Are you as offended by McCain's VP choice as I am? Right after I wrote yesterday's post, Hubby got up and we watched the news, which of course included all of McCain's headline-grabbing hoopla. In the first commercial break there was a new McCain ad, specifically aimed at Hillary supporters. It featured a 30-ish woman holding a Hillary rally sign and talking about how much Hillary's candidacy meant to her. Then she smiles really wide and says she's found a new alternative, and her rally sign morphs from Hillary to McCain. It was an open invitation for disenfranchised Hillary supporters to join McCain's camp, and it made my blood boil to realize that McCain thinks the women of this country can be swayed so easily, that we don't make rational choices but instead we choose based on emotion and gender. Now McCain REALLY deserves to lose.
This morning I got up with a mission - I wrote letters to the two main newspapers in my area expressing my outrage at McCain's pandering. Hopefully they'll get printed, but if not, here they are (yes I cheated and sent the same letter twice - why reinvent the wheel?)
To the editors:
I’m highly offended by the blatant pandering John McCain attempted in his choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate. It was pathetically obvious that this move was an attempt to win over disenfranchised Hillary Clinton supporters. This selection is proof that McCain really does live in another world if he thinks Palin could even begin to fill Hillary Clinton’s shoes. Palin’s lack of experience is appalling, especially after all of McCain’s attack ads against Obama that question his experience. The only qualification I can see in Palin is two x-chromosomes.
McCain presented Palin as if to say “Look, here’s a woman you can vote for!” As if that would be enough to sway my opinion, or those of any of the women I know. I fervently hope that the women of America are far too smart to fall for this obvious and pathetic attempt to sway their votes by appealing to gender.
Mr. McCain, you have insulted my intelligence once again by even considering for a moment that I would cast my vote strictly along gender lines. Before, I disliked you for your political stance and your continued alliance with failed Bush policies, even though I respected you for your military service. You have now lost all respect in my eyes. You deserve to lose, and lose big, and I will work to see that happens in November.
While Hubby and I were watching McCain present Palin to the cheering crowd, we both noticed something that caused us to run back the program and watch it again (thank you TIVO!): McCain checked out Palin as they were both standing before the crowd. I thought I was seeing things until Hubby said "what was that?". When we ran it back and watched again it was right there - for between five and ten seconds McCain's eyes dropped to the level of Palin's butt and stayed glued there while his smile turned into much more of a leer. He looked like a caricature of a dirty old man in a raincoat saying "Want some candy, little girl?" Ewwwww........ and he's running for president? Creepy.
Here's more creepy stuff. This is on McCain's current trophy wife Cindy, and how McCain tossed away the woman who waited for him to return from Viet Nam. Guess this is why we don't hear "family values" associated with McCain...
"Cindy McCain is John McCain's second wife. His infidelities put strain on his marriage, and he was divorced from Carol McCain, his wife of 15 years, in 1980. (Carol McCain not only waited 5.5 years for her husband to return from Viet Nam, but she also endured a horrific automobile accident during that period which broke both her legs and one arm and ruptured her spleen. She nearly lost her left leg, and surgeries left her four inches shorter than she was before the accident. The woman he returned to was far different in appearance than the beautiful former model he left behind.)
Cindy Lou Hensley and John McCain began dating in 1979. While the Wall Street Journal article used as the source for the e-mail's information states 'At the time Senator McCain was separated from his first wife', numerous other sources assert he was still living with Carol McCain when he began seeing his future wife, Cindy. John and Cindy wed in 1980, one month after his divorce from Carol became final."
(the above information is courtesy of http://www.snopes.com/politics/mccain/cindy.asp)
Funny how the foibles of Democratic candidates and their spouses are broadcast far and wide by the GOP (or should it be the GrOPe?) but the same problems are neatly concealed and everyone pretends they didn't happen. McCain tossed aside his first wife, who was no longer model-gorgeous, for trophy wife Cindy. Incidentally, the same website referenced above also said that Cindy got herself into some trouble with drugs - an addiction to Vicodin that led her to forge prescriptions and steal drugs from the medical charity she ran at the time. She was arrested but avoided prosecution by doing community service, joining Narcotics Anonymous and closing the medical charity. It's a shame this deprived people overseas of badly needed medical resources because Cindy McCain had a jones for pills. Meanwhile back in 1992 the Republicans gave Bill Clinton hell over a little pot, and then later they tried to impeach him over Monica Lewinsky. Hey Republicans, you should be familiar with the Bible verse about "he who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw stones."
Okay, I guess I'm done being snarky for one day, but I want to close with something I'd been meaning to post for a few days now: Hubby is brilliant, even if he doesn’t realize it himself. A McCain ad came on and I could see his temper rising as he watched it. It was the one that starts “Washington is broken”, and Hubby immediately started fuming, “Yeah, he knows it’s broken because he helped break it!” At the beginning of our marriage Hubby actively did not care about politics and was unwilling to vote, let alone get involved. Now he’s become politically aware and wouldn’t miss an election. He’s not quite ready to volunteer to work on a campaign, but there’s hope. He thinks about the issues, forms his own opinions, selects the candidates that best represent his views, and is not afraid to share his views with others. We're going to the Taste of Colorado on Labor Day, and Hubby was thrilled when our Obama t-shirts arrived in the mail yesterday so we can wear them on Monday. He’s come to realize that participating in democracy is necessary and beneficial, that a few individuals can make a difference, that change has to start from somewhere, and that doing nothing but complaining won’t solve anything.
I watched the most amazing movie recently, an older film called “Mindwalk”. It deals with philosophy, history, anthropology, sociology and systems theory. This movie poses so many questions and has so many “aha!” moments that I found myself a bit overwhelmed. I’ll definitely go back and watch it again. This movie was required for one of my classes this semester, an Engineering class (yes, you read that right) called International Dimensions of Technology and Culture. I was apprehensive about taking an Engineering class, but so far we’ve only discussed Philosophy. I can handle that. Anyway, here’s the link to that movie: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9107401959308808776&q=mindwalk One of the quotes I noted down from this movie is “American voters want their leaders to be dumber than they are. They figure they’ll do less harm that way.” Brilliant!
“When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die.” - Sartre
Peace,
AuntieM
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