The Commentariat -- Dec. 27, 2013

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "President Obama signed a sweeping defense policy law here Thursday that cracks down on sexual assault in the military and eases restrictions on transferring detainees from the federal prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the custody of foreign countries." ...

... Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "President Barack Obama has signed a bill that provides a broad outline for the federal budget through 2015 and eases some of sequestration's cuts, the White House said Thursday." ...

... Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "With the next budget deadline just weeks away, top lawmakers said this week that they had made significant progress negotiating a huge government-wide spending bill that gives the once mighty congressional Appropriations Committees an opportunity to reassert control over the flow of federal dollars."

Peter Whoriskey & Dan Keating of the Washington Post: "... over the past decade, the number of 'hospice survivors' in the United States has risen dramatically, in part because hospice companies earn more by recruiting patients who aren't actually dying, a Washington Post investigation has found. Healthier patients are more profitable because they require fewer visits and stay enrolled longer.... For five years, Medicare's watchdog group has been recommending that the payments to hospice companies be revised to eliminate the financial incentive for improper care, but Medicare has not yet done so." CW: I don't know what Kathleen Sebelius has been doing in Washington, but I know what she hasn't been doing -- her job. ...

... MEANWHILE, over at Veterans' Affairs, Secretary Eric Shinseki is right proud that the claims backlog is way down "to 722,013, from a high of 883,930 in July 2012." CW: Maybe Shinseki spends too much time partying with Sebelius. These people embarrass me.

Phillip Longman & Paul Hewitt in the Washington Monthly: "A frenzy of hospital mergers could leave the typical American family spending 50 percent of its income on health care within ten years -- and blaming the Democrats. The solution requires banning price discrimination by monopolistic hospitals." ...

... Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The enrollment figures may be well short of what the Obama administration had hoped for. But the fact that a significant number of Americans are now benefiting from the program is resulting in a subtle shift among Republicans." CW: "A subtle shift"? Read the story. The usual sound & fury, if you ask me.

Tracy Jan of the Boston Globe: "Even as President Obama's health insurance website limps to recovery, at least two states that used the same contractor and are still plagued with malfunctions -- Massachusetts and Vermont -- are taking preliminary steps to recoup taxpayer dollars. Massachusetts officials are reviewing legal options against CGI Group, a Montreal-based information technology company, and will make recommendations on how to seek financial redress at a Jan. 9 meeting."

Paul Krugman: High unemployment benefits the corporation at the expense of workers, which could explain why Republicans don't care about the unemployed & why populist goals are dependent upon jobs creation.

Theda Skocpol in the Atlantic on why the Tea Party will remain a strong force in GOP politics.

AND the Winner Is.... Glenn Greenwald easily bests Tom Coburn in NBC News's "Worst Guest of the Week" competition. (Coburn's entry here.)

Katherine Skiba of the Chicago Tribune has a profile of Michelle Obama at age 50. Obama's birthday in January 17.

CW: Here's the news from Right Wing World, & the level of craziness is alarming. The Washington Examiner is not the looniest of right-wing rags, but here's what the Examiner's regular columnist Paul Bedard writes: "A top financial advisor, [David Marotta,] worried that Obamacare, the NSA spying scandal and spiraling national debt is increasing the chances for a fiscal and social disaster, is recommending that Americans prepare a 'bug-out bag' that includes food, a gun and ammo to help them stay alive. David John Marotta, a Wall Street expert and financial advisor and Forbes contributor, said in a note to investors, 'Firearms are the last item on the list, but they are on the list. There are some terrible people in this world. And you are safer when your trusted neighbors have firearms.'" ...

... According to Jordan Weissman of the Atlantic, one of the teensy problems with Bedard's report is that Marotta was only kidding. "... most of [what Marotta says] seems to be fairly tongue-in-cheek material aimed at talking potential clients down from investing in some of the crazy, survivalist scams advertised on conservative talk radio. And the first scam on his agenda? Plowing all your money into gold, of course."

News Ledes

AP: "Target said Friday that debit-card PINs were among the financial information stolen from millions of customers who shopped at the retailer earlier this month. The company said the stolen personal identification numbers, which customers type into keypads to make secure transactions, were encrypted and that this strongly reduces risk to customers. In addition to the encrypted PINs, customer names, credit and debit card numbers, card expiration dates and the embedded code on the magnetic strip on back of the cards were stolen from about 40 million credit and debit cards used at Target stores between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15."

Hartford Courant: "State police released thousands of investigative documents related to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre Friday. The more than 6,500 pages is heavily redacted with witness statements from some of the 12 children who survived the massacre partially blacked out. The release closes the state police investigation.... State police also released 911 calls that they received on cell phones including two from inside the school as the shooting was taking place."

New York Times: "India's diplomatic corps, still seething over the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York, continued its tit-for-tat campaign against American diplomats this week, revoking privileges, beginning tax investigations and issuing new consular identity cards that say the card holder can be arrested for serious offenses."

New York Times: "A long-simmering dispute between the United States and Japan over the fate of a Marine base on Okinawa seemed to have been resolved on Friday when the governor of the prefecture gave his approval to move the base to a remote area." ...

     ... AFP Update: "Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel on Friday praised a decision by Japanese officials to allow the relocation of a US air base in Okinawa, calling it a 'milestone' for relations with Tokyo."

New York Times: "Just a day after Egypt's military-backed government declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group, a more aggressive crackdown was already emerging Thursday, as the authorities announced dozens of arrests across the country, and the seizure of land, stocks and vehicles belonging to the Islamist movement's members."

AP: "A powerful bombing rocked a central business district of central Beirut[, Lebanon,] Friday, setting cars ablaze and killing five people, including a senior aide to former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, officials said. The National News Agency said Mohammed Chatah and his driver were both killed in the explosion, which wounded more than 70 others."

Guardian: "African leaders who met in South Sudan to try to mediate a conflict that threatens to unravel the world's newest country said talks had been 'promising' but admitted that it was not clear when a ceasefire might be agreed. Following nearly two weeks of fighting which has left thousands dead, a high-level delegation including the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, and Ethiopia's prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, landed in the capital Juba to meet President Salva Kiir on Thursday."

Times-Picayune: "A shooting spree Thursday night (Dec. 26) in Lafourche Parish left four people dead, including the suspected gunman, according to the Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office. The dead include a Lafourche Parish councilman's wife, the suspect's wife, an Ochsner St. Anne General Hospital administrator as well as the suspect, the Sheriff's Office said."

Times-Picayune: "Authorities continued searching Thursday night for the person they believe opened fire in a crowd of nearly 75 people outside of an Olde Towne bar, killing two and injuring six others. Slidell Police Chief Randy Smith said at a news conference Thursday that police have identified a potential suspect, but would not release any information...."

AP: "Thailand's army chief on Friday urged both sides in the country's bitter political dispute to show restraint, but did not explicitly rule out the possibility of a coup."

Reuters: "Six more of the 30 Greenpeace activists arrested in a protest over Arctic oil drilling left Russia on Friday after being granted an amnesty, the environmental group said."

The Commentariat -- Dec. 26, 2013

CW: Finally, a convincing Christmas miracle: I agree with George Will: "Thousands of prisoners are serving life without parole for nonviolent crimes. [Federal Judge John] Gleeson ... is ... dismayed at the use of the threat of mandatory minimums as 'sledgehammers' to extort guilty pleas, effectively vitiating the right to a trial. Ninety-seven percent of federal convictions are without trials, sparing the government the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Mere probable cause, and the meager presentation required for a grand jury indictment, suffices. 'Judging is removed,' Gleeson says, 'prosecutors become sentencers.' And when threats of draconian sentences compel guilty pleas, 'some innocent people will plead guilty.' Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and Sens. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) are questioning the regime of mandatory minimum sentences, including recidivism enhancements, that began with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. Meanwhile, the human and financial costs of mass incarceration mount." ...

... Hmm, maybe Will is borrowing a sliver of Bill Moyers' show, which aired about a week ago. The transcript is here:

... Here, BTW, is David Simon's talk at the "Festival of Dangerous Ideas," a bowderlized version of which the Guardian published (& I linked) a few weeks ago -- Moyers mentions the lecture at the top of his show:

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "A measure that President Obama is considering as a way to curb the National Security Agency's mass storage of phone data is already facing resistance — not only from the intelligence community but also from privacy advocates, the phone industry and some lawmakers. Obama last week suggested that he was open to the idea of requiring phone companies to store the records and allowing the government to search them under strict guidelines." ...

... Peter Walker of the Guardian: "Edward Snowden ... has recorded a Christmas Day television message in which he calls for an end to the mass surveillance revealed by his disclosures. The short film was recorded for Channel 4, which has 20-year history of providing unusual but relevant figures as an alternative to the Queen's Christmas message shown by other UK broadcasters. It will be Snowden's first television appearance since arriving in Moscow":

... Here's Queen Elizabeth's message:

Helena Pylväinen: "A Visit from the NSA." Here's a stanza:

To a familiar housetop the coursers they flew
(From satellite footage they already knew),
And then in a twinkling I heard in the roof
Jingling GPS trackers attached to their hoofs.

** Linda Greenhouse: the National Archives' new permanent exhibit, "Records of Rights" "presents, through a few hundred documents chosen from the billions in the archives' collection, the story of constitutional rights as an unfinished journey, an 'ongoing struggle,' in the words of one of the wall labels.... There is much here that goes beyond the obvious. The display is subtle and sophisticated, documenting ... 'the expansion -- and sometimes the retraction -- of our rights.'" Here's the National Archive's main page on the exhibit, which -- via links -- provides a sort of virtual exhibit.

Do Nothing Congress. CNN: "The worst Congress ever. That's the verdict from two-thirds of Americans about the track record of the 113th Congress, according to a new national poll. And a CNN/ORC International poll released Thursday also indicates that nearly three-quarters of the public say that this has been a 'do-nothing' Congress." ...

... Do-Nothing Congress Whacks the Vulnerable, Ctd. Amrita Jayakumar of the Washington Post: "Struggling homeowners could be hit with an unexpected tax bill in the new year. A law that spared people who owe more than their homes are worth from being saddled with extra taxes when their banks provide mortgage relief is expiring next week. Congress hasn't extended it." ...

... Do-Nothing Congress Whacks the Vulnerable, Ctd. The Washington Post publishes this reminder by Ylan Mui: "An estimated 1.3 million long-term unemployed workers ... are expected to be affected when the [unemployment benefits extension] program expires [this Saturday]. The extended benefits, staunchly opposed by Republicans, were left out of the bipartisan federal budget agreement reached this month." ...

... George Zornick in the Washington Post: "With polls already showing a potential voter backlash and local news outlets giving the story serious play, advocates are ratcheting up the pressure even further by taking out television ads depicting Republicans as heartless Scrooges.... What is particularly useful about this approach is that there's no pressure coming from the other side -- unlike, say, the debate over 'Obamacare,' there are no well-funded conservative groups out there pressing for an end to the emergency unemployment program.... The conservative grass roots don't appear to be fired up about the issue":

... The Fake War on Christmas Goes to Congress. Rebecca Shabad of the Hill: "Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) on Tuesday vowed to protect Christmas against what he called a 'vocal minority' offended by its symbols and traditions. 'There is a vocal minority that is offended at the rest of us who want to celebrate Christmas,' he said Tuesday on 'Fox and Friends.' 'Just because someone is offended doesn't mean that they can shut down the religious celebration or acknowledgment of every other American.' Lamborn recently introduced a two-page resolution, H.Res. 448, that would strongly disapprove of efforts to ban Christmas references, while supporting anyone who wants to promote its symbols." ...

... OR, as D. S. Wright of Firedoglake puts it, "After spending a term outright attacking the poor and meek -- whom Jesus spoke favorably of -- House Republicans want the symbols of Christ's birth to be protected from a phantom menace." ...

... CW: ALSO, the author of the Gospel of Matthew has Jesus sternly & repeatedly warn against people like Rep. Lamborn, in a series of verses that describe hypocrites who flaunt their piety & in so doing disgrace themselves before God. The one big difference: Matthew's hypocrites do give alms to the poor.

Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon: "2013 -- the Year in Sexism."

John Carney of CNBC imagines "some of the biggest names in economics and econ-blogging [getting] into a fight about Christmas." CW: Carney proves himself a fine mimic.

Ken Belson of the New York Times: "Most researchers believe that C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease found in dozens of former N.F.L. players, can be diagnosed only posthumously by analyzing brain tissue. Researchers at U.C.L.A. have developed a test they assert might identify the condition in a living person by injecting a compound that clings to proteins in the brain and later appears in a PET scan. But some are skeptical."

Quack. Wes Venteicher of the Chicago Tribune: "Jesse Jackson Sr. has ... compared ['Duck Dynasty' star Phil] Robertson's recent comments about African-Americans, gay people and women to comments made by the driver of Rosa Parks' bus. 'At least the bus driver, who ordered Rosa Parks to surrender her seat to a white person, was following state law,' he said in the release. 'Robertson's statements were uttered freely and openly without cover of the law, within a context of what he seemed to believe was 'white privilege.' Jackson's human rights group, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, has demanded meetings with A&E and with Cracker Barrel regarding the two companies' treatment of Robertson...."

News Ledes

AP: "A Roman Catholic church official who has been jailed for more than a year for his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints had his landmark conviction reversed and was ordered released Thursday. A three-judge Superior Court panel unanimously rejected prosecution arguments that Monsignor William Lynn, the first U.S. church official ever charged or convicted for the handling of clergy-abuse complaints, was legally responsible for an abused boy's welfare in the late 1990s.

New York Times: "The United States is quietly rushing dozens of Hellfire missiles and low-tech surveillance drones to Iraq to help government forces combat an explosion of violence by a Qaeda-backed insurgency that is gaining territory in both western Iraq and neighboring Syria. The move follows an appeal for help in battling the extremist group by the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who met with President Obama in Washington last month."

AFP: "Nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid an inflammatory visit to the Yasukuni war shrine Thursday, angering China which accused Japan of whitewashing a history of warmongering and said it must 'bear the consequences'. South Korea also blasted the 'anachronistic' move and Tokyo's chief ally the United States declared itself disappointed with an act that it said would worsen tensions with Japan's neighbours."

AP: "Thailand's election commission on Thursday called for upcoming polls to be delayed as street battles between security forces and protesters seeking to disrupt the ballot killed a police officer and injured nearly 100 people, dealing fresh blows to the beleaguered government. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra wants the Feb. 2 elections to take place as scheduled, believing she would win handily and renew her mandate. The street violence adds to pressure on her to take a tougher line against the protesters, risking more chaos and possible intervention by the army."

AP: Abu Mohammed al-Golani, "the shadowy leader of a powerful al-Qaida group fighting in Syria, sought to kidnap United Nations workers and scrawled out plans for his aides to take over in the event of his death, according to excerpts of letters obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press."

AFP: "Russia on Thursday started issuing visas to foreign crew members of a Greenpeace protest ship and dropped the criminal case against the last member of the 30-strong team. Italy's Christian d'Alessandro was notified by investigators that the case against him had been dropped, Greenpeace said. Earlier this week, Russia closed the cases of the other 29 crew members of Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise ship under a Kremlin-backed amnesty."

Washington Post: "President Obama spent a quiet Christmas ... in his native Hawaii thanking military service members and their families for their 'incredible sacrifices' to their country. After opening presents and singing Christmas carols with his family at their lush and secluded vacation compound, Obama paid a visit to about 580 active duty troops and their families at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in what has become an annual tradition for this president. He said he also called 10 troops who are deployed in such far-away locales as Afghanistan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia."

Happy Generic Holiday

In our continuing effort to identify The Real Santa Claus, here are a few highlights:

Yesterday, contributor Dave S. led us to this summary of the origins & evolution of Santa Claus by Brian Handwerk for the National Geographic. Here's an even more abbreviated version from the History Channel:

A Holiday Gift from Contributor Mae F.: "Six to Eight Black Men" by David Sedaris:, who elaborates on the Dutch Sinterklaas:

     ... The text (plus audio & illustrations) is here. ...

The "Real" Sinterklaas arrives in Amsterdam (or someplace) from Spain (or someplace.) He is accompanies by six or eight Zwarte Piet.Leo Cendrowicz of the Guardian: "While families exchange presents and eat cakes to welcome Santa Claus's slimmer and more sober ancestor, criticism of the crude depictions of his sidekick, known locally as Zwarte Piet, has reached the United Nations. The clown is usually portrayed by a white person in blackface, who goes around offering sweets to good children and, according to legend, threatens to collect naughty ones in a sack to be taken to Zwarte Piet's home in Spain. But he is increasingly reviled by critics as a racist relic of Christmases past." CW: Zwarte Piet, surely coming to a Southern U.S. town any day now. To voice disapproval of this holy tradition would be trampling on the First Amendment, I'll betcha. You think Sarah Palin looks great in "Duck Dynasty" camo? Wait till you see her in Zwarte Piet blackface.

The Science of Santa:

Still, I'm going with the clues Dylan gives us in this thoroughly-researched analysis (reprised from my "Worst Christmas Songs Ever -- 2012"):

David Edwards of the Raw Story: "An African-America Santa Claus was shot in the back with a pellet gun during a toy giveaway in Washington, D.C. on Christmas Eve -- and the whole thing was caught on video by a local news crew."

Politico has a Santa Quiz. I flunked.

Delia Ephron has a Christmas Manners Quiz in the New York Times. Unlike Politico, she does not provide correct answers. However, she has given me some ideas on how to react to the bizarre & merely awkward happenings at holiday gatherings.

New York Times. Thanks to MAG for the link.

NEW. Also via MAG, Gary Shteyngart, in a New York Times op-ed, on "the Most Unknowable Time of the Year."

Dario Thuburn of AFP: "Pope Francis held his first Christmas Eve mass in the Vatican by highlighting the role played by humble shepherds in the Nativity, as thousands flocked to the historic site of Jesus's birth in Bethlehem."

The Christ's Penis. Lee Siegel in the New Yorker: "A credo of the Franciscan order was nudus nudum Christum sequi ('follow naked the naked Christ'). It was a radical call to cast aside worldly wealth and belongings and acknowledge the fragile, fallen nature of all men and women. But in casting aside Christ's garments, the Franciscans made Christ's nude body a focal point. As a result, according to [scholar Leo] Steinberg, from about the middle of the thirteenth century until the sixteenth century artists lavished particular care on Christ's penis, the part of Christ's body that made him most mortal, and which proved his union with humankind.... Pope Francis could well agree with Steinberg, who lamented that the human Christ disappeared 'as modern Christianity distanced itself from its mythic roots; as the person of Jesus was refined into all doctrine and message, the kerygma of a Christianity without Christ.' ... One might add that in our own epoch the Catholic Church's denial of Christ's sexuality runs parallel to its denial of human sexuality, taboos that resurface in once scandal after another."

Capitalist Jesus. Richard Schiffman of AlterNet in the San Diego Free Press: "The King James Bible, not to mention more recent translations like the New International Version (NIV), are veritable primers of progressive agitprop, complains Andy Schlafly, the founder of Conservapedia.com. (His mother [is] Phyllis.) ... Andy Schlafly's group ... have invited ... the 'best of the public,' whose assistance is solicited in proposing new wording for left-leaning Bible verses.... What they are looking for is not exactly egghead scholarship, but a knack for using words they've read in the Wall Street Journal. They have a list of promising candidates on their website -- words like capitalism, work ethic, death penalty, anticompetitive, elitism, productivity, privatize, pro-life -- all of which are conspicuously missing from those socialist-inspired Bibles...."Via David Edwards.

Dancing Ladies Get Big Raise. Katrina Bishop of CNBC (Dec. ): "The cost of buying your true love all the gifts named in the holiday song 'The 12 Days of Christmas' has shot up in 2013, according to a holiday-themed index, significantly outpacing the rate of U.S. inflation.... The biggest riser on the index was the nine ladies dancing, which increased in price by 20 percent over the year."

Elon Gilad of Haaretz writes a brief history of Christmas celebrations.

Amanda Marcotte in the Raw Story: "Keep the Saturn in Saturnalia": There "really is a fear [among some Christians] that if non-Christians are allowed an equal space in society, then people, especially young people, might start to realize that you don't have to be a Christian. And, let's be blunt: A huge chunk of people, upon finding out they don't have to be Christians, are going to say, 'Well fuck that then, I'm sleeping in on Sundays.'" ...

Saturnalia festival in Chester, England. No Christians were burned at the stake nor did the "Roman" soldiers declare a war on Christmas.

... Oh, to be in England now that Saturnalia's here. In Chester, England, near the Wales border, "crowds" are "delighted" by the annual celebration of Saturnalia. Torch-lighting is part of the parade festivities, not -- as in New Jersey -- one of numerous attempts by Christians to destroy a Saturnalia billboard.

SNL's "I Wish It Was Christmas Today" has made past Worst lists (I think this is SNL's second version). ...

     ... Update: Video removed as it started loading automatically. You can still find this classic here. ...

... I did not intend to run the "Worst Christmas Songs Ever" feature this year. But SNL outdid itself last week, so I can't resist adding their entry:

Antidote, from the 1998 Winter Olympics:

Presidential Weekly Address:

News Ledes

Guardian: "Utility crews from Maine to Michigan and into Canada worked on Wednesday to restore power to more than half a million homes that were left in the dark by last weekend's ice storm, which has been linked to 27 deaths. In the United States, the death toll from the storm reached at least 17 on Wednesday, from traffic accidents and carbon monoxide fatalities."

Hill: "Iran President Hassan Rouhani is endorsing the spirit of Christmas. Rouhani on Tuesday retweeted two tweets, one by Iran's supreme leader and one by its foreign minister, that focused on the spirit of Christmas. The tweets appear to be a part of a continuing effort by Rouhani to put a friendlier face toward the West."

Washington Post: "A U.S. government contractor kidnapped by al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan in 2011 has recorded a video message calling on the Obama administration to negotiate with his captors, saying he feels 'totally abandoned and forgotten.' Warren Weinstein looked ashen and sounded lethargic as he pleaded for renewed interest in his case and asked the U.S. government to consider releasing al-Qaeda militants in its custody. The 72-year-old development expert from Rockville, Md., began his address by urging President Obama to step up efforts to get him released."

AP: "Egypt's military-backed interim government declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization Wednesday, intensifying its campaign of arrests and prosecutions targeting its members and tightening the noose on the group's network of charities and businesses."

Reuters: "Utah's attorney general instructed county clerks on Tuesday to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples requesting them, as ordered by the federal judge who overturned a state ban on same-sex weddings, or risk being held in contempt of court."

AP: "The government's retooled health care website was put to its biggest test yet as record numbers of Americans rushed to beat Tuesday's extended deadline for signing up for insurance.... HealthCare.gov, where people in 36 states can shop for coverage, received 2 million visits Monday, its highest one-day total, the government said. Traffic was not as heavy on Tuesday but still high.... 'The site is performing well under intense consumer traffic,' said Kurt DelBene, a former Microsoft executive appointed last week to take over management of the online marketplace. 'With the highest volumes we have seen to date, response time is fast and the error rating is low.'"

Washington Post: "The price of a first-class letter and most other mail will rise by 3 cents on Jan. 26, the largest rate hike in 11 years, the commission that oversees the U.S. Postal Service announced Tuesday. The stamp-price increase to 49 cents will be in effect for two years, giving the financially struggling agency a temporary infusion of extra revenue intended to help it recoup losses suffered during the economic downturn between 2008 and 2011."

The Gospel According to Sister Sarah

So people who are so insulted and offended by what he said, evidently, are offended by what he was quoting in the Gospel. -- Sarah Palin, after admitting she didn't read the GQ article in which Phil Robertson made grotesque claims about blacks & gays, still insisting Robertson was citing scripture ...

... Wherein Sarah Palin admiWats on-air she has no idea what she's talking about. CW: And here I thought Palin read "um, all of them." Apparently the "vast variety of sources where we get our news" does not include the GQ article whose content she is so intent to defend. ...

... CW: Now, in the spirit of the day, I shall drop my spontaneous snark & admit I feel sorry for Palin. I think she has a severe learning disability. I doubt she can read at a ninth-grade level. She certainly cannot reason like an ordinary adult. If people patiently & repeatedly explain stuff to her in simple terms, she memorizes the catchphrases & can regurgitate them later in a string that -- because she cannot grasp the underlying concepts -- doesn't usually constitute a coherent sentence. She is embarrassed by her disability & is angry at the herculean effort she has always had to make to hide it. Unfortunately, she transfers her self-loathing onto others. Thus, after admitting she does not know what Robertson said, she quickly "recovers" by (a) blithely asserting words she never read are New Testament scripture, & (b) people who took umbrage at them are anti-Christian; that is, they are "insulted and offended" by Christian teachings. This is not the first time I've watched her cover her ignorance by lashing out at others.