In the aftermath of last night's debate, I find myself struggling to accept the banter of political pundits and "news" anchors about the performances of our vice presidential candidates. It blows my mind that a candidate can spew out so much fluff, not mention one actual policy plan, back up her arguments solely with ideology and slogans (How many times can one say "Maverick" in one standing?) and then be credited for her "performance", while it is clear that a performance is all that it was.
While Joe Biden kicked off the debate in talking about his ticket's economic plan and laying out the specific criteria for it, Palin followed with a line about struggling soccer moms and, again, how the "Maverick" stands for reform. Um...Sarah, could you be more specific...for once? Just once?
With the exception of calling for more economic oversight (which neither side disagrees with at this point, but which John McCain has been adamantly against in his years in the Senate), Sarah Palin did not talk about a single policy plan that would change the course of our country or our politics. She did not talk about what a McCain/Palin administration would do to help working families...she just talked to them in their "language" and hoped that would be enough. She repeated the line, "Joe six-pack" and of course, "hockey moms". She even had the audacity to state, "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record." Isn't the point of the debate to answer the questions of the moderator, which are likely based on what the American people want and need to hear to make their choice for the best candidate?
So I must ask...Is it enough for "Joe six-pack" or our country's soccer and hockey moms to simply be acknowledged without any sort of sound plan to help them in their time of need? Is it enough that Ms. Palin talks in backwoods slang while dodging the questions that you need answers to? Is being able to "relate" to a candidate enough when the candidate has proven to be oblivious to so many important social and foreign policy issues? Do you actually think that Ms. Palin can be taken seriously by foreign leaders by simply puttin' on tough face? The woman has no substance and she explained it herself- "There hasn't been a whole lot that I've promised, except to do what is right for the American people, put government back on the side of the American people, stop the greed and corruption on Wall Street." Well, I hate to break it to ya', Governor, but doin' what's right for the American people requires a plan of action...and you don't have a clue.
America. It's time to raise the bar. If Palin hadn't already proved herself inapt for the VP role in every other media appearance that she had made, she might have been called out on her lack of a single substantive argument during the debate. If she hadn't made the claim (repeatedly, I might add) that Alaska's proximity to Russia attributes to her foreign policy experience, then maybe we would have questioned why every foreign policy response she spewed was based on the idea of "the surge". Maybe if she hadn't come out and disagreed with the consensus of our world's scientist about the cause of global warming, we might question why she doesn't think that knowing the cause is beneficial to solving the problem.
After eight long years of a president that has made our country look like a nation of ignorant meatheads, it is time to bring some intellegence back into the White House...it is time to raise the bar. When you go into that voting booth in November, think about who is intellectually capable of creating smart policies to better your life, not just who'd like to sit down and have a beer with. For cryin' out loud, folks...this woman is just a heartbeat away.
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Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin today accused Democrat Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists" because of his association with a former 1960s radical, stepping up the campaign's effort to portray Obama as unacceptable to American voters.
Palin's reference was to Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the group the Weather Underground. Its members took credit for bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol, during the tumultuous Vietnam War era four decades ago. Obama, who was a child when the group was active, served on a charity board with Ayers several years ago and has denounced his radical views and activities.
The Republican campaign, falling behind Obama in polls, plans to make attacks on Obama's character a centerpiece of presidential candidate John McCain's message with a month remaining before Election Day.
Palin told a group of donors at a private airport, "Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." She also said, "This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America."
Palin, Alaska's governor, said that donors on a greeting line had encouraged her and McCain to get tougher on Obama. She said an aide then advised her, "Sarah, the gloves are off, the heels are on, go get to them."
The escalated effort to attack Obama's character dovetails with TV ads by outside groups questioning Obama's ties to Ayers, convicted former Obama fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko and Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Ayers is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He and Obama live in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood and served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that develops community groups to help the poor. Obama left the board in December 2002.
Obama was the first chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school-reform group of which Ayers was a founder. Ayers also held a meet-the-candidate event at his home for Obama when Obama first ran for office in the mid-1990s.
Palin cited a New York Times story published Saturday that detailed Obama's relationship with Ayers. In an interview with CBS News earlier in the week, Palin didn't name any newspapers or magazines that had shaped her view of the world.
Summing up its findings, the Times wrote: "A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called 'somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.'"
Earlier Saturday, Palin spent 35 minutes at a diner in Greenwood Village where she met with Blue Star Moms, a support group of families whose sons or daughters are serving in the armed forces. Reporters were allowed in the diner for less than five minutes before being ushered out by the campaign.
Palin, whose 19-year-old son, Track, deployed last month as a private with an Army combat team, was overheard at one point commiserating with one of the mothers: "Any time I ask my son how he's doing, he says, 'Mom, I'm in the Army now.'"
Taking one question from reporters about competing in battleground states, Palin repeated her wish that the campaign had not pulled out of Michigan, a prominent state in presidential elections where Obama leads by double-digit percentage points in recent polls.
"As I said the other day, I would sure love to get to run to Michigan and make sure that Michigan knows that we haven't given up there," she said. "We care much about Michigan and every other state. I wish there were more hours in the day so that we could travel all over this great country and start speaking to more Americans. So, not worried about it but just desiring more time and, you know, to put more effort into each one of these states."
It's about time the McCain ticket starting punching back with the truth about the Big O. There's no way Obama can simply refer to someone like Ayers as "just a guy in the neighborhood". Obama served as Chairman, for example, of the Chicago Annenberg (sp?) Challenge. Hand selected, I might add, to serve in that capacity by non other than the Wizard of The Weather Underground himself...William Ayers. The fact is, these guys did more than serve on a board together. As for Gov. Palin, there's nothing mean or down and dirty about shining the light on your opponent's mercurial past. Especially when it goes to the heart of how a person operates and how (in the case of an elected official) that person, in this case Obama, will drive this nation to the fringe kook leftist agenda he has obviously embraced for much if not all of his life.
Way to go Sarah! Since so many of the kook fringe are already lined up here writing lies and trying to brush this aside, it's easy to see who's been drinking the Kool-Aid. Problem is, it's true. And another thing for the Obamagasm crowd to consider is this. It is not over. Not until I and others like me say it's over.
Why is Obama so unwilling to discuss his past, his associations, release his application to the Bar, etc. Why are records of his tenure in the Illinois Senate sealed? We've not seen the man's medical records or birth certificate either. What we do see is the mechanical suit, devoid of substance, devoid of truth in the full care and operating control of whomever his American operative might be.
What a sight to behold. Hey Barack, why don't you pass the time by playing a game of solitaire.
thanks guys! loved what you wrote so much that I posted in my own blog... :) keep up the good work!
n.
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