Hahaha! Sorry for the short diary, but I love Lincoln Chafee. Palin is a "cocky wacko" and "dangerous for the future of the country." From a former Republican!
According to this story, the former RI Republican Senator was speaking at the New America Foundation in Washington when somebody asked him about the effect she'd have on the ticket.
And then, in classic Chafee tell-it-like-it-is fashion (I told you I love him), he remarked on her speech at the GOP convention.
"People were coming into my office, phone calls were flooding in, e-mails were coming in, 'I just sent money to Obama, I couldn't sleep last night' — from the left. To see this cocky wacko up there," Chafee said to laughter.
Chafee said in an interview Thursday that he found much of Palin's convention speech objectionable, particularly her "mocking" assertion that Obama was overly concerned with al-Qaida terrorists getting read their rights.
That comment "got to the core of everything wrong with the last eight years," he said.
And certainly he feels pretty strongly about the last eight years. This is a diary I wrote in April after having a brief encounter with Chafee, and in it I recall asking Chafee what he thought about Condi Rice being considered for VP. He told me that that alone would be reason enough to vote for Obama. Well, it turns out McCain picked someone "dangerous for the future of the country" anyway, he says in a separate interview. Video:
Chafee endorsed Barack Obama weeks before the RI Primary in March, and just a month ago joined with Jim Leach to form Republicans for Obama, a group of moderates who rightly feel their party has lost its way. These are not half-hearted endorsements; Leach spoke at the convention and Chafee has really been quietly doing a number on McCain:
Like a preview of John Kerry's convention speech, wasn't it?
It's one thing to be a maverick and then drift off to the far right for 5-6 years when it's time to start thinking about running for president again. But Lincoln Chafee was a maverick when it was extremely inconvenient. I know Lincoln Chafee. Lincoln Chafee was a maverick. John McCain, you're no Lincoln Chafee. You're no maverick. And your running mate is a cocky wacko.
And in case you're worried about Chafee maybe backing away from these words?
"I consider that wacky, and certainly her tone was very, very cocky," said Chafee, a visiting fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. "So I thought they were appropriate words."