I’m not trying to make lite of all the Palin drama, I’m sure there will be some bad news along the way – and you can count on the MSM to make it seem horrible.

You may not find these funny but these things struck my funny bone. -pf

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Alaska Democrats remove crediting Palin re: “Bridge to Nowhere”  from their website.

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“What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama?”

“One is a well turned-out, good-looking, and let’s be honest, pretty sexy piece of eye-candy.

“The other kills her own food.”
credit.

This site has some good Palin Rumor statements (my favorite below)

“yes, she has a college degree in Journalism, but I won’t hold that against her, as she seems to have found honest work as well”

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(CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama — locked in a tight presidential race against Sen. John McCain, widely considered a war hero — said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he once considered joining the military himself.

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From the Political Party of the Feminist (cough) Movement:

Howard Gutman, an original member of Barack Obama’s finance committee said Friday that Sarah Palin is putting her career above her family by accepting the nomination as John McCain’s running mate.

Palin’s Popularity: Obama’s “Emperor has no clothes moment”

Women. Where is the outrage? -pf

Home

Link to original article

To my Democrat friends: Is he REALLY going to say this?  Sounds pretty good to me, is that what he said when you voted for him?

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Obama Throws in the Towel on the Surge

Barack Obama will appear on Bill O’Reilly’s show tonight. Reportedly, he will say that “the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated. I’ve already said it’s succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

I must have missed that speech. Of course, Obama still says he was right to oppose the surge, notwithstanding its now-acknowledged success.

The Republicanization of Barack Obama continues:

Speaking on other national security matters, Obama said he would not take military action off the table in dealing with Iran, but diplomacy and sanctions can’t be overlooked.The Islamic republic is a “major threat” and it would be “unacceptable” for the rogue nation to develop a nuclear weapon, he said.

“It is unacceptable for Iran to possess a nuclear weapon, it would be a game changer,” Obama said. “It’s sufficient to say I would not take military action off the table and that I will never hesitate to use our military force in order to protect the homeland and the United States’ interests.” …

Obama said he “absolutely” believes the United States is fighting a War on Terror, with the enemy being, “Al Qaeda, the Taliban, a whole host of networks that are bent on attacking America, who have a distorted ideology, who have perverted the faith of Islam.”

I like to see this, but not because I think Obama means it. I often worry that the country is sliding to the left, but during election season Republicans never try to sound like Democrats, whereas Democrats often try to sound like Republicans. It’s good to see that Democrats still find this to be necessary, on some issues, at least.

Link to original article

September 04, 2008, 0:00 a.m.

Foreign-Policy “Experience”
Sharing second thoughts on the talking points over experience.

By Thomas Sowell

Now that the Democrats have recovered from the shock of Governor Sarah Palin’s nomination as the Republican’s candidate for vice president, they have suddenly discovered that her lack of experience in general — and foreign-policy experience in particular — is a terrible danger in someone just a heartbeat away from being President of the United States. For those who are satisfied with talking points, there is no need to go any further. But, for those who still consider substance relevant, this is an incredible argument coming from those whose presidential candidate has even less experience in public office than Sarah Palin, and none in foreign policy.

Moreover, if Senator Barack Obama is elected, he will not be a heartbeat away from the presidency, his would be the heartbeat of the president — and he would be the one making foreign policy.

But the big talking point is that the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee, Senator Joe Biden, has years of foreign policy experience as a member, and now chairman, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

That all depends on what the definition of “experience” is.

Before getting into that, however, a plain fact should be noted: No governor ever had foreign-policy experience before becoming president — not Ronald Reagan, not Franklin D. Roosevelt, nor any other governor.

It is hard to know how many people could possibly have had foreign-policy experience before reaching the White House besides a Secretary of State or a Secretary of Defense.

The last Secretary of War (the old title of Secretaries of Defense) to later become President of the United States was William Howard Taft, a hundred years ago. The last Secretary of State to become President of the United States was James Buchanan, a century and a half ago.

The first President Bush had been head of the C.I.A., which certainly gave him a lot of knowledge of what was happening around the world, though still not experience in making the country’s foreign policy.

Senator Joe Biden’s years of service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is even further removed from foreign-policy experience. He has had a front-row seat as an observer of foreign policy. But Senator Biden has never had any real experience of making foreign policy and taking the consequences of the results.

The difference between being a spectator and being a participant, with responsibility for the consequences of what you say and do, is fundamental.

You can read books about crime or attend lectures by criminologists, but you have no real experience or expertise about crime unless you have been a criminal or a policeman.

Although I served in the Marine Corps, I have no military experience in any meaningful sense. The closest I ever came to combat was being assigned to photograph the maneuvers of the Second Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

That was photographic experience, not military experience. If someone gave me a policy-making job in the Pentagon, I wouldn’t have a clue.

The fact that Senator Joe Biden has for years listened to all sorts of people testify on all sorts of foreign-policy issues tells us nothing about how well he understood the issues.

Out of the four presidential and vice-presidential candidates this year, only Governor Palin has had to make executive decisions and live with the consequences.

As for Senator Obama, his various pronouncements on foreign policy have been as immature as they have been presumptuous.

He talked publicly about taking military action against Pakistan, one of our few Islamic allies and a nation with nuclear weapons.

Barack Obama’s first response to the Russian invasion of Georgia was to urge “all sides” to negotiate a cease-fire and take their issues to the United Nations. That is standard liberal talk, which even Obama had second thoughts about, after Senator John McCain gave a more grown-up response.

We should all have second thoughts about what is, and is not, foreign-policy “experience.” 

— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Wowza !!  Sarah Palin hit it out of the ballpark tonight! 

Admittedly, I was nervous tonight and had been discouraged the past few days with all the Palin bashing and venom on the air and in cyberspace.

Wish I had the speech in front of me like the media gets – there were so many good lines and punches at the other side.  And she was smiling as she wielded the sword.

First – how can anyone dare criticize her (as I already saw one post) for having her baby boy there?  She is proud of him as all of her children.  Can you imagine a few years from now – that little boy asking his mommy – “why wasn’t I there — were you ashamed of me?”

And she mentioned “my Harry” — yes, she mentioned Harry Truman – with his unexpected path to the VP — as a small town guy and failed habadasher at that!  Harry Truman’s mother-in-law didn’t even like him and didn’t think he was good enough for her daughter, Bess.  (The married couple even lived in Bess’ mother’s home the whole time except for the years in the White House).

We the people (yes, she mentioned that we get to elect the President – and not the media — didn’t some blogger here write the same thing?) – many of us live in small towns and we have always said and complained that we want our officials to know what’s going on in small towns.  Well — she was the mayor of a small town – hmmm – think she may know what the concerns of average citizens are!  I think so!!!

She introduced her family and mentioned they weren’t perfect.  Don’t we want our officials to be human and know about family issues?

Loved that she said she’d be an advocate for all families with special needs

Loved the lines about the styrofoam Greek columns from last week – the lines about community organizers, selling the Alaska Gov’s plane on e-Bay, getting rid of the chef even though her kids may miss her at times, writing 2 books instead of major legislation and much more …LOL

She also talked about Russia competently and talked about the need to drill and energy independence.  “Duh” – she said it more eloquently - yes, we know drilling now won’t solve the whole problem (Imagine if we had drilled 10 years ago!?).

Got to get the speech text here linked so we can discuss more.

Rudy’s speech was also excellent and Mike Huckabee gave a great speech as well.  Both were very effective.  Romney was ok but not my favorite.  The Gov from Hawaii was effective also but probably not widely seen.

 This election is not over – not by a long  shot … GAME ON!

Libra Girl

Linky 

Newsweek on Palin in 2007 

In Alaska, Palin is challenging the dominant, sometimes corrupting, role of oil companies in the state’s political culture. “The public has put a lot of faith in us,” says Palin during a meeting with lawmakers in her downtown Anchorage office, where—as if to drive the point home—the giant letters on the side of the ConocoPhillips skyscraper fill an entire wall of windows. “They’re saying, ‘Here’s your shot, clean it up’.” For Palin, that has meant tackling the cozy relationship between the state’s political elite and the energy industry that provides 85 percent of Alaska’s tax revenues—and distancing herself from fellow Republicans, including the state’s senior U.S. senator, Ted Stevens, whose home was recently searched by FBI agents looking for evidence in an ongoing corruption investigation. (Stevens has denied any wrongdoing.) But even as she tackles Big Oil’s power, Palin has transformed her own family’s connections to the industry into a political advantage. Her husband, Todd, is a longtime employee of BP, but, as Palin points out, the “First Dude” is a blue-collar “sloper,” a fieldworker on the North Slope, a cherished occupation in the state. “He’s not in London making the decisions whether to build a gas line.”

In an interview with NEWSWEEK, Palin said it’s time for Alaska to “grow up” and end its reliance on pork-barrel spending. Shortly after taking office, Palin canceled funding for the “Bridge to Nowhere,” a $330 million project that Stevens helped champion in Congress. The bridge, which would have linked the town of Ketchikan to an island airport, had come to symbolize Alaska’s dependence on federal handouts. Rather than relying on such largesse, says Palin, she wants to prove Alaska can pay its own way, developing its huge energy wealth in ways that are “politically and environmentally clean.”

…..

Although she has been in office less than a year, Palin, too, earns high marks from lawmakers on the other side of the aisle. During a debate earlier this year over a natural-gas bill, State Senate Minority Leader Beth Kerttula was astounded when she and another Democrat went to see the new governor to lay out their objections. “Not only did we get right in to see her,” says Kerttula, “but she asked us back twice—we saw her three times in 10 hours, until we came up with a solution.” Next week in Juneau, Alaska lawmakers will meet to overhaul the state’s system for taxing oil companies—a task Palin says was tainted last year by an oil-industry lobbyist who pleaded guilty to bribing lawmakers. Kerttula doesn’t expect to agree with the freshman governor on every step of the complex undertaking. But the minority leader looks forward to exploiting one backroom advantage she’s long waited for. “I finally get to go to the restroom and talk business with the governor,” she says. “The guys have been doing this for centuries.” And who says that’s not progress?

Link to original article 

Media Bias? What Media Bias?
To the Left media, rumors are enough — if their victim is on the Right.

By Mark Hemingway

St. Paul — Oscar Wilde famously quipped that the problem with a socialism was all the meetings; similarly, it’s hard not to wonder if the problem with journalism is all the panel discussions. The only thing worse than media bias is sitting around listening to a bunch of journalists flapping their gums in a vain attempt to justify it.

Since Republicans have for years complained (rightly) about this media bias, it only makes sense that the thousands of journalists descending on the G.O.P. convention would find at least one occasion to dissemble and unconvincingly pretend to be the praetorian guard of the public interest.

And so the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and The Politico sponsored a panel — “Politics and the Media: Bridging the Divide in the 2008 Election.” As for the name of the event, well it was half-right. Listening to the assembled media panelists — which included Fortune’s Nina Easton, Catalina Camia of USA Today, Bush and McCain media advisor Mark McKinnon, and Roger Simon and Jim VandeHei of The Politico — the divide between the media and political reality was never so evident, but there was nary a bridge in sight.

Naturally, the discussion turned to the Bristol Palin kerfuffle and the media’s collective decision to pursue it with prurient zeal, to the exclusion of all else. Somewhat surprisingly, they admitted that they were sent crusading by the paranoid fantasies of an anonymous left-wing ideologue.

Over the weekend, a pseudonymous blogger posted a lengthy diary on Daily Kos speculating that Gov. Palin’s infant son Trig was not hers — that, in a preposterously elaborate cover-up, she was claiming a child born to her teenage daughter, Bristol.

“I don’t know a reporter who off-the-record wouldn’t say there’s some compelling stuff in here if you look at the photos,” Politico founder Jim VandeHei said of the post, which purported to show photos of Sarah Palin not looking very pregnant seven months along.

Another panelist upheld this as a fine example of citizen journalism. There was only one small hitch, as Politico columnist Roger Simon thankfully pointed out: “It shouldn’t be overlooked that the original story was inaccurate.” And wildly inaccurate at that.

But it was enough to let slip the dogs of journalism on Sarah Palin and her family. That a vice-presidential candidate would be forced to endure harsh media scrutiny would be something of a defense, if there were not such a blatant double standard at work. An audience member asked about, and the distinguished panelists struggled to explain, the media’s collective decision to ignore the allegations of John Edwards’ affair and lovechild — while entertaining no such reservations about the Bristol Palin story. In just a few days, they’d flooded the zone with reports about Palin’s family — whether she’s breastfeeding, untrue rumors about her supporting Pat Buchanan’s presidency, etc. But on Edwards, nothing — for weeks.

“Why not just put [the Edwards accusations] out there?,” Simon asked rhetorically. “There are human beings involved in this, the story turned out to be true so you could say, ‘Well, the mainstream media should have reported it long ago.’ But there are scores of rumors out there, scores of stories that turn out not to be true — should the mainstream report every rumor that someone has raised?”

The answer to Simon’s conundrum is painfully obvious. The media should never report “rumors.” The media’s job is to investigate rumors and report the truth. Mainstream media outlets never even seriously investigated the basis of the Enquirer’s legitimate story — despite the tabloid’s record for breaking major stories, as it did with regularity during the O.J. trial.

The other justifications for the media’s falling down on the job with regard to the Edwards story could scarcely be believed. As VandeHei put it, “I remember the sort of collective response was, ‘Ah, he [Edwards] can’t be that dumb.’” But as dumb as it was for Edwards to have the affair, it might well have been even dumber for the media to treat Edwards’ denials of the affair as credible. Strictly as an issue of character, Edwards should have been treated with a heaping dollop of media suspicion. Prior to the accusations of the affair surfacing last year, Bob Shrum — famed Democratic electoral strategist and one of the architects of the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004 — wrote an article in Time magazine accusing Edwards of lying to John Kerry and exploiting the death of his teenage son in an attempt to further his political career.

So then, as the media continues to dig into Sarah Palin’s personal life, the question remains: Are the media biased, or are they simply daft? To paraphrase Fox news, the mainstream media will continue to report — and you can decide.

how does that go?   All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players…

Tonight and tomorrow night will be the Republican opportunity to shine on a national stage.  The stage is set.  Harry is Mad.  Life is good.

Harry is mad that a Senator that was roundly cast aside by the Democrats of Connecticut in 2006, spoke in favor of  the McCain Palin Ticket for the 2008 election.  Joe still caucuses with the Democrats, still calls himself a Democrat, but understands what’s at stake in this election.

If the Democrats win a wider Senate majority than they have today (Joe caucusing with the Democrats GIVE democrats the majority today in the Senate) Joe will be booted out of the Caucus or certainly stripped of any Committee positions. 

Joe’s treatment by Democrats is what you get when you put Country above Party.

Country First

Joe Lieberman and John McCain structure the Country First meme better than any politicians have in recent memory.  There are many things that are “broken” in both parties; both men have spoken to the pandering, politics of greed and power – and Sarah Palin also fits that maverick model well.

Politics has always been an ugly business.  I am looking forward to the Palin speech tonight – and meeting up with my Congressional Candidate in Iowa City for a “Shattered Glass” party to watch the speeches.  Thinking what these three mavericks could do in DC with the support of good people like Joe Lieberman, makes me smile. 

The funny thing to me is that most people think McCain pulled Palin into the race because she’s a woman.  Not true, not even close.  He saw a kindred spirit in Palin – someone who sees the world as he does and has been called to serve and root out corruption and END party politics as usual. 

COUNTRY FIRST

Argh – happened again and I did hit “save and edit”.  Anyway…I’ll try to remember everything I just typed out….

I think the news of Gov. Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy may well be the final straw against her.  While admittedly I was doing a happy dance at McCain’s ”change” choice of Palin.  This may now be spun by the Dems as showing too much a lack of judgment by McCain and by Palin herself.  People/the Dems are already saying in essence – “what kind of mother would agree to the national glare with her daughter needing privacy…” and “what a hypocrite to have a daughter become pregnant out of wedlock…”  On the flip side – it could show that Palin has the same issues that many American Families are faced with – that she is just “one of us” but I doubt that sentiment will be viewed by enough people.

I liked that McCain took a “risk” but there will be many (again Dems/Leftists) who say that a President can not take risks without caution and listening to advisors (reportedly who advised against Palin).

While Obama has not been held accountable by half the nation’s people and the media for all his inexperience (at the top of the ticket), all his many ”Present” votes, his questionable associations with Rev. Wright/the “terrorist” guy who sits on a board with him/Chicago “bosses,” too few accomplishments as a legislator, and still offers no concrete answers about all his grandiose plans – I do believe that he will be, for better or worse, the next President.

I can still talk about my guy Truman who was held at arm’s length by FDR – who was not involved in any foreign policy meetings/decisions by FDR and his advisors and that he was not aware of the A-bomb’s existence until AFTER he took the oath of office.  And for all the worry about McCain’s age - FDR was pushed back into office by the DEMS while he was, by all intent and purposes, on his death bed.  If ever there was a cover up about one’s health – that was.  50-60 years later after he was ridiculed about being a hick from Missouri and amidst great worries about risks to the nation when he was sworn in, Truman is now hailed as one of the US’s best Presidents.  I still believe these are all valid arguments for giving Palin a chance. 

However, in this day and age with blogs and you-tube and the proliferation of pundits and 24 hour news channels for which they need to fill up with talk and controversy, and the meanness of political debate – I think Palin will no longer be seen as an asset whether it is fair to do so or not.

Ironically the news on the economy is improving apparently but it may be too late to aid McCain.

What do you all think?                         Libra Girl