Tim Kaine, Please Watch This Video

Dear Chairman Kaine:

Here is your ready-made 2010 ad campaign.

Add Michael Steele and every other Republican who ever chanted the repulsive phrase that we won't repeat here.

And then close with President Obama: "There's a reason that you never heard me say [you know what]."

Tidbits and Cat Treats — Good Stuff and Bad

By Baxter

On the Friday before a holiday weekend, we cats are mystified by the irony of it all. Can it really be that a Democratic President who never bleated "Drill, baby, drill" is getting hammered from all sides for this BP disaster? And here are a few other questions that are occurring to us:

Now that the tar balls are reaching the beaches, how soon will we hear the chorus of voices rise to condemn FOX "News" anchor Brit Hume for being an idiot? (Why do we think the answer is "never"?)

Did James Carville and Mary Matalin decide that their act had gotten a little stale, and the best way to spice it up would be for James to lambaste a Democratic President? (We cats suspect "yes.")

Is there a bigger non-story than the Sestak thing? Good heavens, people, welcome to the world.

Can itinerant political hack Mo Elleithee be drummed out of the Democratic Party for saying that the famous quitter from Alaska is right — about anything? (Somehow we think Clueless Mo doesn't really know who Joe McGinniss is. "Voyeuristic" isn't the first adjective for him that occurs to us. "Distinguished journalist and author," maybe.)

Are we pleased that the House has passed repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"? You betcha.

Lest We Furr-get: The Bush Bubble

By Zamboni

We cats are amused at the thought that Barack Obama sparring with a heckler in California is surprising news.

President Obama is one of the most intelligent occupants ever placed in the Oval Office. We'd actually be agog and a-twitter if he weren't able to hold his own with an inconsiderate speech interrupter.

(Note to our friends in the GLBT community: We empathize with your frustration over the slow repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." But there are better ways of expressing it than pulling a Joe Wilson.)

But we digress. How refreshing it is to have a President who's willing to go before — and engage — people who are less than 100 percent friendly. George W. Bush, by contrast, only spoke to carefully crafted, pre-screened audiences, no matter how innocuous the topic.

We'll take a President who faces his detractors head-on — instead of hiding behind tightly controlled events — any day.

(IMAGE: Newsweek magazine, obviously.)

"Je Me Souviens"

Hockey fans in Montreal are pretty depressed about the Canadiens right now, so we're going to go north for a few days and cheer them up. We'll try to post when we can.

Tom Davis' Crystal Ball

By Sniffles

Back in November 2008, as his party's fortunes were crashing around him, former Congressman Tom Davis warned his fellow Republicans that the GOP had "basically become a white, rural, regional party, and not a national party."

Considering all that's happened in the year and a half since, we cats are wondering how Mr. Davis feels about his prescience today. For example:

The Governor of Texas has openly embraced the idea of secession.

The Governor of Virginia thinks his state should celebrate the history of the Confederacy — as long as slavery is not mentioned.

The Republican Party in Kentucky is running Jefferson Davis for Senate. (Or is it Nathan Bedford Forrest? So hard to decide...)

Florida attorney general and perennial Sunshine State Republican candidate has taken the lead in suing to block the new healthcare law, joined by his fellow GOP attorneys general in five Southern states.

Republicans at the national and state levels — not to mention their fellow travelers, the teabaggers — have spent the last two to three years e-mailing, disseminating or displaying racially tinged anti-Obama posters, photos, signs, cartoons and song parodies in an orgy of sophomoric hatred.

Gee, Tom Davis — we cats don't know what line of work you're in right now, but you could certainly become a psychic!

CORRECTION: We cats apologize. There actually IS a Geoff Davis who is a Congressman from Kentucky. The fact that the GOP's Senate candidate in that state is a fellow-traveler of the first and only Confederate President is, we assume, a total coincidence.

Jes' Folks

By Baxter

We cats know that Republicans are mean. A lot meaner than we Democrats are — and, as we all know from the bumper stickers, Mean People Suck.

But, wow! Those South Carolina Republicans are the meanest of the mean! And what a mess they've gotten themselves into — again!

South Carolina conservative blogger Will Folks has owned up to a torrid affair with Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley. Not because he wanted to, but because, he said, someone — or something — was starting to leak it.

Egad! The Romney-endorsed, Palin-endorsed, Jenny-Sanford-endorsed Nikki Haley is.... a slut? And now of course the holier-than-thou Ms. Haley is having to deny it all in a huff. How much easier life would be for the Republican Party if they didn't try to police everyone's sexual behavior.

We cats stand aside in respectful awe (and unrestrained glee). Republican politics in South Carolina is definitely nasty, brutish and played for keeps. And we can't wait until it's revealed that their fey little Lt. Governor, Andre Bauer, is behind it all.

Government Tramples Sacred Right to Wear Chicken Suits

By Zamboni

On the bird-news front, here's a little item from Nevada that's put Cheshire-cat grins on our faces.

State election officials in the Silver State have banned chicken costumes within 100 feet of polling places. This development is thanks to the idiocy of Republican Senate candidate Sue Lowden, who foolishly suggested one month ago that people who can't afford to pay their doctors should barter with them instead. Folks dressed as giant chickens have been taunting her at campaign appearances ever since.

So now, Nevadans can't wear political buttons, shirts or hats — or their favorite chicken suits — when they go to vote on June 8. Thanks a lot, Sue Lowden!

We cats want to know what Rand Paul thinks about this. After all, Randy believes that the government has no right to forbid businesses from discriminating. So if you take that philosophy to its logical next step, how dare the government tell Americans they can't wear chicken costumes?

We may have to wait a long time for Randy's answer. He's canceled press appearances and says he's done with national interviews. Talk about a chicken!

Rand Paul's Very Bad Week

By Sniffles

"When does my honeymoon period start?" Rand Paul asked earlier today, in an obviously canned bit for "Good Morning, America."

We cats have news for this whiny teabagger. Randy, your honeymoon lasted about 20 minutes — and it ended at about the time that the news media realized that your victory party was held at a decidedly non-democratic, private country club.

From then on, Rand Paul's week just got worse and worse. Consider, for example, the following:

• Sticking his foot in his mouth has cost him a huge opportunity to build momentum on a landslide win.
• For the last few days, he's been playing defense, not offense.
• Frantic backtracking tends to eat away your day. Has he had any time to raise money lately?
• He's given an enormous boost to Jack Conway's national visibility and support. (Ka-ching!)
• Like right-wing nut Bob McDonnell in Virginia, Rand Paul has needlessly raised a thorny issue that will — pardon the expression — dog him forever.

P.S. This is our 900th post. Goodness gracious, how time flies when we're having fun. We cats PURR.

Tidbits and Cat Treats — Rand Paul Edition

By Baxter

So the Bob McDonnell Award for Self-Inflicted Political Wounds goes to teabagger darling Rand Paul. It's astounding that as a physician, Kentucky's Republican Senate nominee went on Rachel Maddow's show and completely forgot the famous medical ethic of "First, do no harm."

Thus has the hapless Dr. Paul earned his own personal "Tidbits and Cat Treats" post. Here are the questions that his ridiculous behavior has managed to raise in our furry little feline minds.

He stomped his Mitch-McConnell-approved primary opponent in a landslide on Tuesday — but couldn't manage to pull off a 48-hour press honeymoon afterward? Is this proof of gross incompetence, or total political tone deafness — or both? We cats hope both.

Flailing desperately at damage control, Paul has said, in essence, "Don't worry about the 1964 Civil Rights Act, I won't try to repeal it." Excuse us? Who, pray tell, was ever talking about repealing it? And why shouldn't we expect him to work from his first day in the Senate to undermine it? After all, if it's not good enough for the right wing when Democrats swear eternal allegiance to the Second Amendment, why should we believe a teabagger nutbag like Paul on civil rights?

How long will journalists let the Republican establishment skate by without commenting on this fiasco? Allowing the cowardly Eric Cantor to dodge the question with his usual lame "false choice" argument is unforgivable. Is Mitch McConnell getting chased by a hungry press pack? John Boehner? How about Michael Steele? The silence is deafening.

Better yet, what do the 32 African Americans running as Republicans this year have to say about all this? They should be asked about it — and then asked again, and again, and again.

Finally, where is Sarah Palin? Rand Paul was her Kentucky teabagger of choice. We can't wait for her to rush to his defense.

UPDATE: The embattled and perennially silly Dr. Paul has canceled a planned interview on "Meet the Press." No more interviews for him! After all, why should someone who wants to hold elective office ever have to answer questions?

The Biggest (GOP) Losers

By Zamboni

We cats are still agog about the results from what the press dubbed as last night's mini-Super Tuesday. (Actually, it wasn't anywhere near a mini-Super Tuesday. The media need to stop labeling the news to drive ratings.)

But we digress. As bloggers, we'd be remiss if we didn't create a list of winners and losers from yesterday's primaries. Correction: a list of losers. (Because we know who the winners were. They were the people who got the most votes — duh.)

And coincidentally, all the losers are — Republicans! Here we go:

The Republican Leadership Establishment: They were crowing they'd win the special election for Jack Murtha's House seat. In fact, the ever-clownish Michael Steele scoffed on national T.V. at the suggestion they wouldn't win. But they fell short by a solid eight points.

John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell: Gentlemen, teabagger nutcase Rand Paul embarrassed your anointed candidate in Kentucky. Um, we think you have a problem on your hands.

Chris Dudley: He may have won the GOP nomination for governor in Oregon, but Dudley was a bit of a — well, a dud. He only got 40 percent of the vote. This despite the fact that he's a sports celebrity — a former center with the Portland Trailblazers.

Arkansas Guy: No one was paying any attention, because all eyes were on Blanche Lincoln and Bill Halter. But the preferred Republican candidate for Senator Lincoln's seat, a sitting Congressman, barely got 50 percent in a three-way primary. It was enough to avoid a runoff, but we cats sense some softness there.

Our Latest Christian Hypocrite: And then of course there's the ugly guy from Indiana who's resigning because he was boinking an aide. (Yuck.)

Yes, they're losers, all, and all on the heels of such underperformers as Kay Bailey Hutchison in Texas — not to mention our current fave, Charlie Crist from Florida, who's been effectively chased out of the party. We cats wait with interest to see Crist's next move now that tar balls are washing up on the beaches of the Florida Keys.

Tidbits and Cat Treats — Selfish Pigs Edition

By Sniffles

As Michelle Obama urges graduates at George Washington University to keep doing unto others, here are some examples of Republicans doing the exact opposite which we just have to share.

We cats note with interest that many folks hailing from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are considering class-action lawsuits against BP, Halliburton and the other corporate cretins responsible for the horrific Gulf oil spill. Don't get us wrong — we're not against gouging those business behemoths for some of their ill-gotten gains. But we just can't believe that all those uber-patriotic red states are hiring (Democratic, no doubt) trial lawyers to demand socialist compensation from good capitalists like BP. The nerve!

Speaking of the oil spill — and the coal-mine tragedy in West Virginia last month — we're certainly seeing a lot of Richard B. Cheney's "never-regulate-private-industry" chickens coming home to roost, aren't we? Have we all noticed how silent he and his famous-for-no-reason daughter have been since these disasters occurred? And why are the media not raising the specter of the secret Cheney energy task force of 2001? It seems to us cats that the promises Cheney made to industry executives behind closed doors nine years ago are, unfortunately, all too apparent now.

Remember when John McCain embarrassed himself during the 2008 campaign by saying "We are all Georgians now"? (You could almost hear the murmur that swept the country in response: "What's that about?") Now, the famous quitter from Alaska has trotted out a new version. Visiting America's new Nazi Germany to show support for its despicable immigration law, Sarah Palin said, "We are all Arizonans now."

Palin does nothing that doesn't contribute her ultimate goal of self-aggrandizement. Knowing that she's merely on a PR tour, and not a serious political mission, we cats would merely like to say: Pardon us, ma'am — but you are a pimple on the face of racist America, and include us out.

Standing Room Only on St. Catherine Street Last Night

Note to Heritage Minister James Moore: This is a major thoroughfare in downtown Montreal, a large city in Canada.

Poor Canada!

By Baxter

Since the Chicago Blackhawks have eliminated the Vancouver Canucks from the Stanley Cup playoffs, logic dictates that there must be no Canadian club left to claim hockey's most coveted prize this year.

Says who? Why, Canada's own heritage minister, a pudgy Conservative jerk named James Moore.

Mr. Moore was personally chosen to safeguard the country's heritage by Bush-lite Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper, even though he apparently doesn't know how many provinces Canada has.

"The Canucks are Canada's team in these playoffs," Mr. Moore burbled on Twitter.

If that's true, we cats have no idea what we saw last night. We could have sworn that it was an Original Six team from Canada advancing to the Eastern Conference finals. A team called — ahem — the Canadiens.

"You could show a little more respect," Montreal MP Justin Trudeau tweeted back to the fat Tory fraud last week.

We cats agree — Montreal must not be Stephen Harper's kind of town.

Today's GOP: We (Don't) Accept You

By Zamboni

Purity purges are never pretty. And neither is today's Republican Party. Between the two of them, you have a horror movie to rival Tod Browning's "Freaks."

Except the circus performers in the classic 1932 film had much more dignity and tolerance than the teabaggers who are hijacking the GOP. Is it possible that not only is Bob Bennett too liberal for them — but also Orrin Hatch?

Goodness gracious. We cats are hard-pressed to come up with two Senators more conservative than the guys from Utah. Every time we think the wingnuts surely must be done with their self-sabotaging litmus tests, we realize that we're completely and utterly wrong. They really are taking Jim DeMint seriously — they're trying to whittle the Republican Senate caucus down to 30 true believers.

Our first thought: Go right ahead, nutbags. Our second: Should we feel sorry for Orrin Hatch? Our answer: Indeed, no.

That's because after more than 30 years as one of the Senate's most reliable right wingers, Orrin Hatch had the impeccable conservative credentials and the respect of elected officials across the political spectrum to speak out and put a lid on his party's tea bag revolution. But he's remained silent. He could have objected to John McCain's craven and near-treasonous selection of a totally unqualified person to serve a heartbeat away from the Presidency. He didn't. He could have criticized some of the Constitutional excesses of the Bush-Cheney years. Didn't bother. And as a member of the Judiciary Committee, he could have demanded an end to the lunacy of the birthers and their silly, time-wasting lawsuits. But Orrin's said not a word.

Yep, the Republican Party has become a pathetic sideshow, all right. And Orrin Hatch's cowardice in the face of it makes us realize that we won't miss him if the teabaggers bring him down. But who will point out what a weenie he was while their insurrection brewed?

Yes, Liberals, Everything's Terrible!

By Sniffles

It's official: President Obama has nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, and the pundits and bloggers are all pronouncing judgment and behaving as if their opinions matter. We cats are particularly amused, in fact, that over at Salon, Glenn Greenwald is still doing his liberal loser killjoy schtick.

You know, once upon a time we were early subscribers to Salon, and even made it our home page. This year, we let our subscription lapse, and we don't miss it one bit.

Why? The constant hand-wringing that Barack Obama is not perfect. The short memories of how truly awful things were under George W. Bush. The lack of appreciation of how quickly things can become awful again.

Liberal losers, take note: It's a two-party system, and the Republican Party is being taken over by teabagger nutbags. In 2008 they nominated a right-wing wacko from Alaska to run for the White House with a 71-year-old cancer survivor. Since then, right-wing Republicans have crushed mainstream Democratic candidates for governor in Virginia (a purple state) and New Jersey (one of the bluest states in the nation). They took Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, they've chased Charlie Crist out of the party in Florida, and they've bumped off Bob Bennett in Utah. A party in which Bob Bennett is not conservative enough is a scary, scary place.

So, what do we think of the Kagan nomination? We think we will not agree with her on everything. But we're so thankful that it's Barack Obama who's choosing Supreme Court nominees — and not President Palin.

Maybe It's Newsweek That Should Be Selling The Washington Post

By Baxter

How have the mighty fallen. We cats can hardly believe that the newspaper that nailed Richard Nixon now bends over backwards to throw sops to the right.

The Washington Post and ABC News have polled people on President Obama's place of birth. And today the paper has proudly published the results. To wit: 14 percent of Americans are morons.

Aside from the fact that that's hardly useful information — since, as superior beings, we find many more people than that to be morons — we cats object to the poll on two counts.

First, that the question is asked at all is patently ridiculous. Hawaii became a state in 1959; the President was born in Honolulu in 1961. Two years ago he posted his birth certificate online. The Governor of Hawaii attests to its authenticity. Why is The Washington Post polling on this non-issue at all? Do they poll on whether Elvis is still alive?

Second, the phrasing of the question — "On another subject, where was Barack Obama born, as far as you know?" — leads the respondent and plants doubt. "As far as you know"? Gee, folks, if you're going to ask it like that, we have a few suggestions for other questions you could poll on:

"Did George W. Bush dodge the Viet Nam draft, as far as you know?"

"Are Charlie Crist, Lindsey Graham, Michael Steele and that Family Research Council guy really gay, as far as you know?"

"Did Marco Rubio commit fraud with his Republican Party credit card, as far as you know?"

"Was John Ensign bribed by his mistress's husband, as far as you know?"

"Is Levi Johnston the father of Sarah Palin's Down's syndrome baby, as far as you know?"

We'd love to see polling like that. Meanwhile, tomorrow morning we may take our home-delivered Post and put it straight under the litter box. We cats HISS.

(IMAGE: You know this picture. Sigh. Those were the days, weren't they?)

Integrity v. Hypocrisy

By Zamboni

We cats are impressed that the Phoenix Suns chose to protest Arizona's abominable immigration law by wearing their "Los Suns" jerseys in their playoff game with San Antonio last night.

Good for them. This is a team that could have easily just shut up and played basketball. After all, most of their state is in favor of the law.

Then, of course, there are some people whom we admire, um, not so much.

Cases in point: The guys on the right-wing side of the aisle who demonize homosexuals but who — unfailingly, it seems — end up being revealed as rather light in the loafers themselves. Two of these idiots have crossed our computer screens in the last 24 hours alone.

The first one was Christian wingnut George Rekers, who took a "rent boy" on a trip with him to Europe. The second was a 67-year-old white supremacist, Richard Barrett. The man accused of murdering him has testified that Barrett propositioned him.

While we're grimly amused by such ironies, we always find them a little depressing. It would be great if all the right wingers who are agonizing over their sexual orientation would just work it out in private — and leave the rest of us, not to mention the country's laws, alone.

Ah, well. We'd rather spend today throwing PURRS at the Phoenix Suns. It's difficult to define class, but we cats know it when we see it.

Attack of the Giant Chickens

By Sniffles

Oh, this is terrific.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is having fun with that idiot Nevada Senate candidate who wants people to pay for their doctor appointments with chickens. Volunteers in chicken suits are showing up at Republican Sue Lowden's events, toting "CHICKENS FOR CHECKUPS" signs.

Well done, fellow Democrats! Not only does this amusing prank keep Ms. Lowden's ridiculous "bartering for healthcare" comments in the news, but it pays a neat tribute to the Presidential campaign of 1992.

Back then, similarly clad protesters turned up at events for George Bush Senior, taunting him as "Chicken George" for refusing to debate Democratic Presidential nominee Bill Clinton. The guys in chicken suits did a good job of getting under Bush Senior's skin. He eventually relented on the debates, and as we fondly recall, he did pretty badly in them.

We cats PURR. We don't know who's going to win the June 8 Republican primary — but we think Sue Lowden has already laid an egg.

Scott Brown: "F" is for "Fashion" (or lack thereof)

By Baxter

Meow! Now that we cats have bemoaned all the attention paid to the White House Correspondents' Dinner, we're going to write something about the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Specifically, that Republican Senator Scott Brown has failed his first big fashion test in the Nation's Capital. (See above.)

First, we have no idea why a grown man would bring his entire family to an event like this. Second, we hated the powder-blue quince dress that Mrs. Brown wore. (Ma'am, you're in your forties now — deal with it.) Third, Robin Givhan of The Washington Post agreed with us on the Senator's rather dated tux: "See him wearing an unfortunate vest that looks like it was stitched from Christmas wrapping paper," she wrote.

To be fair, we cats must observe that the former wife of Mr. Brown's late Senate predecessor also committed some fashion faux pas herself.

When Words Become Explosive

By Zamboni

The inside-the-Beltway folks are a tad shocked by President Obama's remarks at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday night.

We cats think the D.C. gossips should get a life. We found the President's jokes amusing, and we salute his humorously "zinging" tone. (Keep it up, sir.) But the Correspondents' Dinner has become a silly event. In fact, any gathering that features Jay Leno is a silly event.

The much more important Obama speech took place earlier in the day, at the University of Michigan commencement. There, the President took America's demagogues — in Washington and on cable T.V. and radio — profoundly to task.

"Anyone interested in getting [media] coverage feels compelled to make their arguments as incendiary as possible," he said — which "makes it nearly impossible for people who have legitimate but bridgeable differences to sit down at the same table and hash things out. It robs us of a rational and serious debate, the one we need to have about the very real and very big challenges facing this nation. It coarsens our culture, and at its worst, it can send signals to the most extreme elements of our society that perhaps violence is a justifiable response."

On that last point, we cats note with interest that about six hours later, police found an undetonated car bomb in Times Square.

We don't know who planted that bomb. But it strikes us that the President was eerily prescient in this important speech. However, the press has given much more attention to the White House Correspondents' Dinner than to the Michigan address. We suspect that it's because the WHCD was also about them — black-tie-clad journalists who should know better swanning around the Washington Hilton with the people they cover.

Bad form, guys.