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What, you truly, sincerely and honestly don't think those men are phonies? I'll just laugh.

Leonid wrote:What, you truly, sincerely and honestly don't think those men are phonies? I'll just laugh.

I said not all of them. You also might have balanced the representation a bit more than inferring Bush as a lone Republican exception.



Say what you want Leo, Obama seems to me a decent guy who is being fairly transparent about his background. He is what he is without a whole lot of window dressing. Palin is something different. She is even under corruption investigations, which are soon to be completed:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/blotter

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain's surprise vice-presidential pick, is the subject of a legislative probe into claims that she abused her office by trying to get her former brother-in-law fired from his job as an Alaska state trooper.

Palin is likely to be deposed soon in the case, according to State Sen. Hollis French, who leads the state Senate's Legislative Counsel Committee.

We'll see Leo, but the stack of challenges against Palin sure are mounting. I wonder if you would call her a phony at this stage? I am tempted to, but to be honest, I'm still being open minded about it. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt until decisively proven wrong...which may not be the most prudent approach.

Decent people don't make friends with Jeremiah Wright, for 20 years - human garbage does.

P.S. O-cropolis (styrofoam Greek columns)@LOL. Thank you, Jay Nordlinger.

Jeez Mate, TrooperGate is old news. That came out last Saturday. Why don't you look into her ex-brother-in-law and what he did.

Falc: You insist that an education at a renown institution is not important, Well, in most cases it is. There is no comparison. It's only a start but a solid college curriculum shapes the way you learn to see the world.
YOu're so out of touch it makes sense why you would vote for a 72 year old senile son of an admiral.

Fight!!!!!!!!!

Fight!!!!!

Fight!!!!

U-C-L-A
U-C-L-A

( add the eight clap )

So much for foreign experience:



By Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 6, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Seeking to buttress the foreign policy credentials of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Republicans have repeatedly cited the vice presidential nominee's experience as commander of the Alaska National Guard.

As governor, Palin oversees military units whose duties include serving overseas, search-and-rescue missions across the state's vast landscape and manning key elements of the U.S. missile defense system at Ft. Greely.


But foreign deployments of Guard units and the operation of national defense assets like the Ft. Greely missile interceptors are not the responsibility of state governors. Those functions come under the regular U.S. military chain of command.

Commanding the Alaska National Guard is hardly an insignificant job, military officials say. Still, they acknowledge that it provides little, if any, foreign policy experience.

Overseeing a state Guard is a "chief executive role" with real management responsibilities, said Mark Allen, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau, the federal office that coordinates state National Guards.


"I don't think people should think it is a casual relationship, or is like the king putting on the medals," Allen said. "It is not that at all. But the role of the governor is to use the Guard to help the citizens of a state, as opposed to declaring war on a neighboring state."

The Alaska National Guard is unusual in that its jobs include manning part of the U.S. missile defense system. The 49th Missile Defense Battalion works on interceptor missiles designed to shoot down intercontinental missiles.

Members of the Alaska National Guard also were deployed to Iraq, and Palin visited their unit in July 2007. The McCain campaign has pointed to that experience as an example of Palin's foreign policy background.

"She's been the commander of Alaska's National Guard, who's been deployed overseas," Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman, said on CNN in one of several recent references to Palin's gubernatorial responsibility for the Guard. "That's foreign policy experience."

Since governors have no role in overseeing Guard members federalized for service in Iraq, military experts said that should not count as foreign policy experience.

National Guard officials said visits such as Palin's trip to Iraq may be important because state officials can lobby the federal government for better training and more equipment if they are needed. There is no indication Palin found major problems during her trip with how the Alaska Guard was trained or equipped.

Closer to home, the bread-and-butter work for most state National Guards are natural disasters. During Palin's 21 months in office, there has been one declared disaster, widespread flooding in June and July this year. Palin quickly signed a disaster declaration, officials said. The Guard's role was limited to providing two water tanks and 30,000 sandbags to local authorities.

The Alaska Air National Guard, with 1,946 service members, is involved in an exceptional number of search-and-rescue missions. Since Palin became governor in December 2006, the Air Guard has flown 521 missions, saving 200 lives and assisting with the rescue of 77 more people, said Kalei Brooks, a spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

"Our rescue squadron is the busiest in the nation," she said.

In recent years, the department has overseen a reorganization of the 1,900-member Army National Guard. Following a U.S. Army restructuring plan, officials have helped assign soldiers to new units.

But training requirements for Guard units is established not by governors, but by the Army, Air Force and the National Guard Bureau.

"That requirement comes down from the United States Army and Air Force," Allen said. "But that training and that equipment become very important when they are needed within the states."

Now Palin is a military leader?



I suppose if Bush and Cheney can, well, anybody can.

Cousin Sarah Louise runs them Trooper Units too and the guard is busy rescuing them snow machine racers like Uncle Ned.

Now don't get sassyor I'll cut loose the pitbulls with lipstick on you!!!!!!!

I am trying to think of when Reagan or Bush Sr made such a comment like Palin did about being a pit bull. I can't recall off the top of my head. Well, I blame Bill Clinton for demeaning the US Presidency. Playing saxophones on late night tv and yes, the Monica Lewinsky thing, made it easier for successors to act irreverently. We've come a long way...baby!

Propriety and dignity don't matter. Academic excellence doesn't matter. These are elitist constructs. Pit bull. Barracuda. Lipstick. Now that's where it's at. It's all keeping it real! Hell, we should be picking our candidates from the union locals, football fields, diners, and night clubs. The hell with Harvard and such ilk!

The Russians and Chinese are trembling. Rumor has it they too are searching for soccer moms. Putin wants to retire to Gazprom full time and needs a successor.

Why are you so afraid of the pitbull? She gives a funny line off the cuff and you want to criticize her for that? Do you hate her because she is a woman?

McCain's Speech

I agree with palo. McCain is just to old to take this job on. At the very least he's too old to go up against a much younger, more smooth-talking Obama. Like I wrote 3 days ago, Obama is going to have his way against McCain during the debates for this very reason. Had this been 2000 and McCain won the nomination then it would have been different.

I watched most of McCain's speech. Very nice but still fell short compared to Palin's, IMO. That video tribute of him before his speech was awesome.

I usually watch CNN and it's interesting to note that during the coverage of the video tribute, CNN was reduced to having to put their camera's on the large video screen at the Excel Center. In essence they were filming a screen. But I turned to NBC and they were tapped into the video presentation directly. I wonder how much they paid for this.

New polls suggest that Obama's lead is been reduced to single digets.

Pabs - McCain will come off better in debates than he does making speeches. Obama is the opposite. I can't believe how much he says uh and uhm when speaking. Did he not take any speach classes while at Columbia? Did not the esteemed professors at Harvard Law catch it?

Falc wrote:Pabs - McCain will come off better in debates than he does making speeches. Obama is the opposite. I can't believe how much he says uh and uhm when speaking. Did he not take any speach classes while at Columbia? Did not the esteemed professors at Harvard Law catch it?

Damn Falc! Some Harvard lawyer not only has the job you want, but also is your boss! No wonder you hate Ivy League graduates!



Actually, I was told that debate is not Obama's strong suite. This is a real, real problem. I put a lot of stock in how a person conducts himself interactively. This would have sifted out George Bush.

Obama better learn quickly.

Thre is a fundamental difference in not only style but the way they process information. Obama is contemplative, analytical, patient. McCain is impulsive, emotional, and not thoughtful. Maybe in his younger days he was sharp, but now a days he only comes across as old and slow, tired and bitter. The sarcasm has always been there say those who have known him. He is really playing the hero bit, don't people realize that the reason he was allowed to survive in Viet Nam because he was an officer and because they learned of his elite military lineage?

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, time for some conservative Christian values:

I know the one on topis photoshopped but it looks good enough for Obama to give her an intern position or secretary of Southern Country affairs.

the top one is totally photoshopped......

Notable & Quotable
September 6, 2008

From a New York Times editorial on July 3, 1984, on Geraldine Ferraro's nomination for vice president:

Where is it written that only senators are qualified to become President? . . . Or where is it written that mere representatives aren't qualified, like Geraldine Ferraro of Queens? . . . Where is it written that governors and mayors, like Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco, are too local, too provincial? . . . Presidential candidates have always chosen their running mates for reasons of practical demography, not idealized democracy. . . . What a splendid system, we say to ourselves, that takes little-known men, tests them in high office and permits them to grow into statesmen. . . . Why shouldn't a little-known woman have the same opportunity to grow?

Of course, Ferraro is a lawyer and writer. She represented a distric in New York with a population about 50 times larger than Redneck Beauty Queen's town.
But of course, you will say that education is not important.
Let's see, what what prepares you to think on your feet?

The PTA or the District Attorney's Office?

For Mate & Falc who were talking about Uni's a few days ago:

Wayne Allyn Root Bets $1 Million that Obama Was an Affirmative Action Case In Law School

Root: And I’d be willing to bet every dime I have in the world, a million dollars I’ll put, I’ll put a million dollars cash on the fact—

Welch: This is on the record—

Root: —that my GPA was better than Barack’s—
Welch: Oooooh.

Root: …and he got in based on the color of his skin.

Does anyone doubt that possibly Barack could have gotten into Harvard with a C average because he’s black, where as I, white, couldn’t get into the same school with a B-plus, A-minus average?

http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2008/09/05/was-barack-obama-an-affirmative-action-case-in-law-school-libertarian-vp-candidate-will-bet-a-million-dollars-he-was/

what does 'Pork Barrel Politics' mean ?

I don't know if that's the case but the fact remains that he was selected as President of the Law Review and had so many jobs lined up and offered that it was truly an act of social conscience that he chose the path that he did.

My GPA was not the highest in either graduate program that I completed but I can asure you that I was as bright as any and in the last class of my therapist training course, all 25 of my classmates ( 2 dropped out and 3 transferred) were asked to write down 3 traits about each class mate. Needles to say I was selected as the brightest. The ones with the highest GPA, of course hated it, but were described as driven and hardworking.

Take that to the bank baby!!!


As far as the program that you eneter, it does make a difference in how your thinking is shaped.
But what do you think of McCain's graduation rank at the Naval Academy?

790th out of 795th?


Talk aboyt a bottom feeder and also, what do you make of him being admited to a War Colloge after a friend of his dad arranged it?

Did you also know he was a newbie when he was captured in Viet Nam>?

PLus pabs, why are you linkingup with radical redneck groups?

No, I didn't know.

What do you mean ? Just because I'm a conservative old-fashioned person doesn't mean I'm a redneck. I wish the US had a 3 party system and wasn't run by the special interest groups.

Look. When you disect both Obama & McCain both pretty much agree on most things.

I repeat: at the end of the day, the special interest groups and the World Bankers run America.

Pabs - Pork barrel politics has to do with legislators getting spending approved for projects in their district/state that benefits their constituents or contributors. In turn, it gives them an advantage for re-election. Voters may want to keep such legislators in power as that individual may be in a key position that keeps the money going to that district. A business that may benefit from such spending will likely give contributions to that politician. The spending appropriation could be subsidy in farming, highway/bridge funding, grants for some study, etc.

Obama and I graduated at the same time. I can tell you this, if he went into the JAG Corp, he would have been golden. He could pretty much demand any assignment that would be available. You should have seen who received the assignments to Europe from my basic class.

Affirmative action was and is a necessary evil. No different than students like McCain and Bush who got into choice schools based on legacy status and power. Regardless of how he goin, Obama proved to be capable a clear thinker and a better writer. You cannot dismiss those things.

Look at all his positive character traits and abilities and compare them to McCain.

Brain power: Advantage ?

World View? Advantage?

Contemplative approach to events vs being impulsive and reckless?

Youth?

Who has a chance of learning the job and making a second run?

Pabs:

The wealth distribution is one one thing that is different, the GOP has historically called itself the party of moral values and of helping the wealthy. The irony is that thier base is por and uneducated. They have acted like the morality police, hence extreme Catholics being aligned with them.

3 out of the 4 pictures are doctored. The 2nd one is her HS grad pic.

Pabs

Democracy is SUPPOSED to be about "special interest groups". Duh.

Otherwise, you have one special group in any given country (KGB in Putin's Russia, Communist Party in China, military junta in Myanmar) and its hand-picked cronies.

Be careful about the "world bankers" usage. You may not be aware of it, but it's exactly the language of the Voelkischer Beobachter and Das Sturmer in the Third Reich, in the 30-s.

Obush

The more I see Obama on the campaign trail, the more he reminds me of Bush. Take away the script speech, he is a terrible speaker. Not only "uh & uhm" but today I saw a bunch of "you know." People are exaggerating his intellect. Don't confuse book smart with actually being smart. This guy cannot think on his feet.

Obama benefited from affirmative action. But he was on law review, which means he had to earn a spot through scholarship. Then he was elected president of the law review, which means his classmates thought enough of his abilities to select him editor-in-chief. Affirmative action may have gotten his foot in the door but he made the most of his educational opportunities. And let's face it, his dark skin and Kansas accent is what got him in the presidential race (as well as Abe Lincoln's coattails). For our country's sake let's hope he can succeed on this stage too (should he win).

Equal time:

According to McCain's bio, he was given an opportunity to be released about a year into his Vietnam imprisonment because his father was a top military leader but McCain declined saying he shouldn't be given special favors and he wanted to follow the "first-in, first-out" policy.

I too would have liked McCain in 2000. To bad he was the father of a dark-skinned child born out-of-wedlock….

So he can't even figure out which faith he belongs to. Is it convenient to say he is Muslim when among them? I thought this was the candidate of change, the one who was not going to politic the old style. So why has he been so busy attacking the other side the last few weeks?

BTW, Obama will be interviewed by Keith Olbermann tonight. Not sure how Keith is going to be able to conduct the interview if he is on his knees and his mouth if full.

So MSNBC has Chris Matthews with his show Hardball. Tonight, expect Keith Olbermann rename his show to Softball.

Trust me. Obama is lost without a teleprompter.

Just saying.

He will lose the debates based on style mostly.

Well, he has done extremely well in terms of his honesty and simplicity of speech. Did you watch both profiles on CNN?

What did Low Grade McCain say when they asked him if he was married when he started going out with the recovering addict wife of his? His answer?
That was 30 years ago, I am happily married now.

How about when they ask him about getting favors to get into War College?

Gimme a break, tubby!!

Bineaz

Fair enough. If that's the case then Obama certainly is intelligent. That's very impressive indeed.

(I never said he wasn't but just came across that article)

that's because you're an idiot.

Falc should be happy...

MSNBC is removing Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as the anchors of live political events, bowing to growing criticism that they are too opinionated to be seen as neutral in the heat of the presidential campaign.

David Gregory, the NBC newsman and White House correspondent who also hosts a program on MSNBC, will take over during such events as this fall's presidential and vice presidential debates and election night.
The move, confirmed by spokesmen for both networks, follows increasingly loud complaints about Olbermann's anchor role at the Democratic and Republican conventions. Olbermann, who regularly assails President Bush and GOP nominee John McCain on his "Countdown" program, was effusive in praising the acceptance speech of Democratic nominee Barack Obama. He drew flak Thursday when the Republicans played a video that included a tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, saying that if the networks had done that, "we would be rightly eviscerated at all quarters, perhaps by the Republican Party itself, for exploiting the memories of the dead, and perhaps even for trying to evoke that pain again. If you reacted to that videotape the way I did, I apologize."

For more than two decades, current Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was a practicing Pentecostal.

Sarah Palin asked church members to pray for $30 billion natural gas pipeline in Alaska.

She belonged to the Wasilla Assembly of God church in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska. But though she attended the church from her teenage years through to 2002, she hasn't talked much about her religion since joining the Republican ticket.

Palin's former pastor, Tim McGraw, says that like many Pentecostal churches, some members speak in tongues, although he says he's never seen Palin do so. Church member Caroline Spangler told CNN, "When the spirit comes on you, you utter things that nobody else can understand ... only God can understand what is coming out of our mouths."

Some Pentecostals from Assembly of God also believe in "faith healing" and the "end times" -- a violent upheaval that they believe will deliver Jesus Christ's second coming.

"Our basic belief is that God is God and he knows where history is going and he has a purposeful plan and within the middle of that plan we live in an environment in our world where certain events would take place," says McGraw. "Sarah wasn't taught to look for one particular sign -- a cataclysmic sign. She knew as every Christian does ... that God is sovereign and he is in control."

The McCain campaign says the Governor doesn't consider herself Pentecostal. Watch Palin's father talk about her religious upbringing »

McGraw says Palin's Pentecostal roots may be being downplayed for a reason: "I think there may be issues of belief that could be misunderstood or played upon by people that don't know."



When asked by CNN about Palin's beliefs, campaign spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton would only say the Republican vice presidential candidate has "deep religious convictions."

But how might her religious beliefs impact policy in Washington if the Republican ticket is successful?

Palin's former pastor says he has no doubt her religious beliefs will influence her decision making when it comes to government policy. Regarding her desire to build an Alaskan pipeline and explore for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, McGraw told CNN, "Sarah knows that in Genesis, God creates the world and it's very good and that we're supposed to be caretakers in terms of not destroying the environment, so there's no way that Sarah is going to exploit or damage the Alaska tundra in the name of getting gas if she doesn't have to." Palin's neighbors react to her swift rise

Six years ago, Palin left Assembly of God to join the non-denominational Wasilla Bible Church. But the Assembly of God says she still returns for special conferences and events, such as the graduation of ministry students in June. Video of a speech she gave at the church just two months before joining the Republican ticket is making the rounds on the Internet.

Speaking of the troops in Iraq, Palin says on the video, ""Pray for our military men and women who are striving do to what is right. Also for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for -- that there is a plan, and that plan is God's plan." Watch Palin speak at her former church »

Her campaign says she doesn't mix her faith with government business. But Palin did ask her audience to pray for $30 billion natural gas pipeline she is on a mission to build in Alaska. In the video Palin says, "I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas pipeline built. So pray for that ... I can do my job there in developing my natural resources. But all of that doesn't do any good if the people of Alaska's heart is not good with God."

McGraw, who was her pastor until 1998 and while she was mayor of Wasilla, says Palin attended discipleship classes to strengthen her Pentecostal faith and that he counseled her on how to become a better leader.

"Everyone has a way of viewing the world and Sarah does too and hers would be shaped by the common sense practicality of how she's been shaped by the Bible -- which is basically the world view that says God loves people, people can access him and he's given us wisdom for living," says McGraw.

He says Alaska has already seen Palin's faith play out. As governor she passed ethics reform and took on what she's referred to as a "good-ol'-boys network." However, she has said she would not seek to impose her religious views on others.

"I think one of the most obvious ways it plays out is what you've seen -- is being courageous enough to deal with deception and corruption," says McGraw.

Palin now attends the Wasilla Bible Church. She was there on August 17, just days before entering the national spotlight. David Brickner, the founder of Jews for Jesus, was a speaker. He told congregants that terrorist attacks on Israel were God's "judgment" of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity. Brickner said, "Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. 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."

The McCain campaign says his comments do not reflect her religious views. Palin's spokeswoman says she is pro-Israel.
Pastor Ed Kalnin, the senior pastor of Palin's former Pentecostal church, has also come under fire for his comments. In 2004, he told church members if they voted for John Kerry for president, they wouldn't get into heaven. He told them, "I question your salvation."

Assembly of God issued a statement online in response which said Kalnin was "joking" when he suggested "Kerry supporters would go to hell," and statement went on to say, "We do acknowledge in hindsight that it was careless, and we do apologize for that. This statement is not written as a defense, but as a clarification."


Palin has done little while in office to advance a social conservative agenda. She told the Associated Press in an interview in 2006 that she would not allow her personal beliefs to dictate public policy.

"I've honestly answered the questions on what my personal views are on things like abortion and a lot of controversial issues," Palin told the Associated Press. "I won't hesitate to answer those questions about what my personal views are, but I am not one to be out there preaching and forcing my views on anyone else."

But in the last week, her religious background and outlook has certainly spurred debate far beyond Alaska.

So Mr. Cut & Paste, do you find a problem with what you posted?