Liars, damned liars, and Sarah Palin

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We already have two posts up on Palin today -- one from me, one from Carl -- so let's make it three with this one.

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Over at The Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan has done us an extremely useful service, posting a round-up of Palin's many "odd lies." And by many I mean 32 in all. (And they've all been re-fact-checked.)

I don't think they're at all "odd," though. Palin is a liar. It's as simple as that. And, as Andrew rightly asks: "After you have read these, ask yourself: what wouldn't Sarah Palin lie about if she felt she had to?"

The answer is pretty clear.

Palin comparison

By Carl

Poor Sarah Palin:

The Alaska governor spoke in taped interviews on ABC, NBC and CNN broadcast Tuesday morning.

She told CNN that "all options are on the table" for her future.

But told ABC's "Good Morning America" that she recognizes she might not have political staying power after her surprise resignation Friday, which came just as she had been expected to elevate her national profile ahead of a possible 2012 GOP presidential run.

"I said before ... 'You know, politically speaking, if I die, I die. So be it,'" she said.

Speaking in fishing waders from the town of Dillingham, Gov. Palin said her administration has been paralyzed by fending off frivolous lawsuits.

So let me get this straight: You're frustrated by your inability to win a fight in your administration because your administration has been under investigation for possible corruption... and leaving is somehow fighting?

I might be wrong, but "fighting" to me means throwing a few haymakers back. Anything else is quitting.

Cute touch with the fishing waders and the whole "family fishing business" thing. Most people in the lower 48 will assume it's like the Gloustermen of The Perfect Storm, you know, weeks on a boat, reeking of bait and a lone shower, the things real men do.

I'm betting that "fishing business" means hiring boats to go out and do the dirty work for you.

Imagine, if you will, what would happen if, say, she somehow got caught in the Oval Office with her pants down and Congress launched an investigation that lasted six years and culminated in an impeachment trial.

Think she'd quit? I do, based on this silly little girl's tale here.

Personally, I don't think she's going to run. Between the campaign jokes made about her, the recent kerfuffle with David Letterman and this obvious grandstand ploy, she's come to the realization that, goshdarnit, people really don't like her very much.

Yes, she has immense support from the conservative wing of the Republican party, but other conservatives in the party are balking mightily at the fact she seems to be dividing the party up, perhaps to create her own ("Dominionist"?) third party.

It's hard to predict where this is really going to end up. On the one hand, a Palin party would both destroy and save the Republican party from itself. It would attract the John Birchers and the fringe members of the media and, with the help of Rush Limbaugh et al., would establish a legitimate national party.

For a while. See, moving the inmates out of the asylum doesn't make the inmates sane, but it makes the asylum safer.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

What the world needs now is not more Sarah Palin; or, how her right-wing admirers are falling all over themselves trying to love her up

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Whether we like it or not, we're being bombarded with all things Sarah Palin, more so now pre-resignation than at any time since last year's campaign. And, honestly, it was driving me nuts over the weekend.

But the right loves her, and continues not just to apologize for her, not just to cheerlead for her, but to pump her up out of all justifiable proportion. Which is fine, when you think about it, because the simple fact is, she's not -- and is not close to being -- a credible national political figure. And that's putting it nicely. I'd say she's a joke, an appalling caricature of phony, mock-outraged populism, a caricature of herself, actually, though I'm not sure the caricature is any different than the real thing, so entwined is she with her own manufactured persona.

Whatever.

Let's take a look at what a few conservatives have said about her in recent days:

1) Ross Douthat -- One of the more thoughtful conservatives around, to be sure, with a perch at the NYT, one of the key media organizations of the coastal elite that Palin claims to loathe, and against which she directs much of her silly resentment. I was going to comment earlier on his ridiculous juxtaposition of "Palin and Her Enemies," but I don't have much to add to Mustang Bobby's terrific post from yesterday afternoon.

While Douthat is certainly right that Palin has "tarnished" her own "ideal," and that she remains popular, "beloved by millions," it is ridiculous to suggest, as Douthat does, that Palin represents "the democratic ideal" -- in contrast to Obama, who supposedly represents "the meritocratic ideal" -- simply because she has shown "that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard." I had no idea that going to an Ivy makes you somehow un-democratic, but this is the sort of populism that Palin spins, the sort that her story, and her political celebrity, has inspired on the right, including among elitist coastal newspaper columnists who are hardly Heartland material.

As Mustang Bobby puts it, Palin's problems were her own fault, not the media's, not the political commentariat's, not liberals' or Democrats'. Douthat claims that the attacks on Palin "had everything to do with Palin's gender and her social class." No, they had everything to do with Palin herself. And they weren't attacks, they were justifiable criticisms of a self-absorbed dimwit who was in way over her head but who nonetheless managed to arouse the GOP mob.

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2) Fred Barnes -- Kristol's pal at TWS and an unabashed partisan (and Palin booster). For Barnes, who can't seem to keep it in his pants, Palin is "the most exciting Republican figure to emerge in decades." But, alas. While she has "a super-abundance of charisma," she also has "shortcomings in experience and knowledge" -- which is just another way of saying she has a nice personality, but...

And so Barnes, after tracing the history of Republican presidential nominees since WWII, looks ahead, a long, long way ahead: "By itself, two months on the Republican ticket won't propel her to the presidential nomination. But there is a way: win Alaska's lone House seat in 2012 and oust Democratic senator Mark Begich in 2014. A term in the House and another in the Senate -- nothing would do more to groom her for the White House than this and transform her into the best Republican candidate for the presidency in, say, 2020, when she'd be 56."

Woo-hoo! Palin 2020!

Actually, it's not so unreasonable, given that Palin has a much brighter future in Alaska than nationally, and she may just be able to do what Barnes suggests. But her bright future has dimmed even in Alaska, and I wonder if her career path to 2020 is as clear as this. Obviously, we shall see. What I do think is that we haven't heard the last of Palin the politician.

But back to Barnes. Despite the fact that Palin has glaring "shortcomings" and "limitations," he still things she was a brilliant veep pick for McCain. He even claims she won the debate with Biden, which is insane. He apparently was watching a different debate than the rest of us, perhaps one firing off in the recesses of his imagination. And he claims that "she could have taken Joe Biden apart while demonstrating her own knowledge and brainpower had she known more about national issues," which is also insane. The fact is, she didn't have any knowledge or brainpower to demonstrate, and she didn't know anything about national issues beyond the facile talking points that had been fed to her. Her "personality and likeability" in that debate just came across as smarmy arrogance. And yet Barnes still wanted her to be, as they say, a heartbeat away from the presidency? How irresponsible is that?

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3) Jim Prevor -- Also at TWS, Prevor puts even Barnes to shame with respect to Palin-boosting, as there is apparently no end to what Palin can accomplish if she just puts her mind to it:

Will she write a thoughtful book? Become a syndicated columnist whose ideas make her a "must read" for everyone? Will she found an important new think tank? An important journal? Spearhead an effort to help the unemployed? Decide to launch a business? Or maybe she will start a new political party?

*****

Maybe Sarah Palin thinks she can change the world without becoming president. Maybe she is deeply and authentically conservative and isn't certain that aiming to change the world is such a good idea.

Maybe plumes of white smoke will herald her election from atop the Vatican.

Maybe she'll win back-to-back Nobels, if not for literature, maybe for peace and chemistry, or for whatever areas she wishes to tackle upon her return to private life.

Maybe she'll hit .400.

Who knows? Who can say?

As TNR's Chris Orr notes, it's rather curious that Prevor put quotation marks around "must read." Are we to take it that Prevor is being ironic, that there's no way Palin would ever be a legitimate "must read"? No, surely not, but I think Chris is quite right that the passage reads better if you put quotation marks around "thoughtful," "ideas," "important" (twice), "effort," and "business" as well. I'm quoting more than Chris here, so I'd also put them around "change the world" and "deeply and authentically conservative."

Seriously, though, does anyone other than her mindless admirers at TWS actually think that Palin might found a think tank or journal, or "help the unemployed"?

I've had enough of Sarah Palin, yes, but thankfully her fan club keeps me entertained with its stupidity. At a time like this, we can at least be thankful for that.

I demand that you shoot me now

By Creature

Even talking about a "trigger" is wrong. If the public option is not present from go then we will be right back to square one in a few years after having wasted more time, more money, and more lives in the process. If the White House wants to cave to pressure from lobbyists, fine. But don't do it, say you didn't, and call anything that passes reform. We are not that dumb.

Robert McNamara (1916-2009)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Robert McNamara, one of the supposedly "best" and "brightest" behind the Vietnam War, the defense secretary who determined who was winning and losing by counting body bags, died yesterday at the age of 93.

To a certain extent, he was the Vietnam War, and just as it took America down, it took him down, too. He was long gone by the time the war eventually ended, with American fatalities increasing significantly under Nixon and Kissinger, but he remained "a haunted man," the war "his personal nightmare."

He apparently came to regret what he had done, but the past could never ever be put fully behind him.

There is not much more to say. This was a man who lived, and suffered, and who may or may not have come to terms with his time in office, or achieved, at long last, some sort of inner peace. The Vietnam War wasn't entirely his fault, but, to his death, he bore as much responsibility for it as anyone.

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For more, I highly recommend Errol Morris's fantastic documentary, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.

And I suppose you could already read his mea culpa memoirs, which I have not.

It's time for America, a nation of immigrants, to tell Joe the Plumber to fuck off

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Here's Samuel Wurzelbacher's latest invective of ignorance (at a right-wing tea party, no less):

I believe in making sure our country is safe first. I believe we need to spend a little more on illegal immigrants. Get them the hell out of our damn country and close the borders down. We can do it. We've got the greatest military in the world and you're telling me we can't close our borders? — That's just ridiculous.

Now, of course, America is a nation of immigrants, many of more of them illegal, in one way or another, than just the Mexicans who so trouble the nativist bigots of the right, Joe included. And, of course, many of the illegal ones from Mexico and elsewhere down south came to America for the same reason generations upon generations did before them: in search of hope, in search of a better life for themselves and their children.

If Joe wants "our damn country" to belong to his own kind, I'm sure there are more than a few native Americans who would tell him to get the hell out, too.

In fact, let's take up Joe's idea and run with it: Let's turn America into a military-police state with a wall around it. Let's target the Other, anyone who doesn't look right, anyone who might be a little too brown for Joe's liking. It's fascism, sure, but that's what he seems to want. (Notice that he equates illegal immigrants with terrorists. Making America "safe," it seems, requires targeting Mexicans.)

Mass deportation? Hey, why not?

Well, my American friends, why don't you start with the Wurzelbachers themselves? That doesn't sound like an American name to me. In fact, it sounds downright foreign. German or something, and, hell, America fought two world wars against them. Okay, maybe the Wurzelbachers entered America "legally," but can we be sure of that? Besides, what if they were let in simply because there was a generously liberal immigration policy back then? I'm sure even Joe understands that it's just not "safe" for America to have so many un-Americans draining the public well.

Oh, fine, I guess that won't work.

Well, I'm sure many if not most of the "illegal" immigrants Joe derides are a hell of a lot more "American" than he is. Unless I'm mistaken and America really is a nation of bigoted ignorance? Unless it isn't so much a light upon a hill but a sewer of hate?

No, allow me to be a tad more optimistic this July 6, 2009.

If they care at all about their country, Americans should tell Joe the Plumber that he's not one of them and that his views are un-American.

Actually, they should tell him to fuck right off.

Fear is the mindkiller

By Carl

Rigid thinking and black and white solutions are the mark of children, the small-minded, and Republicans.

I started thinking about this over the weekend, attempting to flesh out why so many people in this country are patriarchal.

It's the whole "my way or the highway" logic. I never understood the lack of of compassion for another person's situation. I mean, it's not like we're discussing things that require immediate action or snap judgements.

It's true, even framing the discussion as black/white (either/or) often precludes a meaningful discussion and b) any hope of solving complex problems, like immigration and of course, abortion.

So why do people do this? Why is it so easy, left and right, to paint the opposition as radical and dangerous and thus shut off dialogue?

Rather than be open to compromise and new ways of seeing things, to simplify things to some arbitrary "essentials" ignores nearly the entire tale of history. Things are never as easy as they appear.

What's turned this entire thread around was that I wanted to understand why some people can't seem to let go and grow up, that they feel the need to control and dictate over things they have no business controlling.

Like other people. Indeed, the essence of controlling someone else is to negate any possible value of that person's opinion in favor of force-feeding them your position, and then intimidating them into accepting it.

I think it comes down to views from the extremes, which I find are propelled by fear and when grabbed by fear it is extremely difficult if not impossible to see clearly and with distance.

Fight or flight. You panic and all you can think about is whether your gloves are high enough in front of your face or your running shoes are laced tightly enough.

People can't manage to take a breath and assume the other party perhaps has some validity to their views, and incorporate those, rather than attacking the views, the other party, or usually both.

But why?

I think it has to do with knowing yourself. In getting to know yourself, you learn two things:

1) The world is a lot more complex than you ever gave it credit for and, 2) you have to incorporate as much information as you can in order to present an informed judgment on something. You have biases, but as you gather information, you learn what those biases are and try to compensate.

In gathering this information, you learn about different views of the world. You learn that other people see things just as logically as you do and can yet come to completely different solutions.

When you don't know yourself, when you make knee-jerks reactive judgments based on biases or incomplete information, you panic when presented with alternative views and alternative information that discredits and maybe negates your own conclusions.

And panic leads to immature behavior. And children don't think, they believe, and when those beliefs are threatened, they try to believe even harder.

Making a commitment to something-- a relationship, a religion, a job, whatever-- requires an act of faith. It says that "I am in this fully because I believe in this and good will come from it."

When evidence to the contrary presents itself, how many people sit down and try to understand if it means something? Instead of trying to incorporate the new information either into their faith or to perhaps look more closely at that faith, the larger number of people with either reject the evidence out of hand ("He can't be having an affair! We just made love last night!") or reject the faith-object itself ("Boss, you promised me a promotion! I quit!").

Both of those are intelligent reactions, so long as they remain in the realm of first stage reactions (what we tell ourselves). Neither of those is intelligent actions until we can look deeper into the abyss of this new information and uncover what's really going on.

Our fears: justified, or not?

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

It's her own fault

By Mustang Bobby

Ross Douthat makes a half-hearted attempt to defend Sarah Palin against her enemies:

She should have said no.

If Sarah Palin’s political career ended last Friday, 10 tumultuous months after she was introduced as the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee, those five words will be its epitaph.

Had she refused John McCain, Palin would still be a popular female governor in a Republican Party starved for future stars. Her scandals would be the stuff of local politics, her daughter’s pregnancy a minor story in the Lower 48, her son Trig’s parentage a nonissue even for conspiracy theorists. There would still be plenty of time to ease into the national spotlight, to bone up on the issues, and to craft a persona more appealing than the Mrs. Spiro Agnew role the McCain campaign assigned to her.

Most important, nobody would have realized yet how much she looks like Tina Fey.

But she said yes. It wasn’t the right thing to do, in hindsight, but it was certainly the human thing. She was coming off a charmed rise through statewide politics. John McCain was offering her a spot on a national ticket. It was the chance of a lifetime.

He then goes on to defend her against the "elites" who sneered at her for her rural appeal, her idiosyncrasies of speech, and the fact that she didn't work her way up from a poor background to go to Columbia and Harvard:

Here are lessons of the Sarah Palin experience, for any aspiring politician who shares her background and her sex. Your children will go through the tabloid wringer. Your religion will be mocked and misrepresented. Your political record will be distorted, to better parody your family and your faith. (And no, gentle reader, Palin did not insist on abstinence-only sex education, slash funds for special-needs children or inject creationism into public schools.)

Male commentators will attack you for parading your children. Female commentators will attack you for not staying home with them. You’ll be sneered at for how you talk and how many colleges you attended. You’ll endure gibes about your “slutty” looks and your “white trash concupiscence,” while a prominent female academic declares that your “greatest hypocrisy” is the “pretense” that you’re a woman. And eight months after the election, the professionals who pressed you into the service of a gimmicky, dreary, idea-free campaign will still be blaming you for their defeat.

All of this had something to do with ordinary partisan politics. But it had everything to do with Palin’s gender and her social class.

Well, if that's true, then I have two words for you: Hillary Clinton. She put up with all of what Sarah Palin went through and worse and not only didn't quit her job as both First Lady or her marriage, but she went on to become a Senator, a presidential candidate, and now Secretary of State. Compared to what Ms. Clinton went through over the last eighteen years (and what Michelle Obama is already going through as well), Sarah Palin has had it easy, and she can't even make it through ten months in the spotlight. That has nothing whatsoever to do with her gender or her looks or her "enemies" -- a good deal of the "elites" attacking Ms. Palin were from her own party and within her own campaign.

So before we start working up the pity party for Sarah Palin, let's remember that she brought all of this on herself. Not because she said "Yes" to John McCain (which reminds us to wonder what kind of judgment Mr. McCain used to choose an untested and unvetted candidate for vice president in the first place), but for what she said afterward. She invited all of the attention to her family and her tenure as governor, and then got worked up when people and the press had the temerity to actually look into them. It had nothing to do with her gender or her social class, and to make those the excuses does no favors to feminism or the struggle for the ordinary person to gain some political clout.

Sarah Palin is beloved by millions because her rise suggested, however temporarily, that the old American aphorism about how anyone can grow up to be president might actually be true.

But her unhappy sojourn on the national stage has had a different moral: Don’t even think about it.

I can't help but think that Mr. Douthat and a lot of Republicans are secretly heaving a sigh of relief that Sarah Palin's fifteen minutes may be over. While they may outwardly blame the MSM and the elites, they're glad to see her go; it saved them the trouble of having to do it themselves.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

The trouble with Facebook

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Whoops:

The wife of the new head of MI6 has caused a major security breach and left his family exposed after publishing photographs and personal details on Facebook.

Sir John Sawers is due to take over as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in November, putting him in charge of all of Britain’s spying operations abroad.

But entries by his wife Shelley on the social networking site have exposed potentially compromising details about where they live and work, their friends’ identities and where they spend their holidays. On the day her husband was appointed she congratulated him on the site using his codename “C”.

Lady Sawers had put virtually no privacy protection on her account, making it visible to any of the site’s 200m users around the world who choose to be in the open-access London social network on Facebook.

Wait. The trouble with Facebook? No, not so much. Rather, it's the trouble with Facebook users, some of whom, apparently, have not a clue. (Though perhaps Facebook should have strict privacy as the default setting. If I'm not mistaken, that is not presently the case.)

You'd think Sir John would have had a chat with his wife about security, no? Did he never question her about her Facebook account? Did it never come up?

Not too big to plan for failure

By Creature

As Hilzoy says, this is good news:

Under the administration's proposal, companies such as Citi, Goldman Sachs and others in a broad top tier engaged in complex transactions would face stricter scrutiny and have to hold more assets and more cash as cushions against a downturn.

They also would have to anticipate their own demise, drafting detailed descriptions of how they could be dismantled quickly without causing damaging repercussions. Think of it as planning their own funerals -- and burials. [...]

Under the administration's plan, the Treasury could decide to take a company swiftly through a bankruptcy-like process, appointing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as a conservator or receiver. The FDIC currently now only has the authority to take over troubled banks."

While I still think these too-big-to-fail banks should be dismantled now and the idea that these banks would "anticipate their own demise" leaves way too much wiggle room for those great at wiggling, this is a step in the right direction and should be encouraged.

I'm with Chuck

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From The Hill:

The healthcare reform bill that emerges from Congress this year will include a government-run public health insurance option, regardless of the bipartisan negotiations seeking a compromise in the Senate, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday.

"Make no mistake about it, the president is for this strongly. There will be a public option in the final bill," Schumer said on CBS News's "Face the Nation."

I hope he's right.

For Democrats, there's simply no excuse. Any reform bill without a "public" option, without an option that would guarantee coverage for all Americans, would be not just a disappointment but a failure to do what is right, what must be done, when given the opportunity.

No, it's not all with the Democrats. The Republicans who will vote en masse, and perhaps unamimously, against a bill with a public option, deserve perhaps even more of the blame. They are against universal health care, after all, and do not seem to care about the millions of uninsured Americans.

But the Democrats are in a position to do something about it. And this is no time for excuses.

The Reaction in review (July 5, 2009)

A weekend's Reactions that deserve a second look:

Sunday

By Capt. Fogg: "No exit?" -- Fogg explores the latest statement of Vice President Joe Biden on national sovereignty, concluding, "With Joe, you never know, but sometimes you worry."


Saturday

By Michael J.W. Stickings: "July 4, 2009" -- Michael's "Happy Fourth" message included a Jimi Hendrix Woodstock national anthem video, prompting happy comments.

By J. Thomas Duffy: "Happy Fourth of July!" -- Duffy's post adds to everyone's holiday pleasure with great music links and a neat visual, all in his usual exuberant style.

By Capt. Fogg: "Whither Sarah - more speculation" -- Fogg, the great word smith, elicited several comments: "So why is she doing this? It's nearly impossible to tell from her tangled and mangled speech, which of course makes her verbal mulch the the perfect medium for hydroponic conjecture."

By Michael J.W. Stickings: "Reactions to the Palin resignation" -- Michael delves into what others -- such as Bill Kristol, Josh Marshall, John Dickerson and Andrew Sullivan -- have said, closing with his own insightful "take" on the news.

(Cross posted at Behind the Links)

No exit?

By Capt. Fogg

Is it another case of Joe's foot and Joe's mouth, together again? This morning, Vice President Joe Biden told ABC that:

[W]e cannot dictate to another sovereign nation... if they make the decision they are existentially threatened.

No, he wasn't discussing Sartre, he was telling George Stephanopoulos that if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decides the international peace efforts concerning Iran are no longer doing anything worth waiting for, we wouldn't get in the way of Israel's actions:

Israel can determine for itself — it's a sovereign nation — what's in their interest, and what they do with Iran or anything else.

Yes, Joe, and we as the sovereign nation that makes their existence possible, can say hell no if we want to and let them ponder whether cutting off US aid is a bigger "existential" threat. Of course, Joe didn't answer the question of whether our hands-off policy extends to an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, and he did say we would continue to do what we thought was in our own best interests.

I'm left with many questions, the first of which is about how well Biden reflects actual US policy. Is he simply proposing not to interfere as a warning to Iran to get serious? Is he trying to avoid looking like the administration disapproves of Netanyahu? Is it just good cop, bad cop?

With Joe, you never know, but sometimes you worry.

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

July 4, 2009

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I want to wish a very happy Fourth of July to all of you Americans out there -- and especially to my American co-bloggers (Americans make up the overwhelming bulk of The Reaction, even if I'm not one of them) and to my many American friends in the blogosphere. I hope you're having a wonderful day.

Without further ado, here's Jimi Hendrix performing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock -- almost 40 years ago:

Happy Fourth of July!

By J. Thomas Duffy

Hooray for the Red, White and Blue!

Happy Fourth of July! ... Independence Day!

The Garlic (and, The Reaction) wants to wish all a very happy, safe, enjoyable holiday, wherever, and whatever the manner in which you celebrate it.

This may be our only post of the day, as we haven't finished, what has been a burgeoning tradition the past two years, of penning a "Garlictorial" (see today's This Date ... On The Garlic, for the previous efforts).

If we don't get it up later in the day, perhaps tomorrow.

In the meantime, kick up your heels, with this well-worn classic;

Stars and Stripes Forever



If, you want something, a bit off the beaten path, we can hip you to another, that, unfortunately, almost, exists exclusively on jazz radio stations, invariably, blared out today on many a playlist.

It is the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, "Doodletown Fifers", performed, faithfully, by the Bill May Orchestra

The Doodletown Fifers

This, as it turned out, was the only big hit of the short-lived Sauter-Finegan Orchestra;

Sauter-Finegan was an extraordinary 21-piece band, the like of which has never been seen before or since. The music was so complex that it depended on first-class musicians, many of whom contributed on three or four instruments each . The exquisite music of Sauter and Finegan frolicked in every range of the band, with fife and piccolo at the top and tuba and bass trombone at the bottom.

Although never a raging success, the band was able to go on tour between 1952 and 1957 and it recorded a dozen or so albums. Its biggest hit was "The Doodletown Fifers", based on an old Civil War song. "Midnight Sleigh Ride" called for horse's hooves as an introduction and backing, and Finegan achieved this sound by stripping to the waist and beating his chest before the microphone.

You can go HERE, for the Sauter-Finegan rendition, just scroll down to "Doodletown Fifers"

(Jazz Freaks will know, that it was Eddie Sauter who arranged the Stan Getz album, "Focus")

So, once again, Happy Fourth of July!



(Cross Posted at The Garlic)

Whither Sarah - more speculation

by Capt. Fogg

I have to say I'm grateful that Sarah Palin has somewhat abated the psychotic media obsession with a dead neurotic surgery addict. She has the media and the bloggers back to doing what we all do best: speculating. So why is she doing this? It's nearly impossible to tell from her tangled and mangled speech, which of course makes her verbal mulch the the perfect medium for hydroponic conjecture.

David Wallechinsky seems to think Fox has made her an offer she can't refuse and we'll be seeing her in their little shop of horrors before long. He offers no evidence to interfere with belief, but it's filling and very satisfying, like comfort food, so I'll go along with it.

Max Blumenthal has what I think is a more credible scenario, based around the theory that an Alaska construction company, the same one that built the huge sports complex in Wasilla ( putting the town into serious debt) built her house as an inducement to get that job and future jobs after she became Governor. Todd and she have had personal and financial ties to the company of long standing.

Blumenthal also speculates about the effect a recent Salon article might have had on her decision. Revelations about her attempts to kill the stories about Husband Todd's affiliation with that Alaska secessionist group and provide false cover stories, may be about to blow up on her. Who knows, but of course the delicious irony, considering her attempts to portray Barak Obama as a "terrorist" who hates America, makes the idea hard to resist.

There are so many possibilities to delight the palate that I may be sorry if and when we ever figure out why! In a way I would love to see her as the next Republican presidential candidate, since she's so amazingly unqualified, but to be disgraced as a hypocrite and possible felon would satisfy my taste for justice perfectly. The worst outcome, in my opinion, would be to have her take her place on the Fox News Chorus, where hypocrisy, incompetence, dishonesty, lack of intelligence, irrational hostility and incipient dementia are prime qualifications . She could be as big a threat to our country as she would be in the White House, and of course there are no term limits on Fox.

Cross posted from Human Voices

Reactions to the Palin resignation

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Right now, most of the speculation, if not all of it, is premature, as speculation is wont to be. Still, everyone who is anyone, which is pretty much everyone, is weighing in. I checked Memeorandum a while ago, and the entirety of the "Top Items" section was given over to Palin's resignation, the first time I've ever seen such uniformity.

So let's delve into it a bit.

Bill Kristol, neocon extraordinaire and one of Palin's biggest boosters, is being predictably upbeat about it all:

After all, she's freeing herself from the duties of the governorship. Now she can do her book, give speeches, travel the country and the world, campaign for others, meet people, get more educated on the issues -- and without being criticized for neglecting her duties in Alaska. I suppose she'll take a hit for leaving the governorship early -- but how much of one? She's probably accomplished most of what she was going to get done as governor, and is leaving a sympatico lieutenant governor in charge.

And haven't conservatives been lamenting the lack of a national leader? Well, now she'll try to be that. She may not succeed. Everything rests on her talents, and on her performance. She'll be under intense and hostile scrutiny, and she'll have to perform well.

All in all, it's going to be a high-wire act. The odds are against her pulling it off. But I wouldn't bet against it.

Right, it's all proof of her outstanding courage, and Kristol's with her all the way.

Kristol presents himself as a "contrarian," but this is but the most prominent example of what is already the right's pro-Palin spin: Sure, she stepped down, and, sure, that looks bad, but it's for a good cause, a noble calling, and she may soon be our leader. Get down on your knees, our saviour has arrived.

Back in the real world, though, things look a little different.

For example, Josh Marshall offers some helpful perspective:

It seems like a colossal sulk on Palin's part, or perhaps better to say an effort on her part to ingeniously combine anti-liberal media bias agitation with Christianist politics by portraying herself as having been crucified by the liberal media.

*****

[T]his clearly happened so quickly that Palin hasn't even had a chance to come up with a coherent cover story for her resignation. Some context is probably helpful here, however. Remember that based on the public record, Palin is a wildly unethical public official, guilty at a minimum of numerous instances of abusing her authority as governor. And a lot of very damaging information has come out about her in the last few days -- though mainly embarrassing information about her character rather than new evidence of bad acts. I would not be surprised if this latest round of revelations shook something else loose that we haven't heard about yet.

And that very well may be the case. As Think Progress is reporting, Palin may have resigned "because she was trying to avert a major, yet-to-be-disclosed corruption scandal," one involving embezzlement.

Needless to say, we shall see.

As is so often the case when a major story breaks, I turn to Slate's John Dickerson, who offers this explanation (if an explanation is even possible this early on):

The larger reason for Palin's early departure was that she was having no fun. Ever since she returned to Alaska from the national stage, being governor has been a chore. Her political opponents have launched 15 ethics charges against her. The state economy has turned sour, and she got into an ugly squabble over federal stimulus funds. It's much more enjoyable to travel the country waving to adoring crowds of GOP activists.

So Palin decided to chuck her office for the limelight.
She can now tour the country as the only superstar in a party that desperately needs one. Because she can pack bleachers, she can raise money. In addition to boosting party morale and filling its coffers (and her own), she can build relationships nationwide that will be crucial if she really is interested in running for national office again.

This is sort of what I said yesterday. If I may quote myself:

What I think is that she's come to believe all the right-wing talk about how great and wonderful she is -- from the likes of Bill Kristol, as well as from Dear Leader Rush and the movement conservatives.

It could very well be that Alaska is simply too small for her now. Don't get me wrong, she's still a parochial fool. I don't think she's become some sort of genuinely national leader, or that she really has grown beyond Alaska. But, clearly, her ambitions have outgrown Alaska, and, after her sudden rise to the big time last year, and with the talk ongoing about her potential, she may just not want to govern a relatively small and insignificant state anymore.

In other words, when the going got tough -- that is, when she actually had to be governor at a time when things weren't going well, and with her adorers and admirers calling her from across the land -- she threw in the towel and moved on, and up, to what she surely imagines are much, much greener pastures. As HuffPo suggests, she just wanted to get the hell out of Alaska while the getting was good.

Let me conclude by quoting one of Palin's most fervent critics in the blogosphere, Andrew Sullivan, who, once again, may be right on here:

I guessed right, which I suppose reflects just how much time I've spent trying to figure what goes on in her head. I think the simple truth is that, as even Alaskan Republicans told us last September, she was far from able to be governor of Alaska, let alone vice-president of the United States. Once the klieglights hit, it was only a matter of time before she imploded or exploded or some gruesome combination of the two.

*****

In the end, I think, the one thing to say is that the Republican party is in such a total state of collapse and incoherence that it actually believed she could be a future president; and that John McCain was so reckless, so cynical and so cavalier that he was prepared to rest the national security of this country on her shoulders if he, in his seventies, were to become unable to fulfill his duties or die. In some ways, this is a moment to reflect on McCain, and his irresponsibility, not Palin and her drama.

I'm too stunned to say anything else, to tell you the truth. And yet not surprised at all.

Actually, I'm not stunned at all. It was inevitable that Palin's wildly exaggerated sense of self, blown up out of all proportion by her various enablers on the right (like Kristol), would win out, that she would give up Alaska for a full-out assault on the national scene.

Palin isn't going away, she's only going to get bigger. Even if her run for the top fails miserably, as it surely will, it won't be for lack of delusional self-righteousness on her part -- or on the part of those who form her inner circle and the bubble that shields her from reality.

Happy Fourth of July!

The Reaction in review (July 3, 2009)

A week's Reactions that deserve a second look:

Our Editor, Michael says it was a crazy week: First The Craziest Conservative of the Day (Thursday) is Michael Scheuer, who said, "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the Untied States." Michael picks The Craziest Republican of the Day, Joe Barton (for his idiotic "Carbongate" Crack) on Friday. And so it goes for the rest of the week's best:


Friday

By J. Thomas Duffy: "Now only an ex-governor, with lipstick" -- Duffy pulls out all the stops to give us all the latest funnies about the resignation announcement of Governor Sarah Palin/"Mommy Moose." (Includes videos, photos, links and a transcript)

By Michael J.W. Stickings: "The Palin resignation: What gives?" -- Michael's "quick comment" is a very interesting analysis of what might actually be happening here.

By Capt Fogg: "PALIN QUITS!" -- Fogg begins with what many of us would say, "One would think such a headline would push the Michael Jackson insanity aside long enough for some news to leak through," and ends with a good roundup of pundit reactions to the Palin announcement.

By Carol Gee: "South Asia and Middle East Developments" -- This post reports on the major changes regarding the wars that have been happening this week in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By Michael J.W. Stickings: "Mark Sanford, mental case?" -- Michael rightly concludes, "So enough with the psychological diagnoses, enough with all the talk about his 'mental state.'"


Thursday

By Michael J.W. Stickings: "The tragedy and narcissism of Mark Sanford" -- Michael explores this ever emerging story and concludes, "My feeling somewhat sorry for him aside, Sanford is hardly the Shakespearean tragic figure he is making himself out to be."

By Michael J.W. Stickings: "Karl Malden (1912-2009)" -- Michael's warm and insightful obituary piece is on one of my favorite actors; it includes recommendations of some of Malden's best movies.


Wednesday
By Capt. Fogg: "No lie too big, no mind too small" -- Fogg rolls out a very good critique of "a new and more specious attack" on President Obama from the "Our Country Deserves better PAC" .

By Michael J.W. Stickings: "And so, Minnesota's long national nightmare is over" -- This has been an ongoing story for The Reaction and Michael says, "I'm relieved . . . this outcome was not just long overdue but pretty much inevitable . . . it was just a matter of time until Coleman's legal challenge either ran out of steam or ran into a decisive decision against him."


Tuesday

By (O)CT(O)PUS: "A decision, a concession, a defection, an impression and a question" -- Our contributor wonders about the Democratic Party's 60-vote majority, "Will the Dems mess up a golden opportunity?" (Includes two good comments).

By Carl: "Fun for Oil" -- Carl provides a very welcome explanation of the outcomes, now and perhaps in the future, of the Iraqi government's offer to oil companies to contract to run the oil and gas fields in Iraq.


Monday

By Carl: "A Madoff man" -- Carl writes a good post on the sentencing of swindler Bernie Madoff and includes a transcript of the judge's sentencing comments that ignored Madoff's plea for leniency.


Creature Feature: By the Numbers -- "The new CBO score," "467,000" June's job losses, and Bernie Madoff's "150" year sentence.

Now, only an ex-Governor, with lipstick

By J. Thomas Duffy

So much for a quiet, pre-holiday day.

Who woulda' thunk it?

Something actually knocked the MichaelJacksonPalooza off the air, it was was none other than Mommy Moose, The Wasilla Wiz Kid, that Hockey-Mom-with-Lipstick, Stumblin-Bumblin' John McCain's former scene-stealer, Sarah Palin.

She's not quitting, she's just ... Well ... Quitting ....

Ms. Ya'Bet'cha's is bailing out of the Alaskan Governorship, mid-way through, to go on and fight for something vague and unnamed, but with all her heart

If life is 33RPM, Mommy Moose was pitched at 78RPM, and, it must be in the new 2009 PartyofNoican's Playbook, after Governor Gaucho displayed it last week, that you must be almost frantically rambling when giving a press conference ... Cool-and-Calm is out, coked-up speed freak is in.

And, check out the way The Wasilla Whiz Kid was gulping air through out the speech;

Sarah Palin Announces Resignation as Governor, Part 1



Sarah Palin Announces Resignation as Governor, Part 2



(You can read a transcript HERE)

I half expected to see the, now-unemployed team of the Unconvicted Child Molester's docs come running on the scene, offering their services, or someone, slapping an oxygen mask on her.

And, at the end of Part 2, notice, when the camera pans, there's like, a dozen people there, perhaps only close friends and family, not a sea of torch-carrying Alaskans, ready to march into that vague, unnamed fight, with the former Hockey Mom.

Geez, ya think Mommy Moose, or someone on her staff, would have tied in a product placement with Verizon, so they could CGI in the throngs of people standing by the geeky guy, always affirming "you're covered", to avoid looking like the "before Dead Zone"

If you want, there's a zillion posts out on Memeorandum that you can click through, while we highlight a few here.

It's only Act I, of a multiple act play, so no telling what this is all about today, the sudden, abrupt ditching of the Governor digs.

The Right Wing Freak Show is beginning to rally around that this is the cannon shot for 2012.



Here, we go with the smaller number of hands raised, betting on ....

New Scandal!

On Firedoglake, bmaz was the first to hint at it, followed closely by Brad Friedman;

EXCLUSIVE: PALIN RESIGNS AS 'DAMAGE CONTROL' DUE TO 'ICEBERG SCANDAL', SAYS ALASKAN SOURCE ... UPDATE: Shannyn Moore offers The BRAD BLOG hints about reasons for Alaska Gov's resignation...

UPDATE: Alaskan Sarah Palin authority (and occasional BRAD BLOG guest blogger) Shannyn Moore, who broke the news at HuffPo today, tells me she believes, with good reason, that there is an "iceberg scandal that's about to break. She's doing damage control."

She says Palin is "resigning as part of damage control" due to a scandal this is "not of a family nature."

"The governor would not be able to continue her job when it comes out," she told me on the phone just now, before adding: "Why would Mark Sanford not resign, but Sarah Palin did? Her family didn't even know about the resignation until they were standing with her by the lake" when she made her announcement.

Yes. It seems another shoe, apparently a big one, will indeed be dropping, likely within the next week or so. Perhaps earlier now that everyone will be poking around up there.

Max Blumenthal goes into a bit of detail in his "Did a Scandal Sink the U.S.S. Palin?"

Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide-open state.

SBS has close ties to the Palins. The company has not only sponsored Todd Palin's snowmobile team, according to the Village Voice's Wayne Barrett, it hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004.

Though Todd Palin told Fox News he built his Lake Lucille home with the help of a few "buddies," according to Barrett’s report, public records revealed that SBS supplied the materials for the house. While serving as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin blocked an initiative that would have required the public filing of building permits—thus momentarily preventing the revelation of such suspicious information.

Just months before Palin left city hall to campaign for governor, she awarded a contract to SBS to help build the $13 million Wasilla Sports Complex. The most expensive building project in Wasilla history, the complex cost the city an additional $1.3 million in legal fees and threw it into severe long-term debt. For SBS, however, the bloated and bungled project was a cash cow.

And we have to give Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo points, for his headline "if the jimmy choo fits, the other one's about to drop"

With the summer here, Congress out-of-session, beaches brimming with vacationers, Mommy Moose has put down her marker, almost guaranteeing her ownership of the media (save for the on-going Jackson Family dragging things out to pump the record and video sales; H/T to Barry Crimmins).

And it's Jonathan Turley that rings up that feeling quite well;

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has announced that she will resign from office on July 26th. The news has led bloggers and comedians to breath into paper bags and use emergency dial-ins for their analysts across the country. Palin has been God’s gift to bloggers, including this blog. But fear not, this announcement may actually promise more not less Palin!

Yes, just what this country needs - More of Sarah Palin.

Hmmm ....

We do have a Poet Laureate, so, perhaps, Mommy Moose is carving out the "Jester Laureate" for herself.

Hell, by her news conference today, your guess is as good as mine ...




(Cross Posted at The Garlic)

The Palin resignation: What gives?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Needless to say, we'll have a lot to say about Sarah Palin and her resignation today and in the days (and perhaps weeks and months) to come.

Stay tuned. (I'm out this evening, but I'll have something to say later.)

For now, check out Capt. Fogg's post below, as well as all the reaction over at Memeorandum.

**********

Okay, one quick comment:

It's interesting, I think, that she didn't take questions following her announcement this afternoon. (She doesn't do well with questions generally, I know, but she was back home in Wasilla.)

She claims that she doesn't want to be a lame duck. Fair enough. But what is the next step for her?

-- Senate in '10? (Would she challenge incumbent Lisa Murkowski, a fellow Republican from a big-time Alaska political family?)

-- President in '12? (Could she really be a serious candidate, even with her popularity with the base?)

Questions, questions. As of right now, not much of us know anything firm. I'm sure much more will come out as the story unfolds.

One can always hope for some naughty scandal, but I suspect that's not the case here. And I suspect this isn't, as some are suggesting, the end of her political career. Whatever else she is, she's ambitious -- not to mention full of herself -- and she's certainly looking beyond Juneau to Washington.

What I think is that she's come to believe all the right-wing talk about how great and wonderful she is -- from the likes of Bill Kristol, as well as from Dear Leader Rush and the movement conservatives.

It could very well be that Alaska is simply too small for her now. Don't get me wrong, she's still a parochial fool. I don't think she's become some sort of genuinely national leader, or that she really has grown beyond Alaska. But, clearly, her ambitions have outgrown Alaska, and, after her sudden rise to the big time last year, and with the talk ongoing about her potential, she may just not want to govern a relatively small and insignificant state anymore.

But we'll see. A Senate run would make sense, but it would be risky. And, beyond that, a presidential run could flare up and flame out pretty quickly. She's popular, yes, but I'm just not sure establishment Republicans will ever back her enough to put her over the top.

More later.

PALIN QUITS!

By Capt. Fogg

One would think such a headline would push the Michael Jackson insanity aside long enough for some news to leak through, but although Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has just announced that she will resign from office within the next few weeks, further explanation seems elusive.

It's very tempting to speculate, but perhaps we'll just have to wait for the hysteria to abate before the networks can spare any personnel to find out what's happening outside the world of Michael Jackson.

Update:

The pundits and party officials weigh in:

Either Sarah Palin is leaving the people of Alaska high and dry to pursue her long shot national political ambitions or she simply can't handle the job now that her popularity has dimmed and oil revenues are down,

said DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse.

Either way, her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today.

Of course, you'd expect that from a Democrat, but even Ed Rollins thinks she looks "terribly inept" for not finishing her job and indeed if this is about a 2012 run, we can expect to hear about her being a quitter or a "runaway governor."

Only Republican Strategist Mary Matalin seems to think it was brilliant:

Her delivery was incredible, if you're a less charismatic person, you probably couldn't pull it off.

But, of course, whether she "pulled it off" at all is as much a matter of opinion as is her alleged "charisma," which at least in Alaska seems to be wearing thin.

Now back to Michael Jackson...

South Asia and Middle East Developments

By Carol Gee

Vice President Joe Biden is in Iraq. He is there for meetings with military commanders, Ambassador Chris Hill, and Iraq's President Talibani and Prime Minister Malaki. His visit comes on the heels of the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from the cities to the bases near the perimeters around metropolitan areas. Iraqis celebrated the transition to more control over their own destiny, and more risk of security breakdowns. But it was by their design and our that we are now implementing this formal Status of Forces agreement signed last December. And from the beginning of this year military operations have been refocusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The US army says it has launched a major offensive against the Taliban in south Afghanistan's Helmand province. "Operation Strike of the Sword gets under way," according to today's BBC News. To quote further from the story:

The US military says about 4,000 marines as well as 650 Afghan troops are involved, supported by Nato planes. Brig Gen Larry Nicholson said the operation was different from previous ones because of the "massive size of the force" and its speed.

A Taliban spokesman said they would resist in various ways and that there would be no permanent US victory.

. . . It is the first such large-scale operation since US President Barack Obama authorised the deployment of 17,000 extra US troops to Afghanistan, as part of a new strategy for winning the conflict. Many of them are being redeployed from operations in Iraq, to help with training Afghan security forces and to tackle the insurgency.

A House Intelligence panel late last month reported out with a warning of emerging threats to the nation's security, according to a 6/29 story in CQ Politics. The report also "thinks spy agencies are behind in addressing cybersecurity, diversity and foreign language training, according to a committee report released Monday." The Democratic Intelligence Committee also approved the 2010 intel authorization bill that includes a provision that eliminated the administration's "right to control when the full intelligence panels are briefed as opposed to more limited 'Gang of Eight' briefings for panel and congressional leaders."

Countries mentioned that face security challenges include Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Mexico. Today's post focuses on Middle East developments. The Intel Committee Report says that the "political and military situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan continues to deteriorate." As an example, according to the Financial Times (6/23/09), "A tribal leader who vowed to lead an uprising against Pakistan's most notorious Taliban militants was killed, raising doubts over the success of a planned military offensive along the Afghan border." Qari Zainuddin, 26, was reportedly shot by one of his own guards in Dera Isamil Khan in northwest Pakistan. A BBC 6/24 report said, to quote:

. . . at least 43 people have died in missile strikes by a US drone aircraft in a militant stronghold of Pakistan [in South Waziristan], a Taliban spokesman said. The people killed had been attending the funeral of a military commander killed in an earlier strike.

. . . There have been more than 35 US strikes since last August - killing over 340 people - and most have landed in the North and South Waziristan tribal regions. Pakistan has been publicly critical of drone attacks, arguing that they kill civilians and fuel support for militants like Baitullah Mehsud.

NATO partner, the United Kingdom, has intensified its fight in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province. Significant progress to hold territory was only made possible because of the arrival of additional U.S. troops to assist. Great Britain has lost 169 soldiers in Afghanistan since 2001. Also, "three German soldiers are killed in Afghanistan when their patrol came under fire, the defence ministry in Berlin says," to quote the BBC. The attack happened in the northern city of Kunduz, where the Germans have a military base where a 3,700 member German military force is stationed. The Germans have lost 35 troops since 2002.

In an interesting aside, Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News (6/15/09), wrote that the new U.S. Afghanistan Commander did not get complete support for his appointment to the post. To quote:

Gen. Stanley McChrystal was confirmed by the Senate last week to be the new commander of U.S. (and NATO) forces in Afghanistan, a role that he assumed today. But his nomination was opposed by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) who objected to the General’s advancement on unspecified “classified” grounds.

“I oppose the nomination of LTG Stanley McChrystal to command U.S. forces in Afghanistan for two reasons,” Senator Feingold said on June 11. “The first relates to a classified matter about which I have serious concerns. I have conveyed those concerns in a letter to the President.”

The second reason cited by Sen. Feingold was McChrystal’s embrace of interrogation techniques that went beyond those authorized in the Army Field Manual on the subject.

News bites associated with the above items come from CQ Behind the Lines newsletter July 1, 2009, by David C. Morrison. To quote:

Courts and rights: The alleged shooter in the deadly Holocaust Memorial Museum assault, himself wounded, is still unfit to appear in court, CNN has a judge declaring — as Pakistan’s The Nation says a defense-hired shrink will testify in a New York courtroom today on the mental soundness of a terror-charged Pakistani neuroscientist. The foreman of the Florida jury that acquitted an Egypt-born student on terror charges is convinced that the defendant — now facing deportation on charges levied by ICE — is a victim of profiling, CNN, again, spotlights. A federal judge who authorized habeas challenges in U.S. courts for military detainees in Afghanistan ruled Monday that that right doesn’t apply to at least one Afghan prisoner, AP reports.

(Cross-posted 7/2/09, at South by Southwest.)