Check out these two videos from Tuesday and tell me with a straight face that the Republican Party isn't a joke. The first is Governor Mark Sanford laughing at the notion of Sarah Palin as the "future of the party", and the second is of John McCain yukking it up when asked by a reporter whether he will be in the 2012 mix. Finally, there's something I can agree with the GOP on: As of now, their 2012 prospects are literally laughable.

There is a famous sign from the French Quarter that immediately comes to mind when viewing the ad for the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute's new "Conservative Babe" calendar:

Following in the tradition of past calendars from the Luce Policy Institute, Pretty in Mink celebrates smart, conservative women role models ... with flair.

We took some of your favorite leaders of today’s conservative movement on a journey back in time, and made them up into glamorous movie stars of classic Hollywood. Back when the big screen was a little more glamorous, women were a little more feminine, the men a little more charming—and the world a little less politically correct. We’ve saved Clare Boothe Luce herself for the last month of the year; we think you’ll agree that the legacy of this conservative icon makes her an appropriate ending for our calendar. And every single one of the other beautiful women featured in Pretty in Mink is one hundred percent a “Luce Lady.”

I just threw up in my mouth a little. Wanna get a glimpse of those glamour girls?

Continue reading »

In this the season of their discontent, Republican leaders are pointing the finger of blame, all the while positioning themselves to take over their battered and bruised party in 2012. So it is with Mike Huckabee. In his new book, the former Arkansas Governor, Baptist minister and Fox News host skewers presidential rival Mitt Romney and castigates leaders of the religious right who cast their lot with someone else. But while Huckabee looks forward to the future battle for the soul of the Republican Party in his latest book, it is worth remembering the culture war he advocated in past ones. And apparently, he will have soon have company in author Sarah Palin.

As Time describes, Huckabee's tome (Do The Right Thing: Inside the Movement That's Bringing Common Sense Back to America) is part political memoir, part policy prescription - and part payback. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, his rival in courting the GOP's religious right base during the primaries, is mocked as "anything but conservative until he changed the light bulbs in his chandelier in time to run for president." Aggravating matters still, Huckabee "took as a sign of total disrespect" Mitt's refusal to call and congratulate him on his victory in the Iowa caucus which ultimately derailed Romney's campaign.

According to Time, much of Huckabee's venom is directed at his ersatz Christian conservative allies who backed other candidates during the Republican primaries. He blasts Pat Robertson and Bob Jones for backing Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, respectively. Huckabee pans Gary Bauer for his "ever-changing reason to deny me his support." Lamenting "that so many people of faith had moved from being prophetic voices," Governor Huckabee unleashed his fury at the End Times Pastor John Hagee who ultimately backed McCain:

"I asked if he had prayed about this and believed this was what the Lord wanted him to do," Huckabee writes of his conversation with Hagee. "I didn't get a straight answer."

Huckabee's evident feelings of betrayal towards his fellow culture warriors on display in this new book are understandable. After all, among the first of his six books was everything they could have asked for.

Continue reading »

Download | Play    Download | Play

On Saturday's Chris Matthews Show, a panel featuring NPR's Michele Norris, Time's Michael Duffy and CNBC's Erin Burnett ponders who's going to be leading the GOP charge against the Obama administration in the coming months. Matthews wonders initially if it will be Sarah Palin, and the guests chew on that briefly, until Howard Fineman sets them all straight:

Matthews: There's a role open right now. It's the Chief Jeerleader. When the new administration takes office, no matter how historically wondrous it is, like Barack Obama's, there's gonna be someone on the other side who leaps to the chance be the person who dumps on the parade every day. Is it gonna be Sarah Palin?

Michele Norris: It's going to be a bit hard for her to do that from Alaska. I mean, some of that depends on -- frankly, it depends on you, you know ... whether you give her the kind of airtime that she needs to do that.

But she's also got to make sure she keeps the people back in Alaska happy. And she's got to improve her favorability ratings there and make sure that she takes care of business. I think perhaps that's a role she sees for herself. But I think that more likely the 'chief jeerleader,' ot use your term, may come out of the Senate, because that's where the real squabbles are going to be as they try to push forward this bailout package.

Matthews: You know, when you look at her, she seems so confident. You wonder whether we keep forgetting that we don't pick the president, they pick themselves, and we choose among them. And as long as she's willing to keep picking herself as a possible candidate for president, she's gonna be in this running.

Michael Duffy: Oh, I think she's done a very smart thing here. She knew that if she was ever gonna come back, she had to put this clothes thing to rest now, this week.

Matthews: Erin, did she put that to bed?

Erin Burnett: Ah, I think that's unclear. I'd like to pause for a second there. I think this speaks to her strengths and her weaknesses. She's incredibly strong in motivating people. She can say quick one-liners, she energizes. But sometimes you say, where's the depth there, where's the substance? There's not really much there behind it. There's not a whole lot of thoughtfulness in her delivery. And sometimes a great politician doesn't really need those things necessarily. So I don't really know the answer to your question, but I don't know that I need to know the answer. Just say that she can be a great politician.

Matthews: You don't need to be that complicated to be a great politician, this is probably true. But that leaves open the big question: Who will be the voice of the opposition for the next couple of months, first year of this administration? Will it be a Pawlenty, a Palin, a Bobby Jindal, Mitt Romney? Will it be John McCain?

Norris: Again -- I don't think it's going to be John McCain. I think we learned a lot about McCain after he ran for election last time, he went back and really rolled up his sleeves and worked. I don't think it's gonna be him. I still think it's going to come out of the Senate. I think it's going to be one of the senators.

Howard Fineman: It won't be out of the Hill at all. It's going to be Rush Limbaugh, and what's left of the conservative commentariat. They are going to be in charge of this party until the Republicans begin to get their act together.

Matthews: So the ticked-off voices.

Fineman: The ticked-off voices, and Rush will be the guy.

If he's right that Limbaugh and the Venom Brigade are going to be in charge of the GOP (and he probably is), the main question remains: Will they just drive the Republican bus deeper into their muddy ditch, or careen it off into a bottomless chasm?

Well, now that the Republican governors have snubbed Sarah Palin when selecting their leadership group in Miami, it's semi-official that the bloom has slightly faded from Palin's rose -- and not a moment too soon.

Which means the GOP is going to start looking a little more seriously for leadership in the coming four years to help lift it out of the miasma in which it is now deservedly enveloped.

But look at that list:

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was voted RGA chairman, taking over the top job from Texas Gov. Rick Perry who will now serve as finance chairman. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is vice-chairman, while Florida Gov. Charlie Crist will serve as chair for the annual RGA gala, and Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue will head up the recruitment effort.

Well, as much as the South's political power was diminished in the last election, it's pretty plain that the GOP for the foreseeable future is the Party of the South.

Out of this group, Barbour's name is perhaps the one we've heard most frequently on the tips of right-wing talking-head tongues. But Barbour has quite the checkered history: He's notorious for ardently promoting the Confederate flag and consorting with the white-supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens -- and he does so unapologetically.

So if Barbour does emerge a serious party leader, it will mean the GOP has thoroughly embraced its Cro-Magnon, neo-Confederate wing, and the dog-whistle rabble-rousing we saw from McCain and Palin in 2008 will look positively civil in comparison.

Another name not on this list, but frequently mentioned (and yet another Southern governor) is that of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Ezra Klein has a good piece at TAP about Jindal:

Continue reading »

This press conference is really kinda painful to watch in a squirm-inducing way. Kinda like a reality show where Republican celebrities get root canal work.

It seems that the long-suffering public aren't the only ones who want Sarah Palin to pack up and go home and fade nicely and quietly back into the obscurity she deserves: So are her fellow Republican governors.

When asked if Palin was the best choice McCain could have made for a running mate, no one jumped to answer.

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who started the race in former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's corner but later worked for McCain, chimed in: "What happened here is the party and John dropped Sarah into the ninth inning of the World Series three runs down."

Crist initially demurred when asked separately if Palin was a legitimate future possibility for the White House.

"I think that's up to her to decide. It's a little early," Crist laughed.

And apparently they really hated being used as props for Palin's press conference yesterday:

One called it awkward: “I’m sure you could see it on some of our faces.”

Another Republican governor eyeing a presidential run in 2012 told CNN the event was “odd” and “weird,” and said it “unfortunately sent a message that she was the de facto leader of the party."

There has been palpable tension among some GOP governors gathered in Miami that Palin has been sucking up all the media oxygen.

I know the timer is running out on Palin's little fame bubble. But as long as flaming-red Republicans (76 percent of them) want her up there, she's going to be the face of the party. And the guys who think they should be the face of the GOP are already getting out the long knives.

It's like dropping a big flopping goldfish into a roomful of cats. Pass the popcorn, wouldja? Just don't make me watch any more Palin pressers ...

Overlooked perhaps in the historic vote that made Barack Obama the nation's first African-American president is something that didn't happen. With the defeat of the McCain/Palin ticket and its extremist anti-abortion platform, Americans voted against an abrogation of women's reproductive rights that might have taken a generation to undo. And by rejecting draconian ballot measures in Colorado, South Dakota and California, voters protected a woman's right to choose - at least for now.

To be sure, Obama's victory prevented the emergence of conservative Supreme Court supermajority committed to sweeping away Roe v. Wade. With the potential retirement of Justices Stevens (88) and Ginsburg (83), Obama may the opportunity to make at least two nominations to the Court. (There may be 14 openings on the nation's appellate courts, all but one which currently has a Republican majority.) Given Justice Kennedy's condescending and paternalistic opinion in the 5-4 Gonzales v. Carhart case upholding the so-called federal partial birth abortion ban, the direction of the Court and the fate of Roe surely hung in the balance last Tuesday.

On that point, John McCain, Sarah Palin and the Republican Party were quite clear. McCain not only supported judicial appointees in the mold of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, he reversed course to support overturning Roe v. Wade. And to be sure, the 2008 Republican platform incorporated Palin's extremist views on abortion, banning the procedure even in cases of rape and incest:

"We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children."

In Colorado, anti-abortion activists tried – and failed - to enshrine the GOP plank's logical extreme in the state constitution.

Continue reading »

Well, Republicans were saying before the election that if Obama/Biden won and McCain/Palin lost, things were going to get ugly:

Jim Nuzzo, a White House aide to the first President Bush, dismissed Mrs Palin's critics as "cocktail party conservatives" who "give aid and comfort to the enemy".

He told The Sunday Telegraph: "There's going to be a bloodbath. A lot of people are going to be excommunicated. David Brooks and David Frum and Peggy Noonan are dead people in the Republican Party. The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?"

Sure enough:

RedState is pleased to announce it is engaging in a special project: Operation Leper.

We're tracking down all the people from the McCain campaign now whispering smears against Governor Palin to Carl Cameron and others. Michelle Malkin has the details.

We intend to constantly remind the base about these people, monitor who they are working for, and, when 2012 rolls around, see which candidates hire them. Naturally then, you'll see us go to war against those candidates.

It is our expressed intention to make these few people political lepers.

Robert Farley has it about right:

I expect that the effort will make Palin more toxic to anyone who's not in the Republican base, but won't touch her position within the base. Sarah Palin is too big to fail. Bill Kristol has staked his prestige on Palin's future, and the simple fact that she thought Africa was a country isn't going to make he and his back down. He's too deeply invested in her, and everyone else in the conservative punditariat is too deeply invested in him. If she crashes, everyone goes down. I foresee two possible futures; in one, Kristol starts walking everyone back from the brink in a year or two, and Palin's future Presidential candidacy goes down the memory tube. In the other, we get Sarah! 2012, and a Goldwater style annihilation next time around. I'm guessing door #2.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch.

Oh boy. I guess they've forgotten how all of these Republicans were crowing about a "mandate" after Bush's 2004 "win", despite the smallest margins for an incumbent president in nearly 100 years. Because rather than see Obama's victory as a call for a change to business as usual (including flipping some red states--hello North Carolina, Indiana and Florida!--and key Senate seats), the Republicans see the election results not as the time to reach across the aisle in the spirit of unity and bipartisanship, but to "gird their loins" and fight:

Senator McCain is an American hero, a remarkable man. I can think of few I respect more. But he's likely to be the first to be leading the charge toward bipartisanship. This would be a mistake of galactic proportions. This must be resisted.[..]

Republicans and conservatives will be taking a needed hard look at ourselves. Losers usually do. We must reassess, recalibrate and argue.

But in the meantime, we still have principles to defend and we must defend them vigorously. Particularly in the first 100 days when many of the most objectionable bills will likely be brought up. For those inclined to make nice, which of the following Democratic agenda items are you prepared to sign on to so that you'll get invited to the right parties?

• Employee Free Choice Act
• Fairness Doctrine
• Freedom of Choice Act
• Nationalization of health care
• Estate tax increases
• "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" (driver's licenses for illegals)
• Capital gains tax increases
• Defense cuts
• Liberal judicial appointments
• Racial and ethnic preferences
• Income tax increases
• Bans on oil drilling
• Global poverty tax/Kyoto

[..]In many cases, the congressional math may preclude Republicans from little more than voicing principled opposition. But that's not nothing. It's imperative. Republican politicians for too long have been spectacularly inept in communicating their ideas, principles and positions. They've been unconscionably silent in defending their own.

They've been unconscionably silent? Good lord, what color do you suppose the sky is in his world? And even in the face of this, there are conservatives still whining that we don't respect Bush enough. Not even January 20th and the honeymoon is over for the Republican punditry. This is going to be a long four years.

VetVoice:

A Republican attack ad invites viewers to "meet the real Ashwin Madia," but the still photos featured in the spot present a noticeably darker version of the 3rd District DFL congressional candidate.

"At least three of the photos of Madia were obviously darkened, using one method or another," public affairs and media consultant Dean Alger told KARE 11.

The NRCC's statement:

Reached by phone in Washington Wednesday, NRCC spokesman Ken Spain replayed the ad on YouTube and told KARE, "We stand by the ad."

Ashwin's Campaign's statement:

"It's just deplorable that the national Republicans have chosen to sink to this level," Rosenberg said, "I've seen negative campaigns but nothing as deplorable as, or disgusting as this advertisement."

Tell the NRCC and Eric Paulsen that you won't stand for these disgusting and dishonorable attacks by dropping Ashwin some coin here.

The Republican Party: Not Even Trying To Disguise Their Racism. I guess when you've so completely screwed up the country entrusted to you, the only thing you have left is to sell the Fear of The Other.

John's already posted about the RNC's new ads using FOX News and Andy Martin. But they're not done with the fear-mongering and the blatant lies to scare away voters from Barack Obama. TPM reports that another robocall featuring failed Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani threatening potential voters with the idea that Obama opposes jailing murderers and rapists (audio courtesy of TPM at above link):

Giuliani has recorded a new McCain robocall in which he suggests, in effect, that Barack Obama doesn't think sex offenders, drug dealers and murders should have to go to jail, according to Jennifer Henderson, a stay-at-home mom in Maine who tells us she received the call.

Readers in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, and Colorado also report receiving the same call. [..]

Rudy claims Obama "opposes mandatory prison sentences" for rapists and murders, Rudy is actually referring to Obama's opposition to specific mandatory minimum sentences. By dropping the word "minimum," he's insinuating that Obama opposes mandatory prison sentences in general.

This just might be the sleaziest exercise in robo-slime yet. Congrats, Rudy!

It goes hand in hand nicely with the Terrorist/Obama direct mailer the RNC is sending out as well.

The level of hate is getting so bad that two call center employees quit rather than submit to saying the smears that the McCain campaign wanted them to disseminate. As Joe Biden said yesterday, McCain, stop these calls.

Huffington Post reports on three Republican senators who have condemned the tactics...and ask you to call your Senators to get them on the record too.

Believe it or not, The Daily Show creator and former Air America host Lizz Winstead created this video of Michelle Bachmann before she appeared on Hardball last week. Oooh, baby, that's all sorts of nuttiness. I mean, that's even more nutty than trolling Young Republican groups to find stories of teachers/administrators not looking favorably at conservative ideology.

Bachmann's Democratic rival for her House seat representing the 6th District of Minnesota, Elwyn Tinkleberg, has received almost $1 million in donations since her appearance and the race has definitely trended away from Bachmann.

The Albany Project:

Now we get to see and hear "Shotgun" Randy Kuhl (R-Hair Club for Men) say on camera that he "firmly believes" that Democrats want the American People to suffer and to hurt." No, really. Here's the exact quote:

I firmly believe the Democratic majority wants the American public to suffer and to hurt so that they can make some political gains at election time, and I think that's wrong.

Excuse me, Randy? Did you really just say that? The tape doesn't lie, I guess.

I have just about enough of this crap from GOP dweebs nationwide, but this addition to their 2008 Hall of Shame is simply beyond the pale.

I understand that Randy is polling well behind progressive Eric Massa and that desperate times call for desperate measures and all, but this is ridiculous.

Another day, another McCarthyite. The hate and vitriol pouring through this election is bone chilling to me. I'm trying to understand how we can ever go back to being an United States of America.

Kuhl is polling behind his Democratic rival, Blue America candidate Eric Massa. (See the ad we ran in that district here) It will be a happy day to see a progressive not insane with hate representing the 29th District of NY.

As Think Progress reported yesterday, the full blown descent into McCarthyism within the Republican Party continues. This time, it's Rep. Robin Hayes of North Carolina. At a McCain event, trying to energize the crowd, Hayes dug deep into his blackened soul and said the following:

Representative Robin Hayes, who prefaced his comments by saying it was important to “make sure we don’t say something stupid, make sure we don’t say something we don’t mean.” Republicans, he reminded the crowd, were kind people. Plus, he added, the liberal media had shown itself eager to distort such remarks. With the crowd duly chastened and put on best behavior, he accused Obama of “inciting class warfare” and said that “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”

Good to know he was trying to keep from saying something stupid. Of course, when confronted, Hayes denied it.

Gosh, I guess that makes having the audio a little troublesome for such a bald-faced liar. By the way, this isn't the first time Robin Hayes has said some monumentally stupid things. He's the representative that was still insisting as late as 2005 that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11 and that the best thing we could do in Iraq to ensure "victory" is to convert them all Muslims to Christianity.

Blue America candidate Larry Kissell is running against Robin Hayes. You can help his campaign here. The Southern Dem at DailyKos has more...

Sometimes you have to wonder what Republicans have against democracy.

Because that's what this whole "voter fraud" foofara is about. John McCain and Sarah Palin and Lou Dobbs and the rest of the right-wing torch brigade that have been after ACORN and the Ohio Secretary of State aren't concerned about protecting people's right to vote -- and in fact, their efforts largely go toward directly stripping citizens of their legitimate voting rights.

Or more precisely, this is all about building a post-election narrative aimed at delegitimizing a Barack Obama presidency by claiming he won fraudulently. It's not just a handy excuse for the ass-kicking they deserve -- it's a whole right-wing conspiracy-theory cottage industry in the making that will nurture their paranoia and rage for years down the road.

This weekend, Sarah Palin was out whipping up a fine froth among the McCainiacs about ACORN's activities:

Palin demanded answers to “unanswered questions about his connections with ACORN.”

The fans screamed “Booo!” at least 10 times when Palin mentioned Obama’s name.

“ACORN is under investigation for rampant voter fraud in 13 states. ACORN received over $800,000 from the Obama campaign,” Palin said. All 13 are swing states like Indiana.

“Booo!” Palin’s supporters shouted. Obama has said the $800,000 was for voter canvassing during the primary election, not for voter registration during the general election.

Palin, of course, is just following her the lead of her boss, who claimed in Wednesday's debate that ACORN "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." And we're already seeing the violent results on the ground emanating from this kind of demagoguery.

And it's demagoguery on a massive scale. After all, everywhere that ACORN has been seriously examined -- from Indiana to Seattle, whenever issues have arisen they have been the result of individual canvassers trying to cheat ACORN, not with the organization itself.

And let's be clear: there is no evidence whatsoever that an actual voting fraud problem exists. Just in regards to ACORN, the bogus registrations have largely been flagged and caught. Moreover, there simply is no evidence that people actually register to vote illegally on anything more than an infinitesimal scale.

Continue reading »