Eric Holder, Unworthy General

Jim Treacher


1.) Eric Holder, Unworthy General — It’s been a rough week for Eric Holder. Which, as he’ll be the first to tell you, is everybody’s fault but his own. Now one of his favorite people, TheDC’s Matthew Boyle, reports:
“Americans for Limited Government president Bill Wilson told The Daily Caller that Attorney General Eric Holder’s loss of control on Tuesday is a sign that he’s ‘got something to hide and he’s scared.’ Holder lost control of his demeanor on Tuesday at the White House when TheDC asked him to respond to the surge in calls for his resignation over Operation Fast and Furious. ‘You guys need to — you need to stop this,’ Holder said. ‘It’s not an organic thing that’s just happening. You guys are behind it…’ Wilson said Holder’s loss of self-control might indicate that’s he’s dangerously unstable, something that’s not a positive quality for the nation’s highest-ranking law enforcement official to exhibit publicly. ‘Reading the political tea leaves, if someone in his position cannot take a legitimate question from a legitimate media outlet and deal with it honestly and effectively or use one of the hundred ways that politicians use to dodge questions, it tells me he’s not in control of his emotions on this one,’ Wilson said. ‘That’s not good for the country. When this guy loses control, people end up dying. That’s not a good thing.’”
No, it certainly isn’t. Back in the old days, holding public officials accountable was a good thing. Of course, that was a long, long time ago, before January 20, 2009.
2.) Gingrich handles newfound popularity pretty much as expected — For some reason, Newt Gingrich has a reputation for being arrogant and saying lots of stuff he probably shouldn’t. The reason is that people are paying attention. TheDC’s Will Rahn reports:
“Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is now confidently predicting that he will win the Republican nomination for president in 2012. ‘I’m going to be the nominee,’ Gingrich told ABC News on Thursday while campaigning in Iowa. ‘It’s very hard not to look at the recent polls and think that the odds are very high I’m going to be the nominee.’”
You know how theater people tell each other “break a leg” before a performance, because it’s bad luck to say “good luck”? Because voicing a hope for success is just asking for the opposite? Well, they’re not Newt Gingrich.
3.) Meghan McCain is more righter — The following is true. It actually happened. TheDC’s Vince Coglianese reports:

“MSNBC contributor Meghan McCain was asked Thursday to compare Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin during an appearance on the network. ‘What does she have that Sarah Palin doesn’t, didn’t?’ asked Richard Wolffe, a fellow contributor. ‘I think she’s… this is going to get me in trouble, but I actually think she’s just more smarter,’ explained McCain.”
Ms. McCain’s fellow contributors were obviously too distracted by the underlying truth of her statement to correct her, but she made a slight error there. Not to cast aspersions on McCain’s own intelligence, but she meant to say “more smarterer.” Your well comb, Megs!
4.) Politicollapse — What good is a Playbook if nobody reads it? TheDC’s Josh Peterson reports:
“Internet traffic and Web search measurement tools from several sources indicate that despite massive promotion efforts on MSNBC and in other venues, Politico.com is rapidly losing readers, especially outside of Washington, D.C. Measurements of U.S. Web traffic provided to The Daily Caller by Compete, Inc. indicate that the number of total monthly visits to Politico.com dropped by 31.8 percent during the 18-month period that ended on October 31. During that same period, and perhaps not coincidentally, Politico has come under sustained criticism from many observers, including Fox News Channel anchors and several prominent radio hosts, for exhibiting liberal bias in its news stories… Google measures online interest on a relative scale from zero to 100, with the top end representing the highest level of interest. On this scale, as of Dec. 1, Politico receives its strongest rating — a score of 100 — from Web surfers in the District of Columbia. Virginia and Maryland, the states nearest to D.C., provide Politico’s second- and third-most ‘interested’ audiences, with scores of 35 and 33, respectively. (Politico is based in Virginia.) From there, however, the numbers drop off precipitously…”
(Note to Meghan McCain: “Precipitously” means “like, totally super-steep and stuff.”) If you didn’t know better, you’d think nobody outside DC cares much about Politico, and interest is fading even inside the Beltway. Fortunately, you know better!
5.) Lyin’ A** Questlove — Last week, Jimmy Fallon’s house band welcomed Michele Bachmann to the show by playing a song called “Lyin’ Ass Bitch.” Their drummer, Questlove, even bragged about it on Twitter. It didn’t really work out the way he would’ve liked. And now, right on schedule, he’s playing the victim. TheDC’s Steven Nelson reports:
“Questlove of The Roots, the house band of ‘Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,’ was attacked by ’3,500 tea party extremists’ on Twitter after he publicly insulted Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann by playing the song ‘Lyin’ Ass Bitch’ when she took the show’s stage last week. The most memorable insult he received was ‘n***** f***head ghetto stick,’ he told Pitchfork. ‘I really didn’t think about how it could be perceived as a misogynist swipe,’ Questlove said of the song choice, claiming that he overlooked the sexist connotations of the word ‘bitch.’ ‘It deeply offended a lot of women’s groups and non-Bachmann supporters, and for that I’m deeply sorry,’ he said. ‘I was really just going with her whole revisionist history angle, I wasn’t calling it out on her being a woman.’”
To recap: Questlove knows that people who say bad things to him on Twitter are Tea Partiers because they just are, he only recently learned that calling a woman “bitch” might be considered misogynist, and he doesn’t feel the need to apologize to Michele Bachmann for what he did because he disagrees with her politically. It’s not like Jimmy Fallon needs to give people yet another reason not to watch his show, but that’s his problem. Hey, what’s Max Weinberg up to these days?
6.) Today’s words of wisdom from the Twitter feed of Alec Baldwin, who probably doesn’t think of himself as a racist — “Cain should have said, ‘I’m a horn dog. The Pizza Game is high pressure.’ And then moved on. It’s the coverup that gets you.”