Sarah “Barracuda” Palin has posed nude before, has powerful allies in Alaska’s corrupt political establishment, and smoked Marijuana when it was legal in Alaska — but ‘didn’t like it.‘. Her husband Todd is a fish-monger, and Mrs. Palin is a right-wing ‘THUGGESS‘

Reported: Right-wing zealots, religious nutbags and NRA gun-runners are ecstatic!

AP – John McCain tapped little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate on Friday in a startling selection on the eve of the Republican National Convention.

Two senior campaign officials disclosed McCain’s decision a few hours before the Republican presidential nominee-to-be and his newly-minted running mate appeared at a rally in swing-state Ohio.

Palin, like McCain, is a conservative with a maverick streak who has shown a willingness to clash with others in her own party. A self-styled hockey mom and political reformer, she has been governor of her state less than two years.

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Palin’s selection shocked numerous Republican officials.

She is a former mayor of Wasilla (population 8,471) who became governor of her state in December, 2006 after ousting a governor of her own party in a primary and then dispatching a former governor in the general election.

More recently, she has come under the scrutiny of an investigation by the Republican-controlled legislature into the possibility that she ordered the dismissal of Alaska’s public safety commissioner because he would not fire her former brother-in-law as a state trooper.

Palin has a long history of run-ins with the Alaska GOP hierarchy, giving her genuine maverick status and reformer credentials that could complement McCain’s image.

Two years ago, she ousted the state’s Republican incumbent governor, Frank Murkowski in the primary, despite having little money and little establishment backing.

She had earned stripes — and enmity — after Murkowski made her head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. From that post, she exposed ethical violations by the state GOP chairman, also a fellow commissioner.

She and her husband Todd Palin, have five children. The latest, a baby, was born with Down syndrome.

   Cartoon By: Gary Varvel

References:

1. Paul Begala – McCain is out of his mind? — John McCain needs what Kinky Friedman calls “a checkup from the neck up.” Palin is a first-term governor of a state with more reindeer than people, will have to put on a few pounds just to be a lightweight.

2. Ed Rollins: Sarah “Barracuda” Palin is a strong choice by McCain but risky

3. Majority Whip Jim Clyburn – McCain has rolled the dice. Speaking to South Carolina ETV Radio, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn likened the choice of Palin to Walter Mondale’s choice of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and George H.W. Bush’s pick of Dan Quayle in 1988. Both picks — relatively unknown political figures at the time — generated initial excitement but were ultimately deemed poor choices by many political observers.

FlashBack: George H.W. Bush’s V.P. pick – Indiana’s Dan Quayle in 1988.

   What A Terrible Mismatch? LOL!

Jon Stewart’s Take!

From Jörg Colberg’s weblog:

If Obama Loses: “If it makes you feel better, you can rationalize Obama’s missing 10-point lead on the basis of Clintonite sulkiness, his slowness in responding to attacks, or the concern that Obama may be too handsome, brilliant, and cool to be elected. But let’s be honest: If you break the numbers down, the reason Obama isn’t ahead right now is that he trails badly among one group, older white voters. He does so for a simple reason: the color of his skin. Much evidence points to racial prejudice as a factor that could be large enough to cost Obama the election.” ….[READ MORE >>]

From Jacob Weisberg writing for Slate.com

Let’s be honest: If you break the numbers down, the reason Obama isn’t ahead right now is that he trails badly among one group, older white voters. He does so for a simple reason: the color of his skin. Much evidence points to racial prejudice as a factor that could be large enough to cost Obama the election.

Five percent of white voters acknowledge that they, personally, would not vote for a black candidate. Five percent surely understates the reality. In the Pennsylvania primary, one in six white voters told exit pollsters race was a factor in his or her decision. Seventy-five percent of those people voted for Clinton. You can do the math: 12 percent of the Pennsylvania primary electorate acknowledged that it didn’t vote for Barack Obama in part because he is African-American. And that’s what Democrats in a Northeastern(ish) state admit openly. The responses in Ohio and even New Jersey were dispiritingly similar.

Such prejudice usually comes coded in distortions about Obama and his background. To the willfully ignorant, he is a secret Muslim married to a black-power radical. Or–thank you, Geraldine Ferraro–he only got where he is because of the special treatment accorded those lucky enough to be born with African blood. Some Jews assume Obama is insufficiently supportive of Israel in the way they assume other black politicians to be. To some white voters (14 percent in the CBS/New York Times poll), Obama is someone who, as president, would favor blacks over whites. Or he is an “elitist” who cannot understand ordinary (read: white) people because he isn’t one of them. Or he is charged with playing the race card, or of accusing his opponents of racism, when he has strenuously avoided doing anything of the sort. We’re just not comfortable with, you know, a Hawaiian.

Then there’s the overt stuff. In May, Pat Buchanan, who writes books about the European-Americans losing control of their country, ranted on MSNBC in defense of white West Virginians voting on the basis of racial solidarity. The No. 1 best-seller in America, Obama Nation by Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D., leeringly notes that Obama’s white mother always preferred that her “mate” be “a man of color.” John McCain has yet to get around to denouncing this vile book. ….[READ MORE >>]

Paul Street for ZMAG Writes:

….Barack Obama told reporters that if he lost in his quest for the presidency, “it would not be because of race. It would be because of mistakes I made along the campaign trail.”

“….like many of Obama’s formulations, his comment was partly true and largely false.”

If Obama loses to the reactionary war-mongering nut-job John McCain despite a political context that would normally strongly favor a Democrat this time around, the refusal of a significant number of white voters to support a black candidate will be a significant part of the explanation. ….[READ MORE >>]

Bob Herbert of The New York Times says:

So what’s the problem for the Obama campaign?

The problem is the dog that isn’t barking.

Talk for more than a few minutes with an Obama supporter in a white middle-class or working-class area and you’ll hear about a friend or relative or co-worker who has a real problem with the candidate.

When Jack Davis’s wife, Joan, who also plans to vote for Senator Obama, was asked about Democrats that she knew who would not vote for him, she replied:

“My mother! She’s 85 years old. I’m sorry to say, but she will not vote for him.”

It is frequently the case that a statistically significant percentage of white voters will lie to pollsters — or decline to state their preference — in races in which one candidate is black and the other white.

After many years of watching black candidates run for public office, and paying especially close attention to this year’s Democratic primary race, I’ve developed my own (very arbitrary) rule of thumb regarding the polls in this election:

Take at least two to three points off of Senator Obama’s poll numbers, and assume a substantial edge for Senator McCain in the breakdown of the undecided vote.

[ READ MORE HERE ] — The race issue in Barack Obama’s campaign can come up in peculiar and jolting ways.

REFERENCES:

1. Racist Attacks on Obama Growing More Heated
2. Jerome Corsi: Politician-Basher’s White Supremacist Ties Revisited
3. Hawking Racism — Pat Buchanan’s latest book is a White Nationalist Screed
4. Fox ‘Racist News’ Channel Depicts Pro-Obama Europeans as — ‘Scary’ Black People
5. Obama Smears – Fox News’ Racist Liars On A Rampage!
6. Attack Politics – Taken To New Lows By Fox News Morons!
7. Neo Nazi/White Supremacist Hal Turner Confirms Friendship And Kinship With Fox News’s Sean Hannity

Hillary’s loss is mot Women’s Failure. The claim that some ‘Angry White Women‘ either will vote for John McCain or stay home on Election Day, sounds like disappointment devolving into hypocrisy.

Writes: Connie Schultz

Last week, I gave my daughter a small plaque painted with the words of a Japanese proverb.

It was a mother’s gift to celebrate her new apartment and to remind her that she is ready for whatever life throws at her. I couldn’t help but think, though, that the six little words at its center were a potent reminder for me, too, in these days following the primary election defeat of Hillary Clinton:

“Fall seven times, stand up eight.”

There are plenty of Clinton supporters who don’t want to hear this, I know, but it’s time to brush the dirt off and pull ourselves up. Hillary Clinton’s loss is not a failure for women unless we will it to be so.

A woman will not be elected president in 2008. This reality has knocked the wind out of millions of Americans, especially a lot of women, including me.

Like many women about my age, I grew up believing that a woman could run our country but thought I never would get to see her do it in my lifetime.

Then along came Hillary.

I was never so happy to be wrong than when she proved, one primary after another, that plenty of fellow Americans believed she had the mettle to be commander in chief.

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And the chutzpah. Lord. Time and again, pundits and politicians predicted her demise. Time and again, there she was, giving another victory speech. It was enough to make a grown girl giggle.

I didn’t always agree with Clinton, but so what? I’d voted for a lot of bozos over the years, and even the best of candidates have flaws. I didn’t need Hillary Clinton to be perfect. I needed her to win.

Oh, to come so close.

There is a funereal quality to the coverage of campaigns once they’re over, and Clinton’s is no exception. Lots of “post-mortem” this and “life after” that; dreams “die,” careers may or may not be “resurrected.”

There are lots of references to mourning, too, especially in discussions about the letdown after a long and hard-fought battle. Grief has many faces, many moods, and it must be said that some Clinton supporters aren’t at their best just yet.

Let a little time pass so that this disappointment can run its course.

I’m not talking months or even weeks. I’m just asking for a little space for those who poured a lot of hope and energy into what they thought was going to be the culmination of a lifetime’s worth of dreams.

Surely, nobody understands better that rush of adrenaline than those who dared to believe in Barack Obama. That’s just one of the many things they have in common with the Clinton crowd.

Which brings me to those Clinton supporters who now insist they cannot and will not support Obama. They claim they either will vote for John McCain or stay home on Election Day. That sounds like disappointment devolving into hypocrisy.

We either stand for change or we don’t. We believe in participating in democracy, or we don’t. It’s one thing to vote for McCain because you trust his road map for the future. It’s quite another to do it out of some warped notion of revenge. A bitter retreat is no way to honor the first woman to come this close to being the presidential nominee.

McCain Lies and Flip-Flops

Hillary Clinton lost, but she lost on her terms. She was no quitter, and that is a legacy that will only burnish with time. I am reminded of a recent dinner with several other female columnists from around the country.

At first, we talked about the usual things: family and jobs and keeping watchful eyes on the balance. But after a round of drinks — OK, maybe it was two rounds — we started whining about ugly reader responses, particularly from men who focus on our gender instead of our opinions.

Then one of the women mentioned Clinton and brought all of us to a hush.

“I don’t know,” she said, poking at the ice in her glass. “Some days I think this job isn’t worth it, but then I think of Hillary and how she never stops no matter how hard they hit her. If she can take all that and still come out smiling, we can keep on, too.”

Yes, we can.

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination until June …… “Bobby Kennedy Was Assassinated In June” — Vince Foster Is Rolling In His Grave!

SPECIAL COMMENT BY KEITH OLBERMANN
Olbermann: Hillary Clinton — ‘You Invoked A Nightmare’…

REACTIONS:

• Time: “Strange And Tasteless”…


• Washington Post: “At Best A Poorly Chosen Example”…


• Andrew Sullivan: Clinton Just Imploded…


• Howard Fineman: “A Campaign That Probably Needs To Be Put Out Of Its Misery Real Soon”…


• New York Times: Clinton’s Reference to Slaying of Robert Kennedy Stirs Uproar

MY SPECIAL COMMENT

[Pending]

REFERENCES:

1. Government Cover-ups: Vince Foster
2. The Death of Vincent Foster — Evidence Of A Cover-up
3. The Cover-Up Of Vince Foster’s Murder Gets Stranger and Stranger
4. Vince Foster on Wikipedia

You may have heard of Rev. John Hagee, the McCain supporter who said God created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its homosexual “sins.” Well now meet Rev. Rod Parsley, the televangelist megachurch pastor from Ohio who hates Islam. According to David Corn of Mother Jones, Parsley has called on Christians to wage war against Islam, which he considers to be a “false religion.” In the past, Parsley has also railed against the separation of church and state, homosexuals, and abortion rights, comparing Planned Parenthood to Nazis….[more]

A look at Jeremiah Wright, Geraldine Ferraro and John Hagee, who have been associated with the campaigns of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain respectively. Only Hagee is still an adivsor.

Video(s) Courtesy: BraveNew Films