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Tuesday, 30 September 2008
Updates from the Palin front
We've all been so distracted with serious bidness the last few days that I've hardly had a moment to think about Sarah Palin. But I pause now to pass on two things:
- I met with Marvin Chernoff over breakfast this morning, and he asked me whether I'd seen the Tina Fey-as-Sarah Palin skit on SNL, and I said I had, but after a moment it hit me that we weren't talking about the same skit. Turns out she reprised the role Saturday night and I missed it, while Marvin was unaware of the earlier one. Now that I've seen the latest (clip above), I've got to say it sort of fell flat by comparison, but it would have been hard to match the hilarity of the first effort. It was the funniest thing on that show in decades.
- Be sure to check out tomorrow's op-ed page. Kathleen Parker writes about the tidal wave of vehement reaction she got to her Palin-should-drop-out column the other day.
Posted by Brad Warthen at 04:11 PM in 2008 Presidential, Coming Attractions, Popular culture, Sarah Palin, Video
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Comments
The funniest thing about the Palin-Couric spoof was that the writers used the transcript of the actual interview verbatim for about 30 seconds or so. Joe's greatest challenge on Thursday night might be in monitoring his own facial expressions.
Here's a bit on YouTube that shows what her handlers must be going through. Warning: some explicit language that will be offensive to some.
Posted by: Norm Ivey | Sep 30, 2008 4:31:29 PM
The infotainment mentality is the ruin of serious journalism.
It takes no work, and no risk, to just opine and guess, and speculate, postulate, and ridicule.
Asking serious questions, and researching the facts, especially an unknown nobody with no resume like Obama, is real work, too hard for today's media personalities.
That's why it's being done by bloggers, talk radio and other new, more serious reporters.
Posted by: Lee Muller | Sep 30, 2008 5:01:50 PM
You're right, Lee. Obama's completely unknown. Which one is he, again?
Posted by: Sarah | Sep 30, 2008 5:22:36 PM
"It takes no work, and no risk, to just opine and guess, and speculate, postulate, and ridicule."
Lee, you are living proof of that.
There is a huge difference between Obama & Palin that you repeated stick you head in the sand over and ignore.
Obama ran a campaign in a major political party system for over two years and of all of the dozens of other Democratic canidates, won the most votes and is the last man standing. Two years of speeches, parades, interviews and debates. All the glory and all the hard work. He's earned the right to represent the party and has done nothing that any other US citizen couldn't do themselves if they wished to do the same thing. Obama, just like McCain went through the gauntlet and emerged the victor.
Palin on the otherhand was cherry-pick for her role with less than 90 days left to the longest campaign season on record. She has put in zero work or effort into McCain's campaign prior to September and her selection was based solely on the facts that she has a pulse & a skirt. Since Guiliani also has a pulse and a skirt, but isn't as photogenic in pink, Palin got the nod.
She didn't win anything. She didn't earn anything. She was picked. How likely is it that any other US citizen would get the chance to be the VP on a ticket? Try no chance at all. In fact, the VP selection is very un-American in its process...but's that's for another day.
There is a huge difference between earning your way onto a ticket whether you agree with the policies or personality of a candidate or not and just showing up and "coming on down" when your name is picked like "The Price is Right" when your name is called.
Right now the Palin camp is already setting expectations so low that the fact she doesn't fall over in her heels like a runway model will cause for celebration.
The US deserves better quality in its leadership than a failed & confused beauty queen.
The totally sad part is in about 8 years, she could have been a real force to reckon with on the GOP scene. Instead McCain's use and exposure of her will have ruined her poitical career forever.
Anyone heard from Dan Quayle lately?
Posted by: wtf | Sep 30, 2008 6:57:22 PM
Not to insult the man, but who on God's green earth is Marvin Chernoff?
And, more to the actual point, "Updates from the Palin front" gave me rise to expect something that actually involved the GOP nominee for VP, not what Tina Fey did, or what someone said about what Kathleen Parker wrote.
About both of which, I might add, I give not one sterling d*mn.
Posted by: p.m. | Sep 30, 2008 9:31:21 PM
Rush Limbaugh doesn't even qualify as an infotainer. He belches his own venomous opinion on the radio. That's not news.
Posted by: Ralph Hightower | Oct 1, 2008 5:23:03 AM
Brad, the latest skit duplicated Palin's actual answer to one of Couric's questions. Maybe it wasn't as funny but it sure was scary.
Posted by: bud | Oct 1, 2008 7:11:16 AM
Obama was a total unknown until a few months, ago, just a few months longer than Palin.
His associations with terrorists, real estate swindlers, the Nation of Islam, communists, terrorists like Bill Ayers, and Jew-haters is still unknown to most voters, and a to a lot of lazy journalists.
Posted by: Lee Muller | Oct 1, 2008 7:24:54 AM
Big Media is lined up behind the establishment , pushing for legislation they haven't even read, much less reported the details.
Brad Warthen fills the editorial page with opinions blasting those who stopped this bailout and cover up of the largest bank robbery in history, yet his paper has not printed a synopsis of the bill.
That is so typical, and it is why America doesn't trust news media and doesn't buy print media.
Posted by: Lee Muller | Oct 1, 2008 7:39:52 AM
Lee,
And today's lead editorial in The State has this tasty nugget:
" Rep. Gresham Barrett, the only member of the S.C. delegation to vote “no,” said he wants to let markets work. What an empty explanation. Markets showed what they thought of that after his position prevailed."
When have the markets been able to work without government intervention? Has The State heard of the SEC, the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury, Congress, FNMA, and FMAC? Any thoughts on how those non-market entities might have had an impact on the financial situation?
Does The State understand that the reason the market dropped is more likely due to the fact that financial institutions were hoping the government (i.e. taxpayers) would end up paying more for their assets than they were actually worth (i.e. the market value)?
We need more people like Mr. Barrett in Congress and a lot fewer Lindsey Graham's -- whose sole contribution has been empty rhetoric and partisan diatribes.
Posted by: Doug Ross | Oct 1, 2008 7:49:35 AM
It's a rare event when Lee and I agree on anything but in this case Lee might have a point. A good synopsis of the bill with both supporting and oppossing opinions on the major points would be nice to see. With the stock market recovering most of the ground in lost on Monday this crisis seems a bit overstated. Perhaps I'm wrong but the administration has some tools to help us limp along until a good, solid bill can be crafted that doesn't simply enrich a handful of Wall Street types who have already gained enormous wealth through ill-advised decisions.
Posted by: bud | Oct 1, 2008 8:14:56 AM
Lee writes "The infotainment mentality is the ruin of serious journalism" and for a rare occasion I agree with him, and would add "the ruin of serious politics and governance" as well.
Problem is, I believe that "infotainment mentality" is what led McCain to pick Palin as his running mate.
Posted by: Phillip | Oct 1, 2008 8:22:39 AM
And, the Palin pick being just one piece of evidence, more indications that McCain is at risk now of losing much more than an election.
Posted by: Phillip | Oct 1, 2008 8:32:40 AM
Guys, the stock market "recovery" is only a drop in the bucket. The overnight lending rate between banks tripled Monday night. TRIPLED. This is catastrophic to our banking system. The stock market is only a very public small part of the much larger credit crisis.
Posted by: Jimmy | Oct 1, 2008 9:14:25 AM
Doug, if I can read the entire bill in an hour and boil it down to a 2-page handout, which I have done, the newspaper certainly could, if they wanted to act like a newspaper.
That comment you quoted from THE STATE about "markets not working" shows their ignorance. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are FEDERAL-controlled fascist-style banks that failed. The other banks collapsed because of the repossessions and asset devaluation of their junk loans to blacks and Hispanics under a GOVERNMENT program.
This is the biggest bank robbery in history, by the Democrats.
Posted by: Lee Muller | Oct 1, 2008 9:29:09 AM
bud, most of the "Wall Street types" who got rich packaging mortgages did it honestly. What is inexcusable is all the board members of FNMA and FMAC voting huge salaries and bonuses for themselves, while cooking the books by billions of dollars of phony profits. These are all Democrat and Republican cronies.
Jimmy,
Yes, the interbank rates are jumping, because the banks are fighting for cash. This is a golden opportunity to hold the legitimate rescue hostage until we get some instant tax reform and legislation blocking any bailouts, ever, for the government and union pensions.
This is the tip of the iceberg of socialist corruption. The rest of the iceber is:
* Social Security
* state and municipal pensions
* union pensions
* big corporate pensions
* Medicare
* Medicaid
It is time to melt it all down.
Posted by: Lee Muller | Oct 1, 2008 9:36:34 AM
Imagine what the markets would do if the bailout was tied to direct cuts in government spending?
How about we just dump the Department of Education as part of the deal? Or eliminate foreign aid?
There's more than $700 billion available to cut. Why doesn't the government act like a responsible adult would and shift spending from one area to another? Oh yeah, I forgot. Because the government doesn't care about responsibility when it can just tax people as much as it wants.
Posted by: Doug Ross | Oct 1, 2008 9:48:43 AM
Spare me this socialist crap Lee. This crisis has a major free-market component to it and everybody knows it. The big banks and mortgage companies lapped up the bad loans based on the promise of ever-rising home values. No one forced them to do against their will. It was a free-market driven bubble more than anything else.
Funny how everyone keeps bringing Social Security up. That highly successful program has been on the verge of collapse now for 75 years. Yet somehow the checks keep arriving in the mail, even as PRIVATE banks fail. The Adam Smith "guiding hand" continues to suffer a severe case of Parkinson's disease and all the blowhards can do is call the bank failures socialist. That is so lame.
Posted by: bud | Oct 1, 2008 9:53:09 AM
Again, in the "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" department, here are some of the earmarks that have been attached to the bailout bill.
I would assume that Senator McCain will continue to vote no on the bill until every single one of these is removed. If he votes yes to this pork, he's nothing but a political hack.
"New Tax earmarks in Bailout bill
- Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)
- Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)
- 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504)
Tax earmark “extenders” in the bailout bill.
- Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
- American Samoa (Sec. 309)
- Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
- Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
- Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
- Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
- Railroads (Sec. 316)
- Auto Racing Tracks (317)
- District of Columbia (Sec. 322)
- Wool Research (Sec. 325)
Posted by: Doug Ross | Oct 1, 2008 9:54:02 AM
Bud says:
"Funny how everyone keeps bringing Social Security up. That highly successful program has been on the verge of collapse now for 75 years."
Yeah, sure. They keep raising the tax to pay for it. Kind of easy to keep it "successful" when you have a mandatory tax you can raise at will.
Did you know that they raised the maximum income that people pay into Social Security on this year? Went from $97,500 to $102,000.
That means if you make $102,000 or more, you and your employer will be paying $4500*0.124 = $558 more tax dollars into the social security welfare system than you did last year.
It's a pyramid scheme enforced by the government. The only way it can "succeed" is if taxes are raised, benefits are cut, or retirement age is increased.
It's welfare, Bud. Socialistic WELFARE. It's not a retirement pension system.
Posted by: Doug Ross | Oct 1, 2008 10:11:30 AM
Here's the Maverick's comments on the earmarks in the bailout bill... he loses more and more credibility every single day:
"I certainly would have done everything in my power to remove those earmarks," he told ABC's "This Week" in an interview. "But I may have voted for it if, I probably would have ended up voting for it, but I decry a system where individual members are, are faced with taking all this unacceptable, outrageous stuff that has contributed to the largest growth in spending since the Great Society."
By one estimate, the bill includes 2,322 pet projects sought by lawmakers for their home districts and states, totaling $6.6 billion."
Posted by: Doug Ross | Oct 1, 2008 10:15:16 AM
Subprime loans were created by Congress to lend money to blacks and Latinos who had bad credit, without proof of income, employment assets or history of repaying loans.
No banks would have made these loans without the GOVERNMENT guarantees from FMAC and FNMA.
The political cronies who sat on the boards of FMAC and FNMA cooked the books, paid themselves bonuses larger than the presidents of real banks, and kicked back lots of payola to the Congressmen and Senators who kept the tax money coming.
Let's have public hearings before the election, and before any vote on a bail out bill.
Posted by: Lee Muller | Oct 1, 2008 10:24:34 AM
Social Security has gone broke seven times, and been bailed out with an payroll tax higher than necessary each time.
I received one of their phony statements last month. No one has an account in Social Security. There is no cash, just IOUs from the deficits the cash financed.
My "statement" told me not to worry, that I would be getting "at least 75% of my promised benefit". 75%? What kind of promise keeping is that?
Posted by: Lee Muller | Oct 1, 2008 10:27:24 AM
Marvin Chernoff is the father of the Columbia Festival of the Arts, a professor/psychologist/playwright from New York via Los Angeles instrumental in the revitalization of the Congaree Vista.
His political contributions to Democrats include John Kerry, John Edwards, Brent Weaver, Alex Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, John Spratt, Jim Clyburn and Al Gore.
Thanks, Brad, for telling me absolutely nothing. Google told me a lot you wouldn't have.
Posted by: p.m. | Oct 1, 2008 10:52:39 AM
So Doug, are you saying that a legislator should only vote for bills that contain nothing that they disagree with? Maybe you are, since you are a Ron Paul supporter, and that tends to go along with an affinity for ideological purity.
More specifically, if the rescue bill (there I go with that word again) -- something that bipartisan consensus agrees needs to pass, and quickly -- contains things that someone else insisted on but you opposed, are you saying you should just make like Gresham Barrett and vote "no" so you could say you did?
Posted by: Brad Warthen | Oct 1, 2008 11:03:38 AM
