CNN hack tries to ambush Governor Palin

This Tim Russert wannabe hit Sarah with a question asking her reaction to this partial quote:

“it’s sometimes hard to decide whether Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt, backward, or — or, well, all of the above.”

But here was the FULL quote:

Watching press coverage of the Republican candidate for vice president, it’s sometimes hard to decide whether Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt, backward, or — or, well, all of the above. Palin, the governor of Alaska, has faced more criticism than any vice-presidential candidate since 1988, when Democrats and the press tore into Dan Quayle. In fact, Palin may have it even worse than Quayle, since she’s taking flak not only from Democrats and the press but from some conservative opinion leaders as well….

 Yes, there are legitimate concerns about Palin’s lack of experience. Who wouldn’t, at the very least, wish that she had more time in the governor’s office on her résumé? But a look at Palin’s 20 months in power, along with interviews with people who worked with her, shows her to be a serious executive, a governor who picked important things to do and got them done — and who didn’t just stumble into an 80 percent job-approval rating.

Slightly different meaning, no?  This sleazy tactic worked for Charlie Gibson, but Sarah’s a fast learner.

h/t Ace of Spades

Pesky Facts vs. Preferred Narratives

For over a week we have been hearing how McPalin rallies resemble lynch mobs screaming for the blood of Teh Precious.  Even His Excellency Paul Krugman said it:

Something very ugly is taking shape on the political scene: as McCain’s chances fade, the crowds at his rallies are, by all accounts, increasingly gripped by insane rage.

There’s one small problem with this media narrative:  IT’S NOT TRUE:

The agent in charge of the Secret Service field office in Scranton said allegations that someone yelled “kill him” when presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s name was mentioned during Tuesday’s Sarah Palin rally are unfounded.

Our friend gqmartinez put up a post at Corrente pointing out that these allegations are unfounded, and the reaction of the resident Obama supporters there is both revealing and disturbing:

Younger people, such as you, know of the JFK and MLK and RFK assassinations in the abstract, as things out of history, events that happened in another time and place of which you have only anecdotal knowledge and no visceral sense of context. Some of us writing here, including Sarah and myself, are old enough to have actually lived through them. We know, not just have heard about it but actually know, what those time sounded like and how it felt, the hatred and the fear and the violence and the sorrow.

Condescend much?  By the way, Robert Kennedy was killed by a Middle-Eastern immigrant who was angry over Kennedy’s support for Israel, not by a conservative Republican upset about the economy.

The point I’m trying to make is the SS found “no evidence” regarding the Scranton incident, only. That single data point got strewn all over the media echo chamber as refutation for ALL the incidents, and I find that suspect.

Except that “single data point” was the basis for all the original stories.  As Lambert quite rightly points out, the number of stories means nothing if they are all derived from the same source.

While most Correntians agreed with gqmartinez, the reaction of the Obama supporters at Corrente is typical of those who slurp the Kool-aid.  They engage in rationlization rather than rational thought:

. . . but there are multiple videos available of crowds chanting, and there is video available of the crowd booing McCain when he asked them to respect Obama.

I guess to the Sippy-Kup Kidz booing Obama is the same as shouting “Kill him.”  Of course Obama supporters think that “fairy tale” is racist and calling him “arrogant” or “presumptuous” is just another way of saying he is “uppity.”

Although it was off-topic, I was totally blown away by this comment in the thread at Corrente:

The phrase “taken into a room and only one of them comes out” is coarse and crude indeed but it is used all the time in regard to men and no one bats an eye. It certainly doesn’t mean “kill” in any way. In the macho mind the use with Hillary was an expression of equality – I know, but they’re weird in many ways – and could be seen as a sign of progress.

Welcome to Topsy-Turvyland!  As a man who watches sports and violent movies, I’ve never heard that phrase used in a nice way before.  The original and most often used version is “Two men enter, one man leaves” which comes from “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” and it refers to a deathmatch between two people. 

Lambert’s response was more succinct: “Denialism.”

UPDATE

The reality:

 . . . here is a real district attorney’s complaint documenting an unprovoked assault by an enraged Democrat against a McCain volunteer in midtown Manhattan: “Defendant grabbed the sign [informant] was holding, broke the wood stick that was attached to it, and then struck informant in informant’s face thereby causing informant to sustain redness, swelling, and bruising to informant’s face and further causing informant to sustain substantial pain.”

Palinpalooza!

Well, the “Troopergate” report is out.  Predictably, Jeralyn Merritt tries to spin it as a major indictiment of Sarah Palin.  Despite making two posts on the subject, one of which contains substantial excerpts of the reports, she somehow manages to miss this:

Finding Two
I find that, although Walt Monegan’s refusal to fire Trooper Michael Wooten was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a contributing factor to his termination as a Commissioner of Public Safety. In spite of that, Governor Palin’s firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitution and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads.

In fact, when somebody pointed out that firing Monegan was legal and not an abuse of power, Jeralyn responded: 

you have made your point (5.00 / 1) (#73)
by Jeralyn on Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 04:00:41 AM EST

and we don’t agree. Please move on. 

 

“We don’t agree”  That would be the royal “we” I guess.

I stand by my original assessment.  Troopergate is a big nothing-burger.

Chris Bowers nails it

Really, he does:

Yeesh. I think I am developing a better understanding of why the conservative backlash narrative works so well. People on the losing side of major legislative and electoral battles in America really do have a habit of calling the winners stupid. When discussing the defeat of the bailout today, the pundit tone on television was almost universally patronizing, sneering disbelief. This even though the pundits were talking about members of Congress who almost all have advanced degrees, who all were democratically elected by hundreds of thousands of people, who acted under enormous stress and in opposition to all available leadership, and who by virtually every available measure are all really, very successful, hard working, people who work in public service. And yet, the disbelief as to how this group of Neanderthals would dare to put the country in such a grim position by daring to vote against this bailout is surely a sign of not only idiocy, but of the failure of the democratic process itself.

[...]

I have a word of friendly, concern troll advice to all those who lose electoral or legislative battles in a democratic system: don’t talk down to the winners. This applies in pretty much any electoral or legislative situation, and not just in the specific case of the bailout. You didn’t lose because your opponents are dumb. You lost because you failed to convince enough people you were right. That is actually a failing on your part, not of your opponents. In this specific case, it is a massive failing on the part of the people who supported the bailout. They had both presidential candidates, the leadership of both parties in both branches of Congress, virtually the entire national media, and all of the moneyed interests in their corner, and they still couldn’t convince a majority of either the public or congressional backbenchers that it was a good idea. If you ask me, that is actually pretty frackin’ pathetic. Some might even wonder if there is a fundamental stupidity at the core of this proposal if, with virtually all the levers of public influence supporting it, the majority of the country still thinks it is a bad idea.

Not only is Mr. Bowers 100% correct, but I find myself agreeing with Megan McArdle too:

Pelosi screwed up royally.  She is the Democratic Tom DeLay.  Newt Gingrich was an ideologue, but Tom DeLay was simply a partisan, most keenly interested in maximizing his party’s political power.  Pelosi cut a deal in which, as far as I can tell, every single Republican in a safe seat had to vote yes so that the Democrats could maximize their no votes.  Given that the Republican caucus is pretty much in open revolt, this was beyond moronic.  She then spent a week openly and repeatedly blaming the Republicans and the Bush administration for the current crisis.  The way she set things up, it was “Heads I win, tails you lose”:  vote for the deal and I’ll paint you as heartless reactionaries bailing out your fat cat friends.  If you’re going to do that, you’d better make sure you have some goddamn margin for error in your own party.  She didn’t.  Then she got up and delivered yet another speech blaming the Republicans for the bailout deal she was about to pass.

Being in power means that you get to give your party special favors on many occasions–but it also means that you, yes you, have the ultimate responsibility for getting things done.  She didn’t particularly try to bring her party in line, and so of course as soon as a few Republicans defected, hers stampeded.  The ultimate blame for this failure has to be laid at her feet.

This election is very disorienting.  I keep finding myself agreeing with people I rarely or never agreed with before.  Last week was the worst, I found myself on the same page with Michelle “Our Lady of Perpetual Outrage” Malkin.

I think I’ll ask my doctor for a note so I can join the nearest Cannabis Club.  Booze just isn’t cutting it.

More hypocrisy from TalkLeft

At least this time it’s not from Jeralyn, it’s from TChris:

Douglas Wead misses the point when he asks: “Are we saying [evangelical Christians] can’t participate in public life?” No. We’re asking how, if at all, those beliefs shape the candidate’s view of appropriate public policy.

That view on the religious beliefs of candidates sure wasn’t the consensus opinion of Left Blogistan back in March when Reverend Jeremiah Wright became news.

With Digby promoting ageism, I guess i shouldn’t be so hard on the junior Kool-aid slurper at TalkLeft. 

But I sure miss the days when lefty bloggers had principles.

Cognitive Dissonance, thy name is Obama Supporter

Leah at Corrente says the bailout is not a done deal:

The reaction across the blogisphere is the same; go to OPEN SECRET, or Kos, or MyDD, or Newsbusters, of ThinkProgress, or TPM or American Prospect; everyone agrees that the Democratic leadership is in danger of being royally snookered, once again. Matt Stoller has a petition signed by members of the House progressive caucus. I left a comment there and at least two people picked up on it – yes let’s try and get Obama to realize that he’s watching the near sure failure of the first two years of an Obama administration, happening right before his eyes, and he’s doing nothing? At least he’s equivicating.

Leah seems to think that the bailout is a GOP idea.  From Jeralyn: 

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said Sunday his Republican rival deserves no credit for helping to forge a tentative agreement on the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street.

Maybe TalkLeft is too far away for Leah.  But she should at least read the posts at Corrente.

“Obama is not a career politician”

Guess who said it?

It’s official.  Kool-aid kills brain cells.

Barack Obama flaps arms, clucks like a chicken, wins debate

“Bloviating media gasbags and Obamabloggers declare Obama looked “Presidential,” easily won first match-up with Senator John “Crypt Keeper” McCain.”

I haven’t seen anything this ridiculous since back in 2000 when the same bloviating gasbags decided that since G-Dub didn’t shit himself debating Al Gore that he “won” their debates.  How did that work out for us?

Now if you want to see some serious cognitive dissonance, check out this from Jeralyn:

CNN just interviewed a McCain adviser named Nicole. She not only watched a different debate than the rest of us, she’s deaf. She said Obama, whose tax cuts would apply to 95% of Americans, all who earn under $250k, would enact tax increases for the vast majority of Americans.

Once she said that, I just tuned her out.

It’s the difference between spinning and outright lying. She lied.

Lemme guess Jeralyn, what you do is “spinning,” right?

Do you want to know what the difference between spinning and outright lying is? 

There isn’t one.

I was banned from TalkLeft!

Move over Lambert, you now have company.  Last night I was banned from from a site for only the second time ever.  Even John Cole, who had far more cause, never booted me from his place.

So what terrible crimes did I commit to deserve being banished?

I responded to Jeralyn’s latest screed against John McCain:

More and more media articles I’m reading tonight agree: McCain’s suspension of his campaign was a political stunt, a second Hail Mary pass to deal with falling poll numbers and growing worry among voters that Sarah Palin just is not qualified or prepared to be Vice President and that he makes rash decisions out of self-interest and tries to pass them off as patriotism.

with this:

Meanwhile, what has Obama done?  Nothing.

That was my one and only comment of the day.  Jeralyn immediately deleted it and banned me.

I guess Jeralyn can’t handle the truth. 

That seems to be a common trait of Obama supporters.

Leaders Lead

There is some serious deception being practiced on us by Obamanation, the Obama bloggers and the Kool-aid slurping media.

To hear them tell it, the current financial problem is all the Republican’s fault and John McCain is using the crisis as an excuse to avoid debating Obama.   To quote one of Jeralyn’s fans:

“He’d rather flip off the American people than face the music Friday night.” 
 

Another one claimed that “McCain’s deregulation fantasies got us into this mess.”  Oh really?  Senator John McCain, May 25, 2006:

Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.

The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.
I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.

What has Teh Precious been during this crisis?  Doing what he does best – running for office.  As he put it:

“If they need me they’ll call me.”

Don’t wait for the phone to ring, Barack.  We don’t need you.  We don’t need you now, and we don’t need you next january.

Leaders lead.

Hillary Clinton is leading.  So is John McCain.  Barack Obama needs to follow or get out of the way.