In his post Not Ready Josh Marshall calls McCain's foreign policy towards Russia "unhinged" and points out that the Obama-Biden policy of admitting Georgia to NATO is a very bad idea.

In view of the pogroms, the Red Terror, Lenin and Stalin's forced famines including that on the Ukraine; Stalin's various purges; Stalin's "collectivization" cleansings; the Cold War proxy insurgencies, wars, coups and covert killings, I cannot share your confidence in the regime dictated by Prime Minister Putin to be an equal rights enforcer among ethnicities under former USSR domination. I can't see it as anything other than what Putin intended all along: a leaner, meaner USSR.

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The notion that Democrats have not become the monster to compete with the monster, that is, telling lies or half truths or out of context propaganda, is false. Yes they have.

Sarah Palin does not run the McCain campaign. Professional political campaign staff do. They're in the same region of politics as 527s and one-sided bloggers. And they're on both sides.

The unsubstantiated and out of context lies (the more subtle the more insidious) about Sarah Palin, and, the attacks on her family justified by her family appearing with her (Obama's family was onstage at the DN convention too) are uncivilized, illiberal, ungentlemanly, graceless and fraudulent.

No article by Josh here has mentioned the many violent threat allegations and their truth or falsehood regarding the Trooper Wooten. Or the fact that the guy tasered his 10 year old. Were you aware of that? Here's a detailed article about the man who was apparently the source of the fear, by Anchorage Daily News:

http://www.adn.com/politics/story/476430.html

Put yourself in the Palin's shoes regarding the threats, the fear for her father and family members. Or God forbid, let Josh do the same. What would you do? You know that restraining orders don't work if someone's determined. You know that police agencies often cover for their own. The investigation stalls. What then?

My sense of this is that it is at least just as possible for there to be an intra-agency coverup or soft-discipline for a trooper as there is to be some kind of bona fide scandal in which the Palins are just trying to be "mean."

There's more to this I'll put in another post. I just don't understand the incompleteness of Josh's posts regarding the essential contextual circumstances of Palin's brother-in-law's profile.

Police officers have shot down personal adversaries all across the country after blowing their tops. It's not at all unheard of. Domestic violence also.

Wooten was divorced 4 times. Where is the investigation by the crack Muckraker team into those past divorces and whether there was violence? What about the whole truth?

Fraudulent gotcha journalism. Definitely creating a false light situation.

Governor Palin tells Charlie Gibson what every leader of the 20th Century said or implied in so many ways to keep the deterrence edge, not just within the MAD doctrine on the nuclear level, but as to conventional preludes to escalation.

He mocks Palin for using the word "perhaps," in response to a gotcha question as to whether war with Russia (presumably conventional) would be warranted to protect a fellow member of NATO (presuming Georgia's bid goes through). He minimizes Georgia's importance but conveniently doesn't say anything about Ukraine or East Germany or Poland. In other words, he is assuming we ought to have a policy of appeasement and not leave the reloaded USSR guessing.

Josh, you're in too great a rush to hit Palin and you're not thinking it through. Maybe straight journalism and not muckraking would be a better approach.

As every story coming out of TPM and TPMCafe has been one attempted gotcha story or investigation after another of Governor Sarah Palin, I decided to post the following interview link for balance.

http://vodpod.com/watch/992089-sarah-palin-february-2008-live-c-span-interview-1-of-1

The recording from earlier this year suggests that Palin will do fine in interviews, Q&A and debates. It shows a grasp of Alaska's issues at the time. It begs the question of why she won't engage interviewers and reporters openly.

Her silence may be on legal advice. It is savvy to protect herself from having to answer questions that may affect her legal liability in Alaska while campaigning for Senator McCain.

Her side of the story hasn't even been told, to include her reasons for her past statements.

Absent counsel, it would only waste time for her to take questions about her actions as a governor related to Commissioner Monegan and Trooper Wooten. She'd be crazy to answer without the aid of counsel. She needs time to understand the legal implications of answering legally charged questions. (And paying for counsel to accompany her on the trail is impossible.) There are many with a motive to destroy her candidacy in the first place.

It takes time to recollect the facts and sequences from busy times for anyone, and that's hard to do campaigning on the fly. So I don't buy it that she "must" be lying until I hear her side.

She also has to consider her duty to John McCain.
She can't be a good VP running mate and concentrate on her own legal affairs while helping McCain.

If Barack Obama had received the same treatment as Palin has here at TPMCafe, there wouldn't be any qualified candidates left if TPM had anything to say about it. Gotcha investigations can draw elections off the issues and into petty red herring chases, and it remains to be seen whether after the Alaska investigation of Monegan's case it will stand as an issue for national ticket voters to consider.

Here is Governor Palin answering questions about a wide range of issues in Alaska. I think this February 2008 interview is a better indicator of the woman as Governor of Alaska.

It shows her grasp of issues facing Alaska; her ability to communicate her positions while discussing the issues; and her preparedness.

If Mr. Sargent is correct that Senator Barack Obama plans to tread lightly regarding Governor Palin and stay focused on McCain, I believe there is a better way in terms of an express policy change that will take voters from GOP ranks and unify them with the new Democratic Party.

If Senator Obama renounced abortion as birth control and partial birth abortion as terrible evils, announced specific measures for de facto reducing them to NIL without criminalizing moms, and linked this healing balm to the eradication of mercenary oil wars (per Greenspan's admission about Iraq invasion's purpose)
there would be a great sway to the Democratic Party that would commandeer Sarah Palin's value to the McCain campaign for many social conservatives seeking a candidate consistent in their policy for life.

"What do you talk about when you can't explain the last eight years of failure? (pause) The other guy!"

Senator Biden was talking about the RNC speeches in which Obama's experience was mocked as lightweight, to include most notably Rudy Giuliani's speech scoffing at Obama's resume.

Yet both Senator Obama and Senator Biden talked about the "other guy," Senator McCain during the DNC in Denver, to include comments about his military experiences being laudable but not necessarily relevant to being president. Was that not also a belittling of McCain's experience relative to the Presidency?

Belittled: military veteran / war hero vs. community organizer.

"What do you talk about?"

It seems that the fact that Obama-Biden et al didn't attack Gov. Sarah Palin during their convention by belittling her experience probably had something to do with McCain suspending his pick to deprive them of the opportunity.

Yet look at TPM's emphasis these last weeks. I don't mean the Cafe. I mean TPM. Who are they talking about? Gov. Sarah Palin and what she is, did or didn't do. What is being discussed there is why "Sarah Palin is a bad person."

Well Senator Biden said that the GOP did this in its convention...say in so many ways that "Obama is a bad guy.." and asserted that this was because they had nothing to talk about. Yet TPM seems to focus on "the other guy," even while linking to a YouTube replay of Biden's post-RNC speech "What do you talk about?"

So "what do you talk about" when you can't explain Senator Biden's vote for the Iraq war versus Senator Obama's vote against the Iraq war? One (Biden) was fooled by the foreign policy move but the other (Obama) wasn't? Yet Obama named Biden VP nominee because Biden was supposed to have more the FP experience Obama didn't?

TPM talks about John McCain's war and POW veteran status as if it were all he offered, and belittle it in relation to the Presidency. TPM talks about the other guy too.

This is the partisan way, otherwise, equal scrutiny with the same cynicism on Senator Obama and Senator Biden and their personal lives would be present on TPM.

It is by partisan automatic fire that the issues get lost.