Fan Gives Palin Appropriate Gift

This from KDKA 2 News:

"A Latrobe man is hoping his invention will bring Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin good luck in the upcoming election. Frank Moff says he invented the "Bobber with a Brain" for fishermen several years ago. Moff says he's hoping it will bring the Republicans luck in the upcoming election. He says he met Jerome Bettis at Sharky's Bar in Latrobe one night during Steelers training camp and gave him a bobber for good luck in the upcoming season. That's the year he says the Steelers ended up winning the Super Bowl. So Moff said whe he heard that Gov. Palin enjoys the great outdoors, he decided to send her one. A few weeks later, Moff says he got a call from Palin's husband, Alaska's "First Dude," Todd, thanking him for the gesture. Moff tells KDKA that during their conversation "The First Dude" said he would try the bobber when he returns to Alaska."

I can't think of a person more in need of a gift that comes "with a brain." However, Mr. Moff would have helped the Republicans even more if he could have given John McCain a "Vice Presidential Candidate with a Brain."

Joke of the Day: Palin Touted As 2012 Candidate

Yahoo has a story with a headline that asks "Is Sarah Palin preparing for 2012?" My first reaction was "If she's trying to build credibility for a presidential run, acting like an idiot is a funny way of doing that."

However, apparently a Palin run sounds like a great idea to some. Yahoo reports: Sarah Palin “has absolutely earned a right to run in 2012,” says Greg Mueller, who was a senior aide in the presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes. Mueller says Palin has given conservatives “hope” and “something to believe in.”

Is this Greg Mueller guy serious? Anyone who thinks Palin has earned the right to run in 2012 is either an idiot or a person who has never seen her interviewed on television. Mr. Mueller's enthusiasm for Palin had me puzzled and confused. To the extent McCain is fading in the polls, it seems that Palin is the one who is dragging him down. Out of the four candidates (McCain, Obama, Biden and Palin), Palin is the only one with a negative approval rating. Even Republicans are saying she was a bad choice.

And then I realized that Greg Mueller was a senior aide to the presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes. Steve Forbes? The only skill that dude seems to have is how to work as a senior advisor for the biggest loser running for president. Using that criteria, Mueller's pick of Palin seems quite appropriate.

Finding Something For Palin To Do Isn't Easy

According to CNN, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin vowed on Tuesday to use her executive experience to tackle government reform and energy independence if she and Sen. John McCain win this year's presidential election.

If there is a worse person to put in charge of those positions, let me know.

Energy Independence

Palin said she and McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, discussed the possibility of her working on the issue of energy independence if she becomes vice president. "That's been my forte as the governor of an energy producing state and as a former chair of the, of the energy regulator -- entity up there in Alaska," she said.

Maybe I'm just stupid, but why would we turn to the Governor of the a state that has a SURPLUS of oil to shape our energy policy? She's the one person who has absolutely no experience with the energy crisis. What incentive does Alaska have to conserve energy or use alternative energy sources? If we stop using oil, Alaksa loses its cash cow. Shouldn't we pick someone from a state that has no oil? Now that would be someone who could tell us how to be energy independent.

Putting Palin in charge of energy is like putting Kenneth Lay and Enron in charge of corporate regulation.

Government Reform

Let me get this straight. Palin charges Alaska to live at home, abused her power in Troopergate mess, and looked into banning books at a library, and McCain is going to put her in charge of fixing government?

To top it off, the Associated Press reports that Palin charged Alaska "for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business." The AP reports:

"The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel. In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters' 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls."

Charging Alaska for her children's travel to events they weren't even invited to is bad enough. But Palin compounded her bad judgment when she ordered the records to be altered: "On Aug. 6 ... after Alaska reporters asked for the records, Palin ordered changes to previously filed expense reports for her daughters' travel."

Putting Palin in charge of reforming government is like putting Tom Noe in charge of ethics.

Sarah Palin: Friend Of The Common Man II

Our first indication that Sarah Palin might not be your average ‘hockey mom’ was her designer glasses imported from Japan that cost more than $600. But now we come to learn from CNN that the Republican National Committee spent more than $150,000 on clothes, hair and make-up for Sarah Palin on the campaign trail. Source: CNN http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/22/campbell.brown.looks/index.html

$150,000 for clothes, hair and make-up? Are you kidding me? That’s more than Joe the Plumber makes in an entire year. Now, to be fair, the RNC is paying for this ‘extreme makeover’ so the taxpayers aren’t getting directly hosed this time. But it should still concern us on many levels.

First, Palin claims to be a regular old hockey mom. How many hockey moms could blow $150,000 on clothes, hair, and makeup in such a short time? How many would even want to, when they had ice rink time, skates, and gas to pay for?

Second, this is clearly money that was flushed down the toilet. If she was ugly and poorly dressed before she became the nominee, one could argue that these were necessary expenses. Think Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries. But here’s the problem: Palin was pretty hot before. She’s pretty hot now. Nothing much has changed. I don’t think anyone has said: “Wow, she’s sure cleaned up since the convention. Kinda reminds me of those movies where the cool guy dares his buddy to date the ugliest girl in school, but then she takes off her glasses and she’s hot!” If she’s willing to blow $150,000 on something so trivial as her appearance I would at least hope she’d get a noticeable improvement for her investment. If she can spend $150,000 without making any improvement, can she really be trusted with our nation’s budget?

Finally, even though the GOP is footing the bill for the clothes, the American taxpayers are still getting a raw deal. If someone gave you $150,000 in clothes, makeup, and hair care you would have to pay taxes on that. But Palin is no average person. She’s come up with the brilliant argument that the clothes aren’t hers – they are the Republican National Committee’s clothes! As a result, she refuses to pay income taxes on those clothes. Does this mean after the election, the clothes will be circulated around the GOP for people to wear? Is Rudy Guiliani wearing one of Palin’s old blouses while he makes those robocalls? Can we expect to see Mitt Romney in a red leather jacket? What about Mike Huckabee in a skirt? If I were someone who has been questioned about my ethics in scandals ranging from Troopergate, to charging Alaska for my children to hang out in New York, to charging Alaska for travel expenses when I was staying at home, I’d go out of my way to pay the taxes on the nifty duds I was given, even if I could come up with a reason not to. After all, if you are going to claim you are one of us, you should pay the same taxes that we do.

Palin Unveils Worst Nickname Ever

Taking “Joe the Plumber” wordplay to an unprecedented new level of stupidity, Sarah Palin on Monday dubbed Barack Obama “Barack the Wealth Spender” for his plan to offer tax credits to lower and middle-income wage earners during a speech in Grand Junction, Colorado. That's just lame.

"Barack the wealth spender doesn't even makes sense. "Wealth Spender" isn't a job, making it a pretty weak wordplay. And for that matter, isn't a "wealth spender" anyone who buys something? Aren't we all spending our wealth every day? What would be the opposite of "wealth spender"... poverty spender?

Here are top five ten potential "Joe the plumber" nicknames for Palin:
1. Sarah the Russia Watcher
2. Sarah the Governor Who Abused Her Power During "Troopergate"
3. Sarah the Librarian (because she reads every magazine and newspaper, and tried to ban books when she was mayor)
4. Sarah the Hate Mongering Smear Campaigner
5. Sarah the Person Just Like Tina Fey, Only Dumber

Hey Cities, You Suck!

If you see where you live on this map, you aren't an American.

After a short period in which Palin uncharacteristically refrained from saying something stupid, she made up for her absence is spades, somehow managing to insult every city in America in one fell swoop. Here's the text of what she said during a fundraiser in Greensboro, North Carolina (Source: CNN):

"We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation," she said. "This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans," Palin added.

Finally, someone had the courage to hold up a mirror to the American People's face, and what they saw was a lazy, unpatriotic, mean, and cowardly person who lived in a city (unless they happened to be one of the lucky few who lived in one of those wonderful little pockets of real America, in which case they saw an awesome person). Rather than getting mad at Palin, people in cities should look inward at what is wrong with them. Palin's speech serves as a wake up call to the city dwelling scum who have been dragging down the wonderful little pockets pro-American patriots: You can complain about Sarah Palin all you want, but it won't make you any more of an American until you change your unpatriotic, cowardly ways and start reminding Sarah Palin of home by wearing steel toed boots and an NRA hat.

Note: If you haven't undergone this journey of self-discovery yet, I suggest you use this website to look up where you live. If you live in a city, you suck. If you live in a town, village, or 'place' you are cool.

The next day, Palin clarified her comments: "It's all pro-America. I was just reinforcing the fact that there, where I was, there's good patriotic people there in these rallies, so excited about positive change and reform of government that's coming that they are so appreciative of hearing our message, hearing our plan. Not any one area of America is more pro-America patriotically than others."

I wish she would have told me that before I went out and bought a pair of steel toed boots and joined the National Realtors' Association.

News Flash: Palin Praises McCain's Performance In Debate

CNN posted a story with the headline "Palin Praises McCain's Performance In Debate." Is anyone surprised by that? Isn't that the job of the running mate? Even though only 31% of people polled thought McCain won, you'd hope one of those 31% would be Palin. Since when is it news when a running mate says something good about the nominee?

That said, the article did have some redeeming value. While speaking in Banghor, Maine, Palin had these nice words to say about her crowd:

“I feel like I am at home because I see the Carhartts and the steel-toed boots,” she said, standing next to Maine’s senior senator Olympia Snowe. “And I see mixed in there with the suits and the ties, the NRA hats and all those good things that remind me of home.”

Maybe it is just me, but people wearing "the Carhartts and the steel-toed boots" or "the suits and the ties" doesn't really evoke 'home' to me. Now, I recognize I am not from Alaska, but where I come from people wearing suits and ties reminds me of work. And, if I am not mistaken, folks wear steel-toed boots and Carhartts to work and then take them off when they get home.

But maybe she meant home in the broader sense. But that leads to another question: why should work clothes and NRA hats remind Palin of Alaska? It's not like Alaska has cornered the market on those things. They are fairly common across the lower 48 states as well. And it isn't like those are iconic Alaskan images. I'm guessing NRA hats and Carhartts don't even make the top 10 list of things people think about when they think of Alaska. It's like saying "seeing all these cars here reminds me of my home, Chicago ... because it has cars."

We should give her some credit. At least she said something nice about her fans this time. In Richmond, she mistook her fans for hecklers. When the fans started chanting 'louder, louder' because they couldn't hear, she stopped speaking and chastised them, saying ""I hope those protesters have the courage and honor to give veterans thanks for their right to protest." If this is how she regards her supporters, one can only wonder what she'll do when she comes across someone who doesn't agree with her. Maybe that's why she's been ducking interviews from the major media outlets.

Sarah Palin's Strange Use Of The Phrase "Palling Around"

On Saturday October 4th, Sarah Palin opened up a new line of attack against Barack Obama at a rally, claiming Barack Obama is "someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." Source, CNN: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/05/fact-check-is-obama-palling-around-with-terrorists/#more-22716

CNN checked the facts, and determined that this claim was false. One could point out that making such a false claim indicates that Palin is a liar. And they would be right. But Palin's speech reveals an even greater problem - it shows she's kinda stupid. Here is a candidate for Vice President who doesn't really know how to use the English language.

First, she says Obama is palling around with "terrorists." Her attack is clearly referring to William Ayers. By my count, that is one guy. But Palin used the plural 'terrorists.' That would indicate there was more than one terrorist that was targeting his own country that Obama was palling around with. But even the attack ads indicate they are only talking about Ayers. I know she's supposed to be folksy, but even idiots don't use plural words when they are referring to the singular.

Ok, so Palin can't count very well. So what? Is anyone that shocked that a woman who can't name a single magazine or newspaper that she has read isn't good at math? But Palin also doesn't seem to understand the phrase 'palling around.' When I think of palling around, I think about hangin' with my buddy, watching a football game, playing playstation, or maybe taking part in a book club. Well, probably not taking part in a book club, but you get the point.

So, what did Obama do with this Ayers dude? According to CNN factcheckers, "Ayers and Obama worked with the non-profit Chicago Annenberg Challenge on a huge school improvement project." That doesn't sound like fun at all. It sounds like work - the big clue is he was working with a non-profit, not "having a blast, chillin' with the non-profit." That, and frankly, school improvement projects don't really sound fun.

They also "both were board members on the Woods Fund, a charitable foundation that gave money to various causes." I'm guessing the Woods Fund puts the bored in board. Even Carrot Top couldn't make serving on a board interesting, as anyone who has seen his film "Chairman of the Board" will attest. As the poster indicates "work sucks." If being on a board was something people did to pal around, the poster would have said "Chairman of the Board: Work is Awesome!"

Since when is doing work with someone considered palling around? By Palin's definition of 'palling around' I've palled around with all of my coworkers, even the creepy ones I try to avoid at all costs because he smells like cat urine and I think he may be a serial killer. And that's just not cool, because on the off chance that I ever run for something, I'd hate to have to respond to an ad that said I "palled around with a serial killer who smelled like cat urine."

Palin Was Right About General McClellan

Although Sarah Palin did an admirable job of avoiding answering any questions during Thursday night's Vice Presidential Debate, her response to a question on Afghanistan has been much maligned. However, if you look at the transcript of what she actually said, you'll see that she was actually quite accurate:

Palin: "Well, first, McClellan did not say definitively the surge principles would not work in Afghanistan. Certainly, accounting for different conditions in that different country and conditions are certainly different. We have NATO allies helping us for one and even the geographic differences are huge but the counterinsurgency principles could work in Afghanistan. McClellan didn't say anything opposite of that. The counterinsurgency strategy going into Afghanistan, clearing, holding, rebuilding, the civil society and the infrastructure can work in Afghanistan. And those leaders who are over there, who have also been advising George Bush on this have not said anything different but that." Source: CNN.

The liberal media has taken this answer and spun it to say that "she called David McKiernan, the commanding general in Afghanistan, 'McClellan' (emphasis added)." When taken in context, it may seem that Palin didn't know who David McKeirnan and is clueless about foreign affairs. But the reality is, she was simply showcasing her vast historical knowledge of the Civil War and using it to make a brilliant allegory about herself. It turns out that George Brinton McClellan was a major general during the American Civil War. Palin was clearly using her reference to him to point out some similarities between the General McClellan and herself:

Military Command: George McClellan organized the famous Army of the Potmac and served briefly as commander in chief of the Union Army. Sarah Palin was commander in chief of Alaska's famous national guard.

Meticulous Preparation: According to Wikipedia, although McClellan was meticulous in his planning and preparations, these attributes may have hampered his ability to challenge aggressive opponents in a fast-moving battlefield environment. Similarly, although Palin is meticulous in her review of countless newspapers and magazines, that breadth of knowledge may have hampered her ability to answer basic questions asked by aggressive reporters in fast moving interview environments.

Leadership: McClellan's leadership skills during battles were questioned by President Lincoln. Despite this, he was the most popular of that army's commanders with its soldiers, who felt that he had their morale and well-being as paramount concerns. Palin's leadership is questioned by pretty much everybody, and yet, somehow, she is still popular among social conservatives.

Snappy Dressers: As the picture indicates, both General McClellan and Palin are snappy dressers.

Middle Names: General McClellan has a cool middle name - "Brinton." Sarah Palin also has a middle name.

So, is the "McClellan" name-drop just another example of Palin screwing up? Heck no! It is 100% true that General McClellan didn't say definitively the surge principles would not work because he's been dead since 1885. For those of you who don't share Palin's encyclopedic knowledge base, that is way before we ever sent troops to Afghanistan. Isn't it ironic? The one time Palin says something that is true, and she gets criticized for it!

Some people might question why Sarah Palin would make such a sly reference to General McClellan in an answer about Afghanistan, given the fact that he has been dead even longer than Dan Quayle's career. She wisely anticipated this critique and addressed it during the debate: "And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also." Just in case the liberal elites didn't understand that explanation, she reminded us repeatedly that she is a maverick.