I think not. Sarah Palin, The light has gone out in your soul.
Or to misquote Dan Quayle (who was misquoting the motto of the United Negro College Fund): “A soul is a terrible thing to lose… Or never to have one at all.”
When I was privileged to serve as President, we had a program based on a concept I called being One of a Thousand Points of Light. Simply put, Points of Light are people who get involved in their communities and help to make them better places to live.
We named 1020 Daily Points of Light while I was in Office, including several groups and individuals here in Baltimore.
One of them was the Volunteers for Medical Engineering, started by Westinghouse engineer John Stachlin in 1981. We recognized them as our 136th Daily Point of Light in May of 1990 for their work to utilize the creative expertise of engineers to help disabled citizens lead more comfortable and productive lives. I’m told that Johns Hopkins has a good association with this program.
– George HW Bush
Yes, George Bush the elder came up with a program to serve community needs by convincing everybody to pitch in. It was called “One Thousand Points of Light”. It was the ultimate in community organizing, publicly honoring people and community organizing groups who made a difference in the lives of those who needed help.
Of course, to me it seemed at the time that this was just a cover to eliminate funding the social safety net by getting poor people to band together to help each other, rather than providing government services at the taxpayer cost. Rich people could take care of themselves, and poor people had the same responsibility .
And where we stand now, the Republican party has reached the ungracious point of pulling out the rug from under those who need help, then kicking them when they’re down. Way to go, guys! Nothing shows your bravery, boldness, and leadership than making jokes about people who are trying to help themselves and others. Show your true colors while you have the chance…which is… yellow to the bone.
While you’re at it, go ahead and send a note to Poppy telling him he got it all wrong, Dubya. Though haven’t you been having some political differences with him the past few years? Story
A lot has happened since my last post, even though it was only a few days ago. The news was coming in at a burnout pace. The media has pretty much decided that the previous question (whose baby is this anyway?) is off-limits. Palin has announced that her daughter is pregnant by a 17 year old hockey player whose MySpace profile says he has no intention of having kids, though apparently this is not the first girl he got pregnant.
Abstinence-only sex education hard at work.
For those of us that are betting, bets are that the baby will either be born a couple of months late, which would set the date of conception off by a wee bit, or would be miscarried sometime in mid-October. Set your sundials.
Now that McCain has declared his VP candidate’s record as completely off-limits, ALL OF IT, not just her family and personal life, I guess we can just accept the history they fabricated for her.
After all, she is running as VP candidate with a guy who was a POW. Her political positions and past record in government should naturally be off-limits.
Now it turns out that McCain has canceled an appearance at a Habitat for Humanity photo-op. It turns out that community organizers are evil, they are big business. Or perhaps it’s their success that makes him look bad, or their connection with Jimmy Carter.
The problem is that the Repubs clearly didn’t look very closely at Palin before they chose her. As I alluded to in the previous entry, she has a big problem that’s going to be hard to deal with.
Remember, she unexpectedly announced she was 7 months pregnant. During the whole time she was apparently pregnant (which includes the time before she announced it), she was keeping up a full schedule, traveling, etc, and not “showing” at all. She even traveled to Dallas to make a speech. She gave that speech even though she had announced her fluid had started leaking several hours earlier. Then, instead of going to one of the rather well-equipped hospitals they have in Dallas, she took an 8 hour flight home to Alaska, stopping in Seattle. Once there, she traveled to an obscure small out-of-the-way hospital to give birth.
Three days later she was back to work with no restrictions.
Well, I’d say “Hmmm…”, but I’m not necessarily the person who the Repubs are concerned about. They did choose her in an effort to woo evangelicals, who might agree with her “pro-family” stance. But even these people are questioning how a person so committed to these ideals could do something so foolhardy as wait a day before seeking medical attention after going into labor and losing her water prematurely like that, a major complication. And since the baby has downs and is therefore special needs, who is taking care of the baby now, and who will be taking care of it if she moves to Washington and maybe even takes over some major responsibilies?
Well, then there is the other side, the people who say that she never was pregnant, and that it was her own daughter who bore the child. While the state website has repeatedly been scrubbed of all but a few selected family photos, there are still some interesting ones. Here’s a pic of Palin in Washington a week after announcing her pregnancy, which is 7 months + 1 week.
Now here’s a photo of what Palin looked like during a previous pregnancy.
It’s just so down-home traditional, so “50′s” for a family to send away a pregnant daughter, like Palin’s daughter Bristol who was pulled out of school for mononucleosis for a remarkable 5-8 months during the period of time in question. And then the mom raises the daughter as her own.
Except for the fact that forging a birth certificate is a crime. And if she really was traveling and delaying medical attention with her doctor’s blessing, the doctor should lose his or her license.
Here’s a pic of the daughter. Unlike another picture that was released in an effort to show that the girl just had a little plumpness in the midsection, in this pic it is clear that the bump on her belly is not babyfat.
I simply cannot imagine a way for her to weasel out of it. Either she did something irresponsible and unethical, or she did something irresponsible and unethical. Take your pick. And the McCain crowd checked her out and decided she was the best candidate to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.
Umm… Either that or picked her face as a good-looking woman he would like to get a lot closer to.
I guess the selection came as a big surprise to everybody, including his advisors, those on the supposed list of candidates, either the long or the short list (I hear those on the short list are pretty upset they got jerked around for publicity purposes, while McCain was never really considering them), McCain himself, and Palin herself.
The fact that she has significantly less governmental experience than the mayor of my city, while being under investigation for a sleazy little episode where she tried to get her brother-in-law fired from his job… I guess that stuff doesn’t count. After all, McCain is generally the least knowledgeable about just about everything, and he’s been investigated for major misdeeds himself.
So why would he choose her? Um… Look at her face. Do the words “former beauty queen” bring anything to mind, like “so was Cindy”? This was Gramps talking. He was scoping her out, and his libido got the best of him, what few brain cells he has left of those he ever had.
They say that when the two of them stand together, she looks like his daughter. No. She looks like his next wife. That’s what happened.
And now for a little light entertainment, the Palin for Governor 2006 ad starring Palin and Sen Ted “The Internet is a series of tubes” Stevens, who is currently being prosecuted for corruption. They pulled it down off her website just hours ago, but thanks to the cultural archive miracle they call “YouTube”, history lives on.
Err… Yes? Was there ever any question on that one?
UPDATE: Juicy rumor time. It seems that Gov. Palin turned up 7 months pregnant at a time when she had not put on any weight. Everyone was really surprised to hear this. The rumor is that it was actually her young daughter’s baby, as the girl had put on a load of weight and then soon lost it…
Not a long clip, but something to think about. I have heard that only about 6 months ago McCain said that there would be a place in his administration for Cheney. What a thought!
With mavericks like this working on our side, who needs the Apocalypse? Perhaps God is punishing Americans with Republican administrations for being stupid enough to vote them into office.
Perhaps you haven’t been following the issue. For years now right-wingers have been trying to find a way to keep potentially democratic (read non-white, lower-income) Americans from voting. They’ve come up with a lot of arguments based on the false premise that there has been a lot of vote fraud by poor people, liberals, etc, voting twice or impersonating dead people. Now part of it is to pull the attention from their own tactics – which we would be denouncing in any third world country as outright election-stealing. Things like uncertified or tampered voting machines, bizarrely unlikely vote counts, voting for Democratic precincts held in tiny locations with insufficient voting machines so that people will leave without voting, things which can credibly be said to have stolen enough votes to have swung Ohio in the last presidential election. All this is in spite of the fact that studies have shown that voter fraud of the sort they are claiming is virtually non-existent, while organized vote fraud led by people like Karl Rove is completely ignored.
“Advancement Project and Project Vote would like to see the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, issue a directive prohibiting Ohio electors from challenging Ohio voters whose name appear on any returned mailings and/or any past, current or future caging list. This is the best remedy to ensure that all Ohio voters are treated in a uniform manner during the November 2008 election because it permits the county boards to send out information to Ohio voters and at the same time ensures that all voters are permitted to vote without the threat of being placed on a list that is subject to challenge for no other reason than a returned mailing.”
The mainstream media has been working hard to make it appear that McCain is running neck and neck with Obama, to make it seem plausible when the totals unexpectedly turn out to throw it to the McCain?
We’ve heard it so many times from the McCain camp, beginning with the Paris Hilton/Britney Spears ad, but certainly not ending with it. The message is not that Obama is a celebrity in the sense of “a famous person”, but in the sense “a person who is famous but has done nothing to earn his fame”.
But this is intended to contrast with McCain, who…what?
Isn’t famous? McCain is a total media whore.
Is more intelligent, knowledgeable, sharp, consistent, or accomplished than Obama?
More intelligent? Nope. Graduated at the bottom of his class, probably thanks to daddy’s influence. He wouldn’t have even been at the Naval Academy if his father and grandfather weren’t admirals.
More knowledgeable? A guy who can’t remember his own position or voting record, and admits he knows next to nothing about foreign policy and economic? A guy who clearly does not know enough about geography to save him from making embarassing gaffes?
Sharp? People are only questioning his cognitive state because he seems to be impaired on a regular basis.
Consistent? McCain agrees with the current Administration that a true leader never changes his position in response to new facts and changing circumstances. It’s okay to sell out and lie about his record, though.
Is McCain accomplished? Aside from his war record, where he became a “hero” due to a trick of fate – surviving in a prison camp where they treated him better than the other prisoners – his achievements seem to be debatable. Many of his “achievements” in the Senate don’t look that impressive up close.
McCain is petty, partisan, and vindictive. His handlers limit him to 38 minutes a week with the press to keep him from shooting off his mouth. “Straight talk”? Maverick? How about “loose cannon”?
Do we want somebody for President who hasn’t earned his fame? If you do, McCain’s your guy.
Is it really some kind of virtue to consider even mediocrity in some way elitist? I consider myself a very intelligent person, but I agree with Jon Stewart. I want someone for President who is smarter than me.
The more McCain tries to establish himself as one of the common people and Obama as a member of some “elite”, the further he slips from reality.
Genetics is heritable, no question. But it’s clear that McCain did not inherit any of the leadership qualities of his father or grandfather. In fact, looking at his record – and that of our current President – it becomes clear that if you come from the right family, you can buy your way to the top with money and influence, regardless of how unqualified you are.
I wouldn’t buy a used car from that man. That’s how qualified he is. I might take a cart from him at Walmart, if he wasn’t giving me that creepy “gramps is grinning now” look. But maybe not.
Remember when just a few days ago John McCain came up with a pronouncement that he might ever-so-slightly ease up on his draconian anti-abortion position, but he would never ease up on his anti-gay position. There will be no place in a McCain administration for gays.
That doesn’t seem to have stopped him from accepting $2,300 in donations from the owner of the top gay pickup site. In fact, the donor was forced to step down from the board of Manhunt for his donation. But the McCain campaign is keeping the money, and the media is completely ignoring this story.
The donor is untouchable, but there is no money so dirty that McCain will not gladly accept it. Right.
It looks like the McCain campaign has egg on their faces. They had to pull the ad they put together using a segment of Wayne’s World (“We’re not worthy!”) after Mike Myers demanded they remove it from YouTube for copyright violation.
Seeing as how he’s a Canadian and all, maybe he doesn’t support McCain’s ideas.on.anything.
Maybe they didn’t ask permission because they didn’t think they’d get it, and were hoping they could get away without him finding out.
Can they do nothing right? Guess not. Neither the candidate nor his staff seem to have anything going for them. What would his presidency be like, um, if he didn’t decide to declare war on the entire rest of the world?
Where is the vision? Hmm, maybe they can look it up in Wikipedia…
Yeah, look up “copyright violation” in Wikipedia and copy it out by hand 100 times. Not McCain. Karl Rove.
Of course, it’s because John McCain is now claiming to be a “fiscal conservative”. Inquiring minds not just want but need to know exactly what that means, and Young Turks will explain that for you.
So you see, a “fiscal conservative” is one who will drastically cut taxes while in office, while dramatically increasing spending. A “tax-and-spend liberal” will produce a balanced budget for you.
It looks like fiscal conservatives are the new tax-and-spend liberals. Or is it the other way around?
What about John McCain. What is he? He’s a guy who admits he does not understand economics. Puhlease. Paris Hilton would make a better President.
She gave that speech even though she had announced her fluid had started leaking several hours earlier. Then, instead of going to one of the rather well-equipped hospitals they have in Dallas, she took an 8 hour flight home to Alaska, stopping in Seattle. Once there, she traveled to an obscure small out-of-the-way hospital to give birth. 
Now here’s a photo of what Palin looked like during a previous pregnancy.
Maybe they didn’t ask permission because they didn’t think they’d get it, and were hoping they could get away without him finding out. 
Where is the vision? Hmm, maybe they can look it up in Wikipedia…