1.) GOP field starting to mess with Barack — As Saul Alinsky put it, “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.” Now it looks like the Republican contenders for president in 2012 are heeding that advice from one of Barack’s mentors. Yesterday, Tim Pawlenty sent the following tweet: “@BarackObama sorry to interrupt the European pub crawl, but what was your Medicare plan?” Oh, snap! Meanwhile, Mitt Romney visited a Gino’s East pizza restaurant in Chicago to talk about small business ownership or something, and he had them send his uneaten pizza to Barack’s HQ nearby. Which is kind of weird. It’s obviously meant to be disrespectful, but the exact message is unclear. Maybe Mitt is saying he’s magnanimous enough to give Barack his leftovers? You know, like Romneycare. In any case, now we get to listen to Democrats whine and mewl about the GOP’s lack of class, as if the last 11 years had never happened.
2.) Dems starting to mess with Herman Cain — In other pizza news, TheDC’s Caroline May reports: “While conservative commentators Charles Krauthammer and Karl Rove might not see Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain as viable, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is keeping an eye on the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO… Today the committee ramped up its focus on Cain, issuing a ‘Rapid Response’ attack against his morning ‘Fox and Friends’ appearance, during which Cain praised the Paul Ryan budget. ‘I support Ryan’s plan one hundred percent,’ Cain said. ‘We don’t need to come up with another plan.’ The DNC took issue with his comments and sent out a round up of criticism on the GOP’s budget plan, including threats that it would end medicare, favors the rich, and would increase the debt.” Dang… When did the DNC turn into such a bunch of racists?
3.) Palin gets bus-y — RealClearPolitics reports: “In a move designed to propel her closer to a presidential run, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will set out on a bus tour of the country on Sunday, making stops at symbolic sites along the way. ‘Starting this weekend, Sarah Palin will embark on a ‘One Nation’ tour of historical sites that were key to the formation, survival, and growth of the United States of America,’ SarahPAC treasurer Tim Crawford said in a statement to RealClearPolitics. ‘The tour will originate in Washington, D.C. It will proceed north up the east coast.’ Details were still being hammered out on Thursday, but sources indicated to RCP that the bus tour is expected to last several weeks and will be divided into separate geographical stretches for logistical reasons.” The front of the bus will be fitted with a cattle catcher, much like an old-fashioned locomotive, in order to deflect Joe McGinniss.
4.) It takes a village (and half a billion in tax dollars) to make a child sit still — All you small-government types can just hush, because our leaders know exactly what they’re doing: “Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that the administration’s new $500 million early learning initiative is designed to deal with children from birth onward to prevent such problems as 5-year-olds who ‘can’t sit still’ in a kindergarten classroom. ‘You really need to look at the range of issues, because if a 5-year-old can’t sit still, it is unlikely that they can do well in a kindergarten class, and it has to be the whole range of issues that go into healthy child development,’ Sebelius said…” Does it really cost THAT much to make a little kid sit still? How much is a roll of duct tape?
5.) Scarborough vs. Olbermann, again — Morning Joe is the name of a show on MSNBC, which is a cable news network of sorts. It’s named after Joe Scarborough, who is perhaps best known for being the only current host on the network who has never hid his dislike of Keith Olbermann. The other morning he was talking about the Tucson shooting with his co-host and a few other brainy compatriots, and he might have hinted at the reason Olbermann left the network. Wayne Barrett at the Daily Beast writes: “Gabriel Sherman was the guest. His recent New York magazine cover on Roger Ailes has provoked a lot of talk. Mika Brzezinski steered the conversation to Tucson. Sherman wrote that it was ‘a turning point’ for Ailes and that Ailes ‘told all of our guys, ‘Shut up, tone it down, make your arguments intellectually’ after the rampage, which some said was tied to the red-hot level of public debate. Brzezinski and Sherman simultaneously used the word ‘civility’ as the Ailes-approved outcome of the tragedy. Scarborough had sat out the Tucson discussion so far, but with Sherman in mid-sentence, he suddenly felt the urge to tease. ‘By the way,’ he interrupted, only to turn up the volume to declare a second time: ‘BY THE WAY! By the way and this is all I will say,’ he declared, as if he was about to reveal a state secret, or at least an MSNBC secret. ‘Not just Fox News. Everywhere.'” Considering that Olbermann used the Tucson shooting as yet another excuse to slander conservatives, and he left MSNBC with no advance notice just two weeks later, and Scarborough hates his guts, Barrett thinks Scarborough was obliquely making that connection but was contractually prohibited from saying more. Another piece of evidence for this theory: Olbermann has remained uncharacteristically silent about this possible slight to his ego.
6.) In brightest day, in blackest night, Ryan Reynolds ain’t alright — You might think it’s easy being rich and famous and getting to sleep with Scarlett Johansson more than once. Nope! TheDC’s Laura Donovan reports: “While ex-wife Scarlett Johansson engaged in excessive PDA with Sean Penn during this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Ryan Reynolds still felt the burn of his divorce. In a new interview with Details magazine, Reynolds discussed the crumbling of his marriage. ‘Anyone who gets divorced goes through a lot of pain, but you come out of it,’ the ‘Green Lantern’ actor said of his split with Johansson, his spouse of two years.” And if you’ve seen the GL trailers, you know he’s planning to inflict that pain on the rest of us. If he wants to lure Sean Penn away from his girl, he should make his magic green ring create a perfect replica of Hugo Chavez.
VIDEO: If you had a magic ring that could make any item of clothing you wanted… why this?