With patience and hope, I have watched his ‘rookie’ mistakes:  wavering and waiting on Afghanistan as more Americans perished at the hands of the ‘talibummers’, ignoring our dependence on foreign oil (what about natural gas dude?), passively accepting the ‘gotchas’ by the Chinese, Russian and even Brazilian leaders, staying in the background as congress pussy-footed around until health care reform became a 2,000 page mess, waiting (still) as unemployment soared to completely unmanageable highs (can’t wait for the #’s that come out tomorrow — I look for a gain of 100,000 or so but don’t give much credit to Obama), and . . . well you get the idea.

But sadly I now come down hard on the side of those who believe that obama is the ‘anti-capitalist’, the American Socialist of the 21st century, one mighty big government, income transferring danger to everyone who believe in free markets and freedom of choice.

President Obama right now is a socialist, tried, true and red as can be.

Here is what pushed me over the precipice:  the health care bill . .  and the ’stealth’ student loan provisions that were hidden inside that 2,000 page horror and passed without a whisper from the right.

I am far from alone.  Steve Forbes (April 12 issue of FORBES), “Health insurers will eventually be private in name only, as the details of their policies will be dictated by governmental decrees.  About the only thing companies will have any autonomy over–perhaps–will be their corporate logo.”  And, “President Obama wants higher education in this country to be free of charge, which is why his admin is pushing for a government takeover of student lending.”

This absolutely could lead to complete government control of higher education (think of North Korea here to get the full impact of such an awful thought).

Others are even more condemnatory and I will not repeat the rantings of such as O’Rielly or Beck.  Those guys make Obama seem like a total Boy Scout (with all the merit badges of course).

Oh, how I fear for our country when the left manages (and micro-manages) with no debate with the right.  But, the right is motionless as republicans cower behind an agenda-less fury.  Oh, the dread of democrats in control as President Obama ignores the right.

At his peril, we can only hope.

This is what is happening.  Obama pushed health care reform through with NO republican support.  The victory seems to have made him into the ‘Teflon’ President.  Forget that he has opened more areas to off-shore drilling — with the same sweep of his left-wing pen he also denied drilling in other areas with great potential.

Consider that No, None, Nada, Zip, Zero, government programs have ever come in at or below the original estimates.  Name me one!  You can’t.  Oh, dread the thought.

If Obama gets his way now, those who have worked hard, paid their debts and mortgages, saved, invested and benefited from American opportunities are now going to have to finance the mistakes of the lazy, the indolent, the illegals, and the entitled.  Those who pay are most of you reading this because the others never have to worry about the facts–they get everything they need from the government or MTV!

Have a huge mortgage on you McMansion?  Don’t worry Obama will pay off enough of it to make you whole–with our money.

Got no health insurance?  No problemo Obama will take our money and pay your premiums or your health care costs.

Can’t afford a car or a toaster?  Heck, Obama has a few hundred to $8,000 just to get you in the driver’s seat.  With our money.

Own a big bank that is busted?  Shoot, Obama has $trillions to back your risky bets right or wrong.  Again our money.

Crap — I can’t stand to go on.

Bottom line today?

Obama is a socialist, through and through.

Doesn’t look like he is going to live up to the hype (unless you are a rich hollywood star or a tort lawyer).

There are some of us out there ready to do something about it.  Not those you might think.

Conservative values are not those of the whacky right that think Obama is the ‘Anti-Christ’ or not even born in America.  Conservative values are the exact same values that directed President Lincoln to same the Nation, that made Apple a house-hold name, that developed amazing drugs to help the sick, that put a man on the MOON for crying out loud.  Real people, real work, real hope, real patriotism, real values.

Obama is a good man, I am convinced of that (would love to take him on one-on-one for a few of my political and economic agendas), but he really does have this whole government and economics/social  thing wrong.

We (the good guys above — you know who pay taxes and stuff) have got to start a real movement to get our country back.  No silly ‘tea-party’  or ‘coffee-party’ , we need a genuine ‘Founders Party’ to get us back to where the Constitution, common sense, and a high school education take us.

DO NOT VOTE FOR ANY INCUMBENT!  NEVER!  EVER!  NOT OF ANY STRIPE!

America by and for Americans.  Sounds good (maybe that should be the name of our new party)

‘America for Americans’ — and God Bless Our Great Nation!

thanks to flickr’s doratagold for the photo

“I’m 63 and I’m Tired” 

The Repubs are guaranteeing to make this the #1 issue in this year’s midterm elections.  Some are even proposing to repeal the bill.  Of course, Obama, has struck back with ‘bring it on’ which is scary since weren’t those the exact (or very close) words Bush used when referring to Osama Bin Laden and his rag-tag crew a few years ago?

But at least we, the people, are now getting a chance to look at the bill (several web sites including  Whitehouse.g0v link to copies).

Politics aside this bill is clearly better (at least for 30 million Americans) than nothing . . . and there are some real advantages to what has been passed: no lifetime limits for coverage of serious illness (like the cancer that has struck both the mother and father of a great family we know), and no arbitrary exclusion of coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Great.  And of course as the only developed nation in the world that doesn’t offer health care as a ‘right’ we have just added those 30 million mentioned above to the system so we are a bit closer to the health equity of all other rich nations.

And this is probably a good thing.

Yesterday I was driving home from a doctor’s appointment with my wife when we heard a discussion about that very point on the radio.  She turned to me and said something I had never heard from her before–and believe you me it pressed home the point.

“I remember my Dad telling my Mom with real astonishment a few months after we had emigrated here from Germany, ‘I had no idea that you get no health care in America — you have to pay for it all yourself, either with insurance or out of your own pocket.  The government does nothing.’  They were both worried and the result was that while I grew up my brothers and I  hardly ever saw dentists or doctors because we couldn’t afford to.”

Boy that struck home.  If my 4 kids had not had good insurance while growing up then none of them (nor I) would be around today.

Of course from a social justice point (and to heck with that airhead Glen Beck for ridiculing that term) America should provide health care to those who need it.  How can we have ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ without good health?

BUT . . . on the other hand.  How do we (and believe me it is you and I that will) pay for it??

Big issue and one that the Obama plan practically ignores.

I took a survey and extended it from the one person I polled to the entire nation.  Here is what I found out.

Most Americans would like to see the government provide health care to all . . . they just don’t want to pay for it with more taxes.  What they DO want is to lower the out-of-control inflation of health care costs and the crazy increases in insurance premiums.  Did you know that if health insurance premiums continue at the rate of the last decade then in another decade or two all of our paychecks will go to health insurance?  True.  And that is a scary thought.

Government always over-extends social benefits–and not just the democrats.

Social Security?  The standard employee withholding in 1950 was 0.2% (the amount the government takes out of your wages for you to contribute to S.S.) and today it is 6.2% or a 3100% increase!  Further S.S. is the most expensive government program in the world and America’s biggest federal budget expenditure all while being essentially bankrupt.

Medicare?  Medicaid?  Same kind of thing with even worse funding and cost problems down the raod.  Do your own search but I assure you that what you read will be scary.  And now we add another program that is almost just as bad and will certainly bet worse?

What is going to happen with this new reform?  We know that, at least, in the next ten years it is going to cost about $1 trillion and as our government gets into it and as entitlements increase the costs are going to soar just like other entitlement programs in the past.  That seems to be inevitable human and political nature.

This reform does very little to deal with the most critical issue on the health care horizon:  costs.

America has to find a way to lower cost inflation in health care.  Actual costs have to be lowered while still providing reasonable service.  The bill is silent on the issue.  No interstate competition for insurers (Adam Smith assured us that competition would always drive prices lower), no effort to deal with Tort Reform and limit frivolous law suits (that enrich greedy lawyers who then run for Congress, yech), no legislation that deals with incredible RX costs (ours are much higher than most nations even though a majority of new drugs are developed by U.S. companies), and there are other ways to cut costs too — but Obama failed to address them.

Seems like tax and spend, or spend and tax, all over again.

How the heck are we going to pay for this thing 10 years down the road.  Will the 4% surtax on the wealthy be increased by 3100% and extended to everyone like Social Security funding?  My math shows that is not even possible but the thought is scary enough.

We can’t afford  to have another Social Security system or another Medicare/Medicaid system.  Not without giving up defense programs, the war on terror, and many other federal programs.

Maybe, and it pains me to admit this, the repubs have it right and they should try to repeal this bill and start over by taking health care issues one at a time and do each of them methodically and  right.  I do know that as it stands we surely have moved one step to the left and are closer to European socialism than we have ever been before.

For a free market, true democracy, freedom of choice guy like me this bill smells bad.  Something is rotten in Denmark Washington D.C. and in a few years our Treasury is going to need open heart surgery and a full financial-resucitation all at once!!

Sorry folks, but the truth hurts.

However, reading in The Economist this morning I found out that the ‘authorities’ in Iran had sentenced six people to death.  These six took part in the opposition demonstrations in December as a result of the fraudulent -re-election of President Ahmadenijad.

I don’t know how it is even possible to consider Iran a democracy of any sorts when their leaders sanction such irresponsible and lunatic behavior.  Killing people because they oppose the current  ’nuclear seeking’ regime?  Where is the voice of reason in Iran?

What disturbs me even more is that the sentence is to be carried out for ‘waging war on God.’

That makes me physically sick.

Don’t these Iranian leaders — the supreme of which is also the religious leader Ayotallah Kahmenei — realize that no one accepts them as legitimate?  Outside their tightknit and religiously insane military cabal anyway.  These are the hypocrites  who preach the supremacy of the Qur’an and the teachings of their great prophet Muhammad.  They clearly don’t read their own scriptures or live the prophet’s teachings.

Islam is particularly clear on the issue discussed here.  Let me quote from Surah 2 verse 256 —  ”There is no compulsion in religion.”

How clear is that?

As a bell you bearded nut cases in the fancy houses on the outskirts of Teheran.  You condemn Jews though you know none nor have never studied their history — one that is so closely linked to your own.  You call America the ‘Great Satan’ though you have never visited nor studied our history of religious freedom nor our truly democratic ways.

Having read the Qur’an several times, and in several different translations from the doctrinal Arabic, I realize that there is much therein contained that is easy to misinterpret.  But that one verse partially quoted above is as clear as glass.  No possibility of misinterpreting that.

Yet, Iran’s crazy leaders have publicly stated that they want to wipe Israel off the map, kill all Jews and destroy America (and all the western world to boot).

Let me give you another quote to further indicate how wicked these Iranian leaders are (even within the understanding of their own religion).  This comes from Surah 29 verse 46 (from the official King Fahd edition published in Madina K.S.A. in case you are interested) “argue not with the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) unless it be in a way that is with good words and in good manner . . . except him such of them that do wrong.”

Finally Surah 9 verse 115 “And Allan will never lead a people astray after he has guided them until he makes clear to them as to what they should avoid.”

Pretty simple stuff.  What to avoid?  Forcing ‘Gods’ word or arguing with Jews and Christians.

Right from their Book folks.

These ‘heavies’ in Iran are flat out of their mind.  Certifiable.  Ready for the Psych ward.

So, we have to understand that Iran’s leaders are evil ‘men’ (they have little or no respect for women) with evil intent . . . especially according to their own written scripture and faith.

Can they be trusted.

Not just no, but heck no!

Yet every day they are pushing Iran closer toward nuclear arms.

What does the current administration do?

Nothing that bothers Iran’s leaders in the least.

Oh, sure,  Obama and his motley crew occasionally offer a few words of chastisement but nothing more.

What happened to the vaunted deadline of December 31, 2009 for Iran to ‘come clean’ on their nuclear ambitions?

Nothing.  Dangit.

China and Russia don’t care.  They love to see Iran’s intimidation of the ‘great satan’ and they will never (think of Putin and Wen Jiabao) willingly oppose any nation that creates havoc for Americans.

We are going to have to do something unilaterally (well with some help from a few Europeans and of course Israel).  I don’t think we have a choice . . . though I am not sure exactly what.

From what I do know the majority of Iranians (or Persians as they have been known for millenia) are good people, they want freedom, they want to be part of the 21st century and they don’t want crazy and evil leaders who brazenly kill the opposition to get their own way.

And it can’t be any worse than the fact that they do it in the name of their ‘God.’

I guess I’m ranting now but I hope you are getting this picture.  It ain’t pretty or encouraging folks.

Scary as all get out.

Now that health care is out of the way, I sure hope President Obama turns to Iran (along with unemployment of course).

I hope to have my views on the health care issue solidified in a day or two.  Stay logged on.

In the 2005 election tens of thousands of U.S. military forces ‘guarded’ the nations elections.  Today they rest uneasily in camps far away from city polling stations.  Security now is handled by about 500,000 Iraqi internal security forces.  Still bombs are exploding and grenades fall in the midst of some waiting voters.  Dozens have been killed and many more injured in today’s unjustified violence.  Yet reports indicate that a majority of Iraq’s nearly 20,000,000 voters are risking life and limb to have ‘their’ voice heard in this important election.

This isn’t like any election American’s would find familiar, and not just because of the violence administered by a very small and intolerant/ignorant minority.  Think of more than 62,000 candidates running for 325 parliament seats.  With such numbers it will probably take many months to complete the ‘counts’ and seat a parliament elected by the people.  But the effort is worth it.

I have often called George W. Bush the least competent President in memory.  I still think he will fill pages of history books with tales of his ‘cowboy’ diplomacy and refusal to acknowledge the will of the people . . . likely the worst President ever.  Consider.  More than 4,300 or our neighbors and friends have lost their life in this dry and unwelcoming land.  The financial cost is at or above $1 trillion.  The cost of in terms of America’s loss of international moral superiority could eventually prove to be even higher (Obama must weigh in on this).

Despite all of the above, if Iraq develops into a truly democratic nation that includes the interests of Shia, Sunni and Kurd alike, the eventual toll on our great nation may have been worth it.  That particular social and economic calculation is years from being completed.   America’s Iraq war cost must be measured in the future success of Iraqi democracy and a peaceful and safe Iraq population.

I wonder if once American’s are gone from this country we will be counted as friends or foes?  I wonder if Iraqis will look back on the ten or so years of their horrors during the war and its aftermath as a price well paid.  I wonder if Iraq will rise above the terror and become a nation filled with pride and a desire to be a part of the wider community of free nations?  I wonder if Iraq’s natural resources will be fully developed (some predict that Iraq’s production of oil will go to 10 million barrels/day by 2020 — from the 2 million/day they now have) and used to develop infrastructure that benefits all the people?  I wonder if hospital and schools will replace the thousands of military ‘bases’ that litter the cities and country sides?  I wonder if women will have the same opportunities as men?  Will the majority live in houses with 24/7 electricity and running water?   I really wonder if Iraqis will one day feel both proud and safe?

If the answer to those questions is a resounding yes, say ten years down the road, then I believe we (America and her allies as well as the people of Iraq) will count the heavy price of Iraqi freedom and safety to be worth it.

As this 2nd Iraqi parliamentary election winds down, Americans should remember that it was years after the revolutionary war was won before our constitution and government took its rightful place in history.  We should all hope that Iraq achieves their own greatness in the near future and that this election is a step in that direction.

Today we can only hope.  Tomorrow and the day after, we might be able to help the process along — peacefully.

Thanks to flickr’s cudmore for the photo

Surprisingly there were many good ideas bounced around–none of them new.  Not so surprisingly, there was a lot of acrimony on both sides of the aisle.  Obama had the repubs sitting on his left and the dems on his right, in what I guess was a weird attempt to moderate ideologues.

It didn’t work.  Tort reform was mentioned but the dems effectively took it off the table (how many of them were/are trial lawyers?).  Open insurance competition was also mentioned but didn’t seem to move anyone from their talking points.  And, cost reforms?  Not a chance.  Too difficult for our multi-term elected officials.

If this summit is any evidence of progress or change then we need to start looking for ‘offshore’ medical care.  Even a hospital ship would be better than what might be coming.

The closing statement by Nancy Pelosi was strident and critical of her opponents on the right.  She didn’t even bother to smile while jabbing her California liberal knife right in their conservative chests.

However, I think the real assessment of the summit came from President Obama himself.  In what can only be termed a threat to republican intransigence, Obama made it clear what his plan is.  If no bipartisan work is advanced on the existing healthcare bills in the Senate and the House within 4-6 weeks, then the dems were going to act by getting the House to accept the Senate bill and just allow passage with no amendments.

I suppose the President believes that some kind of bill, no matter how flawed, is better than nothing.

I guess I would have to agree.  The status quo is just not acceptable.  But this??

Was this summit wasted time then?  We will know in a week or two, not the 4-6 the President allowed for.  Either the repubs will provide some concrete suggestion immediately (they already know what they are) and the dems will accept them (negotiations possible). . .  or else.  That will be clear in the next two weeks.

Great television, courageous on the part of Obama (I can’t imagine Bush even thinking about hanging himself out like this), exposed the public (those willing to listen or watch) to the realities of the issues involved.  Thats about it.

I guess I had better start saving now because I am sure my ‘individual’ insurance plan premiums are going to increase shortly–and I am dang sure I won’t like the increase.  More and more of us working Americans are going to be in the same place as time goes on because it is becoming far to expensive for small to medium sized businesses (or any except the big banks) to offer health insurance as a benefit.

Frankly, my biggest worry is that this whole politicized exercise just might end up costing more of us our insurance coverage.  Then we can expect healthcare to be the main issue for the upcoming 2010 and 2012 elections.

Did I tell you NOT to vote (ever) for incumbents?

Thought so.

thanks to flickr’s simminch for the photo

While the accusations that were swirling around are serious, much of what is currently happening is pure political theater.

As an example take the Congressmen from Kentucky.  I don’t remember his name and it is not important, but his district is.  A district that is the North American headquarters for Toyota’s operations.  A district with thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of voters who either work directly for, or owe their job to the Toyota factory there.

While other Congressmen complained and threatened, this particular one spent his entire 5 minutes (the time alloted to each committee member) reading a lengthy document praising Toyota, their history, job creation impact and products (all more blatant than any SuperBowl ads).  It was such an obvious and ridiculous statement that all that Mr. Toyoda (I guess when they started doing business here they figured we couldn’t pronounce the name with a ‘D’) could do at then end was stare wide-eyed.

Politics.  The very word is beginning to disgust Americans.  Sure Toyota may have come culpability here but a recent study showed that the # of complaints by Toyota owners is substantially lower (per 100,000 vehicles) than for other major makers (including GM and Ford).

Nothing like a little product scare to bring out the thespians in congress.

Yet, tomorrow is an even greater stage.  Obama’s broadcast of open and honest ‘negotiations’ by democrats and republicans on the health care issue.  I suspect that this will turn into political theater too, but it would be nice if the Repubs would actually bring some legitimate ideas to the table (tort reform, true interstate competition) and then the dems would actually listen.

Don’t hold your breath . . . I think this issue is DOA.

I drive a Toyota and I am a lot more worried about what our legislators are going to do than I am about crashing into a telephone pole while behind the wheel of my wife’s Avalon.  I figure I will die a lot sooner from lack of decent and affordable health care if they don’t act.  So yeah I am worried.

You should be too.

Did I mention term limits?

Thanks to flickr’s hryck for the photo

Need I go further?  Apparently so, as our leaders in Washington seem to share the opinion that in all cases regarding re-election increasing debt is an okay thing.

Hence, to help get re-elected the majority democratic House increased the ‘legal’ debt limit of our wonderful nation to $14.2 trillion.  And then Obama signed the new ‘legal’ debt limit into law.  That was the easy thing to do.  The hard thing?  Balance the freakin’ budget you knuckleheads!!

What does the new debt ceiling accomplish?

For one thing the democrats in Washington (the ‘never met a government transfer payment too large or too extravagant to pass’ democrats) now have clear sailing to spend about $1.5 trillion MORE than they already have.  And, if history is any indicator, they will spend it fast and furiously with no consideration for the long-term consequences or their misguided selfish and ’socialist’ tendencies.

As I have said many times in the past, I am neither democrat nor republican (though I clearly lean toward the conservative side of nearly all fiscal issues).  Yet, when I see gross incompetence and even grosser ignorance I do not hesitate to call a spade a spade.

Therefor here I go.

The democrat majority in the House and the Senate, with a little ‘egging on’ from the democrat White House, are on a spend and expand (as in government) spree the likes of which we have never seen.

Nearly everyone in D.C. agrees that the current recession is either out or on its way.  Yet Demo’s are hustling through the House yet another stimulus.  And, as evidence that the public is rejecting their already extravagant spending, they insist on adding more $$ to pretend to create jobs and to do so without consulting (read ‘listen to’) their cohorts on the right.  This has nothing to do with really creating employment since any results would be many months (here read ‘after the coming election’) from being proven.  They are doing it just for show and for votes.

I hope the American people see through this sham.  Brought to you by the same people that promised unemployment of 8% or less if the $758 Billion stimulus bill was passed (it is at or near 10% now).

So who are we to trust?  Not the republicans, sadly, those guys brought a tripling and quadrupling of our deficit during the Bush years.  Fiscal conservatives? Hardly!

We must all recognize that our debt really does matter.  China owns a chunk of it.  So does Saudi Arabia.  Does anyone in their right mind think those dudes are our ‘freinds’?  Hardly!  What if the bank that owned your mortgage hated your guts . . . do you think for a second that they would ‘work’ it out with you?

On top of that is the cost of servicing any debt we ‘bear’ in that burden.  At current interest rates that cost is normatively low . . . but who expects interest rates to remain at all-time record lows?  No one outside of the Washington beltway.  Debt service could soon be HUGE!

You and I can’t operate our lives at a deficit — not for long anyway.  Cities and counties can’t either.  Most states can’t by law (even with Arnold the ‘Gobernator’  at the helm).

So how can the federal government?

Because of war goes the historical party line.

Yet the costs of the ‘wars’ we are in now are only a small part of our federal budget.   Don’t buy that old argument today.  We always have high defense costs and the incremental costs of the current  ’wars’ are really small overall — even though in the tens of billions of $$.   The federal budget for next year is over $3.5 trillion  and annual ‘war’ costs are less than 3% of that.

Government spending is totally OUT OF CONTROL.

We can’t continue with the current debt burden.  Politicians aren’t going to do anything but talk and ignore the problem.  They are ‘professionals’ after all . . . too smart to listen to you and I.

Solutions?  Get citizen politicians to serve for one or two terms.  Let them handle the purse strings like they would their own.  Tight and conservative.

Economics is too often about politics.  The vice-versa isn’t necessarily true.

Vote against ALL incumbents and for citizen leaders willing to serve for ONLY a few years.

I bet you that if we all do this the whole ‘burden’ issue will be moot in a decade.

And if you don’t think your voice can be heard then you are wrong.

United we stand . . .  divided we fall (and the fall would be much greater than any you ever heard of in the stock markets).

thanks to flickr’s azrainman for the photo

Health care?  Say what?

Jobs? Huh?

Debt management?  Oh come on, we are talking about  Washington.

I heard someone jokingly mention the above headline as if it were real.  Yikes.

There is a lot to do in order to move our nation along.  The democratic majority has been demoralized by a single special election.  Who are these smidgeons anyway?

Reid?  Gone fishin.  Pelosi? Hiding under a basket of wash.

No leadership from the White House either.  Appears Obama is already out on the campaign trail for 2012.  Flying here and there with an upbeat message . . . but not even  focusing on getting the things done that he promised on the ‘last’ campaign trail.

We still need universal health care–something that works for everyone and costs less. Hey, dems, swallow your dangburn pride and take another look at the repubs suggestions on tort reform (I don’t care how many of your are lawyers — you are working for the people now).  Then sit down and give serious thought to making health insurance available nation wide on the same networks available regionally or statewide now.  Finally, spend all the money the health care lobbyists gave you on watching Avatar a few hundred time, because then you can forget them and do something about helping to stop the rising costs of prescription medicines.

And you knucklehead republicans can forget saying ‘no’ to everything.  We, the people, see through your tawdry machinations.  Heck, in the past year you have even fought against things you originally proposed . . . just to make the party on the other side of the aisle look helpless.

And, voters, I remind you that the real control is in our hands.  So, stop the Washington mishmash and force our elected officials to take real action.  Vote ALL incumbents out of office and let them know now so that they will stop legislating for themselves  and think about us.

I love America . . . it has been great to me, and I thank my great-great-grandfather for leaving a freeheld farm in Norway to come here with not much more that the clothes on his back.  I wonder how many of us could do something like that today.

We have a lot going for us but we have got to make our voices heard.

I hope Obama, Reid, Pelosi and everyone else in D.C. come to the realization that the time for change in the way government practices their once honorable profession is now.

God Bless America and full speed ahead!!!  The race has just begun.

Thanks to flickr’s mcamcamca for the photo

Saturday night was her biggest moment yet.  She was the ‘keynote’ speaker for a potential third-party gathering in Nashville (The Tea Party movement).  The message was all any of the paying customers there (a couple of hundred bucks each I understand) could have hoped for.

Cheers and jeers.  Cheers for her digs at the Obama administration and jeers for the lack of meaningful response she gave to the question of whether she intended to run in 2012.  That is just a sampling.

Sure enough she is a big star with the ultra-conservative right wing voters.  The kind of rising star that Barack Obama was three years ago (absent of course any meaningful legislative experience) with far-left liberals.

How big of a star?  Well, Sarah is now the type that can demand, and get, $100,000 for the one hour speech (and Q&A) she provided. That, my folks, is a whole LOT more that minimum wage!

Lots of good theater Saturday night,  too.  For example, pointing out the government’s supposed blunder with the latest ‘underwear’ airline bomber — giving him the rights we as citizens are entitled to.  I suppose she hadn’t heard yet that the A.G.’s approach of ‘Mirandizing’ him and bringing his family to the United States to appeal to him had led to huge dividends. A virtual download of credible intelligence.   That of course the opposite of the “treat him as a war criminal” approach she advocated.

Pretty, former Miss Wasilla, Sarah proved one thing to me: she is at least as good as some of the media favorites like O’Rielly, Beck, Maddow and Olberman. But NOT a bit smarter.

But, she did not change my opinion that she lacks the experience and basic common sense (which, by the way, can only come with adequate background knowledge — which she clearly lacks) to deal effectively with issues such as International affairs, domestic and international Economics, Defense of the homeland, and two wars on foreign soil.  Plus, she has a heck of a time reading from her own notes (while criticizing Obama’s addiction to teleprompters).

I have, in this very arena, noted that almost any average citizen could function at least as well as some of the ‘eggheads’ back in Washington.  It is true too.  Except for one caveat: those average citizens have to possess a basic knowledge of what is going on around us.

Sarah Palin does not.

I hope she limits her public service to blathering on the airwaves just like the aforementioned talk-show wonders.  I am convinced that know reasonable person puts much credence in their ideological blather.

One thing I know for absolute certain:  President Sarah Palin only works for me if it has reference to the local PTA.

Thanks to flickr’s chilinsuch1818 for the photo