He Wasn't Born With The Monicker Lyin' Ryan-- He Earned It... And Keeps Earning It Every Day

The NY Times editors liked the vice presidential debate not despite but, in part, because they found "Ryan's nonanswers were accurate reflections of his campaign." They found the debate "both enlightening and entertaining" because Biden "would not sit still for a parade of misleading and often blatantly untruthful descriptions of the state of the economy and the Republican prescriptions for it. Though his grins and head-shakes were often distracting, he did not hesitate to interrupt and demand an end to 'malarkey'.” What a delightful way to inform its readers-- at long last-- what Paul Krugman has been writing for several years, namely that Ryan is a congenital liar and his snake oil approach to real problems is actually dangerous to the state of the nation.

Ryan, as always, refused to acknowledge the improvement in the economy, at one point throwing out a canned talking point about the increase in unemployment in the depressed industrial city of Scranton, Pa., Mr. Biden’s hometown. “That’s how it’s going all around America,” he said, ignoring the steady reduction in the national jobless rate, which dipped to 7.8 percent last month.

“You don’t read the statistics,” Mr. Biden said, jumping in. “That’s not how it’s going. It’s going down.” He repeatedly pointed out that Mr. Romney had firmly opposed the federal bailout of the auto industry, which turned out to be the single biggest act of job creation in the last four years. Mr. Ryan responded weakly that Mr. Romney was a “car guy,” but offered little in the way of economic proposals beyond cutting taxes and ridiculing the Obama administration’s stimulus program.

The vice president, who was in charge of that program, actually defended it, breaking with his campaign’s usual reticence to discuss an enormously successful effort that, he pointed out, kept the economy from going over a cliff. And he showed Mr. Ryan’s hypocrisy on the subject by pointing out that the congressman had asked for stimulus money for his state of Wisconsin, just as other Republicans did even as they vilified the program.

...Biden refused to ignore the condescending remarks that Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney have made toward the least fortunate, regularly described by the Republican ticket as “takers” who are irresponsibly dependent on government. That attitude, he noted, is reflected in the Republican tax plan that favors the rich. In one of his most effective summaries, he said that if Republicans would just “get out of the way,” there might be real action on middle-class tax cuts, jobs bills and mortgage relief.

“Stop talking about how you care about people,” he said. “Show me something.” Mr. Ryan’s predictable response: You said the stimulus would fix the entire economy and it didn’t. But he had no responsible answer for increasing growth.

Biden never brought up anything about the concerted, well-orchestrated Republican Party effort in Congress to obstruct every effort President Obama made to clean up the mess that right-wing congressmen like Ryan made while Bush was president. I guess it would have sounded too whiney or something... but it is the answer to their accusations. And when he parrots the GOP talking point about how the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress, that was not just short-lived but included a number of conservative Democrats like Ben Nelson, Claire McCaskill, Mark Pryor, Jim Webb and Mary Landrieu (not to mention Joe Lieberman) who tend to vote with the Republicans on crucial issues as frequently as they do with the Democrats-- i.e., Washington's conservative consensus. Nelson's lifetime ProgressivePunch voting score on key roll calls is 45.14, which shows he actually voted more often with the GOP than with his own party. Joe Manchin is headed in the same direction.

Back to the idea of the Times editors catching up with Krugman. That's never going to happen. They've caught up to Paul Krugman from two years ago when he first alerted his own readers that Ryan is a flimflam man and that the GOP Budget Chairman don't know much about economics. Krugman has kept on going. Thursday he was warning his readers that when it comes to the economy, the Republicans have been wrong about everything. (Is it any wonder rightists don't like professors?)

The latest devastating demonstration of that wrongness comes from the International Monetary Fund, which has just released its World Economic Outlook, a report combining short-term prediction with insightful economic analysis. This report is a grim and disturbing document, telling us that the world economy is doing significantly worse than expected, with rising risks of global recession. But the report isn’t just downbeat; it contains a careful analysis of the reasons things are going so badly. And what this analysis concludes is that a disproportionate share of the bad news is coming from countries pursuing the kind of austerity policies Republicans want to impose on America.

...(L)eading Republicans have very much tied themselves to the view that slashing spending in a depressed economy-- “fiscal consolidation,” in I.M.F.-speak-- is good, not bad, for job creation. Soon after the midterm elections, the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives issued a manifesto on economic policy-- titled, “Spend less, owe less, grow the economy”-- that called for deep spending cuts right away and pooh-poohed the whole notion that fiscal consolidation (yes, it used the same term) might deepen the economy’s slump. “Non-Keynesian effects,” the manifesto declared, would make everything all right.

Well, that turns out not to be remotely true. What the monetary fund shows is that the countries pursing the biggest spending cuts are also the countries that have experienced the deepest economic slumps. Indeed, the evidence suggests that in brushing aside the standard view that spending cuts hurt the economy in the short run, the G.O.P. got it exactly wrong. Recent spending cuts appear to have done even more harm than most analysts-- including those at the I.M.F. itself-- expected.

...Republicans... are committed to an economic doctrine that has proved false, indeed disastrous, in other countries. Nor are they likely to change their views in the light of experience. After all, facts haven’t gotten in the way of Republican orthodoxy on any other aspect of economic policy. The party remains opposed to effective financial regulation despite the catastrophe of 2008; it remains obsessed with the dangers of inflation despite years of false alarms. So it’s not likely to give up its politically convenient views about job creation.

Obviously, Paul Krugman isn't the only wise observer of politics who has taken note of the GOP's-- and more specifically Romney's and Ryan's-- inability to even recognize reality, let along offer any useful plans to cope with it successfully. Over at Esquire Charles Pierce concluded after the debate that The real Paul Ryan is bad for America. We've been shouting that from the digital roof since 2005. But, as Pierce points out, there are a lot of closet homosexuals in the Village who want to have sex with Ryan and they've helped pass Wall Street's prize darling off as a serious player. Pierce worded it differently.

There is a deeply held Beltway myth of Paul Ryan, Man of Big Ideas, and it dies hard. But, if there is a just god in the universe, on Thursday night, it died a bloody death, was hurled into a pit, doused with quicklime, buried without ceremony, and the ground above it salted and strewn with garlic so that it never rises again. On foreign policy, Ryan occasionally rose, gasping, to the level of obvious neophyte. (He was more lost in Afghanistan than the Russian army ever was.) On domestic policy, his alleged wheelhouse, he was vague, untruthful, and he walked right into a haymaker he should have seen coming from a mile off, when he started bloviating about Biden's role in the "failed" stimulus program, only to have Biden slap him around with Ryan's own requests for stimulus money for his home district back in Wisconsin. He also made it quite clear that a Romney-Ryan White House will do everything it can to eliminate a woman's right to choose. This should make for some fine television commercials over the next few weeks.

...Moreover, the battering that Biden gave Ryan brought something into sharp relief that the Republican party has been fudging ever since Romney put the zombie-eyed granny-starver on the ticket-- that, for his entire political career up to that point, on critical economic issues, Paul Ryan was an extremist even by the standards of the modern Republican party, which are considerably high indeed. He was for full privatization of Social Security. He was for the absolute elimination of the defined-benefit Medicare and Medicaid programs. Since being selected, it has become clear that the Romney people have forced him to soften these positions. (His stance on Medicare, for example, has evolved from Kill It Now to Arrange for Its Slow Death Later.) On Thursday night, Biden dragged out the old Paul Ryan-- and, I would argue, the real Paul Ryan-- and put him on display, and he made the new Paul Ryan own him. For one brief moment, he almost got Ryan to commit to Social Security privatization again. You could hear the screams from Romney headquarters all the way up the Charles to where I was watching.

Ryan got hit on the stimulus. He looked ridiculous trying to defend his refusal to specify what "loopholes" he and Romney plan to close to make the magic arithmetic in their tax plan work; Raddatz treed him completely on the mortgage-interest deduction, on the elimination of which neither Ryan nor his running mate will commit to a position. He looked even more ridiculous when Biden started pounding him on his career-long quest to end Medicare and throw old people onto the tender mercies of large insurance companies. Biden kept saying "vouchers" until Ryan, at one point, said, "It's not a voucher. A voucher is a check you get in your mailbox."

Wait. So if Paul Ryan gets his way, and Medicare as we know it gets eviscerated in favor of a pot full of offal on which Paul Ryan has slapped a label reading "Medicare," and my inadequate health-insurance allowance comes by e-mail, then it's not a "voucher" because it wasn't a check I got in the mail? And this is the issue on which Paul Ryan is supposed to be Genius on roller skates.

...For years, Paul Ryan has been the shining champion of some really terrible ideas, and of a dystopian vision of the political commonwealth in which the poor starve and the elderly die ghastly, impoverished deaths, while all the essential elements of a permanent American oligarchy were put in place. This has garnered him loving notices from a lot of people who should have known better. The ideas he could explain were bad enough, but the profound ignorance he displayed on Thursday night on a number of important questions, including when and where the United States might wind up going to war next, and his blithe dismissal of any demand that he be specific about where he and his running mate are planning to take the country generally, was so positively terrifying that it calls into question Romney's judgment for putting this unqualified greenhorn on the ticket at all. Joe Biden laughed at him? Of course, he did. The only other option was to hand him a participation ribbon and take him to Burger King for lunch.

You know what's the difference between Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan?

Lipstick.

And he lies even more blatantly-- and convincingly-- than she does. Thursday night was unchallenged when he let loose with the big one: “Medicare and Social Security are going bankrupt. These are indisputable facts.” If Congress stays in obstructionist mode the way it is now-- with the GOP actively undermining fixing problems-- Social Security would be fully solvent until 2037 and nearly fully solvent until 2084. Surely by them the American people would wise up and get rid of the Republicans and their corrupted conservative Democratic allies permanently. And the fix is easy as pie-- get rid of the payroll tax cap. Right now everyone pays the same amount until you start earning $106,000. Then they simply stop taking money from you. Everything between $106,000 and infinity doesn't get taxed. They should end-- with a vengeance. Crooked hedge fund criminal-- and huge Romney/Ryan donor-- John Paulson made $2.4 million per hour in 2010. So he only pays Social Security payroll tax on the first few seconds of his work year. Lift the payroll cap-- my preference would be to abolish it-- and Social Security would have no problems ever. Medicare is in similar shape-- not going bankrupt and easily fixable-- like, as Biden suggested during the debate, by negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies so that they are no longer allowed to rip off consumers in return for financing politicians' careers.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) pushed back against another blatant Ryan lie, namely that he was supporting Ryan's attempt to kill Medicare. This was his statement on his own Facebook page when he heard the debate:

The Vice President is right, Romney/Ryan moved the goal post on Medicare and I strongly oppose their plan because I believe it hurts seniors. The Romney/Ryan plan raises the age of eligibility and repeals the ACA leaving millions of seniors with no health coverage. The Romney/Ryan plan on Medicare pulls the safety net out from under the poorest and most vulnerable seniors, taking away the opportunity for nursing home care from seniors who need it and have no other options.

The Wyden-Ryan white paper strengthened the safety net for these dual eligibles. The Romney/Ryan version shreds it. The republican ticket knows that neither I, nor any other Democrat, would support these policies.

The Romney/Ryan plan on Medicare is further proof that Mitt Romney is singularly unfit to end gridlock and bring bipartisan solutions to Washington.

And that from the guy he tried to use to hoodwink the American people into thinking his extremist agenda is somehow "bipartisan" and mainstream. And the appellation "Lyin' Ryan" isn't all he's earned. He's earned a defeat in the congressional election for WI-01. Please help Rob Zerban replace him in Congress. It'll be a lot healthier for all of us.

Elites-- A Bunch Of Stuff... And Malarkey

When I woke up Thursday I hoped I might have slept through the VP debate. But not even close. When I got downstairs the first thing I saw was a tweet from Bernie Sanders about how the Waltons own so much of the country. That's because no one has adopted the DWT Billionaire Extermination Project-- new tax rates, back to the Eisenhower years. How about anything over, say $5 million-- I'd compromise at $10 if I had to-- gets taxed at 91%. No loopholes of any kind for anyone with over $5 million net worth. And then actual extermination for millionaire tax cheats-- after a fair trial. 'Til then, though, we have this:

Oh... and an obscene, puerile debate about the meaning of elites. I almost feel sorry for a Fox viewer who accidentally picks up Chris Hayes' marvelous new book, Twilight of the Elites. In trying to explain his terms-- and obviously, "elite" is a key one-- Hayes happens to mention that "references on Fox News to the 'media elite' outnumber references to the corporate or business elite by forty to one." That's a pretty big discrepancy. Hayes mentions that the right and the left have diametrically opposing views of how to define "elites," although both sides agree that elites are BAD. Except our side likes the elites they hate and their side likes the elites that we hate. (Did you notice the PPP poll yesterday that showed college professors have a 79% favorability rating with Democrats and a 33% favorability rating with Republicans? That kind of a discrepancy is a festering societal problem in America that goes right to the heart of Hayes' thesis about the crisis of authority we're experiencing.)

The right wing definition of an elite makes it possible-- mandatory-- to overlook Romney's attitude about the 47% and helps explain why Ayn Rand's adolescent novels are so popular with Republican Party hacks like Paul Ryan, who had his ass kicked by Joe Biden in the debate last night.

In the right's imagination it is not the owners of the means of production that compose the elite, but rather intellectuals, academics, members of the media and government. "Washington and the media elite," Sarah Palin thundered at a Republican fund-raiser in March 2010, "quit disrespecting the wisdom of the American people!"

Pressed by Brian Williams during the 2008 campaign to define just who the elite were, Palin alluded to a state of mind. "Anyone who thinks that they are-- I guess-- better than anyone else, that's-- that's my definition of elitism." As soon as she was finished with her answer, her ticket mate John McCain piped up. "I know where a lot of 'em live," McCain said with a snide laugh. "In our nation's capital and New York City. I've seen it. I've lived there. I know the town. Know what a lot of these elitists are. The ones that she never went to a cocktail party with in Georgetown." (Needless to say, McCain, son of naval royalty, owner of ten homes, and husband of a beer heiress worth millions, knew whereof he spoke.)

...What makes people part of the elite, according to the right, isn't their degree of power or political influence, but rather their condescension, their worldview, their tastes, preferences, and cultural diet: they watch Mad Men and listen to NPR while the simple masses listen to talk radio and watch American Idol. ...That's why Dick Armey, a multimillionaire former House majority leader and erstwhile lobbyist at DLA Piper, one of Washington's premier influence-peddling firms, can castigate "elites" and the "establishment" as if he were a scruffy newsie with his nose pressed up against the glass watching the plutocrats from outside.

...So long as the franchise is granted to a small enough group of people, or the layers of representation between the masses and political leaders are sufficiently attenuated and mediated by powerful interests, a democracy in name can still feature rule by the few over the many. During the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth, as democratic experiments spread throughout Europe, a group of theorists set themselves to the task of analyzing how it was that a small subset of citizens could retain de facto control over a society despite the downward pressures of democratization. One of those theorists was Robert Michels, whose Iron Law of Oligarchy offered a model for how to think about our own meritocracy.

Michels' fellow theorists of the elite-- Vilfredo Pareto [one of the theoreticians of fascism], Gaetano Mosca and José Ortega y Gasset-- shared a similar descriptive analysis, though because they were hostile to egalitarianism, they viewed this as a feature rather than a bug, To them the "elite" was made up of both those with the most power and also those who deserved the most power. Central to their theories was a kind of proto-meritocratic vision of cream rising to the top, a conception of rule by the best, brightest, and noblest that stretches all the way back to the vision of the Greeks. "As one advances in life," Ortega y Gasset wrote in his 1930 book, The Revolt of the Masses, "one realizes more and more that the majority of men-- and of women-- are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, the few individuals we have come across who are capable of a spontaneous and joyous effort to stand out isolated, monumentalized, so to speak, in our experience. These are select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training." Ortega y Gasset was horrified by the way in which democracy as it spread across Europe was empowering what he called the Mass Man, an industrial brute, prone to ideological extremism, over those special best and brightest nobles whose prudential guidance was necessary for proper social order

How hard is it for you to imagine Romney having given that speech at the $50,000/plate fundraiser at the mansion of vulture capitalist-- a noble of course, like Romney and Ryan-- Marc Leder, instead of that tepid one about the 47%? Or how about when Ryan talked about how pathetic 60% of Americans are-- "takers not makers?" That's different from Joe Biden.After last night's debate Rob Zerban's campaign pummeled the hapless and pathetic Ryan. It was certainly clear why he's been too scared to accept Zerban's repeated debate challenges. “Paul Ryan’s embarrassing performance tonight only continued his disturbing pattern of dishonesty. Whether misrepresenting the truth about our wars overseas, ignoring the real cause of unemployment in Janesville and Kenosha, or outright lying about his plan to privatize Medicare and cost seniors more than $6,000 more per year, it’s clear Ryan is more interested in seeking higher office than being honest with Wisconsinites and the American people. If Ryan doesn’t think his district deserves a Congressman who will protect the middle class, the least he can do is give them one who tells the truth.

“Ryan posits we need a new job creator in the White House. The President's numbers speak for themselves, but the facts show that where we really need a job creator is in the 1st District of Wisconsin.”

If you'd like to help Rob Zerban retire Ryan from public life and win back the southeast Wisconsin congressional seat for a defender of ordinary working families, here's the official Stop Paul Ryan page. As you can see, we're now over the halfway point.

"Things haven't really gone off the deep end for the Obama campaign. They've gone back to normal" (Gail Collins)

Here's the optimistic view of tonight's debate . . .

"Things haven't really gone off the deep end for the Obama campaign. They've gone back to normal. You knew that the Obama-is-going-to-win-by-10-points euphoria wasn't going to last. . . .

"You have to calm down, Democrats. Romney hasn't turned into some new supercandidate. You were just underestimating him during September. He's the same old Mitt."

-- Gail Collins, in her NYT column today,
"Democrats at the Deep End"

by Ken

"It's a tough time to be a Democrat," says Gail, kicking off today's column. "When Democrats run into each other in elevators, they exchange glances and sigh. Or make little whimpering sounds."

And she has fun detailing the state to which those sighing and whimpering Dems have been reduced. Like:

Democrats are going bipolar. Half the time they are grabbing at random bits of hopeful information. (An Esquire/Yahoo poll shows most Americans would rather go on a road trip with Obama!) Half the time they are in total despair. Nothing makes them happy. Show them that cute picture of the lioness befriending the orphan baby antelope that's gone viral, and they will point out that the only reason the antelope is an orphan is because the lioness ate its mother.

Naturally already rattled Dems are even further rattled by the realization that the future may be in the hands of Vice President Joe Biden. "Everything reminds them of the election," Gail notes, before trying to walk them back from the ledge.

Democrats miss Seamus.

Yes, those were the days. When the very mention of "Mitt Romney" would instantly lead to a discussion of the dangers of transporting an Irish setter to Canada on the roof of a station wagon.

"Has Seamus peaked too early?" a worried Democrat asked me in Texas a while back. At the time, I thought that anybody who is a Democrat in Texas had so many things to worry about, it was a miracle he could even remember the dog's name. But now it's clear that he was totally right. Seamus was so June.

All Democrats have now is Big Bird. Plus worrying about whether they're talking too much about Big Bird.

Plus Joe Biden, who has a very nice smile.

You have to calm down, Democrats. Romney hasn't turned into some new supercandidate. You were just underestimating him during September. He's the same old Mitt. This week in Des Moines, he told an editorial board that he doesn't have any plans for pushing anti-abortion bills if he's elected. ("There's no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda.") Meanwhile, back at headquarters, his spokeswoman was assuring National Review that he "would, of course, support legislation aimed at providing greater protections for life."

Maybe this will come up in the vice-presidential debate. Do you remember how well Joe Biden did against Sarah Palin?

Things haven't really gone off the deep end for the Obama campaign. They've gone back to normal. You knew that the Obama-is-going-to-win-by-10-points euphoria wasn't going to last. When did anybody ever win a presidential race by 10 points? Don't tell me about Ronald Reagan. When Ronald Reagan was president, gas was 90 cents a gallon and I was writing on a Kaypro.

Maybe Democrats should try to be more like the Republicans, and reduce stress by blaming all bad news on incorrect information, cooked up by cabals of political partisans.

Although you can't be overly sensitive about it. Jack Welch, who has been famous for his tender spirit ever since he ran General Electric, was outraged when he ran into flak for claiming that the "Chicago guys" had cooked the unemployment statistics.

"Imagine a country," Welch wrote indignantly in The Wall Street Journal, "where challenging the ruling authorities -- questioning, say, a piece of data released by central headquarters -- would result in mobs of administration sympathizers claiming you should feel ‘embarrassed' and labeling you a fool, or worse."

Perhaps we should all work on feeling sorry for Jack Welch.

. . . And here's a more cynical view.

#

Mooselini On TV

I watched the whole boring vice presidential debate and I'm hoping it's the last time I ever sit through a Sarah Palin session, unless they decide to televise one of her pending trials. To me, the most notable thing about the debate was Ms Smirky-Winkie-Dinky's refusal to answer any questions she didn't like or didn't have a canned answer for. Turns out, Gwen Ifill noticed that too. But as interesting as it was watching Ifill's perspective on the debate on Meet the Press this morning, nothing came close to watching Queen Latifah's perspective on Saturday Night Live last night:

There Should Have Been A Swimsuit Section And Maybe Target Shooting-- Or Alligator Wrestling

Expectations were so low for Sarah Palin's performance last night that the fact that she showed up at all and didn't refer to Dick Cheney as the Speaker of the House or claim that McCain was responsible for The South winning the Civil War has caused delirium in the delusional and deranged fringes of the far right.

Nevermind that all the polls found that Biden had beaten her-- let alone that earlier in the day McCain had abandoned Michigan as unwinnable-- the NY Times claimed the Republican ticket survives one test and that Palin recaptured her image.

Mooselini didn't vomit onstage and slip in it. And if all of what she said was canned drivel and half was outright lies... she was every bit as good as Tina Fey. And being as good as Tina Fey might be even better than winning a debate against a windbag from Delaware or Scranton or wherever he says he's from. Right? This is America, cradle of civilization or democracy or something. One of Biden's best moments:



And then there was this from Rasmussen this morning, a clear indication that another battleground state, New Hampshire, is lost to McCain. "Rasmussen Markets data shows that Obama is currently given a 69.0 % chance of winning New Hampshire's four Electoral College votes this year." Maybe those campaign workers he was sending over to New Hampshire from Michigan can be more helpful in... Mississippi, where McCain is still ahead but where Obama is starting to catch up.

The Governor And The Senator: Palin v Biden

As Howard Fineman said today, "what was on trial here is John McCain's judgment in picking her as his running-mate." He could have picked a parrot or a myna bird. Don't you wish there was someone to give her a little fruit and seeds every time she finishes one of her canned little speeches? I got the feeling she didn't understand a word of what was going on. When Mooselini doesn't have a canned answer to a question she just answers whatever question that pops into her head.

The Obama campaign created an extensive debate reality check which took her seriously and answered her bizarre claims and lies as though she were a serious candidate. So did the Washington Post.

It's clear that this person is even less qualified to be president than the cynical old fool who picked her. There's only one way they could win. But let's make sure this never happens again:



The CBS poll of undecided voters showed 46% thought Biden won and 21% thought Palin won. 33% thought it was a draw. The CNN poll has Biden 51% and Palin 36%.

Who Thinks Palin Will Feed Joe Biden John Boehner's Shit Sandwich Tomorrow?

Thursday one of my least favorite Democrats, overbearing and pompous insufferable windbag Joe Biden will debate the least informed candidate for an executive position in the history of American politics. He's sure he knows everything; everyone else is sure she knows nothing at all. So how will the debate turn out? The Christian Science Monitor asked Andrew Halcro, someone who debated her before-- and lived to tell the story. He calls her "a master of the nonanswer."

When he faces off against Sarah Palin Thursday night, Joe Biden will have his hands full.

I should know. I've debated Governor Palin more than two dozen times. And she's a master, not of facts, figures, or insightful policy recommendations, but at the fine art of the nonanswer, the glittering generality. Against such charms there is little Senator Biden, or anyone, can do.

...On paper, the difference in experience on both domestic and foreign policy is like the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing a bullet. Unfortunately for Biden, if recent history is an indicator, experience or a grasp of the issues won't matter when it comes to debating Palin.

...Palin is a master of the nonanswer. She can turn a 60-second response to a query about her specific solutions to healthcare challenges into a folksy story about how she's met people on the campaign trail who face healthcare challenges. All without uttering a word about her public-policy solutions to healthcare challenges.

As pathetic as she is, I bet she creams Biden. And George Will's flat out assertion that she is obviously unqualified for the job... well, who cares what the liberal media thinks?

In fact, when McCain turned into a sarcastic, snarling bitch in his Des Moines Register meeting yesterday his gratuitous remark about "a Georgetown cocktail party person who calls himself a conservative," was widely assumed to be a reference to George Will.

The problem for anyone who comes up against Palin is, like the fascist idiots of yore, she's actually stupid enough to believe her own myths. Yesterday right-wing propagandist Hugh Hewitt interviewed her and asked her to recount the economic woes she and First Dude have been going through that tie her to typical everyday Americans. She rose to the occasion.

Oh my goodness, yes, Hugh. I know what Americans are going through. Todd and I, heck, we're going through that right now even as we speak, which may put me again kind of on the outs of those Washington elite who don't like the idea of just an everyday working class American running for such an office.

But as the Washington Times pointed out yesterday "a check of financial records, though, shows the Palins live anything but a common life when compared with their fellow residents of their hometown of Wasilla.

Their combined income of nearly a quarter-million dollars last year was five times the median household income for Wasilla's 7,000 residents. They own a single-engine plane, two boats, two personal watercraft and a half-million-dollar, custom-built home on a lake that is worth three times the average of other homes in town...

If she's comparing herself to the McCains with their 13 homes and fancy jet and countless cars and servants, she's probably going to feel inadequate. But compared to everyday, ordinary Americans... she doesn't have quite as much to worry about as most of us. Of course, she can always make a few quick bucks here.