Just Another Day on a Republican Staff

There's a minor brouhaha over somebody from the office of Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss sending some hate mail to a pro-gay rights blog.

As TPM previously reported, soon after a Senate vote to block debate on the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' someone wrote "All faggots must die" on the blog of gay rights advocate Joe Jervis. Other commenters traced the origin of the comment to a senate.gov IP address located in Atlanta, Georgia, near the offices of both of the state's senators. Chambliss' office then said it was investigating the matter.

Chambliss' office did determine that the hate message came from their office. But I don't think that's the point. From everything I've ever read about Republican politician, this kind of discourse about gay people is pretty much standard operating procedure. The only difference is that the GOP's successful filibustering of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" led some anonymous guy to let down his guard and go public with his homophobia.

Maybe the media should report that as well.

Excellent Delusions from Dinesh D'Souza

It appears more and more that conservative activists just live in an alternate universe. Dinesh D'Souza, a right-wing think tanker who might as well be a brand name for stunning mediocrity, has an article in Forbes on how Obama's ideas on things like health care derive from the "anti-colonial" ideology he inherited from his Kenyan father.

Back in the real world, Obama's health care ideas were quite a bit like Hillary Clinton's whose ideas were quite a bit like Joe Bidens in 2008 and pretty much the same as Joe Lieberman's in 2004.

That's pretty much the same with all of Obama's ideas. They're a lot like Democratic ideas that have been floating around for a long time.

But for conservatives, being a Democrat is not enough to explain Obama. For the right, everything Obama has to be traced back to A-f-r-i-c-a.

Not that it bothers conservatives that Obama is black.

Not that the right-wing is engaged in race-baiting.

Not that they're racists.

Well, maybe a little.

All You Need to Know About Big-Time College Football

Jeff Pearlman of Sports Illustrated nails it on big-time college football coaches:

College football coaches talk to their players about loyalty and family, then do the ol' Snagglepuss (Exit -- stage left!) as soon as a better offer comes along. College football coaches talk about pride and "being a man," yet grovel at the toes of every 17-year-old child with a golden arm or 4.3 speed. College football coaches talk about "looking around this room and knowing it's not about the uniform, but what's inside," then accept $2 million annually from adidas to promote what's on the outside. They are, to be blunt, a pathetic lot, and I'd just as soon have my son stay home, obsess over the Atari 2600 and smoke 10 packs of Marlboros a day than play for the used car salesmen at schools like Alabama or Arkansas or USC.

Some college football players are better than others. I've been pretty impressed with the last two sets of coaches at Kentucky. But analogizing guys like Nick Saban and Bobby Petrino to used car salesman is really an insult to used car salesman. Maybe it would be better to say I'd rather have my children follow Glen Beck than SEC football.

Come to think of it though, I'm just glad I have daughters.

Palin Candidate Still Ahead in Alaska

TPM has Joe Miller still ahead by 2,000 votes over Lisa Murkowski with 84% of precincts reporting.

Sarah Palin's Little Finger

The latest reports out of the battle for the Republican nomination to the U. S. Senate from Alaska has unknown incumbent Lisa Murkowski trailing unknown Joe Miller.

Incumbent GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski was thought to be a big favorite coming into Tuesday's primary against Sarah Palin-backed challenger Joe Miller. But with over half the vote in, Miller holds a slight lead over the incumbent, 52 to 48 percent with a little over 2,000 votes separating the two.

Because Alaska has such a far flung population, Murkowski could still pull ahead.

But the fact that Miller's is at the very least putting up a stiff fight is enormous testimony to the power of Sarah Palin.

Because of Sarah Palin's support, Joe Miller is a player. Without her support, he's just another clueless wing nut who wants to invade Canada over socialized medicine.

And Palin didn't have to do much.

If I remember right, Palin put up a couple of posts on facebook and recorded a robocall on his behalf on Monday. I don't think she made any public appearances with Miller or traveled with him around the state.

Sarah Palin is not exactly known for her work ethic and here she barely lifted a finger for Miller.

But, such as they were, Palin's token efforts still put Miller into play.

This all reminds me of a comment on Ben Franklin's attempt to change Pennsylvania from a proprietorship to a royal colony in the 1750's. Franklin wanted to end the proprietorship as a way to eliminate the influence of William Penn's descendants on Pennsylvania affairs.

But one of Franklin's opponents claimed something to the effect that "the little finger of the king weighs more than the loins of the proprietor."

Sarah Palin's little finger has a lot of weight as well.

It Could Be A Lot Worse!

Barbara Ehrenreich has an article on AlterNet entitled resist the Corpo-Obama-Geithner-Petraeus State. I understand the frustration with the Obama administration. But it's also clear that if progressives don't hang with Obama, we're going to get the Palin/Bachmann State and conditions are going to be a lot worse, a whole lot worse, than they are now.

Dr. Laura Goes for the Tea Party Audience

Laura Schlessinger of "Dr. Laura" fame apologized profusely for using the "n-word" several times in her discussion with a black woman who was complaining about racist comments in the context of her bi-racial marriage.

It sounds like a scene from Spike Lee's Bamboozled.

During the exchange on Tuesday's show, Schlessinger said the woman who called herself Jade was too sensitive for complaining that her husband's friends made racist comments about her in their home. When the woman asked if the N-word was offensive, Dr. Laura said "black guys say it all the time," then went on to repeat it
several times.

Schlessinger did not direct the epithet at the woman, but said she used it to suggest how often she hears it, and that it should not automatically be cause for offense.
When the caller objected, Schlessinger replied: "Oh, then I guess you don't watch HBO or listen to any black comedians."

Schlessinger also said that if the caller did not have a sense of humor about race, she shouldn't have entered into an interracial marriage.

I can't decide if Dr. Laura is bringing her inner racist out of the closet, whether she's yet another conservative case of racial panic in the Age of Obama, or simply trying to get the Tea Party constituency to pay her more attention.

Whatever, I have a funny feeling that she's soon going to be using a Confederate flag as her show's logo.

The Worst Owner in the NBA

With yesterday's hiring and today's withdrawal of Isaiah Thomas, it now looks like Knick owner James Dolan has displaced the Clippers Donald Sterling as the worst owner in the NBA.

A Few Words About Fancy Farm

I just saw video of the speeches from Jack Conway and Rand Paul at Fancy Farm last Saturday. Conway really kicked Rand Paul's butt. Paul is a pretty weak public speaker who wasn't saying much of anything about anything. He wasn't talking about his own ideas, he wasn't talking much about the Obama administration, and he wasn't talking much about Jack Conway. Pretty much all Paul did was recite the number of pages in the tax code and federal regulations and recite the names of President Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi.

It was lame and fell flat.

The question, though, is whether any of this makes any difference though. Political scientists have argued for years that campaign managers, political consultants and ad agencies have become the principle figures in political campaigns rather than candidates. Rand Paul's campaign takes this one step further. Given that Paul has by-passed the Republican campaign infrastructure, his campaign is being driven primarily by Fox News.

Conway referred to Paul as trying to be the "prince of cable tv."

It's more accurate to view Rand Paul as the "puppet of cable tv."

I'll be volunteering and giving money to the Jack Conway campaign

Elena Kagan Gets Confirmed 63-37

I have to admit that I'm not overwhelmingly impressed with Kagan. But anybody better would have been demonized to death. So she's the best we could do.

Who's Weirder: Sharron Angle or Jesus?

Yesterday, TPM gave some play to a Las Vegas Sun story concerning Sharron Angle's claims that the Obama administration violated the First Commandment with its health care initiatives. Here's Angle doing an interview with Christian radio in April.

"And these programs that you mentioned -- that Obama has going with Reid and
Pelosi pushing them forward -- are all entitlement programs built to make government our God. And that’s really what’s happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment. We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We’re supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government."

It's often extremely difficult for people outside the religious right to understand what they're saying and I'm no different in having problems in that regard. However, much of what Sharron Angle appears to be doing in the interview is seeking to establish her authenticity as a Christian conservative.

Authenticity is a problem with Sharron Angle.

Before her campaign for the U. S. Senate gained traction, Angle talked big about carrying out "Second Amendment solutions" in relation to Harry Reid (i.e., having Reid assassinated) and eliminating social security. Since then, Angle has admitted that she needs to "walk back" this kind of rhetoric if she wants to win her Senate race against Reid, but Angle also gives the impression that her rhetoric about Reid and Obama was always just a pose calculated to gain attention on the extreme right and that she's perfectly willing to adapt more conventional Republican language now that she's the Republican nominee. Contrary to the Tea Party image of disgust with the constant shape-shifting of politicians, Sharron Angle appears to be an "extreme politician" in the sense that she's willing to dramatically remake herself to seize the opportunity of her lifetime.

Much the same is the case with Rand Paul in Kentucky. Also remaking himself as a more conventional Republican politician, Paul characterizes himself as "spouting off" in any number of ways over the last twenty years as a libertarian gadfly and claims that nobody should take anything he said very seriously.

And that claim should be taken seriously