The Washington Independent - Latest Comments in The Reform Candidate?

Re: The Reform Candidate?

Guest — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:08:24 -0000

The user deleted this comment.

Re: The Reform Candidate?

jason — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:39:44 -0000

israel eats garbage and if you guys out there are christian ,rember when they killed jesus and spit on him.

Re: The Reform Candidate?

Washington DC Hotels — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:00:28 -0000

I have to respectfully disagree with the poster below me. As a transplant to the Washington area from the 'deeper' south, I can tell you that both my relatives at home and many of my more Conservative leaning friends here were spurred into having a real interest in the election and in a McCain victory. They felt like they would finally have a voice in the white house, even if it was from the office next door to the important one.

Respectfully,
Jules Guerra

Re: The Reform Candidate?

DC Tours — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:48:16 -0000

I think in the end, at least in my neck of the woods, Gov. Palin lost McCain the election. From a former Californian's point of view, it wasn't even the accusations of corruption (though that didn't help) but her policies in regards to social issues. That's actually what led to me changing my vote from McCain to Obama

Re: The Reform Candidate?

chris paul — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:50:27 -0000

she complained about the "old boys clubs" when running for mayor, only to replace it with another club, she complained about money in politics to shadow other ugly maneuvers like political firings, she's a maverick on different issues than mccain and they clashed because they are "holier-than-thou" on the issues they are mavericky about

Re: The Reform Candidate?

Lee Cooper — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 18:55:13 -0000

I am not a Palin supporter. However, let's not blame her for McCain's failure to rally his party and the country. Colin Powell said it best. McCain ran too much of a negative campaign and picked the wrong vice-presidential candidate. McCain needs to take responsibility for both decision, and ultimately loosing the presidential election. Palin should go back to Alaska, read up on International Affairs, Belt Way Politics, and resurface in four years with a better track record.

They should also let her keep her $150,000 wardrobe. She deserves it.

Re: The Reform Candidate?

Moshe — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:32:43 -0000

Palin as Olmert? Free flights, fancy clothes and life of luxury

By Benjamin L. Hartman, Haaretz reporter

It turns out, the difference between a pitbull and a hockey mom isn't just lipstick, its designer lipstick, Manolo Blahnik pumps, and a $2,500 Valentino jacket. That should keep you warm at the Iron Dog snowmachine race.

It emerged this week that with the U.S. in the grip of one of its worst economic crises, the Republican National Committee had the clear and present judgment to run up a reported $150,000 bill to deck out Sarah Palin, the running-mate and rising Republican star who "is just like the rest of us", that is, if the rest of us drop a few thousand dollars at Nieman's on the way to the hockey rink.

As the Huffington Post reported Wednesday, the splurges included a reputed $75,000 shopping spree in a single day at a Nieman Marcus (or "needless markup" as they're widely known) store in "not so sure it's real America still" Minneapolis, as well as $50,000 spent at Saks Fifth Avenue chains in no-longer real America St. Louis and 10th circle of hell New York City.

In retrospect, though her rationale defending her foreign policy credentials was widely lampooned, it could be that Palin can in fact see Russia from Alaska; it would certainly explain how she came to adopt the fashion tastes of a Russian oligarch's wife since she became McCain's running mate.

The revelations have the potential to be infuriating and puzzling to many mainly because they come from the campaign that has played the "elitist" card with reckless abandon, and has made a central issue of their campaign the idealization and ownership of working-class "small-town values", hard-to-pin-down ideals that presumably cannot be found within a hundred miles of a Saks or Nieman's branch. Furthermore, over the last week, said campaign has turned its entire message into the celebration of one Joe the Plumber, an everyman who works with his hands and whose endorsement apparently bears more weight than that of former secretary of state Colin Powell.

From an Israeli-American point of view, Palin's "makeovergate" and the revelations this week that she billed the State of Alaska for thousands of dollars worth of commercial flights for her daughters, and for luxury hotel rooms for a family vacation, bear a certain resemblance to the travails and scandals of our disgraced outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert, a man who came to power suddenly as vice premier, when the septuagenarian former warrior who swooped him into the halls of power fell terminally ill. Ring any bells?

Although the case was later closed, the Rishon Tours affair involved allegations that Olmert used thousands of dollars in state funds to pay for foreign air travel flights for his family. During the investigation, it was alleged that the flights were paid in large part through the funneling of money intended for charity organizations, and by writing off the tickets as official state business, not dissimilar to claims that Palin air-freighted her daughters at the taxpayers expense while governor.

Palin's shopping sprees were legal, but they do display a lack of judgment or consideration for how the acts may be perceived by the public. The fact that both Olmert and Palin seemed to be willing to put their careers or public approval in jeopardy for such petty rewards at a time when they were ostensibly well-off public servants seems reckless at best.

In Palin's case, even if she was just following the advice of campaign handlers with blank checks who wanted to spruce up her image, the fact that she would take part in such a breakneck spend-a-thon at some of America's ritziest stores while the country is on the verge of depression, shows a bewildering level of obliviousness that Olmert could surely understand.

While in office, both Olmert and Palin adopted the standpoint of cheapskate guests at an expensive wedding, or underpaid employees suddenly given an expense account, with the attitude that "hey, if some somebody else is paying for it, why not supersize it? Why not first-class? Who cares who's watching?" Or better yet, like guests who paid for an all-inclusive weekend in Eilat who assume that means not only can they avail themselves of the all-you-can-eat buffet, but they might as well pocket the silverware while they're at it.

The decision is also indicative (again) of the McCain campaign's seeming ignorance of the power of the Internet and the instant fact-checking that has changed the nature of the news and political campaigns forever. Like with the quicksilver vetting process of the Alaska governor, which some say missed "Troopergate" and Palin's pregnant teenage daughter, or the repeated, groundless attacks on Obama that have been easily debunked by anyone with access to Google, Palin's spending sprees show an ignorance of the instant access to information and the 24-hour news cycle, and possibly, in the worst case, an outright contempt for the very public whose values they pander to.

And what I'm wondering is, where did Joe the Plumber get the suit he was wearing on Fox News the other night

Re: The Reform Candidate?

Kenneth Stewart — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:36:42 -0000

I am a strong support of John McCain and Sara Palin for President of the United States. I have an email that I consider urgent for them see. But the Republican Party email addresses - They answer the emails
but don't read them. I am dispersed. Can you help me?

I will send it to you if you like. They need to consider it Please help me!

Re: The Reform Candidate?

roby — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:26:53 -0000

I am a strong supporter of Sarah Palin. However as a staunch Catholic I have lately been troubled that her father and her whole family left the Catholic church to which they belong and became Pentecostal. Is this true? Were they, first Catholics? ...If this is not true, all my Catholic friends and I would like to support her but if they deserted the Catholic Church it will be difficult for millions of American Catholics to support someone who is unfaithful to her own Church.

Re: The Reform Candidate?

Moshe — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:40:56 -0000

Obama-hate, and Sarah Palin's War on Terror

By Bradley Burston

Tags: Palin, Israel News, Burston

If you are planning to vote for John McCain because you view him as a man of rare integrity, demonstrated courage, intellectual and political independence, and because you believe him to be more seasoned and more savvy than Barack Obama in the realms of foreign policy, the applications of military force, and such domestic issues as taxation, health care, social security and welfare reform, you can stop reading this right now.

If you have decided to vote for Sarah Palin because you admire her as gutsy and fresh-thinking and an authentic Reagan Republican, and because you identify with her views on abortion, the right to buy and hold arms, and the excesses and interventions of big government, you can stop right here.

This is not going to be a column about issues, nor fitness for high office. And though this is not about racism in the classical sense, it is specifically about the passion and prejudices - race being just one of them - with which some people hate Barack Obama.

Obama-hate is worth a close look not only for what it tells us about political campaigns, but for what it can teach us about America itself, its divisions and the possibility of healing.

This is, as well, about the role Sarah Palin can play in the process. She can, if she chooses, elevate the level of debate on the urgent challenges Americans must face. Or she can say something like this:

"We see America as the greatest force for good in this world," Palin told a fund-raising event in Colorado on Sunday. "Our opponent though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

"This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America," she said. "We see America as a force of good in this world."

Since taking the national stage a month ago, Sarah Palin has been subjected to an onslaught of invective, dismissal, insult and smear. Now, the debate safely behind her, she has chosen a new means of response: incitement.

Does she really believe that Barack Obama, and by extension, those who support him, do not see America as a force for good in this world?

If she does not, her statement was obscene. If she does, America as a whole is in trouble. And not because she's right.

There are many among her admirers who celebrate her for speaking unvarnished truth, for saying out loud the kinds of things that "you and I" really feel.

The problem is not unvarnished truth, but thinly varnished hatred.

As she proved in her speeches accepting John McCain's and her party's nominations, Governor Palin is a person with acute skills of self-expression. She knows exactly what response - and what bigotry - she will elicit when she denigrates the concept of a "community organizer."

Just as she knows precisely what message she's sending when she states that Barack Obama "is not a man who sees America like you and I see America."

She knows to the letter what flags she's flying when she implies that Obama not only does not love his country but reviles it, even to the point of being a fellow traveler to subversives and potential terror murderers.

Nor is it any accident that she uses the term "terrorists" - unnamed, plural, and in general usage in America, often referring to Islamic radicals - rather than focusing on the one man in question.

Sarah Palin has crossed a line. She could have used her powers of persuasion to advance her ideals. Instead, she has joined those who have chosen to fight Obama with prejudice. In the process, she has widened America's fault lines, equating her coy "you and I" with love of country. Her opponent, then, is the Non-Us, the AntiUs, and, by extension, the Unamerican.

Is this to be the Palin Doctrine - that the Right has a lock on love of country?

In making the Colorado declaration, which she was to repeat twice more that day, she drew a stark distinction between those who love America - her people - and those who love Barack Obama.

In doing so, and in tarring him as a man who consorts with terrorists, she has joined those who have leveraged other lies to extraordinary success, in particular, the lie that Obama is a Muslim.

It was the phenomenal power of the Muslim lie that has lent fuel to all others. The falsehood granted free rein to intolerance. It has successfully disguised racism as patriotism. It has granted false license to irrational suspicion and grotesque stereotyping on the basis of faith.

In short, it has freed people to hate a black man right out loud.

In painting her opponent as a fellow traveler with subversives and terrorists, Palin has joined those who have promulgated bigotry in inciting against Obama, those who say, in clear hints if not in so many words:

1. Vote against Obama because you fear and loathe Muslims

2. Vote against Obama because you fear and loathe Arabs.

3. Vote against Obama because you've had all you can take of affirmative action, immigrants, names which defy pronunciation, pluralism, and bend-over-backwards tolerance.

4. Vote against Obama because liberal Democrats are hypocritical wimps, not real Christians, and, in fact, closet gays - and deserve to be punished.

5. Vote against Obama because the New York media and Hollywood deserve to be exposed and disgraced.

6.Vote against Obama because in this day and age in America, white people get the short end of the stick.

7. Vote against Obama because the one group facing the worst discrimination is the community of believing Christian Republicans.

8. Vote against Obama because blacks hate whites.

9. Vote against Obama because even though Jews once helped blacks, blacks hate Jews.

10. Vote against Obama because the Left hates America. Because liberals are ruining America's core institutions, schools, the military, the economy.

In segregating America into Us and AntiUs, Sarah Palin is asking for the votes of all Americans in order to speak for half of them. The half she believes loves the country. In denying Barack Obama his love of country, she has denied the vision, the values, and the profound patriotism of the remainder. In doing do, she does a disservice to both sides, and to America.

Re: The Reform Candidate?

JIM1366 — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 15:12:09 -0000

FOR MC STUPID TO WIN HE HAS TO TAKE ALL BATTLEGROUND STATES INCLUDING FLORIDA, AS IT STANDS HE IS LOOSING 3 RIGHT NOW AND FLORIDA IS NOT GOING WITH HIM SO FAR IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE FOR MC STUPID TO GET THE NOD.
REV JIM

Re: The Reform Candidate?

JIM1366 — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 15:03:47 -0000

THIS POST SHOULD BE ON THE WEB SO EVERYONE CAN SEE WHAT A PHONY AND A LIAR SHE IS, ALSO A CONIEVING SELF CENTERED

PRETENDER. AFTER SERVING 6 YEARS IN THE MARINES SHE WOULD SCARE THE CRAP OUT OF ME WITH HER HAND ON THE RED BUTTON

PEOPLE DO NOT INVESAGATE THESE PEOPLE THEY JUST SAY THINGS LIKE I8 LIKE HER SHE HAS BALLS, MAYBE BUT NO BRAINS, THIS ELECTION WILL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE IN MY LIF TIME AND A LIAR LIKE HER I WILL NOT SUPPORT.
REV JIM
USMC

Re: The Reform Candidate?

josh — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:09:08 -0000

use your hand, you'll be more satisfied.

Re: The Reform Candidate?

faisal — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 05:24:21 -0000

well what ever people think of her...................................i think she is a really hot woman.
what do u think??

Re: The Reform Candidate?

Quantum Fusion — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 23:09:19 -0000

??If you have new credible material, then bring it.?? I don't think you read the article you posted this reply to. Some one sent me this most apt joke.

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Sarah Palin and her bid to be a heartbeat away from being President. The old rancher said, “Well, ya know, Palin is a post turtle.” Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was.

The old rancher said, “When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle.”

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain. “You know, she didn't get up there by herself, she doesn't belong up there, she doesn't know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with.”

Re: The Reform Candidate?

boomerpatriot — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:04:43 -0000

It is news to myself and many others...
Did Sarah teach Constitutional law at a university? Has she been in Federal government,
or been aware of the other states of the union?
Does she know ANYTHING about community service and helping for the good of the people,
and environment?
Obama selected a very experienced Joe to work with, instead of a self proclaimed oil-drilling
maverick.

Re: The Reform Candidate?

abacus101 — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:41:53 -0000

"Democrats to let offshore drilling ban expire"
The Democrats have given up.

Thank-you Sarah Palin

Re: The Reform Candidate?

abacus101 — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:40:30 -0000

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Is Trig an alien?

Re: The Reform Candidate?

don — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 08:40:42 -0000

she can truly make anybodys dick hard if you aren;t dead i think she could probably make a few dead ones stand up. These absoutely fake pictures are as sick as the democratic dumb ass running for president.

Re: The Reform Candidate?

E. M. Thomas — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 05:20:53 -0000

I found the websit for the hospital where sarah palin supposedly gave birth to "her" fifth child. There was NO LISTING for a baby named Trig Palin . I 've seen Trig's birthdate listed as April 18th and April 28th. Whatever the actual date, THERE WAS NO LISTING.

Re: The Reform Candidate?

Mayhem4Masses — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 03:05:25 -0000

I think the funniest thing about the whole Palin thing, is that some stupid Americans think Vps actually have any power in Washington. The sick sad truth is McCain will be dead before his term is up because he is so damn old, and Palin will be president, and history has shown that a Vp taking office is never a good thing. Especially one that thinks she knows anything about Russia because as she put it “I can see Russia from my house we’re like neighbors.”

Political Humor at its Finest
http://www.barackobamasworld.com

Re: The Reform Candidate?

abacus101 — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:37:13 -0000

She still has nearly 80 % approval. Name one congressperson or Governor with better.

Re: The Reform Candidate?

abacus101 — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:25:07 -0000

By the time inauguration day comes this woman will be briefed on everything that could effect this country. Mr Obama and Mr Biden as well as Mr McCain are also receiving the same treatment of being brought up to date. That is why Mr Obama has come out very strongly and forceful against Iran. It is also why this Iraq thing, which propelled him into this campaign, is no longer even close to resembling his original position. The pair that have shown, and convinced the majority that they have the unchanging character and drive to lead this country will win. You can dig up all of these little nitpicking things you want about this woman in attempt to assassinate her character, but so far she is the shiniest one of the four. Continual squawking to say the same things over and over will not change a thing. If you have new credible material, then bring it. If you can't, she is going to carry the old man from Arizona to the White House.

Re: The Reform Candidate?

Moshe — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:36:49 -0000

What is truly frightening about Sarah Palin

By Bradley Burston

Tags: Burston, Palin, McCain, Obama

TEL AVIV - It was in the taxicab this morning that it finally struck me about Sarah Palin.

I get it. I get that millions of Americans have a crying need for someone to stand up and say the things that Sarah Palin has been telling them.

I get that many, many Americans are fed up with big government and shame in patriotism and energy dependence and media condescension. I recognize that there are many on the right who are galvanized by a woman addressing the nation in condemnation of gun control and abortions. It's clear that many in the heartland and even on the Blue State coasts have been waiting years to hear someone take a take-no-prisoners verbal lash to Beltway waste and liberal political correctness and, by implication, to cultural pluralism and tree hugging and the very mention of the word Washington.
Advertisement

But it wasn't until I got into the taxicab this morning, that I realized what the American voter truly faces this November.

The radio was playing a clip from her ABC News interview, the one in which she was asked about the Bush Doctrine.

The problem was not that she was unacquainted with the doctrine. Millions of Americans are unacquainted with it.

The problem is that Sarah Palin was also asking those millions of Americans to put her first in line for the most important position in humankind.

True, the Bush Doctrine, and the National Security Strategythat contains it, are not a one-sentence, easy to digest credo, and the doctrine is open to many interpretations. Sarah Palin had none of them.

This, despite the doctrine's contribution to the fact that America is at war, and that Governor Palin's own son is at war. This is the doctrine that underpins the policy that has had Americans fighting in Iraq two years longer than America fought World War II. And this is the doctrine which will serve as a guide if there is to be war in Iran.

The problem is that John McCain and Barack Obama and Joe Biden have spent years studying the assumptions and the foundations and the consequences of the Bush Doctrine. Governor Palin has not.

Yet Sarah Palin was proud of having had no hesitations, no reservations, no qualms about accepting John McCain's offer to share the national ticket. It was a matter of ideology with her.

"I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can't blink.

"So I didn't blink then even when asked to run as his running mate."

The question about the Bush Doctrine was not a trick. It was not a trivial point designed to make Sarah Palin look bad. It is the summary of a worldview that has guided American foreign and military policy for the seven years since September 11, 2001. It is America's formal explanation for sending Americans into harm's way. It is America's explanation to the world for what America has done.

Even my Israeli cab driver, a non-American through and through, knew more about the Bush Doctrine than Sarah Palin. And that is cause for serious concern.

The cabbie knew, for example, that the doctrine provided for anticipatory self-defense, and pre-emptive strikes to forestall hostile acts even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack.

"This would never have happened in Israel, ever" remarked a journalist friend, referring to the choice of Governor Palin, whose credentials in the realms of foreign policy, statecraft and the military are limited in the extreme.

With irony bordering on the painful, the journalist added, "Sarah Palin has restored my faith in Israel."

Israel is far from a model of good government, wise policymaking and exemplary leaders. But here, at least, voters and the politicians they make it their business to know inside and out, relate to politics not as if it were a spectacular bowl game or a reality show.but for what politics really is, in America and Israel both: a matter of life and death.

What, at root, are Americans looking for when they see Sarah Palin? A reprieve from their disappointment over elected officials? The prospect of cleaning house and overhauling a wasteful and ineffective Federal bureaucracy? Does she have what it takes to protect and rebuild an American slipping from the First World to the Third?

Or is Sarah Palin, in the end, a diversion, a curiosity, that most pressing of contemporary American needs: an entertainer?

We have little time to make a decision. We have heard McCain and Obama on the campaign trail for what seems like forever. And Biden has been a national figure for decades. Sarah Palin has less than 50 days to prove that she has the intelligence, the humility, the learning ability, and the wisdom to assume the burdens of the commander in chief. We have less than 50 days to learn about her.

George Bush, who spoke incessantly about leadership before his election, has had more than seven years to prove himself a leader, and managed to prove conclusively only that he was not.

This is what is truly frightening about Sarah Palin. There is something in the smugness, the faith-based rigidity, the dismissiveness, that suggests that once again, we may have a national leader who knows better how to divide than to rule.

True, for millions of people, Sarah Palin has lanced a cultural boil.
They feel anger, betrayal, and a profound alienation from the basic institutions of American life. The American dream is receding from them. She has given voice to the ache in their hearts, and, as such, has lifted their spirits.

Sarah Palin has given a voice to people who, even with an ostensibly fundamentalist Republican president in the White House, feel disenfranchised. It is not their Supreme Court, not their Congress. She has done a service for people unhappy with the America that they see. But that does not qualify her to be president.

Governor Palin has suggested that the special interests and superfluous bureaucrats are scared of her and the reforms she and John McCain intend to undertake. One hopes she's right. But what is certainly scary about Sarah Palin is how little that voters know about her, and in particular, how much she herself recognizes that she needs to learn.

Asked during the interview if she had the ability and the experience to serve as president of the United States, she replied without hesitation, without reservation, without contemplation - and without knowing, on a profound level, what that would, in fact, entail. "I'm ready."

Here is the answer that is truly frightening. It lets us know that the nation may be in danger of electing another leader bearing the most profound of George Bush's shortcomings: blindness to one's own shortcomings.

Blindness, that is, to the breadth and depth and height and shape of what one does not know. Say what you will about Donald Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary knew an unknown unknown when he saw one. Sarah Palin, for whom appearance is understandably significant, has one in her mirror.

Re: The Reform Candidate?

mikeylikesit2 — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:25:02 -0000

View slideshow from Anti-Palin rally this Sunday in Anchorage, AK

go to:

http://bigshow.bigfolio.com/?s=000011662&t=0e6a...