Sarah's resignation may be Mittens' dream

You are right on! The best thing Palin could do (besides moving into the Alaskan Bush, never to be heard of again) would be to take a course on government and current events. Then she might actually understand the rhetoric she throws around.

I believe Ms. Palin WILL attempt to run in 2012, and I believe the GOP will allow her - just to be the sacrificial lamb so no other Republican candidate will go down in flames against Obama.

Let's hope she learns some geography first whatever it is she does. :)

Great to have you back, Mike. Hope your travels went well. That "lame duck" comment bothered me, too, but you're the first person I've heard to call her on it. "Celebrity" can be a lucrative lifestyle all on its own, AND it might be an entre to further political office. The saga continues.

Mike,

You refer to Governor Jindal as Piyush Jindal, even though everyone knows he goes by "Bobby". Why exactly is that?
Is it *kind of* making fun of him, in a very sly way?
Would you do that with a liberal Democrat, who had a non-mainstream name, yet went by a well-known nickname?
Did you have absolutely no issue with some conservatives who called Barack Obama by his full name, last fall [the President uses it himself....now]...or... was that "totally different"?

In the space of a short opinion piece / analysis / whatever-the-heck it was supposed to be, you managed to refer to Governor Palin as:
* Caribou Barbie
* 'Our' [your] favorite "slutty flight attendant" [I know you're quoting the hilarious and 'still-hip' Letterman; the question is, why?!]
* 'White Trash'
* 'Brainless'
and, you accused her of 'inappropriate flirting'.
Where is this hate coming from, inside of you, towards this woman?
You recently wrote a piece stating, in so many words, that you don't give a hoot about politicians' sex lives.
Then why would you care about her alleged 'inappropriate **flirting**'
[my emphasis]?
That's completely inconsistent.
Is this (unoriginal) schoolyard name-calling what you consider pithy political commentary?
How exactly does 'winks, "you betchas" and inappropriate flirting' describe the Republican Party, again?
I'm trying to understand how that was a clever comment - I'm just not seeing it.
Have you ever heard of Eric Cantor from Virginia?
Is he (or better yet, are his *ideas*)reducible to a schoolyard insult, or some tired class/gender/culture-referencing brush-off?
Have you ever heard of Richard Shelby or Jeff Sessions of Alabama, or Jon Kyl of Arizona?
How about Haley Barbour of Mississippi?
John Cornyn of Texas?
Inhofe of OK?
Lemme guess, old white guys with funny accents, mostly Southern, right? Ha. Ha. ROTFLOL.
(Was Art Buchwald a hero of yours?)
(I would actually compare you to a certain political *cartoonist*, and call your writing 'Herblockian'.)
The Republicans mentioned above, and many others, are performing their duty in the opposition, representing their constituents, talking about policy, making their alternatives to the Obama administrations plans for economic stimulus, healthcare reform, energy policy, and national security known to anyone - who cares to pay attention.
Obama didn't sweep 48 states, you do realize, right?
How about John Barrasso - got a pigeon-hole for him?
Perhaps some Americans should get away from handicapping the next Presidential race, and defining people with easy, predictable (and decidedly unclever)labels about appearance, class, region, etc. Perhaps they should instead focus on the debates that are going on in Washington, and the compromises that are being attempted, between Republicans and Democrats, over serious matters of domestic and foreign policy; maybe we'd *all* be the better for it.
But, I guess that stuff is boring, and it's easier to just call people names and start prognosticating about who will run for Prez in 2012.
Why is it so un-PC to pigeonhole anyone from *outside* the US [perhaps with the exception of 'Piyush'], but OK to latch onto and focus on region, dialect, appearance, cosmetics, and other totally unimportant things in politics?
In a representative democracy, the ideas of the office-seeker should matter, much more than the person running for office.
And the focus on the chief executive is very much out-of-balance.
The current POTUS has delegated to the Speaker of the House, and the Senate Majority Leader, to a remarkable degree. On *very* important legislation. Commentators on both the left and right have noticed this.
Our Congress, our parliament, is still where the laws get passed...and the 111th Congress has a lot on its plate, of tremendous import.
There is an opening on the Supreme Court, the third branch of government, and the President's more than two dozen 'czars' are unprecendented in American history.

So let's gossip about who's going to run for President on the GOP ticket in 2012?!!
(No matter who runs, you won't like them anyway.)

I didn't see one mention of any policy issue in your piece - not one joke about a Republican's ideas, not one easy shot at any conservative's policy; it's the 'People' magazine approach to politics, and it's detrimental to our civil society.
I have to wonder how familiar you are with the leading members of the opposition's actual policy positions on the the various crucial issues of the day.

Rush Limbaugh may be many things, but not even Al Franken called him 'brainless'. 'A big, fat, liar', yes. But not 'brainless'.
(I'm happy to say I read both Rush's "The Way Things Ought To Be", *and* Franken's book. How about you - have you actually read any Rush?
You might not agree with him - but I don't think you'd call him 'brainless'. You've obviously heard him on the radio and on TV, so you already know he's not 'brainless'. So the question is - why do you refer to him in that way? Are you incapable of writing a serious rebuttal to a position that he takes? I guess it's just fun to insult the guy that you know most of your commenters / readers on this little website don't like, (whether they have actually considered his ideas open-mindedly and thoughtfully, or not), and insult him with an epithet that doesn't even make sense. Because whether the insult is apt is besides the point - this is just about people reading things they already know they're going to agree with, written by someone regurgitating (weakly) Keith, Rachel, et. al., someone who's just confirming their hardened 'opinions', repeating the soundbites, and letting them listen to the same old broken record skip again and again and again. There's no substance - it's all juvenile insult and very
breezy generalization - as if Mitt Romney, Jindal, Sanford and Plain are the only four possible contenders for POTUS in 2012, and as if there isn't a heck of a lot of much more interesting things (though they are a bit more complicated) going on right now in July 2009.
If your piece is indicative of what "30 years in the newspaper business" results in...I'll quote you again:
'God help us.'

~ P.

No, *I* wasn't engaging in a cheap shot against Ms. Palin...
that was a typo...that I just caught after posting...
(" Mitt Romney, Jindal, Sanford and Plain [sic]")
!!!
(Say, I wonder if she's any relation to *Michael* Palin? ^^)
~ P.

I agree, Rush Limbaugh is not 'brainless.' Soo, like, what is he?
Hmmm? How about the word, 'shifty'? shifty : given to deception, evasion, or fraud. Yep, that's it! Rush Limbaugh is shifty. [;-)
JerrySatire
www.Lampoon.net

The one thing I think many miss about Rush Limbaugh is that he is an entertainer. He puts much research into his show - and targets that show to hit hot points and throw toxic rhertoric to incite people's ire. Unfortunately there are many who believe Rush speaks "gospel truth" and follow his thinking to the letter. The danger lies NOT in Rush's viewpoints but in the "ditto head" (their self-proclaimed title, not mine) blind-following of his words. Brainless? No, but very calculating.

I agree, Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. But, how would you know that Rush Limbaugh puts much research into his show & he is very calculating? Did he tell you? LOL.
I'll stick with Rush Limbaugh being shifty ; given to deception, evasion, or fraud. [:-)
JerrySatire
www.Lampoon.net

Jerry, to each his own! No matter what you or I think of Rush - he has a following of "believers" - THAT is much scarier to me that just Rush by himself!

Rush Limbaugh, and all his talk show pals, is something I avoid with a passion. I can always find some good tunes to listen to instead. I am perfectly capable of forming my own opinions; I don't need someone else to tell me how to think. :)