In one word, genius. No one really has heard of Alaskan governor Sarah Palin before, so when rumors were flying it might be her I was wondering "who is this". I thought it was going to be Joseph Lieberman because Lieberman can hold Joe Biden, Obama's attack dog at bay. That would have upset many conservatives. With this pick McCain can still hold Biden at bay and not upset the conservative base. Already Obama's people are saying she's too inexperienced, even before she was introduced. Nobody is less experienced than Obama is, so for them to throw around the "I" word is ludicrous. No, not Obama's rapper friend. Ridiculous ludicrous I meant : ) 

Not only will Mrs. Palin keep Biden at bay, but any considerable attack towards her will be perceived by Hillary Clinton's disgruntled followers as another attack by Obama's people at women. He already has that problem facing him as everyone knows. This will also make those women who really are either refusing to support Obama or willing to look elsewhere to find the McCain candidacy more appealing. Finally the republicans get to play the victim card. Let's see how the liberals like it.

I still have my concerns over this pick but after hearing Palin speak I can see she has tenacity and a brain. A deadly political combo. She isn't going to be pushed around. Obama and Biden might try to accentuate her inexperience but she is the ONLY one running for anything that has executive experience. Biden doesn't. Obama definitely doesn't. Even McCain doesn't. This brings some executive experience to at least one ticket.

Palin brings attention to McCain, which he is sorely needing. Obama again at his speech last night missed an opportunity to get specific but said nothing new. All he spoke on was change, hope, shooting stars, and lucky charms. He won't speak about tangible, specific things because he doesn't have the ability to. With McCain suffering from Bush withdrawal symptoms this country is having and not having the media behind him is if he was their lord and saviour, and still somehow for two days was actually leading Obama in the polls during the Democratic National Convention this week. Amazing and telling. Now McCain gets his jumpstart towards the rest of the campaign season that he needed. Imagine Obama's attack dog attacking Sarah Palin at the debate. Imagine them going after her on stump speeches. We get to play the victim card for once. A page out of the old democrat playbook. Oh boy! Woops. I mean oh girl!

The recent invasion of sovereign, freedom-loving Georgia, a former Soviet republic, really shows that Russia will be what it always was. A power hungry and egomaniacal country. Russia's President might be Dmitry Medvedev, but he's just a puppet. It's Vladimir Putin who's running the show. That's the same Vladimir Putin who our President said he looked into the heart of and saw that he was a good man. He was WAAAAY off!

People are speculating why Russia took this audacious stance and many have speculated that it's about the oil pipeline that goes through Georgia into Turkey. That is a strategic point, but for that reason alone Putin wouldn't be going this far. Many are also speculating that it was about Georgia and other former Soviet republics possibly joining NATO. That's definitely part of it. That's not the whole story though. The real reason why Putin is doing this is to reacquire the former Soviet republics and get back to being the Soviet Union. With Putin, that was always his ambition. He said things our dumb President wanted to hear, all the while he's killing journalists and political dissidents including Alexander Litvinenko while he was in exile in England. Other people in England were contaminated by the radioactive substance (polonium-210) Litvinenko was given, as well as other critics of Putin. That didn't raise much of an eyebrow with the White House for some reason though.

Putin is very popular in Russia. His poll numbers reciprocate our President's poll numbers. Even though it's clear Putin is killing those with opposing voices, the Russian people love him because he's trying to restore their standing in the world. I'm quite sure poll numbers in Russia won't dip when it comes to Putin with the invasion of Georgia.

Georgia I'm afraid is just the first of other skirmishes as Moscow reestablishes it's might. The Ukraine and Baltic nations might be next. Who knows? Maybe even Poland might be on that list. All the while Putin is daring the US to do anything by giving the ultimatum "choose us or Georgia". Think you better look into Putin's eyes again, Mr. President. I'm quite confident that this is just the beginning. This could be Putin sending a message to other former republic nations to not join NATO, but I think this goes deeper than that. Russia could have sent that message and abided by the ceasefire they made easily. It was their own ceasefire proposal and without cause they broke it. As a matter of fact, it was never enacted. They never abided by it. It was just a ploy to make the world take more time in reacting to this while thinking it was over. It's obviously not over. As Russia gave the ceasefire, their tanks kept moving inside towards Georgia's city of Gori. This isn't a message at least to the other former Soviet republics. If anything, it's a message to the world. Mother Russia is reforming and there's nothing we can do about it unless NATO accepts Georgia into it immediately. With that though, that might mean full scale war with Russia. With Europe getting much of its energy from Russian pipelines, they will probably once again show their impotence. Germany might actually join Russia as screwed up as they are. This also shouts for us to become energy independent and drill off our own shores. Something that the dems won't even allow a vote on.

Politically speaking with our election, dem hopeful Barack Obama again showed his lack of strength by at first stating that both Russia AND Georgia should show some restraint. Georgia? What did Georgia do? Oy! McCain from the beginning said Russia should withdraw from Georgia immediately. Again Obama didn't take a clear stance. McCain again did. McCain went as far as to say Russia's presence in the G8 should be up for debate. The dems attacked McCain for taking such a strong stance against Russia saying it might just inflame tensions. Inflame tensions? They just invaded a sovereign nation and ally without just cause. McCain was right to take a strong stance as he has for years against Russia and specifically Putin. Just like when our President was seeing a good man in the eyes of Putin, John McCain saw something different. "I look into Putin's eyes and I see three letters, a K, a G, and a B." Well said, Mr. McCain. Watch out world. Here comes Mother Russia once again.