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

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

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

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

By my masochistic count, GOP nominee Sen. John McCain, mentioned his 25 years in Congress a mere eight times. He brought up his five years as a Prisoner of War in Vietnam 40 times. It may have been more, it was hard to keep up. "God" and "blessed" were mentioned too many times to count.

And the Republican, who seeks to pick up the neo-Con baton from the GOP criminals currently in the White House, even referred to that woeful prospect as "change is coming" a couple of times.

That's all, folks. . . read more

What, one wonders, will the voters buy this year? Will they vote for another rich, out-of-touch, elderly white male war-monger and his youthful, inexperienced, reactionary running-mate who support a continuation of the last disastrous eight years? Or will they prefer a youthful, relatively inexperienced (although with far more experience than Mrs. Palin) African-American and his vastly experienced running-mate who promise change?

In 2008, with the candidates who they are, there should be no question; polls which indicate a close race should predict a landslide victory for Messrs Obama and Biden. But the Republicans have long used fear to cause voters to vote against their own best interests, and this deceitful, dismal strategy may once again succeed. If it does, the tragedy will not be limited to the U.S., or the current generation. The effects will be felt globally and will reverberate for years. [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

McCain had a unique POW experience. Initially, he was taken to the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison camp, where he was interrogated. By McCain’s own account, after three or four days he cracked... His Vietnamese captors soon realized their POW, John Sidney McCain III, came from a well-bred line in the American military elite... McCain was held for five and half years. The first two weeks’ behavior might have been pragmatism, but McCain soon became North Vietnam’s go-to collaborator. McCain cooperated with the North Vietnamese for a period of three years. His situation isn’t as innocuous as that of the French barber who cuts the hair of the German occupier. McCain was repaying his captors for their kindness and mercy.

This is the lesson of McCain’s experience as a POW: a true politician, a hollow man, his only allegiance is to power. The Vietnamese, like McCain’s campaign contributors today, protected and promoted him, and, in return, he danced to their tune. [More] . . read more

What's depressing about this is how well the McCain campaign's swim in the sewer is working. A nice kid I know who works at our local garage told me that he couldn't vote for Obama, despite liking his policies, "because he'll take his oath of office on the Koran." Aside from the anti-Muslim bias inherent in this statement, it is based upon false information being spread virally through the internet falsely claiming, on the basis of no evidence, that Obama is a secret Muslim...

People on the left may wish that Obama were a more overtly progressive and more expressly anti-war candidate... But let's get real here for a minute. With the black-baiting that is going on by the other side, and the gullible and terribly uninformed or even misinformed electorate out there, and with a national media that will simply repeat and spread whatever bilious and false charges are made by the McCain campaign, what chance on earth would a candidate like Obama have if he were to call for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, or for a government-run medical insurance program? [More] . . read more

For John Warlover McCain to campaign for the highest office in the land while standing where Dr. King, the preeminent messenger for peace, was shot is hypocrisy of the vilest order and underlines the depths to which this psycho manipulator will travel for opportunity and power. After all, in 1983, McCain voted against creating a Martin Luther King federal holiday. To put it eloquently, John McChicanery sucks.

As the presidential hopeful told the booing crowd at the Lorraine Motel on Friday, "We can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing," I wondered how often McCain has been anywhere near early or prompt in doing something other than the wrong thing. I think of the children of Vietnam who were melted beyond recognition by the flip of a switch, controlled by the bomber-pilot McCain.

Many who consider him a hero will say that this status is forever carved in history because when offered release from captivity, he allowed someone who'd been there longer to leave. I disagree vehemently. Certainly, it was decent of McCain to wait his turn, however this act doesn't grant him a lifetime "get outta jail free card". That was then and there have been plenty of occasions between that time and now for him to step up. McCain says he's evolved, but his evolution has an aroma of politics. [More] . . read more