1. Back in the late 90’s when she was elected Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she was almost recalled because shortly after entering office, she fired the Police Chief and Library Director for not supporting her in her 1996 race for Mayor. She didn’t even have the Republican courtesy to deny and lie: Her official reason for the firings was that they were “not fully supporting her efforts to govern”. (source)
2. She got away with the above tactic as Mayor, so why not try it again as Governor? Once she got the state’s top job, she promptly fired public safety commissioner Walt Monegan. This time, however, it wasn’t because he hadn’t supported her in her run for Governor. He had the gaul to not follow her administration’s pressure to fire a state trooper - who had divorced her sister. (source)
3. She actually had the chutzpah to go on some joke of a radio show and heartily laugh at accusations by the hosts that her apparent arch nemesis, State Senate President Lyda Green (a cancer survivor) is a “cancer” to the state of Alaska and a “bitch”. This wasn’t when she was just Mayor, either. This was in 2008, while she was Governor. An op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News referred to her appearance on the show as “plain and simple one of the most unprofessional, childish and inexcusable performances I’ve ever seen from a politician.” (source)
4. Everyone already knows that Iraq was a war for oil, but any republican running for any big office, especially that of the vice president, should probably know not to admit that. That memo, however, apparently skipped over Sarah Palin. In her words, “We are a nation at war and in many [ways] the reasons for war are fights over energy sources, which is nonsensical when you consider that domestically we have the supplies ready to go.” Where exactly does she want to get those domestic oil supplies? The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. (source)
5. If you’re think Sarah Palin lacks national security experience, Cindy McCain says you’re wrong. Why? Because Alaska is close to Russia. Yes, you read that correctly, Cindy McCain actually thinks that proximity to Russia makes the governor of Alaska qualified with national security experience. I don’t even know how to react to this, but I guess they’re taking the whole “throw shit against the wall and see what sticks” approach to campaign strategy. (source)

Are there more reasons than these five that make Sarah Palin a crappy choice for McCain’s veep? Of course there are, but these are the 5 that I think will cause the Republicans the most grief. I’ve got no complains whatsoever about John McCain going about his campaigning in a half-assed way without thinking things through or thoroughly vetting important people like, say, his running mate, but he may just want to save the taxpayers money and just call Barack Obama to concede defeat now.

If you’re flying in to my former residence of Minneapolis (or, I suppose, St. Paul), you may notice a large billboard off of I-494 when leaving the airport. It is of the larger-than-life John Stewart along with the rest of his Daily Show crew welcoming Republicans to the Republican National Convention. Want to see it? You’ve got two options. Fly in to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, or just look at the picture below.

To be fair to McCain, if I had that many homes worth that much money, I wouldn’t be able to comprehend what is going on in today’s housing market either.

If you’ve ever heard John McCain talk about his time in a POW camp in Vietnam, or read his 1999 book, Faith of My Fathers, you’re likely aware of a story in which McCain tells of being interrogated and in lieu of naming his actual squadron mates he lists the defensive line of the Green Bay Packers at the time. Not just any Packer team, but the team that won the first Super Bowl. To be precise, here’s what he writes in the book:

Once my condition had stabilized, my interrogators resumed their work. Demands for military information were accompanied by threats to terminate my medical treatment if I did not cooperate. Eventually, I gave them my ship’s name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant. Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron. When asked to identify future targets, I simply recited the names of a number of North Vietnamese cities that had already been bombed.

This is a story that he not only wrote about in his book, but has told it publicly several times and was even documented in a 2005 movie of the same name. This story has time and time again been a mainstay of McCain’s biography, but has been told by him numerous times to support his opposition to torture, noting that he gave false information under pressure.

McCain, however, must have hoped that no one would catch him playing the game of underhanded politics when, while campaigning in Pittsburgh on the 9th of this month, a local TV reporter asked him what he first thinks of in relation to Pittsburgh. His response? “The Steelers really made a huge impression on me, particularly in my early years.” He then continued blowing hot air out his ass saying, “When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the physical pressures that were on me, I named the starting lineup - defensive line - of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron-mates!”

So that’s how you’re going to play it, McCain? Stabbing your fond history with the Packers in the back? Next time you’re in Wisconsin, I hope one of our local reporters has the chutzpah to throw this back in your face and watch you flop around for an answer.

Just kidding, don’t worry. That’s just the name of this awesome new video you should spend the next three minutes of your life watching:

Most of the following McCain ad is garbage that you can ignore, but watch extremely closely at about the 25 second mark and try to identify the shirt that the woman shaking John McCain’s hand is wearing.

Did you catch it? If you did, you’re probably chuckling to yourself right now if not actually laughing out loud. If you didn’t, she’s wearing an Obama campaign shirt. Someone clearly wasn’t paying close enough attention when they put that commercial together. If this is the level of effort they are putting in to their campaign ads, I can’t wait to see what else we have to look forward to.

Still straining to see it? Here’s a freezeframe:

The President is currently in Israel. In part, he is there to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the State of Israel, but in part he is there to help along the Middle East peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. I have no issues with anyone visiting there for either of those reasons, but his true motivations behind the latter of the two reasons is nothing short of despicable. Everyone would like for there to be peace in Israel, but his motivation is quite different from most.

George W. Bush is poised to leave office in January 2009 as one of the worst United States Presidents in history, if not truly the worst. He, along with the help of his cronies (read: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, et al), has abolished many of the basic constitutional rights we take for granted, has led us in to an unjust quagmire of a war, helped lead oil prices to an all-time high, has greatly abused and extended executive power, has created a devastatingly huge national debt, is leading us in to a recession, and countless other atrocities, many of which should have earned him an impeachment (if only the congress had a spine).

Back on topic, if our President truly did care about establishing peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, he likely would have attempted to negotiate peace sooner than his absolute last year in office (of an eight-year term, none the less) and he probably would have visited Israel more than a total of two times. This is not an attempt on his part of establishing peace in the Middle East. It is an attempt at salvaging the shattered remains of his legacy and hoping he can be remembered for something other than the various failures I listed above. He is desperately hoping that real peace between the Israelis and Palestinians happens before he leaves office, so he can claim responsibility. Whatever the opposite of a Nobel Peace Prize is, he deserves it.

Not too long ago, John McCain proposed a gas tax “holiday”. Essentially, the 18¢ federal gas tax will be lifted for a period of time to, in theory, save Americans money. The only problem with this is that most economists don’t think this will work. Decreased price will increase demand, thus raising the price of gas. That’s how capitalism works. Then, once the gas tax is over, it will end up higher than when it started. On top of that, if it does save the average American any money, it will only be about $25. Not much. So this isn’t really the best idea, but that’s what can be expected when it comes to Republicans and taxes.

What makes this all interesting is that now Hillary is following suit (insert pantsuit joke here). She has already taken campaign strategies straight out of the republican playbook, so why not borrow McCain’s tax proposals? I am failing to see how exactly she is the “more electable candidate”, as her supporters would like me to think, if she just copies what the Republican candidate proposes. What baffles me even more than her recent republican tendencies, is that fact that the media is acting as if she came up with it. The very second she opened her mouth in favor of McCain’s gas tax suspension, mainstream media somehow developed selective amnesia about who had actually proposed it and declared it Hillary’s Gas Tax Holiday.

Thankfully, Barack Obama has the chutzpah call a gas tax holiday exactly what it is, a “classic Washington gimmick”. Plenty of his opposition will come back and say he voted for a suspended gas tax in Illinois when he was a state senator. What’s his response to this? “I voted for it. Then six months later we took a look and consumers had not benefited at all. I learned from a mistake.” A politician who is willing to admit his mistakes and subsequently demonstrate he has learned from them by taking the risky step of opposing a tax cut (no matter how fool heartedly it may be) is exactly what this country needs in our next President.

He obviously hasn’t endorsed Hillary, or for that matter McCain, but in watching him continuously harm the Obama campaign with every new word he utters, one has to wonder what his true motivation is. Or, more likely, I’m looking for deeper meaning out of someone simply attempting to stretch out their 15 minutes.

A tie or a loss for Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania this past Tuesday would have more or less forced her out of the race, allowing Barack Obama to finally mount a national campaign, with the support of the DNC and other pro-Democratic groups, against John McCain and the Republican Party. Alas, this did not happen. Everyone (even the media!) knows that Barack Obama is going to walk out of the convention with his name on the ticket. He has won more states, he has more of the popular vote, he is leading her in pledged delegates, and none of the remaining primaries are going to change that. By winning Pennsylvania with a 10 point lead, Clinton has gotten the ego boost that she so desperately needed to convince herself and her supporters that it is worthwhile to stay in the race through the convention. No one quite knows what this will mean, as there hasn’t been a brokered democratic convention since the 50s, so this should be interesting.

I forsee an Obama/Clinton ticket to reunite an increasingly divided party and defeat McCain.