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This Is What Democracy Looks Like
www.NationalView.org's Note From a Madman
October 5, 2008
Watching Palin
One has to wonder just who the real Sarah Palin is. After watching the debate
between Palin, the “folksy outsider” versus Joe Biden, the “experienced
insider”, the question has validity.
Watching Palin is like watching George Bush, only in a skirt suit and glasses.
The day after the debate, while in front of “friendlies” in Pueblo, Colorado,
Palin and her boss, John McCain, stood up and claimed victory over Biden due to
her performance the previous night.
“How about Sarah Palin last night… Viva La Barracuda,”
-McCain
Palin, the “Maverick Barracuda”, did the job the GOP hoped she would do. While
surpassing the amazingly low expectations set for her by McCain, the Republican
National Committee and just about everyone on the planet with an opinion, Palin
managed to stay away from issues and answered the questions with pre-programmed
slogans and the occasional wink.
Yes... a wink.
Had Biden winked just once the rumors of a stroke would have began circling and
Senator Barack Obama would have had to deal with a barrage of questions about
when he was going to replace Biden.
But the Palin-ista leader’s folksiness reared it’s fake, ugly head during the
debate, and it didn’t take place during one of her numerous slanders of Barack
Obama or her opponent Biden. No, it took place when no one expected it. After
telling us all about her “connection to the heartland of America” and of her
“being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs
child”, Palin’s obsession with herself and all things Palin, reared its ugly
head after Biden spoke from the heart. With a pause in his voice, and while
obviously holding back tears, which no one - not even the most cynical member of
the Greed Over People Party – believed to be of the crocodile variety, Biden
stated the following:
“Look, I understand what it's like to be a single parent. When my wife and
daughter died and my two sons were gravely injured, I understand what it's like
as a parent to wonder what it's like if your kid's going to make it,”
-Biden
Palin, either not paying attention or not caring – either of which being
inexcusable – answered Biden’s impassioned words as if they were never spoken:
“People aren't looking for more of the same. They are looking for change. And
John McCain has been the consummate maverick in the Senate over all these
years,”
-Palin
Every single one of the cable news shows had at least one talking head notice
the snub which was obvious to everyone except Palin herself. Was she so
rehearsed that when a real bit of true humanity entered the debate and this
contentious election that she just couldn’t see it? Or is this the real Sarah
Palin?
I think the latter, and it’s her actions that help me come to this conclusion.
Palin is now the attack dog that McCain, as candidate cannot be. It what
Presidential politics have become today. Part of the VP candidate’s job is to
get the “base” going (the Conservative “hate-base” of the GOP, not the McBush
real “base of haves and have mores”) – to solidify them and take any doubts out
of their minds. It’s a part of the “50 plus one” strategy used by Karl Rove to
get, and keep, George Bush in the White House these past eight years.
(“50 plus one” refers to solidifying the base and gaining just enough votes to
win by one vote. In 2000 the Bush campaign actually failed at the attempt,
having lost the popular vote by some 500,000 votes, but the electoral college
saved them.)
One of the first things Palin was programmed to do after the debate was to use
racism, fear and hatred as she attacked Barack Obama. We’ve seen the
McCain-Palin campaign do much of their campaign with ads linking the first real
African-American Presidential Candidate with as many Black leaders who, the
Right says, are more than questionable. And their ends to justify these means
are obvious: Make White Middle-America believe that Obama will be a
“Black-First” President to scare "Joe Six-Pack" and Palin's fellow "Hockey
Moms". It’s a trick which reared its ugly head when the Republicans attempted to
make John F. Kennedy a “Catholics First” choice in 1960.
But it goes farther than that. Palin has actually insinuated that Senator Obama
is a terrorist. By now we’re all familiar with the Fox News campaign to link
Obama to terrorism. All one has to do is remember the “terrorist fist-bump”
remark made as Obama and wife, Michelle, tapped their fists on stage at an early
campaign rally. But it’s another thing entirely when Palin, the number two on
the GOP ticket, says it.
"Recently there has been a lot of interest in what I read lately. Well I was
reading today a copy of the New York Times, and I was really interested to read
in there about Barack Obama’s friends from Chicago. Turns out one of his
earliest supporters is a man who according to the New York Times, was a domestic
terrorist and part of the group, part of the group that quote launched a
campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and the US Capitol…No, this
is not a man who sees America as you and I see America. We see America, as a
force for good in this world. We see an America of exceptional-ism -Yes USA!
USA! -our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around
with terrorists who target their own country,”
-Palin
Forgetting about the fact that Obama was eight years old when then sixties
radical Bill Ayers threatened bombings as a founding member of the radical
Weather underground, the only ties that the two men appear to have is that
Ayers, an education professor, and Obama crossed paths a couple of times in
Chicago. The thinly-veiled remarks, similar to the ones made by candidate McCain
himself who said, “How can you countenance someone who was engaged in bombings
that could have or did kill innocent people?” is nothing more than the McCain
campaign’s attempt at swift-boating the Democratic candidate.
If one wanted to see what a Presidential Candidate can truly do to ruin the US,
all one has to do is look into McCain's past. As a founding member of the
Keating Five (the five US Senators who aided Arizona's own Lincoln Savings and
Loan, owned by Charles Keating, a McCain friend and campaign contributor) McCain
helped thousands of Americans lose billions of dollars and force many into their
own virtual poor-houses.
McCain ended up with a slap on the wrist.
And, by the way, just what was Sarah Palin doing looking a the New York Times
anyway? Didn’t she get the memo that they’re in Obama’s hip pocket?
Palin will no longer have to answer to the things she says. McCain will and it
will be interesting to hear him weasel his way out of her terrorist remark. But
it’s obvious that the job Palin is now tasked with is to solidify the base who
don’t know or care that they’re being conned. It's all about keeping the dough
rolling in from the real base – the NeoCon “base of haves and have mores”. She
is the daughter they had hoped for all along, after all and it's part of the
reason she was picked by McCain.
After all, it couldn't have been her foreign policy experience, even if she can
see Russia from her living room window.
Palin will be able to keep the lies and racial insulations going while
pretending to be that “folksy” woman Middle America wants to have a beer with
(or stchoop, depending on your point of view – for my part, neither).
And for my part, I feel that Debate Moderator Gwen Ifill allowed Palin to get
away with “Folksy” a little too much. When Palin said that she “may not” answer
questions (“I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want
to hear,”) she wasn’t kidding. Ifill never called her on it. Perhaps the McCain
campaign's talk of Ifill as biased made her (Ifill) temper herself; or maybe it
was the broken ankle she suffered the day before. In any event, Ifill allowed
Palin to avoid questions and didn’t bother with follow-ups when they were
warranted.
And there were many occasions when they were warranted.
With any luck, and a strong showing by Obama, maybe November 4th will be the
last we hear of Sarah Palin. But I doubt it.
-Noah Greenberg
More Thoughts About the VP Debate
I must ask this because I was astonished watching Rachel Maddow sitting with Pat
Buchanan on MSNBC. Buchanan actually said that Sarah Palin was stupendous! Was
he watching the same debate I was? Yes, she held her own but I am hard pressed
to believe that she is really a very smart person, much less one qualified to be
a heartbeat away from the Presidency. She never answered questions directly, and
if she got cutesy one more time I was simply going to get sick. Just what is
Buchanan thinking? In my opinion Tina Fey is a better choice for Vice President
than Palin. It was just a very funny (as in uncomfortable) 90 minutes....
-Jeff Wurmbrand
And Even More Thoughts on the VP Debate
Madman, I agree with your After the Debate article 100%. The item that impressed
me most, however, was the mention of the duties and authorities of the Vice
President. From my perspective it seemed obvious that Palin had not read the
Constitution and Biden had. She repeated the familiar Republican
misunderstanding that the V.P. presides over the Senate for the purpose of
carrying out the President's agenda. Biden corrected her by reminding her, and
all of us, that the V.P. function is simply to break a tie.
But, in my opinion, it goes much deeper than that. Specifically, the
Constitution says: "The Vice President of the United States shall be President
of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided." PERIOD!
-
I believe that the intent of our Constitution is for the Congress to be conduit
through which MY [and your] interests are heard and acted upon. It is known as a
representational process. The House and Senate, not the President, are our
representatives! If we have Palin presiding over the Senate, intent upon
carrying out the McCain agenda, we will have no representation.
And, incidentally, while we have our copies of the Constitution before us, let's
look at Section 2, Article II, where it says: "The President shall be Commander
in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States..." It does NOT say that he
is Commander in Chief of the country, as some in the news business seem to
believe.
-Carroll S.Rankin
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-Noah Greenberg