Day: July 24, 2009

Alaska Prepares to Party

Trish
Don’t let it hit you in the ass, Sarah.

Bad news for Sarah Palin, just as Alaska prepares to celebrate its pending independence from Gov. Beauty Queen, who, after Sunday, will be Ex-Gov. Beauty Queen. “Screen door” parties begin as soon as today, with microbrewed “Bailin’ Palin Fail Ale” on tap. As our colleagues at Mudflats promise, the celebration won’t stop there.

If you’re in Anchorage, or within driving distance, the downtown Park Strip is the place to be on Saturday!

There’s something for everyone!

The Governor’s Picnic!

Yes, this is it. Anchorage’s “Screen Door” Celebration (as in, “Don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out!”) to bid adieu to the soon-to-be-ex governor and usher out the end of a very strange era that has been anything but beneficial to our state.

It hasn’t even been one term, or even one year since her nomination as VP candidate, but we’ve packed in more than our share of nail biting, head banging, belly laughing, chin stroking, face palming, head scratching, and typing our little fingers to the bone.

And this is it. Finally. The last full day of the Palin administration.

Makes you wish you were there, doesn’t it? Unless you’re Sarah Palin, of course. So on to that bad news…

…a new national poll indicates that a majority of Americans have an unfavorable view of the outgoing Alaska governor. But the ABC News/Washington Post survey released Friday also suggests that seven out of 10 Republican voters maintain a positive opinion of last year’s GOP Vice Presidential nominee.

Fifty-three percent of those questioned in the poll view Palin negatively, with four in 10 holding a positive view of her. The survey is the second this week, following a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll released Thursday, to find more than half of all Americans viewing Palin in an unfavorable light.

The ABC News/Washington Post survey suggests that there is doubt about Palin’s leadership skills and her understanding of intricate issues. Fifty-seven percent say they don’t think Palin understands complex issues, and 54 percent do not feel she is a strong leader…

Seventy percent of Republicans questioned view Palin favorably, with just one in four holding a negative opinion. The favorable view drops to 51 percent among independent voters and to 20 percent among Democrats.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

In my choice of words, I unfortunately gave the impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically.

— President Obama, trying to do a take-back in the Oval Office today for his “stupidly” remark during Wednesday night’s prime-time press conference in reference to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. for disorderly conduct at his home in Cambridge.

Grading the RPOF’s Obama Report Card

Pensito Editors

As its lead-up to President Obama’s prime-time press conference Wednesday, the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) issued a report card on Obama’s performance to date. It’s reproduced below just as it was sent out in another of the RPOF’s press releases, or as we like to think of them, failed attempts at snark.

Read the report card, then see how we graded the graders below.

obama_report_card

Here’s how we graded the RPOF’s performance:

SUBJECT: Statistics. COMMENTS: RPOF assessed Mr. Obama’s math skills by using unattributed statistics to make its point, and for extra credit, threw in the technique of using truncated statistics by starting the clock on job loss (and economic troubles in general) on Jan. 20, 2009. In its health assessment the RPOF attributes its statistics to bolster its illogical argument. In assessing his finance performance, the RPOF eschews statistics completely — a masterful use of the dismal science. There are lies, damned lies and statistics, and nobody lies as well as the Republican Party. GRADE: A+.

SUBJECT: Rhetoric. COMMENTS: While assessing Mr. Obama’s history performance, the RPOF deftly moved the focus from his domestic cabinet-level “czar” appointments to connect them to the spread of communism across Europe in the 20th century. In dwelling on the easily ridiculed word, “czar” and ignoring the fact that Obama is not the first president to appoint them, they employ a cheap shot. Such skillful use of what appears on the surface to be logic deserves the highest marks. GRADE: A+

SUBJECT: Civics. COMMENTS: By portraying Mr. Obama as never missing a basket when playing basketball while being totally uninformed about North Korea, the RPOF uses two tried and true racist assumptions about African Americans — they are intellectually inferior, yet physically superior, to whites. For the added underlying message that Obama’s race and inexperience pose a threat to national security by invoking the specter of North Korea, they get extra credit. GRADE: A++.

SUBJECT: English. COMMENTS: The RPOF, FOX News and most talk radio hosts fail to understand usage, and don’t know when to employ “Democrat” versus “Democratic.” We suspect they’re misusing “Democrat” on purpose, a practice that began recently under President Bush, but as Jon noted, goes back at least to Sen. Joseph McCarthy. For pushing the envelope of the English language by delving deeply into reverse semiotics and the power of thematic repetition, as well as for their robust explorations into the tenuous relationship between truth and meaning, the RPOF deserved an A, but turned in a term paper late. GRADE: B.