For some reason the husband of Bristol's Palin's former ghostwriter is coming to the defense of her new husband.

So after we posted about Dakota Meyer's carelessness around his infant daughter, apparently David French, husband of former Palin ghostwriter Nancy French, decided to throw in his two cents.

Here is a portion from the National Review article titled "Silly People Freak Out Over a Picture of a War Hero and a Gun":

That’s Dakota Meyer — a Marine who was awarded the Medal of Honor for action in the Battle of Ganjgal (you can read my review of his book here). If there is a man alive today who know how to handle a firearm, it’s Dakota Meyer. 

Notwithstanding his expertise and experience, internet trolls freaked out at the proximity of his pistol to his baby daughter. Here’s how the Daily Mail described the picture: 

"In the image, the Medal of Honor winner appears to be getting ready to leave his house. While he can be seen adjusting the holster, Sailor is innocently sucking on her pacifier, unaware that a lethal weapon is mere inches away from her." 

“Mere inches away” — the drama, oh the drama. But I must confess that I’m confused. Is the concern that Meyer’s infant daughter will pitch forward in her car seat, grab the gun while tumbling down from the kitchen island, and fire it while her father stands right next to her – completely helpless? Or is the concern that a baby is next to a gun — and everyone knows that guns just radiate deadliness and malice. 

 I suspect it’s the latter — because it’s obvious to me that Sailor is in absolutely zero physical danger. You can’t even tell from the picture whether the gun is loaded or a round is chambered. Either way, the concerns are ludicrous. I’ve held my youngest daughter — who’s much older than Sailor and far more capable of grabbing a gun – countless times while carrying a firearm, and each time she was “mere inches away” from a “lethal weapon.” The issue isn’t proximity of the gun to the child but whether the adult is in control of access to the gun. Sailor is perfectly safe, and the anti-gun internet remains perfectly ludicrous.

Okay so the first thing I have to wonder is whether the French's are once again in the employ of the Palin family and David is providing some damage control in response to Meyer being raked over the coals for being a dimwit and a shitty parent.

However considering that Palin is hemorrhaging money, and SarahPAC is gasping its last breath, I'm not sure that's the case.

And since this article predates Meyer going off on Trump over his treatment of the military, this cannot be from a sense of camaraderie that the French's feel toward another #NeverTrump devotee.

So we are left with the one of two options. Either David French is simply so goo goo eyed over any Medal of Honor inner that he feels compelled to rush to their defense, or that Dakota is such a delicious hunk of man flesh that David French finds himself slipping out of the closet.

Either one seems both possible, and probable.

Oh hey never mind everybody, Jeb Bush just misunderstood that question about the Iraq war.

My attention level is right about here.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

Jeb Bush on Tuesday sought to arrest a chorus of criticism from Democrats and some conservatives after he told an interviewer that, knowing what history has since shown about intelligence failures, he still would have authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq. 

Calling in to Sean Hannity’s syndicated radio show, Mr. Bush said he had misunderstood a question that one of Mr. Hannity’s Fox News colleagues, Megyn Kelly, had asked him in an interview shown on Sunday and Monday nights. 

“I interpreted the question wrong, I guess,” Mr. Bush said. “I was talking about, given what people knew then.” 

The attempt at mopping-up was quick, but it did not bring the controversy to an immediate end: When Mr. Hannity asked about the 2003 Iraq invasion again, in yes-or-no fashion, Mr. Bush said he did not know what the answer would have been, saying, “That’s a hypothetical.” Then, he seemed to go out of his way to absolve his brother, former President George W. Bush, who ordered the invasion: “Mistakes were made, as they always are in life,” Mr. Bush said.

"Mistakes were made?"

There were no mistakes made. The Bush administration did exactly what they set out to do, and used intelligence that they KNEW was faulty to do it.

They quietly fed false information to newspaper writers, used Fox News as a propaganda machine, and destroyed the career of a CIA agent in order to push their agenda.

And don't give me that crap about Jebbie not understanding the question.

Megyn Kelly, a host on Fox News the best friend the Republican party ever had, prefaced the question with "Knowing what we know now." She did hurriedly add that part to the end of the question, as an after thought. THAT was the very first sentence!

Here is what Jim Newell of Salon had to say about this: 

Jeb Bush has had 12 years to come up with a decent response to questions about his brother’s dumb war in Iraq. He has tens or hundreds of millions of dollars ready to go for a campaign, and dozens of the finest political advisers in the Republican Party working with him to craft proper messaging on any and all topic areas. And unlike, say, Scott Walker, he is well-versed in policy himself, too. 

And yet he still cannot offer a coherent response to the most predictable question ever conceived, his answer to which he should be rehearsing in the mirror each morning after he wakes up, and even listening to a looped tape of while he’s asleep: Knowing what we know now, would have you authorized the invasion of Iraq? Knowing that the main pretexts for the war were false and that the war would last forever and it would suck mightily – things that people should have known in 2002-2003, too, but never mind that for the moment — would you still have done the Iraq? 

When Fox News’ Megyn Kelly asked Bush this question earlier in the week, Bush had to simply pretend he didn’t hear the “knowing what we know now” part. He answered his preferred question, about whether he would have authorized the invasion if he was president or had a vote in the matter in 2003. 

Newell goes on to suggest that this might not be a gaffe that Jebbie can recover from, and that it might literally have doomed his candidacy. 

If true this changes the entire 2016 paradigm.

I have long believed that ultimately this contest would come down to Jeb vs Hillary, Bush vs Clinton, dynasty vs dynasty.

But if Bush really did just accidentally blow his dick off then that means Hillary's future opponent is going to be one of those red nosed bastards from the GOP clown car.

And who among them could ever even get close to the primary without self inflicting a wound at least as big as the one that Jeb just inflicted?

Hell more than half of them have already relegated themselves to "also run" status due to crippling gaffes that occurred even BEFORE they announced their intention to run. (Yeah Ted Cruz, I'm looking at you.)

No right now the only hope the Republicans have in 2016 is that Hillary has a bigger, yet unknown, albatross around her neck than Jeb's brother's unnecessary war of choice.

Good luck with that GOP.

Anonymous Wikipedia user with IP address that leads to US Senate really does not like the use of the word "torture" to describe what the CIA did to detainees. Keeps trying to change it.

Courtesy of Mashable:  

An anonymous Wikipedia user from an IP address that is registered to United States Senate has tried, and failed, to remove a phrase with the word "torture" from the website's article on the Senate Intelligence Committee's blockbuster CIA torture report. 

The unknown individual has attempted on at least two occasions — first on Dec. 9 and then on Dec. 10 — to remove a line describing the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques as "a euphemism for torture." 

Gee it looks like somebody REALLY doesn't like it when we call torture done by the United States "torture."

Perhaps somebody should have thought of that before they, you know, tortured people.

Sarah "I don't need no stinking meds" Palin addresses the Todd Akin controversy on Greta Van "It still sucks to be Palin's friend" Susteren. Shield your eyes kids, this gets CRAZY!

Click snarl to watch video

As the interview begins Greta invites the Grizzled One to gloat a little about what is happening with Todd Akin, since she had endorsed one of his opponents in the Missouri primary. Palin who is already in a highly agitated state (Hmm I wonder which blog she had just been visiting?), tries her best not to dance on Todd Akins still writhing corpse, but just can't quite help herself.  

Well, I won't gloat about it, but I was right. And Sarah Steelman's supporters and campaign staff, we were all right in knowing that Sarah Steelman is the right person for the job to represent Missouri and to allow common-sense conservatives to take back the Senate to halt what it is that Barack Obama has done to this country. (Here let me translate: Nanny, nanny boo-boo!)


Sarah Steelman was the right person. I supported her then, and I'm going to continue to support her.

Palin then tries to give herself credit for recognizing that Claire McCaskill had chosen Akin as her opponent knowing that she could beat him.

"Well, see, that's the point, Greta. Claire McCaskill and the Democrats thought that they were so clever in fighting so hard to get Akin on the ballot as the winner in the GOP primary. And you know, many of us who recognized that cleverness, that craftiness from the left, because we're kind of getting used to the games that they play, wanted to do something about it."

Then since this is, as always, ALL about Palin she quickly inserts herself into this story by suggesting that Akin should get out just like SHE did once upon a time by a loon filled lake in Wasilla.

"Now we do have opportunity, even though Todd Akin has said that he's not going to drop out. And bless his heart, I don't want to pile on Todd Akin because, in some respects, I understand what he's trying to say here in standing on principle, that he doesn't want to be perceived as a quitter. (Because that just sucks!)But you got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. 

Believe me, I've walked it before. I know when you have to hold that mantle and then hand it to someone else in order to progress a positive agenda. That's what I had to do in Alaska."

Yes of COURSE Palin was only a quitter for the good of Alaska, NOT because she was anxious to start her Fox News commentary, book (ghost)writing, and reality show careers.

Greta, bless her blackened journalistic heart, tries to get Palin to directly address what Todd Akin actually said that got him into so mush trouble, but this topic hits TOO close to home for Sister Sarah and she contorts and twists herself into a pretzel to avoid answering it.

Oh good it looks like the President has his best (wo)man on the job.

Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall as Hillary explains to the foreign leaders that "Mitt the Twit" was the BEST the GOP had to offer this time around, and not to worry because even America is not self destructive enough to put that idiot into the White House?

Well I would.

Clearly Rupert Murdoch is in a panic and desperately trying to control the damage before it spreads too far to contain. But will it be enough?

From Yahoo News:

Rupert Murdoch apologized to victims of criminal phone hacking by one of his tabloids and accepted the resignations of News Corp's top two newspaper executives, Rebekah Brooks and Les Hinton.

Moving to gain control of a scandal washing over his global business, the U.S.-based magnate made a personal apology to the parents of a murdered schoolgirl in what appeared to be an admission that the News of the World, then edited by Brooks and overseen by Hinton, had in 2002 hacked into the voicemails of their missing daughter.

It was that damning allegation, in a rival newspaper 10 days ago, which reignited a 5-year-old scandal that has forced Murdoch to close the News of the World, Britain's best-selling Sunday paper, and drop a $12 billion plan to buy full control of highly profitable pay-TV operator BSkyB.

The crisis has broken the grip that Murdoch, 80, had over British politics for three decades as leaders from Margaret Thatcher, through Labor's Tony Blair to current Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron sought his support.

It has also forced him to make concessions to public calls that the executives who were in charge at the time of the scandal be held accountable.

Somebody left a comment on another thread that I should not get my hopes up about this scandal damaging Fox News, or destroying their credibility along with the other News Corp entities.

Yeah maybe not, but this has been a pretty satisfying summer so far, so I think I will follow my President's advice and embrace the audacity of hope.

How about you guys?

RAM steps out of the shadows to defend her meal ticket.

Amanda Coyne, of the Alaska Dispatch, reported on an interview that the most loyal of Palin's grizzly cubs Rebecca Mansour, gave to conservative radio host Tammy Bruce.

The original story listed RAM as Palin's spokesperson:

Palinistas are furious over the accusations. Read here and here (just for starters). They blame the left using a tragedy to score political points. A Palin spokeswoman, Rebecca Mansour told a radio talk show host today that doing so is "obscene" and "appalling." In fact, she said that the "target list," was not intended to allude to guns.

"We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sites," she said.

However RAM threw a twitter tantrum and demanded that Coyne change the wording:

@Amanda_Coyne I am not her "spokeswoman." She speaks for herself. I was speaking for myself. Correct your story.
2 hours ago via web

So like most of the Alaska media Coyne jumped through Ram's hoop and immediately made the corrections. So now THIS is how the story appears.

Palinistas are furious over the accusations. Read here and here (just for starters). They blame the left using a tragedy to score political points. A Palin staffer, Rebecca Mansour told a radio talk show host Saturday that doing so is "obscene" and "appalling." In fact, she said that the "target list" was not intended to allude to guns.

"We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sites," she said.

"It's surveyor's symbols," the interviewer Tammy Bruce suggested. Bruce, a Palin supporter, describes herself as "a gay, pro-choice, gun owning, pro-death penalty, Tea Party Independent Conservative. " Her show is promoted as a "chick with a gun and a microphone."

Mansour agreed. She said that the graphic was contracted out to a professional. They approved it quickly without thinking about it. "We never imagined, it never occurred to us that anybody would consider it violent," she said. Rather, she said, that it was simply "crosshairs that you would see on a map."

There is "nothing irresponsible about our graphic," she said.

She did not, however, mention the "don't retreat, instead- RELOAD!" Palin tweet that went out shortly after the graphic was posted on both her Facebook page and SarahPac's website, directing them to the graphic. The tweet turned quickly into a Palin mantra. Many, even then, urged her to stop using such violent rhetoric. If she heard them, she did not retreat.

The graphic remains on Palin's Facebook page but was removed this morning on SarahPac's website. Mansour said that removing it did not constitute a "scrub" of Palin's site, as some had been alleging. She said that someone from SarahPac contacted her this morning, and was wondering if it should be taken down given the circumstances. She said that because the midterm elections had passed, it shouldn't have been there anyway.

Palin "spokesperson" or Palin "staffer." it really does not make a damn bit of difference.

Especially since, as I mentioned before, Sarah Palin HERSELF tweeted bullshit on the idea that these symbols were "surveyor's symbols."

Remember months ago "bullseye" icon used 2 target the 20 Obamacare-lovin' incumbent seats? We won 18 out of 20 (90% success rate;T'aint bad)
4 Nov via Twitter for BlackBerry®

I think the take away from this extremely defensive interview with the usually media shy RAM is that the Palin camp is in crisis right now and that the flying monkeys are desperate to try and salvage at least some of their Grizzled Mama's reputation before she joins the ranks of Charles Manson as a charismatic criminal who inspired others to kill.

However no matter how successful they may be at damage control, can anybody really picture the idea of Sarah Palin throwing her hat in the ring for the 2012 Republican nomination after all of this? 

I just don't anymore.