As always, we start in the Great White North — even though Gov. Palin has largely abdicated her state government to the McCain campaign. And nothing is greater, or whiter, than ANWR, long a target by Big Oil (and Sarah Palin). Though McCain has long opposed ANWR drilling (though he’s okay with offshore drilling), it’s not clear to me how long we can expect him to continue in that stand.
Palin’s e-mail woes continue to reverberate back; review of what’s been revealed (of actual state business issues) shows confirms that the main reason that they were using yahoo.com accounts for state business was to (duh) avoid easy oversight via state records laws. Concerns over whether Yahoo provided adequate security never seems to have occurred to anyone. Nifty!
And, of course, there’s Troopergate, which, from what came out from the few folks who actually, you know, complied with the legislature’s subpoenas, that not only were there questions of improper firing of staff, but of pressure to deny rightful workmen’s comp claims. Nice compassionate conservatism, Sarah! Of course that goes along with the rape kit scandal (which seem now to have been a matter of both “cost cutting” and shunning offering emergency contraception).
And in minor Palin news, we continue to get confirmation that Palin, though she tried to cut her pay as mayor still ended up bringing home a bigger check than when she started. And we continue to be told that Palin has oodles and oodles of foreign policy experience … “metaphorically.” But we needn’t worry, because Palin is just plain folks — which, for some odd reason, seems to be just what the electorate wants.
Finally, for those who think I have nothing but ill to say about Palin … I present this cartoon. I disagree with those who are calling it “despicable” — in fact, I think it’s darned funny (but, then, I laugh at jokes about my own religious practices, too). That said, it’s also a cheap shot. Palin’s belief in Pentecostal speaking in tongues is of no more interested or effect upon me than if Obama thinks Friends is the greatest TV show of all time (it’s not). Only to the extent that it affects how they would govern is it germane to the conversation.
We start off McCain news with some less than commentary — an anecdote about how skin-deep his fabled “reaching across the aisle” was in Arizona, and about how his campaign (well, maybe we’ll just say the GOP in general) is engaging in still more entertaining dirty tricks around voter registration. Of course, that’s part and parcel of the Republican party’s MO, which is why they essentially indemnified the St Paul police from civil suits, which let them bust heads and “apprehend hippie journalists” at the RNC, who have now all been released with charges dropped. Great fighting for the Bill of Rights, guys!
In more beefy news, McCain promises up and down and back and forth that, despite his vow to keep cutting taxes and all the public debt the $700 Billion to Nowhere is going to rack up, he can still balance the budget by cutting … what? Oh, fiddle-dee-dee — his trusted advisors, mavericks all will figure that little detail out.
In the meantime, we wait with bated breath to find out if all of McCain’s anti-little-brown-immigrant allies will sit by quietly as he pledges amnesty for 50,000 illegal Irish immigrants. That, of course, is different, as the Irish have always been welcomed to this country with open arms and acknowledgment of their hard-working nature and ability to blend in with the mainstream.
Not much, admittedly, on the Obama/Biden front. He gave a nice speech about the crisis on Wall Street, with a whole series of recommendations about solutions that, almost magically, were nowhere to be seen in what the Bush Administration has actually proposed (“Blank Check!”). He continues to pick up support as the real “straight talk” candidate in the election.
Alas, just to show that I’m not an utter dittohead, I note with continued disappointment that in his “Faith, Family, Values Tour” that Obama is including a few faithful that I disagree with.
And so it goes.