The problem is…the question still lingers in search of an answer: “How is it possible that people still view Sarah Palin as a desirable candidate for the office of the President of the United States?”

There have been many conservative and Republican candidates that I have respected, some quite completely.  I may not agree on all issues or policies…but AGREEMENT is not a required condition for  RESPECT to exist.  The nagging problem with Sarah is this: I have no doubt (none-zero-zip-zilch) that if a Democratic Party candidate came along, with personal charm, and with policy experience equal to Sarah’s…a leadership track record the same as Sarah’s…a history of questionable ethics questions same as Sarah’s…who performed as poorly and displayed the same lake of preparation and sense as Sarah has in interviews…who, like Sarah, quit his/her elected position halfway through their term to do book releases and speaking engagements…and who has been caught in as many ridiculous/unnecessary/nonsensical lies (many now IN PRINT) as Sarah has…

…conservatives would be laughing OUT LOUD at any liberals who supported such a person.  Again, I have no doubt of this.

So…WHY?  Well, we may now have an answer.  New Left Media sent someone to interview people at a signing for Palin’s new book, Going Rogue, that took place in Columbus, Ohio.  The young man did exactly what he should…he didn’t “ambush” anyone…he interviewed a large number of people…he interviewed people from a lot of different demographics…he didn’t ask leading questions.  He simply asked people why they support Sarah Palin, and what policies of hers appeal to them, and why.

Their answers…are revealing:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKKKgua7wQk

That’s right.  A lot of people said they thought Sarah Palin was very “real“…or somehow patriotic…or “honest“…or that she somehow embodies “good judgment” (no idea how a person could justify that particular claim).  What they can’t say, is where she stands on any particular issues or policies.  Not one.  And no, “cutting taxes and spending,” is not a policy statement…it’s a knee-jerk talking point that generally reflects that the person who uttered it knows little about taxes, about what the government spends money on, or about the history of politicians, taxes, OR spending.  A few people tried to parrot things they’d obviously heard from Fox News/Glenn Beck/Sean Hannity/Bill O’Reilly/Rush Limbaugh…like the one woman very upset about “czars“…but when asked to actually EXPLAIN the talking point or complaint in question…they can’t.  Obviously, whether we are talking about Sarah Palin, or the things these people have heard from conservative media or the church pulpit…these are not people who care about UNDERSTANDING things.  They like Sarah…so she should be President.  Policies and issues, and even her own track record, be damned.  Glenn Beck says the “czars” are a problem?  Well that’s good enough for these people…they don’t need to know what a “czar” is, or why they might be a problem.  Sarah says she’s going to “cut taxes and reduce spending?“  That sounds great to them!  They don’t need to understand which taxes she’ll cut, or which programs will no longer get funded…cut them all!  Maybe she’ll do what she did in Alaska:  cut taxes to be popular with the voters, then fund giant, wasteful projects by taking out huge loans…and then she’ll give the jobs to contractors who supported her campaign.  That way, she’s popular with the people, her friends get paid, and the bill comes due when somebody else is in office…marvelous!

Now…I get it. They don’t care.  Again, it’s as simple as “they like her“…and what she says “sounds good” to them.  Because they don’t really have any knowledge of how things work…and because they don’t care to ever have any such knowledge, their “requirements” for who should be President are JUST…THAT…SHALLOW.  If you ask me, it’s literally terrifying.  These people are also driving cars, voting, owning guns, and making babies…who they will then attempt to rear to be as vapid and uninformed as they are (which is likely, since statistically a child’s IQ is usually near the average of its parents).  Welcome to the idiocracy.

More Sarah Tidbits:

• Well, At Least ONE Time She Showed Good Judgment: A McCain campaign advisor has revealed that Sarah decided at the very last minute that she and McCain should cancel an interview with Univision.  The reason: Sarah suddenly realized…that she didn’t know anything about Hispanic people or their issues of interest.  Her campaign advisor has responded, by criticizing the McCain advisor for dredging up last year’s news: “Nobody’s sitting around talking about the 2008 campaign except for the people who lost it.“  Perhaps her advisor has not read her new book…which focuses heavily on the 2008 campaign.  Now…if only Palin had shown the same good judgment she showed with Univision when it came to Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson…
• Closing The Barn Door AFTER The Horses Are Out: Sarah says now that she refuses to do a second interview with Katie Couric…or on the “Late Show“…or anywhere else on CBS.  She told this to Fox New’s Sean Hannity…perhaps the one person who can interview her and ask soft enough questions to prevent her from coming off as totally ridiculous.
• Speaking of the Palin/Fox News Love Story: Well, it’s become a regular thing at Fox…showing a picture of clip, claiming it is from a current event, only to have it discovered that the picture/clip is from a much older (and better attended) event.  In an effort to make it appear that massive throngs were turning out for Sarah’s book signing…Fox News showed a clip of her delivering a speech on the campaign trail. It’s not news…it’s Fox News:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=luNheD4DGr8

• Palin/Fox News Love Story, Take 2: One clip that we KNOW Fox News won’t be showing, is this one of angry people booing Palin at one of her book signings.  Apparently, a thousand people bought two copies of the book and were given wristbands guaranteeing that they would have their book signed…then they stood in the cold and rain in Noblesville, Indiana, patiently waiting.  With dozens of people still waiting, and for no apparent reason, Sarah got back on the bus and drove off.  Several disappointed people commented that they could no longer support Palin…and were returning the books.  Nice move…very mavericky, Sarah:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8mAZhOJIfI

• The Media…Always Picking On Our Sweet Sarah: Matt Taibbi takes an excellent look at the claims that Sarah Palin is the victim of some “media conspiracy,” or that the media has, in some way, been harder on her than it is on other politicians.  I can sum it up the reason it’s nonsense in two words: Monica Lewinski. Taibbi’s look at the subject is considerably more involved but one of the main points he makes is this:  Obama’s people played nice with the press…and the press treated them nice.  Historically speaking, when a politician takes the “the press sucks, and they’re out to get me” strategy…that’s who the press goes after the hardest.  File that little fact under “D” for “Duh.”
• Just For Fun: SNL got our it’s satirical crystal ball…and tried to capture what would happen if Palin won the 2012 Presidential Race…I think their estimates are a bit conservative (no pun intended):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iCfJbG0bz0

That topic: Sarah Palin

It’s strange.  How could a person still have a “political future” after resigning halfway through the term of office to which she was elected?  After resigning for reasons that don’t actually make sense (she claimed it was do to the cost to the taxpayers of defending against all the ethics charges against her…there was no increased cost)?  After having so many ethics complaints (and other ethics questions) levied against her? After engaging in a petty, tit-for-tat media argument/spectacle with her daughter’s ex-boyfriend?  After selecting Facebook as her new forum for communicating policy?  After a failed attempt to cash in on the speaking circuit? After backing a “Conservative Party” lunatic against her own party…costing the Republicans an election?

The answer?  She SHOULDN’T…nobody with this track record ought to have any “political future.”  And…despite all the talk, she DOESN’T.

HOWEVER, the release of her new book, “Going Rogue,” has served the purpose of getting Palin back into the center ring of the media circus:

• While most people expect ANY book written by (or on behalf of) a politician to be completely self-serving and more than a little revisionist…apparently, few people expected Sarah to use her book as a platform for settling scores against people inside the failed McCain presidential campaign.  Excerpts were released even before the book hit store shelves, and critics, pundits, analysts and others were surprised that Sarah seemed not only to name those within the campaign that she considered responsible for its downfall…but she blamed them for everything from her expensive wardrobe, to the bungled Katie Couric interview, and other mistakes clearly her own.
• Palin’s reponse?  She accused the Associated Press of “erroneously reporting” on her book (by directly quoting from it?) and said they were, in essence, performing “opposition research.“  She cautioned via Facebook that people should “Keep your powder dry, read the book, and enjoy it! Lots of great stories about my family, Alaska and the incredible honor it was to run alongside Sen. John McCain.“  These are interesting accusations…since they are seem simply to be another example of Palin crying foul/bias/sexism when caught in a lie…or in this case lies…plural…in print.  The Associated Press fact-checking her book and pointing out where her statements are factually incorrect…this is not “opposition research” or “bias“…it’s the primary JOB of the press.  And the AP…did a very good job.  A detailed (but by no means, exhaustive) list of the factual inconsistencies from the book can be read here.
• Some of top misrepresentations (read as “lies”) from Palin’s book?  She says that she didn’t have a family vote about joining the McCain ticket…in 2008 she told Sean Hannity that they did.  She said that Bristol’s pregnancy was a secret and she was surprised that McCain staff knew about it…which is ridiculous, because she had already told his vetting staff about it.  The $150,000 shopping spree: she claims it never happened and that all the clothes were already purchased for her when she joined the campaign…not a single person agrees with this account, and there are numerous eyewitnesses to her buying the clothes.  She wrote that the McCain campaign made her pay for her own vetting process…which is provably false.  She claims that she doesn’t support “aerial hunting“…but she’s the one who introduced the bill in 2007 to legalize it.  She says she’s the one who wanted to go on Saturday Night Live…her own emails show that this is false.  She writes that she was frugal with travel expenses while Governor of Alaska…despite records of personal trips charged to the taxpayers, she and her daughter stayed in a $700 a night hotel in New York, and there are also records of  $20,000 in other expenses for her children’s travel.  She says that she found out only minutes before McCain’s concession speech that she would not be allowed to speak…turns out, she’d been REPEATEDLY told that she could not deliver a concession speech of her own.  She claims that she guaranteed that the bidding process for a pipeline would be open and fair…audits show that the bidding was rigged in such a way that only companies with ties to her administration could participate.  A laundry list of easily disproven falsehoods can be seen here.
• One of the primary targets of Palin’s “rogue retribution:“  McCain campaign advisor Nicolle Wallace.  Palin accused Wallace of ongoing hostility towards her, and says that Wallace set up the Couric interview in order to boost Couric’s “self-esteem” (and not to help the campaign).  Wallace responded strongly that Palin’s book is based on “fabrications” and added that Palin seems to have a “bizarre fixation” with blaming others for her own failures during the campaign.
• Then Sarah made a highly publicized appearance on Oprah…that’s not even worth talking about.  With all do respect to the many who love the talk-show host…it was little more than a hyped-up “chat” filled with light banter and softball questions.  It served no purpose, other that to allow Sarah another safe forum to play up her “down-home likeability” shtick.
• Other notes about the book: Palin also declares that she doesn’t believe in evolution…and she recounts a McCain advisors incredulity about this, especially since her father was a SCIENCE TEACHER.  In an interview with People, Palin indicates an interest in being Chief of Staff, and in another with Newsmax she alludes that she could run for president in 2012 on a ticket with Glenn Beck as her running mate.  And lastly, in an interview with Sean Hannity, Sarah said the solution to the nuclear crisis in Iran…would be to get tough with Iraq.  I only mention these four items as they share the fact that none of them make any sense, and simply provide new aspects to the illogical, confusing conundrum we refer to as “Sarah Palin.“

All of this, while interesting, is still just noise that clouds what should be an otherwise obvious point:  this person has no depth of experience, no grasp of reality, no class or poise, no accountability or responsibility, an extremely limited intelligence…all of which manifests in the form of a bizarre “hockey mom” caricature, and a person who either lies or openly contradicts herself at every opportunity.  While I say that these truths have been obscured, they have not gone unnoticed:

• Jon Stewart of The Daily Show really cut to the heart of the matter.  In the following clip, he presents a montage of conservative pundits claiming that liberals either don’t like Palin or are threatened by her because of her physical attractiveness…or because she likes guns…or because she is “straight talking.”  As Stewart points out…the problem many have with Palin is something else entirely.  In his words, “…when you peel back the pretty, shooty layers of the Palin onion, there’s no onion.“  It is more likely that the reasons the conservatives give for liberals disliking Sarah…are probably their reasons for liking her.  To translate: she’s pretty, she likes guns, and she says exactly what they want to hear (which they then call “straight talk”).

• A lot of attention was paid to the recent Newsweek cover…which featured a picture of Sarah Palin (it was originally taken for the magazine, Runners World) striking a sexy pose in a running outfit…and showing a lot of leg while doing it.  Palin decried the use of the picture as sexist…Newsweek editors disagreed.  What everyone SHOULD have been paying attention to, are the articles inside the issue. The first is by Evan Woods and is titled “Going Rogue: How Sarah Palin Hurts the GOP…and America.“  Thomas points out that Palin’s attempts to create a populist movement serve only to create obvious division within the country and her own party, based over nothing more than a bizarrely manufactured sense of “conservative purity” and a representation of “real America” that does not exist, nor has it ever existed.  The second article is titled “Palin’s Base Appeal” by Christopher Hitchens, and illustrates that the “straight talk” that Sarah’s zealous admirers are so fond of is nothing new…and is quite insidious.  It is referred to as “populist talk,” and it has been used by an abundance of politicians, are rarely towards good aims.  It involves a political figure actively trying to come across as an “average joe” through anti-city, anti-government, anti-science, and anti-academic statements.  Why is this so preposterous?  Well only because most people DO live in cities, the government is necessary and made up of “ordinary people,” and science and education are the foundations for FACTS and KNOWLEDGE.  The argument would be more honestly represented as the “minority, country, uneducated, anarchist…because-Jesus-said-so” platform. Hitchens expertly points out the problem with Sarah’s use of this strategy…and the threat it represents to the very people who love her: “…the difficulty with populism is that it exploits the very ‘people’ to whose grievances it claims to give vent…The Palin problem, then, might be that she cynically incites a crowd that she has no real intention of pleasing. If she were ever to get herself to the nation’s capital, the teabaggers would be just as much on the outside as they are now, and would simply have been the instruments that helped get her elected. In my own not-all-that-humble opinion, duping the hicks is a degree or two worse than condescending to them. It’s also much more dangerous, because it meanwhile involves giving a sort of respectability to ideas that were discredited when William Jennings Bryan was last on the stump.“  Hitchens continues, “Many of Palin’s admirers seem to expect that, on receipt of the Republican Party nomination, she would immediately embark on a crusade against Wall Street and the banks. This notion is stupid to much the same degree that it is irresponsible.“

That’s really the problem, isn’t it?  Speaking for myself…I have no issues with Sarah Palin being a woman, or being attractive, or having a big family, or living in Alaska, or supporting hunting, or being a devout Christian…or any of the other criticisms that her supporters might falsely attribute to me.  I do, however, have a problem…with the fraud that she represents.  In the absence of true credentials, true character, true intelligence…Sarah has attempted to substitute notions of “common sense,” “the values of real America,” and “common man sensibility.”  But these are not only NOT substitutes…they are, in fact, largely fictions.  Convenient fictions that uneducated, jaded, bigoted, and unworldly people tell themselves make up for the fact that they never went anywhere, learned anything, or accomplished much.  And I watch these people being lured by Palin’s “populist siren song,” as an innocent bystander might observe a child be being lured into a stranger’s car.  I shout out, “Don’t go with her!  Her intentions are not what you believe them to be…she’s playing you.“  And my frustration is not out of any perceived threat presented by her…it is that they still call her “a person just like me” and a “straight-talker,” while ignoring the obvious truth that she is incapable of serving anyone’s interests…except her own.

…and there are always plenty of links, so let’s get started…

POLITICIANS BEHAVING BADLY:

• Representative Gregg Harper’s (R-MS) organization, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, has been recently called “bipartisan” by Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE).  When asked by Polico’s reporter, “What in the world does the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus do,” one might reasonably expect would be an answer along the lines of, “we support the rights and interests of sportsmen, fishermen, and hunters, in Congress.“  What one might NOT expect, was Harper’s response: “We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition.“  Very nice…very responsible…very bipartisan.
• Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), known most for conspiracy theories verging on the truly bizarre, has declared that she will not run for the presidency in 2012.  Which makes sense…since she may not even be able to win re-election for the seat she currently holds, as the residents of her district have grown more than a bit weary of her embarrassing statements, and the negative attention they attract.  However, Bachmann did provide an interesting recommendation for who she thinks SHOULD run:  Representative Steve King (R-IA).  That’s right…she’s recommending the man who brought us such hits as being the only vote against a resolution stating that it was wrong to use slaves to build our Capitol,  sponsoring his own resolution “recognizing the importance of Christians and the Christian faith,” and very recently stating that gay rights are a “purely socialist concept.”  Way to really think it through, Michele…he is a winner.
• I guess Republicans just LOVE Twitter.  It’s also being reported…that they love setting up fake Twitter accounts and webpages, where they pretend to be particular Democratic legislators and candidates.  They then use these fraudulent accounts to misinform and offend voters.  Twitter has caught on and is trying to close all the accounts being used by Republicans in this way.  I think I may know why they like Twitter more than actual blogs:  on Twitter nobody expects you to actually use facts and defend your position…you can get away with just blurting out a few words of nonsense.
• The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has put out an ad, claiming that Republicans have wasted over 1,000 hours in the Senate, through exploitation of parliamentary rules and procedures.  The DSCC does little to show how they arrived at this figure…but I would guess that much of what the GOP has fought for in Congress also qualifies as a waste of time.  Need examples? This clip, a spoof on the iPhone commercials, has been making the internet rounds, and I think it nicely sums up the kinds of platforms and positions the GOP is using to distract our attention, delay progress, and otherwise hinder real issues from being addressed:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_IAN081P8I

THE MEDIA -- HACKS, PUNDITS, AND OTHER INVETERATE LIARS:

• A Telling List: Want to see clips of the “Top Ten Distortions Perpetrated By FOX News?“  Well look no further than this link.  It includes such highlights as accusing an Obama czar of condoning statutory rape, editing a clip of Joe Biden quoting John McCain…so that it appeared as if Biden said the quote, editing a clip of Barack Obama so it appeared that he supported a European-style health care system…when he was actually opposing the idea, AND directly repeating, verbatim, GOP talking points as if they were news.  Enjoy…
• Glenn Beck, Part 1: A Hollywood charity is mounting a push to encourage more Americans to volunteer.  Since Obama has also supported volunteerism as important, Glenn Beck could only imagine one thing:  That Obama is using Hollywood…to turn us into Communist China.  No, I’m serious…here’s what he said: “Celebrities are coming together to make it cool to volunteer. Disney gives you a free day at the park. This is all fine, but doesn’t it seem a little bit convenient that all of this comes out now at the same time the Obama administration is calling for it? Obama controls the message through the media he holds in his pocket. Or in his little hand. And soon if you disobey, he’ll just go [Beck slaps his hand]. Now the message will be embedded in television shows. Isn’t this great? Aren’t you proud of what we’re doing? Oh, this certainly is change.“
• Glenn Beck, Part 2: Why is it that every time I write about something Glenn Beck said, I feel the need to also say, “No really…that’s what he said?“  Well, Beck was busy this week providing more ammunition for whomever is filling out the civil commitment papers on him, claiming that progressives/liberals…wait for it…have historically tried to take away everyone’s individual liberties, and could also be called “tyrants” or “slave holders.”  <<Sigh>>…
• Neocon Frank Gaffney has claimed in the past that Obama was some sort of “secret Muslim,” that there is evidence connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing (there isn’t, of course, and shame on you if you didn’t know that), that Sarah Palin learned foreign policy just by living in Alaska, that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (but that the media hid this “fact” from us), and that Democratic officials who criticized former President George W. Bush…should be hanged.  I tell you all this…so it will be of no surprise that Gaffney has no more decency than he has sense.  In a recent appearance on Hardball with Chris Matthews, he told Ron Reagan…that his father would be ashamed of him:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMOBQZwDMAE

• John Stossel of the FOX Business Channel recently condemned Lou Dobbs’, of CNN, for Dobb’s ongoing “rants about immigrants wrecking America.“  Dobbs has now responded, and rather unkindly: “Fox Business News - their new hire John Stossel -- weighing in with his own brand of myopic idiocy and no information whatsoever sat down with self-described rodeo clown Glenn Beck…what a self-important ass…He doesn’t understand basic economics…He’s just a silly little trick waiting to do some sort of Libertarian flip…Immigrants wrecking America -  I’ve never said anything close to that. As a matter of fact, I embrace immigrants to this country, I welcome them, I want more -- and as a matter of public policy, we need them. In no way am I restrictionist, and to hear this ass continue his act over at Fox News. I just can’t wait until he starts blowing bubbles in the air -- that’s about all he’s equipped to do.“  That’s right Lou, you never said the “immigrants are wrecking America“…oh, except the time you accused them of bringing leprosy here…oh, or the time you claimed they were forming a conspiracy to take back their old national territory…oh, and remember the time you said they were a threat to the entire middle class, and working people everywhere?  Dobbs…before you start trying to play “friend to the immigrant,” and “holier than thou” with John Stossel…you might want to watch some your own clips on YouTube.
• How better to wrap up the “Media Gone Wild” segment of the post, than with an Ann Coulter item.  During her appearance on Joy Behar’s talk show, she stated that all Presidential assassins have been liberals: “As I have not only witnessed in my own life but described in ‘Guilty’, every presidential assassination or attempted presidential assassination was committed by some kind of left-wing loon, communist, anarchist, communitarian, or they had no politics at all.“  Behar attempts to point out that this statement is indefensible and patently false…but Ms. Coulter has never been the one to stop talking so that someone else can point out HOW WRONG SHE IS:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHBR8GYwtiM

COURTESY OF THE PENTAGON AND THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX:

• Apparently, there are at least 220 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Prison…which have been found to have had no ties to terrorism, 9/11, or to pose any other kind of threat to the United States…but we’re still keeping them in prison.  The Supreme Court is preparing to look at this problem…yet another in a list of how Bush’s use of the military prison conflicts with seemingly EVERY aspect of Due Process listed in our Constitution.  A reminder: the base/prison is technically “American soil” and the Constitution does not say that it applies only to “citizens” but rather to all “persons.”  On a related note, a group called New Security Action, with the support of a number of retired generals and other veterans, has released a series of ads pointing out that Congress should step aside and allow Gitmo, which has come to represent nearly everything wrong about the Bush-Cheney way of thinking, to be closed.
• No surprise: Turns out the Pentagon was engaged in a highly organized program to sell the American people on the Iraq War and other Bush security policies.  Big surprise: Well…it wasn’t so much an “ad campaign” or a “public relations program“…as it was a series of psychological experiments being performed on the American citizenry.  Bonus surprise: One of the chief architects of this program?  He still works at the Pentagon in the same position.  Scully…Mulder…where are you when we need you?
• Most people were a bit surprised at the unmitigated gall of the 30 Senate Republicans who voted against Senator Franken’s (D-MN) bill, which would punish government contractors if they tried to keep employees from reporting rape.  Turns out, they’ve got company -- the Defense Department also doesn’t like the bill…because they would hate to have to do without KBR, Blackwater, and other companies that threaten/coerce/bribe victims of rape to be silent.

THE HEALTH CARE CARNIVAL OF DESPAIR:

• Amidst all the talk about a “public option,” few are paying attention to a development almost as big.  Democrats are very close to being able to strip away the anti-trust exemption given long ago to the health insurance companies, which has allowed them to behave as a monopoly.  Want to know why this is so important?  We know how the free market is SUPPOSED to work…but when a company is allowed to monopolize an industry or a region, then there is no competition to force the company to have fair pricing and offer good service…which leads to our situation today where the health insurance companies have high rates, giant profits, deny service, and mistreat customers.  Also…check out this map.  Yes, it’s disgusting: most states’ residents, RIGHT NOW, only have ONE or TWO insurers that they are ALLOWED to choose from.  “Free Market Capitalists“…are you listening?
• First it was “fat babies.”  Then it was “thin babies.”  Then it was “spousal abuse.”  What new excuse for denying coverage did we find out about now?  Yup…insurance companies, almost all of them, will not allow you to purchase a policy with them if you have been treated for RAPE.  To them…it’s just another “pre-existing condition.“
• The push for the public option is in full swing, and polls show it is working.  More of the public supports it each day, the House is within about EIGHT votes of being able to pass it, and we heard the surprising news today that the Senate may be within TWO votes.  Seriously: TWO VOTES.  Here’s a new ad, featuring Heather Graham, explaining why the option is necessary:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvaJYYeXf70

• Interesting fact courtesy of Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY): 55 of the Republicans opposing the public option because it’s “government-run” or “socialism“…they’re currently ON MEDICARE.  Weiner says, “Even in a town known for hypocrisy, this list of 55 Members of Congress deserve some sort of prize. They apparently think the public option is ok for them, but not anyone else.“  Yes, indeed.

GAY RIGHTS…OR THE LACK THEREOF:

• Wow:  It’s rare that someone actually ADMITS that their argument against gay rights and/or gay marriage is hollow and baseless.  Ross Douthat, conservative columnist for the New York Times, was asked while sitting on a panel for “young, bright, neo-cons” what he thought about gay marriage.  His response:  “I am someone opposed to gay marriage who is deeply uncomfortable arguing the issue in public.“  He explained that his reason for feeling “uncomfortable” discussing the subject, was because his argument against it is purely religious, and that it therefore represents “a losing argument.“  He even went so far as to recognize that because he is embarrassed that he has no real, factual objection to gay marriage…and because he is embarrassed to say what his objection really is…perhaps that means he needs to change his position and support gay marriage.  Wow.  Again…wow.
• Related to the previous item, a mailing sent out in Maine is attempting to persuade residents of the state to vote “Yes” in the upcoming ballot item to prohibit gay marriage.  The reasons that it proposes? I happen to have FiveThirtyEight.com’s summations of the reasons…first, the mailing claims that the new law permitting gay marriage “won’t make gay marriage equal to straight marriage. Instead, it will create a new kind of marriage in which gay people and straight people are equal.“  Well, besides not making much sense…that’s certainly not going to “stir up” too many people.  The second reason it offers: “…we may not have proven any connection between gay marriage and public education, our opponents haven’t disproven the connection, and it’s their fault that the subject came up.“  Impressive…that doesn’t really say anything, does it.  I mean, it sounds like it’s saying something…but then it just…doesn’t.  And third, the mailing offers that, “if gay marriage is upheld, then marriage will exist solely to make people happy.“  Well, it’s hard to see how that’s true…would gay people marrying suddenly make heterosexual marriages “meaningless” and about nothing more than “happiness?”  And hell, I know some people who will tell you that marriage has nothing to do with happiness at all…I’m sure they were just kidding…
• Meet Philip Spooner: Want to hear a86-year-old man…lifelong Republican…and WWII veteran who fought on D-Day…defend gay marriage with all his heart?  Yeah, me too:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrEbJBFWIPk

• Despite the calls from Republicans that protecting gay Americans was the equivalent of protecting practitioners of  pedophilia, bestiality, and necrophilia…the new Hate Crimes Bill has passed.

MISCELLANY:

• The Nation, a well-known progressive magazine, is publishing a “companion piece” to Sarah Palin’s new book, “Going Rogue.”  It’s titled “Going Rouge” and features an almost identical cover, to match the almost identical title.  Some conservatives have complained that this might lead to some people purchasing The Nation’s book by mistake.  Perhaps they’re right…seeing as both books will likely be placed next to each other on a shelve in the “Humor” section…and due to the fact that many of the people seeking Palin’s book might not know how “rogue” is properly spelled.

That about wraps it up for this week in Reality Liberation.  Have a wonderful weekend, and we’ll see you on Monday…