Author Archive: Bill Black

The selection of Sarah Palin as McCain’s VP is the most depressing development I’ve seen in politics in a long, long time. I’m depressed, not as an Obama supporter, but as an American. The fact that this decision by McCain is not seen by every thinking person as a cynical, dangerous and hypocritical move by McCain just makes me very sad. I fear that it is further evidence of our ultimate decline as a country. Democracy reveals both the best and worst in a society. In this time of global crisis, a time that McCain call one of transcendant threat, the fact that the thought of “President Sarah Palin” doesn’t terrify every thinking American is deeply, deeply depressing.

I though Richard Cohen got it right:

Probably the most depressing thing about Palin is not her selection but the defense of it. It has produced a parade of GOP spokesmen intent on spiking the needle on a polygraph. Looking right into the camera, they offer statement after statement that they hope the voters will swallow but that history will forget. The sum effect on the diligent news consumer is a feeling of consummate contempt for the intelligence of the American people — a contempt that will be justified should Palin be the factor that makes McCain a winner in November.

The best example of an outright lie offered by a Republican in defense of Palin is Governor Pawlenty saying on NRP that the fact that she is a woman had nothing to do with her selection.

This video almost makes me cry. It’s an interview with Barak Obama in 1995 about his book, Dreams of My Father. He’s the same then as he is now, sincere, articulate and thoughtful. To think that McCain and his gang of bullies and no-nothings are having success caricaturing him just makes me sad. God help us. We’ll get the president we deserve. I’d like to think we deserve Obama, but I’m not sure.

Michael Kinsley takes the Clinton “dead-enders” apart with his usual incisive wit in this week’s Time Magazine. Here are the consequences of their pique if it means the Democrats are split and McCain wins:

But there is no easy way these folks can vent their anger at Chris Matthews. So they are taking their revenge on people without health care, women who need abortions, and others who they (if they supported Hillary) must think will be harmed by a Republican victory in the fall. That’ll show ’em.

Please, God, don’t let us do it again.