Get 'em while she's hot

Just in time for the holidays comes the 2009 Sarah Palin wall calendar. Retailing for the low, low price of $15.95 and featuring "never before seen photos of Sarah, with Todd, Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig Palin," this item is sure to be a hit with the half-educated, moose-killin' political liability in your family.

Order now. Supplies, much like her capabilities, are limited.

High Maintenance

Turns out the highest paid McCain staffer isn't the guy who helps Rick Davis mainline his banana/vodka/Cialis shakes every morning. Nor is it, as Matthew initially believed, the guy who belt sands the lizard sheen off of McCain's face before television appearances.

[NYT]--Who was the highest paid individual in Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign during the first half of October as it headed down the homestretch?

...It was Amy Strozzi, who was identified by the Washington Post this week as Gov. Sarah Palin’s traveling makeup artist, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday night.

I have to hand it to you, McCain campaign. You might be incompetent, desperate, and woefully out of touch with the majority of the voting public. But you got jokes. Jokes and jokes and jokes. I almost wish we had a little more time together.

Because you don't know any better

Courtesy of the lovely sketch comics at One Hott Mess.

Meet the new boss...

The past few weeks have seen the Obama camp and much of the lefty blogosphere attempt to paint John McCain as W version 2.0. After reading today's NYTimes piece -- Jo Becker, Peter S. Goodman and Michael Powell dug through public records and interviewed some 60 legislators and local officials from both sides of the aisle -- perhaps they and we should have spent more time beating Palin about the head and face with the "Four More Years" stick.

Turns out Ms. Palin's governing philosophy, and please stop me if you've heard this before, rewards loyalty, punishes dissent, stacks government positions with friends and cronies, avoids candid discussions with the press, discloses nothing, and steadfastly safeguards against any shedding of light upon the internal machinations of her administration. I've pulled a few examples and put them below the fold. Be sure to read the entire piece.

Heckuva job, Havemeisty:

...when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

A subpoena avoided trumps a subpoena ignored:

Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.

Time on the ranch is time well-spent:

Many lawmakers contend that Ms. Palin is overly reliant on a small inner circle that leaves her isolated. Democrats and Republicans alike describe her as often missing in action. Since taking office in 2007, Ms. Palin has spent 312 nights at her Wasilla home, some 600 miles to the north of the governor’s mansion in Juneau, records show.

Ew, barracuda...

Place yer bets

InTrade has gotten into the game, offering a contract on the odds of the GOP dropping Sarah Palin from the ticket before November 4:




Maybe this isn't such a far-fetched loony leftist blogger notion, after all. I can almost see it... Headline: Palin, citing concern for family privacy, exits race

Note: Hat-tip to Stephen J. Dubner at the Freakonomics blog.

Ask a question...

...get an answer. Yesterday, Matthew assessed the growing list of personal shit swept under Sarah Palin's bearskin rug and asked, "Who vetted this woman?" The answer: nobody.

Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice. The campaign was still calling Republican operatives as late as Sunday night asking them to go to Alaska to deal with the unexpected candidacy of Ms. Palin.

The McCain campaign put boots on the ground a mere 24 hours before Johnny, as conservative nitwit Bill Kristol put it, "went all in with Sarah Palin?" I spent all weekend smacking myself in the forehead thinking, what am I missing here? I get the Washington outsider angle, the female voter angle, the Western Republican angle in a year some of those states are less safely red. But surely there has to be more, some Roveian variable in the political calculus I'm just not seeing.

Turns out the McCain campaign is just lazy and incompetent. We already knew that Republicans can't govern, but no one who has lived through the Bush years would have accused them of not knowing how to get elected.

Oh well. Maybe this'll turn into one of those Harriet Miers-type "we were just kidding, guys" nominations and a week from now we'll all be watching the sun bounce off of Mitt Romney's helmet again.

WWBD?

Ew, Barracuda...



What does the VP do? Depends, really. Constitutionally speaking, the Vice President is tasked only with maintaining a pulse and, if necessary, casting the deciding vote in the Senate in the event of a tie. Beyond that, you pretty much make it up as you go along, sweetness. Some noteworthy options:

--Murder Alexander Hamilton. (Aaron Burr)

--Resign your post as Satan's hatchet man after pleading no contest to charges of extortion, bribery, tax fraud, and conspiracy. (Spiro Agnew)

--Exhibit the intellect of a mid-range kitchen appliance and get absolutely owned by Lloyd Bentsen in a debate. (Dan Quayle)

--Bore the shit out of the entire country before meekly ceding a rigged Presidential election, only to emerge years later as a portly, charismatic, Nobel Peace Prize-winning environmental advocate. (Al Gore)

--Jam your fist up the president's ass and use him as something of a sneering, dry drunk sock puppet in order to start a senseless war, empower your buddies in the energy industry to write public utilities policy, and mount a two-pronged assault on both the separation of powers and civil liberties. (Dick Cheney)***

Indeed, as Vice President of this country, the world is your oyster, Barracuda. Do with it what you will. But here's some free advice from someone who will only benefit from your ignoring it: Stop going on television and admitting that you have no idea what your responsibilities as Vice President would be. You are making this far too easy.


***Note: Also shot a 78 year-old man in the face with a shotgun.

At least they don't all start with the same letter

I'm starting to suspect that Sarah Palin was drunk when she named her children:

Track (18)
Bristol (17)
Willow (13)
Piper (7)
Trig (4 months)

She named a kid born with Down Syndrome "Trig?" Jesus...