They Finally Call The Obamas "Uppity"

All was missing was the "Negro" part. WEB DuBois would be proud.

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

The "Straight Talk Express" has taken a hard right turn. And personages in the party of Abraham Lincoln are using language left behind in the 1960s.

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., was chewing the fat with reporters in the U.S. Capitol and was asked to compare Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama.

"Just from what little I've seen of her and Mr. Obama, Senator Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks they're uppity."

"Asked to clarify that he used the word 'uppity,' Westmoreland said, 'Uppity, yeah,' " the newspaper The Hill reported.

OK. Who wants to start the countdown for when folks start dropping "darkie," "buck" and "coon" in casual conversations and interviews? They have to start off low on the offensive scale. They're going to save "nigger" for late October.

Places please, Negras! We can't have you all running around thinking you're free and shit. Someone needs to bring the cotton harvest in!

This latest incident should dovetail nicely with the overt, not covet, in-your-face, sit-down-and-shut-up bigotry Michelle is dealing with. How dare she be black AND have a vagina? Obviously she deserves our scorn.

I can now see why sister hits the gym so hard. She's prepared to take a mutha down if her Secret Service detail falls short.

Some alleged "PUMAs," those faux Hillary Clinton-loving dead-enders, put out a few, ahem, racist videos depicting Michelle Obama with a man both in drag and blackface. (Via of Michelle Obama Watch, by Rumproast)

“Michelle” is referred to as a “goddamn bitch” by one of her two white slaves and the “grand dragon” of the NAACP ("National Association for the Annihilation of Caucasian People") is introduced, replete with a black hood and robe. And the dreck doesn’t end there.

If this were a simple parodist jaunt it would still miss the mark by a thousand feet. See? When something is racist there is very little room for debate. Racism can be covert, but this is "knock you over with a two-by-four" obvious. If you don't think this is racist I got a DW Griffith film to show you.

Some of the black characters are played by white actors with make-up, particularly those characters who were required to come in contact with a white actress. The person playing the Cameron's maid is not only clearly white, but is also obviously male. ("The Birth of a Nation," Internet Movie Database trivia)

Some shit never changes. This is what happens when black folks forget their place!

Heart to McCain-Palin: No Ripping "Barracuda"

The McCain-Palin campaign appeared to adhere to the old journalism adage -- do first, apologize later.

Seems 70s/80s rock phenomenon and sisterly duo, Heart, did not appreciate their 1977 rock hit "Barracuda" being played in honor of the self-professed "Hockey Mom" of Wasilla, Alaska, Gov. Sarah "Barracuda" Palin.

Oh no. Heart didn't appreciate it at all:

Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart said Thursday night that Universal Music Publishing and Sony BMG have sent a cease and desist notice to the McCain-Palin campaign over their use of 'Barracuda.'

"We have asked the Republican campaign publicly not to use our music. We hope our wishes will be honored," the group said in a statement that said they "condemn" the use of the song at the Republican convention. (CNN)

Don't Believe the Hype

Despite her soap opera life melodrama, the Democrats must remember who the real target is

He's a 72-year-old agent of change, "Washington is broken" and he intends to mount the charge to fix it.

Really, John? Really?

Never mind he's been in Washington for 26 years, which were the Democratic talking points, uttered, en masse, by everyone from the Obama campaign itself and author/pundit Keith Boykin this morning on CNN.

Can you play the insurgent when the fort you're invading is your own?

That was the theme of the Republican National Convention -- take back Washington! The Washington we already run and are still running and have ruined. Throw the bums out! Except us! We know we fucked up but baby, please. Take us back and we promise to do right by you this time. No more excessive graft! More open government! We're gonna do you right if you just give us one more chance!

They announced they were bums of change. Not plain ol' bums. And they have something sparkly and new to bedazzle you with! Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska! "She's Ann Coulter with babies!" dubbed the womenfolk on the XX Factor blog on Slate.com after she gave a mean, barn-burning, snarkalicious acceptance speech on Wednesday.

(W)hat's depressing about Palin is that she represents the Ann Coulterization of the Republican party. That's what was tugging at my unconscious mind as I watched her spout the most vicious and irresponsible claptrap, with such a gleeful expression on her face.

Watching Palin was like watching a cross between Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin-- only Palin accessorizes with babies. And she's got a governorship, instead of a column or a TV show.

And boy, did that Ann Coulter with babies show Obama who should be drivin' Miss Daisy!

Community organizing? Nyah, nyah! You care about people! Sucker! McCain-Palin in '08, bitches! F*** the community! We're Republicans, dammit! Those out of work steel workers and poor people can just lay in the street and die. They don't vote for us anyway. (comments made by The Snob, whilst chatting and Twittering last night)

Such endearing personalities.

It seems odd to belittle a man who, out of college, dared to service his community and try to "make a difference." Who cares if he went on to be a Civil Rights Attorney and was a law professor? Who cares if he served in the State Senate? No. We want to beat up a man for giving a shit. And that was pretty much the theme of the convention.

There were some bumps. Black Republican Michael Steele bemoaned the lack of blacks at the convention this year, saying there were only 36 of them compared to the more than 143 of them in 2004. I'd like to think that 107 of them caught a clue. They're better off just being black center-right conservative agitators than dealing with a party that smothered to death the dreams of their once rising black star JC Watts.

Watch your back, Steele!

But the real thing or person to watch is Palin. McCain's convention became Palin's convention. During his dull as dirt, "take back Washington from ourselves" speech his biggest applause came when he mentioned Palin's name and when Palin walked on stage. When McCain attempted to be charitable, praising Obama, people booed. Classy. A great contrast to all the grinning and polite applause the Democratic delegates gave McCain in the Mile High city. They were both literally and figuratively above the bullshit when it came to respecting McCain's war record. But acknowledge that Obama has a historical campaign and you get booed. Nice. Real nice.

(And did you know that John McCain was a POW and a war hero? They only repeated that ad nauseum. I often mock Obama's love of "hope" and "change," but "POW" and "maverick" are entering my lexicon of mockworthy memes.)

At the end of the day, with the exception of maybe former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, everyone was channeling their inner bastard. Mitt "Mittens" Romney launched stilted attacks. Rudy Giuliani managed to reference 9-11 multiple times while slamming Obama and the Democrats. And Palin was the Queen of Mean, causing me to rethink this so-called, "Mad Dog Joe Biden has to go nice on her because she's a woman" chit-chat. She flat out described herself as a pitbull in a skirt, a la rapper/actress/clothes horse Eve. (Apologies to Eve. You're a much more attractive pitbull.)

If she can dish it out, she should be able to take it, just like Hillary Clinton took it. And every other female politician who had to prove themselves over and over that they had the right to run with the big dogs.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius all were scheduled to campaign for Obama in the coming weeks. Republicans say they hope Palin, who made her national debut with a feisty speech on Wednesday, could put some female voters in play.

"We respect her. She's a skilled politician, as she proved last night," Obama strategist David Axelrod.

But it's not clear exactly how Obama and his running mate Joe Biden should respond. They keenly remember how women rallied around one-time Democratic front runner Clinton when they perceived she was a victim of sexism. They don't want to appear with a weak response, either, and certainly they also don't want to send independent women flocking to the GOP.

The solution, at least in the short term, will be have top-tier female supporters vouch for Obama to largely female audiences and keep the candidate himself away.

I'd suggest that they not back down, but not allow the feisty Palin to steal the show.

Perhaps McCain is pleased to be obscured by an aspiring usurper, but the Obama campaign needs to keep its focus on who is at the head of the ticket.

More than one reader has pointed out to me, as well as one or two pundits, that the Obama campaign can't get caught up in the hype. The woman is under investigation. She's got her own mouthy preacher and there's still a good chance she could self-implode all on her own under the media glare. (Who will start to turn nasty if she doesn't begin giving interviews ... like right now.)

She's just a distraction, a sideshow. John McCain and his "me-tooism" attempt to be a change candidate with a "historic" ticket is so galling that even Gloria Steinem, once an Obama basher, has tossed her activist cookies.

She dubbs her "Phyllis Schlafly, Only Younger."

This isn’t the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It’s about making life more fair for women everywhere. It’s not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It’s about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmetize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton’s candidacy stood for—and that Barack Obama’s still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, “Somebody stole my shoes, so I’ll amputate my legs.”

Palin is a stunt and McCain is the cynic watching his show stolen by a political neophyte.

Of McCain's acceptance speech the reviews were mixed. I thought he was redundant, repeating the same ideals festooned in red, white and blue packaging. Every protester who managed to hustle their way into the festivities was met with a resounding "USA! USA!" as if screaming that made their cries of corruption and criminality less true. Especially when McCain was owning up to them (sort of) on stage while the crowd remained silent. They only seemed to respond to POW, "maverick," 9-11, surge, Ronald Reagan, "freedom" and "America." They simply didn't know when to applaud if you didn't say, "John McCain is a war hero POW and a maverick like Ronald Reagan who would have supported the surge if he'd lived to comprehend the disaster on 9-11. And if had he would be proud of America killing things in the name of freedom. America! Fuck yeah!"

It was just that kind of convention, but don't be distracted by the circus. The Clinton camp says they have no real plan to engage with Palin, agreeing that all eyes should be on the hypocrisy that is McCain. The Obama camp is preparing for this. Dancing around the Palin Problem while fine tuning their attacks on the top of the Republican ticket.

Obama's senior advisers say they cannot allow Palin to paint herself as the come-from-nowhere insurgent — a role that once belonged to Obama.

"For someone who makes the point that she's not from Washington, she looked very much like she'd fit in very well there when you see how she brings these attacks, they all felt very familiar to Americans who are used to this kind of thing from Washington," Axelrod said.

Obama himself dodged the question about how to treat Palin, only the second woman nominated as a major party's vice presidential pick and the GOP's first.

"I think she's got a compelling story, but I assume that she wants to be treated the same way that guys want to be treated, which means that their records are under scrutiny," Obama told reporters in York. "I've been through this for 19 months. She has been through it — what — four days so far?"

It was slightly more polite than Axelrod: "She tried to attack Senator Obama by saying he had no significant legislative achievements. Maybe that's what she was told."

The McCain campaign, keenly aware of the potential of their nontraditional pick, immediately used any criticism of Palin as a sign of sexism.

The Republicans' efforts to use sexism as a shield while re-branding themselves as the "change" party when they've been in power in the Congress since 1994 and in control of everything from 2000 to 2006, including White House for the last eight years, this fantasy of replacing yourself with yourself cannot stand.

The Palin hype and the ol' switcheroo bullshit must be called for what it is: a farce.

Unfortunately for some Americas it is a farce they can believe in.

------------------------

In other news, check out this McCain speech fact check to see where the "i's" weren't dotted and the "t's" weren't crossed.

Women For Obama ... Attack!

Some quotes from two high profile, female Obama supporters on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's slap down of their candidate Wednesday night:

Representative Debbie Wasserman Shultz of Florida

“There was no vision of where she thinks the country should go,” Representative Debbie Wasserman Shultz of Florida said in a call with reporters arranged by the Democratic National Committee. “She claimed that John McCain is a maverick and she is a reformer. Sarah Palin is not a reformer. She is under investigation in her home state for abuse of power,” said the congresswoman, referring to a state ethics inquiry. (Washington Post)

"If her best example of being a reformer is selling the state's plane on e-Bay that's not my definition of reform," and not America's, she said. (The Guardian)

"I thought [her speech] was a tirade of attacks and it was really surprising that the case that Gov. Palin made for her candidacy for vice president is her experience in negotiating the sale of her state's plane on eBay," (Representative Debbie Wasserman Shultz of Florida) said. "If, God forbid, anything happens to John McCain, then we are in for a scary proposition." (CNN)

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, who portrayed Ms. Palin as a member of the “radical fringe” of her own party when it comes to abortion, credited her fellow governor with giving a strong performance – though she suggested the words were not Governor Palin’s own. “She mastered the words written by the Bush speech writers and clearly delivered them well,” said Governor Sebelius. (Washington Post)

"I don't know any mayor in any small town in Kansas who hires a lobbyist and goes after [federal grant money] the way Sarah Palin did," she said. "There's a disconnect between her positioning herself as a typical small town mayor" and the way she administered the town. (The Guardian)

Faster, Democrats! Kill! Kill!

Real Life is NOT "Juno"

Ellen Page (L) in the hit film "Juno," Bristol Palin with her baby brother Trig and Jamie Lynn Spears a few months back when she was pregnant at 16.

Jamie Lynn Spears sends gift to Bristol Palin:

If there’s one person who gets a pregnant teen, it’s Jamie Lynn Spears.

Britney Spears’ little sis is reaching out to Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, John McCain’s vice presidential pick.

A source close to the Beverly Hills baby store Petit Tresor tells CelebTV.com exclusively that a gift from Plain Mary was sent to Bristol Palin on behalf of Jamie Lynn Spears.

An insider says it was actually Lynne Spears, Jamie Lynn’s mom, who called about the gift, and requested the gift come from her daughter.

“It was ordered by phone, and they asked what could be done for under $100. They spent $60 on pink burpcloths,” said the source.

Jamie Lynn Spears gave birth to her first daugther, Maddie Briann, in June, at the age of 17.

Now she just needs to go clubbing with Miley Cyrus and the circle will be complete. Perhaps Spears and Solange Knowles have a club Palin can join. Gah! Teen pregnancy is a SERIOUS issue. For every success story of a teen parent who makes it work and produces an exemplary citizen and scholar, there are the multitude of unwanted teen pregnancies that lead to children with poorer education, poorer living standards, poorer health care and poor parenting.

Not everyone is getting Barack Obama's 18-year-old for a mother. A lot get an immature, confused person who makes a plethora of mistakes because they can't/won't give up the childhood they lost.

It's a real problem! I'm not saying poor Bristol Palin and her boyfriend should be treated as a pariahs. In my mother's day they put you out of school if you got knocked up. Both in high school and at the Christian college she attended in Little Rock, Ark. I don't want to return to punishing girls for making a mistake, but I don't want this to turn into one big celebration that leaves the impression that getting pregnant at 17 is a good thing if your parents push you to marry the father of the child.

And it's doubly gross with John McCain using the meet-n-greet with the boyfriend on the tarmac as public relations. Even forcing the kid to shake his hand then oddly resting his hands on the both of them, squeezing them together as if he actually gives a damn about protecting either them from the drama unfolding.

I swore I never would resurrect this now hackneyed phrase, but by accepting McCain's vice presidential invitation, Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin threw her daughter under the bus.

I can't look at this whole "Desperate Housewives" saga without hearing Billy Idol in my head murmuring:

Hey little sister what have you done?
Hey little sister who's the only one?
Hey little sister who's your superman?
Hey little sister who's the one you want?
Hey little sister shot gun!

It's a nice day to start again.
It's a nice day for a white wedding.
It's a nice day to start again.

Crank It Up: Noonan, Murphy Put McCain On Blast [Update 5:51 PM]

Conservative critics Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy bemoan the Palin Pick off-camera as "cynical" and "political bullshit" on MSNBC. Beware of the hot mike! They're not just getting Jesse this year!

The clip is making the rounds all over the internet including Huffington Post and Politico.

The following is from Ben Smith's Blog at Politico:

After a segment with NBC's Chuck Todd ended today, Republican consultant Mike Murphy and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan were caught on a live mike ridiculing the choice of Sarah Palin.

"It's over," said Noonan, who then responded to a question of whether Palin is the most qualified Republican woman McCain could have chosen.

"The most qualified? No. I think they went for this — excuse me — political bullsh** about narratives," she said. "Every time Republicans do that ... because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at and they blow it."

Murphy chimed in:

"The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical."

(Clip courtesy of HumanityCritic)

She's Like Me?

Wednesday Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin will speak in front of a jazzed up and enthusiastic Republican audience. Hopefully she will avoid Dan Quayle's famous "deer-in-the-headlights" moment and give the barn-burning speech of her (and John McCain's) maverick-lovin' dreams.

Palin, the first female Republican vice presidential nominee, has stayed out of the public eye in Minnesota for two days while the revelations about her family and her record in Alaska surfaced. She has yet to do a news interview or news conference with reporters.

She has been preparing for her address with McCain aides including speechwriter Matt Scully, who drafted her speech in Ohio. "We're just going to rock 'em, sock 'em -- we kind of like it when people underestimate us," a McCain campaign official said of the speech.

The speech will give her a chance to move past the issue of her 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy and the probe into whether she abused her power in having a public safety commissioner fired, although it is unclear if she will directly address either topic.

If watching the Republican National Convention has taught me anything about the Republicans this year is that they can't run on issues and they can't run on the past eight, Bush-tainted years. They've got nothing. So they're pushing the biographies of John McCain and Sarah Palin, twin mavericks in the mold of Ronald Reagan, mounting the steeds of justice and galloping off to round up those earmark-loving rascals, fighting Washington to take back Washington.

Of course by running against Washington the Republicans are basically running against themselves, but hey, if they try hard enough they might pull it off. Of course, I'll probably go deaf if I hear the words "maverick" and "war hero" ever again. What do either of those things have to do with the economy or the dual wars we're fighting?

Palin is being sold as the "she's just like you" candidate. Her family's flaws are now being touted as her simply keeping it real. Her idiosyncrasies are the norm. Her story, no doubt, is dynamic. And she definitely doesn't own seven houses, isn't an heiress to a beer distributorship and enjoys moose stew as a delicacy.

The "She's just like me" argument isn't meant for me, (of course) but conservatives who seem themselves in her views and her family. Suddenly the goal posts have been moved on teen sex for this woman. Her daughter is pregnant and now that's OK, as long as she keeps the baby and marries the father. Premarital sex, no big, as long as you're getting married. Glad to know.

Some think Palin is getting the short shrift, accusing those who say she's a political lightweight of being sexist. (But having no problem with Pat Buchanan who has the habits of calling her a "girl" or "gal.") Call her what you want but don't call her inexperienced!

McCain wants conservative voters, many of whom were lukewarm toward his candidacy, whipped into high dungeon in defense of Palin, angry at the media and the unnamed liberal elites who are denounced by most every convention speaker.

Unfortunately for Democrats, they can't protest too much over McCain's use of the gender card — not after the race between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton stirred sex and racial tensions.

Aren't these the same people who labeled Hillary Clinton supporters cries of sexism as "whining?" Didn't Gov. Palin, herself, call it whining?

And the whole comparison of she's getting it worse that Obama did, I have two words, "Reverend Wright."

However, no one has made the correlation nor has anyone mentioned the hypocrisy that it is. It is ok to say that a man should control his minister, but not ok to say that a woman should control her oldest daughter. It is ok to question a man’s patriotism and religious values, but not question a woman’s politics and family values.

Ironically, while John McCain and Hillary Clinton fueled the fire in the Wright direction, Obama immediately made a statement, telling people to leave Palin’s family out of this. Yet no one still sees the correlation that despite being thrown to the wolves, Obama would not let the same thing happen to her.

Do I want Palin’s family exposed? No. However, I think it’s hypocritical to bring up one thing and not another. Secondly, I think Jeremiah Wright was a non-factor to Obama’s campaign and should’ve never been brought up, but this…this is an issue for the following reasons.

It was "G-D America" this and "G-D America" that for MONTHS. How was that favorable to the so-called media darling?

But that's how it goes.

Still, if Palin bombs tonight one has to wonder ...

With reporters and opposition researchers crawling through Alaska, and with the McCain campaign having dispatched its own team of lawyers to re-vet Palin, Republicans are wondering what shoe might drop next. If further revelations prove damaging enough, McCain could decide to replace Palin or she could choose to withdraw. While such an event seems unlikely given her popularity in some quarters of the party—Jacob Heilbrunn has suggested that social conservatives would view her ouster as “political infidelity”—her rocky reception makes the “Eagleton scenario,” and how it might unfold, a subject of more than academic interest.

That's what Joshua Green's presupposes in his story in The Atlantic, "The 'Eagleton Scenario.'" It sounds like the title of a Jason Bourne film, but it's a decently written article that plays out what would happen if McCain were forced to dump Palin after tonight.

In other news, it's a shotgun wedding for Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin, ages 18 and 17. I'm sure the kids are really excited that they're getting hitched to make this thing "kosher." Pictures of Bristol and her beau are all over the internet, further NOT HELPING anyone. Once again, kids. If you don't want strangers to see it don't put it on your MySpace page!

The Other McCain Daughter. [Revised]

"There were some pretty vile and hurtful things said during the South Carolina primary. It's a really nasty side of politics. We tried to ignore it and I think we shielded her from it. It's just unfortunate that that sort of thing still exists. As you know she's Bengali, and very dark skinned. A lot of phone calls were made by people who said we should be very ashamed about her, about the color of her skin. Thousands and thousands of calls from people to voters saying 'You know the McCains have a black baby.'I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those." -- John McCain on the attacks on his adopted daughter Bridget in 2000, (DadMag)

This photo for People Magazine was brought to my attention by Professor Tracey at Aunt Jemima's Revenge. Two happy families, the McCains and the Palins, standing side-by-side looking curiously like "a really bad promo for an equally awful reality television show," but something wasn't right.

That something was the lack of Bridget McCain, the other McCain daughter. (Absent along with McCain's two sons and Palin's oldest boy). Meghan McCain gets a lot of play. She's blonde and pretty and busty. She's youthful, energetic and identifiable for other young voters. She's like Chelsea Clinton, but not as brainy.

Bridget McCain (on the right in the last two photos), a teenage high schooler attending private school in Arizona, is originally from Bangladesh. She was adopted by Cindy McCain who was on a charitable mission there. Bridget was a sick baby then who needed care and Cindy chose to bring her back to the states where the McCains later adopted her. It's a charitable thing and a good story. Yet it's one McCain rarely shares on the stump.

She was featured briefly during Tuesday night's RNC festivities, smiling next to her mother, Cindy McCain.

Dark-skinned with straight black hair, she is visually different from the other McCains, but she wasn't raised in the basement under the stairs. She has always been treated and shown as a member of the family. But on the campaign trail she is rarely spotted. (Although Prof. Tracey recently caught a glimpse.) And is absent, yet again, from a recent family photo.

While I realize Bridget was unfairly used by the Bush Campaign in 2000 to claim McCain fathered a black daughter out-of-wedlock, it seems cruel to push her to the background.

There is the case that Bridget is either too busy with school (as her brothers are busy with their lives) or is just shy and doesn't want to go out on the stump.

(S)he stays at home with her soon to be sister-in-law, Tess, who is studying to be a chef, while her parents and older sister, Meghan, travel together campaigning. Bridget said she enjoys supporting her Dad, but is thankful she gets to stay in Phoenix going to high school with her friends and attending study hall.

But seeing her MIA from family photo shoots is curious, leaving me to wonder if McCain cares more about projecting an appearance of pure white Americana rather than the more cosmopolitan picture of them and the Asian American they love and raised.

A father's love should supersede political expediency. There is no shame in familial diversity. When George H.W. Bush ran for re-election he put his half-Latino grandkids front and center, shouting, "Viva Bush!"

But the Republicans were courting the Hispanic vote. Maybe that's Bridget's problem. There aren't enough South Asians for the Republicans to woo.

Either way, I hope this is all for more innocent reasons because, I can understand flip-flopping on issues, but not on your own child.

Photos from GQ, BigHeadDC, ABC News, BET and People Magazine.

Drama-Rama in the McCain Campaign

The criticism keeps coming about John McCain picking Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin for vice president. And no matter how the talking heads spin it, most presidential candidates -- Democrat or Republican -- would not have tapped a woman under investigation for some duplicitous firing situation, who was dealing with the sensitive family drama of teen pregnancy and was so far to the right of Attila the Hun that her views and her novice nature on the national (and international) scene scare the pants of independents and Democrats.

I already thought Palin was a hasty decision, made in the wee hours after the closing of the Democratic National Convention. She was an reactionary pick, a gut check, not thought through. And this looks more and more like the truth with the Republican Party dispatching operatives to Alaska as fast as the press and the tabloids are.

Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice. The campaign was still calling Republican operatives as late as Sunday night asking them to go to Alaska to deal with the unexpected candidacy of Ms. Palin. (NYT)

People will toss the tundra in search for all the dirt they can find on Mrs. Clean and we're heading into bizarre territory with so many odd skeletons falling out of Palin's political and personal closet.

She has a private lawyer in an ethics investigation trying to determine whether "she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner;" and her husband was convicted 22-years-ago on a DUI charge. (NYT)

The scandal "Troopergate" involves Palin, members of her staff and her husband pressuring the state's public safety commissioner to fire her brother-in-law who was in the middle of a contentious divorce with her sister. (Anchorage Daily News via Jack and Jill Politics)

Palin has her own controversial pastor troubles -- an ongoing them in the 2008 race with Rev. Wright, then Rev. Hagee and now with Wasilla Assembly of God Pastor Ed Kalnins who has "preached that critics of President Bush will be banished to hell; questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to heaven; charged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and war in Iraq were part of a war 'contending for your faith;' and said that Jesus 'operated from that position of war mode.'" (Huffington Post)

She depending on who you ask, she backed controversial candidate Pat Buchanan's presidential run. She said she didn't. Pat Buchanan said she did. (Washington Post)

Palin has a much more complicated relationship with embattled, indicted Republican Sen. Ted Stevens and flip-flopped on "The Bridge to Nowhere" deal. (Washington Post)

Palin was fine with earmarks when she was Mayor of Wasilla, securing a lot of government cash for her city. (Washington Post)

She is against abortion, even in the cases of rape or incest. (Jack and Jill Politics)

She was almost recalled as mayor of Wasilla after she tried to have the police chief and library director fired for not supporting her reelection campaign in 1996. (Huffington Post) (Jack and Jill Politics)

Then there's the matter of her pregnant teen daughter, thrust into the spotlight. She and her mother are being lauded by the right while ignoring the hypocrisy of holding two diametrically opposing views at once.

Despite the whole "teen premarital sex" issue that the vast majority of Christian conservatives claim they are against, including pushing abstinence only education, everyone seems "OK," arguing teen pregnancy is "normal." I can't help but think their opinion would be different if it were anyone else (see the Obama daughters if they were older). It was Christian conservatives who worried Jamie Lyn Spears pregnancy glamorized teen pregnancy. And the abstinence only program teaches that all birth control methods are unreliable so you shouldn't have sex at all until you are married. Of course, teens being teens, they have sex anyway. Only now, unsafe, unprotected sex. But for some reason everything is grand with the same crowd who usually bemoans behavior.

Yet another mixed message. Premarital sex is OK, as long as you marry the person you're doing it with ... eventually. Glad to know the goal posts got moved back a bit more.

The more and more that trickles out the more and more I'm positive she was never vetted no matter what the McCain campaign says. She would be leper in the eyes of most president wannabes, the equivalent of Barack Obama selecting Kwame Kilpatrick as his no. 2. No one would want this kind of negative press, not to mention all the gross shock jock talk about Palin's comeliness and McCain's penchant for pretty ladies. If Hillary's sin was being dumpy and always wearing pantsuits, Palin's cross to bare will be her youth and beauty ... further compounded by the investigations and baby dramas.

I don't care how much the base loves her. The based would have loved a lot of pro-lifers who were being vetted. But McCain couldn't have Liebermann or Tom Ridge so he chose the craziest veep pick ever.

What else is going to happen? Is the woman going to appear in a grainy picture of the grassy knoll? Did she really kill Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman?

If Palin was a roll of the dice, I'm starting to think McCain shot craps.