Two noteworthy Sarah Palin reactions over at the Hot Blog: (a) “Wow. And I thought Lieberman was a bad idea. Two years in as Gov. of Alaska. Parent of a 4-month old special-needs child. Had her sister’s ex fired. This is who America wants to be a heartbeat away from the presidency of our oldest president ever? Thanks, crazy old guy. Game over. ” — David Poland. (b) “At least she’s hot.” — In Contention‘s Kris Tapley.

Sarah Palin, Tina Fey, Peggy Hill from the “King of the Hill” cartoon.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has a rural accent, wears horn rims, has a young child with Downs Syndrome and favors drilling for oil and gas. “We need oil, we’re hurting,and the pristine Alaskan wilderness can stand a little mucky-muck if we can increase our revenues” is what she’s basically saying in this Glenn Beck interview clip. Interviewed in early June, she’s also asked around the two-thirds mark about the possibility of being McCain’s running mate.

From her Wikipedia bio:
In 1984, Palin was first runner-up in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant after winning the Miss Wasilla contest earlier that year, winning a scholarship to help pay her way through college. In the Wasilla pageant, she played the flute and also won Miss Congeniality.
Details of Palin’s personal life have contributed to her political image. She hunts, eats moose burgers, ice fishes, rides snowmobiles, and owns a float plane. Palin holds a lifetime membership with the National Rifle Association. She admits that she used marijuana when it was legal in Alaska, but says that she did not like it.
Palin holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Idaho where she also minored in politics. She briefly worked as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations while also working as a commercial fisherman with her husband, Todd, her high school sweetheart.
Outside the fishing season, Todd works for BP at an oil field on the North Slope and is a champion snowmobiler, winning the 2000-mile “Iron Dog” race four times. The two eloped shortly after Palin graduated college; when they learned they needed witnesses for the civil ceremony, they recruited two residents from the old-age home down the street.[3] Todd is a Native Yup’ik Eskimo. The Palin family lives in Wasilla, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Anchorage.

On September 11, 2007, the Palins’ son Track joined the Army. Eighteen years old at the time, he is the eldest of Palin’s five children. Track now serves in an infantry brigade and will be deployed to Iraq in September. She also has three daughters: Bristol, 17, Willow, 13, and Piper, 7.
On April 18, 2008, Palin gave birth to her second son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, who has Downs syndrome. She returned to the office three days after giving birth. Palin refused to let the results of prenatal genetic testing change her decision to have the baby. “I’m looking at him right now, and I see perfection,” Palin said. “Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?”
From the L.A. Times “Top of the Ticket” Andrew Malcolm on 8.1: “Questions have now arisen over whether Palin used her office to try and fire her ex -brother-in-law from a state trooper’s position. Palin asserts the charge is untrue, but the Alaska Senate this week approved the hiring of an independent investigator to look into the allegation.
“Our colleague Frank James over at the Swamp has more details on this governor we’re likely to hear more about in coming years.”

In a 8.28 interview with MTV News, Kevin Smith has revealed three interesting aspects of Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which will debut at the Toronto Film Festival: (a) the MPAA “had a point” in slapping it with an NC-17; (b) only “one sex scene in the movie is played straightforward, but it’s the one scene where there’s the least flesh on display” and (c) at no time does star Seth Rogen reveal the full monty but costar Jason Mewes does — twice.

NBC News has confirmed that 44 year-old Alaska governor Sarah Palin has been chosen as John McCain’s vice-presidential pick. Pro-life, pro-gun, five kids — obviously chosen to bring in the rural disaffected Clintonistas. Her suitability to take over for McCain should tragedy strike is questionable, at best. The “not ready” rap that the right has been throwing at Obama is now over — it never stood up to reality but with the Palin choice it really has no footing. A major political gamble for McCain. Biden will make short work of her.

Two days ago Ad Wizards’ Alex Blagg pointed to an obvious oral-sex allusion in the shape and marketing of Hannah Montana “concert candy,” which is not a put-on — it’s a real-deal product being sold with the presumed approval of the Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana marketing team, including her dad Billy Ray Cyrus.

Look at the shape of the candy (which the packaging says is shaped like a guitar and mike) next to a photo of Cyrus holding a mike near her mouth — the lack of subtlety is breathtaking. I don’t have a daughter but speaking as a dad, I’m trying to imagine how I’d sign off on this kind of thing. What kind of an anything-for-a-buck whore do you have to be to look at a penis-candy proposal, smile at the marketing guys and say, “Looks good…where do I sign and what’s my cut on top of my daughter’s?”
Billy Ray Cyrus sure seems like a golden-calf worshipper to me. This is a right-wing, middle-American, conservative good-old-boy thing…no? I had a tough hardscrabble childhood so pay me the big bucks so I can build another McMansion or invest in another shopping mall, and…you know, what the hell, I’ll look the other way when you exploit my 16 year-old daughter as a sex object who winks at the analogy between candy-eating and cocksucking.
Can anyone imagine an educated left-wing dad in any industry or region agreeing to something like this? It’s appalling.

After Barack Obama‘s speech last night, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann compared aspects of it to Michael Douglas‘s speech (written by Aaron Sorkin) at the end of The American President. I just re-watched this finale; Olbermann isn’t wrong. Obama’s line about how McCain “doesn’t get it” exudes a certain echo.

The shutdown phase is over because the talkback function has been fixed. Anyone can now log in and fire away. If and when the trolls appear, they will be smitten in short order. Fair warning.

Why am I the only one who seems to be enjoying the emotional catfights and verbal spitballing that’s been going on between MSNBC’s Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, etc.? For me, flying fur on a news channel is great entertainment and doesn’t happen enough.

Tom Brokaw reportedly said that Olbermann and Matthews have “gone too far.” Wrong — that’s an older guy talking about the old days. Chris and Keith are right in tune with what’s going on in media culture. If you’re not some kind of advocate willing to put your cards on the table, you’re really not in the game. Exactitude and fairness are essential but true neutrality has never existed. Be who and what you are. Own up to it. No apologies.
Remember when newsmen used to play the role of the dispassionate pundit, trying to fit that classic avuncular Edward R. Murrow mold, intelligent thoughts expressed so carefully, striving to seem neutral but essentially conveying the spirit of conservative corporatism? That stuff doesn’t go now. We’re living in a talk-back, let-fly, tit-for-tat realm, and big media news guys aren’t Gods with a special access to the truth of things and the temperament to share it — they’re just smart beat reporters with good jobs and great sources. Not educators or pundits or ordained ministers as much as as intellectual fighter pilots in the catbird seat.
I see the mild acrimony between the MSNBC guys (which has hardly been constant — wer’e only talking about a few incidents) as livewire entertainment in the confessional, caustic, let-it-all-hang-out vein of Peter Finch‘s Howard Beale in Network. And it reflects the intensity and immediacy of today’s blogging culture — know what you’re talking about but let it out, don’t hold back, shoot from the hip.

We all know that Fox News shills for the the reptilian ogres of the right and serves as the home base for creature-feature neocons…lizard tails, sulfur breath, flicking tongues, the “beast.” And we all recognize the need for balance. MSNBC delivers solid professional reporting and first-rate analysis but the commentary and the personalities, bless ’em, are what they are — “unfairly” slanted, aimed at smart, well-read lefties, and what of it? We need Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity antidotes.
I love the energy of MSNBC — it’s my place to hang and get riled up about the other side. It’s like sitting in on a lively political discussion at the family dinner table. I love Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow, Pat Buchanan, the Newsweek commentators and everyone else who drops by, Mike Murphy included. Scarborough has the wrong attitude but he’s okay. I loved what he said in the wake fo Kerry’s defeat in ’04 about the youth vote “always leaving you at the altar.”
And yet I strongly dislike David Gregory — he constantly slips the negative into his Obama questions and commentary. He’s a shithead at heart. And I despise Tamron Hall, not that she matters in the greater scheme.

In 30 seconds, this Heineken ad (a) shows us that our hero is a resourceful quick-thinker, and capable of grace under pressure, (b) suggests a complex emotional history between the hero and the brunette involving at least one previous beer-soaking, and (c) allows us to imagine that despite the humiliation, the guy just might make out with the blonde. She’ll be guarded for the rest of the date, but she can’t ignore the fact that the guy took his soaking, smiled and shrugged it off.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain decided on a running mate early Thursday,” the AP’s Liz Sidoti reported a little while ago, “and one top prospect, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, abruptly canceled numerous public appearances. Without explanation, Pawlenty called off an Associated Press interview at the last minute, as well as other media interviews in Denver, site of the Democratic National Convention. The Arizona senator will appear with his No. 2 at an Ohio rally on Friday.”