Immediately following George W. Bush's re-election victory in 2004, Britain's Daily Mirror expressed the world's shock with the cover you see at right. "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" the headline screamed in exasperation, the subheadings calling the news an "election disaster" and a "no brainer" (as in "no brain"). "Doh...!" Homer Simpson seems to say in a banner at the top of the front page, "...4 more years of Dubya!" (click here or image at right to see larger view).

I wonder how dumb the world will think we are if 51% of us in 2008 vote to elect John McCain and Sarah Palin. My guess: Pretty gosh-darn dumb. Dumb as a fencepost. Thicker than two short planks. Just plain stupid. Could it possibly get any dumber than that?

Last week, the Democratic National Convention delivered us a stellar pair of candidates for the office of President and Vice-President of the United States: Barack Obama, a visionary leader who, seemingly out of nowhere, has answered the need to remove Republicans from power with an all-out mass movement for change; and Joe Biden, who complements Obama's vision and ability to inspire with a tough, pragmatic style and a wealth of national and international experience. Should any tragedy or incapacity befall President Obama while in office, Vice-President Biden would be more than ready to step in and fulfill the duties of the president.

This week, the Republican National Convention rolled out a very different package to voters: a bitter and befuddled old war-horse at the top of the ticket, and in the second slot a snarky religious zealot with zero experience in national or international affairs. Following a Democratic National Convention strong on style as well as substance - offering not only an inspiring slate of speakers but also a detailed plan for the economy, health care, energy independence, and foreign policy - the Republicans gave us four nights of smug, self-righteous posturing and snarling rage against "liberals." No plan for the economy or for anything else, just a lot of red meat for the base, a lot of flag-waving, and a lot of lies.

In any other modern democracy the outcome of such a contest would be a foregone conclusion, and the smart, progressive side would have little if any reason to fear. Only in America, for some strange reason I have yet to fully untangle, does the Dumb Ticket actually have a chance of winning. After all, who else in the world would have re-elected Bush/Cheney in 2004? Nobody, that's who.

Make no mistake: the editors at the Daily Mirror were not saying that all Americans are dumb, only those who voted for Bush despite overwhelming evidence that his administration was a disaster of global proportions. Almost as many Americans voted for Kerry/Edwards as for Bush/Cheney in 2004, but as we know, almost doesn't pay the rent or put intelligence in the White House.

After eight years of dumb, Americans have no excuse this year for doing something even dumber than what 51% of us did in 2004. Let's try and get it right this time.

Does America really need a religious extremist a heartbeat away from the Oval Office? If your answer is Yes, then vote for Sarah Palin.

Since Palin's pick by John McCain as Republican vice-presidential running mate, video has surfaced of a speech given by Palin in June at her hometown church, Wasilla Assembly of God. The video, first reported by the HuffingtonPost, is from an address by Palin to the graduating class of commission students at the Wasilla church. Describing her family, Palin tells students about her oldest son, 19-year-old Track, set to be deployed to Iraq with the U.S. Army. Then, she urges students to pray "that our leaders... are sending [soldiers] out on a task that is from God." Palin added, "That's what we have to make sure that we are praying for: that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan" (see also Washington Post, UPI).

A review of sermons by Ed Kalnins, senior pastor of Wasilla Assembly of God since 1999, offers a deeper and yet more disturbing glimpse into Palin's longtime spiritual home. In his sermons, Pastor Kalnins has preached that critics of President Bush will be condemned to hell and questioned whether people who voted for John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted into heaven. During the 2004 election season, he said of Kerry to his congregation: "I'm not going tell you who to vote for, but if you vote for this particular person, I question your salvation. I'm sorry." Kalnins added: "If every Christian will vote righteously, it would be a landslide every time." In 2005, Kalnins bristled at the treatment President Bush was receiving over the federal government's handling of Hurricane Katrina. "I hate criticisms towards the President," Kalnins said, "because it's like criticisms towards the pastor -- it's almost like, it's not going to get you anywhere, you know, except for hell. That's what it'll get you." Kalnins has also preached that the 9/11 attacks and the war in Iraq are part of a "world war" over the Christian faith, one in which Jesus Christ had called upon believers to be willing to sacrifice their lives; and telling his flock that Jesus himself operated in a "war mode."

What you see in a terrorist -- that's called the invisible enemy. There has always been an invisible enemy. What you see in Iraq, basically, is a manifestation of what's going on in this unseen world called the spirit world. ... We need to think like Jesus thinks. We are in a time and a season of war, and we need to think like that. We need to develop that instinct. We need to develop as believers the instinct that we are at war, and that war is contending for your faith. ... Jesus called us to die. You're worried about getting hurt? He's called us to die. Listen, you know we can't even follow him unless you are willing to give up your life. ... I believe that Jesus himself operated from that position of war mode. Everyone say "war mode." Now you say, wait a minute Ed, he's like the good shepherd, he's loving all the time and he's kind all the time. Oh yes he is -- but I also believe that he had a part of his thoughts that knew that he was in a war.

As for Sarah Palin, Kalnins has asserted that his former congregant's election as governor was the result of a "prophetic call" by another Wasilla pastor who prayed for her victory. "[He made] a prophetic declaration and then unfolds the kingdom of God, you know." Kalnins also preaches repeatedly about the "end times" or "last days," declaring at his appearance with Palin in June: "I believe Alaska is one of the refuge states in the last days, and hundreds of thousands of people are going to come to the state to seek refuge and the church has to be ready to minister to them."

Palin's own history with Wasilla Assembly of God is a long one: She was baptized there at the age of 12 and attended the church for most of her adult life. When Palin was inaugurated as governor, the founding pastor of the church delivered the invocation. In 2002, Palin switched her membership to a nondenominational church, but she continues to worship at a related Assembly of God church in Juneau. Meanwhile, according to a statement from Pastor Kalnins' office, Palin "has maintained a friendship with Wasilla Assembly of God and has attended various conferences and special meetings here."

I wonder if our mass media will subject Pastor Kalnins and Wasilla Assembly of God to the same scrutiny they have lavished on Reverend Jeremiah Wright at Barack Obama's old church. 

Republican congressman and certified bigot Steve King of Iowa has followed up earlier caustic remarks on Barack Obama's cultural background with fresh comments suggesting that Obama did not have the right kind of upringing for a potential president, and that due to his "exotic" background Obama cannot even be considered a real American. Speaking to the Iowa GOP delegation at the Republican National Convention on Thursday morning, King said that Obama's upbringing was devoid of patriotic teaching or the values that make America great: "There is no part of [Obama's ubringing] that I would subject a child, a young man or woman to," King said, "I don’t think that there's a nurture there that shows a thread of patriotism or a sense of appreciation of free market capitalism or the destiny of America or what has made this country great" (see Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier).

King's remarks here and previously may be only a hint of what we can expect from Republicans in the weeks ahead as they struggle to hold onto power: play on the racial and cultural fears of less-educated white voters by contrasting Obama's "exotic," cosmopolitan background with those of McCain and Palin as "real Americans." While they alienate urban residents, immigrants, people of color, non-Protestants, campus communities, and especially community organizers, Republicans hope to shore up enough support among their rural, white, Protestant base to win in November. Hence the new GOP emphasis on "biography" in the absence of anything else to offer.

King's statements also echo comments he made back in March predicting that terrorists would be "dancing in the streets" if Obama were to win the presidency (see Associated Press). King based this prediction not only on Obama's pledge to pull troops out of Iraq, but also on Obama's Kenyan heritage and his middle name, Hussein. "The radical Islamists, the al-Qaida..., would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11" King said, "because they would declare victory in this war on terror." In Steve King's world, apparently, native-born US citizenship and 35 years of age are not enough to qualify one for the presidency: one must also be of unmistakably European and Christian heritage. "His middle name does matter," King said. "It matters because they read a meaning into that."

Experience teaches us that Democrats cannot ignore attacks such as these. Steve King himself should be pressured to apologize for his remarks while the Republican National Committee and the McCain campaign should be pressured to issue repudiations. E-mail/online contact info for all three are as follows:

Steve King: steve.king@mail.house.gov
Iowa residents: http://www.house.gov/steveking/email.shtm

RNC Chairman (Mike Duncan): chairman@gop.com

McCain campaign: http://www.johnmccain.com/contact

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Mark C. Eades
http://www.mceades.com

Thanks to a strange act of usefulness by a supermarket tabloid, millions of Us Weekly readers this week are being treated to a glimpse, based on actual facts, of what a crude and spiteful individual Sarah Palin actually is. Based on audio recordings and coverage in the Anchorage Daily News that many in the Lower 48 might otherwise have missed, Us Weekly tells its loyal millions about how the governor of Alaska phoned into a radio talk show and giggled as a morning DJ launched into a series of tasteless and puerile attacks on the president of Alaska's state senate.

On the morning of January 15, 2008, Palin phoned into the Bob & Mark Show at KWHL 106.5 in Anchorage. Early in the conversation, DJ Bob Lester referred to state senator Lyda Green as a jealous woman and a cancer. In fact, as Palin was fully aware at the time, Green is a cancer survivor. Rather than suggest that perhaps Lester was going a little too far with his remarks, however, Palin played along as Lester intensified his attack on Green. When Lester questioned Green's motherhood, asking Palin if she thought Green even cared about her own kids, Palin laughed; then laughed again as Lester declared: "Lyda Green is a cancer and a b*tch"; then laughed again as Lester made fun of Green's weight with a reference to Green's "big and cushy" chair in the state senate. In audio, Palin is clearly relaxed and enjoying Lester's jokes at Green's expense, hardly "caught off guard" as she would later claim. Finally, when Lester suggests a visit for himself at the state capital, Palin responds: "I'd be honored to have you."

An editorial in the Anchorage Daily News (Jan. 25, 2008) following Palin's appearance on the Bob & Mark Show clearly stated the paper's opinions of the governor's behavior:

"She came off looking immature herself, almost high-schoolish. It was conduct unbecoming a governor. She should have thought twice about appearing in such a sophomoric venue. Not much good can come of it."

A follow-up piece by Dan Fagan in the Anchorage Daily News (Jan. 27, 2008) took Palin even more harshly to task:

"The governor's appearance on KWHL's 'The Bob and Mark Show' last week is plain and simple one of the most unprofessional, childish and inexcusable performances I've ever seen from a politician.... Anchorage DJ Bob Lester unleashed a vicious, mean-spirited, poisonous attack on Senate President Lyda Green last week while our governor was live on the air with him.... It was conduct unbecoming a human being, never mind a governor."

Following Palin's pick by John McCain as Republican vice-presidential running mate, Alaska state senator Lyda Green - also a Republican - had the following to say to the Anchorage Daily News (Aug. 29, 2008) on Palin's readiness to serve:

"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

Far from distancing herself from the Bob & Mark Show, meanwhile, Palin appeared again with John McCain on the show Aug. 29.

Audio of Palin's January appearance on the show can be found in its entirety at The Raw Story, with highlights available at Youtube. Everyone should hear this.