Donovan: North Korea is a Monarchy

At long last, the Democrats may have found their Sarah Palin, a Republican Vice Presidential candidate much criticized for having said, probably not in jest, that one could see Russia from Alaska.

In an extensive interview with Hartford online radio network’s “On The Horn”, 5th District U.S. House candidate Chris Donovan several times referred to North Korean dictators as monarchs (not butterflies), a flub that would portend alarming ignorance in lesser Republican candidates. Mr. Donovan called both the elder Kim Jong IL and his peachy-cheeked son “kings.”

Here is a transcription of Mr. Donovan's remarks on Korea:

"Horn: We have things going on in North Korea I want you to comment on… What do we do with places like North Korea, where we have the boy king?

"Donovan: Well, it’s still pretty much of a mystery right now. We’re seeing more of North Korea than we’ve seen in decades. I mean, the stories that were told to the populace about the former king and his exploits on the golf course (pause), amazing the information going on. Again, like what’s going on in the Arab world, it’s a challenge for us. And it’s an opportunity for us as well. We’ve had tough years with North Korea in the last few years, due to the personality of the then king. I think we should reach out as aggressively to the new king. There’s a better way. We can help your populous of your country where people apparently are starving. And the Unites States can play a role. I know that in South Korea, there’s a real bitterness towards the former king. I think the United States can move into a place where maybe South Korea can’t, and try to pull them in and help them change in a way that is helpful to the area, as well as helpful to the United States and helpful to the people. I see this this as a real opportunity. I think we should do our best to say – all right, there’s a new king."

Mr. Donovan also said of Cuba, a country proximate to Florida – though it cannot be seen from there – that it ‘is not a wealthy country.” Cubans under King Castro, who make about $9 dollars a month in salary, are considerably less wealthy than state workers in Connecticut. Both the Castro brothers, who through state regulation more or less own the means of production in Cuba, are wealthy. A few years ago, Cuba’s dictators did away with caps on salaries that assured doctors should receive the same salary under socialisimo as people who cleaned their offices, according to a report in The Guardian. That experiment in capitalism may prove beneficial. It also may result in the kind of wage disparity increasingly denounced here in the United States by Mr. Donovan, who may be surprised to discover that unions are frowned upon in wealthy Cuba.

NOTE: The text has been corrected. Mr. Kantrowitz pointed out that Mr. Donovan did not say, as initially reported on this blog, that Cuba was wealthy. He said it was NOT wealthy. On a second hearing, Mr. Donovan’s “NOT wealthy” is obvious. My thanks to Mr. Kantrowitz for calling it to my attention.

Idiot “Comedian” Apologizes To Palin, Sort Of

Former Governor of Alaska and Republican nominee for Vice President Sarah Palin snaked her way into Massachusetts through Connecticut with minimal notice. But when she arrived in the Patriot State, she was besieged by ill-wishers after she had “mangled” a historical reference to Paul Revere’s ride.

In a 2’fer, an assassination “joke” by “comedian” Christopher Titus targeted both Sarah Palin and the Kennedy family.

Mr. Titus joked that if Sarah Palin became president, he would “hang out on the grassy knoll all the time, just loaded and ready," after which he offered an apology:

“While sitting in a comedy club with another comedian doing a podcast after listening to Sarah Palin’s stupid comments about Paul Revere -- something we all learned about in the first grade -- I popped off. More than anything, I made a joke about a horrible tragedy that befell a great President. To the Kennedy family, my heartfelt apologies. To Ms. Palin’s family, this would infuriate me if it were said about my family. Apologies to you as well.”

Sadly, Mr. Titus’ remarks, which drew a few laughs, followed an assassination attempt upon Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, immediately after which the country was treated to charges that Tea Party Patriots had in some sense been responsible for the atmosphere of incivility that possibly had motivated the assassin, Jared Lee Loughner, a nut whose political predispositions certainly had not been drawn from the abused Tea Party Patriots.

Mr. Titus then proceeded to chip away at his generous Palin apology:

“The comment was based on the fact that America has set the bar so low with what we accept as a possible leader. Just imagine Sarah Palin sitting in a negotiation with Putin, Ahmadinejad or Hu Jin Tao. Let’s all take a deep breath."

However, it turns out that Paul Revere did warn the British that the Americans were armed against them, according to the Boston Herald:

“In fact, Revere’s own account of the ride in a 1798 letter seems to back up Palin’s claim. Revere describes how after his capture by British officers, he warned them “there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time for I had alarmed the Country all the way up.”

Wes Pruden of the Washington Times, with some help from Brendan McConville, a history professor at Boston University, here sets the historical record straight:

Only now it turns out that she was right about Paul Revere’s midnight ride and the press claque was wrong. Even the professors say so, though they’re grudging to the point of churlishness. “Basically,” says Brendan McConville, a history professor at Boston University, “when Paul Revere was stopped by the British, he did say to them, ‘Look, there is a mobilization going on that you’ll be confronting.’” Revere, an honest tradesman, probably didn’t employ “professor-speak” in the heat of the moment, with words like “mobilization” and “confronting,” but we can take the point. In the account of the most famous midnight ride in American history, the professor says, “the British are aware as they’re marching down the countryside they hear church bells ringing—she was right about that—and warning shots being fired. That’s accurate.”

Mr. Titus offered no apology to Mr. Revere or to his first grade history teacher, who must at some point have told Mr. Titus that everyone warned by Mr. Revere during his ride was British, the separation from Britain having occurred years after Mr. Revere’s much celebrated ride.