BottleOfBlog

Off To A Great Start

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Joe Lieberman retained his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Tuesday following a lengthy and often heated debate over what — if any — price the Connecticut Democrat-turned-Independent should pay for his vocal support of Republican Sen. John McCain's presidential bid.

The Senate Democratic caucus, meeting behind closed doors, voted 42 to 13 to allow Lieberman to keep the high-profile chairmanship…
 
"It's all over with," Majority Leader Harry Reid said at a news conference following the vote. "Joe Lieberman is a Democrat. He's part of this caucus."

But Joe isn't a Democrat, Harry.  The Democrats of the state Joe Lieberman represents voted to not return him to the Senate.  Joe only returned to the Senate because Republicans voted for him.  And now Joe is an Independent Democrat, which is something else entirely different from being a Democrat.  It's something that allows you to campaign against other Democrats in the Senate and speak at the Republican National Convention on behalf of a Republican presidential candidate.

And Joe did that while being part of the Democratic caucus. 

So, no, Harry, Joe is not a Democrat.  And I have no idea what supposedly is over.  Does that mean he is going to support his party now that he's part of the Democratic caucus, when he campaigned against his party all this year while he was part of the Democratic caucus?

What is over?  The Democratic leadership pretending to address the concerns of the Democrats they represent?   I suppose so.

Reid dismissed vehement criticism of the decision from elements of the party's more liberal base, which has insisted that Lieberman be punished for failing to support President-elect Barack Obama's campaign…

The party's more liberal base!  There it is!  The hippies, and the nutroots, and the potty-mouthed bloggers!  The wild eyed lefties!  Reid dismissed their criticism!  Because they are crazy!  And they're out of synch with the more centrist mainstream American! 

Joe Lieberman represents Connecticut in the Senate.  Wanna know how the people of Connecticut feel about Joe?

The numbers are worse for Lieberman, a self-described "independent Democrat": 53 percent disapprove and 41 percent approve of his performance. Lieberman could not be reached for comment.  

Fifty three percent of the people in Joe's own state disapprove of Joe's performance.  Okay, but it's been a tough year to be in gubment.  What does that really mean?

Lieberman lost the Democratic nomination, then won re-election as a petitioning candidate. He remains a registered Democrat — though not in the eyes of voters.
 
Fifty-two percent consider him an independent, 22 percent a Republican and just 15 percent a Democrat.
 
Seventy-one percent of Republicans approve of his performance, and 76 percent of Democrats disapprove.

Fifteen percent of all voters in Connecticut, the state Joe represents, consider him to be a Democrat.  A whopping seventy one percent of Connecticut Republicans approve of his performance.  And a monstrous seventy six percent of Connecticut Democrats disapprove of Joe Lieberman's performance.

And Reid dismissed criticism from the party's more liberal base!  All seventy six percent of it!

These are the Democrats Joe Lieberman "represents".  And they hate him and they don't consider him to be a Democrat.  But Harry Reid, and 42 Democratic Senators, dismissed the crazy concerns of that fringe seventy six percent of the party and announced that Joe, despite a year campaigning for Republicans, is a solid Democrat and an asset to the party.

Speaking at the same press conference, Lieberman called the resolution allowing him to keep the Homeland Security chairmanship "fair and forward leaning."

"It's a resolution… of reconciliation and not retribution, and I appreciate it," he noted.

Well, we can all hope Joe Lieberman appreciates it as much as he appreciated Barack Obama campaigning on his behalf in the Connecticut primary.

The best we can take away from this horrendous rebuke to the desires of The People is that, apparently, 42 Democratic Senators are having affairs with their staffers and Joe Lieberman is aware of each and every one.

The worst is that the Democratic leadership is so removed from reality that they actually believe their ineffectual, stupid, weak, and submissive behavior of the last eight years is the reason they are back in the majority.

For myself, I pretty much fear the worst.

Punting On First And Goal

When Senate Dems caucus tomorrow, the Democratic leadership is likely to propose that he keep his Homeland Security chairmanship but lose a lesser sub-committee chairmanship instead, according to a source familiar with the situation.

It's not about retribution.  It's not about punishment.

Joe Lieberman is a man who called Barack Obama a socialist and a Marxist, and questioned Obama's patriotism, while campaigning for Republican Senators and speaking at the Republican National Convention.

And these weak kneed idiots are going to allow this guy to keep a Chairmanship that will allow him to hold hearings and investigate the administration of...Barack Obama.

Sorry, but it's idiotic.

Democrats might as well give the Chairmanship to John McCain.  Though, frankly, I'd rather see John McCain as Chairman of Homeland Security than Joe.  At least McCain was embarrassed by some of the things he said or did during the campaign.  Lieberman regards his sleazy betrayal of the man he mentored in the Senate as a fucking act of conscience.  

I don't care what Joe is saying or promising in private.  He will not keep his word.  He never does.

He will break his promises and he will screw the Democratic party--like he did in '98, and 2000, and 2004, and 2008.  And he will do it at the worst possible time, while sadly, in his Droopy Dog voice, proclaiming that it is his virtue and morality that compels him to commit disgustingly dishonest and dishonorable acts.

That's what he did when he dumped his first wife. 

And I, for one, will take no pleasure in saying, "I told you so" since I, along with tens of millions of Americans who voted Democrats into office will likewise be getting screwed one more fucking time by the grinning garden gnome of sanctimonious scumbaggery.

And for what?  The 58th Democratic vote, which is good for exactly nothing?  

If Joe Lieberman is such a piece of shit that he would vote against Democratic interests because he lost his Chairmanship--if he would put himself before the ideals he supposedly believes in--then clearly this a man with no convictions and he can not be trusted with any position of power at all.

This is about good government.  This is about protecting the interests of sixty six million Americans who voted for Barack Obama.  This is about Democrats advancing a Democratic agenda.

Democrats in the Senate owe it to the Democrats who put them there to protect us from one more outrageous betrayal at the hands of man we fucking voted out of the party.

Why is it so hard to get Democrats in government to do what's best for Democrats in government?

Will Someone Please Ask Her The Question

WASHINGTON - Is Sarah Palin going through a catharsis, some sort of political rehabilitation or is she now a permanent fixture on the national political scene?

The former Republican vice presidential hopeful returned home after the election to her job as Alaska governor where she promptly held a news conference and conducted several television interviews. She’s lined up for NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday.

In addition, later this week she will head to sunny Miami to attend the Republican Governors Association annual conference where she will again meet with reporters on Thursday.

 

And this is true.  Since Sarah Palin lost her bid to become Vice President of the United States, she's been on Tee Vee very nearly non-stop. 

And forget all that "what liberal media" stuff about why hasn't any other losing Vice Presidential candidate in the history of television gotten the kind of attention this woman who has higher unfavorability ratings than favorability ratings gotten.

The answer is, quite simply, what you already know:  the major media is hopelessly conservative, much like its corporate owners.

But what I still want to know is why, when she's been on Tee Vee nearly non stop since getting embarrassingly trounced in a national election--not one single reporter--and despite the conservative ownership of nearly every single public and cable television and radio station, and mass market newspaper, we're still told that individual reporters are by and large liberal--has asked Sarah Palin "The Question".

Not one.

As I understand socialism, it involves the state or collective ownership of the means of producing wealth and the distribution of that wealth.

And since Alaskans collectively own the oil wealth of Alaska, and since the state distributes that wealth to Alaskans, and since Sarah Palin campaigned fiercely against socialistic policies, and since a majority of Alaskans voted for her policies...

Now that she is returning to govern Alaska, what exactly is she going to about dismantling the awful wealth destructive policies of America's only socialist state?

It's not a trick question.  It's not an unfair question.  

It's at the heart of her political philosophy.  And fifty eight million Americans voted against socialism in this country, including sixty percent of Alaskans, at her urging.

So, please, ask her.  What is she going to do to put her policies into practice and end the awful socialism in Alaska?

That Gasoline Smell, It Smells Like Victory

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republican voters say Alaska Governor Sarah Palin helped John McCain’s bid for the presidency, even as news reports surface that some McCain staffers think she was a liability…
 
Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, including 65% who say their view is Very Favorable. Only eight percent (8%) have an unfavorable view of her, including three percent (3%) Very Unfavorable…
 
When asked to choose among some of the GOP’s top names for their choice for the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, 64% say Palin. The next closest contenders are two former governors and unsuccessful challengers for the presidential nomination this year -- Mike Huckabee of Arkansas with 12% support and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts with 11%.

Look, as far as I'm concerned, I hope the Gee Oh Pee runs this dimbulb every four years until she's so old that, when she idiotically winks into the camera during debates, more people think she's having a mini-stroke than being plucky.

So I don't care.  That's great news for the Democratic party.  That should make 2012 a real laugher.

But, even I, who am unable to elevate myself to Obamaesque disagreeing without being disagreeable, am astounded that nine out of ten Republicans have a favorable opinion of a woman so stupid she says shit like this regularly:

“Now we kick in that fiscal conservativeness that needs to be engaged, and we progress this state with $57-a-barrel oil,” Palin said.  

I know she has a special needs child and so this is impolite to say, but, honestly, I can't think of any other way of putting it:  is she retarded or something?

She sounds more like a Vice Presidential candidate for Wasilla Junior High than the great United States of America.

And she says shit like that all the time.

Here she is, the Republican politician who knows more about energy than anyone in the United States, talking about...who the fuck knows what:

"Oil and coal? Of course, it’s a fungible commodity and they don’t flag, you know, the molecules, where it’s going and where it’s not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first,” Palin said. “So, I believe that what Congress is going to do, also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it’s Americans that get stuck to holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here. It’s got to flow into our domestic markets first.”  

Even if she could manage to make herself understandable to humans so that we knew what she was talking about, she still doesn't know what she's talking about.  And this is her area of "expertise".

Here she is, the Republican candidate for Vice President, talking about what it is she'll be doing as Vice President:

Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”

PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.

To be fair, this question was asked by a third grader, so Palin was probably a little guarded in her wrong response, fearing that she was being outsmarted and tricked.

Let's let her elaborate on her view of the Vice Presidency in a forum free from the perils of "gotcha!" questions posed by nine year olds:

Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.

She'll be tapping into that position, while ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative of the president's agenda in that position, which she's tapped into.  Also, she'll be administrating very appropriately The Plans that are needed for this nation--as opposed to Bill Clinton's very naughty and inappropriate handling of The Plans--and putting to good use her executive experience that is partly attributable to her being picked as Vice President in the White House, also.

These are the words of a person who has shit for brains.  This is a report on a book never read.  This is an answer that's greatest strength is that it is impossible to decipher in real time.  If it had accidently come anywhere near answering the question asked, Gwen Ifill would have been forced to slam her palm down on the giant red button on her moderator podium, causing the trap door beneath Palin to open and flush her down a water slide into a pool of green goo erected for Nickelodeon's "You Can't Say That During The Vice-Presidential Debates" show.  

Then a bunch of third graders would laugh at her for being so stupid.

And let's not forget Governor Palin, who is giving us her expansionist interpretation of the zero Vice Presidential powers as enumerated in the Constitution--oh, I'm sorry!  It allowed the Vice President the "much flexibility" of casting a "Yay" or "Nay" tie breaking vote any way he or she might choose--has many other scholarly insights into what "our Founding Fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution", such as how the First Amendment is threatened by a free press criticizing politicians for saying things that are stupid, hateful and untrue.

And who could forget her masterpiece of socio-political economic theory--The Umbrella Of Job Creation!

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?
 
PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation.  

I don't think I've ever seen anyone tie it all together so neatly and thoroughly, and, dare I say it, brilliantly. I particularly like the part about how reducing taxes has to accompany tax reductions and tax relief.  I've often thought that that's where a lot of economic theory went off the rails--by not including tax relief with tax reductions when talking about reducing taxes.

By any measure of human intelligence--including the ones that use voodoo or throwing bones or supply side economics or any other crazy shit like that--Sarah Palin has got to be the stupidest person ever put on a major party's ticket for the office of Vice President.

Again, I don't care.  I hope Republicans run her again and again and again and again.  Because she's a moron and she will lose again and again and again.  She's too dumb to be President!  I know that Republicans tried to obliterate that thresh hold with Reagan and George W. Bush, but even so, she's just too dumb.

Like blind people can't be wideouts in the NFL, like people without arms or legs can't be jugglers, at a certain point of disability, not everything is possible.

And so I find it amazing that ninety one percent of Republicans have a favorable opinion of this jackass.

And I understand that Republicans twice voted enthusiastically for George W. Bush, a garble-mouthed, incurious, winkin' and grinnin', know nothing Gubner, who was a bit of a late bloomer.  

But I'd still like to think that even they, after twice electing such a monstrously incompetent douchebag, who inherited a country of unprecedented power and wealth and prosperity, a country with a two hundred and forty billion dollar and growing a year surplus, a country of unassailable military superiority, a country that was the sole Super Power in the world and poised to create a better world in what would undoubtably be called The American Century, and then, in eight short years, ran up six trillion new dollars in debt, destroyed our military, destroyed the world economy, destroyed our national credibility, and made nearly every department and agency of the federal government disfunctional--I'd still like to think that even Republicans would be saying, "Yeah, that was pretty fucked up.  We shouldn't do that again."

But they're not.

Two out of three of Republicans would like to see Palin as President.

These people would rather wipe this country off the face of the globe than admit they were wrong.

It's insane.

The modern Gee Oh Pee was a bad idea to start with--a crazy Nixonian mix of bigots, self-loathing homosexuals and perverts, country club aristocrats, oil men, investment bankers, and retards.  But it's gone beyond that.  It's become a pathology.

It needs to be broken up, smashed into tiny pieces, and blended into a bunch of different parties with opposing agendas so that these peoples' net effect on American politics and our lives is zero.

It's the only thing that can be done.  It's the only thing that can restore this nation to greatness and prosperity.  Because these people are insisting, again and again and again, that idiots can run the government.  As long as they are Republican.

If nine out of ten Republicans have a favorable opinion of Sarah Palin, if two out of three Republicans would like to see her in the White House, then we have an entire political party that is too irresponsible and ridiculous, and dangerous to govern our country ever again.

It's So Weird

That I'm constantly writing about various Joe's that must go.

"Every Senator will have to vote the way he or she believes they should," Leahy said, in a reference to the upcoming vote on Lieberman's fate in the Dem caucus next week. "I'm one who does not feel that somebody should be rewarded with a major chairmanship after doing what he did."

"I felt some of the attacks that he was involved in against Senator Obama...went way beyond the pale," Leahy continued. "I thought they were not fair, I thought they were not legitimate, I thought they perpetuated some of these horrible myths that were being run about Senator Obama."

"I would feel that had I done something similar," Leahy concluded, "that I would not be chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the next Congress."  

And Leahy's right, and if the world worked the way it's supposed to work, Joe Lieberman would be stripped of his chairmanship.  But, then again, if the world worked the way it's supposed to work, Joe Lieberman wouldn't even be a Senator anymore.  So forget that.

And forget justice.  And forget punishment.

Joe Lieberman can not be allowed to retain his chairmanship because Joe Lieberman can not be trusted.

At all.

Joe Lieberman is not an honorable man.  He didn't just campaign against and question the judgement, and the patriotism any old Democrat for president.  No, he did those things to a Senator who had come to his aid and campaigned on his behalf when Joe needed it the most.

And that's how Joe Lieberman repaid Barack Obama.

And Joe Lieberman is not a man of his word.  In 2006, he campaigned for the Democratic primary saying that he had the interests of the Democratic party at heart and would be the best candidate to help a Democrat get elected president in 2008.

And then he spoke at the Republican National Convention.

Joe Lieberman will say anything to keep his chairmanship and it means nothing.  The words coming out of his mouth mean nothing to him and they should mean nothing to Democrats, if they have any brains.

Joe Lieberman does not feel bound by his words.  He's shown this again and again and again.  He does not consider saying one thing and doing another thing to be lying.  He considers that to a noble act of conscience.

Yes, Joe Lieberman feels he is honor bound to lie about his intentions.  He's told us this much.  And that is the only thing Joe Lieberman has ever said that we should believe to be true.

No matter what Joe Lieberman says now, if he is allowed to retain his chairmanship, he will fuck Democrats at the worst possible moment in the worst possible way.

Before the 2010 Congressional elections or the 2012 Presidential election, he will use his chairmanship to hold some kind of bullshit made for Fox News hearings that will be scandalous, shocking, damaging to Democrats, and about as truthful as Ned Lamont crashing Holy Joe's servers in 2006.

Which Joe lied about even after he knew it wasn't true.

And there won't be anything Democrats can do to stop it once Joe starts his ratfucking payback for being voted out of the party.  By then, it'll be too late.

Joe Lieberman is a proud liar.  And a man without any honor or conscience at all.  And he has been, in 1998, in 2000, in 2004, and 2008 almost gleeful in his scummy betrayals of his party, his supporters, and his friends.

The only way to stop Joe Lieberman from giving Democrats one last great assfucking on his way out the door is to never let the viscous little grinning garden gnome of a weasel one more chance to do what he always does. 

Don't These People Ever Get Tired Of Looking Stupid?

Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn't raise his standards, he will exceed Bush's total before he is inaugurated.

That's Monday.  From the Big Thinker of Time Magazine's 2004 Blog Of The Year!

The demented and deranged faithful ask, the high almighty Garblemouth delivers!  Right on schedule:

Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said he regrets the display of the ``Mission Accomplished'' sign as backdrop for a speech he gave about a month after the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
 
``To some, it said, well, `Bush thinks the war in Iraq is over,' when I didn't think that,'' he said in a CNN interview today. ``It conveyed the wrong message.”
 
``I regret saying some things I shouldn't have said,'' Bush said. He cited comments he made after the Sept. 11 attacks, when he said of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden: ``I want justice. There's an old poster out West that said, 'Wanted, dead or alive.'''
 
He also said he regretted telling Iraqi insurgents in 2003: ``There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on.''  

Bush, of course, left out his regrets at nearly and accidently declaring war on China a month into office, getting a good sense of Putin's trustworthy soul, mocking a blind man for wearing sun glasses, invoking a "Crusade" before deploying American troops to Muslim countries, idiotically and bizarrely extolling the virtues of a "peeance and freeance" Iraq on live Tee Vee, flexing his MBA credentials by explaining machines come from a "machine making place", stressing for four years that we have sufficient troops in Iraq before insisting that what we need in Iraq is more troops, promising the American people that anyone involved in the treasonous and national security damaging outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative would be fired and then keeping Cheney, Rove, and Libby on the gubment payroll, repeatedly insisting that the U.N. inspectors had been kicked out of Iraq by Saddam Hussein even though they were still in Iraq when Bush announced his intention to attack and invade Iraq, and on and on...

I mean, Christ, Bush says so many stupid things on such a regular basis, there's an entire industry devoted to documenting it.

Everyone in the world knows Bush is an inarticulate, garble mouthed, gaffe machine.

And, still, here's one of the most influential conservative bloggers, without irony or embarrassment, asserting that Bush "never gets sloppy" and "chooses his words with care and precision" when publicly speaking.

It goes a long way to explaining Sainted Ronny Rotten's reputation for his sunny optimism, mythic popularity, and wildly successful presidency, which nearly ended in prison terms for everyone, gubment bailouts, and, until Bush, historic fiscal irresponsibility. 

And what is John Hinderacker's reward for being so willfully idiotic in defense of a president for whom he has an inexplicable and creepy and often laughable man crush on?

The same as everyone else who has ever supported this world class, incompetent, fraudulent turkey.

Honest to God, it's like battered wife syndrome or something.

(Post post:  

Oh, geez, I got so distracted trying to remember just a fraction of the careless, public, and imbecilic things Bush has said that I forgot this great part of the interview:

In the interview yesterday, he said, ``My wife reminded me that, `hey, as president of the United States, be careful what you say.'''

Frankly, I think that's bullshit.  I think that's a really calculated made up thing, like his story about his conversion to Christianity, that Bush or his handlers stupidly thought would make him sound "folksy" and humble--jus' like all ya regular jerks out there, I need the l'il misses to keep me in line!  (wink, wink, smirk)

But whether it's true or more horseshit, it certainly tells you something awful about the man of "remarkably few verbal gaffes and blunders", doesn't it?

Either,  three years into a four year term, after meeting very nearly every important head of state in the world, after engaging the United States in two wars, this cretin had to be reminded by his wife that "hey, as president of the United States, be careful what you say."

Because it either hadn't occurred to Bush that he was the president of the United States or that he should be careful about what he said after three years in office.

Or, after eight years in office, it still doesn't occur to this jackass how horrifying it is to anyone not named Hinderacker that the fucking president of the United States has to be reminded, after three years in office, that he is the president of the United States and, as such, he shouldn't talk like a belligerent drunk at a bar while on Tee Vee.

He thinks that's a good story.

Honestly, by 2012, Hinderacker's penis is going to be rubbed raw from polishing his "Sarah Palin is a master at the concise articulation of the unification of issues beneath her Nobel prize worthy Umbrella Of Job Creation theory" post.)

What Part Of What God Just Said Didn't You Understand?

WASHINGTON – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has put the "brutal" 2008 campaign behind her and has the next presidential race in her sights, with a flurry of national television interviews and a high-profile appearance at the Republican Governors Association meeting this week…

"I did not know that it would be as brutal a ride as it turned out to be," she said. 

Yes, Sarah, it did turn out to be pretty fucking brutal.  But I guess we all should have expected that when you introduced yourself to the nation as a pitbull with lipstick.  Even so, I can't fault any decent and right thinking person for still being appalled at your vicious brutality in accusing Barack Obama of palling around with terrorists.

ENGLEWOOD, Col., Oct 4 - Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin accused Democratic candidate Barack Obama on Saturday of "palling around with terrorists," in the latest sign the campaign is turning increasingly nasty.

Later, at a rally in Carson, California, Palin again said the Republican campaign would become more negative.

"As one of my campaign staffers reminded me as I was walking out, 'Ok now the heels are on, the gloves come off'," she told thousand of people at a rally in a sports stadium.

Or of attacking the patriotism of his wife.

Palin also made reference to a remark early in the campaign by Obama's wife, Michelle, who had said that "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country." The governor's comments came after country music star Lee Greenwood sang the "The Star Spangled Banner" and "God Bless the USA."

"We believe also that there is a reason we all get teared-up when we hear Lee Greenwood sing about America, because we love America and we are always proud of being Americans," she said. "And we don't apologize for being Americans."  

Or of calling your opponent a socialist.

ROSWELL, New Mexico (CNN) — Sarah Palin on Sunday levied some of her toughest attacks to date against Barack Obama, accusing him of experimenting with socialism and charging ACORN, the embattled community organizing group to which Obama has been linked, with attempting to undermine the sacrifices of United States troops abroad…

“Barack Obama calls it spreading the wealth,” she said. “Joe Biden calls higher taxes patriotic. But Joe the plumber and Ed the dairy man, I believe that they think that it sounds more like socialism. Friends, now is no time to experiment with socialism.”  

Or maligning a private citizen while declaring that even casual aquaintences are now part of every American's "record".

"It seems that there is yet another radical professor from the neighborhood who spent a lot of time with Barack Obama going back several years," Palin said at an event in Bowling Green, Ohio.

"This is important because his associate, Rashid Khalidi ... in addition to being a political ally of Barack Obama, he's a former spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization."

Palin said her assertion "is not negative campaigning to call someone out on their record.

Or attacking a person for what they might have heard when they were at church, even if they didn't actually hear it.

Gov. Sarah Palin appeared to suggest last month that Wright is a fair issue to raise, but said ultimately it is McCain's decision.

"[Obama] sat in the pews for 20 years and heard Rev. Wright say some things that most people would find a bit concerning. But again that is John McCain's call," Palin told reporters.

Or for holding rallies where you whipped up your supporters into such an insane, ugly frenzy that they screamed "terrorist" and "treason" and "kill him" and "he's a nigger" while you smiled triumphantly.

I can't blame us for not knowing how brutal this campaign was going to be.  

But I have to think you are a fucking moron for not knowing the appalling amount of ugliness you were about to foist on our electoral process.

And what did Obama or Biden say about her?  I don't know.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think I ever heard either one say anything worse than "She gave a great speech."  Which was bullshit.  But it was still nice of them to say.

And now Sarahcuda, who reveled in just how nasty and bare knuckled she could be, is shocked!  She's taken aback!  She's surprised and hurt at how brutal these elections can be.

Completely oblivious to the fact that all of the brutality came from her and Gee Oh Pee campaign operatives.

But she's still got that spunk!  And that real America optimism!

"I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door," she said. "And if there is an open door in '12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I'll plow through that door."

Good Lord, woman, God just slammed that door shut in your face for being such a nasty bit of business.  And He's opened another door for you!  It's called the "Exit".  

Don't miss it, Sarahcuda!  Don't let it hit you in your horse's ass on the way back to Wasilla.

Oh, Gee, I Wonder Why

In a survey of 751 CEOs published in October, the magazine found that 74 percent feared the consequences of an Obama presidency versus just 19 percent who worried about John McCain assuming the Oval Office. The surveyed executives feared that Obama's emphasis on big government and his plans to hike capital-gains taxes on big earners would stifle growth and job creation. 

Oh, my!  America's CEO's, who have done such an outstanding job growing the economy and creating jobs with their companies, such as Enron, WorldCom, General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, HealthSouth, CountryWide, AIG, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Circuit City, and IndyMac, are concerned about the consequences of an Obama presidency.

As opposed to what?  The world wide financial meltdown and looming Second Great Depression caused by the unfettered, free markets of the Bush presidency?  What are they afraid of?  That Obama is going to require them to file a finger from their first born along with their 10-K?

Well, whatever it is, we should definitely listen to these geniuses! After all, these are the guys who just bankrupted the world all the while earning about four hundred times what the average worker makes. Not including perks.

The average worker, by the way, has been awesome.  So we're told.  The average worker is about the only part of the economy that is fundamentally sound.  Kind of makes you wonder why he or she not only isn't getting paid more, but why he or she is actually getting paid less, doesn't it?

Despite the fact that the average worker keeps producing more. Unlike his or her CEO counterpart.  Who keeps producing bankruptcy, fraud, and failure.  

Steve Jobs, excepted.

So what do these geniuses, these Masters Of The Universe as well as of Business Administration, who boldly led us to where no one ever wanted to go, say?  They fear an Obama presidency will raise capital gains taxes! And why do they fear such a thing? Because that will undoubtably stifle growth and job creation that this country hasn't had under the current low capital gains taxes!

Really?

It's all about the growth and job creation, is it?  It's all about the good of our great nation. 

Obviously, Obama lacks their altruism.

Death, taxes, and ceo pay hikes. Despite deteriorating economic conditions and expectations many companies would pay out less to top officers, chief executives at publicly traded companies of all sizes saw an increase in compensation last year, buoyed largely by gains from the exercise of stock options…
 
But the amounts executives actually took home last year don't jibe with the performance of the companies. Operating earnings of S&P 500 companies fell by 5.9% during the year, according to data from Standard & Poor's.
 
The total compensation figures measured by the Corporate Library include the value of exercised options, vesting of equity awards and changes in deferred compensation, in addition to salary and bonus. The overall rise in pay, Mr. Hodgson said, was driven by gains on stock options that executives cashed in last year…
 
Indeed, large company CEOs earned total pay packages with a median value of $12.2 million last year, with only about $3.8 million coming in the form of salary and bonus payments. The remaining $8.3 million in equity compensation is more than double the median $3.8 million paid to small-cap CEOs.
 
Some CEOs received much fatter raises last year: The Corporate Library found that 29 executives—including former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and Apple CEO Steve Jobs—received pay increases of 1,000% or more.
 
Mr. Jobs, who collected his customary salary of $1 last year, recorded $14.6 million in gains from exercising option awards. That was a 1.5 billion percent increase from 2006, the largest percentage increase for any executive in the study.
 
Ms. Whitman exercised about 5.7 million options at a profit of $117 million in 2007, her last full year as CEO. That's a 3,741% pay increase from 2006. (Ms. Whitman had not previously exercised any options, going back to eBay's first available proxy filing in 1999.)

Or it could be that the CEO's of America's largest companies are earning anywhere from nine to one hundred and seventeen million dollars a year from stock options.  On which, unless they're stupid, they've been paying a 15% capital gains tax.

Which is far less than their 35% top marginal rate and would put their tens of millions of dollars of earnings in the same tax bracket as a fundamentally sound, highly productive worker making between $32,000 and $78,000.

When they say growth, they mean growth of their personal wealth.  When they say job creation, they mean jobs driving limos for CEOs, jobs cooking and cleaning for CEOs, jobs tending the lawns and cleaning the pools of CEOs.

I'm sure they are very personally concerned about the consequences of an Obama presidency.

And these are the same jerks, who, the second they bankrupt their companies, go running to the government for protection from their creditors and bailouts from money provided by taxes.

Which they don't want to pay.

Why are we listening to these assholes?

Ah, What The Hell

One more time.

I know, I know--it's not nearly as sunny and optimistic and inspiring as when Ronald Reagan told us that The Government of and by and for The People was actually the problem.

But it's still pretty good.

Now We Face The Challenges Of The Future

And by that, I mean we need to wrap Barack up in kevlar and six hundred Secret Service agents for the next eighty days or so.