Dances With Wingnuts

Latest Newspaper Column

I confess, I've never watched "Dancing With the Stars." The idea of has-been and never-were pseudo-celebrities shaking their booties has just never had that much appeal to me.

Lately, however, it's been impossible to escape the coverage across all forms of media regarding the participation of Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol on the show.

TV viewers and entertainment journalists began noting that Miss Palin and her partner, Mark Ballas, kept surviving the cut despite what the show's pro judges, and many watchers, considered weaker performances. Talk began to circulate that viewers were voting for Bristol not out of any particular appreciation for her terpsichorean talents but out of support for her mother, the Resigning Woman.

Some even suggested that the followers of Mama Grizzly were gaming the voting system, rumors that were fed when right-wing radio host Tammy Bruce organized what she called "Operation Bristol" and the wingnut website HillBuzz noted that, while you had to provide an e-mail address to vote online, you didn't have to provide a real one, which allowed people to vote multiple times.

Nonsense, said the show's producer. DWTS, he claimed, uses "a number of security checks" to prevent voter fraud via the Web, text and phone calls.

Still, some people remained suspicious. One particularly irate viewer actually shot his TV out of frustration, shouting "The politics! The politics!"

I certainly understand his frustration at the politicization of the pure and ancient art of the dance on a show that once featured Steve-O from "Jackass" doing the cha-cha. But I've got to say that there are so many things that are more worth shooting your TV over. Those commercials with the talking mucus, for example.

The Palins themselves fell back on their real talent: not for dancing, but for stirring up resentment and the furious certainty among their supporters that somewhere, somehow, there's someone out there looking down on them. They may not know who or where, by golly, but you could stick a finger in their imaginary eyes by voting for Bristol, who told an interviewer that if she won, "it would be like giving a big middle finger to people who hate my mom and hate me."

Even when Bristol came in third in the final episode, an anonymous writer at Hillbuzz claimed a moral victory, saying: "You drove the left crazy for three months. Score!"

Dudes, I hate to break it to you, but no one on the left even watches "Dancing with the Stars," and we certainly don't have time to get our mad on about whether or not one of the numerous progeny of the Quitta From Wasilla took home the trophy.

We're too busy figuring out new and fiendish ways to turn your children into Muslims, force them to marry gay abortionists, ban everything from the American diet except tofu and alfalfa sprouts, and destroy capitalism. (That was a joke, people.)

The Palins and the folks at Hillbuzz were only expressing one of the highest ideals of modern conservatism, to wit: Talent doesn't matter. Competence doesn't matter. The only thing that really matters is annoying liberals. If no actual liberals are involved in the issue, then think about what will annoy the liberals you've made up in your head.

It's the same principle that occasionally motivates some idiot to loudly proclaim that he's going to drive a big SUV and eat a steak, not because he likes those things, but "to make liberals angry." The steak and SUV industries appreciate it, and so do the cardiologists and the oil companies. The rest of us just wish you'd get the heck over yourself, when we bother to think about you at all, which isn't often.

But while I've got their attention, let me just say: You know what would really annoy me? If everyone had affordable health care. That would make me absolutely livid. A sane policy for fighting terrorism that guaranteed that terrorist criminals would face trials and that respected the Bill of Rights? That would really make me mad, too.

Dignity and basic rights for people who love differently from me, including the right to serve openly in the military and the right to marry? That would raise my blood pressure something fierce. A tax policy that gave relief to the middle class and made sure millionaires, billionaires and mega-corporations paid their fair share toward keeping this country running? Man, my head might explode from sheer rage.

Get to it, folks. Make me mad.

RUN, SARAH, RUN!

Palin lashes out at `Family Guy' - Yahoo! News

Sarah Palin is lashing out at the portrayal of a character with Down syndrome on the Fox animated comedy "Family Guy."

In a Facebook posting headlined "Fox Hollywood — What a Disappointment," the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and current Fox News contributor said Sunday night's episode felt like "another kick in the gut." Palin's youngest son, Trig, has Down syndrome.

Seriously. She gets this upset over a stupid joke on Family Guy? Yes, it's cruel, yes it's offensive, but its' a stupid TV show.

This sort of thing is why I really wish that Caribou Barbie makes good on her threat to run for President. She is easily the most thin-skinned politician on the national stage. She cannot lay her head down at night until she's found someone or something that she thinks is insulting to poor Trig (or Bristol, or whoever) and then try to blow it up into a national scandal. Even her resignation speech when she quit the Alaska governorship cold be shortened to "people are mean to me and my family, so I quit, Nyaah." It plays well to those whose entire political philosophy is based on resentment, but as the man once said, "politics ain't beanbag."

I guarantee that, if she does run, someone will say something to set her off. It's how presidential campaigns are. Jesus, they questioned Obama's faith, his patriotism, his very citizenship, and wingnut blogs were posting pictures of Michelle Photoshopped to look like a character from Planet of the Apes. If Palin gets a tenth of that kind of flak, she will crack like an egg. She will then have a messy and very public meltdown that will drive away everyone but the most fanatical Palindrones.

So...RUN, SARAH, RUN!

The Party of Love Returns

Man Holding 'Death to Obama' Sign Investigated by Secret Service

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (Aug. 13) -- The Secret Service is investigating a man who authorities said held a sign reading "Death to Obama" outside a town hall meeting on health-care reform in western Maryland.
The sign also read, "Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids," referring to the first name of President Barack Obama's wife, said Washington County Sheriff's Capt. Peter Lazich.

But don't you see? it's okay to hold a sign calling for the murder of not only the President, but his wife and kids, because SOMEONE MADE A JOKE ABOUT BRISTOL PALIN!

Anyone remember any protester from ACORN or Code Pink or any allegedly "leftist" group during the Bush Administration holding up signs saying "Death to Laura and the Twins?" Anyone recall any "Death to Cindy and Megan McCain" signs?

Anyone? Anyone?

Sarah Palin Is Lying

Former Governor Palin:

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

FACT CHECK No death panel in health care bill:

Nothing in the legislation would carry out such a bleak vision. The provision that has caused the uproar would instead authorize Medicare to pay doctors for counseling patients about end-of-life care, if the patient wishes. Here are some questions and answers on the controversy:

Q: Does the health care legislation bill promote "mercy killing," or euthanasia?

A: No.

More at the link.

Let us repeat: there is nothing whatsoever in this bill or in any health care bill currently being considered that can even be interpreted to create any sort of "death panel" or any mechanism that assesses a person's "level of productivity in society" to determine if they get medical care.

When people talk about the current political climate, they often bemoan the lack of "civility" in discourse,. In fact, Governor Palin herself, after her outrageous falsehood, has called for more "civility" in the health care debate.

But con artists like Caribou Barbie exploit good people's natural reluctance to call a lie a lie in order to run their con game. They know that nice people hate to go up to someone, even someone telling the most egregious lie, and go "you know what? You're lying." They depend on it.

Well, I'm not a nice person. And I'll come right out and say it:

Sarah Palin is lying. She is lying to try to scare people away from health care reform. She is lying becuase, if she told the actual truth about health care reform, she knows people would probably support it. She cannot win the debate with the truth, so she lies. She lies shamelessly and in such a way as to insult the intelligence of Americans. And, after moaning and whining about people talking about her family, she holds up her Down's syndrome baby like a bloody shirt because she thinks it'll make people all teary eyed and more reluctant to call her on her bullshit.

This is such a transparent lie that it shows her utter contempt for her supporters. She's treating you like rubes. Like marks. Like sheep who can be herded into the shearing pen and fleeced at leisure. She thinks you're all too stupid to question her.

And this is the person being touted as the GOP's next Presidential candidate? She is despicable.

The Good Americans at FreeRepublic

Racial slurs directed at Obama children:

"A typical street whore." "A bunch of ghetto thugs." "Ghetto street trash." "Wonder when she will get her first abortion."

These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative 'Free Republic' blog Thursday, aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama's 11-year-old daughter Malia after she was photographed wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on the front.

The thread was accompanied by a photo of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that featured the caption, "To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds."

Though this may sound like the sort of thing one might read on an Aryan Nation or white power website, they actually appeared on what is commonly considered one of the prime online locations for U.S. Conservative grassroots political discussion and organizing - and for a short time, the comments seemed to have the okay of site administrators.

Moderators of the blog left the comments - and commenters - in place until a complaint was lodged by a writer doing research on the conservative movement, almost a full day later.

"Could you imagine what world leaders must be thinking seeing this kind of street trash and that we paid for this kind of street ghetto trash to go over there?" wrote one commenter.

"They make me sick .... The whole family... mammy, pappy, the free loadin' mammy-in-law, the misguided chillin', and especially 'lil cuz... This is not the America I want representin' my peeps," wrote another.

But it's okay, don't you see? It's okay to call an 11 year old girl "ghetto trash" and "street whore" because David Letterman made a lame joke about 18 year old Bristol Palin.

But, of course, it's still not acceptable to say what Letterman said, which was still the WORST THING EVER SAID ABOUT ANYONE EVER (and a perfectly good reason for Palin to resign).

Likewise, it's okay to publish racist comments about "monkey sounds" because Sonia Sotomayor admits that being Latina had an effect on her life. But it's still not okay for Sotomayor to say that because that makes her THE WORST BIGOT EVER.

Wingnut logic.

Wingnut Logic, Wasilla Style

Criticizing a bubble-headed beauty queen for her public stance on gay marriage: A violation of said bubble-head's First Amendment Rights.

Threatening to sue bloggers and journalists who speculate about your bizarre and vaguely explained abdication of your elected office: A-OK, you betcha!

Governor Wilma needs to read her Constitution, not to mention New York Times vs. Sullivan.

This Independence Day weekend, remember to be thankful for the electoral process that kept this crazy person from being a heartbeat away from the Presidency. And be thankful as well that we don't have someone in the White House who'll walk off the job in a huff if some blogger or some Republican says something nasty about a member of his family.

(Warning: some of the stuff at those links is pretty raw. Much, much worse than the photoshop on some Alaskan political blog that apparently helped drive Winky Wilma from office. Said image is apparently some sort of in-joke understood mostly by Alaskans).

UPDATE: Thanks to Oliver Willis, here's a reminder of Governor Palin's advice to Hillary Clinton about unfair criticism: "Plow through! Quit whining!"



Heh.

"He Will Rape Them With His Mouth!"

It's hard to defend David Letterman's "A-Rod knocked up Sarah Palin's daughter" joke, mainly because it wasn't funny. And the reason it wasn't funny didn't have anything to do with shock or good taste or some hysterical reaction about alleged pedophila. It just wasn't funny.

But this...THIS is funny (After the ad):

Playing the Bristol Card

Latest Newspaper Column:

Recently, a letter to this paper gave me "credit," however grudgingly, regarding my column on VP candidate Sarah Palin. I got credit for "not going sexist or slamming her family." But the next sentence was rather revealing: "I really was expecting that, so I'm very disappointed."

Oh, Dear Reader, I'm sure you were. Because if there's one thing the Right really loves, it's a good foaming-at-the-mouth fit of righteous indignation. And the brouhaha over 17-year-old Bristol Palin's pregnancy has generated plenty of that.

In fact, I've been thinking that the McCain campaign needs to change its slogan from "Country First" to "How DARE You!" It'd be much more in tune with whatever passes for a message these days from the McCainiacs.

But here's the thing: If, as he claims, John McCain Who Was a POW (or, as I call him for brevity's sake, JMWWAPOW) knew about Bristol's pregnancy before he picked her mom for the veep spot, then he knew it was going to draw attention. He knew this 17-year-old was going to be a story. And it's his campaign that's been milking it for all it's worth.

Barack Obama, for his part, took the high road.

"I have said before and I will repeat again," he said. "People's families are off limits. And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor and/or her potential performance as a vice president."

Which was of course, absolutely right. There's plenty of ammunition to use on the Newest Biggest Celebrity in the World. Like her continuing and shameless repetition of the lie that she "told Washington 'no thanks' to that Bridge to Nowhere." In fact, as numerous news sources have reported, she was all for it -- before she was against it.

Or the fact that Palin, who now campaigns against federal earmarks, once hired indicted Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens' former chief of staff as a lobbyist in Washington, to bring some of that federal pork back to the little town of Wasilla, where she was mayor. Or the fact that Palin, supposedly a fiscal conservative, left that tiny city $20 million in debt when she departed the office.

Not that it made any difference, and not that anyone will get to ask the governor about those things. As McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was quoted as saying after the convention, "This election is not about issues," and boy, are they ever running as fast as they can from the issues.

The McCain campaign people have been using their indignation that anyone dared to notice the press release they themselves sent out as not only a club to beat the Obama campaign over the head, but as a shield from even legitimate questions from the few members of the press corps who still regard it as part of the job to do more than take down every ridiculous thing that comes out of the mouth of the Republican mouthpiece du jour.

When asked by Time magazine's Jay Carney about the campaign's unwillingness to have Palin talk to the press, McCain spokesman Nicole Wallace jeered openly at the idea: "To you? Who cares?" She then trotted the Bristol Palin coverage out for the purpose of changing the subject: "The media did something to this family that I've never seen before in my life! And she [Palin] took the stage and made her own points!"

Translation: "You invaded the family's privacy by reporting what we told you, so America only gets to hear what we want them to hear! Nyaah!"

Another McCain supporter whom I heard on the radio went absolutely ballistic over a caller's question about whether Palin had tried to censor books in Wasilla's public library (an attempt which, by the way, was later confirmed by an ABC News investigation).

"I'm not going to dignify that with an answer," she huffed, before taking off on an angry diatribe about the "media frenzy of the last few days." Basically, Bristol Palin has become a human shield for the McCain campaign. I've come to call it "playing the Bristol Card."

No, I don't slam Bristol Palin. And I don't blame Sarah Palin for her pregnancy. Things like this happen, even in conservative Christian families, and it's not always a sign of bad parenting.

I do, however, blame JMWWAPOW. I've actually written quite complimentary things about him in the past. You can look it up. But that was before he dangled that kid as bait, so his supporters could then cry pious crocodile tears about "awful liberals and their awful media" and then use that to hide behind when people brought up Gov. Palin's real problems as a candidate.

Because if there's one tactic the Republicans have learned over the past few years, it's this: "If you can't win on an issue, make discussion of that issue off-limits." Now, it seems, even legitimate questions are off-limits -- so long as they can play the Bristol Card.

The Vice Presidential Nominee? Talk to the Press? Bitch, PLEASE!

McCain adviser Nicole Wallace openly mocks the idea of a candidate for Vice President even needing to talk to the press, apparently because questions about policy are JUST LIKE questions about Bristol Palin's pregnancy.

This is apparently part of a concerted strategy to deflect any and all legitimate questions by playing the Bristol Palin sympathy card. Yesterday on NPR's Diane Rehm show (which I was listening to in the car on the way to my own radio interview), McCain supporter Cleta Mitchell went absolutely ballistic when asked about the report that Sarah Palin had pressured a town librarian to ban books. Mitchell took off on an angry diatribe about the "media frenzy" of the last few days, and the "litany of the left wing blogs" that were trying to "destroy conservative females and conservative minorities."

I'm telling you, they're using this kid. First as blog bait, now as a shield from even legitimate questions. It's absolutely despicable.

Oh, and this video from Jon Stewart is a must-see as it points out how the Republicans are talking out of both sides of their mouth, as well as their asses, on the Palins.

McCain Campaign Dangles 17 Year Old Pregnant Teen as Bait

Assessing the Political Impact of Bristol Palin's Pregnancy:

Democrats must be VERY careful not to take a false step here. Some Republicans have already insisted that the Obama campaign is behind the rumor-mongering about Sarah, Bristol and Trig -- although in our experience the campaign has not pushed the story AT ALL, in fact they have been encouraging reporters to focus on the issues of difference between the two candidates rather than personal stories. Any sense that Democrats are pushing this idea will almost certainly turn both Sarah and Bristol Palin into sympathetic figures -- and that spells trouble for her detractors.

Obama's statement on the matter:

"I have said before and I will repeat again: People's families are off limits," Obama said. "And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor and/or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18 and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be a topic of our politics."

But, as we can see from the story above, it doesn't matter what Obama said, and it doesn't matter that there's no evidence that the Obama campaign is behind it. The McCainiacs are already blaming his campaign for leaking the story.

You know what? I think the McCain campaign WANTS the kid's pregnancy dragged out and endlessly discussed so they can then get all indignant and blame Obama. And considering their insistence that they already knew about the pregnancy when they picked Palin, they had to have known it would cause the very furor they're now getting so indignant about.

In short they've already moved to use a 17 year old girl as a martyr to the Cause.

Classy.