Chris Matthews, adult adoption provider

Michelle Malkin has warned against the politicization of Kennedy’s death (Stacy McCain wasn’t listening), but, as Ed Morrissey points out at HotAir, that advice does not apply to Kennedy’s allies (even the media, who denies being an ally), and especially not to Chris Matthews who took it upon himself to make Barack Obama a part of the Kennedy family (metphorically) or,  Nancy Pelosi, who managed to hold out for several hours before issuing a middle-of-the night statement to reporters calling for passage of the health care bill in honor of Kennedy.

Expect a lot of what Michelle is calling “wretched excess” in the media coverage of Kennedy’s life. But what the hell, they said the same thing about us when Reagan died. Everyone’s entitled to be memorialized by those that love them best. (And if you say, “Yeah, but Reagan was a great man,” you’re proving my point.)

But memorializing is one thing. Using someone’s death to further a cause, as Matthews and Pelosi both did, is another. I don’t remember anyone saying, “In honor of the dearly departed President Reagan, we really need to dismantle the department of education.”

Kennedy’s dead and that’s that. The “Lion of the Senate” is entitled to be lionized by his . . . lionizers, I guess. And while I feel no need to politicize his death, I will sure politicize the politicization of it by The Left.

UPDATE: Professor Jacobsen is sympatico and reminds us that Rush was Right.

I will never vote for Mitt Romney again (and I did vote for him in the primaries); nor will I vote for Huckabee. I will vote for Palin or Jim DeMint if he happens to run. All the rest of the Republican establishment can go straight to hell.

Well, it’s hard not to feel likewise about the Republican establishment. But it’s hard for me to get worked up over a Sarah Palin candidacy. I like her, but I fear she has been too damaged by the media and her own performance during the campaign to recover, even with the election more than three years off.

Never understood the appeal of Colin Powell. Never will.

UPDATE (7/4/09): Clifton B. of Another Black Conservative summarizes the intellectual bankruptcy of the “conservatives” who supported Obama:

Memo to Colin: That’s what you get when you put the color of someone’s skin over the content of his character.

If all Barack Obama had to do for the next four years was to be black, I would have voted for him too. Regardless of what color the president is, it is the polices he is pushing that matters most. Sadly, Powell is waking up to this simple fact way too late.

H/T: Smitty.

Alaska should be safe, now, with Sarah Palin resigning.

But what the heck are we supposed to make of this? This may be a “new beginning” for her, but only in a personal sense. It’s hard to see her as a serious presidential contender in 2012. She’ll now be painted as a quitter in addition to  whatever other charges are leveled against her. And to the extent she was hounded from office by frivolous ethics complaints and the expense of fighting them, claiming to be worried about taxpayer money being wasted on those investigations is overshadowed by caving in to those tactics and can only encourage their more widespread use.

I’m afraid Ace and Allahpundit are right — her presidential chances are dead — and Smitty is dreaming. It’s a nice dream, but a dream nonetheless. Sarah’s finished. Though I’d love to be proven wrong.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey captures my thoughts:

I liked Sarah Palin and supported her inclusion on the GOP ticket last fall.  I thought she had more toughness than this.  It’s a big disappointment, and it’s the end of any hope of Palin getting taken seriously as a politician on the national level in the future.

UPDATE #2: With a link to Sister Toldjah, The Anchoress reminds us to maintain some perspective:

Sister Toldjah: has links to important stories you’re missing, while you’re either crying about Palin or laughing about her. Good point. Since we know nothing, it might be good to think about why Obama is against new sanctions against Iran, but strongly supporting them for Honduras.

UPDATE #3: American Power chronicles lefty reactions.

UPDATE #4: Hell, maybe OCBill, commenting at The Anchoress, has it right:

Career is not over unless she wants it to be. The “career over” people already didn’t like her. People who like her, mostly because of her ideas, will back her when ever she wants to come back into public life. Unless it turns out that she has a soulmate in Argentina.

Rumor has it there’s a John Edwards – Rielle Hunter sex tape floating around out there. But I’m pretty sure there’s no truth to the rumor that Mark Sanford has mobilized the South Carolina National Guard and the state police in a dragnet to find the tape.

If it shows up, it will sure be interesting to see how the press handles the situation.

With several blogs devoted to Palin, she really doesn’t need me to stick up for her. But two recent articles at The American Thinker caught my eye for their analyses of two classes of Palin detractors.

First up is writer/singer Lloyd Marcus, who starts by comparing Sarah Palin to Gary Cooper in High Noon, and then writes:

Why are Obama and his gang so committed and desperate to destroy Palin? Could it be they recognize her destiny, like that of Moses, to set her people free? And why is she so despised by them? Obama’s gang hate Palin for all the reasons we love her. Sheriff Palin is a good, decent and strong character driven conservative leader. Palin also believes in God. Such humility and virtues are as repulsive to liberals as showing Dracula the cross.

Something that sticks in the craw of many liberal women is that in their youth, they brought into the feminist rhetoric that women’s liberation means no husband and family. Tragically, they find themselves aging and alone. Meanwhile, this conservative woman has it all: great career, fine family and a husband who loves and respects her. Adding insult in injury, Sheriff Palin looks mighty fine in her jeans.

She is seen as a threat and she’s not allowed to be happy because she’s not a feminist. OK, that’s about right. Stuart Schwartz explores that feminist angle in depth, specifically in contrast to the cultural movement surrounding Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues:

The Washington Post, which has devoted much of the past decade celebrating the Ensler culture, nastily declared that her “greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.”  Those were among the kinder words written by one of its showcased writers on faith, a University of Chicago divinity school professor who also derisively noted that someone who “has a womb and makes lots and lots of babies (and drives them to school! wow!)” does not a woman make.

So what does make a woman…politically, that is? Hate and cultural conformity, to judge by the venom spilling from the nation’s elite.  Ensler promotes this, exhorting women to “vote with your vaginas” and put Democrats in office. She has urged them “to get our vaginas to the polls”, in this last election warning that a vote for Palin is the equivalent of a vote for rape…the bad kind. Women — and those non-traditional men who have escaped gender stereotypes to embrace a walk down the “vagina trail” — should ask themselves: what would your vagina do?

Conservatives knew all this already, but I’m hoping that this kind of thing is being noticed beyond the grassroots.

Just in case anyone’s thinking about it.

But a woman scorned is one thing. A woman scorned and handy with a firearm is another.

Can I make one simple request? If you’re going to cat around, stay a low-level party hack! Ensign and Sanford were chair of the Republican Policy Committee and chair of the Republican Governors Association, respectively. Cripes!

In that context, I might have been willing to cut John Kerry a break for his class-less joke about how he wished Sarah Palin had been the one to go missing — had Kerry made that “joke” after Sanford’s announcement. Then, it would have made sense because Palin would have been one more high-profile Republican and genuine contender for 2012 getting knocked out of the saddle. Coming as it did before Sanford’s announcement, however, Kerry’s comment is just bizarre.

By the way, one thing Sanford apparently doesn’t deserve to be raked over the coals for is leaving his family over Father’s day weekend. Apparently, his wife asked him to move out a couple of weeks ago and their existing arrangement was that Sanford “would not contact” his family. She and Ensign’s wife have both been class acts. I hope they can heal their marriages out of the spotlights.

UPDATE: Media Matters notes that Fox News displayed a “D” after Sanford’s name in its report on the confession, misidentifying Sanford as a Democrat. I’m sure MM thinks it was something nefarious, but I’m thinking the graphics guy was just thinking Dumbass when he put that “D” up on the screen.

His wife is not worried because, get this, “the governor said he needed time away from their children to write something.” Shaaaaaaaaaady.

I don’t know. I’d consider it shady if Elliott Spitzer were missing at the same time and there was a chance the two of them were out together. But as a professional tethered to work by technology nearly 24/7, I sure can understand the need to get away from it all, even if that means ditching your security detail (not that I have one). Perhaps getting out unexpectedly was the only way Sanford could do it.