Gingrich's workflow for being a total blow

This is Newt Gingrich's advice to Sarah Palin on how to become a permanent scumbag, rather than just another flash in the pan asshole.

Good to know there is a processes. I wouldn't want to think of all these assholes competing for air and making it up as they went along. This is actually quite important, because if we can simplify the process of running for president, or being a perpetual pundit, then we can get even dumber, and even more vile assholes into the public debate. (see Glenn Beck, on second thought- don't) This is good because now America's retarded side can finally be expressed on television outside of Jerry Springer. It's fun to watch the death of ideals in slow motion, kids!

"1. Write a book. Palin is already set to do that, which Gingrich applauds. A book, he said, helps a politician lay out his or her philosophy and experiences in their own unhurried words. It also helps score TV time, which in turn helps sell books, he added."
"2. Land a regular commentator on television. It's a sure way for an outsider to stay inside the national dialogue and in touch with the incumbents, activists and strategists who can help launch a comeback."
"3. Consider getting a condominium in New York or Washington. An East Coast base of operations would ease what could become an onerous travel schedule from Alaska."
"4. Write and master three types of speeches. One speech “is to make money,” he said, and should be something smart and entertaining."
"The second set of speeches includes what Gingrich calls “high-value” addresses designed to be delivered before major interest groups and universities, enabling Palin to “project her brand.”"
"The third speech, of course, is a campaign stump speech that she can take on the road in 2010 to help Republican candidates raise money and gain attention."
"5. Create some sort of national project or center. This can serve as a base for her political return and an incubator for ideas and action on issues. A National Energy Project, Gingrich said, would be a natural for Palin."
"6. Plan on working really, really hard. Many ex-politicians confuse being a celebrity with being a serious political player, Gingrich said. “She can be a personality for a long time,” he said. “But that is very different from becoming a national leader.”

[via the Page, from Politico]

Things to do before Tuesday night

Early Tuesday night, we will all undergo a transformation. We will no longer be victims of our government; we will be winners. So prepare yourselves. Prepare your homes.

Here's my personal to do list:
shower, shave, brush teeth, cut nails, do laundry, do dishes, clean desk, sweep floor, pay bills

I don't really know what happens when we win. It is possible that when Jim Lehrer cuts to Barack Obama's acceptance speech, a transcendent moment will occur. My television might do something it's never done before. It may broadcast more than sound and picture. The spirit of Barack Obama and millions of other American's may manifest in my apartment. And if so, I want to present myself with respect, in order to give my respect for the moment meaning and value.

I also want to give the manifestation as many portals to enter my home as possible. The TV is a magic box, don't get me wrong. But I want the fragrance of victory in every corner of my home. So if I finish my list early, or if for some strange reason, the night drags on past ten, I plan on doing something constructive with my time. Like making a victory sculture out of things around the house, or painting a victory O on the back of a cereal box, or making a Barack Bust out of mashed potatoes. Really, as many entry points for potential visitations as possible. Maybe I'll write a victory song.

I know I'll be listening to lot's of the Staple Singers and Andrew W.K.

Our eight year long lesson in defeat is ending.

I can't believe it. I want to turn this into a music blog for the next few weeks. Victory rocks.

Put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day

Anti-Obama madness over at the McLaughlin Group is reaching a fever pitch as the election nears. Last Friday's episode represents a culmination of terror which Obama has been inspiring, for the past two years, among the more paranoid conservatives. Three of the show's most regular members have close ties to Richard Nixon: John McLaughlin, Pat Buchannan, Monica Crowley.

So really it is the go to place to find out what Nixon would think about present day politics. And as bearers of his legacy, they are driven by the fear that someone will out Nixon Nixon. Obama's speech on Race, which nullified the Reverend Wright issue, was as good as Nixon's Checkers Speech, which nullified the slime issue, for a few years anyway.

Robert MacNeil wrote in his memoir that Richard Nixon had a sort of charisma in color television that was lacking in black and white. With the Checkers speech it was a charisma which was conveyed by his voice. The radio helped humanized him, while black and white television, while providing more information, lowered his charisma. Obama has the political gifts of Nixon, and the comfort with each present and emerging technology which presents him to the public with his charisma intact. As Richard Nixon's head in a jar says on Futurama, "Nixon with charisma? My God, I could rule the universe!"

So you can appreciate this mad episode of McLaughlin Group now. OR put it on your pocket, save it for a rainy day sometime after November 4th. I have a feeling it will seem even funnier then.

Rainy Day Laughs with the McLaughlin Group

If it happens Pat...

Apparently, I'm not the only person who thinks this is the best show on television right now. But I am the last person to learn about this awesome song.

Phony!

Gaffe Master

Will well-loved, former stutterer, Joe Biden be able to slip out brutal, cycle grabbing attack lines which neither Obama or Biden himself will have to take credit for? Bush has used this before, 'I didn't say that I just spoke those words.' Or are Biden's day's of slipping over. Everyone at this convention seems like they've lived and learned a thousand years worth since we last saw them. Everyone's been shining and doing exactly what they need to do.

Michelle Obama's Speech

Hilary Clinton's Speech (MUST LISTEN)

Stone Alexander is Running For President

Seems like John McCain's camp has watched the Omega Code, maybe you should too. It's going to be required reading for all of tomorrow's jokes.
[Watch the Omega Code]

"And he has anointed himself, ready to carry the burden of the worm."

Stoned, foreign, and famous

From the McCain Ad, Celeb:

That's the sum up at the end, what the evidence prior was building too: this glass-eyed and oily foreign famous guy looks down on you like all celebs do. And this ad seems like it's been very successful in tapping into a deep seeded resentment. The public feels slighted that the people on TV aren't actually our friends. This is why we hire tabloids to whack them. But we also want to believe that some famous people are good people and by virtue of our own goodness - distant friends.

So is Barack your friend? The words on the screen tell us he's higher and more foreign than most of your friends. And they haven't even said his full name yet. Every ad John McCain releases will be the set up: Barack Hussein Obama the punchline.

Monica Crowley, Classy Lady

The McLaughlin Group is really like the best show on TV. John McLaughlin is convinced Obama is America's Adolf, uniting the people behind empty slogans. And though Dr. McLaughlin sometimes says things that sound racist, he is not actually a racist motherfucker. The same can not be said for some of the other guests. The show isn't released onto the RSS feed until almost a week after it has aired. But this just makes it seem more old fashioned, like something I should be watching on archive.org. Anyway from last Friday's transcript:

MS. CROWLEY: Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota, which is somebody that Eleanor predicted that he might look at.

Look, I agree with Michelle. John McCain is vanilla ice cream. He needs a scoop of rocky road to run with, okay? Barack Obama is the exact opposite. Obama's rocky road. He needs more vanilla ice cream. And I think the economic issues are the prevailing force on McCain as he looks at a VP. That makes Romney and, I think, Michael Bloomberg, who on Friday of this week said that he is going to start touting John McCain, not formally endorsing him but touting him. And it may be that they are trying to sort of triangulate this, because Bloomberg is very liberal on the social issues and it may cause some difficulties with the conservatives.

And Dr. McLaughlin reminds us John McCain is not so far removed from Richard Nixon:

MS. CLIFT: And the images of Barack Obama on this trip and John McCain in a golf cart with the former President Bush and strolling the cheese aisle in a local supermarket --

DR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, we don't need -- you don't need a burlesk of John McCain. I mean, it's all there for you anyway.

Newsmen

Via the Note;

In responding to the ad, did Obama protest too much? Jumping off of the new ad, Obama said: "The only way they figure they're going to win this election is if they make you scared of me. So what they're saying is, 'Well, we know we're not very good but you can't risk electing Obama. You know, he's new, he's . . . doesn't look like the other presidents on the currency, you know, he's got a, he's got a funny name."

ABC's Jake Tapper: "Correct me if I'm wrong, but does it not seem as if Obama just said McCain and his campaign -- presumably the 'they' in this construct -- are saying that Obama shouldn't be elected because he's a risk because he's black and has a foreign-sounding name?"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but fuck you, Jake Tapper and your goddamn face, you colossal smarmy prick.
The things you don't know about politics should fight the things Glenn Beck doesn't know about politics. Hopefully, this endless psychic battle would keep you two busy enough that I'd never have to hear another word out of any of your many goddamn mouths.

Clinton says the fix is not in

Clinton explains RFK assassination reference

"Earlier today, I was discussing the Democratic primary history and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and Sen. Kennedy waged in California in June in 1992 and 1968, and I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nominating primary contests that go into June. That's an historic fact."

"The Kennedys have been much on my mind in the last days because of Sen. [Edward] Kennedy, and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever,"

John McCain Protects Dictionaries, Not People

"In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity."
-- ABE LINCOLN

Buchanan Rebutts

What the fuck is happening in this photo

Go ahead guess.
Watch the video to find out.

Message-Force Multipliers

MFM, not a rock band, actually a fascist power/greed scam revealed by the NYTimes:
(If perhaps you don't bother reading anymore, you can LISTEN about it.)

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

...

At the Pentagon, members of Ms. Clarke’s staff marveled at the way the analysts seamlessly incorporated material from talking points and briefings as if it was their own.

“You could see that they were messaging,” Mr. Krueger said. “You could see they were taking verbatim what the secretary was saying or what the technical specialists were saying. And they were saying it over and over and over.” Some days, he added, “We were able to click on every single station and every one of our folks were up there delivering our message. You’d look at them and say, ‘This is working.’ ”

On April 12, 2003, with major combat almost over, Mr. Rumsfeld drafted a memorandum to Ms. Clarke. “Let’s think about having some of the folks who did such a good job as talking heads in after this thing is over,” he wrote.

By summer, though, the first signs of the insurgency had emerged. Reports from journalists based in Baghdad were increasingly suffused with the imagery of mayhem.

The Pentagon did not have to search far for a counterweight.

It was time, an internal Pentagon strategy memorandum urged, to “re-energize surrogates and message-force multipliers,” starting with the military analysts.

The memorandum led to a proposal to take analysts on a tour of Iraq in September 2003, timed to help overcome the sticker shock from Mr. Bush’s request for $87 billion in emergency war financing.

The group included four analysts from Fox News, one each from CNN and ABC, and several research-group luminaries whose opinion articles appear regularly in the nation’s op-ed pages.

The trip invitation promised a look at “the real situation on the ground in Iraq.”

The situation, as described in scores of books, was deteriorating. L. Paul Bremer III, then the American viceroy in Iraq, wrote in his memoir, “My Year in Iraq,” that he had privately warned the White House that the United States had “about half the number of soldiers we needed here.”

“We’re up against a growing and sophisticated threat,” Mr. Bremer recalled telling the president during a private White House dinner.

That dinner took place on Sept. 24, while the analysts were touring Iraq.

Yet these harsh realities were elided, or flatly contradicted, during the official presentations for the analysts, records show. The itinerary, scripted to the minute, featured brief visits to a model school, a few refurbished government buildings, a center for women’s rights, a mass grave and even the gardens of Babylon.

Mostly the analysts attended briefings. These sessions, records show, spooled out an alternative narrative, depicting an Iraq bursting with political and economic energy, its security forces blossoming. On the crucial question of troop levels, the briefings echoed the White House line: No reinforcements were needed. The “growing and sophisticated threat” described by Mr. Bremer was instead depicted as degraded, isolated and on the run.

“We’re winning,” a briefing document proclaimed.

One trip participant, General Nash of ABC, said some briefings were so clearly “artificial” that he joked to another group member that they were on “the George Romney memorial trip to Iraq,” a reference to Mr. Romney’s infamous claim that American officials had “brainwashed” him into supporting the Vietnam War during a tour there in 1965, while he was governor of Michigan.

But if the trip pounded the message of progress, it also represented a business opportunity: direct access to the most senior civilian and military leaders in Iraq and Kuwait, including many with a say in how the president’s $87 billion would be spent. It also was a chance to gather inside information about the most pressing needs confronting the American mission: the acute shortages of “up-armored” Humvees; the billions to be spent building military bases; the urgent need for interpreters; and the ambitious plans to train Iraq’s security forces.

Google is my Co-Pilot

Google News is my first stop for news. Like a newspaper is for some, or CNN for others. If I want to know what's happening I just go to Google News. But the mechanics of it's aggregating means that often a popular story gets a separate popular photo next to it. And a lot of the most popular photos of the politicians have them looking like bloated, old, wrinkly satan babies. So the source I trust to present me with snapshots of the Present, reads like the New York Times and looks like the New York Daily Post, and shows me unflattering angles of the candidates you just don't get on NPR or the television news. I think I'm winning out.

Rev. Wright Taught Obama Mercerism in Chicago

From yesterday's Barack Obama's speech, 'A More Perfect Union:'

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters….And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

[Vid Link] [Transcript]

The speech is mind blowing, like his earlier speech on faith. It is an involved dissection of a complex situation and like nothing we've heard in years. Better than Bill Clinton. More Nixonian, more meta, more Hollywood. And certainly more Dick.

Trust Them With Your Life?

I haven't trusted the Secret Service to preform their job in a non-political way for years now. Now there's this news:
Police concerned about order to stop weapons screening at Obama rally

I first clued into possible SS malfeasance when I read this amazing Rolling Stone article on how the press framed Al Gore in 2000. Included is a dissection of a little manufactured story that made Gore look bad and was started by an SS decision. Then the Secret Service were organizing the "Free Speech Zones," and the questionable security at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston.

Are they impartial? If I were running for president I would hire my own security firm.

Why I hate Alternet

Thirsty for news, I went over to Alternet.org, a progressive news site I used to read. All my usual sources have kind of said their peace for the week, and the lazy bums are resting all weekend. And with the strike preventing me from watching any new television shows, regardless of any talk, (Talk is not TV!) I was really ready to read some news. With the elections heat, and TV's lull, I've been reading more and more. So here's what I find:
What? I'm missing a chance to consider the horrors of life in middle America? Geez, I'm such a dope. Here I am, ignoring this news story that's been playing on TV since I was 15, and wasting a perfectly good opportunity to consider horrors. Why am I even bothering to write this, when I could drop everything and start being afraid right now? Psychological torture is just a cable news show away. Like FDR said, 'you've got nothing but fear on every channel.'

But if you consider too much horror, watch too much TV, see the planes hit the towers too many times, there is no going back. You've been shocked too many times. 'You've watched it, you can't unwatch it.'

Obama Discusses Faith with Honesty

This June 2006 speech by Barack Obama recently surfaced on digg. It's an amazing speech, a well reasoned argument that imagines an America engaging in a moral debate that supersedes and includes religion. It's forty minutes long, but I can't recommend it more. For the first time I am moved to feel something; what I've wanted from politics since I first read Kurt Vonnegut. In this speech Obama makes me believe in a world where our common humanity can prevail over stupidity and greed. For the first time I am absolutely convinced that Obama is the real deal.

Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome - others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.

In other words, if we don't reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, then the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and Alan Keyeses will continue to hold sway.

More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem here is rhetorical - if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice.

Imagine Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address without reference to "the judgments of the Lord." Or King's I Have a Dream speech without references to "all of God's children." Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.

Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical, though. Our fear of getting "preachy" may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems.

After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness - in the imperfections of man.

Solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will also require changes in hearts and a change in minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers' lobby - but I also believe that when a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we've got a moral problem. There's a hole in that young man's heart - a hole that the government alone cannot fix.
...
Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles.
[Transcript]

It's weirder than we can imagine

Before leaving the Senate, Obama was pulled aside for some jovial banter with Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), whose men's room arrest last year caused a national stir. On Tuesday, Obama won the Democratic caucuses in Craig's state.

Clinton, meanwhile, appeared to be more strategic in her final chats. She ventured into the far left corner of the chamber reserved for newcomers, where she buttonholed Sen. James Webb (D-Va.), who has remained undeclared in advance of Tuesday's Virginia primary.

Missing was Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who took a commanding lead for the GOP presidential nomination. McCain's supporters celebrated on his behalf, after Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) spied Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.). The two had spent the previous several days stumping for McCain.

"The rabbi! The rabbi!" Graham called out to Lieberman, as the two men laughed and hugged.
[link]