John and Sarah in St. Paul

Monday, September 29, 2008

John and Sarah in St. Paul

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21831?email

A thoughtful, brilliant overview of the McCain/Palin ticket.

Snip: That the seventy-two-year-old's choice of Sarah Palin as a possible successor had been deeply irresponsible by any standard of governance seemed to matter to only a few Republican dissenters. ("If it were your decision, and you were really putting your country first," asked David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter turned blogger and think tank gadfly, "would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?") What mattered now, as the convention resumed, was whether McCain could regain control of what's known in the political consultants' game as "the narrative."

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Reasons to Oppose Sarah Palin

*lied about her position on Bridge to Nowhere in her first public appearance as VP Nominee. She kept the money and used it on other projects.

*lied throughout her Nomination speech

*abused her power as Mayor to fire city librarian who would not ban books

*embarrassed her daughter internationally by failing to consider that her pregnancy might become a news item

*practices cronyism. "Heck of a job, Palin!" Hired high school chum to head the State Department of Agriculture. Her experience? She liked cows as a child. Responsible leaders appoint the most qualified people.

*increased city of Wasilla's debt from ZERO to $26 Million dollars. That's not "conservative", that's neo-conservative.

*slacker! Hired a city manager so she would not have so much to do. Made the city buy her a white Suburban, which people called the mayor-mobile.

*insider who claims to be an outsider and a reformer while doing exactly what Bush has done
*supports the indicted Senator Ted Stevens
*raised taxes on oil producers so she could perform a cheap political stunt by providing a one-time rebate to taxpayers. Alaska has the lowest rate of high-school graduation of any state. Should have made schools more effective.

*said that the City of Wasilla would not fund "rape kits" for victims of rape, and made the victim pay

*religious extremist whose Pastor told parishioners that a vote for John Kerry would send them to hell.

*Joel's Army is a group dedicated to taking over the US Government for religious reasons. Her church supports Joel's Army.

*defies the law by denying native Alaskans subsistence fishing rights

*opposes scientifically sound policies whenever possible, including fact-based sex education, and is a global-warming denier.

*cheats taxpayers. She charged the state of Alaska for over 300 nights that she spent in her own home, to the tune of $17,000.00.

*opposes women's autonomy. Wants women to carry pregnancies resulting from rape and incest.

*cut funding each year for support programs for new teen mothers

*fraudulently uses state money to support so-called crisis pregnancy centers that aim to force women to carry all pregnancies to term.

*political opportunist. Sees what public opinion is then takes that position rather leading.

Documentation for these claims is contained here in the Sarah Palin--Unfit blog.

On Sarah Palin's Judgment

On Sarah Palin’s Judgment

By: Deborah Lake
September 2, 2008

"I really hope McCain did his homework," said David Frum, a former speechwriter for President Bush. "I cannot stifle a growing sense of unease that he didn't."

I read a detailed article about the vetting process performed by the McCain campaign upon choosing Sarah Palin. I found myself, however, mesmerized by the photo that accompanied the article. Standing behind her jubilant mother was young Miss Palin, holding young Trig, and biting her lip. Young Miss Palin knew what was coming down the pike, but her mother was oblivious to the harm she might be causing her eldest daughter.

During a search today, I found an article about Palin and her children at the Jerusalem Post, which included comments about young Miss Palin’s pregnancy. I shudder to think of the shame that she must be enduring at this moment, with the impending birth of her child now an international incident.

This sorry mess illustrates why we should worry about Sarah Palin sitting a heartbeat away from the Presidency of the United States. A sensible mother would have declined the nomination, knowing how it might hurt her daughter. In particular, a mother who has taken a public political stand against fact-based sex education should have known that accepting a place on the Presidential ticket endangered her family.

Every parent knows that kids get into trouble. The issue here is not young Miss Palin. Rather, it is Sarah Palin’s failure to anticipate the consequences of her actions that should give us pause.

Furthermore, Sarah Palin has turned her daughter into a poster child for ending “abstinence-only” sex education. People, even teenagers, are capable of absorbing and analyzing information that helps them make good decisions. Palin’s inability to analyze led to these errors. If you tell a young woman that she has no safe way to end a pregnancy, and then give her no tools to avoid an unintended pregnancy, the results are a foregone conclusion. It almost seems as though people like Sarah Palin want to make others miserable. Should someone with such poor judgment have the potential to command the largest military force ever known to humankind? This goes for Palin, and it goes double for McCain.

What kind of “family values” do the Republicans stand for, is what I wonder. Is it ok to destroy a young woman’s privacy and anonymity in the quest for power, within the Republican family values? If this were a Democratic VP pick, you’re darn tootin’ the Republicans would be having a Grand Old Predator attack, pointing out how those evil liberals said one thing, and did the other. In actuality, liberals generally stand by their principles, rather than saying one thing out loud for public consumption and then doing the exact opposite in their private lives.*

I have to chalk it up to inexperience, and perhaps incuriosity, and perhaps the lust for power: the very traits most prominent in Palin’s emotional makeup.
___________

An earlier version of the article was captured at www.truthout.org
http://www.truthout.org/article/with-palin-revelations-mccains-gamble-is-clearer
The photo I include here has since been removed from the article and another, less revealing photo has been substituted.

The revised article here.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-palinassess2-2008sep02,0,3826591.story

*Note that I said, generally. Liberal men still let other parts of their bodies do the thinking for them, I note, for example, Elliot Spitzer and John Edwards. But those are the exceptions to the rule, rather than the rule.

One of the most liberal states, Massachusetts, has the lowest rate of divorce in the USA. The South, the proclaimed Bible Belt, has the highest number of teen pregnancies. Therefore, I do not understand why conservatives think that they are more “moral” than liberals. I was raised by a libertarian Republican, and spent half of my life in rural America, so I have street cred. That makes it even more difficult for me to understand why conservatives think that they are more “moral” than liberals.

One website I dread to visit is http://www.armchairsubversive.com/. The webweaver lists the street crimes of members of the Republican Party and other right wing organizations.

The most prevalent crime is child molestation. When I ask a conservative Christian friend why they are not running a campaign against child molestation they give me a glassy stare. Otherwise, they claim that there is not much of a problem there.

I wonder about right-wing morals. They seem like a nice dress brought out for a special occasion. When the party's over, though, it's right back to the down-home values of molesting children, bullying people, practicing prejudice, and figuring out yet more ways to legally steal other people's money.

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Sarah Palin - Unfit to Serve

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Monday, September 29, 2008