BartBlog

May 30, 2011

Down By the Old Rumor Mill Stream, Part Whatever

Devon Keester’s Hollywood Lowdown
“The dark, sweaty juncture where politics and show biz meet!”

[Note: Since Keester’s sources are shady and unreliable and usually found near a vinyl-covered barstool, his ramblings should be taken with a several grains of salt from the rim of his next margarita.]

Biden Over and Out: Obama will not be running with Biden as his Veep in 2012. Word is, Joe Biden is feeling every one of his 68 years and not anxious to enter another national campaign after finally facing the realization he’ll never be president. That’s okey-doke with Obama, as it gives him the opening to offer the VP slot to Hillary Clinton, further underwriting his re-election. Now that the sharp edges of the 2008 campaign have softened, and BHO and Sec-of-State Hill have a good working relationship, he would welcome her as a running mate, and the youthful 63-year-old Clinton would have a springboard for a presidential run in 2016. The only question that remains is if Hillary will sign on. She may not have the stomach for another national campaign herself, preferring, maybe, the governorship of a state to be named later instead. If not Clinton, Obama would like to make history, and notch his appeal to women voters, by naming someone of the female gender. Next on the list if Clinton doesn’t bite is supposedly Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan, although US Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state are said to be strong possibilities as well.

The Story Behind the Story: Yup, Newt Gingrich had a suspicious interest-free revolving charge account at Tiffany’s for two years that racked up $500 grand in billings, but that’s not all. Ignoring for the moment that regular customers pay 21 percent interest on their charges, Newtie’s current wife Callista, when she was a lobbyist, had ties to the silver mining industry from which Tiffany’s fabricates its overpriced doodads, and Gingrich himself, while in the House, interceded to get the jewelry company a very sweet deal on use of public lands for mining. The Newtster may soon have more to worry about than his doomed SNL-skit presidential campaign — the feds are taking notice of his involvement with the Tiff, and whether he actually paid down that half-mil himself or if some or all of it was written off by the grateful company as a lobbying fee. Whichever way it goes, Newt is going to end up in a courtroom somewhere, trying to stay out of the hoosegow, and probably still running for president in his fevered little brain. No wonder Newtie was reluctant to answer any questions about his $500K shopping spree at Tiffany’s — it’s looking like a quid pro quo bribe.

The Story Behind the Story, Part Deux: Sure, it’s been all over the papers like a dog who got into the prune juice that pouty ex-Alaskan Ice Princess Sarah Palin is moving the whole-damn Wasillabilly brood to a luxurious $1.7 million 5-BR, 6.5-bath manse with a concrete swimmin’ hole in Scottsdale, AZ, near enough to America’s wackiest sheriff, Joe Arpaio, to be in the Red Zone if any of his pink-clad prisoners escape. But let’s just get this out of the way: the erstwhile Mama Grizzly is not running for president — her ‘tragic bus’ tour of the Nor’east is just to revive national media interest in her fast-plummeting ‘brand,’ whatever her crackpot brand is these days. How could this be when all the big-time pundits are sure she’s running? Well, she hasn’t been kicked off Fox News, and she’s got a $1 mil-a-year contract there that runs through 2013. But she also allegedly has speaking contracts to read her palm to unfortunate victims through 2014; if she reneges on those contracts — since she can’t legally take the money if she’s a candidate — she’ll have to pay a stiff penalty. That would cost her a bundle out of pocket she can’t afford. Get your laughs now — by 2015 she’ll be off Fox and consigned to introducing second-rate Branson, MO, acts with, “Hi there, remember me? I’m Sarah Palin!”

– Ailes Out at Fox? Speaking of Fox Noose, head-major-domo-top-enchilada, first-among-inferiors Generalissimo Roger Ailes’ contract with king pinsetter Rupert Murdoch is up in 2013. Surely Uncle Rupe will renew it, you say. Not so fast: Murdoch’s recent wife Wendi likes Obama and loathes Ailes, and Rupe’s wives have considerable influence on him; plus, the whole fam damily who will be inheriting the business when Murdoch retires or ascends to Media Jesusland likewise has about as much affection for the former Nixon PR flack as they do for a case of the clap. Word is, James Murdoch, current deputy operating office at Fox parent News Corp, particularly has it in for Ailes after what Rog did to brother Lachlan, supposedly pushing James’ older sibling to the point of a nervous breakdown. The elder Murdoch is also said to not be pleased at the direction Ailes has dragged the GOP-propaganda cable channel; of course, he favors its conservative slant, but the hiring of palpable nitwits like Boom-Boom Palin and Man-On-Dog Ricky Santorum didn’t sit well with News Corps’ Bigga Boss. Look for a shake-up at Fox after the next election, unless the GOP wins Reagan-’84 big.

One More Fox Tale: A deep, deep rumor says the Keith Olbermann ousting at MSNBC was part of a deal with Fox News’ Roger Ailes. Seems Keith, the former ratings king at MSNBC, was getting under Roger’s skin with his gloves-off jibes at Fox personalities, as well as cutting into Fox’s cable dominance as his ‘Countdown’ show numbers steadily increased. In a top secret meeting with Comcast, then poised to buy up MSNBC parent NBC-Universal, Ailes and unnamed execs from Comcast and NBC allegedly struck a deal to lessen the attacks on Fox and dump Olbermann once the Comcast buy-out was finalized; in return, Fox would go easier on NBC and provide some other goodies. Part of the bargain was that MSNBC would get rid of its top rater and Fox would reciprocate. So Ailes agreed to jettison Fox ratings leader Glenn Beck in return for Olbermann’s exit. Roger got the best of the deal — he wanted to give loose-cannon Beck the heave-ho anyway while MSNBC is now struggling in Keith’s old primetime slot, and Olbermann is fixing to cut down those ‘Lean Forward’ numbers even further when he resurrects ‘Countdown’ June 20th on Al Gore’s Current TV network at his old 8e/7c berth.

He Won’t Be Baack: A big dime is about to drop (but not in the form of a ‘bag’) on former Kali-forn-yuh guff’nor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Seems the ex-bodybuilder and purported actor had more than one out-of-wedlock bambino while married to Kennedy-kin Maria Shriver — mayhap as many as 6 or 7 — and all of their mamas want more money or they are calling the media. Add to that the news that the California AG is about to prosecute the Teutonic Musclehead for using state troopers to deliver comely young ‘club’ females 18-to-25 to his Governator living quarters at the Hyatt hotel in Sacramento, a clear misuse of state funds. It’s been reported Schwarzy planned to resume his ‘achting’ career post-politics — fat chance, since the word is the major studios now think he’s not ‘bankable’ at the box office anymore. (Perhaps he can nab the independent-film roles Casper Van Dien turns down, at Van Dien pay, natch.) Oh, and one more thing: all the years of stress on his bones and muscles from over-exercising and steroid use have taken their toll — the 63-year-old Ah-nuld allegedly now has the physical mobility of a man 20 years older and can only function normally by taking prescription painkillers.

© 2011 RS Janes.

http://tattlesnake.blogspot.com

June 22, 2010

The Tattlesnake – It’s McChrystal Clear: The General is Running for President Edition

By publicly making derogatory comments about his superiors in the chain of command – President Obama, VP Biden, Defense Secretary Gates, White House National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones — US Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal has committed an act of rank insubordination, and I think he did it intentionally.

Subsequent apologies for his loose-lipped Rolling Stone interview notwithstanding, McChrystal knows Obama must, in order to maintain what little credibility he has with the military as commander-in-chief, relieve McChrystal of his command and he should break him in rank down to a Colonel or, at least, Brigadier General, but, considering Obama’s reticence in such matters, he likely won’t do the latter.

McChrystal well knows that if he wants to criticize his superiors there is a legitimate and honorable way to do so – resign his commission and fire away as a civilian. Instead, the wily general has manufactured a situation wherein Obama must relieve him or lose all respect with the military establishment and a good portion of the public, as well.

Why would McChrystal set up such a situation? The easiest answer is that he’s planning on running for president as a Republican in 2012 and he can use it to a) play the aggrieved victim of a president and administration that doesn’t know what it’s doing in the Middle East; and b) insulate himself from charges of incompetence when we are forced out of Afghanistan. “I told the president the strategy he was pursuing to defeat the Taliban was naïve and wrong and that I had a better plan. This so angered him he found a flimsy reason to dismiss me.”

This is the line I believe McChrystal will employ following his resignation after Obama has relieved him of his command. Such criticism dovetails nicely with the GOP’s probable angle of attack on Obama in 2012 – arrogant, incompetent, headstrong, vengeful, naïve – and McChrystal will go to the head of the class of potential presidential candidates in a so far thin field for the Republicans — Romney’s no barn-burner; Palin’s a sour joke; Gingrich is stuck in the mud of 1994; Pawlenty’s a calamitous bore, and no one else is really on the radar.

Of course, the GOP establishment would welcome McChrystal with open arms as the second coming of Dwight Eisenhower, but even the various Teabaggers, quasi-Libertarians and Christian zealots who are now the party’s foundation would most likely not much contest nominating a ‘military hero’ such as the general. His campaign would also provide some lengthy (and stable) coattails for other Republicans to ride, a surcease from the almost daily factional friction of a minority party in turmoil.

The question: Will former Pentagon black-ops chief McChrystal’s new strategy to gain the White House work any better than did his plans to tame Afghanistan?

The answer: For a man as arrogant, incompetent, headstrong, vengeful, and naïve on public matters as Stanley McChrystal — who also, according to Rolling Stone, thinks Bud Light Lime is a great beer – is a resounding no.

Read more:

“The Runaway General” – Michael Hastings, Rolling Stone, June 8-22, 2010.

Stanley A. McChrystal’s Wikipedia bio.

“New Afghanistan Commander Ran Secret ‘Executive Assassination Ring’ Under Cheney”
– Tom Englehardt, TomDispatch.com, May 21, 2009, by way of The Huffington Post.

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

November 11, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Dirty Dozen Political Quiz Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 7:10 am

Think you were paying attention during the long 2008 election campaign? Grab a pen and paper and take the test below (and no cheating with the Google):

1. Hillary Clinton used it and lost. John McCain used it and lost. What was it?

2. Did John McCain actually have any casual, free-for-all talks with reporters on his ‘Straight Talk’ campaign jet as he did on his bus?

3. Obama confessed during the campaign to loving two white women in his life. Who were they?

4. According to news reports, what was McCain’s favorite breakfast?

5. Who said “there is absolutely no diva in me”?

a. Hillary Clinton
b. Sarah Palin
c. Michelle Obama
d. Cindy McCain

6. After Obama’s landslide, which famous former broadcast network anchorman continued to declare this was a ‘center-right’ country?

7. Which McCain campaign aide told the media that they wouldn’t be allowed to interview Sarah Palin unless they were properly respectful?

8. What special award did Sarah Palin win at the Miss Alaska beauty contest?

9. What did Obama promise his two daughters he’d do if he became president?

10. From the items below, pick one that wasn’t an issue for Sarah Palin in the 2008 campaign:

a. Misusing her state expense account.
b. Abusing her power in attempting to fire a state trooper.
c. Overspending her McCain campaign clothing allowance.
d. Visiting a remote Aleutian island to ‘see Russia.’
e. Her involvement with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party.
f. Insulting members of the Alaska legislature on a radio show.
g. The crazy pastor at her Wasilla church.
h. Her close friendship with corrupt Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.
i. The ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ that she accepted federal money to build.
j. Campaigning for the Reform Party presidential candidate in the 2000 election.

11. Was Sarah Palin ever asked by the media what the initials NAFTA stood for, or to name any countries in Africa?

12. Who said in April 2008: “I’m as healthy as the economy”?

a. John McCain
b. George W. Bush
c. Henry Paulson
d. Joe Biden
e. Alan Greenspan
f. Rush Limbaugh

Answers below the fold.

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November 9, 2008

The Tattlesnake – More Zippity-Doo-Dah From the Fading Right Edition

In the anguished ‘why we lost’ analyses in the days to come from the Fox News-Karl Rove-Bill Kristol neocons and their compadres in the Big Media, still discombobulated over Obama’s landslide victory in what they think is a ‘center-right’ conservative nation – the ‘liberal socialist’ Obama of November 3rd even magically transforming into a ‘fiscal conservative’ 24 hours later to preserve this incredible myth — you’ll read much about how the economic meltdown in late September killed McCain’s chances after he had pulled even or ahead in the polls. Horse pucky. McCain and Palin’s sour performance in the debates, the GOP’s over-the-top negative ads, a miserably run campaign, Palin’s exposure as an ignorant nitwit, plus the general public disgust with the Bush Republican Party had as much to do with his loss as the financial crisis. Also underestimated are Obama’s superior organization, discipline, massive GOTV efforts in most of the fifty states, and that the country, already centrist-liberal except in name, has been trending more to the left for many years.

McCain got an expected uptick in the poll numbers following the Republican Convention, which is commonplace after any major party convention, but he was receding even before the banks and markets hit bottom in late September. In fact, except for McCain’s brief post-convention bounce, the individual poll margins had remained consistent since summer with Obama in the lead, as this chart shows:

CNN 6/26-6/29: Obama 50%, McCain 45%
CNN 7/27-7/29: Obama 51%, McCain 44%

CBS 7/7/-7/14: Obama 45%, McCain 39%
CBS 7/31-8/5: Obama 45%, McCain 39%

Ipsos 6/5-6/11: Obama 50%, McCain 43%
Ipsos 7/31-8/4: Obama 48%, McCain 42%

Time 6/19-6/25: Obama 47%, McCain 43%
Time 7/31-8/4: Obama 46%, McCain 41%

Pew 6/18-6/29: Obama 48%, McCain 40%
Pew 7/23-7/27: Obama 47%, McCain 42%

NBC/Wall Street Journal 6/6-6/9: Obama 47%, McCain 41%
NBC/Wall Street Journal 7/18-7/21: Obama 47%, McCain 41%

(Hat tip to Rich Gallagher of Fishkill, NY, who compiled and posted these numbers at Altercation, Aug. 8, 2008.)

Obama-Biden popular vote percentage: 52.3%

McCain-Palin popular vote percentage: 46.2%

Obama-Biden electoral vote total: 365

McCain-Palin electoral vote total: 173

(Final numbers from FiveThirtyEight.com.)

November 3, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Final Election Prediction Edition

Note: The figure following the state name indicates its number of electoral votes.

First off, let’s stipulate that McCain-Palin should carry Idaho (4), Kansas (6), Nebraska (5), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Utah (5), West Virginia (5) and Wyoming (3) for a total of 49 electoral votes.

Obama-Biden should win Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), New Jersey (15), New York (31), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington D.C. (3) for a total of 110 electoral votes.

Here’s a breakdown of the remaining states:

Alabama (9): McCain. In the tank for McPalin, but some Congressional districts could switch to the D column.

Alaska (3): McCain, barely. Palin’s stomping ground will probably tip to McCain, but GOP Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young will be on the outs.

Arizona (10): Obama by a fingertip. Amazingly, Obama is only one point behind on McCain’s home turf and surging. A quarter of the state’s population are people who have arrived since McCain last ran for office in 2004, and most aren’t voting Republican. I’m giving this one to Obama in the upset of the night.

Arkansas (6): McCain. It’s something in the water down there, which will soon be owned by billionaire T. Boone Pickens, if they aren’t careful.

California (55): Obama. Gov. Musclehead notwithstanding, this is a state as deep indigo as a new pair of blue jeans; the only question is if Obama wins by more than a 20-point margin. Look for some GOP congress-critters to bite the dust, including David Dreier, Mary Bono and Satan’s Apprentice Darrell Issa.

Colorado (9): Obama. The home of the USAF Academy and countless right-wing evangelical churches, also features a large contingent of retired celebrities, progressive libs, Rocky Mountain high guys, and Hispanics. The state’s been trending cerulean; this year it will go the whole route.

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October 30, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Obama Infomercial Seals the Deal Edition

While the Tattler doesn’t usually like the kind of wan-music-in-the-background soft emotional porn of the ‘Oprah-ized’ infomercial, Obama’s half-hour spot Wednesday night avoided most of the worst aggravations of this TV cliché, especially the forlorn solo piano music sound track with flourishes of swelling strings redolent of tacky video matchmaking and cancer treatment center ads.

It featured battleground-state stereotypes – a laid-off white male Ford Motors worker, a Latina woman trying to make ends meet, an elderly black couple hampered by chronic illness and worried about the future, et al — struggling with life in Bush’s downsized economy, but at least the people were real and their stories didn’t sink into cheesy Lifetime-channel melodrama; Obama’s interspersions in office surroundings reminiscent of Camp David were obviously intended to make the Low-and-Slow-Information-Voters of Middle America, awaiting the ballgame, feel comfortable with him as president, which was the main point of this smart $4 million investment.

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October 10, 2008

The Tattlesnake – The Turn of the Screwed Edition

And Other Worms in the GOP Apple…

Obama just made two very smart moves:

1.) Buying a half-hour of TV primetime on the Wednesday before the election. If he plays it right, this will be like a presidential address ahead of the election, making any part of America that still has doubts comfortable with Obama in the Oval Office. Better yet, he won’t have Grandpa Crank or a moderator to step on his message, and McCain doesn’t have the cash to buy a half-hour of his own.

2.) Setting a trap for McCain by telling ABC’s Charlie Gibson “…[W]e’ve been seeing some pretty over-the-top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days that he wasn’t willing to say it to my face. But I guess we’ve got one last debate. So presumably, if he ends up feeling that he needs to, he will raise it during the debate.” Biden also called McCain out for his Ayers-Rezko-Wright malarkey. This painted McCain into a corner: If in the Oct. 15th debate he doesn’t respond to the challenge and bring up the nasty personal attacks his campaign has been making, he risks appearing like a wimp to his own supporters; if he does, he looks like a petty jerk and takes the chance of Obama not only skillfully dispensing with the slurs, but also sticking it to McCain on the Keating Five, lobbyist Vicki Iseman, McCain’s campaign manager and lobbyist Rick Davis, Watergate crazy man G. Gordon Liddy, and McCain’s ties to the anti-Semitic and racist U.S. Council for World Freedom. Obama could rightfully point out that his casual connection to Ayers-Rezko-Wright never cost the taxpayers a dime; McCain’s association with the Keating Five and lobbyists Iseman and Davis, on the other hand, cost the public billions.

Surprise! Sarah Palin’s hired Munchkins up in Alaska just found her innocent in the Troopergate affair on Thursday, one day ahead of the release of the official report, ’cause that’s just the way we do business up here in the Great White North, buster.

Ya know, I betcha Palin’s whole ‘moose hunter and sport fisher’ thing is just a buncha staged photo-ops to enhance her Alaska political career and she never drank a six-pack in her life. (Gotta watch that figure, dere!) I’ve met women who hunt and fish and they don’t have long, beautifully-manicured fingernails of the type Sarah the Terror has had since her first beauty pageant. (In fact, it would be impossible to keep their nails like that and still do such things as ‘field dress a moose.’) This is like the Bush Boy putting on a Stetson hat and pretending to be a real Texas cowboy — the man is terrified of horses!

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October 4, 2008

The Tattlesnake – The Reverse Bradley Effect Edition

You remember the so-called Bradley Effect? That was named after former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley when he ran for Governor of California in 1982. Although ahead in late polling, Bradley, who happens to be black, lost to the white guy, Republican George Deukmejian. Pollsters believed that many white people they polled claimed they’d vote for Bradley, so as not to be perceived as racists, and then privately voted for Deukmejian.

This year, I think I’ve discovered a ‘Reverse Bradley Effect’; a few weeks ago, I was talking to a 30-something woman who has family and friends of all colors working in Big Box stores such as Walmart. She said these folks were being subtly intimidated into saying they’ll vote for McCain, and she mentioned an incident where one of the Blue Vest Brigade made the mistake of putting an Obama-Biden sticker on her car bumper. Suddenly she was handed the worst duties, treated dismissively by the manager, threatened with a write-up for nothing, and the Obama sticker was rendered illegible by indelible marker while her car was parked in the store lot. Then an absurdly fallacious gossip campaign started that claimed she was a drunken atheist who beat her kids. Employees got the message: Come out for Obama and the Top Management, all in the tank for the Republicans, will make your life miserable, but in devious ways that can’t be traced to your political leanings.

These days, her relatives and buddies tell anyone who asks they’re voting for McCain but, when they enter the voting booth, they plan to check the box for Obama. I wonder how many similar events are going on out in the Vast Wasteland of Generica and what effect this might be having on the polls?

With Indiana teetering Blue for the first time since 1964, and McCain’s campaign giving up on Michigan’s 17 electoral votes and running on empty in Ohio – recent reports of early voting in Columbus show that the Obama team got their people out to vote while the disorganized McCainiacs were snoozing – it appears Obama is poised to make a clean sweep of the Bush-battered Rust Belt states from Minnesota to Pennsylvania, including Iowa and Missouri, a net gain of 128 electoral votes. If that happens, it’s landslide city – Obama will win by over 300 electoral votes.

October 3, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Biden-Palin a Snoozer Edition

Ho-Hum Debate: The much-ballyhooed Biden-Palin exchange of stump speeches disguised as a debate came off as a fairly bland affair. No big gaffes, no sizzling language, nothing but the same-old Talking Points we’ve all heard before. Full Disclosure: I only watched the last half of the ‘debate’ last night — the rest I recorded – and I checked the endless replays of the ‘highlights’ today. Just two thoughts:

1.) I never noticed before how truly phony is Sarah Palin. Up to last night, I regarded her as just a naïf out of her element, a high school player accidentally sent up to the Big Show. Not now; what I saw in the debate was a calculating hick, a two-faced Lonesome Rhodes “Face in the Crowd” type, who, I wouldn’t be surprised, probably muttered something like “That oughta hold those dumb bastards” when she was safely off stage. It was all there: The cornball “Gosh, golly, gee” patois, the overcooked Church-Lady-Meets-Lily-Tomlin’s-phone-operator voice, the cutesy winks, the camera mugging, the self-satisfied smile. It makes her even more dangerous than she was before; Junior with a craftier brain.

2.) In their post-debate commentary, MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, the Politico’s Roger Simon and the Other Usual Media Miscreants once again strained credulity by attempting to speak for the Working Class out there in the Fly-Over Country of the Midwest. These guys inhabit offices in New York and Washington – besides the building doorman or the valet who parks their luxury car, how many actual members of the hourly-wage Drone Culture do they really know? In their omniscient view of the Biden-Palin encounter, Palin was likable and sharp and those downtrodden Soccer-Hockey Moms out there counting quarters to do the laundry were sure to swallow her guff whole-hog and rally to the GOP. Victory for Palin! Then Todd started running through the poll numbers from independent voters showing they thought Biden won – he didn’t really have an explanation for why Mr. and Mrs. Joe Six-Pack didn’t buy the adorable Palin’s pandering guff as predicted; it was just one of those, shrug, anomalies. Hint to Chuck and Company: I live out in that part of America you think you know so well; I can’t find anyone – not a single person — who likes Palin, even after her cynical performance last night.

Rating: Pretty flaccid on both sides and nothing memorable happened. Biden won it on points by a hair, mainly because he, ya know, actually knew things; Palin was all empty Talking Points and gushy BS; she didn’t do McCain’s campaign any good.

September 30, 2008

The Tattlesnake – McCain Failin’ ’08 Edition

Or, The Rake and Raquel Drop Down the Well

You Can’t Make This Up: Sarah Palin blows the two interviews she has with CBS’ Katie Couric, so she comes back for a rematch bringing her Grandpa John to help out. In-frigging-credible. Palin already looks lame, so you make her appear even lamer by sticking McCain in there for another sit-down with Katie? Whose idea was it to put that on the air? Is Grandpa going to go onstage and hold her hand during Thursday’s debate with Biden, too?

McCain also invoked what was perhaps one of the dumber ripostes in a campaign festooned with them when he accused an average voter, asking a question of Palin about attacking terrorist camps in Pakistan, of playing the ‘Gotcha’ game. So now asking St. Sarah about anything to which she gives the wrong answer is playing ‘Gotcha’? Should be an interesting debate Thursday – “Uh, that question you just asked me about borrowing money from China is a ‘Gotcha’ question and I don’t answer ‘Gotcha’ questions, sir.”

Latest Big Media Euphemisms for McCain’s Lies and Flip-Flops, collected over the past couple of weeks from various sources: “His position has evolved,” “He’s finding a new mechanism to present his case,” “He’s altering his message,” “He’s appealing to the Republican base,” “He’s responding to change by changing,” “He’s proving his maverick streak,” “He’s reforming his position on the issue,” “He’s looking for the right message here,” “He’s fine tuning his message to the base.”

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September 29, 2008

The Tattlesnake – McCain’s Bonfire of the Inanities Edition

The ‘Stop Making Sense’ Campaign Just Did

“Never mistake motion for action.”
– Ernest Hemingway

In one of the topsy-turvy, fun-house-mirror aspects of this election, the hypothetically conservative Palin-McCain bid for the White House is being run as the most post-rational, incoherent, chaotic, image-driven, short attention span, non-factual, theatrical, emotional, ‘truthiness’-spewing political campaign in our history, worthy of the amorphous meanderings of a liberal French deconstructionist or a parody of reactionary outrage by Stephen Colbert.

Sure, we know that the Bush neocons like to create their own reality and let the rest of us catch up but, eventually, as has happened to King Junior, reality does come thundering down — as it has in Iraq, in Katrina, in our economy — where it can’t be ignored anymore, but the wildly lurching Palin-McCain extravaganza has decided to tempt fate and test the limits of the public gag reflex one more time by resurrecting every sordid, dishonest battering of reason and civility that Atwater and Rove have ever dreamed up.

Like the TV show “Seinfeld,” it is really a campaign about nothing: McCain’s economic policies – cut taxes and wait for a miracle – are a sour joke that we are feeling the punch line to as BushCo asks for a $700 billion bailout for trying the same thing; McCain’s phony Surge – which was really mostly just bribing the warlords to keep quiet — has worked successfully to keep our combat forces tied down in Iraq with no end in sight; his health care proposals will actually cost middle-class families more money for health insurance, and on and on it goes. Slip the rug out from under the rubes and call it real conservatism while you soften the fall of your rich cronies with golden parachutes – McCain should more accurately use the campaign slogan, ‘Country Club First.’

That McCain, a man who once campaigned against the interference of religion in secular politics, signed on as his Veep pick a born-again Christian zealot who knows more about the Rapture than she does the world she lives in and wears her narrow-minded ignorance and screwball religious beliefs as a badge of pride, to cynically solidify his hold on what remains of the Republican base says more about the current corrupt state of his character than five years in a POW camp in North Vietnam thirty-five years ago.

So, this is the shell game McCain and Palin are running: It’s not about what he or she would do as president or vice president – that’s archaic thinking — but rather the two-word message and the photo-op – McCain putting ‘Country First’ by suspending his campaign, yet still airing ads and keeping his campaign offices open, and jetting to Washington to appear for the cameras as if he’s already president, supposedly to deal with our economic crisis that he helped create and still doesn’t fully understand. That he just sat on his hands with no real authority is a reality trumped by the man-in-motion image – or so his Rove-trained advisors hope. There’s Palin, now appearing in several interviews and displaying her keen memory for brief neocon clichés and homey aphorisms provided by her handlers, but little grasp of what she’s babbling about, culminating in the low spot of her performance thus far, appearing in frothy TV talk-show spots with Hamid Karzai, Bush’s installed president of Afghanistan; a bulbous and lethargic Henry Kissinger, and a bemused President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, wondering if this insipid woman will help him get more foreign aid if he cooperates. She discussed babies with Karzai, emitted vacuous platitudes with Uribe, and flattered Kissinger’s obese ego in his blubbery senility. (Perhaps, for a fleeting moment, he thought he was dating Jill St. John again.) She increased her knowledge not one iota, but she ‘knows’ world leaders – see we have pictures!

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September 17, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Pondering Political Ponderables Edition

– If McCain and Palin are such maverick reformers, why haven’t they quit the corrupt Republican Party?

– Why doesn’t Obama, Biden or the Big Media ever mention that McCain’s tax cuts are going to directly benefit John and Cindy McCain, worth over $100 million? Meanwhile, under Obama’s tax increase for those making over $250,000 per year, the Obama’s would be paying more in taxes, since they’re worth about $4 mil. Who is really putting country first here ahead of their personal interest?

– Is McPalin actually trying to say that we are going to cure our current economic crisis by continuing to do the same things that caused it? Listen to them closely; yes, they are, only they are going to appoint a panel to study it.

– If the McCain-Palin ticket has so energized the Republican base, how come there are so many glum faces among the party hacks assembled behind them at campaign stops?

– Who do the McCain handlers think this ‘deference and respect’ for Palin nonsense is playing to – ‘dissed’ working-class women who shop at Walmart? Think again – it reminds them of their hated country-club bosses. Uh, not to be disrespectful of the Ice Princess Moose-Killer or anything, but they are making her sound like a tinhorn Queen Victoria. Was this the best Frank Luntz could come up with to cover her alarming ignorance?

– Speaking of the Thrilla From Wasilla, she’s fading in popularity now that the public has gotten a good look at her — why doesn’t McCain replace her with Tina Fey? She’s funnier and more talented than the original, and most Republicans would never know the difference, as long as Tina didn’t slip up and tell the truth.

– Who’s dumber: ‘First Dude’ Todd “How’d You Get Pregnant Again So Quick?” Palin or McCain ‘advisor’ Carly “I Nearly Destroyed HP and They Paid Me $20 Million to Go Away!” Fiorina?

– Laughable: Following yesterday’s Wall Street meltdown, some Republican half-wit on one of the cable news channels that isn’t Fox said, without irony, “There’s a danger here we might slip into a recession.”

– Laughable Deux: Did I hear Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson just praise Bush’s economic programs today? Yes, I did. And did he really tell us all to “remain calm”? Yes, calm in the Kevin Bacon at the end of ‘Animal House’ sense, right before he was flattened into the sidewalk.

– Laughable III: If Sarah Palin’s husband Todd is Alaska’s ‘First Dude’ does that mean we can call her the ‘First Chick’? (Or would that be the ‘First Dudette’?)

– Laughable the Fourth: Is it true Sarah Palin’s kids actually hate hockey?

– Laughable de Cinco: The Obama camp should start referring to McCain as ‘Republican John Sidney McCain the Third’ and Palin as ‘Republican Gov. Vinnie Barbarino.’ Of course, Sen. John Blutarsky and Gov. Hockey Rink to Nowhere are possibilities as well.

– Finally, Obama in Elko, Nevada, Sept. 17th, and I wrote this down fast so every word may not be verbatim: “McCain says he’s going after the old boys network in Washington … the thing is, the old boys network in Washington is called a McCain campaign staff meeting.” Ha, ha, keep punching, Barack, they’re on the ropes and McCain’s no Ali.

September 15, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Special Who Said It? Quiz Edition

No cheating with ‘the Google,’ now. Answers below the fold.

1. “My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who … God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian … I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. … Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.”

A. Sarah Palin at her Juneau Church last June.
B. James Dobson at the Focus on the Family Summit last week.
C. Rev. Sun Myung Moon in 1979.
D. Adolf Hitler in 1922.

2. “I am prepared and need no on-the-job training. I wasn’t a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn’t a governor for a short period of time.”

A. Joe Biden in a Democratic primary debate in December 2007.
B. John Kerry to Newsweek, 2003.
C. Newt Gingrich on Fox News, April 2006.
D. John McCain in a GOP primary debate, October 2007.

3. “If the real thing don’t do the trick, you better make up something quick.”

A. Karl Rove to political science students at Liberty University in 2006.
B. Richard Nixon to John Ehrlichman in the Oval Office, May 2004.
C. From the lyrics to Huey Long’s 1930 campaign song “A Chicken in Every Pot.”
D. From the lyrics to Heart’s song “Barracuda,” played to close out the 2008 Republican Convention.

4. “No, I’m not going to define it.” [After being asked to define 'honor.']

A. Richard Nixon in a press conference, October 1973.
B. Barack Obama on NBC’s The Today Show, October 2007.
C. John McCain in an interview with Time Magazine, August 2008.
D. Rudy Giuliani in an interview with The New Yorker in 2005.

5. “The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. … And I won’t be buried under their damn flag.”

A. Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a sermon, June 2006.
B. Joe Vogler, founder of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party.
C. Barack Obama’s father in 1962.
D. Saddam Hussein in June 2003.

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September 5, 2008

The Tattlesnake — An Ad Obama Should Run Immediately Edition

But Probably Won’t…

Spot Title: ‘Community Service’

IMAGES: Montage of candy stripers helping senior citizens and feeding disabled vets; volunteers serving food at a disaster relief shelter, piling up sandbags during a flood, handing groceries to a family at a food pantry.

VOICE-OVER: “Every day, all over America, volunteers willingly give up their free time to help their fellow citizens, a proud tradition of helping others that has made America great…”

CUT TO IMAGES & AUDIO: Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin snickering over Obama’s community service at the GOP convention.

V.O.: “Yet, to hear the Republican Party, their selfless efforts to help their fellow Americans and that tradition of aiding those in need is only worthy of snide laughter…”

CUT TO IMAGE: Ask the Republican Party – what do they have against community service?

V.O.: “Ask the Republican Party – what do they have against community service?”

CUT TO IMAGES OF OBAMA & BIDEN

V.O.: “Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe in service to America – not only in Washington, but in local communities across the land. They believe this country was built on Americans helping other Americans. Why does the Republican Party have a problem with this?”

CUT TO IMAGE: Elect Obama-Biden in 2008 – if you believe in helping America.

If Obama doesn’t run an ad like this soon, and make it a regular talking point, Thom Hartmann will be right – the GOP will paint community service as some kind of far-left liberal tripe to be snickered at.

September 1, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Palin’s Failin’s, Luntz’s Futzes, and Other Random GOP Goop Edition

More On Sarah Palin: Nico Pitney over to the Huff Post reports that Alaska’s Gov. Hockey Mom appeared on a shock jock’s radio show in Anchorage and laughed her head off when her opponent in the Alaska State Senate, Lyda Green, was called a “bitch” by the show’s host. The slammer was that she also cackled when the idiot-with-a-microphone referred to Green, a cancer survivor, as “a cancer” twice and joked about her weight. An op-ed in The Anchorage Daily News called Palin’s giggling, “one of the most unprofessional, childish and inexcusable performances I’ve ever seen from a politician.” Classy lady, that Sarah.

– Yet More Palin: Whatever facts shake out regarding her firing of the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner for allegedly failing to dismiss a state trooper who went through an acrimonious divorce from her sister in 2005, Palin, like most Republicans, doesn’t seem to see that there is a glacier-sized conflict of interest here: She should have encouraged an investigation into his conduct and then left it to her AG or other independent body to prosecute the case. For that matter, if the guy beat his ex-wife, was drunk on the job and abused his son, as Palin has claimed, why wasn’t he arrested? (Many of Palin’s complaints have been dismissed after further investigation.) That she didn’t recuse herself from the case entirely shows she has no respect for, or knowledge of, how the law works, and we’ve had enough of that in the Executive Branch in the past eight long years. (BTW, Palin originally recommended this guy for the trooper job when she was Mayor of Wasilla. Judgment?)

– Soon to Be Breaking News: Something nasty will rise to the top regarding Palin’s close connections to large energy corporations – she’s the only so-far unindicted major Republican in the state and, contrary to Old Man McCain’s guff, she didn’t get there by being a ‘reformer.’ (Her ‘reforms’ were mainly just dumping her political enemies.) In Alaska, if you’re a GOP politician, you make the deal with Energy Money to move into the Big Leagues. This will be enough to sink the USS Maverick once as for all, as his ‘judgment’ is revealed to stink on ice (not much of a pun intended).

– Flanders? Palin calls her good Christopublican, Iron Dog racer husband Todd the ‘First Dude.’ Isn’t that cute and endearing? Gee, at least she’ll bring dignity to the vice presidency.

– ALPO Update: The AP reports that both Bush and Cheney have now pulled out of the GOP-O-Rama in St. Paul entirely. Seems someone realized that being visually associated with the most loathed president and vice president in our history is maybe not the best thing for Republicans this year. Instead, the hapless Junior will be down in Texas ‘monitoring’ Hurricane Gustav (read ‘vacationing’); and Deadeye Dick is on a four-day jaunt to Europe, including a drop-by in Georgia (uh oh). Incidentally, McCain’s handlers have decided to curtail the Republican convention activities from four hours a day to two, purportedly due to deference for the possible victims of Gustav, but really it’s likely because they didn’t think they could dredge up much of an audience the Right’s Last Rites. This speaks volumes about what terrible shape the GOP is in; no wonder Rep. Tom Davis III (R-VA), in a rare flash of honesty, told CNN last May: “The Republican brand is in the trash can. If we were dog food, they would take us off the shelf.”

(more…)

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