corrente

Sarah the Palin, in Reno, Nevada (Oct 21, 2008), giving shout outs to the underprops in her Magic Mirror:

"I just the other day in New Mexico I saw a sign that said Ed the dairyman, [...] we can call him Tito the builder, [...] Phil the bricklayer and Rose the teacher and Karina the nurse [...] we have Andy Engineer, we have Dave the cop, we have Jeffery the hockey player, we've got another miner, we've got John the, John the only Republican in my high school..."

Listen to Palin via the Rachael Maddow show segment clip below (at about the 1 minute mark)
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And lets not forget Todd the First Dude, and Saks the Fifth Avenue, and the Bridge to Nowhere, and what's his face the farmer, and...

and lets not forget the Magic Mirror:
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Romper bomper, stomper boo, tell me-tell me, tell me do. Magic mirror, tell me today, did all my friends have fun at play?

And I see Neiman, and I see Marcus, and I see Macy's... hey, I can see Macy's from here, and Russia also - I can see Russia from my front porch - and Maverick, and Al Haig, and Victoria's secret, and Rich Lowry,... hey, what's he doin' there... ewww!, that reminds me of a spawning salmon.

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Hey ya there Big Mc$pender.

Sarah Palin's laundry pie gets higher. Via Yglesias:

The Republican National Committee appears to have spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.

Stylin'! Hockey mom. You betcha'.

!!! BREAKING !!!

Previously undisclosed video of McCain campaign fundraiser vetting of Gov Palin / audition for VP slot (must credit corrente SBL Larry Johnson):

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That made your cranky old Maverick sit up a little straighter on Rich Lowry's couch didn't it?

Developing...
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UPDATE - Since posting the video above I have received hundreds, possibly thousands, certainly - of mavericky emails (many containing folksy heartland values voter themed death threats which I forward to David Brooks just for the fun of it) informing me that the video above is NOT Sarah Palin auditioning for the McCain campaign VP slot. But, rather, some lovely alluring creature named Michelle Malkin performing for Duke Cunningham's 62nd or 63rd (or something like that) birthday party aboard his floating disco party-yacht the "Duke-Stir". I sincerely apologize to Gov Palin for the mistaken misrepresentation (should that, indeed, heh, be the case). I can assure you and all my readers that I will never ever again believe anything Larry Johnson tells me.
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Meanwhile...

HAVE SOME MORE "PIE" - "GOP Pie Theory":

"Senator Obama's more interested in controlling who gets your piece of the pie than growing the pie," - John McCain, Oct 20, 2008

"You bet I cut the taxes at the top. That encourages entrepreneurship. What we Republicans should stand for is growth in the economy. We ought to make the pie higher." - George W. Bush; Explaining "GOP Pie Theory" in a South Carolina Republican Debate with John McCain and Alan Keyes, Columbia, South Carolina, Feb. 15, 2000.





I can't wait to also git on out there and grow me some pie. Buy buy American pie. You betcha'

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Via Think Progress (includes video segment): Right wing radio yapper Lars Larson, appearing on the Larry King show, helps us understand what defines fascism:

KING: Does that make the right wing fascist?

LARSON: No.

KING: You can’t have it both ways.

LARSON: No, fascism is about celebrating the country. America has always been about the individual. And conservatives really are about the individual.

Well, if you say so, Lars.




Get your fascist "Country First" T-shirts HERE. Tell em Lars Larson sent ya.

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Ira Chernus (Common Dreams.org):

A President Obama might have to spend most of his political energy just preventing things from getting worse. But that should be reason enough to support him.

More than that, a Democratic victory -- especially when the Democrat is an African-American -- would move the political center back toward the left, not nearly far enough, but quite perceptibly. It would create an opening for real change and a mood of expecting change, as Kennedy's election did in1960. We on the left could channel our energies into pushing the Democrats in our direction -- which is precisely what the theory of community organizing tells us to do.

If Obama and the Dems fail to fulfill the expectations for change, they could trigger the same kind of grassroots activism in the streets that we saw in the '60s. At least the possibilities would be there.

A McCain victory, on the other hand, would reverse the current leftward creep of the political center. It would create a huge impression that America really is an immovably conservative country, which would foster the expectation that nothing will or can change for the better. Once again, we'd all have to put all our energy into merely preventing the very worst. That kind of negative politics has been the hallmark, and the curse, of our national life for some 35 years now.

Some lefties seem to get a perverse pleasure from it. Apparently they enjoy feeling like an oppressed minority, always on the defensive, bewailing their powerlessness, hurling invective at anyone who suggests a more moderate view that opens the way to small but meaningful changes. I don't understand it. But I know that it won't help the poor, or the unions, or the Iraqis, or the environment, or the women fighting to protect their right of choice.

A vote for Obama is a vote for the possibility that we might begin creating positive visions and working to turn them into reality. Not a guarantee -- but at least a possibility. And then we'd have to start doing the hard work of give-and-take politics. Not voting for Obama means four more years (at least) of accepting powerlessness and working frantically just to stave off the worst political disasters. Isn't that enough of a difference to matter on Election Day?

Some people need to read that again. And then read it again. And they know who they are. Roar, Cuckoowire, etc...

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Make-Believe Maverick
A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty
By TIM DICKINSONPosted Oct 16, 2008 7:00 PM

[page 9 of 10]

"NEXT UP, BAGHDAD!"
The myth of John McCain hinges on two transformations — from pampered flyboy to selfless patriot, and from Keating crony to incorruptible reformer — that simply never happened. But there is one serious conversion that has taken root in McCain: his transformation from a cautious realist on foreign policy into a reckless cheerleader of neoconservatism.

"He's going to be Bush on steroids," says Johns, the retired brigadier general who has known McCain since their days at the National War College. "His hawkish views now are very dangerous. He puts military at the top of foreign policy rather than diplomacy, just like George Bush does. He and other neoconservatives are dedicated to converting the world to democracy and free markets, and they want to do it through the barrel of a gun."

Running with The Crazies:

[...]

[...McCain...] In 1998, he formed a political alliance with William Kristol, editor of the neoconservative Weekly Standard, who became one of his closest advisers. Randy Scheunemann — a hard-right lobbyist who was promoting Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi — came aboard as McCain's top foreign-policy adviser. Before long, the senator who once cautioned against "trading American blood for Iraqi blood" had been reborn as a fire-breathing neoconservative who believes in using American military might to spread American ideals — a belief he describes as a "sacred duty to suffer hardship and risk danger to protect the values of our civilization and impart them to humanity." By 1999, McCain was championing what he called "rogue state rollback." First on the hit list: Iraq.

See: Randy Scheunemann and The Committee of the Present Crazies



The "Original Neocon":

Privately, McCain brags that he was the "original neocon." And after 9/11, he took the lead in agitating for war with Iraq, outpacing even Dick Cheney in the dissemination of bogus intelligence about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. "There's other organizations besides Mr. bin Laden who are bent on the destruction of the United States," he warned in an appearance on Hardball on September 12th. "It isn't just Afghanistan. We're talking about Syria, Iraq, Iran, perhaps North Korea, Libya and others." A few days later, he told Jay Leno's audience that "some other countries" — possibly Iraq, Iran and Syria — had aided bin Laden.

Product Roll Out - Operation "Absolutely. Absolutely":

A month after 9/11, with the U.S. bombing Kabul and reeling from the anthrax scare, McCain assured David Letterman that "we'll do fine" in Afghanistan. He then added, unbidden, "The second phase is Iraq. Some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq."

Later that month on Larry King, McCain raised the specter of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction before he peddled what became Dick Cheney's favorite lie: "The Czech government has revealed meetings, contacts between Iraqi intelligence and Mohamed Atta. The evidence is very clear. . . . So we will have to act." On Nightline, he again flogged the Czech story and cited Iraqi defectors to claim that "there is no doubt as to [Saddam's] avid pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. That, coupled with his relations with terrorist organizations, I think, is a case that the administration will be making as we move step by step down this road."

That December, just as U.S. forces were bearing down on Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora, McCain joined with five senators in an open letter to the White House. "In the interest of our own national security, Saddam Hussein must be removed from power," they insisted, claiming that there was "no doubt" that Hussein intended to use weapons of mass destruction "against the United States and its allies."

In January 2002, McCain made a fact-finding mission to the Middle East. While he was there, he dropped by a supercarrier stationed in the Arabian Sea that was dear to his heart: the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the giant floating pork project that he had driven through over President Carter's veto. On board the carrier, McCain called Iraq a "clear and present danger to the security of the United States of America." Standing on the flight bridge, he watched as fighter planes roared off, en route to Afghanistan — where Osama bin Laden had already slipped away. "Next up, Baghdad!" McCain whooped.

Over the next 15 months leading up to the invasion, McCain continued to lead the rush to war. In November 2002, Scheunemann set up a group called the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq at the same address as Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. The groups worked in such close concert that at one point they got their Websites crossed. The CLI was established with explicit White House backing to sell the public on the war. The honorary co-chair of the committee: John Sidney McCain III.

In September 2002, McCain assured Americans that the war would be "fairly easy" with an "overwhelming victory in a very short period of time." On the eve of the invasion, Hardball host Chris Matthews asked McCain, "Are you one of those who holds up an optimistic view of the postwar scene? Do you believe that the people of Iraq, or at least a large number of them, will treat us as liberators?"

McCain was emphatic: "Absolutely. Absolutely."

Operation Extreme Makeover:

Today, however, McCain insists that he predicted a protracted struggle from the outset. "The American people were led to believe this could be some kind of day at the beach," he said in August 2006, "which many of us fully understood from the beginning would be a very, very difficult undertaking." McCain also claims he urged Bush to dump Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "I'm the only one that said that Rumsfeld had to go," he said in a January primary debate. Except that he didn't. Not once. As late as May 2004, in fact, McCain praised Rumsfeld for doing "a fine job."

Indeed, McCain's neocon makeover is so extreme that Republican generals like Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft have refused to endorse their party's nominee. "The fact of the matter is his judgment about what to do in Iraq was wrong," says Richard Clarke, who served as Bush's counterterrorism czar until 2003. "He hung out with people like Ahmad Chalabi. He said Iraq was going to be easy, and he said we were going to war because of terrorism. We should have been fighting in Afghanistan with more troops to go after Al Qaeda. Instead we're at risk because of the mistaken judgment of people like John McCain."

The Power and the Glory

MR. FLIP-FLOP

In the end, the essential facts of John McCain's life and career — the pivotal experiences in which he demonstrated his true character — are important because of what they tell us about how he would govern as president. Far from the portrayal he presents of himself as an unflinching maverick with a consistent and reliable record, McCain has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to taking whatever position will advance his own career. He "is the classic opportunist," according to Ross Perot, who worked closely with McCain on POW issues. "He's always reaching for attention and glory."

A vote for Obama is a vote for the possibility that we might begin creating positive visions and working to turn them into reality. Not a guarantee -- but at least a possibility. And then we'd have to start doing the hard work of give-and-take politics. Not voting for Obama means four more years (at least) of accepting powerlessness and working frantically just to stave off the worst political disasters. Isn't that enough of a difference to matter on Election Day? ~ Ira Chernus

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Names for Sarah and First Dood Palin's first grandchild. Here are several suggestions (good choices for either a boy or a girl).

Cardigan
Thinsulate
Skidoo
Pistol
Tinks
Grilse
Parka
Taser
Slogan
Chickaloon
Elmendorf
Akutaq
Smolt
Doe Estrus
Permafrost
Tallow
Saskatoon
Bettles
Puma
Sleetmute
Ammonia
Toggle
Oops
Doggonit
Also

Please contribute your own suggestions in comments. However, I'll ask you to respect the Palin family's tastes and not engage in any anti-American activity. For instance: Prince Rupert (Canadian) would be an unacceptable submission. As would Golfo, or Volograd, or El Coyote, or anything like that. Floatplane, or Holster, or even Ann Arbor, or something like that, would be more like it. I guess. Just be respectful ---- or Michelle Bachmann (R-Theocracy) will come to your house, declare you a witch, and redistribute your pension fund and social security wealth among some guys with golden sacks. And if that happens, The Invisible Hand will have no mercy upon you. So there.

And also - If you've had enough of this here name stuff - You can go here instead:

Palin As President

Play around in the Oval Office while President Sarah Palin speaks with you. Really! Just like really. You betcha'. Just click on the objects in the room and see what happens. For instance, click on the door on the left (in the Oval Office) multiple times. Just do it. But whatever ya do, don't click on the Red Phone (click the red phone).

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