Yesterday, a co-worker suggested that Sarah Palin was the Republican version of Ralph Nader. Of course, she was suggesting that Palin & Tea Party Candidates like Christine "America is one of the most free places in the Country" O'Donnell would cost the Republican base votes. I suppose, but I see one huge difference – Ralph Nader never raised millions upon millions of dollars for the Democratic Party.

All Palin & the Tea Party do is serve to drive the Republicans ever rightward, pound out the moderate voices in the party and give us awesomely bad campaign commercials. Nader actively hurt the Democrats, and took support (both electoral and financial) away from Presidential candidates. Palin will not do this, and will continue to fill the GOP's coffers.

Strangely, my coworker (perhaps looking for any good news in what is no doubt a tough year to be the party in power) would have none of it. I see that happening more and more, even within the Dems. Anyone who actually cares about things like the poor and a woman's right to choose should not be crowing how Palin & the Tea Party will cost the Republicans, because they will damage us far more.

Unrelated note: I refuse to post a time waster when Grandy posted the link the ultra awesome flash version of Ultima IV below. There will never be a better timewaster (until someone figures out how to make a flash version of Ultima VI!) Go play it now!

Laura Schlesinger has resigned from her radio show. She quit on her own, not pushed out, not forced to resign and not fired (lamentably..) She then had the gall to suggest that she was leaving because her 1st amendment rights were being infringed.

This is preposterous. In fact, the 1st Amendment is just for the use of calling Asshats Asshats when they do Asshatty things. And make no mistake Schlesinger was being an Asshat when she busted out the "N" word over and over in the span of a few minutes. She has the right to act like that, and we all have the right to call her out on it. And, her sponsors have the right to not want their products associated with crap like that.

So, Ms. Schlesinger is wrong to suggest that she is being censored in any way. She is making the choice to remove herself from the airwaves, no one else. She is martyring her self by suggesting that she is being silenced. No one is silencing her except her.

And now, we have that crusader of Constitutional theory, Sarah Palin stepping in to give her take via her medium of choice (and really the best way to discuss the intricacies of the Constitution) Twitter. "Dr.Laura:don't retreat…reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence"isn't American,not fair")"

Yes, Governor Palin also believes that Schlesinger's 1st Amendment rights were infringed. Sigh. It's strange to me that these folks who argue about how clear the language in the 2nd Amendment is can't seem to understand the 1st.

Does the 1st Amendment guarantee Schlesinger a lucrative radio show? Does it force us all to agree with her when she starts throwing around racial slurs? I'm no Sarah Palin (and I don't Twitter so this might not be the most fully formed way to express this) but I don't think it does.

Bill O'Reilly and Dennis Miller were discussing possible Republican challengers to Obama in 2012, and Miller threw out a Gingrich-Palin ticket, christening it "Newty and the Beauty." Showing a rare burst of creativity, O'Reilly immediately called them "Newty and the Blowfish."

Now, putting aside the shocking relevance of a Hooty and the Blowfish reference say 10 years ago, could this have been a slam at Palin? I'm pretty sure he was just trying to make a joke, but still, not a good idea to refer to the potential hope of your party (and that makes me smile..) as "the blowfish.."

This doesn't even get to the funniest part of the conversation, the idea of Newt "Hospital bed Divorce" Gingrich running for President.

If Sarah Palin has hopes of contending seriously for the Republican nomination in 2012, she needs to get people to forget her lack of preparedness in 2008, and forget the various bad stories that came out about her (her alleged spending spree with Republican donor bucks, for example). McCain/Palin has shown that running against the media is not a successful strategy. Palin needs to sell her new, more-prepared 2012 self, not her oh-poor-me "mistreated" 2008 self.

Surely her supporters will see that and not go on quixotic crusades to keep the memory of Palin-in-2008 alive, and deepen divides with the segments of the Republican party that don't care for her, right? Right?

Well . . . .

RedState is pleased to announce it is engaging in a special project: Operation Leper.

We're tracking down all the people from the McCain campaign now whispering smears against Governor Palin to Carl Cameron and others. Michelle Malkin has the details.

We intend to constantly remind the base about these people, monitor who they are working for, and, when 2012 rolls around, see which candidates hire them. Naturally then, you'll see us go to war against those candidates.

It is our expressed intention to make these few people political lepers.

This is gonna be sweeeeeeeet. ::grabs popcorn::

Andrew Sullivan is in an uproar because he sent two emails to the McCain campaign asking questions, and the McCain campaign shopped those emails around until Howard Kurtz wrote a column about them. Why are Andrew Sullivan's questions notable? Because these were the questions:

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I have grave concerns about Sarah Palin, and do not like her at all. I am far more worried about the prospect of her election than McCain's election.

However, rest assured that I come nowhere near the emerging benchmark for Palin derangement. That bar has now been set stratospherically high by the reliably nutty Naomi Wolf. Aside from Palin being Evita, and part of a gang of thugs that will crush us all beneath their jackbooted heels, the forces of Palin-led darkness are interfering with her 13-year-old daughter's party invitations:

Almost everyone I work with on projects related to this campaign for liberty has been experiencing computer harassment: emails are stripped, messages disappear. That's not all: people's bank accounts are being tampered with: wire transfers to banks vanish in midair. I personally keep opening bank accounts that are quickly corrupted by fraud. Money vanishes. Coworkers of mine have to keep opening new email accounts as old ones become infected. And most disturbingly to me personally is the mail tampering I have both heard of and experienced firsthand. My tax returns vanished from my mailbox. All my larger envelopes arrive ripped straight open apparently by hand. When I show the postman, he says "That's impossible." Horrifyingly to me is the impact on my family. My childrens' report cards are returned again and again though perfectly addressed; their invitations are turned back; and my daughters many letters from camp? Vanished. All of them. Not one arrived. Try explaining that to a smart thirteen year old. Try explaining it in a way that still makes her feel secure and comfortable.

I think a smart 13-year-old, hearing her mother talk about a conspiracy to divert her letters home from camp, would start Googling anti-psychotic medication.

I'm not sure if this is genuine yet. If it is, it should generate a lot of sympathy for Palin, even though the internet group that goes by the handle Anonymous is hardly a Democratic entity. If true, it would also tend to corroborate reports that Palin was using a private Yahoo! mail account to conduct official business, with the reasonable inference being that she was doing to to avoid public disclosure laws. Of course, a lot of people really didn't give a shit when the Bush Administration did that, so I doubt it would hurt her much, even if it is corrupt and sleazy.

What is your Palin name?

Via Ann Althouse.

Therefore, Barack Obama needs to be investigated, to reassure us that he is not a gangster, a corrupt mayor, or an Illinois Nazi.  Or so I take the logic behind this op-ed from Connecticut College history professor Catherine McNicol Stock, who admits that

There is no evidence that Palin was ever affiliated with white-supremacist groups during her years in Idaho or at home in Alaska

but thinks Palin should deny it anyway.

It has been years since groups such as the Montana Militia, the Posse Comitatus and the Sagebrush Rebels, and individuals such as Terry Nichols and Ted Kaczynski have made us wonder why so many "angry white men" populated our rural regions. Many of us have forgotten the threat once posed by domestic terrorists and instead have turned our attention to foreign terrorists. But we should never forget that in the late 20th century, ultra-Christian, antistatist and white-supremacist groups flourished in the states of the Pacific Northwest – called by many the "Great White Northwest" – the very region that Sarah Palin and her family call home.

Demographics most basically define this geographic region. In the six states that make up the Pacific Northwest – Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Alaska – only six counties are more than 5 percent African American. Not by coincidence, each of these counties is also near an important military installation with many African American men and women. Even so, barely more than 3,000 blacks lived in all of Idaho in 2000.

Leaving aside that Boise is closer to Chicago than it is to Wassilla, where Palin's family moved during her infancy, according to the Census Bureau black people make up a mere 2.8 percent of the population of Hawaii, where Barack Obama was born.  Therefore, we should be concerned that Barack Obama is a racist.  More troubling, only 3,535 people of Native American and Inuit/Alaska Native ancestry live in Hawaii, while Sarah Palin is married to a man of Inuit/Alaska Native ancestry.  Therefore, Barack Obama needs to deny the role his white Hawaiian ancestors perhaps, no, probably played in the Trail of Tears.

Some simply hated the federal government, like Randy Weaver of Ruby Ridge, Idaho, a survivalist whose wife and child died when their compound was fired upon by FBI agents attempting to arrest him on gun charges. "Whether we live or whether we die," Weaver said, "we will not obey this lawless government."

Would that be the same Randy Weaver who was acquitted of all important charges and whose family received millions from this allegedly lawless government which allegedly ordered snipers to shoot allegedly unarmed women and children in the back?

Other groups, like the Aryan Nation, with headquarters in Hayden Lake, Idaho, actively planned to rid the United States of African Americans, Jews, and other "non-Aryan" peoples. A few carried out their plans, murdering Jewish radio host Alan Berg in Denver, the Goldmark family in Seattle, an African American state trooper in Arkansas, Fish and Wildlife officials and FBI agents in Wyoming, North Dakota and Montana, and more than 160 federal employees and their children in Oklahoma City.

Again with Idaho.

Perhaps somewhere on the record, Palin has publicly condemned the radical politics of her region. But it is hard to know where she stands on issues of race, equality and diversity. Thus it is high time to review the cultural ideals and models of the radical rurals from the Great White Northwest and find out for sure where Gov. Palin stands.

Or perhaps it is high time to review the standards by which tenure is granted at Connecticut College, where an idiot like Catherine McNicol Stock can rise to chair the department of history, disgracing her college by publishing illogical, guilt by association over vast distances, geographically and culturally illiterate claptrap that wouldn't be accepted as a senior honor's thesis at a real college.

Shameful.

Via Michelle Malkin

Orin Kerr links the Charlie Gibson interview of Sarah Palin; Volokh readers demonstrate that a hundred of them can see it a hundred different ways.

Language Log notes a phonetic spelling on the released and teleprompter text of Palin's speech:

Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines … build more new-clear plants … create jobs with clean coal … and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative sources.

If that's a self-deprecating joke, it's quite a good one. Either way it's funny.

Remember those glory days when the Republican National Convention was a huge drinking game called find the one black guy? Well, those days are over. Not because of a dramatic influx of people of color, but because Fox has a new marching order. Show lots of shots of women. Especially young women. It's a little creepy, and pretty darn obvious pandering.

Speaking of pandering, tonight is Sarah Palin's big chance to see how many times she can use the phrase "executive experience." As always, I'm watching Foxnews, so you don't have to. Buckle up, it's gonna be a long night…

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I sure as hell wouldn't ask her, as some have, how she can take care of five kids, including a special-needs baby and a pregnant teen, while she's running for office and serving as VP. Her husband can do that just as well as she can. In fact, it's insulting to fathers to imply that the kids will somehow be running wild and uncared-for if she's off campaigning and doing whatever warm-pitcher-of-spit duties she gets if she is elected. They may wind up dressed funny, but they'll be fine if he's in charge. Or, if her husband keeps working outside the home, then she and her husband will juggle two jobs and child-rearing just like tens of millions of American families do. So latter-day Victorians like "Dr." Laura Schlessinger who say she's a bad mom can bite me. So can opportunist bloggers and commentators who say the same thing or, at least, link Dr. Laura without giving her a well-deserved kick in her career-scold ass. Good God, Biden decided to embark on his Senatorial career with two young kids who had just been seriously injured in the car crash that killed their mom and sister. Why aren't Dr. Laura and her friends of convenience all over that?

So what would I ask her? Well, there are plenty of serious questions that I could ask. But I think I'd probably want to ask about a little thing that, out of all of the negative coverage about her, most made me think I would not like or respect her. I'd ask her about books, and the banning thereof. See, I like books more than I like most people.

Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.

Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.

The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.

In 1996, Ms. Palin suggested to the local paper, The Frontiersman, that the conversations about banning books were “rhetorical.”

That's pretty sketchy. I know from my own practice that small-town public records are often scattered and incomplete. But I'd like to know more. I'd like to ask her this:

1. Governor, what books did you want to consider banning from the library, albeit rhetorically?

2. What, as precisely as possible, made those books morally or socially objectionable?

3. Should libraries — and other public institutions that make books available to the public — remove books that offend some segment of the population? If so, what segment, and what is the standard for what is sufficiently offensive to warrant removal?

4. What kind of harm is threatened by morally or socially objectionable books, and to whom?

I'd like to hear what she has to say.

Not much going on in the world, you know, Russia calling for the overthrow of the Georgian government, Gustav weakening and missing New Orleans the possible Vice President of the US admitting that her teen daughter is five months pregnant. Wait, what? Ah, the joys of abstinence only sex education.

So, the McCain campaign asks us to respect the family's privacy. Can we ask that they respect our privacy, and let women choose to have abortions?

The McCain campaign, presumably with a straight face (since good Republicans know no other), suggested that VP Candidate Sarah Palin's experience as Commander in Chief of the Alaska National Guard gave her understanding in "what it takes to lead our nation and she understands the importance of supporting our troops." Really? The Alaska National Guard? Both of them?

Shrub, without a hint of irony, called it an exciting choice. "Governor Palin is a proven reformer who is a wise steward of taxpayer dollars and champion for accountability in government…" Unlike me, he did not add.

Look, I think it's wonderful that no matter who wins in November we will have at least top elected official who is not a White male. Baby steps & all that. Still, the lengths both campaigns are going to either validate their young candidate or invalidate the opposing candidate are getting a little silly.