Today on the Dish the coverage our relatively thin, except for the latest bombshell dropped by Sarah Palin. Andrew reacted here. Far-right bloggers squirmed, one let loose his imagination, another took a commendable stand, and Ben Smith talked Trig.
Also, Andrew's addressed the buzz over his "leaving the right" post and replied to a reader dissent over Israeli settlements.
— C.B.
A journalist reader writes:
I take slight exception to this passage:
“They are simply basic questions anyone would ask of a person who had recounted such an amazing tale. And yet not a single journalist has done so.”
I repeatedly asked the McCain/Palin campaign last year to address questions about her strange delivery story, and I’m sure a number of other journalists did as well. The campaign simply refused.
Now, it’s true that no one who has interviewed Palin in person has asked direct questions about the Texas/Alaska labor experience. But that says more about who Palin picks for interviews than it does about journalists generally.
That was what I was referring to: direct on-the-record televised or reported questions about the story. No one did. Not even Oprah when the whole bizarre story – riveting for any mother – is in Palin's book. But look at this again: a journalist asked a valid question, as I did repeatedly, and
The campaign simply refused.
This is a democracy?
A reader writes:
As the parent of a child with a developmental disability, it pains me to see Sarah Palin lug little Trig all over the place. Early intervention services, which are free, are available for children as young as Trig in a family's home state. My daughter is a teenager now. Early intervention services were key for her development. Even if Trig is receiving services privately while traveling, it would be great for his mother to discuss this during the tour. More information on early intervention is available on the National Down Syndrome Society website here.
Liberal activist Tom Hayden is so mad at Obama for the Afghan escalation that he is removing his Obama bumper sticker “until the withdrawal strategy is fully carried out.” Alex Koppelman sighs:
It’s one thing for liberals who’ve supported Obama to disagree with and criticize him over Afghanistan, for them to have been hoping he’d opt for a different direction. But arguments like the one Hayden’s making — and the one Michael Moore made in his recent open letter to the president — just end up with those advancing them look foolish. It’s like they dreamed up a list of policy positions for Obama, then convinced themselves that they actually were his positions.
Agree or disagree with Obama’s decision, one thing is clear: The course he chose is not, as both Hayden and Moore have implied, some radical shift in his thinking.
Watching Republican partisans squirm or downplay today's Palin birtherism has been entertaining. Allahpundit sighs:
Well, the best way not to get tagged as a Birther is to refrain from saying that people are “rightfully making it an issue” and that the only reason that she would avoid doing that herself is because “there are enough members of the electorate who still want answers.” It’s the same thing as Truthers saying that all they’re doing is “asking questions.” The answers have already been provided; they just reject them because they’re married to their conspiracies.
I'd like to find a politician worth listening to, and those that play to conspiracy theories won't be getting my support.
It gave me a chuckle more than anything. It does say a lot about Sarah Palin and why people like her so much. She's candid, honest and unafraid. Those are extremely rare qualities in politicians these days. She's really just making a few simple points that are undeniably true.
[M]y personal opinion is that while President Obama may likely have been born in Hawaii, there is obviously something else on his birth certificate that he doesn't want us to see, and he's devoted considerable time, money and energy towards that end. I will leave it to the imagination of my readers as to what that might be.
You want to make the point that according to conventional political wisdom she shouldn't have answered RH's questions, fine, make that point. You clearly don't understand what sort of politician Gov. Palin is, but you're free to make it. What you're not free to do, though, is use faulty logic to compare her position to that of the Trig Truthers – or any kind of Truthers. That's way off base.
One might wonder whether a national Dem of prominence comparable to hers is making noise about Trig, but she has a modest point about the size of the fever swamps.
Jim Burroway passes along speculation that the Ugandan bill, which would sentence gays to death, is likely to pass:
Reuters now suggests that passage of the bill is almost assured due to two factors. The first, we’ve already mentioned, is the fact that 2011 is an election year, and no Member of Parliament can be seen as being supportive of LGBT causes and hope to survive the election. The second factor — the one that contributes directly to a decline in donor influence — is oil. Foreign aid currently makes up about a third of Uganda’s budget, but with the 2006 discovery of large oil deposits along Uganda’s western border, Uganda is quickly moving to become a major oil producer.
"Get a sex change, or at least start wearing Red outfits and high heels around the house playing Sarah dress-up for yourself and whatever gutter trash you can round up at the local adult book store. You look like an aging queen on her knees at some gloryhole waiting for a miraculous birth certificate to be slipped in from the next stall so you can engage your latest perversion until you climax all over yourself," – Dan Riehl, on my request for actual, easily available proof of Palin's maternity of Trig.
Nate Silver tries to understand why his model got Maine wrong:
Because Question 1 was the first gay marriage ballot initiative not to impact its state's constitution, there is no good comparable at the state level. But some national numbers suggest that it the wording of the initiative might have mattered.
Maria Anne Pilgrim, originally from Canada, cries as she takes the Oath of Allegiance from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to become an American citizen December 4, 2009 at Ellis Island in New York. Pilgrim served in the US Army as both enlisted and an officer as an occupational therapist, serving part of her time at Walter Reed Medical Center. Napolitano presided over the naturalization of 110 new citizens during a visit to New York By Maria Anne PilgrimChris Hondros/Getty Images.
Ezra Klein describes the interaction:
[T]he insurer doesn't really care to negotiate lower prices. They tried that in the late ’90s, and everyone hated them for it. It turns out that workers don't feel the cost of their health care because they think employers pay it, and employers don't care that much about cost increases because they take it out of wages. Neither group likes premium increases, but they don't really care. But everyone screams if you tighten networks and review care. As such, providers have pretty free rein. That's part of why we pay so much more than any other country per unit of care.
The Dish 