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If low-information Walmart moms were inclined to read or even consider what’s reported in the N.Y. Times, they might be thinking twice right now about supporting Sarah Palin‘s vice-presidential candidacy. But of course, if they did read news stories of this sort they would no longer deserve the sobriquet.

Sarah Palin in 1998 — age 34

This 9.13 expose about Palin’s past political maneuvers in Alaska, written by Times reporters Jo Becker, Peter S. Goodman and Michael Powell, is rough stuff. Based on information from by 60 Alaskan governmental sources, it portrays a woman who has “pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and blurred the line between government and personal grievance.”
Sarah Palin “walks the national stage as a small-town foe of ‘good old boy’ politics and a champion of ethics reform,” the story reads early on. “The charismatic 44-year-old governor draws enthusiastic audiences and high approval ratings. And as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, she points to her management experience while deriding her Democratic rivals, Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr, as speechmakers who never have run anything.
“But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents ‘haters’ — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image.
“Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials.”
As a 9.12 N.Y. Times editorial reads, “If [John McCain] seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment.
“If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible.”

For the last few days I’ve been trying to put my finger on why Sarah Palin gives me such a bad case of the creeps. Apart from the long list of negatives and serious doubts that everyone has already brought up, that is. Then it hit me — she’s Martin Sheen‘s Gregg Stillson character in David Cronenberg‘s The Dead Zone (’83).

Sarah Palin; Martin Sheen as President Gregg Stillson in David Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone.

And when that vision came to me I was twitching exactly like Chris Walken‘s Johnny Smith character. McCain dead, Palin making the call…I saw it sharp and clear as if I was watching a snappy movie trailer. It’s the single scariest realistic possibility that real-life and realpolitik have put before the American public in the history of this nation, and a lot of the Walmart moms are going, “Girl’s one of us! A tough mom…yeah!”
This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with an Us magazine cover story and the attendant malignancy of the media, looking to drive up ratings with the hot girl and hot story of the moment.

In a 9.11 N.Y. Times column called “Blizzard of Lies,” Paul Krugman described the central malignancy affecting MSM news reporting, which delivers perhaps the greatest lie of all: “Why do the McCain people think they can get away with [their torrent of lies]?,” Krugman asks. “Well, they’re probably counting on the common practice in the news media of being ‘balanced’ at all costs.
“You know how it goes: If a politician says that black is white, the news report doesn’t say that he’s wrong, it reports that ‘some Democrats say’ that he’s wrong. Or a grotesque lie from one side is paired with a trivial misstatement from the other, conveying the impression that both sides are equally dirty.
“They’re probably also counting on the prevalence of horse-race reporting, so that instead of the story being ‘McCain campaign lies,’ it becomes ‘Obama on defensive in face of attacks.'”
Exactly so. And with such a system and attitude in place among MSM reporters and TV commentators (except for a small handlful, led my Keith Olbermann), where is incentive for McCain and the fiends running this campaign to play it fair and straight?

In celebration of my escape from Toronto and return to Los Angeles, I’ll be seeing this sucker again sometime later today for the pure misanthropic pleasure of it.

I’m only just settling into the YouTube videos of John McCain‘s visit to ‘The View” yesterday. But I’m starting to realize that McCain got “got”, in large part due to the focus and persistence of Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg‘s questions. They really got into things and bored in on the guy, and he clearly didn’t stand up all that well.

Read Katherine Q. Seelye‘s account of McCain’s interrogation in her N.Y. Times blog, “The Caucus. And consider this interpretation by the Young Turks Cenk Uygur:

Danny Boyle‘s Slumdog Millionaire has won the Toronto Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award — a harbinger, no doubt, of audience reaction/acceptance to come. Now that I’m back in Los Angeles, I may as well take this opportunity to list my Toronto highs and lows:
Finest, Richest, Most Rousing (in this order): Kathryn Bigelow‘s The Hurt Locker, Phillipe Claudel‘s I’ve Loved You So Long, Steven Soderbergh‘s Che (Parts 1 and 2), Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Burn After Reading, Danny Boyle‘s Slumdog Millonaire, Rod Lurie‘s Nothing But The Truth, Gavin O’Connor‘s Pride and Glory.
Didn’t Feel Strong Love/Like, But Highly Respectable All The Same: Matteo Garone‘s Gamorrah, Andreas Dresen‘s Cloud 9, Steve McQueen‘s Hunger.
Best Crafted, Most Fully Felt Drama By a Really Young Filmmaker: 24 Year-Old Nik Fakler‘s Lovely Still.
Fascinating/Interesting Problem Movie (That I’ve Yet to Discuss At Any Length): Jonathan Demme‘s Rachel Getting Married.
Entertaining, Ideologically and Politically On_The-Money, Cinematically Acceptable: Bill Maher and Larry Charles‘ Religulous.
Good Enough, Not Half Bad, Moderately Stirring or Diverting: Ed Harris‘s Appaloosa, Claire Denis‘ 35 Ruhms, Kelly Reichardt‘s Wendy and Lucy, Kevin Smith‘s Zack and Miri Make a Porno.
Regrettable Misses: Darren Aronofsky‘s The Wrestler, Kari Skogland‘s Fifty Deam Men Walking, the new narration-free version of Fernando Meirelles‘ Blindness, Barbet Schroeder‘s Inju, Max Farberbock‘s A Woman in Berlin, Spike Lee‘s Miracle at St. Anna, Christophe Baratier‘s Fauborg 36, K. Rafferty‘s Harvard Beats Yale, Ari Folman‘s Waltz With Bashir, Paul Schrader’s Adam Resurrected, Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel’s Deadgirl, Dan Stone and Patrick Gambuti Jr.‘s At The Edge of the World.
Deliberate Misses: The Duchess, Flash of Genius, Adoration, The Secret Life of Bees.
Scratch-Off, Not For Me, Sorry: David Koepp‘s Ghost Town (except for Ricky Gervais‘ quite funny performance).
Decent or Half-Decent Films but Primarily Noteworthy for a Stand-Out Performance (or Performances): Richard Linklater‘s Me and Orson Welles, Guillermo Arriaga’s The Burning Plain.

Update, cave-in: In the heat of anger over the residue of rancid cigarette smoke that I discovered in my apartment when I returned last night from Toronto as well as typical jet-travel fatigue, I let slip with some analytical candor last night where concern and compassion were the only two things, according to common consensus, to express.
As Bill Maher discovered seven years ago, there are some situations in which you can’t be truthful because the viewers (or readers) simply won’t have it. I understand human nature; I get it. Obviously, drawing a corollary between the oil industry, global warming and the Hurricane Ike devastation in the Galveston area is a no-brainer. Any climatologist would note the same thing if he/she were among friends and felt the freedom to be honest. Anyone with a minimal understanding of the factors causing global warming would have quietly nodded if Al Gore had drawn this analogy, let’s say, on a radio talk show last night.
But I’m withdrawing the original post out of sensitivity for the poor battered Galvestonians (and out of concern for Joe Leydon, who has no power as we speak and has had to use dial-up to get online).

I needed somebody to feed and pet the cats while I was away in Toronto, so I arranged for a woman from Kentucky and her 17 year-old son (here visiting UCLA and other colleges) to stay here via Craig’s List. I had the apartment professionally cleaned before I left, and asked the woman (whom I trusted based on her nice friendly vibe over the phone plus her being from Kentucky, which is where my grandfather was born and raised) to please leave things as spic and span as she found them.
The place was indeed scrubbed clean and very tidy when I got home this evening, but it also reeked of cigarette smoke. I wrote her the following letter:
“You cleaned the place very thoroughly but –hello? — it smells like Brown and Williamson!
“I presume that the cigarette smoke is your son’s doing. Or perhaps yours as well. You seemed like a very considerate person on the phone, Cynthia, so I presume it wasn’t you who did the actual indoor smoking. But obviously you’re not that considerate or you wouldn’t have allowed cigarette smoke to putrify my apartment at all. You would have told your son, ‘If you want to smoke, stand outside the front door.’
“As far as I’m concerned, it was exactly like coming home to find a load of steaming crap lying in the middle of my Persian rug.
“Are you or your son faintly aware of the concept of smoke-free rooms in hotels and motels? Have you ever heard of the term ‘smoke-free rooms’? Do you have any idea why hotels have these classifications in place, and why some people say ‘I definitely want a smoke-free room’? Because cigarette smoke stinks, and most people (even smokers) find the idea of having to lie and sleep in rooms with the after-stink of cigarettes to be repulsive.
“And yet (a) you allowed your son to smoke at will in my apartment or (b) you smoked in my apartment, or (c) you both smoked in my apartment. One of these three clearly happened.
“Do you remember my saying to you when we first talked that I don’t trust 17 year-olds because I have two teenaged sons myself (18 and 20, actually) and I know what they’re like? And then you assured me that nothing dirty or damaging to the apartment would happen and that you’d keep the place spanking clean, etc.?
“I would rather you didn’t clean the place at all rather than leave this place reeking of cigarette smoke. All I can figure is that the culture you come from in Kentucky (where my grandfather was from) doesn’t think one way or the other about cigarette smoke and that everybody smokes so what does it mater?
“You’re costing me another $100 now (on top of the previous $100 I spent on house-cleaning before you came) because I’m going to have to bring my cleaning guy back in and do everything he can to eradicate the foul stink in this place.
“Proud of yourself? I am very, very sorry that I decided to let you stay here (even though you were good with the cats and cleaned up very nicely all around, especially in the kitchen and the bathroom). As far as I’m concerned you’re both Kentucky trash.”

On pages 362 and 363 in the new Vanity Fair (i.e., Marilyn Monroe on the cover), the W cast assembled on the Shreveport, Lousiana set of the Bush Oval Office — (l. to r.) Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, Toby Jones as Karl Rove, Dennis Boutsikaris as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney, Josh Brolin as George W. Bush, Thandie Newton as Condeleeza Rice, Rob Corddry as Ari Fleischer, Bruce McGill as George Tenet and Scott Glenn as Donald Rumsfeld.

Here are the big versions of the two photos — left side and right side.

Some Came Running‘s Glenn Kenny seems to understand and appreciate the Coen Bros.’ Burn After Reading as much as yours truly, if not more so. Consider: “In its incredibly goofy, nasty, and…smart-alecky way. Burn After Reading evokes a fallen world just as strongly as the Coen’s previous film, No Country For Old Men, did.”

George Clooney after dispatching intruder

Which is sorta kinda what I said last week, to wit: “It’s the genius of Burn After Reading, their latest, to offer another serving in a way that may seem slight or irksome to some, but it is in fact — I mean this — a major satirical meditation about everything that is empty, wanting, sad and hilariously absurd in these united and delusional states of America.”
Kenny contends that “the signs of the apocalypse are everywhere” in the film. “Among them: People who say they’re out to ‘reinvent’ themselves, voice-activated HMO ‘help’ lines, perky morning TV hosts, and, perhaps Dermot Mulroney (who is, in a sense, the most game of all the very game players here). And just as the Coens showed their viewers some mercy by not showing the awful way Moss met his fate in No Country, here they cut away from the action just as it’s eddying into what would have been roiling grotesquerie, leaving two subordinate characters to provide the exposition, and, yes, do a little philosophizing. Which is much funnier than Uncle Ennis.”
I also said the following in my 9.5 review:
“Burn After Reading is not a movie for the ages, but a modest and dead-perfect geiger-counter reading of what ails those desperate, constantly itchy and perturbed Americans in the comfortable urban areas who can’t help but shoot themselves, attack others, make mad lunges at quick money and temporal erotic satisfaction. Prisoners of their swollen egos and limited intelligence. Strivers who must (they feel) have more, who can’t be satisfied or serene, who eat the right foods, belong to health clubs, drink too much, scheme and claw too much and are natural-born comedians in the eyes of God.”