John McCain's acceptance speech

Let me preface the rest of this post by listing the points of McCain's speech that I liked.

-The Iraq vet protesters with the "McCain votes against vets" sign
-Nuclear power
-Double the child tax exemption

That's all that I could find in my notes, there are probably a few more.

Now let's move on to the lies. I'll stick to the lies that I can debunk off the top of my head.

-"You have my respect..."-to Obama campaign: So all the personal attacks? That's respect? Wow, Obama should really be more respectful to McCain, shouldn't he?

-Palin's tax cuts: As far as I know, Palin did not cut taxes. Alaska has no state income or sales tax. She did give a $1200 tax rebate per citizen from oil money. A technicality but there is a difference.

-"The party of Lincoln, Roosevelt...": Yeah about that...you know blacks supported Lincoln. Southerners hated him. Robber barons hated Roosevelt. You know that thing called civil rights? Started with Lincoln. Oh and Lincoln instituted the first income tax. Party of Lincoln and Roosevelt my ass.

-Will appoint judges who don't legislate from the bench: So let me get this straight. When judges say that withholding habeas rights from prisoners at Gitmo, it's legislating from the bench. When judges say that a handgun ban is unconstitutional, it's doing their duty. When judges say that abortion is legal, it's legislating from the bench. But when you appoint judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade, it's not legislating from the bench? And since when could judges make law anyway? I should invite John McCain to my gov class.

-Obama will raise taxes: On Bill Gates maybe. Hell, the McCains even get a $5,641 tax break under Obama and they make 6 million bucks a year. I keep wondering why Obama doesn't hit McCain for this lie that he's repeated over and over in ad after ad.

-Obama will tax small businesses to force them to cut jobs: Didn't McCain listen to Obama's acceptance speech? Obama specifically mentioned a small business tax cut.

-Obama wants to bring back old jobs and McCain new ones: Apparently McCain doesn't watch much TV. He might have seen that Obama ad that says that we can retrain workers from the old economy to build a new one.

-Obama wants schools to answer to unions and bureaucrats: See above. And also, remember that crazy idea to eliminate tenure in exchange for higher salaries for competent teachers? That was Obama. This section on education I felt was extremely similar to Obama's during his acceptance speech.

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That's all for the blatant lies. There were plenty of other semi-contradictory statements and positions I just don't agree with in the speech. Those may come later.

Palin's daughter pregnant

Yes, Palin's daughter is pregnant. No, it should not have anything to do with the campaign.

This announcement will make more waves with the very religious conservatives that McCain is supposedly reaching out to, than with moderates and Democrats who do not believe that family matters should be dragged into politics.

I severely criticize the rumormongers that have been circulating the rumor around liberal blogs that Palin faked a pregnancy to cover up for her daughter. But for Republicans to call foul and say Obama is behind the rumors (http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2944356420080901?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true)...just as despicable. I applaud the mainstream media for at least placing Hurricane Gustav as the priority news item.

It goes to show the laserlike focus of our media that this has been picked up. To me, it is yet another family issue that shouldn't be in the media at all (guess I'm guilty of talking about it too). The nation should just let it go. Cheney has a lesbian daughter. Does it matter at all?

I will be severely disappointed if the Obama campaign does anything except offer its condolences to the Palin family. I will also be severely disappointed if the McCain campaign continues to link Obama's name to every piece of trash that comes out of the blogosphere.

Let's just let it go.