Interesting investigative piece in Vanity Fair about Sarah Palin. What I found most intriguing is that one-time PACs are being set up to sponsor her speaking engagements — which then disappear. Hmmm….
Month: September 2010
Rant
I have to say, I enjoyed this!
I Cannot Tell A Lie
Oh Glenn, we can’t believe you’d mislead us like that!
During his much-ballyhooed “Restoring Honor” rally on Saturday, Glenn Beck told a whopper involving the founding father who was supposedly unable to tell a lie: George Washington.
Speechifying at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, the controversial Fox News host highlighted the legacy of the nation’s first president to drive home his claim that encouraging honesty and integrity was a main aim of the event. Beck even told attendees that “the next George Washington” was “in this crowd. He may be 8 years old, but this is the moment. This is the moment that he dedicates his life, that he sees giants around him. And 25 years from now, he will come not to this stair, but to those stairs. And he can proclaim, ‘I have a new dream.'”
Beck also invoked Washington while describing the inspiring experience of visiting famous tourist destinations around the nation’s capital. “I have been going to Mt. Vernon,” he explained. Holding out his hands for emphasis, he declared with emotion, “I went to the National Archives, and I held the first inaugural address written in his own hand by George Washington.”
It was an eyebrow-raising revelation and certainly an original image: Beck cradling the actual words of the first president. But would the persnickety gatekeepers of the nation’s historical legacy at the National Archives allow some talk show bombthrower to put his mitts on a rare (and fragile) artifact? The answer, it turns out, is no way. Beck was not telling the truth.
Beck did receive a special VIP tour of the archives, arranged by an as-yet unidentified member of Congress. During that tour, he did get a peek inside the “legislative vault,” which isn’t open to ordinary visitors. But Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper insists that Beck didn’t lay a finger on any precious documents, much less George Washington’s inaugural address. That would be a major violation of policy. “Those kinds of treasures are only handled by specially trained archival staff,” she explains. Cooper acknowledges that someone at the archives did show the document to Beck, but that was the extent of it. Regarding Beck’s claim that he held the document, Cooper says that seeing such documents for the first time can be a very emotional experience. “I’m certain it was a figure of speech,” she says.
I can’t believe he would lie to us. I’m so sad!
Tsk, Tsk
The SEC tells Moody’s to stop cooking the books — or the next time, they might prosecute! Ooo, I bet they’re scared now.
Stimulus
Of course we know it wasn’t enough — but it was certainly better than nothing.
And Republicans are furious at data that show its positive effect.
Alan ‘Mr. Burns’ Simpson
It’s not that Obama won’t fire him that infuriates me. It’s that he appointed him in the first place:
If Social Security is “a cow with 310 million tits”then what’s the proper metaphor for veteran’s benefits? We don’t know. But Alan Simpson seems to think they’re too expensive. Or too overused. Or something. Anyway, it’s bad.
“The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess,” said Alan Simpson, co-chair of the White House’s fiscal commission, according to the Associated Press.
Simpson was referring specifically to the disability benefits the Department of Veterans Affairs dispenses to Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.
According to AP, Simpson declined to comment on whether this issue would be examined by the commission. But as TPM has reported, some members of the commission have sought to prioritize cuts to service members and veteran benefits over other defense spending cuts.
Pot, Meet Kettle
Politically minded actor John Cusack has picked a fight with Fox News, and both of them have dealt the “death” card from the bottom of the deck. Cusack started the war of words when he tweeted to his 209,000 followers — in all capital letters no less: “I am for a satanic death cult center at Fox News HQ and outside the offices of Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich — and all the GOP welfare freaks.”
Cusack’s tweet was a response to a follower who asked whether he supported the construction of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque. Cusack does. Vehemently.
Fox News’ response came by way of an article at Foxnews.com by Jo Piazza, who apparently didn’t see much humor in Cusack’s sarcasm. Piazza writes a hard-news article about Cusack’s caustic tweet that even includes experts who warn that his words are dangerous. Says one expert: “His provocative tweets could easily incite a rabid fan to commit violent acts against Fox News Headquarters and others he names.” And another says: “Fans could not only be influenced because of their devotion to Cusack, the man, but also because of their love for one of the characters he plays.” Still another says: “John Cusack is taking his fame too seriously. He is having delusions and his anger toward Fox News may get him arrested!”
The Fox News reporter even goes so far as to suggest that Cusack’s behavior is kind of like that of a … serial killer?” Coincidentally, Cusack has just been signed to play Edgar Allen Poe in ‘The Raven,’ a movie about a serial killer who uses Poe’s stories as inspiration for his killing spree,” writes Piazza.
Man, I don’t even know where to begin. John Cusack, who’s known for saying silly, outrageous stuff on Twitter, makes this provocative comment and Fox News is going to lecture him on… inciting people to violence?
Of course, implying that the president stole the general election with the help of ACORN and is planning to put True Fox Patriots in FEMA camps isn’t inciting people to violence. Nope, not even a little bit!
Hey, Fox News, how about (as they say in AA) you clean up your own side of the street first?