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Yeah, Glenn, it's a "joke." We get it. We get that you're a former shock jock, that you don't actually believe a single word you say, and that you will say anything for money. We get that the vice-presidency is even further out of your league than it is for Palin, and that's saying a lot.

Sadly, we get that it's way below your current pay-grade, too.

We also get that you're an infantile jerk.

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Both Mark McKinnon and Nicolle Wallace, recently the McCain-Palin campaign's media gurus, were both on MSNBC this morning to talk ostensibly about serious subjects but eventually came around to the matter of Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair piece on Sarah Palin, in which they both figure prominently as objects of the diva's ire.

Both do their best to speak glowingly of Palin -- McKinnon says he actually only coached her for two hours -- and Wallaces talks up Palin's future prospects. But really, one only need read the piece to see the writing that's been on the wall for some time for Palin: She is road kill in the rear-view mirror of the Republican Party's Beltway movers and shakers.

It also raises some salient larger points:

Whatever her political future, the emergence of Sarah Palin raises questions that will not soon go away. What does it say about the nature of modern American politics that a public official who often seems proud of what she does not know is not only accepted but applauded? What does her prominence say about the importance of having (or lacking) a record of achievement in public life? Why did so many skilled veterans of the Republican Party—long regarded as the more adroit team in presidential politics—keep loyally working for her election even after they privately realized she was casual about the truth and totally unfit for the vice-presidency? Perhaps most painful, how could John McCain, one of the cagiest survivors in contemporary politics—with a fine appreciation of life’s injustices and absurdities, a love for the sweep of history, and an overdeveloped sense of his own integrity and honor—ever have picked a person whose utter shortage of qualification for her proposed job all but disqualified him for his?

The issue, it seems, comes down to the initial lack of vetting:

There is virtually nothing about Palin’s performance in the fall campaign that should have come as a surprise to John McCain. Had he really attempted to learn something about her before the fateful day of August 29, 2008, when he announced that she was his choice for running mate, he would easily have discerned all the traits that he belatedly came to know.

Palin's career as a mainstream Republican is probably at a dead end, because her name is now synonymous with Wacky Loser. However, that doesn't mean her career is dead, by any means. There's a big bunch of Teabaggers out there primed and ready to party with a charismatic leader, and Evita Palin fits the bill.

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Making good on his assumption (or was that a threat?) that the waning days of the election may result in a Special Comment every day, this time Keith Olbermann reminds Sarah Palin that actually understanding the responsibility of the Office of the Vice President would not make you a liberal elitist.

I mean, I'd like my President and Vice President to have memorized the Constitution, and abide by it...

Or at least, I'd like them to know more about the Constitution than I do.[..]

Maybe I'm raising the bar too high...

But at least wait until you achieve office before trying to seize power extra-Constitutionally!

"The founders" were not George Bush and Dick Cheney!

Transcripts below the fold

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Let me say first that while I didn't support Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, I could certainly understand why her supporters did. She's tough, she's arguably one of the smartest people in Washington and she's extremely capable. And even her detractors must admit that it was a very tough primary season, made worse by the media's need to fill up 24/7 with content that appeared to relish pitting Democrats against one another, usually quite unfairly.

That being said, if any Hillary Clinton supporter actually goes through with this suggestion from Bill "I'm not right about anything, but I still get my regular TV gig to screw over the national discourse" Kristol, you are being played, big time. This is Operation Chaos in all its nakedly partisan glory.

Kristol (who, by the way, is NEVER right about anything, have I said that recently?) is clearly scared of Obama's pick of Joe Biden for the vice president slot, because as he admits, Biden has the foreign policy experience, the alleged lack of which they are so fond of attacking Obama. So in the only battlefield that Kristol has the gonads to scale, he challenges Clinton supporters (naturally, it's easier to be brave when others are the soldiers, isn't it, Billy?) to launch a protest by nominating Clinton as the Vice President at the convention, forcing a roll call vote.

KRISTOL: Look, Senator Obama is going to be the nominee, there's no point in contesting that roll call. What I would encourage Hillary supporters to do...

WILLIAMS: Oh boy...

LIASSON: No!

KRISTOL: ...is to express their outrage over the pick of Senator Biden over the better qualified Senator Clinton as the Vice Presidential pick by putting her nomination for the vice presidency. That would be a good roll call vote, don't you think? Clinton and Biden. Although I'm not sure she wouldn't beat him. And that would be exciting and that would be a ben...it would be a favor to Senator Obama. Because the truth is Obama/Clinton is a much stronger ticket. It is a stronger ticket than Obama/Biden. Does anyone seriously doubt that Hillary Clinton would bring all the Clinton voters over? Whereas Biden I think is going to have a tough time doing so.

WILLIAMS: It would be drama. But I think that you make
that suggestion as a subversive act...

KRISTOL: You think? [laughs] No...no...

Listen up, for those of you considering this: THIS IS A SUGGESTION FROM SOMEONE WHO THINKS THE IRAQ INVASION AND OCCUPATION WILL MAKE GEORGE W. BUSH A GREAT PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY BOOKS.

Can I possibly reiterate how wrong Kristol ALWAYS is?

I don't care how unfairly you think Clinton was treated during the primaries (and frankly, I might agree with you on that) nor how great a VP you think she'd make (she'd be great and it would be a historic administration with an African-American and a woman leading the country--I'll stipulate the whole to you for the sake of argument), it is simply bad for the party, bad for the country and insulting to our collective intelligence as Democrats and/or liberals to do anything that the leading neo-con cheerleader for the Worst. President. Ever. suggests.

Don't even think about it.

Full transcript of his pathetic tactics below

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Watch Obama calmly tell everyone to "settle down" and "relax" over how he will handle the VP slot. Just give it a little time and be patient. This is a big decision and as is customary, Obama's planning to take his time. But that's not good enough for the crazed media as they staked out the wrong place and looked like amateurs next to TMZ as they tried to find the "super-secret" meeting between Obama and Hillary.

Obama just won an incredible victory on so many levels, but they can't let the piefight go. In my opinion, they are making things much worse with this behavior, but that's for another post.

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Obama handles this situation like a true leader.

via CNN's The Situation Room:

CROWLEY (on-camera): You know and I know that if Senator Clinton wanted to tamp down this vice presidential conversation by her surrogates that she would. She has, as she will tell you, more than 17 million voters. She has more delegates than any runner-up in history. Do you have to put her on the ticket?

OBAMA: Well, let me begin by saying - repeating what I said on Tuesday night. She has been an extraordinary candidate. She has been an extraordinary public servant for years now. She ran as tough a race as could be imagined. And I have nothing but respect for Senator Clinton and what she's going to contribute to the party. And I'm also confident we're going to be unified in November.

What I've also said is the vice presidency is the most important decision that I'll make before I'm president. And it's something that I take very seriously.

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The Hill asked the other 97 sitting US Senators whether or not they would accept the offer to be #2. Richard Shelby's answer was probably the most, shall we say, colorful:

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) ruled himself out because of disinterest and said McCain would look elsewhere anyway.

“Besides, there was a famous quote about the vice presidency from Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president,” Shelby said. “You should look that up.”

Shelby was referring to John Nance Garner, who served under Roosevelt from 1933 to 1941 and described the job as “not worth a bucket of warm piss.”

See what your Senator said here.

Whippersnapp: Karl Rove reveals his genuine and abiding contempt for physical labor and the people who do it

The Carpetbagger Report: Dick Cheney's office claims that the “Vice Presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch.”

beliefnet: Best-selling atheist Sam Harris and pro-religion blogger Andrew Sullivan debate God, faith, and fundamentalism

Shakespeare's Sister: Is Tucker Carlson also a theologian or just a store-bought a*shole?

All Things Democrat: With all those ultra expensive Pentagon choppers full of Americans falling from the sky in Iraq...

notmypill: Important info for women...

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