Month: September 2008
Late Night Lines du Jour
“I like her because she looks like the lady at the bakery who yells out, ’44! 44…45!’ I like her because she looks like a real estate agent whose picture you see on the bus stop bench. She looks like the lady who has a chain of cup cake stores. She looks like the mayor of a small town that’s banned dancing. Yeah.”
— David Letterman commenting on Sarah Palin
Vote in MSNBC “Lipstick” Poll
Jon pointed out that McCain used the “lipstick on a pig” saying first, in reference to Hillary Clinton. Now MSNBC has a poll up to see if you think Obama has “crossed the line” in also using the well-known phrase. Puh-leeze. Does Sarah Palin own all the lipstick in the world now?
Quote du Jour
“They seem to be intimidated by the Palin pick. They seem to be intimidated by how the Republicans are coming at them on change. And you cannot win if you are constantly on defense.”
— Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, quoted in the New York Observer, on the Obama campaign
Obama Flips, Calls In the 527s
Looks like Barack Obama is taking the gloves off in the presidential race — flip-flopping a little as he does it — and is signaling his willingness to accept the support and tactics of the notorious 527 groups.
According to The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, the campaign is lifting the lid on the potentially volatile 527s:
An Obama adviser privy to the campaign’s internal thinking on the matter says that,with less than two months before the election and with the realization that Republicans have achieved financial parity with Democrats, they hope that Democratic allies — what another campaign aide termed “the cavalry” — will come to Obama’s aid.
The Obama campaign can’t ask donors to form outside groups; it can only communicate, through the public and the media, with body language, tells and hints.
The upshot: Obama’s campaign will no longer object to independent efforts that hammer John McCain, just as, in their mind, the McCain campaign has not objected to those efforts targeted at Obama. “I assume with their 527s stirring, some [Democratic] ones will as well,” another senior campaign official said.
It’s about time, but it might also be too late. The Republicans already have the machinery in place to crank up the nastiness:
- The New York Sun reported Monday that a Sacramento Republican linked to a McCain bundler is raising money for a new group called Leadership for America’s Future.
- The American Issues Project is spending $3 million on a battleground state ad campaign that ties Obama to ex-Weatherman William Ayres.
- Freedom’s Watch, which plays mostly in House elections, has spent nearly $500,000 worth of hard money on ads against Obama.
- Vets for Freedom plans a $10 million campaign on ads touting the Bush Administration’s policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- The Republican Majority Campaign has tallied more than $1.3 million in independent expenditures against Obama.
Crist Won’t Campaign for Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is refusing to actively campaign for the one remaining state constitutional amendment still on the ballot in November. It would define marriage in Florida as between a man and a woman, period. No domestic partners, nothing. In a move that’s certain to get Florida conservatives’ panties all in a twist, Crist exhibits a blasé attitude toward the proposed amendment:
“I’ll support it, I’ll vote for it, move on,” the governor said of the Amendment 2 gay-marriage ban in an interview during a trip to tour flood-damaged areas in Central Florida. “It’s not top-tier for me, put it that way.”
When asked if he’ll spend time plugging Amendment 2, Crist said, “I don’t think so. I think I will campaign for candidates much more extensively — Sen. McCain.” The governor also reiterated his position of precluding the Republican Party of Florida from spending money to support the gay-marriage ban.
Of course, Charlie is affianced to a woman, Carole Rome, so if the amendment passes, it wouldn’t affect him. Of course, if that marriage only lasts six months and the whispers about Crist’s being gay turn out to be true, he’d want to keep his options open if the right fellow came along.
Maybe that’s why he’s not pushing Amendment 2 ….
Cuba’s Hurting
Ike arrives in Cuba
Hurricane Ike devastated parts of Cuba and money is needed now to help people as they struggle to survive. Because of our country’s idiotic stance toward the aging and ailing Fidel Castro, it’s hard to get relief to those who need it.
The State Department allows only a very few organizations to assist, and one is the Friendship Association. What their web site lacks in professional glitz, its members make up in heart. In normal times, they provide dental care and hygiene, prenatal care and education, bicycles, wheelchairs, eye care, gardening assistance, sewing supplies, cultural projects, and more. They take no sides in the ongoing conflict between our two governments. And every dollar given actually goes to help.
St. Augustine resident Jo McIntire started the Friendship Association with his wife, Soledad, and now there are hundreds of members, including some in Colorado, Philadelphia and Chicago. It is one of the few groups in the United States to have such a long-standing license to travel to Cuba despite the embargo between the two countries…
McIntire said the group plans to fill a large container with items to send to Baracoa, a province of Guantanamo, to give aid in the wake of Ike…
“People can give checks to the Association, and we will buy items to put in the container,” he said. “We’ve sent more than 20 containers over the years. … We take trips every year to follow up on (the items we send).
“We monitor it to make sure it’s distributed to where it’s supposed to be.”
Here’s a link to a PayPal donation account and more pix. I hope you can help.
Fox News D-Team Sneers at New MSNBC Anchor, ‘Lesbian’ Rachel Maddow, Laughably Decries ‘Bias’ at NBC
This video of the buffoonish morning crew at Fox News is laughable at first. The idea that the newsreaders and spokesmodels employed by the propaganda organ of the Bush White House political shop would spend five minutes criticizing another media outlet for bias is a real hoot.
To be clear, Rachel Maddow in no way can be compared with sexual deviants like Dick Morris and Bill O’Reilly.
But then, at 01:20, the segment turns ugly when the media “expert” they’ve brought on, Tim Graham of Media Analysis MRC, the rightwing front group headed by Brent Bozell, feels it necessary to make the point that MSNBC’s new anchor, Rachel Maddow, is gay. He refers to her, sneeringly, as the “lesbian Air America host.”
Leaving aside the facts that no serious person evaluates Maddow’s performance, or her views, based on her sexuality, or that being gay is not always a marker for liberalism — there are millions of Republican lesbians — the Fox News staff should be careful about throwing stones inside their own glass house.
For example, there are old rumors that Fox News anchor Shephard Smith is gay — he refuses to talk about his personal life. And the son of Fox News anchor Brit Hume, Sandy Hume, a reporter for The Hill newspaper, committed suicide in 1998, at the same time rumors began circulating that he was having an affair with then-Rep. Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.), an up and coming member of the GOP House leadership and the husband of then-Rep. Susan Molinari (R-N.Y.) Paxon and Molinari both retired from the House soon after Sandy Hume’s suicide. (The fact that Paxon is a thoroughly unpleasant person would seem to make this story less than likely, but there is no accounting for taste.)
If Fox is going to use sexuality as a barometer about whom to take seriously, then the network should reconsider the air time they give professional Clinton-hater Dick Morris, who is a notorious adulterer, who consorts with prostitutes and who became a national laughingstock over revelations that he has a toe sucking fetish.
And then there is Fox’s biggest star, Bill O’Reilly, another flamboyant adulterer who famously cost the network millions when he was sued for making unwelcome sexual advances toward a female producer.
To be clear, Rachel Maddow in no way can be compared with sexual deviants like Morris and O’Reilly. The point is, the sexuality and/or sexual shenanigans of all these folks is irrelevant to the job they do — unless, of course, Fox chooses to make it an issue.
McCain Made ‘Lipstick on a Pig’ Reference to Hillary Clinton – And Palin Has Repeatedly Compared Herself to a Dog Wearing Lipstick
Republicans used to decry the victim mindset in American culture — now they are wallowing in it. At their convention last week, they ramped up their claims that they are victims of corporate media bias, and they have bristled at anything smacking of “ageism” directed at their nominee, John McCain, who is 72.
Palin has repeatedly compared herself and other “hockey moms” to vicious female dogs in lipstick.
One of the reasons they put Sarah Palin — a former beauty queen runner-up, whose only experience on the national level is 21 months as governor of the 47th largest state — on their ticket this year was so that they could play the female-candidate-as-victim card.
Now it appears they have played it too soon — pouncing too quickly on a statement made by Barack Obama in Virginia yesterday in which he used the phrase “lipstick on a pig“:
“That’s not change,” Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said of what Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is offering.
“You know, you can put lipstick on a pig,” Obama said, “but it’s still a pig.”
The crowd rose and applauded, some of them no doubt thinking he may have been alluding to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s ad lib during her vice presidential nomination acceptance speech last week, “What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.”
“You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called ‘change,'” Obama continued, “it’s still gonna stink after eight years.
“We’ve had enough of the same old thing! It’s time to bring about real change to Washington. And that’s the choice you’ve got in this election.”
Obama added that “it is not going to be easy … John McCain has a compelling biography, you know Sarah Palin is an interesting story.”
The crowd booed.
“No, she’s new!” Obama said. “She hasn’t been on the scene, you know, she’s got five kids and my hat goes off to anybody who’s looking after five. I’ve got two and they tire Michelle and me out!”
Of course, Obama was referring the ridiculous claim by McCain-Palin that they would bring “change” to Washington — McCain has been a Washington insider for three decades, and Palin’s meager record indicates that she would be McCain’s helpmate in continuing the same Cheney-Bush policies that have driven the country into the ditch.
Palin has repeatedly compared herself and other “hockey moms” to dogs in lipstick, and, as long as we’re making inferences, we can assume she means female dogs, which are described in kennels by a word that, as Barbara Bush once said of the first female vice presidential candidate, Geraldine Ferraro, “rhymes with witch.”
But if that’s how Republicans want to spin it, here is McCain using the phrase “lipstick on a pig” in a similar context about Hillary Clinton, in Iowa, in October:
McCain criticized Democratic contenders for offering what he called costly universal health care proposals that require too much government regulation. While he said he had not studied Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s health-care plan, he said it was “eerily reminiscent” of the failed plan she offered as first lady in the early 1990s.
“I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” he said…
This is yet more proof that there is no bottom to the depth of Republican hypocrisy — or, apparently, to the McCain campaign’s incompetence.
