How the Palin 2012 Campaign Will Look

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeAs with most of you, I sat in shock watching the train wreck yesterday. Sarah Palin stood on her lawn and resigned as Governor of Alaska. As hard as I tried, I looked deeply into the background behind Palin and failed to see Russia, but I digress. I am one of those who thinks Palin is going to run for President. She mentioned how she wanted to change things form the outside... and I think that means the outside of Alaska and inside DC. This strip pretty much sums up my thoughts on the issue.

There is No Open Door, Sarah

God is back! This time he's been talking to Alaska Governor and former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. It's obvious God stop talking to President George W. Bush months ago and has set his sights on Palin. Palin was on virtual lockdown during the presidential campaign. The McCain people only let her out to loot Neiman-Marcus' coast to coast and to do stump speeches in the pro-America parts of the country. The few scheduled interviews she had were disastrous, remember Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson? My two favorite Palin-isms "In what respect, Charlie?"and "I'll have to find some and bring them to you". 2012 is so far off I don't even want to think about it. It's obvious Palin has set her sights on running for President or something. In case you didn't know, she's a person of faith who communicates with God regularly (though he was noticeably absent when she was besmirching Barack Obama). When asked about her aspirations for 2012, Palin told a local FOX News reporter: "I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is. And if there is an open door in 2012 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation,an opportunity for me, then I'll plough through that door." I'm like, there is no open door, Sarah! What's good for Alaska isn't necessarily good for the lower 48 states. You've proven that over and over again. While Alaska may need you, the rest of us don't. So please don't plough through the door Sarah, God wouldn't like it very much. Neither would I.

Sarah Palin and the Religion of Ecstacy

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing. Recently, in her Huffington Post blog, Naomi Wolf compared Sarah Palin to Eva Peron. Now, there's an analogy that becomes more apt every day. Like any peasant girl from the outskirts, Sarah Palin needs to dress the part of a political luminary. While Palin's transformation from hockey mom to fashion plate has raised eyebrows, her "SNL" character, played by Tina Fey, has remained firmly in the red jacket. And according to Women's Wear Daily's Irin Carmon, "SNL" costume designer Tom Broecker said Wednesday night that dressing Palin for last Saturday's cameo required a compromise: Of Palin, Broecker said, "In speaking with her, I had to get her to understand why she needed to wear the same thing as Tina [Fey]. We had gone off and created it for the first time a month ago, a look we identified as Sarah Palin. She had moved on in her own image of herself. I said, 'I know you've moved on ­ you're wearing tighter clothes, more black ­ but this is the character of Sarah Palin.'" Silly SNL dresser. She needs to dress for her descamisados, up there in Alaska. (They're very cold.) Besides, as John McCain says, "She needed clothes." (Well, ok. But does her seven year old really need a Louis Vuitton bag?) The McCain campaign assures us the clothes will go to charity. What they don't tell you: She'll be throwing them from a balcony. "Please understand what you are looking at when you look at Sarah "Evita" Palin. You are looking at the designated muse of the coming American police state." -- Naomi Wolf

Anything can be true in Wingnut Land

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge Seriously, does this cartoon make any sense? I think it does, but you must live in Wingnut Land for you to get it. I have come to believe that Wingnutters live in some sort of Roddenberrian universe of parallel realities all intersecting at once. How else can you explain their belief in so many wrong-headed "if then else" statements? 4+Blue=Terrorist Makes perfect sense, right? When I watch Hannity or read RedState, I really wonder what reality they live in. A world filled with inconsistent and shifting logical operators? Maybe a world awash with bullshit. With McCain's and Palin's audiences shouting "terrorist" and "kill him" at the mention of Barack Obama's name and the racial slurs shouted at media camera crew personnel, it shows that anything goes as long as it forwards their agenda. If I were to make those associations, the above cartoon would tend to make sense. If Bush is like McCain, then Palin is like Bin Laden. Makes perfect sense.

Now we know what was in Palin’s email account.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge Not much commentary for today. Last night when Biden was asked a question, he answered it and gave detail about the answer. When Palin was asked a question, she ignored the question and just started to rattle off whatever was on her notecards. Her performance reminded me of a bad Powerpoint presentation (Keynote for you Mac freaks!).

Sarah Palin's Final Solution For Witches

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge I think Sarah Palin's stance on feminism hearkens back to the Dark Ages. After watching way too many of her pastor's video tapes, and those that Palin appeared in herself, it is a theology that maintains female subservience to a male. In this case, it is "Jesus." All actions and ideas must be seen though the lens Christian Evangelical Fundamentalism where straying from the path and making decisions on your own without the benefit of celestial guidance, is frowned upon at best, Malleus Maleficarum at worst. It seems that the culture she lives in has no room for the philosophy of a "managed uterus." If you get pregnant, tough shit, you carry the child of your lover. If you are raped, tough shit, you will carry the child of your rapist. As a special little gift to those rape victims, under Palin, the victim is charged for the forensics rape evidence collection kit and we can't even get her to give an opinion on emergency contraception. Which brings us to witches. Throughout history, when women have exerted their power and influence, the male dominated society beat them down, tortured them, burned them alive and last but not least, outright murder. Being a witch, and by expansion here I include Wicca or any form of Goddess worship, it is the biggest slap in the face to Christian Fundamentalism, truly going against God. The women, and like-minded men, who believe in equality for women are an enemy that must be dealt with - a group where murder in the middle of the night by mobs of thugs is preferable. A quick Google Search for Witchcraft and Africa yielded a story today of Eleven dead in Congo football riot after use of 'witchcraft.' But this is not news, we have known for a long time that Palin and her ilk are hypocrites.

Very Bad Things

The Talented Mr. Damon

People pay more attention to celebrities than to politicians. It’s a shame, but hey, what are you gonna do? A Nobel-prize winning scientist could hold a press conference explaining how he built a time machine and I’ll guarantee you that he wouldn’t even make the front page of The Washington Post or five lousy minutes on the 6 o’clock evening news if Brad announced he was leaving Angelina to go back to Jen. There’s always lots of people willing to drink the Kool-Aid to join the Cult of Personality. But, if you’re not careful, it’s very easy to become mesmerized by their charisma. Don’t forget, it’s their job, and they’re good at it. There’s a scene in The Rocketeer, a fun but dumb adventure flick set during WWII, that points this out. Jennifer Connelly discovers that her idol, Timothy Dalton (happily twirling his mustache), is a Nazi spy. “You lied,“ Jennifer gasps in horror. “You lied to me about everything.“ Sneering at her, Timothy replies, “No, I was acting.“ The bottom line is, movie stars are just a better-looking species of used car salesmen, and they’re trying damned hard to sell you something. Of course, if you like what they do, then it’s a fair trade. But politics is the snake in the garden that changes everything. There’s a big difference between acting in a TV sitcom that makes people forget about their rotten jobs for an evening and being a spokesman for some ugly propaganda that’s packaged as entertainment. Fame will compel people to give you the benefit of the doubt, even when they should know better.Think of the late Charlton Heston at a NRA meeting with a rifle over his head yelling, “You can have this when you take it from my cold, dead fingers!” It’s easier to sell this garbage if you know how to read a script. Ask Ah-nold the Governator who got elected simply by recycling old quotes from his past movies. Why do you think the Republicans miss Ronnie so much? Thankfully, there’s more than a few celebrities who know how to use their fame responsibly. Matt Damon is one of them. Matt always comes across as the smartest guy in the room, but he doesn’t brag about it. Because he’s a ridiculously handsome guy, Matt is often dismissed as a slow-witted blond lummox. I’ve seen some unwary interviewers make this mistake. By the time they find out how wrong they were, it’s too late and Matt is kicking their sorry asses the same way he stomped that arrogant, college-educated punk in Good Will Hunting. Watch Matt do the same thing to Sarah Palin, the Not Ready For Prime Time Hockey Mom. If I was a journalist who still had pride in my profession, I'd be taking notes.

Amateur Night

Wow. I think this is really good news. Watching this, my pessimism yawned, curled up in my lap and took a nap. It certainly summoned up painful flashbacks of The President Who Shall Not Be Named, and I know that's definitely not what the Republican brain trust intended. Inconceivable. An unscripted Sarah Palin magically turns into Dubya's meek, not-so-bright little sister. Who woulda thunk it? And if these nerf balls tossed by Charlie Gibson confused her, what would Mike Wallace do to her? I can imagine a smiling and relaxed Joe Biden smoking a cigarette somewhere, lost in afterglow.

Undecided

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Palin Speaks With Press

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge To quote the Kwisatz Haderach, "Fear Is The Mind-Killer." And I must admit, I fear a McCain/Palin administration and admittedly, I fear a Palin administration even more. If McCain is a maverick, Palin is pure chaos. Why am I so fearful? Where do I even start? First off, I am afraid the American public is still horrifically stupid. They voted for Bush in vast numbers TWICE, plus they gave him swollen approval ratings when it was obvious there was no basis for it. Are these Bush fans thinking, "third time is the charm?" These people are low-information voters and have consisantly voted against their best economic interests time and time again. They just can't seem to get enough of failure, torment and pain. It is quite remarkable. For some unknown reason, these voters do not understand the danger of our deficit, national debt and the debt hole. They do not understand that buying from Walmart puts Americans out of work. They seem to have forgotten that American families used to only need one breadwinner - now it takes two spouses and a pile of credit cards to make ends meet. There was a time in Amercia where we took pride in our national parks. My great grandparents used to think very highly of how we as Americans set aside the Great Smokey Mountains, the Petrified Forest, Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. I have ancestors that cut the route for the Blue Ridge Parkway. But now the mantra is "drill baby, drill." My parents, grandparents and great-grandparents used to always think about saving and conserving. They all grew up in hard times in the rough patches of West Virginia. "Why buy a new shovel when you can fix the one you have?" was a saying of Andrew Keys, my great-grandfather who spent a lifetime coal mining and keeping a farm near Spanishburg, West Virginia. The Republicans seem to have forgotten how to work together. It is there way and they will advance their position with no outside help. That is a very divisive way of thinking. As some of you may know, I run a soldier support charity, Books For Soldiers. During Katrina, I worked with Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan to set-up a relief network for residents of the Gulf Coast. We set out to deliver food, medicine and clothing to those who were affected by the hurricane. When some of the Books For Soldiers volunteers figured out that Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan were helping out, they refused to help Americans in need because, and I quote from their emails, "because the medicine might be delivered by Democrats." No shit. So I fear. I fear that half of this nation will continue to not use their brains and vote for McCain / Palin and we will finally lose America. Forever.

Truthiness and Sarah Palinovski

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeWhen I was studying economics at Wake Forest University, the Cold War was still on and Reagan was in his second term. As part of the course, we had to read the English version of Pravda. It was an eye opening experience and a icy dip into some high class propaganda. One issue that has stuck in my mind all this time had some guy smiling in the camera and the caption was something like “Siberians Happy With Government” or some such. The photo of the man showed him squatting, barefoot, in front of a pot bellied stove. In the background, the door was open and the landscape beyond was snow covered. Even though he was smiling, it showed the utter poverty the USSR had produced. The headline, if read by low information people, might see something different, but someone from my cynical generation would see something altogether different. During the last eight years of Bush/Cheney/McCain has proven to have the same level of propaganda and denial of the facts. War is peace. Civil rights are weakness. Debt is stability. Palin is like those guys on steroids. Not only is she willing to bend the truth, she has a panache to lie, not just once but in a steady stream. It is like drinking from the fire hose of hate. Bush has been often compared to Hitler and the Nazi regime. Some of those attacks were warrantless, while some of those acquisitions were analogous. But Palin is a bit different, slightly out of phase from Cheney and his minions. To me, Palin seems to be old school Soviet. She is a whole different breed of fascist. She is their new messiah… and we can’t let them win.

The Sarah Palin Coup d'état

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeHere is my new theory. I believe the GOP NeoCons, like Rove, are working to make the best out of a bad situation. McCain is really not their boy. He is malleable to a point, but he is not the puppet that Bush is. So they find Palin who already has puppet strings attached and she is more than willing to destroy the nation to achieve their NeoCon fantasies. After McCain is in office, the unreal pressures of office will be applied, including internal pressures to get McCain to crack. If he doesn't do something stupid on his own, some other psychological event could be faked and he would be forced from office for care in a mental facility. At this point, Palin is commander in chief. After the past 8 years, I have learned these people are capable of anything. Special Note: I will be giving a presentation at Adobe's San Francisco 601 Townsend Street office on September 16th at 6:45pm. During the presentation I will chat about how I started the strip and show how I use Adobe's software to create the strip along. Expect antics! Print out your favorite TCD comic strip and I will autograph it! The event is free and Adobe feeds you pizza! Seats are still available so RSVP HERE.

Worse Than Stupid

Sarah Palin is stupid. O.K., I know it's a controversial accusation, and I'll probably be categorized as a bone-headed sexist idiot for putting it in print, but I don't think I'm wrong. No matter how hard the right-wing gasbags try to cook the books, the evidence against John McCain's choice as his VP is just too overwhelming. Troopergate. The loyal Gal Friday for Ted ("The Bridge To Nowhere") Stevens. Using her daughter Bristol as a stage prop. Palin is White Male Privilage grip-wrapped in a skirt. And Palin's ideology is the usual Republican bullshit: Darwin was a fraud. Happiness is a warm AK-47. Ignore those floating icebergs. There's too damned many polar bears. Who cares if Uncle George raped you, you're gonna have that baby anyway. Drill, baby, drill. Not exactly an independent thinker, huh? Palin and McCain will get along just fine. I'm sorry, but anyone who buys into this hateful, superstitious nonsense is stupid and anyone trying to define Palin as a progressive symbol for women's liberation is like calling Jack The Ripper a feminist. It's one small step for Palin and one giant step backwards for every man and woman in the United States if her and McCain win. It's worse than stupid. It's crazy.

Sorting The Palin Family Laundry -- Updated

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing. I think when all is said in done, the thing I will take away from the bizarre Sarah Palin fiasco is the certainty that the Daily Kos is ridiculous. They win the prize for catapulting an utterly irresponsible piece of "journalism" into the public eye. While it shows the power of the blogosphere to shoehorn issues into the MSM, it also opens the left wing blogosphere to charges of really shoddy, tawdry, bottom-feeder reporting. The absurdity of all this is not lost on Lee Stranahan, whose own coverage of the John Edwards mess, got him banned from the orange city. The irony for me, of course, is that despite making over fifty short political videos with a clear progressive point of view, I was banned on DailyKos for saying that it seemed reasonable that John Edwards was seen at the Beverly Hilton late at night. This is what marks Daily Kos as a thoroughly partisan organ, trafficking in the worst sort of hackery. When legitimate questions are raised about a prominent Democrat, shout down the offending voices for spouting tabloid sleaze. When dubious charges are leveled at a rather suddenly prominent Republican, it's full speed ahead and don't worry about trifles like proof before you publicly try and convict. I will not be pulling up the Daily Kos story in question. I did so the other evening and it froze up my browser for a good twenty minutes. It wasn't worth it. I was stunned at the crappiness of it. I was stunned at the quite possibly libelous nature of it. I could not believe that a diarist could be so stupid as to state such assertions as fact. And, I could not believe that a blog as censorious as DKos allowed that to stand, when so many perfectly fair diaries have been deleted and so many reasonable people been banned. I will, however, tip my hat to doberman pinche, who offered up the outrage of Townhall. "Sarah Palin is NOT the Mother" is the title of this DailyKos blog that accuses Bristol, a completely fit-looking adolescent teen, of having a "baby bump" in a photo they allege was taken March 9th of this year. "Sarah, I'm calling you a liar" wrote blogger ArcXIX. "And not even a good one. Trig Paxson Van Palin is not your son. He is your grandson. The sooner you come forward with this revelation to the public, the better. " Photos of Bristol with detailed commentary about her abdomen are contained in the post. Not only is the DailyKos disgustingly inspecting Bristol's midriff with all the fervor of LA paparazzi examining J-Lo's or Jennifer Aniston's washboard stomachs for evidence of a "bump," the DailyKos is wrong on when the photo was taken. It was taken, and published, by the Anchorage Daily News in 2006. Baby Trig, a child with Down's Syndrome, was born on April 18, 2008. That's a long time for a teen girl to be carrying a "bump" which looks nothing more than the curve of a tight sweater. The Daily Kos induced furor has now forced the campaign to announce that 17 year old Bristol is 5 months pregnant and planning to do what all good, Christian, teen mothers do; get married. I wish her well and I'm truly saddened that her private life has been dragged into the spotlight. But it is certainly arguable that Sarah Palin's own richly layered idiocy is largely to blame. I'm ambivalent about a lot of this. There is certainly plenty of fodder with which to attack Sarah Palin's candidacy, without dragging out anyone's gynecological history. From the bizarre video in which she wonders aloud what a VP does all day, to the fact that her own mother-in-law seems unsure she's qualified, to the statements about Iraq being both a war for oil and God's work, to the fact that she was almost a recalled over corruption charges as mayor, to possible secessionist leanings... Okay. The list gets pretty long. But, I remain unconvinced that the questions surrounding the birth of little Trig aren't relevant and worthy of, all be it, more responsible scrutiny. Sarah Palin: Not Flat Busted Photo: Provided by the Palin Family I Can't Take This Woman Seriously I found myself somewhat at odds with Maryscott on this issue. I agree strongly about the sanctity of a woman's right to privacy regarding reproductive choice, but I have a hard time defending that right for a woman who would take that very privacy away from women everywhere. I disagree (8.00 / 1) and this is why. Because this is a woman, running for the Vice Presidency, who fully intends to have her nose in every other woman's uterus, not only in this country, but in any nation to which we apportion aid. This is a woman who wants to make abstinence only education the law of the land, but who can't get her own, unwed teen daughter to close her legs. And, I can say that now, because I just heard on the car radio that Bristol is pregnant right now, at 17, and they are busily arranging a shotgun wedding. "What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker by: Curmudgette @ Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 15:13:32 PM EDT ********** by: you @ soon To post this comment click here: Otherwise click cancel. You must enter a subject for your comment So. Because SHE'S a hypocrite, WE have the right to be hypocrites? (0.00 / 0) Interesting logic. --7.88, --6.56 If I can't rant, I don't want to be part of your revolution. by: Maryscott O'Connor @ Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 15:47:24 PM EDT by: you @ soon To post this comment click here: Otherwise click cancel. You must enter a subject for your comment ********** Because she's a hypocrite (6.00 / 1) she has a right to be exposed as a hypocrite. Period. It reminds me of when both Bush the senior and Quayle were asked if someone in their family had an unplanned pregnancy, if they would want them to have access to abortion. They both said, it would be a private family matter, and they wouldn't discuss it. Fuck that. When you're talking about intruding on the privacy and integrity of every other woman's body in America, fuck you. You don't get a right to privacy. Right to life extremists are pushing for legislation all over that country that would force women who miscarry -- miscarry -- to prove it. So fuck 'em. You want to crawl up my twat with a flashlight? You don't get dispensation to do things that women could be prosecuted for under some of the legislation you and your wingnut pals want to push through. If she traveled after her water broke, she endangered the life of her unborn child. That will be prosecutable offense if some of these whackjobs get their way. "What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker by: Curmudgette @ Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 15:59:09 PM EDT Admittedly, I can get a little worked up over this issue... And, I may have lost my objectivity. Mainly because I'm sick to fucking death of these whack jobs who are bound and determined to legislate a standard of morality that even they cannot meet. But, there is a line. Daily Kos crossed it. Update: It would seem that the powers that be at Daily Kos have been sufficiently shamed into deleting the diary (or diaries) in question. The user known as ArcXIX now shows no diaries in his listing. As of this writing, he also has no comments listed after 8/29, for whatever it's worth.

McCain - An Achievement You Can Believe In

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeThe last 4 days have left many of us bewildered and sleep deprived. "It is 3am and I can't go to bed now, there may be ANOTHER Palin story that breaks!" But somehow we managed to get some sleep. But after astonishment after astonishment, we continue to shake our head in disbelief and in many cases, utter shock! Some in the punditry have mentioned that "liberals' never saw the Palin pick coming. That is true, I never did. Why? Well, mainly because, I didn't think McCain could be that damn stupid. I gave him a lot more credit than I should have. I thought he would pick someone that would help him compete in the election, to SUPPORT his ticket. But there is one meme that has disappeared from the pundit-o-sphere - disunited Democrats. I am unsure if that is what McCain would have wanted to happen, but somehow, McCain picked the only candidate he could have to unite Democrats in a way that Obama and Clinton could never have done. Thanks!