The email below was just forwarded to me. It’s poses some very good questions. If you’re so inclined, please copy and paste the text and get this email out to your address book today.

—–Original Message—–
From: SENDER
Sent: Tue 9/17/2008
To: RECIPIENT
Subject: Obama Confusion…

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re
‘exotic, different.’

* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, yours is a quintessential
American story.

* If your name is Barack you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

* Name your kids Willow,Trig and Track, you’re a maverick.

* Graduate from Columbia University and Harvard law School and you are unstable.

* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well
grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the
first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter
registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years
as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator
representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of
the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years
in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people
while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs,
Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you
don’t have any real leadership experience.

* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city
council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000
people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people,
then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking
executive and next in line behind a man in his eighth decade.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while
raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re
not a real Christian.

* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and then left
your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a
true Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including
the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no
other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your
unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you’re very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in
a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city
community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values
don’t represent America ’s.

* If you’re husband is nicknamed ‘First Dude’, with at least one DWI
conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until
age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession
of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

Just when you didn’t think this election could get more absurd:

Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and member of the Democratic National Committee’s Platform Committee, will endorse John McCain for president on Wednesday, her spokesman tells CNN.

“This is a hard decision for me personally because frankly I don’t like him,” she said of Obama in an interview with CNN’s Joe Johns. “I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.”

Forester is the CEO of EL Rothschild, a holding company with businesses around the world. She is married to international banker Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. Forester is a member of the DNC’s Democrats Abroad chapter and splits her time living in London and New York.

Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Salt of the Earth

Many of us have been waiting for an TV ad like this out of the Obama camp. It’s time to call a spade a spade and a liar a liar.

via Politico.

• $400,000: Alaska Invasive Species Program: Continues to comprehensively prevent, identify, and respond to the threat of invasive species on the Alaska environment.

• $494,900: Assessment of Recreational Halibut Harvest in Alaska: This is an ongoing effort to collect data on the recreational halibut fishery that is conducted by federal agencies though relying on the state for data.

• $2 million: Bering Sea Crab Research and Management: Researches Bering Sea crab productivity and sustainability as necessary to restore crab stocks.

• $3.2 million: Seal and Steller Sea Lion Biological Research: Funds monitoring of ice seal populations in Native villages, research on the species delineation and genetics of harbor seals to understand the declines in population and provide for population restoration, and continues research into Steller Sea Lion population decline.

As much as John McCain is clearly still supporting President Bush when it comes to every single policy position, it’s actually Sarah Palin who is shaping up to be much more like W. when it comes to disposition and “governing” style. Check out the court warnings against Palin for disparaging her sister’s ex-husband:

Court records obtained by NEWSWEEK show that during the course of divorce hearings three years ago, Judge John Suddock heard testimony from an official of the Alaska State Troopers’ union about how Sarah Palin—then a private citizen—and members of her family, including her father and daughter, lodged up to a dozen complaints against Wooten with the state police. The union official told the judge that he had never before been asked to appear as a divorce-case witness, that the union believed family complaints against Wooten were “not job-related,” and that Wooten was being “harassed” by Palin and other family members.

Court documents show that Judge Suddock was disturbed by the alleged attacks by Palin and her family members on Wooten's behavior and character. "Disparaging will not be tolerated—it is a form of child abuse," the judge told a settlement hearing in October 2005, according to typed notes of the proceedings. The judge added: "Relatives cannot disparage either. If occurs [sic] the parent needs to set boundaries for their relatives."

Attacking and disparaging someone’s character when you don’t agree with them? Sounds familiar.

I did a spot late this afternoon on MSNBC debating the perceived maverick nature of the McCain/Palin ‘08 ticket. Let’s just say this: it’s a load of crap.

John McCain is a creature of Washington. He is Washington – he personifies the mess that we face in this country and his support of George W. Bush nearly 90% of the time has helped to drive our economy and our foreign policy into the ditch that we find ourselves in today.

John McCain is the problem, not the solution!

As far as Sarah Palin goes, she is a change candidate, in that she is the first female VP nominee in Republican Party history. I don’t want to discount that accomplishment – I applaud her for that.

However, that is where the change stops. She’s completely anti-change when it comes to important issues that will be paramount over the coming years. She was for the “Bridge to Nowhere” before she was against (she likes her pork), she doesn’t believe in man-made global warming, she would turn the clock back nearly 30 years on the rights of women to make choices about their health and well being, she has no plans for health care reform and to cover the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans, she’s never indicated any stance on foreign policy or international diplomacy, and the list goes on and on. Yes, she’s new and exciting, but her policies are like dinosaurs – old and extinct. On top of all of this, the McCain campaign believes it’s okay to shield her from the press – the very people in this country whose job it is to ask tough questions of our elected officials and find out where they come down on issues.

Here’s the MSNBC clip:

Barack Obama – August 28, 2008

John McCain – September 4, 2008

By Carolyn Slutsky

Sitting on my couch watching Sarah Palin speak last night was like watching a bad Hollywood movie, something from the ’70s (including the hairstyles) where this wildcard candidate comes out of nowhere and gums up the political machine (which frankly, and obviously, needed a total rehab before she came to the scene anyway) and steals the show and no one quite knows how or why. In her speech she was sneering and whiney and at one point sounded like the seemingly cool girl who secretly has low self-esteem and taunts the loser kids in the cafeteria, imploring commentators that she didn’t care what they thought of her. Nyah nyah.

But what is most insulting about this whole process is the idea that women are simply interchangeable, that, oh well, Hillary didn’t work out, let’s grab at some other person with a pair of breasts and call it even. Of course there are staunch feminists and former Hillary supporters who might find the Palin pick validating and, hoping for John McCain’s imminent demise, vote for her with the expectation that we could still, somehow, one day in the next four years, have a female president. If things had gone differently and Obama had been unable to continue his run, and if either party had gone out and found another black candidate to switch in for him, it would be considered overt racism. But somehow, with women, it’s just fine to assume that this kind of tokenism will fly. And, it seems, it does. Forget experience. Forget policy. Sarah and Hillary are suddenly political sisters riding the same train to the White House and everyone should just jump aboard and ask questions later.

Women have come farther than to allow themselves to be duped in this way, to be told we are all the same or let the ability to wear a skirt in public dictate public policy and political choice. Just because she’s a woman and the idea of a woman president is exciting and long overdue does not make Sarah Palin qualified to lead this country.

Because to paraphrase the immortal words of this YouTube video, just because I saw a vagina once, or have one, does that make me a gynecologist?

Carolyn Slutsky (sister of Matthew and Peter) is a writer in New York City, whose work has been seen in The New York Times, The Jewish Week, and other publications.

Kudos to The Daily Show for exposing the GOP and their utter hypocrisy when it comes to Gov. Palin.

Please send this link to your friends, family and colleagues.

Another funny video from Public Service Administration…