P.J. Gladnick's blog

(Check the update at the bottom of this story. Bristol may have accidentally tipped us off as to the intentions of her mother.)

You know what a true insult from comedian Don Rickles would be? It would be if you appeared on a stage with Rickles and did NOT receive an "insult" from the "Merchant of Venom."

However, many media websites seem to be unaware of Rickles' stock in trade. They are crowing over the fact that they believe Don Rickles delivered serious insults to Bristol and Sarah Palin during a visit of the former to the Tonight Show last Thursday where the comedian was one of the guests. As you can see in this video (and below the fold), Rickles "insults" were relatively mild compared to the zingers he directed towards President Ronald Reagan on stage during his second inauguration in 1985. And the reaction from The Gipper was sheer delight at the "insults."

Yet here we have such sites as Raw Story and andPOP taking the Rickles insults as if they were some sort of serious political commentary.  Raw Story leads off with a headline that could also describe a Rickles encounter with anybody on a stage: "Don Rickles makes fun of Bristol Palin to her face."

"Why can you not get this deal?"

That was the attitude of CNN's Candy Crowley on yesterday's State of the Union. She acted like if only the Republicans were "reasonable" and accepted some "revenue" enhancements, then a deficit deal could be cut. House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy set her straight on why the deal as presented was unacceptable. Oh, Candy tried and tried to make a deficit deal agreement seem reasonable but McCarthy kept knocking her assertions out of the ball park as you can see in the interview video below the fold. Candy led off by accusing House Speaker John Boehner of engaging in a "bargaining ploy" instead of serious negotiation. McCarthy hit that accusation out of the ballpark while simultaneously stressing the sad state of the current unemployment situation in this country:

"HERETIC!!!"

That is what leftwingers will be screaming at their computer monitors when they read The New Republic article by Ruy Teixeira in which he praises President Barack Obama for agreeing to extend the Bush tax cuts which are so hated by liberals. Even worse, he claims that the Bush tax cuts extension will improve the economy to the extent that they could improve Obama's re-election chances. Well, there are a lot of other factors at play which will serve to keep the economy in its current doldrums but what Teixeira specifically says about the Bush tax cuts are enough to send liberal blood pressures through the roof over his "heresy." Here a few "heretical" tidbits from Teixeira:

...Far from dividing Obama's coalition, the tax-cut deal is brilliant move that could cement it, in the process winning back some of the white working-class voters who deserted the Democrats in 2010. That's because Democrats' devastating defeat in the midterm elections resulted primarily from the weak economy and the government’s perceived failure to improve it, not from any lack of resoluteness in upholding liberal principles or applying liberal rhetoric. Therefore, the central task for the Obama administration after the election was—and is—to improve the economy by any means necessary.

The sounds of the slaps you hear are those of the DUers at the Democratic Underground and the Kossacks at the Daily Kos slapping themselves silly for ever believing Anthony Weiner's very obvious lies. The only thing that makes them angrier than their gullibility being publicly exposed is the fact that Weiner apologized to Andrew Breitbart. That really drove them over the edge and contributed greatly to their sudden disillusionment with the New York congressman.

To get a handle on the unbelievable extent of their gullibility, we need to take a short trip down memory lane to just over a week ago to May 29 when the DUers were completly buying into the assertion in the title of their thread, "Anthony Weiner: Hackers posted lewd photos on Twitter." A few choice tidbits of their outrage over the belief that it was Weiner who was hacked:

I knew those monsters would go after Weiner. They always attack the best of us. Psychopaths always attack your strengths. Grrrrr

They messed with the wrong person this time. Anthony Weiner is not going to be silent while they go after him. This could actually be a good thing.

Didn't Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy get the word? Barack Obama's re-election is all but guaranteed if you believe the liberal mainstream media. Just today the CNBC head of news reported the belief that Obama's re-election would be guaranteed by the actions of the Fed. So why the concern about the health of Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer? Could it be that Kennedy doesn't quite (GASP!) believe in the political invincibility of the Lightworker?

Apparently such "heretical" thoughts must have occurred to Professor Kennedy judging by his New Republic article in which he urges the two aging justices to retire now because of the inference that they could die during a Republican administration elected next year and be replaced by (EEK!) conservatives. Of course, Kennedy tries, not too successfully, to be delicate in his suggestion:

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer should soon retire. That would be the responsible thing for them to do. Both have served with distinction on the Supreme Court for a substantial period of time; Ginsburg for almost 18 years, Breyer for 17. Both are unlikely to be able to outlast a two-term Republican presidential administration, should one supersede the Obama administration following the 2012 election. What’s more, both are, well, old: Ginsburg is now 78, the senior sitting justice. Breyer is 72.

Dismal economic growth. 

It's hard to be upbeat about that but since it occurred during a Democrat administration, Reuters does its best to accentuate whatever positive it can find in its report. First the downbeat news as relayed by Reuters reporter Lucia Mutikani:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Economic growth slowed more than expected in the first quarter as higher food and gasoline prices dampened consumer spending, and sent a broad measure of inflation rising at its fastest pace in 2-1/2 years.

And now the first of several Reuters exercises in excuse making:

But the pull back in output, which was also the result of harsh winter weather, a widening trade gap as well as weak government spending, will probably be fleeting given a firming labor market.

The way David Gregory was carrying on during today's Meet The Press, you would have thought that he was irked by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's revelation of only 105 thousand dollars in secret ObamaCare funding instead of the actual astounding 105 BILLION dollars. A clearly irritated David Gregory kept insisting that he only wanted to stick with "narrow budget questions" and acted increasingly frustrated as Bachmann kept returning to the 105 BILLION dollars of hidden ObamaCare funding that he did not want to even briefly talk about.

Here is a portion of the interview of a clearly upset David Gregory as you can see in this video who obviously did not want to deal in the slightest with Bachmann's revelation which would have been major news to the viewing public as well as a more detailed transcript below the fold:

REP. MICHELE BACHMANN: ...There was a Congressional Research Service report that just was issued in February, and we discovered that secretly, unbeknownst to members of Congress, over $105 billion was hidden in the Obamacare legislation to fund the implementation of Obamacare. This is something that wasn't known. This money was broken up, hidden in various parts of the bills. And we have worked very hard to discover $61 billion in cuts that we could put forward, get to the president. So, in effect, David, we've taken one step forward and two steps back because we've found now that $105 billion had already been implemented.

MR. GREGORY: All right. But that--but, Congresswoman, you heard the president this week offer...

Remember No Labels?

You can be forgiven if you have completely forgotten about that organization since it appears to have died at birth despite the hype given to it back in December by several in the mainstream media including Washington Post Reporter Philip Rucker who wrote this plug for the organization that is notable for its almost instant fade from national consciousness:

It will form a political action committee to help defend moderate candidates of both parties against attack from the far right and the far left, said John Avlon, a founding member and one-time speechwriter for former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R). "There's this idea that somehow walking in lock step with a party is courageous," Avlon said. "I think it's conformity. . . . That's the opposite of courageous. It's cowardly."

Since then there has been almost zero news relating to No Labels. Ironically the only tiny bit of news that seeped out from No Labels was the controversy over its label since the artwork was apparently lifted (polite word for "stolen") from the label of another organization. Other than that very minor controversy, No Labels has elicited a collective yawn from anybody who noticed...and most people didn't even know they existed in the first place.

And now, as if confirming it's own irrelevance, No Labels has issued this press release which has been completely ignored by the media, including even Philip Rucker:

WOO! HOO!

Break out the victory champagne!

Anderson Cooper has "surged" in the cable news ratings to an "amazing" 16th place. Why, he even beat out the ratings caboose of MSNBC known as Ed Schultz. The way the Huffington Post carried on with thick helpings of hype, you would have thought that Cooper had just beaten Fox News' top rated Bill O'Reilly instead of the dismal Ed Show. A very hopeful Huffington Post begins its article by posing this question:

I am not now nor have I ever been Glenn Beck.

Please, please believe me!

I am NOT Glenn Beck!

Such was the tone of the unintentionally hilarious article in The New Republic by contributing editor John McWhorter. Apparently his "thought crime" in the eyes of Jim Sleeper writing in Talking Points Memo was agreeing with Glenn Beck on the social toxicity of Frances Fox Piven:

Palm Beach Post columnist Jose Lambiet (photo) is so desperate to defend the indefensible that he is now basically telling his readers that what they saw they didn't see. In this case, Lambiet is claiming that his column wasn't political even though that is exactly what it was from playing the class resentment card against the parents of  neurosurgeon Michael Lemole who treated Represenstative Gabrielle Giffords  by revealing the value of their homes to snarking about how they contributed to Tea Party candidates.

Here is Lambiet now protesting that his politically charged column wasn't political:

Michael Lemole is a neurosurgeon who has been treating Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. However, that noble work wasn't enough to keep Palm Beach Post Page 2 Live columnist Jose Lambiet (photo) from dragging his parents through the mud for the "high crime" of supporting Tea Party candidates. Somehow Lambiet thinks it ironic that while the son has worked to save the life of Giffords, his parents are associated with a group that Lambiet absurdly claims provided "fertile ground" for the likes of Jared Loughner. Lambiet kicks off his odious column by snarking about how wealthy Lemole's parents appear to be:

Of all the utter hypocrisy currently being displayed by many of those on the left over the tragic Arizona shooting, it would be hard to exceed that of the notorious fraudster of the Democratic Underground best known to the outside world as the perpetrator of the 2006 Karl Rove indictment hoax.. William Rivers Pitt of TruthOut, with enormous chip on his shoulder, has climbed up on his DU soap box and self-righteously pointed his finger of blame directly at conservatives. Ironically, although Pitt blames conservatives for supposed political violence that led to the tragedy in Arizona, it is that same man recently chronicled here in NewsBusters for being caught in an act of plagiarism who himself has a history of posting violent fantasies on the Web. Just weeks prior to posting his "THE WRATH OF FOOLS: An Open Letter To the Far Right," Pitt posted these Hateful Days violent fantasies:

There is a great deal of hate in my heart today. . . . The hate is a free-flowing thing, expanding in all directions. . . . Sarah Palin. . . . George H. W. Bush. . . . makes me want to give up on this tepid reporting job and take up firebombing. . . . Yes, I hate, with depth and passion, and have much cause to do so.

Although your humble correspondent has crossed swords (nanny note: "crossed swords" is strictly a metaphor) with the senior editor of the The New Republic in the past, he highly recommends Jonathan Chait's latest article in The New Republic, "The Arizona Shooting Is Not A Product Of Right-Wing Rage," as required reading for those members of the mainstream media who have blamed the "right-wing" for the shootings of Congresswoman Gabrille Giffords and others in Arizona on Saturday.

Despite the fact that most of Chait's article displayed some refreshing mental clarity I do have some caveats about it because he does revert to slamming conservatives for supposed extremism on other matters. However, those problems with the article aside for the moment, let us first take a look at Chait correctly chastising those quick to blame "right-wingers" for the Arizona shootings:

Call it Coffee Party Redux. Before quickly fizzling out the Coffee Party received extreme media hype shorty after its birth last year and now its latter incarnation, No Labels is the recipient of the same kind of treatment in the mainstream media.  The similarities don't stop there.  Nice Deb at NewsRealBlog has listed the No Labels Declaration and the Coffee Party Mission Statement side by side and as you can see they are virtually identical in their feel good vagueness:

It appears that President Obama is about to approve the extension of the Bush tax cuts and this has sent liberals into a frenzy. How to explain it? Well, Frank Rich of the New York Times has a very creative explanation: a weak Barack Obama has been spiritually kidnapped by Republicans and is now suffering from Stockholm Syndrome which allows him to sympathize with his captors. Here is Rich explaining it in "All the President's Captors" at his entertaining best:

It seems that whenever you hear about a "rightwing" hate crime nowadays, it turns out the the perpetrator turns out to be a leftwinger...much to the disappointment of liberals who continue to maintain the fiction about a violent Tea Party movement. And the latest case of a violent "rightwinger" who turns out to really be a leftwinger comes from my own county of Broward here in South Florida. With my condolences to the left who have been "robbed" of yet another example of supposed Tea Party "hate crime," here is a report on the arrest of the suspect by Bob Norman of the Broward Palm Beach New Times:

The woman charged by the FBI with making a threat that led to the lockdown of more than 300 Broward County schools after hearing the words of right-wing talker Joyce Kaufman isn't a member of the Tea Party -- she's a member of the Green Party.

Eleanor Clint doesn't exactly say that President Barack Obama is completely clueless about politics but she comes pretty close to it in her latest Newsweek column. The lack of a basic ability to control the political agenda in Washington is a prospect that makes a committed liberal like Clift somewhat less than happy:

Obama’s storied political career took him from the relative obscurity of the Illinois State Legislature to the presidency in such a short time that he didn’t get much of a feel for the nitty-gritty politicking that consumes so much of today’s partisan bickering. He didn’t have the benefit of getting beaten badly at the state level, like Clinton was in Arkansas, and having to learn how to reinvent himself.

Would you seek advice on how to save your marriage from John Edwards? Or how about a teenage girl turning to Paris Hilton for suggestions on how to maintain her purity? If you think those ideas seem silly then take a look at what the recently suspended MSNBC Countdown host is claiming in a New York Times Q&A interview conducted by Deborah Solomon. Keith Olbermann is asserting that Vice President Joe Biden asked him for anger management advice. I kid you not. Here is the perpetually outraged Olbermann making his claim:

Is it fair to describe you as the first left winger to express anger as a television host? Fury used to be the province of right wingers, until that day in 2006 when you delivered a tirade against Donald Rumsfeld.

I once had a conversation with the man who is now the vice president when he was still in the Senate, who asked me for advice about how to turn anger into righteous inspiration.

Joe Biden took you to lunch to ask you for tips on getting angry?

He said, ‘‘I just come across like I’m angry and out of control, and you seem to focus it and make it look useful and expressive.’’

So just how good a speaker is the new senator-elect from Florida, Marco Rubio? Conservatives are rightly highly impressed with Rubio's oratory, especially his election night victory speech. However, even liberals are giving high marks to Rubio's speaking abilities. John McWhorter of The New Republic even commits liberal sacrilege by grudgingly admitting (after slamming the speeches of other conservatives) that Rubio is a better speaker than Obama. Of course, this also scares him as well:

Marco Rubio, in his victory speech, was the exception, and showed as he often has why he is the Tea Party’s real secret weapon. Starting out with gushy God talk and closing by stressing that he is a “son of exiles,” Rubio is – let’s face it – a better Obama in his way. His Christianity will always be clear to those who care, and his foreign forebears are ones who fled Communism. At first we were to suppose that Obama’s mongrelism made him “like America,” but the leftist Kenyan business is ripe for the Becks and D’Souzas among us to frame as alien, never mind that Indonesia is a Muslim country. Rubio’s foreignness is more cuddly, immune to Fox News-style demagoguery.

Plus Rubio is a natural talker. No stagy incantations of lines based on things other people said long ago; no giggling; no props; no wandering off topic. He can rub a noun and a verb together, with minimal attendance to notes. As a result, like Bill Clinton, he seems intelligent in a way that Paladino and O’Donnell do not, and approachably human and on the ground in a way that Paul, despite his active mind, cannot.

Call it the Peter Principle 2.0.

Instead of just promoting someone to the level of his incompetence, McClatchy Newspapers has actually promoted failed Miami Herald executive editor, Anders Gyllenhaal, beyond the level of his incompetence. Is your humble correspondent being a bit too harsh in his assessment of Anders Gyllenhaal's capabilities? Allow me to enter into the record the judgement in September of the people who actually worked for him at the Herald:

Last week, several Miami Herald editors and reporters wrote a letter to the paper's management asking it to stop focusing on delivering quick news and return to its roots in well-reported investigative journalism. We're not sure if this is the answer. But we are sure of one thing: the quality of the paper has suffered a lot under the leadership of executive editor Anders Gyllenhaal. Perhaps he understands the Internet and its role in new journalism, but he is clearly having a hard time putting a plan into action.

Indeed the letter circulated internally and signed by most of the paper's top news personnel is a clear sign of dysfunction. Why would such a group of bright people -- including a half dozen Pulitzer Prizer winners -- resort to assembling such a diatribe if the paper were working.

...Gyllenhaal worked in Miami back in the '80s, but he spent years away before returning several years ago. He doesn't get the pulse of this city. Moreover, he's aloof and not well liked in the newsroom. He is the wrong guy to run the paper at this time. So listen up McClatchy: It's time to dump Anders.

An oatmeal cookie!

An oatmeal cookie to the first  reporter who gets around to asking North Carolina Congressman Bob Etheridge (D) why he refused to answer a crucial ObamaCare question during his debate last Saturday with his Republican challenger, Renee  Ellmers. The fact that he refused to answer was amazing. And the fact that the Raleigh News & Observer completely neglected to report the refusal in its story about the debate is even more amazing. Here is a transcript of Etheridge refusing to answer the ObamaCare question with the video clip below the fold:

Renee Ellmers: "Congressman, you said that something will have to give, well the people of district two are going to give, and give, and give, in order to keep this massive healthcare bill in place. Am I correct to assume, and I guess this is a question, you believe the government can handle one sixth (1/6) of the economy better than the free enterprise system? That Americans, North Carolinians can't make those choices and put those things in place better than the government?"

Moderator Kim Genardo: "Rebuttal, or shall we move on?

Congressman Bob Etheridge: "Move on."

Somebody should send a message to the absolutely clueless AFP (Agence France-Presse) news agency: the Coffee Party today is about as signficant a political force as the Prohibition Party. However, in this AFP story by Edouard Guihaire the Coffee Party,  which pretty much died almost at birth, is portrayed as a major political force on a par with the Tea Party. Perhaps Guihaire is new to America and has not woken up to the sad reality of the moribund Coffee Party which even our own liberal mainstream media has given up covering after an initial flurry of hype at the beginning of the year. So here is AFP laughably trying to convince its readers about the incredible political significance of the Whig... I mean Coffee...Party:

WOODBRIDGE, Virginia — A progressive infusion in US politics, the Coffee Party is brewing a strong counter-movement to the ultra-conservative Tea Party, just a week ahead of the US legislative elections.

Born in January in reaction to the bashing President Barack Obama's proposed health care reform was getting in Congress and the media, the Coffee Party first took shape on Facebook.

"It started on my personal Facebook page," said party founder Annabel Park, a small, soft spoken woman with a strong character.

So what was the reaction at the Huffington Post to the admission  by West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin, who is now running for a U.S. Senate seat from that state, that he would now oppose ObamaCare despite his earlier support for that same legislation? Brutal scorn as can be seen in the very title of Huffington Post political writer Sam Stein's article, "Joe Manchin Does 180: I Would Have Voted Against Health Care Reform." Stein, as well as the comments from the Huffington Post readers, are now slamming Manchin for blatant political opportunism on this topic. It's not a pretty sight. First Sam Stein weighs in: