It’s now confirmed that John McCain has picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Here’s her bio on wikipedia.

This was a smart pick on a number of levels. It shows the McCain camp has been listening to conservatives. Palin is a strong conservative candidate. She’s a reformer who even took on some in her own party and cleaned up governement in Alaska. She’s a member of the NRA and pro-life. She supports drilling in ANWR and she’s a tax reformer.

It exploits the opportunity created by Democrats in their snubbing of Hillary Clinton. A side benefit might be that while she’s a great public speaker and will hold her own in the debates, you’ll see a big contrast between her and bitter Biden. If he attacks too hard, it could cost him points with female voters.

She’s also a Washington outsider. If people are looking for hope and change from the status quo of Washington, D.C., she brings more credibility than either of the insiders on the Democrat ticket.

It also takes some of the hype off of the Messiah’s campaign in that this election will be historic if either side wins now. The timing of the announcement is great, too. Coverage of the pick is overshadowing the MSM’s lovefest for Obama in some respects. (Though they’re trying hard not to let “news” get in the way of their salivation over The One.)

It also brings youth to the ticket. Of course, CNN is already claiming she’s too inexperienced… which is wildly amusing considering the “experience” of their candidate of choice. But consider this… of the 4 principles on the two main party tickets, she’s the only one with executive experience.

Good job, McCain campaign.

UPDATE: So let’s think about this. While the Democrat Convention seemed to focus so much on women’s rights and breaking glass ceilings… which party has a woman on the ticket? HotAir has a good roundup of the benefits of the Palin choice.

UPDATE 2: Once again showing that they’re long on talk and catchy slogans and short on substance when it comes to treating women with equality, the next Democrat talking point, as promoted by CNN, is that by running for V.P., Palin’s neglecting her son, Trig, who was born with Down’s Syndrome. Of course, if she were a Democrat, they’d be praising her “progressiveness” and running supporting stories of how her disabled son serves as an inspiration for her political career. Sorry, sweetie.

While Democrats are ridiculing and mocking John McCain for having been a POW while serving our country honorably, here’s what John McCain is saying about his opponent:

Another shining example of the differences in this election… class versus no-class.

Here is the ad that the Obama campaign is trying to suppress. They’ve even asked the Justice Department to investigate the organization behind the ad.

It’s interesting to see the Obama camp respond so aggressively, thus keeping the ad in front of the American public even longer.

So why would the campaign fight so hard to keep the American people from seeing it? Because it’s true…

[William Ayers] and Obama live in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood and served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that develops community groups to help the poor. Obama left the board in December 2002.

Obama also was the first chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform group of which Ayers was a founder. Ayers also held a meet-the-candidate event at his home for Obama when Obama first ran for office in the mid-1990s.

Obama’s response?

“With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the 60s, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers. McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers’ crimes, committed when Obama was just 8 years old.”

Maybe because it’s relevant to the character and judgement of a man trying to become the President of the United States that his friends have declared war on the United States and have engaged in bombings of government buildings on our homeland.

But Obama claims he “denounced” the “crimes”. Great, so after acknowledging Ayers’ undisputed terrorist acts, Obama continued to work with him on various boards and was such a close friend he launched his political career from Ayers’ living room. I mean, it’s not like Ayers committed these terrorist acts after Obama had worked with him, thereby giving Obama a pass on having known what Ayers was all about. Obama knowingly befriended him and worked closely with him well after Ayers’ terrorist acts had been committed and were well known to the public.

If you want to put some context around this issue, imagine what would happen if John McCain had befriended, served on several boards with, and launched his political career from the living room of… Timothy McVeigh.

It’s the kind of change we don’t need.

Democrat Charlie Wilson (yep, that one) was ranting at a Dallas anti-war rally Monday when he uttered a Texas-sized freudian slip:

The former Texas congressman said the U.S. should have kept its focus on Afghanistan and never gone into Iraq… “We should be led by Osama bin Laden,” he said, then quickly corrected himself. “I mean Obama and Biden.”

Perhaps a new bumper sticker is in order: “Obama bin Biden 2008″

Hot Air special correspondent Jason Mattera is undercover at the Democrat convention in Denver and interviewed some of the protestors. I watched the video to find out what liberals think about certain issues… and to be honest, I still don’t know what the hell they think. They seem to be a collection of crazy-dressing, slogan chanting idiots who just repeat lines they’ve heard somewhere but aren’t quite sure why they support them.

More leftwing weirdness here for your amusement: People’s Press Collective

Remember… if you don’t vote, these people will be electing your leaders.

Another big storm, another Democrat making use of taxpayer resources to protect her own private property.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Some are questioning whether a top city leader showed favoritism when he ordered crews to help a “single woman” cope during the storm. That single woman was U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D- Jacksonville.

During the height of Tropical Storm Fay, when many Jacksonville residents were trying to keep rising water out of their homes or dealing with fallen trees and power lines, the city sent a public works crew to put sandbags around the Brown’s home along the Trout River.
…
Neighbor Joe Deloach lives one door down from Brown and he too has rising waters flooding the foundation of his home. He said when he saw the city with prisoners sandbagging the congresswoman’s home, he naturally asked for the same help but didn’t get the same response.

“I’m glad she got help to save her house. I’m not mad at that. I’m upset that the same people wouldn’t help me and they denied it was going on,” Deloach said. “I had prisoners laughing at me when I approached them about it. They knew what was going on. It was hilarious to them.”

Reminds me of another storm and another Democrat.

Amid the chaos and confusion that engulfed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck, a congressman used National Guard troops to check on his property and rescue his personal belongings — even while New Orleans residents were trying to get rescued from rooftops, ABC News has learned.

On Sept. 2 — five days after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast — Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., who represents New Orleans and is a senior member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, was allowed through the military blockades set up around the city to reach the Superdome, where thousands of evacuees had been taken.

Remember this the next time Democrats ask you to pay more taxes.

There’s not much difference between an elected official using taxpayer resources to protect personal property (when it’s obvious the same resources are not available to the rest of the general public) and an official using his or her office to gain special favors and kickbacks from contractors.

It’s corruption, plain and simple. But then again, that’s the Democrat way.

In an effort to show that Barack Obama wants to change Washington, D.C. from being run by old, white D.C. insiders, he announced yesterday that he was selecting an old, white, D.C. insider as his running mate.

And what does the old, white, D.C. insider think of Barack Obama for President?

Transcript:

Stephanopoulos, to Biden: “You were asked: ‘Is [Barack Obama] ready?’ You said, ‘I think he can be ready, but right now I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.’”

Biden: “I think I stand by the statement.”

If his own running mate doesn’t think he’s ready or has the experience, why should the voters?

The best that Obama’s running mate can muster to say about him is that he’s the first “clean” black candidate. That ought to win over some swing voters.

But don’t worry. Biden wasn’t just targeting Obama with the “clean” comment… apparently he’s an equal opportunity racist. (Though the NY Times now thinks being a racist is a “strength” - I kid you not)

In case their efforts to throw out the votes of the military aren’t successful this year, Democrats are working overtime to secure votes of another constituency… a constituency they’re more aligned with anyway.

“You’re eligible to vote now, Mr. Pompey,” Mitchell said, calmly relaying the news. “Can I bring you a voter-registration card?”

Pompey whispered, “Lord, you was listening.”

Mitchell smiled — he had gotten another felon back on the rolls.

Mitchell is a leader of a disparate group of grass-roots Democrats and civil rights activists who are trying to register tens of thousands of newly eligible felons. They have taken up the cause on their own, motivated by the belief that former offenders have been unfairly disenfranchised for decades.

It speaks volumes that they put so much effort into getting convicted felons to vote while simultaneously opposing legislation that would protect the integrity of the electoral process.

But who better for the Democrats to court than those who are used to lying, cheating and stealing from productive members of society? Next they’ll probably be asking murderers to vote twice… once for themselves and once for their victims.

In a move sure to ease the minds of Americans who are concerned that Barack Obama lacks experience when it comes to things like foreign policy, The One has added an impressive leader to his list of advisors.

George Clooney once famously declared he could never run for public office because he’d ‘slept with too many women, done too many drugs and been to too many parties’.
…
But now the Hollywood heart-throb has entered the political arena at
the highest level – by becoming an unofficial adviser to US Presidential front-runner Barack Obama.

Oscar-winner Clooney, 47, is said to be helping the Democratic candidate to polish his image at home and abroad.

But he is also sharing with Obama his strong opinions on Iraq and the Middle East.
…
But Democratic Party insiders have revealed that Clooney and Obama regularly send texts and emails to each other and speak by phone at least twice a week.

And why not? Afterall, this tough new advisor has “experience” dealing with such important topics like the Middle East, Healthcare, the Environment, and Crime.

The star has never tried to hide his liberal views and last week announced he is making a £15million film about the lawyer who defended Osama Bin Laden’s former driver, Salim Hamdan, on terror charges.

Lights… Camera… Death to America!

That ought to be the DNC’s new slogan. It seems to apply to pretty much every candidate they ever put forward. This time, however, it’s the “son of a mill worker” and Obama’s potential Attorney General pick who cheated on his wife while she battled cancer. Nice touch, Silky. (See Update 2, apparently John was counting the days until the her cancer made him an eligible bachelor again)

John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.

In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter…

Not only is this an indictment on the moral character of the Democrats’ choice for VP in 2004, but it’s yet another indictment on the MSM, who refused to touch this story for almost a year. It says a lot when the National Enquirer has more credibility than traditional media. Was it just biased journalism or was there a coverup extending into the MSM?

Sure, Democrats will spin this as nothing more than sex between consenting adults. They don’t have the capacity to understand moral character, so it will be fairly easy to dismiss this as a non-event as they’ve done in the past.

But the questions are mounting. If he lied repeatedly on the campaign trail about this, what else did he do to cover it up? Was Hunter paid to deny the allegations? Did he know about payments made to Hunter? Were campaign funds used? (See Update 3 for more on this question) Is Andrew Young part of a coverup claiming to be the father of the child? If the affair ended as long ago as Edwards claims it did, and he’s not the child’s father… what was he doing secretly meeting with Hunter in a Hollywood hotel until the early morning hours last week?

Finally, I think John Edwards, the 2004 Democrat VP nominee and 2008 Democrat Presidential Candidate sums up why this story is worthy of publicity…

I think every single candidate for president, Republican and Democratic have lives, personal lives, that indicate something about what kind of human being they are. And I think it is a fair evaluation for America to engage in to look at what kind of human beings each of us are, and what kind of president we’d make

Consider the evaluation complete, Silky.

Maybe this is what he meant by “Two Americas“… one for each of his families.

UPDATE: HotAir has a good roundup, including the press as “victims”, fellow Democrats as “victims”… it’s always about the victim mentality for Democrats.

UPDATE 2: Well, isn’t that sweet? In March, 2007, the Edwards campaign announced that Elizabeth Edwards’ cancer had returned and was incurable. A few months later, the New York Post published this interesting question:

WHICH political candidate enjoys visiting New York because he has a girlfriend who lives downtown? The pol tells her he’ll marry her when his current wife is out of the picture.

I guess we now know the answer to “which political candidate”. I’ll let you figure out what he meant by “out of the picture”…

UPDATE 3: About that hush money. Fred Baron, a renowned Texas trial lawyer who evolved into one of the Democratic Party’s key fund-raisers and chairman of Edwards’ 2004 and 2008 finance committee, admitted making payments to Hunter. He claims Edwards didn’t know about the payment. Is he that big of an idiot, or does he think we are?

But the payments raise questions about money paid to Hunter through Edwards’ political action committee.

Edwards and Hunter first met during the winter of 2006 in a New York bar, according to published reports.

Hunter’s film company, Midline Groove Productions, was incorporated in Delaware on June 30, 2006, according to business records.

In a four-month span, Edwards’ political action committee paid $100,000 to Hunter’s newly formed video production company for four Web videos. That was followed by two smaller payments totaling $14,461 from Edwards’ PAC, the last one coming on April 1, 2007.

It was unclear why the campaign stopped contributing to Midline.

And about Andrew Young, the campaign aide who claims to be the father of Edwards’ mistress’s child:

[Hunter] and Andrew Young, who claims to be the father of her baby, worked under Baron during Edwards’ campaign.

Young was described by acquaintances as an unassuming family man from North Carolina who developed a loyalty to Edwards over the years.

Late last year, amid tabloid reports that Edwards had fathered Hunter’s child, Young, 42, suddenly surfaced to issue the statement that the baby was his. He abruptly quit his position with Edwards and, with financial help from Baron, packed up his family and went into hiding.

I don’t think Hollywood could get away with a script this obvious.