By: Martin Samuel

There is a time when it is necessary to take the gloves off and that time is right now, said Sarah Palin in Colorado. Interesting that she did not want the gloves off before her vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden. Oh, gloves on then. Headgear, too. Maybe some of those big shoulder pads that quarter-backs wear; and throw cushions for a softer landing. In fact, Palin and her minders could not have demanded a safer arena for debate when the opposition was within striking distance. Biden appeared with his hands tied, his intellect muted, his manner subdued, lest he should seem smarter, better informed or more competent than his opponent, a move which was inexplicably deemed undesirable. This shows how far we have come. Intelligence is now viewed as a threat. Isn’t that how Pol Pot operated?

Flirting her way to victory – Sarah Palin’s farcical debate performance lowered the standards for both female candidates and US political discourse

Meanwhile, the Republican lobby put pressure on the debate moderator not to go heavy on foreign policy, perhaps fearing that Palin would repeat her view that experience in this area was linked to proximity to a coastline, and expectations were lowered so that just avoiding intellectual humiliation would be seen as victory. And it worked. She got the name of the Nato commander in Afghanistan wrong and Biden smiled politely. She pronounced nuclear the same way that Homer Simpson does and he had to find it charming. She failed to answer direct questions, while advancing a carefully moulded image as a straight-talking maverick, and it went unquestioned. Now, from a safe distance, Palin wants the gloves off. Of course she does, with no chance of instant scrutiny.

Palin is the queen of misinformation, delivered with faux folksiness as authentic as a three- dollar bill. She is not the pitbull in lipstick of popular myth; she is Deputy Dawg with a forked tongue, engaged in a war against intelligence. Those falling for this act are her collateral damage. Barack Obama did not pal around with terrorists. He did not vote to increase the tax burden on families making $42,000 a year, or vote 94 times to increase taxes. Palin’s statements on these subjects are not a reality bulletin from Main Street, Wasilla. Palin’s statements are lies. Madeline Albright did not speak of a place in Hell reserved for women who do not support other women. Palin misquoted her. Albright said help, not support. And there is no such place as Hell.

Even so, for those American women who worry that they risk damnation if they don’t vote the Republican ticket, it should be explained that eternity with a pitchfork impaled in your rear is still preferable to a vote for a politician who aided her political career by using her Down’s syndrome child to cover her daughter’s pregnancy bump. And it is at this point that we need to talk to the Democrat women considering joining Palin’s ranks and ask: what the hell is wrong with you? People were imprisoned and trampled to death by horses for this? They marched, they demonstrated, and for what? A vote cast on the basis of a Y chromosome?

You go, girl. Go? Go where? Go to college? Go back to that Republican cramming camp to be told what newspapers to say you read and be fed another set of fake statistics where real knowledge and opinions should be? It is easy to parody Sarah Palin, wrote one commentator last week. No, it isn’t. It is near impossible because so much of what she says reads like a satirical script anyway. Tina Fey, the finest Palin imitator, was reduced on Saturday Night Live to using Palin’s exact words in response to a question about the bailout package last week, because they were beyond imitation.

‘That’s what I say that I like every American I am speaking with we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bailout, but ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, um, helping the, oh, it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and, and putting it back on the right track; so healthcare reform, and reducing taxes and reigning in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans and trade we have we got to see trade as opportunity not as, a, a, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today we, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity, all of those things under the umbrella of job creation, this bailout is a part of that.’

Genuine answer from potentially the second most powerful politician in the free world. How can anybody parody that?

Tina Fey is at least attempting to do the job of nailing Palin’s shallowness, her falseness, her studied populism and the way the standards and expectations of public debate have been lowered to accommodate her. Yet if there truly were this liberal media elite to which Palin makes constant reference, it would have bounced her out of the building by now. Anyone who thinks Palin’s performances since her catastrophic CBS interview have been adequate must also believe the American public are stupid. By any normal yardstick of political discourse – substance, accuracy, coherence – she is a bust.

Against Biden she was judged a success, not on what she said, but on the connection she is believed to have made with a fictional Joe Six-Pack: so those giving the thumbs-up must also believe Americans to be simple suckers for a wink, a dropped ‘g’ on a verb, and the use of the odd folksy phrase. You betcha. Doggone it. She’s a bump on a log. Darn right.

About The Author: Martin Samuel — has been a sports writer and columnist for The Times since 2002. His football column appears every Wednesday and on Tuesdays he writes for the op-ed pages.

VP Debate Night — Inside a Pro-Palin rally in St. Louis, MO.

The “Killa From Wasilla” came to the debate armed to the teeth with Republican talking points. She wasn’t afraid, she had the confidence — that of a robot programmed to “Vomit Policy.”

“Sarah The Barracuda” was pesky, scripted, loud, shrill and incoherent, as she rattled whatever her coaches had crammed into her head, with abandon.

For the entire ninety minutes she shuffled her “cheat sheets,” as if she were taking an “Open Book-Open Notes” Exam or participating in a Spelling Bee contest. She scraped and fought hard, spewing “Gibberish” by the bucket.

Ms. Palin exhibited little spontaneity and looked thoroughly rehearsed — sometimes avoided answering questions directly, instead slid into irrelevant sound-bites about her tenure as mayor of “tiny-town” Wasilla, Alaska.

On foreign policy, Palin stalled — giving generic non-specific answers, and when she resorted to her juvenile chants — “Maverick!,” “We are mavericks!,” “We are a maverick team!,” Biden promptly shot her down: “McCain wasn’t a maverick on ‘the things that matter to people’s lives,‘ citing issues such as health care, education and the war.” “He’s not been a maverick on virtually anything that genuinely affects the things that people really talk about around their kitchen table,” Biden said.

The debate format was not confrontational, and Joe Biden avoided engaging her, for fear of being labeled sexist. Had he forced her to deviate from her script, the results would have been disastrous. She would have forgotten her lines and gone off on some of her moronic, meaningless rambles.

CNN’s political analyst Bill Schneider was critical: “Palin’s answers do not lack confidence, they lack coherence.”

Newsweek’s Harold Fineman: “Palin was like ‘A Wolverine’ Attacking The Pant Leg Of
A Passerby.”

Start of the Vice Presidential Debate

Vice Presidential Debate: “Maverick He Is Not”

Joe Biden — We will end this war

CNN – Post Debate Analysis

| More Video [1] | More Video [2] |

Joe Biden on the other hand was remarkably restrained, awash with policy and his vast knowledge and experience clearly showed. He offered much more detail on a range of topics, from national security to domestic issues, and relentlessly lumped McCain with Bush.

While Sarah acted like a “frisky” freshman debater, Joe was polished and presidential in his delivery.

Per Bob Shrum, Palin did not fall down on the stage — she survived.

Her performance was much better than I expected, because of one and only one reason — the debate format allowed her to stick to her rehearsed script. There were barely any follow-ups by the moderator, unlike in the first Obama-McCain debate, when vigorous follow-ups revealed the stark differences, weaknesses and strengths of the two candidates.

In this debate, Palin was allowed to verbally diarrhea “crammed policy,” like an express train without brakes, spewing useless garbage, winking and giving a “shout-out” to some high school in Alaska!

Give me a break! How stupid does one have to be not to read through this nonsense?

She is a total embarrassment — an affront to intellectualism, a trait I insist must be part of the package of a serious contender for the presidency of this great land.

“Hockey Moms” stay home and manage their families, they do not run for an office where they might be required to manage the largest stockpile of nuclear and biological weapons on earth.

My assessment is that Sarah Palin is not ready. She still knows nothing. Go Home Sarah!

“This is going to help stop the bleeding,” said Todd Harris, a Republican consultant who worked for Mr. McCain in his first presidential campaign. “But this alone won’t change the trend line, particularly in some of the battleground states.”

Partisan right-wing THUGS had other ideas:

“Sarah Palin was sensational tonight,” roared White Nationalist Bigot Pat Buchanan, in a post-debate comment on the MSNBC cable network. “She regained that magic she had at the convention.”

Joining the maniacal squealing, were the SYPHILITIC NATIVIST NAZIS at Fox News. Festooned around their racist brains is the falsehood that Sarah Palin won the debate hands down.

Sarah’s “Spelling-Bee Performance” must have injected a shot of liquid cannabis into their soiled veins.

Morons!

Well, ALL post-debate polls indicate that Biden thrashed her decisively, while holding back his fire considerably.

But then what’s to be expected of the “FIX” News Channel?

I am not calling it for Obama yet, because I cannot gauge accurately the ferocity of McCain’s Stealth Weapon – The BIGOT Vote.

It is now pretty clear that Sarah Palin is unfit for the job of Vice-President. She is damaged goods.

The debate scheduled for tomorrow night will not vindicate her in anyway, no matter how much McCain’s ReTHUGlican handlers spin it.

There are no low or high debate expectations. Sarah is just a miserable mess.

Contrary to the “usually wrong” advice a cross-section of pundits have been dishing out in the air-waves, I think Joe Biden should zero in for the kill.

To hell with that sexism nonsense!

We are talking Alkaida, Osama Bin Laden and Putin here — there is no room for weakness, and if she wants to be a heartbeat away from the presidency of the United States, she must jump through ALL the hoops. She is not running for Miss Alaska!

Palin is a severely “Wounded Moose,” with broken arms and legs. All she can do now is stare hopelessly into the headlights beaming on her.

An old disease ridden 72 year old and a severely “Wounded Moose,” ….Oh please!

Sarah’s Greatest Hits

Top 10 Things Overheard At Sarah Palin’s Debate Camp

The gamble of selecting Palin in order to woo Clinton voters (which insulted scores of women), is going to prove to be the costliest blunder of McCain’s “Maverick Express” career.

Sarah Palin has become the bridge to the White House for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Paul Campos of The Rocky Mountain News Opinionates: “Palin has spent almost her whole life in a very small town in a sparsely populated and extremely isolated state. For reasons that remain obscure, she attended five colleges in six years where, if her public performance to date is any indication, she seems to have learned nothing.”

In typical capitalist fashion, everyone is milking “Sara-Mania” to the “Moose-Bones,” including an Ohio company that now offers the “Sarah-Cuda” hunting bow. Lakota Industries, the manufacturer, in a statement issued through their CEO Dick Williamson said:

“We are so pleased to introduce the “Sarah-Cuda” to the bow-hunting and archery community.” “In addition to honoring Ms. Palin’s historic achievement, we wanted to pay tribute to all the women who bear the responsibility of family and work while strengthening the moral fiber of society.”

Sorry Mr. Williamson, Sarah is a humongous political tragedy — worse than a sub-prime mortgage lent to a jobless home-owner wannabe.

Meanwhile, John McCain continued his insolent behavior last night on the Senate floor — “dissing” Obama as the Illinois senator tried to make nice with him:

Barack Obama approached John McCain on the senate floor — he walked over to where McCain was chatting with Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida and Independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut. And he stretched out his arm and offered his hand to McCain. McCain shook it, but with a “go away” look that no one could miss. He tried his best not to even look at Obama. Finally, with a tight smile, McCain managed a greeting: “Good to see you.” — Reported Here.

[VIDEO PENDING]

Also, the post debate polls [TIME poll] are out, and Obama is rolling — he has opened a formidable 7-point lead over John McCain, reaching the 50% threshold among likely voters for the first time in the general campaign for President. Obama now leads McCain 50%-43% overall, up from 46%-41% before the parties’ conventions a month ago. Obama’s support is not just broader but sturdier; 23% of McCain supporters said they might change their mind, while only 15% of Obama’s said they could be persuaded to switch.

Among the poll’s most dramatic findings: McCain is losing female voters faster than Sarah Palin attracted them after the Republican National Convention. Obama leads McCain by 17 points with women, 55%-38%. Before the conventions, women preferred Obama by a margin of 10 points, 49%-39%. After McCain picked Palin as his running mate, the gap narrowed to a virtual tie, with Obama holding a 1-point margin, 48%-47%…..[READ MORE]

RealClearPolitics.com which averages all available polls concurs. Obama is also ahead in the critical Electoral Count.

The situation is getting bad for McCain, and the right-wing NUTBAGS, notably the Syphilitic Goons at Fox News who have been “moving mountains” to stop Obama. Short of uprooting their own teeth, these PROPAGANDA EXTORTIONISTS are “gnashing” at everything in their path, like starved “lactating Hyenas” in the wild.

They have attacked the beautiful “Obama Singing Kids.”

The Obama Singing Kids

[VIDEO REMOVED FROM YOUTUBE]

….And Gwen Ifill, the moderator of tomorrow’s Vice Presidential debate. Also busy “working the referee” were McCain and Palin — sowing seeds doubts about Ifill.

The vicious former mayor of New York, Mr. 911, Rudy Giuliani joined them saying: “If the moderator of this debate were someone who was writing a book that basically was ‘The Age of McCain,’ I have a feeling that a lot more of these publications would be saying that the person should not be doing it,” said Giuliani. “Now it might be totally unfair to do that. Just as I think it’s totally unfair to do this. But it’s just one more indication of how there is a double-standard in the way this campaign is treated.”

“But on the basic question,” he continued, ‘Should Gwen Ifill do the debate?’ Yes, she should. But the question, ‘If you put the shoe on the other foot what kind of outcry would there be?’” — Read More Here.

Ms. Ifill is black, and is the managing editor of PBS’s Washington Week, and the senior correspondent for NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (Jim moderated the first Obama-McCain Debate)

O’Wino and O’Hannity — the two resident NAZI “Piss-Throwers” at Fox News also attacked Gwen, claiming that she will not be impartial — because she has written a book entitled The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, set to be released on Inauguration Day.

I don’t think Gwen is about to loose her impeccable journalistic integrity over a hopless case like Sarah Palin.

Shut Up O’Reilly!, …..I have never witnessed Ms. Ifill “FIX” news they way you do on a daily basis. She is exactly what you are not — a faultless and honorable newscaster with an un-impeachable character.

References:

1. The End of Reaganism – Harold Meyerson, Washington Post
2. The Ronald Reagan Home For The Criminally Insane