P.J. Gladnick's blog

Sarah Palin hasn't been a member of the Assemblies of God church for six years but that hasn't kept ABC News from using that church to attempt to smear Palin as some sort of religious loon. Perhaps they thought that Pentecostal denomination was easier to use as a sledge hammer against Palin than her current membership in a nondemonational church. Almost predictably the accompanying video that you can see in this ABC News report starts off showing Pentecostals speaking in tongues along with mentioning that other Christians often refer to them as  holy rollers. Here are excerpts from the written report (emphasis mine):

For two decades, Palin was a member of an Assemblies of God church in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska. In 2002, years before she was elected governor of Alaska, Palin and her family switched to a nondenominational church, but Palin still returns to her old church on special occasions. 

And yet this ABC News report focuses on her previous denomination.  Following the intro, the report returns to its obsession with speaking in tongues:

Did you know that Sarah Palin has never been to Mongolia? Yeah, and despite the fact she never claimed to have visited there, we are making a big deal about it because of the impression she left only in our fervid imaginations that she did indeed visit Mongolia.

Think that was ridiculous? Well, guess what? That is exactly what CNN is doing with a manufactured scandal that Sarah Palin never visited Iraq. The problem for CNN is that Palin never claimed to have visited Iraq. Here is her answer in the recent ABC interview with Charles Gibson about her foreign travel:

Canada. Mexico. And then, yeah, that trip that was a trip of a lifetime, to visit our troops in Kuwait and stop and visit our injured soldiers in Germany. That was a trip of a lifetime and it changed my life. 

So where was Iraq in her answer about foreign travel? Nowhere. However, that hasn't stopped CNN from acting outraged about the fact that Palin never visited Iraq despite the fact that she never claimed to have visited there:

A transcript of the unedited interview of Sarah Palin by Charles Gibson clearly shows that ABC News edited out crucial portions of the interview that showed Palin as knowledgeable or presented her answers out of context. This unedited transcript of the first of the Gibson interviews with Palin is available on radio host Mark Levin's website. The sections edited out by ABC News are in bold. The first edit shows Palin responding about meeting with foreign leaders but this was actually in response to a question Gibson asked several questions earlier:

GIBSON: Have you ever met a foreign head of state?

A Washington Post "On Faith" religion blogger, Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, is so affected by PDS (Palin Derangement Syndrome) that she has launched a hate-filled screed against Palin's religion. This might seem an uncharacteristic thing for an ordained minister to do but not when you find out a bit more about Our Miss Brooks. Her bio on the Washington Post site describes Thistlethwaite's area of expertise as "contextual theologies of liberation." Liberation theology which is another way of saying Marxism wrapped in a phony religious wrapper to make it seem more palatable. Thistlethwaite launches a distinctly un-Christian snarky attack upon Palin right from the start of her blog (emphasis mine):

"Wives be subject to your husbands, as unto the Lord." So says the Christian scriptures in Ephesians, 5:22. What I would like to know, first of all, is who is going to have the final authority as Vice-President if Sarah Palin is elected, Palin or her husband? In fact, I think the first order of business with Palin is to ask her to give the same kind of speech that was demanded of John F. Kennedy re his Catholicism. Kennedy said he would obey the Constitution over the Pope. Will Palin obey the Constitution over her husband?

Remember all those months of the MSM building up the myth of Barack Obama, the Lightworker of unique spiritual powers whose image was frequently photoshopped to present his blessed head surrounded by a halo? Well, now Time magazine columnist, Joe Klein, is upset that Americans are supporting Sarah Palin because of another "myth" of a small town frontier America. Those who create the myths really shouldn't be complaining about what they perceive as myths but that is exactly what Klein does in his column (emphasis mine):

The latest celebrity to join in the group slamming of Sarah Palin is none other than Matt Damon as you can see in this Associated Press video which reeks of condescension. Damon, who has yet to attain public office condescendingly mocks Palin's credentials (emphasis mine):

I think there is a really good chance that Sarah Palin could president. And I think that's a really scary thing because I don't know anything about her. I don't think in eight weeks I'm going to know anything about her. I know that she was a mayor of a really, really small town. And she's governor of Alaska for less than two years. I just don't understand... I think the pick was made for political purposes but in terms of governance it's a disaster.

Apparently Damon must suffer from a severe reading disability because information about Palin is all over the Web. But does Damon really care about Palin's background? No, because his liberal mind is already made up. Damon then goes on to raise the "specter" of a Palin presidency:

All politicians have a basic stump speech that they stick to when campaigning on the road. However, when Sarah Palin gives her stump speech the Associated Press claims, in a story written by Sara Kugler, she is sticking to a "basic script" like some programmed robot (emphasis mine):

John McCain took a risk in picking little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate, but now the campaign's playing it safer. She's sticking to a greatest hits version of her convention speech on the campaign trail and steering clear of questions until she's comfortable enough for a hand-picked interviewer later this week.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Lynn Sweet, seems to have changed hats from journalist to Obama fundraiser promoter. In reporting on new fundraising efforts by the Obama campaign due to their worry over the energized McCain-Palin team, Lynn slips from straight reporting to acting as a flat out PR agent for an upcoming Chicago fundraiser. First Lynn mentions the new concern about the rise of the Republican presidential team in her column:

WASHINGTON--The McCain-Palin ticket is up in the polls--but wait--it's a fund-raising opportunity for the Obama team, a chance to sound the alarm to high end female donors. The Obama campaign is planning a major fund-raising push aimed women next month in Chicago. Men are welcome--if they donate at least $1,000--the price of a general admission ticket. To be a national chair of the event, raise $100,000 or contribute $57,000

It wasn't that long ago that the left considered this November's election a mere formality on the road to Barack Obama's coronation as president. They loved posting poll after poll showing Obama winning by huge margins. Oh, how they gloated about the massive loss John McCain was sure to suffer. Well, the polls have changed and now the latest USA Today/Gallup poll shows quite a different result:

WASHINGTON — The Republican National Convention has given John McCain and his party a significant boost, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken over the weekend shows, as running mate Sarah Palin helps close an "enthusiasm gap" that has dogged the GOP all year.

McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama by 50%-46% among registered voters, the Republican's biggest advantage since January and a turnaround from the USA TODAY poll taken just before the convention opened in St. Paul. Then, he lagged by 7 percentage points.

The convention bounce has helped not only McCain but also attitudes toward Republican congressional candidates and the GOP in general.

Your humble correspondent would like to thank Huffington Post blogger, Benjamin R. Barber, for giving him a hearty bellylaugh this morning for conjuring up the image of a traumatized Barack Obama getting "moosed" by Sarah Palin. However, on the way to delivering that comedy line, Barber, who is described in his HuffPo bio as a "democratic theorist" who authored a book (ranked #254,970 on Amazon) with the long winded title of  "Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole," provides us with a bunch of other laughs in his blog (emphasis mine):

It seems forever since the Democrats completed their triumphant Convention in Denver with its Obama/Biden/Clinton/Kennedy unity ticket and its intoxicating sense of take-it-to-the-finish line momentum. What happened? Not Sarah Palin. How could a small-time Alaska mayor and first term Governor derail the Obama freight train? No it was not Sarah Palin but the extraordinary reaction to McCain's wildly irresponsible decision to make her his running mate that seems to have paralyzed the Party.

When your humble correspondent first watched Sarah Palin introduced to the public by John McCain as his vice-presidential pick, he had an eerie sense of familiarity. Yes, I couldn't quite recall why Sarah Palin looked so familiar until my DUmmie FUnnies co-host, Charles Henrickson, pointed out the astounding likeness between Palin and Diana Prince/Wonder Woman. It was an "aha!" moment. Suddenly I knew why Palin seemed so familiar. She looks just like Wonder Woman in her secret identity as Diana Prince. And it turns out that Henrickson wasn't the only one making that connection. Both in the media and in the blogosphere, comparisons are being made between Sarah Palin and Wonder Woman.

What a difference a few hours make. It is almost like Sally Quinn, the Washington Post faith columnist, was blinded by the  light of truth on the road to Damascus. On CNN's "American Morning" on Friday, Quinn repeated her doubts as to whether Sarah Palin could "put country first" due to her family reponsibilities as a mother:

Everyone woman I know practically is a working mother. We have conflicts and guilts that men simply don't have. And, basically the burden of raising children falls on the mother, no matter what kind of a job she has. So, I think that to, you know, we're so far beyond the feminist argument here. This is not about feminism, it's not about sexism, it's simply about can you do the job?

Does the liberal senior editor of State, Dahlia Lithwick, secretly want the Democrat ticket to lose this year? You have to come to that conclusion when you read the complex mosaic of  debate "tips" that she provides to Joe Biden including, get this, imitate the perpetually annoying Campbell Brown. This is just one part of an array of tips Lithwick provides in a Slate article condescendingly titled, "How To Debate a Girl, and Win." Lithwick starts out by sneering at  Sarah Palin (emphasis mine):

Dear Sen. Biden:

How embarrassing is it for a newspaper to have a member of a presidential ticket campaigning in its own backyard and to completely miss something he said that has reverberated all over the Web? Such was the case on Tuesday when vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden was campaigning in Deerfield Beach. Amid all the standard Democrat talking points presented by Biden, there was this shocker made in response to a questioner with obvious BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) asking about pursuing the Bush administration with criminal investigations:

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 one, no attorney general, no president -- no one is above the law.

With the massive and desperate MSM attack upon Sarah Palin, there is a lot of competition in the venom spewing department. However, Baltimore Sun columnist Susan Reimer seems determined to make a strong bid for the most seriously deranged of all attacks upon Palin in her most recent column which starts out on her assumption that the Alaska governor is unqualified:

So. This is what being pandered to feels like.

John McCain picked Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and mother of five, to be his running mate to woo women like me.

He seems to think that my girlfriends and I are so disappointed that an utterly qualified woman is not going to be president that we will jump at the chance to vote for an utterly unqualified woman for vice president.

So does that mean Reimer thinks Barack Obama, with no executive experience and a less than stellar incomplete Senate term is also "unqualified?" She doesn't say as Reimer warms up for more attacks upon Palin:

Your humble correspondent is thinking of writing a story about Democrat voters who are insulted by vice-presidential nominee, Joe Biden. And I think I know just the place to find such Democrat voters---at a John McCain rally in Ohio. Just to save time and effort, I'm not even going to find out if the people I interview are even Democrats so I won't specifically identify them as such even though the headline for my story will read, "Joe Biden excites, insults swing-state Democrat voters."

Does that sound ridiculous to you? Well, guess what? That is exactly what New York Daily News staff writers, Michael McCauliff and Celeste Katz, did in reverse with their article, "Sarah Palin excites, insults swing-state Republican voters." I guess the crack investigative team of McCauliff and Katz figured that the best place to find Republican voters would be at an Obama rally (emphasis mine):

The theme of this Time magazine article by Jay Newton-Small, "Obama and Biden's Chemistry Test," is how wonderful the "chemistry" is between Barack Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden. However, when you read the details of the story, you can't help but wonder if there is already trouble brewing between the two. In fact, the Time story starts out on a downbeat note (emphasis mine):

On Saturday morning Barack Obama and his newly-minted running mate Joe Biden stopped at a diner outside of Youngstown, Ohio for some breakfast. Obama made a few brief comments to the press about Hurricane Gustav's imminent threat before turning to greet diners. Five minutes later, it was Biden's turn to be asked about the gathering storm. His answer was three times as long as Obama's, and included details of his daughter's time at Tulane University in New Orleans. As he kept talking Obama, about 10 feet away, kept glancing over at Biden. For an awkward 20 seconds or so, the Democratic nominee looked a little concerned about Biden's soliloquy. But soon enough, he left Biden alone, turning towards the door to chat with other patrons.

First we had a former national chairman of the Democratic National Committee laughing over the effect of Hurricane Gustav hitting New Orleans would have on Republicans as they prepared to hold their convention this week. Now we have a writer for The New Republic, Nate Silver, worried in the other direction in an article titled, "How Gustav Could Benefit the Republicans." Silver lists the ways he perceives that Republicans could benefit from this storm:

1. Allows McCain to Appear Magnanimous. By potentially delaying or canceling his "date" at the GOP convention, McCain appears as though he is giving something up to tend to the Gulf Coast. Sympathetic and neutral-to-sympathetic media outlets may view this as underscoring McCain's "America First" theme.

An angry Senator John Kerry is also an entertaining John Kerry.  And on ABC's This Week yesterday, Kerry provided us with a lot of comedy entertainment including his assertion that John McCain was forced to pick Sarah Palin as his running mate by Rush Limbaugh and "the rightwing." There are a lot of other comedy nuggets in this interview conducted by This Week host George Stephanopoulos who fails to challenge Kerry on most of his absurdities including the notion that that merely traveling though countries overseas on a brief campaign stint counts as foreign policy experience. The transcript is below but to fully enjoy the flavor, you need to see the video featuring a clearly perturbed John Kerry who seems not to have gotten over his 2004 election loss. The interview begins following an appearance by Senator Lindsey Graham and Kerry sounds a bit confused (emphasis mine):

If you are wondering why the stories in your local newspapers are starting to look so similar to other newspapers, it might be because they are following the new business model of South Florida newspapers: eliminating competition. All the major South Florida newspapers, Miami Herald, Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel (now called SunSentinel), and Palm Beach Post have had big staff cutbacks recently. So who is left to cover the news? The skeleton crews still working at the newspapers don't have the capability so they came up with a solution: pool their resources and share their stories. A story in Friday's Sun-Sentinel, I mean SunSentinel, explains the brave new world of journalism (emphasis mine):

The San Jose Mercury News, in an editorial today, called Sarah Palin "clearly unqualified" to become vice-president. The reason? Lack of experience. Suddenly  liberal members of the media, such as Campbell Brown, until now not the least bit worried about Barack Obama's lack of experience are concerned about this issue. So how to explain away Obama's own lack of experience? Simple. The Mercury News has broadened the definition of experience to include the experience of running for higher office. You read that right. Barack Obama is now qualified to run for president because he has the "experience" of campaigning for nomination. We'll get to that new definition of experience but first let us visit the lead in of this editorial which sounded a bit peeved that John McCain's Palin pick stole the thunder from the Democrat convention (emphasis mine):

Joe Biden has been making much of having spent the first ten years of his life in Scranton, Pennsylvania to the extent that his first video ad is based on that city. So when Biden and Barack Obama made their first campaign appearance after the Democrat convention in Beaver, Pennsylvania, the subject of Scranton came up in Biden's speech. The problem is that he did some fibbing about Scranton. Biden claimed that he was 12 years younger than former PA governor, Bob Casey, and 12 years older than "Bobby" Casey, the son and current senator from that state. Actually Biden is only 10  years younger than the elder Casey, a minor error, but eighteen years older than "Bobby" Casey, not so minor. Even more important,  Biden mentioned that he lived only a few blocks away from the Caseys.

Can anybody recall Campbell Brown pestering Democrat officials over Barack Obama's lack of not only foreign policy experience but overall experience? I sure can't but here is Brown hectoring McCain Political Director Mike Duhaime about her sudden concern over lack of experience. Here is a transcript of the interrogation but to get the full flavor of Brown's attitude complete with cynical facial expressions, be sure to watch the video (emphasis mine):

In an effort to run down Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, a snarling Jack Cafferty managed to insult the entire state of Alaska on CNN's Situation Room: "Sarah Palin is in her first term as governor of Alaska,  that's a  state that has 13 people and some caribou." This was one small part of an acid-laced harangue by Cafferty on the subject of Sarah Palin,  (emphasis mine): 

What a difference a few weeks make. It wasn't too long ago that the liberal media were already congratulating themselves on Barack Obama's "inevitable" victory. Many of those reports crossed the line into flat out gloating in which the election itself was a mere formality on the road to the coronation of the Lightworker. Well, that was then and now it appears that Obama's halo of perfection has become quite tarnished to the extent that the liberal New Republic is worrying if their erstwhile messiah is heading towards a "long, disappointing fall." John B. Judis, a senior editor of The New Republic, bites his fingernails with a revealing article titled, "Avoiding A Long, Disappointing Fall." Dr. Judis gives his diagnosis along with suggestions for a cure as to what is ailing the Obama campaign (emphasis mine):

What do you do when you are the mayor of San Francisco and your poorly timed push for gay marriages is blamed for your party's loss in a presidential election, you get yourself involved in a sleazy sex scandal where you get caught sleeping with the wife of your campaign manager, and a much criticized policy of declaring the municipality you represent a "sanctuary city" results in a multiple murder by an illegal alien? Why you get the San Francisco Chronicle to write a glowing story about you enthusing about how you are a "hotshot to watch" with a bright political future on the horizon. Such is the case with San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, no stranger to other puff pieces such as this June story in Time magazine. San Francisco Chronicle political writers Joe Garofoli and Carla Marinucci use Newsom's appearance at the Democrat convention in San Francisco as a launch platform for gushing over their mayor's future:

As Bill Clinton and Joe Biden dominated center stage Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was presiding over "Unconventional '08," a street party held in an artsy warehouse corner of the city featuring indie bands and a knot of people young enough to be Biden's grandchildren. There, mingling beneath an art gallery facade full of iconic images of Sen. Barack Obama was the evening's host - the former Sen. Hillary Clinton delegate Newsom.

Before pouring sweet syrup over Newsom, Garofoli and Marinucci take us along on a brief but unpleasant trip down memory lane:

Spike Lee seems intent on inadvertently subverting Barack Obama's campaign. As we saw previously, Spike Lee suggested that rappers could be an important campaign asset for Obama. And now in an interview with an MSNBC reporter, Lee asserts that history can be divided into two epochs. Here is a transcript (emphasis mine):

 REPORTER: I'm joined now by Spike Lee who we found on the floor of the Democratic convention. First of all, it's such a key...

SPIKE LEE: Amongst the Indiana delegates...

REPORTER: And Florida too. Powerful delegations.

LEE: (garbled) Florida and Indiana. That's all right.

I guess the Associated Press decided it was too much trouble to put up even the pretense of objectivity in the election campaign. As a result, AP completely cast any idea of objectivity to the winds and flat out offered helpful campaign tips to Barack Obama in the form of suggestions from five of their reporters:

DENVER - There's no shortage of items on Barack Obama's to-do list for the fall campaign. How about a to-don't list? Five AP reporters offer suggestions.

How nice of AP to offer such help. And now the to-don't suggestions from the first of their reporters, Ted Anthony:

 No matter what, Barack Obama should never lose sight of the color gray.

It appears that Keith Olbermann might be vying for the title of Most Obnoxious Anchor On Television. First we had Olbermann dissing Joe Scarborough during a live broadcast on Monday from the Democrat convention. Then a day later, Olbermann managed to enrage Chris Matthews during another broadcast. And now it looks like Olbermann is going for broke in the insult department by pushing to have Tom Brokaw banned from appearing on MSNBC as reported in Page Six of today's New York Post:

At a forum on Sunday, when Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell called MSNBC "the official network of the Obama campaign," Brokaw said, "I think Keith has gone too far. I think Chris has gone too far."

Insiders say Olbermann is pushing to have Brokaw banned from the network and is also refusing to have centrist Time magazine columnist Mike Murphy on his show.

Film producer Spike Lee believes Barack Obama has a secret weapon that will be a big asset to his campaign: rappers.  Yes, in Spike Lee's opinion hip-hop music will be a key element in getting Obama elected. Lee expounded upon the importance of hip-hoppers in this election in the New York Times The Caucus:

Mr. Lee, who has often uses hip-hop music and casts hip-hop stars in his films, said that rappers should, well, feel free to mince their too-hot words at such a crucial time in American politics.

Of course, allowing hip-hoppers to play a part in a political campaign is fraught with danger:

In particular, the platinum-selling artist Ludacris referred to Senator Clinton as an “irrelevant” epithet and attacked Senator John McCain with the line, “Paint the White House black and I’m sure that’s got ’em terrified/ McCain don’t belong in any chair unless he’s paralyzed.”

For good measure, he referred to President Bush as “mentally handicapped.”