"If that doesn't scare the hell out of you, it should."

"There's no excuse for that. She's supposed to know a little bit of this."

hat tip Rob S.

Can't even hear her talk

McCain camp tries to to keep reporters out of Palin meetings

For Sarah's very first meeting with a foreign leader, the press was allowed to take pictures, but not listen. CNN refused to air pictures if they couldn't be in the room, so they were let in for a few seconds. Palin and Hamid Karzai talked about kids, which is the only thing they could possibly have in common.

After 29 seconds observing the meeting, CNN and other photographers covering the meeting were escorted out of the room.
Later, McCain-Palin press representatives chalked up the restrictions to a “mix-up, a miscommunication among staff.” The full pool — a print and wires reporter, along with a television producer — was then allowed in to observe Palin’s meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe for 15-20 seconds.

29 seconds and then 20 more- almost a full minute, and she didn't (audibly) screw up once!

Why is this not on the front page?

Why is it instead on page B2 of my Times of Trenton? And why can't we call it "lying", when that's what it is?

McCain's Claims Skirt Facts - AP, By Charles Babbington

Republican presidential nominee John McCain, a self-proclaimed tell-it-like-it-is maverick, keeps saying his running mate, Sarah Palin, killed the federally funded Bridge to Nowhere when, in fact, she pulled her support only after the project became a political embarrassment. He said Friday that Palin never asked for money for lawmakers' pet projects as Alaska governor, even though she has sought nearly $200 million in earmarks this year. He says Obama would raise nearly everyone's taxes, when independent groups say 80 percent of families would get tax cuts instead.
Even in a political culture accustomed to truth-stretching, McCain's skirting of facts has stood out this week. It has infuriated and flustered Obama's campaign, and campaign pros are watching to see how much voters disregard news reports noting factual holes in the claims.

Well, at least he was against dishonesty before he was for it:

McCain's persistence in pushing dubious claims is all the more notable because many political insiders consider him one of the greatest living victims of underhanded campaigning. Locked in a tight race with George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, McCain was rocked in South Carolina by a whisper campaign claiming he had fathered an illegitimate black child and was mentally unstable.
Shaken by the experience, McCain denounced less-than-truthful campaigning. Vowing to live up to his "straight talk" motto, he apologized for his reluctance to criticize the flying of the Confederate flag at South Carolina's state Capitol in a bid forvotes. When the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacked the military record of Democrat and fellow Navy officer John Kerry in 2004, McCain called the ads "dishonest and dishonorable."
Now, top aides to McCain include Steve Schmidt, who has close ties to Karl Rove, Bush's premier political adviser in 2000.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, I guess? How sad. How far the mighty have fallen.

A new low for the McCain campaign

Rob S. has a good analysis of the latest low in the McCain campaign: an attack ad against Obama.

It's a shameful ad. It's pathetic. It's desperate. It's horrifying to me that people may believe it. But, as the Republicans have shown so many times, if you repeat something enough times everyone begins to believe it, regardless of how stupid it may be.

Even worse: with two months to go, this will not be the lowest they will sink this campaign season. Of that I'm sure.

Did they vet her at all?

A lot of folks have questions not just about how thoroughly the McCain campaign researched their VP choice, but if they even bothered to at all.

By Richard Mauer, Lisa Demer and Sean Cockerham for the Anchorage Daily News:

Questions surround Palin's background check

McCain's presidential campaign spent the day trying to assure fellow Republicans and the nation that Palin's background was thoroughly vetted. The pregnancy of Bristol Palin, 17, came as no surprise to them, they said.
But in Alaska, it was hard to find anyone who had been contacted by McCain's campaign.
Thomas Van Flein, the Anchorage lawyer representing Palin and her office in the legislature's investigation into the firing of former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, said he spoke to several representatives from McCain before Palin's selection was announced Friday.
But Van Flein appears to be in a small minority in the vetting of Palin.
The former U.S. attorney for Alaska, Wev Shea, who enthusiastically recommended Palin back in March, said he was never contacted with any follow-up questions.
...
Republican Gail Phillips, a former speaker of the Alaska House, said Friday that she was shocked by McCain's selection of Palin and told her husband, Walt, "This can't be happening because his advance team didn't come to Alaska to check her out." She said she would've heard had someone been poking around.
"We're not a very big state," Phillips said. "People I talk to would've heard
something."
Monegan, fired by Palin in July, said that no one from the McCain campaign contacted him, either. His firing is now the subject of a special legislative investigation into whether Palin or members of her administration improperly interfered with the running of his department by pushing for dismissal of a state trooper involved in a divorce and custody battle with Palin's sister.
Alaska Senate President Lyda Green, R-Wasilla, told The New York Times, "They didn't speak to anyone in the Legislature, they didn't speak to anyone in the business community."

Better still, the campaign is acting like they did do a thorough vetting job and not telling the truth about it:

On Sunday, The Washington Post quoted McCain campaign manager Rick Davis as saying the FBI conducted a background check of Palin.
But Monday, the FBI told the Atlantic Monthly no such check took place.
"In general, we do not do vetting for political campaigns except as it might regard investigations needed for security clearances," the magazine's Web site quoted John Miller, the chief FBI spokesman. If the agency had conducted a security check of Palin, it wouldn't have shared it with the campaign, the magazine said.

Do we really want a president who barely met or even researched the person whom he wants to be his replacement, if needed? Someone who then tries to backtrack to pretend that he did check her out?

Why Palin bothers me so much

I don't mind about any (possible, hopefully NOT) vice president having an pregnant teen daughter. These things happen, even to politicians. I wish only good things for Bristol and the baby. They have tough times ahead but will be fine with guidance and love.

I also don't care if the president gets a blow job, or the first lady killed someone in a car accident, or the vice president has a gay daughter. Your personal life is your own business, as far as I'm concerned. I vote based not on family or personal proclivities, but on ability to do the job how I hope it will be done.

What concerns me here is how obviously little the McCain campaign bothered to vet this unquailified pretty face before tapping her. This choice was intended to:
1. Rally the conservatives with an NRA anti-women's-rights beauty queen, and
2. Garner support from former Hillary swing-vote supporters, who obviously vote based on the vagina content of their candidates.
Her ability to do the job doesn't appear to be part of the question; she has close to none. The mayor of East Windsor, NJ, has more executive experience than this pin-up.

Please.

This country does not need another Republican sell-out who panders to voters and rushes headlong into stupid, uninformed choices because his handlers told him it would be a good idea.

Better than I could've said it: Pandering to Hillary Supporters Edition

Steve Benen, Washington Monthly:

It's more than surprising; it's the strangest running-mate decision since Dan Quayle. Sarah Palin spent a year working as a commissioner for the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and has been governor for a year and a half. Now, she'll be the Republicans' vice presidential candidate, and if things go well for McCain, one heartbeat from the presidency. When it comes to being untested and unknown, Palin is in a league of her own.

Just yesterday, advisers to the McCain campaign conceded to the New York Times that McCain "thinks highly" of Palin, but "her less than two years in office would undercut one of the McCain campaign's central criticisms of Senator Barack Obama -- that he is too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief." So much for the McCain campaign's message.

Stepping back, we have the man who would be the oldest president in American history, who happens to have a record of health problems, picking a virtual unknown who's been a governor for less than two years. Amazing.

McCain communications chief Jill Hazelbaker told CBS News this morning that McCain is going to "make the choice from his heart." That seems even more bizarre - McCain barely knows Palin, hasn't worked with her in any capacity, and hadn't even asked her to serve as a campaign surrogate at any point in the process. For all the talk about McCain valuing personal relationships above all else, McCain has practically picked a stranger, to himself and the rest of the nation.

(Hat tip to Channel Surfing)

Better than I could've said it: letters edition

Haven't had the time to put together a coherent blog post in a while, so here are three letters published in the print media which said whatever I would have said, but said it better:

From Time Magazine:

The campaign outlined in "A Whole New McCain" is an insult to the intelligence of the American voter [Aug. 18]. When our military personnel are dying in foreign wars, McCain dares to raise Paris Hilton and Britney Spears to the level of a national political debate. With the U.S. facing an energy emergency, McCain jokes about tire inflation. When your 85-year-old mother loses her General Motors health benefits because GM can't sell cars, you want health-care solutions, not McCain's juvenile critique of Obama's European trip. Voters must demand solutions from those running for office--not fifth-grade political campaigns with playground sound bites. As a retired U.S. Air Force veteran, I find it disturbing that McCain has lost touch with reality.
Major Robert Tormey (ret.) escondido, CALIF.

I don't give a damn about any slight, perceived or otherwise, of Senator Hillary Clinton or her backers by Obama or his staff [Aug. 18]. America needs a Democrat in the White House. We need Obama's intelligence, his willingness to seek diplomatic solutions and his patience. Soothe your own bruised egos. Relax the clenched jaws. Pay your own bills. Above all other matters, work hard to get Obama elected in November.
John Gambardella CUNDLETOWN, AUSTRALIA

From The Times of Trenton:

The letter "Hightstown a haven for illegal aliens" (Aug. 19) is a poor assessment of the immigrant experience and is based on myths. Its writ er's arguments play on the politics of fear with words like "dishonest," "de ception" and "illegal criminal invasion," which distastefully demonize immigrants in an effort to support a recall election for Hightstown Mayor Bob Patten -- and that has nothing to do with immigrants. It seems to me to be a smoke screen over the real issue. The letter is an example of the type of rhetoric that impedes genuine discourse to solve a disagreement.
For starters, Mayor Patten supports the constitutional rights of all people. He has not established a "sanctuary" city, but rather has fos tered a culture of tolerance and opportunity for all Hightstonians.
Second, it is important to understand that no one supports illegal immigration, not even illegal immi grants. If the letter writer "encourages" legal immigration but does not support illegal immigration, then why not advocate to increase ave nues for legal immigration? I suspect that what bothers people is not the illegality, but the immigrant -- period.
The perpetrators are not the immigrants, but rather the outdated, broken, irresponsible and economically insensible immigration laws. If anyone is to be held accountable for the illegal immigration problem, it is our lawmakers who have consistently failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform that would address the writer's concerns -- and mine.
Finally, elected officials represent all those who live within their district. Just because people do not vote does not mean they don't have a voice. If that were the case, then large segments of our population (i.e. kids, legal residents, people on probation) would be unrepresented.
If we are genuinely interested in solving problems, let's talk without demonizing each other.
-- J. CARLOS AVILA, Trenton

Thanks, folks, for putting that into words. Well.