David Corn

Time makes the case for know-nothingism because what else could they do. Palin is so contradictory a positive piece has to be hard to write.

Palin is a wordcloud of nonsense.

Crafting anything coherent about her is amazing.

In a classic example of newsmagazine overthink, Time profiles Sarah Palin with a cover story that practically celebrates her thin résumé and essentially makes the case that know-nothingism could be good for America. Seriously:

~~~

Why not? It worked for Barry.....

(Anyone remember Palin's climate change denialism?

~~~

How about the Obama EPA dept that withheld a critical report on global warming that disproves it?

And didn't a significant majority vote for the guy with two Ivy League degrees who talked about bringing professionalism, science, and expertise back to policymaking in Washington?

~~~

They voted for him becuase he told us he would fix the economy -stupid!

Remember that McCain was ahead in the polls before the economy tanked.

"Pullin' a Palin" Now In The Urban Dictionary

Sarah Palin continues to be a dynamic cultural figure as much as a political one. The Alaska Governor, who announced her impending resignation from office last week, is now the inspiration for a new piece of slang. The phrase, "Pullin' a Palin," is currently defined by urbandictionary.com as:

1. Quitting when the going gets tough; abandoning the responsibility entrusted to you by your neighbors for book advances and to make money on the lecture circuit.

2. Bizarre move that will damn ambitions for higher office.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/09/pullin-a-palin-now-in-the_n_228545.html

"Critical report on global warming that disproves it?" Ha! You mean that report that was done on the side by an economist, without request from the EPA? That you think a single report could achieve such a thing, on it sown terms AND despite the vast majority of scientists doing excellent peer-reviewed work who completely and utterly insist that global warming is happening, is just sad. You can go off in a corner and remain willfully ignorant, but please don't pretend like you know something that we sane people don't.

Republicans Already Rejecting Haley Barbour, Tim Pawlenty

Via Greg Sargent, the Rasmussen Reports poll on 2012 Republican candidates finds most Republican voters trusting Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) on national security and former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) on the economy. Another item from the poll: the possible candidates that have been getting a lot of friendly coverage are less popular than media punching bags Palin and Dick Cheney. Look at the seven potential candidates and their favorable/unfavorable ratings.

Mike Huckabee – 78/19
Sarah Palin – 76/21
Mitt Romney – 73/19
Newt Gingrich – 65/29
Dick Cheney – 59/34
Tim Pawlenty – 38/35
Haley Barbour – 34/37

Both Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) and Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.), beltway favorites who the political press sees as fresh faces for 2012, are less popular among Republicans than Dick Cheney. I’ve asked Scott Rasmussen why he thinks this is and will update when he responds.

http://washingtonindependent.com/50210/republicans-already-rejecting-haley-barbour-tim-pawlenty

Hmmm...I guess the election of a Constitutional Law Professor from Harvard indicates the "plunging credibility of institutions and elitism."

And for an Andover Cheerleader - just the opposite!

(welcome to bizarro world!)

"Remember that McCain was ahead in the polls before the economy tanked."

And/or his pick of the quitenator showed how desparate he was and that he'd do or say ANYTHING to get elected... even picking an incurious female version of dubya as a running mate.

*I couldn't pass up commenting on fredo's admittance that dubya tanked the economy He must've hated himself after he hit the "submit" button and realized what he did. haha

New Details Emerge in Ensign Sex Scandal

LAS VEGAS (July 9) - The sex scandal engulfing Sen. John Ensign has deepened now that his former mistress's husband has revealed new details about the relationship, saying the Nevada Republican paid the woman more than $25,000 in severance when she stopped working for him.
http://tinyurl.com/nsjeve
================
There's no record of the campaign paying that lump sum, so it could mean someone got creative with the books, which hints at ethics AND financial violations.

*I couldn't pass up commenting on fredo's admittance that dubya tanked the economy He must've hated himself after he hit the "submit" button and realized what he did. haha

Not at all Alan, Bush began the fucked up economy and handed off to Barry who has fumbled the ball and is now down 35 to zip. I did not support the bailout under Bush or the bailout, prokulus, cap and tax under Barry.

FYI: I wasn't a McCain supporter either.

Obama's presidential approval index in total freefall.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 30% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –8. The President’s Approval Index rating has fallen six points since release of a disappointing jobs report last week.

~~~~~~~~

Gee, down 3 points in one day!

Hell, it took Bush almost 6 years before his polls numbers started dropping. Barry 6 months?

Yuk, Yuk!

Breaking: Senate Democrats Shelve Cap-and-Tax Schemes At Least Until September

—Ace

As Ed notes, declining public support for slitting the country's collective throat has something to do with this, as does Robert Byrd's opposition.

President Barack Obama’s push for quick action by Congress on climate change legislation suffered a setback on Thursday when the U.S. Senate committee leading the drive delayed work on the bill until September.
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer said her self-imposed deadline of early August for finishing writing a bill to combat global warming has been put off until after Congress returns from a recess that ends in early September.

“We’ll do it as soon as we get back” from that break, Boxer told reporters. Asked if this delay jeopardizes chances the Senate will pass a bill this year, Boxer said, “Not a bit … we’ll be in (session) until Christmas, so I’m not worried about it.”

But Boxer did not guarantee Congress will be able to finish a bill and deliver it to Obama by December, when he plans to attend an international summit on climate change in Copenhagen.

~~~~~~~~~~

Hey Dan, looks like you and Barry are the only ones worried about ice melting!

Yuk, Yuk!

Al Franken Sent $95,000 By Republicans

WASHINGTON — In the last chapter of a stinging loss to now-Sen. Al Franken, Minnesota's Republican Party has sent the Democrat almost $96,000 to cover lawsuit costs.

Republican Party spokesman Mark Drake said a check was sent via courier Monday to Franken's campaign committee. It arrived Tuesday, the same day Franken took his oath for a seat held open during an eight-month recount and court fight.

Minnesota law required Republican Norm Coleman to reimburse Franken for some costs because the election lawsuit didn't change the outcome. The judgment excluded Franken's attorney fees.

The Republican and Democratic parties have each chipped in to help pay candidate legal bills.

The check included $872 in interest that accrued in the month since Coleman was ordered to pay up.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/09/al-franken-sent-95000-by_n_228806.html

How Obama's America And Nazi Germany Are Alike

South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint is taking some heat for remarks he made last evening at the National Press Club in Washington. Promoting his book Saving Freedom, DeMint told the audience that, "Part of what we’re trying to do in “Saving Freedom” is just show that where we are, we’re about where Germany was before World War II where they became a social democracy." While DeMint, whose fellow Republican Jim Inhofe is the one colleague standing in the way of the coveted "Dumbest Senator" designation, may not be the brightest bulb in the chamber, he is, at least on this point, not necessarily incorrect. There are actually several eerie parallels between the current-day United States and Germany during the rise of Hitler.

~Powerful Jews control the banks and the media

~Decadent homosexuals corrupt our youth and pollute our theaters with their degenerate art

~We are saddled by immense debt from ill-advised military adventurism

~Our financial system has been bankrupted by the actions of an impulsive leader whose ascension to power was a result of his father having previously held the throne

~A group of conservative malcontents demonize and misrepresent the government with an amount of influence that is disproportionate to their small size

~There is something uncomfortably creepy about Joel Grey

Scary, right? Maybe we all owe Jim an apology.

http://www.theawl.com/2009/07/how-obamas-america-and-nazi-germany-are-alike

Lady Gaga has been the target of Andrew Sullivan for months. She and her defenders have been ripped to shreds by him and every one of his links on the topic of Palin is dripping with venom. He singles out former Atlantic columnist Ross Douthat for writing a (seemingly) favorable article describing Palin's appeal. I think Douthat and Jay's article in Time have identified a common thread in the Conservative movement:

"Résumés ain't what they used to be; they count only with people who trust credentials — a dwindling breed."

As my Texian neighbors like to say: They don't go for that fancy book lernin'.

Douthat notes:
http://tinyurl.com/nun33c

In a recent Pew poll, 44 percent of Americans regarded Palin unfavorably. But slightly more had a favorable impression of her. That number included 46 percent of independents, and 48 percent of Americans without a college education.

That last statistic is a crucial one. Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.
==+==
Palin is highly touted by those at the edges of the education spectrum, those with very little education and the overly-educated, overly-horny repressed conservative pundits.

Quick, name three of the biggest movers and shakers in the conservative universe and you are sure to name a couple with one thing in common: no College degree.

Hannity, college dropout. Limbozo the Clown, college dropout. Rove, college dropout. All of them stars in the brightest constellation of conservative thought. One thing Hajji first tipped me off to when I came to this blog was that I needn't worry about running into a Bush supported in the library. He was right and the same could be said of Hannity, Limbozo the Clown, Rove and now of Palin.

Go back through the archives of this blog and you'll come across guys like the Tims, Gare, LBH, and various Fredward types that have no qualms about being lead by the nose with the flimsiest of data and in most cases outright lies. The academic skepticism never furrowed their brow.

more from Andrew Sullivan . . . he call's 'em the Odd Lies of Sarah Palin:
http://tinyurl.com/mvahf2

Palin lied when she said the dismissal of her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, had nothing to do with his refusal to fire state trooper Mike Wooten; in fact, the Branchflower Report concluded that she repeatedly abused her power when dealing with both men.

Palin lied when she repeatedly claimed to have said, "Thanks, but no thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere; in fact, she openly campaigned for the federal project when running for governor.

Palin lied when she denied that Wasilla's police chief and librarian had been fired; in fact, both were given letters of termination the previous day.

Palin lied when she wrote in the NYT that a comprehensive review by Alaska wildlife officials showed that polar bears were not endangered; in fact, email correspondence between those scientists showed the opposite.

Palin lied when she claimed in her convention speech that an oil gas pipeline "began" under her guidance; in fact, the pipeline was years from breaking ground, if at all.

Palin lied when she told Charlie Gibson that she does not pass judgment on gay people; in fact, she opposes all rights between gay spouses and belongs to a church that promotes conversion therapy.

Palin lied when she denied having said that humans do not contribute to climate change; in fact, she had previously proclaimed that human activity was not to blame.
==+==

There are TONS, and TONS, and TONS of lies that the woman has told. As former-Republican John Cole of Balloon Juice sez: ". . . (I)t is not necessarily a scoop catching Sarah Palin lying. Every sentence our of her mouth is a verifiable lie, an exaggeration, or wrong. In order to catch Sarah Palin lying, all you need to do is record anything that comes out of her mouth."
http://tinyurl.com/mtblkq
==+==

Not that this is unusual in the realm of Conservative elected officials; but Palin's lies are extensive and extravagant. If Mr. Corn did a sequel to his Bush Lies and went with a Palin Lies, once he began his research, we might never hear from him again.

The one thing Palin hasn't lied about is getting a blow job. She lies her ass off about the execution of her duties, but not blow jobs. No sir. And that's just fine with Conservatives.

From the Time article:
"'I've never believed that I, nor anyone else, needs a title' to be effective. In fact, a title might slow you down if your message is that our nation's leaders are so deeply and abidingly inadequate that the only appropriate attitude toward them is scorn."

Sullivan's response: "She doesn't work. And she revealingly explained why she doesn't. She doesn't think she even has an office, she has a "title". Like a Beauty Queen whose duties require only publicity."
http://tinyurl.com/oc46pq

More Palin quotes from the Time article:
"We have sat down with reporters, showed them proof of the frivolity, the wastefulness, you know, millions of dollars this is costing our state to fight frivolous charges.

Really? She must be lying. Her lips are moving.
http://tinyurl.com/ntmkkf

"During her resignation speech last week, Palin presented herself as a heroic defender of the taxpayer. She said that money being spent on government lawyers to defend against these “frivolous ethics violations” could be “going to things that are very important, like troopers and roads and teachers and fish research.” Palin repeated exactly the same point this week."

"But David Murrow, a spokesperson for the Governor, said in an interview that much of this money was budgeted to the lawyers in advance and would have gone to them anyway, even if state lawyers hadn’t been defending against these ethics complaints."

"In response to our questions, the Governor’s office provided us with a detailed breakdown of the millions Palin has claimed has gone to defending against ethics complaints. It does list roughly $1.9 million in expenditures."

"But Murrow, the spokesperson, acknowledged to our reporter, Amanda Erickson, that this total was arrived at by adding up attorney hours spent on fending off complaints — based on the fixed salaries of lawyers in the governor’s office and the Department of Law. The money would have gone to the lawyers no matter what they were doing. The complaints are “just distracting them from other duties,” Murrow said."

"In other words, while these lawyers might have been free to do other legal work for the state, the ethics complaints have apparently not had the real world impact Palin has claimed, and didn’t drain money away from cops, teachers, roads and other things."
==+==

The truth is not in this child. It just ain't.

It gets worse.

And when Palin's people are asked to comment on the fact that they've gotten caught in a lie, they dig deeper (birds of a feather?):
http://tinyurl.com/nw6lwf

"As we did yesterday, the ADN got a spokesperson for Palin’s office to concede that the “millions” of dollars that funded efforts to fend off ethics complaints against her administration would have gone to state lawyers anyway, and was not drained away from cops, schools, road repair and sea research, as Palin asserted as a chief reason for quitting."

"But ADN took it further. The paper asked the governor’s office to square that fact with Palin’s claim that the money would otherwise have gone to other municipal services. Here’s the reply from Palin spokesperson Sharon Leighow:

" Asked about that, Leighow said staffers from multiple state agencies had to set aside their normal duties. State lawyers were also pulled off cases, she said."

“Important legal issues involving the state’s interests were delayed in order to respond to these complaints. That means lost value to the state, which is measurable in dollars,” she said."

"Really? Staffers that would otherwise have contributed to police work, road repair, education, and sea research were pulled in to help the governor’s office deal with the legal ins and outs of ethics complaints? That’s the official explanation for Palin’s claim now? Interesting…"

==+==
m'kay.

In Time's article, they include this quote from Palin's resignation speech:
"Take the words of General MacArthur. He said, 'We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.' "

They report it uncritically, accepting Palin's words at face value. It seems the Academic skepticism never furrowed their brow either.

Noted even by Conservative publications: The quote, it seems, is from General O.P. Smith, commander of the First Marine Division, in the Korean War.
http://tinyurl.com/l2zh43
==+==

So she isn't (to use the idiotic rightwing phrase) "cutting and running"; she's just advancing in another direction. Heh, indeedy.

Palin is like the Cliff Clavin of Alaska. Some Clavinisms:

Cliff: You know, in the future telephones will be obsolete.
(Norm: "Yeah?")
Cliff: Yeah, absolutely right, see people will communicate telekinetically using part of their brain known as the cerebral cortex that is heretofore untapped.

Cliff: I wonder if you know that the harp here is the grandfather of the modern day guitar. Yeah, it seems that early Minstrels were much larger people.
(Harpist: "Never mind, I'll lug it myself.")
Cliff: Yeah, they had hands the size of small dogs.

Cliff: You know, if I took a ride in a spaceship at the speed of light for 10 years, when I returned I'd be 10 years older but everybody else here would be 80 years older. Now, do you realize the ramifications of that?
(Norm: "Yeah, for once you'd be the best player on our softball team.")

Cliff: Sammy, say you know you shouldn't be so surprised there you know. Women can't really resist a thick crop of jaw hair. It goes back to... it goes back to Androcles.
(Norm: "Now wait a second, wasn't that Androcles the guy who pulled the thorn out of a lions paw?")
Cliff: That's what he told his wife when she found the scratches on his back huh. I'm telling you guys, babes and beards.

=+=Frasier and Lilith are holding a Bris for their son but no one from Cheers can face going as all they can do is imagine the pain.=+=

Cliff: This is nothing anyway, the original rites of passage started with the jungle tribes down in Borneo.
(Norm: "Yeah?")
Cliff: When a young jungle tribal lad was on the brink of puberty they'd bring him forward and take out this large sharpened clam shell...
(Sam: "Oh, no, no, don't tell me.")
Cliff: ...They would fill it up with dip, pass around the Hors d'œuvres...
(Sam: "Oh.")
Cliff: ...then they'd take these two big jagged rocks...
(Norm: "No, Cliffie, Cliff, Cliff.")
Cliff: ...bang them together to call in the tribe out of the hills, you know, then the witch doctor stepped up with this long sharpened bamboo staff...
(Woody: "Oh, here it comes.")
Cliff: ...and just sort of shoved it into the ground, hung a flag on it and they danced around it pretty much till they dropped, really.
(Sam: "Wait a minute, when do they circumcise the kid?")
Cliff: What do you mean circumcise? There's no Jews in Borneo.

Clavinisms: http://tinyurl.com/pu2cu5

No one save the simple minds bought his bs. Same goes for Palin.

Hey Clint,

What does Palin have to do with Barry's 10% unemployment and 2.5 million jobs lost?

Maybe Barry could go check some books out at the library to help out of the fuck up he's got himself in..

various liberal types that have no qualms about being lead by the nose with the flimsiest of data and in most cases outright lies.

Sounds like Obamas supporters!

So she isn't (to use the idiotic rightwing phrase) "cutting and running"; she's just advancing in another direction. Heh, indeedy.

Dude, you sound really affraid of Palin or creepishly turned on by her ( we know how that turned out for Letterman)

Hannity, college dropout. Limbozo the Clown, college dropout.

Hey not everybody can afford a degree at Cownell Univ. in culinary arts like Kieth Olberman!

The Great Ivy League Snob Off, Part II:
Keith Olbermann Is Also Embarrassing.

by Maureen O'Connor | March 6, 2009 at 4:41 am

Ann Coulter's spat with Keith Olbermann over Cornell bragging rights began the way all great battles of the mind do — Does this Rush Limbaugh make the GOP look fat? — and ends the way our comment boards do, a degenerative slinging of acceptance rates and SAT scores eventually boiling down to one guy pointing at his diploma and screaming about how smart he is.

Welcome back to the Great Ivy League Snob Off. Let's meet the contestants:

In the first corner: Cornell grad and MSNBC gravitas junkie Keith Olbermann, who says conserva-pundit Rush Limbaugh is a know-nothing plebe who couldn't tell the Constitution from his left foot. He's so dumb, he flunked ballroom dance! (True story. Check his Wikipedia.)

In the second corner: Cornell grad and journeyman blowhard Ann Coulter, who jumps to Limbaugh's defense with an astonishingly baffling 900-word diatribe about how Olbermann is not the "scary smart" messiah his fans think he is, but an Ivy League fraud:

Keith didn't go to the Ivy League Cornell; he went to the Old MacDonald Cornell. ... Keith went to an affiliated state college at Cornell, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (average SAT: about that of pulling guards at the University of South Carolina; acceptance rate: 1 of every 1 applicants).

Touché, Coulter. You hit us East Coast intelligentsia right where it hurts-- the threat of farm dirt, and athletes! This is even worse than the time we realized Obama went to some weensy school in LA* before transferring to Columbia. Her opponent reeling, the skeletor in the right wing's closet delivers a bony little knock-out punch:

Olbermann's incessant lying about having an "Ivy League education" when he went to the non-Ivy League ag school at Cornell would be like a graduate of the Yale locksmithing school boasting about being a "Yale man."

~~~~

You libs are soooo damn funny smart!

"You libs are soooo damn funny smart!"
Posted by: freddie July 9, 2009 10:52 PM

Let's strike up the band in honor of bipartisanship on the Cornblog. Lifting a beer in Fredward's direction. We finally agree on something. We are soo damn funny smart.

I give you the Late Nite Jokesters and their take on one of the few lady-clowns in the CSS:

"President Obama is in Russia. And we know this because Sarah Palin says she can see him from her house."
--David Letterman

"In a recent study, the United States was ranked the 114th happiest country in the world. Then Sarah Palin stepped down. Now we're at 17."
--Conan O'Brien

"But a lot of public figures do this. . . . You blame the media. When you have trouble, you blame the media. And today, as a matter of fact, she was up in a helicopter, shooting Wolf Blitzer."
--David Letterman

"President Obama right now is in Russia. Yeah, Obama went there because from Russia, you can actually see Sarah Palin cleaning out her office in Alaska."
--Conan O'Brien

David Letterman's Top Ten Messages Left on Sarah Palin's Answering Machine

10. "Hi, it's George W. Bush. Why didn't anyone tell me resigning was an option?"
9. "It's John McCain--Why did I call?"
8. "Mark Sanford here. Ever been to Argentina?"
7. "I'm calling from Geico to see if you want to renew your dogsled insurance"
6. "It's Letterman. We still cool?"
5. "McCain again. Still no idea why I called"
4. "Hi, it's the dry cleaner. Having trouble getting caribou blood out of your Prada jacket"
3. "Hi, it's Sarah...Oops...Dialed my own number"
2. "Schwarzenegger here. If you want a job, California could use a new governor"
1. "Hey, it's McCain. Who would've thought you'd retire before I did"

"Now how about this, ladies and gentlemen? The Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, has announced she is stepping down. She will no longer be the Governor of Alaska. First thing, she woke up and went out on her porch and waved goodbye to Russia. Obama was waving to her."
--David Letterman

"Speaking of Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain was reportedly surprised by Sarah Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska. He said he was surprised. McCain was also surprised to find that television now comes in color."
--Conan O'Brien

"Over the weekend, Sarah Palin shocked the country by resigning as governor of Alaska. Out of nowhere. It's crazy. She resigned. Yeah, Republicans aren't sure who is going to fill her role in the party. But they are in talks with several of the Real Housewives of New Jersey."
--Conan O'Brien

"In her resignation speech, Sarah Palin said she polled her children on whether she should resign and the count was unanimous. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, even her children thought she was in over her head."
--Conan O'Brien

"Of course, the very big news, you can't avoid it, Sarah Palin's quitting as governor of Alaska. Everybody is shocked. Palin hasn't made a decision this controversial since deciding whether to wear her hair up or down."
--Craig Ferguson

"It's an emotional day. A lot of us are still mourning the loss of one of America's most entertaining figures, who left us all too soon. But don't worry, folks, Sarah Palin will be back. Comedians everywhere are praying."
--Conan O'Brien
==+==
Oh, all the liberals are praying. Please, dear Lord, don't let anything happen to Palin. She's the surest thing the Dems have to a lock on power. When she quits for real, she'll leave some insanely huge clown shoes to fill.

And all this time I thought the public libraries were for creepers surfering porn and spanking the monkey!

Now I see that you guys also surf Corns blog when that gets old!

Now that's damn funny smart!

Oh, all the liberals are praying. Please, dear Lord, don't let anything happen to Palin. She's the surest thing the Dems have to a lock on power. When she quits for real, she'll leave some insanely huge clown shoes to fill.

Dude, come on! Cartman could beat Obummer after he gets done fucking up..

Obummer will go done as the worst Prez evah when he's done, worse than your other hero - Jimmy Carter!

You can't fix stupid

But you can vote his dumb azz out!

Obama lied and the economy died!

"Fredward 2009"

Dude, you should see your spiritual adviser about that Palin fetish you've got..

Oh wait, he cheated then divorced his wife for a new babe also, maybe that's the problem!

"What does Palin have to do with Barry's 10% unemployment and 2.5 million jobs lost?"
Posted by: freddie July 9, 2009 10:37 PM

As a Democrat, she's comedic and political gold. She can singlehandedly keep the Dems in power for at least another 10 years as the GOP beats itself up over whether she should lead or Huckabee or Romney should. As an American, I know that we need two viable parties to keep things stable. I worry about my country when I see that Palin is all that the GOP can muster (aside from guys who can't keep their peepees in their pants like McCain, Gingrich, Giuliani, Ensign and Sanford).

She's part of the party that destroyed our economy. She's part of the reason that taxpayers have to bail out banks, bail out carmakers, bring investment banks out from the shadows. Her party is the reason that EVEN IN THE YEARS THAT THE ECONOMY WAS GROWING our federal debt went from about 5.7 Trillion to almost 10 Trillion. Her party had 8 long years to rip our stock market, our housing market, our banks, our industrial output and the value of our dollar (not to mention the slow bleeding of our armed forces) to what bloggers call Big Shitpile. Her party is the reason that our economy has been in a recession since 2007. We're going on 18 months of this Bush Recession and Obama is supposed to fix everything in 6 months? Really? The unemployment rate is 10%? Really?

"Hell, it took Bush almost 6 years before his polls numbers started dropping."
Posted by: freddie July 9, 2009 4:04 PM

Approval Ratings for G. W. Bush

From Pew Reasearch (2 months to drop)
------4/18-2001 56
------6/13-2001 50
From Gallup (3 months)
--------3/5 2001 63
--------6/28 2001 52
From NBC (3 months)
--------3/1-2001 57
--------6/23-2001 50
From Fox News (6 months)
--------2/21-2001 61
--------8/22-2001 55
From ABC (5 months)
--------4/19-2001 63
--------9/6-2001 55
==+==
6 years. Really? More like a couple of months. Once he got over that pity-bump from crapping his pants as he read a story about a pet goat on September 11, it was downhill all the way to 20%. I felt bad for him too. I really did. He was the governor of my state; so I knew it was just a matter of time before he screwed things up so badly that our country, his party and our economy would never be the same again. I knew things would get bad for him and his party, just not this bad.

And it goes deeper than Lady Gaga. . . .

It's Settled: Palin is Unfit for Office
By Richard Cohen
http://tinyurl.com/kt2exx

"During the campaign, she proved allergic to briefings and remained determined to stay uncorrupted by knowledge. More recently, she explained her decision to -- permit me some GOP talk -- cut and run as Alaska governor by lapsing into no known language, explaining herself afterward in a burst of Tweets that only raised more questions. One question, though, has been settled: She is unfit for office."

"What is most pertinent about Palin is that she was named to the GOP ticket -- a top-down choice by McCain. This was the most reckless decision any national politician has made in the longest time, and while it certainly says something about McCain, it says even more about his party. It's lost its mind."

"Was there a scream of protest? No. Did the Republican Party demand to know of McCain what the hell he had done? Again, no. Was it OK with the GOP if the person a heartbeat away from the presidency was -- pardon me, but it's true -- a ditz with no national experience whatsoever? You betcha. The party had cracked up, accepting a nullity because she was anti-abortion over a seasoned senator and former governor because they were not. Ideology won. The nation lost."
===+===
And the rest of the GOP candidates? Cohen provides the laughs:

"Almost as interesting as Palin is South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Never mind his affair. These things happen. Concentrate instead on how he hid his affair -- by disappearing and calling attention to himself. . . . Most of us would consider this weird behavior. In the GOP, it was seen as presidential timber."

"Shall I go on? Newt Gingrich, another possible candidate, is the Old Faithful of the Grand Old Party, erupting on a regular basis. He recently suggested that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a racist because of her comment about the innate astuteness of a "wise Latina." He later apologized, but his hair trigger is well established. This is the same Gingrich, you may recall, who threw a tantrum in 1995 when President Clinton seated him in the rear of Air Force One and then, with ingenious malice aforethought, failed to come back to chat. As for the rest of the GOP candidates, all of them must be vetted by the party's Grand Inquisitor, Rush Limbaugh, a belch from the gutter."
==+==
If Limbozo the Clown doesn't give you the seal of approval, you go nowhere in the GOP. If he does, you go nowhere in a national election. The GOP is sooo scrood.

Cohen aside, the Obama critics are a weird lot. This one is typical

Obama must be firm on foreign policy
By Gideon Rachman
http://tinyurl.com/nu56mb

"But charm and good looks can only get you so far in geopolitics.Mr Obama’s charismatic aura is obscuring an uncomfortable truth"
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Good Looks? and what's with that caricature of Putin sitting on Medvedev's lap? Creepy doesn't begin to describe the whole thing.
.
And the highwire nutjob Neal Boortz on the Stimulus is even funnier.

How's the Stimulus Working For You So Far?
http://tinyurl.com/koyzmc

His solution to the economic crisis? Tax Breaks. As if a replay of the Bush years would fix everything.
==+==
The Clowns seem to be wearing the wigs a little too tightly these days. The CSS has lost its mind.

"New Details Emerge in Ensign Sex Scandal"

"someone got creative with the books, which hints at ethics AND financial violations."
Posted by: Alan July 9, 2009 2:26 PM

Yep, his parents paid his mistress and her family somewhere in the neighborhood of 100K.. He messed around with her in his home while she (the mistress) and her husband (and their kids) lived with the Ensigns. Paying for sex seems a little more than an ethics violation, although it didn't hurt Vitter's standing in the GOP at all.

A funny aspect of the whole thing is the way Coburn knew about it and tried to help Ensign get his zipper unstuck.

Now that the press is digging into his involvement, Coburn is freaking out and citing all kinds of confidentiality agreements. He says he's advising Ensign as his "doctor." I want to know how long Coburn examined Ensign's ladyparts (since Coburn is an ob-gyn).

Take a look at the stock markets going back to June 11.
Posted by: Clint July 8, 2009 4:29 PM

Something happened. All of the major world markets suddenly sank. Bond panic subsided.
http://tinyurl.com/n7pmxk

Money should have gone from bonds back to stocks. What's the connection? Just read an article that noted the same pattern at The Big Picture.
http://tinyurl.com/l462am

WTF?

Something related to Mr. Corn's post on the effectiveness of the stimulus:

Washington Post story with a graphic showing how much of the stimulus has been spent (very little) and the rate at which it is being spent.
http://tinyurl.com/nlrl8t

The graphic itself:
http://tinyurl.com/ku3vq3

6.5 million jobs lost since December 2007 and the GOP did nothing about it while Bush was in office? They want Obama to clean up their mess in less than 6 months. What a bunch of morons.

A third stimulus?
http://tinyurl.com/mpydda

"The country is experiencing the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The economics profession bears part of the blame – almost the entire profession was unable to see an $8 trillion housing bubble. Even as the unraveling of the bubble began to throw the economy into recession, economists were slow to recognize the need for a strong response from the government to boost the economy."

"This failure of the economics profession allowed the first stimulus, passed during the Bush administration in February of 2008, to consist of a relatively modest tax cut that provided limited benefit to the economy. Congress passed a considerably larger stimulus in February of 2009, but one that is still far too small to address the severity of the downturn."

==-==
The economic profession as a whole is lining up behind Krugman for another stimulus. Somebody needs to get these geniuses in a room and hash out a plan. If Roubini says the last stim was too small and Krugman says we need another, it's scary stuff.