Biobrain Hearts Torture Probes

There's something intrinsically wrong when you see the headline: Holder Considering Torture Probe. I mean, really. What is he holding, and who probes for torture anymore?

Abortion Talk with my Parents

So I'm staying with my folks for a few days as another pseudo-vacation with my kids (Six Flags sucks ass), and got into a conversation with both of them independently about the issue of abortion. Now, they're both pro-life devout Catholics and really buy into all that stuff. My dad is a Deacon in the Church, which gives him the power to baptise, marry, and bury people; sometimes at the same time. These two are firm in their beliefs and are totally old school about the whole thing.

But oddly enough, in both cases, neither of them felt comfortable when I asked them if abortion should be illegal. It wasn't even meant to be a "gotcha" kind of question at all, as I was trying to lead my point somewhere else, yet both of them hesitated when I asked and clearly felt uncomfortable with the idea. My dad went so far as to say that he doesn't think abortion should be illegal, and he didn't believe me when I suggested that Republicans want to make it illegal. Now, this is the same dad who doubted Obama's citizenship, based partly on a misunderstanding of which of Obama's parents was from Kenya. So while his conservative views are entrenched, they're not necessarily the best informed.

And yet, I suspect that this is the case with quite a few people. Their opposition to abortion is firm and they're more than happy to talk about third trimester abortions until the cows come home, yet when it comes to the actual issue of punishment, these people really aren't thinking this through all the way. Hell, they didn't even want to talk about how their position uses the government to impose this on people.

Because yeah, sure, abortions aren't the best option in the world. In fact, they're a pretty piss poor option for dummies who forgot to use a rubber. But...when it comes to imprisoning doctors for committing abortions, that's really just not their style. Nobody gets an abortion without a good reason. Sadly, my mom disagreed with that, though I don't think she knew what she was saying.

Oh yeah, Six Flags sucks ass.

The Interrogation of Victoria

You'd be stupid if you didn't read my Nihilist Action Alert for the capture of Victoria Jackson. And you'd be even stupider if you didn't read my follow-up, in which I discuss the capture and interrogation of Victoria Jackson. It would be a big mistake to miss this.

And if you didn't already, be sure to re-read my piece on Obama Independence Day, though I'm sure it's not necessary, as all of you were there at the time. It was definitely a very "happy" Obama Day, indeed.

And finally, you won't want to miss my double pieces on homosexuality: The Myth of Homosexuality and The Gaying of RedState. There will be three quizzes on this topic tomorrow night, so please take notes.

And the dumbest thing you could do would be to not follow my wonderful Twitter feed. Read my twits.

Why Palin is Out

Yahoo's blog has a analysis piece about how Sarah Palin is "Out, but not down" because lots of Republicans still like her even after she resigned, and only 30% of those polled changed their opinion of her because of her announcement (and come on, for 30% of folks to change their opinion of a well-known person is HUGE).

But the entire analysis is flawed. Because the "Holy shit, she's fucking crazy" factor of her decision was the least of her troubles. This isn't just about whether her supporters will continue to support her immediately after she makes a crazy decision. Of course they will. They were batshit crazy before she resigned and I see no reason why her resignation would make them any more sane.

But the bigger issue is that she won't be governor anymore. And that changes everything. Were the election next year, this could work. But she can't seriously start running for another two years and will be unemployed until then. And for as much as she's likely to stay in contact with her base doing speeches and stuff, she'll be out of the limelight. And that's death to an attention-hound like Palin. Fame is all she has.

I mean, even as governor, she had so much trouble ginning up publicity that she had to keep turning to public feuds in order to stay newsworthy. But now without a respectable day job, she's purely a sideshow. She'll no longer be the crazy attention-seeking governor of Alaska, but now the crazy attention-seeking ex-governor who stepped down without explanation. She had a hard enough time looking respectable as governor. This didn't help.

No One Likes the Indefensible

And believe it or not, but conservatives aren't nearly as hardcore as they pretend to be. They're influenced by events outside of themselves. No one wants to defend the indefensible. They can if they must, but they'd rather not. And having quit early, they just won't have much to defend her with. Even a one-term governorship isn't a strong record to stand on for someone with as few accomplishments as Palin. But a partial term that she quit??

As a reminder, even her defenders insisted that her lousy resume was acceptable because she was only running for VP, and would learn from "the master." And that resume didn't get any better since then, and is definitely not getting any better now. Instead, it's just going to get more stale. She'll stay on the talk circuit, giving speeches about how victimized she is, and the core base will eat it up. But even they will have a hard time defending their support of her as a convincing presidential nominee. They'll still love her, but they'll be hard pressed to explain to anyone why.

I predict that, assuming she even has the gumption to run, she's going to be the Giuliani of 2012. She'll be on everyone's top five list and maintain a respectable following in the polls leading into the primaries, but she'll be stale and unable to break out of that base following. Even as it is, only 67% of Republicans polled said they want to see Palin stay on the national scene, and that's based on what people think of her now. I don't see how she's improving on that number, and the more she slips from the daily news, the more that'll drop.

And that's too bad, as I'd love to see a Obama v. Palin match-up in 2012. But I just can't see that happening. A half-term governor with a thin resume was fairly indefensible as a VP nominee. A half-term ex-governor who hasn't done anything but talk to her cultish followers is a complete joke. And that's even assuming that the general reaction of her in two years isn't "Oh yeah, I remember her. Wasn't she the crazy lady who suddenly quit her job without a reason?"

Roger Simon's Political Commandments

In my last post, I wrote about Politico's Roger Simon and his snarky defense of Sarah Palin's resignation, attacking her critics and their "commandments" that she broke. And what's idiotic about these "commandments" is that I've never heard of them before. They're merely items that Simon thought of for this particular incident and wants to pretend these are hard & fast rules of conduct in the world of politics.

And in that, we're supposed to believe that she was acting like us regular folks, which should make the media's hatred of her more endearing for us. And no, Palin isn't being attacked for breaking these "commandments." She's being attacked because she's a moron who, according to her supporters, made an epicly moronic decision. So here are Simon's three commandments.

Thou Shalt Not Surprise the Media

Don't surprise the media? Palin's very nomination was a HUGE surprise to the media, and they loved her...at first. The surprise was hailed as a stroke of genius, and after her convention speech, lots of folks thought the tide of the election had turned in McCain's favor thanks to his surprise pick for VP. And no, it wouldn't have mattered how many trial balloons and pre-announcement announcements she had made beforehand, it was a crazy idea no matter what.

And of course, he's got this backwards. Palin's resignation doesn't seem batshit crazy because it was unexpected. It was unexpected because it was such a batshit crazy thing to do that nobody could have predicted that she'd do it. And it didn't get any less crazy after she did it. Similarly, no one expects me to try to jump off a bridge, and they'd consider me crazy for not explaining afterwards why I did it. That's what explanations are meant to do: Make people understand why you did something.

Oddly, Simon cites Bob Dole's resignation from the Senate as proof that it's normally considered acceptable to quit office to run for president. Except, Dole quit because he had just won the Republican nomination, quitting on June 11 after the last primary ended on June 4. And even still, as this CNN article from the time says, Dole didn't want to step down, but was pressured to do so by his aides and fellow Republicans. Dole didn't do this to "run for president," as Simon suggests, but because he was already the Republican nominee and was getting his butt kicked.

Palin, on the other hand, hasn't said she did this to run for president. In other words, this was an entirely different situation. Perhaps if Palin had admitted that she did this for 2012 it would seem less bizarre. But Simon later insisted that he doesn't think she did this for 2012, so he shouldn't even get to use this comparison. He insists that even Palin doesn't know why she stepped down, but again, this is very reassuring and not at all bizarre.

Thou Shalt Not Upset the Pooh-bahs

This one is odd, as I fail to see how Palin's resignation would "upset" the "pooh-bahs." If anything, I'm sure they're quite happy about it. They didn't want her as the candidate, so they're more than happy that she decided to end her career early. This was as upsetting for them as it was for Obama when McCain "suspended" his compaign. But then again, I just did a quick search and see that Simon thought McCain's suspension wasn't "as dumb or as desperate as it looks." Uh, yeah, it was.

And seriously, it's obvious that the Republican Party "Pooh-bahs" have a pretty damn low standard when it comes to their candidates (George W, anyone?), and the only thing Palin did to offend these pooh-bahs was that she was a narcissitic loonball who betrays her allies and refuses to learn the party's version of reality. And in politics, that's a death sentence. They're happy to accept narcissistic loonballs, but they have to be their loonballs.

He also tosses out the attacks on Palin's rambling resignation speech, by saying she's "plain-spoken." And he acts like that's a good thing. And we're to imagine that this fits into the "don't upset the Pooh-bahs" commandment? Huh? I think this fits into the Thou Shalt Not Sound Like a Moron commandment that people only adopted after Bush proved it necessary.

But at least Bush tried to gain a basic grasp of the issues at hand. Palin works entirely in empty soundbites and cliches. While Bush reveled in the clever half-truths he was fed, Palin resents the very concept of truth. She's like Bush, but without the shred of empathy needed to know how to lie properly.

Thou Shalt Pander to the Few, Not Speak to the Many

This one is the funniest, as all Simon does is quote John Weaver suggesting that Palin can't expand her base, to which Simon responds by pointing out that the shrinking Republican Party means that Palin's base makes her the most powerful Republican in the party. In other words, Simon says that Palin is being attacked for only talking to the few, while ignoring the many.

And I agree with that completely. Palin's appeal is extremely limited. And for as much as dopes like Simon want to imagine that Palin is a plain-spoken regular person who upsets the Establishment due to her great appeal to the masses; the truth is that Palin has no such appeal. The majority of people do not flock to Palin or appreciate her for being a regular person. She's a rockstar with the very few who are more ignorant of the issues than she is. And the more she tries to talk to the many, the worse she does with them.

And that's the thing: For as much as Palin and her supporters are trying to cast this as her behaving like a regular person; regular people don't do this either. We don't quit our jobs without explanation. We don't make epic changes in our lives without thinking of the consequences. This isn't just weird in the world of politicians and pooh-bahs. This is weird to the rest of us too.

And Simon would know this, if he lived in the real world, rather than the bubble he created for himself. But of course, that's one of the groups who like Palin the most: The ones who are out of touch with rural life, but want to imagine it has something to do with the type of person Palin is.

Thou Shalt Not Quit Thy Day Job

Poor Sarah Palin. When anyone else quits their job unexpectedly and without reason, everyone pats them on the back and tells them how awesome they are. Yet for some reason, when Sarah Palin quits, people keep asking her why she quit. And when she doesn't give them a rational response, they start doubting her rationality and speculating about what the reason might possibly be. How odd.

And now Politico's Roger Simon mockingly writes:

Sarah Palin is a sinner. She has violated several commandments and thoroughly
deserves the savage beating that she is now getting from political mandarins and
media elites.

And yes, what a "savage beating" it is. I mean, people asking questions. And speculating. Endless speculation, which is then followed by more unanswered questions. Simon even quotes CNN's Rick Sanchez daring to speculate that Palin's pregnant. Does it get any more savage than that? I'm sure Obama and his terrorist pals feel much sympathy for Palin's plight. Nothing is more insulting than to speculate that a mother might be pregnant again.

Crazy Like a Crazy Person

What is it about Palin's spontaneous resignation from politics that people find "bizarre"? I mean, sure, even a Palin fan like Simon doesn't understand why she quit and offers in her defense that he thinks she did this without any forethought about her future. But what's odd about that? As Simon says:

Having said all this, I do not think Palin is being crazy like a fox. I don’t think she has planned out what she will do in 2012. I think she has quit her job, is doing what she wants to do and is reserving judgment about her future.

Yes, this is certainly an admirable trait in someone who has aspirations of becoming the most powerful person in the world. No plans. No strategy. Just quit her job and doesn't even want to think about the future. Ahh, how refreshing. Just like us regular folks, who quit our day jobs with no plans for the future. This is my kind of candidate and I'm an idiot. Seriously. She wasn't being crazy like a fox. She was just being crazy. There's a difference.


P.S. I'm still holding out for some giant scandal announcement, which would make me have far more faith in Palin's sanity than her current explanation offers.

I'm on Twitter

Ok, I did it. I'm hip. I just got on Twitter, and now am a twittling maniac. Seriously. You can read my twits that I wrote for the sole purpose of having something to put on Twitter. Trust me, there won't be anything important written there, but it probably won't suck. You won't regret it.

There are no guarantees in life, and that includes my Twit feed.

Quote of the Day

Former McCain campaign advisor John Weaver, in regards to Palin's resignation, following embarrassing scandals by GOP presidential hopefuls Senator Ensign and Governor Sanford:

"The way we are going, if you are the Junior Jaycees president in Memphis you
could be in line for the nomination."

Funny, cause it's true. But of course,let's not forget the real joke: This is how they ended up with Palin in the first place. After Bush, the Republican bench was so lightweight that a half-term governor of an isolated state was the biggest "star" they had. But hey, she also received a whopping 909 votes to win a landslide victory for her second term as Mayor, and there aren't a lot of Junior Jaycees who can say that. After that, two years as governor of Alaska was merely icing on the presidential cake.

Seriously though, this is a big reason why worries of Republican dynasty were always greatly exaggerated. After George W, there just wasn't anyone the base would love who could be trusted by the establishment. And with the Bush name in shambles, I'm not sure if that'll happen again any time soon. And while McCain tried to thread the needle by having a running mate the base could love, even that wasn't good enough for the sensible establishment-types running the party. The Republican base absolutely refuses to allow sense to have anything to do with their party, and I support them in that entirely.