Here is general link that contains numerous other links on what people are saying about her.

http://thenewscoverage.net/4720/

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Top 8 Females with More Political Experience than Sarah Palin
With the announcement of John McCain’s VP selection still fresh in the air, there have been some concerns about Governor Sarah Palin’s lack of experience. With that in mind, we offer the following list of eight females with more political experience than Republican Vice Presidential nominee Palin. (funny stuff!)

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
In light of the fact hockey is so tremendously popular in Minnesota, and that Minnesota is a swing state, do you not think such labels might have some effect?

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Don't let anyone kid you. Minnesota is not a swing state. For the last 30+ years, Minnesota is the only state in the union that has not voted for a Republican candidate (Minnesota was the only state that Reagan lost in his 1984 landslide).

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Minnesota will vote Dem in 2008.

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So, this thread is effectively Sarah Palin: The Empire Strikes Back?

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Originally posted by Doug:
since its Republican governor wasn't chosen as VP.

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Originally posted by remind:

So, much for contentions that it is a Democratic state!

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Can you name a more Democratic state?

Other than the governor, all constitutional officers are Democrats. Democrats also control both house of the state legislature.

Tim Pawlenty is an aberration (a popular Republican in a Democratic state).

A "red state" doesn't produce people like Paul Wellstone.

And, again, in case you missed it, Minnesota is the only state in over thirty years to only vote for the Democratic candidate for president.

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Originally posted by Doug:
With a friend like Sarah Palin in the White House, special-needs kids won't need enemies.
It turns out she slashed funding for programs for them by 62%.

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Originally posted by Boom Boom:
Palin drew in a lot of viewers last night because of the controversies she involved in, and because she's a relative unknown to America outside Alaska, and viewers flocked to she her for the first time out of curiosity.

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[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: Sven ]

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During her first speech after being named as McCain's surprise pick as a running mate, Palin said she had told Congress "'thanks but no thanks' on that bridge to nowhere."

In the city Ketchikan, the planned site of the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere," political leaders of both parties said the claim was false and a betrayal of their community, because she had supported the bridge and the earmark for it secured by Alaska's Congressional delegation during her run for governor.

The bridge, a span from the city to Gravina Island, home to only a few dozen people, secured a $223 million earmark in 2005. The pricey designation raised a furor and critics, including McCain, used the bridge as an example of wasteful federal spending on politicians' pet projects.

When she was running for governor in 2006, Palin said she was insulted by the term "bridge to nowhere," according to Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein, a Democrat, and Mike Elerding, a Republican who was Palin's campaign coordinator in the southeast Alaska city.

"People are learning that she pandered to us by saying, I'm for this' ... and then when she found it was politically advantageous for her nationally, abruptly she starts using the very term that she said was insulting," Weinstein said.

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This woman claims to want to represent most commoners out here in the "free world" and I thought that middle america whatever that is would not want to support a bald faced liar. If the Rep. win this election it sends a very strong message to the world about democracy. Lie, cheat, bully, slander that's the winning ticket for the rich and powerful.

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More than one in four voters said that the vice presidential choices will matter this year, but few voters say that having Palin on the Republican ticket will change their vote. Just 14 percent said they are more likely to vote for McCain as a result of having Palin on the ticket, while 13 percent said they are less likely to do so. Sixty-eight percent said it won’t make a difference in their vote.

Seventy-four percent of voters said the addition of Joe Biden to the Democratic ticket made no impact on how they will vote. But those who said Barack Obama's choice mattered to them were three times as likely to say that Biden will make them vote for Obama rather than against him.

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LOL

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McCain has also closed the enthusiasm gap some with Obama, but it still exists. Fifty-five percent of Obama's supporters are enthusiastic about their choice, and now so are 35% of McCain's. Last weekend, just 25 percent of McCain's supporters were enthusiastic about him, compared to 67 of Obama's supporters.

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Evangelical faith drives Palin's pro-Israel view
Ralph Z. Hallow (Contact)
Thursday, September 4, 2008

ST. PAUL, Minn. | Sarah Palin displays an Israeli flag in her governor's office in Juneau, even though she has never been to the country, and attends Protestant evangelical churches that consider the preservation of the state of Israel a biblical imperative.

Her faith makes her a favorite with the staunchly pro-Israel neoconservative elements in the Republican Party.

But other Republicans may be concerned that a John McCain-Sarah Palin administration will disregard the caution of former President George H.W. Bush and some of his top advisers and continue the tilt toward Israel.
[....]

"Historically, the Assemblies of God have been dispensationalists, which means they believe in 'the rapture' of Christians that takes them out of the world," said Mr. Matthews. "Central to that position is a very strong support for Israel. It's integral to their view of both prophecy and politics. Denying Israel is almost like denying the faith."...

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Is McCain Palin's Bitch?

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P.S. How many American households watched the 2007 Stanley Cup? About 1.1 million.

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As the much-anticipated debut of The Sarah Palin Show crept closer in the Xcel Center last night, the overwhelmingly white and well-heeled Republicans rose to their feet, cheering, to dance and sing along to the infectious strains of Sly Stone's Everyday People--demonstrating not only a giddy lack of self-awareness (or irony), but also showing that the folks in the hall had gotten the alerts from GOP Message Central: Palin, the woman they'd come tonight to celebrate and cheer, is above all else Everyday People.

I'd been hearing it all week from the delegates. "She's relatable," a Florida fellow said. "I think what Gov. Palin's able to offer is the perspective of any everyday American," a Mississippi delegate told me. "She's real--real people. Wow!" a Texas delegate chimed in. Her family troubles, which have fueled a feeding frenzy among the dimwits who blog on the Huffington Post, only testified all the more powerfully to her everydayness. "If anything, it just kind of shows what a normal American she is. Family crises and situations like this arise in families all across the country, and I think she's doing the best with the situation. I think it will make Gov. Palin all the more strong," said another Texan.

You might not think that averageness would qualify a person for the second-highest office in the land. But if you might not think that, you haven't been paying attention to the way Republicans have won presidential elections for the last forty years. Palin is the logical extension of the cultural populism that has warped our politics--and for which the Democrats have, as yet, found no good answer....

When Palin cracked wise about Barack Obama or the media, she delivered the lines like a snarky neighbor leaning over the fence, complaining about the elitists--or the "good old boys"--to her next-door neighbor. Her dandiest line of the night, equally well delivered, was directed at Obama's stupid comment about the bitterness of struggling Americans: "We tend to prefer a candidate," she said, "who doesn't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco." This, more than anything, made me cringe. However much I admire Obama, it carried the ring of home truth--delivered by someone who can make such lines hit home.

It's all pure-T bullshit, of course: another "everyday" politician who's going to put the screws to every working person in America if she gets the chance. But so was Nixon's populism, and Reagan's, and Bush's. Americans fully expect bullshit from their politicians. It only matters that it's the right kind. And Sarah Palin, as we learned last night, is frighteningly full of it.

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Originally posted by me:
With Palin covering his right flank, McCain may have some room to start pandering to the centre, à la Obama.

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Her nomination, which will bring the Republican right home, also frees up McCain to appeal to moderates and liberals, which has long been his stock in trade.

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As, I am not so sure that they all will want an example for their children of a VP's daughter who got pregnant, at 17, and who has since dropped out of school. And I have certainly read such musing about bad role model, around internet world over the last fews days.

At first blush, they may be all a twitter, but there is a long time yet to think it over in all its implications.

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Originally posted by remind:
N
As, I am not so sure that they all will want an example for their children of a VP's daughter who got pregnant, at 17, and who has since dropped out of school. And I have certainly read such musing about bad role model, around internet world over the last fews days.

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Palin: wrong woman, wrong message
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008
Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.(...)

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/51691.html

It was certainly dotted with "Evangelical" subtexts, and words, and she followed the latest Republican hyporcrisy attacks of labelling others for what they themselves are.

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According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads.

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http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/09/no_questions_please_were.html

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Originally posted by remind:

In fact, from her speech, Rommeny's, Guilianni's and Huchabee's, one would think it had been the Democrats who had been ruling for the last 8 years, not they themselves.

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Originally posted by josh:
Now they literally bar them from asking any questions.

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Originally posted by josh:
Update on the usual Republican tactic. Usually they intimidate and marginalize the media so they won't ask any questions. Now they literally bar them from asking any questions.

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That's what Republicans do. They create their own reality. It's like Faux and the hate radio crowd railing against "the media." Hello, folks. You are the media

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Yes, they were railing on and on about the "eastern elite", and what is Guilianni, other than an "eastern elite" person?

Then they attacked "Hollywood" for meddling too much, which I am sure is another covert meaning to them, and without saying homosexuals, they used the term "San Francisco" as holding to much sway on our country's politics. At first, I did not get it, and thought "huh, San Francisco?".

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They attack Hollywood because it leans heavily left.

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Georgia Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland used the racially-tinged term "uppity" to describe Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama Thursday.

Westmoreland was discussing vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's speech with reporters outside the House chamber and was asked to compare her with Michelle Obama.

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A slate.com article on the distinction betwen hockey and soccer moms.

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Most hockey moms are located in colder parts of the country: In total, about two-thirds of youth hockey players come from either the Great Lakes states or the Northeast. More detailed demographics on youth hockey players are a little harder to come by, but they're almost certain to be largely Caucasian. Just 2 percent of National Hockey League players are black, despite the work of a "diversity task force" for both the professional and youth leagues. (The task force has held special camps in Wasilla, Alaska.) USA Hockey claims hockey-playing households earn nearly twice the U.S. average, with a median income of $99,200. According to polling by the Pew Research Center, a slice of registered voters that might be roughly equivalent to hockey moms—comprising white married women with kids under 18, incomes over $75,000 and living in the prime hockey-playing regions—tilts Republican by about nine percentage points, albeit in a pretty small sample. That group is somewhat less GOP-friendly today than it was in 2004, but it's still far more Republican than an overall electorate that favors Democrats by 13 percentage points.

How do hockey moms compare with soccer moms? They probably have to pay a good deal more to get their kids on the ice; for example, this Anchorage-based team charges preteen players $1,850 a year in fees. (The cost of equipment can easily add a few hundred dollars more.)

...

But there are two competitive states where hockey moms may rival soccer moms for political importance: Minnesota and Michigan. Palin should expect a favorable reception to her hockey bona fides in the North Star state, home to 44,500 youth hockey players and one of the nation's largest concentrations of hockey-playing girls. (Tim Pawlenty, the Minnesota governor who was reportedly McCain's second choice, has himself been known to take to the ice.) But Palin's hockey-mom ties run deepest in Michigan: Not only does the state boast 37,004 youth hockey players, but Track Palin spent six months of his senior year living in Portage, Mich., while playing for a midget major hockey team.

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Per Slate.com article:
How many other hockey moms are out there?

Probably a few hundred thousand. According to USA Hockey—which has jurisdiction over the vast majority of youth leagues nationwide—there are 347,061 players under the age of 20 registered with the organization across the country. Presumably, most of these players have moms, although since there are some households with multiple hockey players, we can assume that 347,061 is a rather high estimate.

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Despite gains by blogs, podcasts, and social-networking Web sites, television is still our dominant mass medium -- the entertainment source that most often sets the trends for everything else in our culture. What proves popular on its airwaves more than likely will play in Peoria -- and everywhere else.

Thus, given the popularity of reality shows, it is no surprise that, in 2008, the nation is being treated to an American Idol election. The search for undiscovered electoral talent has led the Democratic Party to nominate Barack Obama, its least-experienced candidate in memory. And this past week, the Republicans trumped that exponentially by elevating Sarah Palin from the relative depths of political obscurity to the nation's center stage.

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Originally posted by Sven:
According to a report I just heard on the radio, the Republican VP nominee drew 37 million viewers last night (12 million more than Biden's speech drew and only about 2% less than Obama, the Democrats' "Main Event", drew in Denver). I'm sure she drew many more viewers than McCain will draw later tonight.

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Well, I was wrong.

Glad that so many viewers watched McCain last evening, as his speech and conduct certainly revealed that he should not be considered as material for the next President.

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Originally posted by remind:
It would seem they are playing to a very select demographic, and state targeting, by their use of it, to promote Palin.

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Do you think they are literally and narrowly targeting just “hockey moms” (which, as I noted above in a recent post today, based on the numbers in the salon.com article, represent a microscopic percentage of American women) or do you think they are targeting mothers (or parents) more generally (i.e., those who are actively involved in their kids’ school and activities lives)?

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Originally posted by remind:
Glad that so many viewers watched McCain last evening, as his speech and conduct certainly revealed that he should not be considered as material for the next President.

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We’ll see what the polls say in a day or so. The CBS News poll (taken before McCain’s speech but both before and after the Palin speech) shows McCain and Obama in a tie (both at 42%). If polls show a significant McCain bump in the next few days, that will indicate a positive reception to McCain’s speech.

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Originally posted by remind:
BTW, gotta a link for that Sven?

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Yes. Here it is:
The Live Feed

ETA: By the way, the CBS News poll from a week ago (during the Democratic Convention) showed Obama with an 8% lead over McCain.

[ 05 September 2008: Message edited by: Sven ]

I think it's possible that the first time Palin used the term, sometime before she was governor, it was some benign thing, as in her kids play hockey not soccer. And maybe that's how it got created, but that doesn't explain why it's catching on.

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
Sven,

I think it's possible that the first time Palin used the term, sometime before she was governor, it was some benign thing, as in her kids play hockey not soccer. And maybe that's how it got created, but that doesn't explain why it's catching on.

But the fact they use the term A LOT means that they are doing so for a reason. The republican operatives and speechwriters are not stupid people, they are intelligent people with different values. They would not be using the term a million times unless they knew it had some subliminal message.

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Oh, I completely agree that it is being used to signify something.

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Originally posted by Sven:
We’ll see what the polls say in a day or so. The CBS News poll (taken before McCain’s speech but both before and after the Palin speech) shows McCain and Obama in a tie (both at 42%). If polls show a significant McCain bump in the next few days, that will indicate a positive reception to McCain’s speech.

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Rasmussen just released a poll showing Obama with a 2% lead over McCain (a statistical tie). According to Rasmussen, the polling was done before McCain's speech and probably indicates "the beginning of John McCain's convention bounce".

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Originally posted by Sven:
The effect of putting Palin on McCain's ticket was to completely eviscerate the bounce that Obama would likely have received from the Democratic Convention in Denver.

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So......your point would be....what?

Are you infering, that it is good thing they did this, so, Palin, a completely inexperienced, end of days religious whack, would/could get more votes?

Or are you trying to prove that religious white woman has more bona fides than a black man?

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Originally posted by remind:

So......your point would be....what?

Are you infering, that it is good thing they did this, so, Palin, a completely inexperienced, end of days religious whack, would/could get more votes?

Or are you trying to prove that religious white woman has more bona fides than a black man?

Or simply pointing how brilliant the Republicans are, in your view?

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Originally posted by Sven:
Tactically, it was a clever political move. That's all I'm saying.

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So, you were pointing out that you feel the Republicans are brilliant, tacticians.

Well, I would have to say that really remains to be seen, does it not?

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Originally posted by remind:
Well, I would have to say that really remains to be seen, does it not?

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Originally posted by remind:

So, you were pointing out that you feel the Republicans are brilliant, tacticians.

Well, I would have to say that really remains to be seen, does it not?

Often, what seems at first to be a clevermove, in politics, in particular one that is made in haste, as this one was, usually turns out to be...well....not so clever.

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Now that I'm back online and starting to pay more attention to the outside world I'm starting to lean towards a 'clever' move backfiring over the long term. Might just be wishful thinking on my part though.
Today according to some stuff that I heard on CNN as well as some articles where Cindy McCain has spoken out about how while she respects Palins right to her views she disagrees in the areas of with sex education and on a number of other major points about abortion. Maybe it's part of the strategy to have Cindy McCain represent a more moderate 'female' viewpoint but to me it did seem a little strange to have such disagreement expressed so soon after the nomination announcement.

I've also read some mumblings or maybe gossip is a better term the Cindy McCain is pretty unhappy with the choice, but who knows whether that is true or even matters.
They were interviewing people who work with Palin including republican officials and the comments weren't exactly what you want to hear particularly from people who actually belong to the party that one is running for. I haven't done any checking into it further then the brief things I saw while channel changing but a few were pretty damming. One state official, a repub apparently said that people are afraid and intimidated by her and she is well known to go after anyone who disagrees with her on pretty much anything, like in a personal vengence sort of way. Of course one has to be aware of potential sexism creeping into these sort of comments and of course negative campaigning but according to the info some people saying these things are republican which to me at least indicates that something more is going on then just sheer partisanship.
They also talked about lies and exagerations about things she's taking credit for.
I haven't honestly been paying much attention to what she has said but I guess she's been playing up some pipeline that she says is a done deal, being built and taking credit for and the truth is it's still in the negotiation phase and the earliest it would even be started is around 2017 or 18. There's a few other things they mentioned regarding some major legislation that she's claimed rather ardently that she was responsible for and they said that no none of it is true and that everything was done before she ever came onto the scene and all she did was sign it when she came to office.

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Originally posted by ElizaQ:
I'm starting to lean towards a 'clever' move backfiring over the long term.

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That could very well happen. As Peggy Noonan said, this is either going to be one of the smartest VP choices ever...or one of the worst. There isn’t going to be any middle ground. We’ll know the answer in a few weeks.

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Originally posted by ElizaQ:
They were interviewing people who work with Palin including republican officials and the comments weren't exactly what you want to hear particularly from people who actually belong to the party that one is running for.

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Actually, I think that is part of the appeal of Palin for many, many voters. She took on the Republican establishment in Alaska because it was corrupt (including the state’s attorney general). She then challenged the sitting Republican governor of the state—and kicked his arse. As a result, she has an 80% approval rating in the state (the highest approval rating of any governor).

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Originally posted by Sven:

Actually, I think that is part of the appeal of Palin for many, many voters. She took on the Republican establishment in Alaska because it was corrupt (including the state’s attorney general). She then challenged the sitting Republican governor of the state—and kicked his arse. As a result, she has an 80% approval rating in the state (the highest approval rating of any governor).

So, yeah, you’re going to hear a lot of grumbling by many Republicans in Alaska but that’s just going to help Palin, not hurt her.

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Well yes I suppose it could if that part of the message gets across that way or I guess better put if they manage to get that important part of the message to keep sticking as I believe that's one of the main 'themes' in her initial intro to the public that was and is being empathized. If however in process of that arse kicking she ends up acting no better then the establishment being fought and stuff like this comes out whether true or not that sort of billing can come back and bite you in the butt. It's a lot to live up to and this position is a very different ball game. I will give them some credit at least for laying the foundations of responding to some of this sort of critizism with the whole 'I'm not part of the political elite in Washington (same as Alaska) so they don't like me and will critzize me line' As you say time will tell on many accounts. Whether that line will hold out long enough to deflect whatever comes is the question. It is appealing of course but longterm it's a pretty precarious deflection tactic to keep up. It gets rather old so to speak if thats the response to everything. It's more show then anything else if one doesn't have what's needed to back it up.

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Originally posted by sanizadeh:
In that sense there isn't much difference between Obama and Palin.

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Originally posted by Boom Boom:

They both have compelling personal stories, but the real difference is that McCain has voted in favour of 90% of Bush's agenda.

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer.

“You’ll be encouraged by the power of God’s love and His desire to transform the lives of those impacted by homosexuality,” said an insert in the bulletin of the Wasilla Bible Church, where Palin has prayed since she was a child.

Palin’s conservative Christian views have energized that part of the Republican electorate, which was lukewarm to John McCain’s candidacy before he named her as his vice-presidential choice. She is anti-abortion, opposing exceptions for rape and incest, and opposes gay marriage and spousal rights for gay couples.

Focus on the Family, a national Christian fundamentalist organization, is conducting the “Love Won Out” Conference in Anchorage, about 50 kilometres from Wasilla.

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Contributions from Retirees to the Presidential Candidates on
The Money Behind Palin
In her much-anticipated speech last night, Alaska governor and John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, said she has stood up to special
interests and lobbyists. As mayor of the Anchorage suburb Wasilla, however, Palin hired lobbyists to represent the 6,700-resident town on
Capitol Hill, ultimately bringing in $27 million for earmarked projects. McCain surprised political pundits last week by inviting Palin to join him on the Republican ticket. Because Palin's political career is relatively new, there's little information available in the
way of a campaign finance profile. But at the Center for Responsive Politics, we strung together our own observations about Palin's
campaign fundraising and money --- and money- related scandal -- in Alaska politics.

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Originally posted by Snuckles:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer.

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excerpt:

"How many saw her speech a couple of nights ago? Wasn't it fabulous?" McCain said Friday during a campaign stop in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. "You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was purchased by her predecessor and sold it on eBay — and made a profit."

excerpt:

But it turns out the twin-engine Westwind II was a tough sell on the Web — and the state eventually pulled it offline and sold it through an ordinary brick-and-mortar brokerage, for a loss, a spokeswoman said Friday.

Please call us rednecks, 'cause we're proud
To be so rude and rough and loud,
And act in ways elitists think
Proves that we've had to much to drink
In some dead-end Alaskan dive
When dude, it just shows we're alive.
We love our church, our kids, our beer,
Can tell you right down to the year
That God put Man upon the Earth,
Know life starts well ahead of birth,
don't give a damn about the arts,
And stay away from foreign parts
Until the moment that we're sent
As John McCain's vice-president.

The great thing, when your neck is red?
Nobody cares what's in your head -
The voters seem to like 'em dumb,
So why not pick a hockey mom
Who hunts and prays and procreates
To govern these United States?
If you can drive a snowmobile,
The people, bless them, think you're real,
And in the end, who needs a brain?
Jusst tell your kids they must abstain,
Pretend that when your rule's ignored
It's some great gift sent by the Lord,
And prove you'll go to any length
To make each redneck fault a strength.

The CBC's bogus smear on Sarah Palin

Among other things, including a recitation of the remote right's traditional white-hot hatred of MacDonald, there is this paragraph:

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But then the rumour fell apart. Photos surfaced of Sarah, clearly pregnant, going about her gubernatorial duties in early 2008. It was also established that Bristol is five months pregnant right now -- making the rumour a biological impossibility. "I shouldn't have dignified this with an e-mail," my friend reported rumour -- even before it had been debunked. The Daily Kos itself shut up about the subject from Monday onwards.

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However, from the Anchorage Daily News of April 22nd, long before there was any talk of a national candidacy and just four days after the birth of Trig we get this story:

Palins' child diagnosed with Down syndrome (04/22/08)

It contains this paragraph:

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Palin never got big with this pregnancy. She said she didn't try to hide it but didn't feel a need to alert the airline, either.

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But then the rumour fell apart. Photos surfaced of Sarah, clearly pregnant, going about her gubernatorial duties in early 2008. It was also established that Bristol is five months pregnant right now -- making the rumour a biological impossibility. "I shouldn't have dignified this with an e-mail," my friend reported rumour -- even before it had been debunked. The Daily Kos itself shut up about the subject from Monday onwards.

But on Tuesday night -- two full days after the rumour was killed -- CBC's The National went live with it.

"Sarah Palin was strangely absent from public view today," reporter Neil Macdonald told viewers from the Republican convention in Minnesota. "The story surrounding her grew ever stranger, too."

"It's baby Trig who's generating the questions," Macdonald went on. "There are the pictures of [Sarah] Palin looking slim just weeks before the April birth. In March, the Anchorage Daily News reported that Palin 'simply doesn't look pregnant.' Then, there was the birth itself. Palin was in Texas on April 17 when her water broke, but she went ahead with a speech, then, rather than checking into a hospital, she headed back to Alaska." (The CBC provided a helpful map showing Palin's lengthy plane ride, with dramatic-sounding music.)

"There is no record of the birth," Macdonald added somewhat breathlessly. "Some suspect that Trig is actually Palin's grandson, and that Bristol, the now-pregnant teenage daughter, is the baby's real mother."

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This is more than just a tiny factual slip-up. This was a marquee segment on the CBC's crown jewel -- The National -- delivered by the network's Washington correspondent at a major political event. How is it that Macdonald would base his whole story on a political hoax that thousands of humble Web surfers like my friend had debunked a full two days earlier?

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Bias?

[ 06 September 2008: Message edited by: jester ]

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I'd call it "overwork", in a CBC created by a frightened Conservative government in the Depression and now threatened by a neo-con descendant with extinction.

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Originally posted by jester:

Bias?

[ 06 September 2008: Message edited by: jester ]

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You tell me, Jester.

Was MacDonald being reckless, or did he and others have something? At one point, MacDonald stated categorically that the Mat-su Regional Medical Centre in Mat-su Borough (incl Wasilla) Alaska had no record of Gov. Palen having given birth there, a pretty direct kind of statement. If that's been demonstrated not to be the case, you would think Kay would have said so.

What I find interesting is the fact that the Anchorage Daily News reported in April that Gov. Palin "never got big with this pregnancy", a fact that MacDonald and others relied on to suggest that the baby was perhaps not her's, and a fact which Gov Palen herself relied on when boarding the Alaska Airlines flight from Texas to Anchorage.

Kay's response is to say that there are now all kinds of photos showing Gov Palin visibly pregnant, that is looking quite big indeed. Which raises the question when Sarah Palin became "visibly pregnant" with Trig, in March and April, or in August and September?

I suppose Kay is alluding CBC stupidity in airing the rumour 2 days after bloggers discounted it but Kay more or less comes off as CBC bashing to no effect.I can't find the story on CBC so I don't know.

The MacDonald brothers are quite successful in the Canadian broadcasting scene and success demands a certain amount of artistic license,I suppose.

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Originally posted by jester:
Didn't palin give birth in Texas? Delivering a sppech even after her water broke.

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No. She gave her speech after her water broke. Instead of going to a hospital in Texas she took the eight hour flight home to Alaska. Arriving in Anchorage, she bypassed several hospitals in the city to travel north to her home suburb of Wasilla and the Mat-su Medical Centre.

Quote)
But don’t be fooled either by Mr. McCain’s long-ago reputation as a maverick or by Ms. Palin’s appealing persona: the Republican Party, now more than ever, is firmly in the hands of the angry right, which has always been much bigger, much more influential and much angrier than its counterpart on the other side.

What’s the source of all that anger?

Some of it, of course, is driven by cultural and religious conflict: fundamentalist Christians are sincerely dismayed by Roe v. Wade and evolution in the curriculum. What struck me as I watched the convention speeches, however, is how much of the anger on the right is based not on the claim that Democrats have done bad things, but on the perception — generally based on no evidence whatsoever — that Democrats look down their noses at regular people.

Thus Mr. Giuliani asserted that Wasilla, Alaska, isn’t “flashy enough” for Mr. Obama, who never said any such thing. And Ms. Palin asserted that Democrats “look down” on small-town mayors — again, without any evidence.

What the G.O.P. is selling, in other words, is the pure politics of resentment; you’re supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it’s better than you. Or to put it another way, the G.O.P. is still the party of Nixon.

(end quote)

What Krugman isn't saying, for political reasons, is that the GOP is playing the populist message to the little folk in the Heartland, they who REALLY resent uppity "Eastern" or "Washington" , "elites".

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Originally posted by George Victor:

What Krugman isn't saying, for political reasons, is that the GOP is playing the populist message to the little folk in the Heartland, they who REALLY resent uppity "Eastern" or "Washington" , "elites".

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by Bill Maher

New Rule: Republicans need to stop saying Barack Obama is an elitist, or looks down on rural people, and just admit you don't like him because of something he can't help, something that's a result of the way he was born. Admit it, you're not voting for him because he's smarter than you.

In her acceptance speech, Gov. Sarah Palin accused Obama of using his run for the White House as a "journey of personal discovery" -- this from the lady who just spent 10 minutes of her speech introducing her family -- Track, Trig, Bristol, Piper -- for a minute there I thought she was calling in an airstrike.

Karl Rove described Obama as "the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini, and making snide comments about everyone who passes by." Unlike George Bush, who's the guy at the country club who makes snide comments, and then passes out. Now this characterization, of course, was something Mr. Rove just completely pulled out of his bulbous, gelatinous ass, but remember this is America, a land where people believe anything they hear....

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Sarah Palin wants to put herself out there as “every woman”. She wants to be seen as “just your average hockey mom”, and other mommies see themselves and their reality reflected through Palin, except, mamis of color, that is.

The talk returns to mommy wars, not mami wars, because the entire conversation excludes Latinas and other moms of color. We are not even soldiers. Even for so called progressive white feminist, the war is fought by them and maybe, if mamis like me are lucky, we’ll reap some benefit. When I was a pregnant teenager, in a Latin American country where abortion was and still is illegal (Chile), there was no opting out of pregnancy or working. Which is why the debate of how Palin could go back to work after having a baby with special needs or how a pregnant unmarried teenage daughter is being used, feels like a sideshow with little significance in reality. The politics of choice is being raised, with the emergence of a woman who is anti-choice, even in cases of rape or incest and with no talk of how for women of color, choice goes beyond an abortion and means the very right to have children (forget 5!) Imaginate if Michelle Obama had five children? Imaginate if one of the Obama children were older and pregnant? Imagine the hate and stereotypes that would be unleashed? Oh wait, I don’t have to imagine, as a single mami of color, I live it. Palin’s large brood isn’t seen as a strain on the system. They are a beautiful portrait of an “American” family making every other family, families like mine, ugly.

(snip)

Palin positions herself as continuing Clinton’s struggle, as continuing the struggle set forth by Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to run as a vice-presidential candidate. Let’s not forget that Ferraro called Obama “lucky” for being black. Is Palin then lucky for having five children, like my abuela did before being forcibly sterilized? You wanna talk about Palin’s uterus or the uterus of her daughter? I want to talk about my abuela’s uterus, how it’s power was deemed dangerous because of it’s power to bear brown Spanish speaking babies, my uterus and it’s abortions, miscarriages, and pregnancies, violations upon it, the uterus of an immigrant woman being viewed as a weapon in a culture war and the need to put those immigrant women in chains as they push babies from them and the need the U.S. government has to separate mamis and babies and deport and dispose.

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I'm calling bullshit on this sexism charge, when the Republicans themselves planned right from the beginning to use it as a tool to shield Palin from the weight of personal hypocrisy and political malfeasance, if not her odious reactionary views. The people who are advancing this notion are playing directly into the hands of the Republicans.

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Originally posted by ceti:
I'm calling bullshit on this sexism charge, when the Republicans themselves planned right from the beginning to use it as a tool to shield Palin from the weight of personal hypocrisy and political malfeasance, if not her odious reactionary views. The people who are advancing this notion are playing directly into the hands of the Republicans.

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Originally posted by ceti:
The people who are advancing this notion are playing directly into the hands of the Republicans.

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Originally posted by Stargazer:
I agree with you completely.

I have zero pity for this nasty woman. The Repubs are setting her up as some type of anti-choice feminist, when in reality she'd strip women of their rights in a heartbeat if she could.

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Welcome Back Dad

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I’ve been trying to convince my fellow conservatives that they have been wasting their time in a fruitless quest for a new Ronald Reagan to emerge and lead our party and our nation. I insisted that we’d never see his like again because he was one of a kind.

I was wrong!

Wednesday night I watched the Republican National Convention on television and there, before my very eyes, I saw my Dad reborn; only this time he's a she.

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Obviously un-intimidated by either the savage onslaught to which the left-leaning media had subjected her, or the incredible challenge she faced -- and oozing with confidence -- she strode defiantly to the podium and proved she was everything and even more than John McCain told us.

Much has been made of the fact that she is a woman. What we saw last night, however, was something much more than a just a woman accomplishing something no Republican woman has ever achieved. What we saw was a red-blooded American with that rare, God-given ability to rally her dispirited fellow Republicans and take up the daunting task of leading them -- and all her fellow Americans -- on a pilgrimage to that shining city on the hill my father envisioned as our nation’s real destination.

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Like Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin is one of us. She knows how most of us live because that’s the way she lives. She shares our homespun values and our beliefs, and she glories in her status as a small-town woman who put her shoulder to the wheel and made life better for her neighbors.

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And heres the best of it imo or in this case the worst...

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Welcome back, Dad, even if you’re wearing a dress and bearing children this time around.

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[ 07 September 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]

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What we saw was a red-blooded American with that rare, God-given ability to rally her dispirited fellow Republicans and take up the daunting task of leading them -- and all her fellow Americans -- on a pilgrimage to that shining city on the hill my father envisioned as our nation’s real destination.

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WTF is a "red blooded American" and why does G*d favour horrible nightmares such as this woman (and her entire party of knuckle dragging pigs)?

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Not all of Ms. Palin's views accord with mine - her vigorous opposition to abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. But as one of my most liberal-minded friends said a few days ago, the right to choose isn't granted solely to left-wing women.

Besides, I can see why Ms. Palin feels that way, too. That sprawling brood of hers - the littlest girl spitting down baby Trig's downy hair; Bristol holding her boyfriend's hand; the big handsome son Track, about to head off to Iraq, all of them proud, awkward and squirming in their various ways - bloody would inspire belief in the sanctity of life.

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Originally posted by Stargazer:
[QB]I'm going to throw up:

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I think I've thrown up several times this am. The worst though was after delving into the world of the 'Christian Right' for their perspective. I came across some very negative discussions about Palin on terms that I find absolutely reprehensible across the board, as well as the seeds of an Anti-Palin/McCain campaign, that I caught myself thinking, "Gee I hope the general group that is thinking like this is big enough to actually get somewhere with this or at least affect some of the flocking from that quarter." I sat back and actually felt sick that I even thought along the lines of placing some hope in the downfall of that part of the Repubs strategy with this type of thinking.

As for the sexism against Palin. Stargazer, you know I respect and admire your posts on babble very much. But I heartily disagree. Sexism isn't about feeling "pity" for a woman, or a group of women. Sexism is .... Well hell, you know what sexism is!

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Originally posted by thorin_bane:
Michael Enright(sp) was interviewing a partisan repugnican, and she stated that GOV Palin is doing so much more for women than Hilary could have. She shows how a woman with 4 kids can become a VP and live the american dream(that even joe 24 pack can be in charge). Now did this repugnican let out of the bag the last kid being hers or not? I know it isn't a campaign issue, but actually it is. It calls into account how much trust you have in someone who would lie about something like that and then go out of her way to showcase her family(photegenic or not).

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Originally posted by bigcitygal:
That piece by Michael Reagan was sooo creepy!!! I need a shower. And it was also, like, Oedipal, not that I ever thought I'd be calling up Freud on babble. The things the Repubs will cause me to do! I feel like telling him, dude, get some therapy! Please! And, um, maybe you can go to a Freudian, if there are any left!

As for the sexism against Palin. Stargazer, you know I respect and admire your posts on babble very much. But I heartily disagree. Sexism isn't about feeling "pity" for a woman, or a group of women. Sexism is .... Well hell, you know what sexism is!

In this specific context I want to be clear that sexism is about words that attack Palin. Words based in sexist ideology and assumptions. No sexism is okay. Not against Condoleeza Rice, Hilary Rodham Clinton, Sarah Palin, or any woman in the public eye. I don't have to like someone to defend her against "words only" sexism.

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Trevormkidd: As for partisian Repulican saying she had 4 kids, well, believe it or not, not all Republicans are great at math.

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When are progressive women going to stop allowing Harper to kick sand in their faces and start fighting?

Here's what Rick Salutin has to say:

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Personally, I think Stephen Harper is calling an election now to get out from under the arts funding cloud - all the protests against his harsh cuts added onto leftover charges about trying to censor films. The issue has legs. It won't go away as he likely thought it would - after some predictable mewling by artsy types alongside some gruff appreciation from the good ol' boys. I imagine he can't understand why. I'd say it's because something has basically changed about the role of art and culture in this society. Lissen up, Stephen:

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When will the angry resentment at social program cuts turn from words to action? An election is called for Oct. 14, where are the articulate activist women standing for parliament?

I'm certain that many progressive women will be working behind the scenes but change must come from the House. Where are the high profile names like Judy Rebeck and Maude Barlow?