Even the Bush administration no longer publicly associates the war in Iraq with the 9/11 attacks–and that includes Dick Cheney who, more than anyone else in an administration stocked with deceivers, repeated this lie as long as he possibly could.
Yet a potential new vice president, Sarah Palin, made the same false association to a group of young people, including her son, Track, who have been charged with carrying out this misbegotten war. At a deployment ceremony at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, on Thursday, Palin stated, "“You’ll be there to defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.”
Either Palin is unaware that there's no connection between Iraq and 9/11 or she's knowingly lying. Both possibilities are alarming. We've had more than enough of one vice president who made such statements; we dare not have another.
2 comments:
I've read the posts pointing out the short comings of John McCain's choice of a running mate and, of course, I agree 100%; But I would advise (read William Safire's On Language column in today's NY Times Magazine), Democrats to stay on message. Her stated positions are absolutely appalling - from her opposition to reproductive rights to her attempts at banning books - as you have stated. Having said that, I caution Democrats to remember that they are running against John McCain, and they should limit their campaigning to his limitations, not hers. We ran against Spiro Agnew and lost; we ran against Dan Quayle and lost; we ran against Dick Cheney and lost yet again. Running against the vice presidential candidate, even as weak as Sarah Palin is, is a sure-fire way to elect a Republican. Stick with the issues and stick with the high road.
MJMand, I agree that we must run against the Republican presidential candidate, the real focus of the choice. At the same time, right now there's intense interest in Palin and now is the time she's being defined. I think that some effort must be made to define her negatively–not with nonsense the way the Republicans do ("lipstick on a pig"), but according to her appalling positions, two of which you state.
As far as the "high road" goes, I'd say the same. The Democrats should stay on the high road–but respond more rapidly to attacks and attack McCain's positions and record constantly and more vociferously. They need more surrogates on the attack, too–and Joe Biden, who was supposed to be good at that, needs to step up more. We've had enough VP candidates like John Edwards and the treasonous Joe Lieberman who held their fire.
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