Both Palin and Biden are corprote owned whores. For that matter that same goes for Obama and McCain. I will be voting for a Third Party candidate.

Why is it stunning?
There is always a bounce after something new happens. Conventions etc.
Its meaningless 2 months from election day.

And I'm sure your descendants will thank you for it.

"Every four years, the GOP unleashes unrestrained personality attacks on Democrats and exploits cultural resentments. Every four years, Democrats tell themselves that such attacks don't work and are counter-productive. And every four years, that belief is disproven."

The problem, as I see it, is that Democrats are just not willing to sink to the depths that the GOP is, i.e. blatant and repeated lying, character assassination, dog whistle tactics, etc. And for me personally, I'm happy about that. Obama has tried, and succeeded, in running a high-road issues-based campaign. While I have no Obama-as-savior illusions, I'd be happy to see O and Joe get elected.

However, if once again the Rovian tactics work, then so be it. Americans will have spoken, will have declared "this is who we are", and will get exactly the government they deserve. If the disgusting HateFest that we witnessed on Wednesday night, courtesy of Giuliani and Palin ("community organizer"...."BOOOOOOOO") is any sign, I fear that this is where we're heading.

Well Hurricane Gustav is over and became just another tropical rainstorm, but Hurricane Palin has just come on the radar as we've been discussing in other links.

But when all has been said and done at another CD comment cage,
I couldn't help but think of that book written by Jack London, "White Fang,"
one of my favorites as a child, loved all of those books, "Gentle Ben" by Walt Morey. Etc. Etc.

But anyone else who can recall it, there is this scene where Judge Weedon Scott saves White Fang, a wolf domesticated by an Indian tribe and then sold into slavery with a cruel master. So anyway as the story goes this new cruel white master puts White Fang into dog fights which he handily wins until he is in a dog fight with a pit bull. The pit bull is able to conquer the previously untouchable White Fang because White Fang is unfamiliar with it's strategy of fighting. You see the pit bull sits low to the ground and rather than try to attack viciously and quickly, it methodically strikes and then retreats wagging it's tail the whole time. Eventually it exhausts White Fang and gets a lock jaw hold on White Fangs throat and starts to throttle him.

I can't remember what technique Judge Scott uses to get the pitt bull off of White Fang as he lays at the edge of death gasping for his last breath, but it saves White Fangs life.

Anyways the book is set in Alaska of course, hmmmmmm.

Well I guess I'll have to read it for reference, seems pertinent for some reason.

cosmaustrian
YES, fight back, not dirty, just with the facts, the truth, item by item - that is not negative and people should be listening. And need to be convinced that the other side is way off the truth.

Voting for a third party candidate at this time is only good for personal gratification, nothing else. Get real. Organize a third party between elections, then when there are "followers" in great numbers we can vote for an alternate candidate.

I wonder who was polled? If the numbers are a true representation of the US electorate only 3 conclusions are possible:
1. The US electorate needs a collective lobotomy.
2. We MUST organize the various disenfranchised groups (who can still think and SEE what's going on) into a unified 3rd party.
3. Media must start telling the TRUTH.

My sense of these polls is that they see a pretty face, and hear "mother," and see her "standing by her child," (the pregnant daughter). But if the public heard about the Alaska independence idea, or knew how this woman managed excess funds, fired people she didn't like, wants to ban books, is against educating teens about sex while her own has shown appropriate rebellion to her mother's authoritarianism, and thinks it's "tourism" to shoot live animals from the air... I wonder what the alleged approval numbers/ratings would become?

And if I were an intelligent person living in an Arab nation watching this inane spectacle, I'd definitely look for ways to cripple America's military might. With "leaders" like these, no sane compromises, treaties, or negotiations are POSSIBLE!

So the poor Democrats lose every time because the nasty Republicans say bad things about them and because the Democrats are too well-mannered to respond in kind. Is that what Greenwald is telling us? If so, I disagree. Presidential and other political contests in the U.S.A. descend into mudslinging "personal" attacks because opponents are typically feeding from the same corporate trough and have nothing substantive to "debate" about. If a Democratic candidate were to get on his/her hind legs (as opposed to those wobbly Blue Dog ones) and stand up, political hell or high water. for single payer health insurance, military disengagement and disarmament, living wage economic policies. the abolishing of incarcer-nation, he/she wouldn't need to worry about any petty name-calling from the opposition. But no, our two Corporacratic parties leave it to the despised "third parties" to do these things, and mobilize their efforts at every form of Ridicule (as RichM defines it) of their opponents. Gentlemen, let's have an unfair fight, no hitting the opponent with any facts or logic, may the best Ridiculer win. That's a sure formula for GOP wins, because
not just Rove but a generation of Machiavellian manipulators have perfected the art, and hapless Democrats can only yell "foul" when they were hit with nothing but the kind of blows that the "referree" has specified as appropriate. Crybabies don't win this kind of fights, but "progressives" like Greenwald and John Nichols can already be seen forgetting their recent criticism of Obama for his head-long rightward dive. They are bringing out the crying towel for what is shaping up as "four more years" in which they will be ridiculing still another GOP President and Vice President and Obama will be consigned to the same flip-flopping triangulating purgatory now occupied by the likes of Clinton, Gore and Kerry.

In this thimble full of water I have here in my right hand is a single cell animal called a rotifer. It has been nominated by the Republican party for the presidency of the United States. In my left hand is another thimble of water containing an amoeba, the vice presidential candidate. Do you prefer these two candidates over Barack Obama and Joe Biden? Are they more righteous?, you ask. Certainly! No creature is more righteous, more Christian, than Republican candidates for high office! FINAL TALLY: rotifer/amoeba: 58%. Obama/Biden: 42%.

Why assume that "negativity" by Democrats would get the same press/media "ride" that is given to Republican attacks?

Progressives:
Read this excellent article on counterpunch, by Richard Rhames, Commondreams should publish it as well.

http://counterpunch.com/rhames09062008.html

Do The World A Favor And Retire!
Green Retirement Planning

The Democrats screwed up early...by attacking her within 10 minutes of her being nominated...

I can't say it was all the Democrats...the Press (or as I like to call them the Democratic 5th column) kneejerked and tried to squash a threat to their Golden Boy Barack

problem is Sarah Palin epitomizes the ideal that they have pushed for so mnay years...s smart working woman balancing family and career and being very successful...

I expect these numbers to hold all the way to the election

Most of the American media are right-wing since their owners are. And lousy, with only few, albeit notable, exceptions.

The vast majority of the American public has been weaned from intellectually challenging articles or TV-programs and is by now addicted to a steady diet of the equivalent of fast food. Give them one-liners that are easy to remember.

And they are used to emotions, emotions, emotions. They want to see people cry live on TV, they want some "Oh my Gaaaawd!" screams. Appeal to their voyeurism and you've got their interest.

Appeal to their brains and you are called "elitist". They hardly have brains any more, whatever they were endowed with at birth, it has largely been sucked out of them, primarily via TV. Younger generations are into the violent black and white ideology of computer games.

Give them a soap that's simple enough to grasp and the majority will vote for the soap.

Palin provides them with the soap. She's like one of the figures in the one thing they are interested in by now: Gossip, drama and an unintellectual mind. So it was a clever move.

First you manipulate your electorate into mindlessness and ignorance for decades, and then you just feed them the stuff they crave by now.

Universal suffrage under these circumstances is beginning to look questionable. You might end up with a dictatorship one day in America, and they'll vote for it, if only the person to pull it off is compatible with the kind of soap opera most people are addicted to.

I am sure that most American media would oblige, as long as their ratings and their earnings are good.

If one does not respond to character assassination, people will think it to be true.

I hope these numbers are wrong and that the electorate does not validate their stupidity by electing McBomb.

My sister used to work for a clothing manufacturer and importer. She would tell me about some horrible design they were selling and how she was worried they would go out of business. However it seems, the uglier the item, the better it sold, and her job was secure.

You cannot go broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

That being said, I personally know of 8 people including myself who have just decided that we have to go work for Obama in swing states to keep this piece of work from being one heartbeat away from the Presidency. Despite our deep misgivings about Obama, he is the "enemy" I would rather face than McCain-Palin.

Joe

Will The GOP's Negativity Produce A Backlash?
hahaha
i've been called an alligator before...no big deal.

wild ;)

The problem with the Dems going "negative" is that the Rove-publicans have spent eight years illegally spying on said Dems and are armed with all kinds of career-killin dirt they're just waiting to unleash as soon as one of the Blue Pussies opens their mouth.

And the Dems know it. The name Spitzer ring a bell? Though he admitted his guilt, notice how he was assassinated-by-FBI-leak, and not actual criminal charges or indictment or prosecution?

Americans love love love a good cat fight, and the Dems would find themselves newly respected if they took off the gloves and went toe to bloody toe, especially with such a wide range of actionable targets. But that's like expecting the geeks to fight the bullies - and what high school has that ever happened at?

If the Obama campaign won't go negative on Palin, we must encourage the MSM to do so. They are showing all signs of backing off since the McCain campaign whined about the "unfair treatment."

Here’s a copy of the nasty note I sent to CNN and MSNBC, plus the Washington Post, to try to motivate them to do their job for once. Here’s the links to contact CNN and MSNBC, if you want to plagiarize my note and send them an equally angry message. I encourage everyone at CD to not only complain to these media outlets about their failure to expose Palin for what she is , but their local newspapers as well. These media outlets are hearing from the right - if we on the left are not willing to try to have our voices heard then we deserve another eight years of GOP rule.

If you don't like my note - then come up with your own - but quit your complaining here at CD and start letting the media outlets have it. Do something!

http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?35

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10285339/

"CNN has performed its duty to the public in the past by providing reports on John McCain's involvement in the Keating Five affair, as well as details on Senator Obama's relationship to Reverend Wright, his views on patriotism, and whether or not his "Bittergate" comments reflect an attitude of elitism. I therefore look forward to CNN thoroughly reporting on the following issues that have already arisen regarding Sarah Palin. What does she have to say about the following? And why won't the Republican party allow her to be approached and questioned?

1. She is being investigated in Alaska by a Republican legislature for improperly terminating the employment of a public safety official who refused to fire or accelerate the investigation of her ex-brother in law.

2. As mayor of Wasilla, she apparently tried to fire a librarian in her home town for refusing to ban "bad books."

3. She claims she opposed the "Bridge to Nowhere" when she apparently actually supported it during her campaign for governor. She only came out "against" it when it became clear it was going to be killed anyway.

4. She is claiming she is against corruption and "politics as usual" when she apparently actually hired consultants to help her bring federal dollars into Alaska.

5. She cites as an accomplishment the sale of the governor's jet on ebay. Senator McCain has stated that she personally sold it "at a profit." The plane was actually sold months after the attempted internet sale, for a loss of some half million dollars.

6. She apparently wants to teach creationism in the public schools.

7. She apparently not only doesn't believe global warming is being caused by man, she doesn't even acknowledge that it is occurring.

8. The minister at her Assembly of God church has made numerous controversial political statements. How much of his world-view does she share? Obama ultimately disavowed most of what Reverend Wright had to say. Will Palin be willing to do the same regarding her minister, or will she embrace his positions?

Failure to subject Governor Palin to the same level of scrutiny as other candidates, i.e., providing her with special treatment, constitutes sexism of the worst kind. CNN must not back off just because the GOP is trying to argue that she is being treated unfairly. An ABC poll shows that while some 50% of the county view her favorably , almost 40% do not. (These numbers do not make her "popular" BTW.) Suggest you do your job and keep the 40% provided with the information they seek. It's a sorry state of affairs that we have to rely on the international press, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, and of all things, the National Enquirer, to conduct proper investigative journalism.

If the Obama campaign won't go negative on Palin, we must encourage the MSM to do so

you've GOT to be kidding me...where have you been all week?

Maybe democracy is not for you.

All you have to know about this woman is that she used her executive powers to unethically and probably illegally try to remove her brother in law from his job.

On that basis alone, and anyone who wanted to could find this out BEFORE she spoke at the RNC, Sarah Palin is disqualified for any federal office.

Barack Obama was for single payer before he came out against it.