New Republic: 'Is the First Dude the New Hillary?'

The New Republic associate editor, Eve Fairbanks, needs to send a royalty payment to her senior editor, Michelle Cottle. Actually, Fairbanks might as well bypass Cottle and send the payment directly to your humble correspondent since The New Republic senior editor ripped me off when she wrote that the Washington Post compared Todd Palin to Hillary Clinton just a half hour after I made the same suggestion. Since the Washington Post story never mentioned Hillary, where do you think Cottle got her story idea from? The following update to my September 22 blog post explains:

UPDATE:  Your humble correspondent wishes to welcome Michelle Cottle of The New Republic as a fan. As you can see in her recent The Plank blog post  titled, "Todd Palin Is Hillary Clinton," she obviously reads NewsBusters. Here is what she wrote:

So I'm reading the WaPo's front-pager today on Todd Palin, when it hits me: Todd Palin is Hillary Clinton circa 1992.

As the WaPo lays it out, the major criticism leveled at Todd is that he's too involved in his spouse's governing duties but operates without any oversight or accountability. The couple is seen throughout the state's political circles as a team--"Sarah and Todd." Todd sits in on high-level meetings. He's copied on official emails. He offers counsel on a wide range of issues. He travels on state business (often at taxpayer expense). He even unofficially lobbies lawmakers and outside interest groups on matters of importance to him. But because all of this is done under the auspices of his personal rather than professional relationship with Governor Sarah, the good citizens of the state have no real sense what Todd is up to.   

All of this smacks of the two-for-the-price-of-one deal we were offered--and which many people took such exception to--in 1992 with the Clintons. Obviously, the times are different and the gender dynamics are scrambled this time around. But Todd clearly has his fingers in Sarah's bidness as much as--if not more than--Hillary ever did in Bill's. Just something to think about the next time the conservative punditocracy gets all self-righteous about the need to protect the candidates' families from public scrutiny. If anything, it sounds like "Sarah and Todd" could use a little more scrunity. 

Hmm...And where did we read this analogy before? However, Cottle makes the wrong conclusion since Todd was nowhere nearly as involved in governmental affairs as was Hillary.  Oh, and in the future, Ms Cottle, a Hat Tip would be in order just out of courtesy.

So now Fairbanks is copying Cottle who copied me. However, Fairbanks does make one bid for "originality." Her piece is subtitled, "Is the First Dude the new Hillary?" while Cottle's copycat work was titled, "Todd Palin Is Hillary Clinton." And both pieces, based on a certain unaccredited NewsBusters blog, used the same laughable comparison between Todd Palin and Hillary Clinton. Most of Fairbanks' piece is an even more ridiculous comparison between Sarah Palin and Bill Clinton which you can read at length for your comedic entertainment but let us focus in on her Todd/Hillary comparison:

Todd Palin the caregiver dad and snowmobiling--er, snowmachining--champ gives off pretty much the opposite of Hillary Clinton's famed Lady Macbeth vibe. But call around to Juneau legislators and Anchorage political observers and you'll hear grumblings about his shadowy influence, how he was cc'd on official communiques and sometimes attended cabinet meetings. "I don't mean to compare Todd to Hillary, but it's a similar thing," remembers John Bitney, Palin's former legislative director, who, though he still praises the Palins, was fired with an assist from Todd. "He had a network of friends in the bush. [They] would call and say, 'The river's washing away the bank,' and he would pass it on up." Some insiders gossip about how Todd would sidle around the legislators' corridor in the statehouse to lobby lawmakers during gas line negotiations. "I have heard he works the second floor," whispers one statehouse observer. The subpoena an independent prosecutor served Todd last week regarding his role in pressuring the public safety commissioner to sack a state trooper once married to Palin's sister doesn't do much to dispel the odor of Whitewater that clings to Alaska's First Dude.

Fairbanks pretty much kills off her own silly comparison in the first sentence of her paragraph by stating that Todd is basically the opposite of Hillary and her Lady MacBeth vibe but that doesn't deter Fairbanks from sticking to her extremely stretched comparison. As to "friends in the bush" turning to Todd to get some help from the governor's office about a river washing away a bank, I call that good citizenship on Todd's part. Perhaps I should call on Todd so he "can pass it on up," if his wife becomes vice-president, concerning a gripe I have with the utility company about a "free" energy saving program they offer that isn't quite so free unless you hop through a series of bureaucratic hoops. Call it the urban version of complaining about a washed away river bank.

In any event, Eve Fairbanks, who ripped off Michelle Cottle who ripped off yours truly, owes me a royalty payment for her article. Let's see, Eve. How about if you send me a photo of The New Republic senior editor, Jonathan Chait, screaming at his computer screen as I once again quote him with something he wishes he never wrote?

Biden looks as if he’s the product of a laboratory experiment designed to create the world’s worst presidential candidate. 

Send me that photo and I will consider it payment in full for using my analysis that you received via Michelle Cottle. Oh, and never forget that the NewsBusters Eye of Sauron is upon you.