I’m sick of Palin, but given the nature of this blog, this probably merits some discussion.

I realize this is self-indulgent, but (from a Q&A with your friend Dana Milbank, whose recent piece on the response to terrorism was actually quite good):

Blue Rock, MT: With all due respect, Mr. Milbank, should anyone really be laughing about terrorism? Did people laugh about Pearl Harbor? Did people laugh about the battle of Stalingrad?

In Muslim cultures, laughter is a sign of weakness. By mocking the man who tried to set off the dirty bomb on that flight, we give comfort to our enemies. What will it take to make people like you understand this? A second Caliphate?

Dana Milbank:

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

I am intrigued by this notion of laughter-as-weakness. Admittedly, if you laugh in a “tee-hee” kind of way, that could be seen as a sign of weakness, but I think a solid guffaw is a show of strength. I believe in power laughter.

[.....]

Palo Cedro, Calif.: If terrorists aim to cause terror, aren’t Dick and Liz Cheney aiding them with their constant fear mongering? I think laughing at al Qaeda makes much more tactical sense.

Dana Milbank:

Well, I would have agreed with you before that previous questioner said that laughter is a sign of weakness in the Muslim world. So this puts the Cheneys’ strategy in a new light: Perhaps they are issuing these statements in hopes of making the Qaeda leadership laugh. This, in turn, would cause the Qaeda leadership to be perceived as weak in the Muslim world, thus undermining their effectiveness. It is a brilliant strategy, really.

(I’m Blue Rock but not Palo Cedro.)

TNC:

Claiming that Harry Reid’s comments are the same, is like claiming that referring to Jews as “Hebrews” is the same as endorsing Nazism. Whereas a reputable portion of black people still use the term Negro without a hint of irony, no black person thinks the guy yelling “Segregation Forever!” would have cured us of “all these problems.”

Leaving aside political cynicism, this entire affair proves that the GOP is not simply still infected with the vestiges of white supremacy and racism, but is neither aware of the infection, nor understands the disease. Listening to Liz Cheney explain why Harry Reid’s comments were racist, was like listening to me give lessons on the finer points of the comma splice. This a party, rightly or wrongly, regarded by significant portions of the country as a haven for racists. They aren’t simply having a hard time re-branding, they don’t actually understand how and why they got the tag.

To listen to the GOP and the right-wing bloggers, you would think this guy could have been elected President in 2008, the nation is so color-blind:

The whole thing is just silly, and I honestly wonder what Republicans think they are accomplishing. The African-American community is able to tell the difference between someone using a dated term and someone pining for the days of segregation, so they will not be convinced that the GOP is all of a sudden the place for them. The only thing this is doing is building another wing in the cocoon, further insulating the GOP from the rest of the country. The only people they are going to convince that the Democrats are the “real racists” are themselves.

This is kind of a big deal:

A group of police officers, judges and prosecutors who fought in the failed “war on drugs” is cheering this Tuesday’s upcoming marijuana legalization votes in the California Assembly’s Public Safety and Health committees as a sign of increasing public frustration with the harms caused by prohibition and the widespread desire for a new approach.

Judge Jim Gray, who retired last year from the California Superior Court in Orange County and is a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) said, “The mere fact that there will be votes in the Assembly to regulate and control the sale and distribution of marijuana would have been unthinkable even one year ago. And if the bill doesn’t pass this year, it will soon. Or, the bill will be irrelevant because the voters will have passed the measure to regulate and tax marijuana that will be on the ballot this November.”

Apparently they vote tomorrow.

TalkingPointsMemo on the undiebomber’s “one way ticket”:

In a remarkable example of how bad information can travel far and wide, dozens of media outlets around the world have said Umar Abdulmutallab was traveling on a one-way ticket to Detroit when he allegedly tried to blow up Flight 253, even though that has never been substantiated and appears to be flat wrong.

Abdulmutallab’s “one-way ticket” has been cited in recent days by the AP, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, even though the Nigerian government said Dec. 28 that Abdulmutallab had a round-trip ticket, and provided details to back it up.

[.....]

It has been referenced repeatedly by commentators attacking the U.S. government for missing red flags about Abdulmutallab. See for example this Michael Gerson column in the Jan. 6 Post (“Airline attack shows Obama’s listless approach to terrorism”) and this Michael Mukasey Wall Street Journal effort (“The president’s job is not detecting bombs at the airport but neutralizing terrorists before they get there.”)

Krugman on Yurp:

Europe has its economic troubles; who doesn’t? But the story you hear all the time — of a stagnant economy in which high taxes and generous social benefits have undermined incentives, stalling growth and innovation — bears little resemblance to the surprisingly positive facts. The real lesson from Europe is actually the opposite of what conservatives claim: Europe is an economic success, and that success shows that social democracy works.

[....]

Since 1980, per capita real G.D.P. — which is what matters for living standards — has risen at about the same rate in America and in the E.U. 15: 1.95 percent a year here; 1.83 percent there.

Why do so many apocryphal stories get so much traction, even within the so-called respectable media? I can’t help but think this has something to do with it:

Bob Steele, a journalism ethics scholar at the Poynter Institute, said that one of the pitfalls in this type of book is that “both accuracy and fairness can be in jeopardy when anonymous sources are overused and misused.” Also, those who supplied such insider information, Steele noted, “cannot be held easily accountable.

But all press, they say is good press. So regardless of whether members of the chattering class are pro, con, or have no fixed opinion, HarperCollins, the book’s publisher, is counting on a bestseller, or it wouldn’t have reportedly signed the authors to a six-figure contract. HBO executives will also follow the buzz closely, having already optioned the book before publication.

It’s Mark Halperin’s world, we’re just living in it.

Might as well document our predictions.

Just saw Halperin and Heilman on Morning Joe discussing their gossip column. One guess what subject took up the most time on the segment.

If you didn’t say the Clenis, you are wrong.

Azaria Jagger at Gawker brings us news of the Amazing:

There are few international phenomena more fascinating to the American eye than foreign cultures’ interpretations of us. Obama tends to be the McDonald’s franchise of American presidents, positively interpreted to fit local tastes and aspirations. Vegetarian Big Mac : India :: Obama-themed English lessons : Japan.

And now, Germany does Obama, with jazz fingers…

My personal favorite is the gospel ladies’ duet at 1:55: I am so blessed/And highly favored/I’ll do my best/Girl, don’t you waver!

Best of all, Der Spiegel International Online assures us that “After Frankfurt, it is set to tour Germany and its organizers are currently in talks about a future US tour.”

I liked Michael Calderone’s piece on the Sabbath gasbags, especially this:

The shows are particularly ripe targets for critics who see them as the epitome of insider Washington and conventional wisdom. James Wolcott, writing in Vanity Fair last year, for example, described watching the show that Stephanopoulos recently vacated to be “like receiving an engraved invitation to apoplexy.”

“With occasional exceptions, the Sunday shows come across as geriatric and insular, having long been eclipsed and upstaged by Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, Fox News, MSNBC and much of the Web,” New York Times columnist Frank Rich, a frequent critic, said in an e-mail to POLITICO.

I always wonder if the reason that these shows have such old guests (McCain, Broder) is that they have such old audiences. But, honestly, I’m pretty sure my 89 year-old grandmother is sick of Cokie Roberts and David Broder by now. So that can’t be the whole explanation.

Is everyone else as sick of hearing about the new Halperin book (annoying titled “Game Change”) as I am? I don’t care what Harry Reid said about “Negro dialects”, what John Edwards’ mistress is like, whether Cindy McCain had an affair or not, and what the latest from the Schmidt-O’Palin smackdown is.

I should probably just be grateful that Tiger Woods doesn’t make an appearance in the book (he doesn’t, right?), but the whole thing depresses me, it all feels like some recounting of sordid deeds among the ruling class in some long-dead civilization.

Two Hour Chuck tonight!

Glad NBC is canning Leno- bet they could use a drama like Southland right about now.

This is nauseating, even by her standards:

He’s so sure of himself and his actions that he fails to see that he misses the moment to be president — to be the strong father who protects the home from invaders, who reassures and instructs the public at traumatic moments.

I think I just threw up in my mouth.

Go for it. I absolutely hate rooting for the Ravens, but they are up against Hitler Stalin Darth Vader Michael Moore Tom Brady and the Patriots.

This is kind of nuts (from TPM):

Special elections are notoriously hard to poll because it’s hard to figure out just who is going to show up to vote. (That’s the reference to the ‘screen’—how the pollster figures out who is a likely voter.) But this is a helluva a spread. Public Policy Polling last night released it’s survey of the special election to fill the seat of Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts. And they have Republican Scott Brown actually one point ahead of Democrat Martha Coakley. That’s essentially a toss up. But still. The thought that the GOP might take Kennedy’s seat—is a huge deal not only in symbolic terms but also in very real practical ones: it might well put an end to Health Care Reform for good.

But here’s the thing, the Boston Globe also has a poll out this morning. And they have Coakley up by 15 points.

So what explains this crazy spread? One thing to note is that the PPP poll is a bit more recent, though seemingly not enough to explain the huge spread. At least not all of it. Another interesting thing about the two polls is that they’re not that far off on Coakley’s number: PPP has her at 47% and the Globe has her at 53%. The difference is in Brown’s number—48% vs. 36%. As I said, I think the whole story here is that screen the two pollsters are using to see who’s is going to vote.

Tom Schaller has more.

If Coakley loses, health care reform may be gone.

This scares the living daylights out of me.

Update. This is just weird:

Brown, a guest at a King Philip Regional High School assembly to discuss legislative initiatives, opened by reading obscenity-laced facebook.com Web site comments directed against him for his anti-gay marriage stance and, by association, against his family.

He said some of the written comments attributed to KP students, whom he named aloud at the assembly, were directed at his daughter.

The lawmaker held captive to his outrage many KP students who were innocent of the name-calling and foul language, and did so in a manner unbecoming to his roles as caring parent and respected lawmaker. Who among us would not be prepared to do battle against anyone disparaging and dishonoring our loved ones?

Enjoy. I’ll be on the road.

Make your own choices about Dances with Space Smurfs, but take my word on this: You should go see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, on the big screen, as soon as possible.

If Heath Ledger had to leave us, as the Irish lament goes, before he could comb grey hair, it’s a very fine thing that he left us this as his final appearance—and a tribute to the gifts and the hearts of Depp, Law, and Farrell that the transitions within the film are so seamless. Christopher Plummer is in fine form, Lily Cole is both scrumptious and heartbreakingly vulnerable, Vern Troyer gets to act, Tom Waits gets to play the sideshow freak of his twisted dreams, and Andrew Garfield has a great future ahead of him.

As the critics have said, Terry Gilliam gets full scope for all his marvelous tricks in this movie. (I only wish it could have been done in IMAX 3-D!) Monty Python fans, Terry Pratchett fans, those who loved Time Bandits when they were young and those who loved Twelve Monkeys when they were not so young, all need to see this movie. It is simultaneously packed with surprises, and so meticulously engineered that you recognise every twist as having been signposted along the way. I’m looking forward to seeing it again while it’s in the theatres, and I can hardly wait for the DVD version (hopefully with a full Director’s Commentary track).

Be sure to sit through the end credits, and remember that the Trickster always tells us one true thing:

“There is no black magic, only cheap tricks.”