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Showing posts with label Desperation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Desperation. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Why Not Vetting Sarah Palin Matters

I just want to drive this point home because I may have been a bit obtuse about it over the weekend. The simple fact of the matter is that John McCain did very little (if any) vetting on Sarah Palin before choosing her as his running mate. This is not arguable; it has been confirmed to the New York Times that vetting staff did not arrive in Alaska or conduct inquiries until late Thursday of last week (the very same day McCain made his pick and the day before he announced it to the world):

"Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice. The campaign was still calling Republican operatives as late as Sunday night asking them to go to Alaska to deal with the unexpected candidacy of Ms. Palin." (emphasis mine)

I don't have an enormous amount of time to go into the myriad ways this demonstrates how incomprehensibly reckless and irresponsible this decision was.

I believe any reasonably minded person out there would agree that vetting a VP candidate for potential scandals and red flags is an enormously important process to undertake.

Just imagine if the vetting team (or the media) uncovers a deal breaker -- NOW; after the choice has already been made! It would RUIN the McCain campaign by driving the final nail into the coffin of McCain's supposedly high-quality judgment and decision-making skills.

As hilzoy opines:

As far as I'm concerned, the story about Sarah Palin is what John McCain's decision to make her his running mate says about his judgment. And what this tells us is stunning. It is basic, basic politics that before you ask someone to become your running mate, you vet them thoroughly. You want to know what you're getting into, and you don't want any unfortunate surprises. Apparently, McCain didn't bother to do this. That's astonishing. It's like starting surgery before you do an initial medical workup and diagnosis, or handing all your money over to a financial advisor before you find out whether she's legitimate. In this particular case, there are two huge problems with what McCain did.

The first is the most obvious: in choosing a Vice Presidential nominee, McCain is choosing someone who might well end up taking over as President. This would be true for anyone, but it's especially true in McCain's case, since he is a 72 year old cancer survivor. Anyone who "puts country first", as McCain is fond of telling us he does, would have taken care to ensure that that person was up to the job, and had no unpleasant secrets like, oh, past membership in a fringe secessionist organization. Not bothering to do the most basic due diligence before naming her as his running mate is staggeringly irresponsible.

The second is that McCain was willing to take a huge gamble not just with our country, but with his own political interests. As I said earlier, gambling with the country is worse, but gambling with your own interests is a different kind of bad judgment, and worth noting in its own right. If you are selfish enough to put your own interests above the interests of your country, that's awful. But it doesn't move you into the realm of the wholly unpredictable, the people from whom you truly never know what to expect. (It's like being one of those dictators who are nonetheless rational enough that things like deterrence can work with them: you are bad, but bad in a way that makes it possible to anticipate what you might do next.)

Being willing to take a huge and reckless gamble with your own interests is not like that. It's not cool and collected selfishness that leaves room for some hope that if your interests and the interests of your country align, you might end up doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. It's sheer impulsive stupidity: an unwillingness to think, in even the most basic ways, before you act. That's a terrible trait in a President.

Here's John Cole:
Vetting someone after you put them on the ticket [is] part of the change we can all believe in if we elect McSame.

And Ben Smith:
I can't remember the last introduction to the national scene this rocky, and it gets worse every hour — and even before the investigative reporters have settled in to Anchorage.

To Josh Marshall:

A lot of attention is being given to Gov. Palin's daughter's situation. The much bigger deal is the expanding trooper-gate investigation, the fact that Palin lied in her Friday speech about her purported opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere, her apparent former membership in the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, and more. Individually, you can come to your own judgment about how consequential these stories are. What they show pretty clearly now -- in addition to the news that the McCain campaign is only now sending in a vetting team -- is that John McCain didn't do any serious vetting of Palin before he invited her to join his ticket and, he hopes, become Vice President of the United States.

Fundamentally, of course, this is about John McCain. And the real issue here is what this slapdash decision says about his judgment.

And, finally, the New York Times:
While there was no sign that her formal nomination this week was in jeopardy, the questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention, already disrupted by Hurricane Gustav, brought anxiety to Republicans who worried that Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question Mr. McCain’s judgment and his ability to make crucial decisions.

At the least, Republicans close to the campaign said it was increasingly apparent that Ms. Palin had been selected as Mr. McCain’s running mate with more haste than McCain advisers initially described...

Although The Washington Post quoted advisers to Mr. McCain on Sunday as saying Ms. Palin had been subjected to an F.B.I. background check, an F.B.I. official said Monday the bureau did not vet potential candidates and had not known of her selection until it was made public.

Posted by Metavirus at 9/02/2008 10:57:00 AM 2 comments  

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Sunday, August 31, 2008

McCain Picks Sarah Palin? Seriously?

I just got back from my friend's wedding and have been absorbing the profoundly disturbing news that McCain made one of the most incomprehensibly irresponsible, politically motivated decisions in the history of modern presidential politics: the selection of Sarah freaking Palin as his VP. Are you kidding me? Seriously?

I've had some time to digest a large number of reactions from around the media and blogosphere and I am still unable to fully comprehend how shockingly reckless, craven and "manifestly unserious" this decision truly was.

On the one hand, you have Sarah Palin and how dishonest, inexperienced, extreme, corrupt and unvetted (seriously unvetted) she appears to be (see below for a 50-point list of what we know about her to date). Don't even get me started on the shameless tokenism that this represents. Even the Republican Alaska Senate Senate President had this to say of her:

"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

On the other hand, you have John McCain and how this decision so blatantly reveals him to be an intellectually incurious, cynical, impulsive, "shoot-from-the-hip" nutjob who is more concerned with winning an election than choosing a qualified person to fill the second-most important job in the world.

I will post more on the topic but in the meanwhile, check out this remarkable list of what we know about Sara Palin thus far, compiled by an intrepid kossack:
  1. Sarah Palin has an Abramoff problem - a Pro-Palin illegal mailer was sent during her gubernatorial campaign on behalf of Palin by the RGA, the DC group that got money from Abramoff, Reed, etc.
  1. She advocated AGAINST mine safety / pollution control
  1. She has an ANTI-ENVIRONMENT RECORD and is on the wrong side of global warming and doesn't think polar bears should be listed as endangered because it interferes with her drilling plans.
  1. She's against sex education - abstinence only.
  1. She appears to oppose windfall taxes on oil companies at the national level but supported them to benefit her state.
  1. Believes Creationism should be taught in science classes
  1. Don't believe the whispers that she supportive of the GLBT community. She's opposed to state health benefits for same-sex partners and only vetoed a resolution that would have ended state benefits because the Supreme Court had already declared it unconstitutional.
  1. She's opposed to universal health care and stem cell research
  1. No foreign policy experience? According to the folks at FOX think she has foreign policy experience because "Alaska is near Russia." Oh, and she didn't even have a passport until last year.
  1. She doesn't know what the Vice President really does.
  1. This choice is NOT helping McCain's polling numbers, especially with women.
  1. McCain only met Sarah Palin ONCE and talked to her TWICE making this a purely cynical and desperate political appointment by HIS CAMPAIGN not by him! She's not really HIS VP choice.
  1. She's deeply connected to the Bridge to Nowhere.
  1. She stated that she would force her own daughter to have a rapist's child.
  1. She has 3 houses
  1. Terre pointed out that she's connected to VECO - the company at the heart of Ted Stevens' troubles. She also received an endorsement from Ted that has suddenly disappeared from her webpage.
  1. She called candidate Clinton a whiner. Why does everyone in the McCain campaign think others are whiners?
  1. She apparently hasn't taken a stand on most major political issues
  1. Her selection has created a major rift among the Republicans, especially Romney & Pawlenty.
  1. Past quotes by Rove make Palin's selection look like desperation.
  1. Palin may have been scrubbing her own wikipedia page
  1. Sarah Palin, Buchanite - Palin supported Pat Buchanan in 2000, a fact which may alienate certain Florida voters. Hat tip to misslotus
  1. She was vetted too quickly and McCain only picked her the night before making the announcement.
  1. She's still focused on Alaska not the fact the she would be Vice President for the whole nation.
  1. She participated in a profane on-air attack againt the Alaskan State Senate President and giggled at the word b*tch..
  1. Like Bush and McCain, she can't admit when she's wrong.
  1. She's linked to the Dominionist movement and Joel's Army.
  1. The United Steelworkers have already spoken out against her.
  1. She was a bad mayor who left her town's economy in tatters.
  1. She supported Obama's energy plan, but suddenly these references are disappearing.
  1. Some of the PUMA's believe that John McCain is patronizing them.
  1. Additionally, this choice eliminates the "He's not ready" attack on Obama.
  1. This choice raises the issue of McCain's age (Is Palin ready to take over if he keels over).
  1. It also raises the issue of McCain's past unfavorable statements against women.
  1. Additionally, this choice reminds us that McCain is an adulterer and raises the spectre that he is just a dirty old man with wandering eyes.
  1. Palin's husband is on BP's payroll creating a possible conflict of interest.
  1. She made extremely poor use of Eminent Domain during her time as mayor.
  1. She favors censoring library books (Alert your local librarian!)
  1. Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young (both under investigation) campaigned for her in 2006.
  1. She didn't support McCain in the primaries.
  1. The top 2 ALASKAN newspapers question her fitness for the job.
  1. She supports aerial hunting of wolves even though it was outlawed by Congress. She's using a loophole.. Hat tip to Scarce
  1. Undecideds apparently don't like the Palin pick. Thanks marabout40!
  1. More environmental problems - She fighting to prevent Belugas from being listed as endangered. Thanks again Terre!
  1. In addition to polar bears, belugas, and wolves, for the first time in Alaskan history she is supporting hunting black bear sows and cubs. Thank you for the information Bodean.
  1. She's either going to be distracted by being deposed soon or she is going to draw negative attention by trying to avoid being deposed.
  1. There have been discussion of witness tampering and possible impeachment hearings related to charges of her abuse of power
  1. MEME: Palin's selection provides a clear example of John McCain's hasty decision-making and poor judgement on important issues (like who would be best qualified to take his place if he could not complete his term).
  1. She wants to destroy 1.5 MILLION ACRES of ANWR, not the 2000 acres she has lied about on the news.
  1. Palin stated "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq.."

Posted by Metavirus at 8/31/2008 07:37:00 PM 1 comments  

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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Desperate FL Republicans Evoke 9/11

This is truly beyond the pale. Some republican group in Florida evokes 9/11 with the following billboard. Truly tasteless.

Here is the contact information for the shameless slimeball who commissioned the billboard:

Email pleasedontvoteforademocrat@yahoo.com


Postal Address Mike Meehan
P O Box 700989
St Cloud, Florida 34770

Here's Howard Dean on MSNBC (comments about the billboard at around 0:54):

Posted by Metavirus at 7/16/2008 05:40:00 PM 0 comments  

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