Barack Obama Elected President!

[Ryan]

And I guess all the money used to construct the stage the republicans spoke on could have been used for better purposes too right? The money that people from various campaigns (on both sides) used to help pay for this.

There is no comparison.

I understand that foreign policy is important, but given the problems we're going through here economically and socially, I think that money should be put to good use domestically. Our tax dollars, our money....should be used here.

Maybe if we weren't spending billions of dollars a week on this war I'd feel differently.

[Wales2004]

The main thing I object to is the hypocrisy. Don't try to dictate what's off limits if you've made fun of a former presidential candidate's daughter whcih McCain did when in saying Chelsea Clinton is ugly. Don't use motherhood as a qualification for someone who could end up running the country but then cry foul if her parenting skills are questioned either. If it's a qualification then peeople should get to weigh in on it. I think it should be off limits and the Republicans should stop touting it as a qualification.

I'm just finding them to be a very seedy bunch right now and I am glad that my good old Terminator governor decided to stay here and play budget crisis manager instead of showing up at there to give a speech.

At least two of the Rebpublican pundits were caught on tape saying how they really feel about the VP selection so they'll orobably lose their membership card now.

[Roman]

Pat Buchanan blasted the pick until he found out Governor Palin supported him, then he almost snapped his neck flipping to the other side.

Who was the other one?

[Wales2004]

I didn't know about Pat Buchanan.....I've been successfully avoiding him.

Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy slipped up on MSNBC.

[EricaKane70]

Did I say abc was conservative? Because if I did I either was wrong or they just don't like Mccain because they have been slamming Palin almost all week on GMA. Abc's investigative reporter Brian Ross has been digging up too much dirt on this woman from her daughter being pregnant to Palin firing people on police staff for coming down on gun laws.

Wales when did McCain say chelsea was ugly? BTW she looks great now.imo

Also I have to comend Sarah Palin for the way she has handled her daughter's pregnancy, she's been very open and honest about this. I do blame McCain for now researching her background better.

[Wales2004]

I'm coming across all sorts of things.

[Roman]

Damn good, Wales.

ST. PAUL (Reuters) - Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin took a swipe at Democrat Barack Obama's level of experience on Wednesday and hit back at criticism of her in the U.S. media.

In excerpts of a highly anticipated speech she was to give to the Republican National Convention, Palin referred to criticism from Obama's campaign that she lacked experience to serve a heartbeat away from the president.

Obama began his political career as a community organizer in Chicago, while Palin was mayor of small-town Wasilla, Alaska, before she became Alaska governor two years ago.

"And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities," she said in the excerpts.

Palin also rejected U.S. media criticism that has focused on various aspects of her background in the days since she was selected by Republican John McCain as his No. 2.

She said she's "not a member in good standing of the Washington elite."

"But here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country," she said.

(Reporting by Steve Holland, Editing by Howard Goller)

[Roman]

Wales, is this what you meant?

Hot mic catches GOP strategists trashing Palin pick

Posted: 08:15 PM ET

From CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Mooney

McCain greeted Palin Wednesday.

(CNN) – Prominent Republican analysts Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy became the latest victims of an open microphone Wednesday, caught after a segment on MSNBC trashing John McCain's pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Noonan, a Wall Street Journal columnist and former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, and Murphy, a campaign strategist and onetime aide to John McCain, can both be heard expressing disbelief with the pick of Palin after they apparently thought they were in a commercial break.

“I come out of the blue swing-state governor world, Engler, Whitman, Thompson, Mitt Romney,” Murphy said during the mishap which has since been posted on YouTube. Murphy later flatly says of the pick, "It's not going to work."

Noonan is heard going even further, saying of the presidential race, "It's over."

"I think they went for this — excuse me– political bulls–t about narratives," Noonan also said. "Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it."

Murphy, who was a senior adviser to John McCain's 2000 presidential bid, also adds, "You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical."

Filed under: Republican National Convention

[Roman]

Media not to blame that Palin story line fell apart

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Thursday, September 04, 2008

The McCain campaign and much of the Republican Party are outraged at media coverage of Sarah Palin. McCain strategist Steve Schmidt set the tone perfectly Wednesday, whining about a “faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican nominee.”

Well, cry me a river. Let’s take that claim apart, and let’s start with this:

JAY BOOKMAN

MY OPINION

A relative handful of columnists and commentators and a larger number of bloggers have indeed wondered in public about Palin’s decision to accept the nomination so soon after giving birth to a son with Down syndrome, a condition that requires a lot of attention, and when she has a 17-year-old unmarried pregnant daughter. How, they have asked, could Palin do right both by her family and her country?

To the McCain camp, such questions constitute a “vicious and scurrilous” media campaign to ruin a promising conservative candidate, using sexism to do it. Is that true?

Fortunately, we have a similar set of circumstances to compare against the Palin case.

In March of 2007, John Edwards decided to continue his presidential campaigning even after his wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The reaction will sound familiar.

Rush Limbaugh said the Edwardses were turning their eyes to the campaign when they instead should turn their eyes to God. Katie Couric, in a “60 Minutes” interview, accused Edwards of mining his wife’s condition for sympathy votes.

“Even those who may be very empathetic to what you all are facing might question your ability to run the country at the same time you’re dealing with a major health crisis in your family,” Couric told Edwards.

And in Time magazine, columnist Jay Carney wrote that “surely many average Americans have to be wondering at what point the candidate will decide that his duties as husband and father to three children, including a 6- and 8-year-old, trump his duty to his country and the cause of winning the White House.”

Edwards is a man; he is also a liberal. Yet, he faced the same questioning and second-guessing that Palin is now undergoing. Why? Because human beings are drawn to human stories, and the media have an economic incentive to tell those stories, regardless of political bent.

The McCain’s camp complaint about a media “feeding frenzy” focused on Palin is even more precious. John McCain chose to introduce a totally unknown player to the national scene at a critical point in the campaign, and he did so by portraying her as a gun-toting mother of five, riding out of the wilds of Alaska like a female John Wayne to clean up Washington.

And they claim to be shocked at the “feeding frenzy” they set off? In the first hours after the announcement, TV reporters had so little information about Palin that they were reduced to reading off Wikipedia for information. Of course, the media descended on Alaska to try to fill in the gaps as quickly as possible.

The story the McCain camp peddled was so appealing that Palin even drew coverage from Us magazine, People and National Enquirer, outlets that would never have wasted ink on a Kay Bailey Hutchison or Tim Pawlenty. Their interest was human, not political.

The real reason Schmidt is angry is because the reporting has shown that so much of the original McCain narrative was untrue.

Palin was cast as a reformer who fought the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” But in fact, she ran for governor in 2006 as a champion of the pork-barrel bridge and “opposed” it only after it was clear the project was dead. We were told that Palin abhors earmarks, the special congressional appropriations that Alaska politicians have used to bleed billions from the American taxpayer. But it turns out Palin fought to get earmarks both as mayor and as governor, hiring lobbyists and going to Washington herself to bring them home.

It’s not the media’s fault that the cinematic story envisioned by McCain and his staff has fallen apart on closer inspection. They just didn’t do their homework, and they got caught.

[bandbfan]

Lol, there's Huckabee at the pulpit....errrrr,...uhh...podium!

[Wales2004]

Yes.

I had no idea that John Edwards had taken so much criticixm about his wife's illness. He made it worse by having the affair but the fact that they basically said he had no right to run under those circumstances makes this circus all the more three ringed.

[Tishy]

The Paulin family has arrived at the RNC

[bandbfan]

Rudy Guiliani is making a great case if McCain were running as just president of the military.

Drill Baby Drill?!?!??!

[Wales2004]

I'm reading a live blog since I'd rather read about it than watch it.

[bandbfan]

Lol, I love the CNN Fact at the bottom

-Giuliani supports abortion rights, same-sex civil unions, and gun control.

Did he really just say that Obama and Biden PUT TOGETHER don't have as much experience as Palin?