The Final Distraction: McCain/Palin Worse Than Bush

We all know McCain has sold his soul to win. Big mistake: the Democrats are taking the GOP bait, especially on Palin. She is the ultimate distraction. If we're not careful she'll be the final distraction. The perfect new celebrity -- Sarah Barracuda -- to capture the message in the 24-hour spin orgy, all the while attacking Obama as an elite celebrity. Any narrative that focuses on her -- any -- is a win for Republicans, carrying an undercurrent of race wars, gender wars, class wars. All ending with a debate on God and a return visit to Rev. Wright.

Palin is a gateway drug to a back-alley brawl Obama can't win. A Joseph Conrad-produced reality show/sitcom with Palin replacing Roseanne Barr fighting for the little guy with sass and sex. Wonderful.

Watch McCain repeat "maverick" 300 times a day, like a mantra, 'til Election Day. Republicans and hockey moms against corruption and Lear jets. Orwell for second graders: distraction and chaos, phony scandals and bullshit patriotics from the crew that would install an inexperienced neophyte -- not even put through the crucible of the national stage -- a heartbeat away from the greatest nuclear arsenal the world has ever known, and not blink. Darkest reptilian politics that speak to the ultimate calcified cynicism of Republicans.

Democrats need to ignore her -- unless she speaks about policy -- maybe she can explain and solve the collapsing world markets -- and keep the focus relentlessly on the disastrous results of Bush/McCain/Republican rule. They need to remind voters of the disasters of the last seven-plus years. Specifically. And as people have been saying, we need to be mad as well as inspired.

John McCain is the Republican Party as much as Bush -- we need to be constantly reminded of the policies (and, yes, the crimes) that are threatening this country from within.

Obama must hit Republicans ten times harder. Let's hear about war profiteering, taxpayer-funded mercenary armies and privatizing core functions of state, habeas corpus and warrantless wiretapping and presidential signing statements, and Katrina and justice department politicization, and phony intel and Abu Ghraib, rendition and torture.

If the Democratic leadership wants to disregard its base and continue to disregard the rule of law, they deserve to lose...and will. Let's hope the Obama campaign doesn't come to this conclusion 10 days out. He needs to articulate his vision of the future, but he also needs to articulate a version of reality. The fiercest urgency is needed now.

But some other fundamentals seem to be lost in the frenzy. McCain is no maverick, but it is worth understanding why the rabid right wing is cheering his call for government "reform" and to change "how government works at every level."

McCain won't just be more of the same -- it will be worse than Bush-Cheney -- using the disasters of the past eight years and the actual crises we face to double down on the American Enterprise/Heritage Foundation vision of government that desires, as Grover Norquist said, to shrink government until "we can drown it in a bathtub."

I would recommend a return visit to the groundbreaking Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

McCain, who said he knows nothing about economics, will surely hand over the reins to the Friedmanites and neoconservatives who have sent the country on a path to ruin. Anyone looking at his team could tell you that. Palin and the interests she represents are even further to the right.

Now, no one in their right mind -- including reasonable independents and Republicans -- wants to double down on neocon ideology, but here comes the "maverick" and his economic advisers to use the crises we face to implement more "change" and "reform" to the system by privatizing everything in sight. Is this what the American people want? When they are aware of it, the answer is always no. It's the same bullshit re-branded.

It may happen in a shock therapy in the first 100 days, or financial chaos may force them to wait until things stabilize, but sooner or later they will follow their fundamentalist creed. Ruin the government you are purporting to run and turn it over to privatization frenzy, creating a shadow government of private corporate rule. That's the whole idea.

So let's brand bust this maverick gibberish but understand the coded language that belies their true mission... we should take them at the true meaning of their words.

Not just more of the same -- worse than the same. Times of crisis are great opportunities to implement the radical agendas we usually reject.

That's also the idea.

McCain and the neocon ideologues won't "reform" government, they will gut government and privatize everything in sight in the name of responding to the crises they helped engineer through Bush and Cheney. Their view of government is the reverse of the Hippocratic Oath: do harm and then when the patient is sick, give the wrong medicine, watch him die, and sell off the body parts.

They will destroy the Department of Energy, HUD and anything else they can get their hands on. With this crew, all you need to do is destroy government, privatize it and get out of the way, and then a magic utopia appears. Well, actually it doesn't, but a lot of connected people get rich, and in the privatized war business, blood money flows and a fuck of a lot of innocent people die. The numbers and the misery are staggering. The legacy of Bush/McCain is a legacy of shame. Any man that stood with this criminal administration should be forced to answer for it.

The Republicans have been ruinous and most of it stems from an ideology that leaves the government in ruins. McCain has been on board hook, line and sinker. He voted with Bush over 90% of the time. End of story.

It is fundamentally corrupt and dishonest to call it reform when leaders want to cripple government, then hand it over to private industry, usually subsidized by taxpayers, but for other people's profits. More like contempt for government.

Red meat for dummies... a horror show for the rest of us.

Obama needs to explain to the country what this will cost us in real terms -- however many billions a day in Iraq and what that could buy, repair, fix, and allow in human terms -- ask us if can we afford it, and Obama must -- to use imagery the neocons can understand -- knock them down, put his boots on their throats, and never let up.

Comments

[openhand]

For a moment there I thought the headline was about Michael Palin, so what have the Romans done for us lately?

[watchTVgetSTUPID]

McCain's financial advisor crammed his deregulation rider into Clinton's bill and now it comes home to roost. Republicans know how to shut down the government if they don't get their riders. Phil Gramm is the most responsible (after Greenspan) manipulator for bringing down the whole economy.

Shock and Awe .... coming to a neighborhood near you.

[ckomeshian]

I SPOKE TO MY IMMEDIATE FAMILY ABOUT PALIN:

MY MOM is pro-McCain/Palin, with banners in her yard.
(McCain voter)

MY DAD lives is a retired blue collar worker who lost much of his hearing working with machinery (a salt-of-the-earth guy whose favorite movie is "Better Off Dead"). He can't hear well when watching TV and thinks Palin "is okay...a hockey Mom" and by seeing her friendly image on TV, he thinks she is the kind of gal he'd want to meet at the local bar and have a beer with.
(possible Obama voter)

MY SISTER is a business owner and on the fence. She works hard and hasn't had time to learn about each candidate's platform in-depth. She said she doesn't like either choice and gave solid opinions on not liking McCain/Palin but when I asked why she didn't like Obama she said "well I don't know enough about him."
(possible Obama voter come election day)

JUST LIKE A GOOD MOVIE TRAILER CAN TRICK US INTO SEEING A BAD FILM, simple buzz words or images can win voters over.

John Cusack took the time to communicate with us (whether or not he reads our responses, I have no idea). We can take the time to communicate with family, friends, colleagues and neighbors, too and discuss further. That's how a democracy should work.

[TheAlchemist]

Nice post.

Democracy Requires Participation.

[openhand]

Check this link out, it shows the difference in tax plans.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/11/news/economy/candidates_taxproposals_tpc/index.htm

Bottom Line

Obama will reduce taxes for 95% of the population, those earning below $227K.
For the 4% earning between $227K to $600K, he plans to raise their tax by only $12, that's it.
Above that, he gets allot.

John McCain reduces tax for everyone, huge for the top 5%, small for the bottom middle class.

What you must remember is that the war went from an estimate of $100 Billion to $3 Trillion without any real end in sight.
This is the 1st war the U.S. has fought without raising taxes.
The money for the war is being borrowed and is now 3x the cost of the stock market bail out.

Read my lips, John McCain is lying when he says he will not raise taxes.

[polimom69]

The Republican campaign strategy of manipulating the American people w/ scare tactics...economy, taxes, and terrorists OH MY! It's all the same, same, same. For the love of money people WAKE-UP! We cannot fall for the same fear mongering tactic used by the Bush administration. Mr. Cusack is exactly right when he asks why the Democratic party is not calling attention to the innumerable criminal, and morally deplorable actions of this administration. Obama doesn't need tricks, games, or buzz words...he just needs to remind the American people of the clusterf*#k the Republicans have made out of the War in Iraq, and the economy, and etc. etc. etc....PLEASE, imagine how dangerous a more intelligent version of Bush can be to our once strong, proud, flourishing empire!!!

[canobs]

How about this: Obama/Biden worse than Carter.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

[openhand]

U.S. Deficit

-$ 100 Billion Carter
-$ 200 Billion Reagan
-$ 300 Billion Bush 1
+$ 200 Billion Clinton (thats positive 500)
-$ 500 Billion Bush 2 (thats a negative 700)

This excludes:
$1 Trillion Financial Aid to Wall St.
$3 Trillion Financial Aid to Iraq/Halliburton/Exxon.

[ckomeshian]

Every now and then daytime shows (Oprah, Tyra, Dr. Phil) have an episode about "people who shop too much" and we see how they hide the goods and the bill from their spouses over the years, leading double lives, and finally they are caught or they have a breakdown and have to admit they are in debt for let's say $100K or more. Then the non-spending spouse would be confronted with the news of the insurmountable credit card bills. The shock. The horror. The betrayal. Well, the Republicans have been doing this to the American people only we know it's going on! We've been confronted with it and right now only some of us care. Everyone else: what's going on?

[shel3364]

"do harm and then when the patient is sick, give the wrong medicine, watch him die, and sell off the body parts."...

Is that their plan for government or health care... eerily similar.


Excellent, but frightening, assessment. Maybe we need to have the $hit scared out of us by the Dems this time.

[vjones26]

Barrack Obama is smart and a thinker. We've had 8 years of the shallow, nonthinking, impetuous Bush and look where it's gotten us. The current state of our affairs on almost any level and in any category, would be unbelievable, only we are living it. ,

You are right. McCain and Palin will be more of the same Only Worse. I've yet to see McCain or Palin show the ability to critically think, be thoughtful ever or know any subject with substance. We can't afford these guys for four more years. We've run out of time for mistakes.

[longislandlol]

I asked my friends who have 44 year old daughters-- what--if any-identification they had with Palin---they said she would turn away the red states as well because the red state people are trying to work themselves out of the 8 year malaise and realize that more repubs would set their children back a couple of generations--- they say that their friends in normally repub areas of florida see their kids futures dimmed-- feel the only way out is thru Obama-- feel insulted with the dumbing down of America -- an America that cannot be in the hands of someone who got a D average in Economics in College---

[shel3364]

I'm living in Utah, the reddest of the red states, working on a DoD facility where we have quite a variety when it comes to ideology (due to a number of transplants).

What I'm hearing from moderate conservatives is that they're supportive of or leaning to McCain, but Palin scares the hell out of them, and that's making them think twice. Obama as their second choice isn't so bad.

The independents I've talked to are leaning Obama.

The women are offended by the obvious pandering of selecting Palin. Hillary has a resume as long as your arm; Palin can "see Russia from Alaska, Churlie".

[Harod]

The democrat congress has fallen into the same trap the Republican congress fell into, they cannot do anything til after the elections, then the next election and the next and the next..

[nintynine]

I wonder when every American will start realizing that we are the politics that play out in the world and that you can’t separate Americans from American politics. Every person in this country is responsible for the deaths to our own soldiers and the death and destruction caused in the countries we have invaded since the Vietnam war. That so called political war was said to be stimulating our economy. Even as a child, I knew that war was wrong and only productive for special interests, corruption and greed. Where we invest our money is where we reap the benefits as a country.

I have 4 questions as we get ready for the biggest election in history.

Do you believe in your heart that war is still an option in the 21st century?

Are the children of this country our priority or do we let them sink to 25th in the world because our public education system is so under budgeted and inadequate to compete?

Can we establish integrity as the standard, not the exception?

Are we intelligent people that have common sense or did we quit caring and lose our perspective of what's right along with our pride?

[veracity]

To continue from below - the DC Democrats DO NOT KNOW HOW to DEFEND 100 years of Democratic/Progressive Progress!

WHEN Bush, Cheney, Murdoch, Gingrich, and Grover Norquist (e al) say they want to "UNDO THE NEW DEAL" and "MAKE GOVERNMENT SMALL ENOUGH TO DROWN in a bathtub" ,

WHERE are the Democrats to point out -
"IF you UNDO THE NEW DEAL, you are TAKING AMERICA BACK to the boom-&-bust 1920s... the LYNCH-MOB ERA & Roaring Twenties boom THAT LED DIRECTLY TO THE GREAT DEPRESSION!" ??

On Ed Schultz show last week, Ohio Dem. SENATOR Shrrod Brown _acknowledged_ that 2004 vote rigging WAS GOING ON in Ohio under then Repub SecState Ken Blackwell.,,
(but drew back from saying that it cost the election)

...Speaker Pelosi PRETENDS NOT TO NOTICE that former AttorneyGeneral Gonzales CORRUPTED the DOJ, & that current AG Mukasey is WHITEWASHING that process today. (LEAVING fiercely partisan Republican operatives with NO committment to Civil Rights or fair elections at "Justice" today, eve of election08!)

& Now, DC Democrats PLAY DEAF, MUTE, & RETIRING, as BushCo. just added ANOTHER TRILLION DOLLARS of DEBT (actually TWO trillion) TO THE ALREADY astronomical $17 trillion SEVENTEEN TRILLION dollars AGGREGATE DEBT that we have incurred under Bush-Cheney-GOP.

THE FIRST RESPONSIBILITY of Congress is to OVERSEE THE PUBLIC PURSE.

SPEAKER PELOSI CAN NOT EVEN GIVE US _A TOTAL of our massive, public, taxpayer DEBT OBLIGATIONS_ !!

FOR SHAME! This is COMPLETE ABDICATION of both 100 years of Democratic progress, & 200 years of CONSTITUTIONAL

[lanlee]

Love the article John; however, you forgot one incredibly important point which must be said bluntly and in plain English. Electing any Republican to any level of government at this point is American democratic suicide.

The proposed $700 billion 'bail-out' is the exact way we started the Bush years. A manufactured 'crisis' hits the fan, Bush comes up with an idea -- which was cleverly crafted over a period of years - and frightened people, in a panic, fall for it.

Did you ever wonder why American education has lapsed so drastically? It's easier to fool the uneducated. If the government doesn't fund education, the masses can't see what's coming.

This proposed 'bail-out' is nothing more than the final stage of the Communist coup to take over America. That's what happens when you propose to "transfer" powers from the Congress and Senate to the Executive branch of government without oversight, accountability, or any other 'checks-and-balance' counter point.

I'm Canadian, but even I know a communist move when I see one and it's working to place a tyrant on the American "throne."

I'm also Traditional Catholic, but I know that this is not right-wing religion or any religion for that matter. This is the Anti-Christ coming to power through greed and financial slavery.

Good Luck my friend and keep blogging. We must do all we can to preserve freedom and liberty.

[veracity]

John, I hate to point this out, but (must give 'em credit) with the Rove/GOP/McCain camp injecting "sass & sex" (Palin) and successfully revitalizing the previously moribund McCain campaign...
It is time to address DC DEMOCRAT _COMPLICITY_ with the GOP agenda.

This has been a long time coming. 8 years ago, Al Gore & His campaign (including African-American Donna Brazille) REFUSED to _speak up for_ the poor & minority children KICKED OFF of pre-school, after-school, and Health-Care programs in Texas by then Gov. Bush.
It was Bush/GOPco's SIGNATURE "TAX CUTS FOR WEALTHY, SLASH Social programs' agenda... and Al Gore made the CONSCIOUS DECISION _NOT_ to CONFRONT that Alpha & Omega of Republican, Right-WIng politics.
Thus Gore actually giving SUBSTANCE to the GOP/media portrayal of him as EVASIVE, arrogant, elitist, aloof, and (lying). The Righties UNDERSTAND the dark side, and can spot it in even "altruistic" politicians like Gore in an instant.
Clinton, Kerry, and Edwards have been defined by their NARCISSISM
Speaker Pelosi REFUSES to go on Dem TALK RADIO, because she can NOT defend her DC "centrist" (corporate) positions to the Democratic "base" voters.
Friday, Harry Reid said he COULD NOT SAY ANYTHING about the HUGE financial bailouts - - - until getting something from Bush/Paulson.

THIS IS NOT LEADERSHIP, it is FOLLOWING the DC "Conventional Wisdom" which is nothing but the George Will/David Gergen rough polish on KARL ROVE and RUSH LIMBAUGH's Right-Wing talking points!

[crutnacker]

Actually, I think Palin's the perfect target, because she speaks volumes to the corruption of the party. If I were the Democrats, I'd hammer her church as hard as Barrack's got hammered. I'd point out every corrupt thing the Pubs have ever done and keep doing it. And I'd hammer home the point that the Republicans pretend to be the party of the little guy, but they make more money, live more extravagantly, and have more connections to corrupt big businesses than they'll ever admit. Hit them hard. Screw being fair. It's time to win.

[Coinyer101]

republicans will take the country down,with them. they think its their's.

[StanTheManic]

Too long for Huff post, this is edited:

Subject: I'm a little confused ...

Grow up in Hawaii, you're "exotic, different." Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School you're unstable.
Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well-grounded.

Spend 3 years as a community organizer, the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, register 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional
Law professor, 8 years as a State Senator for over 750,000 people, chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, 2 years in the US Senate representing
13 million people, sponsoring 131 bills, serve on Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

If your resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council, 6 years as the mayor of a town of 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

Teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, you're eroding the fiber of society.

If you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

Much clearer now.

[sonoffestus]

Well stated Stan!

[janeInCA]

Well, you covered all. Not only that, parents now have a hard to tell teens to wait for a job, an education before bringing a baby to the world. See the example from our VP candidate's family.