life and puppies

“On the Bailout”

Ultimately,
What the bailout does
Is help those who are concerned
About the health care reform
That is needed
To help shore up our economy,
Helping the—
It’s got to be all about job creation, too.

Shoring up our economy
And putting it back on the right track.
So health care reform
And reducing taxes
And reining in spending
Has got to accompany tax reductions
And tax relief for Americans.
And trade.

We’ve got to see trade
As opportunity
Not as a competitive, scary thing.
But one in five jobs
Being created in the trade sector today,
We’ve got to look at that
As more opportunity.
All those things.

If Sarah Palin had taken a run at the presidency, campaigned for the office last year or this year, would anyone have taken that seriously?

The latest, of course, is Sarah Palin’s joint interview with John McCain.  Um, no, that doesn’t seem at all paternalistic.  In the wake of comments from some of the party’s biggest champions that Palin should step aside, the McCain-Palin machine decides to give it a go together.  Allowing Katie Couric to interview them together can fairly be described as a hail mary.  He cannot make her sound more competent, he cannot make her sound smarter, he can really only make her look younger, prettier and more energetic than he.  To me, he sounded glib, tired and insulted that people still want to know what she thinks.  I don’t understand the camp’s thinking that they can change her answer to a question on Pakistan — she apparently stated, yes, troops should go there — into Gotcha! journalism.  I mean, yeah, gotcha!  You said it!  And now McCain states that because she was asked this question in a pizza parlor it (a) doesn’t count and (b) is the opposite of what she meant.  Maybe she should have just said that she accidentally blinked when the question was asked, but that it will never happen again.

I keep hearing that people say she’s smarter than we think and maybe that’s true. I just haven’t seen any evidence of that.

I thought I would be satisfied reducing my thoughts on this much-loved subject to a few comments left on my prior post.  I was wrong.  There seems to be no sating my interest in this story.  So, let’s have at it.

When it was first leaked that Sarah Palin was McCain’s choice for the vice-presidency, I admit I said, “Who?”  And now, just a few days later, I have read more articles on Sarah Palin than I have ever read on McCain, Obama or Biden.  Probably even more than putting the latter three altogether.  I’m not exactly proud of this feat, but it is the truth.  A VP candidate from Alaska with only 20 months of experience as governor, years more as mayor of a 9,000 peeped town, and five children in this modern age.  I mean, it makes one want to read a thing or two about who this lady is.  And then throw in that her 17-year old daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant and I challenge even the most reasoned among us not to do some google searching.

So, this is what I’ve learned.  Sarah was runner-up to being Miss Alaska, instead having to walk away from the pageant earning only the Miss Congeniality award; she went to the University of Idaho; she married Todd Palin when she was about a month preggers with Track; Track has joined the army; she had four other kids, including one named Trig with Down Syndrome, and one named Bristol who’s about to have a baby of her own; she was mayor of her hometown (having moved there when she was a few months old) for many years and said-town has a population of about 9,000; she hired a lobbying firm that led the town to millions and millions of bucks in federal earmarks; she supported that bridge until Congress only half funded it; she is super prolife; her pastor or reverend or whatever he is is *&^$#*&^%#@ crazy and somehow has gotten away with painting Jesus as a war-monger and risking his tax-exempt status by telling his flock that they would be hell-bound were they to vote Kerry/Edwards; she may have fired a man who refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law; she fired the police chief and the head librarian of Wasilla when she became mayor, citing as a reason their lack of loyalty to her; she is running for vice president of the United States.

I guess more than worrying about Sarah Palin, this makes me worry about McCain.  I know the pundits all say this was his reaction to hearing that he could not put Lieberman on his ticket, but it has to be more than that.  Doesn’t it?  Is he that brash?  It also seems to have placated the Christian conservative base that we all love to talk about.  But are they that simple-minded that the addition of Palin has satisfied them?  Maybe.  I guess we’ll see.

After all this, the election is just two months away.  I can’t wait to see what’s next.      

In a twist I really didn’t see coming, I just received an email from Sundance thanking me for my alumni application.  So, I decided that if they were under the impression that I had already applied, I better actually apply so that I have some control over what my application looks like.  This doesn’t mean I’m in.  It just means that I might be in.  Eeks!  Why?  Oh, I don’t know.

Onto old news.  And it is old news now.  I have finally settled down enough to say a few words about John Edwards.  As you know, I was and, I guess, still am a big fan of his.  I really admired him for being one of the very few candidates — sometimes the only — who would address NAFTA and the enormous problems it has caused for millions of workers.  I’m currently reading The Big Squeeze, which is a very current book about the dire straits too many American workers are in.  It details the lives of factory workers, Wal-Mart employees, waitresses and dozens of others and discusses who is making it and why, and who isn’t and why not.  Anyway, it’s a fascinating and depressing study of the current working class.  And it reminds me of the reasons I liked John Edwards in the first place.  Ok, so, Edwards had an affair with a woman who seems battier than the bat that lives in the cabin we rent in Presque Isle every summer.  And then he lied about it.  And then there is a baby that may or may not be his.  And then one of his supporters gave the Bat Woman and an aide who has taken credit for the babe a bunch of money to live in southern California.  And then Edwards admitted the affair, but said it ended in 2006, the baby is not his and he told Elizabeth all about it.  He also mentioned the affair took place while his wife was in remission.  Hmm.  And the most recent news I read about it is that folks have now turned on Elizabeth, calling her complicit in the “cover-up.”  Double hmm. 

I don’t know what to think about all of it.  I don’t know that I need to think about it at all.  I do know, though, that I find it really obnoxious to blame Elizabeth for not wanting to see her personal family matters splattered all over the news.  What sane person would announce to the world, “My husband had an affair with this Looney Toon?”  It’s a new twist in blaming the woman.  Like the Sundance application being received when I hadn’t filled it out, I didn’t see it coming.