Sex and Santorum

Really. What's with this guy?

But... I thought she was the most popular state governor around?

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The Anchorage Daily News, Alaska's largest newspaper, has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president.

The newspaper said Sunday the Democrat "brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand."

The Daily News said since the economic crisis has emerged, Republican presidential candidate John McCain has "stumbled and fumbled badly" in dealing with it.

Lies and deceptions

It worked so well the first time.

Indeed, today alone we learned that the McCain campaign's claim that Governor Palin traveled to Iraq is a lie. In fact, she didn't cross the Kuwait border. We learned that the McCain campaign is desperate enough to tell the press phony crowd numbers, which they falsely attributed to local elected officials and the United States Secret Service. And we learned that despite Senator McCain's claim that Governor Palin is a fiscal conservative, spending actually increased during her brief tenure as Governor.

But remember, it's isn't about the issues.

Apparently they're hoping you haven't been paying attention, you have completely bought into the illusion, or that you are, as the Republicans sincerely hope, actually stupid.

The reality of playing the stupid victim card...

He said it, not me: Divorced from reality

Stupid is as stupid does:

It isn't surprising that the McCain campaign wants this sort of tawdry, Freak Show/Reality Show vapidity to determine the outcome of the election. If you were them, wouldn't you want that, too? And though it's not news that establishment media outlets are so easily and happily manipulated by these tactics, tactics which enable them to cover "stories" which their empty-headed reporters can easily comprehend, it is still striking to watch the now-decades-old process unfold and observe how absolutely nothing has changed:

National Security = Energy to McCain.

McCain is going negative because Obama made him:

A series of ads — including accusations that Barack Obama backed teaching sex education to Illinois kindergartners and charges that Obama called Sarah Palin a lipstick-wearing pig — have provoked a cascade of criticism of McCain’s tactics.

The furor presents a breathtaking contrast to McCain’s image as a kind of anti-politician who plays fair, disdains politics as usual and has never forgotten how his 2000 presidential campaign was incinerated by a series of loathsome dirty tricks in the South Carolina primary.

The defense from the candidate himself — heard only on “The View” because he hasn’t held a news conference in more than a month — is to essentially assert that he’s savaging Obama because the Illinois senator wouldn’t agree to the series of town hall meetings McCain proposed at the end of the Democratic primary season.

Reformed Mavrik

Why Republicans are against birth control

Can't you tell his fingerprints are all over it?

Think Progress:

GOP operative: Rove has ‘consistent, medium-sized role with the McCain campaign.’

Though former Bush political guru Karl Rove insistently denies that he has a working relationship with Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign, the evidence that he is an informal adviser continues to mount. Last week, Time magazine described how “Rove speaks regularly with the McCain campaign.” Today, the Hill quotes a GOP operative who says “Rove has had a consistent, ‘medium’-sized role with the McCain campaign”:

A GOP operative said Rove has had a consistent, “medium”-sized role with the McCain campaign.

More of the McSame

Bounce this.

The Republican National Convention in... um... pictures as you've never seen it before!

And stay off!

We're not talking to the press neither!

He was against it before he was for it before he was in it!

Up to his neck:

After watching two political conclaves the last two weeks, it would be easy to be confused about which was really the gathering of the opposition. As Senator John McCain accepted the Republican nomination for president, he and his supporters sounded the call of insurgents seeking to topple the establishment, even though their party heads the establishment.

“When the president of the United States is from your own party, to present yourself as a change agent is not the easiest thing to pull off,” said Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist. Referring to Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, Mr. Trippi added, “All Obama has to do is say, ‘Bush-McCain, Bush-McCain.’ ”

Bush-McCain Bush-McCain Bush-McCain:

Even puppies?

My bold:

—Her administration disputes conclusions by the federal National Marine Fisheries Service and its science advisers that the beluga whale population is in critical danger. The state argues that 2007 data shows the whale rebounding.

—Palin opposed a state ballot initiative to increase protection of salmon streams from mining operations. It was defeated.

—She also opposed a ballot initiative barring the shooting of wolves and bears from aircraft except in biological emergencies. It was also defeated.

Under Palin, the state Board of Game authorized for the first time in 20 years the shooting of wolves by state wildlife officials from helicopters. The order resulted in the controversial shooting this summer of 14 one-month-old wolf pups taken from dens on a remote peninsula 800 miles southwest of Anchorage — an act that environmentalists claim was illegal.

State officials characterized the killings as humanitarian, saying the pups would have suffered and eventually died without the care of their parents. Environmentalists argued they were killed to boost caribou populations to the benefit of hunters.

Like many other Alaska officials, Palin argues her critics don't understand the North Country.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who has complained Alaska is killing more wolves than necessary and has pushed a bill that would put additional restrictions on the aerial killing of predators, has been among Palin's targets.

Miller "doesn't understand rural Alaska, doesn't comprehend wildlife management in the North, and doesn't appreciate the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that gives states the right to manage their own affairs," Palin said in a press release a year ago.

At least Cheney only shot caged quail and lawyers...

Exactly

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.

Putting Georgie out on an ice floe

And letting him drift away...

President George W. Bush's address, made via satellite from the White House, was widely recognized as an attempt by McCain to distance himself from an unpopular administration he is seeking to change as a maverick Republican. Bush became the first sitting president in four decades to miss his own party's convention.

"Far from being the kind of unifying sendoff and baton pass engineered for Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, the evening only highlighted Mr. McCain's eagerness to get the president off the stage," the New York Times said.

The president's eight-minute address was burnished with introductory and afterword remarks from the first lady, who served up "some straight talk" to the Obama campaign by citing achievements of her husband's administration in education reform and the fight against AIDS and malaria at home and worldwide. But Laura Bush's comments couldn't hide the fact that, "the GOP showcased an endorsement from Al Gore's 2000 running mate while stuffing their incumbent president into a box. Literally. Bush's only appearance at this convention was on the rectangular screens hanging around the Xcel Arena," as TIME put it.

Wonder how many speeches Bush will be asked to do after he's done prezniting?:

George W Bush has considered life after the White House and is very interested in his legacy, reports of interviews with the author of a new book suggest.

"I'll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol' coffers," Mr Bush told Robert Draper, author of Dead Certain: The Presidency of George Bush.

Mr Bush says he "can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch" in Texas.

Don't know about the empty coffers, Georgie, but don't worry about your legacy. That's been set in concrete.

Where the earth is flat ....

And it's always 1955. (Excellent photoshopping skills!)

At least he's finally honest about it

McCain Manager: 'This Election is Not About Issues'

UPDATE, 6:18 pm: In reaction to Rick Davis' comments about the election not being about issues, Barack Obama campaign manager David Plouffe released the following statement: "We appreciate Senator McCain's campaign manager finally admitting that his campaign is not in fact about the issues the American people care about, which is exactly the kind of cynical old politics people are ready to change."

[snip]

Rick Davis, campaign manager for John McCain's presidential bid, insisted that the presidential race will be decided more over personalities than issues during an interview with Post editors this morning.

"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

Davis added that issues will no doubt play a major role in the decisions undecided voters will make but that they won't ultimately be conclusive. He added that the campaign has "ultimate faith" in the idea that the more voters get to know McCain and Barack Obama, the better the Republican nominee will do.

[snip]

Davis demurred when asked when Palin will sit for interviews with major news organizations, pointing out that now would not be the right time given the "combative" attitude the media has seemingly adopted toward Palin. Pressed on the issue, Davis insisted that "we allot a lot more access in our campaign than any campaign in modern political history....we'll get around to it."

So... Senator McCain. It's not about the issues?

Just what are you running on, then?

Butler was a POW too?

That means he could be president, right? I do like the way he thinks....

Doctor Phillip Butler is a 1961 graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a former light-attack carrier pilot. In 1965 he was shot down over North Vietnam where he spent eight years as a prisoner of war.

After his repatriation in 1973 he earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at San Diego and became a Navy Organizational Effectiveness consultant. He completed his Navy career in 1981 as a professor of management at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Alaska first, Alaska Always...

Alaska to become its own country....

Officials of the Alaskan Independence Party say that Palin was once so independent, she was once a member of their party, which, since the 1970s, has been pushing for a legal vote for Alaskans to decide whether or not residents of the 49th state can secede from the United States.

And while McCain's motto -- as seen in a new TV ad -- is "Country First," the AIP's motto is the exact opposite -- "Alaska First -- Alaska Always."

Lynette Clark, the chairman of the AIP, tells ABC News that Palin and her husband Todd were members in 1994, even attending the 1994 statewide convention in Wasilla. Clark was AIP secretary at the time.

"We are a state's rights party," says Clark, a self-employed goldminer. The AIP has "a plank that challenges the legality of the Alaskan statehood vote as illegal and in violation of United Nations charter and international law."

[snip]

The AIP platform states that the purpose of the party is to "seek the complete repatriation of the public lands, held by the federal government, to the state and people of Alaska in conformance with Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17, of the federal constitution ... To prohibit all bureaucratic regulations and judicial rulings purporting to have the effect of law, except that which shall be approved by the elected legislature ... To support the privatization of government services ...”

[snip]

Earlier this year, Palin sent a video message to the AIP for its annual convention, where AIP vice chair George Clark told the small crowd that Palin "was an AIP member before she got the job as a mayor of a small town –- that was a non-partisan job. But you get along to go along -– she eventually joined the Republican Party, where she had all kinds of problems with their ethics, and well, I won’t go into that. She also had about an 80 percent approval rating, and is pretty well sympathetic to her former membership."

Lynette Clark says that Palin is "a fine individual. She's forthright and she puts Alaska first."

She is not a fan of McCain.

"I can't understand why in God's name she has aligned herself with a candidate who opposes the development of our republic and Alaska's resource wealth," Clark says.

Getting to know you....

Getting to know all about you...



The top two for the week.

Trying to pad the resume.

I guess we should take great comfort that Governor Palin did not attack Russia. Now that shows great diplomacy!

I'm sure right at this moment

You are being told exactly what a VP does:



By Dick Cheney: Rule the world, kill all foreigners sitting on oil, mock the Constitution, lurk in secret undisclosed liar. (*lair... Freud would be proud.)

By Georgie: Spread freedoms, do hard work, help the preznit look like the Deciderer Commander Guy!

By McCain: Bomb Iran, start war with Russia, remember good old days. Bomb Vietnam while you're at it. Get off his lawn.