Billionaire Meg Whitman has expanded that double-digit lead I first reported a week ago that she had over Steve Poizner in their hard-fought battle for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in California. But my forecast about her spending in trying to hold on to a primary she and her people said they’d had in the bag for months is looking off. I said she would spend $85 million. But it turns out that she had already spent well over $80 million as of May 19th. Now, with a heavy burst of TV advertising and mailers being sent all over the state, it looks like she will spend around $90 million in the Republican primary. Whitman is slamming conservative Steve Poizner as a closet liberal. Since she had vowed to spend $150 million total for the primary and the general election — assuming she made it to the general election — it is very safe to say that she is way off her plan with $90 million in spending to try to secure a primary victory. Does all this spending and advertising backfire at a certain point? Absolutely. Not that she is out of the woods in the primary, mind you. Poizner is going to spend more of his money. And to the extent that he unmuddies the waters on illegal immigration (Whitman has distorted both her position and Poizner’s), making it clear that he supports the Arizona law and she does not, counters the effective advertising casting him as a “closet liberal,” and throws in a surprise here and there, the primary is still in play. That’s why she rolled out Newt Gingrich this week as another famous right-wing endorser, joining Dick Cheney and Mitt Romney, the Republican frontrunner to take on Barack Obama in 2012, who came up with the idea for Whitman to run for governor in the first place. Whitman is using Cheney and Gingrich in robocalls to Republican voters. Romney is in a TV ad with Condi Rice, one of the architects of the Iraq War, and a business lobbyist who runs something called the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. So much for the notion of Whitman being a centrist. Her campaign’s evident concern is well justified because there is always, let’s say, the Whitman mistake factor. We saw it again Friday, when she falsely claimed in an interview with Politico that she doesn’t have a border fence in her advertising. She does. In fact, it’s in a TV ad that I am told she demanded and helped write herself. That’s the curious 60-second spot in which she speaks defensively to camera about how tough politics is. It’s also in her voluminous mailers featuring Prop 187 champion Pete Wilson, the former governor who chairs her campaign. Whitman made the claim twice in the interview, and had to be corrected by the designated flak catcher of the campaign, press secretary Sarah Pompei. Whitman also falsely claimed that Poizner hadn’t been to the border till four weeks ago. You can see that border fence she repeatedly claimed isn’t in any of her advertising right here, in this ad which she narrates throughout herself. Whitman repeatedly false claimed that there are no border fences in her advertising. Here’s a border fence. Incidentally, Whitman also falsely claimed on Friday that she has always been against offshore oil drilling. I’ve written about this several times before. Whitman actually supported offshore oil drilling until she put out her ballyhooed policy booklet just two months ago. But this lack of veracity should be no surprise with regard to this former Goldman Sachs board member who had to resign in the wake of her inside trading. Whitman, who has flip-flopped on the issues repeatedly in this campaign, and couldn’t say how often she’d even bothered to vote, lied in her very first TV ad about how long she’s lived in California. She said she’d lived here for 30 years. (Something which she had also been saying in her stump speeches.) But as I revealed here on the Huffington Post, when she became national co-chair of the Republican presidential campaign in 2008, she said she’d lived in California for less than 20 years. Exactly how long has Whitman lived in the state whose governorship she is trying to purchase? She won’t say. Meanwhile, a new survey by Public Policy Polling has Jerry Brown with a big lead over Whitman and Poizner in the California governor’s race, 48-36 over Whitman and 48-32 over Poizner. Both Whitman and Poizner have massive deficits in favorable vs. unfavorable ratings. Brown has barely spent a dime. The Democratic candidate for governor of California who effectively won the June primary by clearing the Democratic field last fall, has nearly $21 million in his campaign warchest. Brown raised close to $7 million in the last two months. He spent about a quarter of a million during that period while the two Republicans vying for the opportunity, as it were, to run against him spent tens of millions of dollars attacking each other and establishing their right-wing bona fides. And some major issues are turning very much Brown’s way. As you might suppose, the Gulf oil disaster — now the biggest oil spill in American history, eclipsing even the infamous Exxon Valdez — has more than reversed a previously growing trend of acceptance of energy production and economic development at all costs. The new Gallup Poll shows a big reversal in national attitudes since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil drilling platform on April 20th. Between March and today, with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill intervening, Americans’ preferences for prioritizing between environmental protection and energy production have shifted from a somewhat pro-energy production at all costs stance to an even stronger pro-environment stance. Now, the majority favor environmental protection, by 55% to 39% — the second-largest percentage (behind the 58% in 2007) favoring the environment in the 10-year history of the question. Democrats had already put more emphasis on environmental protection than on energy production in March, but that position has gained strength among Democrats today. Independents’ views have flipped from a majority pro-energy stance in March to a majority pro-environment one today. In contrast, Republicans’ opinions have not changed since the oil spill occurred; they continue to prioritize energy production over environmental protection by a 2-to-1 margin. Note that the shift is entirely amongst independents and Democrats. The Republican Party continues to hug the far right rail on the “Drill, baby, drill” issue. What does this mean, incidentally, in the California governor’s race? Well, it explains why Whitman lied on Friday about supposedly always opposing offshore oil drilling. Jerry Brown has been a consistent, decades-long opponent of new offshore oil drilling. He fought to create the California Coastal Commission, a unique governmental body that balances legitimate economic development needs with the imperative to protect the globally unique resource that is California’s coast. In contrast, both Republicans vying for the party nomination to attempt to succeed Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have backed new offshore oil drilling moves. Whitman was a staunch backer of new offshore oil drilling as national co-chair of the McCain/Palin campaign in 2008, her only major role in public affairs prior to starting her run for the governorship. She fully supported Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s famed chant: “Drill, baby, drill!” Whitman also backed offshore oil drilling in her gubernatorial campaign, citing the wonders of new drilling technology. More recently, though, she says she is against it. Whitman and Poizner both want to do away with California’s landmark climate change program, a signature achievement of the Schwarzenegger years. (Whitman had said that she wanted a one-year suspension; more recently, she’s said she wants to do away with it altogether.) In contrast, Brown has aggressively defended the program in court as attorney general. Americans’ shift toward a more pro-environment point of view is also evident in a separate trade-off question, which pits environmental protection against economic growth. After the oil spill, the balance of opinion tips toward the environment by seven points, 50% to 43%. Just over two months ago, Americans favored economic growth by a 15-point margin, 53% to 38%. Whitman herself isn’t the only one in her campaign with a veracity problem. It extends to her top handlers. Political hired guns can say the darned things, can’t they? Evidently counting on the amnesia, or perhaps just lack of knowledge, of California reporters. Whitman’s chief strategist Mike Murphy, during the course early in the week of his latest attempt to spin his client’s inevitability in the hard-fought Republican gubernatorial primary, came up with a real howler. “Everyone’s kind of tired of the Sacramento political system that Jerry Brown is kind of the alpha male dog of,” he opined. That would be, naturally, why Whitman is herself surrounded by a large retinue of consultants and lobbyists, one supposes, and even features a Sacramento lobbyist in her TV and radio advertising. Or why the Whitman campaign used Sacramento insiders to try and clear the Republican primary field for her. Or why the Whitman campaign pushed — unsuccessfully, as it happens — to use the Sacramento-based Chamber of Commerce as its vehicle for anti-Brown attack TV advertising, violating the law for non-profit organizations. Or why Attorney General Brown himself, far from being a Sacramento insider, runs the state Department of Justice out of his Oakland office and spends very little time in the capital. Or why Brown is a famous maverick of many years’ standing, having been a registered independent himself as the mayor of gritty Oakland. But, ironic as all that is, the real irony concerns Murphy himself. No one in recent memory in California politics fused the political consultant and lobbyist roles as much as Murphy himself did after Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected. In other words, to quote himself, Murphy set out to make himself “the alpha male dog” of the “Sacramento political system.” On the day of Schwarzenegger’s inauguration in November 2003, Murphy swiftly moved to make himself the principal influence peddler in Sacramento. He swiftly set up an office of his D.C. Navigators lobbying and consulting firm in Sacramento, and created a web site which screamed access to Schwarzenegger. Murphy was so aggressive in marketing his access to Schwarzenegger that it created a major embarrassment for the governor within months, with the web site having to be dramatically altered. But the behavior continued, and I had to reveal that Murphy was using Schwarzenegger’s image as a logo on all his proposals to prospective corporate clients. As someone with no experience in public affairs prior to being talked into running for governor by her business mentor, Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney, Whitman is totally dependent on a coterie of lobbyists and consultants which Murphy personifies. She even features a lobbyist in her TV and radio advertising. There’s a great deal here, and I’ll get to it if Whitman does survive the Republican primary. Speaking of which, Poizner, has some new advertising in the form of first a radio ad and now a TV ad again featuring California conservative icon Congressman Tom McClintock. In the TV ad, which is being added to McClintock’s statewide rotation and which you can watch here, McClintock talks up the “key difference” between Poizner and Whitman on illegal immigration, notably the Arizona law, and says its time for “a governor from the Republican wing of the Republican Party.” Poizner started sliding back in the polls when he took a very effective McClintock ad vouching for his conservative bona fides off the air as Whitman was slamming him as “Just another Sacramento liberal politician.” Can McClintock turn things back again for Poizner with all those conservative Republican base voters likely to participate in what may be a low turnout primary? We’ll see. You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes … www.newwestnotes.com. More on John McCain

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William Bradley: Meg Whitman’s Whoppers

Sarah Palin’s recent statement that, presumably during her childhood, she and her family used to cross the border from Alaska to take advantage of Canada’s health care system is not really a gaffe or a verbal slipup, but offers an interesting insight into Palin. It is not exactly surprising, or even”ironic,” to use Palin’s words, that somebody who has made a name, and a great deal of money, for herself by linking health care reform to some kind of socialist bogeyman, used to take advantage of socialized medicine. Speaking to a Canadian audience and reminiscing about traveling to Canada for health care as a child is the kind of thing we might expect from a progressive supporter of health care seeking to stress the need for a better health care reform system in the US. Had, for example, Anthony Weiner made this comment while on the Canadian side of the border near New York, you can be sure that Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and, yes, Sarah Palin would be seeking to red bait him out of the congress. There will, of course, be no such consequence for Palin. While it is easy to point out the absurdity of somebody who, as a child, was made aware of the shortcomings of the American health care system spending so much energy fighting against the need to change that system, or to mock Palin for seeming to be unaware of just how telling this statement is, it also suggests a few of her political strengths. From the time she became a national figure slightly more than 30 months ago, Palin has been, political opinions aside, a confounding mix of political positives and negatives. She is clearly an effective communicator who is able to connect with audiences, albeit within a somewhat limited demographic bandwidth. She has been reasonably successful in turning her most glaring political weakness, her seeming lack of knowledge of public policy, into a strength. She has done this by constantly reasserting her identity as an outsider to explain this away. Like former President Bush, Palin is rarely burdened by any doubt or sense of nuance, so is able to appeal to voters seeking clear, concise and accessible explanations, regardless of if they are wrong. Palin’s ability to turn weaknesses into strengths makes her a potentially formidable politician, but she is weakened by an unwillingness to truly prepare, study or learn. She has been able to hide this by challenging her critics, but one wonders how much more effective she would be if she immersed herself in the study of even a small number of issues. This latest episode plays very well into Palin’s strengths. It is easy to imagine that in the unlikely event that she was challenged for her statement, she would reply that she is not a Washington insider who studies everything her opponents say waiting for a gaffe, but is out there talking to real people. She would avoid the question of how she evolved from a young person who left the country due to the weakness of the American health care system to a middle-aged person who believes that changing that system puts us on the road to Stalinism by asserting her outsider status. The likely lack of fallout around this issue underscores another of Sarah Palin’s surprising political strengths. Although she has been surrounded by bad stories and mini-scandals for about thirty months, including: attacks from former aids to John McCain , reports of spending extraordinary amounts of RNC money on clothes and makeup , an unexpected resignation from her position as Alaska’s governor punctuated by an almost surreal resignation speech , various issues regarding her family and her one time son-in-law to be and others, none of it has ever really stuck. Palin is a polarizing figure — and will likely remain that way as long as she is on the national stage — but she is also something of an unsinkable one. A key to Palin’s resilience may have been revealed in this latest comment. To Palin it was a throwaway line, good for building a folksy rapport with a Canadian audience. Referring to this as “ironic” is sufficiently cryptic that it is not clear what it even means, but it is clear from her lack of effort to distance herself from this remark that Palin is not really aware of how revealing this admission is. Palin is a complicated political figure, but she may be of less off an ideologue than first thought. Clearly, a true right wing ideologue would probably not have made this revelation. The informality of Palin’s revelation, and her seeming lack of understanding of what it meant, suggests that for Palin, the right wing populism, while fun and easy, is not really grounded in anything other than the advancement of Sarah Palin. More on Sarah Palin

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Lincoln Mitchell: Sarah Palin’s Canadian Health Care

In teaching financial literacy to audiences across the country, I often cover the topic of “End of Life Planning.” Included in this part of the course I will inform the attendees of the importance of planning ahead in this arena, and not letting someone else make these crucial life decisions on your behalf. A living will, health care proxy and planning hospice treatments are a few of the areas I cover. Living wills and health care proxies are very critical documents and every independent citizen, young and old, should have these documents within his or her estate plan. Living Will — Advance health care directives, also known as advance directives or advance decisions, are instructions given by individuals specifying what actions should be taken for their health in the event that they are no longer able to make decisions due to illness or incapacity. Health Care Proxy — An instrument (or document) that allows you to appoint an agent to make health care decisions in the event that the primary individual is incapable of executing such decisions. Both documents together are crucial in any estate plan. The living will allows an individual to outline what he/she would want to happen if they are ever incapable of making decisions about his or her life due to illness or incapacity. For instance, if you are ever in an accident and left in a vegetative state, would you want the doctor to “pull the plug”? This decision, without a living will, would be left up to debate by doctors and family members. A living will allows you to outline exactly how you want to be treated. If you know that you would want to be kept on life support for as long as possible as long as there are any life signs, you can write that into your living will. Conversely, if the fear of living your life as a “vegetable” is too much for you to bear you can have your wishes to be removed from life support earlier. The choice is entirely up to you but nobody will ever know that you even have a preference unless you have a living will. The health care proxy, is the document that essentially appoints whom you would want to have carry out the wishes outlined in the living will. So continuing in the same example above, you would have the option of naming your doctor, best friend, mother or another trusted person as the person who fulfills the instructions of the living will. What is important to remember is that whomever you name as the agent with your health care proxy has a duty to make executing decisions based upon your wishes. In my financial literacy courses I suggest that you name your trusted physician as the agent in your health care proxy, especially if he/she has been your physician for a period of time. You should also have regular conversations with your physician that allow you to discuss with him or her exactly how you would like to be taken care of. These conversations are critical because they allow you to make these decisions while you still have a voice. The living will and health care proxy provide you with that voice and the regular conversations with your physician are there to insure that your physician is perfectly clear of your wishes and desires. In a version of the new proposed health care reform legislation, it is proposed the government provide funding for individuals to have one of these critical conversations every five years with their physician. Somehow, there have been many false statements made about the purpose of these conversations. Below are a few quotes that demonstrate how many have been perpetuating misrepresentations (or blatant lies) of this proposed legislation. On a radio show on July 16, former Republican Lieutenant Governor of New York Betsy McCaughey said she had read the bill and made some disturbing discoveries. She stated the following: “Congress would make it mandatory… that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go into hospice care… all to do what’s in society’s best interest… and cut your life short.” House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Republican Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) issued a joint statement stating the following: “Section 1233 of the House-drafted legislation encourages health care providers to provide their Medicare patients with counseling on ‘the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration’ and other end of life treatments, and may place seniors in situations where they feel pressured to sign end of life directives they would not otherwise sign,” they said. “This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law.” Former Governor of Alaska stated that the new proposed legislation was an attempt to mask the government’s desire to cut costs by refusing treatment and she stated the following: “And who will suffer the most when they ration care?” Palin asks. “The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.” The specific area dispute within the legislation, of which I have read all 1018 pages of bill HR3200, comes on page 425 in subsection (hhh)(1) where it discusses “Advance Care Planning Consultation”. It states the following: “[T]he term ‘advance care planning consultation’ means a consultation between the individual and a practitioner described paragraph (2) regarding advance care planning, if, subject to paragraph (3), the individual involved has not had such a consultation within the last 5 years.” It goes on to describe what the consultation will consist of which includes an explanation of advance care options, explanations of advanced directives, the roles and responsibilities of the health care proxy, resources available, end-of-life services and supports available, and benefits available for advanced care services. This topic is by far not the most optimistic or cheerful topic to be discussed but is necessary to be addressed so that we can be better prepared for these scenarios that occur in many of our lives. In addition, these conversations should not be restricted to the elderly as in many cases those who are younger have unfortunate accidents or illnesses that require advanced care planning. While many people are focused on page 425 of the bill, I would suggest that they turn to pages 426 and 427 which state the following in section (III) as it relates to the explanation of the orders regarding life sustaining treatment that has so many people alarmed: “(III) the identification of resources that an individual may use to determine the requirements of the State in which such individual resides so that the treatment wishes of the individual will be carried out if the individual is unable to communicate those wishes, including requirements regarding the designation of a surrogate decision maker (also known as a health care proxy.)” The key phrase that I underlined and will state again as it debunks all of the misrepresentations (or blatant lies) that have been told reveals the following: “[S]o that the treatment wishes of the individual will be carried out if the individual is unable to communicate those wishes”. The wishes of the doctor will not be carried out, nor will the wishes of the government be carried out…the wishes of the individual will be carried out. There is no “death panel” when life sustaining treatment is being considered. There are no conversations about how to end one’s life sooner nor are there pressures on seniors to sign end of life directives. While these conversations are not the most fun to have, this bill does nothing more than promote the education of the people about the options that they have, and the resources that are available, in the same way that I educate people in my workshops. If you have a health care proxy, living will, or even a durable power of attorney, you ensure that your wishes will be carried out. Knowing what I know, I am certain that to encourage people to have a living will, health care proxy, and to have regular conversations are wise and a valuable component of ANY financial plan, young or old. Are the politicians ignorant of this information, or are they knowledgeable about the importance of these items but choose to use this time to twist the words of others to insight fear? If it is the former, this is a huge concern of mine, and should be a concern of yours. To have legislators attempting to legislate an issue about which they themselves are not familiar cannot be good for the country. If it is the latter, this should also be a tremendous concern. As we see from the violent, and disruptive town hall meetings across the country there is strong fear brewing throughout the country as people are comparing Barack Obama to Hitler because he apparently is going to start a crusade to kill the elderly or disabled…this far from the truth and embarrassing to even acknowledge. The answer to the politics of fear or ignorance lies within the reason that I am writing this article. We need to have a massive crusade of educating the public starting with you . Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have not been as aggressive as they should be to explain the contents of the proposed health care reform to the American people. In the least, they are definitely not as aggressive as those who are out to play upon the lack of knowledge within America making it easy to insight fear within American people by spreading lies. While we need the President to increase his outreach with more concrete explanations, as this reform may comprise up to 17% of the nations GDP we must all increase our efforts to learn about this legislation and assist to educate our community. You can read the bill for yourself on line as I did, attend town hall meetings, and do what it takes to become knowledgeable enough to help our government spread the message of the true contents of this legislation. Ignorance and fear have no place in the home of the educated and well-informed. No matter your age, if you are an independent citizen you should have a living will, health care proxy, or durable springing power of attorney. You would be wise to have regular conversations with you physician at least once every five years. You need to educate yourself of the resources that are available to you to make sure that, God forbid, you are ever in a position where you are unable to make life sustaining decisions due to illness or incapacity. In the same vein of nobody expecting to lose their job so they should have 6 months of living expenses saved, nobody expects to suffer a severe illness leaving them incapacitated so we all need to prepare ourselves. The essence of financial planning is preparing for the worst but expecting the best. This is not National Socialism, this is good sense. More on Health Care

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Ryan Mack: Policies of Fear or Ignorance?

There are, to be sure, many possible personal and/or political reasons for Sarah Palin’s decision to quit mid-stream. She may want/need to cash-in and her star may be fading. She may have become bored with governance. She may have recognized that the remainder of her term would be difficult because of the falling price of oil, or that she had to preside over accepting stimulus money to help low-income Alaskans with fuel costs. She may have decided that her national aspirations could be better served by campaigning for others, accumulating chits, and then calling them in–just as Richard Nixon had done in 1968 after announcing “his last press conference” in 1962. Or, perhaps she just has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and that explains much of her behavior? Consider these behaviors and whether they suggest a diagnosis of severe ADHD: attending 6 different colleges to get a bachelor’s degree; rambling directionless speaking jumping from one thought to another, providing a laundry list of nonsequiturs and believing she has cogently answered a question, abruptly changing subjects when a questioner is digging into an inconsistency, nonsequitur or lunacy, the McCain campaign’s inability to get her focused in debate preparations, her total indifference to her extraordinary lack of knowledge or ridiculously inappropriate assertions (e.g., foreign policy experience = “we can see Russia”, “when Putin rears his head”), winking into the TV camera during the one debate trying to convince people she could be Vice-President, and on and on. People with ADHD feel truly persecuted when others try to pin them down, even when such continued inquiries have no ulterior purpose except to clarify a particular fact or statement. It is a reaction triggered by an uncontrollable psychological need. Any norm, or those who try to hold up norms, are enemies. Accountability is not high on their wish list. For Sarah, it is the press. When the press followed up ridiculous answers to their questions with more probing, she was offended. That’s “unfair” to someone aspiring to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency? To an ADHD’r, it is grossly unfair, and it is not that they just think it is unfair, they feel it, they feel an acute need to escape. An ADHD’r cannot stand norms (”maverick, maverick, maverick”), they cannot stand still and they are easily bored and distracted. What did all, literally all, the Republicans who felt Sarah could be their savior suggest she do after losing the Vice-Presidency? Return to Alaska, do a good job of governing, and ’study up’. If she were serious and did not have ADHD, that is precisely what she would have done, because she already possessed what others long for but cannot create–star power (aka the ability to arouse Rick Lowry). Governing and studying up is the easy part for most people. But, she seems incapable, not because of her intellect (that seems adequate), but because of her underlying psychology: a person with ADHD does not have the ability to focus, concentrate and analyze. All they want to do is “get on with it”, whatever the “it” happens to be. They can learn, but only osmotically–by being sufficiently involved and exposed to be able to absorb, usually with a kinetic component. People in Alaska who have dealt with her say she is OK for the first 10 minutes of a discussion, but not really engaged beyond that, another sign consistent with ADHD. As with her Governor’s term, she starts things, but does not complete them. A person with ADHD does not respond well to being questioned. The little details are too pesky and unimportant. They crave being “left alone”, and make those who would pursue those details uncomfortable about doing so because they themselves appear so uncomfortable. As Governor she could make the details disappear by appointing cronies, and complaining that people are just out to get her, neither of which, of course, answers the questions. An ADHD’r, looking for some stability but unable to focus and concentrate to think matters through, would find fundamentalism (religious or otherwise) very appealing. Answers to unsettling questions are considered absolute and they are spoonfed. Thinking is unnecessary–and, actually, dangerous to the fundamentalist position. Fundamentalist religions are particularly attractive to them because the little voice, chattering away constantly in their heads, can be deemed to be the divine, and thus all actions are not only “rational” but justified, and whether others “get it” or not is their problem. And, in a fundamentalist church, they do not have to sit still–I’ve attended a few, and people yell out whatever they want, whenever they want, a stark contrast to the mainstream churches where the services are controlled and scripted. ADHD is not just a diagnosis of childhood. It can persist one’s entire life. By the time people reach adulthood, they usually develop coping strategies, but not always, and not if their behaviors are indulged, in which case they become reinforced. Could it be that those whom Sarah stuck with in life, and did not reject, were those willing to enable her behaviors? Is Palin an adult ADHD’r who never had to learn to cope with her unaccountable, escapist instincts. Depending on its severity, ADHD is not all negative. ADHD’rs can be very interesting and exciting people to be around, and they can make very positive impressions especially in early encounters: they are often full of ideas, highly energetic, and can make the more disciplined feel as if they are missing something in life. After a short time, it may become apparent that not everything adds up, and there is difference between an ADHD’r and someone who is truly innovative or an out of-the-box thinker, or who pushes the limits of endurance. If Sarah indeed has ADHD, it may be, at once, what makes her politically attractive and the cause of her fall-from-grace. After one gets to know ADHDrs, some of the luster often fades. Resistance to being pinned down on anything conveys lack of reliability and even dishonesty. Sarah’s resignation is a case in point, and her explanation is sheer lunacy. This was her ‘logic’: lameduck governors take foreign excursions at taxpayers’ expense, do not do anything but waste money, she said, as if she, as a lameduck, would be compelled to do the same. And, it would mean that the Governor of Virginia, who only gets one term, ought to resign immediately upon election since he is a lameduck by statute. Now try pinning her down on this, and she will fob it all off as unimportant or the question being overly critical or both. Or, watch what happens when her primary rationale for resigning in midstream—not wishing to spend taxpayer money on lawyers defending her instead of schools–is shown to be misleading because the money was already allocated to attorneys. If Palin has ADHD, she will feel persecuted just by being legitimately pinned down to clarify herself. In her resignation ramble, Palin suggested a subtle comparison to Barack Obama, the ‘other person’ who, in her mind, quit his job to take on a larger role. In her mind–and this is the danger such a mind is–her quitting in midterm is the equivalent of Barack Obama leaving the Senate to become President, or Hillary Clinton resigning her Senate seat to become Secretary of State. But, don’t assume Sarah Palin’s political demise yet. She has star power, and, if her problem is ADHD, a little Ritalin or Strattera may go a long way…Todd, at least, would sing their blessings! More on Sarah Palin

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Paul Abrams: Sarah Palin: Is It All Just ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)?

I was at Ted Stevens’ Girdwood home when the FBI was raiding it. While agents were removing large black bags of evidence, I asked if they’d found the bodies of Begich and Boggs. For years, I followed legislation that legalized the white collar theft of our fisheries. I watched Ted Stevens vote to confirm Supreme Court Judges who would fall on the fascist side of the inevitable Exxon v. Baker case. I was astonished when Stevens, then chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, had a complete meltdown and refused Senator Maria Cantwell’s righteous and reasonable request that oil executives testify about their record profits and potential energy price fixing under oath. I interviewed him about the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) of returning soldiers. Stevens said that when he was a soldier, they didn’t have PTSD…it was a condition created by a weaker generation. At the time, I wondered who in the Bush Administration did Ted forget to take fishing…Cheney? Bush’s Dad? How could his own party go after one of their own? One theory is the White House asked Stevens not to run in 2007 due to the cloud of corruption that would surround his campaign after the FBI raided his Alaska residence-Stevens refused and crossed the Bush Administration. This theory makes some sense given President Bush denied a pardon request from Senator Lisa Murkowski. Senator Stevens was indicted last July. After reading the indictment, I was shocked. Imagine following a bank robber in a stolen getaway car. The criminal is fleeing at a high rate of speed, tossing tons of shredded hundred dollar bills out of the window. He’s swerving dangerously all over the road for miles and miles. Suddenly, the State Patrol appears out of nowhere and pulls the bank robber over. You’d be relieved he was finally off the road, yes? How would you feel if he were only charged with littering? That’s how I felt about Senator Steven’s indictment. The prosecution was corrupt-a legacy of the George W Bush Department of Justice. They were overconfident in the knowledge of Stevens’ true crimes and wanted to insure victory by illegally and unnecessarily stacking the deck; a trademark of Republican strategy-whether caging voters and manipulating Diebold machines to affect the outcome of an election or blatantly and deliberately NOT sharing contradictory witness statements from Bill Allen. The case was promptly and justly thrown out. However, that doesn’t mean Ted Stevens is innocent and it doesn’t mean Ted Stevens was exonerated! Stop lionizing him. Or a more appropriately…stop LIEonizing him! Senator Lisa Murkowski asked George W. Bush to pardon Stevens. She believed in his guilt and wanted a “get out of jail free” card for her colleague. Now she waxes poetic about the “Rule of Law”. How ironic-Murkowski touting the same Rule of Law she opposed with her vote on the Military Commissions Act of 2006. That dark anti-American bill legalized torture and suspended habeas corpus. Murkowski voted to suspend the fundamental right to challenge your detention. Habeas corpus is as old as the 1215 Magna Carta and was a cornerstone of the Constitution. Murkowski, in the statement she issued yesterday on Ted Stevens’ behalf, said, “…violations of our civil liberties cannot be tolerated…” Excuse me? Really? Is that why Murkowski voted for the FISA legislation last year? The FISA bill granted retroactive immunity to law breaking telecoms. Those telecoms illegally wiretapped American citizens and violated their civil liberties! The great thing about the Rule of Law is its lack of selectiveness; in other words, the Rule of Law applies to everyone regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic status, or political affiliation. It applies to Ted Stevens just as it should have applied to the Telecoms. Last year, Sarah Palin, while on the campaign trail, called for Stevens’ resignation. “He needs to step aside and allow our state to elect someone who will be supportive of those ideals of America - the free enterprise, the missions that we’re on to win the war, those things that have got to take place in order to progress this country. Ted Stevens has got to play a very statesmanlike role in this now.” TALK ABOUT A FLIP-FLOP! Sarah’s newest pandering position is: “Senator Stevens deserves to be very happy today. What a horrible thing he has endured. The blatant attempts by adversaries to destroy one’s reputation, career and finances are an abuse of our well-guarded process and violate our God-given rights afforded in the Constitution. It is a frightening thing to contemplate what we may be witnessing here - the undermining of the political process through unscrupulous ploys and professional misconduct. Senator Stevens and I had lunch together recently at my home and he reiterated the faith he held for vindication; he never gave up hope. It is unfortunate that, as a result of the questionable proceedings which led to Senator Stevens’ conviction days before the election, Alaskans lost an esteemed statesman on Capitol Hill. His presence is missed.” REALLY? She never mentions it was the BUSH DOJ who broke the law. She doesn’t commend the OBAMA DOJ for enforcing JUSTICE FOR ALL. I guess Stevens doesn’t remember being thrown under Sarah’s bus in her vice-presidency quest. Bus Sarah must damn near be high centered for all of the casualties under there. As much as I have been disappointed by Mark Begich’s Blue Dog alignment with the Judas Joe Leiberman, Palin’s statement that we “…lost an esteemed statesman on Capitol Hill…” is a slam on our newly elected Senator. By her own words, Palin disqualified Ted Stevens from the “statesman” moniker because he didn’t do last fall what she demanded-Resign! Ted Stevens’ claim to fame has always been how many federal dollars he brought back to Alaska. Senator Begich worked hard for Alaska federal stimulus money and Palin has turned a portion down. Oh, Wait! She hasn’t rejected it…she just hasn’t accepted it….she HAS called it a “BRIBE.” So, is she going to accept the “bribe”? Would it still be a bribe had Ted Steven’s brought it home? By the way, Senator Murkowski voted against the federal stimulus dollars for Alaska. Though you wouldn’t know it based upon her recent press releases. Ironically, the Republican campaign cry was “We won’t get any federal money! Waaa Waa!” Mark Begich brought home nearly a BILLION dollars for Alaska’s fair share of the stimulus package. Both of Alaska’s Republicans voted against the stimulus package and the Republican Governor is grandstanding by not “accepting” it. The head of the Alaska Republican Party, Chairman Randy Ruedrich, called for Senator Begich to step down. That’s rich. In June 2004, Ruedrich admitted to three violations of the state Ethics Act and has been fined $12,000-believed to be the largest civil penalty ever imposed in a state ethics case, according to the attorney general’s office. He admitted to: • Misuse of official position by engaging in partisan political activity in his Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission office. • Improper disclosure of confidential information to a third party without authority. Ruedrich forwarded a confidential attorney-client privileged e-mail and attachment to attorney Kyle Parker, who represented Evergreen Resources on matters pertaining to methane gas development in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. • Incompatible outside voluntary service for the Republican Party of Alaska by acting contrary to the manner he said he would in his Ethics Act Disclosure Statement. It is no wonder the Alaska Republican Party is well represented at the Sheridan Federal Penitentiary with leadership like this. Senator Mark Begich will not step down. He said, “It’s clear there was misconduct by the prosecutors in Senator Stevens’ felony trial. I’m pleased President Obama’s Justice Department has brought a new sense of ethics to their responsibilities….I got into the Senate race long before Senator Stevens’ legal troubles began because Alaskans were looking for a change and a senator as independent as Alaska. Today, with our country in a severe recession, it’s more important than ever that we have a senator focused on fixing our economy so Alaskans have the jobs they need to support their families. That is my job in the Senate, and I’m honored to serve Alaskans for the next six years.” Begich shouldn’t resign. He won the election. Attorney General Michael Mukasey could have thrown the case out before the election and did not. The evidence of extreme prosecutorial misconduct was available for Mukasey. Justice for all? Oh, wait, not under the Bush administration, not even for one of their own. Eric Holder’s decision to throw out Stevens’ case for blatant prosecutorial misconduct was absolutely correct. Two wrongs don’t make EITHER one right. The wrongs of the Bush DOJ DO NOT make Ted Stevens innocent nor do they exonerate him. The attempts to make him a martyr by local right wing apologist talkers and writers are pathetic and demonstrate their complete lack of knowledge of Stevens’ true crimes. Rumor has it Congressman Don Young is ready to get tanked by the Feds. Will the same blowhards call for Young’s resignation and try to seat Ethan Berkowitz? No. More on Eric Holder

Go here to read the rest:
Shannyn Moore: The LIEonization of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens

In Sarah Palin’s interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren this evening, she referred to bloggers as “kids in pajamas sitting in the basement of their parents’ homes” spewing out mean and inaccurate things about her. Well, I am no kid, I am definitely not wearing pajames and I am living in my own house, thank you! And I am seriously depressed about the prospect of this person having a political future. In the course of the interview with Greta Van Susteren, a softball thrown with great affection by Fox, Palin manages to rebut all the attacks on her without ever providing much, if any, facts to support her position. She never asked for the clothes or the stylists. They just appeared. Nor the clothes for her “eight” member family (eight? I thought she had 5 kids…). She never thought Africa was a country . She was just concerned about Darfur and they discussed “Africa there…the country and the continent”. She always knew what countries were in NAFTA. She never thought the crowds were there because of her, it was just because of what she stood or — just a mom trying to change things. Pardon me, but I am nearly nauseous by now. There is no acknowledgement by Ms. Palin that she might not have been ready for this job . That there were things she did not know and should have known. That the media intensity revealed her weaknesses — only that it was mean and unfair. She deftly avoided the quesiton about 2012, but in a very frightening way to those of us who do not believe God tells what doors to open, she explained that God would reveal to her if she should run. God would tell her if there was a door open with a tiny crack, and she would, “by god”, just push through it. She is also a feminist in the sense of ” Feminists for life “, which for those of us who believe in the power of women, is not exactly our definition. I actually think she believes women should earn as much as men. But she does not believe government should help women and their families with children, especially special needs children , with any particular programs. Individuals and their communities should do that. Well — Governor Palin? They do not. And when they do not, why are you in favor of punishing those families when they find they can’t make it. They can’t support the 24 hour needs of those children without some support. Are they supposed to go out on the street corner and put out a sign that says, “Please feed my special needs child?” Oh my. We are in for a set of charming interviews over the next few days. The only losers will be the Republican party of “meanies” who have attacked Palin. No one is going to challenge her. No one is going to ask her to be accountable for the leaks from the campaign about her diva personality, her tirades against her staff, her acceptance of all those clothes and makeup and hairdressing, her lack of knowledge of basic facts about American government or foreign affairs. She can ust deny it all, smile, wink and we are all ok with it. Are we?

More:
Linda Bergthold: Palin calls bloggers "kids in pajamas"

From user: Jane

The Wassilla Project website has provided a very interesting and honest insight into Palin’s violation of federal information using her personal email account.  Any sane individual who has worked in state or federal level is briefed on ethical procedures and behavior at the beginning of their career, and once every year after.  Surely Palin knew her actions were unethical, so why did she proceed to communicate concerning state business using her personal account?  For those of you who feel no one is above the law visit the Wassilla Project site.  There you will see a video and hear from residents of Palin’s hometown speaking up as all Americans do when things don’t seem right.   One of them is Anne Kilkenny.  If you recall, months ago a personal but honest and through provoking email by Anne Kilkenny, a local resident of Wassilla, was disseminated on the internet by the recipient.  At first read anyone could tell Anne’s insight was no exaggeration.  Anyone who has a knack for false and truth knew she was the real thing; a valid connection as to what makes Sarah tick.  We must keep this story alive to prevent other politicians from thinking they are excluded from the rules and regulations all employees must follow.  Please visit the Wassilla Project website at:

Sarah Palin: The email scandal

One thing for certain, there are a lot of smart and honorable people up in Alaska who deserved a qualified Governor.  Hopefully next time they’ll vote for someone who has their best interest at heart instead of attempting to blind their eyes and minds with oil tax rebates.

FROM USER: madenea

Is it my assumption here, or am I correct in thinking that Sarah Palin, despite her inexperience, her lack of general knowledge regarding the plight of women in America, is simply a token figure for the Republican Party?  I find it appalling that she, of all people, would represent the American woman, with her staunch views on a woman’s right to choose and unrelenting policy with respect to stem-cell research!  It is an embarrassment to me that any woman would embrace Palin as a role model and leader to the women of this country.  Specifically those who are trying to combat the very real issue of teenage pregnancy. If a woman is unable to control the actions of her teenager, a minor in her household, how is it she can assist in leading a country?

Further, I find it interesting that Palin can accuse Barak Obama of inexperience.  I could hardly believe the words coming out of her mouth.

FROM USER: cwentworth

Sarah Palin: Over her head

As a lifetime Alaskan and retired U.S. government employee, I did not vote for Sarah Palin for governor. She did not support a subsistence hunting and fishing priority for Alaska Natives and other rural Alaskans, an important human rights issue. She also stated during her gubernatorial campaign that one of her aspirations was to cook a salmon and blueberry pie dinner for Condoleezza Rice. That turned me off in a hurry, as well as her tacit support for the Iraq War, oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and anti-abortion stance.

But twice in August, I heard her speak in person for the first time since she became governor, and was surprised how much I liked her. At both of these small gatherings, she praised progressive friends of mine, who are well-known Alaskans, giving them many accolades and announcing how she was drawing one into her administration. Even though these people did not vote for her, I felt her praise was sincere. During both of these events, Palin was relaxed and happy.

Then during Palin’s V.P. nominee acceptance speech, I saw a different Sarah Palin. When she talked of her support for the war, fighting terrorists, and more oil drilling, I saw a protruded jaw and scrunched up nose. Her face showed fighting and stubbornness. She did not present her positions with well-reasoned thought behind them, but more like an angry reaction. It all felt ugly, and my like suddenly turned to dislike. This also told me that she was now over her head – parroting phrases that someone else had given her.

For several years during my federal career, I had a boss who was over his head. When an issue concerned his region of Alaska, where he was born and raised, he was relaxed, confident, and helpful. But with other issues, especially those he did not understand, he was often angry, mean, and condescending to me and to the other scientists he supervised. During the hearing for the grievance and gender complaint which I filed (and which I eventually won) the Judge asked repeatedly: “Why is someone with no college education supervising three scientists? Its kind of a poor fit, isn’t it?

It’s the same way with Palin. Of course Obama seems like an elitist to her. He’s into issues with which she has had no experience, and which are over her head.

Palin aims to please. She wants to be liked, which is why she can afford, as governor, to give public accolades to those who disagree with her politically. But as V.P nominee, she is now aiming to please those above her rather than below her. Thus the stark and scary contrast in her facial expression, from August to September.

FROM USER: lottirj

FROM USER: DonkeyLung

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lqWZTMnl-k

FROM USER: jacquicav

While political speeches are often chalked full of mistruths, miscommunications, and mistakes, there is no greater insult to the “masses” than a politician reducing the credibility of a person’s hard work, not to mention the work that has, historically, resulted in some of the major transformations that have changed our nation – and changed it for the better. To what I am referring is the content of the speech delivered on Wednesday night by an individual who will probably prove to be the most disastrous VP-pick in American history. In her attempt to ridicule Barack Obama’s work as a “community organizer,” Palin suggested that “a small town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.”

Oh, Sarah Palin, have you never read a history book?

You have the privilege (and for unqualified person like yourself, it is, indeed, a privilege) of standing before the nation as a female VP candidate because of the work of community organizers – they were called suffragists. Suffragists worked diligently in their community by sponsoring parades and rallies, circulating petitions, and, of course, eventually succeeding in introducing legislation that included a Constitutional Amendment which would “allow” women the right to vote. You, Sarah Palin, are a direct beneficiary of the work of these “community organizers” who worked, often times, at the very basic level of our society (in factories, company towns, overcrowded urban centers) in order to see their dream become a reality. Those women – and men – who were so passionately involved in the suffragist movement had “actual responsibilities,” indeed!

We all know that Sarah Palin, as an evangelical Christian, has very close ties to her church. While this may be true, one must ask: Sarah Palin, have you never read the Bible?

There’s something in there commonly referred to as The Beatitudes. In the Gospel of St. Matthew (5: 3-10), they mark the first of the Lord’s Sermons on the Mount. In summary, through the Beatitudes blessings are bestowed upon those who are “poor in spirit, the meek, the mourners, the hungry, the merciful, the clean of heart, and those who suffer persecution for justice’s sake.” Hmmm…aren’t these the areas of society in which community organizers typically work? And, if memory serves me right, I believe that churches are, indeed, a hub of community organizing efforts. While this might not be the case in Wasilla, Alaska, churches typically work IN THE COMMUNITY to feed the poor, help the sick, they collect food, clothing, and provide shelter for the homeless. In fact, again, if memory serves me right, churches are to thank for serving as the hub of “community organization” during the Civil Rights Movement. There is one of the Beatitudes that I did not make reference to above, it is verse nine: “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” It is obvious through the content of Sarah Palin’s speech that she is not a peacemaker and seems to ridicule those that are now, and have been throughout history peacemakers in their capacity as COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS! With that said, (as one very wise political blogger from another site already noted) “it’s important to remind Sarah Palin that Jesus Christ was a community organizer, [it was] Pontius Pilate who was a governor.” Finally, for those in Palin’s camp who claim to know Jesus, personally (and who take his advice about invading foreign lands and building pipelines), it’s important to remind them that Jesus Christ left a CHURCH in place on earth, not a GOVERNMENT!

Article from Sam Stein of the Huffington Post.

Gov. Sarah Palin made her first potentially major gaffe during her time on the national scene while discussing the developments of the perilous housing market this past weekend.

Speaking before voters in Colorado Springs, the Republican vice presidential nominee claimed that lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.” The companies, as McClatchy reported, “aren’t taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. The takeover may result in a taxpayer bailout during reorganization.”

Economists and analysts pounced on the misstatement, which came before the government had spent funds baling the two entities out, saying it demonstrated a lack of understanding about one of the key economic issues likely to face the next administration.

“You would like to think that someone who is going to be vice president and conceivable president would know what Fannie and Freddie do,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “These are huge institutions and they are absolutely central to our country’s mortgage debt. To not have a clue what they do doesn’t speak well for her, I’d say.”

Added Andrew Jakabovics, an economic analysts for the progressive think tank, Center for American Progress: “It is somewhat nonsensical because up until yesterday there was sort of no public funding there. Even today they haven’t drawn down any of the credit line they have given to Treasury. ‘Gotten too big and too expensive’ are two separate things. The too big has been a conservative mantra for a while and there is something to be said of that in that they hold about half of the mortgage guarantees that are out there. And in the last year they have been responsible for roughly 80 percent out there. The ‘too expensive to tax payers,’ I don’t know where that comes from.”

Even conservative analysts acknowledged that the statement simply did not hold true.

“Heretofore, if the treasury had a balance sheet there would have been a liability but there was never a taxpayer payment before [the bailout],” said Gerald P. O’Driscoll, an economist with the Cato Institute. “[Fannie and Freddie] were not taxpayer funded. They had taxpayer guarantee, which is worth something, especially in the stock market…”

The Palin misstatement comes as Fannie and Freddie are set to be placed under control of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, created by President Bush in late July to help regulate the two housing giants. Both presidential candidates have been critical of Fannie and Freddie but neither is opposed to the government’s plans for the companies. The treasury is hoping that the government’s role will help stabilize credit markets and incentive more mortgage lending.

“With the takeover they will be taxpayer funded,” said O’Driscoll. “As I understand it they get to withdraw funds with permission going forward.”

How politically significant a “gaffe” it is remains to be seen. The major concern about Palin’s position on the ticket is that she lacks the economic and foreign policy wherewithal to serve as vice president. This certainly doesn’t help on that front. At the same time, the remark went almost entirely unnoticed over the weekend and discussions on the developments of the housing market can be difficult to process for even the most attuned voter.

There are varying explanations that could be offered for Palin’s defense. As O’Driscoll noted, both Fannie and Freddie “were hybrid institutions because they had private ownership but… an implicit government guarantee which people thought at the end of the day was explicit.” Meanwhile, as Baker noted, as of July the two lenders were being offered low market interest rates by the fed again, theoretically, at the taxpayer’s expense. But, he added, “I kind of doubt she had any sense of that.”

Original post here.

If/when Sarah Palin loses, we should consider it a testament to the integrity, ingenuity, and democratic values of our citizens. It will be a victory for the grassroots organizers.

“Sarah Palin Would Hate Rosa Parks”
by Van Jones, Huffingtonpost.com
Posted September 5, 2008 | 02:05 PM (EST)

Sarah Palin and the GOP had great fun this week belittling Barack Obama’s background as a community organizer. But in doing so, they were not just putting down one person.

They were attacking the (small “d”) democratic traditions of the United States, itself.

Let us not forget: the first of America’s freedoms is the freedom to speak out for change. That is the rock upon which all of our other freedoms are built. And across the country, in roles paid and unpaid, America’s community organizers are the people who help us exercise that freedom every day. They are the invisible champions of America’s grassroots democracy.

For little or no pay, they work with neighbors — or with people in need — to address tough problems. They are often people who could make a great deal of money in other professions. But many have chosen to dedicate themselves to causes greater than themselves — and to communities poorer than their own.

Their work epitomizes what it means to put community — and, yes, country — first.

Their dedication and sacrifice is nothing new; the idea of bottom-up, democratic action is as old as the republic itself. In fact, constant engagement and debate at the neighborhood, community and grassroots level is what keeps the nation’s democracy vital and alive.

My question is this: how can any candidate or party that hopes to lead America take such joy in putting down American institutions — like grassroots democracy and its hard-working stewards?

Rosa Parks was a community organizer. The PTA moms (with whom Sarah Palin loves to associate herself) are community organizers. Today, organizers are powering our democracy — registering millions of young people, disadvantaged people and senior citizens to vote for the first time. They do the invaluable and thankless labor of making democracy work.

When factories are shut down and families find they have nowhere else to turn, community organizers step in and step up. They help frightened and frustrated people find shared solutions to wrenching problems.

They help our national leaders correct major policy mistakes. Not only were community organizers the first people in this country to stand up against the war in Iraq. They were also the first to talk about how U.S. soldiers in harm’s way were not given enough protective gear.

They come from red states and blue states. Community organizers, including groups led by evangelical Rick Warren, helped to lead the rebuilding of New Orleans following Katrina. Many of those religiously motivated organizers have stayed there after the media, the government big shots and practically everyone else has left.

But apparently, it is not enough that they work under incredibly difficult circumstances for little pay and no recognition. Now they have to listen to broadcast put-down’s from the party of Bush, McCain and Palin.

That’s a shame — and a disgrace. Those who make democracy work every day should be respected, along with America’s other homeland heroes. Anyone who aspires to lead this country should be saluting them — not sneering at them.

Original column here.

Mrs Palin Goes to Washington

by Mayhill Fowler, September 4, 2008 | 08:44 AM (EST)

ST PAUL — Warning that reading this piece is going to be like watching an episode of Generation Kill. You know the outcome — in this instance, that Sarah Palin nails the speech at the Republican Convention that introduces her to the country — even as the story unfolds.

Twelve hours earlier. It’s still Sarah, Sarah, Sarah here, the mood escalating between now-steady satisfaction in public and underlying anxiety in private. “Steve Schmidt has taken her in hand,” a delegate said to the little group, including me, waiting to get into the Minnesota breakfast meeting. He seemed to be bolstering confidence. A woman tried to match his tone by offering an anecdote about her delegation’s bus driver. “He’s a Republican,” she assured us, “and he said last night that he liked her.” Inadvertently, the delegate underscored the uncertainty: would other voters besides the Republican delegations take to Sarah Palin?

At a late afternoon reception hosted by Human Rights First, where several retired generals spoke out against the use of torture, I asked Bud McFarlane, national security adviser to Ronald Reagan and now adviser to John McCain, if he thought Sarah Palin had the foreign policy experience to be vice president. When Spiro Agnew resigned, McFarlane said, it had been his responsibility to bring Jerry Ford, who had no foreign policy experience, up to speed. McFarlane had given Ford several thick briefing notebooks and worked with him; but still it had taken six months. “That’s how long it takes,” McFarlane said, “six months.” And he reminded me about Nixon’s resignation, and how in his first months in office President Ford had had to meet with the Russians [with Brezhnev to work on the SALT Treaty in November 1974, a year after he succeeded Agnew as Vice President].

Right now “a friend” is working with Palin on foreign affairs, McFarlane said, adding, “Clearly, she is very intelligent.” “It’s a good sign that she hasn’t been afraid to say what she doesn’t know and to ask questions.” (Presumably, McFarlane and friend have been in touch.) That was Ronald Reagan’s strength, McFarlane said. “He [Reagan] knew nothing about arms control or the Middle East, and he was always quick to remind us that.” But then McFarlane reiterated the six-month time frame. Like the delegate at the Minnesota breakfast, he would seem to have something about Palin on his mind.

Only hours earlier, I had heard Bud McFarlane speak about “The Use of Smart Power,” as opposed to hard and soft power, on a foreign relations panel at the Hubert Humphrey Center at the University of Minnesota. Nina Easton of Fortune, etc. asked questions of Ambassador to the Sudan Richard Williamson, former U.S. trade representative to the U.N. Rob Portman (floated as a potential McCain vice presidential choice), Joe Lieberman and Bud McFarlane. Senator Lieberman did not disappoint; indeed he spoke much better than he did the previous evening to the convention. (Sudden thought: Randy Scheunemann, the Director of Foreign Policy and National Security to the McCain Campaign, was supposed to speak on the panel. Lieberman was the pinch-hitter. Could Scheunemann be McFarlane’s friend?)

Nina Easton asked Joe Lieberman how non-military means could attack the problem of Islamic terrorism. “Voters see him [McCain] inclined to the military option,” Lieberman said, “but John has a veteran’s distaste for military conflict.” “John is a reformer,” Lieberman continued, “he’s gonna take a very fresh look at our foreign and defense agencies — you can expect a shake-up here.” Lieberman was the first panelist to mention a McCain house cleaning, but not the last — later McFarlane mentioned the State Department — so this would seem to be something John McCain has been talking about among friends. (”John McCain is going to subject every government agency to a top-to-bottom review, and post the results on the internet, for every American to see,” Carly Fiorina says in the Palindome as I’m writing this from the press filing center.)

All the panelists addressed the need for support of schools in the Islamic world — and addressed the need in such a way that demonstrated the kind of policy experience that comes from years of observation and thinking and conversing with peers in other countries that will be difficult for Sarah Palin to acquire quickly. “There’s an idea that’s been bouncing around a lot — Tony Blair had a good idea, to start an education foundation to build public schools in the Islamic world,” Lieberman said. John McCain and he had talked to both Tony Blair and his successor Gordon Brown about such a plan. “That’s an idea those two prime ministers have had,” Lieberman said. “How do you stop the cycle of ideological hatred? You get them in a better school.” Such a foundation would have to exercise accountability and ultimately be indigenous, Lieberman added. Again, it’s hard to imagine that Sarah Palin could get up to speed fast on the implications and structural issues of such an initiative, especially since she doesn’t seem to have a far-ranging, inquiring mind, despite her native intelligence. Specifically on the subject of education, by the by, she hasn’t shown much interest, for she hasn’t put a chunk of Alaskan oil revenues into her state’s schools.

The other issue that all the panelists addressed is the rise of protectionist sentiment, as Rob Portman called it. “It’s sad to see trade become a political football,” Portman said, before going on to discuss the Central American Free Trade Agreement at some length. Lieberman took up the topic with the South Korean Free Trade Agreement after a historical reprise of how “deeply committed” the Clinton-Gore Administration was to free trade. “Obama has turned his back on a bipartisan policy,” Ambassador Williamson said before bringing up the subject of the collapse of the recent Doha talks, when India and China walked out. How does the U.S. recalibrate its relationship to these energy powers? The collapse of Doha is “the canary in the mineshaft,” the Ambassador said.

Eight hours later, Governor Palin identifies herself to the nation as “a gal that knows the north slope of Alaska.” At this point, there’s no reason to think that she does not. But when she alludes to “energy as a weapon in the Caucasus,” she sounds coached, just as she does in her encapsulated remarks on Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and their oil supplies. Seconds later, she returns to what seems to be her own voice when she says that “our opponents” tell us drilling won’t solve our problems, “as if we didn’t know that already.” Energy issues are the geographic center of Palin’s speech, in which she deftly combines an introduction of herself and her family, a tribute and an endorsement of John McCain and sly, witty attacks on Barack Obama. The glue is a small-town point of view, however artfully crafted, that is going to be hard for Joe Biden to swallow. But that’s what he needs to do, or he will be driving small-town and rural voters into the McCain-Palin camp just as yellow journalism (via the blogosphere) is threatening to do now, and he can campaign from Scranton to Lancaster and back until the cows come home and never deliver Pennsylvania for Obama.

Sarah Palin has a great smile and sparkling eyes behind those (suddenly updated) glasses. She exudes vitality and spunk. Her Midwestern accent heartland Americans are going to love. But most of all she has a wicked sense of humor — blue collar without the chip on the shoulder that can undercut — and a fair sense of timing that are going to be her advantages over Joe Biden in St. Louis. That October Debate is the next test for Sarah Palin, unless the media unravels her life story first. The challenge for Joe Biden is to expose the Palin combination of certitude and shallowness without attacking her small-town persona. Biden has to lead undecided voters to ask themselves where they’ve seen Palin before. The latest surprise in Election 2008 is that it’s Sarah Palin, not John McCain, who is Bush III. Of course, she’s much more than Bush, and the ways in which she’s thrilled many Americans to the core are going to shape the political fortunes of women with eyes on the presidency from this day forward.

Original article here.

“Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the foreigner, as for the home-born; for I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 24:22).

versus…

“Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America… he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights?” (Bible-thumping Sarah Palin, 9/3/08).

“Is a Supreme Court liberal or conservative that awards Guantanamo terrorists with Constitution rights? It’s liberal!” (Bible-thumping Mitt Romney, 9/3/08).

—–

I don’t care if it takes longer to carry out legal processes at Gitmo. If the Bible says we should have one legal standard for our own citizens as we have for those non-citizens we detain, then Barack Obama is right, isn’t he, Christian conservatives? Any Christian would understand that.

link here.

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Palin finished up the third night of the GOP convention with a wildly popular speech that really excited the Republicans in the room. But what did she say that got so many laughs and cheers?

“I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town. I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids’ public education better. When I ran for city council, I didn’t need focus groups and voter profiles because I knew those voters, and knew their families, too. Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.”

Let’s see if her smug message about community organizers like Barack Obama–people who work with the poor and with those in danger of losing their jobs and homes–resonates with American families and with American voters–people she WILL NOT have the privilege of knowing personally in this election.

FROM USER: idahospud44

FROM USER: stephenfox

Breaking News: Palin makes Editorial Pages from Coast to Coast! see: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stephenfox/gG5DhP

Can this VP Candidacy story get any more hilarious?
————–

Please read latest blog entries in my tactical and strategic blogsite at
mybarackobama.com. Thank you; your comments are most welcome!

McCain Camp Didn’t Search Palin’s Hometown Paper Archives, plus some
Extraordinarily Sensible and Intelligent Comments from Various
Correspondents

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stephenfox/gG5Dn8

_____________________________

Inside Palin, from an Alaskan classmate; new website skewering her:
impalin.com

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stephenfox/gG5TFh

_____________________________

(Rejoice: Palin is another Harriet Miers, In My Humble Opinion) TOP TEN
REASONS SARAH PALIN SHOULD NOT BE ELECTED VICE PRESIDENT

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stephenfox/gG5TsG

_____________________________

AND FOR THE ULTIMATE IN ABSURD AND LUDICROUS ARGUMENTS ABOUT PALIN, CHECK
THIS ONE OUT:

Cindy McCain on ABC Today: Palin Has National Security Experience Because
Alaska Is Close To Russia

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/cindy-mccain-on-abc-today_b_122759.html

Is it possible that these Republicans could get any stupider or make even
more mammoth tactical blunders?

Respectfully,

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News
(formerly Santa Fe Sun News)
stephen@santafefineart.com

APPARENTLY FOX NEWS’ STEVE DOOCY IS’NT THE ONLY ONE WHO DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THE INTRICACIES OF FOREIGN POLICY EXPERIENCE!

At least we’re not electing Cindy McCain (and hopefully not Sarah Palin, either!).

Sarah Palin’s mother-in-law uncertain about how she’ll vote

BY NANCY DILLON
DAILY NEWS WEST COAST BUREAU CHIEF

Updated Sunday, August 31st 2008, 2:27 AM

WASILLA, Alaska - Sarah Palin’s hometown rallied around her as mayor - now Republicans wonder if the rest of America will warm up to the surprise pick from cold country.

Though her mother-in-law has doubts.

Faye Palin admitted she enjoys hearing Barack Obama speak, and still hasn’t decided which way she’ll vote.

“We don’t agree on everything. But I respect her passion,” she said. “Being pro-life is who Sarah is.”

Faye Palin said the governor never considered ending her recent pregnancy when genetic testing showed her son Trig, born in April, would have Down syndrome.

“There was no question,” she said. “She was going to have that baby.”

With a population of just 6,715, Wasilla is a fast-growing railroad town that got its start as a mail and supply hub linking the coastal towns of Seward and Knik to Alaska’s interior mining camps along the Iditarod dog sled trail.

Scores of reporters descended Saturday on the A-frame wood hunting lodge where Sarah Palin’s parents live amid hundreds of sets of trophy antlers and a taxidermy collection that includes a giant moose head and a full-grown mountain lion.

Faye Palin said the entire family was shocked by the news on Friday.

“I’m not sure what she brings to the ticket other than she’s a woman and a conservative. Well, she’s a better speaker than McCain,” Faye Palin said with a laugh. “People will say she hasn’t been on the national scene long enough. But I believe she’s a quick study.”

She said people doubted Sarah Palin when she ran for City Council, but that her daughter-in-law had a “singular focus.”

“She was out there with [then-young son] Track, pulling him around from house to house in a wagon,” she said.

Sarah Palin is well known as a former high school basketball star, cross-country runner, beauty queen, hockey mom, city council member and Wasilla’s mayor from 1996 to 2007.

“I think it’s great. She’s a hometown girl from Smallville, USA,” said Felix Bruno, 43, a masonry contractor who plowed her driveway. “She’s not afraid to speak her mind. She really dropped the hammer on the politicians fleecing Alaska.”

At the local Mat-Su Family Restaurant in downtown Wasilla, a Bible-study group that includes two ex-mayors from neighboring cities cheered her pick as McCain’s running mate.

“She’s an excellent social conservative, fiscal conservative and political conservative,” said Tom Baird, 68, a Vietnam veteran who sat with his Gideon Bible opened to 1Corinthians. “If she can energize the conservative base, it won’t matter if she gets the women’s vote.”

“This is a really nice person, and she’s disarming in that way,” said George Carte, 67, a retired geophysicist who was mayor of neighboring Palmer when Palin was mayor of Wasilla.

“I was very impressed with her as mayor,” said Carte. “She did some housecleaning with her department heads. She had to learn about the sewers, the libraries, public safety.”

But even with her impressive approval rating, Palin still has work to do even in her own hometown.

“I’m still leaning toward Obama. I think Sarah has been really good for our state, and it would be wonderful to see her in the White House, but she’s on the ticket with McCain, and I can’t vote for McCain,” said Eileen Moe, 33, a second grade teacher at Iditarod Elementary, which Palin’s kids attended.

“If it was her running for president, there’d be no question in my mind,” Moe said. “The Republicans right now are about big business and big oil. I don’t see Sarah as a staunch Republican in that way.”

Not everyone is convinced her experience as mayor and governor are enough for a vice president who would be next in line to the presidency.

“I wouldn’t say she’s qualified,” said Bill Gleason, 60, a contractor from nearby Big Lake. “I want someone with a little more experience. “

The IMPALIN.COM movement is not alone…

But be sure to invite your friends! Grassroots movements CAN be successful if we try.

“Palin’s travels” by Ben Smith, Politico.com

August 30, 2008

Sarah Palin’s abrupt appearance on the national stage sparked an enormous array of questions, one of which is: Has she ever traveled abroad?

I asked her new spokeswoman, Maria Comella, who noted that Palin visited Germany and Kuwait in 2007 to visit Alaska National Guard troops.

Comella said she’d also visited one other country: Ireland.

Wow! How can somebody be a foreign policy leader (or even sound like one) when she’s only been outside the country on 2 occasions? This is truly, truly frightening.

People who travel aren’t always foreign policy experts, but foreign policy experts ARE people who travel.

Bad call, Senator McCain… Political expediency must be more important than the fate of your country, eh? Country First, My Ass!

Scholars question Palin credentials
By: Fred Barbash and David Mark
August 30, 2008 05:17 PM EST

John McCain was aiming to make history with his pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and historians say he succeeded.

Presidential scholars say she appears to be the least experienced, least credentialed person to join a major-party ticket in the modern era.

So unconventional was McCain’s choice that it left students of the presidency literally “stunned,” in the words of Joel Goldstein, a St. Louis University law professor and scholar of the vice presidency. “Being governor of a small state for less than two years is not consistent with the normal criteria for determining who’s of presidential caliber,” said Goldstein.

“I think she is the most inexperienced person on a major party ticket in modern history,” said presidential historian Matthew Dallek.

That includes Spiro T. Agnew, Richard Nixon’s first vice president, who was governor of a medium-sized state, Maryland, for two years, and before that, executive of suburban Baltimore County, the expansive jurisdiction that borders and exceeds in population the city of Baltimore.

It also includes George H.W. Bush’s vice president, Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle, who had served in the House and Senate for 12 years before taking office. And it also includes New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, who served three terms in the House before Walter Mondale chose her in 1984 as the first woman candidate on a major party ticket.
See Also

* 6 things the Palin pick says about McCain
* The story behind the Palin surprise
* Obama ad portrays McCain as clueless
* Politico’s guide to the conventions

“It would be one thing if she had only been governor for a year and a half, but prior to that she had not had major experience in public life,” said Dallek of Palin. “The fact that he would have to go to somebody who is clearly unqualified to be president makes Obama look like an elder statesman.”

And Alaska is a much smaller state than Illinois, the political base of Barack Obama, whom Republicans have repeatedly criticized for being inexperienced, having served nearly four years in the U.S. Senate after eight in the Illinois state Senate.

“Not to belittle Alaska, but it’s different than the basket of issues you deal with in big, dynamic states.” Dallek said.

Palin has no experience in national office. Before becoming governor in December 2006, she served as a council member and mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, which had a population of slightly more than 5,000 during her time in office.

Brad Blakeman, who ran the 1988 Republican convention for GOP nominee George H.W. Bush, turned the experience question on its head, suggesting accomplishments in office mean more than time accrued.

“Here’s a governor who may have served two years, but her accomplishments are worth eight,” said Blakeman, citing Palin’s work as governor on ethics reform and an Alaska oil pipeline. “She’s got as much experience for being vice president as Barack does to be president.”

But other students of presidential history said that In choosing Palin as his running mate, McCain has reached back to a time when few actually seriously contended that the vice president should be demonstrably prepared to assume the presidency from day one.

If elected vice president, Palin would appear to have the least amount of experience in federal office or as a governor since John W. Kern, Democrat William Jennings Bryan’s 1908 running mate, who had served for four years in the Indiana state Senate and then four more as city solicitor of Indianapolis. The Democratic ticket lost to Republican standard bearer William Howard Taft and running mate James S. Sherman by an Electoral College spread of 321-162.

More conventionally in modern times, running mates could boast decades of experience in Washington, from ballot box winners like Dick Cheney, Al Gore, the elder Bush and Mondale to also-rans such as Jack Kemp, Lloyd Bentsen and Joseph I. Lieberman.

These super-credentialed candidates were sometimes chosen, like Joe Biden, to shore up the resumes of candidates with little or no time in Washington, such as Jimmy Carter (Mondale) Bill Clinton (Gore) and Michael Dukakis (Bentsen.)

Palin, on the other hand, is a total “wild card,” said Stanford historian David Kennedy.

“If she had been around for two terms as governor — or been a senator — it would have been an incredible choice,” said historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. “Who else could he have found who appealed to the conservative base … and as someone who was a reformer?”

That’s not to say Palin will be a dud on the campaign trail.

But out-of-the-box picks in recent years have not usually worked out too well for the top of the ticket. Consider independent candidate Ross Perot’s 1992 running mate, former Navy Adm. James Stockdale, who famously asked at the vice presidential debate with Gore and Quayle, “Who am I, why am I here?”

“He took the wind out of Perot’s sails, and Perot could have done even better” than the 19 percent he garnered, Dallek said.

A bad running mate pick can even put a successful presidential ticket in question. The 1988 Bush-Quayle victory over Dukakis and Bentsen came in spite of Quayle’s frequent campaign trail gaffes and questions about his military service in the Vietnam era and other controversies. Bush handlers largely relegated Quayle to small town audiences that would attract little media attention.

“Quayle — it threw off the momentum for some weeks,” said Goodwin. “One has to hope for McCain’s sake that [Palin] has been fully vetted.”

“The first thing that hits me,” said Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution,” is that it suggests that John McCain is a gambler. This is a high roller decision.”

“The next thing you have to ask yourself: Is it worrisome to have a gambler in the Oval Office? That’s an important question,” he said, “perhaps more important than anything else today.”

Update: After reading this article, the McCain campaign issued the following statement: “The authors quote four scholars attacking Gov. Palin’s fitness for the office of Vice President. Among them, David Kennedy is a maxed out Obama donor, Joel Goldstein is also an Obama donor, and Doris Kearns Goodwin has donated exclusively to Democrats this cycle. Finally, Matthew Dallek is a former speech writer for Dick Gephardt. This is not a story about scholars questioning Governor Palin’s credentials so much as partisan Democrats who would find a reason to disqualify or discount any nominee put forward by Senator McCain.”

Original article here: from the Politico.

Here’s how I think the vice presidential debate will go down:

MODERATOR: Governor Palin, what is your stance on the Russia-Georgia conflict?

PALIN: Well, I think the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, is trying to reinstate old Russian control on the former Soviet republics, and he imposes the most serious threat to the United States in Europe since the days of the Cold War. We cannot take the possibility of military intervention off the table.

[Applause]

MODERATOR: And Senator Biden, your take?

BIDEN: Well, the current President of Russia is Dmitry Medvedev.

[Laughter and Applause]

Both Medvedev and the former President (and current Prime Minister) Putin recognize America’s military strength and know we have and are willing to exercise it when necessary. However, negotiation took place under the administration of President Reagan, and there’s no reason to deploy troops as a first resort.

[Roaring applause]

Who do you think will win the vice presidential debate?

Even Karl Rove sees that picking a mayor of a small town-turned-Governor of a state for only a few years is a catastrophic decision (although he was talking about Obama picking Kaine; same principle):

On June 2, 2008:
“You know if I had to make such a decision today it would be no. There is a lot that Alaska could be, should be, doing to contribute to the U.S, and I think that I can help do that as governor of the state staying here.”

That’s Governor Palin: Betraying the Alaskan people during her first term to help… the rest of us? Huh?

How experienced is Sarah Palin? Well, she and her family might win Supermarket Sweep, but she can’t win the Vice Presidency. Join the movement to end the McCain impalin’ of our hopes and dreams and faith in his judgment!