Palin v. Biden

Here's my precursor to the Palin/Biden debate, which comes after a horrible 10 days for the Alaskan Governor:

The media have run Palin into the ground, and they're going to keep her there. Now that her poll numbers are dipping sharply, they'll keep their feet on her throat. It serves two purposes: one, teach the lady a lesson about venturing into national politics ever again. Two, make sure those poll numbers stay low so that it starts to affect voter turnout in November.

It's not all the media's fault. They certainly have attempted to destroy her, but there's no reason why Palin should be helping them out. Three TV interviews in a month? That is like begging the media to rip you a new one. Since every single word she says is going to be scrutinized beyond belief, the right strategy should not have been less exposure, but more. Lots more. Fill the airwaves with anecdotes, stories, gaffes, whatever.

Biden gets a free ride not only because he's a Democrat, but because he's a goof. He'll say any fool thing, and he does it all the time. And that's the point: "Ah, that's just Joe. What a dummy." And on with life.

Instead of being caged by McCain's staff, Palin should have been trotted out all over the place. Fifteen interviews with local papers and media, just to get her confidence up. Field some questions, and hit some minor league pitching. Then five interviews with the big boys, a few townhall meetings, and a bunch of radio spots. After all that, she might still have been called a bimbo or a fool, but at least some good would have come out of it. A positive soundbite here, a touching life story there. She also would have found out what she needed to brush up on (hint: foreign policy). The crowds alone would have made her look good: a gaffe in front of a cheering audience is not a gaffe. A gaffe in front of an adversarial press is a gaffe-gaffe.

So far, Palin's simply been led out to the woodshed once every ten days to get a thorough beating. It's starting to show. Her confidence is shot. She's trying to remember all of the things that her tutors have stuffed into her head. She's heard the criticism from the media, internalized it, and now all of her answers sound like they're coming from cue cards. Her delivery has gone to hell, and her poise is off. She's trying to be too perfect.

Palin - When She Was Palin
Her handlers have set her up to fail. The woman is a country girl from a small town. That is part of her charm. She's an outsider. That is why she was selected, and what the crowds are showing up to see. Her campaign should have sent her on a whistle-stop tour of thirty western states the second she stepped off that convention hall's podium. Instead, her handlers have taken a good piece of clay and tried to mold it into something terrible: a Washington politician.

Palin has to take some responsibility for this horrible week. Her answers regarding Russia and Pakistan were embarrassing, and her Katie Couric interview was a mess. Again, she was trying to be too perfect, and came off looking like a deer in the headlights whenever she didn't have the perfect answer. Reminder: there isn't one. Trust yourself and forget the mental cue cards.

Unlike a presidential candidate, a VP pick doesn't have much time to get up to speed. Governors especially are not thinking too much about Pakistani borders. Foreign policy is always going to be their immediate weakness, at least until they get a chance to talk to people and read some books. So when a VP is tapped on the shoulder, they have to cram, and cram hard.

Palin's been cramming, but she has to get back to her roots. Don't know the answer? Fine. But rely on your abilities and at least dance like you have the answer. Or, if you're dead set on being a true Washington politician, then just say, "Interesting question, Katie." And change the subject.

They all do it. Don't know much about Iran? Start off the answer with Iran, then start talking about somewhere you're more familiar with. Maybe Russia. Maybe North Korea. Whatever, just make it a dangerous place. Financial turmoil giving you a hassle? No problem. Switch to energy consumption and saving money at the pump.

I was watching a Charlie Rose clip from last year, where he interviewed Palin. It was like watching a different Governor. Actually, strike that. It was like watching a confident Governor.

Welcome to the bigs, Palin. Get out of your slump. Like it or not, you have to start hitting curves.

Bailing on a Bailout

Flush.

That's the sound of a bailout bill going straight...down...the...toilet.

Of course, it's all the Republicans' fault, and by extension, John McCain's. That's funny, considering Nancy Pelosi only had 4 Republican votes last week, but after McCain showed up, she got another 60. That was more than enough to help her get the bill over the top, if only 1/3 of her own majority party didn't tell her stuff it. Which they did.

The Dow Jones fell over 700 points, and the media have picked up the song saying that the Republicans have ruined everything. Nevermind that the Dem fat cats helped tank the economy with whacko social engineering loan projects. Nevermind that, because if the economy's bad, it must be time for more left wing government. In other words, it's manna from heaven for Barack Obama, who didn't lift a finger to get the bill passed.

And why would he? With the economy tanking, he's a shoo-in for the White House.

I guess all of this news sucks, but it does remind me of who's really in charge of the United States: Congress. Which is as it should be. With all of the hoopla that's come out of this presidential race (and I admit, it's been damn fun to watch), media freaks, bloggers and cheerleaders need reminding that this isn't an election for King of America.

I have to hand it to the Dems and Republicans that didn't vote for the bill. They listened to their electorate, and they acted like free market Americans. A $700 billion bailout funded by taxpayers? Stick it.

Fade to Black - Paul Newman

I remember sitting around in a Yankee bar when a friend's friend said, "I love that movie...that hockey movie...Slap Stick."

The guy's Canadian buddy laughed at him and said, "Slap Shot."

"Oh," the guy said. "Slap Shot, right."

I like that memory because I always thought Oh-Guy was a classic know-it-all butthead, and watching him prove it was great. But the way he proved it was telling: Paul Newman was a quintessential American actor and movie star, but it was Canadians that latched onto one of Newman's own favorite films: Slap Shot. A movie that was unfairly trashed in its day, but is now heralded as one of the all-time great sports movies (except by more buttheads at AFI, who left it out of their top ten sports films, but included Jerry Maguire. Like I said: buttheads).

The movie stunned audiences because it was the first time they heard an A-list actor say the word "dyke," or heard a movie star make such observations as, "Your son looks like a fag to me. You better get re-married again, or he's gonna have someone's cock in his mouth before you can say Jack Robinson."

Gutter language! Locker room talk! From Paul Newman? Yes, and all the more shocking for having been scripted by a woman. Nancy Dowd penned the script and as David Mamet said years later vis a vis foul language, “Someone once asked Nancy Dowd that same question about Slap Shot. The person complained about there being so much locker-room language in the film. Nancy said, ‘You might have noticed that much of the film takes place in a locker room.’”

It would be years before Slap Shot was accepted as a great movie with a great cast and a wonderful director. It was a third effort for Newman and director George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and The Sting were the others), and I think Slap Shot ranks up there with both of them. Why? Because the only thing that makes a comedy great is the laughter of an audience. Today, when people see Slap Shot for the first or tenth time, they laugh till they cry.

Newman died a couple of days ago and it hit me pretty hard because his films remind me a lot of my childhood. I remember when there was this stereo joint around the corner from our house. The guy who ran the place had all kinds of old movies, stuff that Blockbuster would never carry. I would pick an actor a week and I would rent tons of these old movies for under a buck. So I watched great Newman movies like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Harper, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, and Hud. Unfortunately, I also watched terrible Newman films like The Macintosh Man and Torn Curtain (quite possibly Hitchcock's worst film, too). But at 99 cents, even the bad movies were worth it.

Newman was the real deal. Good actor, good man, good husband, good laugh, good drama. My picks for a Newman weekend would have to be Slap Shot for the laughs, The Verdict and Cool Hand Luke for the drama, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for the glory days. Though you should also watch Harper. And Hud. And The Hustler. And, well, all of them.

Spin Your Veep Round and Round

"Part of what being a leader does to instill confidence is to demonstrate what he or she knows what they are talking about and communicating to people ... this is how we can fix this. When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed. He said, 'look, here's what happened.'"

That's Joe Biden, in a CBS interview with Katie Couric.

Problem 1: When the stock market crashed in 1929, FDR wasn't the President. Herbert Hoover was. Problem 2: in 1929, nobody was watching television. The only people that owned a TV had dibs on experimental sets that emitted a weird, orange glow the size of a credit card.

So much for instilling confidence by appearing to know what you're talking about.

Grant, in a rare DVD release, 1946

You probably didn't hear much about this latest of Biden's gaffes. It's not newsworthy because he's only running as a VP. As Slate tells it, Biden is a "harmless gaffe machine." As the LA Times notes, Biden merely "misspoke" about FDR and the history of the television set.

Misspoke. Harmless. Uh-huh.

Now let me ask you, my darling friends and readers, if Sarah Palin had misspoken in the same way, what do you think the reaction would have been to that harmless gaffe? We saw how she was raked over the coals for the Bush Doctrine. But flubbing FDR, the Great Depression, and TV?

It would have been a bloodbath, and you know it.

I am loving the Palin VP candidacy. Loving it.

Sorry, We'll Have To Bill You For Gas

I love The Smoking Gun. They have a pretty funny take on most things related to crime and justice, and they find some pretty funny examples of life in the low lane.

This story gave me a good laugh:

Spiraling gas prices led an Indiana drug dealer to levy a fuel oil surcharge on customers purchasing cocaine, according to investigators. Anthony Salinas, 18, tacked on the gasoline surcharge when he sold a confidential police source coke on two occasions in June. While arranging one buy, Salinas told the source that a quarter-ounce of cocaine would cost $240--$215 for the drug itself and "$25.00 for gas money to deliver the cocaine..."

An itemized invoice for a coke deal? Sounds like some of these guys audited an MBA course over the past couple of months. Next they'll be bailing out banks.

Welcome to the Party

Hats off to the Tampa Bay Rays, who made it into the post-season for the first time in franchise history. They dropped the "Devil" from their name, and the monkey off their backs.

A hundred years ago in the preseason, Scott Kazmir said they were good enough to play in October. Everyone laughed. Who's laughing now?

Last year, they were the worst team in baseball. Now they're in the show. It doesn't get any better than that for a team fighting for respect.



Photo: AP

Booked

Damn. When it comes to overdue library books, the town of Grafton, Wisconsin, doesn't screw around.

Here's the story.

Hacking Palin

From the AP:

Hackers broke into the Yahoo! e-mail account that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin used for official business as Alaska's governor, revealing as evidence a few inconsequential personal messages she has received since John McCain selected her as his running mate.

"This is a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them," the McCain campaign said in a statement.

The Secret Service contacted The Associated Press on Wednesday and asked for copies of the leaked e-mails, which circulated widely on the Internet. The AP did not comply.

The disclosure Wednesday raises new questions about the propriety of the Palin administration's use of nongovernment e-mail accounts to conduct state business.

Yes, you could look at it like that. Or you could look at it as a politically motivated illegal attack, and that the hackers should be put in jail. There is no difference between hacking someone's emails and posting them to the internet, and stealing letters from a person's mailbox and printing them in a newspaper.

The media spin on this is going to be interesting. Note that the AP "did not comply" with a Secret Service request for copies of the hacked emails, and nowhere in the article is the word "illegal" even mentioned except by McCain's spokesman. You'd think a proper piece of journalism would highlight the crime and its possible punishment. Think again. The media no doubt believe that the emails are already out there, so what the hell. Might as well use them to see if there's any "gotcha" moments. It's also interesting to see the AP use the word "disclosure" to describe criminal activity.

I'm beginning to get quite tired of the media saying that this is an all around dirty campaign. So far, I see a hell of lot of dirt going in only one direction. Still, the irony is rich. Earlier this week, the Obama campaign made a big deal about McCain not being able to use email (he can't type because of his war injuries, but why let that ruin a soundbite?). Now it's a big deal that Palin uses email too much.

The trashing and microscopic scrutiny of Sarah Palin will continue until a) she loses the VP bid, or b) she and McCain win the election. If that happens, she'll have at least four more years of this stuff to look forward to. Lucky her.

Photo: Wikipedia

WaMu, Boo Hoo

Washington Mutual is now on the block, as they put up the For Sale sign and go begging for a buyer.

I smell a rat. It sounds like more and more banks and investment houses are aiming to have the government be their real estate agent.

Channeling Gordon Gekko

The US government stepped in to bail out AIG. I still don't feel comfortable with that kind of thing. That's not the way the capitalist system is supposed to work.

With everyone saying that the system "failed," we need to be brutally honest with each other. The system did not fail. The system functioned perfectly. We just don't like the current result. Too many people from Main Street and Wall Street made a lot of big, foolish bets, and they eventually drew a busted flush.

There is no "bogeyman" on Wall Street. There's just a bunch of guys playing the biggest crap game on earth. They're greedy, but no more greedy than the people on Main Street (though I do regard the Golden Parachute CEOs as scumbags).

I've seen a lot of commentators complain about the world's nasty culture of greed. A good many, including Bill O'Reilly, are saying that they too have been hit by the slumping stock market. They blame it all on what O'Reilly calls, "The greed-heads." Well, Bill, you'd better sign yourself up for a Greed-Head bumper sticker, because that's exactly what you are.

Everyone plays the market for one reason only: to make more money. They're greedy. Sometimes you hit it big. Often times you make or lose a little. And a very small part of the time you get cocky, push all in, and get wiped out.

It amazes me that people don't remember that playing any market is gambling. Stocks, bonds, financials, housing, you name it. These rackets are literally no different than blackjack or roulette: "If I take a card on this hand, I should win...oh, shit."

If you buy stock, you're gambling that it will go up, or at least won't tank while paying some dividends. When you land a big job and take a mortgage on a beautiful house, you're betting that you won't get fired next week. When you buy a "fixer upper," you're banking that the housing market won't dip before you put in the marble tile.

When you gamble, sometimes you get burned. What we're seeing this week is a massive burn on a certain sector of the market that had too many chips on one number. Now everyone's screaming that the system is horrible.

Oh? It wasn't so horrible when those numbers were skyrocketing and you were making a ton of bread, was it? The system was fabulous back then, and truly fantastic for the guy who sold out early. And, though you don't want to hear it, the system is still fabulous now. Just maybe not for you. There's a lot of guys out there making hay out of this "catastrophe." In fact, they're licking their chops at the latest series of bad headlines.


I am leery whenever I hear that something needs more government regulation. We complain every day that the government is run by morons, so it makes no sense to feel relief when that same government starts running even more parts of our lives. That's what regulation means: the government looking over your shoulder and telling you what to do. But how do you regulate stupidity? It's against the law to be fraudulent, but it's not illegal to be an idiot.

"But," you say, "we need more regulation. Things are getting worse, and they won't get better."

Well, you're not a gambler. According to Market Watch, 84% of private company CEOs think the opportunities coming out of this disaster will outweigh or offset any negatives. Out of this mess, they see a chance to make even more cash.

There's an old line that says the market is driven by two things: greed and fear. We're in for a big dose of fear over the coming months, but greed is strong. It will be back. Bet on it.

(Here's a good piece from Market Watch about the panic gripping Wall Street. It has a great line: "With the mood on Wall Street now as dark as a mushroom farm, optimists are much more likely than pessimists to be proven right in the end.")

Photos: Time / 20th Century Fox

Keep Your Mouth Shut And Chill

The Canadian Human Rights Commission is back in the news. They're trying to pin another hate crime on Marc Lemire, a man described as a white supremacist and bigot.

If Lemire is those things, then he is to be scorned and laughed at. But I still think it's abysmal that Canada has a commission which attempts to shut people up if they "are likely to expose a person or group to hatred or contempt" by speaking their minds.

Okay, so describe "contempt." Or "likely." Or "hatred." And which "someone" are you allowed to ridicule, versus the "someone" you can't.

Today, I saw a story in the National Post. It's a disgrace. For the first time, we actually have a human rights bureaucrat (Hadjis) questioning the legitimacy of muzzling Canadian citizens. This is big news. It means the very people that have been punishing citizens for their words and thoughts are wondering if things have gone too far. And what is the government's response? The Attorney General's lawyer, Fothergill, says that "chilling" Canadian discourse is okay because it might stop a few haters.

Here is an email I sent to a Conservative candidate for parliament:

I am curious what your stance is on the Canadian Human Rights Commission. I was stunned to see this statement in the National Post today:

Mr. Hadjis expressed skepticism of Mr. Fothergill’s claim that the core of the legal analysis remains unchanged in the digital age, even though the scope of the law is drastically widened from the original "telephonic communications."

"It’s a different context," Mr. Hadjis said, noting that every newspaper now has a Web site.

"Suddenly all these declarations that may have legitimately been made on paper, in the age of Taylor, will be caught by Section 13."

Mr. Fothergill [lawyer for Attorney General] answered that if Section 13 puts a chill on public discourse, it is only to be around the fringes of hate speech, and that this is not "a terribly bad outcome."

"A little bit of chilling ... is tolerable," he said.

It’s "tolerable" to frighten Canadian citizens into thinking they should keep their mouths shut? This is a disgraceful thing to say in a democratic society. Please tell me your views. I feel human rights commissions should be severely curtailed, if not outright disbanded. I also know for a fact that this is a big issue for many people in this country right now.

Thank you.

I am not one to send emails to politicians over anything, but this is the last straw. The Attorney General is supposed to stand up for Canada's laws and traditions. He has sold that duty down the river, and his privilege of serving this country should be revoked immediately.

I am going to send this email to as many politicians as I can, because I want them on the record before election day. I don't care which party they belong to. If they're for getting rid of this ridiculous assault on Canada's freedom of expression, then they deserve support and respect. Otherwise, forget it.

Wall Street's Bad Beat

I'm just a simple guy that likes to have enough money in his pocket to buy a beer and the odd bag of Cheetos. I'm no economist. But just so I'm clear:

1) People bought houses they couldn't afford.

2) Banks lent them money, knowing full well these people couldn't afford the houses.

3) It was all perfectly harmless, as everyone thought the price of houses would keep going up.

4) Banks thought the government would bail them out in the very unlikely event that the housing market went in the crapper.

5) The housing market went in the crapper.

6) People that couldn't afford their houses were out of luck. The bankers who lent them the money were out of luck, too, because the houses weren't worth as much as they were before. Everyone's credit, including the bank's, bottomed out, their assets worth a fraction of what they were.

7) Right up to today, CEOs and bankers have been living the high life, and even when fired, they've received severance packages worth millions. They made silly investments inside and outside of the housing market, and they figured the government (read, taxpayers) would bail them out if things got bad.

8) Well, things are now bad. And the Fed is walking away, refusing to bail out the latest headcase bank, Lehman Brothers. Wall Street has hit the wall, and it is a "nightmare for everybody."

Two stories from my life. Once upon a time, I knew a clerk at a mortgage house. She was a Canadian, lest any of you reading this are crowing over American bank failures (Brits might also like to know that 2007 was a record year for personal bankruptcy in the UK, with 53 114 people throwing in the towel). The mortgage clerk told me that she filled out a lot of paperwork every day for people whom she didn't think could pay their mortgages. Her boss believed they could. She literally told me, "Every day, I pray these people will pay their mortgage. After they leave my office, I say, 'Please, please, pay your mortgage.'" So if you think it can't happen in Canada, think again. Greed doesn't have a nationality.

Another story: I was sitting around with the father of a friend, and I was telling him about all of the nice cars and houses my friend's buddies owned. I said I was too busy blowing cash on good times, and maybe I should buy the nice stuff. He laughed and said, "They don't own any of that crap." I asked what he meant and he said, "When they say 'my house,' they don't mean 'my house.' They don't own their cars or houses. The bank does."

The bank sure does, until it all blows up in the bank's face. And what's that called? A "nightmare for everybody."

Not everybody. I am about as capitalist and free market as it gets, so let me say it plain: if you can afford beer and Cheetos, buy beer and Cheetos. Don't buy a damn house, default on your loan, and cry the blues. You had your shot, and you blew it. For you bankers, don't lend people money when you know they can't afford to pay it back. Now the taxpayers have to clean up your mess. Me, I'm against even that. I wish the world could let them crash. All of them. Start over from the ashes. I'm pleased that Lehman Brothers got told to go screw itself, but too many of these hotshots have been getting away with murder as the government bails them out.

Next time, these boneheads need to save us the hassle. One word for the homeowners: rent. Two words for the bankers: casino dealer.

(Here's a Scotsman article that will give you the goods on the Lehman Brothers fiasco. It has an unbelievable account of the cynical crooks who run these outfits).

As I Was Saying (VII)

Skip this if you're bored of politics. I'll get back to baseball, sex, and fun stuff soon. But it's the political season, so you'll have to bear with.

Here's some more ammunition to add to my theory that Palin's identity will be smashed and trashed by "feminists" far more than it will by any misogynistic man. I'm loving this. Their new transparency is absolutely beautiful.

Wendy Doninger, Professor of the History of Religions, University of Chicago’s Divinity School:

[Palin's] greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman. The Republican party's cynical calculation that because she has a womb and makes lots and lots of babies (and drives them to school! wow!) she speaks for the women of America, and will capture their hearts and their votes, has driven thousands of real women to take to their computers in outrage. She does not speak for women; she has no sympathy for the problems of other women, particularly working class women.

That must be a pretty interesting religion class. And wait a minute...Palin's not a woman?

Cintra Wilson, Salon:

I confess, it was pretty riveting when John McCain trotted out Sarah Palin for the first time. Like many people, I thought, "Damn, a hyperconservative, fuckable, Type A, antiabortion, Christian Stepford wife in a 'sexy librarian' costume -- as a vice president? That's a brilliant stroke of horrifyingly cynical pandering to the Christian right. Karl Rove must be behind it."

Palin may have been a boost of political Viagra for the limp, bloodless GOP (and according to an ABC/Washington Post poll she has created a boost in McCain's standing among white women to a 53 over Obama's 41). But ideologically, she is their hardcore pornographic centerfold spread, revealing the ugliest underside of Republican ambitions -- their insanely zealous and cynical drive to win power by any means necessary, even at the cost of actual leadership.

Sarah Palin is a bit comical, like one of those cutthroat Texas cheerleader stage moms. What her Down syndrome baby and pregnant teenage daughter unequivocally prove, however, is that her most beloved child is the antiabortion platform that ensures her own political ambitions with the conservative right. The throat she's so hot to cut is that of all American women.

Got it. Now it is acceptable to knock a woman for her looks, ambition, type A personality, being a baby factory, and having a disabled son. Thanks for clearing that up.

Separation of Me From Daytime TV

I watched a video clip of The View, that strange show where 5 rich women tell the housewives of America how to live their lives.

Last week, John McCain paid the gals a visit. The group asked him about the Supreme Court (surprise, surprise, Roe v. Wade came up within 10 seconds), and Whoopi Goldberg also asked McCain if she should be worried about becoming a slave.

Whoopi asked that question because McCain says he wants Supreme Court justices that interpret the constitution the way the Framers intended. That is, not to write legislation, but to weigh the legislation against the words written in the constitution.

This is where Whoopi pounced, asking if she should be worried about "becoming a slave again." Poor McCain had to murmur that no, that wouldn't happen, but that he understood her concern. The crowd applauded. Whoopi comically fanned herself with a slip of paper and admired her own intelligence. McCain had to give her a hat tip because, though talking to an idiot, he was in the idiot's house.

The irony of Goldberg's stupidity is rich. Just as McCain finished saying that he doesn't want justices writing law, Whoopi asked if the justices will bring back slavery. It was too far above her head to grasp that 1) the Supreme Court cannot write slavery into law, and 2) even if the legislature wanted to write slavery into law, it would be against the 13th Amendment of the constitution, making the law moot. Therefore, Goldberg is in total agreement with McCain: the Supreme Court shouldn't be writing laws, and they should be interpreting it the way the Framers intended.

The 13th Amendment reads like this:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

And that's that. No slavery. If Goldberg wants to worry about new laws, she should be looking to Congress, not the Supreme Court.

The hosts of The View need a refresher course in the different branches of government. I'd be happy if they even bothered to Google it.

Whoopi also took a run at McCain for the separation of church and state mumbo jumbo, which isn't in the constitution. The Framers batted the concept around in correspondence, but they never made any specific rules about it (though most people use the First Amendment to cover the subject).

Atheists have been using the church/state argument to paint ever widening circles intended to shut Christians up, thinking that church/state is written in stone. The logical conclusion of their argument seems to be that leaders should never be religious. Untrue. What the Framers seemed to intend was that no president should also be the leader of a religious group. That is, a religion's beliefs don't write the rules. But there's a flipside: the Framers didn't want the state to tell a religion what to do either. That's the whole point of the First Amendment's freedom of religion clause. It isn't there to protect the government, it's there to protect the religious worshipper.

In any case, contrary to what the View gals want, nowhere in any US rule book is there a passage that says a president cannot say the word "God." Unfortunately, there's no rule against being forced to hobnob with daytime talkshow hosts, either.

The church/state deal is a problem for Whoopi and the gang because Palin prays. Whoopi says that it worries her. She agrees that the US may have a Judeo-Christian tradition (McCain brought up the term, which is why Goldberg used it later to sound smart), but she says that there's Muslims and Zoroastrians in America, too. When she said that, five people applauded and McCain, to his credit, said, "There's a few Zoroastrians at the back."

Church/state. Palin prays. There goes the neighbourhood.

Everybody's been lionizing Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln these days. I'm sure Whoopi thinks that Lincoln was a great man for freeing the slaves and fighting the Civil War. I believe that, too. Still, this statement from Lincoln regarding the Bible would scare the hell out of Goldberg:

"In regard to this Great book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it."

Yikes. If Honest Abe were running for president today, Whoopi would rake him over the coals for that. Civil war? Suspending habeus corpus? Bible thumping? The man's a murderous Jesus-freak and a tyrant.

As for Roosevelt, here's his take. Whoopi should listen carefully: "If there is one thing for which we stand in this country, it is for complete religious freedom, and it is an emphatic negation of this right to cross-examine a man on his religion before being willing to support him for office."

Gibson v. Palin

My report card on Palin's interview with Gibson:

Gibson: Snotty, aloof, but fair. I laugh when he's Mr. Serious during his interviews, glasses perched on the end of his nose, voice just above a grumble. Then they cut to him introducing a hurricane story and - ta da! - the glasses are gone and he's as chipper as...well, as a reporter who thinks a lot of people are going to die in a hurricane.

Charlie came out of the morning anchor circuit, so he's a media goof with something to prove (and no, I'm not sticking up for Palin; I've often said Charlie Gibson's a clown). His question about Iran being an "existential" threat was weird, and his exasperated question, "You don't believe it global warming?" proved he's a jackass. That said, he asked some reasonable and tough questions. He'd never put Obama through that kind of ringer, but that's to be expected so you can't whine about it.

Palin: Surprisingly mediocre. As a warmup for the interview, I went back and watched her with Charlie Rose. It was a piece from last year. Palin at a desk, black jacket, black background. She looked and sounded comfortable. She told anecdotes with an easy manner, and she sounded firm on policy issues.

New ballgame this time around. Someone forgot to explicitly tell Palin that the national media is her enemy. No matter how many times she called Gibson "Charlie," he wasn't going to lay off. Charlie was there to get a soundbite, hammer her for being a hick and, hopefully, make her look stupid and unprepared. The soundbite they've latched onto was her saying that the US could go to war if Russia attacked Georgia, provided Georgia is a member of NATO. It was a silly hypothetical question which McCain would have handled more deftly. Instead, Palin told the flat out truth: "Perhaps." She went on to say that war would be a last resort, but that all NATO countries had to expect their allies to come to each other's aid. That's absolutely true, but we'll see if the media spin it as Sarah the Warmonger.

She was nervous. Probably had too much coaching in the last few days, undermining her regular cool and making her think that this was too big a deal, when really it was just talking to a morning news guy. From previous interviews, I know she has it in her. Tonight, she reminded me of some clients I've shot that have only been in front of a camera a few times.

She has to absolutely demand that she gets to sit at a table or desk across from the interviewer. I don't know what her handlers were thinking, but the little wooden chairs and vast open living room were a horrible idea. She looked much smaller than Charlie, like a student/professor scene, especially in the wide cutaway.

I think she'll get better as she gets warmed up to the heat of a new spotlight. Taken like that, Gibson was good for her. Trial by fire. She'll probably be ready for Biden in the debate. My advice: take the coaching with a grain of salt, and get back to being yourself.

9/11

I was in Boston, heading for NY. The ship I was on was ordered to leave harbour and take a very slow cruise to Florida. All ports, air and sea, were now closed. Seems like yesterday to me sometimes, though I see more WWII documentaries on television than I ever see anything about 9/11/01.

I don't know why that is. I think it's better to remember it.

To those who perished, rest in peace.

As I Was Saying (VI)

Intelligence and public speaking in South Carolina appears to be quite rare.

From Politico's Jonathan Martin:

South Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler sharply attacked Sarah Palin today, saying John McCain had chosen a running mate "whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.”

Bong! Ring up another few thousand votes for McCain (that's the man running for President, in case the VP-happy Democrats forgot). At this rate, McCain's going to save a bundle on advertising. All he has to do is make sure a reporter is within five hundred feet of a Democrat.

Though Fowler's asinine statement does nothing to impress you with the judgement of South Carolina's Democratic leadership, for sheer stupidity nothing compares to the state's 2007 Miss Teen America entry. Here she is answering questions on education reform. Give her 15 years and she's a shoo in as the Chairwoman of the South Carolina Democratic party.

Let's go to the tape:

Steyn's Back

It looks like Steyn has decided to weigh in on the Palin deal and how the media's treating it.

A couple of months ago, Steyn decided to take a hiatus to work on some mysterious project or other (probably a book, but maybe he's just gassed from duking it out with Canada's human rights gurus and he decided to summer it out with the wife and kids). In any case, when the McCain ticket picked up Palin, I stopped by his website for the first time in over a month because I knew he wouldn't be able to contain himself.

I was right, but Steyn's hedging. So far he's contented himself with logging on at NRO's Corner to give a few soundbites. I know what he's up to. Not writing a fullblown article allows him to pretend that he's still on a break, able to answer his wife with, "What? Nothing. Nope, still not interested in getting back to it. Huh? Oh, just an email to a friend."

After reading the first one last week, I thought, "He'll get hooked." Sure enough, three showed up on Thursday and another one on Friday, like the ex-smoker who hit the wall the night before and is now trying to scale it back. Then yesterday there were two soundbites at the Corner. Now there's two more, and Tuesday isn't even over yet.

He must really be in fits. It was all human rights all the time, and it looked like a nice, boring, easy three months until the next round in December. Then along came Palin. Moose hunting women running for office? Feminists freaking out on both sides of the Atlantic? CBC writers talking trash? British Prime Ministers picking sides? This is Steyn heaven.

So give it a rest, Steyn. Sorry, but I've got to call you out. You know you're hooked. Don't feel bad. Tell the wife you're only human. You might as well just write a full 800 worder to let us know what's on your mind. You'll feel better.

Good to see you again.

As I Was Saying (V)

Well, well. Another lefty feminist, another violent screed against Sarah Palin.

Yes, yes, "I told you so," but this rant is a little different. It comes from Heather Mallick over at the CBC. She's a self-described feminist/author/journalist, and, unlike most of the journalists outside of China and Cuba, she is paid by the state (that's where the CBC gets a lot of its dough, in case you've forgotten).

Let's go to press:

Mallick
Palin has a toned-down version of the porn actress look favoured by this decade's woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression. Bristol [Palin's daughter] has what is known in Britain as the look of the teen mum, the "pramface." Husband Todd looks like a roughneck; Track, heading off to Iraq, appears terrified. They claim to be family obsessed while being studiously terrible at parenting. What normal father would want Levi "I'm a fuckin' redneck" Johnson prodding his daughter?

I know that I have an attachment to children that verges on the irrational, but why don't the Palins? I'm not the one preaching homespun values but I'd destroy that ratboy before I'd let him get within scenting range of my daughter again, and so would you. Palin's e-mails about the brother-in-law she tried to get fired as a state trooper are fizzing with rage and revenge. Turn your guns on Levi, ma'am.

If you've never read Mallick's stuff, you'd probably think she's a satirist. But you're wrong. She's simply an arrogant, shameless woman who enjoys penning hate speech. In two paragraphs of state subsidized virtriol, she's managed to call Palin a porno actress, trash her son, husband, and daughter, tell you that she would destroy a teenager and that you would to, and advises Palin to shoot him herself.

Gee, Heather. Anything else?

As it happens, yes:

American politics isn't short of smart women. Susan Eisenhower, Ike's granddaughter, who just endorsed Obama, made an extraordinary speech at the Democratic convention (and a terrific casual appearance on The Colbert Report as Palin was speaking). The Republican party has already consumed nearly all of its moderate "seed corn," she said aptly. Time to start again.

Eisenhower, a scholar and journalist, has a point. Or am I only saying that because she's part of the thoughtful demographic that I'm trying to reach here? Think, Heather, think like a Republican! The Skeptics, shall I call them, are my base, and I'll pander to them as ardently as the Republican patriarchs tease their white female marginals.

Got it. Scholar and journalist = good people. White female Republican = marginal. Bingo. Palin's a porn bimbo because she's a Republican. Scorn her, smear her family, advise destruction. Susan Eisenhower, whom you've never heard of, is a Democrat. My, how the angels sing. I will bet you anything that if there was an (R) in front of Eisenhower's name, Mallick could brew up a ton of mud to sling her way. Since there isn't, let's leave her family and bra size out of it.

But let's be frank. If Mallick wants to make appearance an issue, fine. Given a choice between Hot-Lips-Naughty-Librarian Palin and Granny-Necklace-Heavyweight-Fighter-Jaw Mallick, 9 out of 10 men pick Palin, and the other guy is in the john and can't vote. To judge by the photos, Palin has weathered the harsh Alaskan winters a lot better than Mallick has survived the Big City cocktail circuit. That, too, is no doubt a big source of Mallick's hatred for a woman she probably hadn't heard of until a week ago.

It is the left wing feminists' transparency that makes me grin. Their movement has always preached equality, but like all leftists, their view of equality is taken from Animal Farm (the book, Heather, not the porno). To paraphrase: All women are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Here's Mallick on September 5th, in The Guardian. In this piece she inadvertently gets to the root of her psychosis as a threatened snob:

My credentials are solid; Palin cannot out-hick me. Until I fled at 18, I never lived in a northern town of more than 12,000 people. My towns were full of Sarah Palins. These types are fine, such as they are, until they leave town and turn fraudulent. They label themselves "the salt of the earth". It's when they try to make that a qualification for a greater glory that things turn unpleasant.

I never claimed a higher moral standing for coming from a great big empty on the map. Small towns are places that smart people escape from, for privacy, for variety, for intellect, for survival. Palin should have stayed home...What is native to [Palin] is smugness, her certainty that what's good for Wasilla is good for the world in all its infinite variety. It's a variety that Palin will never begin to grasp.

Now I get it. The whole wonderful world is Mallick's playpen. How dare another hick come out to spoil all of the fun. Mallick, of course, has the wit and wisdom to interpret the world in all of its infinite variety. Palin, dummy that she is, should be at home changing diapers.

The McCain/Palin ticket is manna from Heaven. If you've been waiting for these hypocrites of equality to come out of the closet and expose what they really think, then enjoy the ride. It's going to be a long one.

Photos: Blog Critic Magazine and Times Online

Telling Fortunes

I always have a good laugh when I hear people talk about the present, then play fortune teller about how things will be seen in the future.

Tonight, Larry "Shoulders" King had Bob Woodward on his show. Woodward's written another book saying Bush is a bozo who didn't lead, screwed up the Iraq war, so forth. Hardly a new idea for a book, but I guess they sell pretty well, which is why they get written in the first place.

Larry's interview ended like so many others regarding Bush: "How do you think history will see Bush?"

Woodward stunned the world by saying history will see Bush as a waste of space who screwed everything up, and that his legacy will suck.

Nonsense.

I have a voracious appetite for presidential biographies and, with the slight exception of Carter, almost no president is remembered very poorly. Over time, they all get their due, and time heals even historical wounds. A president's mistakes are pointed out (or hailed as virtues), and their missed opportunities are trumpeted (or not called "missed"), and in the end you are always left with this feeling: being the president is hard. And, on the whole, they all did the best they could. Sometimes they came up aces, other times not. So whether you dislike Bush or any other sitting president, it is complete hogwash to think that you know what "history" will say about them. No one knows. Not yet.

Nixon, the only president to resign from office, has managed to come back into the fold as the good president who did a good job, but made a bonehead move covering for his friends. Johnson, whose Vietnam war was a hurricane compared to Bush's Iraq rain shower, barely ever receives bad press today (come to think of it, he hardly receives any press at all). Kennedy, the philandering playboy and war lover, is remembered as a hero with a human touch. Truman, called "The Senator from Pendergast" in the '40s because of his political machine roots, is now hailed a tough, no-nonsense, hell of a guy. The US is still technically at war with North Korea because Truman didn't bring the conflict to a decisive conclusion, but hey, he fired MacArthur and had some good one liners, so let's give him a nice write-up.

I titter with laughter when I hear journalists or historians attempt to tell the future about a president's legacy. Lately, a good many of these fortune tellers have been lionizing Lincoln. Lincoln comes and goes as a topic of presidential history every ten years or so, and it looks like his number's up again in 2008.

When you hear Lincoln's name mentioned today, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Illinois country boy was born with a halo. So let us harken back to an episode in the life of Lincoln.

Lincoln. The man. The myth. The legend. The Leader.

The scene: Lincoln on a stage in Pennsylvania. He has just finished a speech. Historian Shelby Foote writes:

He finished before the crowd, a good part of whose attention had been fixed on the photographer anyhow, realized that he was fairly launched on what he had to say. In reaction to what a later observer described as the "almost shocking brevity" of the speech, especially by the one that went before, the applause was delayed, then scattered and barely polite. Moreover, the photographer missed his picture. Before he had time to adjust his tripod and uncap the lens, Lincoln had said "of the people, by the people, for the people" and sat down, leaving the artist with the feeling that he had been robbed. Apparently many of those present felt the same way, agreeing in advance with what the Chicago Times would say tomorrow about the President's performance here today: "The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat, and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States." In fact, as he resumed his seat alongside his friend Lamon and heard the perfunctory spatter of applause whose brevity matched his own, the speaker was taken with a feeling of regret that he had not measured up to what had been expected of him. Recalling a word used on the prairie in reference to a plow that would not clean itself while shearing through wet soil, he said gloomily: "Lamon, that speech won't scour. It is a flat failure and the people are disappointed."

That speech was the Gettysburg Address. It's the one that starts with, "Fourscore and seven years ago..." Schoolchildren memorize it, and it is one of the two speeches whose words are carved into the walls of the Lincoln Memorial.

History's a funny thing.

Football Back

The first Sunday of the new football season kicks off today. Here's what I had to say about the great game of 22-men-trying-to-knock-each-other-over a couple of years back:

One thing about football is that it helps you mark the time. From kickoff on Sunday afternoon, to the last whistle on Monday night, all you think about is football. You eat it in the form of chilli and cheese. You drink it in the form of Budweiser beer (unless you had a particularly hard Saturday night, in which case you drink football in the form of orange juice and aspirin). You sleep it in the fitful rest of a man who took a lousy quarterback in the fantasy draft. More...

The End Is Nigh

Who says environmentalism isn't a religion? It even comes with its own Book of Revelation. Here's the end of the world, according to two writers at the Vancouver Sun. The headline: What Climate Change Will Do To Our Province. These two troubadours don't give a specific timeframe for the beginning of the end. Rather, the following takes place in the - quiet drumroll - near future...

A warmer climate makes B.C. more accommodating for once-exotic diseases, pushing health authorities to extraordinary measures to protect the public.

There are more frequent civil emergencies brought on by extreme weather events such as wind, snow and rainstorms, power outages and flooding. Warmer year-round average temperatures accommodate mosquitoes and ticks that spread diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, and Lyme disease.

Funny. That sounds like East Hastings as it is right now. No global warming required.

The article goes on to warn that rats will infest the cities, and by 2050 it will be too hot to grow apples in the Okanagan Valley.

Nothing like scaring the hell out of readers by running a fairy tale in the news section. The end is nigh! Drive a hybrid! Turn off the AC! Repent! Global Warming will kill your kids! Oh, and can you spare some tickets to the Winter Olympics in 2010?

As I Was Saying (IV)

I got an email from a buddy of mine, who's telling me lay off the political stuff for a while and get back to talking about important things like baseball and sex. He says politics is boring and that he doesn't want to read political screeds every day.

He has a point. But after a long summer hiatus of more or less keeping my mouth shut, I've got to weigh in on the most interesting presidential race I've ever seen (I wrote a few months back that I wouldn't be talking about the race until I saw how things shook out; consider them shook).

Here's another update from my As I Was Saying series. This is from Froma Harrop. See what you think of this little piece of high-brow journalism:

"I had dinner last night with a Republican-leaning independent who was despondent over John McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. She had been looking forward to supporting McCain as a fiscal conservative with a deep understanding of foreign relations. But all she could now see was that picture of Palin's pregnant 17-year-old looking defiant and stupid as she held mom's fifth baby."

Nice. A great cheapshot. Nothing like beating up on a teenager to make a professional journalist feel mighty and brave. As for me, I didn't see Palin's kid as "defiant and stupid." She just looked like a teenager watching a speech, one of the hundreds we've seen over the years in those "cut away to the family while the candidate speaks" shots. However, I've never seen a journalist actually comment on those shots in order to indict the candidate.

Harrop ends off her sharp political analysis this way: "Palin supporters insist that her out-of-control home life will resonate with many American families. Yes, if they're from Mars or perhaps on welfare."

I don't get it. Only Martians on welfare have problems at home? But that's the way it is now. All it took to make kids eligible receivers for the mud journalists sling is a woman on the Republican ticket.

I am screaming with laughter at how quickly and violently these journalists' views have come to the fore.

Remember, I have no problem with people picking on a politician for the issues and some parts of their own personal life (Kids? No. Hooked on heroin? Yes). It's when they go after the kids that I think it's gone too far. Journalist Nick Clooney (George Clooney's pop) said that he wouldn't have gone there in the past, and he wouldn't do it now. An editor from Time magazine was asked about Palin's kid, and he asked for another question, refusing to talk about it. That pissed me off, because it meant I might actually have to subscribe to Time.

So yes, this election might really be about change.

The Week That Was

If you know me at all, then you know my love of political cartoonists, whether they're left or right. I knew this week would provide some great ones. Here's my favorites. Click to enlarge.

Joe Heller:


Nate Beeler:


Pat Bagley:


John Cole:


Randy Bish:


And a good one from Cardow, at the Ottawa Citizen:

As I Was Saying (III)...

The grand dame of all things Venus has weighed in on the Palin pick. Gloria Steinem:

"To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience."

Yup, poor Sarah Palin, baby factory extraordinaire, is going to have a hell of a tough time against wise Father Joe. No paternalism there.

Thanks, Ms. Steinem. I couldn't have asked for anyone better than you to back up my claim that the harshest critics of Palin are going to be the women who stand up for women...as long as they're cut from the proper political cloth.

Palin got barefoot, pregnant, and successful. What a disgrace.

According to Queen Gloria, the only thing Palin has in common with Hillary Clinton is one chromosome. Sighs of relief all around. Gloria goes on, "[Palin] opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming."

Is this the best that Steinem's got? Global warming? Creationism? If believing in man-made global warming is at the top of the list that a plurality of women should be worrying about, then we're in deep trouble.

"Feminist" Gloria Steinem
As for creationism, big deal. When I was in a Catholic school, I had to learn about Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, on and on. And I'm glad I did. English Lit made a lot more sense once I knew what the hell Shakespeare and Hemingway were using as symbolic reference. Try reading any number of poets without a rudimentary knowledge of world religions, and you're out of luck. Besides, if we're all supposed to be one happy, inclusive family, isn't it a good idea to teach our kids what other people think of the world and life itself? (Sorry, forgot. You're only supposed to learn creationism in documentaries about dead civilizations like ancient Egypt and Rome).

I do like how the Big G put creationism and global warming together, since both are matters of faith. Message for Gloria: Al Gore may be your god, and environmentalism your religion. But it isn't everybody's. And Gloria, just for the record, there might be a reason Palin doesn't buy the global warming routine: she lives in Alaska.

Cartoon: Daryl Cagle
Photo: New York Magazine

Palin's Speech

Palin gave a good speech tonight. Not an excellent one, but a good one. Unfortunately for her, the media are raving about it. This can only mean that she's going to get hammered by the press over the next 60 days. "Hey, she was wonderful! (Psst. Sharpen the axe)."

A few thoughts after watching the first female Republican nominee for VP.

1) The Republican delegates in the hall still love Bush, but that doesn't mean the McCain camp thinks it's a good idea to mention him during the convention. Bush gave his address the other night, and that was all you're going to hear from or about the President. Tonight, Bush's name was not mentioned once. There were over half-a-dozen speakers, capped off by Palin, and not one of them said Bush's name even in passing. In a funny way, this election is almost like watching the Republican McCain and the Democrat Obama running to succeed the Other Party Bush.

2) It has been a weird, weird, weird week. McCain has thrown the election on its head. A week ago today, no one outside of politics had heard of Palin. Two days later, she's accused of covering up the true identity of her son. The next day, it's announced that her daughter is pregnant, so the slander about her son is false. Two days after that, Palin is giving a speech to accept her nomination.

3) During her speech, Palin gave as good as she got. She knocked the media, took a run at Obama, and didn't twirl her hair even once. Lefty bloggers are shocked. "My God. She can string a sentence together."

4) The speech wasn't excellent, because it should have ended off with another story of her small town roots. Instead, it ended with more stuff about McCain. They should have bookended the speech with another story from Alaska, maybe how she managed her and her husband's business while juggling family life, found the American dream, so forth. That kind of stuff will play in the heartland. Ending on the McCain deal seemed anti-climactic.

5) Speaking of anti-climactic, if McCain doesn't give a good speech, people might think Palin's the presidential nominee. Then again, maybe McCain doesn't mind that.

6) The foreign policy stuff in the speech sounded a little too pat, as if to prove she can pronounce words like "Caucasus," as in the Caucasus Mountains. These statements were no doubt used to get people off her back about a lack of foreign policy experience, but it sounded tin-eared next to the life story stuff. More life story, less Caucasus would have been the way to go.

7) Her duty now is to head out and start talking to blue collar workers, single moms, rural Americans, and family coalitions (especially any that involve kids with special needs; this was probably the most poignant part of her speech, and it came early on).

8) If anything, this is the most interesting presidential race in my lifetime. Nothing even comes close. This also had to be the first time in history that people were excited to hear a VP nominee accept the nomination.

And Now, The Weather

When I was a kid, I used to wonder why the weatherman always had to stand outside when he did the weather. Being Toronto, it usually meant he was standing in a snow squall or a hail storm, but no matter. There he'd be, the Fearless Weathermen, neck deep in snow, parka flapping in the breeze, breath whisked away on a -10 breeze (-50 with the windchill).

Over time, the Fearless Weatherman became the Hearty Weathergirl. Blonde hair whipping in the wind as her cap flew off, or yelping in surprise when some smartass chucked a snowball at her head.

Weather guys always have to stand outside in bad weather. I never get that. If the weather's nice, they stand inside and provide comedy relief for the morning show. But if the weather turns ugly, they race into the path of destruction to do exactly what they could have done from the safety of the studio: tell you that it's raining, as if we wouldn't believe it unless we saw the weather guy get flattened.

Tuning in to the Gustav coverage a couple of days ago reminded me why I love Weather People so much. Just when I need someone to show me how dense media types are, in comes the "meteorologist." Their title leads us to believe that these are very smart people, making complex decisions about the forces of nataure. In fact, they are idiots that don't know enough to come in from the rain.

A few years back, during the media's love affair with Katrina, I remember one moron standing in the street, struggling to remain on his feet. He yelled that it was very windy. He yelled that it was raining very hard. Then he picked up a piece of wood, let it go, and watched it roll away down the street. He repeated that it was windy. Finally he said he was going to find some cover, ran back to the cameraman, huddled against the wall, said his own dumbass name, and was promptly hit by another gust of wind and face planted the cement. He then got up and said he'd find more cover.

The anchorwoman said, "Good idea, Brian," chuckle, chuckle.

Weather guys always require laughter. They're the clowns of the media, entertaining us when things get bad. Though their colleagues always say, "Be careful out there," at the end of every clip, secretly the anchors want the weather guys to get their heads cut off by flying sheet metal. Makes for great video, and allows the anchor to raise an eyebrow in the Face Of Great Concern.

Another favourite of mine is the weather girl from the Weather Channel. I think it was during Hurricane Dolly. She was being pelted by rain and could barely stand on her feet. She yelled that the back window of the crew's SUV had already been blown out--and then she was cut off, as a gust of wind threw her face first into another SUV. Let's go to the video:



You be careful out there.

As I Was Saying (II)...

Flipping through the papers today, I found a pretty decent hatchet job from Maureen Dowd. She's the lady at the New York Times who goes on strange rants against all things Bush. Sometimes she's entertaining, other times just plain whacko. And to judge from her photo, she doesn't mind throwing rocks in a glass house over the sultry, let-your-hair-down look.

Dowd
Dowd has weighed in on the Palin Pick, and she lines up nicely with my theory that it is women who will tear down another woman because of their image. Gender takes a back seat when politics is involved, even for the most die hard feminist. Here's Dowd:

"This chick flick, naturally, features a wild stroke of fate, when the two-year governor of an oversized igloo becomes commander in chief after the president-elect chokes on a pretzel on day one.

The movie ends with the former beauty queen shaking out her pinned-up hair, taking off her glasses, slipping on ruby red peep-toe platform heels that reveal a pink French-style pedicure, and facing down Vladimir Putin in an island in the Bering Strait. Putting away her breast pump, she points her rifle and informs him frostily that she has some expertise in Russia because it’s close to Alaska. “Back off, Commie dude,” she says. “I’m a much better shot than Cheney.”

Reading this stuff gets me a little more in touch with my feminine side. So far, lefty bloggers and writers are hammering Palin not on the issues, but the fact that she's a woman. The Huffington Post (run by noted feminist Arianna Huffinton) and Daily Kos, two of the more demented websites, are examining pictures of Palin's 17-year-old daughter and claiming that Palin's newborn actually belongs to her. Mainstream papers have also picked up the story. The little boy's been alive for only a few months, and already he's accused of being a bastard.

As it turns out, Palin's daughter is 5 months pregnant right now, so it's impossible that she gave birth in May. Today, the Palin camp released news of the 17-year-old's pregnancy, because they were shocked at the brother/mother rumours and thought they should be put down before the 17-year-old's life was smeared beyond repair.

And you know what's coming now, don't you? The first rumour will disappear in the blink of an eye, to be replaced by a slaughtering of Palin's judgement. I can see it already: "She can't even keep her kid from getting knocked up. How will she be a good VP?"

This is nasty territory, and shows the new age of politics we're living in. Before now, a politician's kids were virtually off-limits unless it came to legal matters. Even then, news stories on a candidate's kids were scant. But that was before a woman was on the Republican ticket in the era of 24-hour news.

Ask yourself if a man would face such scrutiny of his infant son, or his choice of suit and tie? Here's a look at how Andrew Sullivan, over at The Atlantic, thinks you should treat a rumour of this sort. It comes under the headline She Looks Pregnant Here:

"Here's a photo that looks like it confirms Palin's pregnancy, uploaded today, on what was the last day of the Alaska Legislature's Session, on April 13, 2008, five days before Trig Palin was born. More here. This seems to put the kibbosh on this, although it would still be good to have official confirmation from the McCain campaign, which should be easy enough to do. Just a simple confirmation from the doctor who was present at the birth."

It will get worse.

Photo: New York Times