What's The Deal With Sarah Palin? (bwa ba ba ba bwaaaw)

That was a really poor approximation of the Seinfeld noise in the title there.

Like really though, what's the deal with Sarah Palin? Maybe I'm just a liberal elite, but like the list of pros and cons for Sarah Palin for me looks like this

Pro
She's extraordinarily attractive

Con
Everything else

Like, I'm not gonna start a grassroots campaign for a Kardashian / Lohan 2012 ticket. What's the goddamn appeal? She's not smart, experienced, part of a family with a longstanding political tradition, able to see Russia from her back door, or anything else that would make me want to vote for someone.

Am I like two years late with this post? Yes, yes I am. Really, though, I coulda sworn she was just gonna fade into the background. Motherfuckin' Admiral Stockdale didn't try to capitalize on his fumbled up bid for vice president, why would she?

A Modest Proposal*

On September 11th, 2001, this country was the victim of an unprovoked attack perpetrated by murderous thugs from another country. Almost 3,000 people died. Some were Christian, some were Jewish, some were Muslim. Some were men, some were women. Some were old, and some were so god damned young. Some of the dead were Mets fans, some were Red Sox fans, some were Yankee fans. Some of them were married, and some of them never got the chance. Some of them had kids. Their families and friends grieved their loss. And New York began, slowly, to rebuild and to heal.

Countless songs, essays, and stories were written about that beautiful fall morning (some of which were downright poetic), and no one who lived through the experience - whether here in New York or watching from afar - could ever forget even one small detail of the events. Now, almost a decade removed from that terrifying day, as we still struggle to find the balance between moving forward and never forgetting, some people think it is acceptable to betray the hallowed ground of the World Trade Center. People who just don’t get it, people who would ask the families of the victims to look the other way, and pretend it didn't happen.

People who would openly and without apology operate a bar just two blocks from where the Twin Towers once stood that serves as an affront to the memory of so many people who died that day.

The Ground Zero Yankee bar.

The Dakota Roadhouse, located at 43 Park Place is just a stone's throw away from the site of the World Trade Center. And despite the Red Sox and Mets fans who died on that day, the Roadhouse is undoubtedly and unapologetically a Yankees bar. Even their website brazenly advertises a "FREE COORS LIGHT FOR EVERY YANKEE HOME RUN."

I caught up with the owner of this establishment by phone earlier this week and asked him how he could be so insensitive to the memory of the victims of 9/11, and wanted to know whether he would refudiate his business.

Me: Is it true that you operate a Yankee bar?

Douchebag Yankee Bar Operator: Not really. I am a Yankee fan, and we get mostly Yankee fans in here, but we usually show the Mets game and a few other games in here, too. Pretty much anyone who is a baseball fan and wants to have a good time after work is welcome as long as they keep it under control.

Me: But what about all the people who died on 9/11? How can you operate a Yankee bar on such hallowed ground?

DYBO: What? What the hell are you talking about? Who is this? The bar is two blocks away - it is like a five-minute walk from Ground Zero. Is this a fucking joke?

Me: No, it is not a joke. I just want to know why you can't operate your Yankee bar somewhere else. Why does it have to be so close to Ground Zero? Isn't it just a little insensitive to the families of the victims who were Mets fans and Red Sox fans?

DYBO: Dude, lots of Yankee fans were killed on 9/11. And the people who killed them were murderous thugs from Al-Qaeda, not Yankee fans. Are you dense?

Me: No, but I am a Mets fan.

DYBO: Same thing.

Me: See! See! You are a Yankeeist. A radical perpetrator of supporting the Yankees to the exclusion of all other baseball teams.

DYBO: Relax. I was just kidding. I hosted a party in here for a group from Boston just the other night. And they are welcome back any time. By the way, where are you calling from? I didn't recognize the area code.

Me: I live in Kansas. But I am a really big Mets fan and I love this country, just like all Americans.

DYBO: Wait, if you live in Kansas, then why the fuck do you care what we do in New York? There are Red Sox and Mets fans in New York and they don't care at all about my bar. In fact, they come in here sometimes (though usually they go the Mets bar around the corner, or the Red Sox bar up the street). I have lots of friends who are Mets fans, and a few who are Red Sox fans. Why are you calling me from Kansas to give me shit that no one in New York cares about? Are you just bored?

Me: People in the real America want to know that the hallowed ground of the WTC site is not being desecrated.

DYBO: I thought you people were all for local control and states' rights? Don't answer that. Look, I really have no idea what this is about. We were here before 9/11, and we have just as much of a right to be here as anyone else. There were dozens of Yankee bars in New York before 9/11 because there have always been thousands of Yankee fans in New York. I know some of them are assholes, and believe me, we hate those guys more than you do. But the overwhelming majority of Yankee fans are good people who just happen like a different team than you do. They probably got it from their parents.

You know, in the aftermath of 9/11, Americans rightly celebrated what is great about our country, including the freedom to follow whatever baseball team you want, whenever, wherever, and however you choose to follow them. Nothing could be more un-American than to question that most basic of our founding principles. Let the triumph of tolerance and American values over bigotry, hate and misinformation be the enduring lesson of 9/11, and let that be our lasting memorial to the fallen.

Me: That was pretty eloquent. Are you sure are not an allegory being used as a literary device to make a larger point?

DYBO: Whatever.

*This essay is a parody meant to demonstrate the author's views about . . . wait, forget it, if you don't get it then you are a moron. Either way, if anyone took this the wrong way or was truly offended, you have our and my sincere apologies. Seriously.**

**Unless you are a Yankees fan. In that case go cry it out with the other haters of freedom and peace and tolerance at the Dakota Roadhouse.

Where's Luke? gets our Joan Rivers on

Earlier this week, our esteemed blog turned the big 3...uh, just 3, so yaaay, happy birthday us! Three in blog years makes us about as old as Joan Rivers, so I figured it was time for our first face lift. Thus, the new '80s-printer-paper-inspired look. Whadday'all think? Wow, and in "Spaceballs" Joan Rivers' character was named DOT MATRIX. Twas meant to be.



As Side Bar pointed out in our weekly email chat about the blog which we had for the first and only time this week, we totally pulled a Frank the Tank and forgot our own birthday. Pretty sad, but totally not my fault, as I've been a bit under the weather since somehow catching a cold when it was like 75 degrees out this weekend. Blame = avoided.

So yeah, we have a spiffy new look and we're gonna hit on some chicks with it.

And speaking of face lifts, how 'bout this health care thing? (Segue Award win.) Looks like I picked the wrong time to quit smoking, huh.

Anyway, health care. As our honorable and eloquent vice-president said, yes, this is a big fucking deal. Along with a shit-ton of smaller initiatives, here's what I see as the four major accomplishments:

1. Covering an additional 32 million people
2. Subsidies of approxmately $80-90 billion a year for low- and middle-income folks to buy either health insurance they didn't have before, or higher-quality care (mostly starting in 2014, though)
3. Preventing insurance companies from denying coverage to someone who either gets sick or has a preexisting condition
4. Reducing the deficit by over $1 trillion (though exactly how accurate that estimate ends up being is impossible to know)

None of those things have anything to do with death panels, pulling the plug on granny, a government takeover of 1/6 of the economy, totalitarianism, or any of the other complete fucking bullshit so many on the right claimed -- and not just insane performance artists like Glenn Beck either. That horseshit was spread by congressional leaders and folks even considered intellectuals (Gingrich) and high-level party strategists (Rove).

I'm not sorry one iota for the magnificent schadenfreude I've been feeling since John Boehner's childish tantrum on the House floor Sunday night (see #1 on this list of the Top 5 Health Care Debate Meltdowns).

So, to the moosey muse of Where's Luke?, former half-Governor Sarah Palin, who not too long ago asked in that Real American™ way that she does, "How's that hopey-changey stuff workin' out for ya?" I would say two things to you and your retarded, inbred, dying-off-due-to-the-very-natural-selection-you-evolution-denying-shit-for-brains-don't-understand ilk right now:

1. Pretty well, actually.

and

2.

"I am the Key Master" . . . "I am the Gate Keeper"

It finally happened.

Vinz Clortho and Zuul. In the same room.

The sound you just heard? The simultaneous breaking of millions of Tea Partiers' backs under the weight of the sheer awesome and win that is

Glenn Beck interviewing Sarah Palin for the first time!!!!!!!

(Can your fingers be out of breath? Because mine sure feel that way after typing that.)



Now what did we learn here?

• Politicians tend to fall on the untrustworthy end of the spectrum
• Glenn Beck would totally suck the labia right off the Statue of Liberty
• Glenn also keeps a journal (though I bet off-screen he calls it his diary)
• Glenn and Sarah were the top two Halloween costumes (I couldn't verify this, but perhaps my Google Fu is weak today; it's the kind of thing that sounds reasonable -- after all, there are a looooooot of supercrazy folks out there who think these two are just the tops, you betcha! -- but it came out of Glenn Beck's mouth, so it must be wrong. I mean, I heard Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. I'm supposed to trust his statistics? Not until he produces that girl and proves he didn't rape and kill her.)
• Glenn utters the phrase "radical, revolutionary crazy people" without a hint of irony or self-awareness
• John McCain supported the bank bailouts, aka TARP -- a point which Glenn makes to illustrate what McCain got wrong, why it was so hard to vote for him last fall. Right at the 7:43 mark, listen to how much disdain Glenn conjures when uttering the word "bailout." And the sweet-natured, common-sense conservative Hockey Mom of the Great (Very) White North, the one who spent the start of the interview bemoaning the lack of trustworthiness in Washington politicians, basically nods in agreement. What went unmentioned? BOTH GLENN BECK AND SARAH PALIN SUPPORTED THE BANK BAILOUTS. Man, I absolutely adore these two. It's goddamn spectacular, the things that come out of their mouths!
• At about the 5:37 mark, Glenn tells us about some lists he and Sarah appeared on, one of which was "Most Admired." Now, I believed this instantly because duh, obviously, you guys. I didn't need any sort of proof or anything, despite what I said up there about Glenn and numbers and murdering and raping and stuff. But the good folks at Fox were kind enough to show a graphic of the poll indicating that Glenn and Sarah were, in fact, among the Most Admired Men and Women in the country. Here's what they showed us:

Now, I know what you're thinking -- where the hell is David Wright on that list? I was thinking the same thing, so I checked the original list, and here's what I found:


Again, no D-Dubs. And then I was like, waitaminnithere... Can I see those two next to each other, please?



Uh, those numbers, like, aren't the same.

A-ha! The Fox poll is only of independent voters, voting only on political figures. Which makes sense, right? I mean, it's not like either person on screen was recently on the national ticket of one of the two major parties, right? It was nice of Glenn to mention those parameters when he told us how admired they both were. And also, I'm sure it had nothing to do with getting Sarah's name above Hillary Clinton's, or Glenn Beck's over some old black guy's.

Being the industrious little scamp I am, I decided to look a little further into those numbers. Gallup says that it interviewed 1,025 people for this particular survey. And according to Pollster.com, about 38% of Americans identify themselves as Independent. That means about 390 Independents were surveyed. Of those 390, Sarah Palin was voted Most Admired Woman by 14% and Glenn Beck was voted Most Admired Man by a whopping 3%. In other words, 55 people said they really like Sarah and TWELVE whole people said the same about dear Glenn.

Now that is something worth bragging about. Kudos, Beckster.

I don't really know what all this means or why the hell I just spent all this time looking into it, but I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that if those two spent enough time together, they would eventually spawn some Gozer-like thing so full of insanity, we'd all have to deal with a situation requiring one of us to say, "Nobody steps on a church in my town!"

Or, "Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown!"

Or something. Oh, and I get to be Venkman. Dibs.

Anyway, hey -- check out this lady dancing!

And to you, my dear, good night.

I have tried to steer clear of gloating -- I have many friends who genuinely wanted John McCain to win the election for what (in my opinion, at least) are valid reasons. But I cannot resist a brief smile as this right-wing ideologue is sent back to the wilderness with her tail behind her legs. Tolerance of different viewpoints is one thing, but I don't have to be tolerant of intolerance.

Good riddance.

Urge to kill rising

Recently you may have seen some pretty ridiculous behavior on display at a few Sarah Palin rallies. So in case you need a reminder as to just how astonishing what Barack Obama has achieved so far is in, first, winning the Democratic presidential nomination and, now, leading the general election by a sizable margin with just under four weeks to go, take a look at this little bit of proof that even God gets diarrhea.



These are the mongoloids that stain this country. Watching this makes me want to puke. On them. On their inbred children. On their pets. On their dying grandmothers. On their precious Bibles (which they obviously don’t read too closely or follow too accurately). On anything they care about. I don’t want to waste my time trying to “help” or “work with” or “persuade” them. I would rather see them suffering pain. Physical, emotional, psychological, whatever, all of the above.

I often try to tell myself that people like this are in the minority. Most people aren’t so openly, proudly, in-your-face ignorant. Most of us, ultimately, care about the same things, so let’s focus on that. Blah blah blah fuck that shit. Watching shaved apes like these makes me pray for a news report about some terrible series of tornadoes ripping through Ohio, because I’m hoping that in the destruction, one of these assholes’ houses gets leveled and their dog dies under a fallen tree branch and their littlest kid doesn’t quite make it to the storm shelter. (I also recall this, which I know isn't Ohio, but is nonetheless reminiscent.)

And then I calm down. The adrenaline recedes. I remember that, Yes, I am definitely better than they are.

Again, it’s amazing what Barack has done. In a country littered with failed abortions like these, having him as president would be the biggest, loudest, strongest fist up the ass these sisterfuckers could ever receive.

Okay. I’m done venting.

So, how are you?

Tie Goes to the Moron

I came away from last night's vice-presidential debate convinced of two things: Sarah Palin is not qualified to be the President of the United States (and, by extension, therefore not qualified to be Vice President), and John McCain seems to have developed horrendous judgment when it comes to really important matters like naming your potential successor.

Now in the debate itself, the expectations for Palin's performance had been set so outrageously low, that popular media is grudgingly handing out tepid applause to her performance. And conservative writers are downright relieved: she wasn't asked to name any Supreme Court cases she disagrees with or newspapers that she likes to read, and escaped the evening without any Palinesque gaffes that were becoming the norm for her in the past few weeks.

But what did she really accomplish last night other than repeat a few well-worn cliches about mavericks and tax cuts, and contradict herself about regulating Wall Street while getting government out of the way of business? She styles herself as a Jane Sixpack and a hockey mom, but when did that become a desirable quality in a potential leader of the free world. Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote this morning that:

The presidency and the vice presidency once was the preserve of white men in
suits. As the historian Ellen Fitzpatrick pointed out on PBS Thursday night, if,
in 1984, Geraldine Ferraro had spoken in the relentlessly folksy tones that
Palin used, she would have been hounded out of politics as fundamentally
unserious. But that was before casual Fridays, boxers or briefs and
T-shirt-clad Silicon Valley executives. Today, Palin can hit those
colloquial notes again and again, and it is not automatically disqualifying.

Why not? Why isn't it automatically disqualifying when someone applying for a desperately serious job in a desperately serious time carries herself so un-seriously. Winking at the camera, saying "you betcha," and "darn right" is cute, and according to Mr. Brooks it plays well in the sticks, but when the shit hits the fan, does the advent of casual Fridays really mean that America can afford to elect a vice president who has such a weak grasp of national and international issues? Just because she "comes from Main Street" and "understands working people"?

God forgive me, but give me Dick Cheney any day of the week.

All that said, it's not really Sarah Palin's fault. In fact, to her credit, she has never been anything other than a small town mayor who was in the right place at the right time and ended up governor of a small state (well, small in terms of the number of people she has to govern). Sarah Palin has not changed who she is - folksy, "regular," and very much an arch-conservative ideologue. I can disagree with her, and I can insist she is unqualified (I do, and I do), but whatever.

The real outcry here should not be about Sarah Palin, but about the man who offered her a shot at being President of the United States. John McCain used to be a level-headed, pragmatic politician (even if a bit more conservative than the reputation he earned in 2000). He eschewed wild political ideology, and often was able to build consensus close to the center of the political spectrum. When you are an occasional centrist, it's no surprise you have good relationships on both sides of the aisle. John McCain would have never, ever have selected Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2000 (even if 2008 Palin was available in 2000). But in 2008, he traded in his pragmatic, common-sense credentials for a shot at the big chair. And that is when he lost so many people in the middle. John McCain's one claim to legitimacy - that he rejects the radical left and the radical right - was belied by his selection of Sarah Palin.

That, my friends, is what I think of first and foremost every time I listen to Governor Palin. It's not: "what the hell is wrong with her?", it's: "what the hell is wrong with him?"

Timeout!!!

The last week has been unkind to Grandpa Simpson - I mean, um, John McCain.

The economy is failing and with Republicans having been in power for most of the past decade people are blaming Republicans for some reason.

To make matters worse, a serious problem is lack of regulation played a big part in leading us down this road.

That's an especially big problem when you like to call yourself "fundamentally, a deregulator" and have admitted that economics is not your strong suit (even if that quote may have been taken out of context just a bit).

Adding to Mr. McCain's woes is that the Palin Train seems to be losing steam as the people dig into her past.

Let's recap, shall we?

• Her daughter just got knocked up.
• Her son, being deployed to Iraq is said to have some drug problems.
• She announced that we are on a mission from God in Iraq.
  
• She then changed her story, trying to channel a quote from Abraham Lincoln that really was not at all similar to what she said.
• She actually was for that bridge to nowhere before she was against it.
• She was for banning books from local libraries.
• She had rape victims pay for their own rape kits.
• She apparently was banging her next door neighbor and husband's business partner.
• She has had three interviews: Charlie Gibson, in which she came across as a lightweight - to put it nicely; Katie Couric, in which she came across as a lightweight - to put it nicely; and Sean Hannity - which, let's face it, doesn't really count.
  
• She's accused of firing the former boss of her ex-brother in law because he wouldn't fire said ex-brother in law.
• The anti-corruption crusader, actually ran Ted Steven's political action committee.
• She billed taxpayers for travel and expenses for staying at her own home, as opposed to the Governor's Mansion, for 312 nights in the short time she spent as governor of Alaska.
• Put her high school buddies in government jobs that they were not even remotely qualified for.
• Her preacher, Thomas Muthee really hates witches.
  

There's more but, I think you get the point: she's a disaster.

They're just hoping her vagina and Christianity is enough for the American people (and, truth be told, the jury is still out on that one).

Now, with his polls dropping and time running out and on the cusp of the first presidential debate - what does John McCain do?

He calls a timeout??

What the fuck? Can you do that?

He's heading back to Washington DC to.....go to meetings. Oh, and he wants to cancel the scheduled debate because.....he has to go to meetings. I know he isn't really too good with computers but are telephones and airplanes too much for him too?

He really just wants to change the subject and position himself to claim credit for this bailout that is going to come one way or the other - regardless of whether or not he actually goes to DC.

Apparently, Obama called him at 8:30 in the morning on Wednesday to issue a joint statement. Grandpa Simpson returned the call at 2:30 pm and they agreed to issue some sort of joint statement and then, shortly thereafter, GP Simpson came out and announced the timeout.

Bitch-move, Macca. I'm guessing you're not taking the Straight Talk Express back to DC?

I thought Barry handled it nicely, saying that the president needs to be able to multitask.

I think people will see through this and it will ultimately backfire: there's no crying in baseball and there's no siestas in presidential elections - even if you are 100 years old.

I suppose it was a nice try to switch up the game with a gimmick, Johnny Mac - but the thing with Hail Mary passes is that they usually end up incomplete.

"I'm John McCain and I....um, I..........I want a timeout..."

Martin Sheen is my President

Maureen Dowd's column this morning takes the form of an imaginary meeting between Barack Obama, and Jed Bartlett (Martin Sheen's character on The West Wing). At one point, the fake fake President gets a little frustrated with Obama, and goes on a rant about what Obama needs to do to win the election and take back the momentum:

GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

Amen.

Sarah Palin's Vlog

This is funny. I'm trying to feed Side Bar's infatuation with Sarah Palin, future GILF. Someone named Sara Benincasa has made a bunch of video blogs of Sarah Palin. There are like 15 or 20 of them, but this is the first one.



The part where she says, "I won mayor of a small town and I won governor or Alaska" is very funny to me. The ones that come after this are also pretty funny so watch 'em. Vlog #5 is particularly good.

Friday Classic Video Part II: Poking Sarah Palin (heh)

What's that? Two videos in one day? I think I just clinched the mailing-it-in award for the week. That, and I'm single, in case you were wondering.

Over the past few weeks, we at Where's Luke? have laid out our thoughts on Sarah Palin and, yeah, we basically think she sucks. I don't care if her daughter got knocked up and blah blah blah, but I think I speak for all of us ("us" being the human population as a whole, not simply the four writers of this blog) when I say we're a bit concerned with the prospect of this woman possibly becoming President in the not-too-distant future. She seems kinda smart, and hey, even in Alaska, I'm sure it's moderately-to-way-friggin'-easier-than-in-other-states difficult to become the governor. But John McCain -- according to my statistics -- is probably gonna die or something close to it -- pretty soon, and as much as I think starting up a couple new wars with Iran and Russia is a bad idea, I'm even more nervous at the thought of Sarah Palin having to suddenly handle situations like that. Here's why:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Have a nice weekend!

Sarah Palin (actually) Graduates: Stepping Back From the Ledge

Earlier this week, within minutes of watching Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention, I wrote a short post (for which I was immediately subject to Palin-esque scorn and ridicule; sometimes words hurt too) indicating that I thought she had done very, very well, and that I was concerned that she had rallied the right wing segment of the party behind McCain for the first time in this election. I stand by that assessment, but I am retreating somewhat from the conclusion I drew from it, which is that the Obama campaign was fried as a result of an energized conservative base.

There are a couple of reasons for my new thinking, all intertwined to some degree:

First, I have to admit, Open Bar is exactly right that with the Palin selection, the Republican party has completely abandoned the principles of fiscal conservatism and national security that attract broad segments of the population in favor of the evangelical conservative orthodoxy that mark Pailn's candidacy: guns, god, gays, and fetuses.

Second, I had lunch yesterday with a few friends, two of whom are true independents (by that I mean they honestly did not know who they were going to vote for; not people like me who claim to be independent but have voted for a Democrat every single time I have had the opportunity). These guys were both leaning heavily in favor of McCain. I think they are both too cynical to have been moved all that much (as I was) by an Obama candidacy that seemed, until recently, to be long on eloquence and short on substance. Within days of the Palin pick, these two were both unequivocally clear that they would vote for Obama. It was amazing to see two people (anecdotal, I admit, but still compelling) who were so up in the air come down so definitively in favor of one candidate. These are guys who would have voted republican because they care about fiscal conservatism and national security, but who are unmoved by the far right's infatuation with the singular issue of abortion. To them, having a far right extremist a heartbeat away from the presidency is unacceptable.

Finally, I think it is also fair to say that with the polls remaining close, and the presidency hanging in the balance, most Republicans -- even the ones on the far right -- would have sucked it up and voted for McCain (just like we all would have, and I can admit this now, if HRC had been the Democratic candidate). By contrast, the voters in the middle truly are up for grabs. I don't have hard numbers, but it is fair to point out that the Palin pick probably shored up a base that was ultimately going McCain anyway, while alienating a group that he desperately needs, and might now cut in favor of Obama.

I am still concerned that Americans are not quite as thoughtful as the two friends I had lunch with yesterday, and that there are many people who might be swayed to come out and vote for a McCain/Palin ticket that might have protested a McCain/Romney or McCain/Ridge ticket, but I am hopeful that for each one of them, there are two independent voters who read up on Gov. Palin and conclude that (a) John McCain demonstrated poor judgment in picking her, and (b) she is not qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. I am still concerned that this woman has awoken a sleeping elephant that we would have rather let lie, but I also see and appreciate the point of view that this selection will end up hurting McCain and helping Obama.

So Against Her Before They Were So For Her

I guess it should not be surprising any more that Karl Rove, Bill O'Reilly, et al., will say anything in favor of a conservative candidate and anything to belittle a liberal one. But I still think this short clip is worth watching. It perfectly captures the holier-than-thou, indignant, arrogant, intellectual dishonesty that has marked the GOP punditry for years.



Enjoy

Random thoughts

So I'm stealing Side Bar's usual mail-it-in post thing here, but hey, go fuck yourself. Sorry, don't know where that came from. Moving right along...

The New York Giants, who won the Super Bowl last year (still amazing) over the 18-0 17-1 Patriots, kicked the season off by annihilating the absurdly racist-ly named Redskins, 16-7. Okay, maybe it wasn't an annihilation, but isn't "Redskins" by far the most glaringly racist name for a team or company or fucking anything these days? I know there's a movie called "Towelhead" coming out, but that's nowhere near as offensive as White Men Can't Jump. I can. *fights back tears* I can jump. Just not as high as, you know, black people. Man, I'm so oppressed.

The New York Mets face off against the Philadelphia Phillies in a three-game series this weekend. I won't be going to Shea to see any of the games, but I'm already half-drunk and the first game starts in an hour, so that's gotta count for something. By the way, pitching tonight for the Phillies is the wife-beating uberdouche Brett Myers. God, I hate the fucking fillies. The Mets have been playing really well lately which has, of course, made me even more wary about things. Don't get my fucking hopes up again, you assholes. A much better preview is over at Y2K. (And in case any of those guys happen to follow their trackbacks to this post, can y'all get Cheddar Ben to do a friggin' guest post at least?)

Google Chrome is fucking awesome. I've been meaning for a long time to write about how awesome Firefox is, but I haven't gotten around to it. Sorry to all you cavemen (Side Bar) still using Internet Explorer, I could've improved your Internet experience even more than by honoring your browser by blogging my brilliance (alliteration, bitches!). I don't have the time (between drinks) to get too far into why Chrome rules, but here's a good place to start. Chrome is still not as cool as Firefox, but once it adds extensions, I don't see how even Firefox (much less IE or Safari) will be able to compete. My favorite Firefox extensions: Adblock Plus, Better Gmail 2, PicLens, TinyURL creator, Download Statusbar. If you're a tech nerd, or even a wannabe like me, you'll get it. If not, go here and get these extensions now.

Sarah Palin is awesome. I love this woman. As an Obama supporter, I think she is the absolute best possible pick. By choosing someone without any national-security credentials, foreign-policy experience, or fiscal-conservatism achievements (running an oil-rich state and literally paying your constituents $5,000 a year doesn't mean you know shit about how to run government finances), the GOP has forfeited its (already-suspect) claim to be the party of strong national defense and fiscal responsibility. What they do have in Sarah Palin is a hardcore right-winger on just about everything. First and foremost, she's a super-duper theocrat, which ultimately means that the Republican Party has announced that it is now officially the party of evangelical Christians and that's it. Everyone else, especially you swing voters? Welcome to our side! 

Lastly, where the fuck is LJT? Lumpy and DannyG posted more this week than his lame ass. Chuck had about the worst week any of us has ever had in terms of posting, but hey, at least he posted. (Sorry, Chuck. I know you'll pick it up soon. Just no more dumbassery. Okay, some dumbassery is okay -- even encouraged -- but how 'bout some more shit like this appropos beaut?) 

Okay, have a good weekend. Go get drunk. Get laid. Stick it to the man. ANARCHY! 

(And leave a friggin' comment, for chrissakes. Thanks to Faith, Lumpy, DannyG for their awesomeness this week.)

The Palin speech thingy and another, entirely separate topic only tangentially related

Settle down there, Scaredy McSkyisfalling.

Yes, Sarah Palin gave a decent speech and she is clearly comfortable with public speaking (she did go to sportscasting school, after all). And yes, I would still hit it.

But the thing is: As was made clear in this speech, she will only appeal to the hard cultural right. As people learn more about her, moderates and independents (i.e., the 6-8% of voters who're gonna decide the election) will be aghast at her views on creationism in schools (for it!), sex education (against it!), banning books (for it!), Jews (against them!), the bridge to nowhere (for it! against it!), animals (against them!), global warming (for it!) and on and on. Hers is not a resume built to appeal to swing voters.

The main thing I took away from last night’s culture-wars-igniting speech is that I really can’t see how she’s gonna persuade any undecided voters. Her best (and only) hope is to increase turnout among the religious right -- people who wouldn’t have voted for Obama anyway.

Those were some really nice images of the Palin family, though. I’ll give her that.

And speaking of her family (Ed. note: That segue was money. Watch how the rest of this post has little-to-nothing to do with what you just read!), there’s something I’ve been meaning to write about, but I wanted to hear her speech first.

In case you haven’t heard, Sarah Palin recently had a child, Trig. And surely if you heard about that, you heard that Trig has Down’s Syndrome. And surely if heard about that too, then you must also have heard about how the Palins knew about this condition, but decided to have the child anyway.

If the boldface didn’t give it away, it’s this last part I’d like to draw attention to. I know we’re not supposed to talk about candidates’ families blah blah blah, but I’ve been hearing about this Down’s baby all over the place. And Palin herself even made a point of bringing it up last night:

“And in April, my husband Todd and I welcomed our littlest one into the world, a perfectly beautiful baby boy named Trig. From the inside, no family ever seems typical. That's how it is with us. Our family has the same ups and downs as any other ... the same challenges and the same joys. Sometimes even the greatest joys bring challenge. And children with special needs inspire a special love. To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message: For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters. I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House.”

This is a woman so extremely pro-life that she opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest. (She would allow it only if the mother was sure to die if the pregnancy continued. What a saint.)

That’s why all the praise being heaped onto Sarah Palin by groups on the right for having the “courage” to birth her child grates. This extra dose of adulation for a woman whose decision, in her eyes, came down to this:

Have the baby, or murder an innocent, helpless human being deserving of full human rights (IHHBDFHR).

Hmmm. If that’s how she viewed it, it sounds like a pretty fucking easy choice. Why should she get further credit because the baby had Down’s? She gets no such credit for not killing the other four. But because Trig was handicapped, are you telling me that might’ve made her more willing to slaughter her IHHBDFHR?

And shouldn’t it be the opposite, anyway? If someone decides to kill an IHHBDFHR directly because they found out it was handicapped, doesn’t that make that person even more morally culpable? What, your baby isn’t “normal,” so for that reason alone you decide to kill it?

Pro-lifers who “decide” to have their child even after finding out it has some disability do not deserve additional honor or glory. Rather, it seems to me, those pro-lifers who decide to end their pregnancy upon receiving this news should be set aside for particularly harsh scorn and shame. That’s some big-time, literally life-or-death hypocrisy.

If, as the the statistics say in the above links, 80% of unborn babies diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome are aborted, and America is way less than 80% pro-life, that means that a shitload of pro-lifers are snuffing their IHHBDFHRs. That, I would think, should be where people’s attention is focused. Why don’t we hear more about this on FOX News?

Sarah Palin is pro-life. That’s fine. She thinks life begins at conception. Okay. She thinks all abortions are innocent-baby executions. Ergo she does not deserve any extra-special credit for giving birth to disabled Trig, a.k.a. not killing her child.

(For the record, this isn’t aimed at Sarah Palin. I think it’s great that she brought Trig up and drew attention to special-needs children. It’s aimed at those on the right telling me how noble she is and using this as an example.)

Sarah Palin (actually) Graduates

I didn't stay up to watch Sarah Palin's speech last night, but I did watch it on the web this morning (albeit in expedited fashion; the Times had a cool feature that lets you read the text as you watch, so it was easy to jump ahead without losing any of the actual speech).

My one thought after watching: shit.

She was very, very good. Anyone who watched that speech and didn't think she did a spectacular job of (a) beginning to demonstrate her qualifications, (b) solidifying the base, and (c) ripping on Obama, wasn't watching the same speech I watched. I guarantee you McCain will not be as good.

Fuck fuck fuck. She was good.

Sarah Palin Graduates! Sarah Palin Graduates!

With a nod to Chuck's post from a few days ago, I wanted to link my current (and certain to be short-lived) fascination with Sarah Palin to the famed 90210 program (by the way, am I the only one who completely missed the significance of the "902.0" title to Chuck's post? I get it now, and it is actually pretty clever, but it went soaring over my head the first few times I looked at it). Also, a confession: despite my comment that I would not do so, I did watch 90210 for about 90 seconds on the CW 11 last night. When I tuned in, one of the black kids from The Wire (best. show. ever.) was getting yelled at by a white principal (who I think was on Silk Stalkings in the early 1990s) because the principal wanted the kid to disclose who was behind a practical joke involving pigs. At stake if the pork prankster didn't fess up: the lacrosse team's very season. At one point, the black kid says to the principal, with what I assume was the appropriate level of melodrama, "are you asking me this as my principal or are you asking me this as my father." Gripping. And mildly confusing.

But I digress. The point of this post is to make fun of Sarah Palin some more and also make a few cracks about Bev Niner. So, I have decided that my new favorite thing about Sarah Palin is not that she may have flirted with the idea of supporting Alaska's secession from the union (as her husband did), not that she ruled the town of Wasilla, AK (population: 7,000) with an iron fist and fired anyone who disagreed with her, not that she is a pro-lifer who seems to think she is an even better pro-lifer than you are because she did not abort a child that was likely to be born with disabilities (plagiarism alert: this is Open Bar's issue, and he is likely to write something about it. When he does, I will link to it here, here, . . . . and here). No, it is none of those things. Instead, it is the fact that she played Andrea Zuckerman on the original 90210. Yes, it is true: Sarah Palin is Gabrielle Anne Carteris.

Prior to being elected mayor of Wasilla, AK, Sarah Palin's greatest accomplishment was scooping Newsweek, the LA Times, and CNN, and landing an expose with Dylan McKay about the murder of his father to be published in the West Beverly Blaze.

Now, as die hards will recall, despite playing teenagers on television, the actors and actresses of the original Beverly Hills, 90210, were slightly older than the characters they portrayed on TV. In fact, Ms. Carteris (as she was then known) was born in 1961, and was in her 30s when the show aired in the early 1990s. Coincidentally (or not, as they are the same person), Ms. Carteris left the show in 1995. Sarah Palin (as she later called herself) was elected mayor of Wasilla in 1996.

Need more proof? Ok, both of them graduated from college, but neither pursued any higher education. What else? Oh, I know - they are both completely and utterly unqualified to the Vice President of the United States.

VPILF-Gate

This is hardly going to be the well-considered, carefully researched, humorous post that you've come to expect from me (what?). But I just cannot keep up. Open Bar and I have been chatting on and off today about the Sarah Palin fiasco, and we are both equal parts stunned and giddy, simply unable to stop and catch our collective breath to process the overload of information that has surfaced about John McCain's VP nominee in the last 36 hours.

As Notorious LJT put it, the media seems to smell blood in the water. They have uncovered the following in the past two days:

• Palin's 17 year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant, and will marry the baby's 18 year-old father.
• Palin may have been a member or supporter of the Alaska Independence Party (though that allegation is challenged by the McCain campaign). Her husband was twice an AIP member, in 1995 and 2000.
• Palin had this to say about Iraq in 2007: "I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."
• She does not believe global warming is man made.

Read more at Huffington Post (I stole some of this from them anyway). And even they don't have them all.

So what does McCain do with this pick? Clearly she is more extreme than he realized (the New York Times had a great cover story this morning, exposing the shoddy vetting job that was hastily thrown together last week). But can he take her off of the ticket? It's a lose-lose proposition for McCain, as a reporter at US News explains quite well:

My guess is McCain stands the chance of completely alienating his evangelical base if he dumps Governor Palin. The evangelicals seem to love her even more following the announcement that her minor daughter will marry the boy who got her pregnant and the fact she has offered unconditional love and support to the child. Then again, he's alienated moderate Republicans and independents, polls show, by placing Palin on the ticket. It's a lose-lose situation for him to consider dropping Palin, if indeed the campaign is considering it at all. He loses his now energized right-wing base if he drops her. He loses mainstream Republicans and moderate independents (the so-called Hillary voters) if he keeps her. In any event, Palin is far from the smart choice she appeared to be last Friday when McCain announced his selection of a running mate.

This was a classic McCain move - a shoot-from-the-hip, take-no-prisoners, look-into-Putin's-eyes kind of move. And now that it is proving costly (it divides, rather than unites, the extreme and moderate wings of the party despite his need to draw votes from both), he will dig in his heels a la Bush, and swear it isn't raining while huddling under an umbrella. Is this the style of macho decision-making we can expect for the next 8 years? Lord help us.

Pop quiz, hot shot

Who is the most scared of Johnny Mac choosing former beauty queen Sarah Palin as his vice president?




















Answer: The former beauty queen on the right.

Remember why John-boy left his first wife? If you had a clear record of leaving your older, uglier wife for the younger, hotter new chick, why would you stay with the corpse that is Cindy if you could get on this:

Allow me to introduce...DANIELA QUAYLE!

I mean, Sarah Palin.

What was all that I was hearing about Obama not being ready to be president?