Weekend Open Thread

Welcome to the weekend edition of your open thread. I’m still stuffed to the gills with turkey & pie. I’m definitely enjoying the long holiday weekend. It’s nice if you don’t have to drive anywhere.

Cpt Robespierre at Starboard Broadside (UD) has an interesting take on Palin’s anti-anti-obesity stand recently. It’s not just about Obama, it’s also about Mike Huckabee and the Republican presidential nomination.

Most political observers think her biggest threat is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee because he covers roughly the same part of the base (Christian arch-conservatives) and he’s incredibly charismatic (as she is among her supporters). Mitt Romney is seen as a moderate flip-flopper whose Massachusetts health reform program is too similar to “Obamacare” to let him win the primary. Incidentally, I think his only hope is that Palin, Huckabee, and the rest split the crazy vote enough to let him squeak through, but I do not see him pulling it off. So the real question is how Huckabee and Palin split up the vote, if they both run, and (by extension) which one comes out on top?

So what’s Huckabee’s biggest weakness? He had one really damn good policy, and frankly it’s downright admirable to me, which is extraordinary praise for me to give a Republican. And already you can see how this is going to be his Achilles heel against Palin. So what was it? Well, I wrote all about government anti-obesity efforts almost exactly two years ago right here on Starboard Broadside, and he was a major focus of that article…

Palin’s stance is not surprising. It’s exactly in line with the anti-“nanny state” conservatives and libertarians such as David Boaz, who oppose Huckabee and company for their efforts to promote government-backed solutions to the obesity crisis. She even used the phrase “Nanny state run amok” in her tweet on the subject. She knows what she’s doing here to secure her base and she is, with help from the heavyset Rush Limbaugh and all his media compatriots, spinning anti-obesity efforts into an evil, socialist, big government plot by Obama. Just as Mitt Romney can never really run away from “Romneycare,” which he was still campaigning on as recently as the 2008 campaign, Mike Huckabee can never run away from his anti-obesity program, “Healthy Arkansas.” It’s literally the only reason he came to prominence (closely linked to his own impressive weight loss) and it’s basically the only policy he’s known for as governor of Arkansas. She is dismantling his strongest point right now, and ironically his “Healthy Arkansas” program — as the promotional video above clearly shows — was actually a fairly restrained, moderate program that provided incentives for healthy behavior and tools for people to help themselves. Yet it was still more aggressive than the Obama Administration’s anti-obesity campaign, so it will be no trouble at all to redirect her fire onto Huckabee.

Yes, I had forgotten about Huckabee’s anti-obesity programs. I do remember that he lost a dramatic amount of weight while he was governor. I think in a contest between Palin & Huckabee it’s not going to be much of a contest – it’ll be Palin. Overall, Huckabee would be a much stronger candidate because he doesn’t carry Palin’s baggage and he’s funny & charismatic.

I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry about this story – Fox News runs an Onion story as a real news item and the commenters don’t get it (I’m not certain Fox did either):

With that in mind, an Onion piece this week headlined, “Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail,” drew some chuckles.

Having admittedly “reached the end of [his] rope,” President Barack Obama sent a rambling 75,000-word e-mail to the entire nation Wednesday, revealing deep frustrations with America’s political culture, his presidency, U.S. citizens, and himself.

The e-mail, which was titled “A couple things,” addressed countless topics in a dense, stream-of-consciousness rant that often went on for hundreds of words without any punctuation or paragraph breaks. Throughout, the president expressed his aggravation on subjects as disparate as the war in Afghanistan, the sluggish economic recovery, his live-in mother-in-law, China’s undervalued currency, Boston’s Logan Airport, and tort reform.

According to its timestamp, the e-mail was sent at 4:26 a.m.

“Hey Everyone,” read the first line of the president’s note, which at 27 megabytes proved too large for millions of Americans’ in-boxes….

It goes on from there, even including a copy of the non-existent 75,000-word email.

Fox News’ “Fox Nation” website, however, didn’t get the joke. It ran this as an actual news story, including a link back to the satire-based site. Fox’s commenters seemed overjoyed by the notion of an imbalanced president rambling in a semi-coherent email, unaware that they were all excited about a story that was quite literally a joke.

Hours later, Fox pulled its report, but made no effort to explain that it had fallen for a gag. Fox Nation simply deleted its entry without explanation. (Part of me isn’t sure why they bothered. It’s not like The Onion’s piece was qualitatively less reliable than most of Fox’s other “reporting.”)

How much do you want to bet this becomes a part of the zombie lies about Obama – that he’s unhinged and sends crazy emails. Wasn’t that why Fox posted the story in the first place? Were they just too lazy to make up their own anti-Obama news?