Palin ~ A Bridge to Nowhere

What is it that bothers me so about Palin?

First, it's the doublespeak. While touting anti abortion, & abstinence, we are asked to respect the family's privacy on this personal matter, while at the same time Republicans are making laws and stacking the courts with judges who would deny us our ability to make equally personal choices of our own.

Then it's the double standard. Without making a personal judgement on teen pregnancy, it is a program of the Bush administration- the abstinence program that has the teen pregnancy rate up for the first time in 14 years.
This is a failed policy. Not only has it led to more teen pregnancies, it is a double whammy- it is coupled with the idea that funding teen parent support programs, sex education & healthcare, are considered "pork barrel spending".

Where's the Substance? We've heard Hockey Mom, PTA, and Mayor. We've heard about the family pregnancy issue.
We've not heard about Foreign policy. Where she stands on the Iraq War, Gitmo, Iran, Afghansitan. The US economy, the mortgage crisis, global warming, funding education.

We have heard she fired the Wasilla Alaska librarian for not banning books, and she fired anyone who did not agree with her agenda.
Palin did run a small Alaska suburb as Mayor. A population under 7000. She handled such matters as should they pave dirt roads, and putting a financially unfruitful sports complex project ahead of installing sewers. Although the Mayoral position of Wasilla is non partisan, she made it partisan.

Just read an excellent editorial by Ellen Goodman:

"The Straight Talk Express twisted itself into a pretzel trying to defend her qualifications to be commander in chief. More to the point, the mother of five had a personal story meant to capture the imagination of the American people, whose minds were beginning to wander ominously to such non-entertaining narratives as the Iraq war and the economy.
Then along came the news that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant. Immediately, the “family values” folks who have fashioned a political wedge out of moral judgments began insisting that anyone who remarked on this baby bump was an insensitive invader of privacy.
But let’s not forget that it’s the right wing that made social issues into a political issue. The right wing decided that pregnancy was not a matter of private decision-making but a harsh and unrelenting political battle.

Palin opposes sex education programs that go beyond abstinence only.

John McCain, an unrelenting opponent of abortion, was once asked whether the government should provide contraception and replied, “You’ve stumped me.” The Republican platform is not similarly stumped with its implacable opposition to every abortion and its renewed “call for replacing ‘family planning’ programs for teens with increased funding for abstinence education, which teaches abstinence until marriage as the responsible and expected standard of behavior.”

Pregnancy is indeed private. Decisions are to be discussed and determined in a family. But the party meeting in St. Paul, Minn., would put decisions about pregnancy in the hands of the government and replace sex information with disinformation. No, you don’t have to pass judgment on a 17-year-old to pass judgment on these unrelenting policymakers.

Sarah Palin? So far, she looks like a Bridge to Nowhere."

My commentary on Palin's RNC Speech:

I found her speech to have very little substance. Her lengthy introduction to her large family, including 5 children, and parents took up a whole lot of time that should have been used to tell us about her platform specifics.
I don't care that her husband is a champion snow mobile racer~ I honestly don't. I sincerely believe the people whose mortgages are about to foreclose, or who must file for bankruptcy because they do not have health care coverage really did not tune in to get the extensive low down on her family tree.

I think Palin showed just how desperate she was-- she discounted Obama's entire resume by playing loose and sloppy with facts-- he's "just a community organizer".

8 years in the Illinois Legislature
Harvard Law School Grad
2 years of teaching Constitutional law @ the College level
4 years as a US Senator

He also did community organizing & practiced as a Civil Rights Attorney.

So for her, and her podunk Hockey Mom, PTA, Mayor of a tiny suberb "governmental experience", discounting Obama's accomplishments was just pure bullshit.

If you don't have much to tout about yourself, then you are reduced to attacking the person you are running against. If that is in fact the case-- this tough talking lady is really running scared, and she should be.
For her to proclaim on National TV that she herself has more experience than Obama & Biden combined was ludicrous.

Biden himself has served in the US Senate since 1973. Thirty five years of experience.on the Foreign Relations Committee, and the Senate Judiciary Committee. That means Biden has been dealing with Federal Foreign Affairs since Palin was 9 years old.

As one pundit put it-- it is one thing to read a prepared speech in front of an adoring crowd... quite another to answer real questions in a debate setting on complex foreign affair issues.

I hope anyone who has the wherewithall to listen to what the RNC is serving up, it would be helpful to have an interpretive guide to terminology:

• Energy Independence = Drill for Oil
• Lower Taxes = For the Rich
• Alternate Energy = Nuclear Power Plants & a National Nuclear Waste Dump
• Clean Coal = Delusion
• Lower Fuel costs = Sacrifice Arctic Natl. Wildlife Refuge/Kiss Polar Bears Goodbye
• Attack Obama = Easier to talk about than actual issues
• Hockey Mom, PTA = I have no Foreign Affairs knowledge whatsoever

It is hard to imagine a McCaine regime could be even more oppressive and mismanaged, than the Bush adminstration- but I believe that would be the case.

The more I learn of Palin's political resume, I am convinced her path is abuse of power, with limited knowledge ~ a dangerous combination.
The American Gothic image the republicans would like to portray.






The surreal likeness of something a little more close to reality.