GEN. DAVID "BETRAY US" PETRAEUS (CENTCOM)
(1) Highest suicide rate in United States History of Military Personnel under "Betray US"
(2) Training Former Soviet Georgian Troops, with the aid of (2) Battalions of combined (IDF Israeli Defense Force & Blackwater mercenaries) for a reinforced Brigade Attack upon (UN) United Nations "Blue Helmeted" Peacekeeper in the two break away providences, forcing Soviet Russians Troops to enter in the defense of civilians and (UN) peace keepers
(3) Using ($400M) four hundred million in (CIA/JSOC) Central Intelligence Agency/Mossad and the Joint Special Operations Command, for United States Special Operations Forces, clandestine operations against Georgia, Iran, and Pakistan, in violation of International Law
And Gen. David "Betray Us" taking over as the new head of (Centcom) Central Command, in October, and all (US/MIC) United States Military Industrial Complex Troops from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia, is going to make the world safer how?
Que Sera, Sarah
Alaska Governor and former Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin, on the biggest night of her political career.
So, after Wednesday night's spectacle of an intensively-rehearsed Sarah Palin whipping up the Republican convention crowd, what will be for her? Que sera, Sarah.
I think in the end Palin is a sideshow, a base play too problematic and extreme to appeal to independents and moderates, a tyro whose politics actually undercuts the positioning John McCain needs to win the election.
McCain's acceptance speech last night, heavy with elegiac tones, had none of the pop of Palin's. What it did have was depth beyond Palin's glib wisecracks, and a more centrist positioning beyond Palin's right-wing base-stoking, and McCain's own Bush-backing record of recent years. What it did not have was the substance to back up the centrist reformism McCain needs to try to upset Obama.
I asked McCain's old friend Gary Hart, who was McCain's groomsman at the Vietnam War hero's wedding to Cindy, what he thought. "McCain," Hart said, noting the flat response of the convention crowd even to the watered-down centrism of last night, "is trying to return the neocon party to the traditional conservative party. He won't succeed."
In any event, the Vietnam War hero, the "original maverick" as his campaign would again position him after several years of fealty to the very unpopular agenda of President Bush, paled as it were from a performance standpoint next to Palin's kinetic performance.
John McCain's new ad presents Sarah Palin as "the Alaska Maverick," allegedly a fighter against Big Oil unlike Barack Obama, the candidate of "empty words."
Wednesday night was the biggest night of Palin's political career. All ice cream. Palin, whose biggest office until 2007 was the mayoralty of Wasilla, Alaska -- current population 6,715, according to the City of Wasilla -- had been mostly out of sight since her debut last Friday at a Dayton, Ohio rally with John McCain.
Palin was getting briefed in on national and international issues, about which she knows little. She's still not ready for interviews, so this will continue at least into next week as she will soon return to Alaska to see her son Track off to Iraq on, naturally, September 11th. This is the first time I can recall that a vice presidential nominee has done no interviews following his or her unveiling.
Notice that I said "her." Palin is not the first woman vice presidential nominee. New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro holds that distinction, dating back to 1984. I know this first-hand, as I cast my delegate vote at the Democratic national convention for her that year. It proved to be a mistake.
While Ferraro was a credible figure, very well-versed in national and international issues, she was a token. It was stunt casting by a presidential candidate, a decades-long Washington figure, Walter Mondale, hungry to show that he, too, was a change agent. It didn't work.
Back to Palin. The hard right base of the Republican Party loves her. Why would they not? She is for creationism, the religious fundamentalist notion that scientific evolution is false.
A McCain campaign video entitled "Introducing Sarah Palin."
She is a greenhouse effect denier. A convenient stance for someone who pushes for oil drilling everywhere. Incidentally, the Arctic ice cap is melting once again, creating the fabled "Northwest Passage" at the top of the world. Which is why Russia staked a claim to the North Pole last year, as many experts believe that 25% of the world's remaining oil and natural gas reserves are under what was once the intractable ice cap of the North Pole.
She's against abortion in all circumstances, including for victims of rape and incest. She is a staunch opponent of sex education. It would be easy to make the point that her underage daughter, now pregnant out of wedlock, the father being some tuff boy teenage hockey player whose now-scrubbed MySpace page said he never wants to have kids and will kick anybody's ass, thereby making him prime dad material, is a victim of this stance. But that whole area should be left to the National Enquirer -- which is delving into the broad sweep of Palin's private life -- and the rest of the lifestyle press and the ADD media.
Back to public affairs substance. Palin claims to have opposed the infamous "Bridge To Nowhere." Actually, she campaigned for it, turned against it once it had been discredited publicly, then took the money for it and applied it elsewhere.
A fighter against a corrupt Alaska Republican establishment. Actually, she was co-director of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens' political committee. Stevens, a notorious pork barrel pol, is a longtime McCain bete noire, indicted on several charges of political corruption.
Palin is also a big-time political consumer of congressional earmarks, long the subject of McCain anti-spending crusades.
Palin, who had only met John McCain once before he picked her, seems bright and glib. I was aware that she was on a long list for the vice presidency. I thought about her, and didn't think McCain would pick her.
Alaska is a state of well under 700,000 people. That is smaller than not only all 40 state senate districts in California, but all 435 congressional districts in America.
Prior to 2007, Palin's claim to fame was that she had been mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. Which, as I've noted, Karl Rove erroneously stated on Fox News early last Friday morning was the second largest city in Alaska. Not even close. I reported then that there were 8000 people in Wasilla. Actually, it's 6,715, according to the city itself. When Palin was elected mayor, it was under 5000.
I got ahold of Palin's election records. What is interesting to know is that, when Palin was first elected mayor of Wasilla, she received 651 votes. That was a landslide election for her, with over 60% of the city vote.
As I look at Palin's record, which prior to 2007 is based on her long tenure as a city council member and mayor of Wasilla, something occurred to me. I held more important local government posts than Palin. When I was in high school.
And looking at Palin's record in tiny Wasilla, I accomplished more as a local government official. When I was in high school.
Now, frankly, it's definitely not much, though it's had a positive effect on the lives of more people than Palin has had as a local government official. But then, I'm not disappointed by being passed over by John McCain for the vice presidency, though I've spent more time around him than Palin has. Not a high bar to cross, since she'd only met him once before he designated her as his vice president.
You know, all this stuff about Palin's private life, which extends out ultimately to the public sphere with her firing of Alaska's public safety commissioner for his refusal to fire Palin's former brother-in-law. I don't care about that. Put it all off limits. McCain's pal David Letterman likens Palin and her family to Jerry Springer guests. Clearly, Letterman is an elitist. McCain, who courted celebrities and now makes fun of them, has been on Letterman more than all but a few movie stars.
Since the bulk of Palin's executive experience is non-serious, here is a more serious question. How would Palin do against Vladimir Putin? It's not an idle question, as about 20% of the vice presidents have become president, and John McCain, who had several bouts of cancer, endured terrible tortures at the hands of his Communist captors and as a result is not athletic, would be the oldest person ever elected to the presidency.
I haven't met Sarah Palin. I have met Vladimir Putin. A bit more of a priority. I'm not in the least surprised that this elite former KGB officer has outwitted George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Well, you see where this is going.
Speaking of Bush and Cheney, neither was present at his own party's national convention.
President Bush, who briefly addressed the convention Tuesday night via satellite, out of prime time, is the first sitting president of the United States not to attend his own party convention in 40 years. Who is the last to hold this distinction? Lyndon Johnson, during the height of the Vietnam War.
Vice President Cheney set off on a big foreign tour for the week of the Republican national convention. His job approval rating is unbelievably low, down in the teens. He's off to Georgia, Ukraine, and Poland. To assure them that they have America's full backing against resurgent Russia.
Empty words for Georgia, whose misbegotten leader Mikheil Saakashvili so misinterpreted the support of Bush and Cheney and McCain that he launched a disastrously backfiring offensive against South Ossetia. For his troubles, he got a swiftly shattered military and Russian dominance over much of what he thought was his country.
As expected, the European Union summit on the Georgian crisis resulted in nothing. A few harshly-worded press releases. Putin, naturally, could care less. He and the rest of the Kremlin crew are certainly losing no sleep about another American politician who talks tough and doesn't know what's going on.
As for Sarah Palin, que sera, sera. As Doris Day sang, somewhat incongruously, in the Hitchcock thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much, whatever will be, will be. And what will be is that she is a base play, a tabloid distraction, a bright and glib politician of opportunity whose political posture will prove highly problematic.
It should be no surprise that Democratic nominee Joe Biden is seen as far more qualified than Palin. Despite all the hoopla, she looks like a play for the Republican base, as I pointed out immediately after she was selected last week, as well as an attempt to shake things up with stunt casting. The new ABC News poll shows that Joe Biden is viewed as far more qualified than Palin, and that, while likeable, Palin is not reaching across party lines or motivating independents.
Incidentally, to the extent that attention is focused on Palin's private life, that's a good thing for her, because it engenders sympathy. Actually, it's a good thing up to a point. The National Enquirer is now on her case, promising to be as diligent with her as it was with John Edwards, and that's never a good sign.
66% of American voters view Biden as qualified, with only 21% saying he is unqualified. Palin is viewed as qualified by 42%, a few points above the baseline Republican vote in a national election, and unqualified by 50%.
Even the effort to spin her small town mayoralty into thematic gold is highly problematic. Tiny Wasilla, nearly an hour out of Anchorage, turns out not to be the idyllic Rockwellesque small town her new conservative fans obviously love to imagine. Actually, Palin's home town is the methamphetamine capital of Alaska.
In the end, this election probably won't be about Sarah Palin at all. (If it is, it's not good news for John McCain.) The election, media hype aside, will quickly settle back into what it's been all along. A change election in a troubled country between a change agent who may be too risky and inexperienced for a plurality of voters and a change agent who may represent more of the unpopular same. And who may have just demonstrated the riskiness of his own judgment.
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Highest suicide rate? No.
Calling Petraeus that is non-serious.
WEST POINT ROTTEN TO THE CORE PETRAEUS!
The Core! The Core! The Core! West Point, The Thin Gray Line, Duty! Honor! Country!
The Hallmark of the our Very Best, Brightest, and Bravest! But this has all been brought into question by one and only one of its own, Gen. David "Betray US" Petraeus. What is the quality that sets some men above others, the call of Duty, the call of Honor, or the call of Country. Honor would have to be the top calling, without Honor the stain of disgrace colors the rest.
Gen. David "Betray Us" Petraeus has disgraced himself, West Point, and the Country! The line has been crossed the thin gray line that separates warfare from crimes against humanity, and it has been crossed. Warfare is not defined by ratios of civilian casualties beyond that which is necessary to accomplish a mission, where the wiping out of entire family lines as wedding, funerals, and family gathers are targets for genocide is a policy, when the torture of captured prisoners is a military policy, when a military commander drives his men under his charge and command to a point were suicide is their only way out of the emotional pain to their very souls.
West Point Rotten to the Core!
This wild anti-military stuff is non-serious.
Here is an interesting crack to exploit.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCain_targets_GOP_and_Bush_along_0907.html
Nothing new really but its always good to get your enemies to fight each other.
People aren't going to click if you don';t say what it is.
Sarah Palin is the political equivalent of the sports fan whose favorite team is the one who just claimed the title. She is incapable of understanding the plight of a Cubs fan because she's too busy buying Red Sox merchandise. Nobody will take Sarah seriously until she reaches into her closet and pulls out that Cubs jersey...
http://voteforamerica.net/editorials/Comments.aspx?ArticleId=46&ArticleName=Will+the+Real+Sarah+Palin+Please+Stand+Up
Senate Republicans Set Filibuster Record:
http://voteforamerica.net/editorials/Comments.aspx?ArticleId=21&ArticleName=Senate+GOP+Sets+Filibuster+Record
Elizabeth Dole is a Senate Parasite:
http://voteforamerica.net/editorials/Comments.aspx?ArticleId=24&ArticleName=Elizabeth+Dole+is+a+Senate+Parasite
I'm not following this Cubs merchandise theme ...
CHI-TOWN NORTH SIDER!
What the writer has told you is that they are from the North Side of Chicago, and is a Cubs Fan, the Cubs who play at Wrigley Field. The writer lives somewhere north of North Ave. The Sox are on the South Side and play out of Comensky Park. Chi-Town loves their team's the Bears, Cubs, Sox, Bull's, and the Blackhawks. You have to be from the (312) phone area to understand. They are as bad but not as willing to give up with the cash for stadium upgrades, as the City State of New York.
FLUFF & IGNORE MEDIA REPORTING
This week the (US/MIC) United States Military Industrial Complex with the full knowledge of the Office of the Imperial Presidency and executed by Gen. David "Betray US" Petraeus, engaged in mission creep, the expansion of Middle East War, by escalating to the military policy of not only hot pursuit, but incursion missions, into the sovereignty of yet another nation, Pakistan. And, there have been rumors to the effect that the mission creep policy of hot pursuit has been in effect for an undetermined period of time both in Pakistan and Iran, occurring along the Iranian / Iraqi Boarder, a clear violation of International Law.
But, the (NYC) New York City State Propaganda mill continues to offer Fluff and Ignore coverage. Let"s cover the two wings of the same system, the capital "C" Capitalism Right and capital "S" Socialist Left of the Military Industrial Complex farce election process. If we don"t report it they won"t see it, if we don"t talk about it they won"t hear it, if we don"t cover it they won"t know anything about it.
What about the ($400M) Incursion Fund of the (JSOC)?
Well, if you want to deal with Al Qaeda Prime, the people who actually attacked us on 9/11, you have special ops missions in Pakistan.
As Obama pointed out last year. But Bush and McCain amusingly denied.
PAKISTAN ALLY OR ENEMY?
Let"s take a closer look at the situation. Did or did not (US/MIC) The United States Military Industrial Complex make a new deal with India for Nuclear Technology, and aren"t India and Pakistan at odds in hot warfare over Kashmir territory? So, now we have a nuclear armed Pakistan what caught between the rock and a hard place?
"Well, if you want to deal with Al Qaeda Prime, you have special ops missions in Pakistan". And, you see this as not a violation of International Law how? Did the (US/MIC) working with the Pakistan Government coordinate for this attack? NO! It"s alright to send (US/MIC) troops into any country in the world simply because the Imperial Presidency authorizes an illegal action, in violation of International Law, and a Berkeley Graduate is fine with that? We are not talking about (CIA/Mossad) tied at the hip covert operations, we are talking about military not hot pursuit but operational incursions.
IS THIS ALL THERE IS?
There was awhile back a female Blues Singer who asked the question in one of her songs, "Is this all there is? From the writers biography it lists William Bradley a San Francisco, Upstate, Political and Media writer. But, really is this all there is? William Bradley does what most writters don't do and that is to defend what he does write and does post, but again is this all there is?
The (MIC) Military Industrial Complex under the Imperial Presidency, and General "Betray US" is in mission creep mode with incursions into both Iran and Pakistan, and this is all there is? It would be better to cover Monk, or a look back at the Streets of San Francisco, Charmed, Nash Bridges and ask what other series or films can be expected to come out of the City By The Bay, if this is all there is.
You sound like a terrorist that's found a site where people may accept you ideas. Military Industrial Complex, so 60's ish.
(18th) Vs (21ST) CENTURY USA
The (18th) Century United States of America Constitutional Government no longer exists or applies in the (21st) Century. It has been replaced by the (US/MIC) United States Military Industrial Complex of the (21st) Century. The Imperial Presidency is the law of the (MIC), and face time with that office goes at ($1M) One Million Dollars per hours sold in quarter hour segments of a quarter of a million dollars thru Washington, D. C., Beltway, K-Street Lobbyist.
The Professional Political Elite Class, sell their votes on legislation to the same lobbyist who write the legislation, and pay for the vote, no one reads it. Washington, D. C., The Beltway, and K-Street represent the Military and Political section of the (MIC).
The City State of New York represents the Propaganda and Economic section of the (MIC), they decide what legislation is to their benefit and the (NYSE) New York Stock Exchange and the economic elite class, Wall St., and provides the Propaganda machine to sell the Main St., public on its being necessary.
The State of Israel is the point of the spear in the center of the old world, with much of its dual citizens of The United States, they are the (51st) State, and are strategically important, the (CIA) Central Intelligence Agency / Mossad, and Blackwater & the (IDF) Israeli Defense Force work hand and hand. The relationship is symbiotic with both sides needing each other.
I don't know where you're getting that. I don't live in San Francisco.
THE BRADLEY BIO IS BASIC!
(1) Third Generation Californian, family came in with the "Okies" Grapes of Wrath Generation?
(2) School Board Member, most likely you have daughters, the fourth generation of Californians?
(3) Berkeley Graduate, Liberal and Democratic, Major in journalism, minor in film arts?
(4) Navy Veteran, One term in the Navy on a (6) six year contract, an "O" one level, wardroom Zero, may have been stationed in D.C. working for the Navy Times? Lt. or Lt (Jr.)?
(5) Worked in founding a newspaper in Sacramento, "The Sacramento Bee"?
(6) Have work north of San Diego County, in L.A. with the (TMZ) Thirty Mile Zone Move Moguls?
So, a smart guy, Berkeley Graduate, and the best city in the North for making money, and a very Cosmopolitan Lifestyle is San Francisco, Great Food, Culture, Weather, a suit society. That would fit you so why not San Francisco? Your sure not in Americans Finest City.
Man, all Palin all the time here, huh?....Smells to me like....................fear...............
Smells to me like ... silly.
Should be fear for you. McCain's dad died of a heart attack at 72 ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUfv0rE-m9g
Palin-McCain '08:
"if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it ain't a moose"
Smells to me like, we think she's an oddity, a bizarre pick for the old veteran who puts "Country First."
You think anyone that doesn't believe in abor*tion and raising taxes is an "oddity".
You might try commenting on what I actually wrote, which is that I am certain Palin is a base play and ultimately a sideshow figure. I'm not planning another column on Palin.
Or, you could just play partisan games.
It is always amusing to watch the political versions of DJ Jazzy Trevor and the gangsta wannabees come in here and act like they own the suburban food court. All bluster and bravado and little else. In a couple weeks, Ready, you are not going to like the Palin coverage so much.
Mr. Bradley good article and reassuring on this windy, rainy day. Thank you!
Oops! Forgot to mention... mcCains numbers are on the left and Sen Obama's on the right.
Posted September 5, 2008 | 05:16 PM (EST)