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Sarah Palin continues to delude herself -- or at least, is desperately hoping to continue deluding her fans, which isn't very hard to do -- that she, as the two-year governor of Alaska and former mayor of Wasilla, has more "executive" experience than either Barack Obama or Joe Biden. At least, that was what she tried telling Bill O'Reilly in the second part of her interview shown last night:

O'Reilly: You pointed out his [Obama's] lack of experience -- you don't have that much experience. You walked away from the governorship after, what, two years? Two and a half years?

Palin: Going into my lame-duck session -- my fourth legislative session -- and not wanting to put Alaskans through a lame-duck session --

O'Reilly: OK, but is it fair for you to criticize Obama's lack of experience when somebody could make the same criticism about you on the national stage.

Palin: If you're talking about executive experience, I would put my experience up against his any day of the week. I have been elected to local office since 1992, and was a city manager, strong-mayor form of government, was a chief executive of the state, and was an oil and gas regulator. There was some good experience there that could have been put to use in a vice presidential ticket. We've to remember too that I wasn't running for president.

O'Reilly: No, but that's the key question. Because John McCain is up there in years, you had to be qualified to take that office over.

Palin: Right. But I -- I'm saying I was running for vice president, just like Joe Biden had been running for vice president. I never once heard you or anybody else question Joe Biden and his experience.

O'Reilly: Well, he's got a lot of experience.

That's the whole absurdity of Palin claiming she has more "executive" experience, as though being mayor of a small town places her on the same level of experience as a United States Senator. The issue of experience isn't related to the organizational context, but rather the scale of it: Joe Biden has nearly a half-century of wrestling with national and international issues -- the kind a president has to deal with -- and has an established track record there.

When Palin was Wasilla's mayor (and before that a council member), the issues she was dealing with involved placement of a sewage-treatment plant and deciding whether someone's driveway needed paving. Oh,and let's not forget the vital issue of building a new gym with taxpayer dollars.

But the interview reached its real nadir when Palin tried to explain why voters would want to vote for her. It's possibly the most garbled, incoherent piece of anti-intellectual right-wing populist nonsense I've ever heard:

O'Reilly: Let me be bold and fresh again. Do you believe you are smart enough, and incisive enough, intellectual enough, to handle the most powerful job in the world?

Palin: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the, um, the, ah -- kind of spineless -- a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with elite Ivy League education and -- fact resume that's based on anything but hard work and private-sector, free-enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I'm not saying that that has to be me.

No, it definitely doesn't have to be you, Sarah. Indeed, I think it's safe to say that this level of intellectual incoherence would be a real danger to the country.

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Sarah Palin thinks she's got it covered now in explaining why she did so badly when interviewed by actual journalists in her failed vice-presidential campaign last year. She went on The O'Reilly Factor last night and told BillO that a simple foreign-policy question like Charles Gibson's query about the Bush Doctrine was just a "gotcha technique" by the liberal media (instead of a routine question intended to ascertain her bearings on foreign policy).

And Katie Couric? That was just a reaction to Katie's snotty questions:

O'Reilly: Katie Couric's a different story. Katie Couric asked you an easy question and you booted it, governor.

Palin: I sure did.

[Plays video]

COURIC: What newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?

PALIN: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media —

COURIC: But what ones specifically? I’m curious.

PALIN: Um, all of them ...

O'Reilly: Why did you boot it? I mean, if somebody asks what do you read, I say I read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, I could reel them off in my sleep, you couldn't do it.

Palin: Well, of course I could. Of course I could.

O'Reilly: Well, why didn't you?

Palin: It's ridiculous to suggest that or say I couldn't tell people what I read. Because by that point already, although it was relatively early in that multi-segmented interview with Katie Couric -- it was, it was quite obvious that it was going to be a bit of an annoying interview with a badgering of the questions. It seemed to me that she didn't know anything about Alaska, about my job as governor, about my accomplishments as mayor or governor, my record. And a question like that, though, yeah, I booted it, I screwed up, I should have been more patient and more gracious in my answer, it seemed to me the question was more along the lines of -- Do you read? How do you stay in touch with the real world?

O'Reilly: See, that was your inexperience.

Palin: It was my inexperience with having to deal with a condescending, badgering line of questioning. No -- no reflection at all on my inexperience in terms of administrative record or accomplishments or vision for America.

Pardon me while I call b-llsh-t. "What kinds of things do you read?" is a stock question of the political journalist when querying candidates, particularly those new on the scene. And as you can see from watching the clip that O'Reilly shows, there was nothing high-handed or suggestive of "Do you read?" in Couric's question.

You can watch the longer clip of this portion of the interview here. Palin is not bridling at Couric's arrogance -- she's drawing a blank and reaching for straws.

But in Palinopia, of course, she's just being "human." And I guess that's right, to an extent -- since prevaricating and dodging and making up lame excuses is part of the human condition too. Just not a very attractive or inspiring one.

Ruh roh. It looks like the political soulmates of the 2008 election have lost that lovin' feeling:

In what reads like payback for McCain aides’ disparaging comments about her in the wake of the ticket’s loss to Barack Obama, Ms. Palin depicts the McCain campaign as overscripted, defeatist, disorganized and dunder-headed — slow to shift focus from the Iraq war to the cratering economy, insufficiently tough on Mr. Obama and contradictory in its media strategy. She also claims that the campaign billed her nearly $50,000 for “having been vetted.” The vetting, which was widely criticized in the press as being cursory and rushed, was, she insists, “thorough”: they knew “exactly what they’re getting.”

Some of Ms. Palin’s loudest complaints in this volume are directed at the McCain campaign’s chief strategist, Steve Schmidt. Mr. Schmidt, ironically enough, was one of the aides to most forcefully make the case for putting her on the ticket in the first place, arguing to his boss, as Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson reported in their recent book “The Battle for America,” that she would shake up the race and help him get his “reform mojo back.” Robert Draper reported in The New York Times Magazine that neither Mr. Schmidt nor Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, apparently saw Ms. Palin’s “lack of familiarity with major national or international issues as a serious liability,” and that Mr. McCain, a former Navy pilot, saw the idea of upending the chessboard as a maverick kind of move.

All in all, Ms. Palin emerges from “Going Rogue” as an eager player in the blame game, thoroughly ungrateful toward the McCain campaign for putting her on the national stage. As for the McCain campaign, it often feels like a desperate and cynical operation, willing to make a risky Hail Mary pass in order to try to score a tactical win, instead of making a considered judgment as to who might be genuinely qualified to sit a heartbeat away from the Oval Office

.
I'm not sure that "going rogue" is going to endear Palin to the party elders, from whom she must receive support if she does want to pursue a national office. Unless, of course, her plan is to dump the GOP and run like the Palin-endorsed Doug Hoffmann in NY-23 as a Conservative Party member. But then again, being politically astute was never part of Palin's appeal.

Sour grapes between the Palin and McCain factions aside, Palin's book appears to be a little on the factually-light side. Our friends at Media Matters have been reading through the book (better them than me) and have compiled a very interesting list of moments where Palin has gone rogue from the truth:

Rogue Fact: Palin still falsely claiming stimulus money for energy effiency she vetoed required tougher building codes

Rogue Fact: Palin suggests "no other candidate" subjected to scrutiny "about their hair, makeup, or clothes"

Rogue Fact: Palin misleads on aerial hunting

Rogue Fact: Palin memoir stands by falsehood that Obama opposed "protect[ing] babies born alive after botched abortions"

Rogue Fact: Palin falsely suggests poor "hit hardest" by cap-and-trade

Rogue Fact: In memoir, Palin still distorting NY Times article to defend "palling around with terrorists" claim

Rogue Fact: Palin attacks "Democrat lawmaker" who's actually a Republican

And they keep coming... Check Media Matters for updates.

Max Blumenthal: Sarah Palin, the GOP's blessing and curse.

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I was wondering how Newt Gingrich would react to the crazy teabaggers that attacked him for endorsing Scozzafava: Would he stand by his principles or would he bow down at the altar of Rush Limbaugh?

Here's what what said in his endorsement of Dede Scozzafava:

“The special election for the 23rd Congressional District is an important test leading up to the mid-term 2010 elections,” Gingrich said of Scozzafava's candidacy in a statement to supporters, as reported by the The Post-Standard. “Our best chance to put responsible and principled leaders in Washington starts here, with Dede Scozzafava.”
--
“The Republican Revolution in 1994 started very much like what we see today,” the former speaker said. “Like then, our country is reeling from misguided liberal policies, high taxes and out-of-control spending. This special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District could be the first election of the new Republican Revolution, but we need the momentum to get it started.”

The NRCC said this:

But Gingrich, who served as Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999, wants to unite the party. He sees Scozzafava and the Upstate special election – the only House race in the nation this fall -- as the best hope for Republicans to start a comeback and regain control of Congress.

Gingrich is apparently willing to overlook Scozzafava’s support for same-sex marriage and abortion rights.

The teabaggers, Palin, Limbaugh and Beck were all putting their energy behind a man who wasn't even from the district, Doug Hoffman, and in the end it cost the GOP a seat in a district that hasn't elected a Democratic politician to represent them in over 100 years.

Right before the election, right-wing bloggers attacked Newt for supporting Dede and said they would never support him for President because of it. After Hoffman lost, Rush Limbaugh blamed Newt and the GOP party machine for Hoffman's loss.

What would Newt Gingrich do? Would he stand up for his endorsement and tell the teabagger brigade that to win national elections, the party needs moderates to be included? After all, he's the Big Kahuna. Guess again. In his election night wrapup that he tweeted the day after the election, he repeated Rudy Giuliani's line that Scozzafavva was too liberal to have been the Republican nominee, which is a blatant lie.

In retrospect it is clear Dede Scozzafava should never have been nominated because she was far too liberal to be acceptable.

Republican leaders in New York must recognize that Mike Long and the Conservative Party in that state have to be consulted before decisions are made. The national conservative movement is a force that has to be recognized and respected.

I certainly heard from enough friends to know that my decision to support the unanimous vote of the 11 New York county chairs was very unpopular with conservative activists.

In New York, after two failed special elections, it is clear the state party has to fight to change the election law so there are primaries in special elections. The insider nominating process is simply unacceptable to grassroots populists and guarantees a sense of illegitimacy.

Then, on Sean Hannity's Fox News show last night, he explained in detail why he regretted having supported Scozzafava. It was pretty abject.

Gingrich: I think the nomination was a mistake. I wish that we had gotten involved earlier. And if we had, I would have done everything I could to make sure she had not been picked. And she clearly proved in the last few days that she was in no way a loyal Republican.

Gingrich isn't one to make a snap judgment without knowing the facts, and he knew Dede was moderate on social issues, but to say she's not conservative enough is ridiculous.

If Republicans try to laugh off the notion that Limbaugh is running their party, all the media have to do is look at Newt. He caved to Limbaugh big time.

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The wingnuts were out in force yesterday denouncing that Washington Post/ABC News poll showing strong public support for the public option.

But as Keith Olbermann pointed out last night, there was a lot more data in the poll that should really have them clutching their pearls and fainting:

OLBERMANN: When anti-government protesters targeted President Obama and other Democratic leaders on April 15, the party took a hit. When town halls raged and the Tea Bag crowd hit Washington, the party staggered further. Now, the Tea Bag guys are on the move again. But in our third story tonight, signs that the party getting hurt by the anti-government Tea Bag people is the Republican party.

This week's "Washington Post"/ABC poll found 51 percent of Americans say that in next year's Congressional vote, faced with the generic Democrat versus the generic Republican, they'll vote for the Democrat; 39 percent will vote for the Republican. Only 19 percent have at least a good amount of confidence in Congressional Republicans to make the right decisions, far lower than Democrats or the president, for that matter.

And the number of Americans calling themselves Republicans has fallen to 20 percent -- 20, the lowest since 1983. A closer look shows that number has fallen from 25 percent just since mid-August. That's not a five percent loss for Republicans. Dropping from 25 percent to 20 percent is a loss of a fifth. Meaning since the height of town hall, Palin, Beck, death panel palooza, one out of five Republicans has stopped being Republican.

Republicans stopped at 25 percent back in March too, nine days after Tea Bag nations. Republicans were down to 21 percent. Naturally, Republicans are trying again. That's right, Tea Party Express II launches this weekend, coming to 38 cities, according to its press release, 37 on their website. Oh, well.

Previous Tea Parties so successful, they now have to hold them in such venues as Wichita's Lawrence Piedmont Stadium (ph) parking lot, Fallon (ph) Nevada's old Walmart's parking lot, a high school auditorium in Tri-Cities in Washington, Bozeman, Montana's Heritage Christian School gymnasium, and in Amarillo, Texas, John Stiff Memorial Park, picnic area number four. Seriously, picnic area number four. Don't interrupt the outing in area number three, please.

A dozen cities have no venue listed at all. According to the tour's Facebook page, "192 people are planning to attend these rallies."

In its own press release, a spokesman says about its new video, the web video promoting the tour, quote, "the tone of the ad is upbeat and positive." The name of the upbeat, positive ad is, "Countdown to Judgment Day."

And here's what upbeat and positive sounds like to these people.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you had enough of the out-of-control spending, bailouts, higher taxes, a spiraling national debt and big-government liberalism, then we invite you to join the Tea Party Express rally nearest you. We'll send a message to the politicians. Come election day, we're going to hand you a pink slip and take our country back.

Of course, it was simpler for Sean Hannity to just be in denial, since the poll made a liar out of him the day before when he tried to claim all the polls showed the public hated the public option. So he went on his show last night and said this:

Hannity: The business of this White House is division. And the White House's war against Fox News Channel is the latest evidence that it will throw its principles by the wayside to ensure that everybody falls in line with their agenda. And with the exception of Fox News, the other networks, they're receiving gold stars on their White House report cards.

And the latest case in point is the Washington Post/ABC News poll that shows that 57 percent of Americans support a government health-care takeover, and only 40 percent oppose it.

Now, a closer look at that poll explains why. Now, get this: They polled 13 percent more Democrats than Republicans! That explains a few things!

Of course, if Sean Hannity worked for a real news organization, he would likely know -- or have somebody around to explain to him before committing idiocies like this -- that polls use what they call "sampling" to get accurate results. In this case, they sampled more Democrats than Republicans for a very simple reason: The latest party-identification polling shows a 13-percent difference between Americans who call themselves Democrats and those who (shudderingly) admit to being Republican.

But then, Hannity doesn't work for a real news organization. So of course this kind of propagandistic crap is what we get polluting our teevees. Which, anymore, is the only thing the shrinking ranks of the rabid right have going for them still.

The Seminal: Demint's Sedition: Flying off to fight against the U.S.

unbossed: Beef processors' dirty secrets exposed

Steve Benen: Marine General Jones pushes back against McCain

market folly: The next financial mania

The Cunning Realist: Get a life

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Good journalism...Change?...Beck boycott goes international...Peep Creep Arrested...Branch tells the truth...Letterman, Polanski, Palin and Beck...The Sure Thing...Are search engines killing newspapers?...Ratwang-Dango...Journamalism...Conventional wisdom...Iraq Today...How can these two things both be true?...Iran fail...Is Moonie Times a real newspaper?...For-profit newspapers lose money accidentally...George Will still fulla sh*t..

Mrs. Palin, it MUST be a typo: your publisher's press release says your upcoming book is called "Going Rogue." That can't be true...that's a French word. Whoops, so's "rouge." Oh, whatEVER!

But why did your publisher let us know the title during "Banned Books Week" instead of "Remaindered Books Week"? Is it time to quit your publicist?

Open thread below...

I came across this photo and sent it to my Photoshopper buddies for magic or captioning. Driftglass calls it "Wasilla's Sense of Snowe," and the photoshops came in from Zaius, Tengrain, D-Cap, Darkblack, and Mark Hoback at Fried Green Al-Qaedas.

Open Thread and your captions below (keep it clean).

Thanks for nothing, Bill Maher, for planting the image of Palin as Carrie's Mom in my head. Click here for larger. (h/t Heather and BG)

Also recommended tonight: this online episode of Murphy Brown. Fourteen years ago and it was all there: Limbaugh, Gingrich, looking stuff up on "the Internet", the "Liberal Media Elite", all afloat in a wishful fantasy that somehow both sides were equally wrong and we could all work together if only the Left bent over a little further.

Open thread below...

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I thought the president was very good Wednesday night and his speech has seemed to change the media's dynamic on health care as well as start to bring people back to reality on this issue. He was more forceful combating Republican lies than ever been before and that was much appreciated.

It did freak Karl Rove out a little bit on FOX. On The Factor, he was upset that the president debunked the phony "death panel" lies that conservatives and teabaggers have been yelling about every since they discovered Isakson's amendment. (Isakson is a Republican, I might add.) Karl said that conserva-teabaggers were only upset about the living will option and never brought up death panels, so he tried to call Obama a liar, but that's the lie.

Rove conveniently forgot Sen. Charles Grassley talking about "death panels," or Betsy McCaughey doing same. And of course there's the wacky Sarah Palin Facebook post that was promoting the idea that Obama wants to kill grandma. Rove basically lied by pretending that conservatives were only upset about Isakson's language.

Still, I thought Obama was too nice to the Republicans all night. I know it was more theater than reality because he still wants America to believe that there's hope for bipartisanship, but it bothers me. All they have done is spread lies about health-care reform the entire time, but the president just isn't going to be as partisan as I'd like him to be. I have to accept it.

I actually didn't think he would mention the public option at all since the Queen, Olympia Snowe, asked him not to, but he had to because of us. We can still battle to have it included because he's still talking about it and has campaigned on it.

He wasn't as forceful about it as I wanted, but he's talking to many people that have been lied to for months by Republicans, so I kind of understand his phrasing of it. He did open up the possibility of other options which made me shudder, but we'll keep pushing. We're his base and the base will help save him in the long run.

Sen. Tom Harkin had another take on it today on MSNBC. He said that because Obama said the public option was only a small part of the solution for health care then that would force many others to vote for the bill even if a public option is included. By downplaying its significance he believes it strengthens the chances that it gets passed. I hadn't looked at it that way before, but with Rahm and his Blue Dogs trying to undo the public option I don't have as much faith in his premise. There's still a long way to go and we'll keep fighting.

One of the best writers on health care has been Jonathan Cohn of TNR, and he writes:

Looks like there's some news in the speech after all. Quite a bit.

On the policy front, President Obama tonight endorses, clearly and unambiguously, a requirement that everybody obtain insurance--that is, an individual mandate. He has not done that before, not this explicitly.

He also says employers will have to provide insurance or bear some of the costs. That's not news exactly; he's said that before. But it's part of the same package.

{}

Also of interest: A promise to provide low-cost, bare-bones policies right away--merely as a stopgap, until full reforms kick in. (This is an effort to make sure Americans see at least some benefits right away.) Elsewhere, Obama talks about malpractice reform--again, more explicitly than he has before, presenting it as an effort to reach across the aisle.

And the public plan? He gives a lengthy, strong defense of the idea. It could have come straight out of the literature of groups like Health Care for America Now -- or the writings of Jacob Hacker. But he also makes clear, to left as well as right, that he's open to compromise.

Those seem like the major developments on the policy front. The tone is pretty striking, too. Obama reaches out to Republicans in several places. But he also comes down hard--very hard--on opponents who are merely out to defeat reform.

And I wish he would have mentioned more liberals to the nation that have been working hard to reform health care instead of praising John McCain, but he did close with a nice ode to Ted Kennedy.

The Kennedy passage was beautiful. He even used the dreaded "L" word, which I haven't heard in that setting without a sneer for ... well, ever. I don't know how many people can hear that plea for empathy and community, but I hope some did.

By the way, FOX had their news scroll running during the entire speech and it highlighted as many crazy stories as it could. And then the first ad they broadcast after the speech was one where a Canadian woman said Canada's government-run health care almost killed her. That was timed just right for the teabagger audience.

Some things never change.

Digby linked to this excellent piece by Edward Wasserman in the Miami Herald the other day and I just got around to reading it. He basically solves the news problem that we face.

You know, like how bogus claims are repeated endlessly throughout the media (like the health bill contains "death panels") and even though they are debunked---the damage is already done.

So this time, when it came to the "death panels," The Washington Post's influential media reporter, Howard Kurtz, observed: "For once, mainstream journalists did not retreat to the studied neutrality of quoting dueling antagonists." Reporters took the additional step of pointing out, on their own authority, that the proposals don't contain any such provision. To "he said, she said," was added: "we say."

Trouble is, it hasn't really mattered. Even though news organizations debunked the claim, 45 percent of respondents to an NBC poll still believe the reforms would indeed allow the federal government to halt treatment to the elderly -- a staggering number.

Why? Maybe because, by Kurtz's count, Palin's "death panels" were mentioned 18 times by his own paper, 16 times in The New York Times and at least 154 times on cable and network news (not including daytime news shows.)

Plainly, refuting a falsehood doesn't keep it from doing harm. The solution isn't some cheap fix, first giving end-of-the-world play to some incendiary fantasy and then inserting a line that says the preceding was utter rubbish. The real problem goes to the core of traditional news practices. As Greg Marx noted in a sensible Columbia Journalism Review posting, the solution is "making a more concerted effort not to disseminate false or dubious claims in the first place."

Isn't that simple? All the media has to do is fact check a story first and present the truth instead of repeating lies over and over again in the interest of "balance". Then we won't have to worry about an ill-informed public not getting the information they need on important issues. Issues that actually have an impact on their lives, like health care. Unfortunately, that appears too much to ask:

As the saying goes, what really matters isn't what people think, it's what they think about: Debunking falsehoods is fine, but the more that news media embrace it as if it's a cure-all, the worse we'll all be. The solution isn't to refute, it's to ignore. End the practice of rewarding the most sensational, the most irresponsible, the most baseless allegations with top-of-the-news billing. The media bury worthwhile news all the time; how about burying the worthless stuff?

There, however, the problem isn't so much with reporters, it's with their bosses, the ones who insist on running the screaming footage from "town meetings," on giving dramatic lies a prominence they don't deserve -- ensuring an audience, but also ensuring the lies a public life no reasoned refutation can end.

"He said, she said" has always been a dubious way to report the world. "We say" helps, but only a little. The real solution is simple: It's called news judgment.

Don't you love that? "News Judgment." What a miraculous concept. I wonder how we could actually make that happen?

Thank Edward for this rare bit of sanity from the media: edward_wasserman@hotmail.com

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Sean Hannity was evidently distraught about Logan's post last Thursday about the teabagging Glenn Beck fan Katy Abram, who showed up at Arlen Specter's health-care town hall to spout Glenn Beckian nonsense. Logan remarked:

Granted, Abram isn't a professional pundit, but when questioned it became clear that she is the poster child for the entire undereducated, under-informed mob that make up the right wing town hall protesters.

Hannity gulps at this:

Hannity: Lovely. I guess the tone in Washington has really changed.

Of course, it hasn't. It hasn't because Sean Hannity and his Fox compatriots -- particularly Beck, who has even characterized President Obama as an anti-white racist -- as well as the Limbaugh-Coulter sector have seen to that.

But of course, on Planet Wingnuttia, it's been the liberals who are mean and nasty:

Hannity: Now what do you make of -- now we've watched all these politicians attacked. We've seen how Gov. Palin was treated, we saw how George W. Bush was treated. This is the first time, though, American citizens are being attacked by a party. Are you part of a mob? Are you a political terrorist? Do you like Tim McVeigh? Uh, any sympathies toward the Nazi Party?

Abram: No! [giggles]

Hannity: No racist views in your life?

Abram: No.

Hannity: No. What do you think when prominent Democrats have been making these charges?

Abram: I think it's ridiculous. I have heard Nancy Pelosi say, you know, we're a mob, swastikas, and all that stuff. I'm sorry. I'm a stay-at-home mom. I take care of my kids. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And you've got these people that are in charge of the country calling the people of this country ... awful names. Awful names! I mean, my original question to Arlen Specter was going to be, "I want you to denounce what Nancy Pelosi has said about the people of this country. It's ridiculous! It's ridiculous!

Yep, that's what we mean when we say "undereducated and under-informed." Pelosi didn't "call the people of this country" Nazis; she called out the morons who bring signs with swastikas -- comparing Obama to Hitler, as has been done frequently by prominent figures on the right in recent weeks, from Beck to Limbaugh. You know, awful names!

Of course, you can go back and look at what she said on Donnell's show for more evidence of this kind of blithering idiocy:

...You know, yeah, I mean, there are programs in place that the founders did not want to have here. I know there are people out there that can't afford health insurance, that can't afford a lot of different things, and, you know, with the founders, they thought and hoped that the goodness of the people would allow the people to take care of those who are doing without. And I know that may seem naive in today's, you know, world...

Ouch. My head hurts. Another wingnut who has read Glenn Beck but hasn't read Thomas Paine.

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...government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

This was too much even for him. He had on a Dr. Leigh Vinocur, who seems to be there to argue for Palin's point of view but ends up saying that what the Zombie Plumber Queen is saying is nuts.

Cavuto: Dr. Leigh Vinocur says she's not that far off. Ahhh, doctor, that's a little extreme, don't you think?

Vinocur: Yes, I do think it's a little extreme and it's because right now Obama is looking at end of life care, and I think the majority of out healthy care costs are in our last twelve years of life so it makes sense....

Cavuto: To call this a death panel and evil, that's that's a little much, don't you think?

Vinocur: Well I do, but I think her point is that she doesn't want administrators making the call...so I've dealt with those issues and doctors tell you, look, these are the options. You have to change peoples expectations in America. What do you say to somebody..

Cavuto: We have that going on in our health system now. We have rationed care in our health system now and I know the fears are that it would be on steroids a national type program and maybe those fears are legitimate, but to then start saying things like "death panel" and "evil" destructs the debate, does it not?

...

Cavuto: She's going further than that. She's mentioning her Down Syndrome baby and more or less implying that in such a system that we're envisioning that baby is tough out of luck.

We already have administrators making the call. They are called the freaking health insurance companies... Cavuto will never support the public option or most of what progressives want in the health care bill, but even he can't handle the Beckerwocky that the teabaggers are speaking.

And planning for the Palin "Triumphant Return" world tour to begin in 3...2...1...

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If you didn't watch Rachel Maddow's debate with Pat Buchanan Thursday night, you missed an outstanding display of corporate media-financed white supremacy.

Pat Buchanan repeated the same exhausting argument that Judge Sotomayor is unqualified for the Supreme Court and therefore doesn't deserve the nomination -- in fact, she's been elevated, in Pat's estimation, based solely on race and not intellect. He said to Rachel:

I don't think Judge Sotomayor is qualified for the United States Supreme Court. She has not shown any great intellect here or any great depth of knowledge of the Constitution. She's never written anything that I've read in terms of a law review article or a major book or something like that on the law.

Oh.

So qualifications are suddenly important to Pat.

While pissing all over Judge Sotomayor's qualifications, judicial record, accomplishments and achievements, Pat Buchanan thinks Sarah Palin! is qualified to be President of the United States.

Sarah Palin -- who couldn't accurately describe the duties of the vice president during a nationally televised vice presidential debate. Remember this?

I'm thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president's policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are.

Sarah Palin -- a politician who's less intellectually curious than George W. Bush, has less experience and fewer credentials than the worst president in American history. And Pat Buchanan thinks she's the best Republican ever. Presidential material.

But Judge Sotomayor is intellectually unqualified for the Supreme Court, right? And Sarah Palin is qualified for the highest office in the land.

What conclusion can we draw from this inconsistency? Easy. Pat Buchanan hates brown people. Read his latest awful editorial and tell me this isn't true. If he doesn't hate brown people, he simply, then, believes white males are far superior in almost every way (to be fair, he admits to Maddow that blacks can run fast).

He continues by complaining that white people are being discriminated against and this is a terrible crime. What Pat Buchanan will never admit is that for every one Frank Ricci, there are literally thousands of Americans with dark skin or "exotic" names who are being held back or punished or imprisoned for no other reason than their race or ethnicity. It's been that way for hundreds of years here.

This naturally doesn't make discrimination against white people "okay." In an imperfect system, though, correcting our massive racial imbalance means that, unfortunately, a few Frank Ricci types fall through the cracks. But if people like Pat Buchanan would embrace the spirit of correcting the imbalance, we'd be able to fix these cracks.

Ultimately, however, Pat Buchanan is an old white man who is clinging desperately -- and desperately is the appropriate adverb -- to the past, as Rachel pointed out. He fears the inevitable browning of America and so he's lashing out more and more often with this venomous, divisive, hate-mongering language.

The serious question here is whether MSNBC will continue to finance his clearly white supremacist views. If there's anyone in America who doesn't deserve more air time, it's people like Pat Buchanan. They had their time and they failed. Their reign was destructive and a blight on American history. They have no place in the discourse anymore.

Time to step aside, Pat. For the good of the country.

(Cross posted at BobCesca.com)