Rovian lies

Ever since GW Bush started to be elected president, Karl Rove told him that lies work much better than truth and still they have small, tiny legs like “male” Velcro pieces, they seem to stick better in people’s mind. That’s how, to this day, many Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein war a card-carrying member of Al-Qaeda.

Today, lying as one breathes as become Mr. McCain “M.O.” For the attentive observer, it’s pretty clear that our self-professed “maverick” acts as a well trained “mouth-piece” of the Rovian conservative power base and just I hope that more folks will be able to see through his phoniness and his cute lies.

When I listen to the man, I don’t find it to be a maverick (if in fact he ever was one) but a fatigued, old and greedy professional politician who feels he has to be crowned president of the USA at all costs, including lying all the way to the White House.

Out of context

Yesterday, Joe Biden commented that increasing taxes on folks that made more than $250,000 a year was the right thing to do and downright "patriotic." Later on, Sarah Palin took that statement and "twisted it" to say that her counterpart thought that paying more taxes was the patriotic thing to do, thus deriding him in that manner.

This is an excellent example of how sentences can be taken out of context and twisted badly enough when a candidate and her party see that they're not moving ahead and are becoming desperate. Bottom line, the more ideas are manipulated out of their context, the more the electorate sees through that trick and lose confidence…

The greedy "old-guard"

There are many folks who don’t like the theocratic orientation of the Republican Party, but still eat-up the “low-tax” paradigm that remains the perceived hallmark of the GOP.

Thank God for Sarah “Scarecrow” Palin though, the bespectacled governor is spooking these independent and liberal electors, bringing them each day a bit closer to voting for Obama.

It will take some extra time and a few more gaffes from the Republican ticket to turn these folks around, but come November, they’ll finally see through that McCain is the continuation of the Bush-Cheney years and will see the light…

“Regulation” week for McCain

This week the winds are clearly blowing in the direction of regulation, and so is “weathervane” McCain, the usual champion of deregulation. This is a more comfortable position for our "maverick" to assume, as the Wall Street meltdown represents the epitome of capitalism gone wild with any semblance of regulations put aside.

So, at least, no one can blame the old man for not going with the flow and not trying to show that he understands economics. At least he’ll feel better today as he learns that we, the tax payers, will bail out AIG; perhaps this is a measure of Bush-McCain concept of capitalism!

John McCain’s eclipse

Right after the republican convention and over the past weeks, Sarah Palin was able to eclipse her running mate and re-frame the political debate between her and Barack Obama. How was that possible, given her background, lack of experience and extremist views?

Simply because McCain doesn’t measure up; before the convention he was backed into a corner, his campaign going nowhere and had to take a reckless (not maverick) chance by picking Palin at the very last minute.

If anything, Palin temporary “surge” simply demonstrates how poorly and low McCain stands with voters. All things are relative…

GOP lousy paradigm

According to the Republicans, Democrats are “Tax and Spend” folks. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. See what happened under George Bush and see how Wall Street is now caving in under the “Law of Markets” meaning that we’ll all have to pay for that wave of deregulation pushed by the Republican Agenda.

The new paradigm should be “vote Republican, wish you’ll save on taxes now, but be ready to be in total ruins very soon.” That brings me to some other idiotic and Republican mantras: “Drill, baby, drill” which echoes with that one: “Deregulate, John McCain, deregulate!”

Making sure McCain doesn’t win

The specter of a Republican victory at the upcoming presidential election is so frightening that we must do everything we possibly can to prevent it from happening. Obama has a good chance to win, but having him do so with just a thin margin, is not only scary, it’s just irresponsible.

We need to work now at widening the Obama-Biden margin of victory, so it can show our countrymen and the rest of the world that America is serious about change and that only a Democrat landslide will bring up the real change we need to see in order to turn things around…

Sarah Palin on sex-ed

I recently read an article by Lisa Demer from the Anchorage Daily News stating that John McCain’s mate had views on sex education that were rather “murky.” While Palin, according to the article, hasn't done anything to promote the “abstinence” message backed by social conservatives, her position on sex education isn’t clear. Back in 2006, in a series of questions from “Eagle Forum” an Alaskan conservative group she said that she didn’t support explicit sex-ed programs while she wasn’t a fan of “abstinence-only” plans.

So here we are, with a candidate who doesn’t really know how to tackle an important parental issue and whose own ambiguity on the matter did not prove to be too much help to her daughter Bristol…

Governor Palin and eBay

During her acceptance speech and other speeches ever since, Sarah Palin couldn’t resist boasting about her getting rid of the Alaska state jet by saying "that luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay" to show how thrifty she was, but the plane never sold on eBay.

According to the Anchorage Daily News, her state actually lost money on the deal, despite John McCain telling an audience last week, "she made a profit, too." Palin's predecessor paid $2.7 million for the jet. The state tried to sell it on eBay for $2.5 million, but ended up using a broker who sold it to a businessman for $2.1 million. Good job John for picking such a factual and transparent candidate for V.P.!

A dressed-up pig is still a pig…

Some Democrats have been concerned with the recent “surge” of the Palin-McCain ticket. They should not, because after a few days, electors will see through the republican veneer that has, among other things, usurped Obama’s “Change” the only theme that resonates with voters and that is a fitting alibi for the precipitous and desperate attempts to add Sarah to the GOP ticket.

Let’s keep in mind that the basic framework of that Grand Old Party remains the same: Another four-year extension of Bush-Cheney’s “adventures in government”, a denial of the current economic disaster and more of the same when it comes to the war in Iraq. So to me, in spite of Palin’s smile, lipstick on a pig, no matter how much, makes it still a genuine pig!

Old mavericks eventually fade away...

People who are set in their ways, clinging to the past, to old to embrace change and are too attached to repeating history’s mistakes should really vote McCain-Palin. That is a safe ticket for all those who believe word-to-word in the Bible and enjoy the downward spiral our country is whirling into ever since Bush-Cheney took office.

Death by intoxication in that manner is a sad but proven way to vanish...

How much energy is left at 72?

I have a neighbor and friend a bit set in his ways who’s a staunch Republican. Just like me, that friend wasn’t born yesterday and as a matter of fact is, I believe, close to his seventieth birthday. So a couple of evenings ago, as we were arguing about the upcoming presidential election, I just asked him “I realize that you’re much younger than McCain, but be frank, how would you feel if, at your age, you had to assume the burden of leading this country?” He smiled, thought for a while, felt a bit cornered and bashfully admitted: “I wouldn’t be looking forward to doing it.”

Different views of "change"

For his personal convenience; that is, if he needed to govern with a democratic house in the unlikely case he got elected, John McCain would be badly in need of changing “the way Washington operates”. In other words, his definition of change is to have a congress amenable enough to let him do as he wants, Bush-style.

In stark contrast with his opponent, Barack Obama advocates a totally different kind of change. One will affect us all and will respond to the country’s dire situation and involve positive transformations addressing head-on our current economic challenges, our healthcare crisis, our need for alternative energies and our bulging federal and trade deficits as well as an unaffordable debt that has kept on rising under a Republican Administration.

These two ideas of changes are fundamentally different in nature and should not be confused. If John McCain can pull the wool over his electors with his "token" notion of change and pretend he’s not like George Bush, it won’t be that easy for the republican congressmen and senators up for re-election to return to Capitol Hill following eight years of irresponsible governance. So the question we must now ask is which of these two visions of transformation we really need?

From maverick to reckless

The “maverick” moniker has been so much used during the republican convention to personify John McCain that it has lost some of its bite. Instead, when I think of McCain I see the rise of a new nickname which is probably more suitable for the republican nominee: Reckless. After hearing during the RNC enough warmongering rhetoric from him and his fellow republicans directed at Iran and Russia, if not at his fellow democrats, more than too much “drill baby drill,” and not counting the bizarre choice of Sarah “Pitbull” Palin, I’m now convinced that the next possible incarnation of McCain is likely to be that of “reckless” leader; someone without thought of danger, marked by a lack of concern about possible undesirable consequences. Besides, “reckless” will be easier to spell for the average Republican as I have seen a few “mavrick” signs at that same convention…