The Aged P

That Sarah Palin….So Yesterday….Or Maybe Not….

In the months since November and the Romney debacle it would appear that Hot Air has almost become zombieville if you look at the number of comments generated by each post. Maybe it’s because many became embarrassed by the shameless shilling for Romney on HA (remember Erika Johnsen claiming that everyone was so pumped for Romney? How Allah seemed to be kept away from Romney posts?). Or maybe it has just lost the spark with Ed and co just going through the motions.

But this weekend the site came alive – with a post by Allah on Sarah Palin’s reported decision to refuse to renew her contract with Fox. An assortment of the palinphobe regulars came out of the woodwork saying how irrelevant she was…..so yesterday….

Yep – so irrelevant that the post smashed through the thousand comment barrier.

That Sarah Palin – such a has been…….lol…

After Years Of Ignoring Palin Boehner Says Put A Peg On Your Nose And Vote Romney…

Fascinating civil war broke out at Hot Air over a Jazz Shaw post taking House Speaker John Boehner to task for suggesting the November election will really be a referendum on President Obama rather than an endorsement (or otherwise) of Mitt Romney.

Aside from Romney’s “friends, relatives and fellow Mormons,” Boehner said, most people will be motivated to vote for him in opposition to Obama.
The Ohio Republican made the remarks when an unidentified woman asked during a question-and-answer session: “Can you make me love Mitt Romney?”
“No,” Boehner said. “Listen, we’re just politicians. I wasn’t elected to play God. The American people probably aren’t going to fall in love with Mitt Romney. I’ll tell you this: 95 percent of the people that show up to vote in November are going to show up in that voting booth, and they are going to vote for or against Barack Obama.

Opinon seemed evenly divided over whether Boehner was to be congratulated on his honesty or condemned for rocking the GOP boat. But soon one or two posters were declaring that Romney was not only the best thing since sliced bread but would also become Reagan 2 once he got to the White House.

Funny thing is, until the last registration, although there were partisan voices for Palin, Cain, Santorum, Perry etc the general view appeared to be that, far from being another Reagan, Romney was McCain 2 – a stodgy, uninspiring choice who could only be voted for with a peg affixed to one’s nose.

Strangely enough, however,since the most recent registration voices have appeared ascribing Zeus like qualities to a man previously despised for his Romneycare past, his flip flopping on key issues and his failure to stand for re-election as governor of Massachusetts……

But the post of the day came from someone who felt that Boehner had been hoist with his own petard and had no sympathy for his oddly timed whinge

Yeah, John, I wanted to vote FOR someone, someone I agreed with on 90% of the issues, someone I trust to at least fight for the reforms this country needs, someone to make me believe in the promise of America again. Sadly she decided not to run because she knew the deck was stacked against her because you and your ilk never would have her back and would work against her every step of the way. So I am left with Mittoast. And yes, John, I will be among the 95% that is going to be a good little solider, eat my gruel and vote against Obamao. But my vote won’t be FOR something. So John, don’t count on getting either my money or time. Those go for the things I am FOR.

Ouch….I hope that hurt…..

Obama (Safe In The Rear) Cries FORWARD!!!

Over at Legal Insurrection they picked up on the Obama campaign slogan for 2012…FORWARD. Some critics mocked the echoes of early 20th century socialism to be found in the word.

But to me it brought to mind Macaulay’s splendid poem about the Roman hero Horatius and his two comrades blocking the path of an Etruscan army as it attempted to capture the narrow bridge across the River Tiber that gave access to Rome.

The heroic trio fought so savagely that the Etruscan soldiers in the front line hesitated before their onslaught. However those in the ranks behind who were safe from the Roman swords tried to persuade them back into the fray.

Was none who would be foremost to lead such dire attack:
But those behind cried ‘Forward!’, and those before cried ‘Back!’
And backward now and forward wavers the deep array;
And on the tossing sea of steel, to and fro the standards reel;
And the victorious trumpet-peal dies fitfully away.

Might not that ring true today when Obama and his team, safely ensconced in Washington and living off the public purse, demand greater sacrifices from those on the front line outside Washington in order to fill the government’s coffers and keep them in the style to which they have become accustomed.

But where oh where is there an American Horatius to keep those ravenous beasts at bay….

Republican insiders deciding they can do without Palin and her supporters?

Hey – we don’t need no small town redneck hicks embarrassing our convention with their backwoods old fashioned attitudes. We need to go rainbow….

Several insiders interviewed for this story said former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will present a unique challenge to Romney’s team: Will they give her a prime spot to satisfy her fans, or reduce her role because of her polarizing nature?
“You want people to generate interest and passion,” said one Republican who has organized conventions before and who, like others, didn’t want to be named. “Sarah Palin goes to a very small segment, relatively speaking, of the Republican Party. And you’re trying to put together a rainbow coalition.”

Ah those Republican insiders – the ones that did so well in 2008…..they really know how to generate interest and passion….

Obama’s Birth Certificate A Forgery? The Silence Is Deafening…..

President Obama’s birth certificate, made public as a result of Donald Trump’s brief “campaign”, is a forgery.

This is an astonishing claim.

Note that nobody has said that Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen of the USA – just that the document purporting to prove his natural born citizenship is not an honest piece of evidence.

With the results of Maricopa County, AZ sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Cold Case Posse,” an incredible claim has become an incredible situation: a team of professional investigators, commissioned by a major law-enforcement agency, has determined that the alleged birth certificate produced by the president of the United States is a probable forgery.

One would have expected a veritable tsunami of claim and counter claim as a result of the Mariscopa County investigation with Obama’s supporters and opponents slugging it toe to toe in print and on screen. I expected to see in the Obama friendly BBC and Guardian a line by line dissection of the Cold Posse’s case with a host of experts drafted in via the NYT and the US networks to pour scorn on it’s conclusions. CBS in particular might well have been rather sensitive to the issue of forged documents after its own Dan Rather debacle.

But instead there has been a deafening silence. Not a syllable from the White House. Zilch from the DNC official newsletters at NYT and WaPo. Nothing from Sandra Fluke, the Democrats Presidential candidate for 2028………….and also nothing from any of the scuffed retreads sleepwalking to the 2012 GOP nomination.

I wonder why?

Todd Palin Stands With Newt – Is He The Sort Of Man You Would Like By Your Side?

Todd Palin has written a letter to American conservatives spelling out why he supports Newt Gingrich for President. It’s short, sweet and to the point and tells us as much about the man who wrote it as it does about Newt.

I don’t know about you but having this man by my side would mean more to me than 50.000 endorsements from politicians, media pundits or assorted social conservative pontificators.

Remember what Mark Burnett, ex Para and TV producer said?

Todd is like Captain America. This guy, this guy is super tough. He can actually do it all.

On the other hand there is always David Frum….

BBC’s Mark Mardell’s Piece On Palin’s 2012 Statement Lives Down To Expectations..

Mark Mardell, the BBC’s man in the USA, lets the mask slip in a rather unpleasant piece on Governor Palin’s decision not to enter the 2012 Presidential race.

Shriekily filled with venom against a president she branded a socialist and suggested was un-American, in love with guns, God and the unborn, apparently ignorant of the outside world, indeed not fully clued up on the lower 48 (the USA outside Alaska)

What a perfect example of well informed, deeply researched political analysis – paid for, I might add, by a poll tax on everyone who owns a TV set in Britain.

Holding true to the definitive snake oil salesman’s code of practice that the best way to present an untruth is to baldly state it as a fact, Mardell goes for broke.

Sarah Palin’s decision will have disappointed some.
Not the American people who clearly didn’t like her as John McCain’s running mate in 2008.

Excuse me? If that was the case why was it that the only time that the McCain ticket led Obama in the polls was in the first half of September after Palin joined it? After September 15th, of course, the ticket was dead in the water – not because of Palin but due to McCain’s deer-in-the-headlights reaction to the Lehman Brothers collapse.

Naturally Mardell ignores policy positions and goes for the personal…

As a result we have Michelle Bachmann in the race. Herman Cain in the race. Rick Perry in the race.
They are all more authentic, more intelligent, more acceptable than Palin

Hmmmm….Mr Mardell – are you saying Camille Paglia is is just some dumb broad?

No evidence to back this up, of course. Indeed what is fascinating is how Mardell is trying desperately to portray Palin as some sort of X Factor “celebrity” without any connection to the world of serious politics. No reference to her years of executive experience in Alaska as a successful city mayor or popular governor. No reference to her fight against corruption in her own party or her triumphant battles against the big oil companies.

But then why in the world would any rational person be at all surprised at this bucketful of poisonous bile?

It’s Mark Mardell..

For years he was paid by the BBC to pimp the EU as their man in Brussels. Then, when the they began to believe their own hope&change crapola about a totally unvetted Chicago Daley machine hack with zero executive experience, Mardell’s bosses decided to send him to Washington as a kind of court correspondent to wax lyrical about the new Camelot. He must have been delirious with joy, foreseeing an eight year stint pimping for Obama.

But it has all gone horribly wrong. The Obamacare shambles, the ever swelling deficit, the lobbyist rewarding stimulus that has failed to dent unemployment, the ATF guns scandal, the Democrats losing control of the house in 2010, the emergence of the tea party (which, characteristically, Mardell ignored for well over a year )…..

Mardell could even be characterised as the Comical Ali of the Obama regime

a cult figure thanks to his wild claims and colourful language

Obama is crumbling and there is precious little reward in pimping a failure. Hence the vitriolic attack on Palin. When the Brooks/Douthat/Frum axis of appeasement was advocating accomodation with Obama and Huntsman seemed the future Palin was the only leading light of the GOP who was calling him out. Her predictions have been vindicated. She was right about Obama – Mardell and his ilk were wrong – and how it must hurt to be outsmarted by someone “apparently ignorant of the outside world, indeed not fully clued up on the lower 48″

Here’s a suggestion for the BBC, supposedly in cost cutting mode. Why not save money by getting rid of Mardell and just giving White House spokesman Jay Carney a few dollars extra to blah blah blah about the Potemkin villages of Obamaland.

The song will be the same as Mardell’s but the price will be much lower…

BTW…he predicts it will almost certainly be Romney v Perry, ignoring the latest polls about Cain. Time for the Race Card, methinks…

The Media & Obama 2008:Cupbearers to a Styrofoam Demigod

But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed, when the roar of the crowd fades away, when the stadium lights go out and those styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot, what exactly is our opponents plan?

Remember someone saying that in 2008? Who was it…just remind me…

Well Rex Murphy at Canada’s National Post remembers – and he also recalls the scorn heaped on that person because she dared to wonder if indeed there really were any clothes on a certain emperor.

Three years later those columns are safely back in the studio lot – and the man with the plan?

Under Obama, America’s foreign policies are a mixture of confusion and costly impotence. It is increasingly bypassed or derided; the great approach to the Muslim world, symbolized by the Cairo speech, is in tatters. Its debt and deficits are a weight on the entire global economy. And the office of presidency is less and less a symbol of strength.

Murphy believes that a reckoning is due – with the media

American journalism will have to look back at the period starting with Barrack Obama’s rise, his assumption of the presidency and his conduct in it to the present, and ask itself how it came to cast aside so many of its vital functions. In the main, the establishment American media abandoned its critical faculties during the Obama campaign — and it hasn’t reclaimed them since.

But if the media went easy on Obama, transforming an inexperienced Daley machine hack from Chicago into a demigod no punches were pulled for anyone else

The media trashed Hillary. They burned Republicans. They ransacked Sarah Palin and her family. But Obama, the cool, the detached, the oracular Obama — he strolled to the presidency.
Palin, in particular, stands out as Obama’s opposite in the media’s eyes. As much as they genuflected to the one, they felt the need to turn rotweiler toward the other. If Obama was sacred , classy, intellectual and cosmopolitan, why then Palin must be malevolent, trashy, dumb and pure backwoods-ignorant.

Read the rest here. You and I know the truth of it and it’s a message that is beginning to seep into the ivory towers of the panjandrums of punditocracy themselves. But it bears repeating and it needs to be broadcast loud and clear into all the newsrooms, not just in the US but also across the globe because hacks everywhere took their cue from America’s network and newspaper bosses who clearly turned a blind eye to the airbrushing of Obama’s past.

Don’t ever let them avoid responsibility for the way they abused their power – so here, courtesy of one of the comments on Murphy’s piece, is a list of some of the guilty parties, exposed to sunlight after the “Journolist” debacle. It doesn’t include all the weasels – but it’s a start….

1. Spencer Ackerman – Wired, FireDogLake, Washington Independent, Talking Points Memo, The American Prospect

2. Ben Adler – Newsweek, POLITICO

3. Mike Allen – POLITICO

4. Eric Alterman – The Nation, Media Matters for America

5. Marc Ambinder – The Atlantic

6. Greg Anrig – The Century Foundation

7. Ryan Avent – Economist

8. Dean Baker – The American Prospect

9. Nick Baumann – Mother Jones

10. Josh Bearman – LA Weekly

11. Steven Benen – The Carpetbagger Report

12. Jared Bernstein – Economic Policy Institute

13. Michael Berube – Crooked Timber (blog), Pennsylvania State University

14. Lindsay Beyerstein – (blogger)

15. Joel Bleifuss – In These Times

16. John Blevins – South Texas College of Law

17. Sam Boyd – The American Prospect

18. Rich Byrne – Playwright and freelancer

19. Ta-Nehisi Coates – The Atlantic

20. Jonathan Chait – The New Republic

21. Lakshmi Chaudry – In These Times

22. Isaac Chotiner – The New Republic

23. Michael Cohen – New America Foundation

24. Jonathan Cohn – The New Republic

25. Joe Conason – The New York Observer

26. David Corn – Mother Jones

27. Daniel Davies – The Guardian

28. David Dayen – FireDogLake

29. Brad DeLong – The Economists’ Voice, University of California at Berkley

30. Ryan Donmoyer – Bloomberg

31. Kevin Drum – Washington Monthly

32. Matt Duss – Center for American Progress

33. Eve Fairbanks – The New Republic

34. Henry Farrell – George Washington University

35. Tim Fernholz – American Prospect

36. James Galbraith – University of Texas at Austin (professor)

37. Todd Gitlin – Columbia University

38. Ilan Goldenberg – National Security Network

39. Dana Goldstein – The Daily Beast

40. Merrill Goozner – Chicago Tribune

41. David Greenberg – Slate

42. Robert Greenwald – Brave New Films

43. Chris Hayes – The Nation

44. Don Hazen – Alternet

45. Michael Hirsh – Newsweek

46. John Judis – The New Republic, The American Prospect

47. Michael Kazin – Georgetown University (law professor)

48. Ed Kilgore – Democratic Stategist

49. Richard Kim – The Nation

50. Mark Kleiman – The Reality Based Community

51. Ezra Klein – Washington Post, Newsweek, The American Prospect

52. Joe Klein – TIME

53. Paul Krugman – The New York Times, Princeton University

54. Lisa Lerer – POLITICO

55. Daniel Levy – Century Foundation

56. Alec McGillis – Washington Post

57. Scott McLemee – Inside Higher Ed

58. Ari Melber – The Nation

59. Seth Michaels – MyDD.com

60. Luke Mitchell – Harper’s Magazine

61. Gautham Nagesh – The Hill, Daily Caller

62. Suzanne Nossel – Human Rights Watch

63. Michael O’Hare – University of California, Berkeley

64. Rick Perlstein – Author, Campaign for America’s Future

65. Harold Pollack – University of Chicago

66. Foster Kamer – The Village Voice

67. Katha Pollitt – The Nation

68. Ari Rabin-Havt – Media Matters

69. David Roberts – Grist

70. Alyssa Rosenberg – Washingtonian, The Atlantic, Government Executive

71. Alex Rossmiller – National Security Network

72. Laura Rozen – Politico, Mother Jones

73. Greg Sargent – Washington Post

74. Thomas Schaller – Baltimore Sun

75. Noam Scheiber – The New Republic

76. Michael Scherer – TIME

77. Mark Schmitt – American Prospect

78. Adam Serwer – American Prospect

79. Thomas Schaller – Baltimore Sun (columnist), University of
Maryland, Baltimore County (professor), FiveThirtyEight.com
(contributing writer)

80. Julie Bergman Sender – Balcony Films

81. Walter Shapiro – PoliticsDaily.com

82. Nate Silver – FiveThirtyEight.com

83. Jesse Singal – The Boston Globe, Washington Monthly

84. Ben Smith – POLITICO

85. Sarah Spitz – NPR

86. Adele Stan – The Media Consortium

87. Kate Steadman – Kaiser Health News

88. Jonathan Stein – Mother Jones

89. Sam Stein – The Huffington Post

90. Jesse Taylor – Pandagon.net

91. Steven Teles – Yale University

92. Thoma – The Economist’s View (blog), University of Oregon (professor)

93. Michael Tomasky – The Guardian

94. Jeffrey Toobin – CNN, The New Yorker

95. Rebecca Traister – Salon (columnist)

96. Cenk Uygur – The Young Turks

97. Tracy Van Slyke – The Media Consortium

98. Dave Weigel – Washington Post, MSNBC, The Washington Independent

99. Moira Whelan – National Security Network

100. Scott Winship – Pew Economic Mobility Project

101. Kai Wright – The Root

102. Holly Yeager – Columbia Journalism Review

103. Rich Yeselson – Change to Win

104. Matthew Yglesias – Center for American Progress, The Atlantic Monthly

105. Jonathan Zasloff – UCLA

106. Julian Zelizer – Princeton professor and CNN contributor

107. Avi Zenilman – POLITICO

“Who appointed Erick Erickson as Conservative Electioneering Sheriff?”

A “reasonable rant” from PolitiJim

Who appointed Erick Erickson as Conservative Electioneering Sheriff?

Or even Anne Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Charles Dickens or The Incredible Shrinking Man for that matter….but then I don’t think Charles Dickens ever let his publishers change the ending of one of his novels…can’t really say about TISM…

First it was the Jamie Radtke thing. By virtue of his admitted betrayal to her campaign on behalf of his employers (i think he wrote he would ‘gladly’ accommodate their request to pull back on his support to her) and the obvious contrary evidence by RS attendees of his portrayal of her – Erickson is quickly loosing credibility.
Now Erick has decided that he decides who should run, and when. If they don’t do it when it is convenient for him – to hell with them. Or her.”At some point, I decided Sarah Palin could not defeat Barack Obama”

It’s not that Jim dislikes Erickson (or Coulter) but he’s beginning to wonder if they are not morphing into something similar to those figures of the GOP elite they have often mocked and derided who think they are “smarter than regular people” (echoes of Orwell’s “Animal Farm”?)

So, for Erick, a reminder…

And this whole idea that Palin HAS TO get in now. That somehow she “owes it” to the GOP movement …………………….. I’d say you owe her much more than she owes you. Did you forget it was PALIN who helped galvanize and garner the conservative movement in 2008? Have you not read the citations of those of us who started with Santelli and were empowered with Palin who….ended up as ‘the tea party?’ When the ‘big government’ republicans and pretenders forced us onto McCain – Palin was a sign of hope. And she also continued the attack during her own withering assault against Obama, no thanks to you.

She has done far more for the conservative movement than RedState or Erick Erickson could possibly think.

…and, just in case his message remains a little unclear. this self declared non Palinista suggests a post it note that should be attached to the keyboard, microphone or teleprompter of every self proclaimed “conservative” pundit/pontificator/consultant/strategist in the USA.

For what Sarah Palin has done, and continues to do, she has a right to do WHATEVER she wants and still receive the thanks from conservatives – nay, AMERICANS – everywhere.

Read the rest here – it’s interesting stuff.

Cross posted at C4P

h/t from my ever nuanced twitter friend Sissy Willis

Polls This Far Out – Prognostication or Discombobulation?

Six weeks.

That’s the length of an election campaign here on the other side of the pond – and even that’s too long for some people.

Furthermore we do not have zillions of professional “consultants” and “strategists” pimping themselves for campaign employment. Because there are quite strict UK laws governing electoral expenditure almost all our campaigning is done by amateur volunteer activists often working out of their own homes (a bit like O4P, perhaps….)

So the reports coming to us out of Hot Air and other political media (“Perrypalooza”) fifteen months before the actual election give us the impression of a nation in a state of stretched out permanent political hyperventilation. Ed and Allahpundit, bless their little hearts, descend in a frenzy upon every opinion poll and analyse each cross tab with the zeal of an augur in Ancient Rome examining a bunch of chicken livers.

They then present the findings as if they are tablets of stone from Mount Sinai itself.

But a few days ago Pollinsider provided a refreshing dash of ice cold water to dissipate the heat generated by the Bachmann/Perry feeding frenzy and the speculation about Governor Palin.

Believe it or not, in their quests (or probable quest in Palin’s case) for the GOP nomination both Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney are working under the same premise: No one is paying attention right now. Sure, some people are paying attention. But that “some” is probably you and me and maybe 5% of the rest of the voting population.

See his point? Only political junkies are paying attention at this moment in time. However much the media play it up (and after all they have columns and screens to fill) he hazards a guess that Ames/Iowa had very little impact on the consciousness of most Americans.

As Palin has said, most people are not interested in the primary process right now, most people are worried about their families, their jobs, their kids, and what to make for dinner tonight. She is right. Being the most politically interested of my family and friends, I nevertheless have many friends and family who fall into the 96% group. These are people who know and follow politics to a degree, but are not uber-involved in the process and what is going on.

The media especially gets all wound up over who is where and what he/she said. They are constantly searching for new angles….

All of these candidates announced at different times. All of them had a short time frame when they were the “it” candidate. The Media Flavor of the Month. Right now, Perry is the flavor of the month. Why? Because 96% of the population is not paying attention. Everything they know comes from passing, a brief blip on the tv or radio, or by word of mouth. And these are the people who are polled, and this is why the race changes so dramatically so often, with so many new and frequent “frontrunners” challenging Romney.

Read the rest here then just unclench those muscles and relax for a few moments. The circus is in town but it could be that most people are probably not paying too much attention.

Am I wrong or am I wrong?

BTW…maybe Sarah Palin has been reading these words from one of the greatest poems ever written

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting….

After all there might well be a definite need for adult supervision later……