A Sunday Morning Romp Around The News

Found some interesting articles for this morning's political wonks:

Now, the Florida salesman and staunch Republican has abandoned the GOP ticket. Sarah Palin, he thinks, looks under-equipped to be vice president. And McCain, he says, displayed an unsteady response to what may be a global economic depression.

Humm...That's interesting.

But the faithful still like Palin. The bigger question is who's really running for the office of Veep?

Todd Palin would become a familiar voice for the Palin administration. Independent legislative investigator Stephen Branchflower's report on Monegan's subsequent firing -- in part, the investigation found, because he wouldn't fire Wooten -- contains an exhaustive record of Todd Palin's frequent and intimate presence in the day-to-day workings of his wife's administration.

One has to question the judgment of a Presidential candidate who doesn't do the dilligence to screen his Veep candidate. Moreover, we know for certain that McSame would carry forward with the W, Rove and Co's Gitmo strategy, no?

The Uighurs filed habeas corpus petitions, and Judge Ricardo Urbina of Federal District Court in Washington ordered them released. Judge Urbina said it was time to “shine the light of constitutionality” on the Bush administration’s detention camps.

They need the light. The Bush administration told the countries it was trying to persuade to take the detainees that they posed no threat. It has stipulated in court documents that they are not a threat. But after Judge Urbina’s ruling, the government suddenly claimed the 17 men were a threat, and managed to obtain a stay of the judge’s order from the federal appeals court in Washington.

Sounds like solid GOP strategy, no?

Well, if nothing else, we know the GOP is very good at stirring up hate in spades:

By the time McCain asks the crowd “Who is the real Barack Obama?” it’s no surprise that someone cries out “Terrorist!” The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. It is stoked further by the repeated invocation of Obama’s middle name by surrogates introducing McCain and Palin at these rallies. This sleight of hand at once synchronizes with the poisonous Obama-is-a-Muslim e-mail blasts and shifts the brand of terrorism from Ayers’s Vietnam-era variety to the radical Islamic threats of today.

That’s a far cry from simply accusing Obama of being a guilty-by-association radical leftist. Obama is being branded as a potential killer and an accessory to past attempts at murder. “Barack Obama’s friend tried to kill my family” was how a McCain press release last week packaged the remembrance of a Weather Underground incident from 1970 — when Obama was 8.