Of course, Quitty McQuitter can always flash a little grizzly mom leg and there goes PalinFail down the Chris Matthews memory hole. The progressive motto is,

2008: Never Forget.

Open Thread below....

One mother's war

Would you believe a "war" mom was told to F-off by her local Blue Star chapter? The Raw Story has the piece.

You know, there are a lot of things Glenn Beck the nutbag does that make me crazy-angry, but most of the time I just write him off as a crazy, desperate has-been Rush Limbaugh wannabe and ignore his ugly self. Not this time.

I am mom. And I roar, scratch and bite when someone thinks it's perfectly okay to mock an 11-year old child for any reason, but especially when it's to stoke up more political hate toward the President and his family.

For this, he ought to have to get on his knees with real tears in his eyes, look in her eyes and beg forgiveness before he does the same to the President and First Lady. There is absolutely no excuse -- NONE -- for mocking an 11-year old child.

Obama remarked yesterday during his press conference that Malia asked him of the Gulf oil spill: "Did you Plug The Hole Yet, Daddy?" Beck, taking off on this, mockingly affected Malia's voice, asking "Daddy" why he "hates black people so much." Then Beck attacked Malia's intelligence, saying: "That's the level of their education, that they're coming to - they're coming to daddy and saying 'Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?' "

This routine continued for several minutes, as Beck and his co-hosts touched on a variety of topics and laughed the entire time, all of it at the expense of an 11-year-old girl.

Yet it was only a few days ago that Beck, on his radio show, demanded that liberal pundits "leave people's families alone" when it came to Sarah Palin:

Beck: There's a difference! Leave my family -- leave people's families alone! I don't think I've -- I mean, I don't think I have ever -- I mean, I made this when it was Bill Clinton -- you don't go after Chelsea Clinton! You don't talk about the Bush kids! Now, the minute they get into politics, that's a different story. You leave the families alone! We've never done anything but protect the families, and question why the White House would bring their children into political debate. Leave the families alone!

Beck proves every day how excrementally evil he is. He should not have the microphone or the platform. There will come a day where he'll look in the mirror and actually see who he is.

I hope his children grow up to be just like him, but liberals. That would be a start toward making the universe right again.

(h/t QueenofSpain)

Update: Beck has issued a half-hearted apology. If he apologized with half the passion he laces his invective with, I might even believe it. He rang the bell and did it evilly. He didn't bother to apologize to Malia or to the Obama family, so as far as I'm concerned, he's still on the hook.

My mom and a few others I know who remain dumbfounded by Sarah Palin's appeal have voiced concerns to me that Palin may have presidential ambitions, and scarily enough, succeed. To be honest, I've never felt that was a serious concern, because Palin has never appeared interested in doing actual work--just look at her bailing out on the Alaskan governorship--more than exposure and fame and the riches associated with that. Guess what, Mom? Looks like I was right:

Pundits can debate the political costs and benefits of Sarah Palin's decision to step down as Alaska governor, but the monetary advantages of leaving her $125,000-a-year public service post are beyond dispute.

Since leaving office at the end of July 2009, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee has brought in at least 100 times her old salary – a haul now estimated at more than $12 million -- through television and book deals and a heavy schedule of speaking appearances worth five and six figures.

But you don't get to that income level without expecting some serious accomodations for your work. Palin's demands--uncovered by some enterprising students at CSU* Stanislaus, who found part of her speaking contract riders in the garbage, awaiting shredding--are perhaps not ludicrous as removing all the brown M&Ms but certainly do indicate a tendency towards the diva.

1) Sarah Palin is scared of real questions from real America. Audience questions must be pre-screened: ""For Q&A, the questions are to be collected from the audience in advance, pre-screened and a designated representative... shall ask questions directly of the Speaker."

2) Palin needs two bottles of water near her lectern. And "bendable straws are to be placed in or near the wooden lectern." Presumably for drinking the water, but they could also be used to illustrate vividly the horns of the devil as he congratulates Obama on Obamacare.

3) Like much of America, Palin likes to be transported in large vehicles: If she's not being flown first class commercial from Anchorage, "the private aircraft MUST BE a Lear 60 or larger." As for ground transportation: "transportation will be by SUV(s) from a professionally licensed and insured car service. If SUV(s) are not available, black town cars may be substituted"

4) Sarah Palin needs three hotel rooms: "A pre-registered one-bedroom suite and two single rooms in a deluxe hotel." One of those hotel rooms is just for her folksy sayings. Another is for if she needs to personally apply advanced interrogation techniques to any terrorists she comes across.

The mainstream media is focusing on her bendy straw fetish, because it's the most innocuous. I wear lipstick too. I get the straw thing, and bendy straws prevent the straw from falling too far into the water bottle. Whatever. What gets me is that they don't blink an eye over the folksy hockey mom demanding Lear jets and first class accommodations for her and whatever entourage with whom she travels. Nor do they mind her insistence on pre-screened questions. All that elitism from the pitbull with lipstick and they focus on her not wanting to smudge it.

However, there are some who find her speaking demands some cause for concern. California Attorney General Jerry Brown wants to make sure that California taxpayers aren't ponying up for Palin's lavish lifestyle:

California Attorney General Jerry Brown said Tuesday his office had launched an investigation into the finances of a state university foundation and the alleged dumping of documents related to Sarah Palin's upcoming speech at the school.

Brown also intends to look into whether the California State University, Stanislaus Foundation violated public disclosure laws. "This is not about Sarah Palin," Brown said in a prepared statement. "The issues are public disclosure and financial accountability in organizations embedded in state-run universities."

Matt Swanson, president of the foundation board, did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment about the investigation. [..]

The document, dated March 16, does not include compensation details for Palin, who commands speaking fees as high as $100,000. Her appearance at the university gala is expected to draw a large crowd, with tickets selling for $500 each. Palin's fee and accommodations will be covered entirely by private donations, not state funds, Swanson said earlier in the day.

The students who found the document said they acted on a tip that documents were being shredded when campus staff members were supposed to be on furlough.

*corrected (h/t acoustichobo)

Man, cameras are racist too? What is this world coming to?

When Joz Wang and her brother bought their mom a Nikon Coolpix S630 digital camera for Mother's Day last year, they discovered what seemed to be a malfunction. Every time they took a portrait of each other smiling, a message flashed across the screen asking, "Did someone blink?" No one had. "I thought the camera was broken!" Wang, 33, recalls. But when her brother posed with his eyes open so wide that he looked "bug-eyed," the messages stopped.

Wang, a Taiwanese-American strategy consultant who goes by the Web handle "jozjozjoz," thought it was funny that the camera had difficulties figuring out when her family had their eyes open. So she posted a photo of the blink warning on her blog under the title, "Racist Camera! No, I did not blink... I'm just Asian!" The post was picked up by Gizmodo and Boing Boing, and prompted at least one commenter to note, "You would think that Nikon, being a Japanese company, would have designed this with Asian eyes in mind."

Open thread below...

Driftglass: Best Sarah Palin photoshop ever. Why does she hate America?

All the Good Names are Taken: You mean Georgia teabaggers want socialist flood recovery money? What happened to going Galt?

Pitt Briefly: G20 Protests, some of which are unique to Pittsburgh. (Hi, Mom!)

Mock Paper Scissors: Windows 7 Release Party gets a lil' freaky.

Pushing Rope: Yes, it's racist.

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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...

Good for a morning chuckle.

Conservative mom: Obama says he wants kids to study hard -- which we all know is a slippery slope to becoming a Nazi.

(And yes, in case there's any confusion, this is a satirical video.)

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You know the opponents of health-care reform -- which obviously includes nearly every talking head who appears on Fox News -- are getting desperate when they start trying to scare elderly people by suggesting that President Obama's health-care plans will mean euthanization for old folks when they get hurt.

That's what the crew at Fox & Friends this morning did, led by "Fox News legal analyst" Peter Johnson Jr., and aided and abetted by Brian Kilmeade and Gretchen Carlson. First they played a snippet of Obama at a town-hall meeting on health care:

But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that's not making anybody's mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know, and your mom know, that you know what, maybe this isn't going to help, maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.

This became the launching pad:

Kilmeade: Dying?!! Sucking it up?!! And not having surgery?

Johnson: Too sick, too expensive.

Kilmeade: Well, that's what this whole trend is!

Johnson: Absolutely. And some people are saying, 'Well, this isn't health care reform,' and other people are saying -- maybe me -- that this is a subtle form of euthanasia. And when you start looking at the proposals, you say, 'God, what's happening?'

Of course, all they had to do was watch the entire set of remarks on this by Obama in their context to realize what's happening: that effective reform means cutting the waste created by a medical establishment that thrives on unnecessary procedures -- he wasn't suggesting that people be denied life-saving operations.

Obama made this clear up front:

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The Evolution of Dad trailer, a film by Dana H Glazer

My book chat this week with Andrea Batista Schlesinger really had me thinking about how to raise my kids to honor their curiosity and love to learn and try new things. And I have to admit that most of those characteristics in me were learned from my dad. My mom was my source of comfort and my role model in nurturing, but my dad was the one who told me to crack heads and take names and never be afraid to ask questions and more importantly, to keep asking them until I was satisfied. I learned from a child development book that your relationship with your mother affects how you feel about yourself; your relationship with your father affects how you relate to others. And now I see it with my own kids, and how they look to cues from their daddy and how their eyes light up when they make him laugh or he praises some little bit of something they've worked out. So I want to wish my dad and my hubby a very happy Father's Day and thank them for their roles in raising inquisitive kids. And happy Father's Day to all you daddies out there as well. It is frequently a thankless job, but possibly the best and most important role a man can have.

This Sunday's shows are simply more of the same. I almost suspect the bookers of these shows to be reading C&L and choosing guests that guarantee a good number of snarky posts. How else can you explain Presidential runner-up John McCain on Face the Nation, Fred Thompson on Meet the Press, Lindsay Graham on This Week and Pete Hoekstra on Fox News Sunday? Seriously, with all the problems we're facing in the world, these guys are the best ones to opine? Maybe it's because all the adults who can actually have real ideas to deal with these problems are too busy working.

ABC's "This Week" - Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; former Sens. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and Fred Thompson, R-Tenn.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Gloria Borger, Bob Woodward, Joe Klein, Tina Brown. Topics: How will this year's health care reform debate be different from 1993? What will be the lasting impact of this past week's protests in Iran? Meter Questions: Will Republicans unite as a bloc to oppose any health care reform bill? YES: 9 NO: 3; Will President Obama's policies be a riper target than his personality for Republican critics? YES: 12 No: 0.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Bob Casey, D-Penn, and Richard Lugar, R-Ind; Zbigniew Brzezinski.

CNN's "Reliable Sources" - Diane Sawyer, Bill Keller.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - An in-depth look at the crisis in Iran. What do we know about the man with the REAL power in Iran - the Ayatollah Khamenei? Plus, how technology has altered the power of the people.

"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and McCain; Reps. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., and Paul Ryan, R-Wis.; Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

So what's catching your eye this morning?