I overlooked the link. Sorry.

He's still an ass. So are the others you mentioned.

Perhaps my perception was wrong or my memory is wrong (or both -- it's quite possible), but it seemed to me that Sarah Palin didn't just not keep them out of the spotlight, but that she often seemed to push them into it. By contrast, I don't think the Oabama kids were seen on the campaign trail that often in 2008. From what I'm reading, that may be changing some this year.

That was my perception as well. She continued to do the same after the election by signing up for a reality TV series, etc.

They are all comedians. Comedians make asshat comments all the time. Are we shocked? No. Actually, I was a little shocked by Wayne Brady bc it's not his usual topic. Again, other than Bill Maher, comics aren't defining political commentary. They are making a buck making people laugh. Wayne Brady obviously didn't get away with it. Trying to pretend there is some liberal conspiracy to trash Trig Palin is ridiculous.

Actually many comics regularly discuss politics in their routines and on interviews. Dennis Miller, Stephan Colbert, Jon Stewart, George Carlin, Lewis Black and Janeane Garofalo instantly come to mind and believe it or not, a lot of them are quite influential within certain demographics.

And I'm not pretending there is a liberal conspiracy to trash Trig Palin. I just mentioned instances where liberal leaning people have actually trashed him. No conspiracy theories needed there.

The ones you mentioned before don't. Notice I gave you Bill Maher because I recognized that some do, but rarely do these people actually effect policy. They also, with the exception of Miller, Colbert and Stewart, don't have daily platforms to spout their ideas.

BTW, I love Bill Maher. I don't agree with him on everything, but it never fails that I'll be bitching about something, and I flip on his show and it's on his monologue. He's very inciteful and not afraid to say something even when it's not popular. He's been "anti-war on drugs" since the 80s, before it was cool. He's a misogynist, but I'm not going to marry him. ;)

Extremists of any kind are scary. I agree that there are differences between the Tea Party and the Occupy movement. The Tea Party has candidates as part of the Republican party. Occupy does not support either major party. In fact, they pretty much feel like the whole government, as is, is corrupted by corporate interests. You may see some people who support Occupy on the Green party ticket. A lot of them really like Ron Paul, who is so much more Libertarian than Republican.

I do love The Newsroom. I'm watching the finale right now because I couldn't see it Sunday. LOVE this show :)

For some reason, it's not an apples to apples comparison. As someone said upthread, left wing extremists haven't dominated the Democratic Party as Tea Partyiers have come to take over the "directional arc" of the Republican Party.

It's axiomatic in politics that the hard-core; those that make the calls, knock on doors, give early, stuff envelope, have first and early say on the slate of candidates. It's always been that way.

Honestly, I think Mitt Romney, and probably to a lesser extent McCain in the previous cycle, are held a bit "hostage" to the Tea Party/Republican base. Looking at his Massachuttes (sp, I know) record, I have no doubt he's a moderate. But he's beholden to this current party's dominant group think(his Ryan selection was another sop to them).

Were he a "freer" candidate, allowed to run closer to his own (historic?) views, I think he'd be a more formidable candidate among the sliver of independents who may tip this election. (of course, he wouldn't have the Rep base, so there is that.)

I agree.

Exactly. Look at Barry Goldwater. He would have done a LOT better if he wouldn't have come off as so...umm...nuts? I'm fairly sure he had people all around him telling him that too, but he believed what he believed.

Politicians do this every day.

Voters, through the prism of our own political values and ideals, determine if (or to what degree) the candidate's degree of sacrifice is noble, cowardly or something in between.

Ann Romney has recently been making comments about putting the adults back in charge, so forget what I said about putting spouses off-limits. The gloves are off now.

Have you been to a Tea Party event? I have been to many and I am calling bs on you as this is a truly a huge pile of crap. So you rely on demonizing those you disagree with and evidently know nothing about. Hmm... sounds like you may be the one a little closer to the Taliban.

So the OWS, the people that riot and destroy and the anarchists are more your people?

Wow. Some intolerance for dissent there? I think the Tea Party has been taken over by corporate interests which consistently get members to vote against their own self-interests, and suddenly, I am a member of Occupy Wall Street and support riots and destruction and anarchy?

58% of Tea Party members don't believe in global climate change and 51% don't buy into the theory of evolution. So yeah, maybe you have a reasonable minority within your group, but the majority are religious fundamentalist anti-intellectuals who have been trained to think as their told and vote against their own self interests.

This is where the extremism comes in. People act like if you're not A then you must be Z when there is a whole alphabet in between. Most people are somewhere between H and O.