Does this count as foreign travel?

GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, on a recent visit to Pennsylvania, had this to say:

“It’s great to see another part of the country.”

Has she never been outside the state of Alaska?

Sarah Palin on the Iraq War

We know GOP Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin doesn’t know much about science or the constitution, and her foreign policy experience consists of being a neighbor to Siberia, but surely she must have something to say about the Iraq War, right?  After all, that debacle has touched the lives of nearly 1% of the American public (3% if you include extended family), and her own 19-year old son is deploying this September 11th.  Well… as it turns out, maybe she doesn’t.  In her own words as of last year,

“I’ve been so focused on state government, I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq,” she said. “I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe.”

Okay, so that was from an interview in July 2007.  Surely she must have some more substantive thoughts by now?  Um, not really, if the following clip is any indication.

Wow.  That’s reassuring.  To think this woman has been accused of being “ready to be President”.  Here’s the transcript for the bandwidth-impaired:

The GOP agenda to ramp up domestic supplies of energy is the only way that we’re going to become energy independent, the only way that we are going to become a more secure nation — and I say this, of course, looking at the situation we are in right now, at war, not knowing what the plan is to ever end the war that we’re engaged in, understanding that Americans are seeking solutions, and they are seeking resolution in this war effort, so energy supplies, being able to produce and supply domestically, is going to be a big part of that.

….I have a 19 year old who’s getting ready to be deployed to Iraq. His Stryker brigade will leave on September 11th of this year. He’s 19, he’ll be gone for a year. [And so] kind of on a personal level, when I talk about, umm, the plan for the war, you know, let’s make sure we have a plan here, and respecting McCain’s position on that.

So, she thinks the GOP actually has an energy plan, and has nothing of substance to say about the most critical event facing our nation’s military forces.  WTF is McCain thinking?  That voters are going to be won over by a pretty face and tight ass?

I sincerely hope we’re not that stupid.

Sarah Palin on the Vice Presidency

This is what Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin recently had to say about the office she may (or may not) hold next year:

“As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.”

For God’s sake, woman, didn’t you study the Constitution when you were in high school?  For the record, here’s what the Vice President does:

1. Act as tiebreaker in the Senate
2. Stand in for the President when he’s unable to perform his duties of office
3. Wait for the President to die or otherwise become incapacitated
4. Start illegal wars in Asia
5. Shoot old men in the face

Is that clear?  WTF is this, amateur hour?

Panderer’s Box

WTF is it with John McCain and former beauty queens?  He dumped his first wife, a former beauty queen, for wealthy and beautiful beer heriess, and now he picks a woman half his age to be his running mate.  The conservative world is all abuzz about McCain’s selection of first-term governor of Alaska Sarah Palin. She brings with her a wealth of executive experience to the ticket – less than two years as governor, and a couple of stints as mayor of Wasila, Alaska, a town of less than 7,000 people.  Well, it’s more command experience than McCain has.  His military career, after all, ended almost before it began. He’s never been in a position of leadership as a military officer, and never held elected office where he would be accountable to the decisions he made.

At 44, she’s younger even than Barack Obama, which kind of undercuts the whole “experience and judgement” argument McCain’s been trying to push for the past few weeks.  And she’s very attractive, possibly the hottest politician I’ve ever seen.  Is the old man checking out her ass while she’s talking?  He sure isn’t watching her teleprompter…

Of course, we all are familiar with McCain’s predeliction for younger women; current wife Cindy is, after all, 18 years his junior.  But surely there must be more to this selection than simply age, amateur-grade executive experience and hotness.  Does she bring any foreign policy credentials to the ticket?  Fox Comedy Network’s Steve Doocy has the answer:

Riiiiight.  And I live down the street from a hospital, so I suppose that makes me a radiologist.  Whatever, Douchy.

She’s conservative on nearly every issue, from guns to abortion.  A lifelong NRA member and apparently a decent shot, at least if she’s elected VP we can expect she probably won’t shoot an old man in the face during a canned hunt.

She supports teaching creationism in public schools, apparently because we shouldn’t “… be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.”  Of course, creationism is not science, it’s religion, and if you want to teach it you should start a Sunday school class.

She supports drilling in ANWR, a popular idea unlikely to have any net positive effect on oil prices.  Actually, considering oil has been falling in price lately due to decreased demand, an increase in the overall supply will probably have the exact opposite effect desired.

A mother of five, one with Down’s Syndrome, she brings a huge “mom factor” to the ticket, in a blatant appeal to the disaffected Clintonites, PUMAs and other DINOs.

It’s pretty clear to me why McCain picked Palin.  On every issue, from experience to foreign policy to the “woman on the ticket” thing, he’s just pandering.  I just hope the country doesn’t fall for this Trojan Horse in November.

McCain isn’t getting any younger, and the presidency is a rough position to hold.  Even younger, healthier men have been aged considerably by it.  If something happens to a President McCain, can we really risk passing the mantle to this amateur?

I don’t think so.  It’s time to close Panderer’s Box and tell McCain it’s time to retire.

The POW Card, again

Last night on the Tonight Show, Senator McCain was jokingly asked by Jay Leno how many houses he owned.  The senator turned serious, and sadly, couldn’t resist the urge to play the POW card yet again:

“Could I just mention to you Jay, that in a moment of seriousness, I spent five and a half years in a prison cell, I didn’t have a house, I didn’t have a kitchen table, I didn’t have a table, I didn’t have a chair,” said McCain, citing his history as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. “I spent those five and half years not because I wanted to get a house when I got back home.”

McCain has come under criticism after he confessed he didn’t know how many homes he owns with his wife Cindy. The source of the family’s wealth is a Phoenix beer distributorship launched by her father.

“I’m very proud of Cindy’s father,” McCain said. “He’s a guy who barely got out of high school, fought in World War II in the Army, came home and made a business and made the American dream.”

His father-in-law “made the American dream” with his business success and has a long history of generosity to charities, McCain said.

“We spend our time in a condominium in Washington, a condominium in Phoenix, some time over here in the state of California and then we have a place up in northern Arizona,” said McCain, seeking to deflect Democratic criticism that he’s out of touch with working families.

“And my friends I’m proud of my record of service to this country, and it has nothing to do with houses,” he said.

The sad thing about this is, if you take out the first paragraph, it’s actually a well-thought out, strongly worded and intelligent response to the question.  However, by invoking his former POW status up front in his reply, McCain is clearly attempting once again to use it as a way to deflect criticism.  And using it in such a trivial instance as this is just sad.  Is this how he wants his military record to be remembered, as a catch-phrase or worse, a punchline for stand-up comedians?

I don’t think so.  He should really quit now, before he damages his own credibility beyond repair and cheapens the experiences of his fellow Prisoners of War.

“Kept Man” part II

Four years ago, conservative nutcase and bitch queen from hell Ann Coulter wrote this about John Kerry:

Kerry’s life experience consists of living off other men’s money by marrying their wives and daughters.  For over 30 years, Kerry’s primary occupation has been stalking lonely heiresses.  Not to get back to his combat experience, but Kerry sees a room full of wealthy widows as “a target-rich environment.”  This is a guy whose experience dealing with tax problems is based on spending his entire adult life being supported by rich women.  What does a kept man know about taxes?

Now fast forward to 2008.  We have in John McCain a man who shares many of the same qualities.  He is a veteran (as we all know by now), who returned from the war and cheated on his first wife with a wealthy heiress.  His business experience is nonexistent, he has already admitted he doesn’t know squat about economics, and has spent the majority of his life being paid on the public dime.  First as a military officer, then in the House of Representatives, and finally and most recently as a Senator of Arizona.  He made his wealth the old fashioned way – he married it.  And his second wife made hers the really old fashioned way – she inherited it.

So, let’s play a little word game, shall we?  I’ll just make a few quick substitutions in the above quote…

McCain’s life experience consists of living off other men’s money by marrying their wives and daughters.  For over 30 years, McCain’s primary occupation has been stalking lonely heiresses.  Not to get back to his combat experience, but McCain sees a room full of wealthy widows as “a target-rich environment.”  This is a guy whose experience dealing with tax problems is based on spending his entire adult life being supported by rich women.  What does a kept man know about taxes?

Hm.  Seems appropriate to me.

Update: Further research has confirmed that the McCains do, indeed, have a prenuptial agreement that keeps most of their assets under Cindy’s name.  I guess love does have its limits after all.

Life in McCainistan – nine cars to grap a cappuccino

The L.A. Times reports that regular guy, non-arugula eating, definitely NOT elitist presidential candidate John Sidney McCain recently had a hankerin’ for a tall, hot mug of java juice. So, like any other ordinary, average guy who does not eat arugula or own ten properties, he got in his car and hit up the local Starbucks.

Wait – make that one of NINE cars:

McCain, who huddled with advisors at his desert compound in Sedona, Ariz., said nothing in public. A nine-car motorcade took him to a nearby Starbucks early in the morning, where he ordered a large cappuccino. McCain otherwise avoided reporters.

I understand the need for security on the presidential campaign trail, but how dangerous is it, really, in Sedona, Arizona?  And what about the sheer scale of this operation?  Here’s a photo of one of the vehicles:

Looks like a Chevy Suburban or something similar.  Probably gets about 18 MPG.  And there are five people in the photo, two of whom appear to be the McCains.  That leaves three others, including a driver and some bodyguards.

Let’s assume every car had four people in it (wouldn’t want them to be too crowded, after all) and the vehicles had a full tank of gas.  Without delving into the specifics of Secret Service pay scales, nine cars with four people apiece, minus two McCains = 34 people.  Since there’s a Starbuck’s on nearly every streetcorner in Arizona, we can safely assume a trip of less than ten miles.

That’s still a lot of gas wasted for a $4.00 cup of coffee.

But then, I suppose he deserves it – he was, after all, a POW who didn’t have cappuccino for 5 1/2 years in Hanoi.

The gaffe that wouldn’t die

Senator John McCondo has a housing problem.  He can’t remember how many houses he and his wife own.

We should all have such problems.

How many houses do YOU own?

If you’re like most Americans, probably just one.  Maybe two, if you have a little extra money to burn or live in New York City and have lots of money to burn.  If you bought using a subprime loan in the last five years you probably live in your car.  And if you’re like me, you rent an apartment and are wondering if the Baby Boomers are ever going to release their stranglehold on the housing market so you can finally afford to buy a house before you retire.

But if you’re regular guy, non-arugula eating, definitely NOT elitist Senator John Sidney McCain, who does NOT wear $520 Italian loafers, you probably own… well… erm…….

“I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” McCain said. “It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.”

So said Senator McCain in response to an interview question from Politico.com today.  As it happens, the McCains own, or at least presumptive first c**t Cindy McCain owns, no fewer than ten houses valued at over $13,000,000.  And that’s U.S. dollars, not the scraps of wallpaper they use in Zimbabwe now.

If you’re seriously interested, you can take a tour:

Unbelievable. In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, when millions of Americans are losing their homes in a massive credit and housing crash, when the economy shows all the signs of recession if not depression, the Republican presidential candidate can’t recall how many properties his own wife owns.  And this guy claims he understands what the average American is going through.  Talk about out of touch with reality.

Interestingly enough, the McCain campaign seemed to think this was an appropriate time to use the POW card in a rather pathetic attempt to simultaneously diffuse the criticism and scorn now being heaped on Johnny boy and to justify his ownership of, shall we say, an excessive amount of real estate.  As reported by the Washington Post, McCain staffer Brian Rogers had this to say:

“This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison,” referring to the prisoner of war camp that McCain was in during the Vietnam War.

Okay, we get it.  He was a Prisoner of War during one of the worst, most unnecessary and least popular wars in American history.  And he suffered greatly.  And he’s a veteran.  Enough already.  This endless, now mindless repetition of the McCain POW mythology is getting both tiresome and dangerously approaching self-parody.  It cheapens the entire POW experience when you use it to justify something as ridiculous as this.

After all, if being a POW somehow justifies McCain owning ten condos, mansions, and other properties around the country, what does that say about what the rest of our veterans deserve?  After all, there are now thousands of honorably discharged veterans around the country who have lost their homes in the housing crisis, or are unable to find work because of the lousy economy, or are unable to afford to buy a home because of the credit crunch.  Don’t they ALL deserve at least one home to call their own?

Maybe the McCains would like to sell off bits of their properties to a few disabled veterans.  It might (and I emphasize might) go a little way toward making resitution for having a direct hand in creating their disability in the first place.  McCain, you will recall, was one of the earliest and loudest voices in Congress suggesting we needed to invade Iraq after 9/11.

I suppose that’s not going to happen any time soon.  But this relentless, repetitive playing of the POW card in response to any criticism leveled against him is cheapening McCain’s own military history.  It’s self-parody and non sequitur.  He’s fast becoming another Rudy Giuliani, who was famous for using three parts of speech in every sentence – a noun, a verb, and 9/11.  Only for McCain the stakes are much more serious.

Instead of merely looking like an opportunistic jackass, by invoking his POW experiences any time he is criticized, he and his staff are cheapening and degrading not only his own experiences but those of all POWs and veterans.

Five years in Hanoi justifies ten mansions, condos and beachfront properties?  It’s madness.  It’s utterly ridiculous.  It’s stupid beyond belief.  And it’s unworthy of a presidential candidate.

McCain supports the draft

Well, I’ve been saying it all along.  If we’re really serious about fighting this “transcendent” so-called War on Terror, then we need to get the entire country involved.  If that means bringing back the draft and sending every available elgible man and woman off to fight, so be it.  But Senator McCain appears to have flip-flopped YET AGAIN on a crucial policy point in this stunning reversal of his previous opposition:

Of course, it’s equally possible, as Keith Olbermann said, that McCain simply didn’t understand the question.  Lost in the clip is the questioner’s lead-in to the draft question.  Here’s the rest of the clip:

Well, if you’re going to promise more wars and fewer jobs as McCain previously has, then you’ve got to do something drastic to find people to fight those wars.

Earlier in the same appearance, McCain said he isn’t questioning Obama’s patriotism, but rather his judgement.

Right back at’cha, Senator.  So far the answers aren’t very reassuring.