Last night I ventured into Laura Ingraham’s No Spin Zone. Confined to the house by inclement weather, I chose to contribute indirectly to Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal’s News Corp. dividends and directly to Bill O’Reilly’s Olympian ego. In the race to the bottom that is cable news, Laura Ingraham’s monotonous Reaganite pabulum trumps msnbc, which is unwatchable, as well as that other thing which barely warrants mentioning.

I witnessed a truly interesting exchange between the aforementioned Ms. Ingraham and Rep. Eric Cantor, who gets to be majority leader after the bloodbath of November. The broad issue was ObamaCare but the main focus was what Ingraham perceived to be Eric Cantor’s squishiness on Republican plans to “repeal and replace” the unpopular reform law.

LAURA INGRAHAM, GUEST HOST: …You've now got to correct the record because Politico is reporting that Eric Cantor, if he's the House majority leader come -- come November, that you're going to push for a more modest approach to Obamacare, meaning defund it, not repeal it. Did Politico get it wrong?

REP. ERIC CANTOR: Laura, I'll tell you one thing: As you and I have known each other for several years and as many of my constituents are, I'm a big fan of yours. So I got several calls from constituents over the last day or so saying, "What's Laura Ingraham talking about that Eric Cantor is not for a repeal of Obamacare?" Of course I'm for a repeal of Obamacare.

As you know, Laura, I'm the Republican whip in the House, and the duty of the Republican whip was to marshal as many votes as we could against Obamacare to make sure it didn't become law. And in the end, we didn't have one Republican vote that voted for it. Unfortunately, the bill passed. So we are faced with a situation where, hopefully, this November, a conservative majority will regain position in the House. And we're going to do everything we can to repeal the bill, to delay the bill, to defund the bill, to do all of the above. I mean, these things go hand in hand, Laura.

Whenever I wade into the land of Rupert Murdoch and Glenn Beck, I’m always careful to have plenty of aspirin and a barf bag on deck. The latter very nearly came into use after watching Mr. Cantor kiss the ring of hot reactionary blonde Laura Ingraham like the dickless establishmentarian he is. But however nauseating the display may have been, there are important insights to be gleaned here.

Rather than reaping a fortuitous repeat of 1994, conservatives are exactly where progressives were in ’06. In many respects ObamaCare is to them what the war in Iraq was to us. The mainstream public’s rather late aversion to the intractable chaos and bloodshed of the Iraq adventure vindicated grassroots progressives. It was a swift reversal of fortune that came right on time after the nightmarish re-election of President Bush. Unsatisfied with handing Democrats a decent majority in the House and a slim one in the Senate, the American people marched ahead and put a charismatic “change agent” in the White House two years thereafter. And yet the war(s) go on.

There's more...

Last week, an aide in the Mitt Romney camp suggested that Sarah Palin wasn't a viable contender for the 2012 GOP nomination. "If she's standing up there in a debate and the answers are more than 15 seconds long, she's in trouble," said the unnamed aide cited in a widely circulated article by Time's Mark Halperin. Methinks that might have been a tad too generous. As if on cue, St. Sarah of the Self-Immolation has once again graced us with her own curious penchant for political self flagellation. True, to her crazed followers, St. Sarah of the Tea Party is worthy of veneration no matter the transgression, in this case largely linguistic though there is a political angle as well, because, after all, all one needs in life according to the gospel of St. Sarah is conservative commonsense. The rest is just pesky details like facts, hard economic data or the historical record. 

This weekend St. Sarah self-immolated in less than 140 characters via her Twitter account.

Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate.

If at first you don't succeed, well, delete and try again:

Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real.

Yeah, refute means to "prove (a statement or theory) to be wrong or false; that is to disprove" or "to deny the truth or accuracy of a statement" as in to refute an allegation. Perhaps if I used it in a sentence: I cannot refute the fact that Sarah Palin is a moron for every time she opens her mouth she doth prove it. And what's with the "peaceful" New Yorkers? Are there war-like New Yorkers? Or if one is for this mosque, which isn't on the World Trade Center site but rather near it, does that then mean one isn't "peaceful"? 

Well, the third time is surely the charm.

Peace-seeking Muslims pls understand. Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing.

It might serve St. Sarah of the Unlearned to learn that there have been Muslims in the United States since early in the colonial period, certainly before 1700 and probably as early as 1630. Of the approximately 388,000 Africans who landed in American ports during the colonial period, almost 92,000 (24 percent) were Senegambian Muslims most of whom were forcibly converted to Christianity. The most celebrated case of a Muslim in colonial America is that of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (also known as Job ibn Solomon Dgiallo), a well educated Muslim merchant who was kidnapped and enslaved in the early 1730s. The scion of an aristocratic clerical Fulani family, he was captured in 1730 near the mouth of the River Gambia and shipped to Annapolis, Maryland in 1731, where he was delivered as chattel to Mr. V. Denton who then sold Diallo to Mr. Alexander Tolsey of Kent Island, Maryland. While in Maryland and after attempting to escape, Diallo wrote a letter to his father. The letter came to the attention of James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia and at the time the director of Royal African Company, who then purchased Diallo's freedom for ₤45. Oglethorpe also secured for him a passage to London where he stayed for two years before returning home to work for the Royal African Company in the Senegambia. Through the publication of his Memoirs in 1734, Diallo had an important and lasting impact on Europe's understanding of West African culture, black identity and Islam. Advocates for the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery would also later cite Diallo as a key figure when assserting the moral rights and humanity of Africans. It might also served St. Sarah of the Willfully Ignorant to know that Diallo sat for a painting by William Hoare, a painting that the National Portrait Gallery in London is currently attempting to acquire for its collection because of its historic importance.

Or St. Sarah of the Profanely Intolerant and of the Gloriously Obtuse might care to know that several hundred Muslims died in the attacks of September 11. Do Americans of the Islamic faith not have a right to share their grief on "sacred ground" or are some religions preferable to others? Seriously, Sarah heal thyself and get thee to a library.

But let's go for four! How much worse can it get?

"Refudiate," "misunderestimate," "wee-wee'd up." English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!

So now she thinks she's St. Sarah of the Bard. You're not helping your cause. In linguistic terms, what St. Sarah is attempting is a blend, a word formed from parts of two or more other words. But let's face it, St. Sarah just ain't that bright or that clever a wordsmith. No doubt, she is certainly savvy in her manipulation of the hapless, dumb and dumber crowd that forms the electoral bedrock of American conservatism but to suggest that she is coining a new word here stretches credibility. A blend has a certain flair for the obvious like breakfast + lunch = brunch. Here, it's all too easily discernible that St. Sarah the Dumbass cannot distinguish between refute and repudiate. Refute, by the way, is an eighth grade reading level word. 

Then again, this isn't the first time St. Sarah of Uncommon Nonsense has made no sense.

Her answer is so unintelligible that it requires a transcript.

Bill O'Reilly: Let me be very bold and fresh again, do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?

Sarah Palin: I believe that I am because I have common sense and I have I believe the values that I think are reflective of so many other American values, and I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the uhm, the ah, a kind of spineless, spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite, Ivy league education and, and a fat resume that is based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans are could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership, I'm not saying that that has to be me.

There's more...

Last week, an aide in the Mitt Romney camp suggested that Sarah Palin wasn't a viable contender for the 2012 GOP nomination. "If she's standing up there in a debate and the answers are more than 15 seconds long, she's in trouble," said the unnamed aide cited in a widely circulated article by Time's Mark Halperin. Methinks that might have been a tad too generous. As if on cue, St. Sarah of the Self-Immolation has once again graced us with her own curious penchant for political self flagellation. True, to her crazed followers, St. Sarah of the Tea Party is worthy of veneration no matter the transgression, in this case largely linguistic though there is a political angle as well, because, after all, all one needs in life according to the gospel of St. Sarah is conservative commonsense. The rest is just pesky details like facts, hard economic data or the historical record. 

This weekend St. Sarah self-immolated in less than 140 characters via her Twitter account.

Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate.

If at first you don't succeed, well, delete and try again:

Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real.

Yeah, refute means to "prove (a statement or theory) to be wrong or false; that is to disprove" or "to deny the truth or accuracy of a statement" as in to refute an allegation. Perhaps if I used it in a sentence: I cannot refute the fact that Sarah Palin is a moron for every time she opens her mouth she doth prove it. And what's with the "peaceful" New Yorkers? Are there war-like New Yorkers? Or if one is for this mosque, which isn't on the World Trade Center site but rather near it, does that then mean one isn't "peaceful"? 

Well, the third time is surely the charm.

Peace-seeking Muslims pls understand. Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing.

It might serve St. Sarah of the Unlearned to learn that there have been Muslims in the United States since early in the colonial period, certainly before 1700 and probably as early as 1630. Of the approximately 388,000 Africans who landed in American ports during the colonial period, almost 92,000 (24 percent) were Senegambian Muslims most of whom were forcibly converted to Christianity. The most celebrated case of a Muslim in colonial America is that of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (also known as Job ibn Solomon Dgiallo), a well educated Muslim merchant who was kidnapped and enslaved in the early 1730s. The scion of an aristocratic clerical Fulani family, he was captured in 1730 near the mouth of the River Gambia and shipped to Annapolis, Maryland in 1731, where he was delivered as chattel to Mr. V. Denton who then sold Diallo to Mr. Alexander Tolsey of Kent Island, Maryland. While in Maryland and after attempting to escape, Diallo wrote a letter to his father. The letter came to the attention of James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia and at the time the director of Royal African Company, who then purchased Diallo's freedom for ₤45. Oglethorpe also secured for him a passage to London where he stayed for two years before returning home to work for the Royal African Company in the Senegambia. Through the publication of his Memoirs in 1734, Diallo had an important and lasting impact on Europe's understanding of West African culture, black identity and Islam. Advocates for the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery would also later cite Diallo as a key figure when assserting the moral rights and humanity of Africans. It might also served St. Sarah of the Willfully Ignorant to know that Diallo sat for a painting by William Hoare, a painting that the National Portrait Gallery in London is currently attempting to acquire for its collection because of its historic importance.

Or St. Sarah of the Profanely Intolerant and of the Gloriously Obtuse might care to know that several hundred Muslims died in the attacks of September 11. Do Americans of the Islamic faith not have a right to share their grief on "sacred ground" or are some religions preferable to others? Seriously, Sarah heal thyself and get thee to a library.

But let's go for four! How much worse can it get?

"Refudiate," "misunderestimate," "wee-wee'd up." English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!

So now she thinks she's St. Sarah of the Bard. You're not helping your cause. In linguistic terms, what St. Sarah is attempting is a blend, a word formed from parts of two or more other words. But let's face it, St. Sarah just ain't that bright or that clever a wordsmith. No doubt, she is certainly savvy in her manipulation of the hapless, dumb and dumber crowd that forms the electoral bedrock of American conservatism but to suggest that she is coining a new word here stretches credibility. A blend has a certain flair for the obvious like breakfast + lunch = brunch. Here, it's all too easily discernible that St. Sarah the Dumbass cannot distinguish between refute and repudiate. Refute, by the way, is an eighth grade reading level word. 

Then again, this isn't the first time St. Sarah of Uncommon Nonsense has made no sense.

Her answer is so unintelligible that it requires a transcript.

Bill O'Reilly: Let me be very bold and fresh again, do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?

Sarah Palin: I believe that I am because I have common sense and I have I believe the values that I think are reflective of so many other American values, and I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the uhm, the ah, a kind of spineless, spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite, Ivy league education and, and a fat resume that is based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans are could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership, I'm not saying that that has to be me.

There's more...

Last week, an aide in the Mitt Romney camp suggested that Sarah Palin wasn't a viable contender for the 2012 GOP nomination. "If she's standing up there in a debate and the answers are more than 15 seconds long, she's in trouble," said the unnamed aide cited in a widely circulated article by Time's Mark Halperin. Methinks that might have been a tad too generous. As if on cue, St. Sarah of the Self-Immolation has once again graced us with her own curious penchant for political self flagellation. True, to her crazed followers, St. Sarah of the Tea Party is worthy of veneration no matter the transgression, in this case largely linguistic though there is a political angle as well, because, after all, all one needs in life according to the gospel of St. Sarah is conservative commonsense. The rest is just pesky details like facts, hard economic data or the historical record. 

This weekend St. Sarah self-immolated in less than 140 characters via her Twitter account.

Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate.

If at first you don't succeed, well, delete and try again:

Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real.

Yeah, refute means to "prove (a statement or theory) to be wrong or false; that is to disprove" or "to deny the truth or accuracy of a statement" as in to refute an allegation. Perhaps if I used it in a sentence: I cannot refute the fact that Sarah Palin is a moron for every time she opens her mouth she doth prove it. And what's with the "peaceful" New Yorkers? Are there war-like New Yorkers? Or if one is for this mosque, which isn't on the World Trade Center site but rather near it, does that then mean one isn't "peaceful"? 

Well, the third time is surely the charm.

Peace-seeking Muslims pls understand. Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing.

It might serve St. Sarah of the Unlearned to learn that there have been Muslims in the United States since early in the colonial period, certainly before 1700 and probably as early as 1630. Of the approximately 388,000 Africans who landed in American ports during the colonial period, almost 92,000 (24 percent) were Senegambian Muslims most of whom were forcibly converted to Christianity. The most celebrated case of a Muslim in colonial America is that of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (also known as Job ibn Solomon Dgiallo), a well educated Muslim merchant who was kidnapped and enslaved in the early 1730s. The scion of an aristocratic clerical Fulani family, he was captured in 1730 near the mouth of the River Gambia and shipped to Annapolis, Maryland in 1731, where he was delivered as chattel to Mr. V. Denton who then sold Diallo to Mr. Alexander Tolsey of Kent Island, Maryland. While in Maryland and after attempting to escape, Diallo wrote a letter to his father. The letter came to the attention of James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia and at the time the director of Royal African Company, who then purchased Diallo's freedom for ₤45. Oglethorpe also secured for him a passage to London where he stayed for two years before returning home to work for the Royal African Company in the Senegambia. Through the publication of his Memoirs in 1734, Diallo had an important and lasting impact on Europe's understanding of West African culture, black identity and Islam. Advocates for the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery would also later cite Diallo as a key figure when assserting the moral rights and humanity of Africans. It might also served St. Sarah of the Willfully Ignorant to know that Diallo sat for a painting by William Hoare, a painting that the National Portrait Gallery in London is currently attempting to acquire for its collection because of its historic importance.

Or St. Sarah of the Profanely Intolerant and of the Gloriously Obtuse might care to know that several hundred Muslims died in the attacks of September 11. Do Americans of the Islamic faith not have a right to share their grief on "sacred ground" or are some religions preferable to others? Seriously, Sarah heal thyself and get thee to a library.

But let's go for four! How much worse can it get?

"Refudiate," "misunderestimate," "wee-wee'd up." English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!

So now she thinks she's St. Sarah of the Bard. You're not helping your cause. In linguistic terms, what St. Sarah is attempting is a blend, a word formed from parts of two or more other words. But let's face it, St. Sarah just ain't that bright or that clever a wordsmith. No doubt, she is certainly savvy in her manipulation of the hapless, dumb and dumber crowd that forms the electoral bedrock of American conservatism but to suggest that she is coining a new word here stretches credibility. A blend has a certain flair for the obvious like breakfast + lunch = brunch. Here, it's all too easily discernible that St. Sarah the Dumbass cannot distinguish between refute and repudiate. Refute, by the way, is an eighth grade reading level word. 

Then again, this isn't the first time St. Sarah of Uncommon Nonsense has made no sense.

Her answer is so unintelligible that it requires a transcript.

Bill O'Reilly: Let me be very bold and fresh again, do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?

Sarah Palin: I believe that I am because I have common sense and I have I believe the values that I think are reflective of so many other American values, and I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the uhm, the ah, a kind of spineless, spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite, Ivy league education and, and a fat resume that is based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans are could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership, I'm not saying that that has to be me.

There's more...

Last week, an aide in the Mitt Romney camp suggested that Sarah Palin wasn't a viable contender for the 2012 GOP nomination. "If she's standing up there in a debate and the answers are more than 15 seconds long, she's in trouble," said the unnamed aide cited in a widely circulated article by Time's Mark Halperin. Methinks that might have been a tad too generous. As if on cue, St. Sarah of the Self-Immolation has once again graced us with her own curious penchant for political self flagellation. True, to her crazed followers, St. Sarah of the Tea Party is worthy of veneration no matter the transgression, in this case largely linguistic though there is a political angle as well, because, after all, all one needs in life according to the gospel of St. Sarah is conservative commonsense. The rest is just pesky details like facts, hard economic data or the historical record. 

This weekend St. Sarah self-immolated in less than 140 characters via her Twitter account.

Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate.

If at first you don't succeed, well, delete and try again:

Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real.

Yeah, refute means to "prove (a statement or theory) to be wrong or false; that is to disprove" or "to deny the truth or accuracy of a statement" as in to refute an allegation. Perhaps if I used it in a sentence: I cannot refute the fact that Sarah Palin is a moron for every time she opens her mouth she doth prove it. And what's with the "peaceful" New Yorkers? Are there war-like New Yorkers? Or if one is for this mosque, which isn't on the World Trade Center site but rather near it, does that then mean one isn't "peaceful"? 

Well, the third time is surely the charm.

Peace-seeking Muslims pls understand. Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing.

It might serve St. Sarah of the Unlearned to learn that there have been Muslims in the United States since early in the colonial period, certainly before 1700 and probably as early as 1630. Of the approximately 388,000 Africans who landed in American ports during the colonial period, almost 92,000 (24 percent) were Senegambian Muslims most of whom were forcibly converted to Christianity. The most celebrated case of a Muslim in colonial America is that of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (also known as Job ibn Solomon Dgiallo), a well educated Muslim merchant who was kidnapped and enslaved in the early 1730s. The scion of an aristocratic clerical Fulani family, he was captured in 1730 near the mouth of the River Gambia and shipped to Annapolis, Maryland in 1731, where he was delivered as chattel to Mr. V. Denton who then sold Diallo to Mr. Alexander Tolsey of Kent Island, Maryland. While in Maryland and after attempting to escape, Diallo wrote a letter to his father. The letter came to the attention of James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia and at the time the director of Royal African Company, who then purchased Diallo's freedom for ₤45. Oglethorpe also secured for him a passage to London where he stayed for two years before returning home to work for the Royal African Company in the Senegambia. Through the publication of his Memoirs in 1734, Diallo had an important and lasting impact on Europe's understanding of West African culture, black identity and Islam. Advocates for the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery would also later cite Diallo as a key figure when assserting the moral rights and humanity of Africans. It might also served St. Sarah of the Willfully Ignorant to know that Diallo sat for a painting by William Hoare, a painting that the National Portrait Gallery in London is currently attempting to acquire for its collection because of its historic importance.

Or St. Sarah of the Profanely Intolerant and of the Gloriously Obtuse might care to know that several hundred Muslims died in the attacks of September 11. Do Americans of the Islamic faith not have a right to share their grief on "sacred ground" or are some religions preferable to others? Seriously, Sarah heal thyself and get thee to a library.

But let's go for four! How much worse can it get?

"Refudiate," "misunderestimate," "wee-wee'd up." English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!

So now she thinks she's St. Sarah of the Bard. You're not helping your cause. In linguistic terms, what St. Sarah is attempting is a blend, a word formed from parts of two or more other words. But let's face it, St. Sarah just ain't that bright or that clever a wordsmith. No doubt, she is certainly savvy in her manipulation of the hapless, dumb and dumber crowd that forms the electoral bedrock of American conservatism but to suggest that she is coining a new word here stretches credibility. A blend has a certain flair for the obvious like breakfast + lunch = brunch. Here, it's all too easily discernible that St. Sarah the Dumbass cannot distinguish between refute and repudiate. Refute, by the way, is an eighth grade reading level word. 

Then again, this isn't the first time St. Sarah of Uncommon Nonsense has made no sense.

Her answer is so unintelligible that it requires a transcript.

Bill O'Reilly: Let me be very bold and fresh again, do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?

Sarah Palin: I believe that I am because I have common sense and I have I believe the values that I think are reflective of so many other American values, and I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the uhm, the ah, a kind of spineless, spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite, Ivy league education and, and a fat resume that is based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans are could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership, I'm not saying that that has to be me.

There's more...