Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[jcamp]

Putting lipstick on an ass
John McCain | Sarah Palin
by Ed Naha | September 21, 2008

If the Vaudeville team of McCain and Palin ever makes it to the White House, there are certain things you can be sure of. Our new national symbol will be the Dodo. The stars and stripes will disappear from our flag, replaced by a banner reading: "foreclosed." Our currency will no longer boast the phrase "In God We Trust" but, rather, "WTF?" The country will be re-christened "The United States of Lemmings" and the wampum standard will be re-introduced as the basis of commerce.

The best that can be said about the McCain-Palin pairing is that there are only two of them. Whenever they speak in public, I'm reminded of Linda Blair's epic projectile vomiting scene in "The Exorcist." Their spew stinks to high heaven and there's a seemingly never-ending supply.

This past week, every thinking American was slimed. Big Time. These idiots can't even get their lies straight.

Because of his age, McCain, by default, is the biggest offender. Last Monday, as Wall Street reeled and the country stumbled from the "r" word towards the Great "d" word, McCain took to the stage and declared that the fundamentals of our economy were strong. As he was saying this, his team unleashed an add declaring that we were in a financial crisis. There will be a slight pause, here, to allow us all to recover from the whiplash.

When even the White House refused to parrot McCain's rosy outlook and Obama asked what economy Johnny boy was talking about, McCain ran onto another stage and said that by "fundamentals" he meant the "American worker." Yeah, that's the ticket. The American workers were strong. And if you made fun of McCain's feeble grasp of current conditions, you were making fun of the American workers.

Wednesday, while spewing in front of Detroit autoworkers about their strength, he was greeted by chants from the workers of "Obama '08." (Fool me once, you can't get fooled again.)

As McCain swung at the straw men in his mind, the Obama camp addressed the situation, calling for a return of strict regulations. McCain, who together with his financial guru Phil Gramm, has been a patron saint of deregulation for over two decades, suddenly pulled a one eighty and became a populist, echoing the call for tighter scrutiny. He also vowed to create a commission to study the problem. You know, like the 9/11 commission, the erudite group who came to the conclusion that planes were hijacked, buildings were hit and people were killed. The end.

As America's finances went down the toilet, McCain still found time to belch Hollywood names like Lindsay Lohan and Barbara Streisand in an attempt to pump up his "Obama is an out of touch celebrity" riff. I don't know about you, but when my 401k approaches 101k status, Barbara Streisand is not exactly on my radar.

In the past two weeks, McCain has shown himself to be a purely political animal - as in: weasel. He will say anything to get elected and avoid any references to the real world because, as he has proven over and over again, he's really not good at dealing with reality, although he was a heckuva POW.

He managed to avoid talking about real issues for five days, by accusing Barack Obama of insulting vice-presidential Twinkie Sarah Palin after Obama referred to McCain's old "new" economic approach as "putting lipstick on a pig." Outraged Republicans took to the airwaves, ads were made and talking heads became spinning heads. (Again, kudos, Linda Blair for your inspiration.)

Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift wailed: "It's clear to me - as I'm sure it will be to fair-minded Republicans, Democrats and independents across the country that Senator Obama owes Governor Palin an apology." (When Republicans were told that McCain himself had repeatedly used that phrase, including in reference to Hillary Clinton's health care policy, the communal response was "that was different.")

McCain's campaign manager inadvertently tipped the team's hand when he declared: "This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates." So, while the porcine palaver was building, the McCain camp released an add stating that Obama wanted to teach children about sex before they were old enough to read.

Pig makeup plus child endangerment added up to big bonus points for Johnny Mac, thought his handlers. Um, not quite. Even conservative columnists were offended.

Joe Klein said McCain was "responsible for one of the sleaziest ads I've ever seen in presidential politics, so sleazy that I won't abet its spread by linking to it."

Richard Cohen of the WP wrote, in a column entitled "The Ugly New McCain," "McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though."

Even Karl Rove exclaimed that McCain was in Bizarro World.

The McClatchy news organization headlined: "Out of bounds! McCain misstates Obama sex-ed record."

Mark Halperin, ruminating on the subject of pig accessorizing, declared: "To spend even a minute on this expression, I think, is amazing and outrageous."

Much of the MSM attempted to show that "both" sides of the campaign were guilty of lying, thus exonerating McCain from his pompous Pinocchio putsch, but that tact didn't really work. "The Washington Post's" Ruth Marcus, while admitting that she tried to be even-handed about the current campaign, concluded: "All campaigns fall short, but some fall far shorter than others. And it is a phony evenhandedness, comfortable for journalists but ultimately misleading, that equates these failures without measuring the grossness of their deviation from the standard of decency.

"In the 2008 race, and especially in the past few weeks, the imbalance has become unnervingly stark. Ideological differences aside, John McCain's campaign has been more dishonest, more unfair, more -- to use a word that resonates with McCain -- dishonorable than Barack Obama's...

"McCain's transgressions... are of a different magnitude. His whoppers are bigger; there are more of them. He -- the easy out would be to say 'his campaign' -- has been misleading, and at times has outright lied, about his opponent. He has misrepresented -- that's the charitable verb -- his vice presidential nominee's record. Called on these fouls, he has denied and repeated them."

Ow.

And, while financial leader McCain railed against greedy people, old boys' networks, lobbyists and, basically, every type of person who supports him, the AP summed up his current whirling dervish status with a succinct: "John McCain embraces and expels Washington like an accordion player belting out a song.

"Squeeze in and he touts his vast knowledge of the capital city. Draw out and he casts himself a reformer bent on changing its ways."

Ironically, McCain's penchant for yarn spinning was brought into the spotlight, not by hard-boiled reporters, but by the panel of TV's "The View," Barbara Walters' talk show. Co-host Joy Behar, talking of both of McCain's ads simply said to him: "We know that those two ads are untrue. They are lies."

A visibly shaken McCain lied: "Actually, they are not lies."

That started the bawl rolling, with McCain getting testier and testier on TV programs. Everyone's favorite mannequin, Cindy McCain, sniffed, re: "The View." "They picked our bones clean." How did "they" get past the diamonds?

As headlines such as "The Washington Post's" "As Campaign Heats Up, Untruths Can Become Facts Before They're Undone," became more frequent, McCain finally was forced to come, uh, clean. Asked if Obama really called Sarah Palin a pig as his ad claimed, McCain simply said "No."

He defended his ad, though, saying that, "I know that he chooses his words carefully, and it was the wrong thing to say."

Got it? Me, neither.

Seeking to bolster his status as a financial wizard, McCain sent mouthpiece, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina out before the cameras. Bad news. Within six hours, she had given two interviews saying that neither McCain nor Palin would be capable of running a company. Uh.

It should be noted that Fiorina was canned at Hewlett-Packard. (Maybe she can now take on that easier job of being president.) Apparently, Fiorina's on air assessment sent McCain into a Donald Duck fit. A staff person told CNN "Carly will now disappear."

That same day, another helpful staffer offered that McCain's work in the Senate was directly responsible for the invention of The Blackberry - a nice trick, considering that the Blackberry was developed in Canada. Other staffers were poised to give McCain credit for Canadian bacon, Polish sausage and Turkish taffy but thought better of it at the last minute.

Still on a roll, McCain, taking the financial crash into consideration, declared that, if he were president, he would fire the head of the Security and Exchange Commission. Please note: the president does not have the authority to sack the SEC head. (Rod Serling is holding on line four, Senator.)

By week's end and with the biggest U.S. bailout of troubled financial institutions since the Great Depression occurring, McCain decided to combine his expertise on finances with his newly declared penchant for reform. Regarding health care, his crowed: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

Coming to a theater near you: John McCain stars in the re-make of "Clueless."

With his status as a financial wizard assured, McCain went on to prove his worth as an expert on global affairs.

McCain was interviewed on the Florida affiliate of Spanish radio network Union Radio. In the interview McCain appeared not to know who the Prime Minister of Spain was and assumed he was some anti-American lefty leader from South America.

Confused about McCain's response, the interviewer attempted to point out that Spain's Prime Minster Zapatero isn't from South of the Border but, uh, Spain, you know, that NATO country? Would McCain work with him if elected?

Said Johnny Mac: "All I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the Hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not. And that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region."

The dumbfounded interviewer responded with, "But what about Europe? I'm talking about the President of Spain."

"What about me, what?" McCain theorized.

The baffled interviewer tried again. "Are you willing to meet with him if you're elected president?"

McCain noted sagely, "I am wiling to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for humans rights, democracy and freedom. And I will stand up to those who do not."

On the plus side, this international interview caused multiple translation of the term "WTF?"

Apparently, the interview ended before McCain could complain about leaders who carved the letter "Z" into your shirt before riding off into the darkness.

McCain shill Randy Scheunemann quickly rode to Mac's rescue, saying that McCain's addled responses were actually a clever political ploy and meant to put Spain's left-leaning government on notice. "In this week's interview, Senator McCain did not rule in or rule out a White House meeting with President Zapatero, a NATO ally. If elected, he will meet with a wide range of allies in a wide variety of venues but is not going to spell out scheduling and meeting location specifics in advance. He also is not going to make reckless promises to meet America's adversaries. It's called keeping your options open, unlike Senator Obama who has publicly committed to meeting some of the world's worst dictators unconditionally in his first year in office."

Got it? Me, neither.

"Time's" Joe Klein summed up McCain's past few weeks thus: "McCain's lies have ranged from the annoying to the sleazy, and the problem is in both degree and kind. His campaign has been a ceaseless assault on his opponent's character and policies, featuring a consistent--and witting--disdain for the truth...

"Worse than the lies have been the smears. McCain ran a television ad claiming that Obama favored "comprehensive" sex education for kindergartners. (Obama favored a bill that would have warned kindergartners about sexual predators and improper touching.) The accusation that Obama was referring to Sarah Palin when he said McCain's effort to remarket his economic policies was putting 'lipstick on a pig' another clearly misleading attack -- an obnoxious attempt to divert attention from Palin's lack of fitness for the job and the recklessness with which McCain chose her. McCain's assault on the 'elite media' for spreading rumors about Palin's personal life -- actually, the culprits were a few bloggers and the tabloid press -- was more of the same. And that gets us close to the real problem here. The McCain camp has decided that its candidate can't win honorably on the issues, so it has resorted to transparent and phony diversions."

Clearly, McCain has a lot to blubber about, which brings us to his running matie, Governess Sarah Palin. Last week, she sat down with ABC's Charles Gibson to show her political stuff. My favorite answer was to the question: "Why can't most Americans locate Alaska on a map?"

She replied: ""I personally believe... that U.S. Americans are unable to do so... because... Uh... some people out there in our nation don't have maps... And... uh... I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and... uh... the Iraq, everywhere, like, such as...And I believe that they should... Our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S... uh... Or, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries... So we will be able to build up our future... for our [children]."

Oh, sorry. That was an answer from a different failed beauty pageant contestant.

Suffice to say that Palin's ABC interview sounded like a college freshman trying to bluff his or her way through an oral book report after only reading the Cliff Notes. She came across as a splendid comedic combo of "2001's" robotic Hal unplugged and singing "Daisy," SNL's Rosanne Rosannadanna and Laugh-In's Lily Tomlin's "Ringy-Dingy Operator."

Her second televised interview, with Fox's hard-hitting, uh, reporter Sean Hannity, sounded like a high school dry-hump.

As the days stagger on, it's becoming clear that zippy Palin should be introduced at all public functions by either the Rolling Stone's song "Yesterday's Paper" or Streisand's "Second Hand Rose." This one trick pony has no more tricks up her sleeve, aside from her expensive fashion re-tooling. ($2,500 for a blouse? Get me Woody Guthrie on the phone.)

She's lied about her objection to the "Bridge To Nowhere," going so far as to tell Hannity that she was personally responsible for torpedoing it. She's lied about taking a pay-cut as mayor. She's lied about her continuing support for a "Road To Nowhere." She's lied about her turning away government pork. She's lied about ad-libbing during her acceptance speech when the Teleprompters allegedly went kablooie. She's told two different versions of how she reacted to being offered the office of vice-president in her two televised interviews. She's gone out of her way to hide her official e-mails by putting them on private accounts. She left her town in debt, when she moved from mayor to governor. She spent $50,000 redecorating her governor's office and installed a tanning booth on the premises. She billed the state for time spent at her own home. She billed the state for her family's travel plans.

In short, she's a Republican's wet dream.

In terms of the now-infamous "Troopergate" fiasco? Where to begin? Allegedly, she tried to get her ex-brother-in-law State Trooper Michael Wooten canned from his job once she got the governorship. When this failed, she allegedly fired Alaska public safety director Walt Monegan because he wouldn't fire Wooten.

Thus far, Palin has said that: 1) She fired Monegan because of his "outright insubordination," which included his taking a secret trip to Washington D.C. Unfortunately, ABC news has found documents that Palin's staff authorized the trip. 2) She didn't fire Monegan. He resigned when she wanted to transfer him to another position with a pay cut. 3) She fired Monegan because he sought more funding to pursue sex crimes in Alaska, the state being the country's leader in rapes. She opposed the funding. 4) She fired Monegan because he wouldn't combat alcohol abuse in rural Alaska to the extent she desired.

Got it? Me, neither.

And, thus, a bi-partisan state investigation was launched regarding Mohegan's disappearance. Before she was named as potential veep, Palin welcomed the bi-partisan investigation. Since, then? McCain's campaign has leaped into the breach...the way Godzilla hit Tokyo.

Despite the fact that a judge, three years ago, warned Sarah Palin and her family that their efforts to "disparage" Wooten amounted to "a form of child abuse," the McCain team has labeled the investigation a "partisan witch hunt" and has, in the biggest airlift since Berlin, dropped Republican "truth investigators" into Alaska to derail the "bi-partisan investigation" and harass reporters who have the temerity to write about the story.

Five Alaskan Republicans have sued to stop the investigation.

The Alaskan Attorney General, appointed by Palin, has declared that no state employees will acknowledge the legal procedure of being subpoenaed. In other words...everyone is going to shut up. Big Time. Palin's husband, not actually a state employee, has also refused to testify.

Enter the McCain squad, like an Acme Anvil dropping on a sparrow.

McCain ordered a former top Justice Department honcho to head the charge. Hiring Edward O'Callaghan, who until six weeks ago served as co-chief of the terrorism and national security unit of the U.S. attorney's office in New York, shows just how much the McCain campaign wants "Troopergate" to go away. Not only is Team McCain taking over any and all responses to the investigation, it is effectively limiting access to any and all records regarding Palin's time in office.

McCain's team is now holding press conferences smearing the Democrats involved in the bi-partisan investigation, most notably state senator Hollis French. O'Callaghan is personally helping Palin lawyer Thomas Van Flein in fashioning an A-1 smokescreen. Team McCain, filing motion after motion in an attempt to nuke the investigation, would like nothing more than either destroy any attempt to expose Palin's "let them eat moose" governing style or simply push the investigation back until after the election when, one way or the other, it will be a moot point.

I love the smell of reform in the morning.

Reflecting many Alaskans' resentment of being strong-armed by McCain's goons, the state's leading newspapers have admonished Palin for her nasty attempt at stonewalling and one deli is now offering a "Sarah Palin Roast Pig Sandwich." (It's $12, a tube of lipstick included.)

On the home front, reflecting his leadership qualities when faced with domestic turmoil, McCain has vowed to change his name to "Hoover."

On the plus side, we can all breathe easier knowing that Team McCain will do their best to combat any and all witch hunts in the future. For Palin, this is a natural. She's often told the story of a pastor who prayed over her at the Wasilla Assembly of God church, calling on the Lord to make Palin governor.

What she didn't mention was that Pastor Thomas Muthee got his start in Kenya by organizing a real, um, witch hunt. Convinced that demons were in his midst, Muthee prayed for guidance and learned that a local woman, called Mama Jane, was, in reality a witch who caused fatal fender benders.

After organizing months of round-the-clock prayer intercessions, Muthee declared victory over the witch when, apparently getting tired of being threatened with a public stoning, she split town.

Welcome to the McCain-Palin view of the world.

Let he who is without spin cast the first vote.

Linda Blair, come home. All is forgiven.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/17311