Wednesday, September 03, 2008

BETTER FREE YOUR MIND INSTEAD

I promise I'm not going to spend much time here talking about Sarah Palin. Honest. I'm not going to say a word about her pregnant seventeen-year-old daughter, and how the Republican establishment has declared family "off limits" even though you know damn well if Obama even knew a pregnant seventee-year-old, you'd be hearing about it in attack ads from here to November.

But, as I said, I'm not going to mention that, any more than I'm going to mention Palin's comment that she's proud of her daughter for "choosing" to have her baby. Funny how, though Palin is militantly anti-choice, by using the word "choice" it sounds as though she would have allowed someone in her own family the very option she would deny others. If Palin's family weren't off limits, I'd suggest that is an even more blatant example of the cronyism we've been enduring throughout the Bush years and the very thing John McCain claims to be running against.

Ah, McCain, that straight-talker, that truth-teller, that firebrand! How hollow are his promises, how thin his maverick reputation? By almost all accounts, he wanted mush-mouthed ex-Democrat Joe Lieberman as his VP, but the Neocon Fortress ruling the Republicans threatened to turn against McCain, so he followed their script and did exactly as he was told. (I'm trying not to make my usual Annakin Skywalker/Senator Palpatine analogy here, but it's hard to resist, so...very...hard.) The absurd praise a virtual non-entity like Palin has received from the likes of William Kristol tells you everything you need to know: She's their girl, the price McCain must pay for their support.

If he wasn't willing to buck the system and make his own choice when it came to selecting the first member of his administration, what other compromises will he make, what other decisions will he hand off to his masters, how many more boots will he lick? For someone who makes so much of his time spent as a POW, it sure looks as though McCain is allowing himself to be a captive all over again.