Hmm: “RALEIGH, N.C. — The U.S. Army plans to prevent media from covering Sarah Palin’s appearance at Fort Bragg, fearing the event will turn into political grandstanding against President Barack Obama, officials said Thursday.” This will have two effects: it (a) won’t prevent the media from covering Sarah Palin’s appearance at Fort Bragg and (b) won’t prevent the event from turning into political grandstanding against President Barack Obama. But there aren’t really any good options here for Army officials, because you know that Sarah Palin! She always goes rogue, always. She’s a “fresh breath of air,” as they say. [AP]

Yeah so former Nixon speechwriter and the *original* New York Times “lightning rod conservative” columnist William “Bill” Safire died yesterday. Whaddaya want us to do about it, jesus… Anyway, Gawker found the most interesting/brief way to Honor this, the most recent political death: with this TERRIFYING bit of alternate history Safire drafted for Nixon in the event that Armstrong and Aldrin got STUCK on the moon and had to just sit there and DIE. [Gawker]

If there’s a single winner tonight, it’s the photo to your left. The fact that one can type “old-timey doctor” into something called “Google Images” and produce THIS… what a great country. No. What a great Internet. None of this is true. But we digress! Health care speech: Obama started a full 900 million seconds late, so let’s listen to the second and third paragraphs of his speech hmm? (Part I, Part II) MORE »

At this actual moment a bunch of congressmen and senators are getting high in their offices before sitting down to listen to this nut, Obama, try to explain yet again why he wants to kill, literally murder with jackknives and poisons and AIDS, the Greatest Generation & babies. Is that any kind of “good” public policy? Doesn’t he know that they do this in Europe, which is stagnant? He loves Europe. Anyway let’s see what the dingbats are saying on cable news, in this very important pre-speech liveblog. MORE »

What can Obama do about this health care bill now! Such gridlock, heading into this high-stakes autumnal session of Congress: the liberals want one kind of bill, the moderates want another kind that pretends to cut spending but really just spends a lot more, and the conservatives want no bill, unless it’s a 100% cap gains tax cut and nothing else. How will Obama heal all of these paid-off factions? With a speech before a joint session of Congress! Oh, he’s going there. This is big. One week from today. U.S. Capitol. Midnight. (No it will be like 8/7 ET or whatever.) [CNN]

We have been trying to find a full clip of Ted Kennedy’s “concession” speech to Jimmy Carter at the 1980 Democratic convention, which is about as fine a political speech as you’re likely to hear, ever, and most famous for its “The Dream Will Never Die” ending, which is… just… MMMM. It was so incredible that it may have fractured the party for good that year and helped Ronald Reagan win, but hey, whatcha gonna do. Anyway, the Boston Globe has been waiting for Teddy to die for some time and today has posted a well produced, multi-part biography on the YouTubes. Here is the segment on his 1980 speech, the text of which can be found here. Finally: audio of the last seven or so minutes. [YouTube]

Oh yeah you might want to see this, right? It’s Sarah Palin’s “goodbye and fuck you all, except the military families, you keep us safe” speech. Check it out!

Jon Favreau can make anybody feel like a failure, because he is super young and successful and takes excellent transcription notes from President Obama’s Teleprompter. If you’re an aspiring young speechwriter, you look at him and go “Shit by the time he was my age he was already FAMOUS” and if you are an old libtard you just think, “Enh, too late for me to do anything with my life.” MORE »

One fellow on the Internet is very upset that greatest hero ever George W. Bush charged hundreds of dollars for tickets to his “rodeo speech” in some wingnut Oklahoma town on July 4, but whatever, money is cool. Your Wonkette, however, is very disappointed in Junior for something else, his biggest mistake since Iraq and Harriet Miers combined: he won’t stop telling this same exact joke about picking up Barney’s dog shit and how it is beneath him. MORE »

One year ago yesterday minus a day, John McCain delivered the speech of the century to a small smattering of embittered retirees haunting an abandoned Bingo hall in Louisiana. Meanwhile, a young upstart Muslin named Hussein “Barack” Obama cast a sorcerer’s spell over a large crowd of innocents in St. Paul and told them that yes, he would be their nominee for Preznet if they insisted. Do you remember, America? Do you remember the terrible death-rictus stretched across John McCain’s crumbling skull as he uttered the immortal words, “That’s nnnnot ch-ch-cha-chaaange you can bb-huh-lieve in”? Let’s celebrate this milestone anniversary and laugh again. MORE »

Wonkette’s favorite girlfriend Jeanne Moos quoted our own Ken Layne referring to Obama’s “Ich bin ein Muslin” speech in Cairo yesterday. Other people, it appears, had the same clever catchphrase rattling around their skulls but whatever, Wonkette wins the Jeanne Moos News Hour. [CNN]