Going on Hewitt's show is preaching to the choir. I guess it'll help maintain the base's enthusiasm level, but it won't help McCain win an election.

"Hostility" and "hatred"? Not so much. I'd buy
"disbelief and dismay shading into ridicule," though.

I'm not really sure why McAlzheimer's campaign would allow her to do anything else. I'm pretty sure she's looked so bad doing anything but stumping since the convention that she is actually losing some of the more conservative right. Maybe not to a vote for Obama, but maybe to no vote at all. She'll never lose the far-right, but I think the middle-right is teetering. It makes perfect sense for the Republicans to keep her away from any forum that could result in a legitimate question. I won't be convinced the Veep debate is actually taking place until it starts tomorrow night.

She still has a long way to go in terms of doing legitimate lengthy interviews, such as the ones aired on week-end morning shows-- and they need to be insisted upon.

I think Poster #1 hits it right: not many independent voters know who Baby Hughie is, never mind listen to him.

Who yu callin' a "legitimate professional?" Charlie Gibson? Please.

The ability to look down your nose over your gold-rimmed glasses and not ask obvious follow up questions does not make one a professional.

What a dumb, dumb, dumb strategy. I understand that things didn't go so well for Palin in the "real" interviews, but getting her interviewed by wingnuts in settings that can be heard by non-wingnuts could also be bad. They'll encourage her to say nutty things and if she takes the bait, she could really string up McCain. That's the whole reason they're keeping her in the box to begin with. Not because Couric was too tough, but because she's a nut with nutty opinions.

It sounds like Hewitt's interview kept things personal, which should be safe, but wingnuts are much more likely to ask her about culture war issues that could really screw things up. Or she could say something about nuking Mecca and really screw things up. If she says half the things my Limbaugh-listening dad says, McCain is toast. It's best that they just keep her in that box.

I don't know how many listeners Hewitt has, but appearing on shows like his doesn't seem to have much advantage over disappearing altogether.

PLEASE, WHY IS SALON.COM CENSORING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE?

{I posted the following document, divided into two parts, at around 10:30 AM on 10/1/08 on Salon.com's website in response to a 10/01/08 article by Walter Shapiro titled "The voters are angry -- and don't know why". It was censored a few minutes later. Why the fuck is a liberal website censoring THE U.S. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE as updated for the economic conditions of today? Forgive me for cluttering up your site with this monstrous off-topic posting, but this is the third time that Salon has done this to me with a perfectly legitimate liberal post. I don't have email access and Salon never answers the letters I send them anyway -- could you please look into this and rake their asses over the coals for behaving like a bunch of National-Christianist PR goons? Thanks. My mailing address is 5267 University Way NE, #224, Seattle Wa 98105.}

A DECLARATION By the REPRESENTATIVES of the UNITED DIVISIONS OF COMPANY X In GENERAL CONGRESS assembled

[Shortly after writing almost 11 years ago exactly the following document, which may be taken as a scholarly elucidation of my job title “The Pink Nigger”, I was forevermore banished from the lands and companies of the great “liberal” city of Seattle. I hate to keep recycling old shit on Salon, but perhaps it will help Walter Shapiro, those censorious fucks Glenn Greenwald and Louis Bayard, and the rest of the “liberal” editors and writers who refuse to publish my doghouse prospectus “Roofless in Seattle” on their site to understand why so many voters are angry. It may also help a few angry voters to give ethical and historical coherence to their rage. As always to the “liberal” Seattle readers of this site, I am still waiting after 11 years for some brave Seattleite to stand up to the homewrecking Vichycratic Mayor Nickelfuck and his nine Vichycratic lackeys on the City Council and lease me 40 square feet of property on which to reconstruct my doghouse. The current economic crisis is not the result of saintly plutocrats being cheated by the poor people they generously made $300,000 loans to at 12% interest rates, as the condescending Judenrat David Brooks wrote several weeks ago. It is the result of 25 years of rich Democrats and Republicans conspiring together to a) deny lower class people the 500 square foot property franchise and b) turn the American home into a golden sharejobbing slave prison. So if now a few hotheads are singing “Burn down the house”, is it any wonder?]

IN CONGRESS, September 25, 1997.

When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one Working Class to dissolve the Economic Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Humans are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Profit--That to secure these Rights, Businesses are instituted among Humans, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Managed, that whenever any Form of Business becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the Workers to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Management, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Well-Being and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Managements long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes, and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Humankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Management, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Departments; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Management. The History of the present Chairman of Company X is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these Divisions. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the corporate Good.

He has forbidden his Managers to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Classes of Workers, unless those Workers would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Union, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.

He has called together Union Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their Corporate Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

He has dissolved Union Shops repeatedly, for opposing with courageous Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the Workers.

He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Union Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the Workers at large for their exercise; the Company remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Hostile Takeover from without, and Convulsions within.

He had endeavoured to prevent the Staffing of these Divisions; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Employment of Outsiders; refusing to pass others to encourage their Applications hither; and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Markets.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Arbitrators dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Positions, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

He has erected a Multitude of new Management Positions, and sent hither Swarms of Managers to harrass our Workers, and eat out their Substance.

He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Executive Armies, without the consent of our Unions.

He has affected to render Management independent of, and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Management:

For quartering large Bodies of Authorized Executives among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Terminations which they should commit on the Staffs of these Departments:

For cutting off our Communication with all Parts of the Economy:

For imposing Wage Cuts on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in all Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Company Property to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of American Constitutional Law in a neighboring Country, establishing therein an arbitrary Management, and enlarging its Scope, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Divisions:

For taking away our Contracts, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Management:

For suspending our own Unions, and declaring themselves invested with Power to direct us in all Cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Management here, by declaring us beyond his Responsibility and inflicting Massive Layoffs against us.

He has plundered our Inventions, ravaged our Bodies, disrupted our associations, and destroyed the Lives of our Workers.

He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of Temporaries to complete the works of Termination, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Corporation.

He has constrained our Colleagues taken Captive from the Unemployment Pool to compete against us, to become the Downsizers of their Friends and Associates, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic Insurrections against us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Global Competitors, whose known Rule of Business, is an undistinguished Liquidation, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A CEO, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to the Ruler of a free Labor Force.

Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our Stockholders. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Board to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Application and Employment here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Humankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED DIVISIONS OF COMPANY X, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Arbitrator of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good Workers of these Divisions, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Divisions are, and of Right out to be, a Free and Independent Company; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the Corporate Board, and that all economic connection between them and the Stockholders, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent Divisions, they have full Power to seize Market Share, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which independent Companies may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm Reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

BRETT LANDGRAF, President

Attest. THOMAS JEFFERSON, Secretary

[Copyright (c) 1997 Brett Landgraf’s parents]

All she can do now is repeat to herself over and over....
"I am not Tina Fey. I am a maverick wearing lipstick."

Her confidence is in tatters.

The most controversial moment in the Hewitt interview was where Palin had to defend her preference for Twinkies over Ho-Hos.

Well I wouldn't blame the climate change on the pop quiz, Charlie. It all comes around to health care and more jobs.

Why, yes, I'm a mom with a cute little baby. Thanks for asking, Char . . . uh . . . I mean . . . Hugh. Yeah, yeah, that's the same little feller we were passing around on the noisy convention stage like a bong in Burning Spear.

And the rest of America will be surprised to see what a microcosm of mothers we Alaskans are.

"You're pro-life, and how much of the virulent opposition to you on the left do you attribute to your pro-life position, and maybe even to the birth of, your decision, your and Todd's decision to have Trig?"

This is the first time I've seen this point made explicit. No doubt her fans see Trig has proof of their rightousness and believe that some godless liberal parents would abort a fetus that pre-natal tests show to be disabled.

No Hugh, I'm not virulently opposed to Sarah Palin for having a special needs children and I take offense to the suggestion otherwise.

Here's another: "Now Governor, the Gibson and the Couric interview struck many as sort of pop quizzes designed to embarrass you as opposed to interviews. Do you share that opinion?"

...Because asking her what newspapers she reads isn't the sort of thing she could possibly have been prepared to answer without a lot more Vice Presidentin' camp.

But what's her favorite color? Has she told anyone yet? Has anyone asked her? Did Hugh ask her? Is it red? Maybe it's yellow? I hope it's yellow. Ohohoh - what if it's NOT? How can I find out?

and then Marge served Bliky dinner

Uh, what in the hell is that - thing - posted above by Brett Landgraff? What is he going on and on about?

low-tech got it. the only possible benefit of this is to give her time to gain her bearings dealing with the national media. sort of like taking batting practice. but of course hitting grooved pitches from the likes of hewitt ain't the same thing as facing heat from journalists who aren't out there to help her get elected. and she's got to face the real media again if she's to be of any help to the ticket.

I've got news for the McCain campaign. The only interest the public (wackey right wing Christians aside) is to watch the trainwreck we saw in her Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson interviews. People by a ticket to the side show to see the freaks. She's not taken seriously, she's just a clown.

Kali:

I hardly doubt that her confidence is in tatters, in fact, I believe just the opposite. She is all wingnut from the tip of her bun to the moose poo on her boots. Letting her rant and rail is EXACTLY what she wants to do and to let her do that very thing is what the basiest of the base needs her to do.

The fact that she may start talking about Adam riding dinosaurs or that America needs more pay-as-you-go rape kits doesn't matter to these people at all. They want meat.

So, the McCain campaign is admitting, outright, unambiguously, that Palin isn't capable of answering any questions at all. Pathetic.

And Brett: maybe because you're kind of a ranting kook? Just a guess.

What newspapers do you read? What Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with? What have you learned from these meetings?

These are not "gotcha" questions! What do they want, questions more like these?

"Governor, you read the Wall Street Journal, don't you?"

"Governor, didn't I hear you questioning the Supreme Court's decision regarding the Exxon Valdez a few months ago?"

"Governor, I'll bet you've learned a lot about the US's economic partnerships with several countries by sharing cordial discussion with them, and that really we're not all that different, and that America is still held in high regard by some other great nations around the world, haven't you?"

"Governor, I'll bet when John McCain asked you to be VP, you answered him just like that [snap fingers] without blinking or anything, right?"

"Governor, what does make you blink? All those unborn US citizen fetuses?"

What a strange, strange world we inhabit when Gibson and Couric are considered tough, hard-hitting journalists.

p.s. who is Hugh Hewitt?? Never heard of him before. Is he a toned down Beck/Limbaugh/Savage??

p.p.s Know what I'd love to see? Palin's detailed itinerary since the Republican convention. Where she was, when, and for how long. I'd be interested to compare that list with one detailing the number of hours a parent needs to spend with a special needs infant.

(her behaviour as a parent at the Convention sickened me. It was abhorrent. Let's see just how incompetent a mother she actually is.)

I guess I shouldn't expect a press conference anytime soon?

"...gave the vice presidential candidate a chance to showcase elements of her life story and demonstrate some of the folksiness that's been central to her political success."

So that's what we need to know about a vice-presidential candidate, huh? That puts me right back in the undecided column because I don't have any idea whether Joe Biden prefers Big Macs or Whoppers, where he went on his first date, what his favorite color is, or his shoe size. Clearly America doesn't really know Joe Biden and that should give us all pause.

yam;

You believe the opposite of "hardly doubt" -?

Lesseee - divide by 0, carry the 2...

:)

Confining herself to questioners like Hewitt is only one step above confessing to be an animatronic figure.

Also,

Steve, your ability to pull out a Simpsons quote for every occasion pleases me to end.

cheers!

Phoebes:

I had to look up what a phoebe is: a bird that flies around catching bugs. So I'm surprised that you didn't catch your misspelling of my last name.

The short answer to your question, "What is the Declaration of Independence?" is "40 square yards and fuck the mule, thank you very much, Democrats".

Just to be clear, I'm pink, so if you suffer from any latent racial prejudices, please take them over to the shrieking zoo at www.BushlerForMcCain.com.

Otherwise, I sincerely thank you for asking.

"Now Governor, the Gibson and the Couric interview struck many as sort of pop quizzes designed to embarrass you as opposed to interviews.

I'm sure the devious and conniving Katie Couric and her writers rubbed their hands together with glee, saying "That'll really trip her up!" when they wrote - "What newspapers do you read?"

As a matter of fact, I imagine that question was intended to be a softball to mitigate the policy questions.

Pathetic.

Brett, sorry I misspelled your last name, but I still don't understand what you're writing about. Was it some injustice by your parents, or Salon?

I'm NOT laughing at you, I just want to understand what you're upset about.

Remember, according to the McCain campaign, the goal is for Palin to do more of these sycophantic interviews

Because Palin's support among centrist voters has tanked, and she's reduced, like McCain's campaign writ large, to desperately trying to appeal to her dead-ender-Republican base -- blockheads who will eat up their attacks on eeeeeeeeevil liberals with a spoon.

They've abandoned the center and are still rallying their base. In October!

Fortunately for Palin, there is documentary evidence to help refresh her memory of just what newspapers she read before becoming the Republican VP nominee. The New York Times recently published this 1995 picture from Palin's days as a Wasilla, Alaska, councilwoman.

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin_CA0.ready.html

That newspaper on her desk - it's the March 1995 edition of The New American, the publication of the John Birch Society.

See for yourself:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070101082848/http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1995/vo11no05/vo11no05_con_con.htm

You're pro-life, and how much of the virulent opposition to you on the left do you attribute to your pro-life position, and maybe even to the birth of, your decision, your and Todd's decision to have Trig?

Have I mentioned lately that John McCain is old?
Yeah, well he is.

Aw, Phoebes - Brett is just upset because his interminably long worker's manifesto that he thinks is just so cool (it's like an historical American document, can't you see!?!?!?) offends the Salon site administrator and the rest of us who think it's an unoriginal waste of cyberspace.

And then you go and misspell his last name!

The guy gets no respect, I tell ya'.

I'm surprised they haven't been doing this from the start. Honestly I expected Palin to be all over talk radio the week after the convention. Her primary benefit to McCain is rallying the Right and bringing them out in force.

On a related note, it has been interesting to watch McCain's transformation of the last couple of months into a full born Right-wing conservative. Even to the point of attacking what was once his 'base' in the media. The Couric's and Gibson's of the world were, up until late summer, McCain's bread and butter and the main reason he is nominee today.

DH Walker:

Salon can't be censoring me because I'm a ranting kook, because then they would have censored all my other posts on their site. Only a) this post showing the link between one of the holy documents of our country, corporate fascism, and the current frenzy around the Welfare for Wall Street act, and b) a snarky post 4-1/2 months ago showing which of the 613 orthodox Jewish commandments Adolf Hitler cut and pasted to carry out the Holocaust.

Second, what's your gripe against Palin? That she can't cite any Supreme Court cases other than Roe v. Wade, i.e. doesn't know how the Constitution supports civil rights. So why would you call me a ranting kook because I've just showed you how the Declaration of Independence supports one of the most basic of American civil rights, the right to own an affordable shelter? That kind of doublethink on the part of Democrats like (presumably) you is what's going to lose them the election this fall if they don't stop putting lipstick on Republican policies and calling it "Change you can believe i

Brett:

My apologies. After reading your follow-ups, I'm sure convinced that you aren't a kook. Maybe, then, it's the fact that your "post" makes no sense and is waaaaay too long, and (if the threads on Salon you posted to is like this thread) waaaaay off-topic?

Sorry I can't really answer your question about my position re: Palin. I quite frankly have no idea what the hell you're saying. Up the meds and try again?

It's obvious that Palin is a celebrity and needs to be treated with the deference and shallowness that a celebrity is owed. She can only handle leading questions. If you notice Hewett's questions contain almost all of the answer and need only a "yes" or "no" to complete. Therefore, no pop quiz...that's the problem with liberal media elites, they expect you to come up with the whole answer on your own!!!

Phoebes:

This is a job for Hilzoy, I think. The injustice I am railing against is by Salon -- they hypocritically killed a fine liberal post for no good reason, and because I've been beat so far into poverty by my fellow Seattle Democrats, I don't have the resources to get one of these blog thingiess to go rant on my own private virtual street corner about it. So I'm asking the new management here at Political Animal, connoisseurs of mind-numbing hypocrisy that they are, to investigate and report back. That's what I want. If you send them an email to that effect, then I will be in your debt and perfectly happy. Thanks again.

...because I've been beat so far into poverty by my fellow Seattle Democrats, I don't have the resources to get one of these blog thingiess to go rant on my own private virtual street corner about it.

You do know that Blogspot is free, right? You can even set it up from a computer at the public library if you don't have a computer of your own.

Colonpowwow:

You're calling my 11 year old robo-update of Jefferson's pride and joy for the corporate mad scientists who've given us the last seven years of Nazi fun an unoriginal waste of cyberspace? I guess that answers the question I had about your clever nickname: Homophobic? Homoeuphoric? Shit-for-brains? Go-to man at the UN for the Iraqi Anschluss? Cheney in a suit? Gotta be the last.

DH Walker:

“Up the meds and try again”? Next thing you’ll be telling me is that you’re the airhead who was responsible for the donut hole and other assorted welfare perks to the Pharmaceutical Lobby in the Medicaid Prescription Drug Bill Adolf Bushler passed. Thanks for taking back the insult about me being a kook, though.

And to the both of you, I pointed out very early in my post that I, too, thought my post was a waste of space...in reference to Benen’s post on this site. It was quite relevant to Shapiro’s article on Salon. So do me a favor both of you and complain to Steve Benen -- see if he thinks equal housing rights (as opposed to Shyster, Inc. housing slavery) for Blue Collar Democrats is as much of a kooky wasted-space idea as the rest of you and your NIMBY upper class Bobo cartoon pals seem to think.

Political Animal Management:

Thank you (at least until you delete my posts) for once again being my Letters to the Editor page of last resort.

"On a related note, it has been interesting to watch McCain's transformation of the last couple of months into a full born Right-wing conservative."

Yeah. I expected that after getting the sewing up the Republican nomination, McCain would try to sell himself as a centrist, which would be fairly easy to do because his public image doesn't reflect his voting record. Instead, he is still trying to appeal to the Republican base. Palin's interview with Hugh Hewitt fits that mold; the Republican base will like it but I can't see it doing anything to erase doubts about Palin's readiness to take over the Presidency if something should happen to McCain.

This is actually great news. The fact that McCain and Palin are now running against the media, instead of Obama, proves they know they've lost and are just trying to drive up the wingnut turnout to minimize Congressional losses.

Mnemosyne:

"You do know that Blogspot is free, right? You can even set it up from a computer at the public library if you don't have a computer of your own."

I've learned more Greek mythology looking up people's nicknames on this topic than since the 5th grade. Do you know what my name means in German? "Count Blockhead". Literally. Perfectly fitting for a man who's grown up to be the Homeless Count. It's what Jean Godden, one of the fine Vichycratic Nine on the Seattle Council, used to call an "aptonym" in her previous days as perfectly decent newspaper columnist.

So Blogspot is free and you don't even need a computer for it? It appears my 15 minutes of fame are up. Thanks for the memories and send me what you think I owe you at my mailing address. Some day I might even pay you.

Oops, I forgot to enter my name on the post at 6:59 PM.

Brett - Coming from you - Oooh, ouch!

Circle the wagons, solidify the base, give Pailin' a soft landing, and save the loony tunes from the horror of watching the personification of their brittle mythology shatter and helplessly crumble before their eyes, taking their vapid, tissue paper raisons d'etre down with her. The Peter Principle gauged to "room level IQ" is now the rule of modern American corporate/religious totalitarianism, d'oh, I mean fascism - damn! this time for sure - conservatism.

I was raised in a conservative Republican household, and have been a recovering Republican for more than a quarter of a century. I joined the Democratic party back in the 80s.

In the late 60s and early 70s, in my salad days, I dated several conservative Republicans. Then I got married to a liberal Democrat, and though it took a while, saw the light. I'm not an authoritarian and am in fact, a radical egalitarian.

Divorced now. One of my old BFs contacted me a few years back and we have periodic phone conversations and occasional meetings, he being in Phoenix and me in Tucson. We usually avoid talking about politics because we disagree.

I called him a couple of weeks ago to wish him a happy birthday and he brought up politics. He kept saying things like we Dems/liberals are all a bunch of socialists and therefore communists. This right away diminishes his credibility.

He also kept talking about the experience factor, claiming that Palin has more relevant experience than Obama and totally dissing Obama's community organizer experience. He repeated a number of other talking points.

But the biggest thing for him is taxes. He's convinced that Obama will raise his taxes. He demanded that I provide the name of a single liberal who hasn't raised taxes, which I couldn't do off the top. Unfortunately, I had lost my temper by that time, and didn't stop to think and say that Obama has said that he wouldn't raise his taxes unless he makes over 250K. Since, despite his con/Rep beliefs, he accepts the help of AHCCCS (pronounced access), Arizona's answer to Medicaid, he clearly doesn't make anywhere remotely close to 250K. I also wasn't thinking clearly enough at that point to tell him that I didn't accept his entire premise on taxes; that sometimes taxes have to be raised, and that Papa Bush and Reagan both did.

But what really disturbed me about the conversation was that this man, otherwise intelligent, is so woefully misinformed. His entire belief system is based upon old talking points, like those in Orrin Hatch's letter. My experience with talking with conservative Republicans these days is that they are all in this boat.

in the immortal words of bugs bunny, "what a maroon!"

Hugh Hewitt:

Sarah, do you prefer your moose burgers with ketchup or mustard