McCain Wimps Out, Country Shrugs

Excellent Video of Obamas' Speech clip, to check the crowds out.

View of Barack Obama’s Speech at Invesco Field in Denver

Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

Gloria Steinem Palin: Wrong Woman, Wrong Message

Gloria Steinem, The Los Angeles Times: "Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing - the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party - are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women - and to many men too - who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the 'white-male-only' sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes."

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FOCUS Scores Killed by Pilotless US Aircraft

Zubair Shah and Jane Perlez, The New York Times: "A missile strike from a remotely piloted United States reconnaissance aircraft killed 6 to 12 people in a group of houses in southern Afghanistan, very close to the border with Pakistan, Pakistani residents of the area said Friday."

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Maya Schenwar US-Iraq Agreement Leaked

Maya Schenwar, Truthout: "A leaked version of last month's draft of the proposed US-Iraq status of forces agreement (SOFA) suggests that the Iraqi parliament may not be consulted before it is signed, despite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's promises to do so. The pact would govern the future US presence in Iraq. The draft indicates no intent to set a deadline for withdrawal of 'noncombat' troops from Iraq. It also grants immunity from Iraqi law to US military personnel, no matter where they are located."

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September 5, 2008: John McCain's Big Acceptance Speech

September 3, 2008: Intro - Day 2 of RNC Coverage

Running Campaign As If GOP Weren't In Power...

The Two Scariest Words For The GOPMcCain-Bush

"We Let Washington Change Us

McCain Allies Move To Derail Trooper Investigation

Trying To Remove Democrat In Charge Of Investigation... Claim Probe "Politicized"... . Palin's Husband Hiring Own Lawyer...

Key Alaska allies of John McCain are trying to derail a politically charged investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of her public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called "October surprise" that would produce embarrassing information about the vice presidential candidate on the eve of the election.
In a move endorsed by the McCain campaign Friday, John Coghill, the GOP chairman of the state House Rules Committee, wrote a letter seeking a meeting of Alaska's bipartisan Legislative Council in order to remove the Democratic state senator in charge of the so-called "troopergate" investigation.
Coghill charged that the senator, Hollis French, had "politicized" the probe by making a number of public comments in recent days, including telling ABC News that Palin had a "credibility problem" and that the investigation into the firing of public safety commissioner Walter Monegan was "likely to be damaging to the administration" and could be an "October surprise." Wrote Coghill: "The investigation appears to be lacking in fairness, neutrality and due process."

Something's fishy ... the band who wrote Barracuda have sent a cease and desist letter to the Republican Party over its use of the song.

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Friday, September 5, 2008

It’s Friday ya Bastids. After 4 days of shrill shrieking FRAUD I need a nap OR a booby bounce.

CHANGE.

A man who voted with George W. Bush 90% of the time. A woman who , like George W. Bush, believes God is a card-carrying Republican who can't possibly dissapprove of war and neglecting the poor.

CHANGE.

A 'maverick' who has completely sold out his independence and flip flopped to appease the extreme right wing. A woman who, like George W. Bush, surrounds herself completely with 'yes men' types and fires anyone who dares to have a different perspective.

CHANGE.

A man who was born in Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term and barely comprehends technology like the Internet. A woman who, like George W. Bush, was a hard partying youngster who found religion, and uses that discovery to hypocritically judge the rest of us on morality.

CHANGE.

A man living the rarified, disconnected life of a multi-millionaire. A woman who spends as many tax dollars as she can get.

CHANGE.

A sad old man who surrendered his values just to be nominated, in a lifelong quest to live up to ghosts of overachieving elders. A naive woman eager to be led around by the uneducated nose, by faceless, shadowy operatives who rank America's best interest far behind their own.

CHANGE.

HIM: Four more years of Bush policy and shortsightedness. HER: Four more years of Bush scheming and arrogance.

All together now.....

THAT'S NOT CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN

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Palin Accuses 'Obama/Biden Democrats' of Attacking Her Family, But Campaign Can't Name One

September 04, 2008 8:05 PM

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sent out a fundraising solicitation today that charged that "the Obama/Biden Democrats have been vicious in their attacks directed toward me, my family and John McCain."

I asked spokespeople of the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee just which "Obama/Biden Democrats" they're referring to.

The response I got was that Obama spokesman Mark Bubriski erroneously attacked Palin as a supporter of Pat Buchanan.

That's it. That's the evidence.

An attack on Palin herself.

In other words, they can't name one person affiliated with the Obama-Biden campaign who attacked the Palin family.

But she made the charge anyway, to help raise money.

Incidentally, in 1998 Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, told the following joke at a Republican fundraiser:

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?" McCain joked about the then-President's then-teenage daughter. "Because her father is Janet Reno."

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White House Quarrels With Woodward Over Book

City in 'hot seat' over RNC arrests

60,000 letters to St. Paul mayor seek charge drops for all arrested journos.

Fed to take control of Fannie, Freddie

Will dismiss top execs and make 'quarterly infusions as losses warrant' them.

Palin: Not Ready On Day One. Or Day Two. Or Day Three...

Did'nt you know she going to study her next lot of lines for the debate, that Georgies Gang and Lieberman are going to brainwash her with

From Marc Ambinder, we learn that Palin won't be taking questions from the press yet:

A senior McCain campaign official advises that, despite the gaggle of requests and pressure from the media, Gov. Sarah Palin won't submit to a formal interview anytime soon. She may take some questions from local news entities in Alaska, but until she's ready -- and until she's comfortable -- which might not be for a long while -- the media will have to wait. The campaign believes it can effectively deal with the media's complaints, and their on-the-record response to all this will be: "Sarah Palin needs to spend time with the voters."

What's going on right now is that Palin's being shipped back to Alaska so that she can study up on what foreign policy opinions she might like to have, learn the official McCain lines on Iraq (you know, that place her son is going), and deal harshly with any remaining small town librarians that might stand in her way.

So Sarah Palin will, according to McCain, be ready to take over the Presidency at a moment's notice, and can go toe to toe with Putin whenever the need arise -- but she's not quite ready to take on the horror of, say, The View. Don't you worry, though -- she'll be ready on day two.

Well, not really, but probably day three or four. Two weeks, tops. OK, tell you what, we'll just get back to you on that, OK? I mean what with the eBay sales, and moose burgers, and the pile of librarian corpses in the backyard, it's a heck of a mess up here right now...
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McCain planning to keep Palin from press?

Obama says McCain is all biography, no economy

AMEN

DURYEA, Pa. -- Democrat Barack Obama called Republican rival John McCain's acceptance speech the final piece of an out-of-touch convention that focused on its nominee's biography instead of the struggles of the middle class.

"If you watched the Republican National Convention over the last three days, you wouldn't know that we have the highest unemployment in five years because they didn't say a thing about what is going on with the middle class," Obama told workers at a specialty glass factory.

"They spent a lot of time talking about John McCain's biography, which we all honor," the Illinois senator said. "They talked about me a lot, in less than respectful terms. What they didn't talk about is you and what you're seeing in your lives and what you're going through, or what your friends or your neighbors are going through."

Obama pointed out that the nation's unemployment rate zoomed to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August, according to a government jobs report issued Friday.

"We've now lost 605,000 jobs since the beginning of this year," Obama said. "We've had eight consecutive months of job losses."

Obama seized on the new jobs report as part of his strategy to tie McCain to President Bush's stewardship of the economy and to connect with voters who fear their jobs will disappear. There is no shortage of such voters in Rust Belt Pennsylvania.

In accepting the Republican presidential nomination, McCain spoke at length about his biography, his love of country and his principles for governing.

Obama mocked McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis for saying the election would be decided more by voters' views about the candidates than about issues.

"Personalities? I mean, I've got a pretty good personality. But that's not why I'm running for president," Obama said to laughter.

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Obama At Bon Jovi Event: 'We Won't Be Bullied'

silverweb said:::

Hear that, people?
"We're not going to be bullied, we're not going to be smeared, we're not going to be lied about," Obama said. "I don't believe in coming in second."

As someone else brilliantly and graphically put it:

Source: WCBS-TV

MIDDLETOWN, N.J. (AP) ― Unlike his Republican opponent, Democrat Barack Obama is still raising money for his presidential campaign, and he turned Friday to rock legend Jon Bon Jovi for help.

Bon Jovi and his wife, Dorothea, hosted more than 100 people for dinner on their mansion lawn by the Navesink River in Middletown, N.J. The price was $30,800 a person, to be divided between the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee

-----

Obama spoke for about eight minutes before greeting guests individually. He vowed to fight Republican attacks on his character and background more fiercely than John Kerry did in his losing campaign four years ago.

"We're not going to be bullied, we're not going to be smeared, we're not going to be lied about," Obama said. "I don't believe in coming in second."
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Paul: RNC slot would have cost 'everything I believe in'

The Sarah Palin Church Video Part One

Master's Commission Wasilla Alaska
Master's Commission Wasilla Alaska is a school designed to make desciples of Christ. We will train you to know God and to Make Him known, to walk in the ...

The Sarah Palin Church Video Part Two

Master's Commission - Wasilla Alaska Trailer

The Resentment Strategy

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: September 4, 2008
Can the super-rich former governor of Massachusetts — the son of a Fortune 500 C.E.O. who made a vast fortune in the leveraged-buyout business — really keep a straight face while denouncing “Eastern elites”?
Can the former mayor of New York City, a man who, as USA Today put it, “marched in gay pride parades, dressed up in drag and lived temporarily with a gay couple and their Shih Tzu” — that was between his second and third marriages — really get away with saying that Barack Obama doesn’t think small towns are sufficiently “cosmopolitan”?
Can the vice-presidential candidate of a party that has controlled the White House, Congress or both for 26 of the past 28 years, a party that, Borg-like, assimilated much of the D.C. lobbying industry into itself — until Congress changed hands, high-paying lobbying jobs were reserved for loyal Republicans — really portray herself as running against the “Washington elite”?
Yes, they can.
On Tuesday, He Who Must Not Be Named — Mitt Romney mentioned him just once, Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin not at all — gave a video address to the Republican National Convention. John McCain, promised President Bush, would stand up to the “angry left.” That’s no doubt true. But don’t be fooled either by Mr. McCain’s long-ago reputation as a maverick or by Ms. Palin’s appealing persona: the Republican Party, now more than ever, is firmly in the hands of the angry right, which has always been much bigger, much more influential and much angrier than its counterpart on the other side.
What’s the source of all that anger?
Some of it, of course, is driven by cultural and religious conflict: fundamentalist Christians are sincerely dismayed by Roe v. Wade and evolution in the curriculum. What struck me as I watched the convention speeches, however, is how much of the anger on the right is based not on the claim that Democrats have done bad things, but on the perception — generally based on no evidence whatsoever — that Democrats look down their noses at regular people.
Thus Mr. Giuliani asserted that Wasilla, Alaska, isn’t “flashy enough” for Mr. Obama, who never said any such thing. And Ms. Palin asserted that Democrats “look down” on small-town mayors — again, without any evidence.
What the G.O.P. is selling, in other words, is the pure politics of resentment; you’re supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it’s better than you. Or to put it another way, the G.O.P. is still the party of Nixon.
One of the key insights in “Nixonland,” the new book by the historian Rick Perlstein, is that Nixon’s political strategy throughout his career was inspired by his college experience, in which he got himself elected student body president by exploiting his classmates’
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Republican convention features ominous 9/11 ‘tribute’

Notably absent from the video is President Bush, who aside from addressing the convention via satellite Tuesday was largely unmentioned during the proceedings. The video did feature an image of Giuliani and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at Ground Zero.

Television anchors and commentators were shocked by the brazen use of the attacks as political argument

=====

Republicans are fond of speaking of “Islamic terrorism” as a unified threat, and right-wing media have attempted to conflate links between Osama bin Laden, a Sunni Muslim, and the Shiite-controlled Iranian regime. As of last year, Iranian citizens overwhelmingly rejected bin Laden.

Perhaps we should cut them some slack, though. The party’s nominee has some trouble keeping the differences between Sunnis and Shiites straight.

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Team McCain tries to curb Palin probe

Nominee's ally moves to curb probe of Palin

Key Alaska allies of John McCain are trying to derail a politically charged investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of her public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called "October surprise" that would produce embarrassing information about the vice presidential candidate on the eve of the election.
In a move endorsed by the McCain campaign Friday, John Coghill, the GOP chairman of the state House Rules Committee, wrote a letter seeking a meeting of Alaska's bipartisan Legislative Council in order to remove the Democratic state senator in charge of the so-called "troopergate" investigation.
Coghill charged that the senator, Hollis French, had "politicized" the probe by making a number of public comments in recent days, including telling ABC News that Palin had a "credibility problem" and that the investigation into the firing of public safety commissioner Walter Monegan was "likely to be damaging to the administration" and could be an "October surprise." Wrote Coghill: "The investigation appears to be lacking in fairness, neutrality and due process."

LinkHere

McCain planning to keep Palin from press?

Silver State of Nevada Is 11th Bank Failure This Year

In July, Silver State announced the resignation of Andrew McCain as a director of the bank. McCain, who had served on the audit committee and was a director for five months, is the son of Republican presidential nominee John McCain. A call to the campaign's press line wasn't immediately returned.

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Silver State Bank of Henderson, Nevada was closed by U.S. regulators today, the 11th bank to collapse this year amid a surge in soured real-estate loans stemming from the worst housing slump since the Depression.
Silver State, with $2 billion in assets and $1.7 billion in deposits, was shut by the Nevada Financial Institutions Division and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the FDIC said today in a statement. Nevada State Bank in Las Vegas will assume the deposits from Silver State, which was run by Silver State Bancorp. The failed bank's offices will open Sept. 8 as branches of Nevada State and National Bank of Arizona, the FDIC said.
``Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship,'' the FDIC said.
Banks are being closed at the fastest pace in 14 years and regulators have publicly ordered dozens of institutions to shore up capital or restrict their business. California lender IndyMac Bancorp Inc., which had $32 billion in assets, was closed July 11 in the third-largest bank seizure, contributing to a 14 percent drop in the U.S. deposit insurance fund that had $45.2 billion at the end of the second quarter.
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Unemployment climbs to 5-year high of 6.1 percent

Business Jobless Rate Jumps To 5-Year High

WASHINGTON — The nation's unemployment rate bolted above the psychologically important 6 percent level last month for the first time in five years _ and it's likely to go even higher in the months ahead, possibly throwing the economy into a tailspin as Americans pick a new president.
A blizzard of pink slips propelled the jobless rate from 5.7 percent in July to 6.1 percent in August, the Labor Department reported Friday. Such a sharp increase is usually a strong recession warning, and it dashed investors' hopes for a late-year recovery.

(Living in the lower 48 on one of those elitist coasts, I'm wondering if "Sarah The Great White" might be a better fit?)

McCain told the nation that he wants to play nice now, to change the culture of Washington. He might want to run that by his running mate. "White Trash'
Appropriate, I think

The Odd Couple: John McCain and Sarah Palin

John McCain sure looked tired during his acceptance speech last night. And I don't just mean the bags under his eyes or the lackluster delivery or how he couldn't wait to get off the stage. Cindy was beaming (an aside here: did you see how happy she was the night before holding baby Trig while mom gleefully blasted away at Obama, like he was so many caribou?) but McCain just looked sour. Talk about not enjoying the moment! He'd finally achieved his years-long quest to be the Republican nominee for president, but he was as deflated as a popped balloon.
Maybe McCain should start taking cues from Eckhart Tolle instead of Karl Rove?
He didn't have anything new to say, either, despite his baffling vow to end the bickering in Washington and work with those do-nothing Democrats to get things done for the American people. Like cut taxes for rich folks, make the middle-class pay for health care they can't afford now, spend billions more on defense, and drill, baby, drill! Now that's a breath of fresh Alaska air, isn't it?
Did McCain forget which party's been in charge the last eight years? (News flash: it starts with an R). A time during which the economy has tanked, we got mired in an expensive needless war, oil prices have skyrocketed, unemployment has soared and millions of Americans have lost their homes to shady loans. Not to mention the untold Iraq war vets who've returned home with PTSD or brain injuries or without their legs. Where was the maverick then? Sleeping in Sedona?
But that's all water under the Bridge to Nowhere, right? (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) And McCain told the nation that he wants to play nice now, to change the culture of Washington. He might want to run that by his running mate, whose take-no-prisoners approach to governing might not mesh well with that. Palin, who recently bragged to the New Yorker that she hasn't talked with the head of Alaska's Republican Party since she got elected governor, is actually proud of not getting along with other politicians! (I know I'm not supposed to mention the beauty pageant, but how did she ever win "Miss Congeniality?") They don't call her Sarah Barracuda for nothing. (Living in the lower 48 on one of those elitist coasts, I'm wondering if "Sarah The Great White" might be a better fit?) >>>cont
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Sarah Palin Would Hate Rosa Parks

Van Jones, 09.05.2008
How can any candidate or party that hopes to lead America take such joy in putting down American institutions -- like grassroots democracy and its hard-working stewards?

GOP Ignores Copyrights, Raises Ire Of Multiple Recording Artists

Van Halen, Heart, Others To GOP: Stop Using Our Songs!

This campaign season, Republicans have been using a lot of songs from artists who wouldn't have given permission if asked, and some who have spoken up to ask that their songs not be used in the future.
Here's the No-Thanks-GOP playlist so far:

Van Halen - Right Now
Van Halen management tells us the band had no idea McCain was planning on using "Right Now" during his big entrance in Ohio telling us, "Permission was not sought or granted nor would it have been given."

Jackson Browne - Running on Empty
If the whole episode strikes a nostalgic tone, it's because famous musical artists and Republican presidential candidates have butted heads in the past. Bruce Springsteen publicly complained when Ronald Reagan used "Born in the U.S.A" during his campaign in 1984.

Heart - Barracuda
...the Wilsons condemned the usage, adding that Universal Music Publishing and Sony BMG have sent a cease-and-desist notice to the McCain-Palin campaign, according to CNN. "We have asked the Republican campaign publicly not to use our music,'' the group said in a statement.

Orleans - Still the One
Proving that campaign vetting should extend beyond vice presidential contenders (or those vetting the potential veeps), McCain sparked the ire of the song's co-writer, the founding member of Orleans and current New York congressman, John Hall.

Frankie Valli - Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You
Warner Music Group (WMG) appears to have demanded that YouTube remove "Obama Love," a montage of press fawning over Sen. Barack Obama that had been posted on Sen. John McCain's official YouTube channel. "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Warner Music Group," says a message on YouTube.

Joe Biden On Fire

Gloss may wear off Republicans’ ‘lipstick-on-a-pitbull’ convention moment

Source: Times Online

John McCain’s speech was thin gruel after the raw red meat of his running-mate, and the party may yet run out of impetus.

On Wednesday evening, as Sarah Palin was preparing to take the stage at the Republican convention, a knot of teenagers was standing on a footbridge over the highway leading into MinneapolisSt Paul with a homemade sign that read: “Obama ’08”.

Had they nothing better to do? “It’s the first time that I’ve felt like this,” explained Ligeia Baumhofer. “Barack Obama has got us excited about politics.” A policeman told them to move their sign inside the railings and advised them to leave but they stayed to wave at car drivers honking support.

John McCain even had nice words for Mr Obama, the target of Mrs Palin’s sharpest arrows on Wednesday, saying “much more unites us than divides us” and that the Democrat bidding to be America’s first black President had “my respect and admiration”.

But it was a clunky, double-decker of a speech. Here was Mr McCain arguing he was more experienced and ready to heal “partisan rancour” – when he had, by necessity, chosen a stridently right-wing running-mate with a record of just 18 months in state-wide office.

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“Once Palin became mayor,” he continued, “She became part of that inner circle.”

Alaskans Speak (In A Frightened Whisper): Palin Is “Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean”

“So Sambo beat the bitch!”

by Charley James –

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.
“It was kind of disgusting,” Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the “lower 48” about life near the North Pole.
Then, almost with a sigh, she added, “But that’s just Alaska.”
Racial and ethnic slurs may be “just Alaska” and, clearly, they are common, everyday chatter for Palin.
Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N’-Fetch-It, “darkie musical” swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska’s Aboriginal people as “Arctic Arabs” – how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description – as well as the more colourful “mukluks” along with the totally unimaginative “f**king Eskimo’s,” according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.
But being openly racist is only the tip of the Palin iceberg. According to Alaskans interviewed for this article, she is also vindictive and mean. We’re talking Rove mean and Nixon vindictive.
No wonder the vast sea of white, cheering faces at the Republican Convention went wild for Sarah: They adore the type, it’s in their genetic code. So much for McCain’s pledge of a “high road” campaign; Palin is incapable of being part of one.
Tough Getting People Who Know Her to TalkIt’s not easy getting people in the 49th state to speak critically about Palin – especially people in Wasilla, where she was mayor. For one thing, with every journalist in the world calling, phone lines into Alaska have been mostly jammed since Friday; as often as not, a recording told me that “all circuits are busy” or numbers just wouldn’t ring. I should think a state that’s been made richer than God by oil could afford telephone lines and cell towers for everyone.
On a more practical level, many people in Alaska, and particularly Wasilla, are reluctant to speak or be quoted by name because they’re afraid of her as well as the state Republican Party machine. Apparently, the power elite are as mean as the winters.
“The GOP is kind of like organized crime up here,” an insurance agent in Anchorage who knows the Palin family, explained. “It’s corrupt and arrogant. They’re all rich because they do private sweetheart deals with the oil companies, and they can destroy anyone. And they will, if they have to.”

“Once Palin became mayor,” he continued, “She became part of that inner circle.” >>>cont

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What you going to do old man?

McCain says he only can capture Bin Laden

Edited on Fri Sep-05-08 12:53 PM by JonLP24
Source: Central Chronicle

Washington, Sept 5: Republican presidential candidate John McCain has said that as a former Navy fighter pilot and a prisoner of war in Vietnam, he had enough experience and knowhow to catch Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, as opposed to his rival Democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama.

He said this while responding to Obama's last week accusation that McCain's focus on the Iraq war, rather than pursuing Al Qaeda, had allowed bin Laden to escape in Afghanistan.

The Bush administration has for the past seven years failed to capture Osama, who is believed somewhere in the tribal areas along the Pak-Afghan border.

"President Clinton had opportunities to get Osama Bin Laden. President Bush had opportunities to get Osama Bin Laden. I know how to do it and I'll do it. I understand and I have the knowledge and the background and the experience to make the right judgments. Senator Obama does not," the Daily Times quoted McCain as saying in a TV interview.

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Suicide bomber targets Chalabi

Source: The Australian

A SUICIDE car bomber targeting the convoy of influential Shi'ite politician Ahmed Chalabi killed two people and wounded 17 others overnight, Iraqi police said.

His office said Mr Chalabi, a key adviser to Washington in the build up to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, was in the convoy but was unharmed.

Five of his bodyguards were wounded, police said. The other wounded were civilians. The dead were not immediately identifiable.

The convoy was travelling to one of Chalabi's offices.
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World markets sink after Wall Street plunge

Source: International Herald Tribune

LONDON: World stock markets plunged Friday in the wake of a sell-off on Wall Street amid mounting concerns about a slumping U.S. economy and its impact on global growth.

Wall Street looked to extend its sharp decline Friday after the U.S. government disappointed investors with news that the economy shed jobs for the eighth straight month in August and at a faster-than-expected pace.

The Labor Department said payrolls shrank by 84,000 last month, more than the 75,000 economists predicted, and higher than the 51,000 jobs lost in July. The unemployment rate rose to 6.1 percent from 5.7 percent.

Friday's report followed disappointing reports on U.S. retail sales and jobless claims overnight, eroding investors' hopes for a late-year recovery in the world's biggest economy.

By late afternoon in Europe, Britain's FTSE-100 was down 1.84 percent to 5,263.70, Germany's DAX lost 2.62 percent to 6,114.96, and France's CAC 40 fell 2.38 percent to 4,201.76.

In Moscow, the U.S. dollar-denominated RTS benchmark was down 6.51 percent in late afternoon trading, sinking to the 1,400-point level which has not been seen since June 2006. Moscow-based analysts say they see the market going further down to 1,300 points this year.
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McCain Houses Mocked In Union "Genius" Ad (VIDEO)

Change to Win, a federation of labor unions, released the first in a two-part online video series on John McCain called "Real McCain of Genius." The spoof of Bud Light's "Real Men of Genius" highlights McCain's controversial housing comments and inability to relate to working America. The video was produced by an up-and-coming comedy troupe called Olde English. Watch:

Real McCain of Genius: Houses

Citing documents from the United States and the European Parliament.

Mexico drug plane used for US 'rendition' flights: report

Source: Yahoo News via AFP

MEXICO CITY (AFP) - A private jet that crash-landed almost one year ago in eastern Mexico carrying 3.3 tons of cocaine had previously been used for CIA "rendition" flights, a newspaper report said here Thursday, citing documents from the United States and the European Parliament.

The plane was carrying Colombian drugs for the fugitive leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, when it crash-landed in the Yucatan peninsula on September 24, El Universal reported.

The daily said it had obtained documents from the United States and the European Parliament which "show that that plane flew several times to Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer terrorism suspects."

It said the European Parliament was investigating the private Grumman Gulfstream II, registered by the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, for suspected use in CIA "rendition" flights in which prisoners are covertly transferred to a third country or US-run detention centers.

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THE flagship of the US Navy's Sixth Fleet dropped anchor off Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti today

US warship docks in Georgia

Source: The Australian

THE flagship of the US Navy's Sixth Fleet dropped anchor off Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti today, where Russian troops have been patrolling since last month's war with Georgia.

The USS Mount Whitney, a sophisticated command warship based in Italy, is the third US vessel to arrive on the Georgian coast with humanitarian aid for tens of thousands displaced by the conflict over Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia.

The oil and dry grain shipment port of Poti is patrolled by Russian troops, who Moscow says are carrying out peacekeeping duties.

Georgia and its Western allies say their presence is part of an illegal occupation.

US warship carries aid to Georgian port of Poti

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6 ex-Soviet neighbors back Russia over Georgia

Source: AP

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia scored an important diplomatic victory Friday when it secured support from six other former Soviet nations for its war in Georgia.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that he and other leaders of nations that are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization signed a declaration Friday condemning Georgia's attack aimed at regaining control of its breakaway province of South Ossetia.

The declaration said members of the group are «deeply concerned about an attempt by Georgia to solve the conflict in South Ossetia by force which has led to numerous casualties among civilian population and peacekeepers and entailed grave humanitarian consequences.

The declaration also supported an «active role of Russia in helping peace and security in the region» and spoke about the need to «ensure firm security for South Ossetia and Abkhazia,» the two breakaway Georgian provinces whose independence Moscow has recognized.
. . .

The Russian-led security group links Russia with Armenia, Belarus and four Central Asian nations: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The support from resource-rich Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which have been courted by the West, is particularly important for Russia.

LinkHere

Crash Course in Foreign Policy by ex-Bush aides, for the second highest position in the land? Fricking Unbelievable after the last 8 years.

REFORMERS? I THINK NOT, ANOTHER 4 MORE YEARS OF BUSH!!!!!!! The proliferation of former Bush White House aides in the Palin team may strike some as ironic—and could even provide some fodder for the Democrats—given the McCain camp’s efforts to distance itself from the unpopular president.

Palin's crash course in foreign affairs

Team of ex-Bush aides tutoring McCain VP pick; Lieberman also pitching in.

Bushies Come to Palin's Aid

Michael Isikoff
By Michael Isikoff
The McCain team has hastily assembled a team of former Bush White House aides to tutor the vice-presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, on foreign-policy issues, to write her speeches and to begin preparing her for her all-important Oct. 2 debate against Sen. Joe Biden.
Steve Biegun, who once served as the No. 3 National Security Council official under Condoleezza Rice at the White House, has been hired as chief foreign-policy adviser to the Alaska governor, campaign officials told NEWSWEEK. After taking leave from his job as vice president for international affairs at Ford Motor Co. last Friday, Biegun flew to St. Paul and, together with McCain’s foreign-policy guru Randy Schuenemann, began briefings for Palin on national-security issues—an area where her resume is conspicuously thin.

Biegun is hardly the only Bushie to be tapped for Palin duty. Among others:
Matt Scully, a former Bush White House speechwriter who helped draft some of the major foreign-policy addresses during the president’s first term, is working on Palin’s acceptance speech to the convention Wednesday night.
Mark Wallace, a former lawyer for the Bush 2000 campaign who served in a variety of administration jobs including chief counsel at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and deputy ambassador to the United Nations, has been put in charge of “prep” for the debate against Biden.
Wallace’s wife, Nicolle Wallace, the former White House communications director, has taken over the same job for Palin.
Tucker Eskew, another senior Bush White House communications aide, is serving as senior counselor to Palin’s operation.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former chief economist at the Council of Economic Advisers who has been serving as top economics guru for the McCain campaign, has moved over to serve as Palin’s chief domestic-policy adviser.
The proliferation of former Bush White House aides in the Palin team may strike some as ironic—and could even provide some fodder for the Democrats—given the McCain camp’s efforts to distance itself from the unpopular president. (It has been widely noted, for example, that while the president is addressing the convention tonight by satellite, neither the president nor Vice President Cheney will be coming anywhere near St. Paul. And when Palin's selection was announced last week, McCain aides touted it as an example of the senator returning to his "reformer roots" and rebelling against the GOP establishment.)

Video of Lieberman in 2006 Calling Obama 'A Blessing'

It's gained nearly 30,000 views since posted on YouTube a few days ago, but in the aftermath of Joe Lieberman's appearance at the GOP convention surely it deserves wider attention. It's Lieberman, then running for re-election, hailing Obama at the big Democratic dinner in Hartford CT on March 3, 2006. Obama had endorsed Lieberman over his antiwar rival Ned Lamont, which drew criticism at the time.
Here's the transcript: "As far as I'm concerned [Barack Obama] is a 'Baruch,' which means a blessing. He is a blessing to the United States Senate, to America, and to our shared hopes for better, safer tomorrows for all our families. The gifts that God has given to Barack Obama are as enormous as his future is unlimited. As his mentor, as his colleague, as his friend, I look forward to helping him reach to the stars and realize not just the dreams he has for himself, but the dreams we all have for him and our blessed country."

Lieberman 2006: I Will Help Obama "Reach to the Stars"

Darn Limbaugh, seems she is a hell of a Liar, No Questions? remind you of Georgie anyone, Hmmm?

Sarah Palin's Strange eBay Exaggeration [UPDATED]

UPDATE: John McCain, fibbing his way through an introduction of Palin in Cedarsburg, Wisconsin, advances the falsehood: "You know what i enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor and sold it on eBay -- made a profit."
Well...no.
________
Politicians lie. They all do. The ones we have running all will lie, and if you're not choked with pure idealism you'll admit it. In fact, if you're jaded enough, you might even come to accept it, even respect it when it's done well. The concept isn't perplexing, especially when a deftly placed, glibly drawn half-truth can get yourself out of a dead-end argument.
What is perplexing, however, are unnecessary lies. Silly falsehoods, said for no apparent reason, on topics that the world would have totally avoided had you not lied about it in the first place. One strange Sarah Palin falsehood, which she acclaimed as truth yesterday and the campaign reaffirmed tonight in video was that she successfully auctioned a private jet she deemed unnecessary for the State of Alaska to maintain on eBay. It's a strange falsehood because, in the first place, really, who cares? Moreover, it's bizarre because eBay founder Meg Whitman works for the McCain campaign! She's right there! In the building! And surely she can explain to Palin that she is getting that weird bit of biography wrong.
Via Radar, the facts are these:
After going unsold for months, the jet was put into the hands of Turbo North Aviation, an Anchorage aircraft broker, which put an asking price of $2.45 million on the nearly $2.7 million jet. It quickly sold to Alaska businessman Larry Reynolds for $2.1 million ($31,000 of which went to Turbo Aviation). Today the Westwind II jet spends its days ushering wealthy hunters around Alaska and Russia.
So why on earth would Palin lie about this, knowing that it would bring scrutiny to this story, and knowing that the scrutiny would reveal that a) the auction wasn't successful, b) she lost the State of Alaska's money on the deal, and c) the state's valuable resource had basically become a luxury for wealthy elites? I have no idea! But whatever! It's definitely not the worst lie she's ever told.

ABC EXCLUSIVE: PALIN TROOPER INVESTIGATION FAST TRACKED

Anchorage Daily News Editorials: Palin Is "Stonewalling" Investigation: "It's Time For The Subpoenas"... "Palin's Lawyer Tries To Play Secret Service Card"

NO QUESTIONS

Todd Palin's former business partner files an emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed

Todd Palin's former business partner files an emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed. Oh God.

Title: Oh, my, the Palin 'business partner' suddenly rushed into court to get divorce files sealed

Source: http://www.courtrecords.alaska.gov/

URL Source: http://www.courtrecords.alaska.gov/%20...%20d/pamw2000.docket_lst?68762762

Published: Sep 5, 2008

Author: http://www.courtrecords.alaska.gov/

Post Date: 2008-09-05 02:21:15 by Mekons5

This is the guy with whom Palin reputedly had an affair. Nothing happens for four months and suddenly when the cheating rumor hits, he rushes to court to get his divorce records sealed.

Motion denied the next day.

LinkHere

Talk about Hypocracy and double standards, Hmmmmm? now imagine if that was any member of the Obama Compaign.

No Questions: Palin Won't Talk To Press

A John McCain campaign aide tells Jay Carney that she sees no reason why Sarah Palin should have to answer reporters' queries:
According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads.
Watch the exchange:

McCain Adviser Lies, Says Palin Addressed Housing Crisis

AP’s Fact Checking of The Republican Convention

Fact Checking the LIES

September 4th, 2008 by Ron Chusid
Last night I commented on some of the dishonest statements made at the Republican Convention while watching. Several sources have listed multiple erroneous statements today. AP provides this list:
PALIN: “I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending … and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress ‘thanks but no thanks’ for that Bridge to Nowhere.”
THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a “bridge to nowhere.”
PALIN: “There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate.”
THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.
PALIN: “The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars.”
THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama’s plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain’s plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.
Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.
He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.
MCCAIN: “She’s been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America’s energy supply … She’s responsible for 20 percent of the nation’s energy supply. I’m entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America,” he said in an interview with ABC News’ Charles Gibson.
THE FACTS: McCain’s phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she’s no more “responsible” for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.
MCCAIN: “She’s the commander of the Alaska National Guard. … She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities,” he said on ABC.
THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under “federal status,” which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska’s national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.
FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin “got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States.”
THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor’s election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.
FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: “We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin.”
THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.
More to come.

LinkHere

For every hardcore supporter of the radical right that was jumping up and cheering at home, there was a progressive jumping up and shouting profanity

Alaskin Blogger

Mrs. Palin needs to be reminded that Jesus Christ was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor.

Obama Raises $8 Million After Palin Speech

The political impact of Sarah Palin continues to be hazy -- she's clearly revved up the Republican base, and helped McCain's campaign bring in more than $10 million since she was announced as his running mate.
But the Palin pick seems to be having a virtually identical effect on the Democratic base. Activists have frenetically picked apart Palin's record over the last week, and an Obama aide told the Huffington Post that the campaign has raised $8 million since her speech last night "from over 130,000 donors - on pace to hit $10 million by the time John McCain hits the stage tonight."
"Sarah Palin's attacks have rallied our supporters in ways we never expected," the aide said. "And we fully expect John McCain's attacks tonight to help us make our grassroots organization even stronger."
UPDATE: The Republican National Committee says it has raised $1 million since Palin's speech.

GOP Congressman Calls Obama "Uppity"

Scully started working on the vice-presidential speech a week ago, before he or anyone else knew who the nominee would be,

The Man Behind Palin's Speech

As Democrats and Barack Obama's campaign scrambled to attack Sarah Palin's well-received acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., on Wednesday night, they latched on early and hard to the fact that it was penned by former Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully. But the story is more complicated than just the recycling of a Bush staffer into John McCain's fold, and it tells you more about how McCain's camp intends to use Palin than it does about the continuing influence of the current White House.

The clues are in the text itself. Scully started working on the vice-presidential speech a week ago, before he or anyone else knew who the nominee would be, and it's not hard to pick out the parts that would have been the same regardless of who delivered it. Scully unspooled two centrist themes via Palin that have been key to the McCain message: the idea that the Republican nominee puts service to country ahead of career and the notion that he's the true representative of Middle America. Both themes implicitly push Obama and Biden to the left, and Scully made them explicit with lines accusing the Democrats of élitism and talking down to working-class voters.
Once Palin was chosen, Scully tailored the speech to the Alaska governor, highlighting her biography and using her PTA background and local political experience (contrasted so memorably with Obama's work as a community organizer) to bolster his two themes. Where much media attention in the wake of her surprise naming has focused on Palin's views on cultural issues like abortion, the speech carefully steered away from ideological touchstones. Palin was shown as an average mainstream American looking to bring change to Washington, further bolstering McCain's overarching message of reforming the wasteful Federal Government.
Scully was a good choice to help moderate Palin's right-wing image. A veteran of the early Bush White House, his specialty was crafting Bush's pro-life message in a way that would not offend soccer moms or mainstream Catholics who get nervous around some of the more extreme Evangelical rhetoric. A former protégé of the late pro-life Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, Scully has a history of finding rhetorical unity for voters on the right and in the center.

Alaska Police Union Files Complaint Against Palin

By Aram Roston and Amna Nawaz, NBC News producers
The GOP candidate for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, may be facing yet another ethics investigation back in her home state of Alaska. An ethics complaint obtained by NBC News was filed Wednesday by the police officers union in Alaska, requesting a probe into possible wrongdoing by the governor or her office. It was brought on behalf of state trooper Mike Wooten, an ex-brother-in-law of Palin who is at the center of the "Troopergate" scandal.
The complaint alleges that the governor or her staff may have have improperly disclosed information from Wooten's personnel records. The complaint alleges "criminal penalties may apply."

There's a saying in the south: If you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig! A pit bull with lipstick is still an ugly dog.

I would call her a "SHRILL HARPY" that is exactly what she sounds like,

typical republican

A Pit Bull With Lipstick Is Still A Dog

Selling the same old crap with an attractive new salesperson

A truck dealership in America is having a problem. It's latest design is 8 years old, and quite frankly, not working very well.
The competition has introduced a new model which is very appealing. It costs a bit more, but offers a lot of attractive features that the old model just can't match.It is more family friendly. It gets better fuel economy and offers the same power. It is gaining popularity by the day.
The advertising department has tried everything. They run ads saying that the new truck is "all show and no go". They run false commercials saying that the new engine is not as powerful and that the truck will cost you more than it actually does. Yet, anybody who goes to the competing showroom for a test drive buys one! .Sales at the old dealership are falling fast. It's almost over.
THEN, the general manager gets a great idea! He takes the tired old truck design and paints a giant American Flag graphic on the side. He puts chrome wheels on them and a snappy gun rack in the window.
And the dealership hires a new salesperson-an attractive local mother to sell this old design to the average American family! They show her hunting and fishing and taking her disabled baby to the store in the newly "re-engineered" truck! Sales increase exponentially.
The sad fact is that this sort of advertising does work. The new TV ads have the Mom saying that this truck has a dependable history and that you can't "trust" the newer design! The new truck is un-American because it doesn't display the flag! The new truck is selling better in Europe, so it can't be as good for you! The new truck is too "preppy" because wealthy celebrities drive them! And of course, It costs too much!
In the end, it's the consumer who loses in this scenario, because they let advertising tricks and snappy new salespeople sell them the same old crap.
There's a saying in the south: If you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig! A pit bull with lipstick is still an ugly dog.

LinkHere

Wasilla's Meth Problem Made Palin's Borough The Meth Capital Of Alaska

The self-proclaimed "pitbull in lipstick" gave the base what they were looking for, and hadn't gotten from John McCain.

For every hardcore supporter of the radical right that was jumping up and cheering at home, there was a progressive jumping up and shouting profanity at their TV.

The Flipside Of Palin Firing Up GOP Base -- Firing Up Dem Base

Eric Schmeltzer, 09.04.2008
Sarah Palin's speech last night did everything the McCain campaign wanted it to do, which is really one thing - fire up the right-wing base.
For all the talk about how poised Palin was - as if people expected her to come out and drool and speak in incomplete sentences - the core of her speech was nothing more than recycled right-wing attacks. The self-proclaimed "pitbull in lipstick" gave the base what they were looking for, and hadn't gotten from John McCain.
If the speech was about reaching undecideds, the sarcasm and attacks would have been dramatically toned down. While negative ads can have an effect on undecided and soft voters, vicious attacks coming from the candidate's mouth very rarely do. That the snide tone was intentionally called up is all the evidence you need -- McCain's campaign determined Palin's speech needed to rally the base, not win over new voters.
But there's a flipside of firing up your base with attacks -- it fires up the other side's base too. For every hardcore supporter of the radical right that was jumping up and cheering at home, there was a progressive jumping up and shouting profanity at their TV.
While it may seem that the Obama campaign has owned the battle to get the base fired up, there was a certain bit of calm among Democrats, especially with polls showing a very healthy bounce coming out of Denver. That kind of calm results in less money raised, people less motivated to get out and knock on doors, or hand out campaign lit.
Sarah Palin just lit a fire under the left.
And it's not just Obama supporters, either. As reported here on Huffington, a focus group of undecided Hillary voters had a negative reaction to Palin's speech. While she attacked Obama, who certainly isn't a favorite of those former-Hillary supporters, she also attacked and mocked the very progressive values that Hillary champions, and has been for 30 years. If Palin has nudged those voters to Obama, continued red-meat right-wing attacks from her will only serve to firm-up Hillary's supporters' resolve to defeat McCain/Palin.
It's all a very, very calculated risk, from a McCain campaign that already proved its willingness to play some Russian Roulette with the selection of Sarah Palin. If Palin can bring GOP base turnout up to the same raw vote numbers as Obama's base turnout, we've got a very real race. If she can't, and continues to fire up Obama's side, and drives Hillary supporters into his camp, then the McCain team just shot themselves in the head.

His campaign went out of its way to slag community organizers.

John McCain Cancels Habitat For Humanity Event ... Because It Has To Do With Houses?

Indeed. How could McCain maintain his sense of press victimization against the backdrop of people building homes for people who look forward to being able to one day say, "I know exactly how many homes I own! One! Just the one!"
But another part of the reason McCain canceled the outing is because last night, his campaign went out of its way to slag community organizers, defaming them for not having any "actual responsibilities." Habitat For Humanity, as it happens, is one of the biggest brand names in community organizing -- they maintain a massive network of individual donors, are capable of mobilizing an equally impressive volunteer base to contribute labor to the cause, and have a global reach. It's not a bad idea at all to associate one's own brand with Habitat's. But after last night, I have to imagine that McCain would have found it difficult to face the community organizers of Habitat For Humanity.
And now, a special message for Governor Sarah Palin:

Blogger in Alaska quotes!!!!!!

Mrs. Palin needs to be reminded that Jesus Christ was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor. Amen

Thank you Sarah Palin

Bad questions. Bad media. Bad.

We should have stuck to the press release stuff like how she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere

(after she supported it).

Politico 'Apologizes' To Sarah Palin On Behalf Of Elite Media

ST. PAUL, Minn. — On behalf of the media, I would like to say we are sorry.

On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry.

We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked.

We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?

We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her? How well did his campaign vet her? And was she his first choice?

Bad questions. Bad media. Bad.

It is not our job to ask questions. Or it shouldn’t be. To hear from the pols at the Republican National Convention this week, our job is to endorse and support the decisions of the pols.

Palin Also Supported "Road To Nowhere"