When you have no ideas of your own...

...then apparently you must deride and lie about the ideas of your opponent. Isn't that what we have seen the last few nights at the RNC? Last night was ridiculous. Speaker after speaker took the podium and outright lied about every part of Obama's plan. And did they offer any substantive alternatives? No. Only two actual policy actions were discussed last night between all the nasty rhetoric: drill now and kill radical islamists. That's it! Both of which are meaningless and misleading.

Drill now is not even an option. Do the research on your own, don't take my word for it. It will take in excess of 20 years to produce any oil by way of new drilling efforts. 1) the equipment doesn't exist to do the job; 2) the oil reserves are a guess [lets say even a good guess] and actually need to be located before drilling can begin; and 3) our refinery capacity is not sufficient to turn that oil into usable fuel. Even then the usable reserves would be sufficient for only a few years. It is an absolutely hollow promise, but it made for a nice chant.

As for the radical islamist terrorists -- I really don't care what name you call them, I just care that you have an actual plan to do something about them. During the four nights of the DNC, I suppose they didn't call them "radical islamist terrorists" but they did provide us with a real plan for dealing with them: pull out of Iraq, a war we shouldn't have fought in the first place, and reinforce our forces in Afghanistan where the Taliban [radical islamist terrorists if you like] are regrouping. The Republicans literally offered us no plan. They just called the Democrats [Liberals if you like] a bunch of nasty names and insisted that it would be they [Republicans] who would not back down.

Then they found a clever way to keep the "experience" issue alive despite Gov. Palin's lack of it. They have reframed the debate from lack of foreign policy experience, to lack of executive experience. Leaving aside the obvious hypocrisy inherent in such a subtle and opportunistic shifting of your primary attack on your opponent [keep in mind McCain has no government executive experience], the Governor's executive experience is not particularly impressive. After you get past the "well at least she has some" argument, you realize we are talking about a couple years as a Town Manager for a town of around 5,000 people. A couple years as a mayor of a town with about 6,500 people and a first term governor of a State with a population 1/3 of the Borough of Queens where I live. Why am I supposed to be impressed with that experience when we are talking about the Presidency. Are you honestly impressed by that experience?

Right but then what about Barack? For over 20 years he has been actively engaged in either working with and advocating for the poor, the sick, the laid-off, the workers of this Country, or serving as a legislator at the State and Federal level. This work has been as a representative of a state 19 times the size of Alaska, with a vastly more diverse population than Alaska, and dealing with problems that are a lot more like the ones faced by you and I than by Alaskans. And what value is all of McCain's and Palin's experience if it nevertheless drives them to support failed policies and illegal and immoral wars? I care about actions, not promises. Barack voted against the War with Iraq, even when almost all of his own party supported it. He advocated talking to Iran and Syria, which is exactly what the Bush Admin is starting to do. He called for a timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq, which is now exactly what is being discussed. These are facts, not rhetoric. The Republicans are offering a lot of red herrings to obscure the fact that they have few workable ideas and are simply out of touch with the problems facing so many Americans.

Want proof of that claim? Compare the first three nights of the DNC with the first three nights of the RNC. At the Democrats' convention, by this time there had been substantive discussions of health care, the economy, the environment - including development of a "Green Economy" to stimulate job growth, tax policy, foreign policy. However what have we gotten from the Republicans? Drill now and kill radical islamist terrorists. Seriously, that is it, other than some mean nasty "na na na na boo boo" type insults against the Democrats and total misrepresentations of the Democrats plans. Is this what we can expect for all the wisdom and experience McCain has to offer us? Thanks, but no thanks.