Newsweek reveals both camps' inner workings:
-Unnamed McCain Adviser
She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone. She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.
Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.
The Miami Herald's Myriam Marquez takes McCain to task with a surprise VP alternative:
It should have been Linda Lingle.Outside the GOP tent they've posted this sign: No Brains, No Moderates, No Jews.
Now in her second term as Hawaii's governor, Lingle is the first Republican elected to that job in 40 years. She delivered a record state budget surplus, has gone to Iraq to size up the war on terror and set Hawaii on a course of foreign-oil independence.
But Lingle, 55, never made John McCain's veep list. She's pro-choice. And she's Jewish, which would have wowed South Florida but doesn't excite the GOP evangelical base. Twice divorced with no children, she's not valued by the family values crowd.
And dare I? Lingle looks like a boring librarian, a policy wonk -- not a gun-packing, snow-plowing, moose-hunting, 44-year-old beauty queen with five kids, a figure and a hunk of a husband.
McCain, 72, was so eager to shock and awe voters that he passed over experienced conservatives like Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina. (Forget Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine -- like Lingle, she's a moderate Republican.) In our youth-obsessed political playbook, they didn't fit.Exactly. McCain may say "Country First" but what he means is "Please, Please Please Let Me Get What I Want."++ For this nasty & desperate old troll, adding "pretty" and "youth" to the ticket is his only ticket to the White House.
So now the hottest governor of the coldest state will debate Joe Biden, the Delaware senator Barack Obama picked to attract blue-collar white voters. This much we can expect Thursday: Palin will stick to memorized talking points as she has in TV interviews with ABC, FOX and CBS. Biden will talk up his foreign experience and likely stick his foot in his mouth.Nailed it. Biden will inevitably say something stupid. It's the second biggest knock I have on him. (The first is that D-MBNA thang).
Americans have had decades to decode McCain and Biden, and two years to check Obama.We've had all of thirty days and three painful TV interviews to know that Palin is no Margaret Thatcher. If America were not at war and our economy wasn't facing the biggest crisis since the Great Depression, this wouldn't be so scary.
I'll take it one step further. I don't think we're acting nearly scared enough.
-AF
Sarah Palin said today one more gaffe from McCain and she’s going to drop him from the ticket.Bill Maher
On last nite's NBC Nightly News, Sarah Guthrie went all specific re: Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's numerous lies about "the bridge to nowhere", her "trips" to Ireland & Iraq, Alaska's role supplying energy to the lower 48 and her non-existent foreign policy résumé.
This morning The Today Show invited massive Republican tool, racist/gambling addict/abstinence peddler+/all-around-hypocrite Bill Bennett, to attempt to rebut Sarah Guthrie's report. Bennett's defense: "It's small stuff."
That's rich. Republican rich. Especially so coming from America's least fave and most visible bloviating Republican "moralist." It's not small stuff, Bill. No fucking way. No fucking how. Bill, it's really really really really really important. Got it? We're talking about a potential vice president fer chrissakes. I suppose in your warped little world murder isn't so bad as long as you stick to killing midgets. Preferably black midgets.
Like her running mate John McCain (and the GOP in general), Sarah Palin is lying her fucking ass off about her qualifications for our country's the second highest office. That is so not cool. Her pattern of behaviour is a deafening scream she is an unsuitable candidate. This alone is bad enough. But these are really fucking stupid lies easily exposed by anyone with an internet connection! This reveals the McCain/Palin campaign's equally unacceptable hubris and abject stupidity.
We don't need another lying, stupid, prideful Presidency. The United States is staggering at the verge of wrapping up a monumentally disastrous eight years of the lyingest, stupidest and most prideful administration in this damn nation's history. And we have had a few.
We shall not accept more of the same.
-AF
*Shorter version: A politician who cannot lie well is no politician at all.
+OK, so his wife, Elayne, technically runs this crazy little shop but hubby Bill's fingerprints are all over it.
(HT: Mrs. Forester)
Bill Bennett cartoon borrowed and modified from www.blackcommentator.com.
The Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator. Mine name is Bigger Channel Palin.
-AF
All you really need to know about "mavericks" John McCain & Sarah Palin: mclobbist.com.
-AF
Was McCain checking out Sarah Palin's ass during her announcement presser or was he just nodding off? 10 times in the first 60 seconds is crazy. This video is fairly massive on YouTube. MSM takes notice...
CNN's Jeanne Moos takes a hard, err, look:
"We're convinced he was just catching a look at whatever was on the podium," she stated. "The moral of the story? Don't look down."Yeah, right. Raw has the CNN report here.
Media Matters has a handy dandy list.
#1. Media reports Palin's opposition of "bridge to nowhere" but not her previous support for it. Then there's this lil' nugget:
Fact is, Alaska took the bridge money, and then just spent it on other projects.-AF
Unbelievable. While mayor, Palin earmarks made John McCain's own naughty "pork list" three times. The LA Times has the skinny.
-AF
*Update: Time has oh, so much more in "Mayor Palin: A Rough Record"...
John McCain was clear about why he picked half-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate. "I found someone with an outstanding reputation for standing up to special interests and entrenched bureaucracies," he said in introducing her in Dayton, Ohio, on Friday. Palin was someone, he noted, "who reached across the aisle and asked Republicans, Democrats and independents to serve in government."McCain does have a serious potential post-Senate career as an insult comic.
Palin's back story gets more and more bizarre. In the '90's she belonged to the Alaska Independence Party (AKIP's server's currently down. Wikipedia article here). Earlier this year she even recorded a message for their convention.
The AKIP wants Alaska to split for the US.
This is who McCain wants a heartbeat away from the Presidency.
ABC News has the poop.
-AF
*Update (9/3/08): Josh Marshall has more:
Sarah Palin supposedly wasn't a member of the AIP. But she courted the group repeatedly over the years, and her husband was a member for around seven years.
I'm an unabashed fan of Harper's Ken Silverstein. Ken takes a hard look at Sarah Palin's pastors. Her current Pastor Mike Rose has links to wannabe Armageddon catalyst John Hagee.
Here's a few of Pastor Mike's greatest hits:
“Do you believe we’re in the last days? After listening to Newt Gingrich and the prime minister of Israel and a number of others at our gathering, I became convinced, and I have been convinced for some time. We are living in the last days. These are incredible times to live in.”Then there's: “
If you really want to know where you came from and happen to believe the word of God that you are not a descendant of a chimpanzee, this is what the word of God says. I believe this version.”and who could forget that all-time great:
“Those that die without Christ have a horrible, horrible surprise.”Nice stuff. Has that classic feel to it. No wonder the Dobson and the rest signed-off on Palin.
“The purpose for the United States is… to glorify God. This nation is a Christian nation.”Man, have we ever got to put a stop to these people from completely taking over this country.
Yep, it was billed as The Return of The Maverick! The McCain campaign may want us to believe "his" Palin pick was intended as gesture to disaffected Hillary supporters (which just so happens to call attention to Dem disunity too). Nothing could be further from the truth. He sold out to the Jesus masters.
Via Talk To Action:
Last week, while the media focused almost obsessively on the DNC's spectacle in Denver, the country's most influential conservatives met quietly at a hotel in downtown Minneapolis to get to know Sarah Palin. The assembled were members of the Council for National Policy, an ultra-secretive cabal that networks wealthy right-wing donors together with top conservative operatives to plan long-term movement strategy.The 2008 Republican Vice-Presidential nominee was chosen by America's most powerful radical Christian activist leaders and their rich friends.*
CNP members have included Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Grover Norquist, Tim LaHaye and Paul Weyrich. At a secret 2000 meeting of the CNP, George W. Bush promised to nominate only pro-life judges; in 2004, then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told the group, "The destiny of the nation is on the shoulders of the conservative movement." This year, thanks to Sarah Palin's selection, the movement may have finally aligned itself behind the campaign of John McCain.
Though Dobson and Perkins reportedly attended the recent CNP meeting in Minneapolis, a full roster of guests would be nearly impossible to require. The CNP deliberately operates below the radar, going to excessive lengths to obscure its activities. According to official CNP policy, "The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs before or after a meeting." Thus the CNP's Minneapolis gathering was free of reporters. I only learned of the get-together through an online commentary by one of its attendees, top Dobson/Focus on the Family flack Tom Minnery.
The Boston Globe's Articles of Faith blog has the skinny on Sarah Palin's religious views and how they dictate her politics. Here's a clue, it's not pretty:
"We've both been very vocal about being pro-life," she said in the AP interview.But wait, there's more:
In October of 2006, the Anchorage Daily News described Palin's positions on social issues in a lengthy profile:Her science teacher mom must be soooo proud.
"A significant part of Palin's base of support lies among social and Christian conservatives. Her positions on social issues emerged slowly during the campaign: on abortion (should be banned for anything other than saving the life of the mother), stem cell research (opposed), physician-assisted suicide (opposed), creationism (should be discussed in schools), state health benefits for same-sex partners (opposed, and supports a constitutional amendment to bar them)."
And earlier that year, the Anchorage Daily News reported that Palin said the following about creationism at a debate:
"Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information....Healthy debate is so important and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. And you know, I say this too as the daughter of a science teacher. Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject -- creationism and evolution. It's been a healthy foundation for me. But don't be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is McCain's VP pick. TPM has everything you ever wanted to know about Palin here. Josh serves up the shorter version too.
-AF
*Update 1: Booman chimes in.
**Update 2: ThinkProgress lays out Palin corruption scandal investigation deets.
