McCain's Tricky Calculation

Jonathan Alter asks :

"Will it work? It depends on how successful the McCain campaign is at keeping Palin from embarrassing herself.

Rather, it depends on how stupid Americans are.
You can't fool all of the people all of the time - but you can fool enough people enough of the time to win elections, especially if they are intellectually lazy Americans.

Dumber and dumber.

Let's look forward to McCain-Palin winning and America becoming the laughing stock of the world for another four years.
Great for America's enemies, who are legion after eight years of Bush.

Now that the Palin Speech is Over its nice to see Alter BLOWN out of the WATER once again with his dishonesty and hate mongering.

Posted By: tjones1942 @ 09/04/2008 11:45:20 PM
The VERY LAST thing we need are more lawyers.


Comment: Governor Sarah Palin holds a Bachelors of Arts In Journalism from the University of Idaho. That is the sum total of her education. Barack Obama has a Law Degree from Harvard. I wonder who is most qualified to run this country.

Gov. Palin is window dressing for a cranky old man who has been against womens' rights and womens' issues his entire political career. Being a woman shields her from the ridicule and skepticism which would be aimed at a man with similar, lightweight qualifications. Sen. McCain and his advisors made a clever decision to find a softer side to his hard core conservative record. If they do manage her exposure to the media with any success, and keep her in the womb of Limbaugh etc. without any unpleasant moments in contact with the ' biased liberal media establishment' like yourself: the McCain campaign should be congratulated. It's not every campaign that a nobody can be turned into a somebody by highly paid political and media consultants. Excuse me! For a second I actually thought this was risky and unusual. For the rest of this campaign the carefully crafted perspective of Gov. Palin will become reality. We expect nothing less from the liars for hire who run and control campaigns. We are wagging the dog again only this time it's a bitch.

Steelworkers President To Palin: ???Stop Using Your Husband???s Membership In The USW As A Prop???»

When Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) introduced Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, he trumpeted her husband???s union membership:

???The person I???m about to introduce to you was a union member and is married to a union member, and understands the problems, the hopes and the values of working people,??? he said. That day, and again last night, Palin also emphasized that her husband is ???a proud member of the United Steelworkers Union.???

Conservatives are hoping the reference will play well in Michigan and Ohio. But the United Steelworkers union (USW) isn???t so pleased. USW President Leo Gerard noted that just because Todd Palin is a union member doesn???t mean that Palin is automatically qualified to represent labor interests:

It is important to realize that while the governor???s husband is a member of a union, this does not automatically qualify her for an on-the-job training program to become a heartbeat away from the presidency. And while her husband is one of 850,000 dues-paying members of the steelworkers union, it does nothing to absolve Sen. McCain of his long history of anti-union sentiment and anti-worker actions.

In fact, McCain???s hostility to unions and union priorities runs deep:

??? McCain voted to block the Employee Free Choice Act, making it easier for workers to unionize. [6/26/07]

??? McCain condemned unions as ???serious excesses??? and said government workers are ???crippled??? by union contracts. [10/9/07; 5/21/07]

??? McCain voted to filibuster a minimum wage hike last year. [1/24/07]

??? McCain voted against a bill protecting discrimination against workers who go on strike, effectively allowing companies to hire permanent replacements for striking workers. [S. 55, 7/13/94]

??? McCain voted against an amendment providing more effective remedies to victims of gender discrimination in the payment of wages. [7/17/07]

Last night, Gerard demanded that Palin ???stop using USW as a prop.??? Noting McCain???s opposition to the top priorities on USW???s agenda, Gerard asked Palin:

Are you with McCain ??? and against workers ??? on these issues? If so, you need to stop using your husband???s membership in the USW as a prop, because then his union card cannot possibly cover up your or John McCain???s worker-savaging positions.

By the way shallbe, we are not afraid of governor Palin, when are afraid of the socially inept and blind partisan fools that would vote for her!

Sarah has learned to "spin" her so called accomplishments into something more than it really is. Her ascertions of reform and denying taking 27 million in earmark spending as a mayor is an outright lie and an insult to intelligent people. Again as Governor, she was poised and accepting of any help her party would offer her for that bridge to no where before she ultimately decided against it. Sounds like what the republicans coin a phrase as "The Kerry Flip Flop!"
Now with the allegations of using her power as Governor to pressure the Safety Commissioner into terminating her ex brother in law and then terminating the Commissioner himself for her lack of self gratification, she has elevated herself to the rank of a master spinner just like George W Bush. Congratulations for pulling the wool over the eyes of the blind, and thanks for making it clear to me who to vote for. Barak Obama!

Jonathan, buddy, pal; this is Newsweek not the DailyKos. Writing for the "mainstream media" requires you make at least the pretense of a logical arguement. The bulk of your screed does that, but your assertion that Sen. Barack Obama's 18 million votes somehow counts as "experience" is lame, lame, lame. Using your logic, Obama must be more experienced than his designated hand-holder Joe Biden (my figures are from Wikipedia, so feel free to dispute them). In Biden's entire political career he received a total of 781,796 votes from the State of Delaware (35% the size of Brooklyn). So if Biden were to be a Senator until age 100 he would never come close to Obama's "experience." To carry this further, since Massachusetts is 7.46 times the size of Delaware (and 2.62 times the size of Brooklyn) Mitt Romney though only a Governor with no foreign policy experience is 7.46 times more qualified than Biden despite his 36 years in office. You get the idea here. You can legitimately argue that Obama, having immersed himself in the study of foreign policy for 2 years is more experienced on this point than Sarah Palin, so why resort to the tortured logic of a college political science club.

You are a legend in your own mind. Nothing YOU could say would change my impression of Sarah Palin. Your dirty tactics demonstrate why a majority of people hate and distrust the media.

The whole Palin affair is a tragicomedy. Conservatives, I give them this, are so disciplined they have closed ranks around her in spite of, as Alter says, the absurdity of her experience argument. And I am glad he agrees in that the press ought to do its job, which she and the McCain campaign will respond to by whining and giving that already trite line about "the liberal press biased against her". If she is ready to lead, put her in front of the press and let's see what she'd got. McCain did it and so did Obama, Biden and Hillary Clinton. If the "Barracuda" is really ready, then she can handle it.

Hey Johnie. I see that you have the nerve to continue to offer your opinion after you proved to be so wrong about Palin. Why don't you get a real job Johnie? Zaabar on Broadway is hiring.

"Bitter! Bitter party of one. Your table is ready".

"Bitter"! "Bitter party of one". "Your table is ready"

If the Republicans are smart, they'll keep Ms. Palin locked up and away from the media. If the Republicans are dumb, they'll keep Ms. Palin locked up and away from the media.