McCain Goats Palin: McCain Lost the Election Because He Quit

I went bollocks to the bulwark for John McCain starting in the Spring of 2007, through his summer of discontent, into the Primaries and all the way to the election of Barack Obama. Barack Obama ran a disciplined and masterful campaign and really wanted to win.

Barack Obama won the Presidency and John McCain quit the race on Sept 19th 2008. He quit on TV. He was being asked about the collapse of the American Economy, when all the Maverick wanted to talk about was "Service before Self."

Sarah Palin was fighting to win. John McCain, the man that Commies could not torture and make him go home early and abandon his Mates in the Hanoi Hilton, spit out the bit.

My daughter won the race in the 3rd Congressional District as a McCain Delegate. I wrote many articles and hundreds of Blog posts. I made Speeches for John McCain. Rang doorbells; stuffed mailboxes in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. I was glad to do so - until the last few days.

John McCain has allowed his Campaign to smear Sarah Palin.

If John McCain's Campaign ( Steve Schmidt et al) had done one tenth of the Black Bag work on Barack Obama that they have been doing on Sarah Palin and with one one thousandth of the energy - John McCain would have been POTUS.

Schmidt cited an ethics report on the then-Alaska governor from her home state on an investigation into whether she had improperly used her government position.

I read this in Politco.com the other day. McCain Campaign Manager Steve Schmidt ( a bald guy who puts his glasses on his forehead like he was William Kunstler - Hey, There's that Billy Ayers Magic! McCain tossed that one too.) is helping water-eyed Mark Halperin - a genuine weenie - sell is loathsome book. It is a tell-all Reality TV epic about the Campaign - I read some excerpts. Not much. This sparrow hearted turd Halperin is no Ted White, let me tell you.

Schmidt tossed out this crappy and gutless charge against Sarah Palin.

“She went out and said, you know, ‘This report completely exonerates me,’” Schmidt said. “And in fact, it — it didn’t. You know it’s the equivalent of saying down is up and up is down. It was provably, demonstrably untrue.”

That is pure unadulterated bullshit. An Alaskan Ethics report is the Up from Down?

I expect Sarah Palin to be spit at by the clowns, louses and losers - John McCain joined them.

Schmidt is a paid political sneak and doing his job. John McCain is a disgrace. I am sorry I voted for him.

I worked very hard for John McCain. I'm a Democrat. I knew that on Sept. 19th 2008 John McCain no longer cared to win the nomination - it was all over his face. The Economy tanked as did McCain's 'fire' and his campaign decided to make Sarah Palin the goat.

Jonathon Martin is one of the barbecue journalists who love the Maverick they created and play out of both sides of their mouths.

I voted early for and against Democrats here in Chicago, Illinois, yesterday. I will vote for Sarah Palin. McCain is no different from John Kerry - two men who never really wanted to win -it seems to me.

John McCain keeps lousy company, as far as I can tell. Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Martin and Mr. Halperin are indistinguishable and while I honor John McCain's military service I am disgusted by his crawfish political style.

I genuinely like and admire Sarah Palin. She is a happy, centered and good person.

I will work for and possibly even vote for Sarah Palin, if she runs for President - I rather doubt that she will do so.

I turn the channel when John McCain shows up. He is now as appalling to me as MSNBC - The Tool Shed.

President Obama's Speech - Irony - Changes Mean Return to Old Truths

What will be changed will be seen in the days to come. What will be enacted by President Obama, today and in the days to come, might determine the course for the Nation for decades.



America is behind you. However, your words did not so much reflect change as they did the words and values of the man you defeated. Change seems to require that America cling to John McCain's message.

President Obama defeated John McCain on September 15, 2008 when he stated that the fundamentals of American capitalism were still sound and that sound byte allowed the Obama Campaign to cascade an avalanche of change rhetoric on his crippled shoulders. That's politics and this now is government leadership.

On September 15, 2008 McCain said this, "You know, there's been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street and it is -- people are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think, still the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult time. And I promise you, we will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street. We will reform government."
I promise you we will never put America in this position again."

John McCain also said, "This is a failure. We've got take every action to build an environment of robust energy supplies, lower inflation, control health care costs, access to international markets, low taxes and reduce burden of government to allow people to move forward toward a future of prosperity."



The irony being - what McCain said and meant on September 15, 2008 is reflected in President Obama's inaugural speech:

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

Hope floats. The Ship of State must sail true.

God Bless your efforts, Mr. President

ABC - 7's Andy Shaw Takes 'Stupid' National!

You Go, Andy! That's Andy Shaw as natural as he gets and a City Hall insider by the name of Buck DaMedea!

Now this goof Andy Shaw is a walking metaphor for Chicago's Media Elite! You really need to work at it 24/7 to be this stupid and Andy is no clock watcher!


True story, this one! Remember Terry Teele, Mayor Daley's go-to-guy on all things Planning and Development? Get this.

When Terry Teele was forced to resign from his position in Daley's Office, I happened to be sitting in the Planning and Development waiting room - a breathless Andy Shaw Charged In - 'The Teele resignation - I'M here!'

The lovely middle aged black woman informed this Profound Newshound - 'Fifth Floor, Sir. Mr. Teele works on the Fifth Floor. We are on the 10th Floor?'

Here's Andy Shaw Breathlessly stupid once again with President Elect Obama and the always affable Senator John ' Sure! I Suffer Fools Gladly' McCain:

Obama's aides started trying to clear the press out, reminding them there were not supposed to be questions.

That did not stop ABC-7 political reporter Andy Shaw from asking McCain if he planned to work with Obama to help him get things done. ( Emphasis my own!)
Even as the aides shouted louder not to ask questions, McCain said, "Obviously."
Obama smiled and told the reporters still asking questions they were "incorrigible." Then he proceeded to lean over to McCain and tell him a campaign-trail story about one of his aides.

Bed and breakfast, Andy! You take Stupid to a new level!

Andy Shaw meets Doyle Brunson and Phil Helmuth at the World Series of Poker -'Playing Cards, Fellows?'

Vote McCain/Palin - Read Pat Guest and Understand Why!

Pat Guest is a young husband, father, Queen of Martyr's parishioner, small businessman, and until recently a Chicago Democrat and voting for John McCain. Pat and I had a gentlemanly disagreement during the 19th Ward Aldermanic election last year and proved himself to be an articulate, thoughtful and witty counterpoint to my more splenetic and tribally coded voicings.

Pat Guest established a wonderful Website 19th Ward Blog and today articulates the very powerful principles underlying a vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin on Tuesday. Here's Pat Guest:

American Principles Under Attack

Surfing through the cable news channels last night I was struck by what I heard. There has been a steady escalation of attacks on fundamental American political institutions and principles. But recently, the liberal press (MSNBC predominately, followed by CNN, and excluding Fox which everyone understands to be a right-leaning network) has become increasingly bold and overt in attacking Capitalism and Conservatism. Rachel Maddow took the opportunity to declare the failure of Capitalism when Alan Greenspan testified before Congress and admitted that perhaps he had made mistakes. Socialism and Egalitarianism have become popular topics for the likes of Chris Mathews and Keith Olbermann. Of course, they don’t use the word Socialism, but they are almost giddy when they proclaim the death of Free Market Capitalism, Federalism, and Conservatism. Our liberal friends have used the current capital crisis to promote extreme left-wing, anti-American philosophies. And, ashamedly, the current President is asleep at the wheel.

However, our current financial situation is not a result of the failure of an economic or political philosophy. At the root of the crisis is greed and criminal behavior on the part of CEOs and politicians of both political persuasions. People should be going to jail for lying to investors and manipulating financial figures. Where is the Congressional outrage? This is the same Congress that spent millions on investigating steroids in baseball. They even considered perjury charges against some of the baseball players that allegedly lied to Congress; how about investigating the criminals who lied to the American people and ignited the biggest financial catastrophe since the Great Depression. We have to remember that the two institutions in the eye of the financial hurricane are Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae – quasi governmental organizations. This is not a failure of Conservatism. Nor is it a failure of Capitalism, or as Barack Obama refers to it,”…a failed economic philosophy”.

Nationalization and Socialism are not the solution. We can only hope, that if Obama is elected, and the Congress is controlled by a Democratic super-majority, that the American people will see what lies beneath the left-wing liberal rhetoric and reject it.

Patrick D. Guest

Vote John McCain/Sarah Palin - for the reasons articulated by a very fine American - Pat Guest!

Wendy Button: Obama Speechwriter Serves Notice and Supports John McCain -In Full!

Wendy Button talking to the Haircut Mac Daddy

So Long, Democratsby Wendy Button

Wendy Button is a writer in Washington, DC. She has written for Senators John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Mayor Tom Menino of Boston as well as other national and international leaders. She received her MFA in writing from Bennington College and is currently writing the CNN Heroes Award Show to air Thanksgiving night.

A speechwriter for Obama, Edwards, and Clinton on why she’s voting McCain.

Since I started writing speeches more than ten years ago, I have always believed in the Democratic Party. Not anymore. Not after the election of 2008. This transformation has been swift and complete and since I’m a woman writing in the election of 2008, “very emotional.”

When I entered this campaign, it was at the 2006 Edwards staff Christmas party. My nametag read “Millie Worker.” When former Senator John Edwards read it, he laughed and said, “That makes you like my parent.” He went on to say, “Would you please come down to Chapel Hill so we can talk about what’s coming up.” I sat in John and Elizabeth’s living room for two and half hours. I left North Carolina, energized about politics for the first time in months.

Not only has this party belittled working people in this campaign, it has also been part of tearing down two female candidates.

I didn’t hear from anyone for three weeks.

When I finally received the official offer, it was the kind of political offer that said, “Go away.” That happens. It’s their campaign and I just assumed that I had been pushed out. The problem was that I had canceled a number of freelance writing jobs because I had assumed that when John said, “Start right away” I would. I needed a job right away and so I took the one in front of me with Senator Barack Obama.

When we first met, Obama and I had a nice conversation about speeches and writing, and at the end of the meeting I handed him a pocket-sized bottle of Grey Poupon mustard so he wouldn’t have to ask staff if it was okay to put it on his hamburger. At the bottom of the bottle was the logo for “The South Beach Diet” and he snapped, “Oh so you read People magazine.” He seemed to think that I was commenting on his bathing suit picture.

I helped with his announcement speech and others. I worked in the Senate when he was in D.C. One day after a hearing on Darfur, we were walking back to the office. I was still hobbling from a very bad ankle injury and in a very kind and gentle way he offered his arm when we approached the stairs. But later in debate preps and phone conversations and meetings, I realized that I had made a mistake. I didn’t belong. No matter how hard I tried, my heart wasn’t in it anymore.

See campaigns get complicated when you’ve written for so many Democrats. Not only had I written for Senator Edwards, but I had also been Senator Hillary Clinton’s speechwriter. Senator Joe Biden is a “good looking” man and his care after my father almost died from an aneurysm is the kind of kindness you never forget. When I saw Edwards at a traffic light in D.C. about a year after our meeting, he asked for help and I did and it was an honor to help him with his concession speech. And when the primary ended, it was a privilege to help Michelle Obama with a stump speech, be considered as a speechwriter for the V.P. nominee again, and send friends in Chicago ideas until the financial crisis hit. This is what the Democratic Party has been for me; it’s family. Now, it doesn’t even feel like a distant cousin.This drift started on a personal level with the fall of former Senator John Edwards. It got stronger during the Democratic National Convention when I counted the substantive mentions of poverty on one hand and a whole bunch of bad canned partisan lines against Senator John McCain. Some faith was lifted after Senator Hillary Clinton’s grace during a difficult hour. But that faith was dashed when I saw that someone had raided the Caligula set and planted the old columns at Invesco Field.

The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.”

Having worked in politics, I know that absolutely none of this is on the level. This back and forth is posturing, a charade, and a political game. These lines are what I refer to as “hooker lines”—a sure thing to get applause and the press to scribble as if they’re reporting meaningful news.

As the nation slouches toward disaster, the level of political discourse is unworthy of this moment in history. We have Republicans raising Ayers and Democrats fostering ageism with “erratic” and jokes about Depends. Sexism. Racism. Ageism and maybe some Socialism have all made their ugly cameos in election 2008. It’s not inspiring. Perhaps this is why I found the initial mocking of Joe so offensive and I realized an old line applied: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me.”

The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations.

Our economy is in the tank for many complicated reasons, especially because people don’t have enough money. So let them keep it. Let businesses keep it so they can create jobs and stay here and weather this storm. And yet, the Democratic ideology remains the same. Our approach to problems—big government solutions paid for by taxing the rich and big and smaller companies—is just as tired and out of date as trickle down economics. How about a novel approach that simply finds a sane way to stop the bleeding?

That’s not exactly the philosophy of a Democrat. Not only has this party belittled working people in this campaign from Joe the Plumber to the bitter comments, it has also been part of tearing down two female candidates. At first, certain Democrats and the press called Senator Clinton “dishonest.” They went after her cleavage. They said her experience as First Lady consisted of having tea parties. There was no outrage over “Bros before Hoes” or “Iron My Shirt.” Did Senator Clinton make mistakes? Of course. She’s human.

But here we are about a week out and it’s déjà vu all over again. Really, front-page news is how the Republican National Committee paid for Governor Sarah Palin’s wardrobe? Where’s the op-ed about how Obama tucks in his shirt when he plays basketball or how Senator Biden buttons the top button on his golf shirt?
Info RSS Wendy Button is a writer in Washington, DC. She has written for Senators John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Mayor Tom Menino of Boston as well as other national and international leaders. She received her MFA in writing from Bennington College and is currently writing the CNN Heroes Award Show to air Thanksgiving night.

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Oh right, this story goes to the sincerity of her Hockey Mom persona. What planet am I living on? Everyone knows that when it comes to appearance, there’s a double standard for women politicians. Remember the speech Speaker Pelosi gave on the floor the day of the bailout vote? Check out how many stories commented on her hair that day and how many mentioned Congressman Barney Frank’s.

Here we are discussing Governor Palin’s clothes—oh wait, now we’re on to the make-up—not what either man is going to do to save our economy. This isn’t an accident. It is part of a manufactured narrative that she is stupid.

Governor Palin and I don’t agree on a lot of things, mostly social issues. But I have grown to appreciate the Governor. I was one of those initial skeptics and would laugh at the pictures. Not anymore. When someone takes on a corrupt political machine and a sitting governor, that is not done by someone with a low I.Q. or a moral core made of tissue paper. When someone fights her way to get scholarships and work her way through college even in a jagged line, that shows determination and humility you can’t learn from reading Reinhold Niebuhr. When a mother brings her son with special needs onto the national stage with love, honesty, and pride, that gives hope to families like mine as my older brother lives with a mental disability. And when someone can sit on a stage during the Sarah Palin rap on Saturday Night Live, put her hands in the air and watch someone in a moose costume get shot—that’s a sign of both humor and humanity.

Has she made mistakes? Of course, she’s human too. But the attention paid to her mistakes has been unprecedented compared to Senator Obama’s “57 states” remarks or Senator Biden using a version of the Samuel Johnson quote, “There’s nothing like a hanging in the morning to focus a man’s thoughts.”

But thank God for election 2008. We can talk about the wardrobe and make-up even though most people don’t understand the details about Senator Obama’s plan with Iraq. When he says, “all combat troops,” he’s not talking about all troops—it leaves a residual force of as large as 55,000 indefinitely. That’s not ending the war; that’s half a war.

I was dead wrong about the surge and thought it would be a disaster. Senator John McCain led when many of us were ready to quit. Yet we march on as if nothing has changed, wedded to an old plan, and that too is a long way from the Democratic Party.

I can no longer justify what this party has done and can’t dismiss the treatment of women and working people as just part of the new kind of politics. It’s wrong and someone has to say that. And also say that the Democratic Party’s talking points—that Senator John McCain is just four more years of the same and that he’s President Bush—are now just hooker lines that fit a very effective and perhaps wave-winning political argument…doesn’t mean they’re true. After all, he is the only one who’s worked in a bipartisan way on big challenges.

Before I cast my vote, I will correct my party affiliation and change it to No Party or Independent. Then, in the spirit of election 2008, I’ll get a manicure, pedicure, and my hair done. Might as well look pretty when I am unemployed in a city swimming with “D’s.”

Whatever inspiration I had in Chapel Hill two years ago is gone. When people say how excited they are about this election, I can now say, “Maybe for you. But I lost my home.”

Obama Dumped by Wendy the Writer for John McCain

Hh/t to News busters!

Get this Obama Speechwriter Wendy Button* had enough of the Empty Suit of Hope and is now backing John McCain - The Real Deal! All in Wendy's word!

Since I started writing speeches more than ten years ago, I have always believed in the Democratic Party. Not anymore. Not after the election of 2008. This transformation has been swift and complete and since I’m a woman writing in the election of 2008, “very emotional."When we first met, Obama and I had a nice conversation about speeches and writing, and at the end of the meeting I handed him a pocket-sized bottle of Grey Poupon mustard so he wouldn’t have to ask staff if it was okay to put it on his hamburger. At the bottom of the bottle was the logo for “The South Beach Diet” and he snapped, “Oh so you read People magazine.” He seemed to think that I was commenting on his bathing suit picture.

I helped with his announcement speech and others. I worked in the Senate when he was in D.C. One day after a hearing on Darfur, we were walking back to the office. I was still hobbling from a very bad ankle injury and in a very kind and gentle way he offered his arm when we approached the stairs. But later in debate preps and phone conversations and meetings, I realized that I had made a mistake. I didn’t belong. No matter how hard I tried, my heart wasn’t in it anymore.

...The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.”

Having worked in politics, I know that absolutely none of this is on the level. This back and forth is posturing, a charade, and a political game. These lines are what I refer to as “hooker lines”—a sure thing to get applause and the press to scribble as if they’re reporting meaningful news.

As the nation slouches toward disaster, the level of political discourse is unworthy of this moment in history. We have Republicans raising Ayers and Democrats fostering ageism with “erratic” and jokes about Depends. Sexism. Racism. Ageism and maybe some Socialism have all made their ugly cameos in election 2008. It’s not inspiring. Perhaps this is why I found the initial mocking of Joe so offensive and I realized an old line applied: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me.”

The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations.

...Not only has this party belittled working people in this campaign from Joe the Plumber to the bitter comments, it has also been part of tearing down two female candidates. At first, certain Democrats and the press called Senator Clinton “dishonest.” They went after her cleavage. They said her experience as First Lady consisted of having tea parties. There was no outrage over “Bros before Hoes” or “Iron My Shirt.” Did Senator Clinton make mistakes? Of course. She’s human.

But here we are about a week out and it’s déjà vu all over again. Really, front-page news is how the Republican National Committee paid for Governor Sarah Palin’s wardrobe? Where’s the op-ed about how Obama tucks in his shirt when he plays basketball or how Senator Biden buttons the top button on his golf shirt?

...Governor Palin and I don’t agree on a lot of things, mostly social issues. But I have grown to appreciate the Governor. I was one of those initial skeptics and would laugh at the pictures. Not anymore. When someone takes on a corrupt political machine and a sitting governor, that is not done by someone with a low I.Q. or a moral core made of tissue paper. When someone fights her way to get scholarships and work her way through college even in a jagged line, that shows determination and humility you can’t learn from reading Reinhold Niebuhr. When a mother brings her son with special needs onto the national stage with love, honesty, and pride, that gives hope to families like mine as my older brother lives with a mental disability. And when someone can sit on a stage during the Sarah Palin rap on Saturday Night Live, put her hands in the air and watch someone in a moose costume get shot—that’s a sign of both humor and humanity.

Has she made mistakes? Of course, she’s human too. But the attention paid to her mistakes has been unprecedented compared to Senator Obama’s “57 states” remarks or Senator Biden using a version of the Samuel Johnson quote, “There’s nothing like a hanging in the morning to focus a man’s thoughts.”

...I was dead wrong about the surge and thought it would be a disaster. Senator John McCain led when many of us were ready to quit. Yet we march on as if nothing has changed, wedded to an old plan, and that too is a long way from the Democratic Party.

I can no longer justify what this party has done and can’t dismiss the treatment of women and working people as just part of the new kind of politics. It’s wrong and someone has to say that. And also say that the Democratic Party’s talking points—that Senator John McCain is just four more years of the same and that he’s President Bush—are now just hooker lines that fit a very effective and perhaps wave-winning political argument…doesn’t mean they’re true. After all, he is the only one who’s worked in a bipartisan way on big challenges.

Watch your back Wendy! If they went after Joe the Plumber with such hate, I imagine that Bug-Eye Bill Burton will be drooling to impugne your honesty and talents.

*Wendy Button is a writer in Washington, DC. She has written for Senators John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Mayor Tom Menino of Boston as well as other national and international leaders. She received her MFA in writing from Bennington College and is currently writing the CNN Heroes Award Show to air Thanksgiving night.

A speechwriter for Obama, Edwards, and Clinton on why she’s voting McCain.

McCain is the Only Choice

Senator Obama reads a good speech and wears a good suit. Senator Obama has no resume - community activist? Liberal Economic dabbler? College lecturer? A Presence in the Illinois Legislature? A dancer on Ellen?

He's be a great Toastmaster General! Awonderful and inspiring MSNBC -commentator to be sure, but no where near as solid as Harold Ford. That is about it.

John McCain is a Patriot, Statesman, National Legislator and Leader. Here's McCain!

Senator Obama may say he's trying to soak the rich, but it's the middle class who are going to get put through the wringer, because even the tax increase he admits to misses the target. To pay for nearly a trillion dollars in new government spending, his tax increase would impact 50 percent of small business income in this country, and the jobs of 16 million middle class Americans who work for those small businesses.

Whether it's Joe the Plumber here in Ohio or the working men and women across this country, we shouldn't be taxing our small businesses more as Senator Obama wants to do, we need to be helping them expand their businesses and create jobs. America didn't become the greatest nation on earth by giving our money to the government to "redistribute." In this country, we believe in spreading opportunity, for those who need jobs and those who create them. And that is exactly what I intend to do as President of the United States.

My opponent's massive new tax increase is exactly the wrong approach in an economic slowdown. The answer to a slowing economy is not higher taxes, but that is exactly what is going to happen when the Democrats have total control of Washington. We can't let that happen. We need pro-growth and pro-jobs economic policies, not pro-government spending programs paid for with higher taxes.

This is the fundamental difference between Senator Obama and me. We both disagree with President Bush on economic policy. The difference is that he thinks taxes have been too low, and I think that spending has been too high. Senator Obama's priority is not to get spending under control, it is to spend more, and if he has to tax you to do it, he's shown in the past that he doesn't have a problem with that.

We cannot spend the next four years as we have spent much of the last eight: spending ourselves into a ditch and hoping that the consequences don't come. We need to get our government under control, and we need to get our economy moving again. We have to act. We need a new direction, and we have to fight for it.

I've been fighting for this country since I was seventeen years old, and I have the scars to prove it. If I'm elected President, I will fight to shake up Washington and take America in a new direction from my first day in office until my

McCain/Palin Will Upset Chicago Tribune, Hollywood,MSNBC,ACORN, Ayers, Wright, . . .

John McCain and Sarah Palin are poised to pull off a victory over a completely artificial construct - Senator Barack Obama. From the day, that Senator Obama announced his run for the White House in Springfield, IL -in shadow of Abraham Lincoln's Myth, Obama has been choreographed, scripted, produced and marketed by a powerful force that is no friend of the Middle Class.

However, voters are quietly gearing up to send a message: John McCain will be President of the United States. The stakes are too great to simply go along with Oprah, Barbra Steisand, P-Diddy, MoveOn. Org, Daily KOs, Huffington Post, Newseek, NBC, Campbell Brown, SEIU, ACORN, the DNC, Billy Ayers, Tony Rezko, Allison Davis, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Ward Churchill, Chris Mattews, Jonathon Alter, Colin Powell, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Chris Dodd, CNN, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and 84% of the Eurpeans Polled by Camp Obama. Obama has played Race and will continue to do so.

Newsweek's Jonathon Alter has done this for months and wants to scare the kids with more:

the three fifths of the electorate that shows up once every four years to vote for president but mostly hates politics. These are the 75 million folks who didn't vote in the primaries. They don't read newsmagazines or newspapers, don't watch any cable news and don't cast their ballots early. Their allegiance to a candidate is as easily shed as a T shirt. Several million moved to Obama through September and October; they'd heard he handled himself well in the debates. Then, in the last week, the LIVs swung back to the default choice: John McCain. Some had good reasons other than the color of Obama's skin to desert him; many more did not. In October, a study by the Associated Press estimated that Obama's race would cost him 6 percent. The percentage was smaller, but still enough to give the presidency to McCain.

Nope. Cry Race all you want. Obama is perceived to be a good script reader and dandy presence and that is all. Chicago news media, with two exceptions Tim Novak and John Kass, have been Obama's propaganda arm.

Obama has Propaganda and the threat of Race and that won't do it.


Against this we had a guy in Ohio ask a question of Obama and watched the Media try to destroy him with the help of Ohio State agencies. Voters heard Obama - unscripted, off-message and without spinners. He is out to take away the Middle Class. No debate and no exceptions. Obama Ayers Democrat and his record with Woods Fund and Chicago Annenberg Challenge prove that - former Chicago Schools CEO Paul Vallas outed Obama and Ayers. They did nothing to Reform Chicago Public Schools.

I have polled my neighbors and witnessed the McCain/Palin signs in this traditional blue collar community. Cops, firemen, nurses, bank employees, teachers, skilled tradesmen, small business operators and service employees are voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

McCain will carry my precinct and the Country.

Charles Krauthammer - I am for McCain! Must Reading for Americans!

October 24, 2008
McCain for President
By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- Contrarian that I am, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over. I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.

I stand athwart the rush of conservative ship-jumpers of every stripe -- neo (Ken Adelman), moderate (Colin Powell), genetic/ironic (Christopher Buckley) and socialist/atheist (Christopher Hitchens) -- yelling "Stop!" I shall have no part of this motley crew. I will go down with the McCain ship. I'd rather lose an election than lose my bearings.

First, I'll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory. The "erratic" temperament issue, for example. As if McCain's risky and unsuccessful but in no way irrational attempt to tactically maneuver his way through the economic tsunami that came crashing down a month ago renders unfit for office a man who demonstrated the most admirable equanimity and courage in the face of unimaginable pressures as a prisoner of war, and who later steadily navigated innumerable challenges and setbacks, not the least of which was the collapse of his campaign just a year ago.

McCain the "erratic" is a cheap Obama talking point. The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.

Nor will I countenance the "dirty campaign" pretense. The double standard here is stunning. Obama ran a scurrilous Spanish-language ad falsely associating McCain with anti-Hispanic slurs. Another ad falsely claimed McCain supports "cutting Social Security benefits in half." And for months Democrats insisted that McCain sought 100 years of war in Iraq.

McCain's critics are offended that he raised the issue of William Ayers. What's astonishing is that Obama was himself not offended by William Ayers.

Moreover, the most remarkable of all tactical choices of this election season is the attack that never was. Out of extreme (and unnecessary) conscientiousness, McCain refused to raise the legitimate issue of Obama's most egregious association -- with the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Dirty campaigning, indeed.

The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.

Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who's been cramming on these issues for the last year, who's never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of "a world that stands as one"), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as "the tragedy of 9/11," a term more appropriate for a bus accident?

Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts, but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?

There's just no comparison. Obama's own running mate warned this week that Obama's youth and inexperience will invite a crisis -- indeed a crisis "generated" precisely to test him. Can you be serious about national security and vote on Nov. 4 to invite that test?

And how will he pass it? Well, how has he fared on the only two significant foreign policy tests he has faced since he's been in the Senate? The first was the surge. Obama failed spectacularly. He not only opposed it. He tried to denigrate it, stop it and, finally, deny its success.

The second test was Georgia, to which Obama responded instinctively with evenhanded moral equivalence, urging restraint on both sides. McCain did not have to consult his advisers to instantly identify the aggressor.

Today's economic crisis, like every other in our history, will in time pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet? I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com
Copyright 2008, Washington Post Writers Group

McCain Blew the Last Debate -Race Cards Will Shower Down From Obama Until It's Over

McCain blew the last debate. John McCain failed to follow-up on every lifeless jab at Obama's puff-pastry thin resume, association, dodge and the agenda that underlies his entire political ascent - the deconstruction of the middle class and redistribution of wealth imperative.

Andy Stern's conglomerate of PACs and SEIU are in the vanguard of Democratic National Committee's agenda to make advocacy political, one payer ( Government) health care, and monolithic American work force the Obama Magic Carpet.

McCain had Obama's hands on his forehead while his long arms kept the tiny fists from connecting anywhere. Never once did John McCain touch a rib, much less bloody Obama's nose.

It seemed that McCain's corner men had him train for a pygmy when in fact he was in the ring with Goliath.

Obama could have knocked McCain out but did not - he did not need to do so:Nothing about Franklin Raines and Fannie Mae, No Rezko, No Wright, No Real Ayers, NO SEIU, no nothing. Most of all, McCain had Obama pushed to ropes on on the John Lewis Race Baiting nonsense and McCain let him go . . .without question or consequence! You had Obama on Race and now he has McCain set up for an endless shower of Race-baiting charges. Anyone who votes for McCain is a racist and any objection to Obama is racist.

For the next 18 days, MSNBC cheerleaders and CNN sycophants will shower down charges of racial coding and subtext that will all but maintain McCain Camp's position in the corner.

McCain's fight was fixed from the start. He was going down. He did not fight Obama; he fought George Soros and those who see an opportunity to lard their fortunes by his lead; he fought SEIU and never once challenged their important part in this enterprise to deconstruct American Labor; he fought the corporate media NBC,ABC,CBS,the news papers, as well as the cartoonish 24 hour news cable circus; McCain fought eight years of Bush/Cheney; he fought Islamist Terror and their stooges in American Academia.

Now, the American voter is the last man standing.

Charles Krauthammer details the endless shower of Race Cards:

In the name of racial rectitude, McCain has denied himself the use of that perfectly legitimate issue. It is simply Orwellian for him to be now so widely vilified as a stoker of racism. What makes it doubly Orwellian is that these charges are being made on behalf of the one presidential candidate who has repeatedly, and indeed quite brilliantly, deployed the race card.

How brilliantly? The reason Bill Clinton is sulking in his tent is because he feels that Obama surrogates succeeded in painting him as a racist. Clinton has many sins, but from his student days to his post-presidency, his commitment and sincerity in advancing the cause of African-Americans have been undeniable. If the man Toni Morrison called the first black president can be turned into a closet racist, then anyone can.

And Obama has shown no hesitation in doing so to McCain. Just weeks ago, in Springfield, Mo., and elsewhere, he warned darkly that George Bush and John McCain were going to try to frighten you by saying that, among other scary things, Obama has "a funny name" and "doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills."

McCain has never said that, nor anything like that. When asked at the time to produce one instance of McCain deploying race, the Obama campaign could not. Yet here was Obama firing a pre-emptive charge of racism against a man who had not indulged in it. An extraordinary rhetorical feat, and a dishonorable one.

What makes this all the more dismaying is that it comes from Barack Obama, who has consistently presented himself as a healer, a man of a new generation above and beyond race, the man who would turn the page on the guilt-tripping grievance politics of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

Vote! I Voted for McCain/Palin. Even if a fight is fixed - Keep swinging.

Joe the Plumber -I Too Hope It Ain't So, Joe - The Vanishing Middle Class

Joe - I am with you! I am as proudly partisan a hack as they can get - when I am for people I admire in Life and also in the cartoonish world that is politics, I stick with my friends. Generally,in politics, they tend to be hard working and honest elected officials at the local level, but with John McCain I see one of us. A genuine Middle Class Man! McCain is the real deal and no talking points or nuanced parsing changes that fact.

However, John McCain needed to give Senator Obama a real trimming and he did not. It was a debate, I know, but McCain really needed to land some serious punches and never seemed to get close.

Senator Obama was the Quill! Sadly, this media driven putsch on the White House is going the way of the people who are no friends of you, or me.

The Media decided long ago not to look into anything that would possibly keep Barack Obama from becoming the first black American President - in their infinite and unlimited gall - The Country Needs This More Than Anything. More than good schools. good teachers, a sound economy, a robust national defense, and a secure American middle class.

Ayers is a punk - with a well-heeled and well-connected cadre of cheerleaders.

Should President Obama take the oath of office the radicals who disrupted the 1968 Democratic Convention and their media stooges get their victory. Fair enough.

SEIU will dismantle the American Labor Movement.

The Fairness Doctrine will slide through and kill Free Speech.

Public Schools (Charter & Normal) will continue to make education an international laughing stock.

Abortion Industry will flourish.

America will lose the war on terror.

Hugo Chavez will keep an American President cooling his heels, until El Jefe deigns to see him.

The American Dream by 2010 will not fill a single REM cycle.

Chris Matthews's legs will tingle, because his race-baiting BS is far from done.

I already voted for John McCain here in Chicago. I hope that more people do the same. It looks bad, but I have Faith in Americans.

2012 is very long way off and I hope that you can hang onto your business. My youngest will be graduating from high school and about the only jobs an American Kid can look forward to will be working for a Community Activist or stooging for ACORN. The building trades will disappear.

John McCain, Bring Up the Ohio Plumber

McCain will blow up Obama, like Billy Ayers with a Home Depot full of C-4, if he snakes the pipes of Kid Hope's Redistribution of Wealth Imperative!

Make the Plumber's Help keep a plunging down on the Obama's Pie Hole until the Marxist slug rushes up out of the Old P-Trap!

Here is Jake Tapper's Great report from Oct. 12, 2008 when the Plumber plunged into the Campaign and brought up the burping pipes of Obamanomics!

In Working-Class Ohio, Obama Meets Amorous Dogs, Skeptical Plumber
October 12, 2008 5:58 PM

OREGON, OHIO -- On Shrewsbury Street in the working-class Lincoln Green section of Holland, Ohio, Sunday afternoon, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., knocked on some doors to chat with voters in this battleground state where polls have him and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., neck and neck.

Sue Sekel, a 43-year old health care worker wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt with the words "Las Vegas" written in a Tommy Hilfiger-like pattern, told Obama she'd voted early.

She also said Sunday was “the one day I come home to clean ceiling fans and look like crap, and then this happens.”

Clutching cameras, three teenage girls raced to him from across the street, with no shoes on.

“Where are your shoes?” Obama asked them.

He took photos with them, and others, shaking hands, talking about the economy.

The mother of one of the girls, Shelly Kretz, stood on the periphery of the group while snapshots were being taken.

“Mom, you look good. C’mon,” Obama said to her.

Kretz, a 38-year-old employee of Proctor & Gamble, reluctantly joined the group for a photo. Later, she told reporters that she'd been on the fence, but she liked Obama's answers to her neighbors' questions.

“It’s really awesome that he takes the time to talk to the middle class and answer questions,” she said. Kretz said her brothers were also there, and had also been converted by Obama’s appearance this afternoon.

Obama approached another house but was warned by one neighbor about two amorous dogs.

“Oh, is that right?" Obama asked. "So I don’t want to get too close, huh? They might start, they might start."

The dogs began canoodling with one another.

"Yeah, they seem like they enjoy themselves," Obama said. He then told the dogs, "Alright, don’t do anything in front of the cameras that would be inappropriate."

He reached down to pet them, scratching a small black dog behind its ears.

“Do you believe in the American dream?” a local plumber asked.

Obama said he did.

"I'm being taxed more and more for fulfilling the American dream,” the man said, in comments interpreted by reporters as a reference to the Democrat's proposal to increase income taxes on those making $200,000 or more a year.

Obama recited his now-familiar talking points about 95 percent of the American people would get a tax cut under his plan.

The plumber did not seem convinced.

As Obama left the man, he said, "I've got to go prepare for this debate, but that was pretty good practice."

As the old Marxist dodger Andre Malraux would say, "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets."

Sometimes we need a great plumber!

Eric Zorn is a 6th Grader -Ayers is a Terrorist and McCain is an Adulterer.

If Ayers is a terrorist, then McCain is an adulterer and I am a 6th grader.

Perhaps history will one day judge harshly all of those who participated in educational reform efforts or other civic projects in which Ayers was involved. This will include former University of Illinois and Northwestern University presidents; top honchos at Ameritech, Continental Bank and the Field Museum; and even the former publisher of the Tribune

Eric Zorn's Change of Subject



Yep. McCain committed adultery. I hate adultery. I never once even considered cheating on my late wife who struggled like a Champ through brain cancer and to her return to Christ. I don't forgive adultery. However, I have voted for many adulterers for public office - Bubba is World Class Tom Cat-er and I voted for Clinton twice. Billy Ayers is a terrorist and will always be one. McCain cheated on his wife and she forgave him. Bubba cheated on Hillary and they are still together. Billy Ayers would blow up anything to do with the integrity of American Life with dynamite or pedagogy and that I do not forget or forgive, but as long as Ayers obeys the law may he live peacefully in the ignominy he so well deserves.

Eric Zorn is busy doing nuanced parsing about Obama/Ayers - Obama made his bones with Billy Ayers.

Eric Zorn is a 6th Grader. McCain is an Adulterer; Eric a 6th Grader; and Billy Ayers an unrepentant domestic terrorist. Now that we have that settled. . .Eric. . .here is your curriculum Get Busy, Big Boy!

REQUIRED COURSES


COMMUNICATON ARTS
The sixth grade Communication Arts class is a required full year course. The class will focus on the total writing process and center on grammar, mechanics, and spelling. Writing will include effective sentences, paragraphs, compositions, and reports. The class will include at least one oral presentation.


SOCIAL STUDIES
Sixth grade Social Studies is the study of geographic regions of the world. Students study the social, political, economic and physical aspects of world geography. The study of world geography helps the student gain a greater understanding of countries' locations, cultures, developments, relationships and interdependence.


SCIENCE
Sixth grade General Science is a course which builds upon elementary science. The course includes integrated units of study on life, earth and physical science in preparation for specific courses in grades 7-12. Experimentation will be an integral part of science instruction and process skills will be stressed. Students will be prompted to question, investigate, explore and hypothesize. Activities may include the construction of models and/or the use of manipulative, interactive and physical materials.


MATHEMATICS
Sixth grade Mathematics, a survey of mathematics, will review and extend the mathematical concepts of whole numbers and fraction arithmetic, statistics, and geometry.


READING
Sixth grade Reading is a required course that meets daily throughout the school year. Students will use a wide variety of reading materials and genres appropriate to their reading and interest levels. Previously learned reading skills will continue to be reinforced while new comprehension, vocabulary and study skills are introduced. Students will participate in silent reading during regularly scheduled blocks of time.


PHYSICAL EDUCATION (ALTERNATE DAYS)
Sixth grade Physical Education is a progressively planned co-educational program in lifetime sports. Content will include large and small group games, skill drills, individual sports activities, and related lifetime sports.




EXPLORATORY COURSES
PROGRAM 1
Art (Alternate Days) - Sixth grade Exploratory Art will involve the student in the basics of two-dimensional drawing, painting, printmaking and design as well as three-dimensional forms. A variety of methods and media will be stressed with hands-on activities.
Music (Alternate Days) - Sixth grade General Music is a semester class required of all students who are not enrolled in Beginning Band or Orchestra. Classes meet every other day, alternating with Physical Education. Two main areas of study include music reading fundamentals and music literature. Reading fundamentals will be developed primarily through the study of vocal music. The music literature component will consist of an historical overview of the western art music tradition.
PROGRAM 2


Beginning Band - Beginning Band is a year-long course designed to offer students an opportunity to learn to play a band instrument. Students will be divided into like instrument groups. Emphasis will be placed on learning basic instrumental skills and technique, care of the instrument and music terminology.


PROGRAM 3
Beginning Strings - The Beginning String program includes students in grades five, six, and seven. At this level students are encouraged to work for musical performance by producing a good tone, playing in tune, and developing correct technical skills. At the end of the first year of study, students are given the opportunity to perform in an all district orchestra.
Junior Orchestra (Alternate Days) - Junior Orchestra is a year-long class for sixth grade students who have completed Beginning Strings. Emphasis will be on note reading and ensemble playing. Some performances are required.

Let's See Some Real McCain Raised in Anger!

Do take the gloves off Senator McCain. Load the gloves with 1/2" ball bearing and give Obama some well-placed slaps in the puss.

Speak from your heart and toss punches from a wind-up that Mark Buehrle could only dream of.

It is time for America to see the real John McCain.

Treat the MSM with all of the contempt that they deserve.

Treat insult with forgiveness and Christian Charity, while Keith Olbermann picks up his bloody Chicklets from the side walk.

Give Milky Matthews a reason to blanch to a new shade of whiteness.

Most of all Give The New Messiah a full understanding of not only Gethsemane by a real taste of Calvary as well.

While you are at them, tell MSNBC Balloon Dancer Andrea Mitchell to find some gainful employment with a Gary Indiana Gentleman's Club.

I fully agree with Jon Swift:

Americans don’t want a President like Obama who is calm and cool in a crisis and never seems to break a sweat. They want a President who is as angry as they are, someone who will lash out unpredictably at our enemies. They want a President who thinks with his gut instead of his brain. They want a man who will pick up the phone at 3 a.m. and tell the person on the other end what he can do with himself before slamming the receiver down. Do you think anyone will dare to mess with America when a man like John McCain has his finger on the button?

If only Americans could see the real John McCain, instead of the one who calls everyone “my friends” when he doesn’t really mean it and hides his contempt behind a smile of gritted teeth. And let’s see how calm Obama is when McCain gets in his face and shoves him off his stool. So in the next debate let McCain be McCain and let the chips fall where they may. At this point it may be his only chance to win.

Put Country First! Put your foot squarely up the metaphorical cavities of your enemies and leave your shoes there to remind them of what all real President is all about!

John McCain - Say 'No' in Thunder! Vote No Bailout!

Senator McCain, Please Vote No on the Bailout Bill when you enter the Senate and Shout Out No - in Thunder!

This is a bad bargain with the Devil for America! I have no dog in this fight. I have no money. My salary goes to mortgage ( saved and locked), utilities, kids tuition, groceries, my Church and charities, gas, and tons of taxes. I am worried that my kids will suffer for decades if this bargain is sealed.

Consider what your native Arizonans say:

First, Congress should suspend the mark-to-market accounting rule for mortgage-backed securities. This requires MBSs to be booked for the highly discounted price at which they can currently be sold, not the much higher price they are likely to be worth if held to maturity.

The bill rejected by the House would have empowered the SEC to suspend the rule. Instead, Congress should mandate it. This would provide virtually as much balance sheet relief as Paulson's proposal that taxpayers buy the MBSs.

Second, enact the House Republicans' idea for the federal government to insure MBSs. Paulson says it won't work. But he would have a hard time explaining why companies pay trillions for such private insurance but won't purchase more secure insurance from the federal government.

Third, have the federal government guarantee the refinancing of homes based upon extending the life of the mortgage for as long as it takes, even if well beyond the conventional 30-year period, to reduce monthly payments to a certain percentage of income. With such a program, no one would have to lose their home, lenders wouldn't have to take a hair cut, and, given the income requirement, federal outlays would be minimal.

This program relieves the credit crunch caused by artificially depressed MBSs as much as the federal government is capable of doing. It doesn't fundamentally change the role of the federal government in the private economy, as House Republicans fear. It helps homeowners, as Democrats want.

And it doesn't put taxpayers at considerable risk to bail out imprudent big-boy investors, as a remarkable coalition of independent-minded Democrats and conservative Republicans commendably called a halt to on Monday.

Absolutely! Chicken Little Scam artists are all over this bailout.

There will be no Depression.

There will be no Collapse of the Economy

There will be no Bread Lines

There will be greater scrutiny placed upon the louses who cheated the tax-payers and Empty Suit Obama who wants to provide them cover.

Strike boldly McCain! Say No in Thunder!

McCain/Palin: Thompson on Palin and What Most Americans Know; The Media Will Not Allow It To Be So

Senator Fred Thompson states the case for Governor Sarah Palin. Most people I know feel the same way; yet, turn on the Tube, glance at the paper, or listen to the Radio and one might think otherwise. Sarah Palin scares the hell out of kooks and phonies - the power structure of my Party - the Democratic Party -is controlled by kooks and phonies.

Corporate NBC, CBS,ABC, most newspaper conglomerates like Tribune Company, Time/Warner, CNN, and affiliated DNC propaganda organs have done a pile-on of Sarah Palin and John McCain unknown hitherto in American politics.

This morning Senator Fred Thompson offers the view shared by most of the people I know - I know many people. I raise money from fabulously wealthy folks, drink coffee in the morning at Kean Gas Station with ComEd workers, Peoples Gas workers, County, State and City of Chicago workers and live among cops, firefighters, school teachers and a few community activists. I work at a Catholic high school ( Leo High School) that serves the poorest black families in Chicago. Two Leo Graduates were McCain Delegates - BTW. Here is how we feel.

When John McCain selected Governor Sarah Palin, as his running mate, the Democrats and their far-left constituency let out a primal scream that could be heard from sea to shining sea. How dare he choose someone that they and their pals in the media had not had a chance to vet (i.e. libel, slander, and otherwise and otherwise eviscerate). Ah, but it was not too late. These seekers of “a new kind of politics” poured torrents of malicious abuse upon her and her family.

Plane loads of scandal mongers, lawyers and other truth seekers became more numerous in Alaska than the polar bear, as they rallied local Democrats and disgruntled Republicans to their cause.

Here was a woman who chose to have children and a career. Aging Washington socialites weighed in with newly discovered sensitivity for mothers with careers outside the home. Here was a woman who became upset because her ex-brother-in-law had tasered her nephew and threatened her father. The Democrats and their friends had to save the country from a woman like this.

Governor Palin’s every comment was scrutinized by the media and judged against what Jefferson or Lincoln might have said. Never mind that her counterpart, the 30-year-Washington-veteran Joe Biden, apparently is unaware that America relies upon coal for a lot of it’s electricity or that he recently referred to a top level U.S. official’s visit to Iran that never happened. That’s just Joe being Joe – protected by the sheer number of his gaffes and the fact that he is Barack Obama’s running mate.

For a while there it seems the fact that so many uninformed yahoos (average people) love her was going to drive the main stream media nuts. They had a hard time grasping the fact that people like her because she is precisely the kind of politician that everyone has been saying they’ve wanted: Independent, not a captive of the Beltway including a Congress with a 9% approval rating, who will take on hacks of either party; who has the tenacity to win and the courage to fight for the long-term benefit of those she represents.

Apparently what no one counted on was that a politician like this would actually show up on the national scene. The media was caught by surprise. The media doesn’t like surprises.

Naturally, there was a backlash to the treatment of Governor Palin and cooler-headed critics have largely concentrated on what they claim is her lack of qualifications. Of course much of the criticism of her qualifications reveals the application of the same old double standard. Less accomplished governors in times past have been considered to be perfectly “well-qualified” as VP picks.

However, it is a legitimate issue and should be taken seriously. I especially take seriously the criticism of people such as New York Times columnist David Brooks who I consider to be an insightful analyst of the political scene. He recently wrote that governance is hard. It requires acquired skills. Most of all it requires prudence. What is prudence? Among other things, it is the ability to absorb information and discern the essential current of events – the things that go together and the things that will never go together. It is the ability to engage in complex deliberations and to understand which arguments have the most weight. How is prudence acquired? Through experience. Experience allows a leader to judge what is important and what is not. He added, “Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter.”

One can hardly disagree with the desirability of our leaders having the qualities that Brooks describes (putting aside the question of how many of our leaders who are not Sarah Palin have demonstrated these qualities). But there are other important qualifications, such as will, courage, and determination. Frankly, an infusion of these qualities into our body politic is desperately needed – not just to raise hell with the establishment, but to speak the hard truth about unpleasant choices facing our country. To push for choices that will, in the long term, benefit our country, our children and our grandchildren. In other words, things which “prudent” leaders are all too often reluctant to do.

For many years we have failed to address looming problems that will prove catastrophic to our nation. It’s not because we are bereft of leaders with great experience. And it is not because they do not understand the “essential current of events.” They know these things all too well. It is because they do not have the political courage to do anything about it.

Recently, a Washington Post editorial pointed out that even before the recent financial crisis on Wall Street, the Government Accountability Office issued a report declaring the federal government on an “unsustainable long term fiscal path.” This was primarily due to the projected cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, brought on by an aging population. We will be spending $41 trillion dollars more on these entitlements in the next 75 years than we will receive in payroll taxes and premiums, although the crunch will actually begin much sooner than that. And we already owe Japan and China about $500 billion each.

David Walker, the former Comptroller General of the United States calls this problem much larger than the recent financial rescue plan. In fact he calls it the “super sub-prime crisis.” Which bring me to the current sub-prime crisis.

Wall Street and Washington were full of people who were “qualified and experienced” in the field of finance. Sen. Barack Obama, for one, has a great deal of experience in the housing field. So do many of his closest advisers. I would have traded some of that experience for a few more leaders with less experience and more courage to buck the establishment and tell the truth about what was happening.

This brings me back to Governor Sarah Palin, and why I say that courage and political will are at the very top of the “qualification” requirements for today’s leaders. So the question is, how does Sarah Palin compare on that score with Biden and Obama, for that matter? Very well, I’d say.

McCain/Palin: Chicago Sun Times Steve Huntley Praises McCain Presidential Leadership in Crisis

Steve Huntley, Chicago Sun Times columnist, bangs out a great evaluation of John McCain's Leadership during the Fannie Mae/Mac meltdown and DNC clown opera. While Obama does what he has done all of his career - wait, test the waters, get what he can and when pushed Vote Present - John McCain leads from the front. MSNBC is tripping over its agenda to clear the brush and right Obama's path - which he couldn't find without the Scout Masters holding his hand. John McCain knows the jungle and is out in front with a machete. By Columbus Day Obama will bedown in the polls by double digits.

Read Steve Huntley!

The bottom line: McCain was right last week when he said the rescue plan was on course for failure. Had Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid more attention to McCain's warning, heeded his call for a greater bipartisan spirit and acted on that advice instead of accusing him of political grandstanding, the headlines in today's paper might have been different. At the last minute it was Pelosi, not McCain, who waved the partisan red flag in a speech prior to Monday's vote. That likely doomed the Paulson plan by alienating the GOP ballots Pelosi needed to pass the bill since she didn't have enough Democratic votes lined up.

McCain's astute sizing up of the situation in Washington was just the latest example of a politician not known for expertise in economic matters proven to be right at key times on fiscal issues.

Just a week ago he came in for withering criticism from the Wall Street Journal and country club Republicans for suggesting that Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox should be fired because of the Wall Street meltdown. Now we learn from the SEC's inspector general that in 2006 the SEC staff "identified precisely the types of risks that evolved into the subprime crisis" but the agency failed to rein in the aggressive subprime investment practices of Bear Sterns, the first casualty in the meltdown. McCain, it turns out, was right to tag the SEC for failure to do its job.

McCain also proved prescient two years ago when he co-sponsored a bill to tighten regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They are the quasi-government mortgage underwriters at the epicenter of the financial crisis. Obama was silent on the issue.

Despite the stereotype presented about McCain, over the years he has demonstrated wisdom on economic issues.

This Just In! Air-Brushed Mo Dowd Banned from Straight-Talk Express!

Air-Brushed Mo, who looks like Dorian Gray's portrait in the 'For Real?' is reportedly banned from Plane McCain!
This from Ari at Firdoglake

Howard Kurtz drops this tidbit into his column:

The company may have been more pleasant than that of McCain aides, who have barred Dowd from the candidate's plane.

If the Obama campaign banned a FoxNews Reporter from the plane, I'm sure it would be the greatest crime against the first amendment ever committed. MoDo banned -- one sentence, no explanation.

Lacunae! as Mo would say!

McCain/Palin: 'I Have a Bracelet, Too' and Absolutely No Clue What It Means!

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CLICK MY POST TITLE FOR BARACK OBAMA'S "I HAVE A BRACELET,TOO!" Speech - 'thigh-tingling' . . .say the New York Times and Milky Mattews!!!!!

'From Sgt , Uh . . .'

Collect them All, Kids! Be A Real Commander in Chief! Just like the Big Guys!

Madre De Dios! The Kid's A Caution!

Here's another such reaction from the New York Post.

One of last night's most telling moments came when McCain revealed a wristband that had belonged to a soldier killed in Iraq given to him by the soldier's mother. Do everything in your power, the mother told McCain, to make sure "my son's death was not in vain."

"I've got a bracelet, too," Obama said - given to him by the mother of a dead soldier who asked Obama to "make sure that another mother's not going through what I'm going through."

Here lies the difference between these two men:

Obama will accept defeat if continuing on hurts too much. For McCain, any mission where defeat is an option is a mission not worth fighting in the first place.

Charles Hurt is The Post's DC Bureau Chief

.

churt@nypost.com

McCain/Palin: Stephen Hayes - The Real Story on the Franks, Dodd, Reid, Schumer Mad Haters Tea Party!

Read Stephen Hayes's account of the events concerning the Balls Up on Wall Street Crisis - created by Franks, Reid, Schumer and Dodd; dumped on the American Taxpayer; endangering the American Economy; and scuttling Obama's Auadacious Hopes of a Redistribution of Waelth President.

These four weasels and their Media stooges should be run out of office - for starters.

Stephen Hayes presents a genuine piece of reportage:

Yesterday afternoon, I went to CNN to talk about bailout politics. When I arrived, I was surprised to learn from the other two panelists--CNN's Gloria Borger and the Washington Post's Dana Milbank--that a deal on an amended version of the Treasury Department's $700 billion bailout plan was close. I was surprised because I had been hearing the opposite--that House Republicans were increasingly opposed to a deal and that such a deal seemed less likely yesterday than it was when the plan was originally proposed. But others, including the Associated Press, were reporting that a deal was imminent.

Then, earlier today, the AP reported that such a deal had, in fact, been reached. The Washington Post soon followed, in an article that strongly suggested McCain was irrelevant to the process and reported that he had arrived after a deal had been struck.


McCain's "Straight Talk Air" landed at National Airport just after noon, and McCain's motorcade sped toward the Senate. But by then, senior Democrats and Republicans colleagues were already announcing that a deal in principle had been reached.


The Obama campaign gleefully sent the Post story out to reporters at 4:22 and affixed its own headline: "'Straight Talk Air' lands after deal was announced."

So what happened? I'm not sure anyone knows the full story, but here is my take. When John McCain announced that he was suspending his campaign, Democrats moved quickly to portray the decision as strictly political. (Senator Chuck Schumer said as much in an interview on CNN.) An
important element of their case was convincing reporters that a deal was close and McCain presence was (a) unnecessary, (b) potentially detrimental, or (c) both.

But that's a hard case for them to make for two reasons. First, Harry Reid. On Wednesday Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had explicitly called for McCain to use his influence as party leader to bring House Republicans along. "We need, now, the Republicans to start producing some votes for us," Reid said. "We need the Republican nominee for president to let us know where he stands and what we should do." Reid explained that McCain was crucial to any deal because his approval of a deal would give congressional Republicans political cover necessary to sign on to a bipartisan agreement. The second reason: House Republicans were never on board. Earlier this week, they gave Vice President Dick Cheney an earful about their opposition to the deal. Yesterday morning, a group of about 50 conservative House Republicans got together and when one speaker asked for a show of hands from those who support the bailout, less than a handful said they were likely to support it. One staffer for a Republican in House leadership said: "Understand one thing. House Republicans were never on board."

By this morning, Senator Christopher Dodd and Representative Barney Frank--the two lead congressional Democrats on this issue--were telling reporters that a deal was close. But according to House sources, those claims were nonsense. "This was a smart political move by Senator McCain--working in a bipartisan fashion to try to get something done," says a senior House Republican aide. "It's something he's done in the past." Democrats, this Republican says, immediately began plotting to deny McCain credit for a deal if one was reached and to blame him if a deal was not reached.

Click my post title for the full Magilla! These creeps ( Franks, Dodd, Schumer, Reid)need an old fashioned tar and feathering! Obama has no clue about what is going on - he's being Presidential - President of Waffles!


Hayes! America owes you a beer the size of Senator Obama's hubris!