As I type this, miserable with a weird cold, the House of Representatives has voted against the bailout plan proposed by the current Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, and the stock market has dropped 600 points or so.
Now, I'm in a weird position here. I'm not shocked by any of this. In fact, I predicted it (alas, without sufficient specificity to know precisely when it would happen), and I actually think worse news is on its way.
So sue me for being gloomy. Or blame it on the cold. But it just made sense to me -- we'd been so arrogant in our financial dealings and assumptions (we = Americans generically) that it seemed obvious to me that things had to collapse. In the past four years, I've said as much to two different financial advisors, both of whom looked at me funny and decided I was just "risk-averse."
Well, despite my prescience, I didn't really know what I was talking about, and so I've learned a bit in the past two weeks. Here's what I think I understand now: First, this is absolutely an instance of our having adopted a capitalist approach to gains and socialist approach to losses. And yes, the people who got so greedy should suffer the consequences. But I've seen the enemy, and they are us (or however Walt Kelly first put that). We're the ones who voted for deregulation, celebrated tax cuts, day-traded, bought homes with weird mortgages, invested in funds that promised big yields, and generally got greedy. Now, I know YOU aren't greedy/wealthy/knowledgeable about the stock market. You may not have a subprime mortgage, a house that's over-valued, or a job that's teetering on the brink. You may feel like you're the victim here -- that your economic security is going to go down the tubes because of someone else's greed and lack of oversight. And you'd be right. But you'd also be wrong to think that you had nothing to do with this crisis.
I do know some people with no connection to the current economic crisis; they are very poor. I agree, they had nothing to do with this. But the rest of us . . . well, that's a different story. We all benefited from the attitude, left over from the Reagan administration, that there was no reason why we couldn't have it all: artificially low gas prices, affordable housing, big SUVs, etc. We just are not very frugal in this country -- it's not in our culture. We live large, and we worry about tomorrow sometime next week. And we all did too little to say that the Reagan voodoo economics were dangerous. We got a huge reprieve with the Clinton administration and the dot com explosion; remember when there was no deficit? Wow, does that seem a long time ago.
And then came the current administration, which cut taxes and raised spending, particularly for a crazy war. (As an aside, did you know that there are people who actually believe that the wealthiest 1% has a legitimate complaint because when some past president raised taxes on the wealthy, that increase was promised to be temporary, so really their taxes should come down all the way to -- oh, the 1960s or something? Wow.) So now we have a massive deficit, and it's getting harder and harder to think that we'll ever be able to grow our way out of it, ever. What a legacy for our kids.
The thing about the bailout plan that bothers me is that it probably isn't enough at this time, so the next president (President Obama, if I have anything to say about it) will have to go through this process all over again. And that's why I think we need to back up and look at this whole thing a different way.
The current bailout is intended to help out the financial institutions who are holding all this bad paper that's basically every risky mortgage roled up into some weird sort of security. On the one hand, why should the taxpayers buy these securities when we didn't create the underlying problem? Let them eat the losses. Well, of course, it's not that simple -- if the financial institutions fail, and credit dries up, businesses will start to fail in huge numbers, people will lose their jobs, so they default on their non-risky mortgages, and the next thing we know, we've got a depression on our hands. It'll look different than the 1930s, but it will be just as bad.
But -- and here's where I get muddled up in my thinking -- why are we only getting one option? For example, why can't we pump money into the economy in key sectors (infrastructure, education, child care, health care) that can't be outsourced, need to be done, and help all of us in more tangible ways? Why can't some of the $1 trillion (counting the $700 billion plus the funds already spent on economic recovery/bailouts) be spent, as the language has it, on Main Street (or Elm Street or Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard)?
My congressman, Chris Carney, just voted against the bailout. Hmmm. He's a smart guy -- does he believe that to vote for it would be political suicide (he's running against a crazy-conservative rich guy), or does he believe a better plan can be passed, or does he favor letting the markets work it out. I'll be looking forward to his explanation -- I hope it's more than just "I heard from you, the constituents, that you didn't approve," because I'll tell ya, I don't think that we (the constituents) know precisely what's really going on.
I don't know what will happen if no bailout plan is passed, and I don't think it's even sensible to ask, because something will be done, even if it's too little and too late. But I guarantee -- come January. President Obama's going to have a lot more opportunity to be great than even we'd imagined. And we're all going to have a chance to get smarter about money. It's about time.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
46 Days and Counting
I got two viral emails this week that I love. I forwarded the first (it had lots of photos of an anti-Palin rally in Anchorage where the participants went to the trouble of making signs like "Hockey Mama for Obama" and "Voted for Her Once -- Never Again"), so if your mailbox got clogged uploading 4 MB of photos, I apologize.
But this one, I thought I'd put here:
But this one, I thought I'd put here:
I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight . . .
If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.'
Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.
If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
Name your kids Willow, Trig, and Track, you're a maverick.
Graduate from Harvard Law School and you are unstable.
Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.
If you spent 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black resident of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
If your total resume is: local sportscaster girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society. If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.
If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don't represent America's.
If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
I did some checking on the Internet, and I think the original author might be someone named Alan Goodman, posting in the Comments section of a post on Don Surber's blog where he asked people to list their five reasons why McCain has pulled ahead. Of course, according to the most recent Gallup polls, the race is pretty close and Obama has regained his pre-conventions narrow lead. If the news on Wall Street continues to be bad, I figure the polls will continue to edge toward Barack.
Also according to those recent polls, all Palin has done is energize the Republican base. That's fine. I'm glad the election is close. I'm glad the Democrats aren't getting complacent, figuring we can't lose. I'm glad independents and seldom-voters are getting involved. We need record numbers. Of course, I say that because I think more people voting = an Obama victory.
I've made my peace with the fact that there are people out there who won't vote for him, no way no how. They may say it's because of Hillary; they may say they genuinely believe he's been indoctrinated into the Muslim faith since childhood (and not ever ask themselves why that should even matter -- not all Muslims are actively trying to destroy America, you know); they may openly admit that it's because he's black. But I don't care about those people, and if McCain wins because there are more of "those sorts" in this country than I'd realized, well, then maybe we're just going to get the president we deserve, in a bad way.
But I don't think so. I think there are a lot of smart people out there who have moved away from politics and elections. Well, go register to vote, why don't you? Cast your ballot, get involved, make a difference. That's what will get Barack Obama elected -- people smart enough to have gotten disillusioned checking back in. Because if one thing's true, it's this: John McCain and Sarah Palin represent the very sorts of politicians who turned people off in the first place.
My favorite sign at the anti-Palin rally in Anchorage? That's a picture I'll share:
It's the sign on the left, mocked up to look like the McCain/Palin signs we see now. Only, doesn't that just sum them up? He's reckless and she's inexperienced. So people who just have to vote against Barack Obama can do so, but I hope they have half a clue what they're voting for.
If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.'
Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.
If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
Name your kids Willow, Trig, and Track, you're a maverick.
Graduate from Harvard Law School and you are unstable.
Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.
If you spent 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black resident of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
If your total resume is: local sportscaster girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society. If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.
If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don't represent America's.
If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
I did some checking on the Internet, and I think the original author might be someone named Alan Goodman, posting in the Comments section of a post on Don Surber's blog where he asked people to list their five reasons why McCain has pulled ahead. Of course, according to the most recent Gallup polls, the race is pretty close and Obama has regained his pre-conventions narrow lead. If the news on Wall Street continues to be bad, I figure the polls will continue to edge toward Barack.
Also according to those recent polls, all Palin has done is energize the Republican base. That's fine. I'm glad the election is close. I'm glad the Democrats aren't getting complacent, figuring we can't lose. I'm glad independents and seldom-voters are getting involved. We need record numbers. Of course, I say that because I think more people voting = an Obama victory.
I've made my peace with the fact that there are people out there who won't vote for him, no way no how. They may say it's because of Hillary; they may say they genuinely believe he's been indoctrinated into the Muslim faith since childhood (and not ever ask themselves why that should even matter -- not all Muslims are actively trying to destroy America, you know); they may openly admit that it's because he's black. But I don't care about those people, and if McCain wins because there are more of "those sorts" in this country than I'd realized, well, then maybe we're just going to get the president we deserve, in a bad way.
But I don't think so. I think there are a lot of smart people out there who have moved away from politics and elections. Well, go register to vote, why don't you? Cast your ballot, get involved, make a difference. That's what will get Barack Obama elected -- people smart enough to have gotten disillusioned checking back in. Because if one thing's true, it's this: John McCain and Sarah Palin represent the very sorts of politicians who turned people off in the first place.
My favorite sign at the anti-Palin rally in Anchorage? That's a picture I'll share:
It's the sign on the left, mocked up to look like the McCain/Palin signs we see now. Only, doesn't that just sum them up? He's reckless and she's inexperienced. So people who just have to vote against Barack Obama can do so, but I hope they have half a clue what they're voting for.Monday, September 15, 2008
Those Chickens are Looking Better and Better
I was on the phone with a political contact and friend up here, and she said that if McCain/Palin win in November, she's out of politics for good. (I know the feeling -- I'm old enough that I can remember feeling that way when Nixon won in 1972!) And on a day when the Dow Jones lost 500 points, I can also understand why my friend thinks Armageddon is in store if the Republicans win the presidency for another term. Even I'm not that pessimistic, although I do look at our 24 acres and think, "Well, with some solar panels, a wind turbine, a vegetable garden and some chickens, we could probably eke out a living on this property..."
All of this led into a conversation I just had with my husband. He's thinking about seeing if he can get some work in his field (computer programming) to help offset some larger-than-expected outlays this year. This led to a conversation about the economy, a favorite topic of mine. I don't entirely subscribe to the notion of Armageddon, but I do think the economy is in the toilet for at least five years if McCain wins in November. Husband asked me why I think that.
"Because [McCain is] an idiot about economics," I said. Three times.
"Why do you [Americans] give so much power to one individual?" my English husband asked.
I spontaneously came up with the following theory, which you can all help me refine. It is in the American psyche to believe in the power of the individual. We don't do monarchies, we don't do collectives (except as exercises in counter-culture), and we don't really trust others too much. But we believe in superheroes, which is the individual come to save us! So we like to empower the president with the ability to get stuff done. It also helps that Congress is effectively a committee of committees, and committees are many people trying to do the work of one -- a pattern card of inefficiency.
[In defense of Congress, I would like to say at this point that we desperately need it to keep doing the watch-dog work it excels at. Congress doesn't make the president work better, it makes the president work more honestly.]
But when we elect presidents, we tend to like them stupid, folksy, or messianic -- or some combination of all three. Franklin Roosevelt was messianic, which turned out to be a good thing. Carter was folksy and not messianic; not such a success as a president. Reagan was, arguably, stupid and folksy -- he didn't accomplish a lot of the stuff he promised as a candidate; he might have been messianic, though. It's kind of an actor's trait, isn't it? Clinton: folksy & messianic. Bush: stupid & folksy.
Obama: messianic, in a good way. Not stupid or folksy, though.
McCain: None of the three. Which could explain why his campaign was so lacking in fire before the pick of Palin as his running mate. She's certainly folksy, and her lack of experience looks a bit dumb, and I think she's got messianic written all over her resume. The trifecta!
So what's the problem? Well, we have real problems in our economy. Funny thing I heard on the radio the other day -- some guy (and I feel bad that I don't recall enough about which program he was on to be able to scour the Internet for a link to his book) has a theory that Republicans rack up huge deficits in their presidencies solely so that the succeeding Democratic president has to deal with the carnage on his/her watch. It happened to Carter, it happened to Clinton, and it will happen to whomever follows George W. Bush. This makes sense -- Reagan talked a good game, but he left his successor (George H.W. Bush) with an economic mess, which as a basically honorable guy, he tried to deal with. (Remember "Read my lips"?) That was political suicide.
So if McCain wins, we're in the toilet, economically, for four more years, `cause I really don't see him raising taxes. And I don't think we can expect another technological boom to save us, the way in did in the 90s.
*sigh*
Those chickens are starting to look pretty good, right about now.
All of this led into a conversation I just had with my husband. He's thinking about seeing if he can get some work in his field (computer programming) to help offset some larger-than-expected outlays this year. This led to a conversation about the economy, a favorite topic of mine. I don't entirely subscribe to the notion of Armageddon, but I do think the economy is in the toilet for at least five years if McCain wins in November. Husband asked me why I think that.
"Because [McCain is] an idiot about economics," I said. Three times.
"Why do you [Americans] give so much power to one individual?" my English husband asked.
I spontaneously came up with the following theory, which you can all help me refine. It is in the American psyche to believe in the power of the individual. We don't do monarchies, we don't do collectives (except as exercises in counter-culture), and we don't really trust others too much. But we believe in superheroes, which is the individual come to save us! So we like to empower the president with the ability to get stuff done. It also helps that Congress is effectively a committee of committees, and committees are many people trying to do the work of one -- a pattern card of inefficiency.
[In defense of Congress, I would like to say at this point that we desperately need it to keep doing the watch-dog work it excels at. Congress doesn't make the president work better, it makes the president work more honestly.]
But when we elect presidents, we tend to like them stupid, folksy, or messianic -- or some combination of all three. Franklin Roosevelt was messianic, which turned out to be a good thing. Carter was folksy and not messianic; not such a success as a president. Reagan was, arguably, stupid and folksy -- he didn't accomplish a lot of the stuff he promised as a candidate; he might have been messianic, though. It's kind of an actor's trait, isn't it? Clinton: folksy & messianic. Bush: stupid & folksy.
Obama: messianic, in a good way. Not stupid or folksy, though.
McCain: None of the three. Which could explain why his campaign was so lacking in fire before the pick of Palin as his running mate. She's certainly folksy, and her lack of experience looks a bit dumb, and I think she's got messianic written all over her resume. The trifecta!
So what's the problem? Well, we have real problems in our economy. Funny thing I heard on the radio the other day -- some guy (and I feel bad that I don't recall enough about which program he was on to be able to scour the Internet for a link to his book) has a theory that Republicans rack up huge deficits in their presidencies solely so that the succeeding Democratic president has to deal with the carnage on his/her watch. It happened to Carter, it happened to Clinton, and it will happen to whomever follows George W. Bush. This makes sense -- Reagan talked a good game, but he left his successor (George H.W. Bush) with an economic mess, which as a basically honorable guy, he tried to deal with. (Remember "Read my lips"?) That was political suicide.
So if McCain wins, we're in the toilet, economically, for four more years, `cause I really don't see him raising taxes. And I don't think we can expect another technological boom to save us, the way in did in the 90s.
*sigh*
Those chickens are starting to look pretty good, right about now.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
How to Save a Polar Bear!
I have said in the past that I didn't see how a Democratic woman could be elected president. Misogyny runs too deep in some people, and I figured the only way some segments of the population could vote for a woman was if she was a dyed-in-the-wool conservative Republican. President Kay Bailey Hutchison, anyone?
I know this seems a cynical viewpoint in a year when 18 million people voted for Hillary Clinton, but you'll notice she's not the Democratic nominee. And Sarah Palin, I would argue, not only makes my point but actually proves I wasn't cynical enough. Because as unpleasant as a Kay Bailey Hutchison presidency would be, at least she's arguably competent. And she's mature. And probably thinks before she speaks. (Even better case in point: Senator Olympia Snowe.)
By contrast, Sarah Palin is a MILF. Well, sorry folks, but after eight years of having as our president a guy a lot of people figure would be fun to drink a beer with, we now have the chance to elect to the second highest office in the land a woman some people would like to look like, and some others would like to "do."
Does commenting on Governor Palin's appearance really make me a misogynist? Why? It's clearly part of her appeal, and I for one am having trouble seeing the rest of the package. She is smart, to be sure (although I think I could take her in a debate, and I am certain Joe Biden can!), but she's aggressive, politically expedient, inexperienced and there's some evidence that what experience she does have reflects unfavorably on her qualifications. (Putting an airplane up on eBay doesn't set her that far apart from millions of other people who sell on eBay. In fact, I wonder that it was a smart thing to do, if the idea was to save Alaska money -- eBay isn't exactly the first website I'd try if I was looking to buy a used jet. That makes it a publicity ploy more than a real money-maker. Do we know what they got for the plane, by the way? And was it more than the cost of Ms. Palin's family travelling back to Wasilla, where they get a per diem for living in their own home?)
Wasilla -- I've been there, as it happens -- is a small town north of Anchorage. I can well believe the claim that it was debt-free before Ms. Palin became its mayor, and was saddled with $22 million in debt when she left. That's a rookie mistake -- the sort made by politicians who feel they have to do something to prove their worth and don't think out carefully enough what they want to do, how to do it, what the costs & benefits are, etc.
So, no, I'm not impressed with Sarah Palin. But here's a woman I can completely support: Eve Ensler! She wrote the The Vagina Monologues. And she wrote this for the Huffington Post:
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."
(Click on the link above for the whole piece -- I heard it on the radio last night, and it's great!)
Eve, it seems, has a thing for polar bears. And really, who doesn't? They're beautiful, and they're endangered. And we want to fight for them, even when we really don't know what we're supposed to do to help. (Is turning off this light bulb really going to save a polar bear?)
But now, finally, we have a way to fight back against Sarah Palin! Let's claim that electing her will literally kill this:
(Credit: Alaska Image Library/United States Fish and Wildlife Service, via Bloomberg News and the New York Times. Read accompanying story here.)
What a gorgeous animal, wouldn't you agree? Wouldn't it be a shame if thousands of these lovely animals died because YOU voted for McCain/Palin? There's a very simple solution. Don't vote for the pretty girl just because she's a novelty, or fun to listen to, or you admire her moxie. She wants -- literally, from a helicopter -- to kill the polar bears.
What's that? Uh, sure polar bears are not particularly crucial to this campaign. But that train left the station a few weeks ago. We're supposed to be focused on the economy, and foreign relations, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you really think after a week of arguing over lipstick on a pig that it matters if I use a polar bear to counteract Sarah Palin's dubious charm as a VP candidate? Puh-leeze. To paraphrase, Nobody ever got elected overestimating the intelligence of the American public.
But its compassion for polar bears is legendary!
I know this seems a cynical viewpoint in a year when 18 million people voted for Hillary Clinton, but you'll notice she's not the Democratic nominee. And Sarah Palin, I would argue, not only makes my point but actually proves I wasn't cynical enough. Because as unpleasant as a Kay Bailey Hutchison presidency would be, at least she's arguably competent. And she's mature. And probably thinks before she speaks. (Even better case in point: Senator Olympia Snowe.)
By contrast, Sarah Palin is a MILF. Well, sorry folks, but after eight years of having as our president a guy a lot of people figure would be fun to drink a beer with, we now have the chance to elect to the second highest office in the land a woman some people would like to look like, and some others would like to "do."
Does commenting on Governor Palin's appearance really make me a misogynist? Why? It's clearly part of her appeal, and I for one am having trouble seeing the rest of the package. She is smart, to be sure (although I think I could take her in a debate, and I am certain Joe Biden can!), but she's aggressive, politically expedient, inexperienced and there's some evidence that what experience she does have reflects unfavorably on her qualifications. (Putting an airplane up on eBay doesn't set her that far apart from millions of other people who sell on eBay. In fact, I wonder that it was a smart thing to do, if the idea was to save Alaska money -- eBay isn't exactly the first website I'd try if I was looking to buy a used jet. That makes it a publicity ploy more than a real money-maker. Do we know what they got for the plane, by the way? And was it more than the cost of Ms. Palin's family travelling back to Wasilla, where they get a per diem for living in their own home?)
Wasilla -- I've been there, as it happens -- is a small town north of Anchorage. I can well believe the claim that it was debt-free before Ms. Palin became its mayor, and was saddled with $22 million in debt when she left. That's a rookie mistake -- the sort made by politicians who feel they have to do something to prove their worth and don't think out carefully enough what they want to do, how to do it, what the costs & benefits are, etc.
So, no, I'm not impressed with Sarah Palin. But here's a woman I can completely support: Eve Ensler! She wrote the The Vagina Monologues. And she wrote this for the Huffington Post:
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."
(Click on the link above for the whole piece -- I heard it on the radio last night, and it's great!)
Eve, it seems, has a thing for polar bears. And really, who doesn't? They're beautiful, and they're endangered. And we want to fight for them, even when we really don't know what we're supposed to do to help. (Is turning off this light bulb really going to save a polar bear?)
But now, finally, we have a way to fight back against Sarah Palin! Let's claim that electing her will literally kill this:
(Credit: Alaska Image Library/United States Fish and Wildlife Service, via Bloomberg News and the New York Times. Read accompanying story here.)What a gorgeous animal, wouldn't you agree? Wouldn't it be a shame if thousands of these lovely animals died because YOU voted for McCain/Palin? There's a very simple solution. Don't vote for the pretty girl just because she's a novelty, or fun to listen to, or you admire her moxie. She wants -- literally, from a helicopter -- to kill the polar bears.
What's that? Uh, sure polar bears are not particularly crucial to this campaign. But that train left the station a few weeks ago. We're supposed to be focused on the economy, and foreign relations, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you really think after a week of arguing over lipstick on a pig that it matters if I use a polar bear to counteract Sarah Palin's dubious charm as a VP candidate? Puh-leeze. To paraphrase, Nobody ever got elected overestimating the intelligence of the American public.
But its compassion for polar bears is legendary!
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