Lou Dobbs: Rebel without a cause

I'm exaggerating of course. He looks nothing like Marlon Brando. But seriously....When have you ever ever ever heard Lou Dobbs be pro anything? He's anti-immigration, anti-outsourcing, anti-taxcuts, anti-free-trade, anti-Bush, anti-Gore, anti-Kerry, anti-Clinton, anti-Obama, anti-you, anti-me and the latest, anti-bailout.

There's one thing to be anti-something and pro-other, but to pull off anti-everything requires a special talent and of all the people that I know, only Lou has that. Why, yesterday, he even wrote a commentary against adopting abandoned puppies saying that it would amount to blanket amnesty for people that abandon puppies.

According to insider sources within CNN, Lou is working on a commentary railing against commentaries. Out to prove a point, he's put his own commentaries top on the list of commentaries he's against. The entire country is eagerly awaiting this anti-commentary commentary. Commentators on both ends of the political spectrum are busy commentating on the pros and cons of such a bold tactic, one that is even more bold than John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate (In case you are wondering... Lou is anti-McCain and anti-Palin as well). How he's going to pull this one off has all the makings of a prime-time reality show (he's against those as well).

In other news, there are reports of a spike in binocular sales in the 49th state as more and more Alaskans look West towards Russia in order to gain better foreign policy experience, in case McCain-Palin get elected and they are called upon to staff the State Department. Sphere: Related Content

Pants on Fire!!

OK. There have been half-truths and embellishment in the past by both campaigns; something that we have come to expect from political campaigns; but the lies from the "Straight Talk Express" have reached a new low this week.

From Palin's "Bridge to Nowhere" lie to "Obama wants to have sex-ed for Kindergartners", the republican presidential ticket has now thrown the truth completely out of their ads and are basically resorting to a bad imitation of the Swift Boat tactics of 2004. The lies have reached such embarrassing proportions that even their own party members are cringing at some of these ads.

For someone who absolutely hated Karl Rove for what he did to his candidacy in 2000, McCain sure is embracing all of Rove's tactics eagerly. How America can vote for a two-faced liar like him is beyond my comprehension.

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Of Lipstick, Pigs and Politics

The 2008 election campaign has officially hit its lowest point today after the "Lipstick Gate" controversy. For those few lucky ones that are unaware, uninitiated OR uninterested, Barack Obama called McCain's economic policies the same as Bush and used the Lipstick on a Pig phrase to illustrate his point.

Today, McCain's campaign feigned outrage saying that Obama's comments were in reference to the lipstick comments by Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin at the recently concluded Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN.

So, it has started. The mud-slinging, the lies, the swift-boating, the deceit and the smears. Just when I thought that this election was a bit different, I have been proven soundly wrong. Beneath all the shiny suits, the $400 loafers and polished talk, every politician has a streetfighter's mentality and in times such as these (http://www.gallup.com/poll/107674/Gallup-Daily-Election-2008.aspx), it comes out and rears its ugly head.

I am not going to start debating on who was right and who is wrong. I think it would do the citizens of this country a lot of good if the discussion were to get back to the issues (the economy, the nation's security and energy policy), rather than this "you said, she said, I said" Kindergarten routine that we're in right now.

The one interesting thing though is that amidst all this noise, we seem to have completely lost track of the other VP candidate, Joe Biden. Where is he? Wasn't he supposed to be Obama's "Attack Dog"? Isn't he the "loud-mouthed" one? Maybe Obama needs to focus his attacks on McCain and Biden on Palin. The more Obama attacks Palin, the more he frames the comparison in people's mind's between himself and Palin, rather than himself and McCain. The odds for Obama in a comparison against McCain are good but not so against Palin. Likewise, Biden against Palin is a cake-walk for Biden BUT the Republicans are cleverly framing this as Palin vs. Obama rather than Palin vs. Biden and looks like the Dems are falling into the trap.
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Lord Vader

Was doing some research on Sarah Palin and what she was bringing (or not) to the table and ran into the following excerpt from an interview that Karl Rove did on "Face the Nation" a month ago:

SCHIEFFER: You have said yourself in the past that Obama probably should pick a red state governor, somebody just like Tim Kaine that we just heard just a minute ago from Virginia. Governor Kaine seems to think that Democrats really can carry Virginia this time. Do you think that state’s going to be in play?

Mr. ROVE: Yeah. I think it’s going to be in play, but let me clarify. I didn’t say that I thought he ought to, I said that I thought he probably would pick a red state Democrat, because I think he’s going to make an intensely political choice, not a governing choice. He’s going to view this through the prism of a candidate, not through the prism of president; that is to say, he’s going to pick somebody that he thinks will on the margin help him in a state like Indiana or Missouri or Virginia. He’s not going to be thinking big and broad about the responsibilities of president.

With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he’s been a governor for three years, he’s been able but undistinguished. I don’t think people could really name a big, important thing that he’s done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America. And again, with all due respect to Richmond, Virginia, it’s smaller than Chula Vista, California; Aurora, Colorado; Mesa or Gilbert, Arizona; north Las Vegas or Henderson, Nevada. It’s not a big town. So if he were to pick Governor Kaine, it would be an intensely political choice where he said, `You know what? I’m really not, first and foremost, concerned with, is this person capable of being president of the United States? What I’m concerned about is, can he bring me the electoral votes of the state of Virginia, the 13 electoral votes in Virginia?’

 

So when Steve Schmidt, disciple numero uno of Rove, feigns anger at the media for apparently questioning Palin's resume and calls them sexist for even asking basic questions on Palin's experience, it reeks of hypocrisy.

I think what the McCain camp is trying to say is this:

If you are a red state Governor and a woman (and hot!) and the name of your state begins and ends with A and your state has more moose than humans and you have been mayor of a village that begins with W and you have extremely conservative social views and you are for drilling everywhere including the Grand Canyon (Hey! The Colorado river has already done half the job for us there!), then you are more experienced than the other guy, no matter how many years or what kind of qualifications he has.

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Pale-in-Comparison

I know. It's not about the VP candidate but about the person on the top of the ticket. VPs are just there for the ride (unless you are Dick "Lord Vader" Cheney, in which case you control the puppet President).

So let's for a moment go with that assumption. The next question then is, why so much noise around Palin?

It is not because of Palin herself, a lite-featherweight at best, but what her selection tells us about Grandpa McSame:

1. He put "winning first" and "COUNTRY LAST" because he realized that his original choice, Joe LIE-berman, would have gone nowhere with the conservative right-wing (think Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Corsi). And he also knows that he's putting a small-town (more like a village) mayor from Alaska who just got herself a passport, a heartbeat away from the presidency. McCain is a two-time cancer survivor and not in the greatest of healths.
2. He is desperate to reinforce his Maverick status by doing the unexpected. The problem is that when the unexpected also becomes the "under-vetted" OR "under-cooked", then that's where a Maverick moves quickly turns into a moronic one.
3. Again, in order to win at all costs, he is shamelessly pandering to the extreme right-wingers in the Republican party, while he himself is against some of their wierd positions (abstinence only education, creationism and other such nonsense).

How a person at his age can be so consumed by the hunger for power that he is willing to sacrifice his core principles and beliefs just to win, is frightening. That should warn all potential independents that are thinking about voting for the McSame/Palin ticket.

And some closing thoughts on Palin herself:

No doubt a strong characted and a good person but one has to question her judgement to thrust her pregnant teenage daughter into the national limelight (think front page of National Enquirer) just to advance her own political career. Whatever happened to the GOP being the Party of Family Values? I'm not saying that she shouldn't run for higher office at all but just questioning the timing of her decision. And Oh, BTW, she cannot hold a candle to Hillary (or Biden for that matter). Sphere: Related Content

LIE-berman

Yup! That's what I'm gonna call him now, LIE-berman. Because that's the new low that poor Joe has sunk to. Until now, we all thought that he was just a stubborn old guy with an over-inflated ego that couldn't bring himself to admitting that he made a mistake by supporting the invasion of Iraq.

That slowly started changing when he started moving more and more closely with the Republicans. I mean, the guy doesn't have anything in common with the Republican ticket, except for the War. His positions on abortion, same-sex marriage, healthcare, education reform, taxation - they are all 180 degrees different. But then he sets a new record of hypocrisy by going to the Republican convention and professing undying love and support for McCain and Palin. This, after declaring on "Meet the Press" just a couple of weeks ago that he wouldn't go to the RNC.

And the icing came when he criticized Obama for not working across the isle. Way to go LIE-berman!! Is that what "working across the isle" is? Forgoing all your values, your ideals and your positions and shamelessly pandering to the right-wing just because you are desperate to find comfort for your mistaken decision on Iraq?

That is just plain pathetic. I really hope the Democrats win a clear majority in the Senate this November and send LIE-berman's butt packing to the Republican party. With all his lies and hypocrisies, he would fit right in.

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Time for Change

Time to move on, America. Time to grow up and surely, time to let go. You have a choice in November. You can choose to waddle in the morass; a vile concoction of racism, partisanship, political rhetoric & posturing, lies and deceit by its leaders, in addition to pure incompetence; OR you can move forward and reclaim your lost glory, lost morality and lost global standing.  

So called "Experts" such as (Krauthammer, Coulter, Limbaugh et al) can pick apart every word in every speech, take it out of context and come up with a completely different meaning. Sure, it helps sell papers and drive traffic to websites but at the end of the day, these people and others like them are dominating the debate but sadly, marginalizing the issue and the people affected by it.  

You can choose to elect a 72yr old relic of a bygone era, who has no clear vision of how and where to steer this country in these challenging times, other than to continue the "splendid" policies of the current administration.  

OR you can choose a dynamic, young, deeply insightful and unifying leader like Barack Obama who can lead this country into the 21st century. America desperately needs to reinvent itself for the new millennium and for what has truly become a global economy. It risks being outmaneuvered by rapidly growing and well educated economies such as India & China.  

Do you really believe McCain and Palin are capable of leading that change?  

You have a choice. Cling onto the past, bicker, fight amongst yourselves and continue to elect incompetent people, OR, take a fresh approach and hire a young, energetic leader capable of uniting you all, changing for the better and surging forward. I am tempted to quote Jim Collins here: "Good is the enemy of Great!". America has been very good, and still is today but to go on and be a great nation for centuries to come, you need to change and the time is right now.   This is your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Don't mess it up. 

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