MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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politics

That Dog Won’t Hunt . . .

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Our friend, Eileen Davis of the DAVISReport, sent us this message:

Say hello to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, John MCCain’s VP select ,the governor of a state where its citizens by birthright get checks sent to them up to a couple thousand a year, that represent oil profits gained on state owned land.

Yes Virginia, Alaska, the sparsely populated other world of Alaska, the Kuwait of the United States, fat with oil money, sparsely populated, and except for remote pockets of indigenous eskimoe communities,largely caucasion, is where John McCain has found “the best person” to serve as our VP?

As I ponder McCain’s choice, knowing that he believes that this decision will help deliver purple Virginia, I dig deeper and get more astounded that he thinks he has made the sale.

Virginia, with both urban and rural poor,immigration issues,(Henrico County Schools alone have 90 plus languages registered in ESL classes), with our population density and DC proximity terrrorism issues, military and port concerns, highway infrastructure issues and commuter issue(good old 95)- with all of this Virginia is ranked number one best run state and is also ranked best place to raise a child with the outcome of it being solidly educated. My question is why do these honors go to Virginia and not Alaska with more money and less challenges to successful outcomes?

Seems to me Alaska should easily have these rankings. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel for them , compared to the challenges we face here in Virginia, but yet we prevail. But that’s my point, a first term Governor of Alaska whose last job was a town smaller than Ashland can’t really be expected to step into the VP gig ground ready, and cross training is not an option. Bluntly stated, she doesnt know what she doesn’t know.

Choosing your VP is the first big decision the candidate is judged on and John McCain has shown himself to be a reckless flyboy who must think woman are really stupid. Too stupid to notice she is in way over her head, too stupid to realize that a Hillary supporter,to vote for Palin just because she’s female would have to abandon every social and political position most Hillary supporters share. Why?; because Palin is an ultraconservative,a gun toting NRA member, Anti Choice even in cases of rape and incest.

The idea that one woman is as good as another is arrogant pandering, and will result in blowback that McCain will regret. The arrogance is also compounded by the fact that this 72 yr old with 4 bouts of cancer thinks no one will consider the heartbeat away question, does he really think that we are so giggly to pick a chick we won’t think this possibility through?

“Ms Palin, I know Hillary Clinton, and you are no Hillary Clinton”

The DAVISReport

Posted by www.EileenDavis.blogspot.com The Davis Report – The Voice of Central Virginia and the Capital City

August 31, 2008
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Thoughts on Sarah Palin

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Longtime readers will remember that Sarah Palin was on my early short list for McCain. I said back in June that she might be a good pick if McCain found himself behind in the polls and needed a Hail Mary pass. Now that he’s made the pick, how does it look?

First, Palin is undoubtedly qualified to be president and vice president. The Constitution sets those qualifications in Article II, Section 1. One need only be (1) a natural-born citizens; (2) at least 35 years old; and (3) a resident of the U.S. for at least 14 years. There’s no question that she meets those qualifications.

There’s also no question that she has plenty of experience. As many people have pointed out since Friday, Palin has been in elected or appointed office since 1992 — a year after Obama graduated from law school. That’s nearly as much experience as John McCain himself. If you count her experience on the PTA, as McCain says we should, her experience is almost Biden-esque.

The real question is the quality of that experience. Does Palin’s experience — a city councilor and then mayor of small town, energy commissioner, and 18 months as governor — make her ready to be president? The answer to that question is largely in the eye of the beholder, but I think it’ll be a tough sell to the American public. It might have been easier to sell over time with a longer roll-out, but the surprise pick makes it particularly difficult.

There’s also Troopergate. Although the facts remain somewhat in dispute, it seems pretty clear that Palin has, on at least one occasion, abused the official power of her office to get someone fired and then lied to cover it up. The first instance happened when she was mayor of small town. The most recent incident happened this summer, when she fired the chief of the state police for refusing to fire the estranged husband of her sister-in-law who was then a state trooper. She’ll probably be deposed and possibly censured in Troopergate during the fall campaign.

And then there’s Palin’s positions on the issues. To the extent that she has positions on national issues, they’re to the right of McCain. Her positions on abortion and contraception, in particular, are closer to Mike Huckabee’s than McCain’s. (Indeed, Huckabee has released a statement praising the Palin pick.) That’s why James Dobson and the religious right are so delighted in her selection.

In the end, I think the pick is more important for what it says about John McCain than for anything it says about Sarah Palin. It showed us all that he’s ready to shoot from the hip on day one. According to recent articles in the NYT and Washington Post, he made the pick after meeting her only once last February and without vetting her at all. That’s not the kind of approach to serious issues that most Americans are going to want.

The pick also showed us, I think, that McCain put politics ahead of governing. This was a choice from identity politics, pure and simple — a big gamble that Palin’s gender and religious conservatism will attract enough votes in a few key swing states to win the election. For all the things that one can say about Sarah Palin, one thing you can’t say is that she knows how to get legislation through the U.S. congress.

And, finally, the Palin pick showed us that McCain will say anything to get elected. For the last six months, McCain has argued that Obama is dangerously unprepared. By picking someone with even less foreign policy experience than Obama, that argument now looks disingenuous in the extreme. As far as I can tell, Palin’s foreign policy experience consists entirely of a family vacation to Ireland and Alaska’s geographic proximity to Russia and Canada.

I said on Friday that I was delighted by McCain’s choice. I’m even happier now that more facts are coming out.

What are your thoughts?

August 31, 2008
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What’s wrong with this picture?

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Have you seen People magazine’s exclusive photo of the McCain and Palin families?

Four members of the McCain and Palin familes are absent from the photo. Palin’s eldest son, Track, and McCain’s youngest son, Jimmy, are in the military and on deployment. McCain’s older son, Jack, is at the Naval Academy.

Where’s Bridget McCain?

Bridget is the McCain’s adopted daughter. She’s originally from Bangladesh and is very brown-skinned. She’s 17 years old — older than three of Palin’s children who appear in the photo and the same age as the fourth.

Are the McCains ashamed of their brown child?

Cross-posted from Facebook.

(Photo by Michael O’Neill:Left to right: Sarah Palin’s daughters Bristol and Willow, Sarah Palin with her husband Todd, their baby Trig, and daughter Piper, John McCain with his wife Cindy and daughter Meghan)
August 31, 2008
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Shades of Nixon

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The campaign of John McCain for president of the United States has been lurking in the gutter these past several weeks.

Karl Rove’s henchmen, when they took over the faltering McCain campaign, they quickly surmised that they could not win on the issues. The American voters would not trust Republicans to fix the mess the party has made of the economy and America’s moral leadership in the world.

To win, they figured, they have to get in the sewer and throw sludge at Sen. Barack Obama and throw sludge they have, heckling Obama at every turn, peddling trivia and inane arguments. No matter how stupid, the McCain people with wield it. No matter how insane, McCain will come in at the end to say he approved of this message.

It’s quite a Faustian bargain: Some see McCain as a honorable man, a man of integrity. I’ve never felt that. Here is a man who sold his office to Charles Keating and cost the American taxpayers billions of dollars by running interference for him with federal regulators.

McCain not only cheated on the wife who waited at home for him during his five years in captivity, he threw her over for a much younger woman with a hefty bank account. McCain effectively abandoned his first wife and the family she was helping him raise.

How could anyone consider him a man of integrity?

August 28, 2008
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A Good Story

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I am a regular reader of Newsweek magazine. Most of the time, I don’t like what I read in there. I find its journalism often sloppy, if not downright dishonest. The fact is, I read it through gritted teeth most of the time.

For instance, I think they’re highly tilted toward John McCain in this election. He was their preferred candidate during the Republican primaries. Although they’re intrigued by Sen. Barack Obama’s candidacy, especially now that he’s the Democratic Party nominee, McCain remains their man.

They’ll do anything, including shred any credibility the magazine has left to get him elected.

But, I am writing today to praise Newsweek, not to bash it. At least praise Christopher Dickey, its longtime foreign correspondent, for a superb piece on the magazine’s cover this week.

Southern Discomfort is a special piece of journalism, well written. As a writer, one of the things I struggle with is the pronoun “I.” Dickey wielded it judiciously in this piece to great effect. He did not get in the way of telling this story, which is quite an achievement.

I could try to quote from it but there’s so much that’s good in the piece that you, dear readers, would be better off buying the magazine at the newsstand, or reading the piece here:

I cannot resist one quote from the article, which got me:

“I think if there were a better economy more people would take a risk on Obama,” said Patricia Murtaugh Wise, a lawyer from Nashville sightseeing with her kids at Atlanta’s landmark Varsity Drive-In restaurant. Her friends are blaming Bush more than his party, she said. “I’m not sure people are saying, ‘Because Bush got us into this, let’s vote for a Democrat.’ I think people are saying, ‘Let’s get a new person in there’.”

Her name notwithstanding, the quote and the reasoning behind it are patently stupid. If, as the woman said, times are good, her excuse not to vote for Obama would be that he’d ruin the good thing she had going.

August 6, 2008
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Brave New Pac’s Post

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Make McCain Disavow His Dishonest Obama Ad

“What’s worse than John McCain’s dishonest ad? Finding out he had another, equally dishonest ad ready to air if Obama DID visit the hospital. He just wasn’t going to be honest with American voters no matter what happened, and now everybody knows it, even the press he calls his “base.” He’ll never live it down.” —Kagro X, Daily Kos

The traditional press is up in arms over John McCain’s latest dishonest ad attacking Barack Obama. MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell called the ad “completely wrong, factually wrong!” The New York Times said it was “a false account of what occurred.” The Washington Post said the ad offered “no evidence” to support McCain’s claims.

McCain must disavow this ad and make sure it never airs again. We won’t let this race degenerate into ad distortions like the last election; we won’t be silent in the face of lies. That’s why we created this video entitled When McCain Attacks.

Help end McCain’s campaign of dishonesty. Sign our petition to compel McCain to disavow this ad and yank it from the air. Then send it to all your friends, family members, and colleagues. Tell them to spread it to everyone they know, and Digg it!

Hurry, because we’re already seeing McCain’s lies insidiously spread by other news outlets. Join us in declaring that we’ve had enough lies and dishonesty, we’re ready for a new kind of politics.

August 5, 2008
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Bill Clinton’s Shameful Demise

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Unfortunately, all the good Bill Clinton did as president, the goodwill he won with African Americans and the great relationships he forged over the course of his political, he’s not intent on frittering away in bitterness. He’s affronted by Sen. Barack Obama’s political ascent and he’s not going to let it go, promising now to speak his mind next year.

Next year?

Give it a rest, Mr. Clinton. The nation has more pressing matter to attend to than the swamp in your mind.

Clinton Embraces Return to Ambassador Role: After the Bitter Primaries, He Calls Charity ‘My Life’ By Anne E. Kornblut, Washington Post Staff Writer, Sunday, August 3, 2008; A01

KIGALI, Rwanda, Aug. 2 — There will be no Clinton restoration — not this year, at least. But the rehabilitation of Bill Clinton has begun.

The former president in many ways ended the Democratic primary campaign more isolated than his wife, with his own friends and allies unhappy with his flashes of anger and ill-chosen words and blaming him in part for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s defeat. With a negligible relationship with Sen. Barack Obama — he has spoken to him just once since the primaries — Clinton has been shut out of the Obama campaign almost entirely and does not know even basic things, such as the role he will play at the Democratic convention.

It is uncharted territory for the most successful Democratic politician of his generation, and part of the reason he was in Kigali on Saturday, the latest stop in a grueling journey across Africa to visit some of the places where his charitable foundation has been active — and in the process re-establish his role as a global elder statesman. At the same time, Clinton began, slowly, to discuss the bruising Democratic primary season that ended two months earlier.

In his first extended interview since his wife exited the campaign in defeat, Clinton said he was glad to be back doing international foundation work. “This is my life now, and I was eager to get back to it, and I couldn’t be happier,” Clinton said in a hotel suite, with three aides looking on.

In a session that lasted more than 45 minutes, Clinton described his role in the 2008 campaign as “a privilege, an honor,” and said, “I loved it,” but he declined to discuss any of his own possible mistakes, describing them as a distraction. “Next year, you and I and everybody else will be freer and have more space to say what we believe to be the truth” about the primaries, he said.

Clinton volunteered very little praise of Obama, beyond describing him as “smart” and “a good politician” when asked about him toward the end of the interview. He did, however, muse at length about the role that race could play in the general election — the issue that some of his former black allies angrily accused him of introducing in the Democratic primaries — as a factor, if not a decisive one.

August 3, 2008
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Political news from CNN and others

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Edwards recently said that while he is not interested in the vice presidency, he hasn't ruled it out if asked.

WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s new information about the hunt for a running mate for Barack Obama.

A member of the Congressional Black Caucus who’s met with Obama’s vice-presidential screening team says she offered the names of former senators John Edwards and Sam Nunn — and was told they’re on the list. Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Michigan says when she mentioned that Al Gore is her favorite, the two members of Obama’s team smiled.

Kilpatrick wouldn’t say which names Obama’s team brought up.

Lawmakers who’ve been briefed say there are about 20 names on the prospective vice-presidential list, which is said to include current elected officials, former elected officials, and retired military generals.

Compiled by Mary Grace Lucas

CNN Washington Bureau

AP: Williams to do `Meet the Press’ Sunday
Top NBC anchorman Brian Williams will host the next “Meet the Press” but the network hasn’t chosen who will permanently replace Tim Russert, an NBC News spokeswoman said Thursday.

Washington Post: McCain Raises Money the Hard Way
John McCain’s campaign treated the news of Barack Obama abandoning the public financing system with the expected disdain, calling it evidence that Obama is “just another typical politician who will do and say whatever is most expedient for Barack Obama.”

Chicago Tribune: Without public funding, sky’s the limit for Obama
‘Raising a half-billion dollars is a very realistic figure for him,’ strategist says.

NY Times: For Bush, a New Town, a New Disaster, but Always the Memory of New Orleans
Try as he might, President Bush cannot escape the haunting memory of Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Bush toured flood-stricken areas here on Thursday, the latest in a string of disaster-zone visits he has made in his role as comforter in chief.

CNN: House approves war funding plan
Military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan would be funded into early 2009 under a compromise plan approved Thursday by the U.S. House.

Read More

June 20, 2008
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