William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

The following column - which I endorse fully - was written by Teresa Combs of The Northern Light, the newspaper of the University of Alaska Anchorage*:

“Palin puts Alaska in the spotlight but not for the best”

A once largely ignored state is suddenly thrust onto the world stage. Out of the darkness, it has been unceremoniously cast into the spotlight, an unexpected and unsure candidate for such attention. People are trying to understand this strange, foreign entity. Cautious whispers arose from across the country.

“Isn’t that the place where people live in igloos?”

“I hear it’s total darkness for six months.”

“They pay you to live there!”

Then, shuddering from the earth, as if being forcibly ejected from the planet’s belly like last night’s bad Chinese take-out, an accented, nasally voice penetrated the calm, vomiting forth broken promises and cleverly disguised phrases of conservative propaganda. With a permanent “deer-in-the-headlights” stare peering over wire-rimmed glasses, and a modest hairstyle piled on high to let you know she’s about “Business” with a capital B, Gov. Sarah Palin has gracefully stomped and smirked her way into the nation’s heart.

And the Democrats go running! Panic-stricken, they flee, scattering like cockroaches in a kitchen when the light is turned on. This was an attack completely out of left field. No one could see this coming. What could six years of being the illustrious mayor of Wasilla, and not even two-years of governing over a state that has nearly a sixth of the population of the city of Los Angeles, truly prepare her for this? Certainly, this could not be a ruse by McCain to try to woo women voters.

Hillary supporters around the nation are suddenly succumbing to the sheepish mindset of accepting McCain because he was so understanding and took a woman under his wing. Not at all considering Palin’s views completely contradict that of a democrat. McCain’s plan has women falling to their knees in praise, raising their arms to the heavens and thanking God for such a gift!

Finally, a woman who endorses the religion-based “theory” of Creationism, who earmarks money for laughable projects, who values diversity if it’s only concerning conservative heterosexuals, and who would love to enforce her spiritual beliefs with complete ignorance of that handy phrase “separation of church and state,” but who cares! It’s a woman!

Read The Rest of This Insightful Column Here …

* Full Disclose: I was once the Sports Editor and then the Editor of The Northern Light (You can find some other of my Alaskan adventures here!). Thus, I have an obvious bias. But, that’s why you’re still reading this. You share my biases. We are one in bias. But I digress.

Teresa rocked it. Go Seawolves!

–WKW

WASHINGTON — In the latest escalation of the battle between Republican Presidential nominee John McCain and the mainstream media, John McCain’s campaign lobbyist Rick Davis has distributed a lengthy letter that he recently sent to all media outlets demanding they “cease and desist from using facts” against his candidate.

“The usage of facts in this election creates a natural bias toward John McCain. John McCain proudly served the United States and was a Prisoner of War for five-and-a-half years. He is a Maverick reformer. He is his own man. He has been married nearly 30 years. He is ready for the job on Day One. And he’s a Maverick. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is a hockey mom, a Maverick reformer, fought the Bridge to Nowhere and stood up to Republicans in government.

These are the issues that matter to Americans. These are the issues that count - character, personality, heroism. Trying to sully these issues with facts is not just dangerous to National Security, it’s un-American. This is what we mean by ‘Putting Country First,’ ” read the statement in part.

At least one media outlet responded quickly and forcefully to the charges. NBC immediately fired lead news anchor Brian Williams, replacing him with Meghan McCain. “We trust she understands how to separate family loyalties from true journalism,” said an NBC insider. NBC also announced that it’s nightly news program will now be aired only at 4 a.m. The 7 p.m. hour will now be occupied by reruns of older, popular NBC shows like “Friends,” “Seinfeld,” and “Fibber McGee and Molly.”

At MSNBC, “The Rachel Maddow Show” will continue, but the liberal Maddow will be balanced with new co-hosts, including Karl Rove, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and G. Gordon Liddy. John McCain and Sarah Palin will also be on the show, reading prepared messages, ala Andy Rooney on “60 Minutes.”

“The McCain campaign was assertive,” said an MSNBC spokesperson. “We have no choice but to respond.”

While CBS and CNN have yet to respond, Rupert Murdoch of Fox News Channel said he agreed with the McCain camp completely.

“This changes nothing for us,” said Murdoch. “Nothing at all.”

–WKW

MINNEAPOLIS - In an announcement that has shocked the Washington establishment to its very core, the editor of the satirical newspaper The Onion has admitted that the 2008 GOP Presidential ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin is a satire that has “spun out of control.”

“Things just really got out of hand,” said Scott Dikkers, editor of The Onion. “Once the movie ‘Mystery, Alaska’ broke out at the Republican National Convention, and John McCain was about to get an official shot at having access to the nation’s nukes, we realized we had to come forward and nip this thing in the bud.”

The announcement by Dikkers came just one moments before presumed Presidential nominee John McCain was to officially accept the GOP nomination. The convention was abruptly halted when it was announced that John McCain and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin were not, in fact, the GOP nominees for the Executive office.

According to GOP sources, it is now likely that Jeb Bush will become the true Republican nominee for President, with current Vice-President Dick Cheney as his running mate.

In a column that will be published tomorrow morning in the Washington Post, Dean of Washington Media David Broder reacted angrily, but added that he was pleased that a serious ticket would hopefully “restore the natural order of Washington.”

“The McCain-Palin hoax has been a crime perpetrated against the media. We are the victims,” wrote Broder. “Now that the natural order has been restored, however, I have great confidence that a ticket of Bush-Cheney will be a serious one that understands Beltway complexities and the nation’s continued grave threat of nuclear annihilation at the hands of Islamic terrorists.”

Dikkers said the entire satire began simply, but rapidly gained momentum. According to Dikkers, a story titled “George W. Bush Privatizes the White House Executive Bathroom” began the entire debacle.

“It was just a simple filler story,” said Dikkers. “Then somehow angry bloggers got a hold of it, and we just sort of sat back and watched what happened.”

While details are still sketchy, Fox News has reported that the story somehow morphed due to the diligent work of the “leftist, Marxist blogospheres.” The angry leftist bloggers continually pushed, altered and continued the satire and the national media followed, until somehow: “Republicans had actually bought the ridiculous notion that McCain is some type of non-partisan maverick and that an inexperienced Alaskan governor had put her foot down against the infamous Bridge to Nowhere and was a maverick in her own right,” as Publisher of The Onion, T. Herman Zweibel stated in a press release.

For his part, Dikkers said he realized things were completely out of control when McCain was about to accept the nomination for the GOP.

“We were waiting for someone to figure this whole thing out, but once McCain was 24 hours away from having a legal shot at the Presidency, we just had to pull the plug. It was just too dangerous,” said Dikkers. “We’re really sorry about this whole thing. Seriously, sorry.”

Dikkers said the lead story in the next issue of The Onion will explain more about the satire that went out of control, under the title “Holy Shit That Was Close!”

–WKW

If there’s one thing Time Magazine columnist Joe Klein must hate with the power of a thousand thousand suns, it’s the Internet. Glenn Greenwald took Klein apart for his fact-less support of warrantless eavesdropping and the FISA bill and Klein could do little more than call Greenwald some names and back his his ignorance up with more ignorance.

But, with it so easy to find myopic and nonsensical opinions from Beltway pundits, we must give pat on the backs when they are due, as well. And Klein is deserving of said pat for standing up to John McCain and the GOP’s attempts to run roughshod over the national media.

There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is “a task from God.” The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.

Well played, Joe.

–WKW

As one obscure blogger is fond of pointing out, all news is good news for John McCain and his GOP.

–WKW

While being interviewed by Greta Van Sustern of Fox News at the Republican National Convention, Laura Bush responded to a question regarding how the press treats the children of candidates, “When Bill [Clinton] was elected, the media pretty much left Chelsea alone.”

At least in one instance, it’s fair to say that the First Lady is absolutely correct. After all, they went out of their way to avoid mentioning John McCain’s attack on the only child of Bill and Hillary Clinton:

“Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”

And the media also did a pretty good job of not reporting when McCain called his wife a “cunt” right in front of a group of reporters.

So really, Republicans have little to worry about from the media. They won’t only avoid covering the candidates children, they’ll avoid covering the candidate himself whenever he goes on the attack, as well.

–WKW

One must give Ace of Spades some credit for SEO skills. Somehow a Google search for looking for Sarah Palin pictures landed on his site.

Of course, he immediately blamed lefty bloggers. Based on, well, absolutely nothing. And quite unshockingly, Ace doesn’t seem to have any clue why these awful Google searches are landing on his site somehow.

Of course, that didn’t stop ol’ Ace from just loading up even more SEO search keywords in his post to draw readers to his site. In fact, it probably goes without saying that ol’ Ace did the initial search himself and then started rabidly screaming about how “leftists” did it.

I base this on intensive research of the right-wing fringe, mind you. They sort of have a tendency to invent facts and run with them, I’ve noticed.

Not that it’s hard to find numerous actual instances of sexism against Sarah Palin from both the left and the right and the mainstream media. Or he can check his own comment section. But eight years of George Bush has taught the far right quite a bit about inventing sources, it seems. At least in this case it’s only a transparent ploy to get hits.

–WKW

Frank Rich of the New York Times fully assaults the “dysfunctional press” covering the 2008 Presidential Election, and hits one out of the park.

All week long a media chorus had fretted whether he could pull off a potentially vainglorious stunt before 80,000 screaming fans. Well, yes he can, and so he did.

But was this a surprise? Hardly. No major Obama speech — each breathlessly hyped in advance as do-or-die and as the “the most important of his career” — has been a disaster; most have been triples or home runs, if not grand slams. What is most surprising is how astonished the press still is at each Groundhog Day’s replay of the identical outcome. Indeed, the disconnect between the reality of this campaign and how it is perceived and presented by the mainstream media is now a major part of the year’s story. The press dysfunction is itself a window into the unstable dynamics of Election 2008.

I’m William K. Wolfrum and I fully endorse Rich’s column. Read the rest here.

–WKW

Update: Sarah Palin, eh? I must admit I didn’t see that coming. May I just say, however, as someone who lived in Alaska, I’m quite curious about how smart it is to have an Alaskan politician involved at the national level.)

Karl Rove has chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty to be John McCain’s running mate, Fox News has confirmed.

Rove, who spends his time as a Fox News pundit when not orchestrating the McCain campaign, gave Pawlenty a glowing review on Fox News, and Fox News has spent a great deal of time talking up Pawlenty.

“The first thing you go for when picking a vice-president is do no harm,” said Rove, confirming that McCain will do as he’s told him and pick the hyper-conservative.

Reached for comment, McCain grumbled and said “read my book,” as per instructions from Rove.

More on this as it develops.

–WKW

As Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey Jr. spoke tonight at the Democratic National Convention, CNN ran this graphic below him under the title “Fact:”

Bob Casey of Pennsylvania was denied a speaking role at the 1992 Democratic convention because he opposed abortion rights.

As Atrios wrote in 2005 (and perhaps three or four dozen times since):

The people who still “mention the fact” are Republican hacks who like to perpetuate the myth that liberals are “illiberal and non-democratic.” Casey wasn’t denied the opportunity to speak because he was anti-choice, he was denied the opportunity to speak because he refused to endorse the Clinton/Gore ticket.

Of course, facts are what the mainstream media says they are, all proof to the contrary be damned.

–WKW