If you’re like most Americans, you love a great big juicy lie—and the politicians who tell them. How else can we explain voting for Dubya in 2000? [Or] the lies it took by the lawyers, crooks (should I say Kathleen Harris?), and the (in)justices of the Supreme Court to get him into office once it was clear that Gore had won? Brilliant!
And the Great Liar just kept at it during his first term: “No one could have expected them to use planes.” Or, “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.” Amazing! We loved it so much, 51 percent of us voted for him again in 2004.
And he hasn’t disappointed us: “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job!” And, “The economy is fundamentally sound.”
Then came 2008. Obama showed promise, backing out of his commitment to public financing. But then he told us he would not take money from lobbyists, and he complained about a broken campaign-finance system. What kind of a lie is that?
John McCain—a guy who’s managed to be such a great liar for so long—was disappointing at first. I thought the Keating Five guy could’ve done better than jabs about flag pins. But then he picked Sarah “Barracuda” Palin.
Caribou Barbie laid out some whoppers in her first big speech, such as: “I fought against the culture of earmarks in Washington,” when [her] lobbyist [brought] $27 million [in] earmarks back to her little mayorship of Wasilla, AK, (pop. 7,000). And that condescension about community organizers? Community organizers bring together groups of disenfranchised people to raise heck and give people like mayors fits.
The Republicans presented drilling for more oil as the best answer to the energy crisis; denied the human impact on the environment; denied the problems with the economy: big, fat lies! But when John McCain came out and posed as the great new agent of change in Washington, I had to say to myself: “Look! The old man’s still got it!” What a lie, taking Obama’s slogan and saying, “It’s time for a change to come to Washington!” Who says an old maverick can’t learn new tricks?
Anyway, if you want the biggest, best and boldest lies for the next four years—just like the past eight—your choice in November is clear. Your hope lies with McCain/Palin!
— Josh Batenhorst
Canton
Well Put!
Well said Josh.
It should be noted that at the time of Palin’s mayorship, Wasilla had only about 5,000 people. The town had no debt when she entered office, but she left it $22 million in debt.
Under Palin’s Governorship, Alaska received $555.54 in government pork per capita, which was more than twice that of any other state. Obama’s state Illinois, only received $25.47 per capita!
Sarah Palin’s cronyism is downright disgraceful as well. Despite all of the people with degrees in agriculture who can’t find good jobs, she hired a high school friend, a realtor with no agricultural experience, to run the state’s agricultural department! There are many other examples of that as well. A the NY Times said: “The Wasilla High School yearbook archive now doubles as a veritable directory of state government.”
Sound familiar? Anti-intellectual, right-wing extremist agenda, created huge debts, hires unqualified people for extremely important positions…… Sarah Palin is George Bush in lipstick.
“drill baby drill” “drill baby drill”
“Drill baby drill”? Yeah, good luck with the anti-environmentalist platform. That should work out for you just great. By the way, it is a fact that offshore drilling would have absolutely no effect on fuel prices for at least a decade, and even then it would be a miniscule effect. It is just too funny that right-wing extremists have chose to hang their hats on that dud of an argument.
Considering the current gas crisis because of the hurricane, it is particularly astonishing that anyone would want to risk the potential environmental catastrophe that could have happened if an offshore drilling operation had been in the hurricane’s path.
Did you know that John McCain was against drilling on protected lands and waters before he was for it?
Just like he was against torture before he was for it. Just like he was against Bush’s tax cuts for the rich before he was for them. Just like he was against bailing out AIG before he was for it. Just like he was for deregulation before he was against it. And the list goes on and on and on…