The McCain camp today disputed rumors that presumptive vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin was ever registered with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party by releasing years of voter registration history . . . but it looks like that doesn't apply to her husband.
This afternoon, the director of Division of Elections in Alaska, Gail Fenumiai, told TPMmuckraker that Todd Palin registered in October 1995 to the Alaska Independence Party, a radical group that advocates for Alaskan secession from the United States.
I'm sorry, I don't have her making it to November guys. I just don't.
Let's be clear. Nothing's wrong with belonging to a third party. But here's the thing--she's on a ticket whose motto is "Country First," and whose headliner has repeatedly accused Obama of putting himself before country. Meanwhile her husband is a member of a political party that advocates secession. Put the shoe on the other foot. What if Michelle Obama belonged to a party advocating some sort of secession? What would happen?As a libertarian nutball, I've gotta say that half of the attacks on Palin make me like her. Hearing she married a third party kinda guy? How is that bad? She married a nut. So did *MY* wife
UPDATE#2: Closed. Nuff said, I think.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I say she doesn't last through the month. I'm willing to bet he's stuck with her because no one else wants the job.
Do we think she even gives a speech at the convention? She has made almost 0 public appearances since named. Does this bespeak a pre-concieved plan?
As a libertarian nutball, I've gotta say that half of the attacks on Palin make me like her.
Hearing she married a third party kinda guy? How is that bad?
She married a nut. So did *MY* wife.
She should have had the damn sense to say no to the VP offer
I think he's stuck with her. Mccain has said that he makes rash decisions and then deals with consequences. The important question is do we want the country to be dealing with the cosequences of his rash decisions if he does becoem president.
The tundra shall rise again!!!!
I think McCain is stuck with her. No way he can kick her off the ticket. The right-wingers would really revolt. They seem to have taken a strong liking to her.
Wishful thinking.
How is this bad for Palin, by the way?
Her speech will be good -- it might even be great. That'll be enough until the Biden debate or until she makes a gaffe or it turns out she slept with the judges at the Miss Wasilla competition.
The day after Obama beats McCain,
Bristol Palin will be married at the White House
NBC announces that Sarah Palin will become the newest member of the Not Ready for Primetime Players on SNL.
"What if Michelle Obama belonged to a party advocating some sort of secession?"
Well, the MSM says Michelle Obama is an uppity, angry Black woman, so that would be a deal breaker.
Todd and Sarah Palin are just like family, they're regular Americans...if your family shows up every week on Jerry Springer, Maury Povitch, TMZ.
Oh, I know that the stuff that I like ain't electable.
I was just sayin'.
"Put the shoe on the other foot. What if Michelle Obama belonged to a party advocating some sort of secession? What would happen?"
If Palin were the Democratic VP nominee, the outcry from the right would be deafening. There is no way that McCain would make the kind of classy statement made by Obama about children being off limits.
Here in Ohio, back in 2006 we got to see what happens when the GOP's evangelical base gets control over statewide nominations, and it led to a bloodbath for the state party. Ken Blackwell, a doctrinaire darling of the evangelical base, got the nomination over the more moderate Jim Petro, only to get clocked by Ted Strickland. What I remember is consistent with what Google tells me -- which is that Blackwell won the GOP primary by close to 60 percent, largely due to evangelical support, only to lose to Strickland by a huge margin.
We could be seeing the stage being set for a similar outcome . . .
If not her, then who? The McCain camp has been scrambling to find potential replacements, I'm sure, but they've gotta be coming up empty-handed.
I'm sorry, I don't have her making it to November guys. I just don't.
I know what you're thinking but I just don't see how McCain can realistically drop her even if these stories get picked up in a major way (which is not a foregone conclusion). Look, at this point, his deepest red base loves her and would throw a major fit if he dropped her. He cannot win without their turnout. He probably can't win anyway but there is a real difference in the larger picture between losing by 5 and losing by 15.
Moreover, the fact that she's sinking the ticket means that even if she has to "retire" not a lot of other Republicans are going to want to step in and share in what is currently looking to be an ignominious defeat. Lieberman probably but this makes things even worse with the base.
Finally, if he drops her, he cannot plausibly continue to make arguments about his superior judgment. As far as public perception is concerned, that is really all he has going for him right now. He's stuck with her and I really think, unless there is a really seismic scandal down the road, she will be on the ticket in November.
i'd bet that she makes it through the convention and then in the next week or so, she will gracefully exit the stage.
then mccain will bring romney or pawlenty onto the ticket.
he'll be able to make it through the convention without a riot on the floor and slipping palin out of the side door will be easier once the media spotlight is off.
or...
republicans are notoriously stubborn and not susceptible to the usual pressures that dems quickly cave into.
if a dem had been in palin's situation, obama and other dem nominees would have pulled the plug immediately.
it would have been a replay of the samantha powers situation.
so mccain might hunker down.
it would be easily done.
refuse all press requests to interview her, except for the gimme from fox news. in fact, do a couple on fox, for good measure.
only have her do set speeches on the stump. a couple of town halls with pre-screened audiences.
and hold your breath during the debates.
unlike others, i do not think that biden will cream her. in addition to his having a bad case of running off at the mouth, his other main trait has been his immense need to be universally liked. that was on full display during the clarence thomas hearings. i could easily see him pulling another leiberman/cheney, edwards/cheney lovefest with palin and letting her completely off the hook.
what makes me think that the latter possibility is the likely course is the fact that she has lawyered up very heavily and those expensive lawyers have started to make a bunch of moves that scream that they are digging in for the long haul.
if palin was going to go away quietly, i could not imagine her lawyers doing the things they are doing.
one caveat: if her deposition is actually scheduled and appears imminent, then i bet she is gone. no way they let her go through the dep as the veep nominee.
How is this bad for Palin, by the way?
Well that is an interesting question. It seems obvious to me that being associated with a party which advocates secession from the U.S, ought to be harmful to a candidate running for election in the U.S. but will it? Certainly, I know what the answer would be if it were a Democrat. But will this story have legs? It seems to me it should but if it were up to me, we would have had universal health care and supertrains decades ago. Let us see.
With you all the way. And this was before I knew about issues around the pregnancy(ies).
http://varneer.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/i-was-just-your-average-hockey-mom-in-alaska/
Mavericks don't have regrets... and John McCain won't ditch her. I'm tellin ya, don't underestimate her... We don't know what under white, under 30k low information voters in Ohio and PA think of her yet, and that's who she was picked to persuade.
"What if Michelle Obama belonged to a party advocating some sort of secession? What would happen?"
What if Michelle Obama belonged to a church that preached anti-American, leftwing, liberation theology? Oh wait, she did -- and Barry did too, for 20 years. What happened? Nothing.
Obamatons ought to think twice before tossing accusations about being "fringe" and "radical". People in glass houses and all.
How are VPs nominated, anyway? Does they have to be approved by the convention as a whole? I seem to remember Biden was approved by acclimation--perhaps someone on the GOP floor might demand a roll call?
Fred,
Argue with my specific statement not what you wish I had said. The question is "What if Michelle Obama belonged to a party advocating some sort of secession." Address that specific question. Do not change the subject to a church. Do not change the subject to "anti-Americanism." Specifically address the subject of a political spouse belonging to a party that advocates secession from the United States. You don't have to agree with me, but at least be intellectually honest and address the claim without changing the subject or resorting to strawmen.
She said in an interview a couple weeks ago she would only accept the VP slot if she knew for sure it would be good for Alaska. She ran up huge, huge successes with federal earmarking as a mayor, raking in $20M for her tiny town or almost $4K per person. She governed a right-wing socialist kleptocracy of a state and pulled in obscenely disproportionate funding to the amount of taxes paid. "Country First" my a**. Why does Sarah Palin hate America?
I really, really want a journalist to ask her what she has ever done for America, not just Alaska.
At the risk of replying to Fred, it turns out Sarah's church is actually *worse*. Not even all of McCain's houses have enough closets for these skeletons.
What is wrong with secession? Is the US going to last for 500 years, 1000, 10,000? Eventually areas that are part of the US now will no longer be part of this country.
As far as I can tell the AIP advocates peaceful secession. I know there are groups in Hawaii and Vermont that advocate their states secede as well.
As long as it is peaceful and the state and feds come to a mutual and satisfactory agreement, what is the problem?
T-NC,
LOL!
don't you know that guys like that are inherently incapable of being intellectually honest?
it is part of their dna to do exactly what fred just did, and in a way, they just cannot help it.
if you watch any of the republican convention, you will see the same technique repeated time after time after time.
it is what they do!!
and on the question of the response to michelle obama doing something remotely similar...
well, i think it is pretty obvious that it would be the ONLY thing that right-wingers would talk about until november.
the only thing.
and i am not exaggerating.
Fred-
I would hardly call the reaction to Wright's sermons "nothing." People on the right have been saying the words "Reverend Right" on loop ever since. Personally I think Obama rightly took a hit on that -- there was some messed up stuff coming out of that church -- but I think belonging to a party that actively believes in seceding from the union is taking things to another level entirely.
Belonging to AIP isn't like sitting in a church where you may disagree with the pastor from time to time. This is signing up for a very specific group with a very specific objective.
You want it to be the same thing, but I think you know it isn't. But the right has made hypocrisy its oxygen -- can't breathe (or talk) without it.
TNC: Is the Michelle Obama hypothetical really that apposite? Shouldn't the hypothetical question be "what if Joe Biden were involved in blah blah blah?"
The Michelle O question is interesting to me as it reveals the value of having gone through a tough primary against a pretty tough opposition. The Wright stuff is much less damaging to BO now having already been aired in the primary season. Palin might not have enough time to make her stuff "old news" come November.
"What if Michelle Obama belonged to a party advocating some sort of secession."
What would happen then is that Fox would make a huge fuss over it and eventually force other media outlets to do the same. The difference isn't that Obama's black and Todd Palin's white, or even that Obama's a Democrat and Todd Palin's a Republican; the difference is that MSNBC and other liberal-leaning media outlets don't really get upset over issues of patriotism. They're more likely to make a fuss when Palin makes her first foreign-policy gaffe. Ignorance, stupidity, and redneckiness is what they care about, not character or patriotic sentiment. Fox, on the other hand, and Republicans in general, do care about these sorts of things, so when people on the other side of the aisle act in ways that compromise their patriotism, they make a huge fuss. My counter would be, suppose that Palin says she's for an undivided Jerusalem. We'd get tons of stories about how ignorant and unqualified such a comment would show her to be (basically everyone agrees that an ultimate Israeli-Palestinian settlement will have to cede some of Jerusalem to the Palestinians). But Obama did just that in his speech to AIPAC, and there was very little coverage even though it was really a huge gaffe. The reason being, MSNBC et al. have no impetus to point up Obama's gaffes, as they want him to win, and Fox cares less about gaffes than symbolic stuff like flag pins.
What is wrong with secession? Is the US going to last for 500 years, 1000, 10,000? Eventually areas that are part of the US now will no longer be part of this country.
There may or may not be anything "wrong" with it depending upon what one prioritizes. This question, however, completely misses the point. The point is that this revelation, if known to most voters, would very probably cause significant harm to McCain's electoral chances.
I have exactly zero interest or moral valuation with respect the AIP or Palin's involvement in it. I have absolutely no intention of voting for her ticket in any case. Further, I believe all the endless bloviating on this or that candidate's patriotism is entirely meaningless wankery. But the American people have made it quite clear that they do not agree with me on this and its difficult to see how tehy would welcome someone who seriously entertained the idea that she would prefer not to be an American.
I think there is another angle here as well. She spoke at their convetntion, the McCain spin team is saying "well she was being polite, the convention was in her town"
2 points here:
1) Do mayors of cities where the Green Party or Libertarian party hold ocnventions routinely show up at them, let alone speak? And those are mainstream 3rd parties not fringe groups trying to secede.
2) Out of all the cities in Alaska they chose her town of 6,000 to hold their convention? Me thinks the ties between her and her husband and these nuts is a lot stronger than him casually joining the party.
Ta-Nehisi,
To address your specific hypothetical, if Michelle Obama belonged to a secessionist party I would probably be too astonished to know what to say. Implicit in secession is the idea that those who want to secede think they'd be better off without the rest of the country; Michelle Obama may not have been proud of this country until recently, but it's hard to imagine her thinking she'd be better off without it.
I think he is going to keep her.
As the great U-Turn says,
Thug (or Maverick in this case) means never having to say you're sorry!
She's charming to the unaware. And right now that's about 40% of the electorate. They're gonna run the same script: Religious right let's everyone know God wants Sarah elected, white blue collar workers vote McCain because he's one of us, Wasps and neocons vote for McCain to staff their wars and whatever factories are left, RNC pushes the liberal media around (while offering Alan Colmes), and the multinationals pay for it all.
Obama is looking like a genius with his registration drives because turnout will be the deciding factor.
What would McCain say about another politicians child? Gosh, we don't even have to wonder ....
You know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father.
James B.,
Hey, if the average Alaskan wants to support succession, fine. But someone who in a few months may have to put their right hand on the bible and swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States, probably should not support succession. Just sayin'...
"Meanwhile her husband is a member of a political party that advocates secession. "
And a political appointee of the leader of the Republican party (assuming that's still Bush) declined to hire a respected, accomplished anti-terror prosecutor because his wife was a Democrat, instead hiring an incompetent boob with the right political profile.
By his party's own standards, McCain must reject Palin.
Dude, it was her husband, not her. People don't always agree with their spouses on politics. Is Maria Shriver less of a liberal because she's married to Ahnold? Are we supposed to think Carville is a secret Republican?
James B.,
While I kind of thought this was painfully obvious, let's see if we can clear any confusion. Sarah Palin is going to running on a ticket in which the Presidential nominee is basically running on his 'love of country.' Her husband belonged to a political group/party which advocated the secession of their state. Obviously, he must have a pretty big beef with the quality of the current country.
No one here has talked about whether or not letting states secede is a good idea.
""What if Michelle Obama belonged to a party advocating some sort of secession? What would happen?"
What if Michelle Obama belonged to a church that preached anti-American, leftwing, liberation theology? Oh wait, she did -- and Barry did too, for 20 years. What happened? Nothing.""
Glass houses? First off it was a church. Second off 30 second snippets on Fox don't constitute the entire ideology or worldview of the church. Third off nothing happened because rational people can separate the pastor from the parishioner.
"Dude, it was her husband, not her. People don't always agree with their spouses on politics. Is Maria Shriver less of a liberal because she's married to Ahnold? Are we supposed to think Carville is a secret Republican?"
Come on, TMS, its not as though Sarah Palin's husband is simply a Democrat,(although I'm sure some on the right would consider that to be worse)he belonged to a group that was so fed up with the US, that they wanted their state to be a sovereign country. Personally, I don't really care, but I can't imagine this not mattering to some.
"Senator Obama, do you think Rev. Wright loves America as much as you do?"
This was an actual question in an actual debate.
"Governor Palin, do you believe your husband Todd loves America as much as you do?"
Does this story have legs? Have you seen the US Weekly cover? "Babies, Lies and Scandal"
"Second off 30 second snippets on Fox don't constitute the entire ideology or worldview of the church."
I wasn't going by a 30 second snippet. Have you heard the Rev. Wright speak at length about his ideology? It's liberation theology, by his own description. That's the ideology that drove the leftist rebels our allies were fighting in Central America twenty years ago.
I think the breakthrough, currently, is the baby story. Our broken news media, can easily focus on this, as it's a salacious story that we've seen many times.
Theoretically, of course, they would stay away from this, but then, we live in an era of lowest common denominator media - and I say again, Republicans have utilized that lowest common denominator for years to smear their opponents, so they really can't complain.
Still - it's very possible, that Sarah Palin is a very good political talent. We will see, based on her speech, how good she is. Certainly, her story of "Salt of the Earth PTA gal makes good", is a great story, that will resonate, with the "values" folks.
And she has energized the base, which has given lots of money now, to McCain.
And, her selection DID completely change the subject from the incredible week of the democratic convention.
In addition, people don't really vote on VP's anyway.
So just by her selection, the McCain campaign accomplished a lot.
But the baby story, has allowed the media to now "go to town" on McCain's judgment - or lack of it - in picking Palin.
That new investigative zeal, will dominate things for awhile - and will be all that will be heard about the McCain campaign, for at least a week more. And will keep away, I would think, independents, which McCain needs.
So, any and all criticisms of Michelle are out of bounds, but Todd Palin's party registration is not? He is not the candidate.
So the answer to my question "What is wrong with secession?" according to more than one commenter is nothing really, but it's the other voters/people who will have a problem with it.
Kind of like:
"Hey, I've got no problem with Obama/McCain/Biden/Palin it's just that other people might have a problem with him/her being black/old/Catholic/female."
And just for the record, I have zero interest in Obama-Biden, McCain-Palin or any other ticket. I just happen to think most US citizens and most of the world would be happier and better off if the US divided itself up into may smaller republics and I hate to see the idea if secession getting dumped on.
CS,
I surely hope your comment is a joke. That is pathetic.
Have you seen any right wing radio hosts, or TV hosts that have treated Michele Obama as 'out of bounds?'
Have you heard the Obama camp talk about Todd Palin's party registration?
Try again. And try harder. The whole point of the post is to point out the hypocrisy of the right that scream about Michele Obama and lapel pins.
Hey, if the average Alaskan wants to support succession, fine. But someone who in a few months may have to put their right hand on the bible and swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States, probably should not support succession. Just sayin'...
Again my understanding is that the AIP advocates peaceful secession. If the state of Alaska and the feds can come to a mutually satisfactory agreement what's the big deal.
Lyndon Johnson signed and the Senate ratified a treaty giving a (small) portion of Texas back to Mexico. The British North American/Canadian border was changed more than once by treaty. We gave up the Philipines. Maybe Puerto Rico, or Hawaii, or Vermont or Texas in the future.
Sorry, I meant to say "Michelle" Obama. I always leave off one of the 'L's.' I guess its 'cause she's so exotic and foreign.
James B.,
Let me try again...
While I kind of thought this was painfully obvious, let's see if we can clear any confusion. Sarah Palin is going to running on a ticket in which the Presidential nominee is basically running on his 'love of country.' Her husband belonged to a political group/party which advocated the secession of their state. Obviously, he must have a pretty big beef with the quality of the current country.
No one here has talked about whether or not letting states secede is a good idea.
Sorry, James B., I missed your other post earlier. But yeah, its obvious that some people in this country will have a problem with a candidate's spouse wanted wanting to secede from the Union. I kind of doubt that the media will work itself up in the same frenzy that it did for Michelle Obama, though.
I thought the attacks on Michelle Obama were dispicable and I think any attacks on Todd Palin are of the same brand. But as a non-partisan, I vote on substantiative issues. Thanks, everyone, for continuing this invaluable circus.
So the answer to my question "What is wrong with secession?" according to more than one commenter is nothing really, but it's the other voters/people who will have a problem with it.
Well I cannot speak for anyone else, but my point was specifically not that there was nothing wrong with it but that you would have to define what "wrong" means in this circumstance to have any kind of a reasonable discussion of the matter. If you tell me what you intend to achieve, I will tell you whether secession is the right or wrong path to those goals. Other than that, I don't particularly care about the matter one way or another.
Kind of like:
"Hey, I've got no problem with Obama/McCain/Biden/Palin it's just that other people might have a problem with him/her being black/old/Catholic/female."
This makes almost no sense at all and I can hardly believe you are serious about this argument. You are comparing the ways that we evaluate a specific idea or principle to the ways that we judge unchanging personal characteristics like ethnicity or gender. In that sense, you are deliberately distorting the very disparate types of decisions being made in a way that is, to be frank, rather silly. It is difficult to even know where to begin criticizing such an argument.
I will just say this: It is the entire purpose of a democracy that individuals will place values on the principles and ideas espoused by candidates for elected office. Unless, somewhat bizarrely, you really want to argue that voters should not consider such an issue as secession as specifically espoused by a party's political platform, than it seems to me that we can both agree that one's advocacy of secession is certainly an appropriate and legitimate issue for deliberation. It is, on the other hand, contrary to the purposes of democracy to base decisions upon whether or not a person is black or female, etc. (Age is a little more complicated but lets not get into that right now).
So yes, when I say that voters will care about the issue of secession, I feel perfectly comfortable that that is an appropriate criteria despite the fact that I don't have any particular opinion on the matter myself. Why on Earth shouldn't voters in a democracy consider a candidate's opinions on the basic institutions of the United States an important issue?
Again, DDP, I think TNC's post, and most of the following comments are more centered around the hypocrisy of the right, and not Todd Palin's beliefs. But hey, thanks for being so high-minded. Its clear you only care about substantiative issues.
I thought the attacks on Michelle Obama were dispicable and I think any attacks on Todd Palin are of the same brand.
What attacks on Michelle? If you mean the questions that were raised about her patriotism, based upon her "first time in my adult life" statement, then I see no reason why she shouldn't be asked what she meant by that statement. Again, I don't particular care about these issues but I am not stupidly arrogant enough to believe that only the issues that I think are important should be considered important by the public. If they have a question about how patriotic she is and that is important to them, I see no reason at all why such questions ought to be considered off limits. She was asked and I think she answered well and ,ost people have moved on.
Similarly, I see no reason why Todd Palin shouldn't be asked about his support for Alaskan secession. I couldn't possibly care less about this issue and apparently you feel the same way, but what justification do either of us have to decide that such questions are, by definition or by our own huffy declarations, not substantive. If you have an argument as to why they should be considered not substantive, then make it. Simply declaring that them so is entirely unpersuasive.
“It's liberation theology, by his own description. That's the ideology that drove the leftist rebels our allies were fighting in Central America twenty years ago”
Let’s ignore the fact that those allies you speak of were largely the former paid butchers for the corrupt Somoza family.
I was under the assumption that Rev. Wright preached “black liberation theology”, which significantly different than “liberation theology”. Considering the origins of liberation theology and were it was most popular, why would an Afro-centric United Church of Christ church in America have anything to do with it? And only those who wish to criticize it and are less than honest, would try to link it to serious Marxist thought. Other than the fact that both theologies were spawned to fight what its believers thought were oppression, similarities are few.
However, liberation theology was very prevalent in my church, the Roman Catholic Church. To the extent that you can trace its decline, you can also trace a corresponding decline in Catholism in Latin America. Not that I ever experienced it first hand but this form of liberation theology did actually have Marxist connections.
Why not try better next time? Be the very best troll that you can be!
Whether or not she continues will depend almost entirely on her performance at the RNC. If she kills, a lot of this stuff isn't going to matter in the eyes of many.
As you've astutely pointed out with regards to the Obama camp, there are limits to the power of the media--there's only so much that media hyperventilation can do--and if the popular reaction to Palin is positive after her speech, then I think all this matters a lot less.
Personally, though I've decided to vote for Obama (I voted for the libertarian candidate in 1996 and 2000 and very reluctantly voted for Kerry in 2004, but total incompetence must be punished), the reaction to all of this is making me root for Palin, if not McCain.
If she leaves, the only person left is Huckabee.
No way the religious nuts will allow McCain to replace her with someone who is not ONE OF THEM.
Rev Wright is a better Christian and American than Fred, and both Palins. And her church and pastor are far more radical.
There's an enormous difference between the secession movements in Hawaii, Vermont, and Alaska. The secessionists in Vermont want to start a libertarian paradise. That's ridiculous, but whatever. The secessionists in Hawaii want to get out of the Union because of the very recent, still painful colonialism they suffered. The Alaska Independence Party is full of hatred for America.
From TPM, with quotes from Joe Volger, founder of AIP:
"The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government," Vogler said in the interview, in which he talked extensively about his desire for Alaskan secession, the key goal of the AIP.
"And I won't be buried under their damn flag," Vogler continued in the interview, which also touched on his disappointment with the American judicial system. "I'll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home."
This ridiculous. How on Earth could the Palins associate with that and still trust us to let them into our federal government?
A serious question: Do the Palins hate America?
Again, DDP, I think TNC's post, and most of the following comments are more centered around the hypocrisy of the right, and not Todd Palin's beliefs. But hey, thanks for being so high-minded. Its clear you only care about substantiative issues.
I'm well aware of the right's hypocrisies, thank you very much. I'm also aware of the left's. Unless, of course, the left's line is to no longer support the independence of presidential spouses anymore.
Sometimes you guys are really funny. But in a sad clown kind of way.
Nuada,
Thanks for the clarification. You're right that black liberation theology has some unique features compared to regular liberation theology. Feel free to enlighten us about some of the key differences, but the salient point remains that both theologies are radically far to the left of mainstream American thought, and the Obamas' association with BLT hasn't hurt them much with mainstream press. Wright, who is a compelling speaker, did his best to explicate his views at the national press club, but as Steve Sailer pointed out, the mainstream press tends to not take black intellectuals seriously, so they mostly ignored the more radical aspects of his ideology, focusing instead on a 'damning' sound bite.
I believe that Jill Biden for years belonged to the Delaware Independence Party - but the liberal media has ignored the story!
Well, it sounds like a joke, but I wonder sometimes. I have a sneaking suspicion "Country First" means more Clint Black and less Stevie Wonder. That's fits in with the only war that matters to them right now the so-called culture war. Does anybody truly believe McCain considered Sarah Palin to be good for the country before he considered her to be good for his campain. We know what would happen to Michelle. They better not find any Sister Souljah on her ipod.
Let's face it. That's part of the racism that still exists in the face of the nearly 40 million people who watched history last Thursday: White people are afraid of black people. That fear works in white's favor politically because whites are in the majority. I'm not justifying it, but I would be afraid too if I - or my forbears - oppressed black people. Its not right, but its rational, and you've got to take it into account. These cynical Republican operatives know this and play it to the hilt.
I agree with Obama. This is not an academic exercise. When camaigning for power, Republicans operatives don't care about being right, patriotic (look what they did to McCain in 2000 or the returning troops), fiscally responsible, fighting in the so-called culture war; They care about winning. They'll say whatever it takes to win, even if they appear to be arguing both sides. Its alot more fun (read: making so much money privatizing public assets that you can fling it around like Tupac does in his videos) running things than being stuck in the wilderness for eight years.
The Alaska Independence Party is full of hatred for America.
FYI, Tristero over at Hullabaloo (http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/that-damn-flag-by-tristero-sarah-palin.html) quotes the same TPM copy and adds a few interesting links of his own, for those who wish to dig deeper through this particular slime pit.
And let's please also recall that black liberation theology arose from completely totally fundamentally absolutely different circumstances that bear no resemblance whatsoever to anything that happened to anyone in Alaska who wasn't indigenous (Inuit etc.). The descendants of the Gold Rush just don't have the same argument as the descendants of slavery.
wasn't going by a 30 second snippet. Have you heard the Rev. Wright speak at length about his ideology? It's liberation theology, by his own description. That's the ideology that drove the leftist rebels our allies were fighting in Central America twenty years ago.
Dude, Wright's building wasn't called the Black Isolationist Church. While there may have been anti-American elements present in some of his sermons, they don't form the cornerstone of his message.
AIP = Alaskan Independence Party. The main thrust of this group, as evidenced by their name, is secession from the U.S. Attempting to draw a parallel between the anti-Americanism implicit with membership between the two groups is simply laughable.
I'm well aware of the right's hypocrisies, thank you very much. I'm also aware of the left's. Unless, of course, the left's line is to no longer support the independence of presidential spouses anymore.
Whatever you are trying to argue here is as clear as mud. How exactly does any issue or criticism raised here either support or degrade the "independence of presidential spouses?" Do you mean to suggest that a spouse's belief ought to be considered irrelevant to the candidate's beliefs? If so, then I can certainly see how that could be a defensible argument although the notion that believing otherwise doesn't particularly strike me as "despicable." The real problem is that the specifics of your position on this matter are a bit difficult to extract from your huffy pronouncements of moral superiority. Again, if you have an argument as to why this matter ought to be considered off limits, then my admittedly unsolicited advice is to explicitly make that argument.
Fred,
You're absolutely free to make a critique of Liberation Theology, but to say that because Person X is inspired by LT he or she is necessarily a left-wing, anti-American caricature is another thing entirely. In your post you referred to LT inspiring "leftist rebels" who you clearly think were in the wrong. That's fine. But LT also inspired Paul Farmer and Partners In Health, arguably the most effective providers of innovative public health care in the developing world. In my opinion (using that phrase deliberately here) you're oversimplifying and reducing complexity to abstraction. Ta-Nehisi appears to be calling bullshit on the GOP tactic of constantly reducing people to demonized abstractions when it suits political purposes.