harikari.com

Hey guys.  You know it’s bad to be using an Obama teleprompter thingy.  That’s just so phony – dontcha know?  I mean geez!  He must not be able to remember all those Socialist ideas in his head if he has to read them off a screeny thing.

So… like it’s better to just write stuff on your hands.

See how that works?  And it’s not like those clear plastic reading things off camera that Obama uses that everybody know are there.  Ya see, nobody will notice little scribbles on your handsies.

Not Jon Stewart.

Not Stephen Colbert.

Not Keith Olbermann.

Not Andrea Mitchell.

Not nobody.

Seeing notes on my hand reminds me of my cheerleader days back in high school.  Those helpful hints that my boyfriend scribbled on my palms always made me smarter, you know?

From Sarah Palin’s November appearance on The O’Reilly Factor, via The Atlantic Wire, via This Modern World:

O’REILLY: OK, but is it fair for you to criticize Obama’s lack of experience when somebody could make the same criticism about you on the national stage?

PALIN: If you’re talking about executive experience, I would put my experience up against his any day of the week.  I’ve been elected to a local office since 1992 and was the city manager, strong leader form of government, was a chief executive of the state, was an oil and gas regulator.  There was some good experience there that could have been put to use in a vice presidential ticket. We have to remember, too, that I wasn’t running for president.

O’REILLY: Now, but that’s the key question because John McCain is up there in years.  You had to be qualified to take that office over.

PALIN: Right, but I’m saying I was running for vice president just like Joe Biden in running for vice president.  I’ve never once heard you or anybody else question Joe Biden and his experience. He…

O’REILLY: Well, he’s got a lot of experience. Let me be very bold and fresh again.  Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?

PALIN: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many other American values.  And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the kind of a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fact resume that’s based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles.  Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership.  I’m not saying that has to be me.

I get the “common” part, but the “sense” part is not coming through at all.

As in “Grand Old Pity Party.”

During this week’s edition of “The Word”, Steven Colbert could not even pretend to like Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, was released this week.  Why “rogue?”  Well Merriam Webster defines “rogue (adj.)” as:  “resembling or suggesting a rogue elephant especially in being isolated, aberrant, dangerous, or uncontrollable.”   Perfect!

The day before her book was released, she was featured on the cover of Newsweek Magazine, but Sarah didn’t like the photo they used.  It was from a photo shoot she did for Runner’s World magazine.

Sarah blasted Newsweek on her Facebook page.

“The choice of photo for the cover of this week’s Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this ‘news’ magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant.  The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now.”

Funny… I read a review of the book on NPR today.  Here’s what Rod Dreher wrote:

Going Rogue is a book designed to re-introduce Palin as a national political force, and — though she’s coy about this — to lay the groundwork for a 2012 presidential run.

The rap on Palin is that she’s too shallow and inexperienced for the presidency — a conclusion that early Palin supporters like me came to during the 2008 campaign.  Alas, for conservatives in search of a champion, there’s nothing in Going Rogue to challenge that conclusion.  It’s like this: Palin spends seven pages dishing about her appearance on Saturday Night Live, but just over one page discussing her national security views.

When you consider what weight she gave to National Security versus SNL, the Newsweek cover seems very relevant to the degree of her intellect.

But she doesn’t think so:  she told Barbara Walters that she found the photo “a wee bit degrading.”   So it’s degrading now but it wasn’t when she posed for Runner’s World just three months ago?  Well that doesn’t make any sense, but it’s the response that is “oh-so-expected” from her, and she didn’t let us down.

Speaking of the Lunatic Fringe, here’s a recent quote from the Queen Mother of the wingnuts, Former Governor (read “Quitter”) Sarah Palin:

“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care.  Such a system is downright evil.”

Laura Harrison McBride wrote the following about Palin’s crazy talk:

• An end-of-life decision is not the same thing as an “ending life” decision.  The former refers to a decision  made by an individual at the end of that individual’s life, and commonly includes such matters as which grandchild gets the gold-rimmed teacups and where one wants to be buried.
• An “ending life” decision (death panel), on the other hand, would be a decision made about the individual by another party…a relative, a government, a jury of one’s peers and so on.

It isn’t awfully surprising that Palin would mix up the meanings of these two terms.  She joins a long list of other ignorant conservatives who willfully and purposely misuse language to pull the wool over the eyes of others, most notably their own followers since the rest of humanity seems able to see through it.

That’s an excellent response, but I kind of like throwing Palin’s own words right back at her, like this quote from her resignation speech:

“So how about in honor of the American solider you quit making things up?”

Yes, why don’t you Sarah?  Don’t you know you are letting our soldiers down with your batshit crazy talk?

On Sunday, July 26, 2009 Sarah Palin quit her governorship of Alaska and delivered her farewell speech.  It was as incoherent as her resignation speech, but it was a little different this time:  It was poetry!

You can watch Sarah deliver the whole thing herself, or watch the best parts on The Daily Show segment about it, or you can William Shatner recite a stanza on The Tonight Show accompanied by stand-up base and bongo drum in authentic beat-poet fashion.

ff

And getting up here I say it is the best road trip in America soaring through nature’s finest show. Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun. And then the extremes. In the winter time it’s the frozen road that is competing with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty, the cold though, doesn’t it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs? And then in the summertime such extreme summertime about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter than just some months ago, than just some months from now, with fireweed blooming along the frost heaves and merciless rivers that are rushing and carving and reminding us that here, Mother Nature wins. It is as throughout all Alaska that big wild good life teeming along the road that is north to the future.

From this week’s edition of This Modern World.

Read the whole strip for Tom Tomorrow’s analysis of the right-wing response to Palin’s illogical, meandering speech.

You can find a transcript of Palin’s speech here.  My favorite parts were:

If I’ve learned one thing it’s that life is about choices and one chooses how to react to circumstances.  You can choose to engage in things that tear down or that build up and I choose to work very hard on a path for fruitfulness and productivity.  I choose not to tear down and waste precious time but to build up this state and our great country and her industrious and generous and patriotic and free people.

Life is too short to compromise time and resources and though it may be tempting and more comfortable to just kind of keep your head down and plod along and appease those who are demanding, hey, just sit down and shut up.  But that’s a worthless, easy path out.  That’s a quitter’s way out.  And I think a problem in our country today is apathy.  It would be apathetic to just kind of hunker down and go with the flow.  We’re fishermen and we know that only dead fish go with the flow.

…

So that Alaska will progress, I will not seek re-election as governor.  And so as I thought about this announcement, that I wouldn’t run for re-election and what that means for Alaska, I thought about, well, how much fun some governors have as lame ducks.  They maybe travel around their state, travel to other states, maybe take their overseas international trade missions. So many politicians do that. And then I thought, that’s what wrong.  Many just accept that lame duck status and they hit the road, they draw a paycheck, they kind of milk it, and I’m not going to put Alaskans through that.

I promised efficiencies and effectiveness.  That’s not how I’m wired.  I’m not wired to operate under the same old politics as usual.  I promised that four years ago and I meant it.  That’s not what is best for Alaska at this time.  I’m determined to take the right path for Alaska, even though it is unconventional and it’s not so comfortable.

Montreal’s Masked Avengers phoned Sarah Palin and tricked her into thinking she was speaking with the real French President Sarkozy. 

You’d think that after this part she’d get a clue…

FNS = Fake Nicolas Sarkozy
SP = Sarah Palin

FNS: Well, ah, I hope for you. You know we have a lot in common because personally one of my favorite activities is to hunt too.
SP: [Giggle]o h very good, we should go hunting together.

FNS: Exactly! We could go try hunting by helicopter, like you did, I never did that.
SP: [Giggle]

FNS: Like we say in France, “on pourrait tuer des bébés phoques aussi” [Translation: We could also kill some baby seals.]
SP: [Giggle] Well I think we could have a lot of fun together as we’re getting work done, we can kill two birds with one stone that way.

FNS: I just love killing those animals. Mm, mm. Take away a life, that is so fun!
SP: [Hahahaha]

FNS: I’d really love to go as long as we don’t bring your Vice president Cheney, hahaha.
SP: No, I’ll be a careful shot, yes.

FNS: You know we have a lot in common also except that from my house I can see Belgium. That’s kind of less interesting than you.
SP: Well, see, we’re right next door to other countries that we all need to be working with, yes.

But no…  she didn’t catch on until the end when the fake Sarkozy told her she’d been pranked.

Listen to the whole thing.

via Harper’s, via Daily Kos.

And again I ask, Who is the celebrity now?

From Politico.com:

The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

…

In 2000, Democrat Al Gore took heat for changing his clothing hues. And in 2006, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) was ribbed for two hair styling sessions that cost about $3,000.

Then, there was Democrat John Edwards’ $400 hair cuts in 2007 and Republican McCain’s $520 black leather Ferragamo shoes this year.

A review of similar records for the campaign of Democrat Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee turned up no similar spending.

But all the spending by other candidates pales in comparison to the GOP outlay for the Alaska governor whose expensive, designer outfits have been the topic of fashion pages and magazines.

…

The entries also show a few purchases at Pacifier, a top notch baby store, and Steiniauf & Stroller Inc., suggesting $295 was spent to accommodate the littlest Palin to join the campaign trail.

An additional $4,902.45 was spent in early September at Atelier, a high-class shopping destination for men.

Yes, Ms. Joe “Pit Bull” Six-Pack spends a lot of the RNC’s money on fancy clothes so she and her family can look sharp on the campaign trail. 

Hmmm… Just wondering if this could be considered “pork barrel” spending. 

And I guess that lipstick is not the only difference between a hockey-mom V.P. candidate and a pit bull.  Now we know that the elite pit bulls also have unlimited expense accounts for designer suits and accessories.

Update from The Caucus blog at The New York Times.  Here’s a list of the RNC pork-barrel spending.

-Neiman Marcus (the R.N.C. misspelled it in their campaign finance report as “Neimon Marcus”) on Sept. 10: $75,062.63.

-Saks Fifth Avenue in New York on Sept. 10: $41,850.72.

-Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis on Sept. 10: $7,575.02.

-Bloomingdale’s in New York on Sept. 10: $5,102.71.

-Barney’s New York on Sept. 10: $789.72.

-Macy’s in Minneapolis on Sept. 10: separate charges of $4,396.94 and $512.92.

-Macy’s in Minneapolis on Sept. 22: $4,537.85

-Lord & Taylor in New York on Sept. 25: $349.50.

-Atelier New York, a men’s clothing boutique, on Sept. 10: $4,902.08.

- Pacifier, a high-end baby store in Minneapolis, on Sept. 10 and Sept. 25: two separate charges of $98.

-Steinlauf & Stoller, a sewing supply store, in New York on Sept. 25 (it was rendered in the report as Steiniauf & Stroller): $98.50

-Gap in Minneapolis on Sept. 25: $133.

“The Old Viking” forwarded me a viral email today.  I did a quick Google search and found that it’s up on quite a few sites.  I get a lot of these from both sides and I don’t usually post them, but I really like this one, so here it is:

What if the resumes of Obama/Biden and McCAin/Palin were switched around?  Think about it.  Would the country’s collective point of view be different?  Could racism be the culprit?

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn’t read from a Teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama’s family had made their money from beer distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does.  It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University – B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard – Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware – B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law – Juris Doctor (J.D.)

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy – Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University – 1 semester
North Idaho College – 2 semesters – general study
University of Idaho – 2 semesters – journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College – 1 semester