Cleaning out the Google Reader backlog, and came across this. Relive our country's proudest moment!

Charles Gibson: No, no. Mr. Kenney. I didn't ask for the spelling. I asked if you agree with the Bush Doctrine?

John Kenney: Do I agree with what part of it, exactly? I assume, if it is a doctrine, as you say it is, that it has multiple -- what's the word I'm looking for? -- grommets.

C.G.: I don't think that's the word.

J.K.: No? How about parts?

C.G.: Possibly. Let me ask you this. Do you know what it is, sir?

J.K.: Me? Totally. Absolutely, Charlie. No, I was just thinking about your, um, your little microphone. On your tie there. I thought it was an ant.

So you know the whole "Sarah Palin didn't know Africa was a continent" thing? Turns out that was just completely made up. By this guy (albeit in one of his other characters):



And reported as news. Too awesome.

(So sayeth the New York Times.)

Update: I missed this somewhat crucial paragraph:

The pranksters behind Eisenstadt acknowledge that he was not, through them, the anonymous source of the Palin leak. He just claimed falsely that he was the leaker--and they say they have no reason to cast doubt on the original story. For its part, Fox News Channel continues to stand behind its story.

So Carl Cameron's original source is still out there. But as much as I continue to think it would be hilarious if this were actually true, Josh Marshall makes a valid point:

I quite agree from a partisan perspective. The more Palin the better. But I think we also need to think about this from the broader perspective of national dignity. And simple human decency. You're at a party and someone's drinking too much and starting to do embarrassing things. Even if you don't like them, and even if the unlovely part of you thinks it's kind of funny, still someone should step in. On the other hand, if Rush and Sean, are up for it, maybe we just tap another keg?

Letterman's Palin debate recap



(Via Wonkette.)

"Lowest common denominator" is actually inapt, because none of these fucking people has any idea what a "denominator" is.

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

Courtesy of a site called ph33r and loathing (a site about which I know nothing whatsoever), the Sarah Palin debate flow chart:

Semi-live-blogging the vice presidential debate!
Because such is my civic duty

8:47: Gwen Ifill limps onto stage, and the audience cheers like she's an injured football player leaving the field under her own power. Nice, I guess, but a little weird.

8:50: The C-SPAN voiceover woman explains the debate format, and notes that each candidate will get a two-minute closing statement. Completely scripted, completely planned ahead of time. What are the odds Palin screws it up?

8:55: This audience is exceptionally good at practicing being quiet. So is Ifill. (And the C-SPAN voiceover woman, for that matter.)

8:57: God, remember when Dan Quayle's ticket actually won, despite his inability to spell? That's a sobering thought.

9:01: Ifill's a-talkin'! (With an echo, too!)

9:02: No "untoward outbursts," you unruly jerks.

9:03: Palin: "Hey, can I call you 'Joe'?" Oughtn't he to have said no, just to fluster her?

9:04: Less than a minute into his first answer, Biden is explaining Obama's plan for the economy. Well done, "Joe."

9:06: Palin's first answer contained no gaffes. This makes me sad.

9:08: The "fundamental" of our economy. Palin's first goof, and it was an utterly boring one.

9:08: They're a team of mavericks!

9:10: She really is quite good at this, which is depressing.

9:11: Biden's coming off as a little too calm, I think. Say something interesting, Joe!

9:12: Let's all laugh at Joey Danko for being poor!

9:13: "Government's gonna have to learn to be more efficient." Perhaps we can fire the employees of the National Gallery of Art?

9:14: Biden was in the Senate during the whole Keating Five business, right? Maybe that'll get a mention tonight (since Obama's been strangely reticent about it so far).

9:15: "I may not answer the questions in the way either [Biden] or the moderator want to hear." Everyone else heard that, right?

9:16: Remember that scene in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when the Bulgarian veela morphed from beautiful women into scary, mean-faced fire-throwers?

9:17: In the middle class, paying higher taxes is not patriotic.

9:18: And yes, "healthcare being taken over by the Feds" is my worst nightmare.

9:19: "You know how Barack Oba- excuse me, you know how John McCain..." – Nice, Joe.

9:20: Ha, "the ultimate Bridge to Nowhere."

9:22: What the hell was that? "Characterized. Characteris...? Characterized."

9:2: Palin just bragged about how McCain wouldn't say one thing to one group and then turn around and say something else to another group. John McCain. True story.

9:24: Palin's area of expertise is energy.

9:25: Joe's lookin' awfully strong on the windfall profits tax.

9:27: "We have John McCain to thank for bringing people to the table." John McCain. True story.

9:29: We have domestic supplies of energy all over this great land! Damn you, you East-Coast politicians! Why won't you let us tap into them?

9:30: Ha! Biden was all set to respond to something when Ifill rather abruptly moved onto to next topic, and I swear it looked like she'd just shot his dog.

9:31: Palin doesn't want to argue about the causes of climate change. Which is good, because neither do climate scientists.

9:33: "Investing in clean coal technology"? What the hell, Biden? If you're forced to respond to a question about it, fine, but don't bring it up yourself.

9:34: People are so hungry for those miniscule oil reserves to be tapped into!

9:35: Hey-oh! "Nucular," sayeth the energy expert.

9:36: Ifill just cut off Biden for the second time in the last five minutes.

9:38: Sarah Palin would be "tolerant" of adults "choosing their own relationships." [Ahem.] How admirable!

9:39: The little sigh that Biden gave when Ifill brought up the fact that both candidates have children in Iraq was possibly the most real thing I've ever seen from him.

9:40: What's the deal with "eye-rack"? Do you think she really doesn't understand how to pronounce it, or is it more of a folksy, "I'm not gonna learn their terrorist language" kind of thing?

9:44: Palin just all but called Barack Obama a coward.

9:45: "Ih-rack," for the record, doesn't bother me nearly as much as "eye-rack." But why not go all the way and pronounce it correctly?

9:47: "Nucular Eye-ran!" Jesus H. Christ. (And yet she can pronounce Ahmadinejad. Go figure.)

9:48: Henry Kissinger shared with Palin "his passion for diplomacy." I think I read that on the Onion.

9:50: Biden seems to have made a definite decision to refer to John McCain as "John," rather than "Senator McCain." Interesting.

9:51: "John" recently said that he "wouldn't even sit down with the government of Spain." Awesome inflection.

9:52: "Building our embassy in Jerusalem"? What the hell?

9:53: "No one in the United States Senate has been a better friend to Israel than Joe Lieberman Biden," says Joe Lieberman Biden.

9:59: Three weeks in Iraq :: seven years in Afghanistan. That's a nice comparison, and I hope we see more of it.

10:00: Holy crap, she knew the name of your fancy "top general in Afghanistan"! Didn't see that coming, did you, "Joe"? Now, granted, his name is actually McKiernan, and she thinks his name is McClelland. But she's pretty impressed with herself for coming so close!

10:03: Palin "doesn't understand" the concept of changing one's mind. This is hardly surprising.

10:06: John McCain "knows how to win a war." Er... right.

10:07: "How would a Biden administration be different from an Obama administration?" That's a pretty nifty question, Gwen.

10:09: And as smarmy as she is, Palin did a really good job with that one. (Despite the fact that "Wasilla Main Street" is probably an unfathomably depressing place.)

10:10: Ha, Biden spends a lot of time in Home Depot. (In his defense: those big aisles can be confusing.)

10:11: Doggone it!

10:11: Jill Biden's "reward is in heaven"? Is that, like, a threat?

10:12: We need to ramp up how much money those schools are deserving.

10:12: I hate to admit it, but the "extra credit" line was genuinely funny.

10:13: Christ, another funny, right in a row. She's closing awfully strong.

10:17: Wait, did Biden really just say that Article I defines the role of the vice president? [Update: No, I misunderstood his point. Biden got it right.]

10:18: As governor of a "huge state"?

10:20: Biden thinks his Achilles' heel is his "excessive passion"?

10:21: Biden, getting choked up about his son: assuming that was sincere (and I think it was), I'd say that's the second most real thing I've ever seen from him.

10:22: Lieberman, Giuliani, Romney, and Lingle? A) Who the heck is Lingle? And B) who cares what those other three losers think?

10:23: Yeah, Joe! Way to save the "he's not a maverick" attack for the late innings. That was clutch.

10:25: I liked Biden's answer on judicial philosophy, but I'm interested to see if he takes heat for being a bit too in-the-weeds there.

10:27: Jesse Helms: a raging racist, and a terrible person, but he adopted a child with a disability, so you have to feel like a jerk for disliking him.

10:29: Palin hates the "filter" of the mainstream media. Like when Katie Couric asks a question, and then uses CBS's patented Dimmer™ filter to make Palin's answers appear to be semi-literate.

10:32: Nice close from Biden.

10:33: Does Palin just shout all the time? Or did they leave her microphone on? Because you could kind of hear Biden during the Meet-the-Parentses, but she was clear as a bell.

So, if we're starting from Square One, I think Biden won the thing pretty solidly. But we're very much not starting from Square One, and Palin –- after the interview debacles of the last several weeks -– really didn't have to do much beyond not drool on herself. And drool she did not. So I don't really know what to say. Please, American people: see through the embarrassingly low standards.

[Update: the immediate reaction that I've seen (on ABC and MSNBC), even from the right, has been surprisingly pro-Biden. I am reminded of the fact that I worried Obama had lost last week's debate, too -- and look how that one turned out. So let's hope I'm wrong about this one, too.]

The So-Ready-To-Be-President Chronicles, Vol. MMCXII:



Transcripteration:

Couric: What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?
Palin: Mmm. Well, let's see. There's... of course, in the great history of America, there have been rulings that... there's never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and... there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there, so, you know. Going through the history of America, there would be others, but...
Couric: Can you think of any?
Palin: Well, I would think of any again that could best be dealt with on a more local level, maybe I would take issue with, but you know, as a mayor and then as a governor, and even as a vice president, if I am so privileged to serve, we'd be in a position of changing those things, but in supporting the law of the land, as it reads today.

Ah, remember the good ol' days, when Sarah Palin just wanted to know "what it is that the V.P. does"? Well someone apparently explained it to her, and did so in such a way as to make the poor woman think that overruling the Supreme Court is one of the perks of the vice presidency. That wasn't very nice.

It's funny because it's true. (And let's face it: if someone could greenlight Beverly Hills Chihuahua...)



Tell it, Diddy!

(Both links courtesy of my sister.)

Sarah Palin is so ready to be president.



I will transcribe my favorite bit, because it is truly priceless:

Couric: We began, though, with reports that the lobbying firm of Senator McCain's campaign manager received payments as recently as last month from mortgage giant Freddie Mac, even as it was failing. I asked for [Palin's] reaction during our exclusive interview.
Palin: My understanding is Rick Davis... recused himself from the dealings in that firm, I don't know how long ago, a year or two ago, and that he's not benefiting from that, and you know, I would hope that that's the case.
Couric: But he still has a stake in the company, so isn't that a conflict of interest?
Palin: [4-second pause] Again, my understanding is that... he... he recused himself from the dealings with Freddie and Fannie, any lobbying efforts on his part there, and I would hope that that's the case, because as John McCain has been saying, and as I've been in a... on a much more local level, been also rallying against, is the undue influence of lobbyists in public policy decisions being made. [Sic, sic, a thousand times sic.]

Got that, Katie? Now move on. (CBS obviously cut the section in which Palin explained that she is also very concerned about maps and the Iraq.)

God, I miss The West Wing.

OBAMA They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I’m — wait for it — the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?

BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

Awesome. Read the rest. You will enjoy it. There are times when condescension is called for, people!

Heck of a job, Franci.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, [Palin] appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Yikes.

Palin says her time as mayor taught her how to be a leader and grounded her in the real needs of voters, and her tenure revealed some of the qualities she would later display as governor: a striving ambition, a willingness to cut loose those perceived as disloyal and a populist brand of social and pro-growth conservatism.

But a visit to this former mining supply post 40 miles north of Anchorage shows the extent to which Palin's mayoralty was also defined by what it did not include. The universe of the mayor of Wasilla is sharply circumscribed even by the standards of small towns, which limited Palin's exposure to issues such as health care, social services, the environment and education. ...

Palin limited her duties further by hiring a deputy administrator to handle much of the town's day-to-day management. Her top achievement as mayor was the construction of an ice rink, a project that landed in the courts and cost the city more than expected.

I think the sentence "her top achievement as mayor was the construction of an ice rink, a project that landed in the courts and cost the city more than expected" is about as close as the Washington Post can come to "she sucks."

Also:

Although the town had a $4 million surplus, Palin cut the museum budget by $32,000, and the three older women who worked there quit instead of deciding which would have to go. But Palin dipped into the budget to create the deputy administrator slot, which some council members complained was at odds with her small-government stance. She told city officials not to talk to reporters.

Charming.

"Perhaps" Sarah Palin will have to learn a bit more about NATO before declaring [preventive*] war on Russia:

There's a bit more on Georgia and Ukraine and NATO. What Obama and Biden favor is for NATO to offer these two countries accession to the "Membership Action Plan" (or MAP), a process set up in the late 1990s to help aspirant countries prepare for possible membership in the Alliance. MAP isn't a promise of membership, and the last members to join NATO were in MAP for nearly a decade. It would take at least as long for Ukraine and Georgia to become members of NATO, not least since one of the criterion for membership is that there are no territorial disputes involving the country that is requesting membership... A lot of mumbo jumbo on NATO accession procedures, this. But here's the kicker: What Palin said is that Ukraine and Georgia should become NATO members now. Not even Bush is arguing that. (He, too, favors MAP.) McCain was with Bush on this until recently and, I assume, if asked still is. Palin didn't know the distinction, and is suggesting that these countries get into NATO tomorrow. She may not realize that this is a decision that NATO members need to make collectively, all 27 of them, which won't happen, given that MAP was denied the countries just a few months ago.

* - Ahem.

AMERICAblog points to this interview, containing the following fantastic exchange:

[Some local news anchor]: Well, you say you're sure [Palin] has the experience, but again, I'm just asking for an example. What experience does she have in the field of national security?

McCain: Energy. She knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America. She represents, is a governor of a state that 20% of America's energy supply comes from there. And we all know that energy is a critical and vital national security issue. We've got to stop sending $700 billion of American money to countries that don't like us very much. She's very well versed on that issue. And, uh, she also happens to represent, be governor of a state that's right next to Russia. She understands Russia, and their newly aggressive behavior in the world which is also something we have to be very concerned about.

Hear that, you stupid liberals? She knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America! So shut up already!

The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen objects:

I'm afraid this is just embarrassingly incoherent. First, the notion that Palin's proximity to Russia counts as national security experience continues to be unusually stupid, even for McCain.

Second, "Energy" is not a response to the question, "What experience does she have in the field of national security?"

And third, to insist, publicly and on the record, that Sarah Palin "knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America" is, quite literally, laughable. We are, after all, talking about a politician who isn't sure about the human impact on global warming, and hasn't demonstrated any real expertise on the issue. Ever.

This is why it's fun to read blogs.

This was John McCain, late last year on why he was qualified to be the president:

I am prepared. I need no on-the-job training. I wasn't a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn't a governor for a short period of time.

And here is Sarah Palin last night on why she is ready to be a 72-year old heartbeat away from the presidency:

Charlie, again, we've got to remember what the desire is in this nation at this time. It is for no more politics as usual and somebody's big, fat resume maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment, where, yes, they've had opportunities to meet heads of state.

So there you have it. The ultimate he said, she said. John McCain explained why Sarah Palin isn't qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, and Sarah Palin explained why John McCain doesn't represent change, just more of the same old politics as usual.

His is ironic and unintentionally funny; hers is ironic and unintentionally hilarious.

Update: That McCain quote is also amusing when contrasted with this McCain quote:

Listen, mayors have the toughest job, I think, in America. It's easy for me to go to Washington and, frankly, be somewhat divorced from the day-to-day challenges people have.

Which of those two quotes do you think he meant to apply to Sarah Palin?

"In what respect, Charlie?"



Unreal.

The Atlantic's James Fallows:

What Sarah Palin revealed is that she has not been interested enough in world affairs to become minimally conversant with the issues. Many people in our great land might have difficulty defining the "Bush Doctrine" exactly. But not to recognize the name, as obviously was the case for Palin, indicates not a failure of last-minute cramming but a lack of attention to any foreign-policy discussion whatsoever in the last seven years.

(Via Matthew DeLong at the Washington Independent.)

Michael Palin for President.



(Via Kos.)

An excellent Dugout-style chat between the Republican Vice Presidential runners-up, courtesy of 23/6 (via Kos). Excerpt:

MittyMittyBangBang: u believe this chick?
GoodNPawlenty: dont even start
MittyMittyBangBang: wut happened 2 the maverick we used 2 know?
GoodNPawlenty: time 2 put that guy in a home already
MittyMittyBangBang: hehe
MittyMittyBangBang: she is a worse VP pick than me and im a friggin mormon

TAPPED's Adam Serwer on Palin's RNC-speech contempt for community organizers:

If I had spent my mayoralty subjecting people to loyalty tests and trying to ban books, a community organizer might make me nervous, too.

(Also amusing: the included photograph of MLK, captioned, "Another irresponsible 'community organizer.'")

Relatedly, Kos passes along an email (and Politico's Jonathan Martin does the same): "Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor."

A smorgasbord! (And my first post in months!)

Two Comments on Palin
Wonkette, during Palin's speech at the convention: "This is really incredible. We need a new, meaner word for 'vapid lightweight.'"
The Jed Report (via AMERICAblog), following the revelation that Palin's headed back to Alaska for a "timeout": "Forget whether or not Sarah Palin is ready to be president. She's not even ready to be a candidate for vice president!"

One Funny Audio Clip
The voicemail John McCain left for Sandra Sarah Palin ("What are you, the fucking Postmaster General?").

Three Daily Show Highlights
The Daily Show was absolutely on fire last week (the Republican National Convention is like Christmas for those guys), but here are several pieces worth highlighting:

• A great segment on the sexism inherent in criticizing Sarah Palin, who is A Lady (the single best segment of the week):
  
  
  
• A piece on the Palins and the difference between choice and Choice (good, but not as great as the sexism one above):
  
  
  
• And finally, this piece on "small-town values." (This last segment comes from Friday's convention wrap-up, and if you have the time, you really ought to watch the entire thing; it's terrific.)