ABC investigates Sarah Palin’s book censorship
In this speech 60 years ago almost to the date, President Harry S. Truman spoke to an audience of over 80,000 persons and a nationwide radio audience. Truman’s definition of the values of Democrats compared to that of Republicans, spoken so long ago, could easily describe the two parties today. Truman’s indictment of Republicans are as true today as they were 60 years ago.
I wish Sen. Barack Obama would give a version of this speech, give voice to these values everyday until election day on Nov. 4.
Harry S. Truman, XXXIII president of the United States, 1945-1953
September 18, 1948–Address at Dexter, Iowa, on the Occasion of the National Plowing Match.
Mr. President, and all the good farmers who are responsible for this wonderful demonstration:
It does my heart good to see the grain fields of the Nation again. They are a wonderful sight. The record-breaking harvests you have been getting in recent years have been a blessing. Millions of people have been saved from starvation by the food you have produced. The whole world has reason to be everlastingly grateful to the farmers of the United States.
In a very real sense, the abundant harvests of this country are helping to save the world from communism. Communism thrives on human misery. And the crops you are producing are driving back the tide of misery in many lands. Your farms are a vital element in America’s foreign policy. Keep that in mind, that is of vital importance to us and to the world.
And while I am on that subject–I know that the war talk which is so prevalent today is causing all of you deep concern. It is plain enough that we are facing a very disturbing international situation. I should like every American to realize that this country is making every possible effort to preserve the peace.
In this critical situation, my motto has been: “Keep your temper and stand firm.” We have kept our tempers. We have stood firm. And we have been reasonable and straightforward at all times.
It is the policy of this Government to continue working for peace with every instrument at our command. At the same time, we have been rapidly building up our strength. The peace of the world and the prestige of the United States require that the Nation be strong and vigilant.
But that is not the main point I wish to cover today. In addition to the issue of peace, there is another important reason why this is a critical period for America. I am talking about our economic future–your economic future.
So says the headline on a Washington Post headline. Funny headline by another group of people who see John McCain as this hero gone wrong.
With a phony flap and a misleading attack ad, the McCain campaign sinks into silliness.
Thursday, September 11, 2008; A16
IT’S HARD to think of a presidential campaign with a wider chasm between the seriousness of the issues confronting the country and the triviality, so far anyway, of the political discourse. On a day when the Congressional Budget Office warned of looming deficits and a grim economic outlook, when the stock market faltered even in the wake of the government’s rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when President Bush discussed the road ahead in Iraq and Afghanistan, on what did the campaign of Sen. John McCain spend its energy? A conference call to denounce Sen. Barack Obama for using the phrase “lipstick on a pig” and a new television ad accusing the Democrat of wanting to teach kindergartners about sex before they learn to read.
Memories are a funny thing.
For instance, I miss the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. I miss them not in the way you miss some beloved architectural marvel, or cherished place. It held no mystery to me. I don’t miss the roaring murmur and the apparitional faces of multitudes of commuters going everywhere and nowhere at once.
I never had to think of the towers when they were here. They were just here, two pins, in the New York skyline.
I’ve said this before, if not here then in other places, but for the days and weeks, months and years after that cataclysmic day, I missed them the way you would a missing limb, you know, the strong, overpowering itch you want to scratch where your legs used to be.
On that preternaturally beautiful and sunny day seven years ago–when somebody somewhere was mad enough to strike us deep where we lived and worked, to violate us in a way total, complete and that we never thought possible–I was still a newspaper reporter. The smoke and sooth that filled the lungs, the burning smell that subsumed the senses, the dazed people who emerged from subterranean New York places and their environs to search for loved ones.
I was there.
I attended so many wakes and funerals. For cops. Firefighters. Cantor Fitzgerald workers. Everyday people from all walks of life. Each day, I rolled out of bed, left my family to cope and record their grief all over this region, people touched by that tragedy. And each grief became my own. But, as I had with war and genocide and disease outbreaks in Rwanda, broken limbs and dead bodies from terror attacks in South Africa, I packed those memories away, submerged them where they could trouble only my dreams.
But I still had to and have to come by this way, by where the World Trade Center used to be.
I never realized how much my eyes searched for those landmark buildings, how reassuring their presence had been, how much of a ballast they were to my brains, my sense of place. Those familiarly bland structures, not seeing them made me realize there was a void. And so it was for all the years afterward.
That feeling is gone now. Was it smoothed away by the years? I doubt it. Too much that is troubling occurred for that to be it.
But, that’s it. I don’t miss the towers. Not anymore.
What I miss now is the feeling, the sense, the knowledge that we are a ‘can do’ nation, a people that can tackle any challenge, if we try, if we put our mind to it. There are still holes where the towers used to be, nothing rebuilt. New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are still messed up from Katrina, Rita, Gustav, FEMA, Bush, etc., etc. That bridge in Minnesota is still not rebuilt.
Our nation now is every man, woman, child for his or herself; I’ve got mine you get yours and, if you cannot, tough. That’s who we’ve become.
It didn’t have to become that way, of course.
I promise to tell the truth always about my intention and my beliefs.
Sen. John McCain, Republican presidential candidate
Some of my fellow bloggers and pundits (the redoubtable Andrew Sullivan, for instance, Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, and Time’s Joe Klein, to name just a few) had long labored under the illusion that John McCain was a principled, deeply moral politician.
As such, they have expressed disappointment at the disgusting extent his campaign is going to vilify Sen. Barack Obama with falsehoods and smears.
They beat their breasts in wails about how this man they trusted and respected had gone horribly off-track, jettisioned ideals they knew he had for the sake of political expediency. Andrew Sullivan’s latest can be read here.
McCain is not as pure as he was in 2000, the cry goes.
Me, I never had such illusions about McCain. He isn’t virtuous now; he wasn’t then.
I’ve always seen him as a man born into a life of privilege who feels entitled to everything he’s been getting and not getting.
That’s why he sleep-walked through the Naval Academy, graduating 894th out of 899 cadets. That’s why he never took his flight training seriously, crashing four aircrafts before the fateful one that led to his five-year sojourn as a prisoner of war.
Why hasn’t anyone in the media demanded that McCain have his record as POW, including statements he made on behalf of the enemy, be declassified? Please, don’t talk to me of his heroism until his full record has been examined.
Why did McCain finally leave the Navy?
How about the family he abandoned for the younger, richer wife who financed his political career.
The reputed “straight talk,” the excessive confessions and quick contritions were borne out of the Charles Keating debacle, merely cloaks he learned to wear once he was exposed as a corrupt politician.
Once he knew he would be lauded for honesty by coming clean about being in bed with Keating, the savings and loans magnate who swindled his customers out of billions of dollars and left American taxpayers holding the bag, there was no turning back.
McCain himself confessed “straight talk” and contrition became his chief strategy for burnishing his reputation. McCain, who has copped to staying at Keating’s Bahamas vacation villa about 10 times, ran interference for Keating with regulators to make Keating’s little perfidy possible. He was astounded at how quickly he was forgiven after he confessed and immediately decided it would be his modus operandi from thereon.
He did not, however, resolve to get out of bed with gift-bearing lobbyists, or stear clear of situation that called his integrity into question. If anything, he got deeper in bed with lobbyists. There was one point this summer when he shed daily lobbyists who were his campaign officials.
He still has at least seven still in the employ of his campaign as we speak.
So, yeah, McCain did not have some Road to Damascus moment during this campaign when he had a choice and he made the wrong one. Even when he was pledging to run a clean and civil campaign, he never had any intention of living up to it.
Despite the fact that the tenor of his campaign were imposed by former Bush handlers and Karl Rove disciples, the McCain we are seeing now is the one who was always there. This is the campaign he always wanted because he knows it’s the only chance he has to win the presidency.
So, expect more of the same and, please, spare me the crocodile tears about the change that has come over McCain.
As Republicans cry sexism at anyone who dares to question Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s qualification, here is a reminder of how craven Sen. John McCain has been in this whole quest to get the Republican nomination. He had an opportunity not to dignify a demeaning reference to Sen. Hillary Clinton and his answer was: “That’s an excellent question.”
I have written a couple of times on this and I was wrong both times.
The first time, I thought Scott Richter’s emergency Alaska court filing to have his divorce papers sealed was to conceal an affair he had with the moose hunter from The Alaskan Tundra (I was not the only one but that does not absolve me of responsibility for jumping to conclusions).
The next time, taking Scott’s side, I thought he filed the action simply because he wanted privacy for himself and his son.
The Wall Street Journal today reported that the reason Richter wanted the papers sealed was to conceal that he had called Sarah Palin to tell her someone on her staff was having an affair with his wife.
Sarah Palin and John Bitney go way back. They were in the same junior-high band class. Mr. Bitney was a key aide in Gov. Palin’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign. When she took office, she gave Mr. Bitney a job as her legislative director, and a few months later stood beside him at a news conference and praised his work.
“Whatever you did, you did it right,” she told Mr. Bitney and his team.
Seven weeks later she fired Mr. Bitney for what her spokeswoman now describes as “poor job performance.”
Bitney was seriously mistaken in how close he was to Gov. Palin, who was already upset with him for getting a divorce. The affair with Richter’s wife ticked off Palin and her husband. It turns out the Palins were even tighter with Richter:
“They were, you know, professionally my bosses, but they were my friends,” Mr. Bitney said of the Palins. “And so what caused them to want me to leave the governor’s office was my relationship, my divorce, my dating a woman with whom they had a personal relationship.”
* * *
Allies of Republican presidential nominee John McCain like to point out that his running mate is the governor of the largest state in the union. But at times, Alaska seems more like a small town, run by folks with overlapping professional, political and personal ties that can be difficult to untangle.
Gov. Palin and her husband, Todd Palin, were also close friends of the Richters. Ms. Richter served as treasurer of Gov. Palin’s gubernatorial campaign and her inaugural committee. After taking office, Gov. Palin put Ms. Richter in charge of the Permanent Fund Dividend Division at the Department of Revenue. The fund allocates oil revenues to Alaska residents; this year each Alaskan is expected to receive $3,269.
The two couples owned property together on Safari Lake, north of Wasilla, according to Gov. Palin’s financial disclosure reports. Each couple had its own cabin on the land, where the families would vacation side by side, according to Ms. Richter. In the most recent disclosure form, the governor reported that she and Mr. Palin now own the property with Mr. Richter alone.
The Journal story, the whole sordid mess, continues here . . .
Sarah Palin’s Alaskonomics By Michael Kinsley, Time magazine, Tuesday, Sep. 09, 2008
Sarah Palin thinks she is a better American than you because she comes from a small town, and a superior human being because she isn’t a journalist and has never lived in Washington and likes to watch her kids play hockey. Although Palin praised John McCain in her acceptance speech as a man who puts the good of his country ahead of partisan politics, McCain pretty much proved the opposite with his selection of a running mate whose main asset is her ability to reignite the culture wars. So maybe Governor Palin does represent everything that is good and fine about America, as she herself maintains. But spare us, please, any talk about how she is a tough fiscal conservative.
Palin has continued to repeat the already exposed lie that she said “No, thanks” to the famous “bridge to nowhere” (McCain’s favorite example of wasteful federal spending). In fact, she said “Yes, please” until the project became a symbol and political albatross.
Back to reality. Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 2 1/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double. The trick is that Alaska’s government spends money on its own citizens and taxes the rest of us to pay for it. Although Palin, like McCain, talks about liberating ourselves from dependence on foreign oil, there is no evidence that being dependent on Alaskan oil would be any more pleasant to the pocketbook.
DNC – Maverick No More – web ad
Alright, calm down. Let me rephrase.
It just should not be possible that Republicans stand any ghost in heck of a chance of winning any office on Nov. 4, let alone the presidency of the United States.
Yet, here they are and here we are.
Sen. John McCain is buoyant, ascendant, barnstorming the nation, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin beaming on his arm, both confident of a romp in November.
Sen. Barack Obama, meanwhile, is beginning to rue forgoing Federal financing for his political campaign. His message of change, after being brilliantly co-opted by McCain and Palin, sound shopworn.
Bill Clinton’s eight years in office, dogged every step of the way by rapacious Republicans, ended with the nation at peace, the economy robust and in surplus. Clinton handed off to George W. Bush a stable nation on sound economic footing. The question was what to do with the surplus.
George W. Bush, appointed President of the United States by a majority of Republicans on the United States Supreme Court, then proceeded to fritter away the nation’s good fortunes with unfunded tax cuts for the very rich (“the haves and have mores,” as Bush called them, “my base”).
As it turns out, Republicans have not been in power the last eight years, including controlling of all branches of government the first six. Both houses of the Congress acted as the lookout while the Bush administration violated every tenet of the Constitution of the United States, made short shrift of American rights and values, and undermined every national institution.
Didn’t our national legislature dote on this Republican administration as it slept at the switch while terrorists trained on American soil, hijacked American planes to attack Americans in America without anyone so much as raising a finger to stop them.
Exploitive RNC 9-11 Video
Then, when it turned out the men who attacked America were mostly from Saudi Arabia, this government, this administration mounted a Republican headwind to get approval from Congress to attack . . . Afghanistan, then Iraq.
No, it was not really Republicans who started these two costly wars, finishing neither, even as the Congress eschewed any oversight of the corruption and pillaging that took place by Republican functionaries and appointees on the ground in Iraq.
I would call it their mismanagement of the economy if the eventual outcome has not been what Republicans intended.
I would call it mismanagement what happened in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a major American city and American citizens literaly drowning as the world watched, without their government raising a finger to protect them, had it not been Republican blueprint of how government should function, which is not at all.
The list grows but not the outrage.
Because, it turns out, Republicans had not been in charge, did not do these things all these years. Sen. Obama was responsible for the high energy costs. Democrats were at fault for all these things.
And it’ll take a Republican, that maverick John McCain, and his moose-hunting sidekick, Sarah Palin, to set things right. McCain, the Charles Keating consort, and Palin, she of that welfare state, Alaska.
That’s my point. Republicans should have no leg to stand on, no argument to muster in the national debate on how make right what is wrong with our nation.
Wasn’t it Republicans who presided over the deterioration of the nation’s infrastructure, watched a major bridge collapse in Minnesota and then had the audacity to hold their national convention in that state, despite not raising a finger to fix that bridge?
So, you have to ask that old Harry S. Truman question:
“I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who’s hitting you? It’s about time that the people of America realized what the Republicans have been doing to them.”
Yet, here they are and here we are.
Which has led me to this ledge. If Republicans manage to win in November–and the polls show McCain-Palin either ahead or about even with Obama-Biden–then we should all join the Republican Party and change it from within.
Democrats, by losing an unloseable election, would have forfeited the right to be called a major political party.