Scandal

It’s the season of lists and, at The Nation , John Nichols adds one, Most Valuable Progressives of 2008 . Some excerpts with details on a few choices follow. For more details, click the link above. MOST VALUABLE UNION The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America : The big players in the labor movement were trying to figure out what to ask of the first genuinely labor-friendly president since Harry Truman, and they weren’t doing a very good job of it in the weeks after the election.

George Bush isn’t the only one who’s been a lame duck for the last couple of months of 2008. I have, too. I think all Americans have been lame ducks. We’ve been in limbo. We’ve been waiting to see how the financial crisis will be resolved, waiting to see what’s going to happen with the automakers, and waiting to see how things will be under President Obama. Like a lame duck, we’ve been treading water. And time doesn’t fly when you’re treading water. I can’t be the only person who feels that the end of 2008 has dragged on and on.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it up to here with once-in-a-lifetime events. Katrina was once in a lifetime. The 2004 tsunami was once in a lifetime. This past year’s wildfires were the worst blazes in living memory. Every other month seems to bring an epic rain or snow that is said to be the storm of the century. And don’t get me started on the polar ice cap. George W.

This week as been dominated by girls, which is reflective of 2008 - a year that has been mostly about girls. I use the politically incorrect word “girls” in an ironic sense because it used to be a pejorative, dismissive term used by many America men - in the same category as “broads.” However, the “girls” have now taken over the media and its headlines and many of the men in media are puffed-up, strutting boys, like Illinois Governor Blagojevich.

Apparently Chicago was getting a little too big for its britches about their favorite son and it got a big old biotch slap. First Oprah announced that she literally had gotten too big for her britches. She admitted - and what tacky person asked? - that she has hit the double centenary pound mark. I’m sorry you feel so bad about it, Oprah, and for health’s sake you probably should try to shed a few pounds, but heck you are one big beautiful black woman, so don’t get all shamey, do what you can and look gorgeous in the meantime.

The Blagojevich scandal has been fertile ground for late-night comedians this week. As we head into the weekend, here’s a roundup of some of Thursday’s night’s shots. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c Holiday Wrap-Up Barack Obama Interview John McCain Interview Sarah Palin Video Funny Election Video Two from Late Night with Conan O’Brien: The Late Show with David Letterman: object width=”425″ height=”344″>

It was surely an odd bit of timing on Monday, November 4–just the day before one of the biggest presidential elections in American history–that the Alaska State Personnel Board issued a finding by its chief investigator, Timothy J. Petumenos, that Republican vice-presidential candidate and Alaska governor, Sarah Palin, did not breach state ethics laws when she fired Alaska public safety commissioner Walt Monegan in July of this year.

In his “Political Memo” today in The New York Times titled “Dean Seeks a Share of Credit in Obama Victory,” political guru Adam Nagourney draws some bizarre conclusions and makes some strange inferences about alleged internal conflicts and petty beefs inside the Democratic Party.

A former campaign adviser to John McCain named Martin Eisenstadt has outed himself as the proud source of the Sarah Palin “doesn’t know Africa is a continent” story. The New Republic and MSNBC have picked up the scoop. But it’s not at all clear that Eisenstadt exists. William K. Wolfrum of Shakespeare’s Sister, who was suckered by Eisenstadt during the campaign, did some digging and concluded , “There is no M. Thomas Eisenstadt. There is no Eisenstadt Group. There is no Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy. M.

From user: Jane