...we seem to be witnessing the first stirrings of a backlash and a dawning realization that the 'Sarah Palin' we've heard so much about over the last few days is a fraud of truly comical dimensions.
The McCain camp has made her signature issue shutting down the Bridge to Nowhere. But as The New Republic put it today that's just "a naked lie." And pretty much the same thing has been written today in Newsweek, the Washington Post, the AP, the Wall Street Journal. Yesterday even Fox's Chris Wallace called out Rick Davis on it. (Do send more examples when you find them.)
On earmarks she's an even bigger crock. On the trail with McCain they're telling everyone that she's some kind of earmark slayer when actually, when she was mayor and governor, in both offices, she requested and got more earmarks than virtually any city or state in the country.
Think about that. On the stump, not a single word that comes out of her mouth -- or not a single word that the McCain folks put in her mouth -- is anything but a lie. I know that sounds like hyperbole. But just go down the list. None of them bear out.
How do you tell if Sarah Palin's lying? According to Josh Marshall, just check to see if her lips are moving.
Comments
I don't think they care (aznew - 9/9/2008 9:05:51 AM)
Even if the media calls them on it, look for the Republicans to start screaming about anti-media bias again.
It's clever, if cynical. They create a myth that the media is biased, then they lie, then the media, which doesn't want to be perceived as biased, gives them every benefit of the doubt, but when it goes too far and and the media is finally forced to call them on lying, they cite it as evidence of bias.
I actually don't think they can get away with it this cycle, but I have to admisre the chuzpah of their trying.
And, of course, they have gotten away with this sort of BS for 20 years-plus now.
Column in C'Ville Weekly on Biden/Palin (aznew - 9/9/2008 9:15:47 AM)
I had to submit this last week, as it was destined for print so it's not totally up do date on the fast moving lie-a-minute story.
But for what it's worth, my take on the fundamental problem with McCain/Palin that will play out over time, notwithstanding its short-term tactical success.
as always. Are you getting any feedback on your columns from the older-than-the-college-students demographic in the C'Ville area?
I noticed the "Sex Advice" column advertised to the left of your column and started poking around the site a bit to see if I could get a handle on the Weekly's target demographic. Which leads me to my next question: Why does the C'Ville Weekly require those who read its personal ads to choose either "love" or "lust?" I've always thought it best to combine the two whenever possible. :) (You don't have to answer that).
Thanks, BP (aznew - 9/9/2008 5:19:09 PM)
I don't get too much feedback except when I get something wrong.
That said, the print edition of C'Ville Weekly has a run of 25,000 and over the course of the week, virtually everyone in the area picks one up and thumbs through it.
As for the "love" and "lust" dichotomy, I really don't know what to say. :)
Let the Media know (Bubby - 9/9/2008 9:25:16 AM)
That they aren't doing their job when they try to avoid calling a lie, a lie. Juan Williams was just on NPR making excuses for Palin's earmark bridge money lies. It isn't his job to explain her flaming pants. Many Reporters are in the pocket of their corporate overlords. Do your job bitches!
Williams is learning from Keith Olbermann and Chris Mathews (Hugo Estrada - 9/9/2008 9:49:30 AM)
Just proves how bias the conservative media really is. For the last 16 years that I have lived in the U.S.
If a journalist attacks liberals, nothing bad ever happens to them. Instead, they become celebrities, famous for being hard and truth telling.
However, if liberal journalists become outspoken, suddenly keeping balance becomes a huge issue, and they get fired.
Juan Williams, then, is just trying to keep his job, something for which I can't blame him.
I Am More Concerned about Obama (Pru - 9/9/2008 9:31:01 AM)
I am less concerned with Palin (at this point I don't care if she changed her mind about the Bridge or has embellished other things...SHOCKING FOR A POLITICIAN TO EMBELLISH? I don't think so). I am much more concerned that Obama get his message back on track. On George Stephanopoulos Sunday I felt his responses to questions about whether the surge worked, and the War in Iraq were VERY weak and showed a lack of confidence. For the first time in this campaign, I am worried, not because of Palin, but because I felt he was unprepared and/or not equipped with satisfying answers. This horrible war is my #1 issue, and why I supported Obama in the first place. If he lets McCain/Palin put this country back into a war frenzy mode again I will be as mad at him as those PUMA people. He's paying a lot a people a lot of money to fine tune his message and I felt they all, including Obama, dropped the ball this week.
I don't want to hear any more from the media about Palin. I want to hear from Obama that he is in control and is in full command of the issues.
Walk and chew gum (Lowell - 9/9/2008 9:38:47 AM)
Obama obviously needs to do what he needs to do, but that does NOT absolve the media from doing its job with regard to Sarah Palin's lies.
I agree (Pain - 9/9/2008 9:39:51 AM)
Obamas response to questions about the surge should be something like: "From the standpoint that there has not been any political reconciliation, which was the entire reason for the surge, then I would have to say, NO, it has not worked. If you put 30,000 more boots on the ground then of course you would expect violence to decrease, but for what? I ask John McCain and George Bush, what has happened politically to justify saying the surge was a success?"
Actually, a lot more complicated than "the surge" (Lowell - 9/9/2008 9:45:52 AM)
In Washington, conventional wisdom translated these events into a simple view: The surge had worked. But the full story was more complicated. At least three other factors were as important as, or even more important than, the surge. These factors either have not been reported publicly or have received less attention than the influx of troops.
Beginning in the late spring of 2007, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies launched a series of top-secret operations that enabled them to locate, target and kill key individuals in groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency and renegade Shia militias, or so-called special groups. The operations incorporated some of the most highly classified techniques and information in the U.S. government...
There was also the "Anbar Awakening" and the cease-fire order by Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to his Mahdi Army. Probably numerous other factors as well. Of course, in Republican black-and-white land, it's the surge and only the surge that did the trick. And if you were for it, you were doing God's work. If you were against it, you were a vile traitor to America. Get that straight, or it's off to Gitmo for you!
I know. (Pain - 9/9/2008 9:50:51 AM)
But thats way too complicated and won't do much in todays sound-bite media coverage.
Obama has already been saying some of these things, but if you can't make a 10 second video clip of it then it won't get any traction. McCain will still keep parroting that Obama won't acknowledge success, so the new framing of the question needs to be, what is success?
Just call them out as liars (Lowell - 9/9/2008 9:52:53 AM)
On issue after issue, they are simply making shit up. Call 'em on it.
More Complicated, Yes (Pru - 9/9/2008 9:53:52 AM)
So why didn't Obama explain that? Excerpts from Woodward's book were available over the weekend giving further details about new strategies. And why didn't Obama's advisors help him develop a response like "Pain" just made? They're getting paid an awfully lot of money and Pain came up with a better response off the cuff (and was paid nothing) than Obama had on national television. And even if the recent decline in violence is more complicated than simply due to the surge, why didn't Obama explain that no matter what has caused things down right now, this is not a LONG TERM SOLUTION. Like JIm Webb says, our presence there is like sitting down on a hornet's nest....we need a diplomatic push, not an occupation. Even if we've clamped down on the hornet's nest for now, it's still a hornet's nest. But why bother saying this on a blog? Obama needs to get his message out about this, and GET IT OUT NOW.
Other uses for Palin (Teddy - 9/9/2008 9:56:45 AM)
The Rovians have been milking the maverick brand for Palin (she's sooo against earmarks, ran against the entrenched Old Boys for Governor, and hunts meese--- I mean, moose). When that teat runs dry they can begin milking the family values teat, and I predict that will happen at the Hispanic forum where McCain and Obama both will speak. I have heard Hispanic women are very impressed by Palin, her anti-abortion stance, her being a working, pregnant mother, riaising five kids and still running for V-P. Ibana keads niw anibg Hispanicsm but that could change if Palin pulls attention.
Yeah but she sure is pretty, and she seems so folksy. (thegools - 9/9/2008 10:18:06 AM)
Oh yeah and she has kids.
I have kids too!!
We live in an Idiocracy (Lowell - 9/9/2008 10:32:01 AM)
So that is were we are headed? (VA Breeze - 9/9/2008 10:48:01 AM)
though had to laugh!
The Marching Morons (Teddy - 9/9/2008 10:59:45 AM)
Wasn't that the name of a short story several years ago? Science fiction, but very telling. The guy from the past was brought forward to solve the problem of the enormous number of low-IQ citizens who were cared for by the intelligent, ah, elite, which elite was overwhelmed by the task. So the guy from the past told them to arrange tourist "trips" to the moon or Mars (I forget which) for the dumbells (there was no colony on the moon/Mars) --- it was a ruse to get the dummies into a "spaceship," gas them to death or alternatively, sterilize them, and return them to Earth where, unable to reproduce, the dummies would die off and the elite could live a reasonable life.
The message in the story revolved around how unrestrained reproduction among the "average" people gradually lowered the "average," who were manipulated by politicians for the benefit of the elite, but that the elite ended up having to care for the morons (another one of those pesky unintended consequences). Solution to the future dilemma: draconian birth control. How does Idiocracy turn out, with its sbuliminal stereotypes?
The advantage for the rich (Rebecca - 9/9/2008 2:30:52 PM)
Seriously though, I think the plan is for the most subservient people to have lots of kids. They need to be poor so the kids will grow up to enlist in the military because they have no other options. That's the religious right's version of the sanctity of life.
And it is also ex post facto (Teddy - 9/9/2008 4:04:27 PM)
birth control. One way to look at the long war.
That made me so sad. (Tiderion - 9/9/2008 11:16:51 AM)
It's like a scarier version of a Philip K. Dick novel. Though if we were really that stupid, then I am certain the presidency would be reduced to Wrestlemania.
The anti-intellectualism of the Republicans... (ericy - 9/9/2008 12:07:12 PM)
would certainly suggest that this is where we are already headed. I suppose that some of stems from the fact that reality isn't on their side, but by stubbornly insisting on their own version of reality (or do they call it narrative), this isn't as much of a problem as the rest of us would think.
and co-authoring WSJ editorials (hereinva - 9/9/2008 11:07:43 AM)
On the heels of Palin's Fannie Mae "gaffe" comes the McCain-Palin WSJ op-ed on their position on the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bail-out,perhaps an attempt to paper over the fauxpas. Yea or nea, taxpayers are now on the hook for $200 billion for the bail-out, which impact will flesh-out in the next administration. The floundering Bush economy is limping along on "life support", and McCain(votes 90% with Bush)/Palin hope that more of the same will bring it back to life.
McCain definition of "re-form"; Re-form: re-arranging the same pieces into another form. It looks different but really is the same.
Accurate description (Teddy - 9/9/2008 12:12:20 PM)
of McC and his "change," I only hope all the disgruntled voters out there understand that, and see past all the hoopla about Palin-McCain mavericks, even with the cacophony from the Right wing.
As for the takeover, the GOP Party Line is that this may not cost taxpayers anything since the homeowners whose mortgaages are held by Fannie and Freddie may not default, the housing market will pick up as a result of the takeover due to enhanced consumer confidence, and foreigners will come back into the market and buy our Treasuries since now they have more confidence in the US economy thanks to the takeover, and so on and so forth.
What a crock! (tx2vadem - 9/9/2008 6:15:20 PM)
So, Secretary Paulson, a financial expert and former head of Goldman Sachs, was broadly following McCain's plan!?!? As Judge Judy would say: "Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining!"
What ridiculous tripe! He sits on neither the Finance nor the Banking committees. What substantial piece of finance legislation has he authored or provided significant input to? The man who says he knows nothing about economics suddenly had a plan to rescue Fannie and Freddie? Right.
We've been flooded for the past few days with queries about dubious Internet postings and mass e-mail messages making claims about McCain's running mate, Gov. Palin. We find that many are completely false, or misleading.
Palin did not cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent. She didn't cut it at all. In fact, she tripled per-pupil funding over just three years.
She did not demand that books be banned from the Wasilla library. Some of the books on a widely circulated list were not even in print at the time. The librarian has said Palin asked a "What if?" question, but the librarian continued in her job through most of Palin's first term.
She was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that wants Alaskans to vote on whether they wish to secede from the United States. She's been registered as a Republican since May 1982.
Palin never endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president. She once wore a Buchanan button as a "courtesy" when he visited Wasilla, but shortly afterward she was appointed to co-chair of the campaign of Steve Forbes in the state.
Palin has not pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska's schools. She has said that students should be allowed to "debate both sides" of the evolution question, but she also said creationism "doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."
Newsweek
She may not have been a "member" (Lowell - 9/9/2008 3:27:09 PM)
of the Alaskan Independence Party, but she was obviously very sympathetic to them, her husband was a member, etc.
As to being a Pat Buchanan supporter, here's the man himself:
And didn't she address their convention (aznew - 9/9/2008 3:44:29 PM)
via a videotaped speech?
That's not a small thing. It is not simply a polite thing for a governor to do. The AIP is an anti-American party.
Creationsim (aznew - 9/9/2008 3:23:28 PM)
What does she mean "debate both sides" of the evolution question?
There are not two sides of the evolution question. Evolution is a fact. There is plenty of debate to be had over exactly how it occurred, but it is beyond reasonable dispute that evolution occurs or that we (humans) are a part of it.
The mere fact that someone who would run for national office thinks it is appropriate to debate evolution vs. creationsim in a scientific context is on its face absurd. There is simply no debate to be had. We might as well debate whether gravity is real.
If you wish to debate the issue as a theological proposition, then that is fine. There is an argument to be made, and IMHO, plenty to be learned from the creation story in Genesis.
But it ain't science.
Gravity vs. evolution (Lowell - 9/9/2008 3:25:18 PM)
Actually, there is a LOT more evidence and scientific consensus on evolution than on gravity. Just sayin'. :)
Here is Josh Marshall on that question: