Frugal Sarah

"Oh, if only people knew how frugal we are." Yes, Sarah Palin said that--last Thursday, in the wake of a barrage of publicity over her recent shopping sprees.

(Yes, appearance pressure is much stronger on women than men--a huge double standard. CNN's Campbell Brown has pointed out that if she wears a "bad outfit" on the air, she gets a whole lot of critical email. She's right that nobody would notice if Wolf Blitzer appeared on screen without makeup or wearing a "not so great tie.")

Sure, Barack Obama has $1500 suits. But we are talking here about a campaign that brands Obama as an elitist while Sarah Palin depicts herself as a "regular hockey mom." And now she says she is frugal.

Well, it took only two months for regular hockey mom's grand old party to dish out $150,000 for her and her family's appearance. Some details:

* $75,062 for a shopping spree (apparently by aides) at Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis
* $49,425 at Saks Fifth Avenue
* $4,902 at fancy men's store Atelier

The campaign says the clothing will go to a "charitable purpose." So watch your local thrift store for some really different stuff appearing on shelves and racks in late January, 2009.

Oh, by the way, Sarah Palin's makeup artist was paid more than $20,000 for the first two weeks in October.

Are you paying attention, hockey moms out there? How about you, Joe Six-pack? Hey, Joe the Plumber, have you noticed? I don't see how this version of frugality can be spelled any other way than h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y.

Thank you, Colin Powell

Since Colin Powell's February 5, 2003, UN speech and slideshow that "made the case" for attacking Iraq, I have been angry with him. When this eminent Republican announced yesterday that he was going to vote for Barack Obama, I believe that he substantially redeemed himself.

The retired Army General and former National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State spoke at length on MSNBC's Meet The Press about why he was choosing Obama and why an Obama victory "would not just electrify our country, it would electrify the world."

He also said something we should have heard from high places a long time ago:

"I'm also troubled by...what members of the [Republican] Party say... such things as 'Well, you know that Mr Obama is a Muslim'.

"Well the correct answer is, 'He's not a Muslim, he's a Christian, he's always been a Christian'.

"But the really right answer is, "What if he is?' Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is 'No', that's not America."

Thank you, Mr. Powell. Very much indeed.

Looking afar

With relatively little being said about Iraq lately in the presidential campaign, i suspect the average American is not thinking much about how Bush's deadly boondoggle continues to simmer.

The Iraqi government's Shia majority is shying away from a supposedly imminent pact, months in the making, that would allow US troops to stay in Iraqi cities until next year and in the country itself until 2011. Iraqi Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr (presently giving orders from a site in Iran) is calling for immediate withdrawal. Yesterday some 50,000 of his followers marched loudly through the streets of Baghdad.

At the same time, the strength of al-Qaeda is growing in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city of almost two million people. There Sunni insurgents have this month driven hundreds of Christian families--over 8,300 people--out of the city. Last week they murdered 12 Christians there. (About a third of Iraq's estimated 800,000 Christians have fled Iraq since the Bush invasion in 2003.)

There are still about 144,000 US troops in Iraq. As of last Thursday, 4,185 US troops had been killed. It is estimated that over 100,000 have been wounded. The group Just Foreign Policy estimates the war has caused some 1,273,000 Iraqi deaths.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan (which is only 750 miles from Iraq), 613 US troops and 380 coalition troops have already been killed. (Note that less coalition troops have been killed in Iraq--314 of them.) David Richards, the British general who commands 32,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, says that, lacking increased reconstruction work, 70 percent of Afghans could end up backing the Taliban. A huge reason the Taliban are on the rise is that they are now being financed by $3 billion a year in drug profits.

As frightening as the present economic crisis is for all Americans, we had better not stop looking at those faraway places. After eight years of blind recklessness in the White House, we the people cannot wait any longer to demand wisdom.

Stoking the fires of hate

The McCain camp has gone beyond ugly, beyond filthy, in its desperation to defeat Barack Obama on November 4. Lifelong civil rights activist and longtime congressman John Lewis says they are "now sowing hatred" and that "Senator McCain and Governor Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all."

Just look at the constant barrage of the past week. TV news footage has repeatedly shown us McCain-Palin crowds fired up to a frightening point. Obama is painted as different, as foreign, as not one of "us" - and as the pal of terrorists. At the podium, his full name is pronounced with pointed emphasis on his middle name Hussein. (In this land now suffering from a widespread streak of prejudice against all Arabs and Muslims,13% of voters still believe Obama is a Muslim.) News watchers who listen carefully to the uproar of a fired-up rally can hear cries of "terrorist" and "kill him."

John Lewis knows well of what he speaks. As a Freedom Rider in 1961, he was beaten bloody by a racist mob. On March 7, 1965, he was at the front of about 600 non-violent marchers setting out from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital, Montgomery. They barely got as far Selma's Pettus Bridge, when state and local police attacked them with clubs and tear gas. Lewis still bears visible head scars from the beating he got that day.

It has been glorious progress that has brought us to the day when a black man is the front-running candidate for the presidency. But the cancer of racism and discrimination still runs deep in many places in America. Feeding the flames so that McCain and Palin can win is downright evil. As Lewis says, that fire could consume us all.

Four more weeks of this?

McCain and Palin (or should I say Palin and McCain?) must be deep in the pit of despair. Obama is moving solidly ahead in electoral votes. McCain must be huffing and puffing from all his jumping from one side to the other on primary issues. Palin avoided putting both feet in her mouth in the Biden debate (where she wowed millions with her well-memorized talking points and those winks and smiles that distracted from her evasion of the more difficult questions) only to find that she hasn't gained ground beyond the blindly-faithful "base."

So now the Dysfunctional Duo seems to be abandoning debate about Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan and even the global economic meltdown, as they dance their way to the point of totally absurdity. They whine that Obama has achieved nothing. Their surrogates, like today's uniformed South Florida sheriff loudly putting down Barack HUSSEIN Obama, imply that he is connected to Middle Eastern fanatics. (Hussein was his grandfather's name; it is an ancient Semitic word that means "blessing.")

Then today, sweet Sarah reached rock bottom with her proclamation that Obama is the buddy of a domestic terrorist.

How many times can they say "Obama" and "terrorist" in the same paragraph in the 28 days remaining before the election?

It going to be a very nauseous month.