Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Scientists need to work on developing a Palin-repellant spray - she's been buzzing around like a particularly dense mosquito trying to position herself for a run in 2012. She's stuck in McCain campaign talking points mode:

There are plenty of reasons to be glad the presidential election is over, but one of my favorites is that we won't have to hear the same tired smears against Barack Obama. By the time 2012 rolls around, his Republican detractors will be attacking him for developments over the next four years, not talking about flag pins, Britney Spears, spreading the wealth, and Bill Ayers.

But some folks apparently aren't quite ready to move on just yet. Consider this exchange between CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Sarah Palin that will air this afternoon:

BLITZER: [D]uring a campaign, every presidential campaign, things are said, it's tough, as you well know, it gets sometimes pretty fierce out there. And during the campaign, you said this, you said: "This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America." And then you went on to say: "Someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he is palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

PALIN: Well, I still am concerned about that association with Bill Ayers. And if anybody still wants to talk about it, I will, because this is an unrepentant domestic terrorist who had campaigned to blow up, to destroy our Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol. That's an association that still bothers me. And I think it's still fair to talk about it.

Palin then went on to say that "now is the time to move on," and that the "chapter is closed."

Now is indeed the time to move on. We can agree on that point. As for the rest... sigh. Same ol' Sarah. Same ol' insanity. If she can't stop contradicting herself within a few sentences, and can't figure out that voters just don't give a rat's ass about who Obama knows, she just needs to shut the fuck up and go back to Alaska. Please.

Maybe she can take Toobz back with her:

Hmm, maybe convicted felon Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) didn't get re-elected last week.

Stevens shocked the political world when the election-night tallies showed him leading Democratic opponent Mark Begich by about 3,000 votes, despite the fact that he'd just been convicted on multiple felony counts and several polls showed him trailing Begich by double-digits.

But now the remaining votes -- about 95,000 of them, including both absentees and provisional ballots, according to the Anchorage Daily News -- are being counted, and it looks like Begich could be pulling ahead after all.

The current count puts Begich ahead of Stevens by three votes -- not three percent, but three raw votes, with nearly 50,000 more ballots to be counted.

It would be nice if Begich managed to defeat a convicted felon. It's just sad that the vote's so close.

Speaking of things that shouldn't be, there are far too many Dems who are so starry-eyed over Joe Lieberman that their judgement's clouded:

This is starting to look like a one-sided fight. Over the last several days, I haven't found any Senate Democrats -- literally, not one -- who has argued that Joe Lieberman should lose his committee chairmanship.
Even not-for-attribution leaks have only referenced a handful of senators "leaning" in one direction or another.

On the other hand, Lieberman seems to have a whip team on his side.

Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) are all involved in the effort [on Lieberman's behalf], according to top Senate Democratic aides. These four senators -- along with other Lieberman allies -- are reaching out to the rest of the Democratic Senate caucus to try to ensure Lieberman survives a secret ballot vote on whether to strip him of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

[snip]

What's more, Newsweek's Howard Fineman told Keith Olbermann last night that even Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who was reportedly very angry about Lieberman's misconduct, is "now saying he's willing to give Lieberman a chance." Fineman added that he thinks Lieberman will get to keep his committee chairmanship.

They're making a mistake they're likely to regret.

Indeed. Lieberman went over to the dark side. The last thing he needs is to hang on to a gavel he never used against Bush just so he can beat Obama to death with it.

Let's put Sarah and Joe into a nice little memento box and move the fuck on, shall we? We have other things to do, like not freak out over every single rumor that comes out around the Obama transition:

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the upcoming Obama administration is not likely to make major changes to the government's
intelligence-gathering operations. For those hoping to see a break with Bush-era intelligence-related scandals, the report was disconcerting, to put it mildly.

As a reminder of why it's best not to invest too much energy on pre-announcement speculation, the Washington Post has a front-page item today pointing in the opposite direction.

The nation's top two intelligence officers expect to be replaced by President-elect Barack Obama early in his administration, according to senior intelligence officials.

A number of influential congressional Democrats oppose keeping Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael V. Hayden in their posts because both have publicly supported controversial Bush administration policies on interrogation and telephone surveillance.

Obama transition officials haven't said much on the subject, but "McConnell and Hayden, both career intelligence professionals, interpret the Obama team not reaching out to them as a sign that they will not
be kept on, intelligence officials said."

I think he's got this one. Which means we can go back to bashing Sarah Palin in the happy knowledge we can wait until there's more solid info to freak the fuck out over Obama's choices.

And don't forget to wear your jammies. Thank you, Rachel Maddow.