AUDIO: Dennis Miller calls Newsweek Palin cover "sexist", then slams Hillary Clinton

By GottaLaff

Remember when Dennis Miller was funny?



Miller said it was 9/11 that changed him. Did it make him sexist too?

But Miller’s hypocritical comments and Palin’s lack of concern with them, give weight to those who argue that Palin and her conservative followers have a selective perception of social bias.

And the media will give them both a pass on this.

Hyp. O. Crites.

AUDIO- Laffy on the radio: Palin, ACORN, War on Christmas, more

By GottaLaff



If you missed it, I was on the Radio Machine with the absolutely wonderful Angie Coiro (on San Francisco's progressive station Green 960) Friday night, discussing all kinds of topically topical topics.

I now have a regular radio spot with her every Friday night at 6:45 Pacific!

As Angie's special correspondent and demented sidekick Buttercup, I bring her silly stories along with serious ones every week, and whatever else happens to pop up in the week's news.

Palin "Running Shorts" Photographer Breached Contract

By GottaLaff

That photo has caused quite a stir. Here's one more:

Daily Finance reports that the photographer who shot the controversial picture of Sarah Palin in running shorts for Runner's World magazine, violated his contract by reselling them to Newsweek for use on this week's cover.

A spokeswoman for the magazine confirms that the contract "contained a clause stipulating that his photos of Palin would be under embargo for a period of one year following publication -- meaning until August 2010."

Much more here.

Newsweek Defends Palin Cover Photo

By GottaLaff

Earlier I had way too much fun with Sarah Palin's little Facebook rant over this Newsweek cover:

Notice how Sarah and her athletic runner's elbow is leaning on the American flag that is draped rather inappropriately over a bar stool.

Now Newsweek responds:

"We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do," Meacham said, in a statement provided to Huffington Post. "We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard."

Meacham's remarks comes as a rash of conservative commentators and Palin defenders have attacked Newsweek for running its cover picture of a pig-tailed former Alaska Governor, legs glistening, wearing short running shorts and holding two Blackberries. The image previously appeared on the cover of Runners World, which means that Palin had, at one point, been fine with its publication.

That was the point of my previous post, along with a few others. She willingly posed in running shorts (and inexplicably, pantyhose), but complained when the wrong magazine published the same photo. No hypocrisy there.

And what was Newsweek trying to convey?

The cover was meant to convey a larger point -- expanded upon within the magazine -- that the problems the former vice presidential candidate poses for the GOP are, at once, institutional (see the special election in New York's 23rd District), substantive (see the death panels smear) and image-based (the tea party protests that Palin flames).

As Meacham writes in his editor's note: "[Palin's] political celebrity is so powerful that it has reduced a large part of the Republican Party to irrationality and civic incoherence."

Oh sure, fine, swell, that's simply stating the obvious. But let's get down to the nitty gritty.

You can just bet that the male chauvinists who slapped Ms. Piggy Tails' shiny legs on to the equally shiny Newsweek cover are lounging around in manly leather chairs at their manly Men's Club laughing into their manly brandy snifters and through their manly cigar smoke.

Finally, as for the issue of whether the image is sexist, a source at Newsweek relays that the art and photo directors responsible for the cover (which was decided upon last Thursday) are both women.

Palin slams 'sexist' Newsweek cover... but why exactly?

By GottaLaff

The one thing I've always admired about Sarah Palin is that she never so much as once gave the appearance of sexism during the 2008 election campaign.

Not once. Not when she slighted Hillary Clinton by calling her a whiner (see video below). Not when she referred to her lipstickitude to gain political advantage. Not when she winked into the camera. Not when she made rape victims pay for their own rape kits. Oh, and there's this:

And seriously, it's not like she didn't play the sexy girl in those bright red Naughty Monkey shoes during the campaign.

I love a "gal" who practices what she preaches.

From her Facebook blog, because as we all know, she's a real live blogger now... until she quits:

The choice of photo for the cover of this week's Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this "news" magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner's World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness - a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention - even if out of context.

- Sarah Palin

Who was it that willingly posed for that "look at me posing like a fancy pageant walker" photo again? And who is it that is spotlighting that very photo by posting about it, knowing very well the play it would get in the Palin-fan-girl media?

Psst! Barbie! About doing anything to draw attention....

Sidebar: One of her fans posted this comment...

I want you and Michelle backman in the white house

Note the spelling prowess.

For dessert, let's take a step back in time and see what Jon Stewart had to say during the 2008 elections:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Sarah Palin Gender Card
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

H/t: CNN

Joe Scarborough's 'Team' Asks for, Receives Special Treatment from Newsweek

By GottaLaff

Remember back on June 2 when I posted about this?

The frustrating search for an attorney for Michael F. Griffin, the man charged with killing an abortion doctor, ended with his hiring of Clearwater defense lawyer Patrick Doherty. [...]

Doherty agreed to take the Pensacola anti-abortion protester's case after a 3-hour meeting with Griffin and [Joe] Scarborough on Saturday.

Those were the days, weren't they, when nobody paid much attention to the information reflected in that rather startling little Tweet? Well Tee Vee Machine commentator Joan Walsh did.

She just tweeted:

Unfortunately, this Gawker story abt Scarborough/Newsweek rings true to me, & Jon Meacham should be ashamed

Here's the premise of the Gawker story Joan refers to:

Newsweek interviewed MSNBC morning host Joe Scarborough last week, and prominently mentioned when Scarborough defended the murderer of an abortion doctor. That didn't go over well in Scarborough country, so Newsweek editor— and frequent Scarborough guest—Jon Meacham changed it.

Follow the link for more.

National Review mocks Newsweek's Obama Love

Too funny. Via Ben.

BREAKING: A.G. Holder "is seriously considering" a torture investigation.

By GottaLaff

On Rachel Maddow's show right now:

Holder is not at all settled on the White House conclusions about prosecuting CIA (interrogators) officers OR officials.

Holder "is seriously considering" a torture investigation.

Michael Isikoff is reporting. Here's an excerpt from his article in Newsweek:

But the Obama administration is not off the hook. Though administration officials declared that CIA interrogators who followed Justice's legal guidance on torture would not be prosecuted, that does not mean the inquiries are over. Senior Justice Department lawyers and other advisers, who declined to be identified discussing a sensitive subject, say Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. has discussed naming a senior prosecutor or outside counsel to review whether CIA interrogators exceeded legal boundaries--and whether Bush administration officials broke the law by giving the CIA permission to torture in the first place. Some Justice officials are deeply troubled by reports of detainee treatment and believe they may suggest criminal misconduct, these sources say. Even if prosecutions prove too difficult to bring, an outside counsel's report could be made public. For his part, Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is still pushing for a "truth commission." In a democracy, the wheels of justice grind on--and the president, for good reason under the rule of law, does not have the power to stop them.

Read the whole thing here.

Richard Wolffe leaving Newsweek for... Dan Bartlett's PR group

By GottaLaff

Via Wonkette:

Print journalism and punditry are officially dead, because Richard Wolffe killed them. He has quit his job at Newsweek and will go work for Public Strategies, the PR outfit helmed by Dan Bartlett that also employs our beloved sad cowboy Mark McKinnon.

Here's the Wiki on Dan Bartlett, a former Bush counselor.

Newsweek: "The left's anti-Obama"

By GottaLaff

via Politico

H/t: BuzzFlash

UPDATE: The awesome Bob Cesca has more.

Quickie: "Astronomically high approval ratings for Obama"

By GottaLaff

Today's Quickie:

On Hardball just now, Howard Feinman said a new Newsweek poll coming out will show "astronomically high approval ratings for Obama"

That was today's Quickie. Was it good for you?

Bonus Quickie:

From TVNewser: Meet the Press with David Gregory was the most-watched Sunday morning public affairs program for March 1, in Total Viewers and the A25-54 demo. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was a guest on the show.

That one was not good for me. And I won't respect Gregory in the morning.

Newsweek: "We are all socialists now"

By GottaLaff

The librul media:

Socialism...what a word. Princeton defines it as a political theory advocating state ownership of industry or an economic system based on state ownership of capital. According to Robert Fanney:

Socialism, to [Republicans], is helping the poor, ensuring everyone has the opportunity to be educated, providing health-care to those who need it most -- the sick. To them, socialism is building roads, providing funds for needed infrastructure, advancing science. To them, socialism is maintaining an effective system of government because, in some twisted part of their misshapen logic, government is a worthless endeavor and doesn't have a right to exist.

Sarah Palin defines it as whatever comes out of Barack Obama's mouth.

More from Fanney:

These people seem to abhor the term middle class, for they do not see themselves as part of it and only think to some future where they are rich and powerful -- a future that is rapidly receding due to their failed policies.

By their very definition, the policies that solved the Great Depression and won the second World War were socialist. By their definition, the policies that helped Europe rebuild and that established a vast American economic wealth in the 1950s were socialist. In fact, by their own definition, this great country has been living a socialist life for the past seventy years.

Honestly, these people are clearly insane, for they have bent reality to shape their own twisted illogic. In psychology, we would call that schizophrenia. But when schizophrenia invades a political movement, as it has with the right on so many critical issues, what would be a mental illness that is a danger to the individual is now a socially accepted madness that puts at threat the underpinnings of civilization.

And now President Obama has the gargantuan task of trying to communicate rationally to the irrational, and attain a positive result. It's not unlike pitting Thom Hartmann against Michele Bachmann.

Mullen: Afghanistan is no Vietnam

By GottaLaff

Last night I posted about the Newsweek cover above. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, disagrees with their characterization:

The top U.S. military officer cautioned Monday against comparing the Pentagon's renewed focus on Afghanistan to the Vietnam War, citing terrorism and a non-occupation strategy as "dramatic differences" between the two conflicts.

"Afghanistan is much more complex," said Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He added: "I certainly recognize - and having been in Vietnam myself - that there are those who make comparisons. I would be pretty careful about that though, for lots of reasons."

If it's anyone's war, it's Bush's. Now President Obama has to deal with the war he he has, to loosely paraphrase some war criminal named, ummm... Dummy? Scummy? Oh yeah: Rummy:

Obama's Viet Nam

By GottaLaff

After eight years of the Bush Doctrine, after six years of war/occupation in Iraq, after eight years of fighting in Afghanistan, and after 12 days of Obama as commander in chief...

...it's being called Obama's Viet Nam.

H/t: Atrios

Little known facts about Rachel Maddow

By GottaLaff

Newsweek has a long piece all about our Rachel, way too much to summarize. Here are a few fun facts, but for substance, go here:

• Rachel Maddow is six feet tall.
• She is "knock on wood" superstitious.
• She is anxious, often lying awake worrying about America's need for improved infrastructure and national security.
• She often has just one large meal at 2 a.m., purchased from street vendors.
• She comes in every day and studies for eight hours.
• She has suffered from cyclical depression since puberty that, she says, you can set your watch by.
• At her lowest points, she loses her sense of smell.
• At seven years old, she hated Ronald Reagan.
• She wanted to be an Olympic athlete until a serious injury dashed her hopes.
• Her 10-year partner, Susan Mikula, is 50.

She is one interesting, accomplished, smart woman.

I found an old photo of Rachel and Susan.
Not the most flattering, but one of the few I could dig up.

Rogue Barbie wouldn't go on stage with GOP Senator Sununu

By GottaLaff

Forget reaching across the aisle, Wardrobe Barbie won't even reach across the stage:

Another reporter asked if he [Steve Schmidt] was happy with "the pick of Palin." He ducked the question. Schmidt was trying, not very hard, to hide his true feelings. He had been compelled to personally take over Palin's debate prep when she seemed unwilling to engage in the drudge work of learning the issues. McCain's advisers had been frustrated when Palin refused to talk to donors because she found it corrupting, and they were furious when they heard rumors that Todd Palin was calling around to Alaska bigwigs telling them to hold their powder until 2012. The day of the third debate, Palin refused to go onstage with New Hampshire GOP Sen. John Sununu and Jeb Bradley, a New Hampshire congressman running for the Senate, because they were pro-choice and because Bradley opposed drilling in Alaska. The McCain campaign ordered her onstage at the next campaign stop, but she refused to acknowledge the two Republican candidates standing behind her. McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin (perhaps once a week when they were not traveling together, estimated one adviser). Aides kept him in the dark about Palin's spending on clothes because they were sure he'd be offended. In his concession speech, McCain praised Palin, but the body language between them onstage was not particularly friendly. (Palin had asked to speak; Schmidt vetoed the request.)

I'm loving this next one:

The ad attacking Obama's former pastor was slick, with much better production values than the crude Reverend Wright videos running on the Internet. But it was too little, too late. When a NEWSWEEK reporter e-mailed a top Obama adviser for reaction, a reply came back reading simply: ZZZZZ.

Gramm-pa McCain has the worst judgment imaginable. The right candidate won.

Understatement.

UPDATE: The denials begin.

Newsweek goes behind the scenes: McCain In The Dark, Obama Threats, And More

By GottaLaff

Paddy covered Palin's little shopping spree, but here's a recap of what Newsweek will be reporting on in a Special Election Project, which allowed reporters to gather behind-the-scenes information on the presidential campaigns with an agreement that none of their reporting would be published until after Election Day:

-- McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign and aides kept him in the dark about the details of her spending on clothes because they were sure he would be offended. Palin asked to speak along with McCain at his Arizona concession speech but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.

-- The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and very disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that the crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied. Michelle Obama was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. "Why would they try to make people hate us?" Michelle Obama said to a top campaign aide.

-- On the Sunday night before the last debate, McCain's core group of advisers--Steve Schmidt, Rick Davis, adman Fred Davis, strategist Greg Strimple, pollster Bill McInturff and strategy director Sarah Simmons -- met to decide whether or not to tell McCain that the race was effectively over, that he no longer had a chance to win. The consensus in the room was no, not yet, not while he still had "a pulse."

-- The Obama campaign's "New Media" experts created a computer program that would allow a "flusher"--the term for a volunteer who rounds up nonvoters on Election Day--to know exactly who had, and had not, voted in real time. They dubbed it Project Houdini, because of the way names disappear off the list instantly once people are identified as they wait in line at their local polling station.

-- Palin launched her attack on Obama's association with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber, before the campaign had finalized a plan to raise the issue. McCain's advisers were working on a strategy that they hoped to unveil the following week, but McCain had not signed off on it, and top adviser Mark Salter was resisting.

-- McCain also was reluctant to use Obama's incendiary pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright as a campaign issue. He had set firm boundaries: no Jeremiah Wright; no attacking Michelle Obama; no attacking Obama for not serving in the military. McCain balked at an ad using images of children that suggested that Obama might not protect them from terrorism; Schmidt vetoed ads suggesting that Obama was soft on crime (no Willie Hortons); and before word even got to McCain, Schmidt and Salter scuttled a "celebrity" ad of Obama dancing with talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres (the sight of a black man dancing with a lesbian was deemed too provocative).

-- Obama was never inclined to choose Sen. Hillary Clinton as his running mate, not so much because she had been his sometime bitter rival on the campaign trail, but because of her husband. Still, as Hillary's name came up in veep discussions, and Obama's advisers gave all the reasons why she should be kept off the ticket, Obama would stop and ask, "Are we sure?" He needed to be convinced one more time that the Clintons would do more harm than good. McCain, on the other hand, was relieved to face Biden as the veep choice, and not Hillary Clinton, whom the McCain camp had truly feared.

-- McCain was dumbfounded when Congressman John Lewis, a civil-rights hero, issued a press release comparing McCain with former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, a segregationist infamous for stirring racial fears. McCain had devoted a chapter to Lewis in one of his books, "Why Courage Matters" and had so admired Lewis that he had once taken his children to meet him.

-- The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for the Democratic primary debates, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me ... answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."[Laffy Note: Paddy posted this part here]

The Newsweek report also includes news about a cyber attack from an "unknown entity" that hit the presidential campaigns' computers in the summer, prompting an FBI investigation.

You can read a summary of their report here, and the first chapter of their book here.

H/t: SharonAustinTX

Obama Quote of the Day

Man, I may have to pick up a copy of that Newsweek special edition.

"Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house."

-- Sen. Barack Obama, quoted in Newsweek's special election issue, during debate preparations on how he wanted to answer if Brian Williams asked him, "What's a personal thing that you've done that's green."

Quote-O'-The-Day: IWRC* Palin's blackheads, pores, and moustache edition

By GottaLaff

Quote-O'-the-Day:

If you look at the Newsweek cover, not online, not on TV, you see all kinds of embarrassing facial features: Blackheads, pores and a moustache.
--Andrea Tantaros, conservative talking head on Larry King Live, re: IWRC*'s Big Magazine Cover

Okay, ew.

And yes, this is what they talked about on Larry King for a good 10 minutes just now. It's an actual controversy. Newsweek, per Andrea, "sharpened" the photo in order to make it look unflattering. She went on to say that they should do the same with Obama, and reveal his "razor burn and nose hairs".

No, I'm not kidding.

*"In What Respect, Charlie?"