To those who misunderstand or misuse that word, at least.

Here is the next “independent” on the list:

• Joellen Gilchrist, Beverly Hills (Michigan)

She’s independent enough to petition MoveOn.org to impeach President Bush.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/moveontoimpe…

And she’s not too independent to be a Code Pink leader:

http://www.codepink4peace.org/groups.php

Just you average, everyday independent.

Now, I couldn’t expect the Detroit Free Press to do the extensive investigation I performed, but perhaps they could have a clue when they used the same people to be a focus group for a Hillary Clinton speech.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=…

Yes, the media sure plays it right down the middle.

Didn’t you read the source of this article? It’s the Detroit Free Press.

The Free Press is a daily paper on par with the NY Times and Washington Post – which means you can’t trust anything they say.

This is supposed to be a focus group of “independents”. Now, I don’t know how you define independent, but let’s pick one of these people and do a true investigative journalist background check (about 30 seconds on Google).

• Ilene Beninson, 52, Berkley independent

It turns out that this Berkley, Michigan independent is not only a Code Pink member, she actually went to Crawford, Texas and participated in a hunger strike with Cindy Sheehan.

http://www.targetofopportunity.com/cindy_sheeha…

Sounds pretty much like the independents in my neighborhood. How about yours, Chris?

Oh, looking at the list I see another undecided independent:

• George Lentz, 66, Southfield independent

Ya, this guy is one of those middle of the road type of independents. George is an activist in the Unitarian Church and a big proponent of gay pastors in the church. I’m not saying anything on the subject other than he hasn’t had trouble in the past declaring his partisanship.

I’ll take another 2 minutes and research some of the other “independents” that the Free Press managed to gather (completely at random) for this focus group.

You, at least, are halfway calm, and realize you can still vote for Obama-Biden, who are still leading this race, while leaving the children and worse who also populate your side and your preferred political party (and pollute it with their poor behavior, and are one of the reasons so many liberals avoid using the word “liberal,” including in the name of this liberal Web site) to continue to engage in their idiocy.

Palin is a winner; her selection yanked McCain out of the doldrums; the convention has featured surprisingly good speeches (despite the lies and slander on this site and elsewhere, to the contrary), and it's not a pre-ordained contest with the Messiah destined to be given the White House necessarily — maybe fright about that is the latest source of the agitation and much worse behavior we are seeing after Palin's great speech.

And I think the way she used her daughter who got “in trouble” and her Down's syndrome infant is disgusting – she was using them as props, pure and simple.

The crux of McCain's energy plan is drilling for more oil, which won't make any dent in the global price of oil. But it will help oil company profits at the expense of the environment.

McCain has continually touted his POW experience as a great sign of character. Sure that's great, but it doesn't qualify him for being president. Hell, McCain has been a politician for a long time, we should be able to judge a possible presidency on his record as a Senator. I wonder why he doesn't want us to?

When Russia invaded Georgia he immediately took the most bellicose line he could. He's joked about bombing Iran. He's on the record as saying he'd like to see our troops in Iraq well beyond his expected lifetime, and mine for that matter.

McCain wants to cut taxes, again, for every American while we run huge deficits. He won't outline what parts of the federal budget he will cut to balance the budget.

If McCain weren't friendly to lobbyists, he wouldn't have jettisoned so many senior staff members for their ties to K Street. His main foreign policy adviser is a lobbyist for Georgia.

These aren't distortions or lies.

he eschews diplomacy for belligerence, will fight an endless war and bankrupt the country while cutting taxes for the EVIL oil companies and granting favors to lobbyists.

Isn't that exactly what Bush did these last 8 years?

And I could just as easily summarize what I heard about John McCain at the DNC like this: He's a war hero but his time has come and gone, and his heroism doesn't make him fit to lead; he'll give us four more years of Bush, he eschews diplomacy for belligerence, will fight an endless war and bankrupt the country while cutting taxes for the EVIL oil companies and granting favors to lobbyists.

Seems to me that there were a lot of people who applauded some of the strident anti-GOP attacks during the DNC speeches.

We're not talking about normal policy or ideological attacks. Republicans attack the character of Democrats. According to Rudy, Mitters and Sarah P, Obama is a gay, left-coast elitist, that wants to surrender to Al Qaeda because he's too weak and pompous to lead us through these tough times. Democrats praised John McCain for his heroism and attacked him for his political stances these last 8 years. The contrast couldn't be more stark.

The Rudy joke was pretty funny though.