I agree with you, and a hardball response is necessary. Her speech was condescending and insulted everybody who ever thought about voting for Obama. She was the embodiment of the meanness of the republicans, and it did nothing to boost her qualifications for the job. She is the weakest part of a weak ticket, and the democrats have to fire back. The question is how to do that whilst following the high road Obama insists on traveling. She should be attacked for the evangelical partisan she is. We don't need another ideologue in the executive offices. And THAT'S what we will get with this bad, bad, bad decision from John McCain.

Glenn is on the money, again. We have ample evidence that the electorate, especially for president, votes with its gut rather than with its head. That's what gave us 8 years of W, and just may give us four years of McCain (did anyone pick up on Palin saying that what America needs is four years of John McCain?).

Sarah Palin is W with a vagina (and a brain). She is as comfortable at a podium as he is awkward, but with the same message. "Wouldn't you rather have a beer with ME and not that Harvard Law metrosexual?"

I do see a little liberal hypocrisy showing itself: when Biden was picked he was welcomed as the attack dog who would cut McCain down to size. Now, when the Republican VP serves the same role she's "vicious", "mean", and of course, "a bitch".

The McCain team is right. This election isn't about issues; hell, they never are. It's about personalities and passions and "team spirit". And the Republicans have done that better than the Democrats for a while now.

Those issues include

1) The tanking economy, brought on by subprime fraud and government corruption at the SEC and the Federal Reserve (not that Congress did any "oversight" of their biggest donors - real estate and finance interests).

2) The bloody and illegal war in Iraq, set up on false pretenses using faked intelligence (the British really helped out there), and the equally bloody situation in Afghanistan.

3) The atrocious state of the U.S. educational and public health care systems, which have created the worst educated and least healthy populace, among any of the industrialized nations. Illiteracy and infant mortality rates approach those seen in Third World countries - not that the U.S. press spends any time chronicling the fortunes of the poor and downtrodden in this country.

4) The corrupt energy policy of the U.S., which is based on military control of foreign oilfields, expansion of the two dirtiest fossil fuels known (tar sands and coal), and gross subsidies delivered to fossil fuel interests. At the same time, the U.S. government and fossil fuel interests actively sabotage any real efforts to get renewable energy replacements online.

That's why the U.S. Congress provided $18 billion in loan guarantees to Sarah Palin's Transcanada pipeline, intended to bring natural gas to the tar sands of Alberta, where it will be burned in order to process the tar into synthetic crude. Palin's husband is a BP employee; BP will make billions off the tar sands, but they need Alaskan gas to process it. Even Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are involved.

For example: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080829/wl_canada_nm/canada_greenpeace_col

"Greenpeace Canada blasts Syncrude lawsuit, Aug 29 2008"

Those are some of the main issues that the Republicans do NOT want to see discussed in any forum. So far, they are getting their way, because the press won't talk about the issues (Inside USA with Avi Lewis is doing a great job of covering these issues, however - putting all the lefty frauds to shame).

Remember - do not discuss these issues. The Republicans don't want you to, and neither do the owners of the consolidated American media, whether they be private foundations or the corporate entities and billionaires that pour funds into those private foundations (Ford, Rockefeller, Scaife, Packard, Sara Lee, Richardson - there's a lot of flavors of billionaire, but there are also shared interests).

Lord forbid that this election should become a referendum on real issues like U.S. militarism and our fossil fuel industry-controlled energy policy, right?

Yours, Ike Solem

I watched all the speeches last night -- Romney, Huckabee, Guilliani, and Palin. They stretched the truth in many places, and took their share of cheap shots, but the Lie Above All Lies that every single one of them repeated, is that the GOP believes in small government.

There has never been a time since Eisenhower that a Republican president left office with a smaller government than when he went in. Never, never, ever.

Why does anyone let these people get away with such a supreme lie? That lie alone should cost them the credibility necessary to be elected.

Forget all the rest of it. Somebody from the Democratic side should be pounding that point home, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, until election day.

while the Right will declare this to be one of the greatest speeches in American political history

Isn't that how Bush 'won' debates against Gore and Kerry?

"All Biden has to do is ask Palin who the President of Pakistan is

slam--DUNK!

-- BeatnikBob "

Pakistan is between presidents at the moment - the chairman of the senate is serving as acting president.

"He tries to DUNK, but hits the rim and the ball bounces into the hands of the other team!!!"

Let's make a list:

Has there ever been a successful Missile Defense test without a homing device on the target ICBM?

Who is the President of Russia?

How many barrels of oil a day does America consume? How many barrels of oil are estimated in the ANWR? How long before we suck it dry? A year? Months?

Did dinosaurs roam the earth with human beings? Where does oil come from? Was Tyrannosaurus Rex originally a gentle vegetarian, until the Devil introduced evil and carnivorism to the world?

Should President Bush have authorized the use of the few dozen stem cell lines he has? Or should it be completely abandoned?

Should women or doctors be punished by law for having or giving an abortion? Or both?

Will she press statutory rape charges against the father of her grandson? What should the legal minimum age for sex be, for a boy or girl?

What should we do about Georgia and Russia?

Her little high school pep rally speech won't do her any good if the Democrats do it right.