Just when you think he can't get any more insane and stupid, Glenn Beck manages to pluck yet another feather from the plumage:

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Oy.

Besides the conundrum of how it is that someone this clearly insane is given multiple national platforms to rant and rave as lucidly as the crazy homeless guy downtown, I really can't believe that we're now getting to the point that we're likening health care reform (something the majority of the country wants, mind you) to forced rape of a minor.

We had visitors from Denmark staying with us just recently, and they were just dumbfounded by the asinine and completely fact-free crap that passes for news coverage here, especially when it comes to health reform. From a country where universal health care is a given, listening to the fear-mongering on Fox News and other news channels I'm forced to watch for C&L made them wonder about the collective IQ of American citizens. Sadly, I was hard-pressed to defend us in the face of such loonies like Beck.

I take solace in the thought that when my children are my age, we will likely have fought mightily and won universal single payer health care for all Americans (because it really is the only thing that makes sense) and they'll look back at old tape of Glenn Beck and say, "Sheesh, no wonder it was such a battle, look at this idiocy," and shake their heads ruefully at the frightened, non-thinking people that watched him.

Teh stoopid, it hurts:

On Mike Gallagher's radio program yesterday, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) offered a novel theory as to why Democrats want her out of office: They don't want her to become the first woman president.

BACHMANN: Also with women politicians, they want to make sure no women, no woman becomes president before a Democrat woman, and so they're doing everything they can to, I think, sabotage women like Sarah Palin, perhaps women like myself, or similarly situated women, to make sure that we don't have a prominent national voice. But the thing is, the people in our country, they don't care who the voice is, they just want someone, they want to know that someone is speaking out for them against what will certainly bring about the destruction of our great country if we continue to go down the Obama path.

I swear, you just can't write this level of stupid.

Hate to break it to you, Michelle, but Dems don't need to sabotage you when you do such a fine job of it on your own. Shall we take a little walk down Memory Lane?

Remember when you told Glenn Beck that the census was used to round up Japanese Americans during WWII?

or when you said that health care reform was undesirable because if everyone had access, lines at her doctors' office would be too long;

or when you claimed that "Flying Imams" attended a victory party for Keith Ellison

or when you complained about "re-education camps for young people"

or when you introduced a bill blocking the US from ever joining a global currency.

Media Matters has even more gloriousness of Bachmann.

As for running for president, all I can say is: Baby, bring. it. on.

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On one level, it's amusing to watch the Republicans as they're given carte blanche on the news shows to desperately grasp for those last little bits of relevance for their party; flailing about, looking for some little nugget to hold on to in order to try to raise the party out of its death spiral. On the other hand, it's just damn annoying to see the inanity and cluelessness of their tactics.

For example, Sen. Lindsey Graham, appearing on This Week, just has to criticize the Obama administration for their response to the Iranian elections. If you're on the social media sites (and are dumb enough--like me--to keep tabs on conservatives), this is a recurring meme: Obama needs to do more about the Iranian elections.

GRAHAM: He’s certainly moving in the right direction, but our point is that there is a monumental event going on in Iran, and you know, the President of the United States is supposed to lead the free world, not follow it. Other nations have been more outspoken, so I hope that we’ll hear more of this, because the young men and women taking the streets in Tehran need our support. The signs are in English. They are basically asking for us to speak up on their behalf.

Sigh. Huckleberry Graham displays the kind of American exceptionalism thinking that took the Republicans right out of office. There is absolutely NO need for Barack Obama to step into the middle of the Iranian elections and about 70 million reasons why we should not: the population of Iran must be the ones to determine their fate. Democracy is not brought from the outside, but birthed from the inside.

It's sad that the term "empathy" gets so much scorn from Republicans. I hope it's that chronic inability to see things from anywhere but one's own narrow point of view that will send the GOP the way of the Whigs. Can you imagine the outrage these Republicans, so recently concerned with fair elections, would feel if say, Saudi Arabia had commented on the results of either the 2000 or 2004 elections? I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that Graham has absolutely no idea of how American meddling has contributed to the state of politics in Iran already and how dangerous it would be for the population there to have us appear to be taking sides. Even George Freakin' Will understands this:

On ABC's "This Week" earlier, George Will, hardly a liberal ally of the president, noted that he's heard the criticism of the Obama administration's tactics regarding Iran, and he finds it unpersuasive.

"The president is being roundly criticized for insufficient, rhetorical support for what's going on over there. It seems to me foolish criticism. The people on the streets know full well what the American attitude toward the regime is. And they don't need that reinforced."

Ben Armbruster noted that Peggy Noonan, another prominent conservative, also rejected the criticism aimed at the president. "To insist the American president, in the first days of the rebellion, insert the American government into the drama was shortsighted and mischievous," she wrote, adding that "the ayatollahs were only too eager to demonize the demonstrators as mindless lackeys of the Great Satan Cowboy Uncle Sam, or whatever they call us this week."

And further, and bless them for this, Iranians make a differentiation between the American people and the American government. Iranians actually like Americans. And they know we are supporting them. One look at Twitter and the sea of green avatars (signifying support for the protesters) and the people all over the world changing their location/time stamps to Tehran and creating proxy addresses to facilitate information getting out as the government clamped down on journalists and internet access shows that we ARE supportive and we do want their voices heard.

But sadly, there's still airtime for those petty, useless, partisan detractors like Lindsay Graham.

Transcripts below the fold

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If you're watching FOXNews, you know you're going to run into Karl "I belong in front of a War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague" Rove. Naturally, a man who is synonymous with the nasty, divisive partisan politics that the voters overwhelmingly rejected in 2008 is the go-to guy for answers on the direction of the Republican Party.

Host Chris Wallace asks Rove, who remains strangely sure of his vision of the Republican Party despite the fact that fewer people identify themselves as Republicans now than ever before, whether the Republican Party has room in it for someone like former Secretary of State Colin Powell who was guilty of being quoted by the National Journal as saying that Americans are looking for something that current GOP appears to not understand.

WALLACE: Finally, Colin Powell is answering his Republican critics today. Powell said -- and we’re going to put it up on the screen -- this earlier this month. “Americans do want to pay taxes for services. Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less.”

Rove, to his credit (and it kills me to write that), says that the market should decide what works for the Republican Party. Powell should find a candidate he supports and see which candidate resonates with the party. Asked if he, like Dick Cheney, chose the Rush Limbaugh version over the Colin Powell version, good ol' Turdblossom predictably chooses the Fat Bastard of the GOP:

WALLACE: Dick Cheney said if it’s a battle between or a choice between Rush Limbaugh and Colin Powell, he sides with Limbaugh. You?

ROVE: I -- yes, if I had to pick between the two. But you know what? That’s -- neither one of those are candidates. Neither one of those are going to be people who are offering themselves for office.

It seems to me that Rove's ideas have already lost in the marketplace of ideas in the GOP (such as it is). Mr. "Permanent Republican Majority" not only lost big in the election, but is losing membership more and more as they continue to try to keep it business as usual. What's more telling to me is the part of the National Journal article on Powell that Wallace didn't bring up and that shows just that Rove and his brethren just don't get it:

Powell described the 2008 GOP candidate, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, as "a beloved friend" but said he told him last summer that the party had developed a reputation for being mean-spirited and driven more by social conservatism than the economic problems that Americans faced.

Powell also criticized other GOP leaders, for bowing too much to the right.

He blasted radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, saying he does not believe that Limbaugh or conservative icon Ann Coulter serve the party well. He said the party lacks a "positive" spokesperson. "I think what Rush does as an entertainer diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without," Powell said.

Hmm....where did that negative mean-spiritedness come from, Karl? At least I'm confident that Powell won't bow down to the altar of Rushbo, begging forgiveness.

Transcripts (courtesy of CQ Politics) below the fold

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He actually said that:

On his 100th day in office, Barack Obama enjoys high job approval ratings, no matter what poll you consult. But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are.

So you African-Americans? According to Byron York, you don't actually count. My buddy and former C&L contributer Steve Benen:

For crying out loud, what the hell does that mean, exactly? I read the rest of the piece, hoping to see York explain why the president's seemingly popular positions are exaggerated or inflated. Why, in other words, these positions "appear" more popular "than they actually are."

But all the piece tells me is that African Americans tend to support Obama in greater numbers than white Americans.

The problem, of course, is that damn phrase "than they actually are." York argues that we can see polls gauging public opinion, but if we want to really understand the popularity of the president's positions, and not be fooled by "appearances," then we have to exclude black people.

There's really no other credible way to read this. York effectively argues that black people shouldn't count. We can look at polls measuring the attitudes of Americans, but if we want to see the truth -- appreciate the numbers as "they actually are" -- then it's best if we focus our attention on white people, and only white people.

I swear the next thing York will suggest is calling for polling companies to consider African-Americans as only 3/5th a person to more accurately reflect reality. I'm sure you can find the historical precedence for it if you try really hard.

You stay classy, Byron.

Dave N: This is actually a not-uncommon species of eliminationist rhetoric, since these kinds of discussions are essentially exercises in imagining the world with a whole class of people effectively excised.

As Adam Serwer observes: "This is another example of a really bizarre genre of conservative writing, which I call 'If Only Those People Weren't Here.'"

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I guess veterans are the right wing's new favorite sacred cow. Having discovered, via the phony DHS domestic-terrorism controversy, that they can gleefully club liberals over the head with anything even remotely resembling a slight to the sacred honor of American veterans -- such slights, evidently, including insufficiently abject prostration -- Republicans are now wielding said club at every available opportunity.

Let's face it: the Right really hates that the folks in the military in fact love President Obama. And so propagating the notion that Democrats are "anti-military" is a big deal right now.

Last week, for instance, as the new federal hate-crimes bill was passing out of the House Judiciary Committee, Republican Rep. Tom Rooney of Florida tried to include veterans in the list of protections.

This was a classic right-wing twofer: Work to undermine the hate-crimes bill, and smear Democrats at the same time! Pretty, clever, eh?

Sure enough, after Glenn Beck coughed this one up Friday night, there was Sean Hannity last night, regurgitating Beck's stale hairball:

Hannity: Now, Congresswoman, including our soldiers in this bill would not belittle anybody. And I think you and Janet Napolitano need to revisit your opinion of our veterans.

Actually, Feeney's proposal would render the legislation moot and unconstitutional, because it would then be predicated on the idea of creating "protected classes." And, as has been already explained many times, hate-crimes bills aren't about creating "protected categories" -- they are strictly written to encompass the motives of the perpetrator:

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Houston Chronicle:

A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.”

The comments caused the Texas Democratic Party on Wednesday to demand an apology from state Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell. But a spokesman for Brown said her comments were only an attempt to overcome problems with identifying Asian names for voting purposes.

The exchange occurred late Tuesday as the House Elections Committee heard testimony from Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

Ko told the committee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and other forms of identification because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on their driver’s license on school registrations.

Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible.

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Brown later told Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

Oy. I guess Rep. Brown should be grateful she was not facing Zbigniew Brzezinski. That might have made her look stupid.

Must... Resist... Hitting... Head... Against... Keyboard.

Pajama Media TV's idea of a war correspondent, Samuel Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, goes to Israel and laments...war correspondents in a warzone. That's a curious way to kiss up to the boss: admit that your assignment is a bad idea.

Here's direct quote from Joe--who's currently reporting from just outside Gaza:

"I'll be honest with you. I don't think journalists should be anywhere allowed war. I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what's happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I-I think it's asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you'd go to the theater and you'd see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for'em. Now everyone's got an opinion and wants to downer--and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers. I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you're gonna sit there and say, 'Well look at this atrocity,' well you don't know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it."

Thanks to Brandon at Vet Voice for transcribing something that even makes my cast iron stomach wretch.

Leave it to a bunch of rightwing boneheads to hire someone who doesn't even understand the function of a free press. Maybe the PJ bunch should consider renaming themselves Pravda. Of course, considering that Israel is preventing actual journalists (not the fake kind like Joe here) into Gaza to report what's actually happening, maybe it's unnecessary to be that overt.

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Norm Coleman, the junior Republican senator from Minnesota, probably would like to focus solely on his recount battle with Al Franken these days. But it seems he has other problems to deal with as well:

The timing and cost of Sen. Norm Coleman's home renovation has again raised questions about allegations that an Edina, Minn. businessman funneled money to Norm Coleman's wife Laurie.

The FBI is now reportedly investigating the allegations that Nasser Kazeminy tried to funnel $75,000 in campaign contributions through the Senator's wife. By why would a U.S. Senator, who makes about $180,000 a year, need the money?

... The remodeled kitchen was the backdrop for some of the Senator's campaign commercials. FOX 9 learned the woman in charge of the project was Shari Wilsey, an interior designer. Wilsey, along with her husband Roger, are longtime friends of the Coleman's and financial contributors to the Senator's campaigns.

The Wilsey's even hosted a fundraiser for Senator Coleman during the Republican National Convention at their Summit Ave mansion, just blocks from the Coleman's.

Two lawsuits allege that in spring of 2007, Edina businessman Nasser Kazeminy began a series of $25,000 payments to Coleman from Deep Marine Technology, a company he controlled in Texas, to Hays Companies, the Minnesota Insurance company where Laurie Coleman works.

... While Coleman didn't agree to sit down for a interview, his campaign did agree to share billing records of the remodeling project. Original projections in 2006 estimated a cost of $328,000, but four months later, the construction cost was estimated at $414,000, over-budget by $86,000.

During that time is when, the lawsuit alleges, Kazeminy was trying to get money to Coleman.

According to the lawsuits, in March of 2007, Kazeminy said that "U.S. Senators don't make s---" and he was going to try to find a way to get money to Coleman.

You can see the Wilsey donations here.

It's noteworthy that Coleman is getting lawyered up to deal with this case. Obviously, he's taking it seriously.

It certainly looks like Coleman's pulling a Ted Stevens number with his home renovations -- getting refinanced for potentially more than the entire house is worth and getting a second story put on it. It will be entertaining to see what the FBI learns.

[H/t to Heather too.]

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The Republicans in Washington have just been handed a devastating setback as the majority of Americans showed by their votes that they realize that the GOP just can't govern, what's a RNC propaganda arm to do? Do an hourlong special on the Clinton presidency, or more precisely, on the Clenis.

Did you know how amazing and magical the Clenis is? It is, my friends. It's so powerful that it even got Hillary Clinton a Senate seat. You read that right. Not out of sympathy or admiration for Hillary for sticking with her man, but it was a deal struck between the Clintons:

DICK MORRIS: And the deal was ‘you take over, you defend me, you absolve me and in return you can get what you want' and she settled on that Senate seat. Some guys give necklaces, Bill gave a Senate seat.

And all this time I thought that the people of New York voted for her. But no, according to Fox News, Bill Clinton gave her the Senate seat, much the way Kobe Bryant gave his wife a $4M diamond ring. I tell you, that is one magic Clenis.

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Papa Bear was on The Daily Show last night, and it made for some rich viewing:

Stewart: I keep watching on your network, everyone is saying, Look, this is a center-right country, and he'd better govern that way.

And uh -- How is this a center-right country? Because it seems to me that it is not.

O'Reilly: Look, the problem is you never leave New York City. OK? That's No. 1.

Stewart: I'm a standup comic.

O'Reilly: Yeah, but if you're Jon Stewart, and you go to Alabama you're going to get killed. You can't go where these center-right people are. Because they'll stone you to death.

Hmmm. What passes for the "center right" part of the country for most of us -- say, suburban Milwaukee or rural Montana -- would be unlikely to react violently to a Jon Stewart. They might ignore him or think him rude, but most likely it would be civil and polite.

In fact, I happened to be in Wasilla, Alaska -- Sarah Palin's hometown -- when a crew from The Daily Show was there filming a segment on the town. No one was about to hurl stones at them. In fact, most of them seemed pretty eager to belly up to the table with Jason Jones inside the Mug Shot Saloon to be interviewed on national TV.

Now, I'm sure there are some quarters of the country where a city guy like Stewart might be wise to go well-armed and guarded -- probably some of them in places like Alabama. But to nearly everyone else in the country, these are the far right corners of the nation.

And it's pretty telling that O'Reilly thinks that's the center.

Later on, O'Reilly tells Stewart:

You should get out and meet some of the folks. They're not bad people.

That's true, except for that part about wanting to kill you.

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I keep hearing that Sarah Palin is the future of the GOP. Fred Barnes is just the latest Republican to gush all over her.

But the fact is, the more people see of Sarah Palin, the less attractive she becomes. Polls are making that clear.

And the evidence is right out there on the stump. Watch the above clip from Missouri (or any of Palin's recent appearances).

Is it just me, or is Palin starting to sound like a drowned cat at the bottom of a well?

I know some of this is just my political bias kicking in, but it seems to me her voice has gone from merely grating to an outright assault on the human nervous system.

This might be the most insidious plot ever devised by Republicans: If they can't win, they'll spend the next four years just driving us insane.

It appears that would be President Camacho er,...McCain still doesn't understand that newfangled spellcheck device.

Is it elitist of me to say that if his team can't face a copy editor, how could they face a world leader?

Seems the GOP Ministry of Truth got ahold of Lawrence Eagleburger today and promptly cured him of his temporary insanity yesterday in dismissing Sarah Palin's qualifications:

Eagleburger: You are witnessing something quite unique -- a man who's about to talk to you while he has his foot in his mouth. I made a serious mistake yesterday. I was quoted correctly. I wasn't thinking when I said it -- in fact, I was discussing foreign policy, and this was in that context. And I was just plain stupid. And if I have given the flim-flam artist Barack Obama some success with this, I am deeply apologetic. I did not intend it.

In fact, if you look at this carefully, on the question of experience for example, Sarah Palin has been a governor, she has executive ability, she knows energy issues. Now you tell me what Barack Obama has ever done in the way of executive business, doing anything in the executive field. He has been in the Senate for some two years and he has been there half of the time and seldom votes on issues.

I'm sorry, I made a terrible mistake.

Wonder what technique they used. Waterboarding, perhaps?

Boston.com:

Ever since John McCain discovered "Joe the Plumber," he has exalted "small business" owners -- inviting them to announce their professions on signs at rallies -- as the country's only virtuous economic movers.

But now McCain has begun to define the term upward, leaving no mogul or tycoon behind.

On Thursday in Sarasota, Governor Charlie Crist introduced J. Robert Long, the CEO of Marine Concepts as a "small businessman." The man McCain dubbed "Bob the Boat Builder" spent, as Crist noted, most of his career at Wellcraft Marine, which reported revenues of $67 million last year, according to Yahoo! Finance.

At another campaign stop, McCain proxy Lindsay Graham described Cindy McCain as a "small businesswoman," even though Hensley & Co. -- the third largest beer distributorship in the country, is worth some $200 million.

What's next? Bill Gates, the tech guy? Donald Trump, the real estate agent? Jack Welch, the electrician? Rupert Murdoch, the newsboy?