Dear Cable News Networks:

I know you’re desperate to get Sarah Palin on air. You loved the pilot episode. It was a ratings bonanza for you. This does not mean that you have to waste valuable air time every single time she gives a repeat performance. I’ve seen this episode three times now. If I had the time to watch Cable News all day, every day, I’m sure I’d have seen it more times than that. It’s the same speech, given with the same combination of Stepford deference and “aren’t I clever, I can read what the speechwriter wrote for me!” glee every single time she gives it. Please stop covering her until she’s willing to say something new.

Love,

Policywank

According to the Wall Street Journal, state and federal regulators have stepped in to shut down Silver State Bank, largely because the results of its exposure to risky real estate loans. I’m starting to think I should add a new category for posts about failed banks. Actually, I think I will. Yikes.

This is huge. It’s been rumored for a long time, so the reaction to it will probably be somewhat muted, but it’s a huge sign that our entire financial system is in trouble. This belies an extended period of stagnation, if not recession. The feds have to be careful with how they handle this over the next couple of years.

What I saw of the McCain video was brilliantly done. It really wasn’t until the very end where you had the darkened hall and Fred Thompson’s blathering about “when you’ve lived in a box” where it went a little too over the top. Up until that point, it was tone perfect, brilliant political theater/propaganda.

Am I too cynically rooted in pop culture? Fred Thompson’s bit at the end made me start humming this:

Woke up this morning
Closed in on all sides
Nothing doing
I feel resistance
As I open my eyes
Someone’s fooling
I’ve found a way to break
Through this cellophane line
Cause I know what’s going on
In my own mind

Am I living in a box
Am I living in a cardboard box
Am I living in a box
Am I living in a cardboard box
Am I living in a box

Life goes in circles
Around and around circulation
I sometimes wonder
What’s moving underground
I’m escaping
I’ve found a way …
I’ve found a way …
Am I living in a cardboard box
Am I living in a box (living)
Am I living in a cardboard box
Am I living in a box (living)
Am I living in a cardboard box
Am I living in a box (living)
Am I living in a cardboard box
Am I living am I living am I living
Am I living am I living am I living
(In a box)

Am I living am I living
Am I living in cardboard box
Am I living in a box
Am I living am I living
Am I living in a cardboard box
Am I living in a box

I saw the results of an MSNBC text message poll this morning that asked what they thought of Palin after he speech. There were three options and they were something like:
1. Think better of Palin
2. Speech raised doubts about Palin
3. Speech raised doubts about Obama

About 70% responded with #2.

It was somewhat easy to dismiss that with the thought that MSNBC seems to be succeeding in drawing in liberals via the audience of Olbermann and soon Rachel Maddow. But in a story at the Huffington Post, two focus groups of former Clinton voters from Nevada finished the speech with a lower opinion of Palin after the speech than they had of her before.

I haven’t seen anything like this in the mainstream media reporting on her speech. By and large, she is reported to have received overwhelmingly positive reviews.

I’ve seen several instances in recent weeks where people I didn’t know who were commenting in my friends blogs and livejournals mocked the job of community organizer. I immediately suspected that these people were right wing morons. That has certainly been proven tonight. Nearly every Republican speaker mocked the idea of community organizing and the job of community organizer. So now I’m quite sure that the people who have done that in recent weeks were just working from the GOP talking points.

I don’t agree with Republicans on anything, but I am not prone to casting them as the devil. Rudy Giuliani, however, is a first class fascist. That man is a lying, strutting, demagogue. Frankly, it speaks quite ill of New Yorkers that they ever elected the man, let alone re-elected him.

My money on the top GOP contender for 2012 is Mike Huckabee.

More on all of this later, maybe tomorrow. Gotta watch Palin’s speech.

I just watched Chris Matthews introduce “Republican congresswoman Adam Putnam”. Putnam’s body language at that point is just hilarious. He clearly looks angry and defensive, but doesn’t, um, have the balls to correct Matthews. I rewatched it twice. The first time was just to confirm that I’d heard correctly. The second was to just enjoy watching Putnam’s body language.

As I watch Joe Lieberman give his speech, I really can’t think of a more despicable person in current day American politics. This guy’s vision of bi-partisanship is about nothing more than his own ego. Democratic voters rejected him in Connecticut. When a lot of other elected Democrats decided to respect the wishes of the voters of their party instead of their personal loyalty to Lieberman, he got into bed with the Republicans. He took their money, their endorsements, and their organizational power to get re-elected as an “independent” in 2006. He has chosen to blackmail and sabotage the Democratic party at every opportunity since. Come January, the Democrats ought to expel this bastard from their caucus and make him as irrelevant as possible until the fucker just goes away.

A lot of folks on the left blogosphere seem to really hate Joe Scarborough. I have had trouble figuring out why. It seems to just be a partisan thing. They hate Scarborough because he’s the token conservative host on MSNBC a sort of inverted Alan Colmes. Except, of course, Scarborough isn’t a slow-witted, timid dupe for the liberals on MSNBC the way Colmes is a slow-witted, timid dupe for Sean Hannity and other conservatives on Fox.

I like Scarborough in the way that I’ve often liked dedicated Republican activists that I’ve known personally. He’s smart. He knows what wins and loses elections. He’s passionate about what he believes and willing to stand up for it. Unlike the talking points spewing shills of both the Democrats and the Republicans who come onto cable news shows as guests, Scarborough is not afraid to criticize GOP figures or concede a valid point when liberals make one.

Out of the various MSNBC hosts, he is by far the best at walking out and interacting with the crowds at these conventions. I just witnessed a really interesting exchange between him and someone in the crowd outside of the GOP convention. He talked about how he was often portrayed as a far right winger ten or more years ago when he was in congress, but is now often accused of being a liberal by republican bloggers and others. He went through several points where he noted that his positions hadn’t changed in the last ten years, but that the GOP had stopped being a party that believed in fiscal discipline, stopped being a party that was aggressive in its diplomacy, but conservative in its use of our military, etc, etc. The casual, conversational way in which he engaged someone who seemed to be shooting for a couple of minutes of youtube fame was pretty impressive.