To the surprise of many, Levi Johnston has more than once proved to be the most level-headed person in the room when it comes to many of the trials and tribulations of Sarah Palin and her daughter Bristol. So it’s interesting to hear what he has to say. Remember that Levi says he was living with the Palin family from early December through mid-January. They say he wasn’t. He says he had all his stuff there and slept there. They say he wasn’t living there. He says, yeah…whatever.
Levi decided to pipe up today and give us the reason he thinks she qui….”stepped down.” According to his attorney Rex Butler, people want to know the real reason, so Levi decided to give his take. So, what does Levi think is the real reason for the resignation? Money.
He claims he heard the governor several times say how nice it would be to take advantage of the lucrative deals that were being offered, including a reality show and a book.
“I think the big deal was the book. That was millions of dollars,” said Johnston, who has had a strained relationship with the family but now says things have improved.
“It is interesting to learn Levi is working on a piece of fiction while honing his acting skills,” Palin family spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
So much for things “improving.” Is it actually possible to use venom to write an email? Apparently she tries.
And wait a minute…..(screechy brake noise)…. Did he say a reality show? Sarah Palin? Now that’s something I’d like to see. Strangely, Johnston himself is in talks about his own reality show, and his own book deal. Please, just not Meg.
As I said before, she'd make an "interesting" talk show host or reality tv star, particularly the latter.
She went on the trail a sensation but demonstrated in the ensuing months that she was not ready to go national and in fact never would be. She was hungry, loved politics, had charm and energy, loved walking onto the stage, waving and doing the stump speech. All good. But she was not thoughtful. She was a gifted retail politician who displayed the disadvantages of being born into a point of view (in her case a form of conservatism; elsewhere and in other circumstances, it could have been a form of liberalism) and swallowing it whole: She never learned how the other sides think, or why.
In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.
In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying.
. . . and then it gets really interesting because Noonan takes on the pro-Palin republican talking points in her Noonan-esque way. Read the whole thing here.
I'm not in for Palin-bashing, but I also don't think we should eat the baloney Palin serves up as a nutritional dish. We need to expose the actual baloney for what it is. So, here's one more for ya:
As someone who used to work in group insurance and managed care, I am a strong proponent of health care reform and the public option. In this youtube video, Congressman Keith Ellison interviews five Members of Congress about including a public option in the health care reform legislation being written in Congress:
Steve Benen at Political Animal has a post up on today's snag in the House's progress toward getting health reform done.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) will run for re-election to her current post in 2010, according to a Democratic source aware of the decision, ending months of speculation about whether she might make the leap to a Senate or gubernatorial bid.
Madigan is expected to make her decision public later today.
She had been heavily courted by the White House and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to run for the seat currently held by Sen. Roland Burris (D) and, after initially expressing no interest in the Senate, did consider a candidacy.
Madigan had long expressed an interest in serving as governor but the ouster of Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) and ascension of Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn (D) to the top job complicated her path.
To be clear, Madigan would have been a favorite had she decided to run for either the Senate or for governor, a fact that makes her decision to run for neither office all the more puzzling.
First up, Omnivoracious has some great lists posted of the best books so far this year. Only two of the books are on my summer reading lists as of this moment so I'm adding a couple to my list. For example, The City & The City looks interesting. Check out the LAT review here.
Next up, I love this story about Michelle Obama's reception in Russia :
. . . On her second international trip as first lady, the welcoming cover stories and street chatter here have focused on her White House kitchen garden rather than her clothes, her Ivy League pedigree or her interest in promoting public service. The current cover of Ogonyok, for example, a weekly magazine focusing on politics and culture, carries a candid photograph of the first lady dressed in a burgundy windbreaker with her hair pulled back, working in the garden with students from Bancroft Elementary School in the District. The cover line reads: "The Queen of the Fields: Michelle Obama and her husband can overturn our understanding of America." It's accompanied by an extensive story about gardening culture in the United States. Tomatoes, apparently, now serve as tools for diplomacy.
Gardening has special significance here. During the Soviet era, in particular, people were enthusiastic gardeners, raising vegetables for their family for the winter on small patches of land in the country. So many people here still have dachas and spend part of their time at those country homes raising vegetables as well as flowers. But it's not merely that the White House has a garden, it's that the first lady herself tends it -- at least occasionally.
Women here have long stood equal to men on a variety of fronts -- one of the lasting aspects of the Soviet era -- but they are also expected to tend the hearth, raise the children and maintain the family. Obama, a lawyer and former hospital executive, has described her White House role as mom in chief. That title, as well as her very public sowing and planting, speaks volumes in a culture where men and women relate in very traditional ways and women struggle to balance independence with homemaking.
"The dacha is something important in our life and something present in our life all the time," says Alla Lapidus, 52, a teacher at a music school. Obama is appealing not only because she has a career but also because "she can work with her hands," Lapidus says.
Gardening reminds me of vegetables, of course, which serves as my segue to this post at Blue Marble regarding vegetarian diets:
. . .a vegetarian diet is better for you than a meat diet. It's also better for every other living thing on Earth. So why hasn't this study cracked the headlines?
Yeah, yeah. I'm a vegetarian. I also write not-so-great (yet!) genre novels as a hobby--so, did you see this article about romance writers in USA today? I'll be attending the Romance Writers of America conference next week . . . and while I can't guarantee a HEA romancewise when it comes to the stories I've written or intend to write, I do love a good romance novel. If you're in the mood for a good, fun romance, I recommend Loretta Chase, Diana Gabaldon (especially the first two books in the Outlander series) and Susan Elizabeth Phillips, among others.
If you also write, you may enjoy Billy Mernit's post on "vision" or, perhaps, re-vision. There's a lot of good stuff regarding what to do after you've plowed through the first draft.
Last but not least, I wanted to mention this post by Peter Daou at Huffington Post regarding Palin-bashing. I think it raises a good point.
In an interview with Anchorage News, Sarah Palin says ethics inquiries were paralyzing, and that she resigned because of frivolous complaints. Okay, fine. It's her story and she's sticking to it, and I do get it to a certain degree. BUT I also keep thinking that she's misrepresenting her ethics record a wee bit bit, no? I also have to say I loved Steve Benen's and David Weigel's responses to the interview, or more specifically, the matter of the so-called double standard regarding quitting.And finally, I found this morning's round of interviews with the television networks a bit "fishy." Here's a clip:
In Afghanistan, U.S. marines forced Taliban fighters to flee from the country's southern Helmand province. Meanwhile, NATO troops endured more casualties.
1. Goodfellas 2. Election 3. The Man Who Would Be King 4. Tin Men 5. Cinema Paradiso 6. Nights of Cabiria 7. Airplane! 8. Series 7: The Contenders 9. The Exorcist 10. Mail Order Wife 11. Rear Window 12. The Sound of Music 13. Tron 14. Flirting With Disaster
Per EW, McKay noted that he made a point of excluding any film that he felt would be on everyone's list, i.e. Jaws, Star Wars, Apocalypse Now, and Goodfellas (though he thenfelt compelled to make that No. 1 because he watches it before every film he shoots). Ferrell had a very specific purpose in mind for including Tron: "Just watch this to remind yourself that this movie was actually made and that for a brief moment in time there was a Tron ride at Disneyland.
Mandi Bierley then included her own list and asked readers to weigh in. Here's Mandi's list:
1. Rocky 2. Singin' in the Rain 3. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut 4. When Harry Met Sally... 5. Waiting for Guffman 6. Die Hard 7. Bull Durham 8. Apollo 13 9. It's a Wonderful Life 10. Red River 11. The King of Kong 12. L.A. Story 13. Gymkata 14. Up
So, I've been thinking about this, and I decided to do two lists-- the 14 movies I think would be on most people's lists, and then the 14 that aren't on that list that I'd include on my list. Make sense?
First, the movies I think would/could be on most people's lists:
Casablanca
Wizard of Oz
It's a Wonderful Life
Gone with the Wind
To Kill a Mockingbird
Goodfellas
the Godfather parts 1 & 2
Taxi Driver
Raging Bull
Rocky
Star Wars (1977)
the Lord of the Rings trilogy
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
Jaws
plus E. T., Blade Runner, Silence of the Lambs, Lawrence of Arabia, Sound of Music, Singing in the Rain, a movie about Viet Nam (often Apocalypse Now although mine is Platoon) and a movie by Hitchcock, probably Rear Window, North by Northwest or Psycho. Probably a movie by Tarantino, too-- either The Usual Suspects or Pulp Fiction. And, actually, a lot of women I know would include The Notebook.
Okay, so here's my 14, not including any of the above even though Gone With the Wind, E.T. and Rear Window are on my top ten fave list and it kinda hurts not to include them, and a lot of the others are faves, too. Sigh.
Life is Beautiful
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
Braveheart
Shawshank Redemption
Slumdog Millionaire
Bull Durham
Almost Famous
About a Boy
Cool Hand Luke
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
American Beauty
Titanic
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Thelma and Louise
Oh, and I forgot to do one like Tron or Gymkata. Perhaps mine would be Showgirls or the Billy Jack movies. (I actually love, love, loved those Billy Jack movies.)
First up, I rarely watch or listen to Liz Trotta, and if I remember correctly, she's turned me off somewhat in the past, but I agree with her on this:
In addition, TPM had a great video montage of the Sunday talk show pundits discussing the Palin soap, and what it means:
And finally (on the Palin front, as I'm weary of it) Andrew Sullivan has a great post up regarding Palin, the right and money.
In other news, as there's lots going everywhere, not just in Palin World, here are some links and tibits from Think Progress (here , here and here):
The New York Times reports today that when President Bush opens his library at Southern Methodist University in 2013, “visitors will most likely get to see one of his most treasured items: Saddam Hussein’s pistol.” . . .“It represents this Texas notion of the white hats taking out the black hats and keeping the trophy,” Rice University history professor Douglas Brinkley said, referring to Saddam’s pistol. “It’s a True West magazine kind of pulp western mentality. For President Bush, this pistol represents his greatest moment of triumph, like the F.B.I. keeping Dillinger’s gun. He wants people generations from now to see the gun and say, ‘He got the bad guy.’”
****
As part of a “record-breaking influence campaign,” the nation’s “largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress” to lobby Capitol Hill “in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues” on health care legislation. The industry is “spending more than $1.4 million a day on lobbying in the current fight.”
The Senate may not be able to realize its “hopes of approving health care reform before adjourning for the August recess,” making it unlikely that it can meet Obama’s request to have a “bill on his desk by Oct. 15.” Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) said his goal is “to complete the tricky merger of the HELP and Finance Committee bills, with the floor fracas over a final bill put off until after Labor Day.”
Senate Finance Committee member Charles Schumer (D-NY) said that there will absolutely be a public option in Congress’ health care legislation. “Make no mistake about it, the president is for this strongly,” he said on CBS’s Face the Nation yesterday. “There will be a public option in the final bill.”
Yesterday on Fox, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) claimed the Recovery Act has not produced a single contract in Ohio. Media Matters debunks the claim, noting the Ohio Department of Transportation has “awarded more than $83.9 million in contracts for work on 52 projects.”
President Obama arrived in Moscow today for “a summit with Russian leaders aimed at reaching an agreement to cut stockpiles of nuclear warheads.” When Obama met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in London in April, the two “agreed to start negotiations for a new treaty to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.”
***
During July 4th celebrations last weekend, anti-Obama protesters again assembled for tea parties across the country. The Washington Independent has noted that the tea party movement has lost steam since April, and that the protests last weekend were sporadic. In Jacksonville, FL, attendance was estimated to be 4,500 people for the April protest, but last week drew only 1,000.
The Duval County Republican Party, one of the organizers of the Jacksonville protest, has been engulfed in controversy because of numerous posters featured at the rally depicting President Obama as Adolf Hitler.
The Duval County Republican Party posted the pictures on the Party Facebook page. Racist and offensive posters have become a norm for tea parties, with signs comparing Obama to Osama Bin Laden distributed at the very first rallies.
I loved this quote at Balloon Juice today: Nothing annoys me more than the conservative myth that to be an ordinary American you have to be a moron. Although it’s probably just a corollary of the myth that to be an ordinary American you have to be conservative.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton broke her elbow and did not go with President Obama to Russia. Obama just said she will be there in the fall. Before leaving Washington to fly to Moscow, Obama replied to questions from Novaya Gazeta, including one about Clinton, his former rival.
An excerpt.....
In the course of your presidential campaign, you competed with Hillary Clinton. Does this hinder your joint work now?
Absolutely not. This is the beauty of democracy. Secretary Clinton and I engaged in a hard-fought, very competitive race for the nomination of our party. By the way, without question, these primaries made me a better candidate for the general election against Senator John McCain. But in democracies, once the election is over, then all Americans who care about our country get back to work. It was because of how well I got to know Secretary Clinton during our campaign that I knew she would be such an excellent Secretary of State, and she has served our country with excellence.
Regarding Al Franken, from TPM, at 10:30 this morning at the Hart Senate Office Building, a maintenance crew assigned by the Architect of the Capitol will install the official nameplate outside of Sen. Franken's new office. From First Read, the current plan is for Al Franken to be sworn in tomorrow on the Senate floor at about 12:15 pm ET. Vice President Biden is expected to do the honors in his role of "President of the Senate." Finally!! Btw, if you missed it, check out Paul Krugman's blog on Al Franken's Secret (he's a policy wonk, who will raise the level of Senate discourse. I agree. ) Ezra Klein also weighs in.
While the issues are completely unrelated, keep an eye on three hot spots today: China, Honduras, and Iran. All three countries are experiencing some domestic tumult -- ethnic clashes in China, the coup in Honduras, and of course the aftermath of the disputed election in Iran. As Buffalo Springfield famously noted, “There's something happenin' here, what it is ain't exactly clear.”
And one more, from the Plum Line, regarding health care ads, activists and so on:
Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that Obama had privately told Congressional Dems he’s concerned about TV and online campaigns hitting moderate Democrats for not getting fully behind the public health care option. “We shouldn’t be focusing resources on each other,” Obama reportedly said.
The response from the groups: That’s nice, but we ain’t stopping.
A spokesperson for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, one of the groups Obama reportedly complained about, confirms to me that the group is upping its buy with a new round of ads attacking moderate Dem Senators like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu this coming week. “If congressional staffers are complaining to the White House, that shows they are nervous and what we’re doing is working,” PCCC’s Stephanie Taylor says. “So we should just keep doing what we’re doing.”
Meanwhile, a second group, Change Congress, has not dropped plans for a coming campaign of ads attacking the Senators for taking contributions from health care special interests, Change Congress spokesperson Adam Green confirms. He urged the White House to consider a “good cop, bad cop approach,” suggesting Obama could hold positive rallies in the home states of moderate Dem Senators while Change Congress goes ahead with its ads.
Meanwhile, there are no indications MoveOn plans to drop its pressure campaign. If Obama did indeed complain about the efforts by outside groups, it’s unclear why. Obama himself has strongly backed a public option, and it seems obvious that pressure from the left on Dem Senators not to waver on this priority can only help the White House.
On the last bright sunny day of a holiday weekend that was jam-packed with unexpected politican maneuvering, blogger Shannyn Moore had the last word. She stood before reporters and television cameras and read a prepared statement.
On the Fourth of July, when Americans everywhere were celebrating our most sacred national holiday with parades and barbeques, Governor Sarah Palin was busy having me, Shannyn Moore, declared an Enemy of the State.
In a rambling quasi-legal letter, the most powerful person in this state accused me of defaming her for pointing out the fact that there have been rumors, -rumors- of corruption, rumors that have been around for years.
When Sarah Palin gave her three-weeks notice to the people of Alaska, aborting her term as Governor, a lot of people wondered why she quit. Mid-level managers turn-in their notice, not elected public officials. It didn’t make sense. It still doesn’t. People have been trying to guess why she really quit, and everyone in Alaska has been playing the guessing game. They’re rumors. There are a lot of rumors. And with all the corruption we’ve had here in Alaska, of course we wonder what’s really behind her resignation.
Governors don’t just quit. But Governor Palin did.
The governor’s massive overreaction -on the Fourth of July no less- should make any reasonable person wonder what’s wrong with her. The Lady protests way too much. Eventually we’ll all find out why she really walked off the job.
Sarah Palin is a coward and a bully. What kind of politician attacks an ordinary American on the Fourth of July for speaking her mind? What’s wrong with her? The First Amendment was designed to protect people like me from the likes of people like her. Our American Revolution got rid of kings. And queens, too. Am I jacked-up? You betcha.
Sarah Palin, if you have a problem with me, then sue me. Shannyn Moore will not be muzzled!
See also here and Wonkette's take here. And just for a little background, here's a clip of Shannyn speaking to David Shuster on MSNBC. She speculates about rumors.
A day after surprising even her closest friends by announcing she would step down as Alaska governor more than a year before her term was up, the controversial hockey mom was still keeping details of her future plans under wrap. But in a statement posted on Palin's Facebook account, she suggested that she had bigger plans and a national agenda she planned to push after she resigns at the end of the month.
"I am now looking ahead and how we can advance this country together with our values of less government intervention, greater energy independence, stronger national security, and much-needed fiscal restraint," she said.
Palin also cast herself as a victim and blasted the media, calling the response to her announcement "predictable" and out of touch.
"How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it's about country," the statement said. "And though it's honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make."
Palin's personal spokeswoman, Meghan Stapleton, confirmed to The Associated Press that the Facebook posting was written by the governor.
The abruptness of her announcement and the mystery surrounding her plans has fed widespread speculation. But Palin attorney Thomas Van Flein on Saturday warned legal action may be taken against bloggers and publications that reprint what he calls fraudulent claims.
"To the extent several websites, most notably liberal Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore, are now claiming as 'fact' that Governor Palin resigned because she is 'under federal investigation' for embezzlement or other criminal wrongdoing, we will be exploring legal options this week to address such defamation," Van Flein said in a statement. "This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who re-publish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law."
Palin has kept a low profile since her abrupt announcement Friday at a hastily called news conference at her home in suburban Wasilla, outside Anchorage. All of her public communication since then has been on the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, or through statements released by her office.
At the same time, Palin informed Murrow early Saturday that someone using the name "exgovsarahpalin" on Twitter was spreading a false rumor that there was to be a party at her suburban home in Wasilla, outside Anchorage. Palin was afraid her home would be mobbed, and security was dispatched, Murrow said.
With only a few weeks before she steps down on July 26, and Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell takes her place, the governor spent the Fourth of July weekend in the state capital, Juneau, but was only spotted briefly on the sidelines of the city's parade.
She had been invited to ride in a convertible, as she did last year, but never told organizers whether she would attend.
Juneau parade director Jean Sztuk said officials drew up banners in case Palin showed and was willing to take part.
As the last of the parade's clowns and marching bands headed past her, Sztuk gave up on Palin. "What governor wants to be at the end of the parade?" she asked.
Her low-profile and vague Internet messages left mounting questions about her plans for the future shrouded in mystery. Will she lay the groundwork for a 2012 presidential bid? Will she find a high-profile place in the private sector, maybe on the speech circuit? Will she drop out of the limelight and focus on her five children?
It's still all a bit cloudy, to me anyway. It's crystal clear to Ann Coulter, apparently. We'll see what this all means as the soon-to-be-ex governor figures it out, I suppose. Perhaps we'll be triple-teamed by a Palin-Coulter-Hasselbeck book/speech tour. Can you imagine?
In related news, I missed this yesterday, but love AC's reaction:
I also chuckled at Maureen Dowd's op-ed. Gotta love Palin/Sanford in 2012, with the slogan: “Save time — we’re already in Crazy Town.”
A quick tangent here, in case you've forgotten why Sanford is, indeed, in crazy town. Jon Stewart explains (hint: it has a lot to do with his inability to STFU about his mid-life crisis):
If one of Ms. Palin’s goals was to erase the perception of her as flighty — a perception encouraged by some McCain lieutenants in the rough aftermath of the failed campaign — it certainly could not have been helped to have staged an out-of-the-blue announcement that shocked even her closest aides and whose theatrics probably tempted Tina Fey and the “Saturday Night Live” production crew to abandon their vacations and head to the studio.
I have to say I'd love to see a Tina Fey parody of this mess:) But I don't think we will.
Now, last but not least on this particular topic, I'm in full agreement with BooMan.I'm not afraid of Sarah Palin, and, please, for the love of God, it's never, ever, ever been about Trig. William Jacobsen, indeed, seems rather insane for suggesting otherwise. I do think people have taken unfair shots at Palin's kids and I don't blame her at all for wanting to stick up for them and protect them. I think she goes about it in an ineffective way, but, ultimately, I do think they should be off limits. Period. Hopefully, this move will take care of it. I cringe at the kind of stuff Jacobsen writes about. I like her kids.Trig is adorable. God bless him, ya know? The rest are adorable, too. And, to be perfectly honest here-- I've said this before--I truly, truly wanted to like Sarah Palin, too, as a national political figure, at least a little bit, because she's my age, a mom, spunky and charismatic and at first glance, she seemed to have so much potential. I'm not Republican and I never would have voted for her and I certainly didn't want her to become the VP-- but I like Olympia Snowe, I'm not appalled by Kay Bailey Hutchinson and I think it would be good for our country to have more women from all walks of life, in both major parties, running for national office at the highest level, putting more and more cracks in that glass ceiling till it finally shatters. I was even a bit infatuated with the notion of a brilliant, beautiful, tough-minded, libertarian, pioneer-like Alaskan woman taking the nation by storm (albeit not so much that it would have allowed McCain to win.) But Sarah Palin isn't necessarily brilliant, tough-minded, pioneer-like or libertarian. She's rather thin-skinned, hypocritical and she lacks the kind of wisdom, perceptiveness, intelligence, logic, depth and breadth of knowledge, open-mindedness, self awareness, compassion, concern, judgment, integrity and honesty I seek out in candidates, as well as colleagues and friends and those I end up admiring regardless of party. Not only that, she seems to double dare me to dislike her for her willful and defiant lack of all those things. Ultimately, hers is a double dare I can't completely pass up. After all, I'm a latte-sipping liberal who lives in a big city and has a master's degree-- and I had a tendency to call out the mean, vindictive girls in junior high and high school. But I do think she'd be an "interesting" talk show host or reality TV star, and I wish her family well.
"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult." -- E.B. White
