I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
At a town hall-style rally Wednesday evening in Grand Rapids, Mich., Republican presidential hopeful John McCain had to step in and save his vice presidential pick, Gov. Sarah Palin, from a question about her foreign policy experience. Palin first made an attempt to answer the question but failed because she couldn’t give any specifics about her foreign policy qualifications in response to the question.
A woman in the audience asked (at 3:27 in the video):
Governor Palin, there’s been quite a bit of discussion about your perceived lack of foreign policy experience and I want to give you your chance. If you could please respond to that criticism and give us specific skills that you think you have to bring to the White House to rebut that or mitigate that concern.
Palin answered:
Well, I think that because I am a Washington outsider that opponents are gonna’ be lookin’ for a whole lot of things that they can criticize and they can try to beat the candidate here who chose me as his partner to kinda tear down the ticket.
But as for foreign policy, you know, I think that I am prepared and I know that on January 20th if we are so blessed to be sworn into office as your president and vice president certainly we’ll be ready.
I’ll be ready. I have that confidence I have that readiness. And if you want specifics with specific policy or countries, go ahead, and you can ask me, you can even play stump the candidate if you want to. But we are ready to serve.
Then McCain comes to the rescue:
Let me … could I … Could I just add one comment to that? We all know that one of the greatest threats to our national security, as we discussed earlier, is our dependence on foreign oil. Now this is the person that negotiated at the expense of the oil companies a $40 billion natural gas pipeline that’s gonna come down to what they call the Lower 48 to relieve and help address one of our great national security challenges and that’s our dependency on foreign oil.
I’m proud of that and I’m proud of her obvious knowledge of this nation’s energy needs because that’s a national security issue. I also know if I might remind you that she is commander of the Alaska National Guard. In fact you may know that on September 11th a large contingent of the Alaska Guard deployed to Iraq and her son happened to be one of them.
So I think she understands our national security challenges and we’ve had many conversations and I’m convinced that she understands the challenges that this nations faces from the threat of radical Islamic extremism as she already talked about earlier, energy issues and other challenges this nation faced and I believe she is absolutely totally qualified to address every challenge as next vice president of the United States not just our national security needs.
Well, Sen. McCain, this begs the question: If she’s so “absolutely and totally qualified to address every challenge,” then why did you have to answer a simple question at a little town hall rally for her? Seeing you answering a question that someone directly asked her seems to show that actions speak louder than words. Acting as second-in-command of a leading nation that’s facing an economic crisis is a very serious job, and you won’t always be there to answer questions for her.
Oh, by the way, every governor in all 50 states in the union is commander of their state’s National Guard. It comes with the job, if I might remind you. And Palin’s son, Track, was not deployed to Iraq on Sept. 11, 2001; that’s when he enlisted in the Army.
The record also shows that she hasn’t given any orders to the National Guard. Ever.
“Can you tell me one decision that [Gov. Palin] made as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard?” CNN’s Campbell Brown asked McCain campaign spokesperson Tucker Bounds. “Just one?”
He couldn’t name one. But he was quick to go negative:
“Any decision she has made as the commander of the National Guard that’s deployed overseas is more of a decision than Barack Obama’s been making as he’s been running for president for the last two years.”
Wait, hold on a second here: Isn’t the governor limited to in-state-only commands? Anything overseas or out-of-state is federal responsibility, no?
As for Palin, McCain can’t answer for her during the vice presidential debates, either; she’s gotta get better at this.
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
Sign up for our email newsletter
Pingback: cinco dias » Uh?