I honor Senator McCain's service to his country and to the untold horror he went through in Viet Nam, and Governor Palin is also worthy of praise. She is a good mother and wife, and a credit to Alaska, and the NRA. BUT, when she kept the money for "the bridge to nowhere", while she bragged about cutting earmarks. I have trouble. This is from the Washington Post In fiscal year 2002 alone, Wasilla took in $6.1 million in earmarks -- about $1,000 in federal money for every resident. Wasilla has a population of 6,700. She even hired a firm to keep the money rolling in. When the Republican party sends lawyers to Alaska to stop the Bi-Partisian investigation to see if she used her power as governor in a not so nice way when she fired a person for not firing her ex brother-in-law. I fear for open government, and am left with people who can only tell me "trust me", and I remember someone say "I didn't have sex with that intern". Last year she was for the investigation, that night have been before her husband received a subpenea. He now says he will not show. So much for finding the truth.

You're all right BoSox! May the Sox and the Dodgers be the teams in the '08 World Series...Amen.

One thing is sure: with Alaska being the earmark champion of the United States, their Governor's deception on the "bridge to nowhere" (and keeping the money), her avoiding subpenas and with McCain's lies about taxes and suddenly being a maverick, they'll both fir right in with the current administration's policies and actions.

Well,,, I think exactly the opposite.

Tell me upfront, what do you think will happen if these two are elected?

Will the Republicans finally enact legislation to outlaw abortion?

Will they clean up the lobby mess that was brought in under their watch?

Will they do anything to cut my health insurance costs, which are running at $750 a month.

I doubt any of these thing will come about.

What we will see is "Business as usual".

You can fool some of the people...

(This comment was removed by the site staff for violation of user agreement.)

(This comment was removed by the site staff for violation of user agreement.)

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Er, not quite true: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-c...

And as far as Palin goes: http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/0...

And the great thing is, Illinois (Obama)at $25.00 / person less per capita than Alaska ($555.00) and a whopping $10 / person more than Arizona at $14.00 per person. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/0...

D'oh! I didn't know I would get my comments removed if I put a link to another site in it (apparently I need to read the user agreement).

Anyway...Megawatt, I was trying to let you know that although McCain says he has never requested an earmark, he asked for and received a $10 million earmark in 2006 and a $14.3 million earmark in 2003. Nobody's perfect.

I was going to cite where I received the info from, but apparently that's against posting agreements. Vive le Standard Times (not really)!

Hmmmm, the Standard Times has dun it agin. The censorship is apalling. Well, my comment was made from a quote from Bill O'Reilly's show, which can be watched here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQK1al... . I failed to give credit to Bill, my apologies!

In keeping with the VP prospect, or is she the presidential prospect, (the country still doesn't know), Painlin, the "webmaster" will probably be seeking books to ban and set on fire as well.

Oldsalt, those of us paying attention know Gov.Palin is running as VP. The problem for dems is that Sen.O'Bama is acting like he is running against her. And the now worn out ploy of the banning of books she has been accused of has been totally disproven.The list, which has been floating around the internet for years with additions piled on through the years includes 4 Harry Potter books that were not in print at the time of the discussion.And even the librarian has stated that Mrs. Palin was just asking how she would respond if such a request was made by her or anyone else. Since facts don't seem to phase you, I will just lets others know that factcheck.org has covered this and many other points of confusion, or just outright lies, for some time.

McCain-Palin best team to lead country into four more years of the last eight!!!

Obama-Biden best team to lead country to the change that we need...

"asking how she would respond if such a request was made by her or anyone else.", what does that mean to you? I know the list is false, but the fact remains, she asked the question. As for the dems keeping her in the front, well its the right, no matter where he goes she goes, never left alone to answer questions, heck all McCan't talks about what she will bring to Washington, not what he plans to do. But she only has a few days to be told what to say in the debates. So I can see why she is kept alone.

Nice deflection...

So by your logic, Mrs. Palin should not try to find out more about the people in charge of public facilities but just hope they are good people with good intentions and judgements. And even after you admit the list was bogus, you still try to make a point with the pretext of its validity for your argument. This is the same thing that was done with the forged document that Dan Rather used in a "news" report to attack President Bush's national guard service as his only credible source, and even after it was proven to be a forgery, he still said it was "basically" true. And as far as the press not getting to ask her anything they want on their terms, when will Sen. O'Bama be held to the same standard and answer the questions he keeps avoiding?

Check the cite. Arizona did in fact receive earmarks. If McCain didn't request them, he is the senior senator, and it falls under his watch. While it may be less than most, Arizona still received them and that makes his statements (and any about none taken) untrue, or misleading at best, does it not?

Anyone in congress can ask for an earmark at almost anytime on almost any legislation and trying to blame Sen. McCain for something someone else in his state did just to try to smear him is misleading by all counts. If you can find one his asked for cite it not just saying if one was there he did it.

Logic is absent in your argument. The letter was forged. How on Earth can one forge City Council Minutes? The record is clear. She asked the librarian, how one goes about banning books in the system, whether hypothetical or not. Examine the actual interviews by all candidates, since the nomination, and you'll see who isn't answering the questions.

People need to do research on John McCain before casting their vote. Go to Snopes.com ( a debunking site) and read all about how he left his first wife for Cindy, he did it in a very cruel way. McCain has a horrible temper, something we don't hear that much about. One of his fellow POW's said McCain was his friend but he was not suited for the presidency. McCain has thrown colleagues out of his office for not agreeing with him. He has a history of rages and that probably stems from his POW days which is sad.

Fair enough. Just this totally innocent routine for earmarks doesn't fly, and especially for his new maverick running mate.

Megawatt -

Seven of McCain's top campaign officials are former corporate lobbyists with special interest foci. One of the officials used to lobby for Exxon/Mobil and two others for Fannie Mae. Both McCain AND Obama have ties to lobbyists. It will be hard for either one to remove themselves from these groups they purport to despise.

Isn't Dr. Paul part of the problem as well? Didn't he recently disclose the fact that he requested about $400 million worth of federal funding for approximately 65 earmarks? These earmarks included such dire wartime priorities as $8 million for the marketing of shrimp and $2.3 million for shrimp-fishing research (I'm not kidding).

You're living in a glass house if you think Ron Paul isn't capable of the same political nonsense.

I understand how Dr. Paul justifies his use of earmarks. However, with due respect, I do not prescribe to his philosophical views. Consequently, I believe the use of earmarks - whether appropriated or not - cause more harm than good. That's just my opinion of course and I can understand how you may feel his position is justifiable based on the current system.

About 9 - 10 hours since the last post and guess what. The wheels are coming off the McCain/Palin bus. Now he's refusing to debate, or trying to so Palin will get more time to prepare....Polls are showing that more and more people every day are realizing what a complete farce this whole candidacy is.

CNN reports:

"McCain surrogate Sen. Lindsey Graham tells CNN the McCain campaign is proposing to the Presidential Debate Commission and the Obama camp that if there's no bailout deal by Friday, the first presidential debate should take the place of the VP debate, currently scheduled for next Thursday, October 2 in St. Louis.

In this scenario, the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin would be rescheduled for a date yet to be determined, and take place in Oxford, Mississippi, currently slated to be the site of the first presidential faceoff this Friday."

You know they want to schedule the vp debate sometime in December.

Did anyone see the Couric interview with Sarah Palin? Even I was embarrassed for her. Painful to watch.

Yeah we all put our foot in our mouth sometimes like saying rescheduling the debate wouldn't change the VP debate.

Foot in the mouth is one thing, ignorance is another.

Here's a remark that is MONUMENTALLY STUPID:

"The fundamentals of our economy are strong." -- John McCain.

Again, read the cites listed. McCain IS the senior senator from Arizona, is he not? Then HE IS responsible for receipt of the earmarks. That is not a smear, merely facts.

I believe 'deny, spin, deny' is a non-partisan political tactic used equally and with frequency on both sides.

On another topic, has anyone heard about one of Palin's solutions for reducing government waste? Making rape victims pay for their own rape kits? Saved the city of Wasila between $5000-$14,000 a year. Way to go! We should all make sure our wills have a provision for the CSI's equipment, DNA, and other expensive forensic testing in case we get murdered. Wouldn't want our families to have to shoulder those costs after we're gone..

This woman doesn't have a clue. Let's hope she passes her 'Foreign Policy 101', 'Domestic Policy 101', 'Government 101', 'Finance 101', etc. courses before we need her.

Sorry if I sound bitter, but we are losing a trillion dollar war and thousands of our soldiers are dying, we're losing the respect of our few remaining allies by the day, we're on the brink of financial collapse, Russia is positioning itself for something that can't be good(see Venezuela), N. Korea is bringing it's 'Nook-U-Lar' reactors back online, things are heating up in Pakistan.... We don't DON'T HAVE TIME for a newbie who cannot even speak to the press, because her team knows it will be political disaster if she does. She's being led around and spoon-fed what she should say and do

"She'll learn quickly" - sorry, not good enough.

You are absolutely right. I would hope if the situation was reversed and my Presidential choice made such an unwise national security choice for VP that I would at least see it as a major issue.

I have nothing personal against her as I do hundreds if not thousands of people. It is just that as with 99% of them, I would be alarmed if she was a heartbeat away from being the President of the United States. She does not have the right stuff.

Bush is leaving us a dangerous world. A Palin, not to mention McClain, presidency would be disastrous.

Picture Palin going head to head with Putin or Chavez or Kim Jong Il. If that thought doesn't scare the bejesus out of you, there's something wrong.

Like BeReasonable, I have nothing against Sarah Palin. She seems like a perfectly lovely woman. But McCain couldn't even trust her to run his campaign for him while he went back to Washington and solved our financial woes this week - he had to 'suspend' his campaign. He can't trust her for that but we're supposed to trust that she could lead this country if she had to???

Don't be absurd and try to compare Obama to Palin.

The Republican machine and it’s use of the Rovian tactics are the masters of reversing the truth. Taking someone’s best point and demonizing it or claiming his best point as your own is the art of deception and is outright dishonest.

Also, your comparison to McCain is totally off. It is McCain who takes every position. He had as many positions this week on the economy as he has houses. Talk about flip-flop. He is like a rabbit jumping from one hole to another.

Have you seen the Carpetbagger Report's compilation on McCain flip-flops? It's currently up to 76, and some of them are multiple flip-flops on the exact same issue. (They're also documented with links, so you can check the validity)

IMHO, I don't think the flip-flop issue is really one you should go to battle on.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/...

Ya reckin?