My brain, in despair.

[elfs]

Hookers and Blow at the Department of the Interior!?

This has been going all around the blogosphere this morning. At the Republican National Convention, a party for lobbyists was headlined by a band called "Hookers and Blow." People thought that was a funny bit of irony.

Now comes word that the Interior Department's oil revenues royalties collection agency in which members of the agency and the oil companies traded sex for favors and routinely had marijuana and cocaine-fueled parties in what the office of the inspector general is calling "a culture of ethical failure."

I mean, if you tried to write that as a novel, it would never sail. Nobody would believe it. It's like a bad parable come to life.

And remember, this is the agency that cut Sarah Palin's Alaska administration those huge oil revenue checks that kept Alaska flush with cash during her administration. No word yet on whether Palin's Alaskan oil friends were involved in the hookers and blow.

I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It And I Went To Hell

More Christian love to get your arms around.

She's been the VP candidate for two weeks and she has not yet answered a single question

When will Sarah Palin actually face the press?

Yes, Sarah Palin wanted to ban books.

The list going around the Internet is bogus; it's just the list of 100 most-banned books that someone cut and paste into a letter.

But ABC has concluded that Sarah Palin's church wanted several books including Go Ask Alice and Pastor, I'm Gay removed from the bookshelves, and when she took the mayoral office she asked the librarian about how sh ewent about "banning" (and apparently she used that word) those books from the library.

Does John McCain believe that he was tortured?

Someone please ask him. Because if he believes that, then he is complicit in authorizing the CIA's use of torture, and created American war criminals.

Palin billed Alaska for lodging expenses while staying in her own home.

Palin's campaign manager may claim her bills were all "legal," but that's a huge loophole. As governor, she can expense transportation and lodging, and apparently chose to do so even when she slept in her own home and in her own bed.

The current Republican mindset in a nutshell.

"Knowing stuff" is elitist!

I don't take this elite foreign policy view that only this anointed class knows everything about the world," he said. "I'm not generally impressed that they are better judges of American foreign policy experience than those who have Palin's experience.

Okay, I give up. This country is headed to hell, fast. When a "foreign policy expert" tells us that Sarah Palin, who not only has no foreign policy experience but up until two weeks ago was proud of her foreign knowledge deficit, is just as capable as those with his level of expertise, then it's all over. The American tendency to elevate ignorance, to admire vapidity, to say that "going with the gut" is better than thinking, than learning, than knowing, has won. I'm revolted. I'm horrified. And I despair.

Palin's favorite writer on "small town virtues."

Pagler was a far-right pundit in the early 20th Century, who among other things, spoke hopefully about the assassination of Franklin D. Roosevelt, was thrown out of the John Birch Society for being too anti-semitic, and is best known for believing that Jews are "instinctively sympathetic to Communism, however outwardly respectable they appeared."

Ben Smith notes, however, that Pat Buchanan has also used Pagler's writing in his own work. So maybe it's just a meme floating around the right. (via The Political Animal)

WND: John McCain is too Humanist to be president!

Talk about bringing home the crazy. Worldnet Daily writer Tom Hoefling accuses McCain of being a "Soros-funded liberal" who has muzzled Sarah Palin to keep her from talking about America's number one problem, abortion, lest she turn off too many voters.

Obama vs McCain, it's three vs. one!

The McCain camp has announced that McCain and Palin will be appearing together whenever they campaign. Given that McCain has barely been mangaging five functional hours a day and Palin's not talking to the press without a teleprompters, you have to wonder how effective they're going to be. Meanwhile, Obama, Biden, and even Michelle Obama are criss-crossing the country, working hard, showing the energy that it takes to run a country.

And McCain without Palin just isn't drawing crowds. She's in Alaska, working hard with Republican operatives, buying or bullying silence, trying to cover up Troopergate or the affair story and waiting for the next bimbo eruption. She'll be back in two weeks. By then, we can only hope the infatuation and faddism of the bulldog with lipstick has worn off and we can start to talk about what she's accomplished. 88

"Where's Sarah?"

In the meantime, we can all start wearing "Where's Sarah?" buttons, just like members of the Alaskan State Legislature did after she failed to provide leadership on her "ethics reform." She touts her ethics reform, but the reality is "Her ethics proposal had to be beefed up substantially with very basic additions."

McCain attacks Obama on earmarks!?

Seriously. Trying to cut off Obama's air about Palin's recklessness by complaining that Obama did his job as a senator is pretty farkin' sad.

Comments

[solarbird]

Okay, I give up. This country is headed to hell, fast. When a "foreign policy expert" tells us that Sarah Palin, who not only has no foreign policy experience but up until two weeks ago was proud of her foreign knowledge deficit, is just as capable as those with his level of expertise, then it's all over. The American tendency to elevate ignorance, to admire vapidity, to say that "going with the gut" is better than thinking, than learning, than knowing, has won. I'm revolted. I'm horrified. And I despair.
Welcome to my world. "What'd the Enlightenment ever do for me, anyway?"

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

Does John McCain believe that he was tortured? is not a link?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Nope. I'm just asking.

I remeber a quote...

[pandakahn.livejournal.com]

Sorry I can't nail this down, but I recall a comment from the Whitehouse/Administration (possibly directly form the President) that the action taken by the North Vietnamese toward Senator McCain did not constitute torture, they constituted "Aggressive Interrogation Techniques."

I believe that Senator McCain either did not oppose this description or agreed with it. I will look and see if I can find this article.


MPK

[scyllacat.livejournal.com]

in my humble opinion, it is more the governor's job to try to bring money into the state (from whatever source) while a senator represents the state in national/federal matters. However, I do understand this is not the way of the world these days, and it's MORE about the earmarks, because that's what you campaign on.

That being said, that's what you campaign on, locally. For Sarah Palin to say she eschewed federal earmarks belies quote after quote of her talking about what she has done to bring money to Alaska, in addition to her basically claiming that she didn't do her job.

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

Palin got her start in politics working for Pat Buchannan, so that book being her fave is more a case of mindset than just a meme.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Did a "short list" of VP candidates refuse the nomination so they were forced to choose almost at random?

Have the Republicans decided to throw the election because they've decided it's unwinable (as the Democrats did against Regan)?

Seriously, Condoleezza Rice makes at least SOME sense. This... This is crazy! Seriously, Palin's "Nehemiah Scudder!"

[gromm.livejournal.com]

Have the Republicans decided to throw the election because they've decided it's unwinable (as the Democrats did against Regan)?

That's strange. I heard the polls are saying McCain is winning so far. You'd have to wonder if he'd have to napalm little kids in public to get the republican voters to not vote for him. And even that might not work if they're the "right" kids to napalm.