This is a great find– while the McCain campaign has Sarah Palin hermetically sealed in a press free zone, terrified that she might speak without a teleprompter, and while they are getting the vapors about things like… opposition research, it might be instructive to remember what certain campaign operatives thought about fact-finding in headier times. For example, how did our intrepid right-wing citizen journalists and conservative mainstream journalists react to noted politician and seventh grader Graeme Frost? Take it away, Mark Steyn:
The Democrats chose to outsource their airtime to a Seventh Grader. If a political party is desperate enough to send a boy to do a man’s job, then the boy is fair game. As it is, the Dems do enough cynical and opportunist hiding behind biography and identity, and it’s incredibly tedious.
Graeme Frost- Tougher than the Original Mavericks. And he has never even gutted a moose.
ACK
Actually, I think Sarah is off trying to sell AIG on eBay…
libarbarian
I thought he had antler counter-tops.
Incertus
But Obama wouldn’t agree to a bunch of town halls, so it’s all good.
Zach
Ah the Frosts!
It was hilarious to see The Corner whip out the jump to conclusions mat in full force that week. Living on roughly the same block as the Frosts (in a neighborhood including roughly zero affluent white families with school-age children), it’s plainly obvious how the housing bubble could’ve driven houses blocks away to near a million dollars without pulling their family out of the middle class. To think that Michelle Malkin could’ve thought it worth the time to drive by snapping covert photos of houses on the block without stopping to ask someone and do some actual reporting… such an astounding waste of time for someone who’s had some degree of success.
mantis
Speaking of which, this is a damn good idea (especially the last part).
Svensker
Do you have proof of that?
Typical loon blogger — no backup for the assertions.
McCain/Palin! Cuz we LIKE being f*cked!
bootlegger
Obama v. McCain, not Obama v. Palin. The only thing he needs to say about Palin is that it shows McCain’s bad judgment.
I actually think Glenzilla has the winning narrative, though I think The Whippersnapper should wait until late in the campaign to fire it off–McCain will get us into more foreign misadventures, i.e. wars. From the Bush Doctrine, to Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran to protecting the other Georgia from Russia, make the case that this guy is a dangerous loose cannon. Repeat it over and over and don’t give them time to coordinate a response.
Delia
As long as we’re still vetting counter tops, anyone want to vet Palin’s tanning bed? In the governor’s mansion and all? Oh yeah, and she also proclaimed a Skin Cancer Awareness Month last year to go along with it.
PK
I wonder what Sarah Palin thinks about the current economic crisis? Maybe some enterprising news organization will air drop a reporter who can get close enough to her to ask this question.
Dennis - SGMM
McCain spokesliar Carly Fiorina on MSNBC this morning whining about SNL’s Palin/Clinton skit:
From “Through the Looking Glass:”
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,’ it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’
Rick James
Palin would wipe the floor with that fool Obama. She attended 5 schools in 6 years so she has lottsa book learnin’, bitches!
Joshau Norton
Yeah! And Palin went to 6, count ’em, 6 colleges. Obama only went to ONE!
That makes her 6 times as cool.
TheFountainHead
Kinda hard not to.
Dennis - SGMM
Palin has seen money, therefore, she’s an expert on the economy.
bootlegger
Goddammit! I’m sick and fuckin’ tired of this tripe that our smartest citizens make lousy presidents. “Elite”? So what?! I want my president to be an elite scholar, not the kid who barely got through college but can con others with personality. This isn’t a reality show kids!
JGabriel
Donald Luskin @ WaPo:
Wow. I just saw this and I’m pretty shocked by the obvious dishonesty here.
Skip whether or not the numbers are accurate, just assume for the sake of argument that they are.
If there were 1004 bank failures in 1988-89, then that would lift the average number of failures by about 10-15 failures per year – all by itself. Any other years with especially high numbers of failures would have a similiar effect on the average number.
Instead, what one is interested in is the median number (50 percentile mark) of failures per year – almost certain to be far less than the average that Luskin quotes. Averages can have a tendency to skew very high from the median given a few randomly high numbers in a mix without a ceiling; for instance, the average US yearly income is about 75K per year, whereas the median is only about 45K.
For Luskin to quote an average rather than median figure in this context, when he knows it is skewed and misleading, is one of the heights of dishonest argument (outside of outright lying and/or making shit up).
Yeah, yeah, I know the publication timing of Luskin’s op-ed is so ironically bad as to overwhelm other considerations about it, but it seemed somehow necessary to note Luskin’s fundamental dishonesty too.
.
Bobzim
But he sure as hell gutted Stalkin’ Malkin’.
gbear
Nah, it just means she has 6 times as many sweatshirts.
Dennis - SGMM
Luskin neglects to mention that these failures occurred during the S&L meltdown. That’s understandable because that was another financial disaster caused by Republican deregulation.
dslak
These attempted defenses of Palin can’t be helping feminism any, as it’s not sexist to point out that a female lacks substance unless the fact that she’s a female is used to explain that she lacks substance.
Of course, the mouthbreathing contingent on the right probably thinks that “liberals” consider any and all criticism of a woman to be sexist, because they can’t tell the difference between making a legitimate criticism and being an asshole.
Warren Terra
Science Fiction Writer and noted Blogger John Scalzi has a good essay up today on the subject of McCain’s lying and its significance.
The Moar You Know
The walkback, throwing lies all the way.
I know that McCain was a POW – not that he was tortured or anything, but somehow his arms are all screwed up. Anyway, in spite of him not being tortured but having screwed up arms, that fucker can dance better than Fred Astaire.
Someone needs to tell the AP to coordinate their spin on McCain. I get really confused with them lurching back and forth every couple of days.
Martin
And even median is misleading. What % of banks failed, or even better, how much did the FDIC have to step up and insure in each of those years.
I mean, if 1004 Joe-Bob’s Banks failed vs. one Bank of America, I think we’d be more worried about the latter than the former, and there was a LOT of bank consolidation after 88-89. Are there even 1004 banks left out there?
dslak
This is good: McCain admits that Obama didn’t call Palin a pig.
This response is a bit of a tell, however:
Now, why would McCain mention that his opponent was eloquent? That seems like odd praise. You could knock me over with a feather if you told me that McCain’s comment had any racial component.
Incertus
Hmmm. It’s not the difference of opinion that makes Palin substance-less. It’s the lack of substance in her opinions. For instance, I’d suggest that, in her prime, Margaret Thatcher had radically difference ideas from those of Hillary Clinton, but she was far from substance-less. She was a formidable woman who just happened to have priorities I found horrific. But Sarah Palin is no Margaret Thatcher.
Delia
From John Scalzi:
Of course there seems to be little real-world penalty within American politics. The payback comes when teh stupid overwhelms us within the actual real world. Didn’t I hear something just today about some big banks going under? And that frakkin’ war in Afghanistan is being expanded into Pakistan. That’ll go well. Four or eight more years of this, and we might as well just break up the Union.
Delia
hooray./ I made it past the wordpress error gatekeeper.
b. hussein canuckistani
You can’t see the Falklands from London, so Thatcher had to learn the old fashioned way.
Cris
Sarah Palin is no Jeane Kirkpatrick either.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, could play in that company. (Significant policy differences aside.)
The Moar You Know
I’m ready to sign off on this one. If the South wants to establish their own nation of Fucktardia, I’m ready to let them have it. Small price to pay.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I think Obama started at Occidental and graduated from Columbia for undergraduate. Harvard for law school. Taught at Univ. of Chicago.
Brian J
Hey, I suggested the same thing last night. I also said it again just before at Kevin Drum’s blog, where the topic was the campaign following advice that you give and not being sure whether that’s a good idea.
The idea of Obama confronting McCain on this issue is perfect. It’s definitely a substantive issue, it’s an area where McCain and particularly Palin aren’t comfortable, and by getting out in front, he could take the mantle of change back and look like serious statesman. And he should definitely do it on Wall Street. It has that aura of seriousness that a speech in Ohio or Michigan, like I said he could also do, wouldn’t give him.
jeffreyw
Way OT, but given that the Feds don’t seem to want these pics out, i will link them here.
jeffreyw
OT, but damn!
(second try at a comment)
JGabriel
The Moar You Know:
I agree. And then we can tell all those redneck assholes outside the South that fly confederate flags to go to Fucktardia if they don’t like it here.
.
dslak
Yeah, fuck the South! And screw the minorities living there, and those too poor to leave!
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
The first round of S’mores flavored schnapps is on me!
Delia
Yeah, apparently we’ve lost another American city. But never fear. The Bushies have learned from their mistakes and this time they’re on the job and trying to make sure that no one sees what happened. More from Think Progress.
(hope this goes through, it’s been a fab afternoon for WordPress Error.)
OniHanzo
What dslak said.
Invincible ignorance knows no boundary or border.
dslak
My brother was a first responder during Gustav, and he said that even then they weren’t receiving any food or drink. Their meals were out-of-pocket.
Cris
This reminds me of Code Hubbard, from Robert Anton Wilson’s Schrodinger’s Cat trilogy.
SGEW
If the Union ever broke apart, I’ve always thought that we should have an open immigration policy and a Federal Refugee Agency that finds new lives for those who make it out of the South (tho’ I do like “Fucktardia”), accompanied by a massive covert operation a la the underground railroad.
Then encourage Mexico to invade.
(not really: just a funny thought to this born and bred Yankee)
JGabriel
Delia:
Somehow, Bush often reminds me of the poem “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop. Here’s an excerpt:
I’m pretty much an agnostic. But if there is a God, he/she is clearly punishing us for electing Bush.
.
SGEW
-E. Bishop
Now I’m sad.
The Moar You Know
I want to make something clear. I’m not a Yankee. I’m the last Southern-born member of a family that has lived in the South since the 1790s. If there is one thing I’m grateful for, it’s that I no longer live in the South.
You and I know some truths. There are decent folks in the South – about one in four. The other three out of four are the nastiest, meanest, most self-righteously ignorant people that live in this country.
I figure it would be eaier to implement SGEW’s suggestion:
than to implement the other possible course of action, which is to send all the big-trick-driving, Confederate-flag-waving, Jesus-hollering assholes to Antarctica. Don’t get me wrong, I’m OK with that course of action as well, it’s just a lot more expensive.
dslak
Just because somebody’s an asshole doesn’t make it okay to violate their rights. Assholes are people, too!
rikyrah
jeffreyw Says:
OT, but damn!
(second try at a comment)
It’s the Gulf Coast all over again, and I am resentful that the media isn’t showing it, or the crappy job FEMA is doing.
rikyrah
jeffreyw Says:
OT, but damn!
(second try at a comment)
It’s the Gulf Coast all over again, and I am resentful that the media isn’t showing it, or the crappy job FEMA is doing.
blogreeder
Interesting story here about Obama and his teleprompter .
For those of you that don’t follow links:
Looks like she’s not the only one terrified.
blogreeder
Delia, it doesn’t seem anyone else is interested in this. I’ll give it a try. Did she pay for that with state funds? The link within your link doesn’t say. Did she get it as a gift? The link within your link doesn’t say. Your link does disclose:
Maybe, you should wait for some actual facts before linking to something?
This is clearly a made up scandal, you know having a tanning ben while promoting cancer awareness (emphasis mine).
Over-exposure doesn’t mean no exposure. In fact, with Alaska’s yearly amount and quality of sunlight, a tanning bed would be the thing to have to ward off Vitamin D deficiency.
TenguPhule
Bullets are cheaper. And you can bill their estate afterwards.
Tattoosydney
cain
Anybody who goes around waving the confederate flag is a fucking traitor. Flying the flag of rebellion is definitely traitorous. They say it’s part of their culture, but seem regretful that they lost the civil war. Can’t get over it. Goddam traitors.
If the south does split off, it’ll turn into a banana republic with uncontrolled capitalism, uncontrolled religion, uncontrolled corruption, and uncontrolled guns. Reading their news would be like reading the Onion. Hell the onion would simply plagiarize what’s going on in fucktardia. haha
cain