Public Service

Republicans have gone from championing a thousand points of light to recommending faith-based initiatives to haw haw haw Obama worked for a Catholic social service agency, what a retard, all in one short 20 year span.

Rush Transcript

Governor Palin, you've been very busy these last 18 months running the state of Alaska. Do you have any regrets about not having enough time to be a mother, guiding Bristol through her difficult transition to womanhood? What do you say to those who think mothers should spend more time with their families?

—from the forthcoming Barbara Walters interview

Juneau Rhymes with Juno

News that Sarah Palin's daughter is five months pregnant confirms a growing suspicion that Northern Exposure was actually a docudramedy.

Any Lobster in a Storm

The vaunted Medium Lobster returns to Fafblog, channeling Baron Samedi.

Welcome to the Official Beginning of the Race for the Presidency: on you marks, . . .

Let's throw out the first officially false rumor of the Presidential Campaign Season, which traditionally begins (you thought it had begun already? HAH! That was just the exhibition season [O.K., O.K., two years is a long exhibition season, but it's over so put all that complaining aside for all the fresh Presidential campaign complaining to come]) on the Labor Day weekend before the election in November. Mere weeks to go before the voters choose a new President or the Supreme Court choses one for them.

I want to be the one to spread the baseless rumor that Dianne Feinstein was on the top of John McCain's short list for Vice President for weeks. She "broke her ankle" and couldn't attend the Democratic Convention, but that was a ruse, according to this nonce, just a ploy to get away and give her people more time to negotiate with McCain's team over what exactly the role of vice president is in the post-Cheney era.

McCain/Feinstein! It would have been the Unity ticket for the ages! The comity of it! Democrat and Republican coming together for the good of the country, surrounded by CEO's singing Kumbaya all hand-in-hand with Beltway pundits and cable news anchors! Charley Rose and Joe Leiberman and Jack Welch publicly kissing each other's ass, as ever! Broderella ascending in a puffy cloud of hosannahs into the heavens! Unity!

But no, some sticking point in the protracted negotiation bogged things down, it says here. How many troops can the Vice President deploy of her own free will in the post-Cheney era, anyhow? Isn't the vice presidency now, Byzantinely, after Cheney, the place where the Grand Vizier sets up shop, the Vice President now the one who runs things for the acknowledged figurehead of a leader?

Of course the canny Feinstein wanted to see how much of that role might still apply post-Cheney. How much of a deputy and how much of an executive substitute would she be? What exactly was she being offered?

Naturally a transcript of the Feinstein/McCain team hashing out these questions doesn't survive, but it is rumored that John McCain took Ambien three nights in a row during this period before announcing ferociously early this past Thursday morning, "Aw, fuck, it, I'm going with Palin! PAAAA-LIN! PAAAAA-LIN!!! HAAAHAAAAHAAA!" to a startled housekeeper.

The negotiations with Feinstein dithered to a stop, and Palin, no more bothered than the average American by thoughts of what it is a vice president is supposed to be, accepted McCain's sudden offer immediately.

It says here.

Happily, No!

So the smart move here would be to largely ignore her and focus the attention on McCain.

— Brad at Sadly, No

Happily, no.

The smart move for the Obama campaign won't be to ignore Palin at all, but to let it be Joe Biden's ongoing role to savage John McCain, and Hillary Clinton's ongoing role to savage Sarah Palin: Joe ignores her, goes after McCain, Hillary does a hit and run campaign of ads and personal appearances attacking Palin's politics, one glaring example at a time. Sarah Palin argues with Hillary, John McCain argues with Joe Biden, Obama takes the ball and heads for the basket untouched.

You don't rule the rhetoric of a campaign by ignoring what's served up by your opponent. You rule the rhetoric by dominating the conversation at every turn, e.g. turning what is utterly ridiculous in your opponent immediately into a lot of utter ridicule: the idea that Sarah Palin is experienced in foriegn affairs because, you know, look how close Alaska is to Russia, deserves the thousand flowers of ridicule thrown its way.

Hillary Clinton has every reason to be personally insulted when Sarah Palin baldly claims to be just the woman to continue the Hillary's historic campaign. Senator Clinton plainly owns a deeply held vision of social justice for women utterly opposed by everything Sarah Palin stands for. She can be an invaluable voice for the Obama campain if she's let loose on Palin.

I'm hoping the Obama campaign doesn't treat her the way the Gore campaign treated her husband during the 2000 campaign, but instead gives her the oportunity to represent. The Republicans need to be given the bum's rush, and if it takes all the leading lights of the Democratic Party to do the job, so be it.

"All I can say is, I am blessed to have the opportunity to continue to be part of a country where you can succeed and do well."

 


Here John McCain gives due credit to his wife Cindy's father in a general sort of way, without actually naming the fellow, who, after coming back from WWII, amassed a huge personal fortune in Arizona. He's the one, Cindy McCain's dad, who actually achieved the Republican wet dream of a successful business John McCain now has the good fortune to be attached to. So when McCain says he's blessed here, he's acknowledging his own success at advantageously positioning himself among the luxuries permitted by the achievements of another fellow, which is good Republican work in any age.

You can succeed and do well. And a Republican can take grateful advantage, like a remora. Way of the world, my friends. Ask John McCain.