Thursday, September 04, 2008

It's all just Truthiness

Truthout.org goes through the lies in the speeches last night at the RNC convention.

If I hear the "I opposed the bridge-to-nowhere" one more time, I'm going to scream. No, she didn't. And when it was finally killed, Alaska kept all the money for 'other projects'. Didn't save a penny there. And as for the new talking point about "command experience" -- nope. She has never issued any orders to the Alaska National Guard - she can't. While she has limited control over their deployment for in-state emergencies, those decisions are handled by the State Department (although with her approval in some cases). Once the ANG is sent overseas, the governor has absolutely no authority. Period. So all this "she's the CiC of the Guard is spin. Just stop it.

Where was the uplifting message of their vision? Where was the outline of their plans? Where was one moment of illumination of what kind of leaders these people will be? All I heard was petty snarking. Jon Stewart was right: the GOP may love America, but they hate half the people living in it. And now, the stage is set so nicely for any criticism of Palin to be "sexist" -- because they simply cannot imagine that there might be some other reason to dislike her. Oh, no, can't make any comments about her job performance, that would be picking on a poor, defenseless woman. I can't imagine how you can argue she's fit to be VP at the same time you say she needs protecting from those big, bad democrats who are going to chew her up and spit her out over policy issues and decisionmaking.

It's funny, though, since it's remarkably easy to find them arguing that other women (Hillary, for example) need to just suck it up and handle it and not cry sexism, if they want to be in politics. Are these people unaware that there are machines nowadays that can actually (gasp!) record their comments? Do they not think that the double-standard they are applying is going to be noticed? Gah.

It frightens me that there are people out there who hear this, and believe every word without checking anything on their own. Gotta fact check, people! On both sides.

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