What's happening here? Our national elections are become a "game", and Sarah Palin is the newest attack dog-mascot employed by the opposing team. It's been said that America's elections are decided, not by the candidate's stand on the issues confronting the nation, but on the voter's selection of the candidate that he or she would most like to sit down with and have a beer. Just look where that criteria for choosing our President got us.
And yet, having learned nothing from the last eight years of Republican "Search and Destroy" tactics waged against our Constitution and our citizenry, it appears that the Republicans are once again pursuing their destructive and, sadly, their very successful scorched-earth-character-assassination-style of campaigning; a style that is based upon lies, spin, and the deliberate distortion of facts, and which will, I fear, yet again result in a Republican entering the Oval Office on 01/20/09.
Note that the life and death issues facing our beloved country are utterly ignored by the MSM, which instead of informing and educating the public, colludes with the wealthy Republicans who own the majority of our MSM sources of "news", devotes lines of op-ed columns and pages of supposed "news reporting" to waxing eloquently about the bread and circuses so cynically and hypocritically being dished up for public consumption: see today's op-ed piece by Meghan Daum.
Television viewers are forced to watch McCain gazing lasciviously at her butt; women must hear and read the endless blather about her hair; and men are said to be entranced to hear that she is a lifelong NRA member who promotes herself as an aficionado of hunting and fishing, as she seeks to follow in the footsteps of another famous VP "sportsman". Like Cheney, Sarah thinks nothing of using new fangled weapons to outsmart local wildlife when hunting them. She murders wolves from the air, firing at them from an helicopter. I'd say that such behavior makes her a destroyer of wild life, not a noble and daring huntress. I find nothing admirable in the use of such over whelming violence against the beautiful wild animals living in America's vanishing wilderness.
This gal demands special kid glove treatment by the MSM, and are they ever happy to comply. Refusing to submit to any questioning of her experience; refusing to reveal her positions on issues, foreign and domestic, which currently face our country; refusing to discuss the disconnect between some of her recent decisions and her public statements about family values, abstinence only educational programs and a woman's right to choice in matters concerning her own body; and concerns about the ethics investigation currently underway in Alaska (which the McCain camp is vigorously trying to postpone until after the November election) all mean that Sarah Palin is being given a free pass. She is being allowed to provide very skewed, limited, and inconsistent "tidbits" about herself. It feels like one big titillating seductive ploy to catapult two ideologues into our nation's two highest offices.
Where is the public outcry at this MSM collusion, yet again. with the Republicans? Utterly absent. Remember: when Republicans have no desire to discuss the many complicated issues facing our nation, they consistently turn to their old stand-by strategy: Accuse your opponent of the very things YOU are doing, and go after the individual with your reflexive tactic to slime your way into office: spew forth your politics of personal destruction and chatter as loudly and frequently as possible. And that is exactly what John and Sarah are doing. Where is our nation's MSM? MIA, again. There is no acknowledgment that this is happening again. No outcry at all the issues that are being ignored by the Republicans. Let me just mention a few receiving little or no significant mention:
- of Bush's war and the thousands of dead American sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, and friends;
- of the (hundreds of thousands?) of Iraqis maimed and killed;
- of the shredding of our cherished Constitution;
- of the death spiral which is our economy;
- of the growing divisiveness within all governmental bodies and jurisdictions across our nation;
- of the deepening despair about the legislative gridlock rampant across our nation;
- of our nation's broken healthcare system;
- of the questions about the viability of social security;
- of how to truly become energy independent; and finally,
- of what to do to preserve and improve our planet's health.
Republicans proudly wear buttons that carry her picture and the words: "Hottest VP from the coldest state". "Sarah Barracuda", who has assumed center stage in the McCain campaign, the third beauty queen (that we know about) after whom McCain visibly lusts (and not just in his heart), has energized the Republican's base with her lipsticked-pit-bull attacks, her misrepresentations of facts, and her slanderous lies about Obama. What is going on? Have we learned nothing in these last eight years? Truly, the MSM is no friend to the citizens of this country.
Emily: Well stated. Democrats need to stop being distracted by the fact that she's female and go after her sorry policies and behavior. It's ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteGreat points were brought up. It reminds me why I can't respect the Dems. They need to take the gloves off and they need to bring the issues back to the forefront.
ReplyDeleteIt's simply amazing how her daughter is off limits. If that were Obama's daughter...
Yes, Em. Good post.
ReplyDeleteAnd Miss A., you are right on, again!
Here's where I am. Barack Obama had the chance to select as a running mate the anti-McCain. Wes Clark was a Vietnam war hero, accomplished geo-political expert and diplomat familiar in, and liked by, NATO statesman. The GOP king-makers selected for McCain the anti-Obama: a pitbull with lipstick. Republicans know how to campaign, even if they don't know how to govern. They know their bible, but they don't know the constitution.
I am impressed with Biden, going forward. But ...
I do not trust in the MSM to inform the proven flawed judgment of the American electorate. Deja vue, all over again, as Yogi would say.
ReplyDeleteGood and bad news from Frank Rich NYT this morning:
ReplyDeleteSarah Palin makes John McCain look even older than he is.... McCain’s .... repetitive slew of stump-speech lines and worn G.O.P. orthodoxy, reminded us of what we once liked about the guy: his aspirations to bipartisanship, his heroic service in Vietnam, his twinkle. He took his (often inaccurate) swipes at Obama, but, in winning contrast to Palin and Rudy Giuliani, he wasn’t smug or nasty.
..... the entire thing was a sham .... that the 72-year-old McCain will magically morph into a powerful change agent as president, is a non sequitur. In his 26 years in Washington, most of it with a Republican in the White House and roughly half of it with Republicans in charge of Congress, he was better at lecturing his party about reform than leading a reform movement. G.O.P. corruption and governmental dysfunction only grew. So did his cynical flip-flops on the most destructive policies of the president ....
We still don’t know a lot about Palin except that she’s better at delivering a speech than McCain ..... the biography supplied by her and the McCain camp is fiction.
{SNIP} Rich supplies details.{SNIP}
Given the actuarial odds that could make Palin our 45th president, it would be helpful to know who this mystery woman actually is. Meanwhile, two eternal axioms of our politics remain in place. Americans vote for the top of the ticket, not the bottom ..... Whatever we do and don’t know about Palin’s character at this point, there is no ambiguity in what her ascent tells us about McCain’s character and potential presidency ...... He wanted to choose the pro-abortion-rights Joe Lieberman as his vice president. If he were still a true maverick, he would have done so.
“God only made one John McCain, and he is his own man,” said the shafted Lieberman in his own tedious convention speech last week. What a pathetic dupe. McCain is now the man of James Dobson and Tony Perkins. The “no surrender” warrior surrendered to the agents of intolerance not just by dumping his pal for Palin .....
That ideological sellout, unfortunately, was not the worst leadership trait the last-minute vice presidential pick revealed about McCain. His speed-dating of Palin reaffirmed a more dangerous personality tic that has dogged his entire career. His decision-making process is impetuous and, in its Bush-like preference for gut instinct over facts, potentially reckless ..... the Palin choice was brilliant politics — not because it rallied the G.O.P.’s shrinking religious-right base. America loves nothing more than a new celebrity face, and the talking heads marched in lock step last week to proclaim her a star. Palin is a high-energy distraction from the top of the ticket, even if the provenance of her stardom is in itself a reflection of exactly what’s frightening about the top of the ticket.
By hurling charges of sexism and elitism at any easily cowed journalist who raises a question about Palin, McCain operatives are hoping to ensure that whatever happened in Alaska with Sarah Palin stays in Alaska.....
God knows there's a paucity of mainstream journalists who will pull their heads out of the sand.
I don't know who your Meghan Daum is, Emily. But she is pandering the same old sports metaphor that afflicts coverage of American politics. She quotes a conservative, Scott:
ReplyDelete"We're energized. Honestly, I might not have voted before this. But now I feel like it's 'game on.' The Democrats had an advantage in that Obama is a gifted speaker and incredibly appealing to his base. That was missing from our side. Now I at least feel like there's an equal playing field."
The way to American perdition is paved poor analogies. With apologies to Moe Blues, I say we might end the decade the way we started it out: Daum (2000), Daumer (2004), Daumest (2008?).
Emily, I just wanted you to know I read your well-written and impassioned essay with great interest.
ReplyDeleteEveryone here already knows I do not agree with you, not about Palin herself, but about the treatment she is receiving by the main stream media, the bolgosphere and even some comments here.
So, I'll just back out quietly beofre I get tarred and feathered, letting you know I'm still a fan and find your writing and opinions important.
Wizard..Palin deserves the same scrutiny as ANY OTHER CANDIDATE. She is less qualified than any on McBush's short list, not to mention almost any governor or legislator in the country. Reporting on the questions that surround her is honest and necessary. We need to know her and know her lies, and they are legion. The people have a right to know.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Mike, you've done a brilliant job on your blog letting people know about this skank.
ReplyDeleteVig, you said everything I wanted to say. Thanks for this post. And, yes, you're right. MSM is destroying our nation, except for Keith Olberman (sort of) and Rachel Maddow.
Leave me with Air America, Bill Moyers' Journal on PBS, and the Guardian. Where's our freedom of speech when other countries report our own news better than we do?
Juan Cole:
ReplyDeleteWhat's the difference between Palin and Muslim fundamentalists? Lipstick.
A theocrat is a theocrat, whether Muslim or Christian.
Red State plies my email with hate mail everyday. I let it come because I want to see what they're up to. This is today's effort:
ReplyDeleteAs you know, the magazine Us Weekly will hit news stands this coming weekend with a hit job on Governor Sarah Palin.
Though Us Weekly claims that its coverage is very balanced, its cover features Governor Palin holding a baby with the headline "Babies, Lies, and Scandal."
US Weekly, which has been a promotional vehicle for Senator Obama's campaign, is in the tank for Barack Obama and will stop at nothing to ruin Governor Palin's reputation.
Please consider doing this: When you go to the grocery story this week, pick up a couple of copies of Us Weekly and deposit them on the shelves where the toilet paper is located.
I have not bothered to supply the bold facing in the original.
Messenger: Your comment confuses me. Why are you carrying water for Red State?
ReplyDeleteI'm confused, too, Emily.
ReplyDeleteIf he sends mixed messages, shoot the messenger.
ReplyDeleteActually the term is "Don't kill the messenger". So messenger I just saved your life and you owe me:-)
ReplyDelete