Feuds We'd Like To See

As Member of the Press, Palin Barred From Own Speaking Engagement

Editor's Note: I decided that nothing I could make up would be funnier than the truth.

When news broke that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was signing up to be a contributor on Fox News, nobody was surprised. Over the summer, when Palin abruptly quit her position as Alaska's top executive, the consensus was that she would end up joining the cable network's stable of talking heads. The only question people had was how long it would be before she decided to pass the ball to another person and advance her career in a different direction.

[caption id="attachment_665" align="alignright" width="202" caption="But she's so pretty!"][/caption]

However, Palin's decision to join Fox News has raised an interesting dilemma. After the media ridiculed Palin during the last Presidential election, she decided to take steps to prevent a reoccurrence. Most people, when faced with such a task, would take time to disappear from the spotlight, while working hard to cultivate a base of knowledge that would allow them to answer difficult questions, such as those covering world geography, political history, or reading habits.

Ever the maverick, Palin decided to take a different path down the old free-throw line: She decided to simply bar the press from her speeches. Sure, it might look like the decision was to keep the press from reporting on her continued lack of understanding of basic policy issues, but at least they could still view the guest writers' pieces on her Facebook page.

Therefore, as a newly minted member of the press, Sarah Palin has barred herself from her own speaking engagements, forcing herself to choose between her stated position and a reported $75,000 speaking fee. Based on past decisions, it seems like she will just choose both and get upset when someone points out her hypocrisy.

Ten Things That Made Me Want to Stick My Head in an Oven This Year - #5. Teabaggers

5. Teabaggers – Sure, now they want to be called the Tea Partiers or Tea Party Patriots, but in the beginning they were calling themselves Teabaggers. I will continue to honor their original wishes, mainly because their choice of name illustrates their amazing lack of common sense.

Sure, many of these people claim that they were just as upset under Bush, but let's take a look at the abbreviated timeline:

Patriot Act, October 26, 2001. Teabagger response: "Fourth Amendment? What Fourth Amendment?"

Invasion of Iraq, March 20, 2003. Teabagger response: "Go get those WMDs!" later amended to "Saddam is a bad man" later amended to "You'll take our democracy if you know what's good for you!"

Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse photos, torture memos, extreme rendition, warrantless wiretapping, all fine.

Health Care Reform, Teabagger response: "Oh, hell no!"

Fox News: Glenn Beck's Movie Sells Millions of Tickets

This week, you could go anywhere without seeing advertisements for Glenn Beck's movie "The Christmas Sweater." In fact, if you don't watch Fox News or listen to Beck's radio show, it's likely that you had no idea that the controversial talk show host and frequent saline producer even had a movie coming out. Beck's two hour and fifteen minute motion picture debut played in hundreds of theaters throughout the country on Thursday night, and his fans were pumped!  So pumped, that they bought ninety-four out of a possible one-hundred ninety-three tickets in Rockwall, Texas.  They bought one-hundred seventy tickets in West Jordan, Utah.  They even bought a whopping seventeen tickets in New York City. Or so they liberal media would have you think.

[caption id="attachment_565" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Picture of crowd in line for Beck movie"][/caption]

Fox News is exclusively reporting that these numbers are much lower than actual ticket sales. They point to pictures of enormous crowds of people waiting in line to see the DC showing. Critics say that the pictures are actually pictures from the Million Man March from ten years ago. Fox News refused to comment other than saying, "Some people say pictures don't lie."

Sarah Palin referred reporters to her Facebook page.

[caption id="attachment_566" align="alignright" width="203" caption="Fox News depiction of people in line for Beck movie premiere"][/caption]

Rupert Murdoch Chooses Karl Rove for "Outrage Czar"

In the new Republican Age of Outrage, it is sometimes difficult for media personalities to keep track of the latest event and its resulting outrage.  Interns at Fox News say they have whiteboards full of constantly changing talking points, which change on a day-by-day basis, sometimes even more frequently.  Starting this Monday, Karl Rove will take over as the "Outrage Czar", a newly created position within Murdoch's companies, which include Fox News, The Weekly Standard, and The Wall Street Journal.

[caption id="attachment_308" align="alignright" width="221" caption="Karl does his imitation of a rooster with a birth defect"][/caption]

Rove will be responsible for coordinating the opposition to the Obama White House, a challenging task.  However, Murdoch thinks that Rove is up to the challenge.  "For a little while, we were trying to keep track of all these different stories and how they interconnected," Murdoch says.  "We had groups of interns working around the clock on our 'consistency squad.'  Then, Karl called me with a brilliant idea.  Forget it!  We only have to be consistent about one thing: blaming Obama.  We fired the 'consistency squad' then ran a story about how Obama was causing job cuts."

Rove explains, "The American people, our viewers especially, have a very short memory, especially for boring things like politics.  They can't and won't follow a long argument about the moral and ethical consequences of enhanced interrogation, but they can follow snappy sound bites like 'torture works and is totally awesome!'  I just took that simplicity and applied it to Obama.  It's a very simple formula: 'Obama did something today, here's how his actions today are destroying America.'"

Some people are concerned America has a finite source of outrage.  Rove disagrees, stating that outrage is a renewable resource and is simply replenished by a night's sleep.  Murdoch agrees.  "Karl's strategy is both simple and brilliant.  Obama does something every day.  With our vast panel of paid experts, we can always find someone to explain how his actions are leading us towards socialism.  One day, an intern accidently wrote 'fascist' instead of 'socialist' on the graphic and we learned another interesting thing.  None of our viewers know the difference."