“Befoulers of the Verbiage”
It was an unfair attack on the verbiage
That Senator McCain chose to use,
Because the fundamentals,
As he was having to explain afterwards,
He means our workforce.
He means the ingenuity of the American.
And of course that is strong,
And that is the foundation of our economy.
So that was an unfair attack there,
Again based on verbiage.(To S. Hannity, Fox News, Sept. 18, 2008)
And there’s more.
This is a perfect description of how the Palin candidacy – and increasingly the McCain campaign overall – feels to me – “like a Ricky Gervais sketch” – where you want to look away, it’s so embarrassing and almost painful, but you keep watching. If only this weren’t so serious, it would be seriously funny.
[digg-reddit-me]Over in crazy land, also known as the National Review, Kathryn Jean Lopez says that many readers are suggesting that as Obama is saying the debates will go on…
they’d like McCain to just offer Palin step in for him.
I’d like to go on record as being in favor of that.
What are these people thinking? Either I’m crazy, or they are – and I’m hoping it’s them.
(H/t Andrew Sullivan.)
My guess is that the McCain campaign is (1) seeing a rapid change in the polls and trying to take some momentum back; and (2) wants to postpone the Vice Presidential debate because Palin isn’t ready (as Republicans have acknowledged recently). The Vice Presidential debate is scheduled for next Thursday.
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profitable to you.
I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my
replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may
know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the
1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.
This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds
as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names
of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family
lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person
who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.
Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account
numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to
[email protected] so that we may transfer your commission for
this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with
detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the
funds.
Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson
Unfortunately, I cannot claim credit for this. Apparently it is in an email going around. I actually came across this virtually simultaneously here and here.
President Bartlet speaks to presidential candidate Obama:
Four weeks ago you had the best week of your campaign, followed — granted, inexplicably — by the worst week of your campaign. And you’re still in a statistical dead heat. You’re a 47-year-old black man with a foreign-sounding name who went to Harvard and thinks devotion to your country and lapel pins aren’t the same thing and you’re in a statistical tie with a war hero and a Cinemax heroine. To these aged eyes, Senator, that’s what progress looks like. You guys got four debates. Get out of my house and go back to work.
SNL takes on McCain’s deceptive advertising. The best exchange comes after the line reader reads one of the new ads: “Barack Obama has fathered two black children in wedlock.”
McCain: My friends, I must say that reminds me of an attack that Bush made on me in 2000.
McCain aide: He won that election, right?
McCain: I’m John McCain and I approved this message.
Al Franken, the former SNL writer and current candidate for Minnesota Senator, suggested the idea for this piece to SNL’s head writer last week.
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Nader is so pathetic, this interview veers between humor and pathos. At times, it looks like Nader is about to cry. But he tries so hard to be in on the joke. He can’t seem to decide whether to attack the dog puppet or to try to get his vote – and he tries to do both. Towards the end of the interview, Nader attempts to defend himself in a sing-song voice:
Triumph: Come on – you screwed Al Gore. You campaigned in the swing states.
Nader: Politics has gone to the dogs! With two parties, Republicans and Democrats!
Triumph: [interrupting in a sing-song voice] You campaigned in the swing states. You campaigned in the swing states. Harder. Harder.
Nader: [interrupting, in a sing-song] You’re telling a canine lie. You’re telling a canine lie.
I would feel bad for the guy if this weren’t all of his own volition. He did seem to betray a feeling of guilt in how he defended his 2000 campaign – but he refused to acknowledge any responsibility – and deflected the blame onto the Republicans.
But if the past eight years has proven anything it is that Nader’s core message was wrong – that it wouldn’t make a difference if a Democrat or Republican was elected, if Gore or Bush won – both were equally bad. Nader rightfully has much criticism of our two-party system and how it exerts a stranglehold on power – but the Bush administration proved definitively that it matters who is elected. And Nader, after promising not to campaign in swing states to raise money, decided to campaign anyway and without his support in Florida, we would have had a different president.
Something to remember as we approached another Tuesday in November.
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Saturday Night Live’s excellent season opener. If only the rest of the show had been so good.
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View Larger Map
Do you think the Google Maps team might have taken a quick break for lunch while traveling down Wantagh Avenue?
And notice how the line indicating Wantagh Avenue jumps about 50 feet to the side before and after this view?
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Not to be snide, but I realized when reading about Sarah Palin’s rapid rise to political stardom that until she became governor less than two years ago, her only elected position was mayor of a town about the size of a medium-sized college.
(I’m going to put aside – for the moment –Â the fact that she won her election by politicizing the non-partisan job of mayor – running on a plank of Christianism, opposition to abortion, and gun rights – for a job that had nothing to do with any of these. And, in fact, her election marks the first time the state Republican party ran advertisements in the non-partisan town elections.)
McCain claims that Palin:
has been in elected office longer than Sen. Obama.
True enough. Because 616 Alaskans put their faith in her after the state Republican party spent valuable resources and she campaigned on issues she would have no say about.
The funny thing I realized was that I got nearly as many votes when I ran for campus-wide office in college and lost. The winners – Kevin Gallagher & Nicole Mortorano – got two less votes than Palin did. And my college only had 2,700 people in it. ((Yea, Palin got more votes later when she won the governorship – but McCain keeps saying that she’s been in elected office longer than Obama – because she won her first election in 1996.)) Palin won another term as mayor, and then lost a race, leaving her without an elected office for a few years.
Based on McCain’s understanding then, the moment someone is elected in an election as substantial as Palin’s, they start gaining “experience” in elected office. So now we can say that Palin – elected by a few hundred votes in 1996 has more experience than Obama – because she won elective office before Obama did.
My question is then, how many high school and college student leaders have begun to accumulate valuable “Experience”? And of course, McCain has been arguing that it is “Experience”, not judgment or knowledge or stuff like that, that makes one Ready to be a leader on Day One.
So – who out there has begun to accumulate this valuable experience that will enable you to be chosen as vice president? All you need is 616 votes, and the clock starts. Make your case here.
Email me at [email protected] or post the information in a comment and I’ll keep a running list.
Please include the name of each student leader, what they were running for, whether they won or lost, and any other information that seems appropriate (pictures, background, size of student body, and wherever possible, a link demonstrating the results.)
| Name | Votes | Position | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sarah Palin | 616 (W) | Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska | We can’t all be as cosmopolitan as Obama, but this experience makes Palin Ready-On-Day-One. |
| Kevin Gallagher & Nicole Mortorano |
614 (W) | Co-chairs of Holy Cross SGA | They almost reach the Palin threshhold. |
[Image by svanes licensed under Creative Commons.]