In a report written by Palin-McCain campaign staffers, Sarah Palin has officially cleared herself of any wrong doing in firing her public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan.

No, this isn’t a joke.  She actually expects people to believe a report written by her campaign staff members – people on McCain’s payroll that have already proven they will say or do anything to get John McCain elected – truth be damned.

The AP is reporting that John McCain, Sarah Palins elderly running mate,  was on the board of the U.S. Council for World Freedom, an international group linked to ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America.

No he wasn’t 8 years old when they group was active, he was an adult and on served on their board.

Check it out at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/3/43222/8057/718/618653

It is a hoot.  The funniest part:

Is this a topic I know anything about? => Yes => Wait, really? => No => Oh shit!

While Sarah Palin tries hard to portray herself as an every day middle class hockey mom, estimates by the Associated Press put her household net worth at $1.2 million, with an annual household income last year of $230,000.   The family owns their own float plane, and their personal residence is a large 3500 square foot home on a lake.

The median household income in the U.S. for 2007 was slightly over $50,000.

Hockey mom indeed.

Below is the transcript of the response Sarah Palin used when asked by Gwen Ifill to defend John McCain’s record of deregulation. Instead of actually answering the question, Palin rambled on and on about taxes instead.  Interestingly, her answer in the debate about dereguation was the exact same reply she gave to her husband Todd when he asked her if the story in the National Enquirer about her having an affair with his former business partner was true.

PALIN: I’m still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again. And I want to let you know what I did as a mayor and as a governor. And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I’m going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also. As mayor, every year I was in office I did reduce taxes. I eliminated personal property taxes and eliminated small business inventory taxes and as governor we suspended our state fuel tax. We did all of those things knowing that that is how our economy would be heated up. Now, as for John McCain’s adherence to rules and regulations and pushing for even harder and tougher regulations, that is another thing that he is known for though. Look at the tobacco industry. Look at campaign finance reform.

Sarah Palin’s pastor prays over her to save her from witchcraft. Nothing weird about that, right?

An Internet ad appeared during the day on Friday, September 26th declaring John McCain won the debate.  Interestingly, the ad appeared hours before the debate was even scheduled to take place.

So is John McCain clairvoyant  or just senile?  Do we really want someone to have nuclear codes who can’t control a simple ad campaign.

A related ad, also showing before the debates even began,  featured a quote from disgraced Freddie Mac lobbyist and McCain campaign manager Rick Davis declaring: “McCain won the debate– hands down.”

Kathleen Parker has come right out and suggested Palin should bow out of the race as she is “out of her league”.

From Kathleen Parker

“Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this…..If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.”

Other conservative columnists (see below) feel she lacks the experience to be President, especially given John McCain’s age (72) and cancer history. (The average life expectancy for a white male in the U.S. is 76, and that includes all of the people who haven’t already had a bout with cancer.)

From David Brooks -

“”Sarah Palin has many virtues,” Brooks wrote in a recent column. “If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.”

From George Will

John McCain’s opponent is by far the least experienced person to receive a presidential nomination in the 75 years since the federal government became a comprehensively intrusive regulatory state and modern weaponry annihilated the protection the nation derived from time and distance. Which is why McCain’s case for his candidacy could, until last Friday, be distilled into two words: Experience matters.”

From David Frum

Ms. Palin’s experience in government makes Barack Obama look like George C. Marshall. She served two terms on the city council of Wasilla, Alaska, population 9,000. She served two terms as mayor. In November, 2006, she was elected governor of the state, a job she has held for a little more than 18 months. She has zero foreign policy experience, and no record on national security issues.

All this would matter less, but for this fact: The day that John McCain announced his selection of Sarah Palin was his birthday. His 72nd birthday.

It’s either Sarah Palin  speaking in tongues, or some other kind of meaningless gibberish…….

From Robert Schlesinger at USNews:

If you can’t see it, Couric asks Palin whether it mightn’t be a good idea to spend the $700 billion on things like helping people get healthcare, gas, and groceries rather than on a Wall Street bailout.

Palin: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Helping the—it’s got to be all about job creation too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans and trade—we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as competitive, scary thing, but one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today—we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity.

It’s like a talking points machine gone out of control. Or magnetic poetry that you have on your fridge—in fact, you can try it at home. String together key words and phrases like “shore up the economy,” “reduce tax rates,” “healthcare reform,” and “trade” and see what kind of Palinisms you can create.

The article below is making the rounds on email and the Internet…..

I’m a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight…..

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re “exotic, different.”
* If you grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, you’re a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack, you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* If you name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you’re a maverick.

* If you graduate from Harvard law School, you are unstable.
* If you attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you don’t have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state’s school system, while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you’re very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don’t represent America’s.
* If you’re husband is nicknamed “First Dude”, with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, *much* clearer now.