I Hate What You Just Said

The right has been arguing that Barack Obama is inexperienced, unqualified, and a risky choice for president.

Hm.

Well, Oily McWar is old, like dirt, so if he is elected (shudder), his running mate might just have to be ready to actually be President. So perhaps we should examine her credentials closely.  Because we would want a vice-presidential candidate to be experienced, qualified, and not risky.

Sarah Palin, former sportscaster, former mayor of Moose Ass, AK, and two-year Governor of the 47th largest state, has an educational record which can be found here.

Summary:

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin attended five colleges in six years before graduating from the University of Idaho in 1987…

She began college at Hawaii Pacific University, a private, nonsectarian school in Honolulu. She attended only as a freshman during the fall of 1982, school spokeswoman Crystale Lopez said.

Then known as Sarah Louise Heath, she was in the business administration program as a full-time student, Lopez said.

“We’re trying to track down someone who knew her,” Lopez added.

From Hawaii Pacific, Palin transferred to North Idaho College, a two-year school in Coeur d’Alene, about 30 miles east of Spokane. She attended the college as a general studies major for two semesters, in spring 1983 and fall 1983, spokeswoman Stacy Hudson said.

“We were not able to track down club affiliations or anything,” Hudson said.

The school identified one of her professors but he did not remember her, Hudson said.

Prior to her selection by McCain, the North Idaho College Alumni Association notified Palin in June she would be the recipient of its 2008-2009 Distinguished Alumni of the Year Award.

From North Idaho College, Palin transferred 70 miles south to the University of Idaho, the state’s flagship institution. She majored in journalism with an emphasis in broadcast news. She attended Idaho, whose mascot is the Vandals, from fall 1984 to spring 1985.

She then returned to Alaska to attend Matanuska-Susitna College in Palmer in fall 1985.

Then she returned to Idaho, for spring 1986, fall 1986 and spring 1987, when she graduated. Despite her journalism degree, she does not appear to have worked for the college newspaper or campus television station, school officials said.

Of course, one doesn’t like to engage in excessive credentialism.  But Palin’s C.V. is really, really unimpressive.  (I’m opposed to virtually everything she stands for, too.  Also, it seems like she’s pretty corrupt.  But right now we’re talking about qualifications).  Andrew Sullivan puts it better:

If she applied for an internship at National Review, they would turn her down.

I think that sums it up, don’t you?  Turn down McCain-Palin in 2008.

Seeing Bill pretending to get all teary last night was a bit much for me. But after running an increasingly irritating and sometimes petulant campaign, HRC seems to have done the job last night. (The “sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits” sort of cracked me up, too). Ezra Klein puts it this way:

By my count, Hillary Clinton was interrupted for applause 29 times. In a week that was, thus far, themeless and tepid, intent on justifying itself and the familiarity of its speakers, Clinton’s speech was the first that made the Pepsi Center feel like the site of a convention rather than the host of a series of panels.

Clinton’s message was simple: Her candidacy was about something, not someone. She is a Democrat, not a Hillaryite. And if her supporters believed in her, then that’s what they were signing up for: An effort to expand health care, and weight economic policy towards the middle class, and refashion American foreign policy into something sane and recognizable. The candidate left in the race with a similar set of beliefs is Barack Obama.

Even if she did it reluctantly, Senator Clinton did her part in Denver.  That some Clinton supporters are still angered by the sexism directed against their candidate during the campaign is certainly understandable.   Everyone should be angry about that.  But all of the clichés and catchphrases - “the stakes are too high,” “we can’t afford a third Bush term,” etc. - are all too true.  So, fellow Democrats, we all know what we need to do - it is time to unite behind the Obama-Biden ticket. And bring your independent and Republican friends with you.

All aboard!

So polls show that “white voters” think that Barack Obama is a “risky” choice for president. The real risk we face right now is that a McCain presidency will be far too much like a third Bush term (I just shuddered writing those words), and that American militarism could spin further out of control (right, Condi?)

Max Bergmann explains why Oily McWar is the real risk:

The big concern with a McCain presidency – a concern which I am surprised has not been vocalized more fully – is that the U.S. will lurch from crisis to crisis, confrontation to confrontation, whether it be with Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc. The danger is that McCain’s pundit-like rhetoric will entrap the U.S. in descending spiral of foreign policy brinksmanship. Just think about the very likely scenario of McCain giving Iran/Russia a rhetorical ultimatum and Iran/Russia ignoring it. Now we are stuck - either we lose face by not following through on our threats or we follow through and go to war. We can’t afford such a reckless approach after the last eight years. For the next eight we need a president not a pundit.

Speaking as a white guy (seriously - I’m mad white), I think it is time for “white voters” to grow up and realize that the best candidate for president isn’t just the guy who seems the most militaristic. Or the whitest.

I’ve been hatin’ on John McCain a lot lately.

Well, I just took another sip of hateorade.

This time, it is the ridiculous hypocrisy of Oily McWar’s August 18th VFW speech that is so grating:

Addressing the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars this morning in Orlando, John McCain came down harshly on rival Barack Obama for on his position and opinion on the Iraq war.

So what’s new?

This: McCain takes a new tack in tying Obama’s positions on the war to his personal desire to be president. “Behind all of these claims and positions by Senator Obama lies the ambition to be president.” (bold type added)

Hm.

In his memoir Worth the Fighting For (which is an awkward title, no?), McWar explained his own run for president in 2000 this way:

“I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. . . . In truth, I’d had the ambition for a long time.” (bold type added)

These anti-McCain blog posts just write themselves! I think that unless ol’ Oily takes a vow of silence, and soon, he might just talk his way into second place in the election. If anyone pays attention, that is.

For anyone who follows economic trends, or politics, or pays attention to anything, or has a brain, or can see, or isn’t a moron, the findings of the recent Brookings Institution report will not be terribly surprising. From the Christian Science Monitor:

One less visible aspect of the economic boom of the 1990s was a decline in the number of low-income working people who lived in very poor neighborhoods.

But that trend has reversed during the first five years of this decade, according to a new analysis by the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. It found that the number of poor people who live in areas of concentrated poverty increased by 41 percent since 1999.

“Many of these neighborhoods that made these great gains in the 1990s – with the downturn in the beginning of this decade and the weak recovery – have been hit hard by this economic change,” says Elizabeth Kneebone, lead author of the report and a senior research analyst at Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program. “We’ve lost a lot of ground and see poverty again increasing in these neighborhoods.”

Such increases in concentrations of poor people in specific neighborhoods create a kind of self-perpetuating economic segregation, says Ms. Kneebone. That’s because low-income neighborhoods generally have lower-performing schools, less access to good jobs, poorer health outcomes, higher crime rates, and less economic investment.

“As people try to work their way out of poverty, they don’t find as many of the opportunities they need in very low- income neighborhoods,” she says. “All of this creates the cycle that perpetuates poverty.”

Not surprising. Incredibly sad, but not surprising.

In a recent interview from the Olympics with Bob Costas, George W. Bush said “I don’t see America having problems.” Sure, he wasn’t referring to class issues as such, but to America’s position in the world.  (Which still makes that statement totally nuts).  But it is a perfect summary of the Bush Administration’s attitudes, isn’t it? Bush doesn’t see the problems. America is fine. Iraq is doing great. Freedom is on the march. Mission accomplished. I can’t think of any mistakes I’ve made.

He is President Pangloss.

Contrast Bush’s comments - indeed his entire conduct during his presidency - with Lyndon Johnson’s comments during his 1964 State of the Union Address:

This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America. I urge this Congress and all Americans to join with me in that effort.

It will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won. The richest Nation on earth can afford to win it.

LBJ was no saint, to be sure, for many reasons. But it would be nice for this country if our President, like Johnson did in ‘64, had some sense of the gravity of poverty, and the terrible sin of radical inequality.

It would be nice, wouldn’t it?

Today, we bring you a yummy little tasting flight of stupidity.

We’ll start with Representative Michele Bachman, Republican of Minnesota:

“[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she’s just trying to save the planet,” Bachmann told the right-wing news site OneNewsNow. “We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet — we didn’t need Nancy Pelosi to do that.”

Whew! What a relief. Glad to know that’s sorted out. Because I was starting to get a little worried about that whole global warming thing. (Also - “they?” Is Jesus plural now?) Hey - do you think “they” could do anything about my gout?

Next, a little video. Stuart Shepard of Focus on the Family asks “would it be so wrong if we asked people to pray for rain” during Obama’s convention acceptance speech?

Best line: “If God decides - and it’s always up to God to decide…” That’s good stuff, no? In the event that he exists, God must be thinking, “thanks, Stu.”

I know this guy was trying to be funny, sort of, but Stuart Shepard and his ilk make me embarrassed to be a mammal.

And finally, Jabberin’ Joe Lieberman implicitly questions Barack Obama’s patriotism:

“In my opinion, the choice could not be more clear: between one candidate, John McCain, who’s had experience, been tested in war and tried in peace, another candidate who has not,’’ Mr. Lieberman said. “Between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put the country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate who has not. Between one candidate who’s a talker, and the other candidate who’s the leader America needs as our next president.” [Italics added]

You stay classy, Joe. You old jackass.

I don’t think it’s going to happen. But I really hope that Oily McWar (71) picks Joe Lieberman (66) as his running mate.

Because they would so lose.

Stephanie Kirchgaessner reports in the Financial Times that Lieberman is being vetted, and that Oily digs him:

Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice-presidential nominee who has endorsed John McCain, is being vetted as a potential running mate for the Republican presidential hopeful, according to an adviser to Mr McCain’s ­campaign.

Mr Lieberman, who has campaigned for the Arizona senator, has long been ­considered an unconventional but plausible choice for Mr McCain.

Although Democrats have rejected Mr McCain’s image as a maverick politician, Mr Lieberman’s support for the presumptive Republican nominee has, much to the chagrin of his former ­colleagues, helped to boost Mr McCain’s reputation as a bi-partisan legislator with friends on both sides of the aisle. Mr Lieberman, a staunch supporter of Israel, could also help Mr McCain win over Jewish voters.

“[McCain] loves Lieberman. And he is on the [short-]list because Lieberman has never embarrassed anyone, never misspoken. The first rule is, don’t take someone who costs you votes,” said one McCain adviser.

I think it is a lovely idea. Lieberman would do nothing to help McCain shore up or energize the base. Lieberman would also attract very few crossover votes from Democrats (Democrats think he’s a dick).

But most of all, those two old war-mongering farts farting around the country might even be less exciting and inspiring than Dole-Kemp ‘96 (admit it - you almost forgot about that ticket already, didn’t you? Exactly).

In short, a McCain-Lieberman ticket would be rather short on Joementum.

In fact, a McCain-Lieberman ticket would almost certia…n…ly… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Oh - sorry.

Personally, I don’t really care how rich Oily McWar and Miss Buffalo Chip are. I really don’t.

But since the right has made a living out of portraying liberals and democrats as out-of-touch elites, I feel like mentioning that the McWars reportedly own nine houses.
Nine.
9.
IX.
Nueve.

That may help to explain why the Senator doesn’t seem to feel the economic pain of his fellow Americans, and why he thinks many of our economic problems are “psychological.”

Well, Oily, I have news for you - most Americans don’t own nine houses. In fact, many Americans don’t even own five! Seriously!

(Here’s a question: what do you think would go through McCain’s head if he met a homeless person? Dude! Talk about awkward!)

Hey - that gives me an idea. In these tough economic times, I think we all need to make sacrifices. So I am hereby calling on John McCain to make a sacrifice on behalf of his fellow countrymen. Senator - please give away three of your houses to homeless Americans, and see if you can get by with six. You can do it! I know you can!

Now, while you try to decide which six houses to keep, we’ll watch a little video highlighting your “straight talk.”

Oily McWar attended the Sturgis Motorcyle Rally today.

A sample of his words of wisdom:

“As you may know, not long ago, a couple of hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I’ll take the roar of fifty thousand Harleys any day! Any day, my friend!”

Very, very Presidential, no?

Then, as motorcycle engines revved, this:

“This is my first time here, but I recognize that sound. It’s the sound of freedom.”

So it appears that his campaign has taken a post-structuralist turn, as McCain’s pronouncements are now always-already parody.

Dear Congress, MSM, Blogosphere, and all Fellow Human Beings:

Please, please, please, please don’t let this story fade away until we know for sure whether it is true.

And if it is true, please, please, please, please don’t let them get away with it. They have already gotten away with so much. Surely this would have to be the final straw, no?

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.

Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.

The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official “that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.”

P.S. - as I am writing this post, the big headline on CNN.com is “‘Astonishing’ gorilla find reported.”