More humorous political reality.

Photo credit ... not sure. It was sent to me by a friend. If you know the point of origin, send it and credit will be given.

It isn't fascism if we do it.

She’s coming to Jeffersonville on Wednesday, and if that sort of kink appeals to you, make plans to attend the rally. The beer will be light, the oratory bitter, and jackboots are optional.

Campaign donations? Probably mandatory.

I can’t go, because I have a date to read the phonebook. Meanwhile …

Palin: 'I Don't Know' If Abortion Clinic Bombers Are Terrorists, from the Daily Kos, as relayed by www.alternet.org.

The buffoonish nature of Sarah Palin's vice presidential candidacy has mostly been a disaster for the McCain-Palin campaign, but it is has delivered at least one benefit: her foibles have helped obscure the true nature of her right-wing extremism.

But now, Sarah Palin's self-destructive behavior is threatening to expose even that. In an interview broadcast yesterday on NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams asked Palin whether she felt abortion clinic bombers were terrorists.

Amazingly, she said that she didn't know. MSNBC reports (emphasis added):

Palin resisted the suggestion that if Ayers was a "domestic terrorist" -- a standard line in her campaign addresses -- then so were conservative religious activists who bombed abortion clinics.

"I don't know if you're going to use the word 'terrorist' there," she said.

Brilliant piece by Keith Olbermann: "Hockey moms in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

Shrug ... I'll match him invective for invective. Better yet, I'll let Keith Olbermann do it, seeing as he does it far better than I do, anyway.

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Olbermann: It's Palin doing the pallin' -- Hockey moms in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, a special comment by Keith Olbermann, Anchor, 'Countdown' on MSNBC.

Last Wednesday, Sheriff's deputies arrived at the home of a woman in Akron, Ohio named Addie Polk, in order to evict her. After 38 years in that house, Ms. Polk had fallen behind on paying the mortgage. It was so bad that the company that held that mortgage, Fannie Mae, had foreclosed.

In fact, it was far worse than anybody knew. Addie Polk couldn't bear it any more. So, rather than be evicted, she shot herself in the chest.

Evidently she will survive. And, after Congressman Dennis Kucinich brought her plight to the floor of the House, Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant you and I and all the rest of us pretty much own now, agreed it would forgive Addie Polk's debt and, when she gets out of the hospital, let her go back and live in her home again.

That this is already a gothic horror story, you'll agree. But I left out one detail. Addie Polk is 90 years old.

In the self-pronounced area of expertise of the Governor of Alaska—energy—the real experts of both parties are at a loss to figure out any way, even'drill, baby, drill', that might lower gas prices before 2018. We are at war in two countries and a lame duck President with no reason to check his own imbalance still has dreams of one more.

And a 90-year-old woman, trapped in the middle of a financial meltdown, shoots herself and she's still in better shape than the economy. Yet, the Governor of Alaska wants to talk about somebody Barack Obama doesn't know very well, and what this somebody Barack Obama doesn't know very well, did, during the year Obama was eight and the Governor of Alaska was in pre-Kindergarten.

And she wants to talk about Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And she doesn't object to being introduced with a reference to Barack Obama's middle name. Well, this is my suggestion. In much the same way we, America, in the corporate persona of Fannie Mae, have forgiven poor Addie Polk of Akron, Ohio.

We, America, also need to forgive poor Sarah Palin of Wasilla, Alaska. They are both in situations that are beyond their ability to cope. They are both stuck in a crucible caused by forces they cannot comprehend. They are both unable to understand what they are doing.

After stumbling through a clumsier version of it at Englewood, Colorado, the Governor of Alaska said Saturday at Carson, California:

"Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.”

She later defended the remark by adding this was an "association that has been known but hasn't been talked about.”

Governor, Conservative groups have thus far spent ten million dollars this year trying to make something, anything, out of the brief interaction on a charity board between Sen. Obama, and a rehabilitated former domestic radical from the '60s and not even Conservatives have been stupid enough to buy the snake oil, that this was either a close relationship or a nefarious one.

But of course, you know better, Governor. You're smarter than the rest of us. A reporter asks you a horrible gotcha question like'which newspapers do you read' and it takes you four days to come up with an answer, and somehow it's the reporter's fault.

The reporter asks you to name one Supreme Court ruling with which you disagree other than Roe vs. Wade and even though you'd commented on just such a case from Alaska no less not three months ago your eyes turn into a big neon sign reading "Vacancy” and you insist it's because that evil media asked the wrong question.

So you're the genius Governor, and it's your supporters and the undecided voters who are the dopes who are now going to believe the same mickey-mouse crap that Sen. Clinton couldn't get to stick, and Sean Hannity couldn't get to stick, just because it's you adding that word "terrorist” and that phrase "palling around” and dropping the "g” in pal-ling.

And of course, Governor, those same dopes, and we media morons, we are not smart enough to ask about that pesky Alaskan Independence Party, and why you recorded a speech for its convention last March, and why your husband remained a registered member of it until 2002, even though it was founded by a man named Joe Vogler who wanted Alaska to secede from the United States. The way the South seceded, precipitating the Civil War.

The same Joe Vogler who once said:

"The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government, and I won't be buried under their damn flag.”

And who also said:

"I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions.”

Shoot, Governor, them's strong words, hah? Did he wink as he said 'em? You betcha! So, where does Joe Vogler rank on the scales of "terrorists who would target their own country?" Your opponent's guy Ayers wound up on a volunteer anti-poverty committee in Chicago.

But your guy Vogler wound up founding a group that wanted to rip one of the stars off the American flag! Well, ok, Governor, Vogler's more your husband's guy. So it's your husband who's been "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

But I'm assuming you've been "palling around” with your husband. But, gee willikers, Governor, you know what's best. You're not one of these Washington insiders who would notice that though that's a straight line connecting you, your husband, and this Alaskan secessionist, you're*standing under a banner with the campaign slogan "Country First” and if somebody out there puts two and two together they might just ask, "which Country dja mean? The Country of Alaska?”

"The heels are on,” you said with another smile. "The gloves are off.”

Well, if you're telling William Kristol you want to talk about Jeremiah Wright fer sure! So, Governor you don't mind addressing whether this Pastor Muthee is a terrorist? Do you? We've told you before about Pastor Thomas Muthee.

He's the preacher who visited the Wasilla Assembly of God church a couple of times while the Governor was there, ironically enough, just about as many times as Bill Ayres has met Barack Obama and, see, there was this one time where Pastor Muthee actually laid hands on the Governor.

And I'm sure that sounds like just some crazy anecdote, except there's videotape. And of course the Governor talked about this moment, the laying on of hands, just last summer.

It was in October, 2005, as the video indicates, when Muthee put his hands on Sarah Palin's back and said, "make a way for Sarah, even in the political arena. Make a way, my God. Bring finances her way, even if for the campaign in the name of Jesus.

"Every form of witchcraft, it will be rebuked in the name of Jesus. Father, make her way now. "

And the Governor said that "bold” approach of Pastor Muthee was one of the reasons she became Governor and she gives him just oodles of credit for puttin' her on the path.

The problem for the governor is that in 1999 The Christian Science Monitor reported that Pastor Muthee had gotten his start a decade earlier in Kenya, in the Nairobi suburb of Kiambu.

Kimabu was crime-ridden. So this character Muthee showed up, and announced it was the fault of this woman in town who he had decided was a witch. And Muthee gave the witch a choice: either be saved, or get out of town.

And the woman initially chose none of the above, but this became less than a viable option when Muthee got 200 of the townspeople together and they decided, heck, you know, Muthee's right, she probably is a witch, and the next thing you know the police are raiding her house and reportedly shooting her snake because if she was a witch, the snake had to be a demon, and then the woman left town and everybody said crime went down and most of the bars closed and this is not only how Pastor Muthee got started but he's proud of it and he tells the story in his testimonial videotapes and people in that church in Wasilla where he laid hands on the Governor knew all about it.

And they think it was just a Joe-Six-Pack, Hockey Mom kinda thing to do, to let a guy who branded some woman in Kenya a witch, demand that God make some different woman the Governor of Alaska!

Governor, what would you call someone who arrives in a suburb, blames a resident for the local crime, organizes a mob to threaten the woman, convinces the authorities to go and raid her home, and then chases her out of the suburb?

C'mon Governor, just give us one answer that has something to do with the question you were just asked. That's right you'd call him a terrorist. And since it was in his own country, that would make himmmm? Yes, very good, a domestic terrorist.

So, you, Governor, you've been "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.” Say it ain't so, Gov! Say it ain't so! Of course it is.

The Governor of Alaska ignores Addie Polk and the American tragedy that is a 90-year old woman shooting herself out of shame and panic and who knows what else. Over the mortgage!

Instead the Governor of Alaska wants to start calling people terrorists and insisting of Sen. Obama that quote "this is not a man who sees America like you and I see America” and whose rhetoric like that, and the "pallin' around with terrorists” line were rightly described by the Associated Press yesterday as a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing kind of way of slipping racism into the equation, because it's a nifty trick to remind the white folk that (psst) Obama is black.

But overriding this sleaziness and dog-gone it, the Governor of Alaska has got to be the sleaziest politician working the stage at the moment, there is the sheer blessed stupidity of letting herself become the bomb-thrower when her own life is full of domestic terrorists.

Governor? Bill Ayres? Your hubby was in this secessionist hate group for which you recorded a video.

Governor? Jeremiah Wright? That pastor you credit with helping you become Governor, is either a con man or a psycho who believes he can tell which woman in the village is the witch, and which woman is the governor.

And Governor, there's also "The U.S. Council On World Freedom.” You should ask Sen. McCain about that outfit and why he had to scat away from it 22 years ago.

Or, ask him why yesterday his own brother Joe referred to Northern Virginia as quote "communist country.” Or you could ask him about Pastors John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Or about why Sen. McCain said about introducing Jeremiah Wright into this campaign, "there's no place for that kind of campaigning, the American people don't want it, period.”

Or don't ask. You know best. You're the one selling the patent medicine. Those of us out here, we're just the suckers pulling out our greenbacks. Go on talking about this man Ayers and trying to link Obama to that word "terrorist.”

But be prepared for others to ask you about your pastor and terrorism. And for still others to ask you about the First Dude and terrorism. But not me, Governor.

I forgive you. You are about as guilty here as poor Ms. Addie Polk in Akron. And I hope that after what you've done to yourself, you recover as well as she seems to be doing, and that you too get to go back and live in your own home again.

Because if you think the terrorism con, and the racism sting are going to do anything but bury you and Sen, McCain, you need to pick up one of those how-many-ever newspapers you reed and check the headlines to find out what people are really worried about right now.

Otherwise, when you said "the heels are on, the gloves are off,” you got as close to telling the truth as you've ever gotten, and without really knowing it.

Because, for you and Sen. McCain, Governor, it's not the gloves that just came off.

Obviously—it's the wheels.

Rural "values"?

Ten days and an unprecedented financial “bailout” have elapsed since the publication of The Economist article excerpted below, and the question it poses may already have been answered. The “Palin effect” has proven to be little more than a vacuous feistiness barely concealing a startling (and as for John McCain, entirely cynical) absence of gravitas.

But he has very little choice, does he?

McCain remains inextricably linked with the disastrously failed presidency of W, a fact that even a foaming-at-the-mouth Neo-Con like Charles Krauthammer recognizes, and the geriatric must campaign on the basis of ceaseless gimmickry, desperately seeking to divert attention from his damning proximity to Shrub’s all-around catastrophe.

McCain still will receive plenty of votes from the bedrock core of the nation, or some forgettable silliness like that. It is this phenomenon that The Economist considers.

Rural voters: Bucolic ballots … Could the economy trump the Palin effect?, from The Economist print edition of Sep 25th 2008.

A new poll for the Centre for Rural Strategies, a think-tank in Whitesburg, shows John McCain leading Mr Obama by ten percentage points among rural voters in swing states. The poll, conducted in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, found that 51% of rural voters said they would vote for Mr McCain, while 41% preferred Mr Obama.

Only a fifth of Americans live in rural areas. And Mr McCain’s advantage among rural voters is slimmer than George Bush’s 13-point lead over John Kerry in a similar poll in 2004. But it is still a useful vote bank in a very close election. And the reasons rural voters give for preferring the Republican ticket are revealing.

Asked who would deal better with problems facing rural areas or the economy more generally, rural voters are about evenly divided. But when asked who shares their values, they prefer Mr McCain by a 14-point margin. And they love his running-mate, Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. Fully 65% of rural voters in swing states think she “represents the values of rural communities”.

Echoing the advice of the ancient Greek philosophers whose wisdom purportedly girds our non-Christian intellectual experience in the Western world, this rural poll result begs a few “define your principles” questions.

Exactly what are these rural “values”?

If they do in fact exist, are they pertinent to our contemporary experience?

Do these rural “values” still embrace the lingering shadow of racism, which might yet trump both the economy and Sarah Palin in the minds of far too many voters?

If so, shouldn’t any such “value” be summarily disavowed?

Speaking for myself, I don’t accept the frequently bandied proposition that “rural values” somehow preface the presumed glory of the American experience, and I suggest that a healthy skepticism be applied to any such claims. The pervasiveness of religious zealotry in the back forty would be enough to arch one or more eyebrows, but too often, the countryside’s prevailing worldview is far less savory than the imagery of a few millennial crackpots behind a pulpit.

But that’s just one man’s hungover opinion.

The Economist on Sarah Palin: "The most inexperienced candidate for a mainstream party in modern history."

With your indulgence, the following is a column reprinted from The Economist.

The woman from nowhere: John McCain’s choice of running-mate raises serious questions about his judgment

(Column by Lexington; Illustration by KAL)

The most audacious move of the race so far is also, potentially, the most self-destructive. John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running-mate has set the political atmosphere alight with both enthusiasm and dismay.

Mr McCain has based his campaign on the idea that this is a dangerous world—and that Barack Obama is too inexperienced to deal with it. He has also acknowledged that his advanced age—he celebrated his 72nd birthday on August 29th—makes his choice of vice-president unusually important. Now he has chosen as his running mate, on the basis of the most cursory vetting, a first-term governor of Alaska.

The reaction from inside the conservative cocoon was at first ecstatic. Conservatives argued that Mrs Palin embodies the “real America”—a moose-hunting hockey mum, married to an oil-worker, who has risen from the local parent-teacher association to governing the geographically largest state in the Union. They praise her as a McCain-style reformer who has taken on her state’s Republican establishment and has a staunch pro-life record (her fifth child has Down’s syndrome). Who better to harpoon the baby-murdering elitists who run the Democratic Party?

Mrs Palin was greeted like the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan by the delegates, furious at her mauling at the hands of the “liberal media”. And she delivered a tub-thumping speech, underlining her record as a reforming governor and advocate of more oil-drilling, and warning her enemies not to underestimate her (“the difference between a hockey mum and a pitbull—lipstick”). But once the cheering and the chanting had died down, serious questions remained.

The political calculations behind Mr McCain’s choice hardly look robust. Mrs Palin is not quite the pork-busting reformer that her supporters claim. She may have become famous as the governor who finally killed the infamous “bridge to nowhere”—the $220m bridge to the sparsely inhabited island of Gravina, Alaska. But she was in favour of the bridge before she was against it (and told local residents that they weren’t “nowhere to her”). As mayor of Wasilla, a metropolis of 9,000 people, she initiated annual trips to Washington, DC, to ask for more earmarks from the state’s congressional delegation, and employed Washington lobbyists to press for more funds for her town.

Nor is Mrs Palin well placed to win over the moderate and independent voters who hold the keys to the White House. Mr McCain’s main political problem is not energising his base; he enjoys more support among Republicans than Mr Obama does among Democrats. His problem is reaching out to swing voters at a time when the number of self-identified Republicans is up to ten points lower than the number of self-identified Democrats. Mr McCain needs to attract roughly 55% of independents and 15% of Democrats to win the election. But it is hard to see how a woman who supports the teaching of creationism rather than contraception, and who is soon to become a 44-year-old grandmother, helps him with soccer moms in the Philadelphia suburbs. A Rasmussen poll found that the Palin pick made 31% of undecided voters less likely to plump for Mr McCain and only 6% more likely.

The moose in the room, of course, is her lack of experience. When Geraldine Ferraro was picked as Walter Mondale’s running-mate, she had served in the House for three terms. Even the hapless Dan Quayle, George Bush senior’s sidekick, had served in the House and Senate for 12 years. Mrs Palin, who has been the governor of a state with a population of 670,000 for less than two years, is the most inexperienced candidate for a mainstream party in modern history.

Inexperienced and Bush-level incurious. She has no record of interest in foreign policy, let alone expertise. She once told an Alaskan magazine: “I’ve been so focused on state government; I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.” She obtained an American passport only last summer to visit Alaskan troops in Germany and Kuwait. This not only blunts Mr McCain’s most powerful criticism of Mr Obama. It also raises serious questions about the way he makes decisions.

Vetted for 15 minutes
Mr McCain had met Mrs Palin only once, for a 15-minute chat at the National Governors’ Association meeting, before summoning her to his ranch for her final interview. The New York Times claims that his team arrived in Alaska only on August 28th, a day before the announcement. As a result, his advisers seem to have been gobsmacked by the Palin show that is now playing on the national stage. She has links to the wacky Alaska Independence Party, which wants to secede from the Union. She is on record disagreeing with Mr McCain on global warming, among other issues. The contrast with Mr Obama’s choice of the highly experienced and much-vetted Joe Biden is striking.

Mr McCain’s appointment also raises more general worries about the Republican Party’s fitness for government. Up until the middle of last week Mr McCain was still considering two other candidates whom he has known for decades: Joe Lieberman, a veteran senator, independent Democrat and Iraq war hawk, and Tom Ridge, a former governor of Pennsylvania (a swing state with 21 Electoral College votes) and the first secretary of homeland security. Mr McCain reluctantly rejected both men because their pro-choice views are anathema to the Christian right.

The Palin appointment is yet more proof of the way that abortion still distorts American politics. This is as true on the left as on the right. But the Republicans seem to have gone furthest in subordinating considerations of competence and merit to pro-life purity. One of the biggest problems with the Bush administration is that it appointed so many incompetents because they were sound on Roe v Wade. Mrs Palin’s elevation suggests that, far from breaking with Mr Bush, Mr McCain is repeating his mistakes.

Jesus said, "Build this gas pipeline," and other tales from the GOP's Fantasy Island ticket.

Don’t count me among those entranced by the Republican ticket of Juan and Eva Peron (wait -- make that John McCain and Sarah Palin).

Strip away the medals and lipstick, and it’s the same old Republican palaver about flags, erections, money and Christian-sanctioned interference in the private affairs of adults.

The GOP’s vice presidential candidate, now embraced by the shunned PUMA estrogen mafia (thanks, R), advocates the polar opposite worldview from that of Hillary Clinton, especially when it comes to women's rights, but the Professor Erikas of America are so eager to vote against a black man that they’ll flip to theocratic fascism without skipping a beat.

So it goes, and theocratic fascism is not too strong a term to describe it. Here’s a commentator whose already written what I’d like to have said … so I’ll link to him and return to my work.

Why Sarah Palin Scares Me