Lie To Me, A-Fraud

NYTimes: Reading Microexpressions During a 2007 interview with Katie Couric, Alex Rodriguez demonstrated what Dr. Paul Ekman calls, from left, gestural slips, unilateral contempt and microfear.

The psychologist who inspired the new TV show "Lie to Me" reviews A-Fraud's 2007 interview with Katie Couric and finds lies aplenty. Shocking!

NYTimes: The Voice Was Lying. The Face May Have Told the Truth.

We Love Lists

My #1 Video of the Campaign

Time: Top Ten Campaign Video Moments

A weird list. The Palin-Couric interviews get #1, that's justifiable, but "Joe Biden's One-Word Debate Answer" and Hillary Clinton's "Soprano's Video" beating will.i.am's "Yes We Can" video is ridiculous.

My top five:

1. John McCain "The Fundamentals of Our Economy Are Strong" (see above)
2. will.i.am "Yes We Can"
3. Tina Fey "I Can See Russia From My House"
4. Sarah Palin "In What Respect, Charlie?"
5. Sarah Palin "Putin Rears His Head"

Katie Couric Discusses Sarah Palin Interviews

On David Letterman Wednesday night:



"Clearly, she was struggling with some of those answers."

The McCain Campaign's Fatal Mistake

Pissing off David Letterman was a very, very stupid thing to do.

Some special messages from Sarah Palin:


Top 10 Messages on Sarah Palin's Answering Machine:


Bwahahaha.

Debate Prep

For your debate prep, I assign you to watch this "Sarah Palin Greatest Hits" tape:



In what respect, Charlie?

Palin Can't Name One Newspaper or Magazine She Reads

More from her soon-to-be-written book "How I Committed Suicide on the CBS Evening News"

COURIC: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious: what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?

PALIN: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

KC: But, like, what ones specifically? I'm curious.

SP: All of 'em, any of 'em that have been in front of me over all these years.

KC: Can you name a few?

SP: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where, it's kind of suggested and it seems like, 'Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C. may be thinking and doing when you live up there in Alaska?' Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

Sarah Palin was a journalism major. Sports journalism, but still.

Maybe She'll Bring Johnny Mac to the Debate to Run Interference

No more interviews alone for Sarah Palin. Tonight John McCain interposed himself as a human shield between Palin and the very very tough interviewer Katie Couric:



It is an insult to all women that she can't even be allowed to do her own interviews alone. John McCain may as well be holding her hand.

That's a creepy visual.

Putin Rears His Head

"We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state."

- Sarah Palin to Katie Couric last week

Tina Fey/Sarah Palin Last Night

Pearls of Palin Economic Wisdom

Watch her look at the flash cards in her lap near the end, as she flubs her line and says the bailout is needed to bolster health care.

You will notice that in the Alaskan gubernatorial debates (I watched one on C-Span) she always had flash cards. I don't think she really knows anything about anything, but she reads cue cards like any good sports anchor wannabee. That's the experience I want in the White House. Whee!

"I Can See Russia From My House!"

"They're in the state that I am the executive of."

dailykos: More painful Palin excerpts from Couric interview (video)

The more I see of this interview, the more I am convinced that this is why McCain suspended his campaign yesterday. Forget the bailout, his crisis is:

How do we solve a problem like Sarah? (lyrics below)

COURIC: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land-- boundary that we have with-- Canada. It-- it's funny that a comment like that was-- kind of made to-- cari-- I don't know, you know? Reporters--

COURIC: Mock?

PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.

COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.

PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our-- our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia--

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state.

Maria/Sarah, The Sound of Music

How do you solve a problem like Sarah?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Sarah?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!

Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay
And listen to all you say
How do you keep a wave upon the sand

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Sarah?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

When I'm with her I'm confused
Out of focus and bemused
And I never know exactly where I am
Unpredictable as weather
She's as flighty as a feather
She's a darling! She's a demon! She's a lamb!

She'd outpester any pest
Drive a hornet from its nest
She could throw a whirling dervish out of whirl
She is gentle! She is wild!
She's a riddle! She's a child!
She's a headache! She's an angel!
She's a girl!

How do you solve a problem like Sarah?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Sarah?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!

Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay
And listen to all you say
How do you keep a wave upon the sand

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Sarah?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

A Little More of the Quaylin Interview

God, she is stupid, stupid woman. What was McCain thinking? Which brain was he using?

Sarah Palin makes Katie Couric look Presidential.

"The logistics that we're already suggesting here....bin Laden [] such a leader of this terrorist movement....I believe that a surge in Afghanistan also will lead us to victory there, as it has proven to have done in Iraq....as our leaders are telling us in our military ...."

A babbling brook, one inch deep. Watch it here (can't get it to embed, sorry.)

HuffPo: Palin On Bin Laden: "Such A Leader Of This Terrorist Movement"

John McCain Tries a Stunt

John McCain seems to be cracking up. Obama (still under the Democratic misapprehension that John McCain is an honorable man -- he is a LIAR, don't you get that?) called McCain Wednesday morning to discuss putting out a joint statement about the mortgage bailout, outlining their points of agreement. More of that bipartisan bullshit. (You can only be bipartisan if both sides truly intend to cooperate, and Republicans don't do cooperation. So in this environment, when Democrats and Republicans come together, they pass the Republican bill. Not helpful.)

McCain finally called him back six hours later (in the interim, doing such important things as meeting with Her Royal Highness Lady de Rothschild) and tells Obama they will put out a joint statement, and he's thinking about postponing the debate. Minutes after Obama puts the phone down, McCain runs to the television cameras. He's all Mr. Crisis Management. Mr. "The fundamentals of our economy are strong" last week is Mr. "Hair on fire" today. Suspending his campaign. Flying to Washington to Fix the economy. Asking to postpone the debate Friday night. (Huh? He can't do more than one thing at a time? Oh, I forget, he's been doing one campaign event a day for several weeks now -- usually early in the morning while he's still alert.)

Another whoops alert, McCain's campaign faxed the talking points about the campaign suspension to their entire Colorado MEDIA LIST, rather than to the campaign volunteers. Oops.

Later in the day McCain's campaign announced that they want to put off the Vice Presidential debate. A few hours ago they announced that Quaylin is also suspending her campaign. (Back to Karl Rove debate prep for poor Sarah.) Which is probably the entire purpose of the episode. Caribou Barbie ain't ready for prime time. Her interview with Katie Couric is painful to watch. She's just really stupid, answering questions in nonsensical sentence fragments, always near the topic but never really with it.

McCain was supposed to do the David Letterman show tonight, but blew off Letterman to go on Katie Couric's CBS evening news. (Told Letterman he had to fly to Washington IMMEDIATELY, then went to Katie's studio. Dave is pissed. Watch the video, below.) I suspect McCain did this so that tonight's bit of the Sarah Quaylin interview got knocked off the playlist.

Letterman mocks McCain for suspending his campaign and blowing off his show:



Caribou Barbie with Katie Couric, Part I:



McCain is desperate and flailing. Unfortunately for him, his first flail, the comically unqualified Ms. Palin, will prove his undoing. I can't wait to see her in a debate. I think I'll have to have a debate party just to yuck it up.

"In what respect, Charlie?" has become a common thing for my friends to say to each other, and laugh.

McCain can run, but he can't hide Sarah Quaylin forever.

Sarah Palin Should Never Have Been McCain's Choice

How bad is McCain's judgment? Even Katie Couric noticed.

Palin is a real piece of work. For one thing, she's a rightwing nutjob:

Used her line-item veto to slash $1.1 million in funds for homes for unwed mothers. (I guess she thought that championing abstinence would make those unnecessary? Like it worked out in her own family? Fool.)

Tried to have books banned in her local library in Wasilla, then she tried to fire the local librarian who refused. (I'll send a bouquet of roses to the first reporter who asks what books she wanted to ban. The usual suspects, I suppose? Catcher in the Rye? Heather Has Two Mommies? Tropic of Cancer?)

She has stated in her church that Alaska's natural gas pipeline and the Iraq War are both God's will. She sat silently in that church two weeks ago when a speaker said that terrorist attacks in Israel are God's punishment to Jews who don't convert to Christ.

Reformer? Against earmarks? No.

She lied in her very first speech on the public stage, claiming to have rejected the "bridge to nowhere", but she was only against it after the federal funds were withdrawn. Before that she spoke out in favor of the earmark while she was running for governor.

She employed Jack Abramoff's lobbyist to get federal earmarks for Wasilla, Alaska. $27,000,000 -- 27 million -- in earmarks for a town of 6,700.

As governor, Alaska led the nation in earmarks and federal money. Got pork?

She took campaign contributions from VECO, the oil field services company that has admitted bribing Ted Stevens. Not surprising, as she led Ted Stevens 527 group.

Nasty person:

Last year, went on a radio talk show and laughed as the hosts called the Alaska Senator Lyda Green (a cancer survivor) a "cancer" and a "bitch". Yeah, funny.

Fired city employees who hadn't supported her mayoral candidacy. Just what we need, a politician who requires loyalty oaths.

Executive experience?

In 1996 Palin described her job as mayor of Wasilla, AK as "not rocket science". No kidding.

And yet she was McCain's pick. Why was that?

McCain's impulsivity: His own campaign staffers are saying they hadn't finished vetting her yet.

No one had even met with her in person until late in the day -- the day before she was announced as his running mate! Reckless.

Palin is competely unqualified for high national office. Oh, she's minimally qualified. She's an American, and she's over the age of 35. But she has no significant national or international experience, and her beliefs and positions are far out of the mainstream. At this point I hope McCain sticks with her. She will guarantee Obama/Biden victory.

Oh yeah, she was never Miss Congeniality. Another lie.

The Supine Corporate Media

Go watch this clip from BBC Question Time and tell me if we will ever get intelligent television like this on US media. (Via Brilliant at Breakfast, via Hoffmania) Watching John Bolton taken to task is such a pleasant way to start the day.

On American TV, instead, we get Chris Matthews and other mouth-breathing circus clowns laughing about Bush's crimes, or Katie Couric pummeling Elizabeth and John Edwards for continuing the campaign in the face of her cancer (conveniently, Katie forgets that she herself worked throughout her husband's fight with cancer. Do as I say, not as I do.) Couric phrased most of her interrogatory questions with the preface "Some say", then proceeded to spew right wing talking points.

Democrats must bring back the Fairness Doctrine, or our media will continue to be dominated by right wing, completely wrong perspectives.

Did everything really change, or was it all a dream?

Some days the "news" just gets to me.  This morning I was flipping through the morning shows.  There was Katie Couric, sitting on a high chair, interviewing three people about Martha Stewart.  (Am I the only person who can't look at Katie any more without thinking, "Navy Seals ROCK!")  Robin Roberts on ABC is directing a man through making and demonstrating homemade cleaners.
 
Remember after September 11th, when people were saying everything had changed forever?  When the media had a hiccup of regret over spending the summer covering Gary Condit and Chandra Levy?  That's when we got constant tickers crawling beneath the announcers on every news station.  Those tickers told us how many people were thought to be dead, the rumors of life in the pile, stories that made us feel and care.  But now our tickers are telling us about the Scott Peterson trial, and Martha Stewart's sentencing, and Kobe Bryant.  And they never tell us anything about the Americans or the Iraqis who died in Iraq today, other than counting them like the score of a sick baseball game.  What are their names?  How old were they?  How did they die?  Tell us.  Their deaths matter. 
 
Frank Rich says it is the fault of happy talk news.  I don't know why journalism has sunk this low, but it makes me sad.
 
Why hasn't one of the networks shown the video of Bush sitting in that Florida classroom for 7 minutes after learning the 2nd World Trade Center Tower had been hit?  Why don't I have that video burned into my brain, instead of poor Howard Dean shouting over the crowd in Iowa?
 
Show me the My Pet Goat video.  The country will not fall apart if we see Prances in Flightsuit as he really is.  Give him his seven minutes of fame.  Show some courage.  Show some guts.   Be journalists, not parrots.  Do your job.