Johnny hit-and-run Palin

Everybody’s talking about McCain’s back-handed swipe at Palin in Vanity Fair today:

We have, I’m happy to say, a lot of choices out there: Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty, Huntsman, Romney, Charlie Crist—there’s a lot of governors out there who are young and dynamic.” McCain went on, “There’s a lot of good people out there, and I’ve left out somebody’s name and I’m going to hear about it.”

I’m sure Sully will have fun with this part of the Vanity Fair piece (EDIT: I see he already has):

More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly. When Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig’s condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God’s, and signed it “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”

I almost find the back-and-forth between Steve Schmidt and Bill Kristol even more interesting. The vitriol and back-biting between the Schmidt/Wallace faction of the campaign and the Kristol/Scheunemann faction is quite intense.

It seems worth asking: what kind of idiot would let Bill Kristol or his associates have any power over a campaign? Other than Dan Quayle, of course.

▲

Open Thread

I’m tired. Lily and I went 5-6 miles this morning, then I worked all day, came home, had a quick dinner, and just walked another 6-7 miles. I didn’t mean to, but I kinda forgot what I was doing while walking and was thinking and lost track of where we were, and when I realized how far we had gone, I knew the walk back was going to be fun. Was out there from about 5:15 until just a minute or two ago, and on the way back, I have to admit all I could do was pull a Nooners and just keep a walkin’.

At any rate, here is an open thread for you with some surrogate pets. Not Tunch:

I can’t describe what it is about this picture, but it is my favorite one in a long time. The expression on their faces is priceless. I’m getting a Matthau/Lemmon vibe or something:

And this picture came in recently, but I bumped it ahead because this dog has the must ridiculously long tongue I have ever seen.

It’s really almost obscene.

At any rate, here be yer thread. Behave.

▲

The Whistle Done Broke From Overuse

They aren’t even bothering with dog whistles anymore:

The “evil eye” has very specific connotations in the Muslim world. Hell, it was one of the very few things I was actually taught in the Army before Operation Positive Force.

(via the comments)

▲

Rush Wins

First, a definition:

Hoekstroika

hohk⋅stroi⋅ka

–noun

Wingnut. A ridiculous statement that greatly minimizes the suffering of one group of people while wildly escalating the suffering of another group of people, when no such comparison exists. Usually for partisan political point scoring.

Origin: a “twitter” from Rep. Peter Hoekstra comparing the violent repression of peaceful demonstrators in Iran with Republicans in congress:

Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House. 8:56 AM Jun 17th from TwitterBerry

Our first verifiable Hoekstroika:

“Look at this from Iran’s press run television, state run media in Iran. Ahmadinejad gains votes in recount, just like in our country. It happened just like in our country. Norm Coleman wins in Minnesota in a recount, so they keep having recounts, and Al Franken wins, so they have the recount in Iran and shazam Ahmadinejad gained votes.” – Rush Limbaugh, 30 June 2009

That is a keeper.

▲

Pretty Much

What BTD said.

It’s really pretty sad, actually.

Also, that would be Mr. Dumbass to you, Blue Texan.

▲

It’s All Over But the Crying

I came home, turned on the idiot box, and Norm Coleman is conceding. Apparently you only have to win 5-6 times in Minnesota, but good on Norm for doing the right thing after pursuing all his legal rights in the election.

That would be Senator Al Franken to you, btw. How long before Ben Nelson becomes a Republican?

*** Update ***

The DOW was down 80 points today. Who will be the first wingnut to blame today and any future drops on “market fears about ‘Democrat’ control of the Senate?”

I’m gonna go with someone from the American Thinker.

▲

Shailagh, Shailagh, don’t dream it’s over

It looks like there won’t be a revote in Minnesota—the Minnesota Supreme Court just ruled in favor of Franken according to CNN and WaPo.

Updates as they come in….

Update. Here’s a full report on the decision from TPM. Pawlenty is a on record saying he won’t delay if the court rules in favor of Franken. We’ll see if he sticks to that.

Update update. Just to be clear:

Justices said Franken is entitled to the election certificate he needs to assume office.

▲

Happy Trails

You all want to discuss Sanford, as evidenced by the comments. Go ahead.

▲

Great wingnut headlines

Stuart Taylor ups the ante on the “nine-zip” meme with his headline:

Justices Reject Sotomayor Position 9-0—But Bigger Battles Loom

To give you an idea of how crazy this “nine-zip” stuff is, George Will, of all people, describes the decision as depressingly narrow.

A few questions about Stuart Taylor:

(1) Why does the National Journal—a publication I have great respect for in general—publish his crap?

(2) Why is his blog called “The Ninth Justice”? Don’t we already have nine justices? Shouldn’t it be called “The Tenth Justice”?

▲

FEC RIP

Pete Martin and Zachary Roth have an excellent piece on how Republican nominees have made the Federal Election Committee disappear. It’s a great example of the kind of story that is too politically loaded for the mainstream media:

FEC watchers say the commission’s three Republicans—Donald McGahn, Matthew Petersen, and Caroline Hunter, each nominated by President Bush—are acting out of philosophical opposition to the very idea of regulating campaign money. “It’s the Republican caucus that actually believes there shouldn’t be campaign-finance regulation,” said Holman. “It is ideological. They are ideologically opposed to the purpose of the Federal Election Commission.”

Whether Obama will do anything about it remains to be seen:

Most experts believe that the White House supports stronger campaign-finance laws as a goal, but, with a host of other issues on its plate, is reluctant to pick a fight with the GOP Senate leader. “They’re picking their priorities, and they don’t want to take on Mitch McConnell right now,” said Hasen. “I consider that unfortunate.”

Holman agreed. McGahn’s term, abridged by the Spakovsky holdup, has now expired as well, and Holman suggested that Obama could play a more active role in nominating McGahn’s replacement—as the president would be within his rights to do—rather than leaving it to McConnell. “The president has to decide,” said Holman. “He’s either going to go with Mitch McConnell’s appointee and render the FEC functionless, or he’s going to break tradition and bring the FEC back to life.”

The cynic in me fears that the Obama administration feels that weak campaign finance law enforcement are to its advantage and that they will do nothing about this.

▲

My Dog Has Fleas

Over the last few weeks, I’ve read several books on raising a dog, watched a few videos, and listened to a whole lot of advice. What I have learned in just a short time is that most of what it takes to make a dog happy and loyal can be broken down to things that are pretty intuitive, and you don’t need to read the Monks of New Skete to figure it out:

1.) Love your dog.
2.) Set a food and sleep schedule and stick to it, and maintain consistent behaviors around your dog.
3.) Walk your dog. Lots.

If you do those three main things, things generally work out ok (at least they have for me)- the rest is nipping around the borders. That isn’t to say it is all useless, just I think the three things I listed above are the big ones, and will be apparent to most people.

Where the advice is really helpful is when it addresses the non-intuitive things. Things like- a harness is probably better for a small dog, use a 6’ lead instead of one of those annoying retracting ones, which kinds of dog food are actually poison and what kinds are good, etc. Things that unless you have direct experience with a dog, you would never know.

Here is one of those things I know nothing about- fleas. Lily apparently has fleas, and I don’t know how to get rid of them. I know there is stuff you can drop between the shoulder blades, one friend swears by something called Frontline, my mother and father swear by stuff called “Natural Chemistry,” and I’ve had a whole bunch of stuff thrown at me and I don’t know how to evaluate, but I do want to get this flea thing under control before the house is infested an Tunch is scratching himself.

So what do I do? Should I get a flea collar? What shampoo should I get, or should I? And so forth.

▲

Most of America Still Disagrees with President McCain

Via Steve Benen, this CNN poll:

A new national poll suggests that that nearly three out of four Americans don’t want the U.S. directly intervene in the election crisis in Iran even though most Americans are upset by how the Iranian government has dealt with protests over controversial election results.

More than eight in ten questioned in the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, released Monday, think the election results released by the Iranian government were a fraud, with just one in ten believing the results were accurate. But only three in ten respondents say they are personally outraged by the results, with another 55 percent upset by not outraged.

Most Americans approve of how President Obama’s handled the situation. And 74 percent think the U.S. government should not directly intervene in the post-election crisis, with one out of four feeling that Washington should openly support the demonstrators who are protesting the election results.

Consistently, some the sanest commentary on Iran, at least from my perspective, came from Daniel Larison. With that in mind, here is Larison explaining why President Obama dropped the ball on the Honduras.

▲

Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

Keeping it real on Sotomayor:

The Supreme Court’s rejection of a decision against white firefighters endorsed by Judge Sonia Sotomayor gives Republicans a renewed chance to attack her speeches and writings but is not expected to imperil her confirmation to the high court, political and legal sources said yesterday.

I guess the summer silly season is as good a time as any for this.

▲

There Will Be Blood

From the NY Times:

After a year in preparation, a much-heralded auction of licenses to develop Iraq’s huge oil reserves began Tuesday but seemed to run into difficulties when oil and gas companies demanded far more remuneration than the authorities were ready to pay.

Symbolically, the sale, broadcast on television, coincided with the formal handover by American forces of security arrangements in urban areas to Iraqi forces — an economic counterpoint to the striving for political military independence underpinning the Iraqi takeover of patrolling Iraq’s restive cities.

I guess the return on our trillion dollar investment is China securing the oil rights.

▲

And Now I Understand the Value of Twitter

No link, no explanation, no discussion, no comments, no backstory. Just the cold, hard facts.

I’ve so far avoided twittering, but I now see the value in it.

▲