I was talking with one of my freelancers recently about the Republican Convention and some of the speakers bashing Obama’s work as a community organizer. I told my freelancer that I could knock out McCain, Palin and all those attacks in one column. I even joked that Democrats should put me on the campaign so I can put some wood to the GOP.
Who is Sarah Palin to knock Obama’s community service work? Republicans talk about grassroots efforts and people working to solve their own problems without relying on government. I just happened to do a little search on the Internet-that new fangled thingamajig John McCain recently started using-about Alaskan community groups. Ran across one called The Alaskan Community Foundation. According to its website, the nonprofit group’s mission is to “encourage and nurture philanthropy through the establishment of a permanent endowment that will address current and emerging needs in Alaska communities.” Sounds like a group dedicated to improving Alaska through community work via philanthropy.
I found another community group in Alaska, listed on the “Community Tree and Forestry Organizations” website. As soon as it pops up, it states the mission of Anchorage TREErific, a community group “enriching our community through the planting, caring, and promotion of trees.” Dumb, Gov. Palin-really, really dumb. You and other Republicans act like you’ve never heard of community organizing but there it is going on right in your own backyard. Speaking of reforms, what has Palin done while governor for only two years? Can she or the Republicans offer any evidence that she’s reformed anything in Alaska?
What reform is Palin bringing to the table in Washington? For that matter, what reforms can McCain boast? He and fellow Republicans promised to reform the federal income tax system when they took control of Congress in the ’90s, but they didn’t. They promised to run government more efficiently but failed at that too. They promised to clean up Washington of corruption, only to stink up the town with corruption from the White House down to the lower chambers of Congress. They promised to pass term limits and abandoned that as soon as they became the majority.
Now McCain offers up Sarah Palin as VP? Where is she on the Iraq War? Did she support going to war? What’s her view on the conflict between Russia and Georgia? We don’t know where she is on any of these and many other issues because she’s on her publicity and photo-op tour as Republicans hide her away from the national media at scripted events. She’s ready to be president? The GOP doesn’t even think she’s ready to face the Washington media and answer tough questions. What a joke.
And the Republicans think attacks on her thin record would actually undermine Obama because you could say the same thing about him. No you can’t. Senators are legislators. Governors are executives. Legislators submit hosts of bills, many of which might never become law because of politics or gridlock. Executive office holders can’t get away with having such a minuscule record. Any first-term senator only four years in is lucky to get one significant piece of legislation passed. Obama did; his ethics and lobbying reform bill. Now if Palin were a senator or house member on the GOP ticket as VP, or even if she were running for president with the same tenure in the senate as Obama, attacks on her “experience” in that instance would be just as invalid.
The Republican Party is pitiful. They have no significant successes or achievements to point to under Bush or their former majority. They have no solutions to offer for the future. They’re not focusing on important issues; they’d rather focus on personality, trying to sell McCain as a solid choice for president. They tried to sell the lie that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 plot. He wasn’t. That Saddam had some kind of terrorist relationship with Osama Bin Laden. He never did. That he had nuclear weapons to drop on America or hand over to his buddy Osama to use on the United States. He didn’t. Lies, all lies.
Want more empty promises and failures? President Bush and the GOP said his tax cuts would create a better economy under his watch than during Bill Clinton’s tenure. That hasn’t happened. Not even close. They say Obama has no experience? No one in Bush’s administration had more international experience than Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. All that experience on foreign policy and what did it produce? This election is a referendum on Bush and the Republican Party. They say government isn’t the solution. Big government is the problem? No it isn’t. Incompetent elected officials like them are the problem.
