bustardblog

Can Sarah Learn?

The NY Times reports that Palin calls McCain aides "cruel and mean-spirited."  And of course, she's right.

"It’s immature, it’s unprofessional, and those guys are jerks” - she astutely observes. " Taking things out of context and then [trying] to spread something on national news. It is not fair and not right.” Randy Scheunemann spoke of McCain aides spreading lies.

Although accurate assessments, they will only matter when Palin realizes and admits that these were the people giving her her talking points about Obama; that those who are happy to smear her, are the same ones whose smears about Obama she so forcefully spread.

The Times reports that "Ms. Palin said that her experience made her realize how brutal national politics could be."  When she realizes how brutal, cowardly, and dishonest a campaign she was a part of - then she'll have learned something.

h/t memeorandum

They Shoot Wolves - Don't They?

Max Blumenthal's reporting, of late on Sarah Palin, has been invaluable.  As a pundit, he's awful.  He aspires to membership in that route of wolves we Democrats turn into whenever we win an election.

Today he led the pack in eating our own young - heavily criticizing Obama's selection of Rahm Emanuel. According to Blumenthal, the pick invalidates Barack's claim of post-partisanship. Yes, the problem with Emanuel is that he will fight too hard for Obama and that Republicans don't like him. David Corn  joins in circling the prey, faulting Emanuel for being a  "highly effective partisan,"and  "a guy who gets things done."  Another problem with Emanuel is that he is too much of a centrist. (except when he is being too much of a partisan)  Obama clearly should have picked a purer ideologue - someone along the lines, of say, Ralph Nader, perhaps?

This is not the time for an uncle Ralph. It is the time when we must support and trust President-elect Obama,  or at least give him the benefit of the doubt for 48 hours. It's not like he doesn't have enough challenges in front of him.

Maybe hunting out of helicopters is not such a bad idea?

P.S. Blumenthal likes the idea of Jon Corzine taking charge at Treasury - - every year the governor comes to the dinner held by the Nation Foundation (Blumenthal's employer.) Actually, you can shoot me instead.

h/t memeorandum

Progress

The wondrous watertiger has a photo of the line leading up to our polling place. Separately, she and I pulled the lever for an African-American in an antiquated voting booth at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center on 13th Street. That is where we actually voted. This country has come along way - as a kid, I carried protest signs when my mother took me to demonstrate against the Rialto Movie Theater's policy not to admit "negroes."

The white building in watertiger's photo is not the Center. It is the O'Toole building, and it's about to be torn down and replaced by a thirty story tower. This, and another huge tower to be built a block south, will be as knives in the heart of the Landmarked Greenwich Village Historic District.  Sometime Progress Sucks.  Good-Bye Village, Hello Condo Developers.