Part Two of Three: Know Your Known Knowns.

In Part One we set forth reality as the GTL sees it, and pledged to keep our eyes and hearts open to everyone and all possibilities in this dark political season. In Part Two we take an inventory of our understanding of the basics of the Republican candidates. None of what I say is intended as a character smear or a half-truth. I will gladly debate any and all points contained here with anyone.

Let's review our situation, the "known knowns," as Donald Rumsfeld might call them.

What do we know about John McCain?

We know he won't reverse the Bush Doctrine of invading first, asking questions later.

We know he won't get us out of Iraq but may get us into Iran.

We know he won't end Bush's war on the middle class.

We know he will make the Bush tax cuts permanent even though he once said they favor the rich unfairly and he opposes them.

We know he won't protect women's rights as he once pledged to.

We know he won't reach out to other nations to re-establish moderate diplomacy.

We know his top economic advisors think the economy is fine and we're a nation of whiners.

We know he opposes helping all but a few of those Americans who are losing their homes.

We know he can't remember how many homes his wife's inherited wealth has bought him.

We know he doesn't know how to solve the mortgage crisis.

We know he is very rich, and has done fabulously well under the Republican leadership he claims to not be a part of.

We know his "Drill, Baby, Drill" energy policy is at best a "psychological" fix.

We know it is a disastrous energy policy that will stifle innovation and leave American industry in the dust.

We know global warming does not worry him as much as offending the Religious Right does.

We know he swore to avoid dirty politics then accused his opponent, a fellow U.S. Senator, of being willing to lose a war in order to win an election.

We know he has flip-flopped and embraced the "agents of intolerance" he defied in his last presidential race, in order to get the votes of the religious conservative "base" of the Republican Party.

We know that he opposes the comprehensive Twenty-first Century G.I. Bill that all veterans' groups endorse -- because it was not written by a Republican.

We know his son will not need a G.I. Bill to get his education when he comes home from Iraq.

We know he won't cast the neoconservatives out of power but in fact has come to rely on them more than ever.

We know he is a loyal Republican through and through who voted with President Bush 90% of the time.

We know he has yet to figure out how the Internet works, and email.

We know he has had melanoma several times as well as other health problems that could be exacerbated by stress and that the presidency is a stressful job.

We know he is older than Ronald Reagan was when he took office.

We know that even a vigorous seventy-two-year-old man is past his prime.

We know he said experience was the key issue in the presidential race, then chose an inexperienced running mate because he thought she could help him win the election.

And what do we know abut Sarah Palin?

We know she is proud to be a "pitbull with lipstick."

We know she knows nothing of the world and never thought to even obtain a passport until 2007.

We know she considers herself a foreign-relations expert because the barren, arctic reaches of her enormous state border the barren, arctic regions of Russia.

We know that, although her proximity to the Russians is the source of her foreign policy experience, she has never spoken to a Russian leader, or a Russian governor - or a small-town Russian mayor -- about anything.

We know she has never met a foreign head of state, period.

We know she falsely said she was against the earmarks for the Bridge to Nowhere.

We know that she lobbied hard for the Bridge to Nowhere until embarrassment in the public eye made her back off.

We know her line "I said to Congress, 'no thanks for that Bridge to Nowhere,'" gets roars of approval in all her campaigns speeches.

We know she kept the money.

We know she is aware that abstinence-only sex education does not work but supports it anyway, for religious reasons.

We know she will fill Supreme Court vacancies with far-right justices who will nullify Roe vs. Wade.


We know she needs weeks behind closed doors to prep for questions other leaders can answer easily based on their experience.