Last Call

Sharron Angle finally speaks to the press:

There have been major policy questions that remain unanswered from Angle's campaign. Voters have seen Angle's views and ideas on improving Nevada's economy, but the topics of national security and the role the men and woman at Nellis Air Force Base must play in two wars remain unknown.

We've tried to go to her public events and ask, but she won't answer. We've tried to call and email her campaign, but they won't answer. Now, we're finding her at the airport, still trying to get answers.

"I think when it comes to major policy issues, the people of Nevada are most concerned about our jobs, our homes and our economy," she said.

"If you want to be one of 100 U.S. Senators that are deciding on war powers and on ratifying treaties, which is what a Senator has to do, you have to answer these questions," said Reporter Nathan Baca.

"Well, certainly. And I'll answer those questions when I'm the Senator," replied Angle.

You don't need to know what her policy positions are.  You don't need to know where she stands.   You don't need to know how she would vote on issues that involve the country.  You just need to shut up and do what she tells you to do, because she's going to be your Senator.

That's all you need to know.  After all, she's a real American, not one of those elitist arrogant Democrats who thinks they know better than you do.

Now shut up and pull the lever for Sharron Angle.  You'll find out what her positions are later, if she feels like telling you.  We've got a whole raft of candidates who don't have to tell you damn thing about their positions:  Joe Miller, Christine O'Donnell, Ken Buck, Rick Scott, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and dozens more.  You just need to stop worrying and vote for them because they're not Democrats.

And that's all you need to know, apparently.  That's all they'll tell you.  You'll find out what they have planned for the country after you elect them.

Because they are counting on you to accept not getting any answers and voting for them anyway.

You wouldn't like the answers anyway.

Now shut up and pull the lever.

Already Written Off

Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal is quite literally already writing the epitaph for the Democrats as the Journal's John Fund gets the dirt from retiring Rep. Brian Baird to shovel onto Nancy Pelosi's political corpse.

When President Obama was elected in 2008, Mr. Baird was again optimistic that Democrats could bring real reform. But fierce Republican partisanship and the White House decision not to focus on job creation as its "number one, two and three" priority dashed that hope.

"Obama decided we weren't going to have a highway transportation bill because it might have required a gas tax increase," he recalls. After passing a misdirected stimulus bill, Mr. Obama made the fatal error of pushing forward with other priorities: cap and trade, financial services reform, ObamaCare. Each became compromised quickly.

"You don't get real reform by pandering to every special interest. With cap and trade we wound up with a bill that didn't accomplish much, was enormously complicated and expensive." Mr. Baird is especially upset that "good solid members will lose this fall because they took a tough vote for a cap-and-trade bill that never made it through the Senate." He has told environmental groups that they lost sight of the goal of reducing carbon emissions by focusing on the minutia of regulation to achieve it.

For some of the shortcomings of financial regulatory reform, Mr. Baird blames the disillusioning battle over ObamaCare. "When the House had to pass the Senate version of health care unchanged, some members asked why should they invest the mental effort in mastering the details" of financial reform. Mr. Baird found parts of the bill mind-numbing.

Although he voted for it, he says he was troubled that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the entities at the heart of the housing meltdown, weren't addressed. They have clearly exercised undue influence on Capitol Hill, he notes. "When I was first elected I was puzzled why they were holding events in my honor as a mere freshman. I asked myself, why is a federal entity so involved in political activity?"

Fun stuff. Baird goes on at length to do what every politician does in a situation like this: "If only the leadership had listened to me, we wouldn't be in this mess."

The reality is that the Republicans made such a terrible mess that there was no conceivable way that Obama and the Dems could fix the problem in two years.  The Dems did what they had to do:  unpopular triage work to stop the bleeding.  Of course, every inch of that was opposed by Republicans.  They'll make a hash of things over the next two years, blame Obama, and expect to be rewarded with one-party control again.

Who knows where our economy will be by then.  But anyone who thinks they'll be better off two years from now with the GOP in charge clearly hasn't been paying attention.

We always get the government we deserve, I guess.

Coal Moose's Daughter

Sarah and First Consort Todd Palin are turning out for WV Republican John "Space Lasers" Raese today.

Hope she goes to the right state.



Easy to get everything south of Anchorage confused, I guess.

Rallying For Sanity (And Maybe Some Fear)

The thing I'm struck by most about the Rally For Sanity on the National Mall today is that a hell of a lot of people are there (far more than the Beck rally) and that everyone in the Village is really, really pissed off at them.

David Corn keeps ranting on Twitter that the Dems are dooming themselves because none of these people at the rally here are involved with Dem GOTV efforts this weekend.

In fact, the message is shaping up that Colbert and Stewart here are going to cost the Dems the Senate as well as the House because these folks aren't making phone calls and knocking on doors right now, and that this is the biggest mistake in the history of politics that will hand the nation over to the Tea Party, those bastard Comedy Central faux journalists who are not like the Village!

You know, the same Village media that's hiring Andrew Breitbart and taking every opportunity to assume that Dem voters won't turn out anyway (and running stories on the "enthusiasm gap" assumption daily) is complaining about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert being responsible for suppressing the Democratic vote in 2010.

Nice.

[UPDATE]  Nobody was there or anything. 



It was maybe like, seven people.

[UPDATE] And because people still don't buy it:

Your Liberal Media, Ladies And Gentlemen

Digby wraps up yesterday's announcement that ABC has indeed hired Andrew Breitbart of "Hey I lied on my website and got Shirley Sherrod fired for being a racist when she wasn't" and "Hey I lied on my website and destroyed ACORN when they were innocent" fame as one of their Election Night talking heads.

ABC must know that the Shirley Sherrod or ACORN stories aren't the only examples of his mendacious ways. He's made his career out of these racist video hoaxes. It isn't a coincidence. So I think we have to assume they think having a lying racist on the air will bring in some ratings. Whether they foolishly see this as adding "edge" to their allegedly hip "Facebook" program or whether they are making a pitch for Fox's white supremacist audience, it's a journalistic travesty to allow this man and his lying lieutenant anywhere near a legitimate news organization.

But then these news outlets are all making huge profits from the right wing buy out of our democracy, so maybe it's just the price of doing business. 

As I said last night on Twitter, a healthy chunk of Breitbart's shtick is that he believes his website is the future of journalism and the mainstream media is worthless, especially for political coverage.  So now he's doing Election Night political coverage for the mainstream media.  Funny how that works.

But Digby's dead on about the normalization of hard core right wing nut job bloggers like Breitbart, Erick Erickson, Michelle Malkin and Pamela Geller becoming the new class of political mainstream pundits in order to compete with FOX's pundits: Palin, Gingrich, Huckabee, etc.

And that, my friends, really is the future of journalism for the next two years.  Drudge made his bones on Clinton's impeachment, and everyone's lining up for another possible six years of the carnival of the damned.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Somali pirates have seized another tanker, this time a Panamanian ship with a crew of 24.
• A new CBS/NY Times poll shows nearly two-thirds of Americans would back a candidate with little or no political experience, and two in seven a candidate with "extreme views".
• Saudi intelligence is credited with tipping off US law enforcement about yesterday's package bombs from Yemen.
• The flat screen TV price war continues as both Sony and Samsung look to drop prices ahead of a "miserable" holiday season.
• New TSA rules for patdowns for those who wish to forgo body scanners at airports are designed to make the new patdowns be "invasive" and "unpleasant".