Sarah Palin - "Caribou Barbie"
| Posted By: Rob Allen <robertwallen2001@yahoo.com> Date: Tue, 9/23/08, 1:43 pm In Response To: Shame on you for ignoring our ridiculous spin! (Barry Keller) -- View Expanded |
| I heard a new nickname for Sarah Palin the other day. The gleefully snarky lefties on the Stephanie Miller radio show refer to her as "Caribou Barbie". What do you think? Will it catch on? Rob |
The US presidential candidates have exchanged barbs as they prepare for a crucial debate on Tuesday evening.
Barack Obama accused John McCain of "smear tactics" and said he was not paying enough attention to the economic crisis that has been gripping the US.
John McCain said Mr Obama was "lying" about his ties to the home loan industry and asked what his rival had ever accomplished in government.
The campaign tone has turned nasty as polls show Mr Obama widening his lead.
Polling numbers
The latest Gallup daily tracking poll puts Senator Obama at 50% and Senator McCain at 42%, while a new CNN poll put Mr Obama ahead by 53% to 45%.
| | LIVE DEBATE COVERAGE Watch the second presidential debate live from Nashville, Tennessee from 0100 GMT, with full analysis, running commentary and voter reaction. |
Mr Obama, the Democratic candidate, is still gaining in some of the key swing states as well. A new Washington Post poll puts him 6% ahead of Mr McCain in Ohio, a state the Republican candidate must take if he is to win the presidency.
The poll also showed that the Obama camp had a stronger organisation on the ground, with 43% of potential voters having been contacted by Democratic supporters, while only 33% had heard from McCain supporters.
And another poll, by Rasmussen, also puts Senator Obama ahead in Missouri, which had previously been seen as safely Republican.
With voter registration having closed in many key states on Monday, the evidence suggests that the majority of the four million new voters added to the electoral roles are registering as Democrats - for example, in Florida, it is by a two to one majority.
Town Hall debate
The second presidential debate is generating intense interest among the public.
| | We don't throw the first punch, but we'll throw the last Barack Obama |
More than six million people have e-mailed questions to the moderator, NBC news presenter Tom Brokaw, who will preside over the town hall-style debate in Nashville, Tennessee.
He will select only six or seven e-mailed questions, as well as about a dozen from the studio audience of 80 uncommitted voters.
Mr McCain, who is widely viewed as having lost the first debate, has vowed to take the gloves off for this encounter.
Mr Obama, meanwhile, promised to fight back.
"We don't throw the first punch, but we'll throw the last," he told a syndicated radio show.
A new ad released on Tuesday by the Obama campaign attacks Mr McCain's record on the economy.
"As Americans lose their jobs, homes and savings, it's time for a president who'll change the economy, not change the subject," it says.
Fresh accusations
In recent days both camps have launched fresh accusations questioning the character of their opponent.
Mr McCain's running mate Sarah Palin posed further questions about Mr Obama's "truthfulness and judgement."
Governor Palin had accused Mr Obama of "palling around" with a "domestic terrorist" - Bill Ayers.
Mr Ayers belonged to the US militant group Weather Underground, which opposed the Vietnam War in the 1960s.
Mr Obama once served on a charity board with Mr Ayers but has denounced his radical past.
In an interview with the New York Times newspaper on Monday, Mrs Palin also suggested that voters should pay more attention to Mr Obama's relationship with his former church pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
"I don't know why that association isn't discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country," she said.
Mr McCain had previously indicated that he did not want Rev Wright's inflammatory sermons, which Mr Obama has repudiated, to form part of his campaign.
Judgement claim
Meanwhile, the Obama campaign has been highlighting Mr McCain's involvement in a financial scandal 20 years ago.
The campaign video which attacks John McCain over his links to Charles Keating
It e-mailed supporters an internet video about Mr McCain's connections to Arizona tycoon Charles Keating, who was convicted of securities fraud after his savings and loan bank collapsed.
Mr McCain was one of five senators - known as the Keating Five - to be investigated by a Senate ethics panel over their intervention with banking regulators on behalf of Keating.
He was found to be less involved with Keating than the other senators but was criticised for "poor judgement".
Mr McCain has himself described the affair as "the worst mistake of my life", and one which led him to sponsor legislation on campaign finance reform.
McCain connections coming back to haunt him
Nick Juliano
Published: Tuesday October 7, 2008
Shared stage with abortion doc shooter sympathizer
John McCain, who along with his running mate has been attacking Obama over decade-old associations with unseemly figures, is not without his own nefarious associations.One association, which seems to have gone unreported until now, involves a delegate who represented McCain at this year's Republican convention and previously expressed sympathy for an activist accused of shooting a doctor who performed abortions.
Applying the same logic as Sarah Palin, one could argue that the members of the GOP ticket are "palling around" with abortion clinic attack sympathizers, supporters of right-wing militants, perpetrators of political espionage and revolutionaries seeking to secede from the United States.
More attention is falling on the Arizona senator's own past since his attacks on Obama and former radical Bill Ayers. The Obama campaign's disquisition on Charles Keating just scratches the surface of what's out there, as reporters and liberal activists dig into McCain's web of connections.
Blogger Jed Lewison highlighted McCain's opposition to a 1994 law that made it a federal crime to bomb or blockade abortion clinics or to attack abortion doctors. McCain's vote against the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act put him in league with the Senate's most radical anti-abortion advocates, who split with more than two dozen anti-abortion senators who voted to crack down on clinic bombers as a matter of preserving law & order.
What's received less notice is where McCain was a few months before casting that vote.
In August 1993, McCain traveled to the Pacific Northwest where he earned the illustrious distinction of becoming the first major politician to address the ultra-far-right Oregon Citizens Alliance. He was apparently making good on a promise he had made to the group the year before as he and other GOP leaders negotiated to prevent the Christian conservatives from running a third-party candidate against Sen. Bob Packwood, who would resign a few years later amid a sex scandal.
The OCA attracted national attention in 1992 for sponsoring an anti-gay ballot initiative in Oregon, and McCain ignored advice to steer clear of the gathering. At the Portland fundraiser, McCain gently admonished the group to observe the "essence of tolerance," according to contemporaneous news reports.
His speech was preceded by some kind words for an anti-abortion activist accused of shooting a doctor.
McCain quickly got a first-hand flavor for the OCA. Marylin Shannon, the vice chairwoman of the Oregon GOP, had a spot on the program to give an opening prayer. In short order, she praised the Grants Pass woman accused of shooting an abortion doctor in Wichita and thanked the Lord ``for Lon Mabon and the vision you put in his heart.''Shannon, the GOP chairwoman, referred to the accused shooter of the abortion doctor as a "fine lady," who shouldn't be judged solely based on the single act of violence, according to a letter she wrote to The Oregonian, which was accessed via Lexis Nexis.
While she did not endorse violence against abortion providers, she wrote, she recognized the "debate stirring within the anti-abortion movement" over whether killing abortion providers was a "just cause."
My kind comments about Shelley Shannon, the Grants Pass woman accused of wounding abortion provider George Tiller, (``I'm not related to Shelley Shannon, but I think she's a fine lady,'') reflected what I had learned about her from people who have known her for many years. They say she has led a responsible life as a wife, mother and concerned citizen and don't want her judged by this one action.
Acknowledging this side of her does not meant that I approve of others doing what she did. I do not. However, since that night I have learned much about the current debate stirring within the anti-abortion movement: Is killing abortion providers a ``just cause''?
There's no indication that McCain took issue with Shannon's comments, and it's unclear whether any group members lobbied him regarding the abortion clinic protection bill. A search of the Congressional Record in 1993 and 1994 indicates McCain did not speak during debate over the bill, and McCain's campaign did not immediately return RAW STORY's request for comment.
Shannon traveled to the Republican convention as a McCain delegate, and she proclaimed herself a huge fan of Palin as McCain's VP pick. She could not be reached for comment.
To be sure, there is nothing to suggest that McCain supports bombing abortion clinics. But there's also nothing to suggest Obama supports the Weather Underground bombings, which by the way were carried out when he was 8 years old. McCain at least was a sitting member of Congress who took a legislative position on clinic bombings when they were a current issue.
Other ties McCain might prefer to forget include his membership on the board of the US Council for World Freedom, which The Associated Press describes as "part of an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America."
McCain was something of a de facto member of the group as he launched his political career in the early 1980s, just one of several prominent "names on a letterhead," as the council's founder told AP. But, that membership at least seemed to indicate a tacit endorsement of its goals in Central America, supporting the contras.
Elected to the House in 1982 and at a time when he was on the board of Singlaub's council, McCain was among Republicans on Capitol Hill expressing support for the Contras, a CIA-organized guerrilla force in Central America. In 1984, Congress cut off CIA funds for the Contras.McCain says he was unaware of the full extent of the group's activities and claims to have resigned from the council in 1984 and asked to have his name removed from its letterhead two years later. According to AP, that's all news to founder Singlaub.
Months before the cutoff, top Reagan administration officials ramped up the secret White House-directed supply network and put National Security Council aide Oliver North in charge of running it. The goal was to keep the Contras operational until Congress could be persuaded to resume CIA funding.
[Retired Army Maj. Gen. John] Singlaub's private group became the public cover for the White House operation.
"I don't ever remember hearing about his resigning, but I really wasn't worried about that part of our activities, a housekeeping thing," Singlaub said. "If he didn't want to be on the board that's OK. It wasn't as if he had been active participant and we were going to miss his help. He had no active interest. He certainly supported us."
Earlier this year, when Obama's past connection to Ayers first crept into national headlines, some observers began to remember McCain's "own Bill Ayers -- in the form of G. Gordon Liddy." The Watergate break-in mastermind, who spent more than four years in prison for his crimes, has called McCain an "old friend" and hosted the candidate on his conservative talk radio show.
Palin, McCain's running mate whose "gloves off" approach has aided Ayers return to the headlines is not without her own questionable connections. Her husband is a past member of the Alaska Independence Party, and she has addressed the group on several occasions. The party's goal is Alaska's secession from the United States and its founder has said "the fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government."
Beyond a 13-minute documentary on Keating, who was a key player in the savings & loan crisis of the late 1980s, the Obama campaign doesn't seem too concerned about publicly digging for dirt in McCain's past.
Economic concerns have spurred a spectacular rise in Obama's poll numbers, and a struggling McCain campaign seems to be doing all it can to stop the election from slipping away.
Obama Hatred At McCain-Palin Rallies: "Terrorist!" "Kill Him!" (VIDEO)
John Aravosis at AmericaBlog writes:
McCain was speaking today in New Mexico, doing his usual personal attack on Barack Obama, as the stock market plummeted (you can see the ticker next to McCain on the screen, an apt reminder of what McCain and his fellow Republicans represent), and McCain asked the crowd "who is Barack Obama?" Immediately you hear someone yell "terrorist." McCain pauses, the audience laughs, and McCain continues on, not acknowledging, not chastising, not correcting. Oh, but McCain does say in the next sentence that he's upset about all the "angry barrage of insults."
Watch:
Marc Ambinder notes that the shouter advances McCain's Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright attacks, while Jonathan Martin suggested the campaign would need a third party to do it:
Judging by McCain's slightly startled reaction, he clearly didn't anticipate that reaction, and McCain's in no way responsible for the utterances of anybody in his audience. But he must have some idea of how deeply this fear/outsider/other meme has spread. A tripartite strategy isn't needed.
UPDATE: The Washington Post reports on a similar moment at a Palin rally today:
"Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," Palin said.
"Boooo!" said the crowd."And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'" she continued.
"Boooo!" the crowd repeated.
"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.
And Dana Milbank highlights another incident from Tuesday:
Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."
"Getting ugly out there," says ABC's Jake Tapper.
American News Project went inside a pro-Palin rally set up by the McCain campaign to watch the vice presidential debate, where supporters booed moderator Gwen Ifill and laughed when Sen. Joe Biden got choked up talking about his first wife and daughter's deaths. Watch:
The Palins' Un-American Activities
Imagine if the Obamas had hooked up with a violently anti-American group in league with the government of Iran.By David Talbot
Oct. 07, 2008 | "My government is my worst enemy. I'm going to fight them with any means at hand."
This was former revolutionary terrorist Bill Ayers back in his old Weather Underground days, right? Imagine what Sarah Palin is going to do with this incendiary quote as she tears into Barack Obama this week.
Only one problem. The quote is from Joe Vogler, the raging anti-American who founded the Alaska Independence Party. Inconveniently for Palin, that's the very same secessionist party that her husband, Todd, belonged to for seven years and that she sent a shout-out to as Alaska governor earlier this year. ("Keep up the good work," Palin told AIP members. "And God bless you.")
AIP chairwoman Lynette Clark told me recently that Sarah Palin is her kind of gal.
"She's Alaskan to the bone ... she sounds just like Joe Vogler."
So who are these America-haters that the Palins are pallin' around with?
Before his strange murder in 1993, party founder Vogler preached armed insurrection against the United States of America. Vogler, who always carried a Magnum with him, was fond of saying, "When the [federal] bureaucrats come after me, I suggest they wear red coats. They make better targets. In the federal government are the biggest liars in the United States, and I hate them with a passion. They think they own [Alaska]. There comes a time when people will choose to die with honor rather than live with dishonor. That time may be coming here. Our goal is ultimate independence by peaceful means under a minimal government fully responsive to the people. I hope we don't have to take human life, but if they go on tramping on our property rights, look out, we're ready to die."
This quote is from "Coming Into the Country," by John McPhee, who traipsed around Alaska's remote gold mining country with Vogler for his 1991 book. The violent-tempered secessionist vowed to McPhee that if any federal official tried to stop him from polluting Alaska's rivers with his earth-moving equipment, he would "run over him with a Cat and turn mosquitoes loose on him while he dies."
Vogler wasn't just a blowhard either. He put his secessionist ideas into action, working to build AIP membership to 20,000 -- an impressive figure by Alaska standards -- and to elect party member Walter Hickel as governor in 1990.
Vogler's greatest moment of glory was to be his 1993 appearance before the United Nations to denounce United States "tyranny" before the entire world and to demand Alaska's freedom. The Alaska secessionist had persuaded the government of Iran to sponsor his anti-American harangue.
That's right ... Iran. The Islamic dictatorship. The taker of American hostages. The rogue nation that McCain and Palin have excoriated Obama for suggesting we diplomatically engage. That Iran.
AIP leaders allege that Vogler, who was murdered that year by a fellow secessionist, was taken out by powerful forces in the U.S. before he could reach his U.N. platform. "The United States government would have been deeply embarrassed," by Vogler's U.N. speech, darkly suggests Clark. "And we can't have that, can we?"
The Republican ticket is working hard this week to make Barack Obama's tenuous connection to graying, '60s revolutionary Bill Ayers a major campaign issue. But the Palins' connection to anti-American extremism is much more central to their political biographies.
Imagine the uproar if Michelle Obama was revealed to have joined a black nationalist party whose founder preached armed secession from the United States and who enlisted the government of Iran in his cause? The Obama campaign would probably not have survived such an explosive revelation. Particularly if Barack Obama himself was videotaped giving the anti-American secessionists his wholehearted support just months ago.
Where's the outrage, Sarah Palin has been asking this week, in her attacks on Obama's fuzzy ties to Ayers? The question is more appropriate when applied to her own disturbing associations.
-- By David Talbot
"Sit down, boy"
John Aravosis (DC) · 10/07/2008 12:14:00 PM ET
From the Washington Post:
Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."Need any more proof of the divisiveness and elitism that John McCain and Sarah Palin are bringing to our country? Imagine, whipping up a crowd to hate "the other." Any surprise that Palin and McCain have so many ties to anti-Semites?
The Huffington Post | Rachel Weiner | October 6, 2008 04:39 PM