Unworthy of a Response

'Criticism has its place, of course. And yet, on Palin I've come to favor a different approach—one that refuses to collude with the media-driven farce. To respond to an opponent, even harshly, even rudely, is to accord her a certain respect—to treat her as worthy of a response. But Palin is worthy of no such thing. She stands for nothing beyond her own self-promotion. She craves attention, and negative attention is a form of attention. Even ridicule can be a form of flattery. Better to bow out, to decline the provocation, since responding to her perpetuates and legitimates the illusion that she’s a serious player in our nation’s politics. I, for one, refuse to play that silly little game. And I wish more of her critics felt the same way. Instead of wasting their analytical and polemical talents on the topic, they could work to change the subject to something more substantive and deny Palin what she most greedily craves: the spotlight.'
--Damon Linker, in a recent article in The New Republic. You can review earlier mentions of the hollow Palin phenomenon here. Elsewhere on the lunatic right wing, former Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan has officially jumped the shark, arguing--or perhaps I shoud say "arguing"--that by deciding to try a terrorist in court, Obama is betting his presidency. Time for your meds, Pat.

Monday Stuff

Greider the Great. Veteran journalist Bill Greider may have discontinued his blog since I last enthused about him five years ago, but he's still telling it like it is. Are you listening, America?

Wickedly Funny & Wickedly True. Check out these brilliant animated editorial cartoons from Ann Telnaes. Despite having earned a Pulitzer some years ago, she's not terribly well-known. But judging by this brilliant stuff (I especially loved the Sarah Palin wind-up doll and the Dick Cheney cartoons) she should be.

Science Fans, Take Note: Wired Magazine announces its top ten amazing physics videos. Pay attention, you arts & sciences and humanities majors. Though you apparently sometimes seem to think it's fashionable to look down your noses at science and technology "nerds," a truly enlightened and educated person should be able to appreciate great science like they appreciate great art, since achieving greatness in either realm requires roughly equal amounts of genius, insight, perspiration and inspiration. We may not think we know (or can ever know) much about physics, but let's at least try, shall we?

A Culture of Life, With a Few Qualifications. We loved the Sarah Palin interview the other night with Charlie Gibson. But there was one moment that was particularly revealing, and too little commented upon, we thought. Seconds after she answered a question about abortion, and responded by saying she's just flatly and across the board in favor of "a culture of life," Gibson asked about guns. A nice juxtaposition, we thought. Was she against a ban on assault rifles? he asked. The answer of course was no. Now, I ask you: how can you be for a culture of life when it comes to abortion but not when it comes to heinous street crimes? Do these people ever experience even a little cognitive dissonance in pushing such absurdly self-defeating, inconsistent arguments? Apparently not.

Oh, Great. Cheer up, short folks. While your lack of stature may make it all but impossible for you to become, say, the president of the United States, it also makes you a less likely candidate for prostrate cancer, according to new research. Here's hoping my 6'-2" frame will shrink some in coming years.

Finally, to the Baltimore Sun TV columnist who recently denounced the sainted Bill Moyers as "a political ideologue and a propagandist" rather than a journalist, even likening him to Fox's resident demagogue Bill O'Reilly, I suggest the poor fellow either get a clue or expand his understanding of what constitutes journalism. It means gathering facts and trying to understand the world, and then sharing it with an audience--that's all. Which Moyers does better than all but a handful of people now working in the field. If you don't like his conclusions, tough. But he's 100 times the journalist you'll ever be, Mr. Zurawik. By all means, you continue to take dictation and serve as a careful, politically middle-of-the-road stenographer, if you like. The Moyers of the world will keep probing much deeper and more fearlessly present what they find to be true, no matter whom it might piss off. Hats off to PBS for sticking to its guns on this issue and riding through the tremendous roar of outrage from the right. Nothing less than the soul of American public broadcasting is at stake here.

The Real Reason Palin Stepped Down

I got a good chuckle out of all the feverish speculation a little while back about why right wing poster girl Sarah Palin decided to resign as governor of Alaska. It seemed pretty straightforward to me. All of her reasons--1,070 at latest count, and no doubt rising daily--can be found here.

Our Favorite Headline of the Week

Okay, so it's from last week. Still, we enjoyed Time's relative cheekiness with this headline about Sarah Palin. It shows that the once oh so serious journal of the American Century has finally learned it's okay to occasionally lighten up a little as well.

Rove's Handiwork in McCain Campaign
And the Nauseating
Line of Succession
In Republican Party Slingers of Sleaze

'Ever since the nomination of Sarah Palin, Washington has been abuzz with rumors that Rove has been invited to help plot campaign strategy for McCain. His rise from the ashes is the scariest story of an already scary campaign season. Presidents come and go; they sit in a place where the law can still touch them, and they're subject to the vote once every four years. But Karl Rove is a revolutionary, a man who can't be stopped by anything except death and maybe — maybe — prison. Rove is trying to finish the work of Nixon and Bush: to achieve the supremacy of a peculiarly American form of Leninism, one that involves the drowning of the electoral process in idiot witch hunts and dirty tricks, the handing over of all policy to anyone with a dollar more than the next guy, and the total aggrandizement of incumbent power at the expense of an entire system of checks and balances. With Rove back in the mix, there's now a hell of a lot more at stake this November than there was when a batty, battle-scarred old poll-chaser like John McCain was the darkest figure on the ticket. Not to sound too alarmist, but Election Day now becomes a referendum on democracy itself.'
--Matt Taibbi, writing in the current issue of Rolling Stone. He notes the central irony: that McCain has handed over his campaign strategy to the same slimy folks who only eight years ago slimed him out of the presidential race. Meanwhile, the New York Times takes note of the tarnished but still active Rove legacy. Steve Schmidt, the man who has been leading McCain's campaign into a ditch, is a one-time acolyte of Rove's (Schmidt & Rove absurdly argue he's not a Rove protege, but no one takes that seriously). Even more interesting is the godfather of it all, the first generation of Republican sleaze operatives: the late former Republican party chairman Lee Atwater, who spawned Rove. A devastating documentary of good ole boy Atwater's life is now playing at the Cedar-Lee, and I recommend you go see it. Its appearance on the scene, just a few weeks before the election, is a bit of exquisite timing. As long as you're at it, please consider reading this splendid, recently published Jeffrey Toobin New Yorker profile of Nixon dirty trickster Roger Stone, who also makes an appearance in the documentary. We hope you'll find all of this germane when you step into the voting booth next month.

No, This is Not a Joke

Headline in The Onion

Bristol Palin Sets Up PR Firm. She's 19, by the way. If you're in the market for such senior-level counsel, do give her a call. While we're ordinarily the last ones to rain on anyone's entrepreneurial dreams, and believe that starting as early as possible is generally the right thing to do, this does stretch things a bit.

Useless People and Death Panels

'Lady, if we were getting rid of useless people, you'd be the first to know.'
--comedian Bill Maher on the Jay Leno show this week, addressing the idea propagated by Sarah Palin that the Obama healthcare reform proposal includes the formation of "death panels" overseeing decisions on which patients will live or die. If you're dying to read her new book, word is it'll be out in about six weeks. And Politico reports that she's just as popular as ever with the right wing. Finally, you can review our earlier mention of Maher here.

You Saw it Here First

We got wind of an unusual bipartisan method for blowing off steam from the tough election campaign, and decided to go have a look for ourselves. What we found--Obama and Palin going through a number of remarkably precise dance routines--took us by surprise. So we snapped this picture before the Secret Service hustled us away.

Pardon Us While We Try Not to Lose Our Lunch

Sarah Palin, the leading emblem of the return of the American No Nothing movement (you can learn more about its original flowering here) gave us not one but two reasons to cringe this week: Word that she'll be having a book written in her name about "values" and the news that she's shopping some kind of show about her life and times, which will no doubt fit nicely into the idiot culture. Good god, won't this lady just go away and leave us alone?

Photo & Video Day

It's Sunday, so we don't want you to have to work too hard today. So rather than make you read, you can just look at images today.

We've always gotten a kick out of the silly photos that routinely accompany stories about the stock market's gyrations on any particular day. You know the kind we mean--photos of people looking visibly worried or even shaken when the market plunges, and looking celebratory when it goes up. So we found this gallery of market-reaction photos by the German news mag Der Spiegel especially interesting. Meanwhile, to mark the magazine's 25th anniversary, Vanity Fair brings you their 25 top news photos.

Meanwhile, here are a few videos that we've found interesting recently. Actor Matt Damon thinks the Sarah Palin candidacy "is like a bad Disney movie." You've no doubt heard and read about the infamous "Joe the Plumber," but may not have seen the original videotape of his encounter with Obama. One frustrated and articulate young Northeast Ohioan has a plan to secede from the rest of the state. And in our favorite video of the week (courtesy of our old JCUer friend Ann, whom we thank for flagging it for us), we're encouraged to consider who's acting like a...well, just watch it.