Change A Comin'

This GOP Juggernaut of McCain and Palin, which seems to be rolling toward us out of control, reminds me of an old song:
People get ready
There's a train a comin'.
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board.
All you need is faith
To hear the diesel comin'.
Don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord.

Only I would change the words:
People get ready
There's a train a comin'.
You don't need brains or judgment, you just get on board.
All you need is faith
To believe all the lies.
If we survive the next four years, we'll thank the Lord.

Let's start with the lies. How do they lie to us? Let's count the ways.

Lie #1: Sarah Palin put the governor's private jet on eBay and sold it at a profit. John McCain said that.
Fact: She put the jet on eBay, where it didn't sell. Then she sold it through a private broker, and took a $600,000 loss.

Doesn't make near as good a story, does it? Still, it's good that she sold the expensive private jet. But why lie about the loss?

Lie #2: Sarah Palin has been against earmarks -- pork-barrel federal spending -- for Alaska.
Fact: Since she's been governor, she has sought $450 million in earmarks. While mayor of Wasilla, she helped get $27 million in earmarks, partly for her hometown. (Source: CNN Fact Check -- http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/10/earmark.check/index.html?iref=newssearch)

Talk about pork. She has really brought home the bacon. She says she is cutting back. We hope so.

The big War-Hero Background story: To a lot of people, John McCain is a bona fide war hero. OK, that sounds wonderful. We all love that. Including me. But let's take a closer look.

McCain was bombing the city of Hanoi when he was shot down. The U.S. was participating in a civil war, on the side of the south, where we had a puppet government. We got into the war because of a misguided Red scare. Our government told us, publicly, that if Viet Nam went Communist, the rest of Southeast Asia would, too. Privately, many of our leaders admitted this was all a crock of bull. Those poor peasants in their rice paddies were never a threat to the much bigger, much more powerful USA, far across the Pacific Ocean. That never made any sense.

So McCain was bombing innocent civilians in an unjust war. Sound familiar? Does that sound heroic to you?

My greatest fear is that Americans will vote their fears rather than the facts, that they will fall for a good story, whether it is true or not.

McCain seems to have been a good guy once. I wish he had won back in 2000, before the Bush-Rove GOP machine trashed him by questioning his patriotism and his morals.

Now it's too late. That reminds me of another song:
It's too late, baby, now it's too late,
Though we really did try to make it.
Something inside has died,
And I can't hide and I just can't fake it.

That's how I feel about John McCain.