Wednesday, September 3, 2008

What Attacks Can Teach You

So far I find amusing how critics attack Palin for her family members deeds , even if they occurred 22 years ago. Don't these liberals get it? Abortion is the easy way out. I know this is a divisive topic, no Slinky ads today folks. But it's my blog and what good is a blog if you can't express a viewpoint. I don't worry about dividing the audience since there is no audience to divide. Part of the reason for writing what I write is should the Lord employ two amok Jeepney drivers to end my stay in this world, people can read this and have an idea what I was about. What made me tick. Though some may think rightly or wrongly that tick tick tick was a time bomb.

So Palin is under attack, well anyone who decides to take a stand on something will eventually get attacked by what they stand against. My personal opinion is Palin is speaking for those who can not. All this vernacular of pro choice is silly since she herself chose not to abort her child that was diagnosed as special needs. It took courage and faith to do that. To make that choice. Abortion is the easy way out. Terminate a vulnerable baby. Then throw it in trash and it never existed. This being a free country you may choose to call it a fetus. Or do what Obama did. (link to pay grade) Obama is good with words and intonation we know that. But when does he stick his neck out? When?

Before we go further in the world of politics let me slightly digress ever so briefly to to the world of football to make a point. Palin decided to make the same choice that Madonna made in the song Papa Don't Preach. The college football season started last week with a returning Heisman Trophy winner. Manila born Tim Tebow . Anyway to make a long story short , he could have been aborted but his mother made the same choice Palin did.

http://www.physiciansforlife.org/content/view/1532/26/

Anybody who does research better have some good sources. Let's examine what passes for action in Obama lore. His voting record in Illinois. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/us/politics/20obama.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Notice my choice of a source. Not Wikipedia, not some right wing bastion like the National Review (William Buckley R.I.P.) not Rush Limbaugh or George Will but the New York Times. A paper known to be left leaning.

Well since I am sort of hinting that Obama does not stick his neck out might as well give you more support. Again not from some blogger you never heard of but a columnist for the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/28/AR2008072802464.html

I am sure some of you will easily dismiss this guy as some ultra right wing Kool Aid drinking Republican zealot. But while researching this I also found him totally breaking down what he finds ridiculous about Palin.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/01/AR2008090101715.html?sub=AR

So at the very least the author (Cohen) is a bi partisan basher.

Being under attack like I said earlier is not always a bad thing. I was semi involved in the pro life movement when I was in Vancouver. I went to a few events where I knew me and the others around me will be mocked. An anti abortion rally in a Catholic country like this one is not exactly sticking your neck out. Probably something Obama would do if he was born here.

So Palin's daughter has one in the oven? Since when does a teenager in true true concert with a mother's wishes in everything? Would the critics prefer the night before McCain's announcement that Bristol Palin go to some dark alley abortion clinic , get rid of the evidence down the toilet like crack cocaine ? Oh yeah that thing going down the toilet could have been a human being.

What is wrong with making a stand for those who can not make a stand for themselves? I did not know who Palin was last week but since sometimes you can judge a person not only by their friends but who attacks them and why , heck I am becoming a fan.

Ed

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080903/pl_politico/13101

Palin reignites culture wars

David Paul Kuhn, Jim VandeHei Tue Sep 2, 9:10 PM ET

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The culture wars are making a sudden and unexpected encore in American politics, turning more ferocious virtually by the hour as activists on both sides of the ideological divide react to the addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket.

The campaign of Democrat Barack Obama put up an ad in at least seven key states Tuesday lambasting GOP nominee-to-be John McCain as an enemy of abortion rights.

At the Republican convention here, former Tenn. Sen. Fred Thompson took a shot at Obama’s stand in favor of legal abortion.

Thompson made this case: "We need a president who doesn’t think that the protection of the unborn or a newly born baby is above his pay grade."

That reference, perhaps obscure to most Americans, will be instantly recognizable to social conservatives. At the recent Saddleback Church presidential forum, Obama told pastor Rick Warren that the question of when life begins is "above my pay grade." And the phrase "newly born" refers to Obama’s opposition — on technical grounds rather than the merits, he said — of a "Born Alive Act" while in the Illinois legislature.

The selection of Palin — a new heroine of social conservatives — has helped reignite not only abortion but also other flash-point issues in a way few of McCain’s other vice presidential options would have done.

Conservatives see her as a kindred spirit who lives her anti-abortion words in the most profound way: by giving birth to a child she knew would be born with Down syndrome. Gun owners see her as authentically one of them: a hunter with a passion for the outdoors and gun freedom.

Social liberals agree — and are proving just as ready for combat on issues that many operatives and analysts believed would have less relevance in an Obama-McCain campaign. Both nominees have said they want to transcend the remorseless ideological and cultural conflicts which shaped so much of politics in both the Clinton and Bush presidencies.

"The choice of Palin is going to bring some of these issues, like abortion, same sex issues, the teaching of evolution in public schools, the whole role of what religion plays in public life, back to the campaign," said Rob Boston, a senior analyst for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. "Culture war issues reflect a real divide that is evident in society today."

Until last week’s Palin pick, many of these issues seemed to be receding. The National Review last year published an article titled "A Farewell to Culture Wars."

No official cease-fire had been called, of course. But McCain and Barack Obama were not inclined to make this campaign a big fight over family values issues — for different reasons.

McCain is a social conservative but clearly uncomfortable talking about his personal faith and personal issues, such as gay marriage. His comfort zone is talking about national security and the federal budget. Obama is a social liberal who has little interest in making this campaign about anything other than the economy, the war and the need to shake up Washington.

"Something happens in the political realm that tends to trigger the culture wars re-emergence. So it’s always below the surface," said James Davidson Hunter, a University of Virginia sociologist who brought the term "culture war" into the political lexicon in the early nineties.

"McCain’s choice of a social conservative and now the revelation that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant out of wedlock has triggered the issue back up to the surface," Hunter added.

Conservative evangelical Christians, the GOP’s foot soldiers in these fights, are delighted by the emergence of a new leader who seems so genuinely in sync with them on abortion (opposed) creationism (believes it should be taught in public schools) and other topics.

"Palin signals that the McCain campaign figured out that reports of the death of the pro-life movement, and the influence of evangelical voters, is wildly exaggerated," conservative evangelical leader Richard Land said, who said he was "ecstatic" over the selection of Palin.

To be sure, cultural issues would be a factor in this election, even if McCain had sought to defuse them. Social issues dominate the 112 ballot propositions in 30 states in November, according to the Initiative & Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California.

California, Arizona and Florida voters are considering constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. Colorado, and likely Arizona and Nebraska, will have ballot measures to ban affirmative action. South Dakota and Colorado also have ballot initiatives that would effectively ban abortion.

But the surprise emergence of Palin on the national stage has given a human face on these debates and has guaranteed that they would dominate the conversation here at the Republican convention and in the news media.

"There hasn’t been a lot of discussion of some of these, if you will, culture war issues like abortion and gay marriage and that has now come to the fore again," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women.

Democrats, especially on blogs and in private conversations, have savaged Palin for the news that her 17-year-old, unwed daughter Bristol is pregnant and plans to marry the father. Liberal radio host Ed Schultz, who had already used the words "bimbo alert" to refer to Palin, suggested that she was a hypocrite for having a pregnant child while touting a social conservative platform.

But rather than drawing the ire of conservatives who disapprove of pre-marital sex, the news about Bristol Palin has buoyed many spirits, because she chose not to terminate the pregnancy and plans to marry the father.

"Why does the left think there is a pro-life movement? The pro-life movement is about helping women who get into trouble," said Gary Bauer, president of the social conservative group American Values.

"The whole discussion up until now has been about national security and the economy and now we see the culture wars back with her appointment," said Michael Cromartie, director of the evangelical studies program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. "It has re-emerged because of the circumstances of her fifth child and her daughter."

Republican strategists believe these wars are being fought on favorable terrain for McCain.

The annual Pew Religion and Public Life Survey recently reported that after voters gauged how liberal McCain and Obama were, "the average voter places themselves much closer to McCain than to Obama."
Forty-nine percent of Americans say their "moral values" are conservative, while only 20 percent say they are liberal. About half of voters, when asked to assess the moral values of the candidates, described Obama as liberal while nearly six in 10 said McCain was conservative.

Given the intensity of Palin support among conservatives, McCain may very well end up with greater flexibility than ever to make his own direct appeal to independent voters. Palin can keep social activists at ease — and excited — while McCain seeks to reclaim his maverick image with a more direct appeal to those Hillary Clinton supporters and undecided swing voters.

"In the last 72 hours, the focus [of social conservatives] has sharpened not only because of Palin’s selection but the instinctive reaction of the left to her, that ‘she is small town, what does she know; she’s religious right, she’s an extremist,'" said Bauer. "They are eliminating any chance they had to switch some of these" traditionally Republican states to the Democrats.

**************************************************

Obama the Unknown

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, July 29, 2008; Page A17
"Just tell me one thing Barack Obama has done that you admire," I asked a prominent Democrat. He paused and then said that he admired Obama's speech to the Democratic convention in 2004. I agreed. It was a hell of a speech, but it was just a speech.
On the other hand, I continued, I could cite four or five actions -- not speeches -- that John McCain has taken that elicit my admiration, even my awe. First, of course, is his decision as a Vietnam prisoner of war to refuse freedom out of concern that he would be exploited for propaganda purposes. To paraphrase what Kipling said about Gunga Din, John McCain is a better man than most.
But I would not stop there. I would include campaign finance reform, which infuriated so many in his own party; opposition to earmarks, which won him no friends; his politically imprudent opposition to the Medicare prescription drug bill (Medicare has about $35 trillion in unfunded obligations); and, last but not least, his very early call for additional troops in Iraq. His was a lonely position -- virtually suicidal for an all-but-certain presidential candidate and no help when his campaign nearly expired last summer. In all these cases, McCain stuck to his guns.
Obama argues that he himself stuck to the biggest gun of all: opposition to the war. He took that position when the war was enormously popular, the president who initiated it was even more popular and critics of both were slandered as unpatriotic. But at the time, Obama was a mere Illinois state senator, representing the (very) liberal Hyde Park area of Chicago. He either voiced his conscience or his district's leanings or (lucky fella) both. We will never know.
And we will never know, either, how Obama might have conducted himself had he served in Congress as long as McCain has. Possibly he would have earned a reputation for furious, maybe even sanctimonious, integrity of the sort that often drove McCain's colleagues to dark thoughts of senatorcide, but the record -- scant as it is -- suggests otherwise. Obama is not noted for sticking to a position or a person once that position or person becomes a political liability. (Names available upon request.)
All politicians change their positions, sometimes even because they have changed their minds. McCain must have suffered excruciating whiplash from totally reversing himself on George Bush's tax cuts. He has denounced preachers he later embraced and then, to his chagrin, has had to denounce them all over again. This plasticity has a label: pandering. McCain knows how it's done.
But Obama has shown that in this area, youth is no handicap. He has been for and against gun control, against and for the recent domestic surveillance legislation and, in almost a single day, for a united Jerusalem under Israeli control and then, when apprised of U.S. policy and Palestinian chagrin, against it. He is an accomplished pol -- a statement of both admiration and a bit of regret.
Obama is often likened to John F. Kennedy. The comparison makes sense. He has the requisite physical qualities -- handsome, lean, etc. -- plus wit, intelligence, awesome speaking abilities and a literary bent. He also might be compared to Franklin D. Roosevelt for many of those same qualities. Both FDR and JFK were disparaged early on by their contemporaries for, I think, doing the difficult and making it look easy. Eleanor Roosevelt, playing off the title of Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, airily dismissed him as more profile than courage. Similarly, it was Walter Lippmann's enduring misfortune to size up FDR and belittle him: Roosevelt, he wrote, was "a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for office, would very much like to be president." Lippmann later recognized that he had underestimated Roosevelt.
My guess is that Obama will make a fool of anyone who issues such a judgment about him. Still, the record now, while tissue thin, is troubling. The next president will have to be something of a political Superman, a man of steel who can tell the American people that they will have to pay more for less -- higher taxes, lower benefits of all kinds -- and deal in an ugly way when nuclear weapons seize the imagination of madmen.
The question I posed to that prominent Democrat was just my way of thinking out loud. I know that Barack Obama is a near-perfect political package. I'm still not sure, though, what's in it.
Republicans Rush In

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, September 2, 2008; Page A15
One of the great sights of American political life -- a YouTube moment if ever there was one -- was to see the doughboy face of Newt Gingrich as he extolled the virtues of Sarah Palin, a sitcom of a vice presidential choice and a disaster movie if she moves up to the presidency: "She's the first journalist ever to be nominated, I think, for the president or vice president, and she was a sportscaster on local television," Gingrich said on the "Today" show. "So she has a lot of interesting background. And she has a lot of experience. Remember that, when people worry about how inexperienced she is, for two years she's been in charge of the Alaska National Guard."
This Story

It's a pity Gingrich was not around when the Roman Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, better known by his nickname Caligula, reputedly named Incitatus as a consul and a priest. Incitatus was his horse.
John McCain's selection of Palin, which I first viewed with horror, could now be seen in a different light. Based on various television interviews over the Labor Day weekend -- and a careful reading of the transcripts -- it is possible that this is McCain's attempt to make fools of his fellow Republicans. He has succeeded beyond all expectations.
Gingrich's point about Palin being commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard has been echoed throughout the GOP. In fact, even Cindy McCain pointed out -- rightly enough -- that Alaska is across the Bering Strait from Russia and so Palin, by deduction, has been on the front lines of the Cold War . . . had it not ended in 1989.
Still, you have to admit that in all that time, especially since Palin became governor about two years ago, no Russian invasion force has come across the strait, maybe because she was in charge of the Guard, maybe because she herself is a hunter and an athlete. The record is unclear because no high-ranking Russian appeared on any of the weekend talk shows to say how they had considered an invasion of Alaska and then backed off when Sarah Palin became commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard. Who could blame them?
Just to show that he would not ask of others what he would not do himself, McCain came before Chris Wallace to sing Palin's praises. He said that he had "watched her record . . . for many, many years" which is, a prudent man might say, more years than she's had a record. McCain, as a fellow military man, did not mention Palin's tenure as the supreme commander of the entire Alaska National Guard, maybe because he thought it speaks for itself. If that's the case, he's right.
Probably the most depressing thing about Palin is not her selection but the defense of it. It has produced a parade of GOP spokesmen intent on spiking the needle on a polygraph. Looking right into the camera, they offer statement after statement that they hope the voters will swallow but that history will forget. The sum effect on the diligent news consumer is a feeling of consummate contempt for the intelligence of the American people -- a contempt that will be justified should Palin be the factor that makes McCain a winner in November.
One of the more heroic efforts at Palin worship came from the commentator-columnist William Kristol, the former chief of staff for Vice President Dan Quayle. He had to use the code word "traditional" three times in a single sentence to make his point: "It's a pretty amazing story of personal success, being at once a traditional woman who broke all of these traditional barriers, kind of the best of both worlds, if you believe in traditional values."
About the only Republican who seemed totally sincere about Palin was Grover G. Norquist, an anti-tax obsessive who once likened the argument that the estate tax affected only a very few people to the argument -- made by no one I can think of -- that the Holocaust also affected a relatively few people. "I mean, that's the morality of the Holocaust," he said only five years ago. Norquist called the selection of the anti-tax Palin a "wise" choice.
In 1959, the novelist Terry Southern published "The Magic Christian," a darkly comic tale based on the premise that people will do anything for money. The choice of Palin proves that people will also do anything for political power -- including rising early on a holiday weekend to make fools of themselves.

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