For those not familiar with the LA riots, people were beaten, and shot at . Among the people being shot at were firemen who were attempting to save lives and buildings in the many fires that were being set by the rioters.
This was no laughing matter to those in the areas or surrounding areas that the riots were taking place in. I should know for the riots did come within about 3 miles of my own home. Luckily the police in our area kept the rioters back. Yet I did have friends who had to flee their homes fearful for their lives. So this is the man who our President wanted as a close advisor. A man who seemily thought the LA rioters were ok in how they handled the situation.

Now, I had always dreamed that I would revel in such a riot. But I didn't. I got a safe ride home ... and wept ... Fear embraces fascism. And -- even though police swept up and arrested hundreds of peaceful San Francisco protesters on live TV -- not a peep of protest went up. At least not until we had all tested the neighborhood air for smoke, and checked our tires in the morning.

In the meantime, most of us just retreated peaceably into our homes, glad that our submission was hastening the return of Law and Order ... As instructed, we barred our doors, obeyed the curfew and peered through our TV screens into the hostile night.

The moral issue of Gaza is one quite separate from the larger issue of this type of act as a means of national security and defense of the nation. Those fighting against forces like the IDF militarily are one thing (insurgents) , and those going after innocent Israeli civilians (in terrorist acts) are a different issue altogether.

After searching through thousands of news articles without finding any substantive information on the electoral process, I contacted Seyed Mohammad Marandi, who heads the North American Studies department at the University of Teheran. He described the electoral procedures to me, and together we interviewed, by phone, Sayed Moujtaba Davoodi, a poll worker who participated in the June 12 election in region 13 (of 22 regions) in Tehran. Mr. Daboodi has worked in elections for the past 16 years. The following is from their description of the procedures.

According to their account, there are 14 people working at each polling place, in addition to an observer representing each candidate. Most polling places are schools or mosques; if the polling place is a school then the team of 14 people would include teachers. There are 2-4 representatives of the Guardian Council, and 2 from the local police. After the last votes are cast, the ballots are counted in the presence of the 14 people plus the candidates' representatives. All of them sign five documents that contain the vote totals. One of the documents goes into the ballot box; one stays with the leader of the local election team; and the others go to other levels of the electoral administration, including the Guardian Council and the Interior.

The vote totals are then sent to a local center that also has representatives of the Guardian Council, Interior, and the candidates. They add up the figures from a number of ballot boxes, and then send them to Interior. In this election, the numbers were also sent directly to Interior from the individual polling places, in the presence of the 14-18 witnesses at the ballot box.

Each voter presents identification, and his or her name and information is entered into a computer, and also recorded in writing. The voter's thumbprint is also put on the stub of the ballot. The voter's identification is stamped to prevent multiple voting at different voting places, and there is also a computer and written record of everyone who voted at each polling place

According to the official election results, the incumbent president Ahmadinejad won the election by a margin of 63 percent to 34 percent for his main competitor, Mir Hossein Mousavi. This is a difference of approximately 11.3 million votes. Any claim of victory for Mousavi must therefore contain some logically coherent story of how at least 5.65 million votes (one half of the 11.3 million margin) might have been stolen.

This implies looking at the electoral procedures. There were approximately 45,000 polling locations with ballot boxes, not including mobile units. If these ballot boxes were collected by a central authority and taken away to a central location, and counted (or not counted) behind closed doors, this would be consistent with an allegation of massive vote theft. However, this does not appear to be the case.

If this information is near accurate, it would appear that large scale fraud is extremely difficult, if not impossible, without creating an extensive trail of evidence. Indeed, if this election was stolen, there must be tens of thousands of witnesses -- or perhaps hundreds of thousands – to the theft. Yet there are no media accounts of interviews with such witnesses.

Is it possible that, in most of the country, the procedures outlined above -- followed in previous elections -- were abruptly abandoned, with ballot boxes whisked away before anyone could count them at the precinct level? Again, many of the more than 700,000 people involved in the electoral process would have been witnesses to such a large-scale event. Given the courage that hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated in taking to the streets, we would expect at least some to come forward with information on what happened.

To persianadvocate:
I agree with your sentiment, but not your complaint.
There are no "substantially probative reasons to doubt the integrity of these elections" which I've seen. Plenty of factless assertions, like yours: "vote counts of zero for Mousavi in areas where his staffers were present and reportedly voted."
Where is the evidence? Where are these staffers? Let's hear them say it. We've had nothing but hearsay assertions, not a single witness has appeared to say what s/he did or saw, and especially conspicuous, not a single official election observer.
A single, solitary, ballot box, in the whole of Tehran province, contains a zero vote for Mousavi, a box of 59 ballots (box 28, javadabad, varamin, tehran). Only 3 other boxes (totaling 629 ballots), contain less than 10 votes each for Mousavi.
This is not suspicious. More precisely, it's not evidence of ballot-rigging, owing to the infinitesimal number ballots involved.
Here are the ballot box counts in Tehran province (6,081 ballot boxes, if I counted them right, in 33 number-sequences), the tehran.csv file in the ballotspm directory of http://www.umich.edu/~wmebane/Iran2009_26jun2009.zip
There's another 39,632 ballot boxes, in other files in that zip container, I didn't check them.
The guardian council and the supreme leader both, publicly, and repeatedly, said, Mousavi could recount any boxes he doubted. This satisfies your complaint, that the state must provide a candidate a method to investigate his complaint.
Where is Mousavi's complaint? Reportedly he listed some 600 grievances, in a letter to the guardian council, which has now said it investigated them all and found them without merit. Where is this letter? why hasn't Mousavi published it? (maybe he has, in Persian, I doubt it, else someone would have found it on the internet).
The recount is where the rubber meets the road. Mousavi had it in his power to demand a recount of every ballot box at every polling station where his staffers voted and the count was zero (as you claim), and at every polling station where his observers were excluded (as others claim).
Mousavi did not do it. He boycotted the recount. The obvious inference is, these claims are myth, it never happened, it's a lie.
If it's fact, then it's a very simple matter to prove it, by a recount. And I refer again to the report of the fraud-proof methods of Iran's ballot-count procedures: Mark Weisbrot, "Was the Iranian Election Stolen? Does It Matter?" (June 28 2009), copy: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/28-3
Nothing is completely fraud-proof, of course, hence the need for a recount, a close examination of ballots, and such.
I presume there's no ID on the ballots themselves (to preserve the secret ballot), the names and thumbprints appear on the ballot stub, the voters's receipt, that s/he received a blank ballot. So, yes, after it was done, the sealed boxes could be opened Mousavi ballots removed, Ahmadinejad ballots substituted.
But so fast? 45,713 ballot boxes? The results were publicly reported in near real time (totals, not individual boxes, that's true).
And, on recount, what of the multiple copies of the original record of the count (one copy sealed, with the ballots, in the ballot box) bearing multiple signatures, of the 14 observers (I presume), and the observers surely also made a personal record of the count, so they could report back, in real time, to their masters (e.g., Mousavi's observers).
Mr. Weisbrot's report, of the ballot-count procedures, has since been reinforced. I put on my tinfoil helmet, switched on my recorder, and tuned in CNN and there (but not on the BBC) were live excerpts of the Press TV satellite feed of the recounts in progress, showing the transparent plastic ballot boxes, the multiple seals, fitted by the various official observers (I presume) (including Mousavi's), the forms inside the sealed boxes being removed, showing (I presume) the original count, bearing (I presume) the signatures of the observers (including Mousavi's), the recount live on TV by large numbers of people, local citizens (I presume), living in the polling station neighborhood where the recounts occurred, validating (I presume) the original count, with (I presume) an incidental correction, or difference of opinion, now and again.
I don't know which polling stations this 10% recount covered. Mousavi had the power to specify every single polling station which barred his observers (another factless allegation). Were it true, that would be a smoking gun, but apparently it's not true, else he would have done it, specified those polling stations, it remains merely an anonymous allegation (i.e., from liars).
We haven't heard a single word from a single observer saying s/he was excluded from a polling station, or from the ballot count. And until we do, it remains myth, it never happened, it's a lie, bought and paid for by the $500 million Bush/Obama spent to promote democracy in Iran without interfering in its internal affairs (as Obama lied on TV).
Finally, I come to your sentiment, which I agree with. That Iranians (like citizens in most countries) have plenty to be unhappy about, and a sparse menu of people to vote for. That thuggish militia, for example, that's intolerable, that they are permitted (by whom) to invade people's homes, accost people on the street, abuse them for how they choose to dress, if they want to hold hands, and such.
But this is not evidence of a rigged election. Mousavi was promoted as a "reform candidate" by US/UK/Israeli liars, their conspiracy to rubbish the election. Inside Iran, did a majority prefer Mousavi? a return to the past? backed by a crowd tarnished by financial corruption? Ahmadinejad is left-winger, who did what he said he would do (as far I know), he put the nation's oil money on the table of the people, not in the pockets of the elites (grants for housing, rural development, and such, the details of which I don't know).
In Tehran city, scene of the protests, Mousavi whipped Ahmadinejad, 53%-44%, 3152 ballot boxes (in 3 groups, 2788+338+26), 4,114,384 valid ballots:
Moussavi 2,166,245 (53%)
Ahmadinejad 1,809,855 (44%)
Rezaei 95,211 ( 2%)
Karroubi 43,073 ( 1%)
My guess is this, half the people in the protests, voted for Ahmadinejad, as the least worst candidate, and because of his socialist policies, and they protested, in addition, to show they weren't happy about it, their choice of candidates, and the omission of human rights, by the candidates, from their campaign promises. -CJ Harwood (Warlaw)

I encourage you to provide us with links to your evidence. I would readily alter my view of the situation with convincing evidence.

The ongoing street protests have been viewed as remarkable in a country where anti-government sentiment is not looked upon kindly by those in power. In the aftermath of the vote, street protesters and riot police engaged in running battles, with stones thrown, garbage cans set on fire and people shouting "death to the dictatorship."

People leaned out of windows and balconies to watch the throngs of protesters march, many of whom were Moussavi supporters and conducted largely noisy but peaceful demonstrations.

Later in the evening, an agitated and angry crowd emerged in Tehran's Moseni Square, with people breaking into shops, starting fires and tearing down signs. Two sides of people faced off against each other in the square, throwing rocks and bottles and shouting angrily.

Before the vote count ended, Moussavi issued a sharply worded letter urging the counting to stop because of "blatant violations" and lashed out at what he indicated was an unfair process. Moussavi said the results from "untrustworthy monitors" reflects "the weakening of the pillars that constitute the sacred system" of Iran and "the rule of authoritarianism and tyranny." Independent vote monitors were banned from polling places. "The results announced for the 10th presidential elections are astonishing. People who stood in long lines and knew well who they voted for were utterly surprised by the magicians working at the television and radio broadcasting," Moussavi said in his statement. Iran, he said, "belongs to the people and not cheaters."

Uhhh, yes they are pure victims. When was the last time your life was at stake because you protested about anything. How free do you feel to get on these forums, show your face and say anything you want

Question is, do think someone who is clearly biased, politically, can be unbiased as a moderator?

I guess I will spend less time here.
To all my friends and foes in the Political Forum....THANKS.

On the Isreal and Iran situation, would you have been happier if she had said no isreal has no right to attack Iran and stop its development of Nuclear weapons?

Should this be then followed by a concept that Isreal should not defend itself?

Contray to what many in the world may wish to believe, Iran has stated that they wish to drive Isreal into the sea.

So I guess to not be a warmonger Sarah is supposed to set policy for isreal?

Get real. She said she wouldn't second guess Isreal in this.

1. When asked if the US should go to war with Russia if it attacked Georgia, after that nation has NATO membership, .... .............. she responded yes.
2. The comment by Palin that Iraq was a task from God.
3. The recent comment that the US forces, should follow taliban forces into pakistan.

Doesn't it make sense that the possibility exists that a binding agreement made with the current lame ducks could tie the hands of the next administration that might want to pull the troops out prior to any agreement made with the current administration?
The troops aren't coming home en masse at anytime before the current administration cedes power, so why not be concerned that any agreement made could commit troops for a longer period than the next administration would want them there?

FOX is the only one which is mostly fair and unbiased.

If I am to be guided by your {OP} paragraph above than every Liberal Pol in Congress should be removed as this Congress been a joke being governed by Liberals Pelosi and Reid.

A lot of people really don't understand what is going on, IMHO. The average citizen is not all that clueless. They know that both parties have a general philosophy. Democrats like to raise taxes and increase the size of govt. Republicans generally push for lower taxes and less govt. Its not hard to figure out that most middle class people are not happy about the potential of more Democrat tax increases. Neither party is going to change. Both are really proposing more of the same that they have pushed for years. Part of the reason that McCain has caught on is that he is talking about cutting govt. again.

However, this is an election for the most powerful office in the world, and so the result is, its a war. There are no rules in a war.

... its just one more reason to vote for the Republicans.... UGHHH ... in my case for the very first time..... I feel like a traitor backing this side....

In Iowa last October, John McCain drew comparisons between Hillary Clinton's current health care plan and the one she championed in 1993: "I think they put some lipstick on the pig, but it's still a pig." {John McCain}

He used roughly the same line in May, after effectively claiming the Republican nomination.

Other politicians have also used the phrase in recent years, including Vice President****Cheney, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Rep. John Mica of Florida and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, among others.

Torie Clarke, a former McCain adviser, even wrote a book called, "Lipstick on a Pig: Winning In the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game."

Huckabee took Obama's side on the issue, saying he didn't think it was a swipe at Palin.

"It's an old expression, and I'm going to have to cut Obama some slack on that one. I do not think he was referring to Sarah Palin; he didn't reference her. If you take the two sound bites together, it may sound like it," he said on Fox's "Hannity and Colmes."

"But I've been a guy at the podium many times, and you say something that's maybe a part of an old joke and then somebody ties it in. So, I'm going to have to cut him slack."

Still, the McCain campaign says Obama's use was intentional, and they want an apology.
"Barack Obama's comments today are offensive and disgraceful. He owes Gov. Palin an apology," said Maria Comella, a McCain-Palin spokeswoman.

Obama's campaign said "enough is enough" and accused McCain of running a "dishonorable campaign."

"The McCain campaign's attack tonight is a pathetic attempt to play the gender card about the use of a common analogy -- the same analogy that Sen. McCain himself used about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care plan just last year," said Obama campaign senior adviser Anita Dunn. "This phony lecture on gender sensitivity is the height of cynicism and lays bare the increasingly dishonorable campaign John McCain has chosen to run."

But McCain's campaign is not about to let the issue go. They released a Web ad Wednesday that plays Obama's lipstick comments, then asks, "Ready to lead? No. Ready to smear?

... its just one more reason to vote for the Republicans.... UGHHH ... in my case for the very first time..... I feel like a traitor backing this side....

In Iowa last October, John McCain drew comparisons between Hillary Clinton's current health care plan and the one she championed in 1993: "I think they put some lipstick on the pig, but it's still a pig." {John McCain}

He used roughly the same line in May, after effectively claiming the Republican nomination.

Other politicians have also used the phrase in recent years, including Vice President****Cheney, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Rep. John Mica of Florida and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, among others.

Torie Clarke, a former McCain adviser, even wrote a book called, "Lipstick on a Pig: Winning In the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game."

Huckabee took Obama's side on the issue, saying he didn't think it was a swipe at Palin.

"It's an old expression, and I'm going to have to cut Obama some slack on that one. I do not think he was referring to Sarah Palin; he didn't reference her. If you take the two sound bites together, it may sound like it," he said on Fox's "Hannity and Colmes."

"But I've been a guy at the podium many times, and you say something that's maybe a part of an old joke and then somebody ties it in. So, I'm going to have to cut him slack."

Still, the McCain campaign says Obama's use was intentional, and they want an apology.
"Barack Obama's comments today are offensive and disgraceful. He owes Gov. Palin an apology," said Maria Comella, a McCain-Palin spokeswoman.

Obama's campaign said "enough is enough" and accused McCain of running a "dishonorable campaign."

"The McCain campaign's attack tonight is a pathetic attempt to play the gender card about the use of a common analogy -- the same analogy that Sen. McCain himself used about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care plan just last year," said Obama campaign senior adviser Anita Dunn. "This phony lecture on gender sensitivity is the height of cynicism and lays bare the increasingly dishonorable campaign John McCain has chosen to run."

But McCain's campaign is not about to let the issue go. They released a Web ad Wednesday that plays Obama's lipstick comments, then asks, "Ready to lead? No. Ready to smear?

Why lie about something so easy to disprove? If she lies about freaking eBay, then what about the really BIG stuff?

The “McCain is a Liar” attacks will not work.
By Gaucho Politico - September 9, 2008, 2:28PM

An unrebutted lie becomes the truth and a rebutted lie is quickly forgotten. That is the operating principle of the McCain campaign. Lie,lie, lie about anything and everything. Get those lies into all available media. Saturate the market with them until they become
received wisdom.

Force Obama to defend against them all the time. It is a strategy that may be without honor, but it is a strategy that wins.

Understanding this, progressives become irate. The blogosphere cries, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!!” Barack Obama says, “you can’t just make stuff up”.

Well, with all due respect to Sen. Obama, yes you can. Yes, you can just make stuff up.

To answer why you can “just make stuff up” I answer the question of why calling McCain a liar will not work. There are multiple factors at work that ultimately make it unworkable to attack McCain in this way. The first is that John McCain still has a vast army of water carriers and tire swing riders to excuse him at every turn.

His legion of admirers in the press, while shrinking, is still vast. He benefits from the well known conservative bias in the media. Look what happened when Keith Olbermann decried the politicization of 9/11 at the RNC, he was demoted. Tom Brokaw still calls McCain a Maverick despite all the evidence to the contrary. In addition to the conservatives who populate the networks he also has Fox, a ready made propaganda wing. These groups are almost always willing to propagate his falsehoods without challenge.

Calling McCain a liar will just get the person skeptical criticism and questions about why you wont admit the surge worked.

The second reason beyond the press is that Obama has already undermined any character attacks against John McCain.
He and Joe Biden do this constantly in a number of ways that are constantly carried about the press. Obama declares, "I have never suggested that Senator McCain picks his positions on national security based on politics or personal ambition. I have not
suggested it because I believe that he genuinely wants to serve America's national interest."


Biden does the same thing only a lot worse. "John McCain is my friend," said the loquacious Blue Hen. "I admire John
McCain. I know of no man or woman I have ever met that has more personal courage than John McCain. We have been friends for over 33 years. We have traveled together. When John was Navy liaison he staffed me for three or four years everywhere I traveled in the world.

Now there is a school of thought that says you can say nice things about someone then come in and kneecap them. Except, that to do that, you have to say, “Bless his heart” when you compliment the opponent. There are certain signals you have to send to let people know what is coming. Biden does way too much of the soft stuff up front. It effectively makes John McCain immune to character attacks. You cannot call your friend a political opportunist and a liar. Who admits to those types of friends? It just does not fit and people will reject it.

Think about the logic you are asking people to engage in,

Preface I: John McCain is honorable and my friend.
Preface II: Liars are not honorable or my friends.
Result: John McCain is a liar and my friend.

Something is wrong in that construction. It does not make sense.

Obama has restricted himself to working with policy. He does this to try and win a mandate to govern with. John McCain knows he cannot fight on policy and has no problems with doing things to get elected. He will just apologize later. Therefore, Obama has unilaterally disarmed himself.

The new politics he advocates restricts Obama. As he freely admits, personal attacks are not a part of it. McCain and the press will hammer Obama on all sides if he deviates from the narrow line of policy. He is boxed in by self created rules and in doing so boxed in everyone else.

Obama will be forced to answer for any of the attacks that others launch on McCain that call him a liar. The press will ask Obama if he believes that McCain is a liar and he will dodge the question or say no. The latter is more probable based on my own observation of how Obama operates and the new politics rules. The effect of this is that 527 style attacks are totally ruled out. Everything has to come from Obama and it is very limiting.

While I believe that John McCain is a political opportunist and that he is lying on an almost constant basis in this campaign, calling him a liar will have limited effect. Obama and team should stop telling people how honorable McCain is. McCain will run from any policy discussion. If Obama is counting on the debates to engage in the policy talk I think he has sorely miscalculated. We know how stupid and inane debates can be and trusting that the moderators will be able to push back against McCain effectively is a huge risk.

What is Obama going to do when McCain lies in front of his face to the country during the debate? Will he be able to call such an upstanding, honorable patriot, a liar then?

I don’t know.

THURSDAY SEPT. 4, 2008 10:24 EDT
The GOP's cheerful viciousness
With last night's cheerfully vicious speeches from Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin, the Republicans did what they always do in order to win elections: they exploited raw cultural divides while mocking, belittling and demonizing Democratic leaders. Yet again, they delivered brutally effective and deeply personal blows to the Democratic presidential candidate grounded in the same manipulative and deceitful yet very potent themes they've been using for the last three decades.

Ever since Ronald Reagan's election, this is what the Republicans do every four years. They render issues irrelevant and convert campaigns into cultural wars and personality referenda. They converted our elections into tawdry reality shows long before networks realized their entertainment value. And every four years, Democrats seems shocked and paralyzed by all of this and desperately delude themselves into believing that mean-spirited "negativity" and nastiness will alienate voters, while the media swoons at the potency of these attacks.

The derisive attacks on Obama's character last night were exactly what Democrats decided -- yet again -- that they would studiously avoid at their own convention when discussing John McCain. On the third night of the DNC -- after Biden spoke but before Obama spoke the next night -- I wrote:

"More politically damaging still is the absence of any truly stinging attacks on John McCain. Even Joe Biden's speech -- billed as the "attack dog" event -- almost completely avoided any criticisms of McCain the Person, who will emerge from the four days here as a Wonderful, Honorable, Courageous Man -- a friend to Democrats and Republicans alike -- who just happens to be wrong on some issues. The Republicans will spend the next four days mercilessly ripping Barack Obama's character to shreds, as they did to John Kerry in 2004. . . .

The GOP's attacks on Kerry in 2004 were mocking, scornful, derisive, demonizing and deeply personal -- in speech after speech -- and they were also highly effective. They weren't the slightest bit deterred by the fact that Kerry was a war hero who was wounded multiple times in Vietnam while George Bush and****Cheney. . . . weren't.

Has there been anything remotely approaching those attacks on McCain by any of the prime-time Democratic speakers?

The GOP assaults on Barack Obama will be -- have already been -- even more vicious and personalized, which means by the end of their Convention next week, John McCain will be, by all accounts, an honor-bound, principled and courageous patriot (who, at worst, is wrong on some issues), while Barack Obama will be some vaguely foreign, weak, appeasing, super-ambitious, exotic, empty-headed, borderline un-American liberal extremist."

Democrats seem to be banking on the fact that the agreement which most Americans have with their policy positions, along with widespread dissatisfaction with the current state of things, will outweigh the effects of this personality war -- a war which they, yet again, have allowed to be one-sided.

None of this is to say that the GOP attacks will enable them to win the election. It is quite possible that enough Americans this year are so alienated from the GOP brand that they are now largely immune from these kinds of substance-free personality assaults, that they won't be blinded by cultural tribalism and personality appeals into handing this political party an additional four years of power.

But these tactics have worked in the past because cultural tribalism, resentment and alienation are very powerful influences in how people think -- in general, they're more powerful than rational assessments of policy positions or even one's self-interest -- and the Democrats' gamble that they can win this election without really engaging those issues, while allowing that war to be waged in a one-sided manner yet again, is a true gamble.

Even today, fresh off of watching Sarah Palin rip Barack Obama's face off using the most intense forms of derision and condescension, Joe Biden -- Obama's "attack dog" -- went on The Early Show and said he was "impressed" with Palin's speech:

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: How do you think your Republican counterpart did here last night?

SEN. BIDEN: Well, my plane was landing. I only caught the last two-thirds of the speech, but I was impressed. I think it was a skillfully delivered political speech with confidence and directness and so I think she did what she was supposed to do. I was impressed. I was also impressed by what I didn't hear in the speech. I didn't hear a word--didn't hear the phrase middle class mentioned, I didn't hear a word about health care. I didn't hear a single word about what we're going to do about the housing crisis, college education, all the things that the middle class is being burdened by now. I didn't hear the words Afghanistan or Pakistan where al-Qaeda lives and bin Laden resides, so I also, you know, there was a deafening silence about the hole that the Republicans have dug us into and any specific answers to how the McCain-Palin ticket is going to get us out of that hole.

What Biden said was arguably wise (attacking Palin personally -- as opposed to McCain and/or Palin's ideology -- is a stupid strategy). Biden's remarks were also all true, as far as they went. Palin's speech -- indeed, the entire GOP Convention -- was almost entirely bereft of substance and "issues." But it is that way by design.

The Republicans are well aware that they can't possibly win the election if it is even partially decided based on issues. They need and intend to win despite the fact that Americans hate their positions on the issues, and to do that, they want to ensure that a majority of Americans love and respect the strong, honorable, principled, culturally familiar all-American mavericks John McCain and Sarah Palin (even if they don't agree with them on everything) while strongly disliking that wishy-washy, snooty, foreign, exotic, self-absorbed Eastern elitist Barack Obama (even if he says the right things on issues).

Democrats have clearly decided (yet again) to cede that lowly playing field to the GOP and are hoping (yet again) that those personality and cultural issues are not enough to outweigh the country's dislike of Republican policies.

This year is indeed different -- dissatisfaction with the Government is higher than ever before, the GOP is as discredited as a party can be, and Obama is a more effective candidate than those who preceded him -- but the attacks last night were only the beginning, not the end. If John McCain remains -- even from the mouths of Democrats -- the Honored, Honorable, Principled, Heroic Maverick, the GOP chances will be as high as they can be.

About Sarah Palin: an e-mail from Wasilla
A suburban Anchorage homemaker and activist — who once did battle with the Alaska governor when Palin was mayor — recounts what she knows of Palin's history.

By Anne Kilkenny

Editor's note: The writer is a homemaker and education advocate in Wasilla, Alaska. Late last week, Anne Kilkenny penned an e-mail for her friends about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whom she personally knows, that has since circulated across comment forums and blogs nationwide. Here is her e-mail in its entirety, posted with her permission.

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Gov. Sarah Palin since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first-name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99 percent of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice for vice president and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe."

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.

She is "pro-life." She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her lifestyle ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time) and less than two years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration, most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings, which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative." During her six years as mayor, she increased general government expenditures by more than 33 percent. During those same six years, the amount of taxes collected by the city increased by 38 percent. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax, which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefitted large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenue during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list, though — borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt but left it with indebtedness of more than $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? Or a new library? No. $1 million for a park. $15 million-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex, which she rushed through, on a piece of property that the city didn't even have clear title to. That was still in litigation seven years later — to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5 million for road projects that could have been done in five to seven years without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as governor Sarah proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenue: Spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was mayor of Wasilla, she tried to fire our highly respected city librarian because the librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the city librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys." Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the city and as governor, she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal — loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the state's top cop.

As mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's police chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than two dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town, introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal city administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Gov. Frank Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission — one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil and gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job, which paid $122,400 a year, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this commission (who was also the state chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club," when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Sen. Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects — which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance — but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork."

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The state party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla, there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiaitive that would have either protected salmon streams from pollution from mines or tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on whom you listen to). She has pushed the state's lawsuit against the Department of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as a threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for president; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being president.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there are a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

Claim vs. Fact

"Hockey mom": True for a few years

"PTA mom": True years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since

"NRA supporter": Absolutely true

"Social conservative": mixed. Opposes gay marriage, but vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).

"Pro-creationism": Mixed. Supports it, but did nothing as governor to promote it.

"Pro-life": Mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby but declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation.

"Experienced": Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.

"Political maverick": Not at all.

"Gutsy": Absolutely!

"Open and transparent": ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.

"Has a developed philosophy of public policy": No.

"A Greenie": No. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.

"Fiscal conservative": Not by my definition!

"Pro-infrastructure": No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.

"Pro-tax relief": Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents

"Pro-small government": No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.

"Pro-labor/pro-union": No. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

Why am I writing this?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name, you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "bad things happen when good people stay silent." Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that's life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the city librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

Caveats: I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending and taxation two years ago (when Palin was running for governor) from information supplied to me by the finance director of the City of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: Did I adjust for inflation? For population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall — they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000" up to 9,000. The day Palin's selection was announced, a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-1990s.

Anne Kilkenny is a homemaker and education advocate in Wasilla, Alaska.

Palin isn't 'afraid' of the media... the 'Republicans' might still be coaching her, checking her out... but I'd bet she's raring to go.
I've seen her, pre-VP pick, on some other interview shows and she is not some vapid beauty queen... she might not be 'wordly' but she is ambitious, tenacious, and has a quick mind... I just happen to think she is also a friggin' nightmare of bad ideas and foul intentions.

Just curious... I am not a Palin supporter... what about in her tenure as Governor?

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys." Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the city and as governor, she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal — loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the state's top cop.

As mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's police chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than two dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

When then-Gov. Frank Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission — one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil and gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job, which paid $122,400 a year, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this commission (who was also the state chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club," when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Sen. Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects — which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance — but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork."

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The state party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in
help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town
introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council
became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She
abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t
like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything
publicly about her.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a
heartbeat away from being President.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more
knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are
regretting it.

What I want are answers on the ethical problems being revealed of her as mayor of Wasilla and as governor of Alaska.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running
this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been
pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had
gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had
given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6
years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over
33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the
City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation
(1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a
regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she
promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they
benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration
weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed
money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it
with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage
the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said
she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a
new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a
multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece
of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was
still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers
involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the
community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it
would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that
could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

I saw today the ridiculous accusation that she banned books when she was the Mayor of Wasilla.

News flash to anyone who believes that: Every town has a City Attorney either on staff or under contract to advise the Mayor and City Council on legal issues. If she had even considered such an idiotic idea, the City Attorney would have set her straight in a matter of minutes.

I also saw the silly accusation that she fired the head librarian because the woman wouldn't go along with the book-banning scheme.

News flash: Most munipical employees are unionized and cannot be fired without cause. Again, the City Attorney would have told Sarah Palin that she was opening the City up to a huge lawsuit for wrongful discharge if she fired a librarian for not obeying an unconstitutional order.

The first thing Palin did after being elected was fire six department heads in the City, including the Police Commissioner and the librarian. As The Anchorage Daily News put it: "the newly elected mayor of Wasilla has asked all of the city's top managers to resign in order to test their loyalty to her administration." It added:
She's also been criticized by the local semiweekly newspaper for a new policy requiring department heads to get the mayor's approval before talking to reporters. An editorial in The Frontiersman labeled it a "gag order."

... one of the very first things she did after being elected Mayor was pressure the librarian to ban books which she found offensive in some way:

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker {Emmons}, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

Other than banning books which Palin disliked, what possible agenda could a librarian be expected to serve upon pain of firing? Community anger over Palin's attempt to fire the librarian was apparently intense, forcing Palin to reverse her decision. From the The Anchorage Daily News on February 1, 1997:

City librarian Mary Ellen Emmons will stay, but Police Chief Irl Stambaugh is on his own, Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin announced Friday.
The decision came one day after letters signed by Palin were dropped on Stambaugh's and Emmon's desks, telling them their jobs were over as of Feb. 13.
The mayor told them she appreciated their service but felt it was time for a change. "I do not feel I have your full support in my efforts to govern the city of Wasilla. Therefore I intend to terminate your employment ..." the letter said.
Palin said Friday she now feels Emmons supports her but does not feel the same about Stambaugh.
As to what prompted the change, Palin said she now has Emmons' assurance that she is behind her. She refused to give details about how Stambaugh has not supported her, saying only that "You know in your heart when someone is supportive of you."
Thereafter, Palin fired the City Attorney, who was replaced by Ken Jacobus, the counsel for the Alaskan state Republican Party. Between this behavior almost immediately upon becoming Mayor and her subsequent firing of the State Police Commissioner while Governor, Palin has a rather clear pattern of trying to use her power to advance personal grievances and fill government positions with political hacks, cronies, and those who are loyal to her politically -- exactly what has infected so much of the Federal Government over the last eight years.

Maybe Palin has something going right. She got more of the monies from the oil that belonged to "Alaska" ... but that oil isn't just Alaskan oil. Why isn't every American receiving a portion of what Alaskan citizens receive for the oil pumped from federal lands. Those are federal lands, not Alaskan. The US bought the Alaskan territories ... the state did not.

Since the oil offshore is federal property, than every barrel pumped ought to be the property of the US federal government and every penny from the sell of it into our federal funds.

The protesters at the DNC weren't "miles" from the Pepsi Centre. There was a bylaw stating that protesters had the right to be in view, and for that reason the protest zone was actually right beside the media tent in one of the parking lots across the street from the arena. The media were all very upset about having the protesters so close, but apparently failed in their attempts to have the protesters relocated.

I know of Code Pink and I think it's deplorable that they are labeled as "anti-American" and "anarchists" in the media.

Darjeeling, for my own part, I wasn't trying to generate any spin at all. And I completely defer to your opinion as to the motivations of these groups (I had never even heard of Code Pink). I was just trying to make a balanced observation.

Yes Obama supporters are more vocal, those of us on the right simply get tired of being shouted down and insulted when we try to actually discuss the facts. People on the left don’t seem to be interested in calm rational discussion, they want to rant and rage against the machine, break windows, throw urine and feces at the police (who are just trying to do their jobs, and many are probably Democrats themselves)
They scream about free speech, yet try to disrupt anyone that doesn’t say what they want to hear, (code pink-o trying to disrupt the speakers during the Republican convention but not the Democratic Convention) they provoke the police then scream about police brutality. (again as we have seen at the RNC but not at the DNC)

I believe that Obama supporters are going to be more vocal as that is their nature and it fit's with their candidates image. I would fully expect for there to be more pro-Obama protesters.

If McCain had chosen Mitt Romney, a man with real leadership ability, real charisma, and real experience, he might have stood a chance. He could have made up for his lack of energy in confronting his opponent, his useless pandering to liberals, and his refusal to expose Obama’s leftism and inexperience. Instead he trumped inexperience with more inexperience. Obama, for all his far-left socialism, picked a running mate who is perceived as giving the ticket more experience. McCain, in defiance of all logic, undermined his strong suit by selecting a political neophyte who waters down his key advantage over Obama.

"As for that V.P. talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the V.P. does every day?