Gov. Palin and the 1925 Anti-Witchcraft Ordinance (Kenya)

To the Daily Kos "diary": CLICK HERE.

Once I was cool: Message to David Byrne

Once I remember I begged and pleaded to get into a Talking Heads concert at the age of 17 in Paris because I had recognized the mere outline of the United States in the newspaper as the Talking Heads logo, and I was walked by their dressing rooms by a man who refused our money, and the B-52s were still playing as the warm-up band when we got in.

Once I knew who Stiv Bator was and how the Sid Vicious film deviated from the real story and hung out with a heroin addict and his best friend, a porn star. I worked at Max's Kansas City for a month and had to ask why everyone wore gold razor blades around their necks. By the time I turned eighteen, I could ask around to find out who the actors were in Stranger than Paradise (the singer). I bought pizza for 35 cents and thought Stromboli was too sweet and went everywhere by Subway. I remember when Heart of Glass was not even a sell out, but a joky pastiche of a sell out. And that London Calling was such a disappointment that Danny held it out at arm's length and said, "Pink Floyd." And by the time I saw The Cramps I was very worried that I had missed out, that it was past their prime. That was 1978. I was still too young to stay out late enough to hear the main attractions at the Mud Club, so I didn't go. It was too loud, anyway. I played a good deal of pool, even though I was never very sharp, first uptown at the old place on Broadway, Guys and Dolls, and then when that became an Oriental rug dealership, Julians, off Union Square.

In 1981 for a summer I lived on 4th St. and Avenue A and listened to The Psychedelic Furs on a record player. Friends tell me Madonna was desperate that year because everyone left her party before midnight on New Year's Eve. I was somewhere else, eating Mulligatawny soup on Little India street.

In 1983 I lived on 13th St. between A and B and hung out at Life Cafe, later called Dave's Life Cafe. The luxury high-rise Chris. House off Tompkins Sq. Park was an abandoned shell. You were scared even in a group around there. The Red Bar opened. Parties downtown were always packed with people and ridiculously loud like a Subway train. I sought to dress in second hand clothes but spurned Alice's Underground and any other shop and went exclusively to the Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul's. My overcoat did not fit me well, but it was cashmere.

I was 21.

Pastor Muthee and his Kiambu Church

"According to accounts of the witchhunt circulated on evangelical websites such as Prayer Links Ministries, after Pastor Muthee declared Mama Jane a witch, the townspeople became suspicious and began to turn on her, demanding that she be stoned. Public outrage eventually led the police to raid her home, where they fired gunshots, killing a pet python which they believed to be a demon.

"After Mama Jane was questioned by police – and released – she decided it was time to leave town, the account says.

"Pastor Muthee has frequently referred to this witchhunt in his sermons as an example of the power of “spiritual warfare”. In October 2005, he delivered ten sermons at the Wasilla Assembly of God, the audio of which was available on the church’s website until it was removed around the time Mrs Palin’s candidacy was announced. The blog Irregular Times has listings and screen grabs of the sermons."

So Palin has hands-on experience after all!

Lieberman Speaketh

CNN 4:20 PM: "The Democrats alone are not going to solve this problem . . ."

Lieberman is a GOP bell weather for long range chess. Let's listen in on (an imagined) conversation on the corner of 13th and K:

"Senator McCain is known as an aisle crosser and the whole service thing. People buy him putting bipartisanship before winning the presidency. We've said over and over that he puts country before winning the election; my goodness, recently it seems John puts a great many things ahead of winning the election. Folks will have no trouble believing this one. And, as I've said, in actuality, we aren't going to win in November.

"Rick and I think that the best we can do is look good, and hope something breaks our way, and saddle Obama with the mess. Also this contrasts talk, which we are saying is all Obama does, and action, which our pilot has instead of brains. Bush doesn't exist anymore, people are listening to Paulson and Bernanke. So I say, saddle the Democrats with the bailout, the effects of it, the responsibility for it, the whole thing. Make it a Democratic problem and a Democratic solution, starting right now."

What if Palin were a Man?

I was just an ordinary Dad, Charlie, minding my own business. My family took all my time. My son is going into the military next week — d'you know that? I requested and received a huge official send-off for him.

Yeah, well, Charlie, when I came out my adolescent period, in the town where I went to high school in, Wasilla, I thought, "I could be mayor here." Why not. I've always been good at what I've tried my hand at, from when I was a cheerleader on.

True, I moved around a lot during college — but it was for the experience. And yes, I was never as well known in these parts as my wife, of course — it's her bobsledding and so on career that makes everyone around here excited. My girl! Did I tell you she's part Inuit?

More than anything, Charlie, I'm just a regular fella, a hunter, pro life as heck. And Russia? I can see Russia from my bedroom window. When my girls were young, my buddies called me "Mr. Hockey Mom." Gradually people started saying, "Palin, you should run for office." So I did, and I won, natch. First thing I did in office, I axed the Bridge to Nowhere — then I fired the official cook! Cost too damn much!

[Stab at a Daily Kos diary . . . not sure what they want . . . or if anyone really cares. But it's one line of text, and you have to click on it to care, so, okay then.]

DC Rat Abatement Program under Mayor Fenty

Update on the rat patrol.
I revisited the DC government's website and tried to register and report a rat problem in the alley. The software kept putting in "Ellenberger Street" or something for E street, our street (I've shifted the letter), no matter how carefully I entered the address. So in the "comments" section, I gave our address correctly and described the problem.
I then phoned the department of health and talked at length to a nice man. I suggested that he collaborate with another department to clear the debris and impacted refuse from the "hedges" area of the alley, "Congressional Court," but this idea was treated with silence and then disparaged. "I'll send the Parks department a message."
Three weeks ago the Dept. of Health phoned Emily and asked whether our household would participate in a survey about whether the Dept. of Health gave them satisfaction. It was set to take 20 minutes. Emily was willing to do it, but they just had to talk to the man of the house. Only the patriarch for this particular poll. I refused.
This afternoon, September 17th, a woman from the DC Department of Health phoned me, and said, "Are you etc. etc. who lives at etc. etc.? The inspector came to your address. They did not find any rat holes." I asked the lady, who had a sore throat and was almost inaudible, whether they looked in the alley, as I had reported. Nope, "it only says "the front stoop" here."
They are right, the squirrel has taken over, and the traps have not caught a rat in a while. But the rear is still infested with rats, according the Eastern Texan Democratic Party sixty-ish neighbor, who kills them in his yard in sprung traps. Their holes are there, in the misbegotten vegitative matter covering the ground behind all the rear fences of the streetfront addresses. No one is going to do anything, the nice woman said to me, but I could "get up a neighborhood petition."
That's the advice the neighbor Texas guy told me he had received.
Thanks, Mayor Fenty!

Democrats "slander" Palin in an "onslought"

The GOP shill's talking points remain Barthian as ever: Now, it's "accuse your enemy of what you are yourself doing in the most egregious manner." Deflect attention from the race-baiting, evil depictions of Obama the GOP puts out, and blaming their failure on the evil media's depictions of her.

Excerpts from Sarah Palin interview with Chris Matthews

Matthews: Do you really believe —

Palin: Chris, I believe Jesus Christ is my sa–

Matthews: Do you really believe that Jesus is coming in our lifetime at the end of the world as we know it —

Palin: Chris, my beliefs are my own —

Matthews: But you say that, I hear people say that, Christians, Christians say that, and it makes you wonder — I mean, aren't your beliefs what you actually believe?  I mean, don't you actually believe that these things are going to happen?

Palin: My church teaches that God is real, and present in our lives —

Matthews: And that the endtimes are coming?  Governor Palin, do you or don't you believe —

What Charlie Gibson's interview with Palin should have been

Gibson:  Governor Palin, what's the capital of Pennsylvania?

Palin: Charlie, I don't think a test or quiz is appropriate.

Gibson: Is it Philadelphia?  Can we say it's Philadelphia?

Palin: All right, Charlie.

Gibson: Have you ever been to Pennsylvania?  What's the Alleghenies look like this time of year?

Palin: What I do know is that the people of Pennsylvania —

Gibson: It's Harrisburg.

Palin: I'm for keeping America safe.

Gibson: Gov. Palin, when your son in law describes himself as a "fuckin' redneck" on his Face Book page, what does he mean? 

Palin: I don't — I don't judge Levi, he's part of our family.  And I'm not sure I like the tone —

Gibson:  I mean what is a "redneck" in terms of ordinary, lowbrow, icebound, in-bred, alcoholic Alaskans?

Palin: Excuse me?

Gibson: I said what is a "redneck" in terms of ordinary —

Palin: Charlie, I'm ending this interview now if you think — 

Gibson: If a 72 or 73-year old man dropped dead, like that never happens, you'd be in charge of the country.

Palin:  Goodbye.

Gibson:  WAKE UP AMERICA!

X is Y

People started to really believe this.  

Or, there was new knowledge that it didn't matter what they thought they believed.

Knowledge generated about the behavior of crowds, or ordinary thoughtless people, that allowed experts to determine that it paid off to tell a lie in such-and-such a way, rather than tell the truth, even if —

even if people learn it's a lie.  Or "learn it is a lie."

To me, that's the worst news.

It is as if, having been told that there are only positions, and no more truth, people have taken away the message that it's okay to believe bullshit that they kind of know isn't so, but so what, the other side does it . . .

Imminent financial catastrophe

New York Times, Sept. 17, 2008:

The Fed’s rescue of A.I.G. failed to stem the runaway fears engulfing the global financial system and stocks plummeted worldwide.

What to do about slurs?

Recently a blog I view as a paradigm of fair and entertaining conversation, one of like three I read, sadly —

This one —

Argues that should the Dems respond to Obama's besmirching with fire, they should really respond with fire ("GOP protects child molestors").

I would like to see that.

In the meantime I think also that this playbook ends with a sign: "anything goes from now on." The only move that forecloses on that is the highroad, where the public outcry finally turns the Rovian barrage back upon itself.  The New York Times has finally got a little of its cojones back with today's paper, but it needs still to be said:

The McCain campaign is a smear campaign.  The McCain campaign wants to push outward the boundaries of what constitutes civil discourse when it comes to race, and to allow more and more racism into public discourse, because this makes it easier for people to give voice to their own racism, and to vote against Obama for "other reasons."

If Obama makes it about which platform the voter wants to see in operation, realistically, he wins.

The GOP will therefore stop at nothing to make the election "not about issues," but about whether you want a black man named Barack Obama to be your president.  This mild mannered, likable man, moderate in demeanor, cautious if clear, is somehow less "appealing" to the masses, say the GOP thinkers, than — 

a random white mom selected from nowhere —

Let's just say it plainly.

So long as it can also be conceded, as irrelevant to the point I am making, that she is a capable administrator and charismatic leader, not to say a Charismatic!  (Actually I understand a Dominion Pre-Millenialist Christian, but not of the Joel's Army stripe.)

Zimbabwe undecided

This decision is no decision, obviously. Mbeki cheapens the fact of voting when he says "The Zimbabwean people have made a decision and now we have to leave it to them." How humiliating for thinking men and women in South Africa. As if the people of Zimbabwe did not make a decision at the polls, which the state determined not to follow. The use of the Old Man for this purpose reminds me of the Star Trek episode where the mock up of Hitler's command center was thought to be most useful to keep order on the alien planet. Shockingly, everything had turned to shit.

Let's all pretend that we are collaborating and compromising.

Or let's have a real parliamentary system. Or let's get rid of the African state as it is now constituted.

9/11 Recalled Verbatim

First written, never posted, on Sept. 12, 2001.

"Four jet planes [sic] were hijacked yesterday morning while I was flying home to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., from New York's LaGuardia. Two hijacked planes, travelling from Dulles Airport on their way to L.A., were smashed into the World Trade Center, destroying both towers and killing many thousands of people. Another airplane was piloted into the Pentagon, burning a chunk of the huge structure, while the last jet was crashed into a field near Pittsburgh, probably because of some heroic act on the part of the passengers or crew.

"The first response of the military, according to the television journalist Tim Russert, was shock and anger, not at the fact of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, which was, Russert said, "expected" — he used this very word but at the precision and perfect execution of the attack. "They chose planes leaving for Los Angeles. The bastards knew they would have full tanks of fuel for maximum impact," Russert quoted a military man as saying.

"Most people in lower Manhattan said that seeing th efall of the towers was like watching a movie or being woken up from a "dream." (Why have we seen so many movies with these images in them? Were we in a dream?) NBC created a logo shown in the lower fight hand corner, as did CNN, and then many other television stations followed suit [sic], all of which say "Attack on America." It looks like any other logo. THis morning the narrative has progressed and the logos say, "The Day After," perhaps a reference to a famous television film shown in 1982 at the height of the Cold War . . .

"The attack punched right through the surface of complacency and familiarity with everyday life, and to some extent the networks have been trying to calm their viewers, recalling familiar narratives in which enemies are irrational, our spirit indominable [sic], our response unified and professional.

"Initially it appeared that the whole story was being managed or suppressed. The mayor of New York [Giuliani] was about to estimate the numebr of people killed and he was cut off. The military has cordoned the press from the Pentagon in such a way so that no decent visuals of the damage have been shown on television. For a long time there was no ground-level footage of the Wall Street area. I heard from observers through word of mouth that people had been falling or jumping out of windows from the burning towers. The first respons of the government was to hide the president. Key members of the administration were also spirited away. A spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, a political appointee close to the president and someone of no official authority, was the first government representative really to brief the press. She stressed that "banks have been open today" (Tuesday), a sign also to the perpetrators that they did not shut down our financial engines. . . .

"I thin the perpetrators of these acts should be punished. But I also know that the spectacle of mass displacement and destruction is familiar to people in impoverished or war-torn places in the world, like Congo and Sierra Leone and Namibia, that supply many of the substances [coltan, bauxite, diamonds, uranium] that supply the technology that drives the marketplace here. In the U.S. we are at the center of a regime that relies on people in faraway places to sell their labor and their products into a global market that effectively bars many of them from ever attaining the kinds of comforts taken for granted by us here. The detruction of the World Trade Center . . . has driven home the fragility of the boundaries between our world, our dream, and the places where all those other people live.

"I think the attack will ultimately force the U.S. to think more clearly . . . the rhetorical response by the government was that of a nation-state in peril. Today Secretary Powell is asking the international community, and particularly NATO, for ints unqualified support, on the grounds that our territory has been directly attacked. Our military will however very likely be acting unilaterally, and in the this sense we are now a nation at war.

"On the other hand, it seems to me that the attack was not made entirely, or even mainly, on the capacity of the U.S. as a nation-state, but on the U.S. as the controlling center of the world economy, and the enforcer of policies abroad, especially in the middle east, that are linked to that economy. We thought we could administer this structure — an empire, an economy, a sphere of interest — with no security at its core. We assumed we operate as we did partly because we wtill hold ideals enshrined by Jefferson and Adams and Paine, and partly because we have grown complacent and ignorant. We have a presence in the world that goes well beyond any other nation's, and a standard of living that relies on this presence. Maybe scholars and even politicians think about these things, but most Americans do not. I suspect Thomas Jefferson himself would call us an imperial power if he were alive today. I think Americans will now have to consider these kinds of contradictions with greater self-consciousness in the wake of this attack.

"The ruins of seven collapsed buildings in New York are still burning at this time."

Trying to get over the fear . . .

We've seen it again and again, the back of my neck is clammy, the media manipulation, the ever-aggrieved tone, the pre-packaged commentators willing to lie for the GOP, the predictable smears:

As in associating Obama with inappropriate discussions of sex with children, even though he aimed to protect children from inappropriate adults; associate Obama with "attacks" on Palin, with "demeaning" remarks never uttered nor thought, with "sexist" positions because little minds think it is good to accuse those against sexism in the workplace or violence against women that they are the real sexists . . . most of all, this time, "the real" is the major trope: the real maverick, the real agent of change, the real reformer, the real women's boosters: You can have your white cake and eat it too, they tell you!

Linked to Haley Barbour's attempt to disenfranchise African American voters in Mississippi, and other efforts recently detailed by Andrew Hacker; the idea is to suppress the Obama vote with the old Jim Crow techniques, Whitifying this election!

Don't fall for it please don't fall for the lies

Difficult times

It is hard to watch the soulless hordes of talking heads with one side getting to tell the truth and the other to echo the lies. They are lies. Alan Combs is actually angry; the idea that "Obama . . . Sex . . . Kindergarteners" is anything more than, well, what it is . . . Think about it, for a moment. The first thrust is: "Look, folks, he's insulting the white not-so-bad-looking white lady!" Then, this. The black man, the father, is the "uppity" black, and his sin is leering at your wife and kids. String him up.

That's what is going on here. That's what the GOP is doing. Talk about Nixonian politics.

I mean this literally, really I do. Take a look at the way lynchings unfolded in the South. The accusations that were made, the reaction of the crowd, the focus on violated motherhood and purity. Palin, pure as the Alaskan snows! The disembowelling of the corpse! "Lipstick on a pig, he said! It meant something different when The Senator said it, about Hillary, than when you said it, Obama!"

It is a shadow play, and we are being asked to get in touch with those parts of our psyche that we rightly most despise, and project them forward . . . parts that we might ordinarily wish we could leave behind. Don't trust the black man, get that guy, THERE! part of white America's mentality. That's the meaning of the Palin candidacy. That's the thread they want to pull, the feeling they want to legitimize and channel in the voting booth . . .

Please, please God, please let enough of my countrymen wake up by election day and vote for Obama

Palinophobia

Frightened. She's a symbol of something I don't want to think about. Representation and American credulity, the spread of a faux-reality, the giant flat screen TVs in poor urban Americans' homes.

Old folks wanting to live out their lives without making any changes at all, obese people, moronic people, fetal alcohol syndrome babies now grown up, hated bosses. Used-to-hunt fellers. Wife-beaters.

America's outward religiousity. Pre-millenarian "belief", how it actually functions in real life.

About wanting things to be a certain way, . . . substituting for making them that way.

That Pacino movie about the computer-generated female actress nobody saw.

Something deeply wrong in the American character.

Something even deeper. Something about huddling on the ground in the soaking rain, praying together, 'cuz it was just sooo important to pray the way one wanted to, — while native American warriors cudgelled one's family to death.

Something wrong.

Rachel Maddow's first show

Was great. It even featured an in-joke about dominant vs. passive homosexual partners and esteemed military officers officiating a baseball game ("at least they should be pitching," said her gay gossipy pal). We need more of her.

Primary source assignments

Here is the link to my teaching blog, the one following the Northern Light Company up into Matabeleland and "Bechuana" country.

Logbook

Mudflats

Mike and Molly had a rocky marriage. When the marriage broke up, there was a bitter custody fight that is still ongoing. During the custody investigation, all sorts of things were brought up about Wooten including the fact that he had illegally shot a moose (yes folks this is Alaska), driven drunk, and used a taser (on the test setting, he reminds us) on his 11-year old stepson, who supposedly had asked to see what it felt like. While Wooten has turned out to be a less than stellar figure, the fact that Palin's father accompanied him on the infamous moose hunt, and that many of the dozens of charges brought up by the Palin family happened long before they were ever reported smacked of desperate custody fight. Wooten's story is that he was basically stalked by the family.

After all this, Wooten was investigated and disciplined on two counts and allowed to kept his position with the troopers. Enter Walt Monegan, Palin's appointed new chief of the Department of Public Safety and head of the troopers. Monegan was beloved by the troopers, did a bang-up job with minimal funding and suddenly got axed. Palin was out of town and Monegan got "offered another job" (aka fired) with no explanation to Alaskans. Pressure was put on the governor to give details, because rumors started to swirl around the fact that the highly respected Monegan was fired because he refused to fire the aforementioned Mike Wooten. Palin vehemently denied ever talking to Monegan or pressuring Monegan in any way to fire Wooten, or that anyone on her staff did. Over the weeks it has come out that not only was pressure applied, there were literally dozens of conversations in which pressure was applied to fire him. Monegan has testified to this fact, spurring an ongoing investigation by the Alaska state legislature. But, before this investigation got underway, Palin sent the Alaska State Attorney General out to do some investigative work of his own so she could find out in advance what the real investigation was going to find. (No, I'm not making this up). The AG interviewed several people, unbeknownst to the actual appointed investigator or the Legislature! Palin's investigation of herself uncovered a recorded phone call retained by the Alaska State Troopers from Frank Bailey, a Palin underling, putting pressure on a trooper about the Wooten non-firing. Todd Palin (governor's husband) even talked to Monegan himself in Palin's office while she was away. Bailey is now on paid administrative leave.

As if this weren't enough, Monegan's appointed replacement Chuck Kopp, turns out to have been the center of his own little scandal. He received a letter of reprimand and was reassigned after sexual harrassment allegations by a former coworker who didn't like all the unwanted kissing and hugging in the office. Was he vetted? Obviously not. When he was questioned about all this, his comment was that no one had asked him and he thought they all knew. Kopp, defiant, still claimed to have done nothing wrong and said to the press that there was no way he was stepping down from his new position. Twenty four hours later, he stepped down. Later it was uncovered that he received a $10,000 severance package for his two weeks on the job from Palin. Monegan got nothing.

After extensive news coverage about all this nasty behind-the-scenes scandal, which is definitely NOT squeaky clean, Palin's approval ratings fell to 67%, still high, but a far cry from the 90% number that's being thrown around so glibly by the Republicans today. Alaskans are quickly becoming disillusioned once again.

More on:

Mudflats (an Alaska blog)

A Wasilla city councilperson, on Sarah Palin

This is a signed e-mail that has gone out to many people. Having removed the person's name, I've gone ahead and cut and pasted. It is all public information and not rumor or other B.S.

I have also eliminated the bulk of the text, which tells us in plain prose much of what is well known already about Palin. The au., who was one of the city councilpeople who thwarted Palin's efforts to censor the local library, has been on the outs with her since then (since 1996), and moreover, cannot justify the figures she cites so as to take into account inflation or other mitigating factors. Nonetheless . . .
So:

>She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit. Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer . . .

> Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative". During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.
>
> The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.
. . .

> She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.
>
> While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.
>
. . .
>
> She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.
>
> Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.
>
> When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).
>
> As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.
>
> As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork".

My comments.  If one remembers that Alaska is a wilderness state, and that a fire hose of cash is on full, 24-7, compared to, say, Pennsylvania, one gets it right.  Just imagine a facsimile of that fire hose right beside her, turned on full, as she speaks; then imagine, proportionally to population, a smaller, garden hose spraying loose change at Biden's feet, when he talks.  Who has the bona fides to talk about standing up to excess, reigning in corruption, fighting for working people (who don't get freebies, ever)?
>

One more on Palin

Let's be honest.  Palin is a master stroke by the GOP and we are deluding ourselves if we echo the line about McCain's "unpredictable" behavior in choosing her.

She is a prime catch, and she will damage the Democrats.  

The GOP taunted Obama that he's popular in part because of "celebrity."  Then, they caught whiff unexpectedly of some truth lying in the nest of deceit, and said, "Hey, wait a minute.  What about if we really use celebrity, like in American Idol?  We might be able to do Obama one better."

They know this is so, because they know the caliber of the voter they are after.  Let's take a look at this statistically:

Say 90% of Hillary voters know enough about themselves and the world not to support McCain-Palin.  That remaining 10% of the pants-suit brigade are too wrapped up in themselves and their worlds to care about much else, and will tell themselves the right stories so as to feel good about voting for an image, a face and a story, rather than a leader with a plan for them.

Every attack on her lack of experience can be refitted as an attack on Obama, and what's left over, as an attack on "hockey moms" all over the country.  That's because there is nothing there, really, to attack.  She's a cipher.

The most brilliant part of the Palin strategy is that it binds the evangelical right to McCain on election day, much, much more closely than if a qualified rightist Christian were chosen: say, a doctor or another mellifluous patrician.  That's because such a VP candidate would offer a target, being a politician who had been angling for national power all his life, and left a record therein.  Because Palin is a nonentity, giving her the VP slot puts the entire evangelical Right in McCain's debt.  They know that they owe nothing to Palin herself, and so, they will express their appreciation and vote, and fight all the harder for Palin rhetorically. 

Why Palin?

Chris Matthews: "Four years is a lot different from four days."

He can't work with anyone, you see.  McNasty doesn't want a real partner, and has no good friends on his side of the aisle.  His only buddy is Lieberman.  I'd like Lieberman better if he didn't pose as the consciousness of the nation.  It's sad the guy who plays that part has to be a Jew.

"She has to tell us a little more about who she is . . ."

Says the old Christian compromiser, Trent Lott.  There are other things that matter, he tells Brokaw, besides ability to lead the nation.  "My wife . . . really likes what she sees."

What David Brickner actually said in Sarah Palin's Assemblies of God congregation on August 17th

There’s a lot that I could tell you about. I want to encourage you to stop at the literature table after the service; that has a lot of free material as well as some not-so-free stuff. Since I was here last time, we produced this DVD, called “Forbidden Peace,” which tells the story of how Israelis and Arabs are coming to faith in Jesus, and then being reconciled together through the power of His love. And we’re seeing that happen in the ministry of Jews for Jesus. And so we want to encourage you to be involved, to support us in the offering if God should lead you; but most importantly, to recognize what’s happening there right now, I believe, is the fulfillment of God’s promises. And I say that with some fear and trepidation, because I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, and I work for a non-profit organization. ☺

But what we see in Israel, the conflict that is spilled out throughout the Middle East, really which is all about Jerusalem, is an ongoing reflection of the fact that there is judgment. There is judgment that is going on in the land, and that’s the other part of this Jerusalem Dilemma. When Jesus was standing in that temple, He spoke that that judgment was coming, that there’s a reality to the judgment of unbelief. He said “I long to gather you, but...” what? “You were unwilling.” God never forces His way on human beings. And so because Jerusalem was unwilling to receive His grace, judgment was coming. He says, “Look, your house has left you desolate!” What did He mean by that? Remember where He is. He’s standing in the temple there in Jerusalem, the place where God had promised, through Moses,

“There I will meet with you, there I will hear your prayers, and there I will forgive your sin.”

And now Jesus in that temple, just before going to the cross, says, ‘From now on this place is desolate.’ And Jesus’ words have echoed down through the centuries. Not a generation after He uttered this promise, Titus and his Roman legions marched into that city and destroyed both the city and the temple. And from that day until this very present there has been no temple, and there is therefore no sacrifice in Judaism. Only we could sacrifice in...the only place was in the temple. And therefore there has been, and there is today, no confidence of atonement, no confidence of forgiveness. If you were to stand outside of a synagogue on the day of atonement and ask those leaving the service, “Did God hear your prayers? Were your sins forgiven on this most holy of all days?” the answer would be, “I hope. I hope, but who can know?” Who indeed but those of us who have come under the wings of the Almighty, who’ve entered into that place of grace where forgiveness is assured for the dilemma of human life. Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. It’s very real.

When Isaac [David Brickner's son] was in Jerusalem he was there to witness some of that judgment, some of that conflict, when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment—you can’t miss it. And Jesus talks about it, but He didn’t leave us there. There’s a promise of a return from this judgment. Jesus concludes His message there in the temple by saying this—‘I tell you, you will not see Me again, you will not experience what I have come to bring, this place of grace which I have and will soon establish...you will not see Me again until you say, until you’re able with conviction to articulate, these words: “Baruch hab-ba bashem Adonai—Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”’ Once again quoting again from a Psalm, this time Psalm 118:

The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief...the chief corner stone. And this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Save now, we beseech Thee; save now, O Lord!

Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.

‘You will not see Me until you can acknowledge Me as the One who’s come, as the stone once rejected by the builders, but now the chief, until you say “Jesus, You’re the Messiah!”’ Not many days after He said these words there were some three thousand Jews who saw Him. After His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to glory, Peter on the day of Pentecost preached in Jerusalem. And the Holy Spirit fell, and those three thousand heard the word of God, and they repented. They turned from their unbelief to faith, and He came to dwell in their hearts. They saw Him.

And I’m so grateful to God that here I am some two thousand years later, a Jew who has said to Jesus, “Baruch Hab-ba bashem Adonai”; and yet most of my people have not. They’re still waiting. And therein lies the burden of my heart, and of Jews for Jesus, and I want to invite you to share that burden with us today. I want you to do it in a very specific way, by singing these very words of the Lord from Psalm 118. I’m gonna ask the band to come back up and help me.

Baruch hab-ba bashem Adonai.

Cribbed from church's downloadable sermons, first referenced by Politico.com, lest anyone care.

Well, they are Christians! This is how serious Christians in this country think and feel. Of course they want to convert the Jews of Israel to Christianity. It figures in the Pentacostal vein of millenarian thinking, where the Holy Land hosts the Second Coming of Jesus, and the world is consumed in flames! Why can't we take this rather more seriously — surely if you think that God has the earth in his hand and is liable to destroy or transform it at any time, you are less concerned with environmentalism and social progress? A DUHHH!

But what he didn't say is, he was glad about the killing of Jews.

Sarah Palin's nannies and friends and husband and daughter

The news that Sarah Palin, Gov. of Alaska (R), will take the VP slot under McCain, has been accompanied by a massive denial that parenting takes time and effort.

Palin is projected as so super capable and smart that she can "juggle" a family and a career.  Somehow she can work 9 to 7 and cook dinner at the mansion for her five children and care for her newborn, but she'll be on-the-job . . . 

As anyone who actually has children knows, someone has to care for the home and kids.  It is not a magic trick.

So either her husband Todd is doing the real work, or her eldest daughter, now pregnant, or other members of the family, or a nanny or nannies, full time or not.

The labor to raise kids must be counted.  It ain't coming from Palin's arms and legs and head and heart during all those hours when the kids are awake and not in school.  It's coming from her wallet, perhaps, but . . . .

Other people are doing the work.  Let's not participate in the classist denial of labor that the media is doing.

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