Plunderbund takes you to cold and rainy Dublin Ohio at midnight to see the saddest people on planet Earth, those that camp out all-night just to get an autographed copy of Sarah Palin's book. Hilarity ensues.
Warning--video slightly nsfw.
Meanwhile in Noblesville, Indiana fans who waited all day to get their books signed were less than pleased when Palin just left without signing their copies.
Sarah Palin continues to delude herself -- or at least, is desperately hoping to continue deluding her fans, which isn't very hard to do -- that she, as the two-year governor of Alaska and former mayor of Wasilla, has more "executive" experience than either Barack Obama or Joe Biden. At least, that was what she tried telling Bill O'Reilly in the second part of her interview shown last night:
O'Reilly: You pointed out his [Obama's] lack of experience -- you don't have that much experience. You walked away from the governorship after, what, two years? Two and a half years?
Palin: Going into my lame-duck session -- my fourth legislative session -- and not wanting to put Alaskans through a lame-duck session --
O'Reilly: OK, but is it fair for you to criticize Obama's lack of experience when somebody could make the same criticism about you on the national stage.
Palin: If you're talking about executive experience, I would put my experience up against his any day of the week. I have been elected to local office since 1992, and was a city manager, strong-mayor form of government, was a chief executive of the state, and was an oil and gas regulator. There was some good experience there that could have been put to use in a vice presidential ticket. We've to remember too that I wasn't running for president.
O'Reilly: No, but that's the key question. Because John McCain is up there in years, you had to be qualified to take that office over.
Palin: Right. But I -- I'm saying I was running for vice president, just like Joe Biden had been running for vice president. I never once heard you or anybody else question Joe Biden and his experience.
O'Reilly: Well, he's got a lot of experience.
That's the whole absurdity of Palin claiming she has more "executive" experience, as though being mayor of a small town places her on the same level of experience as a United States Senator. The issue of experience isn't related to the organizational context, but rather the scale of it: Joe Biden has nearly a half-century of wrestling with national and international issues -- the kind a president has to deal with -- and has an established track record there.
When Palin was Wasilla's mayor (and before that a council member), the issues she was dealing with involved placement of a sewage-treatment plant and deciding whether someone's driveway needed paving. Oh,and let's not forget the vital issue of building a new gym with taxpayer dollars.
But the interview reached its real nadir when Palin tried to explain why voters would want to vote for her. It's possibly the most garbled, incoherent piece of anti-intellectual right-wing populist nonsense I've ever heard:
O'Reilly: Let me be bold and fresh again. Do you believe you are smart enough, and incisive enough, intellectual enough, to handle the most powerful job in the world?
Palin: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the, um, the, ah -- kind of spineless -- a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with elite Ivy League education and -- fact resume that's based on anything but hard work and private-sector, free-enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I'm not saying that that has to be me.
No, it definitely doesn't have to be you, Sarah. Indeed, I think it's safe to say that this level of intellectual incoherence would be a real danger to the country.
Cartoon from Walt Handelsman at Newsday (reg. required for some pages).
No one can predict how today will go, there is some hope that since the Senate likes to appear to be the royalty of the Congress, we might avoid some of the circus antics that Saturday in the House brought. It's unlikely anyone will use procedural objections over and over to silence Barbara Boxer or Olympia Snowe.
It's an open thread for what you're seeing in, and thinking about, today's procedures.
Can Harry pull it off - without giving away the story? Of course we'll be covering today's events here at C&L, so stay around for updates:
Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tonight faces the first big test of whether he can keep his Democratic colleagues united behind health-care legislation.
Senators plan to take a vote at 8 p.m. Washington time that would clear the way for debate on the most sweeping changes to the U.S. health system since the 1965 creation of the Medicare program for the elderly and disabled.
With every Senate Republican opposing the legislation, Reid cant afford a single defection from his 60-member caucus to enable the chamber to take up the bill when Congress returns from a weeklong Thanksgiving recess. By late yesterday, Democrats had locked up almost all the votes they needed.
Were not assuming a thing, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, told reporters. Were working hard to bring all Democrats together.
This morning my crazy thing locator pointed to this pro-Palin oped by Mary Matalin, who pooh-poohs complaints in Palin's book about the rough, nasty and foul-mouthed staffers inside the McCain campaign:
Time is the most valuable commodity on a campaign and you just can't waste it thinking about how to choose your words carefully or get your job done more diplomatically. If someone isn't in tears every day, that day wasn't all it could be advancing the campaign. I once witnessed an experienced (big) man slap a professional female colleague across the face over an ad buy... and no one thought anything of it, starting with the woman. In fact, she would have been insulted if anyone told her she should have been insulted.
Yes, politics is a hard job full of lots of pressure, long days, and high-stakes high-stress decision making. And many of the personalities attracted to that kind of work are narcissistic, most to the point of tantrums, and more than a few to the point of violence, and think it's no big deal. Matalin isn't just dishing about a specific instance here; she's pimping her insider importance--you bet she can remember just exactly the specific "ad buy" mistake that "deserved" the workplace assault and battery--and contrasting that insider importance to Palin's relative political naivete.
Matalin should be ashamed of herself, her politics, and her "professionalism" on a daily basis. That she actually points to an instance of physical assault of a female employee by a male superior as "the way it is in a campaign--get over it" just puts everything that's wrong with her argument in high relief. Does anyone wonder what would happen if that kind of thing happened in the private sector, or the outrage if a former corporate employee reported such physical assault as "acceptable in the business we're in" hearsay on the pages of CNN's website?
Democracy Now! Audio
NPR Topics: Opinion
Joe Dukes may be contacted at:
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AP - Democratic leaders secured the last two votes to move ahead on historic health care legislation, clearing the way for a Saturday night showdown on President Barack Obama's top domestic initiative.
AFP - President Barack Obama's signature drive to remake US health care faced a critical Senate test vote Saturday, amid bitter 11th-hour debate and behind-the-scenes wrangling on a century-old policy feud.
AP - President Barack Obama's eight-day trip to Asia produced no tangible wins for the United States, though he is citing talks with Asian allies that he says could help create thousands of job and open new markets for American goods in the future.
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