President Obama’s Address to Congress

The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and our universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.

Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more."

Dang, Poor Nancy Pelosi must have been exhausted after jumping up and sitting down all night.

Other precious moments:
"We can no longer afford to put health care reform on hold." Cut to Hillary Clinton in hot pink in the front row.

"...with the name of Orrin Hatch...." Cut to Orrin, looking down reading his program... Hullo....

Joe Lieberman, slow-clapping at "eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq..."

"I will soon announce a way forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war." Even John McCain gets up for applause.

"I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture." John McCain is up again. (And yes, he should have led on that issue.)
More stuff:

• Video from the NY Times.
• Transcript from the NYTimes.com.
• HuffPo's take on the applause lines and the laugh lines.
• Reaction from insta-polling, "A CBS News poll of approximately 500 people saw approval of the president rise from 62 percent before the speech to 69 percent afterward."
• Pundit reaction roundup from HuffPo.
  
• CNN calls it Obama's "Morning in America" moment.
• GOP response from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. "Dude, Bobby, hello? This is a rebuttal. BOBBY! Stop nattering on about your childhood. Seriously, WTF? Stop telling stories. Stop it. Now."
  
• "After watching Jindal," one Democratic strategist emailed, "I'd pay a lot of money to be back watching a Palin speech."
• And MSNBC host during the Jindal debacle with an editorial "Oh God."
• The Miami Herald story of Leonard Abess, the Bank CEO who took his $60 million bonus and distributed it to his employees.

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Winkin' and Blinkin'

Sarah Palin drew some boos and shouts of confusion today, when while speaking in New Hampshire she mistakenly claimed that the Granite State was part of the "great Northwest." "I like being here," she told the crowd in Laconia, "because it seems like here and in our last rally too -- other parts around this great Northwest -- here in New Hampshire you just get it." Yeah, and they can see Russia from there too...

Speaking of Russia, Ms. Winkin' also appears not to have been aware that eight high-level RUSSIAN ENERGY officials were in ALASKA on Monday to meet with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. They were there to talk with Conoco Phillips and Alaska officials about energy projects. Yeah, she's an Energy/Russian policy expert. Right on it, baby.

And I know that we've thoroughly established how little Senator Blinkin' understands about new media, but here is yet another bit of evidence. The Bits technology blog on the NY Times reports: "Trevor Potter, the general counsel for the McCain-Palin presidential campaign, sent a letter on Monday to Chad Hurley, the chief executive of YouTube, complaining that the video service, now owned by Google, had inappropriately removed McCain commercials from its site. The commercials incorporated snippets of television news broadcasts. Using provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the news organizations demanded that the commercials be removed from YouTube because they violated the organizations' copyrights...[Potter] argued that the excerpts of news broadcasts represented a fair use, which exempted them from control by the copyright owner...In one case, a McCain commercial included a clip of the CBS anchor Katie Couric talking about sexism in coverage of Senator Hillary Clinton. CBS argued that the use of the clip implied that it was endorsing the McCain campaign." Gotta fight for your right to Mash Up.

And just one more "Really?" moment: McCain called Hillary for advice on the economy??? "It's hilarious. It's like McCain is trying to copy her, but he's using a busted Xerox machine," said one of Clinton's top campaign advisers. "We were out in front on the economy. She was the first one to really pay attention to people's anxieties, and both Obama and McCain have been playing catch-up ever since." Hillary confirmed the story in a post-debate interview on CNN, although she said McCain called her several weeks ago, which at the rate that events are unfolding, might as well have been years ago.

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Troopergate

"What's right and good doesn't come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it
-- as if the cause depends on you, because it does."

-- Bill Moyers

Palin: No Ethics, No Compassion, No Brains.

And now the news you've been waiting for: ABUSE OF POWER...a roundup of choice morsels. I guess this answers the question of Who is Sarah Palin? Remember back in September when we kept asking McCain, "Hey, did you VET this woman??"

• I'm gonna start here, because I think this is just TOO MUCH. As most of you no doubt have heard, at the tail end of last Friday, Alaska investigators finally released the report which revealed that "Gov. Sarah Palin abused the powers of her office by pressuring subordinates to try to get her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired, an investigation by the Alaska Legislature has concluded. She was within her right, however, to dismiss her public safety commissioner, the trooper's boss, the inquiry found."
  
• On SUNDAY, Palin did a phoner with Alaska reporters and told them: "Well, I'm very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing, any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that."
  

W H A T ?

• Um...Gov. Palin, can I remind you...the Anchorage Daily said: "Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda ... to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired," Branchflower's report says."Compliance with the code of ethics is not optional. It is an individual responsibility imposed by law, and any effort to benefit a personal interest through official action is a violation of that trust. ... The term 'benefit' is very broadly defined, and includes anything that is to the person's advantage or personal self-interest."

• 

  AP: "The investigation revealed that Palin's husband, Todd, has extraordinary access to the governor's office and her closest advisers. He used that access to try to get trooper Mike Wooten fired, the report found. The nearly 300-page report does not recommend sanctions or a criminal investigation."
• Politico: "Retired state prosecutor named Stephen Branchflower noted that, though he interviewed 19 people for the report, Todd Palin and nine aides to the governor were subpoenaed but'"failed to appear.' He wrote that Gov. Palin was not subpoenaed 'out of deference to her position. … However, she was requested to cooperate with the investigation by providing a sworn statement. She has not done so. Governor Palin's sister Molly McCann was requested by me to give a deposition; she declined through her attorney.' Branchflower asserted that an interview with Palin 'would have assisted everyone to better understand her motives and perhaps help explain why she was so apparently intent upon getting Trooper Wooten fired in spite of the fact she knew he had been disciplined following the Administrative Investigation.'"
• Prior to the official report from the independent panel, McCain and Palin's campaign released the findings from their OWN panel. You know, the one made up of people Palin could fire. (This is my favorite so far...): On the eve of a report on a legislative panel's abuse-of-power investigation into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report clearing her of any wrongdoing. Palin, running mate to Republican presidential nominee John McCain, is the subject of two inquiries into whether she abused her power by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner says he was dismissed for resisting pressure to fire Palin's former brother-in-law, a state trooper. Lawmakers are expected to release their findings Friday. The report the McCain-Palin campaign released Thursday night says the firing was based on a budget dispute. Since then, the report says, the matter has been muddled with innuendo, rumor and politics." Oh re-e-ally now?

• 

  Palin has always been a control freak, not that we're surprised. Here's a bit of footage from her Wasilla Mayoral days.
• The full report from the independent panel.
• BUT WAIT, there's more: You also get a free set of Ginsu knives, sharpened for Sarah Palin's reputation. Newsweek observes that: "There could be more land mines ahead. Some weeks ago, the McCain team devised a plan to have Palin file an ethics complaint against herself with the State Personnel Board, arguing that it alone was capable of conducting a fair, nonpartisan inquiry into whether she fired Monegan because he refused to fire Wooten, who had been involved in a messy custody battle with her sister. Some Democrats ridiculed the move, noting that the personnel board answered to Palin. But the board ended up hiring an aggressive Anchorage trial lawyer, Timothy Petumenos, as an independent counsel. McCain aides were chagrined to discover that Petumenos was a Democrat who had contributed to Palin's 2006 opponent for governor, Tony Knowles. Palin is now scheduled to be questioned next week, and the counsel's report could be released soon after. 'We took a gamble when we went to the personnel board,' said a McCain aide who asked not to be identified discussing strategy. While the McCain camp still insists Palin 'has nothing to hide,' it acknowledges a critical finding by Petumenos would be even harder to dismiss." Darn that vetting thing again.

Eric points me to this item about French film star and icon of the 1960s Brigitte Bardot, who also heads an animal rights foundation. Bardot writes in an open letter to Vice-Prez candidate Sarah Palin and reported by Agence France-Presse:"I hope you lose these elections because that would be a victory for the world...By denying the responsibility of man in global warming, by advocating gun rights and making statements that are disconcertingly stupid, you are a disgrace to women and you alone represent a terrible threat, a true environmental catastrophe." But Brigitte, tell us how you REALLY feel. Don't hold back.

As for Ms. I-Know-All-About-Energy, there are some questions about her expertise. HuffPo reports that "at a townhall event in Wisconsin on Thursday, Palin was asked by a concerned questioner whether it was true that the United States was shipping 75 percent of its Alaskan oil overseas. She responded by proclaiming it impossible, since Congress had put strict bans on the amount of oil and gas that America could export."

But the Associated Press reported:"No Alaska oil has been exported since 2004, and little if any since 2000, according to the Energy Information Administration and the Congressional Research Service. And Congress has never imposed outright bans on oil exports. Congress prohibited exports of Alaska oil in 1973 when the Alaska oil pipeline was built. But that ban was lifted in 1996 when there were large volumes of Alaska oil coming down from the North Slope and U.S. demand was soft. The Alaska ban has never been reinstated."

In addition, HuffPo goes on, "the Alaska Governor was fond of declaring that her job - as head of state - "has been to oversee nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of oil and gas." However, WaPo counters: "According to authoritative Energy Information Administration data, Alaska accounted for just 7.4 percent of total U.S. oil and gas production in 2005."

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