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Friday, September 19. 2008
Stay Out of Their Way!
You know, I was kidding when just a few days ago I referred to the Republican presidential ticket as the “Palin-McCain” ticket. Now, apparently taking a queue from my blog, Governor Sarah Palin believes the same. Click here! I’m guessing it was just a slip of the tongue. Then we learn when McCain and Palin appear together and, as tradition dictates, the vice presidential candidate speaks first, some in the crowds leave when McCain starts his speech. Maybe Governor Palin’s remark wasn’t such a slip of the tongue.
We know Senator John McCain was against earmarks and his running mate wasn’t — until she was picked to be the running mate — and that Senator McCain was against the “alphabet soup” of regulatory agencies that over see our financial institutions … until of course the financial fiasco that has now plunged us into the worst recession since the Great Depression got the “deregulator” to propose adding a new set of initials to that alphabet soup, the “MFI” — the Mortgage and Financial Institutions Trust.
Just for the record, as a kid I liked Campbell’s Alphabet Soup.
The “MFI” would be like the RTC. Remember the Resolute Trust Corporation that was created during the 1980’s after the Savings and Loan scandal that brought down that entire arm of the banking industry? The scandal that brought us the Keating Five, one of those five being Senator John McCain?The RTC was created in 1989 by our federal government to buy up the savings and loan companies, revitalize them and then sell them to other financial corporations pretty much to abrogate the huge losses when the administrators, in particular Charles Keating of American Continental Corporation which owned Lincoln Savings and Loan, used their depositors’ money to make risky loans and buy junk bonds. It cost the American Taxpayers over 120 billion dollars.
To be fair to McCain, the other four senators of the Keating Five were all Democrats, John Glenn, Dennis DeConcini, Alan Cranston and Donald Riegle.
McCain just proposed the same type of government agency to deal with this escalating financial disaster. Actually, it’s probably the best idea he’s had in a while, but it contradicts what he claims as his fundamental economic philosophy: less regulation.
And then McCain “fired” the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Republican Christopher Cox, for not enforcing enough regulations on financial institutions and Wall Street. Obviously, as a candidate, McCain can’t fire the head of an independent agency; in fact, as president he can’t fire the head of an independent agency. Maybe he’s taking a lesson from the Dick Cheney book on centralizing government into one office. Then, in a radio interview Senator McCain said he might meet with Spain’s president, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Might? Spain is an ally, one of our biggest supporters in Europe and a country that has troops in Afghanistan and had troops in Iraq — Spain, that was the site of the biggest terrorist attack since 9/11.
When you listen to the interview, it’s clear McCain didn’t know who Zapatero is, thinking the Spanish president was the leader of a Latin American country. Oops. So much for his foreign policy credentials.
When appraised of his mistake, instead of admitting it his campaign insisted the senator knew exactly whom he was talking about and that Zapatero just might not be an ally of the United States and quite possibly one of our enemies.The question was asked because President Bush has refused to meet with the Spanish leader since Spain pulled its troops from Iraq shortly after Zapatero was elected. Zapatero campaigned on the promise to pull Spain’s troops from Bush’s war.
The hits just keep coming. The “First Dude,” Todd Palin, refused to submit to the subpoena issued by the Alaska State Senate ethics committee because of an Alaskan law that says a candidate in a campaign can’t be forced to testify in an investigation. McCain-Palin lawyers argue the “First Dude” is covered under the law, but according to the letter of the law he is not. Fortunately for the McCain-Palin campaign, the next step in the process can’t take place until January, when the entire state senate has to vote on whether to force Todd Palin to testify.Todd Palin, it turns out, has been a bit of shadow governor, to use the term created by Alaskan blogger Andrew Halcro.
Just for the record, I didn’t use Halcro’s blog to get any of this information. Many other sources, including the Miami Herald, but not Halcro. You can read Halcro’s blog Here to read what he’s been writing about Sarah Palin for nearly two years.
He sits in on all of his wife’s meetings, has actually gone on state-sponsored business trips, paid for by Alaska’s taxpayers and has official state e-mails copied to him. Palin holds no official office in Alaska and has no official duties subscribed to him as the governor’s spouse. In his defense, Todd Palin is the guy who runs the family, cooks the meals, gets the kids ready for school, etc. now that his wife is governor. The epitome of “Mr. Mom.” Pretty laudable I’d say. If it’s true. The chef Sarah Palin claims she fired from the governor’s mansion wasn’t actually fired.
Yet another reason Alaskan lawmakers want to subpoena the private e-mail accounts of all the pertinent parties in the investigation. One of those individuals who have testified said he did talk to the Workman’s Compensation insurance company about withholding Trooper Wooten’s workman’s comp claim at the behest of the governor, through Todd Palin, who, the man claimed, gave him all the personal information about Trooper Wooten.
Yet another reason to get Todd Palin’s testimony: either confirm or refute the claim. When she was selected to be the V.P. candidate Sarah Palin famously claimed, “hold me accountable” and she told Charles Gibson in her ABC News interview “I have nothing to hide.” Well, apparently she does because now she has refused to cooperate with the investigation, instead insisting it is politically motivated — even though the investigation began long before she was picked by McCain to be his running mate.
There is so much to write about concerning the Palin-McCain ticket, oh, I’m sorry, the McCain-Palin ticket, and so little room in this entry. It’s already close to1,100 words. I haven’t even mentioned, in these entries since the RNC, the fact that not only is President Bush excised from all mention by the two Republican candidates, they don’t even mention they are Republicans! Why is it the speakers at the Republican National Convention not only left the names of Bush and Cheney out of their speeches, they never used their party’s name?
It’s a rhetorical question. Bush — and the Republican Party itself — is the Republican Party albatross and who wants to try and win an election connected to any of that! And why does the Republican Party go along with this strategy? To win the White House because they know that with John McCain in the Oval Office, they will have a strong ally who votes (or sides) with them 90% of the time. That remaining 10%, McCain can be a maverick. It’s why McCain and Palin, and by extension their party, are campaigning against not only the Democrats, but also themselves. You gotta love the irony. “Vote for us because we did such a crappy job of running government we need a change!”So, the bail out, which Bush and the Congress are proposing, will likely cost the American taxpayers over a trillion dollars. Wow. Sort of makes the S&L crisis seem so … pedestrian. Chalk that up to Republican-sponsored deregulation, which brings up one last note:
On Hardball With Chris Matthews Thursday, Republican operative (and former aid to Vice President Dick Cheney) Ron Christie stated it was the Democrats who stalled any reforms in 2003 and 2005 of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage companies at the center of this financial disaster. Really? When the Republican Party had control of both houses of Congress and the White House. I’m still waiting to hear the logic on that bit of information.
Late addendum: Senator McCain went even further than Ron Christie and laid the blame for this financial crisis squarely at the feet of Senator Obama. Really! Despite the fact that two of McCain’s top campaign officials, Charlie Black and Rick Davis worked for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lobbying groups. Not to mention, Phil Gramm, one of McCain’s key financial advisors, was the senator who wrote the bill that deregulated the financial institutions that led to this crisis — six years before Obama was sworn in as a United States Senator.
To be fair, one of Obama’s advisors, his vice presidential vetter, Jim Johnson, worked for Fannie Mae.
Well, maybe “logic” is the wrong word. Let’s use “convolution.”
But the most damning words to come out in the past few days come from Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. He said Sarah Palin is not qualified to be vice president or president and said the McCain-Palin campaign ought to at least be honest about why she was chosen as McCain’s running mate: to shore up the support from the base of the party.I swear right here, if Chuck Hagel ever runs for president I will vote for him!
And on a lighter note: click This Link for a story (from Crooks and Liars) about the travails of a delegate to the Republican National Convention. It’s a great Laugh!Calendar
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