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.

Cross-posted from MyLeftNutmeg.com.

Lieberman lies and lies again. And when the local Fox Reporter calls him on the lying, Lieberman just lies some more. But it doesn't matter to him, simply because he's never had to pay any real price for the years of lies and the backstabbing. That's just politics to Joe Lieberman. And not surprising in the slightest is the ass-kissing of Barack Obama. Expect his lips to be firmly planted there for the foreseeable future.

*A horrible, horrible person.

November 18, 2008 MSNBC

November 13, 2008 C-SPAN
Senator Saxby Chambliss held a campaign rally at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta for his runoff election. He was joined by Senator John McCain.

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The Tonight Show Nov. 11, 2008: John McCain does his first interview since losing the Presidential election.

Apparently not one to go gently into that good night, Sarah Palin is determined to keep the spotlight on her for as long as the media will allow it. She sat down with Matt Lauer on The Today Show, insisting that despite overwhelming discussion of the tension between her and McCain (coming from anonymous campaign staffers as well as the media that covered them) that she and McCain are still BFFs.

LAUER: There is this feeling, and some of this comes from leaks and other, just perception, people just getting a gut that there was increasing tension between you and Sen. McCain in the final stretch of this campaign. Tell me what the relationship was like.
PALIN: We have a great relationship. Had from Day One. Had from the first time that I met him, last year, he and his wife. I just have been great admirers [sic] of them, of their family, of all that Sen. McCain has accomplished. Never once was there any inkling of tension between the two of us. Perhaps within the campaign, there was campaign staffers who…
LAUER: Well, describe that for me. Who was butting heads?
PALIN: You know, I don’t even know. That inside baseball stuff regarding the way a campaign works on that level, I certainly didn’t get bogged down in any of the potential skirmishes or perceived problems…
LAUER: Have you listened to some of the leaks that have come out since the election, where they’re saying that the McCain people leaked anonymously or saying,‘we couldn’t control her.’ ‘She was a rogue.’ ‘She didn’t want our consultants around her.’ And it became tense. Where do stories like that come from?
PALIN: I honestly do not know, because it’s not true, Matt. And Sen. McCain and I, we have a great relationship. I have nothing but honor and admiration and love for him and for his family. And I think that is mutual. In fact, I talked to him just today, again. And we touching base [sic] nearly every day…
LAUER: So it’s a warm and friendly relationship, even to this day?
PALIN : Very warm and friendly and professional and I…again, I have nothing but honor and admiration and love that I will show for this great American hero.

Well, I'm convinced. (/snark)

In other news, it's being reported by AP that Palin is going through the closets of her husband and kids to return all the clothes purchased for them by the RNC, including Todd's silk boxers. I know that the Republicans want to have a reputation (however unearned) of being fiscally prudent, but really, let them keep the knickers. What would you do with used undies from the Palin family any way?

November 10, 2008 News Corp

Part 1

Part 2

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Carl Cameron does one of those Now-it-can-be-told stories Fox likes to do. In this episode we learn that:

1. Palin did NOT know Africa was a continent.
2. She did NOT know who the parties to NAFTA were. [Hint: U.S., Canada, Mexico]
3. She threw dramatic temper tantrums over bad press.
4. She refused to prepare for the Gibson or Couric interviews.

None of this really came out during the Presidential campaign because of course it was told "off the record". There are a few ways to look at this, the most interesting being is why they felt the need to spill the beans the day after the election. Are the knives really out on Sarah Palin? Sure seems so. Time will tell.

Smith: Now that the election is over, Carl, tell us more about those reports of infighting between Palin and McCain staffers.

Cameron: I wish I could have told you more at the time but all of it was put off the record until after the election. There was great concern in the McCain campaign that Sarah Palin lack the degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president, and a heartbeat away from the presidency. We’re told by folks that she didn’t know what countries that were in NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, that being the Canada, the US, and Mexico. We’re told she didn’t understand that Africa was a continent rather than a country just in itself ... a whole host of questions that caused serious problems about her knowledgeability. She got very angry at staff, thought that she was mishandled.....was particularly angry about the way the Katie Couric interview went. She didn’t accept preparation for that interview when the aides say that that was part of the problem. And that there were times that she was hard to control emotionally there's talk of temper tantrums at bad news clippings......

Notwithstanding that there is to be an avalanche that will continue for many days now we’re told of story upon story of the foibles of Sarah Palin.

I got chills reading this brief, but very truthful op-ed from Paul Krugman at the New York Times. Barack Obama's win last night was just one step into the future, lets hope Krugman's words ring loud and clear for future generations - Beware the Monsters...

Last night wasn’t just a victory for tolerance; it wasn’t just a mandate for progressive change; it was also, I hope, the end of the monster years.

What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.

And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was “shrill.”! Read on...

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John McCain's concession speech was gracious and warm. A warm round of applause.

[H/t to Heather for the video.]

Dana Bash reporting that the McCain campaign turned off the news at their campaign headquarters at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix.

Tonight I'm honored to bring you the C&L Election Night live-blog from the CNN Grill at the Time Warner Center in glorious liberal bastion New York City. Check back all night long for up to the minute thoughts and results.

UPDATE: This place is pretty damn cool. You order one drink and they bring you two.

Keith's final Campaign Comment imagines an alternative, parallel reality where Barack Obama made the verbal gaffes that McCain has made and poses the question, would Obama be considered a realistic candidate for the office? And if not, why should anyone consider McCain a realistic candidate?

We all know exactly what would be happening tonight if Senator Obama had made all those mistakes, contradictions, gaffes, Freudian slips, and hypocritical pronouncements. He would have long since ceased to be taken seriously by any measurable part of the voting public, as a viable, responsible, self-aware, mentally vigorous, non-dangerous, non-risk. We'd all be going home to our beds well before midnight tomorrow night.

But while all that is hypothetical, this is not: This cascade of incompetence and irresponsibility I have enumerated tonight -- all the sound bites, all the foot-in-mouth moments, all the no-brainers-gone-wrong - all these, John McCain has said. No hyperbole and no hypotheses are required.

This is who John McCain has showed us he is.

Transcripts below the fold:

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All's fair in love, war and politics for Chris Matthews. And there is one particular theme that he just can't seem to let go of, and he's asked absolutely every guest on Hardball for the last week the same thing, as evidenced by this clip from last Wednesday: Doesn't John McCain deserve respect or credit for not invoking Reverend Wright in the waning days of the campaign?

Think about that. McCain has flailed wildly over the last few months, calling Obama a friend to terrorists, a socialist, a Marxist, a communist among many, many other attempts at smears, but somehow we're all supposed to be impressed that he doesn't bring up Rev. Wright? Nevermind that he has 527 support doing it for him, the fact that McCain himself doesn't say anything is praiseworthy to Chris Matthews. Should we likewise be impressed that McCain hasn't actively encouraged his supporters to call Obama the n-word, even though they've managed very well on their own? What other non-actions should we praise McCain for, Tweety?

Meanwhile, whatever restraint McCain may have displayed in this matter was utterly nullified by the massive last-minute ad buy by Republicans, running an anti-Obama ad featuring Wright, that ran incessantly on cable TV (notably MSNBC) the last couple of days.

And finally, though I know C&L readers already know this, but I harbor a secret hope that a Hardball producer reads C&L and can maybe just clear this up for Matthews, as he has bought the Fox-driven Rev. Wright smear hook, line and sinker, here is the full context of the snippet that FNS played over and over to show Wright's "anti-American hatred." I would hope that if Matthews had actually ever saw this video, that he'd admire McCain's reticence just a little bit less.

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Lady MacCheney still lives in an alternate reality. One in which she hangs out at a saloon with John Hinderaker, who once called Bush a genius.

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

She's still defending Bush and Cheney for all she's worth and it's pretty sad that she never will come clean with the American people.

From Race to the White House Nov. 3, 2008.

Gregory: Do you think it's possible to overstate the impact of the President on this election? It's where a lot of the arguments started and where, it's where it ends. The shadow that the President and the Vice President for that matter have cast over the Republican ticket.

Matalin: I, to answer your question directly, I don't think it's possible. I think it's, the President's impact on this ticket has been grossly, grossly overstated.

{snip}

And I'll say this and you were there for eight years, we're going to look back at a pretty, really remarkable Presidency relative to national security and yes there is an un, ah unrecorded and unreported lately how long that recovery was that economic recovery right up to this last incident here which he warned against.

I think the Bush Presidency will be remembered as remarkable, but not for the same reasons as Matalin does. The word tragic comes to mind.

(h/t John Amato for a little help)