Karl Rove Pans Diva Palin

The Daily Telegraph has interviewed Karl Rove about Sarah Palin's presidential prospects.

About Palin's upcoming reality show:

“With all due candour, appearing on your own reality show on the Discovery Channel, I am not certain how that fits in the American calculus of 'that helps me see you in the Oval Office’,” Mr Rove told The Daily Telegraph in an interview.

He added that the promotional clip for Sarah Palin’s Alaska could be especially detrimental to any political campaign. It features the mother of five in the great outdoors saying: “I would rather be doing this than in some stuffy old political office.”


On whether Republicans would be wise to make Palin their nominee:

“You can make a plausible case for any of them on paper, but it is not going to be paper in 2011. It’s going to be blood, it’s going to be sweat and tears and it’s going to be hard effort.”


On one of the unwritten qualifications for the office:

“There are high standards that the American people have for it [the presidency] and they require a certain level of gravitas, and they want to look at the candidate and say 'that candidate is doing things that gives me confidence that they are up to the most demanding job in the world’.” ...

... Mr Rove suggested that “outside of the true believers”, most Republican primary voters were still watching the race and would choose the candidate most suitable for the role. “They are going to be saying 'the person who can win is the person who proves to me that they are up to the job’,” he said.


There is an article about The Telegraph's article at The NY Daily News. This post's photo came from the Daily News' article, which also has news of Palin's appearance, tonight, on -- Where else? -- "Entertainment Tonight." Spoiler: Palin is going to run "if there's nobody else to do it."


Rove referred to a promotional clip for Palin's reality show. That clip can be seen, here, at The Hollywood Gossip.


For some time it has been clear that Rove does not consider Palin to be presidential timber. After Christine O'Donnell won her primary in Delaware, Rove challenged Palin to go to Delaware and campaign for her: "Look, if Sarah Palin wants to demonstrate her power and influence, she ought to -- where we started was Delaware -- she ought to go to Delaware and campaign for her favorite Christine O'Donnell."

Diva Palin's Secrets Exposed

Sarah Palin's political dreams are fading fast: Politico's Ben Smith, who has been cited by this blog for carrying water for Palin, praised Jonathan Martin's review of Palin's performance on the campaign trail. Martin wrote, in part:

The election is two weeks away, but the campaign trail reviews of Sarah Palin are already in, and they aren’t pretty:

According to multiple Republican campaign sources, the former Alaska governor wreaks havoc on campaign logistics and planning. She offers little notice about her availability, refuses to do certain events, is obsessive about press coverage and sometimes backs out with as little lead time as she gave in the first place.

In short, her seat-of-the-pants operation can be a nightmare to deal with, which, in part, explains why Palin doesn’t often do individual events for GOP hopefuls. ...

... [T]he high-maintenance aspects of dealing with the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee have angered and frustrated some conservative candidates and aides who once thought highly of Palin and, for more skeptical Republicans, simply reconfirmed their view that she’s self-centered and unhelpful to the cause.

Take that! Sarah Palin.

The Atlantic's blogger Andrew Sullivan also weighed in Martin's article -- with another iconic Palin image -- in his "Her Whole World Is Chaos" post.


And Vanity Fair's Juli Weiner weighed in, too -- we have weighty news here, folks -- with "Politico Calls Sarah Palin a Flake in Dishy New Takedown." Her article includes a video and Palin's feeble my-boyz-r-gonna-git-u, mean-girl tweet in response to Martin's article: "Johnny, Johnny, Johnny...ya just made big mistake lying about Levin, Beck, Rush...U can lie about me, but taking on the Big Guns? Not smart"


And -- bonus, grand finale! -- Gryphen wrote, "Sarah Palin is all about Sarah Palin. I keep waiting for the Republicans, and the Teabaggers, to figure out that very obvious fact, but so far they are still so smitten with her star power they cannot see that she is using them and then discarding them like a snotty tissue."

Palin Family Circus News - Tuesday, October 18, 2010

The circus continues ...

The NY Times' Maureen Dowd called Sarah Palin (and the other Mama Grizzlies) Mean Girls, "grown-up versions of those teenage tormentors who would steal your boyfriend, spray-paint your locker and, just for good measure, spread rumors that you were pregnant."

Palin shot back, according to CNN, but, for now, Dowd has had the last word!

Of course, this blog called Palin a mean girl long before Dowd did, but we don't claim that Dowd reads the blog. If we did that, we'd have to claim that at least one other NY Times writer gets her news here.


So, Sunday we got a new HDTV to see DWTS (just kidding, but did get the TV). It seemed that it was on forever before Bristol danced. Does anyone know why that show is so popular? The TV is nice, though. My public library has about 200 blue-ray movies, and when we're through those no worry, because I've got cards at other libraries. We did buy "The Day The Earth Stood Still," and will buy another to turn the TV into a virtual aquarium. Netflix is a possibility, too. We live in a cable-free, dish-free zone. But I've digressed; back to the circus with Politics Daily, which says,

Responding to judges' pleas to include more performance in her performances, Bristol's partner, Mark Ballas, decided to bring in clowns to work with her on expressing herself. But that wasn't the end of the clowning around. Ballas also elected to begin their jive to the Monkees theme song dressed as, well, monkeys.

Didn't we know there was a circus here?

Alaska's Republican, Tea Party Candidate for U.S. Senate Violated 'Alaska Dispatch' Editor's Constitutional Rights

Guards for Alaskan Senate candidate Joe Miller, a self-proclaimed Constitutional Law expert, detained Tony Hopfinger, editor of The Alaska Dispatch, while he was attempting to ask Miller questions at a town hall meeting, which was held last night at Anchorage's Central Middle School. From The Alaska Dispatch:

... Anchorage Police freed Alaska Dispatcher editor Tony Hopfinger from Senate candidate Joe Mlller's body guards at Central Middle School early Sunday evening. Sergeant Mark Rein of the Anchorage Police Department said Hopfinger is not in custody or under arrest.

Hopfinger had been trying to ask Miller questions when two or three guards told him to leave or risk being charged with trespassing.

When Hopfinger continued to try to ask questions, one of the guards put the reporter in an arm-bar and then handcuffed him.

Hopfinger was released after police arrived.

The reporter was on public property where a public event was being held at the time of the incident. ...

Another Alaska Dispatch story has more of what happened, directly from its editor, Hopfinger, and the security guard, William Fulton. That story notes:

... Despite Fulton telling Alaska Dispatch and various other media outlets that he knew he was dealing with a reporter, the Joe Miller campaign promptly put out a press release saying, "It is also important to note that the security personnel did not know that the individual they detained was a blogger who reporting on the campaign [sic]."

The press release was headlined "Liberal Blogger Loses it at Town Hall Meeting," although Miller knows well that Dispatch, which is involved in a lawsuit to obtain Miller's Fairbanks personnel records, is not a "blog" but an established online news magazine.

Video footage from Central Middle School cameras may have captured the incident, and Alaska Dispatch will be asking the Anchorage School District to release it.

It is not known at this time whether Hopfinger will be filing charges against the men who detained him. ...

Alaska Dispatch, as well as the Fairbanks News Miner and Anchorage's Daily News have all gone to court to obtain Miller's record as a public employee in Fairbanks in order to learn why his employement there ended.


Gryphen of IM went to the Town Hall meeting and has a report, here. Shannyn Moore has posted about the incident at The Huffington Post, here.

Politico has a report, here. CNN's report is here. Anchorage's KTVA has a report, here. The Anchorage Daily News' report is here.

Scary People, Scary Times

Monday, September 13, 2010
by James Howard Kunstler

... There is no theme song for [economic] contraction - at least not one with a hummable tune. The current background music sounds like Stockhausen run through scrap-metal shredder. No wonder everybody's so nervous.

A few hours ago I drove up the immaculately conceived highways north out of Detroit to the drear industrial outlands of Happy Motoring history, north past Flint and Saginaw where an exhausted American Dream is being hunted down by the angry ghosts of the Wyandots. The heartland these days looks like it's preparing for a return trip to the 9th century A.D. Nobody knows what's ailing it, but they're whispering of "last stands" out here around the all-you-can-eat buffet at the year 'round Christmas Shoppe.

And the Tea Party aims to fix all this, to make things right again. I listen to their blather about "freedom" and all I can imagine is the sound of boots outside the door, and men in badly-fitted camo uniforms and buzzcut hair commanding me to accept John Boehner as my personal savior. ...

... You can just feel the heat of emotion rising, ... . We can't speak clearly anymore; we can only beat drums. All across the land self-appointed saviors are stepping up to heroically rescue the squandered entitlements of the bygone day: Rand Paul, the Kentucky physician who (like his dad) subscribes to the idea that the earth is only about 4000 years old; Dan Maes, the Colorado Tea Party candidate for governor who believes that bicycling is a "gateway drug" to communism; Sharron Angle, the Nevada polymoron running John Birch Society scripts to the psychologically-spavined blackjack dealers crowding the unemployment lines. ("The Trilateral Commission and the Bilderburgers did this to you!"); and lonely Joe Miller, the hermit-attorney of Fairbanks, stalking out of his survivalist cave to drive a silver lance through the flaming heart of the ravening liberal windigo. ...

Kunstler's essay can be read in its entirety by clicking the post's title.

---

Kunstler's "Rehearsal for a Civil War" is another piece about the Tea Party; his blog is here.

Stockhausen's "Helicopter String Quartet" can be heard here. The recording may not be the best, or my computer's audio isn't the best, because Stockhausen wrote, "The microphone transmission from each helicopter should be such that the sounds of the rotor blades and that of the instrument blend well, and the instrument is heard slightly louder," but when I listened to the MP3 the helicopters weren't that audible.

After listening to Stockhausen's piece (or the tea partiers), you may be ready for Zen. See yesterday's post, "Something to bug you," below.

---

Frank Rich, writing this morning in The NY Times, elucidates the origin of the anger and the Tea Party:

... That wave of anger began with the parallel 2008 cataclysms of the economy’s collapse and Barack Obama’s ascension. The mood has not subsided since. But in the final stretch of 2010, the radical right’s anger is becoming less focused, more free-floating — more likely to be aimed at “government” in general, whatever the location or officials in charge. The anger is also more likely to claim minorities like gays, Latinos and Muslims as collateral damage. This is a significant and understandable shift, if hardly a salutary one. The mad-as-hell crowd in America, still not seeing any solid economic recovery on the horizon, will lash out at any convenient scapegoat.

The rage was easier to parse at the Tea Party’s birth, when, a month after Obama’s inauguration, its founding father, CNBC’s Rick Santelli, directed his rant at the ordinary American “losers” (as he called them) defaulting on their mortgages, and at those in Washington who proposed bailing the losers out. (Funny how the Bush-initiated bank bailouts went unmentioned.) Soon enough, the anger tilted toward Washington ...

The Tea Party has, since then, however, become a front for big business and the Republican party.

Something to bug you

Are you going to fight crazy with crazy? Are you going to get emotional every time Sarah Palin says or does anything?

Try Zen. Here is an interactive intro. To make progress, you may have to move or click the mouse. Don't become annoyed. You may eventually get here, where there is more to discover.



The photo of the garden at Ryōan-ji temple is from one at Wikipedia.


Note: The intro requires Shockwave. A lot of the experience will be lost without sound.

Palin Family Circus News - Saturday, October 16, 2010

Meg Whitman, like several other nationally prominent Republicans, has evaded the question of Sarah Palin's qualifications to be President. The LA Times reports:

Asked whether she thought Palin was qualifed to be president, Whitman said: "Technically, she’s qualified to be president because you have to be a U.S. citizen and be in good standing. I think the voters of the United States are going to decide who's going to be the next Republican nominee and there's going to be a lot of competition for that."

There are millions of people just as qualified as Palin, using the "constitutionally qualifed" standard.

Sarah Palin has been in California, and she will appear at a Republican National Committee rally, today, in Orange County. But two of California's office seekers are staying away:

A Field Poll released last week found that 58 percent of the state's registered voters hold a negative view of Palin, although she remains quite popular among Republicans. In addition, two-thirds of independent voters would be less inclined to support a candidate endorsed by her.

That could help explain why California's two most prominent Republican candidates this year — gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman and Senate candidate Carly Fiorina — will be absent from Saturday's RNC rally in Anaheim.

San Jose Mercury News' article also describes Palin's appearance and speech, yesterday, alongside Howard Dean, in Sacramento, California's capitol. Palin tried to convince the audience that Republicans are on the side of the little guy, saying, "This election is about the little guy, the common man, independence, and the middle class — those forgotten and ignored for far too long, and now they're fighting back," but she then slipped-up by saying, "They — we — are saying enough is enough."



The LA Times' Top of the Ticket column has an article about Sarah Palin's Alaska. The column says, "I'd rather be doing this than in some stuffy old political office," Palin is heard saying while looking out on across a beautiful snowy vista. And how can you not agree with her? The show begins November 14, and a 30-second promotional video can be seen at The LA Times.



Any publicity is good publicity? Celebrity Cafe is reporting, "The porn actress best known for her parodies of Sarah Palin says she will not do films that require unprotected sex."

Palin Family Circus News - Wednesday, October 8, 2010

Bristol Palin survived for another week on Dancing With the Stars. E! Online's The Soup blog is under the impression that Bristol has a sense of irony.


Sarah Palin is doing well in one poll.


The Guardian's Paul Harris thinks Palin isn't a fool, that she won't run:

... No one is asking a more fundamental question: does she actually want to run?

I mean, really run for president, rather than just coyly playing a waiting game with a fascinated media that hangs on her every word. I see little evidence that she does.

Amid all the gossip and dirt of the hit book Game Change about the 2008 election, a picture emerges of a Palin who clearly hated the high pressure of the campaign trail. She hated the long days, the constant scrutiny over every tiny detail, and the constraints of a vast and controlling campaign staff. She disliked the constant demands of the press, even though her rare media appearances were so carefully orchestrated. ...

It was in Game Change that Palin was reported to have said during the campaign that she would not have run if she knew at the time she was selected what she learned after experiencing the relatively minor pressure of running for VP.

James Fallows, writing in the online Atlantic, thinks Christine O'Donnell may be more dangerous than Sarah Palin:

... Sarah Palin was wounded by Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson in their 2008 interviews because she seemed at some level aware of what she didn't know. She was obviously uncomfortable with Couric's "What newspapers, specifically, do you read?" question because she sensed that the topic held perils. She acted the way I would if questioned about, say, opera. ("Which ones do I like? All of them! They're so great. All those notes!") ...

... [But Christine] O'Donnell [during last night's debate] comes across as a perfect, unflappable product of the talk-show culture. Sarah Palin knows that she is bad under open questioning -- so she avoids it, speaks only to selected audiences, is interviewed only by Fox. If she were to run for president, which I've always doubted, this would make her brittle for the unavoidable main campaign. Christine O'Donnell shows that the other path can create a better, unshakably on-message product for this era. ...

But tonight's poll reveals that Palin is thought to be a sexier candidate than O'Donnell.

Breaking News: Sarah Palin's bid for a restraining order against Pennsylvania man succeeds:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- An Alaska judge has issued a six-month protective order against a Pennsylvania man accused of stalking former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. ...

... Palin indicated in court papers filed Monday that she was fearful that Christy's conduct would result in her death or injury.

Sarah Palin to take our country back ... to 1964. It'll be deja vu all over, again!

A recent Politico article described how Sarah Palin pleaded her electability at a meeting of Republicans in Florida. She told them something like, "Ronald Reagan was a 'true conservative' and was considered to be unelectable; I am a 'true conservative,' like Reagan; therefore, anyone claiming I am unelectable is wrong." Sounds logical, doesn't it?

But is a "true conservative" electable? Let history be a guide: To find a "true conservative" who ran for President, we have to go back to 1964. In that election, Barry Goldwater was trounced by Lyndon Johnson. Goldwater received only 38.5% of the popular vote; Johnson received 61.1%. As you can see on the 1964 electoral map, above, the result in the electoral college was even more lopsided.

And at a time, now, when President Obama's popularity has declined, a new CBS poll gives Palin even more bad news:

President Obama would trounce Sarah Palin in a 2012 match-up, according to a Bloomberg National Poll released today.

Fifty-one percent of respondents in the poll said they would vote for Mr. Obama if the election were held today and Palin were his GOP challenger. Just 35 percent said they would vote for Palin. Another 10 percent said they wouldn't vote at all, and 4 percent were unsure. ...

Surprise! Palin's numbers are a lot like Goldwater's final numbers. Obama's numbers aren't up to Johnson's, yet, but give it time.

Note: It's doubtful that Ronald Reagan was a "true conservative." A Conservative wouldn't have employed deficit spending like Reagan did, for example. Palin isn't like Reagan in many ways, but she claims to be a "true conservative," so, for the sake of argument, we take her at her word.

Goldwater wrote the Conservative "Bible," The Conscience of a Conservative. At that Wikipedia link, you can find a .pdf of Goldwater's book and references to other writings that illustrate how far those who now claim to be "true" or "common sense" conservatives have strayed.

Palin Family Circus News - Friday, October 8, 2010

Delaware's Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Christine O'Donnell, is the latest to evade a question of whether Sarah Palin is qualified to be President. The NY Daily News reports:

Sarah Palin's finding out the Tea Party is a tough crowd.

Palin's mini-me, Delaware Senate contender Christine O'Donnell, ducked a question over whether Palin is qualified to be President, joining fellow Tea Party Senate hopeful Joe Miller in declining to comment.

Palin, the face of the budding Tea Party movement, is widely seen as a contender for the GOP nomination in 2012.

O'Donnell broke her boycott of national media Thursday and chatted with CNN reporter Jim Acosta. In response to his question about whether Palin was qualified to be commander-in-chief, O'Donnell said:

"Is she running for President? Again, hypothetical."



New York's "Nobody Wants to Say That Sarah Palin Is Qualified to Be President," tells us, in part:

Sarah Palin sure has some fair-weather friends. ...

Guess what's going to happen now, besides Todd Palin sending a sassy e-mail to Christine O'Donnell. Reporters are going to start asking every prominent Republican with electoral ambitions whether they think Palin is qualified to be president, hoping for another awkward dodge. Any such dodges, along with those of Miller and O'Donnell, will be reported in the media and contribute to the erosion of whatever viability Pain has as a presidential candidate. Palin has her friends Joe Miller and Christine O'Donnell to thank for that.

About one year ago, Mississippi's Republican governor, Haley Barbour, damned Palin with faint praise by saying that she is constitutionally qualified to be President. Guess what? Millions of others are also, too.



Salon's "America Hates Sarah Palin" has:

According to a new CBS poll, America really doesn't care for Sarah Palin. She is viewed favorably by 22% of Americans, and unfavorably by 48%. Those are not great numbers for a potential 2012 candidate. ...

... The polls also serve as a reminder that the Fox/Tea Party bloc of enraged older white people, for all their bluster about taking "their" country back, represent a sliver of the population. ...

The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart has the best palinsight around and wrote of a Palin candidacy:

Taking time out from bashing out-of-touch elites, Sarah Palin went to West Palm Beach on Wednesday to tape a webcast for newsmax.com and made a laughable pronouncement. According to Jose Lambiet's "Page 2 Live" blog at The Palm Beach Post, the former half-term governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee said that she would run in 2012 if "the American people" want her to.

Earth to Palin: they don't. ...

... Now, this might difficult for Palin or her legions of fans and admirers to accept, but "the American people" have consistently said they don't think she is qualified or should be president. You will recall that last month I said Sarah Palin is everywhere -- and going nowhere. A CBS News poll released on Oct. 6 shows nothing has changed. ...

... Palin told her Palm Beach audience that she wasn't sure if voters were ready for her "unconventional," "out-of-the-box" style. As the polls have shown since late 2008, they're not.

"Earth to Palin?" Let me go all palingates here and offer "proof" that the Palins are from another planet:

Palin Family On Their Home Planet

Click the photo to enlarge it

More photos from TLC's "Sarah Palin's Alaska" can be seen here.



Celebrity Cafe's "Bristol Palin Hasn't Noticed Weight Loss From Grueling 'Dancing with the Stars' Workouts," quotes Bristol: "I haven't really noticed a change in [my body] ... I think most people lose weight [on the show] because they're too stressed out to eat. I haven't had that problem!"



The NY Daily News has "Sarah Palin: 'Dancing with the Stars' asked my husband Todd to be on ABC show before Bristol joined."

Todd must have sloughed it off onto Bristol, because he can't dance, right?

Only 22% of Americans view Sarah Palin favorably

CBS News has released the results of a poll conducted during the first week of October. The poll indicates that there is an enormous bump along Sarah Palin's road to the presidency, should she decide to run.

Palin's favorables are like a car that has gone off the road, rolled over, then burst into flames, and they aren't improving. CBS wrote:

Sarah Palin is viewed unfavorably by nearly 50 percent of Americans, a new CBS News poll finds, a significant challenge for her to overcome should she enter the 2012 presidential race.

Palin is viewed favorably by just 22 percent of Americans, according to the poll - including less than half (44 percent) of Republicans. Twenty-one percent of independents and 6 percent of Democrats view her favorably.

Forty-eight percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of Palin. That includes 73 percent of Democrats, 44 percent of independents and 22 percent of Republicans.

Twenty-nine percent said they are undecided or not sure how they feel about Palin, including about one in three Republicans and independents. ...

These very high unfavorables for Palin among Democrats (73%) and independents (44%) mean that she is unelectable. Electability is one of the unwritten, extra-constitutional requirements for the job.

The complete poll (.pdf file) is here.

What Do You Think of the Sarah Palin Brand?

"Sarah Inc." has become a multimillion-dollar business, thanks to some shrewd moves by the former Alaska governor and Tea Party hero. But does that make her an entrepreneur? ...

Click the post's title to read some more opinions of Sarah Palin's entrepreneurship at America Online's article.

Leaked email exposes Palin/Miller rift. Given a chance to redeem himself, Miller damns Palin with faint praise.

Mudflats broke the news of Todd Palin's anger over Joe Miller's evasiveness when he was asked whether Sarah Palin is qualifed to be President:


... An irate email written by Todd Palin seems to confirm his wife’s presidential ambition, and revealed his anger at Alaska Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller. The email demands that the treasurer of SarahPAC, Tim Crawford, “hold off on any letter of support for Joe,” and came on the heels of an interview Miller gave to Neil Cavuto on Fox News Sunday. ...

The email in the first box -- from millerlaw -- comments on an email, in the second box, from Todd Palin to Joe Miller, Tim Crawford, SarahPac's treasurer, and Thomas Van Flein, attorney for Palin and Miller:

Click to enlarge (From: Gawker)

Does Todd Palin's statement, "I DON'T KNOW IF SHE IS," mean that he doesn't know whether Sarah Palin is going to run or that he doesn't know whether she is qualified to be President? Could he be expressing what he thinks Joe Miller thinks? Joe Miller didn't say, "I don't know."

Salon, from which the post's photo was taken, has a post about the email leak, as does Seattle's Post Intelligencer, whose story also tells of Joe Miller's latest attack on The Constitution: He wants to repeal the seventeenth amendment.


Update: Today, Miller damned Palin with faint praise: She's constitutionally qualified:

Grizzly Family Circus News - Tuesday, October 5, 2010

WILMINGTON — Before she was a Tea Party cause célèbre, liberal laughingstock and perhaps the embodiment of a can-you-top-this-for-bizarre political season, Christine O’Donnell grew up in a “Brady Bunch” household of six kids (three Democrats, three Republicans), two parents (one of each) and an appreciation for the dramatic, the eccentric and the media spotlight. From: Chrissy the Pooh's father played Bozo the Clown


"West Wing" creater Aaron Sorkin reportedly said, "Sarah Palin is an idiot. A remarkably, stunningly, jaw-droppingly incompetent, mean woman."



He did! Elliot Spitzer got a job! Jack Nicholson for President!




"Palin, Obama star in 'NBA Jam'"


"Levi Johnston in Brittani Senser's 'After Love' music video: Bristol Palin ex makes sexy video debut"...





"Dancing With the Stars Judges Bash Bristol Palin's Awkward Routine"



"Bristol Palin Is the One Who Needs Votes on DWTS"

"Bristol Palin Explains Why She Danced So Badly"


Update: Gryphen has news about Jay Leno going to Alaska. Wouldn't it be something if he does a show with Sarah Palin, then, while she's sitting there, announces a surprise, special guest named Levi Johnston?

The Very Useful Idiocy of Christine O’Donnell

By FRANK RICH
Published: October 2, 2010

... While O’Donnell’s résumé has proved largely fictional, one crucial biographical plotline is true: She has had trouble finding a job, holding on to a home and paying her taxes. In this, at least, she is like many Americans in the Great Recession, including the angry claque that found its voice in the Tea Party. For a G.O.P. that is even more in thrall to big money than the Democrats, she couldn’t be a more perfect decoy.

By latching on to O’Donnell’s growing presence, the Rove-Boehner-McConnell establishment can claim it represents struggling middle-class Tea Partiers rather than Wall Street potentates and corporate titans. O’Donnell’s value is the same as that other useful idiot, Michael Steele, who remains at the Republican National Committee only because he can wave the banner of “diversity” over a virtually all-white party that alternately demonizes African-Americans, Latinos, gays and Muslims. ...

... Election Day is now only a month away. The demoralized Democrats are held hostage by the unemployment numbers. And along comes this marvelous gift out of nowhere, Christine O’Donnell, Tea Party everywoman, who just may be the final ingredient needed to camouflage a billionaires’ coup as a populist surge. By the time her fans discover that any post-election cuts in government spending will be billed to them, and not the Tea Party’s shadowy backers, she’ll surely be settling her own debts with fat paychecks from “Fox & Friends.”

Click on the post's title to read Frank Rich's entire op-ed at The NY Times.

---

The op-ed is worth reading for its background information about the Tea Party, and its surprise that Karl Rove, who clearly doubted O'Donnell's senatoriality and challenged Sarah Palin to demonstrate her chops by campaigning in Delaware for someone he considered unqualified, has changed his mind.

For a "local" perspective on the state of the race, see a Delaware newspaper's article, "Delaware politics: O'Donnell abruptly flees spotlight."

How not to boost your blog's traffic

aview999 is one of palingates' most prolific commenters. He (or she) at times writes a lot of the comments that appear on palingates. aview999, also active on HuffPo, went from a nobody there to a high-level muckety-muck in a short period of time, with hundreds of fans, but was recently banned. And the guy is asking HuffPo for a written explanation.

Why was he banned? Probably for spamming and hijacking HuffPo's posts with links to palingates. It was so obvious; there is no need to ask HuffPo.

You can click on both of these images to see how a conspiracy to bring aview999 back from the dead is under way:






Traffic at palingates has cratered the last couple of days (Hint, Patrick: If it's not about Sarah Palin, fewer people are interested), so Patrick may want aview999 back into action, spamming HuffPo.

These guys are like Chicken Little and The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Don't spam the blogosphere with links unless your post delivers what your spam promises! How long will it take HuffPo and its readers to get wise to the new aview?

The times shown in the palingates comments are Central European Time. Six hours ahead of EDT. The post is their Monthly Message, of October 1, 2010.

The Dangers of Edited Video

The stakes are too high to be careless of the facts, like Republicans are. Factcheck.org has found that Representative Alan Grayson used manipulated video to make it appear that his opponent had said something he didn't say. Here is factcheck.org's summary of their finding:

We thought Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida reached a low point when he falsely accused his opponent of being a draft dodger during the Vietnam War, and of not loving his country. But now Grayson has lowered the bar even further. He’s using edited video to make his rival appear to be saying the opposite of what he really said.

In a new ad, Grayson accuses his Republican opponent Daniel Webster of being a religious fanatic and dubs him "Taliban Dan." But to make his case, Grayson manipulates a video clip to make it appear Webster was commanding wives to submit to their husbands, quoting a passage in the Bible. Four times, the ad shows Webster saying wives should submit to their husbands. In fact, Webster was cautioning husbands to avoid taking that passage as their own. The unedited quote is: "Don’t pick the ones [Bible verses] that say, ‘She should submit to me.’ "

The summary is followed by a lengthy analysis of the video and Webster's remarks, in context, and concludes:

Webster’s positions on abortion and marriage, and his religious views, are certainly fair game. But Grayson crosses the line when he uses manipulated video to cast Webster’s views in a false light, just as he did when he concocted a false accusation that Webster had been a Vietnam draft dodger.

One Mama Grizzly's Disappearing Act

Christine O'Donnell, the surprise candidate in Delaware's senate race and one of Sarah Palin's Mama Grizzlies (cubs?) has disappeared! Delaware's News Journal reports:

During Christine O'Donnell's primary campaign, she thrived in the spotlight, deriding U.S. Rep. Mike Castle, the GOP-endorsed candidate in the Senate race, for declining a public debate.

She appeared at nearly every 9-12 event, tea party rally, summer festival and parade, keeping the public engaged with frequent posts on her Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Her followers were dedicated. They were also, deceptively for Castle, numerous.

Once Castle was dispatched, O'Donnell appeared on Fox News and at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C. But in a Sept. 21 interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, she turned the national press away.

"I've let the local media know they're my priority," O'Donnell told Hannity. She cancelled scheduled appearances on two premiere Sunday shows, "Face the Nation" on CBS and "Fox News Sunday."

Then, she slipped out of sight. She emerged for a candidate forum two weeks ago and on Friday at a pep rally for the opening of her new campaign headquarters in Brandywine Hundred. O'Donnell's campaign has released no public schedule, curtailed her Twitter and Facebook posts and ignored reporters' requests seeking her whereabouts.

"It's like she's a hermit," said Delaware State University political science professor Sam Hoff.The "local" news media that she vowed to seek have mostly been ignored. Her rare appearance Friday before local reporters was by invitation and RSVP only. ...

... But while she has lowered her profile to a local level, her campaign donors to date are mainly outside Delaware, according to federal campaign reports."We are being manipulated by people outside of this state. This isn't about Delaware anymore," said Mell, a Castle supporter. "We're the platform. We're the stage. We've been sucked up into a national fight and all we are at the end of the day is potential collateral damage." ...

... Now, [press] inquiries are routed through Shirley & Banister [a Virginia-based public relations firm] , whose partners have promoted conservative icons Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Local reporters' requests routed through Virginia have generated little response.

Hayley McConnell, who is fielding questions for O'Donnell's campaign at Shirley & Banister, did not respond to repeated requests for a comment from The News Journal for this article.

The News Journal also interviewed a political scientist for the article, and he claims that it doesn't matter that O'Donnell has gone into hiding:

Voters care very little about whether a candidate is available to reporters, said Rutgers University political science professor David Redlawsk. If a candidate has enough money to reach voters through paid channels, he or she can approach the press with a "take it or leave it" attitude, he said.

"My sense is that not talking to the news media actually can be a good strategy for a candidate who feels the media will only reinforce her negatives," Redlawsk said. "Especially being well funded, she should be able to define herself." ...


O'Donnell didn't do very well with the media during the primary, either, before it became known that shs had "dabbled" in witchcraft. Lynnrockets has audio of O'Donnell hell-bent on lying during a radio program: Christine O'Donnel Says, Win=Tie=Loss.

How well O'Donnell does in the general election may provide a clue as to whether Sarah Palin could pull off a presidential candidacy while hiding from the media. O'Donnell's strategy is remarkably like Palin's.

Update: Witchcraft hasn't been the only thing O'Donnell dabbled in:

O’Donnell: I was dabbling in witchcraft. I’d dabbled in Buddhism. I would have become a Hare Krishna but I didn't want to become a vegetarian and that is honestly the reason why because I'm Italian, I love meatballs.

A video and transcript are at Crooks and Liars. By the way, this is the second time she has said that she dabbled in withcraft.

Will the voters of Delaware permit O'Donnell to "dabble in" government?

Palin Family Circus News - Friday, October 1, 2010

Check Please! Obama & Palin May Not Be Sharing That Milkshake After All:

If it seems too good to be true, maybe it is. Archie Comics gave the world a glimpse, albeit fictional, of President Obama and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin sharing a milkshake. Now, they may have traded in their matching sweater vests for boxing gloves. This week they're not sharing desserts, but rather dishing out just deserts. ...

... The issues are scheduled for release in December 2010 and January 2011, shortly after mid-term elections. The covers featuring the spirit of bipartisanship will be available alongside the new political battle variants for both the optimists and pessimists. Voters are left to wonder if that milkshake glass is half empty or half full.



A little damage control was in order after Bristol Palin on Underage Bar Visit: Nacho Problem! cropped up. What to do? Bristol Palin Stays Fit With McDonald's (PHOTOS):

Bristol Palin took a break from waltzing around the Dancing with the Stars rehearsal studio to grab a little McDonald's in Los Angeles on Wednesday. Before you balk, know that the budding ballroom star only had a salad! ...



Jake Tapper's "New Chief of Staff, With Alaskan Roots, Not Liked by Sarah Palin" has some background information about why Sarah Palin hates Pete Rouse, President Obama's new Chief of Staff. It's very conspirational stuff, according to Palin:

... After Rouse was mentioned as a potential replacement for Emanuel, Palin tweeted: “Alaska's Pete Rouse (@ least he claims to be ‘Alaska’)finally comes out of the shadows; Obama looks to appt him COS;strange doings in the WH.”

She added: “(Rahm's the smart one...bailing before Nov) Now, check out possible COS Pete Rouse. His background, voter reg in AK,etc. It's a small world.”

After Palin resigned her governorship, Palin adviser Meg Stapleton told TIME that attacks against the governor and her family were from the White House.

"A lot of this comes from Washington, D.C. The trail is pretty direct and pretty obvious to us," Stapleton told the magazine, alluding to The Thumpin' [The Thumpin': How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution]. "It's the Sarah Palin playbook. It's how they operate.” The magazine wrote that “Palin and her Alaska circle find evidence for their suspicions about the White House in the person of Pete Rouse, who lived in Juneau for a time before he became chief of staff to a young U.S. Senator named Barack Obama. Rouse, they note, is a friend of former Alaska state senator Kim Elton, who pushed the first ethics investigation of Palin, examining her controversial firing of the state's public-safety commissioner. Both Rouse and Elton have joined the Obama Administration.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told TIME that “the charge is ridiculous. Obviously there is no effort ... From my vantage point, a lot of the criticism she is getting from others seems to be generated from self-inflicted wounds."


Self-inflicted wounds, indeed.


Update: Here are twelve large photos of Bristol Palin looking very brainy, and a little like her mom in those glasses! Won't the hens be disappointed? She doesn't look pregnant.