Progressive Revolution

Roger Simon of Politico.com has written a brilliant column on the media’s coverage of the Palin pick.  I’ve posted part of it here, read it all after the jump.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — On behalf of the media, I would like to say we are sorry.

On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry.

We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked.

We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?

We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her? How well did his campaign vet her? And was she his first choice?

Read the rest here: Why the media should apologize – Roger Simon – Politico.com.

Here are some facts about John McCain’s choice for Vice President, Sarah Palin:

(1) She is presently under investigation in Alaska for abuse of power

Sarah Palin is being investigated for abuse of power (7/08) after she fired the Dept. of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. Palin pressured Monegan to fire her sister’s ex husband who is a state trooper. When Commissioner Monegan refused, Palin fired him.

(2) She strongly supports big oil

Palin is aligned with the oil industry on two key issues. She favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and many offshore areas. Palin represents one of the few real petro-states within the United States. Big Oil is big business in Alaska, and the state relies on oil and gas tax and royalty revenues for more than 80 percent of its budget. The state’s coffers runneth over; every resident of Alaska gets a check from the state, a dividend for his or her share of the oil and gas extracted from the ground. Oh, and Palin’s husband works as a field operator for BP, one of the main operators on the North Slope. Oil interests are largely Alaska’s interests.

Read the rest here…

Of course, Alaska is near Russia so she must call Moscow all the time, since Putin gives a shit about Alaska and all.  Steve Doocy may very well be the stupidest man on television.

Get a free Obama/Biden ‘08 sticker from MoveOn.org

There has been a lot of buzz on the interwebs today that Colin Powell will likely announce his support of Barack Obama and may even speak at the Democratic convention.  This coming just two days after Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, who is overseeing organization of the convention, hinted that Obama’s VP pick may have a military background.The Night that the VP pick is scheduled to speak is also the night that is dedicated to veterans and their families.

I think Colin Powell could be the perfect pick for Obama.  Powell has quite an impressive resume.  He is a retired Army General, former National Security Adviser, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State. There has been a lot of talk about Chuck Hagel being a possible choice as a show of bipartisanship by Obama.  Selecting someone from the other side of the aisle would be an excellent way to bring over some Republican voters who aren’t sure about Obama but aren’t pleased with John McCain as the nominee.  Despite his serving in the Bush administration, many Democrats respect Colin Powell for his honesty when he admitted he had been mislead by intelligence about Iraq.

Colin Powell is known as a moderate Republican, he has been criticized by some conservatives as being too liberal on some issues.  Powell is pro-choice, which makes him more palatable to Democrats than pro lifer Chuck Hagel.  He also supports “reasonable” gun control and affirmative action.

Colin Powell brings an encyclopedic knowledge of the military and has a history with many of our military leaders.  Serving as Secretary of State, Colin Powell has built a strong rapport with many world leaders and is highly respected in the international community.  Powell’s experience would quell McCain’s attacks that Obama is a risky pick because he “isn’t ready to lead on day one”, because with Colin Powell by he side he doesn’t really need to be, Powell can help guide him when the need arises.  Who better to answer the phone at 3 a.m. than Colin Powell?

I knew it would happen eventually, but I never thought it would happen this soon, The McCain campaign has abandoned the idea of running a race on the issues and have resorted to attack after attack on Obama.  I guess it really shouldn’t be surprising, as I’ve mentioned before, nothing has been going Mr. McCain’s way lately.  McCain put out an ad, that I’m sure everyone has seen by now, that compares Barack’s celebrity to that of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.  Firstly, I’m not sure if Britney Spears could draw a crowd of 200,000 in Berlin, and I’m certain Paris Hilton couldn’t draw a crowd like that so I will say that Barack Obama may be more famous than those celebrities, but is that really a bad thing?

What’s bad about the president being liked by not just the American people, but by our allies around the world?  What’s bad about a man who is getting people involved in politics who were never interested in politics before?  What’s bad about giving hope to people who had lost theirs?  Barack Obama’s fame isn’t an issue, his popularity has nothing to do with his ability to lead this country.  It has nothing to do with his stances of the issues,this is a deliberate distraction by an increasingly desperate campaign.  And I think it’s only going to get worse, we haven’t even had the conventions yet.

The McCain campaign is terrified of the conventions, the visuals of Obama speaking to 70,000 supporters in a massive outdoor stadium juxtaposed against McCain speaking to 20,000 in a much smaller convention center is not going to look good for McCain.  The Obama campaign has been masterful in its use of visuals, with the speech in Portland in front of 100,000 and basically every stop on the foreign trip had wonderful photo ops.  McCain’s problem is that he isn’t exactly photogenic.  This will become even more clear after the first debate.  In 1960 JFK and Richard Nixon had the first ever televised presidential debate.  Most analysts agreed that on the issues Richard Nixon won the debate, but he looked like hell.  Nixon refused makeup, he had five o’clock shadow, he looked tired.  JFK looked like well JFK, a young, attractive, charismatic guy.  JFK Gained in the polls after the debate and, of course, went on to win the election.

Really this election looks a lot like that election of 1960, Nixon would regularly criticize Kennedy for his youth and “lack of experience”.  When Kennedy would give speeches it looked more like a Beatles concert than a campaign stop, women screaming, fainting, hoping that they can touch his hand.  Nixon couldn’t get the crowds fired up like that, but he could tell a joke, much like McCain.  If you watch the 1960 debate you can see, Nixon had numbers to back up his claims, and he liked to criticize Kennedy for making grand sweeping statements just like McCain says about Obama.  But the fact remains, young and exciting beats old and grumpy every time.  Stop being grumpy Mr. McCain, I don’t think you can wait eight years to run again like Nixon.

I came across a poll on a Florida paper’s website that posed the question “What is your take on Barack Obama’s foreign trip?”  This sounds like a pretty innocuous if not unoriginal question but the evidence of conservative sneakiness is in the possible answers:

Wonderful! It’s like he’s president already, and the world loves him

Great to see him finally going to Iraq and Afghanistan but the rock star stuff in Europe is a bit much

He’s acting a bit presumptious [sic]. Obama isn’t president yet.

Oh please! His behavior and the fawning media coverage are over the top

I really haven’t been paying attention

First off typos on a professional newspaper’s website?  Use spell check!  But more importantly, as you can see, in order to say that you liked that he took the trip, you have to also say that you think he’s acting, like he already won the election.  This is the current GOP talking point, “He’s acting like he’s President already, you haven’t won the election!”  Barack knows he hasn’t won the election, Mr. Obama’s supporters know he hasn’t won the election yet, we know no lead is safe in an election that could likely come down to Florida and Ohio (I’ve lived in Ohio my whole life, so don’t flame me for making fun of it).  Micheal Dukakis had a huge lead over GHWB just weeks before the election and we know how that turned out.

And of course Mr. McCain had to get in on the Barack bashing, saying that he would love to speak in Germany but he’d wait until he was president, despite the fact that he has gone to several countries during his campaign but somehow it’s okay because the countries he visited are in the western hemisphere.  Nobody likes a hypocrite Mr. McCain, well nobody except your supporters apparently.

The thing that most baffles me about the Bush Administration is their failure to be right on anything in the last eight years.  You would think that even if they were just guessing they would get things right half the time, but no, they have nearly a zero percent success rate.  On the issue of Iraq, they were wrong.  On the issue of Afghanistan, they were wrong.  On the economy, wrong again.  And let’s not forget the enviroment, gas prices, and the impending food crisis.  And I’m not even going to discuss issues of morality like gay rights, stem cell research, and a woman’s right to choose.  Again and again they have failed us at everything.

And today we have two candidates vying for the opportunity to fix this cluster fuck.  One candidate wants to do things differently from the current administration, the other is being advised by many of the same people as our current frat-boy-in-chief.  One candidate wants to bring our troops home and take them out of harm’s way, the other is willing to potentially leave them for a hundred years in a country that has asked us to leave.  One candidate has a plan to attempt to cure us of our fossil fuel addiction while the other wants to give you thirty cents off on a gallon of gas, not because it will actually help people but because “[A gas-tax holiday] might give ‘em a little psychological boost.”

Is that the same kind of psychological boost giving away $300 million for a battery would have Mr. McCain?  Mr. McCain wants to drill offshore for more oil, unfortunately the reason for the surge in gas prices is not lack of oil it is lack of refined gasoline ready to go in your vehicle.  There has not been a new oil refinery built in this country since 1976.  Producing more oil but not being able to refine it will have about as much of an effect on gas prices as growing more corn but not harvesting it would have on food prices.  Sure it sounds good but if you don’t turn it into something we can use it is worthless to everyone but the oil companies.

And policy isn’t the only thing that makes John McCain wrong for our country.  Our standing in the international world has taken a serious hit over the last eight years.  A major reason for that is that the face of our country, our president, is arrogant and out of touch with reality.  At this year’s G8 summit our fearless leader Mr. Bush seemed to revel in our country’s place as the top polluter in the world after refusing to agree to climate change targets.  This display by our president summed up the message we have sent to the world for the last eight years, “Fuck you! (air punch)”.

Barack Obama doesn’t walk around with a shit eating elitist grin on his face.  He genuinely understands the problems that face Americans.  His policies aren’t just the duct tape fixes we have become so accustomed to from Washington but plans that could potentially have as great an effect on our nation as FDR’s New Deal.  Things like his plan to build high speed rail connecting the major cities of the midwest.  This is a way to kill a whole flock of birds with one stone.  With high speed rail you could reduce the number of cars on the road, reduce the security lines at the airports, reduce CO2 emmisions, as high speed rail is cleaner than automobile or air travel, and most importantly in my opinion it would create jobs.  Building high speed rail lines throughout the midwest would produce thousands of jobs for those people currently unemployed due to the poor state of our economy.

There are plenty of other reasons why we need CHANGE (yeah i said it), and I HOPE (hehe) the rest of the country will see things my way.  I plan to rant about the election and other topics a lot over the next few months (November can’t come soon enough).

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