cann4ing—All I ask for, is that the separation of church and state be respected.

sabagio—I know that, one reason Obama felt he had to include his minister, was because alot of idiots were saying he was a Muslim (stf what??) Anyone who stil thinks that after seeing Rev. Wright, is lying or too ignorant for words.

Persaonlly, I think Rev.Wright used the spotlight, to highlight himself, not much to Obama’s advantage. I had a couple bad experiences with the Lutheran Church ( not really a big deal),but went to a Quaker College (You prob. knopw how little emphasis is put on religiosity in the Quaker Church) , yet, I voted for Rev. Jackson . (some family thought it was crazy—“he’s a preacher!”—I hadnt really thought of it that way—he was a liberal!). I guess Bush et al, was the proverbial straw.

I think the faith based initiatives are unconstitutional, as is praying in the Senate/ House every day.

I think that both conventions reeked of religiosity, ( I know that the Dems are trying to win back the Evangelical vote—but look what the GOP had to secede to them!) Theocracies , like Iran, must follow Muslim law to exist as a Muslim State. While the uS it not that, I hear all the time “If we are to be a Christian country…” and it is just wrong and is necessarily devisive. I also think that, using churches and charities , to provide services that the govt is already paid to provide us with, is just a way to privitize things while putting a religious mantle on it, so no one can question it.

I know that myself and others, have already quoted him here, but, as Sinclair Lewis (“It Can’t Happen Here”, 1935) said, “When fascism comes to America, it wil be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.” Whenever the “majority” “knows” the “only true path”, what is to stop them from doing almost anything to save themselves and their fellow citizens. Perhaps I am a little spooked, but there is alot of that evangelical stuff in Ohio, and it has certainly not helped the state, nor the city.I know that they’re not supposed to prostheletize, but, c’mon, everyone knows that they do. I dont think that, when we are paying for it, that someone shoudl have to “sing the church service for his supper”.

re: cyrena

If you look into what has happened to the SEC Chairman’s authority, you’ll find a systematic movement to render it powerless. A good example of this is related to what we call the dot com bubble. Which was not really a bubble, but rather an inevitable outcome of policies implemented and designed to mask dubious accounting practices, with the immediate goal of making the future appear all sunny and bright.
In 1994, The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) proposed ending a loophole that allowed companies to avoid recording stock options on their balance sheet. Merrill Lynch claimed that expensing stock options would reduce the profit sheet on high tech companies by an average of 60%.
Well, Senator Joe Lieberman wanted to hear nothing like that. On May 3, 1994, he rallied his senate colleagues to pass a non-binding resolution, 88-9, condemning the proposal.
Arthur Levitt, not a year into his Chairmanship at SEC, felt the pressure. (It should also be noted that funding for the SEC was under constant attack from the likes of Phil Gramm and associates.) So Levitt urged the FASB to abandon their proposal; an action Levitt later said “was probably the single biggest mistake I made in my years at the SEC.”
A strong SEC Chairman does not exist. I mean the kind of final arbiter over the financial industry, the way Kenesaw Mountain Landis was over Major League Baseball, after the fallout from the Black Sox scandal. So it is downright laughable that Senator McCain now calls for Christopher Cox to be fired from the SEC. But perhaps that is just salt on an old wound, because back in 1995, Christopher Cox wrote the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA 1995) which McCain was one of the four republicans to vote against. Legislation by the way, that was only one of two, to override President Clinton’s veto.

By KDelphi, September 18 at 10:42 am #

cann4—the only problems I had/have with Rev. Wright, is the same problem I have with all churches that blur the lines of church and state.

_________________________

I think, KDelphi, you confuse the blurring of the lines between church and state which occurs when, for example, religious zealots intrude into the public sphere such as insisting on teaching creationism (often masked by the pseudo-scientific “intelligent design”) in our schools, or when, in the 1950s Republicans succeeded in adding “under God” to the pledge of allegiance.

But that is markedly different from ministers speaking out on political matters from the pulpit or leading others on the streets.  While there has been abuse, especially from the Christian right, in terms of attempting to impose their narrow view of morality on everyone else—e.g. abstinence only education, historically, the pulpit has served as a cornerstone of progressive movements, e.g., Quaker positions on opposing war and slavery; the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. leading the way on the civil rights movements.  And in Latin America, people suffering under the yoke of brutal authoritarian regimes that serve the interests of empire and wealth, have turned to “liberation theology.”

Rev. Wright’s belief in God—a belief I do not share—and his position as a minister should not translate into a surrender of his first amendment right to free speech.  And while Barack Obama does not agree on Wright’s poor choice of language, the full content of Wright’s sermons reflects that he is nowhere near the wild-eyed radical that the right-wing echo chamber, with a big assist from the corporate owned media, made him out to be.

I did not intend a theological discussion. The debate about predestination and free will was over years ago,the Age of Enlightenment and Ben Franklin. As a near death experience survivor, my anniversary being 9/ll eight years ago, my skepticism is on hold. I guess all I would like is cessation of commentary about Obama’s belief system and those he chose to associate with who have broken no laws. This man has been under the public microscope since the Democratic Convention of 2004, and rehash never tastes good, be it morning , noon, or night. Ms Palin has not, and Senator McCain has become the Chameleon of the campaign.

And I wish someone in Media Land other than Kathy Lee Gifford,Robin Roberts,Diane Sawyer and the Hen Party at CBS what’s going with the country every morning. The folks are the surragate Liars for invisible power groupings managed by invisible humans.  Wouldn’t it be refreshing that every once in a while we would be exposed to more than the misinterpretations of The 1st amendment and talk about The Constitution and the rule of law, how it defines us, We the People, and how that our unique history make us as a civilization different from everybody else. I don’t like us being perceived as just another international bully who believes in war and torture as the only solutions, and the suspension of freedoms we take for granted as the only way to control what we can know or don’t know.

We are so much better than that.

Beerdoctor

I think you’re so right to key in on the 26-year reference that Obama mentioned, even if he did immediately switch to the past 8 years, as any politician is won’t to do. His professortorial character clicks in, (and is always there – now in the background) but if you remember (only because I’ve mentioned it so many times myself) he started out that way, (with more detailed explanations of how things came to be this way) and was pretty much dismissed by an impatient and attention deficit populace. Such as it is.

That said though, it really DOES go back, because we know we didn’t get to this overnight. My own sense (and I don’t have any advanced knowledge of high finances either, specifically in terms of the market) is that we’re seeing the effects of what began as Reganomics. The trickle-down that never did, the beginnings of the massive deregulation, the union busting, and all of the rest.

I had to elicit an ironic chuckle at the term, “a new kind of democrat.” I’d never heard Clinton say that, but my own opinion has always been that Clinton was far more a republican than a democrat. Of course he would be thoroughly aghast at such a suggestion, but the bottom line is that Clinton was ALWAYS a centrist, and his ‘new kind’ of anything is more appropriate to the neo-liberal mindset. At the end of the day, it’s not drastically different than the neo-con mindset, at least in terms of the money. That said, I’m definitely *not* putting him in the same cage with the Criminal Cabal of the 21st Century, and I actually do believe that he could have (and probably would have) done better if he hadn’t been saddled with a republican congress. Just thinking back, we know that it created a constant battle for nearly anything at the time. Still, his decisions (even when he had the ultimate power) were always on behalf of the Corporate arm.

I concur absolutely with you on the need for strong oversight in Securities and Exchange, but that’s pretty much the case with the entire package. The safeguards of the system itself actually are in place, (check that link that jackpine posted from the Agonist) but all of these commissions have been stripped of any real authority. To explain that, we need only look to Dick Cheney and his secret staff. The same Dick Cheney who has claimed that we need to get away from being a ‘nation of laws’ and become a ‘nation of men’. (his words, not mine).

Now Rubin is the guy that everybody is complaining about, right? I don’t know much about him either, but I do know more about Warren Buffett. So, I’ll take you’re lead on that. He seems OK with me.

sab—That is fine, for people that can believe it. To be honest, unlike most atheists/agnostics, I wish I could still believe it. I was raised Lutheran, went through catechism, on and on. I would really like to believe that some of hte people who have done good on this planet would be rewarded and recognized, for more than just altruism. I wish to hell that some would see god’s justice for their evil.

Just keep it in the church, mosque, temple, wherever . Thats all the constituition asks. It is actually for hte protection of the church as much as the state. I’m also afraid it implies a universe with a force for good that is not there. People say, “Oh, he’ll get his when he has to face god”. Well, what if he doesnt?

By KDelphi, September 18 at 11:53 am #

Sab—Kerry and Kennedy And, coming to a tv station near you, Biden—have all been denied communion

You wont catch me sticking up for any religion. Obama didnt.————————————————————————————

Sab—Kerry and Kennedy And, coming to a tv station near you, Biden—have all been denied communion

You wont catch me sticking up for any religion. Obama didnt.

=====================================

Communion? What’s that? Man’s invention, not God’s. And the Kennedy Kids, at least some, had their marriages annulled so they could stay in good standing when they remarried. But their kids did become bastards.

And a true woman of quality, Jackie, as a wife of serial divorcer, Aristotle, had a revised status as well.

And the IRA members still get communion, even though they blew up protestants for the last 40 years.

All this is say that those who kill and main and seek to destroy either by word or deed, make their god a murderer, a criminal.

So who is in the case of questioning Obama and his association with the leader of his former church is truly righteous, the accused or the accuser?
Would that it would stop. There are more critical things that need to be discussed and resolved before November.
Anyway, humans have always had to have faith in something, even faith in not that believing in faith mattered. So, what all that boils down to is,we have a need to belong to something, more than just immediate family, and the closest something is church, mosque,temple, shrine, hole-in-the-wall, whatever. The evil side of all this did this or that and therefore is guilty of something, not quite clear or defined, is intolerance not faith and religion, especially when it involves the destruction of others in the name of their god(s). I wish it tweren’t but tis, and that’s a damn shame.

Sab—Kerry and Kennedy And, coming to a tv station near you, Biden—have all been denied communion

You wont catch me sticking up for any religion. Obama didnt.

For those who choose to bring up the Rev. Wright/ Obama connection, I say face it: if it wasn’t his pastor, it would have been his barber. You’ve heard those stories about black barber shops haven’t you, eh?
As far as the minister saying God damn America, well there are portions of American foreign policy worthy of damnation. Being a robotic patriotic scoundrel just does not cut it. There are plenty of other nut jobs to point the finger at.

This question of “why Obama didn’t ,quit and then did quit his church after Rev. Wright’s first Rant and Rage has always come across as one-sided. He was damned when he didn’t and damned again when he did. Krauthhammer and Will, and perhaps others at the time wrote commentaries which didn’t suggest but recommended/prodded/baited Senator Obama to leave his church. When the pedophile scandal in the Roman Cathlic Church America, became front page news, and more so when coverups by Bishops and Cardinals was also exposed, was there an outcry for Kennedys and Bidens and Republican Cathlics to justify their faith and continued membership in the their Catholic Churches? Were the evangelicals and born again Christians who were members of congress encouraged to quit their churches when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson made outrageous comments about what God had told them to convey to us about the sinners with AIDS and the destruction of the World Trade Center as the wrath of God applied to nonbelivers and sinners? For that matter why wasn’t President Bush outraged when Falwell and others compared Katrina’s destruction of New Orleans to God’s destruction of Sodam and Gommorah? Fair is fair, right?

Guilt by Association. Character assassination?  Nixon’s Dirty Tricksters loved this part of presidential campaigning. McCain, thus far seems to have avoided guilt by association connections, which puzzles me. 
John McCain was one of Keating Seven of the Savings and Loan Scandal. It’s deja vu all over again. Recommendations coming out of the last days of the Reagan/Bush administration guaranteed these scandals would never happen again. Guilt by association? Read the Chronology of the savings and loan scandal’s final days at the end of the Regan Era and the beginning of the Bush I Dynasty. “Greed is Good” …still!

August 1986—Bank Board raises net worth standard gradually to 6% with up to 2% points offset for reduced interest rate-risk.
1987—Losses at Texas S&Ls;comprise more than one-half of all S&L;losses nationwide, and of the 20 largest losses, 14 are in Texas. February 1987—Bank Board requires prior supervisory approval for S&Ls;making direct investment in excess of 2.5 times their tangible capital.
April 1987—Edwin Gray ends his term as chairman of Federal Home Loan Bank Board in June. Before his departure, he is summoned to the office of Sen. Dennis DeConcini. DeConcini, with four other Senators (John McCain, Alan Cranston, John Glenn, and Donald Riegle) question Gray about the appropriateness of Bank Board investigations into Charles Keating’s Lincoln Savings and Loan. All five senators, who have received campaign contributions from Keating, would become known as the “Keating Five”. The subsequent Lincoln failure is estimated to have cost the taxpayers over $2 billion.
August 1987—Competitive Equality Banking Act of 1987 enacted. The Act authorizes $10.8 billion recapitalization of the FSLIC with only $3.75 billion authorized in any 12-month period. Also contains forbearance measures designed to postpone or prevent S&L;closures.
February 1988—Bank Board introduces the “Southwest Plan” to consolidate and package insolvent Texas S&Ls;and sell them to the highest bidder. The strategy is to resolve insolvencies quickly while conserving scarce cash for FSLIC. The Bank Board uses a number of strategies to pay for the difference between assets and liabilities of the failed institutions: FSLIC notes, tax incentives, and income, capital value and yield guarantees. The Bank Board disposes of 205 S&Ls;through the Southwest Plan with assets of $101 billion.

November 1988—
George Bush elected President.
S&L;problem not part of election debate. (Now this sounds familiar.)

1989—President Bush unveils S&L;bailout plan in February. In August, Financial Institutions Reform Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA). FIRREA abolishes the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and FSLIC, switches S&L;regulation to newly created Office of Thrift Supervision. Deposit insurance function shifted to the FDIC. A new entity, the Resolution Trust Corporation is created to resolve the insolvent S&Ls; $50 billion of new borrowing authority, with most financed from general revenues and the industry; meaningful net worth requirements and regulation by the OTS and FDIC; allocation funds to the Justice Department to help finance prosecution of S&L;crimes.  Justice Department to help finance prosecution of S&L;crimes. Additional bank crime legislation the next year (i.e., the Crime Control Act of 1990) mandates a study by the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement to uncover the causes of the S&L;crisis, and come up with recommendations to prevent future debacles.

Is John McCain lying when in January 2008 he said, “bailouts were bad.”
This week John McCain’s fix for the economy is “Bailouts are Good.”

The complete summary of this chronology is found at:http://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/s&l;/index.html.

Sabagio Mauraeno home alone in Decatur Georgia, watching a life time of savings, college funds and retirement investments disappear down a rat hole that still remains to be discovered.

cann4—the only problems I had/have with Rev. Wright, is the same problem I have with all churches that blur the lines of church and state.

I realize that , traditionally , Af. Am. churches serve as “more than just churches”.

But, I think we have to draw the line somewhere. When politics mixes with religion, we get problems. Like the ones some people had/have with Wright. I see him as no better, nor worse, than any other preacher. But, I think we would all be better off if churches stayed out of politics.

At the very least, dont have a Religious Advisory Committee , where you appoint your own pastor. (I think that is what it was called. I also faith based initiatives are unconstitutional, but that is unlikely to change)

I realize that many presidents have done the same. (Bush has actaully done worse, maybe Carter too.) But, I dont like it in any administration. I realize, that to drag the uS kicking and screaming out of its preoccupation with religiosity is a far-fetched dream. But people in other countries must truly marvel at our ability to ignore our own constitution’s requitrement of separation of church and state. It never comes to a good end. Especially in US where there are so many religions and so much diversity.

In the end, with pressure from the Press Corp. (although Wright did not hesitate to appear before the media over and over again—I began to wonder whether he realy wanted Obama to win), Obama severed his tries with Wright. This need not have happened.

Army Vet’s diatribe typifies the “guilt by association” mentality of the Republican right-wing.  It matters not that there is no evidence whatsoever of even a hint of impropriety on the part of Senator Obama or that Obama may not see eye-to-eye with every view ever expressed by Rev. Wright.  Indeed, it matters not to Army Vet that the right wing echo chamber smeared Rev. Wright by pulling words of a speech out of context. They made it appear that Wright was calling upon God to “damn America” when, in truth, that context reveals that what Wright was simply expressing the view that God does not bless everything we do.  He, in Wright’s view, does not bless us when the forces of power acting in our name commit atrocities against innocents—be they 19th Century slave traders and Middle Passage, the genocidal campaign carried out against Native Americans under the racist doctrine of Manifest Destiny, or U.S. bombs reigning down on thousands of innocents in places like Falluja.

Of course, my question when someone says, “God bless America” is—If God only blesses America, what does He do to the rest of the world.

I too am an Army vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands, Vietnam 1968) but that does not prevent me from asking you, another Army Vet, a very basic question.  Tell me, Army Vet, who would Jesus have bombed?

FYI Folks,

If you get the chance read, 

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080929/kranich

a very comprehensive article about Library Gate and insight into how Pailn preformed as mayor.  If you believe in censorship you need her in office, on the other hand if you do not believe in censorship the Palin way, well….

ArmyVet-What would be your ideas for changing DC? I for one, would really like to know, although I think some of your assertions about Obama have been around the track and back and , some of them dont pass the smell test. But, I’m not going to dismiss you out of hand, because of that.

With thte state the country is in, we should be listening to everybpdy’s ideas. Everyone here must have already heard all those accusations, and, has decided to fact check them, ignore them ot whatever.

Army Veterarn,

“I guess Barack Hussein Obama’s questionable associations don’t matter to anyone.” 

You are a year and half late, all this BS has been through the ringer with Hillary. Although I am tired of hearing about how Palin has or has not gutted a Moose,  how about trying to discuss a real issues for a change, like the war?

Questionably,  your post shows a real inability in addressing reality.  Suppose using the title Army Veteran is to create some credibility and makes you a spokes person for all veterans, sorry clown, not this one!

re: cyrena

Yes the whole business of dismantling Glass-Steagall is one of the more unpleasant sausage operations in the history of Congress. Yes and you are correct, Bill Clinton’s championing of NAFTA assured he was not going to fight this repeal, as he often said, he was “a new kind of democrat”.
This may be of use to you. Watching an Obama speech about the economy, two nights ago, he mentioned that the present economic troubles are the culmination of policies that began twenty six years ago. He then quickly moved on to zeroing in on the last eight years (as any campaigning politician would do). But I still recall that mention of twenty six years.
Although I am pretty much of a dim bulb when it comes to these high finance matters, but I still think that a strong Securities and Exchange Commissioner is essential to restoring any semblance of market stability. I know people mention Robert Rubin, but for me, there is too much conflict of interest. Perhaps Warren Buffett instead?

Alaskagirl,

If I get this right, the folksy story was supposed to make us feel better about Sarah Palin becoming our Vice President, because she appointed people who she was not having sex with and were not her kin? I know I feel better already.

Re: thebeerdoctor, September 17 at 12:05 pm #
re: cann4ing
Thank you for your insights concerning this mess, and of course the link to the David Corn article.
What I keep thinking about is why President Clinton did not veto the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, even if it would have been eventually overridden.

~~~~~
Beerdoctor, I’m just throwing some stuff out for your consideration in response to your question about why Clinton didn’t veto the Graham-Leach-Bailey Act.
This link may help a bit….

“Congressional history of the Act. The bills comprising the act were created in the Senate Banking Committee and shepparded through the legislative process by Phil Gramm, the Republican chairman of the committee. [1] The bills were introduced in the Senate by Phil Gramm (R-TX) and in the House of Representatives by James Leach (R-IA). The bills were passed by a 54-44 vote along party lines with Republican support in the Senate[2] and by a 343-86 vote with in the House of Representatives[3]. Nov 4, 1999: After passing both the Senate and House the bill was moved to a conference committee to work out the differences between the Senate and House versions. The final bill resolving the differences was passed in the Senate 90-8-1 and in the House: 362-57-15. This veto proof legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999. [4]

The banking industry had been seeking the repeal of Glass-Steagall since at least the 1980s. In 1987 the Congressional Research Service prepared a report which explored the case for preserving Glass-Steagall and the case against preserving the act.[5]”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act

There’s no doubt that it WOULD have been overridden, (see the link to veto proof) but, I still get your point. Thing is, when we consider Clinton’s ultimate sponsorship of NAFTA, I don’t think he would have vetoed it anyway. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act is really part of the entire package, and Clinton being the centrist that he was and is, was always on board with that.

Granted, he did not start the momentum in that direction, since it was clearly a Republican thing going back to the 80’s. Still, he was seemingly as much on board with it as any of the Republicans that held sway at the time.

So, just a thought. When I did some earlier research on NAFTA, (specifically in terms of outsourcing, because my former employer was among the first to WIDELY embrace this back in the mid-80’s) I discovered how much of a boon the Act was to cementing that complete destruction.

Because one of the posts said “you must all be a bunch of disgruntled Hillary supporters”. And, that is not true.

By KDelphi “I don’t give a damn about Hillary Clinton. She is rich and will be fine. “

=====================================

Did I miss something? When did Ms Clinton become part of the Lying Equation? I thought this series began with Ms Palin and her practicing what’s preached in the Republican Bible of Half-Truths, Misdirection and Obfuscation, amended by the Ronald Reagan Admonition: “Let no Republican say anything bad about any other Republican.”

None of the candidates has gotten the message yet. None us care about this superficial finger pointing BS, not when national disasters are becoming more so because of bureaucratic incompetence and politicians looking for a feel good photo op. or sound bites for the evening news.  All we get to date are glittering clichés and golden generalities. Or is it golden clichés and glittering generalities?  Whatever. What we don’t get, and what all of us whatever ideology or political orientation should be outraged about, is the lack of candorr and substance and views and personal concerns about what is happening to our country, now, and the future it portends if nothing, if no corrective policies, laws, commitments, occur ASAP. Aren’t any of you out there scared shitless about those possibilities about what now looks like is going to happen to our kids and us?  Or you just don’t want to think about it   preferring indulge yourselves in guessing how many nitwits can dance on the head of a pin, without stepping on each other’s toes? 

Never mind.

Correction to my last post:  A vote for McKinney or Nader is an exercise in futility that eliminates the chance for meaningful change.

thebeerdoctor, I agree, but let’s not overlook President Clinton’s first betrayal of his democratic base when he rammed NAFTA thru on the fast track.  That was the beginning of the end of the middle-class aspirations of American labor and one of the principle reasons why, after Dennis Kucinich dropped out of the race, I supported Obama over Clinton.

At this point in history, I think voting for either of the excellent third party candidates, Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader, amounts to an exercise in futility that increases the chance of any meaningful change.  One would hope that a President Obama would be more reliant on a Paul Krugman than a Rubin or Greenspan, but the main thing for progressives to understand is that defeating McCain and electing Obama is only a starting point.  Progressive Democrats of America are now the largest caucus in Congress.  But we have to swell their numbers, we have to work tirelessly to both educate the grass roots and convert their energy into positive pressure on an Obama administration.

One thing is certain, McCain/Palin will not listen to the grass roots.  Indeed, if events outside the RNC are any indication, their answer to grassroots is jackboots.

Too bad Rubin is now one of Obama’s economic advisors.

re: cann4ing
Thank you for your insights concerning this mess, and of course the link to the David Corn article.
What I keep thinking about is why President Clinton did not veto the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, even if it would have been eventually overridden.
But then again, the Clinton administration has plenty to answer for in this debacle. From Rubin, to Summers, to Greenspan and that cozy relationship with Citi group.
Still I wish Bill Clinton, even if only symbolically, had stood up for the New Deal policy that actually saved the capital markets from itself.
It is good to remember that Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Joseph P. Kennedy to be the first SEC chairman. Kennedy who knew every trick to pull in an unregulated market, was wise enough to recognize that the transparency of regular financial statements went a long way to keep the greed driven entities within certain bounds. The republicans then, as now, bemoaned these regulatory actions. But the truth of it is, without the actions taken by the federal government, the capitalist system would have destroyed itself.
Somehow, this seems eerily familiar.

This one’s for HM…Check YOUR facts.

Washington Post:
“The only hard facts that have come out so far are the $200 contribution by Ayers to the Obama re-election fund, and their joint membership of the eight-person Woods Fund Board. Ayers did not respond to e-mails and telephone calls requesting clarification of the relationship. Obama spokesman Bill Burton noted in a statement that Ayers was a professor of education at the University of Illinois and a former aide to Mayor Richard M. Daley, and continued:

Senator Obama strongly condemns the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as he does all acts of violence. But he was an eight-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were active, and any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost forty years ago is ridiculous.”

And so it goes…Washington Post, Newsday, Chicago Sun Times…all support the position that the Obama/Ayers “connection” matters only to Karl Rove and others desparately attempting to create “connections” where they simply don’t exist.

I dont give a damn about Hillary Clinton. She is rich and will be fine.

Can you say the same for the people who have lost their homes, must pay outrageous prices for food and utilities, soldiers that come home and are told to fuck off (they just failed another GI Bill yestereday, in the House. Not sure what Senate will do).

When I hear Obama address those issues directly, I will consider it a huge advance for Dems. He gave a speech about Wall St. etc. yesterday. It was pretty good.(the content—I would never question his speaking abilities) I dont agree with alot of it. (He still basically wants an unregulated free mkt), but he is getting there.When the public takes over a previously private corporation, we have every right—no, responsibility—to regulate it as to what serves the public interest. (FMs were never intended to be “private” int he first place)

The GOP has to lie over and over again to maintain power. Theyve already run the gambit of social issues, (and disappointed those that put them in power for , say, abortion or gay marriage)

Now, if the Dems would just take OPPOSING positions on these issues—they might make liberals feel a little less used.

By Eugene Robinson

What kind of person tells a self-aggrandizing lie, gets called on it, admits publicly that the truth is not at all what she originally claimed—and then goes out and starts telling the original lie again without changing a word?
========================================
Got a pencil. Let’s see, FDR,Eisenhower,Johnson, Nixon, Spiro, Reagan,Bush I of Iran /Contra, Clinton forever, Bush II (Dick Cheney)

That’s for starters.

Then there’s Rush Lumbaugh,Sean Hanritty, Neil Bortz, ..., Montel Williams, TMZ, NBC,ABC, MNBC, CNN,NYC,WP,...

And how about Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Franklin Grahm, Richard Roberts…
the Tobacco Cartel,(cigarrettes are good)  Eron, Countrywide, Merryl/Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Lehmon Bros., AGI, predatory lenders nationwide, Bank of America, AT &
T, Micrsoft, HP, Ibm, comcast, Humana, et. al. health insurance providers, Donald Rumsfield, ..., GM, Ford, Chrysler, Dodge, Lee Ioccoca,

None of these folks would be considered “confidence builders.” We need to distinguish lies on behalf of “enlightened self interest.”  And lies because that’s the only thing one knows how to do and get away with it.  It’s most easy to lie when there is no request for “accountability” coming from the populous,the other branches of government, friends, neighbors, Romans, countrymen and women. The Artful Dodger of all time up to now is by any standards, Bill Clinton. But he oversaw a strong economy, minimal investment in war, containment of Saddam Husein, decoding the human genome, research in the fields of medicine, technology,stem cellresearch,AIDS, etc. \\

Folks who don’t get caught much in lies but are considered miscontents or downright crazy are Ted Turner, Michael Moore and Al Gore. Then maybe Oprah and Whoopie Goldberg, Larry King,  Dan Rather, Mike Douglas, Andy Rooney, The Pope,

By HM, September 17 at 8:08 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Obviously, you’re all obsessing and disappointed that Hillary didn’t win the nomination.  If Obama wins in November it will be the Carter administration all over again, but worse. 

No, and no no no.

“What kind of person tells a self-aggrandizing lie, gets called on it, admits publicly that the truth is not at all what she originally claimed—and then goes out and starts telling the original lie again without changing a word?
_____________________________________________
Well, where I come from, they are known as pathological liars!

Thebeerdoctor:  A repeal of Glass-Steagall was a key first step, but by no means the end of the process that led to the present morass.

Phil “Gramm’s most cunning coup on behalf of his friends in the financial services industry—friends who gave him millions over his 24-year congressional career—came on December 15, 2000. It was an especially tense time in Washington. Only two days earlier, the Supreme Court had issued its decision on Bush v. Gore. President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress were locked in a budget showdown. It was the perfect moment for a wily senator to game the system. As Congress and the White House were hurriedly hammering out a $384-billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Written with the help of financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.).

“’Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on or what was in it,” says a congressional aide familiar with the bill’s history.”

The legislation contained a provision—lobbied for by Enron, a generous contributor to Gramm—that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight, allowing Enron to run rampant, wreck the California electricity market, and cost consumers billions before it collapsed. (For Gramm, Enron was a family affair. Eight years earlier, his wife, Wendy Gramm, as cftc chairwoman, had pushed through a rule excluding Enron’s energy futures contracts from government oversight. Wendy later joined the Houston-based company’s board, and in the following years her Enron salary and stock income brought between $915,000 and $1.8 million into the Gramm household.

“But the Enron loophole was small potatoes compared to the devastation that unregulated swaps would unleash. Credit default swaps are essentially insurance policies covering the losses on securities in the event of a default.”

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html

opening eyes—this is sortve a dumb thing to be going back and forth about, isnt it? But….one of the references you listed was from 1998 (psychopathy). It is no longer used, at least, in any progresssive-thinking psyh’s offices or Boards of MH, because, as I said, it has become (like definitions of retardation, disability, etc.) an insult—so the similar term (socioathic personality disorder ) is “preferred”. (If you use it at all—people throw it around today , everytime someone lies or does something that “shocks their conscience”—I hate that term too—it can come to meant anyone taht is difficult to figure out)

It is certainly not in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, it was taken out with right after “homosexual deviancy”. Sure, you can find people who will use it—ALOT of people use it in the movies,  on the newzzz to describe behavior they dont understsand. (Just because we cant understand it, doesnt mean we shoudl throw a Hollywood label at it) If we just say “well, they have no conscience, they’re a psycho” How wil we be able to recognize the behavior, possibly change it, etc. (I’m not referring to Dubya, here, so , dont even go there)

The link (I think you should re-read it—no offense, but ) it rather goes on to make my point.It is from the UK, also, which may use a different diagnostic system (2004 Royal College of Psychiatrists—it may be diff among shrinks, too) “...limited evidence of predictive validity….at BEST…for high risk groups..including youth…for developing a TREATMENT PLAN”.

Therefore , they are saying that it actaully has no diagnostic value.

I’m not even sure diagnosis has much value, except for biling purposes.(If they need mney fro your insurance, they’ll damn sure find a label for you) An alternative , is to put “Axis I—R/O (Rule Out)” and , then list as many diagnoses that dont seem absurd , as possible, so you havent labelled the person for life. Insurance and lawyers love to find those labels, as an excuse to lock the person up or avoid paying for care. NOT ALL LAWYERS! lol—I have them in my family, ok? When you need them—there’s no one else.

Bush is a seriously fucked up little person.Palin appears to be also. I guess the labeling stuff doesnt matter so much, as long as people are just palying around with it. (Stanford-Binet IQ test makes a great party game!Its hard when some of your friends start to go past what you know the answers to, adn you have to look it up..lol..but, except in extremes, it has no real diagnostic value) But, when the “doctor” cam in her with his “professional opinion” (on this site), it reminded me ofevery shrink I ever worked for that said “GIVE ME A FRICKING LABEL! THE COURTS WANT IT”

If you expect people to lie, you except people to lie, expect to be lied to.

True Lies

Golleee Gee Whiz!!!! Ms Palin LIES! Tell us something new about today’s successful politicians. They all lie. It’s key to the contemporary American Political Game. The last President who said he would never lie to the American people was Jimmy Carter and he was held up to public ridicule. SNL couldn’t have been happier.  So that given, all politicians lie should not be an issue. What should be THE issue is that as a group, being patronizing and condescending is thought of as best practices, PLUS their failure to get to the substance of what’s important, and
THEN tell us lies that may assuage our fears and give us some hope that something can be done: The economy, global warming, dumbing down of public education, American treasure being sold off to the highest bidders in the Global Economy, tax breaks for some, nothing for the many, urban gridlock, disaster capitalism as witnessed by Katrina, Rita, Lehman Brothers, gasoline shortages and panic at the pumps, George Bush. Nitpicking about Ms Palin is a waste of space-time and everything.

Sabagio Mauraeno home alone in Decatur Georgia going out the door to find a gas station that ain’t price gouging and an honest politician.

Pathological liars seem like they should be some sort of danger to society.  Imagine a society were we all were pathological liars, maybe half of us are and the other half get taken by them.  Looking around Wall Street lied to make big bucks.  Politicians lie most of the time, except in Palins case it is all the time. What about religion, isn’t telling a lie a sin? 

If Palin is supposed to be a Christian , Does she go to confession and be absolved of her sins, or in her special religion, telling lies is acceptable in order to make an objective?

re: Cann4ing

The bailout of A.I.G. would have happened whether it was a Republican or Democratic administration in charge. The destruction of the Glass-Steagall Act, is the core root of the present disaster. The final blow to Glass-Steagall came in 1999, when the prohibition of banks from owning other financial companies was repealed, by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wallstreet/weill/demise.html

And the lies continue. Just reported on Countdown and The Rachael Maddow Show, Sarah, while giving a speech declared that the teleprompter was not working, so she would go ahead and talk to the people (ad-libbed). If we could have seen the actual wording on this teleprompter, I bet it was the words she said that it wasn’t working. However, reporters and others among the crowd saw that the prompter was working, as well as the technical people said there was no problems to which she claimed. She lies for the sake of lying.

Also the chef she claims she fired, much to the disappointment of her children, is another lie. She still has this person cooking for her children-a job her church feels is “a woman’s role”, she changed the job name and is using this category rather than chef. So when she says she no longer has the chef they had, she really isn’t lying, she is twisting the truth.

I don’t care what they try to claim. It is a lie, and I hate liars. And yes,I know, unfortunately, most politicians lie.

In effect George W. Bush is a serial liar who believes he was chosen by God. Neither the media, the people, nor the Democrats has risen to dispute his lies, let alone his messianic complex.

Emboldened by Bush’s lack of accountability, McCain is playing the same Rovian tune.

After it became increasingly obvious that the seemingly robotic McCain with the bankrupt Bush legacy could not effectively run against Obama, McCain’s Rovian advisors prompted a desperate McCain to choose a young, female radical conservative. She is opportunistic, has messianic delusions, and the same capacity for lying as Bush.

The serial lying started with her speech at the Republican National Convention and has been sustained and augmented by campaign partners since.

“I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending.and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress ‘thanks but no thanks’ for that Bridge to Nowhere.”

“If our state wanted a bridge, I said we’d build it ourselves,” said Palin. Since her debut on the national stage, the McCain campaign and its surrogates have reiterated this claim at least 25 times, even featuring it in a new TV ad. The tabulation is McCain, 4; Palin, 7; TV Ads, 1; and surrogates, 13.

What is the truth?

As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the tiny town of 9,000 totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending. So in actuality, Palin supported the bridge to an island with 50 residents until the plan was ridiculed nationally by McCain himself.

Another flavor of lies comes in distortions and misrepresentation: “The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Summarily, McCain’s plan would cut taxes across all income levels, but effectively raise after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent while Obama’s income tax plan would raise it by 5 percent. For the rich, more manna would flow from McCain (actually the taxpayer) to support additional tax breaks for the rich even beyond Bush.

Palin, like Bush before her, has deluded herself into believing that God supports her and her radical right-wing ideas. Last June, she told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a “task that is from God.”

Suggesting God serves gas companies, she said, “..she’d work to implement God’s will from the governor’s office, including creating jobs by building a pipeline to bring North Slope natural gas to North American markets. God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.”

Another category of lying is the Orwellian invention, saying the opposite of the truth. “A McCain-Palin administration” would “move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources.” The truth is that she and McCain are soul-mate Luddites. She believes alternative-energy solutions are over ten years away and that global warming is a myth invented by liberals. McCain has consistently voted against renewables but boldly calls himself “green”.

With Palin being isolated from the media by the McCain campaign, only scheduled to interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson, she cannot be challenged regarding her many lies told to the American people.

The obvious purpose of the lies is to give Republicans four more years in the White House.

And certainly Palin would say that God wills it?

NY Times just revealed that the Fed will bail out AIG with an $85 billion loan.

“The bailout is likely to prove controversial, because it effectively puts taxpayer money at risk while protecting bad investments made by A.I.G. and other institutions it does business with.
“What frightened Fed and Treasury officials was not simply the prospect of another giant corporate bankruptcy, but A.I.G.’s role as an enormous provider of financial insurance to investors who bought complex debt securities. That effectively required A.I.G. to cover losses suffered by the buyers in the event the securities defaulted. It meant A.I.G. was potentially on the hook for billions of dollars worth of risky securities that were once considered safe.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/business/17insure.html?_r=1&hp;&oref;=slogin

Great scam Republicans have had.  They place their bets on the crap table, and we, the people, cover their losses.

This financial meltdown is great news for the Democrats! McCain is dead as a mackeral. If he goes with his previous statement that he “doesn’t know much about the economy”, he’s dead. If he goes with his other statement that as chairman of the Commerce Committee he has been overseeing the deregulation of the economy for the last eight years, he’s even deader. His chief economic advisor for years has been Phil Graham, whose deregulation of depression-era laws governing finance is chiefly responsible for the current mess. Of course this only continues what has been going on since the Reagan deregulation, which was a huge con that has continued and gotten worse all these years. There is a difference between a free market and a lawless market as there is a difference between a free society and a lawless one.

Thought I should add my source for the psychopathic personality definition:
http://apt.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/10/6/466

(...I mean Tony Wicher. Been a long day here.)

(Tony Wilcher…my apologies. Meant this for our friend HM.)

Tony Wilcher…Please show me where in this blog anyone has ever stated or even implied that Democrats have never lied.

And while you’re working on that, why not illustrate how an 8-year-old Barack Obama connected with the young Bill Ayers. (Oh wait. I forgot. You’re a Republican. Palin’s ability to see Russia from Alaska gives her experience in world affairs so I suppose Obama’s political association with Bill Ayers makes him a terrorist. My error.)

The Palin bubble is bursting like the housing market.

Democratic landslide, coming up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is no doubt that Sara Palin is a serial liar.  But she hasn’t acquired the adroitness of a Dick Cheney.  For most people, Palin included, the increase in volume and pitch of voice is a dead give away when they stray into a whopper—in the case of the bridge to nowhere, this is enhanced by finger pointing and related gestures. 

Cheney, however, is a master sociopath.  Go back and watch any of his performance where he was selling the nation on the multiple canards about Iraq.  What you will find is an almost flat delivery, as if the lies he spins are so obviously true that one simply recites them as fact.  He’ll spill out grotesque lies as obvious matters-of-fact with so little emotion that you would think he was reading a chemistry formula.

Either way, with Karl Rove aka Bush’s Brain working for Cheney/Palin behind-the-scenes, there can be little doubt that we are essentially dealing with the same duplicitous cabal that has occupied the White House these past eight years.

By HM, September 16 at 1:26 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Oh, because democrats don’t lie???  Gimme a break, why doesn’t anyone ever question Obama’s ties to Bill Ayers - Weather Underground
—————————————————————————-
HM,

There you go, spreading Republican lies and smears again.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/the-odd-lies-of.html
She’s picking things up from right wing blogs.  She’s being used by the gop base, which is like a cult, for their own purposes.  Instead of criticising her we should look at how politics makes liars (or worse) of us all.

y Opening Eyes, September 16 at 11:52 am

Opening Eyes, thanks for the definition(s) on psychopathy. It all fits, eh?

We are seeing with our own eyes, lies turned into truths.  If a lie is told enough then it becomes truth.  Being full of one self as these people who are special, telling lies becomes an entitlement.  They must belong to a special club for practice,  because the ability to tell lies means you have to remember what you said. McCain seems to be an expert telling lies, so his memory must be in tiptop shape.

What scares me about the self proclaimed dog with lipstick is her incessant lying. Just like McBush, lie one day, be caught the next and tell the same lie the day after that. I really wish the MSM would start calling it LYING. It seems the women on “the view” are the only ones willing to do it.

Republicans go to school to learn how to tell lies especially using a straight face, really came in handy in the smoke filled rooms playing poker in the old days.  Hell, they may even teach woppers101 at the Christan colleges. Bush an expert in telling lies, must be their mentor, probably even have a wing named after him.

Okay, so let’s say she does not lie, she just embellishes the non-truth about herself over and over again. O know a person, now studying to be a female minister. She claims she is a woman of her word and right with God, and everything that comes out of her mouth is a lie and every promise she makes to others, she never does, yet she could be Sarah’s other evil twin.

It is second nature for Republicans to lie, compulsively and habitually. It is in their DNA makeup, or as the religious right now crowd would say, “God made us this way, so it’s okay.” The religious tend to lie more than any other group of people I have ever worked around in over 50 years of experience on this earth. They justify it with their version of the Bible, and the fact many feel they can “get forgiven” over and over again, repeating the same trespasses, by simply going to church and asking their God to forgive them. Never mind the fact they do not feel one iota of guilt over this, as they turn right around and start repeating the same lies and sins as soon as they walk out the door of the church, only to return again next Sunday and repeat the whole thing over. Why tell the truth, no sense confusing the people with the real facts.

Opening Eyes: critical thinking no longer exists, it is something the church does not allow. People who actually think for themselves are a threat and therefore must be destroyed at all costs. I liked you definitions you researched also.

It should come as no surprise that this trait is so deeply ingrained in her, after all she claims to believe in a book of heresy as out and out truth, even when evidence points out differently.

Regarding McCain/Palin/Bush/Cheney lies….

It’s been my experience that the typical scenario goes something like this:

ACT ONE: The curtain opens on a canned, scripted “interview” with a News Repeater representing the Corporate Media at (pick one) CBS/NBC/ABC/FOX/CNN/MSNBC while McCain/Palin/Bush/Cheney delivers a clever, but bald-faced, sound-bite lie. The News Repeater almost never, ever calls them on the lie.

ACT TWO: The clever little sound-bite lie is picked up by every Corporate Media outlet and repeated ad nauseum.

ACT THREE: The clever little sound-bite lie is questioned and vetted (not by the Corporate Media but by any among us with at least a 2nd Grade education) and confirmed to be exactly what it is: A LIE.

ACT FOUR: The Corporate Media ignores the follow-up story. The exposure of the LIE maybe, just maybe squeeks through on page A23 of your newspaper, or Truthdig.org, Air America or Snopes. But otherwise, end of story, end of play. Curtain closes. The American Audience remains clueless.

Speaking of Alaska’s number one liar, Governor Palin, I read today on Alaskan Andrew Halcro’s site that the Governor has a new reason for the firing that Alaskan Commissioner:

“Like the story of Goldilocks and the three bears, Governor Sarah Palin has finally come up with yet another excuse for why she fired her former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan that she’s hoping is just right.”

Andrew lists the Governor’s former excuses, but he doesn’t say which excuses were too hot and which excuses were too cold. 

July 14, 2008 Excuse (Too Hot?)
July 21, 2008 Excuse (Too Cold?)
July 28, 2008 Excuse (Too Hot?)
August 13, 2008 X 3 = 3 Excuses (Too Hot, Too Cold, Too Cold?)
September 4, 2008 Excuse (Too Cold)

http://www.andrewhalcro.com/test_0

Alright, so I google Grandiosity and Lying.  I can’t bear to think how this applies:

“Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterised by a constellation of interpersonal, affective and behavioural characteristics (Hare, 1998). The early literature suggested that it was a uni-dimensional phenomenon, but subsequent studies revealed that measures of psychopathy had at least a two-factor structure, comprising an interpersonal/affective element (factor 1) and a social deviance component (factor 2). More recently, a three-factor structure has been proposed (Cooke & Michie, 2001), which includes:

an arrogant, deceitful interpersonal style, involving dishonesty, manipulation, grandiosity and glibness;

defective emotional experience, involving lack of remorse, poor empathy, shallow emotions and a lack of responsibility for one’s own actions;

behavioural manifestations of impulsiveness, irresponsibility and sensation-seeking.”

Beerdoc..on this…

“Okay, I am just an internet peasant, but I ask you all: how do you rationally deal with crazy? When it comes to crazy, I think we are already full up.”

~~~~~

Me too, (peasant) but I know that there is absolutely NO rational way to deal with crazy!! We might THINK we have mastered ways to deal with crazy, but it’s simply not true.

UNLESS…if you consider that becoming crazy as well is a way to deal with it, (because that’s what normally happens) or….if we think we can hang in there until it ‘passes’. (kind of like trying to survive torture, with the hope that eventually, the torturers will stop). But when it’s psychological terror/torture, it’s all a matter of the odds. (survival that is).

And yep, I concur…most of us are full up with it.

http://palin-presidency-comedy.blogspot.com/

Big B—I was throwing my keyboard aroudn the room again. I figured it was my ass clown pc!

Then Steve came in and said"Look outdside. Its not your pc”.

We love presidents who make their own reality! just look at the one we have now! I think It may be interesting to see what kind of fantasy world lurks in the subconscience of Mccain and Gov Sarah.
It may just make the other side of the looking glass seem tame by comparison.
Co-starring Phil Graham as the mad hatter!

Beerdoc and Kdelphi

while we here in the ‘burg did not suffer too much from the storm, power outages across the area sunday nite caused much of the areas cable tv to go out, right as the stillers kicked off!
Shouts of “why hath thou forsaken us?” could probably be heard as far west as cincy, as the people rushed to their local comcast office weilding torches and pitchforks!

“But it’s weird for a politician—or anyone else, really—to maintain that an assertion is true after admitting that it isn’t true.”
Well, for those who pay attention, an apology for a lie is a minor blip.  The MIS-information is out there and believed by those gullibles who want others to do the thinking and discerning for them.  They won’t hear the apology. The damage has been done, and Rove gets to look like he’s really not all that bad for anyone who pays attention.
We’re talking about a segment of the population who have been so mesmerized by the TV that they no longer utilize critical thinking.  I’m sorry that their vote counts as much as someone who sees through the game.

Sam—people dont care that she lied, because the US system of elections has become about “star power” and money. It is not about substance, truthfulness, or experience. It is about how you look, how well you give a speech, and most of all, how much money you cna raise.

Sue—If Obama was “left wing” , he wouldnt be having so much trouble with liberals. Palin is a liar. Plain and simple. It will come out in the debates—if they ever get sround to having any.

Of course, they could just have some more “faith vased” forums. Maybe we can all look into her eyes and see her soul—if she has one.

Hey Eugene,

  Why don’t you “wrongly accused” reporters do more to find out who Obama is, how he thinks and what he has done in office?

  You accuse Sarah Palin of lying, book burning, offering high paying jobs to under qualified friends.

You just described most politicians, Washington as a matter of fact.

  You are a definite fan of Barry Obama, the far left wing extreme radical liberal who reached his fame and fortune crawling up the ranks with the likes of Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, Daly, the sleazy Chicago mayor with a boat-load of corruption in his own right and let’s not forget the American basher Rev. Wright.  Talk about lying…..,

  Barry threw more people under the bus to get to where he is today than Sarah Palin could ever dream of.  They don’t call it the Chicago mean machine for being grouchy do you?  More like “thugs” better suits them.

  You should look for a real day job since un-biased journalism dosen’t seem to be your strong suit.

Why don’t people care that she’s lying about the bridge?  Because the gold standard for lies now is the lie that got us into the war in Iraq.  Bush lied and hundreds of thousands died.  Not too many cared about that.  What the hell’s a little bridge in Alaska?  When people lie in high places it trickles down.  To say nothing of more serious offences.

Sam—She sortve looked like a beached fish on Gibson’s show, dont you think?

I used this phrase for years as a tagline on the Salon Table Talk Forum…. one of the things the media USED to look for is the truth; now they only look for controversy, and indeed, as they did with Al Gore, they MAKE THINGS UP for their own stories if they don’t get enough interest generated with ordinary facts.

what is my truth?

1. It’s about oil.

2. Bush is a moron.

Everyone keeps running away from those salient truths, and they try to pretend that we’d be occupying an oil-less Iraq OR Afghanistan re: pipeline from Caspian oil, or that Bush didn’t buy degrees from Yale and Harvard, flunk out of the Texas Air Guard, and never said one single memorable intelligent thing that wasn’t fed to him by handlers.

But don’t castigate Pa(L)in-the-ass for lying; what else CAN she do? Cut off her lies and she would just have to flop there sucking air like a beached fish.

re: P.T., KDelphi,

Have you ever noticed that people who actually worry about other people, very rarely ever climb up on a moral high horse. I mean you do not need to believe in God to realize that war is wrong. You do not have to attend an “attitude adjustment” with TV’s Dr. Phil, to realize that unbound greed becomes an ultimate destructive force.
If only you had the righteous delusion of James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and that mother of all holy warriors, Governor Palin; so that you could call for people to be killed and nations destroyed, because you know, that God is on your side.
Okay, I am just an internet peasant, but I ask you all: how do you rationally deal with crazy? When it comes to crazy, I think we are already full up.
Peace

I have been struck before by the tendency of fundamentalists to lie.  It is as if it were an “ends justifies the means” thing.  They act as though if someone is on God’s side, then it is okay to lie to advance the cause.

Inherit—Of course she’s lying. -Anyone not in a cave knows that now. The problem is, alot of peo-ple just dont seem to care.

I wish they would have debates sooner! Biden would be able to point that out, and maybe peopel would listen to him, maybe more than bloggers. There hasnt been a debate since the primaries were over.

That interview with Gibson showed me how she will fall under pressure. Did you see the look on her face, when she blushed and said, “In what respect, Charlie?” Digging for an answer to a question she didnt understand.

Bur for people that are not familiar with the “bush doctrine” (sickening term), Biden or the newscasters can call her out on more simplistic lies. There are plenty of them

I think people should be emphasizing how she is unwilling to participate in the current investigation into her cronyism in office as governor of Alaska.

Thanks, beerdr. It’s a real mess around here. Power is stil out across the street. (??) I guess your explanation would make sense.

re: KDelphi

Power outages continue in the Tri-State area, Palin forced to cancel her Indian Hill shakedown due to lack of traffic lights, despite their campaign’s earlier assertions that the show would go on.
A meteorological term not often used: “Gustnado”, which refers to a tornado without a funnel cloud. This recent storm was a hurricane without an eye. Almost unimaginable what the force was like in Haiti and along the coast.

Gene, Gene, what’s your point?  That the right-wingers will decide on a lie and keep repeating even when it’s shown to be a lie?  Wait till the VP debate, when she says, yet again “And I told Congress thanks but no thanks!”

The idea of The Big Lie as Goebbels put it, was you just keep repeating it, 100 times, 1000 times, 1,000,000 times until it becomes “the truth”.  As long as the nutty right-wing-nuts cheer every time she says it, she’ll keep saying it. 

And anyone who points out that it’s a lie is “sexist”, “partisan”, “hates women”, etc.

You know the drill.  It’s standard GOP tactics as laid down by Lee Atwater and driven by Karl Rove.

BTW, I believe that Rove’s “criticism” of the McCain campaign is only because McCain’s actually putting up these scurrilous ads himself, not being smart and have a deniable surrogate doing them for him. 

Remember: “Swift Boat Veterans For Truth” had no formal (or public) connection to the Bush re-election campaign.  So Bush could pretend to be upset but say “Hey! Not me! Not my campaign.”

Sarah Palin is an albatross around the neck of the Republican Party.

By Cran Berry, September 16 at 3:47 am #

Palin and the republicans know that most voters don’t care whether she lies or not. She’s a republican woman. That’s all she needs to get elected.
——————————————————————————
This says a lot about Republicans. Lying is moral as long as you’re a Republican and the lies are Republican lies.

cyrena—it did not post my entire post. I dont know why. But i have to answer to you, not at all. Sorry I “broke yur heart” (LOL)

beer dr.—Outages in Dayton, too. I have one tree completley down, and one split in half. I hate to lose them—I was sure that there was a tornado.

You have gotta see this:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/98939/‘hockey_moms_for_truth’_wage_swift_boat_campaign_against_palin/?cID=1008783#c1008783

http://mudflats.wordpress.com

http://morosehellhole.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah-palin-has-criminal-record.html

psmealey,

“just repeating talking points”???

Did you read the article?  She is repeating talking points that SHE HERSELF admitted were lies days earlier! .....  And,  Can easily be verified from public records as lies!  Give yourself a colonoscopy and get your head outta there!

News: Despite massive power blackouts in Cincinnati, Ohio, due to the remnants of Hurricane Ike, the local press is blithely reporting that the Governor Palin fundraiser in Indian Hill is still on. Ah yes, Indian Hill, where Carl Lindner and the other Indian Hillbillies raise money for their favorite charity, the neediest kids of all, as it were: the Republican party. Indian Hill, that wealthy sanctuary from the frightful “urban” dangers found beyond. Where never is heard a discouraging word about George W. Bush, and the Governor of Alaska is a very exciting guest indeed.
Thanks but no thanks? Not exactly.

Well… not really.  She’s just repeating the talking points… that someone else wrote for her… about herself.

I was less concerned about her lack of knowledge and depth on some of the issues that Charlie Gibson asked her about that I was her robotic reiteration of talking points.

How is she different than Monica Goodling?  And don’t say, “lipstick”.

By KDelphi, September 15 at 10:48 pm

who does this?

~~~~

KDelphi, Eugene already answered your question.

HERE is ‘who does this’:

“...we’re beginning to discern an ambitious, opportunistic politician who makes no bones about rewarding friends and punishing those who stand in her way—and who believes that truth is nothing more, and nothing less, than what she says it is….”

If you don’t get this after 8 years of the same shit, then I guess it’s too late.

It breaks my heart that you would have to ask. Please tell me you’ve been in a coma for the last decade before beginning your posts here. THAT would provide the mitigating circumstances.

Otherwise, you confirm my greatest fear.

who does this? Someone who has no grasp of the issues, or someone who thinks that god wil tel them what to do, so they need not educate themselves, even when running for office.