[Rhodes22-list] For Ed, from Maine - political

[Robert Skinner]

Ed,

Since you persist in making snide comments about the great
state of Maine, this is to let you know that you have real
opposition in Maine -- perhaps neither as bombastic,
prevaricative, nor monomaniacal as you might find among
your neocon fellow traveler comrade dittoheads, but at
least equally valid [understatement].  As a professional
musician once reminded me, volume is no substitute for
quality.  And, by the way, repetition is no substitute for
logic.

I, for one, am paying attention to the issues, primarily
the gone-to-hell-in-a-handbasket state of the nation while
in the care (using the term loosely) of the Grumpy Old
Patriarchs, and the fact that a good house-cleaning could
not produce any worse results.  As I see it, any group
of teen-age mutant turtles could do better and cost a hell
of a lot less.

It doesn't make a lot of difference who is the master of
the ship of state when it is on the rocks.  The question
is who can get it off in one piece.

OK, now that I've had my turn, you can have the soap-box
back, Ed.  Please clean up after you are done, and put
the seat down.

/Robert

------------------------------------------------------------
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/
Wednesday 10 September 2008
  by: Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic

Editor's Note: Historically a John McCain supporter, conservative journalist
and blogger Andrew Sullivan takes on the issue of John McCain's integrity as
he strives to win the presidency. - vh/TO

      For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past
ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish
or lipstick. It's about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew
about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as every
sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that
Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Did he come out and say so and end
this charade? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless
Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign?
      So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so.
And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him. On
core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to
pick between good and evil, he chose evil. When he knew that George W.
Bush's war in Iraq was a fiasco and catastrophe, and before Donald Rumsfeld
quit, McCain endorsed George W. Bush against his fellow Vietnam vet, John
Kerry in 2004. By that decision, McCain lost any credibility that he can
ever put country first. He put party first and his own career first ahead of
what he knew was best for the country.
      And when the Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to condemn and end
the torture regime of Bush and Cheney in 2006, McCain again had a clear
choice between good and evil, and chose evil.
      He capitulated and enshrined torture as the policy of the United
States, by allowing the CIA to use techniques as bad as and worse than the
torture inflicted on him in Vietnam. He gave the war criminals in the White
House retroactive immunity against the prosecution they so richly deserve.
The enormity of this moral betrayal, this betrayal of his country's honor,
has yet to sink in. But for my part, it now makes much more sense. He is not
the man I thought he was.
      And when he had the chance to engage in a real and substantive debate
against the most talented politician of the next generation in a fall
campaign where vital issues are at stake, what did McCain do? He began his
general campaign with a series of grotesque, trivial and absurd MTV-style
attacks on Obama's virtues and implied disgusting things about his
opponent's patriotism.
      And then, because he could see he was going to lose, ten days ago, he
threw caution to the wind and with no vetting whatsoever, picked a woman
who, by her decision to endure her own eight-month pregnancy of a Down
Syndrome child in public, that he was going to reignite the culture war as a
last stand against Obama. That's all that is happening right now: a massive
bump in the enthusiasm of the Christianist base. This is pure Rove.
      Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about
him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who
cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows
nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's
safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she
polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that
the surge was integral to this country's national security would pick as his
veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at
the time.
      McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have
the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is
more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president.
The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain - no one else - has proved
it.


http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/1156080,091008ebertpalin.article

Roger Ebert on Sarah Palin: The American Idol candidate


September 11, 2008

BY ROGER EBERT Sun-Times Movie Critic [How appropriate!]

I think I might be able to explain some of Sarah Palin's appeal. She's the
'American Idol' candidate. Consider. What defines an 'American Idol'
finalist? They're good-looking, work well on television, have a sunny
personality, are fierce competitors, and so talented, why, they're darned
near the real thing. There's a reason 'American Idol' gets such high
ratings. People identify with the contestants. They think, Hey, that could
be me up there on that show!

My problem is, I don't want to be up there. I don't want a vice president
who is darned near good enough. I want a vice president who is better,
wiser, well-traveled, has met world leaders, who three months ago had an
opinion on Iraq. Someone who doesn't repeat bald- faced lies about earmarks
and the Bridge to Nowhere. Someone who doesn't appoint Alaskan politicians
to 'study' global warming, because, hello! It has been studied. The returns
are convincing enough that John McCain and Barack Obama are darned near in
agreement.

I would also want someone who didn't make a teeny little sneer when
referring to 'people who go to the Ivy League.' When I was a teen I dreamed
of going to Harvard, but my dad, an electrician, told me, 'Boy, we don't
have the money. Thank your lucky stars you were born in Urbana and can go to
the University of Illinois right here in town.' So I did, very happily.
Although Palin gets laughs when she mentions the 'elite' Ivy League, she
sure did attend the heck out of college.

Five different schools in six years. What was that about?

And how can a politician her age have never have gone to Europe? My dad had
died, my mom was working as a book-keeper and I had a job at the local
newspaper when, at 19, I scraped together $240 for a charter flight to
Europe. I had Arthur Frommer's $5 a Day under my arm, started in London,
even rented a Vespa and drove in the traffic of Rome. A few years later, I
was able to send my mom, along with the $15 a Day book.

You don't need to be a pointy-headed elitist to travel abroad. You need
curiosity and a hunger to see the world. What kind of a person (who has the
money) arrives at the age of 44 and has only been out of the country once,
on an official tour to Iraq? Sarah Palin's travel record is that of a
provincial, not someone who is equipped to deal with global issues.

But some people like that. She's never traveled to Europe, Asia, Africa,
South America or Down Under? That makes her like them. She didn't go to
Harvard? Good for her! There a lot of hockey moms who haven't seen London,
but most of them would probably love to, if they had the dough. And they'd
be proud if one of their kids won a scholarship to Harvard.

I trust the American people will see through Palin, and save the Republic in
November. The most damning indictment against her is that she considered
herself a good choice to be a heartbeat away. That shows bad judgment.