Sarah Palin is testing the Mainstream Corporate Media. She is daring the media to call her on her lies. ThinkProgress notes that she had dropped the mention of the the Bridge to Nowhere after having to admit to Charlie Gibson that she had supported the bridge and had campaigned in favor of it. Then, Sarah dusted off the untruth and began spouting it again (emphasis mine):
I know that I am not the only one to notice that Cindy McCain was still sporting her cast during the Republican Convention.
This was strange, since she had a “wrist sprain” back on August 13, 2008. In this article by Ben Martin at Politico.com, he reports that she had been “given pain relief”:
Hillary Clinton shares a very scary trait displayed by George Bush over these last 7 years. The ability to ignore reality and maintain his own version of the facts despite the whole world contradicting him is a characteristic of the George Bush Presidency, and one which also describes the Hillary Clinton campaign.
When George Bush says that he will listen to his Generals on the ground and then asks for the resignation of any General that does not agree with him is something that does not disturb Bush’s sense of correctness at all.He can say year after year that this or that marks a turning point in Iraq without any sense of shame or the intellectual honesty that would force him to admit that he had been wrong on previous occasions.
I am sure you have by now heard of Hillary Clinton’s remarks to ABC about “obliterating Iran”.
Imagine the uproar that would have resounded in the United States, and around the world, if Barack Obama had been the one to make the remarks about wiping out every man, woman, and child in a country in the Middle East.
Instead, it was Hillary Clinton who made the “obliterate Iran” remarks and the media has not held her accountable. What amounts to a Neocon threat against Iran has gone virtually unnoticed in the media.
There is just now appearing a smattering of reaction in the U.S., but her remarks were very startling to those outside the United States, particularly our allies.
Barack Obama responded to his attackers over his remarks that Pennsylvania voters were bitter about jobs being sent overseas and the empty promises of those in Washington who vowed to make things better during campaign season, only to turn their backs on Pennsylvanians once elections had passed.
Hillary hit Barack Obama hard over these remarks. So did John McCain.
The most disturbing aspect of this is that Hillary Clinton and John McCain coordinated their attacks on Obama. Note the similarity of responses and try to predict which response came from Hillary Clinton and which one came from John McCain:
While I am not pleased with the dirty tricks, lies, and the behind-the-scenes manipulation by the Clinton campaign of the Democratic nomination process, I believe that Hillary, as desperate as she is, is a tougher opponent than John McCain.
The more people know Hillary, the more she is disliked. The more people know Barack Obama, the more they are impressed. Hillary Clinton represents the old politics of scorched earth, “winning is the only thing that matters” philosophy.
While Barack was on vacation, Hillary’s negative attacks and lies about Bosnia caused her negative ratings among Democrats to soar to 47%. That increase in negative perception is clearly Hillary’s own doing.
Barack Obama, by not descending to her level has shown himself to be of high moral character, even when he has been baselessly and viciously attacked by the Clinton campaign.
What role does experience, expertise, and good judgment play in the vetting of a Presidential candidate? I would submit to you the premise that any President of the United States will face issues that his predecessors have not faced, and therefore cannot be equipped by experience on the best way to act.
In fact, challenges will arise that are beyond anyone’s experience. While it can be said that experience informs a President and helps him or her to make good judgments, there is an element that weighs more heavily in the equation: Character.
I nervously waited for the speech to begin, watching the moniker on MSNBC say that Obama's speech would begin "in a few minutes", then after 15 minutes had passed, the screen legend said that his speech "would begin shortly".
While waiting, I remembered the idealists that had gone before, only to be chewed up and devoured by the cynical media and opposing political machines, never to recover. I admittedly had butterflies before he began speaking, wondering if the great dream he had voiced was essentially at an end.
Jon Robin Baitz at the Huffington Post wrote the following in his article:
Character as Destiny: The Clintonian Narcissism of 2008
There is something stomach-turning about the Clintonian strategy for winning the nomination. Underneath that which is so disgusting, however, there are little passion plays playing out -- about the state of the nation, and the state of its soul-sick psyche. While there is no overt reason to conclude that they are racists, (if that sentence seems luke-warm, take a look at Hillary's own concession that Obama is not a Muslim), there is every possible reason to label the Clintons opportunists of the very first order.
Bill Clinton was not a racist when he mouthed off in South Carolina; he was a desperate power-monger, flailing. Bob Johnson from BET doesn't really think Obama is a drug fiend -- it was just "an opportunity". Albeit a rather disgusting one. Howard Wolfson doesn't really think that Obama is like Ken Starr; it was just the sort of blind ad hominem news-cycle nonsense likely to distract from the actual, the real, the true; in other words -- it was opportunism. That is their true, true heartfelt religion.
"Campaign" in Florida and then deny it? Fine: It's all fair game. Or the cynical suggestion by Senator Clinton that Obama would be a fine VP while at the same time declaring how unready he is seems to me precisely the sort of cynical paranoid post-modern solipsism of people who will say anything whatsoever to get what they want and then act stung when called on it.
It borders on sociopathy. And like all opportunists, those in Camp Clinton have reached the conclusion that even a scorched earth campaign which devastates the party, vulgarizes the discourse even more than it already is vulgarized, and alienates millions of people who actually have come to hope for real change in this country, is worth the cost of a possible win.
Personally, I find it far more likely that the only beneficiary of the Clintonian ugliness will of course be none other than that half-mad proponent of hundred-year wars, John McCain of Arizona, swooping in to the circular firing squad after the smoke and blood have cleared, so as to snatch a victory because the Dems cleverly snatched defeat.
