Sarah Palin: Tar Baby?

Eddie Griffin urges Caution

Friday, August 29, 2008

Who would have thought that John McCain would make a “steal your thunder” comeback, after Barack Obama hit it out of the park last night? No sooner had the confetti settled, John McCain shocked the world by selecting Alaska Gov.
Sarah Palin.

OMG, we were still hung over from last night’s jubilation and, WHAM!

“Wow. This is like a knife to the jugular for Obama and the Dems,” writes Sylvia.

Gina blogs: For those who read and contemplate political strategies, everyone is buzzing about Senator John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, and the first ever female GOP VP pick… This was a game changer. McCain is taking all of the oxygen out of the newsrooms this morning.

Gina observes that there was only the appearance of Hillary Clinton voters reconciled and unified with the Barack Obama supporters. What people see as festering in this deep seated wound in the Democratic Party provides opportunity for John McCain to tap into former Hillary supports.

Baratunde writes: - this is a big move by mccain, but i don't like to throw the word brilliant around lightly, and this is not brilliant. it is big. it is desperate. it is also risky.

- oh, and as for a group of political reporters believing this was a game changer, that's fine. but that doesn't make it so, and it doesn't say which way the game will end. political reporters, especially groups of them, have been known to be wrong again and again and again. if anything, their unanimity makes me suspicious.

RESPONSE FROM: Eddie Griffin

It is my habit to work from the “worse case scenario”. If we can find the solution to the worse case situation, all other problems become feasible for solutions.

What problem does Sarah Palin present to the Democratic Party? None, I see. Other than being the first female GOP Vice President candidate, she is a non-factor and a potential “tar baby”. If the Dems fight against her, they can only become entangled.

I subscribe to the Theory of Self-Destruction, as in John McCain being his own worst enemy. The less you bother, the more inclined to self-destruct.

McCain Says Construction Workers Under Stress Because They Won't Pick Lettuce for Fifty Dollars an Hour in Yuma Valley

In the above video, John McCain insists that lettuce pickers in Yuma valley earn fifty dollars an hour "for the whole season". He tells a construction worker that he wouldn't do the same work, even for fifty dollars an hour, "because you can't do it, my friend."

I found the above video over at DailyWhitosphere. The user who posted this video hasn't got a single minority link on his entire user bloglist. That's why, as much as this participant might want to work against McCain s/he is bound, tied, and neutered by her/his own inability to join with others, regardless of skin color and ethnicity, in the fight for human and economic rights for all.

Has JiSM Physically Abused his Wife?

AgentX has left a new comment on your post "McCain Uses the "Tar Baby" Phrase":

Ugh...Some people never change.

Angles I'm working on this week:

1) McCain may have beat/attacked his wife. Those arm injuries and her excuse don't quite seem to match. Although there's no clear proof uncovered yet, a lot of people aren't necessarily buying the excuse of "enthusiastic supporters".

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/comments_blog/2008/08/a-handshake-ind.html

If you recall, she was in crutches early in the campaign.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/09/04/cindy-mccain-on-crutches-at-campaign-stop/
as a result of a twisted knee. She says it was a accident.

It would be nice to believe her if it weren't for Cunt-gate or her husband's voting record or her own habit of lying (forgot about her siblings on TV).

2) McCain has/had houses under assumed names.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0808/The_GOPs_2008_nominee_isEldon_Smith.html?showall
3) McCain has no decent picks available to counter Biden.
4) McCain's lobbyist buddies may have been responsible for the War Within Georgia. Still waiting for a tip on that front.
5) McCain flipflopped on the draft, again. See the Field Negro blog for info on that.
6) How does the deal with Iraq to exit troops by 2013 affects McCain- I see some meat here if it gets signed.

So, is McCain physically abusive to his wife, in addition to the emotional abuse of calling her a "cunt" in public. Well, let's just say that she's clearly "accident prone."

McCain Uses the "Tar Baby" Phrase

Hat Tip to the University of Dayton.

When John S. McCain uses the phrase "Tar Baby" in public, I think I know what words he uses in private.

How Many Homes Does John McCain Really Own?

John McCain really stepped in the McShit when he acknowledged in a Politico.Com interview that he doesn't know how many homes he owns.

A week dominated by vice presidential speculation and the run-up to the Democratic National Convention was quickly overtaken by the McCain miscue. In an interview with Politico.com, the presumptive Republican nominee was asked how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, heir to a beer distributorship, owned.

"I think -- I'll have my staff get to you," McCain replied. "It's condominiums where -- I'll have them get to you."

Obama's campaign and the Democratic National Committee pounced with remarkable speed. By mid-morning, reporters had received a video log featuring Cindy McCain's childhood estate in Phoenix, an Architectural Digest spread on another property the McCains had owned previously, and tax records and photos detailing seven houses and condominiums -- in Coronado and La Jolla, Calif.; Phoenix and Sedona, Ariz.; and Arlington. By 11 a.m., the Obama campaign had produced a television advertisement titled "Seven" and was answering the question McCain could not. Washington Post

Well, John McCain's white, so to many people his "I'm one of you" chatter will sound relatively authentic no matter how rich he is and how many houses he owns. But, economically I know John McCain is nothing like me because (a) I know how many houses I own, and (b) I don't own anywhere near seven houses. And none of my houses have been featured in Architectural Digest.

Cindy McCain Says She's an Only Child, But She's NOT

Why all of the lies?

Mark Silva of the Chicago Tribune's Washington Bureau, writing for the Swamp, reports on a half-sister of Cindy McCain whose existence Cindy McCain regularly denies when she tells the media that she is "an only child."

In the interview airing on NPR's All Things Considered, Cindy McCain's older half sister, Kathleen Hensley Portalski, "talks about their estranged relationship, and the difficulty she has when she hears McCain described as an "only child" by the media, and by McCain herself,'' NPR reports of the talk with Southwest Correspondent Ted Robbins.

Kathleen Portalksi, retired now in Phoenix, was born in 1943, a child of the late Jim Hensley's first marriage, the network says, reporting that his second wife, Marguerite, also had a daughter from her first marriage. Cindy Hensley was McCain's second wife as well - he had a daughter with his first wife and adopted her two sons, and has had three children with his second wife and adopted an orphan from Bangladesh.

NPR's Robbins notes that Cindy McCain often refers to herself as an only child, as she did on CNN last month: "I grew up with my dad. I'm an only child. My father was a cowboy and he really loved me very much, but I think he wanted a son occasionally."

And that's true: She was the only child in her family.

Yet, Portalski tells NPR: "I'm upset. I'm angry. It makes me feel like a non-person, kind of."

Of her relationship with her late father, Portalski says: "I saw him a few times a year. I saw him at Christmas and birthdays, and he provided money for school clothes and he called occasionally."

Documents show Kathleen Anne Hensley was born to Jim and Mary Jeanne Hensley on Feb. 23, 1943. They had been married for six years when Kathleen was born. He flew as a bombardier on a B-17 during World War II. He was injured and sent to a facility in West Virginia to recuperate. During that time, NPR reports, while still married to Mary Jeanne, Hensley met another woman -- Marguerite Smith. He divorced Mary Jeanne and married Marguerite in 1945. Cindy Lou Hensley was born nine years later, in 1954.

Jim Hensley, who founded one of the nation's largest beer distributorships in Phoenix, provided credit cards and college tuition to his grandchildren, and $10,000 gifts to Portalski and her husband, NPR reports. When Jim Hensley died in 2000, Portalski was named in his will, and she was left $10,000. Cindy McCain inherited his fortune and is chairman of the board of Hensley and Co.

Portalski's son, Nicholas Portalski, describes why the family decided to come forward: "I think the fact that we don't exist. The fact that we've never been recognized, and then Cindy has to put such a fine point on it by saying something that's not true. Recently. Again and again. It's just very, very hurtful." The Swamp

Granny says McCain is an Inveterate Bigot

GrannyStandingforTruth points out, citing CapitolHillBlue, that John McCain has a long history of anti-ethnic, color-aroused, misogynistic jokes that he tells his friends and reporters whenever he gets the chance:

McCain's collection of off-color jokes are riddled with racist words and sentiments. Advisors have toned down the raunchy rhetoric of his early years in Congress but close aides say his attitudes have not changed.

McCain opposed making the birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King a national holiday. During his 2000 campaign for President, he told reporters on his "Straight Talk Express: "I hated the gooks (North Vietnamese). I will hate them as long as I live."

Katie Hong of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, who reported the remark, wrote:

It is offensive because by using a racial epithet that has historically been used to demean all Asians to describe his captors, McCain failed to make a distinction between his torturers and an entire racial group.

It is alarming because a major candidate for president publicly used a racial epithet, refused to apologize for doing so and remains a legitimate contender.

For his 2000 campaign for President, McCain hired Richard Quinn, founder and editor in chief of Southern Heritage Magazine, to serve as his spokesman in South Carolina.

Notes Salon.Com:

Quinn's articles have called Nelson Mandela a "terrorist" and King a man "whose role in history was to lead his people into a perpetual dependence on the welfare state, a terrible bondage of body and soul." In another piece, Quinn said of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, "What better way to reject politics as usual than to elect a maverick like David Duke?" though he did condemn Duke's bigotry.

Irwin A. Tank, author of Gook: John McCain's Racism, notes a long and sordid history of racism from the presumptive GOP nominee, including:

• McCain's use of the anti-Asian slur "gook" publicly for 27 years before dropping the use for his current Presidential run;
• McCain's endorsement of George Wallace Jr., a frequent speaker at white supremacist events;
• His vote against establishing a holiday for Martin Luther King's birthday and then another vote to rescind the holiday.
• In answering a question about divorced fathers and child support, McCain called the children "tar babies."

The list goes on and on.

I tend to believe that McCain's calling his wife a cunt in front of a group of reporters is the incident that will most haunt him throughout this election cycle. Each of the other groups that McCain has targeted for bigoted remarks is a minority for whom the public might not have enough sympathy for the remarks to sway a vote one way or the other. But women are the majority of voters in the United States and, to my knowledge, the vast majority of them are VERY insulted when anyone calls them, or any other woman, a "cunt".

And that's why John Sydney McCain, III is NOT going to become president of the United States: Because women simply don't like being called "cunts", much less by the president of the country in which they live.

"Barack is 'The [Chosen] One', but is he Ready to Lead?" Asks McCain

In the above YouTube video, focused entirely on Barack Obama and the religious subtext to his political message, John McCain concedes, "Barack Obama: He may be the One. But is he ready to lead."

It seems to me that in this ad John McCain falls into the trap of repeating and popularizing his opponents' best lines for the purpose of vaguely trying to punch holes in them.

America is a very religious country, with ninety percent of people saying they believe in God. So a candidate who says that he feels a mission to lead and has been chosen to do so may have a much better change than another candidate who ridicules the religous content of his opponent's mission, without offering any religious content of his own.

John McCain's slogan is, "Barack Obama: He may be "The One", but is he ready to lead?" If American decides that Obama is more ready to lead than McCain, then McCain's McCain may find that it is essentially over.

Religious people take leaps of faith, and "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen." If McCain's campaign depends on convincing religious people not to have faith, that makes him a negative naysaying, a tool of doom rather than the man to lift up the nation in troubled times.

Hat Tip to Agent X.

YouTube Video Depicts McCain as Klansman

The above video is dispicable. Instead of focusing on the real historical evidence that John McCain doesn't like Black peeople, here and here:

"..McCain, speaking on ABC's "This Week," said he backs a proposed ballot initiative in his home state of Arizona that would prohibit affirmative action policies by state and local governments."
Field Negro

And yet, the abvoe video depicts McCain as a Klansman himself, when the truth is that he has only consorted with Klansman and relied on them for campaign contributions and political support, while taking policy positions calculated to win Klansman votes.

For instance, with 95% of Black in Louisiana supporting Barack Obama, 'I can't help wondering what JiSM was doing olding an (awful) campaign rally in Kenner, Louisiana [last month], considering Kenner's intimate connection with David Duke:

After spending a year in federal prison for mail fraud and tax evasion, David Duke was allowed to spend the final weeks of his sentence in a halfway house in Louisiana in April 2004. Needing employment to meet eligibility requirements, he worked for EURO (the European-American Unity and Rights Organization), his white supremacist propaganda organization.

Duke's sentence ended in mid-May 2004. To celebrate his freedom and to promote unity among white supremacist groups, EURO sponsored a conference on May 28-30 in Kenner, Louisiana, near New Orleans. Several significant neo-Nazi and racist figures attended the event, including speakers John Tyndall, founder of the British National Party; top National Alliance lieutenant Kevin Alfred Strom; Don Black, founder of the pioneering white supremacist Web site Stormfront; Willis Carto of the American Free Press and The Barnes Review; anti-Semitic attorney Edgar J. Steele; and Holocaust denier Germar Rudolf. In his own remarks, Duke urged the audience of 250 not to characterize themselves as white supremacists and racists but as devoted to the "white civil rights cause." AntiDefamationLeauge

Even McCain admits to the Washington Post that he was a "coward" when he flip-flopped on the Confederate Flag in South Carolina:

"I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. . . . In truth, I'd had the ambition for a long time."

That ambition led McCain into a moral lapse that appalled him. It involved an ongoing dispute in South Carolina over the tradition of flying the Confederate battle flag atop the state capitol, in Columbia. In a television interview, McCain said the flag was "offensive," and he appeared sympathetic to its critics. His aides were alarmed, fearing the consequences in the upcoming South Carolina primary, and they wrote a damage-control statement that McCain read repeatedly before television cameras. "I understand both sides," McCain said. "Some view the flag as a symbol of slavery. Others view it as a symbol of heritage. Personally, I see the battle flag as a symbol of heritage."

But that, McCain wrote a year later, was "a lie." The flag symbolized both slavery and the South's secession from "the country I love," and "should be lowered forever from the staff atop South Carolina's capitol."

"I had promised to tell the truth no matter what," McCain wrote in the book. "When I broke it, I had not just been dishonest, I had been a coward, and I had severed my own interests from my country's. That was what made the lie unforgivable."

Maybe, as Agent X says,

Anyway, also I'm sure you know about this too, McCain has a race card problem.
The celebrity ad has bit him on the ass (even the Hilton family, his biggest donors, are pissed at him, you can read this article on the Huff) and watch this video as he tries to defend himself by claiming that Obama played the race card against him- I think. Rick Davis, the campaign manager you outed as a lobbyist, was behind that attack.



And since the McCain camp has brought up the race card, I think it's time we delved into his past habits of racist remarks. Ask one of his former colleagues, Doug Thompson. Doug went to some of the same bars as McCain during his early days in the House and recalls several of his racist remarks.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x374031

This site republished the article from Capitol Hill Blue. Let's just say it puts yesterday's smear campaign into play.

Anonymous AgentX said...

From the article, a typical McCain joke:

Two dykes are talking at a bar and one leaves. As she walks toward the door, the other watches her leave and says out loud: "God, I've love to eat her out."

Two men are standing near by and one turns to the other and says: "I'd like to do the same. Guess that makes me a dyke."

Or another:

Question: Why does Mexican beer have two "X's" on the label?
Answer: Because wetbacks always need a co-signer.
When he ran for the Senate, I attended a gathering of GOP operatives at the National Republican Senatorial Committee where McCain outlined his campaign strategy:
"I play to win. I do whatever it takes to win. If I have to fuck my opponent to win I'll do it. If I have to destroy my opponent I won't give it a second thought."
See Agent X's report in Comments.

John McCain calls his wife a "cunt", he calls lesbian women "dikes", and he calls Mexican-Americans "wetbacks". I personally beleive his "cunt statement will turn out to be the "macaca momentof the 2008 election cycle, as soon as the debates arrive and he's forced to admit or deny the issue on national television.

Meanwhile, we've all seen this story before. Charges and counter-charges of "playing the 'race card', which Obama deftly blows off by focusing on the issues while his opponents increasingly focus on color, in an attempt to color-aroused the public. If it didn't work for Hillary Clinton, why would it work any better for John McCain, who is clearly a much less competent campaigner: