Campbell Brown, ladies and gentlemen

I'm starting to get a little embarassed

You know, I may have underestimated just how silly Oklahoma is. I don't know exactly how I forgot- it's kinda why I was trying to get the hell out of there in the first place. Over the past three years, I'd go home and remember...it wouldn't take long. Some headline on my in-laws' copy of the Oklahoman would remind me. But I forgot- it may just be the most fundamentalist state in the union. Really.

The really scary, scary, scary thing is that's okay with some folks. Like, they don't get why it's a problem to, you know, circulate fictitious, race-baiting emails about one of our presidential candidates and predict the end of the world upon Obama's election. I love some of these people, I really do, but it's beginning to make me a little embarrassed that Americans are so blinded by the Right's lies that they believe shit so ridiculous. That it would even give them pause, rather than comparing the candidates' platforms, paints a rather bleak picture of our country. I gotta say, perhaps those Founding Fathers (and I use that term cautiously) had it right when they didn't trust the American people. We're kinda proving them right in our inability to judge facts and evidence, rather than what belief system people adhere to and it's pros and cons.

It's a possibility that I'm perpetuating the belief that "traditional" peoples are backward; but in this case, people who use the Bible to justify their political beliefs are truly threatening the safety of this nation. They're using Jesus Christ to justify war- and then claiming that Muslims are the barbarians.

And what if Obama was a Muslim? Last I checked, the Constitution guarantees his right to be whatever religion he wants to be, even if it were some marginalized fundamentalist Christian sect that condones and even plans to overthrow or assassinate American leaders. But you don't see Christian groups being categorized as terrorists- unless, of course, they happen to be led by a brown-skinned man speaking of the continued oppression of his people. In that case, an American citizen (whose white mother was forced to cancel all her public appearances due to her untimely death from cancer) has his feet held to the fire because of his alleged religious affiliations, yet Sarah Palin's pleas to God to get that Alaskan pipeline and her conflation of the Iraq War with the 9/11 attacks go by with no problem.

Seriously, people, stop drinking the fucking Kool-Aid. This is getting embarassing. See it for the race-baiting that it is- those emails are NOT about the truth, although they may reveal the true character of some Americans who don't hesitate to believe that a Muslim being president is the worst thing that could happen to this country. It's not our decreasing civil liberties that scares fundamentalists- the very liberties that ensure their right to practice their religion freely- it's not the encroaching police state as evidenced by McCain's doublespeak- lies are truth and truth are lies, in spite of verifiable evidence to the contrary- it's the specter of a brown man with an unusual background that scares fundamentalists. It's his message of hope in a society accustomed to leaders (religious and governmental) using fear to pacify the masses. Our country has assassinated others for their message of hope and change, and we continue to assassinate Obama's character with these hateful, fictitious, RACIST messages circulating in cyberspace.

Don't buy into it, people. Please, for the love of God, don't.

Finally popping that bottle of champagne...

Dad bought it for us in July for our anniversary. Eric was leaving for Dallas the next morning, and then I was studying for comps, and then...there was always an excuse. Now that I've passed comps, and Eric has accepted a job offer in Dallas, we're drinking it.

okay, so who cares? why am I writing about this tonight? Well, it's midnight, the crickets are singing outside my window, Katie's sleeping soundly, and Eric and I are both working while celebrating. Yeah, lame. I know. I finished one cover letter and my CV tonight. Oh- and found a friend on MySpace that I've been looking for for years. She's my long-lost, much smarter "twin" Tiffany Mindt. If you know us, you know we look like sisters. I hope we work in the same department next year, because we thought so similarly as undergrads at OU.

Getting excited about moving, but had the same bout of depression while looking at the housing offerings online that I had before moving here.

One important thing: Katie is cutting a molar, if not many of them. She went into her room this afternoon, started crying her in-pain cry, and while her mouth was wide open, I noticed the tooth poking through. Yet, she sleeps soundly right now. We have such an awesome kid, you know that?

So everyone keep their fingers crossed that I'll have a job next year, or a fellowship. Reactions to applying for tenure track run from aghast to oblivious. I'll take oblivious- he's promised me fantastic letters of recommendation. I've also lectured in front of 300 undergrads in a pinch, though, so...Going tenure-track while ABD is challenging, but I want to tell them that being $70,000 in the hole for this little education of mine is quite the incentive to finish the damn thing. I'm grateful, nonetheless.

More words from Katie

1. School
2. Cracker
3. Bear (she doesn't quite have the "r," but we know what she means when she's holding up her teddy bear)
4. Bye-bye

And, she loves to kiss her stuffed animals' noses. She'll kiss them on the nose and then try and eat the nose. Super cute, particularly because she's rather stingy with her kisses for Mommy and Papa.

And why I think Obama's the best person for the job...

Hi, Brad! There was some debate over which Brad this was (Croy or Henderson...)

So, the issues I agree with specifically:
1. Based on the advice of military experts, Obama has pledged to remove troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.
2. He and Biden are committed to multilateral diplomacy and rebuilding the US's alliances around the world, unlike the pre-emptive and unilateral policies of Bush (which McCain endorses). This, I feel, can make strides towards counteracting the US's policies the past eight, if not 40 years that has led to our current positions re: the "War on Terror."
3. Obama/Biden are pro-choice and resoundingly back reproductive rights, efforts to combat violence against women, gender-equitable medical research and stem cell research.
4. Their platform states, and independent research backs them up, that they would lower taxes on the income levels that most need it, unlike McCain, who would make Bush's tax cuts permanent, "lower taxes" in general (supposedly) while making health care premiums taxable.
5. Universal health care.
6. His labor policies in general: raising the minimum wage, working to protect unions and workers' right to organize, and to amend NAFTA and combat CAFTA.
7. Obama/Biden pledge to increase the Family Medical Leave Act and to work for other legislation that would make balancing family and work easier, such as paid leave and adding leave to the FMLA that would allow parents to take off work for their children's academic activities.

What he does that McCain doesn't:
1. He doesn't employ a politics of fear to sway voters. In his words, "It's never been about me. It's about you." He conjures hope.
2. He has demonstrated through the types and amount of legislation that he has authored, co-authored/sponsored that he can operate bipartisan-ly (if you can say it that way).
3. He's never stood idly by and laughed while someone called Hillary Clinton a bitch; that is, he doesn't have a long history of treating women like shit (such as, offering his current wife up to the Miss Buffalo Chip contest at Sturgis or calling her a cunt when she teased him about his thinning hair; divorcing his first wife when she was incapacitated in a wheel chair; ogling Palin in public, etc, etc.).
4. Obama did not get where he is based on his family pedigree; he made it to Harvard on skill and intelligence, not because his daddy was an admiral/Senator/CIA director. Not that I have anything against those with such a pedigree, but our current crop (Bush/McCain) certainly don't make the case that good breeding really amounts to...anything but a bunch of misanthropes.
5. Obama has a history of engaged public service, as much as Palin/the GOP wants to denigrate the role community organizers play in getting shit done and changing people's lives.
6. He doesn't conflate faith and democracy. He doesn't exploit the religious right for personal gain. Although, he was put through the ringer for his religious affiliation (and, for the record, I think Rev. Wright hit the nail on the head), unlike Palin and her wackjob "pray for a gas pipeline."
7. His neoliberal rhetoric isn't as nearly exploitative of global workers, or at least takes into account the situation of global workers. He's pro-labor.
8. He uses the fucking internet. He doesn't claim to have invented the Blackberry. He doesn't have a brigade of lobbyists working for his campaign. He used U2 for his campaign song, and isn't a member of a party that keeps getting cease and desist orders from artists who do not want their music associated with him.
9. Obama is in no way associated with the devil incarnate, Karl Rove. Having Rove in your employ should immediately disqualify any future candidate from contention for the presidency as it reflects directly on their judgment and character.

Can I fit this in to 45 minutes?

I'm actually going out tonight- a friend from the union is in town to defend her dissertation, and since I passed my comps, I'm game for some shenanigans. Anyways, I've got to go in about 45 minutes, but this has been on my mind for a few days.

Somehow, I entered into the abortion discussion Tuesday. And somehow, Eric Baker- an old friend of my husband's who I have never met- was directed to my blog (yeah. Thanks, Larry). And somehow, we got into a spat.

I don't apologize. I'm not sorry for anything I've written (maybe I should be... but I'm just not). But I feel a little inane for having ventured into that topical terrain; in my rather insular world in grad school, pro-choice is a given. It needs no explanation, and certainly no explication of the logical fallacies of the "other" side of the issue.

But I realize Iowa City is unique, even as college towns go. It's not called the Republic of Iowa City for nothing. And I know that when we move to Dallas in December (yes! We are!), I will no longer be one of many but will instead be the wingnut, like I so kindly called Mr. Baker and those who share his beliefs. I haven't been gone so long from Oklahoma to forget how, shall we say, special it is in terms of its ardent conservatism; I mean, the politicians were still debating freakin' cockfighting when we moved away three years ago. It was a shock- a shock, I tell you- to move somewhere you could actually distinguish between the Democrats' and Republicans' platforms and where the Democrats didn't try to out-Republican the Republicans (I'm thinking the Carson-Coburn race here). And, after all, it was the Texas delegation that, in the name of "compassionate conservatism," bowed their sweet little heads in prayer when a gay Congressman spoke at the RNC in a few years ago.

But, I come back south with an agenda. I won't be quiet about it; my husband certainly knows what's on my mind. I'm writing my dissertation on Oklahoma simply to criticize the hell out of the place I (maybe hesitantly) love and call home.

My point: the "abortion is murder" position is flawed for so many reasons, namely that it reduces something as emotionally and ideologically fraught as pregnancy into a life or death issue- that is, the baby's life or death. Not the mother's. In this position, the mother is completely elided and subsumed under the "rights" of a entity that cannot sustain itself outside of her. I love being a mother. I can't wait to be pregnant again. But that doesn't mean I have the right to assume that every woman loves being a mother or wants to be pregnant, much less to force them to be a mother, at all costs.

In this country, we have the right to our own beliefs, and the right to resist the imposition of others' beliefs upon us. Furthermore, the reductionist argument that abortion is murder, or, put another way, the criminalization of abortion that once existed in this country and that certain sectors are trying so hard to re-introduce, led to the deaths of women across society. Not only did women die directly from back-alley abortions, but they also died from the system in which this ideology was a part that allowed and even condoned violence against them in a myriad of ways: domestic violence, sexual violence, numerous pregnancies that strained their bodies to death.

Because that's just it; the reductionist "abortion is murder" argument fails to take into consideration so many contigencies that I think ultimately cancel out its worth. If you don't condone abortion in any instance, what do you do if, around week 28 of an otherwise healthy pregnancy, you find your wife has preeclampsia and they need to induce labor, despite the risk to the baby? I mean, if the "life" inside the mother is ultimately more satisfying, is there ever an instance when it takes the backseat? Does the mother ever come first? This example follows the trajectory of the "abortion is murder" argument; the baby comes first. But should it always?

Perhaps more disturbingly, I realized as I cooked dinner tonight that the reductionism of the abortion is murder position is analogous to the reductionism that landed us in Iraq. It's this same black-and-white approach to ethical questions, the very same approach that ignores contingencies, and yet extrapolates one belief or position onto every decision that has landed us in war. It leads directly, although perhaps not quickly, to violence.

This is what feminism responds to. In a feminist world, women are respected. We are all equals. Women are not objects of violence. Women, indeed, all people, are free. In yours, Eric Baker, women, literally and figuratively, die.

One more reason why NOT McCain

Loads of unadulterated cuteness

Our weekend jaunt to the Twin Cities

Who are we voting for?

I can't speak for Eric, but I'm voting for Obama. I thought that would be apparent based on my blog...but evidently not.

In response:

There is so, so much other stuff I should be doing than fuming over Mr. Eric Dion Baker’s response. But you know what? I am so sick and tired of the Right’s strangle-hold on discourse in this country, their laughable belief that somehow their beliefs are under attack in the U.S. – yeah, as if Christianity could disappear from this country. As if. I am so sick of their appropriation of the values of democracy and their blindness to the GOP’s appropriation of Christianity for the GOP’s political gain- in short, I am so sick of the ignorance that comes with the GOP’s appropriation of so-called “compassionate conservatism” that gave us the last eight years of economic deterioration and introduced the beginnings of a totalitarian police state…I am so sick of people who would rather have someone who’s “human” (you know, because her 17 year-old daughter gets pregnant like so many other 17 year-olds, or because he can’t freakin’ pronounce “nuclear” -apparently like so many other West Texans) than someone who’s knowledgeable, intelligent, deliberate, and thoughtful be the leader of free world. Just because someone proclaims they read the Bible does not mean they do. And just because they proclaim they read your interpretation of the Bible, does not mean they are fit to lead the U.S. Get it?
But most importantly, I am so sick and tired of Right-wingers foreclosing conversation. I am so sick of the “my way or the highway” mentality that comes with the Right wing, although it is often couched in the form of “debate” or discussion. An example:

I think that since your side advocates the choice of abortion, and my side advocates the choice of life, perhaps we could both come together and advocate for the choice of abstinence. After all, which is safer, wear a bullet-proof vest or take the bullet out of the gun? Since you're pro-choice, maybe I should give you a third option of just getting shot and going to the hospital to have the bullet taken out.

Hahaha. Ha. How very McCain-“Bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran” of you, Mr. Baker. Let me make this clear: I understand that somewhere, somehow, some Christian way back when made it seem as if there was only one way and that way was the only right way…ever stop to think that that’s the same way other people think, you know, like those “Islamo-fascists” the Right’s hell-bent on eliminating?

But the fact is, there is not ONLY one way to think, to live, to interact, to love, to die in this world. Somewhere, way back when, that was what someone wanted you/us to believe. But you know what happens when a group of people think that there is only one way, and that way- their way- is the ONLY way of living, and that everyone should be constructed in their image? I’ll give you a few examples:

1. Because they were not white Europeans, Africans were exported from Africa and traded, bought and sold as property. They were not white males, and so they were property.

2. Because they were not white Europeans, the Native American population in this country has been systematically slaughtered and annihilated, even through the present.

3. Because they were not white European males, women were denied the right to vote and access to the public sphere. This made it okay to beat your wife, to throw her on the street, to deny her access to her children, to strip her of any property she may have inherited from her family, to deny her U.S. citizenship if she married a foreigner. It made it okay for a man to rape his wife, to have sex with her whenever, wherever, and to force numerous pregnancies on her until she died from them. It made it obscene to teach women how to prevent pregnancy, or even to know how she got pregnant. Get that? It was illegal. Even in the context of marriage, a woman could not say, “No.” Tell me how that’s okay? Better yet, tell me when the hell a man has EVER had that problem?

You know what else happens when you buy into the groupthink? You get blinded to when you’re getting taken for a ride, a la GOP-style. You close your eyes. You stop questioning. You elect a puppet douchebag like George W. Bush and vote for a political party that has never once done something that’s actually in your best interest. And you acquiesce to the atrocities of the last eight years.

But because I am a woman, however, I do NOT surrender my body to you or to anyone else. Case en pointe: we are treated as objects, as animals, which is what your post accomplishes in your rhetorical pairing of human pregnancy with animal gestation. I am not commensurate to an animal, as your analogy makes it seem. Does your wife know, Mr. Baker, that you consider her to be the same as a dog, cat, or other various livestock? And is that the thanks you give her for bearing your five children? Your rhetorical choice is compelling, though, because it is indicative of the culture in which we live: women’s labor is “owned” and not appreciated, it is discarded as simply “reproduction” and “just what women do.” Because, according to you, women, as a part of their "nature," “like being mothers” and they would rather “see their child’s first steps” than “hear about them.” And you know this, I suppose, because you’re a man, which I guess means you know better than a woman what a woman wants to do, or what is in her “nature” to be. You know what? You remember a woman named Andrea Yates? Her husband didn’t ask her what she wanted, ignored her Post-Partum Depression, and you remember what happened?

So, no, Mr. Baker, abortion is not about murder. It is about power, pure and simple. It is about asking- no, expecting, demanding- women to sacrifice their lives- their very selves- to abdicate any control over their selves and their very being- when reciprocity is never asked of men and there is simply no similar or analogous situation for men. Take your completely infuriating disregard for the violence of rape as one point on the spectrum of disregard and disrespect for women. Furthermore, your erroneous “pro-life” discourse is part and parcel of the totalizing discourse that enslaves Africans, that slaughters Native Americans, and that subjugates women. It all flows from the same logic and thinking, although you like to think it’s somehow contained within the pages of your seemingly timeless, ahistorical Bible. It’s not, and if it were, you can have it. I don't want to be part of a religion that subordinates anyone for any reason.

If we lived in a society that respected women as human beings, equal to men, we would not have the specter of abortion- women would be armed with the tools to prevent pregnancy, either by using birth control or not having sex, until they were ready.

So, please, Mr. Baker, stop speaking for me and stop speaking for what women are or want. At least give us that respect. That’s not to say that I won’t stop name-calling, because I truly think you drink the Kool-Aid. If the past eight years (maybe even the past 40) hadn’t been so freakin’ ridiculous with Rightwing nutcasery, I might have the patience to be polite. But I just don’t anymore. I’m not like some of my liberal counterparts- I’ll call it like I see it.

As for women, we know for ourselves. I mean, historically speaking, men like you have thought that we needed you to do just this, to tell us what we like to do, what makes us happy, but we don’t. Your wife takes care of five children- it seems that’s her “role” and nothing else to you- she can obviously handle herself. Let her speak for herself. More importantly, let me and other women speak for ourselves. We don’t need you or men like you. We never have.

The baby powder incident

Except when Katie's sleeping, we now realize that silence portends...something. It's not...good.

The other night, Eric was sitting in the living room, I was in the dining room at my desk. Katie was in her room. After awhile, I noticed how quiet it was in there. She wasn't dragging toys out or getting frustrated. So I turned around, looked in her room, and started to giggle. I told Eric to come look: Katie had gotten her diaper wipes down and was taking them out, one by one.

Then, a few moments later, I smelled something in the air. Turning around again, I started laughing uncontrollably, and told Eric to come look again. He asked what is was, and I asked him back, "Does it smell powder fresh in here to you?"

We had left the baby powder open next to the diaper wipes. She had gotten a hold of it, and there was baby powder puddled all around her.

What good times.

Spot-on, ladies.

A list of words Katie says (on occasion, certainly not on demand)

1. Of course, "cat"
2. Dog
3. Ball
4. Mama
5. Papa ("Baba")
6. Shoe ("zew")
7. Yummy-yummy
8. More ("mo")/No more ("No mo")
9. Good night ("nye, nye")
10. Goodbye ("bye, bye")- this one is very rare
11. Hot
12. Duck (I have to take these two on faith, because I haven't heard them myself)

I wish they were truly pro-life

McCain/Palin have brought abortion back into presidential politics. Okay- I guess single-minded conservatives never let it go away. I mean, it's not like women in this country can get too comfortable with any control over their own lives.

The entrance of Palin's pregnant daughter, however, reveals the numerous ways that so-called "pro-lifer" (or, better put, anti-choice) wingnuts (yes, you are) are a bunch of hypocrits. I've long thought about my position on abortion, and how exactly I would explain it. And now, the very "choice" of which Palin and her daughter so proudly tout- the same choice she would deny to every other woman in this country- needs to be articulated for the hypocrisy it is.

First, if they chose life, if they were so dedicated to choosing it, then it should never have been a "choice." Perhaps this was just their choice of words, but it reveals that at some point, it was something they thought about- whether or not Sarah should keep Trig to full term, or if Bristol should become one of millions of teen mothers. In other words, they deployed the very "choice" that so many women and feminists have been working hard to maintain for the last thirty years and that Palin proclaims she wants to take away. What I'm saying is, why was it ever a thought if either woman should keep it, if this is an issue they believe so deeply in?

Next, I have a real problem with right-wingers who will exert control over my life and my body while pregnant, but if a woman's poor or, God forbid, got brown skin, she's left to fend for herself, postpartum. So-called pro-lifers want to control pregnancy, but not human life; they want to say when and how a woman can get pregnant, and by whom, but don't want to do anything for that child once he or she is born. Republicans are the first to cut social services for those very people who need it most, and yet espouse the position that a woman should carry a child to term, no matter what. To make it clear: "little government" conservatives want as little government intervention as possible in just about everything and they don't want to be told what to do with their money- but they do want to tell me what I can do with my body. Tell me how that makes sense?

So, I truly do wish it was about life. Instead, abortion in this country is about control- controlling women's bodies, their choices, their ability to procreate or not. So what do I propose? Namely, a few changes:

1. We need education. Not only do girls need to know EARLY how pregnancy happens, but so do boys. They need to know that girls do get pregnant on the first time, and that "blue balls" or whatever does not exist. Girls are not the only ones responsible for getting pregnant- and both parties need to be educated (by the way: sex ed usually includes abstinence ed in addition to everything else; why not have all our bases covered?)

2. Pregnant women and mothers need support from across society. Pregnancy is not some easy walk in the park. It's dangerous. Women die regularly from being pregnant- the U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world; we're right up there with developing countries. And that has to do with lack of access to prenatal care to catch the things that kill pregnant women, like high blood pressure (had that myself) and gestational diabetes (almost had that, too). To be pro-life, in my eyes, is to be nurturing of life in general- not just some narrow view defined for political gain.

And so mothers deserve paid maternity leave, and an invigoration of female support networks- at the least. For a country that is so "pro-life" and "pro-family," we have some of the most regressive family leave policies in the developed world. Not to mention- how hard is it to install freakin' diaper changers in every public restroom? And modern medicine and public discourse belittles and circumscribes access for women to the female networks- and the support of other community networks in general- that ease the transition postpartum- not to mention, help women work together and give each other advice on breastfeeding. Parenting with two parents is difficult enough- I can't even imagine how single parents do it. The lack of family leave policies that allow lengthy maternity and paternity leave, however, render even dual-parent households "single parented" in the sense that the father (or partner) leaves all day while the mother (or other parent) spends all day by themselves.

3. We need to end misogyny. We need to change the culture that does not respect women to make choices for their own lives. By saying that women cannot make their own decisions about their own bodies, we remain the property of others- we remain objects in society, not equals.

But perhaps, that's how Palin views herself. Perhaps she truly sees herself as her husband's property. You know what, though? I don't. And my daughter will not grow up in a world that teaches her she belongs to any one besides herself. And that is only one of the things anti-choice nutcases espouse. Maybe that's fine in your household- maybe. But not mine. And that's what being pro-choice is all about.

The cute things Katie's doing these days

1. Since we started her on solids, I say, "yummy, yummy" when she takes a bite. Now, she's started saying it back: "Nummy, Nummy"

2. She's saying "Mama" and "Baba" for me and Eric

3. Throwing tantrums...yes, they're adorable. Especially when she shakes her fists at us, or starts to pout, then cry, then scream when we've said, "No, no, Katie," particularly sternly.

4. She's smiling at strangers again- she stopped doing this for awhile. Last night while we were watching the Sooners, she kept peering over the booth at the tables next to us and making the people laugh.

5. She'll put stuff up exactly where we ask her to...and then proceed to pull at least one of those things back out.

6. She loves her breakfast. Every other meal, not so much.

7. She giggles when I tickle her face with the pompon on the top of her yellow knitted sweater.

8. She gets so incredibly happy when we hand her things, like stuffed toys.

9. As her teacher at school said, "Her expressions are priceless."

The return of Katie's pumpkins

I went out to check my tomatoes this morning, because I have probably thirty growing right now. I peeked over at the accidental zucchini patch and noticed three HUMONGOUS zucchinis. HUGE. So I have lots of bread to make. But then, over to the left, I spotted this huge green thing that we can only assume is a pumpkin. It's a little bigger than a basketball. I think we planted some over there to see what would happen. It was a nice surprise, though, in addition to these HUGE zucchini. Seriously- like two feet long or something.

So look out for our now-annual Halloween pic, complete with a home-grown pumpkin!

A post-comp warning

I'm ABD- that means different things in different departments, but in mine, it means I'm all but dissertation- although I'm only post-comprehensive exams...that I passed today! Yippee! So all I have left now is my dissertation- get it?

But given the past three weeks (post-Palin, if you will), one thing has been made clear: I will focus my efforts largely on shredding McCain/Palin the next eight weeks until the general election. In other words, very little Katie. Very much politics.

I can't stand to watch my country descend into proto-fascism via McCain's impending police state. Group think does not a democracy make- I'm studying journalism for a reason- it makes a democracy, like it or not, and I WILL be a part of the Fourth Estate.

And, in the unlikely event that this country flakes out AGAIN in November a la 2004, I will proceed to light this place up. Watch me.

Countering McCain's lies

I'll say it again and again and again and again

IT IS NOT HONORABLE TO LIE ABOUT SOMEONE. IT IS NOT HONORABLE TO LIE. PERIOD.

Who cares if you were a POW-that does not give you the right to LIE. Any lie is disgraceful. This one regarding Obama's bill in the IL state legislature is particularly disgraceful.

McCain has no honor. He's cheated on two wives, maybe three. He's on his third marriage- which, I'm sorry, disqualifies him from any sort of "family values" righteousness. It might make him human, but certainly renders his pandering to the evangelicals more than hypocritical. His personal shortcomings aside- which, apparently, is only good for Republicans, because Democrats' personal lives seem to matter, but not the GOP- he hired Karl Rove- the most duplicitous, evil man in this country- to work on this campaign. You know- Karl Rove? The guy who started a whisper campaign about another military vet, Max Cleland, smearing his reputation by claiming Cleland had fathered a black child? Rove, who smeared McCain himself the last time he ran for president.

McCain JOKES about using nuclear weapons on a country. He puts his wife up for a glorified stripping contest in front of thousands of bikers at Sturgis. He thinks people making up to $5 million constitute the middle class. THIS IS ALL DOCUMENTED FACT!

What is good about this man? What is good enough to elect him president? Why do we need another misogynist, temperamental trigger-happy, right-wing pandering nutcase in charge of this country?

I say this sincerely- Lord, help us if McCain is elected. Please, please help us. Because we'll need it, more than we already do.

Why John McCain is NOT fit to be president, or, the most dispicable 2008 campaign tactic YET

Senator John McCain has reached a new low. I have been consumed with his pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for two weeks now. Instead of studying for my oral exams this Friday, I've been researching her and why her nomination for VP is an insult to American women and to America at large. And now, instead of writing with updates about Katie, McCain's campaign has pulled a maneuver that makes it that much harder for me to disengage with the GOP's disgraceful run to maintain power the next eight years...or, put another way, potentially for the majority of my daughter's childhood.

Here it is: McCain's campaign has released an ad stating that Obama has no record on education, except for a bill in the Illinois state legislature that would, supposedly, give sex ed to kindergartners. See his ad below:



Now, the GOP attacks on sex ed/pregnancy and STD prevention aside, this is A COMPLETE AND TOTAL MISREPRESENTATION AND FABRICATION of the bill in question. Obama's bill in the state legislature would have, besides giving parents the ability to opt-out, TAUGHT KIDS TO RECOGNIZE INAPPROPRIATE TOUCHING BY STRANGERS. In other words, the bill that McCain claims (and remember, he "approves of this message") would teach little kids about sex would actually help prevent child molestation.

So, in keeping with this logic, I agree with other bloggers; I hope the Obama campaign twists McCain's ad to suggest that perhaps, just PERHAPS McCain is in fact pro-pedophile and pro-molestation, because he's clearly NOT in favor of legislation to protect children. In fact, it seems the only thing McCain is in favor of, as evidenced in this shameless misrepresentation of the facts and his pandering to the far, far, far right wing of the American populace, is winning the election. Without integrity.

What a joke. Or, as the Obama campaign responded, "It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls – a position that his friend Mitt Romney also holds."

"Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn’t define what honor was. Now we know why,” says Obama spokesman Bill Burton in an emailed statement."

VOTE!! It's more important now than ever!

We CANNOT buy into McCain's politics of fear anymore- Choose HOPE! Choose CHANGE!