THE EARMARK

A new Gallup poll released last week offers both good news and bad news for President Obama.

The bad news?  Obama is statistically tied with a generic Republican in the 2012 presidential election.

The good news?  Many Republicans surveyed believe that “generic” candidate should be either John McCain or Scott Brown.

To rephase: That’s one candidate who’s fresh off a 2008 loss, would be 85 by the end of his second term, and might lose his Senate primary to Atilla the Hun.  And a second candidate who has spent more time buck naked in the pages of Cosmo than he’s spent on Capitol Hill.

Among GOP frontrunners, McCain and Brown trail only Mitt Romney, whose entire governing experience consists of a single term as governor, and Sarah Palin, who didn’t even make it that far.

And that’s your top four: Romney, Palin, McCain, Brown.  This leaves us with just one question:

WHAT, no Ronald Reagan?  Or at least Curt Schilling, Barry Goldwater or Joe the Plumber– all right-wing heroes.  And what about Rudy?  It’s only been nine years since 9/11.  Hell, even Joe Lieberman should be on this list.

As for professional GOP campaigners like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Louisiana Robot-in-Chief Bobby Jindal, the message is clear: They’d best either lose an election or irrationally quit their jobs pronto if they plan to be flipping pancakes in New Hampshire come January 2012.

For those of you out there who are not glued to Sarah Palin’s Facebook page (and we can’t imagine what else you’re doing with your time), you may have missed her discovery that Barack Obama intends to kill her infant child via the “Death Panel” established by his health care legislation.

Here at The Earmark, we oppose the establishment of an all-powerful federal cabal that has complete authority to vote on life or death decisions for ordinary Americans.  We prefer that the free market have that role.

But considering that we hear the Death Panel’s members are already assembling (Paula Abdul has already cleared her schedule), we’d like to forewarn you about its soon-to-be victims.

Death Panel Victim	Why The Panel Will Vote for Death	Why The Panel Will Vote for Life
Trig Palin	US Weekly has already offered his mother $300,000 for the first photos of his euthanized corpse.	John McCain’s advisers are privately pushing him as an Attorney General candidate.
Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY)	Severe dementia, Alzheimer’s, and Tourette’s Syndrome have destroyed Bunning’s quality of life and contributions to society.	You never know, the man may have one more perfect game left in him.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney	Romney is Obama’s most formidable GOP rival for 2012. If the Death Panel knocks him off, that title will fall to the nation’s second-most viable Republican: Tom Tancredo.	Since Romney is a synthetic non-human super-predator, any attempts to kill him will hopelessly backfire.
Plumbers making over $250,000 a year	Under Obama’s socialist wealth-redistribution plan, these plumbers must be taxed at the levels they were under Reagan until they perish.	Many of them are needed for their cutting-edge journalism and authorship of bestselling books.

“Courtesy of http://www.northerngaspipelines.com“

It’s moving day in Juneau.  And we all know what that means… A big time shake-up at The National Enquirer.

Out: Sarah Palin… the moose-eating, wolf-shooting, college-transferring, $150,000-wardrobe-wearing, gaffe-emitting, Russian intelligence-intercepting, baby-scandal-having governor who fancies herself a “maverick barracuda.”

In: Sean Parnell… the same.

At least that’s what we assume.  All we know is that the Enquirer’s photographers will spare no expense to provide the commodity their readers demand above all else — photos of the current Alaska governor!

Now the Parnell haters in the blogosphere argue that he never gave birth at 44 and his Miss South Carolina impression is still pretty raw.  But celeb-obsessed Americans will gladly accept lesser feats, such as losing an election to a criminal and chairing “numerous budget subcommittees” — just as long as it’s the governor of Alaska we’re talking about.

Not to mention the tabloids won’t be the only entity to pile on Parnell from this day forward.  The following are also known to prey on Alaska governors, in case Parnell wasn’t already prepared…

So, this past weekend was the big annual National Governors Association conference.  The good people of Biloxi, Mississippi, went all out to put on a great time for the governors, because they deserve it, and to be honest there’s not a whole lot else going on in Biloxi these days.  But attendance was kind of sparse.

Turns out a lot of the governors had a … thing.  That couldn’t be avoided.  Sorry, Biloxi.

Fewer than half of the nation’s 50 governors attended the gathering this year, including the group’s chairman, Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Penn.

Before introducing a videotaped message from Rendell, the incoming NGA chairman, Gov. Jim Douglas, R-Vt., opened the first session on Saturday by stating Rendell needed to stay put in Harrisburg to deal with his state’s “economic and fiscal crisis.”

Now it’s understandable that some governors couldn’t make it because they had incredibly important tasks to do, like checking their email or squabbling with local teenagers.  Some may have had urgent business to take care of with waitresses in parking garages.  And others may have tried to come, but forgot their IDs.

Still, they missed out.  Sure turnout was low, but the governors who did show up had a blast.  John Baldacci of Maine brought some great onion dip and Brad Henry of Oklahoma told his famous off-color joke about “flied lice.”

Oh, and nobody made fools of themselves by exchanging Senate seats for rough sex like two bad apples did last year.

Fearless paparazzi have risked life and limb to capture the images that have shaped the world and defined generations: Gary Hart’s cavortings on a yacht, Princess Diana’s embrace of her sons, Lindsay Lohan’s unappetizing lady bits.  And now, they have captured the ultimate prize …

Dan Quayle playing golf.

The elusive former Vice President surfaced briefly this weekend in order to play in a “celebrity” golf tournament, along with the likes of Joe Buck and the guy who played Carlton on Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Tragically, Quayle lost the tournament to former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Rick Rhoden, but he presumably managed to accomplish some of his other goals, like scoring some free pigs-in-a-blanket and talking up his book enough to get it out of 2,025,715th place on Amazon.com.

Oh, and also he gave an interview to the Associated Press in which he announced the following:

1. The Obama presidency is the product of Democratic strategists who “just tried to throw everything out there and see what stuck.”
2. Hillary Clinton is lazy.
3. Obama’s primary task is to silence the liberal wing of his party.

Thanks, Mr. Vice President!  Next time we need some more commentary on national politics, we’ll head straight to you.  After all, your words of wisdom did wonders for Sarah Palin.

Actually, on second though maybe we’ll check with Carlton first.

Politicians weather a lot of unflattering comparisons in the line of duty.  Any time you’re told you resemble Frankenstein (John Kerry), the Incredible Hulk (Bill Richardson) or a pig (Sarah Palin), it has to dent even the most bloated of egos.

Well apparently these comparisons continue even after a politician has left office.  We refer, of course, to the recent juxtaposition between former Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) and a gay celebrity penguin at the San Francisco city zoo.  For those who haven’t already been swept up in penguin fever, it appears that a previously gay magellanic penguin named Harry left his male lover for a female.  Complicating matters was the fact that Harry’s old flame, Pepper, felt spurned.

What happened next is so obvious we feel foolish even reporting it.  Clearly it was time for conservative columnist Matt Barber to compare Pepper, the slighted gay penguin, to Sen. Craig…

Still, it appears that Pepper has yet to hit rock bottom. In recent days he has reportedly been spotted waddling around the zoo’s public men’s room, skulking in stalls and inexplicably tapping his flipper. There’s even speculation that, as things continue to spiral, he may consider a run for political office.

Pretty harsh and yet, we’d contest Barber’s definition of “rock bottom.”  While trolling the men’s room for anonymous blow jobs is pretty darn low, even lower is being compared to a penguin — who, though down on his luck — has not resorted to this behavior.

And even sadder… the comparison was meant to be insulting to the penguin.

Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin… you’ve been put on notice.  If any of you have designs on derailing Sarah Palin’s march from Matanuska-Susitna College to world domination, think again.  You certainly wouldn’t want Sarah Barracuda to eviscerate you to the level she has a certain inarticulate high school dropout teenager from rural Alaska, now would you?

Just when you thought the plot couldn’t possibly thicken more in the Days of Our Lives in Alaska, it has. Outgoing Gov. Sarah Palin is now fighting back against claims made by her daughter’s ex-boyfriend that she bailed out on Alaska in order to cash in on her fame.

Asked if Levi Johnston’s accusation bore any truth, Palin spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said in an e-mail to The Sleuth, “Absolutely not. She is taking a leap of faith that all will be well personally. This is about what is best for Alaska and not what is best for her personally…

“It is interesting to learn Levi is working on a piece of fiction while honing his acting skills,” Stapleton added in her e-mail.

The crippling assault by Palin’s goon squad proves how intent the governor is on dismantling anyone who threatens her designs on the White House in 2012.

If a GOP foe like Romney accuses her of cashing in on her fame, she’ll get her dad to tell him off.

If President Obama insinuates that she knowingly permitted Bristol to have premarital sex in her own home, she’ll launch a Scientology-inspired PR campaign to discredit him.

And if Vladimir Putin goes on the Tyra Banks Show to say Palin’s fame “definitely got to her head” and that she “quit on Alaska,” she’ll just have to… well… quit her job three-quarters of the way into her term and devote her life to a full-time assault on her critics.  Boo-ya!

So whether you’re a presidential candidate, the leader of the free world, or a neo-Soviet autocrat, get out of Sarah Palin’s way.  Because while she might not have national experience, party respect, or even a job, she sure has taken apart that barely-literate teenage dropout.  Barracuda!

Listen up, Washington!  Your former denizen, George Allen (R-VA), is about to lecture you, and he’s going to begin just as soon as he can get the American public to pay attention.

In a blog post entitled “George Allen’s Road Back?“, Politico’s Ben Smith writes…

A book is often a start on that road, and Regnery announced today that they’re publishing one by the former Virginia senator:

The book, due out next year, will be called, “The Triumph of Character: What Washington Can Learn from the World of Sports.”

Although the book’s publicists are revealing few details (apart from the exciting news that Allen was an excellent rugby player in college), we imagine that Allen plans to admonish his colleagues to:

- Display a noose in a tree at one’s law office in a former Confederate stronghold.

- Call a dark-skinned constituent “macaca” to incite taunts from a redneck audience.

- Allegedly use racial epithets against African-Americans.

- Deny being Jewish.

The only caveat is that, according to Allen’s book title, Washington politicians need to learn these lessons via the world of sports.  Well conveniently enough for our purposes, Allen personally has a NFL Hall of Fame father of the same name!  So all the tips listed above still apply!

Now as for Ben Smith’s prognosis of an Allen comeback, we urge GOP leadership to proceed slowly with this.  Sure, a book on “character” is going to vault Allen into the 2012 presidential dialogue, but will it really be enough to hold off the surge generated by Mark Sanford’s guide to a healthy marriage, Bobby Jindal’s public speaking manual, or Sarah Palin’s tome on perseverance in the workplace?

Because at the current rate, those books are definitely on their way!