Vocal Minority

Liberal Media Bias: AP Fact-Checks Sarah Palin's Book. What About Al Gore's?

In a few days Sarah Palin’s much-anticipated Going Rogue hits the stores. But this morning Ms. Palin is already meeting some criticism for allegedly false statements. Before the book is even released, a gaggle of Associated Press—yes, Associated Press!—writers took it upon themselves to embark on a fact-checking mission:

FACT CHECK: Palin's book goes rogue on some facts
By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Sarah Palin's new book reprises familiar claims from the 2008 presidential campaign that haven't become any truer over time.

Ignoring substantial parts of her record if not the facts, she depicts herself as a frugal traveler on the taxpayer's dime, a reformer without ties to powerful interests and a politician roguishly indifferent to high ambition.

Palin goes adrift, at times, on more contemporary issues, too. She criticizes President Barack Obama for pushing through a bailout package that actually was achieved by his Republican predecessor George W. Bush — a package she seemed to support at the time.

In Palin’s 400+ page memoir Calvin Woodward and his team of assistants found only a handful of questionable statements. This would hardly be a news story were the author of the book not the leftocracy’s the most hated and feared woman.

Now, in theory I have no problem with a news outlet parsing a popular new book and addressing misstatements, exaggerations, and falsehoods. If an author is gilting the lily, they should be called on it.

What I do have a problem with is the apparent enthusiasm with which a news source went after this book. You’d be hard pressed to find the mainstream media so ambitiously fact-check the publication of a liberal/Democrat public figure.

In 2003, Hillary Clinton’s Living History memoir came out. Taxpayer-funded NPR granted her no less than four interviews. In one of them, NPR did not fail to note that Hillary “criticizes the Bush administration for a ‘power grab on so many fronts’ which she calls an attempt to implement a ‘very radical, right-wing agenda.’” (This would be the same NPR which seems not to have a problem with the Obama administration grabbing power on so many friends in order to implement a very radical, left-wing agenda.)

Interestingly, one of the most critical reviews of Hillary’s book came from Maureen Dowd at the NY Times. But Dowd’s complaints were not with any questionable statements, but merely with her writing style and content. No matter. Hillary was vindicated in 2004 when Clyde Haberman skewered Dick Morris in the Times’ review of Rewriting History. The Washington Post was also not very kind with Morris’ 300+ page retort to Hillary’s fantasy memoir.

You have to go across the pond to London’s Independent to find an article questioning the veracity of Living History.

It was actually Bill Clinton’s My Life memoir from June, 2004, that got more criticism by the press, e.g., USA Today. But that didn’t stop the media from ooh-ing and aah-ing over the sales records Clinton was breaking, and it certainly didn’t stop Clinton from being applauded on all the news shows, from Oprah to 60 Minutes. 

The headline on CBS News’ Politics page on June 14, 2004 blared “The Return Of The Comeback Kid” and declared: “Bill Clinton is back.” Instead of critiquing the nearly 1000-page tome, the Chief Political Writer David Paul Kuhn wondered how much Clinton’s book was going to hurt George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election.

Again, when Dick Morris and Eileen McGann hit back in December, 2004, with Because He Could, the mainstream media circled the wagons. Chris Suellentrop in the Washington Post mocked the 270-page attempt to set the record straight as an “extended blog entry with a dust jacket.”

And what of the pièce de resistance, the opus d’opus, the king of all books which are loads of B.S. from front cover to back cover: An Inconvenient Truth by Albert Gore, Jr. Five years after the release of this deceptive piece of propaganda and its accompanying movie, the mainstream media is still enamored with Al Gore and his cause.

But the inconvenient truth is there are more lies in one chapter of An Inconvenient Truth than in Sarah Palin’s whole book. This is handily demonstrated, for instance, by Marlo Lewis, Jr. at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, whose monograph A Skeptic’s Guide to AIT meticulously deconstruct’s Gore’s book page by fallacious page.

If the Associated Press or any mainstream news outlet were anywhere near as ambitious at fact-checking An Inconvenient Truth as they are Going Rogue, Al Gore would be a humiliated has-been and the campaign to fight man-made global warming climate change would be at the top of every list of humanity’s greatest scams.

Get ready for some more Gore-lovin' from the mainstream media; the thinking man's thinking man has a new man-made global warming climate change book out this month. You think Calvin Woodward and the gang at the Associated Press are going to be fact-checking this or any of Gore's books? Sure, and pigs will be flying out of my skinny white butt.

Like I said, in theory I have no problem with—and even welcome—the media conducting a principled analysis on a public figure’s memoir.

But the selective fact-checking crusades are just a little too transparent.

Ways the Left Has Screwed Up My Country Today: Saturday Night Fever in Congress

'Nuf said. I sincerely hope this is not the death knell for this once-magnificent Republic.

While the American people slept and Congress plotted our demise, Sarah Palin penned this message on her Facebook page:

The Pelosi Bill Was Rammed Through on Saturday, But Sunday’s Coming

We’ve got to hold on to hope, and we’ve got to fight hard because Congressional action tonight just put America on a path toward an unrecognizable country.

The same government leaders that got us into the mortgage business and the car business are now getting us into the health care business.

Despite Americans’ decisive message last Tuesday that they reject the troubling path this country has been taking, Speaker Pelosi has broken her own promises of transparency to ram a health “care” bill through the House of Representatives just before midnight. Why did she push the 2,000 page bill this weekend? Was she perhaps afraid to give her peers and the constituents for whom she works the chance to actually read this monstrous bill carefully, if at all? Was she concerned that Americans might really digest the details of a bill that the Wall Street Journal has called “the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced”?

This out-of-control bureaucratic mess will be disastrous for our economy, our small businesses, and our personal liberty. It will slam businesses at a time when we are at double-digit unemployment rates – the highest we’ve seen in a quarter of a century. This massive new bureaucracy will cost us and our children money we don’t have. It will rob Americans of more of our freedom and further hamper the free market.

Make no mistake: we’re on course to have government commandeer one-sixth of our economy. The people who gave us Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now want to run our health care. Think about that.

All of us who value the sanctity of life are grateful for the success of the pro-life majority in the House this evening in its battle against federal funding of abortion in this bill, but it’s ironic because we were promised that abortion wasn’t covered in the bill to begin with. Our healthy distrust of these government leaders made us look deeper into the bill because unfortunately we knew better than to trust what they were saying. The victory tonight to amend the bill and eliminate that federal funding for abortion was great – because abortion is not health care. Now we can only hope that Rep. Stupak’s amendment will hold in the final bill, though the Democratic leadership has already refused to promise that it won’t be scrapped later.

We had been told there were no “death panels” in the bill either. But look closely at the provision mandating bureaucratic panels that will be calling the shots regarding who will receive government health care.

Look closely at provisions addressing illegal aliens’ health care coverage too.

Those of us who love freedom and believe in open and transparent government can only be dismayed by midnight action on a Saturday. Speaker Pelosi’s promise that Americans would have 72 hours to read the final bill before the vote was just another one of the D.C. establishment’s too-common political ploys. It’s broken promises like this that turn people off to politics and leave them disillusioned about the future of their country.

But despite this late-night maneuvering, many of us were paying close attention tonight. We’ll keep paying close attention. We need to let our legislators in Washington know that they still represent us, and that the majority of Americans are not in favor of the “reform” they are pushing. After all, this is still a country “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We will make our voices heard. It’s on to the Senate now. Our legislators can listen now, or they can hear us in 2010. It’s their choice.

No wonder the elitist leftocracy and my brainwashed liberal friends mock this woman. She makes sense.

Jeffrey Anderson at National Review Online has a silver lining, a prediction that the bill will die in the Senate:

Mutiny in Scrutiny?

It was always clear that the real health-care battle would be in the Senate. But what would have been shocking eight months ago is to hear that it would take until November for the Democrats to pass a bill even in the House. It would have been even more shocking to have heard that, even after a full-court-press by the White House , the bill would pass by only five votes — meaning that if just three of the 435 members had changed their minds, it would have changed the bill’s fate. And it would have been shocking to have heard that 39 Democrats would jump ship.

The House bill has passed — barely and belatedly — and it is now dead. Nothing like it will ever pass the Senate. The question now is whether anything will, now that the voters have spoken in New Jersey and Virginia — and now that the exceedingly narrow margin in the House will likely invite even greater scrutiny of that which is being proposed.

Greater scrutiny will not help the Democrats’ efforts. In truth, their hopes for passage largely hinge on successfully hiding two plain facts from the voters: One, the House Republicans and the Congressional Budget Office have now shown that a bill costing $61 billion can lower Americans’ insurance premiums, while bills costing $1.7 trillion cannot (and instead would raise them substantially). Two, the Democrats’ plans would be paid for only if they follow through on plans to siphon hundreds of billions of dollars out of already-barely-solvent Medicare, and to do so just in time for the baby boomers’ retirement.

Given the magnitude of the challenge of continuing to hide these plain facts from an increasingly attentive citizenry, the Democratic health-care train has a very bumpy ride ahead — as it rolls into the chamber that the American Founders thought from the beginning would ultimately decide our fate: the Senate.

We’ll see. 2010 is becoming an ever more crucial year for our nation.

Make no mistake: This bill is the end of liberty. Liberty is no longer an American value. For over 200 years we’ve managed to have a nation that was in every way the envy of the world. Now we have become just another item in the list of failed centralized government-controlled tyrannies.

How’s that hope and change working out for you?

Here are two quotes that appear in the latest issue of The Limbaugh Letter, whose cover story is about government-run health (s)care:

[W]hoever would dare to sap the foundation, or overturn the Structure, under whatever specious pretexts he may attempt it, will merit the bitterest execration, and the severest punishment which can be inflicted by his injured Country. — George Washington, 1783

Our rebels have contemptuously rejected the values and way of life of the middle class. They have stigmatized it as materialistic, decadent, bourgeois, degenerate, imperialistic, war-mongering, brutalized and corrupt … They are right. — Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 1971

How appropos. I’d like to add one more:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. — Ronald Reagan (1989?)

God help us all.

Obama's Rosh Hashanah Message - I Don't Buy It for One Second

Wanna know why this blog often refers to Barack Obama as “President Golden Calf”? Because not since the book of Exodus have Jews run to tongue-draggingly and heart-swooningly worship a false god.

Want to see a Kool-Aid drinking Jewish Obama-worshiper in action? Last week, the White House released this video of the president issuing a Rosh Hashanah message to American Jews:

Here are some anonymous responses to that video from my Facebook page:

He is a REAL person with a warm and caring heart

I think it was impressive that he took the time out of his busy Presidential schedule to offer his warm wishes to all of us. I like this guy … I find him endearing … I really mean it.

What a beautiful sentiment to bring in the new year. A great way to show how important our day is to the rest of the country. Thank you President Obama.

Nine months into the Obama presidency, these statements reflect the sentiments of virtually every Jewish liberal/Democrat I know.

Yet this is the same guy who has had close years-long relationships with virulent anti-Semites such as Jeremiah Wright (and, by reasonable extension, Louis Farrakhan) to Rashid Khalidi

This is the same guy who just last week at the U.N. legitimized the faux campaign of the Palestinian Authority by condemning the building of Israel settlements in the West Bank and employing politically-biased labels (in favor of Palestinians) like “occupation”.

This is the same guy who has yet to condemn the maniacal leader of Iran who proudly denies the Holocaust is working unimpeded on a nuclear device while promising to wipe Israel off the face of the map.

For a litany of other actions and statements by President Golden Calf w.r.t. the Jewish people, Israel, the Palestinians and Iran, see this post by Shari Hillman at the RJC blog and Barry Rubin at his blog.

Only a Jewish American Kool-Aid drinker can be so unmoved by these disturbing facts.

Incidentally, President Golden Calf wasn’t the only major political figure to voice High Holy Day wishes to Jewish Americans. These High Holy Day wishes were released the other day. Note the mentioning of the anti-Semitic remarks made at the U.N. assembly:

… I would like to offer our best wishes to the Jewish community as they celebrate the High Holy Days. With the celebration of the Jewish New Year this week and the observance of the Day of Atonement next week, we are reminded of the hopeful commitment to renewal and peace exemplified by the Jewish tradition and the Jewish people throughout history.

Yom Kippur, the most solemn and important of the Jewish holy days, is a time of reflection and supplication for forgiveness. The timeless human struggle to promote justice, harmony, and peace is seen here in this process of atonement—in humbly seeking pardon for past wrongs in the hope of a new beginning. It reminds us that if we wish to co-exist globally, we must all strive for forgiveness and tolerance.

A speech was given at the United Nations General Assembly yesterday that was full of hateful anti-Semitic rhetoric. It was a shameful display before a body whose very charter is premised on the need for co-operation and harmony in pursuit of peaceful co-existence between nations. Such talk was especially abhorrent coming as it did during the Jewish High Holidays. The world community must speak with one voice in declaring anti-Semitism and all forms of intolerance and racism utterly unacceptable. There is no place in the community of peace-loving nations for those who traffic in hate or deny the terrible atrocity of the Nazi Holocaust.

In this holy season, we join the Jewish people in the struggle to promote justice, harmony, and peace. May God bless them.

This message comes from the Facebook page of Mrs. Sarah Palin. Boy, is that woman scary!

I have not forwarded Palin’s message to my liberal Jewish friends, who, it’s probably safe to say, are not members of the Sarah Palin Facebook page! Why bother? I know from experience that Palin’s message or Palin herself will just be mocked and smeared.

Now let’s rewind to December 10, 2001. On this date George W. Bush became the first U.S. president to hold a Chanukah menorah lighting at the White House. Here were the inspiring words Bush spoke at that event:

Tonight, for the first time in American history, the Hanukkah menorah will be lit at the White House residence. It’s a symbol that this house may be a temporary home for Laura and me, but it’s the people’s house, and it belongs to people of all faiths.

The magnificent menorah before us was crafted over a century ago in the city of Lvov, which was an important center of Jewish life and culture. The Jews of Lvov fell victim to the horror of the Nazi Holocaust, but their great menorah survived. And as God promised Abraham, the people of Israel still live.

This has been a year of much sadness in the United States, and for our friends in Israel. America and Israel have been through much together. This year we have grieved together. But as we watch the lighting of this second candle of Hanukkah, we’re reminded of the ancient story of Israel’s courage and of the power of faith to make the darkness bright. We can see the heroic spirit of the Macabees lives on in Israel today, and we trust that a better day is coming, when this Festival of Freedom will be celebrated in a world free from terror.

According to a simple Google news search, this event got little media attention, and I certainly don’t recall any of my Obama-worshiping fellow tribespeople commenting on it. From that year on, the White House menorah lighting became an annual event—see here, for example, of footage of 2004, 2006, and 2008.

But Bush’s gesture didn’t go unpunished by the mainstream media. In 2005, the Washington Post published an article called “Mr. Bush’s Misstep on Hanukkah.” The WaPo condemning him for “lock of insensitivity and judgment” for the sin of holding the event on December 6. Chanukah that year didn’t begin until December 25 (does that ring a bell?).

Seriously? This is what constitutes subject matter for a major newspaper? Can you imagine the WaPo having an article like this about Obama (or any Democrat president for that matter)? Of course not.

Actually, Bush apparently couldn’t win with the Right either. In 2004, he was criticized at World Net Daily for scrubbing Jesus out of that year’s White House Christmas celebration.

The 2007 celebration was particularly poignant when Bush hosted the family of beheaded journalist Daniel Pearl for a White House Chanukah:

Yet now Barack Obama, a/k/a President Golden Calf, craps on Pearl’s memory by releasing animals like Pearl’s beheaders from Club G’tmo and by heaping ever more civil rights fought for and defended by Americans!

No speech on a TelePrompter can change that.

They say actions speak louder than words. With Barack Obama, both his words and actions spell nothing but trouble for Jews in America and Israel alike.

And yet the Democrat Kool-Aid continues to flow like Mogen David wine ...

Liberal Lie #2 - Conservative Media Preaches Hate (But Not Liberal Media): Barney Frank's Rush "Joke" on Leno

Remember all the rhetoric from the Washington and media leftocracy that the right is poisoning the airwaves and TV with “hate speech”? (In fact, Chris Matthews is so concerned about right-wing hate, he has preemptively laid blame at the feet of conservative radio if anything bad happens to Barack Obama.)

And remember not too long ago a certain Republican Congressman, Joe Wilson, was lambasted for purportedly creating an atmosphere of incivility within the hallowed halls of Congress?

Well, yesterday Jay Leno had the loathsome Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) on. During the conversation, this exchange took place:

LENO: If you had to have dinner with one of the following political conservatives, which one would you choose: Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter?

FRANK: I guess of the three, I would take Rush Limbaugh because it would be very painful, and he would come with the painkillers, which he always has. [Applause]

Oh, how original, Bawney. How professional. A sitting Congressman on national television attacking a private citizen with whom he disagrees. (Remember: These are the people who keep claiming they’re all for open, honest debate. Puh-lease!)

Do you notice that the only thing the left does with regard to Rush Limbaugh is make fun of his prescription drug addiction? An addiction which, incidently, he beat five years ago? Prescription painkillers are reportedly a tough drug to kick. It was even once the focus of a story line involving Susan Lucci’s character on “All My Children.” (Yes, I’ve watched “All My Children,” a’ight? It’s my mother’s fault!)

Considering how drug abuse is so prevalent in elitist circles in Hollywood, Manhattan, and D.C., you’d think people would commend Rush for kicking the habit. But that would require liberals to actually exercise the compassion and civility they’re constantly telling us they have.

It’s loathsome to mock someone for a past addiction to begin with. To frame the lame jokes as if Rush is still addicted to the prescription drugs, is even more cruel. Liberal people I know personally (including clergy!) have done it, “entertainers” like Wanda Sykes have done it, and now a sitting Congressman on a national television show has done it.

Where is the media outrage for Barney Frank’s detestable and unfunny comment? There was none. Leno laughed. His brain-dead audience laughed. And no doubt media types who caught the show—the same people who would be having a Maureen-Dowd-sized conniption if the guest were a Republican and the target of the smear were a liberal—laughed as well.

Rush has a very thick skin and doesn’t let this stuff bother him, but personally I am so fed up with these drug jokes that I feel compelled just for the record to give you liberals/Democrats out there a lesson on civility you desperately need:

• To make fun of a person’s prescription drug addiction is neither civil, compassionate, nor funny.
• To make fun of a person’s prescription drug addiction—several years after he’s already overcome it—is neither civil, compassionate, nor funny.
• For a sitting Congressman to make fun of a private citizen’s prescription drug addiction—several years after he’s already overcome it—is neither civil, compassionate, nor funny.
• For a TV show host and audience members to laugh at a sitting Congressman making fun of a private citizen’s prescription drug addiction—several years after he’s already overcome it—is neither civil, compassionate, nor funny.

But you “civil” and “compassionate” liberals won’t get it, will you. Is it that you don’t want to? Is it that you don’t really care to?

I’m just so fed up with the double standards and the hypocrisy. You’ve attacked decent, inspiring black conservatives like Clarence Thomas and Condi Rice. Yet principled, albeit passionate, opposition to President Hope&Change’s destructive policies and you see angry mobs, Nazis, and racists as far as the eye can see.

You assassinated the character of Sarah Palin, a woman who represents the American dream and classical feminism in every sense—and go after her family as well. But the minute one supports the right of a baby to not be murdered in the womb, he is smeared as a neanderthal chauvenist who wants to keep women in the kitchen.

It is liberals who poison the airwaves and TV with hate speech, as illustrated on a daily basis on Air America and much of MSNBC.

It is liberals who engage in violence, from the Molotov-cocktail-throwing thugs at the anti-Bush rallies to anti-war protesters with signs telling soldiers to frag (i.e., shoot) their superior officers to left-wing radio hosts, authors, and movie directors fantasizing about the murder of George W. Bush. And, as Ann Coulter pointed out as a guest on yesterday’s Steve Malzberg show, the two biggest incidents of town hall violence (the black wheelchair-bound man and the bitten off pinky) were perpetrated by ObamaCare supporters, i.e., leftists, against their conservative opponents.

It is liberals who celebrate and excuse violence. Cop killers like Mumia Abu-Jamal, thug murderers like Che Guevera and Fidel Castro, and federal building bombers like Barack Obama’s longtime pal William “guilty as sin, free as a bird” Ayers are heroes of the left, not the right. Dictators like Saddam Hussein and terrorists like Omar Abdul-Rahman are enthusiastically defended in court by left-wing lawyers, not right.

In a nutshell, liberals, when you decry the “incivility” and “rage” of the right, you’re full of crap. You wrote the book on incivility and rage, and utilize that book every day with arrogant impunity.

And I for one will always be there to make sure you don’t forget it.

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (9/24/09)

Jennifer Rubin wrote this article at Pajamas Media the day before President Hope&Change threw his own country and our ally Israel under the world bus. But it’s all relevant:

Obama’s Cardinal Errors
Four fundamental mistakes have drained the president's early momentum.

September 22, 2009

As Walter Russell Mead put it:

… It all looked so easy last winter when a cocky administration and a hyperbolic press talked about a new Lincoln and a new FDR in the White House. Nine months later, the president has more irons in the fire than trophies on the wall.

The Democrats are disunited worried about 2010. Abroad, the foreigners don’t seem to be listening: not Netanyahu, not Libya, not Iran — even tiny Honduras blew off Obama’s demand that it reinstate an ousted president. Less than a year into his presidency, his enemies at home and abroad think he’s weak and on the way down.

The president could turn this around by focusing on job creation, ceasing to snarl at critics, adopting a more centrist approach on domestic and foreign policy, and finding some areas of common agreement to pass through Congress (e.g., real education reform). But so long as Obama and his spinners remain convinced the real issue is not enough him or the mean conservatives or racism, there is little chance of that.

Next, at Front Page Mag, Jacob Laksin gives his take on Obama’s U.N. speech:

UN-Inspired
Thursday, September 24, 2009

“I am not naïve,” President Obama insisted yesterday, as he delivered his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly. And, indeed, some components of his remarks—including his call for sterner action to halt Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs—were reasonable enough. But nothing more corroded the seriousness of the president’s appeal for a new era of global security and cooperation than the fact that it was addressed to a body that, whatever the high-minded principles of its founding, has long been an obstacle to both. […]

Obama successfully avoided an embarrassing photo op with Qadaffi, but his enthusiastic support for an organization that welcomes the likes of the Libyan dictator nonetheless spoke volumes. Never mind that the UN has repeatedly failed to prevent human rights abuses. Never mind that it has empowered regimes that kill, torture, and oppress their populations with impunity. Despite this history, Obama still seems to believe that the UN remains a force for good in the world. There’s a word to describe people who hold such astoundingly credulous beliefs. And the president is not going to like it.

Also recommended re: Obama’s U.N. speech: Obama’s Time Warp: The U.S. Is Still the Bad Guy by Michael Barone at Townhall.

For the scholar in you, here’s a piece by economics professor Edmund Phelps on capitalism and morality [h/t Joseph Lawler at American Spectator]:

Economic Justice and the Spirit of Innovation
Edmund Phelps

When the word morality comes up in connection with economics, income distribution and financial stability are usually the issues. Is it moral for rich countries to use such a high proportion of the world’s resources or for investment bankers to earn large bonuses? And is it moral for financial markets to experiment with volatile derivatives that increase the potential for panics?

Across the political spectrum, the voices in the debate presume a homo economicus who is focused on maximizing consumption while taking prudent risks. And these voices presume that the economy in which this maximization takes place is a mechanical sort of system. But real human beings bear little resemblance to this ideal type. Any discussion of economics and morality must begin instead with real human beings who are not only acquisitive and risk averse but also inquisitive and adventurous and who sometimes feel the need to take a plunge, to leap into the unknown. Furthermore, in a healthy economy, each participant has to reckon on a future about which knowledge is imperfect, owing to the ventures being undertaken by the others.

Finally, Sarah Palin was in the news yesterday for a speech she gave in Hong Kong. Oh, you didn’t know about it? Or you knew about it but don’t know any of the content therein? That’s the Obamedia for ya! Here’s a review by Rich Lowry at National Review Online’s “The Corner” blog. If the content of the speech and Palin’s delivery of it was as good as Lowry describes, it’s no wonder the Obamedia isn’t doing much to tout it:

Palin’s Hong Kong Speech
September 24, 2009

The first thing we can say about Sarah Palin’s speech is that it is exactly the kind of address she should be giving. It’s plain-spoken and not exactly ground-breaking, but it’s substantive and the kind of thing that is absolutely essential to adding some heft to her political portfolio. She describes her approach as “common sense conservatism,” and it lives up to its billing, falling firmly within the mainstream of conservative thought. […]

Palin is an authentic, powerful voice of the populist right and in the speech she implicitly connects its call for limited government and sensible fiscal policy with America’s role as a world power. Palin can play a very important role in channeling the inchoate populist anger out there in a responsible direction, which makes it all the more important that she engage on the issues in a serious way and avoid rhetorical over-kill. The speech, judging from what we've seen of it so far, is a big step in the right direction.

How ironic it is that the person who managed to get elected president was at the U.N. trashing his own country while the person who could have been VP was across the globe celebrating it.

Sometimes the world goes topsy-turvy …

Meet Dr. Death, President Hope&Change's Science Czar

Liberals/Democrats are frightened by a lot of things. They were frightened of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Twenty years ago they were scared of Ronald Ray-gun.

But the poster child for unhinged liberal/Democrat fright is Sarah Palin. If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone—including friends and relatives—declare how much she frightens them, I might be able to single-handedly balance the Obama-“stimulated” budget. The thought of this accomplished, principled, God-fearing woman becoming vice-president of the United States made them lose sleep at night! 

These were often the same people who referred to Dick Cheney “Darth Vader.” The man who actually took his VP position seriously (unlike a certain VP who we haven’t heard from much this summer) and helped keep their undeserving asses safe from Islamofascist scum just scared them.

But their fears have been severely misplaced. You know how when a child cries for apparently no reason, sometimes the parent responds, “I’ll give you something to cry about!” (at least that’s what my parents told me!)? Well liberals: I’ll give you something to be frightened about: John Holdren, President Hope&Change’s science advisor, is a left-wing ideologue with dangerous ideas.

Yesterday’s Washington Times has a story on this character:

EDITORIAL: Obama's mad science adviser
Compulsory abortion and sterilization aren't youthful indiscretions
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES | Sunday, August 16, 2009

When it comes to having past views that should frighten every American citizen, Ezekiel Emanuel (see above editorial) has nothing on the president’s “chief science adviser,” John P. Holdren. The combination of Mr. Holdren with Dr. Emanuel should make the public seriously concerned with this administration’s moral compass concerning care for the old and weak.

Earlier this month, Mr. Holdren served as co-chairman when the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology met for the first time. It’s a disgrace that Mr. Holdren is even on the council. In “Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment,” a book he co-authored in 1977 with noted doomsayers Paul R. and Anne H. Erlich, Mr. Holdren wrote: “Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”

In case compulsory abortion wasn’t enough to diffuse his imaginary population bomb, Mr. Holdren and the Erlichs considered other extremist measures. “A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men,” they wrote. “The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control.”

It gets worse. The Holdren-Erlich book also promotes “Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods.” After noting that, well, yes, there were “very difficult political, legal and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems,” Mr. Holdren and his co-authors express hope that their idea may still be viable. “To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements,” they wrote. “It must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets or livestock.”

Most Americans can be forgiven for thinking that mass sterilization through drinking water is never acceptable and that someone who supported such horrors should have no place on a prestigious White House council. The question naturally arises why President Obama chooses to surround himself with extremists like Mr. Holdren or Dr. Emanuel. No matter how much they claim their views have “evolved,” health and science under Obamacare would be a frightening prospect with people like this advising the president.

And if this isn’t enough to give you a chill, consider this CNS News article I posted earlier this summer informing us that Holdren endorsed giving inanimate objects in nature legal standing. Yes, folks the POTUS’s hand-picked science czar believes trees should be able to sue in court.

Yet, I have yet to hear from a single liberal/Democrat who’s frightened by this monster disguised as an academic. Their silence is truly deafening. It leads one to think that the rank-and-file on the Left actually agree with the Holdren’s extremist ideas about population control, forced abortion, mass sterilization, and legal rights for trees.

Now that’s frightening.

To Hell and Back, a.k.a. Watching Rachel Maddow, Day 3

OK, kiddies, here’s my ass-whooping of Rachel Maddow following her Wednesday show. As I suspected, my liberal interlocutor Leah did not appreciate my glossing over two stories from Tuesday’s Rachel Maddow show: The secret CIA program concocted by that Evil Mastermind Dick Cheney which, God forbid, focused on assassinating al Qaeda operatives worldwide, and the scandals of “The Family” on C Street.

Not surprisingly, Maddow continued reporting on one of these stories. So here ya go, Leah. Hope they’re adequate this time:

1:00 C Street

For three days (at least) Maddow has been reporting about this “mysterious” and “secretive” Christian society of Washington politicians residing in a housing complex on C Street, who are called “The Fellowship” or “The Family.” Maddow has a problem with the alleged secrecy pact held among the politicians there, and of course the fact that disgraced Republican governor Mark Sanford and Republican Senator John Ensign reside there. (And as of this writing, already three days after Maddow’s Wednesday show, it seems a third Republican politician, former U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering of Mississippi, has been exposed as having had an extramarital affair. So at least now there’s something for Maddow to discuss all next week!)

It’s clear why this story, which in all honesty makes my eyes glaze over in yawny sleepiness, is so important to Maddow: It’s a place for fundamentalist Christians to meet, have Bible study, and so forth. And what could be juicier than story about a bunch of fundamentalist Christians who have cheated on their wives and then vowed to each other to keep these affairs secret?

I’m not excusing any of these guys, believe me. And I—and many other conservative Republicans—think they should leave. So on that point, I agree with Maddow’s clear evaluation: these guys are slime.

What I don’t appreciate is the clear attempt by Maddow (and other liberal pundits/bloggers; just Google “C Street” and you’ll see) to make this a problem with Republicans or with Christianity. We got a lot of scumbag politicians in D.C., and they don’t all have an R next to their name, Rachel. But you’re a liberal TV host, so Republican scandals is all you show. I get it. I should also point out that at least two Democrats are members of the Family, including Congressmen Mike Doyle (D-PA), Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Bart Stupak (D-MI), and Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Bill Nelson (D-FL).

If Rachel Maddow is going to directly or indirectly accuse Republicans in The Family of keeping secrets of their brethren’s extramarital affairs supposedly because they are also Republicans, what can she say about these Democrat members, who most likely also knew of these affairs?

Oh, and there is one former Senator who has been described as the Family’s “biggest Democratic friend”: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton fell in with The Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the Senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family’s “most elite cell,” the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia’s notoriously racist Senator George Allen [Yes, I know, saying a meaningless combination of sounds “macaca” makes one a notorious racist. Honestly, you liberals/Democrats are worse than pathetic.] This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, The Family’s publicity-averse leader, that he is “a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God.”

Furthermore, The Family takes credit for some of Clinton’s rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing “religious freedom” in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics. [Really, she did? Go Hillary!] […] 

Fundamentalism is not the religion of the GOP, it is the established religion in Washington and it to some extent maintains control over both parties. I was raised in a church that preached it as the religion of the status quo: Respect authority and the power and always know your place. It helps the poor in poverty waiting for their treasures in heaven while the wealthy amass greater riches on earth. It keeps women from achieving their potential and the races separate. And it keeps us from finally passing something like a public health care system or the Employee Free Choice Act. If we want to take on this group, we better understand that we’ll have to fight both parties to do it.

This blurb, by the way, did not come from some right-wing site. It’s from (gasp!) the Daily Kos!

4:30 Maddow quotes a C-Streeter, former Congressman Steve Largent (R-OK), who tells a Tulsa newspaper that even though he encouraged Ensign to end his affair, he was concerned for the well-being [of the C Street adulterers] and thought whether they should resign or not is up to them.

Thinking she’s caught the former Congressman in some sort of hypocritical predicament—because there’s nothing more gratifying to a liberal/Democrat than finding a conservative/Republican guilty of hypocrisy!—Maddow shows us a statement that Largent made over a decade ago, during the impeachment of then-President Bill Clinton:

“I don’t think any reasonable people could say that the president should not resign. I think reading the president’s own censure resolution, You can’t come away with any other conclusion [than] that this president should resign. It’s the honorable thing to do.”

Small problem, though. Maddow gives us the date of Largent’s statement: December 27, 1998. This is eight days after the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton took place, on December 19. But Clinton wasn’t impeached because of sex. It was on the grounds of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice. (Both charges were ultimately narrowly defeated in trial along party lines, but that’s another story for another time.)

My point is that Maddow—erroneously—thinks that Bill Clinton was impeached because of sex, and therefore the Sanford and Ensign scandals are valid equivalents (or as my friend Leah likes to say, apples and apples). It’s a false premise repeated not only by Maddow, but by any Clinton-apologists in the Democrat Party and in the mainstream liberal media and punditocracy.

A simple, straightforward accont comes from this letter to the editor published in the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, in which the writer calls out one of the paper’s reporters who made the same mistake as Maddow:

Re “In love or just plain loony?,” June 26: Once again, we have a media member glossing over Bill Clinton’s impeachment by suggesting it was about sex and that Republicans should have minded their own business. Gail Collins has joined the chorus who intentionally misrepresent the Bill Clinton impeachment issue, this time in her article regarding South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

Every left-wing pundit constantly and wrongly refers to the impeachment of Clinton as if he was impeached for his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. This whitewash is published over and over by his apologists.

Clinton was not impeached for carrying on with his intern; he was the defendant in a civil lawsuit. While providing testimony in that suit, he lied under oath. This is called perjury. Perjury is a felony. Presidents committing felonies get impeached. The liberal media then slant the story as a hypocritical witch hunt over an issue that should have been private. Lying under oath is a serious crime that carries a serious penalty. Clinton was lucky to have just been impeached.

Now, I don’t think Maddow was on the air 11 years ago, but I wonder if she thinks Bill Clinton should have resigned? Because if she doesn’t, then it is she who is being the hypocrite for demanding theresignation Sanford and Ensign—a governor and Senator, not the POTUS!

Maybe Leah can enlighten us as to how much coverage Maddow devoted to John Edwards’ extramarital affair as his wife Elizabeth battled cancer. Maybe she can also tell me if any time in the following week Maddow will do a segment on Mary Jo Kopechne, who died 40 years ago this weekend by asphyxiation in a submerged car driven by Ted Kennedy.

Back in June, when the Sanford and Ensign scandals were starting to be news, Cal Thomas wrote in the Washington Post:

As for those who are quick to wave the hypocrisy flag because Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign and Republican Governor Sanford took part in a Bible study, I would prefer to look at the far greater number of people who have passed through this house and who have not cheated on their wives and have been encouraged to "keep on keeping on" with a life of personal and professional integrity.

To suggest that because some occasionally fail at living up to the standards they profess and this proves the house serves no useful purpose, is like saying that because someone drops dead at the gym, exercise is of no value. I suspect most Americans—whatever their religious or political beliefs—would be pleased to know that at least a few Members of Congress are attempting to improve themselves, their relationship with God and each other and as a result to perform on a higher level of integrity than they otherwise might.

My advice to the folks behind the house, though, is to open up and let the media see what's inside. The attraction for them is in the mystery of it all. There is nothing to hide and much to admire.

Hear hear!

14:30 Sotomayor Hearing

Again covering the Sotomayor hearings through liberal-tinted glasses, Maddow sees nothing but a GOP Race-Fest where other, sentient, human beings would see both Republican and

During an exchange between Sotomayor and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) used the famous Ricky Ricardo catchphrase “You have a lot of ‘splaining to do,” complete with Hispanic accent. Even though Sotomayor chuckled at this, as did the rest of the room, Rachel Maddow declared she had yet again uncovered the ugly head of trademark Republican racism. 

To this, I have one thing to say: Get over yourself, you sad pathetic woman! Is there nowhere liberals will think they’ve found Republican racism? It’s like when in 1994 Charlie Rangel found racism when the newly-Republican-majority Congress wanted tax reform: “It’s no longer ‘sp*c’ or ‘nigger.’ Now they say, ‘let’s cut taxes.’”

At 16 minutes she admits that “going Ricky Ricardo” wasn’t the most offensive thing Coburn has ever said—Whew, that’s a relief!—nor is it the most egregious example of the GOP’s racial fixation. Again, the only racial fixation I see in this whole topic is from Rachel Maddow. It reminds me of a joke told by Bill Murray’s character in the movie “What About Bob”: The doctor draws two circles and says “What do you see?” the guy says “Sex.” … So the doctor draws trees, “What do you see?” the guy says “sex”. The doctor draws a car, owl, “Sex, sex, sex”. The doctor says to him “You are obsessed with sex”, he replies “Well, you’re the one drawing all the dirty pictures!”

Likewise, the GOP were to tell Rachel Maddow, “You’re obsessed about race!” she’s most likely respond, “Well you’re the ones making all the racist comments!”

Leah, can you tell me how much time Maddow devoted to Jeremiah Wright when a couple weeks ago he called Obama’s Jewish cabinet members “Them Jews”? Or are only Republicans anti-Semitic too?

16:00 Maddow announces that on Thursday’s show she will be having on uber-righty Pat Buchanan to discuss a Human Events article he wrote about the Sotomayor hearings (Yes, she accuses Buchanan of being obsessed with race). I’ve already watched the exchange, which was made available on YouTube. It’s quite passionate and I’ll have things to say about it in my next post.

Oh yeah, on Thursday Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer was accused of “being racial” by the CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. I can’t wait to watch Thursday’s show, where Maddow will certainly take the time castigating Madame Senator for being an insensitive racist bigot.

Incidentally, I mentioned that on Maddow’s Tuesday show, when discussing the Sotomayor hearings, the graphic on the screen was a picture of Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and the caption “Southern Discomfort.” Today’s graphic was a collage of four Republican Senators and the caption “Elephant in the Room.” Now that Al Franken is a Senator, who’s coming up with all these witty captions for you?

18:00 Oh goody, here comes Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick again! And what does she and Maddow start with? How all the Republicans are pressing this “wise Latina” comment ad infinitum (which, as I said yesterday, I partially agree with). But Lithwick says the GOP is doing it “at the risk of talking about something serious and meaningful like her record.” What is this woman talking about??? If you look at the transcripts that are available—I cited the transcript of Tuesday’s hearings in my last Maddow post; Wednesday’s is here—one will find ample evidence of Republican questioners discussing Sotomayor’s record.

So stop it with the spin, Dahlia! Contrary to popular liberal belief, we conservatives know how to read!

20:00 Here’s the quote of the day: Lithwick laments that, given the supposed display of GOP obsession with race during the Sotomayor hearings, Democrats have lost an opportunity to “explain what’s wrong with the John Roberts court. Why does the Roberts court have this determination to keep average Americans out of the courthouse doors? Why are they so set on doing away with the racial progress we’ve made?”

Dahlia Lithwick, what the f**k are you talking about???

Then, just when you think Ms. Lithwick can’t be any more divorced from reality, she then applauds Senate newbie Al “thanks, ACORN” Franken for “making a pointed critique of the Roberts court and saying to Judge Sotomayor, ‘How can they talk about striking down the Voting Rights Act? How can that not be activist?’”

What is Lithwick (and Franken) smoking? The Roberts court wasn’t trying to strike down the Voting Rights Act! For one thing, the 1965 was extended 25 years in 2006 by the Roberts court. And last month the Roberts court decided 8-1 (the lone dissenter was African-American Thomas!) to kick down the road a decision on whether one section of the act (“Section 5”) was constitutional or not. Exactly how that translates to trying to striking down the entire act or with judicial activism is anybody’s guess.

How much lies and spin can one show have??? And we’re only halfway done with this episode. Oy.

And then Maddow adds to Lithwick’s commendation of Franken by saying, “I guess that may be what Al meant when he talked about wanting to be the People’s proxy in these hearings.”

One last thing. Can you tell me what’s suspicious about these shots, which appeared during this segment?

Give up: The accompanying video doesn’t match the “GOP/race” captions. All the people in these shots are Democrats! They are, from top to bottom, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-DE).

22:30 “Operation Iraqi Baseball”

Good for you, Rachel. Two thumbs up on this one. (Leah, aren’t you proud of me?)

26:30 Palin Flop-Ed

Looks like a liberal has found a flip-flop Maddow discusses Sarah Palin’s editorial “The Cap-and-Trade Dead End,” which appeared Tuesday in the Washington Post (kudos to WaPo for publishing it) Maddow describes the editorial as “decrying the cap-and-trade provision in the president’s energy plan, which would reduce the emissions that cause global warming.”

Let’s rephrase that last remark so it’s more accurate, shall we? “… decrying the cap-and-trade provision in the president’s energy plan, which would force the American people, individual property owner and business owner alike to reduce the emissions that radical eco-Marxists have been trying to trick the government and public into believing they cause global warming.”

Now that we got that straightened out, we move on:

Maddow tries to catch Palin in a Kerryesque flip-flop by playing a clip from the October 2, 2008 vice presidential debate in which she answered affirmatively to moderator Gwen Ifill’s question, “Do you support capping carbon emissions?”

She then provides from footage from Palin’s September 30, 2008 interview with Katie Couric, in which she expressed support for running-mate John McCain’s cap-and-trade plan and declared she supports doing “all that we can do to reduce emissions and clean up the planet.”

29:30 Maddow brings on Ezra Klein, who wrote a retort to Palin’s piece on his WaPo blog.

Some of Klein’s ridiculous statements about Obama’s cap-and-trade politcy:

“It’s on some level an energy tax.”
On some level???

“It’s one that will get rebated to people.”
Oh please. Even if people do get the “rebate” Obama promises, there’s no way it’s going to offset the thousands and thousands of dollars will cost people to adhere to these unnecessary, unreasonable, and unrealistic rules—car and energy companies being forced to reduce fuel emissions to currently unattainable levels, every American from Maine to Hawaii having to retrofit their private home and business to meet the environmental guidelines set by a politburo of nameless faceless Washington bureaucrats.

“It’s one that will save the globe from getting a little crispy over time.”
Ezra Klein, if you actually believe what came out of your mouth, then you are a f**king moron.

Meanwhile, Maddow and Klein are so all in a tizzy about Sarah Palin flip-flopped on cap-and-trade, they never thought to consider that the cap-and-trade policy that John McCain was proposing—albeit despised by the conservative Republican base—was nowhere near as far-reaching and economy-destroying as Obama’s. From the very clips and editorial she cites, we can clearly see that Sarah Palin is specifically against President Obama’s cap-and-trade plan. That is not a flip-flop! 

In addition, there is also nowhere in the editorial that indicates that Palin has renounced her statements made to Ifill and Couric that she supports the reduction of carbon emissions. Maddow only assumes that since Palin opposes Obama’s ambitious plan, that she opposes reducing carbon emissions altogether. (And you know what happens when you assume!)

So, nice try, Rachel, but I don’t see a Palin flip-flop here.

OK, that’s all from this show. Sorry, Leah. I’m not discussing blobs or sharks (Maddow’s two final segments). So sue me!

To Hell and Back, a.k.a. Watching Rachel Maddow, Day 1

Yesterday was day 1 of a week-long bet I made with my lefty-lib friend Leah: I watch a week of Rachel Maddow, and she listens to a week of El Rushbo. Then you, dear readers, get to follow the commentaries and critiques.

Here’s my commentary for Maddow’s Monday show:

Segment 1: Secret CIA Program Kept Secret from Congress

Maddow was drooling over revelations that Dick Cheney might have been responsible for a secret CIA program that he kept secret from Congress.

On this entire issue, all I have to say is this: The left likes to bring up the interrogation and “torture” stories, yet they always leave out the most important aspect, i.e., who was being “tortured,” i.e., Terrorists! The worst of the worst. We never liberals/Democrats discuss what scum these detainees are and how they live every breathing moment in a Islam-inspired mission to kill us. All we hear about is how immorally torturous and dangerous (and now secretive) Bush and Cheney were. That’s why the Republicans still get higher approval ratings than Democrats on national security. Republicans are more concerned with kicking terrorist butt, capturing and killing the enemy as much as possible. Democrats are more concerned about getting our enemy habeas corpus rights and access to our civilian courts—unprecedented in American history—and Geneva Convention protections, even though as unlawful enemy combatants they are uneligible for them.

They got 5-star hotel treatment at Guantanamo – Islamically correct meals, prayer rugs, Korans, reports that detainees were treated better there than in their own homelands not in jail.

By focusing on the Bush administration and trying to punish them for alleged practices, Dems are essentially protecting and defending our sworn enemies. And God forbid I should ever suggest that libs/Dems ever side with our enemies. Right, Michael Moore, Lynne Stewart, Cindy Sheehan, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Ward Churchill, etc.?

The Wall Street Journal article Maddow cites when mentioning the secret CIA program was an assassination program is here.

Let me state this as clearly as I can: I am glad that the CIA was considering this al Qaeda assassination program and that Cheney and co. had the wherewithall to hide it from Congress. Even as we speak, the Democrat Congress and Senate are demonstrating they are more interested in scoring political points by bashing the Bush administration rather than keeping our country safe. It was clearly a national security decision and thank God Cheney made the choices he made.

Segment 2: Sotomayor Hearings

Intrigued by Rep. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-RI) description of the hearings as “fighting for the vision of what a US. Supreme Court judge should think like and look like.” Sounds like, like most of the Democrats, he’s just looking to fill a gender/ethnicity quota.

Maddow asks him to clarify if he is saying that Republicans are trying to use her gender and race (ethnicity really) against her. His roundabout answer is yes. He adds Repulicans have tried to set as what’s normal and as a benchmark the white male. Almost exclusively white male 6 out of 8 (75%? That’s hardly “exclusively”). This is race-baiting pure and simple. Having followed conservative criticism of Sotomayor for months, not once has her gender or race been a factor. For liberals/Democrats like Maddow and Whitehouse to suggest it is offensive and insulting (not to mention old and tired.)

Whitehouse then has the gall to say Sotomayor would bring a different perspective and reps for some reason have a problem with that perspective of six white men should not be a problem. This is a gross distortion of Sotomayor’s actual 2001 statement that a “wise Latina woman would reach a better conclusion” than a white male. She didn’t say different, she said better. She didn’t say perspective, she said conclusion. This twisting of words to suit Whitehouse’s charge that the GOP is racist and they want no one but white males on the SC is loathsome.

Reality check: It was Republican Ronald Reagan who nominated the first woman, Sandra Day O’Connor to the SCOTUS.

Reality check – It was Republican George H.W. Bush who nominated black Clarence Thomas to the SCOTUS, and Democrats ridicule and bash him to this day.

Reality check – It was Republican George W. Bush who nominated Hispanic Miguel Estrada to the D.C. circuit court. Democrats, knowing that circuit court is a stepping stone to the SCOTUS, deliberately blocked Estrada’s appointment specifically because he was Hispanic and they didn’t want to give Bush the success of a Hispanic appointment. Actual emails between Democrats plotting this are found in the appendix of Mark Levin’s 2006 book “Men in Black.”

So Whitehouse is playing the race card against Republicans and has to resort to lies and ignoring facts and history to do it.

Rep. Whitehouse thinks like a racist – it’s all about about skin color. He says nothing about rule of law or upholding the Constitution. After commercial, there’s a clip of Dick Durbin (D-IL) kvetching how most SCOTUS justices have been white males. Again, it’s all about color of skin, nothing about content of character. All about fulfilling quotas, nothing about honoring rule of law, judicial restraint, or following the Constitution.

P.S. Why did she say “conservative Washington Times newspaper” but simply “New York Times,” “Newsweek,” and “Slate,” three famously liberal publications.

P.P.S. Liz Cheney kicks ass!

Re: The Jeff Sessions smear. Maddow says that Sessions

(1) called the NAACP un-American and communist-inspired. This is not inaccurate: both organizations have socialist-communist roots and associations.

(2) said KKK OK until he found out they supported pot-smoking. If Sessions actually said this, it was a stupid schmuck comment and I obviously don’t condone it.

(3) said a DOJ lawyer was a disgrace to his race because he represented African-Americans. Again, if Sessions said this, it was a stupid schmuck comment.

All I found on-line was left-wing sites/blogs claiming Sessions made these statements, but no sources confirming them. If Sessions said what Maddow accuses him of saying, then he’s a schmuck. If he didn’t say these things, then Maddow is just being a mud slinger.

Enter Dahlia Lithwick, liberal contributor to Newsweek and editor of the liberal Slate. She says the GOPers opposing Sotomayor aren’t considering her 18-year record and how she interprets the law, but instead focusing on a couple of statements.

Again, this point of view is 180 degrees off of reality: Republicans (more accurately, conservatives) have been discussing her record for months, from her approach toward Constitutional interpretation, 60% overturn record to the recently overturned Ricci case. Neither Maddow nor Lithwick bring this up. I believe the reason the left, including Maddow, are ignoring her record because it’s dismal. They have nothing but to accuse Republicans of stoking race, which they are not doing.

Segment 3: Nuclear Plant Meltdown?

What a surprise, Maddow doesn’t like nuclear energy.

I never even heard of this Ventura meltdown. As far as I’m concerned, if Jane Fonda didn’t make a movie about it, it didn’t happen!

Segment 4: Sarah Palin

Citing a recent NY Times article (again, not labeling it as liberal), she says part of Sarah Palin’s supposed downfall in Alaska was her “picking fights with her critics and responding when critics picked fights with her.” What the hell should have Palin done??? Lie down like a doormat while liberal/Democrat women and men smear her and her family? Or maybe she should have launched a website called FightTheSmears.org like our thin-skinned president. Please.

Troopergate – was a complete non-scandal blown out of proportion by liberals like Maddow. If Maddow was so disturbed by Palin’s overstepping her authority by firing the trooper, she should be especially disturbed by Barack Obama’s sudden firing of Inspector General Gerald Walpin.

General Observations / In conclusion

I will give Rachel Maddow this: She isn’t totally unbearable to watch, because her manner and delivery are very calm. She doesn’t become unhinged and pop blood vessels like Chris Matthews or Keith Olbermann. I actually might watch more of her after this week-long bet.

The show is completely one-sided. Every one of Maddow’s hosts were liberal Democrats. In contrast, Fox News commentator shows always invite guests with opposing viewpoints. In fact, the video clip of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) commenting on Cheney’s allegedly secret CIA program comes from an appearance on Fox News. Not a convenient truth for those on the left who consider themselves fair and balanced while accusing Fox of slanted right-wing commentary.

Until tomorrow!

Profiles in Liberal Ignorance, Hate, and Intolerance: Maureen Dowd

Over the weekend, the New York Times’ resident spinster penned her obligatory nya-nya-nya-nya-nya piece on Sarah Palin’s decision to leave office in Alaska.

Suffice it to say, Maureen Dowd’s editorial is rife with cheap shots, double standards, flat out politically-motivated lies, and other things to keep Dowd’s psychiatric team busy for weeks. In other words, the article reveals more about Dowd than it does about Palin. It’s a shame that such a pretty woman can be so ugly on the inside.

OK, let’s pick this piece apart, paragraph by detestable paragraph:

Now, Sarah’s Folly
By MAUREEN DOWD

Sarah Palin showed on Friday that in one respect at least, she is qualified to be president.

Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy.

In the very second paragraph Miss Dowd starts with the left jabs. According to Miss Dowd and a lot of other supposedly well-grounded intellectual liberals, conservatives are all “crazy” or “nutty.”

And calling a woman Sarah Palin “Caribou Barbie” proves not only that women can make sexist remarks against other women, but that Miss Maureen is rather jealous of her. Exhibit A: her book, aptly titled “Are Men Necessary?” Sarah Palin’s very existence proves to Miss Maureen that they are, as is the family of loving children that this bitter woman will likely never get the opportunity to enjoy. Living with the philosophy of abortion-über-alles-all-men-suck feminism makes for an empty existence, don’t it?

Usually we don’t find that exquisite battiness in our leaders until they’ve been battered by sordid scandals like Watergate (Nixon), gnawing problems like Vietnam (L.B.J.), or scary threats like biological terrorism (Cheney).

How telling she seems to leave out a certain semen-stained dress courtesy of certain president who couldn’t keep his monster in his pants in the Oval Office and a subsequent obstruction of justice charge that resulted in the temporary loss of said president’s law license.

When Lyndon Johnson was president, some of his staff began to think of him as “a sick man,” as Bill Moyers told Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Moyers and his fellow Johnson aide Dick Goodwin even began reading up on mental illness — Bill on manic depression and Dick on paranoia.

And so it was, Todd Purdum learned, as he traveled Alaska reporting on Palin for Vanity Fair [Ah yes, Vanity Fair is such an authoritative source for sound political commentary. No wonder the supposedly enlightened liberati^TM continue not to get it - ETR], that the governor’s erratic and egoistic behavior has been a source of concern for people there.

“Several told me, independently of one another,” Purdum writes, “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.”

Erratic and egoistic behavior? Sarah Palin? Sorry, no. It does, however, perfectly describe the current president, whose litany of indescretions and displays of self-aggrandizement never faze Maureen Dowd.

I wonder if Miss Maureen ever accused Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, John and Teresa Heinz Kerry, John Edwards, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton of ‘a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy’. Because it’s these people who are textbook cases in narcissism, not Sarah Palin.

Finally, it’s quite rich when conservatives like Dick Cheney are accused of paranoia. Because I can’t think of a better example of unhinged paranoia than a “Bush-stole-the-2000-election-Halliburton-Bush-stole-the-2004-election-Halliburton-Bush-lied-people-died-Halliburton-9/11-was-an-inside-job-Halliburton-Bush-invaded-Iraq-to-enrich-his-oil-buddies-Halliburton-Bush-is-spying-on-me-using-the-Patriot-Act-Halliburton-Halliburton-Halliburton-Halliburton” liberal/Democrat.

And to handily make this point is Dowd herself, bubbling.

What looked like a secret wedding turned out to be a public unraveling as the G.O.P. implosion continued: Sarah wanted everyone to know that she’s not having fun and people are being mean to her and she doesn’t feel like finishing her first term as governor.

She can hunt wolves from the air and field-dress a moose, but she fears being a lame duck? Some brickbats over her ethics and diva turns as John McCain’s running mate, and that dewy skin turns awfully thin.

Maybe there’s another red Naughty Monkey high heel to drop — there’s often a hidden twist in Sarah’s country-music melodramas. Or is this a reckless high-speed escape from small-pond Alaska, where her popularity is dropping, to the big time Below? […]

Ummm, newsflash, Miss Dowd: According to this Washington Post article Palin has a 54% approval rate with Alaskans, indeed a steep drop from the 80’s she enjoyed a year ago. But your hero Barack Obama’s approval ratings are also dropping: from 65% on January 21 (with 30% disapproving) to 53% on July 2 (with 46% disapproving). This, Sweet Cheeks, is what we call a statistical tie.

After girlish burbling about how “progressing our state” and serving Alaska “is the greatest honor that I could imagine,” and raving about how much she loves her job, she abruptly announced that she was making the ultimate sacrifice: dumping the state on her lieutenant. […]

“Girlish burbling”? Again, more sexist statements by someone who’d be castigating Rush Limbaugh had he used the same words about, say, Hillary Clinton or, dare I say, Dowd herself.

“We need those who will respect our Constitution,” said Palin, who swore on the Bible to uphold the Constitution. She said she can’t fulfill that silly old oath of office in the usual way because she’s not “wired to operate under the same old politics as usual.”

Ya know, I, like many conservatives, are very wary about Palin’s decision to leave the governership mid-term. But did Miss Maureen criticize Hillary Clinton for leaving New York “in a lurch” when she left her Senatorial perch for greener pastures? Of course not.

If Palin has in fact relinquished her post with the intention of running for higher office, that’s much more honorable than letting your seat gather dust while still collecting your paycheck, as did Barack Obama, John Kerry, and John Edwards. Suffice it to say that we need not even search the NY Times rchives to find Dowd’s criticism of them. The double standards in Miss Dowd’s hit piece are just so embarrassingly blatant.

Naturally, she dragged the troops in, [Yes, Miss Maureen, almost as naturally as you drag in Halliburton] saying that her trip to see wounded soldiers overseas “fortified” her decision to give up because “they don’t give up.”

She refuses to succumb to the “politics of personal destruction.” It’s no fun unless she’s the one aiming those poison darts, as she did when she accused Barack Obama of associating “with terrorists who targeted their own country.”

Umm, that wasn’t a poison dart, because was true. Barack Obama did pal around with terrorists who did target their own country. More frighteningly, Obama has expressed before and during his presidency to pal around with a hell of a lot more. It is in fact Maureen who is the dart thrower in this situation.

OK, enough of this abomination. (We get the point. In the NY Times’ defense, they do present a “conservative” alternative to Dowd with this editorial by Ross Douthat.)

Now here’s Breitbart’s retort. In short, he charges Dowd, as well as Katie Couric and Tina Fey, with a detrimental elitism and snobbery with which female liberals in the media and Hollywood have viewed Sarah Palin from the start:

July 6, 2009
New York Times Barbie strikes again

What a shock that Maureen Dowd devoted her New York Times column Sunday to attack Sarah Palin. It did not so much criticize Alaska’s governor for prematurely stepping down from her official duties as to finish off what sister snipers Katie Couric and Tina Fey began last fall.

The assassination of Sarah Palin—by media.

For those who didn’t pay attention, Mrs. Palin’s unexpected stratospheric rise as a national political figure threatened the media’s preordained presidency of Barack Obama.

In light of how the Obama machine took down Hillary Clinton, which unsettled many feminists who believed 2008 was their time, many who saw sexism at play—the destruction of an ascendant Republican female icon was an urgent imperative for the Democratic Party.

In conjunction with the laws of political correctness as perfected by the Democratic Media Complex, it would take prominent women to take down an unlikely and unexpected conservative feminist symbol that threatened to steal away Mrs. Clinton’s votes from the Chosen One.

While the vanquished then-senator from New York conspicuously removed herself from this task—going so far as praising Sen. John McCain’s running mate as “a very composed and effective debater”—a trio of media partisans, each with a unique skill set, rose to the task of tearing down Sarah Palin.

Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey—Obama’s Angels (featuring Joy Behar in the role of “Bosley”)—used a potent mix of mockery, snobbery and vitriol to undermine Mrs. Palin’s feminist bona fides.

They are what my wife calls “pad throwers,” an allusion to the shower room scene in the Stephen King film “Carrie,” in which the popular girls throw sanitary napkins and tampons at the film’s namesake.

Simply put, they are bullies. And female bullies—“Mean Girls” as Miss Fey’s film calls them—are the cruelest kind.

Primarily motivated by a desire to keep abortion “safe, legal and rare,” female liberals in the media have carte blanche to do and say anything.

But since Mrs. Palin, a mother of five including a boy who was known to have Down syndrome before he was born, is a potent symbol of the pro-life movement, she is considered an enemy of the sisterhood.

Miss Dowd’s attempted takedown of Mrs. Palin is less skillful surgery than it is name calling using fun noun and adjective pairings. Think “Mad Libs.” And, that’s exactly what Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey are. Once the ladies did their job, liberal men like Jon Stewart and David Letterman had the cover to join the hate campaign.

While Mrs. Palin is at ease with her gender, as well as her place in the workplace and at home, Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey convey a base insecurity in their feminine skin. Their rage is fueled by liberalism’s false feminist dogma and they take it out on a woman who chose not to join their angry sorority.

The governor of Alaska’s compelling narrative—athlete, beauty queen, wife, mother, hunter, successful politician—shows adherents of narrow leftist dogma that, perhaps, women really can have it all. Most importantly: freedom of thought.

In calling Alaska’s governor “Caribou Barbie,” Miss Dowd used beauty as a weapon to diminish Mrs. Palin’s achievements. A man would be reprimanded for this, but Miss Dowd is a Pulitzer Prize-winning pad thrower and is licensed for such vindictive pettiness.

“Caribou,” of course, is a stab at Mrs. Palin’s backwater, Red State ways, attacks on which an Upper Westside liberal snob can never get enough. Miss Dowd goes on to ridicule “Sarah’s country-music melodramas.” This is her barely veiled attempt to call Mrs. Palin “white trash.” And this has been the loathsome subtext of all media criticism of the Palins. They even went after their children. Mercilessly.

And Mrs. Palin during the Letterman saga finally cried, “Enough!”

Exposed in the relentless Palin attacks is not just political bias, but unmitigated class bias. The American mainstream media in its current free-fall is begging for more comeuppance when it continues to berate the values and lifestyles of the folks in flyover country who in simpler times used to be considered valued customers.

While “empathy” and “tolerance” may be liberalism’s highest values, Miss Dowd offers her conservative victims none. They are caricatured, demeaned and dehumanized. They are to be mocked and ridiculed to the point where the other students point and laugh. The MoDo template is so simple and repetitive it could be written into a software program.

Perhaps resigning from her first term in office may hurt Mrs. Palin’s attempts to run for higher office. Even I, a Palin supporter, now have qualms about her seeking higher office. But politics is not the most important way to influence our country, and reinforce conservatism’s relevancy in the current global disorder. Media is.

Sarah Palin may best serve her country by entering the media fray. In the pursuit of taking her down, Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey have created the person who burns the liberal media prom down.

Hopefully, when she leaves office Mrs. Palin starts to work on her telekinetic powers.

Can’t say I disagree with any of these comments.

It has become obvious from the start that liberals/Democrats are scared of Sarah Palin. She is the promise of feminism, which they despise. He has everything that liberal women like Maureen Dowd want but can’t have. She has achieved everything on her own terms. And most importantly, she is Barack Obama’s most formidable opponent in 2012.

Sarah Palin isn’t quitting anything, liberals/Democrats. She’s just getting ready for the next battle. And you know it all too well.

As far as the so-called feminists like Dowd, Couric, and Fey, Curt at the Flopping Aces blog writes this:

… [T]here is no way, no how, someone who is a real feminist would throw such insults at a female who is strong, independent, and successful. But the feminist movement has always been a leftist breeding ground, or has been as long as I’ve been alive. It’s not women rights they cherish, but the liberal ideology.

Bingo.

Let round two begin.