Palin tries to FLIRT her way to the top!

She winked. She batted her eyes. She licked her teeth. She waggled her head, and then checked to see if we were watching. She opened her eyelids extra wide and then followed the gesture with a goofy little-girl smile, like "ooh... I'm so naughty".

I'm a man. I know when a woman is flirting.

Is Sarah Palin going to get away with this cheap-tart-type behavior? Is there anything that the first woman in 27 years to be nominated for the office could possibly do to be MORE DEMEANING TO WOMEN?! Women have got to come down on Palin HARD. Playing the seductress gives physically attractive women a very limited - and very limiting - power. And it undermines the rightful and legitimate REAL POWER for which women have long struggled.

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Queen Quota

I thought that conservatives were all about individual responsibility, and rewards for hard work - that each person earns their fate. That's their rational for eliminating social services (anybody remember the "welfare queens"?), eliminating taxes, privatizing Social Security, and - most relevant here - ending Affirmative Action. They argue that Affirmative Action promotes those who are unprepared and undeserving. Clarence Thomas wrote that by "lowering the bar", Affirmative Action denies those who strive for excellence on their own merit the sense of real achievement.

So... is there anybody - and I mean ANYBODY, on either side of the political divide - who would claim that McCain would have put Sarah Palin on the ticket if she were not a woman? Even if we grant that her vast experience "commanding the Alaska National Guard" exceeds Obama's experience, not even the most facile Republican could plausibly claim that Sarah Palin has earned the honor and the opportunity that she's been handed. She met a quota of one. Sarah Palin is the mother of all tokens.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both walked through fire for our nomination. They survived the longest, hardest, most visible, and most ruthlessly scrutinized primary campaign in history. One woman. One African American. And through that test they earned the esteem of the nation. Palin, by contrast, was hastily picked, was not even vetted properly, and was parachuted into the Republican nomination just 60 days before the American people must decide whether to let her lead us. Apart from her own shortcomings, McCain's shotgun-ticket should be an embarrassment to every conservative.

But, strange to see, they're not embarrassed. They're all gung-ho for "Palin", "Palin", "Palin".

Facts stopped mattering to hard-core Republicans a long time ago. They still believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and that he masterminded 9/11. But with Palin's nomination it is plain that reason and even self-consistency have now been thrown by the way-side. So, Democrats have nominated a black man for President who fought every obstacle, economic and social, to earn that honor. And Republicans have Sarah Palin, the Affirmative Action candidate.

All hail to Queen Quota.

Some liberals miss the sarcasm of DeadElephant.ORG

"...the last thing a TRUE liberal would put on their car is a rethuglican, 'let's just lynch liberals' bumper sticker...You call that a Dem website? I don't buy it... You must think people are as dumb as rocks."

Our response:
First of all, let me say that you are NOT the first person ever to have missed the sarcasm of the DeadElephant.ORG campaign. I get an outraged email or post like yours about once per month. That's more than a trickle, if you think about all those who never bothered to write.

On the other hand, I've been gratified - and surprised - at how infrequently the slogans, and the campaign as a whole, are mis-understood. I say "surprised" because the campaign intentionally walks a very fine line. That's what is meant when it is described as "edgy". Interestingly I've never yet heard from a CONSERVATIVE who missed the point. Conservatives immediately recognize that they're being lampooned, and the comments from them are invariably extremely hostile - which I take to mean we're doing something right. You can read real quotes from outraged conservatives on our home page.

So, why push that edge? Because it works. The campaign was created by a small horde of volunteers: creative writers, and professionals in social media and viral marketing. Our purpose is to expose the actual "Rethuglican" ideology to independent voters who aren't paying close attention to the full implications of what conservative pundits and politicians are seriously advocating. Our budget is essentially zero. That means we depend entirely on viral distribution to get that message out. Specifically, it is the ambiguity of the slogans - the "is that guy REALLY advocating THAT" factor - that makes them so arresting, and so much more likely to be forwarded on to others.

I've had DeadElephant stickers on my car, and frequently worn the shirts in public, since the campaign began two years ago (a couple months prior to the last mid-term elections.) I've also, in my life, displayed many other political bumper-stickers and shirts. I live in ultra-liberal Berkeley, California, and I can tell you that I have never received so many compliments as the DeadElephant slogans draw. People walk up to my car in parking lots to laugh and compliment the slogans. And the shirts draw a positive remark nearly every single day that I have one on!

Now, you specifically called out the slogan "Let's just lynch liberals". Of the roughly 100 slogans in the campaign, that one is both the scariest, and most important, in my opinion. I personally monitor ultra-conservative talk radio daily, and I can tell you that the number of conservative callers and hosts who call liberals "traitors" who are out to "destroy America" and who should be "kicked out of the country" is growing rapidly. This hateful, hyper-entitled, and profoundly anti-democratic attitude represents the major threat to freedom in our century. If you take their attitude to the logical extreme, what they conservatives advocate today is LYNCHING anybody who disagrees with them.

Forget Elizabeth - John Edwards betrayed all of us

I backed John Edwards through to the end of his campaign. When the Right-wing pundits ridiculed his hair, his apparent self-infatuation, his "narcissism", I was outraged.

Now we discover that the Right was right about John - and that even John agrees. That idiotic son-of-a-bitch knew that his effort to become President was doomed, and would cost the world another eight years of neoFacist destruction of democracy, another eight years of environmental destruction, another eight years of holy war for Armageddon.

Poor Elizabeth? She knowingly went along with the game of chicken that John played with all of our lives. To hell with her, and her feelings! And to hell with John and his continuing narcissistic personality disorder: "I've been stripped naked", "You can't hurt me any worse than I've hurt myself". Oh for God's sake, just nail me to fucking cross and worship me.

I can't believe that I backed that little bastard.

We are sooooooo lucky that the Edwards campaign failed. It's as if an asteroid just narrowly missed our planet.

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an earth to inherit

This speech,

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6Sb6RmRMbBY

by a 12-year-old girl to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, is something I've waited a long time to see: children demanding that us living adults pass down to them a habitable globe in which to have a future. Her articulateness, and forthright insistence upon inter-generational responsibility, opens the door to a movement. And, as we have just seen the end of the first-ever campaign for President by a woman , this girl's achievement, of giving voice before an eminent audience to the rightful demand of her generation, is especially poignant.

You are too smart to understand this code word ...

"Elitist"

The use of the term "elitist" is brilliant "dog-whistle politics": It's a diss on intelligent people put in a way that only stupid people get. If you think that being "elite" corresponds to high social and economic class, you didn't hear the whistle. If that were correct, it would be impossible for Hillary to call Barack elitist, and George W. would surely be the paragon of elitism. For such a bright person, you are being really f-cking dense about this!

It has often been remarked about George W. that he is markedly "incurious". That's a euphemism for his determined idiocy - for his refusal to use his considerable intelligence. His incuriosity makes him acceptable to those who are not bright - he's a "good guy to have a beer with" because he won't make the voters feel self-conscious about how stupid they are.

So, what's the true meaning of "elitist"? A person who regards themselves as reasonably bright. If you think you're bright, you will want other bright people to respect your opinions and beliefs as based on facts and sound reasoning. That makes you "elitist".

But if you think that you are NOT bright, you will avoid reasoned discussions that are likely to expose your incapacity. You will not like people who are smarter than you. You will not respect facts over beliefs - science over religious faith. You will dismiss global warming and the age of the earth as theories no better than your own guesses, or what your preacher, or your radio talk-show host tells you. You will be ripe for manipulation, and transparent pandering. You'll know what "elitist" means, and you'll resent the elitist candidate. You'll hear the whistle.

Of course democracy is supposed to be government of, by, and for the people. That means ALL the people, without regard to race, gender, or intelligence. But that doesn't mean that our nation will best be served by unintelligent - or by anti-intelligent - leadership. Whether they can bring themselves to acknowlege it or not, stupid people will be better off if they elect a leader who is as smart as possible - certainly smarter than they are.

If we are ever to put the Bush years behind us, we will have to break the taboo against calling stupidity stupid.

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The "holiday" is NOT just a political gimmick. It's THEFT

Basic economics: The price of any commodity, such as gas, is determined by supply relative to demand. The "holiday" does nothing to affect supply, and will INCREASE demand. Gas will suddenly be 18 cents cheaper, and in the spirit of a "holiday", people will buy more gas. The price will immediately rebound. The only thing that will have changed is that the 18 cents will go into the oil company pockets rather than into our treasury.

The "holiday" is NOT just a political gimmick. It is yet another proposal to raid the national treasury for BIG OIL by two corporatist politicians.