My criticism of Palin should not be construed as uncritical acceptance of Obama. Needless to say, I find Obama's religious pandering repulsive. The suspicion that he is pandering, out of obvious necessity, and not quite as religious as he makes out, is somewhat comforting, however. But even if Obama were precisely as religious as he appears, he is not a Creationist, Rapture-Ready blockhead. Palin, by all appearances, seems to be one. This is a difference worth noting. Whatever you may think of his politics, Obama is very intelligent and reasonably well educated. Palin thinks the universe is 6000 years old...

So, let me simply declare that I would be overjoyed to have a qualified woman in the White House. I would, likewise, be overjoyed to have a qualified African American in the White House. In fact, I would be overjoyed to have a qualified WASP man in the White House. I will be guardedly optimistic to have a very smart (and somewhat qualified) Barack Obama in the White House. And I would be frankly terrified to have a religious bumpkin like Sarah Palin in the White House. I think you should share this last conviction. . . read more

Is Palin remotely qualified to be president of the United States? No. But that's precisely what is so interesting. McCain not only has thrown all sensible concerns about good governance aside merely to pander to a sliver of female and masses of conservative Christian voters, he has turned this period of American history into an episode of high-stakes reality television: Don't look now, but our cousin Sarah just became leader of the free world! Tune in next week and watch her get sassy with Pakistan!

Americans have an unhealthy desire to see average people promoted to positions of great authority. No one wants an average neurosurgeon or even an average carpenter, but when it comes time to vest a man or woman with more power and responsibility than any person has held in human history, Americans say they want a regular guy, someone just like themselves... This is one of the many points at which narcissism becomes indistinguishable from masochism.

Let me put it plainly: If you want someone just like you to be U.S. president, or even vice president, you deserve whatever dysfunctional society you get. You deserve to be poor, to see the environment despoiled, to watch your children receive a fourth-rate education and to suffer as this country wages - and loses - both necessary and unnecessary wars. McCain has so little respect for the presidency that he is willing to put the girl next door (soon, too, to be a grandma) into office beside him. [More] . . read more

Then there are our outfits: I’m in lingerie all the way, and the Governor’s in a bikini. Yes, that bikini shot was a fake - just Sarah Palin’s head jauntily photoshopped onto the bikini model’s rifle-wielding body - but the zeitgeist is that it authentically conveys the Spirit of Sarah (Lord have mercy). That is, even in her sensible business suits, desert camo, cuddly parkas or hunting gear, and always in those sultry stern “Tina Fey” specs, Sarah Palin exudes sex.

Which brings up a big difference between the Governor and me: Sarah might exude sex, but she’s against sex education. I’m a sex educator. I believe that education is power, and sex education is sexual power, the power to attract and cultivate healthy, exciting, relatively safe, mutual beneficial relationships, the power to give and receive pleasure, the power to love and be loved. Why do we all need a good sex education? Because repression relies on ignorance. We need education in the sexual sciences to wipe out damaging, sometimes deadly superstitions and misinformation. [More]

Susan Block is VP candidate for Frank Moore . . read more

To woo his cultural, religious base, McCain unleashed his light saber in the guise of a well coiffed, moose hunting pit bull named Sarah Palin. The Vice President candidate, governor of Alaska, came out with fisticuffs and blazing guns, playing the role of aggressive, go get ‘em “drill sergeant” as a foil to McCain’s persona as the wise, calm but forceful General.

Palin unveiled herself as a fascinating, political Frankenstein. Like the computer-designed woman in the movie Weird Science, she seems to be the perfect wet dream composite as imagined by lustful and passionate right wing, radical Republican teenage boys. She’s a salmon fishing, Bible thumping, pistol packing, hockey mom who can hunt a moose, skin it, make a burger out of it for lunch, catch the pastor’s Sunday sermon, and also find time to wear a sexy - but not butch - power suit the following day for a press conference. And, according to her drooling, Conservative acolytes, she thankfully doesn’t look “lesbian-y” and aggressively intimidating like that alleged man-hating ogre Hillary Clinton. [More] . . read more

For those who don’t know America well, big white weddings with all the trimmings remain - despite the social and sexual upheavals of the last half century, despite wars and threats of wars - an important part of popular culture... It is by appealing to such boiled-frosting, satin-ribbon fantasies that Republicans hope to push John McCain over the campaign finish line and into the White House. The last week or two of the campaign would be ideal timing, surrounding John McCain and Sarah Palin in a fluffy, sugar-sprinkled haze. Imagine voting against the distinguished-looking old man in a tuxedo on the front pew with the beneficent countenance of a proud grandfather? Or the mother, gowned rather than in mukluks and hunting gear, eyes moist, watching “her baby” march to the alter?

Clearly, this is not matter on which an election anywhere should rest, much less in the world’s most powerful country, one staggering through war and financial crisis. Indeed, the Republican campaign, as it well deserves, has faltered on the merits. McCain is a tired old man with a sour temperament and a narcissistic personality who picked as his sidekick a person who would have reached the limits of her talent as captain of a cheerleading squad. Although certainly not the limits of her ambitions, but isn’t that what America is about, your reach exceeding your talent? [More] . . read more

Last month's Republican National Convention was a cesspool of thinly veiled racist invective aimed at Obama. Sarah Palin, the Republicans' vice presidential candidate, sneered about Obama's history as a community organizer. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani likewise derided Obama for his work "on the South Side of Chicago." A few hours before McCain gave his acceptance speech, Republican bigot Lynn Westmoreland, a member of Congress from the former slave state of Georgia, referred to Michelle and Barack Obama as "uppity"...

The hypocrisy of white Republicans - whose party openly represents the interests of the wealthy and the most conservative wing of American capitalism - calling Obama "uppity" and "elitist" would be funny if their actions weren't helping to legitimize cruder forms of racism that have emerged during the course of this never-ending election. [More] . . read more

The problem here for McCain is that he's a dunderhead in statecraft, devoid of self control, capricious in moral standards and an imbecile in his lack of political judgment. Across the past four days these deficits have all come home to roost. Often, the deadliest wounds a scandal can inflict are on the second, third and fourth days, as the follow-up stories disclose " troubling new disclosures", "apparent contradictions" and the like. True to this pattern, each successive day since the New York Times finally disgorged ­ at least partially - its story last Wednesday, has brought fresh disasters... As it progresses, the Iseman affair scandal discloses him as an idiot (the view of his horrified staff in 1999 as McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee paltered with the attractive 32-year old communications lobbyist), a liar (in his denials he met with Lowell "Bud" Paxson, the media operator for whom Iseman was working) and a hypocrite (in thundering against lobbyists and their employers, while traveling in their private planes, taking their money and doing them favors).

The better people get to know McCain, the less they care for him. [More] . . read more

Do we have the second American civil war? Will some states want to secede from the Unitedness of it all? Will Bush hang in there for an extended second term 'in the national interest'? Will Mugabe ask for asylum?

Add to these nice concerns the impact of the recession-which-isnt-really-here-yet but will bite in the fall and the inevitable global tensions of a turbulent Beijing Olympics and you'd reckon on the message for 2009 being a right royal state of disunion. Get into gold or cash. Soonest. . . read more

Most journalists have tacitly agreed that it's off-limits to ask the former governor about the tenets of the Mormon cult. Nor do they get much luck if they do ask: When Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation inquired whether Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden is or was or will be in the great state of Missouri, he was told by Romney to go ask the Mormons! However, we do have the governor in an off-guard moment, saying that "The [Mormon] Church says that Christ appears and splits the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem… And then, over a thousand years of the millennium, that the world is reigned in two places, Jerusalem and Missouri… The law will come from Missouri, and the other will be from Jerusalem."

It ought to be borne in mind that Romney is not a mere rank-and-file Mormon. His family is, and has been for generations, part of the dynastic leadership of the mad cult invented by the convicted fraud Joseph Smith. It is not just legitimate that he be asked about the beliefs that he has not just held, but has caused to be spread and caused to be inculcated into children. It is essential. Here is the most salient reason: Until 1978, the so-called Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was an officially racist organization. Mitt Romney was an adult in 1978. We need to know how he justified this to himself, and we need to hear his self-criticism, if he should chance to have one. . . read more