You know you’ve hit the big time when the major comics lampoon you on TV. Rachel Maddow, news anchor and pundit on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, has not only carved out a solid place for herself in the talking heads market, she has been honored by an awesome impersonation skillfully played by Tracey Ullman on her show Ullman’s State of the Union which airs Mondays at 10:30 p.m. EST on Showtime, now in its third season.

Ullman also takes a loving swipes at Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington, Congressman Barney Frank, and CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. Ullman visited Rachel’s show to talk about her impersonations and her new American citizenship.

Not long ago right wingnut John L. Perry posted a column on Newsmax suggesting a military coup to resolve what he calls “the Obama problem” which he sees as left wing radicalization of this country.

Newsmax, seldom afraid to go far out on a limb, seems to have had second thoughts about Perry’s position and pulled the article quickly. Frankly, I’m not sure which is worse, the article itself or the fear and censorship that lead to its removal.

What makes this country work is the diversity of opinion and process that exists here and the unfettered right to speak to either side of an issue. When either side places restrictions upon those freedoms this country is lost. Perhaps we already are!

Here is the full text of the withdrawn article:

Obama Risks a Domestic Military Intervention

In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass.

There’s been a lot of comment and discussion about the McCain campaign resorting to the Bush/Rove playbook despite the fact that it was used so disparagingly against McCain in the 2000 primaries, but I don’t think McCain is falling back on Bush/Rove at all. Have a look at this video and see if you don’t think THIS is where the McCain campaign is getting its strategy:

The first finding in the official report into the investigation of what has become generally known in political circles as “Troopergate”  concludes that the Republican Party nominee for Vice-President, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, violated the state’s executive branch ethics act, which says, in part, that “each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.”

The report goes on to say, “Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda…” and “Compliance with the code of ethics is not optional. It is an individual responsibility imposed by law…” and “The term ‘benefit’ is very broadly defined, and includes anything that is to the person’s advantage or personal self-interest.”

So how is Palin responding to these clear, and unequivocal, statements? Apparently she is descending into a state of delusion and fantasy, or perhaps she was just out and out lying, as she told Alaska reports on Saturday that she had been “cleared of any legal wrongdoing, any hint of unethical activity” in regards the investigation. In the conference call on Saturday she also said, “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.”

The first finding of the report clearly states, “For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.”

Any hint of unethical activity? What’s with that? What part of “find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power” doesn’t Ms. Palin understand? If she is too dumb to get it then she is not fit for the office of Vice-President or, God forbid, the office of the President of the United States of America. If she does get it then she is simply lying to the face of the American people. That “simple” fact makes her unfit for any public office!

John McCain responded to Katie Couric’s question about when it was appropriate to lie to the American people saying,  “only when you really needed to win an election. Kidding!” Okay, we’ll take him at his word, though he doesn’t seem to have been kidding at all!

In 2004 McCain said this about privatizing social security: “Without privatization, I don’t see how you can possibly, over time, make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits.”

In July of this year he said this: “I’m not for, quote, privatizing Social Security. I never have been. I never will be.”

In January, 2008, John McCain said, “…in 24 years as a member of Congress, I have never asked for nor received a single earmark or pork barrel project for my state…”

Okay, so what was the $10 million for the University of Arizona for an academic center in 2006? And what about $14.3 million in a defense appropriations bill to create a buffer zone around Luke Air Force Base in Arizona in 2003?

In July, 2008, when asked about the well-documented admission that he is  not exactly an expert when it comes to the economy McCain jumped on the interviewer with “I have not. I have not. Actually, I have not. I said that I am stronger on national security issues because of all the time I spent in the military. I’m very strong on the economy. I understand it. I have a lot more experience than my opponent.”

The McCain-Palin campaign produced an ad which states that FactCheck.org called Obama’s attacks on Palin “absolutely false” and “misleading.” A FactCheck.org spokesperson confirmed the quoted statements were from them. They just weren’t about Obama. They were, said FactCheck.org, referring to anonymous emails posted around the Internet that made false and bogus claims about Palin. FactCheck.org did not say, or even suggest, that these originated with Obama or the Obama campaign.

A McCain-Palin ad also twisted a quote from the Wall Street Journal columnist saying that the Obama camp had sent a team to Alaska to “dig dirt“. The Wall Street Journal actually said “dig into her record and background” — ie: nothing about “dirt” — and there are no facts to support the accusation that any team was sent to Alaska by the Obama campaign.

In September, 2008, John McCain claimed that Sarah Palin never requested an earmark for her state. In fact her state gets more earmarks than any other state in the country. This year alone she asked for $197 million worth of them herself.

In the first presidential debate McCain said, “President Eisenhower, on the night before the Normandy invasion, went into his room, and he wrote out two letters. One of them was a letter congratulating the great members of the military and Allies that had conducted and succeeded in the greatest invasion in history… And he wrote out another letter, and that was a letter of resignation from the United States Army for the failure of the landings at Normandy. Somehow we’ve lost that accountability. I’ve been heavily criticized because I called for the resignation of the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. We’ve got to start also holding people accountable…”

In fact, it wasn’t President Eisenhower who wrote these letters. It was, at that time, General Eisenhower. And he did not offer to resign in the second letter. He said, “If any blame is found attached to the attempt, it is mine alone.” His fate would be in the hands of the President.

And McCain didn’t actually call for the Security and Exchange Commission chairman to resign either. He said that if he, McCain, were the president he would fire the chairman of the SEC. Of course, that is also interesting since the president doesn’t actually have the authority to fire to SEC chairman.

The one thing that may well be true in those quotes above is, “We’ve got to start also holding people accountable.” Perhaps the voting public will hold John McCain accountable for his lies, distortions, misrepresentations, and what has apparently become his deplorable lack of judgment.

McCain’s campaign slogan — well, one of them, anyway — is “Country First”. Perhaps putting “Country First” for McCain’s running mate should be “Family First”, as in bail on the ticket in order to spend more time with the new born.

I’m not being rude. I’m being honest. In recent interviews (from the grand total of three that there have been!) Palan has uttered such nonsence as:

“Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.” (interview with Sean Hannity)

“I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?” (interview with Katie Couric)

It has lead more than one reporter, blogger and columnist to say things like, “If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.” (Kathleen Parker, conservative columnist)

“I’ve never met him before,” says Palin, referring to Joe Biden, her Democratic counterpart. “But I’ve been hearing about his Senate speeches since I was in, like, second grade.”

Palin, who is 44, shows her skill with glib, scripted, answers but, as has been the case so often in the days since she hit the national stage, is somewhat lacking when it comes to substance. She would have been eight years old when Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972 at the age of 29. John McCain was then 36 and would first be elected to Congress ten years later. That Palin would have heard anything about Joe Biden during her years in Alaska is a testament to his exposure in the national, and world, political arena.

She’s got guts. I’ll give her that. But does she have the guts to withdraw from a failing ticket and give McCain one final shot at the prize? If she makes it to the debate on Thursday it will be interesting to see how she fares without a speech writer and a tele-prompter. I hope she was good at cramming for exams. She may be a lipstick-toting hockey mom but this is in the big leagues — and she’s way out of her league!

There is simply nothing more that can be said about this. Watch!