“We’ve debunked about a dozen myths so far — from the outlandish ‘Death Panel’ claims to the idea that we’re eliminating Medicare benefits. But the biggest myth of all is that our health insurance system is just fine, that there is no serious need for reform. I heard one opponent of reform in congress say and I quote, ‘This is not a major issue among the American people.’ Nothing, nothing could be more further from the truth.”  (8/31/09, online video)

If there’s one thing Obama has always loved, it’s getting people involved via viral videos. Now he’s asking the American people to speak up at Whitehouse.gov and make the case that health care is an important issue. It seems shocking that anyone would suggest it’s not important, although many critics in the purple states are saying that Obama has too much on his plate. They’re saying they’re not quite ready for so much change right now. However, presidential polls continually reaffirm the fact that the president is never as popular later on in his presidency as he is at the beginning, so if he truly wants health care reform, it’s wise of him to pursue it sooner, rather than later. It would also be wise for him to take a more bipartisan approach to the issue and move to pass things both sides can agree upon, rather than holding out for a Nancy Pelosi-esque, “All or Nothing” stand-off.

Read more of Joe’s comments about Ted Kennedy & Little League baseball at The Examiner!

“It’s not just a congresswoman. This is bigger than Debbie. This is bigger than me. I promise you: If the Republicans succeed in knocking off these new bright stars … What do you think the chances [are] for the kind of reform we need for that little 3-year-old beauty in the next four to six years?” (8/19/09 – Chicago fundraiser)

Gesturing to a 3-year-old girl listening to his speech may have been a cheap trick to tug at our heart strands and an overly emphatic way of making his point. (Do you think the Republicans want to block 3-year-olds from health care?) Yet the Chicago audience ate it up. Halvorson faces an uphill battle against a National Air Guard pilot/former commissioner, a farmer and an activist/church TV show producer. I guess you’d really have to be embedded in Chicago politics to understand why someone with 12 years in the state Senate and a year in the House would be so nervous that she’d have to call up Biden for support. Then again, maybe Biden is just that cool to “hang out with.” 

On another note, it’s interesting to see the same old battle royale is starting up again, fear mongering and all, which makes us roll our eyes recalling about all that silly talk about “bipartisanship” during the primary season. Barack Obama may be a fair-minded individual, but he’s certainly ready to play hard ball, especially when his batter is Joe Biden and he’s got Nancy Pelosi on first, Kathleen Sebelius on second and Rahm Emanuel on third. 

Continue reading what Joe has to say about Bush & Healthcare!

Some people say “a vice president is just a vice president,” that a visit from a #2 isn’t all that big a deal. However, it seems that Vice President Biden’s current trip has important meanings for all involved. While it may not be as big a deal as a visit from Obama himself, sending the #2 is a great way for Obama to highlight areas of the world that mean the most to the current administration.

One might ask, “Why not send Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on these missions? Isn’t that her job?” Yet, Obama has said that he prefers a “divide and conquer” approach to foreign policy, which is reinforced by his sending of Biden, his closest foreign policy advisor. As promised on the campaign trail, Joe Biden is proving that he’s involved in all the major operations within the White House and he’s getting the ability to wear that Secretary of State hat a little bit, while sitting tall in the second-highest position in the land.

Today, the vice president is traveling to Ukraine to reassure Russia’s embattled neighbors that the new administration will not abandon them as they improve ties with the Kremlin… Continue Reading…

Back when I first heard that Barack Obama had selected Joe Biden as his running mate, I wondered, “How’s that dynamic going to work out?” The Joe Biden I knew was a senior senator who liked his Amtrak commutes, his role on the foreign relations committee and his independence. But then Obama appeared on “Meet the Press” and said, “I’m going to want someone with independence, who’s willing to tell me when he thinks or she thinks I’m wrong. We’re going to have a lot of problems and a lot of work to do, and I’m not interested in a vice president who I just send off to go to funerals.”

After many interviews of putting down the Veep speculation, Biden finally told the world he was ready to serve, especially since Obama made it clear he wants more than just a figurehead for his vice presidency. When Biden was first announced as the VP-elect, they went on this whirlwind “rockstar” tour of America to show that they had the charisma, the passion and the gravitas to lead the nation. But over time, Biden’s independent spirit has done the administration well: while Obama stays in Washington, tending to business, he can send Joe jet-setting and globe-trotting on special missions.

Continue Reading…

Anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has said that the withdrawal pledge has left him “filled with hope,” but he added, “If the occupation forces breach the claimed withdrawal even with the government’s cover, then the people have the right to express their opinion by peaceful means and the right of self-defense in a way that does not harm the Iraqi people or security forces.”

On the flight over, the U.S. Vice President told reporters, “I think the Iraqis have become invested in their nationhood. I think they’ve become invested in the idea that they want to run their own lives, that they want to be in charge. The reason I came is [President Barack Obama] wants to focus within the White House on the implementation of our administration’s plan to…. draw down troop levels in Iraq.” …Continue reading here…

This Tuesday, Joe Biden will be traveling to a solar panel manufacturer near Toledo, Ohio to put his money where his mouth is. Willard & Kelsey Solar Group just received $10 Million from the Economic Stimulus Plan to create up to 3,500 new jobs making thin photo-voltaic cells for residential and commercial use.  VP Biden will tour the facility at 10 AM and hold a middle class task force meeting titled “Promoting American Manufacturing in the 21st Century” afterwards. He’ll discuss the state of the manufacturing industry, how the administration is supporting manufacturing communities presently and what they have planned for the future.

Read more Quotes about Father’s Day and Plans for Michigan here!

Yet the question remains: What has Joe Biden done for the Middle Class?

Several months ago, I checked the Middle Class Task Force site only to find a discussion of ways to help people send their kids to college… and I thought, “So what?” What is the purpose of going to college if there are no jobs waiting at the other end of the tunnel? Moreover, a 20/20 special posited that Bachelor’s Degrees are “America’s biggest over-rated product.” Upping college enrollment seems to be the wrong approach. After all, 1 in 5 people who are unemployed hold at least a college degree, according to NPR.   

This month, everyone’s clamoring, “Where are the jobs, Joe?” We’re told there’s good news from the White House – that 150,000 jobs have been either saved or created in the first 100 days.

Yet, when questioned how they arrived at that figure, Joe just sheepishly replied, “I’m a little above my pay grade here as I try to explain in more detail how they count spinoff effects of actual jobs created, I’m sorry. I’m not an Economist. My background is in foreign policy and the constitution.”

He told us to be patient, that the $500 million training program was on its way. The latest unemployment figures indicate 345,000 jobs were cut in May, bringing the national unemployment rate to 9.4%. Back in January, we were promised the unemployment rate wouldn’t exceed 8% if the stimulus was passed. (To be safe, Obama changed his figures to a projected 10% unemployment rate before the end of the year.)

Continue reading…

“They’re either going to have to agree with us, come up with an alternative or we’re not going to have health care… and we’re going to get health care.” (NBC, “Meet the Press,” 6/14/09)

There are few areas Democrats and Republicans disagree in more than healthcare. The Obama-Biden administration has made it abundantly clear that they plan to push legislation through this year. Obama has called healthcare a “ticking time bomb,” especially as the baby boomers age. U.S. government health-related expenditures are already at more than $1.9 trillion per year, which is 44% more than what Switzerland spends on their national healthcare plan and 134% more than the median average of all the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Over the weekend, Obama and Biden proposed a plan that would: curtail fraudulent lawsuits and malpractice awards, lower the pay rate of Medicare, reduce hospital subsidies for treating uninsured patients and negotiate better prices for prescription drugs. This plan, they said, would cost about $1 trillion over 10 years — a figure which many Republicans scoff is just a starting point. Biden adds that it’s “up to Congress” to figure out how to pay for universal healthcare, but he made it clear they’re playing hardball and backing down is not an option for this administration.

Click here to read what Joe Biden had to say about National Security, GM Ownership, North Korea and Iran this week!

Politico.com reports that Joe Biden plans to “limit the role of vice president” to what it supposedly was before the Bush-Cheney White House:

Dialing back his predecessor’s expansive view of the office, Vice President-elect Joe Biden plans on “restoring the Office of the Vice President to its historical role” as adviser to the president and tie-breaker in the Senate, an aide to Biden said Saturday.

What may be worse, the Democratic Senate Majority is going to shut the incoming veep out of its caucus:

The declaration results from an attention-getting article coming from the Las Vegas Sun, which is reporting Sunday in a story by Washington Bureau reporter Lisa Mascaro that the new Congress “will reassert its constitutional independence from the White House by barring the vice president from joining in internal Senate deliberations, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in an interview with the Sun.”

And Reid was pretty emphatic about it:

The paper says that when Reid was asked whether Biden will be alowed to attend Senate Democratic caucus meetings, Reid said: “Absolutely not.”

Getting back to that silk purse:

Elizabeth Alexander, spokesperson for the vice president-elect, e-mailed in response: “Vice President-elect Biden had no intention of continuing the practice started by Vice President Cheney of regularly attending internal legislative branch meetings — he firmly believes in restoring the Office of the Vice President to its historical role. He and Senator Reid see eye to eye on this.”

Yeah, I’m sure Joe is thrilled with that. What with Obama not giving him any specific portfolio (as Al Gore had with President Clinton) and Reid keeping him from poking his nose into the Senate, Joe will revel in the “historical role” of Vice President as “counselor” and occasional tie-breaker — the role John Nance Garner described as not “worth a warm bucket of spit.”

I’m starting to feel sorry for Joe.

(Visit me at The Purple Center)

When Barack Obama and Joe Biden first hit the campaign trail, it seemed the two were Best Friends Forever. Every picture showed them laughing, patting each other on the back, whispering and cheery. Michelle and Jill were hugging on Entertainment television and complimenting each other. “Every major decision he’ll be making, I’ll be sitting in the room giving my best advice,” Biden told us of his role in the administration. Obama assured us that Joe Biden would be his foreign policy point-man and a trusted adviser on almost every major issue.

Yet when he’s not bumbling his phrases, America tends to look the other way. Joe Biden may not be the scrappy Scranton-based, lunch-box-totin’ “Average Joe” he painted himself as during the campaign; but he’s certainly lacking the star power that some of the latest appointees hold…

For instance, women’s rights advocates and many disillusioned voters have been holding their breath for months, awaiting news on Hillary Clinton’s future.

And how could he possibly compete with Rahm Emanuel, the man with “big brass balls that clank as he walks down the halls of Congress?” Robert Gates is staying onboard, much to the delight of Republicans.

Then there’s Susan Rice, whose UN ambassador position has been restored to a cabinet-level position, as it was under Bill Clinton. “She’s obviously one of Obama’s closest advisers,” says Nancy Soderberg, a senior US diplomat under Clinton. She’ll be buddied up with Sec of State Hillary and Department of Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano to project the Obama message past our borders, but will there be room in the girls’ club for Biden?

Recently, senior Obama adviser and long-time friend, David Axelrod, told the New York Times: “I’m sure there will be discreet assignments over time. But I think his fundamental role is as a trusted counselor. I think that when Obama selected him, he selected him to be a counselor and an adviser on a broad range of issues.”

So far the “discreet assignments” have meant: a weekly on-one-one luncheon with President-Elect Obama; the task of calling three candidates for PM of Israel, the President of Colombia, the President of Georgia and the foreign policy chief of the EU; the job of interviewing candidates for chief economist; stuffing soldiers for overseas troops and a small speaking slot / appearance at 1/3 news conferences this week.

Analysts point out that by this time, Bill Clinton had assigned Al Gore the mission of developing civilian science and technology applications (you know, “inventing the Internet”) and George W. Bush had given Dick Cheney the national security gig by now. Even Sarah Palin, who never reached the White House steps, said she anticipated working on “energy” and “support for families with disabled children.”

Not everyone thinks Biden will have so much sway. “I can see Joe in his (vice president’s) room (just off the Senate Chamber), smiling, slapping people on the back, making his points, working the members,” visualizes former Senator Bob Kerry (D-Neb). Senate Democrats say they’ll be inviting Biden to weekly lunches to inform him of concerns from both Democrats and Republicans early-on.

Just before the election, Biden himself admonished, “I’m confident I’ll be spending a fair amount of time working with Congress. I really have genuine relationships with Republican leaders in the House and the Senate. I’ve never once misled any of my colleagues, Democrats or Republicans.”

Former Gore Chief-of-Staff Charles Burson concedes, “It can be a senior adviser-in-chief role, and I think Al Gore had that,” but he also wonders about the chemistry between President Obama and Biden. They’ve known each other just four short years since Obama was campaigning for the senate, which pales in comparison to many of Obama’s closest aides and staff members who joined him from Chicago. Even so, Obama has lavished much praise on Biden throughout the campaign trail and his blog painted the portrait of a close-knit union. Despite his foreign policy credentials, it’s entirely possible Crime-Fightin’ Joe will go back to focusing on domestic assignments. In August, Obama said of his #2: “I think he’s the man who can help me guide this country in a better direction and help working families.”

While Politico’s Carol Lee says Biden’s “generating less buzz than the non-existent first puppy” and the Washington Post’s David Ignatius calls him “the incredible shrinking vice president-elect,” it’s likelier that Joe’s thinking long and hard about finding a comfortable middle-ground for his legacy. On one hand, he admires the way Walter Mondale expanded the duties of the VP, but on the other hand he sees danger in being heavy-handed as Dick Cheney. He’s probably enjoying a break from the stressful spotlight, the incessant interviews and the tedious travel plans, after all. Like many beautiful autumn flowers, perhaps Joe’s just a late-bloomer.

Politico is reporting that Barack Obama’s administration will likely use Joe Biden as the “good cop” to offset Rahm Emanuel’s “bad cop” role:

The Democrats’ apparent failure to win the 60 Senate seats necessary to halt a GOP filibuster has created the need for inter-party ambassadors like Biden who are practiced at the art of aisle crossing. In his 36-year Senate career, Biden was never considered a bomb-throwing ideologue, and he still has plenty of chits to cash in with Republicans on the Hill.

“He’s probably got more friends among Senate Republicans than John McCain does, and that’s a huge plus for Barack Obama, who is committed to breaking the partisan roadblock of recent years,” said Biden spokesman David Wade shortly before Election Day.

And while Emanuel’s bad-cop reputation may be overstated, all those F-bombs and threats to pulverize GOP incumbents during his tenure of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee boss create an opening for Biden, who maxes out on the Mr. Nice Guy scale.

The Vice President as a glad-hander and deal maker? That would be a change. And Biden does seem well suited for the task of forging alliances. He’s a scrapper, but he’s no attack dog as his surprisingly low profile during the campaign proved. I imagine many of the Senators on both sides of the aisle would welcome a Vice President with a less combative nature.

But being a member of the Senate and being Vice President are two very different positions. Biden won’t be able to breeze into the Capitol Building and calmly put out fires. There is still plenty of partisanship and rancor in Washington and Biden will have his work cut out for him if he’s going to be Obama’s liaison to the Senate. Still, how could he not be an upgrade to the current guy?

Watch and squirm…

Listen, I don’t buy for a second that she didn’t know which countries are in NAFTA or that Africa is a continent, not a country.

Why?

Because people who becomes Governors of states are not that stupid. I’m sorry, they just aren’t. Sure, she was certainly nervous and unprepared during those Gibson and Couric interviews and she obviously didn’t get the nuances of foreign policy and economics (which automatically disqualifies her for the VP job), but to suggest that she’s a moron is ridiculous.

But the following revelations, coupled with the rumor that she spent more on clothing than previously revealed, point to the idea that not only is the right wing trying to destroy this woman, but that Fox News is perfectly fine to push memes that are completely unprovable.

And, by the way, why is it okay for Carl Cameron to report rumor and innuendo now instead of during the campaign?

There is one bit of news in this mess that we all know is true…she really wasn’t vetted at all. And for that McCain should be ashamed of himself. He had enough time to fully vet the entire town of Wasilla while Hillary and Barack fought it out through that extended, torturous primary process and yet he waited until the very last minute?

No wonder he lost.

The war is beginning behinds the scenes between the Palin people and the McCain people, and it looks like they’re trying to hit the Alaskan Governor right where it hurts: her authenticity.

From Newsweek:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported.

While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.

According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill.

Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband.

Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost.

An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

The Palin camp fires back…

A Palin aide said: “Governor Palin was not directing staffers to put anything on their personal credit cards, and anything that staffers put on their credit cards has been reimbursed, like an expense. Nasty and false accusations following a defeat say more about the person who made them than they do about Governor Palin.”

I have the feeling that this will get even uglier.

But yes, she’s done.

He has endorsed McCain for President, but when asked if Palin is ready, the former Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush said the following…

“Look, of course not. I don’t think at the moment she is prepared to take over the reins of the presidency. I can name for you any number of other vice presidents who were not particularly up to it either.

So the question, I think, is can she learn and would she be tough enough under the circumstances if she were asked to become president, heaven forbid that that ever takes place?

Give her some time in the office and I think the answer would be, she will be adequate. I can’t say that she would be a genius in the job. But I think she would be enough to get us through a four year, well I hope not, get us through whatever period of time was necessary.

And I devoutly hope that it would never be tested.”

You can listen here to the whole thing, but…wow. I mean, what else can you say to something like that?

And here’s a bit more why Eagleburger is actually pretty important…

The indictment of Palin was all the more biting because both she and McCain have held Eagleburger up repeatedly during the past several weeks as evidence that the Republican ticket has firm standing and support within foreign policy circles. (In fact, McCain conferred with Eagleburger by phone just this week, on matters pertaining to national security.)

Devastating stuff at this point in the campaign.

UPDATE:
Listen to the whole thing here…

I’m sorry folks, but the following argument is RIDICULOUS and I can’t believe it’s coming out of the mouth of somebody so close to the presidency…much less the Governor of one of our states.

I mean…WTF?

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama’s associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate’s free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

*sigh*

Does she not get that the 1st Amendment isn’t designed to keep people from getting verbally attacked? In fact, it’s designed to do just the opposite, except that all speech is obviously subject to slander, libel and incitement laws. In other words you can’t print or say false things about somebody or attempt to incite violence or mayhem through your speech. But apart from that, it’s all free.

And the additional idea that she would attempt to convince base Republicans that criticism of her attacks is somehow infringing upon her 1st Amendment rights? That’s is absolutely shameful.

I hope this woman disappears back to Alaska and is completely forgotten. She is such a joke.

Consistently, the McCain campaign has been described by their opponents (and the media) as “erratic,” “disconnected” and “out of touch.” If only John McCain could pick a brilliant message and stick with it — rather than rushing heatedly from one position to the next, all the while spewing out Old School politics advertising to character assasinate Obama. When a message was finally chosen (following the Democratic National Convention), it was the same “Change” message Obama preached and Sarah Palin seemed the perfect agent of that change. But now McCain’s aides are spouting off to news sources that Sarah Palin is “a diva,” “a rogue,” and someone who “takes no advice from anyone” but rather “plays for her own future.” These trusted advisers make Joe Biden’s windedness look saintly!

So are the advisers’ charges justified? HAS Sarah turned into an out-of-control Maverick Diva?


The Palin Phenomenon

Well, through no fault of her own, she’s become a nationwide celebrity. Sure, her poll ratings are lousy (the latest poll revealed that 47% of American’s dislike her), but those who do like her… LOVE her. At any given rally, you’re likely to find a couple hundred Palin doppelgangers donning frameless glasses and pulled back hair, not to mention loads of signs proclaiming “Palin 2012″ or “Hockey Moms for Palin” or “Joe Mama.” It’s incredible the amount of media attention she’s received — not just in the news, but in spin-off Youtube videos, fan-sites, Saturday Night Live sketches and even porno films! Her rallies have consistently pulled in higher numbers than McCain’s! Her supporters say, “when Sarah was allowed to be Sarah,” her image took on a life of its own, dwarfing the very man she was running alongside. Certainly, this isn’t exactly what the McCain camp envisioned when they chose her as the Maverick SIDEKICK.

But let’s be honest: Her ambitions have been no secret… from her “a Palin-McCain Administration” gaffe to her admission that her favorite VP was “George HW Bush because he went on to become the President.” Lest not we forget that she also played competitive sports, entered a competitive beauty pageant and moved up the ranks from Mayor to Governor in Alaska fairly quickly. She shook up everyone working under her, fired those deemed disloyal and took on members of her own party — all things that she’s proud of, yet things that paint another side to this kindly Hockey Mom. In essence, McCain had to know what he was in for when he picked this whipper snapper! Pitbulls don’t do well in obedience training school.

Family Quarrels

Over the course of the campaign, she’s disagreed with John on several major issues — things like drilling in ANWR, the negative ads, pulling out of Michigan, the economic stimulus, a federal gay marriage ban, earmarks, sex education in schools, the cause of global warming, removing North Korea from the terror list and on unilaterally invading Pakistan.

Perhaps she wasn’t briefed on the McCain policies… or any policies for that matter. Now she’s being criticized for doing interviews without consulting the McCain advisers, writing her own scripts for public events and ignoring criticism. Some McCain aides have even called the Governor a “whack job,” while another charged that she “does not have relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.” A senior Republican told Politico that Palin is frustrated with Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt for throwing her to the wolves — notably Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric — without briefing her beforehand. She’s also upset about the recent clothing fiasco that left her holding the (shopping) bag. Character sniping is to be expected, but to Palin, it seemed the McCain campaign didn’t truly have her back… that she was just pushed out to sea on an Alaskan iceberg and chastized when she floated off-message, even when that message wasn’t communicated to her. “Recently, she’s gone from relying on McCain advisers who were assigned to her to relying on her own instincts,” one of her aides said. Can you blame her?

Kelly McParland of the National Post certainly doesn’t. “Palin, who has barely been out of Alaska before, was trotted out to pose with a bunch of bemused old kleptocrats who were in New York for their annual shopping expedition and speech at the UN General Assembly. She was spruced up with a bunch of designer clothes, apparently hauled by the armload from the kind of snotty shops they don’t have in Anchorage, or anywhere else in Middle America for that matter,” McParland writes. “She was kept from the working press, then plopped down without warning before Katie Couric and Charles Gibson, left to fend for herself while trying to remember what the briefing book said about the gross national product of Upper Klodpurnia. She didn’t look comfortable, and no wonder. It wasn’t her, and never would be. If John McCain wanted a well-dressed woman who could chill with the president of Pakistan while conducting peace talks on her BlackBerry, he should have picked Condoleezza Rice.”

The Sunny Side

Amid all the finger-pointing, John McCain has tried to remain positive on his sinking ship. “By the way, when two mavericks join up we don’t agree on everything,” he chuckled at a Pennsylvania rally. “But it’s a lot of fun.” Of course, it’s not fun to McCain aide Nicolle Wallace who commented by email, “I have no comment other than what’s in the story, if people wish to throw me under the bus, my personal belief is that the graceful thing to do is to lie there.” Another senior McCain adviser reportedly told CNN: “This is what happens with a campaign that’s behind; it brings out the worst in people, finger-pointing and scapegoating.” What could be more fun than that, aside from losing?

Former Reagan strategist Ed Rollins says that winning or losing won’t make much difference for Palin, who will definitely be “the most popular Republican in this country when this thing is over.” Given her ambitions and her army of devout followers, I’m betting on Sarah Palin vs. Hillary Clinton in 2012. Europe’s looking pretty good right now…

I wonder if he knows about this.

Airfare for your kids to fly around to events on the taxpayers’ dime: $21,012

Designer clothes for your botched Vice Presidential roll out: $150,000

Destroying McCain’s chances to become President: Priceless

Yeah, she’s got a shot.

Sure…….

More polls continue to state the obvious: the Palin pick is destroying McCain’s chances.

From MSNBC:

That doesn’t appear to be the case with McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin. Fifty-five percent of respondents say she’s not qualified to serve as president if the need arises, up five points from the previous poll.

In addition, for the first time, more voters have a negative opinion of her than a positive one. In the survey, 47 percent view her negatively, versus 38 percent who see her in a positive light.

That’s a striking shift since McCain chose Palin as his running mate in early September, when she held a 47 to 27 percent positive rating.

Now, Palin’s qualifications to be president rank as voters’ top concern about McCain’s candidacy (34%) – ahead of continuing President Bush’s policies (23%), enacting economic policies that only benefit the rich (20%)…

By the way, Obama now leads McCain by 10 points in this poll (52% to 42% ) up from a 6 point lead last week.

And so it goes…

Sure, she was just kidding. Fair enough.

Then how does she explain this…

Folks, all the VP does is break ties in the Senate and be ready to be President if the need arises. Those are basically the VP’s two jobs. What Palin describes in this second clip is WAY off base.

Now, some on the right feel a need to defend her and have said, “Well, she was talking to second graders. She was just oversimplifying it.”

No, she was just getting it completely wrong. The VP does not “get in there with the Senators and make a lot of good policy changes.” No way, no how. This does not happen.

Moving on…