Sarah Palin Cannot BE ELECTED!

From a reader/commenter in today's StarTribune...

I'm not sure I've been so appalled by four words in my life. Recently Sarah Palin accused Senator Obama of "palling around with terrorists". Palling around with terrorists. Spend a few moments with that image in your mind. That is a vivid, evocative, and deeply concerning statement that is utterly incorrect and reflect more upon Sarah Palin's reckless, dangerous, and deeply disturbing character and personality. These are the kind of word bombs that, if lobbed at the wrong person, can ignite if not a word war, an all-out world war. Can you imagine this woman spouting reckless comments on the world stage about Ahmadinejad, Hamas, Putin or God knows who else? If elected, this woman would become an official representative of the United States and step onto the world stage with her careless, impetuous, ignorant word bombs with absolutely no regard for the consequences. It is her unthinking boldness and her smug ignorance that, if elected, have the grave potential to careen this country toward total collapse. Please, please, please send this to ten of your friends and encourage them to send it to ten of their friends and so on. We need a voter turnout against this woman that is so strong, so passionate and so determined to ensure Sarah Palin is not one tenuous heart beat from the Presidency. Regarding Senator Obama "palling around" with William Ayers who was a leader in a radical and violent anti-Vietnam group from the 60s: The facts are a $200 contribution by Ayers to an Obama re-election fund, and their joint membership on the Woods Fund Board, an anti-poverty funding program. Ayers is now a distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois and a former aide to Mayor Richard M. Daley. A statement from the Obama campaign pretty much sums it up: "Senator Obama strongly condemns the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as he does all acts of violence. But he was an eight-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were active, and any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost forty years ago is ridiculous." Ridiculous, yes, but also dangerous, reckless, misleading and spoken by an inexperienced, careless woman who has no regard for facts or decorum. = = = = = =

How low can you go...

"In an election campaign notable for its surprises, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice- presidential candidate, may be about to spring a new one -- the wedding of her pregnant teenage daughter to her ice-hockey-playing fiancé before the November 4 election.

Inside John McCain's campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. "It would be fantastic," said a McCain insider. "You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week."

09.24.08 -- 3:03PM // link | recommend (42)

 

McCain asks Barack to call off presidential debate.

(Desperate and Reckless: Ramp up Georgia Crisis for votes; Call off half the GOP convention; pick a demonstrably unqualified freshman governor to salvage his campaign; calls for firing head of the SEC; now ask to have presidential debates delayed or canceled so he can politicize the bailout debate ... )

--Josh Marshall

From an honorable Republican...

From Anchorage Daily News today...

I am an American, a veteran of the 82nd Division, 505th Airborne Infantry, a member of the Republican Party and I am outraged at the irresponsibility of my Party's reprehensible and shameful use of misinformation to divide our country and pit American against American. I am not part of the "angry left"; I am part of the growing "angry right" who are becoming more and more disenfranchised with our own Party. We are rapidly growing tired of our Party wrapping themselves in the flag for the purpose of engaging the public in a disingenuous oratory about uniting the country, while at the same time vilifying other Americans with cruel, divisive and childish taunts that have no basis in fact.

You see: my party could not field a Presidential candidate that has the substance, integrity and leadership to match that of Senator Obama. Our candidate is a compromise from a field of pathetic choices that half of us don't believe in, a candidate that can't match wits with his opponent or inspire and uplift the people as Senator Obama can. So, when faced with the prospects of running with a candidate that is outclassed and overwhelmed, our party resorts to that old maxim attributed to P.T. Barnum: a sucker is born every minute. And you, America, are that sucker!

Rather than inspire the people, my party berates and belittles our opponents to the point that the American people are completely bamboozled into thinking the opposing candidate is somehow less of an American. Although I know the staunchest of my fellow Republicans will dismiss my outrage as traitorous rhetoric or simply the ranting of a misguided soul, I say to my fellow Republicans: it is we that are causing the deep divides in this country. It is we who are polarizing America in our attempt to vilify and turn public opinion against other good Americans who are just as patriotic, just as religious, just as family-oriented and just as concerned for their country as ourselves.

However, the blame for the sad state of American politics cannot be placed entirely on the Republican Party. Most of the blame for the negative campaign ads and dirty politics falls squarely on the shoulders of a clueless voting public that does not demand fact, issues or well-reasoned argument. It is we the people that perpetuate the very style of nasty political rhetoric that all of us revile and despise. Because of a fatal flaw in the human psyche, the average American is highly skeptical of the plain truth, instead embracing lies, fabrications and twisted logic with a relish that is utterly disquieting.

Rather than research issues from independent sources and make intelligent decisions on our own, we absorb the self-serving language of such people as that lying, adulterous former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, or the twisted foul words of sleazy political hacks like Rudy Giuliani and Rush Limbaugh whose only shared talent is repackaging schoolyard taunts into a political argument. So, I am not sure if supporters of Senator Obama understand this point yet, but my party is about to run over your candidate with a large bus full of flag waving, misinformed American idiots armed with a significant amount of propaganda gleamed from obviously biased news stories, emails and clueless television entertainment disguised as news.

This is unfortunate because Senator Obama is a dynamic leader, with the people and vision to achieve real fiscal responsibility, develop intelligent foreign policy, re-build our military and restore an executive branch that supports and defends our badly battered Constitution of the United States. Unfortunately, the "Campaign for Change" is about to be steamrolled by my party's skillful use of emotional misinformation honed to a level unmatched since the Nazi propaganda machine of 1930's. So, if you want your candidate to win, quit sitting on the sidelines, stop talking about issues amongst yourselves and stand up and fight for what you know is right!

Our country cannot take another four minutes, let alone another four years of the same old failed model of leadership and fiscal irresponsibility. Take America back! Contact your local Campaign for Change office and get involved now!

Greg King
A Morrison Republican

American Hero?

September 16, 2008

BY MARY MITCHELL Sun-Times Columnist

Suppose Barack Obama had dumped a crippled wife and married a beer heiress one month after the divorce.

Do you really think he wouldn't have been tripped up by such a scandalous past?

The Republicans would have had a field day mocking his character.

But John McCain's tawdry personal history is rarely mentioned.

Carol, McCain's first wife, wasn't even a comma in the video presentation about McCain's life that was shown to millions of viewers during the Republican convention.

But it was Carol who was left behind to take care of the couple's three children while McCain served his country.

And it was Carol who stuck with McCain during his long incarceration in a Vietnam prison camp.

If McCain is a war hero, then Carol is a war heroine.

Yet she was written off when McCain fell in love with a younger woman.

When McCain returned from Vietnam, he discovered that his wife, a former swimsuit model, had been seriously injured in an automobile accident.

"My accident is well recorded," Carol said in a rare interview with the Daily Mail.

"I had 23 operations. I am 5 inches shorter than I used to be, and I was in the hospital for six months. It was just awful, but it wasn't the reason for my divorce," she said.

"My marriage ended because John McCain didn't want to be 40; he wanted to be 25. You know that happens . . . it just does," she said.

McCain has taken the blame for the divorce, saying the marriage collapsed because of his own "selfishness and immaturity."

"The blame was entirely mine," he wrote in a memoir.

Under normal circumstances, I'd say you shouldn't hold something that happened 35 years ago against someone.

Except, McCain has argued his case for leading the nation based in part on heroic acts that took place four decades ago.

It is worth noting that the same man who endured suffering in a Hanoi prison is the same man who dumped his crippled wife and ran off with a woman 17 years his junior.

Now McCain is being packaged as an authentic American hero.

But what hero could stand to see the wife of his youth and the mother of three of his children written out of his life's narrative as McCain has done?

Worse yet, now that the white female vote is proving to be pivotal, McCain has suddenly had a change of heart.

After 20 months of ignoring his ex-wife's role in shaping his narrative, while campaigning in Jacksonville, Fla., on Monday, McCain thanked Floridians for looking after her while he was a POW.

"I hope you know that in the years I was away in prison, the people of Orange Park, Florida, took care of my wife and family," he said.

"My children had about 50,000 parents while I was gone, and I'm very grateful," he said.

Though sentimental, his words were calculated to woo female voters.

But it may be too late for that.

Many of these women have walked in Carol's shoes.

They have loved men when their lives were low only to be cast aside when their spouses' stars began to rise.

A lot of voters may not be aware that McCain was married before. Like Cindy McCain's pill-popping and her troubles with the DEA, McCain's abandonment of his first marriage has been shrouded in secrecy.

Part of the reason for that is Carol McCain keeps a low profile and is not bitter.

"He is a good guy," she told the Mail. "We are still good friends. He is the best man for president."

But Ross Perot, a family friend and the man who paid Carol's medical bills, had a different take.

"McCain is the classic opportunist," he told the interviewer. ''After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona."

Ironically, McCain is depending on working-class women who are much like his first wife to put him over the top in this election.

I hope those women will remember Carol.

Join Mary Mitchell at www.suntimes.com for a live chat on community matters today at 3 P.M.

Erratic?

Former AZ Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ) on why the press's judgment problem about McCain ....

[McCain] has a problem of judgment. I think that has been clear, as the campaign goes on, that his judgment is flawed. He paints it as a "maverick" position, but in fact he has a problem finding good judgment and staying with it.

He likes to paint himself as a man of convictions that stays with it. But if you served with him, as I did, and if you have followed him since I have left, and I have done that, you see his positions changed [with] whatever is needed. Whether it's on taxes, income tax cuts; whether it's on drilling in Alaska, or offshore, or you name it -- and John McCain has been all over the map.

And he will continue to do that, and that's why he has been able to be successful because, in my judgment, mostly. not all of the media, but much of the media kind of lets him get away with it.

One over-night

The procedure went without a hitch, so they tell me.  I know it sure left me black and blue in certain places...and, spending another night in the hospital, sitting up because I couldn't lie in a bed.  But with nearly a week behind me now, I'm beginning to feel a little better each day.  Hopefully I can not get back to the cardiac rehab stuff and get some strength back; and some enthusiasm for life...

Here we go again...

I've been sloppy again in keeping up with events on the blog...sorry.  Recovery is going fine, though it seems slow at times to me.  Rehab is going well and I'm slowly regaining the prowess on the treadmill that I had going before all this came up.

One recent setback however....my AAA repair of four years ago is failing and has to be redone.  I'd had a AAA (abdominal aortic aneurysm) repaired through the endo-vascular technique and it went rather well at the time, saving the abdominal incision procedure.  However, my annual CT scan to follow up on the procedure now shows that it's leaking and the aneurysm is actually growing in size again and needs to be 'relined'.  That will be done Monday morning first thing.  Hopefully it will not require any overnight time in the hospital.  I'll report later on the outcome...

2 more weeks...

It's been another two weeks of recovery, and it's going 'fairly' well.  I've had no further setbacks and am well on my way to returning to my old self.  Still quite tired by mid day; naps are good!  There've been a lot of blood tests and doctor visits and daily rehab duties.  And, I'm still having lots of problems with ulnar nerve neuropathy, caused by the surgery.  It's beginning to look like some of the nerve damage might stay on for quite a while.  I still have a struggle with the keyboard; particularly the a, caps lock tab, shift action; that little pinky just doesn't seem to want to work right.  And the back, neck, shoulder pain is still pretty fierce at times, especially when I try to sleep.  Tramadol seems to help some; at least I can get some sleep.

More later...

A time for change...

As you can see, I'm making changes to my site that give it a whole different approach. I've decided that strong opinions are a bit like hemorrhoids, sooner or later every A..... has one. Now that doesn't mean that I don't still hold the same opinions, hopes and aspirations. Rather, I choose to be a little more discrete about them from now. I think I'll stick to the things in my life that I know just a little bit more about; like maybe tech issues (websites in particular), woodworking, photography...stuff like that. I'd be more than happy to see a dialogue develop about these issues if there's the interest...

For now, my life has been pretty filled with medical stuff, pretty much dominating every minute of every day in fact. You see, my life (and my dear wife's) was tipped upside down recently when I discovered that I needed heart surgery, now! But more about that later. For now, the past four weeks have been about nothing else, and now it's a struggle to get back to some sort of normalcy. I would imagine many of you have had similar experiences in your lives and know exactly what I'm talking about. So let's share...