Breaking: Oprah Interviewed Obama, Will Ignore Palin
This is a breaking item from Matt Drudge at the Drudge Report regarding yet another major media figure whom the Sarah Palin phenomenon is embarrassing the pants off of.
This breaking item from Drudge is mighty, mighty interesting. First, Oprah’s statement:
“The item in today’s Drudge Report is categorically untrue. There has been absolutely no discussion about having Sarah Palin on my show. At the beginning of this Presidential campaign when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates. I agree that Sarah Palin would be a fantastic interview, and I would love to have her on after the campaign is over.”
And then, the picture that reveals Oprah… using her show as a platform for Barack Obama:
One caveat: Oprah had Barack on her show. She publicly endorsed him. All of this is absolutely ethical, because Oprah maintains no guises of “objectivity” — fine (although lying openly about it in the public statement quoted above is quite shady and stunningly unethical). Her above statement is insulting to the intelligence of the average watcher (which I myself am not, typically), because she flatly refuses an insightful, and potentially spirited, interview on the basis of giving Sarah Palin a “platform.” Equal opportunity, anyone? Where’s Title IX when you need it? (just kidding.)
Who she has on the show is her decision. But not having on another history-maker (since that was her justification for featuring Obama) stinks of close-minded partisanship and rank wimpiness.
Talk amongst yourselves.
Fact-Checking the Mainstream Moron Media
Remember the days when you could actually trust the talking heads on your TV screen?
You don’t?
This is probably why.
Lie: Sarah Palin was a member of the Alaska Independence Party (which advocated voting to secede from the Union) before she ran for Governor.
Truth: Sarah Palin was NEVER a member of the Alaska Independence Party.
Lie: Sarah Palin supports abstinence-only education.
Truth: This is tricky. Sarah Palin opposes “explicit” sex education, which is not quite the same as abstinence-only education. “Explicit” sexual education is commonly understood to be more along the lines of http://takecaredownthere.org/, an absolutely disgusting and all-too-accessible website developed by Planned Parenthood and supported by YOUR tax dollars.
More importantly, however, Palin has not made a move to change the way sex ed is taught in Alaska. To wit:
Neither have Palin’s socially conservative personal views on issues like abortion and gay marriage been translated into policies during her 20 months as Alaska’s chief executive. It reflects a hands-off attitude toward mixing government and religion by most Alaskans.
Lie: Sarah Palin is opposed to contraception because she supports abstinence-only sex ed.
Truth: Sarah Palin supports contraception. The abstinence-only thing has yet to be proven.
Lie: Sarah Palin lied to John McCain and his vetting team about Bristol’s pregnancy.
Lie: The McCain team was never told about the Bristol pregnancy
Lie: The McCain team did not thoroughly vet Sarah Palin.
Truth: Incorrect. Not only did 25 people vet Palin as thoroughly as all the other VP candidates, but she told him about Bristol’s pregnancy herself.
Lie: Sarah Palin supports the same windfall profit tax on Big Oil that Obama does.
Truth: Absolutely not. She supports a severance tax, which is standard operating procedure whenever new deposits are struck. (The author of this rebuttal addresses the exact Seattle Times article linked above.)
Lie: Palin lied about being against the Bridge to Nowhere.
Truth: Palin was for a bridge — until the cost of said bridge ballooned out of hand, the way government projects usually do.
Lie: Palin supports creationism being taught in schools.
Truth: She did say she supported both creationism and evolution, but has not effected any school policy changes to include creationism in Alaskan schools.
Feel free to judge Palin on the issues. Feel free to disagree, and vote against her. But don’t judge her on the issues that are blatant lies. Do your own research; don’t just spout off what the coolest new bumper sticker or DailyKOS hate speech tells you. Be a responsible, thinking citizen.
To the media, who obviously can’t do their own research: Knock. It. Off.
Brits for the First Amendment
A fictional book about Mohammed’s youngest child bride, Aisha, has been denied publication by United States’ Random House and by other publishers around the world, because they “had been informed by credible sources that the book could incite violence.”
No kidding.
But the Brits, whose Muslim population is much more prone to mass violence than in any other Western European country except France (and much more than American Muslims), have decided to take the risk and publish the book.
“Martin Rynja, publishing director at Gibson Square, said, however, that in “an open society there has to be open access to literary works, regardless of fear.’”
Fear is the foot-washer of power. Giving fanatical idealists deadly power over others using heretic speech as a weapon has been a trend in the West as of late, and it’s time those of us out there still sane ought to stand up to this most deadly and sinister oppression.
This is exactly what I’m talking about.
If I’ve been hitting the phrase “intellectual lightweight” a bit too hard recently, here’s my justification:
Palin’s hairstyle is “about 20 years out of date.”
Here’s a highlight (ha):
“It’s about 20 years out of date,” said Boston stylist Mario Russo of the Alaska governor’s ’do. “Which goes to show how off she might be on current events.”
An observation like which, goes to show how off Mario Russo is in the brain cells.
Palin may yet prove herself “off” on “current events,” but leave her hair alone, morons. Unless you want a serious fight over the meritoriousness of Biden’s hair transplants.
Dear radical feminists: Give me back my candidate.
See if you can track this line of logic:
Sarah Palin is the Republican VP nominee.
Sarah Palin is a woman.
Sarah Palin has 5 children.
Of Sarah Palin’s 5 children, the youngest is an infant with Down Syndrome.
Sarah Palin is a pro-life, pro-gun, anti-gay marriage, anti big government earmarks, anti-universal healthcare, and pro-victory in Iraq (ie: don’t leave til the job’s done).
Sarah Palin is the first woman VP candidate of the GOP.
Feminists say that Palin is McCain’s bait-and-switch tactic to gain the votes of Hillary supporters.
…What?
I don’t know about you, but I listened to approximately thirty seconds of Palin’s acceptance speech on Friday, and I had already come to the conclusion that Palin is nothing like Hillary Clinton. So how could feminists think that the same party who they say was smart enough to pull one over on Colin Powell, the U.N., the Florida Supreme Court, Florida Jews, the entire republic of Georgia, the Iraq people, the Texas Air National Guard, and Congress (several times) could be downright dumb enough to nominate pro-everything-Hillary-hates Palin?
Either the GOP are dastardly and crafty, or they’re dumb and out-of-touch. Where’s the political calculus here?
Now, my question: According to radical feminists, Sarah Palin is barely a woman. She’s a poor excuse for a brazen beauty queen hussy trying to oppress legitimate women everywhere by nefariously telling them that their inalienable right to pulverize their babies in utero and then suck them out via vacuum cleaner is not, in fact, a right.
When pressed for more than just Palin’s opposition to abortion to explain why these individuals hate Palin so intensely, they sometimes mumble, “Well, she advocates abstinence education, and um, um, she hates polar bears.”
That’s it. Right on target, girls. Sarah Palin hates polar bears (which probably isn’t true), and she also has stated numerous times that she opposes “explicit sex education” (which for all of you out there without access to a dictionary, means a “how-to” graphic novel approach to teaching the birds and bees to seven-year-olds.) I’m pretty sure, given that definition, that I would agree with Palin.
Which is exactly the point. Palin is a real feminist, before the term was hijacked by the abortion fanatics. She is an achiever that has reached some of the highest circles of public office; she did it while raising a happy and healthy family, and she did it without riding her husband’s coattails into the public spotlight (like that other gal we’ve been hearing about lately). Palin, like her or not, is a paragon of feminine achievement, and for all the women out there who share her views, this is their Hillary Clinton moment. This is the time when they can finally have a feminine face for their positions. This is THEIR moment in the spotlight.
Play nice, feminists. The lady’s got a gun — and she knows how to to use it.
Get to know your blogger.
Aloha! This is me, your blogger.
For those of you who don’t already know me, let me say a bit about myself. I’m a conservative. In the parlance of the Potomac, I’m a fiscal conservative, and, mostly, a social conservative as well. I don’t believe in higher taxes, cap and trade, the present capacity of solar panels, a “living, breathing,” and therefore malleable, Constitution, or Al-Qaeda’s ability to get a lawyer. I have to admit a strong academic dislike for the Democratic arm of Congress. As a billboard in my home state of New Jersey aptly points out, Nancy Pelosi “is a tool.”
I have issues with Democrats in our fair town of Ithaca. I have serious problems with the “party of tolerance”’s apparent intolerance of views (including mine) that diverge from theirs. I, personally, and other members of the Ithaca College Republicans have been the targets of glares, impolite stares, and open hostility, and many of our club materials, most notably our posters, have been torn down by so-called agents of “diversity.”
Let me tell you something: real diversity consists of differences of the mind and of the heart.
That other kind, the kind that makes photographs more colorful, isn’t worth a hot damn if true diversity is absent.
On that note, the Fairness Doctrine is one of the most dangerous bills floating around on the floor of the Senate today and every American who voted for these perfidious, cowardly Democrats should be ashamed of being represented by legislators who support it.
I believe in American exceptionalism, or rather, the idea that America, for its faults, has done more to help the rest of the world than the rest of the world has helped us. (Ask yourself- how many Malays or French or Japanese came to our aid after Katrina? Or the Iowa floods? Or the Malibu firestorms? Interesting, isn’t it?). I believe that our system of government is the best of the imperfect human capacity for creation and governance.
I believe in my right to own a gun, and your right to own a gun, too.
I am extremely against the continuation of affirmative action. Where its application was necessary in decades past, its propulsion and continued application cheapens real, meritous achievement.
I believe in the free market. And in thus saying, I believe that opening up our land to drilling will drive down the prices being traded up by speculators who gamble on oil supplies years in advance.
That being said, I wish I had the money to be first in line to get the Chevy Volt, GM’s first plug-in hybrid. I’m all for developing every single energy resource we have, including hydroelectric power, biodiesel, wind, solar, and nuclear.
I also believe going nuke is our single best option for the new electric economy- why not put America’s best minds toward improving the already proven method of energy production by increasing its safety and neutralizing its waste products?
All of that said, I would like to shed light into one chink in my conservative armor: I am wholeheartedly for gay marriage, because I believe humans are predisposed to monogamous pairing, and because humans are inherently social animals, a social recognition and validation of a monogamous pair of humans, regardless of gender, is a basic human need.
Aside, I would call myself a social conservative. So that’s me. What about you?
Welcome back, Netroots!
Don’t know about you, but I’m coming fresh from a big, eventful summer of politicking and looking forward to the election circ- er, season, ahead! We’ve got so much to discuss, like an impending Cold War II between the NATO castrati and the big, cold bear! We’ve got crazy columnists at the New York Times! We’ve got Barry Obama! We’ve got the media (something McCain doesn’t have)! We’ve got polls! And of course, more hilariously relevant Youtube videos than you can shake a really big stick at.
Above all, we’ve got snark, wit, and commentary from your friendly campus conservative — me!
Officially, welcome to the Spectrum. Now that you’re here, put your seat belt on. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Politicians Lie?! OMGWTFBBQ!!1
Really, who wouldn’t want to have a juicy story about getting shot at while on a good-works USO mission in a war zone overseas? Hillary Clinton was caught in a lie (irony of ironies, by comedian Sinbad, who accompanied her on the trip), albeit a mostly trivial one, about her experiences once her plane (well, according to her, it was a chopper) landed in war-torn Bosnia in 1996. She and her team ran, heads down, through sniper fire, into waiting cars, all drama and speed.
According to Sinbad (who was later corroborated by reporters), disembarking from the plane was a decidedly more pleasant experience, topped off by a welcoming ceremony before being loaded into official transportation.
Was Hillary Clinton lying or was it an “honest mistake”? Do we even care?
I mean, sure, we’re supposed to deserve honesty (especially in historical account) from our public representatives, but in light of recent events (Eliot Spitzer and the mayor of Detroit immediately come to mind), we really shouldn’t hold our public opinion so high.
After all, they’re just politicians. Politicians philander, lie, cheat, steal, occasionally drive their girlfriends off bridges while intoxicated, and that’s okay.
Isn’t it?
A Speech You Need to Watch and Think About (in four acts)
In all four Youtubey parts. Enjoy!
1
2
3
4
Hillary Clinton responds:
It’s Raining Men (Alternate Title: What Tangled Webs They Weave)
The politically fallen are, quite literally, raining down upon us.
Far be it from me to mention the obvious: NY Governor Eliot Spitzer, a.k.a. “Client No. 9″ resigned last week in the midst of the worst political sex scandal to hit Albany in a century… that is, if you think 6 years of shacking up with a prostitute while your pretty wife sleeps in your posh New York City pad and your two daughters go about life unaware is shocking. Surprisingly, many people don’t think so, anymore.
Eliot Spitzer’s departure
This icky situation was made only more bizarre when, mere hours after Lt. Gov David Paterson was sworn in as Governor, Paterson re-revealed his and his wife’s philandering history to the press to head off a developing news recycling of an old story that may have resulted in another resignation from the governorship if it hit the fan unchecked.
“Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old,” sings (preaches?) Baz Luhrmann in everyone’s favorite graduation ditty, “Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen)”. Now, Baz, I love the song, but I disagree heartily that we citizens of a democracy (shadowy as it may be) should resign ourselves to the mounting evidence that politicians, the faces we assign to represent us in the free world, are just naturally made of inferior moral stuff and are predisposed to infidelity.
We should not accept the credo that “men will be men” and we are not near-obligated to tolerate this need to have mistresses and prostitutes on the side. Thomas Jefferson did it. Dwight Eisenhower did it. JFK did it. MLK Jr. might have done it. Bill Clinton did it, more than once, and in one instance, was accused of rape.
And everybody knows about it, as if that ever made it “okay”.
But we should not just accept these moral failings as part of the politician’s personality description. I believe that the moral weakness of cheating on a spouse is indicative of moral weakness in other areas of life, and the public should not put itself at risk for that kind of self-centered personal fulfillment to metastasize in public life. Not all men are cheaters. Not all First Ladies are doormats. American voters deserve better than to be publicly shamed by the personal affairs of our statesmen. Believe it or not, the rest of the world does care and is politically-incorrect enough to judge the political character of the cheater on the same standards as the political character of the embezzler, the thief, the pedophile, or the abuser.
This is not private business. Being a public servant exacts a type of commitment not accorded to private citizens, therefore, their philandering is public business, because it is in this way (which is one of many) that they display (or tarnish) their honor and respectability.
When politicians can’t keep it in their pants (or female politicians can’t do the girlish equivalent of such), everyone loses.
And, just for a fun-filled foray into the absolutely revolting, a former aide for sacked NJ Governor Jim McGreevey claims that, contrary to Dina McGreevey’s claims during her divorce proceedings (which, inevitably, involve cash settlements), the former governor’s ex-wife was pristinely aware of her husband’s sexual proclivities because (cue: drum roll) the aide and the former First Couple of New Jersey engaged in sexual menage a trois routinely, and at Dina McGreevey’s request.
All together now: Ew…
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