This time it’s Ronald Reagan’s former chief of staff, Ken Duberstein.
Former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria this week he intends to vote for Democrat Barack Obama on Tuesday.
Duberstein said he was influenced by another prominent Reagan official - Colin Powell - in his decision.
“Well let’s put it this way - I think Colin Powell’s decision is in fact the good housekeeping seal of approval on Barack Obama.”
No word yet on whether Duberstein was informed, prior to his endorsement, of Pam “Crazy Eyes” Geller’s stunning revelation that Obama is actually Malcolm X’s love-child.
Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama’s associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate’s free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.
“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”
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“It’s sort of perplexing to me, because I’m a practical person and plainspoken also, but just cutting to the chase and calling things like I see them, just like most Americans. But this has not left a bitter taste in my mouth, the bitter shots taken by the mainstream media and by some of the elitism there in Washington,” Palin said.
Yes, that’s right: unless the press uncritically accepts and reports on the accusations of major party office holders and office seekers, the Freedom of Government to operate without fear of a Tyrannical Press will be undermined.
Of course, those people we call our Founding Fathers weren’t hockey moms, so they failed to envisage the danger to government from a less than supplicant press, so they fucked up the First Amendment, so it currently reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. . . .
Obviously, it should have been written read “the press shall print no story which contradicts the narrative of a politician holding or seeking office, nor shall it label broad and unfounded condemnations of political opponents as ‘negative’.”
If only Palin had been there at the time to straighten those Founding Rubes out about the dangers of a tyrannical, elitist press interfering with politicians’ dissemination of propaganda.
The thought of a Palin Presidency brings this scene from Bananas to mind:
From the shrieking harpy/author of “Obama is Malcolm X’s Love Child” and winner of this year’s Oscar for Batshit-Crazy, Pam Geller:
Exit question: Assuming even a very small fraction of all this [wildly insane, unsourced, and completely fabricated] dirt [shit I just threw against the wall] is true, do we really want to put the fate of our country in this guy’s hands?”
I should start this out by admitting that I am against Gay Marriage.
However, in my defense, I should also make it clear that I am against Straight Marriage as well.
At first glance my opposition to gay marriage may stand in contrast to my opposition to Proposition 8. But not if you think about it.
If the religious zealots really want to put the taste of the bitter root in the mouths of gay marriage advocates, they should encourage them to get married, not make it illegal.
Making something illegal just adds the spicy tang of taboo to it. Like when you were teenagers, getting it on in your parents bedroom while they were at the club playing golf.
Actually having gays get married will ruin peoples’ sex lives, destroy them financially, and turn them irredeemably against marriage, all while pumping $$$ into the economy via the excessive spending habits of divorce lawyers!
Bottom line: gay Californians should have every right to get married, join the military and volunteer for suicide missions, or become subjects for high risk medical experiments that straight people do. It’s only fair.
And before anyone tries to pull the “what about the children” line, one of the best set of parents I ever met was a same sex couple whose son was on my son’s soccer team. Not only did the kid have the advantage of two soccer moms, they were some of the awesomest team parents ever, making banners, throwing team parties, in addition to being two of the nicest people ever. They both had successful careers, and their son was a happy, well adjusted kid. Gay people can have or father children and can also make awesome (or not so awesome) parents, just like straight people.
So vote against Proposition 8 whether you are for or against gay marriage. It’s the right thing to do.
None of this matters a whit when you have no message, and that is the unenviable position the Republicans are in right now. What is John McCain’s core message? I will tell you, as it is very simple- “Not Obama.” That is it. That is the sum total of the message. He and the Wasilla Wingnut have done nothing for the past two months but provide weak and ugly reasons why you should not vote for Obama, starting with the sneer de force at the RNC and continuing on to the present, where we learn that we should not vote for Obama because some plumber (but not really) is worried about socialism and because Obama knows a guy named Khalidi who does not agree with everything Bill Kristol says about Israel.
Roger Simon at Politico reports that McCain’s people are already focusing on a scapegoat for Tuesday’s impending defeat — Sarah Palin.
John McCain’s campaign is looking for a scapegoat. It is looking for someone to blame if McCain loses on Tuesday.
And it has decided on Sarah Palin.
In recent days, a McCain “adviser” told Dana Bash of CNN: “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone.”
Imagine not taking advice from the geniuses at the McCain campaign. What could Palin be thinking?
Also, a “top McCain adviser” told Mike Allen of Politico that Palin is “a whack job.”
Maybe she is. But who chose to put this “whack job” on the ticket? Wasn’t it John McCain? And wasn’t it his first presidential-level decision?
Yes, she is a disaster. And yes, she has turned out to be a drag on the campaign rather than a magnet for disaffected Hillary supporters. But, as Simon points out, McCain picked this catastrophe.
So as scapegoats go, she’s not a very good one.
Because the fault for McCain lies not in the stars, but in himself.
Conservative and neoconservative alike are stepping up to explain the demise of McCain’s candidacy - it’s the candidate himself.
George Will belives McCain is careless and shows poor judgment:
Call Him John the Careless
From the invasion of Iraq to the selection of Sarah Palin, carelessness has characterized recent episodes of faux conservatism. Tuesday’s probable repudiation of the Republican Party will punish characteristics displayed in the campaign’s closing days.
Some polls show that Palin has become an even heavier weight in John McCain’s saddle than his association with George W. Bush. Did McCain, who seems to think that Palin’s never having attended a “Georgetown cocktail party” is sufficient qualification for the vice presidency, lift an eyebrow when she said that vice presidents “are in charge of the United States Senate”?
And for former leading neoconservative Francis Fukuyama, it is not only McCain’s “irresponsible” choice of Palin for VP, but his ties to Bush and unwillingness to stand for any principle during his ill-starred candidacy:
I’m voting for Barack Obama this November for a very simple reason. It is hard to imagine a more disastrous presidency than that of George W. Bush. It was bad enough that he launched an unnecessary war and undermined the standing of the United States throughout the world in his first term. But in the waning days of his administration, he is presiding over a collapse of the American financial system and broader economy that will have consequences for years to come. As a general rule, democracies don’t work well if voters do not hold political parties accountable for failure. While John McCain is trying desperately to pretend that he never had anything to do with the Republican Party, I think it would a travesty to reward the Republicans for failure on such a grand scale.
McCain’s appeal was always that he could think for himself, but as the campaign has progressed, he has seemed simply erratic and hotheaded. His choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate was highly irresponsible; we have suffered under the current president who entered office without much knowledge of the world and was easily captured by the wrong advisers. McCain’s lurching from Reaganite free- marketer to populist tribune makes one wonder whether he has any underlying principles at all.
. . . . Obama is much better positioned to reinvent the American model and will certainly present a very different and more positive face of America to the rest of the world.
A lot has happened in the last 8 years for Will and Fukuyama to repudiate McCain a few short days before the election. Even as McCain tries to paint Obama as the more dangerous choice, his former political allies are making the case that it is McCain, not Obama, whose prospective presidency would pose the far greater danger.
MORE: It seems even Joe the (sort of) Plumber blew off McCain yesterday.
The phony, non-existent “African Press International” responsible for the Michelle Obama interview hoax is at it again, claiming that it is going to air the tape of the fictitious interview (despite failing on repeated promises to do so earlier) and also claims that Obama’s campaign has offered the ersatz press agency an imaginary bribe in order not to air the non-existent tape of its never-happened interview, fittingly on FauxNews.
This won’t seem to die, but here we go. Remember that African news site that stated Michelle Obama called them to cry “racism” in reference to the detractors of Obama? Well they say now the agreement with Fox News has been reached and the tapes will play any day now.
I would just counsel these poor saps to remember the immortal words of George. W. Bush:
Immediately afterwords, Larry Johnson is going to air the “whitey” video on O’Reilly and Confederate Yankee is going to produce a copy of Obama’s Certificate of Live Foreign Islamic Birth on Hannity & Colmes.
FauxNews reports that “Joe the Plumber” is branching out from hypothetical acquisitions of theoretical companies and into political theory for the theoretically impaired:
Joe Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. “Joe the Plumber,” on Tuesday twice agreed with a claim from an audience member at a John McCain rally that “a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for the death to Israel.”
Wurzelbacher was hitting the campaign trail on behalf of McCain for the first time, joining former Rep. Rob Portman on a GOP bus tour through Ohio.
“I’m honestly scared for America,” Wurzelbacher said.
He later said Obama would end the democracy that the U.S. military had defended during wars.
“I love America. I hope it remains a democracy, not a socialist society. … If you look at spreading the wealth, that’s honestly right out of Karl Marx’s mouth,” Wurzelbacher said.
“No one can debate that. That’s not my opinion. That’s fact.”
The plumber guy agrees with some idiot in a crowd somewhere one a stupid proposition about which neither are well informed. And how is that newsworthy?
Joe’s qualifications to discourse on Political Theory are no doubt even weaker than his right to contract plumbing construction without a license or his ability buy a business without any money.
Plus, he’s too fucking stupid to distinguish opinion from fact.
Joe the Plumber is waaaaaay past his 15-minutes-of-fame sell by date.
