What She Said / What She Should Have Said

By Zamboni

Okay, we cats have had enough of the "I'm sorry to anyone who may have been offended" crap.

Now, it's White House adviser Valerie Jarrett who has done the dirty deed. It just goes to show you that Democrats can be as guilty of this idiocy as Republicans (and Rick Sanchez) are.

After implying in an interview that sexual orientation was "a lifestyle choice," Ms. Jarrett issued an otherwise eloquent mea culpa that she e-mailed to The Washington Post. "I meant no disrespect to the LGBT community," she said, "and I apologize to any who have taken offense at my poor choice of words."

Aaaaarrrrggghh. We cats wish we'd been present to jump on Ms. Jarrett's keyboard when she typed that statement. But since we weren't, allow us to fix it.

"I meant no disrespect to the LGBT community, and I apologize."

See how easy that is?

UPDATE: Oops, the Republicans have just eclipsed Valerie in this department. The NRSC has fired its media company over the West Virginia "hicky" commercial with the following statement: "We apologize to any West Virginia voter who may have been offended by this firm's actions." First, we cats find it unsurprising that a company hired by Republicans would insult those they're trying to manipulate. Second, it's a heck of a lot simpler just to say "We apologize to the voters of West Virginia." What is so difficult about this, people?

Memo to Joe: It's Not Just Newt

By Miss Kubelik

The GOP is so extreme these days that the only way to describe what's going on in the party is to use — well, extremes.

Joe Scarborough — who in 1994 came to Capitol Hill as what we then defined as a conservative Republican — has employed some vivid language to describe the antics of one man: Newt Gingrich.

Scarborough targets his former Speaker, we cats suspect, not just because Newtie's been so nutty but also because Joe must be beyond disillusioned with his erstwhile boss's behavior. Here's a list of the adjectives that, in just one column, Mornin' Joe attaches to Gingrich:

"Cartoonish," "shrill," "cheap," "bizarre," "overblown," "outrageous," "oblivious," "childish," "crazy," "dangerous," and "intemperate." (On that last one: Gee, Joe, ya think?) He also accuses Gingrich of "get[ting] rich off political hate speech."

What Joe doesn't say, and what's truly alarming, is that Gingrich is far from the only Republican living up to these terms. When it comes to GOP candidates like Angle, Paladino, Miller, Toomey, Whitman, Fiorina, McMahon, O'Donnell, and the rest of the 2010 nuts — well , we're truly running out of words.

Tidbits and Cat Treats — Canadian Thanksgiving Edition

By Sniffles

Today, our neighbors to the north celebrate Thanksgiving — and as it helpfully coincides with a U.S. federal holiday, we cats are enjoying a three-day weekend. But we've been thinking. Here are some things we are decidedly not thankful for in 2010:

The number of repugnant people who have invaded our consciousness (and therefore, our lives) since the teabaggers hijacked the Republican Party and managed to nominate them. Case in point: Carl Paladino. Our experience is that politicians and religious leaders who target the alleged evils of homosexuality are usually doing it because they are closeted homosexuals themselves.

Eric Cantor. Eric, you're Jewish — why are you a Republican? Get out of that party already. They're a bunch of Nazis.

The foreclosure mess. We cats hate to sound like a bunch of old fuddy-duddies, but didn't there used to be a time when Americans could do anything? Achieve nuclear fission, pass the G.I. Bill, make the middle class accessible to nearly everybody? Now it feels as if most folks think that even a C or D grade is acceptable. Maybe they all work in the home financing industry.

Karl Rove and all shadowy right-wing election spending groups. Thanks a lot, Supreme Court.

So, are we cats in a bad mood this Canadian turkey day? Indeed not. U.S. politics are in a dispiriting state, but we've one thing to be very thankful for: Our pied-a-terre "escape hatch" in Quebec. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Positively Plouffeian

By Baxter

We cats have noticed that the messaging from the White House has become crisper of late.

And we think we have David Plouffe to thank for it.

We always did believe that it was a mistake for President Obama to allow his sharpest political guru to remain in Chicago during the first two years of the Administration. So Plouffe didn't want to leave his family and move to Washington? Tough patooties. The President should have put his foot down, and the Plouffe children should have been doomed to grow up neglected and resentful. After all, the future of the country was at stake.

But better late than never. In the meantime, we cats will admit to being pleased at Plouffe's canny comments about the famous quitter from Alaska's possible run for the Presidency. We also thought that today's Washington Post story — about the teabaggers helping Democrats next month — had Plouffe's fingerprints all over it.

We think this augurs well — both for the next three and a half weeks of campaigning, and for the prep for 2012.

So welcome back, David. We cats PURR in your direction. But you never should have been gone in the first place.

The Republicans' Bad Week

By Zamboni

All is certainly not perfect these days for us Democrats. But we think that Michael Steele and the GOP shouldn't be celebrating quite yet.

Let's see, where do we begin?

• With Christine O'Donnell's "I am not a witch" T.V. spot? (Monty Python: "But you are dressed as one.")
• With the teabagger chair in Nevada who quit because of the Sharron Angle tape?
• With the Joe Miller-Todd Palin cat fight?
• With Meg Whitman's precipitous drop in the polls?
• With Barbara Boxer opening up a lead in the California Senate race?
• With Jim DeMint saying that gays and unwed pregnant women shouldn't teach school?

We give up. We can't pick. But by the way, where is The Missing Mehlman on that last bullet item?

(IMAGE: "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," of course.)

UPDATE: We cats were remiss to omit the infamous GOP "hicky" ad from this list. Two days ago, all everyone was talking about was how the Republicans were surging in the Mountain State. Now, to say the least, the story has shifted. We hope that this incident will help the voters of West Virginia realize the high contempt in which the GOP holds them.

"Strangler" Than Fiction

By Miss Kubelik

Oh, goodness, we can hear the caterwauling now. Vice President Biden has said something that surely will alarm the hypocrites on the Republican right.

We say "hypocrites" because the GOP and their teabagger friends have spent the last two years bleating so outrageously we can barely believe they've maintained any kind of a serious presence in the political discourse. And they've only gotten worse, not better. Today, a mere month before the midterms, we have one statewide Republican candidate starting a campaign ad with "I'm not a witch," and another saying he'd like to take away Americans' ability to directly elect their Senators.

With all this nutty behavior as backdrop, it seems silly that anyone could take umbrage at the Vice President wanting to strangle a few Republicans. After all, we don't recall the GOP getting very upset when Grover Norquist said he wanted to do the same to the federal government. In the bathtub, no less.

GOP Fraidy Cats

By Sniffles

Jack Conway is the Democratic candidate for Senate from Kentucky. We cats have been impressed with him for awhile, now.

Apparently, the voters of Kentucky might agree. What used to be a yawner for teabagger Rand Paul has turned into a much tighter race than expected. (Gee, where are all the media folks on this one? Are they still too busy touting the single poll that showed Carl Paladino within striking distance of Mario Cuomo in New York?)

Here's something else about the Kentucky race that got our attention. Mr. Conway agreed to debate Rand Paul on FOX News. And he did. Normally, such an action wouldn't be out of the ordinary, but in a year in which Republican candidates have refused to appear with their Democratic opponents on, say, MSNBC — indeed, at a time in which Republicans and teabaggers have literally run from the press — we think that Mr. Conway has the cojones that the famous quitter from Alaska is so fond of talking about.

Good for Jack Conway. We cats PURR in his direction, and we're going to send some money that way, too.

P.S. This is our 1,000th post. If we do say so ourselves, congratulations to us!

Taxing Our Patience

By Baxter

After a busy weekend, we cats are finally catching up to comment on the pending Supreme Court free-speech case involving the Fred Phelps "church." You know the dirtbags who show up at soldiers' funerals.

We have no doubt that these foul cretins comprise an anti-gay, anti-Semitic hate group, but we wonder whether going after them by denying them their lawful First Amendment rights is wise. Not to mention a losing battle. Make no mistake, we resent them — but not the fact that the Constitution protects their right to despise and defile.

Rather, our question is this: Why hasn't anyone questioned whether this group of haters has the right to be tax-exempt as a church? (Of course, we cats don't believe in churches being tax-exempt in the first place, but that's a subject for another post.) At the very least, the Internal Revenue Service should be all over these Phelps clowns' finances. If they're hiding assets and income in a tax-free shelter, we cats say, throw the book at 'em.

Maybe even the Good Book. After all, the Phelpses deserve to be clobbered with a few Bibles — since they obey none of the commandments contained therein.

Okay, This Is Depressing.

By Zamboni

Canada has a new Governor General, and it's an old white guy.

We're sorry, but that's a bummer. One of the refreshing aspects of liberal governments is that they tend to appoint people who reflect the glorious diversity of humanity. Conservative governments give us the same old, same old.

We may not always have agreed with Michaelle Jean — especially when she allowed Stephen Harper to prorogue Parliament — but we loved the fact that, as a Haitian immigrant to Canada, she didn't look like any of her predecessors. And we were impressed by her evident joy when she welcomed newly minted U.S. President Barack Obama to Ottawa in February 2009.

Ah, well. Perhaps next time, Prime Minister Ignatieff will appoint someone as interesting as Jean. We cats live in hope.

Happy Birthday (and Get Well Soon), Mr. President!

By Miss Kubelik

When we cats saw President Carter in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago, he apologized that he was appearing at our event solo. Rosalynn Carter, he said, had returned from their recent trip to China with influenza, and she was home resting in Plains.

The President also said that Mrs. Carter's flu was contagious. So, he joked, if he came down with it himself, we would know that he and Rosalynn had — well, you get the idea.

All righty, then. Seeing as how Mr. Carter ended up in a Cleveland hospital this week with a stomach ailment, we would say that, um, the cat is out of the bag.

At any rate, we're pleased that the President was sprung from MetroHealth in time for his 86th birthday today. And we hope that since they're both now immune, the former First Lady greeted him with a big, wet kiss.