Truth To Power

Our nation's media elite gathered in Washington to share the joys of the season and hear from Sarah Palin and Barney Frank.  The Politico includes this weird detail which certainly reveals something about the Washington media:

The night closed with the Gridiron Singers rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas, with gifts bestowed by a certain Ruth [sic] Limbaugh rather than the traditional “True Love.”

“On the first day of Christmas, Rush Limbaugh gave to me: A Marxist in a dead tree.

On the second day of Christmas, Rush Limbaugh gave to me: Two tea-bag goons.

On the third day of Christmas, Rush Limbaugh gave to me: Three hell-no's

On the fourth day of Christmas, Rush Limbaugh gave to me: Four bawling Becks

On the fifth day of Christmas, Rush Limbaugh gave to me: Five Sarah swoon-ins

On the sixth day of Christmas, Rush Limbaugh gave to me: Six health care death squads

On the seventh day of Christmas, Rush Limbaugh gave to me: Seven bug-eyed birthers

On the eight day of Christmas, Rush Limbaugh gave to me: Eight Cheney boomlets

On the ninth day of Christmas, Rush Limbaugh gave to me: Nine ACORN busters

On the tenth day of Christmas, Rush Limbaugh gave to me: Ten thundering mossbacks

On the eleventh day of Christmas, Rush Limbaugh gave to me: Eleven loony liberals

On the twelfth day of Christmas, Rush Limbaugh gave to me: twelve flaming liberals, hunted down in the wild and field dressed, medium well-done, seared on the fatty edges—“

And then Palin joned the chorus for the final line:

"Right next to the mashed potatoes," she sang.

Har de har.  This year gave us the historic inauguration of our first black President, a monster stimulus bill, auto bail-outs, Pelosi and Reid everywhere, a Nobel Prize, a failed trip to Copenhagen, a possibly successful trip to Copenhagen, and these comics chose to bond on the idea that Rush Limbaugh is driving the news?

No ode to Move On?  Nothing for Nancy and Harry?  Barack and Michele weren't the gifts that kept on giving? 

Well.  Bashing Rush is de rigeur and presumably there were other songs that The Politico found less interesting.  The Politico also omitted the self-deprecating Palin jokes with which the AP led: 

Palin pokes fun at herself at journalists' dinner

(AP) – 9 hours ago

WASHINGTON — Sarah Palin poked fun at herself in a speech to journalists Saturday night, drawing laughter when she announced she "came down from my hotel room and I could see the Russian Embassy."

The 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate also joked that she had orginally thought of titling her book "How To Look Like a Million Bucks For Only $150,000" before settling on "Going Rogue." In one of the controversies surrounding her candidacy, the campaign spent about $150,000 on her wardrobe.

Oh, she wasn't just taking shots at everyone else?  Thanks for the coverage, Politico.

USA Today splashes some ink on Barney Frank, who was also there (and got a song):

Best lines for Frank:

"I'm honored to be the second Jew to have that song dedicated to me," after hearing the Gririron chorus mock his record as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee with a satirical rendition of "We Three Kings."

On his bipartisanship: "I am grateful to a major Republican candidate, (New Jersey Gov.-elect) Chris Christie, for making it safe for fat guys to be in politics."

On the relationship between politicians and the press: "Almost without exception, when someone in my business says , 'I was quoted out of context,' he means, 'I wish I hadn't said that.'

Comments

[anduril]

Pretty weak.

Well, here's a guy speaking truth to power--or, rather, to a power vacuum: Bam: Man in the muddle.

[PE]

Truth to power, eh? Truth to idiots more like it.

[jimmyk]

And speaking of weak humor, the NYT sees fit to publish, nearly a year into the Obama-Biden administration, a cartoon ridiculing a Vice President who had multiple military deferments. That would be Biden, of course, right? No, Cheney.

[Captain Hate]

Truth to idiots that can't handle the truth. Speaking of the Politico, either Malkin's in-house catamite, Allahpunk, or the linked site tried sticking my computer with some malware hijinx before I shut it down. More reasons not to go to Hot Air or Politico.

[narciso]

That must be where I got my bug, CH

[bgates]

Let's try that again:
On the first day of Christmas, Obama gave to me: World government based on one tree.

On the second day of Christmas, Obama gave to me: a two trillion dollar deficit

On the third day of Christmas, Obama gave to me: Three bows to foreign rulers

On the fourth day of Christmas, Rush Limbaugh gave to me: forearms as toned as Rolo's

On the fifth day of Christmas, Obama gave to me: Five reasons why its all Bush's fault

On the sixth day of Christmas, Obama gave to me: six hours to vote on a thousand page trillion dollar bill (or the world would end)

On the seventh day of Christmas, Obama gave to me: Seven nice things from the British he re-gifted

On the eight day of Christmas, Obama gave to me: Eight allies he'd screwed over

On the ninth day of Christmas, Obama gave to me: Nine months to decide on Afghanistan

On the tenth day of Christmas, Obama gave to me: Ten percent unemployment

On the eleventh day of Christmas, Obama gave to me: lots of eleventh-hour resignations

On the twelfth day of Christmas, Obama gave to me: Twelve carols schoolteachers wrote to him

[Porchlight]

That's terrific, bgates. You need to get it out there...

To repeat CH's warning, do NOT go to the Politico link - there seems to be a malware issue.

Some highlights from Palin, so you don't have to dig through WaPo either (cribbed from Conservatives 4 Palin and slightly edited):

Palin said if GOP ticket had won last year, she would be veep and Biden would be “selling his book, Going Rogaine.”

Palin tells gridiron she loves her hotel room in DC: “I could see the Russian Embassy”

Palin takes a shot at Steve Schmidt, “if I ever need a bald campaign manager, it appears all I am left with is James Carville.”

Palin joke in speech re book travels : “The view is so much better from inside the bus than under it.”

Palin said she was addressing “leading journalists and intellectuals, or as I put it, a death panel.”

Palin said “sometimes you’ve got to trust your instincts and when you don’t, you end up in places like this.”

Palin jokes big announcement: “Tomorrow I am going to Iowa ……noon to 3p at Barnes & Noble.”

Palin tells gridiron that in DC “I went out for a jog. Or as Newsweek calls it, a photo shoot.”

Palin at Gridiron jokes normally the Dem speaker is next but: “McCain campaign staff asked if they could have that time for rebuttal.”

Palin’s parents show up unexpectedly at Gridiron. She says, “don’t treat them like the.....Salahis”.

Palin jokes book title debate included “The Audacity of the North Slope.”

Palin joked that she was looking at a magazine cover of Obama and Chinese president Hu Jintao during an airplane flight. A nearby passenger stated, “Hu’s the Communist,” she related. "I thought he was asking a question."

[Captain Hate]

Palin takes a shot at Steve Schmidt, “if I ever need a bald campaign manager, it appears all I am left with is James Carville.”

I'm glad somebody that was on the Maverick's ticket is following through on "naming names". Schmidt needs to find another line of work unless he was really an undercover agent for the DNC.

[Rob Crawford]

Schmidt needs to find another line of work unless he was really an undercover agent for the DNC.

Schmidt announced, DURING THE CAMPAIGN, that he would quit if they dared attack Obama. He may not have been taking money from the Democrats, but he sure as hell wasn't working against them.

[Rob Crawford]

Ah, hell.

[clarice]

Italiacto!

[anduril]

I like the italics--it's the all bold that's a problem.

[pagar]

" unless he was really an undercover agent for the DNC."

Has anyone really investigated this? Why would a major campaign figure be against attacking a person who can't even seem to produce the barest proof that he is who he says he is. Apparently has no school records, yet is able to qualify for some of the leading US schools. Has no employment record that shows him actually accomplishing anything. Does not seem to do well in primary states, yet does well in caucus states-or at least his supporters seem to think he does well in caucus states.
It just seems very convenient to me that the McCain campaign happened to have a manager who was unwilling to attack Obama.

[hit and run]

I know that Mark McKinnon (campaign ad man) left the McCain campaign because he didn't want to attack Obama. Is there a link with Schmidt saying he would quit the campaign over attacking Obama?

[Porchlight]

Yes, I think it might be Mark McKinnon that Rob C. is thinking of...

Not that Schmidt couldn't still be a Dem operative. ;) I'd believe anything at this point.

[anduril]

Looks like the italics have gone viral, expanding across column lines.

[centralcal]

I agree Hit, I think folks are confusing McKinnon with Schmidt.

McKinnon is a Democrat who oddly works on Republican campaigns.

[anduril]

oddly works or works oddly--or both?

[Porchlight]

Both...

[pagar]

I don't know where the statement came from. The refusal to attack an empty suit was a disaster. No one has ever looked at anything that Obama has done with a critical eye except Sarah Palin. As a result, today we have a country ran by a person who would never be hired ( by anyone putting up their own money) to run a lemonade stand because he didn't have the required experience

[narciso]

Now that was McKinnon. Schmidt did similar regards regarding Obmama's RFK idealism after the campaign, indicating it had decided to give up the campaign after the end of October, No one really clued Sarah in on that fact though, hence she went rogue

[clarice]

I didn't get the impression that McKinnon or Schmidt or the others weren't acting just as their erratic boss wished them to behave. Did you?

In a knockdown battle if you choose to be above the fray you'll get creamed. (Just acting as though you were above the fray is the ticket..You get your attack dog staff to do the dirty work. But when you select your troops by their spotless togas..well....)

[narciso]

In the end you are right, Clarice, much like with Dole, a dozen years before, there
was a reluctance to really fight the ideological battle against the Dems, the Schmidt and MacKinnon comments were symptoms of the disease. Sarah's respect
for McCain, I admit, might prevent her from zeroing in on the true cause of last year's
debacle

[Porchlight]

I think she gets it, narciso, even if she won't say so out of respect for McCain.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Hear hear!!!

In defense of Sarah Palin & conservative women

[daddy]

"In a knockdown battle if you choose to be above the fray you'll get creamed. (Just acting as though you were above the fray is the ticket"

Since it's Sunday allow me to link to 2 Mark Twain tales that address the subject of how to succeed in life:

The">http://www.angelfire.com/mn3/mixed_lit/twain_goodboy.htm">The Story Of The Good Litttle Boy Who Did Not Prosper, and

The">http://www.angelfire.com/mn3/mixed_lit/twain_badboy.htm">The Story Of The Bad Little Boy Who Did.

I suspect you guys have all read them before, but if not, they are companion pieces tho' written a few years apart. (The Bad came out first I believe, prompting Twain's buddies to urge him to whip out a companion piece a few years later about the Good kid.) Both are easily readable during half-time advertisements, and have always had me laughing out loud with their witty humor and truth.

Worth a read by our next campaign manager, bald-headed or otherwise, because 1 kid succeeds as a Politician---Guess which?

[Porchlight]

Palin at her Fairfax, VA book signing before the Gridiron dinner:

Think there will be a run on that little green hat this week?

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

I read this morning that they were lined up 36 hours ahead of her appearance in Sioux Falls.

The longer this book tour lasts, the more popular she becomes --- with the people!

[sbw]

She's sitting to low at the table to see her Michelle cinch strap belt.

[sbw]

She's sitting to low at the table to see her Michelle cinch strap belt.

[Note: if this appears twice, I've been typhused again.]

[Porchlight]

Here, sbw, she's got this belt look going on:

[pagar]

We need Sarah Palin to get back on the Death Panels Problem, no one else seems to care.

"Health Care’s Coming Heart Attack – A Pre-Obama Care Death Panel?"

"If you would like a pre-Obama Care window into the possible future of American Health Care–if Democrats in Congress are successful in passing their sweeping health care legislation, you need look no further than government imposed rationing of heart disease prevention in this country. It is a travesty in the making and should demonstrate to everyone the capricious nature of government control over our health care."

The Democrats in Congress have determined that the quickest way to get rid of non productive older Americans is to
"to go ahead with a massive cut in Medicare payments to cardiologists" Does anyone Care?

[clarice]

sbw--MEN! That's just a regular belt at normal waist level not a weight lifter's or bondage belt wrapped under her boobs.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Her belted raincoat looks like a standard London Fog look-alike. A classic style.

[clarice]

About all those green jobs--from the AP:

BEIJING -- China's Goldwind Science & Technology Ltd. is one of the world's biggest makers of wind turbines -- a cornerstone of the booming clean power business -- but is unknown outside its home country. (Snip) Now the biggest Chinese manufacturers want to expand to the United States, Europe and other markets. Western suppliers could face new competition as low-priced Chinese rivals seek to profit from global efforts to limit climate change.

[JM Hanes]

Back by extrapolated popular request, Your Sunday Bonfire of the Ironies is up over at QBlog. You can just scroll the home page or pick and choose from the index post at the top.

Truth to Power in 12 Days has elicited (inevitably!) my own target practice in Siren vs. Canaries in the Christmas Coal Mine.

Here's the short version:

On the twelfth day of Christmas, Ø.gov sent to me:

Tax payer drubbing
POTUS piping TOTUS
FLOTUS lead a-leaking
Gibbs fancy dancing 
Rahm milking Congress  
Slush funds and skimming
Likely voters naying 
As - tro - tur - f'ing
Geithner calling banks
Screwed French friends
Date night in New York
And Tarp, triage, bad money from trees.

[JM Hanes]

anduril:

"Looks like the italics have gone viral, expanding across column lines."

There's a solution for that, but you won't like it.

daddy:

If you haven't read Twain's Letters from the Earth, I think it's right up your current alley. Cast out of Heaven, Satan reports his observations back to the Archangels.

[Mike Licht]

Did Lynn Vincent write Mrs. Palin's jokes as well as her book?

And why wouldn't Mrs. Palin be comfortable among reporters? She has a degree in journalism. Of course, she had to go to five of America's finest backwater colleges to get it. She also worked as a newspaper and video sports reporter.

But seriously, folks, Sarah Palin's bus tour is really taking off.

See:

http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/palin-just-plane-folks/

[JM Hanes]

In contrast Mike, you are clearly getting no assistance from the pros.

It's interesting that if it weren't for Palin and birther threads, we'd get almost nary a troll, these days. Call it the Rasmussen effect.

[Jane]

Oh I wish I was in the mood for a fight.

Where did you go to college Mike? And who paid?

[Jane]

Oh I wish I was in the mood for a fight.

Where did you go to college Mike? And who paid?

[Ann]

I love this picture:

Porchlight is right. We need to find out who made that hat and scoop them all up...fast!

[Porchlight]

For comparison's sake...flirtin' Hillary wishes she looked like Sarah so she could more effectively woo her Brit counterpart:

Smart Power: Hill and Mil

Then again it looks like she was doing the job pretty well...

[pagar]

Ann, if you like the spit or ----post from Gateway Pundit, they have a new one up. It involves a fist. But it is not the Fist City that Loretta Lynn sang about

LUN

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Just for my own enlightment, could someone show me what the other two colleges were?

I see three:

Palin attended Hawaii Pacific College -- now known as Hawaii Pacific University -- in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1982 for a semester, where she majored in Business Administration, and transferred in 1983 to North Idaho College.

In 1987, Palin received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho, where she also minored in political science.

Or are they counting when she took semesters off to work and earn her tuition and then returning as another 2 colleges?

She didn't have a wealthy Muslim underwriting her, nor did she benefit from affirmative action. She then went on to great accomplishments. But she's the dumb one?

[Jim Ryan]

Thanks a lot pagar. You've put me off my pie.

[bgates]

Sara, Wiki also has a mention of Matanuska-Susitna College, which brings it up to 4.

[Jane]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have absolutely no problem with going to multiple colleges. You have Sarah who worked her way thru college and the current President who was probably a coke dealer - altho he learned nothing about free enterprise in the process.

[pagar]

Jim, The one that should be putting everyone off is Obama's so-called safe school czar.

"In 2007 Kevin Jennings was paid $273,573.96 as the executive director of GLSEN."

In 2007, he was paid $273,573.96 to promote that kind of garbage, but he didn't have free access to put it into every school in the nation. Obama has given him and his friends free access to every school, every child in America. This is not making children safe, this is teaching them pure filth.

[Rocco]

Here's what Mark Twain said about Palestine after visiting in 1867. From The Innocents Abroad.

“ ...[a] desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds-a silent mournful expanse....A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action....We never saw a human being on the whole route....There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”

[sbw]

Dammit, it's the education that matters, not the college(s).

Why is it that mindless trolls have to wear their ignorance on their computer keys?

[PD]

But she's the dumb one?

No, Mike is. That's why his blog posting is so fact-free. It's also remarkably condescending.

It's like he decided to vomit all over himself, in public.

[narciso]

I thought that would be the weather I'd be facing back last February before Clarice apprised me of the facts. It's so distressing to go from someone so positive, so quintessentially full of good will, to this, I don't know words fail, which isn't a usual thing for me,

[sbw]

There has to be somewhere along the continuum for people like me who believe that both extremes of the sexuality question tend toward racism defined as ignorant over-generalization. Intolerance is as reprehensible as sexual special treatment.

[daddy]

Thanks Mike,

Like all educated and sophisticated Americans we are well aware that the particulars of whatever schools Sarah Palin attended enroute to graduating don't matter because Sarah is a Republican. Therefore no particular college or degree earned is ever going to satisfy the MSM or the Left. But if she was a Dem, ahhh, then she'd get the complete pass on education that trolls like you and our MSM are happy to give to College dropouts like Alaskan Democratic Senator Mark Begich.

Feel free though to get back to us on Begich's college un-achievements if you like, and while you're at it, please bring along Obama's College transcripts. Maybe we could compare them to John Kerry's which were even worse than W's. Oh, and Al Gore's flunking out of Divinity School resume' would also be nice to peruse. And if you really cared about it, see if you can find out who took Kennedy's Law exams for him, and also what the difference in grade points was between what Joe Biden actually got, and what he lied about in that political debate to silence honest questioners.

Finding out that sort of stuff is what they used to teach in Journalism schools, but now you only find the importance stressed on that old fashioned sort of "who, what, when, where and why" practice in backwater J schools. The sort of place Sarah graduated from.

Cheers.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

The U. of Idaho is ranked as a Third Tier college in US News and World Report.

Another college in the same tier is University of Illinois--Chicago. I'm sure JOMers recognize this school where Ayers teaches and Barack has ties to. They are the ones who unsealed the CAC records, remember?

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

And my goodness, I never heard anyone say Milton Friedman was dumb and attended a 2nd rate school. He graduated from a Third Tier college, as did Bob Novak and Wolf Blitzer - Rutgers

[daddy]

Yeah Sara,

But we all saw how well Wolf Blitzer did on Jeopardy:)

[clarice]

Wherever Sarah got her degree in comunications, the lessons stuck. She is a first rate communicator--clear, topical, memorable.

[Sue]

The college doesn't matter to the left. Bush graduated from Yale and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. Ann Coulter graduated from Cornell. Laura Ingraham
from Dartmouth. John Roberts from Harvard and Harvard Law. Sam Alito Princeton and Yale Law. What do all of these people have in common? The left is using Palin's lack of Ivy League because it is there. If she had the Ivy League pedigree, they would find something else. Just as they do for Bush, Coulter, Ingrahm, Roberts and Alito.

Screw them. I'll take Palin over a John Kerry, Al Gore, Barack Obama any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

[Ann]

Go Daddy!!! Don't forget about the guys that lie about their Ivy league education like Keith Olbermann, while looking down their nose at Sarah Palin.

One of my favorite Ann Coulter columns was
OLBERMANN'S PLASTIC IVY

[narciso]

In the LUN is one of the accounts of Schmidt's confession, a remarkablestatement of cynicism and ignorance on his part

[daddy]

"daddy:

If you haven't read Twain's Letters from the Earth, I think it's right up your current alley. Cast out of Heaven, Satan reports his observations back to the Archangels."

JMH

I've always considered them as letters from a close family relative.
And Mark twain was a good editor:)

[Somethingwrite]

Press Housing,plan injury dream know think achieve prisoner commit means place insurance on ahead financial various model force young husband discussion regard apparently marry apparently there possibility class drink transport such school jump hair report unemployment bright derive already great slip separate opposition region border key let front fire hope myself appoint woman stock an bit light expense smile weapon prepare their pool bird attract suffer design home support even even street therefore photograph nod effort involve reasonable unemployment attract ear capacity section nod working official present tiny behaviour her store card or suggestion minute meeting supply existing council drawing