Rotophonic

A geeky blog discussing the world of music, technology & politics.

Archive for category Politics

McCain: One Way Out

Oct 13

Posted by rotophonic in John McCain, Politics, Sarah Palin | No Comments

As it happens sometimes, your best idea gets written by someone else–and most of the time better than you would have ever written it. In this case, the topic was to be McCain’s only shot at losing with some measure of dignity. Alas, Miles Mogalescu at Huffington Post beat me to it with a brilliant, prescient post about McCain’s legacy and the options he has remaining in this election.

With the Presidential election only 3 weeks away, John McCain faces a stark choice: Will he go down in history as a principled conservative who lost an election standing on his convictions? Or will he go down as an opportunist who lost while bringing out the darkest elements in American politics?

John McCain is now at a crossroads. At this historical moment, he has virtually no path to win the Presidency. The question is whether he will lose with honor or lose with disgrace. Will his legacy be like that of his Arizona Senatorial predecessor Barry Goldwater, who ran a campaign of conservative principal in a liberal year and lost in a landslide, only to see his principals come to power 16 years in the form of Ronald Reagan? Or will his legacy be like some combination of Richard Nixon, Robert Dole and George Wallace, one of a man whom, in his overweening ambition for victory, took the low road and tapped the dark forces of American politics to his own everlasting shame and dishonor?

I highly recommend that you read Miles Mogalescu’s prescription for McCain’s ailing campaign. As someone who once respected McCain, I couldn’t agree more.

Tags: , ,

Why Alaskans Must Impeach Sarah Palin

Oct 13

Posted by rotophonic in John McCain, Politics, Sarah Palin, Troopergate | 6 Comments

With a unanimous vote of 12-0, the Republican-dominated Alaska State Legislative council voted to release its findings [pdf] regarding Governor Sarah Palin’s efforts to get her ex-brother-in-law fired and the dismissal of Department of Public Safety head, Walt Monegan. Finding number one was:

Finding Number One

For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) provides

“The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.”

Given that the reports recommends that no criminal charges be pursued, the question is, “What should Alaska do now?”

It seems clear to me watching from the outside that there is only one course of action for the Alaska Legislature: the Alaska Legislature must impeach Sarah Palin.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , ,

Palin/McCain Thinks You’re Stupid Part Two

Oct 10

Posted by rotophonic in John McCain, Politics, Sarah Palin | No Comments

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how the McCain Campaign had announced that Palin “agreed to cooperate with the Troopergate investigation” and how what was really going on was that she agreed to participate in the investigation initiated by her own complaint filed against herself at the Alaska State Personnel board. Now they have a new pile of crap they want you to believe: on Thursday, the day before Steven Branchflower is due to release the real investigative report into the Troopergate scandal, the McCain campaign has released its own “report” that “clears” Palin of any wrongdoing. The McCain campaign doesn’t just think Americans are stupid: they actually think voters are as stupid as Todd Palin.

From the AP:

Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing.

Not only that, the faux report blames Andrew Halcro, who now sarcastically admits, he was “the blogger on the grassy knoll.”

And as for the real report, TPM Muckraker is reporting that Palin’s lawyer is now complaining that the report cannot possibly be complete because Palin was never deposed.

Palin’s lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, tried to preemptively discredit the report, telling the ADN that it won’t be comprehensive because Branchflower didn’t interview Palin or her chief of staff, Mike Tibbles.

“They didn’t even try to interview the governor. You want to know why she reassigned Monegan, it would be nice to talk to her. They didn’t even try,” Van Flein said. “It’s a report that’s going to be half-done at best. And anything that’s half-done will likely be half-baked.”

What a friggin’ joke! She refuses to cooperate with the investigation and then complains she didn’t get a chance to tell her story. I hope Alaskans run a recall election for Governor up there.

I think we’ll wait for the real report.

Tags: , ,

FISA Travesty Redux Times Ten

Oct 9

Posted by rotophonic in Bush, FISA, Politics | No Comments

I’ll have more about this story later, but Brian Ross of ABC News reported today that he has interviewed two former NSA linguists who claim they routinely eavesdropped on, transcribed and recorded conversations made by members of the press, the Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, and the US Military as they made calls to the United States. Not terrorists. Not suspected terrorists. Just ordinary US citizens calling the United States from abroad.

Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.

ROSS: Kinne says she listened to hundreds of Americans simply calling their families …
KINNE: Personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything having anything to do with terrorism. It was just personal conversations that nobody else should have been listening to.
ROSS: President Bush has reassured Americans again and again:
GEORGE BUSH: It’s phone calls of known Al Qaeda suspects making a phone call into the United States.
KINNE: I would say that that is completely a lie — I would call it a lie — because we were definitely listening to Americans who had nothing to do with terrorism…
ROSS: Kinne says she intercepted, recorded, and transcribed conversations with the military, journalists, and Red Cross and aid workers.

What a shock! Bush and his cronies in the NSA, CIA and Justice Department lied to us about what they were really doing.

Glenn Greenwald has the first salvo that one can only hope will lead to a criminal investigation of the most corrupt, lawless Administration in history.

Tags: , , ,

Pathetic John McCain

Oct 7

Posted by rotophonic in Bailout, Barack Obama, John McCain, Politics, Sarah Palin | No Comments

McCain Campaign hopes for its own bailoutAfter crashing his campaign into the mountain with the “suspend the campaign” stunt to “save” the country from the financial mess, finding his deregulated economy crashing down around him and power-hungry Palin giving barely literate interviews to “hard-ball” morning show reporters like Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson, John McCain will now have to spend every last drop of his faux “straight talker” legacy in a pathetic attempt to derail Obama in these final days of the 2008 Presidential campaign.

No matter how many of the polls found the country yearning for a more Preisdential and fiscally responsible adult, McCain only has the “angry” right-wing vote left. As boneheads in Republican audiences scream, “Terrorist”, the rest of the country is now loudly voting “No” to the ham-fisted economic team of Angry and Snippy.

As Talking Points Memo Election Central’s ever astute Greg Sargent puts it:

The crisis also forced McCain to suddenly wrench himself into a populist posture — a transformation so ridiculous given his previous statements and pro-deregulatory past that it colored everything that followed. Obama then performed solidly amid the skirmishing in Congress. This, combined with the public’s preference for Obama’s economic solutions over McCain’s, ensured that McCain’s higher “preparedness” numbers didn’t lead voters to see him as best prepared to manage the crisis.

It’s the basic disconnect at the heart of McCain’s claim to being the right candidate to take control of the economy that is really driving him down. In short, McCain lost his “maverick” brand because on the driving issue of the campaign, he isn’t a maverick, and never really was. And thanks to media coverage pulled towards skepticism by the liberal counter-narrative — not to mention the crisis itself — voters know it.

Or as Glenn Greenwald of Salon describes the Republicans’ situation:

This is a dying, desperate movement — so deeply out-of-touch with the country that they actually proclaimed that Sarah Palin would save them in the wake of the debate, only to watch her continue to drag down their ticket. Polls now even show Obama with large leads in traditional red states like Virginia (10-12 points) and North Carolina (6 points). Watch McCain’s speech today and you will see only one thing: the behavior of cornered rats.

Tags: , , ,

Does the McCain Camp Believe the Election is Already Over?

Oct 1

Posted by rotophonic in John McCain, Politics, Sarah Palin | No Comments

Why was Sarah Palin being interviewed by Katie Couric in the first place?

I can’t help but ask the question as I’m not sure what the McCain campaign hoped to gain from her interview. At this point in the campaign, with so few voters still undecided, did McCain’s campaign actually believe that they could sway Independents and Undecideds with someone so radical and untested?

Palin is not a mainstream candidate. The only group really excited about Palin is the religious-right and having Palin interviewed by someone in the reality-based world, like Couric, seems like a dead end, even if she was capable of answering questions successfully.

Now the McCain camp has announced a shift in Palin’s press strategy that allows only far-right interviewers to have access to her.

With John McCain so completely off balance these days and Palin relegated to the bowels of right-wing talk radio, I believe that many in the McCain campaign must believe he has lost the election already. The Campaign knows McCain’s only chance is to rehabilitate his own rhetoric in the coming weeks. Unfortunately for him, McCain’s level of frustration and anger is rising, which doesn’t bode well for a calm, cool, presidential demeanor coming over him anytime soon.

Tags: , ,