Another Sarah Screw Up

I know, I know. Like shooting dead fish in a barrel. Sarah Palin is the gift that keeps on giving. The Moose that lays the golden egg. But just as she runs her publicity (on Facebook) and her book signing tour (leaving before the job is done) and her half term governorship of Alaska (like her 5K race) it seems that Sarah's minions are taking stock and probably quit fact checking the book that she didn't write before the task was done.

Here's a doozy from Geoffrey Dunn:

There have been so many lies and distortions pointed out in Sarah Palin's Going Rogue since it was released last week that her memoir has already become something of a gag line.

But perhaps the most embarrassing gaffe so far is her mis-attributed quote to UCLA basketball legend John Wooden.

As the epigram to Chapter Three, "Drill, Baby, Drill," Palin assigns the following remarks to the Hall of Fame hoops coach:

Our land is everything to us... I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember our grandfathers paid for it--with their lives.

Only the quote wasn't by John Wooden. It was written by a Native American activist named John Wooden Legs in an essay entitled "Back on the War Ponies," which appeared in a left-wing anthology, "We Are the People: Voices from the Other Side of American History," edited by Nathaniel May, Clint Willis, and James W. Loewen.

Now misquoting something is bad enough, not checking it for accuracy is even worse, especially when you're publishing a book. But misquoting a Native American and attributing it to a college basketball coach (you know, because you're such a down to earth, one of us, hockey mom) who probably wasn't advocating land redistribution is even beyond the pale for the normal wingnut activity we've gotten used to seeing around here.

Here's John Wooden Legs' full quote:

Our land is everything to us. It is the only place in the world where Cheyennes talk the Cheyenne language to each other. It is the only place where Cheyennes remember the same things together. I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember our grandfathers paid for it--with their life. My people and the Sioux defeated General Custer at the Little Big Horn.

Man, is she stupid. Read the rest of the Dunn post for his lesson to Ms. Wasilla.

Quote of the Day

Frank Rich: "The fact-checking siege of 'Going Rogue' — by the media, Democrats and aggrieved McCain campaign operatives alike — is another fruitless sideshow. Palin’s political appeal has never had anything to do with facts — or coherent policy positions. The more she is attacked for not being in possession of pointy-headed erudition, the more powerful she becomes as an avatar of the anti-elite cause."

Don't Listen To Anonymous Saboteurs

As we've been getting closer and closer to finalizing health care reform bills coming out of the House and Senate, there have been various "unnamed sources" from the White House quoted as being against real reform, watering down the public option with artificial triggers and other nonsense. This is all an attempt to undermine the administration's plans and cast a shadow of doubt into the minds of the Conservadems and Blue Dogs on the fence about reform.

I don't know who the unnamed sources are or what their agenda can possibly be, but it's incredibly frustrating to think that some stooge that may be working in or close to the White House would be willing to undermine something as important to the administration as health care... if such an unnamed source actually exists.

These quotes could also be trial balloons to judge public opinion on certain ideas, but at this late stage of the game, it would be foolish to keep fanning the flames. So until the unnamed sources have the balls to come out and back up their statements (which will never happen) or until responsible journalists rely on unnamed sources to back up their stories so they don't look like idiots making shit up, just ignore any story citing anonymous quotes. The cycle is too obvious: 1- Story gets published with an unnamed source. 2- Left or Right or the mainstream media goes apeshit. 3- White House denies any validity to the story. 4- Repeat as needed.

Remember everyone reporting that the public option was supposed to have died during the summer? Stop falling for it.

Douche Quote of the Day

Talk about your right wing lunacy!

Gawker:

Andrew Breitbart: [Holocaust Museum shooter] James von Brunn was a "multiculturalist just like the black studies and the lesbian studies majors on college campuses."

Breitbart is angry that anyone would call a neo-Nazi a "right-wing extremist."

Here's a sample:

"It's such a fucking slander on people like me. This guy's political philosophy is more akin to the drivel that you hear on a college campuses that delineates us by group and not by individuality....
It's deeply offensive that you would use this for political gain."

What a fucking jokester this douchebag is. But please go to Gawker and listen to the whole seething, angry voicemail. How dare someone call Von Brunn a right wing extremist! Apparently it's an insult to real right wing extremisits like Breitbart.

Douche Quote of the Day, Part 3

"We have made progress in civil rights, but now with this? How do you get promoted in a Barack Obama administration? By hating white people, or even saying you do, or that their not good, or whatever. Make white people the new oppressed minority and they are going right along with it, because their shutting up. They’re moving to the back of the bus. They’re saying I can’t use that drinking fountain, okay. I can’t use that restroom, okay. That’s the modern day Republican Party, the equivalent of the Old South, the new oppressed minority.”

- Rush Limbaugh, May 29, 2009

His very next line was, "Whatever happened to the content of one's character as the basis of judging people?" I don't know, Rush. Why don't you ask the white hating Obama administration? This quote, by the way, was just about a minute before the David Duke comparison.

Un. Hinged.

The Darkness Is Finally Over

"I hope you leave here and walk out and say, 'What did he say?'"

- Beaverton, Oregon, 2004

T Minus 1 Day

"This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all."

-Amman, Jordan, November 30, 2006

T Minus 2 Days

"And the second way to defeat the terrorists is to spread freedom. You see, the best way to defeat a society that is - doesn't have hope, a society where people become so angry they're willing to become suiciders, is to spread freedom, is to spread democracy."

- Washington, DC, 2005

T Minus 3 Days

"I'll be glad to talk about ranching, but I haven't seen [Brokeback Mountain]. I've heard about it. I hope you go - you know - I hope you go back to the ranch and the farm is what I'm about to say."

- Manhattan, Kansas, January 2006

T Minus 4 Days

"If you're a younger person, you ought to be asking members of Congress and the United State Senate and the president what you intend to do about it. If you see a train wreck coming, you ought to be saying, what are you going to do about it, Mr. Congressman, or Madam Congressman?"

- Detroit, Michigan, 2005

Four days left!

T Minus 5 Days

"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mential [sic] losses."

- Quoted in Financial Times, January 2000

T Minus 6 Days

"I speak plainly sometimes, but you've got to be mindful of the consequences of words. So put that down. I don't know if you'd call that a confession, a regret, something."

- To reporters, Washington, DC January 14, 2005

T Minus 7 Days

"Then you wake up at the high school level and find out that the illiteracy level of our children are appalling."

- Washington, DC, January 2004



Then you wake up from having passed out after your last bender at the White House level and find out the illiteracy level of our president are appalling!

Appalling indeed.

T Minus 8 Days

"You know when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war president. No president wants to be a war president, but I am one."

- Des Moines, Iowa 2006

T Minus 10 Days

"You took an oath to defend our flag and our freedom, and you kept that oath underseas and under fire."

- Washington, DC, January 10, 2006

T Minus 11 Days

"More Muslims have died at the hands of killers than - I say more Muslims - a lot of Muslims have died - I don't know the exact count - at Istanbul. Look at these different places around the world where there's been tremendous death and destruction because killers kill."

- Washignton, DC, January 2004

T Minus 12 Days

"Keep good relations with the Grecians."

- The Economist, 1999

T Minus 13 Days

"I'd rather have them sacrificing on behalf of our nation than, you know, endless hours of testimony on congressional hill."

- Fort Meade, Maryland, 2002

T Minus14 Days

"I'm thrilled to be out here in the bread basket of America because it gives me a chance to remind our fellow citizens that we have an advantage here in America - we can feed ourselves."

- Stockton, California, 2002

T Minus 15 Days

"And if you're interested in the quality of education and you're paying attention to what you hear in Laclede, why don't you volunteer? Why don't you mentor a child how to read?"

- St. Louis, MO, January 5, 2004