Sarah Palin punk'd by Canadian Disc Jockeys!

This is hilarious. Sarah Palin thinks she's talking to French President Sarkozy. Wow. Punk'd!!!

Working from CatM's great transcript, I changed a few things, added in the French and explained the cultural references.

SP Assist: This is Betsy.
MA: Hello, Betsy. This is Frank l’ouvrier (Frank the worker], I’m with President Sarkozy, on the line for Governor Palin.

SP Assist: One second please, can you hold on one second please?
MA: No problem.

SP Assist: Hi, I’m going to hand the phone over to her.
MA: Okay thank you very much I’m going to put the president on the line.
SP Assist: Ok he’s coming to the line.

SP: This is Sarah.
MA: Okay, Governor Palin?

SP: Hellloooo...(long drawn out, like Well, hellooooo)
MA: Just hold on for President Sarkozy, one moment.
SP [To someone in the room]: Oh, it’s not him yet, I always do that. I’ll just have people hand it to me right when it’s them.

FNS: Yes, hello, Governor Palin? Yes, hello, Mrs. Governor?
SP: Hello this is Sarah., how are you?

FNS: Fine, and you, this is Nicolas Sarkozy speaking, how are you?
SP: Oh...so good, it’s so good to hear you. Thank you for calling us.

FNS: Oh, it’s a pleasure.
SP: Thank you sir, we have such great respect for you, John McCain and I, we love you and thank you for spending a few minutes to talk to me.

FNS: I follow your campaigns closely with my special American Advisor Johnny Hallyday (the most famous French singer, looks like and sings like Elvis), you know?
SP: Yes! Good!

FNS: Excellent! Are you confident?
SP: Very confident and we’re thankful that the polls are showing that the race is tightening and--

FNS: Well I know very well that the campaign can be exhausting. How do you feel right now my dear?
SP: Ah, I feel so good. I feel like we’re in a marathon and at the very end of the marathon, you get your second wind and you plow to the finish—

FNS: You see, I got elected in France because I’m real and you seem to be someone who’s real as well.
SP: Yes, yeah, Nicolas, we so appreciate this opportunity.

FNS: You know, I see you as a president, one day, you too.
SP: [Muahaaa...weird laugh], maybe in 8 years. Haha

FNS: Well, ah, I hope for you. You know we have a lot in common because personally one of my favorite activities is to hunt too.
SP: [Giggle]o h very good, we should go hunting together.

FNS: Exactly! We could go try hunting by helicopter, like you did, I never did that.
SP: [Giggle]

FNS: Like we say in France, "on pourrait tuer des bébés phoques aussi" [Translation: We could also kill some baby seals.]
SP: [Giggle] Well I think we could have a lot of fun together as we’re getting work done, we can kill two birds with one stone that way.

FNS: I just love killing those animals. Mm, mm. Take away a life, that is so fun!
SP: [Hahahaha]

FNS: I’d really love to go as long as we don’t bring your Vice president Cheney, hahaha.
SP: No, I’ll be a careful shot, yes.

FNS: You know we have a lot in common also except that from my ass I can see Belgium. That’s kind of less interesting than you.
SP: Well, see, we’re right next door to other countries that we all need to be working with, yes.

FNS: Some people said in the last days, and I thought that was mean, that you weren’t experienced enough in foreign relations, and you know, that’s completely false, that’s the thing I said to my great friend, the Prime Minister of Canada, Stef Carse [Stephen Harper is the PM and Stef Carse is a Quebecois country singer who covered Billy Ray Cyrus' Achy Breaky Heart in French in the 90s].
SP: Well, he’s doing fine, too, and yeah when you come into a position underestimated, it gives you the opportunity to prove the pundits and the critics wrong. You work that much harder-

FNS: I, I was wondering because you are also next to him, one of my good friends, also, the prime minister of Quebec, Mr. Richard Z. Sirois [a famous Quebec radio host], have you met him recently? Did he come to one of your rallies?
SP: Uh, haven’t seen him at one of the rallies, but it’s been great working with the Canadian officials in my role as governor; we have a great cooperative effort there as we work on all of our resource development projects. You know I look forward to working with you and getting to meet you personally and your beautiful wife, oh my goodness, you’ve added a lot of energy to your country, even, with that beautiful family of yours.

FNS: Thank you very much. You know my wife, Carla, would love to meet you. You know even though she was a bit jealous that I was supposed to speak to you today. [Hahahaha]
SP: [Hahahha] Well give her a big hug from me.

FNS: You know my wife is a popular singer and a former top model and she’s so hot in bed. She even wrote a song for you.
SP: Oh my goodness! I didn’t know that.

FNS: Yes, in French, it’s called "Du rouge à lèvres sur une cochonne" [Translate: Lipstick for a sow literally (but not properly) but it actually means an uninhibited girl] or if you prefer in English Joe the Plumber, [sings] It’s his life, Joe the Plumber..."
SP: Maybe she understands some of the unfair criticism but I bet you she is such a hard worker, too, and she realizes you just plow through that criticism like

FNS: I just want to be sure, I don’t’ quite understand the phenomenon "Joe the Plumber," that’s not your husband, right?
SP: Mmhmm, that’s into my husband but he’s a normal American who just works hard and doesn’t want government to take his money.

FNS: Yes, yes, I understand, we have the equivalent of Joe the Plumber in France, it’s called, "Marcel, the guy with bread under his armpit, oui."
SP: Right. That’s what it’s all about, is the middle class, and government needing to work for them. You’re a very good example for us here.

FNS: I seen a bit about NBC even Fox News wasn’t an ally, an ally, sorry, about as much as usual.
SP: Yeah that’s what we’re up against.

FNS: I must say, Governor Palin, I love the documentary they made on your life, you know, Hustler’s "Nailin Palin."
SP: Oh, good, thank you. Yes.

FNS: That was really edgy.
SP: [Laughs] Well good.

FNS: I really love you. And I must say something, so, Governor, you’ve been pranked.
By the Master Avengers. We’re two comedians from Montreal
SP: Oohhh have we been pranked? And what radio station is this? [tries to force herself to sound nice but you can tell she’s pissed]

FNS: This is for CKOI in Montreal.
SP: In Montreal? Tell me the radio station call letters
[SP leaves phone, continuous griping in background, sounds like, "For chrissakes...that was ??? Just a radio station prank...chrissakes..."]

MA: Hello? If one voice can change the world for Obama, one Viagra can change the world for McCain.
[Man’s voice in background: hang up, hang up.]
SP Assist: Hi, I’m sorry, I have to let you go. Um, thank you.

by montsegur1234 on Sat Nov 01, 2008 at 03:43:03 PM PDT

A little election advice about Lies during the campaign.

I'm more than a little peeved at the nonsense coming out of the fear mongers during this campaign. I've gotten emails about Bill Ayers, emails about voter fraud with regard to ACORN, and I've heard every outrageous lie told about Barack Obama. As a thinking individual, I wish I knew more about Senator Obama, (PBS's Front Line) raised some interesting dimensions about both men) but I can't because of the smoke screen his opponents have put up. Filled with such outrageous nonsense and lies, I can't see the candidate for the smoke. He seems like a nice guy, a legit guy, an intelligent guy who knows how to surround himself with smart and smarter people. And he seems to have figured out how to lead the nation in just the few months we've known him. I used to like John McCain, but the use of lies and lying in his campaign has sickened me, and he's absolutely ruined his reputation and career. The fact that he has surrogates lying for him now, (FOX News and Rupert Murdoch showing their true colors) just brings to mind another era in our planet's history, where LIES and LYING was the coin of the realm. Let's hope we never get down this path again, but it reminds me of every lie that's come out from the Bush administration, whether about WMD's or Valerie Plame or .. the bailout. And now that McCain has become an expert at this disinformation, I can only turn to two figures who talked about the value of lies in their own administrations:

What famous politicians said the following?

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

The second quote is from the guy who was the leader of the guy who said the first quote. Can you guess who that is? This guy's boss, said the following quote:

"The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of the nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell a big one."

Give up?

Quote #1 was Herman Goering, speaking at the Nuremberg Trials.
#2 was his boss: Adolf Hitler, from Mein Kampf

I'm not saying Republicans are Nazis. I come from a long line of conservative, funny, warm, Irish Republicans. Chicago Republicans no less. My Irish grandparents were high up in the Republican party, WWII veterans, commander of the American Legion and were close friends with Everett Dirksen. I know they're rolling in their graves at this nonsense coming out of the mouths of the pundits and candidates alike; attacking Obama's character, misrepresenting his policies, grasping at straws to make him seem UnAmerican, dishonorable, a socialist, or anything he's not. It's one thing to be against big government, but its another thing to attack the character and patriotism of a US Senator who happens to be an opponent. This ain't the party of Lincoln.

Can't wait for this election to be over so we can all take a bath to get this slime off of us, that's been slung so fiercely. I truly hope our nation can recover from its self inflicted wounds.

My two cents.

What if the roles were reversed?

This came along in my email box today, something interesting to ponder..

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin, what if things were switched around?.....think
about it. Would the country's collective point of view be different?
(10/8/08)

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including
a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating
class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe
disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while
he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain
killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable
organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five?
(The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption
in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings
and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?
What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included
disc ipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many
occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer
distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality,
do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes
positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in
another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cu m Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:
United States Naval Acade my - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in
the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.

Ooh! they're raiding ACORN offices! Oh My!

I got an email from an old military vet today - drumming up support for McCain by claiming ACORN is robbing the election (you can listen to fathead Rush Limbaugh at it every day). Here's the text. Forgive the guy's spelling, I guess when you're mad, you don't spell so good:

FW: Exposure To True Informstion Does No Matter Anymore

Please click on the Homeland Security US link below,
obtained from the Northeast Intelligence Network and
E-mailed to me by an American Patriot and war hero.
Kindly watch the entire video and share it; you can
skip the follow on article on ACORN if you care to,
but kindly watch the first video, it has nothing to
do with the election.
Do you think the mainstream media would run
with a story like this just 20 days from a Presidential
election? Exposure to True Information Does Not
Matter Anymore. There is a non-profit organization
that has been found to be illegally
registering voters. Voters have come forward stating
that have filled out multiple registration cards by this organization.

1. Several offices of this organization have been raided and thousands
of fraudulent registration cards have been seized.
2. One of the Presidential candidates used to be an attorney for this
organization.
3. One of the Presidential candidates used to be a trainer for this
organization
4. One of the Presidential candidates campaign gave $832,000 to this
organization.
5. One of the Presidential candidates set on a board with a domestic
terrorist that gave this organization $200,000.

The answer to the question raised above would be YES if it was McCain, but
in this case it is Obama, so like everything else negative regarding Obama,
the mainstream media is silent.

Please click on this link to watch ACORN:
Please follow this link
to watch "ACORN."

AND HERE'S MY RESPONSE:

The site you mentioned in your email is .. well, let's put it this way; loopy. "Exposure to True Informstion Does No Matter" indeed.

The guy who runs this site, Hagmann, has been exposed as a fraud. He's been spewing nonsense about terrorists running around the US for years,. The concept that ACORN, a homeless advocacy group who pays people to register voters, is some kind of terrorist left wing org is nonsense. You can't vote based on registering. John McCain himself spoke at their conference last year. Here's a photograph of John with the ACORN people:
Let's stop bashing the people who register homeless people to vote. 23% of the homeless in our country are Veterans. What's to say they won't vote for a fellow Veteran? If the ACORN people turned their own registrars in because of fraud, then what's the problem? If you sign up to vote as Mickey Mouse, you still have to show your Mickey Mouse ID when you go to vote.

Shouldn't we be worried about how we're going to fix the economy? In the history of the world, there's never been a nation with a bad economy that has been able to wage wars. The economy goes into the ditch, so does the military. How patriotic do we have to be to realize that we need someone in Washington who can fix the economy? If that's going to be Senator McCain, then let's hear what he wants to do.
He may be the person to bring the country out of its tailspin. Palin may be the soldier on the white horse that's going to save us from the Depression. But nothing they've said so far gives me that confidence. Maybe tonight, Senator McCain will "Whip Obama's You-Know-What," although the image of him whipping a black man - even if he's only half black - and not an Arab, "but a decent family man" is unfortunate.

my two cents

Palin is a bully, oh my!

Alaska panel finds Palin abused power in firing

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer 7 minutes ago

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, the chief investigator of an Alaska legislative panel concluded Friday. The politically charged inquiry imperiled her reputation as a reformer on John McCain's Republican ticket.

Investigator Stephen Branchflower, in a report by a bipartisan panel that investigated the matter, found Palin in violation of a state ethics law that prohibits public officials from using their office for personal gain.

The inquiry looked into her dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, who said he lost his job because he resisted pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce with the governor's sister. Palin says Monegan was fired as part of a legitimate budget dispute.

The report found that Palin let the family grudge influence her decision-making even if it was not the sole reason Monegan was dismissed. "I feel vindicated," Monegan said. "It sounds like they've validated my belief and opinions. And that tells me I'm not totally out in left field."

Branchflower said Palin violated a statute of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.

What a shock. They have ethics in Alaska. There's hope for Alaska yet. Even though the spawned this phenomena, and like my previous posts, I've noted I feel sorry for Sarah.. after all, she didn't ask to run for this office. But boy, it must stick in McCain's craw, to have Karl Rove shove someone down your throat.. and then this comes out. Whatever. They'll say it's the "liberal media bias" and ignore the bipartisan part of the message. I hate liars. Hate 'em. Just can't stand a pickle for 'em.

Meanwhile, I'd like to take a moment to let Sarah speak in her own words!

Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced [sic] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I'm glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? ... My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watching the debate.

Looks like she may need to get some schoolin' ya think?

Meanwhile I got a post from a Republican friend who was claiming that the dems are trying to sign up folks 77 times for voting (Oh, my! And ya think they'll vote 77 times? No! Really?) and today I got the opinion that the Stock Market is falling because traders fear an Obama Presidency. Repubs are running around screaming that ACORN, a homeless advocacy group, is signing up the homeless to vote! Gee, ya think they'll vote for McCain? why not, he's going to increase their rolls!

So far the rallies have got people shouting "Kill Him!" and "Traitor!" - sounds like they're priming us for a race riot. Only problem is - Obama is white. At least according to people who live in Puerto Rico. If you're born with a white mom there, you're considered white. No one considers this but me? Obama's a .. white guy?

So every time I see an article about him being "black" I think - "that's your point of view." Listen, I like the way the guy talks, I like his friends, I like his calm. I have no idea if he's going to be the best or worse President. But it can't get much worse. And the thought of having old grumpy pants and caribou Barbie (sorry, not my coinage, but tis clever) in the White House makes me.. hmm. Sounds kind of funny really. Would it be so bad to have them in their, carrying on their banner?

There's the Tom Bradley effect everyone's talking about in California.. that's the one where you answer a pollster that you'll vote for 'the black guy' but when you get in the booth, you get the willies (not willie horton) and pull .. the white lever. I wouldn't be surprised. Nothing surprises me these days.

Does anyone besides me get the "end of days" feeling about this Administration? That martial law can't be far off? The country is going to hell in a handbasket (what does that mean anyway?) and tra la, off we go on another adventure.

Can't wait for Nov. 5th!!

Keith Olbermann Kicks Alaskan Booty

Wow. KO really summed it up well. Be careful when you go around calling people "UnAmerican" and a "terrorist" - people who live in thin igloos shouldn't throw stones. And McCain going after Obama's "association with Ayers." Obama didn't wait five seconds to counter punch with a Keating Five Scandal video detailing McCain's involvement in it. No Swiftboating will happen on this watch, thank you very much. Did you see that Doonesbury claims there's 144 lobbyists working in McCain's campaign? Did I read that right? And this "witch doctor" from Kenya who did an exorcism of Sarah Palin in church? This is the same minister who inspired a town in Kenya to attack a witch and her demon snake? And is this the same Palin whose husband belongs to the Vogler nutball group that wants Alaska to secede? Did John McCain really only meet this woman once before putting her on the ticket?

Some other news of note: LA Times today picked up the story about how McCain was a reckless pilot who crashed FIVE planes before being shot down in Vietnam. McCain - war hero? I'm not so sure. You crash your plane five times, it makes you seem like you're a bad pilot. I wouldn't go as far as the Republicans did with claiming that since John Kerry didn't get shot he wasn't a hero. But then neither did McCain. Arms broken.. oh, what a silly argument. I'm sorry I brought it up. But let's have some perspective. The guy crashes six planes in Vietnam. Should we have even been in Vietnam? No. Even Bob McNamara says so in the film "Fog of War." So, why is it such a big thing that the guy served in an unjust war? Oh, right. He was tortured. That is a bummer. But.. should we vote for the guy who suffered the most? Or who's going to get us out of this financial mess.

It's the economy, stupid. Like Joe Biden, I'll repeat myself. It's the economy, stupid. It's not complicated to see that deregulation makes really smart rich guys richer. That the bulk of money drifts to other rich guys. Same thing happened when banks were deregulated. Lot of banks sprang up, lot of guys got rich, including McCain, then the government bailed them out. Meaning "the people of the United States" bailed them out.

So.. the market is in freefall, people are shooting themselves, soon it's going to be jumping out of windows over Wall Street. And Mr. Bin Laden is chuckling in his villa (according to CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Bill Maher the other night) in Pakistan. Watching the Americans free fall, the way the Russians free fell. Of course he thought he was the one who brought the big Russian bear down - and everyone on this side of the pond thought it was Ronnie Reagan. It wasn't either. Just the economy, stupid, or the Russian equivalent of stupid.

Back to the subject at hand. Palin is embarrassing her family, her reputation, her career - for what? To be McCain's attack dog? What a waste. It's going to get uglier, and uglier, until someone throws up.. and hopefully it's not us.

Da Debate

OJ is guilty. Wow. I feel bad for Ron's dad. Can't OJ just go away? Oh, maybe he is.

On to more important things at hand. Like the Cubs down 2-0. Didn't this happen the year the Reds won it? Weren't they down like 3 games with just a few outs left, and they turned it around? One can only hope. I can only say I can't bear to watch the Cubs lose. I watched the debate instead of watching them lose (although my blackberry has the Cubs link on it, and I watched until they were down 5-0. Ouch! ) But I digress...

Oh yeah! There was a debate, wasn't there?

What's all this nonsense, "A tie is a win..."? Please. Senator Biden was clear, was concise, was passionate, was smart, was.. everything you want in a Vice President. Damn. And then, on the other side.. bless her heart, "why doncha, c'mon there, let's wink, wink, can I call ya Joe? Seriously, I'm mom six pack, I'm just like you, and you should vote for me, cause I'm just like you .. except that.. I'm not."

"Because I'm a liar. I stand up in front of you and say that I've hired diverse people in Alaska," when everyone knows she hired everyone from her grade school and high school class. She'll stand up there and lie about the bridge to nowhere, (not mentioned, thankfully) or lie about terrorists being in Iraq (weren't there until we invited them), lie about Obama's tax plan (taxing people who make 40 grand a year!) lie about Biden's record, about Obama's record.. just.. oh, it pain's me to say it - stop with the lying already!!!!

And these pundits who look for the lowest common denominator in our candidates. "Gee, I could drink a beer with Bush." I'll tell you, I'd rather drink a beer with Gore any day, Kerry too. They have their faults, they may not have been the best person in the country to spank George Bush, but a day has not gone by when W was in office, I didn't rue the day he stole the election. And if we're talking about Sarah, then she's a winner, if she didn't make an ass out of herself, she's a winner.. is the American public that retarded? I'm sorry, mentally challenged?

But past is past, and past is prologue. Let's move on. Sarah, I think you're in over your head. I think your between a rock (Iraq - or is it eye-rack?) and a hard place. You can't quit, the nation's made a laughing stock of you, and because of McCain's callous call to bring you onto the ticket, your life has been turned upside down. Everyone is Alaska is shocked at finding out who the real Sarah Palin is - with a million dollar net worth, and a long history of bullying, prevaricating and nonsense following you around. John McCain has not only ruined your reputation, he's ruined your career at future office. Didn't really think that one through when he went along with Karl Rove's suggestion, now did he?

So goodluck to you Ms. Palin, I'm sorry you had to have a bath by fire, but it's not fair for us either, to have to watch the nation go down in flames along with you. My take on elections; he or she with the best sense of humor wins. It's always been the case. As long as any President I remember; it's always the guy who stands there and says something clever, and pulls it off with grace and charm. JFK, LBJ, then Nixon over Humphrey (Hubert was not a funny guy, and Nixon, as much as I loathed him, was more 'interesting') Carter, Reagan, Bush, sorry to say Gore and Kerry looked way too serious all the time - something about being flippant that brings out the sympathy in all of us - and McCain has lost his sense of humor. And he's a funny guy. But it shows. He's tired and very uncool. And flappable. And Obama is not.. he's got an easy smile and a quick mind. Now if he could just add some laughs...

My two cents.

What was Palin talking about???

"The fib I told was this big..."

So, reporters finally got a chance to lob some questions at Sarah Palin. I guess they showed enough deference, except perhaps this tricky one:

Palin was asked if she thought the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan was helping to mitigate terrorism.

"I think our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan will lead to further security for our nation. We can never again let them onto our soil," she said.

Excuuuuuuuuuuse me? What Iraqi, what Afghani has ever been on our soil, other than the happy-to-meet-anyone-Bush-asks-me-to Hamid Karzai at the UN? I think she's not aware that it was 19 SAUDIS ARABIANS that were in the planes at the World Trade Center.

But then maybe she thinks they're one and the same; that we're fighting a war in Iraq to "go after those responisble for 9/11." What an ignoramoose!! (a genderless word by the way) We'll never know what McPalin knows, because she'll be President and running the country before we get a chance to ask the question.

My two cents

Impeach Sarah Palin? Ouch!

Palin's Troopergate Moves Getting Bad Reviews in Alaska

By NATHAN THORNBURGH / ANCHORAGE Wed Sep 24, 1:15 PM ET

On Monday, Sarah Palin's lawyers announced the Alaska governor's intention to cooperate with the Troopergate investigation.

Sort of.

Palin won't actually cooperate with the original investigation - the one approved unanimously by a majority Republican committee in the state legislature this summer, which Palin welcomed in a spirit of transparency and accountability before she became the Republican Party's vice-presidential nominee. The Alaska Senate Judiciary Committee had started the inquiry when former public safety commissioner Walt Monegan alleged that he might have been dismissed for not firing the allegedly loutish state trooper Mike Wooten, who was in a bitter custody battle with Palin's sister Molly McCann and was accused of threatening members of the governor's family. The investigation has since been painted by John McCain and Palin backers as a purely partisan exercise, particularly because the committee chair, state senator Hollis French, is an Anchorage Democrat who made several seemingly prejudicial statements to the media early on, including that the probe could yield an "October surprise" right before the election. Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton says French has already made up his mind about the governor's guilt and at this point is "just leading people into an ambush."

Instead, Palin plans to cooperate with an investigator from the state personnel board. That investigator is a Democrat, but the board's three members are political appointees who ultimately answer to the governor herself. (One was appointed by Palin, the other two by her predecessor.) They got involved only after Palin took the unusual step of filing an ethics complaint against herself in early September to spark an investigation that her lawyers hoped would overshadow - and effectively kill - the legislature's inquiry.

But the Alaska senate inquiry is moving ahead. Last week, after many of Palin's aides and associates, as well as her husband, reversed their positions and refused to testify in front of the legislative committee, French said the senate investigator would issue findings on the matter in early October with or without their testimony. As if to parry that move, Palin's lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, met with the personnel board's investigator on Monday and promised that he would furnish a list of who would be interviewed on Tuesday. The McCain campaign told the Associated Press that after Tuesday, the entire personnel board process would be confidential and that the campaign would have no further comment. The Alaska personnel board is "the only legal forum in the state for the Monegan inquiry," Palin's spokeswoman explained.

For many Alaskans, all this maneuvering is a bit too clever. Palin's jockeying doesn't just clash with her previous image as a good-government reformer. It strikes some here almost as a matter of state sovereignty. There was grumbling when the McCain campaign brought in a high-powered cheechako (that's an outsider), former federal terrorism prosecutor Ed O'Callaghan, to dictate the governor's strategy and deal with the media. Spokeswoman Stapleton says O'Callaghan is in Alaska because she and Van Flein need the extra help, and that the media have made this a national issue, so bringing in advisers from outside of Alaska is only appropriate. But the campaign's public bashing of Monegan, a widely respected, longtime public official in the state, didn't help its case. Now that O'Callaghan's hardball tactics are becoming clearer, the complaints have grown louder, from all sides of the political spectrum.

(See photos of Sarah Palin on the campaign trail here.)
(See photos of Sarah Palin's rise here.)

As the Anchorage Daily News wrote in a blistering op-ed over the weekend: "Is it too much to ask that Alaska's governor speak for herself, directly to Alaskans, about her actions as Alaska's governor?" One longtime observer - a Palin fan who says she's done "brilliant" things in the state - worried aloud to me over coffee in downtown Anchorage that allowing the McCain campaign to antagonize both parties in the legislature on Palin's behalf could even lead to her eventual impeachment, if her bid to become Vice President fails and she returns to the state with a little less political luster.

That seems far-fetched, but the whole affair is a rarity in Palin's charmed career: a political miscalculation. To many observers, the underlying accusations in Troopergate are not all that damning. Many Alaskans have sympathy for the anxiety and frustration the Palins felt over Wooten's continued employment. In Anchorage, I've heard time and again that Palin could have avoided further scrutiny with a single convivial mea culpa at the outset, apologizing in particular for her initial inaccurate denial that anyone in her administration, including herself, had contacted Monegan about Wooten. Stapleton says the firing was a personnel matter that the state attorney general advised Palin not to comment on initially. But still, Alaskans say that if Palin had ignored that advice and spoken openly to the public, she could have defanged any investigation and signaled to Alaskans that even as the vice-presidential nominee, she would still be the same supposedly straight-talking Sarah they had voted for overwhelmingly.

But almost every move she has made related to Troopergate since she was named McCain's running mate has damaged her credibility and standing. Most recently the shifting public explanations for why Monegan was fired have looked shaky - at one point, it was that they didn't share the same general law enforcement priorities, at another it was that he hadn't done enough to crack down on rural bootlegging, and most recently it was for his unauthorized travel to Washington to lobby for federal dollars. After many Democrats complained that the McCain campaign appeared to be trying to run out the clock on the investigation, the campaign's announcement that Palin would work with the personnel board is designed to blunt such criticism and show voters nationwide a renewed openness in the case. But it's unclear whether the board will actually reach any findings before the Nov. 4 election.

Even in iconoclastic Alaska, there are rabid Democrats and rabid Republicans who now view Troopergate only through the lens of national politics. But far more people, on both sides, see this as a more nuanced situation, and one that may end up costing Palin more here than it ever should have.

(See photos of Sarah Palin on the campaign trail here.)
(See photos of Sarah Palin's rise here.) View this article on Time.com

Response to New Yorker's "The State of Palin"

There's an article in the New Yorker this month that paints a flattering portrait of the next President (oops! did I slip? She did say Palin/McCain ticket didn't she? Just like the Cheney/Bush White House!) of the US, the Hockey Mom from The Great White North. I won't waste the amount of air time Phil Gourevitch does on here, other than to point out the silliness of his writing.

Last year, the F.B.I. hit the home of Ted Stevens, Alaska’s six-term senator, and he became a favorite figure of ridicule on “The Daily Show”: an angry little man, with an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Magoo, who had once made himself seem even older than his eighty-plus years by describing the Internet as “a series of tubes”; Jon Stewart called him a “coot,” and portrayed him as a bully and a crook. As I travelled around Alaska in mid-August, Alaskans wanted me to understand that, sadly, he might well be all of that—and a very good thing for the state, too.

So, to follow this logic, if someone brings pork to the state, then it's okay if they also break the law and abuse their power. Follow that argument, and the Chinese have every right to imprison Tibetans because the Chinese have taken the time to build roads for the lowly Tibetans. They can't complain. Hey, Mussolini made the trains run on time. So what if he looked like a toad in a jumpsuit. "He's our toad."

On the day I stopped by Palin’s office in Juneau, she did not seem bothered that Alaska’s newspapers were filled with stories about Troopergate. Palin had just called a press conference to discuss the latest twist—a tape-recorded phone call from Frank Bailey, one of her closest aides, who could be heard trying to influence an officer to sack Trooper Wooten.

Sure, last June she'd talk to anyone who could help her. She didn't have the weight of the nation on her shoulders, or was training for the "don't blink" method when McCain, after meeting her ONCE (this article makes it seem like she was on everyone radar - what nonsense. McCain is still figuring out the blackberry let along how to use radar) decided to cynically make her his choice. If he wins, Karl Rove will once again prove he's worth every grimy nickel they pay him. However, Ted Stevens is on his way into the political graveyard, and when it becomes convenient, the rest of Alaska will boot him all the way there, and supply the shovels.

She said that one of her goals had been to combat alcohol abuse in rural Alaska, and she blamed Commissioner Monegan for failing to address the problem. That, she said, was a big reason that she’d let him go—only, by her account, she didn’t fire him, exactly. Rather, she asked him to drop everything else and single-mindedly take on the state’s drinking problem, as the director of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. “It was a job that was open, commensurate in salary pretty much—ten thousand dollars less”—but, she added, Monegan hadn’t wanted the job, so he left state service; he quit.

Riiiight. She has a history of going after those who disagree with her. This writer chose to ignore the many reports of her high handed behavior while Mayor of Wasilla.. What are we talking about here? Mayor of small town takes on the big wigs and changes Washington? It is a bad Disney movie! Either way, she's been painted by her associates as vindictive, a bully and relentless with people who disagree with her. Hmm. Dick Cheney anyone?

Palin’s style of governing was unorthodox and at times impulsive. Although she boasts of a record as a fiscal conservative, she raised the sales tax while she was in office. She left the town saddled with millions of dollars in debt from the building of a new sports complex, and with legal fees, because she had failed to secure title to the land on which the complex was built. Casting herself in the Ted Stevens mold, however, she had proved herself skilled at collecting federal earmarks for Wasilla, bringing in twenty-seven million dollars for her small town in three years.

And really adept at lying. She's been lying about her support for earmarks, lying about her experience with international relations (Claiming she'd been to Ireland, when her plane landed on the runway and she never got off it!), lying whenever she needs to. It's nauseating, and puts McCain in the worst possible light, for the worst possible choice as a running mate.

A few weeks earlier, when I telephoned Palin’s office in Juneau and asked for a press officer, I was invited to meet the Governor the next day. The state legislature was in recess at the time, and I found Palin sitting sidesaddle on her receptionist’s desk, studying the receptionist’s family photographs. She wore slacks and a belted sweater-jacket, and her hair was piled and pinned atop her head in her trademark upsweep. She kept up the family chitchat as she led me to her office. Her press person had told me that I could have twenty minutes of the Governor’s time, but, once we were alone, she was in no hurry. We talked for about an hour before an aide poked her head in to announce that someone else was waiting.

Trademark upsweep. Oy. Are you kidding me? She makes one speech at the Republican convention - well done by the way - and she has trademarks? Oooh, they talked for an hour! Was it about her tanning salon? Or the hours she's billed the state for her work from home? Or the hundreds of emails she's been sending for state business from her Yahoo account because she wants to be above/outside/around the law?

“It’s not aerial hunting,” she claimed. “What the state has been engaged in for the past four to six years—and I support—is predator control.” Shoot the wolves, she said, and moose and caribou herds will increase, providing more food for Alaskans. That was the argument: “Let the people who live off those herds not buy and import meat.”

Okay, this is a waste of energy. Wolves have nothing to do with Moose. They don't eat Moose. They never have. It's a program based on fake science, just like her disbelief in global warming. She will continue the Bush/Cheney order of things, and keep McCain in line. She's in predator control mode right now. And we're the prey. The office is what she wants, and will do anything to get it. All I can say is to quote Randi Rhodes of Air America when she heard the quote of Sarah Palin talking about the Palin/McCain administration:

"OOOH. JOHN MCCAIN NEEDS A FOOD TASTER."

my two cents.

Sarah Palin by Ann Kilkenny

Hey, when you can't get Sarah to sit down
and speak honestly for herself, let someone who's
known her for years do so.

A note to all by Anne Kilkenny
Dear friends,

So many people have asked me about what I know about Sarah Palin in the last 2 days that I decided to write something up . . .

Basically, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have only 2 things in common: their gender and their good looks. :)

You have my permission to forward this to your friends/email contacts with my name and email address attached, but please do not post it on any websites, as there are too many kooks out there . . .

Thanks,
Anne

ABOUT SARAH PALIN
I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe".


She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's
attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people,
creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper.

Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She
abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

Anne Kilkenny
August 31, 2008


So there you have it in a nutshell. She's a nut. She's in a shell.
She's a bully, a hypocrite and a liar. Do you really want her running the country?

Pillars of Democracy

Why does the following film contest sound like nonsense? Can you imagine making an anti govt documentary about "democracy" (which I'll assume most of them would be) and getting a prize for it?

State Dept. seeks democracy videos

Government teams with media orgs on contest

The U.S. State Dept. has revealed its latest diplomatic tool: user-generated content. At the U.N. on Monday, representatives revealed the Democracy Video Challenge, a government initiative co-sponsored with half a dozen high-profile media orgs including NBC Universal, the DGA and the MPAA.

The challenge in question will be to create a three-minute video completing the phrase “Democracy is...” in hopes of receiving a prize package that includes set visits, tickets to the Universal Studios L.A. theme park, and meetings with everyone from U.S. government officials to “new-media experts.”

Rather than attempting to monetize the content, sponsoring orgs will contribute various prizes and incentives, including PSAs promoting the competish on NBC (NBC News correspondent Richard Engel also presided over the afternoon’s launch party).

James Glassman, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, said the initiative was aimed to “convene people for a conversation.” Glassman is a Bush appointee, but stressed that the initiative was thoroughly bipartisan and includes nonmedia sponsors like the Intl. Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute.

The State Dept.’s Jonathan Margolis said he hoped that the contest would start “a dialogue on democracy” -- the prizes will go to regional winners from six different parts of the world, as well as one anonymous winner. Videos will be broadcast on YouTube. Entry deadline is Jan. 31.

Oooh! a Visit to a set!! (Fox news anyone?) Tickets to a studio tour!!! (Sign up here for propaganda, and you'll get free tickets to stuff we're selling you!!) Prizes will go to winners from six different parts of the world (can anyone spell Middle East? If they don't love us, let's have a contest so they can prove they love us! But then, you have to assume they like us enough to make videos praising our form of democracy with "Bombs From Above") and one "anonymous winner." Hilarious. Ya think Mr. Been Ladin' could even submit a video on democracy ("Democracy means never having to say you're sorry") or does this mean they have a ringer who's going to win anyway? Oy. What a country. What a concept!

Hmmm. A contest. With no cash prizes, but "prizes that we consider prizes." Sounds like the Bush description of the Economy. And if you don't agree with the govt's version of Democracy, (The VP pit bull Sarah Palin's version of Democracy, signing loyalty oaths, and harassing librarians, or ex brother in laws) you won't be put on the "do not travel" list. Even if you're Cat Stevens. Really.

So I went to the government website to see if they can define what "Democracy is." According to the website, there are "ELEVEN PILLARS OF DEMOCRACY. " (Why does this sound like the Seven Pillars of Islam? Just asking.) Here they are:

THE PILLARS OF DEMOCRACY

• Sovereignty of the people.
  
• Government based upon consent of the governed.
  
• Majority rule.
  
• Minority rights.
  
• Guarantee of basic human rights.
  
• Free and fair elections.
  
• Equality before the law.
  
• Due process of law.
  
• Constitutional limits on government.
  
• Social, economic, and political pluralism.
  
• Values of tolerance, pragmatism, cooperation, and compromise.

Okay. The first 8 seems to make arguable sense. Sovereignty is "the exclusive right to have control over an area of governance, people, or oneself. A sovereign is the supreme lawmaking authority." (wiki) An exclusive RIGHT to have governance over ONESELF. That sounds amazingly like Choice to me. And Gay Rights. And all the things this administration has flaunted or ignore for 8 glorious years.

A Guarantee of Basic Human Rights: Human rights refers to the "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled."[1] Examples of rights and freedoms which are often thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the law; and social, cultural and economic rights, including the right to participate in culture, the right to food, the right to work, and the right to education. (wiki)

Okay, now it's getting interesting. We know that Freedom of Expression isn't guaranteed by anyone, or you wouldn't be arrested for protesting in St. Paul. The right to food - Hmm.. not sure that's ever been enforced.. check out the food lines near your local shelter.. Right to work? I don't think so.. unless you're part of a govt. bailout - and the right to education... okay, it's all debatable. Some school systems seem like they're shelling out more rights than others, but again, debatable.

But now it gets interesting:

• Constitutional limits on government.
  
• Social, economic, and political pluralism.
  
• Values of tolerance, pragmatism, cooperation, and compromise.

Excuse me? There's no definition of democracy anywhere that includes these three lemons - put there by whoever wrote this paragraph at the State Gov website.. hmm, a loyalist no doubt. . There's nothing about Constitutional limits on Govt, except in right wing blogs and books that quote the State dept. idea of democracy. Economic and political pluralism? Values of cooperation and compromise? Says who? I defy anyone to find a reference to the source of where this information came from - it sounds, once again, like an administration who hires faith based candidates over secular ones, or hires people who can wash the science out of the truth to fit their own reality. Really, who writes this nonsense?

So, to all you would be filmmakers out there - good luck defining Democracy as the State Dept defines it!!! You're in for some real prizes. Either way, this disclaimer at the bottom solves it all:

This site is produced and maintained by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Information Programs.
Links to other internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein.

And on a final note - anyone catch McCain's daughter Meghan on Larry King tonight? A slight slip of the tongue where she said she was blogging about her father "The President." The bit about her being "obsessed" by Sarah Palin - c'mon, she's gotta be kidding. Her father only met her once before picking her and his daughter is "obsessed" by her? I'm sure Palin's kids are cute and wonderful.. but c'mon. "Impressed" I could believe. Obsessed sounds like a word that's been fed to Meghan.

I think Sarah's a creep, a bully, a hypocrite and a prevaricator of the highest degree - and the worst choice McShame could have picked for a VP. Notice these words are gender free. If it was about her being a talented women, there are many others with much more credits and service to the nation who should have been considered - but this is such a Karl Rove choice it's nauseating. And now she's refusing to answer questions about Troopergate, when it was the Republicans in Alaska who brought the charges. Obsessed? Oy. What a country. What a concept.

My two cents.

Sarah Palin skewered by a Rich Frank

Back to the topic at hand. Normally I'm not crazy about Frank Rich. But I found this article insightful on our pal, Sarah Pal-in

Op-Ed Columnist

The Palin-Whatshisname Ticket

FRANK RICH

Published: September 13, 2008

WITH all due deference to lipstick, let’s advance the story. A week ago the question was: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? The question today: What kind of president would Sarah Palin be?

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Frank Rich

Barry Blitt

It’s an urgent matter, because if we’ve learned anything from the G.O.P. convention and its aftermath, it’s that the 2008 edition of John McCain is too weak to serve as America’s chief executive. This unmentionable truth, more than race, is now the real elephant in the room of this election.

No longer able to remember his principles any better than he can distinguish between Sunnis and Shia, McCain stands revealed as a guy who can be easily rolled by anyone who sells him a plan for “victory,” whether in Iraq or in Michigan. A McCain victory on Election Day will usher in a Palin presidency, with McCain serving as a transitional front man, an even weaker Bush to her Cheney.

The ambitious Palin and the ruthless forces she represents know it, too. You can almost see them smacking their lips in anticipation, whether they’re wearing lipstick or not.

This was made clear in the most chilling passage of Palin’s acceptance speech. Aligning herself with “a young farmer and a haberdasher from Missouri” who “followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency,” she read a quote from an unidentified writer who, she claimed, had praised Truman: “We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity.” Then Palin added a snide observation of her own: Such small-town Americans, she said, “run our factories” and “fight our wars” and are “always proud” of their country. As opposed to those lazy, shiftless, unproud Americans — she didn’t have to name names — who are none of the above.

There were several creepy subtexts at work here. The first was the choice of Truman. Most 20th-century vice presidents and presidents in both parties hailed from small towns, but she just happened to alight on a Democrat who ascended to the presidency when an ailing president died in office. Just as striking was the unnamed writer she quoted. He was identified by Thomas Frank in The Wall Street Journal as the now largely forgotten but once powerful right-wing Hearst columnist Westbrook Pegler.

Palin, who lies with ease about her own record, misrepresented Pegler’s too. He decreed America was “done for” after Truman won a full term in 1948. For his part, Truman regarded the columnist as a “guttersnipe,” and with good reason. Pegler was a rabid Joe McCarthyite who loathed F.D.R. and Ike and tirelessly advanced the theory that American Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe (“geese,” he called them) were all likely Communists.

Surely Palin knows no more about Pegler than she does about the Bush doctrine. But the people around her do, and they will be shaping a Palin presidency. That they would inject not just Pegler’s words but spirit into their candidate’s speech shows where they’re coming from. Rick Davis, the McCain campaign manager, said that the Palin-sparked convention created “a whole new Republican Party,” but what it actually did was exhume an old one from its crypt.

The specifics have changed in our new century, but the vitriolic animus of right-wing populism preached by Pegler and McCarthy and revived by the 1990s culture wars remains the same. The game is always to pit the good, patriotic real Americans against those subversive, probably gay “cosmopolitan” urbanites (as the sometime cross-dresser Rudy Giuliani has it) who threaten to take away everything that small-town folk hold dear.

The racial component to this brand of politics was undisguised in St. Paul. Americans saw a virtually all-white audience yuk it up when Giuliani ridiculed Barack Obama’s “only in America” success as an affirmative-action fairy tale — and when he and Palin mocked Obama’s history as a community organizer in Chicago. Neither party has had so few black delegates (1.5 percent) in the 40 years since the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies started keeping a record.

But race is just one manifestation of the emotion that defined the Palin rollout. That dominant emotion is fear — an abject fear of change. Fear of a demographical revolution that will put whites in the American minority by 2042. Fear of the technological revolution and globalization that have gutted those small towns and factories Palin apotheosized.

And, last but hardly least, fear of illegal immigrants who do the low-paying jobs that Americans don’t want to do and of legal immigrants who do the high-paying jobs that poorly educated Americans are not qualified to do. No less revealing than Palin’s convention invocation of Pegler was the pointed omission of any mention of immigration, once the hottest Republican issue, by either her or McCain. Saying the word would have cued an eruption of immigrant-bashing ugliness, Pegler-style, before a national television audience. That wouldn’t play in the swing states of Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, where Obama already has a more than 2-to-1 lead among Hispanic voters. (Bush captured roughly 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004.)

Since St. Paul, Democrats have been feasting on the hypocrisy of the Palin partisans, understandably enough. The same Republicans who attack Democrats for being too P.C. about race now howl about sexism with such abandon you half-expect Phyllis Schlafly and Carly Fiorina to stage a bra-burning. The same gang that once fueled Internet rumors and media feeding frenzies over the Clintons’ private lives now express pious outrage when the same fate befalls the Palins.

But the ultimate hypocrisy is that these woebegone, frightened opponents of change, sworn enemies of race-based college-admission initiatives, are now demanding their own affirmative action program for white folks applying to the electoral college. They want the bar for admission to the White House to be placed so low that legitimate scrutiny and criticism of Palin’s qualifications, record and family values can all be placed off limits. Byron York of National Review, a rare conservative who acknowledges the double standard, captured it best: “If the Obamas had a 17-year-old daughter who was unmarried and pregnant by a tough-talking black kid, my guess is if they all appeared onstage at a Democratic convention and the delegates were cheering wildly, a number of conservatives might be discussing the issue of dysfunctional black families.”

The cunning of the Palin choice as a political strategy is that a candidate who embodies fear of change can be sold as a “maverick” simply because she looks the part. Her marketers have a lot to work with. Palin is not only the first woman on a Republican presidential ticket, but she is young, vibrant and a Washington outsider with no explicit connection to Bush or the war in Iraq. That package looks like change even if what’s inside is anything but.

How do you run against that flashy flimflam? You don’t. Karl Rove for once gave the Democrats a real tip rather than a bum steer when he wrote last week that if Obama wants to win, “he needs to remember he’s running against John McCain for president,” not Palin for vice president. Obama should keep stepping up the blitz on McCain’s flip-flops, confusion, ignorance and blurriness on major issues (from education to an exit date from Iraq), rather than her gaffes and résumé. If he focuses voters on the 2008 McCain, the Palin question will take care of itself.

Obama’s one break last week was the McCain camp’s indication that it’s likely to minimize its candidate’s solo appearances by joining him at the hip with Palin. There’s a political price to be paid for this blatant admission that he needs her to draw crowds. McCain’s conspicuous subservience to his younger running mate’s hard-right ideology and his dependence on her electioneering energy raise the question of who has the power in this relationship and who is in charge. A strong and independent woman or the older ward who would be bobbing in a golf cart without her? The more voters see that McCain will be the figurehead for a Palin presidency, the more they are likely to demand stepped-up vetting of the rigidly scripted heir apparent.

But Obama’s most important tactic is still the one he has the most trouble executing. He must convey a roll-up-your-sleeves Bobby Kennedy passion for the economic crises that are at the heart of the fears that Palin is trying to exploit. The Republican ticket offers no answers to those anxieties. Drilling isn’t going to lower gas prices or speed energy independence. An increase in corporate tax breaks isn’t going to end income inequality, provide health care or save American jobs in a Palin presidency any more than they did in a Bush presidency.

This election is still about the fierce urgency of change before it’s too late. But in framing this debate, it isn’t enough for Obama to keep presenting McCain as simply a third Bush term. Any invocation of the despised president — like Iraq — invites voters to stop listening. Meanwhile, before our eyes, McCain is turning over the keys to his administration to ideologues and a running mate to Bush’s right.

As Republicans know best, fear does work. If Obama is to convey just what’s at stake, he must slice through the campaign’s lipstick jungle and show Americans the real perils that lie around the bend.

Sarah Palin is a Bad Disney Movie

Couldn't agree more. Great comment Mr. Damon. Bravo.

Sarah Palin is a bully. She lies, and then covers it up. (Watch the ABC interview - she can't admit she was "for the bridge and then against it." She admits it but won't admit it.) She's already abusing power, and she's only been in office a couple of years. Books banned from libraries. Advocating creationism. Demanding to erase choice as a woman's option, except in the case of her daughter.

Mark my words; the next time you see her daughter on stage with her "fiancee" she will be wearing a wedding band or fake engagement ring put there by the McCain campaign. Not an accusation - who cares? - just an observation.

Sarah Palin is a Bad Disney Movie. The past 8 years have been NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Lies about going to war, smearing CIA agents from the White House, from the Office of Vice President!! He should be charged with crimes against the Constitution. 8 years of BS.. I'm just sick of it. Enough is enough.

The country is going to be on the edge of its seat everytime John McCain coughs if he's President. A spot appears on his face, and people will be scrambling to build nuclear shelters. What's this country come to? We'll elect anyone because they believe in creationism? Because they go to Church? Because they have a sarcastic streak, and bully those who are beneath them?

Yesterday NPR reported she made employees sign a loyalty oath. That the librarian that she harassed out of her job, wouldn't sign the oath.

THAT'S WHAT A NAZI DOES.

We're at a crossroads in this country. We're nearly bankrupt. Our children's children will be paying the interest on the loans we took out to finance this ridiculous and unjust war. And now more men have died in Afghanistan than in Iraq. The just war, the war that went after the people responsible for 9/11, was shifted to another theater, making the victory in Afghanistan a hollow one. Why is that? It's because the WAR CRIMINALS IN THE WHITE HOUSE took their supplies and intelligence and men away from them so they could satisfy their own cravings for justice, to "spread democracy," to protect the oil supply - whatever it is, they're guilty of throwing our nation in front of a bus. And they're still war profiteering on it as they sail into the sunset.

If McCain had picked someone who wasn't a complete fake - after all, he spoke to John Kerry about being his vice president - if he had any balls, he would have done the same.. but by picking this Bad Disney scenario, he's lost any respect he had. And the world will treat him as they treated Bush - a dolt who doesn't know what he's doing.
It's so sad to see our nation divided once again, over culture wars. The right wing pretending to be blue collar, and the left wing pretending to be blue collar. When neither collar fits them. I'd throw my hands in the air, but when all is said and done, someone's got to go into the White House, and I'd prefer to bet my money on Obama and Biden to lead us into the future.. and not into a comedy from hell.