Angry Johnny

“If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we’re going to lose.”

Exact words from a top McCain adviser, directly admitting that John McCain has no plan for how to get America back on track. 82% of Americans believe that now is a bad time to find a job - an all-time high since these kinds of polls have been conducted. September saw the ninth straight month of job loss, the unemployment rate is skyrocketing and the government just approved 700 billion of your tax dollars going to bailout - oh I'm sorry, "rescue" - failed financial institutions, and John McCain's campaign has admitted that they can't talk about the economy or else they'll lose. Straight from the horse's mouth: if John McCain is president, the country will get worse. According to another poll taken yesterday by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal, the economy is the number one issue to almost 60% of Americans surveyed and John McCain wants to stop talking about it? "Country First" my ass.

Naturally, the strategy now is to attack Barack Obama's character - Sarah Palin is running around saying Obama "pals around" with terrorists, surrogates have resorted to bringing up his middle name, Hussein, for a cheap cheer, and the audience members at McCain's campaign rallies have resorted to flat-out screaming "TERRORIST" or "KILL HIM" when Obama's name is mentioned. These are the kind of people who vote for John McCain - sick, depraved individuals that are calling for the assassination of a political candidate and Obama's the one "palling around" with terrorists?

Governor Palin's husband was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a secessionist group whose founder said of America, "I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions," and "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. And I won't be buried under their damn flag. I'll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home." Sarah Palin recorded a welcoming address for AIP's convention earlier this year, yet she's running around saying that Obama's the one who sees America as "imperfect."

I'd be nervous too if I had no agenda for the country with 28 days to go.

John McCain goes out at campaign rallies and says that Obama is "too touchy" and "sensitive" when it comes to questions of his patriotism, yet if you ask McCain if his running-mate is even remotely qualified for the job, he flies off into a fit of rage and declares war against the media. No, not touchy there at all as he shields the precious, delicate flower that is Governor Palin from any questions, even if they're questions asked by a debate moderator. Oh no, Governor Palin doesn't have to answer those questions, but Barack Obama has to entertain ludicrous notions that he somehow sympathizes with someone who did some horrible things when Obama was eight, just because they've been in the same zip code together. Obama has to answer for his pastor's angry comments about America, but Sarah Palin doesn't have to discuss her relationship with a literal witch doctor that protected Palin from witchcraft and prayed for her to be showered with wealth and good fortune. Palin partially credits this man "laying hands on her" as part of the reason she was elected governor of Alaska.

Barack Obama gets attacked for saying that people in small towns are fed up with the government to help them economically, so all they have to hang onto is the government pandering to them with guns and religion. That, while ridiculously true, gets attacked from all sides as a gaffe while Sarah Palin goes out and says women that don't vote for her will go to Hell, and no one says a thing. Barack Obama is a "liberal elitist" for not eating fried food, but no one calls Sarah Palin a disgusting savage for shooting defenseless wolves from a helicopter.

As John McCain's campaign continues to drown and his poll numbers sink like an anchor tied to another anchor, he is relying on the kitchen sink strategy in the last four weeks of the election. His own people admit that they cannot win on the issues, a few weeks ago, his senior campaign manager even tried to say this election was about personalities rather than the issues, so I understand why they're doing what they're doing. They can't win, all they can do is make Barack Obama lose by reminding voters that he's "different," which of course is a code word for "black." It doesn't matter if none of these smears are even remotely close to being true, they just need the voters to connect the dots, even if they don't form a picture.

McCain is bitter, out of touch and has completely sold his credibility and dignity for this last shot and becoming President of the United States and if trends hold, it will blow up in his face. John McCain will not win this election on his record, his positions or his judgment and it's saddening to see him turned into just another neo-conservative puppet. The John McCain of 2000 would never vote for the John McCain of 2008:

Couldn't have said it better, John.

There's a place in Hell for Sarah Palin

I want to share with you a direct quote from Sarah Palin:

"There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't support other women."

Yes, I swear to you she said this and I'll give you video proof in just a moment. To clarify what the governor was talking about, she claims she was quoting former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Here's the full quote in context:

"I'm reading on my Starbucks mocha cup, ok? The quote of the day... It was Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State [crowd boos] and UN ambassador. ... Now she said it, I didn't. She said, 'There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't support other women.'"

Of course, Albright never said that. In fact, Albright's exact words were "There's a special place in Hell for women who don't help other women." Big damn difference. One implies that if you're a woman that doesn't vote for Sarah Palin, you're going to Hell. The other implies that if you're a woman and you do nothing to help your gender (you know, like Sarah Palin), then you're going to Hell. So if the governor wants to use that quote while running on the ticket that doesn't support a woman's right to choose, equal pay for equal work and all the other women's issues that McCain has voted against over the last 26 years, then I think it's perfectly acceptable to say that Sarah Palin will rot in the fiery pits of hell. Of course, Satan will probably jam his pitchfork through his ears after listening to her talk for about two hours - I could barely survive 90 minutes on Thursday - so while he's recovering, I'm sure she'll find some way to change Hell's constitution and give power to herself.

Once Palin finished delivering another gem, she followed up with a taunt to the media "turning it into" something tomorrow. Hey governor, they wouldn't make a big deal out of it if you weren't butchering someone's quote to make it sound like anyone that votes against you is anti-woman, I know it's all a game to you, but you sound like an asshole. Oh and you claim you read it on your "Starbucks Mocha," whoa there, Governor, Starbucks? Sounds a bit like a hoity-toity latte-drinking Liberal to me! ELITIST!!!

Gotcha!

It's not "gotcha journalism" just because you're a moron.

This is the latest coming out of the McCain campaign, the tried and true Republican tactic of blaming the "liberal" media for Sarah Palin's inability to answer questions that were asked of her in the two real interviews that she's given to the press. Yeah, that Katie Couric must be so "in the tank" for Obama since she asked that ridiculously hard question, "what newspapers do you read?" Read very closely because I'm about to tell you something that may seem surprising and I know we've gone over it before, but I assure you, it's true: there is no such thing as the liberal media. Make no mistake, there's a right-wing, neo-conservative media - FOX News, New York Post, Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, Weekly Standard, and pretty much every AM talk station you've ever listened - but liberal media? Sorry, doesn't exist. Oh, there's a few tiny outlets for strictly liberal thought like Air America Radio, but if you're looking for hardcore liberal media, you're only going to find it on the internet where any jackass with a keyboard can express his thoughts (oh the crippling irony!) In terms of traditional media - radio, television, newspaper, magazines - it's dominated by three groups: 1. conservatives, 2. extremely lazy reporters, and 3. the dying breed - actual journalists.

I got into a less-than-polite disagreement with someone today who, in so many words, told me that I shouldn't bash McCain/Palin because I don't know them personally, nor can I believe everything the media tells me. The first part of that, not knowing them personally, is incredibly stupid, but I'll forgive it since I provoked the hasty response; the second portion however, did strike a chord, you can't always trust the media. But is it because of a liberal bias? No, it's because of general laziness... or fear. The media doesn't do its job anymore because politicians refuse to talk to the press - if a journalist asks tough questions to a Republican, they're labeled as liberal and their newspaper or TV station will never get another interview with that particular candidate.

Sarah Palin has furthered this to embarrassing new lows by doing a measly two interviews with a non-FOX network since becoming John McCain's running-mate. Here's a woman that was literally unknown to the overwhelming majority of non-Alaskans until five weeks ago and she can't even give interviews without preconditions? Obviously, we all know why, if you saw any of the Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson interviews, you understand that Governor Palin is ridiculously unqualified for her position and quite frankly, is a fucking idiot. Don't get me wrong, Palin is an educated woman and probably knows a lot about Alaska, but when it comes to being on the national stage? Yeah, "fucking idiot" is the proper term to use. Some of her answers were like watching fourth graders try to answer test questions about a book they didn't read - just string together a bunch of words and hope they make sense, even if they're completely unrelated to the topic at hand. She did this in the debate last night as well, though it wasn't as obvious since it was paced so quickly that it wound up being in her favor until people had a few hours to think about it.

"Gee golly Katie, I guess you could say Highlights for Children really helped me shape my world view! That and Guns & Ammo, you betcha!"

So let's just set the record straight, Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson and the majority of the mainstream media are not biased against Governor Palin. Hell, the McCain campaign picked Couric to come out on the campaign trail with Palin for nine days, so whatever happened there, they brought on themselves. I know we were all surprised to see it, but yes, Katie Couric showed some real journalism in her interviews with the Governor. There is no liberal agenda in asking a candidate running for the #2 highest office in the land what newspapers they read or if they can name a single Supreme Court case. Palin froze on both of those because she is clueless, not because Couric is an Obama surrogate. This is journalism, folks - asking candidates tough questions because being President and Vice President are tough jobs. We shouldn't be voting for people just because they make us feel fuzzy inside or because they talk like characters in Fargo.

The McCain campaign knows this and it's why they're doing exactly what I predicted they would do in last night's blog - keeping Palin out of the spotlight for the next 30 days. She won't be on any of the Sunday morning talk shows, she won't be sitting down with anyone else from CBS, ABC or NBC, no press conferences, nothing. She scraped by in the debate last night and managed to halt her freefall into the complete destruction of her credibility, but her handlers know that she is not ready to be on television, let alone Vice President or worse, President of the United States of America.

That's what a John McCain vote gets you on November 4, a Vice President whose own campaign openly acknowledges that she is not even ready to stand up to the former host of The Today Show, yet you're supposed to think she can handle Vladimir Putin and Osama bin Laden.

Maverick, Bipartisan, Corruption on Wall Street, Joe Sixpack and Golly Jeepers!

I'll have more on all the debates in an upcoming writing, but here's my quick analysis of tonight's contest between the two Vice Presidential contenders:

She didn't answer a single question that was asked, she didn't offer any differences between McCain and Bush, she didn't say anything new, she lied and she talked like Ned Flanders...

...But I'm sorry, Sarah Palin won this debate. She managed to come across like someone who had a clue, even if it wasn't a clue about the question that was asked, but it was perfect Republican sleight of hand. Your average person isn't going to sit there and say "oh well she wasn't really answering the question that was asked," they're just going to absorb whatever the hell Palin was talking about. Her cram session paid off and she spewed talking points like it was nobody's business without sounding like the complete mental invalid that she has with Katie Couric. All they have to do now is keep her out of the spotlight for the next 30 days or so and McCain is back in the saddle.

Biden did fine, but he was on the defensive the entire time and never once went after Palin for fear of being labeled sexist. If this debate were Hillary Clinton vs. Sarah Palin, the governor would have been humiliated and this race would be over, but of course, we would have heard the media use the phrase "catfight" a couple thousand times tonight, so I'm glad things turned out this way. Regardless of her winning the debate, I don't think this does much for McCain except slow the hemorrhaging that she has caused the campaign since the Charlie Gibson interview and only worsened with Couric. I don't think she's swayed anyone to her side, but she probably revved up the Republican base that were desperately in need of something to point to in order to defend this embarrassing pick for VP. At least now they can say she beat Joe Biden in a debate, but anyone with half a brain saw that she never answered a single question that was asked and managed to bullshit her way out of stuff she was clueless on. George W. Bush must be so proud!

The Palin Project - Volume 6: The Beginning of the End

Only Palin can save McCain, her party and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first. Do it for your country.

I know what you're thinking, the above quote must be one of those "liberal media elites" with their sexist attitude toward Governor Palin, right? Actually, it's from die-hard Republican, Kathleen Parker in a column for the right-wing publication, National Review. Ouch... wonder how they're going to do damage control for that one? When members of your own party are calling you an embarrassment with just over a month to go before election day, maybe it's time to consider packing your bags and heading back to Alaska.

This is the final installment of The Palin Project - I'm certainly not done writing about Sarah Palin, but now that her manufactured "All-American" story has been exposed as the farce that it is, I feel that it is no longer necessary to profile Governor Palin as I have over these six writings. But how could this all fall apart for the Republicans? Just a month ago, it looked like McCain/Palin (or as it was then, Palin/McCain) had this election in the bag. The Democrats had a great convention, but McCain stole the thunder just hours later with the announcement of Sarah Palin as his running-mate and The Palin Effect was seen across the country - people were genuinely interested in this woman. After twenty minutes of pure venom in her convention speech, the pundits were fawning over Palin as the next big thing in American politics and seemingly the only person who could rival Barack Obama's level of fanfare.

But guess what? It was all a magic show, smoke and mirrors, nothing more. The minute people started looking under that hastily-crafted backstory, they saw what many of us knew was there - an empty, bigoted, idiotic lunatic-fringe Neocon that has more in common with George W. Bush than John McCain. Between saying she can see Russia from her house gives her foreign policy experience, being unfamiliar with the Bush Doctrine and being completely clueless on the issues facing our nation, America woke up and saw the truth - Sarah Palin is a joke. You have to sit back and laugh at her, because if you really think hard about the prospect of her being a heartbeat away from the presidency, veins in your head will swell up with anger and cause your entire cranium to explode.

The Republicans certainly tried, they told us she was a reformer (she isn't), they told us she's a maverick like John McCain (they're not), they told us she had more experience than Barack Obama (she doesn't) and they told us that Joe Biden better watch out come debate time (he will eat her alive). As Palin's mystique crumbled in the past week, McCain "suspended" his campaign (for about an hour to do nothing) and tried to get the first debate postponed to October 2 - conveniently the day that the VP debate is scheduled. Even Palin's own campaign is acknowledging that she's a laughingstock and will be decimated in a proper debate - she can't even handle a debate with Katie Couric!

Wow.

Seriously, a month ago they almost had this country convinced that she was going to run circles around a 35-year Senator with more foreign policy experience than pretty much anyone in congress during this upcoming debate. The gloves come off this Thursday and Joe Biden warned he would not treat Palin lightly because he didn't want to come off as condescending as John McCain did during his debate. So Mrs. Palin, I hope you're ready for the man that has been nicknamed "Joey the Shark;" and with your campaign sinking, I don't know if that's a man you want to be going toe-to-toe with.

But don't take this writing as an easy victory for Obama on November 4, far from it. But the selection of Sarah Palin does mark the beginning of the end - even if McCain wins the election - because it represents the final nail in the coffin of John McCain's reputation. A man that was once considered to be the voice of reason in politics, a man that John Kerry asked to be his Vice President in 2004, has devolved into another worthless Neocon pandering to the Religious Right and corporate interests in order to get elected. The Palin pick speaks volumes about John McCain's judgment (or lack thereof) and shows that this man cannot be elected if we ever want to get this country back on track. Remember, a vote for John McCain is a vote for a woman who said this in regards to the $700 billion Wall Street bailout:

That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation.

Those aren't even sentences, they're just random words placed together - but hey, at least you can feel safe on those clear days when she can see Russia from her house.

Politics as Usual

Just when it looked like we were going to have a presidential election about actual issues, John McCain managed to turn our country's economic crisis into a political game. McCain wants to postpone Friday's presidential debate so he can return to the Senate and work on this $700 billion bailout for all his lobbyists. Of course, this is Grade-A political bullshit.

Once again, John McCain exploiting a national crisis so he can give off the appearance of being a leader while simultaneously holding the campaign in the palm of his hand. Things aren't going your way? Just hold the election hostage and make things get done on YOUR time and anyone who disagrees "isn't putting country first."

As far as I know, no candidate has ever called for the suspension of a presidential campaign with a little over a month left in order to deal with a financial crisis. The notion that this problem can't be managed without John McCain there is absurd, it's like he thinks congress is sitting around thinking "We have no idea how to solve this issue... if only John McCain were here! You know, that guy that openly admitted to knowing nothing about the economy despite being in the United States Senate for 26 years? Yeah, he can fix it!"

We're in the middle of two fucking wars, McCain hasn't put his campaign on hold for those, has he? No, but he put the Republican Convention on hold for a hurricane that threatened to be worse than Katrina, but turned out to be nothing too disastrous. And then just a few days later, had no problem being out there campaigning while Hurricane Ike ravaged Texas and left millions of people without power throughout the country.

John McCain has turned into the lowest form of political scum that I've ever seen - worse than Cheney, worse than Rove, worse than Bush... it's absolutely appalling to see how low an American Hero will go in order to satisfy his bloodlust to sit in the Oval Office. This man has sold out every idea, every principle and every shred of dignity in order to win and when that won't work, he'll just derail the entire political process. If this man is president, it will be this country's darkest day.

9/11™

I was going to write up a whole thing about the seventh anniversary of our nation's saddest day, but Keith Olbermann summed it up better than I ever could: