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RachelWatch: Sarah Palin and Terror

Today: Health care delays, freakouts over imprisoning terrorist, and whatserface has a book out and she’s never going to let you forget it.

Rogue Wave

Rachel started us off with Sarah Palin, who, as an admirer of God, is apparently trying to emulate the whole omnipresent thing.

Whoa. I just had a vision of a Sarah Palin with supernatural powers. If she’d been inside the Ark of the Covenant, that scene from Raiders would have been similar, but she would have melted the faces of anyone who didn’t look.

Rachel took a look at Palin’s “pure political celebrity” status and her three big gambles.

Warning: There is Palin interview footage and things might get folksy. Try not to trip over any dropped Gs.

Terrified

Rachel reported that former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) has completely flipped positions on how he firmly and emphatically believes terrorists must always be treated.

Lest people get disoriented, though, Giuliani is helpfully continuing to be a nattering stoat.

And he’s not alone. Rachel noted that several politicians have resumed screeching about how it’s too scary to bring terrorist suspects to the United States for criminal trials and, perhaps, incarceration.

I wonder if their sudden, intense fears just might possibly have something to do with how easy it was to score political points by stoking fears the last time. It’s like feeding strays. If you do it once, they’ll follow you home. And then they’ll start howling all night about how fair trials equal the government forcing you to let known terrorists into the Kiwanis Club.

I mean, unless you have them neutered.

Anyway, there is a perfectly good, nearly empty maximum security prison in Illinois that would love to have some business, only some of the state’s reps are vehemently against the idea.

You will be astonished to learn that we are nearing primary season.

I kind of hope convicted terrorists do get housed in Thomson, mostly because of the triumph of sanity and the economic boost to the town.

But if they don’t, Thomson, you might want to give California a call.

The state will have to pay you in coupons for free backrubs, but it’ll be worth it.

Postpwned

Rachel took a look at the attempts to prevent the Senate health care reform bill from even getting to the floor.

This would sound like the same health care story you’ve heard 14,000 times in a row this year, except this time it has occurred to pro-reform forces to make the other side have a real filibuster if they’re going to keep threatening to have one. Make ’em stay up all night and read from the phone book and stuff.

On the one hand, oh, goody!

On the other hand, oh, dear. Because if that happens I am going to become a wretched shell of a woman, completely unable to throw in a load of laundry or eat or go to work or do anything but watch our elected representatives completely lose their minds on C-SPAN.

I’ll miss everyone, but it will be worth it.

The wonderful Senator Sherrod Brown (D — Ohio) checked in to talk some good sense.

Ms. Information

Remember how morally reprehensible it was when the Bush administration tried to block photos of prisoner abuse by United States personnel?

Thank Jebus we got in a new, upright administration that knows the best way to start the healing process and make sure this never happens again is to use the world’s best disinfectant, sunlight. Leeeeeeeet the sun shine in! Leeeeeeeet the sun shine in! The suuuuuu —

They what?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates blocked the release of prisoner abuse photos on Friday, and Rachel noted that an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act gives him the authority to exempt certain photos from the Freedom of Information Act. Like ones taken after 9/11 in situations where prisoners might have been abused overseas.

On a more positive note, the Obama administration is also suppressing any photos in which someone is making rabbit ears, mistakenly thinking that it’s such a lame thing to do that it goes back around the horn into being hip.

Were you feeling all sad and nostalgic about New York’s District 23 race? Well, you’re in luck. The absentee ballots are still being counted, Conservative spoiler candidate Doug Hoffman has withdrawn his concession, and the teabaggers are never going to stop jabbering until they find a way that they secretly did not completely screw this up.

Rachel then proceeded to make me all crabby by forcing me to have the thought “Oh, poor Lindsey Graham.”

Senator Graham (R — South Carolina) did that thing he does every 538 years when the planets align in the exact right quadrant of the sky and he votes his conscience.

This time he voted for cap and trade, so a toooooootally grassroots group called the American Energy Alliance is starting to run ads about how he wants to raise energy rates — he WANTS to — and force everyone back to not even being able to afford tinderboxes so we’ll all just have to hope that lightning strikes right on our barbecue grills.

Which will be in our homes, heating them.

Rachel made a careful distinction between getting Scozzafavaed and getting Grahamed, and correctly noted that the former is more fun to say.

Rumor has it that the demonstration may make its way into a ringtone, courtesy of Rachel’s webmaster Will.

Picturoo

Next, Rachel brought us a strange and oddly adorable story.

Either the White House has dozens of similarly decorated dining rooms, or its paintings have a case of the shifties.

NBC News Presidential historian Michael Beschloss dropped by for a bit of speculation, but it’s too late. I’m already assuming all the paintings have ghosts in them that make them all floaty.

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