Fantastic retort Ruby. There is a blind desperation in the McPalin campaign at the moment, answering all charges with claims of either sexism or didn't you know he was a POW.

The attempt to not just hijack debate, but blast it of the rails of meaningful policy discussion is frightening. (Un)fortunately, it might be the teetering US economy that finally brings discussion back to the issue that matters, policy. In this, I look forward to the Pres and VP debates in earnest.

Good rejoinder.

The fact of the matter is that it is impossible to have a rational debate/argument with the said turpentine character.

Like all right-wing ideological hacks the turps doesnt use the usual formal literary rules and customs for making an argument. Which is quite strange when you think of it because, when it suits them, those on the right of the culture wars are usually big on defending the use of reason and proper use of formal grammatical and sentence construction.

You know---back to basics as the necessary foundation of education---especially re the teaching of English literature and language. Using the proper rules of grammar for the Queen's English etc.

All of his posts without exception, are a grab bag on one liners, out of context quotes, distortions, exagerrations, hype, sheer silliness and just plain old dumb ignorance.

He would be thrown out of any halfway decent University philosophy 101 class and given an F grade in English sentence construction and logical argument.

Meanwhile please check out Between Jesus and the Market: the EMOTIONS That Matter In Right Wing America by Linda Kintz.

Palin is not apppealing to anything rational---just pure nativistic primitive emotion. A book which describes an emotionally based (patterned) mindset that firmly believes that it alone expresses or possesses the truth and that everyone else, including liberal and progressive Christians and all members of other faith groups are the enemy, and agents of the anti-christ.

Strangely enough most of those on the right who usually argue for the use of reasoned judgement (and even attend gab-fests in support and praise of reason) are now loudly cheering for this expression of raw nativistic emotionalism. Emotionalism which has a deep reservoir of anger and frustration behind it.

Anger and frustration which is more often than not quite justified, and looking for some suitable scapegoats to dump on.

But scapegoat politics is not the answer.

Hamad has misrepresented Hilary and labelled as 'non-issues' things which Hilary and Palin agree upon, eg 'abortion','gay-marriage' and 'capital punishment'.

There's really nothing subtantially different between Obama-Biden and McCain-Palin. The really sad thing is that over 90% of African_American vote along racial lines and almost all Muslims in the US chose Obama because he was a former Muslim.

Obama was the only presidential candidate that had no problems with funds and Hilary had to dig deep into her pockets to keep her campaign going.

This is not surprising as Obama have close ties to an African-American lawyer who is a strict orthodox Muslim and a top Saudi adviser. Khalid Al-Mansour (Don Warden before conversion) is a fund-raiser for Obama

http://www.newsmax.com/politics/obama_sutton_saudi/2008/09/03/127490.html

Philip Tang,

Clinton and Palin absolutely do NOT agree on the issue of abortion. Don't even go there. It's a ludicrous statement.

As I stated the issue of LGBT rights goes much deeper than simply 'gay marriage'.

And I did not say Capital Punishment is a non-issue. Only that it has not played a major role in this election.

Please do not misinterpret my words. How have I "misrepresented" Clinton when I used her own words and policy statements as research for the article?

The world is not black and white. You do not have to stand on the complete opposite side of any spectrum to another person in order to have substantially different viewpoints

Wow it's refreshing to read an article that actually provides relevant, substantial evidence for the claims it makes. Well done!

I really would love to read a referenced article outlining how exactly Palin is a change in GOP policy and not just....but but SHES A WOMAN.

I would love to see an argument from a Palin supporter on why she'd make a good VP. All you ever see /hear from them are articles about why she's popular and how dreadful those awful lefties are for criticising her. (E.g. check out Albrechtson and Sheridan in the Australian and on the ABC - not a word in favour of Palin, just laying into her critics.)

And if they can't defend her at the very least they should explain why it would be ok to have another Bush-type populist in the White House and how it will be better than last time.