Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

"Republican Convention delegates made the first day of their gathering a subdued show of sympathy for Hurricane Gustav's victims and rallied Monday around presumptive nominee Sarah Palin who announced that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant.

"Cindy McCan, wife of presidential candidate John McCain said of Hurricane Gustav, 'When one us is threatened we are all threatened.'

"Outside the convention hall, an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 protestors marched down St. Paul's streets, sometimes smashing windows, blocking roads, and tossing bottles.  Police used pepper spray to subdue them.

"After it was announced that Palin's daughter was five months pregnant and would marry the father of the child, it was nearly impossible to find a delegate or Republican official who thought the news had hurt the presidential ticket."

This is the same party, the Republican Party that went after Bill Clinton with a vengeance.  Bill Clinton's consensual sex, which did not involve a child being born out of potential wedlock, was harassed by Ken Starr, who spent over $40 million to bring impeachment terror to the table.

When it was discovered that the Bush Republican administration had conducted a media blitz, a propaganda campaign to launch the Iraq War on lies and misrepresentation, Republicans voted robot style even after they knew the alleged "facts" behind launching that war were false.

When Nancy Pelosi was urged to begin an impeachment investigation, as the 2006 election proved the majority of Americans were not satisfied with Republican administration rule, this Democrat declared dramatically, "Impeachment is off the table."

Knowing that 75% of Americans disapproved of what he was doing, Bush revved up Air Force One and whizzed off for a whirlwind European tour, drumming up support wherever he could to re-ignite the Cold War with Russia by getting Poland and Czechoslovakia to place what he conveniently calls missile defense systems on Russia's border.

Of course Bush would show up at the Olympics in Beijing.  His free Air Force One trips are funded by the U.S. taxpayer until January 20, 2009, so he must pack in all the travel that he can.

Bush buzzed around in Air Force One to 50 states, trying to convince U.S. citizens to have Social Security privatized.  This was met with a total rebuff by a large majority of Americans, but John McCain will try again, if he can, so don't complain.

Social Security and Medicare were Democratic programs that Republicans stoutly opposed, fighting FDR's Social Security program and Lyndon Johnson's Medicare.

Wouldn't it be fair and honest to ask those Republicans who opposed or still oppose Social Security and Medicare to return their Social Security checks and medical bill payments by Medicare to the U.S. government?

Now you have backed McCain's vice-presidential pick almost unanimously.

1.  Don't you think Ms. Palin, who was against sex education in schools, goofed with her own daughter, who is five months pregnant?  Remember the cliché, "Experience is the best teacher."  Of course, for the cliché to have a positive spin, the experience has to change one's outlook -- like letting young people know about sexual responsibility.

2.  Obviously Ms. Palin doesn't stay home all the time and bake cookies.  But what does killing a moose have to do with foreign policy, Mr. McCain?  Remember how McCain loved to complain about Obama's lack of foreign policy experience?

3.  Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin asked a question in a Los Angeles Times article published in the Seattle Times August 30:  "I would like to ask the distinguished representative of the United States:  Weapons of mass destruction.  Have you found them?"

That is something the Republican National Convention should take up.  Perhaps they could get the loyal Republicans to fund another search for those weapons of mass destruction that George Bush warned us about, when he launched the Iraq War.

They have never been found.

Perhaps you would find death, destruction and suffering on all sides in Iraq.  Is that why George Bush, who has been chasing in Air Force One all over the world, won't put in a personal appearance in St. Paul at the Republican National Convention?

Let your conscience, if you have one, answer that question.