This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: John McCain/Sarah Palin

  • Priorities

    The real news in the country is that Obama’s health care planis floundering in Congress because no one wants to be responsible for destroying the economy and the health care system in the country. Obama and his favorability ratings are falling in the polls. But what does the Washington Post put on the front page of their fishwrap this morning?

    palin-poll

    I guess it’s hard to break old habits. While Palin was the vice presidential nominee last year, the Post and the media in general, thought it was more appropriate to compare Obama, the presidential nominee, to Palin rather than a more appropriate comparison to the Republican presidential nominee. In such a comparison, Obama fell short in experience and actual accomplishments, but against the Governor of Alaska, they thought Obama looked more competitive.

    So, while Obama’s favorability rating falls 12 percentage points, the Post finds this more newsworthy;

    Overall, the new poll found that 53 percent of Americans view Palin negatively and 40 percent see her in positive terms, her lowest level in Post-ABC polling since she first appeared on the national stage last summer as Sen. John McCain’s running mate.

    It’s clear that the Post senses an insurgency campaign from Alaska that threatens the status quo in Washington. Why else would a governor of a distant, remote state, who is leaving her office in a few days, garner more attention than a president who is losing his momentum?

  • Simon: The sins of Sarah Palin

    BooRadley sent me a link to Roger Simon’s hillarious piece yesterday entitled “The Sins of Sarah Palin“. I hope Republicans are paying attention to the caricatures they’ve become. Here’s a sample;

    The Republican Party likes to nominate the next guy in line. John McCain in 2008, George W. Bush in 2000 and Bob Dole in 1996 were all the next guys in line. They had “earned” their place in the party hierarchy. (Or, in the case of George W. Bush, his father had earned it for him.)

    Today, it is hard to see who the next guy in line is, but the party mandarins, the pooh-bahs, are agreed on one thing: Sarah Palin ain’t it.

    She is a dumb hick, a nobody from nowhere. She hunts moose with a chainsaw from the back of a snowmobile or something. Just listen to her resignation speech. It was not slick or polished or written by somebody else. She appeared to deliver it off the top of her head as if she were a real person. What a doofus!

    Doesn’t she know that the highest form of political communication today is to exactly regurgitate a speech written for you by a speechwriter who has crafted, vetted and polled every phrase, line and word?

    Me? I’m pulling for Governor Palin. Not because she’s particularly electable, not because she’s a woman…but because the Republican Party needs to change. Is Sarah Palin the change we need? She can’t hurt. It’s time we started electing our own candidates instead of asking the media and Democrats who they support first.

    Ronald Reagan was that kind of candidate. When he was defeated in the primaries by Gerald Ford (who the media told us we should run against Jimmy Carter), Reagan kept the pressure on Carter on every issue from the Panama Canal to the Iran hostages to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the boycott of the Moscow Olympics. He became the Anti-Carter. The media knew Reagan could win against Carter, so they discouraged us from voting for him by using the same tactic they used against Goldwater a decade and a half before – fear.

    I’m not saying that Sarah Palin is the next Ronald Reagan – that remains to be seen, if we give her a shot at trying keeping our minds wide open.

    If you look at Palin’s principles, she’s a conservative right down the line – the kind of candidate that we’d all vote for – if we could get the media and the Democrats to approve of her.

    Um, but they won’t approve. They’d rather write crap like this from Fkstick Kathleen Parker at the Washington Post;

    Meanwhile, getting real, can we stop pretending that Palin is interested in anything other than her own ambition?

    Can we also stop nodding assent every time she says the media are to blame for her self-inflicted wounds? The media invented Sarah Palin. Before the media shined their light on those no-place-like-home slippers, does anyone recall ever wondering what a governor of Alaska was up to?

    Show me one line in that paragraph that couldn’t be attributed to Barack Obama just as easily as Palin. But, Fkstick Parker wouldn’t dare pen lines like that about Barack Obama. Who runs our party anyway?

  • More on the Palin resignation

    Here’s a video of part of Sarah Palin’s announcement if you missed it;

    The most amazing part of this story is how the East Coast pundits are all falling right into character by announcing that Palin is a dunce for not doing what they would expect a prospective presidential candidate to do – the approved behavior, so to speak.

    I suspect she stepped down from the governorship to fill the hole in the GOP created by Mark Sanford, not because of the imagined pressure she’s been under for the last year. Republicans who are criticizing her, ought to look at their recent record in electioneering. They certainly haven’t stumbled on to a winning system yet.

    More at:
    Ace of Spades
    Don Surber
    Gateway Pundit
    Hot Air
    JammieWearingFool
    Michelle Malkin
    Redstate
    Riehl World View
    Blue Crab Boulevard

    Added: Snortworthy comment from the DNC by way of CNN;

    “Either Sarah Palin is leaving the people of Alaska high and dry to pursue her long shot national political ambitions or she simply can’t handle the job now that her popularity has dimmed and oil revenues are down,” DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse said.

    “Either way, her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today.”

    How would the DNC characterize the four years of no-show votes from then-Senator Obama and his responsibilities to the voters of Illinois?

  • Sarah Palin Will Not Seek Re-Election for Governor!

    sarah-palin-2-xlg

    What does this mean? Who the hell knows but at least you won’t be greeted at TAH by an image of Helen Thomas (walking instant cure for priapism).

    You are welcome.

    UPDATE: MORE THAN NOT RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION, SHE’S RESIGNING AT THE END OF THIS MONTH!

    There is much more to this than we know right right now.

  • Recount in Iran?

    After seven Iranians were killed yesterday in Tehran by the militia, the Guardian Council has decided there will be a partial recount of votes in Iran. Opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has called for a new election as well as asking his supporters to stay out of the streets today to prevent more casualties. (Washington Post)

    So far, the council has said it would recount only those votes where the opposition has evidence suggesting a problem may have occurred.

    According to Fox News this morning, Ahmadinejad’s supporters have taken to the streets – I wonder how many of them will be killed by militia forces.

    President Obama votes not present;

    Obama said reports of violence that followed Iranian elections trouble him and all Americans. He said peaceful dissent should never be subject to violence that followed weekend elections that gave Ahmadinejad a second term.

    “It would be wrong for me to be silent on what we’ve seen on the television the last few days,” Obama told reporters at the White House.

    Obama said he had no way of knowing the results were valid — he said the United States had no election monitors in the country — but it was important that the voters’ choices be respected.

    Mike’s America compares a Bush speech at Flopping Aces.

    Senator John McCain was a bit tougher on both Iran and Obama (for a change); (AP link)

    McCain… said the president “should speak out that this is a corrupt, flawed, sham of an election and that the Iranian people have been deprived of their rights.”

    Meanwhile, BDS continues to wrack the poor readers of the Washington Post;
    granny-wapo

    Yeah, granny02, if the Republicans are so good at stealing elections, what happened in the last one? What? Did we just forget how to do it?

    Associated Press is also reporting that the foreign media is restricted and being forced from the country;

    Authorities restricted journalists, including Iranians working for foreign media from reporting on the streets, and said they could only work from their offices, conducting telephone interviews and monitoring official sources such as state television.

    The rules prevent media outlets, including The Associated Press, from sending independent photos or video of street protests or rallies.

    Also Tuesday, foreign reporters in Iran to cover last week’s elections began leaving the country. Iranian officials said they will not extend their visas.

    So, with the rest of the world unable to summon the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the Iranian regime, it appears those seven died in vain yesterday.

  • Defense budget fight begins

    The Stars and Stripes reports this morning that the arrival of the 2010 defense budget has triggered a battle that the Obama Administration may not have anticipated;

    Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb expressed deep concerns about reductions in Navy shipbuilding. Another group of senators lead by Alaska Democrat Mark Begich sent a letter criticizing proposed cuts in missile defense.

    House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member John McHugh of New York called the budget cuts too drastic for a nation still fighting overseas. Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma called it a plan to “disarm America,” adding “never before has a president so ravaged the military at a time of war.”

    Even supportive lawmakers, who praised Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the White House for making tough fiscal decisions to rein in military spending, emphasized that now they’ll be the ones to determine which programs actually need to be funded.

    Yeah, seein’s how the world has become more dangerous in the last few months and Obama has decided we’re going to kiss everyone’s ass instead of kicking them in the ass, the least he could do is make sure we can still kick their ass four years from now. Think we’ll get help from Republicans in the Senate? I wouldn’t count on it;

    Gates and President Barack Obama may have an unlikely ally in their effort to convince Congress to uphold the cuts: Sen. John McCain.

    The unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate, still the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Monday’s budget plan “a major step in the right direction” and said he strongly supports the decision to restructure the way major defense programs are handled.

    Yeah, we’ll cut future weapons system development and cut personnel costs in defense while adding billions to the coffers of ACORN with the money we save on essential defensive measures and that’s a step in the right direction? Thanks, McCain – keep that in mind when you wonder why you got beat in 2000 and 2008.

    Added: Great opinion piece at Wall Street Journal on the subject.

  • Obama angers McCain…finally

    Almost a year ago, John McCain told America that Barack Obama would make a good President. Well, that kind of good will got McCain nothing in the election. So now that the election is over with and it won’t do him a lick of good, McCain gets his hackles up in this Washington Times article;

    Sen. John McCain says President Obama is breaking campaign promises he made to the American people and has passed up numerous opportunities to reach out to Republicans — a pledge the Democrat made repeatedly during their battle for the presidency.

    “There are things that, statements that then-candidate Obama made during the campaign over and over and over again that obviously he’s not staying with,” Mr. McCain told The Washington Times in an hour-long interview with reporters and editors.

    Of course, McCain did mention a few times that Obama couldn’t be trusted, but McCain bowed to pressure from the Obama campaign to tone down that kind of rhetoric. Now that it’s too late, McCain will feign outrage and surprise during our long ride to hell in a handbasket.

  • Conyers demands investigation into “Auntie” leak

    So John Conyers took time off from his impeachment investigation into the President and Vice President to demand answers from the Homeland Security Department as to whether they had intentionally leaked information about Obama’s Boston auntie, according to CNN;

    Democratic U.S. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan fired off a letter asking Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to investigate whether someone leaked the information to the media in an effort to damage Obama.

    “The AP reports that it ‘could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved,’ a very disturbing (suggestion) indeed,” read the letter from Conyers, who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

    “This leak is deplorable and I urge you to take immediate action to investigate and discipline those responsible.”

    Here’s the screen shot in case it gets disappeared later (a habit I have acquired lately with the Obama crew);

    Of course Conyers could get just as outraged that a US Senator running for the Presidency had an illegal alien aunt living on the public dole. Or he could get outraged that this information hadn’t come out sooner by Obama’s own admission rather than reporters digging around in the final days of the campaign.

    Conyers could get outraged about the rectal exam that Joe the Plumber endured, or the New York Times reporter stalking the McCain children on line, but no, he gets exercised about the media uncovering an actual criminal breaking an actual law.

    Michelle Malkin reports that the McCain camp has been forbidden to discuss the issue

    Another predictable prediction: McCain will issue an edict forbidding staff from talking about this the same way the staffers are forbidden from mentioning Jeremiah Wright — with disastrous results.

    No problem, even the Washington Post will comply with that edict. This morning’s front page is void of the discussionof the subject;

    The way the media soaked up the story that McCain isn’t an American citizen, can you imagine what they would running in a loop if McCain had an illegal immigrant relative living on welfare? I trolled Democratic Underground for about an hour last night and there was not one word over there about it.

    But this morning, I find them exercised over the “privacy issues” as soon as the Washington Post gives the signal that they can discuss it in that context – on page 7. So the DU clowns give Obama a free pass;

    democrank
    2. We should keep the pressure on.
    Someone needs to answer for this violation of privacy.

    RBInMaine  Sun Nov-02-08 07:02 AM
    Response to Original message
    5. SCUMBAG RIGHT WING A-HOLES REACHING FOR AN OCTOBER SURPRISE. Well guess what,
    #1 it isn’t flying.

    #2 What the SCUMBAGS did was ILLEGAL and they should be PROSECUTED to the full extent of the law.

    #3 It isn’t flying anywhere because Barack Obama can not and does not have ANYTHING to do with the immigration status or personal actions of a 56 year old HALF-aunt who lives in Boston and whom he hasn’t seen in two years. THIS IS NOTHING AT ALL BUT A VERY SAD AND LAME ATTEMPT TO GENERATE A SCANDAL TO HURT OBAMA AT THE END OF AN ELECTION. IT ONLY SPEAKS TO HOW SAD, PATHETIC, AND DESPERATE THE RIGHT WING IN THIS COUNTRY IS. THESE SCROATBAGS ARE SCARED SHITLESS, AND THEY SHOULD BE BECAUSE THEY ARE ABOUT TO BE DROWNED IN A DEMOCRATIC TSUNAMI !!!

    I guess that we should just overlook the fact that Obama has seen his aunt at least once since she was ordered to leave the country and spoken on the phone with her at least once. You mean to tell me you don’t think she once mentioned her dilemma and asked for assistance from her US Senator nephew? I gotta call Koolaid blindness on this one.