In defense of the republicans:

[vicarz]

I'm not going to defend Palin; however, I am going to point out that the lead member in the executive ticket is McCain and he doesn't suck. He is old, but he's fully functional and should be for years. He has tons of bipartisan experience, much of it respected for decades. He has flaws, but so do the other players.

You know what? His military experience DOES COUNT. Seriously. I just spent time with someone I hadn't really seen in ten years, and found they were different but their core as a person was pretty much the same. Why wouldn't McCain be the same? He was a prisoner of war - and by all accounts was not only dignified but far more resistant than many of his peers. He provoked the guards and got so abused...he only signed his fake confession when his captors re-broke his arm and left him in a pool of his own blood and fluids. They say after that "loss," he got even more provocative with his jailors - as though he was serving a personal penance. That was over 30 years ago, but it shows a strength of spirit and character that is unlikely to go away. Now, as a pilot perhaps his perspective on that war was, and remains, skewed compared to those who saw the issues on the ground - but I do believe that that type of behavior in his "youth" tells volumes about his core as a person (thank you long interview on NPR). This same type of analysis is why I respect Kerry, same war but on the ground (I don't buy that republican attack on his character or service) and why Bush is a fucking douche, who used the pseudo military experience and bolted from it to campaign as that was more important.

Why say this, rise to the "defense" of McCain. Palin is a twit and shames the entire platform, but I think the focus has moved too far away from Obama (oh, and for the love of cheese don't forget the other hundreds of races in November other than the superman allegory prez). I fall into the trap, as many do, of wanting to trash the entire republican party for Palin. That's lazy and too easy to do. When we descend into name calling and pointing out the weakest link's flaws as a standard debate tactic, we degrade the entire process and waste our abilities to engage in spirited debate on relevant issues. Our debates should be about broad patterns of behavior of multiple leaders, individual voting records, character shown over years of consistent (or in-) behavior, and most of all - policy arguments as supported by data and analysis.

Unless we're watching the daily show because that was just fucking hilarious.

Comments

[2501.livejournal.com]

no, he really has done a complete 180 on the whackos.
Here's what he said in 2000 when running against Bush:
"Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right."

In 2007, McCain went and gave a speech at Falwell's Liberty University, and on Meet the Press declared that Falwell was no longer an agent of intolerance, in spite of the fact that in between 2000 and 2007, Falwell had both claimed that Homosexuals and Lesbians were to blame for both the 9/11 attacks and the destruction of New Orleans by Katrina.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Don't hide from the truth...