Archive for August, 2008
August 30th, 2008
Hurricane Gustav, a Category 4 storm at this writing, is prompting massive evacuations along the Gulf Coast in anticipation of landfall by Monday.
Officials in areas likely to be impacted by the storm say they’re much better prepared than was the case when Hurricane Katrina hit the coast in 2005.
Meanwhile, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain SAID Gustav might prompt postponement of the GOP convention scheduled to begin Monday in St. Paul, Minn.
August 30th, 2008
Politics can be an ugly business, as most candidates for high office will attest — and as Sarah Palin soon will discover, if she hasn’t already.
I’ve wrestled with myself over whether to publish this post and reluctantly have decided that I should. The gist is that there’s a lot of ugly buzz about Palin’s personal life flying around, and I want no part of it.
In my posts of the past 24 hours, I’ve endeavored to confine my criticisms of Palin to political matters. My comments have been sharp, but none of those barbs have had anything to do with the personal lives of the governor or her family. As far as I can tell, they’re lovely people, even if I sharply disagree with Palin’s political views.
I understand that by merely raising this issue I might somehow encourage readers to go hunting for rumors about Palin that go beyond her political record. That’s not my intent, but I also recognize that the nasty scuttlebutt eventually will gain wide circulation. We’re a nation of gossips. But I want to pre-emptively warn against giving any credence to scandalous rumors that have not been fully documented.
I won’t traffic in unproven allegations about personal lives, and I’ll delete any comments from readers who aren’t so particular.
Sarah Palin doesn’t deserve to endure the kind of crap that’s been thrown at Barack Obama over the past year or so. If something unflattering, but provable,  about her political career arises, that’s fair game. Everything else should be out of bounds — and it will be on this blog.Â
August 30th, 2008
Here’s a recording of Sarah Palin giggling like a schoolgirl as a radio talk-show host refers to Alaska State Senate President Lyda Green as “a cancer” and “a bitch.” (Incidentally, Green is a cancer surivor.)
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August 30th, 2008
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August 30th, 2008
 
It’s that time of year again when I’m obliged to register my annual complaint about one of my greatest pet peeves — namely the odd penchant among people associated with the gridiron culture to use the word “football” seemingly six times in every sentence.
I’ve been beefing about this for years now, and a search of the Internet shows that I’m not the only person annoyed by it. But the problem persists. Broadcasters, coaches, players and others involved in the sport have to remind themselves every few seconds that the game is called “football.” Consequently, any reference to a player becomes “football player”; a team is a “football team”; a field is a “football field”; and so on.
The next time you watch or listen to a football telecast or broadcast, listen for the ridiculous overuse of the word “football.” Once you notice, it’ll drive you nuts after a while.
When this odd compulsion is combined with the overall stupidity of what some jock types have to say, you sometimes get inane utterances like the one Mike Ditka delivered a few years ago in reference to a certain athlete: “This guy is a football player. He comes to play football ‘cause that’s what he is, a football player.”
I’m sure Ditka thought his observation was profound.
This habit of overusing the term “football” is no doubt involuntary. It likely arises from some subconscious sense that frequent use of the word conveys an especially keen grasp of the sport’s traditions and true meaning; it separates the men from the boys, the insiders from the outsiders. There’s almost an inherent machismo to the word. Football! It suggests kicking something or somebody.
This strange, repetitive linguistic phenomenon is equally common at the professional and college levels; it’s even infected the prep world. In the pro game, however, it has a curious comcomitant: You don’t often hear broadcasters, coaches or players refer to “the NFL” in their unscripted patter. No, no, no. The initials won’t suffice. It has to be “the National Football League.” I mean, how weird is that?
Baseball has no parallel to this nonsense. Baseball people can discuss their sport at length without using the word more than once or twice, if at all. I like to think that’s because baseball people are more intelligent, which is why the game has inspired more good literature and poetry than has football.
(Yeah, yeah, I know. I used the word “baseball” three times in that preceding paragraph, but only for sake of comparison. Listen to a radio account of a baseball game sometime, and three or four innings can pass without any mention of the sport’s name.)
August 29th, 2008
 
When President Bush chose White House attorney Harriet Miers for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court a few years ago, the nomination was quickly laughed into withdrawal.
Miers, who by all accounts is a fine person, was rightly seen as a mediocrity who lacked any serious qualifications for so important a job.
John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his party’s nominee for the vice-presidency of the United States is even more laughable.
Republicans like to characterize Barack Obama as too inexperienced to serve as the nation’s chief executive. But the Democratic nominee has a veritable wealth of experience compared with Palin.
Never mind Palin’s extreme right-wing views. Let’s just consider her lack of readiness for the post McCain wants her to fill, no matter her ideology.
Here’s a woman who took office only 635 days ago as governor of a state with a population roughly equal to that of Austin, Tex. Before that, she was mayor of a town with a populace less than one-third as large as that of the Rockford suburb of Loves Park. Before that, she was on the City Council.
That’s it. That’s the whole of Sarah Palin’s political resume.
This is the person who would serve as vice president to a man who would be 76 years old at the end of his first term, if he lasted that long. (God forbid that he wouldn’t last, especially with Palin waiting in the wings.)
Until recent days and weeks, Palin was unknown to virtually every major political player in this country, not to mention other countries. If she’s ever even traveled abroad, I can find no record of it. If she’s ever traveled much in America, I’ve yet to read any mention of it. She has no record suggesting that she has anything approaching a sophisticated grasp of the sometimes arcane issues of federal governance.
In short, despite her decidedly conservative opinions on certain matters, Sarah Palin is an empty pantsuit.
She might be a fine mother, a wonderful wife, a woman of great energy and determination and a popular governor.  The news that she likes mooseburgers and is an outdoorswoman, a former beauty queen and the wife of a blue-collar worker might enhance her appeal to some voters. The fact that she’s a woman might make her an important symbol in some people’s minds. But where’s the evidence that she’s even remotely qualified to be vice president?
I think this choice is a desperate gimmick that will blow up in John McCain’s face and doom whatever chance he had to be elected president.
If I’m proven wrong, I’m sure some of you will be more than glad to point it out in highly disparaging terms. That’s OK.
POSTSCRIPT: I wonder what Karl Rove thinks of McCain’s veep choice.
A couple of weeks ago, Rove had a few pointed remarks about the possibility that Obama would pick Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine as his running mate. Kaine also is the former mayor of Richmond, Va.
Here’s what Rove said:
“With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he’s been a governor for three years, he’s been able but undistinguished. I don’t think people could really name a big, important thing that he’s done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America. And again, with all due respect to Richmond, Virginia, it’s smaller than Chula Vista, California; Aurora, Colorado; Mesa or Gilbert, Arizona; north Las Vegas or Henderson, Nevada. It’s not a big town. So if he were to pick Governor Kaine, it would be an intensely political choice where he said, `You know what? I’m really not, first and foremost, concerned with, is this person capable of being president of the United States?’”
Hmmm. How does Sarah Palin stack up against Tim Kaine in terms of qualifications?
UPDATE: Palin has, in fact, traveled abroad. Last summer, she visited Alaska National Guard troops in Kuwait. The passport she obtained for the trip apparently was her first.Â
August 29th, 2008
Â
The plain truth: The dude is a celebrity, as we see HERE and HERE.
August 29th, 2008
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August 29th, 2008
I’m not the first observer to suggest that the respective gaming choices of Barack Obama and John McCain bespeak their personalities and political styles.
McCain likes to shoot craps, which is almost entirely a game of luck. Obama prefers poker, where skill is a more important factor.
This difference, it seems to me, is reflected in the choices of running mates made by McCain and Obama.
The Democratic nominee went with a calculated — and safe — choice, Joe Biden, who brings experience to the table. The Republican nominee has rolled the dice with the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a politician of comparatively sparse experience (none at the federal level) but presumably a lot of charm.
The choice of Palin suggests a degree of desperation on McCain’s part. If he thought his chances of winning were pretty good, he would have gone a safer route by picking a Republican with federal experience to go along with conservative bona fides.
If McCain thinks the Palin choice will be a game-changer and will attract a lot of disgruntled Hillary Clinton Democrats, I expect that he’s going to be disappointed. But then, perhaps he had no other option. Perhaps his only hope was to roll the dice.
UPDATE: One of the geniuses at Fox News says Palin does, in fact, have foreign-policy experience because — get ready — her state is near Russia:
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August 29th, 2008
Just askin’, especially in light of THIS, which isn’t likely to win over many independent voters.
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