Maureen Dowd hearing voices

By A.J. Liebling
Meta-Content Generator

Today the least-hardworking columnist at the Times (quite an honor considering the competition) tried so hard to get through her column without a gratuitous poke at Hillary Clinton.  The main point of the piece was a summary of Ms. Clinton's unexceptionable attack on her opponent as in a fabulous gold-plated bed with white supremacists,  Jew haters, and other assorted alt-right trolls.

She made it to paragraph 12, an outstanding effort by her lights.  But such abstinence was beyond her for she segued right into another tired rant about one of this year's Clinton supposed scandals:

If Hillary had a normal opponent, her vulnerabilities would be more glaring. She would have spent the last week getting peppered with questions about how the F.B.I. discovered 14,900 more emails from her private server, which are going to drip out through the fall.

But Hillary does not have a normal opponent. She has one who manages to self-destruct in every news cycle. So instead she was soaring above her own paranoia and mocking Trump’s paranoia, soaring above her egregious messes and gamboling through Trump’s egregious messes.  (New York Times Sunday Review, Aug. 28, 2016)

Is Maureen Dowd staring to hear voices?

Actually, we know how the FBI discovered those emails, which were the ones she deleted as private (as any official is entitled to do): she didn't wipe the hard disc after pressing the delete button. 

And we also know why she deleted her private emails: she feared quite reasonably that should they be turned over to the Government, they would end up in the hands of her Congressional adversaries and leaked to her maximum disadvantage, as is apparently happening.  To Ms. Dowd, these prescient concerns are evidence of “paranoia.”

The frequency with which Ms. Dowd has repeated these claims, not to mention 20-year-old attacks on Hillary for defending her cheatin' husband, must have triggered some sort of Catholic schoolgirl guilt, for Mo attempted to justify such recycling thusly:

Many people believe that Trump is so demented and dangerous that any criticism of Hillary should be tabled or suppressed, that her malfeasance is so small compared to his that it is not worth mentioning. But that’s not good for her or us to leave so many things hanging out there, without her ever having to explain herself.

Letting her rise above everything for the good of the country is not good for the country.

“Many people believe?”  Leaving aside the provenance of that particular trope, we'd ask which people. Can she name three?  We talk to people and we've never heard anyone say that Hillary Clinton should be immune from criticism because her opponent would blow up the world.

What we have heard people saying is that whining about Hillary's standing by her husband, or trying to keep personal matters private, or even thinking that in fact there are plenty of people out there trying to destroy her is tired and beside the point.  We've even said some of this ourselves.

We've also heard people saying that the entire email “scandal” is a crock, notwithstanding the thrilling (to the easy-living columnist) discovery that parts of 3 of 30,000 emails bore (C) markings, indicating that someone thought that at one point the contents were marked CONFIDENTIAL, although the documents themselves were not properly marked and the classified status could well have passed by the time the email was sent.

We wish that Maureen Dowd, if she's going to keep hearing voices that don't exist, would hear one of them saying “How about some new material?”  At least that's what many people are asking.

Sure, we're interested in conflicts, if they're Hillary's

By Samuel Insull
Business Editor

The manufactured quote-scandal-unquote over the Clinton Foundation continues to burn brightly (see below).  Today Politico, the blog that is to Conventional Wisdom what Old Faithful is to hot water, erupted, rounding up the usual suspects to slam the Clinton Foundation for daring to continue its life-saving work:

How dare they?  And by the way, why should the Foundation even continue its perfidious ways?  The Clintons had the temerity to offer the following petty excuse:

But the Clintons have been reluctant to unwind the charity, arguing that its work combating AIDS and malaria, for instance, is saving lives and shouldn’t be put at risk.

Saving lives – could anything be more sad and pathetic?

Speaking of conflicts, we're looking forward to Politico's critique of the tangerine-faced grifter's plans to run the Trump Organization, the jerry-built holding entity for his various debt-laden real estate, steak, vodka, higher education, and campaign finagles.  What happens to it between President Trump's Inauguration and the Apocalypse?

So far, the answer is that he'll turn over the whole gold-plated mess to his children.  That way, there won't be any conflicts of interest between what's good for the Trump family and what's the right thing for the country!  (Of course, we don't have a full idea of what those conflicts might be as the T.F.G. won't release his tax returns, in contrast to the Clinton Foundation's release of its donor lists.)

Letting Moe, Larry, and Ivanka run his businesses (which he would continue to own and profit from) would obviously take care of any possible conflicts of interests with foreigners of the sort that fatally cripple the Clinton Foundation.  It's not as if Trump's business have any particular foreign entanglements, except for

a luxury golfing club in Dubai, with a second one under development, plus hotels and high-rises in Istanbul, Panama City, Seoul, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro and other cities

NPR's Morning Edition, June 9, 2016.

Nothing to see there people!  In addition to the foreign joint ventures, he also seems to owe, to use a technical finance term known only to top graduates of the Wharton School, a sh*tload of money to various foreign entities, including commercial arms of our arch-enemy, China:

For example, an office building on Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan, of which Mr. Trump is part owner, carries a $950 million loan. Among the lenders: the Bank of China, one of the largest banks in a country that Mr. Trump has railed against . . .

 New York Times, Aug. 21, 2016.

That same story detailed various other foreign entanglements including a complex relationship with one Joachim Ferdinand von Grumme-Douglas, identified only as a European businessman.  We used to know a kid named Jake Grudumsky, but it's probably not the same person.

To be somewhat fair, the Times and NPR stories did outline the insane conflicts that would arise from President Trump's ownership of these and other holdings.  But somehow those stories seem to pale next to the boiling hot geyser of BS erupting from a media obsessed with a fully-disclosed charity that has spent billions to improve the lot of the world's most vulnerable and impoverished – if you leave aside journalists.

A stargazer's guide to Clinton scandals

It happens all the time: some enterprising (or bored) reporter discovers something that looks like a “scandal” involving the Clintons.  It shines brightly for several news cycles, then burns out and fades to black.

Remember Travelgate?  Whitewater?  File-gate?  Drapes-gate?  Benghazi?  They all had their scintillating moments before dwindling into black holes, devouring memory and judgment.

The latest supernova is the revelation that as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with a number of people who also donated to the Clinton Foundation, like notorious influence-peddler and grifter Elie Weisel.

There's nothing illegal about this.  And an extensive AP investigation found no credible instance in which contributors to the Clinton Foundation got something from the State Department they shouldn't have. 

For example the United States Secretary of State had a meeting with the heir apparent to the throne of a tidy little despotism that nonetheless remains a vital Persian Gulf ally.  So what's the problem?  Even The Washington Post couldn't decide why this was a bad thing, although it was quite sure it was.

Former Eliot Spitzer co-host Kathleen Parker said to-may-to:

A batch of emails released Monday makes clear that Clinton Foundation donors got access to the State Department.

Some of the email was between Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff at the State Department, and an official at the charity. Not all requests appear to have been granted, but the coziness between State and the Clinton family charity exposes a troubling hubris and highlights the emptiness of her personal promise to President Obama to build a firewall between the two institutions when she became his secretary of state. . . .

The crown prince of Bahrain, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, whose government had given more than $50,000 to the foundation, requested a last-minute meeting with the secretary of state. Granted. 

But Josh Rogin, another Post columnist (and not to be confused with Rogan Josh, an aromatic lamb dish of Persian origin) writing the same day in the same newspaper, said to-mah-to:

And?

If it's spicy and appealing, it's not a Washington Post
columnist

Don't sweat it, though, Josh slammed Hillary for the meeting on the grounds that the nation's top diplomat shouldn't meet with anyone we don't approve of.

So the Clinton Foundation “scandal” continues to burn brightly, at least for a few more news cycles.  But like all of its predecessors it will fade away to nothing.  When you think about it, it's not surprising that these “scandals” are subject to the same cosmological cycle as stars: they're both nothing more than giant flaming balls of gas.

The Age of Enlightenment

By Scott V. Sandford
Justice Correspondent

Unemployed reactionary gasbag Andrea Tantaros did something she hasn't been able to do for the longest time: get in the news.  All it took was filing a complaint alleging a toxic environment of sexual harassment at her former employer, Fox News Channel.

Her complaint alleged that the “highly skilled, thoughtful, and polished host and political analyst” (that would be her) was injured by a “sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency, and misogyny” (that would be the crown jewel in the Murdoch empire).

Pretty gross stuff, and no laughing matter, as we all know that sexism and sexual harassment are pervasive problems in our society, affecting even the most highly skilled, thoughtful, and polished political analysts.

Indeed, it's amazing that Ms. Tantaros lasted as long as she did at Fox News given the hideously inappropriate atmosphere of that so-called news channel.  It was the kind of place where on-air talent frequently made sexually disparaging remarks about respected government officials, including the President of the United States and the Secretary of State:

The use of demeaning sexual stereotypes such as the castrating female or the emasculated man of course has no place in political discourse or more to the point in the halls of a news organization.  And yet time and again Fox anchors made outrageous charges against Hillary Clinton; in at least one case, she was compared to murderers:

You might argue that senior government officials can take care of themselves.  But how is a thoughtful, highly-skilled and polished host supposed to survive in an environment that trafficked in crude sexual stereotypes, such as:

 Or:

And just to make plaintiff's case for summary judgment iron-clad, Fox News personnel consistently trivialized charges of sexual harassment and even went as far as blaming the victims of such harassment:

Not only was the victim in the Herman Cain case blamed for her plight, she was even publicly scorned as some sort of gold-digging tramp who deserved what she got:

Even Paul Weiss won't be able to pull Rupert Murdoch's withered gonads out of that fire.  Just write that seven-figure check and live to fight another day.  (By the way, Media Matters has a mere 40 pages of examples of such sexist bilge pumped out by just one Fox News personality.)

We look forward to hearing what the highly-polished and well-skilled Ms. Tantaros will say in the future about the troubling prevalence of sexism in the workplace and indeed in all aspects of our lives.  As our friend Hegel used to say, “The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only after you've been ordered to twirl around and shake your booty at Roger Ailes,” or words to that effect.  Or, as they never say at Fox News, “live and learn.”

Trump TV announces fall schedule

By Al Freedman
Television Correspondent

Trump TV, America's fastest-growing hate TV network, has formally announced its fall lineup in a series of tweets from its founder, CEO, Head Honcho of Programming, and Top PR Executive Donald J. Trump.  Although the new shows are creating a lot of buzz, many are questioning the loss of long-running hits like Force 10 to Benghazi and The Man from Kiev, starring suave international man of mystery Paul Manafort.

Winsome Trump TV spokesmodel and star Katrina Pierson
at the gala roll-out of the new season

Trump has high hopes for all of his new shows which he terms “fabulous” and “incredible” [Fact check: true – Ed.].  But he is said to be particularly proud of his new domestic comedy I Married a Weiner starring Huma Abedin.  “It's got sex, it's got the Muslim Brotherhood, it's got e-mails, it's got it all,” he boasted, while hard at work on one of his world-class golf courses valued at $1 for property tax purposes.

Other Trump TV shows include:

• Law and Order: ADU.  Join Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the rest of his posse at the Alien Deportation Unit as they raid homes, stores, schools, and playgrounds to deport dangerous Mexican rapists, most under 12, along with their parents, grandparents, and baby siblings, in a totally humane way.  Best of all, there are no boring courtroom scenes because they're just loaded onto buses and dumped into the Rio Grande.

• Loose Bannon.  Personality-driven detective story featuring hard-charging creative writer Steve Bannon.  Each week Steve breaks a sensational crime story and discovers he made it all up.  The two-hour premiere features Bannon tracking down an especially dangerous “renegade Jew.”

  

  Trump has high hopes for this exciting deportation procedural.

• Everybody Hates Chris.  This is described as a heart-blocking [Surely, heartwarming? – Ed.] family comedy featuring blundering fat man Chris Christie as he juggles fetching Donald's dry cleaning and Big Macs with the challenge of running one of America's largest states into the ground.  When the Feds find his deleted texts, hilarity is sure to follow!

• The Katrina Show.  Another character-driven comedy starring lovable bumbler Katrina Pierson, who says crazy stuff every night on CNN after wrapping up her day job as a hostess at the Boca West Denny's.  In the pilot episode, Katrina goes on a blind date at the shooting range that goes wrong when she accidentally guns down the guy she was supposed to meet.

“But it's not just scripted shows, which cost too much money anyway,” Trump said.  “We've also got tremendous reality shows.”

America's scariest man will host America's scariest show

The reality slate on Trump TV boasts among others:

• America's Scariest Home Videos starring Rudy Giuliani.  Each week the scariest man on TV introduces a series of videos supposedly shot in the United States of Moroccans swarming across the border.  The comic relief is provided by sidekick paroled felon Bernie Kerik.

• “What Have You Got to Lose?”  This quiz show features three bullet-riddled black contestants competing for the right to leave their drug and violence plagued neighborhoods for a weekend at America's top resort, Mar-a-Lago (air fare not included).  Although Newt Gingrich has signed on as MC, the show's premiere has been delayed until enough desperate Negroes can be found. 

The creative genius behind Trump TV also promised a hard-hitting slate of specials including a medical exposé starring Roger Ailes called Hillary Clinton: Name That Disease.

From the Archives, 1906: Joe Hill sees union utopia

[Editors' Note: The current claim by the Boston Police Patrolman's Association, that bastion of progressive unionism, that the City cannot force the 5-0 to wear body cameras without negotiating the price it will pay for such an imposition caused us to consult our vast archives to see if anyone had ever foreseen that the labor movement would come so far.  And, from August 1906, we reported that someone had]

WORKERS' HERO JOE HILL ADDRESSES EAGER THRONG IN CITY

*************

He is sure that Labor will vanquish its foes

---------------------------

Expects public servants to serve as vanguard of revolutionary movement

By Bart Vanzetti
Workingman's Correspondent

WORCESTER, Mass. – The weather may have been steaming, but the speechifying was even hotter yesterday inside Emma Goldman's ice cream shop on Winter Street, when the President of the International Workers of the World, the legendary Joe Hill, came to town to inspire the masses to organize and beat the bosses.

Joe Hill painted an idyllic future thanks to police unions

In a stirring address interrupted only by a break for Ms. Goldman's famous Strawberry-Red Frappes, Mr. Hill said he was as sure as a man could be that labor would eventually triumph thanks to the latent strength of working men and the essential righteousness of its cause.

“It may not happen in my lifetime, but I am sure that the vanguard of the labor movement will successfully take over the bourgeois state, starting with its most essential functions, namely, police, and fire,” he said.

“I know it seems inconceivable now, my friends, but trust me there will come a day when there is no force more powerful than the policeman's union, and I tell you that will be a great day for social justice and equality.

“Imagine years from now when reactionary political bosses seek to trammel the people's tribunes by compelling them to carry burdensome cameras with them at all times to track their every move.

“Yet thanks to the mighty power of the labor movement, the rank and file will say no, and that no will stick.  They will say you cannot force me to bear witness against myself, and I say to that hosanna.

Ms. Goldman's Red Frappes were well received

“And that is not all my friends.  I see a day when the combined power of our brethren in the police and fire departments will drain every penny from municipal coffers to pay high wages and benefits.  Inconceivable as it may seem now, those benefits will include the right of the rank and file to retire in their forties and receive their full final salaries for decades to come, with almost all of the cost to be paid by cities and towns, by which I mean the owners of property.

“And although the brave companies of police and fire men will take the lion's share of the city's gold, the public school teachers shall also get lifetime protection against firing as well as pensions equal to many times the salary of an ordinary teacher.

“And these public employees, thus entitled to their fair share of the wealth of nations, will open their ranks to the woman, and the colored man, and even the followers of the Prophet Mahomet.”

At this point, a flying squad of Worcester's finest broke up the gathering with their truncheons and marched Mr. Hill off to the local jail.

Reaction to Mr. Hill's visionary address was mixed.  Most of the crowd seemed to cheer the bold prediction of victory for labor, but representatives of the propertied classes were more skeptical.  “I run the finest Slovak brothel in Worcester, and I'll be damned if I pay a dime more in taxes to support these idlers.  By the way, it's only a dollar a throw until six,” said one local business owner, Fred C. Drumpf.

From the Archives: President vacations on the Vineyard, 1874

The Obamas begin their well-deserved Vineyard vacation today.  We dug into our 240- year archives and found our comprehensive coverage of an earlier Presidential holiday on the island, as it appeared on August 27, 1874 – The Editors

PRESIDENT GRANT ENJOYING HIS STAY ON MARTHA'S VINEYARD

--------------

But Civil War Hero found some aspects not to his liking

***********

Difficulties in procuring spirituous refreshment cause concern

By Everett Poole

Special Correspondent

By Cable to The Massachusetts Spy

OAK BLUFFS, Mass. –  The Presidential vacation on the island of Martha's Vineyard has been generally regarded as a great success, both by the inhabitants of this distant isle and by the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic himself, Ulysses S. Grant.

The President enjoying his holiday on Martha's Vineyard

The President arrived on the steamer Nobska, having departed New York by special train provided by his friends at the New Haven Railroad.  The President enjoyed the trip, telling his traveling companions that he could “imagine no finer or easier way to travel.”

Upon arriving at the quay at Oak Bluffs, the President was greeted by a substantial throng of well-wishers and the tootling of the M.V. Camp Ground Association Marching Band.  The President was accompanied by his family and his unofficial guide to the island, Massachusetts Congressman Oakes “Pockets” Ames.

After checking in at the finest accommodations offered by Oak Bluffs – the world-famous Wesley House – the President announced that he had worked up a powerful thirst in the course of his long walk from the steamer dock and said he was ready for his daily whiskey ration.

Informed by a servant that alcoholic beverages were not procurable in the Town of Oak Bluffs, the enraged President stubbed out his cigar on the unfortunate minion's face and sent off an urgent cable to the War Department in Washington.  Fortunately, Congressman Ames had brought a private stock in two steamer trunks which was thought sufficient to tide the President over until reinforcements arrived on the overnight steamer from New Bedford. 

To make up for disappointing the Commander-in-Chief on the beverage front, the management of the Wesley House had laid on a New England clambake, courtesy of the President's friends at Credit Mobilier.  The fine meal was generally well received, although when the Captor of Vicksburg saw a massive 2 pound locally-caught lobster adorning his dinner plate, he fulminated, “I did not travel all the way from New York to consume a g.d. bug!”

The Wampanoag Indians greeted the President at Gay Head

However, the President heartily enjoyed the accompaniments, including the steamed quahogs, which he said would be even more delicious deep-fried in batter.  “Like the rebels at Vicksburg, except they were using rats!” the Union hero japed.

The next day happened to be the Sabbath, so the President joined the reverent throngs at the Tabernacle, the open-air church in the middle of the Oak Bluffs Campground.  He gave a powerful sermon during which he praised the efforts of his Administration to reconstruct the rebellious South. 

“If you could see as I have the remarkable progress being made by the emancipated freemen throughout the South, you would be as sure as I am that we are never going back to the days of bondage.  In fact, the success of our efforts is so durable that I am confident that before the end of this century, you will see a black President standing on this very spot and addressing this very congregation,” he said, to hosannas and shouts of approval.

The President said he would not indulge in surf bathing

While parts of the Presidential holiday were closed to the public, including convivial private smokers with his friends in the rail road business out West, a selection of newspaper correspondents, including yours truly, were invited to accompany the Conqueror of Richmond on a journey “up-island,” the local locution for the small farming and Indian towns at the distant end of the Vineyard.

After passing through a long, and arguably wearisome, series of impoverished-looking farms and sheep folds, the President remarked: “Who on earth would want to live in this desolation?  Perhaps I should have exiled the Jews of Memphis here to get them out of the way!”

Upon reaching the lonely outcropping of the Gay Head Cliffs, the President was greeted by the Chief of the local Wampanoag Indian tribe, who eke out a living fishing in local waters and selling trinkets to tourists.  The President, looking out over the remarkable vista afforded by the Cliffs, noted the majestic and invigorating loneliness of the windswept heights in his own droll fashion, commenting, “you know what these Injuns could use out here?  A casino!”

The President is expected to spend the rest of his stay relaxing in private.  Despite the current popularity of surf bathing, the President said he had no intention of indulging, calling the practice “unsightly and unhealthy.”  Instead he said he would spend the remainder of his time with his stogies and bottles of rye. 

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Former Christie, Palin, Giuliani mouthpiece finds religion

By Maria Boroaroma
New York Bureau Chief

You know the feeling when you started with a dozen buffalo chicken wings and Margaritas and you feel fine?  Then you go on to extra-spicy nachos and beer and feel pretty good?  Then it's fried mozzarella sticks and Jello shots and you feel OK?  But after Taco Bell and Jager bombs, the next thing you know you're on your hands and knees at the curb, returning it all to the storm drain?

Now you know how former Christie functionary Maria Comella feels.  After years of faithful service to Rudy Giuliani (the wings and Margaritas), Sarah Palin (nachos and beer), Chris Christie (the stuffed gordita and Jello shots), she's gagged on the fourth course of the Republican garbage buffet – the tangerine-faced grifter whom Republicans have chosen to represent them in the Presidential election.

According to CNN, Ms. Comella has decided that “Donald Trump has been a demagogue this whole time, preying on people's anxieties with loose information and salacious rhetoric, drumming up fear and hatred of the 'other,' . . .”

Hard to argue with her decision, although we'd have to admit that her tummy seems a little more sensitive today than it did in the service of other notable Republican assholes.

Truth be told, she survived Christie's coverup of his administration's closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge as political payback, at least according to ABC News:

She's known for devising a plan to put the New Jersey governor's most video-worthy moments on YouTube for the entire country to see. She focuses on both the state and national communications with an eye on how a positive local story can get national play, even if it is a small moment.

When you think about all the positive New Jersey stories featuring Donald Trump's butler you read over the past few years, well, you can thank Maria.  Frankly if we were were flacking for that guy, we'd be thinking more like podcasting.

She didn't look too nauseous then.

And she certainly burnished the image of batshit-crazy homewrecker Rudy Giuliani in his hilarious run for the White House in 2008.  According to one highly-reliable blog we never heard of:

Yes, she wrote the popular “Hizzoners Highlights” daily e-mail which always brought a human, comedic touch to the campaign trail.

So it was Maria who made us think human comedy whenever we saw her creepy boss's scowling visage or his mobbed-up coatholder Bernie Kerik.

Giuliani's various fact-free rantings are too numerous to list in extenso here so we'll have to content ourselves with one item we had forgotten about, from the Oct. 31, 2007 New York Times:

“I had prostate cancer five, six years ago,” Mr. Giuliani, a Republican presidential candidate, said in a speech that has been turned into the radio commercial. “My chance of surviving prostate cancer — and, thank God, I was cured of it — in the United States? Eighty-two percent. My chance of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 percent under socialized medicine.” . . .

The Office for National Statistics in Britain says the five-year survival rate from prostate cancer there is 74.4 percent. And doctors also say it is unfair to compare prostate cancer statistics in Britain with those in the United States because in the United States the cancer is more likely to be diagnosed in its early stages. . . .

Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for Mr. Giuliani, said yesterday that the 44 percent figure came from an article in City Journal, a publication of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative research organization.

“The citation is an article in a highly respected intellectual journal written by an expert at a highly respected think tank which the mayor read because he is an intellectually engaged human being,” Ms. Comella said in an e-mail message.  [Fact check: each of her last four words is false – Ed.]

That article, titled “The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care,” was written by Dr. David Gratzer,  . . . But the Commonwealth Fund said yesterday that Dr. Gratzer had misused its research by calculating a five-year survival rate based on data on prostate cancer incidence and mortality rates in the United States and Britain.

“Five-year survival rates cannot be calculated from incidence and mortality rates, as any good epidemiologist knows,” the group said in a statement. . . .

Asked if Mr. Giuliani would continue to repeat the statistic, and if the advertisement would continue to run, Ms. Comella responded by e-mail: “Yes. We will.”

She seemed positively radiant in her incarnation as mouthpiece for Sarah Palin.  Here in a now- forgotten moment of Palin insanity, Ms. Comella attempted to cover up Palin's effort to use her as powers as Governor to punish Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten for divorcing one of her redneck relatives:

Asked about the e-mails, Palin's campaign spokeswoman, Maria Comella, said that Palin was merely alerting officials to potential threats to her family and that there is no evidence that Palin ever ordered Wooten to be fired.

"Let's be clear, Governor Palin has done nothing wrong and is an open book in this process. Mr. Monegan even stated himself that no one ever told him to fire anyone, period," Comella said later in a statement. "The Governor was rightly expressing concern about Mr. Wooten."

The Washington Post, Sept. 4, 2008.

We conclude with Ms. Comella's effort to summarize Governor Palin's position on climate change for The New York Times (Aug. 29, 2008):

A spokeswoman for Ms. Palin, Maria Comella, said, “Governor Palin not only stands with John McCain in his belief that global warming is a critical issue that must be addressed, but she has been a leader in addressing climate change.”

If you can swallow that, you, unlike Maria Comella, can swallow anything.