The Next Vice-President?

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

You left one out.....they sold out to the religious right to offset McCain's unpopularity among that faction of the party.

Yup. They did. I'm not sure if it's a "sell out" or a "throw 'em a bone" move, or an actual attempt to form a balanced combined ticket, or what. It's hard for me to figure out what politicians actually mean by what they say. McCain's not lookin' as healthy as I'd like. Makes me think harder about the VP slot; it could be a short-term position with good upward mobility prospects.

Wish my crystal ball worked better.

[jamiebk]

McCain's not lookin' as healthy as I'd like. Makes me think harder about the VP slot; it could be a short-term position with good upward mobility prospects.

I have noticed that too. I do hope that he is OK. These campaigns are extremely stressful. In the event that he is elected (which is still not out of the question) we need a strong healthy president.

[shostakovich]

After I post this, I expect we'll acquire a doghouse, mightyfinequick. Sigh.

well, thank you for posing the question with your usual acumen. Anything you need for that doghouse let me know.

Obama is doubtless intellectually very bright, he sailed through a prestigious law school.
i worry about his common sense - does he appreciate how dangerous this mass movement he's starting can become?

In a heart surgeon, I looked for one who works on his boat motors himself.
Presidents? I'll take a retired jet jockey and a frontier mom over two ivy league lawyers.

As Robert Pirsig pointed out - it's your "C" students who really succeed in life.


a.

Addressing a Yale graduating class early in his administration Bush said something like "You A students can become the scientists of the future, and you B students can become the doctors and the lawyers ---------" Then the part of the quote that I do remember, "and you C+ students can become president."

If only he hadn't gotten that +, and Pirsig had been right --------.
Shos

[analog]

I remember that speech well.


I suspect Iraq was a continuation of the Saudi-US alliance begun under Reagan, see "Charlie Wilson's War"..

Saudi Arabia had its own reasons for helping America fight the Soviets. First, the United States was instrumental to protecting Saudi oil fields and was a country with which the Saudi leadership wanted to stay on good terms. Second, Saudi Arabia was gravely concerned about the advancing Soviet Union. Riyadh interpreted Moscow's Afghanistan adventure as part of a Soviet-directed campaign to encircle the Arabian Peninsula with radical regimes and subvert the oil-rich monarchies. Soviet involvement in Yemen and Ethiopia bolstered that view. And third, it was awash in petrodollars, and could afford to help.

So the Reagan administration figured out how to integrate Saudi Arabian global concerns and surplus cash into U.S. foreign policy. In Afghanistan, the kingdom matched U.S. contributions dollar for dollar. Eventually, Washington and Riyadh poured about $3 billion into that broken country. Saudi Arabia also put $32 million into Nicaragua to fund the Contras, a fact that emerged in the Iran-Contra scandal. Saudi Arabia funneled money into Ethiopia's neighbor, Sudan, in order to pressure Ethiopia's pro-Soviet Mengistu government. Saudi Arabia assisted Angola's rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi, in support of U.S. goals, by providing Morocco with money for a UNITA training camp. Yet Saudi Arabia provided more than just funding. The kingdom provided an ideologically compatible partner in the battle against godless communism. In a neat division of labor, America attacked communism and Saudi Arabia targeted godlessness. During his tenure, Reagan regularly rattled off a list of countries of concern: Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Ethiopia and Nicaragua. What few realized was that Saudi Arabia was either directly or indirectly involved in four of these five cases. The close partnership inspired Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, to confide to a journalist in 1981 that "if you knew what we were really doing for America, you wouldn't just give us AWACS, you would give us nuclear weapons."

http://www.cfr.org/publication/7175/uss ... _bush.html

The lofty goal of reforming(surely there's a better word?) the mideast remains a work in progress and could yet go either way.

I remain unconvinced that we're the bad guys.
And I respect your differing opinion. Sometimes I wonder, too.

a.

[Shapley]

I went to see Gov. Palin speak this morning. She gave a good rally speech. There were, we are told around 10,000 in attendance (at least that is the number of tickets handed out. The facility was full at the time of her speech, though gaining entrance was kind of slow due to security. The lines were uncommonly long. The 'warmup bands' (State and local politicians) had already said their piece by the time the last of the people were seated. The Governor delayed her remarks until everyone was admitted, which was about 15 minutes behind schedule.

I was only a few feet from the barricade surrounding the stage, in the handicapped seating area with my wife and stepson. We had an excellent view. After the rally, Gov. Palin and her husband (Alaska's 'first dude') came by shaking hands and signing autographs. I could have shaken their hands, but did not want to block access to the wheelchair-bound supporters. She gave my stepson and wife a 'thumbs up' and a "God bless you!".

I was impressed by her. I think she'll make a very good Vice-President.

V/R
Shapley

[Giant Communist Robot]

I went to see Gov. Palin speak this morning

The brightest star of the Republican Party. How'd this happen, anyway!?!!

I think she'll make a very good Vice-President

In your dreams, Shapley.

[Haggis@wk]

ABC goes after Sarah Palin for not releasing her medical records this week after less than two months on the campaign trail. Palin promised last week that she would release them “early” this week, and Kate Snow impatiently noted yesterday that Wednesday is the outer limit of “early”:

Governor Palin’s campaign still has not released any information regarding her medical records despite frequent requests from the news media and the campaign’s own assertion that they would release this information soon.

On Sunday morning, Palin spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt told ABC News that the campaign had planned to release information on her medical history early this week.
Today is Wednesday. …

Aides suggested privately that there was nothing to hide in the records, but that it was simply taking a while to call doctors and round up the appropriate information to release. But an entire week?

I have a suggestion for Kate. Call all of the physicians you’ve seen over the last 20 years (or even 5) and tell them you want copies of your medical records. Tell them you need them ASAP. See if you can get them in a week, in a releasable format for the press. Do that, report on it, and then see whether waiting one whole week is so difficult.

And while that investigation continues, check ABC’s reporting for the story on the release of Barack Obama’s comprehensive medical records. That will take Snow a little longer, because it never happened.

In May, the campaign released a 276-word summary of Obama’s medical status, that’s all.

While the media hounded John McCain for detailed records last spring because of his skin cancer, they have shown no such curiosity over Obama, a lifelong smoker with at least a significantly elevated risk for cancer and heart disease. Obama also hasn’t had a checkup in over a year, which made the summary a little dated when it was released.

While ABC frets over the medical records of a non-smoking 44-year-old mother of five, where’s the concern over the smoker who’s running at the top of the Democratic ticket? Why hasn’t the national media shown the slightest interest in Obama’s health records?

We know less about Obama than any candidate for president in my life time.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Here's a medical summary for you, and the news media, and anyone else who's interested. Gov. Palin recently survived pregnancy and childbirth, and she can walk quickly and firmly in high heels. That's sufficient reason to believe that she's in pretty decent condition. Trust me, that whole pregnancy thing is a load test for all the biological systems. Walking around, looking alert and graceful, in high heels is good enough evidence that everything else is working very well indeed.

I doubt any of the men could do it.

[Haggis@wk]

Here's a medical summary for you, and the news media, and anyone else who's interested. Gov. Palin recently survived pregnancy and childbirth, and she can walk quickly and firmly in high heels. That's sufficient reason to believe that she's in pretty decent condition. Trust me, that whole pregnancy thing is a load test for all the biological systems. Walking around, looking alert and graceful, in high heels is good enough evidence that everything else is working very well indeed.

I doubt any of the men could do it.

My trip to the oil platform was delayed until I completed my (shudder) helicopter underwater extraction traing which I did yesterday, details in "Culture" thread......time for a margarita?????

[shostakovich]

Health records, schmealth records! Much of the BS going on in the campaigns is diversion, which is easier to create than HONEST talk about intentions after election. That's why negative campaigning is so prominent. One doesn't need to be honest. Rhetoric (propaganda) is rampant. The promises (and implied promises) can not be backed by the winner, who will have to deal with REALITY. Lucky is the loser, who won't have to dance in the BS he shoveled. A pox on all of them.
Angry (honestly)

[Shapley]

A pox on all of them.
Angry (honestly)

Understandable. I posted a while back about the Supreme Court ruling which rendered the concept of the Social Security "lock box" unconstitutional. Yet, every few years we hear politicians promising us just such a 'lock box'. Now, either they know the 'lock box' is unconstitutiona, and are lying to get votes, or they don't know it is unconstitutional, in which case they need to be educated.

Ross Perot, for all his faults, laid it all on the line for us. There was no discernable B.S. in his presentations. I didn't agree with him, but I applauded (and still applaud) his approach: Buy an infomercial and lay it all out in black and white. I proposed this idea to the Republican Party years ago, to no avail. I doubt I was the first or the last to suggest it, but it didn't fly. Sen. Obama tried the approach last night, but I neither believe he was being honest nor liked his proposals even if they were.

The problem, I suppose, with my approach is that it presumes that the party has a unified platform: most don't. The party platforms are more like guidelines, I suppose. Some candidates running under the party banner agree with most or, rarely, all of the platform. Some only part of it. Some, it seems, believe in none at all.

Newt Gingrich's Contract With America was a stroke of genius, IMHO. He laid out what the Republicans would do if the people would give them a majority. They did, and they did. Not all of the contract passed, but that was never promised, only that they would present them on the floor, which they did.

I wish the parties would lay out their agendas each election year in a clear and concise manner:

We're the Republicans - this is what we stand for and this is why. These are the bills we'll propose, these are the measures we'll oppose.
We're the Democrats - this is what we stand for and this is why. These are the bills we'll propose, these are the measures we'll oppose.
We're the Libertarians - this is what we stand for and this is why. These are the bills we'll propose, these are the measures we'll oppose.
and so on and so forth.

It would turn the electoral system upside down, IMHO.

[analog]

A pox on all of them.
Angry (honestly)

time for a little levity?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4nIpvhlgpo

ralph nader & obamagirl.... refreshing.

[jamiebk]

ralph nader & obamagirl.... refreshing.

Yes..Obamagirl certainly was......in your dreams Ralph

[analog]

Yes..Obamagirl certainly was

she is not an unattractive child.

I liked the typewriter. I still use one, and a sliderule.

[Haggis@wk]

The party platforms are more like guidelines, I suppose.

..and about as binding as the "Pirate Laws"

[Giant Communist Robot]

I still use one, and a sliderule

sliderules are fascinating

[Shapley]

In case you missed it:

Report Clears Gov. Palin In 'Troopergate' Investigation.

"There is no probable cause to believe that the governor, or any other state official, violated the Alaska Executive Ethics Act in connection with these matters," the report says.

[jamiebk]

In case you missed it:

"It conflicts with the first investigation and then casts doubts on both of them. So, it doesn't really resolve anything," he said. "If it did, then I could walk away. It does seem to fly in the face if circumstantial evidence."

A separate legislative investigation recently concluded that Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, abused her office by allowing her husband and staffers to pressure Monegan to fire the trooper. However, it upheld the firing because Monegan was an at-will employee.

[Mahlersfifth]

Interesting: According to Fox News Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron (commenting to Bill O'Reilly) about Palin

she didn't know which countries were in NAFTA, and she didn't understand that Africa was a continent, rather than a series, a country just in itself."

FoxNews trashing her? holy...

[Haggis@wk]

Interesting: According to Fox News Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron (commenting to Bill O'Reilly) about Palin

she didn't know which countries were in NAFTA, and she didn't understand that Africa was a continent, rather than a series, a country just in itself."

FoxNews trashing her? holy...

Fox news just reports, despite all the rhetoric against it.

Sarah Palin was popular (more, probably than McCain was) to the conservative base of the Republican party and the moderate wing represented by many of the people who are trashing her is trying to preempt her star from rising any higher.

Listen to all the reports if you want but know that a large population of Reagan Republicans admires her.

Despite the hype of this turn out it seems that a lot of conservatives just didn't vote, mainly because of their distrust of McCain. I personally held my nose when I voted for him.

I can tell you now that denying the ultimate political reward to a politician who was so principally responsible for gutting the freedom of political speech, and continuing the assault on the electoral process that was begun after Watergate, is justice.

Even many of those who preferred McCain to Obama would acknowledge that McCain would have done many of the same bad things as President they fear Obama will do.

The election of a Democratic President, Senate and House will place responsibility for the coming "change" squarely where it belongs. Whole generations of Americans have yet to experience the joys of one-party Democratic rule. I sincerely hope that this experience will be better than I expect it to be. I want only the best for this country. But if it doesn't, then Americans will know whom to blame in a way they would not if John McCain were President.