Like, Totally Political, Dude!: opinion

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The Motley Fool's Rebuttal of the Latest of Krugman's "1938 in 2010" Twaddle

Historical government spending in the United S...

Who you gonna believe? Some professional investors or a professional Keynesian? I'm going with the capitalists, and not the sour-faced NY Times columnist. (Note: bolding and links are mine.)

Krugman wrote another Op-Ed about his favorite subject "1937". The year when the Fed Gov't cut back some spending and the economy faltered. I've disputed this ludicrousness before, stating that if EIGHT years of spending didn't fix the problem, when in the hell is all this spending supposed to work? Let's also not forget that in 1934 the dollar was devalued by 50% and THAT didn't work.

In this particular Op-Ed he goes further, stating "From an economic point of view World War II was, above all, a burst of deficit-financed government spending, on a scale that would never have been approved otherwise. Over the course of the war the federal government borrowed an amount equal to roughly twice the value of G.D.P. in 1940 — the equivalent of roughly $30 trillion today".

Pro-WWII end recession/depression economist LOVE to point out that huge spending on a massive scale ended the Great Depression. I've spoken to many of these people before and asked them EXACTLY when this massive spending ended the Great Depression. There are only two answers: 1) When the war started 2) After the war ended

Let's tackle #1 first (When the war started). These are the scariest people in the world today, because they don't believe in freedom in the least.

You'll need to visit the site for the whole thing. More at the Motley site.

-jR

Abortion 'pride' is encouraged by professional student

Opposing Views: OPINION: It's Time for an Abortion Pride Movement - Jacob Appel

Everybody is proud these days. While “pride” as a collective concept may have originated with the Gay Rights movement of the 1970s, now marchers in the St. Patrick’s Day parade are as likely to sport pins boasting “Proud to be Irish” and my Jewish friends are as proud to be Jewish as my Muslim friends are proud to be Muslim—although I always wonder if they wouldn’t be equally proud if they had been born into the opposite faiths.

...

The anti-abortion movement already has its own pride movement. If one reads about reproductive issues in the conservative media—which I often do—one is bombarded with tales of mothers who have sacrificed personal and professional opportunities to bring fetuses to term.

Because, you know, sex as the right of every horny kid and adult on the planet, with no consequences deserved for the realities of the act, is paramount. There is no reason for facing the consequences of being a loose-legged bimbo, being an oppressively horny and emotionally selfish boyfriend, getting sloppy about birth control, or no reason for taking responsibility for being otherwise stupid. That is not the easiest option, after all. Getting rid of the problem is the solution. No matter what that means. Reminds me of liberal concepts for everything. Insincerity, and personal rights -- those to the level of a vicious selfishness -- above logic, responsibility and everything else.

Oh, I see! Judging from the volumes of degrees Mr. Appel has, this author is a professional student. That must be a nice life.

Out here in the real world we see people ruined by decisions that they think will make the "pain" go away, only to be haunted by it their wholes lives. Pride, indeed.

I guess studying ethics and having a sense of them are two vastly different things, in looking at this guy's thinking. Abortion pride and bestiality acceptable, I've seen all I need to. This guy takes mindless, academic openness to a new high. Or, low.

Somehow, many supporters of abortion rights have been lulled into accepting the rhetoric that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” That may be good language for winning elections, but it does a profound disservice to the millions of women who have abortions in this nation each year. Abortions should be safe and legal. That goes without saying. But rare? Abortions should be as frequent or as infrequent as are unwanted pregnancies.

Furthering being the creepiest "ethicist" I have ever read, he goes to the extraordinary level of proclaiming -- without actually saying it, but effectively admitting -- his deep desire for a utopian world where guilt does not exist. I assume this author figures the whole world thinks as he does, that a baby out of the womb is a baby out of mind:

I dream of the day when women are not afraid to walk the streets with pins reading, “I had an abortion and it was the right decision,” and when station wagons bear bumper-stickers announcing, “Thank me for having an abortion when I wasn’t ready to be a parent.” I admire those individuals who work to ensure a women’s right to choose. But choice is a merely a foundation. Ultimately, women—if they so desire—should feel comfortable expressing public pride in their brave and wise choices.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

'Stimulus' cut from $1 trillion to barely noticeable $780 billion

Agreement Reached on Economic Stimulus | Bloomberg.com

Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson, a Democratic leader of the bipartisan group that worked on the accord, said tonight on the Senate floor that lawmakers worked “line by line, dollar by dollar” to cut the Senate’s prior proposal. The plan is “about jobs, jobs, jobs,” he said.

About jobs? Well, what good is that for the thieves who gave themselves raises at the end of 2008, all those congressmen and -women.

With only about 70% pork, presumably (I won't even look, I am so disgusted with Congress that I just throw that guess out there willy-nilly), how is anyone ever going to benefit? All those poor, poor millionaires at the Wall Street firms might have to go without their summer homes and yachts!

Job, jobs, job, the senator says. We'll see, won't we?

“Most of us are deeply skeptical that this will work,” said [minority Senate leader Mitch] McConnell. “Despite the best efforts of those who worked on the compromise” the plan “is roughly the same size as the House bill.”McConnell said there would be some Republican support for the plan “but not a lot.”

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, urging support for the plan, said, “We now find the housing crisis that is worse, the lending freeze is still upon us, small businesses are shutting down as we speak.”

“Faced with this great and growing economic crisis, we are now close and closer in helping President Obama” rescue the economy, Reid said.

Amazing that Harry Reid's words were about as substantive as a clip from Sesame Street. Simple-minded, that is. Thanks for stating the obvious, as you are so expert at doing, Mr. Reid! I remain stunned that both Reid and Pelosi, who oversaw the least popular Congress in our lifetimes, were granted those leadership roles, again, with the new Congress.

About that "change we can believe in" -- never said anything about Congress! Well, Obama never exactly specified what that particular phrase pertained to. But hey, change is good! Or .... is it, necessarily, you suckers?

- jR

Forbes: Paul Krugman let out to pee on NY Times

Help! The crazy economist is after me! OK, Krugman takes a wild pitch at supply-siders, that's all. But it is a wild throw! Read the piece in the NY Times, you'll notice the rest of it is not even cohesive with the first paragraph. I assume this means he is now forging ahead full steam with a "hate Republicans" career (even though he was an economist affiliated with a pretty big one, once). I guess the getting's easy now, huh?

Forbes' writer Karlgaard blogs his defense of supply-siders and business, and damns -- rightfully, I say -- the immoral capitalists. We could use more of that!

Failure Of Morality, Not Of Capitalism - Forbes.com: Digital Rules By Rich Karlgaard

“Old-fashioned voodoo economics--the belief in tax-cut magic--has been banished from civilized discourse. The supply-side cult has shrunk to the point that it contains only cranks, charlatans, and Republicans.”

Take a guess. Who wrote this?

If you said "one of those anonymous twerps posting on Daily Kos," you are forgiven. Had I not cut and pasted this crazed quote myself, I might have guessed it came from a reedy tenor in the Huffington Greek Chorus.

It was actually Paul Krugman, writing in today’s New York Times.

...supply-side capitalism is just a simple and benign idea. It posits: Only suppliers can supply us with goods and services. The demand side can’t will a product or service
into existence. Society therefore advances economically when it reduces tax and regulatory barriers to the creation of goods and services.
Hardly a cultish idea. One can unpack this simple idea into entire books, and many of Krugman’s betters have. The reputations of Smith, Say, Schumpeter and Hayek surpass that of the dyspeptic economist writing for The New York Times.
In fairness, Krugman is not alone. Many people do blame capitalism for bringing us to this low moment in the economy. Do they have a point?
They do if capitalism, as they define it, is devoid of any underlying morality. True enough, it is hard to see any underlying morality when one surveys the present carnage caused by liar loans, shady banks, duplicitous politicians, Ponzi schemers and regulators angling for Wall Street jobs.

The author continues by reflecting on the title of his piece, and I think perfectly, rightly, so in his suggestions on how to get back on track. Lest we ultimately FAIL (!!!), I should note.

This weekend, I caught a BBC radio program on the meltdown in “The City”--London’s financial district. The program quoted many young Brit bankers who said morality was a barrier to personal success in The City. Better to have the sociopath gene if one wants to become a billionaire.
What we are hearing and seeing, in other words, is a failure of morality, not of capitalism.
How do we get back to the old Adam Smith/Benjamin Franklin idea of free enterprise based on a moral foundation? It won’t be easy, but I think we need to start with these:
Please read the piece to review his kernels of good old American business... goodness, and keep going.

Krugman, a Nobel-winning economist (that was the old days, while today some suggest he's merely a political pundit who hates the GOP and favors state-heavy economics) will have NOTHING to do with that remotely unpartisan, working together thing. He wants to blame it all on the same people that 18-year-old video game addicts who don't read want to blame it on: the bloody Republicans.

Oh, please, will someone please out him as a slimy little socialist -- and uncover some sickly thing he likes doing in his free time or something -- so we can move past this kook?!! Geez -- where's Noam Chomsky when you need him!!! (Gaaag!)

- jR

Relax! The government is here to help us.

Watch this. Unless you know nothing at all about economics, and you want to know nothing, and you want to ignore everything about economics.

Former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) on fixing the economy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKc4XFK0iVY

Ouch.

If you think he's coming off as a bit smug, then consider that he's trying to keep his disgust with the stupid approach to this disaster in check.

If you think he's a bit cynical, then you get the point. We should all be cynical about how the government led us to economic ruin and are now guiding us out.

The crux of our problems aren't, as some believe and would lead you to believe, inherent to the system in which we live. Oooo, capitalism is bad, it is all about greed and selfishness. Yeah, unlike Soviet communism, which was about individuality. C'mon! The breakdown is that some people have the power and others don't. This is still a free society and the media -- real news is getting harder to find, but it is out there -- is still free.

The CRA mortgage lunacy -- the mortgages that were pegged to a policy of housing prices never, ever going down -- were not just part of this, but the lead-in to this mess, plus they were only ONE sign of the lack of insight of government into being the finance and economy's watchdogs. So there's subprime (the mortgages), Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, derivatives, hedge funds, and that's the short list of things they let ride with little control: the White House and Legislature. Mostly, our legislature -- they are the ones influencing regulation directly. The White House can only send bills to the legislature, and wait to approve it once Congress does. It's simple.

These big boys and girls in Washington DC ought to have very few responsibilities, unless you believe we ought to be a socialist country and most people in the country ought to work directly for the government. They ought to run the military, be a watchdog of unethical capitalist behavior and watch the people with the money. Instead, we have people who directly colluded with the companies who brought us here running the show and using more and more money to bolster CEOs and companies that sat on their butts and watched things fail.

No, I am not happy. But am I wrong? I think I am correct. See here. Or, go through all of this.

-jR

[via email]

Crazed 'Blago' got tough against the Tribune, got FBI visit in return

Was it simply "kill or be killed" for the Chi Trib against this crazed Democratic governor? CNN and others are getting further into the story -- more will surely come. How Obama fits into this ugly picture is yet to be made comfortable for the fresh prince of the Beltway. Stories do suggest that Obama is tied to this "Blago" kook through his buddy Tony Rezko. That's not good. Not good at all. What a year 2009 is going to be -- gag.

U.S. attorney: Blagojevich has taken us to 'new low' - CNN.com

The Obama transition team is aware that Blagojevich is in federal custody, but has no comment, according to a senior Democratic source.

The government also accuses Blagojevich and Harris of threatening to withhold state assistance to the Tribune Company -- the company that owns the Chicago Tribune -- in connection with the sale of Wrigley Field baseball stadium. The company also owns the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field.

In exchange for assistance, the governor and his chief of staff wanted the newspaper to fire Chicago Tribune editorial board members who were sharply critical of the governor, the government said.

I guess the Tribune won that one. Will they win the business operations war? Bankruptcy was a second shoe dropping. Only time, and lots of turnover in management, will tell.

- jR

Seriously: Obama invites the crisis of satire? FastCompany.com

Can We Laugh at Obama? | Culture Nuggets | Fast Company

After witnessing two years of emotional wrangling and finger-pointing, most of us are relieved to put the election season behind us. But as the nation transitions from the erratic, divisive Bush-era into the historically momentous presidency of Obama the [rhetorician], some journalists are declaring crisis mode on a flourishing art form: the political satire. Bush-impersonations have gone past the point of cliché, but no comedian is yet to figure out how to nail the uniquely relatable stateliness of Barack Obama. And most importantly, would audiences even respond if satirists like [Jon] Stewart mocked the messiah-like figure of so many Americans?

I think I may start to do stand-up then. And I won't even be zealous about it, just exaggerated, absurd and mocking. Who knows? I might actually get my own radio program, because God knows it is the only medium even remotely friendly to Obama-panning humor. Can't say that of print or TV.

A thought: 'Booby traps' are not limited to the Bush legacy

Upon reading the "Booby traps" piece by Rosa Brooks, one favoring left-wing ideology (read the whole thing here), I pondered thusly:

Were there any bothers by this well-educated (that is to say, learned so as not to accidentally write in a biased manner) author regarding the actual booby traps left by Clinton, the political John the Baptist to the Obama-Jesus? I don't have the time to waste, but maybe this is something worth looking at.

What was the viewpoint after 9/11 from her? That GW Bush asked for it? That GW Bush's policies in their infancy invited this inordinately bold move? Was it was his dad's fault, GHW Bush, for keeping Kuwait Saddam Hussein-free? Or was Clinton's lack of interest in the overall values to a solid military - for the country nut-job Islamic terrorists love to hate the most, the U.S. - the thing that most certainly hurt us and
practically invited 9/11? What is her view on that end of the Afghanistan-Iraq issues?

Was there a reflection on the, umm, REAL tripwires that Clinton left for Bush, and the U.S.? Like a smaller, softer and otherwise less-prepared military, and such welcome signs for the 9/11 terrorists? "According to the latest national intelligence estimate" might have fit as an introduction to some lop-sided opinion pieces back then, and immediately after we took Hussein out of control. What did you say in those instances? It was Bush's fault then, too? He intentionally got the NIE's to favor what he wanted, did he?

You will indeed deserve the candidate-in-Chief should he get what the media expects. You will deserve him, you and all Pelosi-type liberals who believe in do-nothing, blame politics above all else. You will so sorely deserve him. Of course, who knows? Obama may be an entirely different person come one year from now. Being a puppet for far-left faction of the Democratic Party might only have been the pass he used; he might run things altogether differently. Unlike Pelosi, Dodd, Biden, Frank, Reid ... he might actually DO SOMETHING aside from awaiting the explosion of poorly drawn mortgages by his buddies in Fannie Mae and elsewhere.

If I were to dream a little dream, an Obama presidency might involve not simply denying responsibility then pushing nearly socialist fixes to serious financial issues.

Sadly, one thing Ms. Brooks nailed accurately was the Bush Admin's lack of thorough, truly forward-looking proactive leadership in the wars:

We know from Iraq that countering insurgencies requires a long, hard slog -- success not guaranteed -- and that the presence of foreign troops can help fuel nationalist insurgencies. More troops in Afghanistan might have turned things around if those troops -- and a less stingy reconstruction package -- had arrived five years ago, when Afghan hopes were high. After years of Bush administration malfeasance, increasing U.S. troop levels without an accompanying dramatic shift in regional strategy risks turning Afghanistan into another Iraq.

However, since I think she uses her brains too little for solid argument or logic and too much for bias, I react as such: It is all too convenient to point these failings out, and be a Monday morning quarterback. She ought to know better. Policy, public opinion, and a need to dangle the carrot of self-reliance in front of these long-oppressed countries makes it quite hard to try to dress this up as an abject failure of leadership. It is not what I would have preferred, but are truly reliable experts saying this is indeed what is occurring, or is this simply one talking head firing yet again at an easy target?

One thing that is clear to me: Ms. Rosa Brooks is opinionated, but a thorough, and I would dare to say baseless, nay-sayer regarding U.S. chances in our current military actions and generally in the so-called war on terror. She is, without question, a liberal commentator. Why she is not billed as such by the L.A. Times, I do not understand. Perhaps, like was made evident in the finance crisis, denying your ideals and your role in anything is a common trait among liberal commentators and politicians. Hmm. I guess we'll just have to see about that, just like if those "booby traps" go off in Obama's, or McCain's face.

Booby traps, indeed. Placed by boobs, protected by boobs, and now blamed on some other boobs by the initial booby-trap-causing boobs. Excellent work, Congress. Excellent.

Rosa Brooks: 'Bush's booby traps for Obama'

This is regarding an opinion written by Ms. Rosa Brooks, a well-educated woman in the thick of Washington D.C. and its university
community.

Bush's booby traps for Obama - L.A. Times
The Bush administration is leaving behind foreign policy tripwires that could blow up on the next president.

... every new president is "tested" by national security crises, some predictable, some not. And I'm a lot less worried about the tests "the world" may offer Obama than about the national security booby traps the Bush administration is leaving behind for him.

On Iraq: We can't leave behind a stable Iraq without the cooperation of Iraq's neighbors, but this week's cross-border raid by Iraq-based U.S. troops into Syrian territory led Syria to break off high-level diplomatic contacts with U.S. officials -- contacts that had only recently been resumed. Heated negotiations over the future status of U.S. forces in Iraq have further increased tensions with Syria, Iran and the Iraqi government, which fear permanent U.S. military activities in the region. The current impasse in status-of-forces negotiations also threatens to leave U.S. troops in Iraq with no legal basis for their presence when their United Nations mandate expires Dec. 31. Happy New Year, Barack!

On Afghanistan: The Bush administration... mostly ignored Afghanistan for... six years. Meanwhile, the Taliban reconstituted itself, Al Qaeda leaders slipped away into Pakistan's ungoverned tribal regions. According to the latest national intelligence estimate, Afghanistan is now in a possibly irreversible "downward spiral."

On Pakistan-Afghanistan: Increasingly, U.S. forces have sought to reduce violence inside Afghanistan by staging cross-border counterattacks against suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda targets based inside Pakistan. Tactically, there's some logic to this. Strategically, not so much.

Pakistan has never been a paragon of stability, and years of unconditional Bush administration military aid for Pervez Musharraf's repressive government made things worse. Now, with the Bush administration increasingly violating Pakistani sovereignty with cross-border strikes, relations between the United States and the new government of Asif Ali Zardari are more tense than ever.

Aside from the L.A. Times (again) giving the election to Obama a full five days prior to Election Day, this piece is full of one-eyed (that is, decidedly biased) commentary. Rosa Brooks is not impressing me with her intellegence. She disappoints me with it. She is terribly biased. And by terribly, I mean she's "called in" her opinion in this piece. Someone with her edu and credentials could actually write solid journalistically appealing pieces, but instead she wrote this. Gag.

Amazingly, this was written five days before Election Day (early voting exists, but it won't truly count until after Election
Day). She's among those getting their coronation gowns ready. As if there's a landslide afoot. Not sure a roughly 48-43% race is a
landslide. Not in this country, yet. (And the liberals wonder why the conservatives throw around terms like Socialist, when a fairly tight
race is still afoot and they are pretty much impatiently waiting to go to the parties. This couldn't be much closer to a Venezuelan election
unless the state controlled the media.)

Interesting that, seeing the NIE isn't even released yet, she can see it and even exaggerate from it: saying something is in an "irreversible 'downward spiral'" is apparently a favorite saying among those who live in cushy houses in very safe 'hoods with excellent health coverage (dental, eye, catastrophic, ...). Glass houses, those are not. Well protected, from reality and risk, it would appear.

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Diggy Duggy suggy Digg.com: comments, because Digg didn't seem to keep them.

I copied these comments, since Digg apparently forgets to post them sometimes. What a joke that is.

I am voting for McCain because I believe stubborn extremes in the GOP have distracted McCain, not the other way around.

Bush is not McCain, and that is the dirtiest tag that Obama's campaign has so sarcastically put on McCain. (Sadly, the same can be said the other way around, but at least they aren't calling him a Nancy Pelosi, or Jimmy Carter). I think the GOP has forced McCain out of his element, not that McCain has pulled the party from its core.

I think a McCain presidency will help set the GOP on a course away from a silver-spoon leadership (a curse, if you ask me) of GHW Bush and GW Bush toward more of a realist, common-man party as it had started out. Even if he loses, that change in the GOP has begun.

Or, I can only hope it has. That, or I will be registered Independent come the new national, the 2010, election. So, look out so-called mid-term politicians. Boogedy!

Orlando Sentinel endorses Barack Obama for president

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Orlando daily stands behind Obama

Orlando Sentinel endorses Barack Obama for president

In this White House race, there is (at least) one Florida paper, so far, that has endorsed Obama in an impressive fashion, despite my views. I tried to shoot down all the garbage that the Miami Herald placed in their inane endorsement of Obama. I ran out of energy and sheer will to resist. It was like pitting myself, with a lack of coffee, against the Darth Vader of bad endorsements.

Regretfully, one of my favorite papers while I grew up and in my early adult years has increase their editorial value through their endorsement of Obama. Regretfully, because I don't share the total views, but not because I disagree with their handling of the endorsement. I favor a McCain presidency, and I will stay that well after Nov. 4, 2008, no matter what the election results. That is being sincere, as opposed to being covertly biased.

To the Orl Sent: I hope you're wrong today, but come the morning Nov. 5, or whenever the election is finally decided, I will certainly be more willing to look to your pages than those of the Miami Herald.

As the primary season began, the candidate who seemed best qualified to be that leader was Republican John McCain. But Mr. McCain then was a different candidate from the one before us now. He has abandoned positions we admired. He has reacted inconsistently, even haphazardly, to events. In making the most important decision of his campaign, he showed shockingly poor judgment.

In contrast to Mr. McCain, Democrat Barack Obama has exceeded our expectations during this campaign. He has demonstrated sound judgment and grace under pressure. Because we are now more confident in his ability to steer America through the rough waters ahead, the Orlando Sentinel is endorsing Barack Obama for president.

Welcome "back," Orlando Sentinel. Your words in favor of Obama are complimentary without being sycophantic, your endorsement is sensible. Your move away from McCain, in my thinking, is not practical or prudent, or taking in the big picture, but it is not idiotic.

In this election period, "it is not idiotic" is nearly the highest compliment I can offer a newspaper's editorial staff regarding an endorsement. If the Miami Herald is any example, it is a wasteland out there. Not only does our politics need to change, but much about our mainstream media needs to as well.

Economy of Scale in Change in the Country: Politics, political parties, media influence, 'popularity' opinion

Interregnum: a beautifully Latin term for "leadership vacancy" (see definition).

This first segment was written in the context of the market meltdown ...

'My final newspaper article' - Dan Connelly on Xark!

Shumaker, the real-life model for the comic-strip character Shu, was a walking indoctrination into a culture of journalism that once held sway in America: Confident, straight-talking, blue-collar, irreverent, abrasive — but also undeniably talented and privately idealistic.

That's good stuff. And exactly what journalism is NOT any longer, except with rarity, in local dailies or TV, or in national dailies ("national" meaning stuff like USA Today and Wall Street Journal, but of course that includes LA Times, Miami Herald, New York Times, Washtingon Post, Washington Times, Chicago Tribune and the likes).

The above is ironic to me, but in a good way: I figure there are moderate-to-liberal and/or Democrat journalists just as discouraged by the left-leaning, ass-kiss reporting that exists in the print and TV media now (they are also likely as put off by the stubborn success of right-wing, conservative talk radio). I've also felt that another reason journalism is in the crapper, at dailies, etc., is because there is a tempest that leans heavily to to left -- in newspapers and TV (especially TV!). If people begin to avoid major newspapers and newspaper sites, and the same with major TV and their sites, it is little wonder why: it is skewed in generally one direction, and dishonestly. That is, it is skewed to the left, and does not admit it.

How HIGHLY I would hold people if they could, for a change, be self-realized enough to simply identify their own views. There's no doubt who Limbaugh speaks for: strong right conservatives, but not far, far right evangelicals. If you bothered to listen, you would be this. There is plenty of questions about whose world Katie Couric comes from, Campbell Brown, Keith Olbermann and many, many others.

-----

The Future of The Republican Party « Jon Taplin’s Blog
Chris Buckley, son of the founder of modern conservative thought William Buckley, just announced he was going to vote for Obama, partly because the right wing kooks scared the bejesus out of him.
My colleague, the superb and very dishy Kathleen Parker, recently wrote in National Review Online a column stating what John Cleese as Basil Fawlty would call “the bleeding obvious”: namely, that Sarah Palin is an embarrassment, and a dangerous one at that. She’s not exactly alone. New York Times columnist David Brooks, who began his career at NR, just called Governor Palin “a cancer on the Republican Party.”

As for Kathleen, she has to date received 12,000 (quite literally) foam-at-the-mouth hate-emails. One correspondent, if that’s quite the right word, suggested that Kathleen’s mother should have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a Dumpster. There’s Socratic dialogue for you. Dear Pup once said to me sighfully after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.”

Parker earlier (Sept 26) wrote the following:

Palin Problem - Kathleen Parker on National Review Online

Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick — what a difference a financial crisis makes — and a more complicated picture has emerged.

As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.

Yes, she recently met and turned several heads of state as the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York. She was gracious, charming and disarming. Men swooned. Pakistan’s president wanted to hug her. (Perhaps Osama bin Laden is dying to meet her?)

And, yes, she has common sense, something we value. And she’s had executive experience as a mayor and a governor, though of relatively small constituencies (about 6,000 and 680,000, respectively).

Finally, Palin’s narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCain’s running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood — a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother.

Palin didn’t make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.

It was fun while it lasted.

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do.

McCain can’t repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP’s unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.

OUCH! Clearly, while Palin was suited to the evangelical set, McCain perhaps didn't think it through thoroughly enough regarding the more, umm, grounded members of the party.

Boston Herald: NY Times kisses liberal butt and seems to enjoy the smell

OK, that's not EXACTLY what the Boston Herald guy says. My headline is a bit more attention-grabbing.
My favorite line: "These aren’t the actions of bad journalists. These are the actions of bad people."

Leftist media sire hypocrisy - BostonHerald.com

When the story first broke that Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards had cheated on his cancer-stricken wife and sired a baby with a bimbo on his campaign payroll, The New York Times [NYT] refused to run it.

But when the news hit that not the president, not the vice president but the daughter of the vice-presidential nominee is pregnant, the Times ran five -- count ’em, five -- stories about it. In one day.
When the daughter of a vice-presidential candidate turns out to be 17, unmarried and pregnant, of course that’s news. But it doesn’t come close to legitimizing the all-out media assault (there is no other word for it) the press has unleashed on the Palins.
So-called “reporters” on CNN and MSNBC have speculated on Gov. Palin’s fitness as a mother. Sally Quinn from The Washington Post says that Palin should “rethink her priorities” and turn down the VP job. US Weekly -- owned by the same people who put fawning faux-Jesus photos of Barack Obama on the cover of Rolling Stone -- calls the Palin story “Sex, Lies and Scandal.”

The Atlantic, once a respected, thoughtful voice of the American left, has actually promoted the lunatic -- and utterly disproven -- theory that Gov. Palin wasn’t pregnant with Trig at all. Trig is really Bristol’s son, and the governor of Alaska took time out of her schedule fighting against hack GOP congressmen and oil company insiders to fake a pregnancy on her daughter’s behalf.
According to Steve Schmidt of the McCain campaign, mainstream media organizations are demanding to see medical reports on Gov. Palin’s amniotic fluid and a DNA test on little Trig.
These aren’t the actions of bad journalists. These are the actions of bad people. From the set of MSNBC to the pages of The Boston Globe-Democrat, there are people willing to do anything to elect Barack Obama, up to and including the trashing of a 17-year-old girl.
But remember: Barack Obama is, as one San Francisco columnist put it, the “light bringer” who will heal our partisan divide.

Mind you, there is not an overwhelming bias to the left in the media: Consider how MSNBC was quick to pull Keith Olbermann off of his night job as anchor for major political news (see entry above). So they are hardly overwhelmingly biased at MSNBC. They are only highly biased at MSNBC, not overwhelmingly biased.

I don't know how Pat Buchanan -- a regular commentator on the network -- can stomach being in the room. I guess with age comes great intestinal fortitude, for some. Of course, you'll note that he is typically facing off against the unproclaimed liberals, such as Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. Seriously -- I keep hearing about how Olbermann refuses to commit to a political view, but every time I watch him, it is nothing but liberal angles, biases and favoritism.

Actor John Cusack joins MoveOn.org comedy tour...

... what do you mean? MoveOn.org isn't a comedy troupe?!

Wow, then those rhyming insults against generals and spastic cartoons of John McCain are not jokes? Oooo, creepy.

How perfect an ally for an actor who wants to be identified with an unabashed propagandist and fabricator such as Obama. (Please see related post regarding Obama's totally inaccurate references to the Kennedys, and Selma march, in his parents' lives.) Well, that's not ironic at all.

Newsmax.com - Actor John Cusack Takes On McCain for MoveOn.org

"I'm not going to pretend this thing in Iraq was some kind of free market utopia to spread the gospel of democracy through the Middle East," John Cusack told the AP from London, where he's at work on another project.

John Cusack will not pretend! You got it?!

We wouldn't want Cusack to pretend. His using big words like "utopia" is too much. Famous people should never have to pretend for any reason, least of all for politics or money. Although, he is a professional pretender! It makes it doubly ironic, then, that he is against pretending, huh?