One of my favorite Tweeps, @pourmecoffee, put it well:

Stimulus turns 1 today. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. GOP was against you, but takes credit for you, too.

Frank Rich made an interesting observation about Sarah Palin’s crib notes incident at the Tea Party Convention ~

You had to wonder if Palin, who is nothing if not cunning, had sprung a trap. She knows all too well that the more the so-called elites lampoon her, the more she cements her cred with the third of the country that is her base. Her hand hieroglyphics may not have been speaking aids but bait.

If so, mission accomplished. Her sleight of hand gave the anti-Palin chorus another prod to deride her as an empty-headed, subliterate clown, and her fans another cue to rally…

Read More–> Frank Rich, “Palin’s Cunning Sleight of Hand.” NYTimes.com, 13 Feb. 2010

While my take on this matter is nowhere near as well written as Rich’s , I suggested similarly on Feb. 11… and took bunch of crap for it.  (Just sayin’)

Stephen sends up the Fox “News” Channel pundits for their idiotic equating of recent heavy snowfall with “proof” that climate change isn’t happening.

FNC really must hold their viewers in the lowest intellectual regard.

Say what you want about Glenn Beck, but do not dispute this: The man is enormously influential in the American political debate. Spend some time with any one of the new conserva-libertarians who’ve been getting so much face time since last spring — the Tea Party, the 9/12 Project, or more extreme groups that are out there like the Oath Keepers — and you’ll often find that their activism traces back to Beck, whether it’s something he said on his Fox News program or his radio show or the books that he’s touted into best-sellers like the “The 5000 Year Leap,” an obscure Christian-oriented take on the Constitution and the Founding Fathers by a deceased John Birch-era right-winger that has sold by the truckload since it was Beck-endorsed.

[snip]

The real reason that history “is no longer taught” is because…it’s bogus. Let’s look at Barton — who Texas Monthly called in a massive profile “The King of the Christocrats” – and his track record”

[snip]

Barton is the founder of a Texas-based group called the WallBuilders, a foundation devoted to proving that the roots of the United States and its Constitution are not based on the separation of church of state — as is widely believed and widely taught — but as country built upon a bedrock of Christianity. That is also the premise of a widely circulated book that Barton published in the 1990s called “The Myth of Separation” — a book that was eventually re-written and issued under a different name because it was larded with bad information, some of which nevertheless became gospel on conservative talk radio. As noted in the 2006 Texas Monthly article (via Nexis):

In 1995 the historian Robert Alley attempted to trace the provenance of a quote that Rush Limbaugh had mistakenly attributed to James Madison, in which Madison purportedly called the Ten Commandments the foundation of American civilization. All roads led to David Barton,whose The Myth of Separation attributed the following quote to Madison: “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” Barton cited two sources for the quote: a 1939 book by Harold K. Lane called Liberty! Cry Liberty! and Frederick Nyneyer’s 1958 book First Principles in Morality and Economics: Neighborly Love and Ricardo’s Law of Association. Alley couldn’t find the quote anywhere in Nyneyer’s book, however, and eventually concluded that Barton had pulled it from an article in a journal with the unlikely title Progressive Calvinism, which, in turn, had attributed it to something called the “1958 calendar of Spiritual Mobilization.” In any case, Alley reported, the editors of Madison’s papers were unable to find anything in his writings that was even remotely similar. “In addition,” they added, “the idea is inconsistent with everything we know about Madison’s views on religion and government, which he expressed time and time again in public and in private.”

Read More–> Glenn Beck’s plan to save America…with Christian-right pseudohistory | Philly | 02/09/2010.

From WashingtonMonthly.com, Jan./Feb., by Mariah Blake:

[snip]

Battles over textbooks are nothing new, especially in Texas, where bitter skirmishes regularly erupt over everything from sex education to phonics and new math. But never before has the board’s right wing wielded so much power over the writing of the state’s standards. And when it comes to textbooks, what happens in Texas rarely stays in Texas. The reasons for this are economic: Texas is the nation’s second-largest textbook market and one of the few biggies where the state picks what books schools can buy rather than leaving it up to the whims of local districts, which means publishers that get their books approved can count on millions of dollars in sales. As a result, the Lone Star State has outsized influence over the reading material used in classrooms nationwide, since publishers craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers. As one senior industry executive told me, “Publishers will do whatever it takes to get on the Texas list.”

Until recently, Texas’s influence was balanced to some degree by the more-liberal pull of California, the nation’s largest textbook market. But its economy is in such shambles that California has put off buying new books until at least 2014. This means that [Don] McLeroy and his ultraconservative crew have unparalleled power to shape the textbooks that children around the country read for years to come.
p until the 1950s, textbooks painted American history as a steady string of triumphs, but the upheavals of the 1960s shook up old hierarchies, and beginning in the latter part of the decade, textbook publishers scrambled to rewrite their books to make more space for women and minorities. They also began delving more deeply into thorny issues, like slavery and American interventionism. As they did, a new image of America began to take shape that was not only more varied, but also far gloomier than the old one. Author Frances FitzGerald has called this chain of events “the most dramatic rewriting of history ever to take place.”

[snip]

Read More–> via Washington Monthly ~ Revisionaries – by Mariah Blake.

via The GOP has a Palin Problem, cross-posted from Care2.com ~ Originally published, 10 January 2010

The National Journal conducted a poll of 109 Republican Party leaders, asking them to “rank 5 candidates in the order of likeliness to capture the GOP nod.”  That former MA Governor Mitt Romney topped the lists of those polled with 81 points, 62 per-cent of which were first place votes, is unsurprising.  Were it not for half-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s poor showing (25 points) it probably wouldn’t be worth talking about.

Not one of the party leaders or pundits polled selected Palin to top their list.  Taking into account the ideological nature of her supporters — distrustful of government, adherents to the myth of a liberal media, and, most importantly, a profound disdain for the GOP elite — this was the best outcome Palin could have hoped for.

Talented FiveThirtyEight.com political prognosticator, Nate Silver, likes Palin’s chances to win 2012 Republican presidential nomination.  Silver posted “10 reasons that Palin Could Win,” last Nov. 18.  In his Jan. 7 reaction to the Insider’s Poll, Silver reiterated his number eight reason from last year:

…If the Establishment, owing to electability concerns or whatever else, tries to put hurdles in her way by re-structuring the primary or delegate allocation process, it may only play into the victimization complex of Palin and her supporters.

Silver’s commentary is apt, and though the poll doesn’t represent any direct effort to “neuter” Palin’s potential candidacy, that doesn’t mean they wont (see video, below).  “Although the Establishment’s concerns about Palin’s viability as a general election candidate are well grounded,” Silver notes, “mostly they’re just terrified of her because she doesn’t need them. “

It might be wiser for establishment Republicans to remain hands-off, and wait for Palin to self destruct.  Her supporters have proven themselves willing to keep their blinders on, content to cling to the dazzling façade rolled out at the 2008 Republican National Convention.  However, Palin’s high visibility — albeit, NEVER in a critical forum — increases the probability of a politically fatal mistake.

Indeed, she may have already made it.  I’m not referring to Palin’s recent doubling down on her “death panel” analysis of health care reform efforts in Washington – a turn of phrase awarded “Lie of the Year” for 2009 byPolitifact.com, Pulitzer winner in that same year.  Palin’s deceit in this matter will go unnoticed by her supporters.

However, Palin’s snubbing of the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has got much attention.  Much more interesting is her commitment to speak at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Feb. 4-6.

Muriel Kane posted an excellent summary about how different factions are reacting to Palin’s curious positioning at RawStory.com, Jan. 8.

Missed opportunity, simple greed, or shrewd calculation? Only time will tell the real meaning of Sarah Palin’s Tea Party gambit.

Another aspect that has, thus far, received little attention from the media pertains to whom Palin will share the stage with at the Tea Party Convention.  Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, Eric Boehlert, posed the question in a Jan. 9 post:  “Will the press question the ‘Palin – Farah’ ticket?”

The Beltway press still refuses to raise questions about Palin’s decision to attend the first annual Tea Party convention in Nashville next month and share the stage with a fringe radical like Joseph Farah, who is an avowed gay and Muslim-hating extremist, and whose wingnut publication, [World Net Daily], remains obsessed with the loony, and thoroughly debunked, conspiracy claim that Obama was not born in America.

Of course, Kane was correct – only time will tell how this will play out.  There is a long way to go, but the potential for Palin to become the 2012 GOP nominee still exists.  So, too, does another outcome which I suggested the day Palin announced her resignation as Governor of Alaska:

If Palin does still have national aspirations, her only hope of success (in her mind, mind you) would be to position herself at the head of some third-party, the radical right-wing of the GOP finally throwing off its remaining moderate faction.

See Also:

• David Weigel, “Is Palin Getting $100,000 to Speak at the Tea Party National Convention.“ WashintonIndependent.com, 7 January 2010.

• Here’s a teaser for the Jan. 10 ‘60 Minutes‘ segment on Sarah Palin:

Palin Inaccurate says McCain Strategist

Related on Care2:

• Palin Quits – Could GOP split be in the offing?

• The Death Panel Lie – Conservative Dishonesty in the Health Care Reform Debate

BigThink.com compiled their Zinn collection on the sad occasion of the famed historian’s death.

This clip is but the first.  Follow the link below the clip to see parts, two & three.

From the BigThink.com post:

The legendary activist, author, and historian wanted to be remembered for “introducing a different way of thinking about the world,” and as “somebody who gave people a feeling of hope and power that they didn’t have before.”

Read More–> Remembering Howard Zinn – BigThink.com

Rest in peace, Professor.

From CommonDreams.org ~ by Mark Feeny:

Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and a leading faculty critic of BU president John Silber, died of a heart attack [Jan. 27] in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling, his family said. He was 87.

Portrait of Howard Zinn by Robert Shetterly from his series, Americans Who Tell the Truth. http://americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/Howard_Zinn.php

“His writings have changed the consciousness of a generation, and helped open new paths to understanding and its crucial meaning for our lives,” Noam Chomsky, the left-wing activist and MIT professor, once wrote of Dr. Zinn. “When action has been called for, one could always be confident that he would be on the front lines, an example and trustworthy guide.”

For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught. Dr. Zinn’s best-known book, “A People’s History of the United States” (1980), had for its heroes not the Founding Fathers — many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out — but rather the farmers of Shays’ Rebellion and the union organizers of the 1930s…

[snip]

Read More–> Howard Zinn, Historian who Challenged Status Quo, Dies at 87 | CommonDreams.org.