Michael Collins

The attempted assassination of Representative Gabrielle Giffords raises the bar for political lies and hate to a new level.  Previously, incendiary political lies stopped just short violent imagery.  Sarah Palin's Take Back 20 campaign presented a violent threat in the form of rifle site crosshairs placed over the congressional districts of 20 Democratic supporters of health care reform.

Ironically, Giffords sent Palin a clear message to end the violent allusion in the ads.  In this brief video, she warns:

Back in 2001, during the first days of the Bush presidency, Peggy Noonan (reflecting a Republican meme of the time) wrote:

It continues to look as if the adults are in charge, and Mr. Bush is looking like a young man who's up to it and maybe more than up to it.

Well, as we now know, they weren’t, he wasn’t, and he could never be. The childishness of his administration, it’s petulance and ego-centrism, wrecked our standing in the world and even spilled over into the campaign to replace Bush: All of those complaints that Obama would rather talk to an enemy than fight.

by Jeff Huber

Part I describes how John McCain became indebted to the neoconservative cabal when he gained their support by endorsing the Iraq surge stratagem. Part II examines McCain's taste in bedfellows.

The thing I dread most about a John McCain presidency is that he gets that phone call at three in the morning and actually wakes up to answer it. McCain best illustrated the sound judgment he claims to have when he voted to invade Iraq, followed by his echoing Dick Cheney's line that "the Iraqi people will greet us as liberators.” Then there's his choice of running mates.

I've heard the excuse that, well, Sarah Palin wasn't McCain's pick of prospective veeps, that his advisors pushed her on him. If that's true, it only goes to show how bad McCain's judgment in choosing advisers is and his utter inability to judge when he's getting bad advice. In the foreign policy realm, McCain has shown the same misplaced trust in the same woebegone wonks that young Mr. Bush listened to.

Dear Sarah,

As a former fundamentalist, I'd like to call you on what you are doing.

by Jeff Huber

John McCain…knows how to win a war.

--Sarah Palin

My matriculation at the United States Naval War College left me with an indelible regard for the wisdom of Ernie Pyle's admonition that in war "nobody really knows what he's doing." As a scholarly discipline, war doesn’t even have a coherent vocabulary. Almost everyone agrees that "center of gravity" is a vital concept, and that it must always be the object of our efforts, but almost nobody agrees on what a center of gravity is.

If you ask a Marine Corps warfare expert, he'll tell you there can only be one center of gravity, but that's only because Marines can't remember more than one. If you ask a naval aviator, he'll say the center of gravity is always an aircraft carrier. An Air Force general will tell you that a center of gravity is anything he can bomb, which is just about everything, so you better buy him a whole lot of expensive bombers so he can bomb all the centers of gravity and a whole lot of expensive fighters to keep the expensive bombers from getting shot down. If you ask any Army general who's been involved in running the Iraq war what a center of gravity is, he'll start breathing through his mouth, and if you ask John McCain he'll tell you the story about the prison guard who drew a crucifix in the dirt with his toe.

originally posted 2008-09-16 10:03:32 -- bumped, some great comments about this column over on the buzzflash entry- cho

In his opinion editorial, Former Marine Tyler E. Boudreau writes: "given the recent persistence from throughout our government that God is somehow involved in our wars, we are left to draw one of two conclusions: Either, if we are believers, God is fallible, or, if we are not believers, our elected officials are introducing irrational justifications for armed conflict."

Read his column and discuss.

originally posted 2008-09-10 03:33:12 -- bumped and promoted - cho

It's only fitting that a truly memorable demonstration of human gullibility will mark its 70th anniversary just before Election Day. On the night of October 30, 1938, thousands of radio listeners concluded that Orson Welles' adaptation of The War of the Worlds was the real thing: a live account of Martian invaders landing in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. Those fooled by the show's air of authenticity exhibited signs of panic and hysteria. Some called the police for guidance on how they could protect themselves. Some fled their homes for greater safety farther from the invasion site. And some listeners fainted beside their radios. Within hours the hoax was fully revealed, and public outrage swiftly followed.

Today, Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin seem intent on creating similar mass confusion for their own purposes.

Google News features 884 stories in Top News Stories on the latest manufactured flap by the McCain team. They are accusing Barack Obama of sexism, because of a remark he made during a recent speech. You can listen to the excerpt from Obama's speech, or read a solid piece covering the flap by Jimmy Orr in the Christian Science Monitor election blog.

“John McCain says he’s about change too, and so I guess his whole angle is, ‘Watch out, George Bush – except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics – we’re really gonna shake things up in Washington.”

“That’s not change,” Obama continued before launching the land mine. “That’s just calling something, the same thing, something different. You know you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”

Bumped. -- GH

From The Irish Times

"The right wing is coming home," former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan said on MSNBC. "From the fever swamps and the forests, they're all coming home to Sister Sarah."

Yes, the 'publicans have a pet name for their newest star -- Sister Sarah. I immediately got a mental picture of Shirley McClain riding a mule:

Any of you who have seen the movie know that the "Sister" turns out to be a whore. I think I would have found a different nickname.

promoted - originally published 2008-09-04 06:06:32 -1000 - TXSharon emails Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor's excellent overview of the real issues with Palin [roxy].

REALITY: PALIN SAID SHE WOULD BEG TO DISAGREE WITH ANY CANDIDATE WHO SAID WE CAN'T DRILL OUR WAY OUT OF OUR PROBLEM