Saturday, September 06, 2008

McCain Being Upstaged by Palin

Palin will be missing this Sunday, but she's ready to stare down Ahmadinejad.

Fact is, she's not ready to do interviews, says the McCain camp. And the McCain camp isn't sure Ms. Mooseburger will be ready. Why should she do the Sunday talk shows? It's not as if the people she's appealing to even watch the Sunday shows. They just want to know that she's a hockey mom who prays to God, hates Islam and loves oil -the wingnut agenda. 

Why should she do the shows? So we know who she is, so she answers questions. So she proves her mettle.

Instead, she'll travel across the country and do town halls, repeating the lines of the speech she made at the convention, exactly like she did yesterday. 

Americans should be outraged but many don't realize she's not a real candidate, only a distraction. Women are being made the fools. I think men get what the McCain camp is doing. She wouldn't have real vice presidential duties. Some old guy will be the real vice. 

But women out making "Go girl" shirts with Palin's name on them without knowing who Palin is, her real experience, or her purpose in the campaign as the great distractor. Republicans can't win on issues, so it has to be the charm offensive.

She's a hockey mom, they say. How utterly ignorant. One of the hosts on the women's talk show, The View, said Palin is qualified because she has 5 kids. That's just crazy ignorance.

The fact is, no one knows enough about her to support her. Perhaps she really does have what it takes. But we won't know because she's not being subjected to tough questions. 

We do know this is a woman who prayed for a pipeline, a woman who said God planned the Iraq war. She's been governor of Alaska for 18 months. 

Americans will get what they deserve. If as a nation, the majority of us are still ignorant, we will get McCain, someone who's being less than honest, doing whatever it takes to win an election, a man who has exploited his war hero status, a man of poor judgement, really poor jugdement, a man who's vice presidential pick was chosen for him, a man who's being upstaged by his vice presidential pick. It's now the Palin-McCain ticket. What does that say about McCain, who is the actual presidential nominee? 

McCain hasn't inspired bipartisanship. His republican thugs are throwing rocks as fast as they can. Thanks to the chants of "Zero Zero Zero," and the discrediting and belittling of Obama's experience during the convention, the republican party has moved into the revolting category. Think about it from a child's point of view. What message did they get while watching those speeches? Wingnuts have a narrow view of Biblical principles. 

I know not every republican enjoyed the chanting and there are some good people who are republican but as a party, disgusting. The party has once again been hijacked by the wingnuts.

Chanting Zero about a U.S. senator should've resulted in outrage.

Instead, we hear that the republicans are outraged that Ms. Mooseburger's qualifications are being questioned and they've managed to spread their pretend outrage to the voters and portray it as sexism. What a joke.

Now the GOP has lifted Obama's campaign themes and is trying to make it out like they're the party of the people and they're laughing all the way.

Palin-McCain is the Bush administration all over again.

Here's another sweet story by Bob Herbert:
NYT: In his acceptance speech on Thursday night, Senator John McCain did his best Sam Cooke imitation (“A Change is Gonna Come”) and vowed to put the country “back on the road to prosperity and peace.”

Mr. McCain spoke at the end of a day in which stock market indexes plunged. The next morning the Labor Department gave us the grim news that another 84,000 jobs had been lost in August, and that the official unemployment rate had climbed to 6.1 percent — the highest in five years.

If there were any good ideas at this convention of mostly rich and mostly right-wing delegates about how to haul the country out of this mess that the G.O.P. has gotten it into, they were kept well hidden. Perhaps they were tucked away behind the more prominently displayed creationism and “just-say-no to global warming” documents.

It stretches the mind almost to the breaking point to think of John McCain as an agent of substantive change. He once believed that Phil Gramm was the most qualified person in the United States to be president. And he now believes that Sarah Palin is the most qualified to be vice president.

That is not the fault of Mr. Gramm or Ms. Palin. But it sure tells us a lot about the judgment of John McCain.

Mr. McCain is a warrior, a former fighter pilot, and it’s no secret that Americans have long been thrilled by the romantic Top Gun narrative of fighter pilots, those specialists in the realm of the dangerous and the reckless. But we’ve also seen what dangerous and reckless behavior in the White House can do to a nation.
More vetting and fact checking of Palin

What command experience does Palin have as head of the Alaska National Guard?
The Alaska governor has no command role with National Guard troops engaged in combat operations or with the 49th Missile Defense Battalion, which is stationed in Alaska. She does command the National Guard when it comes to natural disasters and homeland security. These issues are handled by a member of her cabinet, Maj. Gen. Craig, the adjutant general for Alaska, who also handles veterans' affairs. Palin has called up the guard only once, in 2007, to fight wildfires. They were on standby for a 2007 whaling conference during which they expected protesters but were never summoned.
Cindy McCain and others have asserted that Alaska's proximity to Russia has contributed to Palin's foreign-policy knowledge. What dealings has she had with Russia?
The campaign has not come up with any. Palin has never been to Russia.

Here's a good one:
Did she recite her speech at the Republican National Convention from memory after the teleprompter broke?
Despite Internet rumors that Palin delivered much of her speech in front of a faulty teleprompter, GOP officials have confirmed that the teleprompter worked flawlessly throughout Palin's address.