Turn Left @ hypocrisy.com

“She’s feisty. She’s adorable.”

“If she can run the PTA, she can be president.”

“People can identify with her. She has five kids. I have six.”

What is this? The American Idol of politics? Well, surprise, it isn’t. This is one of the most critical elections in our nation’s history, but the McCainiacs have fallen hook, line and sinker for the distraction effect that his campaign brain trust promised. Back at the beginning, McCain’s staff openly stated that they didn’t want this campaign to be about issues, but rather personalities. How pathetic. Do you really think he’s putting Country First? John McCain is doing a great disservice to the American people. I think he should drop that slogan just about as quickly as he should drop Sarah Palin. John McCain is putting John McCain first. That speaks volumes for the man and why he should never be president of the United States.

Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s remove the issues (like social security, health care, the energy crisis, the housing crunch, the Wall Street pig-fest, and the two wars) and take everything else that has gone on in the McCain campaign for the White House. I’m up for it because I find many, many disturbing things. If we’re talking personalities, so be it. However, character doesn’t get a bye here.

-John McCain doesn’t think. He simply reacts, and he’s a man of high drama. First, he postponed the opening of the Republican Convention because of Hurricane Gustav, which was headed towards New Orleans. What John McCain wanted you to believe is that he cares so much about the poor people of Louisiana. Yet the fact remains that Senator McCain has voted against a lot of the Katrina assistance. I can’t imagine he has any feelings for the people of New Orleans. For those who know his voting record, this doesn’t ring true. What does ring true is that he wants to get elected because, at 72, this is his last presidential hurrah. Will anyone even consider him at 76 years old? I doubt it.

-Round two of high drama was the selection of Sarah Palin as vice president. He loves big impact moves that keep the American public on an uneven keel. That way he can distract them from the issues. More on Palin and why she doesn’t belong on the ticket is to come, but suffice it to say that he didn’t even screen her himself. He left that to the secretive, ultraconservative right wing group, the Council on National Policy. Back in 2000 he referred to Christian conservatives as the ruination of the Republican party (he was right); today he’s in bed with them because he needs them to win. McCain met Palin only one time before offering her the VP slot. Let’s just say that his decision-making capabilities come into question here. He preferred Joseph Lieberman, but a quasi-liberal Jew won’t fly with the Christian conservatives who are damned intent on forcing their religious beliefs on the rest of us. Don’t get me wrong. I’m absolutely no fan of Joseph Lieberman. I wasn’t even when he ran with Al Gore. Do I think he’s qualified? Yes, I do. Sarah Palin is a national joke. If she isn’t. She should be.

-Sarah Palin has been described as “feisty.” That’s not the word I’d use. I’d use snide and insulting, but not feisty. Notice I’m not calling her what the mainstream media called Hillary Clinton. She stood up at the Republican Convention and literally insulted and belittled community organizing. Does she have any idea how much a part of the American fabric of life community organizing is? Does she have a grasp on how important it is? When we were homeless the government was content to let my family hang on a limb, mostly because we were a “gay” family and - in its eyes - not legitimate. Let’s make one thing clear: Had it not been for community organizers we would not have gotten any help at all or gotten ourselves out of that situation.

-The notion that running the PTA makes you ready for the vice presidency and, potentially, the presidency is a joke. Sarah Palin has absolutely no foreign policy experience whatsoever. We are in the midst of two ill-advised wars that are both unwinnable. We’ve made enemies of the majority of our former allies and have a lot of rebuilding to do. Palin has defended herself by saying that she’s got foreign policy experience because she can see Russia from Alaska. Okay, maybe the first time this came out of her mouth one could chalk it up to nerves. However, Sarah Palin continues to use this childish example to defend her supposed foreign policy experience. She even managed to expand upon this defense and make it sound even more foolish when she spoke with Katie Couric:

“We have trade missions back and forth,” said Palin. “We, we do, it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to, to our state.”

Listening to Sarah Palin on the issues is like listening to a drunk person trying to regain some semblance of coherence. It would be funny if she wasn’t a heartbeat away from the presidency. When I worked for a Fortune 500 company, I built two departments from the ground up; I hired, promoted, demoted and fired employees; I ran $7 million dollars worth of budgets; and was responsible for my division’s marketing communications and technical communications functions. I even managed European personnel and traveled back and forth a great deal. I am not so presumptuous as to think that I’m remotely qualified for the vice presidency. I am not, and I would not expect the American people to accept my credentials. Again, this is John McCain putting his country second to his victory.

-Sarah Palin knows nothing about the economy. She barely has command of the English language. Here’s another excerpt from her interview with Kathie Couric, this time on the bail-out.

Katie Couric: Why isn’t it better, Gov. Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

Gov. Sarah Palin: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the — it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

Someone should tell Governor Palin that the bail-out is, in fact, about none of that. It’s all about helping the party boys on Wall Street continue to feast on the taxpayers’ dollar. That’s what it’s about. Some insist she needs to be briefed better. That’s not the issue. The issue is that Governor Palin cannot think on her feet. She has no command or understanding of the issues. It requires more than briefing.

-Fire the SEC Chairman! That was John McCain’s instant solution/reaction to the Wall Street meltdown. Again, more drama. That’s because he really doesn’t have an understanding of the issue. For the record, John McCain has no grasp of economics either and he has admitted this publicly. So then, why did he have to “suspend” his campaign to run back to Washington (another thing he didn’t really do since he was in New York standing up David Letterman to go on with Katie Couric instead). Better idea, John, let’s get rid of the no regulation, free market Republicans whose 28 years of deregulation created this Wall Street mess just like it created the S & L scandal. For the record, he’s one of those Republicans. Do the words “The Keating Five” ring a bell? John McCain was one of the politicians who fought against regulating the Savings & Loan industry. When his friend Charles Keating, of Lincoln Savings & Loan, came under investigation, John McCain was one of five politicians who sought to throw that investigation off the track. After getting caught with his hands in the till, he reinvented himself as this maverick politician fighting against special interests.

-Of course, this maverick image is a lie too. Suddenly, Senator McCain is a populist! He may talk in forceful tones about the Wall Street lobbyists, but that doesn’t stop him from having 83 of them working on his 2008 campaign. He speaks against “golden parachutes” for under-performing executives, but his campaign’s chief economic advisor, Carly Fiorina, destroyed HP and walked away with a $42 million dollar golden parachute ($21.4 million in severance). On the other side of the coin, Fiorina’s poor performance and bad business decisions caused 20,000 people to lose their jobs. So, why the hell, then, is she his chief economic advisor? He had harsh words for the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bail out, but we now know that the man credited with reviving the McCain campaign, Rick Davis, took $15,000 a month payments from Freddie Mac right up until last month. Why? For access to John McCain to keep regulators off their tails. Lies. Lies. Lies. Do we want yet another liar for president? Been there. Done that. We’ve seen the results.

-John McCain refuses to release his medical records, and his wife refuses to release her tax records (and that’s where all the action is). John McCain has had multiple bouts with melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. One was just a few weeks ago when a lesion was removed from his cheek. He also shows signs of confusion. He has difficulty identifying foreign leaders (witness the confusion over the leader of Spain). When questioned, McCain could not remember how many homes he owned. He cannot tell the difference between Sunni and Shia. He keeps referring to Czechoslovakia, a nation that has not existed since 1993. I believe that the American people are entitled to know his medical condition, considering the fact that we could end up with Sarah Palin running the country. I also believe that the American people have a right to know about his family’s financial condition. Everyone else has had to comply. If he cannot comply, then I believe that he should not be allowed to run.

-Perhaps John McCain has problems multitasking. That will be a problem for anyone inheriting the job he’s running for. Or perhaps his need to “suspend” his campaign over the current economic crisis was just to gain some attention for a faltering effort. Either way, it doesn’t say much good about the man’s character. First of all, the notion that he “suspended” the campaign is a lie. He told David Letterman he had to fly back to DC immediately to assist with the bail-out. Instead he went down the street and was interviewed by Katie Couric in an effort to minimize the damage done to his campaign by the horrible Sarah Palin interview. That’s really why he canceled Letterman, because the next morning he was still in New York speaking at Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative. He never flew back to DC “immediately.

And he never “suspended” his campaign either. To suspend something means to stop it. The bash Obama ads continued to run, and members of his staff spent the day on the air telling everyone that would listen that’s just how selfless McCain is. He suspended his own campaign to help the country…to put Country First. In reality, he wasn’t needed or wanted in DC. He would have nothing to do there had George Bush not covered for him and invited him to the White House. It was at those White House talks that the deal began to fall apart. He left the next day to go back on the campaign trail and attend the debate with Barack Obama. He then told the news media he was flying immediately back to DC after the debate to continue work on the bail-out. He never did that. More untruths. More lies. Work on the bail-out package continued Friday and over the weekend without John McCain. He insisted it could be handled by phone (by the way, the same reason he’s been criticizing Obama). Yesterday, before the vote on the new bail-out package, he took the credit for pulling it together. After it lost in the House, he blamed Barack Obama. Someone should tell Senator McCain that more Republicans voted “nay” than Democrats. Someone should also remind him that he never returned to Washington as he promised. The reality is that his “suspending” his campaign to become involved in the bail-out gave him a giant photo op. In other words, it was a fraud, just like so many things he’s laid at the doorstep of the American people. How’s that for leadership?

Issues aside, these are all the reasons I’d not touch the McCain-Palin ticket. We need to do more as a nation than elect someone who is “likable.” We need to elect someone who is forthright and capable. We’ve had the liars and ill-prepared for eight years. I believe that character and truth are essential. Add the issues in to the mix, and prospects for the American people are even worse under a McCain presidency.