Category: Mason Speaks

In what the Washington Post‘s E.J. Dionne is calling “a larger narrative of deception,” it appears the McCain-Palin camp has made an informed and conscientious decision to keep right on passing the American public half-truths, grandiose exaggerations, and claims approaching the realm of untruth, if not actually breaching the border between fact and fiction.

The Boston Globe, after obviously mourning the loss of Tom Brady, ratcheted it up a few notches and decimated Palin’s few claims to anything approaching foreign policy experience: “Sarah Palin’s visit to Iraq in 2007 consisted of a brief stop at a border crossing between Iraq and Kuwait, the vice presidential candidate’s campaign said yesterday, in the second official revision of her only trip outside North America.”

It’s never good to have a “second official revision” of the truth.

But don’t stop at the first paragraph. Oh no, there are still more gems yet to come: “It was the second such clarification in as many weeks of the itinerary of what Palin has called “the trip of a lifetime.” Earlier, the campaign acknowledged that Palin made only a refueling stop in Ireland.” And, believe it or not, Palin is trying to pass off a personal vacation to Mexico as foreign policy experience: “‘We did not have 100 percent confirmation about the Mexico trip in the initial days we were being asked. It was a personal trip,’ [Palin spokeswoman Maria] Comella said.”

There’s more? Indeed, there’s more: “Palin’s campaign did not respond to requests for details about when she traveled to Mexico and where she went, nor did it provide details of her 2007 Canada trip or indicate whether it was for business or pleasure.”

Rest assured, America, Palin is “neighbors” with Russia. She’s learned a lot from that, I’m sure, almost as much as on her personal vacation to Mexico.

E.J. Dionne raises a huge point: “There is also a question here for the media. When Hillary Clinton claimed last March that she had to evade sniper fire during a landing in Bosnia in 1996, the media came down on her hard. It was a huge story. But at least Clinton actually visited Bosnia. Will the media focus the same attention on the false and exaggerated claims about Palin?”

I don’t understand why Sarah Palin is getting the velvet glove treatment by the American Media, I just hope it stops soon. Just weeks ago, Conservatives were asking Democrats to seriously consider whether they thought Obama was a Nice Guy and/or Someone Who Can Lead, and now they are fawning with the naivety of a thirteen-year-olds-in-love over Sarah Palin?

Obama may not have decades of foreign policy experience under his belt, but at least he didn’t choose Sarah Palin as his running mate, start trading lies for facts, or adopt Rove-ian smear tactics so early on in the campaign. Obama may not be as versed in world affairs as Bill Clinton, but at least he’s not a Pseudo-Maverick (you can’t be a Maverick when you vote with Bush 90+% of the time) who just took on a completely inexperienced, rather frightening VP candidate who is also trading lies for facts.

Disillusioned Republicans keep telling me they are voting for the “lesser of two evils.” I’m not so sure they are.

Here are some words I never thought would ever come out of my mouth: I love The View… and here’s why.

What a fantastic woman, that Barbara Walters, requesting details and a little clarity from John McCain who seems more than willing to be tossed about on the seas of Celebrity as Sarah Palin quickly becomes the biggest American Heartthrob since Johnny Depp prowled Jump Street. I don’t think Obama’s the biggest celebrity in America anymore, though, to be more than honest, he deserves public recognition far more than Palin.

I wonder when ads will start running with photographs of Palin alongside her newfound kinsmen and women. Maybe Paris Hilton will make an appearance in this sequel of sorts, or possibly a sad shot of Lindsay Lohan from a while back when they poor girl looked ready to keel over on the cover of every ‘respectable’ entertainment publication. Oh well, it doesn’t matter… I’m sure some Political Wizard will find the right combination of images to make us all taste a bit of bile in our mouths, maybe a bit of grandma’s lasagna, too.

Back to Walters… what a fine woman she is.

And what of this latest bit of fabricated nonsense from our dear friends McCain and Palin?

There aren’t words to express how sickly the McCain camp has grown. It’s like watching a horrible train wreck… and, in all seriousness, I wish I wasn’t afflicted with a political addiction so that I could just look away.

Luckily, though I’ve not found the words, CNN’s Rebecca Sinderbrand and Scott J. Anderson have: “Obama never made any of the statements the McCain camp released to support the ad, and the comment that Palin was ‘good looking’ was made by the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Sen. Joe Biden, in a self-deprecating joke when he was asked what the ‘obvious’ differences were between the two vice presidential nominees.”

What’s this? Self-deprecating humor and… well, for lack of a better word, untruths? For the sake of whatever it is that you do believe in Mr. McCain, remember that you drive around in a bus you’ve titled the Straight Talk Express.

Oh, but CNN has more: “And FactCheck.org pointed out that the quote from an Obama adviser that Palin was doing ‘what she was told’ was taken out of context. The quote is taken from the response of Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, in which he said Palin had misrepresented Obama’s legislative record. ‘Maybe that’s what she was told’ about his voting record, Axelrod said.”

This whole race has taken a rather sad turn since Sarah Palin was tagged in. I’m not saying it is her fault directly, but the whole dynamic changed (and not in that warm and fuzzy type of Change everyone seems to be offering these days), and I can’t understand the logic in it all. What did McCain’s people say to him to bring this all about? How did The Maverick come around to bringing on a woman with so little political experience? I mean, I wish I was making some of this up, but I’m not. Sarah Palin has done almost nothing in her very short political life.

Palin may strike a chord in your heart, dear Republican and Conservative friends, but you were the very people who asked us lefties to think about whether we wanted someone in power who we liked, or someone who could lead.

And what has Obama done, eh? That elitist fancy-talking monster who plans to take the whole nation down in a firestorm of Communism and False Hope unrivaled since the Cultural Revolution or the days of Uncle Joe Stalin — what has he done?

That question still remains, as it will until we have a new president, but why did John McCain pick someone so inexperienced that she makes Obama look like an incumbent? Why give the media and the American People someone even less experienced to examine?

This questioning keeps me up at night. I don’t recognize anything in this new John McCain of the Real Maverick from 2000, the Straight Talk Express riding cowboy who was going to serve his country, as he did heroically in Vietnam, in the greatest capacity that any politician can. Now he votes with George W. Bush, the very man who wronged him so badly in that 2000 primary, a fact checked 90+% of the time. And now Palin… the time bomb.

Andrew Sullivan gives a pretty fine answer to my questioning, one that actually gives McCain a little credit — it’s strategy, folks, McCain is not just misquoting, misrepresenting, and fabricating the truth for the hell of it, he’s trying to upset Obama so much that he’ll make a mistake. The Big Game requires a Big Game Plan. Maybe now I can breathe a sigh of relief…

The saddest outcome of this election will be to see John McCain disgraced. I may not like him much at the moment, but the man has done more for this country than a hundred other Americans could put together. He deserves to be remembered as a hero, as a dedicated public servant, not as this strange figure who has more in common with W than he does with the John McCain many of us were introduced to 8 years ago.

Yesterday Palin linked the 9/11 terrorist attacks to… Iraq. Even George W. Bush seems to have a better grasp on the whole situation. As Anne E. Kornblut writes for the Washington Post: “[A] view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself.”

Hmm.

It’s also not good to be so “confused” (or “politically cunning”) with regards to a political issue (The Bridge To Nowhere) that your opponents — Obama and Biden — are able to find just cause to call you a liar. As I’m sure most of you have seen, one of the newest Obama-Biden ads straight up calls Palin out. The word “liar” is not meant to ever come out in a political race — so, where’s the backlash, one might ask?

Rebecca Sinderbrand, of CNN, has quite a bit to say about these accusations of deliberate falsehood and the possible impacts of the words “lie” and “liar” being introduced into the campaign — but nowhere in the article does anyone come to Palin’s defense. There’s talk of the dangers of calling someone a liar when the public hasn’t completely made up its mind about you, there’s talk of how susceptible Palin may be to such an attack being that she is really little more than a media sensation at the moment (unless you are from Alaska and actually knew her name before she became McCain’s VP choice), but nothing is made to clarify or defend Palin’s alleged lie. (There is however a nice cheap shot at the end of the article. Oh, I love politics.)

And, for the record, putting lipstick on animals was not invented by Palin — I’m pretty sure the cosmetic companies have that dishonor. She can’t take the whole ‘you can put lipstick on a pig’ thing personally just because she compared herself, and all ‘hockey moms,’ to pit bulls with lipstick. Obama was directly singling out McCain as the pig who was masquerading about in lipstick, not Palin. (Tell me if you hear Palin’s name mentioned once during Obama’s ‘lipstick attack.’) It was a stupid thing for Obama to say, especially since everyone who had any access to a television or the internet during the GOP Convention knew that Palin’s lipstick joke would be one of her defining soundbytes — but poor judgment doesn’t equal sexism. Hell, I bet a few people could argue that Obama made a smart move. (Remember, this is politics, not math class. What political strategists think of as “smart” is often… baffling.)

This is politics. If it doesn’t get dirty, we all get bored (and this new autumn television line up is not going to do it for me). No one — from the average interested American to the sickly political junkie — in their right minds wants a clean political race. The American Political Arena is not known for its intellectualism, it’s known for short video clips, soundbytes taken out of context, sloganeering, candidate theme songs (“Born in the USA, I was… born in the USA”), and downright nastiness. And the internet has made all of this so much more fun.

With this in mind, Palin needs to stop making this so easy (there were a million other phrases that she could have been branded with by her adversaries, and early on it’s “liar”). She’s going to go from ‘Belle of the Ball’ to ‘Ball and Chain’ real quick… and McCain’s smiles seem forced enough as they are. You could never call McCain or Lieberman liars. They are honorable, decent, passionate public servants who have undoubtedly annoyed vast swathes of the American voting public in their political careers — but no one would call either of them liars. (I only bring up Lieberman because he was thought to be at the very top of McCain’s VP shortlist.)

The fact that Palin’s at best confused ramblings about The Bridge To Nowhere and her relationship to the project have allowed the Democrats to actually bring out the worst weapon in the Political Game is only more proof of my original though — Palin is a time bomb that is going to blow up in McCain’s face, and the fuse is lit.

As for the 9/11-Iraq claims… I don’t even know where to start. That was the Big Lie (along with the now classic Weapons of Mass Destruction line) that was proposed by the Bush Administration as justification for the Iraq War, and I can’t think of a single good reason why Palin would throw her support behind a claim that Bush himself has even rejected, that the vast majority of the American people have seen to be a falsehood — and after being called a liar? Who told her it was a good idea to support the Big Lie when she was being called a liar in campaign ads? How is she allowed on the Straight Talk Express?

Tom Brady is out for the season. (And ESPN Page 2’s Bill Simmons deals admirably with the emailed fallout.)

This is no time to mourn a fallen American hero, though, not when four other Americans are sharpening their claws (or getting their campaign staff to do it) for the final two months of this rather protracted election season. We may not get to see Brady’s precision passing, but when even Larry King’s talk show is getting rowdy, I’m sure America’s favorite blood sport will provide numerous memorable moments.

It seems that everything is up in the air these days. Some polls show that women are moving over to the right due to McCain’s surprise choice running mate, others show the opposite, and with Tom Brady out for the season, who knows what is going to happen with anything this autumn. (Sorry, I digress. I’m upset. I hate Brady’s talent, mostly because I hate Belichick, but it’s hard to deny he’s a fantastic athlete to watch. Yes, politics…)

Astonishingly, it appears that McCain’s Rove-ian tactics are paying off. (CNN even has McCain ahead.) I say “astonishingly” because I thought the Republican Convention was rather lackluster — though, even as a “lefty,” I did find Fred Thompson’s speech recounting John McCain’s life story quite powerful, and who doesn’t get a rush out of an event that is constantly interrupted with raucous “U-S-A!” chanting? — and McCain’s choice of Palin has proven a little more contentious than many suspected.

But why, oh Lord, did Obama make his soon-to-be infamous pig and lipstick (and fish and “paper called change”) remarks? She worries me to my core, but you can’t ever let it look as though someone, no matter how frightening, has shaken you. It doesn’t look like Biden has fared much better.

Palin did make the mistake of ridiculing community organizers, a troubling gesture, but, still, Obama should have risen above it. (And, no, I don’t think he made a sexist statement. The whole pig-and-lipstick routine is as engraved into the American consciousness as baseball and apple pie. Though I guess baseball bats could be seen as phallic imagery, but pies — are pies sexist? I just thought they were delicious…)

And there’s no point us even getting into a tussle about it. In a day or two, someone will have said something else we can all misunderstand. I’ll save my strength for that fight.

On that note…

Palin is a time bomb that is going to blow up in the McCain campaign’s face. Mark my words.

The fuse is already burning — it started with a pregnant 17 year old (and how did McCain’s vetting team miss that?!), Palin poured a little fuel onto the fire with her ill-chosen community organizer taunt, issues have been raised about how the Republicans are packaging her faith, the Republican President of the Alaskan Senate asks “How can she be prepared to be vice president?”, her stance on the environment is disturbing, the aerial hunting is also disturbing, and this whole Bridge To Nowhere issue is becoming a bit of a fiasco. There’s more to come. There always is when you’re a new face on the celebrity scene. (Oh yes, Palin is now a celebrity… like Obama.)

Also, how much of a Maverick can you be when you find one of the most conservative politicians in the United States (and one of the least experienced — especially when McCain has been pounding away at Obama’s experience) to be your running mate? Sounds like someone was throwing a bone to the religious right and the NRA crowd. Voting with Bush 90% of the time, dancing to the tune of the GOP… This isn’t the John McCain I came to respect in 2000.

At least he has five houses. And nice Italian leather shoes. (And someone called me an elitist — or a fashionista, I can’t remember — because I was wearing beat Chucks.)

So the choice comes down to a possible new Jimmy Carter (oh, and maybe the first African American President of the United States, lest we forget) and a Not-So-Much-A-Maverick, eh?

U-S-A!

My new American Hero — Anderson Cooper.