Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

T'ain't much, I'm afraid - it's a holiday weekend and all, and Aunty Flow and I have been busy watching the fireworks anyway. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves very muchly.

A few wee items, but good items. But let's start with a game. Let's play Fantasy vs. Reality with Sarah Palin! Also!

Fantasy (from her July 4th message on Facebook):

First, I want to thank you for your support and hard work on the values we share. Those values led me to the decision my family and I made. Yesterday, my family and I announced a decision that is in Alaska's best interest and it always feels good to do what is right. We have accomplished more during this one term than most governors do in two - and I am proud of the great team that helped to build these wonderful successes.

Reality:

The outgoing governor's press office put together a list of Palin "accomplishments," which is quite thin.

Indeed, some of the points aren't really "accomplishments" at all. "Maintained biologically-sound wildlife management" is not an accomplishment. Turning down a pay raise is not an accomplishment. The list boasts that Palin filled vacancies to state positions, but if that's an accomplishment, her administration has lowered the bar pretty low, since that's one of those basic duties for all governors.

My personal favorite was the list's reference to recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings regarding Alaska -- as if the justices' work counts as one of her own personal "accomplishments."

Uh-oh, reality wins! But thank you for playing, Sarah! You betcha!

You may have noticed she was lying about her "accomplishments." She always lies. It's what she does:

Even the seemingly innocuous interview in Runner's World, with its bizarre, braggadocio boast of her having more endurance than Obama, revealed her penchant for duplicity at every turn: the assertion that an injury she had sustained while jogging in Arizona had been kept top-secret, a contention thoroughly disputed by the inimitable Mudflats.

One of my favorite lies spewed by Palin today in yet another poorly scripted speech was that she campaigned for governor "four years ago...," when she, in fact, ran for governor three years ago and held her position for little more than two-and-half years. It's the little lies she always tells, the twists of truth, the distortions. Four years sounds like nearly a full term; three feels incomplete. So why not just call it four?

You may wonder how such a delusional lying twit has a following. Just remember how many delusional lying twits there are in America. Right now, most of them are busy being delusional over what Sarah's quitting really means:

The right is collectively imploding over Sarah Palin's resignation, and as with any sort of passing there comes a period of grieving. Two major stages in that process are denial and anger, and the always-classy Erick Erickson of RedState is already showing signs of both:

1. Sarah Palin resigned, I think, to spare her family from more attacks. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Sarah Palin is doing this just days after a very nasty Vanity Fair article where folks like Nicolle Wallace and, according to Bill Kristol, McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt (though I’m told Schmidt is not involved), savaged her.

2. Unfortunately, by resigning, I think the left and national media will be emboldened to ritualistically engage in the metaphorical gang raping of conservative politicians, particularly those who are female and have children. They’ll decide savaging Palin’s family drove her from office, so the sky’s the limit on the next conservative with kids.

Finally, Erickson goes flat out delusional, comparing Palin's resignation to Obi Wan Kenobi taking one for the team and sacrificing it all to fight the dark side:

4. I’ve had this running thought all day, perhaps because I was watching it on TV in HD for the first time, that this is kind of like Ben Kenobi letting Darth Vader strike him down. Palin is not going to run in 2012, but by doing this she can now become Barack Obama’s worst nightmare, and help rebuild the opposition to Obama.

Is comparing Palin to Kenobi considered psychosis? I'm pretty sure it is. The man's had a complete break with reality. And now perhaps you understand how such a perfect dumbfuck still manages to have a loyal following.

So, did you see any Teabaggers while you were out? Any of them pathetically trying to pretend they were part of a huge crowd? Did you have a good laugh at their expense?

So we went to Tea Party July 3 in La Canada Flintridge, a suburb about 20 miles from Hollywood in the foothills of the Angeles Crest, at an estate used for weddings and other events. It was, like all Tea Parties, a mix of fed-up-with-tax-folks, anti-Obama-ists, No-New-World-Order organizers, UN haters, anti-immigrationists, and waaaay too much BeDazzled red, white and blue clothing on the 300 attendees.

[snip]

Speeches ranged from “the bread you eat is not bread, it’s a loaf of taxes, from the land the wheat grows on, to the seeds, to the machines to till the ground, taxes are paid. The gasoline that runs the tillers, the machines that that thresh the wheat, taxes are paid on those. The truck that hauls the wheat taxes were paid to buy it, to run it to put gas in it; the driver has a drivers license, which is a form of tax…” Yeah, well whatever, taxes are foundation of a civil society. So we went to the food area to grab a some grilled meat on a heavily taxed bun and mayo-plus starch salad which our $10 admission covered.

The head teabag grill guy, proud in his "We the People" tee shirt barked

Jose, we need more burgers!

There was no please, no thank you. And I wondered about Jose and his family and how they would be affected by all the plans these teabaggers had, and about the other maintenance staff at the estate who were Hispanic, the guys I saw sweeping up and emptying the trash and the whole thing was so effing gross especially because the guy yammering now at the mic was going on about how we are giving jobs to foreigners and outsourcing phone center jobs to “Bangadore.” Fer realz, he said “Bangadore.”

You really see why they love Palin so now, dontcha? She's definitely one of them: ignorant, arrogant, and offensive.

Not much could top Palin for overwhelming stupid, but man, you can always count on the fine fucktards at Faux News to make even the craziest Con pol look soberly sane by comparison:

Via Media Matters, more proof that professional windbag Rush Limbaugh has run out of anything that might even charitably be considered as a legitimate thought. Only the truly brain-dead among his fans will swallow the latest uttering:

While fans the world over mourn the passing of the King of Pop, the King of Talk, Rush Limbaugh, put the death of Michael Jackson this way: He "flourished under Reagan," "languished under Clinton/Bush, and died under Obama." Over on MSNBC, both David Shuster and Chuck Todd poked Limbaugh for his unsavory take on the tragedy, with Todd quipping, "It's always Reagan, right?"

Meanwhile, El Rushbo's pals over at Fox News knew exactly how to interpret the wall-to-wall coverage of Jackson's death. An actual Fox News chyron alleged a "cover-up" because the media were devoting more coverage to Jackson than cap-and-trade legislation. Lord, the fun one could have using this very rationale to pick apart the stories Fox chooses to cover. I guess when you're a hammer, everything is a ... wild conspiracy designed to frighten your audience and fan the flames of their paranoia.

Limbaugh's blamed Obama for so much ridiculous shit I've lost track, and Faux News is always blaming everything on Teh Evul Libruls, but I'll never forget this one. I just never thought they'd actually blame Michael Jackson's death on Obama.

Congratulations, Faux. You've hit a low I didn't even realize could exist on a national news station. Historians are gonna have sooo much fun with this era...