R.I.P. SARAH PALIN'S VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDACY, AUG. 29, 2008-NOV. 4, 2008

Need we say more?

FAILIN' PALIN' STRIKES AGAIN: THIS TIME SHE BOTCHES THE FIRST AMENDMENT

This gets better everyday. It reminds me of a line of dialogue rapper and actor Ludacris said in the film, "Crash," to another character: "You could fill the Staples Center with stuff you don't know." Same thing applies to Hockey Mom. Check it out through this link at salon.com:
salon.com

WHY THEIR STRATEGY WON'T WORK

Kudos to Seattle Post-Intelligencer political cartoonist David Horsey for this excellent and poignant cartoon.

POLLS: WHACK JOB DIVA HELPING MCCAIN TO TITANIC CRASH

How qucikly is whatever is left of Sarah Palin's stock falling? Consider this: a new poll shows that the percentage of Americans who don't believe she is qualified to be vice-president has jumped from 50 to 59 percent -- SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THIS MONTH!
At this rate, it'll jump at least another point by election day -- and that can only help our cause. Read more in this New York Times story.

newyorktimes.com

HUSH THAT FUSS: ON 'STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS,' MCAIN MOVED RUNNING MATE TO THE BACK OF THE BUS

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow had it exactly right when she reported earlier tonight on her TV show that the following incident -- first reported by Robert Draper in the following GQ magazine blog entry -- is like "some petty 8th grade drama." Read Draper's blog entry here...

Palin, Alone Aboard the Bus

Almost from the very beginning, the Palin pick created tension.

An armada of handlers descended on McCain’s running mate like the flying monkeys in The Wizard Of Oz. The day after the ticket made its debut, it was August 30 and the campaign staged a rally outside of Pittsburgh, on the field of a minor league baseball team called the Washington Wild Things. I remember seeing Tucker Eskew—an old Bush hand out of South Carolina who had never spent a day in McCain World until Nicolle Wallace recruited him to be Palin’s counselor—wandering around the premises, looking somewhat lost. He and Wallace took charge of schooling the Alaska governor on message discipline. Two days later at the GOP convention, an adviser watched them coach Palin on how to answer routine press questions and warned Steve Schmidt that she was being overly managed. Three weeks later, Wallace arranged for the interview with her former CBS colleague Katie Couric, which proved to be a disaster. Meanwhile, Palin’s debate prep was going miserably, to the point where Schmidt had to peel off from McCain (who was having his own challenges responding to the financial crisis) and join Nicolle’s husband Mark Wallace in simplifying Palin’s prep so as to avert catastrophe. The latter efforts resulted in what one senior adviser would describe to me with palpable relief as “a campaign-saving performance.”

I’m sympathetic to Eskew and Wallace, and not just because they’re decent people. They’ve held their tongue from leaking what a couple of McCain higher-ups have told me—namely, that Palin simply knew nothing about national and international issues. Which meant, as one such adviser said to me: “Letting Sarah be Sarah may not be such a good thing.” It’s a grim binary choice, but apparently it came down to whether to make Palin look like a scripted robot or an unscripted ignoramus. I was told that Palin chafed at being defined by her discomfiting performances in the Couric, Charlie Gibson, and Sean Hannity interviews. She wanted to get back out there and do more. Well, if you’re Eskew and Wallace, what do you say to that? Your responsibility isn’t the care and feeding of Sarah Palin’s ego; it’s the furtherance of John McCain’s quest for the presidency.

On the other hand, it had to be hard for Sarah Palin—who has achieved all she’s achieved with a highly personal touch—to take all this ridicule under an enforced gag order. After being introduced to the world as one of the “Team of Mavericks,” she’s admonished not to be one. She’s being called out by some McCainites for not cleaving to all of the senator’s positions. The Republicans who fawned over her superstar looks are now shocked—shocked!—to learn that her much-admired wardrobe has been purchased with RNC funds. I’ve heard from one well-placed source that McCain has snubbed her on one long bus ride aboard the Straight Talk Express, to the embarrassment of those sitting nearby. It has surely been implied to the governor that she should be eternally grateful to have been plucked from obscurity. And yet the high water mark of John McCain’s campaign for the presidency unquestionably began on September 3, when Palin gave her nomination speech—and ended precisely twelve days later, when McCain went off-script—I have that on the authority of the person who participated in the writing of said script—and told an audience that he still believed the fundamentals of the economy were strong.

TOP MCCAIN ADVISER'S LATEST DIS: 'SARAH PALIN IS A WHACK JOB'

It's getting to the point where we have to say this stuff is too good for us to be making it up. With every passing day, new insults are being foisted upon Sarah Palin -- by John McCain's own staffers. Yesterday, she was a diva. Today, according to news reports, she's a "whack job." Check out this piece in the Times, a UK newspaper. Better yet, after you read this, do a search on Google for "palin whack job" and you'll find more than 100,000 searches have been done.

timesonline.co.uk

THE GOVERNOR'S NEW CLOTHES: PALIN AND MCCAIN CAMPS TRADE BLAME OVER FASHION FIASCO

Ha, ha, ha! Keep up it up, GOP. Have a free for all. Keep going at it! Fight to the political death for all we care and let the world know that clothing bills are what you're really focused on. You guys are true to your word: Talk about the economy and you'll lose. That's a winning strategy for Barack and Joe.
Here's more on the infighting, from politico.com.
politico.com