By The River

Word comes of a tragic Maryland State Police medevac helicopter crash in suburban Washington, D.C. The copter crashed near Capitol Heights, inside the Beltway, while carrying two traffic accident victims to Prince Georges Hospital. The two pilots, a Charles County medical technician, and one of the patients were killed. Miraculously, the crashed occurred in a forest, and no one on the ground was injured or killed.

Accidents like this are why I keep pushing for a ban on medevac helicopter overflights of my Shipoke neighborhood along the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg, Pa. Shipoke is on the most convenient approach path, but NOT the only approach path, to Pinnacle Hospital's rooftop helipad a few blocks to the north. The STAT-Medevac helicopters and others who bring patients (never highway accident victims) to Pinnacle must be required to approach the hospital over the river.

I'd like to stress again that unless Pinnacle lied on its original application to the FAA for the helicopter service, which occurred with no notice to my neighborhood, these aren't traffic accident victims coming in. They are mainly coming to Pinnacle from small rural hospitals around the state for specialized medical care, includinging poison victims. There is no reason the helicopters couldn't land at Capital City Airport and be met by ambulances.

Whenever I write on this subject, I get angry comments from people I suspect are Pinnacle or STAT-Medevac employees telling me that they hope I or my family are left on the highway by a medevac helicopter if we're involved in an accident (see above), or that I am selfish for complaining about helicopter noise (do you see a noise complaint anywhere in this post?), or how I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND that the helicopters have to fly over Shipoke (they don't). The helicopters are a profit and prestige issue for Pinnacle, so I don't expect the overflights will cease unless enough of us complain to the FAA and maybe not even then.

Posted by David at 07:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Barack Obama did what he had to do in his initial debate with John McCain.

He stood up to McCain's repeated taunts and delivered cogent arguments in support of the foreign policies he would embrace as President. Whether you agree or disagree with his positions, he argued them well and didn't ever flounder. Unlike McCain, Obama didn't mangle the names of foreign heads of state or veer off on weird tangents, such as when McCain tried to make "watch Ukraine" the new national watchwords. The CBS audience meter showed a decided spike for Obama when he drove home the point that McCain had supported the Iraq War from the start and helped spread Bush's nonsense about Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction.

My only disappointment in Obama's performance was his embrace of the "Russia all bad, Georgia all good" argument that McCain and his neo-conservative supporters have been advancing since Russia moved troops into South Ossetia to defend the population there against Georgian aggression. I wish he would have thrown more caveats into his support for Georgia. McCain again voiced support for bringing Georgia and the Ukraine into NATO, which should increase the risk of a needless and bloody war with Russia by quite a bit.

The debate was nearly as much about economics as it was about foreign policy. I credit Obama with keeping the economic focus on the middle class and how they are struggling. McCain probably solidified his support with the "cut taxes and cut government programs" crowd who don't care if America doesn't solve its problems as long as they're not inconvenienced. But I doubt if he won much support among average Americans struggling with layoffs and no health insurance.

No knockout punches were landed by either candidate, but Obama won on points by sounding smart and informed and not like a babe in the woods on the important foreign policy issues of the day. That's supposed to be McCain's strong point, at least if you ignore a lot of things.

Posted by David at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Project Censored, which has been around for 32 years, has released its annual list of the top 25 "censored" stories, meaning those that haven't gotten the attention of the media but which seem like they ought to have.

Topping the list is the allegation that 1 million Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S. occupation of their country. Bringing up the rear is the claim that former New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer was brought down by the Bush Administration (with help from his dalliance with a prostitute) because of his war against the sub-prime mortgage mess now making headlines and giving John McCain an excuse to maybe duck tonight's debate with Barack Obama.

Project Censored picks their "censored" stories from a leftist perspective, but whether you agree or disagree with their choices, they do make you think.

Posted by David at 06:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So on the day that new polls show Barack Obama significantly widening his lead over John McCain, in large part because the public is terrified of the tanking economy and doesn't believe McCain has a clue, the Arizona senator dramatically "suspends" his campaign and asks that the Presidential debate scheduled for Friday night be postponed for the supposed good of the country. He wants to work with Obama to craft a consensus on a bail-out plan for the fat-cat bankers who got us into this mess, preferably without inconveniencing them in any way.

And when would the first debate be held? Why, it would be on Oct. 2 in place of the vice presidential debate. When would the vice presidential debate be held? Uh, they're working on that. At a later date. Sometime. Maybe during Game 7 of the World Series.

Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania pointed out to the New York Times that it was highly unlikely Congress would be in session on Friday at 9 p.m., when the first debate is scheduled. Obama, who has wisely rejected McCain's call to suspend his own campaign and postpone the first debate, said being President is nothing if not about multi-tasking several crises at once. He said the American people deserve to hear how he or McCain would handle the Wall Street crisis when one of them takes office in January.

This is a transparent political ploy by McCain to draw attention away from his slumping poll numbers and, even more importantly, to stop the vice presidential debate between his ball-and-chain, er, running mate, Sarah Palin and Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden. Judging by her halting performance in her interview with Katie Couric of CBS News broadcast tonight, McCain has real cause for concern.

Posted by David at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a fun new drinking game. Watch Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric of CBS News. Everytime she drops a "g," take a drink of your favorite adult beverage. You'll be sloshed in no time! Last man or woman standing wins! If nothing else you will numb the pain and temporarily ease the gut-wrenching fear you have that Palin might become President.

Posted by David at 09:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Obama leads McCain by 52 to 43 percent among likely voters in the latest Washington Post poll. Voters believe he is more likely to deal with the current economic woes than McCain. And they are figuring out that Palin gives them the willies.

Don't get over-confident...

Posted by David at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After four weeks on the ticket, Republican John McCain's running mate Sarah Palin still isn't deemed ready to meet the press. The McCain campaign tried to exclude all reporters from a "meeting" Palin had with Afghan president Hamid Karzai. They only intended to let in cameras, and only for half a minute, but CNN then announced it was pulling out its cameras and Palin's handlers relented. Sort of.

You have to understand that most polticians allow reporters to attend and ask questions at photo ops. Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania is famous for it. But Palin is obviously deemed by her handlers to be so vulnerable to saying something stupid about a whole range of things that they can't risk letting her "inform" the public except through carefully scripted statements she reads off a teleprompter.

This is no laughing matter. What if McCain drops dead or is incapacitated in his first month in office? Do you want Palin running the country and controlling our destinies? In truth, she would be a figurehead president controlled by lobbyists. Much like McCain already is.

But it's looking better for Obama. He's doing well in key polls.

Posted by David at 09:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Item # 347,568: Paying for the Bush tax cuts and the Iraq War

Now they have come for the flood forecasting system that protects river towns along the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.
The Patriot-News reports today that the satellite link which enables river forecasters to provide real time forecasts on flooding threats will go dark on Oct. 1 unless Congress acts.

Residents of my neighborhood along the Susquehanna, Shipoke, depend on the flood forecasting system to know whether a rise in the river is just a temporary blip--as it is, 95 percent of the time--or a threat to our homes that requires us to move our furniture and possessions to upper floors or onto sawhorses--hours and hours of backbreaking work.

Turning off this vital satellite link to save money is about as stupid as it would be to shut off the NORAD radar that scans the skies looking for incoming nuclear missiles. Whichever officials of the Army Corps of Engineers made this reckless decision should be fired. One has to wonder if the "decider" was some Bush religious zealot who believes floods are God's will and people must accept them.

And where were our river Congressmen, Todd Platts, Tim Holden, and Paul Kanjorski when this was being decided? Or our senators, Arlen Specter and Bob Casey? The satellite doesn't go dark until Oct. 1. They have about a week to undo the damage.

Posted by David at 08:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We find ourselves at an odd juncture where economics have overtaken politics, where the collapse of Wall Street titans like Lehman Brothers has, at least for now, pushed McCain, Palin, Obama, and Biden out of the main headlines of the day.

That will change this Friday, of course, when the first of the Presidential Debates is held. But for now, Wall Street has our attention. No one has jumped out of a building, other than figuratively, but the collapse and the $700 billion no-strings bail-out proposed by the Bush Administration has changed, perhaps permanently, the tenor of the campaign. The only real questions being asked anymore are whether the candidates support the bail-out or support it with modifications.

Just as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, wiped out the obsessions of the summer of 2001, most notably the Chandra Levy case, Wall Street's woes have terminated our current obsessions over Sarah Palin's qualifications, or lack thereof, and the pressing question of whether Obama is really a radical Muslim anti-Christ. Yes, the anti-Christ. Toss that around while you're passing the rattlesnakes. I hope Palin, a rightwing religious zealot, is asked directly at the Vice Presidential Debate whether she believes this garbage.

And there I go, obsessing about Palin when George W. Bush wants to hand $700 billion to Wall Street to repair the woes the Republicans created with their "government bad, deregulation good" schemes over the past eight or so years.

Posted by David at 06:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Kudos to the folks at NarcoNews.com in Alaska for digging out the story about the tanning bed Gov. Sarah Palin had installed in the Governor's Mansion in Juneau. They got a tip from a citizen and broke a story which, while not as cancerous (in metaphorical terms) as some of the others, raises a lot of interesting questions.

But first, tanning beds are those sarcophogus-shaped machines in which one lies down to get an off-season tan. I used one myself a couple of times when I was heading down to Latin America and wanted to get a base tan to reduce my chances of getting a bad burn. NarcoNews quotes a Fairbanks tanning salon operator as saying a tanning bed costs upwards of $35,000 and the electric work is extra. Interestingly, the mansion has had a lot of electric work lately, but an official spokesman insists it was merely to bring the house up to code. No doubt.

Palin's spokesman says she paid for the tanning bed herself, which is what you'd better say if your the reform queen and don't want to go to reform school. Well, I guess adults can't do that. Using taxpayer funds would turn your reform credentials into something looking like a bad application of Tanfastic, if they still market that stuff. Accepting it as a gift would mean disclosing it on her financial disclosure form, since its value is higher than $150. That's Alaska law. NarcoNews says there's no mention of it on her form.

So we are left with the possibility that she dropped $35,000 on an impulse purchase, which is nice if you can manage it on a salary of about $115,000 a year. But none of her kids appear likely to incur any college expenses, so maybe Palin was feeling flush. Of course, there's that shotgun wedding to pay for, but how much is a box of shells?

All kidding aside, the steady drip, drip, drip of embarrassing revelations about Palin can't be helping her standing among voters. Or at least I hope.

Posted by David at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

John McCain, reeling from harsh reaction to his Hoover-like comment today that "the fundamentals of the American economy are strong," unveiled what may be a new attack line against the Democrats: that criticism of the sad state of the economy means you're "against" American workers.

Now that isn't exactly what he said, but it's the clear implication of his follow-up comments. To wit: “My opponents may disagree, but those fundamentals of America are strong…. Our workers have always been the strength of our economy, and they remain the strength of our economy today.”

Given that for the last five years any criticism of the Iraq War meant you were "against" the troops fighting the war--a ludicrous argument, but one hammered home by Republicans--it only stands to reason that the next falsehood from McCain would be an accusation that if Obama criticizes the state of the Bush economy, he must have contempt for American workers.

Don't think it's possible? Too stupid for words? Let's see what you think in a few weeks. I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect I'm not.

Posted by David at 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been thinking a lot about the false testimony given by members of the Dover (Pa.) Area School Board during the Intelligent Design trial in Harrisburg in 2005, and how it relates to the strategy of lying being employed by Republican presidential nominee John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin to burnish their own records and tarnish that of Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

To refresh your memory, the Dover school board was taken over by religious fundamentalists in the early part of the decade. By the fall of 2003, their control was complete. A year later, they took steps to introduce their conservative religious beliefs into the teaching of high school biology at Dover. Specifically, students were required to listen to a statement read by school officials (science teachers refused, at great risk to their jobs) designed to cast doubt on Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

A group of parents sued, and the ACLU and the Pepper Hamilton law firm in Philadelphia took their case on a pro bono basis. When members of the school board were deposed under oath on Jan. 3, 2005, they spun a web of lies about their deeds and motivations, denying, for example, that they ever talked about creationism at public meetings, in the face of a host of witnesses who said they did. They continued spinning fantasies when the case went to trial in the fall of 2005. They lost utterly, were thrown out of office by Dover citizens (who were stuck with a million dollars in legal fees), and were denounced for their false testimony by Judge John Jones III in his ruling in the case in late 2005.

This was, I think, a case of misguided faith that they did nothing wrong triumphing over clear and easily available facts. The Dover school board members involved in the case confused faith in God with faith in themselves and their own godliness, and they went down to destruction--although the Bush Administration Justice Department has so far not lifted a finger to prosecute them for perjury.

I don't think Palin is stupid enough to believe she never supported the Bridge to Nowhere, or that she really went to Iraq like she said (the latest controversy), or that she didn't try to get her brother-in-law fired as a state trooper because a bitter child custody suit with her sister. I suspect she and McCain have cynically calculated that the voters from the religious right who worship Palin will take her denials on faith. They need these voters to have any chance to win.

McCain's spokesman told Politico today that they turned to the dark side because the press wasn't covering their "nice" campaign earlier in the summer. McCain has decided to win at any cost.

I know the Clinton haters will come crawling out from under their logs to say that he did it first. Yes, he lied about private, consensual sex. He didn't tell personally damaging lies about George H.W. Bush or Bob Dole, his electoral opponents in 1992 and 1996. That's such a big difference it's ludicrous to even spend any time discussing it. I have to laugh when I think about how newspapers ran stories during the Clinton impeachment in 1998 about how to talk to your children about what Clinton did.

Perhaps it's time for a new round of stories about how to explain to your kids that even if McCain and Palin tell blatant lies, it's not okay for them to do it

Posted by David at 04:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Maybe you're one of those voters who doesn't really like George W. Bush, but rationalizes that at least he's kept us safe from terrorists since he flubbed Sept. 11. Hopefully your faith in the Great Leader will be tested by the collapse of a legal case against several Pakistani terror suspects in London today. A jury convicted three of them on the more minor charges in the indictment, but acquitted them and several others of plotting to blow up airliners with liquid bombs.

How is this Bush's fault? As author Ron Suskind outlines in his latest book, The Way of the World, Bush, who was in the political doldrums in the summer of 2006, wanted quick arrests in the British investigation that could be the subject of a dramatic announcement. When the British refused, he forced their hand by getting our Pakistani "allies" to arrest one of the plotters, Rashid Rauf, in the summer of 2006. This forced British police to arrest the rest of the plotters in the United Kingdom immediately, instead of patiently watching and gathering evidence that probably would have resulted in long prison sentences--and prevented the plot from going forward.

Yes, the arrests prevented the plot from going forward. But now the majority of the alleged plotters go free, and can get involved in planning something else. Thank you, President Bush.

Posted by David at 08:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Anchorage Daily News contributes another fine article about Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, this one examining her ultra-conservative religious beliefs. They weren't able to ask any new questions to Palin. The McCain campaign refused to let her answer these questions the public has a right to know.

Same for this accompanying article about how Palin used state funds to travel to a graduation ceremony at an overtly religious school in her hometown of Wasilla and deliver an overtly religious speech. The speech, among other things, urged students to pray for a new natural gas pipeline she favored.

Posted by David at 07:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Don't expect Republican nominee for vice president Sarah Palin to meet the press anytime soon, if ever. She's the only candidate not scheduled for one of the Sunday morning talk shows tomorrow, and no interviews with major national media are in the cards anytime soon. Can the Rove-McCain team pull it off? Can they keep her from saying anything unscripted and embarrassing until the election is over? I'm not even sure she's going to debate Joe Biden. The GOP may brazenly refuse, or set unacceptable conditions for her participation. She'll be portrayed as a chicken, a lightweight, or worse, but that may be better for McCain than for her to go on national television and announce that it's God's will that McCain wins, or say anything about abortion.

And on the "qualified?" front comes word that Palin attended five colleges in six years before limping across the finish line with a journalism degree (see Joe Namath, Alabama) from the University of Idaho. Not that she apparently ever worked at the campus newspaper or TV station. But let's be real: anyone who's been to college knows 5+6 doesn't add up to "serious student." You can be sure the party girl stories are coming.

If any of you think the press is being mean, or partisan, or whatever in digging up dirt on Palin, let me give you two words: George Bush. The press, or enough of the press, didn't do its job in 2000 when Bush was pretending to be a moderate in his campaign against Al Gore. They aren't about to get fooled again, especially when Palin stands a better than even chance of succeeding to the presidency, not getting elected to it. If the press does its job, no one who casts a vote for Palin as vice president in November will be able to claim they didn't know who she really was.

Posted by David at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This just in: Republican Sen. John McCain says he'll spend his entire Presidency in a dank, 4x6-foot cell in the White House basement, just like the one where he spent his P.O.W. years in the Hanoi Hilton. "I did my best thinking there," McCain said. "There's nothing like a good beating to make you think like a Republican."

That's not true, of course, but it might as well be. Enough already. McCain's biographical film last night at the Republican National Convention, his acceptance speech, and just about every other thing said about him during the convention was heavy on the P.O.W., light on specifics of what he would do to get the country out of the mess it has been left in by George W. Bush, who wasn't mentioned by name in the speech. Laura Bush was, but not George W. Neither was abortion.

McCain touted the same economic plan that has been on his website since at least last April. He mentioned once again his plan to "change" unemployment compensation. He gave no details, but you can be sure conservative Republicans don't like the idea of you sitting around and dreaming of getting your old job back. They want to "retrain" you for something else. If you live in a small town with few opportunities, does that mean you "retrain" for McDonald's? Or move halfway across the country? Or lose your benefits if you refuse? He doesn't say. This strikes me as yet another stealth attempt by the right to eliminate or greatly reduce a tax paid by business, in this case the unemployment compensation tax, just as Bush's failed attempt to "reform" Social Security was at its heart an effort to eliminate or reduce the half of Social Security taxes paid by business.

McCain's speech struck me as almost as a valedictory, a summing up of a career more than a serious call to action. He looked old. A vigorous old, but old. With the Church Lady by his side, he will set out for one last joust against the windmill.

Posted by David at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gave a safe speech tonight in accepting the Republican nomination for vice president. It was devoid of any indication that she is a rightwing religious zealot. She was back in stealth mode, hiding her faith under a bushel. There was not a word about abortion, which she opposes in all instances, or stem cell research, or so-called Intelligent Design.

As Palin delivered her speech in her chirpy voice, smiling broadly, I kept thinking of her demanding that books be banned from the Wasilla Public Library after she became mayor in 1996, and cruelly firing the town librarian when she refused to go along. Public outrage forced her to retreat and restore the librarian to her job. And throwing her own mother-in-law under the bus in an election to succeed her as mayor because she was pro-choice.

And there was at least one moment of pure mendacity in the speech, when Palin claimed she opposed the "Bridge to Nowhere" from the beginning, when in fact she was for it long before she was against it and kept the money for other state projects.

The cameras several times showed the tele-prompters that Palin was reading off. Her real test will come when she goes out on the campaign trail and faces the press in unscripted situations where the McCain campaign can't control the questions she is asked. She will be asked again and again about the book banning attempt, her support if not official membership (assuming the records weren't altered) of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, and her documented, on the record support of the Bridge to Nowhere and other earmarks.

And everything else.

Posted by David at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Obviously the Republicans have been singed by the many comments, including here, about the lack of black faces in the audience at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night. I'm watching on PBS, and it seems a black or Asian face pops up every time the camera pans the crowd. Coincidence? A sudden surge of attendance by blacks eager to hear white men and women speak? Doubtful. Ringers? Perhaps. Or artful moving around of the few blacks there as delegates.

Right now, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is speaking and snarking his way through a predictable speech. And old white guys in cowboy hats are jumping up and down and yelling "Zero!" for what they have deluded themselves into believing is the sum total of Obama's experience. Giuliani is the worst. I feel like throwing something at the TV.

Now the delegates are working themselves into a frenzy, yelling "Drill, Baby, Drill!"

Posted by David at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a favorite of the religious right, is speaking right now at the Republican National Convention. He just denounced Barack Obama for going to Europe earlier this summer and bringing back supposedly dangerous "European ideas" like health care for all. Huckabee, like most of his rightwing ilk, calls that "picking your pocket." Big applause from the delegates.

Huck''s an entertaining speaker by and large, if you ignore the deeper meaning of his remarks and who he's really speaking to. He wasn't so great ethically as governor of Arkansas, but that never holds back rightwing Republicans.

Posted by David at 09:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The New York Times is reporting tonight that presumptive Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, shortly after becoming mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, in 1996, approached the town librarian about banning certain books from the public library, then fired the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, after Emmons pledged to resist all censorship. Public outcry forced Palin to rescind the firing and back off from removing books that offended her fundamentalist religious beliefs.

This is scary stuff, and it is time to face the fact that Palin is a religious zealot. The article describes how she defeated the incumbent mayor by introducing wedge issues like abortion and guns to municipal elections that had been folksy affairs about real local issues up till then. Even worse, she said that Wasilla would have its "first Christian mayor," a slap at the more casual religious beliefs of the incumbent mayor.

People wonder why the press and bloggers are being so hard on Palin. This is why. I said a few minutes ago that I thought her membership in the secessionist Alaska Independence Party would ultimately be the most damaging thing to come out about her. I take that back. I can't imagine John McCain wants to run with a woman who sought to ban books and fired the town librarian. This is something that goes to the worst fears of many moderates and liberals, and not a few real conservatives.

We in central Pennsylvania have the example of the Dover Area School Board to show what can happen when religious zealots take over government. In 2005, they tried to introduce so-called Intelligent Design to the high school biology curriculum in Dover as a challenge to evolution and in violation of the Constitutional separation of church and state. They lost utterly when they were sued in Federal court by angry parents, and were defeated for re-election, but they cost local taxpayers a million dollars in legal fees and tore the community apart.

Palin can do a lot more damage to America as vice president, or, God forbid, as president, than the Dover Area School Board could. She will be the running mate of a 72-year-old man with a history of skin cancer who won't let his doctors fully and freely discuss his medical history. He was a prisoner-of-war under brutal conditions, an experience that has shortened the lives of other prisoners held in similar conditions. The chance of Palin succeeding to the presidency is much, much higher than it has been for any other vice president.

We have every right to question every aspect of her life.

Posted by David at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Everytime the cameras scanned the audience tonight at the Republican National Convention, I searched for black faces. I think I saw one (Thomas Sowell?), but white people, especially older white people, predominated among the delegates. No surprise, really. The GOP is mainly a white party, dominated by the South.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Democratic senator from Connecticut, completed his estrangement from his party with a speech at the convention endorsing John McCain. He looked uncomfortable, and his wife, Hadassah Lieberman, who made a campaign stop here in Harrisburg in 2000 when her husband was Al Gore's running mate, looked even more so. She was seated next to Cindy McCain, and got the kiss-kiss from Barbara Bush the Elder when Lieberman's obnoxious speech was over.

Tomorrow night is Sarah Palin's night. She will accept the nomination for vice president, assuming nothing surfaces in the morning news cycle to give McCain second thoughts. But I'm not counting on it. Better her withdrawal happen in about two weeks anyhow. Associated Press is reporting tonight that Levi Johnston, husband-to-be of Palin's pregnant daughter Bristol, is on his way from Alaska to Minnesota for a big family values photo-op at the convention after his future mother-in-law's acceptance speech. His mother insists he wasn't pressured into marrying her. Interestingly, she won't say if he's still in high school.

Posted by David at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

President George W. Bush, speaking on a television link tonight to the Republican National Conven tion, endorsed John McCain for president. Even better, he praised McCain's support of the Iraq War. McCain is George's man. Remember that.

Posted by David at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

They just showed a film tribute to the American flag at the Republican National Convention. Typical stuff, except the Civil War was never mentioned. Several other wars were mentioned, and the slaves were magically freed. It closed with a heartfelt thank you to all the troops who fought for the American flag. Except, it seems the Union Army who freed those slaves. I guess they didn't want to offend their Southern, rebel flag-waving base.

Posted by David at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This gets crazier and crazier. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was formerly a member, along with her husband, of the Alaska Independence Party, which favors secession from the United States. So much for putting America first, which John McCain has made the slogan of his campaign for President. Check out the video link on the Jed Report blog, which juxtaposes Palin's welcoming speech to the AIP with a speech by the party's founder at a secessionist convention in Tennessee. If there was any serious vetting of Palin by McCain, this should have been picked up.

Marry in haste, repent at leisure...

Posted by David at 05:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With the announcement yesterday that her 17-year-old daughter Bristol is five-months pregnant, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sought to quash rumors that her four-month-old son Trig, the one with Down Syndrome, was really Bristol's child.

Of course, we have to take her at her word that Bristol is only five months pregnant and not four, or three. Palin also said Bristol will marry the father, later identified as Levi Johnston, a hometown boy.

The questions that occur to me are: (1) Did Gov. Palin encourage her daughter to use birth control? Not likely. Palin favors "abstinence only" sex education. (2) Did Bristol want to end the pregnancy? (3) Did she really want to get married to Levi, or was this forced upon her by her parents? (4) Had she planned to go to college after high school, or was settling down with a local boy her goal in life? (5) Will she even finish high school? She already missed a lot last year from "mononucleosis," we're told.

None of this would be any of our business if Palin wasn't seeking the vice presidency of the United States and presenting herself as a so-called "family values" candidate blessed by the religious right, by James Dobson of Focus on the Family himself.

By marrying Bristol off to Levi, Gov. Palin will likely be leaving her behind in Alaska and have one less distraction if she goes off to Washington as John McCain's vice president. Did "Sarah Barracuda" as she was known in high school, let her ambition dictate her daughter's life as well? We now know she threw her own mother-in-law under the bus, supporting the opposing candidate to succeed her as mayor of Wasilla because the elder Mrs. Palin, who lost the election, was pro-choice.

I had to laugh yesterday when I heard that the McCain campaign was sending a team of lawyers to Alaska for to finally do some real vetting of Palin. Marry in haste, repent at leisure.

Posted by David at 07:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)