Barack On the Mark

Barack Obama finally got his Irish up (and he does have Irish blood in him, folks) sternly scolding Republicans for refusing to do anything about the debt ceiling without safeguarding tax breaks for the rich and pointing out that his daughters worked to get their homework done when they knew their assignments were due at a specific date - like the due date for raising the debt ceiling (August 2).

So the President finally shows some backbone and takes a hard line against the Republicans and, naturally, the Republicans complain about him being so damn harsh. ("That uppity Negro!") That did not surprise me. What surprised me is that Mark Halperin, a respected and respectable journalist, called him a "dick." He said so on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," with some relish and with more self-consciousness than he was willing to admit. He actually preceded his remarks by saying that he hoped there was a seven-second delay.

Halperin's comments sparked an aghast reaction from many people in less time than that - not so much for what he said, but his choice of words. People didn't necessarily have a problem with Halperin parroting the Republican talking points. Halperin himself apologized, but the fact that he said such a thing at all reveals just how difficult it is for Obama to take a stand. The media - even supposedly Democratic-friendly MSNBC - keep dismissing in a cavalier fashion Obama's attempt to stand up for anything, as if they're encouraging him to be conciliatory with the fat cats who run this country and give them their tax cuts and corporate jet write-offs. Of course. Many media people work for some of those same fat cats.

Now that Obama is finally standing firm, we should encourage him to keep do so, and not let Republicans scold him as if he's an inferior pol who should stay in his place. Both they and Mark Halperin came across looking like, well, dicks. Those uppity Caucasians. :-O

An Unfinished Career

The new book "Game Change" by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann reveals what a big monster John Edwards was in documenting his affair with a freelance filmmaker and the love child it produced. Edwards carried on the affair even as his wife Elizabeth was battling cancer and tried to bargain with Barack Obama for the Vice Presidency, then a Cabinet position, before the baby was born in exchange for his support. The best he could get was a speaking slot at the Democratic convention. By the time the convention took place, the scandal broke and even that was out of the question, as Edwards's political capital was worth about as much as a Guyanese dollar. I take that back - the Guyanese dollar is worth much more. This story only makes me realize how a man with a potentially great career in public service threw it all away on a fling.

I refer, of course, to former New York governor Eliot Spitzer.

One other thing we learn from Halperin and Heilemann's book is that Edwards was a consummate phony, speaking out on the issue of poverty while making an obscene amount of money as a trial lawyer and living just as obscenely in a 28,200-square foot mansion, complete with a recreational annex that includes a basketball court, a squash court, two stages, a bedroom, a kitchen, bathrooms, a swimming pool, and a four-story tower. While Edwards talked about fighting for the little guy, Eliot Spitzer did fight for the little guy. He has a record. Not the police record form the prostitution sting, but his record as New York State Attorney General. He prosecuted cases involving white collar crime, securities fraud, environmental law violations, and even fraud at the now-discredited American International Group. He could have been one of the great governors of New York, and possibly America's first Jewish President. Now Spitzer is disgraced, and so is his state. Governor David Paterson has been a complete failure as the state's accidental chief executive, with the state budget a mess and the economy arguably in worse shape than the national economy.

I at least hope that New York State residents are grateful for the job he did as Attorney General. New York, Connecticut, and, yes, Massachusetts are fortunate to be able to elect their own attorneys general and have someone accountable to the people to fight for the people. In New Jersey, the attorney general is appointed by and serves at the pleasure at the governor.

As for Spitzer, he's still an important voice to listen to, and people do listen to him - he's appeared on Ed Schultz's MSNBC show periodically to tell people how Wall Street is still screwing us. He may have a thing or two to tell us about hedge funds, which benefited Edwards.

It's only too bad he's no longer in a position to do anything about any of this.

Palin: Evil Or Stupid?

My British ladyfriend Therisa, whom you already know about, hates Sarah Palin with a cold passion. Citing Palin's atrocious animal welfare record as governor of Alaska, Therisa threatened on her MySpace page (which is not private, so I'm not giving anything away here) that she would leave the U.S. if John McCain were to be elected President and the evil Palin were a heartbeat away from ultimate power.

Well, that never happened, and so Therisa stayed in America. But the comments on Palin in John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's new book "Game Change" reveal more facts about Palin that seem to suggest that her biggest problem is not an evil heart but an empty head. Palin was always known to be something of a dim bulb, but Halperin and Heilemann show that she's far more stupid than even her most ferocious critics realized; she makes George Walker Bush look like Aristotle. Among the the revelations in this book about the woman Rush Limbaugh holds in such high regard:

Palin had to be schooled into understanding what both world wars were about, and how they started;

She didn't know the difference between North Korea and South Korea, or even that Korea was divided into two independent states (I'm only a year or so younger than Palin, and I learned about Korea simply by watching "M*A*S*H!");

She didn't know what the Federal Reserve does;

She believed Saddam Hussein was behind the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, and when she saw her son off to military service in post-Saddam Iraq, she couldn't explain who we were fighting there, and;

She asked Senator Joseph Biden at their 2008 vice presidential debate if she could call him "Joe" not to disarm him with charm but to avoid conflating his and Barack Obama's surnames and calling him "O'Biden," which she'd been doing in practicing for the debate. Or maybe she was conflating it with Conan O'Brien, who might have been a better interviewer for her than Katie Couric. Well, Joe Biden is Irish, so it must be an Irish thing. In any event, she referred to Biden as "O'Biden" once during the debate, but the slip pretty much went unnoticed.

So, when Sarah Palin went about trying to ban books from libraries as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska or permit wolves to be shot in cold blood from helicopters as governor of Alaska, it was possibly more out of ignorance than malice. I'll be happy to forgive her if she knows not what she does, but do we really want someone who doesn't know what she's doing to run the country?

What could Palin, who turns 46 next month, possibly do with her life at this point? How about being a commentator for Fox News, a gig she just started? Yes, she's an idiot, but that's what qualifies her to be on Fox News. And the handsome paycheck she'll get from that may dissuade her to run for President in 2012. After all, the President of the United States only makes $400,000 a year.