Even if very US, I like this from Daily Kos

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by Bill in Portland Maine

Wed Nov 26, 2008 at 06:00:21 AM PST

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Things for Which I am Thankful: 2008

Barack Obama will be our 44th president. John McCain will not.
Joe Biden will be our next vice president. Sarah Palin will not.
This will be George W. Bush’s last Thanksgiving as president
Dick Cheney will leave Washington 100% disgraced
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Howard Dean’s vision
Those Democrats in Congress who fight for us
Purple states
Michelle Obama’s class
Olbermann, Maddow, Stewart, Colbert
That my spellchecker this year recognized “Maddow” and didn’t try replacing it with “mad cow” or “mildew.”
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And there’s more at!

Why do I read and view video about Sarah Palin?

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Via CNN’s Cafferty File, Andrew in an email about la Palin gives me a succinct and understandable explanation about what catches my attention these days:

However, when the incompetent are supremely self-confident, full of certitude, and absent of insight, it’s absolutely compelling.

She just doesn’t blink as she girl talks with awkward syntax, ill-formed spinning, brash prevarication with a touch of plain misstatementing.

I hate to say it but the crash scene sense of the whole Palin shtick drags me back to new performances of this too shallow mind striving to establish her creds for high political office. Each of her performances confirms the evident silliness of the whole thing that was exposed by Tina Fey’s portrayal of Palin on SNL!

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I’ve got a lot of time for Josh Marshall’s views at TPM

Here’s his comment about all the Palin leaks from the McCain campaign et al:

As a big of an ignoramus as Palin clearly is, and as big a liar, I’m more than a little skeptical myself.

I tend to agree with that simply because those people, Davis, Schmidt etc gave little evidence that they practiced “real straight talk”. They seemed to believe in faking it!

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Trashing Gov. Palin after GOP defeat

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In my mind the most striking phrase being bandied about in reference to Palin’s VP candidacy is ‘WASILLA HILLBILLIES LOOTING NEIMAN MARCUS’.

The sense of this, especially HILLBILLIES LOOTING rings true for me. Every time I saw her on TV she seemed dumb and dumbfounded and then unblinkly strident uttering a string of inanities about all subjects. I sensed it obvious that she knew little about the world outside of Alaska and was amazingly incurious about it all.

There is little doubt in my mind that she is unblinkingly ambitious with vague designs on the highest office in the US.

I think that if the right wingnutery within the GOP have their way and put her forward as a “legitimate” candidate for 2012 that they will doom the GOP to deep doodoo! I hope that they are successful in this attempt.

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Now it’s the right wing press who’s quibbling about Gov. Palin’s role in this campaign

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The byline says “If she is so awful, why did McCain pick her?” Politico’s Roger Simon goes on this way!

John McCain’s campaign is looking for a scapegoat. It is looking for someone to blame if McCain loses on Tuesday.

And it has decided on Sarah Palin.

In recent days, a McCain “adviser” told Dana Bash of CNN: “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone.”

Imagine not taking advice from the geniuses at the McCain campaign. What could Palin be thinking?

Also, a “top McCain adviser” told Mike Allen of Politico that Palin is “a whack job.”

Maybe she is. But who chose to put this “whack job” on the ticket? Wasn’t it John McCain? And wasn’t it his first presidential-level decision?

And if you are a 72-year-old presidential candidate, wouldn’t you expect that your running mate’s fitness for high office would come under a little extra scrutiny? And, therefore, wouldn’t you make your selection with care? (To say nothing about caring about the future of the nation?)

First time I have heard of this “word”, soulgasms

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From the London Literary Times Supplement:

October 29, 2008

Soulgasms of the Christian Right

A revolution in American sex, and its Evangelical regulators

Thomas Laqueur

The Christian Right, as both Dagmar Herzog and the Republican nomination of Sarah Palin make abundantly clear, is not anti-sex. “We are the ones with the babe on the ticket”, gushes the conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. “Run to the arms of your prince and enter your dream”, advises the author, media star and abstinence-before-marriage advocate Lisa Bevere in her book Kissed the Girls and Made Them Cry, on sale at Palin’s old Pentecostal church in Wasilla. Evangelical conservatives have outflanked their enemies: “Christian sex”, and not what the revolutionaries of the 1960s had to offer, turns out to be “the most amazing sex on God’s Green earth”.

So they get it and love it!

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Sarah Palin is touted as future GOP right wing leader

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Well Chris Hitchens can think what he prefers about la Palin but some GOP right wingers disagree completely with his bleak assessment of her. Here’s a sample from an NY Times article:

Despite all the criticism, she has many supporters among Republicans who see her as bright, tough and a star in a party with relatively few on the horizon.

“She’s dynamite,” said Morton C. Blackwell, who was President Ronald Reagan’s liaison to the conservative movement. Mr. Blackwell described vying to get close to Ms. Palin at a fund-raiser in Virginia, lamenting that he could get only within four feet.

“I made a major effort to position myself at this reception,” he said, adding that he is eager to sit down with her after the election to discuss the future. Asked if the weeks of unflattering revelations and damaging interviews had tarnished her among conservatives, he replied, “Not a bit.”

Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, a conservative group, called it a “top order of business” to determine Ms. Palin’s future role. “Conservatives have been looking for leadership, and she has proven that she can electrify the grass roots like few people have in the last 20 years,” Mr. Bozell said. “No matter what she decides to do, there will be a small mother lode of financial support behind her.”

The comment “She’s dynamite” sticks out for me. I recognize that she has considerable but probably thin appeal to a certain type of GOP registered voter. I wonder how she would measure up over a long primary season competing with the likes of Mike Huckabee?

While “she gives a good speech” she obviously understands very little about what she says. For example she derided an earmark for fruit fly research without knowing that this earmark was for child autism research, which is supposed to be something she wants to alleviate or eradicate with a government program. More socialism?

Update: It seems that not every senior GOP rep agrees that Palin is such a great leader for the future.

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Hitchens hits it outta the park re McCain/Palin

In his latest Slate post, Christopher Hitchens says in his usual pungent way what he likes least about la Palin and her brand of politics:

This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just “people of faith” but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.

He’s not one for the PC soft-pedal. But I like the pungency!

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Gov. Palin “unfairly treated” by MSM!

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Pew Research is telling us, based on their recent surveys:

But fewer than four-in-ten (38%) say the press has been fair to Sarah Palin. Many more believe the press has been too tough on Palin (38%) than say it has been too easy (21%).

While opinions about Palin coverage are highly partisan, many independents share the view that the press has been too tough on the Alaska governor. Among independents, 41% say the press has been too hard on Palin, 20% say the press has been too easy and 36% say the press has been fair. Republicans overwhelmingly believe the press has been too hard on Palin (63%). Just 7% say the press has been too easy on her. Nearly one-in-five Democrats (18%) agree that coverage of Palin has been too tough.

This from The New Republic is probably an example of unfair treatment:

Unfortunately, as governor of a state with a birth-defect rate that’s twice the national average, and which has the gloomy status as repository of toxic chemicals from around the world, Palin has pursued environmental policies that seem perfectly crafted to swell the ranks of special-needs kids. It’s true that Alaska’s top leaders have placed industry wishes over environmental protection for years. But, instead of correcting this problem, she’s compounded it. Peer into her environmental record, and Palin ends up looking a lot like George W. Bush.

And now Republicans, mostly female TV flacks, are up in arms about the “un-retouched” up close photo of la Palin on Newsweek!

The irony is that negative views of la Palin aren’t limited to the liberal MSM. Here’s a distillation of right wing media negative views about Gov. Palin’s candidacy:

After the nomination, conservative columnists have been very critical of the Palin candidacy. Some have openly distanced themselves from it, such as National Review’s Kathleen Parker, who called on Palin voluntarily to quit the ticket. David Brooks referred to Palin as a “cancer on the Republican Party.” Peggy Noonan was overheard grumbling about the choice as “political bullshit” on an open mike on MSNBC. [George Will] told a gathering of Senate aides that Palin was “obviously not qualified” to be vice president. Former presidential speechwriter David Frum called the choice a gamble and then said he felt it was “disturbing.” Charles Krauthammer called the choice “near suicidal.”

My own views about this political dervish coincide with those expressed by Heather Mallick!

Palin and her Republican keepers have sought maximum but one way public exposure. So they must accept the harvest they have reaped, some good, some bad, much horrible!

And now via Boing Boing here’s what Gov. Palin had to say to the Alaskan Independence Party last year!

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I protest how CBC management has behaved in this case!

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I was upset this morning after reading this article in the NY Times.

Boss Is Not Amused After Columnist’s Humor Brings a Retort From Fox News

What do retorts from Fox News have to do with the posting policies of cbc.ca, a national Canadian web site. So I wrote this email to the CBC Ombudsman this morning:

Sir,

Why has CBC management removed all links to the Heather Mallick opinion article of Sept 5 about Sarah Palin?

Opinions of all colours are expected wherever freedom of expression is suggested. Omissions or errors in editing are not a sufficient reason to remove an article from the CBC.ca site in my humble opinion.

I don’t particularly care what Ms. Mallick said about Governor Palin. By accepting, without blinking, the invitation to become Senator McCain’s VP running mate, Governor Palin opened the opinion floodgates. In fact, she has been quite loquacious herself on the hustings with her opinions and evasions.

But CBC management, in its craven way, has withdrawn Ms. Mallick’s opinion because it received 300+ complaints from “frothing at the mouth” supporters of Gov. Palin. They have a right to their own opinions but surely CBC management oversteps its role when it cuts links to an article posted on its national web site because of their complaints.

Free expression of opinions should be the basic rule. As a Canadian taxpayer I expect even handed treatment of opinions expressed by Canadians. Shame on you!!!

–
Robert Gagnon
3660 SE Marine Drive
Vancouver, Canada, V5S 4R6
biz phone 604.629.7532
cell 778.384.2121

Once again a Canadian institution gives in to the bleating complaints of extreme opinion makers in the US. What a shame, what a travesty of freedom of expression!

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