Welcome Back, John McCain

It's been a while since I felt like saying this, but:

Way to go, John McCain!

See why

All Is Lost

Well, this is a gobsmacker.

Wisconsin had the absolute worst job record of all 50 states for the past 12 months; but according to a poll of voters in that state, they're supporting Republican Gov. Scott Walker because they think he's the better job creator. He's got a 7-point advantage over Democrat Tom Barrett (up from 6 points a few days ago).

Considering the $30 million in recall campaign funds Gov. Walker has pulled in (especially from well-heeled out-of-state friends), this makes me think as goes Wisconsin, so goes America.

Taiwan Video on GOP Primary Audiences

David Brooks Strikes Again

Coming on the heels of his braining of the GOP over its refusal to accept the "no-brainer" budget deal offered to them by President Barack Obama, New York Times columnist David Brooks struck again today with a column that continues his line of accusation that today's Republican Party is not a serious governing party.

Some choice bits:

[Grover] Norquist is the Zelig of Republican catastrophe. His method is always the same. He enforces rigid ultimatums that make governance, or even thinking, impossible. ...

Republicans now have a group of political celebrities who are marvelously uninterested in actually producing results. Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann produce tweets, not laws. ...

All of these groups [components of the GOP] share the same mentality. They do not see politics as the art of the possible. They do not believe in seizing opportunities to make steady, messy progress toward conservative goals. They believe that politics is a cataclysmic struggle. They believe that if they can remain pure in their faith then someday their party will win a total and permanent victory over its foes. They believe they are Gods of the New Dawn.

Mind you, Brooks has not become a liberal. He is an honest conservative writing this, and as such, deserves a hearing.

Read the entire column at The New York Times.

ScottWalkermageddon in Wisconsin, the Lighter Side

I've been watching with a mixture of home-state pride and bemusement the ongoing attempts of Wisconsin GOP Governor Scott Walker to bust the state's unions (hey, I'm not the most pro-union person in the world, but let's admit it: that's what this is all about). Anyway, not that you asked, but I think states have to reckon with huge largely unfunded pension obligations. I live in California now, and it's got unbelievable pension obligations that it might not be able to meet.

But Wisconsin? One report shows that state workers there earn an average of about $24,000. Hardly pilfering the pockets of the common man. Compare that to San Francisco, where the local paper reported that one-third of city workers earn more than $100,000. The latter brings out the Republican in me. The former confirms the Democrat in me.

Anyway, as I was trolling through the interwebs for info about my home state and my beloved Madison, Wisconsin, where I spent five of the most wonderful years of my life, I came across this story on Madison.com:

Protests Provide a Business Boon for Capitol-Area Shops

So, everyone's biz-friendly, Gov. Scott. Now grow up.

Can GOP and Democrats Get Along? Nancy Pelosi Says It Can Happen

Apologies for the shaky camera work; my amateur filmmaking skills on a handheld digital camera certainly aren't going to wow anybody. But wait until you see this film once I've had Industrial Light and Magic work on it ...

Does This Remind Anyone Else of Obama Dealing with the GOP?

Clip from the early 1980's science-fiction comedy The Creature Wasn't Nice. "It's playing, having fun ..."

NPR Article on Foley's Hands ... Maybe not Good Headline

Disgraced former GOP congressman Mark Foley, who left office in a sex scandal, is opening a consignment shop. This NPR headline is just wrong on a couple levels:

Obama's Birth Certificate, Even if the Lunatics Ignore It

Courtesy of the LA Times, here's a link to President Obama's birth certificate. Just figured as many bloggers as possible should post this, so the wingnuts have fewer and fewer excuses to say they've never seen proof.

The so-called "birthers" movement is so crazed and ridiculous, what does this say about GOP congressional members who can't bring themselves to denounce the movement? They're all such products of the power-by-any-means school of Republican tricks that none of them have the guts to simply challenge the wingnuts in their town hall meetings and tell them that they're lunatics, they're flat our wrong, and they should return to reality and stop wasting our time. In those words -- not nicely, not respecting their "intelligence"; be brave and let 'em have it.

After all, any GOP congressperson who doesn't realize that every time a "birther" erupts on the public stage the Democrats cement thousands more votes -- well, that GOPer is too ignorant to survive long.

Larry Flynt on Obama

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt writes a short item on today's Daily Beast urging Obama to toughen up and, er, "bitch-slap" the Republicans to "put them in their place."

When I interned one summer in the vice president's office back in 1990 (oh, leave me alone), one of my more-interesting regular tasks was to compile a collection of articles from newspapers and magazines for the vice president to read. In one of those compilations, I included an article Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote for the New York Review of Books, in which he called for the end of the national security state in the wake of the Cold War's demise.

You can assume, even without reading the two pieces, that Moynihan's was the better written piece of prose.

The VP didn't take Moynihan's advice then, and I doubt, even if some intern puts Flynt's article in Obama's daily news briefer, that the president will take Flynt's advice today.

Quittin' Time

With Vanity Fair's devasting article on the poor political and ethical judgments of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin still not only on the newsstands but still the talk of the nation, the neophyte state executive has decided to use this weekend as her moment to announce her early resignation from the governor's office. This is leaving nearly everyone bewildered, because it's not exactly the best way to refute accusations of poor judgement and bad communication, and it's also leaving many people to suspect there's another shoe about to drop concerning some ethical scandal or somesuch.

Here's just one example of the weirdness: According to The New York Times article on the announcement that took even Republicans by surprise: "[S]he said she had decided not to seek re-election when her term expires, and that she thought it would be unfair to her constituents to remain in office as a lame duck."

That doesn't make sense. Especially because the ostensible reason that people offer in an attempt to make her look not unstable is that she's leaving early so she can focus on running for president in 2012 (about which, forget it; if she thinks people will pick her over Obama even if his approval ratings dive by two-thirds, she's in a fantasy world). But if that's the real reason she's leaving, then this: Why the heck would Americans put her in the White House? Because sooner or later a president also becomes a lame duck, and we don't expect them to say auf wiedersehen once they've been elected to their second term, and wander back to Alaska to shoot innocent moose (meese? mice?).

So, as with so many times concerning this politician, whichever is the truth -- a big scandal about to hit the fan or she wants to concentrate on losing the next presidential race -- the truth still makes her look bad.

Yesterday on this blog, I quoted conservative/libertarian satirist P.J. O'Rourke on his views regarding the future of media. But at the same event, O'Rourke was asked whether the Republicans have any great national leaders about to become their heroes (and possible victors in 2012). His response was that they had basically two: Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin -- but Gingrich had a freakish ego like the blowfish in "Finding Nemo" and Sarah Palin was, at best, kinda whacky. His suggestion for his party was that they basically go away on a retreat for however many years it took them to grow up and become sane again.

Maybe if the GOP ran P.J. O'Rourke in 2012, they might at least not be a laughingstock -- or at least it'd be intentional. But for now, we're mostly all just joining betting pools to guess the Palin scandal that's the real reason she's quitting:

* Todd Palin's really her son?
* She's converting to Scientology?
* She can't see Russia from her house, but she can crank call them, and the bill's been charged to the state?

Who knows? But the comedy show that is the Sarah Palin story (and the GOP leadership story) goes on.

Weekly Standard for Sale

Rumor has it that Rupert Murdoch's right-wing Weekly Standard political magazine is being shopped to right-wing publisher Philip Anschutz.

Billionaire Anschutz, a supporter of hard-right political and social causes, is unlikely to change the political bent of the magazine leftward, though he's also not likely to make it any more respectable. (This is the man who owns the San Francisco Examiner, a free daily in one of America's most liberal cities, which did an early and enthusiastic full-front-page endorsement of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Talk about not knowing your audience ...)