A new era of accusation and innuendo (Politico)

Image by tsevis via FlickrEmail • Twitter • Facebook • LinkedIn • Youtube

By JONATHAN MARTIN & JOHN F. HARRIS
4/28/11

President Barack Obama’s appearance Wednesday in the White House briefing room to present a documented rebuttal of suspicions that he was not really born on U.S. soil was more than just a surprise. It was a decisive new turn in the centuries-long American history of political accusation and innuendo.

By directly and coolly engaging a debate with his most fevered critics, Obama offered the most unmistakable validation ever to the idea that we are living in an era of public life with no referee—and no common understandings between fair and unfair, between relevant and trivial, or even between facts and fantasy.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Tweet

Related articles

• In a blog-driven world, truth is the first casualty (capitolhillblue.com)
• Politico. Gravitas. - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com (stephencrose.wordpress.com)
• Obama The First Foreign President? (socyberty.com)
• Hey, Shouting Into The Camera And Sexual Innuendo May Work For You Too (adpulp.com)
• Poll: Half of Iowa Republicans don't believe Barack Obama was born in US - Politico (news.google.com)

Karl Rove: Birther Issue Turned Donald Trump Into A ‘Joke Candidate’ (Mediaite)

Karl Rove, image via WikipediaEmail • Twitter • Facebook • LinkedIn • Youtube

by Frances Martel
April 16th, 2011

Reality TV and real estate personality Donald Trump may be as far as nine points ahead in the latest GOP 2012 polls, but that doesn’t mean the Republican establishment is ready to embrace him with open arms. On last night’s On the Record, Karl Rove did his best to distance the party from the Donald, telling Greta Van Susteren that his “weird conspiracy theories” about President Obama’s birth certificate made him a “joke candidate.”


After a lengthy discussion about the current budget battle in Congress in which Rove claimed Republicans had attained victory, if only because the federal government’s budget authority had been reduced by $60 billion, Van Susteren questioned Rove on Trump’s impact on the Republican Party. Rove refused to answer whether Trump “hurt” the Party, noting instead that his obsession with President Obama’s birth certificate “hurts Donald Trump.” “He was an interested candidate who had a business background and could have contributed to dialogue,” Rove lamented, adding that making the birth certificate a centerpiece of his campaign delegitimized him. “He’s off there in the nutty right, and is not an inconsequential candidate,” Rove concluded, adding that “the guy is smarter than this” and he was “sorry to see it happen.” He also denounced claims that President Obama didn’t go to school, citing a friend who was a classmate of the President’s, and the conspiracy theory about the newspaper reports in Hawaii.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!


Tweet

Related articles

• Karl Rove: Trump is a "Joke" Candidate (themoderatevoice.com)
• Trump's Strength in Early Presidential Polls Defies Conventional Wisdom (foxnews.com)
• Karl Rove's Half Right on Donald Trump and the Birther 'Trap' (usnews.com)
• Rove: Trump a 'Joke Candidate,' Paul Ryan in Obama's Head - Fox News (news.google.com)
• Donald Trump soars to top of GOP field (dailykos.com)
• WATCH: Trump Suggests Obama Birth Certificate Could Say He's 'Muslim' (huffingtonpost.com)

Next for GOP leaders: Stopping Sarah Palin (Politico)

Sarah Palin, image via Wikipedia

By MIKE ALLEN & JIM VANDEHEI 

10/31/10 

Top Republicans in Washington and in the national GOP establishment say the 2010 campaign highlighted an urgent task that they will begin in earnest as soon as the elections are over: Stop Sarah Palin.

Interviews with advisers to the main 2012 presidential contenders and with other veteran Republican operatives make clear they see themselves on a common, if uncoordinated, mission of halting the momentum and credibility Palin gained with conservative activists by plunging so aggressively into this year’s midterm campaigns. (See: Sarah Palin wreaking havoc on campaign trail)

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Related articles

• Politico, Mike Allen, and Jim VandeHei need to "man up," says Sarah Palin. (althouse.blogspot.com)
• Sarah Palin Responds To Politico's Hit Piece: 'I Think It's Very Unprofessional' (mediaite.com)
• GOP Establishment Might as Well Start Destroying Sarah Palin Now [2012] (gawker.com)
• Sarah Palin: In the Spotlight, If Not on the Ballot (abcnews.go.com)
• Republican Establishment vs. Sarah Palin (outsidethebeltway.com)

CARTOON: Political Genealogy by Clay Bennett (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

 

Learn more about Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist Clay Bennett in my September 2008 radio interview with him!

Related articles

• Cartoon(s) of the Week - So Where Are Republicans And Their Financers Taking Us? (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
• Cartoonists interviewed on Mr. Media Radio (mrmedia.com)

VIDEO: Bill Maher Reaveals Montage Of Former Guests Frustrated By Christine O’Donnell (Mediaite)

Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via FlickrChristine O'Donnell in action of Bill Maher's old 'Politically Incorrect' show HERE!

{P.S.: That's Mediaite's typo, not ours. :)}

Related articles

• Bill Maher to Chris Coons: You're Not the Only One Who's Been Exasperated from Debating Christine O'Donnell (crooksandliars.com)
• Bill Maher: Christine O'Donnell 'Hurt Me Very Deeply' By Not Coming On Real Time (mediaite.com)
• "Christine O’Donnell Witchcraft Comment Shown on Bill Maher (Video)" and related posts (tv.popcrunch.com)
• CAMPAIGN PROMISE: Maher taunts O'Donnell (politico.com)
• Christine O'Donnell: If Evolution Is Real, 'Why Aren't Monkeys Still Evolving Into Humans?' [Video] (gawker.com)
• TV Host Maher Shows Another O'Donnell Clip (abcnews.go.com)
• Bill Maher Scores Again... (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)

Linda McMahon Employs Wrestler As Door-Knocker (SportsGrid.com)

Triple H, image via Wikipedia

by Dan Fogarty 

October 2nd, 2010

Linda McMahon, Republican candidate for US Senate in Connecticut and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, has employed her son-in-law and former WWE champ Triple H (real name: Paul Levesque) to knock on doors/scare the hell out of voters.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Related articles

• Linda McMahon Begins Running Ad on Dick Blumenthal's "How Do You Create a Job" Gaffe (minx.cc)
• Linda McMahon Says She Misspoke About Lowering Minimum Wage (huffingtonpost.com)
• Blumenthal, McMahon Face Off in Second Debate (klqwrestling.com)
• How Old Is Linda McMahon? (politicsdaily.com)
• CT-Sen: Why Linda! McMahon will lose (dailykos.com)

Christine O'Donnell's national 'cure the gays' tour ends very, very badly (The Maddow Blog)

By Rachel Maddow
Fri Sep 17, 2010

Before becoming a full-time candidate, Christine O'Donnell crusaded as a religious right activist, including a national tour proclaiming that homosexuality was curable. Living then in Los Angeles, O'Donnell hired a young spokesman for her organization, The Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth (SALT).

That young spokesman, Wade Richards, had supposedly been cured of his homosexuality through a sort of evangelical boot camp. Soon after touring the country with O'Donnell, he came (back) out of the closet.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Obama Thinks Tea Partiers Worried About the National Debt Should Be Mad at Bush, Old People (New York Magazine)

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

"We've had two tax cuts that weren't paid for, two wars that weren't paid for, we've got a population that's getting older, we're all demanding services, but our taxes have actually, substantially, gone down. And so the challenge, I think, for the tea-party movement, is to identify specifically, 'What would you do?'" — Barack Obama in a town hall meeting telecast on CNBC, Sept. 20, 2010

 Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Obama Offers Advice, and a Challenge, to Tea Partiers (thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Tea Partiers can win a primary, but can they stand on principle? (washingtonmonthly.com)
• Obama on GOP's tax demands: 'I don't have the math' (washingtonmonthly.com)
• Will The Tea Party Save The GOP, Or Destroy It ? (outsidethebeltway.com)
• The Crackpot Gap: Why It May Be A Boon To Democrats But A Danger To America (tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com)
• Jimmy Breslin: Tea Partiers Are Like Kennedy's Killer Sirhan Sirhan, Are Racists Filled With 'Madness' (chicagonow.com)
• Jim: 'Outsider' Glenn Beck Asks the Tea Partiers to Quit Playing Dress-Up | Video Cafe (videocafe.crooksandliars.com)

Twitter Fight! Palin Zings Back at Schwarzenegger (Newser)

Arnold and Sarah, image by Getty Images@daylifeSays she could teach him a thing or two about budgets

By John Johnson
Sep 10, 2010

(Newser) – After Arnold Schwarzenegger needled Sarah Palin via Twitter about being able to see Russia from his plane, she got the last word (we hope) in a new tweet: "Arnold should have landed; I could have explained our multi-billion dollar state surplus & US energy security efforts. What's he been up to? " Now everyone step away from the Blackberry, please. Read Arnold's jab in full here.


Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sarah Palin trade jabs on Twitter (telegraph.co.uk)
• Sarah Palin Mocks The California Budget Crisis, After Getting Dissed By Schwarzenegger On Twitter (businessinsider.com)
• Arnold Schwarzenegger Mocks Sarah Palin On Twitter (PICTURE) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Schwarzenegger, Palin trade Twitter jabs (sfgate.com)
• Arnold Schwarzenegger Can't See Russia From Plane Over Anchorage (shoppingblog.com)

Meghan McCain Wants To Send Laura Ingraham A ‘Plus-Sized’ Fruit Basket (Mediaite)

Meghan McCain, image via Wikipediaby Glynnis MacNicol
September 12th, 2010

The New York Times has fallen for Meghan McCain. The Style Section may not be the all-powerful arbiter of importance it used to be, but it’s hard not to read their lengthy and glowing feature on @McCainBlogette as some sort of ‘here is the future of politics’ official coming out party.

As you likely know Meghan McCain has just published Dirty Sexy Politics, her memoir of the 2008 election campaign, to pretty warm reviews and has been making the media rounds all week. In the article the NYT tackles some of McCain’s more tangled relationships with women during and after the campaign specifically Laura Ingraham (who famously dismissed her as “plus-sized” ), Sarah Palin (whom she calls a “the most beautiful politician I had ever seen” and a “ticking time bomb”), and First Lady Laura Bush.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Meghan McCain On The Daily Show With Jon Stewart (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Meghan McCain Disses Bristol On Daily Show [Meghan Vs. Bristol] (jezebel.com)
• Meghan McCain Finally Gives Her Opinion of Sarah Palin [Books] (gawker.com)
• Meghan McCain stopped by The Rachel Maddow Show to talk about... (pinkbananaworld.com)
• STRAIGHT TALK: Meghan McCain: I'm team Romney (politico.com)
• How Meghan McCain And The Media Teamed Up to Sell Her New Book (queerty.com)
• Meghan McCain: Palin Nomination Made Me Cry, 'Who The Hell Is Sarah Palin?' (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Dirty Sexy Politics: Meghan McCain Has 'Conflicted Feelings About Sarah Palin' (mediaite.com)

Ann Coulter And Laura Ingraham Discuss “Save The Whale, Abort The Baby” Environmentalists (Mediaite)

Ann Coulter, image via Wikipediaby Jon Bershad
September 2nd, 2010

Ann Coulter and O’Reilly Factor guest host Laura Ingraham made some really good points tonight while discussing Discovery Channel hostage taker James Jay Lee. Coulter said that we can’t generalize fans of Al Gore just because one of them went crazy while Ingraham admonished Liberals for generalizing Conservatives whenever another tragedy happens and the shoe’s on the other foot. Of course, these good points were slightly muddied by all the comments around them about how all environmentalists want a world without humans and love earthworms more than people and so on and so forth.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

The Case for Why Sarah Palin Won’t Run for President

Image by Image Editor via FlickrBy: Gabriel Sherman
Sept. 1, 2010

When news surfaced yesterday that Sarah Palin would be venturing to Iowa to headline the GOP's annual Reagan Day Dinner on September 17, she sparked a new round of media speculation about her 2012 presidential ambitions. Ever since Palin resigned from the Governor’s Mansion last summer, the will-she-or-won’t-she guessing game that occupies the minds of Republicans (and many optimistic Democrats) has turbocharged her appeal as a national figure.


But the trip to Iowa, like almost anything to do with Palin, can be read in a number of ways. On the one hand, it might be an earnest attempt to begin to build a campaign. But it’s also, certainly, an effective move for a media figure like Palin — Matt Drudge played it huge. For Palin, running for president is partly a kind of profit center. "It’s an industry to write about Sarah and put her on TV,” John Coale, the prominent Democratic lawyer and husband of Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren, told me. “We’re two years into this and people are still fascinated by her. But, if she doesn’t run, does she maintain this interest?”

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Sarah Palin endorses Pam Bondi for attorney general (TampaBay.com)

Sarah Palin, image by  Getty Images via @daylife By Steve Bousquet
Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Aug 18, 2010

TALLAHASSEE — Sarah Palin endorsed former Hillsborough prosecutor Pam Bondi for attorney general Wednesday, and Bondi didn't even know it was coming.

Palin's surprise endorsement in the three-way Republican primary for attorney general surfaced on Facebook, and Bondi rushed to spread the word ahead of Tuesday's primary.

The former vice-presidential candidate and ex-Alaska governor, who's expected to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, threw her support to other candidates, all women, in state and local contests in Alabama, Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina.

Palin called Bondi and an attorney general candidate in Iowa "bold, sharp, selfless women who will respect our Constitution, defend their states, protect our rights and push back against any overreach of the federal government."

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Dan Quayle's little boy, all growed up in the Sarah Palin generation!

My name is Ben Quayle and I sometimes wonder why Sarah Palin wasn't elected Vice President. Because if my Daddy could do the job, then certainly the former Governor of Alaska was qualified!

Rand Paul Accused Of Hypocrisy For Accepting Medicare Payments (Mediaite)

Rand Paul, image via Wikipedia

by Jon Bershad
Mediaite
June 16th, 2010

Get ready for the second round of “Meet Rand Paul” on the cable news shows. Just a few weeks after the Kentucky Senatorial candidate was accused of being too Libertarian after criticizing the Civil Rights Act, his opponent, Jack Conway, is now claiming he’s not Libertarian enough. The charge? Paul, who strongly opposes government handouts, receives a large amount of Medicare and Medicaid payments from his ophthalmology practice. These are pretty damning accusations. If there’s anything in politics that’s worse than being called a racist, it’s being called a hypocrite.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

The Alvin Greene Interviews: A TPMtv Original Video (TalkingPointsMemo)

By Rachel Slajda
June 11, 2010
TalkingPointsMemo

Over the past three days, one Alvin Greene from rural South Carolina has captured the popular imagination with his tale of coming from nowhere to capture 60 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

OK, 'popular imagination' may be going too far. But his story has captured our interest, and that of cable news, in a big way, a way that Greene himself probably wasn't prepared for.

Click HERE to Watch the TPM Video!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Don Lemon Asks Alvin Greene If He Has "Any Mental Impairments" (alan.com)
• Mystery Senate Candidate Alvin Greene Does Countdown (outsidethebeltway.com)
• Who Cares Now - Perhaps, Alvin Greene (gadabout-blogalot.com)
• Maybe Alvin Greene Is Just Alvin Greene (news.firedoglake.com)

Sarah Palin Slams Obama on Oil Spill (New York Daily News)

Tony Hayward, image via Wikipedia

By Michael McAuliff

President Obama’s admission that he doesn’t talk to BP boss Tony Hayward has sparked an angry broadside from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Writing on her Facebook page this evening, Palin, of “Drill, baby, drill” fame, argues the non-communication shows Obama just doesn’t get it.

“To fellow baffled Americans,” Palin writes, “this revelation is further proof that it bodes well to have some sort of executive experience before occupying the Oval Office (as if the painfully slow response to the oil spill, confusion of duties, finger-pointing, lack of preparedness, and inability to grant local government simple requests weren’t proof enough).

“The current administration may be unaware that it’s the President’s duty, meeting on a CEO-to-CEO level with Hayward, to verify what BP reports,” she declares.

Agree or not, at least it’s a reasonable argument. But we’re not sure her conclusion follows.

Click HERE to keep reading!

Did Sarah Palin Get a Boob Job? A Photographic Investigation (Gawker)

 

So much has changed since Sarah Palin was governor. She raised a baby; her baby raised a baby; she made millions of dollars on a book. And at the Belmont Stakes this weekend, something else looked a little, um, new.

"Sarah Palin sure looks like she was trotting out some new work at the horse races," reports Wonkette, our favorite source for political boobs and bloggers. And in the Reuters photo offered for comparison, the great buoys of Alaska appear more bountiful than usual. However, detailed analysis reveals that, from some angles at the Belmont, the breasts didn't look quite so huge...

Click HERE to see the results of Gawker's investigation!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sarah Palin's Belmont Stakes Trucker Hat: Hit Or Miss? (PHOTOS, POLL) (huffingtonpost.com)
• A Sign Palin is Running for President? (politicalwire.com)
• Sarah Palin's Wig? TV's Newest Talking Head Might Be Wearing A Hairpiece (PHOTO, POLL) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Some Sarah Palin Endorsements Matter More Than Others (usnews.com)

Sarah Palin’s ‘nonsensical’ plea for more drilling (TrueSlant)

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

By Sara Libby
TrueSlant
June 2, 2010

Hi, kettle? It’s me, Sarah Palin. Umm, you’re black.

It might as well have been her latest Facebook message. Instead, Sarah Palin lashed out at environmentalists, repeatedly calling them “nonsensical” for opposing oil drilling following the worst oil spill in our nation’s history that was a direct result of … oil drilling. WHO’S nonsensical, now?
She writes:

Radical environmentalists: you are damaging the planet with your efforts to lock up safer drilling areas. There’s nothing clean and green about your misguided, nonsensical radicalism, and Americans are on to you as we question your true motives.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sarah Palin: "Drill, Baby, Drill" Was Right (cbsnews.com)
• From The Annals Of Chutzpah (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• Sally Kohn: BP Oil Spill: Conservatives Start Fire Then Blame Obama For Not Putting It Out (huffingtonpost.com)
• Sarah Palin Would Solve Oil Spill Crisis By Stopping Foreign Companies From Having Rights (alan.com)
• Limbaugh Suggests Oil Spill Caused By Environmentalists? (trueslant.com)

McGinniss is just doing his job, Sarah (Worcester Telegram)

Image via Wikipedia

Dianne Williamson
dwilliamson@telegram.com

If you listen to Sarah Palin and her somewhat hysterical supporters, you'd think her new neighbor was armed with a pistol instead of a pen.

On Fox News, the pundits have dubbed author Joe McGinniss a stalker, a creep and a threat to Sarah's family. An apoplectic Glenn Beck has called for a boycott of McGinniss' publishing house. And the spinmeister herself, never missing the chance to play victim, once again frames the issue as an unfair attack on her children:

“People have said already, oh, the guy, he has his freedoms too, and he can live wherever he wants to,” Sarah said. “Well, of course he can, and he can do what he wants to do. However, I think any mom, in my position, if they put themselves in my shoes, that they would feel the same way. You do your thing, you keep your distance, and you better leave my kids alone.”

Of course, there's no indication that McGinniss has any designs on Sarah's precious and politically expedient children. But he is writing a book about their mother. And when an opportunity fell in his lap to rent the house next door to his subject, he took it. He's a reporter. He goes where the story is. But I trust he has no interest in catching Sarah mowing the lawn in her underwear.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Joe McGinniss: Palin Unleashing 'Hounds Of Hell,' Using Same Tactics As 'Nazi Troopers' (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Palin Biographer Joe McGinniss Warned By Alaska Newspaper: She Has Right To Kill In Self-Defense (huffingtonpost.com)
• Sarah Palin a Fan of the Media? (blogs.abcnews.com)
• Can Sarah Palin get a restraining order against Joe McGinniss? (slate.com)
• Sarah Palin denies that she aimed any "ugly innuendo" against Joe McGinniss. (althouse.blogspot.com)
• Palin biographer: I didn't move next door to spy (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Ladies of 'The View' Disagree Over Sarah Palin ... Again (VIDEO) (tvsquad.com)