Political Hippo Circle Jerk - America, farg YEAH!

[SD_Eagle5]

Letter from someone who has known Sarah Palin since 1992

Eye opening and considering the detail I highly doubt it's fake...although she admits to holding a grudge against Palin.

I didn't think Palin's speech was anything great. I really think it was a case of her being such an unknown and people having low expectations of her public speaking ability.

[Diomedes]

She wasn't bad.  She's way better than the old man, but that's faint praise.  No question that she's the only exciting thing going on for the Republicans.  And boy, do they like to feel persecuted.  Riles 'em up good.

[PhillyGirl]

One thing that really bugs me about the past few days....how can you run on reform when you're the incumbent party....was summed up nicely in this article from the NY Times today:

Running Against Themselves


Three days into the Republican National Convention, it is clear that the G.O.P. has settled on a message: "Washington is not working." The phrase is included in virtually every speech and every statement in St Paul.

We agree completely that Washington is in desperate need of renewal and reform. We're not even going to quibble about the fact that Barack Obama said it first. The problem is that American voters have yet to hear — from John McCain or his warm-up acts — any serious ideas on what, exactly, is wrong with Washington, apart from the fact that a Democrat might win the White House, never mind how to truly fix it.

The difficulty for the Republican ticket in talking about change and reform and acting like insurgents is that they have been running Washington — the White House and Congress — for most of the last eight years.

Sarah Palin, the vice presidential nominee, was a combative and witty relief at a torpid convention. But it was bizarre hearing the running mate of a 26-year veteran of Congress, a woman who was picked to placate the right-wing elite, mocking "the permanent political establishment in Washington."

And we couldn't imagine what Mitt Romney was thinking when he denounced "liberal Washington" and then, at the convention of the party that brought you unimpeded presidential spying, declared: "It's time for the party of big ideas, not the party of Big Brother!"

As hard as he tries, Mr. McCain cannot escape the burdensome shadow of President Bush because his policies offer no real change. On the all-important issue of the economy, Mr. McCain has no prescription for ending the mortgage-driven crisis or for fixing the huge fiscal problems Mr. Bush has bequeathed the nation. He wants to make even deeper cuts in corporate taxes, eliminate the alternative minimum income tax and make permanent the Bush tax cuts that vastly favor the wealthy and that he once correctly opposed.

His only idea for balancing the budget seems to be controlling earmarks, which Republicans now denounce with the sort of single-minded fervor they used to reserve for Democratic-appointed judges.

Permanently extending the tax cuts would reduce tax revenue by $1 trillion over four years. If Mr. McCain eliminated every earmark (including money for the gas pipeline that Ms. Palin wants to build in Alaska), the savings would total about $18 billion a year. He hasn't offered any idea of where he'll get the rest of the money.

He has not explained how he plans to rein in out-of-control financial firms and avoid a repeat of the mortgage disaster. Mr. Bush's ideological opposition to sound government regulation is in large measure to blame for the economic crisis, but when Mr. McCain talks about fixing Washington, that subject never comes up.

Mr. McCain also has yet to explain to voters how he intends to go on paying for the war in Iraq — and also fix a dangerously stretched and overburdened military. Mr. McCain talks about energy independence. But his primary solution is not a solution: drilling and more drilling.

Mr. McCain says he is the candidate who will better protect the country from terrorism. But about all he has to offer is his pledge to continue the war in Iraq. We have yet to hear an explanation for how he plans to do that while also salvaging the war in Afghanistan — the real front line in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Now that everyone agrees that Washington needs fixing, we hope Mr. McCain will offer more than partisan boilerplate when he addresses the convention on Thursday night.

Another thing is summed up nicely...for all of the Righties and their whining about Obama being all talk and no substance....All I heard from the Dems so far from the DNC was HOW they are going to do things, yet all I hear from the RNC is a whole lot of "YAY USA!" "Democrats aren't patriotic", "Victory in Iraq!" and a whole lotta "We're going to do this and that" with no explanations whatsoever.

[ice grillin you]

I don't think you'll find a prominant democrat actually doing that but the GOP needs that us against them we're being persecuted because we're Christian thing going for them.  

i have to say they played it beautifully...create a fake elite media blitzkrieg on their candidate two days before her coming out speech...it put the media into a corner...it will and has garnered almost universal praise because if they criticize the speech the made up conspiracy is all of a sudden true

the right wing really is a despicable crop of human beings but damn are they good at politics

[Diomedes]

the right wing really is a despicable crop of human beings but damn are they good at politics

that's not a coincidence

[Father Demon]

They were "lying" the time when they were running against Obama.

Link?

See 2008 Democratic Convention.

You mean the one when an insincere Hillary read her support for Obama, but never once said he would be a good president?  

re: PG's post - the article is dead on in one respect.  Romney's speech had me scratching my head during the entire thing.  It was like he had no clue that the Pubs were in office, and he had the Red and Blue government confused.  Maybe he was strung out on coke or something.

I think the intent of the speech last night wasn't meant to focus on all the issues, but she did focus on three (based on my opinion):
1) Who she is and where she came from. She had been blasted since the pick, so she needed to talk about her roots, which she did.
2) She's good with energy.
3) Playing up the Pub angle that the Dem's will tax us to death and make government huge.  Accurate or not, that's their angle, and she worked it.

[phattymatty]

i've never seen so many old white people in my life.  

i admittedly only watched a few minutes of it last night, as after about 2 minutes of that shtein i'd get pissed.   it was pretty funny when romney started out.  He kept saying thank you, thank you for about 2 or 3 minutes, as if people kept wildly applauding him.  people stopped clapping minutes earlier.  as much as i'm against all repubs in this election, at least there is no chance or romney winning anything.  what a slimeball.

turned on once and rudy was talking, within 20 seconds i heard him say 9/11, with a pretty NYC backdrop on the large HD screen, and turned that off.

Palin didn't do too bad, although the 10-minute family intro was a bit much.  

[Cerevant]

That liberal juggernaut - the Associated Press - points out that just about every point made was bullshtein.

I agree that investigating family is irrelevant - the only reason the pregnancy issue was brought up was because of the rumors that Palin lied about Trig being her son.  Note that announcing her daughter's pregnancy was the McCain campaign's decision.

There isn't a "strength" that Palin supposedly has that hasn't been directly refuted by information available in the public record.

Yes, Obama was criticized by Democrats during the primaries- shocking.  But here's some news that you might not have been aware of: McCain was criticized by the Republicans during the primaries.  Strange but true.

[PhillyGirl]

Some of Palin's remarks stretch the truth
SPEECH: Gas pipeline, earmark issues have more subtlety than described.

Daily News staff and wire report

(09/04/08 01:48:20)

Gov. Sarah Palin's remarks to the Republican National Convention about her record in state government stretched the truth.

GAS PIPELINE

PALIN: "I fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history. And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly forty billion dollar natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence. That pipeline, when the last section is laid and its valves are opened, will lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.

THE FACTS: Palin implies that construction has begun on a major natural gas pipeline from the top of Alaska into Canada. That is not correct.

In fact, no building has begun and actual construction is years away, if it ever happens. This summer the Alaska Legislature, at Palin's request, passed a bill under which the state will issue a "license" to a Canadian energy company, TransCanada Corp., and pay it up to $500 million as an incentive to someday build this enormous project, which Alaska politicians have long sought with little success. The license is not a construction contract, and federal energy regulators have not yet approved the project.

Palin also puts the price tag for the project at $40 billion, an exaggeration. This is roughly $10 billion more than most cost estimates industry players and consultants have made to date.

EARMARKS

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million.

In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation, although she has cut, by more than half, the amount the state sought from Washington this year. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to Gravina Island, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/story/515517.html

[PhillyGirl]

also from the NY Times:

Biden on Palin: 'Whoa'
By John M. Broder

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. was out early with a response to his Republican Vice Presidential opponent, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, appearing on the major morning shows to answer her blistering speech to the Republican convention Wednesday night.

He praised her delivery but said the speech lacked substance. He also said that some of the criticism of her smacked of sexism and was "over the top, totally unfair."

On ABC's "Good Morning America," Mr. Biden, the six-term Delaware senator, said, "It was a very skillfully written, very skillfully delivered speech. "But there was not a word about the middle class or health care or how people are going to fill up their gas tanks or a single word about how we're going to get our kids through college."

All week Mr. Biden and his presidential running mate, Senator Barack Obama, have avoiding any criticism of Mrs. Palin that could be seen as personal. Mr. Biden has not questioned her qualification for the vice presidency, saying on Wednesday night that he intended to treat her "with respect."

"I mean that sincerely," he told an audience at a high school in Sarasota, Fla., "She is a governor of a state. She warrants respect. The only thing I have to find out and you have to find out are what are her views. I have made no judgment as to whether she is qualified or not."

On ABC Thursday morning, Mr. Biden said he was still looking for her specific views. "The bottom line here is the phrase middle class was not mentioned once. The economic plight, the hole the Republicans have dug so deeply the last eight years was not mentioned. No specific plans about how were going to get out of that hole was mentioned."

He also said, "They don't want to defend the past and they don't have any clear picture for what they're going to do for the future."

And he expressed some professional admiration for some of her "zingers" directed mostly at Mr. Obama.

"I thought 'Whoa,' " Mr. Biden said. "They're good, funny lines, but I'm glad they're not about me."

On another television program, NBC's "Today," Mr. Biden said Mrs. Palin had given "one heck of a political speech" and she would be a "formidable opponent" and a "very skilled debater."

[Wingspan]

The new york times has been known to make shtein up from time to time. just sayin.

[phillymic2000]

  @ PG I love the hate. This Palin chick has really pissed you off, and she's not even a dem. 

[ice grillin you]

only thing better than female on female hate is female on female love

[PhillyGirl]

The new york times has been known to make shtein up from time to time. just sayin.

Those are direct quotes....and the link (which I just realized I didn't post) has the interview. Not sure how the NYT is making shtein up?


Demon, you're right, I dislike her IMMENSELY. She is on the polar opposite side of everything I believe in. From banning books to outlawing abortions..even in the case of rape or incest. She took this on while her family is a complete MESS, which (as I stated last night) as a parent, I find despicable. She's exactly what the Reps all accuse Obama of being....all talk and no substance. And her speech last night (which I finished watching this morning) I found to be shrill (as is the best word I could find, even though I have seen it used elsewhere) and the 10 minute talk about her family crossed the line of pandering.

[ice grillin you]

she really is prehistorically backwards on the abortion issue...she doesnt even want abortion returned to the states....she wants it banned forever and absolute