Political Insider

By DK

September 2, 2008 2:18 PM | Link to this

Yea it’s acceptable to delve into the lives of the candidate’s minor children when dealing with Republicans. Of course they were off limits when they’re the children of Democrats. Typical biased f#(&ing media. The media and the Democrats blamed Bush for the swift boating of John Kerry even though he didn’t sanction the attacks. Obama, you cry foul when Republicans use your real middle name. These bloggers are pulling for you, so get-em in line and stop them from attacking minor children who are not running for any office. Otherwise you’re practicing the politics of personal destruction. That’s not the actions of someone who claims to be the candidate of change.

By Bentley

September 2, 2008 2:20 PM | Link to this

This link is to a column on the Weekly Standard’s website. Former headhunter and Reagan speechwriter Dean Barnett provides a headhunter’s analysis comparing the resumes of Obama and Palin. [http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/510lpuif.asp]

By flip wilson

September 2, 2008 2:38 PM | Link to this

DK, you must have never heard John McCain’s hilarious joke about Chelsea Clinton and Janet Reno, circa 1998. look it up if you don’t believe me.

By Winston Smith

September 2, 2008 4:09 PM | Link to this

Now its official: Bristol Palin has endured more media scrutiny in 24 hours than Obama has in an entire campaign.

By OhTheDrama

September 2, 2008 4:50 PM | Link to this

I think parents in this country deserved a heads up about Bristol Palin. At least now we know to prepare ourselves for any question that may come up as a result of this.

By Aaron Burr V. Mexico

September 2, 2008 4:52 PM | Link to this

Yeah, that’s what you want to tell yourself. Look, Obama is a liar sure, but this nonsense about whether or not he has been ‘vetted’ is just that….nonsense. If Hillary Clinton had had anything to use against him, she would have.

Oh wait, you say, “She was pulling her punches.” Really?

Well surely the Republican media will vet him. After all, FOX news and the drudge report are hardly ‘normal’ media outlets on the ideological spectrum, but so far we’ve got Jerimiah Wright, Tony Rezco and the Weathermen.

Quite frankly, they just smell manufactured to me.

The problem is, quite frankly, the Republican brand is tarnished. I don’t believe anything that they say any more and the number one reason why I don’t?

Accountability.

By Craig

September 2, 2008 5:11 PM | Link to this

Yes the Palins took the risk. But would they expect a pretty “mainstream” liberal blog to advance a conspiracy that Bristol was pregnant long ago based on a “bump” in her midsection and that Trig was in fact HER baby instead of Sarah’s? Would anyone expect public attacks on this being a coverup? Or the thought that Palin took her time getting back to Alaska hoping she’d lose the baby and not have to deal with DS issues? THIS is sick. There is a difference in many of the comparisons here.

Another problem I have is liberals using the 3rd grader playground mentality of “well Republicans do it too!”. I mean seriously here. Are we adults? Do we act childish as a retaliation? Do we call teenage girls pregnant because of a lack of washboard abs? Do we accuse a 16 year old girl of a coverup with her mom? Do we accuse a mom of deliberately trying to kill her baby because she doesn’t want to deal with DS? What has politics become? The worst part is there are people still laughing and joking about it. And others are saying the kids are fair game. And Republicans deserve this sort of smear as retribution. I guess that whole Obama message of change and cleaning up the old style of politics just went in one ear and out the other. Even the candidate fails to follow that any more. His followers clearly never did follow it.

By jwatl

September 2, 2008 6:29 PM | Link to this

VERY DISAPPOINTED AND ASHAMED in DEMOCRATS and the media over the Gov Palin affair. Too many Democrats (and their bloggers) have decided to trash a 17 year old girl to get to her mother. Find it VERY hypocritical of the US media making this story front page news, when they had their hats handed to them by THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER in the John Edwards scandal — BIASED?? YOU BET YOUR LAST DOLLAR ON IT. Could it be that this is one of the major reasons they are losing subscriptions and advertisers? Their grossly inflated self importance (especially at MSNBC and the NYT) is comical!

Think that the Democrats have sadly called attention to their elected members — who should know better! Among those who have set pathetic examples for the youth of America are former Gov Spitzer (NY); former Gov McGreevey (NJ); current Mayor of Detroit Kilpatrick (and that mess is still on going); Senator Edwards; Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco; Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angles; and of course, Bill Clinton. Some of these clowns are still in office!

Believe the real problem some democrats have with Gov Palin is the fact that they are resentful of a very attractive female who has done it all — AND WITHOUT THEIR HELP!! Sexist?? YES!!! Hypocritical? INDEED!! Pathetic Examples for Youth?? ABSOLUTELY!! That is why I am so ashamed of what they have apparently become!!

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE TREATED THIS WAY BY ANY POLITICAL PARTY????

By John

September 2, 2008 7:59 PM | Link to this

Race and sex isn’t a barrier to run for the White House. Class shouldn’t be a barrier as well! Some people have thrown around words as “redneck” and “white trash” at Palin. If the voters are okay with “redneck” and “white trash” in the White House, then they can for McCain. If the voters are ashamed of “redneck” and “white trash” in the White House, then they can vote for Obama.

By John

September 2, 2008 8:02 PM | Link to this

Race and sex isn’t a barrier to run for the White House. Class shouldn’t be a barrier as well! Some people have thrown around words as “redneck” and “white trash” at Palin. If the voters are okay with “redneck” and “white trash” in the White House, then they can for McCain. If the voters are ashamed of “redneck” and “white trash” in the White House, then they can vote for Obama.

By The Truth Hurts

September 2, 2008 9:13 PM | Link to this

Liberals and the Liberal media are the biggest losers of all….the Suckers fell for The Mccain Trap, and will now pay the price when their Boy loses the presidency…Amercia will not stand for a presidential candidate that attacks a 17 year old and a liberal biased agenda seeking Drive Bty media that hypes it up…the Backlash will be Absolutely beautiful….All I can say is LOL SUCKERS YOU LOSE!!!!

By Aaron Burr V. Mexico

September 2, 2008 11:27 PM | Link to this

‘k. America will stand for a War Criminal as president and a Speaker for the House that doesn’t do anything about it.

They’ll stand for a president that commits treason by outing a CIA operative and then shout to the high hills about how patriotic they were.

They’ll allow the Secretary of Defense to set up his own shadow intelligence agency with his own shadow government within the government.

They’ll defend to their dying breath a war that was started as a personal vendetta and reinvent the past to whatever The Party tells them to.

They’ll ignore whatever efforts Obama makes to keep things high minded.

They’ll reelect a senator who trashed the patriotism of a disabled war veteran just because he’s liberal.

They’ll pick on an Ent and lie about his war record by Swift Boating him.

They’ll take political donations from a corrupt energy company that cackles with glee when they cause grandmother’s to die from heat exhaustion.

They’ll then blame the governor of California, organize a recall effort and elect a Redumblican governor.

They’ll say they’re for family values and small government and then pass a special law that says that Terry Shaivo is to be kept alive BECAUSE THEY SAID SO.

Don’t you tell me what the liberal media will do. Don’t you DARE take the moral high ground you sons of b*** because you don’t have the right to do it any more.

By Mrs. Aaron Burr V. Mexico

September 3, 2008 12:55 AM | Link to this

Check this out Aaron:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVeFVtcdSYY

By Rather, Dan

September 3, 2008 12:59 AM | Link to this

Mr. Burr, if that is you real name,the liberal media will do whatever it takes to help Obama, or any democrat for that matter, get in the White House. There I told you. What are you going to do about it?

By Churchill

September 3, 2008 6:25 AM | Link to this

ANCHORAGE — Most Alaskans like Sarah Palin. I know I do. Both as a politician and a person, there’s a lot to like.

Despite the fact that we’re from different parties, for the 20 months that we’ve both been in office we’ve been allies on oil and gas issues, which are important in a state where 85 percent of the government’s general revenue comes from oil production. I’ve appreciated the way she has not knuckled under to the oil companies as governors before her have.

And when I turned 60 a couple of months ago, Palin served cupcakes at a gathering at the governor’s mansion. Nearly flambeed herself holding a big tray of the things so I could blow out the candles. Who wouldn’t like that?

But that doesn’t mean I think John McCain made a good decision when he picked Palin to be his running mate. I don’t. Sarah Palin is simply not qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, especially when that heart beats in the chest of a man who would be the oldest president ever elected to a first term.

If you held Palin’s political résumé up to the light, you could see right through it. Mayor of a small town, followed by less than two years as governor of a state with the fourth-smallest population in the country. That’s the person who is qualified to take over if the Norns snip McCain’s thread? The woman prepared to be commander in chief?

I know, I know. Somewhere a thousand spin doctors are trying to inflate Palin’s accomplishments, to make McCain’s decision look less like the Hail Mary it so clearly is. (We’ve already heard them at work.) But before they make her sound like the second coming of Otto von Bismarck, only in high heels, here’s an assessment that’s a little closer to the truth:

Palin’s time as governor has been a mixed bag. She deserves high marks for moving the possibility of a gas pipeline forward. But most of the work on oil taxes was done by the legislature. Ditto with ethics reform. And her role in killing the ballyhooed “Bridge to Nowhere”? Turns out that she was for it before she was against it, and that, well, she kept the money anyway.

Add to this a growing sense that the state government isn’t running all that well: commissioners and key staffers jumping or being pushed. The operating budget growing 10 percent a year. Policy problems such as high energy costs being papered over with cash giveaways. The governor and her aides being investigated by the legislature. You can see why it’s not clear she’s a competent governor of Alaska, let alone qualified to take over the reins of the national government.

Don’t get me wrong. Palin brings some pluses to the campaign. She’s a woman. She’s young. She’s from outside the Beltway. The Christian right likes her. She’s comfortable on TV — she has a degree in journalism — and is adept at connecting with people on a personal level. And she is very, very competitive. When I criticized her plan to hand out free money to Alaskans — spin that, conservative pundits — the next time we met she lit into me like I was a pork chop and she was a starving wolf.

Unlike the shrill pundits on cable news, I don’t have a crystal ball. I don’t know if Palin will turn out to be an asset to the McCain campaign or a liability or, like so many vice presidential candidates before her, a non-factor. I don’t know what kind of leader she might be. But I do know that, on all these fronts, she is a big, big risk if her ticket wins and something bad happens to John McCain. And that the risk isn’t just McCain’s. Or the Republican Party’s. It’s all of ours now.

And that tells me all I need to know about John McCain’s judgment.

By Churchill

September 3, 2008 6:31 AM | Link to this

Here’s what really bothers me (along with Sarah Palin’s underwhelming resume):

McCain knew of this and surely Sarah Palin knew of this. Both of them are would-be players on the national political stage with all its glare and the lack of privacy it brings to everyone connected with the candidate and still they thought that having Sarah Palin, despite a lack of other real credentials to succeed McCain if he died, as the VP candidate was a good idea.

Neither of them cared about the feelings of a 17 year and her privacy? Not to mention that of the baby’s father! They decided it was OK to drag these two young people into the glare of a national spotlight. Even if these two are going to get married, this is still embarrassing for them (esp. if they are fundamentalist Christians) and they don’t deserve it.

By Churchill

September 3, 2008 6:40 AM | Link to this

years, reality was out of vogue with Republicans. They ignored the reality of Iraq and Katrina, of Pakistan and Osama bin Laden.

When confronted with their colossal carelessness around the globe and here at home, their mantra was, as Rummy put it, “Stuff happens.”

Now reality, in all its messy, crazy, funky glory, has flooded the party, in the comely, crackling form of Sarah Palin.

Unable to stop the onslaught of wild soap opera storylines erupting from the Palin family and the Alaska wilderness, McCain campaign adviser Steve Schmidt offered caterwauling reporters a new mantra: “Life happens.”

Indeed, it does. Only four days into her reign as John McCain’s “soul mate,” or “Trophy Vice,” as some bloggers are calling her, on the ticket known as “Maverick Squared,” Palin, the governor of Alaska, has already accrued two gates (Troopergate and Broken-watergate), a lawyer (for Troopergate), a future son-in-law named Levi (a high school ice hockey player, described by New York magazine as “sex on skates”), and a National Enquirer headline about the “Teen Prego Crisis” with 17-year-old daughter Bristol.

It seems like a long time since Vice President Dan Quayle denounced Murphy Brown for having a baby out of wedlock, bemoaning a “poverty of values.” It also seems like a long time — and another McCain ago — that Republicans supporting W. smeared the old John McCain by spreading rumors that he had fathered an illegitimate black child.

This week, the anti-abortion forces celebrated the news of Bristol’s pregnancy, using it as further proof that their beloved Governor Palin — who will no more support sex education than polar bears — was committed to the cause.

Since John McCain played craps first and sent the vetters to Alaska afterward, Republicans have been defending Governor Palin by saying that, while she has no foreign policy experience — except, as Cindy McCain pointed out, that “Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia” — she has a lot of domestic policy experience as a supercharged P.T.A. and hockey mom.

As more and more titillating details spill out about the Palins, Republicans riposte by simply arguing that things like Todd’s old D.U.I. arrest or Sarah’s messy family vengeance story will just let them relate better to average Americans — unlike the lofty Obamas.

“If this doesn’t resonate with every woman in America, I’ll eat my hat,” Bill Noll, an Alaska delegate whose daughter got pregnant at a young age and kept the baby, told The Times’s Ashley Parker.

Even as they push Sarah Barracuda as the glamorous but tough hunting and fishing mom who can juggle it all — she’s the only nominee, as Fred Thompson bragged in his convention speech, “who knows how to properly field dress a moose” — they rant at reporters who wonder how she will juggle it all and question some of her judgments.

At a Washington, Pa., rally on Saturday, as her two other daughters stood with her, Ms. Palin left Bristol baby-sitting Trig, who has Down syndrome. “Then we have our daughter Bristol,” the new conservative Republican star said. “She’s on the bus with the newborn. … It’s his naptime, so he is with his big sister on the bus. But we thank them for being here.”

And this while Bristol was still absorbing the shocking news that she was about to turn into tabloid roadkill — and oh, yeah, she’s getting married sooner rather than later.

When you make a gimmicky pick of an unknown, without proper vetting, there’s bound to be a sticky press conference sooner or later. I watched it happen with Ferraro and Quayle, and I watched Mondale and Poppy Bush curdle with embarrassment but plow through.

The political unknowns, of course, want that tantalizing brass ring, so they’re not always completely forthcoming about their skeletons, if they’re lucky enough to be ineptly vetted. This is ironic, since the nominee who gets blindsided with these crises — Did McCain really know that this Palin reality show was about to pop and swallow his convention — is presenting them to voters as the most trustworthy people to inherit the nuclear codes.

Because Ferraro grabbed at the chance, without revealing to Mondale’s incompetent vetting team how damaging some of her husband’s financial imbroglios could be, she went from being a female icon to part of the reason it’s taken a quarter-century for another party to take a chance on a woman.

When McCain gets in trouble, he pulls out the P.O.W. card. Now Republicans are pulling out the sexist card.

Hillary cried sexism to cover up her incompetent management of her campaign, and now Republicans have picked up that trick. But when you use sexism as an across-the-board shield for any legitimate question, you only hurt women. And that’s just another splash of reality.

By Churchill

September 3, 2008 6:48 AM | Link to this

Time for a little Straight Talk. Who vetted Sarah Palin? No wonder no one wants to go to the GOP convention. This is, of course, a private matter for the Palins, Gerson and the GOP except they also believe they have license to insert themselves into the delicate matters of everyone else.

Aside from any cynacism with regard to the tangled web and it’s failure to really dispel the rumours (a little independent and trustworthy DNA testing could probably do that), here’s what really bothers me:

McCain knew of this and surely Sarah Palin knew of this. Both of them are would-be players on the national political stage with all its glare and the lack of privacy it brings to everyone connected with the candidate and still they thought that having Sarah Palin, despite a lack of other real credentials to succeed McCain if he died, as the VP candidate was a good idea.

Neither of them cared about the feelings of a 17 year and her privacy? Not to mention that of the baby’s father! They decided it was OK to drag these two young people into the glare of a national spotlight. Even if these two are going to get married, this is still embarrassing for them (esp. if they are fundamentalist Christians) and they don’t deserve this.

By Churchill

September 3, 2008 8:05 AM | Link to this

Here is why foxnews, and their conservative supporters, are so sad:

“On the pinhead front, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. The sister of Britney says she is shocked. I bet.

Now most teens are pinheads in some ways. But here the blame falls primarily on the parents of the girl, who obviously have little control over her or even over Britney Spears. Look at the way she behaves.”

Thanks Bill O’Reilly. You can read this at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317577,00.html

Let’s see what Rush Limbaugh had to say: (http://radioequalizer.blogspot.com/2007/12/spears-pregnancy-news-annoys-talk.html)

“CALLER: Would you tend to think that a family in this position, though, wouldn’t you think that there would be a more watchful eye as a parent to be watching over these kids so this doesn’t happen to them?

RUSH: I would certainly hope so, but it’s long past time for this to happen. The parents here are the culprits!

CALLER: (chuckles)

RUSH: I mean, the parents, they’re infected with this disease, this addiction to fame themselves. Look at Britney’s mom, for crying out loud. “Put me on TV, too! Put me on TV!” You know, celebrity parents, they can go both ways, and some of them lose whatever grounding they had as adults when their kids get famous. They want to be part of it. They like the money themselves. It’s very rare to have celebrity parents that remain grounded, but who’s going to get this family in line?”

By Skeech

September 3, 2008 8:21 AM | Link to this

What, so black women can go around shaking their privates on TV and have babies like there is no tomorrow and then attack this woman?

God bless you Sarah and Bristol Palin. You serve as appropriate models for young black females in todays society.

By SKEECH TRASH

September 3, 2008 9:42 AM | Link to this

Skeech oops! I mean Trash. Stop talking about black women period. Your an idiot. You Republican are all jerks and racist. Just look at the whole convention. Bristol Palin is no different than any other teen, who thinks the baby’s father is going to marry her. She an idiot just like you. No dam teenager that is pregnant is no role model for anybody. The only thing she is showing is bad judegement, and setting the standard for her little sisters to follow if the whole family is not careful.

As I blogged yesterday, it was just a matter of time, before the true essence of racism is exploited. None of you racist have ever attempted to help urban communities, instead you’ve dogged them out, and looked down on them. Now since the good ole’ prissy White girl is pregnant, all of a sudden she is a role model. Spare me! The entire Palin family should go hide under a rock and raise their kids PERIOD. Stop acting like the media is bias to Barack! The media has NEVER given a fair chance to any black man, besides degrade and dehumanize him. So Barack is no different. He’s just an educated, smart intelligent man, who have been able to rally the troops. This country needs a change.

Mccain, Skeech and the entire REP party has got to be kidding me. I’ll definitely tune in tonight, just to see the embarrassment this lady will be.

Smooches!

By The Truth Comes Out

September 3, 2008 9:57 AM | Link to this

So what you are saying Churchill is that since Governor Palin’s daughter made a mistake Governor Palin should put her political aspirations on hold? How many people do you know that have had a child make the same mistake and then the parent quit their job because of it? Ignorant statement! Plain and simple. The Dumbocrats need to get off this and try some other underhanded tactic! Fox News Rocks! Fair and Balanced but only watch if you can handle the truth!