Conservatives Warn of Wellstone Effect: Key conservative voices have begun to charge in the day after Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death that Democrats are inappropriately politicizing the senator’s death, his memorial and his legacy. Kennedy was that ultimate political creature, a “lion of the Senate,” and the last son of the archetypal American political family — his passing is inevitably political. … Read More
The Onion Is On A Roll
Sometimes the headline is enough: Afterbirthers Demand To See Obama's Placenta See also The American Prospect's Adam Serwer: The Onion Wins The Internet
McCain Booed For His Opinion That Obama “Respects The Constitution”
Hate it for him, but he's with the wingnut party, so…. By the way, I'm looking here at five law school exams written by Obama for his Constitutional Law class. Dude knows the Constitution. Can Granny say the same thing?
Remembering 9/11 In The Obama Years
It amazes me what conservatives decide to get in a tizzy about. The latest? Obama signed into law a measure in April that designated Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service. OMG!!! Here's how a conservative wrote about this in The American Spectator. This is an actual quote, not — I repeat, not — a parody: The plan is … Read More
Obama’s Media Criticism
At a town hall forum at the DNC yesterday, Obama was asked where the lies about health care reform are coming from. After laughing and making reference to "certain" news channels (he didn't mention them by name, but we all know which ones), this is what Obama supposedly said: "…I have to say, part of the reason it spreads is … Read More
Terror Politics
I've largely refrained from posting about the Bush White House ever since Obama became president, but sometimes my self-imposed ban is hard to maintain. Now that Bush is out of office, we're finding that the actual illegalities are just as bad, if not worse, than imagined. The firings of the U.S. attorneys, for example, were politically motivated and were orchestrated … Read More
Silliest “Serious” Objection To The House Health Reform Bill
It still gets a lot of play, even among congresspersons: "The health care reform bill is over 1,000 pages long!" I'm not sure what that objection really means. Are they suggesting that, because it's a huge bill, it must represent a massive government program? If that's so, why don't they say it's a massve government program? Or, are they complaining that … Read More
A Pox On Both Houses?
Barney Frank took a protester to task after she refered to Obama's "Nazi" health care reform. He asked the woman "on what planet" does she live, and said that trying to have a serious discussion with her about health care would be like talking to a dining room table. Now, comes the tut-tut of the conservative media. How both sides … Read More
New Birther Poll Shows A Weird Mix Of Ideology And Ignorance
From Public Policy Polling: After we conducted polls over the last couple of weeks finding significant numbers of 'birthers' in North Carolina and Virginia, we decided to take the question national but also drum down more specifically on where exactly the people who think Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States do think he's from. Oh, this should be … Read More
Michele Bachmann on Health Care
I love her. Here she is on Hannity last night: Money quote: It is not within our power as members of Congress, it’s not within the enumerated powers of the Constitution, for us to design and create a national takeover of health care. Nor is it within our ability to be able to delegate that responsibility to the executive. Pinhead, … Read More
The Reason For Health Care Reform Opposition
It's buried in this MSNBC story, but here it is: While just 36 percent believe Obama’s efforts to reform the health system are a good idea, that number increases to 53 percent when respondents were read a paragraph describing Obama’s plans. In other words, when you describe Obama's general health care plan without mentioning Obama, a lot more people like … Read More
Teabagger Yells “Heil Hitler” To Jewish Man Praising Israel’s Health Care System
Naturally, he’s offended. At the end of the confrontation, she makes a mock crying noise, indicating that he’s a wimp. This is pretty disgusting, even by teabagger standards. I can’t embed it, but you can see it here . UPDATE: Okay, found an embeddable version… Here’s a short interview with the “Heil Hitler” woman. Her husband has three jobs and … Read More
RIP Bob Novak
Some greatest hits: He was an old-school Washington reporter. He took a downward spiral when he became a member of the fledgling Tv network CNN in the early 1980's. The Evans-Novak Report was pretty thoughtful, but then came Capital Gang, and the Crossfire, setting the groundwork for TV political panel yell-a-thons. Then he became a tool for the Bush White … Read More
Birthers Still Grasping At Straws
The hubbub may have died down, but WorldNetDaily hasn't given up on Obama's birth controversy. The latest? WorldNetDaily considers websites to be more credible than state documents, I guess. The online media lizard notes that Obama's Facebook page correctly lists 1961 as his birth year, as do all other online references, including earlier archived MySpace pages. But rather than simply … Read More
Sarah Palin Adds Commentary About “Death Panels” [Update: Palin Supported The Same Provisions She Now Decries As “Euthanasia”]
Just before midnight last night, Sarah Palin posted a "note" on her Facebook page, apparently in response to Obama's comments about "death panels", a phrase that Sarah herself introduced into this increasingly-insane health care debate. What's interesting about Sarah's note is that it cites legislation, contains footnotes, and makes a cogent (albeit wrong) argument. No references to the military, or … Read More