Recently in Donkeys and Elephants Category

It took the obstinate and abstinent Sarah Palin, "natch," to puncture the thick prophylactic of MJ media coverage. She and her spokesperson, Meg Stapleton, managed to characterize her resignation as a heroic act.

Palin lamented that the biggest problem facing our nation is apathy, and with that, she announced that she'd walk away from the final 18 months of a four-year term. Stapleton put a nice spin on that, saying that Palin can't make change within the current political system, so she's looking for other, unspecified ways to make change.

So the woman who said she'd bring change to America now complains that she can't change Alaska because people don't play nice. But what would a maverick do...?

Palin at her presser used a basketball analogy, saying that a point guard must break a full-court press by racing down court and then finding someone else to hand the ball off to. Stapleton, speaking later to an incredulous Anderson Cooper, repeated the analogy. When he failed to get it, Stapleton responded with a marvelous, booming and condescending laugh, arguing something about how Palin "passed the ball off, and said I'm going around it, and we all have the same common hoop, but I'm going around the block." Huh?

I guess what bugs me is the old issue we've dealt with around here too many times: Media "bias." Palin and Stapleton engaged in the most disingenuous game today, clumsily attempting to frame her resignation as a profile in courage and wisdom. The only people who will buy any of it are the diehard partisans. And those are the same persons who lament how any push-back from an Anderson Cooper represents reprehensible and insufferable ideology. For such persons, all nature will look like a conspiracy against them.

What part of "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission " does a wayward husband not get?

Through a spokeswoman, Mrs. Sanford declined requests to be interviewed for this article, but told The Associated Press she learned of her husband's affair early this year when she found a letter he had written. She told him to end the relationship, but he repeatedly asked permission to visit the woman in Argentina in the months that followed.

Letterman's rudeness is always mere, eh, child's play next to what those folks at The Onion usually come up with..... So when does the next round of apologies come in....?

What do angry Iranians and angry House congressmen have in common? Answer here.

Now that is tyranny.

I was having dinner with a morally conservative couple a few years back, when the wife joked about how her husband was eyeing a fetching waitress -- prompting him to bellow, "How dare you?!?!" She withered, as did our evening. I realized he was outraged by the insinuation of "wrongdoing," but he seemed too defensive.

Now Todd and Sarah Palin, the parents of at least one sexually active teen who snubbed their moral teachings, are outraged that a talk-show host would poke fun of the Palins for having family problems. That's Letterman -- always irreverent and rude, regularly poking fun of Bill Clinton for being a slut long before even Monica-gate. Like it or don't, but the indignance is tiresome. The Palin teens are not "off limits," given how the McCain campaign exploited them. At last, Levi Johnston's assessment of the Palin parents indicates they're a bigger threat to the maintenance of conservative values than Letterman is.

Shephard Smith worries that anti-Obama violence is in the air, here in a clip from Fox. This won't be popular with those who feel that Obama's administration is planning on rounding them up for daring to oppose mandatory abortions. But Frank Rich argues that, just as it took McCain's best efforts to calm down the people calling the eventual US president a treacherous terrorist, the GOP's leaders must calm down the people who are signaling their intention to "put an end to the false prophet Obama." Camille Paglia, herself a critic of Obama, shares some concerns about the threats against him here.

Let me go out on a limb and guess that the now-famous "reverse racist" quote will not haunt Sonia Sotomayor to the degree that the media is implying. That quote is, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Is that racism? Not to me. It's like someone telling you that, because he's traveled around the world, he hopes he has a broader perspective than someone like you who stays home all the time. It may be annoying, but there's truth there.

People who have grown up across cultures have a perspective that others don't. I don't think it's any more complicated or offensive than that.

I promised to respond to reader Diane's comments here.

The idea of the government "competing" with private business is kind of nonsensical. It's not a "fair fight" so to speak, and utterly pulls the rug out from under the private business owner.

Your example, of higher education, does NOT work quite well at all! (And I hardly think it is the only American asset the rest of the world still envies, but that's another discussion.) First of all, the most elite universities and colleges in this country are private and attended by (basically) only the very wealthy and/or (smaller numbers) the very bright. Damn few public universities/colleges can compete for those most elite students. Those of you who have your shorts tied in a knot about class warfare should not like this system at all. What's more, the government being in the education business "ups" the price for everyone. Your tax dollars subsidizing UCLA means that tuition at USC is going to have to be way higher. I agree that this is a good example, but it's a good example of why government "competition" is a bad idea.

You overstate the demographics of elite schools, But still, those with their "shorts in a knot" are fine with the issue you raise about private school enrollment, because they feel that the great mass of non-wealthy and non-genius students are still getting a chance to go to good colleges, thanks to the taxes that reflect a society's shared commitment.

True free-market people don't seem to fear being "undercut" by the public sector. They like competing with each other and especially with the public sector, since they believe entrepreneurs with a profit motive will always find ways to do things better and cheaper than bloated government bureaucracies who lack a profit motive.

Thus, I'm puzzled by this statement you make: "Your tax dollars subsidizing UCLA means that tuition at USC is going to have to be way higher."

Huh? You're saying that, if a public school uses tax money to keep tuition low enough to allow large numbers of average Joes and Janes to attend, then a private school will have to charge more than it would otherwise...? Wouldn't a private school instead have to be entrepreneurial in providing better service than publics, at the most affordable tuition rate possible?

If there were no publics, and no shared national commitment to higher education, Stanford could easily become a for-profit corporation and bleed the world's wealthiest families to the tune of $200,000 a year, while scholarshipping a few geniuses of lesser means, and letting everyone else go to rot. But if UC Berkeley offers a high-quality, state-supported educational experience without any need to turn a profit, and Cal State Northridge offers an affordable and solid education to tens of thousands, Stanford has to maintain a realistic price in order to keep the right mix of market share. That works for everyone's interests, in education, health, etc. It reflects a great American belief that it's crucial for our nation to keep the market from pricing essential resources out of the reach of the common man.

Life in America isn't about being totally Social Darwinist or totally communist. In America, it's about having a free market with some limited, smart public oversight that reflects collective commitments -- with some of those major commitments being provided directly by Uncle Sam. Even Ronald Reagan believed that. When he said, "Government is the problem," he indicated that it needed to be reformed, not discarded. That's what his progeny don't get.

Finally, for now, one of the reasons that we can't un-do public K-12 education is because they point out, plausibly, that private schools would be quicker to boot out the laggards. Our great nation's promise to provide universal education would fall by the wayside (how do you and our free-marketers here really feel about that promise, by the way....?)

Going back to political trends, I think this is a credible assessment from the liberal Center for American Progress -- and it addresses long-term issues that aren't being addressed or even acknowledged by American conservatives.

Today, more than two-thirds of Americans rate a "progressive" approach to politics favorably, a 25-point increase in favorability over the last five years, with gains coming primarily from those who were previously unaware of the term. "Progressive" now equals "conservative" in terms of overall public favorability (67 percent, respectively). The continuing strength of the conservative brand--if not all of its constitutive ideas--reflects the long-term success of the conservative movement over decades. Despite electoral setbacks and larger proportions of Americans now adhering to progressive ideas about governance and society, the conservative worldview remains appealing to many Americans and creates important cleavages in the electorate, particularly on key cultural and national security beliefs....

But unless and until conservatives recognize the depth of affinity between President Obama's ideological approach and that of the American electorate, conservative ideas likely will remain in secondary status... Notably, the ideological areas of greatest consensus among Americans are all key priorities and investment targets of President Obama: renewable energy; education, science, and infrastructure; universal health care; financial support for the least well-off; public interest regulations; and reductions in inequality financed by increased taxes on the wealthy...

[P]rogressive attitudes about government and economics are particularly strong among those under the age of 30, suggesting the potential for further strengthening of progressivism within the electorate.

I know it may be hard for some of you to buy that Americans worry about the poor or about income inequality, but you again have to go back to the polling that shows that even the majority of America's wealthy are willing to pay higher taxes in order to address the issues mentioned above.

And this piece above doesn't even give much attention to an emerging culture of environmental stewardship among the millennials, which is boring or anathema to today's conservatives and libertarians. Again, these kids may change drastically in ten years, but given the shake-up of the economy and their short-term prospects, they may go on to create a radically different culture than that of their more conservative parents.

...between conservative media and liberal media is that the latter are far more likely to eat their own. See here, as Jon Stewart skewers Nancy Pelosi. I think it's part of the liberal temperament -- more given to wanting to fix things, they take public disagreements and dirty laundry as a natural part of life. Conservatives don't talk about certain kinds of unpleasantness in mixed company, and they get angrier when someone on their side is discussed in a negative light.

That's one reason why liberals are always surprised by charges of unfair media bias: "But we tend to make everyone's life hell!" I'm sure Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Nancy Pelosi, and someday even Barack Obama will agree.