Wow:

Where is it written that only senators are qualified to become President?... Or where is it written that mere representatives arenÂ’t qualified, like Geraldine Ferraro of Queens?...

Where is it written that governors and mayors, like Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco, are too local, too provincial?...

Presidential candidates have always chosen their running mates for reasons of practical demography, not idealized democracyÂ…

What a splendid system, we say to ourselves, that takes little-known men, tests them in high office and permits them to grow into statesmen....

Why shouldnÂ’t a little-known woman have the same opportunity to grow?...

[T]he indispensable credential for a Woman Who [sic] is the same as for a Man – [Who] who helps the ticket.

Well put, New York Times! How very enlightened of you!

Of course, they wrote that in 1984 championing Geraldine Ferarro, but I think their powerful words have stood the test of time.

And, as they've not yet retracted or corrected themselves, I assume they still stand by them 100%.*

Thanks to Arthur.

* As they're currently standing 100% behind Elizabeth Bumiller's demonstrably, no-question-about-it false claim that Palin belonged to the AIP.

Posted by: Ace at 03:46 PM | Comments (30)
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Now, for everyone on the left and the right, please, shut up for a moment and consider the broader issue here.

We have a crisis in America and Aaron Rodgers exemplifies that. He's an unproven quarterback who is now in the spotlight, forced to carry a team far too soon.

I can't forget the young wide receiver in the NFL documentary Everybody Loves Me who talked about going to court for the first time, dressed as Superfly, only to be counseled by counsel to put on a suit and a tie. That one decision has altered his life in a significant way.

But let's be honest. A ton of parents aren't having this conversation, so why not deal with it in the public policy arena?

We desperately need comprehensive moron NFL football picking before tomorrow's game at 5:55pm EDT that incorporates all of these issues if we are to attack the problem -- and enough of the blowhards on both sides who think their way is the only way. What do you think?

I think the Giants are going down in the East and I mean that with love and respect. Lotta love.

Do you think my ass looks too big in this picture?

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:43 PM | Comments (19)
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Obtained from unimpeachable sources up in Alaska. They swear on a stack of bibles this is the real McCoy, so I'm just gonna run it without bothering to actually verify anything.

[UPDATE - below the fold] more...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 03:13 PM | Comments (29)
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Another reader sends this email.

This isn't as damning as the other two, but it made me laugh out loud. more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:20 PM | Comments (36)
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Petraeus: Troops will depart Baghdad soon, leaving the capital to the Iraqis.

General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, said declining violence in Baghdad raised the possibility that American combat troops could leave the capital by next summer.

Asked in an interview with the Financial Times whether it was feasible that US combat forces could leave Baghdad by July, he said: “Conditions permitting, yeah.”

His comments come as the US and Iraq hammer out the final details of a long-term security agreement that reportedly outlines a potential timeline for US combat troops to leave Iraqi cities by next summer, and the country by 2011.

“The number of attacks in Baghdad lately has been, gosh, I think it’s probably less than five [a day] on average, and that’s a city of seven million people,” said Gen Petraeus.

While declining to comment on the details of the security agreement, Gen Petraeus said US combat forces had already pulled back from cities in 13 of IraqÂ’s 18 provinces. The sight of US soldiers exiting Baghdad would be highly symbolic given the scale of violence that gripped the city in 2006 and 2007.

SAS brags they've taken 3500 insurgents "off the streets" in Iraq. Several hundred, mostly Al Qaeda, were taken "off the earth" as well.

More than 3,500 insurgents have been "taken off the streets of Baghdad" by the elite British force in a series of audacious "Black Ops" over the past two years.

It is understood that while the majority of the terrorists were captured, several hundred, who were mainly members of the organisation known as "al-Qa'eda in Iraq" have been killed by the SAS.

The SAS is part of a highly secretive unit called "Task Force Black" which also includes Delta Force, the US equivalent of the SAS.

The prime targets have been those intent on joining the wave of suicide car bombers that claimed around 3,000 lives a month in Baghdad at the height of the terrorist campaign in 2006.

Using intelligence gleaned from spies and informers, Task Force Black has nearly broken the back of the terrorist network and reduced bombings in Baghdad from about 150 a month to just two.

Pakistan says they almost caught Zawahiri. I guess Pakistan's word should be taken with a heaping tablespoon of salt.

Al-Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, narrowly escaped capture during a raid in the tribal region of Mohmand, near the Afghan border, Pakistan's top security official told journalists in Islamabad.

The head of Pakistan's security, Rahman Malik, claimed his men came within a whisker of arresting al-Zawahiri (photo). But the the mountainous terrain with its rabbit's warren of narrow mountain paths had enabled al-Zawahiri to slip away, he said.

They also claim they've killed 560 Taliban and other militants in fighting in the wild provinces.

The Coalition handed off control of Anbar -- the center of the former Sunni insurgency -- to the government of Iraq. An unsung victory, Ralph Peters says, and that's of course by DKM design.

All too easy to miss the biggest story out of Iraq this year: Yesterday [Sept 1., two days ago now], security responsibility for once-bloody Anbar Province officially passed from the US military to the Baghdad government.

Fallujah. Ramadi. Al Qaeda's worst atrocities. Those opposed to the liberation of Iraq celebrated years of headlines from Anbar.

Then it all changed: We won - and the headlines vanished.

This year, Iraq received a special gift to kick off Ramadan, Islam's holy month of alternate fasts and feasts: The handover of a huge, economically resurgent, peaceful province.

More than 12,000 Marines have been withdrawn from Anbar. The remaining 25,000 US troops are packing up. That means more forces available for Afghanistan - and more time together for our military families.

The handover also means that 11 of Iraq's 18 provinces are now the responsibility of the country's long-derided security forces - with two more provinces scheduled to revert to full Iraqi control by year's end.

The Daily Kos Media just isn't interested. They have a war to fight -- the war against the real terrorists -- Sarah and Bristol Palin, and anyone else treasonous enough to challenge the ascension and apotheosis of The One.

Posted by: Ace at 02:42 PM | Comments (30)
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I'm stealing this from Allah. Hope he doesn't mind. But I did send him my first ALL CAPS AND EXCLAMATION POINTS!!! tip email, ever, about this. Had to get his attention, so I had to write like Andrew Sullivan at a Wham! Fan Meet-Up.

What makes it great was Kelly's outraged prosecutor demeanor-- and the sucker of cock smear artist's rat-like grin as he lied, knowing he was lying, knowing he was caught lying, but grinning anyway as if to say, "Yeah? And what can you do about it?"

Posted by: Ace at 03:12 PM | Comments (109)
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I've written to him twice asking for comment (something he himself doesn't bother with when he launches his own smears and Bircheresque conspiracy theories).

He has not responded.

Here then are emails that a long-time reader (whom I have no reason to doubt, particularly, except for general skepticism and a desire for fairness) to Sullivan, and his replies.

As he has not bothered to deny they're his, I assume they are. I have reversed the order of query and reply (they're backwards in the format sent to me) for ease of reading, and put Sullivan's responses in bold.

First:

From: dailydish.email@gmail.com
To: [reader's email redacted]
Sent: 8/31/2008 6:55:18 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Jonah on Sullivan

On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 6:47 PM, wrote:
> Sullivan Sinks To Bottom Of Cess Pool In your defense of Obama in the
> Presidential race, your latest post on Governor Palin and her baby moves you
> and your blog into the realm of Joseph Goebbels.

look: if it's untrue, they can easily disprove it
i will post such evidence immediately upon getting it
andrew

Okay... well, I guess that was Sunday, when Sullivan was finally discovering that a 100 pound woman who is photographed suddenly weightng 150 pounds might just be pregnant and not simply overdosing on Haagen-Dasz, so maybe it was taking him a little while to wrap his head around the nuances of the whole human reproductive cycle thing he's heard so much about.

He doesn't really understand the finer details of those creatures that some of his radical friends call "breeders" in their more heterophobic moments, so I guess I can understand his bafflement at all these strange new facts.

But how about today?

Today, after dozens of pregnancy pictures have been produced.

Today, after journalists working in the Juneau capitol have said, flatly, "Of course she was pregnant, you idiots; why didn't anyone just call us? We could have told you she was heavy with child for two months."

Today, after it is known that Bristol is now pregnant and has been for months, making it almost medically impossible that Bristol could have carried a child to term just months before becoming pregnant "again."

Today -- he's still pushing Trig Trutherism:

From: dailydish.email@gmail.com
To: [redacted]
Sent: 9/3/2008 4:49:47 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Yuval Post

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 4:45 PM, wrote:
> I rather suspect your hyperventilation against what Yuval has written was
> mostly provoked by the following portion: "...the breathless careless airing
> of deranged rumors about her private life, the staggeringly indecent
> mistreatment of her teenage daughter in a difficult time, the ill-informed
> piling on about the vetting process..."
>
> I agree with what the pundit said on cable earlier, "Andrew Sullivan and
> Daily Kos will go down in the annals of blogging as the ultimate in deranged
> and dishonest writing...they and their associates should be shunned by all
> decent people..."

but is it her baby????

I don't know if Andrew Sullivan is technically "evil." I am not sure he still has the legal capacity for mens rea, the guilty thought.

I am now fairly certain he is simply insane. His brain has degenerated for some reason or another. He is simply no longer capable of rational thought.

It's actually quite sad. His passage into a frightening twilight of gibbering insanity is one I wouldn't wish on any enemy.

Except him, of course. But I think that's understood.

Pic credit: McGurk. Best. P-shop. Ever.

Posted by: Ace at 01:52 PM | Comments (65)
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Motherfuckers.

Another incredible allegation emerging from the family war is that Palin, a mother of five, had an affair with a former business associate of her fisherman husband, Todd.

“Todd discovered the affair and quickly dissolved his friendship and his business associations with the guy,” charges an enemy. “Many people in Alaska are talking about the rumor and say Todd swept it under the rug.”

...

The ugly family feud stems from a three-year battle between the 44-year-old governor and her former brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten.

“Sarah has many enemies in her hometown – but a lot of them are in her own extended family,” a source close to the Palin family told The Enquirer.

Family members loyal to Wooten are now waging a campaign to drag PalinÂ’s reputation through the mud.

For God's sake, the Enquirer concedes that the story is being told by a psychopathic enemy of Palin's, and yet it runs it anyway.

Posted by: Ace at 01:30 PM | Comments (48)
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Meh. Who cares.

Peggy Noonan is sonorous but hasn't exactly been on the team since 2003. Mike Murphy's pissy he's not running the McCain campaign.

Thanks to Drew.

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Comments (74)
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Think about it: He's been around forever, but he's never been trusted to do anything (except maybe spray for roaches down in the basement next to his desk). He's got hair issues. He's constantly saying things that are either blatantly stupid, or things that just plain creep people out, and (the dealmaker for me) his coworkers are constantly making fun of him.

MESSIAH/WADDAMS '08: Hope, Change and bring back my Red Swingline or I'll burn down the Capitol.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 01:15 PM | Comments (14)
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