5 posts tagged “palin”
Toldya!!!!
Apparently Gov. Palin has agreed to drop the "ceremonial first puck" at a Philadelphia Flyers game this weekend.
Hmmm..... I don't think this will be your typical Alaska hockey crowd. Let's see - a heavily blue collar, union crowd.... Philadelphia fans who have booed Santa Claus.
Should be very interesting....
From Tom Friedman's brilliant and scathing piece in today's NYT:
Criticizing Sarah Palin is truly shooting fish in a barrel. But given the huge attention she is getting, you can’t just ignore what she has to say. And there was one thing she said in the debate with Joe Biden that really sticks in my craw. It was when she turned to Biden and declared: “You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that’s not patriotic.”
What an awful statement.....
I only wish she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects — printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first.
Sorry, I grew up in a very middle-class family in a very middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, and my parents taught me that paying taxes, while certainly no fun, was how we paid for the police and the Army, our public universities and local schools, scientific research and Medicare for the elderly. No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.”
Frank Rich in today's NYT:
The main reason McCain knuckled under to the religious right by picking
Palin is that he actually believes there’s a large army of embittered
Hillary loyalists who will vote for a hard-line conservative simply
because she’s a woman. That’s what happens when you listen to the TV
news echo chamber. Not only is the whole premise ludicrous, but it is
every bit as sexist as the crude joke McCain notoriously told about Janet Reno, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton.
.
Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese: “Today, presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Senator John McCain announced he has chosen first term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his choice to be his Vice Presidential running mate. Although only holding an executive, state-wide office for less than two years, Gov. Palin has already shown that she is a fierce opponent of equality.
“America may not know much about Sarah Palin, but based on what our
community has seen of her, we know enough,” said Human Rights Campaign
President Joe Solmonese. “Sarah Palin not only supported the 1998
Alaska constitutional amendment banning marriage equality but, in her
less than two years as Governor, even expressed the extreme position of
supporting stripping away domestic partner benefits for state workers.
When you can’t even support giving our community the rights to health
insurance and pension benefits, it’s a frightening window into where
she stands on equality.”
Thanks Fox News!!
SteveP's prediction: I think this is going to prove disastrous for McCain. The only effective argument he's had against Obama is his lack of experience. As Obama spokesman Bill Burton says: “Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency."
ADDENDUM:
The Washington Post: The McCain campaign had make little secret of the fact that they wanted to pick a woman as the Arizona senator's running mate, believing that the rift caused by the protracted primary between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton gave them an opportunity to pick up scads of disgruntled women.
But, as Sensible Shoes points out: I was a Hillary supporter until the 11th hour. Well, I'm still a
Hillary supporter. But I'm not a stupid puma. If McCain thinks I will
vote for a conservative, anti-choice, anti-gay, pro-drilling candidate
just because of her ovaries, he is wrong. And hopefully he's wrong
about all the other 11th-hour Hillary supporters.
ADDENDUM 2:
Paul Begala: Is McCain Out Of His Mind?
ADDENDUM 3:
New York Times: The selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska proved quintessentially McCain — daring, hazardous and defiantly off-message. He demonstrated that he would not get boxed in by convention as he sought to put a woman next in line to the presidency for the first time. Yet in making such an unabashed bid for supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, he risked undercutting his central case against Senator Barack Obama.
“Here’s what I’m worried about,” said Ed Rogers, a Republican lobbyist and former aide to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. “McCain had to protect his reputation as an opponent of status quo Washington. He had to pick someone with the shortest Washington résumé. He did that. He picked someone the right wing is going to be happy about. But it’s a gamble.”
“The question is,” Mr. Rogers continued, “what does it do to the argument that Obama’s not ready?”
The question is particularly acute for Mr. McCain, who turned 72 on Friday and would be the oldest person to assume the presidency if he won in November. His campaign now needs to convince the public that it can imagine in the Oval Office a candidate who has spent just two years as governor of a state with a quarter of the population of Brooklyn.
