Turns out I am not the only one who wonders why Obama continues to get a free pass for actions that, had Bush done them, would be front page news (and again, I have NO love lost for Bush – absolutely zero, but fair is fair). Josh Gerstein of Politico had these same questions, about which he wrote in this article, What If Bush Had Done That?. Indeed:

A four-hour stop in New Orleans, on his way to a $3 million fundraiser.

Snubbing the Dalai Lama.

Signing off on a secret deal with drug makers.

Freezing out a TV network.

Doing more fundraisers than the last president. More golf, too.

President Barack Obama has done all of those things — and more.

What’s remarkable is what hasn’t happened. These episodes haven’t become metaphors for Obama’s personal and political character — or consuming controversies that sidetracked the rest of his agenda.

It’s a sign that the media’s echo chamber can be a funny thing, prone to the vagaries of news judgment, and an illustration that, in politics, context is everything.

Conservatives look on with a mix of indignation and amazement and ask: Imagine the fuss if George W. Bush had done these things?

The media’s “echo chamber”? That is a kind reference for what they are really doing, or rather aren’t doing: their jobs. Conservatives aren’t the only ones questioning why this is happening. Anyone who truly cares about the our democracy and the state of journalism in this country are asking, too. But they do ask a good question:

And quickly add, with a hint of jealousy: How does Obama get away with it?

“We have a joke about it. We’re going to start a website: IfBushHadDoneThat.com,” former Bush counselor Ed Gillespie said. “The watchdogs are curled up around his feet, sleeping soundly. … There are countless examples: some silly, some serious.”

Indeed, Bush got grief for secret meetings with the oil industry, politicizing the White House and spending too much time on his beloved bike. But it’s not just Republicans who notice. Media observers note that the president often gets kid-glove treatment from the press, fellow Democrats and, particularly, interest groups on the left — Bush’s loudest critics, Obama’s biggest backers.

But others say there’s a larger phenomenon at work — in the story line the media wrote about Obama’s presidency. For Bush, the theme was that of a Big Business Republican who rode the family name to the White House, so stories about secret energy meetings and a certain laziness, intellectual and otherwise, fit neatly into the theme, to be replayed over and over again.

Obama’s story line was more positive from the start: historic newcomer coming to shake up Washington. So the negatives that sprung up around Obama — like a sense that he was more flash than substance — track what negative coverage he’s received, captured in a recent “Saturday Night Live” skit that made fun of his lack of accomplishments in office.

“There may well be almost an unconscious effort on the part of the media to give Obama a bit more slack because he is more likable, because he is the first African-American president. That plays into it,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at the University of Southern California.

Democrats find the complaints of Obama “getting a pass” hard to stomach in light of the way the press treated Bush — particularly on the single biggest mistake of his presidency, relying on the faulty intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq. Now, Obama’s aides say, the positive coverage simply reflects the fact that their efforts are succeeding.

“As our administration makes progress on the agenda that Washington has ignored for too long, we expect we’ll get some news coverage of that progress that we like and some tough coverage that we don’t,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “It’s not unlike the New Orleans Saints, who are getting lots of good coverage of their perfect record so far — certainly better coverage than the [2-5] Redskins — but it doesn’t mean the Saints have liked every story that’s been written about them since training camp. It goes with the territory.”

There are signs the friendly tone toward Obama is ebbing. Case in point: a front-page story in The New York Times noting that Obama’s all-male basketball games drew fire from the head of the National Organization for Women, who called the games “troubling.”

I agree that Bush seemed to be treated with kit gloves, way, way too much for my liking. The media does seem to enjoy determining who our next president will be. But even Bush’s treatment pales in comparison to the lovefest the MSM has had for Obama.

So yes, they are now asking why Obama excludes women (though he has now tried to rectify that by asking ONE woman, Melody Barnes, to play golf with him) in his games? We have known for ages that often, it is on the golf course or basketball court that favors are curried or power is amassed, hence the desire for women to achieve membership in numerous country clubs across the country. Oh, and Obama’s response to the NY Time’s articles highlighting that women were excluded? “Bunk, ” he said. Uh, yeah, no. It isn’t, President Obama.

There are too many examples of just how Obama has been allowed to skate free:

But here are other stories in which Obama seems to have gotten a pass:

New Orleans

As a candidate, Obama railed against the Bush administration for abandoning and then neglecting the people of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. He made five campaign trips to the city.

But as president, Obama waited almost nine months before visiting the Big Easy, spent less than four hours on the ground there and then jetted to San Francisco for a $3 million Democratic fundraiser.

“Don’t judge anybody on the amount of time that they’ve spent there. Judge only what this administration promised that they would do, what they’ve done every day and what they’re continuing to work on,” press secretary Robert Gibbs said, pointing to positive reviews of the federal government’s efforts under Obama.

For their part, Democrats can’t see how Bush officials can muster much umbrage over anything related to New Orleans, given how the Republican administration handled the initial response to Katrina.

Forget “Bush Officials.” How about us plain ol’ Americans? We’re pretty pissed off about it, too. Just saying. A biggie is this:

Managing The Press

When the Obama administration moved in recent weeks to isolate and disparage Fox News as a wing of the Republican Party, there were few immediate howls of outrage — even from Fox’s fellow journalists in the media.

Press defenders and First Amendment advocates who jumped on the Bush administration for using military analysts to shape war coverage reacted with a yawn to the White House’s announcement that it had deemed Fox to be not a “legitimate news organization.”

“Had I said about MSNBC what the Obama White House said about Fox, the media uproar would still be going on,” said Ari Fleischer, who served as Bush’s press secretary until 2003. “I instinctively would have known … the media would have leapt to their feet to defend them. I’m shocked it’s not happening now.”

One press veteran agreed. “If George Bush had taken on MSNBC, what would have happened?” said Phil Bronstein, editor-at-large of the San Francisco Chronicle. “That’s one place you can point to a real difference in how I’d imagine Bush would be treated.”

No freakin’ kidding. People would be screaming their fool heads off about free speech. But the Obamam crowd? They just jump on the Fox bashing bandwagon. Nice.

And this is a big one, too:

Politicizing the White House

Throughout the Bush administration, liberal critics warned that the hand of Bush political adviser Karl Rove was spreading politics into all corners of government. Reporters were on alert for any sign that politics was infecting the work of federal agencies. One top appointee got in hot water for allegedly asking agency officials to work to “help our candidates” across the country.

So some Bush aides went nearly apoplectic earlier this month when they spotted Gibbs and Obama’s political guru, David Axelrod, in photos of a Situation Room meeting on Afghanistan policy.

“Oh, the howling and screaming that would have happened if Karl Rove was sitting in on even a deputies-level meeting where strategy was being hammered out. People would have just gone ballistic,” said Peter Feaver, a former White House aide for both Bush and Bill Clinton.

Also, in about nine months, Obama has already attended more than two dozen fundraising events, while Bush did only six in his first year in office, according to a tally by CBS’s Mark Knoller.

Gibbs said Obama had to do more to raise a similar amount of money, since the kinds of soft-money fundraisers Bush did early on were banned. “This president … doesn’t accept money from PACs or lobbyists and doesn’t allow lobbyists to give at fundraisers that he’s at, as well,” Gibbs added.

Uh, yeah, sure, okay, Mr. Mealy Mouth Man. We all buy that one, right? Uh, yeah, no.

Then there is this one:

Dealing With Business, In Secret

Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney endured years of criticism and lawsuits that stretched all the way to the Supreme Court over secret meetings Cheney’s Energy Task Force held with oil and gas companies. When the policy emerged, critics said Cheney was carrying water for the industry.

Obama pledged to hash out health care reform live on C-SPAN and excoriated Bush for kowtowing to the drug industry. But aides signed off on the drug industry’s agreement to find $80 billion in savings to support reform. However, Obama aides didn’t disclose that the agreement involved the White House promising that current health legislation wouldn’t include further cuts or give the government the right to negotiate over drug prices.

I admit, this did actually get a rise from a few folks, like Greg Palast. But that moment seems to have passed now. Now, people rarely mention it. Big surprise…

And another issue near and dear to many of us:

Toning Down Human Rights

During the campaign, Obama talked tough on China. While candidate Obama pushed Bush to take a hard line, President Obama hasn’t. Hoping to win China’s help on Iran and North Korea, Obama skipped a meeting with the Dalai Lama and said little when China undertook a violent crackdown in its largely Muslim Xinjiang region. The White House has pledged to meet with the Dalai Lama later.

And while candidate Obama warned Bush against a “reckless and cynical initiative [that] would reward a regime in Khartoum that has a record of failing to live up to its commitments,” President Obama’s envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration, seemed to lay out a similar incentive-driven approach.

“We’ve got to think about giving out cookies,” said Gration. “Kids, countries — they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement.” The White House backed away from Gration’s characterization of the strategy but did recently lay out a strategy of engaging with the Sudanese regime.

Obama snubbed the DALAI LAMA. C’mon already – THAT’S not going to get an outcry? He’s the DALAI LAMA, for pete’s sake! No? *Crickets*

Just for, um, fun:

Traveling And Recreating

In his campaign and as president, Bush was mocked for a lack of interest in all things foreign — seven minutes touring the Kremlin, 25 minutes at the Great Wall of China, before declaring, “Let’s go home.”

During a trip to Europe in June, Obama chastised German and French reporters for suggesting that he was snubbing those countries by making only brief stops in each. “There are only 24 hours in the day. And so there’s nothing to any of that speculation beyond us just trying to fit in what we could do on such a short trip,” he told reporters in Germany.

But after taking his wife out for an attention-grabbing date night, Obama promptly jetted back to Washington. Within about 90 minutes of arriving at the White House, the tightly scheduled president was on the move again — headed to Andrews Air Force Base to play nine holes of golf.

How quickly people change. If Bush had done ANY of these things, the HuffPo and Daily Kos crowds would have been going ballistic about it. But now that it’s THEIR guy, it’s peachy keen. Where is the sense of fair play? Where is the concept of right is right? No, all of that gets completely thrown out of the window if it is someone they actually LIKE.

That is just sad. While ethics can be situational, the similarities between Bush and Obama are glaring, as many of us said they were all along. To completely disregard any sense of decency because it’s their guy weakens their arguments about choosing him in the first place. It makes it crystal clear that this is about winning at all costs, and choosing someone with little more than a teleprompter to do so.

It weakens their arguments against Bush, too, though they will most likely never admit that. But it’s true. In this case, what’s god for the gander, is, well, good for the gander.

Maybe if the media actually starts to do its job (for instance, where are all of the photos of Obama playing golf all of the time? Or basketball? They never failed to show Bush playing or riding his bike.), maybe they will start to open their eyes. One can hope, anyway. In the meantime, it continues to be our job to hold Obama’s feet to the fire for decisions he makes, and doesn’t make. It is our job to hold up the glaring similarities between Bush and Obama. And do so we will…

“Barack Obama Sees Worst Poll Rating Drop In 50 Years”

Gallup recorded an average daily approval rating of 53 per cent for Mr Obama for the third quarter of the year, a sharp drop from the 62 per cent he recorded from April.

His current approval rating – hovering just above the level that would make re-election an uphill struggle – is close to the bottom for newly-elected president. Mr Obama entered the White House with a soaring 78 per cent approval rating.

The bad polling news came as Mr Obama returned to the campaign trail to prevent his Democratic party losing two governorships next month in states in which he defeated Senator John McCain in last November’s election.

Jeffrey Jones of Gallup explained: “The dominant political focus for Obama in the third quarter was the push for health care reform, including his nationally televised address to Congress in early September.

“Obama hoped that Congress would vote on health care legislation before its August recess, but that goal was missed, and some members of Congress faced angry constituents at town hall meetings to discuss health care reform. Meanwhile, unemployment continued to climb near 10 per cent.”

Unfortunately for Obama, the People had something to say about the legislation that would so impact each and every one of us. I bet those legislators just HATE when their constituents throw a wrench into their grand plans, don’t you?

Things aren’t just bad for Obama, though:

Governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey is in severe danger of defeat while Democrats are fast losing hope that Creigh Deeds can beat his Republican opponent in Virginia. Twin Democratic losses would be a major blow to Mr Obama’s prestige.

Campaigning for Mr Corzine in Hackensack on Wednesday night, Mr Obama delivered a plea that almost seemed as much for himself as the local candidate: “I’m here today to urge you to cast aside the cynics and the sceptics, and prove to all Americans that leaders who do what’s right and who do what’s hard will be rewarded and not rejected.”

Mr Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs executive and multi-millionaire, is currently running even in New Jersey, which is normally comfortably Democratic, while Mr Deeds is trailing badly in Virginia, a swing state that was key to Mr Obama’s 2008 victory.

Let’s just pause for a second and soak that in – Gov. Corzine is a former Goldman Sachs exec who made a gazillion buckaroos, and Obama is stumping for him. Perhaps this is one of those moments when Obama’s minions might just get sobered up just a tad from the Kool Aide and realize that they bought a bill of goods.

It gets worse:

Mr Obama is also facing widespread criticism for his drawn-out decision-making process over what to do next in Afghanistan.

Republicans sense Mr Obama is in a vulnerable position and this week saw the return to the public stage of his perhaps most vehement opponent – Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Holy crapoli – Cheney? The man to whom we affectionately (cough) referred to as Darth Vader?? Whooey – this should be interesting:

In a blistering speech on Wednesday night, he accused Mr Obama of failing to give Americans troops on the ground a clear mission or defined goals and of being seemingly “afraid to make a decision” about Afghanistan “The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger,” Cheney said at the Center for Security Policy in Washington.

“Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries.”

He hit out at Obama aides who suggested that the Bush administration had failed to weigh up conditions in Afghanistan properly before committing troops.

“Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced. It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.”

Yikes. Nothing like being called on the carpet by the president, I mean, VICE president, from the past 8 years. Ahem. I reckon Obama and his Chicago pals thought all of their blaming of the Bush Administration would silence that Administration. Apparently, they were not paying attention to how Cheney rolls over the last 8 years, either. I’m sure Obama/Emmanuel/Axelrove will come up with SOME dismissive statement about Cheney’s remarks, and still not do anything about Afghanistan, because that’s how THEY roll.

Just in case you are keeping score (or want to), the Daily Presidential Tracking Poll at Rasmussen Reports has Obama’s approval ratings at 49% as of Friday, Oct. 23rd.

But hey, these are just numbers. What are the people who formerly approved of Obama but are now sobering up saying? My good friend, Nunly, of Bad Habit fame, braved the Obamablogs, and found some mighty interesting comments by the Obama faithful. She was kind enough to leave this at my blog, and the comments in italics are her’s (she’s funny):

I went to look at AmericaBlog last night (I love to see what the Obots are up to) and thought you would LOVE to see what they think of Obama now. I’ve never seen so much whining, crying, gnashing of teeth since I told my kids they had to pay for their own car insurance.

…Aravosis has been covering the health care bill negotiations and I swear, the comments about Obama had me rolling on the floor laughing.

Here are a few of my favorite from that post. You could read the rest if you want, but they are all about the same.

Here goes..get your tissues out because you’re gonna laugh until you cry:

Mike_in_the_Tundra said:
I really don’t remember voting for Olympia Snow during the presidential campaign.

Montiel said:
Obama campaigned on a strong public option.

When push came to shove he ran the other way.

What does it matter now what he says – we already know who he is.

(Mary Ellen’s note: Then the following guy is trying to put the kool-aid stains on somebody else’s upper lip and throws in a little Christian bashing to finish it off.)

JohnnyG [Moderator] 10 hours ago 2 people liked this.
Even if this is proven true, the kool-aid drinkers will still ignore it. All they care about is his “historical presidency.” They’ll be more than happy to let his dirty dealings be swept under the rug. Much like how Christians view God, anything good is credited to Jesus (Barack) and anything bad is credited to the devil (Rahm, anyone else handy.)

PresPlatitudes said:
why isn’t obama pushing for the PO, instead of parading around on letterman like a vain opportunist?

(Below is my favorite comment!)

Judas Peckerwood
If Obama’s ultra-secret overarching goal for his presidency is to make the PUMAs look sane in retrospect, then all I can say is “Well played sir, well played indeed.”

(ROTFLMAO! They hate it that the PUMA’s were right!)

Fireblazes(CheetohsandCatfood) said:
Obviously, he was lying about wanting the public option. No money in that, after all it takes a billion to become president.

godwillsortyouout said:
For what it’s worth, in the 2008 Presidential campaign, McCain raised $8 million from people who worked for healthcare companies, including lots of executives.

Obama raised ** $19 million **. You do the math.

(They just figured that out? And HOW many times did we try to tell them that before and how did they reply? “Racist!” )

vkobaya said:
if President Obama isn’t trying to scuttle his own campaign promise

No, no, of course, he isn’t trying to scuttle his own campaign promise. No, like any card carrying Republican, he is trying to scuttle America, drag it down the tubes, destroy our nation, which he hates and despises.

I’m sick of the man. Revolted, bitter, and angry that I and so many others were played for suckers into voting for him. Would we have been worse off under McCain and Sarah Palin? Beginning to wonder. Probably would have been no different.

(More laughing…I thought “we” were the “bitter and angry” ones? Look who’s bitter now!)…

Oh, how low they have gone, just like Obama’s poll numbers. I would be more sympathetic if they hadn’t treated all of us like Pure-T crap, or demeaned and belittled Hillary Clinton at every turn, demonizing her, downplaying her vast accomplishments, the warmth, the compassion, the intellect, the experience…So, yeah, I hate it for them, but they have no one to blame but themselves for how they’re feeling now. See? Vetting the candidate really DOES matter! Wowie zowie, just like we said!! Sigh.

Well, all I can say is stay tuned – it’s bound to be interesting at any rate, right? Can’t wait to see what the coming week brings…

Well, and if that didn’t just beat all, dangit – I switched the channel to NOT have to watch him go on and on – and there he was on a COMMERCIAL. I thought I was safe going over to ESPN. Apparently not. Blech.

I swear, though, if I see that damn “Cha, Cha, Cha, Cha Chia” Obama commercial one more time, well, I’m not sure my tv is safe. And when they claim it’s a “great opportunity” to get one? Well, yes SOMEONE is being opportunistic, but I don’t think it is the buyer. Ahem.

Then there are the Sunday morning news shows. Because Obama hasn’t gotten his face on tv ENOUGH this week, or gone on and on about this faulty plan enough, he has to ruin our Sunday morning, too. On every channel except for Fox and Telemundo, as I understand it. Huh. Wassup with that? Ahahahahaha…

Oh – and about the SC representative who shouted out “You lie” Wednesday night, Joe Wilson? I admit, I had never heard of him before. The only Joe Wilson with whom I was familiar was the Ambassador, husband to Valerie Plame Wilson. But one thing’s for sure – he spoke the truth. Every day brings a new way in which that comes out.

And it isn’t like it hasn’t happened before, for heaven’s sake. Yes, a breach of decorum, but Democrats are hardly blameless as this post from Mere Rhetoric highlights. It’s happened. And it happened during The One’s Big 263rd Speech. It wasn’t right, but it wasn’t racism, either.

Hypocrisy is hardly the purview of one party, and the Democrats have made that ABUNDANTLY clear, especially with their little resolution denouncing Rep. Wilson, or whatever the heck it was they did to him. This is getting mighty tiresome, and it hasn’t even been a year yet. Oh, dang.

All I can say is: Thank heavens for Yankees baseball, and the incredible achievement of Derek Jeter. The night of the “big” speech, it allowed me to avoid the breathless adoration of the Obamaphants. Yes, my beloved Derek Jeter, the Captain of the Yankees, tied the Iron Horse’s record of 2,721 hits, which he has now surpassed. Unbelievable. And all the while he has been amassing these hits, with every milestone, his response has been the same – it is all about the team. Anyway, here is the big moment:

Pretty cool, right? Now that I could watch all day. Obama? Not so much.

How about you – are you as sick of seeing him spewing the same hollow crapola day in and day out? What else is on your mind?

And I have another number for you: 400. Yes, Saturday marks an inauspicious milestone. 400 is the number of Service Members who have been discharged under DADT during Obama’s Administration. 400 men and women whose lives were changed simply because of whom they love. 400 men and women who were willing to serve their country, to put themselves in harm’s way for us, for the U.S.A, and they have now been fired.

And here’s another number for you: $56,400. That is the average, approximate cost to train a service member for their first duty station by one estimate. $56,400 each for enlisted personnel, not officers, including when they first visit a Recruiter (these are 2006 figures, so it might be more now).

The average cost to train an officer? That number is: 120,772. If that officer happens to be a fighter pilot, you can go ahead and round that number up to: $1,450,000. Remember, these are just averages. The cost to train Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach was $25,000,000. Fehrenbach, a decorated war hero, was fired from the Air Force under DADT.

And one last number for you: 9/11. Many people in this country were moved to do some kind of service to and for their country as a result of the attacks on 9/11, GLBT people included. Obama has been pushing this huge call to Service, including on 9/11/09. Secretary Clinton gave a speech on the Commemoration of the First Annual National Day of Service And Remembrance on 9/11. Presumably, the ability to serve one’s country should be open to ALL of its citizens.

Yet today, that ability is not. As of today, 400 Americans have been told their willingness to serve their country, to put themselves in harm’s way on her behalf, is neither desired nor accepted. 400 Americans have been told that the National Day of Service does not apply to them. 400.

How about those numbers?

Uh, yeah. I’m kinda wondering what’s taken that Ethics Committee so long, too. That was my major field of study, and I’m pretty sure that it would not take me almost a year to come to a determination about this man’s lack of ethical behavior (hypocrisy aside, just the ethical issues alone). Sheesh. This is not the first time Rangel has had “ethical” problems while in office. You might recall that he paid his parking tickets out of his campaign funds. Tsk, tsk – that’s not allowed. You’d think he’d learn.

And speaking of not learning one’s lessons, how about Obama appointing ANOTHER czar after his Commie 9/11 Truther guy had to resign (though through no pressure from Obama, who seemed A-Okay with keeping Van Jones close in the West Wing)? Yep – he wasted no time in thumbing his nose at Congress, and us, by elevating Ron Bloom to the position of Czar of Manufacturing Policy (so he uses the term, “Senior Counselor,” but same difference). I might add, once again, it wasn’t just Republicans who thought it was inappropriate to have a Communist working in the West Wing with the ear of the President, either. That’s just a smokescreen to try to blame it on anyone else but Obama. But I digress.

You may remember Bloom from his previous job on the Task Force for the US takeover ofGM. Oops – I mean, Bloom was a member of the Auto Task Force. Again, same difference. And, Bloom was formerly with the United Steel Workers. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that Obama decided to make his announcement before the AFL-CIO at a picnic, right? Didn’t think so.

And I guess none of us should be surprised when Obama continues to thumb his nose at the process, at Congress, and more importantly, US. I suppose I should be grateful that Bloom isn’t a Marxist Name Calling Fruit Loop, but still – this defiance, no, make that insouciance, by Obama is just a tad irritating, isn’t it? I wonder what position he’ll give Charlie?

Now, you know I can’t abide Andrew Sullivan for a bunch of reasons. Hence my unwillingness to give him any traffic at all by even going to his site and re-posting his article here. But when I saw this blurb, and Sullivan’s arrogant, and sexist, title, I just couldn’t resist. I almost cracked up laughing that he, of all people, is getting his nose out of joint about the questions Cheney was asked in this interview. Apparently, he has forgotten just about every interview Obama has had since he began his campaign, and he was running for the highest office in the land! Cheney is not running for anything (and I hasten to add, I have absolutely NO love lost for Dick Cheney. I appreciate that he supports his daughter, her partner, and their child, but that’s about it).

Perhaps Sullivan forgot this interview by Charlie Gibson of ABC News, an outlet that uses OUR airwaves for FREE, of Obama during the campaign:

How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
How does it feel to “win”?
How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling?
Who will be your VP?
Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
Will you accept public finance?
What issues is your campaign about?
Will you visit Iraq?
Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech?

Oooooohhhhh – how di Obama withstand those WITHERING questions?

Or more recently, how about Brian Williams and his day at the White House, one that culminated in THIS moment:

Seriously?? He really wants to go down this road of how political interviewees are handled? How about this clip with George Stephanapoulous:

Heck, George even supplies the correct verbiage to Obama! And may I just say one more time – HOW was this man portrayed as being ELOQUENT??? Holy smokes.

Okay, one more to prove the point, if you can stomach watching Keith Olberman:

Oh, yes – that is some HARD-HITTING “journalism” there for Mr. Sullivan. Get one of the two most biased for Obama show hosts (I refuse to call Olberman a “journalist”) to lob softballs for Obama to trash the Republicans.

By the way, remember Obama’s appearance with McCain at Ground Zero? Yeah, so dignified:

I digress. Back to the whole hard-hitting journalism thing: At least Steve Kroft pointed out Obama’s inappropriate laughter here:

But he did so with a smile, and accepted that lame-ass excuse from Obama as to why he was laughing while indicating how he was going to use our money to bail out the UAW even though Americans were STRONGLY opposed to that idea.

Sullivan complains about the questions asked Cheney? Maybe he should have been so worried about the questions asked of Obama…

Suddenly the disgraced and demoralized Republican Congress has an unearned future, thanks to the superhuman clumsiness of a man who has made himself indispensable to the Obama administration and insufferable to the Democratic Congress, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

The GOP always knew that Emanuel was a problem that could not be solved and could only be endured while he served three tempestuous terms in the House. But now the beleaguered Democratic majority is learning painfully that Emanuel’s talents for bullying, whimsical favoritism, cheerful power-grabbing, and self-congratulatory earthiness have transformed the first hundred days of the Obama administration’s seamless accomplishment into a second hundred days of blame and gloom.

First, Emanuel used frontman Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the Finance Committee chair, to ditch the health-care public option, while sending President Obama to speak softly at dinner at the home of prickly Senator Charles Grassley (R-Grant Wood). The latest Emanuel co-authored ploy—forcing health-care legislation through in the fall with Democratic-only votes—underlines that the White House has become as deaf, daring, and driven as the fabled Democratic machines of Tammany Hall or Emanuel’s own Cook County, where he was a once and future fundraiser for the Daleys.“We suck,” a blunt Republican partisan reports, “but they suck more right now.”

Polling supports this cynical summary. The still lifeless Republicans, who have avoided any credible renovation or even contrition for their decades of swinishness, now enjoy their largest generic lead over the Democrats in years. Trusted touts like Charlie Cook speak of a Democratic loss of at least 20 seats in the House. Republican Party fundraising is up, Republican recruitment is up—even in blue New Hampshire, where a potential loss of Judd Gregg’s U.S. Senate seat is now a likely win with the recruiting of the popular Attorney General Kelly Ayotte—and the GOP’s cheeks have a glow not related to shame.

“It’s Rahm,” a Republican partisan tells me. “The cowardly, brain-dead Republicans are claiming they’ve done something. But it’s Rahm. If Rahm goes, the Dems will not do worse. But it might be hard to undo the damage.”

Like the gifted and overwrought Maximilien de Robespierre once upon a time, Rahm Emanuel has taken control of a revolutionary movement he did not help create nor much contribute to while it was gathering strength under the oppression of the ancien régime of George W. Bush. And just like Robespierre, Emanuel has turned the president’s kitchen cabinet of trusted ex-campaign workers, led by David Axelrod (whose ex-PR firm has enjoyed $12 million in fees so far from fronts controlled by the administration-directed Democratic National Committee), Mark Lippert, and Denis McDonough (a dynamic duo of hatchetmen on the National Security Council), into a Committee for Public Safety that terrorizes Washington’s royals willy-nilly.

The victims are everywhere, and the Republicans know best how brilliantly brutal Emanuel’s methods can be. “Rahm puts people on a string,” a cautious Republican told me. “He did it to Dennis [Hastert, former speaker of the House]. We always knew Rahm had something on him. Maybe it was earmarks. Maybe it was something like classic car-flipping. Dennis never went after Rahm and never allowed us to go after him.”

Emanuel’s methods in the House are now writ large throughout the government. Not one of the House Democrats is suicidal enough to push back in public against what amounts to his extortion and protection racket for each successive piece of partisan legislation—witness the 219 beaten-up votes for cap and trade in the House, or the pummeled Blue Dogs during the health-care brouhaha during recess. One Democratic wag comments that Rahm Emanuel is to the Blue Dogs what Michael Vick was to pit bulls. In the beginning he feeds them steak, then they get torn apart.
However, the Republicans are not as gun-shy—though none is unwise enough to reveal his own name—since they have no financing to have ripped from them; and some Republicans point to the strange quiet of GOP House Minority Whip Eric Cantor as evidence that he may be a victim of Emanuel’s Black Hand style.

After his TARP-supporting apostasy under the Bush ancien régime, Cantor begged forgiveness of his caucus to win the Whip job and was excited to oppose the aggressive White House in its first hundred days, taking pride of place in the Party of No against the stimulus package and the budget. But then Cantor rolled over, advocating to the Republican caucus that it avoid direct attacks on the administration and embrace the fashion of bipartisanship and compromise. In May, Cantor even tried a laughable bipartisan tour with Republican has-beens like Jeb Bush and Newt Gingrich (no Democrats showed up) called the National Council for a New America.

What happened? “We think it’s Rahm,” says one Republican who watched the whodunit. “Cantor backed off right after articles ran in his district about Cantor’s wife working for a TARP bank.”
Cantor went so far as to vote for the wild legislation punishing AIG and TARP-bank bonuses with confiscatory taxes that few other Republicans regarded as sane. “We couldn’t understand that vote,” was one comment, “unless it was Rahm.”

Emanuel’s ambitious Committee for Public Safety in the White House, tightly disciplined, indifferent to all Cabinet secretaries including State and Defense, is not limited to sowing fear on Capitol Hill. There are multiple, detailed reports of Rahm Emanuel-authored or -delivered threats to the Netanyahu government in Jerusalem, to the Maliki government in Baghdad, to the Brown government at 10 Downing Street, and now to the Karzai government in Kabul that is entangled in massive voting fraud. A fresh report of a “profanity-laced screaming match” at the White House involving the formerly mild-mannered CIA director Leon Panetta, an Emanuel appointee (as a reward for protecting Emanuel as Clinton chief of staff after Emanuel’s multiple screw-ups in the Clinton White House), points directly to the Emanuel style of extreme persuasion even in national security policy—though Emanuel’s bona fides in diplomacy are a 1991 vacation camp program in Israel volunteering to sing songs and stand around at Israel Defense Force bases with teenagers when he was 31 years old.

Emanuel’s other claim to critical national policy is based on how he got rich in a few dozen months’ work with Bruce Wasserstein in the Chicago office of Wasserstein Perella & Co. as it was being acquired by Deutsche Bank, putting together a merger involving the Chicago-based Exelon Corporation that was also one of Axelrod’s biggest PR accounts and financed Obama’s political career. Emanuel is said to be thrillingly defensive about this episode between his time at the Clinton White House in 1999 and his win of the Democratic primary for the Illinois House seat to replace Rod Blagojevich, a former mentor, in 2002.

Recalled an entertained Republican, “I saw one [Democratic] member walk up to him and ask, ‘So how did you make $18 million in an afternoon sitting at a table in Chicago?’ And Rahm just turned and walked away. It gets to him.”

Just now, Emanuel’s unusually good fortune in Chicago in making $18 million in a very short time may be the only thing on the planet that gets to him. A twist of fate is that as Emanuel’s authority and ambition grow, reaching for swift closure to foreign commitments, staging bipartisan fantasy cruises, then reaching to construct Democratic-only laws that turn the theory of checks and balances into an unlimited credit card on the Treasury, the polling points not only to a rising tide of facedown Republicans but also to a sinking approval rating for a president who entirely controls Emanuel’s fate. Is there a lesson in the detail that the French Revolution waited too long to turn on Robespierre’s ruthless genius, and by the time the guillotine fell, the ludicrously reactionary aristocracy had rallied throughout Europe and led a counterrevolution that swept liberty into the ditch for another lifetime?

John Batchelor is radio host of the John Batchelor Show in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The larger fear is that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy.

Congratulations, Mr. Rich. With all your education, it has taken you two years longer than most of the people on this site to arrive at this conclusion. Obama is a corporatist. Or, as noted on HillaryIs44, an opportunist. He doesn’t care about the little guy or gal. Further, by his use of signing statements, a disturbing echo of the Bush Administration, he is on the road to becoming a “Unitary Executive.” I wonder if Mr. Rich feels ‘punked’ over that as well.

Let’s take a look at some of Mr. Rich’s observations leading him down disillusionment alley:

… [T]here is real reason for longer-term worry in the form of a persistent, anecdotal drift toward disillusionment among some of the president’s supporters. And not merely those on the left. This concern was perhaps best articulated by an Obama voter, a real estate agent in Virginia, featured on the front page of The Washington Post last week. “Nothing’s changed for the common guy,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been punked.” She cited in particular the billions of dollars in bailouts given to banks that still “act like they’re broke.”

But this mood isn’t just about the banks, Public Enemy No. 1. What the Great Recession has crystallized is a larger syndrome that Obama tapped into during the campaign. It’s the sinking sensation that the American game is rigged — that, as the president typically put it a month after his inauguration, the system is in hock to “the interests of powerful lobbyists or the wealthiest few” who have “run Washington far too long.” He promised to smite them.

…What disturbs Americans of all ideological persuasions is the fear that almost everything, not just government, is fixed or manipulated by some powerful hidden hand, from commercial transactions as trivial as the sales of prime concert tickets to cultural forces as pervasive as the news media.

Come on, Mr. Rich, it’s not such a long walk to realize why Wall Street has been protected with endless bailouts. Mr. Obama got more money from Wall St. than any other candidate. Rich must give Obama credit that he is doing some of the “rigging.” Rich still tries to pretend that Obama just can’t fight ‘the man.’ loathe to acknowledge that Obama is ‘the man.’ Certainly, he was elected by ‘the man.’

Where Rich tries halfheartedly to assail Republicans for disruptive town hall meetings, he must admit Democrats have unclean hands as well:

As Democrats have pointed out, the angry hecklers disrupting town-hall meetings convened by members of Congress are not always ordinary citizens engaging in spontaneous grass-roots protests or even G.O.P. operatives, but proxies for corporate lobbyists. (snip)

But the Democratic members of Congress those hecklers assailed can hardly claim the moral high ground. Their ties to health care interests are merely more discreet and insidious. As Congressional Quarterly reported last week, industry groups contributed almost $1.8 million in the first six months of 2009 alone to the 18 House members of both parties supervising health care reform, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer among them.

Then there are the 52 conservative Blue Dog Democrats, who have balked at the public option for health insurance. Their cash intake from insurers and drug companies outpaces their Democratic peers by an average of 25 percent, according to The Post. And let’s not forget the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, which has raked in nearly $500,000 from a single doctor-owned hospital in McAllen, Tex. — the very one that Obama has cited as a symbol of runaway medical costs ever since it was profiled in The New Yorker this spring.

Finally, Rich has a hallelujah moment when he points out that (D) or (R) after one’s name means less and less. It’s the character, stupid!

In this maze of powerful moneyed interests, it’s not clear who any American in either party should or could root for. The bipartisan nature of the beast can be encapsulated by the remarkable progress of Billy Tauzin, the former Louisiana congressman. Tauzin was a founding member of the Blue Dog Democrats in 1994. A year later, he bolted to the Republicans. Now he is chief of PhRMA, the biggest pharmaceutical trade group. In the 2008 campaign, Obama ran a television ad pillorying Tauzin for his role in preventing Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices. Last week The Los Angeles Times reported — and The New York Times confirmed — that Tauzin, an active player in White House health care negotiations, had secured a behind-closed-doors flip-flop, enlisting the administration to push for continued protection of drug prices. Now we know why the president has ducked his campaign pledge to broadcast such negotiations on C-Span.

The making of legislative sausage is never pretty. The White House has to give to get. But the cynicism being whipped up among voters is justified. Unlike Hillary Clinton, whose chief presidential campaign strategist unapologetically did double duty as a high-powered corporate flack, Obama promised change we could actually believe in.

Rich cannot miss an opportunity to trash Hillary Clinton to the bargain. I was waiting for him to find some inane reason to drag her name into this, even though Obama has proven himself to be in bed with corporate interests ten times over. We’d be lucky to have her as President right now. No matter what, I can assure you he would not feel ‘punked.’

Still, Mr. Rich cannot hide from the truth although he does try to soft pedal it:

[Obama’s] first questionable post-victory step was to assemble an old boys’ club of Robert Rubin protégés and Goldman-Citi alumni as the White House economic team, including a Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, who failed in his watchdog role at the New York Fed as Wall Street’s latest bubble first inflated and then burst. The questions about Geithner’s role in adjudicating the subsequent bailouts aren’t going away, and neither is the angry public sense that the fix is still in. We just learned that nine of those bailed-out banks — which in total received $175 billion of taxpayers’ money, but as yet have repaid only $50 billion — are awarding a total of $32.6 billion in bonuses for 2009.

It’s in this context that Obama can’t afford a defeat on health care. A bill will pass in a Democrat-controlled Congress. What matters is what’s in it. The final result will be a CAT scan of those powerful Washington interests he campaigned against, revealing which have been removed from the body politic (or at least reduced) and which continue to metastasize. The Wall Street regulatory reform package Obama pushes through, or doesn’t, may render even more of a verdict on his success in changing the system he sought the White House to reform.

President Obama has shown no signs that he wants corporate control to stop metastasizing. The advisors and moneyed interests with whom he surrounds himself offer ample evidence of that, which even Mr. Rich now admits.

Despite this Administration’s expending significant resources on smoke and mirrors, the realities that Mr. Rich alludes to are getting more and more attention. Change We Can Believe In has now been substituted with The Fix Is In.

Some of us knew that a long time ago.

Interesting. So, as long as these “journalists” claim that they don’t know for sure, but this is what they heard, they can get away with saying whatever they want about Palin or anyone. So if they couch it as, “well, golly gee, I don’t know if this is true, but I heard that she is under some serious legal investigation by one of the alphabet groups,” they can get the rumor out there – false as it is – without any recompense at all. Here’s the thing – once those kinds of statements are made, they are out there, and no amount of rebuttal from, say, the alphabet group, the bell can’t be un-rung. No one believes that part, even if it IS unusual for said group to actually come out with a statement like that. So, they have done their jobs, these bloggers and “journalists.” They get the salacious gossip out there, and then can feign no ill-will. Please. There oughta be a law…

Ah, yes, right off the bat, it sets the stage, doesn’t it? Uh, yeah:

“If Sarah Palin is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, so am I!”

These words spoken by my friend Janet were true. But Janet hasn’t put herself in Palin’s position by running for office. She’s made films and renovated houses, cushioned by inherited money. And since she doesn’t have any kids, it’s hard to say what would have gotten in the way if she’d wanted to be in politics. She didn’t, though, any more than 99% of my women friends and acquaintances; she believes in cultivating one’s own garden.

Most women I’ve talked with about Palin–all certified members of either the media elite or the just plain elite–take her nomination personally. Their animus isn’t explained just by her politics; none of them hate Condoleezza Rice, though they disagree with most everything she’s done. Nor, for that matter, do they even dislike John McCain. Typically they “respect” McCain but find him too old or too erratic or simply adore Obama.

It’s as though Palin were an average girl from their boarding school class–or, frankly, from the public school down the road–who unexpectedly won a big prize. “Why not me?” is the subtext, and it’s one I’ve never heard from men talking about male politicians. Many New Yorkers hate George Bush, for instance, and say similar things about his and Palin’s lack of intellectual capability and curiosity about the wider world. But they don’t view him as a personal rival.

My friends who hate Palin are all more articulate and better educated than she is, better traveled, probably smarter, definitely more fun to talk with. But the reasons they can’t stand Palin are all wrong.

I think it is safe to say that by “elite,” the author means: sanctimonious, classist, arrogant, snobs. And I would have to say, after reading the above about the author’s friends, I guarantee you, I would rather hang out with Sarah Palin ANY DAY of the week, despite our differences on policies. At least SHE is open minded, willing to engage in dialogue, and can appreciate the differences between people without feeling compelled to put them down at every opportunity. So, yeah – despite my own educational background, or how much I have traveled, blah, blah, blah, I’d rather have a cup of coffee with Gov. Palin any day of the week, thank you very much.

Oh, but wait, you know there’s more:

It’s not so much that Palin isn’t one of our own–an Ivy League type, or an Eastern preppie, or a self-made intellectual like Rice. It’s not for the fake feminist reasons that “she’s against freedom of choice” or “she didn’t tell her daughter about birth control.” (Though there is an element of hatred for her fertility, and the fact that it hasn’t impeded her rise.) It’s not because Palin only got a passport a few years ago and doesn’t speak any foreign languages.

No, it’s because Palin makes us look like the slackers we mainly are. We’ve had our bit of success, but we’ve also spent a lot of time smelling the roses. We’ve gone back to school to get another degree, volunteered in poor countries, devoted ourselves to a sport or a hobby. We’ve not had kids, or if we have, we’ve had one or two, and we’ve had nannies paid for by our work or our husbands or our inherited money.

We not only have had passports for decades, we’ve put serious mileage on them. We’ve lived overseas or spent months wandering around Africa or India, we understand foreign people and places in ways Palin never will–and yet it’s she who could become vice president, not one of us.

Wow, even in this explanation, that these women are “slackers,” she STILL manages to put down Palin at every opportunity. It doesn’t seem like HUMILITY was one of the lessons learned “wandering around Africa and India,” or for those who “volunteered in poor countries.” I might add, nor did they seem to get a clue about their over-inflated sense of self, or how they got to where they are on the backs of other people, so yeah, let’s just go with they are “slackers. ” Just sayin’.

Ms. Marlowe continues, again in her “elite” way, to describe why certain people pursue these avenues, like Gov. Palin has:

It’s not hard to see why. The boyfriend of one of my freshman roommates at Harvard is now governor of Massachusetts–a man no less and no more qualified than many of my classmates. Why him and not us? As with Palin, it comes down to wanting it badly enough and being singleminded. It means spending a lot of time in deadly dull meetings talking about school bond issues or where to put a new off-ramp.

It means spending a lot of time in small towns where no one you know has a country place or ever will. And except at the higher reaches, politics doesn’t offer much in the way of glamour or fame. I just got my absentee ballot here in New York City, and I didn’t recognize the names of the people running for Congress. (Jerrold Nadler or Grace Lin, anyone? Nadler has been the congressman from New York’s 8th District since 1992, and Grace Lin is a 24-year-old graduate of the University of Chicago whose previous experience is as a committeewoman for a Chicago ward. While her chances of victory are nil in this district, her Web site is frighteningly sketchy on the issues.)

People who become writers and intellectuals and artists tend not to want power that badly or pursue it that obsessively, which is what makes us interesting and fun–and makes few of us household names. Success at the Palin level in politics or business takes a level of blinkered self-confidence that comes mainly to (a very few) men. A lot of the people with this quality are annoying to be around. Maybe they aren’t very happy with themselves. But it’s not a surprise that a vice presidential nominee should be one of them.

The lesson of Sarah Palin for privileged women is to try harder. And that may be the toughest one to hear. (Ann Marlowe is the author of How to Stop Time: Heroin from A to Z and The Book of Trouble: A Romance.)

Holy cow, what an incredible back-handed “compliment,” if it can even be CALLED that. Ms. Marlowe claims writers, intellectuals, and artists don’t want power? For real? They don’t want to be household names?? That’s bullshit. I’m sorry, but that just is. What writer, intellectual, or artist does NOT want for people to know about their work, to know their names?? If they didn’t care about any of that, they would all write/pain/”think” under pseudonyms or something (okay – that’s a bit of hyperbole, but you get the point, right?). Again, she cannot stand to say anything that is just positive about Governor Palin, and let it stand at that. The essence of what she is saying is that Governor Palin worked hard to get to where she is. She IS college-educated, as was her dad, a teacher, and her mother worked as a school secretary (and go check out who some of her New England ancestors were, since Ms. Marlowe seems to be all about the East Coast). She has stood up to her own party, called them out on ethical reasons, and while she may not have spent her summers in Monaco or Martha’s Vineyard, she has done quite a bit on her own, like running for governor – and WINNING.

And Sarah Palin is a feminist, who cares more about building women up than tearing them down (talking to you, MS. Marlowe), as the following video highlights so well:

THIS is what a feminist looks like, not what the East Coast Liberal “elite” determines are feminists. No, Feminism is meant to include ALL women, whether we all agree with each other or not. One thing about which Ms. Marlowe is correct is that Governor Palin worked HARD to get to where she is, and many other women have worked as hard to get to where they are, or to keep their heads above water. Not everyone wants to be a public figure. Some just want to be able to fed, clothe, and educate their children, and cannot afford a nanny, a maid, or a chauffeur – many of them ARE the nannies, maids, and chauffeurs. I might add, since Marlowe mentioned this too, freedom of choice means just that – the right to CHOOSE. And that means a woman can choose what she wants to do with her own body. Palin CHOSE to have her Downs Syndrome child; other women might not have. But that is each and every women’s INDIVIDUAL choice. Sheesh, already!!

That is to say, when Ms. Marlowe puts down women like Palin, she is putting down a whole bunch of other women who have worked hard to be self-made women. Since Marlowe brought up “fake feminism,” I would suggest she has engaged in a bit of that herself. Feminists need not all be “elites” – the whole point of feminism is for ALL women to be self-actualized, however that looks for THEM, as I have said befoer.

Oh, and one last thing – she and her friends may be “slackers,” but I think many women will look at the videos of Governor Palin talking with with Greta van Susteren while making food for her kids’ lunch as “same-o, same-o.” In other words, the dripping disdain with which Marlowe and her friends, the self-proclaimed “elite,” seem to hold Sarah Palin is probably why many other women like her – because she reminds them of themselves. They sure aren’t slackers, either. Perhaps if Ms. Marlowe and her well-heeled, Ivy-League educated friends opened their eyes, they would see a whole bunch of women, are working their hearts out every day – probably some of their very own employees.

Wow – it seems feminism sure has a ways to go before ALL women are actually included, doesn’t it? I have to say, though, Gov. Palin sure sounded a lot like Hillary Clinton in her desire for women around the world to live lives free of abuse, and full of choices.

Here’s a little thought for Ms. Marlowe and her “slacker” ilk – maybe you should get off your collective high horse, spend more time actually LISTENING to what Sarah Palin says rather than assuming she’s some hillbilly hick because she grew up in Alaska, who somehow fell into the Governor’s Mansion, or all of the unsubstantiated rumors/diatribes about her. You might just learn something about her, and about yourselves, too. Like maybe just because people are Ivy-Leauge educated writers, intellectuals, and artists, they are not above putting people down based on zero or erroneous information to make themselves feel better about what they have/have not done with their lives. And maybe, just maybe, you can start to see women like Sarah Palin, and all women, as potential allies as opposed to potential foes. Just a thought.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) would like to amend that little joke he made earlier this week about Sarah Palin when he said he wished it had been the Alaska governor who had gone missing instead of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

“Too bad, if a governor had to go missing, it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin,” Kerry told a group of civic and business leaders on Tuesday, according to the Boston Herald. That, of course, was before he and the rest of us learned Sanford had lost himself in Argentina with his secret mistress.

Conservative women rushed to Palin’s defense after the Kerry joke. Ethel Fenig at American Thinker wrote, “Tee hee! Letterman, Kerry — all afraid of strong, independent women! Kerry should find a job with David Letterman — who would miss him?”

Heaven knows, they DO have a point – who even knew he was speaking to a group? Ahem.

But then, the Kerry people decided to comment further on the “joke”:

Kerry’s spokeswoman now tells The Sleuth the senator really didn’t mean what he said, though his clarification would hardly qualify as an apology.

“We stand corrected, the truth is every Democrat hopes Governor Palin is in the public eye for a long, long time, especially on the 2012 presidential ballot,” Kerry spokeswoman Jodi Seth says. “Lately it’s been Vice President Cheney that everyone hopes would lose the cameras and go for a long leisurely hike on the Appalachian Trail. And good grief, if anyone thinks John Kerry is afraid of strong, smart women, they sure haven’t met his brilliant wife and two independent daughters. It sounds like getting crushed these last two election cycles cost some of these Republicans their sense of humor.”

We’ll see how funny Palin finds this.

I see. So, apparently, they are planning to recycle all of the vicious rumors they trotted out this past time around, like how Sarah Palin banned a whole bunch of books while Mayor of Wasilla – which was quite prescient of her since some of them hadn’t even been WRITTEN yet. Or how about this one – and this was a GOOD one – it got all the anti-feminist feminists (you know the ones – the only liberated women can be liberals) in a tizzy: that she tried to charge rape victims the cost of the rape kits. According to Palin Rumors: Explorations, that us untrue:

No, she didn’t try to charge rape victims personally for rape kits. This is one of those complicated ones with a tiny hint of truth behind it. First, the Chief of Police in Wasilla (not Palin) did apparently have a policy of asking a victim’s health insurance to pay for the rape kit as part of the ER visit. This, it turns out, is policy in a number of states, including Missouri and North Carolina. Second, the way this became an issue was after the then-governor of Alaska signed a bill forbidding it; this law was signed before Palin was Governor and no one tried to reverse it while she was Governor. Third, what the CoP in Wasilla wanted to do was charge the perpetrator as part of restitution.

Or this one, that Palin believes dinosaurs walked the earth with Adam and Eve:

No, Sarah Palin doesn’t think that dinosaurs walked the earth with Adam and Eve 4000 years ago, In fact, this was a purposeful satire that comes from a post actually entitled Fake Governor Palin Quotes. This has, however, kept neither Matt Damon nor Maureen Dowd from propagating them as fact.

There are EIGHTY-FOUR such rumors about Sarah Palin at the Palin Rumors site, some true, but many false. Yet it seems to be the FALSE ones that get all the press, even when the press knows they are a bunch of hooey. Because that’s just how they roll these days.

And that is what makes me think that, hell yes, Sen. John Kerry is afraid of her, whether he has strong women around him or not. Because if he wasn’t, why start on her now? Yeah. He’s scared. And he’s also galvinizing people FOR her with such stupid comments. That just serves him right, if you ask me.

By the way, speaking of REAL comedians, if you ever get a chance to see Kathleen Madigcan’s special, “In Other Words,” she has a bit on John Kerry that is freakin’ hilarious (she, like many of us who voted for him, was a bit put out by the way he conducted himself while running against Bush. Speaking for myself, his blatant lie of counting every vote was a biggie – made me regret the money I sent him, and the vote I gave him since he couldn’t uphold even THAT promise. Sheesh.). Anyway, it is hysterical. She really captures his essence.

Oh, and Senator Kerry? Leave the jokes to the professionals, would ya??

And it has gotten worse with The State printing a whole bunch of emails sent between Sanford and his paramour. Emails that they have had in their possession for FIVE MONTHS. That’s kind of curious, isn’t it? They claim they were trying to “authenticate” them. Amazingly, they seemed to have done that in just a few days. Huh – that’s not the least bit coincidental, is it? Ahem.

Here is a good overview of the whole situation, including some of those emails:

Wow. It is astonishing how people can just implode, destroying their families, their careers, and their integrity, all in one fell swoop. Shocking.

And one of those people most affected is his wife, Jenny Sanford. The video above briefly alluded to her statement about the situation in the video above. I think given what she has gone through over the past 5 months, she deserves the space to have her version told in her own voice, “I Believe Mark Has Earned A Chance To Resurrect Our Marriage,” and here it is: South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford issued the following statement Wednesday:

I would like to start by saying I love my husband and I believe I have put forth every effort possible to be the best wife I can be during our almost twenty years of marriage. As well, for the last fifteen years my husband has been fully engaged in public service to the citizens and taxpayers of this state and I have faithfully supported him in those efforts to the best of my ability. I have been and remain proud of his accomplishments and his service to this state.

I personally believe that the greatest legacy I will leave behind in this world is not the job I held on Wall Street, or the campaigns I managed for Mark, or the work I have done as First Lady or even the philanthropic activities in which I have been routinely engaged. Instead, the greatest legacy I will leave in this world is the character of the children I, or we, leave behind. It is for that reason that I deeply regret the recent actions of my husband Mark, and their potential damage to our children.

I believe wholeheartedly in the sanctity, dignity and importance of the institution of marriage. I believe that has been consistently reflected in my actions. When I found out about my husbands infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage. We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong. I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago.

This trial separation was agreed to with the goal of ultimately strengthening our marriage. During this short separation it was agreed that Mark would not contact us. I kept this separation quiet out of respect of his public office and reputation, and in hopes of keeping our children from just this type of public exposure. Because of this separation, I did not know where he was in the past week.

I believe enduring love is primarily a commitment and an act of will, and for a marriage to be successful, that commitment must be reciprocal. I believe Mark has earned a chance to resurrect our marriage.

Psalm 127 states that sons are a gift from the Lord and children a reward from Him. I will continue to pour my energy into raising our sons to be honorable young men. I remain willing to forgive Mark completely for his indiscretions and to welcome him back, in time, if he continues to work toward reconciliation with a true spirit of humility and repentance.

This is a very painful time for us and I would humbly request now that members of the media respect the privacy of my boys and me as we struggle together to continue on with our lives and as I seek the wisdom of Solomon, the strength and patience of Job and the grace of God in helping to heal my family.

The pain the First Lady is in just pours off the page. How sad, for her, and for her family, especially to have their personal issues played out across the screen and page all across the nation. Unfortunately, Jenny Sanford has joined an exclusive club, one which includes members Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Edwards. Her personal pain has been writ large. She, like the others, is handling it with grace. She, like the others, was successful in her own right, and helped her husand to be successful, as well And like the others, it seems she is willing to give her husband another chance, which is her CHOICE. As much as it might upset some of us that people stay with partners who cheat, the reality is that the women mentioned above are FAR from alone.

Bottom line, this is a sad situation insofar as this one man’s selfish actions have had a rippling affect far greater than the man himself, who is only a man after all (meaning he is just a human being), for himself, his family, his position, and his party. People are people, and sometimes, okay, a lot of times, that means they do stupid, short-sighted things, and think with a different part of their anatomy than their brains. Most, though, don’t have it played out on a national stage, nor do their wronged partners. THAT is the hard part, especially for those most closely affected: Jenny Sanford and her sons.

Bless your heart, First Lady Sanford, you didn’t deserve this public humiliation you are having to endure, nor do your children. Whatever your choice ends up being about your marriage, you have every right to make it, even if it is to “stand by your man.” Every relationship is different, and no one knows what the day-to-day nitty gritty aspects of that relationship are. So, no matter HOW it looks to us on the inside, WE are not the ones living it – you are. I hope you can discern what is truly best for you and your family without the clamoring voices influencing you too much. It is YOUR life, and your children’s lives. Do what’s best for y’all, and don’t let all of the nosey Nellies influence you. All the best to you as you and your family work this out, whatever the end results of that work may be…

WASHINGTON — As tens of thousands of Iranian protesters take to the streets in defiance of the government in Tehran, officials in Washington are debating whether President Obama’s response to Iran’s disputed election has been too muted. Mr. Obama is coming under increased pressure from Republicans and other conservatives who say he should take a more visible stance in support of the protesters.

Even while supporting the president’s approach, senior members of the administration, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, would like to strike a stronger tone in support of the protesters, administration officials said.

Other White House officials have counseled a more cautious approach, saying harsh criticism of the government or endorsement of the protests could have the paradoxical effect of discrediting the protesters and making them seem as if they were led by Americans. So far, Mr. Obama has largely followed that script, criticizing violence against the protesters, but saying that he does not want to be seen as meddling in Iranian domestic politics.

Even so, the Iranian government on Wednesday accused American officials of “interventionist” statements.

But several administration officials acknowledged that Mr. Obama might run the risk of coming across on the wrong side of history at a potentially transformative moment in Iran.

Clearly, if the President is taking a weak stand on this issue and the Iranian government is still criticizing us, President Obama’s laissez faire posture is not buying us much. I am curious why the objections of the VP and SoS would be voiced in this article? Political cover for the president should he say something and if it doesn’t go his way, he has someone to blame. Or do Clinton and Biden want to get their opposition on the record somehow…

Last night, Bret Baier’s FOX news panel, Juan Williams, Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes weighed in with a most interesting discussion. Certainly, President Obama’s comments at the top of this video sound tepid to the point of being clueless. Update to FOX’s discussion: Moussavi has not asked the protest to disband but has called for another day of protests with participants dressing in black to declare a day of mourning for those killed:

More from the Times:

The administration’s concern over how to calibrate the response to the protests in Iran reflects the competing goals Mr. Obama is trying to balance: keeping faith with democracy advocates in Iran while not staking out a position that is so tough that it kills any chance of engagement with the Iranian government on America’s national security interests, including the Iranian nuclear program and Iran’s support for militant Islamist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Some criticism of the Obama administration’s cautious posture may be politically opportunistic, coming from rivals who are eager to draw distinctions between Republicans and Democrats, to portray the administration as generally weak when it comes to international confrontation.

But Mr. Obama also drew criticism from politically neutral observers when he said in an interview on Tuesday with The New York Times and CNBC that from an American national security perspective, there was not much difference between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hussein Moussavi, his closest competitor in the election.
(snip)
Many Iran experts lauded Mr. Obama’s measured stance just after the election. But some of that support evaporated on Tuesday when he said there was not much difference between Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Moussavi.

Obviously, Iranian protesters don’t agree, otherwise they would not have taken to the streets.

“For Barack Obama, this was a serious misstep,” said Steven Clemons, director of the American strategy program at the New America Foundation. “It’s right for the administration to be cautious, but it’s extremely bad for him to narrow the peephole into an area in which we’re looking at what’s happening just through the lens of the nuclear program.”

Mr. Obama’s comments deflated Mr. Moussavi, who is rapidly becoming a political icon in Iran, even supporters of Mr. Obama’s Iran policy say.

“Up until now, the president had very thoughtfully calibrated his remarks on Iran, but this was an uncharacteristic and egregious error,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “People are risking their lives and being slaughtered in the streets because they want fundamental change in the way Iran is governed. Our message to them shouldn’t be that it doesn’t make much difference to the United States.”

Certainly we do have to exercise caution when remarking about the electoral process of other countries. It just strikes me that if we are proclaiming to be the beacon of democracy and tout free and fair elections, at the very least, it would be a good idea to speak out against slaughter.

What say you?