It’s been 9 days now since it was announced that Sarah Palin would be McCain’s running-mate, and she still hasn’t done one single interview with the press. And, according to McCain’s campaign manager, she won’t, until they know for certain that she will be given the “respect and deference” that she deserves… Deference? Really?
It couldn’t possibly be that they’re just afraid that their unvetted candidate wouldn’t be able to answer questions about book burning, bridges to nowhere, abuse of power, God’s plans for Iraq, and that jet she said she sold on Ebay, could it?
If things are half as bad as they look, they’re colossally fucked. In the wake of her stellar acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, it looks as though just about everything she said was a lie, and I don’t see how she’s going to be able to hide until election day. But, maybe that’s the plan. Maybe she’s just a diversion, meant to distract us from the fact that the “maverick” at the top of the ticket is really a 72 year old, party-insider who voted with Bush 90% of the time, and doesn’t even know how many homes he owns.
Here’s my new bumper sticker idea.
“Maverick My Ass”
Do you like it?
Speaking of Sarah “treat me with deference” Palin, here’s a clip from Frank Rich’s column in today’s “New York Times”:
…She didn’t say “no thanks” to the “Bridge to Nowhere” until after Congress had already abandoned it but given Alaska a blank check for $223 million in taxpayers’ money anyway. Far from rejecting federal pork, she hired lobbyists to secure her town a disproportionateshare of earmarks ($1,000 per resident in 2002, 20 times the per capita average in other states). Though McCain claimed “she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities,” she has never issued a single command as head of the Alaska National Guard. As for her “executive experience” as mayor, she told her hometown paper in Wasilla, Alaska, in 1996, the year of her election: “It’s not rocket science. It’s $6 million and 53 employees.” Her much-advertised crusade against officials abusing their office is now compromised by a bipartisan ethics investigation into charges that she did the same.
How long before we learn she never shot a moose?
Given the actuarial odds that could make Palin our 45th president, it would be helpful to know who this mystery woman actually is. Meanwhile, two eternal axioms of our politics remain in place. Americans vote for the top of the ticket, not the bottom. And in judging the top of the ticket, voters look first at the candidates’ maiden executive decision, their selection of running mates. Whatever we do and don’t know about Palin’s character at this point, there is no ambiguity in what her ascent tells us about McCain’s character and potential presidency.
He wanted to choose the pro-abortion-rights Joe Lieberman as his vice president. If he were still a true maverick, he would have done so. But instead he chose partisanship and politics over country. “God only made one John McCain, and he is his own man,” said the shafted Lieberman in his own tedious convention speech last week. What a pathetic dupe. McCain is now the man of James Dobson and Tony Perkins. The “no surrender” warrior surrendered to the agents of intolerance not just by dumping his pal for Palin but by moving so far to the right on abortion that even Cindy McCain seemed unaware of his radical shift when being interviewed by Katie Couric last week…
Oh, and, according to McCaine’s camp, they really did mean to use that photo of Walter Reed middle school behind the candidate at his RNC acceptance speech… So, it’s apparently absolutely not true, as some have suggested, that they didn’t know what Walter Reed Army Medical Center looked like. Got it?
It reminds me of something that our friend Robert said in a comment a few days ago, after a teleprompter mishap during Palin’s RNC speech. He said, “Do you really want to vote for a group that can’t even operate a teleprompter?” It’s a fair question. Do we really want people in the White House who, for their most important presentation of the campaign, couldn’t properly conduct a Google image search for Walter Reed Medical Center? They didn’t just get a bad photo of the place – they got a photo of a MIDDLE SCHOOL a thousand miles away. Do you realize how inept that makes them? It’s just one tiny step away from showing a giant image of Tim Reid behind McCain.
[Can someone out there please fire up Photoshop and send me an image of McCain speaking in front of a giant photo of Tim Reid? It would mean a lot to me.]
48 Comments
“Maverick My Ass”
Please print some of those up. They will do more to encourage voters to move to McCain than the one I thought of tonight: “Obama – ‘My Muslim Faith’…oops!”
…besides, why should Palin give interviews to the mainstream press? As a supporter, I would rather have her out there “on the stump” talking with and meeting as many voters as possible for the next two months. Who cares about the press, anyway. The MSNBC’s of the world have proven themselves irrelevant.
she tried to ban books, not burn them.
She’s still frightening, however.
Wait until those school kids find out that the WRAMC has a Dunkin Donuts inside.
http://bumperstickers.cafepress.com/item/maverick-my-ass-sticker-bumper/297503252
Sarah Palin is the real deal – unlike the Hollywood stagecraft surrounding Senator Obama. Her family challenges are the real deal too – these are the reasons more and more Americans are moving to the McCain-Palin ticket. Real trumps stagecraft in the end. McCain’s people are actually beginning to worry that the enthusiasm for Palin may be eclipsing his own. What a great ‘problem’ to have!
Sarah Palin is the next Adolf Hitler.
If you don’t think Sarah Palin is also the product of stagecraft, then you are truly mistaken. Sarah Palin is hardly “real”. No politician is “real”. These are extemely wealthy individuals who have no idea of how the folks on the bottom live. They manipulate media and spin to achieve their political goals just as rock stars and Hollywood does.
Of course Sarah Palin isn’t “real.” Give me a break. What is real about a candidate who has yet to address citizens in words of her own, without the aid of a teleprompter? She is the most cynical selection McCain could have made and to my disgust, it seems to be working to some extent.
Why would anyone want someone running for an office with that kind of power to be “real,” anyway? I don’t want my neighbor to be president. I want someone who is unbelievably smart and exceptional. I think even someone with those qualities is going to have a hard time getting us out of some of the messes we’re in.
Thanks for giving me credit on that teleprompter line, Mark. It is a bizarre thing that the Republicans can’t even find out what Walter Reed Hospital looks like. It doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in them. However, ytown and I have a theory about that and all those other seemingly stupid screw-ups that keep happening in and around the McCain camp. We think it’s all the work of Obama infiltrators. They’re trying to discredit McCain from the inside. This is how low you libs will go.
nammeroo – What’s wrong with a Muslim president? Barak Obama is NOT Muslim. …but if was – or another candidate were – what would be wrong with that? What’s the great worry here? I don’t get it. Is it a fear that a Muslim candidate would not be tough on Muslim nations? Do you have that same fear about a Christian candidate’s management of European Nations? I would assume not – as you’re bring it up as an issue. If not, why? It’s the same thing.
Your second point, why should Mrs Palin give interviews to the press? ALL persons running for political office should give interviews with the press in order to make their views know. It’s how you get people interested in the issues, it’s how you get people to vote for you. For instance, based on what I know now about Mrs Palin, I think she’s crazy. Maybe my view of her would be altered after hearing her have a candid conversation with a respected member of the media. It’s in her best interest. She can’t meet all the potential voters – so there’s something to be said for mass media being able to get a message to the people. Don’t you want people to know where she stands?
Has anyone seen the 2006 Alaska gubernatorial debate being shown now and then on C-SPAN 2?
One of Palin’s opponents was a dullard (former governor), another was fairly lively and bright. Palin gave vapid, packaged little answers. And she won. I’m so curious to hear what others think of this debate performance. Wonder what the hell Alaskans were thinking when they chose her–oh dear, shouldn’t wonder. It’s akin to Bush getting himself a second term despite buffoon-like performances at the debates (ah, remember the ear piece?). She doesn’t act so much a buffoon as simply outmatched; her answers don’t reflect a grasp of facts and details but a knack for sugarcoating and for delivering scripted answers. In the video she is not the mean-spirited bully she played at the RNC convention; she talks in a small-town folksy way, is not confrontational but also not passionate, very scripted seeming but a very different script than the one McCain’s camp is having her study for present purposes.
Here’s a link:
http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/cspan.csp?command=dprogram&record=549346363
If Obama was a Muslim, I’m sure that he would make as good a president as he would if he was a Christian. Which faith Obama holds makes no difference, but his difficulty remembering which faith he holds IS a significant concern. If McCain had made a similar Freudian slip, the “mass media” would’ve excoriated him for it. With Obama, they barely take notice.
Why should Palin give interviews with the “mass media”? Well, first she apparently will be doing so on ABC News. However, with so many better options for getting a campaign’s message out, why should any republican campaign bother with the MSNBC’s of the world? They have made themselves irrelevant.
I’m reading a fascinating book about the 14th century — “A Distant Mirror” by Barbara Tuchman. (Lest you think it’s some latter-day revisionist history, the book was written in 1978 and is a remarkable piece of primary-source research.) If you’re really into major detail about one of the most “calamitous” times in western history, check it out. Great book.
I never cease to be amazed how things never change:
nammeroo says:
>>Please print some of those up. They will do more to encourage voters to move to McCain than the one I thought of tonight: “Obama – ‘My Muslim Faith’…oops!”
The Catholic church had two popes starting in the 1300’s because of this very sort of political scheming. It all lead to more killing, of course. This type of snarky, cynical, counter-productive, negative thinking is self-perpetuating, in case none of you noticed. You too, nammeroo. You gain nothing and seem downright medievally reactionary when you say things like this. Why would you delight that your candidate is seen as so horrible by such a large group of people? Do you hate the other side so much that you want them to have anguish at your choice? Are we really at the point where we just get one 50.1% vote-getter after another? Where one side simply can’t live with the choice of the other? Sad.
dude says:
>>she tried to ban books, not burn them.
>>She’s still frightening, however.
They full-out burned people at the stake for saying anything “heretical” back in the day. By the way, it was all about the money and didn’t have jack shit to do with getting into heaven. This was documented even at that time. Questioning the church was questioning the cash flow. Sound familiar? How many of those folks heading those mega-churches live like paupers? Live like the bible specifically instructs them to live? I’m guessing somewhere near zero. How many presidential candidates have anywhere near an average income or a regular job? (Big board says…. “X”)
Sure, I don’t want my president to be an average person either, but where are the professors and teachers and nurses — the people who all have directly touched our lives so profoundly — who are extraordinarily brilliant but of average income because of their choice of profession? Ain’t gonna happen. Instead, we get people from rich families and a bunch of f’in lawyers.
dude goes on to say:
>>These are extemely wealthy individuals who have no idea of how the folks on the bottom live. They manipulate media and spin to achieve their political goals just as rock stars and Hollywood does.
Again, nothing has changed. The 14th century saw a major uptick in wealth distribution to the rich. Kings and popes did everything they could to present all wars as holy so people would support them – against their own interest. Again, nothing — NOTHING — has changed.
Sure, we live in a democracy. But the whole thing is a bit farcical as we don’t really follow our own written rules. (You know, the big one. The Constitution. It’s a great read.) The minute it’s not followed to the letter the first time, it dies. It happened a very long time ago, so don’t feel bad. And don’t get me started about common law and court law and all that bullshit; that’s a crappy way to run a country as we have seen.
So, Palin not talking to the press is par for the course (the LONG course) and not an aberration. The press represents the peasantry and we don’t seem to matter a whole hell of a lot as long as we can be paid off and accept a certain level of taxation to feed the wars of the profiteers. (Knights on both sides would pillage everything in sight in all wars. When the war was over, they would form free-roaming bands and pillage some more.)
As far as I can tell, we’re right back to where we were in the 14th century: We are trying to decide if we are going to let the church run us or the nobility. And they have us in such a tizzy over hatred for the other guy that we forget about choice three and four and five… and none. We couch these issues in fancy language, but all this “Liberal this” and “Conservative that” is nothing more than two very weird visions of “follow me”. (How ’bout: Follow no one?) Someone prove to me it’s anything other than that.
[Ramble off.]
Arianna Huffington agrees about Palin being a purposeful distraction:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/sarah-palin-a-trojan-moos_b_124867.html
So far it’s working. The debates are going to be the most unbearable. She’ll have a collection of witty, scripted one-liners and will obscure Biden’s more difficult statements. Sometime I think “Straight Talk” is just “Dumbed Down Crap That People Can Understand”.
Reagan won the 1980 election on the night of their only debate when he answered Carter’s long-winded attacks with a smile and a simple, “There you go again…” With Senator ‘Windy’ Biden, I suspect that Governor Palin will have a similar opportunity to smile and offer a similar dismissal.
Politics is the art of being both a leader and a servant of the people’s will at the same time. Both Clintons understand it, Reagan understood it; but neither President Bush had a clue and neither does Senator Obama.
Don’t worry. Senator Obama is a young guy – he has plenty of time to get elected Mayor of Chicago or Governor of Illinois to get that executive experience he needs to actually get elected President in 2020 or so.
I like nammeroo’s description of politics. For me it was that appealing blend that first attracted me to Barack Obama way back when people were urging him to run–he embodies the idea beautifully. After all these years of life, I am still surprised by our very different takes on the very same things. What a country–
Why not just elect Jay Leno if all you want is someone who can deliver one-liners?
Nammeroo, you don’t believe Dubya did well at what you describe? He’s been successful by your standards hasn’t he?
James Carter is 1000 times the man Reagan ever was.
In case that C-SPAN link to the 2006 Alaska governor debate didn’t work (so I heard), try this:
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=195195-1
Jimmy Carter was a highly principled and detail-oriented micromanager who, like all micromanagers, ended up failing miserably at dealing with the three big picture issues of the day (Iran, inflation, and interest rates). I had great respect for President Carter as a human being until he got in bed with Hammas et. al. against Israel in the last couple of years.
The Bush I Presidency was an overwhelming success in the area GHW Bush understood well – foreign policy. The end of the Cold War and the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union came under his watch, along with Gulf War I (which was completely successful in fulfilling all of the objectives Bush I laid out ahead of time). However, Bush I was completely clueless about domestic policy, and got skunked in his re-election bid as a result by an inexperienced Governor from the most backwater of Southern States.
Bush II will eventually be judged by history much more kindly than he is now, mostly (again) because of his foreign policy. Gulf War II/War against Islamo-fascism is succeeding: Afganistan and Iraq are governed by democratic governments, and even Senator Obama says that the surge in Iraq worked “beyond anyone’s expectations.” Bush II learned from some of his father’s mistakes regarding domestic policy, but he is just as clueless about the art of politics. He has missed out on so many opportunities to use the leader as servant model to get things done regarding the housing mess, immigration, gas prices, Social Security, etc. Clueless.
Palin appears to have taken a graduate course on the political art of being both a leader and a servant of the people’s will at the same time; she really gets it and that’s one of the reasons she is so appealing. Obama is as clueless as Bush I on this topic, but Biden and McCain might get it, at least at a beginner’s level (the jury is still out on this for me).
Reagan and Bush didn’t have shit to do with the collapse of the Soviet. I’m tired of those buffoons taking credit for it.
Palin is a power hungry megalomaniac.
Oh dude, I’m with ya…
It’s not about the best jingle for sale. This is not about what Madison Ave can sell, but about the U S of A, our country, our world standing. Drinking buds will not suffice. Real deal? give me the man, because competence and character are called for, and Barrack Obama has plenty of both.
“Afganistan and Iraq are governed by democratic governments”
Iraq was a secular state before we waltzed in.
You should read “The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East” by Olivier Roy before you start making claims about “Islamo-fascism”.
Dude, do you really mean to say that secular state = democracy? Nice try.
Under that definition, Communist China is a democracy, and so are Cuba, Vietnam, and Venezuela!
No, I meant to say that it wasn’t an islamic state. Sorry, I thought that’s what you were referring to.
I still don’t think we can pat ourselves on the back until the living situation for Afghans and Iraqis improves. Maybe there is a democracy, but if the people don’t have infrastructure and jobs, then it won’t last very long. I can imagine that once we leave Afghanistan will revert back to chaos.
Still, I’d rather have Saddam Hussein than Sarah Palin. I mean that.
I agree that NATO (mostly the US) will be in Afghanistan far longer than we will need to be in Iraq.
And is global occupation a good way to insure democracy? That sounds to me like the strategy the Soviets took.
She’s going to do an interview on ABC with Charlie Gibson, but strings are attached:
Palin will sit down for multiple interviews with Gibson in Alaska over two days, most likely Thursday and Friday, said McCain adviser Mark Salter.
Political interviews are never done like this. Because it makes the questioning entirely at the discretion of the person being interviewed and their handlers. The interviewer has to be on their best behavior, at least until the last of the ‘multiple interviews’ because otherwise the subsequent sittings just won’t happen. For a political journalist to agree to such terms amounts to a form of self-gelding. The only interviews that are done this way are lifestyle and celebrity interviews. And it’s pretty clear that that is what this will be.
Obama’s new “No Maverick” ad spot:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/08/obama-response-whoa-mccai_n_124924.html
dude,
“Still, I’d rather have Saddam Hussein than Sarah Palin. I mean that. “
Come on now. How can you really mean that? That’s ridiculous. Saddam was a mass-murdering fuckhead with mass-murdering fuckhead sons and mass-murdering fuckhead generals.
Sarah Palin is a thoughtless, imperious, power-hungry Barbie, ditto-head, megalomaniac. But she’s not a mass-murderer. Granted, civilians deaths caused by Bush’s Congressionally-approved invasion of Iraq are obscene, but we all voted for that – almost unanimously. Remember? That’s OUR collective fault, not the fault of one person.
When ridiculous comparisons like this are made, you dilute the real issue: This person is not qualified to be president of the United States for about a million GOOD reasons. You make some very good comments on this board, why go to this extreme?
If she’s so amazing, why does she need to protect herself? This is sickening. I can’t believe people are falling for this.
I’m sure if “God’s will” was to put people in gas chambers, she’d do it.
Thank you for the thoughtful response, nammeroo. I guess the thing that perplexes me about you now is that even after these past eight years, you still value the smile and simple comment over the long-winded explanation, as you see it.
I value people in politics who understand the art of politics, which is how good things actually get accomplished in this country. As for Reagan, I remain impressed with his remarkable ability to deal with blowhards and whiners among the Democrats. Reagan and Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil greatly respected one another, despite serious policy disagreements. Why?…because neither were blowhards or empty windbag politicians, and both understood the art of politics (although they practiced it very differently).
Biden says less in 30 minutes than Reagan said in that one “There you go again…” comment. Fortunately for the republicans in 2008, Sarah Palin appears to have similar innate political strengths to those of Reagan.
Reagan had nothing to say.
As much as I don’t want to ruin this beautiful moment where someone here is actually talking to me…I think it’s blowing a bit hard to suggest “There you go again…” is packed with meaning. It may be effective theater, but it doesn’t make for an informed discussion. I understand that politics in America has descended into theater, but it isn’t what the founding fathers engaged in primarily. Their focus was clearly genuine debate. I doubt we would have anything today if that hadn’t been their focus and what they respected above all else. Accordingly, I think it’s clear we’re losing what the founding fathers put in place in part because of that decent into theater.
My main question to you still feels unanswered though. Isn’t Bush a success by your standard in that he has been in office for two full terms, and in that time has tended toward the short, suggestive answers to questioning, in contrast to that long windedness you find so tedious? Did “Bring it on!” not sum up in an effective and emotive way, how you might want folks to feel and think about the subject of insurgent and/or terrorist attacks?
Wow, was my last post was spacey and convoluted. I wasn’t even drunk when I posted it…at least not yet. I just read it again and gave myself a headache. I’ll see if I can sober up and put something intelligible together to post later. My apologies to everyone.
And I know that you weren’t asking me, Robert, but what I’m looking for in a candidate is someone a little more ordinary and plain spoken than Bush. I want someone who can just look into the camera and say, “Bring.” The rest is just elite mumbo jumbo.
Well then, McCain and Palin are not your candidates, Mark – they can string multiple sentences together while speaking extemporaneously in an intelligent way…. I don’t remember where I heard it, but as I recall someone spliced together all of Senator Obama’s “uhs” and “ums” in a 20 minute extemporaneous talk (no teleprompters) and came up with nearly seven minutes of tape! Obama’s great with a prepared speech, but ask him to speak off the cuff and he stumbles and wanders.
Robert, I answered your question about Bush II – I think, like Harry Truman, he will eventually be judged by history much more kindly than he is now, mostly because of his foreign policy decisions after 9/11/2001.
Before we succumb to the ruse that it’s okay for our national elections to be brought down to a simple game, a ridiculous contest, in which anything goes and truth is malleable, we should get our eyes firmly on the prize–that this is our country, and we desperately need leaders who look squarely at the situations we face, develop workable plans to improve things, and encourage us all to be better. The culture wars game that has manipulated politics for decades is sick and damaging and must finally be rejected. (The latest stab at gaming the election is the trumped-up outrage over the pig in lipstick comment, which has to be rejected for what it is–a ludicrous play intended to cheapen our intelligence and senses of purpose.)
Unfortunately, that pig comment, along with his “Muslim” slip, is going to cost him the election. We don’t like to admit it to ourselves, but the American electorate is dumb as dirt.
The race for president is mostly about people that don’t understand government wanting to elect a King. It’s therefore no surprise that the biggest morons get the biggest support.
Most people don’t even bother to show up for any other election.
I’m constantly tempted toward that “American electorate dumb as dirt” judgment but will resist–for me it’s a symptom of fear and breath holding and exasperation and despair. Check out a really reasonable piece, please, called “What Makes People Vote Republican?” at http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html
We need to take a gigantic collective deep breath and stop the us vs. them fight. And I don’t mean the “them” who are Rove, McCain, Bush/Cheney. But our friends and neighbors who hold different views about a number of things, they are our neighbors and friends, and we could all start treating each other better. This was the original message Obama came forward with, and we should retrieve it, polish it, perpetuate it–and in the process take our country back, impress ourselves with what we are capable of as a community of 300 million.
Nammeroo, I think your criticisms of Obama are actually pretty solid. Your perspectives remind me of those of most of my friends.
I take it from your statements though that you think things have been going well in some way over the last eight years. However, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any specifics from you about that. I don’t want to be perceived as pushing you for them however, because I don’t want to seem like I’m harping on you. It would be interesting to debate you over time, over the specifics of all those details though.
With that said, I do have one question on my mind at the moment, if you’ll indulge me. I’m guessing that you are familiar, at least to some degree, with my perspectives on the Bush Administration. From your perspective, my statements about them must come across as pretty extreme and even ludicrous. Is that an accurate assessment, may I ask? If you choose not to get into this conversation with me, I’d understand. I’m sure you’ve seen how obnoxious I can be. However, I know it wouldn’t hurt for me to get an opportunity to prove I can actually be very civil when I want to. I give people the respect they give others. You seem to maintain a certain level of respect in your discourse.
So, nammeroo, can I assume you chose not to indulge me in my last question?