This is just weird.
In Englewood, Colo., on Saturday, Palin repeated her wish that the campaign had not pulled out of Michigan, where Democrat Barack Obama leads by double-digit percentage points in recent polls.
The Alaska governor says she’d “sure love to get to run to Michigan” to make sure state residents know the Republicans haven’t given up in the state.
A day earlier, McCain’s running mate told Fox News Channel she was disappointed that the McCain campaign decided to stop competing in Michigan. She says she learned of the decision when she read about it in the newspapers.
I mean, sorry Sarah, but that train has left the station. The more you publicly wish that you’d “sure love” to get to Michigan, the worse the campaign operation looks. Just weird.
In other news, a 1998 McCain interview has emerged in which he questions whether Osama bin Laden was such a bad guy. The interview was shortly after the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in which over 200 people died. A report from the time:
On August 7, 1998, at approximately 10:30 a.m. local time, two Embassies of the United States of America, located in the East African cities of Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were attacked in coordinated truck bombings, later determined to have occurred approximately four minutes apart. In Nairobi, 213 people were killed in the blast, while 11 individuals died in the bombing at Dar es Salaam. The bombings were carried out by members and associates of Usama Bin Ladin’s organization, known by the Arabic word “al-Qaeda”, literally, “the base”).
Joe Biden at the time described bin Laden as “one bad mother” in defending the Clinton administration’s decision to order bombing raids right after the embassy attacks. But McCain wasn’t so sure going after bin Laden was such a great idea.
You not only have had combat experience in Vietnam, but you were also a prisoner of war. When you look at terrorism right now, with people like Osama bin Laden, do you have any reservations about watching strikes like that?
You could say, Look, is this guy, Laden, really the bad guy that’s depicted? Most of us have never heard of him before. And where there is a parallel with Vietnam is: What’s plan B? What do we do next? We sent our troops into Vietnam to protect the bases. Lyndon Johnson said, Only to protect the bases. Next thing you know…. Well, we’ve declared to the terrorists that we’re going to strike them wherever they live. That’s fine. But what’s next? That’s where there might be some comparison.
Ends up the Maverick family is not too fond of McCain using the label.
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p>There’s more:
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Now, why would a candidate want to give up on a large State, especially one beset by high unemployment which needs all the help it can get to get back on its feet? Is the news in Michigan just so bad that he doesn’t want to compete on economic issues there? Well, Ohio is far behind, nor Pennsylvania, nor North Carolina. Will he pull out of those places and only campaign where he can make the candidate’s past relationships the issue?
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p>Palin may be right on this one, as the other States will have to consider McCain’s intent to help workers recover from this dreadful trickle down economy.
Even if it means trashing our voting system and stuffing the ballot box.
This kind of thing is common in Banana republics , dictatorships and communist countries and now it looks like its being done in what used to be America. Congratulations! on rigging Americas first corrupt election! are you proud?
And while you’re at it, back up some of the ridiculous slurs you’ve been tossing around lately — and no, NewsMax, World Net Daily, and right-wing opinion columnists don’t count as sources.
But Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, My DD and Kos do?
A diary on MyDD or dKos has to be well-documented for me to want to quote it — and the recommended ones on dKos usually are. MyDD’s frontpagers are pretty careful in my experience.
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p>I’m willing to have some doubt about things from Mother Jones and even more from Rolling Stone.
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p>But let’s please remember the context. The right-wing side spent the Clinton Administration inflating scandals about the Clintons — with the notable exception of the Lewinski scandal. Then, the Bush Administration’s Treasury Department released slanted figures about tax cuts, the Bush Administration lied us into a war in Iraq, they made duplicitous arguments about how privatization would save (rather than bankrupt Social Security), they suppressed the cost of prescription coverage, and someone lied about Valerie Plame. In response to all this not telling the truth, we read very little outrage from conservative columnists not named “Andrew Sullivan”. Silence in the face of all this duplicity suggests that duplicity is okay with too many right-wing columnists.
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p>I am willing to believe things Andrew Sullivan writes, though.
“The right-wing side spent the Clinton Administration inflating scandals about the Clintons — with the notable exception of the Lewinski scandal.”
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p>That one was blown out of proportion, too.
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p>Sorry
At least there was something true about it, but correction gratefully accepted!
The Rolling Stone article is well sourced, relying heavily on direct quotes from McCain and on-the-record quotes from other Republicans. The Mother Jones interview is direct quotes from McCain. The kos diaries that I link to are well sourced also.
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p>In contrast, NewsMax, WND, and RW columnists tend to make things up. If they have real sourcing, by all means, link away.
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p>But of course, you know all of this.
Apparently you slept through the 2000 and 2004 elections. There was voter fraud in both those elections, but from your side of the aisle, Jack12.
It used to be that you could reliably count on wingnuts to bring up JFK’s 1960 election when talking about Democratic voter fraud. Republicans of today don’t seem to have the same sense of history. It’s sad, really, that a whole new generation of Republicans has to go without the talking points of their forefathers….
I think the “first rigged election” was even earlier… there was something very fishy about the 1876 election. Makes 2000 look like a cakewalk.
Michigan, we won’t abandon you!
And I thought John McCain was the only one in this drama prone to bazar and reckless behavior. We have learned now that Sarah Palin doesn’t just wink and answer whatever wuestion is on her mind. Ignoring the question asked of her by the moderator.
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p>she will follow any path. Even those not on the script.
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p>This lady is dangerous, not just merely reckless. She is looking for trouble! Hopely,she never has the chance to put us, the American people, in harms way!
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Tell me folks: Do you believe in free speech? Or only as long as it is in agreement with your wonderfulness. So tell me: How far away was that protest zone in Denver from the convention? Or the “protest cage” in ’04 in Boston? Do you really secretly think women should be like ’50’s TV wives and be in the house all day? You’re sure acting like it.
Tell me: how many wheelchairs were on the convention floor last June? Did you banish them to the upper levels so they wouldn’t get in your way. I know the arena prewfers it that way. You folks are scaring me more than the Patriot Act. Who are you going to suppress if Obama wins? Whites? Women? All non-democrats. Practice Social Darwinism?
I say this with all sincerity. But I really would like to know if the DCU Center changed its ways?
Can you at least try to tie your ramblings to the subject at hand? I mean, I’m not pleased with the “free speech zones” that both parties have engaged in over the last decades, or how wheelchairs were treated at the Centrum in ’06 (“appalled” is the word that comes to mind on both of these matters)… but none of this has any relevance to Sarah Palin. Care to connect the dots?