Frank Lutz is two things:

1. Wrong. McCain uses a Blackberry all the time.
2. Late. There is no 'our candidate' for the Republican party right now, Frank. The election is over.

* The Cheneys are giving the Bidens a tour this afternoon. Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that one....

Careful, Joe (and Steve).

"He's got 10 million names and our candidate doesn't know how to use this," Luntz said, holding up a BlackBerry in the air.

Wonder who he was talking about. 'cause I'm sure I've heard that McCain *invented* the BlackBerry. It's the stationary 'puters he has trouble with.

But I saw pics of McCain with a BB (?), so supposedly he picked up some kind of savvy however modest. Also, Myerson about Faux was great. I wonder: will they learn from him, or get revenge?

Man, Republicans don't even know what's wrong with their own candidate.

PS: Myerson's critique of Fox could easily be applied to WSJ, especially considering their latest hire as noted in post.

Some horriblly crude neo-con radio talk show host (blonde female?) was just on Chris Mathews agreeing with Rush Limbaugh's comments from earlier today that Barack is already doing damage.

"He is trying more dirty (yes she used that word) tricks to make the economy worse, trying to force his dirty policies on Bush...

Ah, ain't hate talk radio grand? She didn't even have the decency to call him President-Elect.

Indeed she was all pumped up and with gleam in her eye, discussed her delight to have a democrat to now blame things on.

How can Mathews have these losers on (and not confront them when they speak so) right after the likes of a fantastic guest like Thomas Friedman?

It boggles the mind, this 24 hour news cycle...

Like that old Springsteen song: 57 channels and nothing's on..."

"Remember Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to purchase troubled assets as part of the bailout plan? Well, forget it."

Remember how we were lectured constantly by the administration and the complicit media how important it was to pass this crucial supply side program immediately?

Now they don't know what the hell to do with the money except by God they'll find some way to hand it out to the multi-millionaires and billionaires who brought the economy down.

* The Cheneys are giving the Bidens a tour this afternoon. Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that one....

Would that be the bunker or the house?

TARP?

What an insane name.

I say it's time to call it Wealthcare.

Wealthcare, taking care of the wealth of the few at the expense of the many.

How on earth can we just blithely accept how TARP's funds are spent?

Weren't we warned of fire and brimstone raining down on us all if we didn't pass it NOW?

Now it seems the situation has changed....so lets use these obscene billions to cover our asses over here. (oops, I mean assets)

AIG tears up, we quickly infuse 40 or so billion more dollars into the well managed entity.

GM shrieks, screams in it's death throes, but Mr. Paulson stands firm and says we can't use the monies for the car giant.

I'm beginning to think we have been fleeced folks.

This meltdown didn't just materialize out of thin air.

Get rid of the name TARP, call it Wealthcare. We'd at least be honest with ourselves.

I'm glad Paulson isn't buying up the troubled assets. Assets are only worth what someone is willing to pay for them and the market has demonstrated that they are worthless. If the govt wants them, then they will become exorbitantly expensive to us (because they will take advantage of us) and it is throwing money down a hole. Even if the entity survives the assets won't be worth anything. At least putting money into capital buys us a stake in something that may be worth something if the entity survives.

* Right-wing Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) "regrets" his Obama-Hitler comparison, and apologizes to those who "took offense."

Dear Herr Von Broun:

Request denied, you gnat-infested piece of frostbitten tomato. You've impugned the honor of my Commander-in-Chief. You can have dueling sabers, or pistols at twenty paces.

If Cheney invites Biden to go hunting, I hope that he doesn't go.

Speaking of Cheney...saw a photo of him taken yesterday at the Unknown Soldier's tombs and he looked pale, drawn and sickly.

Oh, for heaven's sake, I heard Scarborough utter the dreaded word - "fuck" - on Monday, and I wasn't shocked, offended in any way, and didn't care.

I can't imagine ANYONE in this day and age, who gets up at 5a, caring about the word "fuck".

Grow up.

If Palin is ready to listen to God and PLOW RIGHT through that open door he (she it) shows her, that brings up some questions for me.

First, if Palin believes everything is God's will, I suppose it was God's will she lost and Obama won.

But I suppose she'll also make sure to listen very closely for God to tell her that door is open so she can: "PLOW RIGHT THROUGH".

In fact, something tells me she already hears God telling her the door is open...

PLOW? Why not step? Why not skip? Why not hop through that door?

Hmm...

Oh yeah...Also--

How does one know they've been given such a sign, anyhow? Is it a metal sort of door that opens a crack--like the car door, or a wooden one like the front door in your house--or is it more like a metaphorical door--say like one you are sure you see in a midnight snack piece of bread--you know, in when you look at it from just the right angle in a certain 3:00 am light?

I'm sure Biden and Cheney will have a frank exchange of views.

Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com is now saying that it is "more likely than not" that Begich will beat Ted Stevens. About 30,000 votes were reported today, and the lead for Stevens is now under 1000. Meanwhile, it sounded like Palin thinks Stevens has already won. She told Wolf Blitzer that his fate is now in the hands of the Senate.

I can't imagine ANYONE in this day and age, who gets up at 5a, caring about the word "fuck".
Grow up. Posted by: phoebes in santa fe

Say, pheebs, I don't think anyone here cares much either. However, a while back Scarborough went on and on about decency on television after Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction," as well as obscenity. The point of all this is that, SURPRISE!, Scarborough, like nearly all Rethugs, is a hypocrite.

Hey, why isn't the big drop in raw material (a hint right there) oil price helping the economy more - or is it? They don't talk about it much. Maybe, middlemen keeping most of the difference?

can we get another 10million names for President-elect Obama?

Here's a good case why Obama shouldn't pick Larry Summers for Treasury. And please, put Krugman in there somewhere!

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/106553/

I hope Joe and Jill took an exterminator with them to the Naval Observatory.

If so, Steve, you wouldn't want to be a fly on the wall.

From the STFU department

Palin:

I mean, just talk about — that was the epitome of being the maverick, somebody bold, somebody thinking outside of the box, not going with, no doubt, what a lot of the — more of the conventional wisdom would have dictated, you know, go get somebody who's already on the national scene and perhaps it would be a safer type of pick.

No. He was going to do what he believed was the right thing to do with his pick. And you know, I saw that in his eyes and I respected that. And I said, Absolutely. You are the perfect running mate. I would love to run with you. It was great...

Somebody needs to jam a sock deep into that ignorant piehole.
She is doing for women's liberation, what Dubya did to the Republican party.

"How can Mathews have these losers on ... after ... a fantastic guest like Thomas Friedman?
Posted by: 57 (or 570) channels and nothing's on on November 12, 2008 at 5:55 PM"

you mean thomas "friedman unit" friedman? that "fantastic guest"?

on a different topic, i don't read slate myself but found this interesting tidbit at john scalzi's blog "whatever":

"As Bill Bishop wrote in Slate today, looking at the data from the election and discussing counties where one candidate saw a vote margin of 10% or more, “Republican and Democratic counties were entirely different kinds of places. The average population of an Obama landslide county was 278,601. The average McCain landslide county had 37,475 people.�"

i'm always glad to learn of another obstacle in the path of the christianists

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/11/another-county-heard-from/.

This is a trip, but not surprising:

Advertisers Elect Obama "Marketer of the Year" for 2008

http://www.prwatch.org/node/7926

Just checked www.elections.alaska.gov and as of 3:30 AK time, Begich is up by 3 votes. He's ahead! Not by much, but he's ahead. And no, that's not a type, that's really three votes.

Bill the Cat says "ACK!"

From Balloon Juice: Palin rendered in verse.

They title the piece "Gah!"
But wouldn't, "I should STFU!" work better?

"Right-wing Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) "regrets" his Obama-Hitler comparison, and apologizes to those who 'took offense.' "

He should also apologize FOR those who didn't take offense.

Paulson is another Herbert Hoover.

Paulson won't help Detroit's automakers...that is, the labor unions...but he's willing to throw hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars at fellow members of his corporatist elitist club, like at AIG, whose chief executive has no qualms apparently on blowing taxpayer money on lavish parties for fellow members of his corporatist elitist club.

Paulson will single-handedly drive our nation into a deeper ditch, a deeper recession, if not a depression, before he's done. Idiot.

I have a suggestion about what to do with all that Paulson bailout money that he doesn't know what to do with, after Congress nearly stampeded to stuff it into his pockets, and for which every corporation and small business in America is now begging for:

Let's use it to pay down the increase in debt that the bailout has caused. That is, let's give all this ill considered taxpayer money back to the taxpayers.

Wow, I thought that we were all going to wind up in the street if Paulson wasn't given three-quarters of a trillion dollars to dispose of as he saw fit immediately, immediately, immediately!
Heckuva Job, Hank!

Please. There is only one way to end this obsession with Sarah Palin. And that's to STOP TALKING ABOUT HER!

Everyone of us can contribute to this endeavor, this relief that we so desperately seek - to cast Sarah Palin out of our lives.

And yes, I appreciate the irony, that by this plea I am violating my own edict, so I won't say anything more, except:

Stop talking about Sarah Palin! It's the only way we can rid ourselves of her omnipresence.

Whether it's the WSJ hiring on another one of Murdoch's attack dogs, Coulter foaming at the mouth, or Lush Bimbo talking trash, the defeated right-wing lunatics have decided that what the country needs is more of what they have to offer. Good. The more extreme they become the more obvious it wil be to a growing reality-based world (with its built in liberal bias) how clownish and irrelevant they are. Unfortunately, they will activate the unhinged types into truly dangerous behavior, and that's a real danger.

Harking Hark

Stop talking about Sarah Palin! It's the only way we can rid ourselves of her omnipresence.

Sorry old man. Just couldn't resist some end of the thread facials...
Why? Because I think Benen's title to an earlier post really captured the essence here: Coming To Terms With Dodging A Bullet. Except it wasn't just a bullet. She was a bullet wrapped in loose cannon wrapped in a nuke.

And it is going to take a long time to come to terms with that near disaster. It is truly haunting.

I've said it before I will say it again: Thank God for Andrew Sullivan. He was, and still is, the English-speaking bulldog who refused to let go of this appalling ignorant pitbull. Of course, Steve Benen also has been on this from Day 1 as well. His post from August 29th is destined to be a classic:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_08/014460.php

New Hampshire trivia: its lower house is the third-largest parliamentary body in the English-speaking world. Each rep has something like 3000 constituents. At that level, the US House would have to meet in the University of Michigan football stadium.

Thirty years ago a college classmate of mine ran for it as a project in poli-sci class, won, served, and she only got six credit hours for it.

Some people throw gasoline on a fire.

Hank Paulson throws COLD cash on frozen credit.

I wonder what France did with all of their guillotines?

Kate Morgan, Palin’s communications specialist (not a joke, this is her title), when asked to confirm that Palin will be the featured guest at the Republican Governors Association annual conference to be held later this week in Miami, Florida, says: "She anticipates to go" to the conference.

is it possible that palin's word salad is a communicable disease? her "communications specialist" seems to have caught it:

"Other issues facing the state — what some people consider to be inaccurate — how would I put that — listings of certain Alaskan animals as endangered or what is that second term that they use? They’re at risk? No… That’s not the technical term. Anyway, there’s two listings there specifically dealing with polar bears and there’s also the issue with beluga whales. So there’s different things and the issue there is of course wanting to provide a substantive lifestyle for our first Alaskans here which are the indigenous people and also wanting to protect our environment wanting to be good stewards to that and to take care of the animals that make Alaska. What it is however if they are improperly categorized then that can run snags on other types of development that would benefit not only people of Alaska but the world such as depending on certain kinds of drilling that we do off-shore either or people are in a hurry to list groups of whales as endangered or at risk than that might impede the progress that we’d be making to free or to lighten the the load that America has us obtaining oil from overseas."

http://www.wowowow.com/post/palins-communications-guru-discusses-govs-game-plan-139812

following that official link to Alaska, the numbers right now are even better for Begich 132196 against Stevens' 131382

Can he call himself the winner now? what a bummer for Sarah Palin,she won't be the next corrupt Senator from Alaska after all.

(For not that is)

Majority female Senate in New Hampshire.

Cool.

Within 8 years might we be rid of the "glass ceiling" argument?

Governorships apparently aren't proof enough.

As per my usual method, I searched for the terms I'm about to mention only because I didn't find them. The sermons will continue until awareness of the importance of myths and narratives improves. ;-]

(We Buddhists don't believe in flogging our crews. BAHAHA, can't believe I said that.)

The problem with the Republicans isn't the technology, it's the mythology.

I've read that some Wall Street execs get $35K an hour. How can one person possibly add that much value to the world every hour?

Obviously, it's not about human values, only about how much energy you can sequester, as measured in dollars. The term I was taught for this is "social Darwinism." Greenspan's ideology, his religious belief in the infallibility of mythical free markets, has delivered us into this Waste Land.

Until we experience a collective epiphany, that we are beings, not machines, and start acting like the divine vessels of the divine flow that we are, I see us wandering in this Waste Land forever.

It's neither the economy, nor the technology. It's the mythology! Whence come technics and economics? (BTW, this right here: an alphabet and its language, are techniques, they embody technology; anybody who eschews the T word shouldn't use language to express their moronic opinion, In My Sometimes Moronic Opinion.)

The power of myth is that it shapes the cosmos in which we enact the theater of life. Acting within the same mythos that intended the Newtonian cosmos that grew the social Darwinian psychos who drove us into this catastrophe won't get us any nearer to the Promised Land.