If It Wasn't Such A Tragedy For So Many In Wisconsin...

...it would be funny to see all the news outlets that endorsed Walker realizing the enormity of their mistake.

The State Journal this morning says Fitzgerald hiring doesn't "pass the smell test." They'll want to get used to that with Walker.

Really Quick. Really Judgemental

Kid Darth Vader for Jetta- Far and away the best of a pitiful litter

Black Betty for Beetle- Maybe my fave but for narrow enough reasons

Doritos- The Cheese Guy was just creepy and I don't remember the rest. Where the Hell is Ali Landry when the nation needs her?

Feuding Couple for Pepsi Max- I loved it when it was a State farm commercial. I'm almost over this version already

First Date for Pepsi Max- This is what Two and a Half Men will look like without Charlie Sheen

First Date for Chevy Cruze (sic) - Just for a moment I knew what Papa Hemingway was thinking at the end.

Budweiser Wild West- Never has so much been made of so little. How did no one stand to say that Coke did all this with the Grand Theft Auto ad years ago.

Motorola Xoom (what does that even mean?) - They even went so far as to put 1984 on the reading pane just to let us know that they knew we'd know they were ripping off the most famous SuperBowl ad of all time in the service of a device that will be obsolete by Saint Swithin's Day.

Careerbuilder.com- Yeah. It's monkeys. We get it. Move on.

Godaddy.com- Yeah. Web content is unrated. We get it. Move on.

Joan Rivers for godaddy- Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it.

Richard Lewis for Snickers- We knew where it was going but it was still cute enough. I have Roseanne getting logged running on a continuous loop on a spare TV right now.

Carmax or carfax or carsoup or carmex or whatever that was with the mattress showroom and stuff - Not as creative as the Bridgestone Beaver ad but infinitely superior to the talking cars drek you committed.

Reply To All for Bridgestone- You should have rerun the one with the whale. Oh, wait. Chevy Pickups did the one with the whale this year. And it was a bigger whale.

There were more. None was exceptional. Most were ordinary. Some were execrable.

Things That Make Me Go, "Huh?" #2

When you read this story many questions should come to mind.

AOL buying Huffington Post for $315M

1. AOL is still in business?
2. HuffPo is a "news organization"? Seriously?
3. Seriously?
4. $315 million? Isn't that latte money for Ariana?
5. News? No kiddin' now? Seriously?
6. Is this some kind of weird "get even" move after the WisPolitics thing?
7. Okay, I've heard of Mapquest but Endgadget and TechCrunch? Are those breakfast cereals?
8. Did this have anything to do with that cheap champagne Jerry Jones was pouring?

Separation Of Powers Follies

Rick Santorum stopped by at a Myrtle Beach Tea Party event yesterday in
South Carolina, and assured the group that he "would sign a bill tomorrow to
eliminate the 9th Circuit [Court of Appeals].

from TPM

It's Hard To Be A Wingnut #8

AG van Goodhair spends the morning crowing about some sort of a minor victory in a far-off circuit court stating that governments can't take money from taxpayers and force them to buy insurance with it. Some sort of natter about John Hancock and Liberty; the founders, not the insurance companies.

And then, Governor Pipsqueak announces that he'll try to circumvent contracts bargained in good faith to take 17% out of state worker's pockets to...wait for it...to give to insurance companies.

In summary, it's a violation of original intent to force people to pay for insurance unless the wingnutters want to.

Next time on It's Hard To Be a Wingnut we'll look at privatizing Medicare. You know. Forcing people to buy insurance.

Well, I Suppose You Have To Believe Him

I mean, he would know. Right? Steve King was talking about McConnell and Boehner yesterday when he said,

...[T]he leader and the speaker have established their integrity and their
mendacity for years in this Congress and I don't believe it can be effectively
challenged...

I suppose we have to take him at his word about McConnell's mendacity going forward.

We've Establsihed That. Now We're Negotiating A Fair Price

Owen takes exception to Marty Beil's characterization of Russ Decker's vote to knife the state employee unions.

Looking at it more closely, Russ took the money, and he did the screwing. I'd say that fits Beil's definition. Owen's beef is that the GOP calls that the Full Legislator Experience.

The Budget Is Not The Kobayashi Maru

And you are not James Tiberius Kirk.

Michelle Bachmann wants to redefine "deficit" so that the Bush tax cuts don't count. Apparently wishing will make it so.

If you'll recall she also wants, "earmark," redefined to not include transportation projects in MN6.

Reince Preibus' Worst Nightmare Scheduled For Tuesday

Norm Coleman may enter RNC race.

You remember Norm. Sen. Norm Coleman Rents Cheap Crash Pad From Political Pal

Why Won't Michael Steele Turn Around?

He's afraid Priebus might stab him in the front.

Not Everyone Offers Thanks & Congratulatins To Army Sgt. Salvatore Giunta

AP reports:

Giunta, the first living Medal of Honor winner of the Afghanistan and Iraq
wars, braved heavy gunfire to pull a fellow soldier to cover and rescued another
who was being dragged away by insurgents.

Bryan Fischer, the "Director of Issues Analysis" for the conservative Christian group the American Family Association adds:

"...the Medal of Honor has been "feminized" because "we now award it only
for preventing casualties, not for inflicting them."

Why do conservatives hate America so much?

A Question For My Conservative Friends

Do you believe that an unborn corporation is a person with free speech rights?

You Keep Using That Word. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

com·mu·ni·cate (k-myn-kt) VERB:com·mu·ni·cat·ed, com·mu·ni·cat·ing, com·mu·ni·cates VERB:tr.
1-To convey information about; make known; impart: communicated his views to our office.
2-To reveal clearly; manifest: Her disapproval communicated itself in her frown.
3-To spread (a disease, for example) to others; transmit: a carrier who communicated typhus.

VERB:intr.
1-To have an interchange, as of ideas.
2-To express oneself in such a way that one is readily and clearly understood: "That ability to communicate was strange in a man given to long, awkward silences" (Anthony Lewis).
3-Ecclesiastical To receive Communion.
4-To be connected, one with another: apartments that communicate.

Compare that to Uncommunicative:

"I don’t know what the standard is,” Kleefisch told WHBY.

A "professional communicator" who won't communicate, a lazy reporter who can't be bothered to find out that Barbara Lawton and Jean Hundtermark debated twice, a free-range moralist without an anchor; are those really qualifications for the second highest office in Wisconsin? Could you live with Governor Kleefisch if you had to?

A Few Loose Thoughts After the Friday Night Debate

1. Johnson seemed surprised by the way that Milk Marketing Orders work. Given that he has the DBA endorsement, shouldn't he have known about this before?
2. I have to believe Feingold shaved at 7:15 or had a heavy layer of foundation on. He never actually looks clean-shaven.
3. Johnson in one response talked about how well he worked with the School Board when he was asked about Judicial Advise and Consent as a way of telling us that he was for judicial capabilty and not litmus testing. In the next response he was trying to pin Feingold for the gun views of the judges he'd let GWB have. Either he was confused or lying.
4. Johnson definitely looked more comfortable in the middle of the debate. He started off with too many "ums" and "uhs" for a Senator and ended looking tired, as if a full hour was just too much.
5. Dear Senator Feingold, It's good to be all mavericky but you might not want to claim the TEA mantle too quickly. Those votes are shiny but you'll never get them and people who vote on facts don't really care for their brand of emotionalism.
6. Dear Mr. Johnson, Stand up straight. You're not running for School Board. Respect your audience and the job you seek even if you don't respect your opponent.
7. Johnson seems ready to throttle the HCR monster even after it starts to drag him under the waves. Acceptance rises every week now that people understand it. To run on a platform of "woulda, coulda, might," seems more than a little disingenuous.
8. I only saw one candidate with a fire in his belly to serve the people last night. Say what you want about Scott Walker, he always looks like he WANTS the office. Johnson didn't look like that last night. He looked like a man who is used to making his own decisions and then having his decisions carried out. His body language was that of a man who'd rather be somewhere else.
9. Bring on Monday night!

But He Doesn't Like It When We Say He's Not Really Very Good At Making Connections

Scott Walker tweets with no irony about how hard it is to get from there to here because of traffic.

Great Moments In American Political Debate

"The electric cord ... that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together [is a self-evident truth.]" –Abraham Lincoln

“This is not a contest between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty - the cause of humanity.” – William Jennings Bryan

“You, Sir, are no Jack Kennedy.” -Lloyd Bentsen

“I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” - Ronald Reagan

"Yeah, I got nothin'" --Rebecca Kleefisch

What Do David Vitter and Rebecca Kleefisch Have In Common?

An aversion to telling voters what they think.

Would You Buy A Candiate In A Poke?

Can you have a horse race if only one horse shows up? Politico ran an article yesterday titled The Year of the Missing Candidate which featured Wisconsin's Own Bought and Paid For Candidate, Ron Johnson above the text. Politico likens the tactic by many candidates on the right to running out the clock in a basketball game; hoping that time runs out before they make a mistake that ends the game.

Johnson's propensity for gaffe and dodge has made him a target of more than a little derision. At his appearance at The Milwaukee Press Club Johnson declined to spell out his ideas because

"...I'm not going to get in the game here and, you know, start naming
specific things to be attacked about, quite honestly,..."

"I've never been a newsmaker before," said Johnson, smiling. "This is
new to me. I'm a rookie."

That's hardly a campaign stance. It's more like something your Prom date would say.

And Johnson is hardly the only debate dodger. The Walker Campaign is so afraid of what Rebecca Kleefisch might say in front of a live microphone that she's dodging debates altogether. The good people of Wisconsin won't buy a cantaloupe without testing it to see if it's good, they test-drive any car they're thinking about buying and check to see if they're getting a good deal on a washing machine or TV and, at the same time, they're being asked to take Rebecca Kleefisch on trust.

Even Saint Ronnie said, Trust. But verify." WisGOP and the Walker Campaign aren't willing to let you do that. They know their candidates are so extreme that you won't buy what they are selling so they're hoping you'll buy them sight unseen.

A Plethora Of Pages, A Dearth Of Ideas

I'm pretty sure that even a group as intellectually lax as the McLovin Institution wouldn't pay by the page.

If they don't want people to call their candidate stupid, why do they do stupid things in his name?

Election Reax- Eleven On The Top Of My Mind

1. Nice turnout, Evansville. I heard we were close to 600 before 7 PM. That's around 43%
2. Wow. I almost feel bad for Brett Davis. He took a deep breath and jumped feet-first into the Milwaukee radio crazy pool and still had his career handed to him by a member of the Liberal Media (everyone in TV is Liberal Media, right?) If he'd stuck to his principles he might have been electable in November. Now Scott Walker has a millstone around his neck by the name of...
3. Rebecca Kleefisch who has promised to consult her Bible before making any decisions as Governor Lite. The Good News is she'll never be able to make many decisions from that chair. The bad news is she's one heartbeat from taking over. If you like Scott McCallum you'll love Becs. Or something like that.
4. Coattails weren't worth much. Brett Davis tried to ride in on the Tommy! train without much success and Pompadour Paul Ryan's hand-picked candidate in the 44th, Ken Brotheridge, moved back into Wisconsin only to run fourth in the primary.
5. In a race in which I had no favorites it was a shame to see Bill Truman run second. He deserved a shot against Sherman.
6. Jeff Plale finds out that the environment matters and that Wisconsin isn't West Virginia. Both good lessons.
7. Memo to Cousin Bill in Sauk County; It's only 44 votes out of 8800. Demand a recount. Soon.
8. There's no substitute for money. RoJo makes the case for Original Intent by trying to return office-holding to only rich white guys and drops four and a half million dollars of family money doing it.
9. Implied in the Governors race, the Republicans made it clear that they are strongly anti-competence by rejecting Scott Feldt for Treasurer.
10. No matter how strong Kurt Sclicht ran in winning the 27th he still was nearly 2-1 behind Tony Wickersham in the 4 precincts in Rock County. There's a huge lesson there for an organization smart enough to hear it.
11. Congrats to Jennifer Keach. She'll do well in a second term.