Funny illiterate Maverick supporter

I'm clearing some older stuff off the decks tonight as I catch up on blogging, and I found this one online last week that I wanted to share. Hey, it's still funny - McCain is talking about illiterate adults, and a moron in his audience can't even spell Maverick. It's bad enough we have to hear this absurd moniker of McCain's endlessly pimped over and over, but you would think the drones who do just that would know how to spell it. Too funny.

The GOP Convention, in one minute

I loved this and got a good laugh out of it.

My favorite line? "Ronald Reagan saved our century." - And yes, that really was in the Reagan tribute video - it's no joke. Repubes have such a fetish for Reagan, they should start calling him Ron Jeremy in lieu of Ronald Reagan - it's soo sickeningly nauseating. What's more, economically Reagan did more to destroy the middle class in this country than any modern American president, yet many of the same people who have felt the enduring economic devastation of Reaganomics somehow never miss an opportunity to lionize him. (Maybe that was a CEO who uttered the words, "Ronald Reagan saved our century.")

As C&L noted, the only thing missing from this video are the seemingly bottomless "POW" references, but that's a minor quibble in pretty funny round-up of the GOP's predictable convention repetition. One of my favorite visuals is Rudy 9iu1ian1's absurdly huge teeth, reminiscent of Baba Booey from the Howard Stern Show. God, when Rudy opens his mouth to laugh (when he can stop saying "terrorist" and "9-11" long enough), it looks like a row of urinals at Yankee Stadium.

I've got major problems with Sarah Palin (extensive post coming soon - promise), but, win or lose, already one of her enduring legacies from this campaign is the ultra-annoying "hockey mom" phrase, and I'm a huge fan of hockey, so you must know I really hate it.

Anyway, well done, 23/6.

Stewart takes apart McLame's speech

Wow - when Republicans make it this easy, I wonder if it's even fun for the writers of The Daily Show. However, I know this - it sure is fun for Jon Stewart, and it really is fun to watch.

As I noted on the night of McCain's acceptance speech, where were all of the people at the GOP convention mocking McSame's Vietnam service record? Hmm, nowhere to be found. Stewart brilliantly points this out above, and I'm very happy that someone, anyone in the media bothered to point this out.

Kudos to Stewart for also pointing out McSame's obviously hypocritic blubbering about "vetoing the first bill the crosses my desk with pork barrel spending in it! {...} You will know their names!" Well, we know one name already - his vice presidential choice, Sarah Palin. What's most amusing about that inconvenient fact is hearing McCain and the right trying to defend it. (I've got some pretty amusing video of conservatives trying to do just that earlier today. Stay tuned.

It's good to see that Stewart is in midseason form as we roll toward the election. If it weren't for Stewart, Bill Maher and Keith Olbermann, there would be virtually no prominent, sufficiently angry liberal voices in the media.

Thoughts on McCain's acceptance speech

I'm trying really hard to find some good in McCain's acceptance speech, but I was so nauseated by the introduction, I'm having a hard time controlling my venom and outrage.

Between Tom Brokaw's mentioning "POW" every three seconds and an introductory film that was all but shot in the Hanoi Hilton, I haven't seen anything this militaristic since... John Kerry's 2004 acceptance speech. And we all know how THAT happened. I'd really like to know where all of these people were who now insist that John McCain's military record is unassailable and that he's a hero - where were these people when another war hero was sickenly dragged through the sewer by the likes of T. Boone Pickens (who bankrolled the Swiftboaters). And by the way, it was McCain who failed to adequately and vehemently defend his "friend," Senator Kerry.

(For instance, I wonder where the despicable beast pictured at left was during this convention - she had no problem wearing purple Band-Aids to outrageously question Kerry's combat wounds in 2004. After an uproar (but not nearly strenuous enough) from the Kerry campaign, the GOP leadership at the '04 convention asked her and others to take the purple heart Band-Aids off. The very same people who didn't much care how Kerry, a war hero, was dragged through the mud are now bristling at the slightest criticism of McCain's military service, or at the people who have the temerity to question why most of McCain's campaign appearances turn into alphabet soup, he brings up "POW" so much.)

It's not McCain's service that I have a problem with. I honor it, without equivocation. But, the outright, blatant hypocrisy on the part of conservatives four years after doing whatever it took to smear Kerry, a war hero, makes me sick.

I don't even know where to start with all of the inaccuracies and outright lies I'm nearing by McCain. *I'm going to fast forward a bit, but I'll backtrack, too...*

I just heard McCain say that "Obama passed a corporate welfare bill." Really?!? That has crock of shit written all over it. I distinctly remember Congressional Democrats trying to end the subsidies to Big Oil earlier this year, but the Republicans successfully blocked that attempt with a filibuster. So, I'd like to know just what "corporate welfare bill" Barack Obama "passed." I'd think McDrilly, a U.S. Senator for well over 20 years, would certainly know by now that Senators don't pass bills, they vote for them. And presidents sign them into law.

Here's a whopper - "We are going to help workers who have lost jobs that won't come back by finding them another one that won't go away." Way to dip into the platitudes, Senator. Hmmm, too bad his almost fetish-like love for free trade won't bring back many of those jobs. Free trade is wrecking our economy, bar none. Obama has stated that he wants to re-examine NAFTA and free trade, and right away the right attacked him. NAFTA and free trade helps one group of people most of all - trans-national corporations and their millionaire CEOs.

Education is the civil rights issue for this century. Okay, another promise by another candidate - if he wins the election, I hope he holds to it. Every presidential candidate promises in one form or another to be the Education President, but virtually no president, Democrat or Republican, delivers, and Bush is just the latest. He's left plenty of children behind.

Wow - another biggie - "We're gonna stop sending $700 billion to countries that don't like us very much... [drowned out by applause]" No word if Iraq is included in that group or not - we are sending $10 billion over to that hot piece of sand every month. Wait, I forgot, we are winning going to win in Iraq. I don't know whether to laugh, or cry.

Now he's really throwing read meat out to the dogs - "Senator Obama doesn't want to build new nuclear power plants or allow off-shore drilling, but he knows we can't achieve energy independence without more drilling." *Ding Ding Ding* That's the lie of the night so far - here it is, loudly for the cheap seats - WE CANNOT ACHIEVE ENERGY INDEPENDENCE WITH MORE DRILLING. It's a total, bold-faced lie, and McCain knows it. But, he also knows that he's appealing to the ignorance of the American electorate, and also its frustration at high energy prices.

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For someone who hates war, McDrilly has spent a whole lot of time trying to provoke it - his comments on Georgia - a small country that most Americans couldn't even find on a map if you gave them the latitude and longitude coordinates, are as foreboding and ignorant as they are scary. [I'll revisit Georgia in a separate post, very soon - probably tomorrow, and also Iran for that matter.]

Back to energy for a second - I have to give McCain credit for one thing - he may have a point about nuclear power - unfortunately, we do have to include it in the foreseeable future until we make renewable energy sources viable.

However, McCain mentioned Clean Coal (as did Obama in his acceptance speech), and there is no bigger bullshit lie in American politics today. Clean Coal is like saying Nice Pedophile - those two words just don't go together, and I think deep down, both candidates know it. (Or their energy wonks know it.)

His smile is so creepy - he just can't quite pull off saying something he thinks is clever without that sinister smile. When he just mentioned "I have the scars to prove it, and Senator Obama doesn't," when talking about Washington D.C., he just did it again, along with a George W. Bush-like wink, even, almost as if to say, "Nailed it!"

Now McCain is giving us the POW story - and one we've hard umpteen times this week. I'd have preferred to have heard it just from him, because he has every right to say it, and he should be saluted for it.

I have to say one thing though - plastic Fred Thompson let go a whale of a lie the other night, whether unintentional or not, when he said that McCain cannot salute the American flag he fought for. Too bad we saw him doing just that in his intro video. Nit picky, for sure, but does anyone fact check this stuff.

I'm profoundly moved by hearing McCain talk about his experiences as a POW - it's moving and admirable. But leave it to McCentury to even approach overdoing such a moving story: "I wasn't my own man anymore, I was my country's." [...] And finally, the cherry on top of the sundae: "I'm not running for president because I think I'm blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need. My country saved me, my country saved me, and I cannot forget it. And I will fight for her so long as I draw breath, so help me God."

He's been saying this all the while an American flag has been flapping in the wind in the background on a video screen. I'll resist any Nazi rally references; what is understood, needn't be discussed.

And people accused Obama of sermonizing? Obama's speech was short on specifics, but McCain's speech is even short on ideas - this speech is like one long... desk calendar.

And the chants of "USA! USA! USA!" to shout down protesters during the early part of his speech were amusing, to say the least. At one point, it was very obvious that McCain was getting pretty angry with being interrupted. I'm surprised the cops didn't beat the protesters senseless like they've been doing outside the arena - a story that has not been reported at all by our corporate media. (More on that in a separate post tomorrow as well.)

No political rally in America has more shows of patriotism (bordering on jingoism) than the Republican National Convention. I was half expecting Sarah Palin, or heaven forbid, Cindy McCain, to come out in an American flag g-string and swing from a poll.

Well the speech is over, and the talking heads are annoying me already...

Chris Matthews, a truly neurotic political pundit if there ever was one, is now predicting that McCain's speech could "win him the presidency" and that he will "be in the lead in the polls by next week." We'll see about that.

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In retrospect, only a party as inept as the Democrats could actually lose an election after the worst presidency in modern American history. I'll say this about the Republicans - they don't hesitate to attack the Democrats, but the Dems almost always hesitate to attack the Republicans. Not once during the Democratic National Convention did I hear any of the major speakers mention Guantánamo Bay, torture, Abu Ghraib, Walter Reed Hospital, Valerie Plame, etc. The American people need to be reminded of the many misdeeds by this administration, an administration that McCain has been so closely aligned with during the past eight years. I certainly hope Obama's advisors are up well into the night tonight.

One final note about tonight's coverage - right now MSNBC's Ann Curry is interviewing Michael Gerson, a former Bush speechwriter (The ass who gave us the pathetic, history-reaching Axis of Evil phrase years ago) is savaging McCain's speech, about 15 minutes after McCain finished delivering it. No doubt that McCain's people are livid - I'm wondering if this is a dig because McCain's people didn't want Bush to appear at the convention in person. Gerson sounds like an angry attack dog for Bush, and in a strange way, that makes me happy.

More throughout the day tomorrow.

Is this how conservatives truly view Palin?

This one video has been spreading like wildfire around the Internet - conservative pundits Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan were caught off camera talking about the selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, along with NBC's Chuck Todd, who jumps right in, too. Rough transcript from Crooks & Liars:

Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor work. Engler, Whitman, Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. And these guys, this is all like how you want to (inaudible) this race. You know, just run it up. And it's not gonna work.

Noonan: It's over.

Murphy: Still, McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

CT: Don't you think the Palin pick was insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too? (inaudible)

Noonan: I saw Kay this morning.

Murphy: They're all bummed out. I mean, is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

Todd: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

Noonan: The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives and (inaudible) the picture.

Yeah, but what's the narrative?

Noonan: Every time the Republicans do that because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at and they blow it.

Murphy: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism and this is cynical. And as you call it gimmicky. ...

Color the Palin selection as just another way that John McCain has miserably failed to placate far right conservatives (and dare I say it, moderates, because she's no moderate, despite the "hockey mom" brush that the McCain camp is painting her with).

I've got much more to say about Palin and the GOP Convention later today, and tonight I'll live blog McCentury's acceptance speech, so stay tuned.

Palin's speech full of lies and empty rhetoric

But don't take my word for it - watch it for yourself and make your own judgments. God only knows plenty in the news are doing just that, and the right is already crying foul. We all know that drill, too; it's the liberal media trying to derail a Republican presidential run. What a tired (and wholly inaccurate) argument. It's as if the GOP has dug up Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew to make the same old trite complaints about anyone in the media who dares oppose them. It's as hackneyed as it is pathetic.

Anyway, on to Palin's speech. My first thought was that she gave a pretty good performance. She's obviously a very polished public speaker, and it shows. However, many news organizations have begun to do some fact checking about some of her statements in the speech, and (surprise), her partisan witticisms aren't holding up. (And should it be any wonder, since her speech was written by the McCain camp? Some reports have most of it being written before she was even nominated.)

As C&L notes, it's also interesting that she kept the broken record of GOP lies spinning last night with some previously debunked and long-ago refuted falsehoods:

"I suspended the state fuel tax, and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress." Strike One.

"I told the Congress 'thanks, but no thanks,' for that Bridge to Nowhere." Strike Two.

"If our state wanted a bridge, we'd build it ourselves. When oil and gas prices went up dramatically, and filled up the state treasury, I sent a large share of that revenue back where it belonged - directly to the people of Alaska." Strike Three.

Thankfully, the Obama camp didn't wait long for the stench of rank partisan bullshit to die down before responding. Here's Obama Campaign Spokesman Bill Burton:

"The speech that Governor Palin was well delivered, but it was written by George Bush's speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we've heard from George Bush for the last eight years. If Governor Palin and John McCain want to define 'change' as voting with George Bush 90% of the time, that's their choice, but we don't think the American people are ready to take a 10% chance on change."

Crooks and Liars has the rest Here.

To be fair, I think much of the coverage of Palin has been overdone, overblown and undeserved, but the more her record is examined (as all four candidates' records should be by the press), the more disturbing things seem to stand out - her husband's membership in a very powerful, belligerent movement for Alaska to succeed from the United States; and even more ominous, her abuse of power as governor of Alaska. Much, much more a bit later today.

Another brilliant McCain decision

Color me very unimpressed. Only McCain knows for sure why he chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, but for the life of me, I can't figure it. She adds nothing to the ticket - zero - for any undecided who was looking for a reason to vote for him.

Normally, I believe that running mates sway very few voters. However, Dick Cheney, the most powerful (and worst) vice president in U.S. history, has potentially forever changed how veeps will be viewed. Not only that, but McCain's age certainly has to be an issue at least in the back of some voters' minds. On Friday, the same day that Palin was announced, McCain turned 72 years old. As much as he wants to dismiss people's concerns about his age, it cannot and should not go away as a campaign issue, especially considering his choice of Palin.

I'm still laughing about his choice, actually. We've no bigger criticism from the right in the past six months than Obama's inexperience. Now, after all of that, McCain picks a running mate who's greatest claim to fame is being governor of Alaska for two years? Before that, she was mayor of a town with a population of about 7,000. Okay, so much for the experience argument.

On some levels, I do understand the choice of Palin, though. From what I've read so far, she's vehemently pro-life, pro-gun and pro drilling. McCain is still not trusted by the far right, and this pick was certainly an attempt to reach out to them. Too bad for those far right voters that Palin won't be signing the bills into law (or vetoing), nor setting policy in the administration.

As I type these words this morning, I'm watching Meet the Press, and all of the talking heads are buzzing about Palin. So, since Palin, like all Alaskans, is in favor of oil drilling, she's some sort of an energy expert? Gimme a break. The distortions about domestic drilling have just begun by Republicans and Big Oil, believe me.

An interview was just run on MTP where Palin is endlessly pimping the value of Alaskan oil, and she's babbling about how safe it is to drill there. Again, and I've been writing this for some time - two words: Exxon Valdez. And the Obama campaign should be clubbing the Republicans over the head with this issue. Not only did the Valdez oil spill happen, but Big Oil (in this case, ExxonMobile) has fought compensating the people of Alaska tooth and nail whose livelihoods the spill destroyed. Biden should go on the offensive and make her defend ExxonMobile against the people of Alaska when the vice presidential candidates debate. (And Obama should do the same thing.)

Furthermore, Palin is on record as saying during an interview on July 31, 2008 that she "doesn't know exactly what the vice president does," which is also pretty hilarious.

My thoughts on her is that she has many good qualities, but I could never consider voting for anyone even remotely politically like her. This is McCain's pathetic attempt to reach out to evangelical Christian voters, as well as disenchanted Hillary Clinton supporters. In a way, I view it as a slap in the face of Clinton's supporters. What does McCain think is going to happen - Hillary's supporters will just say, "Ooo, there's another woman we can vote for!"? Any, and I do mean any woman who really wanted Hillary to win the nomination couldn't possibly favor Palin - she's almost 180 degrees opposite of where Hillary is politically.

Bring on the GOP convention - it should be another interesting week politically, especially considering the backdrop will be another major hurricane - Gustav - hitting the lower 48 in the next few days. If the Obama campaign carefully words it, I would put out some ads highlighting the Bush administration's criminal incompetence during Hurricane Katrina, especially considering that Bush was busy celebrating McCain's birthday with him in Arizona when Katrina stormed ashore three years ago.

I pray and weep for the people on the Gulf Coast in the coming days, but I will really fear for all of us if McCain and Paulin win on Nov. 4.

McCain/Lieberman '08? Mac doesn't dare

(If he has any true aspirations of becoming president, at least.)

I've been reading lots and lots of stories and speculation that McSame is about to pick Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Don't believe it.

McCain has already taken great pains to court the conservative vote, and among the far right he is still viewed with a fair amount of skepticism. If he were to pick Lieberman, he would be doing nothing to further blunt that skepticism.

However, it's official - turncoat Joe will now speak at the Republican National Convention, official becoming this year's Zell Miller. What a difference eight years makes. I guess in a way I'm rooting for McCain to select Lieberman, because I could exorcise my demons of having voted for Lieberman in 2000 by voting against him now. (And it would also serve to steel my resolve to volunteer for the Obama campaign and to work that much harder in seeing McCain get defeated.)

Well, we won't have to wait much longer to see if we are all going to be treated to the John and Joe Warmonger Show this fall.