That Be A Lot of Moose Meat!

Or: Nice Work If You Can Get It

When all the other governors around the country see this report, don't be surprised if we see a mass exodus, a run of abdications across the land, all heading to the same money trough as Mommy Moose;



Sarah Palin Has Earned an Estimated $12 Million Since July

Since leaving office at the end of July 2009, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee has brought in at least 100 times her old salary – a haul now estimated at more than $12 million -- through television and book deals and a heavy schedule of speaking appearances worth five and six figures.

That conservative estimate is based on publicly available records and news accounts. The actual number is probably much higher, but is hard to quantify because Palin does not publicize her earnings.

[Snip}

Palin appears to select audiences that are likely to provide a warm welcome. In February, Palin coupled a paid speech to the Daytona Chamber of Commerce with an appearance at NASCAR's Daytona 500 and a local book signing, and was welcomed with cheers of "We love you, Sarah!" In the past nine months, she has stopped in to address the Bowling Proprietors Association of America, the Complete Woman Expo, the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, and the Sierra-Cascade Logging Conference, among others.

But wait, she's not all that greedy;

She did not charge fellow Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann for an appearance at a fundraiser in Minnesota last week, for instance. And she has indicated that she will not collect fees for speeches at certain charitable functions. At the same time, a report in the Hamilton Spectator quoted organizers who said she would be paid "in the ballpark" of $200,000 to speak at a fundraising dinner for the Juravinski Cancer Center and St. Peter's Hospital outside of Toronto.

She doesn't charge our seminal Ignorant Dolt, the batshit crazy Michele Bachmann, but she soaks the caretakers who are treating cancer victims?

Yep, sure sounds like rock-solid Republican values there.



This winking at the Teabaggers is really payin' off.

Summertime is coming, The Wasilla Whiz Kid could probably hit, five, maybe six, county fairs, per-state, per-day.

All the organizers have to do is announce she'll be there and, bang, they know they'll have a few scores-of-thousands Teabaggers lining up, wrapping around the Funnel Cake stand.

Gottalaf, over on The Political Carnival could only eek out "Jesus wept. Wonder how much of it was money to just go away..."

And, Doug Mataconis, on Below The Beltway offered;

Like I said, no wonder she quit.

It certainly worked to her advantage financially — and it’s a lot less responsibility than, you know, actually doing something.

Who ever thunk a losing VP candidate, half-term Governor, winking, Know-Nothing, Ms. Ya'Bet'cha, GOP Clothes Horse could be so profitable?

Take it away, Billie Holiday!

Billie Holiday - Nice Work If You Can Get It

Twisted

The one, absolute certainty of this evening, regarding the Wasilla Whiz Kid's reversed-Sally-Field-I Love-You-Tea-Party-Nation-I-Really-Love-You $100G speech, is that Peggy Noonan must have had a half-dozen, or so, orgasms, for the number of drippingly pandering times Mommy Moose gave (and encouraged) virtual blow jobs to Ronald Reagan.



The way the Teabaggers were lapping her up like happy soup, Ms. Ya'Bet'cha's could have just said the name "Ronald Reagan" for 90-minutes or so, and they still would have carried her off on their shoulders.

The way she opened the gig, the earth was rumbling at Forest Lawn, as Frank Capra had to stand up, from his grave, and applaud the way the former PartyofNoican clothes horse covered just about all there is in Americana, just short of baking an apple pie on stage, as she stuttered out how proud she was to "be an American", blew kisses to the soldiers, slammed CSPAN, let everyone know she wants to knit American Flag underwear for Scott Brown, and, of course, groped, and French kissed, for the first of many times, the old Gipper.

From there, it was pedal-to-the-metal boilerplate bashing, of Obama, Pelosi, Reid, the Democrats, liberals, and even poor Joe Biden.

And, surely, the MSM will grab onto her "Hopey-Changey" zinger.

It all their fault, all our debt, unemployment, that they are running a panty-boy National Security and Foreign policy, and all we have to do, to get our "economy soaring again", is cut spending and cut taxes.



In fact, it would be much later, when asked to describe, if, cough, cough, she was "President Palin", what her National Security and Foreign Policy would be, flags popped out of sleeves, and I swear, the Liberty University Marching Band came out on stage, playing "Stars and Stripes Forever" and she machine-gunned out;

We win, they lose

Yabetcha!

Give her credit, for knowing her rabid audience, as her jabs, slurs, misinformation and lies were often punctuated with a proverbial rim shot, and, she gave a nod to any geezer Teabaggers, with raising "high, high, high" the godfather of what used to be the Conservative Movement, Barry Goldwater (if he were in the mix today, the teabaggers would chase him down the street and beat him to death with their misspelled signs).

But the big moment, the money shot, came at the end, in a sandbagged Question and Answer period, with the money-grubbing Convention producer, Judson Phillips, who winked-and-nodded to the crowd, that the questions came from "Tea Party Nation".

If the Teabaggers didn't have flaming-arrows-in-the-eye blind loyalty, and love, of Palin, the room would have deflated, perhaps been torn apart and burned down, when, before the questions began, Mommy Moose advocated, after nearly 90-minutes of kissing the grass-roots ground they walk on, that the PartyofNoicans "embrace" the Teabaggers into their white-only tiny tent.

Come to think of it, not sure if that was an olive branch, or a fatwa, that if they don't, they will be hunted down, skinned alive and used for kindling wood, when the Teabaggers embark on that revolution Palin, earlier said, they were ready for.



Anyway, back to the money shot.

Phillips asked that, with the pending Conservative takeover of the House and Senate, in the Fall Midterms (he presented this, less as a hypothetical, and more as a given), what should be the three top points of their agenda?

Oh no, a wild card question, requiring the former abdicating half-term Governor to, yikes, think.

Onward Comrades, as Palin jumped right in, saying, first, we have to go back to our roots, and be a "God-fearing nation".

Then, it was okay not to have all the answers, you know, have ideas, vision, facts, she was giving her future government a pass on, you know, actually doing anything.

That's because she saved her best, for last.

The definitive policy of Sarah Palin;

Divine Intervention

Everybody just get down on your knees, start praying, start beseeching the Good Lord, to take away the scary monster in the closet, and make us okay again, you know, give us back OUR country.

Divine Intervention.

Oh, good grief ...

Take it away, Annie Ross

Twisted - Annie Ross

Costco Hearts Palin

We have stayed away from the Mommy Moose Book Tour, so far, however, a story today caught our attention.

And, it wasn't the part of The Wasilla Whiz Kid running out on the bill, but, rather, the shopping experience of one, Helen Rappaport, a Utah Democrat;

Rolly: Check from Palin in the mail?

Rappaport stopped at the Salt Lake City Costco to do some shopping, unaware that Palin was scheduled to be there for a book signing.

So Rappaport, after noticing the parking lot full of cars, was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to maneuver her shopping cart through the store with hardly anybody in the aisles. She also got a prescription filled with no wait.

While going through the check-out lane, again with no wait, she told the clerk she forgot to get some grape tomatoes, which she loves, so she would be right back.

That's when the bells went off.

The clerk told her they had no tomatoes that day.

No tomatoes? At Costco?

As she was leaving, she noticed a man with a store manager's name tag and asked him why they had no tomatoes. He informed her the store did have tomatoes, but they were taken off the shelves for a few hours.

It turns out that Palin had been pelted with a tomato at an earlier stop on her book tour and the management at the Costco was determined it wouldn't happen here.

The manager told an employee to go into the storage area and get Rappaport some tomatoes, which he gave her for free.

So, because of Palin, Rappaport not only got to shop with no lines, she got free tomatoes.

Hmmm ... I wonder what Costco would do if Tiger Woods visits the store?

Remove all the single woman?


Bonus Links

Wonkette: GOOD THING THEY DON'T SELL EGGS OR PIES - Costco Removes Tomatoes In Anticipation Of Palin Visit

TBogg: Queen of Alaska has no time for your mindless “blow dry?” gotcha questions

Ron Chusid: Save The Tomatos–Stop Palin

GottaLaff - Palin: Tomato-less in Salt Lake City

Jillian Rayfield: Salt Lake City Costco Removes Tomatoes Ahead Of Palin Event

Does She Eat Arugula, As Well?

The pitbull with lipstick ... A Hockey Mom in high heels ...

Ya Betch'ya!

If Tina Fey's parodies weren't enough for you, you can add Keith Olbermann's Special Comment last evening, and he didn't need to be co-piloting a helicopter to shoot down Mommy Moose for her insipid bullshit.

She's shot out of her self-conducted stump speech, that passed for a debate, belting out the Right Wings Greatest Hits, firmly anchoring herself to the crashing Dead Campaign Express.

She doesn't want to talk to the media any longer, she only appears before rabid, base-only audiences (in which, shockingly, the Rove Rats are now preventing the media from talking to said rabid, base-only audience, so as not to let any stray anti-McCain-Palin comments seep into the MSM)

Her speeches are inciting people to call for killings.

Say it ain't so, Wasilla Whiz Kid!

Overshadowed, in the Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain version of 'Lost Weekend' (Christ, if Ray Milland's character, Don Birnam were around, he'd keep on belting them down, preferring to remain in a drunken stupor, than having to see and listen to this crap), in which he didn't go as far as his protégé, he only approved of his speech audiences' calling Obama a terrorist, was that the scrappy Governor of Alaska may be a closet elitist.

She ,,, hmmmm ... boasted of drinking a Starbucks Mocha Coffee...Reading 'The New York Times'

Did it come with a side of arugula?

I would have thought the Shooting-Wolves-from-Helicopters spouse of the First Dude, coming from the rugged, frozen tundra, made her own coffee, like a, kind of, frontier Martha Stewart.

Especially out on the stump, just go around the grounds, scrounge up some leaves and branches, spend a few minutes rubbing the sticks together, to get the fire going, and then boil herself up a good, steamin' Cup-of-Joe.

Or, is this Hockey Mom-Joe-Six-Pack-With-Lipstick really a closet elitist?

The Elmira Gantry was out on the stump, in Carson, California, where she, gosh darn it, lived right up to our post from the other day, sliding comfortable into her Emily Latila mode.

Looking to fire up the crowd, Palin quoted the saying from her Starbuck Mocha Coffee.

From Nico Pitney, over on HuffPo;

The statement came after Palin had recounted a "providential" moment she experienced on Saturday: "I'm reading on my Starbucks mocha cup, ok? The quote of the day... It was Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State [crowd boos] and UN ambassador. ... Now she said it, I didn't. She said, 'There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't support other women.'"

Actually, Albright didn't say that. The real quote is, "There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't help other women."

(You can watch the video of it here)

Screwing up the Reagan quote ... Now this ...

Jesus, someone, a staff member, a campaign intern, buy this woman 'Bartlett's Familiar Quotations', so she can set it to memory, the way she did with the talking points at the debate the other evening.

I have to think it's going to be tough campaigning, with constantly putting your foot in your mouth.

But Wait, There's More!

Apparently, in her heavy-duty coaching and studying, they gave her Fly Boy's World Atlas to bone up on, for it was news to many that Afghanistan is now a "neighboring country" to us.

Palin calls Afghanistan ‘our neighboring country.’

“They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan,” she told several hundred supporters at a fundraising event in San Francisco.

I haven't noticed any Taliban moving into my neighborhood, and none of the local travel agencies are running promos for a "Two-Nights-Three-Day" getaway to Jalalabad.

I wonder, if Mommy Moose climbs up on her roof, or maybe, a nearby hill, if she can see Afghanistan from Alaska?

Maybe that's what has her thinking it’s a neighboring country.

It seems, that we were rather close, on target, with pegging Sarah Palin as the new Emily Latila

Palin Defeats Dewey!

Or was it Truman?

Or will she have a"I'll Try To Find You Some, and Bring'em To Ya ..."

We're just a few hours away from THE BIG DEBATE, and it's a cross between Christmas Eve and gawking at a horrible car accident.

In case you haven't been paying attention, or, you've been preoccupied with the on-going, slow-motion robbery of the country, via the Wall Street Bailout (since when do you call handing over billions of dollars to fat cats who already have billions of dollars a "rescue"), Sarah Palin, the Wasilla Whiz, has, for all intents-and-purposes, won the debate this evening.

How so, we hear you cry?

Well, simply that the debate moderator Gwen Ifill is in the bag for Barack Obama, and the Democrats, by way of writing a book - that isn't being published until January 2009 - and will slant all the questions, give Joe Biden a pass, and really apply the screws to Palin.

At least, that's the meme building up the past few days, from Michelle "Stalkin" Malkin, Matt Sludge and all the other Right Wing Freak Show flying monkeys.

Even Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain, that is, at the moment.

Yesterday, he was cool with Ifill, today, she's a thug who will work over Palin and leave her inches away from death, totally sandbagging the debate for her.

You won't be able to trust Ifill, not even her saying "Welcome, and Good Evening".

Who is she welcoming? ... Who is going to have the good evening? ...Did she look at Palin when she said it, or Biden?

You see, this will be just one of the few times the Rove Rats have let Mommy Moose out of the gulag, to face real, non-McCain-staff people, and these "outsiders" keep insisting on asking America's Hockey Mom pertinent questions, queries that one would expect a person seeking national office to have a handle on, to be able to articulate an answer that doesn't sound like someone who takes pride in being clueless..

So, we'll see which Sarah Palin shows up tonight.


Will it be the newly-minted "Let Palin Be Palin"?

Will it be the deer-in-the-headlights, Katie Couric-interview Sarah Palin?

Oh, sure, we'll get a good dose of obfuscation, the continuation of the McCain-Palin serial lies, some cheap shots at Biden and Obama, but what else will she put on the table?

Perhaps the most anticipated intrigue will be if she emulates her running mate, and refuses to look at Joe Biden for the entire evening.

Or, maybe, just maybe, she'll say she can see the famous St. Louis Gateway Arch from her hotel room, which, I guess, by implication, makes her an expert on domestic policy.


Bonus Palin Wins! Riffs

David Kurtz - McCain Camp to Ifill: Go Easy on Palin

Alex Koppelman - Shock: Conservatives preemptively claiming bias

Gwen Ifill PBS Chief Political Correspondent and Gwen Ifill President, Ifill Center for Media Ethics and Gwen Ifill Editor, BarackBeat Fanzine: Ifill Ethics Commission Clears Ifill

Top Ten Cloves: Reasons Sarah Palin Is Preparing For Debate Outdoors

Debate Results ... The Flintstones vs. The Jetsons