Monday With McCain

"He has more than earned our support. He has earned our admiration and our love."---John McCain on George W. Bush [Chicago Tribune 08/11/2004]

McCain? Bush? Even Republicans Think They Are The Same!

From knoxnews.com:

In a slip of the lip echoing a misstatement 20 years ago, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey cast Tennessee's 55 votes at the Republican National Convention for "George S. McCain."

Ramsey, chairman of the delegation, said Friday that he was concentrating on the first part of his floor statement, wherein he recalled that George Bush in 2000 defeated Democrat Al Gore Jr. in Tennessee, then lapsed into an auctioneer's chant.

An auctioneer by profession, Ramsey spoke in a sing-song voice as if bidding up the number of votes to be cast for Tennessee for John McCain. At the end, he declared, "Tennessee casts 55 votes for George S. McCain."

"The ironic thing is that, back in 1988, Lamar Alexander, who was chairman of the delegation to the convention then, nominated 'Robert Bush' for president," said Ramsey.

He said Alexander told him at breakfast the day before the convention: "Don't do what I did."

"I told him, 'I don't think that will be a problem. I can remember his name.' "

Ramsey said relatively few people noticed his misstatement in naming the presidential nominee at the convention because "they were laughing or mesmerized by the auctioneer part."

The lieutenant governor said he was not especially unsettled by the experience.

"I think all 55 of them (votes) still counted, and that's what was important," he said.

More On Sarah Palin's Alleged Affair

It is now being reported that the guy Sarah Palin allegedly had an affair with has just filed an EMERGENCY court motion to have his divorce records sealed.

So what does that tell us?

Well, it seems the Enquirer might not be so wrong after all.

Wonder what he's trying to hide?

Wonder if any family members or friends will speak up?

In other Sarah Palin news, senior lawmakers in the Alaska State Legislature said Friday that they would seek subpoenas to compel seven witnesses to answer questions in an ethics inquiry into whether Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, improperly put pressure on state officials to dismiss her former brother-in-law, a state trooper.

I Love America!!!

What else says "I Love America" life a dirty swimming pool, a hunting rifle, and a red, white, and blue bathing suit? Now,if she could have found somewhere to attach a lapel flag pin...

My Take On McCain's Acceptance Speech...

Ok...So I didn't actually watch McCain's acceptance speech, I read the transcript. But my SparkNotes version of what McCain said is as follows:

I am a victim, a dedicated if imperfect servant of my country, not perfected until I realized that the State is far more important than I am, I love peace, I hate war, I will wage war, I will smite the Muslims, I will kill the Russians, I will strike down anyone who fails to bow the knee to me, I will drill, I will build nuclear power plants, I will care for the jobless, the homeless, the bankrupt, the sick, the oil men, the bankers, the arms merchants, the soldiers, the lobbyists; I was a POW, I bear the scars of Jesus on my body, I was wounded, I was hurt, I was crippled, I was jailed, I was tortured, I was imprisoned, I was gaoled, I was in captivity, I was behind bars, I was held against my will, except when I decided to stay, I told nothing, I told nothing, I told everything, country first, country first, freedom, low taxes, I will stand at your side, not in front of you, world empire, everything for the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State, hail me, hail me, hail me.

This Modern World

GOP Factoids

Courtesy of Associated Press:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.

Some examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.