Bailout = Highway Robbery

I'll take time out from my McPalin bashing to kick the Bush administration. (Ooh! Only a few months of kicking left!!) When we hear that the government is "bailing out" Wall Street, we should all pay attention. This administration has been responsible, or ignorant of, some of the worst profiteering in the history of the nation. Bush & Friends asked for a blank check for the War in Iraq. A blank check paid for willingly by the nation... while the press sat on their hands. And now, hmmm, they're asking for another blank check. So far they've figured out the FEAR makes us docile, and willing to give up our checkbooks. But what happened to checks and balances? Why can't Congress take some time to see what the hell is under the hood of this massive semi the Administration is trying to sell us? Can't someone kick the tires? It's outrageous that the lies that led us into the war in Iraq have gone unpunished, or in most cases, unpublished. A liar comes along and says "Hey, ignore those other lies me and my friends told you, THIS TIME it's the truth." To paraphrase Mr. Bush; "Fool me once, I'm a fool. I'm ashamed to say that fool me twice, I should be ashamed of being ashamed." Gimme your dough before I go... Here's an article from Bill Greider at the Nation.

Paulson Bailout Plan a Historic Swindle
Friday 19 September 2008

by: William Greider, The Nation


Financial-market wise guys, who had been seized with fear, are suddenly drunk with hope. They are rallying explosively because they think they have successfully stampeded Washington into accepting the Wall Street Journal solution to the crisis: dump it all on the taxpayers. That is the meaning of the massive bailout Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has shopped around Congress. It would relieve the major banks and investment firms of their mountainous rotten assets and make the public swallow their losses - many hundreds of billions, maybe much more. What's not to like if you are a financial titan threatened with extinction?

If Wall Street gets away with this, it will represent an historic swindle of the American public - all sugar for the villains, lasting pain and damage for the victims. My advice to Washington politicians: Stop, take a deep breath and examine what you are being told to do by so-called "responsible opinion." If this deal succeeds, I predict it will become a transforming event in American politics - exposing the deep deformities in our democracy and launching a tidal wave of righteous anger and popular rebellion. As I have been saying for several months, this crisis has the potential to bring down one or both political parties, take your choice.

Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics, a brave conservative critic, put it plainly: "The joyous reception from Congressional Democrats to Paulson's latest massive bailout proposal smells an awful lot like yet another corporatist lovefest between Washington's one-party government and the Sell Side investment banks."

A kindred critic, Josh Rosner of Graham Fisher in New York, defined the sponsors of this stampede to action: "Let us be clear, it is not citizen groups, private investors, equity investors or institutional investors broadly who are calling for this government purchase fund. It is almost exclusively being lobbied for by precisely those institutions that believed they were 'smarter than the rest of us,' institutions who need to get those assets off their balance sheet at an inflated value lest they be at risk of large losses or worse."

Let me be clear. The scandal is not that government is acting. The scandal is that government is not acting forcefully enough - using its ultimate emergency powers to take full control of the financial system and impose order on banks, firms and markets. Stop the music, so to speak, instead of allowing individual financiers and traders to take opportunistic moves to save themselves at the expense of the system. The step-by-step rescues that the Federal Reserve and Treasury have executed to date have failed utterly to reverse the flight of investors and banks worldwide from lending or buying in doubtful times. There is no obvious reason to assume this bailout proposal will change their minds, though it will certainly feel good to the financial houses that get to dump their bad paper on the government.

A serious intervention in which Washington takes charge would, first, require a new central authority to supervise the financial institutions and compel them to support the government's actions to stabilize the system. Government can apply killer leverage to the financial players: accept our objectives and follow our instructions or you are left on your own - cut off from government lending spigots and ineligible for any direct assistance. If they decline to cooperate, the money guys are stuck with their own mess. If they resist the government's orders to keep lending to the real economy of producers and consumers, banks and brokers will be effectively isolated, therefore doomed.

Only with these conditions, and some others, should the federal government be willing to take ownership - temporarily - of the rotten financial assets that are dragging down funds, banks and brokerages. Paulson and the Federal Reserve are trying to replay the bailout approach used in the 1980s for the savings and loan crisis, but this situation is utterly different. The failed S&Ls held real assets - property, houses, shopping centers - that could be readily resold by the Resolution Trust Corporation at bargain prices. This crisis involves ethereal financial instruments of unknowable value - not just the notorious mortgage securities but various derivative contracts and other esoteric deals that may be virtually worthless.

Despite what the pols in Washington think, the RTC bailout was also a Wall Street scandal. Many of the financial firms that had financed the S&L industry's reckless lending got to buy back the same properties for pennies from the RTC - profiting on the upside, then again on the downside. Guess who picked up the tab? I suspect Wall Street is envisioning a similar bonanza - the chance to harvest new profit from their own fraud and criminal irresponsibility.

If government acts responsibly, it will impose some other conditions on any broad rescue for the bankers. First, take due bills from any financial firms that get to hand off their spoiled assets, that is, a hard contract that repays government from any future profits once the crisis is over. Second, when the politicians get around to reforming financial regulations and dismantling the gimmicks and "too big to fail" institutions, Wall Street firms must be prohibited from exercising their usual manipulations of the political system. Call off their lobbyists, bar them from the bribery disguised as campaign contributions. Any contact or conversations between the assisted bankers and financial houses with government agencies or elected politicians must be promptly reported to the public, just as regulated industries are required to do when they call on government regulars.

More important, if the taxpayers are compelled to refinance the villains in this drama, then Americans at large are entitled to equivalent treatment in their crisis. That means the suspension of home foreclosures and personal bankruptcies for debt-soaked families during the duration of this crisis. The debtors will not escape injury and loss - their situation is too dire - but they deserve equal protection from government, the chance to work out things gradually over some years on reasonable terms.

The government, meanwhile, may have to create another emergency agency, something like the New Deal, that lends directly to the real economy - businesses, solvent banks, buyers and sellers in consumer markets. We don't know how much damage has been done to economic growth or how long the cold spell will last, but I don't trust the bankers in the meantime to provide investment capital and credit. If necessary, Washington has to fill that role, too.

Finally, the crisis is global, obviously, and requires concerted global action. Robert A. Johnson, a veteran of global finance now working with the Campaign for America's Future, suggests that our global trading partners may recognize the need for self-interested cooperation and can negotiate temporary - maybe permanent - reforms to balance the trading system and keep it functioning, while leading nations work to put the global financial system back in business.

The agenda is staggering. The United States is ill equipped to deal with it smartly, not to mention wisely. We have a brain-dead lame duck in the White House. The two presidential candidates are trapped by events, trying to say something relevant without getting blamed for the disaster. The people should make themselves heard in Washington, even if only to share their outrage.

--------

William Greider - National affairs correspondent William Greider has been a political journalist for more than thirty-five years. A former Rolling Stone and Washington Post editor, he is the author of the national bestsellers One World, Ready or Not, Secrets of the Temple, Who Will Tell The People, The Soul of Capitalism (Simon & Schuster) and - due out in February from Rodale - Come Home, America

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.

The Reviews are In Prime Time Emmys are Lame!

Wow. The LOWEST rated Emmys in HISTORY.

What's that about?

Can I rant for a bit? Where to begin? First, the article in Vanity Fair about how films have died and t.v. has become the last bastion of quality writing, and filmmaking.. was compelling. Until I tuned into the Emmys. Oy. What fatuousness. Julia Louis Dreyfus got the best line in of the night; supposedly referring to the clip from Seinfeld that covered "an evening of self gratification" and then saying it was about the Emmy night. Couldn't be truer.

The hosts were.. awful. Howie Mandel is hilarious. He should have been up there by himself. He's got the chops to carry this off on his own, without the dead weight around his shoulders. I predict you won't see that mistake again. Worst moments; the awful art direction with the lame sets - filled with nostalgia, or supposedly so. For a happier time. Tom Bergeron is great at what he does, as is Ryan Seacrest - what they aren't great at is giving people some sophisticated laughs without depending upon the lame writing staff of the Emmy's to come up with jokes. Ouch. Jimmy Kimmel milking the "reality show host of the year." It seemed like a bad ad for ABC entertainment. Steven McPherson is a genius, but I wish he was producing the show. This went over like a greasy meatball that didn't want to be digested. Where were the Sopranos when we needed them?

Best moments:
In memoriam. Some real heavyweights passed away this year... Some unbelievable talent who donated years of laughter and tears of joy. Shocking to see so many great talents disappear in the blink of an eye in one year. Steve Martin introducing his old boss and mentor Tommy Smothers was fun. And Tommy actually saying something of substance - it was electrifying. The audience held it's breath, not knowing, or fearing what he'd say. Which is what Hollywood has been doing for 8 years, for fear of pissing off corporate media, the govt., take your pick. Right on Tom. You showed us what we've been missing since you went off the air 40 years ago. Why doesn't someone give Tom a cable access talk show? Tina Fey's acceptance speeches.. she's got the gift of gab. I met her while striking online with fellow WGA writers in NY City. Class act all around. Lorne Michaels has become the grandpa of comedy. He's survived quite a bit. The Josh Grobin bit was funny, although the people I watched it with didn't laugh. Not even a chuckle. But it was a zany bit that worked.

Longest moments:
Ricky G. C'mon mate - even the Director of the show, in his acceptance speech, whined that your bit went on too long. Sure, it bordered on Andy Kaufman creepiness (He was brilliant at making you wonder what was scripted or not) and Steve Carrell's stone face; hilarious - but not.. that.. funny. You're funny. Your speech; hilarious. The bit - too long. And when it's too long, you wind up looking like poor Don Rickles milking an OJ joke. Ouch. Don is hilarious, but not when straight jacketed by timing and writers. Why not just make the dang show 3 hours and stop whining about the time? It's so annoying, like someone standing behind you and poking a finger constantly saying "C'mon, finish, hurry up, let's go.." and if they're worried about time, I've got some edits for them; the accountants (who were clipped anyway) and the Academy director, who went on for an awful long time spouting cliche's about the industry. If you've got nothing to say, you shouldn't be saying it; it makes everyone turn the channel.

The filmed bits for the writing credits turned out to be the funniest of the evening, and everything else.. was like the insipid title. "THE PRIME TIME EMMYS." Oh, were we going to be confused and think they were the "DayTime Emmys?" Which is another name for "soap opera" and daytime yak shows. They aren't in the same league. Why pretend they are by throwing "Prime Time" in the title? What Fox wannabe thought up that one? Trying not to hurt the feelings of those daytime artists? What was that about?

And the women of Wysteria Lane - I'm sorry, the show lost my attention after season one. I'm a fan of Dana Delaney's, and it was fun to see her with a bucket of water thrown in her face.. But they acted as if this show was still something to write home about.. instead of something that seems like a cliche in every aspect. If it wasn't an ABC staple, I'd think they were milking it for some ad revenue. But that's just me.

But the Laugh In sequence - what the heck is the genius Lily Tomlin doing waiting for timing on a half baked, poorly written sketch? Holy Huevos, it was watching Muhammed Ali boxing with Hulk Hogan - these people aren't in the same ring!!! Dick Martin is rolling in his grave - well, he probably is anyways, but had to add that.

So all in all, the Emmys are lucky that had no one watching. They can reboot next year.

My two cents.

McCain Radio spots on SNL

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.