Sunday Quotationary

"Carne asada is not a crime."

Huh?

Great moments in Sarah Palin speaking engagements:

If we can be that beacon of light and hope for others who seek freedom and democracy and can live in a country that would allow intolerance in the equal rights that again our military men and women fight for and die for for all of us.

Someone, please tell me what she’s trying to say here.

Thank you.

Menace To Freedom

Bob Herbert’s column today is a must-read.

Especially this part:

In her closing remarks at the vice-presidential debate Thursday night, Ms. Palin referred earnestly, if loosely, to a quote from Ronald Reagan. He had warned that if Americans weren’t vigilant in protecting their freedom, they would find themselves spending their “sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.”

What Ms. Palin didn’t say was that the menace to freedom that Reagan was talking about was Medicare. As the historian Robert Dallek has pointed out, Reagan “saw Medicare as the advance wave of socialism, which would ‘invade every area of freedom in this country.’ ”

Does Ms. Palin agree with that Looney Tunes notion? Or was this just another case of the aw-shucks, darn-right, I’m-just-a-hockey-mom governor of Alaska mouthing something completely devoid of meaning?

Herbert rightly points out that in this age of “truthiness,” what should be a huge gaffe is completely unnoticed by the media at large.

No one will call Sarah Palin on this because people are too focused on things like her glasses and haircut and the size of her flag pin (gi-NORMOUS!) and her winks. No one is really examining the content of her words. The AARP should be up in arms about this but I wonder how many folks have even bothered to notice? It's all style over substance.

And that, to me, is a huge menace to freedom.

The War We Dare Not Speak Its Name

I thought the surge was supposed to be working :

20 dead as bombers strike at Shi'ite mosques in Iraq

Officials expect death toll to climb

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Suicide bombers targeting Shi'ite worshippers killed at least 20 people and injured dozens more at Baghdad mosques Thursday, officials said.

Both attacks took place as Shi'ites marked the first day of Eid, a three-day celebration that follows Ramadan, Islam's month of fasting.

Death tolls in the attacks probably will rise, officials said.

A suicide bomber strapped with explosives killed at least 12 worshippers and injured 25 as they left al-Rasoul mosque in Jadida, a largely Shi'ite district, police said. Officials described the bomber as a teenage male who detonated as guards were searching him near the gates of the mosque.

Bystanders were told not to help the wounded, said Mohammed Abu Mustafa, 45, who witnessed the blast. "The guards were shouting at people not to get close to the area because they feared there would be another explosion," he said.

Secondary explosions aimed at killing responders are common in Iraq.

Around the same time, at least eight people were killed and 10 injured in an attack in Zafaraniya, a neighborhood about 4 miles away. A suicide bomber driving a Mercedes-Benz packed with explosives is to blame, police said.

The bomber was trying to strike a Shi'ite mosque, officials said, but instead hit an Iraqi army vehicle parked in front of the mosque to protect worshippers.

My friends, this is not winning. This is an occupation bursting at the seams with violence. Caribou Barbie can say Obama refuses to admit the surge has worked all she wants, but when stuff like this is going on, he’s right to keep his mouth shut.

The media has stopped covering the war. You have to look for news on the war, and when you find it, it’s usually not good.

Joe Biden just sent his son off to Iraq. Sarah Palin sent her son last month. John McCain’s son is already serving there. This is unique for an election, and yet we don’t even talk about it.

No one wants to politicize the war but we can’t even talk about it except in the broadest of empty platitudes. That’s screwed up.

The war is still a burden on this country. It’s dragging us down economically and spiritually. And we won’t even talk about it.

Send Palin Packing

Last night was painful. Just, awful.

I’m sure conservatives who love Sarah Palin will continue to love Sarah Palin. She didn’t drool into her microphone (though the way her bangs moved every time she blinked her eyes was incredibly distracting), so count the evening a success for the governor of Alaska. With expectations that low, it would have been hard for anyone not to surpass them.

But she was clearly out of her league, overly coached and so unsure of her facts that she was forced to stick to pre-scripted talking points whether the question called for it or not. The one and only time Palin seemed confident and sure of herself was when talking about energy. The rest of the time she either lobbed GOP talking points, which Joe Biden effectively swatted down, or donned a folksy “golly gee willikers” persona that struck me as bizarre considering the gravitas of the job she's seeking.

For God’s sake, she winked at the camera. Twice. Three times.

At the vice presidential debate!

Is she running for vice president of the PTA or vice president of the nation? It was panic, pure and simple. Amy Poehler as Katie Couric put it beautifully on SNL when she said: "Forgive me, Mrs. Palin, but it seems to me when cornered you become increasingly adorable. Is that fair to say?"

Yes, that's it exactly. It's all a phony act. When unsure of herself her default is to fall back on this “I'm just regular folks” schtick. It’s such an obvious ploy--one we should all be familiar with, since President Bush has pulled that trick for eight years. It probably worked well for Palin in Wasilla, but it simply doesn’t play on the national stage. It makes her appear to lack substance.

OK, she does lack substance, which means her only selling point is the “outsider” cannard. Her argument seems to be: "Yeah I’m not as polished as someone who’s been in Congress for 20 years but that just proves I’m an outsider who is not entrenched in the ways of Washington. For example, I'm going to talk about whatever I want at a debate, regardless of what the questions may actually be."

Well, there are two problems with that argument. For one thing, her running mate has been in Congress for over 20 years. But more importantly, there’s a difference between being an outsider and being unqualified. She is simply unprepared for this job. We really don’t need another vice president who thinks Article I of the Constitution allows them to pick and choose which legislative branch they belong to depending on the subpoenas they’re facing.

Make no mistake, Sarah Palin is not stupid. But there’s a cold, calculating core to this woman that unnerves me. We’ve seen it in her habit of firing employees who disagree with her and surrounding herself with sycophants. She can try to cover it up with a folksy demeanor all she wants, but anyone who hasn’t drunk the Kool-Aid can see it.

Salon.com’s Joan Walsh picked up on something that I noticed, too:

The symbolic moment Palin flubbed was subjective, of course. But I instant-messaged a friend that she lost the debate when Biden choked up over losing his wife and child in a car accident in which his sons were critically injured -- and she went straight back into "John McCain is a maverick." I truly expected her to express human sympathy with Biden, and her failure to do so showed me something deeply wrong with her. But maybe that's just me.

No, Joan, it’s not you. I noticed it, too.

For all her “I’m just an ordinary American!” sales pitch, I don’t get the sense that Sarah Palin is running for the good of the country or to serve the American people. The concept of holding public office as a form of public service seems alien to her. What I do see is a woman who sees an opportunity to achieve career ambitions greater than she ever dared imagine. She’s in it for herself. This is her launching pad; regardless of what happens in November, the 2012 campaign is already underway.

Perish the thought.

Ralph Stanley 4 Obama

Bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley has endorsed Barack Obama. Check out the radio ad he cut:



Hey John Rich! Suck on this!

You Owe $175,000

I know that according to conservatives deficits don’t matter, so I guess no one should be alarmed that ours just topped $10 trillion.

Or more, if you do the math:



So, remind me why we want to keep these clowns in power for another four years?

(h/t, Andrew Sullivan)

Tennessee Rose

I realized it's been a while since I've done any garden blogging and with winter just around the corner, I'd better hop to it. This rose is from my garden; amazing what happens when you just add water, eh?

Joe Six Pack Need Not Apply

Sarah Palin was interviewed by conservative Hugh Hewitt on his radio show and was asked why so many people are appalled by her candidacy. Here’s the exchange:

Hewitt: Governor, your candidacy has ignited extreme hostility, even some hatred on the left and in some parts of the media. Are you surprised? And what do you attribute this reaction to?

Palin: Oh, I think they're just not used to someone coming in from the outside saying you know what? It's time that normal Joe six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency, and I think that that's kind of taken some people off guard, and they're out of sorts, and they're ticked off about it.

Excuse me but, duh. Where have you been for the past eight years? We’ve had Joe Six Pack in the Oval Office! This is not a job for regular people. We’ve had incompetent, unqualified “Brownies” and “Monicas” in charge of our government for the past eight years. Look where it got us.

We’ve learned our lesson. Give me the elite for a change. Please. Presidentin’ is hard work. So is Vice Presidentin’. I think if you’re going to hold one of these offices you should have at least been around long enough so that your name shows up in the 2001 Google index. For God’s sake, even my real name shows up in the 2001 Google index. How is it I had more of a public profile in 2001 than the person running for Vice President? Did this woman just come out of nowhere or what?

And here’s another word to the mainstream media: when I look at Sarah Palin I do NOT see myself. Let’s just put the kabosh on that ridiculous canard right now.

American Morans, V.3

When your opposition is this stupid, I'm not sure if we should be all that worried.

Noted a concerned neighbor:

"If you're going to attract attention, at least make sure your spelling is right," Rice added, referring to Lacasse's misspelling of the word "Muslim."

As a former copy editor, I couldn't agree more.