Now the truth comes out.

Huh. Africa is a country.

Nice knowing you, Gov. Palin!


by Rope Hoover Palin

No She Can't.

The boos last night during John McCain's concession speech were from Sarah Palin's caliber of people.

And hopefully, they were aimed at her, because she deserved them.

We saw last night the defeat of hate, fear, and bigotry - ideals that Sarah Palin lives up to, along with cowardice, ignorance, and insincerity. Palin became a drag on the McCain campaign, on the Republicans, and on the very people she represented, and the voters rejected her worldview in overwhelming numbers.

We here at Operation: Sarracuda saw through her disguise and labeled her a fraud from the get-go. Now people are talking about her running for president in 2012. I saw, bring it on. We will be ready for her. And so will America; the country will reject her and her terrible worldview for a second time.

President-elect Barack Obama deserves this election. He was a better person, a better politician, and had better ideals for our country. Unlike the McCain-Palin ticket, you didn't hear of infighting or Biden "going rogue" or - anticipating a loss - talk of someone else running in 2012. Discipline will take you places, and Gov. Palin has none of that discipline - or grace or class.

Congratulations Obama.


by Rope Hoover Palin

A visit to Wasilla, the real 'Merica

The parting shot is probably the most profound: that somehow us blue-staters are not as American as those in Appalachia or the deep south. Or, hell, Alaska.

What this says to me is, to Palin, any part of the country that doesn't agree with her worldview isn't the "real" America. When, in fact, the different parts of the country and our different outlook are what make America so grand. Imagine if everyone thought like George W. Bush or Sarah Palin. Scary, right? But that's exactly what they want: an America that nods in agreement, unblinking, when they talk.

My blue-state office job doesn't make me less of an American than the farmer in Iowa, or the fisherman in Alaska, or the soldier serving in Iraq. My blue-state city (conservative though it may be) has some of the same wacky folks that Wasilla does. My blue-state outlook is just as patriotic as those folks at the McCain/Palin rallies who shout "terrorist" at the mention of Obama - even though I don't like the thought.

I'll question your judgement, or your ethics, but I'll never question your patriotism. I'm not that cowardly; I can think of better insults.

We're pretty cool here in the blue states. People I know from red states are amazing people, too. A great man has said that already.

by Rope Hoover Palin

Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama, partly because of Palin

What do you know? Gov. Palin was one of the many reasons (the others were good, too) that Gen. Powell is endorsing Barack Obama to be president.

The "so what if he's a Muslim" stance is a great one, I think, and sorely needed. I hope Colin Powell made a bunch of Americans feel like shit when he said that. Sadly, he probably didn't.


by Rope Hoover Palin

Dear God.

Palin as president? Lord help us all.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Many thanks to my friend Suzanne for the pic.

by Rope Hoover Palin

Palin accent, schtick all an act, says Alaskan

From Nick Jans over at Salon.com:

As for that frontierswoman shtick, take another look at that hairpiece-augmented beehive and those stiletto heels. Coming from a college-educated family, living in a half-million-dollar view home, basking in a net worth of $1.25 million, and having owned 40-some registered motorized vehicles in the past two decades (including 17 snowmobiles and a plane) hardly qualifies Palin and her clan as the quintessential Joe Six-Pack family unit -- though the adulation from that quarter shows the Palins must be fulfilling some sort of role-model fantasy...What's with the smug posturing, recently adopted fake Minnesota accent, and that gosh-darn-it hockey mom pitch? Maybe it plays well in Peoria (and presumably Duluth), but it's all an act. "She's definitely put on a new persona since she's been a vice-presidential candidate," says Kertulla, who has worked closely with Palin for the past 18 months. "I don't even recognize her."

by Rope Hoover Palin

Least Qualified EEEVVVEEERRRRRRR!!!!!

Here's a pretty devastating look into Palin's claim that she has equitable experience to previous vice presidents. (Thanks to Lawrence Lessig!)



Chester A. Arthur is rolling over in his grave.

By Max Power

Still The Man, After All These Years

"If it were left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

-Thomas Jefferson

25 days without a press conference - your move S.Palin.

Tommy-J, you're still the man!

By Max Power

White Privilege Revisited

This may not be fact checking, but thought provoking nonetheless. It's also a repost from Myspace.

This is Your Nation on White Privilege

Sep 13, 2008

By Tim Wise

Tim Wise's ZSpace Page / ZSpace


For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are
constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this
list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin
and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a
personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents,
because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families
with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible,
pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," like
Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with
you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot
shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a
great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years
like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then
returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no
one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a
person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and
probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative
action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller
than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the
same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes
you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on
themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state
Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God"
in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding
fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from
holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s
and the "under God" part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that
reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the
Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires
it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people
immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband
who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to
secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one
questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and
your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with
her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being
disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the
work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to
vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child
labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely
question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no
foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow
being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree
with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate
anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired
confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a
"second look."

White privilege is being a ble to fire people who didn't support your
political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a
typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely
knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you
must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose
pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George
W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian
nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological
principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict
in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and
everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if
you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin
Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often
th e result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism
and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates
America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a
reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a
"trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word
answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question,
or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything
at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and
experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a "light" burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow
someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent
of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their
homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world
opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change"
thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more
years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008),
and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by Soft Skull.
For review copies or interview requests, please reply to
publicity@softskull .com mailto:publicity@softskull.com

Posted by: A. Suffragette

Operation: Sarracuda

Maybe this is a news flash, but Barack Obama is a Muslim. He also hates America, isn't a patriot, and wants to kill us all in our sleep.

If you didn't know all this, it's okay. Just open up your e-mail inbox and it's all right there.

I say that in jest, of course, but the fact remains: the right-wing uses e-mail like a pro. They've used it against the Clintons and against John Kerry, and now it's being used against Obama. Probably because it only involves hitting the "Forward" button, and it doesn't involve much creativity. Why pay for ads when you can just type up some bullshit and hit "send" to your family members?

The left-wing has its own form of propaganda, but it involves a little more work. Liberals get off their asses and does some on-the-street reporting, in blogs and in commenting forums and in Twitter feeds, like journalists used to do (and should be doing today).

The Twitter feeds I read are alive with protests and linking. John Gruber, who authors my favorite blog Daring Fireball, has made it his goal to uncover everything evil about Sarah Palin. And Andrew Sullivan, over at The Atlantic, has hit the governor everyday. But who actually reads this stuff? Do average Americans really jump on The Atlantic's site for their political news? How much influence do they have?

There's a great new blog that has surfaced since the Palin VP announcement, called Mudflats, and its written by a guy up in Alaska that reports as an Alaskan on the whole ordeal. It's great stuff, like when he attends an anti-Palin rally that's actually larger than her "welcome home" rally.

But then I watch the Sunday morning political shows, like "This Week," and all of them were gushing over Sarah Palin and her "dramatic invigoration" of the Republican base. No truth-telling, no in-depth questioning - just idol worship. How can blogs compete with ABC? My good friend Andrea has had some great posts about the awfulness of the Governor, but even her and me combined don't get the audience that major media outlets do. Not even close.

So we need an e-mail campaign of our own.

We need to take what these go-getters, these guardians of the public interest (most of which are underpaid or not paid at all - just passionate investigators of the truth) are finding and spread them like a virus. We can finally test whether the truth will set America free, and whether lies fall under the weight of their own hypocrisy (though are are some exceptions).

Take what you find, copy the link or the text, and send them to your relatives. You know the ones: the same aunts and uncles who send you those "send this or die in five days" kinds of e-mails. Send them all the shit that's been dug up about Palin. If that's the only way we can reach people about this lady, then so be it. Because I'll tell you, McCain's cronies are working hard to assault Obama through e-mail (by calling him a Muslim, anti-American, a socialist, and so on). We can fight back.

The key will be not to send them to people who think the same way you do. That's preaching to the choir. Instead, send it to people who you know are either undecided or are so pro-Palin they're going to get their Sarah beehave hairdo. Set your sights on folks who don't pay attention, in any sort of detail, to news from the political front. The fact is, these folks aren't going to find out the truth unless it's shoved in front of their face. So let's do the shoving.

To get things started, however, spread the good word amongst your friends. They can then take what we've found and spread it to their non-believers. It has to start somewhere.

Is this back-handed? Is it the cheap way of doing things? Is it even right? Yes, maybe, and probably not - but listen, we're on the losing side of a fight that's been raging for years. We can hope that people will suddenly care about what goes on in the world, and we can hope that people will read blogs and watch the news and do some research. But hope only goes so far, and eventually we need to do the work ourselves. Part of it is the good people who are researching the candidates and putting the information out there. But that's only half the battle. The other half is making sure people see the stuff. And friends, that's where you and I come in.

You know what the great part is? Most of the stuff being spread about Barack Obama are lies. Shit-storm, muddy, dirty lies. But the information about Sarah Palin? That's all true. The difficult part is already done, because we don't have to make anything up. Her husband really did want Alaska to secede from the Union. She really did say the Iraq war was "God's will." She look into banning books at her town's library. All this makes the entire job easier.

This begins "Operation: Oooh, Sarracuda." But what should our hub be? Should we have a blog? A website? Some kind of resource people can go and find all the ammunition they need? Let me know, and we can build a hot-and-heavy coalition of people who really care about who is going to govern their country. Nothing is out of bounds, but there is one limitation: we're only going to spread stuff that's true. No lies. Nothing that might be true. Just truth, fair and square.

The moral high ground is a good place to start, and as the Jedi say - the truth hurts. Let's make it hurt really bad. While we may feel a bit dirty and slimy at the end - anything that deals with spreading e-mail propaganda is always a bit messy - our hard work will be worth it. A side benefit? Maybe your neighbor, the one who sends you all those lottery offers and racist jokes, will leave you the hell alone.

The war will not be televised. It will be forwarded and spread and will catch fire in the inboxes of the unbelievers. We have nothing to lose but our dignity - we have a country to gain.

by Rope Hoover Palin