Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Blithering idiot Sarah Palin pardons turkey and then gives an interview while turkeys are being slaughtered right behind her.

Viewer discretion advised.

Sarah Palin held a 3 minute press conference today at the Republican Governors Association meeting. It was…fun.

I know, I know. The election is over. But apparently a wing of the Republican party believes this trainwreck is their future leader. Others don’t. Either way, this trainwreck aims to entertain us for as long as she can.

Has neo-con Bill Kristol ever been right about anything? I mean, seriously. Sarah Palin’s biggest cheerleader is spinning himself silly. Next, he’ll be telling us Palin will be greeted as a liberator and there will be dancing on the streets of Wasilla.

More popcorn please.

Fox News reports, you decide:

Get your popcorn ready. The show is about to begin.

Randy Scheunemann is out of a job:

Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign policy adviser to John McCain, was fired from the Arizona senator’s campaign last week for what one aide called "trashing" the campaign staff, three senior McCain advisers tell CNN.

One of the aides tells CNN that campaign manager Rick Davis fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading "disinformation" about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials.

"He was positioning himself with Palin at the expense of John McCain’s campaign message," said one of the aides.

Senior campaign officials blame Schuenemann specifically for stories about the way Wallace and chief campaign strategist Steve Schmidt mishandled Palin’s rollout — stories that the campaign says threw them off message in the critical final weeks of the campaign.

Another aide said McCain personally was "very disappointed by Randy," who worked for McCain for many years in the Senate.

Scheunemann became close with Palin during her debate prep process.

I am sure if things don’t work out with Sarah Palin, Randy can always get a lobbying gig with the government of Georgia.

Comedy gold.

Newsweek reports, you decide:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

A Palin aide said: "Governor Palin was not directing staffers to put anything on their personal credit cards, and anything that staffers put on their credit cards has been reimbursed, like an expense. Nasty and false accusations following a defeat say more about the person who made them than they do about Governor Palin."

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 Tuesday night, but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.

John McCain was on Saturday Night Live last night. The opening skit featured McCain and Tina Fey as Sarah Palin hawking merchandise on QVC. It was pretty funny stuff, especially when Palin/Fey went rogue. McCain also pitched "McCain Fine Gold" with Cindy McCain demonstrating the merchandise.

A starstruck Sarah Palin is pranked by two Canadian comedians. She thinks she is talking to Nicolas Sarkozy.

Which genius on her staff is screening her calls? Does this mean she is now ready to talk to foreign heads of state without preconditions?

The call is funny, and also a little sad.

Ken Duberstein, President Ronald Reagan’s Chief of Staff, has crossed the aisle and endorsed Barack Obama. He also strongly criticized John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin:

Says former Reagan Chief of Staff and longtime GOP insider Ken Duberstein of John McCain’s VP selection: "Even at McDonalds, you’re interviewed three times before you’re given a job."

It appears that the Palin pick is the "permission" that many Republicans have needed to support Barack Obama. John McCain went for a culture war at the expense of judgment and experience with his Palin pick, and with his pick he lost independents and non-culture warrior Republicans.

Do not underestimate the significance of Ken Duberstein’s endorsement. It is not that a Duberstein endorsement will move votes, it likely will not. But this endorsement represents a more general trend amongst Republicans. There are many Duberstein type Republicans in Northern Virginia, as well as elsewhere, that represent the non-culture warrior wing of the Republican Party. I would expect a fair number of these Republicans to come out and vote for Barack Obama next Tuesday. If that happens, we are likely to see Obama doing better than the 60% he needs in Northern Virginia to carry the state.

If a number of traditional red states flip to Barack Obama next Tuesday, we will look back at John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin as a major contributing factor.

Sarah Palin on the First Amendment:

"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

Is it too much to ask that a person running for a Constitutional office know something about the Constitution?

Sarah Palin, meet the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Note to Sarah: The First Amendment protects the citizen and the press from the government, not the other way around. Also, it does not protect you from criticism when you say stupid things. Further, the kind of protection you appear to be seeking, that is, protection of a government official from criticism by the press is pretty much the norm in fascist regimes.

Of course, the freedom of the press is kind of an alien concept to Sarah Palin. At the beginning of October she said this about the press:

"As we send our young men and women overseas in a war zone to fight for democracy and freedoms, including freedom of the press, we’ve really got to have a mutually beneficial relationship here with those fighting the freedom of the press, and then the press, though not taking advantage and exploiting a situation, perhaps they would want to capture and abuse the privilege. We just want truth, we want fairness, we want balance."

Note to Sarah: Freedom of the press is not a "privilege", it is a right guaranteed under the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

Sarah Palin’s views on the First Amendment and the freedom of the press are, to say the least, troubling - especially so because she is running to become the vice president of the United States.