ENOUGH!!!

[MichiganJ]

The conservatives made McCain pick Sarah Palin because their base, the religious right, don’t like their choice for the top spot. Palin’s ultra right-wing views on the conservative social issues (most namely, abortion--the only issue they really seem to care about), provided the red meat the conservatives needed to get enthused in the election at all. There’s no question that, despite the dubious vetting of Palin, that Palin is who the conservatives will be voting for come November, not McCain. The hypocrisy, though, of championing a working-woman, who the conservatives have for years and years disparaged and blamed for the degeneration of “family values” for wanting (needing?) to work outside the house (c’mon, folks, it’s absolutely true), is almost cynically laughable.

In regards to her experience, Palin became governor by running against a corrupt incumbent. Because Alaska’s economy is directly tied to big oil, Alaska in general, is riding high on the high fuel prices, which means Palin can send out checks to every Alaskan, which means high approval ratings. Nothing wrong with that, by the way. But, Palin has pretty much never left her State. She never lived in the lower 48, and has only been out of the country, by her own admission, once. I think an argument could be made that her view is rather insular, in that Alaska, as a state, is considerable different than any other State. (There’s little or no moose hunting in Atlanta, for instance.) Obama, by contrast, has lived in many parts of the country, and in other countries, too, giving him, in my opinion, a much better perspective on the “real” world, and not just one state. This goes to experience, I believe. Palin knows Alaska, Obama knows a bit more.

As Governor, Palin plays NO ROLE as a commander of the Alaska National Guard outside of the state. She wasn’t even instrumental in appointing the current adjutant general, Gen. Campbell, who was named 3-years before Palin was elected. While Palin and McCain continue to point out her national security credentials by referencing her experience with the Alaskan National Guard, there really is little or no actual experience to point to.

As for Obama and McCain's position on the war in Iraq. Obama has been pretty clear that he wants to reduce the troops as soon as possible. He’s finally admitted that the “surge” (I just love that word. “Surge” now means something that takes a year to do), has been successful (although it wasn’t just the “surge”, but a host of other items, too.) McCain keeps toting that Obama was against the surge, which is true (and true of many of our military experts--see “liberal” author/journalist, Bob Woodward’s latest book), but remember, McCain was FOR the war, troops levels and all (until Bush gave the “Mission Accomplished” speech, which was when McCain started saying we need(ed) more troops.) AND, he has said that, even knowing there were no WMD’s, and all of the other nefarious reasons we went to war, McCain STILL would have gone to war with Iraq. What does that say about his judgment?

Ah, the ads: Negative ads, unfortunately work. We’re lemmings that way. But McCain/Palin’s ad saying that Obama voted to teach five-year olds sex education is pretty despicable. First of all, what congressman/senator would ever introduce such a bill? C’mon, you know that’s not what the bill said, yet McCain, on The View, still claims it is true. If McCain/Palin can air such an add, can I just say that there’s at least one member on their ticket who maybe could have benefited from said sex education (yea, i said it).

If you’ve read this ill-formed diatribe this far (thanks, but why?), I’m curious about the pro-Palin folks (Let’s face it, you are not, pro-McCain). What about her do you like? What specifically has she done as Mayor/Governor that suggests that she’d make a good VP? (Just being governor isn't “accomplishment” enough, is it?) What questions are the “liberal” media aloud to ask? Do you have any questions for her, or are her positions on abortion/creationism/gay-marriage enough? Does her economic policy have any leverage? Does she even have an economic policy? Some of us want to know.

[movieman1957]

I just want it all to be fair. When someone asks Palin "are you ready to be President?" That's a legitimate question for both sides. With that question comes an explanation. What experience is their for Obama? He should get the same question. Is less than two years in the Senate any more qualification? (Two years when he announced he was running.)

Isn't it a bit odd that the Democrats are running their game against the GOP VP nominee? That is because, like her or not, she struck a nerve with middle America. The press has been having a field day with her and has looked petty in the process. She has become the focus in this race (for now) and that can't be good for the Democrats. Even Joe Biden when he opens his mouth sticks his foot in it. His statement that Hillary might have been a better choice than himself makes you wonder about both his reason for accepting the offer and Obama's reasoning for offering it. It doesn't look smart.

The Dems need to find a way to get the focus back on their guy and in a positive light. While no one really believes his lipstick comment was directed at calling Palin a pig it was stupid. I bet he knew it as soon as he said it. But it gave the GOP a chance to jump on him. Neither side is going to turn down a chance like that.

Come on Anne, neither of the GOP figures are as evil as you would believe. It's all good and well to disagree with them but if you're going to talk about lieing there are going to be plenty of people to detest.

[ken123]

The GOP needs " issues " such as " lipstick on a pig ", they cannot defend the last eight years that is IMHO the worst administration in my adult life. Big oil, big banks,lobbyists,lies about the war, this Bush team has had but one objective serve Mammon. Man cannot serve God & Mammon at the same time.

[moira finnie]

Sorry, but I think both sides have lost sight of the issues.

I don't care if McCain can't send an email nor do I care if "lipstick on a pig" is now a politically incorrect phrase when used by Obama or McCain (both have used it). I prefer to turn off all the media noise about the race and watch the debates, when it might be possible to talk about the issues in a nuanced way that both candidates are capable of doing.

[mrsl]

Chris (movieman 1957):

If you recall back to my old TCM days, which at this point was previous to March of 2007, and several months before that I was saying Bush was a liar and should have long since been impeached. I figured if someone came after me, all they would find was a grey haired lady who couldn't walk so I said what I thought. At that time however, Bush still had a lot of followers and believers and I was often 'shouted' down. I totally detested the whole Bush regime and screamed often about neither election being on the level.

One of the laughable things McCain said was calling Obama elitist. Here's a guy raised by a single mother who obviously imbued him with decent values and beliefs. He worked his way through college, and worked his way through many of his travels - elitist? Should he leave Michele and find a pretty heiress instead?

Palin received my cold eye by saying all abortions should be banned including rape and incest. That is an evil woman who would say such a thing!!!!

Nobody's Perfect. Nobody is even near perfect and that includes Obama, I'm sure he's told his fibs and lies, voted the wrong way on certain bills, and backed the wrong people, but I at least credit him with trying to keep this campaign clean for a couple of weeks, now his P/R is telling him to fight fire with fire, so he gave the go ahead with some new ads. He's not a saint who keeps turning his cheek. I just hope this Palin thing will cool down and people will get back to choosing between Obama and McCain.

Again, I am even more anxious for the debates now.

Anne

[Vecchiolarry]

Dearest Anne,

You are one astute lady to have cleverly assertained that Bushie Baby is (was) a "liar".... And, a failure too....

I have seen the previews to Oliver Stone's new movie "W" and there Bushie Papa is telling him (reciting) all of his failures. Too, too funny!!!
And, too, too true......

I think this Palin dame is disgusting - on many planes.....

Religion & abortion should be kept out of politics and government; leave it all up to your priest, minister and/or doctor...

I have now added another couple of cents to this discussion - I'm now up to 5 or 6 cents.
So, pardon me while I 'spend a penny' - that's English for "I have to pee!!"

Bye for now,
Larry

[movieman1957]

Anne:

The very idea that you would include Palin in a group that attacked the US, that hides behind women and children to fight their war, to send their own kids out strapped with bombs to blow up shopping centers or the rapist just because she believes that any life is precious regardless of its origins is plain wrong. Just because she believes that doesn't mean she believes she can make it law. There is a practical reality to it and that will have to come through the courts or the Congress. If Roe v. Wade is ever overturned it will be because so many think it is bad law and will wind up back in the states hands.

McCain didn't marry an airhead. She has done many things in the medical field to help people in other countries who couldn't get help otherwise. It is very likely that her fortune has allowed her to do as much as she has in her missions.

I think the elitism comments comes from the "clinging to their guns and Bibles" statement. That is kind of a cheap shot to people who follow their faith as if they are stupid. If he is a man of faith as he claims he should have never said that.

It also didn't help when some bonehead in Congress said something to the effect that Obama was a community organizer like Jesus and Pontius Pilate was a governor. Statements like that, while not coming from Obama certainly aren't going to help him.

Negative advertising is as old as the Republic. Once upon a time it made what goes on now look like kids pulling each other's hair. It is called politics. Obama has his own challenges and he should expect to get as good as he gives and so should McCain. It will get uglier.

[jdb1]

I was in the drugstore this afternoon, and saw the front cover of the lastest issue of People. A McCain family portait --- have you seen it? Can you find Waldo -- oh, I mean the McCain's youngest daughter -- in the photo?

No comment. It can, I suppose, be interpreted in so many ways. Or maybe it's a case of res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself).

[silentscreen]

I was in the drugstore this afternoon, and saw the front cover of the lastest issue of People. A McCain family portait --- have you seen it? Can you find Waldo -- oh, I mean the McCain's youngest daughter -- in the photo?

No comment. It can, I suppose, be interpreted in so many ways. Or maybe it's a case of res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself).

You should comment because I want to be sure that I know what you mean and am not misunderstanding the inuendo. You think that he adopted and then is ashamed of his youngest daughter? Maybe he is protecting her because she doesn't like to be photographed. None of us know what the family dynamics are because we're not privy to them. On the one hand, Sarah Palin wasn't protecting her pregnant daughter enough, on the other McCain could be protecting his youngest daughter, but you object? The whole thing gets more confusing to me all the time. Just my take.

[mrsl]

Chris:

I'm not talking about any laws or the making of laws here. I simply mean that if I were raped, I would not want to keep the child. I would not want to carry it for nine months and then give it away. It's a catch 22 and no man will ever understand it. I would not want to raise the child to be a daily reminder of the worst day of my life, but on the other hand I could never give away my baby. If you took my oldest son and his father and put them in a bag and pulled them out by pieces, you wouldn't know what parts went with which guy - they are that similar. Just the thought that as a woman, Palin would stand by the 'rape or incest notwithstanding' resolve only tells me she has no feelings - that's why it will be easy for her to leave her family, travel to DC (as she will have to do), or anywhere else in the world she has to go and not see them for months at a time. Chelsea Clinton is a grown woman and her mother has all the time in the world to commit herself to politics, Palin has little children who need their mother a whole lot more than either the state of Alaska or the union of the United States does. Also, I never lumped her in with mothers who strap bombs to their childrens backs to fight wars, that is exactly what happened with the lipstick on pigs comment, it was taken out of context and given new meaning.

My comment about McCains wife meant only that he has a built in campaign financing, whereas Obama is still looking for donations.

As I said, I would much prefer a clean race and regret that it must be a mudwash. I didn't watch all of the Democratic debates, but out of the ones I did watch, Hillary and Obama stood out and by the end, some things made me go the Obama way. Truthfully, I didn't care about the Republican primary because I want away from Republicans.

I only hope the American people listen to the debates and HEAR what each person says, and votes according to what they hear between the lines.

Anne

[klondike]

I simply mean that if I were raped, I would not want to keep the child. I would not want to carry it for nine months and then give it away. It's a catch 22 and no man will ever understand it.

Wow . . nice undeserved slam on half the world's population, Anne!
If an individual male human fails to understand, and/or sympathize with, the gravity and contradiction of such a personal tragedy, it's going to be because of his shallow intellect, or his religious extremism, or his lack of fundamental education, or his neurotic hostility, or his severe lack of compassion for other people . . . not merely his possesson of a Y chromosome!
To suggest otherwise is pure bigotry.

[movieman1957]

Anne:

It might be that women have kept children that were a result of a rape. That doesn't make them wrong just different. Maybe Palin's stand is more about the baby and the innocence of that baby. That alone shows feelings. True, they are not yours but they are real to her.

I may never understand what a woman feels when something like this happens but my daughter was abused by the son of some very close friends. It was not the same kind of trauma but there was trauma for me. There was the trauma of dealing with her broken heart, her scared soul, and her guilt of a fractured friendship that we saved at her request. It was dealing with a court system that was more concerned with prosecuting a teenage boy and the lies they told about what happened for their end rather than what we wanted. The counseling, the questioning of why and my inability to explain it were challenges I had to meet. She's good now. We didn't have to worry about a resulting child. And maybe that is the difference.

Strange as it sounds we are still friends with that family. Through the grace of God, the love of my daughter for that family, her willingness to forgive him and his repentance for what he did we remain close when lesser friendships would have ended. It was not easy but both families went through hell. I can't imagine the guilt our friends went through knowing their son hurt my daughter.

No, I may not understand it all but I have a sense of it.

[mrsl]

Chris and Klondike both:

I was thinking of the mind set of men of my generation and of my parents generation. Those men would never understand the feelings I mentioned in my post . . . BUT . . . those very same men (of my generation) may now understand. In my time, things were not spoken about, feelings were not expressed, and young people supposedly had few emotions other than the ones that got out of control. I apologize to those men who Klondike was talking about, but I came from nearly 30 years of first my father then my first husband who thought nothing of smacking my face if I said something they didn't like.

I really do believe however, no law has the right to prevent a woman from aborting a child of rape or incest and that platform alone would make me campaign against Palin. I'm talking about the future - not this race. It will always be a catch 22 and nobody will ever be able to placate both sides.

Klondike: I wish you would give us some of your intelligence. You may be able to tell us something we can't get off the net or from the news. All the news stations and papers are so one sided, you can't get unbiased info, but as a long time citizen of Alaska, I would love to hear your comments.

Anne

[klondike]

Morning, Anne!
I really wish I could tell you something illuminating or insightful or comprehensive about life in 21st Century Alaska, but I'm not much better informed thereof than yourself.
Alaska was many things to me, and a lot of them I miss, deeply & profoundly, and many of them conspired to almost keep me from going back to being a native-born Vermonter, but the top 65% or so of all that the Great Land was to me, was dogsledding, dogsledding and dogsledding.
[Did I mention dogsledding?]
Promotional dogsledding, competetive dogsledding, resort dogsledding, kennel-support dogsledding, tourism dogsledding, courier dogsledding, contract-training dogsledding; to say my Alaskan seasons were somewhat tunnel-visioned by purpose would be extremely diplomatic!
My towns of residence, during those winters, were remote, crossroad places like Gakona, East Tok, Slana, North Pole, and Delta Junction; like ancient Gaul, Alaska is often said to be divided into four parts, though in the 49th State, those parts are typically thought of as: 1) Anchorage and Its Outskirts, 2) Commercial Fishing Ports, 3) The Pipeline Corridor, and 4) Everywhere Else (often referred to optimistically by politicians & real estate brokers as "The Interior").
All of my brief hometowns (from '74, off & on through '93) were occupied by me for only 4 - 7 mos. at a time, were all within relative spitting distance of the border with Canada's Yukon Territory, and all could be easily categorized in Alaska's Part 4.
Palin's burg of Wasilla, now, is a text-book example of Part 1, in all its exurban glory; it boasts sweetly of having been crowned the Queen of the Gateway Towns (a phrase of local euphemism indicating towns to the immediate north of Anchorage, as they channeled you toward The Alaskan Interior).
Wasilla gets most of its annual press as a popular "re-staging" point for the Iditarod, which tradition dictates must still begin in downtown Anchorage, even though the city is far too victimized by rampant urban sprawl to be navigable by mushers of any skill level (among the many magillas disabling the event is a midwinter shortage of snow on most of its streets)! The solution is simple, if perennially frustrating: clear 5 or 6 downtown blocks to officially dedicate & begin the race, and then afterward, everybody packs it all up and trucks everything, and everybody out to a pre-chosen bedroom community (like Wasilla, or nearby competitor, Willow) and the Iditarod begins its real start.
So Wasilla may be only a fraction of the size of stepmom Anchorage just down the road, but it's hardly my idea of a small town; size notwithstanding, it shares many of the same burgeoning growth issues: highway congestion, housing, unemployment, racial strife (between youth of all races, not just Inuit & white, thanks to commercial fishing and local airforce bases), alcoholism & drug trafficking, tax apportionment, parity in school funding, etc.
And all that information is what I recall as an Alaskan newswatcher and paper reader, from no later than '93; what it's like now, I can only believe must somehow be bigger & louder & involve more of everything from "Outside".