John and Sarah: APalling

There's a lot of spin out there, and the way things are going, Sarah Palin may end up looking like Mother Teresa. With five kids and a gun.

There must be a few good reasons to vote for her. Let's see -- as vice president, she wouldn't need an army of secret service agents every time she goes somewhere because she's a good shot, and can very well protect herself.

She could help the White House chef defray expenses by giving him some recipes for caribou stew and mooseburgers, thereby cutting out the pricey filet mignon. And surely, beer (courtesy of Cindy McCain) could replace Champagne at formal receptions.

Likewise, she could lower the expense of maintaining the grounds by replanting the Rose Garden with hardy conifers from the north woods.

And since she's already an expert on foreign affairs, thanks to Alaska's proximity to Russia, she could bring in some other foreign affairs experts from the Florida Keys -- after all, they are just 90 miles from Cuba.

I stop there, because this is no laughing matter. Sarah Palin is an even bigger threat to American security, American prosperity, and American values than John McCain. Together, they could drag the country back to the Vietnam era, or the McCarthy era, or the Great Depression. Our Republican president and his Republican Congress have already put us on that track over these past eight years. McCain and Palin are not going to switch gears.

What really bothers me is how placid most Americans are in the face of this meltdown. Where are the tens of thousands who have lost their homes, who have lost their jobs, and the millions who can't afford medical care? Do Americans only complain when the price of gas hits $5 a gallon?

We kid ourselves that we're living in a free society, that market-place capitalism will self-correct and operate fairly and efficiently. Then, as we bail out Fannie and Freddie (and watch the death throes of Lehman and Merrill), we must be honest and admit America is practicing a perverse form of Socialism. Government angels rush in where greedy fools have trod -- they have plundered, and failed, and the American taxpayer foots the bill.

In another time, and another place, corrupt and inept governance would bring angry mobs into the streets. It would be a prelude to revolution. The Bastille would be stormed. The Potemkin would be sunk. But in America today, we turn on the TV and chuckle along with Stewart and Colbert and Letterman and Maher.

And we go to the polls with a shrug.

America! Wake up! Now is the time to express your disappointment, your disgust, your anger. There are just a few weeks left.

I don't envy the next president, whoever it is, because he will have one hell of a job to set things straight. But I hope and pray it will not be John McCain, with his evangelical, dull-witted, sharp-shooting sidekick.

Comments

[Janney]

Sarah Palin is scary, but the masses of people that have come under her spell are more scarier. They are acting like zombies, like teen-agers idolizing their drug crazed musicians. All forms of intelligence and reasoning has left them. I hope they come to their senses before this country ends up in the abyss.

[Halsey]

Janney,
You are soooo correct..I mean, there will always be Il Duce's trying for high office at whatever expense; but that this "race" is even CLOSE...mo­re mind boggling that W's sort of wins in 2000 and 2004..I mean..what country IS this? Women (I shudder to think I share the same sex with these stepford pitbulls).­..buying the same glasses? MY gawd...Sar­ah is Britney without the "er" talent?..a celebrity.­.nothing more...jus­t more dangerous.

Joan, I WAS worried when I started reading your piece...th­ankfully you DID get serious... I keep thinking (for the first time...)..­.where should I MOVE if this once great country actually elects McPalin...­she'll bomb anywhere she thinks is a threat...s­o..guess Mexico is out...AND Canada...

at least the economy is in good shape..rig­ht?..now, I have to go before someone steals my shopping cart.

[Freesia2]

I think people are numb. I think they're scared and tired and so used to things being inept and mismanaged and tawdry and tacky and half done and undone and never great that they have lost the ability to really feel too much outrage.

Which makes it all dangerous. That kind of apathy is what the more machiavellian power people want from its citizens. It makes them more manageable. Cult leaders do it all the time. They make their converts tired and that makes them easier to train to do their bidding.

[robeson]

Would Mother Teresa do this?

RFK JR.
"Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies."

[NCIndependent]

LMAO, good post!