Oh it’s a good time to be a political junkie

Posted on | October 3, 2008 | 3 Comments

Yes indeed my friends – I am a political junkie. Although I am a political atheist, I do enjoy the sport of weasel baiting, also known as North American politics. Those of you not in North America may be aware of the pending US election. What you may not know is that here, in little old Canada, we are also having an election. Our very own Prime Minister (PM) called a snap election a few weeks ago and we are heading to the polls in about a week or so. My oh my, that means a heaping helping of “folksy charm” aimed at us common folk from both sides of the border. Bad enough we get pummeled by lame commercials for one election, Canadians hear all the rhetoric from both sides of the border. The air gets a wee bit thick at times.

Last night we were offered a double dose of this with both a Canadian PM candidates debate and the US VP debate.

Hmm, the offerings from Weasels R Us have been rich.

PM Harper has been trying to convince the voters here in Canada that he is “one of us”, just a regular member of the ordinary folk who hates the arts. Mr Harper has come out with this insult by equating the Arts with “rich gala[s] all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough” and that “ordinary folk” don’t need the Arts. Now as one of the great unwashed “ordinary folk” I take exception to this arrogant dumbing down of the Canadian public. (And if one person dares to call us “Joe six pack” I’ll rip them a new one with my charcoal pencils.) I am not stupid, nor am I so arrogant as to believe the entire nation is made up of beer swilling, sports fans. Yes, I like soccer. Matter of fact I love the sport.

BUT… and listen very carefully Mr. Harper, I also love music, art, reading, watching movies … ya know.. all that artsy stuff. The Arts industry here in Canada contributes approx. $86 billion in spin off revenues. In a time of economic meltdown, can you afford to ignore a vital area of our economy. A society without the Arts of any type is a narrow minded, lightweight world. One I’d rather not live in.

I like to refer to Harper as George Bush Lite.

And speaking of narrow minds and lightweights…. we had 2 debates here – Canada’s candidates debate and … oh yes life was good last night – the US VP debate. The much anticipated debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin.

I’ve come up with a couple new names for her:
Answer the Damned Question Palin
Gee Shucks Palin;
I’m just too adorable for words, don’t ya think Palin
twinkle, twinkle aren’t I cute Palin
Clueless in Alaska Palin

Half way through the debate it finally struck me who she reminded me of – George W. Bush, the original candidate that couldn’t answer a question. There you have it folks, Sarah Palin is actually George W in drag. I watched the debate and read a lot of the blogs about her performance and am at a loss for words as to why so many think she was a winner. Joe Biden won. He answered questions, albeit a tad long winded at times, and more importantly, he refused to stoop to the fear mongering so prevalent in the US political landscape. I have longed to hear a US politician look the American people in the eye and say “We do not need to cower under our beds in fear. We need to stand in the light of day and face our fears head on as a nation”… you know a bit of the old “only thing we have to fear, is fear itself” courage. Instead the public have been force fed a steady diet of the boogie man is going to get you, we need to rip away your rights to protect you from evil blah blah blah. Biden came out and said:

Ladies and gentlemen, my dad used to have an expression. He’d say, “champ, when you get knocked down, get up.”

Well, it’s time for America to get up together.

Nothing more needs to be said!

Observations on Palin:

I don’t find her folksy, rather absurdly patronising to the US public who deserve better than another 4 years of lies and fear mongering.

Yes she beat expectations. But then when the expectations are so low, you have no where to go but up. She did not win because she didn’t humiliate herself. You cannot deem someone a winner simply because she was able to rise above expectations that were so low, we had to dig a 6 foot trench to find them.

Her use of Joe six pack and hockey mom – oh please find some other cliches. I started to count how many time she used the terms since she started running and lost track. Someone give this woman a thesaurus … and then teach her how to use it.

This is a woman that sees nothing wrong with censoring books. While mayor of a small town in Alaska, she approached the librarian about the possibilities of removing books from the library. The librarian refused and was basically hounded from her job. There is a long list of books making the rounds on the Internet that people are claiming she tried to get pulled. It’s a fake list folks, evidently she was interested in about 3 books, one of which was Go Ask Alice. To even ask for censorship appalls me, and the fact the librarian was hounded from her job, makes it even worse. No Palin didn’t get her way, but she bullied someone who stood up to her. Nice! (See the clips from ABC news investigation on this for more details).

Clearly she has a bad case of Bushitis. The moment she steps off her carefully scripted notes, she does a hatchet job on the English language. Each time she felt she was stumbling she’d fall back on “hockey Mom” theme and back in good ole Alaska all the while displaying a cringe-worthy grasp of the language. Doubt me? Well tell me what the hell this means:

I don’t want to argue about the causes, what I want to argue about is how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts.

George Bush eat your heart out! By the way Gov Palin, if you don’t address the causes of the economic meltdown then you won’t achieve a damned thing in fixing it. “Positively affect the impacts”? This translates into “I don’t have a clue about what is going on so I’ll just throw in a meaningless sentence to try and bluff my way through the question”.

Rarely answered a question during the debate.  Instead she would throw up such a huge pile of baffle-gab, I was surprised anyone could breath. She would shift the question back to, you guessed it, back in Alaska or hockey mom or Joe six pack. Gawd help me, I felt some sort of grammarian, thesaurus driven rage come over me every time she used this type of reference. Answer the question!

One more word permanently stricken from the language is “maverick”. Can the crap! Neither Palin nor McCain are mavericks. McCain has been in political circles long enough to be one of the boys now. And Palin? Don’t confuse Washington outsider for maverick. Her track record, back home in Alaska, of cronyism, power bullying, earmark hunting and deficit spending make her one of the pack that currently is driving the American government engine into it’s death throws. She has done nothing to earn the right to call  herself a maverick.

The Republicans and born again crowd DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO FAMILY AND FAITH. They have done a deep disservice to the Christian faith and to all families. It’s time the average Christian stood up to these bullying punks and told them No, they are not right and no I refuse to be steamrolled just because you threatened to have me labeled UnAmerican or UnChristian. Christianity comes in many flavours – deal with it.

The comment about McCain knows how to win a war because he was in Vietnam… er… I’m still pondering this gaffe. Which war did he win? With no exit strategy on the McCain/Palin ticket, I can only imagine how long the Iraq War will go on. Seems McCain has forgotten the lessons of a long drawn out guerrilla war.

Accused Biden of flip flopping while claiming she has maintained the course – especially in relation to the economy. Again this is a VP candidate, who, while mayor of a small town in Alaska took a town that had a 0 deficit and left it with an excess of $19 million in debts. And let’s not forget the fact the town still does not have a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage, but it has a spanking big sports arena, outside of town, inaccessible to the young people who should be using it… oh and it was built on land not owned by the town (yes, building was started on land NOT owned by the town of Wasilla). And let’s not get into her claim never to have supported the “bridge to nowhere”. I have seen the photo of her holding up a t shirt supporting the bridge. I’ve read her own words about the bridge. “And you build up infrastructure, and you rein in government spending”- this little tidbit comes from the Governor who has been called the “earmark queen”.

She sees nothing wrong with the “sport” of shooting wolves from planes. Now wait folks, there is a reason for this hunt. I mean, all those pesky wolves eat moose and other game up there in Alaska. The hunt is just a cull! After all, the moose etc should be there for the hunters to blast away at. Wolves evidently killed so many moose that there just wasn’t enough for the hunters. No I don’t believe that either. I don’t have a problem with anyone hunting to survive. But face it… this is not the issue. The issue is the purpose of the cull was to stop the wolves from existing. Don’t sugar coat it. And to sanction hunting from airplanes? Let’s see … let me flip through this thesaurus of mine… oh hell, I don’t need a thesaurus. The words are all tripping off my tongue. How about barbaric, cruel, lazy, sloppy hunting, inhumane, blood sport, primitive, brutish, crude, uncivilised?

“Drill, baby, drill” – how about exploring new sources of energy? How about looking at renewable resources? How about cutting back on current usage? Nah… let’s just pillage Alaska.

Gentlemen, do not post anymore comments about Palin being a “babe” or being “hot”. This has no rational basis for electing someone to your 2nd highest office. I cannot ever remember when these two attributes helped in negotiating world peace, an end to the economic meltdown or any forceable political event.

Troopergate? Need I say anything more than this individual is proud of her bullying tactics.

Sorry, but Sarah Palin is just a pathetic little pawn for the big boys in Washington to trot out. By putting her up on the stage they can point fingers and say “see how progressive we are, we even let women run for office”. If the Republicans were serious about having a woman in power, they should have cast their nets further for an intelligent, articulate and strong minded (not mule headed) woman with a strong track record and can think for herself. Someone who didn’t have to disappear from the public arena during the most important home economic crisis in decades so she could be tutored on how to speak in full, coherent sentences (although that didn’t work either). There are lots out there.

Someone in the back office tried to foist this shallow political pettifogger off on the American public and expected them to accept it. Guess what? The American public woke up and said “I don’t think so”.

Send this politician back to Alaska and find a real leader.

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Category: Catpaw's Mad, Obnoxious People, Rants, Utter Stupidity
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Comments

3 Responses to “Oh it’s a good time to be a political junkie”

  1. Cheysuli
    October 3rd, 2008 @ 4:46 pm

    But you have to love Joe Biden! I mean she made it so easy to love Joe. Still: Dick Cheney is the probably the worst thing that happened to the vice presidency?! YOU GO JOE!!!

    And then the whole thing about his family–WTG!

  2. dickiebo
    October 4th, 2008 @ 3:36 am

    Not just a bit biased are you? No? OK, mucho biased?
    Probably blinded by the snow!

  3. catpaw
    October 4th, 2008 @ 11:34 am

    What snow??? How about rain…
    Damned right I’m biased, I have a thing about braindead idiots who may come to power – remember this is a woman who never once answered a single question asked her.