16 posts tagged “mccain”
On October 15, Palin saw a CNN story with a subtitle "The Palins and the Fringe," that detailed her connections with the Alaskan Independence Party, a statewide political party that advocates for Alaskans to take a vote about whether they want to secede from the union. Todd Palin was a registered member of the party from 1995-2002. The Governor herself had delivered opening remarks via videotape to their convention in 2008.
Most Alaskans aren't too freaked out by the AIP. We even elected a governor, Walter Hickel, who defected from the Republican Party and ran as an AIP candidate in 1990. I don't know what percentage of Alaskans would vote for secession, but this isn't really the point. We Alaskans can take it. We're a tough breed. But how would a vice presidential candidate being married to a secessionist play in Peoria? Not well, probably. To the rest of the country... let's face it. Secession is fringy.
Palin didn't like seeing the "pallin' around with secessionists" piece on CNN, nor a comment that was shouted out by someone holding an unflattering sign in a crowd that day.
So, bearing all that in mind, here are the emails between VP Candidate Palin and Steve Schmidt, McCain's chief strategist, starting with one from Palin (and do go back and read the entire article HERE):
"Pls get in front of that ridiculous issue that's cropped up all day today - two reporters, a protestor's sign, and many shout-outs all claiming Todd's involvement in an anti-American political party," Palin wrote. "It's bull, and I don't want to have to keep reacting to it... Pls have statement given on this so it's put to bed."
Her reference to a single protestor's sign and "many shout-outs" was indicative of Palin's occasional tendency to take anecdotal evidence of a minor problem and extrapolate it into something far more menacing.... It was not a time for distractions, but the campaign was compelled to deal with the drama that seemed to follow Palin wherever she wentSchmidt hit "reply to all" less than five minutes after Palin's e-mail was sent. "Ignore it," he wrote. "He was a member of the aip? My understanding is yes. That is part of their platform. Do not engage the protestors. If a reporter asks say it is ridiculous. Todd loves america."
This clear cut response from the campaign's top dog carried an air of finality, but it did not satisfy Palin. She responded with another e-mail, adding five more names to the "cc" box, all of whom traveled on her campaign plane.
OK...Just for the record, the box on the voter registration doesn't say "Independent" or "Alaska Independent" or "Independent Alaskan". It says "Alaskan Independence Party" and no Alaskan who was born and raised here, and has lived here all their life is going to confuse the Alaskan Independence Party with Non-Partisan. There is no remotely believable "Oops! Checked off the secessionist box by mistake!" scenario.
As this email story circulates throughout the state, there will be a lot of good chuckles over that "pants on fire" statement, believe you me. She might have thought she could fool the McCain campaign, but she's not fooling Alaskans.
So hard to say goodbye...
According to a new poll, for every week that Sarah Palin is on the campaign trail, another 2.25% of America decides that she sucks. In the past month, the percentage of Americans who think Sarah Palin is not qualified to be president went from 50% to 59%. At that rate, she should easily break 60% by election day.
Unless she drops out.
You still have four days to drop out Sarah. We know this option has been dangled in front of you before, but it's still on the table. You don't need to even make a big deal about it. You could just leave a note on the kitchen table of the Straight Talk Express. A little Dear John letter, if you will...
Ooooooh, Barracuda!
October 28, 2008 3:34 PM
Allies of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin are now trying to throw McCain aide Nicolle Wallace under the proverbial bus, and as they do so those in McCain’s circle are wary of the impact on Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., himself.
Since becoming McCain's running mate, there have been a host of issues where Palin publicly challenged decisions made by McCain – withdrawing from competition in Michigan, for instance, or for not attacking Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for his longtime relationship with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright. (See "McCannibals," from earlier this week.)
But nothing has seemed so resonant as $150,000 in clothes purchased for Palin and her family by the Republican National Committee.
Palin has taken to blaming the entire incident – as well as her introduction to the nation – on her “handlers,” presumably meaning Wallace, who was a key part of the team that handled Palin's successful announcement speech, her successful convention speech, and her interviews with Charlie Gibson, Sean Hannity and Katie Couric.
McCain allies say that Palin allies talked to Fox News commentator Fred Barnes to further throw Wallace under the bus. Barnes yesterday said, “the person who went and bought the clothes and, as I understand it put the clothes on her credit card, went to Saks and Neiman Marcus...the staffer who did that has been a coward” for not coming forward and accepting the blame for the $150,000 shopping spree. Barnes clarified that he was talking about Wallace.
But Wallace didn’t buy the clothes, put the clothes on her credit card, or go to Saks and Neiman Marcus, sources on the McCain campaign say.
And plenty of people on the McCain campaign are mystified as to how the $150,000 charges were racked up.
Moreover, McCain campaign sources say, Palin has developed quite a reputation on the campaign trail for shopping.
John McCain has created a monster. No, wait. Two. John McCain has created two monsters.
One, of course, is Sarah Palin. This cute 'n' sassy Alaskan cookie, this g-droppin', moose-shootin' regular gal, this soccer mom who talks like a teen (and whose teen will soon be a mom), this utterly fearless and thoroughly shameless liar who looks like a stripper playing a secretary and who, like many a confident ignoramus, talks to reporters as though they're the idiots she thinks she's putting one over on: Forget those big-boob hotties in bikinis menacingly wielding power tools on calendars in body shops. This is the pinup babe for All-American Power Porno.
It's all here, from the pious jerkwater Christianity that flaunts its ignorance and waits for applause, to the dimpling, sexy-winking speeches not only devoid of content but actively, preeningly demagogic. Poli-sci, acting, and psych majors are encouraged to monitor Palin's stump appearances; it's the closest they'll ever get (if we're lucky) to watching a natural demagogue at work live and in real time.
It may be too much to hope that national leaders bring out the best in us (although, with Obama, it threatens to be possible), but here is a woman who brings out the worst in people. The lies, the smears, the disingenuous innuendo and high school cafeteria sarcasm, the religion- and terrorism- and race-baiting: this is someone whom sane grownups would censure and condemn if she were running for president of the Student Council.
With Palin we encounter the purest example, in our lifetime, of a candidate whose mere presence on a national ticket demeans and pollutes the very process. To watch her being interviewed is to behold someone not only unwilling, but constitutionally unable, to give a lucid answer to a serious question. As a commenter on a different blog said, This is a woman who is incapable of passing a Turing test, let alone acting as a Vice-President.
(And you, Reader: You can give a clear answer to a question, can't you? So can I. And, like me, you shouldn't be Veep, let alone Prez, of the U.S.)
Palin may, for all we know, also be inherently unable to give an honest answer in addition to a comprehensible one. It's one thing to lie, in the sense that "all politicians lie," by saying they're going to do X and then, when in office, not doing it. Palin's lies have been those of the compulsive liar. She's repeatedly lied about matters of fact, easily refuted via the public record and then, when they've been shown to be untrue, she's kept reciting them.
Is it calculated or reflex? Is she evil, or merely crazy? We don't know and, you can bet, the "patriot" who has inflicted her on us doesn't know, either.
The point to be lamented is not that Sarah Palin comes from outside Washington, or that she has glimpsed so little of the earth's surface (she didn't have a passport until last year), or that she's never met a foreign head of state. The point is that she comes to us, seeking the second most important job in the world, without any intellectual training relevant to the challenges and responsibilities that await her. There is nothing to suggest that she even sees a role for careful analysis or a deep understanding of world events when it comes to deciding the fate of a nation. In her interview with Gibson, Palin managed to turn a joke about seeing Russia from her window into a straight-faced claim that Alaska's geographical proximity to Russia gave her some essential foreign-policy experience. Palin may be a perfectly wonderful person, a loving mother and a great American success story—but she is a beauty queen/sports reporter who stumbled into small-town politics, and who is now on the verge of stumbling into, or upon, world history.
We have all now witnessed apparently sentient human beings, once provoked by a reporter's microphone, saying things like, "I'm voting for Sarah because she's a mom. She knows what it's like to be a mom." Such sentiments suggest an uncanny (and, one fears, especially American) detachment from the real problems of today. The next administration must immediately confront issues like nuclear proliferation, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and covert wars elsewhere), global climate change, a convulsing economy, Russian belligerence, the rise of China, emerging epidemics, Islamism on a hundred fronts, a defunct United Nations, the deterioration of American schools, failures of energy, infrastructure and Internet security … the list is long, and Sarah Palin does not seem competent even to rank these items in order of importance, much less address any one of them.
Republican plans to return to Washington to help deal with credit crisis
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McCain suspends campaign
Sept. 24: Sen. John McCain announces he is suspending his presidential campaign and returning to Washington to work on finance reform and asks Sen. Barack Obama to reschedule the first presidential debate. MSNBC |
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama rejected Republican Sen. John McCain’s dramatic call Wednesday to delay Friday’s presidential debate because of the economic crisis.
“This is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess,” Obama told reporters in Clearwater, Fla.
McCain to suspend campaign
McCain said he would suspend his campaign after he addressed former President Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative gathering Thursday. A
dvisers said they were also reaching out to the Obama campaign to discuss pulling political television advertisements from airing.
Aides denied that the proposal was a political move. They said McCain hoped to create a “political free zone” until a deal to rescue the the financial industry could be reached.
How could McCain--a man widely regarded, not so long ago, as one of the country's most honor-bound politicians, and therefore an unusually honest one--have descended to this ignominious low? Part of the answer is that McCain is simply doing what works--and there is good reason to believe that his campaign's strategy of persistent dishonesty will pay dividends come November 4.
Republican strategist John Feehery made the point even more bluntly, telling The Washington Post: "The more The New York Times and The Washington Post go after Sarah Palin, the better off she is, because there's a bigger truth out there, and the bigger truths are: She's new, she's popular in Alaska, and she is an insurgent." Then, he added, "As long as those are out there, these little facts don't really matter."
Palin's hypocrisy with the personnel board
There is the old saying that goes like this; where you stand, depends on where you are standing. In the case of Governor Sarah Palin, nothing could be more truthful.
This week, the off Broadway show "The Truth Squad", featuring Palin's former press spokesperson Meg Stapleton and attorney Ed O'Callaghan, who flew in from New York to play the lead role of the prince of darkness, proudly stated that Palin would cooperate with the investigation after all.
Hooray...finally, the openness and transparency she promised.
Just one catch...ahhh several catches actually; in order for Palin to cooperate it must be a process managed by people she controls....a process that grants complete secrecy....a process that can be dismissed if Palin simply refuses to cooperate...a process that can drag on for up to two years.
Thanks truth squad; this really is an arms length investigation. I feel much better knowing that of all things, its been announced as a fair and non partisan investigation by two political hacks at a partisan political press conference.
But what strikes me as classic Palin hypocrisy is that she's already traveled down this road three years ago and had nothing but complaints about the process and the end results.
In December of 2004, Palin along with Democrat State Representative Eric Croft filed a complaint with the personnel board against former attorney general Greg Renkes for possible ethics violations for insider trading.
On December 11, Palin stated the need for quick resolution. "It would be in the public's best interest to have this addressed sooner rather than later, before the legislative session gets started. Lawmakers want to be able to concentrate on the people's business," Palin said.
Four months later, after Renkes resigned, Palin dropped her complaint but remained critical of the personnel board process.
In a March 9, 2005 story in the Anchorage Daily News, Paula Dobbyns wrote, (Palin) "said it's more important that the investigative file be released, something that could not happen as long as the secrecy-cloaked personnel board was involved."
"It's important to get these documents made public so Alaskans can make their own judgments," Palin said. She went on to say that she hoped that the e-mails will surface, and that the release of Renkes' and former Governor Frank Murkowski's depositions, with the rest of the investigative file, will resolve any lingering questions.
A few days later, Palin was back in the press criticizing the process of the investigation and accusing the governor's office of pressuring the personnel board to say explicitly that former Governor Murkowski had not violated ethics act procedures.
So lets review.
Three years ago Palin files a complaint with the personnel board.
She demands timely resolution, she demands full disclosure and then when it's all said and done she accuses the executive branch of manipulating the board's findings.
How richly ironic.
You would think Palin would apply the same sense of urgency and demands to the current investigation instead of allowing surrogates to delay and distract, but apparently not so. In fact, Palin abandoned any willingness to address this sooner rather than later the day she was chosen by John McCain to be his running mate.
To McCain, his only concern in keeping this situation under wraps until November 4. It's arguably one of the reasons why Palin has been sequestered from the press, in order to avoid those uncomfortable questions like; "Hey governor, when did you decide the legislatures investigation was unlawful and unconstitutional; before or after Ed O'Callaghan got off the plane from New York?"
Palin is walking a tight line. If Palin loses in November, does anyone honestly think that Stapleton and O'Callaghan are going to stick around and continue their daily truth squad shtick?
Palin better have her gun loaded if she comes back in defeat, because she'll be thrown to the wolves faster than you can say Vice President Biden.
The Palin Truth Squad: where War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength & Transparency is a Stone Wall.
Anchorage Daily News archives on the Renkes complaint:
http://dwb.adn.com/news/government/renkes/story/6250951p-6128097c.html
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