It was almost exactly 23 years ago that Ronaldus Magnus signed the Simpson-Mazzoli Act granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.

Consider this an open thread.

Matt Yglesias claims this isn’t a parody:

I love the voice-over guy. Almost NFL Film quality.

John and I were just discussing Chuck Todd’s unbelievably idiotic tweet defending McCain’s latest primary-induced flip-flop. Todd’s an idiot, but not as dumb as Howie Kurtz—was John’s take on it. Mine is that neither Todd nor Kurtz is dumb in the usual sense. To stay in the good graces of elite media is simple—just keep saying everything is good news for conservatives, that we are a center-right nation, that John McCain is a principled maverick and so on. Criticize the Iraq war and you get shit-canned—ask Ashleigh Banfield or Phil Donahue. Any reporter interested in having a cushy, high-paying gig for the rest of his or her life would be foolish not to keep repeating the Village-approved talking points.

It really is that simple.

I realize that, per Forrest Gump, one could argue that stupid is as stupid does. And obviously, saying things that aren’t true, making incorrect predictions, etc. is in some sense stupid. So I see that point.

Here’s how I look at it: once a barnacle finds a good rock to attach itself to, the barnacle eats its brain, because it doesn’t need the brain anymore. The barnacle would be stupid not to eat its own brain. The same applies to Chuck Todd, Ben Smith, Mike Allen, Howie Kurtz, etc.

Well, it looks like Andy Drama’s latest bout of Trig truth-squading has come to naught: “There is no proof here of anything.” I guess I was hoping for a denouement resembling a scene from “Chinatown“, or at least from a very special episode of “Little House On the Prairie”. Now, it looks like the best we’ll see is some kind of half-baked second shooter theory.

I don’t think this kind of focus on Sarah Palin’s personal life is healthy or productive. It reminds me too much of the Clinton-Monica Lewinsky thing, pointless gossip about something that has no affect on anyone beyond the people direclty involved.

But I don’t agree that the current media fixation with Palin is bad all in all. Remember that Palin was a major party’s vice-presidential nominee. And that before she embarrassed herself in interviews, Palin polled pretty well. And that the top of her ticket was an elderly man who had a reasonable chance of dying in office. The fact that someone who seems dumber and more vindictive than George W. Bush was close to becoming president should frighten us all. To the extent that the current focus on Palin reminds people of that, it’s a good thing.

Ambinder’s never going to top “iatropic excitement”, but he gives it a try here. (Via lots of other bloggers.)

For those who don’t want to read the link, I’ll give a shorter: Sarah Palin can’t win a national election now but she will be able to if she reads a few books over the next couple years.

This is only the first time in my nearly 11-month history at Balloon Juice that I have gone silent. The reason that I have gone silent is that I have been pondering the following….

Imagine there was only one person in the world who knew for certain the details of Sarah Palin’s fifth pregnancy. And suppose that you had that person in custody. Would you torture that person to find out the details?

It’s an axiom of American politics that everything that happens is good news for conservatives. Therefore, since the Palin book tour is happening, the Palin book tour is good news for conservatives.

And yet, aside from the Weekly Standard whackjobs, I haven’t hear anyone say that Palinpalooza is good news for conservatives. Not Halperin. Not Ambinder. Not the Politico. And the Weekly Standard’s line is more just “she pisses liberals off, and that is good” than any kind of argument that she represents good news for conservatives.

Can anyone think of any argument that prolonged exposure to Sarah Palin is good for conservativism? I can’t think of any. There’s got to be some, given that, it is in fact good news for conservatives since it is happening.

Update. I have to admit, Rich Lowry has come up with the most convincing argument I’ve heard yet that Republicans can use her to keep the teabaggers from forming a third party. It’s still not that convincing because I don’t believe the teabaggers will from a real third party (though they may run challenges in states with third-party infrastructure).

Her supporters identify with her populist, unaffected vibe and tend to be disaffected with politics as usual — they’re Palin Perotistas. A drastic image makeover would only drive them away.

Republicans need these voters more than ever given the roiling grassroots revolt against Obama’s governance. Without them, they can’t get a majority; they’d be doomed if they were ever to slide into a splinter party. If Palin is their voice and channels their energy productively, she’s part of the Republican answer to Obama, no matter what presidential politics ultimately holds for her. There’s an upside to rogue.

I realize that full-throttle wankery is not to everyone’s tastes. But if you like the stuff, do yourself a favor and read Lee Siegel’s “Obama’s Dangerous Obsession” piece. The idea is that Obama’s remarks at Fort Hood betray a dangerous infatuation with Lincoln and that, although everyone loves Lincoln, the guy presided over a bloody civil war, so we might also expect presidents who like Lincoln to want to preside over bloody wars. It’s more complicated than that and, honestly, I’m not sure that it makes any kind of logical sense. But he really explores the studio space. It’s a little hard to believe that it’s not parody.

Obviously, we can’t hold Congressmen to the same high standards as late night comedians:

On the House floor last night, Media Matters points out, Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) made his case against holding trials for 9/11 suspects in New York City, directing a question to Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“I saw the mayor of New York said today, ‘We’re tough. We can do it.’ Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it’s your daughter that’s kidnapped at school by a terrorist?” Shadegg said.

I’m kind of surprised they haven’t used the “if it was your child strapped to that ticking bomb” argument in favor of torture more, to be honest with you.

I agree with Atrios that the “great failure of the Right since their awesome adventure in Iraq has been to create a new Hitler for us to fear and fight”. I don’t think that Chavez or Kim Jong-Il cuts it. And I think the Hitler-within strategy they’re trying with Obama genuinely does alienate those moderate voters Cokie and Broder are always talking about.

The logical candidate for the next Hitler is China. While the right has yet to settle on a single Chinese leader as Hitleresque, that shouldn’t be a problem. There must be some with Maoist ties and, in the Beckian calculus, that pretty much makes them Hitler.

Yesterday, two prominent neocons, Bobo and Niall Ferguson, both started in on this (I’m positive they coordinated these things). Ferguson warned Americans about the dangers of Chinese aircraft carriers. Bobo explained that the reason Americans feel shitty right now isn’t that they don’t have jobs and health insurance, it’s that we’re jealous of China; the solution to this, interestingly enough, is to move to a Chinese-style government-directed economy.

Now, I don’t think an actual war, or even a Cold War, with China is in the cards. But I think conservatives could say things like “if China gets to Mars before we do, we lose” or “if we don’t build more aircraft carriers, then there will be an aircraft carrier gap and then what” or “if we don’t let Phil Gramm have control of the economy, we can’t compete”. And, of course, Obama can be accused of dithering about China, lacking a comprehensive Chinese policy, and so on.

I’m not sure this will work, but they’ve got to give it a try.

Update. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out how awful the first two paragraphs of Bobo’s piece are, not just because they summarize all of American history in four sentences, but because of the way the opening resembles an unholy marriage of Neil Young’s “Helpless” and the last chapter of The Great Gatsby.

Update update. This is interesting, from commenter comrade scott’s agenda of rage:

Hi, former intelligence officer here responsible for, among other things, Chinese naval stuff, back when I was at the Pentagon.

Yes, a lot has changed in the last 15 years in China’s military, new weapons systems, better production of higher tech things, etc.

One thing hasn’t changed: the answer to the strategic question regarding a Chinese aircraft carrier. That answer? They don’t need any. Sure, they might build 1-2 just to show the world they can do it but that’s it.

Jon Gruden drives me nuts. You wanna talk about a guy who yells too much? You wanna talk about a guy who thinks he’s being edgy when he says the obvious? You wanna talk about a guy who can flat annoy me?

Then again, the only football announcer I ever liked was Pat Summerall.

Update. Who is more annoying, the long-haired UPS white board guy or the faux-Native American IBM “smarter grid” guy?

John’s gone Galt for the evening and I’m feeling too down for politics, for various reasons I won’t go into. Okay, I will. I couldn’t sleep last night after the Colts-Patriots game.

So this is going to be a sad attempt at John-type post. I’ve been making steel-cut oatmeal in my slow-cooker and, while it’s delicious, it’s kind of a pain. Even with a four-to-one water-to-oats ratio, it runs out of water and starts sticking to the sides. Should I use cooking spray? Just add a ton more water? Keep it on “warm” the whole time instead of having it “cook” at all?

Any particular recipes people like for this? I like the idea of adding dried fruit.

Even the liberal Mark Shields misses George W. Bush.

SHIELDS: We have a president of real intellectual horse power who is cool, detached and analytical and if anything you can watch the emotional side of him emerge in this whole process. … There’s an emotional aspect, the comforter in chief as well as the commander in chief. Both roles. And I think it makes me nostalgic for those days when we had a manly man in the White House who could say, “Let’s kick some tail and ask questions afterwards” you know? That’s what we really need instead of any reflection.

(via)

Update. I watched it again and I’m pretty sure he’s being sarcastic. If I’d known he was from Weymouth, I would have guessed this right off.

It’s easy to romanticize the past, of course. But I distinctly remember that 20 years ago, things like sudden increases in the number of people going hungry were considered important issues. Nowadays to even muse about whether this is something we can do something about as a society marks you as an unserious hippie. Even as we speak, Slate/Levitt/TNR are probably writing something along the lines of “you think that having a high percentage of the population without access to food is bad, but once you get past the conventional wisdom of our hippie overlords, you’ll see that blah blah blah.” David Brooks is probably on the Snooze Hour telling E. J. Dionne that the only solution is food vouchers and, anyway, in Red America, the hungry can always visit the Applebee’s Salad Bar for free. Robert Samuelson and Fred Hiatt are cooking up some bogus figures to tell us that there is no way that we, as a society, can do anything about this. And, anyway, Michael Moore is fat, so how can anyone really be hungry?

What the hell happened? How did all the conservative talking points become so thoroughly internalized in this country?

This sucks:

The number of Americans who lack dependable access to adequate food shot up last year to 49 million, the largest number since the government has been keeping track, according to a government report released Monday that shows particularly steep increases in food scarcity among families with children.

In 2008, the report found, nearly 17 million children—more than one in five across the United States—were living in households in which food at times ran short, up from slightly more than 12 million children the year before. And the number of children who sometimes were outright hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million.

Among people of of all ages, nearly 15 percent last year did not consistently have adequate food, compared with about 11 percent in 2007, the greatest deterioration in access to food during a single year in the history of the report.

I’m going to give more money to local food banks this year than in the past. But only a glibertarian would think that personal charity is the solution to this shameful problem.