Ladies & Gentlemen, Your Utah Democratic Party

Sarah Palin announced her resignation as governor of Alaska recently. The specifics of her reasons for resigning are sketchy, though level headed observers intimate it's likely because she tired of the attacks on her family coupled with the time and money lost defending against frivolous lawsuits.

Of course, Utah's left leaning blogosphere punditry was quick to chime in with their commentary. Two of the most read Democratic blogs in the state were also the most...predictible.

"she’s sounds like a whore in church."

"she’ll run for Princess of America"

You stay classy now.

Joe Biden=In Command of Facts=Blithering Balderdash

Mark Steyn:

Senator Biden was glib and fluent and in command of the facts — if by “in command of the facts” you mean “talks complete blithering balderdash and hogwash.” He flatly declared that Obama never said he would meet Ahmadinejad without preconditions. But, on Debate Night, the official Obama website was still boasting that he would meet Ahmadinejad “without preconditions”. He said America spends more in a month in Iraq than it’s spent in seven years in Afghanistan. Er, America has spent over $700 billion in Afghanistan since 2001. It’s spending about $10 billion a month in Iraq. But no matter. To demonstrate his command of the “facts”, Senator Biden sportingly offered up his own instant replays:

“My friend John McCain voted 422 times against tax cuts for the middle classes. Let me repeat that so the American people are clear on this. My friend John McCain voted 673 times against tax cuts for the middle classes.”

The problem was that it all sounded drearily senatorial. Mention any global crisis — civil war in Bosnia, genocide in Darfur, Russian aggression in Georgia, the lack of five-star restaurants in Wales — and Biden has been there, usually within the last two weeks, and always at public expense. What the American taxpayer gets for the Emir of Delaware’s frequent-flyer miles is harder to discern. Biden was doing his best to turn in a decent karaoke version of Lloyd Bentsen, but, unfortunately, Governor Palin declined to play Dan Quayle. That left Joe sounding like an ancient pol being generically vice-presidential. Sarah, at her best, sounded like the citizen-politician this country’s Founders intended. She hasn’t voted 397 times against this or that in the U.S. Senate, because she’s been running a state, and a town, and a commercial fishing operation. She’s a doer, not a talker, which is why so many of my fellow professional talkers disdain her.

When Regular Joe Six-Pack Bluecollar Biden tried to match her on the Main Street cred, it rang slightly wacky. “Look,” he said, “All you have to do is go down Union Street with me in Wilmington or go to Katie’s Restaurant or walk into Home Depot with me, where I spend a lot of time.” Why? Is he moonlighting as a checkout clerk on the evening shift? Or is he stalking that nice lady in Lighting Fixtures? As for Katie’s Restaurant, ah, I’m sure it was grand but apparently it closed in 1990. In the Diner of the Mind, the refills are endless and Senator Joe is sitting shootin’ the breeze over a cuppa joe with a couple other regular joes on adjoining stools while Betty-Jo, the sassy waitress who’s tough as nails but with a heart of gold, says Ol’ Joe, the short-order cook who’s doing his Sloppy Joes just the way the Senator likes ‘em, really appreciates the way that, despite 78 years in Washington, Joe Biden is still just the same regular Joe Six-Pack he was when he and Norman Rockwell first came in for a sarsaparilla all those years ago. But, alas, while he was jetting off for one-to-one talks with the Deputy Tourism Minister of Waziristan, the old neighborhood changed.

Biden's Low Expectations

I read the following comment on a blog last week, and thought it share-worthy:

I think Biden Rocked!

He came in with low expectations. Especially after the Couric interview where he had a huge gaffe of explaining that when the Stock Market crashed, FDR got on TV. I was fully expecting a gaffe-fest from him but he was able to overcome this with clearly rehearsed lines from his advisors.

But he was able to sidestep many direct questions by Ifill choosing instead to offer rebuttals to Palin’s arguments or further explain his ticket’s position.

I wasn’t that impressed how he kept using the same words over and over again like “fundamental” and how he kept having to repeat things. He did do a good job relating to the middle class by mentioning Scranton repeatedly, which we all know is a blue-collar, middle-class town.

He was only incoherent one time, trying to explain the McCain tax plan, and he made one big gaffe when he said the U.S. and France kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon . But I wouldn’t hold all of his Foreign Relations experience against him.

Ads From The Debate

The ads using material from the debate last night are already out. Here's the first two that popped up on my youtube account:

First, from Obama,




And from McCain,

An Open Letter to Suzy Shuster's Open Letter to Tina Fey

You loved Tina Fey's Saturday Night Live impersonation of Governor Sarah Palin. You think it is directly responsible for Palin's supposed drop in popularity. Because of this, you want Fey to don the Palin costume every Saturday night until the election.

You don't like Sarah Palin. You think she is unqualified to be vice president. She "scares" you. But rather than push to publicize the reasons for your fear (assuming you have valid, rational reasons), you push to make a comedy sketch show a partisan election changer.

Which is nothing new of course. Comedic commentary during campaigns has a long history. I remember well SNL's skits involving Bob Dole, George Bush, and Ross Perot. They even did some with Bill Clinton, but those mostly revolved around his "improprieties", and we all know that doesn't matter.

And SNL made a splash earlier this year with a skit lampooning the media's love affair with Barack Obama. Funny, now that the primaries are over they don't seem to be doing too many skits like that any more. It was around the same time that Joe Biden decided the presidency was a position that lent itself to on the job training.

But what is it about her that's so scary, that causes readers of the Huffington Post to be so "scared out of our wits" that they bring in their big gun celebrities? While begging Tina Fey to continue her electioneering, you write,

And I think its your responsibility to do so, or else we face the consequence of a woman in the White House who would strive to take away your daughter Alice's right to choose along with every other woman's in this country.

Ohhhhh. So that's it. You're a "Single Issue Voter". You're one of those people that gets lambasted by celebrities, bloggers, and news media types for voting for a candidate based largely on a single issue: abortion. Except those lambasters generally save their ridicule for those that vote against abortion. That's the only type of Single Issue Voter that's completely stupid and deserving of ridicule.

That's why feminists like Ms. Shuster are lining up to trash Gov. Palin. She's such a hypocrite for claiming to be a woman when clearly authentic women must be abortion advocates. We can't have a woman in the White House that isn't actually a woman!

Thank you, Ms. Shuster, for clearing that up for me. Now I understand that, like most things, voting for an issue is only "scary" when one side does it.

Surprise! MoveOn.org's Facts Are Wrong

I hope you haven't already written that letter...

Since MoveOn.org (and pretty much everyone else) didn't properly vet their choices of attack lines, let's look at the anti-Palin claims one by one:

1. Palin recently said that the war in Iraq is "God's task."

Here's what she really said,

"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."

Pray that our leaders are sending our soldiers out on a task that is from God. Pray that our nation acts in accordance with God's plan. I've said that prayer myself. Sorry MoveOn, you'll have to do better than that.

2. Palin has actively sought the support of the fringe Alaska Independence Party.

If by actively sought you mean "never been a member of", then sure.

3. Palin wants to teach creationism in public schools.

Flat out, unconditional lie. In an article titled, "Palin has not pushed creation science as governor" Palin is quoted as saying in 2006,

"I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum,"

4. Palin doesn't believe that humans contribute to global warming.

Here's the quote they're using,

Q:What is your take on global warming and how is it affecting our country?

A: A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.

Here's what she did as governor,

"A few months into her term, Palin directed a group of state commissioners to develop a strategy for addressing climate change. State lawmakers had already formed a climate commission, but the administration up until then had nothing.

"'I'm not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity,' Palin said Monday, 'but I'm not going to put my head in the sand and pretend there aren't changes.'"

5. Palin has close ties to Big Oil.

The source for this? ThinkProgress. TP's source? An Anchorage Daily News story during Palin's run for governor in 2006. The problem? TP didn't actually read the story. It's about an oil company called Veco. A company that has long played a heavy role in Alaska politics. A company that supported Gov. Palin's opponent in the primary and produced a newspaper editorial space that constantly criticized her. A company that gave her exactly zero dollars during her campaign.

And this is found in a story which says, "Palin often draws heat from the oil industry".

Huh. It's so weird that MoveOn/ThinkProgress would take that as having close ties to Big Oil.

5. Palin is extremely anti-choice.

For the uninitiated, "anti-choice" is code for "I think 100% genetically human beings should have more human rights than a Chimpanzee."

6. Palin opposes comprehensive sex-ed in public schools.

I wonder what they mean by "comprehensive". Anyway, again the source is ThinkProgress, which links to a Politico story containing this quote,

"explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support."

But they neglected to report the LA Times story which shows Gov. Palin saying the following,

"I'm pro-contraception, and I think kids who may not hear about it at home should hear about it in other avenues,"

7. As mayor, Palin tried to ban books from the library.

In a factcheck.org article titled, "Sliming Palin" we find,

One accusation claims then-Mayor Palin threatened to fire Wasilla’s librarian for refusing to ban books from the town library. Some versions of the rumor come complete with a list of the books that Palin allegedly attempted to ban. Actually, Palin never asked that books be banned; no books were actually banned; and many of the books on the list that Palin supposedly wanted to censor weren't even in print at the time, proving that the list is a fabrication.

8. She DID support the Bridge to Nowhere

Yep.

And then changed her mind. Which, if we decide that's an immediate disqualification for a presidential ticket, I think it safe to say we can just call the whole election off this year. Along with every election in the history of the United States. As with the experience angle, I don't know that it makes for good strategy for Democrats to attack on the grounds of "changing one's mind".

So there you go. That's the list that makes Governor Sarah Palin so scary. Incidentally, I haven't received any new lists since this one was emailed to me, so I can only assume this is the best they've got. And it's all pretty much a bunch of ill-researched garbage.

Which reminds me. When I first posted this list, I was told that it was completely true, and that

"the bullet points here certainly are not "rumor-mongering". All of them can be easily researched and proven accurate in a few moments, from established mainstream sources."

Well, that "easily researched" thing turned out to be correct. But the whole "proven accurate" thing, not so much.

The Democratic Party, Both Local & National, Proves I Made The Right Decision

I've generally considered myself a moderate. I've voted for Republicans and Democrats alike, never aligning myself too closely with either party. But over the last couple of years I have gotten the inclination to be more active within a party. And for much of that time I flirted very heavily with the Democratic Party. The thinking was that out west in Idaho and Utah, the Democrats can be quite moderate, and since they are few in numbers it's easier to be involved and be heard. In fact, many Democrats in Utah are Dems solely for that reason. However, it is the fact that the local Democratic chapters are so different than the national party that prevented me from jumping in with both feet. It didn't make sense to affiliate with a national movement with which I had so many philosophical differences, despite the example of a few Democratic congressmen that I admire. Nevertheless, my flirtation inched ever closer to a full fledged relationship.

That is, until I saw how despised by their own party those congressmen I admired were. I began to realize the "Big Tent" wasn't all that large after all. Consequently, my flirtation began to wane. But what has occurred over the last couple of weeks was the final nail in the coffin.

From the very moment it was announced, Governor Palin's nomination has made the Democratic Party go absolutely insane.

Here it is, the party of "rational" thought, a party which proclaimed its "Big Tent" appeal, its work for women and minorities, its position as voice for the little guy. And it has thrown that false facade completely aside to rear its ugly, partisan, sexist, gutter-politics head as it rushes to throw garbage at McCain's vice presidential pick in hopes something, anything, might stick.

For instance, on the very day Gov. Palin was announced as the candidate, Daily Kos posted a "story" claiming her infant Down Syndrome baby wasn't hers, but was her daughter's instead, and that the Palin's pulled their daughter out of school in order to hide the pregnancy and claim the baby as their own. They even posted links to pictures which "proved" that Palin was waaay too skinny to have been pregnant. Her teenage daughter on the other hand, plenty of "baby bump" potential there. Now, some might argue that Kos users can post anything they want, and the Kos site can't be held accountable for every crackpot user. But this particular user also put a poll with the story, asking if this sad, despicable, rumor-mongering story should continue. Over 22,000 people voted, and 64% of them said yes.

Sadly, Logan's own KVNU blog posted the same story - slightly less accusatory, but swallowing the Kos rumors hook, line, and sinker nonetheless.

It's an example of how the party faithful actually aren't all that different, whether they be a national Democrat or a local version. So while national commentators have been outlandishly juvenile, their local faithful have been much more disappointingly so.

Let's take a stroll down memory lane and revisit some of the things said about Governor Palin in the days following her announcement.

Radio host and TV commentator Alan Colmes speculates the Palin's first child was conceived out of wedlock. That fancy bit of journalism followed his breathless reporting that "17-Year-Old Bristol Palin Five Months Pregnant".

Sadly, local blog "One Utah", on day 3 of Gov Palin's nomination, jumps on the bandwagon, positing "her 17 year old unmarried daughter is pregnant (I heard whispers the father is 24)". Shockingly, he's not.

CNN reported a National Enquirer story claiming Governor Palin had an affair with her husband's former business partner. Andrew Sullivan excitedly posts that a former business partner filed an emergency motion to seal his divorce papers. Those fun Daily Kos-ites picked up the story as well, hoping beyond hope that it were true. Shockingly, it's not.

But that didn't stop local blogger Richard Warnick from spreading the same lies.

Even my own commenters fall into the trap of believing every last petty rumor written on a website somewhere. Democracy Lover offered up this gem as proof that Governor Palin is scaaaary - not to mention racist. But, once again, it's a complete fabrication. Just more garbage throwing in hopes something will stick.

But even if we were to put aside the muckraking and rumor mongering, the sexism on display by the Democrats, and the Obama campaign, is astounding.

Take this image, for instance. Or Richard Warnick complaining Gov. Palin is from the pages of Vogue. Or this image. There are countless others. All just as crass.

South Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler said Governor Palin's "primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.” She later apologized.

"Obama adviser" Anita Dunn said, "She's new, and a good performer of that speech that she reads, but that doesn't necessarily translate into votes eight weeks from now,"

Reclusive Leftist is not impressed:

A good performer of that speech she reads. Sarah Palin is the goddamn Governor of Alaska. She’s a crack politician who has made her own way. She is not some blow-dried twit on cable news. And of course Obama trots out a woman to spew this garbage. Irony overload: you know how everyone on the left likes to say that Palin is a typical anti-woman conservative, the type of successful woman who’s ready to stick it to other women instead of helping to raise us all up?

Sounds to me like a perfect description of the women on Obama’s staff.

But it's not just the women staffers saying it.

It's Obama's VP pick, Joe Biden.

It's even Obama himself.

It's the rampant misogyny that was on display throughout the primaries, and has reappeared with Gov Palin's nomination.

It's been quite disheartening to watch it unfold. Even more so to realize that it's not just the weirdo liberal blog sites behaving this way, but it's prominent national Democrats. Worse, it's local Utah Democrats.

So I will continue to vote bi-partisanly, based on individual candidates and races. But whatever moderate high ground the Democratic Party may have once held, is now no more.

Illinois' Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Governor Sarah Palin

"The reality is, governors every day have to make decisions for better or for worse. That's part of the job. It's an executive position. And it's a position that is like what you're going to do when you're president. Legislators, they do different things. They debate and they pass their bills back and forth," he said.

"But governors make decisions, and I think it's a tactical mistake for the Democrats to question Gov. Palin's experience when she's been a governor of a state," he said. "I don't think the size of the state is relevant. It's the kinds of decisions you have to make as governor.

via Chicago Tribune

Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel on Governor Sarah Palin

Via wikipedia:

Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel (pronounced /grəˈvɛl/) (born May 13, 1930) is a former Democratic United States Senator from Alaska, who served two terms from 1969 to 1981, and a former candidate in the 2008 presidential election.




Hat Tip: Adam's Blog

MoveOn.Org Tells Me What to Write

I'm on MoveOn.org's email list. They really don't like Governor Palin, and they want me to write my newspaper and tell them all about it. They've even told me what to write. (Now I see where you get your talking points from, DL) Their sources for their assertions? Why, MoveOn.org of course. Oh, and that other bastion of honest reporting and impartiality, ThinkProgress. At least it wasn't DailyKos.

Dear MoveOn member,

Did you watch Sarah Palin's speech last night? The speech told us a lot about her.

It told us that she can distort the facts and deliver mean-spirited zingers with the best of them. It told us that if Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter ever need a stand-in, she'd be a great pick.

It told us that she can be condescending and dismissive of the real work Barack Obama did helping real people on the South Side of Chicago. It told us that she can uphold the long Republican tradition of lying about Democratic tax cuts—even though Obama's plan would give Americans a bigger break than McCain's.

But the speech—written by one of President Bush's speechwriters—didn't tell us the truth about Sarah Palin's extremist positions. And the more that people know her far-right views, the less they support her. (There's a partial list below.)

One of the best ways to get the word out about Palin is to write a letter to the editor of your local paper. Today's a great day to write because this is very relevant—it just happened last night. Plus, our online tool makes it easy and has great tips. Please take a few minutes to write a quick letter to the editor now:
http://pol.moveon.org/lte?campaign_id=95&id=13709-10140364-Fu9Y_Hx&t=3

Palin's speech and the reaction to it also made clear why McCain picked her. It wasn't a decision about who's most qualified to serve a heart-beat away from the presidency—it was a political decision about pleasing the far-right base of the Republican party.

Writing a letter to your local paper is a great way to make sure voters understand that. The opinion pages are the most widely-read pages of the newspaper. Write today, and your letter's a lot more likely to get published because it's so topical. It'll help sway the editorial board too.

Here are a bunch of points you might want to include in your letter:

* Palin recently said that the war in Iraq is "God's task." She's even admitted she hasn't thought about the war much—just last year she was quoted saying, "I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq." 1, 2
* Palin has actively sought the support of the fringe Alaska Independence Party. Six months ago, Palin told members of the group—who advocate for a vote on secession from the union—to "keep up the good work" and "wished the party luck on what she called its 'inspiring convention.'" 3
* Palin wants to teach creationism in public schools. She hasn't made clear whether she thinks evolution is a fact.4
* Palin doesn't believe that humans contribute to global warming. Speaking about climate change, she said, "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being manmade." 5
* Palin has close ties to Big Oil. Her inauguration was even sponsored by BP. 6
* Palin is extremely anti-choice. She doesn't even support abortion in the case of rape or incest. 7
* Palin opposes comprehensive sex-ed in public schools. She's said she will only support abstinence-only approaches. 8
* As mayor, Palin tried to ban books from the library. Palin asked the library how she might go about banning books because some had inappropriate language in them—shocking the librarian, Mary Ellen Baker. According to Time, "news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor." 9
* She DID support the Bridge to Nowhere (before she opposed it). Palin claimed that she said "thanks, but no thanks" to the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. But in 2006, Palin supported the project repeatedly, saying that Alaska should take advantage of earmarks "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist." 10

The plain fact of the matter is that Sarah Palin did a bang-up job delivering a Karl Rove-style political attack speech last night. That makes her a skilled politician but it doesn't make her views any more palatable for voters. Americans don't really want another far-right, anti-science ideologue in the White House.

Please help get the word out about where Sarah Palin really stands on the issues.
http://pol.moveon.org/lte?campaign_id=95&id=13709-10140364-Fu9Y_Hx&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

–Nita, Ilyse, Wes, Karin and the rest of the team

Not only does this email give me my talking points for a letter that will hopefully "help sway the editorial board", but it's noteworthy in that after almost a week of unrelenting criticism and rumor mongering about Governor Palin, it finally gives grudging respect to Senator McCain's choice as our next Vice President. Not that the rumor mongering will end, mind you. The talking points in this email are evidence of that. But it does reveal that Democrats are beginning to understand that Palin has completely changed this race.

And they're right to be worried.

Governor Palin Was A Brilliant Choice: See, I Told You

Governor Palin Was A Brilliant Choice

Governor Sarah Palin's nomination as Senator McCain's vice president has gotten the liberal blogosphere in an uproar. The very first talking point I saw was that Gov. Palin's nomination takes away Sen. McCain's ability to use Sen. Obama's inexperience against him in the campaign. To which I say, hogwash.

First, that liberal bloggers claim this reveals that they know this is a major weakness of their candidate. The fact that Obama picked Senator Joe Biden as his running mate reveals that he knows this as well.

Second, Palin's pick in no way means that McCain can't use Obama's inexperience in the campaign. Obama's responses to the Palin nomination reveal exactly why.

This is his response immediately following the announcement:

"Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency."

Mr. Community Organizer will be sure to highlight Governor Palin's experience as a small town mayor while conveniently forgetting her other experience (you know, like being a governor), but all it does is serve to keep the inexperience topic in the headlines.

And it ensures that Obama will continue to have to field reporters' questions regarding his own inexperience. For instance, CNN asked him about his experience vs Gov. Palin's and this is what he said,

"My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We've got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year – we have a budget of about three times that just for the month,"

So Obama thinks that running a campaign for president qualifies one to be president. Ok then.

Again, all Obama's attacks on Palin do is serve to highlight the fact that the man running for president barely has the experience of the vice president he is attacking.

But does this create problems with McCain's ability to showcase Obama's inexperience to be president? The beauty of this pick is that McCain doesn't have to be the one to do it.

Let his running mate Joe Biden do it for him:



Or have Hillary Clinton do it:



Or Bill Clinton:



Or Hillary, Bill, Biden, Dodd, and even Obama himself:

Sarah Palin Was Born In Idaho

...and graduated from the University of Idaho. It's not Boise St, but it'll do.