"I Can See Russia From My House!"

Sarah Palin makes the cover of the October 6, 2008 of the New Yorker magazine:




Meanwhile, tonight Anderson Cooper 360 goes to Alaska's Little Diomede Island, from which you can indeed see Russia...but none of its residents, save one, has ever heard of Sarah Palin!

The island’s mayor has heard of her though. No American mayor resides in a city closer to Russia than Andrew Milligrock, and he says being two miles from Russia doesn’t give him any foreign policy expertise.

He does say she seems like an okay governor, but exclaims she should probably pay a visit to Little Diomede sometime. It may not help her foreign policy experience says the mayor, but would definitely help her domestic policy experience.

So not only was it a ridiculous claim, not only does Mayor Milligrock refute the basis for her claims of foreign policy expertise--Palin hasn't even visited the island to see Russia with her own two eyes.

This last week of media ridicule may be a giant agitprop exercise of lowering expectations for Thursday night's debate, but I don't think it'll work exactly like that. After watching the painfully embarrassing first part of Palin's interview with Katie Couric, the idea that Palin merely has to avoid vomiting on herself onstage to earn an "acceptable" rating of her debate performance, is just so much dreck itself. These last two weeks of financial disasters, combined with John McCain's age (72) and health (a history of melanoma), ensure that the public will be watching the debate intensely, and imagining what things would be like if this woman rises to the Presidency.

All that imagining is beginning to take its toll. The more that the public learns about Sarah Palin, the more that her brand loses some of its luster. We've recently learned that Palin thinks humans and dinosaurs coexisted 6,000 years ago, and that Tina Fey used part of the Couric interview verbatim while portraying Palin in her SNL skit last week. The Atlantic's Marc Armbinder writes that "Palin has lost control of her public image" and "even some Republicans are beginning to have a less favorable opinion of her"; conservative pundit Kathleen Parker publicly called for her to resign from the ticket, and fellow rightwinger George Will described her as "unqualified". Her favorable/unfavorable ratings are beginning to tank, and she's been sent to McCain's boot camp in Sedona to prepare for the debate under drill sargent Rick Davis. Meanwhile, a witness in the Troopergate scandal has implicated her in the investigation of her alleged abuse of power.

I say that "Poor Sarah", as the Times Judith Warner called her, brought this on herself. The self-described "pitbull with lipstick" accepted the vice-presidential nomination knowingly, and to feel sympathy for her now, when her ignorance, pettiness, and inner Nixon are on full public display, is demeaning to women and undeserved by this candidate. Palin strode onto the national stage as part of a deliberate and cynical ploy to attract women, especially Hillary supporters, to the Republican ticket. With her "sexy librarian" look, a semi-literate backwoods accent, and twenty months of experience governing a state with a total population of 680,000, Palin and the McCain campaign thought that she would be a game-changer.

But her snarky remarks about a man who graduated first in his class from Harvard Law and was elected as a U.S. Senator from the state of Illinois (estimated population, 2006: 12,831,970), combined with Palin's growing list of lies, scandals, and demonstrable incompetence, has gradually turned the voters, Republican and independent, against her. I don't feel empathy for Palin, as Ta-Nehisi Coates does, nor do I see a woman whose self-confidence has been broken, as did Christopher Oates at the New Republic.

What I see instead is an arrogant, vainglorious, self-deceiving and truly contemptuous woman, who thought that her overweening self-confidence and modest ability to read from a Teleprompter could carry her to the highest office in the land (and make no mistake, McCain's age and health figured in Palin's decision to accept his offer of the VP slot on the Repug ticket). A woman who thought that she could conceal her ignorance of her country, recent history, and the world at large, as well as her thoroughly repugnant fringe viewpoints and beliefs, until sometime after November 4. A woman who thought that she could fool all the people just long enough to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency...and an old fool who thought the same.

Bitch, please!--It's not going to work.

Look Out Below

After the Dow closed down 777 points, the biggest one-day drop ever recorded, where do we go from here? The House rejected the bailout plan by a vote of 228-205, and markets worldwide plummeted. Blaming a "partisan" speech by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Republicans defeated the bailout plan, and the Dow dropped out of pure fear.

It really makes you hope that John Boehner has a lot of WaMu stock in his portfolio.

Something has to be done fast, and the House Republicans need to get their members in line, pronto. The longer this bailout takes to get passed, the worse the crisis is going to be. Already, Jim Cramer is predicting a Dow down 2,500 points and 20% unemployment, in connection with what he thinks are too small limits in the FDIC. Writing in the New York Times Economix blog, Alan Keueger sees an economic downturn that will be "more democratic", meaning that white-collar, skilled labor jobs will be at risk as well, this time.

In the face of this, the idea that the Republicans had their feelings hurt, and consequently voted against the bailout, is beyond absurd, beyond petulant--it's insane. I still have some doubts about this bill, but action needs to be taken now, while we still have a banking system. This bill seems to have been the best that could have been devised, given the time constraints. If Congress can't get their act together by this time tomorrow, then look out below.

Caribou Barbie "Clueless"

Ed Schultz reports:

The campaign has held a mock debate and a mock press conference; both are being described as "disastrous." One senior McCain aide was quoted as saying, "What are we going to do?" The McCain people want to move this first debate to some later, undetermined date, possibly never. People on the inside are saying the Alaska Governor is "clueless."

The Sarah Palin Dead Pool Clock is still ticking, folks! Who'll give me 5-1 that she'll be off the ticket "to spend more time with her family" before Thursday night's debate? It's starting to look like being AWOL from the debate might be the only way she could be perceived as "winning" it. With even more embarrassing outtakes from the Katie Couric interview on the way, and the certainty of another Tina Fey skit on SNL this weekend, sending her back to the moose and polar bears might be McCain's only option.

John McCain, Plantation Owner

On the occasion of the biggest one-day drop ever in the Dow, here's a bit of humor from the Rude Pundit on McCain's debate performance Friday night:

John McCain looked like nothing so much as a plantation owner just after the end of the Civil War forced to have a conversation with one of his freed slaves. There's no way he was gonna look that nigger in the eye and allow him to think they're equals. Used to be you could lynch a darkie for addressing a white man by his first name. Now, they think they can talk to you like they're humans.

Zakaria to Palin: "Negro, Please!"

Fareed Zakaria puts the smackdown on Sarah Palin.

Also, the AP details how Palin's "small town values" look, to me, just like big city corruption.

Post-Debate Reflections

I think Obama won this debate, but narrowly. He stood toe-to-toe with McCain on foreign policy, and had one of his best lines of the night when he said "you said the Iraqis would greet us as liberators. You were wrong. You said it would be a quick war. You were wrong."

Like Digby, it's difficult for me to accurately assess this debate because I too, think that McCain is

quite obviously a crazy, intemperate, nasty old bastard. He was sarcastic, comtemptuous and patronizing.

Let me also add disrespectful, cranky, and frankly, willing to lie his way into the White House. McCain seems ready to blow at times (and I was hoping that he would), his facial expressions alternately scowling, dismissive, or glaring, and he never once looking Obama in the eye. When Obama rebuked him for having "sung songs about bombing Iran", McCain looked ready to pop! He obviously has little regard for Obama, and I think that will cost him, and the Congressional Republicans, not only in battleground states, but also in supposedly safe states like Mississippi and Texas. McCain's contemptuous attitude towards the first major party African-American presidential candidate is not going to sit well with people of color in all political stripes.

Additionally, as CNN's Roland Martin noted, McCain failed to mention the middle class at any time during the debate! How he could do that in these economic times is another sign that McCain is clearly out of touch with the worries and aspirations of ordinary Americans. I guess having twelve houses and thirteen cars does give you a rather detached view of life for the other 95% of us.

However, for me, the biggest quote from tonight was when McCain said that we "wouldn't torture, never again". Is McCain admitting that America tortures prisoner of war?! Wow! Somebody tell W--don't leave the country after next January!-or he might find himself "extraordinarily rendered" to the Hague, on charges of war crimes.

Overall, I think Obama carried the night. He exceeded expectations of his grasp and knowledge of foreign policy, and was the clear winner on economic issues. Obama looked presidential. On the other hand, I feel that McCain's bellicose attitude, his lack of understanding of the economic challenges facing us at this moment, and his generally nasty attitude towards Obama tonight, will cost him dearly in November.

WHAT "Campaign Suspension"?

It looks like the campaign suspension that John McCain so solemnly announced yesterday is a big, fat lie. From Daily Kos:

But, what - exactly - did he "suspend"? His surrogates are all over television, attacking Obama. His campaign ads are still running and his Internet fundraising is still operational. McCain's press crew is fully operational. He spent the day with Rick Davis, his lobbyist campaign manager. And all of his campaign offices are still open and fully operational.

Then tonight, McCain will be giving interviews on ABC, CBS, and NBC. He's not only scared to face Obama, he's now unambiguously "Campaign First", not "Country First".

Ain't Got No Time To Learn About The Economy

Maybe McCain did have a good reason to want to cancel the debate tomorrow. From indexed:

Maybe They Were Right

McCain's campaign has declared war on the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, merely for asking for confirmation that Trig Palin is indeed Sarah Palin's biological son. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, acting as the axeman for McCain, takes Sullivan to task for asking for confirmation that Trig is indeed Sarah Palin's son, not, as has been rumored, Bristol's child. The Weekly Standard's Jonathan Last has also chimed in, saying that "it is a disgrace for the magazine and everyone associated with it. One hundred and fifty years of storied history set ablaze in fortnight by a single writer."

Seems to me that this is a lot of outcry over a supposedly settled issue. And where there's smoke, there's often fire. Of course, considering Palin's crash-and-burn performance with Katie Couric the other night, maybe the McCain camp needs any excuse they can get to remove her from the ticket.

Good Grief and Good Luck!

This is turning into high comedy. First, Sarah Palin completely blows her interview with Katie Couric. It's been said

"it was more like a train derailing on a bridge, tumbling a thousand feet into a canyon and landing on a pile of old dynamite and gas drums. And then a jumbo jet crashed into the flaming wreckage. Followed by an earthquake that caused the whole mess to slide off a cliff into the sea, where the few miraculous survivors were eaten by sharks."

See for yourself:



The same memorized talking points and lack of critical thinking that she showed in her interview with Charles Gibson. No originality, no spontaneity, and no intelligence was evinced in Palin's responses to Couric. And, "I'll try to find ya some and I'll bring 'em to ya"? Does this woman speak standard English? I wonder what the wingnut outcry would be if Obama spoke like that! Palin sounded like a stupid, drunk trailer-park ho. This is the woman who would be "a heartbeat away from the Presidency"?

Oops, I'm being "elitist". Then call me elitist, and click the next link.

Next, McCain suspends his campaign! His declining poll numbers wouldn't have anything to do with that, would it? Or perhaps, as Josh Marshall speculates, it's a way to eliminate the VP debate. They wouldn't want poor Sarah to get beat up by that mean Joe Biden, would they?
What could McCain do in Washington that he couldn't do on the campaign trail? Oh, yeah, keep America and the world from seeing how bereft of ideas and intelligence he and his campaign are. Obama correctly and wisely refused to suspend the debate on Friday, so we'll have to wait until then to see if he'll be a one-man show or not that night.

And last, our Chinese dealersbankers seem to be beginning to pull the plug. Oh frabjous joy! What this means for the markets tomorrow, and the resolution of the financial crisis, only time will tell.

The Late Night Update: Norm Coleman, Go F*** Yourself!

MinnPost.com has the scoop on the latest Coleman ad, and it's as false, vile, and disgusting as anything John McCain has run this election year. Produced by the National Republican Senate Committee,

A new Republican ad sports this tag line: "Al Franken. Rape Jokes. Physical assault."

The nearly subliminal linkage flashed at the 20-second mark. A moment later, there's Franken's face, seemingly behind bars.

Though the "bars" are originally shown as a TV wall, watch it and see if it doesn't leave the impression Franken has criminally assaulted women.

Here's the ad itself:



Worse yet,

[Update: The PiPress' Rachel Stassen Berger notes a rather obvious bit of innuendo I missed: the narrator says, "Al Franken writes about committing rape." Stassen Berger says that "could read that Franken committed rape, which is false, rather than suggested a joke that included a rape, which is true."]

I support Al Franken for Senate. I've met Al Franken, and I've never met any celebrity who was friendlier, or more gracious, than Al. Coleman can't run on his record, and he can't run on the issues, because he's been and continues to be dead wrong on both. So what's left? Defaming Franken. Coleman and the Republicons at the RNSC should all be anally violated while burning in hell for creating this ad. But better yet, let's all make a donation to Al's campaign, and help him to win back the Senate seat of Paul Wellstone and Hubert Humphrey.

Thanks also to brownsox at Daily Kos for bringing this to my attention.

A Quick Note on Grampy McSame

I've been collecting my thoughts this evening, after the wildest day in decades in the stock market, so this is just a quick note. But I wanted to mention that, on the brink of one of the most catastrophic meltdowns in the financial markets since 1929, after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the nationalization of AIG, after a day in which the Fed became a socialist institution (gasp!), John McCain has penned an article in the current issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries. The piece, appearing in the Sept/Oct edition, titled "Better Health Care at Lower Cost for Every American" has this timely advice about what to do about health care in America:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

Hmmm, just as we've done in banking, huh? This would be the same "we" that gave us this disaster in the markets this week, the same "we" that gave us unbridled greed and unlimited excess on Wall Street--those heroes of deregulation, John McCain and his buddy, Phil "You Whiners" Gramm! McCain's role in the invention of the Blackberry may be dubious, but there's no doubt at all that for years he's been one of Washington's biggest proponents of unregulated markets.

As Kos points out, in one paragraph McCain both acknowledges his role in this crisis in the markets, and simultaneously demolishes his attempts to blame Obama for it. McCain gave us the "fundamentals" of this disaster, McCain was for deregulation before he was against it, and McCain wrote this article for current consumption, not years ago. McCain isn't a populist champion of regulation, he's a liar and a fraud.

Liars

They're liars. They're lying about everything. And they think they deserve the Presidency?!

Thanks to Crooks & Liars:

Stop The Madness!

Fibromyalgia sucks ass. I've been in the midst of a big flare-up of this disease in the last week or two, hence the scarcity of posts around here. In the meantime, while I've been away everything's gone straight to hell.

Yesterday, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. Lehman Brothers! A 158-year-old investment banking giant, with assets of over $658 billion, a firm in continuous operation since before the Civil War, is kaput, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At the same time, Merrill Lynch, "Mother Merrill", the brokerage firm that was famed for being "bullish on America", a financial services firm with $1.8 trillion-with-a-"T" in client assets, was sold to Bank of America for $50 billion, a far cry from their market cap of nearly $150 billion at the beginning of 2007. Then, for the cherry on top of this shitstorm, insurer AIG is on the ropes. The insurance titan was temporarily saved by a last-minute loan from the state of New York to the tune of $20 billion, followed tonight by an $85 billion loan from the Federal Reserve. AIG's debt ratings were cut late Monday, and the situation is still perilous for the company. The Dow responded to all this chaos yesterday with the worst day since 9/11, dropping more than 500 points at the close. Then today, after the Federal Reserve declined to cut the Fed funds rate, the market, no doubt boyed by bargain-hunters, closed up 141 points. Everywhere, people are asking: where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?

And oh, yeah, Gulf Coast residents had a little thing last week called Hurricane Gustav to keep their minds off their dwindling portfolios and retirement funds. Needing a new roof, furniture, and vehicles, or a whole new town, is just the thing to make you realize what really matters in this life.

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin did her first interview with the MSM. ABC's Charles Gibson actually did a decent job of interviewing Palin, during which we discovered that A) Palin can indeed memorize long spiels of neocon bullshit, B) Palin cannot think on her feet, and C) Palin doesn't know shit from shinola about foreign policy, much less energy policy, domestic policy, the Constitution, transparency in government, evolution, ecology, feminism, and truthfulness, and D) even the MSM is getting wise to the lies coming from the McCain-Palin campaign.

For two weeks, we've been held captive by the Sarah Palin phenomenon, the "pitbull with lipstick", watching her spout obvious lies and arrant nonsense, while John McCain today said that the "fundamentals of our economy are strong." McCain also claims responsibility for this economy, the invention of the Blackberry, and the discovery of fire.

The best result of all this is that the Obama campaign came out fighting today, at long last. Finally hitting his stride, Obama ridiculed McCain's idea of a 9/11 Commission on the economy, calling it "the oldest Washington stunt in the book." About time! Obama's needed to go on the offensive for weeks now, and finally, with this dire economic news, he's taking the opening and running with it.

For the life of me, I can't understand why the polls are showing this to be a tight race. Except, for the issue of race itself. I cannot see any other major reason why Obama isn't far ahead of McCain other than that. To that, this Tim Wise post, by way of Ta-Nehisi Coates:

White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto is "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college and the fact that she lives close to Russia--you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.

This madness has to stop. Unlike Coates, I can't ignore Obama's poor showing in Appalachia, or the tightening of the race here in Minnesota. I think the Bradley Effect is going to be a big surprise to a lot of the pollsters and politicos in November. I don't think it's going to be as big a drag on Obama's results as it might seem, but I do think it'll be apparent. On the other hand, I also think that a lot of the Gen Xers and Millennials aren't being polled. In short, it's going to be a narrow win for Obama, but a win nonetheless.

Why am I so certain? Because, when it comes down to it, I think that things are bad enough economically, internationally, and frankly, spiritually, that an Obama win will happen. But it's going to be a long, long walk to see the dawn.

Earmark Pig, Lipstick Optional

Thanks to Talking Points Memo:

Don't Say I Didn't Warn You

The National Review, for god's sake the National Review!, reports that the National Enquirer is alleging that Palin had an affair with a business partner of her husband's, a few years back. Andrew Sullivan and Pufferfish have both picked this up. On top of this, Sullivan reports

Todd Palin's former business partner files an emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed. Oh God.

The motion was denied. Oh God, indeed!

UPDATE:
Looks like I, and the blogosphere, got it wrong. According to The Smoking Gun:

Richter wanted the documents deemed confidential in a bid to cloak details about his home, workplace, and phone numbers because "reporters and news agencies" were using that information to contact him. Richter, a 39-year-old contractor, noted that he is "friends and land owners in a remote cabin" with the Palins and, as a result, journalists were intruding on the "cabin life and private life" of him and his 11-year-old son.

OK, so this particular story about Palin was incorrect. I don't doubt that there's a sewer full of more stories about her. Toss in the campaign's arrogant denial of media access to Palin, and I still doubt that she'll be on the ticket, come November. Either way, the real enemy is still Bush-McCain.

No Whine Before Its Time (Palin Dead Pool - Day 4)

Marc Armbinder reports that Sarah Palin won't be ready for interviews until she's damn good & ready. Don't like it?

The campaign believes it can effectively deal with the media's complaints, and their on-the-record response to all this will be: "Sarah Palin needs to spend time with the voters."

And if you believe that, I've got a slightly used bridge to sell to you. The arrogance of McCain's handlers knows no bounds. They drag this woman off the tundra, unknown and unvetted, bringing her trailer trash clan with her, present them like an early Christmas present, let her snark and snipe, and now won't allow the press to find out more about her? Oh, yeah, that's a winning strategy! More likely, they're teaching her the names of the leaders of Western Europe, how to pronounce "Iraq" and "Iran" properly, where Uzbekistan is on the map, and to not offer Angela Merkel a neck massage.

The dirt on this woman will come out, and she and her Rovian handlers will regret their arrogance.

You Just Knew Some Bastard Had To Say It

Georgia Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland calls the Obamas "uppity":

Georgia Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland used the racially-tinged term "uppity" to describe Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama Thursday.

Westmoreland was discussing vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's speech with reporters outside the House chamber and was asked to compare her with Michelle Obama.

"Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity," Westmoreland said.

Asked to clarify that he used the word “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.”

He meant it, he really meant it. Amazing. Really, I'm stunned. Does Westmoreland know what year it is? What century it is?

One Drop, writing in the Too Sense blog, had this to say:

Only In The GOP's America could the fact that a black man went to Columbia and Harvard be considered a strike against him. The GOP's response to Obama shows very clearly that they do not, in fact, believe in self-reliance, they do not believe in the value of hard work and individual effort. he GOP's response to Obama shows very clearly that they do not, in fact, believe in self-reliance, they do not believe in the value of hard work and individual effort.

...the one time the GOP and/or the American Right was confronted with an honest-to-God, bootstraps-pulling black man who did everything they claim that they want to see black people do, they attacked him for doing those things.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, also writing on the matter, further relates that

Uppity is exactly the term white thugs and terrorists used to use for high-achieving blacks--right before they burned down their neighborhoods and ran them out of town. Only this time, they're going for the whole country.

This is what we're up against in this election. This is the naked face of the opposition, the face of racism and sexism, the face of fear. This is the face once hidden behind a hood, now unafraid to show itself in the light. Two Ivy League-educated, responsible, highly successful African-Americans, and they're called "boy" and "uppity".

This is why only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor are black tonight. This is why African-Americans vote Democratic over 90% of the time. This is why I found Sarah Palin's attacks on Barack Obama last night were so offensive, why John McCain's paying lip service to the NAACP--after voting against the MLK holiday--was so transparent, why Palin's nomination itself was so pitiful and contemptible.

I'm angry. VERY angry. I could rant and rage, but I'm going to hit them where it really hurts: I'm sending another check to the Obama campaign.

Fallows Nails It

James Fallows on Palin's speech last night. Better than I could ever express it!

First Impressions of Palin's Speech

Well, she fits the qualifications for a GOP candidate:

1. Ability to lie without shame, and

2. Questioning of opponent's patriotism

A Quick Note Before the Palin Speech

Been following the commentary on the web before Palin's speech tonight, and Pufferfish has the right of it:

Oh, and a quick prediction for the Main Event: the home crowd will carry her to a Big Night. Let's face it, no veep nominee has had a similar threshold for being serviceable in their introduction to the country - expectations couldn't get any lower. As long as she doesn't vomit on herself, she's going to get a passing grade.

More after the speech.

Sarah Palin Dead Pool - Day 2

Just to recap the initial reaction to Sarah Palin on the day her candidacy was announced. My, how the wingnuts have all gotten with the program since then! Talk about message discipline. *sigh* Tonight's her big night to con America that she's qualified; I wish her the worst of luck!

Day 2 of the Dead Pool; I'll post the new odds after her speech, along with my comments.

Anyway, here's Stewart and Colbert with two of my favorite responses to the announcement that Palin is the VP nominee:

The Sarah Palin Dead Pool - Day 1

I'm starting the Sarah Palin Dead Pool today. I'm taking bets on how long she remains on the Republican ticket, because it's becoming clear to me that she won't be on the ticket for too long.

Just touching the highlights of Palin's candidacy, since Friday we've learned that:

She was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a fringe secessionist group in the 1990s. "Country First" or "Alaska First", which is it for Palin?

She was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it. Either way, she's upset many of her fellow Alaskans by using the phrase and by claiming opposition to it nationally, after supporting it in her home state.

Palin has lawyered up in the Troopergate scandal, belying her assertions of innocence.

The New York Times reports that

the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice.

That's not "change we can believe in", that's the same old shit we saw in post-invasion Iraq.

Marc Ambinder writes that the FBI was not involved in the vetting of Palin, contrary to the statements of the McCain campaign:

"The FBI did not participate in a vet, nor did it run a background check of Gov. Palin as part of the process"

So instead of "ready from day one", they're lying to us from day one.

The local Alaskan media is none too impressed with the selection of their governor as the Republican vice presidential nominee, either. The Anchorage Daily News reported that

Anchorage Democratic state Sen. Hollis French said it's a huge mistake by McCain and "reflects very, very badly on his judgment." French said Palin's experience running the state for less than two years hasn't prepared her for this.

I thought McCain was the experienced one! Guess experience doesn't matter much, when it's the wrong kind of experience.

Her 17-year-old unmarried daughter Bristol Palin is pregnant. The campaign only released this news on Monday to refute pervasive internet rumors that Palin's 5-month-old son is really her daughter's, her pregnancy faked in order to protect Bristol. Sarah Palin herself is radically anti-abortion, opposed to allowing abortions even in cases of incest, rape, or domestic abuse. Palin is also an advocate of abstinence-only sex education

Her daughter's pregnancy, whether the first or second one, is of no consequence in this election. The issue is how totally, completely unqualified Palin is for the office of vice president, and how this reflects on the judgment of John McCain.

It's becoming increasing apparent that the McCain campaign did not vet Palin at all, that the only vetting was done by the secretive and ultra-conservative Council for National Policy, a network of far-right politicians, religious leaders, and financiers. Palin appealed to their efforts to subvert the Constitution and establish a fundamentalist Christian government in the United States. Finally and firmly, the McCain campaign has bound itself to the religious right, in an obvious effort to pander for conservative votes.

Faced with an Obama campaign and Democratic party coming out of their convention unified and energized, McCain panicked and chose the most radical candidate, a woman who not coincidentally was also the sole female VP candidate who was anti-abortion. McCain's personal choice of Joe Lieberman was anathema to the ultra-conservative wing of the party, as was Tom Ridge. Any of the highly qualified women in the Republican party, such as Olympia Snow or Kay Bailey Hutchinson, were also discarded on the basis of their pro-choice beliefs. Palin was offered the position without consultation with Alaskan politicians and business leaders, without vetting, without a responsible examination of her background and financial and personal history, without checking anything other than her appeal to the evangelical extremists that make up the Republican "base".

This was McCain's Hail Mary pass, a desperate ploy to command the news cycle and stay competitive with Obama. I don't believe that the majority of American women are so stupid that they'll base their vote on gender alone. With two wars, a recession, health care, up to four Supreme Court vacancies in the next four to eight years, four-dollar-a-gallon gas, global warming, and nuclear proliferation, American women and men are smarter than McCain gives them credit. I don't believe that, come November 4th, Sarah Palin will still be on the Republican ticket.

The Running Man

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has a new ad out in support of Al Franken's bid for the Senate. It's wickedly funny!

Hookers and Blow at the RNC

OK, OK, "Hookers and Blow" is the name of a local band hired to play for an RNC party that took place last night in downtown Minneapolis, not the backstage entertainment at said party. (Of course, I wasn't in attendance, so who knows?) Still, it doesn't look like any of the revelers were worried about Gustav, or "Country First", or any of that other bullshit that they've been selling all weekend, since they were caught by surprise with McCain's pick of Palin. Thanks to firedoglake and the Jed Report:

Welcome to the Twin Cities, GOP!

Thanks to The Daily Show, and to The Zeppelin:

Just Another Dirty Old Man

Thanks to the Jed Report: