Sarah Palin apologizes for leaving 100 books unsigned in Indiana

Based on the above video (found here), the scene in Noblesville, Ind., at the end of Sarah Palin's appearance looked more like a protest than a book signing.

Outside the Borders bookstore in Noblesville (wouldn't it be great if it was a Barnes & Noble in Noblesville?), dejected Sarah Palin fans shouted, "Sign our books! Sign our books!" as her personalized bus sputtered and prepared to drive away.

Some booed as they held fresh copies of "Going Rogue" without a wet signature from Palin. However, they were plenty wet from the rain they had been waiting in.

The estimated 100 or so disappointed fans were reportedly given signed pieces of paper, while some demanded refunds. But click here and take a look at the photo of how many fans there were during the signing.

Palin quickly addressed the disgruntled crowd in a Facebook post titled "Not enough hours in the day."

"We are working on a solution for those who were left behind," she wrote. A revisit?

-- Mark Milian

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Obama's wow bow II: Turns out Japan's emperor is just fine with simple handshakes (video)

Among the thousands of comments left on the Ticket in recent days, most dealt with our item: "How low will he go?" about the awkward bow that President Obama gave Japan's Emperor Akihito over the weekend.

Apparently improperly briefed about accepted procedure in Japan or perhaps having a time zone mind melt, Obama stuck out his hand for a shake. Which was fine. And friendly.

He then proceeded to simultaneously bow. Which was not.

And take his eyes off the person he's greeting. Which was not.

And, worst in the eyes of many, the over-enthusiastic president of the United States bowed way down at a 45-degree angle, indicating in that culture, and apparently in the eyes of many others, subservience to the emperor, son of the man who authorized the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.

This came only a few months after White House aides denied that Obama bowed to the Saudi king, when it sure looked like a bow to non-aides.

And it all seemed to fit in with what critics mockingly call Obama's world apology tours.

It also adds to previous Obama diplomatic gaffes. There was that promise to talk with the president of Canada. A reference to not speaking Austrian. Giving Britain's prime minister a chintzy collection of American movie DVDs, which weren't formatted for video players in the U.K. And Michelle Obama's friendly or patronizing pat to the back of Queen Elizabeth II, who received as her presidential gift an iPod with Broadway show tunes.

The emperor of Japan, who does not bow to anyone, and his wife handled the awkward wow bow moment with regal aplomb. Japanese do not typically expect foreigners to bow anyway and often feign pleasant surprise when one is attempted.

Fact is, as the photo of Vice President Dick Cheney shows on that same post, the Japanese emperor is good with handshakes. He really is.

To make the point humorously -- sure, and with a little political dig -- the College Republicans at the University of Connecticut spent some time this last weekend assembling a hilarious video of just exactly how good the Japanese emperor is with handshakes.

And just how unusual Obama's attempted bow was.

It's even got music:

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Mandel Ngan  AFP / Getty

After the affair -- woes of Nevada's John Ensign continue

It was early summer when Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) admitted to an extramarital affair in a clipped statement intended to limit the damage to a few news cycles.

Considering the story broke about the same time as South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s admission of infidelity -- which was a little more Harlequin romance and therefore more interesting -- Ensign seemed destined to fade from the headlines. Instead, the saga has dragged on so long that we suspect we’ll be talking about Johnny Casino come Christmas.

This week, Las Vegas TV reporter and columnist George Knapp reported that ABC’s “Nightline” is slated to air an interview with the most aggrieved of political spouses: Doug Hampton. The Ticket’s calls to ABC News were not immediately returned.

Hampton was essentially Ensign’s co-chief of staff until his wife, Cynthia Hampton, also an Ensign aide, became the senator’s mistress. (For a taste of Hampton’s substantial vitriol, take a look at this interview with local commentator Jon Ralston.) “This is extra bad news for Ensign since ‘Nightline’ has the freedom to devote much more airtime to a story than, say, an evening newscast,” Knapp wrote.

In other Ensign news, Twitter has silenced an ongoing salty parody of him by local scribe Andrew Kiraly. He’s vowed to find a way to revive it, which would likely not bode well for the senator. So much for this affair -- and mockery of it -- quietly dying.

-- Ashley Powers

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Photo: John Ensign. Credit: Associated Press

What if Obama really wants a fight over gay pajamas?

A little something to think about:

Have you too noticed that very few accidents seem to happen around Barack Obama?

Sure, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright association blew up in his face; that was just a matter of time and came not from Republicans but from fellow Democrats. One day the Harvard-educated, freshman senator from Illinois thought there were 57 states. He didn't know Canada had a prime minister, not a president. And it took some doing for the man to grudgingly give in to that stupid lapel flag pin thing.

The Geithner-Daschle-Solis back-tax deals were also messy.

But those gaffes happened early in the presidential campaign or the administration. He and his team have been touching every conceivable base at every opportunity, from tonight's Latin music fiesta at the White House to marking Leif Erikson Day to earn the Viking vote.

In fact, Obama's devoted so much time cultivating and nurturing these political niches that critics credibly suggest he might profitably invest less effort in the perpetual campaign mode -- flying off to Copenhagen to take an embarrassingly blunt public hit for the Chicago machine and chatting up that serial philanderer on the CBS late show -- and put in a lot more shirt-sleeve time in the Oval Office being the new president at the old desk.

On Saturday night before he was asked about "don't ask-don't tell" Obama told the banqueting but impatient Human Rights Campaign crowd (full text right here) all the Democratically correct things it wanted to hear before the big march for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) equality the next day.

So it was very surprising -- even jarring -- when on Sunday CNBC's John Harwood, long a respected political journalist, reported a conversation with an anonymous White....

Joe Biden update: He calls some fellow Democrats 'turkeys'

(UPDATE: An update on Biden's schedule has been added to the end of this item.)

Vice President Joe Biden did not need Air Force Two Thursday night to travel across the Potomac River to McLean, Va., to the home of former Democratic Virginia Gov. and Sen. Chuck Robb.

It was, of course, a fundraiser, designed to help finance three freshman Democratic House candidates -- Glenn Nye, Gerry Connolly and Tom Perriello -- in their challenging reelection races 13 months from now in what once was a predictably GOP state.

Robb himself did not speak at the event. His wife, Lynda, daughter of President Lyndon B. Johnson, introduced the trio of representatives.

But it looks like Joltin' Joe stepped in something again, rhetorically speaking.

About 100 supporters had paid $1,000 each to gather in the open-air pool house where Biden spoke. 

"I don’t have to tell you that you’re in a very competitive state,” the vice president said, according to the press pool notes. “You got some tough votes coming up.”

Biden called the three men “independent minded” and “damn competent,” adding, however, that they were all united on core Democratic Party themes, including energy policy and healthcare. 

“These guys are smart, "Biden asserted. "Some of the guys Chuck [Robb] and I have campaigned for are turkeys. Not all Democrats are created equal, while most Republicans are.”

The voluble Biden has a reputation for sometimes getting carried away in remarks, as refreshingly candid though they may be to some non-administration ears. Last fall at one gathering, a shirt-sleeved Biden paced the stage with a microphone and said Hillary Clinton would have been a better running-mate choice for Barack Obama to make, a gaffe that prompted the campaign to end most of Biden's media interviews then and there.

GOP candidates may also have some fun in coming months speculating to partisan crowds which Democrats the vice president had in mind as small-minded birds.

Biden became a U.S. senator way back when the 48-year-old Obama was a sixth-grader. And ran for the presidency himself twice. So he's campaigned with and for many Democratic politicians over all these years.

Perhaps understandably, on Thursday night the vice president did not proceed to list which fellow Democrats that he's campaigned who are the turkeys and which are the smart ones. And presumably Biden did not intend to imply that most Republicans are smart.

But he might be asked about all that in coming days by the media -- or even White House folks. And many fans of politics may be trying to guess which Democrats Biden had in mind when he likened them to those tasty but dim birds.

Obama was in Pittsburgh overnight as host for the G-20 summit and protests. He'll return to the White House this evening.

Biden is off to Georgia (the American one) this morning to briefly watch floodwaters. He'll return to Washington in the afternoon for what has become one of his frequent duties, swearing someone in. Before heading for Delaware, Biden will administer the oath to Paul Kirk. He's the senate replacement for the late Ted Kennedy. Kirk was just named to that spot Thursday morning by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

(UPDATE: 4:44 p.m. The vice president's weekend schedule has just been released. Here it is: "Vice President Biden will be in Wilmington, Delaware on Saturday and Sunday. There are no public events scheduled.")

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Getty Images

Texas superintendent denies students a chance to see the president -- twice

A recent string of decisions made by officials at the Arlington Independent School District in Texas has ensured that there will be no politics in the classroom there. And, apparently, there will be no fun, either.

It all began last week, when district Superintendent Jerry McCullough denied students a chance to watch President  Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren about the importance of education. McCullough banned the address because, he said, it might interfere with lesson plans and cause a distraction.

But then word leaked that McCullough had approved a Sept. 21 field trip for 600 fifth-graders to the Cowboys Stadium for a Super Bowl XLV kickoff event. Among the speakers scheduled for the event: former President George W. Bush.

Some parents complained. And the local and national media pounced. The superintendent, they charged, was clearly partisan.

So McCullough canceled the Bush event, too.

In a statement released Monday, McCullough said the decision was made "in order to maintain our focus on instruction."

But the students got the worst of it. They missed out on a political education -- and a field trip.

-- Kate Linthicum

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A 'tea party' protest photo turns out to be fake

How many people showed up on Capitol Hill to protest President Obama's political agenda on Saturday?

It depends on whom you ask.

(UPDATE: Don Surber notes here that despite the disagreement over actual marchers, there can be no disagreement over who watched the tea party march on TV: More than twice as many as watched the president's Minnesota appearance on two stations combined.)

As our colleague in Washington, Joe Markman, writes today, several conservative groups behind the march say that as many as 2 million people turned out to protest everything from Obama's proposed healthcare overhaul to the legitimacy of his election.

Others, however, say the crowd was much smaller. A spokesman for the District of Columbia Fire Department made an unofficial estimate of 60,000 to 70,000 people.

Arguments about crowd estimates are, as Markman writes, "as much a part of Washington as its granite monuments."

This one took a rather scandalous turn, however, when a photo circulated among conservatives as proof of a larger crowd was revealed to be a fake.

The photo, shown at right, depicts a crowd stretching from the Capitol nearly to the Washington Monument. It was posted on several conservative blogs and Facebook pages, with notations that it was taken on Saturday. 

But if you take a closer look, you'll see that there is no way it could have been taken Saturday because the National Museum of the American Indian is not there. The museum opened in 2004 on the east side of the Mall -- which should be in the photo's upper right. It's not -- so the photo must have been taken before then.

Several bloggers who ran the photo have begrudgingly corrected their errors.

The blog Say Anything ran a correction. Another conservative blog, Power Line, removed the picture. But in a post explaining why, the site's author took a final dig at what he called the "liberal media."

"There is no doubt that Washington Democrats are well aware of how many people turned out, even as their media outlets try to downplay the event," John Hinderaker wrote.

PolitiFact, the ever-valuable fact-checking arm of the St. Petersburg Times, has much more on the photo controversy.

Meanwhile, here's a video summarizing the day's events:

-- Kate Linthicum

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California lawmaker resigns after announcing on open mic not 1, but 2, sex acts

First, the big news in California petty politics today: CBS has ordered production on the next "Big Brother" show, No. 12, for broadcast next summer during the 2010 congressional races and in California Senate and gubernatorial elections.

And next week is the two-hour finale of No. 11. So that'll be really, really exciting.

Also today, state GOP Assemblyman Michael Duvall of Yorba Linda resigned his elected position after describing two sexual liaisons to a colleague in some detail -- next to an open legislative microphone. (No, we don't have that transcript here.)

Those things will kill you almost every time. Democratic Vice President Joe Biden dropped an F-bomb near one last winter and, previously, Republican candidate George W. Bush was caught describing a particular passing reporter as a lower anatomical orifice. Embarrassing, though few of the reporter's colleagues disputed the observation's accuracy.

Also, then Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was caught on federal wiretaps saying %$#*(& and ##$*)&%. Also, %$#@&*\. None of which is illegal, except that those words were allegedly tied to auctioning off his nomination to fill Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat. Which isn't illegal in Illinois politics unless the feds say it is.

Shouldn't these legislators pass a law requiring bright red flashing lights on every microphone that is active? What part of, "The world might be listening to your every word" don't they get?

Our colleagues over at LA Now have collected local reaction here to the disclosure and resignation of the married Duvall. Everyone is, of course, shocked and saddened, as even next-door neighbors to mass murderers seem to be in the next day's newspapers.

The item includes a list of two other notorious extramarital political scandals involving Sen. John Ensign of Nevada and Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina. They are both Republicans. The list does not mention San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom nor LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa nor ex-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who was against prostitution before he was really for it. All three are Democrats.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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9/11 amnesia: World Wildlife Fund disowns tasteless ad

As the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed more than 3,000 Americans approaches, the usually creature-friendly World Wildlife Fund has been forced to explain how an image bearing its logo -- and showing planes descending on lower Manhattan -- won a recent contest for public service.

The ad’s tag line: "The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it."

The whole thing started last December in Brazil, where an ad agency – DDB Brazil – held a brainstorming session in hopes of winning the WWF's business. This is the ad they came up with.

Trouble is, according to the WWF, the idea was quickly rejected by its officials there.

"You hear a lot of concepts in meetings. We assumed it was dead and gone,” said WWF spokeswoman Leslie Aun. “But it appears now that someone submitted it to a competition."

At the ad agency in Brazil, spokeswoman Lana Pinheiro said the team that developed the concept “is no longer with the agency” and that after the idea was killed in December, the ad “should never have been made.”

But this being the Internet age, the unauthorized ad has now gone viral. When news spread that the ad had won the best public service print ad of 2009 from the Manhattan-based One Club, members started besieging the WWF, the world’s largest conservation group, with outraged calls.

All of which left the folks at WWF headquarters in Washington to ponder the difficulties of disassociating with an ad they never approved.

"We are just utterly appalled," said Aun. Calling the ad "offensive and tasteless," she added, "This ad is not something that anyone in our organization would ever have signed off on."

 -- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: DDB Brazil

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Politicians -- Obama, Bush, etc. -- sometimes say the darndest things

Politicians say some pretty ridiculous things -- not that we needed to tell you that.

U.S. presidents especially, being in the center of the public eye, are constantly jostled for their almost never-ending stream of bad quotes. Of course, some leaders are more prone to slipping up than others.

The Russia Today blog has put together a list of what it calls the "Top 10 silliest quotes ever by politicians." It runs the gamut of the world's most visible leaders in recent history, and we're proud to say that half of the list is composed of U.S. politicians. Go America!

The blog pulls out some real gems. For example, we have President Obama blathering something about having visited 57 states during his campaign.

President Bush, the master of malapropisms, talks about inflecting harm on our country. And John McCain discusses a meeting with Vladimir Putin, the president of, er, Germany?

There's also a surprising quote from President Clinton during his trials -- though, as far as we know, the statement came secondhand via Monica Lewinsky. It gets a little risque, so we'll let your curiosity carry you there.

Adding a few of our picks, we liked President Ford's assertion back in the 1970s that Poland was not under the domination of the Soviet Union. OK, Gerry.

We would also add something from Sarah Palin, like the one about "gotcha journalism" or her library of news periodicals, but we could go on for days with that. What's your favorite political babble?

-- Mark Milian

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Photo credit: Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images