Uh Oh.

The subject of ACORN and some voter fraud came up in comments recently so I thought I would share this photo that I just got from Robo Cam Guy.

Yep, that's right. It's John McCain attending an ACORN rally.

So, should his link to ACORN be as scrutinized as Barack Obama's?

One More Time....

Not much popping out of my head today so I'll let Andy at Electoral-Vote.com take it away again...

Palin Whips the Base into a Frenzy

The decision to pick an unknown evangelical governor as John McCain's running mate has succeeded beyond Steve Schmidt's wildest dreams. Way beyond. Sarah Palin has perfect aim when throwing red meat to partisan crowds and whipping them into a frenzy to the point when people at rallies yell: "terrorist" and "kill him" about Obama. Then Palin can conveniently say she did not say that but the point is made anyway. Of course when this happens she could say: "Somebody grab that guy and drag him out of here. I don't want people like that at my rallies" but she never does. She winks and basks. The trouble for Palin and now McCain is that this frenzy has been widely reported and condemned and it is turning off crucial independent voters in droves. The featured commentary at intrade.com is about Palin, saying: "Rove's creation has turned into a mob baying for blood." Even leading conservative columnists don't like this. Kathleen Parker has called for her to drop off the ticket. The bettors agree that Rove III is not working. Ten shares of McCain stock cost $23 this morning. This means that if you are absolutely convinced McCain will win, you can invest, say, $23,000 now and collect $100,000 in 3 weeks if McCain wins.

The consequence of this whole campaign could be far reaching. If Obama wins and the exit polls show independents voted overwhelmingly for him, the pundits are going to lay the blame at Palin's high heels and advise the GOP to forget the evangelicals and run candidates with financial expertise (like Mitt Romney) in the future. Needless to say, the evangelicals, who finally got one of their own on the ticket.

The Republican Party is going to have to do some serious self actualization if they lose as much as people think they will. This is going to be a near impossible task because how little reflection they are capable of. To admit that they could be wrong about something is tantamount to the end of the universe as we know it.

Do they really want people yelling 'terrorist' and 'kill him?' at rallies? I would hope not. I hope that some of you now realize what I have fucking been saying for the last eight years...it isn't the fringe element....IT'S THE MAJORITY OF THE BASE!!!

Polifact Debunks Obama-Ayers Connection

From electoral-vote.com...

The McCain campaign and the RNC are still using ads that link Obama and 1960s radical William Ayers. Now Polifact has examined the ads closely and concluded that the claim that Obama and Ayers ran a radical education foundation together is a "pants-on-fire" lie. While it is true that Obama was the nominal head of the foundation in question, Ayers never had a paid position on the foundation's staff, never was on the board, and never had a vote on anything. His connection to Obama was attending some board meetings that were open to the public, and this 20 years after his radical days, by which time he had reformed enough to get a Ph.D. in education from Columbia University and was able to win Chicago's "Citizen of the Year" award in 1997 for his work for nonprofit organizations. In short, while Ayers was a despicable person in his youth, the McCain campaign's relentless harping on the close relationship between Obama and Ayers is very misleading. They weren't close at all.

Couldn't have said it better myself...

Holy SheeeIt!

Christopher Buckley, son of the late ultra conservative William F Buckley, has endorsed Barack Obama for president.

I am beginning to feel comfortable.

Ash in the Lead

Apparently, the pilfering of lawn signs isn't high on the minds of the folks in my home district. (MN-03). A new Survey USA poll (Oct 5-6) shows Aswhin Madia (D) ahead of Erik Paulsen 46-43 points. To be certain, this is still within the margin of error. Figure in the fact that it is an a R+1 district and that Ash is a newcomer to politics compared to Paulsen, 13 years in Minnesota State Legislature and House Majority Leader from 2003-2007, and it is incredible.

The real thing to watch now is how the 11 percent undecided break. If you know anyone like this, start talking to them about how Ash is a fiscal conservative and would be a much more responsible steward of spending than Pauslen. Start by clicking here for where he stands on this issue. He's not full of crap when he says this stuff.

He is a marine, after all :)

Debate II Post Mortem

I watched the debate last night with my friend Marc at Lone Spur. My first impression was that it was terribly boring. Both candidates repeated the same points they have made on the trail. The chief cause of this was this format. Questions were know by both men ahead of time, they were not allowed to talk to each other, and the audience was not allowed to follow up. Lame...

John McCain did not go "there." His campaign probably felt that the Ayers-Rezko-Wright thing would best be showcased in negative ads that will be coming soon to a theater near you. He was pretty weird though. When moderator Tom Brokaw asked him who would be the next Treasury Secretary in a McCain administration, he replied, "Not you, Tom." Huh? Was that supposed to be a joke. And the "that one" comment was just plain silly. McCain looked like a grandpa scolding his grand child.

Barack Obama had a couple of good moments (bomb bomb Iran and North Korea jibes) but essentially repeated his stump points and did not get into specifics. I guess that is alright, given time constraints, but he really has some great specifics on his web site. Couldn't he have showcased one or two?

I am left thinking that the last debate, regarding domestic policy, will be nauseatingly repetitive. That's all we have been talking about. Given the fact that they are going to talk about the economy again, I'd really like to hear some new material.

Tonight's Debate

So, what is going to happen tonight? Will John McCain "go there?" I suspect he will and I predict it's not going to work as well as he thought. First of all, Americans have more on their mind than Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, and Tony Rezko. Second, McCain has his own skeletons in his closet. For the record, though, I think he is telling the truth about the whole Keating Five deal. It was bad judgment but I don't think he broke the law.

What I am really looking for tonight is a substantive discussion between the two of them on where they want to take this country and how they are going to solve our mammoth problems. I probably shouldn't hold my breath, huh?

Their Tool Kit

I tune in to Bill Maher every Friday night and, for the most part, look forward to laughing most of the time. After the first interview, I didn't really feel much like laughing and found myself to be thoroughly discouraged and quite depressed for the rest of the show. There were some funny things said but I didn't fell like laughing.

In this first segment, Bill interviewed Bob Woodward, famous Washington Post reporter and author of the new book The War Within. The book is the fourth in a series of books on the Bush Presidency, specifically the United States' involvement in Iraq. Woodward was allowed unprecedented access to President Bush to the point of where he has actually been given a National Security clearance and not allowed to discuss certain aspects of the meetings he attended.

One meeting he could discuss was a 2007 meeting between Admiral Fallon, Commander of US Central Command at the time, and President Bush. Woodward relates an extremely disturbing conversation between the Admiral and the president.

Admiral Fallon: Mr. President, what is our strategy going to be with Iran?
President Bush: They're assholes.

If any conversation can sum up the last eight years of US foreign policy, it's this one. I've always known that our foreign policy has been, at best, the product of a fifth grade intellect. But the above exchange really drove it home. I know there will be some of you who will be deluded enough to rip me for being "elitist" but I demand more from my president when dealing with a country like Iran. I want a president who is going to use his intellect and figure out, to the best of his ability, how to neutralize a country like Iran from every possible angle. Take a look at both the candidates we have right now and tell me who best fits that description.

As if this conversation weren't enough to depress the hell out of me, Bill and Bob discussed a statement made by Ayman Al Zawahari, co-leader of Al Qaeda, in 2000. He said that Al Qaeda's only hope of defeating the United States was to get it to beat itself economically. I look at where we are at right now and I have to say, we've done a pretty good job of realizing his dream.

Combine the bail out with the cost of the Iraq War and you're looking at 2 trillion dollars. That's how much we...as in you and I...OWE other people. When you owe other people that much, you don't have a dick anymore. And essentially, that's the problem with America today. We have no authority in the world at all. Sure we might have the best military but even the cracks are starting to show in that. The two people directly responsible for the attacks on 9-11 are living in a luxury villa in Pakistan? And John McCain doesn't want to bomb Pakistan because they are our ally? It's true...we have no dick.

Other countries are moving past us and engaging in diplomacy without us. We saw this last summer with Syria and Israel. We see it every day with Iran because George Bush and John McCain don't understand the difference between appeasement and talking. We are probably going to see more of it if McCain becomes president. If, for some reason, Sarah Palin becomes president, it will be official: The United States will be the joke of the planet.

Some say we already are. And I really haven't felt like laughing about it lately. I have been racking my brain to figure out how we got here. In fact, the search for the answer to this question is why I started this blog. I have come up with something that I think defines the problem. And by "the problem" I mean conservative ideology. Liberals have no problem taking the blame for problems. There is no doubt in my mind that liberals/Democrats have a good deal of responsibility in the mess we are in right now. Conservatives would, of course, agree.

But when it comes to reflection of their own flaws, conservatives balk, thump their chests, and call their examiners liars and traitors. They are incapable of self actualization. Or, in this case, group actualization. In looking at the fact that conservative ideology has been driving the agenda in this country for the last 28 years, one can honestly say that the results don't match the promises. Why?

When they only tool in your tool kit is a hammer, everything is a nail.

Post Mortem On VP Debate

As I predicted, both candidates did fine. They also did pretty much what I said they should do and looked strong overall.

Palin had a couple of comments that I completely agreed with. Much to the hyper consternation of the free market fundamentalists, she blamed predatory lenders and greed for our current situation and not the government. Good answer because it is the truth. She also seemed pretty honest on her position on gay marriage and showed tolerance as well as a desire to make sure that all Americans have equal rights.

She did seem weak on foreign affairs, though, and I don't think we need another person in such a high position of power that has such a low level of knowledge in the rest of the world. She did seem much stronger in this area than she has in the past few weeks but that's mostly because she repeated the party line.

Biden looked like he had just done a bong hit before the debate...which was a good thing because he was tres chill. His strong moments were in the foreign policy segment, when he talked about raising his family, and his closing statement. He was rough in the beginning, looking at Gwen Ifill while Governor Palin looked in the camera. When he started looking in the camera, he seemed stronger.

Now that the side show is over, we can get back to who this election is really about: Barack Obama and John McCain. Town hall format on Tuesday night. It should be fun!

The Big V

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a dumpster, but since she didn't, I should "off" myself.

Sound familiar? It should because it sounds exactly like something I would write here on Notes From The Front demonstrating clearly and accurately the type of attitude I get every day from conservatives. It might surprise you to know that the person who wrote the above statement is none other than Kathleen Parker, CONSERVATIVE columnist for the National Review and Washington Post.

Ms. Parker recently wrote a piece in the National Review which called for Sarah Palin to quit the VP slot on the ticket due to her complete lack of experience and knowledge regarding...just about everything. "She's out of her league," wrote Parker last week week, "she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion." I urge you all to read it as she points out several quotes which demonstrate that Palin has no clue what she is talking about.

After the article went up, Ms. Parker received about 8000 emails. According to Parker, they had the general tone of the first paragraph of this post. She goes on...

Some of my usual readers feel betrayed because I previously have written favorably of Palin. By changing my mind and saying so, I am viewed as a traitor to the Republican Party -- not a "true" conservative.

The fierce reaction to my column has been both bracing and enlightening. After 20 years of column writing, I'm familiar with angry mail. But the past few days have produced responses of a different order. Not just angry, but vicious and threatening.

And she's surprised about this? It's what I have been saying all along about the right. It's not just the crazies, folks. That IS their base. Total vindication. The Big V, baby!

But what is a true conservative? One who doesn't think or question and who marches in lock step with The Party?

Anyvone who disobeys our vill will be liquidated. Seig Heil!

Some of Palin's interview responses can't even be critiqued on their merits because they're so nonsensical. But even that is someone else's fault, say Palin supporters. The media make her uncomfortable.

Someone on the right FINALLY recognizing the "non victim" victim culture just like me.

The picture is this: Anyone who dares express an opinion that runs counter to the party line will be silenced. That doesn't sound American to me, but Stalin would approve.Readers have every right to reject my opinion. But when we decide that a person is a traitor and should die for having an opinion different from one's own, we cross into territory that puts all freedoms at risk. (I hear you, Dixie Chicks)

OK, now I just love Kathleen Parker and want to read every one of her columns now forever and ever. Yes, she is a conservative. Yes, I disagree with her on many issues. But at least she is finally seeing the same insanity that I have been seeing for eight years: the Republican Party has been hijacked by lunatics.

I'm sure it is coincidence that, upon the Palin column's publication, a conservative organization canceled a speech I was scheduled to deliver in a few days. If I were as paranoid as the conspiracy theorists are, I might wonder whether I was being punished for speaking incorrectly.

Unfortunately, that's the way one begins to think when party loyalty is given a higher value than loyalty to bedrock principles.

And what do we call that, Ms. Parker?



















Now, I hope all of you can see how ridiculous Jonah Goldberg (and Kool Aid drinkers) look right now.

As far as tonight's debate goes, look no further than the post below for my thoughts.

Tonight

The VP debate is tonight and, by all indications, it's going to be a dandy. The build up has been extraordinary with an enormous amount of pressure on Sarah Palin to....say something intelligible. There is also a lot of pressure on Biden to not look like he is beating up on a girl. Here's what should happen and what I think is going to happen with each candidate.

Every single time Biden opens his mouth to criticize Sarah Palin it should be prefaced with John McCain's name. So, if Palin says, "We need to stay in Iraq and get the job done," Biden says, "John McCain and Sarah Palin have the wrong policy in Iraq. We need to...blah blah blah." He will look like he is beating up on her or look like he is making her look stupid if he says anything intelligent...and we all know what happens when conservatives see someone smart saying smart things...they tap into their inner rage, make up something moronic, and get ten more eligible idiots to believe it. Election lost. So Biden should have one word on his mind at all times: McCain.

Sarah Palin needs to do what she did in the Alaskan gubernatorial debate: be herself. Speak from her heart and let the base know what her values are. If asked a question that she doesn't know the answer to, which may be many knowing Gwen Ifill, the highly respected journalists and moderator for tonight's debate, simply respond with a canned conservative answer. Continuing to drone on about various things that have been crammed into her head by the McCain team is not going to work. Biden will just get to sit back and win. She did a fine job in that debate in Alaska.

That being said, I think she will do just fine tonight now that expectations have been lowered so much. I think Biden will say one or two really stupid things but at the end of the night, it will be a draw and the polls won't move too much. People are thinking about the economy right now and this is just a side show.

The Usual Crap

I've gotten a flurry of emails and have engaged in pretty much the same debate, with conservatives, over the last week or so regarding the current financial crisis. There have also been a few posts in comments that were of the same general theme so I thought I would bring this out front to really chew on it.

The basic conservative line is that our current financial crisis was caused by the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and by government quotas, place on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to give loans to low income customers. Essentially, it's the fault of government, affirmative action, and poor people. All the people on Wall Street and the corporations in America were innocent and victims of "gubmint."

This is a complete load of shit.

The CRA was signed into law in 1977. How would a law 30 years old cause lending problems now? Yes, Clinton changed the law but that activity that resulted from those changes came to an end in 2001. The real thing they fail to see is that the CRA only applies to banks and thrifts. It's stated in the law.

The Community Reinvestment Act (or CRA, Pub.L. 95-128, title VIII, 91 Stat. 1147, 12 U.S.C. § 2901 et seq.) is a United States federal law that requires banks and thrifts to offer credit throughout their entire market area and prohibits them from targeting only wealthier neighborhoods with their services, a practice known as redlining. The purpose of the CRA is to provide credit, including home ownership opportunities to under served populations and commercial loans to small businesses.

The vast majority of the sub prime loans in the last 8 years did not originate from banks or thrifts. Half of them came from places beyond the reach of CRA. Another quarter came from subsidiaries. The final quarter of sub prime loans came from CRA and that kind of debt just doesn't seem to be enough to drive our economy off the cliff.

In regards to Fannie and Freddie, Freddie Mac Chairman and CEO Richard Syron recently said that the GSEs have been hit by a "100-year storm" in the housing market, accentuated by some higher-risk mortgages that they were forced to buy to meet government affordable-housing targets.

From Barrons.com

The latter contention is more than disingenuous. A substantial portion of Fannie's and Freddie's credit losses comes from $337 billion and $237 billion, respectively, of Alt-A mortgages that the agencies imprudently bought or guaranteed in recent years to boost their market share. These are mortgages for which little or no attempt was made to verify the borrowers' income or net worth. The principal balances were much higher than those of mortgages typically made to low-income borrowers. In short, Alt-A mortgages were a hallmark of real-estate speculation in the ex-urbs of Las Vegas or Los Angeles, not predatory lending to low-income folks in the inner cities.

Couple this with the fact that Rick Davies, McCain's campaign manager, was paid 30K a month by Fannie and Freddie , for five years, to remove government restrictions. Now either he did a terrible job (possible) or they are lying because they don't want everyone to know how much they fucked up (probable).

Bottom line? The government fell asleep on this one, winked and did nothing, or was completely incompetent at enforcing even the most basic of oversight. It was probably all three.

The information that I have listed above is completely ignored by the right and, hilariously, once again we see the "anti victim" culture behaving like victims. It's always someone else's fault...never the fault of any of their beliefs or actions because, of course, they are perfect and you are not allowed to question them nor is there any need for reflection.

Does anyone out there think it is possible to look at the actual causes of this crisis?

777

We have definitely entered the Twilight Zone. I spent a lot of time watching the news last night and one thing really stood out at me. After the Dow dropped 777 points yesterday, our leadership in Washington (both parties) looked like a bunch of incompetents. Over the years, there have been so many things that President Bush has done that have embarrassed our country but there was no doubt that he was on the sidelines yesterday. In fact this morning, he looked like a beaten dog.

The embarrassment yesterday and today, though, lies with the US House of Representatives. All of them should be positively mortified at their unbelievable incompetence to get anything done. I heard a few lone voices, on both sides, saying a couple of slightly intelligent things but for the most part, they behaved like impotent buffoons.

I am not necessarily saying I supported the bill. In fact, those voices on both sides that I speak of in the above paragraph were ones that voted against the bill. Couldn't they have worked little smarter to make it better?

I guess not.

Every Picture Tells A Story

As I was driving to Wisconsin last Friday night, I tuned into WPR and listened to the debate. Aside from the disagreements with policy and his outright false statements, I thought John McCain did a good job. I thought Obama did a good job too and my wife and I looked at each other after it was over and ruled it a tie.

Then I checked out the debate re-run on TV later that night when we got to my mom's and there was no doubt in my mind that Obama won. Why? Because John McCain, throughout the entire debate, would not even look at Senator Obama. He would not even acknowledge his presence. And the look on his face basically told me that he believed that Barack Obama did not deserve to be on the same stage as him.

McCain looked pissed off that he even had to be there. In what had to be one of the most bizarre weeks in politics, John McCain gave Barack Obama the same attitude that conservatives have been giving liberals for the better part of a decade: you're weak and you're not good enough.
It's not acceptable to simply disagree with a liberal...you have to show that they are weak, irrational, and given to emotional hyperbole. In other words, how a male from the 1950s views a female.

Put into this context, the ideas that John McCain put forth on Friday night are relics of an age and of policies that have proven to be colossal failures. He offered nothing new on Friday night, even though he tried desperately to distance himself from President Bush, and I saw his candidacy for the farce that it is. As I drive around Minneapolis and see the "McCain-Palin" signs in people's yards, I wonder why people would continue to support failure.

Are they happy with what has gone on in the last eight years?

Dave Still Has It!

Holy crap, this is the funniest fucking thing I have seen in a long time. Zoom forward to the 6 minute mark and watch from there.

Racing to the airport?

The First Gentlemen of Theater

In what has to be the finest example of acting I have seen in a long time, John McCain is trying to postpone Friday's debate in order to "fix the financial problems" of our country. In other words, he's seen the poll numbers, understands that the policies he supported in the last ten years have helped cause this problem, and is desperately trying to look like he is doing something.

I think Senator Obama said it best. "Presidents have to be able to do more than one thing at a time."

Maybe John McCain is incapable of doing that.

Through The Looking Glass

Hey...guess what? The 2008 Official Republican Party Platform opposes bailouts of private companies.

We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all.

And yet John McCain is supporting Paulson's plan? A plan that has the blessing of the President? Help me out, here folks. What am I missing?

From The Right

I started posting on Kevin Baker's blog again. It's been fun so far. We've been discussing the current financial crisis and I wanted to share with a comment that was recently made to me.

Now, THINK, AT LEAST FOR ONE FUCKING MINUTE, DUDE. The gubmint requires the mortgage companies to make what both sides know are very bad investments. Thus, the reason for making such investments is not the expectation of realizing a profit, and in fact the expectation is that many, if not most, of such investments will realize a loss. (Wait for it ...) This is not capitalism, dude, it is socialism. The investment is made for a social purpose that is mandated by the gubmint, is without regard to issues of profit and loss, and is not the free choice of the lending entity involved.

So basically, the cause of our current crisis is...the government? Wow. I find myself wishing more and more that I was on the right side of the aisle. Things would be so much simpler...having the same answer to everything.

Thank You, Chas!

Many are wondering these days why there is so much attention paid to Sarah Palin. I think the main reason for this is John McCain is old and has a history of health issues. So, the question on many people's minds is...is she ready to lead?

Answering this question correctly brings a giant pile of conservative bull shit. Y'see, folks, conservatives, or most of the base anyway, don't like it when you question one of their own. To do so is wrong, evil, and unpatriotic. When some in the media began to question Sarah Palin's credentials after she was first picked, the right wing douche bag machine ramped up their shit and before you know it, it was Glory Glory Hallelujah 24-7 on all of the major media outlets.

It's a very effective way of controlling and manipulating the message. Sarah Palin is, in fact, the most under qualified person to ever run for office. As president, she would be a complete disaster in just about every area imaginable. But to conservatives, she feels like they feel so she's A-OK! Odd because, while they bemoan the left for being all about "feelings," they are actually infinitely more guilty of selecting their candidates based on their "guts" than the left is.

The selection of Palin was, however, a brilliant political move because the leaders of the party know that McCain won't win without the base. They know that, by selecting Palin, the left will make accusations of idiocy which will, in turn, rile up the idiots in the base (attacking one of their own) and get them out to vote...the propaganda working perfectly in shaping the erroneous perception of "elites" attacking a "common folk" which further degrades the intelligence level in this country (aka the plan all along).

Thankfully, though, some Republicans are starting to see the light. Chuck Hagel, Senator from Nebraska, said the following last Thursday.

She has no foreign policy credentials. You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say.

Well, you can say that she doesn't know dick about the world but if you did, the Republicans would pull out the victim card again (ah, the delicious irony) and shove it down your throat. Hagel went on.

I think it is a stretch to say that she's got the experience to be president.

No fucking shit. When Palin told Charlie Gibson that she had foreign policy qualifications because Russia is "our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska," Hagel lost it.

I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about 'I look out my window and see Russia so therefore I know something about Russia.' That kind of thing is insulting to the American people.

Thank you, Chas, for saying what no Democrat has the balls to say. It is a complete fucking insult to our country that this woman could possibly be president...and that people support it? President Bush looks like Abraham Lincoln next to her. Ask yourselves this question...can you imagine Sarah Palin dealing with an intricate situation in the Middle East? Or handling the current economic crisis? Good Lord...

So, the answer is no, she is not qualified and it's because she is an idiot. And that's not being partisan. That is a fact. I'm sorry to break the news to the conservative base of this country but the time of electing people based on the fact that they are stupid just like the rest of us isn't going to fly anymore. We have very serious problems that need to be addressed and I want to see someone who is much smarter than me take over in 2009.

I could give a rat's ass if they would be fun at a fucking barbecue.

Why Are Liberals So "Crazy" About Sarah Palin and John McCain

Someone just sent me this email. It sums things up quite nicely.

• If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."
• Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, 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 spend 3 years as a community organizer, become the first black President 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 weather 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 two 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.