Palin Calls for More Socialism

“The fact is that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, they’ve gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers (cheers, applause). The McCain/Palin administration will make them smaller, smarter, and more effective for homeowners who need help.”

Looks like Sarah Palin knows as much about the economy as John McCain.

Um, Mrs. Palin, the taxpayers didn’t own Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Until this weekend, that is. Now the government owns them. So what you’re saying is that you believe that government can make these formerly non-government-owned companies smaller, smarter and more effective? That sounds mighty close to socialism to me. Imagine a right-wing patriotic American like yourself calling for more socialism?

Or do you just not know what the hell you’re talking about?

MSNBC Caves Again to GOP

Well that ends that.

MSNBC has once again caved to pressure from the GOP that it’s becoming “too liberal,” and has yanked Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from political anchor duties.

It seems that the right-wing has a bee in its collective bonnet about MSNBC’s inability to cover up the fact that at least one of its anchors might have a left-leaning view on things. I guess perhaps if Olbermann had called his show, “Countdown – Fair and Balanced,” no one could say anything, no matter how progressive its content.

Right-wingers on the radio have been spreading a lot of fear over the past year that supposedly Democrats want to resurrect the fairness doctrine. When they mention this, they talk incessantly about how the liberals in this country want to shut up the Sean ‘I Lie for a Living’ Hannitys and Rush ‘Oxycontin’ Limbaughs.

But just who is doing the shutting up?

Sean says the Democrats on the radio and television are upset because they cannot compete in the modern marketplace of ideas. Well, here’s MSNBC whose ratings are up substantially over the last convention, probably from folks like me who can’t stand to watch Blitzer or any of the uptight GOP suits over at CNN, and who wouldn’t dare think of turning over to “fair and balanced” FAUX News. And now they’re being threatened by the McCain campaign and they decide to “cut and run” at the slightest hint of controversy.

MSNBC has proven over the past year or so that having a slight progressive bias can work — it can generate ratings. I could watch PBS if I wanted true unbiased coverage, or I could just tune to CSPAN to watch the speeches. The point is, I watch guys like Olbermann and Matthews because they make me laugh, and I enjoy their guests and panelists. Their coverage was entertaining to watch, and I had the feeling that I was tuning in to like-minded people. I’ve read the commentary that says it’s getting dangerous that we all want our “own biased” coverage, but I don’t buy it. I know I’m open to listening to the other side, but I just get the feeling that they don’t want to hear a peep from progressives. So when I’m watching OUR convention or the debates, sure I want the anchors to be somewhat objective — if someone has a terrible speech or poor debating skills, I expect them to say so — but if they’re putting in a dig or two at the GOP in between, I’m just fine with that. And if there’s a little tension between the two anchors, all the better. It’s fun. It’s entertaining. It’s news. I’m watching.

After all, this is TV. I don’t expect hard news. For that, I’ll go to the internet and do some reading.

But it’s over. The Brokaws and Williamses have spoken. They’re embarrassed by their association with MSNBC. As far as I’m concerned, they have their own network (NBC). Why not leave that to the “unbiased” coverage, and let MSNBC take a more progressive tone?

So first CBS was the “liberal” enemy, and now I guess it’s NBC (as evidenced by the chants on the GOP convention floor). This is how they silence the progressives. As soon as someone dares say something bad or challenging about the GOP, the attack is on. “Silence them!”

Well, it has worked again. First Phil Donohue, now Keith and Chris.

Meanwhile, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly can continue their far-right-of-center lies and babble over at the GOP-puppet FOX, and bring on scumbags like Dick Morris and Ann Coulter to just reinforce the lies they tell.

Where is the justice?

I stopped watching MSNBC just after Phil was fired. Now, with Keith and Chris being kept behind closed doors and brought out only for the occasional appearance like some kind of circus sideshow, I guess it’s back to PBS for the debates.

How depressing.

Biden On The Attack

Now this is the Joe Biden I hoped I’d see after the GOP Convention, and not the kind, gentle soul that was interviewed on television after the Palin speech.

This is exactly the way these folks should be nailed. As Obama said, they want to make big elections out of small things. Don’t let it happen, guys. Keep reminding everyone that this is the Rove strategy, and they’re trying to make it happen again.

But you know what George Dubya said.

Fool me once, shame on… Fool me can’t get fooled again!!

Todd Palin’s Partner Seals Divorce Papers

The National Enquirer — yes, the same paper that broke the story of John Edwards’ affair — is currently digging into the reason why one of Todd Palin’s partners would suddenly file to have his divorce proceedings sealed.

We might soon find out that reason, as that motion has been denied.

Perhaps with all the vetting of Sarah Palin that’s now going on by the media, her husband’s partner has decided that he just doesn’t want his personal issues revealed to everyone, however irrelevant they might be to anything going on at the moment.

On the other hand, perhaps this sudden desire to seal the papers has something to do with the Enquirer report that Sarah Palin had an affair with her husband’s business partner.

The McCain camp responded strongly, and has threatened to sue the Enquirer:

“The smearing of the Palin family must end. The allegations contained on the cover of the National Enquirer insinuating that Gov. Palin had an extramarital affair are categorically false. It is a vicious lie,” said McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt.

You can see the cover story here.

This could turn out to be about as true as 3/4 of the stories printed by the Enquirer, but if it turns out that there is any substance to this, I’d say people better look out when the Enquirer comes calling.

If John McCain’s team had done some proper vetting of its VP candidate, perhaps the media wouldn’t have to waste its time with stories like this. But unfortunately, since they didn’t, it’s all fair game.

UPDATE: The Smoking Gun got a hold of the divorce papers, and here’s the reason why Todd Palin’s partner wanted the records sealed:

According to the filing, Richter wanted the documents deemed confidential in a bid to cloak details about his home, workplace, and phone numbers because “reporters and news agencies” were using that information to contact him. Richter, a 39-year-old contractor, noted that he is “friends and land owners in a remote cabin” with the Palins and, as a result, journalists were intruding on the “cabin life and private life” of him and his 11-year-old son.

Looks like the Enquirer might have a lawsuit on its hands.

The Angry Palin

Yipes. What a hate fest. For about the first half of Sarah Palin’s speech, I really thought she was mopping up the floor with the Democrats. Then she got all down and nasty, leveling a lot of personal attacks on Obama and Biden, accusing them of being cocktail politicians. I also felt a lot of Giuliani’s speech was clever and well-delivered. But I have to take issue with one key part of each speech.

It appears that both these speakers (and maybe the Republican party?) seemed to have a problem with volunteer work.

First, Giuliani offered:

On the other hand, you have a resume from a gifted man with an Ivy League education. He worked as a community organizer. What? He worked — I said — I said, OK, OK, maybe this is the first problem on the resume.He worked as a community organizer. He immersed himself in Chicago machine politics.

OK, perhaps you could toss that away as just uppity Giuliani talk. I lived in NYC under Giuliani’s iron fist, and it was quite like him to go off half-cocked and just say anything that he wanted, damn the consequences. That’s the risk you take for having him speak at your convention.

But then Sarah Palin got on board:

I guess — I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.

Ouch. But I think illdoc1 posted the best response to this on YouTube and noted:

The difference between a community organizer and a politician is that the community organizers are the ones who take the responsibility upon themselves to help their fellow citizens without the benefit of a government budget behind them, and go out there every day doing the hard, thankless work to make this country liveable which is what allows you politicians to be able to go on TV and brag about how this is the greatest country in the world. And for you to go on that TV show and spit in those peoples’ faces for the sake of a rhetorical flourish is disgusting.

Go get ’em.

When you read the transcript of Palin’s speech, it doesn’t seem too nasty, actually. Sure it takes a few jabs at Obama, presents a few lies about his proposed policies, but it doesn’t have that “twisting the knife” feeling of Palin’s delivery. It was Palin’s delivery that made this one of the nastiest, most derisive speeches I remember hearing at a convention. And I thought Zell Miller’s speech at a previous RNC was bad.

Surely this can’t be the face of bipartisanship that John McCain talks about? I know that reaching across the aisle isn’t something that’s normally done at a political convention, but Palin seemed to take things farther than can be repaired in the future. This was personal.

And while McCain’s VP candidate seemed more than capable of fighting her own battles, the Republican talking point of the day seemed to be that she was this poor victim who didn’t deserve to be investigated by the media. The American public doesn’t have a right to know just who this woman is and what she stood for over the years — you know, all that firing and book burning and stuff.

I’m sure these are the same people that defended Hillary Clinton against right-wing smears, right?

As far as I’m concerned, Palin threw down the gauntlet last night, and I hope Biden and Obama are equally as aggressive at confronting her with real issues and holding her to task for the Bush administration’s failures. If she wants to claim she’s “on the team,” let her accept responsibilities for the last eight disasterous years.

Perhaps they can start with her witty comment last night, “I told the Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks,” on that Bridge to Nowhere,” seeing as how she was actually for it before she was against it:

In the city Ketchikan, the planned site of the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere,” political leaders of both parties said the claim was false and a betrayal of their community, because she had supported the bridge and the earmark for it secured by Alaska’s Congressional delegation during her run for governor.

When she was running for governor in 2006, Palin said she was insulted by the term “bridge to nowhere,” according to Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein, a Democrat, and Mike Elerding, a Republican who was Palin’s campaign coordinator in the southeast Alaska city.

“People are learning that she pandered to us by saying, I’m for this’ … and then when she found it was politically advantageous for her nationally, abruptly she starts using the very term that she said was insulting,” Weinstein said.

Looks like we need to start another flip-flop list to match McCain’s ever-increasing one.

But I did actually agree on one part of Giuliani’s speech. That’s the part when he said, “I learned as a trial lawyer a long time ago, if you don’t have the facts, you’ve got to change them. So our opponents want to re- frame the debate.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what the Republicans are trying to do this year, once again. They have no record to run on, so they’re going to sell the Hero to the independents, and the neo-con to the GOP base.

Pay no attention to the lost jobs, the lost homes, the tattered economy, the raging war overseas, the veterans coming back with missing limbs, the broken families, our tarnished image abroad.

It would appear that Barack Obama and Joe Biden, no matter how much they say they are reluctant to do so, are going to have to get dirty in this battle. The Democrats simply cannot cede another election because they were afraid to fight back.