Hey GOP! Just go the hell away....for a long time.

Just when you think it can't get any worse.....

A romp through the Republican ... budget?
 


P.M. Carpenter  Friday, March 27. 

I'll also offer Republicans a little sincere advice: Go away. Just go away for a long, long while. Grab whatever cash you have in the RNC account and hasten thee to a faraway exotic spa, or go on a year-long drunk, or simply hide yourselves at home, shutter the blinds, and shut the f*ck up. It's not your critics doing you harm. It's you and your non-budgeting budgets which advocate spending freezes during a deep freeze. It's Dick Cheney running around defending torture and denouncing social progress. It's Sarah Palin babbling about deficiently prayerful McCainites. It's your Cantors and Pences and Boehners looking and sounding so insufferably goofy. It's Michael Steele strategizing with God but genuflecting before Rush. For those fond of reifying brevity, it can even be just two words: Michele Bachmann.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Civil War on the Right

This is one time a circular firing squad is in order!

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, October 24, 2008; A19

Conservatives are at each others' throats, and here's what's revealing about how divided they are: The critics of John McCain and the critics of Sarah Palin represent entirely different camps.

Surprise, surprise!

One set of critics, skeptical social conservatives, are precisely the people McCain was trying to mollify by picking Palin as his running mate. This includes the faithful of the religious right who remember McCain as their enemy in 2000 and parts of the gun crowd who always saw McCain as soft on their issues.

That McCain felt a need to make such an outlandishly risky choice speaks to how insecure his hold was on the core Republican vote. A candidate is supposed to rally the base during the primaries and reach out to the middle at election time. McCain got it backward, and it's hurting him.

A Pew Research Center survey this week found that among political independents, Palin's unfavorable rating has almost doubled since mid-September, from 27 to 50 percent. Whatever enthusiasm Palin inspired among conservative ideologues is more than offset by middle-of-the-road defections.

Even on the right, she hasn't done the job. In The Post tracking poll released yesterday, Barack Obama drew 22 percent of the vote from self-described conservatives. That's a seven-point gain on John Kerry's 2004 conservative share.

Yet the pro-Palin right is still impatient with McCain for not being tough enough -- as if he has not run one of the most negative campaigns in recent history. This camp believes that if McCain only shouted the names "Bill Ayers" and "Jeremiah Wright" at the top of his lungs, the whole election would turn around.

Much more of the religiously insane and I would vote for Bill Ayers!

Then there are those conservatives who see Palin as a "fatal cancer to the Republican Party" (David Brooks), as someone who "doesn't know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin" (Kathleen Parker), as "a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics" (Peggy Noonan).

These conservatives deserve credit for acknowledging how ill-suited Palin is for high office. But what we see here is a deep split between parts of the conservative elite and much of the rank and file.

For years, many of the elite conservatives were happy to harvest the votes of devout Christians and gun owners by waging a phony class war against "liberal elitists" and "leftist intellectuals." Suddenly, the conservative writers are discovering that the very anti-intellectualism their side courted and encouraged has begun to consume their movement.

The cause of Edmund Burke, Leo Strauss, Robert Nisbet and William F. Buckley Jr. is now in the hands of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity -- and Sarah Palin. Reason has been overwhelmed by propaganda, ideas by slogans, learned manifestoes by direct-mail hit pieces.

And then there is George W. Bush. Conservatives once hailed him as creating an enduring majority on behalf of their cause. Now, they cast him as the goat in their story of decline.

The conservative critique of Bush is a familiar rant against his advocacy of big government and huge deficits -- now supplemented by horror over his embrace of actual socialism with the partial nationalization of big banks. And, yes, a fair number of conservatives were never wild about the adventure in Iraq.

Things are so bad that the internecine warriors on the right have begun copying the rhetoric of the old left. In a Washington Times column this week upbraiding dissidents such as Brooks and Noonan, Tony Blankley, the conservative writer and activist, fell back on an old left slogan, asking them: "Whose side are you on, comrade?"

This is a revelatory question. It arises when a movement has lost its sense of solidarity and purpose, when the "sides" are no longer clear. There is no unified "right" or "center-right," which is why we are no longer a conservative country, if we ever were.

Conservatism has finally crashed on problems for which its doctrines offered no solutions (the economic crisis foremost among them, thus Bush's apostasy) and on its refusal to acknowledge that the "real America" is more diverse, pragmatic and culturally moderate than the place described in Palin's speeches or imagined by the right-wing talk show hosts.

Conservatives came to believe that if they repeated phrases such as "Joe the Plumber" often enough, they could persuade working-class voters that policies tilted heavily in favor of the very privileged were actually designed with Joe in mind.

It isn't working anymore. No wonder conservatives are turning on each other so ferociously.

postchat@aol.com

Read more from E.J. Dionne on washingtonpost.com's political opinion blog, PostPartisan.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

McCain Volunteer's Claim of Attack Unravelled, Online and Off

By Jose Antonio Vargas

Online, no one has control over presenting an event. If something smells fishy, all the bloggingheads are on deck.

Just ask McCain-Palin volunteer Ashley Todd.

Less than a day after Todd's story of being mugged by a dark-skinned man first hit the Web, the student from College Station, Tex., told police that she'd made it all up. At a news conference this afternoon, assistant police chief Maurita Bryant said the 20-year-old said she had prior mental health problems.

Too bad all of the desperate citizens of Wingnuttia can't get help for their mental problems.

But on Wednesday night, Todd claimed, she had been robbed at an ATM in Pittsburgh. After seeing a McCain bumper sticker on her car, she said, her assailant -- enraged -- had pinned her down and cut a backwards "B" onto her cheek. Todd, who is white, described the robber as a tall black man.

The Drudge Report picked up the story from a local television Web site and gave it a big headline Thursday afternoon. A photo of Todd's face soon surfaced. Gov. Sarah Palin gave her a call; the McCain campaign issued a statement, as did the Obama campaign.

Palin really is an idiot! Did it never occur to her to resist the urge to pick up that phone until the police gave this woman some credibility? Yep, she would listen to a drunk guy named "curve ball" and start a freaking war.

And, it seemed to many, a combustible moment rife with political, racial and class tension had arrived. "It had to happen," John Moody, a news executive at FOX, wrote on his blog Thursday night.

"If Ms. Todd's allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee," Moody wrote. "If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain's quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting."

No matter how this thing turned out, I hate to think that the election could be determined by one loon in Western Penn. I must say that I doubt seriously that the McCain campaign put Todd up to this. Palin is just an idiot that fell for it. Just another example of Palin's poor judgment and her not being ready for prime time, let alone the presidency.

But the moment Todd's tale -- and especially its accompanying photo -- went viral, the Web went into typical vetting mode. Is she for real? Where's her MySpace page? (Bloggers found it.) Her Facebook profile? (That, too.) How about her Twitter feed? (Yep.)

Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin was skeptical. One of her readers wrote Malkin: "Notice how the 'B' is backwards on the right cheek ... if you were looking in a mirror and put it on your own face ... she put it on her own face but forgot it would show up backwards." When Malkin posted her blog item at 6:43 p.m. Thursday, she wrote: "Why that McCain volunteer's 'mutilation' story smells awfully weird." Then she updated it later, after police reported inconsistencies in Todd's story. "Police to administer polygraph; conflicting evidence at scene," Malkin wrote.

The backwards "B" is why we never reported on the incident. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out.

Steve Huff at True Crime Report said he smelled "a rat" when he saw the photo. He started blogging about Todd on Thursday afternoon, minutes after reading about her on Drudge. By 1:06 a.m. Friday, he wrote: "Will Ashley Todd's Story Implode Tomorrow?"

"Before the Internet age, her story would have had traction for weeks. She could have spun this out for a while, even if the cops said they don't believe her," Huff told The Trail. "But on the Web people started investigating her right away. And it wasn't just bloggers on the left doing it. It's bloggers on the right, too."

This is Sooo true. Bloggers have made a tremendous difference in many ways, often forcing the ACM to report on issues they would rather not.

"But here's a fact -- Todd set up her own crash."

This is one in a series of online columns on our growing "clickocracy," in which we are one nation under Google, with e-mail and video for all. Please send suggestions, comments and tips to vargasj@washpost. com.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Palin, the Energy Expert? Oh, Puleeze!

If Sarah Palin is an energy expert who can get us off foreign oil, I'm an astronaut

By Barbara Koeppel
October 21, 2008

Gov. Sarah Palin’s claim of energy expertise – and her promise to send Alaskan natural gas through a new pipeline to heat homes in the Lower 48 – may be as dubious as her boast about foreign policy expertise based on Alaska’s proximity to Russia.

“If John McCain consults his running mate on energy issues — as he said in a recent NPR interview — Americans are in deep trouble,” an Alaskan energy official told me. The official, who requested anonymity, called Palin’s energy expertise “illusory.”

Let’s fact-check one of Palin’s key claims – that she is responsible for Alaska “building a natural gas pipeline.” As of today there is not a single inch of that pipeline. This central achievement of her 20 months as governor is more hyperbole than substance.

In 2008, under Palin’s leadership, Alaska gave $500 million to TransCanada, a Canadian corporation that builds and operates pipelines, to start the permitting process, which might lead to such a pipeline. But it will be at least seven years before a drop of concrete is poured. If it’s poured.

Although Palin asked members of her former church, the Assembly of God, to “pray for the pipeline,” it’s too soon to count those chickens.

Moreover, the Alaskan energy official told me that the $500 million may have been an unnecessary “giveaway,” since BP and Conoco-Philips recently formed a partnership to build a gas pipeline to the Lower 48, without the incentive.

Besides her role in the $500 million pipeline plan, the official said Palin’s experience with energy issues rests largely on her 11-month stint as the appointed chair of Alaska’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which regulates oil/gas reserves and drilling.

But the official said even her brief tenure there wasn’t distinguished.

“Insiders knew she wasn’t interested in the job and she even stated publicly that her post could be cut, claiming it was more important to keep the slots for the technical experts,” he said.

As for her short time as governor (before John McCain picked her to be his running mate), her one other energy-related act was, with state Democratic legislators’ help, to raise taxes on oil and gas profits, the official said. But he added, “this says little about her grasp of global energy issues, which is zero.”

Energy Independence

And, as for her oft-repeated claim that her work on the proposed pipeline will help the United States become energy independent, the official told me, “not likely.”

Although Alaska has massive known natural gas reserves — over 35 trillion cubic feet — the gas may never find its way to the Lower 48.

Why? The first answer lies in the pipeline route. As proposed, it would travel south from Alaska’s North Slope into Canada, where it would connect with the natural gas grid in Alberta Province — which happens to enjoy the world’s second-largest oil reserves, after Saudi Arabia, 173 billion barrels. So far, only 2 billion have been produced.

The problem with the Alberta oil is that it is embedded in oil-sands extending over a forested area larger than Florida. While the viscous oil-sands are relatively easy to extract from the ground, they must be heated to separate the oil from the sand.

That separation process requires enormous amounts of energy. Alaska’s natural gas, via the pipeline, could fire the flame.

Eddy Isaacs, with the Alberta Energy Research Institute, said this scenario of Alaska’s natural gas helping to produce Canadian oil is “improbable,” because Canada has “enough natural gas of its own” to heat the oil-sands.

But Chris Severson-Baker, national policy director at Pembina Institute, a sustainable energy think tank headquartered in Alberta, disagrees, noting that the oil companies in Alberta now produce over one million barrels of oil a day, but plan to up the number to 3.5 millions barrels by 2011 and 5 million by 2030.

“If the consortium of oil companies that lease the oil land decides to hike production, it might well need Alaska’s gas,” Severson-Baker said.

And this brings us to the second issue – who holds the leases, both to Alaska’s natural gas land and Alberta’s oil-sands.

Exxon-Mobil, Conoco-Phillips and BP, among others, lease the Alberta land. As luck would have it, they also lease the gas land on Alaska’s North Slope. This means the same companies can pump their gas through the pipeline to Alberta and use it there to heat the oil-sands — instead of heating homes in Illinois and Indiana.

Why? Because the price of oil is much higher than the price of natural gas, producing oil with the natural gas makes sense for the corporate bottom line.

Once the consortium produces the oil, they’ll sell it to the highest bidders. Maybe in the U.S. Maybe anywhere.

Thus, while Palin’s promise of Alaska’s natural gas for the Lower 48 sounds great, profits may trump national needs.

Finally, some critics of Palin’s gas pipeline believe that, if built, it will lead to an environmental nightmare, both for Alberta and for global warming, as oil producers use the clean natural gas to produce dirty oil.

According to a 2008 Rand Corporation report, greenhouse gas emissions from producing this type of oil are 20 percent higher than for conventional oil.

Severson-Baker said the oil-sands process already has spewed toxic wastewater ponds over 130 square kilometers in Alberta — doubling in size since 2004 — while also fouling land, marshes and river basins, and ripping up forests that clean the air.

However, since Palin has said she’s not sure humans cause climate change, this probably won’t lose her any sleep.

Barbara Koeppel is a free-lance investigative reporter based in Washington DC.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Report from Palin rally: Scary Stuff

I fear for my country!

On second thought, I'm no longer sure this is "my" country, when citizens and the legitimate press are assaulted at republican rallies or simply shut out, as they were in 2004 by the Bush team.

This is not the country I was taught to believe in!

Newspaper stories from Palin's rally from myself and Joe Killian.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Update: Bloggers note: there is editing throughout this post at 10 a.m. or so this morning to clean up grammar and spelling errors committed at the end of a 16 hour day. As well, some fixes have been made with regards to quote marks that did not publish correctly. My apologies to the English teachers in the audience.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

There are certain things that get me really concerned when I hear them from someone I'm working with. Joe Killian (who blogs for the paper here and on his own time here) added a new one to my list:

Joe was working with me on a package for tomorrow's newspaper covering Gov. Sarah Palin's visit to Elon and Greensboro.

"Dude," he says when I called to check on him. "Some guy just kicked me in the back of the leg."

Let me just digress for a second. I sometimes supervise people. Much more often, I work in teams with folks. I'm usually the old fart in the group so I feel responsible for them. The last thing I ever want to hear is that one of my people got hurt on assignment. Usually the worry has to do with covering a traffic accident along a highway or a natural disaster like a flood, where conditions are inherently dangerous.

What I don't expect is for some troglodyte at a campaign rally to decide that the proper way to express his frustration with Democrats, Barack Obama or the "left-wing liberal media" is to commit assault on a colleague.

Here's the back-story:

As you probably know, the crowds at McCain-Palin events have gotten, um, saucy as of late. My boss blogs about that here.

Covering Sen. John McCain's appearance in Wilmington Monday, you could definitely sense some of that vibe.

Cut to today, Palin in town. In general, I walked in sensing the crowd had a more positive vibe than the McCain rally.

That changed when I heard a ruckus behind me. A couple folks there for the rally called campaign staff over, complaining about people several rows back chanting "Obama" when the rest of the crowd cheered at Palin's applause lines. Obnoxious? Yes. But I dig me some First Amendment.

The campaign staff dutifully fetched a couple of police officers who dutifully threw the handful of individuals out. I watched just to make sure ruckus didn't develop into something more. That apparently gave other McCain-Palin supporters license to yell at me.

"Hey! Hey you! The story's up there," yelled one point at the stage. "You don't need to worry about that. The story is up there."

The presence of a barricade, the more pressing need of gathering a story and, well, that whole First Amendment thing just led me to ignore them. They can pop off if they like.

Joe was near a second group of protestors who got tossed. And he got some push back for investigating as well. After the rally wound down, he went to find some Obama folks and see if he could talk to who got put out.

That's when at least one guy from the crowd decided he needed to interject his opinion into the conversation. As Joe tells it:

I sidled up to one of the Obama supporters and asked why they were there, what they were trying to accomplish.

As he was telling me a large, bearded man in full McCain-Palin campaign regalia got in his face to yell at him.

"Hey, hey, " I said. "I'm trying to interview him. Just a minute, okay? "

The man began to say something about how of course I was interviewing the Obama people when suddenly, from behind us, the sound of a pro-Obama rap song came blaring out of the windows of a dorm building. We all turned our heads to see Obama signs in the windows.

This was met with curses, screams and chants of "U.S.A" by McCain-Palin folks who crowded under the windows trying to drown it out and yell at the person playing the stereo.

It was a moment of levity in an otherwise very tense situation and so I let out a gentle chuckle and shook my head.

"Oh, you think that 's funny?! " the large bearded man said. His face was turning red. "Yeah, that 's real funny…" he said.

And then he kicked the back of my leg, buckling my right knee and sending me sprawling onto the ground.

There was no cop or security officer around to report this lug nut to, and Joe resisted the temptation to smack the guy back, which I commend. But let me say this: the guy who attacked Joe is a criminal, no better that the lunk-head who steals your car stereo or snatches a purse.

Do I hold the McCain campaign responsible? Not entirely. No one on their staff said, "Hey, after the event, go smack around a reporter."

Although, I will say that complaints about "the media," "mainstream media," "Eastern media elite," etc... have become a pervasive in Republican talking points, increasingly so as we get closer to the election. I've heard the complaints from folks like U.S. Sen. Richard Burr and certainly both Palin and McCain have used those phrases in their speeches. Then, there are the opening lines of Hank Williams Jr.'s campaign theme song for McCain-Palin: "The left-wing liberal media have always been a real close-knit family, but most of the American people, don't believe them anyway you see."

Fair enough. We're big boys and girls who put ourselves out there and part of the job is tacking flak from both sides. Certainly I have heard complaints from Democrats about "the media" and have been accused of being too conservative. But I have never had the sense that a Democrat was going to get physical in that kind of way. Even though McCain and Palin have taken a kinder gentler tone in their speeches, there was still a real undercurrent of anger at the rallies I covered this week.

After today I'm wondering - and this is just wondering at this point - whether Republicans aren't in some respect giving their supporters license for this sort of crap. If the story you peddle is that your guys are the good guys and all those who stand against them are the bad guys, and the "liberal media" is in that second column, might there be a message there – even if it is one that is misconstrued and carried to a stupid extreme in some cases?

Full disclosure: I'm not real happy with the McCain campaign today. After the Elon event Palin did a fundraiser and I was told the local pool would be able to cover that. It's a major reason I took the pool assignment. I was told mid-way through my day that the fundraiser would be closed. And I just found out that the campaign tossed a one-on-one to an out-of-town competitor rather than to the paper that staffed their pool today.

But that's peanuts, mere whining, an issue of protocol. This other thing with Joe reflects something far more troubling. I just hope it's not a trend.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

McCain v. Palin Riff

	Is Palin positioning herself for 2012?

Skeeter Sanders

I'm a former print journalist who turned to the Internet so that I can report the news unvarnished, without the restrictions imposed by editors. I believe very firmly that journalism is a vital public service that should not be compromised by entrenched political or economic interests. I tell it like it is and let the chips fall where they may.

View my complete profile

Monday, October 13, 2008

EXTRA! Hate Campaign Against Obama Triggers Rift Between McCain and Palin

GOP Vice Presidential Nominee's Determination to Raise Hot-Button 'Wedge Issues' on Campaign Trail, Rather Than Deal with Economy -- in Defiance of McCain's Wishes -- Is Driving a Wedge Between Them That Could Split the Republican Party in Two



Trouble on the campaign trail? Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, arrive at the airport at Allentown, Pennsylvania for a campaign rally last Wednesday. Forced on Friday to confront open animosity among his supporters against his Democratic rival, Barack Obama because of his ethnicity and religion, McCain has tried hard over the weekend to tamp down the anger. But Palin -- a darling of the GOP's far right wing -- will have none of it, insisting on bringing up highly emotional "wedge issues" such as abortion, instead of the number-one issue on the voters' minds: the economy. And that, according to a British newspaper, is causing a rift to develop between the GOP standard-bearers that could threaten party unity. (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)


(Posted 12:00 noon EDT Monday, October 13, 2008)

NOTE TO READERS: I had not planned on publishing an article today, Columbus Day. However, news has broken in a British newspaper that I felt was far too important to wait until The 'Skeeter Bites Report's next regularly-scheduled issue on Thursday.

-- Skeeter Sanders, Editor & Publisher, The 'Skeeter Bites Report

===============
SPECIAL REPORT
===============

By Sarah Baxter
The Times of London


With his electoral prospects fading by the day, Senator John McCain has fallen out with his vice-presidential running mate about the direction of his White House campaign.


McCain has become alarmed about the fury unleashed by Sarah Palin, the moose-hunting “pit bull in lipstick”, against Senator Barack Obama. Cries of “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” have accompanied the tirades by the governor of Alaska against the Democratic nominee at Republican rallies.


Mark Salter, McCain’s long-serving chief of staff, is understood to have told campaign insiders that he would prefer his boss, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, to suffer an “honorable defeat” rather than conduct a campaign that would be out of character –- and likely to lose him the election.


The 44-year-old Palin has led the character attacks on Obama in the belief that McCain may be throwing away the election and her chance of becoming vice president. Her supporters think that if the Republican ticket loses on November 4, she should run for president in 2012.


A leading Republican consultant said: “A lot of conservatives are grumbling about what a poor job McCain is doing. They are rolling their eyes and saying, "Yes, a miracle could happen, but at this rate it is all over."


PALIN ALREADY POSITIONING HERSELF FOR HER OWN RUN FOR THE WHITE HOUSE FOUR YEARS FROM NOW


“Sarah Palin is no fool," the consultant said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "She sees the same thing and wants to salvage what she can. She is positioning herself for the future. Her best days could be in front of her. She wants to look as though she was the fighter, the person with the spunk who was out there taking it to the Democrats.”


The 72-year-old McCain has encouraged voters to contrast his character with Obama’s. The campaign launched a tough television commercial last week questioning, “Who is Barack Obama?”


Frank Keating, McCain’s campaign co-chairman, last week called the Democrat a “guy off the street” and said he should admit that he had "used cocaine."


[In fact, Obama did just that -- in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams from My Father, in which he also admitted using marijuana as a teenager. But he writes that he quit using drugs altogether when he entered college in 1979 -- and there is no evidence that he has used drugs since then.]


MCCAIN FORCED TO STARE ANTI-OBAMA BIGOTRY IN THE FACE AT TOWN HALL MEETING


McCain believes the attacks have spun out of control. At a town hall-style meeting Friday in Lakeville, Minnesota, the Arizona senator became visibly angry when he was booed by his supporters for calling Obama "a decent person." He took the microphone from a woman who said she disliked Obama because he was "an Arab," telling her, "No ma’am, no ma’am."


[The woman, identified by the Reuters news agency as Gayle Quinnell, based her remark on a false but still-widely-held belief among many conservative white voters that Obama, the first African-American presidential nominee of a major American political party, is a foreign-born Muslim with ties to Islamic terrorists.


[Right-wing radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has insisted that Obama is not half-black and half white -- the son of a Kenyan-born black father and a Kansas-born white mother -- but is of Arab descent.


[Obama, who was born in Hawaii in 1961, is actually a Christian -- although he did acknowledge in his autobiography that he attended both Roman Catholic and Muslim schools during his pre-teen years living with his mother in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.]


When another questioner demanded that McCain "tell the truth about Obama," he said: "I want everybody to be respectful and let’s be sure we are."


DESPITE ARIZONA SENATOR'S PLEDGE, PALIN STEPS UP ATTACKS ON OBAMA

However, his campaign has stepped up its negative advertising against Obama, accusing him of lying about his relationship with William Ayers, the leader of the Weather Underground group responsible for bombing the Capitol and the Pentagon in the early 1970s, who is now a Chicago professor.


Palin has continued to lead the charge against Obama’s alleged lack of candor. At a rally in Wilmington, Ohio, she mocked him for attending a supporters’ meeting in Ayers’s home when he was seeking to become an Illinois state senator in 1995. "He didn’t know he launched his career in the living room of a domestic terrorist until he did know," Palin said.


"Some will say, 'Geez Sarah, it’s getting negative,'" Palin continued. "No, it’s not negativity. It’s truthfulness." The crowd bellowed its appreciation with chants of "Nobama!" and "Go Sarah Go!"


SOME REPUBLICANS WORRY PALIN HAS GONE TOO FAR


John Weaver, a former senior McCain adviser who left the campaign when it almost imploded in the summer of last year, questioned the purpose of the attacks.


"People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, that the differences with Senator Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared with Senator McCain," he said.


"And from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive," Weaver added.


A McCain campaign official confirmed that there was dissension in the campaign. "There is always going to be a debate about the costs and benefits of any strategy," he said. "After November 4, the feelings of individuals will come to light. It is only natural and will be expected."


PALIN ANGRY WITH MCCAIN'S PULLOUT FROM MICHIGAN, BAN ON BRINGING UP REVEREND WRIGHT


Palin’s frustration with McCain has led to clashes over strategy. When she learned he was pulling resources from Michigan, an industrial swing state leaning heavily in Obama’s favor, she fired off an e-mail saying, "Oh come on, do we have to?" and offered to travel there with her husband Todd, a four-time winner of Alaska's 2,000-mile Iron Dog snowmobile race.


She also told Bill Kristol, the conservative columnist for The New York Times, that she wished the campaign would make more of Obama’s 20-year association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, his controversial former pastor, who said, "God damn America."


[McCain has banned any discussion on Wright, fearing that his campaign would be accused by Obama supporters -- especially African-Americans -- of playing the "race card" against Obama if it did, as Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic nomination was accused of doing during the hard-fought primary season.]


"To me, that does say something about character,” Palin said. "But you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring it up."


McCain’s allies responded by suggesting that Palin has her own pastor problems, such as the African minister who prayed to Jesus to protect her from witchcraft when she was running for governor.


[They apparently feared that it would be used against her in retaliation if the McCain camp went after Obama over Reverend Wright.]


McCain has told his campaign that attacks on religion are out of bounds. He rejected Palin’s advice to "take the gloves" off in his debate with Obama last week and did not refer to Ayers. It enabled Obama to rile McCain by asking why he did not have the nerve to attack him to his face.


[In fact, the debate rules and town hall format -- with questions asked by the audience -- effectively barred McCain from doing so].


ATTACKS ON OBAMA DROWNED OUT BY NEWS OF WORSENING ECONOMIC CRISIS


When McCain finally got round to mentioning the Weather Underground at a rally last week, he described Ayres mildly as "an old washed-up terrorist."


[By that time, the global economic crisis was almost totally dominating the news, putting the economy front and center in the minds of the voters, to the exclusion of almost everything else.]


Despite the attacks, the 47-year-old Obama increased his average poll lead last week to eight points over McCain. The assaults on his character have enabled him to criticize McCain for "stoking anger and division" when the economy is collapsing.


McCain’s nosedive in the polls has closely tracked the collapse of Wall Street and the U.S. economy, but he has yet to find a winning economic policy. His proposed emergency 180-billion-pound (300-billion-dollar U.S.) buyout of distressed mortgages has been harshly criticized by his fellow Republicans.


Karl Rove, the former White House aide, claimed the housing bailout “came across as both impulsive and badly explained” when McCain suddenly announced it during last week’s debate with Obama.


PALIN TURNING OFF CLINTON VOTERS, INDEPENDENTS; RIGHT WING FAVORS HER MORE THAN MCCAIN


A spokesman for McCain denied he and Palin had fallen out over her aggressive attacks. “Vice-presidential candidates are typically the tip of the spear and further out in front than the candidate for president. This is pretty standard fare,” he said.


However, Palin is no longer helping to attract women and independent voters to the Republican ticket. A poll for Fox News last week showed that while 47 percent of voters regard the Alaska governor favorably, 42 percent now have an unfavorable opinion of her.


Palin remains far more popular than McCain with the Republican Party's right-wing base. He regularly has to endure the spectacle of members of the audience leaving for their cars when it is his turn to speak at joint rallies.


In Wilmington, North Carolina, Palin’s many admirers were in no doubt that she should run for president next time. Nancy Ross, a hairdresser, 45, said if the Republicans lost the election, she would be cheered up by the thought of Palin as the 2012 nominee.


"I would absolutely love her to run in four years’ time. By then most of her kids will be grown," she said. "I’d like her to run against Hillary [Clinton]. She [Palin] would squash her. She is a real person and we need people like her in Washington."


Mary Ann Black, 58, a human resources director, said: "I love her. She’s so authentic." Although she thought highly of McCain as well, Black added: "Her career is just beginning and his is in the twilight."


(Additional reporting -- in brackets -- by Skeeter Sanders.)

# # #

Volume III, Number 65
Special Report Copyright 2008, Times Newspapers, Ltd.
The 'Skeeter Bites Report Copyright 2008, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

The McHate/Palinidiot Campaign

I hope no one is counting on this kind of horror going away after the election. It could well get worse.

Memo to Republicans on the Hill: If you care anything at all about your country or your party you'll stand up to the nut-job supporters. If there is violence, it won't be hard to figure out whom to blame.

The Nov. 4 elections are just that critical.


With everything at stake, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain should lay aside trivial pursuits and engage the economic issues of debt, war, credit, and steadying global confidence. While the candidates' individual purposes may be served by fingering the villains who caused the wreck, the public interest is better served by indicating how this calamitous rupture might be repaired - and soon.


If recent trending of the campaign is a guide, however, the debate will showcase no such regenerative statecraft. If the Arizona senator discusses the economy, one aide said recently, he loses. McCain's fear of constructive engagement over the economy makes Obama downright giddy. Yet it frustrates his every attempt to debate the issues.

In the clutch of sagging poll numbers, the former POW has submitted himself to the incubus Karl Rove whose disciples have submerged "The Straight Talk Express" deep in the muck where the fish have no eyes. The dirty work has been assigned to Gov. Sarah Palin, the vice-presidential candidate McCain dragged in out of the Alaskan woods as a veritable wolverine in spectacles.

Palin's bland ferocity lends itself easily to vitriol of the type that inflames half-wits. A bald-pated Florida sheriff, one Mike Scott, got carried away under the swoon last week in Estero, Fla., in introducing Palin. Stressing Obama's middle name, Sheriff Scott paced the stage, in violation of police rules, while inciting the crowd in his full uniform adorned with colorful patches, stars and medals befitting a grand wizard of some mystic order of white knights.

At Clearwater, Gov. Palin lathered up the crowd herself. "You're going to have to hang on to your hats," Palin told the rally, according to The Washington Post, "because from now until Election Day it may get kind of rough." Linking Sen. Obama to a reformed radical of the '60s, Palin shrieked her signature smut line, "he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

"Kill him!" a man in the crowd reportedly responded to Palin's rabble-rousing. Her related attacks on the media had already whipped a frenzy among the crowd of about 3,000. Tempers rose to a boil when she blamed Katie Couric's questions for tripping her up as a seeming dimwit. The Post wrote, "Palin supporters turned on reporters ... waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. ... One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African-American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

As with McCain's fingering of Obama as "that one," in the last debate, supporters dismiss a white Southerner calling a black man a "boy," as mere words. Perhaps so, but, given the nation's sad, racial history, such language still elicits ire.

"Let's get it on" seems to be Palin's campaign refrain. "It's about time the pit bull got loose," the Post quoted Ken Gow, a 47-year-old police officer who was among the more than 10,000 people at a rally in Carson, Calif.

McCain struck the racial chord in the Nashville debate. When an African-American asked his question, McCain assumed that he was ignorant of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the entities the senator blamed for the Wall Street meltdown. "I'll bet you, you may never even have heard of them before this crisis," McCain said, telling the questioner, Oliver Clark, that he would "stabilize home values" - not particularly for him and his family, but - so that "Americans, like Allen [Shaffer] can realize the American dream and stay in their home." Shaffer was the white male who asked the earlier question. Neither had indicated that they owned a home or had a troubled mortgage.

This is the sort of racial profiling routinely spouted and acted upon by influential, white decision-makers far gone in racial denial such as Sen. McCain. With terminal cancers wrecking the body politic - problems we must all address together as Americans - McCain and Palin are lancing the racial boil to distract our attention from other grave problems.

This campaign behavior is curious; it is reckless and it is potentially dangerous.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

And This Woman Is Going To Clean Up Washington?

Of course this is small potatoes from a very small town where everyone knows each other and the mayor. Problem is, the abuse of power continued in Juneau. Anyone who thinks it won't it D.C. is a fool.

Back to Story -

By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE, Associated Press Writer

Sun Sep 28, 11:58 AM ET

Though Sarah Palin depicts herself as a pit bull fighting good-old-boy politics, in her years as mayor she and her friends received special benefits more typical of small-town politics as usual, an Associated Press investigation shows.

When Palin needed to sell her house during her last year as Wasilla mayor, she got the city to sign off on a special zoning exception — and did so without keeping a promise to remove a potential fire hazard.

She gladly accepted gifts from merchants: A free "awesome facial" she raved about in a thank-you note to a spa. The "absolutely gorgeous flowers" she received from a welding supply store. Even fresh salmon to take home.

She also stepped in to help friends or neighbors with City Hall dealings. She asked the City Council to add a friend to the list of speakers at a 2002 meeting — and then the friend got up and asked them to give his radio station advertising business.

That year, records show, she tried to help a neighbor and political contributor fighting City Hall over his small lakeside development. Palin wanted the city to refund some of the man's fees, but the city attorney told the mayor she didn't have the authority.

Palin claims she has more executive experience than her opponent and the two presidential candidates, but most of those years were spent running a city with a population of less than 7,000.

Some of her first actions after being elected mayor in 1996 raised possible ethical red flags: She cast the tie-breaking vote to propose a tax exemption on aircraft when her father-in-law owned one, and backed the city's repeal of all taxes a year later on planes, snow machines and other personal property. She also asked the council to consider looser rules for snow machine races. Palin and her husband, Todd, a champion racer, co-owned a snow machine store at the time.

Palin often told the City Council of her personal involvement in such issues, but that didn't stop her from pressing them, according to minutes of council meetings.

She sometimes followed a cautious path in the face of real or potential conflicts — for example, stepping away from the table in 1997 when the council considered a grant for the Iron Dog snow machine race in which her husband competes.

But mostly, like other Wasilla elected officials at the time, she took an active role on issues that directly affected and sometimes benefited her. Her efforts to clear the way for the $327,000 sale of the Palin family home on Lake Wasilla is an example.

Two months before Palin's tenure as mayor ended in 2002, she asked city planning officials to forgive zoning violations so she could sell her house. Palin had a buyer, but he wouldn't close the deal unless she persuaded the city to waive the violations with a code variance.

The Palins, who were finishing work on a new waterfront house on Lake Lucille about two miles away, asked the city for the variance. The request was opposed by one planning official and some neighbors.

"I would ask that the Wasilla Planning Commission apply the exact same rules in this situation that it would apply to other similar requests so that our community can see that being a public figure does not give anyone special benefits," urged neighbor Clyde Boyer Jr. in a 2002 note to the city.

The Palins' house was built by the original owner too close to the shoreline and too close to adjacent properties on each side, including a carport that stretched so far over it nearly connected the two houses.

The Palins didn't create the zoning problems, but they should have known about them when they bought the house, wrote Susan Lee, a code compliance officer with the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, in response to the Palins' request. The borough, similar to a county government, makes recommendations to the city, which has final say.

Lee, in recommending the city reject the request, noted that the exception was needed to resolve an "inconvenience" the Palins experienced while trying to sell their house. In 1989, another borough planner told a previous owner that a variance for the carport couldn't be approved because it didn't meet required conditions and was a potential fire hazard.

But in August 2002, Wasilla Planner Tim Krug approved a "shoreline setback exception" for the Palins' house being built too closely to the water. He sent an e-mail to the mayor saying he was drafting another variance for the side of the house built too close to the property line, but that he understood from her that the other side "will be corrected and the carport will be removed."

Krug asked Palin to let him know if he was wrong in his impression that the carport would be removed.

A few minutes later, the mayor e-mailed back: "Sounds good."

On Sept. 10, 2002, the seven-member Wasilla Planning Commission unanimously approved a variance for both sides of the property, with language covering "all existing structures." Less than a week later, the Palins signed a deed to sell the house to Henry Nosek.

The carport was never removed.

Nosek said Sarah Palin didn't do anything more than any other citizen would have done.

"I sincerely don't feel that Sarah used her position as mayor at the time to get that accomplished," said Nosek, who no longer lives in the home.

James Svara, professor of public affairs at Arizona State University and author of "The Ethics Primer for Public Administrators in Government and Nonprofit Organizations," suggested such behavior is part of small-town politics.

"Small towns are first-person politics, and if people are close, it's hard to separate one's own personal interest and one's own personal property from the work of the city," Svara said. The key questions from an ethics standpoint include whether the politician makes a potential conflict of interest known and removes himself or herself from actions related to it, he added.

"I think in a small town there is a greater likelihood that people will accept that you will pay careful attention to friends and neighbors," he said, adding that there may be some local gossip about it, but not a lot of public scrutiny. "At the national level, there will be far more people watching, there will be far more pressures to come forward to try to influence the outcome."

___

Associated Press writer Sharon Theimer in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Panic In Wingnuttia!

Does anyone else wonder if the Gooper powers-that-be are trying to throw this election? From the Palin pick right through to the suspension of McCain's campaign, so he could fly back to D.C. and save the day, economically, when, by his own admission he doesn't know jack about economics, it is as if McCrankypants is ready to throw the fight.


He babbles strung-together talking points, straight from his stump speech, at a debate? He even uses the same jokes, and when no one laughs, it makes those of us watching cringe for him. At least he doesn't laugh maniacally, all by himself.



He says he would rather lose and election than lose a war. I've often wondered just what the hell that meant.



We all know who the real enemy of the Bush Republican party is and it ain't Al Qaeda. It's the Democrats and those godless liberals. If there's anything the last two administrations, and the congresses during that time period, have shown us, in stark clarity, it is that there is an internal war; a cold civil war of sorts (not very civil, actually) going on in this country.


It's been going on for most of my life and I turn 60 this year. Nevertheless, It seems that our cold civil war has been declared by the Republicans, loud and clear. They don't only want to beat Democrats in elections, they want to destroy them for any practical purpose. They want one party rule, not just for the foreseeable future, but forever. This means they must be far-sighted, strategic thinkers. The people who run the GOP seem to be just that. The Bush/Cheney administration has managed to make as big a mess as they did a haul for themselves and their political pals.



Maybe they figure that there is no way in hell they can win back the White House and have a malleable congress, without which they have no chance of pushing through their god-awful, murderous, thieving, pseudo-theocratic agenda. Better to make the nightmare even worse with damned near unsolvable problems and hand it to Obama and the Democrats. They can spend four years sharpening their sabers of fascism, while Obama has to break some campaign promises just to keep Americans from being sold into slavery in China or Saudi Arabia.



I'd like to see Obama win, turn members of the Bush administration over to a special prosecutor and then get on with business. We are, for all political purposes (and maybe economic) living in a failed state. It's time for a real president to call the American people out to serve their country; to build a new Democratic Republic based on the true principles of our original founders; principles so inspired, even the founders could not live up to them.


We have had the New Deal and the New Frontier. Maybe it is time for a new founding; a re-birth, as a nation. Perhaps, even in the middle of the untenable mess in which we find ourselves, it is time to return to and remember our origins.


We must also demand transparency NOW. We, the people, cannot shy away form the truth about our leaders, our nation and ourselves. We can either get honest with ourselves and with each other, or we are finished as a nation and as a people.


So, I'll vote for Obama, because I think that we will need him in the years ahead. It's going to get really rough. I want someone who is smart, honest and inspiring; someone who knows what it means to be an effective leader and has the energy to lead in a time of untold crisis. I want a person who can think in depth about issues as they are, not as we wish they were, and plot a course for change; a person who can think outside the box and create a vision for the country.


Voting for Obama is also an admission that he needs us, not merely at the ballot box, but in the trenches as America faces collapse, in just about ever way imaginable. Obama's whole candidacy seems to be about a call to action. It is a call to action that we dismiss at our own peril.

Conservatives starting to panic about Palin

By: SilentPatriot @ 4:15 PM - PDT

Prominent conservatives are finally starting to realize that an unqualified half-term hockey mom from Alaska might not be the best choice to be a 72 year old heartbeat away from the presidency. Here’s the brutal roundup.

Kathleen Parker:

It was fun while it lasted.

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted. Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there.

Wingnut extaordinaire K-Lo:

I’m not where my friend Kathleen Parker is — wanting her to step aside to spend more time with her family and Alaska — but that’s not a crazy suggestion.

McCain campaign insiders, via Ed Schultz:

McCain Camp insiders say Palin “clueless”

Capitol Hill sources are telling me that senior McCain people are more than concerned about Palin. The campaign has held a mock debate and a mock press conference; both are being described as “disastrous.” One senior McCain aide was quoted as saying, “What are we going to do?” The McCain people want to move this first debate to some later, undetermined date, possibly never. People on the inside are saying the Alaska Governor is “clueless.”

Etc., etc., etc., etc.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Is Palin, Dick Cheney in Drag or worse?

We would say, no.


She is an entirely different personality type. That's not to say that she won't enjoy the "legal secrecy" that Cheney has instituted, when it is in her best interest, unless Congress makes V.P. secrecy a crime. But she doesn't have the clout or high-ranking allies in D.C. to move mountains as Cheney does.


There is one, and only one, reason that Palin was chosen....O.K..... actually two.


1) The Goopers wouldn't allow McCain to have either of the picks he wanted (Lieberman or Ridge). Why? Because both of those those men are pro-choice.



2) McCain was never going to excite the base (meaning the crusading crackpots of the christian- right, whom he had scolded as agents of intolerance in 2000 (or was that 2000 years ago. Sure seems like it.) . So, Palin was chosen to get out the vote. The votes of the citizens of Wingnuttia are necessary for the Goopers to win. They must have wedge issues so they won't have to talk, with any intellectual depth, about real issues. If they had to seriously address real issues, in more than a sound bite scenario, the GOP would never win another election.


They are on the wrong side of history

by Christine Bowman

The secretive and powerful Dick Cheney has expanded and compromised the office of the vice president. What would Sarah Palin do?

Dick Cheney has spent the past eight years, perhaps more, remaking the vice presidency of the United States of America. He has led the way towards establishing a "unitary executive" and has worked in many ways to expand the powers of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government. No vice president before him has wielded power in the same way or to the same extent. For most observers the first clue of this came in 2001 with Cheney's creation of a secret energy task force.

A few months from now, Cheney presumably will hand over the office of VP to a new occupant. The GOP's candidate for that office, Sarah Palin, appears to be another politician committed to secrecy and central control, judging by her record in Alaska and her campaign thus far for the vice presidency.

(My educated two cents worth: Palin is not Cheney. Cheney is quite content to slither around the back halls of power, spreading toxic slime everywhere he goes. Palin will not be so content to play second fiddle to anyone. She is not a shadow type of gal. This woman will not be easily handled, once they get to the White House if, God forbid, they do and will prove to be a huge pain in the ass for McCain.)

New evidence of Palin's approach was reported by the Associated Press today, regarding her press "availability" (or non-availability) when visiting the United Nations and meeting foreign leaders for the first time:

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has not held a press conference in nearly four weeks of campaigning, initially barred reporters from her first meetings with world leaders Tuesday ... At first, campaign aides told the TV producer, print and news agency reporters in the press pool ... that they would not be admitted ...

Palin bars, then admits reporters to meetings (AP)

Palin and the GOP operatives who orchestrate her events have endeavored and largely succeeded in insulating her from the "free press." Palin began her campaign for the vice presidency August 29th as a near-unknown nationally, yet reporters have had only brief and highly controlled opportunities to vet her more fully for the American public. Even the campaign itself seems to have done only a hasty vetting before announcing her selection. Consequently, Sarah Palin is more image than substance, more stump speech than in-depth analysis, and the election draws near.

Putting another person who embraces secrecy and unilateralism into the upper reaches of the Executive Branch carries with it risks that American voters need to recognize. Former White House Counsel and legal writer John W. Dean has the experience, from his Nixon White House and Watergate days, as well as the constitutional law training, to understand those risks and what harm a vice president can do.

Writing September 19th at findlaw.com, John W. Dean assessed Dick Cheney's tenure as our most recent Vice President. He wrote about Cheney and the Constitution in response to the recently published Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. A strong case is made in the book that Cheney's lies resulted in congressional approval of the Iraq War under false pretenses.

Last year, Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman and Jo Baker, now of the New York Times, did an extensive series for the Post on Cheney. Now, Gellman has done some more digging, and published the result in a book he released this week: Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. The book reveals a lie told to a high-ranking fellow Republican, and the difference that lie made. In this column, I'll explain how Cheney defied the separation of powers, and go back to the founding history to show why actions like his matter so profoundly.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20080919.html

Dean summarizes:

In short, it was this lie [to then Republican Majority Leader Richard Armey of Texas] that sealed the nation's fate, and sent us to war in Iraq. By lying to such an influential figure in Congress, Cheney not only may have changed the course of history, but also corrupted the separation of powers with their inherent checks and balances.

Dean accuses Cheney of "monumental dishonesty" and argues: "Cheney's great lie can be viewed not only as a great immorality and violation of the criminal code, but also and more fundamentally as the significant breach of his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution that it is."

Dean goes on to raise the larger issue of the Republican Party's lack of commitment to the checks and balances mandated by our Constitution and considered essential by the founding fathers. Dean's assessment is that the Republicans in congress today are unwilling to acknowledge Cheney's wrong-doing or to challenge him. This, Dean contrasts to a typical Democratic Party pattern of taking action and demanding accountability, even against "their own," when warranted.

John Dean is a man who stood up to Richard Milhouse Nixon and stood up for the Constitution. At this time in history, forty-some years later, Dean sees no person in government willing or able to stand up to Dick Cheney or challenge his views on government. Dean concludes:

Those of us who follow these matters have long known - and I have written before - that it is Dick Cheney who is molding his hapless and naive president to his will, by effecting endless expansions of Presidential powers, and acting upon Cheney's total disregard of the separation of powers.

Cheney does not seem to believe the Constitution applies to "real leaders" ... Nor does he believe in the separation of powers. ... It has long been clear that Cheney has been corruptly bridging the constitutional separation of powers throughout the Bush/Cheney presidency.

If Armey is right, Dick Cheney has not only behaved improperly, but also criminally: In addition, when lying to Armey, Cheney clearly committed a "high crime or misdemeanor" in his blocking the Constitution's checks and balances from stopping our march into Iraq. During the debates that took place during the Constitution's ratification conventions, it was specifically stated that lying to Congress about matters of war would be an impeachable offense. Congress has also made it a crime.

Nonetheless, nothing is likely to happen to Cheney, for Congress is too busy dealing with the disastrous economy that he and Bush are leaving behind as they head for the door. No one seems inclined to hold Cheney responsible, and he appears totally unconcerned about the wrath of history. Yet in lying even to those in his own party, about reasons to go to war, he has sunk to a low level few have reached, and it is no hyperbole to call his actions treasonous to the structure and spirit of the Republic.

(Perhaps, none of the Jellyfish in D.C. have much interest in holding Cheney responsible for his many crimes, but the people may think differently.)

Such is the legacy a Vice President Palin would inherit. Lying? Okay. Expansive powers? Yes. Secrecy? Of course. There are precedents now.

Is that a risk American voters want to take?

HELL NO!


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.