Airmid's Comments (77)

“'Treachery never prospers, for if it doth, none dare call it treachery.­'

I don't remember who said that, but it was around the time of Henry Vth, I think, or one or two later...

so the question really is, has it prospered enough that none still dare call it treachery?”

“Thank you for this

please mail it to every news outlet in the country. Get it onto the front pages. It matters that the people who know nothing - who *can* know nothing - are exposed, named, shamed and those who are guilty are imprisoned.

Only then can we be sure that in 8, 12, 16 years, it won't all happen again.”

“Thank you so much for this -it made my whole day...

"Sarah Palin, I can see the end of your career from my house!" (and I'm a lot further away than Russia)”

“"The military is doing no worse than their civilian counterparts"

With respect, if you send men and women into the desert to fight for their country, do they not have a right to be protected from their own side? It's years since we heard that the women in action were risking death by dehydration because they chose not to drink anything after 4 pm so they wouldn't have to risk going to the urinals in the night - **because this action was almost certain to result in rape**.

If the military can't sort this out, or doesn't care, what does it say about their priorities?”

“when they ask dumb questions like, 'how do you know the difference between right and wrong without god?" (eh? being a member of a blood cult helps you know right from wrong? Like it did in the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Autos da fe?) - anyway, point them to 'Godless Morality' by the very wonderful Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh.­.. it's an excellent book that will answer the question for them.”

“This is one of the best remarks I've read in a long while. Perhaps you could pass it on to Faux and the rest? That he IS taking responsibility, as is his duty as president - and they had better let him do it....”

“This is the same as voting down Clinton's health bill... If the Stimulus Package goes ahead, if Obama becomes the next Roosevelt, if this is the equivalent of the new New Deal... then the GOP is finished, and they know that.

so they'll defeat it just to keep themselves alive.

and as far as I can tell, the right wing blogs are making sure there are calls to the congresscritters at a rate of 100:1 against the package - which is neat mobilisation and doesn't begin to show how the nation thinks/feels.

so calling in would seem to be a good idea.”

“please tell me the Obama campaign knows about this?

and so is on top of it?

like they're on top of everything else?

otherwise the AP poll will be cited as a 'reliable indicator'

scary”

“So..... she doesn't read the papers

and then in the latest Couric train wreck, she's asked 3 times to name a paper she reads and she says, 'oh... all of them.'

All 1600 national papers plus the periodicals?

but she can't actually name any of them...

can someone stitch these two together? It would make good YouTube material”

“Of all the thousands of 'Palin Bar' blogs, this is far and away the best...

and it needs to be trumpeted from the rooftops, by Jack Cafferty, by Rachel Maddow, by Olbermann, by anyone and everyone with a functional cerebral cortex.

This is NOT a game show. This is not about standing at a lectern proving you're a parrot. This is about demonstrating that you're fit to be POTUS

which she is not, never has been and never will be.

As a woman, I say this with regret, but with certainty. It has nothing to do with gender. It has everything to do with basic competence.

Please, please, get this out to the MSM”

“I've been wondering if it's as simple as racism?

As an outsider (neither evangelical nor christian), it seems that the venom of the christian right is of a similar texture, flavor and vehemence to the venom of fundamentalist islam: both are determined that their narrow interpretation of a shaky historical scripture is accurate and both are certain that any and all means of destroying their enemies is permissible.

What binds them is a mix of insecurity and hatred anchored in a mythic view of reality which puts an anthropomorphized deity, embodying many of their own emotional characteristics, at the center of their world view.

And what the GOP does is to give them permission to hate, to lie, to twist reality... to do all that is basest in human nature, while claiming a religious right to do so. Democratics don't do that - and particularly not in the hands of Obama who has made it clear that what he stands for is decency and co-operation, not war and vindictive divisiveness.

So I'm sure it doesn't help that he's black - imagine what the result would be if footage were to appear of Obama being prayed over by a black Kenyan witch-hunter? - but I'm not sure a white man with the same characteristics would fare better.

As a test, I invite you to imagine a committed Buddhist saying any of the things currently on view in any of the evangelical blogs... They don't do that kind of poison...”

“Thank you for this well-reasoned, intelligent piece. But here, you're talking to the converted, and given the history of the books you've written, it's fairly safe to say the Evangelical right are not going to listen to your opinion.

Is there someone else who can say this - and be heard - where it needs to be heard?

thank you”

“I am awaiting the sketch where Palin is trying out debating tactics with a BIden-a-like and fails so badly they have to change the debate format...”

“If this 20% claim is also - as McCain said - her claim to 'experience' (what's her foreign policy experience? - "energy!") and it's proved to be false, and falser than false....

doesn't that remove her sole fragment of 'foreign policy experience'?

(ignoring 'I can see Russia from my house!' and the stop-over to refuel in Ireland)”

“Yep

**big red flashing beacons**

NEVER trust a smiling Rove”

“This from the London Telegraph currently up on the Wonk Room at think progress: (how do I get quotes on here?)

She's a 'blank page' for the GOP - that must be worth something somewhere?

**********­**********­*****

Sources in the McCain camp, the Republican Party and Washington think tanks say Mrs Palin was identified as a potential future leader of the neoconservative cause in June 2007. That was when the annual summer cruise organised by the right-of-centre Weekly Standard magazine docked in Juneau, the Alaskan state capital, and the pundits on board took tea with Governor Palin.[…]

A former Republican White House official, who now works at the American Enterprise Institute, a bastion of Washington neoconservatism, admitted: “She’s bright and she’s a blank page. She’s going places and it’s worth going there with her.”

Asked if he sees her as a “project”, the former official said: “Your word, not mine, but I wouldn’t disagree with the sentiment.­””

“Please, please send this 'I grew up attending an Assembly of God church' post to your local, state and national newspapers­... it does need to be said, particularly the piece about lying without thought.

how do other christians view it?”

“um

sorry, very slow....

who *does* own YouTube (and why haven't they taken off any of the other good anti-Bush/­McCain/Pal­in videos?)

unless they don't matter and this one really, really does - which is truly scary”

“I just sent this to the newsoutlets you mentioned

So.... censorship is starting big time.... Without reason or recourse to discussion, YouTube has pulled the ten minute mini-documentary created by Bruce Wilson's research team that highlights the Wasilla Church of God and Sarah Palin's attendance of same. The links to the video contained further information of the Churches and the Third Wave

Ordinarily, a candidate's spirituality is their own affair, but when we know so very little about Sarah Palin, and when her faith has been a central plank of her nomination, and as far as we can tell, impacts directly on her views on domestic and foreign affairs, then it becomes germaine to the electoral process. The failure of the mainstream news channels to contain any of this information means that outlets such as YouTube become central to the exchange of information.

This video was in the process of going viral. We are entitled at least to know why it was pulled, I think?”

“Sarah Palin, as far as we can tell, is not only a Fundamentalist, but a Dominionis­t....

she doesn't understand that there is, or should be, a separation of church and state

for her, the two are one.

THIS makes her religion germaine- because it informs the totality of her domestic and foreign agenda. Otherwise, it would be irrelevant - SHOULD be irrelevant - as is the faith of the leader of just about every other western democracy.”

“....or the shepherds.­...

sheep are stupid and can be herded where you want them to go

goats are intelligent and have to be led

Lo... the Palin/McCain shepherding of their flock”

“Thank you for this - you have made clear what I feared. Would you feel able to post it to every news network in the land? It's just possible they might see their own self-interest in co-ordinating a response to this.

These are some of the most prominent:

nytimes.comimes.com; nytimes.comditor@nytimes.com; nytimes.comitor@nytimes.com;letters@latimes.com; washpost.compost.com; newsweek.comweek.com; wsj.coms@wsj.com;wsjcontact@dowjones.com; abc.com@abc.com; cbsnews.comnews.com; cbs.comow@cbs.com;ftn@cbsnews.com; nbc.com@nbc.com; nbc.combc.com; usnews.comnews.com; msnbc.com.com”

“For those questioning Obama's abilities:

The proof is in the public record; he sponsored 820 laws in Illinois, authored 152 bills, and co-sponsored 427 more in the U.S. Senate. While in the IL State Senate he authored a bill, which passed 35 to 0, to require that interrogations and confessions be videotaped to ensure confessions were not given under duress, coerced by beating the accused.

He also played a major role in the state's first earned-income tax credit to help the working poor and the first ethics and campaign finance law in 25 years which was recognized as "one of the best in the nation on campaign finance disclosure­." In the US Senate, he co-authored the new lobbying reform law that requires lawmakers to disclose the names of lobbyists who “bundle” contributions for them.

Obama was an Illinois State Senator for 8 years 1996-2004. Chairman, Health and Human Services Committee.

Constitutional Law Professor at the U of Chicago Law School 1993-2004. Civil Rights Attorney - 1992-2004

Obama; United States Senator 2004-present Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs Member, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Member, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Member, Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs

Obama Education: Columbia University B.A. Political Science with specialization in international relations Thesis topic: Soviet nuclear disarmament Graduate Harvard Law School J.D. Magna cum laude 1988-1991 President, Harvard Law Review”

“Look at it this way

Would Jesus vote for the community organiser,

or

the Governor who'd used her position to pursue a personal vendetta that a judge had already warned her off?”

“PumaAnn, try this:

There's an election in Russia.

on one side is an old guy with a rocky medical history and an uncertain temper who's pretty much tied himself to Putin but is saying he's different.

On the other side is a young guy who's been around quite a bit but is of a new generation

the young guy picks age and experience as his running mate

The old guy has to find something 'different'. He picks a footballer who's Governor of a Province in SIberia, used to be mayor of Yenisyesk. He's an ardent nationalist. He's never been outside Russia and he knows zip about foreign affairs, nor does he care. He's talking up Russian aggression in Georgia, in the Ukraine, in Cuba, anywhere else he can think of...

He's young, good looking and he's a Cossack. Half of Russia are Cossacks and love him. They're heading for recession and he gives them back a sense of national pride. They all know the old guy's going to die and the footballer's going to get in. They're drunk on the sense of 'difference'. Everyone else knows the footballer is being run by the same Mafia as ran Putin, but nobody care.

The young guy is thoughtful, has travelled widely outside Russia, did his dissertation on Soviet/US relations. He's taught Law for a decade in St Petersburg. He was dead against Russia's invasion of Georgia and said so.

Which would you want with his finger on Russia's nuclear trigger?”