NYT: Palin Condones Turkey Executions

The New York Times editorial board has taken their childish hatred for Sarah Palin to the level of self-parody. They now have their collective panties in a twist over a video of Palin on a turkey farm that was... Killing Turkeys!!!

" And then there’s this. You don’t have to be a huge animal lover to question why Governor Palin chose to be interviewed — while issuing a traditional seasonal pardon of a turkey — while turkeys were being executed in the background."

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air had this to say:

"One man butchers a turkey for food (two, actually), and the New York Times gets the vapors. Have any of them ever eaten meat? At all? The editors of the Times should declare right now whether they plan to eat real turkey on Thanksgiving, and/or use turkey in sandwiches from now on. If so, how would they expect to have that available to them without the kind of process seen in this clip? Did they think that turkeys somehow committed suicide and left wills donating their bodies to family dining tables around the world?

Executed. Someone send the Times a vat of smelling salts."

One one wonders how this instructional video on how to carve up a turkey corpse made it past the fragile sensibilities of these infants and on to the Times dining page.

Palin's Alaska is OPEC?

Is Michael Kinsley a liar or just an idiot. That's the question I asked myself after reading this Gem:


Back to reality. Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 2 1/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double. The trick is that Alaska's government spends money on its own citizens and taxes the rest of us to pay for it. Although Palin, like McCain, talks about liberating ourselves from dependence on foreign oil, there is no evidence that being dependent on Alaskan oil would be any more pleasant to the pocketbook.
Alaska is, in essence, an adjunct member of OPEC.

Alaska has a population of just under 700,000 but is by far the largest geographically, which means it's infrastructure is stretched tremendously. This is what's known as Economy of Scale, which is something Kinsley either doesn't understand or dishonestly ignores. In this context it means that every state will have certain fixed costs that can be measured across the population. Since Alaska's population is so small relative to its size, taxes and spending and taxes per capita will always be very high.

Alaska is an adjunct member of OPEC? WTF is this clown talking about? Again, Alaska has to tax that oil because it doesn't have enough residents to support the infrastructure required to get that oil to the lower 48 states. And to compare one of our states to Saudi Arabia or Venezuela is not only slanderous, it's just plain stupid.

Even more stupid is Kinsley's suggestion that dependence on Alaskan oil would no more preferable than dependence on OPEC.

Grasping at Straws

There's so many left wing pundits sputtering inanities over the Palin pick that it's hard to choose which to tear apart. Jonathon Alter makes that choice easy. Alter is a hall of fame snob who perfectly illustrates the true colors of a desperate Washington elite:


I asked a senior McCain aide on Tuesday: "So what you're saying is that Barack Obama is not ready to be president on day one, but Sarah Palin is?"

"Yes," he said with a straight face.

Obama won 18 million votes, faced countless tough interviews and emerged with a reputation for fluency in discussing affairs of state, whatever one thinks of his politics. Palin's vote totals for mayor were measured in the hundreds; she has served only 20 months as governor of a state half the size of Brooklyn, and knows nothing of national or international issues beyond energy.
No matter. The argument stands.

Of course the argument stands. Ignoring facts doesn't mean they cease to be facts, Jonathon.
I can't believe you're still making the same dumb argument with a straight face.

Hillary Clinton also won 18 million votes and Obama had to be dragged over the finish line by you and your MSM buddies. Obama's fluency ends when the teleprompter is off and he's only done one tough interview at Saddleback that he failed miserably. The rest have been softball games and love fests.

Only 20 months as Governor? Well that's 20 months more than Obama or Biden. As a native of Brooklyn, I can tell you that any decisions she made as Governor have far more world importance than what's going on in Bensonhurst. Alaska is also the largest state in the Union (geographically), supplies 20% of our oil (and a lot of fish), has more coastline than all other states combined and is within spitting distance of Russia.

When faced with the obvious question—"So does that mean that Palin is more qualified than McCain, who has never been an executive?"— Republicans (working from talking points) have an answer. McCain commanded a training squadron in Florida in 1976 (the fact that he was not promoted to flag rank afterwards doesn't get mentioned).

At least he had an executive position to not get promoted from. And a life and death one at that. Should we now promote two guys with no executive experience to the most powerful positions in the world?

The Republicans were speaking from talking points? Oh, the horror! That's unprecedented!

It will be up to the press and public to raise enough of a stink about this, that Palin is forced to submit to real interviews with real questions that show whether her real-life experience is any preparation for assuming high office. In that sense, the Palin nomination is as much of a test of us as it is of her.

Oh, now you're calling for real journalism. Please show us the column where you expressed such misgivings about Obama. By trying to denigrate Palin's limited experience, all you're doing is highlighting the fact that Obama has none to speak of. At least none that he wants to talk about with any honesty.