Posted: 14 Dec 2008 05:30 PM PST
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Because what the country can't get enough of is more coverage of Sarah Palin (/snark), George Stephanopoulos asks the question burning brightly in the punditocracy: Will John McCain endorse former running mate Sarah Palin for the 2012 election?
The answer? Nope.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You said, after the election, that Governor Palin has a bright future in your party. Does that mean that, if she does chooses to run for president, she can count on your support?
MCCAIN: Oh, no. Listen, I have the greatest appreciation for Governor Palin and her family, and it was a great joy to know them. [..]But I can't say something like that.
Ouch. Kind of hard to deny all the rumors of rancor between the two when you get put in that spot (take that, Bill Kristol), but McCain's choice of phrasing to chide Stephanopoulos on this line of questioning was more than a little unfortunate, especially considering how his age and health made Sarah Palin's position that much more critical:
MCCAIN: ... my corpse is still warm, you know?
Compare and contrast - I'm sure the Senate's southern caucus is as upset about this as they are about auto workers making $28 an hour:
Congress wanted to guarantee that the $700 billion financial bailout would limit the eye-popping pay of Wall Street executives, so lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation and penalizing firms that break the rules.
But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision, congressional aides said. The change stipulated that the penalty would apply only to firms that received bailout funds by selling troubled assets to the government in an auction, which was the way the Treasury Department had said it planned to use the money.
Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts. In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives.
At least we've laid one myth to rest. It's never been that BushCo is incompetent. Clearly, they're very focused and directed when it comes to the economic privilege of the upper classes.
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Extreme pathological liars seem to have no real connected awareness of the suffering of others, and so they feel no remorse or sense of tragedy over others' misfortunes, though they may 'act it'. As leaders they are especially bad since they strengthen and pass on these characteristics to their followers. This is obvious as you view Amerika, with all its megalomania, pretentiousness, chicanery and feigned emotions today.
Pathological liars do sometimes suffer themselves, though. They suffer from the inner insecurity caused by failing to meet their own ideological standards. From what I understand, Hitler was pretty much a physical wreck by the time of his suicide. On the other hand, certain of these types never suffer and seem to live and die at peace with themselves. So, maybe if the war had gone well for Hitler he would have lived to be 95...
Who knows what the future holds for Bush? I guess that depends on how many of us choose to remain his followers.
Read original column, Tales from the Planet Bizarre (I call it Bizarro myself), Episode 473: Still Lying, Still Allowed to Lie by David Michael Green, a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/19220