As the chihuahua snaps

Sarah Palin came across as a mean little yapper in her speech last night. The mainstream media is laying it on thick, as if they were watching that speech in an alternative universe. Somewhere in a Bizarro World, meanness and mendacity are the benchmarks for getting good grades on your persuasive speech.

I watched Great American Dog last night rather than the Republican Convention. So maybe that is why I'm seeing dogs when I should see an Alaskan feminine-ist. I will say that Palin looked well-trained for last night's sporting event. It was immediately apparent that she can read a teleprompter and is adept at interpreting a speech written two weeks before she was selected. However, she's been hidden away for some secret extra training today. McCain wants to make sure she can heel, sit and draw Democratic blood at least three times per paragraph.

I'm getting my convention "news" from The Daily Show. John Stewart is doing a brilliant job of wrapping up each day's screeching points. Lots of great laughs, especially Samantha Bee trying to get Republicans to say the word "choice" in reference to the "private decision" made by young Bristol to keep her baby.

I looked for snarling chihuahua clips on YouTube, but every single one involved a male pet owner provoking the little dogs to snap. Not the kind of image I care to promote here, so I'll leave you with much happier, down to earth must-be Democratic dog footage:

The Republican National Convention or Project Runway?

Sam Harris nailed it. McCain's selection of Sarah Palin has turned this political season into a reality show in which an average person finds herself nominated for understudy to the greatest position of power in this country. Harris looks at Social Security's actuarial tables for mortality and sees that there is a greater than 10% chance Palin would succeed McCain in his first term, and a 27% chance in his second.

This woman is no "average" mainstream candidate no matter what the frantic spin-meisters try to say on camera. Apparently off camera, they can be heard saying other things. So the drama builds to some kind of climactic speech opportunity later this evening -- after Project Runway we hope.

I'm thinking I'd much rather watch people sketch, shop for fabric, pin and sew than watch the GOP pretend to be breaking glass ceilings with their VP pick. Or do they really believe that putting a creationist, secessionist, book-banning, far right fundamentalist who would force all women to become prisoner's of unwanted or dangerous pregnancies up for VP is a brilliant move on the part of John McCain? I wonder how many of the delegates are actually thinking, d'oh -- should've voted for Romney?

No more about kid gloves, please!

If I hear one more pundit say that Joe Biden must handle Sarah Palin with kid gloves in the VP debate, I think I'll scream and organize a bra-burning. How far haven't we come as women that we must be protected in debates against opponents who are cautioned not to "talk down" to us because we are women?

I ask you, would anybody say that to an opponent debating Hillary Clinton? No of course not, because we know that Hillary can handle anything, which is why many of us voted for her. A debate is a debate and treating the other differently because of gender is absurd here in the 21st century.

Palin has a lot to answer for from the press and from the opposition. Although McCain didn't vet her, everybody and her brother are digging up the stories about the real Sarah. Have you heard the one about a speech she gave at her church this past June? Via the wonderful folks at HuffPo:

Speaking before the Pentecostal church, Palin painted the current war in Iraq as a messianic affair in which the United States could act out the will of the Lord.

"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God," she exhorted the congregants. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."

She also has a pastor problem. Ed Kalnins senior pastor of the Wasilla Assembly of God church preaches that those who voted against Bush will end up in H E double hockey sticks, that we are in the end times and that Jesus is calling for us to die. In his own words:

"What you see in a terrorist -- that's called the invisible enemy. There has always been an invisible enemy. What you see in Iraq, basically, is a manifestation of what's going on in this unseen world called the spirit world. ... We need to think like Jesus thinks. We are in a time and a season of war, and we need to think like that. We need to develop that instinct. We need to develop as believers the instinct that we are at war, and that war is contending for your faith. ... Jesus called us to die. You're worried about getting hurt? He's called us to die."

The bets are on -- how long before Ms Palin decides to respectfully decline the nomination because her family or Alaska or the new oil pipeline needs her more?

Sarah Palin?

So how come the only female candidates we get are losers? Because I sure hope Palin helps sink the GOP ship this November. Even so, I still have to wonder how many cracks in the glass ceiling before we finally get a real break-through?

Palin sounds like my polar opposite (just check out the Vogue cover and it is made instantly clear) so I'm trying to figure out how McCain could possibly think she would attract women who voted for Hillary. Palin is anti-women's reproductive rights, doesn't believe in global warming, won't save polar bears, loves to shoot animals and eat them, is a former beauty queen, and looks like someone Tina Fey would have no problem playing on Saturday Night Live.

McCain tried to upstage Obama's brilliant speech from last night with this obvious pandering for ultra right votes while going after an aura daring forward thinking by putting up the first GOP VP candidate ever. However, the focus on McCain's choice of an inexperienced right wing zealot might get blown away by Hurricane Gustav come Monday, the first day of the GOP Convention. The talk will be all Gustav and Katrina and Republican inability to take care of this nation.

We hope the still suffering people of New Orleans are getting sufficient help to evacuate safely and in a timely manner. And that the repaired levees hold. And that no life is lost.