"I think she is the most qualified of any that has run recently for vice president."

Even Republicans would have to laugh at that. As much as I hate the man, I can't imagine anyone describing Cheney as "unqualified".

Technically, Eagleburger was the secretary of state after Baker left to run the '92 campaign.

Alternate headline: Eagleburger hates Mooseburger.

If Eagleberger really believes Palin is unqualified what in the world does it imply about McCain? Eagleberger rightly trashes Palin but supports McCain? Is it the good soldier syndrome that afflicted Powell? Or simply the party hack syndrome?

Sadly I favor the latter.

The new talking point, or really the repeated talking point, is that people are simply "picking on" Sarah Palin. She is ethically, factually and intellectually challenged. She rides the very short version of the straight talk express busline.

She will never be qualified at anything but purges. It would be like electing Eva Braun to succeed Hitler. She is an insult to all thinking Americans and endangers world peace. She represents the Silly Party. Life imitates satire with the GOP.

Keep your fingers crossed. We might yet see Palindrone call McPOW's own supporters a bunch of doggone anti-American elitists.

Man, I'm starting to think that if they do get elected McPOW will be too busy crooning "You and Me Against the World," to his partner and soul mate to do any real harm. Palin will run around embarrassing herself in front of the world. Then one night, about half-way through their term, the burnt out remains of the GOP will finally collapse into a singularity so dense none of the stupid can escape.

Palin isn't even the most qualified candidate running for VP under the Republican ticket.

I know several people who "admire" her empty-headed, sneering condescension, her vicious, divisive rhetoric, phony mythology, sleazy political opportunism, and her serial, pathological lying. "Admire". Because these are all qualities of a "maverick", apparently.

Good lord.

This nation and the world face problems that would test the combined wisdom of everyone who has ever drawn a breath. Incredibly talented people are needed to help solve numerous troubles. They will require very advanced understandings of the issues and have a pronounced ability to delegate authority and recruit talent. One of the two parties ruling this nation has put forward as the putative future leader of their faction Sarah Palin. What does it say for the bankruptcy of intellect and wisdom in their camp that Sarah Palin, out of 300 million people, is the best person their party has to offer? She deigns to be the one to challenge for the leadership of the free world. Millions of citizens, including some of the most prominent thinkers and commentators on The Right, promote this, clamoring for her ascendency. She had to hopscotch across a half dozen university campuses to stitch together enough disparate credits for a bachelors in Home Ec or some such drivel. Meanwhile PhDs in political science, public policy, economics and international studies are judged second rate talent to her skills? Current politicians with pedigrees including stints as judges, doctors, lawyers, diplomats, professors, engineers, military officers and scientists are relegated to the sidelines so Sarah Palin can assume leadership of the Republican Party? And damned few within the party thinks it the least bit odd? Truly fodder for a Twilight Zone episode.

What does it say for the bankruptcy of intellect and wisdom in their camp that Sarah Palin, out of 300 million people, is the best person their party has to offer? - steve duncan

Or Joe the Plumber?

She deigns to be the one to challenge for the leadership of the free world.

Right. She'll go toe-to-toe with all the alleged Hitlers of the world, but she can't even cope with Katie Couric. Right. I buy that.

What did McCain expect? Put a loose cannon curmudgeon like Eagleburger out there to make your case? That's about as good of judgment as his picking of Palin!

the campaign sent Eagleburger to NPR to emphasize why voters should support the Republican ticket..

Always keeping in mind that Eagleberger, like John McCain, does not necessarily speak for the John McCain campaign.

The GOP campaign would make far more sense to me if Harpo would occasionally drop in, wave, honk his horn, and leave.

This is just damning stuff on the eve of this election. Hopefully we can look in the rear view mirror and realize just how much of a joke(a cynical and devisive joke) the McCain campaign has been, but for now "its shoe leather time." GOTV people.

The only way Sarah Palin could show that she possesses the slightest hint of the leadership required to helm the US in a crisis would be for her to take herself out of the race right now. Today.

Maybe this is as close to endorsing Obama, or denouncing McCain, as Eagleburger wants to come.

This is just damning stuff on the eve of this election. Hopefully we can look in the rear view mirror and realize just how much of a joke(a cynical and devisive joke) the McCain campaign has been, but for now "its shoe leather time." GOTV people.

Good advice.

Don't let the joke be on U.S.

We can't afford to be McCain/Palin to be the punchline that defines the end of our empire.

GOTV!

What I can't get over is that 41% of the people out there are convinced that Sarah Palin is qualified, or at least aren't sure.

41%!

Eagleburger -- the perfect name for a Bush/McCain/Palin guy. Chop up the national symbol and feed it into a meat-grinder.

NPR gave him a very gentle ride, not that I'm surprised. The unasked questions amaze me.

"If Palin becomes President" is a gaw-ferbid? And you're happy as a surrogate of the man who wished that on us? How's that work for you, Mister Seckaterry?

"I think she is the most qualified of any that has run recently for vice president."

Wow, that's totally delusional. Cheney is obviously more qualified. So is the guy who was, er, McCain's own first choice, Joe Lieberman. So probably Jack Kemp, and certainly Al Gore. Bentsen was definitely more qualified as well. I'd say that Quayle was arguably so - he had considerably more experience than Palin. George H. W. Bush and Walter Mondale were both clearly more experienced, and so was Bob Dole.

Which is to say, in the last 32 years, I think the only running mates one could even make the case were similarly unqualified were Ferraro and Edwards. And I think performance on the campaign trail (Palin still hasn't held a real press conference, right?) still puts Palin at the bottom, much as I hate Edwards and Ferraro.

While the GOP has an insane propensity for projection, Palin and Wurzelbacher provide proof the GOP is also very capable of the flip side of the coin. GOPers believe Obama's appeal has nothing to do with such little things as competence, intelligence, leadership, and charisma. They think it's all to do with pop culture wanting a "new" thing.
Therefore, voila, enter Palin and Joe the Plumber. Americans surely don't care if their leaders are qualified and capable. Shit they elected W TWICE!
In the GOP mind, all that's needed is a fresh face that can be marketed to the people. After all, GWB was nothing but a marketing gimmick.

They fail to understand that Obama actually has substance.

Unfortunately, that was about the only sane thing Eagleburger said in the interview yesterday. Apparently his benchmark for foreign policy credentials is how "tough" you are, as in McCain would be tougher with Russia and tougher with China. Oh joy, more wars. sheesh.

It wouldn't be so bad if our emasculated government that Reagan began to tear apart didn't have any real role in our country, but alas, it does. We've dumb downed our government so that domestically it's a mere shell of its former self, existing solely to advance the interests of corporate America. And that's fine. We've all accepted that. Socialism is evil, and government is socialism. Fine, great, terrific. A man like Obama is wasted in government - he should be in the private sector. So let's all vote for McCain.

But our government is still responsible for our national defense and security, and with madmen and incompetents like Bush, McCain and Palin at the helm, and all the neocon warmongers and imperialists driving them, that's absolutely terrifying. These people should not be in charge of anything.

Eagleburger's words really are a major embarrassment for McCain. I'd say they embarrass Palin, too, but it's not like she's sharp enough to know how inept she is.

I am frightened at the thought of having Obama/Biden in office! They will destroy this country and everything it stands for! Open Union votes, capital gains tax increase,healthcare plan, spread the wealth plan.....Socialism does not work! Please vote McCain/Palin! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

A little long for a bumper sticker, but, can't wait to see:

Vote Palin- Someday she will be adequate

It has to be even longer, bert, because Eagleburger paused:

"Someday she will be...adequate."

Devastating.

Wow, Liz. Everything in your list of fears sounds like stuff that's good for America. You've listed precisely why I'm voting for Obama. If he WAS a socialist, I'd like him even more.

McCain: "I think she is the most qualified of any that has run recently for vice president."

do the names lieberman and cheney ring a bell??

can't imagine that the next georgetown cocktail party mccain attends might be a wee bit ackward if he happens to cross paths with either of those guys....

Palin has more Experince and Abilty than obama will ever have, People look , listen, and think about what your about to to. If you elect oboma your giving ths country away.

41% of the people out there are convinced that Sarah Palin is qualified

That has got to be loads more than those who think Obama is qualified. Obama is not a presidential...he just acts like that on TV. (and costs everyone a lot more.)

Obama's tax increases will cost eveyone a lot of money in these hard times.

Who do you think pays the CEO's and 'Joe the plumber"'s taxes? The consumer!

Get a clue Obamaites, before it is too late.

As a board member, Obama helped scratch a lot of backs with grants to politically connected groups.

September 13, 2008 - by Jennifer Rubin
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The mainstream media is not much interested in probing Barack Obama’s record before he arrived in the U.S. Senate in 2004. For example, they have studiously ignored the eminently well-researched book by David Freddoso, The Case Against Barack Obama . There is no shortage of material or information which might be relevant to voters. One aspect of Obama’s past in particular provides insight into Obama’s modus operandi in the world of Chicago politics: his service on the board of the Woods Fund.
The Woods Fund is a non-profit foundation which declares its goal to “increase opportunities for less advantaged people and communities by giving money primarily to not-for-profit groups involved in housing, the arts and other areas.” Obama joined the board of the Woods Fund in 1993 and remained until 2002. But Obama didn’t merely use the Woods Fund to help his fellow man — he used it to further his career.
According to a November 29, 2007 report from the Chicago Sun-Times, “Sen. Barack Obama was on the board of a Chicago charity when his former boss, Allison S. Davis, came looking for money. At the time, Davis was a developer represented by the law firm where Obama worked, as well as a small contributor to Obama’s political campaign funds. He wanted the charity to help fund his plans to build housing for low-income Chicagoans.”
When Davis approached the Woods Fund, he was building another apartment building with now convicted felon and Obama friend/fundraiser Tony Rezko. The Chicago Sun-Times recounts: “Obama agreed. He voted with other directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago to invest $1 million with Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners L.P., a $17-million partnership that Davis still operates.” To date the Obama campaign has refused to comment on whether Obama disclosed his ties to Davis when he voted on the project. Another Woods Board Fund member with ties to Davis did abstain on the vote.
Perhaps the most notorious of the Woods Fund recipients was the Arab American Action Network (AAAN). AAAN was established in 1995 as non-profit group supposedly dedicated to improving the conditions of Arab immigrants in the Chicago area.
But its activities were hardly benign. For example, AAAN sponsored a Palestinian art exhibit on the “Nakba” — that is, the “catastrophe” of Israel’s establishment in 1948. AAAN’s officials routinely have made statements vilifying Israel. AAAN Board member Ali Abunimah in 2002 declared: “‘By deliberately denying food, water and medical aid, and wantonly destroying public and private property, and deliberately destroying the economy in the occupied territories, Israel is in flagrant breach of this [Geneva] Convention. … Unfortunately, we are seeing the world turn a blind eye to atrocities being committed under its nose.” (Abunimah co-founded and operates the Electronic Intifada, a website replete with anti-Israel slurs and which declares Israel to be an apartheid state.)
On the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004, Hatem Abudayyeh, executive director of AAAN, announced: “Arafat was a great man. Yes, Arafat was an icon. … We’re saddened by his death, but we don’t ignore the fact that this is not an issue of individuals, it’s an issue of a people who have been oppressed and occupied for 55 years.”
Obama and the Woods Fund
As a board member, Obama helped scratch a lot of backs with grants to politically connected groups.

September 13, 2008 - by Jennifer Rubin
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Also serving on the Woods Fund at the time was Palestinian activist and now professor at Columbia University Rashid Khalidi, whose wife headed AAAN. The Woods Fund granted AAAN $40,000 in 2001 and $70,000 in 2002. As Salon magazine wrote, this was “nepotism, Chicago style.”
Khalidi, a former spokesman for Yasser Arafat, held a fundraiser for Obama in 2000 during his unsuccessful bid for Congress. In 2003, during a dinner honoring Khalidi for becoming the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia, Obama warmly praised his friend, reminiscing about the many meals cooked for him by Khalidi’s wife Mona and of the discussions he and Khalidi held that were “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. … It’s for that reason that I’m hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid’s dinner table,” but around “this entire world.”
The pattern of funneling money to political allies and their allies is evident throughout Obama’s tenure at the Woods Fund. Tens and tens of thousands of dollars were granted to organizations including the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPPPI), the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Centers for New Horizons, the Chicago Jobs Council, the Chicago Education Fund, the Chicago Institute on Urban Poverty, the Chicago Urban League, The Gamaliel Foundation. Dozens of the board members and officials from these organizations in turn would donate money, in many instances up to the legal limit, for Obama’s Senate and Presidential races between 2004 and 2008.
For example the Woods Fund between 1999 and 2002 granted $60,000 to BPPPI. Board member and executives donated at least $16,950 to Obama’s political campaigns. The Woods Fund granted the Center of Neighborhood Technology $150,000 between 1999 and 2002. Obama received over $24,000 in campaign donations from its officials. And in turn Obama made sure to seek earmarks on their behalf once he reached the U.S. Senate.
A similar pattern of mutual financial help existed with regard to many of these organizations. While there is no evidence of an explicit quid pro quo, what is apparent is that the seeds of long term relationships and a network of financial support were sewn while Obama was a Woods board member.
Obama’s tenure with the Woods Fund is perhaps most noteworthy for his association with former terrorist Bill Ayers. Ayers served on the Woods board for three years of Obama’s tenure and remained on the board after Obama departed. Hillary Clinton raised this issue earlier this year at the Philadelphia debate when Obama, as he has done throughout the campaign, tried to minimize his relationship with Ayers.
That exchange was set off with a question asking Obama to explain his relationship with Ayers:
OBAMA: This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.
And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn’t make much sense, George.
The fact is that I’m also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who, during his campaign, once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions.
Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn’s statements? Because I certainly don’t agree with those, either.
So this kind of game in which anybody who I know, regardless of how flimsy the relationship is, that somehow their ideas could be attributed to me, I think the American people are smarter than that. They’re not going to suggest somehow that that is reflective of my views, because it obviously isn’t.
CLINTON: Well, I think that is a fair general statement, but I also believe that Senator Obama served on a board with Mr. Ayers for a period of time, the Woods Foundation, which was a paid directorship position.
And, if I’m not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York and, I would hope, to every American, because they were published on 9/11, and he said that he was just sorry they hadn’t done more.
And what they did was set bombs. And in some instances, people died. So it is — I think it is, again, an issue that people will be asking about.
And I have no doubt — I know Senator Obama’s a good man and I respect him greatly, but I think that this is an issue that certainly the Republicans will be raising.
Clinton was right, of course. Ayers also headed the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an educational foundation dedicated to school reform that was funded by an initial $49 million grant from the Annenberg family foundation. (Annenberg recently was in the news when the University of Chicago first sealed the records and then agreed to open them to National Review’s Stanley Kurtz and other reporters seeking to explore that organization’s records.)
The Woods Fund in 1999 granted $50,000 to the Annenberg Challenge — that is one organization on which Obama and Ayers served giving funds to another headed by Ayers and on which Obama also served as chairman for three years beginning in 1995 and then as a board member until 2001.
The Annenberg Challenge has since come under scrutiny — and Obama’s involvement therewith as well — because of criticism that the Annenberg Challenge failed to improve student achievement. The Los Angeles Times termed it a “bust.” A USA Today column in 1998 noted, “Expectations, in fact, may prove to be the biggest stumbling block to the legacy of the Annenberg gift. In some circles, conservatives see snail’s pace-progress among schools benefiting from Annenberg’s largesse and use it as a public school parable: Give big money to public schools and it will be absorbed into the bureaucracy with little benefit.” As Education Week put it, “It was ultimately unsuccessful in raising student achievement, according to evaluations of the project.”
Another recipient of the Woods Fund largesse was the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), an organization infamous for its left wing agenda. Stanley Kurtz who has researched ACORN’s far-left agenda described its “in your face tactics”:
Just think of Code Pink’s well-known operations (threatening to occupy congressional offices, interrupting the testimony of General David Petraeus) and you’ll get the idea. Acorn protesters have disrupted Federal Reserve hearings, but mostly deploy their aggressive tactics locally. Chicago is home to one of its strongest chapters, and Acorn has burst into a closed city council meeting there. Acorn protestors in Baltimore disrupted a bankers’ dinner and sent four busloads of profanity-screaming protestors against the mayor’s home, terrifying his wife and kids. Even a Baltimore city council member who generally supports Acorn said their intimidation tactics had crossed the line.
During Obama’s time on the Woods Funds ACORN received grants of $45,000 (2000), $30,000 (2001), $45,000 (2001), $30,000 (2002), and $40,000 (2002) from the Woods Fund. (Obama in the early 1990’s helped train ACORN organizers and later served as counsel in 1995 for ACORN in a “motor voter” registration lawsuit.) And ACORN certainly appreciated whatever assistance Obama afforded the radical organization over the years.
Founder Toni Foulkes enthusiastically backed Obama’s U.S. Senate run in 2004, declaring: “ACORN is active in experimenting with methods of increasing voter participation in our low and moderate income communities to virtually every election. But in some elections we get to have our cake and eat it too: work on nonpartisan voter registration and GOTV, which also turns out to benefit the candidate we hold dear [Obama].”
In short, no less than six years ago Obama served along side Ayers as a board member on an organization happy to pass out funds to radical left wing and anti-Israel groups. Moreover, the monies doled out through the Woods Fund to these groups, including Ayers own Annenberg Challenge, helped cement Obama’s political relationships and bond with key players in Chicago. None of this matches his current self-portrait of a politically moderate reformer. But like so much of Obama, that was then and this is now.

If Obama THIS IS A MUST READ FOR EVERYONE! I can't believe that this man is running for president. If by any chance he does get in, we are all insane -slams-la-times-dou ble-standard-withholding-obama-khalidi-tape/Obama supporters are in serious denial about the true Obama. He has lied to his supporters and just because he hides behind his "I'm not Bush" strategy they believe him. Do we really want the kind of change he's going to bring? Just because he is offering change doesn't mean it's going to be good change. Everyone should read Bill Whittle's article entitled Shame, Cubed as well as watching the aforementioned video. It's scary to think that Obama wants to distribute wealth. That's not what this country is about! I shudder to think what is going to happen if he wins the presidency, and all the excuses his mindless supporters will make for him when he ruins this country.
I wonder how many Dems have actually read Obama's books that he himself wrote. . . most likely not many because they ar very scarey. And I can't understand why this video the LA Times has of Obama with Khalidi and Ares isn't being released. . . if there is nothing to hide, there's no reason not to release it. . . same is true of his birth certificate, his college transcripts, etc. I just don't get why there is so much secrecy surrounding his background. . . and every time something does come up, such as Rev. Wright or Ayres, the press/media just don't investigate it, but they sure were quick to head up to Alaska!!!! WonderType your own comment hereThink about this one for a minute.If Barack Obama would apply for a job with the FBI or with the Secret Service, he would be disqualified because of his past association with William Ayers, a known terrorist, Jeremiah Wright, a Black Nationalist preacher, Tony Rezco, a convicted thief con-man, not to mention his Pakistani college roommate who worked for an organization that gave money to terrorists, et al. So, if he is elected President he would not qualify or pass the background check to be his own body guard!WAKE UP AMERICA

America, do the right thing and vote against Obama next Tuesday. He is wrong for America in so many ways, such as inexperience, associations with radicals, radicals as mentors, a product of the corrupt Chicago Political Machine, a proven tax and spend liberal and of course his grand plan for redistribution of wealth. In these times of economical turmoil, I like my money with me not with someone else who didn't earn it. Again America, be smart and vote against Obama next Tuesday.

Look, if you Americans reelect McCain and that semi-literate groupie of his, you deserve everything you get. I know that your polls all say Obama's gonna win, and I hope that's right, but you're the fools who not only elected Bush Jr, you went ahead and re-elected him. In between you invaded a sovereign country, drove millions of your own people into poverty and pissed off the entire civilized world. Now even capitalism itself has been screwed up because of you fools.
No, seriously, why is it that about half of you guys and gals think the lunatic right still has any credence at all? God save the world from the US of A.