What do Sarah Palin and karma have in common?

Karen Handel got what she paid for:

In some, but not all, cases, Palin charges campaigns for travel expenses. Georgia Republican gubernatorial hopeful Karen Handel, for example, shelled out nearly $100,000 from her campaign account to get Palin for a pre-runoff rally earlier this year.

“I don’t know of anyone else who does that,” said a longtime GOP consultant who’s working on a host of statewide races this election cycle.

Yet Republicans seem afraid to cross Coach Palin. Meanwhile, the base continues to embrace this money-grubbing fraud.

Ofc. Manners

Is it rude to chastise someone’s rudeness by flashing a rude gesture? Probably, but what business is it of the APD?

Just now I attempted to cross one lane of traffic — moving, or not moving, in the same direction — into a left turning lane. Even though they were stuck at a red light, a SUV driver in the neighboring lane was aggressively unaccommodating — apparently changing lanes at a red light was too much to ask. I responded with a raised middle finger.

After turning left into a gas station, I was startled by a knock on my window. It was an off-duty police officer who was directing traffic and spotted the dust-up.

“Why are you flipping off drivers?” he asked. I explained myself. “So because someone was rude you respond by being rude to them?” Perhaps, but is responding to a provocation as bad as the provocation?

What I should have said is “what business is it of yours?” but that would’ve probably led to my arrest (though it’s a legitimate question of someone charged not to enforce etiquette, but to protect and serve). Then he asked, “did you take your driver’s test in Georgia?” Yes, I replied. “Figures.” Then he walked away, apparently satisfied with the public humiliation.

Now who’s the rude one here?

Double standard in the Juan Williams firing?

Former NPR correspondent Juan Williams shouldn’t have been fired for saying he feels bad about fretting when he notices fellow passengers wearing “Muslim garb” on an airplane. But the outrage over his firings is somewhat hypocritical.

NPR was slammed by conservative leaders such as Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, who tweeted, “NPR defends 1st Amendment Right, but will fire u if u exercise it. Juan Williams: u got taste of Left’s hypocrisy, they screwed up firing you.”

Once again, Palin has no fucking clue what the First Amendment says.

Dana Davis Rehm, NPR’s senior vice president for communications, said in an interview that Williams’ comments violated internal ethics policies that prohibit NPR journalists from going on other media and expressing “views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist.” The guidelines also prohibit NPR journalists from participating in programs “that encourage punditry and speculation rather than fact-based analysis.”

If that’s true, I don’t see an issue. And I don’t remember Newt and Coach Palin responding with equal vigor after two other recent firings of media figures.

We don’t know if Juan Williams’ comments on the O’Reilly Factor about being scared when he sees Muslims on airplanes — stupid as they were — objectively merit firing from NPR. But if Rick Sanchez gets fired for vaguely surmising that Jews run the media, and Octavia Nasr gets fired for tweeting something nice about a Hezbollah leader who died, then Juan Williams, by those terribly oversensitive media standards, should be canned.

Then again, are other NPR “analysts” held to the same standard? And NPR CEO Vivian Schiller merits condemnation for saying Williams should’ve “kept his feeling about Muslims between himself and his psychiatrist or his publicist.”

• Juan Williams: Fired for Just Saying What Most of Us Are Thinking? (abcnews.go.com)
• Sarah Palin: “Juan Williams: Going Rogue.” (althouse.blogspot.com)

Expect to see Atlantans at their most sycophantic tonight

LeBron James, who does it all for the children, and the Miami Heat are in town for a meaningless exhbition game. Atlantans tend to be starstruck front-runners, and it’s especially ugly when those two qualities collide.

The beneficiary? A ring-less star with an unmatched ego and a tendency to play the victim. At least Kobe won some championships.