One of the Reasons I Like Michael Eric Dyson

And yes, I agree with our Attorney General Eric Holder, we are a nation of cowards when it comes to race. In this debate on Hardball, Professor Michael Eric Dyson cleans conservative commentator Pat Buchanan’s clock at the 8:34 mark.

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Why is that people like Pat Buchanan never want to acknowledge the role that Jim Crow, segregation and white privilege has played in this country? Notice how Buchanan is really good at citing statistics about African Americans but offers nothing else. He’s not willing to take responsibility for how American Indians and African Americans have been treated in this country.

An honest discussion about race is never one-sided. Buchanan just skates right over this fact as if it doesn’t matter and it does.

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Dumbassness of the Day

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Sarah Palin NOPE Poster, originally uploaded by squarerootofftwo.

There’s a reason Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin isn’t allowed to take questions from reporters. She probably thought she’d coast right through her interview with a Denver, Colorado television station. Her mouth should come with an emergency brake, it’s seems her brain is rarely engaged when her mouth is moving. Very little of what she says makes sense, unless of course she doing some fear-mongering, race-baiting or some of that good old-fashioned lying. None of that requires a brain!

Today the most qualified Republican Vice Presidential candidate of my lifetime told a third grader named Brandon that the Vice President is “in charge of the United States Senate.” *blank stare* Last time I checked the Constitution, the powers of the Vice President are limited to breaking a tie in the Senate and primarily ceremonial. Does Palin know something we don’t know? Or has she been hanging out with the most powerful Vice President of my lifetime, Dick Cheney? Either way this woman is dangerous.

Seems she’s been doing some studying, when she was first nominated she didn’t know what a Vice President’s role was, now she wants to “really get in there with the Senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom”. I sure wish she would have read the Constitution. This chick really needs to go back to Alaska and stay.

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Observations from Debate #3: McCain v. Obama

I watched the debate on my network of choice, C-SPAN, they have this wonderful split-screen approach of covering the candidates. Barack Obama was on my left and John McCain on my right. Of course, John McCain was as stiff and robotic as ever. Was he erratic? You betcha! Barack Obama was cool as a cucumber. As in previous debates, he behaved presidential. McCain sat there grimacing, making weird faces and smiling inappropriately.WTF!?

Other observations:

• The winner of the debate was Joe the plumber, he was mentioned over twenty times.
  I guess John McCain saw this as an opportunity to relate to everyman but it got to be downright annoying after the third time Joe was mentioned.
• McCain delivered the best line of the night, “I’m not George Bush” but blew it by delving into the quicksand of a mother’s health with regard to a late term abortion later in the debate.
  He didn’t win any votes on that one but it does go to prove my theory that abortion and a woman’s right to chose are personal issues, not political ones.
• I didn’t learn anything new about either candidate that I didn’t learn in the first two debates. It was just more of the same issues rehashed.
  It was almost as if on cue when talking about health care, McCain was going to tell us about his $5,000 tax credit. That put me to sleep. I fail to see how a $5,000 credit is going to help me afford health insurance when I don’t have it. I sure as heck am not going to be crossing state lines to get some cheap healthcare. How ridiculous is that?
  
• For all that talking McCain did, he accomplished very little.
  He skirted around his accusations about Obama’s paling around with terrorists. This was a non-issue and nothing said that more than McCain’s approach. It was more ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ than ‘Gotcha’. Obama neutralized him.
• I didn’t buy McCain’s phony outrage about negative campaigning and Obama’s unwillingness to repudiate John Lewis’ criticism.
  It was as if he himself was the victim of the attacks and smears. He wasn’t.
• Ask any American what her concerns are and I guarantee you that Bill Ayres and ACORN won’t make the top five.
• Michelle Obama redeemed herself by wearing a beautiful purple dress with gorgeous accents.
  Yeah, Michelle!
• Obama let the opportunity to criticize Sarah Palin pass him by.
  The barn door was open on that one. Obama was gracious and classy and didn’t say a critical word. He was right, she is a politician but she is also a bunch of other things too.
  

After watching all three of these debates, I’m not convinced this is the best format for people to find out where the candidates stand on the issues. Neither candidate changed my mind about anything. I voted yesterday.

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Link of the Day: Straight Talk on McCain

Being a one-woman crusade against divisive politics, hate-mongering and hypocrisy can seriously tire a sister out. I’m still appalled at how low John McCain has sunk in this campaign. He appears to be riding an escalator going straight to hell. The man has no soul.

To find out what happened to John McCain, please visit ‘Straight Talk on McCain‘, a blog devoted to this very subject. It smart, well-written and offers some thought provoking insight into what went wrong. It’s great reading!

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Thanks Keith Olbermann!

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Hucksters of Hate

A couple of weeks ago, former President Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan had nothing but praise for Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin after her debate with her Democratic counterpart Joe Biden. Noonan oozed:

“Sarah Palin saved John McCain again Thursday night. She is the political equivalent of cardiac paddles: Clear! Zap! We’ve got a beat! She will re-electrify the base.”

Noonan was right, weeks since the Vice Presidential debate, Palin has re-electrified the base. We’re not talking about the educated Republican establishment who have circled their wagons around McCain’s erratic choice of the unqualified Palin but the uneducated, bigoted contingent of the party whom Palin appeals to.

During campaign stops last week, McCain-Palin rallies have turned into revivals for those who have bought into the smears about Obama’s association with terrorism, Arabs and Islam. These are the people who shout such niceties like “traitor”, “terrorist” and “kill him” when Palin starts her “He doesn’t see America they way we see America” schtick.

Although McCain has made a half-hearted attempt to tone down the rhetoric, it hasn’t done much good. Palin is the huckster of hatemongering and the McCain-Palin ticket is a divisive one . Country first? Who are they trying to fool?

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Link of the Day: African American Political Pundit

I see John McCain as cranky and disgruntled especially after last night’s debate. His time has come and gone and I don’t think he did much to change any of the undecided voters minds. His lack of respect for Barack Obama is obvious, he referred to him as “that one” as if he was talking about a piece of furniture.

It didn’t help that he was condescending to the young African American male in the audience and completely ignored the African American woman who asked him about the environment. McCain isn’t doing anything to woo undecided voters and if we can judge him by the way he treats Obama, he’s not going to woo African American voters either. He doesn’t care though, he doesn’t need our vote but he does need Joe Six Pack’s. The problem with the Republican party is that they don’t have a problem pandering to their bigoted constituents.

While McCain lacked the courage to brooch this subject in last night’s debate, he’s assigned Sarah Palin to do his dirty work. While Palin may not be able to answer simple questions or construct a coherent sentence, she’s very good at sarcasm, innuendo and race-baiting. For a conservative Christian woman, she’s seemed to have left her good Christian morals in the Alaskan tundra, I see mockery, intolerance, and dishonesty in just about everything she says from insinuating a link between Obama and terrorism to questioning his character to lying about his past associations. Palin is quite despicable.

These kind of gutter politics aren’t going to change the mind of the undecided voter but they do appeal to Joe Six Pack by confirming his suspicions about about funny sounding names, terrorist sleeper cells and black men. If McCain-Palin know how to set aside partisan politics and work across the aisle, they should have started with this campaign and kept it all about the issues instead we have one nasty smear after another. All I see is divisiveness with an undercurrent of racism.

Is McCain racist? Read the African American Political Pundit’s take on John McCain here, he’s got some ideas of his own.

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Observations From Presidential Debate #2

1. Not one shout out to or mention of Sarah Palin.
   While it would have been prudent to tout his running mate’s background on energy and foreign policy, McCain talked more about Senator Joe Lieberman instead.
2. McCain stumbled about the stage looking uncomfortable and unwell.
   This is my opinion. McCain hasn’t released his health records yet and probably isn’t going to.
3. McCain tells a young African American man “I bet you hadn’t heard of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac until a few weeks ago”.
   Presumptive, a tad bit condescending plus he forgot the man’s name and didn’t even bother answering the question.
4. I thought we already bought up the bad mortgages in the $700 billion dollar bail out.
   Sounds like McCain wants to increase government spending. I call it pandering to the middle class and if we were to believe some of his Republican comrades, the reason we’re in this mess is because loans were given to minorities and other undesirables.
5. Still no mention of the middle class.
   McCain still can’t bring himself to say middle class.
6. Obama owned the debate, he was calm, cool and Presidential. McCain looked cranky and ill-at-ease.
7. “That One”
   McCain still can’t say Barack Obama or look him in the eye. Take it how you want it, but it seemed dismissive of McCain. At least he didn’t call Obama “boy”.
   
8. I love Michelle Obama but I did not like that dress she was wearing.
   She looked very plain and underwhelming.
9. Me thinks John McCain might be embarassed about the personal attacks and mudslinging.
   I would be too if I were lying out of my a** and making up things about my opponent that I’m not brave enough to say it myself.
10. Barack and Michelle Obama stayed after the debate to shake hands and take pictures. What happened to the McCains?
    I’m sure it was probably way past John’s bedtime but if you’re trying to win over the undecided, you should stick around and chat with the audience.
    

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Sarah in Wonderland

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Bobby Lee Six Pack Speaks

Sarah Palin’s Joe Six Pack has surfaced in the form of Bobby Lee May (yes, really), a member of the Buchanan County (Virginia) Republican party. May, whom I’ve rechristened Bobby Lee Six Pack, has written a column about why he’s supporting McCain. It should come as no surprise that this man is as ignorant as they come but he’s not a racist.

Among some of Bobby Lee’s claims about an Obama presidency, here are a few of my favorites:

• DRUG CRISES: Raise taxes to pay for free drugs for Obama’s inner-city political base
• THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES: Raise taxes to send $845 billion, send most to Africa so the Obama family there can skim off enough to allow them to free their goats and live the American Dream
• AMERICAN FLAG: Replace 50 stars with a star and crescent logo; red stripes changed to green to represent Obama’s tree-hugging radical environmentalism and his lack of experience

He also issues a challenge to Obama to meet him next Friday so they can debate his plans to divide and conquer America. This man is so afraid of Obama that he thinks Obama will change Liberty and Freedom to Socialism and Communism. *blank stare*

I’m certain Bobby Lee was the person Sarah Six Pack was appealing to when she said Obama doesn’t share “our” view of America. In my opinion, this was Palin’s not-so-subtle nod to the race card. I think it’s called fear of a black man.

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