposing a public option to their millions of dollars of campaign contributions from the healthcare industry. He opens his column thusly: If Congress fails to enact health care reform this year — or if it enacts a sham reform designed to bail out corporate medicine while excluding the “public option” — then the public will rightly blame Democrats, who have no excuse for failure except their own cowardice and corruption. The punishment inflicted by angry voters is likely to be reduced majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives — or even the restoration of Republican rule on Capitol Hill. Pretty strong words, and he ends with even stronger: The excuses sound different, but all of these lawmakers have something in common — namely, their abject dependence on campaign contributions from the insurance and pharmaceutical corporations fighting against real reform. Consider [Mary] Landrieu, a senator from a very poor state whose working-class constituents badly need universal coverage (and many of whom now depend on Medicare, a popular government program). According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog outfit, she has received nearly $1.7 million from corporate medical interests, including hospitals, insurance companies, nursing homes and drug firms, during the course of her political career. The same kind of depressing figures can be found in the campaign filings of many of the Democrats now posing as obstacles to reform, notably including Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who has distinguished himself in the most appalling way. The Montana Standard, a news outlet in his home state, found that Baucus has received more campaign money from health and insurance industry donors than any other single member of Congress. “In the past six years,” the Standard found, “nearly one-fourth of every dime raised by the Montana senator and his political-action committee has come from groups and individuals associated with drug companies, insurers, hospitals, medical-supply firms, health-service companies and other health professionals.” Whenever Democratic politicians are confronted with this conflict between the public interest and their private fund-raising, they take offense at the implied insult. They protest, as a spokesman for Sen. Landrieu did, that they make policy decisions based on what is best for the people of their states, “not campaign contributions.” But when health reform fails — or turns into a trough for their contributors, who will believe them? And who will vote for them? Conason mentions, by name: Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu, Oregon’s Ron Wyden, California’s Dianne Feinstein, North Dakota’s Kent Conrad, and Montana’s Max Baucus. To this list I have but one addition, Nebraska’s Ben Nelson. All six share equally in this week’s Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award. Let’s take them one by one. Landrieu has accepted over $1.6 million in healthcare campaign dollars in her political career, and has also spent most of her life with healthcare provided for by taxpayer dollars (so much for not being a flaming hypocrite on public healthcare, I guess). Thankfully, Change Congress is targeting her with ads which point this out in no uncertain terms to her constituents. Landrieu has publicly said she’s voting against a public healthcare option, no matter what it looks like, so she has fully earned these ads. Change Congress is also targeting Ben Nelson with ads , who has taken over two million dollars in campaign contributions and (naturally) is also against the public option, and doing everything he can to stand in the way of its passage. Dianne Feinstein, who reaped a whirlwind of wrath for saying last week that “I don’t know that [Obama] has the votes [in the Senate] right now [for his plan]” is less culpable than the others in this list, because if you read the whole transcript you can (possibly) read it (especially if you read the second paragraph of her answer — which is not being quoted much — towards the very end of the transcript) as just an honest assessment by DiFi of where the whip count stands. Or, you can read it as DiFi “nay-saying” and showing Democrats how to begin a legislative fight by tying both hands behind your back. But since it’s open to interpretation, you will have to judge for yourself. MoveOn.org has stepped up to this particular plate already, and has an ad out attacking Feinstein for her tepid statements towards the public plan. But, unlike others, at least Feinstein is still publicly supporting the concept of a public plan in the first place, I have to say. As for Ron Wyden — who has introduced a plan to tax employer health care benefits which conservatives seem to love (for some bizarre reason, as they’re usually against all taxes, all the time) — the coalition called Health Care for America Now! is already targeting him with ads in his home state. Which leaves Kent Conrad and Max Baucus, who are pushing for their “co-op” plan , in order to undercut the support for a true public option. Howard Dean had a few things to say about this recently, which is well worth a read. So, to all members of this pantheon of shame, it’s time to decide who is more important — your constituents or your big bucks donors. Because the pressure on you is only going to intensify as you head into re-election season if you choose the wrong path. Which includes, of course, further Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week awards as necessary. [ Contact Senator Max Baucus on his Senate contact page , Senator Kent Conrad on his Senate contact page , Senator Dianne Feinstein on her Senate contact page , Senator Mary Landrieu on her Senate contact page , Senator Ben Nelson on his Senate contact page , and Senator Ron Wyden on his Senate contact page , to let them know what you think of their actions. ]   Volume 83 (6/26/09) A while back, a valuable piece of “opposition research” was leaked from the GOP’s anti-healthcare-reform camp, in the form of a document written by Frank Luntz (see FTP 76 ). But now there’s an even more recent release of another GOP opinion survey/talking points list , which Democrats fighting for healthcare would do well to study. Normally, this would provide plenty of fodder for our own talking points. But this week I’m going to do something a little different instead. Because I’d like to highlight the fact that virtually every argument (and then some) the Republicans are making against “socialized medicine” is exactly the same as the arguments they made forty-eight years ago . By none other than Ronald Reagan, who cut an album at the behest of the American Medical Association, in what turned out to be his initial foray into the world of politics. The album, with the catchy title “Ronald Reagan speaks out against Socialized Medicine,” was an early example of what is today called “astroturf” — a fake grassroots effort bankrolled by a deep-pocket lobbying group. The album was sent to “Woman’s [sic] Auxiliaries” of the AMA (doctors’ wives — this was 1961, after all), in an effort called “Operation Coffeecup.” The doctors’ wives were supposed to brew up a pot of coffee and call all their friends over to listen to the Reagan record, which exhorted them all to write to their members of Congress in opposition to what became known as Medicare. This is, once again, how Reagan got started in politics. The entire story (in exhaustive detail) is a fascinating one. This album got a little attention last year when Sarah Palin quoted from it (or tried to, she just had to add the odd “back in the day” to Reagan’s words, being Sarah Palin) during the Vice Presidential Debate. You can watch a “mashup” of Palin and Reagan to hear the differences. But to truly bask in the red-baiting glory that was the early 1960s, you really need to listen to all ten minutes of Reagan speaking. Because he paints a pretty horrific picture of the future of America under Medicare. A future, it should be noted, that simply has not come to pass . Which uses exactly the same threats that are being used against the “public plan” option today by its opponents — essentially that private medicine will disappear, and that all we will be left with is socialized medicine. Well, OK, to be fair, using the word “socialism” back then had more of a punch to it, which leant Reagan to use scare tactics which would be laughable today, but his main script is still in use, if a bit toned down for the modern audience. So, for today’s talking points, I offer up Ronald Reagan from 1961. To turn any of these into a Democratic talking point for use today, all you have to do is preface each with a statement like “You know, in 1961 Ronald Reagan said the following about the future of America under Medicare…” or “The last time America improved its healthcare system by enacting Medicare, the same scare tactics were used by opponents. I’d like to quote what Ronald Reagan had to say about what Medicare would do to America, and you can compare these scare tactics to the ones being used today…” or similar introductions. Either that, or read a Reagan quote, and then ask in astonishment: “Has this come to pass? No? Then why should we listen to you this time?” Without further ado, we turn the entire rest of the talking points over to none other than Ronald Reagan, from “Ronald Reagan speaks out against Socialized Medicine.”      It’s all a socialist plot “Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program.”      Beware the humanitarians! “But at the moment I’d like to talk about another way because this threat is with us and at the moment is more imminent. One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project.”      OK, Ronnie, why don’t we hold a vote today? “Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it.”      Those wily socialists… “Now what reason could the other people have for backing a bill which says we insist on compulsory health insurance for senior citizens on a basis of age alone regardless of whether they are worth millions of dollars, whether they have an income, whether they’re protected by their own insurance, whether they have savings. I think we could be excused for believing that… this was simply an excuse to bring about what they wanted all the time: socialized medicine.”      Government will dictate to doctors “The doctor begins to lose freedom…. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then doctors aren’t equally divided geographically. So a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him, you can’t live in that town. They already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it’s only a short step to dictating where he will go.”      Government will dictate to YOUR STRAPPING YOUNG SONS!! “All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man’s working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it’s a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay. And pretty soon your son won’t decide, when he’s in school, where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him where he will go to work and what he will do.”      Oh, the humanity! Freedom dies in America!! “Write those letters now, call your friends and tell them to write. If you don’t, this program, I promise you, will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country, until, one day, as Norman Thomas said, we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don’t do this and if I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”   [ Note to Democratic Underground readers: Today marks the one year anniversary of my FTP column on DU. I'd just like to say thanks for having me, and thanks for making this column welcome! ] [ Technical Note to Huffington Post readers: I am having technical difficulties and cannot at present answer your comments on Huffington Post. I can try answering the ones I feel need my comment over at my own site, for this week. I apologize for the interruption in commentary services, and am working to fix this problem for the future. Thank you for your patience and understanding. ]   Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground   More on Arlen Specter

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Chris Weigant: Friday Talking Points [83] — Dan Froomkin’s Final WashingtonPost.com Column

The recent faux outrage from Palin’s office is the most transparent in almost a year. The photoshopped picture posted by Linda Kellen Biegel has been spun into an arena that only the uninformed could follow. The same picture was photoshopped with a ” Baby Dave Letterman ” last week without a peep from the governor. I suppose suggesting that Letterman was a pedophile was enough. Palin’s spokesperson said: “Recently we learned of a malicious desecration of a photo of the Governor and baby Trig that has become an iconic representation of a mother’s love for a special needs child.” Iconic? Really? Palin is not the Madonna. Desecration? What is holy or sacred about Palin? Why the faux outrage? This attack on Biegel is really about her records request for the email communication between Eddie Burke and Sarah Palin. Biegel suspects there has been a concerted “backlash” effort by the Administration against Palin’s critics. Burke, a right wing radio host, has rabidly attacked any critic of the governor. If Sarah Palin ate a baby heart on TV, Eddie would say it was because she was low in iron and needed the sustenance to keep her strength up against her liberal enemies. Burke’s show regularly features Palin, her attorney, her spokesperson, her brother, her father, and representatives from an out-of-state, pro-Palin website regularly. The initial price tag for the records request was $65,000. Biegel pressed Linda Perez, the Director of the Department of Administration, for an explanation of the search process that was taking 16 hours per employee. The cost was lowered to $5,552.64. The blogging community supported Biegel in an ” accountability drive ” on her blog and readers donated money. In the last few days most of the funds needed have been collected and Linda is ready to write the check and get the requested emails between Burke and Palin. NOW, an attack from Palin. Linda has blogged for years. She walks with a cane, and has physical disabilities. She has a bi-racial child and is always on the righteous side of fighting discrimination. She attended the Anchorage assembly meetings this week to testify in favor of the ordinance banning discrimination against the GLBT community. Burke attended the same event, protesting the civil rights ordinance with a shirt stating : “Homophobic, Red Shirt, Bible Thumping Nazi, Gay Bashing, Tea Bagging, Rascist (yes misspelled), White Guy, Bigot.” Yes, Sarah Palin pals around with this fine example of tolerance. The Palin administration is now calling on Alaskan Democrats to condemn Biegel. Where was the condemnation on Crooks and Liars for photoshopping the same picture with David Letterman last week? Oh, that’s right, they don’t have a records request on the governor, Linda does. The attack on Biegel is another example of Palin’s “faux outrage.” The false victimization spin from of Sarah is her antidote for criticism. She did it to Letterman, she’s doing it to Linda. More on David Letterman

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Shannyn Moore: Palin’s Faux Outrage; Round Two

There was a time in America when events like this did matter and, as a result, the day a Governor Sanford publicly revealed the affair would also have been the day he resigned from office. But things have changed, and it’s my theory that Americans have become “tone-deaf” to moral wrongdoing as long as they get to follow the ongoing activity like a reality TV show and actually come to identify with the central character and even empathize with them — and the success of all these reality shows is actually part of the problem. Earlier this week, Manny Ramirez, the star LA Dodger outfielder who was suspended from baseball for fifty games played his first warm up games in a farm club system to work his way back to the Dodger team sometime next week. Manny received such a stiff penalty because his transgression was so obvious, so blatant, and also so stupid as it followed all the controversy surrounding Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez (who likely did not tell the truth even in his public confessions), and of course Mark McGuire. Did the fans let Manny know how displeased they were with his transgressions and obvious disrespect to the great game of baseball — NO, they cheered him like it was the second coming of Babe Ruth and the stadium sold out for the first time in its history and everyone had a grand time. And Alex Rodriguez likely has the chance to “play out” his shame and ultimately still get into the Baseball Hall of Fame based on the statistics he accumulates from now on — in other words, we’ll just wipe the slate clean of his past transgressions and start over a new. And here’s the key point — most Americans polled and particularly sports fans polled say they are “no longer surprised or shocked or outraged” by any of this and they want to move on. So as I said, we have all become “tone-deaf” to the transgressions themselves and instead tend to focus more on the drama inside the story and the undercurring themes and finding out who else might be involved in the scandal. But the original perpetrator — they get their own radio show or become a TV talk commentator or appear on a new reality TV show or keep playing baseball and go to the Hall of Fame or write their book to help restore any financial losses or embark on a lucrative nationwide speaking tour. But they don’t have to resign from public office, or face anything more serious than public censure, or be banned from baseball unless they’ve already retired, or be dragged through the embarrassment of public ridicule and condemnation rather than be cheered as a revitalized conquering hero. And this evolution to an almost “tone-deaf” society when it comes to moral transgressions is perhaps one of the most significant cultural evolutions that have taken place in our society over the last twenty years. And so Mark Sanford, at this point, does not have to resign as Governor of the State of South Carolina, but perhaps as a concession to all moral arbiters in the country, he did announce his resignation from a top leadership position within the Republican Party. Generally, the only exception to the tone-deaf response is when there is a clear criminal violation or when the transgressions cross over into questionable financial activities such as using state or taxpayer funds to pay for some of these activities or if prostitution or solicitation is involved. Yet Senator Larry Craig’s activities and Governor Eliot Spitzer’s activities and Representative Mark Foley’s activities all involved at least one of the above three levels of transgression, and Larry Craig did not resign and Eliot Spitzer, perhaps the public official with the most egregious transgressions as prostitution was involved, was invited as recently as just two months ago to appear on the Today show and give his take on the country’s economic downturn and provide his analysis of President Obama’s economic stimulus program — a small step perhaps but certainly a clear signal that even he is “on his way back.” But much of the political analysis of the Sanford episode is focusing on what this means to his rising national political future in the Republican Party and what it means to the political position of the GOP itself. First, let me state emphatically that there is one area where these types of transgressions do impact the individual involved and will exact a permanent price or retribution as a result — and that one area is if the individual involved has or had hopes of running for national office. The fact is, when it comes to local, city or state level office including governors and U.S. senators, the tone deaf attitude of Americans will allow these individuals to continue in office, perhaps become more popular, and even win re-election. Note the success of Mayor Villaraigosa in Los Angeles or Mayor Gavin Newsom in San Francisco to not only weather the storm of the revelation of their extra-marital affairs but also go on to win reelection as Mayors of their respective cities after the affair scandal news broke. And Republican John Ensign in Nevada is not going to resign and very likely Governor Mark Sanford won’t have to resign either. But Mark Sanford was one of those up and coming rising stars in the Republican Party along with John Ensign who was being touted for the national ticket in 2012. And that talk is now over, because it is my assertion that even with a “tone-deaf” attitude, Americans have still not demonstrated any willingness to forgive, forget, and move on so much that they are willing to support a national ticket candidate for president or vice president who has been involved in these kinds of moral transgressions. And I will go further and say that no candidate or public official of either Party who has this kind of activity in their personal life could successfully run in either position on a national ticket. Had John Edwards won the Democratic nomination and then had his affair revealed, he would have been forced to resign, and if he didn’t, the Democratic ticket would have lost in a landslide in the upcoming election. It simply cannot happen at the national level while it happens all the time at the state and city level of elected public official politics. And this may be the most controversial assertion of all, but I am absolutely convinced that using Bill Clinton as an example of the “forgive and forget” attitude of the American people is simply not applicable and just plain wrong. Yes, the American people rallied around the president and opposed the partisan impeachment effort of the Republicans, and yes, President Clinton actually increased his popularity polling after the impeachment events and even after he left office. But I am quite convinced that the situation would have been quite different had the Lewinsky affair taken place during President Clinton’s first term. Had that been the case, the president might have been forced to withdraw from running for reelection, and if he had not withdrawn, I am convinced that as much as he was popular after the scandal broke, and as much as the American people opposed the impeachment process, had the president been running for reelection or planning to when the scandal broke, he would not have been reelected president with this scandal out there. But Bill Clinton had the advantage of already having been reelected so he did not have to face the voters on that count — and the impeachment avenue was one that the American people simply did not buy into. And Kudos to them for that wisdom. But at the national level, the American people will simply not overlook these transgressions, and their otherwise comfortable tone-deaf attitude is set aside for a more rigid moral code. And so if Mark Sanford has aspirations to run for national office requiring the vote of the entire country (President or VP), then he is paying the price as that hope is over — period. And that aspiration is over for John Edwards, for Senator John Ensign, and even for Newt Gingrich — Gingrich would have a chance if most people continued to forget about his situation as they have done for the moment, but the problem is that there is no chance that Newt’s opposition both in and out of his Party would let the voters continue to forget about his past extramarital activities, and once they were reminded forcefully and often enough (and that is the American way — go negative), he too would then fall victim to my “ban on national office” rule. But perhaps most significantly, even with this “ban on national office” rule in place, I don’t think it matters that much about Mark Sanford or any of the others for that matter, as I am firmly convinced that the only real chance the Republicans have in 2012 against Barack Obama would be to run a national ticket of Mitt Romney as president with Sarah Palin as VP based on a scenario where the economy had not robustly recovered and there was a general feeling that the Obama administration had failed in much of its recovery and stimulus efforts. Romney, unlike John McCain, would be strong on the economy and comes across well on TV and is articulate and a quick thinker on his feet, while Palin can rally the Christian conservative core of the Party which they need in place first and enthusiastically to then enable them to go out and try to win back Independents and moderates while still keeping that conservative core in place. None of this will be easy for the Republicans, but so what, since running against Barack Obama wouldn’t be easy for any challenger from any Party regardless of who they have on the ticket. So if my theory is correct, that only Romney and Palin together have any chance, then the fact that Sanford and Ensign and others fall by the wayside with moral transgressions is really not that significant a loss to the Republicans anyway as those candidates were not going anywhere to begin with. So perhaps too much is being made of the potential negative impact on the GOP’s future national hopes by the Sanford scandal. But there is one other point, and that is the hypocrisy issue. And that can be stated quite simply. There are high public officials in both the Democratic and Republican Parties and among both liberals and conservatives who are being exposed for moral transgressions and infidelities with regard to marriage vows and commitment. But you don’t see Liberals and Democrats running around calling for amendments to the national Constitution to ban gay marriage and cement certain “family values” that they select to govern the conduct of the rest of us. It’s conservatives and Republicans who are out calling for that, and perhaps its’ time for them to work on their own personal family values, as we all need to do, before they run around telling the rest of us how we should conduct ours. Carl Jeffers is a Los Angeles-and Seattle based columnist, TV political analyst, radio talk show host and commentator, and a national lecturer. E-mail: cjintel@juno.com

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Carl Jeffers: The Sanford Affair — It Matters and It Doesn’t

Tonight, ASSME — or, the American Society of [Recently Fired] Media Elites, as the NYT’s David Carr so delicately puts it — is having their first-ever Swag-A-Thon , which I am pleased to have had a modest role in helping with along the way, through my micro-giving site, Charitini.com . Don’t know what swag is? You probably aren’t reading enough Us Weekly . “SWAG” stands for “Stuff We All Get” and refers to the freebies that are handed out at promotional events — from pens and tote bags and magnets and mugs to, well, much better stuff, depending on the event (think Oscar gift bags. That’s Stuff We Totally Don’t All Get). In any case, media folks typically pick up swag of various kinds over their event-attending lifespan, and if you’re a pack-rat like me, you just can’t bear to throw it out (”Because somebody could USE it!”). Thank God for ASSME, which forced me to admit that I have a problem. From the invitation: At the door, you’ll be invited to donate a piece of SWAG, some branded promotional item you’ve been holding onto for no good reason. That Pets.com onesie? Bring it! Your Dancing With the Stars headband? That too! These items will be raffled, with 100% of the proceeds going straight to supporting homeless people with AIDS and HIV. OMG a Dancing With The Stars headband sounds AWESOME. But anyway — what a great idea! In one ingenious organizational swoop, they’ve turned a far-flung collection of stray, neglected items into one great resource going to benefit a great cause , via the wonderful Housing Works . And, in addition to that, they’ve forced me to clean my apartment. So, without further ado, here is a list of what I excavated from the various nooks and crannies of my apartment today. Here it is — My Life In Swag: (a) Computer bag from Melissa Beth designs. That hipster-stylin’, would fit in perfectly on the L train! Also an adorable velveteen makeup case (puple!) and a super-cute velveteen laptop case (polka dots!) that is hard for me to part with but I already have a laptop bag, also Melissa Beth. She good. (b) Milli Home Decor apron, from the back when Domino magazine launched. (Still one of the best gift bags ever .) Still in plastic. I don’t cook. (c) ” Bad Girls Club ” promotional shot glass, tattoos and “instant party mix.” Oo-kay. (d) Mercedes-Benz S-Klasse car model (still in box). Liberated from atop my microwave, just because. Why would I keep this? I have no answer for you. (e) Kellogg School of Management desk clock. Make visitors think you went to biz school! Comes with Kellogg School of Management leather-bound coffee mug, too. ( Spoke at conference .) (f) Women’s Health “Ultimate Fat Burn!” video (unused, obviously.) (g) Jill Stuart eau de parfum “Night Blooming Lily” (no clue where from) (h) Chloe eau de toilette (not from swag, from an ex who got it free from his boss. I wear Hugo Woman.) (i) Remnants of Thrillist Vegas gift bag ( remember that ? I covered it for Radar Magazine , but under its new management apparently bylines aren’t important. Thanks, Zombie Radar! Go stalk the Octomom or something.) For the record, I did offer my editor the entire contents of the gift bag for a prize or something, but they couldn’t use it. Here’s what’s left a year later: Microsoft Zune. A really good gift unless it’s worth nothing. Obnoxious Equinox dice in a drawstring bag. Think “sex dice,” except “gym/health dice.” A little less exciting. Cervesa metal-chainy-things that are not handcuffs but look like handcuffs. Enjoy. Jet Blue tote bag (handy! Easily the hardest to part with.) (j) Myriam Gallego bowling-ball leather purse (in my prize pack for being a ” 2008 Power Woman ” for New York Moves magazine). I can see that on the L train too. (k) Ethan Allan decorating book and silk/woven throw (in pretty big box with a ribbon, also from my Power Women gift bag). I do not decorate. (l) California Country Style by Diane Dorrans Saeks — big coffee table book. I do not have California country style. (m) Pop Art Toaster - a gift from Huffington Post Entertainment Editor Katherine Thomson , actually. Gently used (for a bagel, once or twice). It has plates that you can insert that will burn “bite me” and “i’m hot” into the bread. It is the stupidest thing ever. But, when you take the plates out, it is a functioning toaster, and it’s cute and round and white. (n) Jimmy Carter, A Remarkable Mother - Enough said. (o) Simon Doonan, Eccentric Glamour - despite this collection of items, I do not have that. (p) Joy Behar and Friends, whatever that means - When You Need A Lift (q) Bonnie Fuller, The Joys of Much Too Much - I have two . Having two of a book called “The Joys of Much Too Much” is pretty funny. (r) Kathy Freston, The One: Finding Soul Mate Love And Making It Last . HuffPo swag! Arianna co-hosted that party, and Kathy is a fellow HuffPo blogger . (s) Arianna Huffington, On Becoming Fearless (Two leftover paperback copies from when I schlepped a box of them home to Toronto for a book party I co-hosted for her there . Fearlessly, I might add.) (t) Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (I got one for free after I bought it) (u) “Go Green Huffington Post” tote bag. It’s hazy now, but I am pretty sure I brought recycling to the office, back in our early days (circa spring 2006). Every little bit counts! (v) Terminatrix: The Sarah Palin Chronicles , Compiled by the editors of the Wasilla Iron Dog Gazette . Yes. (w) Collector’s Item! 02138 “Power Couples” issue, featuring Eliot and Silda Spitzer, pre- Emperor’s Club. Classic. (x) Extra-large T-shirt featuring the Obama family, from Inauguration Day , from the streets of DC. Own a piece of history! (y) A few CDs - Peter Gallagher (aka Sandy Cohen), “7 Days In Memphis”; OM Yoga Mix 2″ (SO totally unopened); “Bioneers: Weaving The World VII.” Alas, I don’t have V and VI. (z) A set of 3 Canadian maple leaf tea-candles. That’s just because I want to spread a little love from my homeland. Yay! That’s it - a life in swag, from A to Z. Now I have room for all the great new stuff I’ll pick up tonight! Rachel Sklar is the Editor-at-Large of Mediaite.com , a soon-to-launch multi-media website all about media. Get a preview of Mediate on Twitter here . It’s awesome.

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Rachel Sklar: My Life In Swag, From A-Z

Jon & Kate’s alleged troubled marriage may make me break out in hives, and I want to stick pins in my eyes watching Spencer and Heidi. But if Kate hurled a copy of my new book, SPIN , or Heidi put the book next to her Bible on the nightstand - my sales would go through the proverbial roof. Like it or not, the celebrity “blessing” is the culture we’ve created, and it’s reaching epic proportions. Despite having been a publicist - thus armed with the knowledge that the majority of today’s trends are manufactured by hardworking spin-doctors and marketing gurus - I still fall victim to the same PR traps as everyone else. Case in point: I needed to find a place to tame my uni-brow in Los Angeles. Of course I couldn’t go just anywhere to get my eye shrub trimmed. After doing some research I settled on the lovely day spa that counted Ricky Martin, Jessica Alba, and Renee Zellweger as clients. There were other salons that would have done an equally first-rate job - but like so many others I put my blind faith in these A-listers. This is precisely why salons, restaurants and nightclubs pay top dollar to their publicists. The equation, sadly, is pretty simple: get a celebrity, get business. I knew all too well that this was precisely the formula I needed to sell my first novel, SPIN . It’s dark, edgy and some might argue a bit controversial - but without any celebrity endorsement or attachment, it will get about the same amount of media attention as a book on mathematics. Our obsession with celebrity-dom has crossed over from the pages of Page Six and Us Weekly into the social networking stratosphere - landing smack dab in the middle of Twitter. Instead of obsessing over where Gwyneth goes for a macrobiotic meal or where Lindsay partied till the wee hours of the morning, we’ve now become more interested in celebrities’ Twitter habits. Will bloggers soon write that Samantha Ronson and Sarah Silverman tweet each other about holding in their pee? Or that Elizabeth Taylor and Kathy Ireland are twitter pals? It’s uncharted publicity territory, so I’m not sure. But if they do I want to be in the mix. So I signed up for a Twitter account and immediately began to follow celebs like Ashton “@aplusk” Kutcher, Mrs. Kutcher and Oprah. But simply following these celebrities wasn’t enough. I had to get at least one of them to follow me - for a coveted endorsement. The whole plan reeked of a Paris Hilton publicity stunt. But like Paris and other great media manipulators before her, I trudged on in my quest to be a member of the “twitteratti” to increase book sales. Sound shallow? Absolutely. But before judging, consider this: Ashton Kutcher beat CNN in a contest to reach one million Twitter followers. He comes off as incredibly likable, spiritual and smart all in under a hundred and forty characters. Suck on that media giants. I knew I needed something funny and attention grabbing to grab the attention of my new celeb “friends”. I said to myself, and my two French Bulldogs sitting at my feet: “Piece of cake. One hundred and forty characters. No problem.” I stared at the @RobertRave window with great excitement. Finally my very own forum to express what’s on my mind at all hours of the day. I was my own CNN, breaking news about my life twenty-four seven. Fast forward to hours later. And to a blank twitter box. If I was going to get celeb endorsements, er, followers before the release of my novel, I needed backup. I called one of my best friends, MTV News correspondent/ Producer/ Documentarian/Girl About Town, SuChin Pak. (Please note my obvious name drop - now will you order my book?) “Can you tell me what to write in my twitter box?” I asked. “No,” she said. And like a five year-old I whined, “But why?” “Because that space is for your thoughts, not mine,” she argued. “What kind of friend are you?” SuChin ignored my tantrum and quickly changed the subject to something uninteresting like Obama’s financial reform or the crisis in Iran. “Could you repeat that last part?” I asked. And she did. “Okay, now slower,” I said. “Are you typing as I’m talking?” she asked, sounding utterly disgusted. “What? Uh, no,” I said. There was a long pause and then finally she said, matter-of-fact, “And now you’re deleting it to cover it up.” After apologizing to SuChin for blatantly trying to trade on her celebrity for book sales I asked: “You’re friends with Benji and Joel Madden, right?” “Yes, why?” SuChin asked. “I’m just saying that maybe you could ask them to follow me and… Hello? SuChin? Hello?” Could you blame me? I needed to sell books. All my creative energy had been exhausted trying to win at least one celebrity follower. I was certain that this celebrity follower would then buy my book, fall in love with it, and tweet about it. This is why, of course, I work alone and should be heavily medicated. So here I am at 35 years old staring at my Twitter page, trying to get validation from celebritwits half my age. I’ve worked countless hours writing and re-writing SPIN . I’ve poured over marketing plans, developed pitches and called every media contact that I’ve ever met. Yet still, I’m waiting for @MileyCyrus to follow me on Twitter - all in the name of publicity. More on Jon & Kate Plus 8

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Robert Rave: Go Tweet Yourself

I know crap isn’t a polite word but how else do you describe the stuff that is marketed and sold to kids as food? I’m not just referring to what they see in the supermarkets and on TV but also in school. You would expect schools to offer kids the most nutritious, healthy food choices possible, right? No, instead they’re being offered high-fat, low-nutrition foods that are helping to fuel an obesity epidemic amongst kids. And, to top it off, the “snacks” offered in school vending machines are primarily junk foods and soda that are high in fat, calories and sugar. Can you imagine trying to sit through an entire day of multiplication, division and cursive on a diet of candy bars and sodas (and your PE class has probably been canceled due to budget cuts)? Some sobering statistics: 1 in 3 Americans and 1 in 2 African-Americans and Latinos born after 2000 will contract early onset diabetes. Nearly one-third of children and adolescents are overweight or obese. However, parents have had enough. They know their kids deserve and need nutritious, fresh ingredients that encourage healthy growth and fuel their minds. This means, out with the soda, junk foods and meals that are laden in salt, fats and sugars; in with more fresh produce and less salt, fat and sugar. To achieve such not-so-lofty goals, moms and dads are supporting the efforts of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a national nutrition advocacy organization that has been fighting for years to remove soda and junk food from all federally-funded nutrition programs. If this sounds outlandish, wait. Don’t be too cynical of our politicians yet because here in California, the California Center for Public Health Advocacy , led successful efforts to ban soda and junk foods from public schools here. The moms are part of the Healthy School Lunch Brigade, inspired by the film Food, Inc., that will be storming Capitol Hill tomorrow to demand healthy school lunches as part of the massive Child Nutrition Reauthorization that determines all federally-funded nutrition programs for the next five years. CSPI and Moms Rising are sending moms from across the country to join soap opera star Deidre Hall and her teenage son, along with Desperate Housewives star Andrea Bowen and her mom. These moms will be meeting with Congressional and White House staff to to tell them our schools need better nutrition standards now. And, they’ll be lugging binders with signatures from over 50,000 concerned citizens nationwide. If you can’t be there in person, join the virtual Brigade. Whether or not you’re a mom, tell Congress that you’re concerned about our children’s health and demand that soda and junk food be banned from all federally-funded nutrition programs. Let’s cut the crap and bring healthy, real food back to schools today! Sarah’s Social Action Snapshot originally appeared on Takepart.com

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Sarah Newman: Food, Inc. Inspires Moms to Cut the Crap

Live video: :: 11:25AM: Sanford started out talking about the Appalachian, but now he seems to be prefacing an admission of some sort of infidelity, marital or otherwise. :: 11:22AM: Here we go…Sanford is in the house. :: 11:20AM: Psyche! Media told Sanford presser to be in Columbia, but really in Hilton Head. — ScoutFinch :: 11:18AM: Will Sanford come out with a backwards ‘B’ “carved” in his face to explain delay? :: 11:16AM: Still waiting. Interesting note about Sanford’s story. He says he was driving along the coastline in Buenes Aires. But the coastal road in the area is only 2 miles long . It takes 5 days to drive 2 miles? Can somebody do the math on how slow that is? :: 11:08AM: BREAKING — DID SANFORD GO HIKING ON HIS WAY TO PRESS CONFERENCE? HE’S LAAAATE! ::: 11:02AM: Here’s the live feed (the reporter interview can be found here ): :: Original post: We’ll be posting a live feed to the Mark Sanford press conference when/if it becomes available, but in the meantime, here’s the reporter who broke the story of his Argentina excursion earlier today on MSNBC. As of 11:02 Pacific, the press conference hadn’t started yet. The live feed is just a blue screen with a signal tone. In other Sanford news while we wait: Another woman? An anonymous source told TPMmuckraker that there’s evidence Sanford was not alone . No 2012 for Sanford: GOP strategists say Sanford’s campaign is now over — before it ever began. Sanford allies are ditching him, including his chosen successor, who has removed his pictures from her website. Is Sarah Palin the big winner here? Sanford and she had some overlap in base, and new Pew numbers show that among Republicans , she is the most popular Republican.

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Popcorn Time: Mark Sanford Press Conference

This is going to be a fairly quick-hitter for a Wednesday, for a variety of reasons (one of which has to do with me not being able to wear shoes for part of the day…don’t ask). The main reason, though, is that new campaign news today has been harder to come by than the exact whereabouts of Governor Sanford. AK-Gov: Alaska Republicans Worry That Palin is Bailin’ Is Alaska Governor Sarah Palin about to go the Tim Pawlenty route? Over the past week, speculation has arisen that Sarah Palin may choose to forgo a second term as governor. A great quote in the article, by the by, from 2006 Independent candidate Andrew Halcro: “If you’re Palin, once you’ve flown first class, you don’t go back to coach.” GA-Gov: New Poll Shows Barnes, Oxendine Far In Front of Field Rasmussen polls both the Democratic and Republican primaries and show clear frontrunners in the field. Roy Barnes scores 48% of the Democratic primary vote (his nearest opponent, Thurbert Baker, had just 8%), while John Oxendine leads the GOP field with a lead of more than 20 points over Sec. of State Karen Handel. Rasmussen, for what its worth, releases their weekly generic Congressional ballot today, finding the Democrats with a two-point lead over the GOP. NY-23: Richter Not Inclined To Make A Save For Dems in Special Election The guys over at Swing State Project inquired about whether Mike Richter, onetime Rangers superstar goalie and New York resident, was interested in pursuing the special election in the 23rd district necessitated by the appointment of John McHugh to be Secretary of the Army. He has declined, as he has done so before when his name has popped up as a prospective Democratic candidate for office. DE-Sen: Castle Thinking About Florida No, Castle has not joined northerners Bob Smith and Tom Golisano (although Golisano shot down that rumor today) as people looking into the Florida Senate race. He is thinking about Florida, as in vacation. Or…possibly…retirement. Either way, it seems clear that he is not hankering to run for the Senate : They’ve asked me to run for the Senate as a Republican. I don’t know if I’m going to do that…my wife talks about beaches in Florida. I don’t know if I want to run for the House again, let alone for the four years of Biden’s term. Sounds like a guy who is only contemplating the race out of deference to his friends in the GOP. Not a ton of fire in that belly, if these remarks are to be believed. And the “run for the Senate AS A REPUBLICAN bit was kinda curious, as well.

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Polling and Political Wrap-Up, 6/23/09

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin has paid more than $8,100 to reimburse Alaska for the costs associated with nine trips taken with her children. Palin’s attorney, Thomas Van Flein, says the governor paid $8,143.62 to the state on June 19 for the nine trips, some with more than one of her five children, taken between January 2007 and February of this year. The payment was due Tuesday. An ethics complaint had alleged Palin abused her power by charging the state when her children traveled with her. The Alaska Personnel Board found no wrongdoing, but Palin agreed to reimburse the state for trips found to be of questionable state interest. Van Flein and state administrative director Linda Perez sent The Associated Press copies of the check and other documents of the transaction. The board’s investigator, Timothy Petumenos, said in his report that state rules give little guidance to determine ethical standards for travel by the governor’s family. But he interpreted the law to require that the state pay only if the first family serves an important state interest. Van Flein noted that Palin had followed historical practices on first family travel and that her travel requests were processed by the same administrators who processed requests for predecessors, Frank Murkowski and Tony Knowles. “No one challenged Gov. Murkowski’s or Governor Knowles’ travel practices,” Van Flein said in an e-mail. “The rules were, and are, being changed in midstream for Governor Palin. However, as noted in the agreement at the time ‘the Governor wants to exceed minimum legal standards.’” Anchorage resident Frank Gwartney, a Democrat, filed the complaint in late October. It closely followed a report by The Associated Press that Palin charged the state more than $21,000 for her three daughters’ commercial flights, including events where they weren’t invited, and later ordered their expense forms amended to specify official state business. Palin was the Republican vice presidential candidate when the complaint was filed and after the February settlement she called the grievance “an obvious political weapon.” As part of the settlement, the Alaska Department of Law was asked to develop specific rules clarifying when the state should pay for a governor’s family travel. That effort is under way, with the goal to have a final draft by the end of the year, according to Judy Bockmon, an assistant attorney general. Also on Tuesday, the governor’s office announced the 15th dismissal of an ethics complaint against Palin or one of her staff. It alleged Kris Perry _ director of the governor’s Anchorage office _ worked on state time to benefit Palin’s interests during and after her vice presidential run. The governor’s office said the complaint was filed even after Perry obtained an opinion from Perez, her ethics supervisor. “It is outrageous to file an ethics complaint against a state employee who sought and obtained ethics guidance in advance,” Mike Nizich, Palin’s chief of staff, said in a statement. “This is not about ethics. This is not about holding the governor or state employees accountable. This is pure harassment.” (This version CORRECTS that payments involved 9 trips with one or more of her children, not 19, which counted each child separately.) More on Sarah Palin

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Palin Reimburses Alaska $8,000 For 19 Family Trips

Summer has arrived and with it, the season of bikinis, SPF and aloe vera — but some familiar Washington faces seem to have an orange glow all year round. We’re talking about the fake-and-baker lawmakers of Capitol Hill. From House Minority Leader John Boehner , who claims his tan resulted from spending time outdoors, but actually just looks like he spray, to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin who reportedly installed a tanning bed in the governor’s mansion , these politicians’ complexions crash and burn. Take a tip from them: even if it rains all summer, try not to look like an oompah-loompah this season. *Follow Huffington Post Style on Twitter and become a fan of Huffington Post Style on Facebook * More on Silvio Berlusconi

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ORANGE ALERT! Polticians With Fake Tans: A Cautionary Slideshow

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says her political enemies are abusing state law with a flurry of frivolous ethics complaints against her, putting her more than $500,000 in legal debt. Those filing the grievances _ there have been at least 18 cases so far _ say it’s their legal right to hold the Republican governor accountable for what they see as abuses of power. The truth is probably somewhere in between. “Are Alaskans outraged, or at least tired of this yet _ another frivolous ethics charge by a political blogger?” Palin asked in one statement. Most of the complaints have been filed since last August, when GOP presidential candidate John McCain picked Palin as his running mate. And most have been denied. Palin’s office has called the multiple dismissals “mounting evidence that accusations of wrongdoing by the governor lack merit and have been politically or personally motivated.” Even some of Palin’s critics question the validity of some of the complaints, and her supporters have waged a weeklong Webathon to raise money for a legal defense fund set up for the governor, ringing up more than $109,000 by day seven, Sunday. But the number of filings may also reflect a broader awareness of ethics law in Alaska, where any citizen can send in any number of complaints. Some say they’re taking Palin up on her own challenge to Alaska voters. “She said she was going to be open, transparent and wanted people to hold her accountable,” said Kim Chatman, an Eagle River resident whose complaint against Palin is among the few still pending. “I took her for her word.” All the complaints have been brought by Alaskans, except for one filed by Washington-based Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics alleging the $150,000-plus designer wardrobe the Republican Party bought to outfit Palin in her national quest violated the Federal Election Campaign Act. That complaint was dismissed. One complaint, in which the Alaska Personnel Board found no wrongdoing, concluded with the governor agreeing to pay the state $10,000 for trips taken by her children _ money that is due Tuesday. Another complaint, filed by Democratic blogger Linda Kellen Biegel, said Palin wore a jacket that promoted the sponsor of her husband’s snowmobile racing team. That complaint, dismissed June 2, prompted Palin’s statement about “frivolous” ethics charges. Elected in 2006, Palin enjoyed an unprecedented 18-month honeymoon with Alaska residents and lawmakers alike until last July, when she fired Walt Monegan, the state’s popular public safety commissioner. Monegan believed he was terminated over his refusal to let go a state trooper who was involved in a contentious divorce with Palin’s sister. Palin cited budgetary disagreements. State lawmakers investigated, ultimately concluding the governor broke an ethics law that prohibits public officials from using their office for personal gain, although the firing itself was considered lawful since Monegan was an at-will employee. Days after being named McCain’s running mate, Palin said the legislative probe had become too political and filed a “self disclosure” with the Alaska Personnel Board, whose three members are appointed by the governor. The day before the presidential election, that investigation concluded that Palin violated no ethics laws. Palin was wrong to publicly criticize the complaints before the appropriate government body _ the personnel board in most cases _ had a chance to analyze them, said Gregg Erickson, a Juneau economist and longtime watcher of Alaska politics. That’s simply bad politics, he said. “She rises to the bait fairly quickly when they troll these things by her,” he said. “I think it’s a weakness.” Chatman said she voted for Palin to be governor, but now sees her as unethical, sacrificing the state’s interest to advance her national ambitions. Palin is widely believed to be considering a 2012 presidential run. Chatman’s complaint alleges Palin is misusing the governor’s office for personal gain by securing unwarranted benefits and receiving improper gifts through the Alaska Fund Trust, which was established by supporters in April to help Palin pay her legal bills. Alaska law mandates that ethics grievances remain confidential unless a public accusation is filed or the accused person agrees in writing to make it public. However, most complainants have ignored this requirement and have publicly discussed their grievances without any legal consequences. “Why is confidentiality so important? So the process does not become a forum for partisan attacks, headline seekers and disgruntled wing-nuts,” Palin attorney Thomas Van Flein said in an e-mail. “This is exactly the type of political gamesmanship the confidentiality clause was intended to prevent.” Chatman said she spoke with an attorney and learned she wouldn’t breach confidentiality if she talked about her grievance before filing it in late April. She said she did just that, based on a lack of trust in the Palin administration. “I thought it would be swept under the carpet if the public didn’t know about it,” she said. More on Sarah Palin

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Palin’s Legal Debt Is More Than $500,000 As She Spars With Critics Over Ethics Complaints

The Republicans are faulting President Obama for not taking a “strong enough stand” in support of the freedom marchers in Iran. Yet if the Republican/Religious Right/Neoconservative agenda had come to full fruition over the last 35 years the Republicans would have plunged America into our own version of the misbegotten theocracy destroying Iran today. I know. As a former Religious Right leader I worked to make America “safe” for “Christian values” and dangerous to everyone else. Thankfully I, and those like me, failed. Had we succeeded America would be another version of Iran. Instead of people like James Dobson and Pat Robertson having become marginalized they’d be sitting in Washington advising whomever was the next Republican president. Instead of environmental protection and new mileage standards for cars there would be new anti-gay laws on the books. What are the real lesson of Iran for the USA? 1) Don’t mix religion and politics. 2) Thank God for the separation of church and state. 3) The Republicans are utter hypocrites. Until I got out of the religious right (in the mid-1980s) I was both a leader of the so-called pro-life movement and a part of a Republican Party hate machine masquerading as the moral conscience of America. If the Republican Party and we of the Religious Right had had our way by now there would be a constitutional amendment and/or laws forcing prayer in schools, disenfranchising gay men and women, banning all abortions under penalty of death, banning gay men and women from serving in the military, launching a neoconservative led and religious right backed holy war against Islam, fixing Israel’s borders permanently to incorporate all the land taken in 1967 forever into a “Greater Israel” based on the “fact” that “God gave the Jews” the land “forever,” capital punishment would be used routinely to punish a variety of crimes including being gay, civil rights for blacks, women, gays, unions would be in retreat, and — other than enforcing “morality” - George W. Bush’s style of “free market” non-governance would be permanent. Think this is all far fetched? Then you never sat in secret meetings with Pat Robertson or the late Dr. Kennedy — as I did when I was a religious right leader — fomenting plans to “bring America back to God.” If we’d won America would be a slicker more dangerous version of Iran. Picture America if Sarah Palin was president, both houses of Congress had a deep Republican majority, and the last 30 years of appointments to the Supreme Court had all been far right choices. Picture Fox News as the only TV news with access to the government, and the editors of the New York Times in jail for “treason.” The Religious Right has been awash in anti-democratic (even anti-American) religious ideologues for the better part of 40 years. For instance I knew the founders of the so-called dominionist or “reconstruction” wing of our movement personally, people like the late Reverend Rousas John Rushdoony the father of “Christian Reconstructionism” and the modern Christian home school movement. Rushdoony (who I met and talked with many times) believed that interracial marriage, which he referred to as “unequal yoking”, should be made illegal. He also opposed “enforced integration”, referred to Southern slavery as “benevolent”, and said that “some people are by nature slaves”. Rushdoony was also a Holocaust denier. And yet his home school materials are a mainstay of the evangelical home school movement to this day! Rushdoony’s 1973 opus, The Institutes of Biblical Law, says that fundamentalist Christians must “take control of governments and impose strict biblical law” on America and the world. That would mean the death penalty for “practicing homosexuals.” Many evangelical leaders deny holding Reconstructionist beliefs but Beverly and Tim LaHaye (of Concerned Women for Americaand the “Left Behind” novels that glorify religious violence), Donald Wildmon (American Family Association) and the late D. James Kennedy ( Coral Ridge Ministries) — served alongside Rushdoony on the secretive Coalition for Revival, a group formed in 1981 to “reclaim America for Christ.” I went to the early meetings. I first met Tim LaHaye at one such meeting. And what Dobson, Falwell et al were pushing, and what the “tea parties” and Fox News are all about today, is one or another version of the Rushdoony/theocracy version of the Iranian mullahs American-style. When there are tens of thousands of Americans sitting in evangelical churches every Sunday wherein President Obama is vilified as an “abortionist,” a “Communist,” a “secret Muslim,” and even as “the Antichrist,” when the former vice president accuses our President of what amounts to treason, all because President Obama won’t allow the torture of prisoners in an American version of holy war, all because he has decided it is wise to build bridges of respect to Muslim countries, we’ve left recognizable political territory and entered the realm of violence-inciting hate and delusion of the kind Iran’s “supreme leader” indulges in. As Bob Herbert said in his NY Times (June 20) column; “I hope I’m wrong, but I can’t help feeling as if the murder at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the assassination of the abortion doctor in Wichita, Kan., and the slaying of three police officers in Pittsburgh — all of them right-wing, hate-driven attacks — were just the beginning and that worse is to come.” Picture the harshest Old Testament laws applied at home and the harshest neoconservative military policy abroad and that would be America if the Republicans had everything they wanted. We’d be in three wars now instead of two - Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran. It would be open season on domestic surveillance. Torture would be legal. Habeas Corpus would be a thing of the past. Women would be in prison for having had abortions. Gay men and women would be hounded and if they were murdered there would be leaders saying they had it coming. The CIA and FBI would be operating inside the USA to crush dissent. Blackwater (and other companies like it) would be taking over more and more military duties and operating internationally as a mercenary death squad. Look at Iran and give thanks that the Republican Party — the tool of America’s mullahs married to the Neocon war mongers — is in decline and has been rejected by the American people. Work to keep America secular, free and democratic. Stay vigilant. Having failed at the ballot box the Republicans and their far right hate-filled supporters are beginning to foment violence with their crazy anti-Obama talk and hysteria. The battle between oppressive religion and freedom is not over yet– not in Iran, nor here in America. Frank Schaeffer is the author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back and the forthcoming Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don’t Like Religion (Or Atheism) More on Blackwater

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Frank Schaeffer: The Real Lesson Of Iran — Beware America’s Republican Mullahs

It’s finally here! The glamazons of government are going head-to-head in the ultimate political fashion smackdown. Sure these friends and frenemies are all smiles when gracing the pages of Vogue and GQ, but how would they pair up in the ring? Who would win a Zoolander-esque walk off? Joe Biden, the dapper gentleman from Delaware may be number two on the political food chain, but could he dethrone the great gray suit wearing Barack Obama in a style showdown? And what of BFFs Valerie Jarrett and Desiree Rogers? Who would Heidi Klum dismiss with a firm auf wiedersehen ? The American public deserves to know. Barack Obama and Joe Biden Esquire named Obama one of the world’s best-dressed men and many of us swooned as he went Baywatch on the beach, but the prez has had some cringe-worthy fashion moments while in office. Who can forget POTUS cheering on his soccer star daughters in baggy dad jeans and an ill-fitting White Sox jacket? While it’s hard to rival the president when he’s buttoned up in bespoke delivering a rousing speech, his casual afternoon attire could use some refashioning. As for blue-eyed Biden, he has taken his classic closet of crisp white shirts and jewel-toned ties into the Obama era with rolled-up sleeves and understated tailoring. While Obama may be the press darling, Biden is Mr. Consistency, never alarming America’s fashionistas with his Sunday attire. Will steadiness trump the popular vote? You decide. Jill Biden and Michelle Obama Tall, athletic, and beloved by the international fashion industry, Michelle Obama is considered the ultimate triple-threat by fashion insiders. Rumor has it that Jill has been doing bicep curls all week to prepare for the rumble where both ladies will wear sleeveless shifts, bubblegum pearls, and ballerina flats, of course. The designers at J.Crew and special guest Jason Wu bought out the stadium seating months ago. While Jill looks hotter than a scarlet letter in her red evening gown, the competition is tough for the second lady. She pulls out all the punches with her waist-cinching dresses and cropped aquamarine blazers, but does Michelle Obama still manage to sail past her? You be the judge. Desiree Rogers and Valerie Jarrett Weighing in at not very much at all are Valerie Jarrett and Desiree Rogers! Both love wearing color and don’t shy away from a print. Rogers sat front row with Anna Wintour during fashion week, but Jarrett wowed the world with her elegant evening wear from day one. Will the senior Obama advisor be able to take the trophy away from her sidekick, the equally fashionable social secretary? Just a few minutes into the smackdown and the judges have declared it the most boring match in history! The women keep trying to declare the other the victor in the ultimate show of BFF friendship. But wait! A picture of Desiree Rogers in a metallic sequenced dress has been submitted to the judges. The social secretary in a frock that Tina Turner would want to shimmy shimmy shake in? How utterly modern. Who will take home the win? Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi Are pantsuits allowed in the ring? Of course! This is politics and the two reigning queens of the pantsuit are ready for their match. Both the Secretary of State and the Speaker of the House would sew on the boxy jacket/pant combination if they could, with Clinton favoring colors you can see from the moon and Pelosi happy to swath herself in hundreds of variations of beige. While Clinton gains points for not looking like a walking sand dune, Pelosi is able to fly across the ring to her fancy footwear, elegant accessories, and the fact that she has never dressed like a human cantaloupe. Which pantsuit-wearer will end up with the highest score? Sarah Palin and Lisa Murkowski They’re both Alaskan-born Republicans who love fishing and pencil skirts. In the right-wing division it’s Alaska’s own Palin and Murkowski! Palin’s victory has been predicted for months, but some critics believe Murkowski’s Beltway-friendly fashion could speak to city slickers who are sick of seeing Governor Palin adorned in moose print accessories. The women have been in the ring for days. The ref (who looks surprisingly like snowmobilin’ Todd Palin) is exhausted from the longest (and only) Alaskan fashion smackdown in history. It seems inevitable that the beauty pageant governor will yet again bring home the crown…but wait! This just in…Palin has been penalized for tying dangerous instruments to her feet defined by the judges as “razor sharp peep-toe stilettos bought with hard earned tax payer dollars.” While clearly the crowd favorite, will Palin be disqualified for her fancy footwear? *Follow Huffington Post Style on Twitter and become a fan of Huffington Post Style on Facebook * More on Barack Obama

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Karin Tanabe: Political Fashion Smackdown! (PHOTOS, POLL)

NEW YORK — Federal authorities are investigating a new outbreak of a bacteria-triggered illness, this time related to a sweet treat treasured by the heartbroken and children-at-heart _ packaged raw cookie dough. The federal Centers for Disease Control said its preliminary investigation shows “a strong association” between eating raw refrigerated cookie dough made by Nestle and the illnesses of 65 people in 29 states whose lab results have turned up E. coli bacteria since March. About 25 of those people have been hospitalized, but no one has died. E. coli is a potentially deadly bacterium that can cause bloody diarrhea, dehydration and, in the most severe cases, kidney failure. Nestle USA voluntarily recalled all of its Toll House refrigerated cookie dough products after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration advised consumers to throw away any Nestle Toll House cookie dough products in their homes and asked retailers, restaurateurs and other foodservice operations not to sell or serve any of the refrigerated cookie dough products. Customers also can return any recalled product where they bought it for a full refund. The recall does not affect other Toll House products, including ice cream that contains raw Toll House dough. “This has been a very quickly moving situation,” said Roz O’Hearn, spokeswoman for Nestle’s baking division, adding the company took action within 24 hours of learning of the problem. Spokeswoman Laurie MacDonald for Nestle USA in Glendale, Calif., a unit of Switzerland-based Nestle SA, said the company has temporarily stopped making the refrigerated dough products while the FDA investigates its factory. “We hope to resume production as soon as possible,” she said. Nestle holds a 41 percent share of the prepared cookie dough market. The recall includes refrigerated cookie bar dough, cookie dough tubs, cookie dough tubes, limited edition cookie dough items, seasonal cookie dough and Ultimates cookie bar dough. Nestle said about 300,000 cases of Nestle Toll House cookie dough are affected by the recall, which covers chocolate chip dough, gingerbread, sugar, peanut butter dough and other varieties. The FDA said consumers should not try to cook the dough, even though it would be safe to eat if cooked, because the bacteria could move to their hands and to countertops and other cooking surfaces. Raw cookie dough is so popular that it has spawned more than 40 groups on Facebook, complete with postings that read like love notes. Stacey Oyler, a 33-year-old San Francisco resident, called it her “secret indulgence” _ a treat that became irresistible when she was pregnant with her second child last August. She said she still indulges occasionally. “I love the combination of the salt and sweet,” she said. “You can’t get that from a piece of chocolate.” But no raw cookie is necessarily safe. The eggs in Nestle Toll House’s dough are pasteurized, which eliminates most of the risk of salmonella infection from raw eggs. But other ingredients could contain pathogens or bacteria, and the company warns in product labels not to eat the dough raw. Several recent food recalls have been related to bacterial contamination, including a salmonella outbreak last winter traced to a peanut company that sickened more than 600 people and that was blamed for at least nine deaths. A separate outbreak of salmonella last year linked to jalapeno peppers from Mexico led 1,400 people to become ill. Sarah Klein, staff attorney in the food safety group at consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, called the cookie dough news disheartening. “Unfortunately, I don’t think that people who have been working in food safety for years can be surprised at this point and sadly, I don’t think the American people are surprised either,” Klein said. ___ AP Business Writer Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.

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Nestle Cookie Dough Recalled

The feud between David Letterman and Governor Sarah Palin has ended for now with an apology from Dave on his show and an acceptance by Ms. Palin in the press. Score round one to Palin. This win marks a triumph not just for the Governor but for women and girls across the country. It has heartening to see liberal NOW feminists and the ladies of The View as well as conservative women stand up for Palin and her daughters. Maybe it was the motherhood element as expressed by Joy Behar on The View . Whatever it was, it was a victory for the female sex. Letterman and other late night comedians will think twice now before telling tasteless, sexist “jokes” that demean females. I never liked that term “knocked up” thinking it was degrading, implying that women are sex objects to be used by men, regardless of their age. Let’s hope it is the beginning of evolution for men as Palin referred to in her acceptance of Letterman’s mea culpa. As women, it is up to us to call out sexism wherever and whenever it occurs. The fight against racism has been long and difficult and still has a ways to go, but the revelation of so-called “code words” has been very valuable in the struggle. We need to point out sexist code phrases and we can begin with Letterman’s “knocked up” and “slutty”. I also felt Perez Hilton was wrong to call Carrie Prejean (the ex Miss CA-USA) a “dumb bitch” on his website after she came out for “opposite sex” marriage. It was sexist. Who cares if it came from a gay man? I am a lesbian and for gay marriage but the remark was demeaning. How would Hilton like being called the “f” word for being a gay man? I never thought David Letterman should be fired, just called to task as Don Imus was when he made his racist (and sexist) remarks about the Rutger’s women’s basketball team. (I didn’t feel Imus should have been fired either.) I am all for freedom of speech, but I’m also for decency. Racist, sexist, and homophobic remarks are “hate speech”, plain and simple. Sometimes they are disguised as humor. I and many others don’t find them funny. In fact, they can be very damaging. It doesn’t matter if you are liberal or conservative, people should be treated with respect. This goes for men too. It is just as sexist to call a man a “male chauvinist pig” as it is to call a woman the “c” word. If we can learn anything from the Palin-Letterman feud, it is that speaking out for the rights of all people is not just a freedom but our responsibility. Seeing all the unrest and oppression in Iran puts everything in perspective, and I for one am glad to live in a country where we can even have this conversation.

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Joan E. Dowlin: Palin’s Triumph Over Letterman Is a Victory for All Women

Before the next “Franken case decided any minute now!!” rumors start, let’s put to bed this Thursday in politics. NATIONAL: PPP Shows Modest Dip In Obama Approval, Still Leads 2012 Field For whatever reasons (and yes…it could be a IVR/Live Call discrepancy), PPP has always had more modest job approval numbers for Barack Obama than most pollsters. They are at the low end of the curve this month as well, as they find Obama with a 52% job approval rating, with 44% disapproving. Against the prospective 2012 GOP field, however, he still holds solid leads: beating Gingrich (49-41), Huckabee (50-43), Romney (48-40), and Palin (52-40). IL-SEN: Giannoulias Puts His Foot Down—He’s In. Period. Amid reports that there is some pressure from above to persuade Lisa Madigan to enter the Illinois Senate race, state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias made a pretty definitive statement that he will not step aside and clear the primary (something that, according to Lynn Sweet, Madigan made a condition of her entrance into the race). The money quote: “Now more than ever, anyone who seeks this seat must convince voters they have the ideas that will get our economy on its feet and put our people back to work, not just prove that they have the political clout to demand a clear field and win appointment.” NV-SEN: Reid Dodged First-Tier Opponent in 2010 Race I think it is safe to say that the NRSC, as well as the Nevada GOP, has had a pretty brutal month. First, Harry Reid garners the endorsement of nearly 60 prominent Nevada Republicans, including Reno’s Mayor and the state’s First Lady. Then, John Ensign gets in a bit of a pickle for not keeping his zipper in the upright and locked position. Now, Jon Porter , arguably the best potential opponent for Reid in 2010, has made it clear that he will not be a candidate for the Senate in 2010. NY-SEN: At Least ONE Congressional Carolyn Is Warming Up To Gillibrand It was just a few weeks ago that it appeared as Long Island Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy was ready to take on incumbent Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Now, she actually has a few words of praise for the Senator, and it seems to stem from the rapidly more progressive issue stances Gillibrand has taken since assuming office. “She has a great gun bill and we’re going to be working closely together on that,” said McCarthy. “I have been gratified to see her position on the issue has been evolving.” She did, however, tweak Gillibrand for the speed of said evolution. McCarthy also confirmed that she is not presently planning on entering the Senate primary. Gillibrand spent some time on Daily Kos today, on the separate issue of DADT. NY-STATE SEN: Just When You Thought It Couldn’t Get More Absurd Now that the New York State Senate is deadlocked once again at 31-31, Democratic-turned-quasi-Republican Pedro Espada thinks he has the solution—he should get two votes . There is some, albeit tortured, logic to this—when Espada jumped, he assumed the position of President Pro Tem. Since the Lieutenant Governor’s office is vacant (because Paterson moved up upon Spitzer’s resignation), Espada argues that he is the acting LG. When the Senate is tied, the LG is supposed to break the tie. Ergo, two votes for the turncoat. Not surprisingly, the Democrats are expected to head to court if Espada even tries it. PA-SEN: Either Specter or Sestak Beats Toomey, According to Rasmussen While the prospective Democratic primary in the Keystone State heats up going into the summer, Rasmussen polls the general election and finds either Democratic candidate leading likely GOP nominee Patrick Toomey. Specter is back to a double-digit edge over Toomey (50-39), while Sestak enjoys a smaller six-point edge (41-35). AND NOW…SPORTS: Can the GOP Freaking Win ANYTHING Lately?! This , I am sure, is a sign of absolutely nothing, but the GOP losing streak now apparently extends to the diamond. In the 48th Annual Roll Call Congressional Baseball Game, the Democrats were victorious for the first time since 2000, defeating the GOP squad by a 15-10 margin (might need to look at some new arms from the state legislative minor leagues, guys).

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Polling and Political Wrap-Up, 6/18/09

A debate is raging on whether to have a national gay March on Washington in October. Most leaders I have spoken with are against the idea, preferring to keep scarce financial and human resources in the states. Others, such as myself, are largely ambivalent. A galvanizing force, however, is giving new life to this idea and his name is Barack Obama. The president is in serious danger of motivating a huge mass of gay people to stream into Washington for the simple joy of standing in front of the White House and giving him a piece of their minds. This frustration may lead to an embarrassing situation for the president, where former supporters mount the largest anti-Obama pep rally not fronted by Sarah Palin. Today, an array of LGBT leaders expressed their dismay with the president by pulling out of a Democratic National Committee fundraiser. The action is in protest of a noxious legal brief submitted by the Department of Justice. It implausibly defended the heinous Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) by using anti-gay arguments that likely drew a standing ovation from Rev. Pat Robertson. DOJ’s paper included a comparison of gay relationships to incest and opposed same-sex relationships on the absurd basis that it would cost taxpayers money (Don’t gay people pay taxes?). HRC also sent a pointed letter to Obama highlighting the betrayal felt by the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. “I cannot overstate the pain that we feel as human beings and as families when we read an argument, presented in federal court, implying that our own marriages have no more constitutional standing than incestuous ones,” wrote HRC’s president, Joe Solmonese. The deteriorating situation is exacerbated by confusion about who will push for equality. The Obama administration claims to be awaiting congressional action on a number of issues, including ending employment discrimination, eliminating DOMA and repealing Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell. Meanwhile, Senate majority leader Harry Reid is waiting for Obama to act, as well as the House of Representatives. The LGBT community has become a hot potato that the Democrats do not seem to want to touch. Aggravating matters was John Berry, the highest-ranking gay official in the administration. In an interview with The Advocate , he said that Obama’s timetable to enact his pro-gay campaign promises is “before the sun sets on this administration.” So, now we have to wait 4-8 years, while watching him suck up to Rick Warren on Day 1? For what seemed like forever, Democrats told us that when the big bad Republicans went away, our lives would improve. Well, the Republican nightmare is over, so why do I still feel like I’m in the middle of a political Friday the 13th movie? The Democrats took our money, our votes and our volunteer hours and now they tell us to wait patiently, like good little gays. As far as I’m concerned, if the donkeys can’t deliver now, they can kiss my ass. The Democrats run the show in Washington and if they will not act like a majority party, then they do not deserve to be one. This is not about making unreasonable policy demands, but about the Democrats recognizing the daily struggles faced by gay people. A new report by The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs said, “Violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people increased 2% from 2007 to 2008, continuing the trend of a 24% total increase in 2007.” Yesterday, I read about a lesbian who was barred from visiting her partner in a Fresno hospital, and as a result her partner received the wrong medication. Last week, I was in conservative Western Michigan where I spoke to young people who were nearly driven to suicide as a result of anti-gay attitudes. We need a president who recognizes these evils and demonstrates the courage and leadership to enact the change he so eloquently promised during his campaign. If Obama continues down the current path it will come at a steep price. When Bill Clinton settled for Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, it solidified the growing perception that he was “Slick Willie.” By turning his back on the gay community, Obama will play into the idea, stoked by Hillary Clinton and exploited by John McCain, that he is a man of beautiful, yet empty words. What Obama fails to understand is that when poetry does not translate into policy, and hope turns hollow, the American people will begin to tune him out. I’m still undecided about the wisdom of a march on Washington, but I am decidedly fed up with my political “friends” marching all over my dignity and taking my support for granted. If the majority party does not cough up the votes to protect our families, we should close down our generous coffers.

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Wayne Besen: Gays to Obama: "We’ve Seen Enough"

Crossposted with the Center for American Progress With Danielle Ivory A heated debate broke out last week over the degree to which incendiary talk by right-wing cable and radio hosts might be fueling a recent spate of murderous violence by disturbed individuals. We’d like to take a moment to focus on the just plain crazy. Have you noticed that in conservative world, this administration is leading a march on socialism? That’s right, the one that refuses to nationalize the banks against the recommendations of Alan Greenspan, among others; the one that has offered gazillions of dollars to bail out private interests run into the ground by billionaires; the one that, on Wednesday, did not even take strong action to regulate the derivative market, which as much as anything helped cause this crisis. No, really… Just last week alone, Media Matters counted more than 143 mentions of the words “socialism,” “socialist,” and “socialistic” on the cable news shows — and that’s not including words like “communist” or “Marxist.” The word socialist has virtually become an everyday talking point since the Obama administration moved in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Lest you think we exaggerate: * Fox and Friends graded Obama’s economic plan with an “S” for socialism. * Pat Robertson warned that, “before long, we’ll have this gigantic socialist colossus.” * Radio personality Michael Savage called Obama a “neo-Marxist fascist dictator in the making,” and said that Obama “dreams of Maoist revolution” with “death camps.” * Actor Jon Voight sat down Bill O’Reilly and accused Obama of “bringing us to chaos and socialism,” and then suggested that he — yes, we’re still talking about the actor — might do a better job negotiating with North Korea. * Glenn Beck called Obama a Marxist and said that we’re on the road to socialism. Later, he noted that we are stepping beyond socialism and heading toward fascism. * Sean Hannity met with Sarah Palin in a wooded area for a heart-to-heart and suggested — and she agreed — that Obama was leading the country toward certain socialism. Hannity has in the past crowned Obama the “Commissar in Chief,” renamed America the “United States of France,” and claimed that, “America is moving from a free-market economy to a Socialist economy.” On the eve of the infamous tea parties, he asked Newt Gingrich: “Is this now a battle between capitalism and socialism?” In case you were wondering, Newt didn’t say no, but recently, Hannity answered his own question, declaring that “the Bolsheviks have finally arrived!” He also praised congressional Republicans for finally using “the S-word.” Branding the United States of America as the newest socialist republic is not just a job for mentally unbalanced and/or drug-and-alcohol addicted cable “news” hosts. The Republican National Committee also held a special session recently to try and rebrand the Democratic party as the Democratic Socialist Party. (It was narrowly defeated.) What’s more: * Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) called the president’s policies “a new American socialist experiment.” * Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-IA) — both politician and madwoman combined — said that “if you look at FDR, LBJ, and Barack Obama, this is really the final leap towards socialism.” * Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) called Obama the “the world’s best salesmen of socialism.” * Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) said he believes the Obama administration is taking the country down the road to socialism. * Newt Gingrich said Obama’s agenda was the “boldest effort to create a European socialist model we have seen.” Well, you get the point… The socialist scare tactic may appear to be just one more desperate grasp from a conservative opposition that — let’s face it — hasn’t got much going these days. But it is really a reprise of tried and true scare-tactics past. We saw a bit of it just a few years ago when conservatives were in the majority in Congress. Former House majority leader Dick Armey (R-TX) wrote that New Deal and the Great Society, on the one hand, and Soviet Russia’s five-year plans and Communist China’s Great Leap Forward, on the other, were created by “the same sort of person” separated only by differences of “power and nerve.” Before that, Former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) compared “liberals” to “scoundrels like Hitler,” who were also “much like communists.” But we’ve been hearing this sort of thing for better part of three-quarters of a century now. Back in 1947, for example, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce accused the Truman administration of taking a “backroad to socialism” in the fast lane toward a “police state.” Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg notes that the tactic has been “part of the Republican lexicon for years and years. Any time the Democrats proposed any legislation on child labor, social security, the [conservatives] immediately cried socialism — to the point where in 1952 Harry Truman said that when you hear someone saying ‘down with socialism,’ they really mean ‘down with progress.’” This is working to some degree. Lawrence O’Donnell has pointed out that only 6 percent of Americans used the word socialist to describe President Obama back in September 2008, but by April 2009 that number had grown to 20 percent. But like most everything — particularly given the collapse of the Soviet Union and Chinese embrace of capitalism — socialism as a scare tactic ain’t what it used to be…. You can read the rest of Eric Alterman and Danielle Ivory’s analysis in their recent article, ” Think Again: Chiller, Socialist Theater .” Eric Alterman is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College. He is also a Nation columnist and a professor of journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. His seventh book, Why We’re Liberals: A Handbook for Restoring America’s Most Important Ideals was recently published in paperback. He occasionally blogs at http://www.thenation.com/blogs/altercation . Danielle Ivory is a reporter and producer for the American News Project. She lives in Washington, D.C. This column was recently named as a finalist in the category of “Best Commentary — Digital” for the Mirror Awards. More on Socialists

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Eric Alterman: Think Again: Chiller, Socialist Theater

Rumors have been flying that New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte will run against Paul Hodes for the Senate seat Judd Gregg has said he will be vacating. They’ve gone from Chuck Todd to Politico in what’s pretty clearly an orchestrated trial balloon flotation. And, coming from the political director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, an Ayotte candidacy sounds like a serious threat: Yesterday, NBC’s Chuck Todd accurately reported on the move to draft New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte (Republican appointed by Democratic Governor John Lynch after Republican Gov. Craig Benson). Ayotte would be a dream candidate for the GOP in NH, which has seen every GOP seat since 2006 in play from Republican to Democrat (former Sen. Sununu now Sen. Shaheen, former Rep. Bradley now Rep. Shea-Porter, Former Rep. Bass now Rep. Rep. Paul Hodes.) Another poignant issue: AG Kelly Ayotte has young children and huge popularity in the state. She won’t run if she doesn’t think she can win — and it increasingly looks like she may run. Emphasis on sounds serious. Instead, it’s another case of an allegedly nonpartisan New Hampshire pundit shilling for Republicans like her life depended on it. As Steve Singiser mentioned last night, attorney general is not an elected position in New Hampshire. The “large base” Donahue claims for Ayotte has never been put to the test by, you know, actual voting. Attorney general is also, as far as I can determine, not a position that gets polled — so any assertions of Ayotte’s “huge popularity” are speculation or anecdote. And that’s the level of evidence and analysis Donahue offers throughout. It’s all anyone has to offer to back up claims that Ayotte will be popular with voters. This isn’t the first time. Donahue seems excited to use Ayotte to relive her own glory days of pumping Sarah Palin. She thought Palin was going to deliver New Hampshire to McCain. And when Donahue’s own employer produced a poll that said otherwise? She responded : [Jennifer Donahue] said that while most Clinton voters have moved to Obama, “there is a big chunk of women who support Sarah Palin, and, somehow, that’s not being picked up in the polls. “Many of them are independents,” she said, “and you ignore them at your peril.” Kelly Ayotte is popular even though there’s no polling, and Sarah Palin was popular among women even though that didn’t show up in the polling there was. Mmmm-hmmm. Given that prognostication record, this new piece by Donahue (who appears to be following Judd Gregg’s lead here) should have us all quaking in our boots provide us with a good laugh. It is true that Ayotte is one of the more credible candidates New Hampshire Republicans could field — after all, she’s one of the few Republicans in the state who haven’t been defeated at the ballot box the last two cycles. It’s just that that’s because she hasn’t faced actual voters. Ever. Sorry, Jennifer (and Judd, and all the other wannabe buzzmakers out there). You can’t create a hot candidate out of evidence-free claims about her alleged popularity. Even if she does remind you of Sarah Palin.

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NH-Sen: The Ayotte Trial Balloon

(SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO) Roughly two weeks ago, David Letterman made a joke (as he is known to do) about Sarah Palin’s daughter, saying: “One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game: During the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.” He was obviously referring to Bristol, the daughter who has in fact been knocked up, but she was not at the game, 14-year-old Willow was. This spiraled out of control and quickly became an issue of rape with the National Organization for Women backing up a lady they told voters is “not an advocate for women,” and conservatives blaming Obama for their made-up scandal. Dave responded to Palin’s insistence that his jokes were “disgusting” and “sexually perverted” in an earnest 7-minute segment in which he made it clear he was referring to Bristol and was self deprecating, saying: “I’m telling you, I recognize that these are ugly. These are actually ugly. These are borderline…but again, in an act of desperation to get cheap laughs, which is what I’ve been doing for the last 30 years.” This wasn’t enough for Ms. Palin, who quickly took to the air to drag this ridiculousness out telling Matt Lauer that Letterman contributed to the “acceptance of abuse of young women” and calling on people to “start really rising up.” The last tidbit, of course, struck a cord with nutjobs who organized a “Fire David Letterman” rally. That went on despite the fact that Letterman apologized (AGAIN) and Palin accepted. Anyway, it worked out well for Dave, whose ratings have gone through the roof as a result of the “scandal.” Having said all of this, none of it is actually in the following video. No no, our “in a minutes” are about coverage not actual events, and the coverage of this ranged from awesome to absurd. I’ll let you decide which is which. WATCH: Get HuffPost Comedy On Facebook and Twitter! More on In A Minute

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All The Palin Letterman Drama In One Minute (VIDEO)

NEW YORK — David Letterman’s squabble with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gave his “Late Show” a ratings boost last week, but new NBC rival Conan O’Brien retains the upper hand after two weeks as “Tonight Show” host. Overall for the week of June 8, “Tonight” won in total viewers as well as among such demographic groups as adults 18-49 and 18-34, according to Nielsen Media Research figures released Thursday. Even so, CBS’ “Late Show” scored total-viewer victories on three nights last week, as controversy (and viewer interest) heated up following Letterman’s racy joke about a Palin daughter. The joke was delivered as part of Letterman’s June 8 monologue. Last week’s Tuesday, Thursday and Friday editions of “Late Show” edged out “Tonight” in viewers. “Late Show” also edged out “Tonight” in household ratings, 2.7 vs. 2.6 for the week. (A ratings point represents 1,145,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.5 million TV homes.) For the week, “Late Show” had 3.67 million viewers, separated from front-runner “Tonight” with its 3.77 million viewers by just 100,000 viewers. For “Late Show,” it was the closest competitive position to “Tonight” since December 2005, Nielsen said. Until longtime host Jay Leno departed “Tonight” on May 29, the NBC late show had been the traditional ratings leader at 11:35 p.m. ___ CBS is a division of CBS Corp. NBC is a unit of General Electric. ___ On the Net: http://www.cbs.com http://www.nbc.com More on David Letterman

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David Letterman, "Tonight Show" Ratings Race Closest Since 2005

The incoming US and Allied Forces Commander in Afghanistan has rightly put the “Afghan people” front and center. 

Let’s set aside for the moment that the Afghan people should have always been the strategic imperative and roundly applaud the new leadership.

 Afghan anger over civilian casualties peaked after last month’s deadly US airstrikes and an inept official response in Farah province. The new military leader, General Stanley A. McChrystal, says he will revamp US investigations into civilian harm, take responsibility for mistakes, be more culturally sensitive and do a better job of understanding what compensation is appropriate so “we don’t make things worse.”

 The strategy, verbatim:

 The Afghan people are at the center of our mission. In reality, they are the mission. We must protect them from violence — whatever its nature. We must respect their religion and traditions.

 The only thing better than his words will be matching them with actions. If promises aren’t fulfilled on the ground, the US will lose the Afghan people and lose the war with them.


 In the meantime, there’s a confluence of events here that looks remarkably like an opportunity. We have consensus at the highest levels that harming civilians is strategically damaging. We have leadership that says it believes in being forthright about its mission and its mistakes. We will very soon have more American boots on the ground, and they’ve been told that real victory means winning the local population.



 That’s a lot to manage. So here is a suggestion:



 Create a high level position at the Pentagon to track, monitor and analyze the human costs of war. 

 Do it quickly and give the appointee more than a title and a desk — give him or her some real power. When it comes to the “civilian” in war, the US response has been ad hoc since the beginning. Lives — and popular support — could have been saved if McChrystal’s people-first strategy had come eight years ago in Afghanistan or for that matter six years ago in Iraq. 



Now there’s an opportunity to institutionalize it for the future.



 It’s time to learn from the past. For example: In Iraq there was no strategy in place to address skyrocketing civilian casualties in 2005. When the casualty rate spiked in Afghanistan, the US response was again disorganized. More civilians died as a result. The US needs a central hub to translate lessons about mitigating civilian harm immediately. 



 In Afghanistan, the failure to conduct proper investigations into cases of civilian harm and knee-jerk denials have caused intense local anger. Case in point: In Farah, the Afghan Government published a death toll four times that of the US estimate and the official US report has yet to be released. The US needs a central hub to work with local partners to assess harm and keep data. 



 Four years into the Iraq War, many troops didn’t have updated gear to safely administer checkpoints. The same was true in Afghanistan. “Low collateral damage” bombs were available to the Air Force in Iraq but not in Afghanistan. The US needs a central hub to make sure all troops have what they need to protect and avoid civilians. 


Unintended deaths and injuries occur despite careful targeting. The military compensates civilians for harm, but began that effort too late and military lawyers are still not properly trained to settle claims. In fact, many soldiers and Marines don’t even know such compensation for civilian survivors exists. The US needs a central hub to figure out appropriate responses to civilian harm that are specific to each war zone.



 It’s time to better assess the potential human cost before any shots are fired, to procure the best weapons to win the war while reducing civilian harm, to conduct proper investigations, to collect and assess civilian casualty data, to train our soldiers in the importance of civilian support, and to compensate civilians swiftly, every time. We need one person to oversee that all of this is done with “the people” in mind, so the cycle of mistakes — from Vietnam to Afghanistan and despite the military’s best intentions — does not continue. This position in the Pentagon would institutionalize some of the most important strategies the US needs to win wars with strategic certainty and humanity.

 Military leaders insist their men be suited and equipped for the mission at hand. 

General McChrystal has put forward the right framework for Afghanistan. Washington should appoint this position to give him a fighting chance.
 More on Afghanistan

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Sarah Holewinski: McChrystal Really Gets It… Now Has to Deliver

AMERICAN RENAISSANCE AT THE MET By Nicolaus Mills In 1980 the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its new American Wing to rave reviews. Any why not? The 1980 wing featured the spectacular glass-enclosed, glass-roofed Charles Engelhard Court and had 130,000 square feet of exhibition space—more room than many museums have for their entire collections. Since 1980, the Met’s American collection has acquired 3,400 new works, and thanks to a $100 million project to renovate and reconfigure its American Wing, there is a lot more to see than there was 29 years ago. This May in a ceremony presided over by Michelle Obama, the Met opened a series of new period rooms plus a renovated Charles Englehard Court, and next year the entire American Wing will be accessible to the public. The period rooms are a big improvement. It is now possible to move through them in chronological order, going from a 1680 Puritan home from Ipswich, Massachusetts, to the living room that Franklin Lloyd Wright designed between 1912 and 1914 for the Frances Little summer house in Wayzata, Minnesota. The period rooms, which have been repainted, have fiber-optic lighting that makes seeing the furniture in them easier, and they come with touch screens that are convenient to operate but not so overloaded with information that they are a distraction. But the most visiblechange in the Met’s American Wing is the Engelhard Court, which now, as before, is dominated by the Greek Revival limestone façade of Martin E. Thompson’s 1822 Branch Bank of the United States. The court has added a mezzanine balcony and reconfigured its ground floor, which in the past had much of its sculpture surrounded by plantings. The plantings have been removed, and with 30 percent more space for display, the Met has not wasted an inch. It has placed 60 pieces of sculpture, mosaics, and architectural elements on the court’s ground floor. The results are often spectacular. In the absence of the plantings it is now possible to get within a foot or two of Augustus Saint-Gaudens dazzling gilt bronze “Diana,” and there is room near Thompson’s bank façade for two monumental French-style lamps designed by Richard Hunt Morris in 1902 for the Met’s entrance. But there are also drawbacks to the reconfigured Engelhard Court. Morris’s lamps blend in perfectly, but the same cannot be said for a massive limestone pulpit and choir rail from All Angels Church that was carved by Karl Bitters, best known to New Yorkers for the fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel. The pulpit simply dwarfs everything around it. Its religious implications have become a second thought without a context to emphasize them. The same problems hold for the crowded glass display cases on the Engelhard Court’s upper floors. A friend commented that she expected to see price tags next to the items they displayed. She wasn’t being completely sarcastic. In its desire to make more of its collection available to the museumgoer , the Met has adopted a department-store aesthetic in the way it has arranged its American holdings. That choice is not enough to make anyone wish the Met had kept more items in storage, but it is a choice that comes with a visual price. The spacious feel of the original Engelhard Court is gone. Even the large-scale sculpture in the court now competes for our attention with whatever stands next to it. Nicolaus Mills is a professor of American Studies at Sarah Lawrence College and co-editor with Michael Walzer of the forthcoming collection, Getting Out: Historical Perspectives on Leaving Iraq.

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Nicolaus Mills: American Renaissance at the Met

It’s been a crazy week, and it’s only Wednesday! Since their election on Friday, Iranians have been burning up the Twittersphere, drumming up support abroad and organizing protests internally. Why has Twitter suddenly gone political? Finally appreciating the service, Ted exposes his luddite roots, and Teresa helpfully explains why Twitter is so difficult to block, even in a country like Iran. (It’s basically impossible to stop people from sharing information on the Internet.) So will people start relying more on Twitter for their news? Is this a shift for journalism? Can citizen journalists do a better job of covering things like the Iranian protests? CNN and the rest of the MSM certainly could’ve done better this weekend - check out the #CNNfail hashtag or the anger during the #140conf in New York - but couldn’t professional news organizations be doing more to use services like Twitter? The wisdom of the crowd is great, but who’s going to fact check all the information coming out of Twitter? Couldn’t it be the MSM interpreting and confirming this massive output of information? Most of us are aggregators and distributors on Twitter anyway, and that shouldn’t be confused with actual in-depth, critical, original journalism. It’s like a game of “hot potato” with information. Some people cast this as MSM vs Social Media, but that’s a false argument, as our Prez likes to say. Aren’t Twitter feeds, as Maegan suggests, just like AP/Reuter wire services in some ways? We also talk President Obama’s lame attempt to appease the gay community, which sounds more like a fundraising stunt than anything else, and that ridiculous Letterman-Palin feud over the last week. (Does anyone even care about the Alaskan Governor anymore? If we stop talking about her, will she cease to exist? Kind of like Alf?) Listen to the show here , subscribe to the iTunes podcast , or use the Blog Talk Radio player: Wilshire & Washington, the weekly Blog Talk Radio program that explores the intersection of politics, entertainment, and new media, features co-hosts Ted Johnson, Managing Editor of Variety; conservative blogger Teresa Valdez Klein ( www.teresacentric.com ), and liberal blogger Maegan Carberry ( www.maegancarberry.com ). The show airs every Wednesday at 7:30am PST on BlogTalkRadio.com. More on Iranian Election

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Ted Johnson, Maegan Carberry, Teresa Valdez Klein: Revolutionizing Iran (And The MSM), One Tweet At A Time

Lots to cover on this Wednesday, so let’s get after it: NATIONAL: Jindal 2012? Not So Fast. A nascent effort to draft Bobby Jindal into the 2012 race for the White House is being put on hold . Apparently, the group came to the belated-yet-wise conclusion that such an effort might distract Jindal from his gubernatorial responsibilities. The group is now planning to ramp up their efforts after Jindal’s 2011 re-election in Louisiana. Um, kids? Here’s a hint, if you wait until November, 2011, it will be way, way too late. GA-GOV: Early Primary Polls Names Barnes and Oxendine As Front-Runners Strategic Vision, a GOP polling firm, takes an early temperature on the Georgia Governor’s race . On the Democratic side, former Governor Roy Barnes has an early nineteen-point edge over state attorney general Thurbert Baker. Meanwhile, on the GOP side, state insurance commissioner John Oxendine has a sizeable lead, with 35% of the vote compared to 13% for secretary of state Karen Handel, and 12% for Congressman Nathan Deal. IL-SEN: Is There A Draft Movement for Lisa Madigan? Lisa Madigan , Illinois’ attorney general, is apparently being pressured to consider running for the U.S. Senate in 2010. According to a Madigan staffer, she will make a decision in the summer on whether to stay in the A.G.’s office, run for the Senate, or run for Governor. Up till this point, the common speculation was that Madigan would run for Governor. Already in the Senate field, state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and businessman Chris Kennedy (although the latter has yet to officially declare). LA-SEN: Ensign’s Headache Becomes Vitter’s Headache John Ensign’s decision to resign his leadership post today brought light back on “the sinning Senator” from Louisiana, as the Louisiana Democratic Party called on David Vitter to resign HIS position in the GOP leadership. Chairman Chris Whittington threw the following missile at Vitter: “…at least Senator Ensign understood the embarrassment he was causing to his own state. Sen. Ensign did the right thing today, and it is up to Sen. Vitter to do the same.” More bad news for Vitter, potentially: he may not be out of the woods for a top-tier Democratic opponent. SSP reports today that given the likelihood that his seat will be eaten by redistricting, Democratic Congressman Charlie Melancon might decide it is more prudent to try his luck against Vitter. That would catapult this into a first-tier 2010 Senate race. MO-SEN: The Hits Keep On Coming For Blunt This was not a swell 36 hour period for Congressman (and Senate aspirant) Roy Blunt. Yesterday, we learned that state treasurer Sarah Steelman decided that she was NOT totally sure that she was out of the Senate GOP primary. Then, earlier today, his health care task force rolled out a “plan” that was positively craptacular . Then, we also learned that he is definitely not out of the woods vis-à-vis a primary challenger. The newest character to throw his hat in the ring is rural state Senator Chuck Purgason, who the KC Star piece says is a fiscal conservative with “country-western fashion sense.” The reincarnation of Conrad Burns, evidently… NH-SEN: Does the GOP Have A Senate Candidate? While Paul Hodes is the clear frontrunner on the Democratic side for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Judd Gregg, the Republican side has been extremely fluid, with a lot of potential candidates in full “wait and see” mode. That may be about to change, if MSNBC political guru Chuck Todd is right. Kelly Ayotte, the state attorney general (which, curiously, is NOT an elected position in New Hampshire) is apparently mulling a bid. NC-SEN: Burr’s Poll Numbers Dismal, Says PPP According to a new survey by home state pollsters PPP, Richard Burr is in some serious doo-doo in North Carolina . Burr has a re-elect in the state of a mere 29%. When matched up against a generic Democratic candidate, the “Democrat” holds a three-point edge (41-38). Of course, you can’t run a generic Democrat, you have to have a living, breathing one as a candidate. Democrats have some people who are interested, but as of yet, no big guns have committed. OR-GOV: GOP Poll Claims Close 2010 Race For Governor In an internal poll (obligatory caveat: bring salt. Lots of it) covered by Swing State Project last night, Moore Information says that longtime GOP Congressman Greg Walden is within the margin of error against both former Democratic Governor John Kitzhaber or Democratic Congressman Peter DeFazio. This is crying for corroborating evidence, and lo and behold, we may have some for you in the next few weeks. PA-SEN: Sestak’s New Frame For Specter This is pretty clever : Joe Sestak is testing a new framing of the Arlen Specter Democratic Party switch. In this interview, he refers to Specter as a “flight risk”, openly questioning whether Specter can be trusted to stay with the Democrats if the political winds are to shift again somewhere down the line. My colleague, and SSP guru, DavidNYC will open up your Thursday here at DK with interesting news: Sestak is showing signs of life, according to a well-known independent pollster. WI-SEN: Feingold Leads By Double Digits, According to PPP Here is one that we missed yesterday. On the heels of releasing the ugly re-elect numbers for Governor Jim Doyle (which contradicted the DailyKos/R2K poll from last week), we see that PPP has Democratic Senator Russ Feingold leading possible opponent (and Congressman) Paul Ryan by twelve points, 51-39. The DailyKos/Research 2000 had a wider lead, with Feingold leading by twenty-one points.

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Polling and Political Wrap-Up, 6/17/09

Follow Karl on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email. He doesn’t host his own syndicated talk radio show. That isn’t his chair behind the desk of a cable-news program. You won’t find his byline on the op-ed pages, discussing the ins and outs of President Obama’s latest policy proposal. He’s a gap-toothed, late night comedian, and he’s in justifiably hot water with conservatives for making some pretty vile jokes. Earlier this month on CBS’ Late Show, host David Letterman took aim at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s recent trip to New York City, offering up some off-color and patently sexist quips. During his opening monologue, Letterman said , “One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game. During the 7th inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.” Then, later in the same broadcast, while presenting No. 2 on his famed Top Ten list, this time of “Highlights of Sarah Palin’s Trip to New York,” Letterman said the former Republican vice presidential nominee had “bought makeup at Bloomingdale’s to update her ’slutty flight attendant’ look.” Letterman did the right thing in apologizing twice for his tasteless attempts at humor, finally noting that the intention of his jokes was meaningless when considering the way any rational-thinking person would perceive his jokes. Ultimately, though, it is Letterman’s future conduct that will determine the sincerity of his contrition. Still, the right’s fury rages on. It is hard, however, to take conservatives seriously when one considers that each and every day, real players in the rudderless conservative movement — powerful talk-radio hosts, cable-news hosts, pundits, columnists, and bloggers — throw aside the reasonable boundaries of a civil political discourse by using wickedly divisive, cruelly insensitive, intentionally misleading, and downright hateful rhetoric. And the response from their followers? Hardly a peep. Rank hypocrisy is nothing new for right-wingers — or politics in general, for that matter — but in a selfless attempt to help them avoid the “hypocrite” label this time around, I humbly present a Top Ten list of “Right-Wingers From Whom Conservatives Should Be Demanding Apologies.” 10) Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, for falsely claiming a hate-crimes bill that adds gay, lesbian, and transgender Americans to the list of protected groups would also protect those who commit incest, necrophilia, pedophilia, bestiality, and a host of other perversions. 9) Fox News’ Sean Hannity, for hosting “Internet journalist” Andy Martin, who once called a judge a “crooked, slimy Jew, who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race.” Syndicated radio host Neal Boortz, for describing welfare recipients as “human parasitic garbage lining up to get their applications to loot.” 7) Fox News conspiracy-theorist-in-chief Glenn Beck, for describing Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court as, “Hey, Hispanic chick lady! You’re empathetic. … You’re in!” 6) MSNBC’s resident cranky uncle, Pat Buchanan, for saying prior to Sotomayor’s selection that he wanted Obama to pick a Supreme Court justice “who has real stature, impresses people” but thinking instead that Obama would pick “a minority, a woman and/or a Hispanic.” 5) Syndicated radio host Jim Quinn, for repeatedly calling NOW the “National Organization of Whores.” 4) Cincinnati-based radio host Bill Cunningham, for alleging that “Obama wants to gas the Jews.” 3) Michael Savage (née Weiner), the third-highest-rated radio host in America, for saying “Obama hates” and “is raping America.” 2) Fox News’ irrepressible mega-star Bill O’Reilly, for repeatedly quacking that the legalization of gay marriage could lead to folks marrying ducks. And No. 1, the conservative movement’s de facto leader, Rush Limbaugh, for saying of Obama, “We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles … because his father was black.” In all honesty, the list could have included dozens of other media conservatives, with comments and actions numbering in the hundreds. At the end of the day, expecting consistency from a movement motivated primarily by divisiveness and fearmongering is perhaps a bit much to ask. It’s sad that the righteous complaints over Letterman’s ill-conceived jokes are undermined by the right’s inability to hold their own ilk accountable. We should all be concerned about the level of sexism, racism, homophobia, and bigotry in general found in today’s media landscape — regardless of the offending party. Unfortunately, much like the iconic gap between Letterman’s front teeth, so too is there a gaping hole in the credibility of his conservative critics, however justified their claims may be. Karl Frisch is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America , a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Frisch also contributes to County Fair , a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email. More on David Letterman

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Karl Frisch: A Top Ten List for Letterman’s Conservative Critics

Love or hate her, you “gotta” admit, she attracts attention. She’s a lightning rod for controversy. Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, the first woman GOP Vice Presidential nominee is still eliciting a media frenzy six months after the election. Take for example this recent feud between Palin and David Letterman. The video on the Huffington Post of her interview with Matt Lauer on the Today Show has received over 200,000 hits and 10,000 blogs. (www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/11/sarah-palin-today- show-in_n_214587.html) My recent article published in the HuffPost: “Where is the Outrage by Feminists On Letterman’s Sexist Remarks About Palin?” (www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-e-dowlin/where-is-the-outrage-by-f_b_214473.html) was filled with feedback about Palin, not the subject I wrote about (sexism and feminism.) Most of the blogs were critical of Governor Palin, some saying Letterman’s remark about her being “slutty” was brought on by herself because of her appearance, and his joke about her daughter being “knocked up” by A-Rod was justified because “she paraded her children in public during the campaign.” I disagree with both of these premises. Firstly, blaming sexism on a woman’s appearance reminds me of the old argument that women that are raped bring it on themselves because of the way they dress. This is absurd and in no way excuses a horrible crime against women. As for her daughter, I believe the children of politicians should be off limits even if she did become pregnant at seventeen. All politicians present their family to the public during their campaigns. Remember seeing Chelsea Clinton, Meghan McCain, Barbara and Jenna Bush, and even the Obama girls? Why is there a double standard for Sarah Palin? Even Arianna Huffington has said that Palin is using this controversy for political purposes. (www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-tv/arianna-discusses-iranian_b_215284.html). That may be but it doesn’t change the fact that Letterman was out of line with his sexist and perverted “jokes.” Back to the question of the public’s fascination of Palin: is it because she is a woman? I don’t recall the first VP woman candidate (Rep. Geraldine Ferraro) being this much in the news after the 1976 election. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Ferraro). Why did Sarah Palin create such enthusiasm on the campaign trail drawing more supporters and excitement from the crowds than her running mate? Is it because she was new and different, a self made woman with an 80% home state approval rating taking on the old boy GOP network and the oil companies causing a conundrum for feminists because of her social conservative views? Some thought (and hoped) she would go away after the election. But even after her missteps with the Gibson and Couric interviews; Trooper-Gate; her rantings against Obama (accusing him of palling around with a terrorist); her support of shooting wolves from helicopters; criticism of her wardrobe expenses; back stabbing by McCain staffers who said she thought Africa was a country, not a continent (something she denied saying) (www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/Palin-didn’t-know-africa-i_n_141653.html); and a relentless assault on her intelligence from SNL skits with Tina Fey (www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/27/tina-fey-as-sarah-palin-k_n_129956.html) to late night comedians, she is still drawing headlines. For example, at a recent Washington Republican fundraising dinner she upstaged the main speaker, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich just by being there. (www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/08/sarah-palin-shows-up-at-g_n_212904.html) Is it that she represents soccer moms, Joe six-pack, and small town Americans that Obama once said were “bitter and cling to religion and guns”? No one would doubt that she has charisma as shown by her VP debate performance. (www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/01/vp-debate-biden-palin-upd_n_130882.html). The question is will she be able to win over the moderate and independent factions of her party? Will her tarnished image from the campaign sink her as a viable candidate in 2012? A lot can happen in three years but one thing is clear, Sarah Palin will get a lot of attention. More on David Letterman

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Joan E. Dowlin: The Lightning Rod Named Sarah Palin

Hey, did hear the one about where a late-night comic told an off-color joke and the Fox Nation decided to build an entire campaign around it (despite two apologies)? (Note that all of these video clips were from Tuesday morning and early afternoon.) When this is the best thing they got going, they ain’t got nothing going. Time to get back to teabagging.

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Sarah Palin, a joke, and the fury of a Fox Nation

The big headline in politics today might be the failure of a certain Senator to keep his zipper in the upright and locked position. But that’s not ALL the news in the political world today, so let’s polish off the rest of the day in electoral politics. NATIONAL: Lots of House Race Updates and Prospective New Candidates Courtesy of great sources like Swing State Project and DC’s Political Report , there are over a half-dozen new candidates or prospective candidate for competitive House races in 2010. The Democratic field in AL-07 to replace outgoing Congressman Artur Davis got a little bit bigger with the entrance of Jefferson County Councilwoman Sheila Smoot. She joins a raft of Democrats, including Earl Hilliard Jr, son of the longtime Congressman from the 7th. In CA-03 , there is a rapidly expanding Democratic field to take on Dan Lungren, who underperformed in this reddish district last year, getting under 50% of the vote. New to the race is Bill Slaton, a Sacramento-area utilities director. Meanwhile, down the interstate in CA-11 , we see the first signs of a serious challenger for sophomore Democrat Jerry McNerney. Warren Rupf, the Republican sheriff of Contra Costa County, is rumored to be interested. There had been speculation that he would jump into the open race in the neighboring 10th district. That district, though, is much less hospitable to Republicans than the 11th district, which includes some inland precincts that are a little more red. Across the country in FL-08 , Republican state Rep. Steve Precourt sounds like a guy whose mind has made up, though he apparently would step aside for former FL Speaker Dan Webster (who is still flirting with the idea of running for governor, at last check). It looks like freshman Democrat Walt Minnick has drawn a serious challenger in ID-01 , as GOP state Rep. Ken Roberts (the state House majority leader) is looking like he’s in. Democrats have their eye on a challenger for Lee Terry in NE-02 , but it is unclear yet if their entreaties towards state Senator Tom White will pay off. This is a winnable district, carried narrowly by Barack Obama in 2008 and the home of two excellent challenges in ’06 and ’08 by Democrat Jim Esch. Even though he is not an NRCC target according to yesterday’s report in SSP, freshman Democrat John Boccieri seems to have a potentially legit opponent in OH-16 . Former county commissioner Matt Miller, who narrowly lost GOP primaries here in both 2006 and 2008, is talking to folks around the district. He has not yet announced, however. Finally, something unusual in the great Northwest—despite the fact that it has been over a decade since Democrat Adam Smith has had to sweat in WA-09 , a trio of GOP contenders now appear likely to make the bid. In addition to 2008 nominee James Postma (who Smith dispatched with ease), county commissioner Dick Muri and state Rep. Tom Campbell both appear interested as well. AR-SEN: New GOP Challenger Presents Dilemma For “Base Voters” Let’s assume that the Arkansas Republican Party would kill for a prominent candidate with a normal backstory at this point. After already getting a little bad press courtesy of their first major candidate (Kim Hendren, who dismissively referred to Sen. Charles Schumer as “That Jew”), their new candidate in the field will both thrill and appall the GOP base. Boat manufacturer Tom Cox announced yesterday that he will make the race. On the plus side (from the perspective of the Republican base, mind you), he is not only a teabagger, he is the HEAD of the Arkansas teabaggers. On the minus side? A small matter of a federal raid on his business in 2008, whereupon over a dozen employees were discovered to be illegal immigrants. Alas, that crucial Teabagger-Minuteman nexus is just not to be in this candidate… KY-SEN: Grayson Off To Inauspicious Start While Hotline on Call reports that GOP secretary of State Trey Grayson looks likely to be in the Senate 2010 race with OR without a Bunning retirement, KYPolitics tells us that he is not off to the smoothest start. Among the early headaches—a poorly attended fundraiser (double digits, and not even HIGH double digits) and the fact that potential candidate David Williams declined to run, but when pressed for a favored candidate, Grayson’s name did NOT come up. Instead, former U.S. Ambassador Cathy Bailey was Williams’ challenger of choice. MO-SEN: A Competitive Primary After All? This is somewhat strange . A day after it appeared that Missouri state Treasurer Sarah Steelman was walking away from a Senate bid, thus clearing the field for Roy Blunt, Steelman felt the need to clarify in a very interesting, and somewhat defiant, manner. Don’t count her out of the GOP Senate primary just yet, apparently. NV-GOV: Gibbons About To Land Top-Flight GOP Challenger? The Reno Gazette-Journal reports that Reno Mayor Bob Cashell is going to decide within the next couple of weeks whether or not to challenge Governor Jim Gibbons in a Republican primary. Gibbons has had a brutal tenure as Nevada’s governor, and his poll numbers are junk. But Cashell could have one liability in the GOP primary—he was among the dozens of high-profile Republican endorsers of Democrat Harry Reid’s 2010 re-election campaign. NV-SEN: Ensign Resignation Unlikely, Predicts Nate Silver No, he did not whip out the TI-83 and make some incredible mathematical projections to arrive at this conclusion, but Nate Silver looks at the politics of the situation and concludes that despite his past sanctimony on matters marital (calling for Larry Craig’s and Bill Clinton’s resignation, for example), it is unlikely that John Ensign will fall on his sword in the wake of his revelation earlier today that he had an extended affair with the wife of one of his staffers. Definitely worth a read. NY-03: Boy, Obama Really WAS Trying to Run The Tables for Dems in New York! If you don’t think Barack Obama keeps an eye on political considerations when he makes appointments, consider this story : the New York Daily News reports that, a few months back, Barack Obama attempted to lure pugnacious Long Island Republican Congressman Peter King out of his House seat (and, presumably, out of any consideration for the U.S. Senate in 2010). His fruit of temptation? The ambassadorship to Ireland. King, perhaps surprisingly, given his close ties to Ireland and Northern Ireland, rebuffed the offer, according to the report. VA-GOV: New (Internal) Poll, Plus Some Rothenberg Lessons Learned The Democratic Governors Association decided to take the temperature on the VA-Governors race this week, and their first poll of the general election finds Creigh Deeds leading GOP nominee Bob McDonnell by four points (42-38). A big caveat, as always, with internal polls—it ain’t like the DGA doesn’t have a rooting interest. That said, and to their credit, this poll falls in line pretty well with the Rasmussen poll released last week. It is also worth noting that the Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll out of the Commonwealth should be on your screens at some point during this week, so stay tuned. We also are checking out Hawaii, given some movement in the governors race there in the past few weeks. Back in Virginia, here is a fairly decent post-mortem from Stuart Rothenberg , with some intriguing lessons from the Democratic primary there (especially on money).

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Polling and Political Wrap-Up, 6/16/09

Tuesday afternoon’s “Fire David Letterman” rally proved to be a failure, as it drew more press than activists, CNN reports : A crowd of 15 protesters upset with the late night comic held signs and occasionally shouted as they stood across the street from Letterman’s studio. But they were often hidden from view by the more than 35 members of the media there to cover the protest, and out-shouted by a few very vocal counter-protesters. New York Magazine videographer Jonah Green was one of those press members, and he captured a disturbing video of several of those protesters in hate-filled rants against the CBS “Late Show” host. Among the more alarming lines of attack — particularly given that the rally was held because Letterman supposedly made a joke about Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter Willow — was that Letterman’s son Harry was born out of wedlock (he recently wed Regina Lasko after dating for over a decade). “Should we talk about his son?” one protester asked Green. “I believe his son was born out of wedlock. I believe there’s a term for that.” “Is someone making jokes about his child?” asked another. “Especially, you know, when he had a daughter out of wedlock himself” (he doesn’t; 5-year-old Harry is his only child). “How dare he?” asked yet a third, the most offensive of all. “When he has a bastard son, and a slut for a wife” (Letterman’s wife Lasko has kept a notoriously low profile). Other conservative talking points thrown around at the rally included, “Close the borders!” and “I only watch Fox News,” as well as the general sentiment that Jay Leno is a better host than Letterman. Watch: Get HuffPost Media On Facebook and Twitter!

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"Fire David Letterman" Protest Becomes Hatefest, Draws More Media Than Protesters

Sarah Palin, June 3 : “We need to be aware of the creation of a fearful population, and fearful lawmakers, being led to believe that big government is the answer, to bail out the private sector, because then government gets to get in there and control it,” she said. “And mark my words, this is going to be next, I fear, bail out next debt-ridden states. Then government gets to get in there and control the people.” Today : Calif. Aid Request Spurned By U.S. Officials Push State To Repair Budget The Obama administration has turned back pleas for emergency aid from one of the biggest remaining threats to the economy — the state of California. Top state officials have gone hat in hand to the administration, armed with dire warnings of a fast-approaching “fiscal meltdown” caused by a budget shortfall. Concern has grown inside the White House in recent weeks as California’s fiscal condition has worsened, leading to high-level administration meetings. But federal officials are worried that a bailout of California would set off a cascade of demands from other states. Who knows? Perhaps the Palin conspiracy trolling will turn out to be accurate. But so far, she’s wrong. While we’re at it, it’s worth noting that (1) while California gets back $0.78 for every dollar it pays in federal taxes, Alaska gets $1.84 and (2) even if the federal government did offer some form of temporary assistance, the notion that providing such aid would mean the “government gets to get in there and control the people” is absolutely crazy. No wonder she wants to talk about late night comedy shows — she’s a joke.

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Sarah Palin black helicopter conspiracy fizzle

Ahh, this recession. It’s brought so many people so much misery, what with the rampant unemployment and the fact that we’re all not eligible for TARP bailouts, for some reason. But I wonder who will spare a thought for the recently unemployed waterboarding experts? You’ve heard of James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, right? One day, they’re straight up dunking terrorists, to find ticking time bombs. The next, they’re just like everyone else, hunting for a job ! The CIA has reportedly cut its ties to the two psychologists credited for being the architects of the CIA’s brutal interrogation program after 9/11, a news report said yesterday. Dr. James Mitchell and Dr. Bruce Jessen, who suggested and supervised waterboarding at secret prisons around the world have been told their services are no longer needed. Mitchell and Jessen, according to their associates, boasted of being paid $1,000 a day by the CIA to oversee the use of the technique on top al Qaeda suspects. Boasted! Hey, you would too! All that scrilla was “largely tax-free and did not include expenses, which the agency also paid for.” Nice work if you can get it, though you shouldn’t be able to, because it’s completely deranged! MORE: Tax-free No-bid Cost-plus Government Contracts PREVIOUSLY, on the HUFFINGTON POST: CIA Renewed Contract With Psychologists Who Endorsed Waterboarding Weeks After Obama Took Office Before Firing Them More Free Speech : Here’s an alternative take on Frank Gaffney, from Michael Roston, that asks, ” Frank Gaffney’s entire body composed of flesh-eating locusts? ” I have often found myself wondering this! Guess What Media Organization Is Nearby! : At last, the secret Sarah Palin shrine at the New York Stock Exchange has been revealed! Only Full Voting Rights Shall Assuage Their Fury : Apparently, nobody is safe in Washington, DC, because all the drivers are rage-soaked fever demons with a lead foot and nothing to lose. According to a drivers’ survey , “Four percent of drivers admitted to slamming into another driver.” WTF? What happened to Hope and Change? (ANSWER: The Beltway.) Maybe That 4% Of Drivers Was Just Monica Conyers : No, she lives in Detroit, but it’s sort of the same concept . [Would you like to follow me on Twitter ? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here .] Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter! More on Harsh Interrogations

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Former Waterboarders Join The Ranks Of The Unemployed (And The Rest Of Your Scritti Politti)

Find my nest of salt/ Everything is my fault/ I’ll take all the blame/ I’ll proceed from shame… –Kurt Cobain, “All Apologies.” “My family and I are deeply sorry for everything Vice President Cheney and his family have had to deal with. We hope that he will continue to come to Texas and seek the relaxation that he deserves.” –Harry Whittington, February 17, 2006. Sorry to say, the world can be divided into two kinds of people–those who apologize, and those who don’t. Among the former are David Letterman, a man so sorry he apologized to Sarah Palin twice ; and Harry Whittington, above, who made a public mea culpa for placing his face in the path of Dick Cheney’s buckshot and thus detracting from his relaxation. In the meanwhile, for real men, love means never having to say you’re sorry. As Donald Rumsfeld once said , “Stuff happens.” This is the crowd that delights in referring to other people as apologizers. Confessers. Admitters. Every name in the sorry black book. Hence Obama’s mid-East trip became “an apology tour.” WSJ says so . American Spectator says so . Mitt Romney says so . So pervasive is this meme, so viral, that even the good gray New York Times has gotten into the act . Today David Sanger frontpaged, “[1953] was the same year that the C.I.A. organized a coup that deposed Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq and installed the Shah — a cold war operation for which Mr. Obama just publicly apologized during his speech at Cairo University last month.” I apologize in advance for having to disagree with Mr. Sanger–but Obama didn’t apologize for the 1953 coup. Instead, the President simply stated a fact: “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.” Now “played a role” is in this context a wild understatement. Still: Obama’s not apologizing for it. He’s acknowledging it. The outlines are beginning to form: to speak the truth about the past is an inherently apologetic act. To speak the truth about the past in a speech is to publicly apologize. And the sin of apologizing is not expiated until the apologizer apologizes for the apology. The whole idea is to make your victim apologize to you–it’s the Whittington Syndrome writ large. Case in point: a website devoted to the proposition that Letterman won’t really make things right until he apologizes a third time. Will Obama apologize for publicly apologizing in Cairo? Will the wise Latina Sonia Sotomayor apologize for using the phrase “wise Latina”? Only apologists never apologize. (title h/t to the fine 1968 anthology of short screenplays) More on David Letterman

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Howard A. Rodman: Pardon Me, Sir, But is My Eye Hurting Your Elbow?

Arnold Schwarzennegger announced his candidacy for governor on the Tonight Show. John Edwards announced his candidacy for president on The Daily Show. And now Sarah Palin has in effect announced her candidacy for president in 2012 by denouncing Late Show host David Letterman for a joke about her daughter–the wrong, younger daughter, it turned out–being knocked up by baseball star Alex Rodriguez. Palin accused Letterman of promulgating statutory rape. He apologized for the joke. Neither Rodriguez, who was once Maddona’s insignificant other, nor the flight attendants’ union, made any public objection. Palin also objected to being compared to a “slutty flight attendant,” though Letterman didn’t apologize for that one. Palin never complained when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert–separately but equally–compared her to the generic librarian in a porn movie who removes her glasses and lets down her hair. She didn’t say a word about Larry Flynt’s porn movie, Nailin’ Paylin. But this wasn’t the first time a comedian has been accused of telling a joke that could be blamed for the possibility of instigating a criminal act. In his book, Cracking Up: American Humor in a Time of Conflict, Paul Lewis quoted a Jay Leno joke from January 2005: “Do you know what week this is in our public schools? I’m not making this up. This week is National No-Name-Calling Week. They don’t want any name-calling in our public schools. What stupid dork came up with this idea?” Lewis then wrote: “No doubt staying with his fixed role not as a satirist but a comedian, Jay Leno sent this joke flying, along with tried and true observations about Michael Jackson, Tom Cruise, Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton. Anything to avoid ‘preaching’ to his audience, anything for a joke, a laugh. Leno may begin his routine by asking ‘Did you see X or Y,’ but affecting how viewers see anything is the last thing he intends. “It appears not to matter that, however ridiculous it sounds or canbe made to seem, National No-Name-Calling Week might just be a good idea. A step away from a culture that leads the world not just in gun violence but specifically in school shootings. Not taken into account by Tonight Show gag smiths was the fact that there were 23 fatal shootings and sex fatal stabbings in American schools during the 2004-5 school year, climaxing in the Minnesota Red Lake High School murder/suicide that left nine people dead and 13 others wounded a mere two months after Leno enjoyed his dork putdown. Does it matter that Jeff Weise, the junior who began this killing spree by murdering his grandparents and ended it by killing himself was, as Red Lake students told MSNBC, ‘regularly picked on him for his odd behavior,’ that he was ‘terrorized a lot by others who called him names’? “‘Hey,’ I can hear you thinking, ‘take it easy. Lighten up. It’s just a bleepin’ monologue.’ It’s the ‘just’ part that gives me pause. The Red Lake teen jokers, the ones who found, perhaps, an outlet for their aggressive instincts or were also, perhaps, just enjoying a joke or two at Jeff Weise’s expense: should we lighten up on them too? Unlike Jay Leno, their humor was spontaneous, an expression of what was running through their twisted little adolescent brains. “Perhaps they were feeling anxious, insecure, depressed, stressed out; perhaps the ridicule they served up was therapeutic, not for their target obviously, who would eventually acquire a more lethal weapon but, in the moment of laughing, for them. That the overlap of healing and hostile impulses…in cases of adolescent name calling, can be fatal appears not to have factored into the creative process followed by the Tonight Show staff. As Leno told the Los Angeles Times, members of his audience have a simple desire: they ‘want to hear a joke.’” OK, then. So a priest, a rabbi and a bully, all fully armed, walk into a bar to hunt down a punch line . . . More on School Shootings

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Paul Krassner: Should Comedy Be Politically Correct?

Thanks to Sean McCarthy for letting us know there was a British Funny or Die , we had no idea. They made the following video with American sitcom favorites Will Arnett and wife Amy Poehler, and British comedy couple Peter Serafinowicz and Sarah Alexander. Turns out the men in these relationships have odd ways of greeting each other. WATCH: Great To See You Feat. Will Arnett, Amy Poehler, Peter Serafinowicz and Sarah Alexander from Will Arnett Get HuffPost Comedy On Facebook and Twitter! More on Funny Or Die

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Will Arnett Makes Out With British Equivalent Of Himself (VIDEO)

Gov. Palin is not quite done with David Letterman. Or the President. Or anyone. So she has taken to the Internets to finish what she started… And just in case you didn’t like my Sarah Palin, you should definitely check out Sara Benincasa at YouTube and her Webby-nominated Palin series. I refuse to stand up for any of the Palins at this point, but the comedy sisterhood? Yes. Besides, Sara clearly did this before I did and not mentioning it would be really bitchy of me. And this is my last angry sketch. People are really going to think I’m some bitter, angry shrew! (Like Sarah Palin!) More on Sarah Palin

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Jamie Frevele: Sarah Palin Is Just Sayin’ (VIDEO)

I feel sad for David Letterman, because in spite of the reasons he put forth in his latest mea culpa Monday night on The Late Show , he caved in, I believe, out of misplaced fear that he might be banished from his late night throne. He won’t admit it, but I believe it’s true. In my article last week I felt he went too far when he went on and on about how he would never, ever tell a sexual joke about a fourteen-year-old. He looked straight at the camera and then said something to the effect of, “Hey, I’m sorry we made a mistake as to who was at the game, but you have to believe I was talking about Palin’s adult daughter Bristol.” All this, though there was little question that the vast majority of people who had watched knew Letterman’s joke was about the Palin daughter who’d gained national fame as an expectant teenage mother. It wasn’t a great joke, but it was typical Letterman humor. This is a man who routinely makes fun of people in the news, often with fantasy references, so the Alex Rodriguez sex tryst fell right in with his normal fare. The sexual escapade was obviously phony and concerned a young woman who’d been much talked about in the national Media regarding her youthful promiscuity — a young lady whose fruits were paraded at the Republican convention and during the campaign by her ambitious mother. Why couldn’t Letterman joke about Bristol? You mean it’s okay to make constant fun — even today eleven years later — of Monica Lewinsky, still the butt of his monologue barbs, not to mention unkind comments about her weight? And as to his probable left-leaning politics, it didn’t stop Letterman from ad nausea comic slurs about Bill Clinton and Hillary’s conjugal relationship. I repeat, no one of any reasonable intelligence thought he was talking about the fourteen-year-old Willow Palin. It was her mother who framed it as such, due to some bad research on the Letterman staff’s part, as there was only a passing mention to an unnamed Palin daughter at the Yankee game. It was Sarah Palin, a two bit governor of one of our nation’s smallest states and the bottom half of a failed presidential campaign, who, in her zeal to stay in the spotlight, jumped at the chance to get back at one of the many comic commentators who’ve previously enjoyed many jokes at her expense. And she kept repeating it and repeating it even well after Letterman — in a smart move to quickly defuse the controversy — clarified rather emotionally last week on his show that it was Bristol who was the gag’s target. Did Palin change her tune and say, “Oh, but even though you were talking about Bristol it’s still not right,” which might have been questionable due to her daughter’s adult age, not to mention her appearances on TV talk shows about abstinence. But she didn’t and chose to ignore the truth, and at that point Palin was no longer a protective mother but an out and out liar. However, she is not alone to blame, because the Media wouldn’t let up and gave Sarah Palin far too much leash, rarely questioning her motives or forcing her to deal with Letterman’s clarification that the remarks were about Bristol. Indeed, many of the scathing TV attacks featuring Palin let her put forth blistering remarks, characterizing Letterman as a lecher and possibly a pedophile. There were TV reports that actually ended the story there, with no follow-up information that Letterman repeatedly had denied the joke was about the younger daughter, no doubt leaving some watching the news to believe Palin had all her facts in order. The Media coverage was so absurd that, according to Letterman, he felt obliged to apologize again. In particular, because of a remark condemning him by Mark Shields on the PBS Jim Lehrer Report . For Mark Shields to continue spreading Palin’s lies about Letterman’s joke, saying it was “indefensible,” and that Letterman must have been aware he was talking about a 14-year-old was insupportable. It apparently hit Letterman hard, though, leading to his second apology last night. Look, Letterman is in show biz and is probably a bit egocentric and neurotic. He kept going on about how his intent didn’t matter, that it was the perception that counted. But how could there be such a perception, except for the Media driving it with unrelenting zeal? So Letterman buckled under the pressure, and that’s too bad, because what he has done in this unusual act of cowardice — he was one of my heroes — is open the door for other groups to complain and/or to make him think far too much about satirizing anyone in the future. Satire full of silliness, setting famous people in places and situations clearly untrue in order to pay off the punch line. And his barbs spare almost no one or group. For goodness sake, he has continually made fun of short people with his constant references to New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg as such. He has mocked old folks, including his mother, about whom he has told nonsensical jokes about her drinking. He has contrasted our president’s schedule with John McCain’s, giving images of the Arizona U.S. Senator that make him look like someone with borderline Alzheimer’s disease, engaged in run of the mill tasks to fill his time. He has offended gay folks with jokes like, “Did you watch the Tonys last night? (after applause): You must all be gay.” And he routinely mocks the ethnicity and competence of New York City taxi drivers. So I worry, I really do, where all this will lead. It may make CBS happier and it may reassure Letterman’s future on his late night forum, but will the show be as good if he has to worry about what he’s going to say? Ironically, his monologue prior to his apology had zingers and political humor, and he made fun of the controversy, but all at his own expense. Apart from self-deprecatory remarks, will he now start to censor himself beforehand with his writers and, worse, when he interacts with his guests on the panel? All it has to take is another person to seriously complain and mislead the Media and public as Sarah Palin has shamelessly done. Letterman may insist this is the end of it and he will go back to essentially the way things were. I hope he does, but I won’t believe it’s true until he gets back on the proverbial horse which recently threw him and summarily launches another zinger at Palin when she deserves it. Michael Russnow’s website is www.ramproductionsinternational.com More on CBS

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Michael Russnow: David Letterman Apology Redux: Shame on Dave for Buckling Under to Palin’s Lies

Maria Shriver promotes it , Hillary Clinton talks it up in commencement speeches , and the guy who thought it up won a Nobel Peace Prize : microfinance may the world’s fastest-growing and arguably trendiest form of lending a hand. If the news hasn’t yet reached you through the media haze of Jon & Kate, Heidi & Spencer, and Sarah & Dave, microlending is an extremely simple idea: people like you and me in the industrialized world help folks in the developing world not with outright aid (which is obviously essential in many situations, but can distort economies if misapplied) but with tiny loans which reach the borrowers at a much cheaper interest rate than they could get any other way. Some guy in Mongolia needs feed for his cattle? You and 50 total strangers front him $25 each. A cabbie in Beirut needs to fix his taxi? Maybe 50 other people chip in online. A beauty salon in Tajikistan is running short on supplies? Point, click, loan money. Metaphorically, it’s not giving someone a fish, and it’s not teaching someone to fish; it’s helping a fisherman patch a hole in his rowboat so he can get on with life. Kiva.org is a Bay Area start-up that quickly became the global leader in online microfinance, and there you’ll find basically what looks like an eBay for doing good: drop-down menus, photographs and bios of potential borrowers from all over the world, and a shopping basket and PayPal checkout, just like you’re buying stuff instead of loaning cash. Six months ago, I had the same questions you might right now. Is it really as easy and rewarding as its advocates say? Is it actually safe to put your own money in? You really get paid back, the recipients get clean water filtration or a new ox or a better ceiling or whatever they need, and everybody’s happy? So far, after making 375 loans to people in more than 42 countries, I can say with some growing certainty: yup. I first got my feet wet with a loan to a small grocery in Uganda , chosen from the hundreds of potential recipients on the site for reasons both charitable and crass: I wanted to loan to somebody who really needed it, but whose business I at least understood well enough to feel fairly confident about repayment. (As if $25 would make a difference in my life, comparatively? I’m a bit ashamed at even thinking it, but hey, if it was in the back of my mind, it might be in yours, too.) Pretty soon, however, visiting the site, and then reading all the stories of people building lives and communities all over the world got to be inspiring — addictively so. You want to put your own troubles in perspective? Spend a few minutes mulling the resourcefulness of people like Poung Teak , a 39-year-old Cambodian father of three who climbs palm trunks for a living. (He taps the sap near the top and refines it into sugar for resale.) My first reaction: dude supports three teenagers by shinnying up trees all day? Um, sure — I can spot him $25 until payday. That’s the sort of stuff you find there, over and over. It’s hard not to find a few extra bucks. (In my case, I have spare cash in my pocket from writing a bunch of luxury travel reviews. Putting that money into Kiva somehow feels like karmic balance.) Plus, you realize that by building economic bonds like this, not through state and corporate mechanisms but on virtually a person-to-person level, you’re sending a palpable, practical message of peace and shared humanity into parts of the world that need it most — and where we need to send it most. This morning, for the first time in my account , three loans — to a Nicaraguan tailor , a Peruvian student , and a Filipino grocer — were paid in full. A few hours later, the very first loan I made – to that grocery in Uganda – was all paid up as well. Sure, you can pocket the money when it comes back. (Which is almost always does — Kiva’s overall default rate is currently less than two percent. Given recent stock market downturns, you may well do better with Bolivian woodworkers than the S&P.) But where’s the fun in that? So today, the $25 that came back from Nicaragua, I sent to a student in Costa Rica . The cash from Peru went to another shopkeeper in Uganda , and the money that came in from The Philippines went to a teacher in Mozambique . When your loans get repaid and you shuffle the money off to somebody else, it feels like you’re running your own tiny foundation. And remember: this costs me virtually nothing, other than the time value of the money while it’s out of my hands and the rare one or two percent of loans that default. (That said, I haven’t had a single default so far.) And for that fair price – a few farthings above free – you get to reach across the world like this: Neat, huh? Some Kiva lenders think of their loans as like a personal savings account that does good while it’s floating around. In my own case, if I keep tossing a few bucks in here and there for a few years, eventually the account may dwarf my IRA. And now that repayments are starting to keep my account almost reloaded on its own, this is starting to look like a lifetime hobby. It’s one you might enjoy yourself. If you’d like to play, too, check out Kiva.org . Those folks deserve a medal – which, I am sure, they would melt down, convert to hard currency, and then loan to a shepherd in Tanzania. (Not even really kidding. They seem extremely cool that way.) (You can also check out my lender page there if you’re curious. There’s also my site or my Twitter feed for related splurts. But let’s be clear: Kiva built the ark here. I’m just one of the creatures that wandered on.) More on Hillary Clinton

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Bob Harris: A Near-Zero-Cost Approach to Do-Gooding: My 375th Kiva Loan

Some of the bigger (and funnier) campaign news is already on the front page–check out, in particular, DeMint’s endorsement of the right wing insurgent candidate in Florida, as well as the Norm Coleman saga that will never end, if Norm gets his way. Onto the rest of the goings-on in Campaign 2009…2010…2012… WH 2012: T-Paw Ready to Dip His Toes in the Water Well, it’s not a surprise, but now we have a probable motive for Tim Pawlenty’s decision not to seek another term as governor. Washington Whispers is reporting that Pawlenty is about to embark on a two-year long “listening tour” of sorts, checking to see if the appetite is there on the part of the GOP electorate for a Pawlenty 2012 bid. H/T on this story to Taegan Goddard , who also posts today that another campaign for 2012 is starting to warm up its engines–that of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. RACE FOR THE HOUSE: The Early Target Lists for 2010? Crisitunity over at Swing State has looked at recently released information from the DCCC and NRCC, and finds a list of eight Republicans and thirteen Democrats that are on the target lists. Neither list contains any real shockers, although the list does make clear that the DCCC is going to back their high-profile challengers in three districts (PA-06, FL-10, DE-AL) that are not yet open, but could well be open by 2010. Curious, on the GOP side, to see them going after OH-01 and OH-15, but NOT OH-16. Boccieri’s comfortable win there must have scared them off somewhat. KS-GOV/KS-SEN: One Blowout, One Nailbiter, According to SUSA Poll on GOP Races SurveyUSA takes an early temperature on the Republican primaries in both the gubernatorial and Senate races in the Sunflower State. In the gubernatorial race, U.S. Senator Sam Brownback has a huge lead over KS Sec. of State Ron Thornburgh (58-19). Meanwhile, in the race to replace Brownback, it is predictably close between two of the state’s GOP Congressman. Jerry Moran, considered the more moderate of the two candidates, has a mere two point edge on Wichita Congressman Todd Tiahrt (40-38). MN-GOV: Bachmann Refused To Slam Door On Gubernatorial Aspirations Kossacks hoping for Michele Bachmann to take her show statewide may get their wish after all. After her spokesperson issued a rather vague denial of a Bachmann bid for Governor, Bachmann herself left the door open in an interview with MPR, saying that she would absolutely jump into the race if she “felt the tug.” She said that “right now” she feels her place is in the House. One way to kill a denial of interest? Using the words “right now” to discuss your current circumstance… MO-SEN: 2010 Field May Already Set In Show-Me State The Hill reports an interesting development in the open U.S. Senate race in Missouri to replace retiring Republican Kit Bond. It appears as if Missouri state Treasurer Sarah Steelman, long rumored to be a candidate for the U.S. Senate, is apparently stepping back from that race, and may instead focus on the House seat being opened up by MO-07 Congressman (and U.S. Senate candidate) Roy Blunt. That would, for all intents and purposes, clear the field for both sides. This would mean that the likely November matchup would be between Democratic MO Secretary of State Robin Carnahan and GOP Congressman Roy Blunt. Carnahan had a narrow lead in recent polling. NH-02: First Confirmed GOP Candidate in Democratic Open Seat Race The Boston Globe reports that Republicans have their first official candidate in the open seat contest in NH-02 to replace Congressman Paul Hodes (who is preparing to run for the U.S. Senate). The prospective candidate is Bob Giuda, who once served in the NH state House of Representatives (and with 400 representatives in the 41st largest state in the Union, who hasn’t??). Giuda is the lone Republican to officially announce a bid, though others are still looking at the race. Thus far, a handful of Democrats are already in the race. VA-GOV: Deeds Gets A High Profile Assist On the Internet Now that the primary has been dispensed with, President Obama seems eager to lend a hand to newly-minted Democratic nominee Creigh Deeds. In an email that went out to the Organizing for America e-mail list (Obama’s former campaign e-mail list), Obama minces few words in advocating for the state Senator for central Virginia: Creigh has an ability to bring people together, build consensus and deliver results. He will bring the same bipartisan, pragmatic approach to politics that former Governor and now Senator Mark Warner and my friend Governor Tim Kaine used to help Virginia move forward over the past eight years. I know that approach works because I’ve spent some time in your great Commonwealth. In my experience, Democratic candidates with a pragmatic approach to solving problems can be successful. That’s the approach my campaign took last November to put Virginia in the Democratic column for the first time since 1964. And that’s how Creigh Deeds will win this fall. WI-GOV: Doyle in Danger, According to PPP Survey PPP goes into the Midwest and finds Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle in deep trouble against two prospective GOP challengers. According to the pollster, Doyle trails Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker by eight (48-40) and former Congressman Mark Neumann by one (42-41). This, of course, stands in pretty stark contrast to last week’s Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll in the state, which had Doyle leading both candidates by double digits (but with less than 50% of the vote in each case). PPP did not test Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton, who is a probable entrant into the race if Doyle elects not to attempt to serve a third term.

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Polling and Political Wrap-Up, 6/15/09

I guess DeMint meant it when he said he’d rather have 30 true-believer conservatives in the Senate, than a squishy majority. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is set to become the first sitting Republican senator to back Marco Rubio’s long-shot candidacy against Gov. Charlie Crist in the Florida Senate primary, the latest sign of conservative unrest over the Washington establishment’s support of the Florida governor. According to sources familiar with the talks, DeMint will throw his support behind Rubio, a 38-year-old former Florida House speaker who is positioning himself as the conservative alternative to Crist, in a Tuesday announcement in Washington. This is the bizarro-world version of the 2006 Democratic primary in Connecticut, and like I did that year, I have my money on the insurgent candidate, Rubio. Heck, the insurgents even have their own version of “The Kiss”! Never underestimate the power of an image like that one of Obama and Crist about to smooch. Lieberman lost his primary in large part to this picture: It’s a closed primary, so independents and Dems, who seem to love Crist, won’t have a say in the matter. The Club for Growth will undoubtedly throw its considerable fundraising heft behind Rubio, and the conservative grassroots and teabagging crowd already see Rubio as one of their own. Crist, for his part, is a constant target of Florida (and even national) wingnut radio. True blood conservatives either hate him already, or WILL hate him before long. That leaves Crist with ill-respected national GOP leaders as his “base”, and they can be used as a foil to further attack him as a creature of DC entrenched interests. Really, that’s not a good place to be in this political environment. More and more conservative politicians looking to curry favor with their shrinking but influential base will cast their lot with Rubio. Don’t be surprised if some 2012 presidential hopefulls also roll the dice on Rubio. It would provide instant Conservative cred. I’d certainly do it if I was Palin, Sanford, Gingrich, or Romney. So yeah, I’m calling this one early for Rubio, even though the task ahead for him will be long and grueling.

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FL-Sen: DeMint backs insurgent Rubio

James W. von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist alleged to have opened fire on June 10 at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, killing 39-year-old security guard Stephen Johns, is and was nuts. The insane von Brunn, as of today in critical condition at George Washington University Hospital after being shot in the face by Johns’s fellow security guards, was charged with murder Thursday in the death of Johns of Temple Hills, Md. That’s why he began shooting. That’s why a man is dead. It’s that simple. Von Brunn’s nuts. How insane? And perhaps not legally insane a la M’Naghten (for all you criminal law scholars), von Brunn is a sociopath, a homicidal one at that. Now, it seems as of late with the murder of the late-term abortion doctor, George Tiller, a passel of the usual characters are bellying up to the mic and keyboard and attributing blame to a slew of typically loud-mouthed, conservative pundits of all stripes and colors who spew hate and vile bile. Any excuse to blame the rabid right for anything or to highlight their insanity is good enough for these folks. There isn’t a day that goes by when they fail to quote, repeat, reprint or replay a wingnut’s bleating screed. And while it may seem that I’m defending the noxious words and thoughts of the loathed counterfeit conservative, no, in fact I’m desecrating them and exposing, yet again, the fictive pull and sway that they purport to have. Now, I’ve made it easy. The following is a list I’ve created pari passu of those who are not responsible for the deaths of Messrs. Johns and Tiller, in no particular order of relevance or importance, mind you. The non-indictment. * Rush Limbaugh * Sean Hannity * Bill O’Reilly * Glenn Beck * The Faux News team in toto * Newt Gingrich * God * The Vatican and/or Pope * The RNC * Sarah Palin * The Bible * Randall Terry * “The Turner Diaries” * Nancy Pelosi * Michael Moore * The Dixie Chicks * Bill Maher * The DNC * ____________ For the last entry, add your own name or any organization, book, politician, cleric, author or person, alive or dead. I know this may come as a shock to folks, but delusion and dementia are inspired by a host of causes. The etiology of homicidal psycopathy is still a medical mystery. There are roughly 300 million people in our country. Many of them are devout, Christian, republican, conservative, Bible-toting, scripture-spouting right-to-lifers. Believe it our not, it’s not that uncommon a find. But we are thankful that the von Brunns and Scott Roeder, the nut who gunned down Dr. Tiller, are rarae aves . For now, we pray. Cause and deflect. In my career as a prosecutor and criminal defense trial lawyer, scores of well-intended people have tried to make the connection between criminal behavior and stressors, environmental and genetic, if you will, e.g. PTSD, drugs, abusive childhoods, abused-spouse syndrome, chemical imbalances, too much sugar, too little sugar, porn, violent TV, etc. Jury after jury still reject these arguments. Why? Because nothing vitiates the one element critical to criminal and actual culpability: Did they intend to kill? Why they kill is inapposite and irrelevant. It’s tough for us to assign blame and criminal culpability to something as vague as someone being evil or the garden variety crackpot. Remember: Everyone has a reason for everything. And while El Rushbo and his intellectually loathsome conservative right wing-nuts spew fetid verbal whatevers daily, they can’t be held responsible because they’re not. I know, I know. Would that we could attribute something of consequence to these folks; it would be a veritable wet dream for the usual suspects. But, alas. We can’t and shan’t. It simply drives folks crazy that something so awful as these crimes are without legitimate source and cause. I know, let’s call it a “hate” crime. That seems to make us feel better. Appending “hate” to anything that screams of hate makes some of us happier, as though we’ve accomplished something special. “Hate crime”: the ultimate in tautological redundancy (as is the term “tautological redundancy”). When you start playing around with what “motivated” someone to do something, you little by little go after why they did it. And why someone did it is irrelevant. And are we to then blame the words of the pundits? And if so, then what? Hold them responsible? Civilly or criminally liable? Again, if their words actually incited and inspired murderous behavior, what would Rush’s critics want done as a remedy or punishment? Haven’t we heard this before? This reminds me of when parents sued Ozzy Osbourne in 1986 after their kid shot himself in the head after listening to “Suicide Solution.” Perhaps the kid’s depression may have played a role in the incident. (D’ya think?) Folks love causation and with it liability and blame. In 1971 “The Anarchist Cookbook” was published. It detailed recipes for explosive and combustible witches brew and potions. Even it can’t be held liable for some homicidal jerk who uses the book to kill. So how can Rush or O’Reilly the Boeotian? If only it were that easy. There was a time when the Bush detractors called for his impeachment, indictment and incarceration. Same went for ol’ Cerberus, Cheney. Vincent Bugliosi wrote a book about it. The drumbeat was loud and clear. Bush was responsible for the deaths of American soldiers, they claimed. (Not exactly far-fetched an idea, I might add.) He was a murderer. The Bush hatred was seething. And certainly not without any basis, I must admit again. Day after day, newly-minted pundits of the left and progressive worlds were spreading their wings and maws and lambasting the President and Bush with philippics that in some cases were over the top. Fine. I understand the frustration. Plus, they were new at this venture. They had the floor and folks were listening. There was an antidote to the trumpeting of the right. But say some nut finally heard enough and went crackers. Instead of an old, anti-Semitic, white supremacist it was a 60’s holdover: a Birkenstock-shod (with socks, mind you), tie-dyed, dreadlocked hippy manque . Assume arguendo he recited verbatim passages of Maher’s “New Rules” or chimed Chomsky while he charged the Cheney White House or worse. You can hear the usual right-wing goobers blaming the “loony left” with their hate speech and the like. The aghast gauche would howl at the hilarity of such a specious claim, citing his lone wolf-ness. And believe me, there are plenty of nuts out there to go around and this will happen. The usual suspect and symptoms. I’ll bet anything von Brunn has every book that every right wing loon wrote, DVR’d Faux News constantly and scoured the internet for racist chatter. I’ll bet he was the prototypical loner who “kept to himself.” I’ll bet he had interpersonal conflicts and was not a nice guy. He had few friends, if any. Most probably he was enuretic as a child, teased small animals and liked to start fires. Yes, psycopathy has many traits. But correlation and cause are two different things. There has never been, in the annals of criminality, a person who did something dastardly and couldn’t tell you why, who couldn’t point to something or someone as the inspiration or cause. Something, ofttimes chimerical, always sets the plan in motion. The insanity continues if you fall for the spiel. Von Brunn killed because he’s nuts and consumed by hate. Period. El Rushbo et al. are off the hook this time. And that’s good for many of today’s populist pundits. Why? Simple. If Rush and his merry band of caterwauling cooks were silenced, what would many if not most of these commentators comment anent?

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Lionel: Why Rush and The Right Are Blameless For The DC Shooting

10) Last September, a skit on Saturday Night Live suggested incest in the Palin family. “What about the husband?” asked a mock Times reporter. “You know he’s doing those daughters. I mean, come on. It’s Alaska!” No outrage. Sarah Palin appeared on the show one month later in late October. 9) Days after the announcement of Bristol’s pregnancy, Conan O’Brien joked, “It’s true, John McCain’s running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, has revealed that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. Palin said, ‘We should never have introduced her to John Edwards.’” Where was the outrage? Was Conan promoting infidelity with an underage girl? 8 ) From two different Tonight Shows: “Governor Palin announced over the weekend that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant. Oh, boy, you thought John Edwards was in trouble before, now he’s really done it!” AND…”All the Republicans are heaping praise on Governor Palin. Fred Thompson said, as an actor, he could see them making a movie about Sarah Palin and her family. Didn’t they already make that movie? I think it was called ‘Knocked Up!’”–Jay Leno 7) Craig Ferguson’s skit of “Larry King vs Levi Johnston” asks about “kinky sex” with the drapes open. Craig Ferguson’s honorary Alaska citizenship , granted by Governor Palin wasn’t rescinded. 6) “According to expense reports, Sarah Palin charged the state of Alaska over $21,000 for her children to travel with her on official business. In fairness to Gov. Palin, when she leaves them home alone they get pregnant.” –Seth Meyers (SNL). Sarah Palin was in a sketch with Meyers a week earlier. 5) On October 8, 2008, Sarah Palin walked out on the ice with six year old Piper and 13 year old Willow, before the game, Conan O’Brien said, “Saturday night, Sarah Palin is going to drop the first puck at the Philadelphia Flyers’ hockey game. Then Palin will spend the rest of the game trying to keep the hockey players out of her daughter’s penalty box.” Oh, yes he did. You get the outrage…but not a peep then. According to the new “logic”, O’Brien was advocating for some really sick stuff. 4) Rush Limbaugh : “Everyone knows the Clintons have a cat. Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is a White House dog?” Limbaugh put up a picture of Chelsea Clinton. At the time, Chelsea Clinton was 13 years old. Rush also said, “In last year’s campaign, the most prominent, articulate voice for standard run-of-the-mill good old-fashioned American conservatism was Sarah Palin.” Calling a young teenager a “dog” can’t be helpful to her “self-esteem.” Where is the apology from the leader of the GOP? 3) “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”– John McCain , Sarah Palin’s running mate. Should McCain apologize to every young woman in America? 2) Palin’s friend, political defender and informer of the David Letterman comments, John Ziegler , was fired from his radio show for using the “n-word” online and on air in 1997. In 2000, he was fired for spelling the “n-word” on the air. How much does that word affect the psychological health of America’s youth, regardless of their race? Now he is pimping his film about how mean the “liberal media” was to Sarah Palin. AND…The NUMBER 1 REASON Sarah Palin’s Outrage is Misplaced and A Little Late… 1) The “candidate who must be obeyed” was talking about Palin’s family when he said, “Kids are off limits.” Jake Tapper of ABC News interviewed then Candidate Obama, and asked, “Governor Palin and her husband issued a statement today saying their 17-year-old daughter Bristol, who is unmarried, is five months pregnant. Do you have any reaction?” OBAMA: “I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off-limits. And people’s children are especially off-limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Governor Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know, my mother had me when she was 18. And, you know, how family deals with issues and — and, you know, teenaged children, that shouldn’t be the topic of — of our politics.” The Palin children have been fodder for comedians since they were brought to the national stage. Incest isn’t funny. Ugly kid jokes aren’t funny. Many of the things said about public figures are just flat wrong. Being “knocked up” isn’t much fun. Racist comments hurt all of us. I exhausted the top 10 list before I ran out of outrageous instances ignored by the Palins. The National Organization for Women named David Letterman to their Hall of Shame. Will Letterman be joining Jay Leno? Conan O’Brien? Craig Ferguson? Seth Myers? Rush Limbaugh? Or John McCain? Of course not! I guess N.O.W. didn’t bother checking Sarah Palin’s “feminist” credentials. All across America, right wing radio and television talk show hosts feigned outrage in perfect synchronicity. The same people who back up Palin’s high drama assertions against Letterman ignored the connections between Bill O’Reilly’s irresponsible incitement and the murder of Dr. George Tiller. David Letterman, a late night entertainer, apologized. Fox New’s Bill O’Reilly has not. As a parent, I understand being defensive. I just wonder what took so long. Why now? More on David Letterman

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Shannyn Moore: Top 10 Reasons Sarah Palin’s "Outrage" is Misplaced and A Little Late…

Here we go again! Now, the big story is “Should David Letterman be fired for a joke ?” Once again the comic is made out to be the enemy. Lenny Bruce was fired for jokes about religion, Tommy Smothers was fired for his political material, and Bill Maher lost his show for a single comment about suicide bombers. I left Laugh In when NBC was told by the Nixon administration that we could do no more political humor. After that Nixon called his pal writer Paul Keyes every Monday night to review the political content of the show. That was after John Mitchell threatened the networks with the loss of licenses over the political balance of what they broadcast. The political comics are feared and hated by the establishment who feel they must control what the comics say. No secret about the influence presidents had over Bob Hope material. Who paid for those overseas junkets? Bob Hope did jokes but always “President positive.” Today’s comics don’t just do jokes, they often have bigger ideas and make more valuable observations on both sides of issues than our political leaders like Sarah Palin who would rather have endless fights with late night talk show hosts. But Dennis Miller, Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Michael “WEENWER” Savage, Laura Ingraham, Anne Coulter and of course Bull Dog Sean Hannity all say outrageous and untrue things about the President. They say Obama is a liar, a socialist and communist, a Muslim and not even an American. And he took his wife out to dinner “on a date.” Right on, no problem. Yuk yuk yuk. Once again the “Politicals” try to make the comic the enemy and to make morality the issue. Borat’s bare bottom dominated the news for a week. And CBS is still being threatened with a half a million dollar fine for a 1.5 second wardrobe failure that threatened the morality of our youth by seeing Janet Jackson’s little boob. For 1.5 seconds. And the ” news? ” programs ran that over and over as they attempted to “protect our young people.” Sarah Palin did not just use her unwed teenage daughters’ promiscuity and resulting pregnancy as political assets. She used her entire family as props to further a political agenda that I guess that they don’t even believe in. Enough said about selling abstinence as her suggested method of birth control. Right . Sarah got knocked up at 42. Now Sarah is using her daughter’s media visibility again for political purposes. This woman might have been our vice president and all she has talked about for a week is David Letterman’s silly joke. Whether you agree or not, the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt used to fight for big ideas and causes they deemed important — now if they’re not fighting with each other and they’re fighting with talk show hosts. Let’s NOT fire DAVID LETTERMAN. Let’s VOTE for him. More on David Letterman

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George Schlatter: Should Letterman Be Fired for a Joke?

With the culmination of last week’s Democratic gubernatorial primary in Virginia, the key players in the high-profile races for the 2009 election cycle are now known. With the possible exception of the Virginia Democrats, of course, the starting lineups have been known for a while. But with the primary schedule now in the rearview mirror, we can look ahead to November, and examine what (if anything) the current polling tells us about what to expect in November. First, the obvious and obligatory caveat: elections are a volatile thing. Whatever tea leaves we can attempt to read in June may be completely invalid by July, to say nothing of November. So, expect this analysis to serve as the jumping-off point, and not the final word. VIRGINIA At one point in the year, Republicans were crowing about a likely pick-up in Virginia. They had managed to clear the field for their preferred candidate, former state Attorney General Bob McDonnell. He had modest, but real, polling leads over all three potential Democratic candidates, according to Daily Kos’ pre-primary survey. Then, the once-competitive Democratic primary became a runaway. And instead of Terry McAuliffe, the NoVa resident by way of upstate New York, the Democratic nominee was instead Creigh Deeds, who hailed from rural west-central Virginia. Deeds rocketed out of the gate, with a post-primary poll from Rasmussen showing that Deeds, once down fifteen points in the Rasmussen poll, now was staked to a six-point advantage (47-41). Some of this, to be sure, is afterglow from his impressive and decisive primary win. But there is some reason to believe that Deeds’ current poll position is more indicative of his actual strength in the race than the less audacious poll numbers he had last month. Take, as an example, Deeds’ performance with Democrats: PRE-PRIMARY POLLING (DEMOCRATIC PREFERENCE) Daily Kos/Research 2000 Survey, May 18-20, 2009 Creigh Deeds (D) 56% Bob McDonnell (R) 16% Not Sure/Other 28% POST-PRIMARY POLLING (DEMOCRATIC PREFERENCE) Rasmussen Survey, June 10, 2009 Creigh Deeds (D) 89% Bob McDonnell (R) 8% Not Sure/Other 4% Looking just at Democrats, it is pretty clear that the aberration was BEFORE the primary, rather than after it. Even the most optimistic Republican could not reasonably expect that the Democratic nominee would lead Democrats by just forty points. In effect, McDonnell’s early double-digit advantage over Creigh Deeds was based almost solely on the fact that Democrats were a far greater proportion of the undecided voters than were Republicans. In all probability, these were Moran and McAuliffe supporters who were staying on the fence out of loyalty to their preferred horse in the race. The long primary season might have also paid a dividend for Creigh Deeds with Independent voters, as well. Looking solely at the Rasmussen polling on the race, we see that in April, Deeds only had the support of 18% of Independents, a group with which he trailed McDonnell by 22 points (lots of undecideds, as always, with the Indies). Fast forward to this week: after having the airwaves essentially to themselves, the Democrats managed to eat into McDonnell’s sizable edge with Independent voters. Now, with what Rasmussen terms “unaffiliated voters”, the McDonnell edge is down to just seven points. Deeds, at 36% of the Independent vote, has doubled his support with that group in just seven weeks. This race, by all rights, will be a toss-up in the Fall. But the Republican Party was put on notice this week. While history might be on their side (the party out of the White House has, virtually without exception, won the governorship of Virginia), the polls no longer are. It appears that Creigh Deeds might be uniquely positioned to retain this office for the Democrats. NEW JERSEY Unlike Virginia, which saw a pretty decisive shift in the polling over the course of the primary season, New Jersey has remained remarkably steady. On paper, this is very good news for the GOP nominee, former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie. Two post-primary polls (one from Quinnipiac , the other from Rasmussen ) gave Christie a lead over incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine outside of the statistical margin of error. However, a Republican declaration of victory here might be premature as well, despite these very distressing numbers for Team Corzine. For one thing, there is the fact that the GOP appears to have nominated an essentially blank slate. Even after a drawn-out primary with conservative insurgent candidate Steve Lonegan, Chris Christie is still something of an unknown quantity. According to the Q poll, Christie has a pretty laudable 36/16 split on his favorabilities. The one cause for concern for team Christie: this means that nearly half of the electorate in New Jersey does not hold a set opinion of their nominee. Rasmussen defines things a bit differently, and as such they have a far smaller corps of truly uncertain voters on Christie (just 12%). However, from Rasmussen we can see that opinions on Christie are very soft–only 27% of the New Jersey electorate have strong opinions about him one way or another, and they were evenly split. In Virginia, by contrast, while only a slightly larger group (31%) had strong opinions of Creigh Deeds, those with strong opinions were far more likely to hold strongly POSITIVE opinions of Deeds than strongly negative ones. The bottom line–given how little of Christie’s support is calcified, Corzine will have time (and one can readily presume, resources) with which to define his challenger. It might not be enough–Corzine is an incumbent state executive at a time when Governors of both parties are, by and large, taking on water big time in the polls. However, those GOPers gloating about a lead in the upper single digits for Christie might want to remember one small fact of Garden State politics–come October and November, New Jersey has a peculiar habit of coming home to the Democrats. Some claim this is myth, but there is ample evidence from last year’s elections. Look for example, at the disparity between September and October polling in last year’s presidential race: Net Democratic Lead–September N.J. Polling (10 polls) : 7.4% Net Democratic Lead–October N.J. Polling (12 polls) : 15.7% Obama defeated McCain in New Jersey by 15.5%. Wait, a loyal Republican might say. This is nothing more than a reflection of the fact that McCain’s campaign imploded in late September, staking Obama to that October lead. Fine. With that in mind, let’s look at the disparity between September and October polling in last year’s U.S. SENATE race between Democrat Frank Lautenberg and Republican Dick Zimmer. Net Democratic Lead–September N.J. Polling (8 polls) : 9.8% Net Democratic Lead–October N.J. Polling (11 polls) : 15.1% Lautenberg defeated Zimmer in New Jersey by 14.1%. The numbers do not lie. This is not an urban legend. New Jersey voters may be frustrated with the Democratic Party, but they eventually decide that the alternative (electing Republicans) is less appetizing. Given that Christie has shown signs that he is a pretty   standard right-winger , it is not hard to imagine New Jersey voters forsaking their own trepidation about Corzine and returning him for another term. The most probable outcome is a split decision in the two governor’s races in the Fall, seeing how both of them are, at day’s end, a coin flip. But what was once unthinkable is now at least plausible–the Democrats could emerge from the 2009 cycle with their formidable winning streak still intact.

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VA-GOV/NJ-GOV: The Early Line on 2009

Old news by now, perhaps, but this People magazine cover has been staring at me for a while and I just keep getting more steamed: Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughter talks about her life with baby Tripp. “If girls realized the consequences of sex, nobody would be having sex,” says Bristol. “Trust me. Nobody. ” It’s no real surprise that Bristol is simultaneously asserting that having sex was a huge mistake and that her baby is the awesomest thing ever to happen to her, being the good soldier for abstinence and motherhood that her own mother needs her to be for continued rightwing viability. But that People would put that tripe on the cover? I mean, People is a bastion neither of intellectualism nor of feminism, but even so this is pushing it. Here’s the thing: “If girls realized the consequences…” Ok, granted, when babies are the consequences, girls mostly are the ones to deal with them. “…Nobody would be having sex. Trust me. Nobody. ” Yeah, see, ok…a blog may not be the best place to do this, but apparently it’s information in which not only Bristol Palin but People magazine is in dire need. There are these things called contraceptives. They’re really quite effective at preventing pregnancy if you use them . (That’s all the time. Like, every single time.)   According to the Guttmacher Institute : Teenagers (aged 15–19) who do not use a contraceptive at first sex are twice as likely to become teen mothers as are teenagers who use a method. Among teenagers who are sexually active and able to become pregnant, but do not want to become pregnant, the proportion who are not using contraceptives has remained steady at about 7%. But older women are now more likely to fall into this category, with an increase from 5% in 1995 to 8% in 2002 among 25–29-year-olds and from 4% to 7% among 30–34-year-olds. So it would seem that Bristol’s whole “I know better than you through hard experience” schtick is really more of a “I’m in an extreme minority but I’m going to pretend like everyone is just like me” thing. Which, again, she has her political reasons for. But why People saw fit to put the world’s stupidest abstinence message at every drugstore counter in the country, I don’t know.

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"Nobody Would Be Having Sex"

Arianna appeared on CNN along with conservative columnist Tony Blankley to discuss the turbulent Iranian presidential election and the recent events surrounding Governor Sarah Palin. [WATCH] Embedded video from CNN Video More on Iranian Election

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Huff TV: Arianna Discusses Iranian Presidential Election, Sarah Palin On CNN (VIDEO)

Alan Colmes (former co-host of Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes) makes a great a catch regarding the current feud between David Letterman and Governor Sarah Palin. While Palin has been blasting Letterman all over the airwaves for joking about Yankees star Alex Rodriguez “knocking up” her daughter, Jay Leno told an extremely similar joke during the presidential campaign that resulted in no such uproar: Gov. Palin announced over the weekend that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant. And you thought John Edwards was in trouble before! Now he has really done it. — “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” 9/2/08 Is there a double standard being applied to Letterman? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. RELATED: NOW Joins Palin In Bashing Letterman More on David Letterman

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Leno Told Similar Joke About Palin’s Daughter

The New York Times’ Janet Maslin may well be taking some new novels on her beach vacation this summer. If she does her tan is going to be a little dull and uneven, however, because Maslin will be reading these books whilst hiding under the biggest beach towel she can find. Why? She’s embarrassed about their darned pretty covers. In her article, “The Girls of Summer,” Maslin reviews ten new novels by female authors. These “literary and lightweight books aimed at women” are “hard to tell apart,” according to Maslin, because of their “prettily designed covers” which use standard imagery such as “sand, flowers, cake, feet, houses, pastel colors, the occasional Adirondack chair.” Maslin is fully aware of the politics and patriarchy that lead to the production and eventual demeaning of such covers. Indeed, she starts her piece reviewing J. Courtney Sullivan’s Commencement (a book she describes as the most “inviting of this year’s summer reads”) whose characters are savvy about “feminism and publishing.” Maslin even quotes the following passage from Commencement: “When a woman writes a book that has anything to do with feelings or relationships, it’s either called chick lit or women’s fiction, right?…But look at Updike, or Irving. Imagine if they’d been women. Just imagine. Someone would have slapped a pink cover onto ‘Rabbit at Rest,’ and poof, there goes the … Pulitzer.” Maslin acknowledges the truth of this. Nonetheless, in her review, it seems she still can’t quite let go of the fact that the books she’s been commissioned to read have been marked (stained?) by these “chick book” covers. To her credit, Maslin takes all of these books seriously - and even enjoys a number of them, including ones that she may not consider “literary.” Seeing any reviewer in The New York Times acknowledge and, at times, praise so many popular women authors in one short piece is refreshing. And yet there is a mild air of disdain lurking in Maslin’s review. Throughout she seems to be weighing up whether each book deserves their “blah, pretty packaging.” And while she’s at it she shores up stereotypes about popular women’s writing (I’ve written here before about these tired old stereotypes before ). For example, she describes Lisa See’s Shanghai Girls as “thoughtful and intricate” and thus hardly “the stuff of chick lit.” Yet when See’s characters (”two clotheshorse sisters who work as models”) talk about “pink silk Italian high heels” they are, for Maslin, speaking the “universal language” of the chick lit genre. Chick-books love shoes and if you’re going to talk shoe-talk you kind of deserve your blah cover. If your book presents “cozy” female friends “weathering crises” together then you’ve also earned the sandals and Adirondack chair treatment. And if one of your characters dares to admit that she likes “a pink cover featuring a pair of glossy high-heeled shoes,” you most definitely should have flowers and pastel shades on your dust jacket. At least, that’s the implicit message of Maslin’s review. But covers are covers, aren’t they? And should we really be reviewing books by them? Sure, there are many books with these kind of covers hitting the shelves, especially during beach time. But as the romance world teaches us, generic covers sell books.* They sell books because they signal to their readers the kind of books they are. And, yes, there do happen to be many female readers out there who seek books about feelings and relationships, cozy friends and weathering crises. And sometimes even shoes too. A Times review of ten contemporary female authors is great (as I write, the article is the second most popular piece on NYT online which is even more heartening). But the preoccupation with the supposedly schlocky covers and whether these covers signal a chick lit book or not is disappointing. Maslin clearly enjoyed some of the novels. But if she could be more at peace with the chick-ness of their covers, and the feminine concerns of the book themselves, she could get out from under her beach towel and get a better tan. *Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan in Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches Guide to Romance Novels do a great and witty job of explaining the appeal of the clinch cover: “They sell like hotcakes and gangbusters because the clinch cover has become an iconic image that is short for romance.”

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Joanne Rendell: Chicks on the Beach, or Why Does the Cover Preoccupy You So?

Are you as amazed as I am Sarah Palin is still invited on mainstream talk shows? I’m not talking about Rush Limbaugh or the cable religious shows, but respected venues like CNN’s Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room and to chat with NBC’s Matt Lauer on The Today Show . The woman was a flash in the pan, invented by John McCain’s handlers to spark interest in his flagging campaign. With all the competent women he could have chosen, he picked a fly by night governor of one of our smallest states, who’d only served a year in a half and yet was expected to inspire confidence she might lead the free world. Okay, enough said. That’s the recap. The election’s over. However, there are still conservative — make that right wing — diehards who’d love Palin to bring about resurgence to the Republican Party. In their dreams they believe she should be president. And while some might remind me similar jokes were made about Ronald Reagan’s chances for the White House, at least he was a two-term governor of our largest state and before that had built a nationally prominent nice-guy reputation as a popular actor in movies and television. Sarah Palin is a lightweight, desperate not to fade away, as happened to Dan Quayle, and he was actually an elected vice president. And with her audience generally limited to fringe groups, she recently seized upon some silly patter on a late night talk show, and with the Media’s help has turned it into a cause celebre. For those few of you not aware, David Letterman does a monologue at the beginning of his CBS show. He also announces a daily list that purports to enumerate the top ten fanciful and fabricated things about something happening in the news. Some of the stuff is dead on and great; others are silly and often a bit lame. He skewers the high and the mighty and celebrities, Palin included, but ridicules himself more than anyone else on just about every show. So, what’s the beef? Earlier this week, Letterman had a dumb joke about Palin in his top ten list: “Bought makeup at Bloomingdale’s to update her slutty flight attendant look.” I wasn’t offended. It just wasn’t that incredibly funny. What was intriguing was Palin didn’t take note of another joke, which had her involved with a kilo of crack. It’s doubtful the top ten list alone would have caused attention. However, in his monologue, referencing Palin’s attendance at Yankee Stadium with her husband and unnamed daughter, Letterman said, “One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game: during the seventh inning her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.” Palin sensed an opportunity and accused Letterman of promoting date rape of her fourteen-year-old daughter Willow. As it turned out, she was the daughter who attended the game with her parents, but there’s not a doubt in my mind that most of the viewers watching the show reacted to the joke with the vivid image of Palin’s older daughter Bristol, who had gotten “knocked up” by her high school sweetheart. Letterman said so in a nine-minute chat with the audience on The Late Show the following night, reiterating that, whether the joke was dumb or even tasteless, it was Bristol he was talking about, and that she was eighteen and therefore a legal adult. He repeated, almost too much for me — I didn’t think he had to — that he would never make fun of a fourteen-year-old girl in a sexual context. And I think most sensible people believed him. In fact the worst that can be said is that his gag writers should do a little better research before committing their boss to a faux pas, but frankly no one ever talks about Palin’s other daughters. Conversely, Bristol has been the butt of jokes for almost a year, has appeared on talk shows herself and was paraded by Palin and the Republican Party along with her then-fiancee, Levi Johnston, on the stage of the Republican Convention and throughout the campaign. No doubt to soften the “pro-family” shock among the party faithful, who would have gone after Bill Clinton with a vengeance if Chelsea were pregnant. Sarah Palin is simply a Media hog, hypocritical and ruthless as it gets. Was it a coincidence that it was only after the campaign ended that Levi Johnston was summarily banished, no longer needed and later decried by Palin and her husband for cashing in on the family name. As if they hadn’t used him as well? Reprehensibly, the Media lapped all this up and went about it as if they were chasing an ambulance. Many replayed Palin’s accusations or interviewed her, and she repeated what was now a lie — because she knew better — that Letterman had somehow violated her daughter. And worse, many of the Media journalists didn’t follow up her comments with the fact that Letterman insisted he was talking about Bristol. She further described David Letterman as a “so-called” comedian, a description that might better be associated with her political future. She also referred to him as a 62-year-old to somehow make the comment appear smarmier, as if he were an old lecher flashing young girls at the local middle school. This, too, was disgusting on her part, because it was ageist and uncalled for. Would the joke have been less offensive if Letterman were 35 or 40? She then refused his offer to have her come on his show saying that she didn’t want to help his ratings. This, from a woman who has been gallivanting around the broadcast Media with her false depiction of Letterman, an American treasure. A woman who appeared on Saturday Night Live last fall, a show in which Tina Fey frequently made Palin appear like an idiot, in a desperate attempt to appear cool and bolster the doomed campaign of her and her running mate. Indeed, I was in Germany last October watching the SNL appearance on You Tube with my friend German TV Star Andreas Stenschke . He laughed along with me and said this could never happen in Germany. There were satirical shows, yes, but the actual political figures would never personally appear on such a program, as it would be considered undignified. And that’s the point of this piece. Sarah Palin is outraged about nothing, but is so intent not to be forgotten that she stoops to the lowest levels. It’s time for the Media to act responsibly, as the electorate did last fall sending her back to Alaska and the frozen tundra, where she can hunt her beloved moose and fade away. Michael Russnow’s website is www.ramproductionsinternational.com

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Michael Russnow: Palin Accuses Letterman of Seeking PR: Then Hypocritically Skews What He Meant All Over the Media

Enough is enough, Sarah. It’s over. You lost. Please get off my analog-wave-free television screen and fade to obscurity. Seriously, don’t you have an imminent Rapture to prepare for in the Land of the Midnight Sun, perhaps some freshly murdered moose stew simmering on the stove to stir or a pack of wolves to mow down from an Apache helicopter (aided by your trusty night-vision goggles and the shotgun you used to pressure backwoods lothario Levi Johnston into proposing matrimony to your defiled progeny–that is before the American public voted against you and you realized perhaps your coldhearted political calculations were not in Bristol’s best interests). Oh and there is always that state you’re supposed to be governing…what’s it called? Alaska. Remember, you’re the governor of Alaska! Sure it’s only 626,932 people (not nearly as many as even one paltry Nielson point representing those watching as you desperately try to keep your media- contrived feud with Letterman alive on the Today Show so you do not peter out from the public eye for a nanosecond) but they are kinda like depending on you and stuff. And perhaps if you spent more time out of the Big City and up on the tundra you wouldn’t have to filch your speeches from Newt Gingrich and you could learn to be the doting parent you pretend to be on the big screen (opportunistically dragging your brood in and out of the spotlight so your give-’em-hell soccer mom silhouette can be featured prominently in the periphery). You betcha! You’re the joke and the punchline, a ratings ploy, a rejected reality-show pitch, a residual check for Tina Fey that she’ll use to treat herself to a carefree pampered day at the spa followed by a nice juicy a porterhouse din- din at Peter Luger’s . The annoying non-gadfly on the pile of excrement calling itself the GOP base whose only reason for existence is that no one can stomach the smell long enough to swat you. No one takes you in earnest. You’re simply a side-show freak in the corner of the Republican tent that everyone points and titters at as you continue to bark and sell tickets to your own dwindling, embarrassing performances–ultimately destined to the fate of the sad, sodden, bedraggled bearded lady who’s been laid off by the circus. Sitting alone on a park bench, all hunched up and forlorn in a tattered terry-cloth robe and dirty pink bunny slippers, with her little grizzled granny goatee and soul patch, heroically feeding the pigeons on a paint-chipped bench…not a flame-breathing midget juggler or unicycling pink poodle in sight. Ba da da da da da da da da da… tears. Please disappear. More on GOP

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Warren Holstein: Hate to Smudge the Lipstick but Could We Get a Muzzle for that Pitbull?

We all heard it. Sarah Palin on The Today Show with Matt Lauer… After a brief discussion of the gas line that glossed over Alaska’s new unholy alliance with its old foe Exxon, the topic changed. Lauer: Can we talk about some of the other ways you’ve been in the news lately, and you know about this. There’s been this feud this week with Late Show… Palin: (interrupting) If we must… Lauer: I know…. But there’s been a feud this week with David Letterman about some comment he made… They go on to discuss the issue. Then at 3:37 in the interview, something interesting happened. Palin looks down at the Blackberry she is holding in her hand. Palin: Let me read to you something that I received in the middle of the night, and email I received from somebody who’s not a (dismissive hand wave) known feminist, not someone who is an activist, but this I think speaks to the issue. She then reads the letter. If we are led to believe by Palin that she really doesn’t want to talk about Letterman….that she’d much rather be talking about the gas line, and only talks about Letterman “if we must,” then why does she have a Blackberry in her lap all set up with an email on the screen ready to be read aloud, the subject of which is….David Letterman? Palin was totally prepared and ready to talk on the subject, but took the opportunity to paint the picture that Lauer was the one bringing it up, much to her feigned dismay. In another lesson on how you can be right in principle (yes, the joke was tasteless and inappropriate as Letterman admitted) and still totally blow it (yes, the Palins now look even worse than Letterman), here’s how she reacted when Lauer asked about the statement issued by her spokeswoman Meg Stapleton: Lauer: (reading) “The Palin’s have no intention of providing a ratings boost for David Letterman by appearing on his show. Plus, it would be wise to keep Willow away from David Letterman.” I’d like you to explain what that meant. Are you suggesting that David Letterman can’t be trusted around a 14-year old girl? Palin: Hey, take it however you want to take it… So if we “want to take it ” that she thinks David Letterman is a pedophile, that’s OK with her? Lauer gets this, and follows up. Lauer: But is that not, in fact, in bad taste also governor if you’re…if you’re suggesting that a 62-year old man can’t be trusted… Palin: It’s not in bad taste. It’s not in bad taste. (pause) Palin: Hey, maybe he couldn’t be trusted because Willow’s has had enough of this type of comments. Maybe Willow would want to…uh….uh…uh..react to him in a way that..uh…would catch him off guard. That’s one way to interpret such a comment. In her clumsy attempt to justify this comment, she basically ends up implying that Willow is the one who can’t be trusted to act appropriately. Then she goes on to talk about the “real problem,” the oft used Palin talking point - the double standard. The problem is… Here’s the problem, Matt. It’s the double standard that’s been applied here. [snip] …remember in the campaign, Barack Obama said “Family’s off limits. You don’t talk about my family, and ‘the candidate who must be obeyed’….everybody adhered to that, and they did leave his family alone, and they haven’t done that on the other side of the ticket, and it has continued to this day. So that’s a political double standard. Since somehow, Barack Obama got dragged into the drama, just for clarity, I looked up his quote from the campaign about families being off-limits, so we can examine this supposed double standard. Here it is: I have heard some of the news on this and so let me be as clear as possible. I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off limits, and people’s children are especially off limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics, it has no relevance to governor Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18. And how family deals with issues and teenage children that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that is off limits . So, in reality, where most of us live, Obama was actually defending her family specifically. Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s have a little thought experiment. Let’s just suppose that someone had asked David Letterman if, when he told that joke, he meant to insinuate that Willow Palin has promiscuous sex with older men, and he had said, “Hey, take it however you want to take it.” You know…since we’re talking about double standards.

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AKMuckraker: Palin, Letterman, and the Double Standard About Double Standards.

Fix News host Sean Hannity only devoted one sentence to discussing the shooting at the Holocaust Museum on his program this week, Media Matters reports . This comes after Hannity had criticized other networks for not giving significant coverage to the recent shooting at an Army recruiting center in Arkansas. Instead of discussing the shooting at the Holocaust museum, Hannity did, according to Media Matters, dedicate significant time on his show this week to “David Letterman’s jokes about Sarah Palin, the firing of Miss California Carrie Prejean, and actor Craig T. Nelson’s take on the proper role of government.” More on Video

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Over Two Days, Hannity Devotes One Sentence To Holocaust Museum Murder

“Growing up under communism,” he said, “we always dreamed of living in peace and working in free society like this one. Today you have let freedom ring.” I don’t know if Abdul Nasser understood the many faceted and deep ironies contained in his few words , given in response to his and three of his fellow detainees’ release from Guantanamo, nearly eight years after his capture, and five years after being cleared for release. Mr. Nasser, 32, along with Huzaifa Parhat, 38, Abdul Semet, 32, and Jalal Jalaladin, 29 were flown out of Guantanamo yesterday to Bermuda, where they have guest worker permits. The remaining Uighurs are likely to be settled in Palau, Australia, and potentially Germany, but those negotiations remain problematic. There were a few other developments on the Guantanamo issue yesterday. Congressional Democrats yesterday reached agreement on a war-funding bill that would allow detainees to be sent to the United States for trial. The draft bill included no provision for prolonged detention without trial, a step that President Obama has said will be necessary to incarcerate detainees who are too dangerous to release but who cannot be prosecuted…. Two other Guantanamo detainees, an Iraqi and a Chadian, were released and arrived in their countries yesterday. The Chadian, Mohammed El Gharani, was the youngest detainee at Guantanamo. He was 14 when he was picked up in Pakistan in 2001 and turned over to U.S. authorities. “It could be a big week for Gitmo,” said a second administration official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, adding that there is a possibility that as many as four more detainees could be transferred in the next couple of days. The administration is also finalizing a deal with Saudi Arabia to accept some of the nearly 100 Yemenis who are among the 232 detainees remaining at Guantanamo, U.S. and Saudi officials said…. Obama said recently that 50 detainees have been cleared for release as part of an ongoing review of each detainee’s case. Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman, said the number cleared for release is now “substantially higher” than 50, but he was not able to provide an exact number. Negotiations among our allies have been significantly compromised by the refusal of the United States to accept any of the detainess, but particulalry the Uighurs. [State Department special envoy Daniel] Fried also negotiated with Germany, which has a Uighur population in Munich. But Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble balked at any transfer and pointedly asked U.S. officials why they were not accepting the Uighurs themselves if, as they insisted, they were not dangerous, according to German reports. According to Sarah Mendelson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who authored a report on closing Guantanamo, “Once it becomes clear no detainees will be settled in the U.S., potentially you could hear doors slamming all over Europe.” The diplomatic pressure that the administration is putting on our allies should be in part focused on our Congress. The resettlement of at least a few of the Uighurs in the United States, to a community in Northern Virginia that is willing and ready to sponsor them, would go a very long way toward building good faith abroad, and securing the assistance of other countries in helping resettle the detainees who cannot and should not be held as criminals.

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Four Guantanamo Uighurs Freed

David Letterman And Sarah Palin Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says late-night talk show host David Letterman owes all young American women an apology for his joke about one of her daughters getting “knocked up” by baseball star Alex Rodriquez. She also said the media has largely heeded President Obama’s plea to keep his family off limits, while continuing to attack hers.

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David Letterman And Sarah Palin Take It To The Max

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is pushing back against critics of the proposed $26 billion natural gas pipeline in her state, saying demand for natural gas is on the rise in the United States. “By probably 2030, we’ll see about a 40 percent increase in demand for natural gas,” Palin told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an interview set to air at 6 p.m. ET on The Situation Room. “Domestically, we have the supply. The resources are up there in Alaska, and it’s time that we build this infrastructure and flow that very valuable resource into hungry markets throughout the U.S.” More on Sarah Palin

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Palin Defends Massive Pipeline Project

During a discussion of David Letterman’s joke about Sarah Palin on “Hannity” on Thursday night, conservative columnist S.E. Cupp blamed Obama. Cupp and Sean Hannity didn’t accept Letterman’s explanation of his joke , in which he regretted the comments, and slammed the lack of outrage in the mainstream media about the jokes in which Letterman referred to Palin’s “slutty-flight-attendant look” and quipped that her daughter got “knocked up by [NY Yankee] Alex Rodriguez” Cupp, who is a contributor to the Washington Post and Politico, fumed: “This is the enduring legacy of the Obama campaign. I’m not saying this to be inflammatory, I blame Barack Obama because he allowed his surrogates in the media and Hollywood and everyone else on the left to do this dirty talking for him.” Cupp called on Obama to condemn the comments. Hannity agreed with Cupp, adding “It’s like a Sista Souljah moment,” referring to the infamous scandal in which then-candidate Bill Clinton repudiated the rapper’s comments, outraging free-speech advocates but helping him win the votes of conservative Democrats. Watch the exchange: More on David Letterman

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Conservative Columnist Blames Obama For Letterman’s Palin Joke

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will be sitting down for a live interview with Matt Lauer on the “Today” show Friday in which she is expected to discuss her thoughts on the future of the GOP, and, even better, her recent feud with David Letterman over jokes he made about her and her family on his show Monday. Palin will be speaking from Texas, NBC says. More on Today Show

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Sarah Palin "Today" Show Interview With Matt Lauer Friday

Although I usually write about environmental, food, and political issues, I have the wonderful opportunity to delve into a more emotional, complicated topic today: family. My cousin, Alden Ehrenreich happens to be a young, brilliant actor who stars as Bennie in Francis Ford Coppola’s latest gem, Tetro . Bennie journeys to Argentina to meet his long-lost brother, Tetro. The film is a timeless, brooding, sensuous exploration of the physical and emotional struggles between the brothers, in the backdrop of a sometimes absurd, comedic snapshot of an Argentine town. The push and pull between Bennie, who wavers between an unbridled attempt to fully understand why his brother left his life and his more cautious attempts to hold onto some connection to him, is played out in stark images and language, shot primarily in black-and white. The film offers colorful flash-backs that exudes a sense of clarity of memories that Tetro wants to suppress and Bennie wants to explore. Memory scenes of choreographed dances are sometimes bizarre (such as the surreal removal of body parts), but are still soft and predictable in comparison to the explosive dances amongst family members. Tetro’s unpredictable, often violent temperament and flare-ups with Bennie and his wife, Miranda, offer viewers an emotional and physical jolt. The film is softened throughout with blinding images of shimmering white light. An innocent moth at the beginning of the film is drawn to Tetro’s light, as is Bennie. He is drawn to something that is exposes sheer, raw pain, but he clings to it, in an attempt to find his freedom. Light can expose the darkness that haunts the brothers but, like fire, can be overly powerful. As Alden said in a recent interview, “While light demystifies, or illuminates everything around it, the light itself is very mysterious. That is, in some way, Tetro — he’s an anomaly to himself, yet he is constantly revealing things in other people as well as the world round him, but in a sort of destructive way. And then there’s the illuminating power of my character, who is still figuring out himself and yet revealing so much in others.” The intensity of the film is contrasted with more absurdist, comical scenes and timeless characters who offer a sense of lightheartedness to the intense soul-searching of Bennie. Indeed, many of these characters seem to actually offer a outlet for him to develop a clearer sense of adulthood and identity. The entourage’s trip to Patagonia offers spectacular visual imagery of the vast, stark landscape that is still not big enough to absorb Tetro’s anguish, anger or secret. Alden’s performance has already garnered him many accolades and comparisons to Jack Nicholson and Leonardo DiCaprio. While he is humbled by such compliments, he offers a hint of his possible greatness when he said recently, “What I’m interested in, creatively, is something that doesn’t yet exist.” Don’t miss out. Tetro opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend. More on Argentina

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Sarah Newman: Tetro Is Illuminating

Ann Coulter, the self-described “conservative Christian” talking head, is much on my mind as I contemplate the horrifying images that came out of Washington from the Holocaust Museum, where white supremacist James von Brunn opened fire in an attempted mass-murder of Jews. His killing spree was cut short by security guard Stephen Tyrone Jones who put himself in the line of fire and died so others might live. I am remembering an October 2007 segment of the Donny Deutsch Show where she asserted that America would be better off if everyone was “Christian” and that “the Jews” merely needed to be “perfected” by becoming Christians. Coulter has made a fortune generating, fanning, and nurturing hatred and contempt for a variety of people, including liberals, Democrats, gays, foreign nationals, 9/11 widows, feminists, single mothers, Muslims, and any other group to whom she could throw her marginalized, disenfranchised readership as shark bait. To her, referring to Jews as “imperfect” on a talk show hosted by an observant Jewish host must have been just another day at the office. Coulter tossed her blond hair off her shoulders and tittered, as though waiting to be found witty, charming, and irascible. Oh Anne, you minx! You’re just pushing everyone’s buttons, aren’t you? Shame on you, you dead-sexy fascist pin-up. Stop teasing. You don’t really mean that. I mean, not really, right? Right? Deutsch, appalled, pointed out that the comment was not only patently absurd, but also hateful. Coulter giggled, a gold crucifix gleaming against her bony clavicle. “No,” she said, “it’s not hateful at all.” Today, nearly two years later, James von Brunn, driven by his own twisted version of Coulter’s publicly-proclaimed perspectives regarding the “imperfection” of Jews, entered the Holocaust Museum and put them into action, with tragic and deadly consequences. Much the same thing happened on May 31st when Scott Roeder entered the Reformation Lutheran Church during Sunday services and slaughtered abortion provider provider Dr. George Tiller. Media analysts continue to explore a possible continuum between Tiller’s murder and FOX host Bill O’Reilly’s well-documented on-air tirades against the doctor, whom he repeatedly called “Tiller the Baby Killer.” O’Reilly broadcast his vendetta to millions and millions of FOX viewers already infected with evangelical superstitions and a horror of science, especially science as it applies to a woman’s right to choose. Were O’Reilly a serious journalist or broadcaster instead of a sclerotic, chronically-aggravated right-wing rage pimp, he might have had the professional self-awareness or ethical sense to realize that he was putting George Tiller’s life in danger over the more than 28 broadcasts in which he used Tiller’s name. But O’Reilly, like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Steele, and indeed Coulter herself, is neither of those things. As a group, they are the pop culture equivalent of necrotic carrion beetles, moving with insectile determination from open wound to open wound in the American psyche: fear of race, fear of foreigners, fear of sexuality, fear of difference, religious fundamentalism, violent nationalism, and paranoia. They lay their eggs in the infected abrasion, scuttling away before gestation is complete. When their eggs hatch, squirming to larval life, full of rage and discontent, they deny responsibility for the outcome. If challenged, they and their rabidly devoted fans, claim that their First Amendment rights to free speech are being abrogated. The difference between John McCain and his surreal choice of a running-mate became clearest to me in the middle of the campaign last summer. At a town hall meeting, McCain was confronted by an elderly woman who told McCain that she was a supporter of his because Obama was “an Arab.” McCain was clearly uncomfortable, and it was patently obvious why. It had nothing to do with McCain’s feelings about Arabs. It had to do with an old-school Republican coming face to face with the underbelly of his party. He recognized that the woman was making an unambiguously racist statement about his opponent, and was mortified. Even though McCain famously and horribly bungled his answer (”no ma’am, he’s a decent family man”) I knew when he meant. He was addressing the intended racial slur and disavowing it, however badly. In that moment, I remembered how much I’d once respected John McCain, before he ran for president, and how much I was looking forward to him losing so he could go back to just being Senator John McCain again. In that moment, I felt deeply for my Republican friends, those who, on some level, must also be experiencing the embarrassment and discontent of realizing that their party had long-since been hijacked by a racists and religious fanatics who derided education and achievement as “elitist.” Sarah “Screw the Political Correctness” Palin, on the other hand, marched into those same crowds grinning and winking and “Yoo betcha-ing” like she was onstage at the Miss Alaska pageant. While her supporters waved watermelon slices and stuffed monkeys, Palin talked about who the “real Americans” were, and who was “palling around with terrorists.” She refused to address the blatant racism of her fans, or address the obvious exploitation of Obama’s middle name, Hussein, and the implication she herself was making with her “terrorist” comments. She was, after all, playing to the vaunted Republican “base,” the same crowd to whom George Bush had sold his second presidential term by pandering to their darkest and most cowardly aspect. This time out it was fear of gay marriage and adoption, carefully tended fear of another 9/11, fear of more fallout from a war they still didn’t believe he’d lied about. One can almost appreciate the horrible honesty of the racists among the McCain-Palin supporters who were able to admit what the others obfuscated: that they didn’t want a black man in the White House. Certain videos from their rallies are deeply disturbing. They showcase the seething racism of her most ardent followers, and history has already recorded their obsession with Obama’s origins, his religious background, and his citizenship. Obama’s citizenship was reportedly also something of an obsession for van Brunn, and likely very much on his mind when he walked into the museum and opened fire to make a statement about what “his” America ought to look like. I have no trouble imagining which radio stations he listened to, or which pundits best represented his baseline political ideology. And why. Even FOX’s Shep Smith announced on-air that he was increasingly disturbed by the escalating virulence and menace of the anti-Obama emails the station was receiving. There was a time when decency, even honor, was an essential part of the American dialogue in its most ideal form, and part of its very identity. There was a time when our culture would have recoiled in horror at the vituperation flowing unchecked from radios, televisions, and the Internet, instead of applauding it as “common sense,” “free speech,” or “maverick,” or “a spin-free zone.” There was a time when intellectual honesty was not considered unpatriotic; when compassion for, and understanding of, your fellow man was a sign of strength, not weakness. There was a time when the phrase Have you no shame? meant something, and the First Amendment was not used as toilet paper to wipe up the most excremental verbal degradation of vulnerable segments of the American population. A time when it was expected that people understand the difference between free speech and irresponsible speech. There is no Environmental Protection Agency to measure toxicity in national dialogue, and no honor system in place to warn us when the rage spewed into the national consciousness by shock-jocks and poisonous television pundits have reached dangerously radioactive levels. There is only the result: widows, orphans, collective grief, and an absolute refusal on the part of our loudest, coarsest voices to take any responsibility for their part in the carnage. More on Barack Obama

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Michael Rowe: The Holocaust Museum Shooting and the Degradation of the American Dialogue

The ConWeb is generally, and unsurprisingly, anti-abortion, so the May 31 killing of controversial late-term abortion doctor George Tiller was a subject of interest — and spin. Upon his death, CNSNews.com and WorldNetDaily were quick to rush to press with denouncements by anti-abortion activists of Tiller’s shooting and efforts to portray Tiller’s alleged killer, Scott Roeder, as having no links to the mainstream anti-abortion movement: — A May 31 WND article quoted several anti-abortion groups condemning the shooting. Another May 31 article , by Drew Zahn, stated that “Several pro-life groups … immediately condemned the murder as counter to their cause.” A June 1 article by Chelsea Schilling hyped a claim that Roeder “allegedly suffered from mental illness” and insisted that “Roeder was not associated with the mainstream pro-life movement.” — A June 1 CNS article began by asserting: “Pro-life groups say murder is incompatible with their beliefs, and they are condemning the shooting death of Kansas abortionist George Tiller.” Conspicuous by their absence, however, were the words of one anti-abortion activist in particular: Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue and a seminal figure in the movement. Terry issued the following statement after Tiller’s death: “Dr. Tiller was a mass murderer. “I grieve for him that he did not have an opportunity to properly prepare his soul to face his Maker. Unless some miracle happened, he left this life with his hands drenched with the innocent blood of tens of thousands of babies that he murdered. Surely there will be a dreadful accounting for what he has done. “I believe George Tiller was one of the most evil men on the planet; every bit as vile as the Nazi war criminals who were hunted down, tried, and sentenced after they participated in the ‘legal’ murder of the Jews that fell into their hands. To this day, neither WND nor CNS have mentioned Terry’s statement; among the major right-wing media, only Newsmax has reported Terry’s remarks. It’s all the more puzzling because both WND and CNS had no issue with reporting Terry’s antics in protesting Notre Dame’s invitation to President Obama to speak at its commencement. That WND and CNS would turn squeamish and spin-centric about reporting relevant facts about the anti-abortion movement is as unsurprising as their anti-abortion stance. Perhaps CNS felt it didn’t need to after its leader, Media Research Center head Brent Bozell, engaged in some Terry-esque rhetoric in his June 2 column . Complaining that the anti-abortion movement was the victim of “liberal mudslinging” because of an “unhinged vigilante,” Bozell attacked Keith Olbermann for calling Tiller’s death an “assassination”: “Olbermann insisted that the mere act of denouncing Tiller as a killer of babies - as if he were instead removing tumors - is an invitation to terrorism and murder.” Bozell concluded: “George Tiller was a monster who personally murdered 60,000 babies. May God have mercy on his soul.” That sentiment was echoed by Colleen Raezler, a writer for the MRC’s Culture & Media Institute. In April, Raezler complained that the media allegedly failed to report the fact that the victims of a plane crash were an abortion doctor and his family; Raezler’s repeated insistence that “loss of human life is a tragedy” was overshadowed by the overall tone of her piece, which made it clear that she believed the deaths of these people weren’t a tragedy. In a June 2 CMI article co-authored with Sarah Knoploh and also posted at NewsBusters , Raezler went even farther, suggesting that Tiller deserved to be targeted: Loss of human life is a tragedy and should be reported as such, and premeditated murder is always wrong - something all the mainstream pro-life groups were quick to affirm in the wake of the killing. But in reporting this tragic story, the news media have much to say about a man who helped provide women with the “right” to end their pregnancies, but have little to say about lives he helped to end. In failing to highlight what Tiller’s work actually entailed, reporters do nothing to help their audience understand why this man was targeted. By suggesting that Tiller was targeted for completely understandable reasons, she’s also saying that it’s completely understandable that someone would want to murder him, her disingenuous blather about how “loss of human life is a tragedy” notwithstanding. Further, as ConWebWatch has detailed , CNS itself has had a longtime labeling bias on the subject, preferring “pro-life” to “anti-abortion” and “pro-abortion” to “pro-choice.” WND, meanwhile, has long been sympathetic to the extremist end of the anti-abortion movement, as I’ve previously detailed here . WND managing editor David Kupelian ttried to change the subject in a June 1 column , insisting that “anti-abortion violence is extremely rare and is utterly repudiated by every pro-life organization and leader.” (No mention, of course, of Randall Terry’s deviation from that supposed norm.) Kupelian went on to assert that the Obama administration will use Tiller’s shooting like Hitler used the Reichstag fire — yet another in the long line of Nazi smears of Obama at WND. But there’s nary a word about WND’s own anti-Tiller rhetoric, let alone any move by him to accept responsibility for it. Kupelian’s Reichstag reference was shot down in surprising manner by none other than fellow right-wing activist David Horowitz in a June 2 FrontPageMag blog post : I continue to get emails comparing President Obama to Hitler, the most recent suggesting that the murder of an abortion doctor might be Obama’s “Reichstag Fire” and would be used by Obama to take away our civil liberties and terminate our Republic as Hitler did the Weimar Republic in the 1930s. This is lunatic stuff. Obama is better compared to Neville Chamberlain than to Adolf Hitler if you like these kinds of comparisons. Americans are not Germans — it’s a very big difference as far as political cultures are concerned, and Obama is not Hitler. Obama is a machine politician and whatever dangers he represents (and as I see it there are many) are dangers because they reflect the heart and soul of today’s Democratic Party not because he is a Manchurian candidate or a closet Islamist, as more than a few conservatives seem to think. Thus his appointment of a advocate of institutional racism to the Supreme Court is a predictable selection for any Democrat in the White House. His appeasement of Iran and the genocidal Palestinians, perhaps the most worrying of his foreign policy moves is the policy of his Secretary of State, his congressional leaders and his chief of staff. These facts add up to a worrisome prospect but a revival of the Third Reich is not one of them, and those who think it is and say so discredit only themselves. Randall Terry isn’t the only significant aspect of Tiller’s death the ConWeb has been ignoring, however. McClatchy reported on June 3 that after Roeder was captured following Tiller’s shooting, authorities found in his car a note that read “Cheryl” and “Op Rescue” with a phone number. That appears to be Cheryl Sullenger, a senior policy adviser for Operation Rescue. Sullenger told McClatchy that Roeder had contacted her several times seeking information about court hearings involving Tiller, which she provided to him. Despite the fact that this appears to contradict the claim that Roeder was “not associated with the mainstream pro-life movement” — not to mention Operation Rescue’s own attempt to disassociate itself from Roeder — neither WND nor CNS have reported this to their readers. Why would news outlets refuse to report news of interest to its audience? Because there’s a storyline to maintain — anti-abortion activists are never violent, and they don’t associate with anyone who is. Anything that contradicts that storyline must be spun; if it can’t be spun, it must be ignored. Is that the definition of a “news organization”? Most people who care about journalism would say no. (A version of this article appears at ConWebWatch .)

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Terry Krepel: Keeping Up Appearances: Right-Wing Media Hides Facts in Tiller Shooting

This column apparently shares a birthday with none other than Donald Duck, who turned 75 years old yesterday. Who knew? Yes, my column turned three years old yesterday, since my first foray into blogging happened on Huffington Post on June 9, 2006 . Since I don’t follow horoscopes, I have no idea what the metaphysical significance is of this column sharing the date with a duck who doesn’t wear pants, so I will leave that for wiser minds to decide. Because it’s time for an annual feed-the-ego column (actually, I wrote about my first anniversary , but the second seems to have slipped my mind last year…). If a column full of patting myself on the back with links to my other columns doesn’t appeal to you, then I would advise you to stop reading right now. Fair warning! One year ago, Hillary Clinton had just been finally defeated numerically for the Democratic nomination for president. There was a lot of bad feeling in the air over this, and Democrats everywhere were wondering how many “PUMAs” (for “Party Unity, My Ass!”) there really were, and what they would mean to the Democrats’ chances in the fall. This led me to rewrite the labor anthem “Which Side Are You On?” for the occasion. As it turned out, by the time of the convention, the PUMAs were an endangered (if not extinct) species, and the convention was a shining display of unity behind Barack Obama. Much to the dismay of the media, who were really hoping for some fireworks on the floor (which has indeed happened before, but it’s been a while). This past year has been an interesting one to blog, I have to admit. From Mrs. Chris Weigant guest-blogging on “Why I Decided To Become An American” to hitting 2,500 Diggs ( “End The Media’s Pro-McCain Bias Now!” ) to our (sometimes) resident ChrisWeigant.com cartoonist C.W. Cunningham being honored by the Jefferson Center for Protection of Free Expression, it’s been quite a year. I got the chance to interview Al Franken , and may (if he ever gets seated in the Senate) be able to line up a second interview, so that’s something to look forward to. Of course, I’ve had to pay attention to Republicans during the year, so it hasn’t all been roses. My favorite quote from a Republican all year: “[The Republican Party is a] dead, rotting carcass with a few decrepit old leaders stumbling around like zombies in a horror version of Weekend at Bernie’s, handcuffed to a corpse.” This has also meant dealing with Republicans who badmouth you, dear reader, which I wrote about in “Oh, The Humanity! Godless Huffington Post Commenters Wickedly Destroying Conservatism.” Of course, the election was the biggest story of this time period, and led to thinking the unthinkable (a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College), as well as things that used to be unthinkable (a 60-seat majority in the Senate), which is now within reach (as soon as Al Franken is seated). But the biggest election story was the presidential race, of course. I did a series of articles (which began rather modestly , and then added charts , and tracked Obama’s chances from low point to landslide ) on the electoral math and polling, which ended with a final column just before the election. Watching Obama’s acceptance speech at the convention was probably the high point of the whole time period. The guest column I ran during the election ( “Why Obama’s Election Should Be Considered Historic” ) was probably the best one I’ve ever run, which was also a high point. Of course, there was McCain and Palin on the other side, who provided lots of material — from telling the media to ask McCain how many houses he had (weeks before they actually did ) to telling Sarah Palin she was full of moose poop . I did, at one point, feel so sorry for Palin that I wrote a column titled “In Defense Of Sarah Palin” because I thought everyone wasn’t even giving what she said an honest assessment. But in general, Palin was the gift that kept on giving (in terms of column material, at any rate). While I tried to be funny at times (like Hallowe’en ), I was so impressed with professional funnyman Craig Ferguson’s rant “If you don’t vote, you’re a moron” that I had to transcribe the whole thing for posterity. The most memorable event of the year, however, was Inauguration Day, which I traveled to Washington to personally witness (and, of course, blog about ). I will forever be proud to say “I was there” whenever Obama’s historic swearing-in is spoken of. I began commenting about Obama’s term with a lesson I had learned during the campaign — “Barack Obama Is Smarter Than Us” — and a warning that Obama was going to, at some point, enrage the left . Since he’s been in office, I’ve started another series “Obama Poll Watch” which will — soon after the first of every month — plot his approval numbers for his term in office. It’s not as exciting as the Electoral Math series, but it’s still fun to create lots of graphs for people. There were two recent columns which I thought deserved more attention (which is why I’m closing on this note) — the concept of a “National Security Blanket,” and a court decision on anonymous political emails ( “Anonymity Of ‘Obama Is A Muslim’ Emails Constitutionally Protected?” ). So, looking ahead to another interesting year, the big fight (at least at the beginning) is going to be countering the Frank Luntz Republican playbook on healthcare reform, which should take up a lot of time in the next few months. And taking one final look back, the most amusing contest I ran was a photo caption for a classic shot of President Bush preparing to spank a female beach volleyball player at the Olympics (which I picked winners for later ). All in all, it’s been a good third year, and it’s looking like my fourth year blogging will certainly be interesting (if perhaps not as exciting as a presidential election year), as we continue to watch Democrats attempt to govern, now that they’ve run the tables in two branches of our federal government. To my readers (both the faithful and the occasional), thanks for reading, thanks for commenting, and thanks (as always) for getting to the end of yet another lengthy post. I couldn’t have done it without you.   Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com  

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Chris Weigant: My Third Anniversary Blogging

“I saw The Secret Policeman’s Ball and it became a part of me. It sowed a seed…” - Bono “I think everyone is in for a grave disappointment.” - John Cleese This June marks the 30th anniversary of the Secret Policeman’s Ball series - the pioneering benefit shows instigated by Monty Python’s John Cleese to aid the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights organization Amnesty International. The first show took place in London in June 1979, and it triggered a series of benefit events starring top comedians and rock musicians, that have been presented internationally over the past three decades. The series has also been credited with galvanizing entertainers to use their talents and influence to raise funds and consciousness for human rights and other social and political causes - and helped inspire 1985’s Live Aid. Artists who cite the series as the starting point for their social activism include Bono, Sting, Peter Gabriel and Bob Geldof . The solo performances by musicians such as Pete Townshend, Sting and Phil Collins also inspired the “Unplugged ” phenomenon. Entertainers who have performed in support of Amnesty over the past 30 years include: Comedic performers such as: John Cleese • Michael Palin • Terry Jones • Terry Gilliam • Graham Chapman (of Monty Python) • Peter Cook & Dudley Moore • Rowan Atkinson • Billy Connolly • Eddie Izzard • Hugh Laurie • Stephen Fry • Jennifer Saunders (”Absolutely Fabulous”) • Neil Innes (Python associate and The Rutles) • Russell Brand • Graham Norton • Steve Coogan (”Night At The Museum”) • Richard E. Grant • Alan Rickman • Jimmy Fallon • Chevy Chase • Sarah Silverman • Spinal Tap Musicians such as: The Police • U2 • Bruce Springsteen • Peter Gabriel • Sting • Pete Townshend • Eric Clapton • Jimmy Page • Jeff Beck • David Gilmour • Bono • Robert Plant • Phil Collins • Kate Bush • Jackson Browne • Joni Mitchell • Carlos Santana • Radiohead • Lou Reed • Sinead O’Connor • Bryan Adams • Bob Geldof • Steven Van Zandt • Donovan • Mark Knopfler • Dave Stewart • Joan Armatrading • Duran Duran • Tracy Chapman • Morrissey • Alanis Morissette • Yoko Ono • Seal • Joan Baez • Miles Davis The anniversary is being celebrated this summer with The Secret Policeman’s Film Festival - a major 5-week film festival in both Los Angeles and New York - presented at prestigious venues including Lincoln Center (NY) , Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre (L.A.) and The Paley Center for Media in both Manhattan and Beverly Hills. Huffington Post will be saluting Amnesty International and this significant anniversary with some special content relating to the film festival and the anniversary: • Special new video messages from Sting • Michael Palin and Neil Innes (of Monty Python fame) • Peter Gabriel • The ultra-rare controversial TV spot and the notorious theatrical trailer by Monty Python’s Graham Chapman that spoofed the Moral Majority (sic) and launched the Secret Policeman’s Ball in the USA. (The TV spot was banned by every US TV network in 1982!) The World Premiere of Triumph Of The Ball - a new short film that presents the highlights of three decades of great performances for Amnesty International. • Exclusive reports on the film festival in both Los Angeles and New York • Exclusive blogs from key supporters of Amnesty International and from Secret Policeman’s Ball series co-creator/producer Martin Lewis who is curating and producing the film festival for Amnesty. On a personal note I am planning to attend and blog about the first 10 days of the festival in Los Angeles — and then jet across the country to New York to cover the first week there. So check back for my reports on the festival! Official Festival Website Click on the icon to see video clips from the Balls

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Gregory Weinkauf: Having a Ball for Amnesty…

MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer on Tuesday hosted John Ziegler, documentary filmmaker and professional Sarah Palin-supporter, for another one of those vertiginous interviews that have become Ziegler’s stock in trade. Serving as the news peg for this one was a comedy bit from David Letterman that made fun of Sarah Palin, at times rather viciously. Of course, the problem with interviewing John Ziegler about anything, is that pretty soon, the subject of conversation becomes about John Ziegler. And this interview was no different. Basically, it’s five minutes of Contessa Brewer attempting to ask questions and Ziegler responding with tangentially-related anti-MSNBC agitprop. Ziegler led off the interview by referring to MSNBC as “Barack Obama’s official network,” grousing about how the topic of the interview wasn’t Keith Olbermann, answering questions glancingly and with subtle digs, and, OF COURSE, making sure to plug his website and movie. Brewer played her part by being miffed and appalled right up until the moment where she calls a halt to the discussion and asks for Ziegler’s mike to be cut. One of the substantive points that Brewer brings up is the fact that a new Gallup poll indicates that Palin doesn’t rate among self-identified Republicans as any sort of party leader . Ziegler blamed MSNBC for that: “You find this surprising or shocking that because you and the media portray Republicans as old white men, that the public perceives Republicans as old white men?” Yes. The perception that the GOP was filled with old, white men was invented by the media, in 2009, to hurt Sarah Palin’s electoral chances. Truly, a cunning bit of subterfuge. I tend to think that public favor of Palin has diminished because every time someone says something about her that should simply be beneath her, like a late night host’s Top Ten List, Palin turns it into a national opera of personal outrage. She doesn’t seem to understand that she’d be better off ignoring it. Sometimes, you just have to act like the small stuff doesn’t affect you. And, hey, maybe you should avoid having a guy who’s trying to earn a living selling you as a documentary film subject as your chief spokesman in the press. But if Ziegler is going to step up and fight those battles for you, there’s even less of a reason to become personally invested. Sarah Palin should let the small people sweat the small stuff, instead of constantly retreating behind them. Naturally, the whole exchange sort of loses its impact when you understand that there is no way that MSNBC could have expected this interview to turn out any differently, given Ziegler’s prior performances . I suppose Brewer should be commended for pretending to be surprised at Ziegler’s behavior so convincingly. [WATCH] [Would you like to follow me on Twitter ? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here .] More on David Letterman

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Contessa Brewer Steamed By Palin Defender: You’re Insulting Me, "Cut His Mic"

Fresh off making headlines for calling President Obama a “false prophet” at a GOP fundraiser, actor Jon Voight appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s show Tuesday night to continue pressing his case against Obama. After a quick name-checking of Julius Caesar–as in Obama thinks he is a “soft-spoken Julius Caesar”–Voight got down to business, making the case that Obama is “a fellow who’s bringing us to chaos and socialism.” [scroll down for the transcript.] O’REILLY: Wow! Here now, Mr. Voight. So what — what is your essential beef, when you just cut down — it was a long speech you gave — with President Obama? What — what’s the main complaint? VOIGHT: Well, it is essentially this, Bill, if I had to break it down. We were warned by Hillary Clinton that he had no experience, that he had no qualifications. We were warned by his now vice president, Joe Biden, he had no experience. So he was a novice. And now we’re getting what we could have expected, if we had listened. We have a fellow who’s bringing us to chaos and socialism. O’REILLY: I don’t see any chaos. In Iraq he’s pretty much doing what Bush did. He’s keeping the soldiers there. There may be chaos when we start to withdraw, but right now it’s… VOIGHT: The chaos I’m speaking of is economic chaos. O’REILLY: OK. But let’s stay — let’s stay with foreign policy and we’ll get into… VOIGHT: OK. O’REILLY: …because you made some points about Julius Caesar, wants to convince the world. Obviously, you feel he’s naive and idealistic. VOIGHT: Well, I feel he’s weak. O’REILLY: You feel he’s weak? VOIGHT: Just exactly why we have this muscle-flexing from Korea. Nothing’s happening. They… O’REILLY: What would you do, though? I mean, you know, we’ve talked this over. It’s a very tough situation in Korea. VOIGHT: Well, this is — there must be a response. O’REILLY: What kind of a response? VOIGHT: Well… O’REILLY: See, now we’re getting into a really tough area. VOIGHT: No — are you — do I have the experience to say something that deeply needs to be said? I have a, you know, a head on my shoulders, and I can think of a few things. But certainly they should be let to know that there are going to be consequences. qu More on Barack Obama

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Voight: Obama "Bringing Us To Chaos And Socialism" (VIDEO)

Via Taegan Goddard . PALIN: We are the only state with a negative tax rate where we don’t have any income, sales or property tax statewide, and yes we have a share of our oil resource revenue that goes back to the people that own the resources. Imagine that. HANNITY: And it went up higher since you’ve been the governor and you negotiated with the oil companies. That all went up so people get a bigger check. PALIN: There was a corrupt tax system up there and we had a couple of lawmakers end up in jail because of the tax system that was adopted so we cleaned it up and said we wanted a fair and equitable share of the resources that we own, and the people will share in those resource revenues that are derived. (A few minutes later…) PALIN: If Americans aren’t paying attention, unfortunately our country could evolve into something that we do not even recognize. Certainly that is so far from what the founders of our country had in mind for us. HANNITY: Socialism? PALIN: Well… that is where we are headed. Ahh, yes. Socialism . OH NOES! REVERSE COURSE! Head in the direction of GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION IN INDUSTRY FOR THE PURPOSES OF BASE POLITICAL CRONYISM BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. Also, The Part Where Glenn Beck Vents Gas Into The Air Is Pretty Great : The best part of Media Matters’ mashup of talking heads getting all sorts of facts wrong , because there’s never any accountability for anyone — right, Fred Hiatt, journalism’s worst editorial page editor? — is this tone poem by Rush Limbaugh: The sea eats oil. The sea eats oil…alive. That place up there? Nature cleaned it up faster Than we ever could “Ski Injury,” Eh? : Via Balk , this has got to be the most disingenuous thing Sarah Palin has ever tweeted . Seasons change : But the Washington Independent ’s Dave Weigel captured something annoyingly perennial in the Nation’s Capitol. Lehmann On The Poverty Narrative : ” So it would seem , in other words, that government has done more than its share to shape the suburban housing market, and its many higher-performing lily-white school districts. It’s just that, on the New York Post end of the journalism market, no op-ed contributor is about to point out that his or her aggrieved white suburban readers are actually de facto dole beneficiaries; and the midtown savants at the gleaming new Times tower want to turn any available story about social class into a parable on the variable meanings of diversity, and how they make for comparative attitudes of stick-to-it-iveness in your individually sampled Supreme Court justice-in-the-making.” [Would you like to follow me on Twitter ? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here .] More on Poverty

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Sarah Palin Defines Socialism Sideways (And The Rest Of Today’s Scritti Politti)

Like so many kvelling George Costanzas, frantically waving a bill of sale to a used LeBaron convertible as proof of their brush with fame and an Academy Award, right-wing bloggers are falling over themselves to wrap themselves in the glow of “the great Jon Voight.” Reason: Voight’s incrediby irresponsible, un-American, and dangerous description of the President of the United States as a ” false prophet ” at a Republican fundraiser that also featured those Bobbsey Twins of Hope, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich. You’d think Voight was playing his best-known current role (outside of grandpa to the offspring of Branjelina) - that of 24 madman and insurrectionist Jonas Hodges - when he spewed this garbage into the business end of the Congressional GOP: It’s no wonder that the Russian newspaper Pravda, the former house organ for the former Soviet Communist regime, has said the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath-taking speed. We can blame Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chris Dodd, George Soros, David Axelrod and their ilk for the downfall of this country. It saddens me greatly to think we were the great power for good in the world. We as Americans knew America to be strong. And we were the liberators of the entire world. We are becoming a weak nation. Obama really thinks that he is a soft-spoken Julius Ceaser. He thinks he’s going to conquer the world with his soft-spoken sweet talk. And really thinks he’s going to bring all the enemies of the world into a little playground where they’ll swing each other back and forth. We and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression. But oh the paroxysms of pleasure quivering in the downtrodden conservative blogosphere. “A strong conservative voice,” praised the Infidel Bloggers Alliance , a conservative blog that features the classy “Infidel Babe of the Week.” “Voight in 2012?” asks the pragmatic right-wingers at Hot Air (I’m rooting for Palin-Gingrich, personally). “Not your typical Hollywood libtard!” enthuses the obsessively named FireAndreaMitchell blogger. “Brave man,” cooed Michelle Malkin . There are others, as Voight enjoys that moment in the sun reserved for retirees and recent converts to an ideology, but why go on? This is better anyway - and emblematic of the true value of the newly-minted conservative star: More on Barack Obama

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Tom Watson: The Right Wing’s Own ‘False Prophet’

Andrew Breitbart had a column in yesterday’s Washington Times that’s described as “analysis/opinion,” of today’s Democratic Party, but should be listed as how-many-whining-cliches-and-talking-points-can-I-cram-into-800-words: … taxpayer money … ACORN … seek out Skid Row bodies and wheel them to polling places … government services … amnesty for illegal immigrants … Democrats would distribute needles, methadone … imperils their campaign for permanent rule … anyone who disagrees is a racist … take control of the Census Bureau … enemies list … Rush Limbaugh … Fox News … do the president’s bidding … mainstream media delirium … radicalized Democratic Party … Moveon.org, George Soros … Self-avowed anarchists and open socialists … May Day parades … dole out billion-dollar bonuses … taxpayers’ expense … orgy of special-interest payback … unions … Where is the media … NBC News … MSNBC … liberal triumphalism … Mr. Limbaugh … Sarah Palin … NBC News and MSNBC …The New York Times … liberal Hollywood celebrities … Keith Olbermann … venom … Nancy Pelosi … Breitbart’s conclusion? … the GOP will not survive if it doesn’t accept the fact that the Democrats are its enemy and that it must begin to play for keeps. That means finding another Lee Atwater - only meaner - and not apologizing when we get him. Apparently Breitbart hasn’t realized that this is the approach that sent the GOP into the wilderness in the first place.

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Breitbart’s Brain

Dissed by the McCain campaign last year and now by the Republican establishment, it’s a wonder that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin , the 2008 vice presidential nominee, still has any national standing in the GOP. But as her East Coast tour this week–capped by a controversial appearance at the House-Senate GOP fundraising dinner last night–showed, it’s not the Washington big shots she’s wooing: It’s her grass-roots backers outside the Beltway. More on Sarah Palin

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Sarah Palin Snubs Washington Insiders At Senate-House Dinner

Actor Jon Voight, the master of ceremonies at the GOP event, set the tone of the evening with a number of sharp jabs at the president. More on Sarah Palin

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JON VOIGHT: Possible 2012 GOP Contender?

Moms looking to make a bolder statement with their tresses have no shortage of celebrity “Mom-Do’s” to pull inspiration from this year. From tousled and low-maintenance looks to skull sculptures requiring a live-in stylist, there’s something for every mom, from the campaign trail to Hollywood; from celebrity to wannabe. Before tearing the pages out of this week’s tabloid mags, ask yourself: which Mom-Do best fits you? The Palin (aka the “Sexy Librarian,” the “Hot for Teacher,” the “Hockey Mom”) Monday through Friday, you rule the PTA with an iron fist; but on the weekend, you let your hair down for hunting trips and hockey matches. Surely there must be a happy medium for your impeccably highlighted locks! Rest assured. Governor Sarah Palin has perfected the look for you born to lead, lipstick-sporting pit bulls. The neat, tight half-updo conveys a pulled together yet flirty image while fringed bangs frame and draw attention to your face. A teased bump at the crown keeps the look multi-generational (who doesn’t love remembering the 80’s?) and national (a big hit in small towns from Concord to Wasilla). The Kate (aka the “Business in Front, Party on Top,” the “Sonic the Hedgemom”) You frankly don’t care what the other moms on the playground think about you, your parenting style, your marriage, or your compulsive germaphobia. All that matters is that everyone in your life plays by your rules, including each and every hair on your head. It would better suit your busy schedule if hair could just be snapped on every morning like a helmet. Since it can’t, you’ll drag your trusted hair sculptor with you everywhere you go to ensure that your perfectly side swept bangs and spiky, spiky dome can withstand anything, from a torrential downpour to an unexpected onslaught of paparazzi shutterbugs. The Angie (aka the “Effortless Chic,” the “Classy Bedhead”) In your eyes, your husband is the sexiest man alive, and even with full-fledged careers and a house full of kids, the two of you like to keep things hot. To the envy of everyone around you, you manage to roll out of bed in the morning with perfectly tousled, luscious locks (or you spend two hours with a curling iron and six kinds of mousse attempting this feat, and have us all fooled). Truth be told, you’re too busy brokering world peace one day and hijacking cars, assassinating terrorists, or tomb-raiding the next to worry about your hair. The Octomom (aka the “Wannabe Angie”) You’re convinced you should be famous just for giving birth to as many children as you have. Sadly, when competing with the rest of the Mom-Do’s, this feat alone isn’t enough to make you stand out. If the Angie is the Tricomi ‘do, the Octomom is Supercuts’ version. More on Fashion

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Brett Ashley McKenzie: Which "Mom-Do" Are You?

Every medical student knows that a patient who has possibly contracted bacterial meningitis requires emergency spinal fluid testing and initiation of antibiotic treatment, and that one particular strain of bacterial meningitis, Neisseria meningitidis, can kill healthy humans within hours. Six years ago, the Chicago Health Department embarked on an urgent, mass vaccine initiative that utterly stopped a Neisseria meningitidis outbreak. The vaccine campaign undoubtedly saved lives. Both vaccines and a city health department that responded quickly and appropriately to a deadly outbreak are the heroes in this story that underscores the critical importance of public health departments. My recent post arguing that MMR vaccines are essential in childhood sparked a little bit of controversy. I am following up that post with a real-life example of the life-saving power of vaccines that occurred right here in my own home town. In October 2003, local doctors and hospitals notified the Chicago Department of Public Health that six men had contracted Neisseria meningitidis during a 10-day period. Three of the six infected men died from meningitis. All six men who contracted the disease were gay, and had been hanging out in Lakeview, Chicago’s gay community. In fact, four of the men had visited the same gay bar before getting sick. The city’s health department responded swiftly to the Neisseria meningitidis meningitis outbreak. Workers distributed health alert notices and other written material to doctors and other health care providers treating patients in the gay community. Local bar and restaurant owners provided information to members of the gay community eating and drinking in their establishments. The health department also organized a massive vaccine initiative in the week following notification of the six Neisseria meningitidis cases. Sending public health nurses armed with vaccine doses that arrived from other parts of the country to the community, the health department inoculated 14,267 men with meningococcal vaccine. Following the mass administration of vaccines to men in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, no additional cases of Neisseria meningitidis meningitis were noted. Deborah Wexler, MD, a family practice physician in Minneapolis, and the Executive Director of the Immunization Action Coalition, a non-profit that promotes vaccine use, applauded the efforts of Chicago’s health department in stopping the deadly outbreak. “That’s a huge success story,” she said. Patients infected with meningitis caused by Neisseria meningitidis generally become gravely ill very quickly. They generally develop a severe headache and a fever, and some may also have a red rash on their extremities. Patients can lapse into a coma within hours of their first symptoms if they do not receive immediate treatment. I still remember the 18-year-old patient who died from Neisseria meningitidis meningitis not long after she came to the emergency department during the first few weeks of my internal medicine residency. It’s been more than 15 years since that event, but I have no trouble remembering her death scene: a beautiful young woman, lying very still in an ICU bed, surrounded by her shocked family. Vaccination against meningitis is currently recommended for all preadolescents, aged 11 to 12. The CDC notes that young adults who will be spending time in dormitories and other close quarters, such as college students and military recruits, who have not been vaccinated should also receive the vaccine. Anyone working in a lab with possible meningitis strains or anyone exposed to meningitis should also be vaccinated. Dr. Wexler admits that even though routine vaccination was not yet recommended, she vaccinated her children when they were teen-agers. “I had my kids vaccinated before it was recommended because it was such a devastating disease,” she explained. “I was convinced to do so after listening to several parents’ public statements at the Advisory Committee on Immune Practices (ACIP) meetings, parents whose children had died or had become severely disabled— loss of limbs or brain damage— from meningococcal disease. These parents were asking that ACIP recommend routine meningococcal vaccine for all U.S. children. They also made public statements that they wished their doctors had told them that there was a meningococcal vaccine - they had no idea, and that it could likely have prevented the disease that devastated their families.” While only 32% of US teens had been properly vaccinated against meningitis , the numbers of vaccinated teens continues to rise. Maybe watching the gripping video narrated by Glenn Close from the National Meningitis Association on children devastated by vaccine-preventable meningitis will reduce parents to tears, and then action…to make an appointment to have their pre-teens and teens vaccinated. Who knows? The vaccine may just save your child’s life. I know my child will be in line for her meningitis vaccine when she reaches the appropriate age. More on Wellness

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Sarah Lovinger: Vaccines Save Lives: Here’s Proof

In her appearance on “Hannity” on Monday night, Sarah Palin claimed that the country was headed towards socialism. And she explained her decision not to take stimulus money, “buckets of money” with ’strings attached,” as she described it. She said that she vetoed a “bucket of money” because it was tied to “universal building codes” (requiring the state to adopt federal energy-efficiency standards) which she felt wouldn’t work in Alaska - “We don’t want those fat strings attached, where centralized big government is going to tell us what is best.” Hannity, who bragged that he was interviewing her near his New York home, asked Palin about the country’s debt and Obama’s federal programs, prompting Palin to outline her fears. “Our country could evolve into something that we do not even recognize, certainly that is so far from what the founders of our country had in mind for us.” Hannity interrupted her: “Socialism?” To which Palin responded: “Well, that’s where we are headed.” Watch the video: More on Video

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Palin: Obama Is Leading America Towards Socialism (VIDEO)

WASHINGTON — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin appeared at a Republican congressional fundraiser Monday night, ending a will-she-or-won’t-she mystery that overshadowed the event and frustrated the GOP. Palin _ the party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee who was initially slated to headline the annual Senate-House dinner _ left organizers hanging as late as Monday afternoon after she was told she wouldn’t have a speaking role at the event. It was the latest twist in an unusual public flap between the potential 2012 presidential candidate and the Republican congressional leaders who run the party’s fundraising committees. In March, organizers replaced Palin as the keynote speaker with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich after she wavered over accepting the invitation. She hadn’t been expected to attend until last week, when her advisers approached organizers saying she would be near Washington and would like to come. Republican officials involved in the discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Palin was invited to sit at a head table but was told she would not be given a chance to speak for fear that she might overshadow Gingrich. Palin balked at that arrangement but did not make clear whether she would refuse to attend, the officials said. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, made a personal appeal over the weekend for her to attend and invited her and her husband, Todd Palin, to sit at his table. Late Monday afternoon, the officials said Palin’s aides had informed organizers that she and her husband would attend, although a spokeswoman for the governor’s political committee would not confirm that. Palin catapulted to fame last year as presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate and is widely believed to be eyeing a presidential bid in 2012. In March, Cornyn’s committee and its House counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee, put out a news release saying she would be the keynote speaker at the dinner, which is one of the party’s largest fundraisers. Palin’s representatives said later that the governor never confirmed that she would speak and wanted to make sure the event did not interfere with state business. Gingrich also has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2012, and the confusion over the fundraiser comes as Palin is denying an allegation that a speech she recently gave borrowed heavily from an article he co-wrote. Responding to an accusation from a blogger on the Huffington Post Web site, Palin’s attorney said the governor gave Gingrich proper credit when she used some of his material about former President Ronald Reagan. ____ Associated Press writer Beth Fouhy in New York contributed to this report. More on Sarah Palin

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Sarah Palin Shows Up At GOP Fundraiser Despite Lack Of Speaking Role

With Sarah Palin drawing crowds like this , we may yet have the good fortune of seeing Alaska’s governor atop the GOP ticket in 2012: Palin draws 20,000 to New York appearance Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) vowed to keep fighting the policies of Washington and its growing government solutions to the nation’s economic problems in a Saturday speech in Auburn, N.Y. celebrating the city’s Founder’s Day. Palin was on hand to help raise money for a museum honoring William Seward, the 19th secretary of state who purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867. The former Republican vice presidential candidate drew a crowd of 20,000, who watched her lead a parade through downtown Auburn and sign a proclamation honoring Seward. Just to be clear, this doesn’t mean the Sarah Palin freakshow isn’t in full effect : And now, even more GOP drama: Palin is back on The on again, off again, back on again and then off yet again story continues. She’s back and on again. Maybe . In another sign of the sway that Sarah Palin and her supporters in Palin Nation hold over the GOP, NRCC chief Pete Sessions is working behind the scenes to get Palin reinvited to the big GOP fundraiser tonight, GOP sources say. Oh please, oh please, oh please, all you loony GOPs…give us Sarah Palin, as your nominee! Without Sarah in the game, the election won’t be the same. We’d still re-elect Obama, but with her we’ll enjoy the drama!

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Don’t give up hope just yet

As the Vienna Philharmonic finished its annual outdoor program at the Schonbrunn Castle, the guest conductor Daniel Barenboim exclaimed to the 50,000 gathered that he had a new hope because of the speech by the American President Obama on that day. The statement was met with a roar of approval. The next day, every major newspaper in Vienna carried the transcript of the Obama’s Cairo speech. Apparently, they heard the President in Lebanon and Iran as well. I was in Vienna for a colloquium on Religion, Diplomacy, and International Relations convened by the Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton. In 2004, I attended another track two diplomatic meeting on Iran. Iran was in the midst of an election campaign and a radical candidate was running named Ahmadinejad. Speaking to some of the delegates it was clear that Ahmadinejad’s best ally in his hardliner campaign was the American President George Bush. We assured them that George Bush’s campaign (and more recently Palin’s) felt the same way. Four years later, President Bush with his Axis of Evil bluster has been replaced by President Obama with his clear diplomatic message of resolve and hope. It seeems as though an American President may be affecting the Iranian elections again, this time positively . From the recent polls it looks like Ahmadinejad is in trouble. His main opponent, Hussein Moussavi, is a reformist who is running an Obama style campaign attracting a huge youth surge. Moussavi stands for equal rights for women and decries Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy as “adventurism, illusionism, exhibitionism, extremism and superficiality.” In this election, Obama appears to be helping the candidate who is interested in real relations to America. The American President is a role model instead of a straw man. Likewise in Lebanon. As the New York Times reports, until recently it seemed as though the Iranian backed Hezbollah party would win the majority. Now it looks as though the coalition that is more favorable to America will retain power. We don’t know the exact effect that Obama is having on these elections. But it appears from the 2004 results that the Cheney/Bush presidency bolstered the enemies of America. Four years later it looks like the Obama’s presidency may do the opposite. Americans would do well to remember this four years in the future in our own elections in 2012. cross posted from Beliefnet’s Progressive Revival More on Ahmadinejad

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Paul Raushenbush: The Obama Effect in Iran and Lebanon - Role Model Instead of Straw Man

40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation By James Carville Simon and Schuster New York, New York: 2009 209 pages $24.95 “American presidential politics is generally not a back-and-forth enterprise. There are eras in which one party dominates. Today, a Democratic majority is emerging, and it’s my hypothesis, one I share with a great many others, that his majority will guarantee the Democrats remain in power for the next forty years.” It’s already too late to hold back the people who’ve rushed to the comment section without reading even this far in to the essay to declare that predicting the future is stupid, that nobody should predict that we’ll win because then Democrats will get lazy or something, and to say they dislike James Carville. It’s too bad if that happens, because it’s a worthwhile discussion to have. Carville has been a wildly successful political operative; he managed a decisive Democratic win over an incumbent Republican president, several statewide races and, since 1992, has been probably the most successful international political consultant, playing key roles in the victories of Tony Blair, Ehud Barak and several others. His crusade against DNC chair Howard Dean was petty, misguided and unproductive. But he’s still a supremely talented operative and observer of American politics. Carville’s success in electing center-left candidates in the US and across the globe gives him a rare practitioner’s perspective on what’s become a major discussion among political observers; namely, are the Republicans screwed, and are the Democrats embarking upon a period of dominance. American politics has tended to operate on roughly 40 year cycles, especially since the late 19th century. Over the last decade or so there’s been reason to think that Democrats were on the verge of partisan realignment favoring Democrats. Looking at these trends, in November 2007 I began to discuss ( here , here , here and here ) the parallels between the election of 1932 and what we could see in the approaching election of 2008. The victory of Barack Obama and expansion of our Congressional majorities, and the reception so far of the electorate to the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress, give further support to the belief that Democrats could dominate the political and policy agenda of the next several decades, control Congress and win the majority of presidential elections until mid-century or so. Carville should have valuable contributions to this discussion. Unfortunately, 40 More Years doesn’t offer much to one looking for sound historical, political and demographic evidence and arguments for whether and why the country may be undergoing a political realignment away from the transitional period since Nixon’s 1968 victory that hastened the end of the New Deal order that dominated American politics since 1932. Nevertheless, anyone looking for excellent arguments for why voters should choose Democrats should read what is an engaging and very effective polemic. Part of Carville’s shtick, which has made him the most famous and recognized political operative since Pat Buchanan, is his rapid-fire, associative, sometimes even frenetic verbal style. 40 More Years is written in that voice, which makes it a quick and entertaining read. However, it’s a weakness for a book that suggests it will deliver an extended argument; indeed, a lot of the book has a “oh, another thing I just thought of have to throw in” feel. As much as an extended argument that Carville has is summed up at the beginning of the first chapter: The Republicans got spanked in 2008, and they’re going to keep getting spanked. The explanation is simple: • They’ve destroyed the myth of conservative competence. • They’re corrupt. • They’ve lost the culture war. That argument really isn’t wrong , it’s just that it’s incomplete. Carville sees an opening provided by the Republican meltdown. While he doesn’t discuss it, that opening was provided by the narrow but decisive Republican victories in 2002 and 2004, which for the first time since the early 1950’s gave them complete control of the executive and legislative branches, and thus exposed them as solely responsible for whatever went wrong. And what went wrong during that four year period was a shallow and jobless recovery from a recession, the beginnings of the collapse of the housing market, Republicans overplaying their hands and pursuing horribly unpopular positions on Social Security privatization and interfering in the end-of-life decisions for Terri Schaivo, and exposing their gross incompetence in dealing with hurricane Katrina and the civil war, ethnic cleansing and general chaos in Iraq that peaked just prior to the Democrats’ victories in the 2006 election. What’s missing, however, is that these trends have been brewing since the early 90’s. Carville mentions Kevin Phillips’ (surprisingly out-of-print) The Emerging Republican Majority, but he doesn’t mention John Judis and Ruy Teixeira’s 2002 book The Emerging Democratic Majority , who predicted a Democratic realignment not because of Republican incompetence but more because of long-term trends creating a Democratic majority: Today’s Democrats are the party of the transition from urban industrialization to a new postindustrial metropolitan order in which men and women play equal roles and in which white America is supplanted by multiracial, multiethnic America. This transition is occurring in the three critical realms of work, values and geography. Professionals and highly educated workers are growing in numbers and prominence, and they are voting Democratic. Work is important to Americans, but so are pleasure and personal satisfaction, and Democrats have favored more family-friendly policies of the types found in the social welfare states like Canada and Europe and a embrace of cultural tolerance and diversity. Democrats have championed social libertarianism in people’s personal lives, which is in tune with the changes in society and a stark contrast to the censorious intolerance of the Republicans, who initially benefitted from a backlash to the civil rights and feminist movements. And the rural share of the national vote, which leans conservative, is declining, and population growth is heavily concentrated in centers dominated by what Richard Florida has defined as the creative class . Carville doesn’t touch on much of this, other than some cursory comments on the youth vote. He also barely discusses the financial backing of Democrats; typically, realignments coincide with shifts of significant–and ascendant–sectors of industry allying themselves with the rising party.  Carville mentions that Democrats raised a ton of money in 2008, but doesn’t really examine it deeply.  He mentions Daily Kos and other blogs, but again, his examination is cursory and not particularly enlightening, and other than raving about Media Matters for America, he doesn’t really talk about the corrective role that progressive media has been playing with the traditional media. Like the partisan warrior he is, Carville focuses heavily on Republican failures and Democratic hagiography. Fox News lies, Sarah Palin is an extremist simpleton, Hillary Clinton is great, Bill Clinton was a good president, the Republicans stole the 2000 election in Florida, and again and again, the Bush administration helped bring about the post-Katrina disaster in Carville’s beloved New Orleans.   Carville does not, however discuss the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and the ugly reaction the Bush administration helped engineer for their rank political gain in 2002 and 2004. Again, it was Judis who, in a 2007 article about empirical psychological studies on terrorism and the American electorate, described the political effects of those attacks, and why they helped stall the Democratic realignment: In the months after September 11, most Americans were caught up in the same reaction to the tragedy–and that included adulation for Bush, even among many Democrats. But over the next few years, faced with two elections, Bush had to maintain his popularity; and he did so by constantly reviving memories of that dark day. As the 2002 election approached, voters turned their attention to the recession, as well as Enron and other scandals–all to the Democrats’ favor. At that point, Bush, who had stood aside in the November 2001 gubernatorial elections that Democrats won, sought to base the 2002 election on terrorism. Bush and Karl Rove used the full arsenal of scare tactics to evoke fears of another September 11. The result was that the electorate became sharply polarized between conservatives and liberals and between Republicans and Democrats, while those caught in the middle tended to side with the Republicans–exactly as the psychologists’ experiments might have predicted. Conservatives and conservative-leaning swing-voters were susceptible to appeals based on fear, and these appeals took people’s attention away fom the long-term advantages held by Democrats. (The timidity of the Democratic response to Bush’s fearmongering also appears to have suppressed Democratic voting enthusiasm, especially in 2002.) But as the war, Katrina, Social Security and Terri Schaivo overpowered terrorism as a concern for voters—and frankly, four years worth of older people (who were especially susceptible to the terror and anti-gay messages) dying and young liberal voters entering the electorate, by 2006 the realignment predicted by Judis and Teixeira in 2002 resumed, and appears to have accelerated in 2008. Carville doesn’t discuss the long-term trends, but he does focus more attention that I’ve previously seen on a memo written after the 2000 election by Bush pollster Mathew Dowd. For Carville, that memo—we only know of it’s existence because of reporting, as nobody outside the Bush inner circle has read it—is the seed of the Republican demise. It was in that memo that Dowd pushed the conclusion that, contrary to how they campaign in 2000, the Bush administration could safely ignore appealing to the center of the electorate, because, he argued, almost nobody is persuadable, so the goal should be ginning up Republican base turnout. And to do that, the administration governed in a manner almost entirely geared toward pleasing the extreme of the GOP base. Had it not been for 9-11 and the Bush fearmongering, Republicans probably would have taken a bath in the 2002 and 2004 elections. The perverse result of their staving off Dem advances in those two elections was their perfidy and incompetence were allowed to achieve new depths, and the resulting collapse in 2006 and 2008 probably seem to people more tied to the Republican collapse. In reality, what would probably have been happening more incrementally over the previous elections was, like water held back by a damn, a more devastating torrent when it finally broke loose in 2006 and 2008. Thus, Dowd’s memo shouldn’t be given disproportionate influence for the seeming Democratic realignment, but it can be given credit for the intensity of the swing toward Democrats in the last two elections. Much of 40 More Years is dedicated to arguing that Democrats are right and Republicans are wrong. (An earlier Carville book is even titled We’re Right, They’re Wrong: A Handbook for Spirited Progressives ) However, being right isn’t necessarily correlated with winning elections. You win elections typically because whether you’re right or wrong, your candidates and party are trusted, and they’re usually trusted because voters think your candidates and party share their values and agree with them on what they want from government. Carville even acknowledges elsewhere in the book that this is the case when he declares that there have only been two “Big Ideas” since LBJ’s Great Society—supply-side economics and neoconservative—and “they were new, bold, easy to explain, and profoundly stupid.” Carville, building on Roosevelt’s New Deal and Truman’s Fair Deal, offers up the slogan the Real Deal. But he admits that he doesn’t have the elements that will make up the core of the next Big Idea. That’s now largely in the hands of the Obama administration, and their success—and the alternating cooperation and productive prodding they need from the Democratic Congress—will determine whether Democrats can solidify their emerging majority. Despite being weak on long-term analysis, Carville’s book is, however, an excellent polemic. It contains numerous worthwhile insights, such as his claim that in a parliamentary system a leader who responded like Bush did to Katrina would probably have been immediately voted out of power. There’s a good section called Res Judicata on how to shut down Republican attempts to argue on settled subjects, mostly matters that the Republicans have tried to remove from the realm of science and empirical study and replace with matters of faith. And anyone who wants to talk about why Democrats do a far better job of providing economic growth that spreads throughout the population. Much of the raw data comes from Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age (reviewed here by SusanG), but Carville, like any good consultant, does a great job of framing the arguments. It should be required reading for every ad maker, press operative and Democratic candidate. There’s no correct answer to the question to whether we’re in the beginning of an age of Democratic party dominance; it’s too early to know. There are better arguments than the one provided by James Carville in 40 More Years. But following his advice on how to talk to voters and shut down stupid crap from Republicans could help Democrats lock in that realignment.

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Book Review: James Carville’s "40 More Years"

Part One & Two: Geoffry Dunn’s take on Palin’s ” lifted speech .” Mudflats take on attending and transcript Shannyn Moore’s take on attending . More on Sarah Palin

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Shannyn Moore: VIDEO: Palin’s "Lifted" Speech

On Friday, June 5, 2009, at an event featuring aspiring politicians Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich that was broadcast over the global media networks of GodTV, a rising leader in the rapidly reconfiguring Christian right who has publicly called for acts of Christian martyrdom prayed over and blessed Huckabee and Gingrich: TheCall founder Lou Engle. The June 5, 2009, Rock Church event has received some media notice but coverage -which has noted Newt Gingrich declared Americans are “surrounded by paganism” , and that he and Mike Huckabee made stump speeches calling for Christian conservatives to become more involved in electoral politics- has almost wholly missed the significance. Leaders on the Christian right have been giving such speeches for decades, but the two-day Rock Church conference was not business as usual. Rather, it showcased the rapid reconfiguration of the Christian right around the rising, highly militant but poorly understood charismatic wing of the new Christian right, a movement which includes both Ted Haggard and Sarah Palin .) One point of the spear for the new Christian right is an intense, raspy-voiced man who presided over the June 5, 2009 Rock Church event, layed hands on Mike Huckabee, and pledged the commitment of his prayer warriors to Huckabee and Gingrich was Lou Engle, founder of TheCall - which played a significant role in the push to pass the anti-gay marriage Proposition Eight in the lead up to the November 4, 2008 presidential election. Only days before Huckabee and Gingrich received Lou Engle’s endorsement at Rock Church, on Sunday May 31, 2009, late-term abortion doctor George Tiller was gunned down in the lobby of his Wichita, Kansas church. The next morning CBS’s Jeff Glor reported, “We did speak with the accused shooters’ ex-wife yesterday. She said she was not surprised this happened and that she believed Roeder wanted to be a martyr for the cause.” The November 1, 2008 TheCall San Diego event was the capstone event for the pro-Proposition Eight, anti-gay marriage push in California prior to the November 4, 2008 presidential election. Towards the end of the event, which attracted an estimated 30,000 attendees to San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium despite sweltering heat, TheCall founder Lou Engle, and his disciple Eddie Brown, as captured in footage taken at TheCall San Diego by documentary film-maker Michael W. Wilson made calls, from onstage before thousands of impassioned followers, for acts of Christian martyrdom. Engle has in the recent past declared that decades of legalized abortion since Roe v. Wade have incurred a blood debt which demands to be paid in blood. [ more on Gingrich, Huckabee and Engle ]

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Bruce Wilson: Video: Christian Martyr Movement Head Blesses Huckabee & Gingrich

NEW YORK — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is using her public profile to draw attention to the needs of those with autism and other developmental disabilities in the New York metropolitan area. The former Republican vice presidential candidate is scheduled to join a fundraising walk for the group Autism Speaks in Westchester County on Sunday. Then she is to be honored on Long Island later in the day at an anniversary celebration for Independent Group Home Living Inc. Palin’s youngest son, Trig, has Down syndrome. More than 20,000 people turned out to see Palin on Saturday in upstate Auburn, where she helped officials celebrate Founder’s Day and raise money for a museum honoring William Seward. He was the secretary of state who acquired Alaska for the United States. More on Sarah Palin

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Palin Joins Autism Walk In Westchester, New York

Primary election polls conducted well in advance of an election usually do not have a ton of probative value. One would have to suppose this maxim is doubly true when the poll is conducted roughly 30 MONTHS prior to the primary election. And, yet, there is something somewhat valuable in the 2012 Republican primary poll released this week by CNN . Take a look at these results: Republican Primary Survey–2012, Conducted By CNN (Released 6/2) Mike Huckabee 22% Sarah Palin 21% Mitt Romney 21% Newt Gingrich 13% Someone Else (vol.) 10% Jeb Bush 6% No Opinion 4% No One (vol.) 3% CNN names five viable Republicans (well, as viable as Republicans can be right now). All of the candidates have high name recognition, either by virtue of previous presidential bids or other brushes with national notoriety. The lack of a clear favorite is rather clearly articulated by the fact that there are THREE of the five leading candidates within one percentage point of one another. Coupled with the fact that NO ONE is over 22%, and it becomes evident that there is no clear Republican frontrunner for 2012. And…yet…the story is not who is at the front of the pack. The story is about the guy bringing up the rear. John Ellis Bush. On paper, this is nonsensical. Every person in front of Jeb Bush in the queue has a huge political liability, whether it is Huckabee’s staunch social conservatism, Romney’s past ideological hedgings as Governor, Gingrich’s checkered past as Speaker, or Palin’s awkward introduction to the national stage. On paper, Jeb Bush should be able to absolutely blast this field into political oblivion. He is the former governor of what will, by 2012, be the third largest state in the Union. While serving as governor, his approval ratings were almost uniformly in the high 50s or better. His families have ties to Washington dating back three generations and eight decades. He is, for all of his ideological foibles that would drive progressives mad, one of the more telegenic advocates from the political right-wing. On the stump, he would be at no worse than a draw with the other four named candidates. And, despite all that, there he is. Not just in fifth place, but in an almost unthinkable position: dead last, in a landslide. There is really only one rational explanation for this: Bush fatigue. Conventional wisdom would seem to indicate that this is, by all rights, a phenomenon limited to Democratic and Independent voters. After all, as the final days of the Bush presidency were flying off of the calendar, we remember that George W. Bush was languishing with approval ratings in the 20s. We also remember, though, that a majority of Republicans were still willing to stand in the face of nearly uniform public opinion. A fairly strong majority of them were willing to state their approval for this president and his eight-year record. Conventional wisdom, even going as far back as 2006, was that Jeb Bush was demurring from a 2008 presidential bid because he could win the primary, but couldn’t win the general. Consider this reference from an insightful 2006 article in Ireland’s Village online publication (boldtype indicates my emphasis): Senior Republican pollsters like Matthew Dowd believe that while Jeb Bush would easily win the Republican primary, the Bush fatigue that has set in since last year would virtually guarantee a win for Hillary Clinton. Jeb Bush and the Republican party have quietly decided that the country just isn’t ready for four more years of the Bush family. This poll stands as a pretty profound refutation of what Dowd and company believed three years ago. Even the Republican Party, it would seem, is not willing to cast its lot with another Bush. It is possible, of course, that this is a little bit of rational voting on the part of the GOP electorate. It is possible that they have arrived at the same conclusion that Dowd did back in 2006. Therefore, there is not much sense in voting for a candidate in the primary that you know will get throttled come November. This, of course, has to be quite bittersweet for Jeb Bush. One of the most oft-rumored backstories in the Bush family saga is that everyone in the Bush family presumed that it would be Jeb, and not George W., that was destined for the White House. Check out this brief passage from the Village article linked to earlier in this piece: Despite, or perhaps because of, a record that suggests he is far more “conservative” than he is compassionate, Jeb Bush was always destined for great things in the Republican party. Many senior Republicans, including those in his own family, believed that it was the sober, articulate Jeb – not his erratic, feckless older brother – who would follow his father to the White House. These whispers were indirectly confirmed by Jeb Bush’s own son, who, in an exchange documented in Kevin Phillips’ book American Dynasty , somewhat directly confirmed during his uncle’s first inaugural that the Bush family did not necessarily foresee W. as the legitimate heir to the dynasty. “No one would have picked my uncle. If you came up to any close member of my family six years ago and said my uncle wanted to be president, they’d probably laugh in your face. We were really surprised.” In the book, Phillips also points out that George W. Bush stole his brother’s thunder in another key way. When he announced his bid for governor shortly after the off-year elections in 1993, he took some light off of his younger brother, who had already committed to the Florida governors race months earlier. Even more so, given that W’s decision set up a high profile revenge matchup with Texas Governor Ann Richards, who had famously lampooned their father in 1988 with her “silver foot in his mouth” dig at the Democratic National Convention. At every turn, it seems, George W. Bush has indirectly stifled the political ambitions of his younger sibling. In 1994, one could argue that Jeb Bush might have been able to reverse his narrow defeat to incumbent Lawton Chiles had Republicans not had their attention divided between that high-profile gubernatorial election and the one taking place several hundred miles to the west. W’s victory, and Jeb’s defeat, set the stage for the next decade. By the time that Jeb had avenged his defeat in 1994 and earned election to the Florida statehouse in 1998, his older brother was the undisputed GOP frontrunner for 2000, having won re-election with nearly 70% of the vote. Within hours of CNN declaring Jeb Bush the new governor of Florida, they were releasing exit polling results showing that George W. Bush had a modest lead over Al Gore in what had to have been the first general election poll of the 2000 election cycle. If the outcomes of 1994 retarded Jeb Bush’s national ambitions, the outcomes of 2001-2008 may well have destroyed them. This poll is certianly notable for how far back from the remainder of the potential 2012 field Jeb Bush really is. Of course, it goes without saying that a poll in June of 2009 is not the final word on Election 2012. It is possible that three years will be a respectable interval for voters in the GOP to shed their Bush fatigue. If not, then Jeb Bush might be one of those rare figures in American politics: a politician that everyone targeted for political stardom, who never wound up running for president.

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The Greatest Victim of Bush Fatigue

Sarah Palin’s garbled, often incoherent speech delivered in Anchorage on Wednesday–the one in which she declared “screw political correctness” and wondered why “we have to pussyfoot around our troublesome foes”–was largely lifted from an article written four years ago by Newt Gingrich and Craig Shirley. Palin apparently also felt that she could “screw” intellectual integrity. While Palin twice mentioned Gingrich in the speech (she never once acknowledged Shirley), virtually every single reference she made to Reagan was lifted directly from the Gingrich-Shirley article. It’s a pure case of unadulterated plagiarism. A little background: Palin was on the stage at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, donning red Franco Sarto high heels (she mentioned them) and introducing Michael Reagan, the rightwing talk show host and son of the former president, Ronald Reagan. Her introduction lasted about 17 minutes and has already garnered significant national attention. Doing real research on Reagan, of course, was a bit much to ask of the busy governor, currently on-tour in New York, so she simply “borrowed” from Gingrich and Shirley–at least eleven times. Our dear Governor, it appears, is a one-source wonder. The indomitable AK Muckraker of The Mudflats undertook the near impossible task of transcribing most of Palin’s ramblings (my wife filled in on a couple of spots as well), and after slogging through the muck of verbiage while listening to a recording of the speech (replete with Palin’s shrill intonation, stilted phrasing and peculiar syntax), I realized I had read some of this before. So I tracked down the original Gingrich-Shirley article , “Republicans Need to Relearn Lessons of the Reagan Revolution” which appeared in the Union Leader , November 1, 2005, and is also online. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Palin was accused by Daily Kos of plagiarizing a Hillary Clinton passage. In that instance it was, at worse, petty larceny; in this case, it’s grand theft. In Anchorage, Palin went through her standard introductions, including the “First Dude,” Todd Palin, then said: 1. Palin : First, I think what we’re going to learn tonight via Michael is that Ronald Reagan’s ideas were the right ideas and all we have to do is look back at his record, his economic record and his national security record to know that his ideas were right. Gingrich/Shirley : What should Americans learn from this remarkable man and his remarkable Presidency?…The “right” ideas really matter (the left was wrong and Reagan was right about virtually every major public policy issue and the historic record is clear for those willing to look at it). After that, Palin acknowledged that “Recently, Newt Gingrich, he had written a good article about Reagan….” (Recently? It was four years ago; and she said “good,” with an obvious disdain, since Gingrich has been rather dismissive of her recently.) 2. Palin : He said, regarding your dad Michael, he said that we need to learn from his example that courage and persistence are keys to historic achievement. Gingrich/Shirley : Courage and persistence are the keys to historic achievement. 3. Palin : With Reagan’s example, D.C. politicians calling the shots for our country, they had better rely on the good sense of the American people and bag their alliance on the entrenched bureaucrats and the elite self-proclaimed intellectuals, and the smug lobbyists who dominate Washington. Gingrich/Shirley : Relying on the good sense of the American people beats relying on the elite intellectuals, entrenched bureaucrats and smug lobbyists who dominate Washington. 4. Palin : We have to remember first that Ronald Reagan never won any arguments in Washington. He won the arguments by resonating with the American people. Gingrich/Shirley : Reagan never won an argument in Washington. Reagan won his arguments in the country with the American people. 5. Palin : We the American people through him, we imposed our will on Washington… It’s our will to be imposed on them. Gingrich/Shirley : [T]hen the American people imposed their will on Washington. 6. Palin : What Newt had written in this article, he wrote: “Remember how refreshing it was with his outrageous directness that Americans loved, and praised and deserved.” Gingrich/Shirley : Candidate Ronald Reagan responded to the failures of the left with enormous clarity and directness. 7. Palin : [Reagan's] vision for the Cold War?–we win, they lose. Gingrich/Shirley : On the inevitability of the Soviet Union, Reagan responded with a then shocking vision for the Cold War–”we win, they lose.” 8. Palin : So Ronald Reagan spoke to us then with us here in our hearts is where he reached us…. He captured our hearts so he could affect positive change by what he did. He focused on our kids, on our children, on their future, Gingrich/Shirley : The key to capturing the attention and, yes, the hearts of Americans is to focus on their future and their children’s future. Reagan understood this… 9. Palin : He stood strong on his knowing that the framework through which he believed that positive change that framework for our kids, it was freedom [sic]. Gingrich/Shirley : Successful governance means having a framework through which to lead the American people. For Reagan, that framework was freedom. 10. Palin : We would do so well to look back on those Reagan years as he championed the cause for freedom and then he lived it out as our president –cheerfully, persistently and unapologetically. Gingrich/Shirley : Cheerful persistence rather than easy victories were the keys to Reagan’s career. 11. Palin : And with detente, speaking of detente, he used two words: “Evil Empire.” Gingrich/Shirley : Reagan replaced the entire vision of detente with two vivid words: “Evil Empire.” It’s an impressive bit of intellectual larceny, worthy of a high school sophomore. Palin then segued off the beloved Gipper (about whom, it became obvious, she knew nothing), and shifted back to what has become her favorite subject these days: the embattled Sarah Palin. In the end, it’s always about Sarah–even when she’s introducing someone else. That portion of the speech she didn’t plagiarize from Gingrich, who, when asked to name the “emerging leaders” in the GOP this past April in an interview with Christianity Today , refused to name Palin, wondering instead when pressed: “Is she willing to do the kind of development of national issues and development of a national profile that would be required?….[B]ecoming a national leader would take a significant amount of work.” This may not have reflected the “significant amount of work” that Gingrich had in mind. Award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn is at work on a book about Sarah Palin and her role in American politics, to be published by Macmillan/St. Martin’s in 2010. More on Barack Obama

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Geoffrey Dunn: Palin Plagiarizes Gingrich in Anchorage Speech

Via Think Progress , the U.S. Army confirms that Stephen Colbert has arrived in Iraq to film episodes of his popular Comedy Central show “The Colbert Report.” The tour was arranged by the United Service Organisations (USO), which organizes entertainment for our troops abroad. The comedian will record a week’s worth of episodes and has high-profile interviews lined up with figures such as U.S. General Ray Odierno and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh. Of his trip, Colbert said in a statement: “The USO counts this as military service, right? I might want to run for office some day.” Colbert’s trip to the Middle East had been shrouded in secrecy, although that didn’t stop Governor Sarah Palin from inadvertently blowing Colbert’s cover by posting this statement on Twitter: Getting ready to tape shout-out for our awesome US troops serving overseas! Will be on ‘Colbert Report’ next month, broadcast from Iraq… More on Comedy Central

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Stephen Colbert Iraq Trip: US Army Confirms Colbert Has Arrived

When the call came a couple days ago, and my friend asked me the question, I immediately imagined myself in one of those ads that try to get you to join the Marines. “I wanted to see if I had what it takes. I wanted to prove to myself that I had the stuff .” You know the ones. The question? “Hey, do you want to go see Michael Reagan? I got tickets!” Now, I had already recently been to the Anchorage screening of John Ziegler’s “Media Malpractice - How Obama Got Elected and Pain was Targeted,” and I was still working out the toxins. If that was the obstacle course in my Conservative Boot Camp, then surely this would be the part where they take you into the back room for the waterboarding. Why? Sarah Palin was presenting the opening words. Last week when conservative talk show ignoramus Mancow said that waterboarding wasn’t torture, and then volunteered to be waterboarded, they gave him a little plastic cow to hold; his safety cow. If it got to be too much, they told him, he could just toss the cow and they’d stop. He lasted 6 seconds. I knew I could do better than that. So off I went to the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts. It was 70 degrees and the sky was blue. As I took a deep breath and headed in to the darkened theatre, I wondered why I was doing this. Thoughts of aborting the mission ran through my mind. But, I settled in. I looked at the crowd. I spotted Lt. Governor Sean Parnell, and several State Legislators who had also come to this dark room, and bypassed soaking up the sun to soak up the words of wisdom from Ronald Reagan’s eldest son. Finally the lights went down. First up, right wing radio personality Rick Rydell who told us that his love affair with Ronald Reagan started when he was a teenager and he was lying on the couch “in a drunken stupor,” saw Reagan on TV and thought to himself, “I matter to somebody!” I’ll file that away under “way too much personal information.” It wasn’t the first time that evening I would feel like the person on the stage should have been lying on a couch, and I should have my glasses on the end of my nose, scribbling in a notebook for $80 an hour. Then he started quoting Thomas Jefferson, and John Locke. I had a mind movie of raising my hand and hollering out, “You know Jefferson wasn’t a Republican, right? Just sayin’!” Next up, Eddie Burke, the rightest of the right, and golden boy radio shock jock of the Palin administration. He introduced the governor. “Mother, wife, and fearless leader of the State of Alaska, Sarah Palin!” OK, I confess, I looked at the shoes. They were the giant cork wedge-heeled shiny red leather numbers she wore to the Memorial Day service in Fairbanks….with a black suit. She must really like those things. [/caption] I have, out of some sense of morbid fascination, typed for your reading displeasure, almost the entire text of what she said. It was 17 minutes long. (Emphasis on “long.”) Everyone got your plastic cows? Let the waterboarding begin. (I’ll make a couple interjections now and then so you’re not in there all alone. You can just imagine sitting next to me in the theatre, and me leaning over and whispering into your ear, via a pair of parentheses, now and again…) We have an awesome guest, a guest who is affecting our culture in such a positive way. We need him to keep on being bold and we’re counting on Michael Reagan to help educate America. (Should we keep count of how many times she says “bold?” I bet it’s at least three.) I want to welcome tonight our good Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell who I can’t see, but I know he’s here. (applause) My brother Chuck Heath is here, and my husband Alaska’s First Dude Todd Palin is here somewhere. (applause) (I thought we weren’t calling him that anymore. I guess “First Dude” is back in the lexicon.) So I have the honor of getting to speak with you for a bit here before I get to introduce to you Michael Reagan, and what I want to do in introducing Michael is to continue to encourage him to continue to be bold (I elbow you in the ribs) and to call it like he sees it, and to screw political correctness that some would expect him to have to adhere to. (Oh my God….did she just say “Screw Political Correctness?” Will there be t-shirts? Bumper stickers?) We want him to be bold . We need him to be bold . (We are stifling laughter) Mr. Reagan, we need your voice to be loud and strong, and we appreciate him. He doesn’t shy away from the tough issues and that is so good. He never lets anyone tell him to sit down and shut up, and I would hope Alaska our voice too will be heard across this nation. I look forward to hearing from Michael Reagan tonight because America must learn from him, from his remarkable father, and that remarkable presidency. (”You’re going to transcribe this, right?” you whisper. “Yeah, looks like I’m going to have to,” I answer.) First, I think what we’re going to learn tonight via Michael is that Ronald Reagan’s ideas were the right ideas and all we have to do is look back at his record, his economic record and his national security record to know that his ideas were right. It was common sense conservativism. It was right then. It’s right now. Recently, Newt Gingrich, he had written a good article about Reagan. He said, regarding your dad Michael, he said that we need to learn from his example that courage and persistence are keys to historic achievement and with Reagan’s example, D.C. politicians calling the shots for our country, they had better rely on the good sense of the American people and bag their alliance on the entrenched beaurocrats and the elite self-proclaimed intellectuals, and the smug lobbyists who dominate Washington, and the liberal media that is imposing its will on Washington, embracing that status quo, that business as usual. It’s not good for our country. (Did you bring a flask?) But, we have to remember first that Ronald Reagan never won any arguments in Washington. He won the arguments by resonating with the American people. Those of us so proud to be Americans, and willing to acknowledge that no, we’re not a perfect nation, but never never do we have to apologize for being proud of our country. (applause) (What does that even mean??) So Ronald Reagan spoke to us then with us here in our hearts is where he reached us, and that’s where he won the arguments and then, this was, this was the good part, we the American people through him, we imposed our will on Washington, and that is the way it’s supposed to be. (I think that sentence may get the “Word Salad Award.”) Our government is supposed to be working for us, we are not to be working for our government. It’s our will to be imposed on them . (applause) He captured our hearts so he could affect positive change by what he did. He focused on our kids, on our children, on their future, on the future of America. And when he fought socialism and any sort of tyranny that he knew would ruin us, he stood strong on his knowing that the framework through which he believed that positive change that framework for our kids, it was freedom. (Wait…..no….maybe it was that one) Today the things that some in Washington would do to take away our freedoms, it’s absolutely astounding, and we would do so well to look back on those Reagan years as he championed the cause for freedom and then he lived it out as our president - cheerfully, persistently and unapologetically. Reagan knew that real change and real change requiring shaking things up and maybe takin’ off the entrenched interest thwarting the will of the people with their ignoring of our concerns about future peril caused by selfish short-sighted advocacy for growing government and digging more debt, and taking away individual and state’s rights and hampering opportunity to responsibly develop our resources, and coddling those who would seek to harm America and her allies. (Nope. It’s definitely THAT one!) What Newt had written in this article, he wrote “remember how refreshing it was with his outrageous directness that Americans loved, and praised and deserved” that Reagan dealt with, with then the troublesome Soviet Union, remember this? His vision for the Cold War? We win, they lose. (I snap a photo when she says “They lose,” presumably pointing at “them.” See above.) And with detente, speaking of detente, he used two words - “Evil Empire.” He called it like he saw it, and now why today, I have to ask why today do we feel we have to pussyfoot around our troublesome foes, saying for example, the terrorists who still seek to kill Americans and destroy our allies. They haven’t changed their tune. Terrorists are still dead set against us, and are set on destroying Israel, and against our freedoms, against our security and I’ve got a kid over there fighting for our country and our country’s freedom right now. It is war over there so it will not be war over here, and it had better still be our mission that we win, they lose! (applause) (Hair raises on the back of my neck due to flashback of angry rallies during the presidential campaign. This is starting to feel oogy.) Now, on the economy, remember Reagan used to remind us that America was built on freedom and free enterprise, reward for strong work ethic. Some in Washington would approach our economic woes in ways that absolutely defy Economics 101, and they fly in the face of the principles providing opportunity for industrious Americans to succeed or to fail on their own accord. Those principles that we teach our children and employ in our own businesses and our own households to balance our budgets , and live within our means and financially secure our futures, and it makes you wonder what the heck some in Washington are trying to accomplish here? (I find my brain starting to feel a little dazed and sleepy… Talking points are starting to feel like verbal Xanax….) It’s all really so backwards and skewed as to sound like absolute nonsense when some of this new economic policy is explained… (I pop back into alertness for a moment to commiserate with you about how hilarious that “it’s really so backwards and skewed as to sound like absolute nonsense” would be on a t-shirt with her face on it. But then I slip back into semi-consciousness and only get every other sentence fragment.) [paraphrasing] Disincentivize businesses with threats of taking them over…bla bla…new administration is going to increase taxes…bla bla … outrageous government growth…more taxes… “shooing away the jobs to foreign countries”…makes us more reliant on other countries….can’t sustain new government ‘largesse’… our kids and their kids and their kids and their kids kids…we need to employ “Reaganism” or we’re all doomed..bla bla…erosion of free market opportunities…this shift is economically preposterous and immoral …[end of paraphrasing] (Rubbing face briskly with hands, shaking out arms, and stretching in chair) Does anyone remember life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness? Because socialism…any kind of hint towards socialism, it takes away freedoms and opportunity and hope and then we do forget that life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness is inherent rights that God has provided us. (There she goes quoting that Democrat again. And I wonder if she thinks that the public library, the highway system, the police, the fire department and public schools take away our freedom and opportunity? Too bad she’s not doing a Q&A.) I want to hit on one thing specific that I’m suggesting here and that’s with the stimulus package. Alaskans have heard me talk a lot about this. (Oh, here we go.) You gotta ask yourself, what is this all about? The process even of creating the stimulus package. Congress being expected to vote on it without even knowing what was in it, but conservatives and Republicans in Congress, they looked at this debt-ridden gargantuan government growth plan and they voted against it. They didn’t like it. They warned states that there were fat fat strings attached to these dollars, and there were strings, there are strings because that’s inherent in federal spending. That’s the nature of the beast. Of course there are strings attached, and so there were lots of warnings given to all the states that hey, unless your state is ready to chuck the 10th amendment, and you’re going to hand over willingly more power control to big centralized government and to D.C. politicians who are going to tell you what to do in your state, the warning was, legislatures be careful with the temptation with the stimulus package dollars. They didn’t like it then, but then when a bunch of us elected local officials we agreed with them, and you know we started seeing the press releases kinda braggin’ up the bacon (Braggin’ up the bacon?) that these hundreds of millions of billions of dollars, almost a trillion dollars total were going to bring into our states, the buckets of money, the borrowed money that would pour into the states. [long explanation about how it's all about the governors with "brave concerns" who tried to reject money and how they were painted like bad guys] And let’s be honest… (Oh yes, please….let’s.) states were made to look incompetent, almost unethical if they were staying consistent, and were still saying no to accepting some of those federal funds that don’t necessarily stimulate the economy or create private sector jobs, as was being fed to us as. ( Made to look incompetent? Alas, I think the executive in this state didn’t need much help in that department.) These are short-term expectation-building new beaurocratic growth spurts, and legislatures ended up resolving to take the money which it was contributing to more dizzying national debt. The mixed messages then the confusion and now frustration, disenchantment with the disenchantment from our own government, and look what happened when here in Alaska my administration, I vetoed the stimulus package, some of the dollars with obvious big government strings attached, and shoot, I just about got run out of town by some. (Maybe “some” will try harder next time…or have they become disenchanted with the disenchantment?) Friends, we need to be aware of the creation of a fearful population, and of fearful lawmakers being led to believe that big government is the answer to bail out the private sector because then goverment gets to get in there and control it and, mark my words, this is going to happen next I fear, (Be aware of fear!) bail out next debt-ridden states, then government gets to get in there and control the people, and watch what happens there. Michael, maybe you want to talk about your home state California. We’ll see what happens there but you know it’s…. aaaaa!…. for the love of God you’ve got to ask yourself where we got off track? (Well, that was quite dramatic….) Michael Reagan’s going to talk about getting on the right track. He knows, we know here in Alaska that America is the greatest nation on earth because our foundation is freedom and it’s in God we trust, it’s not in big government that we trust. (applause) So I encourage Michael just to keep on speaking up, and for me….you know me…. Before my Franco Sarto red high heels even get off the stage and touch the floor my critics, they’re going to be loaded for bear and they’re going to start unloading because, because I dared speak up. (Wow. Red high heels and bear hunting in the same analogy. What’s next, hockey mom again? That would complete the trifecta - mom/huntress/sex symbol.) But you, you here tonight I know that you understand. Some though, they’re empowered by national figures and some in the press who, who want to put not just me, but anybody who dares speak up it seems nowadays right back down in their place if one dares speak their mind nowadays, and here in Alaska it’s kind of like this new normal it’s a little bit being accepted it seems like that we’re dealing in, but so be it. (Where’s my bloggers commission check from Obama, darn it? Back down in your place? What place? Head is beginning to throb…) I…I think things here that have so drastically changed these past months…some want to forbid others from speaking up and it’s been through lawsuits, been ethics violation charges, media distortions…by the way today we won that 14th ethics charge. And only Alaskans can appreciate this one. We won the one where I show up at the Iron Dog because it’s freezing cold and I’m wearing my warm Arctic Cat coat, and a charge is levied against me for wearing the logo on the coat, but we won so that’s cool. And those are the folks that want to tell me, want to tell you to siddown and shuddup . (OK, am I a bad person if I say I do want her to sit down and shut up? And how much will you give me if I do it out loud…right….now??) We will not do so. (Dang.) I just can’t because I love my state, I love my country, and I need you, we need Michael Reagan to keep on fighting for our freedoms, for our country and what we’re being fed today, it seems, is a steady diet of selected misrepresented news. So we need the Reagans of the world today to remind us of truth. Let me ask you why is it considering how fast the world is spinning and world changing events that go on all over the globe that do affect our lives, world changing events, thousands of them every day, why do you suppose that it’s the same big three supposedly competing networks that have the same news content every night and virtually the same exact viewpoint being spewed night after night after night. We’ve gotta ask those questions. (Wait….go back. Is the world spinning faster now? Did I miss something?) So I join you in speaking up and asking the questions and taking action, and here at home in my beloved Alaska I just say, politically speaking, if I die, I die. I’ll know that I have spoken up and I will speak up to thank people like Mr. Reagan as we honor his dad, to encourage you too, Alaskans, to do the same and don’t just hang in there and go along to get along but stand up and speak up, and be bold and demand that Washington be prudent with our public monies and prioritize for America’s security, and forget the political corectness that makes one guard your conversation, and couch our words so cautiously that they lose meaning, and we lose effectiveness, and then we lose hope because we start thinking that politicians are only worried about their poll numbers and attracting campaign contributions for their next bid so that they can hold on to some title and some position. (Longest sentence ever created including the word “bold.”) Noooo, let’s remind them, those that we elect, that we expect them to be bold (Is that five….or six?) and so they are to be representing the will of the people to defend our constitution and to win our wars and obviously, me not being, in fact not many of us here tonight are not in that political financial academic elite center of power. We’re not there. And it’s kind of refreshing to be outside of that to tell you the truth. I am just a mom. I am a proud Alaskan hockey mom, (Aaaa! Hockey mom! How long has it been since Track played hockey, anyway?) and I love my country, and I’m concerned about my kids’ future and your kids’ future and because I was raised where it is rugged, and you kinda gotta be tough, and with dogged determination in order to survive sometimes. Well not many of us in Alaska are inclined to just sit down and shut up, and I thank Michael Reagan for honoring Alaska, being here tonight, continuing to lead a cause for a better America….Let’s hear it for Michael Reagan! We did it. (fist bump) It’s better when you’re not alone. Now, Michael Reagan takes the stage, though he never greets Palin. She walks off one way, and he walks on from the other side. Just as I think to myself, “wouldn’t it be fun to have Ron Reagan, the progressive talk radio icon, and the “other son” here,” Michael Reagan said, “I can’t tell you how many times I wish [my parents] had stuck with adoption,” indicating his disdain at the progressive bent of Reagan’s other children. Nice. Then we learned how today, “JFK would be considered a conservative Republican and would be appalled at what the rest of his family has done to America.” A sudden urge to throw my shoe, and simulatneous regret that it is not a red stiletto heel hit me at the same time. A couple more “my Dad” stories later, he tells us that in his class at the boarding school/military academy run by nuns, “Three quarters of us would have been diagnosed as ADD/ADHD. It took [the nun] three weeks and a ruler to knock it out of us.” I don’t think it was that story in particular, but more of a cumulative effect. But that’s the moment when I “tossed the cow.” It had to end now. My brow was damp, and my blood pressure had been creeping up steadily for the last… what felt like an eternity. I headed for the back of the theatre, pushed the doors open, entered the daylit corridor, and took a big inhalation of air. It felt like the breath you take when you were a kid and you tried to swim underwater the whole length of the pool and just barely made it to the other side. I got a call this morning from my history teacher sister, the one who actually broke the Palin nomination news to me on August 29th. “Did you hear Obama’s speech in Cairo?” she asked, almost breathless. She had visited there last year, and explained that the hostility and anger felt toward the Bush administration was almost palpable there. “They gave him a standing ovation!” she told me. “And that was before he even spoke!” I thought with some sadness that while I, and 400 other Alaskans had been listening to the drivel above, millions of others had been on the opposite end of the political universe. They were listening to messages of healing and reconciliation, and a leader who spoke about tough issues realizing that diplomacy, and seeking common ground is what will move our world forward through the incredible challenges we face. This is what we need, not the sophomoric “we win, they lose, don’t you like my nice red shoes” mentality. I look forward to listening to the speech in its entirety tonight. And I’ll raise my glass and be glad once again for the outcome of the 2008 presidential election. More on Barack Obama

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AKMuckraker: "Screw Political Correctness" - Sarah Palin in Her Own Words.

ALBANY, N.Y. — Governors of five states promised Thursday to work together to protect the Atlantic coast and collaborate on developing offshore wind farms for renewable energy. The agreement established the Governors Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on Oceans with New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. “For centuries, New York and the region have relied on the ocean to provide services like food, commerce, recreation and transportation,” New York Gov. David Paterson said. They now face a new generation of issues to keep the sea healthy, he said. Problems include more beaches closed by pollution, depleted fisheries, rising tides and warming waters. The agreement indicates the five states will identify ways to protect plant and animal habitats, beginning with the 10 offshore canyons that stretch from New York to Virginia with their fish, marine mammals and corals, said Sarah Chasis, director of the Ocean Initiative for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who attended the meeting. The governors also committed to encouraging wind energy developments in appropriate offshore areas, improving coordination for projects in each other’s and federal jurisdictions, and pushing for federal investment in wastewater infrastructure to protect beaches and fisheries. “Any threat to these natural resources brings economic consequences that threaten jobs, local economies, and our economic well being,” New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine said. The two governors met at the Borough of Manhattan College with representatives of the other states and Nancy Sutley, who leads the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Nationally, 1,167 _ or 32 percent _ of all monitored beaches had closings or advisories in 2007, according to state data collected by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. That compares with 23 percent a decade earlier. Once one of the nation’s leaders in hard clams, producing about 700,000 bushels a year, Long Island now produces fewer than 10,000 bushels. New York lawmakers in 2006 established the state Ocean and Great Lakes Ecosystem Conservation Council and ordered the heads of New York agencies to devise a long-term coast management plan, which was released earlier this year.

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5 States Vow To Fight Atlantic Pollution

Gov. Sarah Palin’s commissioners on Wednesday blasted Alaska Sen. Mark Begich as “uninformed” after he expressed frustration that a natural gas pipeline to the Lower 48 hasn’t moved forward. Former Gov. Frank Murkowski also weighed in with an opinion column asserting Palin’s approach to getting the gas pipeline is a waste of time that’s stalled progress. More on Sarah Palin

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Palin Blasts Begich As "Uninformed" For Questioning Stalled Pipeline

It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with the inimitable Governor of Alaska these days, as she’s Twittering and issuing statements on her official State of Alaska web site, (paid for at taxpayers’ expense, of course, including a series of posts about hockey games!). She’s also blogging (yes, she’s a blogger now, too) on both her Facebook page and her SarahPAC web site, the latter of which is being funded by contributors across the country as Ms. Palin continues to maneuver herself, haphazardly as it may be, into a run for the presidency in 2012. And through it all she continues to delve in a disturbing duplicity, spewing lies and half-truths as she takes potshots at President Barack Obama, the man she accused of “palling around with terrorists” on the campaign trail last year. As the great Italian-American philosopher Yogi Berra once remarked, “It’s deja vu all over again.” Take Palin’s most recent pandering to “save face” vis a vis Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, approved overwhelmingly by the Alaska Legislature, a small portion of which she vetoed last week. This in and of itself reflected some serious backpedaling on behalf of Palin, from her initial position opposing the plan carte blanche (she called it “an unsustainable, debt-ridden package of funds” and likened it to “a bribe”), then later declaring that she would only accept about “half” the stimulus, which in turn got revised down to approximately “one third,” then down to the teensy-weensy less-than-three-percent rejection of State Energy Program funding. Palin’s argument against the funding was that it “required more ‘big brother’ government involvement [i.e. federally mandated building codes] than most Alaskans want”, a contention refuted by Alaskans on all sides of the political aisle. “This issue has been researched thoroughly by legislative staff and we couldn’t find one string attached to those funds,” said Anchorage Republican Rep. Charisse Millett. In other words, Palin’s contention is a lie. And it’s a lie not based on the best interests of Alaskans, but on her own political future. Another Alaska Republican, Anchorage Rep. Mike Hawker, said Palin is wrong about the building codes: “We’ve researched this thoroughly, and the governor’s folks now have received a letter from the (U.S. Department of Energy) basically saying that you don’t have to come up with all these building codes.” And from yet another Alaska Republican, Anchorage Senator Lesil McGuire: “When we researched the facts on it, the strings that were discussed were not there.” Palin then taunted the State legislature by noting “lawmakers can always exercise checks and balances by overriding my veto”–knowing that it would take a supermajority of 75 percent in Alaska to override her decision. Time will tell whether Alaska’s elected representatives will stand up to Palin on this critical issue. Several lawmakers I spoke to said they are “considering it.” Not to be outdone with her lies regarding the energy stimulus, Palin issued a rather bizarre press release on her SarahPAC web site in which she declared: We are now witnessing actions that will lead to a monumental shift away from free market capitalism and the strong work ethic that built this great country. ‘Change’ in this administration has meant rapid movement toward massive government growth, huge tax burdens on future generations, and an unprecedented reliance upon foreign countries. Today, we learned that Obama’s decisions continue to impact Alaskans; while we as taxpayers now own General Motors, Obama closes another dealership - this time in Soldotna, as more of Alaskans’ hard-earned money and jobs are lost to big government. That’s right, Palin had the absolute gall to blame Obama for the crisis in the auto industry, one that developed under George Bush and which Obama has been forced to salvage, and she specifically blamed him for the closing a GM dealership on the Kenai Peninsula, not far from Anchorage. In fact, General Motors, on the verge of bankruptcy, decided to shut down the dealership in Soldotna, not Obama. And it further underscores that it was the private sector’s mismanagement, and the Bush Administration’s lapsed oversight of the economy, that brought about the closure of the GM dealership in Soldotna. The owners of the dealership, the Hutchings Family (longtime Republican Party faithful in Alaska), have jumped on the anti-Obama bandwagon. Shawn Hutchings, who obtained his ownership of the GM franchise the good-ol’ American way– by being born into it –had this to say to the right-wing “Texas for Sarah Palin” blog spot: Dealerships do not cost the manufacturer money, so why would the administration make it a qualification to get loans from the government? Why is the government involved in dictating who will and who will not be in business. Shouldn’t the free market be governing society? Uh, Shawn, if the free market were governing society, GM would have crashed and burned long ago. And there would be no roads, bridges and other infrastructure in Alaska to support the auto industry. Indeed, Shawn, the federal government has long subsidized your family business. You have to love all the libertarian/right-wing/secessionist whack jobs in Alaska who are always taking pot shots at the federal government. Let’s get real here folks: Alaska is the most federally subsidized state in the union. In fact, it’s one big giant subsidy, full of earmarks and special spending programs, all emanating out of Washington D.C. And pushed for by the likes of Sarah Palin, who, when mayor of itsy-bitsy Wasilla, hired the same lobbyist as Ted Stevens, and roped in millions for a town of about 5,000 residents. They like to talk the talk up there, but walk the walk? Come now. Which is why when rivers flooded up there this spring as a result of the snow melt, wiping out several rural communities (hello, global warming anyone?), Sarah Palin was sticking her hand out to Barack Obama for federal relief funds. And therein is Palin’s biggest lie: That Alaska should get a free pass when it comes to federal spending; she wants the money, but not the responsibility. She wants to promulgate the illusion of Alaskan ’self-sufficiency’ and ‘rugged invidualism’ when it is anything but. Then there’s the matter of Palin calling upon Obama “to take a firm stand against North Korea and defend the states and territories of the United States of America and American allies on the Korean peninsula. ” That’s right, “states and territories.” Thank you for the details governor. But one must ask why you never asked the previous administration to take a similar stand, especially in light of Bush and Cheney allowing the North Koreans to continue with nuclear weapon development. What do you think of the Bush Doctrine now, Governor Palin? Oh, that’s right, she didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine was. Worse yet, what Palin was really itching for in her statement about North Korea was federal funding of the missile defense system at Fort Greely. Located where? In Alaska, of course. Palin says funding must be fully restored “to guarantee our protective measures remain the best in the world.” That’s right, more federal money to the Last Frontier. With Sarah Palin, hypocrisy truly knows no bounds. Perhaps she can see North Korea from out her kitchen window as well. Award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn is at work on a book about Sarah Palin and her role in American politics, to be published by Macmillan/St. Martin’s in 2010. More on Auto Bailout

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Geoffrey Dunn: Pinocchio in Drag: Sarah Palin’s Latest Lies

I am a typical mom who makes most of the purchasing decisions in my family. I cut coupons, read labels, shop in bulk, and do my best to purchase healthy products. Because I am concerned about exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA), which is used in food and beverage packaging, I’ve made a few changes to my shopping list. I bought non-polycarbonate bottles and sippy cups for my daughter, we rarely eat canned food, and I’ve given up my diet soda habit — or at least I’ve cut back. And in the eyes of the chemical industry, I am a prime target in their campaign to improve their image and win back my trust. The Washington Post reported that just last week a high level meeting took place to devise a strategy for keeping BPA in our food supply. Companies attending the meeting included the Coca-Cola Co. and Del Monte, along with trade groups and other organizations which lobby for the chemical manufacturers such as the North American Metal Packaging Alliance Inc., the Grocery Manufacturers Association, and the American Chemistry Council. These companies are on the defensive because moms like me have demanded alternatives. In response, six of the major baby bottle manufacturers have announced they will stop using BPA, major retailers have stopped selling them, and BPA has now been banned from baby bottles and sippy cups in Suffolk County, NY, Chicago and the entire state of Minnesota. The BPA industry wants to prevent any further bans and held this intensive meeting to discuss a strategy for protecting their market share. Why am I concerned about BPA?  BPA is a hormone disrupting chemical that acts like estrogen and can interfere with normal development and function of the body. In animal studies, BPA exposure has been linked to prostate cancer , breast cancer , pre-diabetes ( insulin resistance ), fat metabolism , and changes in the way the brain develops resulting in behavioral abnormalities . Emerging human research has found similar evidence of harm . And all of us are exposed; over 90% of Americans tested by the CDC were found to have residues of BPA in their bodies. The notes from this meeting were verified in the Post article by one of the industry lobbyists as being accurate. At the top of the industry list of ways to win back the public’s trust was their “holy grail” spokesperson identified as a “pregnant young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA.” Other strategies discussed at the meeting included focusing on how BPA bans would disproportionately put minorities at risk, particularly Hispanics and African-Americans whom they cited as being more inclined to be poor and dependent on canned foods. In addition, because Connecticut and California are close to passing bans on BPA in infant formula containers, the BPA industry has identified these states as targets where industry “members are focusing on more legislative battles and befriending people that are able to manipulate the legislative process.” Manipulate the legislative process?!   Manipulating the public, manipulating the legislature and just last month, evidence that the industry has been cozy with the FDA and has manipulated the scientific justification for keeping this chemical approved in our food supply. While the industry has characterized the campaign to eliminate BPA as “lies,” they have resorted to the failed tactics of the tobacco industry by putting profits before protecting the public’s health. NRDC will continue to be actively involved in promoting legislation that bans BPA and in advocating for the FDA to revoke their approval of BPA  as a food additive. If you live in California, review our action alert and ask your legislator to support a BPA ban in children’s products. This post originally appeared on NRDC’s Switchboard blog . More on Food

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Sarah Janssen: The Chemical Industry Desperately Wants to Keep Their Products in Your Shopping Cart

Probably the top priorities at “America’s Future Now” conference (formerly Take Back America) is getting universal health care adopted this year. Progressive groups announced plans to spend $82 million to press for adoption of Obama’s health care plan. The coalition, made up of MoveOn.org, Americans United for Change, USAction, Campaign for Community Change, Rock the Vote, AFL-CIO, SEIU, the Children’s Defense Fund, and others, together represent 30 million Americans. Making sure the “public option” is contained in health care legislation is a top priority of the coalition. Likewise for the congressional Progressive Caucus and the Black, Hispanic, and Asia Pacific American caucuses, which recently sent joint letters to President Obama and House and Senate leadership emphasizing that they would only support health care reform if it contains the public option. The public option allows Americans to choose between private insurance and a public plan. (I wrote about the public option here .) The momentum is strong — in June, there will be petitions, lobby days in Congress, and the beginnings of a grassroots and eventually an advertising campaign. The public option is not enough to satisfy single-payer advocates. But if Congress can withstand intense pressure from the private health care industry — which doesn’t want to have to compete with a more efficient public plan — and if Congress can refrain from watering it down, it does represent an enormous step toward universal, quality health coverage. This approach may be a good way to go. But that is no reason for Senator Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and President Barack Obama to exclude single-payer health care advocates from the summits, forums, and hearings on health care reform. Even the “America’s Future Now” conference had no speakers advocating for single-payer health care. At a press conference today, I got a chance to ask Howard Dean why single-payer advocates are not at the table. Here’s his responses, followed by what I think (but did not say): Dr. Dean: We really weren’t anticipating that question… Me: Really? Everywhere there is a public forum on health care, people are shouting from the audience about single-payer since they are almost never included on the official panels. Dr. Dean: They should be at the table. The Right has managed to turn “single-payer” into a bad word, like “liberal.” Me: All the more reason to insist on considering the policy on its merits, not based on a foregone conclusion about what is politically plausible. After all, if you have the insurance and medical-industrial complex pushing for no public plan, wouldn’t you want the single-payer movement pushing from the other side? Then the Obama plan can take its place as a centrist policy, which is what it is. Dr. Dean: Opponents have used confusion to sow doubt. People may not like the health care system, but they like their doctor or hospital. Me: in other words, we need to keep everyone on message. Not sure I buy that when public opinion polls show a majority of Americans favoring single-payer health care — even if they have to pay higher taxes. That’s extraordinary support for a proposal with few public figures advocating it and a virtual media blackout on the topic. In his opening remarks, Robert Borosage of Campaign for America’s Future, said: “We need to build independent movements, organizing outside of Washington, demanding real change.” Let’s start by including members of the movement for single-payer health care in the dialogue. Dr. Dean: President Obama’s plan is realistic. Even in Britain, where medicine really is socialized [doctors offices and hospitals are publicly owned] 15% of health care dollars go to private insurance. Private insurance isn’t going away. Americans should be the ones to choose. If they like their current, private insurance, they can keep it. If they aren’t satisfied, they should be able to choose a public plan. Respect Americans’ ability to decide. Me: Respect for Americans’ ability to decide. Just what the doctor ordered. Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/sarahvangelder

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Sarah van Gelder: Respect Americans’ Choice on Health Care Options — Howard Dean

The other day on the nameberry message boards , I heard tell of a little boy named Vandal . And then, the next day, one of the bandmembers of My Chemical Romance named his newborn daughter (yes, daughter) Bandit . Are these parents masochistic? Gang members? Or do they just love the idea of launching a bad boy (or girl) into the world? Vandal and Bandit aren’t the only hellions in the nursery these days. There’s Breaker, one of the seven children of Robert and Cortney Novogratz, hipster parents who own Sixx Design in New York . Then there are Racer , Rebel , Rocket , and Rogue , sons of film director Robert Rodriguez . (Survival tip: If you’re invited to dinner at their house, wear a helmet.) The trends toward word names, surnames, and occupational names have certainly fueled this trend. If Cooper can be a name, after all, why not Cutter? If Porter , why not Power ? While the popularity list is full of newborns named Heaven , Nevaeh , and Angel , it also features a growing number of babies with these less-than-angelic names: RYKER — How many of the nearly 700 sets of parents who named their baby boys Ryker last year realize that, when spelled Rikers, it’s the name of the notorious island prison in New York ? I’d hazard to guess not many, but maybe the association will sink in if I say it’s like naming your baby Alcatraz. MAVERICK — Okay, this one’s kind of soft-core, but it still suggests a range-riding, sharp-shootin’ kind of guy. Either that or Sarah Palin . GUNNAR and GUNNER — I fully admit to being one of those wimpy East Coast liberals who’s in favor of gun control, so maybe it’s just me. But this name seems to go beyond the rabble-rousing Rockets and Vandals to some darker and more lethal level of badness. CANNON — When regular old Gunner just doesn’t pack enough firepower. DRAVEN — The name of Brandon Lee’s infamous undead character in The Crow . RAIDEN — Of course, this name’s popularity is heavily related to the whole Aiden-Jaden thing. But its meaning, and its appeal, has an aggressive edge. BLAZE — Blaise is a genuine ancient saint’s name, and Blaze Starr was a midcentury (female) stripper. But this name is rising now for boys, more because of its fiery feel than because of its obscure connection with martyrs or fan dancers. Other popular boys’ names are more subtly aggressive: Hunter , say, or Axel . Harley , for both sexes, has the Hells’ Angels association. And then there are names we’ve heard that haven’t yet hit the popularity list, but are certainly heading there, such as: HELLER — Makes Hell more palateable by giving it a surname feel. RAIDER — If Raiden feels too familiar, this choice gets right to the point. WILDER — Another surname-y choice that does wild one better. Why are parents more and more attracted to this wild kind of name? Maybe they want to arm their kids with an aggressive, take-charge image to do battle with an ever-more-challenging world. Perhaps they feel their sons (and daughters) will benefit from having a name that keeps people from messing with them.

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Pamela Redmond Satran: The New Bad Boy Names

The Indiana State Department of Health recently cut gay white men as an HIV/AIDS funding priority . African-American and Hispanic men who have sex with men are still included as priority populations. The decision was made by the department’s advisory Community Planning Group (CPG). The CPG is a Center for Disease Control (CDC) mandated process for funding HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs in the states; it aims to be politics-free and representative of the community. The Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) administers CDC HIV/AIDS prevention funds. Indiana health activists charge that the Group ignored the CDC’s criteria for defining community priorities. This CPG defines the priority populations that the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) must use to solicit HIV/AIDS service providers for HIV prevention project proposals. The State of Indiana’s 2008 Epidemiology Report shows that the number of cases as well as number of new diagnoses for White men having sex with men (MSM) continue to outnumber combined African-American and Hispanic MSM cases two to one. So why aren’t white gay men included as a community priority? According to Tri-State Alliance spokesperson Gary Essary, “The criteria for Community Planning Groups to set community priority populations include Prevalence (absolute number of HIV/AIDS cases in a target population) as well as Incidence (rate of HIV/AIDS cases within a target population). The CPG ignored these recommendations, basing their decision solely on Incidence.” “No one disputes that African-American and Hispanic MSM should be a priority. According to the State of Indiana’s 2008 Epidemiology Report, the HIV/AIDS incidence rates for African-American and Hispanic MSM in Indiana (379 and 132 per 100,000 male population, respectively) are higher than for White MSM (111 per 100,000). However, prevalence shows 3,063 White MSM living with HIV/AIDS, more than double the combined African-American MSM (1024) and Hispanic MSM (216),” he said in an e-mailed statement. The Community Planning Group also removed Hispanic women from the targeted heterosexual women demographic. Current targeted populations are: People living with HIV/AIDS Men Having Sex With Men (African-American/Hispanic) Heterosexual Women (African-American) Youth (Aged 13-24) Intravenous Drug Users The CDC mandates that people with HIV/AIDS always be the number one priority. “Only a Recommendation” Indiana State Department of Health HIV Prevention Director Sarah Renner downplayed the changes. She was not at the CPG meeting and does not serve on the planning group’s board. “According to the CDC guidance tool, the CPG makes a recommendation that we include in any planning documents. It’s a recommendation. That’s it,” Renner told me. The Dept of Health uses the CPG recommendations to encourage groups to apply for state funding by issuing a Request For Proposals (RFP). RFPs are driven from a methodology that allows people to use localized information. Renner stressed that while the five groups were given a priority status, that doesn’t mean no one else will be included. “Key is what defines a risk. Race doesn’t define risk itself. There is so much fascinating data that folks can use to look at a population,” she said. “Don’t think of it as ‘What’s up with white gay men in Indiana?’ Think of it as ‘How can we reach and define that community and how they’re being infected?’ Behavior is the primary function we look at,” she continued. Renner stressed that prevalence and incidence were not the only source of epidemiological data used to determine rankings. Critics charge, however, that when ISDH sends out the request for proposals, white gay men will not be listed as a priority; therefore, agencies applying for funding are much much less likely to target white gay men for HIV prevention services. “…the practical impact of omitting White MSM as a priority in the Requests for Proposal is an overt discouragement for a service provider to write a proposal that includes White MSM. Those that do will be more likely to de-emphasize it. As a direct result, a population clearly in need of HIV prevention services will see fewer resources in their community, and the HIV cases and rates among White Gay males will surely increase,” Essary said. Personal Greed or Intractable Agencies? While critics insinuate that the board voted along demographic lines to push funding towards their personal communities, others speculated that the issue stemmed from agencies angry at being forced to change their grant proposal process. “As far as I know this is the first time we’ve used an RFP model for prevention funding so people will have to go through an application process. This is different from other times,” Renner said. “The funding is driven by an RFP process that makes the algorithm very public as to how many apply, what type of intervention they apply for, how the scoring occurs and we report back who gets what type of funding.” “The process will be different so it really depends on our grant applicants writing qualified RFPs. It will be a new type of writing for some grantees. One of the targets is ‘Individuals living with HIV.’ White gay men fit that criteria,” she said. Indiana spends between $2-3 million dollars annually on HIV prevention. ISDH is currently waiting on a cost extension after the Indiana state legislature failed to pass a budget. Lawmakers will convene a special legislative session to pass a budget soon as per state law. Indiana spends approximately $35 million dollars annually on HIV/AIDS and STD issues. The Indiana State Department of Health publishes its 2008-2010 HIV Prevention Plan online. It also publishes the Community Planning Group’s meeting minutes . More on HIV/AIDS

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Bil Browning: Indiana removes gay white men from HIV/AIDS funding priorities

In response to yesterday’s murder of Dr. George Tiller, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has a notice on her SarahPAC website offering sympathy to the family and saying that “violence is never an answer.”  But she still doesn’t answer the question raised in an interview during the 2008 presidential campaign: WILLIAMS: Is an abortion clinic bomber a terrorist under this definition, Governor? Gov. PALIN: There’s no question that Bill Ayers, via his own admittance, was one who sought to destroy our US capital and our Pentagon. That is a domestic terrorist. There’s no question there. Now, others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities that it would be unacceptable to—I don’t know if you’re going to use the word terrorist there, but it’s unacceptable, and it would not be condoned, of course, on our watch. But I don’t know—if what you’re asking is if I regret referring to Bill Ayers as an unrepentant domestic terrorist, I don’t regret characterizing him as that. WILLIAMS: No, I’m just asking what other categories you would put in there, abortion clinic bombers, protesters in cities where fires were started, Molotov cocktails were thrown, people died? Gov. PALIN: I would put in that category of Bill Ayers anyone else who would seek to campaign, to destroy our United States capital and our Pentagon and would seek to destroy innocent Americans. Palin’s office did not respond to inquiries from Daily Kos on whether or not she believes the murder of Dr. Tiller was an act of domestic terrorism.

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Domestic Terrorist? Palin Still Won’t Say

All eyes and ears will be on President Obama on June 4, when he delivers his first address from an Arab country. Will he focus on preserving a close relationship with Arab governments, whatever their shortcomings, or will he gear his message to Arab citizens, suppressed for decades by authoritarian leaders? While the new administration has signaled that promoting respect for human rights will not feature publicly in its bilateral relationships, ignoring Egypt’s abysmal record will further stall reforms in that country and further undermine US standing in the region. In many ways Egypt is a natural choice for this speech: it remains the cultural capital of the Arab world, however faded its political importance. It also has the closest relationship with the United States among Arab countries, as the second-largest recipient of American economic and military largesse, to the tune of $1.6 billion dollars annually (only Israel receives more). Egypt has been dutiful in its commitments — keeping the peace with Israel, preventing African migrants from crossing into Israel, and keeping Gaza’s border at Rafah sealed (if less successful at blocking smuggling tunnels). It has cooperated closely with US counter-terrorism policies, even profoundly unlawful ones such as torturing suspects sent to Egypt on Washington’s behalf. And when Washington wants something from the Arabs, it typically turns to Egypt to broker the deal. A decent return for the U.S. investment, some foreign policy wonks say. But then there is the reality of the Egyptian government’s heavy-handed relationship with its own citizens, whom it has ruled by “emergency laws” for most of the past 42 years. While the “war-time” justification for the suspension of rights and freedoms under these emergency laws has long ended (Egypt signed its peace treaty with Israel in 1979), their convenience as a tool for controlling and intimidating government opponents, including non-violent ones, has not. The government continues to restrict Egyptians’ speech and their press freedom, jailing critical journalists, writers and bloggers alike. It has used the emergency laws to detain thousands, mostly Islamists, without charge, some of them for decades. Competition for political power is strictly limited, with the National Democratic Party dominating a rubber-stamp parliament following elections that don’t come close to meeting the fairness test. The security establishment is overstuffed with agents who apparently have plenty of time on their hands to monitor and menace ordinary citizens engaged in “suspicious” activities, like advocating for housing rights, or for medical assistance for those who undergo the torture that is pervasive in police stations. Courts that issue judgments contrary to the government’s wishes are routinely ignored. Egypt may be a more tolerant, moderate country, with some modicum of political dissent, compared with some other countries in the region. But freedom has a very short leash in Egypt. Washington’s support for this repressive government has been a cause for anger and resentment in Egypt and the region. Many see the United States as complicit in Egyptian government abuses, effectively aiding and abetting routine mistreatment of ordinary people. Whatever the benefits of this alliance for the U.S., this cost must be factored in. While the Bush administration’s failures in the region were legion and catastrophic, it did earn credit for its willingness, however briefly, to insist publicly on the need for reforms in Egypt. The public pressure helped push the government to allow demonstrations criticizing the government, tolerate increased press freedom, and even allow a contested presidential election in 2005. But following large gains by the Muslim Brotherhood in parliamentary elections later that year, the Bush administration abandoned this agenda. Egypt returned to its nasty ways, jailing the opposition presidential candidate Ayman Nour, cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood and jailing journalists. But Bush — and the Egyptian government — proved that public diplomacy could help achieve practical, important reforms. Today, there’s debate in the Obama administration about the appropriate role of human rights advocacy in its bilateral relations with other countries. America’s standing to raise issues of human rights, in the wake of the Iraq war, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, is significantly impaired. But where the US has special relationships with governments, tied by billions in military and financial aid and close security and political cooperation, it doesn’t have the luxury of ignoring its partner’s human rights record, both as a matter of principle and of self-interest. There’s much to welcome in America’s newfound humility and willingness to listen. But it’s no cover for the need for straight talk with the rulers in Cairo. More on Egypt

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Sarah Leah Whitson: A Record That Can’t Be Ignored

Republican Party elected officials, former elected officials, and other leaders, from James Inhofe to Tom Tancredo to Newt Gingrich to Rush Limbaugh, have accused Judge Sonia Sotomayor, be it implicitly or quite explicitly, of being a “racist.” When CNN’s John King asked Senate Republican “Leader” Mitch McConnell, now the most powerful elected Republican in America, whether he thought aggressive rhetoric like Gingrich’s and Limbaugh’s went too far, he responded : I’ve got better things to do than to be the speech police over people who are going to have their views about a very important appointment. Speech police, huh? Well, I’ll come back to that in a moment. In July 2008, a psychopath went on a shooting rampage at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. Following the tragedy, the shooter wrote a four-page note explaining why, according to his demented thought process, he did what he did : Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime. I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them…. This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg’s book. I’d like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn’t get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It’s the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence. Conservative blowhard Bernard Golberg’s book, “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America,” was part of this madman’s perverted inspiration. This person hated liberals and Democrats and “volunteered” to do what was necessary to “rid America of this cancerous pestilence,” using Goldberg’s book as a motivating force. At rallies for the 2008 Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin, supporters used increasingly violent rhetoric aimed at then-Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama. McCain and Palin were criticized for not doing more to rebuke such troublingly violent language from their supporters. Throughout 2009 so far, Fox News’ Sean Hannity has used rhetoric which has included imagery of varying degrees of violence, from hangings to armed rebellion , to provoke response in his right-wing viewership. By now, you most likely have already read about Dr. George Tiller’s assassination yesterday. Dr. Tiller was the subject of assassination attempts, violence, and, by definition, terrorism in the past. Even in the wake of his assassination, some on the far right wing gleefully extolled the murder. In the years leading up to Dr. Tiller’s assassination, Bill O’Reilly’s rhetoric likening Dr. Tiller to Adolf Hitler was not subtle . Those on the far right wing fringe use dangerously violent rhetoric to get a point across - a point that sometimes tragically comes with violent action. This fringe is a key element of the listenership, viewership and readership of right wing media personalities like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Bernard Goldberg. To increase their ratings and their book sales, they look to provoke their followers in a variety of ways. Occasionally and, again, tragically, this leads to violence, even to domestic terrorism. Certainly, this rhetoric condones and even encourages utter hatred, something disturbingly and violently on display at those Fox News-hyped Tea Parties. So, back to our nation’s most powerful elected Republican, Mitch McConnell, and the “speech police” sentiment in response to increasingly aggressive rhetoric against Judge and Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, the latest example of the far right rhetorically igniting a situation as far as it will go, good sense and intelligent discourse be damned. Mitch, you don’t need to wear a badge and call out every conservative who says something not nice about a liberal. But we have seen a marked increase on the far right of hatefully aggressive and even violent rhetoric. This very rhetoric is employed by leading right wing media personalities and Republican Party leaders. And this very rhetoric has directly led to acts of violence and domestic terrorism. So, Mitch, do you have anything better to do than to serve as a role model and a standard bearer for your Party, calling out the seeds of violence when you see and hear it in the rhetoric of your Party’s most visible spokespeople, protecting America and preventing acts of terrorism? No, Mitch, I would suggest that you most definitely do not have anything better to do than that. I’d further suggest that the more aggressive and more violent the rhetoric of the far right wing becomes, the greater the responsibility of elected Republican leaders becomes to publicly and forcefully rebuke such language, rather than passively condone it. Mitch, I think you can make the time. And if you and your fellow elected Republicans don’t make the time to rebuke such violent rhetoric, you will get lumped together with those espousing the rhetoric, and you will be voted out of office. More on Sonia Sotomayor

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Senate Guru: Sonia Sotomayor, George Tiller, and Republican Responsibility

Republican Party elected officials, former elected officials, and other leaders, from James Inhofe to Tom Tancredo to Newt Gingrich to Rush Limbaugh, have accused Judge Sonia Sotomayor, be it implicitly or quite explicitly, of being a “racist.” When CNN’s John King asked Senate Republican “Leader” Mitch McConnell, now the most powerful elected Republican in America, whether he thought aggressive rhetoric like Gingrich’s and Limbaugh’s went too far, he responded : I’ve got better things to do than to be the speech police over people who are going to have their views about a very important appointment. Speech police, huh? Well, I’ll come back to that in a moment. In July 2008, a psychopath went on a shooting rampage at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. Following the tragedy, the shooter wrote a four-page note explaining why, according to his demented thought process, he did what he did : Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime. I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them…. This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg’s book. I’d like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn’t get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It’s the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence. Conservative blowhard Bernard Golberg’s book, “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America,” was part of this madman’s perverted inspiration. This person hated liberals and Democrats and “volunteered” to do what was necessary to “rid America of this cancerous pestilence,” using Goldberg’s book as a motivating force. At rallies for the 2008 Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin, supporters used increasingly violent rhetoric aimed at then-Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama. McCain and Palin were criticized for not doing more to rebuke such troublingly violent language from their supporters. Throughout 2009 so far, Fox News’ Sean Hannity has used rhetoric which has included imagery of varying degrees of violence, from hangings to armed rebellion , to provoke response in his right-wing viewership. By now, you most likely have already read about Dr. George Tiller’s assassination yesterday. Dr. Tiller was the subject of assassination attempts, violence, and, by definition, terrorism in the past. Even in the wake of his assassination, some on the far right wing gleefully extolled the murder. In the years leading up to Dr. Tiller’s assassination, Bill O’Reilly’s rhetoric likening Dr. Tiller to Adolf Hitler was not subtle . Those on the far right wing fringe use dangerously violent rhetoric to get a point across - a point that sometimes tragically comes with violent action. This fringe is a key element of the listenership, viewership and readership of right wing media personalities like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Bernard Goldberg. To increase their ratings and their book sales, they look to provoke their followers in a variety of ways. Occasionally and, again, tragically, this leads to violence, even to domestic terrorism. Certainly, this rhetoric condones and even encourages utter hatred, something disturbingly and violently on display at those Fox News-hyped Tea Parties. So, back to our nation’s most powerful elected Republican, Mitch McConnell, and the “speech police” sentiment in response to increasingly aggressive rhetoric against Judge and Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, the latest example of the far right rhetorically igniting a situation as far as it will go, good sense and intelligent discourse be damned. Mitch, you don’t need to wear a badge and call out every conservative who says something not nice about a liberal. But we have seen a marked increase on the far right of hatefully aggressive and even violent rhetoric. This very rhetoric is employed by leading right wing media personalities and Republican Party leaders. And this very rhetoric has directly led to acts of violence and domestic terrorism. So, Mitch, do you have anything better to do than to serve as a role model and a standard bearer for your Party, calling out the seeds of violence when you see and hear it in the rhetoric of your Party’s most visible spokespeople, protecting America and preventing acts of terrorism? No, Mitch, I would suggest that you most definitely do not have anything better to do than that. I’d further suggest that the more aggressive and more violent the rhetoric of the far right wing becomes, the greater the responsibility of elected Republican leaders becomes to publicly and forcefully rebuke such language, rather than passively condone it. Mitch, I think you can make the time. And if you and your fellow elected Republicans don’t make the time to rebuke such violent rhetoric, you will get lumped together with those espousing the rhetoric, and you will be voted out of office. More on Sonia Sotomayor

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Senate Guru: Sonia Sotomayor, George Tiller, and Republican Responsibility

Terminator Salvation is a dark fable of the future, a much better war movie than science fiction film. Is the era of the dark comic book movie fable coming to an end? Or is it more a matter of a spate of seemingly underperforming dark would-be blockbusters? Terminator Salvation , the blockbuster reboot of the Terminator franchise , is, as they say in Hollywood, underperforming. That means it’s not making as much money as expected. This comes on the heels of Watchmen , the heavily anticipated comic book classic which proved too dark and geeky, and Wolverine , the origin tale of the most popular of the X-Men characters that is actually quite popular but falls short of the last two X-Men pictures. Both movies grossed over $100 million in domestic box office — with Wolverine over $170 million — and Terminator Salvation will, too. For most movies, this would be a massive triumph. But not for very expensive pictures such as these, meant to be tent poles for their studios into the future. (Which Wolverine probably manages to continue, though the film is not well-regarded.) Are the dark fables done for? Probably not, because the darkness is still to be seen in every direction. And the theme of unease with human/machine convergence certainly isn’t going away. That will only intensify as technology is more intrusive and integrated into our lives and as artificial intelligence at last becomes a reality. In the Terminator films, humanity becomes so dependent on technology that it is nearly destroyed by it. Watchmen ’s most powerful superhero, Dr. Manhattan, originally to have been played many years ago by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is a physicist given such extraordinary powers over space and time by a nuclear accident that he becomes dangerously detached from humanity. In the X-Men series, the powerful mutant Wolverine becomes near invincible with extraordinary body modifications. All quite relevant themes. T2 3-D , at $60 million in 1996 the most expensive mini-sequel in history, was produced for the Universal Studios amusement parks. Still, this doesn’t seem the right moment for the grim flicks. It is the moment for the rebooted Star Trek , that optimistic thrill ride in which people master the tech and work as a team, which is now the most popular movie of the year in America, just a few years after the franchise dating back to the 1960s seemed dead in the water. More about the Starship Lens Flare and the Great Rambaldi Artifact Adventure another time. There’s a row of movie posters at my local theater. On the far left, a poster for Terminator Salvation , proclaiming “The End Begins.” On the far right, a poster for Star Trek , proclaiming “The Future Begins.” The Obama era is about hope, as the Trekkie-in-chief has managed to mention on more than a few occasions, and hope is what people are looking for in rugged times. Terminator Salvation has a great look, with convincing action sequences, but seems on the choppy side, with missing scenes of needed motivation and depth. Nevertheless, it is actually good at what it really is, which is a war movie. It’s a better war movie than science fiction movie. Christian Bale is effective as John Connor, the prophesied leader of the human resistance against the machines, first targeted, then repeatedly saved by Schwarzenegger’s iconic killer robot. He doesn’t bring the flash and charm of Bruce Wayne to this role, which leavens the darkness of the rebooted Batman franchise. But then, there aren’t many parties or Lamborghinis in this blasted-out dystopia that the Skynet artificial intelligence has made of the world. “I’ll be back.” The first three Terminator films all have two things the fourth film lacks: A strong narrative throughline and a central iconic figure (Schwarzenegger). The new film — set in the future war the earlier films hinted at — would seem to be setting up the prophesied human resistance leader John Connor as that central icon. (Schwarzenegger being essentially unavailable due to his little day job as governor of California.) With Bale, hot off The Dark Knight in the role, that’s the audience’s expectation. Which makes sense, as the first three films turn on the struggle to stop terminators sent from the future into the present day from preventing John Connor’s existence into that future. But the film introduces another character played by Sam Worthington as a dual lead. Worthington, who stars in original Terminator director James Cameron’s forthcoming scific extravaganza Avatar , is Australian, befitting Hollywood’s frequent practice of picking a guy from the land down under when more testosterone than generally found in the LA actor corps is needed for a more masculine leading role. He delivers, though the accent slips a bit here and there. But Worthington’s character isn’t really explained. And the big reveal of his character — that he is a cyborg who believes he is human — in one of those, ah, fascinating marketing decisions, is given away in trailers for the movie, robbing the picture of suspense. Marcus is a more sophisticated cyborg than what we’ve seen, being a human/machine hybrid who believes he human. But how has he come to exist at a point in the saga at which Schwarzenegger’s iconic and less sophisticated T-800 is still in prototype mode? As Bale’s John Connor told us in the trailers, “This isn’t the future my mother told me about.” In the film, he listens repeatedly to tapes left him by late mother, Sarah Connor, which gives Linda Hamilton, who starred in the first two films as a young waitress forced to retool herself as a guerilla fighter, the opportunity to appear again in voice-over. But though the question is posed repeatedly, it’s never explained, at least not in the footage seen in the theatrical release. So the audience is left with stuttering iconography and very incomplete science fiction. But director McG delivers a lot of impressive hard-core action, in what is essentially a successful, if decidedly grim, war movie. And composer Danny Elfman delivers a fine score, though one not nearly so iconic as his classic Batman score of 20 years ago. Is it possible that Arnold Schwarzenegger had a more musical conception for a Terminator film? The Terminator films have always been dark, but in the past they’ve been leavened by humor, mostly provided by Schwarzenegger. The whole concept is outrageous and amusing in its essentially lunatic premise; namely, that robots keep coming back from the future, and they look and sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger, who talks about how “the terminator loves his shades,” is well aware of the undercurrent of amusing unreality. When does a killer robot from the future care about looking cool in his sunglasses? When it’s a movie star having fun while at the same time selling the hyper-realism with the voice and the impassive affect. Schwarzenegger is in the movie in a brief but telling cameo. He caused a flicker of excitement among fanboys around the world in April when he told me that he’d decided to allow his image to be used in the film via CGI. “They’re really looking for where one of the leads runs into a room and he all of a sudden sees the future terminators, because it’s kind of a prequel,” he noted. “So it’s like the future terminator. Then he runs, then he gets thrown around, and then he goes into another room, where there are some other terminator things.” The part of Schwarzenegger’s T-800 prototype was performed in live-action filming by former Mister Austria Roland Kickinger, who played the bodybuilding era Schwarzenegger in the cable movie See Arnold Run . Through CGI, Industrial Light & Magic was able to place Schwarzenegger’s 1984 Terminator image in the action. The dark tales may be in eclipse for now, relatively speaking — keeping in mind that Terminator Salvation is over $90 million in domestic box office, already one of the higher grosses of the year, after its second weekend — but they’re part of a rich mosaic of sagas. A mosaic that will only be added to as we become more and more dependent on technology, increasingly merging with it. In 2001 , the HAL 9000 supercomputer proves most troublesome. Before the Terminator films of 1984, 1991, and 2003, there was 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey , in which a powerful computer becomes sentient and sabotages the crew it serves. 1970’s Colossus: The Forbin Project , in which a supercomputer designed to run the country’s nuclear arsenal decides to run the country as well. Then there was the original Battlestar Galactica TV series in 1978, in which “Cylon” robots warred with humanity. And before both, two Harlan Ellison-penned tales of time-traveling cyborgs and soldiers for The Outer Limits in the early ’60s, which Cameron acknowledged as partial inspirations for The Terminator . Increasingly today, we have more interaction with our computers than with other people, perhaps beginning to lose the full range of emotion as our experiences become increasingly mediated. It may well be that the the more mediated and technologized, we become, the more detached and inhuman we are. Not that so-called “social media” like Twitter and Facebook and MySpace are yet creating a hive mind like that of the Borg, introduced by Star Trek in the late 1980s. Nor do we yet live in an utterly false reality like that in the Matrix series of films. And yet … The Borg were terrifying in their inhumanity and and arrogance, motivated by power in an ever-expanding and consuming quest to achieve “perfection” through the acquisition and integration of technology, overcoming the weakness of flesh. That was clear, and chilling, in the last hit movie in the Star Trek franchise before the current reboot, Star Trek: First Contact . The reimagined Battlestar Galactica TV series explored these themes and others, including religion and the war on terror, in detail. But then there are the humanoid machines that want to be more like people. Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation . The cylons in the recent Battlestar Galactica series, reimagined by Star Trek: First Contact co-author Ron Moore, and the forthcoming Caprica prequel series, who strive to become more like humans after nearly wiping out the race. Even some of the terminators, though not so much. Ironically, the Terminator version seen for the past two seasons on the small screen, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles , delivered a much more sophisticated rendition of artificial intelligence than the new movie, delving into the boundaries and mergings between human and machine in ways only hinted at in Terminator Salvation . That show, recently canceled, also suffered from a dour atmosphere and, unlike the film, didn’t have the budget to blow things up all that often. (Though it did have Summer Glau to deliver a rather different take on the protective terminator than Schwarzenegger, leading teenage John to become more dependent on machines at an earlier age.) Still, it was thought-provoking in ways that episodic television can be and feature films increasingly are not. You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes … www.newwestnotes.com.

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William Bradley: Terminating The Darkness: Hope Floats, But Anxiety Abides