Archive for November 16, 2009
When John Called Sarah
There’s a lot of blame going around these days — as there has been for a year — regarding John McCain picking Sarah Palin as his VP. IMHO he was impulsive and irresponsible (and — I could go on), but I remember at the time wondering whether Palin was aghast when his campaign called to recruit her. Did she say to herself, no way! I’m not qualified to be the vice president of the United States much less the president. Are you kidding?
I thought she was more culpable than McCain because she could have stopped the charade had she taken time to think about what she was getting herself, and the country, into.
So when Oprah asked Palin about that today, Palin said that when the call came, she didn’t think it was “such a shocking call to me.. Yes, I would love to!”
That’s how dumb she is.
CNN’s John King as Male Mannequin
Remember how much attention the “NY-23″ race got? Remember the talk about how if the Democrat won, he’d be a pro-health care vote? Remember how he did win and was quickly sworn in and voted yes on the House health care bill literally hours later?
Well, despite the fact that he spends his life in a newsroom, CNN’s John King apparently didn’t remember any of that today because he let Rudy Giuliani claim the exact opposite.
So, does King claim he’s a journalist? What he did by letting this slide was act like nothing more than a mannequin who mutely listened to his guest lie, straight-faced, into the camera. And for that he gets paid a whole lot of money and is regarded by the D.C. press corps as a hot shot?
Break Time — Food
How about this for dinner tonight?
More unbelievably fatty food at This is Why You’re Fat. (Actually, I love cheese so I am kinda drooling over this.)
Doug Hoffman “Un-Concedes” in the NY-23 Election
He did it today on Glenn Beck’s radio show.
Gawd. I can’t help but be snarky here: Reading the transcript while looking at Hoffman’s picture — he reminds me of the proverbial 10th grade nerd kissing up to the quarterback of the high school football team.
Is This CNN’s Definition of “Balance?”
As you know, President Obama is in Bejing, China today. The shots of him there are of course very positive and dignified. So what does CNN’s Bejing correspondent, Emily Chang do to provide ahem, balance? During a live shot, she holds up a t-shirt she bought “at a basement souvenir shop” depicting Obama wearing a Red Army uniform that evokes thoughts of Mao Zedong. “The front of the t-shirt says ‘Serve the People’ in Chinese. On the back, it reads ‘Oba Mao’ in English.”
CNN’s been watching too much Fox.
Memo to the Right: Let’s Not “Surrender to the Terrorists”
Glenn Greenwald nails it on the right’s insistence that we can’t try the Gitmo detainees (1) on American soil, or (2) in our “regular” judicial system: It is “as pure a surrender to the Terrorists as it gets.”
People in capitals all over the world have hosted trials of high-level terrorist suspects using their normal justice system. They didn’t allow fear to drive them to build island-prisons or create special commissions to depart from their rules of justice. Spain held an open trial in Madrid for the individuals accused of that country’s 2004 train bombings. The British put those accused of perpetrating the London subway bombings on trial right in their normal courthouse in London. Indonesia gave public trials using standard court procedures to the individuals who bombed a nightclub in Bali. India used a Mumbai courtroom to try the sole surviving terrorist who participated in the 2008 massacre of hundreds of residents. In Argentina, the Israelis captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, and brought him to Jerusalem to stand trial for his crimes.
It’s only America’s Right that is too scared of the Terrorists — or which exploits the fears of their followers — to insist that no regular trials can be held and that “the safety and security of the American people” mean that we cannot even have them in our country to give them trials. As usual, it’s the weakest and most frightened among us who rely on the most flamboyant, theatrical displays of “strength” and “courage” to hide what they really are. Then again, this is the same political movement whose “leaders” – people like John Cornyn and Pat Roberts — cowardly insisted that we must ignore the Constitution in order to stay alive: the exact antithesis of the core value on which the nation was founded. Given that, it’s hardly surprising that they exude a level of fear of Terrorists that is unmatched virtually anywhere in the world. It is, however, noteworthy that the position they advocate — it’s too scary to have normal trials in our country of Terrorists — is as pure a surrender to the Terrorists as it gets.
And this crowd thinks they are the real tough guys and the true patriots.
The Space Shuttle
Just watched the space shuttle Atlantis lift off.
It’s been 23 years since the Challenger disaster but, I can’t help it; I still cringe when I hear the words, “throttle up.”
Job Opening
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is looking for a “respected economist” who’s willing to sell us a bunch of BS:
The e-mail, written by the Chamber’s senior health policy manager and obtained by The Washington Post, proposes spending $50,000 to hire a “respected economist” to study the impact of health-care legislation, which is expected to come to the Senate floor this week, would have on jobs and the economy.
Step two, according to the e-mail, appears to assume the outcome of the economic review: “The economist will then circulate a sign-on letter to hundreds of other economists saying that the bill will kill jobs and hurt the economy. We will then be able to use this open letter to produce advertisements, and as a powerful lobbying and grass-roots document.”
Tear Up Your Social Security Card
Think Progress is reporting that at a town hall meeting in Arizona on Friday, John McCain (R-AZ) urged the attendees to tear up their AARP cards in protest of the AARP’s endorsement of the House health care bill.
He should have urged them to tear up their Social Security cards too, no? I mean, they oppose government spending and they oppose “socialized” health care so why not?
What Are They Thinking?
A new Associated Press poll is out this morning that focuses on health care. Amongst its findings is this about pre-existing conditions: “When told that such a ban would probably cause most people to pay more for their health insurance, 43 percent said they would still support doing away with pre-existing condition denials but 31 percent said they would oppose it.”
31% oppose doing away with pre-existing condition denials? I don’t get that. I think it reflects a shocking level of selfishness that so many people are unwilling to pay a little more to make sure, say, a person who has had cancer doesn’t get dumped.
Help Me Remember
I’m getting to the point where the notion of slapping something like this on my steering wheel sounds like a very good idea: A sticky note 36 times larger than the standard “PostItNote.”
A New Week of Shootings Begins in the United States
HSN Highlights Iman, a Muslim Model
You’ve probably heard about the model “Iman.” She’s married to David Bowie. Her “real name’” is Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid.
I have absolutely no problem with that but I wonder: What would the HSN audience think if they knew they were buying from a Muslim woman whose middle name was Mohamed?
And isn’t it ah, interesting that the media is so quick to identify people as Muslim when they want to stoke hate and fear, but they conveniently leave that out when they want to make money?
