WHO THE F*CK IS SARAH PALIN!

Okay, okay - let's everyone repeat it: "Sarah Palin (aka "Joe" Stalin). Actually - the "a" is pronounced a long-A. But it would be fine, otherwise!

Well, let's listen to what Steven Colbert has to say on the newly selected GOP vice-presidential running mate to John McCain:





I just think I'll let Steven Colbert have the "last say" on all this. I can only add that she grew up and never left her hometown --- Wasilla, Alaska - about an hour north of Anchorage. And that: (1) Sarah Palin was Miss Wasilla High 1984; (2) Ms. Alaska Runner-Up (1984); (3) city council member of Wasilla; (4) mayor of Wasilla from 1996-2007; (5) then, Governor of Alaska since 2007. Wow!

By the way, her maiden name - for anyone interested - is "Heath".

Remember, Alaska has only about 215,000 registered voters - Ms. Palin got about 115,000 of those! Not exactly an overwhelming political endorsement to be a "heart-beat" away from the Highest Office in the Land!

You decide.

Welcome to John McCain's - "Twilight-Zone" - where experience (aka Obama) is inexperience and inexperience (aka Palin) is really - EXPERIENCE.



Pete/Marin

SAY IT IS SO, JOE! OBAMA PICKS BIDEN!!!

God, the wait is finally over! And the winner is ...... JOE BIDEN, Democratic Senator from Delaware. Well, we now have a Democratic vice-presidential running mate for Barack Obama. And a good one at that. While there may be doubts about Biden's sometimes locquaciousness and tendency to embellish the facts a bit (his 1988 presidential run cut short by plageurism), still in all he has solid foreign policy credentials and is known to be his own man and speak his own mind. He doesn't waffle like the Mighty "Citizen" McCainster.

A short video of both men's remarks at Springfield, Illinois this afternoon follow:

The following is an excerpt from Biden's hometown paper - The Delaware Journal:

"This guy gets the big picture more intuitively and intellectually than anyone I've worked with," said the 36-year senator. "So hopeflly I can help fill in some of the blanks. Hopefully I can fill in some of the details."

"The one thing I'm convinced of is that Barack Obama is actually looking for somebody to be a partner in the sense that, someone who when the door's closed will give him his honest unvarnished opinion and who will the support the judgment he makes," he said. "I look forward...to a great relationship."

The McCain campaign immediately launched an attack ad within minutes of the news of the selection of Biden as the Democratic vice presidential running mate.

In the words of the McCain campaign:

"There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama's lack of experience than Joe Biden," McCain campaign spokesman Ben Porritt said in a statement. "Biden has denounced Barack Obama's poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing — that Barack Obama is not ready to be president."

That may be so, but as we all know Hillary Clinton has been saying that about Barack Obama all along and at a far more prodigious rate.

Obama and Biden will be off on a 5-state road tour of the midwest starting later on today with the intent of launching the Fall campaign off in a big way through the crucial swing-states of the upper midwest.

One thing that John McCain cannot afford to do is go overly-critical of Joe Biden because John McCain may very well pick Mitt Romney for his vice-presidential running mate and we know what Romney said about McCain during the primaries.

All in all the democrats look extremely well positioned for the Fall election and barring a collosal breakdown between now and November the White House should witness an incoming Democratic administration along with -hopefully - a veto-proof Senate to quickly undo the damage done by the worst presidential administration in U.S. history.

Bye, bye to the McCain "straight-talk" express and hello to the "just-in-time" presidency of Barack Obama.

JOHN - WING-NUT MCCAIN: PROJECT IRAQ WILL SINK HIS CAMPAIGN

For John McCain, Iraq troop withdrawal "must be based on conditions on the ground". In that case we may very well be in Iraq for 100 years. If by conditions on the ground you mean can Iraqi society function as a full-fledged open society than we will be there for many decades to come. The violence is down but only because the walls have gone up all over Baghdad separating Sunni neighborhoods from Shiite areas.

There are no easy methods for extracting U.S. troops from Iraq but it has to be done and done soon. Obama's 16-month timetable is a very realistic and attainable goal. John McCain has no solutions but is only interested in protecting his flank and that of the president.

To quote McCain's disparaging observations on Barack Obama's Iraq stance:

"someone who has no military experience whatsoever."

"When you win wars, troops come home," McCain said. "He's been completely wrong on the issue. ... I have been steadfast in my position."

"We've succeeded. We're not succeeding, we've succeeded,".

And then McCain has the nerve to even bring up Afghanistan, a subject he has never seriously considered until now:

"I've always said it's long and tough and hard."

Such mendacity is simply too much. McCain has never given any serious consideration to the importance of Afghanistan. His entire presidential "crusade" has been all about Iraq. McCain sees no timeline when it comes to a U.S. troop withdrawal. He only sees a permanent presence and he dismisses Barack Obama as an impudent upstart who calls for a fixed timeline. Obama actually points out that Afghanistan, not Iraq, is the central battleground of the war on terror and that the American troop pull-out from Iraq should be completed by 2010.

McCain's entire reason for running for president has now been all but extinguished. This past weekend Obama met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki who virtually endorsed Obama's troop withdrawal plan. If that wasn't the death knell of the McCain campaign then it came very close.

John McCain is no maverick, if he really was he never would have promoted the "surge" strategy back in early 2007. He made his bed, now he must lie in it.