I’m in 100% agreement with David Broder :

“I thought the most damaging to the American people — both those living now and those yet unborn — was placing the entire cost of Bush’s ambitious, if not misguided, national security policy on the tiny fraction of American families with loved ones in the armed services.

Iraq and Afghanistan are the main fronts in the fourth major war of my lifetime, following World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and the first in which nothing was asked of the civilian population — no higher taxes, nothing to disrupt the comfort of daily life.

…

But in that moment [after 9/11], when the country was truly unified and the people were more than ready to sacrifice, Bush asked for . . . nothing. He spoke of the need for “patience” and “resolve,” but at a news conference at Camp David on Sept. 15, 2001, he was asked, “Sir, how much of a sacrifice are ordinary Americans going to have to be expected to make in their daily lives, in their daily routines?”

Bush’s first words were: “Our hope, of course, is that they make no sacrifice whatsoever. We would like to see life return to normal in America.”

…

Over the next few years, families of active-duty, National Guard and reserve volunteers sacrificed mightily in the form of repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and involuntary extensions of tours of duty, not to mention deaths and wounds by the thousands.

As for other Americans, as John McCain repeatedly noted last year, the only thing they were asked to do was “go shopping.”

I’m convinced that had he done more than this, had he called for a shared American sacrifice across the board 8 years ago - rekindling a common sense of national spirit not seen since World War II - he would be remembered as a far greater president today & in the future, even with the disasters of Katrina & Iraq.

He blew it.

FURTHER READING: Bob Woodward on the 10 lessons of the Bush Presidency any future president from any party would do well to heed.

Post from: The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08

Above: Erin Brockovich last week at the site of the Kingston, Tennessee coal ash spill (clip courtesy of the Knoxville News Sentinel).

[UPDATE/12:44pm: Obama will order a review of all coal ash dump sites.]

(photo: AP Photo/Greeenpeace, Wade Payne)

Brockovich recently wrote about her experiences in Roane County:

“This corner of Roane County Tennessee is off the beaten path. It is remote, distant from any main street and city noise. It is easy to see the beauty of rolling mountains, lakes, rivers, comfortable family homes. It is serene, a piece of heaven on earth. This was a safe place to raise kids, to teach them to fish and swim, to enjoy family and have barbecues or sit quietly to watch the sunset on warm summer nights. I could see why people live there. Over the past couple of weeks we have had the opportunity to speak with people about life both before December 22. Life in the Kingston/Harriman area was idyllic. It was a place people chose as their home. It was a place that, even if jobs took people away in their youth, they awaited the day they could return and did so as soon as possible. It is a beautiful place, with water bodies everywhere. There are green meadows laced among the waters. These shared memories come to life in the “before” photographs that residents showed us. The pictures show children diving from docks into the lake, people canoeing along the rivers, families tubing in the hot summer sun and children and their dogs walking along the shore. A favorite scene of many residents is the sunset over the water, with the soft nighttime colors glistening on the lake. It went from pristine to profaned overnight.”

She makes a lot of good points, but NewsChannel 9’s John Madewell, upon reading the piece, remarked on this passage:

“It struck me that I had an unusual taste on my lips and in my mouth. I asked others if they noticed that, and they did. Some experienced scratchy throats, respiratory problems, itchy and burning eyes and tasted what one expert believed to be sulfuric acid. If we were experiencing this much discomfort after a few minutes, what on earth are the people who live here feeling?”

John says, “I experienced this in both Roane County & every reporter in the newsroom has had a similar experience any time they cover either a fire or a hazardous materials story: we all suddenly get the itches, & have trouble breathing. It makes me wonder if that phenomenon is real, or psychosomatic.”

Roane County blogger Whites Creek chimes in:

“The families who are scared to death are mostly scared to death by erroneous reports by some environmental groups who, though they mean well and are working their hearts out, reported that the dirt and dust from the heavy truck traffic was Coal Ash…It wasn’t. People were frightened into hysteria, coughing, throwing up, and other reactions to near panic, when what they were reacting to did not even exist. it’s the exact same stuff that lies out there on my gravel driveway that I paid good money to have hauled in and spread out…Crusher run quarry gravel. No Coal Ash is being hauled by any of those trucks. It is all quarry material used in rebuilding the road and the weirs needed to contain the ash in the Emory and the cove.”

What do you think?

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Now this is just plain silly.

Does this guy deserve to be Senator?

Not from where I sit.

But Harry Reid et al are only accomplishing having the spotlight move from the pathetic Burris storyline to their own chamber, & fanning the flames of this story.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has a great post about the reasoning Burris & his supporters are using to justify his appointment:

Look, I say this as a black dude obviously concerned about race in this country. If you want a black senator go out and do the work to get yourself one. Build the organizations, build the fund-raising, do a black version of Emily’s List, if need be. At some point, you have to stop bitching about the track. You have to stop bitching about your hand-me-down spikes. At some point, you just have to go out and run. I have little tolerance for the racial grievances of upper-middle class blacks. Do for your damn self, and speak for your damn self.

& in a later post:

Blago is playing this dude like a fiddle. I found his legal arguments to be unpersuasive. Moreover, why Reid thinks telling people that the Senate decides who they’ll, seat and who they won’t, will play well, is beyond me.

What would be the harm of just letting him in, letting the air out of that particular balloon, & having everyone’s low expectations about Burris’ effectiveness realized through the every day business of the Senate?

Every vote he would cast would be cast under a cloud. The focus, though, remains on Burris/his supporters/Blagojevich. Not the dismal leadership qualities of Harry Reid.

Just sayin’.

What do you think?

P.S. You have seen this guy’s future tomb, right? Go check it out & get ready to roll your eyes.

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“How did we transform from champions of human dignity and individual rights into a nation of armchair torturers? One word: fear.

Fear is blinding, hateful, and vengeful. It makes the end justify the means. And why not? If torture can stop the next terrorist attack, the next suicide bomber, then what’s wrong with a little waterboarding or electric shock?

The simple answer is the rule of law. Our Constitution defines the rules that guide our nation. It was drafted by those who looked around the world of the eighteenth century and saw persecution, torture, and other crimes against humanity and believed that America could be better than that. This new nation would recognize that every individual has an inherent right to personal dignity, to justice, to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.

We have preached these values to the world. We have made clear that there are certain lines Americans will not cross because we respect the dignity of every human being. That pledge was written into the oath of office given to every president, “to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.” It’s what is supposed to make our leaders different from every tyrant, dictator, or despot. We are sworn to govern by the rule of law, not by brute force.

We cannot simply suspend these beliefs in the name of national security. Those who support torture may believe that we can abuse captives in certain select circumstances and still be true to our values. But that is a false compromise. We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don’t. There is no middle ground.

We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances. We are better than that.”

-Leon Panetta, the man chosen by Barack Obama to head the CIA, writing in Washington Monthly last year.

As someone put it today, “This is a good day for America’s soul.”

FURTHER READING: Marc Ambinder on Panetta’s greatest challenges.

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The EPA says today that arsenic levels downstream from the Kingston coal ash spill are 149 times the federally accepted level.

This whole story has added quite a disturbing element to the new year, particularly since I live downstream.

We have a web poll up on NewsChannel9.com’s main page (which I wrote) that asks if you trust TVA to give you full truth about the extent of the damage.

Guess what a majority is saying?

(UPDATE: the poll’s now closed. 82% of you said you don’t trust the TVA.)

And if you prefer to sleep soundly at night, I highly recommend not looking at this site, which goes into great detail (& is well-sourced) about all the chemicals that are in the coal ash mix.

(shudder)

Also: Erin Brockovich says she’s on the way.

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(keep repeating clip 2 as you watch clips 1 & 3).

Click here to view the embedded video.

(h/t Kim Fields for the idea)

Click here to view the embedded video.

(click here for details on the story in case you haven’t heard)

Post from: The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08

Read the report here (PDF file).

The gist:

WASHINGTON (AP) - An internal review prepared for President-elect Barack Obama says his incoming chief of staff had multiple conversations with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s office, but no one close to Obama suspected that the governor might be trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat as prosecutors allege.
The report was released Tuesday as an Obama transition official confirmed that Obama and two of his top aides, Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett, have been interviewed in connection with the federal investigation into Blagojevich.
Incoming White House attorney Greg Craig, who conducted the internal review at Obama’s request, found that the president-elect had no contact with Blagojevich or any of his staff about the Senate seat he vacated to take over the presidency.

Post from: The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08

Above: Rod Blagojevich quotes Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” (about 1:22 in).

David Brooks, on Friday’s PBS NewsHour:

“..to me, the emotional highlight, he said all this stuff, and then he quotes Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “If,” which is, if you’re being hated, you don’t give in to hate. If people are lying about you, but you don’t get into lies, keep your head…

And, you know, I am a devotee of grandiosity, and so I expected maybe Santayana, Lord Acton, but if you’ve risen to the level of Rudyard Kipling, in my book — and the theme of that poem is he’s the only honest man. Well, there’s one honest person; everyone else is going crazy.

And so if he thinks he’s the only honest man, I give him an A-plus for grandiosity and bellicose poetry. I was thinking we were on the glide path to Dylan Thomas, you know, don’t go gently into the night. So I thought it was a pretty grand, eloquent performance, and I would say completely unconvincing.”

Post from: The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08

Above: an ad from the Republican National Committee attempting to tie Barack Obama to the Rod Blagojevich scandal.

Newt Gingrich was not pleased. Read his rip-roaring response, in full, after the jump.

“I was saddened to learn that at a time of national trial, when a president-elect is preparing to take office in the midst of the worst financial crisis in over seventy years, that the Republican National Committee is engaged in the sort of negative, attack politics that the voters rejected in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles.

The recent web advertisement, “Questions Remain,” is a destructive distraction. Clearly, we should insist that all taped communications regarding the Senate seat should be made public. However, that should be a matter of public policy, not an excuse for political attack.

In a time when America is facing real challenges, Republicans should be working to help the incoming President succeed in meeting them, regardless of his Party.

From now until the inaugural, Republicans should be offering to help the President-elect prepare to take office.

Furthermore, once President Obama takes office, Republicans should be eager to work with him when he is right, and, when he is wrong, offer a better solution, instead of just opposing him.

This is the only way the Republican Party will become known as the “better solutions” party, not just an opposition party. And this is the only way Republicans will ever regain the trust of the voters to return to the majority.

This ad is a terrible signal to be sending about both the goals of the Republican Party in the midst of the nation’s troubled economic times and about whether we have actually learned anything from the defeats of 2006 and 2008.

The RNC should pull the ad down immediately.”

Gingrich is right.

& not because the relationship between Obama’s transition team & its ties to Blagojevich shouldn’t be investigated; far from it. & I’ve not seen a) any indication that the Obama team is stonewalling the release of any/all information or b) any kind of evidence of any wrongdoing regarding the open Illinois Senate seat. You can count on me to squawk if I do.

I suppose this becomes the knee-jerk reaction for the GOP; the ghost of Lee Atwater is alive & well. But it’s also, at the moment, quite tone-deaf. It may be necessary for a further, more blatant & damaging misstep for those in the GOP who are chomping at the bit to bring Obama down for them to get the message that most of the country doesn’t want to hear the same ol’ same ol’ attacks right now.

What do you think?

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It sort of makes more sense to me now.

From Gawker:

“In 1980, a vacationing Rod Blagojevich camped in front of Richard Nixon’s home, with a friend, until the pariah ex-president emerged and this picture was taken.”

…

Just before he was arrested, Blago told reporters, “Those who feel like they want to sneakily and wear taping devices… I would remind them that it kind of smells like Nixon and Watergate.””

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Note this quote in the above exchange from Vice President Dick Cheney in an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl:

KARL: Did you authorize the tactics that were used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

CHENEY: I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency, in effect, came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn’t do. And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it.

That’s not true, according to last week’s bipartisan Senate report (PDF file) on the topic:

“In December 2001, more than a month before the President signed his memorandum, the Department of Defense (DoD) General Counsel’s Office had already solicited information on detainee “exploitation” from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), an agency whose expertise was in training American personnel to withstand interrogation techniques considered illegal under the Geneva Conventions.”

They were trying to figure out how to torture prisoners before any prisoners existed.

George Packer says we need to make sure this vast strategic mistake isn’t repeated:

“The official sanction of torture and the woeful management of occupied Iraq are related pieces of a much larger epic: the first is marked by criminality, the second by bureaucratic ineptitude, but they are joined together as expressions and outcomes of the ideas and habits of mind of the highest officials in the Bush Administration.

Eventually the country will need, even if it won’t entirely want, the whole story to be told. The best way to tell it would be to reproduce the 9/11 Commission—to convene a single bipartisan panel, with the authority to look into the conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and of the war on terror, and give the panel full investigative power, even if its conclusions put some of the principals in legal jeopardy.

The next Administration and the next Congress will have to decide whether it’s worth the agony to look back. The agony will be worse, sooner or later, if we don’t.”

& Glenn Greenwald decries the lack of coverage this story has gotten:

“Just ponder the uproar if, in any other country, the political parties joined together and issued a report documenting that the country’s President and highest aides were directly responsible for war crimes and widespread detainee abuse and death. Compare the inevitable reaction to such an event if it happened in another country to what happens in the U.S. when such an event occurs — a virtual media blackout, ongoing fixations by political journalists with petty scandals, and an undisturbed consensus that, no matter what else is true, high-level American political figures (as opposed to powerless low-level functionaries) must never be held accountable for their crimes.”

An Illinois politician caught being corrupt? How many times has that happened?

An administration willfully disregarding the most fundamental tenets of not only our nation but our fundamental nature as a civilization? How many times has that happened?

Finally, an 18-year-old reader writes to Andrew Sullivan:

“I’m 18 years old. My politics are still amorphous, shaped largely by my parents’ prejudices (both are liberals). I’m pro-life. I come from a prosperous background; I’m suspicious of big government and increasingly likely to support tax cuts. I’m becoming more viscerally opposed to the ‘nanny state’ as I study law; the rhetoric of many liberals on personal responsibility is becoming increasingly objectionable to me.

And yet, I can not, within the reasonable future, support the Republican Party? Why?

Torture.

I still haven’t come to grips with the idea that American soldiers, those who our culture is brought up to value and respect, could commit acts of torture, on the orders of an American administration. The internet is a libertarian place.

…

…I cannot imagine how anyone else of my age can look at these reports, look at these pictures — and then vote for the GOP in the foreseeable future. It’s beyond my understanding.”

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[above: Iraqi detainees suffering at the hands of the U.S. Army at Abu Ghraib.]

Do these pictures upset you?

I hope so.

& even more upsetting than that is this bipartisan Senate report (PDF file) on detainee abuse & how it became national policy.

It wasn’t just ‘a few bad apples,’ as was reported at the time.

No, the responsibility lays squarely at the feet of this man:

Andrew Sullivan:

“It is the most sobering indictment of high government officials in the U.S. since Watergate. And, in the gravity of crimes, it is a far more profound violation of the law and the constitution and the security of the United States than Watergate ever was. Bush’s crimes are far greater than Nixon’s - because war crimes are far graver than burglaries. And there is no statute of limitations for war crimes.”

[Sullivan's focusing (typically expertly) almost exclusively on this issue today, & he puts into words my feelings on this topic. Read more here, here, here, here, & here. (warning: the last link has a graphic photo).]

There is nothing, in my view, that recruits more terrorists to the cause than this scandal. & we had better start holding the highest-of-high-ups accountable for these crimes if we ever expect to defeat our greatest threat.

Post from: The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08

Happy Birthday, loser!

Boy, what a creep this guy is, huh?

As it is another one of those days for me (doing 5 & 5:30), the posts will be on the light side today (sorry).

Read the movie-script-ish press release from the Justice Department on the Blagojevich arrest here.

A ‘greatest-hits’ summary (if you don’t have time to read the above link) can be found here, at Politico.

Read how a phone call from Obama several weeks ago may have been the domino that started it all here.

Get a roundup on what some in the blogosphere are saying here. Be sure to check out Ambinder’s day-after thoughts, too.

Get a humorous/snarky (& warning: very salty-language-filled) take on the indictment from Wonkette, here.

Just how corrupt is Chicago politics? Pretty darn corrupt, as you can read here.

& as always, feel free to register your thoughts about this scandal in the comments section!

Post from: The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08

[above: sunset, Loess bluffs, northwest Missouri, December, 1977. photo by my father]

“I don’t believe there’s any cloud that hangs over me, I think there’s nothing but sunshine hanging over me.”
.

Who said it?

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, yesterday, mere hours before federal agents arrested him on corruption charges.

Post from: The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08

DETROIT (AP) - When the CEO of General Motors heads back to Washington to seek a federal bailout, he won’t be flying on a private jet.
But that’s all that GM is saying about the travel plans of Rick Wagoner. He and the heads of the other two auto giants were criticized and ridiculed for using private jets to go to Washington last week to ask for federal help for their companies.
A Chrysler spokesman won’t comment on CEO Bob Nardelli’s travel plans. Ford says no decision has been made on how CEO Alan Mulally will go.
But they might decide to carpool.
Auto industry officials have been e-mailing and discussing how to set up a giant car caravan that would carry the CEOs and others back to Washington to ask for help from Congress.
The head of Dura Automotive Systems says the idea “really picked up momentum over the weekend.”
Congressional leaders called on the auto executives to come back and show how the industry would use the federal bailout to survive. President-elect Obama today said he’s surprised the CEOs didn’t have a better proposal in place the first time.
.

Read more here.

Now: is it too much to ask THEM to drive?

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Now that I’ve gotten my frustrations with the auto industry off my chest, I turn to the NASA space program, which is also headed down a budgetary black hole,” as Alan Stern puts it today in the New York Times:

“Our space program is running inefficiently, and without sufficient regard to cost performance. In NASA’s science directorate alone, an internal accounting in 2007 found over $5 billion in increases since 2003.”

…

Endemic project cost increases at NASA begin when scientists and engineers (and sometimes Congress) burden missions with features beyond what is affordable in the stated budget. The problem continues with managers and contractors who accept or encourage such assignments, expecting to eventually be bailed out. It is worsened by managers who disguise the size of cost increases that missions incur. Finally, it culminates with scientists who won’t cut their costs and members of Congress who accept steep increases to protect local jobs.

The result? The costs of badly run NASA projects are paid for with cutbacks or delays in NASA projects that didn’t go over budget. Hence the guilty are rewarded and the innocent are punished.”

.

My Stepbrother Rhett & Me with a spent rocket, summer, 1981

I’m a space enthusiast from way back. But NASA’s method for spending & management has long been a source of frustration.

Just like we’re holding the U.S. auto companies’ feet to the fire, we should also call for a total revamping of the way the space program works.

& if that sets us back in the short term, so be it.

I would love for us to return to the moon in my lifetime (the last time we were there, I was too young to remember it). But I don’t think a mission to Mars - or, for that matter, a return to the moon anytime soon - is really the best use of our money at the moment.

What do you think?

FURTHER READING: NPR’s Nell Greenfield-Boyce talks about the future of the space program in the “Memo to the President” series (I was a bit frustrated that the piece didn’t talk more about the fatal budgetary mindset talked about in the NY Times piece above)

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KINGSPORT, Tenn. (AP) - State Rep. Nathan Vaughn says campaign literature mailed by Tennessee Republicans was meant to inflame racial hatred and contributed to his re-election defeat.
Vaughn, a Kingsport Democrat who became northeastern Tennessee’s first black lawmaker when he was elected in 2002, lost to Republican Tony Shipley by 326 votes earlier this month.
Vaughn was the subject of heavy political attacks during the campaign, including a Tennessee Republican Party direct mail piece that pasted a picture of his head on a black bird.
Vaughn says that depiction “indicates either a large degree of insensitivity, at best, or just racial hatred.”
State Republican Chairwoman Robin Smith says there was nothing racial in the mailer.

Bluebirds wouldn’t have quite made the same point, would they?

I think it should be a general rule of thumb to not have your campaign put your opponent’s face on top of a member of the animal kingdom.

Just saying.

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Now that the dust has settled, what do you think?

Is it still appropriate to infer that part of Bill Ayers “rubbed off” on Barack Obama?

Let me know what you think in the comments section!

Post from: The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08

Above: Fox News’ Carl Cameron has an inside tip from a McCain staffer that Sarah Palin

a. Couldn’t name the countries in NAFTA

b. Didn’t realize Africa was a continent, not a country

c. Repeatedly threw temper-tantrums at bad press clippings, &

d. Did not adequately prepare for the now infamous Katie Couric interview.

The New York Times has more here.

While this does conform with other stories about Sarah Palin’s lack of ‘knowledgeability,’ & it definitely adds weight to the story that it’s leaked to Fox News, it’s worth pointing out that post-election revealed internal strife is a common occurrence in a losing campaign.

I would hesitate to call these allegations true until we have a face to put behind these allegations.

Regardless of whether they’re true, I still believe Sarah Palin was an astoundingly poor choice for John McCain. While she provided a temporary boost in the polls, the transparency of this cynical pick on John McCain’s part revealed to voters that he was far more concerned with winning an election than with picking the right person. & that’s a quality -putting winning above all else- we have seen far too often in the current administration, much to the detriment of this country.

& Palin defenders, you need to ask yourselves: how would you have treated a pick like this if it came from the Democrats?

What do you think?

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Click here to view the embedded video.

above: the View’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck introduces Palin.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Palin addresses the clothing issue.(read more about it here)

This quote from that story linked above is telling:

“A senior adviser to John McCain told CNN’s Dana Bash that the comments about her wardrobe “were not the remarks we sent to her plane this morning.”

She’s going what’s known as “off the reservation.”

I understand her desire to ‘go there’ - it’s been the hot topic for several days now, & I’m sure she’s chomping at the bit to address it. But addressing it has its downside - mainly, that it dominates the news for another cycle, with just 9 days to go.

I suspect the McCain campaign is not very happy with her right now.

What do you think?

Is she the victim of sexism?

Or a hypocrite?

Post a comment & share your viewpoint!

UPDATE:

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Sarah Palin wore jeans Sunday night at an event in North Carolina.
The Republican vice presidential candidate has been dogged for days by a brouhaha over $150,000 in clothes and accessories bought for her by the Republican National Committee.
Palin says the clothing flap is “so ridiculous,” arguing that she and her family live frugally.
She insists the high-priced wardrobe is for campaign rallies, “just like the lighting and the staging and everything else the RNC purchased.”
She says since the clothes don’t belong to her, she won’t be taking them with her. Instead, Palin says she’ll go back to wearing her old clothes from her “favorite consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska.”
In Asheville, North Carolina, Sunday night, Palin was joined by country artist Gretchen Wilson, who performed her song “Redneck Woman.”
Earlier, Palin spoke in Florida.

Again: want Palin to win? Then you should hope she gets off this subject as quickly as possible.

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(yes, that’s her as a kid. I love this photo. & wonder why we haven’t seen it more)

TODAY’S EPISODE: An interview with NBC’s Brian Williams…She’s “proud to be a redneck”…the Wall Street Journal says she’s being picked on…some humorous ’spin’ on the clothing story..& a defense of it from a co-worker

Click here to view the embedded video.

Above: an interview by Brian Williams.

Below: analysis of the interview by Williams & Chuck Todd.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Todd seems to notice some “tenseness” among the two candidates:

“I couldn’t see chemistry between John McCain and Sarah Palin. I felt as if we grabbed two people and said ‘here, sit next to each other, we are going to conduct an interview.’ They are not comfortable with each other yet.”

Do you think that’s fair? Let me know in the comments section.

Below: three clips from a rally in Henderson, Nevada.

Also on the stump: Palin says she’s proud to be a redneck.

The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger comes to Palin’s defense:

“By not bothering to look very deeply at the details beneath either candidate’s governing proposals, the media have created a lot of downtime to take free kicks at Gov. Palin. My former colleague, Tunku Varadarajan, has compiled a glossary of Palin invective, and I’ve added a few: “Republican blow-up doll,” “idiot,” “Christian Stepford wife,” “Jesus freak,” “Caribou Barbie,” “a dope,” “a fatal cancer to the Republican Party,” “liar,” “a national disgrace” and “her pretense that she is a woman.”

If American politics is at low ebb, it is because so many of its observers enjoy working in its fetid backwash.”

Former (2000) McCain strategist Mike Murphy takes a humorous look at possible ’spin’ for the revelation that the McCain campaign has spent $150,000 on Palin’s wardrobe in September:

“1.) What you sneering critics in the liberal MSM fail to see here is… a Jobs Program! Saks floorwalkers, cashiers, a team of sweating porters to haul the merchandise from the store to the motorcade… chiropractors to treat those porters. Sarah Palin knows how to create jobs!

2.) What’s the difference between a Pit Bull and a Hockey Mom? You can feed a pit-bull for 483 years with 150 grand.

3.) Still cheaper than Mitt Romney’s hair products. We’re saving money here…

4.) William Ayres is a terrorist!

5.) New ad slogan: “Clothes for Gov. Palin? $150,000. Time machine to go back two months to late August and ask what the Hell were Schmidt and Davis thinking when they cooked up this idea and sold it to McCain? Priceless.”

A co-worker offers this defense of the clothing story:

Hillary Clinton has never detailed how much was spent on her appearance
though one suspects it was not a small sum judging from recent appearances
— Clinton still looks fine but the reduction in coiffing is definitely
noticeable. At The New Yorker Festival earlier this month Peggy Noonan
remarked that she often feels sympathy for woman politicians because of the
amount of attention they have to devote to their appearance: “Hillary had
to face the requirements of appearance. Men don’t have to put that extra
hour in. Yes, it’s harder to be a woman.” Still, considering the extent to
which Obama is outspending McCain, probably there were better uses for this
money.

What do you think?

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TODAY’S EPISODE: An interview on CNN…How Palin channels her inner John Edwards…

CNN Interview

A ‘Marie Antoinette’ Moment

John Edwards was mocked for the “$400 haircut” story. So it’s understandable that Palin (& the enabling RNC) deserve a little ribbing for this story in Politico today:

“The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.

This is more spent on clothes & makeup in the past month than the average American family spends on its wardrobe over the course of 80 years.

As Marc Ambinder points out, the heat from this story will likely be generated more by Republicans than Democrats:

There is already an attempt to blame the media — as in, the liberal media would have looked askance at Palin if she wasn’t clad in Neiman Marcus, but this won’t wash. Republicans, RNC donors and at least one RNC staff member have e-mailed me tonight to share their utter (and not-for-attribution) disgust at the expenditures.

Oh, & by the way - that Palin makeup figure? Half as much as spent on makeup for John McCain.

What do you think?

Post from: The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08