US Politics?

[RichPundit]

TailHook, TTSers & TTS Lurkers fyi: Neocon David Brooks' enlightened Joe Biden bio - RichPundit ("LOST Job")

btw TailHook, thought best to move our political rantings here from our D&F "Jin *Is Not* Dead" thread that we disrupted beginning with my reply to Hugs&KissesGossipGirl

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August 22, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Hoping It’s Biden

By DAVID BROOKS
Barack Obama has decided upon a vice-presidential running mate. And while I don’t know who it is as I write, for the good of the country, I hope he picked Joe Biden.
Biden’s weaknesses are on the surface. He has said a number of idiotic things over the years and, in the days following his selection, those snippets would be aired again and again.
But that won’t hurt all that much because voters are smart enough to forgive the genuine flaws of genuine people. And over the long haul, Biden provides what Obama needs:
Working-Class Roots. Biden is a lunch-bucket Democrat. His father was rich when he was young — played polo, cavorted on yachts, drove luxury cars. But through a series of bad personal and business decisions, he was broke by the time Joe Jr. came along. They lived with their in-laws in Scranton, Pa., then moved to a dingy working-class area in Wilmington, Del. At one point, the elder Biden cleaned boilers during the week and sold pennants and knickknacks at a farmer’s market on the weekends.
His son was raised with a fierce working-class pride — no one is better than anyone else. Once, when Joe Sr. was working for a car dealership, the owner threw a Christmas party for the staff. Just as the dancing was to begin, the owner scattered silver dollars on the floor and watched from above as the mechanics and salesmen scrambled about for them. Joe Sr. quit that job on the spot.
Even today, after serving for decades in the world’s most pompous workplace, Senator Biden retains an ostentatiously unpretentious manner. He campaigns with an army of Bidens who seem to emerge by the dozens from the old neighborhood in Scranton. He has disdain for privilege and for limousine liberals — the mark of an honest, working-class Democrat.
Democrats in general, and Obama in particular, have trouble connecting with working-class voters, especially Catholic ones. Biden would be the bridge.
Honesty. Biden’s most notorious feature is his mouth. But in his youth, he had a stutter. As a freshman in high school he was exempted from public speaking because of his disability, and was ridiculed by teachers and peers. His nickname was Dash, because of his inability to finish a sentence.
He developed an odd smile as a way to relax his facial muscles (it still shows up while he’s speaking today) and he’s spent his adulthood making up for any comments that may have gone unmade during his youth.
Today, Biden’s conversational style is tiresome to some, but it has one outstanding feature. He is direct. No matter who you are, he tells you exactly what he thinks, before he tells it to you a second, third and fourth time.
Presidents need someone who will be relentlessly direct. Obama, who attracts worshippers, not just staff members, needs that more than most.
Loyalty. Just after Biden was elected to the senate in 1972, his wife, Neilia, and daughter Naomi were killed in a car crash. His career has also been marked by lesser crises. His first presidential run ended in a plagiarism scandal. He nearly died of a brain aneurism.
New administrations are dominated by the young and the arrogant, and benefit from the presence of those who have been through the worst and who have a tinge of perspective. Moreover, there are moments when a president has to go into the cabinet room and announce a decision that nearly everyone else on his team disagrees with. In those moments, he needs a vice president who will provide absolute support. That sort of loyalty comes easiest to people who have been down themselves, and who had to rely on others in their own moments of need.
Experience. When Obama talks about postpartisanship, he talks about a grass-roots movement that will arise and sweep away the old ways of Washington. When John McCain talks about it, he describes a meeting of wise old heads who get together to craft compromises. Obama’s vision is more romantic, but McCain’s is more realistic.
When Biden was a young senator, he was mentored by Hubert Humphrey, Mike Mansfield and the like. He was schooled in senatorial procedure in the days when the Senate was less gridlocked. If Obama hopes to pass energy and health care legislation, he’s going to need someone with that kind of legislative knowledge who can bring the battered old senators together, as in days of yore.
There are other veep choices. Tim Kaine seems like a solid man, but selecting him would be disastrous. It would underline all the anxieties voters have about youth and inexperience. Evan Bayh has impeccably centrist credentials, but the country is not in the mood for dispassionate caution.
Biden’s the one. The only question is whether Obama was wise and self-aware enough to know that.

[RichPundit]

TTSers & TTS Lurkers fyi: thought you may appreciate Maureen Dowd's McCain "get-out-of-jail-free" POW cred analyses. Think McCain will bridle his Karl Rove minions cuz shunning accountability by flashing his POW cred is not in the set of the behaviours of the real John McCain ... he knows that this both insults and erodes true American patriotism - rich

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August 24, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Too Much of a Bad Thing

By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
My mom did not approve of men who cheated on their wives. She called them “long-tailed rats.”
During the 2000 race, she listened to news reports about John McCain confessing to dalliances that caused his first marriage to fall apart after he came back from his stint as a P.O.W. in Vietnam.
I figured, given her stringent moral standards, that her great affection for McCain would be dimmed.
“So,” I asked her, “what do you think of that?”
“A man who lives in a box for five years can do whatever he wants,” she replied matter-of-factly.
I was startled, but it brought home to me what a powerful get-out-of-jail-free card McCain had earned by not getting out of jail free.
His brutal hiatus in the Hanoi Hilton is one of the most stirring narratives ever told on the presidential trail — a trail full of heroic war stories. It created an enormous credit line of good will with the American people. It also allowed McCain, the errant son of the admiral who was the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific during Vietnam — his jailers dubbed McCain the “Crown Prince” — to give himself some credit.
“He has been preoccupied with escaping the shadow of his father and establishing his own image and identity in the eyes of others,” read a psychiatric evaluation in his medical files. “He feels his experiences and performance as a P.O.W. have finally permitted this to happen.”
The ordeal also gave a more sympathetic cast to his carousing. As Robert Timberg wrote in “John McCain: An American Odyssey,” “What is true is that a number of P.O.W.’s, in those first few years after their release, often acted erratically, their lives pockmarked by drastic mood swings and uncharacteristic behavior before achieving a more mellow equilibrium.” Timberg said Hemingway’s line that people were stronger in the broken places was not always right.
So it’s hard to believe that John McCain is now in danger of exceeding his credit limit on the equivalent of an American Express black card. His campaign is cheapening his greatest strength — and making a mockery of his already dubious claim that he’s reticent to talk about his P.O.W. experience — by flashing the P.O.W. card to rebut any criticism, no matter how unrelated. The captivity is already amply displayed in posters and TV advertisements.
The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, the pastor who married Jenna Bush and who is part of a new Christian-based political action committee supporting Obama, recently criticized the joke McCain made at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally encouraging Cindy to enter the topless Miss Buffalo Chip contest. The McCain spokesman Brian Rogers brought out the bottomless excuse, responding with asperity that McCain’s character had been “tested and forged in ways few can fathom.”
When the Obama crowd was miffed to learn that McCain was in a motorcade rather than in a “cone of silence” while Obama was being questioned by Rick Warren, Nicolle Wallace of the McCain camp retorted, “The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous.”
When Obama chaffed McCain for forgetting how many houses he owns, Rogers huffed, “This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison.”
As Sam Stein notes in The Huffington Post: “The senator has even brought his military record into discussion of his music tastes. Explaining that his favorite song was ‘Dancing Queen’ by Abba, he offered that his knowledge of music ‘stopped evolving when his plane intercepted a surface-to-air missile.’ ‘Dancing Queen,’ however, was produced in 1975, eight years after McCain’s plane was shot down.”
The Kerry Swift-boat attacks in 2004 struck down the off-limits signs that were traditionally on a candidate’s military service. Many Democrats are willing to repay the favor, and Republicans clearly no longer see war medals as sacrosanct.
In a radio interview last week, Representative Terry Everett, an Alabama Republican, let loose with a barrage at the Democrat John Murtha, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who is the head of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, calling him “cut-and-run John Murtha” and an “idiot.”
“And don’t talk to me about him being an ex-marine,” Everett said. “Lord, that was 40 years ago. A lot of stuff can happen in 40 years.”
The real danger to the McCain crew in overusing the P.O.W. line so much that it’s a punch line is that it will give Obama an opening for critical questions:
While McCain’s experience was heroic, did it create a worldview incapable of anticipating the limits to U.S. military power in Iraq? Did he fail to absorb the lessons of Vietnam, so that he is doomed to always want to refight it? Did his captivity inform a search-and-destroy, shoot-first-ask-questions-later, “We are all Georgians,” mentality?

[RichPundit]

imho, thought Michelle Obama's speech was OUTSTANDING ... she is incredibly gifted!

Michelle's speech and projected personality far exceeded my expectations. Well-written and orchestrated tambien. Plus, a comfortable visual of our next White House first family as contrasted with the surreal Bush/McCain family images, as well as mirroring our incredible Olympic teams in contrast to any other country's team which all were clearly highly homogeneous. Go America!

Thought the rest of the convention was very lame with Caroline and Ted Kennedy moderately ok ... a bit too scripted with feigned emotions for my tastes.

Your thoughts?

Namaste - RichPundit

[RichPundit]

Happy Labour Day weekend TTSers!

Hey, am enjoying great weather, friends, food and drink in Door County ... sort of the Cape Cod of Wisconsin, the thumb of the Wisconsin mitten.

Needed to do my Fantasy Football draft from my hotel yesterday cuz the only day that our 12 team owners could get together b4 school starts. Since I was randomly assigned the worst draft position, #7, in our serpentine draft order [teams 1 to 12, then 12 to 1 ...] and I don't know most of the players, I was desperate as to who to draft while on the clock as the best known players were already chosen.

SOooo, I pathetically decided to use McCain's Hail Mary Pass strategy!

My buddy & new Mom Karen who runs our family football pool in Jersey, graciously shared her well-informed player ranking lists including a well-researched "Sleeper" list. Sleepers are those players who didn't have great stats last year and therefore are typically ranked low, but new situations and talent [i.e., Nuture and Nature aka similar to our LOST mythology] make them potential looong shot great 2008 season picks. My first pick, which generated much disparaging trash talk, was RB Thomas Jones of the J-E-T-S ... JETS JETS JETS!!! With local hero Favre as the new Jet QB, Jones may go 1500+ yards as per all-time RB great: Cowboy Emmitt Smith.

However, not likely and a clearly desperate, pathetic 1st round pick for me ... McCain's Hail Mary Pass strategy - RichPundit

[RichPundit]

TTSers & Welcomed Lurkers:

my wife's staunch Republican, WW2 Vet father Kenny is very, very excited about his and his buddy McCain's VP choice! He has spontaneously become politically "active", and is sharing this pic with all his friends.

If this pic is real, my guess is that we'll be seeing many, many more pics since Beauty Queen winners tend to be photographed often ... much fun to cum - RichPundit

[RichPundit]

TTSers & very much welcomed TTS Lurkers:

have cut/pasted both a WSJ article and a link to Obama's recent campaign ad below for your political enlightenment of the facts and personal enjoyment. imho, it is always important to note that both our Republicans and Democrats are true American Patriots with best-in-the-world and best-in-history intentions, albeit different experiences, perspectives, and tactics/strategies ... hence solutions - RichPundit



Wall Street Journal - today's solid Republican-biased Wall Street Journal admirably published their conclusions from their investigation & assessment about the McCain-Palin claims of maverick change, albeit this article is buried deep inside the WSJ ... go ahead, try to find it even knowing it's there!

Obama Campaign Ad -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/08/obama-response-whoa-mccai_n_124924.html

	September 9, 2008

Record Contradicts Palin's 'Bridge' Claims By ELIZABETH HOLMES and LAURA MECKLER September 9, 2008 The Bridge to Nowhere argument isn't going much of anywhere. Despite significant evidence to the contrary, the McCain campaign continues to assert that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told the federal government "thanks but no thanks" to the now-famous bridge to an island in her home state. The McCain campaign released a television advertisement1 Monday morning titled "Original Mavericks." The narrator of the 30-second spot boasts about the pair: "He fights pork-barrel spending. She stopped the Bridge to Nowhere." Gov. Palin, who John McCain named as his running mate less than two weeks ago, quickly adopted a stump line bragging about her opposition to the pork-barrel project Sen. McCain routinely decries. Getty Images Republican presidential candidate John McCain (right) and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, at a campaign rally in Lee's Summit, Mo. But Gov. Palin's claim comes with a serious caveat. She endorsed the multimillion dollar project during her gubernatorial race in 2006. And while she did take part in stopping the project after it became a national scandal, she did not return the federal money. She just allocated it elsewhere. "We need to come to the defense of Southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table like the bridge," Gov. Palin said in August 2006, according to the local newspaper, "and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that's so negative." The bridge would have linked Ketchikan to the airport on Gravina Island. Travelers from Ketchikan (pop. 7,500) now rely on ferries. A year ago, the governor issued a press release2 that the money for the project was being "redirected." "Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer," she said. "Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it's clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island. Much of the public's attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened." On Monday in Missouri, Gov. Palin put it this way: "I told Congress thanks but no thanks for that bridge to nowhere. If the state wanted to build a bridge we would built it ourselves." Senior adviser Mark Salter pointed to her role in killing the project while in office and allocating the money elsewhere. When pressed further that it was actually Congress that stopped the earmark, Mr. Salter said: "She stopped it, too. She did her part." Mr. Salter added that he welcomed a fight over earmarks with the Obama campaign. Democratic candidate Barack Obama used a town-hall style event in Flint, Mich., to attack Gov. Palin over the "Bridge to Nowhere" debate. He accused the vice presidential nominee of lobbying for the bridge and then hiding her initial position when she ran for governor and the project became unpopular. "You can't just make stuff up. You can't just recreate yourself. The American people aren't stupid," he said. It's like "being for it before you were against it," Sen. Obama said, a reference to a damaging statement John Kerry made in 2004. Why is this one issue such a big deal? Sen. McCain's anti-earmarks stance has been paramount to his campaign. The Arizona senator has blamed everything from the Minneapolis bridge collapse to Hurricane Katrina on Congress's willingness to stuff bills full of pork barrel spending. As such, Gov. Palin's image as a "reformer" is part of the storyline the McCain campaign needs to complement the top of its ticket. Her quip about passing on the bridge and "building it ourselves" has been a staple of her stump. But she's drawn considerable fire as result. Sen. Obama's campaign released an advertisement3 pointing out her original support of the bridge. And on Monday, an Obama staffer emailed a photo of Gov. Palin holding up a T-shirt that was made shortly after the bridge caught national attention. It reads "NOWHERE ALASKA" and "99901," the zip code of Ketchikan. The McCain campaign jumped back with spokesman Brian Rogers calling the attacks "hysterical." "The only people 'lying' about spending are the Obama campaign. The only explanation for their hysterical attacks is that they're afraid that when John McCain and Sarah Palin are in the White House, Barack Obama's nearly $1 billion in earmark spending will stop dead in its tracks," Mr. Rogers said. At a rally today, Sen. McCain again asserted that Sen. Obama has requested nearly a billion in earmarks. In fact, the Illinois senator requested $311 million last year, according to the Associated Press, and none this year. In comparison, Gov. Palin has requested $750 million in her two years as governor -- which the AP says is the largest per-capita request in the nation. --Amy Chozick contributed to this story. Write to Elizabeth Holmes at elizabeth.holmes@wsj.com4 and Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com5 URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122090791901411709.html Hyperlinks in this Article: (1) http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=bVIaqCjvLpU (2) http://www.dot.state.ak.us/comm/pressbox/arch_2007/PR_0921_GravinaAccessProjRed.pdf (3) http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=NBtbG5xjFBY (4) mailto:elizabeth.holmes@wsj.com (5) mailto:laura.meckler@wsj.com

Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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[lost_grrl]

I am so grossed out by this whole Sarah Palin thing--Sorry...I just don't know any other way to put it!

I can't understand why all of a sudden women have lost their minds and are going ga-ga for this woman! It does a great disservice to women in politics and women in general to VOTE FOR A WOMAN JUST BECAUSE SHE IS A WOMAN! What baffles me even more is that I would guess that the women who are going ape-you know what over Palin are the same kind of women who declare that they are not a feminist and who have made derogatory remarks about Hillary being a harpy, shrew or even worse.

I actually hope that this is the segment of the female population that is going crazy for Palin, because if it is the women who self-identify as feminists, who give lip-service to caring about "women's issues", then I am even more confused. Sarah Palin couldn't care less about the things that most politically active feminists care about--not only is she against a woman's right to choose (she is even more conservative than her running mate on the issue, believing that there should not even be an exception for rape and incest) but she is for abstinence only sex education (an oxymoron if I ever heard one). But the punch-line to that is that her 15 year old unmarried daughter is pregnant a fact that she hid from McCain until after her appointment. In fact, in reading a recent article on Sarah, I noticed that she and her husband eloped (read "unplanned wedding") on Aug. 29th and she gave birth to her son in April--at the most 8 months after the wedding. Maybe her son was premature, but it is far more likely that she was pregnant before she got married. Now I personally don't have a problem with a 25 year woman having pre-marital sex, but if you are going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk.


And don't get me started about her supposed anti-pork stance! You have read the article above. But she and McCain can't even decide where to stand on this issue...as she was defending her federally funded projects on 20/20, McCain was denying they existed on The View! When she was mayor of Wasilla she was involved in securing Federal earmark money totaling $27 million for various projects for a town of 6000 people. And as governor she did indeed support the "Bridge to Nowhere" (along with many other pet projects) until it turned into a National scandal. Even when she changed her mind, as Rich's article points out, she didn't actually give the money back...she claims she said "Thanks, but no thanks" to Congress when in fact she really didn't. By the time she decided to say "thanks but no thanks", Congress had already ended funding for that specific project but the money that had already been earmarked to spend on the bridge was still given to Alaska and was used for other things, one of the the "road to Nowhere"


She just isn't qualified to sit "a heart-beat away" from the Presidency. She is woefully ill-informed on both foreign policy (Bush Doctrine? What's that?) and important domestic issues. In her 20/20 interview she was asked about her foreign policy credentials. Her answer was very telling. Charlie is talking about national security and she starts back in on reforming government. It seemed clear to me that she was very uncomfortable discussing foreign policy (for reasons that became very clear as the interview continued) and she wanted to cover that up by going back to the Approved Talking Points about reforming government. In the SNL sketch this weekend Tina Fey as Palin said that the fact that her National Security credentials included the fact that she could "see Russia from [her] house". That isn't a joke. That would be really funny if it weren't for the fact that that is one of the two things that John McCain actually sited as her qualifications to sit in the #2 spots with regard to national security. The other was that she headed the Alaska National Guard.

In the same interview she seemed very confused about how entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare were funded and kept going on about "efficiencies" when Charlie Gibson tried to pin her down about what she would actually change in the Bush Economic Plan. What she did say was not any different than the usual GOP party line when it comes to economics...cut taxes, smaller government, etc.

She and McCain portraying themselves an mavericks is just funny. Eight years ago you really could say that McCain was a maverick. But in the last few years he has really aligned himself with the rest of the Republican Party. When you actually ask what their plan for change is, you get the same platform that the Republican Party has ran on for years...lower taxes, smaller government. They only jumped onto the "change" bandwagon because they saw how well it was working for Obama. And like Obama said (when referring to the McCain platform, not as they would have you believe, Sarah) you really can't put lipstick on a pig and call it something else. It is so funny to me that the very things that the McCain campaign has spent the summer blasting Obama over--inexperience, Cult of Personality, "false" claims of change and of being an outsider--are exactly what they are now depending on. There are very few issues, if any, where Palin actually has a stance that is different than that of the GOP...she is very conservative--more so than McCain--on most social issues (which is one reason why McCain picked her I am sure) not only abortion, but on embryonic stem-cell research, homosexuality, gun rights and the environment.

And her ethics? She is currently being investigated for pushing for the firing her sister's ex-husband and she billed the state of Alaska $17,000 for nights she spent at home in Wasilla instead of in the Governer's Mansion. Alaska has a policy of reimbursing its officials $60 per day when they are out of town on business, presumably to cover hotel bill and food. This is technically legal, but hardly the action of someone who claims to have worked to "end the culture of self-dealing". And she brags about the fact that she got rid of the jet that Alaska provides Governors for state business (Alaska isn't like most states where you can just drive from here to there, many people have private planes) but then billed the state nearly $45,000 to fly her and her family around the state.

I am not naive enough to believe that Obama and his campaign or his potential Presidency will be perfect. Or that we will see a huge instantaneous change if he is elected. I know that the President is not a dictator and cannot make sweeping changes without cooperation from the other branches of government. I don't think that every problem that America faces will be solved by an Obama Presidency. What I do believe is that the beliefs and attitudes that are guiding out government at this time need to change. We have gotten off track and need something different. A McCain Presidency is not going to provide that. And I am terrified that people--men and women alike--are going to be so blinded by Sarah Palin that they may actually start buying what the McCain/Palin Campaign is selling. When I first heard about McCain's pick I was elated. I thought that he had made a huge mistake. But clearly I overestimated voters. I have to believe that this is a temporary infatuation...that when people start learning about her they see her for what she really is--someone who is just singing the same old GOP tune and who is not at all qualified for the position of VP.

Sorry about the length...I didn't know I had so much to say!

[tailhook]

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

I am so grossed out by this whole Sarah Palin thing--Sorry...I just don't know any other way to put it!

I can't understand why all of a sudden women have lost their minds and are going ga-ga for this woman!

Funny... a lot of people were saying the same things about Obama.

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

It does a great disservice to women in politics and women in general to VOTE FOR A WOMAN JUST BECAUSE SHE IS A WOMAN! What baffles me even more is that I would guess that the women who are going ape-you know what over Palin are the same kind of women who declare that they are not a feminist and who have made derogatory remarks about Hillary being a harpy, shrew or even worse.

Most of the women leading the charge against Hillary were? You guessed it.. feminists. They couldn't stand her. Now of course.. they are completely on her side and always were(nice retconning). A good section of her core supporters were *not* feminists, have families, and find the true ideology behind the feminist movement(the breakup of the family unit in order to free the bonds that hold women down) anathema. Thing is... there hasn't been an alternate viewpoint on the issue. Now there is... in the form of Sarah Palin and as a result every feminist worth beans is in the process of trying to destroy her. This simply cannot stand. A woman can raise a family AND be a professional that rises all the way to the top without having to adhere to our set of demands? HOGWASH! STONE HER!

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

I actually hope that this is the segment of the female population that is going crazy for Palin, because if it is the women who self-identify as feminists

The thing you don't seem to grasp is that that is a small minority of the female population.

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

, who give lip-service to caring about "women's issues", then I am even more confused. Sarah Palin couldn't care less about the things that most politically active feminists care about--

no kidding.. she provides a counteroption to that. The horror.

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

not only is she against a woman's right to choose (she is even more conservative than her running mate on the issue, believing that there should not even be an exception for rape and incest)

True. Not saying I agree with it.. just that it is factually correct.... because...

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

but she is for abstinence only sex education (an oxymoron if I ever heard one).

This isn't. I'd stop reading left-wing trashrag blogs imo.

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

But the punch-line to that is that her 15 year old unmarried daughter

17.

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

is pregnant a fact that she hid from McCain until after her appointment.

Also factually incorrect. She told him and McCain knew about it when he selected her.

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

In fact, in reading a recent article on Sarah, I noticed that she and her husband eloped (read "unplanned wedding") on Aug. 29th and she gave birth to her son in April--at the most 8 months after the wedding. Maybe her son was premature, but it is far more likely that she was pregnant before she got married. Now I personally don't have a problem with a 25 year woman having pre-marital sex, but if you are going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk.

Lol... 'your kid was conceived out of wedlock!' is soooo 19th century.

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

And don't get me started about her supposed anti-pork stance! You have read the article above. But she and McCain can't even decide where to stand on this issue...as she was defending her federally funded projects on 20/20, McCain was denying they existed on The View! When she was mayor of Wasilla she was involved in securing Federal earmark money totaling $27 million for various projects for a town of 6000 people. And as governor she did indeed support the "Bridge to Nowhere" (along with many other pet projects) until it turned into a National scandal. Even when she changed her mind, as Rich's article points out, she didn't actually give the money back...she claims she said "Thanks, but no thanks" to Congress when in fact she really didn't.

Technically what she said was absolutely true. They gave the money and they had the choice to spend it on the bridge or not.

Are you going to give a critique of the Billion-Dollar Boy Obama?

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

She just isn't qualified to sit "a heart-beat away" from the Presidency.

Yet she's more qualified then the inexperienced guy thats an electoral vote away from the presidency. Or does talking to 200,000 Germans count as foreign policy experience?

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

She is woefully ill-informed on both foreign policy (Bush Doctrine? What's that?)

She echoed my exact words and i'm a lot more informed than most. Until I heard what Gibson was getting at I didn't understand what he was referring to.

And considering that there are 4 different interpretations of what the Bush Doctrine actually is... it aint a potato moment sorry. The MSM needs to catch her on something a little more obvious to most people.

Frankly, Fight of the Century is gonna be on Oct 2nd when the VP debate happens. I imagine that will probably be the most watched debate ever and will really tell the tale of the tape on whether she succeeds or fails as a candidate.

-TH

[lost_grrl]

Sorry about the 15...it was a typo on my part...and I have heard differing stories about whether or not the McCain camp knew ahead of time, I should have been more clear on that.

I really don't want to debate the issues with you Tail, because you and I are so clearly on opposite sides of the spectrum, but let me say a few things...


It is NOT sexist to question a person's qualification to hold office, just because she happens to be a woman. My objections to Palin have nothing to do with her being a woman. I really, really hate that the term "feminist" is turned into a bad word by a lot of people on the right. Most feminists are not the man-hating zealots that Rush Limbaugh makes them out to be. The characterization that feminists believe in the break down of the family is patently false. As with any movement, there are extremists, but the views held by the extreamists are exactly that--extream--and do not represent the population at large. If I wanted to get snarky I would advise you to stop reading right-wing Neo Con blogs. Saying that all feminists advocate the breakdown of the family is like saying all Muslims are suicide bombers.

And you are incorrect about "feminists" being against Hillary. If you have any independent data supporting that claim, I would love to see it.

As I said, I don't have a problem with women concieving children "out of wedlock". I simply stated that she should walk the walk.

As for the pork...yes Obama has participated. Everyone does it, EVEN MCCAIN, but simply look at the numbers. She has asked for tons of ear mark money, much more per capita than Obama. This is an issue that is one of the 5 biggest "promises" of the McCain campaign and her record simply is not in line with the kind of things that the campaign is saying. She and McCain can't even get on the same page about how to defend those requests--he denied them entirely.

There are millions of Americans who can't tell you what the Bush Doctrine is, and that is fine. However, they are not running for the second highest office in out country. She is. It is something that she should know. It is something that is known and debated in political circles.

Palin's security/foriegn poicy experience is so weak that the simple fact that Obama has been involved in national politics gives him more experience. But Obama has/is actually sitting on the Foreign Relations Committee and the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. This means that he is actually involved in shaping US foreign policy and in dealing with out soldiers when they come home. Palin has zero experience in national politics and foreign policy. Again, no interpretation or spin needed...just look at thier resumes and it is very clear who has more experience in these areas.

I too am looking forward to the VP debates...Biden is an expereinced, knowledgable Senator and that will be very clear when the two are side by side.

And there was some good news today (for me at least, lol) the Palin Announcement bounce has finally run its course...the two candidates are now even with Obama having the upwards momentum. Order is restored to the world.

Just FYI I do not at all take political debates personally and do not like to get involved in putting people down or trying to make them feel stupid. Any comments I make are only meant to further intelligent discussion. Sometimes jokes are included, but are never meant to be hurtful. It is sometimes hard to tell the spirit in which a comment is made online, so I just wanted to make it clear that I am not and will not insult anyone for holding viewpoints that differ from me--even though those who hold such viewpoints are clearly wrong.

[tailhook]

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

Sorry about the 15...it was a typo on my part...and I have heard differing stories about whether or not the McCain camp knew ahead of time, I should have been more clear on that.

I really don't want to debate the issues with you Tail, because you and I are so clearly on opposite sides of the spectrum, but let me say a few things...

You can't have debate without opposing viewpoints. Without opposing viewpoints its called agreement.

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

And you are incorrect about "feminists" being against Hillary. If you have any independent data supporting that claim, I would love to see it.

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archive...woman-problem/

http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/20...n-problem.html

http://mattjohnston.blogspot.com/200...n-problem.html

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/..._hate_hillary/

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n2934136.shtml

It was well documented. Thats just a sampling.

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

As I said, I don't have a problem with women concieving children "out of wedlock". I simply stated that she should walk the walk.

I'd consider having a kid with down syndrome walking the walk.

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

I too am looking forward to the VP debates...Biden is an expereinced, knowledgable Senator and that will be very clear when the two are side by side.

The nice part is that the Democrats have been pumping him up. So she'll have low expectations. If she exceeds them, she'll look all the better in comparison. He's been a non-entity since his selection(even he admitted Hillary would have been a better choice), so we'll see if he can pull his weight for the campeign at that debate.

Originally Posted by lost_grrl

And there was some good news today (for me at least, lol) the Palin Announcement bounce has finally run its course...the two candidates are now even with Obama having the upwards momentum. Order is restored to the world.

Right now they're pretty much deadlocked nationally, electorally, etc.

But just remember, all ties, except in the electoral college(now that would be hilarity), automatically go to John McCain.

-TH