Interesting Catch By Alan Colmes As Reported By Huffington Post

Has there been a double standard with the reaction to David Letterman for his joke about one of Sarah Palin’s daughters? The right wing has been very upset about the Letterman-Palin feud. Huffington Post is reporting about a catch made by Alan Colmes about a comparable joke made by Jay Leno, during an episode of The Tonight Show (Sept. 2, 2008) about the Palin daughter who became pregnant.

LENO: Gov. Palin announced over the weekend that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant. And you thought John Edwards was in trouble before! Now he has really done it.

That’s very interesting. I don’t recall hearing much of an uproar about that particular joke. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve ever heard of the joke. Could the uproar be because Letterman is considered to be more politically liberal than Leno or maybe because Gov. Palin is trying to remain in the media spotlight since the election loss in November?

Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/13/leno-told-similar-joke-ab_n_215261.html

Racist Comment Comes From South Carolina Politician Toward Michelle Obama

Once again, racism rears its ugly head down in South Carolina from a popular GOP activist named Rusty DePass took a nasty shot at First Lady Michelle Obama. Here is the story as reported by Ben Hoover of WISTV.com in Columbia, S.C.

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – A state Republican activist has admitted to and apologized for calling a gorilla that escaped from the Riverbanks Zoo Friday an “ancestor” of First Lady Michelle Obama.

A screen capture of the comment, made on the Internet site Facebook, was obtained by FITSNews, the website of South Carolina politico Will Folks.

The image shows a post by an aide to state Attorney General Henry McMaster describing Friday morning’s gorilla escape at Columbia’s Riverbanks Zoo.

Longtime SCGOP activist and former state Senate candidate Rusty DePass responded with the comment, “I’m sure it’s just one of Michelle’s ancestors – probably harmless.”

DePass told WIS News 10 he was talking about First Lady Michelle Obama.

What a reprehensible comment and thankfully, as you can see in the entire story, there were individuals who stepped forward and condemned such a nasty comment from DePass.

DePass started his apology this way:

“I am as sorry as I can be if I offended anyone. The comment was clearly in jest.”

Then, he kept running his mouth and ended up blowing it by saying this:

DePass took his apology a bit further. He also said, “The comment was hers. Not mine,” saying the first lady made statements in the media recently saying we are all descendants of apes.

The writer did an Internet search for such comments from Michelle Obama, but found none to back up the claim of DePass (who dug himself a deeper hole). That is just an unbelievably stupid and racist comment. His apology started off well, but then he went to the blame-the-victim approach to apologizing.

Fortunately, I am sure Michelle Obama is tough enough to waste little (if any) time dignifying comments similar to those she probably has heard many times before.

WISTV.com:
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=10526195&nav=0RaPIYA8

Crooks and Liars:
http://crooksandliars.com/logan-murphy/sc-gop-activist-jokes-escaped-gorrill

An Interesting Perspective From Joe Scarborough

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough made interesting comments that Think Progress has reported today. Scarborough, who I do not always agree with, seems to take a stance opposite of political partisan parrots like right-winger Mitt Romney (who will say just about anything to appease the far right).

Here is an excerpt that includes the comments from Scarborough:

Later on Meet the Press, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough seemed to rebut these right-wing claims, suggesting that President Obama’s outreach in Cairo “scared” the Iranian leaders into fixing the election:

SCARBOROUGH: You know, the law of unintended consequences came in again. I suspect that Cairo speech really scared the grand ayatollahs in Iran. If they were going to fix an election, this was the time to fix it, because the last thing they wanted to do was Barack Obama take credit for reformers winning in Iran, like they already have in Lebanon. And by the way, in the short term that’s bad news for us. I think in the long term, though – if the ayatollahs are seen stealing an election, as a result from what Barack Obama did in Cairo – I actually think that’s a positive for the United States and Iran in the long run.

That is an interesting thought, however, it is a reasonable belief that he would have done anything to remain in power as president. President Obama’s inspiration seems to be sparking people to stand up and assert themselves in the pursuit of fairness, freedom and to ensure they are not disenfranchised by a farce of an election, a rigged process with a predetermined conclusion. Perhaps Scarborough is correct in that this (what appears to some people to be a huge power grab) could spark people to continue to pursue change after being victimized by a process a large number of people see as crooked. If President Obama’s words have made people hungry for change then that seems to me to potentially be a positive.

Think Progress:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/14/neocons-blame-obama-iran/

Mitt Romney Blames President Obama For Controversial Iranian Election Results

Mitt Romney rarely misses an opportunity to exploit any situation to bash President Obama and try to keep himself in the spotlight for a run at the White House (likely in 2012). Romney, however, continues to prove himself to be an extremist willing to say just about anything negative to gain some degree of publicity … even if bashing our president for trying to repair the bridges burned down by the previous (Republican) administration.

ROMNEY: The comments by the president last week, that there was a robust debate going on in Iran, was obviously entirely wrong-headed. What has occurred is the election is a fraud, the results are inaccurate, and you’re seeing a brutal repression of the people as they protest. … It’s very clear that the president’s policies of going around the world and apologizing for America aren’t working. … Look, just sweet talk and criticizing America is not going to enhance freedom in the world.

Romney would be wise to realize that the reputation of the United States of America was severely damaged worldwide by the previous administration’s do-what-we-say-because-we’re-better-than-you approach to foreign policy. The United States of America can no longer act like cowboys running all over the world trying to intimidate and strong arm our neighbors.

Sadly, Romney is glued to the far right of the Republican party offering nothing fresh and regurgitating tired talking points (sweet talk and criticizing America) to trash President Obama. Had the Bush-Cheney cowboy approach been more successful then perhaps we would not be in the situation we’re in now … cleaning up a mess seven-plus years in the making.

The people of the United States of America are sick of the hardc0re partisan politicians like Romney (who are willing to inflame to fire up their political base) while offering little positive and woefully few solutions. Anyone can stand around and parrot tired talking points, but when is Romney going to offer more solutions and fewer partisan talking points? A child can run around mimicking what they hear from other people.

If Romney were attempting to be a newspaper journalist he would already have flunked out of J-School for failing to tell the full story and taking comments out of context to advance a biased perspective.

Think Progress:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/14/neocons-blame-obama-iran/