Press Knives Are Out for Sarah Palin

By Guy Adams

She tells lies. She's a lousy tipper. She billed the Republican Party more than $3,000 for the underwear she bought during the last Presidential election, including dozens of Spanx girdles. Oh, and for all the cutesy charm that Sarah Palin projects in public, she's got a nasty habit of bullying staff, losing her temper with friends and family, and, when particularly upset, throwing tin cans at her husband, Todd.

Fresh from a week that seemed to cement her status as the most valuable brand in American conservatism, and saw her both receive top billing at a vast "tea party" rally in Washington, and almost single-handedly alter the direction of a Senate race in her native Alaska, Palin is on the receiving end of a brace of vintage journalistic hatchet jobs from the left and right sides of the political spectrum.

The first, a vast profile of the self-proclaimed "Mamma Grizzly," which covers 18 pages of next month's Vanity Fair, devotes more than 10,000 words to a mixture of revelation, allegation and innuendo regarding both her public and private persona, detailing what it calls her "erratic behaviour," her "pattern of lying," and what the magazine's reporter Michael Gross describes as the "sad, mouldering strangeness" of her everyday existence.

The second comes courtesy of Meghan McCain, the daughter of Palin's former running mate John, whose new book Dirty, Sexy Politics, describes the former Governor of Alaska as a "a time bomb" who is addicted to attention and whose eccentric behaviour brought "drama, stress, complications, panic, and loads of uncertainty," to the 2008 campaign trail.

Like almost everything else that involves Palin – who, despite her habit of avoiding interviews in what she calls the "lamestream media," has still not ruled out a run for the 2012 Presidency – the broadsides are receiving endless attention. As befits an increasingly polarised nation, they are sparking outrage in conservative circles and a mixture of mirth and disbelief in liberal ones. Palin takes issue with the allegation and has responded with an attack on Vanity Fair, calling into question its facts and reporting standards.

In truth, Vanity Fair's article is a curious mixture of un-sourced innuendo and minor revelation which was mostly staggering for its sheer scale. The magazine spent four months trailing the former Alaska governor on the various speaking engagements that have helped her earn $13m since quitting last year.

It alleges she is "warm and effusive in public, and angry in private," that she is paranoid and vindictive towards former friends, and it revels the details of the occasional sense-of-humour failures which inspired the headline: "The Sound and the Fury."

The piece quotes a "friend" of Palin and her husband Todd, who once witnessed a domestic dispute. "They took all the canned goods out of the pantry, then proceeded to throw them at each other," recalls the friend. "As soon as she enters her property and the door closes, even the insects in that house cringe. She has a horrible temper, but she has gotten away with it because she is a pretty woman."

During the campaign, an un-named "aide" is quoted as claiming that Palin "lashed out" at the slightest provocation, sometimes screaming at staff and throwing objects. Asked about her temper, Todd told a staffer: "You just got to let her go through it... Half the stuff that comes out of her mouth she doesn't even mean."

Vanity Fair also claims that Palin signs the autographs in her books with an autopen, requires three hairstylists and make-up artists before public appearances, and despite her principled opposition to immigration, employs an Hispanic housekeeper.

She is also a bad tipper, the article claims. During a recent stay at the Hyatt in Wichita, she gave the bellboy just $5 for seven bags, making her the "all time worst tipper" of the famous people who have stayed there. She also failed to leave money for the maids who cleaned her room.

As suggested by Levi Johnston, the estranged father of her teenage daughter Bristol's child, the magazine also claims that Palin is a lousy and only occasional angler, who exaggerates her interest in fieldsports to win support in conservative circles.

"This whole hunter thing, for Sarah? That is the biggest fallacy," a friend of the family was quoted as saying. "That woman has never hunted. She never helps with the fishing either. It's all a joke." Bristol, by the by, has made several hundred thousand dollars from media appearances, and was this week unveiled as a contestant on the popular US television programme Dancing With the Stars.

The Vanity Fair article wasn't all tittle tattle. It also explored Palin's links to extremist Christians – the "prayer warriors" she often cites in speeches – and explored her somewhat opaque finances. It revealed that Timothy Crawford, treasurer of Sarah-PAC, her political action committee, is being investigated in Ohio for alleged campaign finance misdemeanours, and has refused to respond to a subpoena issued by the state's investigators.

Meanwhile, Palin's famously scant general knowledge may be even more flaky than originally thought. When McCain aides prepared her for television interviews in 2008, they allegedly found that – besides thinking Africa was a country rather than a continent – she had never heard of Margaret Thatcher. Palin now cites Thatcher as one of her all-time heroines.

Responding yesterday, Douglas McMarlin, a spokesman for Sarah-PAC, said: "The article is a collection of lies cobbled together by an outlet without standards. As the message continues to succeed, the messenger will continue to be attacked by yellow journalists seeking to increase sales."

Miss McCain, for her part, has attempted to put a marginally more sympathetic gloss on things. Her book reveals that the Republican inner circle was "waiting for her [Palin] to explode" during the 2008 campaign. She adds: "There was a fine line between genius and insanity, they say, and choosing her as the running mate was starting to seem like a definition of that line."

SOURCE: The Independent

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SARAH PALIN SAID AFRICA IS A COUNTRY

Sarah Palin did not know Africa was a continent rather than a country, according to information leaking out from the failed Republican campaign. Skip related content

Aides to John McCain were shocked by the gaps in the Alaska Governor's knowledge at briefings after she was announced as his running mate, according to Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron.

"She didn't understand, McCain aides told me, that Africa was a continent and not a country and actually asked them if South Africa wasn't just part of the country as opposed to a country in the continent," he said on The O'Reilly Factor programme.

Mrs Palin was also unable to name the countries involved in the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was "a major campaign issue", Cameron said.

Infighting over her performance intensified after her interview with Katie Couric of CBS, for which she refused preparation, was widely criticised.

"It didn't go well," Cameron said.

"She blamed Nicole Wallace, a senior adviser who had worked for CBS with Couric and had organised some of that interview, and then the rift began to really unfold.

"That refusal of debate preparation caused some problems."

He went on: "Afterwards, Mrs Palin began to attack staff and suggest she was mishandled and communicated that to some people within the McCain campaign and outside."

Mrs Palin became a nightmare to deal with and started to throw tantrums over negative press, Cameron's sources told him.

"The way I understand it, there were times when she would be so nasty and angry to staff that they were virtually reduced to tears.

"There was throwing of paperwork and things of that nature."

McCain staff also suggested to the Fox correspondent that Mrs Palin was a "shopaholic" who bought extra clothes despite the Republican party spending a reported $150,000 on her wardrobe.

SOURCE: Skynews

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SARAH PALIN AINGIZWA MKENGE NA COMEDIANS,

Comedians flani wamemuingiza mkenge Gavana Sarah Palin kumuaminisha kuwa anaongea na Rais wa Ufaransa Nicholas Sarkozy.Sikiliza kichekesho hicho kwa ku-click link ifuatayo hapa chini:

http://www.tindeck.com/audio/filestore/w/wwdo-SarahPalin.mp3

Talking of Gov Palin,kituko kingine ni kwamba katika mkutano wake wa kampeni huko Polk City,Florida jina la mgombea mwenza wake,John McCain,was surprisingly missing kama inavyoonekana katika picha ifuatayo hapo chini.Au ndio ameshaanza kampeni za 2012?

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SARAH PALIN ON "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE!

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"THE TERRORIST BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA"

IF you think way back to the start of this marathon campaign, back when it seemed preposterous that any black man could be a serious presidential contender, then you remember the biggest fear about Barack Obama: a crazy person might take a shot at him.

Some voters told reporters that they didn’t want Obama to run, let alone win, should his very presence unleash the demons who have stalked America from Lincoln to King. After consultation with Congress, Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, gave Obama a Secret Service detail earlier than any presidential candidate in our history — in May 2007, some eight months before the first Democratic primaries.

“I’ve got the best protection in the world, so stop worrying,” Obama reassured his supporters. Eventually the country got conditioned to his appearing in large arenas without incident (though I confess that the first loud burst of fireworks at the end of his convention stadium speech gave me a start). In America, nothing does succeed like success. The fear receded.

Until now. At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets, are actually something new in a campaign that has seen almost every conceivable twist. They are alarms. Doing nothing is not an option.

All’s fair in politics. John McCain and Sarah Palin have every right to bring up William Ayers, even if his connection to Obama is minor, even if Ayers’s Weather Underground history dates back to Obama’s childhood, even if establishment Republicans and Democrats alike have collaborated with the present-day Ayers in educational reform. But it’s not just the old Joe McCarthyesque guilt-by-association game, however spurious, that’s going on here. Don’t for an instant believe the many mindlessly “even-handed” journalists who keep saying that the McCain campaign’s use of Ayers is the moral or political equivalent of the Obama campaign’s hammering on Charles Keating.

What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.” He is “palling around with terrorists” (note the plural noun). Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.

By the time McCain asks the crowd “Who is the real Barack Obama?” it’s no surprise thatsomeone 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 releaselast week packaged the remembrance of a Weather Underground incident from 1970 — when Obama was 8.

We all know what punishment fits the crime of murder, or even potential murder, if the security of post-9/11 America is at stake. We all know how self-appointed “patriotic” martyrs always justify taking the law into their own hands.

Obama can hardly be held accountable for Ayers’s behavior 40 years ago, but at least McCain and Palin can try to take some responsibility for the behavior of their own supporters in 2008. What’s troubling here is not only the candidates’ loose inflammatory talk but also their refusal to step in promptly and strongly when someone responds to it with bloodthirsty threats in a crowded arena. Joe Biden had it exactly right when heexpressed concern last week that “a leading American politician who might be vice president of the United States would not just stop midsentence and turn and condemn that.” To stay silent is to pour gas on the fires.

It wasn’t always thus with McCain. In February he loudly disassociated himself from a speaker who brayed “Barack Hussein Obama” when introducing him at a rally in Ohio. Now McCain either backpedals with tardy, pro forma expressions of respect for his opponent or lets second-tier campaign underlings release boilerplate disavowals after ugly incidents like the chilling Jim Crow-era flashback last week when a Florida sheriff ranted about “Barack Hussein Obama” at a Palin rally while in full uniform.

From the start, there have always been two separate but equal questions about race in this election. Is there still enough racism in America to prevent a black man from being elected president no matter what? And, will Republicans play the race card? The jury is out on the first question until Nov. 4. But we now have the unambiguous answer to the second: Yes.

McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only as Obama started to pull ahead. The tone was set at the Republican convention, with Rudy Giuliani’s mocking dismissal of Obama as an “only in America” affirmative-action baby. We also learned then that the McCain campaign had recruited as a Palin handler none other than Tucker Eskew, the South Carolina consultant who had worked for George W. Bush in the notorious 2000 G.O.P. primary battle where the McCains and their adopted Bangladeshi daughter were slimed by vicious racist rumors.

No less disconcerting was a still-unexplained passage of Palin’s convention speech: Her use of an unattributed quote praising small-town America (as opposed to, say, Chicago and its community organizers) from Westbrook Pegler, the mid-century Hearst columnistfamous for his anti-Semitism, racism and violent rhetorical excess. After an assassin tried to kill F.D.R. at a Florida rally and murdered Chicago’s mayor instead in 1933, Pegler wrote that it was “regrettable that Giuseppe Zangara shot the wrong man.” In the ’60s, Pegler had a wish for Bobby Kennedy: “Some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow falls.”

This is the writer who found his way into a speech by a potential vice president at a national political convention. It’s astonishing there’s been no demand for a public accounting from the McCain campaign. Imagine if Obama had quoted a Black Panther or Louis Farrakhan — or William Ayers — in Denver.

The operatives who would have Palin quote Pegler have been at it ever since. A key indicator came two weeks after the convention, when the McCain campaign ran its first ad tying Obama to the mortgage giant Fannie Mae. Rather than make its case by using a legitimate link between Fannie and Obama (or other Democratic leaders), the McCain forces chose a former Fannie executive who had no real tie to Obama or his campaign but did have a black face that could dominate the ad’s visuals.

There are no black faces high in the McCain hierarchy to object to these tactics. There hasn’t been a single black Republican governor, senator or House member in six years. This is a campaign where Palin can repeatedly declare that Alaska is “a microcosm of America” without anyone even wondering how that might be so for a state whose tiny black and Hispanic populations are each roughly one-third the national average. There are indeed so few people of color at McCain events that a black senior writer from The Tallahassee Democrat was mistakenly ejected by the Secret Service from a campaign rally in Panama City in August, even though he was standing with other reporters and showed his credentials. His only apparent infraction was to look glaringly out of place.

Could the old racial politics still be determinative? I’ve long been skeptical of the incessant press prognostications (and liberal panic) that this election will be decided by racist white men in the Rust Belt. Now even the dimmest bloviators have figured out that Americans are riveted by the color green, not black — as in money, not energy. Voters are looking for a leader who might help rescue them, not a reckless gambler whose lurching responses to the economic meltdown (a campaign “suspension,” a mortgage-buyout stunt that changes daily) are as unhinged as his wanderings around the debate stage.

To see how fast the tide is moving, just look at North Carolina. On July 4 this year — the day that the godfather of modern G.O.P. racial politics, Jesse Helms, died — The Charlotte Observer reported that strategists of both parties agreed Obama’s chances to win the state fell “between slim and none.” Today, as Charlotte reels from the implosion of Wachovia, the McCain-Obama race is a dead heat in North Carolina and Helms’s Republican successor in the Senate, Elizabeth Dole, is looking like a goner.

But we’re not at Election Day yet, and if voters are to have their final say, both America and Obama have to get there safely. The McCain campaign has crossed the line between tough negative campaigning and inciting vigilantism, and each day the mob howls louder. The onus is on the man who says he puts his country first to call off the dogs, pit bulls and otherwise.

SOURCE: New York Times

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MTIHANI MGUMU KWA MCCAIN

Siasa ni mchezo mchafu,hilo halina ubishi.Wapo wanaotumia uzushi,udini,ubabaishaji,haiba na hata ndumba  kufikia malengo yao ya kisiasa.Pamoja na uchafu katika mchezo uitwao siasa,kuna wanasiasa wastaarabu wenye kutumia kanuni na taratibu kufikia malengo yao.Hadi hivi karibuni,John McCain alikuwa mmoja wao.Lakini baada ya kuona kura zinamwendea kombo akaamua kuwasikiliza wapambe wake wanaodhani kuwa njia ya mkato ya kumkabili Barack Obama ni ku-assassinate character yake:muite terrorist,tumia jina lake la kati Hussein,fananisha Obama na Osama,na upuuzi mwingine kama huo.

Wakati McCain anatafakari kama mkakati wa aina hiyo ungeweza kuleta mabadiliko,Sarah Palin akaingia kichwa kichwa na kumhusisha Obama na watu kama Ayers na Rev Wright.Wafuasi wakawa motivated,na wengine wakafikia hatua ya kumuita Obama terrorist.Kwa Palin (na bila shaka McCain),ilionekana kuwa picha inaanza kukamilika.Lakini vitendo hivyo vya kishenzi vikawafanya baadhi ya watu wanaomheshimu McCain kuhoji iwapo amefilisika kisiasa kiasi hicho.Na inaelekea ujumbe umefika kwake kama inavyoonekana kwenye clip ya hapo chini.

Hata hivyo,McCain anakabiliwa na mtihani mgumu pengine zaidi ya kushinda uchaguzi hapo Novemba 4.Kwa upande mmoja,ana-risk kupoteza sapoti ya wale wanaopenda kuona Obama akishambuliwa kwa nguvu zote.Miongoni mwa hao ni wasaidizi wa karibu wa McCain ambapo wamekuwa wakitoa matangazo ya kumchafua Obama.Kwahiyo,akiacha kumuandama Obama itamaanisha kujitenga na wanaomsapoti,na dalili ya hilo ni hapo jana ambapo baadhi ya waliohudhuria mkutano wake waliishia kumzomea (angalia clip hapo chini).Kwa upande mwingine,undecided voters na independents wanataka kusikia McCain atawafanyia nini iwapo atakuwa rais,au kwa lugha nyingine kwanini wampe kura zao na si Obama.Matusi na maneno mengine machafu yatalikimbiza kundi hili ambalo analihitaji mmno ili aweze kushinda uchaguzi huo.

Japo McCain anaweza kuwa na hoja za msingi kuhoji kuhusu background ya Obama,swali linabaki why now kama sio dalili za desperation na panic ya kuelekea kushindwa uchaguzi?Kibaya zaidi,kinachowatatiza wapiga kura wa Marekani ni namna rais ajaye atakavyoweza kurekebisha hali mbaya ya uchumi wa taifa hilo.Kuhoji undani wa Obama muda huu (hasa wakati Obama ana-concentrate katika kutafuta ufumbuzi wa matatizo ya uchumi) ni sawa na kuyapuuza matatizo yanayowakabili wapiga kura,na it goes without saying how they would pay him back come November 4.

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TROOPERGATE REPORT: PALIN UNLAWFULLY ABUSED HER AUTHORITY

CLICK HERE To Read the Full Report.

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MDAHALO WA BIDEN NA PALIN

Mdahalo kati ya running mates wa vyama vya Democrat na Republican,Joe Biden na Sarah Palin,respectively,umemalizika hivi punde.Uchambuzi wa haraka haraka unaonyesha kuwa Palin amejitahidi kufanya vizuri kuliko ilivyotarajiwa.Matarajio kwamba Palin angefanya vibaya yalitokana na performances zake za hivi karibuni katika mahojiano (ya nadra) na wanahabari.Hofu zaidi ilikuwa ni kweli u-kilaza wake kwenye mambo mbalimbali.Kwa upande wa Biden,huku akitarajiwa kuutumia vizuri uzoefu wake wa muda mrefu kwenye ulingo wa siasa,hofu zaidi ilikuwa ni katika tabia yake ya "kusema ovyo" na kuwa gaffe-prone.Hata hivyo,uchambuzi wa awali unaonyesha kuwa Biden amefanya vizuri sana katika mdahalo huo,kiasi cha mchambuzi mmoja kudai kwamba it was his best ever performance.

Kwa upande mwingine,Palin ameonekana kama amethibitisha kwamba McCain hakufanya kosa kumchagua yeye kuwa running mate wake lakini ameshindwa kum-portray McCain kama mtu anayefaa zaidi  kuwa rais kuliko Barack Obama.Lakini Biden,pengine kwa kuhofia kuonekana kuwa ni sexist dhidi ya Palin,ametumia muda mwingi kuonyesha kwanini Obama anafaa zaidi kuwa rais kuliko McCain na wakati huohuo kuonyesha kuwa tiketi ya McCain-Palin ni mwendelezo mwingine wa miaka minane ya George W Bush.

Kiujumla,na kama ilivyotarajiwa na wengi,Biden ameonekana kuwa msindi katika mdahalo huo japo hilo haliwezi kukubalika among the Republicans.Pia matokeo ya awali ya kura kadhaa za maoni baada ya mjadala huo zinaonyesha ushindi mzuri kwa Biden hasa miongoni mwa undecided voters.

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CNN: Sarah Palin Has Never Seen Russia From Alaska

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McCAIN FACIAL GESTURES DURING THE DEBATE

Related News: GOP concerned about Sarah Palin (Click the link)

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SARAH PALIN NI "KILAZA"?

Kwa lugha za Mlimani (UDSM) kilaza ni mtu ambaye shule haipandi.Kwake siku ya seminar presentation ni kama kutoa ushahidi kwenye kesi mahakamani ambayo inaweza kumpelekea kunyongwa.Ratiba ya mtihani ikitoka basi kwake inakuwa kama amepewa ratiba ya kifo chake.Vilaza huwa makini sana katika kuchagua marafiki chuoni hapo,hujitahidi kujiweka karibu na vipanga (kinyume cha vilaza).Kipanga halisi anaweza kuonekana kwenye lectures kwa msimu,muda mwingi anautumia kwa shughuli zake binafsi,na si ajabu kumkuta anakamata kinywaji pale Duso wakati watu wanahangaika library.Ni nadra kuwaona vipanga halisi kwenye discussion groups.Lakini come the UE,vipanga wanaendelea kutesa.Well,hiyo ni Mlimani niliyoiacha 1999.Sijui mambo yakoje kwa sasa.

Baadhi ya wachambuzi wa mambo wanamtuhumu Sarah Palin,mgombea mwenza wa John McCain, kuwa huenda ni kilaza na ndio maana amekuwa akikwepa mahojiano ya maana na vyombo vya habari.Zaidi SOMA HAPA

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HACKERS WAMFANYIA KWELI BILL O'REILLY

Baada ya Billy  O'Reilly kuwashikia bango hackers walioingia kwenye  e-mails  za  Sarah Palin,hacker mmoja amedai kwamba amemfanyia kweli mwanahabari huyo kimbelembele.Stori zaidi soma HAPA

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PALIN'S PRIVATE E-MAILS HACKED

Watundu flani (au wahalifu?) wamefanikiwa ku-hack e-mails za Sarah Palin.Habari kamili na picha BONYEZA HAPA

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PALIN A NEOCON?

Came accross this interesting examination of Sarah Palin

The Palin Doctrine: Why the Neocons Are So Excited

Sarah Palin may not have known what the Bush Doctrine was, but we're getting a pretty good idea of what the Palin Doctrine is. Or will be -- because it's still currently under construction. And what is it going to look like? Let's just say, it's going to seem familiar.

According to London's Daily Telegraph, the architects of the Palin Doctrine are a group of people who have been singularly wrong about virtually everything in the last decade -- the neocons, who have been briefing Palin for weeks.

As predicted, the fact that she didn't know anything wasn't a bug, it was a feature. She's perfect for the neocons: likeable on the outside, a blank slate on the inside. To borrow from an old cliché, if Sarah Palin didn't exist, the neocons would have had to invent her.

In fact, this is how one former White House aide describes her: "She's bright and she's a blank page. She's going places and it's worth going there with her."

Of course, the place her neocon mentors hope she's going is the White House. Given their dismal track record, they're smart enough to figure that the American public wouldn't be too keen on letting them in the front door again, so they are trying to sneak in hidden behind Palin's skirt. The Trojan Moose approaches.

The Daily Telegraph details how the neocon talent scouts spotted their political Eliza Doolittle back in the summer of '07. The love connection began, appropriately enough, on a love boat:

"Sources in the McCain camp, the Republican Party and Washington think tanks say Mrs. Palin was identified as a potential future leader of the neoconservative cause in June 2007. That was when the annual summer cruise organised by the right-of-centre Weekly Standardmagazine docked in Juneau, the Alaskan state capital, and the pundits on board took tea with Governor Palin."

So nice to meet you, Governor. And don't forget, cucumber sandwiches and preemptive invasions on the Lido Deck at four!

Not surprisingly, Palin's biggest fan is Bill Kristol, who describes her as the "specter of a young, attractive, unapologetic conservatism" that "is haunting the liberal elites."

Among her other Henry Higginses is neo-neocon Joe Lieberman, who is reportedly helping prep Palin for the big ball -- her debate with Joe Biden.

She's already passed her first test with flying colors: being willing to link 9/11 with Iraq, something not even the president is still willing to do. Last week, she told a group of Iraq-bound soldiers that they were going to "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."

By George (Bush), I think she's got it! Congratulations, Professor Kristol, your student is coming along just fine.

Of course, the neocons know they already have an ally at the top of the GOP ticket. McCain may have been a reformer on campaign finance, but when it comes to foreign policy, he has always been solidly in the neocon club. He loves to burnish his foreign policy bona fides by talking about how he wanted to fire Donald Rumsfeld months before Bush did. But he doesn't talk a lot about how, in the days immediately after 9/11, he was part of the neocon crowd itching to get into Iraq.

Just a few days after the attack, McCain was already talking about "some other countries" that helped Bin Laden. Countries like Syria, Iran, and...Iraq. And a few weeks later, during an October 18, 2001 appearance on David Letterman, McCain answered a question about how the war in Afghanistan was going by announcing that the invasion of Iraq would be "the second phase" of the war on terror (how prescient of him to know that Saddam wouldn't give up those nonexistent WMD). What's more, he tried to buttress the case for attacking Iraq by claiming that the recent spate of anthrax attacks "may have come from Iraq." Or Fort Detrick.

Six years later, demonstrating how little he's learned from the debacle in Iraq, McCain hired Randy Scheunemann, a neocon darling who helped form The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq in 2002, as his campaign's chief foreign policy advisor.

As TPMMuckraker noted in July, "Of all the hawkish Washington foreign-policy types pushing both before and after 9/11 for war with Iraq -- a war that an overwhelming majority of Americans now considers a mistake -- Scheunemann, though not a marquee name, was among the most energetic and influential. And in the invasion's aftermath, he consistently opposed steps that might have helped stabilize the country."

And now, according to the Daily Telegraph, Scheunemann is briefing Sarah Palin.

McCain's selection of Palin may have been reckless, but it was anything but random. The neocons' view of the world may be disastrous, dangerous, discredited, and deadly -- but it's far from dead. Their patron saint, Dick Cheney, the scowling embodiment of the Neocon Doctrine, had way too much baggage -- and way too low approval ratings -- to mount a run for the White House.

That's why the Palin pick was so brilliant. On the outside, she's exponentially more likable and talented at connecting with people than Cheney ever was. But on the inside, once she graduates from the neocon finishing school, she'll be a complete and total Dick. Cheney. With lipstick.

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IS THE "SURGE" REALLY WORKING IN IRAQ?

John McCain would definitely say "Yes it Does",and so would Sarah Palin,and most,if not all,of the Republicans.However,it is claimed that violence is down in Iraq,not because of the surge,but rather the domination of the Shia and Iran in the country.HERE is the story.

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THE BIG BANG THEORY:LEO JUMATANO NI MWISHO WA DUNIA?

Kuna hii kitu wanaita The Big Bang Theory inaelekea kuwachanganya watu wengi wakiwamo wanasayansi wenyewe.Kwa vile mie sio mzuri sana kwenye maeneo hayo,BONYEZA HAPA kupata undani zaidi wa hii kitu.

Kwa upande wa siasa za Marekani,kuna wanaomuona Sarah Palin kuwa hana tofauti na Islamic fundamentalists ambao mgombea-mwenza wake,John McCain,amefanya kuwa moja ya ajenda zake kuu za kushinda uchaguzi.Habari nzima iko HAPA

Na burudani kidogo kutoka kwa John Legend ft Andre 3000 katika Green Light.

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