Sarah Palin is an ignorant, ranting, whining bitch. There I said it. But lots more are thinking it.

Actually, I didn't say it originally, I'm merely quoting it.

I'm more than willing to say it as well, though. For instance:

"Sarah Palin is an ignorant, ranting, whining bitch."

Who has the guts to say this sort of thing publicly? Meet Helen Philpot, one of two women, friends for over sixty years, who is blogging about life and politics. Margaret and Helen's blog may have started out as a way for the two to keep in touch, but it's gained major exposure over the internets through her recent tell-it-like-it-is postings on Palin and McCain.

Just take the titles of some of her posts along with hand-selected (by me) quotes from said blog entries:

Sarah Palin is a Bitch… there I said it.

"She will say anything and avoid answering any question instead choosing to spout whatever line or soundbite some adviser put into her mouth a few hours earlier. And exactly when did sounding like a hick make someone “more like us”. Last time I checked we were a country striving to educate our children to be intelligent and honest. I think I would die if my daughter came home from school and said something like “I gotta tell ya. Change is a comin’.” At the very least I would remove the Beverly Hillbillies from her approved TV viewing list."

and

"She loves to talk about being a mother but the last time I checked, having your newborn on national TV at 11PM instead of in bed wasn’t considered “good muthering“. Neither was making your child’s unexpected teen pregnancy the talk of the nation because you desperately wanted to be a politician in Washington DC - or isn’t that exactly what you said you didn’t want. From where I sit, it appears you would sell your soul for the position."

Yep. I called her a bitch and I am not taking it back.

"I am so surprised at how many of you have come to my little web page blog. People didn’t think I was 82 so I thought maybe you couldn’t see the pictures but then someone called me old and fat so I guess you can...

For those of you calling me names. Shoot. I’m 82 and have been called much worse by much better. Margaret all but called me a communist for posting it in the first place and told me my sailor mouth would get me in trouble! I don’t mind. Besides I started it by calling that fool from Alaska a bitch. Surely you could not have watched that debate without realizing she has no idea what end is up. I remember a girl like that in high school. Her name was Sally and we used to say that she wasn’t right in the head."

Maverick my ass!

"...here is what my heart is telling me. I am 82 years old (83 in December). It’s time to hand the reigns over to the next generation and hope that we did a good job raising them. To Senator McCain I say, with love in my heart, sit down and shut up. You’re beginning to look like an ass and your answers sound like a cross between Barnie Fife and Floyd the Barber. And no matter how many times you start a sentence with “My friends” if you end it with a bunch of stuff that really doesn’t make sense… well eventually someone like me is going to call “bullshit”."

and

"One more thing for Senator McCain before this old bird goes to bed. Ronald Reagan is dead. Let it go."

BUSH-$hi†!

"Hello world. Well where do I begin? I am shocked at the response to my little rants. You sure do know how to make an old gal feel special. Of course there is another woman out there who feels special, but that’s only because she’s been shooting caribou out the window of her Straight Talk Express on the way to her next Republican hillbilly rally.

For crying out loud America. How bad does it have to get? Senator McCain is practically crumbling to dust before our very eyes while Governor Palin is out in the hinterland screeching about some 60’s hippie who bumped into Obama once or twice over the years. This from the woman who panders to secessionists in Alaska. Please, dear God, somebody throw a stone because that glass igloo needs to be shattered!"

The Straight Talk Express Just Drove Off That Bridge to Nowhere

"My hat’s off to McCain for trying to set the record straight about Obama not being an Arab, but what does it say about his judgment that he handed a live microphone to Ma and Pa Kettle in the first place? I mean what truck and tractor pull was cancelled to make room for that stop on the Straight Talk Express?

Look. I called Governor Palin a bitch. Some of you didn’t like that word and I really don’t care. I’ve been around the block a few times. Hell, in dog years I’m already dead so a little word like bitch is hardly cause for concern in my world. But when a crowd starts yelling “terrorist”, “kill him” and “Arab”… well that is entirely different and it’s time the guys driving this Straight Talk Express started using their heads for something other than hat racks. If you watch Palin doing her little performance at those rallies you quickly realize that she is either too stupid to see or just doesn’t care that her dog sled is going down a slippery slope. We can’t put that in the White House. We just can’t."

What strikes me the most about Helen Philpot's writing is that I haven't read anything like it before. Democrats, on the whole, are far too nice, far too polite to write such things. In their effort to be all-inclusive, to listen to and accept all people from all walks of life they become afraid to call something out for what it is.

Not everything wants to play nice. Not everyone wants a happy, sunshiny world where we all can be happy, loved, warm and well-fed. Not everyone wants a fair, level playing field.

Palin and McCain are two such people. They want as much as they can grab as fast as they can grab it. Fueled by eight years of watching Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush White House rake the working class of American over the coals, smothering us with the Constitution until it, too, burst into flames, they have seen what can be done and are eager for their chance to carry on the Bush legacy.

It takes someone like Helen to call them out on it and remind us that we, too, should be calling them out, just as loudly and just as angrily.

...

Be Nice, But Indict

Two weekends ago we did something very out of character for us: we went to a party. Not only was it a party, but it was a party where we didn't know anyone.

My wife found it listed on MoveOn.org's site of parties celebrating the Democratic victories in the mid-term elections. She had orginally asked some other friends to join us but they all backed out at the last minute, so we were left to go on our own.

The party ended up being part MoveOn.org event and part CD Release Party for a local Raleighwood band. All in all, it was an odd, cobbled-together affair with the band playing in the emptied living room of a fashionable, historic area (Boylan Heights) house that was being reburbished.

After the first set the homeowner/keyboardist opened the mic for anyone who wanted to share any thoughts on the elections, the Dems victories or anything they'd done to contribute to the Dem's cause during the election.

A few people got up to speak and it was clear they hadn't been prepared to do so.

The last guy to speak had called several hundred people from the democratic headquarters during the week before the election. He told of how happy people were to hear from someone, how grateful they were to be encouraged to vote and make a difference.

He ended by saying it was now time to put all of the partisan politics behind us, to not "go after" the Republicans but to just move forward.

From the floor, where I was laying, I loudly said, "Be nice, but indict!"

My wife cheered that thought on by saying, "We're not ready to make nice!"

The speaker tried to chide us, saying if we did that we'd never get elected again. He quickly left the mic and sat down. When my wife tried to engage him in a conversation he just as quickly got up and went to the other side of the room where he gathered with some friends and avoided us.

"Be nice, but indict" has become my personal motto for the coming two years in politics. What Bush and the Republicans have done to the Constitution is intolerable. Dems need to (a) work to make corrections to the damage done and (b) make sure that those responsible are exposed and punished so (c) this kind of miscarrage of justice and abuse of powers never occurs again.

I see the Republicans as having acted like little kids who have realized that their parents have left the house for the day. Suddenly they were the ones in charge and they got to set all of the rules -- and so they did. They ran amok, trashed the living room, had a 'fridge-emptying food fight in the kitchen and strung their littlest brother up by his belt from the ceiling fan.

Now that the parents have returned home, there's clean-up to be done and punishment to be doled out so the spoiled brats learn that what they did was not acceptable.

Some people learn because they have the character and sense of self-identity to know what is right and wrong for themselves and others. Some people are too in-it-for-themselves and could care less. They need to be handled accordingly.

(And, yes, I'd be saying the same thing if the parties were switched and the same abuses of power had taken place)

...