[quote author="WINEX" date=1221026447]It's quite obvious that the only words you understood were "Sarah Palin supported the notorious Bridge to Nowhere"
It's also quite obvious that you lost context of the message of the post.
If you had understood it, you would realize the following basic facts
1) Sarah Palin voiced an opinion about a subject as a private citizen. As a private citizen, she had no ability to influence Federal spending. As governor of Alaska, she has no ability to introduce or vote for Federal spending bills.
2) Barrack Obama used the power of elective office to support an unnecessary project twice
3) Joe Biden used the power of elective office to support an unnecessary project twice
4) Both Barrack Obama and Joe Biden had the ability to use the power of elective office to vote against wasteful spending in an isolate manner. They decided to support this wasteful project even when it wasn't bundled in a larger bill.
5) Sarah Palin used the power of elective office to block the wasteful project that Barrack Obama and Joe Biden supported.
6) Barrack Obama and Joe Biden are hypocrites for trying to imply that Sarah Palin ran through a project that she blocked and that they helped pass.
Despite the nasty tone of your email, the offer to find adult remedial reading classes for you still stands. Once you take those classes, you *MIGHT* be able to move beyond picking random words from a paragraph and misunderstanding the intent of that paragraph.</blockquote>
This is the reason why no Senator since JFK has won the presidential election...Deceptive people such as Winex can distort their voting record. You don't vote for a specific earmark. You vote on an entire bill, and the way things work in Washington, you have to either vote Yes or No on the entire bill. Every Senator adds his/her own little pet projects to each bill, and unfortunately, that's how the system works; you can't use line item veto. I find it funny how you had absolutely NO response (other than to change the subject to Iraq) to green_cactus when he called you out on your shameful tactic by using the same method to link McCain to a bunch of embarrassing earmarks. Keep in mind that Obama and Biden, along with a VAST majority of their colleagues, 93% to be exact, including 53 Republicans, voted Yes on this bill. But it's understood that in order to pass a bill, you allow some pet projects to be added to it. So just because Obama and Biden voted for the transportation bill, it doesn't mean they specifically voted for this Bridge to Nowhere earmark, as you, Winex, have deceptively portrayed it here.
Now, as far as your lame excuse for Palin supporting the Bridge to Nowhere as a ?private? citizen, she was running for Governor at the time she was supporting it! So basically, your argument is that it?s OK to run around the state, promising you will fight to get this money, and then after you get elected, you can reverse your previously held position once it becomes a national embarrassment?! Then you make the obnoxious, flat out FALSE claim that she ?used the power of elective office to block the wasteful project that Barrack Obama and Joe Biden supported?. Two lies here. First, Obama and Biden did not support this earmark. This was your Republican Senator, Ted Steven?s little pet project that was tacked on to a larger bill that Obama and Biden, along with 91 other Senators voted for. Second lie, Palin only terminated the earmark after the Congress had already killed it, and after it had become a national embarrassment. And she still kept the $300 million.
In addition, Mrs. Palin, sought and received the highest per capita earmark in the country while she was the mayor of Wasila. Now I don?t have a problem with that, you know, good for her, she?s trying to get as much as she can for her town. I don?t agree with the concept, but it?s one of those things where most politicians appear to practice, so I won?t chastise her for it. But if you?re going to do that, then don?t come out and criticize Obama for taking earmarks, especially given the fact that you hired a lobbyist firm in order to get these funds!
Now, as far as the Coburn Amendment is concerned, it appears to me that both Obama and Biden, along with 80 other senators, 38 of whom were Republicans, were following the unwritten rule in the Senate that says a freshman Senator, in this case Mr. Coburn, should not attempt to block funding for another Senator from another state. On top of that, the Republican Senator, Ted Stevens threw a big tantrum on the Senate floor and threatened to quit if the money was taken away from his state. I haven?t been able to find any material from Obama or Biden, or for that matter, from any of the 80 Senators who shut down this amendment as to why they voted against it. So I won?t make stuff up, like people on your side tend to do (i.e. Palin has foreign policy experience because Alaska?s right next door to Russia). What I do know is that again, majority of the Senate (82%) voted against it, including 38 Republicans. It wasn?t just Obama and Biden, as you are trying to make it appear. Personally, yes, I am disappointed that the amendment was shutdown. This however, does not change the fact that Sarah Palin is a LIAR when she claims she killed an earmark that had already been stopped by the Congress, an earmark that she had vigorously supported before it became unpopular, and the fact that she never returned the $300 million. Last time I checked, it wasn?t Obama running around the country shouting ?thanks, but no thanks? to the Bridge to Nowhere.
Unfortunately, these deceptive tactics that you employ do work, and that's the sad part of the whole political process in the U.S. Instead of having a civil discourse over the real issues that matter the most to us, we hear nothing but crap like guilt by association, distortion of voting records, and social wedge issues such as gay marriage or whether life begins at the point of conception or not. I don't think I'm going out on a limb here if I said your average voter is probably unaware of the fact that earmarks are part of a larger bill and that they're not voted on individually. So that's why extremists like you, Winex, thrive on spreading these discredited claims. You and your extremist right wing neo-con buddies know that if you just keep repeating the same falsehood over and over again, it will eventually influence a lot of people. That?s why at the time we invaded Iraq, well over 70% of Americans thought Saddam had something to do with 9/11, when in fact there was absolutely NO credible evidence linking him to those attacks.
We live in a culture of 30 second ads and sound bites, and sadly, it?s becoming more and more evident, election after election, that 30 seconds just about maxes outs most people?s attention span. That, or coming up with empty, meaningless slogans like ?they hate us for our freedom?, ?we have to be on offense?, or we?re good, they?re evil, we?re over here, they?re over there, etc, etc. That?s the reason why they make such effective use of many sports analogies, because to your average uninformed voter, they?re sitting there thinking, OK, yea, it?s kind of like football, you can?t play prevent defense, you have to be on the attack. It?s really, really sad that every time you have a candidate who instead of using a stupid sound bite like ?we must defeat evil?, gives you a detailed, well thought out logical reasoning that takes more than 30 seconds to explain, he is ridiculed, or is considered an ?elitist?! Why? Because he can?t explain a complex issue such as terrorism using football terminology in under 30 seconds?!
If you want to hammer Obama on real issues, such as his proposed tax plan, that's fine, that would be a legitimate argument, whether it's best to leave the tax code as is, or raise taxes on the wealthiest individuals, or what kind of impact raising the capital gains tax would have on the stock market. But don't bring up petty crap like the post where you used a ridiculous fear mongering tactic by saying that ?If Obama is elected, can we expect him to order the National Guard to surround the White House with tanks when it is time for him to step down from office?. Any reasonable person would view this statement as nothing but empty words coming from a biased, radical, hateful, and fear mongering hack. Even some of your own Republican peers on this board are tired of you and they are correct when they say you make Republicans look bad.
