Both Ways Barracuda

From Sarah Barracuda’s book, as quoted by Politico:

Remember Hillary Clinton’s famous rant, when her husband was running for president, that she wasn’t, in her words, ‘some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette’? Hillary is someone I like and admire personally in many ways, but she came across then as someone frozen in an attitude of 1960s-era bra-burning militancy. … Well, Hillary (many of us wanted to say at the time), some of us like to bake cookies. … It surprises some people to hear that I consider myself a feminist. I believe both women and men have God-given rights that haven’t always been honored by our country’s politicians. … I also consider myself a grateful beneficiary of the movement for female equality, particularly Title IX … So I proudly call myself a conservative feminist.

Palin barely appears anywhere without commenting on the media taking unfair shots at her and twisting her words–yet Palin has been doing that to Hillary from the start, playing on media soundbytes and caricatures of Hillary and twisting Hillary’s words for no reason, when both Hillary and Bill have only ever been gracious and respectful of her voice having a place at the table, when asked to comment on Sarah Palin publicly.

Palin continues to try to have it both ways, acting as if what she is doing is anything different than what she had remarked about with her “perceived whine” commentary about Hillary. On the one hand, Palin acts as if she welcomes the scrutiny since she herself signed up for it. On the other hand, Palin spends considerable time whining about mentioning the kind of treatment she gets from what she and other conservatives call the “lamestream” media.

Palin seems to want to prove herself to be the tough Mama Grizzly who can handle the scrutiny in a way that avoids being perceived as whining–except she hasn’t really done that.

Palin resigned her governorship and has been playing social butterfly ever since, using facebook, twitter, TLC, and Fox News spots while eschewing the national media scrutiny that Hillary has not only taken on, head on, for every day of the last two decades essentially, but has come out all the stronger for doing so.

Why did Sarah Palin have to bring up the ancient history of the Tammy Wynette, tea, and cookies? Who ghostwrote Palin’s book? Dick Morris?

Worse, Palin furthered the inaccurate soundbyte distortion of what Hillary really said.

Hillary’s actual remarks in context were as follows:

I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life. I’m a big believer in women making the choices that are right for them. The work that I have done as a professional, as a public advocate, has been aimed at trying to assure that women can make the choices they should make.

–HRC, tea and cookie in its full glory

Hillary is a stateswoman who is out of domestic politics but continues to blaze trails. I have no doubt she will also continue to be classy and not waste one iota of energy over Sarah Palin. Much bigger fish to fry.

But, I’m not Hillary so I can say it for her.

The jury is still out on what Palin’s legacy will be. She could make a go for the GOP nomination in 2012 and make history — or she could just as easily become nothing more than a trivial pursuit question.

Either way– if Both-Ways Sarah Barracuda continues to swim with the Hillary-hating media fishes and legitimize false narratives about Hillary and her supporters, all to prove some tribalist garbage about conservative women being “less militant,” more “feminine,” yet “tougher,” then as far as I am concerned the Barracudas can fend for themselves without my help:

TOM DELAY CONVICTED

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Houston Chronicle:

After almost 19 hours of deliberations, a Travis County jury today convicted former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on felony charges of political money laundering.

DeLay faces two to 20 years in prison on a conspiracy charge and five to 99 years or life on a money laundering charge. DeLay remains free on bail, with sentencing tentatively set for Dec. 20.

DeLay and his family did not react when the verdict was read. But after the court was dismissed, DeLay received a hug and a kiss from his wife. Then, his adult daughter, Dani, buried her face into DeLay’s shoulder and began sobbing. DeLay’s face turned red as he fought back tears.

DeLay’s defense lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, who has claimed no money laundering actually occurred, decried the verdict.

“This is a terrible miscarriage of justice,” DeGuerin said. “We will appeal. I’m very, very disappointed. This will never stand up on appeal.”

DeLay, as he has from the beginning, said the case was all politics, but said his religious faith is getting him through.

“I’m not going to blame anyone,” he said. “This is an abuse of power. It’s a miscarriage of justice. And I still maintain that I am innocent. The criminalization of politics undermines our system.”

Lead prosecutor Gary Cobb said the jury acted without a political agenda and made a decision based on the facts.

“We thought the citizens of Travis County would see this case for what it was, a corrupt politician who was caught violating the laws of the state,” Cobb said.

The case against DeLay originally was brought in 2005 by then-District Attorney Ronnie Earle. DeLay claimed Earle was conducting a Democratic political vendetta.

Tom “The Hammer” Delay was a lieutenant of Newt Gingrinch and helped start the “K Street Project” which was an effort to pressure lobbying firms to only hire Republicans and only donate to Republican candidates and causes.

May he rot in prison.

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UPDATE:

Tom Delay’s Wikipedia page is here.

More information from the New York Times here.

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The most memorable campaign ads of 2010

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Hotline on Call has come up with their choices for the 10 best and 10 worst campaign ads of 2010. Here are the ads that I thought were the most memorable, starting with Carly Fiorina’s “Demon Sheep” ad up above that she ran against Tom Campbell in the California GOP primary.

Next, Jerry Brown shows how Meg Whitman wasted $140 million on a losing campaign:

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This ad by Democrat Joe Manchin shows what a liability Barack Obama was to Democrats on the campaign trail:

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More after the jump:

47 Years ago today – Lee Harvey Oswald murdered on live television

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On November 24, 1963 the one man who could have answered many of the unsolved mysteries of the assassination of John F. Kennedy was permanently silenced by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas Police Department. Lee Harvey Oswald was 24 years old.

Unlike the killing of JFK (the Zapruder film wasn’t released until years later) millions watched in horror as the murder of Oswald took place live on national television.

After almost five decades Oswald remains as much a mystery today as he was then. Here is a timeline of Oswald’s life, along with lots of interesting and informative links.

We know some things for sure. Oswald was a Marine, he defected to Russia, then returned to the United States with his Russian wife, Marina. He spent some time in New Orleans before moving to Dallas where he found a job working at the Texas Schoolbook Depository. He denied killing JFK as well as Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit, the man whose murder for which he was originally arrested.

Below are some excerpts from the 1993 PBS documentary, “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?”

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Here is a collection of news footage of Oswald while he was in the custody of the Dallas Police:

Wednesday News

Good Morning Conflucians!!

Let’s dive in with a hodgepodge of unrelated news items. First up, Adam Savage from Mythbusters had a funny experience with TSA where they saw his junk but missed the razor blades:

Savage was put through the full-body scanner, and while he joked that it made his penis feel small, no one seemed to notice the items he was carrying on his person.

[…]

If the TSA thinks you can hijack a plane with saline solution and nail clippers, Savage’s 12″ razor blades are the equivalent of a nuclear bomb. Since the blades weren’t anywhere near Savage’s privates, they likely would have been missed by the pat-down as well.

Follow the link for a video of Adam discussing it. So the gate rape is not only demeaning and horrifying and a direct assault to our constitution, but it’s a complete waste of time. Oh, by the way, gate rape is now in the Urban Dictionary.

Not much of a surprise, but we’re headed to S. Korea for war games:

A US aircraft carrier is heading for the Korean peninsula a day after North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire on a border island that left two South Korean soldiers dead.

The USS George Washington, which carries 75 warplanes and has a crew of over 6,000, left a naval base south of Tokyo on Wednesday morning and would join exercises with South Korea from Sunday, US officials in Seoul said.

“This exercise is defensive in nature,” US Forces Korea said in a statement. “While planned well before yesterday’s unprovoked artillery attack, it demonstrates the strength of the ROK (South Korea)-US alliance and our commitment to regional stability through deterrence.”

The US has 28,000 troops based in South Korea.

Let’s hope nothing stupid happens. Well, N. Korea has already done that. Let’s hope nothing else stupid happens.

In case you haven’t heard, the world as we know it almost came to an end last night.