• Socialism: You have two cows. You give one to your neighbor.
• Communism: You have two cows. You give them to the Government, and the Government then sells you some milk.
• Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
• Naziism: You have two cows. The Government shoots you and takes the cows.

By Martin Asser, BBC News Page last updated at 04:34 GMT, Saturday, 2 January 2010

Several other newspapers have republished the controversial images

Twelve caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in 2005 had a huge impact around the world, with riots in many Muslim countries the following year causing deaths and destruction - so what do the drawings actually say?

They originally appeared in the best-selling Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005 to accompany an editorial criticising self-censorship in the Danish media.

After that some media outlets republished the pictures in solidarity or outrage, while others - including the BBC - have refrained from publishing them to avoid causing offence to their audiences.

The issue arose after Danish writer Kare Bluitgen complained he was unable to find an illustrator for his children's book about the Prophet because he said no one dared break an Islamic tenet banning the portrayal of his image.

We are on our way to a slippery slope where no-one can tell how the self-censorship will end Jyllands-Posten editorial

Jyllands-Posten asked cartoonists to "draw the Prophet as they saw him", as an assertion of free speech and to reject pressure by Muslims groups to respect their sensitivities.

The paper chose as its central image a visual joke about the Prophet among other turban-wearing figures in a police line-up and the witness saying: "I don't know which one he is".

It is presumably an ironic appeal for calm over the issue, the suggestion being that, if a Danish illustrator were to portray the Prophet, it is not known what he looks like and is therefore a harmless gesture.

The humour comes from the fact that the line-up also includes people like Jesus Christ, the far-right Danish politician Pia Kjaersgaard and Mr Bluitgen himself.

'PR stunt'

Eleven other cartoons are printed around the edge of the page showing the Prophet in a variety of supposedly humorous or satirical situations.

One seems to criticise Mr Bluitgen for exploiting the issue for publicity to sell his book.

He is portrayed holding a child's drawing of the Prophet, while an orange inscribed with "PR stunt" drops into a turban he is wearing. (The expression "orange in the turban" connotes a "piece of luck" in Danish.)

Other images appear not especially critical of Islam in their content.

One shows the Prophet wandering through the desert with the sun setting behind him. In another his face merges with an Islamic star and crescent.

Several cartoonists, however, do seem to take the Jyllands-Posten commission as an invitation to be deliberately provocative towards Muslims.

Critical views

The most controversial image shows the Prophet Muhammad carrying a lit bomb in the shape of a turban on his head decorated with the Islamic creed.

The face is angry, dangerous-looking - a stereotypical villain with heavy, dark eyebrows and whiskers.

Much anger has been directed at Jyllands-Posten newspaper

Another shows Muhammad brandishing a sword ready for a fight. His eyes are blacked out while two women stand behind him with their Islamic dress leaving only their eyes uncovered.

Two of the critical cartoons do not show the Prophet at all. One uses crescent moons and stars of David to form repeated abstract shapes, possibly showing women in Islamic dress.

A poem accompanies the shapes, that one translator has rendered as: "Prophet, you crazy bloke! Keeping women under yoke."

In the other, a schoolboy points to a blackboard on which it is written in Farsi: "The editorial team of Jyllands-Posten are a bunch of reactionary provocateurs".

The boy is labelled "Mohammed, Valby school, 7A", suggesting he is a second-generation Iranian immigrant to Denmark. "The future" is written on his shirt.

Humorous views

Other cartoonists have clearly attempted a more humorous approach - as with the central image - although the images will be no less offensive to Muslims.

For example, one shows Muhammad standing on a cloud holding back a line of smouldering suicide bombers trying to get into heaven.

"Stop, stop, we have run out of virgins," he says.

This is a reference to the supposed reward of 72 virgins in heaven for Muslim martyrs, although Islamic scholars often point out that there is no specific belief of this kind.

Another drawing shows Muhammad looking at a sheet of paper, but holding back two sword-wielding assassins.

"Relax guys, it's just a drawing made by some infidel South Jutlander (ie from the middle of nowhere)," the figure says.

One cartoonist portrays Muhammad with a kind of halo around his head, but it could be a crescent moon, or a pair of devil's horns.

Anger and confusion

The last cartoon on the page goes back to the theme of artistic freedom: a cartoonist draws an Arab face with headdress, inscribed "Mohammed", but he crouches over the drawing and shields it with his hand.

The Jyllands-Posten cartoons do not include some images that may have had a role in bringing the issue to international attention.

Three images in particular have done the rounds, in Gaza for example, which are reported to be considerably more obscene and were mistakenly assumed to have been part of the Jyllands-Posten set.

One of the pictures, a photocopied photograph of a man with a pig's ears and snout, has been identified as an old Associated Press picture from a French "pig-squealing" contest.

It was reportedly circulated by Danish Muslims to illustrate the atmosphere of Islamophobia which they say they live under.

There is no doubt that the some of the original Jyllands-Posten cartoons are sufficiently hostile in nature to be taken as provocative by the Muslim community, whatever their intention.

But some critics have said all the drawings and the manner of their publication betray European arrogance and Islamophia.

Muslim writer Ziauddin Sardar likens them to anti-Semitic images published in Europe in the 1920s and 30s, with Muslims being demonised as violent, backward and fanatical.

"Freedom of expression is not about doing whatever we want to do because we can do it," he wrote in the Independent on Sunday.

"It is about creating an open marketplace for ideas and debate where all, including the marginalised, can take part as equals."

The link is from the E-New Yorker to Act Five of "Othello"
Beware Premature Prizes

Semi-regular thoughts on foreign affairs, politics, and books, from George Packer

Several Senate Democrats said Friday that, in a private meeting, White House officials had told them there was no such deal, sowing yet more confusion. House Democratic leaders vowed to fight against it.

Then, after contending for two days that the Senate Democrats had misunderstood the White House aide’s comments, the White House appeared Friday night to back away.

THIRTY-SIXTH JOKE

Break in

Taking a leaf from Congressman Rangel's book, President Obama pointed out that the Cambridge police were "stupid" and over-eager to incarcerate African-Americans.  This was considered by some to be "playing the race card."  It is perhaps understandable the President made a mistake in his choice of words, since it obviously was stupid to arrest a Harvard professor in Cambridge.

How dare the police break in on the Harvard professor in Cambridge - doesn't the policeman know the faces of the entire Harvard faculty...or only the ones with rap sheets?

• He invited someone to a party one day, with great fanfare, then dis-invited them the next;
• He disrespected the late Michael Jackson by imitating Michaels dance steps for "moon walking" poorly (eg. in his Iran election/protests positions reverse backdown);
• He did a good imitation of former President Carter, in that the above "moon walking" was similar in principle to saving a few dollars by not using an extra helicopter or two (in the rescue attempt of the hostages...from Iran).  Foreign policy on the cheap.

• Car #1 is the "pimpmobile" or "pompmobile" depending on the use and/or color;  employs the Cadillac wheel base and frame;
  
• Car#2 is the "Chebbie" or "Chevrolet"  and comes in red, white or blue with a black or tan interior, no options.
  
• Car #3 is the Corvette, because that is the only car that GM ever made that was exciting to own.
  

Wall St. Firm Draws Scrutiny as U.S. Adviser

Prez:  hamburger with cheddar cheese and Dijon mustard, no ketchup, bottle of water...VP: burger plus ketchup swiss cheese and Jalopeno peppers.
Dr. Margaret Hamburg, new head of Food and Drug Administration, former Director of Health for NYC (a place that has restaurants).

1. They traveled in the same car
   
2. They wasted gasoline
3. They wasted gas and traveled together across state and municipal borders
4. The Secret Service sent "a motorcade" to protect them, increasing the cost of the hamburger from  $6.95 plus tax to $25,000
   
5. They insulted the White House cook 
   

BLOW DRY PRESIDENCY

President Obama may have had a brainstorm. 

How to positively affect the greatest number of Americans in the shortest period of time?  How to heat up the economy?  No problem.

Go with something you know.

See article below about executive order on small kitchen appliances.

And another...

--------------------


CAPTION:  "I wonder if I look like George W. Bush on September 11 - in this case, reading to kids while the economy melts down?"

Obama Ordering Energy-Efficient Standards
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:03 p.m. ET

#2 - Two guys are walking their dogs. One has a big German Shepherd, the other a tiny Chihuahua. They pass by a very fancy restaurant and the guy with the Shepherd suggests they stop in for a drink. “They’re not going to let us in with the dogs,” the man with the Chihuahua says. Just do what I do, his friend assures him. The guy with the Shepherd walks in first and the maitre d’ stops him. “We don’t allow animals in here, sir. Sorry.” This is a seeing-eye dog, the man says. The maitre d’ apologizes and the man with Shepherd sits at the bar. Then the man with Chihuahua comes in.

“We don’t allow pets in here,” says the maitre d’.

“This is a seeing-eye dog,” says the man with the Chihuahua.

“That’s not a seeing-eye dog, that’s a Chihuahua.”

And the man says: “They gave me a Chihuahua?”

Sen. Daschle calls for “paradigm shift” during confirmation hearing
OBAMA website
Thursday, January 8, 2009 12:55pm EST / Posted by Dan McSwain

Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Tom Daschle appeared before a Senate confirmation hearing this morning and called for bold changes in the way Americans and their government think about health care.

“I think we need to change the paradigm in this country on health,” Secretary-designate Daschle said. “It starts with that big picture belief. The paradigm needs be changed from illness to wellness.”

Sen. Daschle advocated new approaches to the problems facing American families, noting that his charge in leading HHS will require working across governmental lines to fix ailing health care systems.

He noted the importance of “breaking down stovepipes so that the inter-relationship between these agencies can do a better job of coordinating this effort.”

When rural health care issues were raised, Sec. Daschle spoke passionately about solutions to the unique problems many communities face.  He emphasized the need for expanded broadband Internet access to facilitate a modernized health care information technology system.  President-elect Obama has repeatedly stressed the vital role of increased broadband penetration in improving the quality of a variety services across America, including health care.

We’ll have more on Secretary-designate Daschle and his Transition health care team coming up soon.

Obama Team Urges Delay in Digital TV Transition
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:51 p.m. ET
January 8, 2009

Reports that President-elect Barack Obama had approached CNN’s medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, to be the next Surgeon General inspired a parlor game among people who have too much free time (a k a media types): What if Mr. Obama were to assemble his administration entirely from TV experts? Scary thought, granted, but what the heck: here are our nominees from among the best and brightest of the boob tube:

Interior Secretary: Martha Stewart
Labor: Tony Soprano
Treasury: Jim Cramer
Agriculture: Mr. Ed (”The Talking Horse”)
Veterans Affairs: Tom Brokaw
Transportation: “Click and Clack” (token radio slot)
Drug Czar(s): “Cheech and Chong” (token movie slot)
State: Amy Poehler
Attorney General: Nancy Grace
Health and Human Services: Jared (from Subway ads)
Education: Mr. Woodman (“Welcome Back Kotter”)
Energy: Mr. C. Montgomery Burns (owner, Springfield Nuclear Power Plant)
EPA: Woodsy Owl (from 70s “Give a hoot – don’t pollute” PSAs)
Trade Representative: Howie Mandel (host, “Deal or No Deal”)
HUD: Kevin O’Connor (host, “This Old House”)
National Security Adviser: Mika Brzezinski (”Morning Joe”)
Defense: John Madden
Homeland Security: Jerry Springer’s bouncers (I.N.S.: Lou Dobbs)
U.N. Ambassador: Bill O’Reilly
Commerce: Suze Orman
O.M.B.: Canceled
Spokesman: Bill Moyers

#21 - O.M.G. did you hear what the Republicans are spreading now?  Some call it the truth!

A fowl remark from top legislator in the Republican pecking order in Congress.  Next thing they'll be saying Obama nation wants to take in all the infected chicks from  China...and hey, how about the contaminated soil, too?

House GOP Leader Uses Expletive to Describe Obama
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 1, 2008
Filed at 1:11 p.m. ET

OXFORD, Ohio (AP) -- House Republican leader John Boehner has used a vulgar expression to refer to Democrat Barack Obama and his voting record in the Illinois legislature.

While campaigning for Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Wednesday, Boehner told a small crowd at a bar in Oxford that failing to vote ''yes'' or ''no'' on an issue meant a lawmaker was a ''chickens---,''

The Ohio congressman said the last thing the country needs is to have a ''chicken'' in the White House. The comments, first reported in the Miami University of Ohio's student newspaper, alluded to Obama's record of voting ''present'' 129 times as a state lawmaker.

Boehner spokesman Jessica Twohey confirmed the comments on Saturday.

Starting in June, Barack Obama’s website stopped asking for donations. Instead, it began asking for citizens who would “declare their independence from a broken system by supporting the first presidential election truly funded by the people.”

Perhaps the campaign did not expect that among those “declaring their independence would be donors named “Doodad Pro,” “Derty Poiiuy,” and “Jgtj Jfggjjfgj.” (And you thought Barack Obama had a funny name.) They may not have known that at least four Missourians and one Virginian would declare their independence involuntarily and later find fraudulent donations to Obama’s campaign on their credit card statements. The Obama campaign cannot claim ignorance of “Good Will,” whose address is the Goodwill headquarters in Austin, and whose occupation is “Loving You.” The Goodwill office received a letter from Obama last month indicating that Mr. Will had exceeded the legal limit with his $7,000 in contributions, and asking whether part of the money could be directed to Obama’s general election campaign.
 
Such abuse of the system may just be the inevitable consequence of a political system driven by massive amounts of money — or at least, that’s what Barack Obama used to say, before he figured out how to use that system to his advantage.

Reporters now note dryly that Barack Obama promised to take public matching funds for the presidential election, which would have limited the amount he could spend, and that he then reneged on his promise in June. This narrative understates the case.

Obama actually went much farther than merely giving his word that he would accept matching funds. In February of 2007, he challenged all of the Republican candidates for president to pledge, along with him, that they would take matching funds. It was supposed to be a rare display of political courage on his part, for the sake of principles he believed in.

Sen. John McCain, who has long clashed with conservatives on issues of campaign finance, accepted Obama’s challenge on Obama’s terms. Obama would later write on a November 2007 questionnaire from the Midwest Democracy Network: “If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.” In February of this year, he wrote an op-ed stating again that he would “aggressively pursue” an agreement with McCain that would set “real spending limits.” He repeated this promise on FOX News on April 27.

Then, all of the sudden, Barack Obama announced in June that the public campaign-financing system was “broken” and so he could not participate in it. Presumably, someone went and broke the public campaign-financing system sometime between April and mid-June of this year.

Who did it? Barack Obama did. He broke the system as soon as it became clear to him that by rejecting public financing, he might be able to raise half a billion dollars and drown his opponent in money, as he is doing now.

It may all seem like a minor point now — just an occasion for a bit of Republican whining as Obama’s attack ads dominate the airwaves thanks to his broken promise. After all, Obama has raised quite a bit of money. But his donations from fake donors evoke the fake promise he made on principle just months ago to restrict campaign spending and limit the influence of special interests.

News reporters often assume, incorrectly, that the numbers in the FEC reports they scour each quarter are put on the Internet by magic. In fact, each one has to be recorded individually by a human being in what is really a painstaking process. This applies not only to the larger amounts contributed by Mr. Will and Mr. Jfggjjfgj, but also to amounts less than $200. A pair of human eyes has to check each one, even if amounts smaller than $200 are not required by law to be disclosed in any report.

Obama’s finance team missed quite a few obviously troubling large donations, from such unsavory individuals as Mr. Jfggjjfgj, “Mong Kong,” “Test Person,” and “Jockim Alberton,” who lives at a fictional address on a street that does not exist in Wilmington, Delaware. How many fictional characters might there be among the $220 million that Obama has collected in small, undisclosed contributions?

Obama’s small donors have all been recorded, and he could easily follow McCain’s lead by disclosing this major source of his campaign’s money. Hopefully the list of donors contains no one with Asdfjkl as a surname, and it bears no resemblance to an ACORN voter-registration list.

Biden to Supporters: "Gird Your Loins", For the Next President "It's Like Cleaning Augean Stables"
ABC news blog
October 20, 2008 7:35 AM

ABC News' Matthew Jaffe Reports: Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions.

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

Not only will the next administration have to deal with foreign affairs issues, Biden warned, but also with the current economic crisis.

"Gird your loins," Biden told the crowd. "We're gonna win with your help, God willing, we're gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride. This president, the next president, is gonna be left with the most significant task. It's like cleaning the Augean stables, man. This is more than just, this is more than – think about it, literally, think about it – this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy."

The Delaware lawmaker managed to rake in an estimated $1 million total from his two money hauls at the downtown Sheraton, the same hotel where four years ago Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., clinched the Democratic nomination. Despite warning about the difficulties the next administration will face, Biden said the Democratic ticket is equipped to meet the challenges head on.

"I've forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I'm not being falsely humble with you. I think I can be value added, but this guy has it," the Senate Foreign Relations chairman said of Obama. "This guy has it. But he's gonna need your help. Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, 'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?' We're gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce us."

"There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, 'Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don't know about that decision'," Biden continued. "Because if you think the decision is sound when they're made, which I believe you will when they're made, they're not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they're popular, they're probably not sound."

Biden emphasized that the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border is of particular concern, with Osama bin Laden "alive and well" and Pakistan "bristling with nuclear weapons."

"You literally can see what these kids are up against, our kids in that region," Biden said in recalling when his helicopter was forced down due to a snowstorm there. "The place is crawling with al Qaeda. And it's real."

"We do not have the military capacity, nor have we ever, quite frankly, in the last 20 years, to dictate outcomes," he cautioned. "It's so much more important than that. It's so much more complicated than that. And Barack gets it."

After speaking for just over a quarter of an hour, Biden noticed the media presence in the back of the small ballroom.

"I probably shouldn't have said all this because it dawned on me that the press is here," he joked.

"All kidding aside, these guys have left us in a God-awful place," he then said of the Bush regime, promptly wrapping up his remarks. "We have the ability to straighten it out. It's gonna take a little bit of time, so I ask you to stay with us. Stay with us."

#9 - "Hackergate:  I Smell A Rat - Or Is That A Mouse?"  Election news from Tennessee, at knoxnews.com

Kernell mum on allegations son hacked into Palin’s e-mail
Trevor Aaronson, aaronson@commercialappeal.com
Thursday, September 18, 2008

MEMPHIS — State Rep. Mike Kernell declined Thursday to respond to online allegations that his son — a student at the University of Tennessee Knoxville — hacked into Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account.

“My son’s the one in question, and I can’t comment on him,” said Kernell, a Memphis Democrat.

Bloggers have alleged that David Kernell, 20, is the one who has claimed responsibility for breaking into the Alaska governor’s e-mail account.  The evidence is tenuous. In fact, one of the first blogs to allege that the son of a Democratic politician was responsible relied on e-mail tips and described its evidence as “pretty thin.”

On Wednesday, however, the FBI and Secret Service launched an investigation that includes agents in Memphis. C.M. Sturgis, a spokesman for the Memphis FBI branch, confirmed late Thursday that his office is involved.

“All I can say is that a matter was referred to us from the Anchorage, Alaska, office. An investigation at this time is being coordinated out of FBI headquarters in the Department of Justice,” Sturgis said.

Also Wednesday, a person using the e-mail address rubico10@yahoo.com posted a message to an online forum about how he used Yahoo Mail’s password-recovery tool to obtain Palin’s password.

“I am the lurker who did it, and I would like to tell the story,” rubico10@yahoo.com wrote on the Web site.

The hacker later explained how he reviewed Palin’s e-mail messages one by one: “I read though the emails … ALL OF THEM … before I posted, and what I concluded was anticlimactic, there was nothing there, nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped, all I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governor. … And pictures of her family.”

The hacker used easily available information about Palin to answer questions Yahoo! Mail uses to verify identity. The hacker answered the first two questions easily — birth date and ZIP code. The third question — “Where did you meet your spouse?” — required the hacker to research the answer until he found the correct one, Wasilla High.

“It took seriously 45 (minutes) on Wikipedia and Google to find the info,” rubico10@yahoo.com wrote.

After changing the e-mail password to “popcorn,” the hacker then posted the username and password to 4chan, allowing others to access Palin’s e-mail.

In Nashville on Thursday, Rep. Kernell would neither confirm nor deny his son was involved in hacking Palin’s e-mail account. Although Kernell said he was aware of claims that his son was responsible, the politician would not address any of them.

“Father-son relationship,” Kernell explained.

The longtime legislator would not say whether rubico10@yahoo.com is his son’s e-mail address.

“I can’t comment on my son,” he repeated.

Asked if he has been contacted by investigators, Kernell responded: “Me, no.”

“I can’t say about my son,” he added. “That doesn’t mean he has or hasn’t been contacted.”

David Kernell, a student at UT Knoxville, could not be reached.

Although FBI and Secret Services officials have not identified suspects in the case, they are reviewing logs that could confirm the hacker’s identity.

Federal investigators want to speak with Gabriel Ramuglia of Athens, Ga., who operates an Internet anonymity service the hacker used. Ramuglia told The Associated Press on Thursday that he was reviewing his logs and promised to turn over any helpful information.

The hacker accessed the Alaska governor’s private e-mail account after the news media disclosed e-mail indicating Palin’s administration used private e-mail accounts as a way to work outside Alaska’s Open Records Act.

David Kernell excelled at chess while at Germantown High School and won the 2004 Tennessee Open Scholastic Chess Championship.

Internet searches show someone uses the handle “rubico” on chess Web sites. In addition, an inactive blog, with one post dated May 2004, included “rubico” as a username. Its author identified himself as a chess player from Memphis named David.

Jody Callahan and Richard Locker of the Commerical Appeal and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

1. Because they really wanted to really, really see a Democrat victory? Or...
2. There wasn't anything funny about this election...or
3. They had already made so many jokes about Joe Biden when he was selected for V-P in 1988 that they didn't want to remind anyone?

1. It was in the middle of the country so that time zones could be coordinated for the best timing for the major speaker each night?  Or,
   
2. it was far from New York City, so the parking wouldn't be a problem, or
3. they were hoping the protestors would go to Minneapolis by mistake.

1. Because their attackers thought they symbolized wealthy, greedy capitalists - oh, wait a minute, we are a very BLUE state!
2. Because the substitute bus driver was a member of the CT Democratic Party hierarchy, who felt she owed them a roll?
3. Because their attackers were actually angered by Senator Lieberman having the nerve to make a public appearance with (ugh!) Republicans?
   

1. To wrap themselves in the glamor of violent sport, beer-drinking, allAmerican flesh grabbing, bone cracking action, or
2. to get a great overhead video shot for TV, or
3. to make people associate a sport other than hoops with Obama?

1. They wanted a cool place.
2. They wanted to get high.
3. First choice was L.A., but they were afraid of too many tremors their candidate might cause.
   

#4 - CARICATURES

OBAMA PIX:  As the Republican Convention is swept away by Hurricane Gustav, Barak Obama thinks to himself how lucky he was with the weather, and how fortunate that his daughters are too young to get pregnant.  John McCain is thinking about the meaning of living up to the Republican platform.

WITH THE ELECTION COMING CLOSE, SEARCH FOR A CLOSER ENDS...IN DELAWARE.
Self-aware D.C. Senator Obama looks in for the sign, steps off the rubber to think about the choices, thinks some more, then decides he needs relief, a classic Democrat policy, instead.

Obama aspires to speak for the common people
The Denver Post
By Karen E. Crummy
Article Last Updated: 08/24/2008 08:06:38 AM MDT

RICHMOND, Va. — Barack Obama, who will accept the Democratic nomination Thursday in front of more than 70,000 people at Invesco Field at Mile High, said his convention speech will focus less on himself and more on the American people and their struggles in a faltering U.S. economy...

Having just finished popping bits of peanut brittle in his mouth Thursday night, Obama sat back comfortably in a wobbling chair on his campaign bus, which was fully loaded with four flat-screen TVs and one basketball. He said that since his return from a July trip overseas, his campaign has hit some bumps but that he doesn't spend time worrying about day -to -day polls.

"One of the things about being involved in such a long campaign is you really get a sense there is a rhythm. A rhythm to press coverage. A rhythm to campaigns," he said, noting that at this time a year ago he was trailing New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton by roughly 20 percentage points...

#3 - Where's the possumus?  In one of the 10 extra states?

1. Non-voters:  China or Russia or some other foreign government.
   
2. The shrinking American middle class.
3. In the Internet age, in a campaign not bound by rules of public financing, with on-line contributions by faceless donors, how would anyone know if any of this was not the case?

1. World conflicts 101
2. European history since fall of Soviet Union
3. Make-up for not knowing how many states there are in the United States?

Dream scenario for Democrats?  Invoke the spirit of Watergate!  Wait a minute...what did they know and when did they know it?  The Watergate investigation committee chairman former Sen. Sam Nunn - someone mentioned in the press as a good runningmate for Barak Obama.

• What year did the Soviet Union fracture,
  
• when did the U.S. government force colleges to give athletic scholarships to women,
  
• the time of the Cold War and...
• the hot one, World War II.

Joe Biden for the Democrats, Senator from Delaware

---

Barack Obama would consider charging Bush administration over Guantanamo:  Joe Biden, Barack Obama’s vice-presidential running mate, has indicated that a new Democratic administration could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration over the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo bay.
By Toby Harnden in St Paul
Last Updated: 7:01PM BST 04 Sep 2008

Mr Biden said at an event in Deerfield Beach, Florida: “If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued, not out of vengeance, not out of retribution, out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president - no one is above the law."

His statement is the strongest indication yet that an Obama administartion might seek legal redress against the President George W. Bush. It could undermine Mr Obama’s message of bipartisanship and moving beyond the battles over Iraq.

In April, Mr Obama struck a similar note when he promised that he would ask his attorney general to review the Bush administration’s decisions to differentiate between "genuine crimes" and "really bad policies".

"If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated," he told the Philadelphia Daily News. "You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve..." 

---

From Wikipedia (quote):

On July 1, 1991 President George H.W. Bush nominated Thomas to replace Thurgood Marshall who had recently announced his retirement.[13] Marshall had been the only African American justice on the court. The selection of Thomas preserved the existing racial composition of the court, but it was seen as likely to move the ideological balance to the right.

American Bar Association's (ABA) rating for Judge Thomas was split between "qualified" and "not qualified."

Organizations including the NAACP, the Urban League and the National Organization for Women opposed the appointment based on Thomas's criticism of affirmative action and suspicions that Thomas might not be a supporter of the Supreme Court judgment in Roe v. Wade. Under questioning during confirmation hearings, Thomas repeatedly asserted that he had not formulated a position on the Roe decision.[14]

Some of the public statements of Thomas's opponents foreshadowed the confirmation fight that would occur. One such statement came from activist Florence Kennedy at a July 1991 conference of the National Organization for Women in New York City. Making reference to the failure of Robert Bork's nomination, she said of Thomas, "We're going to 'bork' him."[15]

[edit] Allegations of sexual harassment

Toward the end of the confirmation hearings, information was leaked to the press from an FBI interview with Anita Hill, an attorney who had worked for Thomas at the Department of Education and the EEOC. On October 11, 1991, Hill was called to testify during the Senate confirmation hearing.

Hill said: "He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes....On several occasions, Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual prowess....Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office, he got up from the table at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can and asked, 'Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?'"[16] Hill also indicated that Thomas made reference to the pornographic actor Long Dong Silver.

Angela Wright, who worked with Thomas at the EEOC, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Thomas had repeatedly made comments to her, much like those he allegedly made to Hill, including pressuring her for dates and commenting on her body. Rose Jourdain testified that Wright had discussed Thomas' behavior with her at the time it occurred, and that she had considered it sexual harassment. In light of the fact that Thomas had testified that he had fired Wright for calling another employee a "faggot," [17] Sen. Joseph Biden, chair of the Judiciary Committee, decided against publicly hearing Wright's testimony.

Another former Thomas assistant, Sukari Hardnett, made further damaging charges against him. Although Hardnett made it clear she was not accusing Thomas of sexual harassment, she provided the Judiciary Committee with sworn testimony that "if you were young, black, female, reasonably attractive and worked directly for Clarence Thomas, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female." Additionally, Ellen Wells, John W. Carr, Judge Susan Hoerchner, and Joel Paul testified that Hill had discussed Thomas's actions at the time she worked for Thomas and that she had characterized them as sexual harassment.[18]

Thomas denied all allegations of sexual harassment and sexual impropriety by Hill and the others. Of the committee's investigation of the accusations, Thomas said: "This is not an opportunity to talk about difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree."[19]

After extensive debate, the committee sent the nomination to the full Senate without a recommendation either way. Thomas was confirmed by the Senate with a 52-48 vote on October 15, 1991, the narrowest margin for approval in more than a century.[20] The final floor vote was not along strictly party lines: 41 Republicans and 11 Democrats voted to confirm while 46 Democrats and two Republicans (Jim Jeffords (R-VT) and Bob Packwood[21] (R-OR)) voted to reject the nomination.

On October 23, 1991, Thomas took his seat as the 106th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

---

Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska:  in an undated photo from ADN files - a newspaper endorsing her opposition;  Tina Fey, faux GOP candidate on SNL.

• I-BBC Gov. Palin picture-essay here.
• Anchorage Daily News link to readers' own photos.  and more...
  

WHAT NYTIMES COLUMNISTS AND THE DAY ARE SAYING ABOUT...


FACES IN THE CROWD
Reporter for the NYTIMES (left, above) just made things up;  "She's Not Ready" column in full here - Mr. Herbert of the NYTIMES is an opinion writer;  CHANGE IN THE WEATHERMEN?  TIRED OF THINKING ABOUT THE ECONOMY OR PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS?


She’s Not Ready
NYTIMES 
By BOB HERBERT
Published: September 12, 2008

While watching the Sarah Palin interview with Charlie Gibson Thursday night, and the coverage of the Palin phenomenon in general, I’ve gotten the scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is not just on the march in the U.S., but that it might actually prevail.

How is it that this woman could have been selected to be the vice presidential candidate on a major party ticket? How is it that so much of the mainstream media has dropped all pretense of seriousness to hop aboard the bandwagon and go along for the giddy ride?

For those who haven’t noticed, we’re electing a president and vice president, not selecting a winner on “American Idol...”  full column here.

---

What are the odds that America will get its first female Vice President this year?

Palin connects in Northern Nevada; Carson City crowd immediately feels it’s on first-name basis with Alaska governor
Las Vegas Sun
By David McGrath Schwartz
Mon, Sep 15, 2008 (2 a.m.)

The crowd greeted her with chants of “Sarah, Sarah, Sarah.”

People said they had come to see “Sarah.”

“Sarah spoke to my heart,” said Patty Tietz of Carson City. “She’s not scripted. It sounds like she’s speaking, herself.”

At the Pony Express Pavilion in Carson City Saturday, voters said they connected with Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin in a way that was hard to explain, but that left them comfortable enough to refer to her simply as Sarah.

The speech Palin gave was essentially the stump speech she has given since she accepted the nomination two weeks ago. The crowd of 5,000 — with signs saying “Go Sarah Go” and “Read my lipstick McCain/Palin” buttons — reacted enthusiastically, nonetheless.

Some supporters of Sen. Barack Obama are on a first-name basis with their candidate. (That rarely happens with Sen. John McCain or Sen. Joe Biden.) Yet Democrats have been frustrated, maybe even flummoxed, by the way Palin appears to have changed the race for the White House.

She erased any bump in the polls that Obama got from the Democratic convention. And, as evidenced on Saturday, the Republican base is fired up. This is with a group that had given her running mate, McCain, a third-place finish in the January caucus, behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

Inquiries from Nevadans looking to volunteer for the McCain campaign went from a few hundred a week to 1,500 to 2,000 a week since Palin joined the ticket, according to the campaign.

Many voters here and across the country, particularly conservative women, have felt a personal connection with Palin — one that often goes beyond issues to the personal story of a mother from a small town who goes to church and feels comfortable handling a gun.

When pressed on issues, many of her supporters say she is a reformer who could change things in Washington. They like her anti-abortion stance, for sure, but more than that, they like the fact she gave birth to a baby with Down syndrome.

“She’s the most refreshing thing I’ve seen in politics in 25 years,” said Lorna Hoff, 60, of Reno. Hoff said she wouldn’t have come out to see McCain speak, though she would’ve “begrudgingly voted for him.” (“McCain has an awful lot of liberal tendencies. He’s a RINO,” she said, referring to the conservative slur Republican In Name Only.)

But Palin, she said, “is pro-life, pro-family, pro-working people. She’s one of us.”

Rep. Dean Heller, the Republican who grew up in Carson City, said the energy Palin has brought to Republicans in Nevada is unmistakable.

“She’s one of us,” he said. “The reason all these people are here, she’s one of us.”

A few months ago, it was a favorite pastime of Republicans and Hillary Clinton supporters to ask Obama backers to name one of the Illinois senator’s accomplishments. They complained that Obama was a celebrity, and his support wasn’t about a resume or policy, but about charisma and oratorical skills.

Now, frustrated Democrats say the race should focus on issues. A small protest organized by the Obama campaign was held before Palin’s appearance.

“Republicans called Obama a celebrity,” said Joyce Peirce of Carson City. “That’s all she is — McCain’s puppy dog.”

Inside the pavilion, the crowd cheered when Palin said she fought against pork, including the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” though in February she requested $198 million in federal earmarks and a number of independent groups have pointed out she opposed the bridge only after it became politically unpopular and Congress essentially killed it.

Palin said she fought to lower property taxes as mayor, though she neglected to say she also raised the sales tax to finance a hockey rink.

She said she fought the oil industry lobby and her own party, and said when the state had a surplus, she rebated the money to Alaska citizens. She did not say that the state’s $5 billion budget surplus (not counting the $750 million rebate) came from a large tax increase on oil royalties.

Of course, both sides are trying to make Palin into a caricature. For the left, it is to cast her as a frightening religious zealot. However, as governor she vetoed a bill that would have prevented same-sex couples from getting public employee benefits; she also drew flak from pro-life groups because she declined to take up two abortion-related measures during special sessions aimed at getting a natural gas pipeline agreement passed, saying the abortion-related proposals would be a distraction.

In a New Yorker interview, conducted before she was named McCain’s running mate, she said this: “I guess if you take the individual issues, two that I believe would be benchmarks showing whether you’re a hard-core Republican conservative or not, would be: I’m a lifetime member of the NRA — but this is Alaska, who isn’t? — and I am pro-life, absolutely.”

But she said she recognized that “the Democrats also preach individual freedoms and individual rights, capitalism, free market, let-it-do-its-thing-best, let people keep as much of their money that they earn as possible. And when it comes to, like, the Party machine, no one will accuse me of being partisan.”

As Steve Haycox, a professor of history at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, said of Palin, “she’s a pragmatist.”

For her new devotees on the right who turned out in Carson City on Saturday, and her fierce critics on the left, none of that may matter. It’s now something personal.

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Palin speech must have Democrats nervous 
DAY Editorial
Published on 9/4/2008 
 
Democratic party leaders who were happy to see Sen. John McCain select little-known Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidental running mate were probably not smiling after listening to her acceptance speech at the GOP convention Wednesday night.

Palin energized the convention hall by perfectly delivering a speech that was a mixture of conservative populism and biting criticism of Demcoratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama. Palin deftly presented the Republicans as the party of working America, not corporate America.

As the surprise VP pick walked to the microphone the stakes could not have been higher. She had been buffeted by days of news reporting into her background as a former small-town mayor and first-term governor. While the social conservative wing of the Republican Party was ecstatic over Palin's selection, some moderate Republicans were quietly questioning McCain's judgment in placing such an untested and arguably poorly vetted candidate on the ticket.

But Palin showed no hint of stress. She looked remarkably at ease, delivering her message in a conversational and  genuine style that perhaps no current nationally known candidate can match. From a middle-class perspective, it would be hard to get more real than five children, a pregnant teen daughter, a special-needs baby and a smalltown-girl-made-good story.

She attacked the Washington political elite pundits and the news media, always popular targets. Invoking the memory of Democrat Harry Truman, Palin said sometimes it takes someone from middle America, or perhaps Alaska, to bring wisdom to Washington.

Palin ripped Obama's lack of executive-level inexperience, one of several speakers to make light of his community organizing work on Chicago's south side. And she made a decent case for the lessons learned by running a small town and directing a state. She repeated the convention theme that, unlike Obama, McCain has been tested under fire.

Palin sought to drive a wedge between Obama and working-class voters in such critical industrial states as Ohio and Pennsylvania by reminding her audience of Obama's comments about such folks at a San Francisco fundraiser: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." While not using the word, she clearly suggested he was a hypocrite for saying one thing to a San Francisco crowd, something else to Pennsylvania audiences.

How she will stand up to the scrutiny and questioning in the weeks to come remains to be seen. There will be ample opportunities for her to implode. But for one very important night Sarah Palin was very impressive and that could be making some Democrats very nervous.

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Life of Her Party
NYTIMES
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 2, 2008

ST. PAUL

For many years, reality was out of vogue with Republicans. They ignored the reality of Iraq and Katrina, of Pakistan and Osama bin Laden.

When confronted with their colossal carelessness around the globe and here at home, their mantra was, as Rummy put it, “Stuff happens.”

Now reality, in all its messy, crazy, funky glory, has flooded the party, in the comely, crackling form of Sarah Palin.

Unable to stop the onslaught of wild soap opera storylines erupting from the Palin family and the Alaska wilderness, McCain campaign adviser Steve Schmidt offered caterwauling reporters a new mantra: “Life happens.”

Indeed, it does. Only four days into her reign as John McCain’s “soul mate,” or “Trophy Vice,” as some bloggers are calling her, on the ticket known as “Maverick Squared,” Palin, the governor of Alaska, has already accrued two gates (Troopergate and Broken-watergate), a lawyer (for Troopergate), a future son-in-law named Levi (a high school ice hockey player, described by New York magazine as “sex on skates”), and a National Enquirer headline about the “Teen Prego Crisis” with 17-year-old daughter Bristol.

It seems like a long time since Vice President Dan Quayle denounced Murphy Brown for having a baby out of wedlock, bemoaning a “poverty of values.” It also seems like a long time — and another McCain ago — that Republicans supporting W. smeared the old John McCain by spreading rumors that he had fathered an illegitimate black child.

This week, the anti-abortion forces celebrated the news of Bristol’s pregnancy, using it as further proof that their beloved Governor Palin — who will no more support sex education than polar bears — was committed to the cause.

Since John McCain played craps first and sent the vetters to Alaska afterward, Republicans have been defending Governor Palin by saying that, while she has no foreign policy experience — except, as Cindy McCain pointed out, that “Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia” — she has a lot of domestic policy experience as a supercharged P.T.A. and hockey mom.

As more and more titillating details spill out about the Palins, Republicans riposte by simply arguing that things like Todd’s old D.U.I. arrest or Sarah’s messy family vengeance story will just let them relate better to average Americans — unlike the lofty Obamas.

“If this doesn’t resonate with every woman in America, I’ll eat my hat,” Bill Noll, an Alaska delegate whose daughter got pregnant at a young age and kept the baby, told The Times’s Ashley Parker.

Even as they push Sarah Barracuda as the glamorous but tough hunting and fishing mom who can juggle it all — she’s the only nominee, as Fred Thompson bragged in his convention speech, “who knows how to properly field dress a moose” — they rant at reporters who wonder how she will juggle it all and question some of her judgments.

At a Washington, Pa., rally on Saturday, as her two other daughters stood with her, Ms. Palin left Bristol baby-sitting Trig, who has Down syndrome. “Then we have our daughter Bristol,” the new conservative Republican star said. “She’s on the bus with the newborn. ... It’s his naptime, so he is with his big sister on the bus. But we thank them for being here.”

And this while Bristol was still absorbing the shocking news that she was about to turn into tabloid roadkill — and oh, yeah, she’s getting married sooner rather than later.

When you make a gimmicky pick of an unknown, without proper vetting, there’s bound to be a sticky press conference sooner or later. I watched it happen with Ferraro and Quayle, and I watched Mondale and Poppy Bush curdle with embarrassment but plow through.

The political unknowns, of course, want that tantalizing brass ring, so they’re not always completely forthcoming about their skeletons, if they’re lucky enough to be ineptly vetted. This is ironic, since the nominee who gets blindsided with these crises — Did McCain really know that this Palin reality show was about to pop and swallow his convention — is presenting them to voters as the most trustworthy people to inherit the nuclear codes.

Because Ferraro grabbed at the chance, without revealing to Mondale’s incompetent vetting team how damaging some of her husband’s financial imbroglios could be, she went from being a female icon to part of the reason it’s taken a quarter-century for another party to take a chance on a woman.

When McCain gets in trouble, he pulls out the P.O.W. card. Now Republicans are pulling out the sexist card.

Hillary cried sexism to cover up her incompetent management of her campaign, and now Republicans have picked up that trick. But when you use sexism as an across-the-board shield for any legitimate question, you only hurt women. And that’s just another splash of reality.

----------------

And Then There Was One
NYTIMES
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: September 2, 2008

As we emerge from Labor Day, college students are gathering back on campuses not only to start the fall semester, but also, in some cases, to vote for the first time in a presidential election. There is no bigger issue on campuses these days than environment/energy. Going into this election, I thought that — for the first time — we would have a choice between two “green” candidates. That view is no longer operative — and college students (and everyone else) need to understand that.

With his choice of Sarah Palin — the Alaska governor who has advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and does not believe mankind is playing any role in climate change — for vice president, John McCain has completed his makeover from the greenest Republican to run for president to just another representative of big oil.

Given the fact that Senator McCain deliberately avoided voting on all eight attempts to pass a bill extending the vital tax credits and production subsidies to expand our wind and solar industries, and given his support for lowering the gasoline tax in a reckless giveaway that would only promote more gasoline consumption and intensify our addiction to oil, and given his desire to make more oil-drilling, not innovation around renewable energy, the centerpiece of his energy policy — in an effort to mislead voters that support for drilling today would translate into lower prices at the pump today — McCain has forfeited any claim to be a green candidate.

So please, students, when McCain comes to your campus and flashes a few posters of wind turbines and solar panels, ask him why he has been AWOL when it came to Congress supporting these new technologies.

“Back in June, the Republican Party had a round-up,” said Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club. “One of the unbranded cattle — a wizened old maverick name John McCain — finally got roped. Then they branded him with a big ‘Lazy O’ — George Bush’s brand, where the O stands for oil. No more maverick.

“One of McCain’s last independent policies putting him at odds with Bush was his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” added Pope, “yet he has now picked a running mate who has opposed holding big oil accountable and been dismissive of alternative energy while focusing her work on more oil drilling in a wildlife refuge and off of our coasts. While the northern edge of her state literally falls into the rising Arctic Ocean, Sarah Palin says, ‘The jury is still out on global warming.’ She’s the one hanging the jury — and John McCain is going to let her.”

Indeed, Palin’s much ballyhooed confrontations with the oil industry have all been about who should get more of the windfall profits, not how to end our addiction.

Barack Obama should be doing more to promote his green agenda, but at least he had the courage, in the heat of a Democratic primary, not to pander to voters by calling for a lifting of the gasoline tax. And while he has come out for a limited expansion of offshore drilling, he has refrained from misleading voters that this is in any way a solution to our energy problems.

I am not against a limited expansion of off-shore drilling now. But it is a complete sideshow. By constantly pounding into voters that his energy focus is to “drill, drill, drill,” McCain is diverting attention from what should be one of the central issues in this election: who has the better plan to promote massive innovation around clean power technologies and energy efficiency.

Why? Because renewable energy technologies — what I call “E.T.” — are going to constitute the next great global industry. They will rival and probably surpass “I.T.” — information technology. The country that spawns the most E.T. companies will enjoy more economic power, strategic advantage and rising standards of living. We need to make sure that is America. Big oil and OPEC want to make sure it is not.

Palin’s nomination for vice president and her desire to allow drilling in the Alaskan wilderness “reminded me of a lunch I had three and half years ago with one of the Russian trade attachés,” global trade consultant Edward Goldberg said to me. “After much wine, this gentleman told me that his country was very pleased that the Bush administration wanted to drill in the Alaskan wilderness. In his opinion, the amount of product one could actually derive from there was negligible in terms of needs. However, it signified that the Bush administration was not planning to do anything to create alternative energy, which of course would threaten the economic growth of Russia.”

So, college students, don’t let anyone tell you that on the issue of green, this election is not important. It is vitally important, and the alternatives could not be more black and white.

---

I-BBC video link here
Sarah Heath Palin, an Outsider Who Charms
NYTIMES
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: August 29, 2008

Her father shot the grizzly bear whose hide is now draped over the sofa in her office. She, too, hunts and fishes. She runs marathons. She delivered her fifth child during her first term as governor. They call her husband, the reigning champion in the annual Iron Dog snowmachine race, First Dude.

Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s surprising selection to be his vice-presidential running mate, took Alaska by surprise, too, not long ago. Though indisputably Alaskan, she rose to prominence by bucking the state’s rigid Republican hierarchy, impressing voters more with gumption, warmth and charm than an established record in government.

It was a combination that dumbfounded her rivals.

“She wouldn’t have articulated one coherent policy and people would just be fawning all over her,” said Andrew Halcro, a Republican turned independent, who along with Tony Knowles, a Democrat, ran against Ms. Palin for governor in 2006. “Tony and I looked at each other and it was, like, this isn’t about policy or Alaska issues, this is about people’s most basic instincts: ‘I like you, and you make me feel good.’ ”

“You know,” said Mr. Halcro, invoking the Democratic presidential nominee, “that’s kind of like Obama.”

Before Ms. Palin, 44, became Alaska’s first female governor, in 2006, the top line on her political résumé was her tenure as mayor of Wasilla, a growing suburb of Anchorage with fewer than 7,000 residents. But even before a wide-ranging federal investigation began rattling through the Republican-controlled State Legislature over lawmakers’ links to an oil services company, Ms. Palin jumped into the governor’s race as an outsider calling for reform.

She already had challenged the state Republican Party’s chairman, accusing him of abusing his role on a state oil and gas commission to do political work. And by the summer of 2006, Ms. Palin was taking on the governor, Frank H. Murkowski, a Republican lion of Alaska politics whose bluster and closed-door dealing had finally worn thin in the state.

Ms. Palin (pronounced PAY-lin), youthful and sympathetic with voters but bluntly critical of her party’s leadership, said state government was broken, that it needed to be transparent and responsive. Stunningly, she won in a landslide, trouncing Mr. Murkowski by more than 30 points in the Republican primary that summer and rolling through the general election.

Defying Expectations

Now, after barely 20 months in office in a state that has rarely played much of a role in national politics, Ms. Palin is again challenging expectations, including those of her own party.

“Did I wake up in a parallel universe?” said Mr. Halcro, who writes a blog that is frequently critical of the governor. “I am absolutely shocked.”

Whatever similarities Ms. Palin and Senator Barack Obama may have in personal appeal, they seem to have little else in common. She is a conservative Protestant and has also been a member since 2006 of Feminists for Life, an anti-abortion group. She has supported the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, alongside evolution.

She is a member of the National Rifle Association, and has said Alaska’s economic future depends on aggressively extracting its vast natural resources, from oil to natural gas and minerals.

Ms. Palin said she supported Alaska’s decision to amend its Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. But she used her first veto as governor to block a bill that would have prohibited the state from granting health benefits to same-sex partners of public employees. Ms. Palin said she vetoed the bill because it was unconstitutional, but raised the possibility of amending the state Constitution so the ban could pass muster.

“I don’t think a Hillary person would ever move to her, based on the issues,” said Jean Craciun, a strategic research and planning consultant in Alaska who has done political polling for Democrats and Republicans. “I don’t think before today I would have ever heard someone call her a feminist.”

This month, Ms. Palin issued a last-minute statement of opposition to a ballot measure that would have provided added protections for salmon from potential contamination from mining, an action seen as crucial to its defeat. Her intense pursuit of a pipeline to deliver natural gas from the North Slope of Alaska to market in the Lower 48 led to what her administration has claimed as a major triumph: the Legislature this summer approved her plan to give a $500 million subsidy to TransCanada, a Canadian company, to help build the project.

The State Senate president, Lyda Green, a Republican who is also from Wasilla, has repeatedly sparred with Ms. Palin in the 20 months since she became governor. Like Mr. Halcro, Ms. Green called the governor’s economic policies “liberal,” and said, “I’d have concerns that she’d have the same negative impact on the nation that she has on Alaska.”

Ms. Green disagreed with the governor’s decision to award a license and $500 million in subsidies to the Canadian company, saying there was no guarantee that even with the subsidies a gas pipeline would be built.

Ms. Green said the governor was difficult for her to deal with, a state of affairs she traces to Ms. Green’s decision to remain neutral in Ms. Palin’s race against former Governor Murkowski.

“There was some resentment there that some of us didn’t come out and support her during the primary, and it never really got any better,” Ms. Green said. “I found that if you disagreed with her or tried to amend or change something, that was sort of off-limits. She did not like being told no or to change it.”

Commitment to Pipeline

Rebuffing criticism of the pipeline subsidy, Ms. Palin has cast the pipeline as a way for Alaska to “end our dependence on foreign oil.” She has said she hopes the pipeline effort will show that Alaska can contribute to a new energy economy, rather than be known as the state that receives more per capita federal spending than any other.

Critics in the state complained that Ms. Palin had undercut her clean-government image by appointing as her chief adviser on the pipeline a former lobbyist for TransCanada. The adviser, Marty Rutherford, her deputy commissioner of natural resources, earned about $40,000 lobbying the state government for a TransCanada subsidiary in 2003.

Asked recently whether Mr. Rutherford’s past work for TransCanada presented a conflict of interest, Ms. Palin told The Anchorage Daily News, “Going on five years later, no.”

One of her most significant accomplishments as governor was passing a major tax increase on state oil production, angering oil companies but raising billions of dollars in new revenue. She said the oil companies had previously bribed legislators to keep the taxes low. She subsequently championed legislation that would give some of that money back to Alaskans: Soon, every Alaskan will receive a $1,200 check.

Appointed in 2003 to the state board that settles drilling disputes, the Alaskan Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, she became an outspoken critic of one of her fellow commissioners, Randy Ruedrich, for soliciting political contributions from the oil industry in his capacity as chairman of the state’s Republican Party.

Ms. Palin’s introduction to a national audience comes as little good news has come out of Republican politics in Alaska. The same corruption investigation that was brewing when she ran for office in 2006 has led to the convictions of three Republican state lawmakers, charges against still more and, most recently, the indictment of the most established and revered Alaska politician of all, Senator Ted Stevens.

The continuing trouble has made Ms. Palin’s calls for reform appear all the more prescient, yet she now is facing an investigation herself. The Republican-controlled Legislature has hired an independent investigator to determine whether Ms. Palin improperly pressured the former state public safety commissioner to resign this year.

The former commissioner, Walt Monegan, has said he felt pressure from Ms. Palin’s administration, and her husband, Todd, to fire a state trooper, Mike Wooten, who was going through a bitter divorce with the governor’s sister. The trooper was not fired.

Mr. Monegan told The Anchorage Daily News that Mr. Palin had showed him some of the findings of a private investigator the family had hired and accused the trooper of a variety of misdeeds, including drunken driving and child abuse.

Mr. Palin told the newspaper he feared for his wife’s safety and said Trooper Wooten had made threats against her and her family. The governor has acknowledged inquiries by her staff to the Public Safety Department but said she played no role in them. To demonstrate she welcomed the inquiry, Mrs. Palin asked the state attorney general to look into the accusations as well.

Born on Feb. 11, 1964, in Sandpoint, Idaho, Sarah Heath Palin was still an infant when her parents moved the family to Skagway, in southeast Alaska, after accepting teaching positions there. The family moved to Wasilla, a small, conservative and growing suburb of Anchorage where, as Mr. McCain noted, Ms. Palin was a “standout high school point guard.”

The governor met her husband in high school, and she was later voted “Miss Wasilla” in a local beauty contest. In 1987, she received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Idaho. A year later, she and Mr. Palin eloped.

The governor said Friday that she “never really set out to be involved in public affairs, much less to run for this office,” referring to the vice presidency, but she rose quickly once she entered political life. “A P.T.A. mom who got involved,” is how the current mayor of Wasilla, Dianne M. Keller, described Ms. Palin.

She was elected to the Wasilla City Council in 1992, then ran for mayor in 1996, she has said, because she was concerned that revenue from a new sales tax would not be spent wisely. She served two terms, through 2002.

As mayor, she oversaw the Police Department, which has 25 officers, and the city’s public works projects. Garbage collection is done by private companies, and a borough government oversees firefighting and public schools.

“This is really rural America,” said the deputy city clerk, Jamie Newman, who added that town residents were still reeling from the news that the woman who just six years ago served as their mayor could now be vice president of the United States. “Frankly, everyone is in shock.”

Ms. Keller said that Ms. Palin had three major achievements as mayor: She cut property taxes, increased the city sales tax by half a percent to support construction of an indoor ice rink and sports complex, and put more money into public safety, winning a grant to build a police dispatch center in town.

Although she would later criticize Congressional earmarks like Alaska’s infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” proposed for the town of Ketchikan at a cost of about $400 million, as mayor she began the practice of making annual trips to Washington to press for them on behalf of their town.

A Fresh Family Tableau

Ms. Palin’s family presents Mr. McCain, who turned 72 on Friday, with fresh and wholesome campaign imagery. It also presents some potentially delicate issues. Mr. Palin, in addition to being a champion snowmobile racer, is an oil production operator on the North Slope, working for BP, a company that has had to make major repairs since a spill on the slope temporarily shut down production there in 2006.

In addition to Ms. Palin’s $125,000 state salary, Mr. Palin earned $93,000 last year running his own commercial fishing business and working part-time at BP’s oil production facility, according to her public financial disclosure reports.

Although Ms. Palin once said that her husband would quit his job at BP if she were elected governor, she later backed away from that. He took a leave from the company after she won, but went back to work there last year, saying his family needed the money. And the governor now says that because Mr. Palin is not in management, it poses no conflict with her own dealings with the petroleum industry, a major force in Alaska’s politics and economy.

Mr. Palin, who is part Yu’pik Eskimo, also received a few hundred dollars in dividends as a shareholder in two benefit corporations representing Alaskan Natives and $10,500 from the Iron Dog snowmobile race, which he has won several times. The Palins reported no debts other than the mortgage on their home.

The couple have five children — Track, 19; Bristol, 17; Willow, 14; Piper, 7; and Trig, 4 months. Track joined the Army last year, a fact Ms. Palin mentioned in her introduction to the Republican ticket on Friday. Trig, who was born in April, has Down syndrome, which Ms. Palin seemed to allude to only obliquely on Friday, after she described him as a “beautiful baby boy” then shifted from there to her selection as Mr. McCain’s running mate.

“Some of life’s greatest opportunities,” the governor said, “come unexpectedly.”

Ms. Palin and her husband knew during her pregnancy that there were complications, though the boy’s condition was not revealed publicly until after he was born. Anti-abortion groups have praised Ms. Palin and her family.

“It speaks volumes about her personally and about how she walked her talk,” said Serrin M. Foster, president of Feminists for Life, an anti-abortion group.

Three days after giving birth, Ms. Palin was back at work.

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By Matt Frei BBC News, Denver Washington diary: Anxious Democrats If you had any doubts that American party conventions were about ritual, you should talk to my friend who found herself in the Ladies as the gavel went down on the Denver proceedings. US party conventions are the scene of patriotism and ritual As she and her colleagues obeyed the calls of nature, the Star Spangled Banner piped out of the loudspeakers. Despite being inconvenienced in the convenience, the Americans immediately obeyed that other call, the one to honour the flag. The Ladies on the second floor of the Pepsi Center hummed to the sound of ladies singing along to the National Anthem and holding their hand over their heart. My friend does not know whether this show of patriotism extended into the privacy of the cubicles but she did point out that what she witnessed would never have happened in the UK. I wonder if the Republicans, who have set up their own war room here in the Mile High City, were taking note. They have, after all, questioned not just the patriotism of Barack Obama, but his American identity. The first day of the convention was carefully choreographed to allay voters' fears that despite his exotic name and complicated upbringing, Mr Obama was as American as the next citizen in this country of immigrants. If the symbolism can't be hammered home during convention week, when can it? His wife, Michelle Obama, was almost in tears when she pleaded with the cameras that she loved America. Her family story, delivered with an inevitable hint of treacle, was the iconic journey from wholesome poverty to wholesome public service. The gorgeous daughters were on stage to prove the point. And just before you thought you had witnessed a rerun of the Cosby Show, the candidate himself popped up on a video link from Kansas City, Missouri, surrounded by a regular family of American voters, all white. It looked a little ham-fisted but then this is a campaign and if the symbolism can't be hammered home during convention week, when can it? Democratic royalty While Michelle Obama reintroduced her family as regular American folks, the gravelly baritone of a terminally-ill Ted Kennedy was there to illustrate how extraordinary the ordinary Obamas are. The Kennedy clan is Democratic royalty. Like Germany's Hohenzollerns, Austria's Habsburgs or Britain's Windsors, they even display the predominant gene of royalty. In the Kennedys' case these are square jaws, Lego-sized teeth and a broad forehead. And, like all royalty, they guard their legacy jealously. The Kennedy clan sprinkled political stardust on the Obama family On Monday night, the last surviving member of the ill-fated quad of Kennedy brothers passed the family torch to the Obamas. He did so right over the heads of the people who had originally expected to inherit the torch, the Clintons. What added insult to injury was that Caroline Kennedy, the former president's daughter, was in charge of the committee to find a suitable vice-president and Hillary was, it seems, not even on her short list. Sprinkled with Kennedy stardust, buoyed by Michelle Obama's slick performance and reassured by the rhetorical gift of the candidate himself, the Democrats should be in a Mile High Club of euphoria. After all, the winds of change should be blowing against the Republicans and their president. But, everywhere you look in Denver, you find nail-biting delegates, nervous surrogates, defensive campaign staffers. The rest of the world thinks that Mr Obama will be America's 44th president but, at home, the Democrats are the worried party. To some extent, this is their traditional role. Like Woody Allen in one of his earlier movies, the Democrats excel at fretting, agonising, navel gazing and over-analysing. The opinion polls, which have Mr Obama and his Republican rival John McCain neck-and-neck, prove that they have reason to worry. The senator from Illinois has had an arid summer. He needs to have a bountiful harvest season. The ghost of Clinton But the other reason for anxiety is the Lady who broods in the wings. Of late, Hillary and Bill Clinton have not uttered a single public word of apostasy. They are toeing the line, gritting their teeth and swallowing their pride. Many Democrats are finding it hard to let go of their hopes for Mrs Clinton They are also economical with their enthusiasm. I am told that senior Clinton people aren't even sticking around for Obama's big stadium speech on Thursday. This is damning with faint praise. Moreover, such was the Clintons' hold over the party that the faithful almost expect them to lash out and derail the meticulous choreography. Like the children of over-bearing parents, they expect wrath, even if there's no evidence of it. Hillary Clinton has become Lady Marchmain in Brideshead Revisited, a living reminder of the perils of abandoning orthodoxy - the orthodoxy of a Clinton candidacy - and a permanent finger on the delicate bruise of guilt and self-doubt, that this may turn out to be a mistake. The Republicans are doing their best to press on the wound. As the Wall Street Journal asked: How could the Democrats choose a running mate - Joe Biden - who garnered no more than 9,000 votes and ignore one who harvested 18 million during the primary season? The ghost of Clinton needs to be exorcised from the convention and that is something that only Hillary and Bill can do. The ritual of convention alone is not enough.

By Kevin Connolly BBC News, Grand Rapids Michigan

Whatever happens in American politics in the course of the next three years, we will remember this as the day when Hurricane Palin blew through the normally placid streets of Grand Rapids Michigan.

And there are plenty of supporters of Sarah Palin who are hoping we will look back on it as the day when the opening shots of Campaign 2012 were fired.

Officially of course, it was merely the start of the promotional tour for Sarah Palin's memoir Going Rogue - a curious volume which manages to combine folksy recollections of childhood with some pointed score-settling aimed at the hapless spin-doctors who "handled" her during her failed run for the vice-presidency.

But it felt like something much more.

Adoring fans

Not just an early premonition of what a Palin Primary rally might look like in 2012 either - this was one of America's major political players reconnecting with the base which she energises and which in turn energises her.

American history may be littered with politicians who have run more successful campaigns than Mrs Palin and there are certainly plenty who have written better books - but there is something special in the connection between Alaska's former governor and the base which adores her.

The line of a couple of thousand supporters waiting to have her sign their copy of "Going Rogue" snaked up and down the spacious corridors of the Woodland Mall past the premises of such homely businesses as the Red Robin Diner and the Cosmic Candy Company.

They are all perfectly well aware of course that most politicians and pundits in what they call the "liberal elite media" tend to despise Mrs Palin for her lack of political sophistication, her folksiness and her apparently sketchy grasp of how the wider world works.

Sarah Palin's fan base includes teenagers

And they do not care - indeed they love her for it.

For them she is the underdog endlessly picked on by sneering commentators on mainstream television and in the big city newspapers.

Local business consultant Mike Crane who was waiting somewhere near the head of the line explained it to me.

"She's one of us," he said simply. "We're hard-working, 9-to-5 Joes and like her we didn't go to the elite universities that other politicians went to. She understands real life and she understands America."

And the America she understands came out in force to greet her in Grand Rapids - one or two women in the crowd knitted placidly as they waited anywhere between 10 and 15 hours for a few seconds of one-on-one time with their heroine.

Several wore "Palin For President" badges. One man sported a T-shirt with a quote from Jefferson about the importance of keeping government small.

There were more women than men, and more people over 45 than under it. The oldest Palinite I met was 82 (she was taking advantage of a massage chair which was for sale in a shop beside the bookstore where Mrs Palin appeared) and the youngest was around 10.

"She's cool," he informed me simply. "Write that down."

She's shown me that I can achieve anything, and be anything I want to be Nichole Perrine

At the very head of the line we found a group of local teenagers who had waited overnight to make sure they were first to be ushered into the governor's presence.

They must have passed a rather eerie night in the deserted mall with the Christmas decorations winking silently down on them from the high, dark ceilings above.

It was, they assured me, well worth it.

One of them, Nichole Perrine, said Mrs Palin was her hero.

"She's shown me that I can achieve anything, and be anything I want to be," she told me… a characteristic you often hear attributed to Barack Obama, interestingly enough.

When I asked Laura Lomik what she planned to say to Mrs Palin she said: "I'm going to ask her to please run for president in 2012."

When I caught up with the two 19-year-olds afterwards they insisted their brief meetings with the governor had been well worth the wait - there is a kind of magic about her, they confirmed - but they got no further than Oprah Winfrey or Barbara Walters in discovering whether Mrs Palin still has presidential ambitions.

So, let's consider the evidence.

Mrs Palin's book is a little light on ideology and big ideas but that probably does not matter very much in modern America where politicians run on their life stories and their ability to relate it to the lives of voters.

Thousands of people queued up to see Ms Palin

It worked for Barack Obama (although he did throw in a bit of ideology) so there is no reason why it should not work for Sarah Palin.

The book tour too looks a little like a campaign swing - running as it does through key marginal areas, regions of high unemployment and a couple of places (like this bit of Michigan) where any credible Republican contender for the presidency will have to do pretty well.

She is a little coy on the matter herself, but then these are early days and so is everyone else.

She talks of working to support other conservative candidates for office in the 2010 mid-terms when Republicans might do rather well.

And of course as she points out, you can serve the public without holding public office.

Powerful force

Mrs Palin made sure for example that her voice was heard in the national debate on health care - she it was who started the debate over whether or not government rationing of medical budgets might lead to the appointment of "Death Panels".

That startling claim had the White House on the back foot this summer and helped raise conservative morale.

But the most compelling evidence of all that there is plenty more to come from Sarah Palin was in the nature of the crowd she drew here.

Her followers do not merely agree with her, they love her and, while she may alienate other Americans in equal or greater numbers, that makes her a force to be reckoned with.

Whatever other American politicians may say about her, however hard she may be for foreigners to understand and regardless of the pundits, any rival candidate looking at the crowds in Grand Rapids - and the crowds to come - will be envious. And perhaps a little worried.

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From YouTube, Carly Fiorina comments

A Glimpse of the New  
NYTIMES
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: September 4, 2008

ST. PAUL

Political parties usually reform in the wilderness. They suffer some crushing defeat, the old guard is discredited and the pain compels turnover and change. John McCain is trying to reform the Republican Party before a presidential defeat, with the old guard still around, and with a party base that still hasn’t accepted the need to transform. The central drama of this week’s convention was the struggle by reform Republicans to break through the gravitational pull of old habits and create something new.

Before the convention, some McCain aides wanted to sunder the links to the past in one bold stroke: Name Joe Lieberman as the vice presidential nominee, promise to serve only one term, vow to take a hiatus from partisanship and work by compromise to get things done. That proved to be a leap too far.

So McCain was pulled back. But he refused to stay there and pressed ahead by picking Sarah Palin. At first, this seemed like the fresh break he needed. Her career in Alaska has been nibbled on the edges, but the key fact is this: When the testing time came, she quit her government job, put her career on the line and took on the corrupt establishment of her own party.

But again, the forces of the past pulled McCain back. Parts of the press pack elevated Bristol Palin’s pregnancy. A controversy over human reproduction brought back the old culture wars and the mommy wars. Battle lines formed, as in the days of Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas, and everyone took their pre-assigned roles.

Millions declared themselves qualified to judge her a bad mother, while others held her up as the model of evangelical virtue. And, of course, the whole thing became enmeshed in the clichés of red-blue: the supposed conflict between the condescending media elites and the gun-owning trailer trash, between abortion-rights urban women with one kid and anti-abortion rural women with five.

For 36 hours, the gravitational pull of past resentments dominated the media-culture war complex. And from the convention podium the past and the future fought to a draw. On the one hand, Joe Lieberman went up there and praised Bill Clinton, giving a glimpse of what a less partisan political future might look like. On the other, there was Mitt Romney, who delivered a cynical, extreme caricature of old-line Republicanism.

The convention thus sat on a knife-edge. And then Palin walked onstage. She gave a tough vice presidential speech, with maybe a few more jabs than necessary. Still it was stupendous to see a young woman emerge from nowhere to give a smart and assertive speech.

And what was most impressive was her speech’s freshness. Her words flowed directly from her life experience, her poise and mannerisms from her town and its conversations. She left behind most of the standard tropes of Republican rhetoric (compare her text to the others) and skated over abortion and the social issues. There wasn’t even any tired, old Reagan nostalgia.

Instead, her language resonated more of supermarket aisle than the megachurch pulpit. More than the men on the tickets, she embodies the spirit of the moment: impatient, fed up, tough-minded, but ironical. Even in attack, she projected the cheerfulness of someone confident about the future.

In those 40 minutes, the forces of reform Republicanism took control, at least for a time. Republicans started talking about Palin, Bobby Jindal and a brighter future for their party.

In his own speech on Thursday, McCain showed that he is not naturally the smoothest of speakers. He did not have an over-arching story to describe how the world has changed in the 21st century and how government must adapt.

He did not lay out a new doctrine to give shape to his administration. Bill Clinton had a new Democratic agenda to describe how his party would evolve, and in 2000, George W. Bush had compassionate conservatism. McCain had nothing like that. He did not offer as transformational a domestic policy agenda as one would have liked.

But he described traditional conservatism-plus: low taxes and free markets with some activism built on top; compensating workers for lost wages when plants close; a grand national project for energy independence. Through it all, he communicated his burning indignation at the way Washington has operated over the last 12 years. He communicated his intense passion to lift government to a plane the country deserves. He did note that he has fought to change the Republican Party during its period of decay. And he diagnosed that decay Thursday night (to the tepid applause of the faithful).

And this passion for change, combined with his proven and evident integrity, led to the crescendo of raw energy that marked this convention’s conclusion.

His policies are still not quite there yet, but McCain has the heart of an insurgent.