Oh, Goody: a Sarah Palin Memoir!

Well, this should be all of seven pages.

In 26 point Comic Sans

Oh, Sarah, the epic tale you have to tell. The salons, the boutiques, the racist trailer-trash rallies: Sean Hannity trying to crawl head-first up your skirt on national TV...

Poor Little Sarah Palin: "I Was Exploited"

What a tool the woman is.

I wasn't believed that Trig was really my son. You know, that rumor persists today even. We're still receiving calls in our state press office regarding Trig and who is the real mother of this child. When did we start accepting as hard news sources bloggers, anonymous bloggers especially? It's a sad state of affairs in the world of the media today, mainstream media especially, if they're going to rely on anonymous bloggers for their hard news information. Very scary.

Hmm... kind of like your accusations against your opponent when you were running for mayor of Wasilla? That he wasn't legally married because his wife retained her maiden name? When you harassed him and demanded that he make his marriage license publicly available? Or maybe like your numerous accusations that Obama was/is a terrorist?

My heart's trying hard to bleed.

I've been interested also to see how Caroline Kennedy will be handled, and if she'll be handled with kid gloves, or if she will be under such a microscope also.

The idea of her appointment has already been lambasted by numerous people across the political spectrum. If you ever read the news, you'd know that already. Oh, that's right: you read all the newspapers and magazines already, don't you?

The woman's hypocrisy and dishonesty are breathtaking.

On the Importance of Administrative Experience in a Presidential Candidate

From Pundit Kitchen:

see Sarah Palin pictures

McCain/Palin Rally in Waukesha

McCain Palin held a unbridled orgy campaign rally in Waukesha, WI yesterday (I was wondering why those black clouds suddenly rolled in from the southeast and blotted out the sun). We 'Sconnies had our own, local look at the insanity that the GOP crowd has become.

The candidates whipped the drooling masses into a frenzy warmed the crowd up with charges of demon-worship and witchcraft harangues against the moldy old Ayers issue and some blather about ACORN, then proceeded to "take questions from the angry mob audience". That didn't quite work out. The crowd was not so much interested in asking questions as they were in giving advice and making demands. They want McCain/Palin to hit Obama harder with negative ads and attacks.

My first thought was "Harder? These people seem to be completely out of touch with what's been going on for the last month. What's harder than going 100% negative? What's harder than accusing him of being a terrorist and a traitor, and giving your followers your tacit approval when they scream out things like 'Kill Him!' during rallies?"

The only way he could get nastier with Obama would be to start taking these accusations up in his media interviews and the last debate. And I'm sure Obama would like nothing more than for McCain to do that. It would be the last nail in the coffin of the GOP campaign.

John McCain cannot win a war of guilt-by-association in any arena where people who read the newspaper and know anything about his history are to be found. He brings up Bill Ayers, an old, irrelevant, forgotten and failed 60's revolutionary who Obama only knows in passing, and Obama comes back with Charles Keating, who McCain actively abetted in the former's attempts to subvert thrift regulation. McCain brings up Jeremiah Wright, Obama counters with John Hagee. McCain brings up ACORN, and Obama can again counter with the Keating Five.

I'm not particularly surprised that people who would attend a McCain/Palin rally would think that this strategy would work. Between the media isolationism the right has been indulging in in the last 2 decades, and their more recent war on intellectualism, the GOP has been working very hard to produce an electoral base of mindless robots. They got what they wished for, bless their little hearts. And I do mean little.

Taking this tack would be suicide for McCain. And while McCain has had a notable talent for blunders recently, I don't think even he is clueless enough to commit this one. But he could yet prove me wrong.

Oh: That's How McCain/Palin Will Fix the Financial System

From the Washington Post, a report on a McCain/Palin rally yesterday. The following opening prayer was used:

Even the opening prayer was politically charged. "O God, we are in a battle that is raging for the soul of this nation," the preacher said. "You, O God, have raised up Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin for such a time as this." The preacher went on: "Help them, O God, to strengthen our economy, to keep our taxes and spending low . . . and grant them the privilege of being elected the next president and vice president."

Well, at least he's announced his fiscal policy. "If I'm elected, everybody pray".

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Sarah Palin on Ayers and the Economy

From Faux News, Palin was asked by her travelling press corps about whether she'd keep beating the oh-so-dead Ayers horse for the next month in the face of the prominence of economic issues:

“Americans are caring about the problems in the economy of course And wanting to know what those long term solutions are that our ticket can provide and what the other ticket is proposing so when you talk though about what it is that we are proposing and what it is that Barack Obama is proposing again it is relevant to connect that association that he has with Ayers–not so much he as a person Ayers, but the whole situation and the truthfulness and the judgment there that you must question if again he’s not being forthright in all of his answers as to how did you know him, when did you know him, why would you continue to be associated with him?” Palin asked, “It makes you wonder about the forthrightedness, the truthfulness of the plans that he is telling America in regards to the economic recovery because that is first and foremost on Americans’ minds.”

I'm sorry, Ms Fey, but not even you can top that.

Sarah Palin Debate Flowchart

Palin Manages not to be Awful

She gave no solid answers, clung to her predetermined talking points, and generally chirped manically at the camera for an hour and a half. She never did an actual rhetorical face-plant, but she clearly didn't have a clue as to what she was talking about.

McCain doesn't have a chance.

LOLPalin

The Very Best of Sarah Palin

The Little Veep that Could:

Sarah Palin on Climate Change

In the final installment of Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Curic. I had to snigger a bit at the climate change portion of the conversation:

Couric: I want to start with climate change, if I could. What's your position on global warming? Do you believe it's man-made or not?

Palin: Well, we're the only arctic state, of course, Alaska (ed: it's awfully nice that she's made us aware of this). So we feel the impacts more than any other state up there, with the changes in the climates. And certainly it is apparent. We have erosion issues and we have melting sea ice, of course. So what I've done up there is form a sub-cabinet to focus solely on climate change. Understanding that it is real.

Couric: Is it manmade in your opinion?

Palin: You know ... there are man's activities that can be contributed to ... the issues that we're dealing with now with these impacts. I'm not going to solely blame all of man's activities on changes in climate. Because the world's weather patterns ... are cyclical. And over history we have seen changes there. But kind of doesn't matter at this point, as we debate what caused it. The point is it's real, we need to do something about it. And like ... Tony Blair had said ... when he was in leadership position, he said, "Let's all consider the fact that it is real." So instead of pointing fingers ... at different sides of the argument as to who is to blame, and if nature just to blame, let's do something about it. Let's clean up our world. Let's reduce emissions. And let's go with reality.

That first section in the second response is a doozy. Pure water-treading. She'd better have it more on the ball than that tomorrow night.

That said, I have to admit that I'm somewhat heartened that she at least acknowledges that climate change is occurring. But exactly how is it that she thinks we can mitigate it if we didn't cause it in the first place?

Couric-Palin Interview: Bonus Footage

Breaking News: Palin Aware She's Running for Office

In a stunning display of political savvy, Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin has become aware that she is running for national office, we learned today.

Foreign policy adviser Stephen Biegun, in responding to questions regarding Palin's meeting with Afghani President Hamid Karzai, stated that "Gov. Palin in these meetings is cognizant that she is a candidate for office".

Wow! She's got my vote!

Palin also met with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger: the meeting with him "stretched from its scheduled 30 minutes to more than an hour". This could be due to one of two factors:

1) Kissinger had to repeat everything twice, or

2) it just took Palin a bit longer than expected to cut out and devour his heart in order to absorb his power.

Not sure which is the case, but Palin was seen to be wiping blood off of her chin when departing.

Sam Harris on the Palin Nomination and "Elitism" in Politics

Over at Newsweek, Sam Harris has published an excellent article on the Palin nomination as it relates to the odd aversion American voters have to "elitists" in high office. Definitely worth reading.

Sarah Palin Information Clearinghouse

DailySource.org has put up a special section containing all of the information its producers have been able to glean on Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. It contains a lot of the info that has been bouncing around the web for the last month, and a lot of stuff that hasn't really been circulated. Seeing as how the McCain campaign is bending over backwards to hide her from us, I think we all need to look at what little information is available so that we can make an informed decision in November.

Check it out.

Sarah Palin - Gravitassiness!

Via Octegenarian, we see that our perky, scrappy, airplane-hunting, super-powered, budget-cutting, government-reforming, earmark-fighting VPSIMLTF (Vice President Someone Insane Might Like to Hey!!) is going to address concerns about her foreign affairs inexperience by MEETING WITH HENRY KISSINGER! Yes! All of that foreign affairsiness that Kissinger trails around behind him like a cloud will be absorbed by the Little Engine That Could and will turn her into executive material!

And next week, George H. Bush will travel with her to Japan and teach her about world trade issues by having her puke in the lap of the Prime Minister!

Bravissimo!

The Woman Who Would Be President

Washington Post has an article up regarding the efforts of the McCain campaign to shield his new squeeze his pick for veep from scrutiny by the American electorate. She has given only one "interview", a heavily scripted and edited mess of softballs from Charlie Gibson, and has otherwise courted the press like Bill Donohue courts PZ Myers (I won't dignify that oral-sex session with Sean Hannity by calling it an interview). The article states, in part:

Mr. McCain's selection of an inexperienced and relatively unknown figure was unsettling, and the campaign's decision to keep her sequestered from serious interchanges with reporters and voters serves only to deepen the unease. Mr. McCain is entitled to choose the person he thinks would be best for the job. He is not entitled to keep the public from being able to make an informed assessment of that judgment. Ms. Palin's speech-making skills are impressive, but the more she repeats the same stump speech lines, the queasier we get. Nor have her answers to the gentle questioning she has encountered provided any confidence that Ms. Palin has a grasp of the issues.

Queasiness, indeed: it was obvious at the outset that this was a simple demographic-based selection: but the campaign is obviously terrified of what Palin would do to their chances if the media were allowed to challenge her. This does not bode well for the impact on this country (and the rest of the world, for that matter) should Palin rise to the office of President.

I'm becoming a one-note trumpet, I know: but I haven't had such an uneasy feeling about a candidate since I first became eligible to vote. I guess I wouldn't object to her so strenuously if McCain had a better health history: but there is a significant chance that McCain will die before serving out his term. And the idea that someone who isn't even familiar with the Bush Doctrine, perhaps the single biggest watershed change in American foreign policy since the Teddy Roosevelt administration, might wind up commanding our military and determining the course of global politics, should make everyone queasy.

Imagine that Dan Quayle had become president (disclosure: I voted for H, and still think history gave him a raw deal). Think about it. President Quayle. Now make him a naive yokel who has had zero exposure to the rough and tumble of national politics.

Bit of a gut check, no?

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Update: added a link to the WaPo source article.

Sarah Palin: No Elaboration Needed

via HERB