Talkin Turkey with Sister Sarah

A low-key PR exercise has turned into another embarrassing incident for Sarah Palin as turkeys were graphically slaughtered behind her during a TV interview.

Palin was attending a media opportunity to "pardon" a turkey ahead of Thanksgiving — a tradition that sees an invited guest select one bird to be spared the dinner table.

But after "saving" one bird, the Alaskan governor then completes a short interview while a farm employee slaughters another two turkeys just metres behind her.

Lowering the animal's heads into a metal chute, the Triple D Farms worker holds them buy the feet as their throats are cut.

He repeatedly looks over and appears to nervously smile at the camera as the birds violently shake and writhe.

Palin does not acknowledge the activities behind her during the three-minute interview, but reportedly told the crew she had no problems with her graphic backdrop.

"I was happy to get to be invited to participate in this," a smiling Palin told KTUU-TV on the video.

"Certainly we'll probably invite criticism for even doing this, too, but at least this was fun."

Sarah's Media Blitz

Joe the Republican's irresponsible nomination of Governor Sarah Palin as the Vice President of the United States of America just screams a loud and cynical rebel yell of "Country First."

"Country First" indeed. After carefully viewing Mrs. Palin's current media blitz, it's absolutely scary that 57 million Americans voted for her to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency. The end of the Bush years has left the country embroiled in two-foreign wars, an economic meltdown, Republican led nationalization of the finance industry, joblessness rates rising, home values plumeting and an epic level of forclosures. With this in mind the Country Firsters voted to put Sarah Palin in the second highest office in the land.

From the Great State of Alabama that voted overwelmingly for the McCain Palin ticket, the Crimson White's article by Spencer White blasts McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate.

In his article, Mr. White asserts: "The woman [Sarah Palin] who thought Africa was a country, who stated the bailout benefited health-care reform, couldn’t name the member nations of NAFTA or a Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade and who called Columbia University and pro-Palestinian Middle Eastern professor Rashid Khalidi a terrorist was not ready to be a clerk for a senator, much less a 72 year-old cancer survivor’s heartbeat away from holding the highest office in the most powerful country in the world." Your judgment, Sen. McCain, was seriously to be questioned, as well as the true motives of a man who, according to his campaign slogan, put 'Country First.'"

$150,000+ Worth of Lipstick On A Pig

Remember the whole "lipstick on a pig" over-reaction by the McCain campaign. Well now that Sarah Palin's $150,000 designer wardrobe, hair stylists and Emmy Award make-up artist (uh, that's lipstick folks)have been revealed, now I get what all of the fuss over the phrase "lipstick on a pig" was all about. I get it now. Sarah Palin was the Wasilla Hillbilly that was getting primped and pimped for the biggest con-job ever pulled on the American people. Dang. Just think, 57 million boneheads voted for her. No wonder I'm Scared4America!

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

Rachel Maddow deconstructs Sarah Palin's Interview

GOP Death Match

This is great! I just like to microwave some popcorn and watch the GOP Death Match.

ALL of the "rumors" and "gossip" about Sarah Palin comes from WITHIN the GOP. ALL of it. The Dems and other assorted Obama supporters are just gleefully celebrating President Obama.

We KNEW from the get-go that Sarah Palin was an intellectual fly-weight, so it's not news that the GOP is confirming her lack of knowledge beyond hunting moose and field dressing caribu. Like I've said before, the GOP seems to be in love with the stupidest person in the room to represent them. "C" students from Jr. Colleges and the bottom of the class at the Naval Academy and 57 million bone heads will pull the lever for the "Republican" regardless of their qualifications.....what a bunch of losers.

Y'all overlooked Governor Bobby Jingal who is a Rhodes Scholar. For what! Caribu Barbie. You can dress her up, but you can't take her out.

If Sarah were politically savvy, which I don't doubt (notice how I said savvy, not smart....cause old girl is as dumb as a box of rocks), but she'll lobby for Ted Stevens to "retire" and take over his seat in the Senate. There she can be a pain in the a$$ to Senator McCain.

But, is she were smart (and boy isn't that a stretch), she'd forgo ANY political career and make friends with the Hollywood set to get $PAID$ with her own talk show. She'll get clothing allowances up the wazooo, free travel, 5-star hotels, limos, and all of the bling that a Wasilla Hillbilly can handle. She can garner $$$ for speaking engagements and make more money in one month than she'll EVER make as a mayor, governor, senator or vice president.

If she decides to go the Hollywood route, then she can be just a quirky and dumb as she wants to be. She could make a fortune and stay real.
Drop politics and go for the gold.

The 'Complete Fiction' of Sarah Palin

Salon Magazine's article, "Mean girl:Sarah Palin has a way of using "old boys" -- then dumping them when they become inconvenient," by David Talbot outlines Sarah Palin's rise to power in Alaska.

When Sarah Palin announced her candidacy in 1996 for incumbent Mayor John Stein seat. She vowed to overturn the city's "old boy" establishment, a different Sarah Palin emerged. "Things got very ugly," recalled Naomi Tigner, a friend of the Steins. "Sarah became very mean-spirited."

The Wasilla mayor's seat is nonpartisan, and Mayor Stein, a former city planner who had held the post for nine years, ran a businesslike campaign that stressed his experience and competency. But Palin ignited the traditionally low-key race with scorching social issues, injecting "God, guns and abortion into the race -- things that had nothing to do with being mayor of a small town," according to Tigner.

Palin's mayoral campaign rode the wave of conservative, evangelical fervor that was sweeping Alaska in the '90s. Suddenly candidates' social values, not their ability to manage the roads and sewer systems, were dominating the debate. "Sarah and I were both Republicans, but this was an entirely new slant to local politics -- much more aggressive than anything I'd ever seen," said Stein, looking back at the election that put Palin on the political map.

There was a knife-sharp, personal edge to Palin's campaign that many locals found disturbing, particularly because of the warm relationship between Palin and Stein before the race.

"I called Sarah's campaign for mayor the end of the age of innocence in Wasilla," said Carney.

Even though Palin knew that Stein is a Protestant Christian, from a Pennsylvania Dutch background, her campaign began circulating the word that she would be "Wasilla's first Christian mayor." Some of Stein's supporters interpreted this as an attempt to portray Stein as Jewish in the heavily evangelical community. Stein himself, an eminently reasonable and reflective man, thinks "they were redefining Christianity to mean born-agains."

The Palin campaign also started another vicious whisper campaign, spreading the word that Stein and his wife -- who had chosen to keep her own last name when they were married -- were not legally wed. Again, Palin knew the truth, Stein said, but chose to muddy the waters. "We actually had to produce our marriage certificate," recalled Stein, whose wife died of breast cancer in 2005 without ever reconciling with Palin.

"I had a hand in creating Sarah, but in the end she blew me out of the water," Stein said, sounding more wearily ironic than bitter. "Sarah's on a mission, she's an opportunist."

Reporter kicked at Palin rally

As reported in Salon by Thomas Schaller: The list of nasty, anger-filled antics that have taken place at John McCain, Sarah Palin or joint McCain-Palin rallies continues to grow, and this time it's another assault on the media.

Just a few days after a black cameraman was told to "sit down, boy," at a Palin rally in North Carolina, some attendee kicked a reporter in the back of the leg.

In any contest between fear and hope, apparently fear will only go down kicking and screaming -- literally, it seems.

Sarah Palin's Troopergate

Did Governor Sarah Palin abuse the power of her office in trying to get her former brother-in-law, State Trooper Mike Wooten, fired? Yes.

Was the refusal to fire Mike Wooten the reason Palin fired Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan? Not exclusively, and it was within her rights as the states' chief executive to fire him for just about any reason, even without cause.

Those answers were expected, given that most of the best pieces of evidence have been part of the public record for months. The result is not a mortal wound to Palin, nor does it put her at much risk of being forced to leave the ticket her presence succeeded in energizing.

But the Branchflower report still makes for good reading, if only because it convincingly answers a question nobody had even thought to ask: Is the Palin administration shockingly amateurish? Yes, it is. Disturbingly so.

Read the entire Time article, "What the Troopergate Report Really Says" by Nathan Thornburgh here.

Conservative Kathleen Parker

From Buckley's National Review Online, Kathleen Parker states in her article entitled, "Put the Gloves Back On: Pit bulls beware": 

 The McCain campaign knows that Obama isn’t a Muslim or a terrorist, but they’re willing to help a certain kind of voter think he is. Just the way certain South Carolinians in 2000 were allowed to think that McCain’s adopted daughter from Bangladesh was his illegitimate black child. But words can have more serious consequences than lost votes and we’ve already had a glimpse of the Palin effect.

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post reported that media representatives in Clearwater were greeted with taunts, thunder sticks and profanity. One Palin supporter shouted an epithet at an African-American soundman and said, “Sit down, boy.”

McCain may want to call off his pit bull before this war escalates.

David Brooks: Palin in a Fatal Cancer for the GOP

From Think Progress:  "Speaking at an Atlantic luncheon Monday, New York Times columnist David Brooks said Gov. Sarah Palin “represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party” because of her tendency to “scorn ideas entirely,” comparing her to President Bush":

Alaska Independence Party

Pat Buchanan stated that "the lady [Governor Palin] is no neocon. Nor is the husband Todd, First Dude of Alaska and former member of the "Alaska First" Independence Party."

According to Kate Zernike's article, "A Palin Joined Alaskan Third Party, Just Not Sarah Palin," published in the 24 September 2008 issue of the New York Times:

In the mid-1990s, the Alaskan Independence Party was experiencing a boom of sorts. A governor had been elected on its ticket in 1990, when the party was not even a decade old. And membership was swelling. 

Among the new recruits was Todd Palin, whose wife, Sarah, would later become governor of Alaska. The Palins attended the party’s convention in their hometown, Wasilla, in 1994, according to party officials, where the party called for a revote on statehood and a draft constitution for an independent Republic of Alaska. Mr. Palin joined the party. 

Ms. Palin remained a Republican and never joined the Alaskan Independence Party, but returned to its convention in 2006 to speak as candidate for governor. After she had been elected, she recorded a video greeting that was played at the party convention this year. “Good luck on a successful and inspiring convention,” she said. “Keep up the good work, and God bless you.”

Now that she is the Republican nominee for vice president — for a campaign whose motto is “Country first” — the couple’s interaction with the Alaskan Independence Party has gotten attention because of its reputation as a secessionist group. 

Alaskan Independence Party officials released a statement Monday saying that Ms. Palin had been a member for two years, from 1994 to 1996, information included in reports in The New York Times and other news outlets. In Internet videos of recent party meetings, other party officials can be seen boasting of Ms. Palin’s past membership....

Ms. Clark added that while the review confirmed Todd Palin as a member, it did not indicate that Ms. Palin had been one.

VP Debate: Palin Vomits Talking Points

From Newsweek: "Palin's plan was simple: deliver your talking points and pivot to an attack on Barack Obama--regardless of what moderator Gwen Ifill asks. The results of this strategy were mixed. For one thing, Palin's repeated attempts to bait Biden into making one of his famous "gaffes" or saying something "condescending"--she repeatedly sought to provoke his ire by pointing out issues (i.e., Iraq war funding, experience) on which he and Obama had parted ways in the past--did not succeed."...

"The problem for Palin, however, was that she often seemed to run out of talking points--at which point her answers would disintegrate into the confusing "blizzards of words" that Charlie Gibson recently endured. Asked about the causes of climate change, for example, the Alaskan seemed unable to muster an intelligible response"

From Gather.com: "If Sarah Palin was "being herself" then she must have spent her life repeating John McCain's talking points. Other than the periods when she simply yammered on unintelligibly, the Alaskan governor was able to repeat the embarrassingly obviously rehearsed McCain campaign talking points verbatim. And I thought if she said "there" one more time my head would explode. I guess that's her idea of charming."

"This debate was like watching the professor debate the student. Joe Biden brought his extensive resume to the table and it showed. Palin added nothing but regurgitated Campaign talking points, cutesy hockey mom remarks, and unrelated anecdotes that were barren of specifics on policy or proposals."

From Politico: " She looked like she was trying to get people to take her seriously. He looked like he was running for vice president. His answers were more responsive to the questions, far more detailed and less rhetorical. "

"On at least ten occasions, Palin gave answers that were nonspecific, completely generic, pivoted away from the question at hand, or simply ignored it: on global warming, an Iraq exit strategy, Iran and Pakistan, Iranian diplomacy, Israel-Palestine (and a follow-up), the nuclear trigger, interventionism, Cheney's vice presidency and her own greatest weakness."

SNL's Take on the Couric/Palin Interview

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

Kathleen Parker from the National Review Online (NRO) wrote an interesting analysis of the Sarah Palin interview by CBS's Katie Couric. As you know, NRO is the late Bill Buckley's uber-conservative symposium. In her NRO article, "Palin Problem," Kathleen Parker dismantled the legitimacy of Governor Palin (or Chief Executive Palin of the Alaskan Empire). Midway through the article Ms. Parker states:

As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.

...Finally, Palin’s narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire.

When Palin first emerged as John McCain’s running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood — a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother...

...Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been
pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly.
I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious
parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”

When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama’s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: “I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?”

Kathleen Parker's article is a must read! Continue reading the entire article entitled "Palin Problem" here.

Palin Propaganda Edward Bernays-style

Governor Sarah Palin is to American women's freedoms and liberties, what breaking the gender taboo on cigarette and tobacco usage to women's health. Equally as deadly and deathly marketed. In the sweet name of Jesus during the Easter Parade commemorating the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, Edward Bernays persuaded women to smoke. George Hill, the president of the American Tobacco Company, to gain half of the market share to sell cigarette smoking to women. Much like the Republican Party's selling of Sarah Palin, the myth and the narrative. She gets women excited and gins up support amongst the Republican base. Beware, Mrs. Palin is just as toxic and deadly as the cigarettes that the manufacturers sold American women for decades. They dressed-up tobacco in a pretty package with lipstick and pretty face. Behind the facade, however, lies the biggest health risk of tobacco addiction and the loss of millions of women's lives, slowly over time. It's all about packaging and marketing, substance and consequences be dammed.

Edward Bernays even called cigarettes as "torches of freedom" for women. They symbolized little penises and now with smoking, women could control and have their own. This image and symbolism sold to women for years, Virginia Slims devised a cleaver campaign to coincide with the Women's Movement by saying "You've got Virginia Slims now baby, you've come a long long way." They even used vintage photos of oppressed women juxtaposed with glamorous models.

Unfortunately, American women are gullible and will fall for this marketing prestidigitation..........and poof! Up pops Sarah Palin, moose hunter and hockey mom. Like the debutantes that Bernays brazenly displayed smoking cigarettes, Palin supports teenage pregnancy, no time off with a special needs infant, no health care for mothers and infants......Sarah Palin is against EVERYTHING that the Women's Movement worked so hard for.

According to Noam Chomsky, Edward Bernays was one of the early founders, gurus, of the public relations industry...It was understood, both in Britain and the U.S., that people have won too much freedom for the state to repress them by violence, and therefore, both in Britain and the U.S., the two most democratic countries, there was a growth of the public relations industry, to try to control attitudes and beliefs, since you can’t control people by force. And Bernays was a leading figure.

Bernays' first great achievement: A public relations campaign trying to get women to smoke. So he had models walking down Fifth Avenue smoking cigarettes and showing how it makes you beautiful and slim. We can’t estimate how many tens of millions of people he managed to kill by that, but a substantial number. And that put him on the map.

From Smokey Imagery and the 7 Deadly Myths by Liz Jones: For as long as any of us can remember, the deep-pocketed tobacco industry has bought and sold the imagery of cigarette smoking. Image one: the independent, tough, leather-skinned cowboy. Image two: the thin, liberated woman enjoying an active, love-filled life. In fact, the tobacco and public relations industries have been instrumental in defining how females perceive smoking and how society perceives women who smoke.

The 1929 Easter Parade in New York City marked a magnificent triumph for the tobacco industry in its ability to manipulate women and foster their addiction to a deadly habit. Promoted as a publicity stunt for "female emancipation" in these post-suffrage days, the parade featured a contingent of New York debutantes marching down Fifth Avenue while openly lighting and smoking cigarettes. It was the first time most Americans had witnessed any woman who wasn't a prostitute smoking in public.

What the bold debutantes didn't know was that their expression of "freedom and equality" was orchestrated by George Washington Hill of American Tobacco and Edward L. Bernays, public relations mastermind and nephew of Sigmund Freud. In addition to boosting sales for American Tobacco's Lucky Strikes, the demonstration succeeded in breaking the taboo of women's smoking.

Often cited as one of the most ingenious and effective PR stunts of all time, the parade is viewed by some as a coup that launched a distinctly new American industry and further reinforced the deceptive power of PR flackery.

Palingate

"Team McCain and the Trooper: Nominee's ally moves to curb probe of Palin"

by: Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball

Key Alaska allies of John McCain are trying to derail a politically charged investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of her public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called "October surprise" that would produce embarrassing information about the vice presidential candidate on the eve of the election.


In a move endorsed by the McCain campaign Friday, John Coghill, the GOP chairman of the state House Rules Committee, wrote a letter seeking a meeting of Alaska's bipartisan Legislative Council in order to remove the Democratic state senator in charge of the so-called "troopergate" investigation.


Coghill charged that the senator, Hollis French, had "politicized" the probe by making a number of public comments in recent days, including telling ABC News that Palin had a "credibility problem" and that the investigation into the firing of public safety commissioner Walter


Monegan was "likely to be damaging to the administration" and could be an "October surprise." Wrote Coghill: "The investigation appears to be lacking in fairness, neutrality and due process."
The investigation, authorized by the Legislative Council last July, revolves around charges that Palin abused her power by embroiling the governor's office in a bitter family feud involving her ex-brother in law, a state trooper named Mike Wooten. Specifically, the council is investigating whether Palin fired Monegan when he refused to dismiss Wooten (who at the time was involved in an ugly custody battle with Palin's sister) after getting repeated complaints about him from the governor and her husband, Todd Palin. (Among the allegations that were raised against Wooten by Palin's sister: he had Tasered his ten-year-old stepson and shot a moose without a permit.) Palin has denied wrongdoing; Monegan has said he believes his firing was connected to his refusal to fire Wooten.


Read the entire article by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball in Newsweek.

John McCain says the Economy is Fundamentally Strong

Is John McCain stupid? Perhaps graduating at the extreme bottom of the Naval Academy 894/899 is an indication of Mr. McCain's intellectual ability. McCain's dismal academic record could be held against Obama's tippity top of his class at Harvard. Obama graduated magna cum laude, which for those who are Latin challenged, this is number 1 in his Harvard Law School class. Senator Obama made straight A's all day every day in Law School, while Senator McCain managed to graduate fifth from the bottom of his class. As for Sarah Palin's transcripts and grades from her Jr. College in Idaho, complete silence. If she even had one A on her transcript, the GOP would be touting her intellectual abilities. It's just moose hunting and PTA hockey momming, not one word about Mrs. Palin's intellectual abilities. In a word, Republicans are stupid. Need proof? Look at their academic transcripts.

When Fascism Comes to America, it will be Wrapped in a Flag and Carrying a Cross

Sinclair Lewis declared, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." Republican fascism is alive an well on Wall Street as the feds continue to reward their corporate cronies with tax-funded bailouts. Republican fascism got new life from the GOP Vice Presidential nominee, Governor Sarah Palin. McCain took the Republican mantle of a socialized financial markets and wrapped his candidacy behind the flag skirt of his bible toting, gun slinging, moose killing, self-proclaimed hockey mom.

As editorialized in the India Daily article by Pijush Lodh:

Hillary Clinton showed for the first time that blatant racism could bring White House within reach of anyone. Republicans learnt and acted fast with their version of Hillary – the Sarah Palin phenomenon.

Sarah Palin is attracting the racists of America who favors color of skin above reality, the bible over common sense, and fascism over the root cause of financial trouble for common Americans.
American democracy faces its biggest challenge. The seeds of a second civil war and perhaps outright secession are in place with racism and nepotism taking center stage of anything.

No democracy can survive without participation of people who understand the best for themselves. America is failing in its biggest challenge – it is a crumbling democracy.

One thing is good – if McCain-Palin ticket wins, they will face the consequence of eight years of totally failed policies of the Republicans. The bad thing is that the Supreme Court will be restructured to protect the racism and Christian right wing agenda for a long time.

Who is responsible for this? Yes, you got it. It is the rural American population that just cannot get over the racism and Christian rights.

Perhaps a much more financial meltdown, perhaps $20 gas price, skyrocketing food prices, and a total collapse is real estate with massive foreclosures will teach Americans a lesson on the after effects of racism.

We have seen this before. Nazi Germany crumbled into ground when Germans chose racism and fascism over common sense. We will see it again in America. The problem lies in the fact not all Germans were racists, not all American have lost common sense, but we all will suffer together as this great super power crumbles into ground because of ignorance and arrogance.

Media Whore Watch

John Fund is an obnoxious media whore. Watch this clip from Bill Maher's Real Time. Bill Maher can't even get John Fund to take off his partisan hat to even see how absurd this Palin schtick really is. Everytime Bill Maher says something that resembles the truth, Fund calls it sexist, elitist or something similar. Fund keeps telling Maher to watch your words. What a joke.

Sarah Palin Not Ready for Prime Time

New York Times columnist, Bob Herbert writes "She's Not Ready." Mr. Hebert opens this piece with "While watching the Sarah Palin interview with Charlie Gibson Thursday night, and the coverage of the Palin phenomenon in general, I’ve gotten the scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is not just on the march in the U.S., but that it might actually prevail."

Although Mr. Herbert didn't state it, Mrs. Palin graduated with a BA in journalism from a university in Idaho. After she attended 5 colleges in 6 years to complete a 4 year degree. Mr. McCain graduated at the bottom of his class 894/899 at the Naval Academy. Compared with Mr. Obama who graduated at the top of his class, magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and Mr. Biden who earned a Jurist Doctorate. We live in serious times, and the Republicans are wallowing like a fool in his folly seeming wise in his own eyes. Woe to the USA if Mrs. Palin and Mr. McCain are elected.

As Mr. Herbert points out "The economy is in a tailspin. The financial sector is lurching about on rubbery legs. We’re mired in self-defeating energy policies. We’re at war. And we are still vulnerable to the very real threat of international terrorism."

"With all of that and more being the case, how can it be a good idea to set in motion the possibility that Americans might wake up one morning to find that Sarah Palin is president?
I feel for Ms. Palin’s son who has been shipped off to the war in Iraq. But at his deployment ceremony, which was on the same day as the Charlie Gibson interview, Sept. 11, she told the audience of soldiers that they would be fighting “the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.”

Read the entire Bob Herbert Column here.