Sarah Palin’s worst nightmare, Levi Johnston, just did his Playgirl shoot, flaunting some of his body parts as unselfconsciously as he tried to show the world the flaws in Palin’s family values. The ex of Palin’s daughter Bristol, Levi’s the one who earlier this year carried out a p.r. campaign labeling Palin a hypocrite and an opportunist who stepped down as Alaska Governor partly because she could make more cash on the lecture circuit.

And where does Levi go from there? Making more cash on the nude magazine circuit! Tacky? Maybe, but it was an inevitable step on the road to reality shows and Seth Rogen movies. And Levi will be thrilled to know that the history of celebrity nudity and semi-nudity reveals that he’s in really good company.

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William Shatner is once again poking fun at another fame-seeking Alaskan. If you remember, several months back, the veteran actor and musician lampooned Sarah Palin by reading her tweets to a beat poetry rhythm. He’s turned his attention towards Levi Johnston, onetime Palin family member. Something tells me this is the least of Levi’s worries. Reports have leaked that his upcoming possibly full-frontal photo shoot for Playgirl has hit a little bump: he’s worried about his penis size. If you cannot stomach the pictures fear not: since I am a card carrying homosexual dedicated to journalistic integrity I will take one for the SUNfiltered team and report back my findings. Until then, enjoy Mr. Shatner above.

The Google Suggests feature is usually spot on, but sometimes it spits something at you that just doesn’t make much sense. The technology takes other people’s searches, caches them, and then predicts what you’re typing in the search box. The Huffington Post has asked readers to grab an image of the most inappropriate things Google has “suggested.” I guess I’m not the only one who thinks Sarah Palin’s a bad person.

As someone who is both politically outspoken and tattooed, you’d think I’d be more accepting of political tattoos. Oh, no, dear. As Huffington Post has found out, by collecting many of these images, ink and politics just don’t seem to mix.

Sarah Palin and Jimmy Carter may belong in many a joke. The ones on late-night TV. But these jokes are on the poor fools who shelled money over to make a statement. Fascinating stupidity on display.

How can you not love William Shatner? He was dashing, and kitsch, as Captain Kirk. His Denny Crane was a brilliant reinvention. And I actually watch his Priceline commercials. And who watches commercials these days? No one. Exactly.

In his 70s now, Shatner’s career has gone up and down. But this week he returned to his spoken-word past, lambasting Sarah Palin on the Tonight Show. The video of the actor reading her speeches and tweets as if they’re beat poetry are at once hilarious (she actually says this stuff?) and saddening (people actually listen to this stuff?).  

It’s damn good stuff, regardless.

Vanity Fair’s editing staff tackles Sarah Palin’s “rambling, sophomoric resignation speech” (original speech here). The result unsurprisingly is a lot of red lipstick on a pig red ink.

Those sassy Swedes throwing Stockholm Pride have created a way to test just how heterosexual you are by scanning your Twitter posts for obvious gay terms. The results are quite funny.

For example, if you search my Twitter account, youngbradford, the results come back pretty obvious: 1% hetero! Though I think I am even less. I tried a few others. Barack Obama: 61% hetero. Elizabeth  Taylor: 39% hetero. And Sarah Palin, who is only 47% hetero.  Though I’d hope she’d be higher. We certainly don’t want her.

As the political season comes to a close and we turn our attentions back to our neglected jobs, friends, spouses and significant others, we thought we’d take the time to look back at some of the winners and losers of the 2008 election. So without further ado, and because we don’t want to keep them from their pressing appointments with the dustbin of history, here are the Losers:

John McCain

JW: Senator John McCain may appear the most obvious loser in the 2008 Election, but don’t expect this guy to stay at home crying! According to campaign manager Rick Davis, “He didn’t even spend 24 hours lamenting the loss.” [latimesblogs.latimes.com] Instead he plans to cook up some ribs [www.swamppolitics.com] for the family.

MT: And don’t forget the press. McCain will be inviting them back as well, hoping some mouthwatering BBQ will make them overlook how he flip-flopped on everything that made him an appealing politician eight years ago because he thought it would win him a political contest. Maybe the sweet aroma of tangy sauce will cause them to forget he ran the most erratic, rudderless and negative campaigns of the 20 years. Enjoy the ribs, John. Hope they don’t taste bitter.

Sarah Palin

MT: Sarah Palin is not on this list because she is breathtakingly unqualified for the office of Vice President, lacking any apparent understanding of national and global issues or even how our government works. She’s not a loser because she was a horribly dangerous choice, the ACME Rocket Sled to McCain’s Wile E. Coyote. Sarah Palin gets the big L because she lied. She knew she was lying, it was proved she was lying, and she continued to lie. She lied about her record, she lied about her investigations and she lied about her own qualifications – no one’s that un-self aware. She lied about Obama, and in doing so she approached the careful fire of cultural division the GOP had been nursing like a pyromaniac with a gas can. All in the name of a shot at the White House and a really nice wardrobe. Lo. Ser.

JW: Not only did Sarah Palin lose the vice presidency, she has also become the scapegoat [www.politico.com] for many republicans, particularly many of those on McCain’s campaign staff. Staff confessed (under the condition of anonymity) that she did not know that Africa was a country, that she refused briefing before her interview with Katie Couric, and that she greeted staffers in her hotel room wearing only a bathrobe. Not only is she a loser, but her reputation is very tainted, and it will be an uphill battle to 2012.

FOX / Sean Hannity

JW: If these guys had any credibility going into the election, they certainly don’t have any now. Sean Hannity has repeatedly proven himself not only stupid, but also wrong [www.youtube.com]. Don’t be surprised to find Fox News soon downgradig themselves from a twenty-four-hour presidential infomercial to the newest publicist for Sarah Palin (2012!).

MT: I give Fox about 2 months before, without a hint of irony, they start talking about how Barack Obama is abusing his power and shredding the Constitution. I remember two years ago, on the eve of the 2006 mid-terms, Sean Hannity actually went on the air and urged Democratic voters to stay home, for the good of the country. Eat. Me.

Republicans

MT: They had it all. The White House, senate, congress, an edge on SCOTUS; Republicans had the bully pulpit and the complicity of the national media. They set the agenda, took the wheel and told everyone else to shut up, they were driving. Right off a cliff, as it turned out. On foreign and domestic policy, from the economy to the Middle East, Americans have rejected the Republican Party and conservatism. The “Party of Ideas” hasn’t had many for a while now, and the ones they have are bad. Or, to quote Karl Rove, “That doesn’t make them unpatriotic, not at all. But it does make them wrong – deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong.” [www.realclearpolitics.com] Welcome to the wilderness. They set their course for the fringe of the party and got lost along the way, and as long as they let the lunatics run the asylum, they’ll stay lost.

JW: They’re broken. The GOP, as Gore Vidal famously put it [www.youtube.com], “The Republican party is not a party like your parties in England. It is a mind set. They love war. They love money. They want to hang on to all the connections they have.”

Alaska

JW: Sorry, Alaska, the 2008 Presidential Election provided you with a huge opportunity to prove to the lower 48 that you are made up of more than small-town hockey players and snow-machine drivers who are insulated from the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the message never really made its way to us. In fact, it was only reinforced by the nomination, and subsequent loss of your state’s poster girl, former Miss Wasilla [wonkette.com] and current Governor, Sarah Palin.

MT: Seriously, Alaska, WTF? You just re-elected a convicted felon, Ted Stevens, and possibly another in Don Young. Despite Sarah Palin’s own self-appointed board clearing her of all misdeeds in the Troopergate scandal, she still broke your own ethics laws, and now there’s talk of sending her to the U.S. Senate (y’know, to replace that convicted felon you just re-elected)? What do you have to do to get rejected by Alaskan voters? Boil kittens on live TV? What?

Joe Lieberman

MT: Man, talk about betting on the wrong horse. It had already been a messy divorce between the Democratic Party and Sen. Joe Lieberman (Lieberman-CT) since the 2006 mid-term election, but Joe agreed to caucus with the Democrats so they could claim the majority, and Joe could keep his plum committee chairmanships. But when he announced his endorsement for John McCain, Lieberman laid down the gauntlet; he saw his future in the senate on shaky ground and put all his chips on a Republican in the White House. Putting on his best “this hurts me more than it hurts you” Droopy Dog face, Lieberman accused Obama of not putting “country first,” thought it was a good question if Obama was a Marxist, and suggested he didn’t support American troops. In other words, Joe was being Joe. For the last dozen years or so, that sharp pain Democrats have felt in their right side has been a shiv in the ribs with Joe Lieberman’s name on it. Now he’s all, “Let’s not bicker about who said what and endorsed whom. Let’s forget all that and move on.” Fat chance, Joe. Say goodbye to your chairmanships. Good luck with your new friends.

JW: Joe Lieberman is one of many Joe’s who have lost out this election. Everyone is looking at him like a fair-weather idiot. In 2000 he ran as vice president for the Democratic Party, and lost. In 2008 he didn’t make the cut for the coveted vice-presidential spot on the GOP ticket. And not only did he not get the post, but he lost it to Sarah Palin.

George W. Bush

MT: W would be on this list no matter who won the election. His EPIC FAIL administration is not going to be judged kindly by history under any circumstances. But Bush’s one chance to salvage some plausible denial that he was not, in fact, the Worst President Ever hinged on McCain winning the election. Now, instead of the continued cover-up and mitigation of all the bad stuff we don’t even know about yet (and you know it’s there), the White House will get a proper fumigation and Bush’s legacy will get its trousers yanked down and bent over the fence by history and given the proper rogering it deserves. Have I mentioned EPIC FAIL? That’s important.

JW: For anyone angry that a the president-elect has been working in Washington for only two years, or is black or did not grow up in the continental United States or served on the board with William Ayers, or is loved internationally, you have George W. Bush to thank. We need only look at history to know that the political and cultural pendulum of the country swings constantly. But in Bush’s case, it ripped off from its axis and destroyed itself.

Gay Marriage

JW: Just six months after the California State Supreme Court decided that banning gay marriage was unconstitutional, California voters passed Proposition 8, which amends the state constitution to make gay marriage illegal [www.sfgate.com].

MT: This is just sad. In an election where one major barrier was torn down, another is erected. Hopefully the California courts will decide again, rightfully, that you cannot legislate taking rights away from a minority. In the meantime, keep up the fight [www.nbclosangeles.com].

Joe the Plumber

MT: To be fair, Joe really shouldn’t be on here all by his lonesome. Joe Wurzelbacher should share this prestigious space with all the yahoos at the Palin rallies; all the rightwing bloggers who parroted every insane conspiracy theory that came down the pike, even ones that contradicted other ones. Joe the Plumber should share this dishonor with the listeners of Rush Limbaugh and the readers of National Review Online. But since they declared “We are all Joe the Plumber!”, then Joe it is. And really, Joe is the perfect embodiment of all those people; totally misinformed , under the delusion they are society’s real victims, and shamelessly self-interested. They are all Joe the Plumber, and if any last one of them could parlay a set-up “gotcha” moment with wingnut talking points into an agent, a book deal, recording contract and possible political career, they would in heartbeat. Of course, with the historic whuppin’ McCain just received, some of those deals may sort of dry up. Loser(s).

JW: The only thing that plumbers gained from this election was a new vault of plumber jokes and puns. Other than that, if people didn’t already make a joke of their, albeit very important, job, they do now. Joe the Plumber became a national symbol fabricated by the McCain campaign, making his campaign rally no-shows and disastrous media appearances [www.youtube.com] even more devastating for McCain.

Cats

JW: Face it felines, you’re sooo last term! Move over with Ernie and India Bush, the country has spoken and dogs are the news cats come 2009. In Barack Obama’s victory speech [edition.cnn.com] in Grant Park, Chicago on Tuesday, he said that his daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, have “earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House.”

MT: While I have nothing personal against feline-Americans, they really shouldn’t have let the ostensibly pro-Hillary/anti-Obama/pro-McCain nutjobs who called themselves PUMAs (for Party Unity My Ass) [pumaparty.com] sully their species like that. Isn’t there a Feline Anti-Defamation League or something?

– Jamie Wong & Michael Turner

It’s one of my favorite things to do after a good party, especially if you’ve got the following day off, like New Year’s Day. Bleary from the celebration, maybe even a little hungover, but with the evening’s highlights still dancing through my head, I have some coffee, make a little breakfast, get some snacks and curl up on the couch in my pajamas and spend the day watching a good movie.

Let’s see what’s on [videocafe.crooksandliars.com]:

CARL CAMERON (FOX News): There was great concern in the McCain campaign that Sarah Palin lacked a degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president, and a heartbeat away from the presidency.

We are told by folks that she didn’t know what countries were in NAFTA — the North American Free Trade Agreement. That’d be Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. We’re told that she didn’t understand that Africa was a continent, rather than a series — a country just in itself. A whole host of questions that caused serious problems about her knowledgeability.

Ooooohhh! I love this movie! Under the Bus starring Sarah Palin, FOX News, the rightwing blogosphere and a bunch of C-list actors from the McCain campaign. It’s a fish-out-of-water comedy about a small town con artist who tried to pull off the ultimate scam. See, Sarah Palin’s mistakenly chosen for a job she’s totally unqualified for, but sees the opportunity to enrich herself and her family and maybe come within a heartbeat of running the country. In an interesting twist, the movie starts after the scheme falls to pieces and everyone’s running around trying to cover their ass.

In a series of flashbacks [www.newsweek.com], we see Palin being instructed to buy three suits and hire a stylist, then blowing $150,000 $200,000 on designer clothes, including tens of thousands on new duds for her hubby, and then “losing” some of it. Palin shoos away staffers who try to prepare her for her interviews, then pitches a fit when those interviews go badly. She brings up attacks on Barack Obama before being cleared by her handlers and generally makes a (bigger) mess of everything. The scene where she meets McCain’s campaign advisors in nothing but a towel? Hilarious! Hijinks like that divide the campaign staff and eventually get one long-serving foreign policy advisor fired [politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com].

Meanwhile, Palin has winked and “You Betcha”-ed her way into the good graces of the Republican base. Outraged at their heroine being disparaged as a “Wasilla hillbilly” by their own party, such luminaries as Michelle Malkin [michellemalkin.com], Conservative Political Action Committee Blogger of the Year Ace O’ Spades [ace.mu.nu] and the purists at RedState [www.redstate.com] vow ideological jihad on the unbelievers in the McCain campaign. The big climax is the pie fight at the end, when the entire Republican party breaks down into Keystone Cops-like chaos while Palin hightails it back to Alaska.

Two thumbs up. It really is a great movie. Very funny.

I just hope I don’t run out of popcorn.

– Michael Turner

The problem with historic moments such as this is that they are so awe-inspiring, so humbling, that it’s easy to be confused by the jubilation that should come with such events. Any outburst of elation or feelings of personal satisfaction that the contest went your side’s way feel almost out of place. Showboating in the end zone or hanging on the rim after a gorilla slam dunk is fine for pro sports, but choosing our leaders, whose decisions will touch all of our lives, should be a more solemn process. Shouldn’t it? In his concession speech last night, John McCain was gracious in defeat, finally displaying a sense of honor and unity that would have served his campaign well. In Chicago’s Grant Park, a sober-faced President-elect Obama was magnanimous in victory and sought to downplay the divisions between Democrats and Republicans. He acknowledged that we need each other and called for all Americans to abandon the petty partisanship that keeps us from unifying behind a common purpose.

He’s right, of course. Now is not the time to gloat over exit polls and popular vote numbers. Focusing on Republican losses in down-ticket contests would be unseemly. Pointing out how badly some people got this election wrong and itotally bet on the wrong horse? Right out. It would be immature to let out a Ric Flair “WOOOOOOOOO!!!!” while moonwalking over a room-sized electoral map.

And yet………

……oh, #@&% it, who am I kidding?

Barack Obama smoked John McCain like a Marlboro Red. Speaking of which; Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada all went from red to blue, and we may see North Carolina go as well. As good as Obama ran his campaign, McCain ran his into the ground. Sarah Palin, while far from the only thing that cost McCain the election, was the clincher for many people. Independents and moderates, for example, favored Obama over McCain. Obama won among men, women, and people under 65. He won Hispanic voters, Asian voters, African-American voters (in record numbers) and did better with white voters than any Democrat in 30 years. More people voted for Obama than any candidate in history, beating out George W. Bush’s 2004 performance by a million or so. Was there voter suppression? Probably, but here’s the thing about getting record turnout in an election – if it’s not close, they can’t steal it. And it wasn’t close. Democrats increased their margins in both houses of congress. Kicking Liddy Dole out of the Senate and making Joe Lieberman completely irrelevant was just icing on the cake.

Hey Karl, how’s that “permanent Republican majority” workin’ out for ya’? Maybe not so good? Maybe you got that one wrong? Maybe you and W and Cheney and McCain and Palin and the rest of your self-marginalized party should’ve thought about the long term effects of not just your election tactics, but your governing policies too. Maybe 50%+1 isn’t such a good idea after all. Welcome to irrelevancy, population: You.

There. I feel better now that I’ve gotten that out of my system. Now we can move on towards unifying this country and…..

….hang on, one more…

……bring an end to this partisan bickering. For the good of America.

– Michael Turner

All things considered, my recent breakdown was rather unpleasant. I won’t go pointing fingers or assigning blame for my rapid descent into temporary madness because I’ve moved beyond that now. I’ve passed through the turbulent storm of cognitive insanity and am now sailing peacefully along on a quiet sea of serenity. I have embraced my demons and learned to accept, even celebrate, what cannot be changed.

Sarah Palin is my muse.

With Sarah Palin, I shall never want for something to mock. Should I ever fear that society has progressed even slightly, Sarah Palin will be there to keep the bell curve low and give me something to write about. Like the sun rising in the east, like the tides themselves, Sarah Palin is an ever-reliable fountain of stupid from which I drink deeply, thankfully, and then share with you, dear readers.

The reason I can do this is because of the First Amendment [caselaw.lp.findlaw.com]. This is something of an important pillar in our society that protects the press and people like me, allowing us to criticize our government and/or political candidates. Not, as Sarah Palin put it, the other way ‘round [blogs.abcnews.com]:

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

No wonder she got punk’d by the Canadian Jerky Boys [machinist.salon.com]. If I hadn’t already seen her flub the VP job description question, I’d find it hard to believe any politician above city council would have such a basic, back-asswards understanding of the crowning jewel of the Constitution. Essentially, she believes it’s her right to falsely yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater. In Palin’s line of thinking, if that’s the right word for it, she should be the sole judge of whether her attacks on Obama are either justified or “negative,” and any criticism of that judgment somehow threatens (her?) First Amendment rights. The First Amendment gives the right to all Americans, even Sarah Palin, to ask questions no matter how stupid or disingenuous they may be. That same right allows people, including the press, to point out when those “questions” are stupid and disingenuous talking points unsupported by anything other than wishful thinking. Particularly when the person asking the “questions” is or is seeking to occupy the White House. This is not a threat to the First Amendment, it’s the active practice of it.

At this point it doesn’t matter where Palin falls on the Stupid / Evil Chart [belarius.newsvine.com]. What matters is that, like Barack Obama, she is a once in a generation politician with unparalleled talent and skill that one could say is the distilled essence of her party and her ideology. That she is consistently and utterly wrong and more fun than two Pat Buchanans in drag is something that, while making her unfit for national office, must be appreciated. Just as we appreciate the ability to point that out without fear of retribution.

Thanks to the First Amendment.

– Michael Turner