Posts Tagged ‘palin’

John McCain, as seen in his commercials

I decided to wait a few days to post anything, mostly because the last few days of the presidential campaign have made me so angry — I’m not sure I can trust myself not to say something I’d regret later.

Granted, the whole mess is frustrating and leads to a sense of de ja vu all over again — where we enter the bizarro world of presidential elections when facts stop mattering and whomever can lie the best wins. Just so we’re clear on this: John McCain is a bald-faced liar. As are his campaign trolls, who lacking anything like a semblance of fact on their side, are basically just making things up.

I suppose having it done to me four years ago should have made me less annoyed to see it again. And it’s a good thing that Obama continues to strike back, instead of stammering uselessly as both John Kerry and I did.

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When life imitates art.

We all went to high school with Sarah Palin. Maybe we aren’t all members of the Wasilla class of ’82 — but we all share that memory.

Whatever your Sarah was named, you know what I mean. Mine was a particularly ruthless girl named Sue. She was the head cheerleader, the editor of the high school paper. She liked to pretend she was all sweetness and light — but inside: cold, hard steel and ambition. Nothing much was going to get between her and what she wanted. Don’t be surprised if that reminds you a bit of the movie Election — which no one in the media has been savvy enough to pick up on outside of MSNBC’s Keith Olberman — although the reality is a bit more like the novel of the same the film is based on.

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This has all played out, I suppose, the way you might have predicted: the Republicans as ranking playground bully run right to momma when someone socks ‘em in the nose. I’m just impressed that the GOP media operatives are able to make the claims they’ve made with a straight face. While the GOP media strike team has made more than its share of blunders in the past two weeks, you have them give them points for sheer ballsyness.

But everything does seem to be going to form: the Palin revelation of the day — and you’d think this stuff would slow down, but it keeps coming fast and furious.

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God, I can’t believe today’s events have forced me to write three times today. Three times! It’s not like I don’t need to get prepped for football practice or anything. Oh, wait, I do (yeah, I’m coaching six and seven year olds in the local Y league).

But, sometimes you just have to go with the flow. Wolf Blitzer, one of America’s great self-parodying personalities (every other word is “thebestpoliticalteamontelevision”) had to just come on the air and announce that John McCain refused to do an interview with Larry King because CNN’s Campbell Brown was “mean” to a McCain campaign stooge last night.

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The Palin Family.

Barack Obama, God love him, argued yesterday that the families of the candidates are off-limits in politics. The truth of the matter — which I suspect he knows deep down — is that they are very much in play. If you trot out the kids to show what a loving, wonderful family person you are (and what politician doesn’t — me included) and then something happens, they get shoved into the spotlight. That’s just the way it is.

And I’m sorry that Bristol Palin is being forced into the spotlight. It has to be lousy to be a 17-year-old girl, a senior in high school, and pregnant. Multiply the factor of awfulness when your mom is the governor. Now take that number and cube it when your mom becomes the GOP nominee for Vice President. I personally, as a father, feel awful for Bristol Palin.

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Typical GOP Media operative

Man, the saga of Bristol Palin continues to get worse — because of just the lamest media relations instincts in the history of politics of our pals in the GOP and the McCain campaign. Instead of confirming the story and issuing a “tick-tock” — journalist-speak for the series of events leading up to John McCain finding out about the pregnancy of Sarah Palin’s teen daughter — they’re blaming the left-wing bloggers for the entire story coming out.

You gotta be kidding me. Yup, the people who brought you the Swift Boaters — not to mention all of the pathetic “Obama is a Muslim” crap are playing the “evil conspiracy” card. They are all whiny when a fact — not a rumor, not made-up fantasy — is reported. Yeah, sure the whole thing about little Trig was a bit over the top — and not something I was willing to take very seriously — but as wacko as it appeared, there was something to it, as it turns out.

But of course, blame the new media — not the McCain campaign for blundering. Not Sarah Palin. Not Bristol Palin. Not the silly abstinence method of birth control. Nope.

The blogs did it. Really.