Just when I thought he couldn't get any dumber, he went and did something like this. (and did not redeem himself).
from a BBC article:
Speaking in Pennsylvania, Mr McCain said: "Now, I'm not dumb enough to get mixed up in a World Series between swing states.
"But I think I may have detected a little pattern with Senator Obama. It's pretty simple really. When he's campaigning in Philadelphia, he roots for the Phillies, and when he's campaigning in Tampa Bay, he 'shows love' to the Rays."
MCCAIN! GET CONTROL OF YOUR CAMPAIGN! YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT THE WORLD SERIES! BASEBALL! A GAME! FOCUS! FOCUS! FOCUS!
21.10.08
Reminding you again why McCain is unfit for the presidency.
sorry for the lack of updates. i'm swamped. here's a great article to fill the void.
He Just Can’t Quit W
By FRANK RICH
Published: October 18, 2008
OLD Mr. Straight Talk has become so shaky a speaker that when he does talk straight, it’s startling. On Wednesday night, John McCain mustered exactly one such moment of clarity: “Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.”
Thanks largely to this line, McCain’s remaining base in the political press graded his last debate performance his best. The public, not so much. As with the previous debates, every poll found Barack Obama the winner, this time by as much as two-to-one ratios. Obama even swept the focus group convened by the G.O.P. pollster Frank Luntz in the once-impregnable McCain bunker of Fox News.
Perhaps voters were unimpressed by McCain’s big moment because they can figure out the obvious rejoinder: Why didn’t McCain run against President Bush four years ago — as he had four years before that? Instead McCain campaigned for Bush’s re-election, cheered for Bush policies he once opposed and helped lower himself and America into the pit where we find ourselves today.
The day after the debate, McCain put up a new ad trying yet again to shake the president. “The last eight years haven’t worked very well, have they?” he asks, as if he were an innocent bystander the entire time. But no matter what McCain says or does, he still can’t quit the guy. Heading from a Midtown hotel to a fund-raiser the night before facing Obama onstage on Long Island last week, the McCain motorcade lined up right next to the New York red-carpet premiere of Oliver Stone’s “W.” A black cat would have been a better omen.
The election isn’t over, but there remain only three discernible, if highly unlikely, paths to a McCain victory. A theoretically mammoth wave of racism, incessantly anticipated by the press, could materialize in voting booths on Nov. 4. Or newly registered young and black voters could fail to show up. Or McCain could at long last make good on his most persistent promise: follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell and, once there, strangle him with his own bare hands on “Hannity & Colmes.”
Even Republicans are rapidly bailing on a McCain resuscitation. It’s a metaphor for the party’s collapse that on the day of the final debate both Nancy Reagan and Dick Cheney checked into hospitals. Conservatives have already moved past denial to anger on the Kubler-Ross scale of grief. They are not waiting for votes to be counted before carrying out their first round of Stalinist purges. William F. Buckley’s son Christopher was banished from National Review for endorsing Obama. Next thing you know, there will be a fatwa on that McCain-bashing lefty, George Will.
As the G.O.P.’s long night of the long knives begins, myths are already setting in among the right’s storm troops and the punditocracy alike as to what went wrong. And chief among them are the twin curses of Bush and the “headwinds” of the economy. No Republican can win if the party’s incumbent president is less popular than dirt, we keep being told, or if a looming Great Depression 2 is Issue No. 1.
This is an excuse, not an explanation. It absolves McCain of much of the blame and denies Obama much of the credit for their campaigns. It arouses pity for McCain when he deserves none. It rewrites history.
Bush’s impact on the next Republican presidential candidate did not have to be so devastating. McCain isn’t, as he and his defenders keep protesting, a passive martyr to a catastrophic administration. He could have made separating himself from Bush the brave, central and even conservative focus of his campaign. Far from doing that, he embraced the Bush ethos — if not the incredible shrinking man himself — more tightly than ever. The candidate who believes in “country first” decided to put himself first and sell out his principles. That ignoble decision is what accounts for both the McCain campaign’s failures and its sleaze. It’s a decision McCain made on his own and for which he has yet to assume responsibility.
Though it seems a distant memory now, McCain was a maverick once. He did defy Bush on serious matters including torture, climate change and the over-the-top tax cuts that bankrupted a government at war and led to the largest income inequality in America since the 1930s. But it isn’t just his flip-flopping on some of these and other issues that turned him into a Bush acolyte. The full measure of McCain’s betrayal of his own integrity cannot even be found in that Senate voting record — 90 percent in lockstep with the president — that Obama keeps throwing in his face.
The Bushian ethos that McCain embraced, as codified by Karl Rove, is larger than any particular vote or policy. Indeed, by definition that ethos is opposed to the entire idea of policy. The whole point of the Bush-Rove way of doing business is that principles, coherent governance and even ideology must always be sacrificed for political expediency, no matter the cost to the public good.
Like McCain now, Bush campaigned in 2000 as a practical problem-solver who could “work across the partisan divide,” as he put it in his first debate with Al Gore. He had no strong views on any domestic or foreign issue, except taxes and education. Only after he entered the White House did we learn his sole passion: getting and keeping power. That imperative, not the country, would always come first.
One journalist who detected this modus operandi early was Ron Suskind, who, writing for Esquire in January 2003, induced John DiIulio, the disillusioned chief of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, to tell all. “There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus,” DiIulio said. “What you’ve got is everything — and I mean everything — being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”
If politics strongarm everything, you end up with the rampant cronyism, nonexistent long-term planning and abrupt, partisan policy improvisations that fed the calamities of Iraq, Katrina and the economic meltdown. Incredibly, McCain has nakedly endorsed the Bush-Rove brand of governance in his own campaign by assembling his personal set of lobbyist cronies and Rove operatives to run it. They have not only entangled him in a welter of conflicts of interest, but they’ve furthered cynical political stunts like the elevation of Sarah Palin. At least Bush and Rove didn’t try to put an unqualified hack like, say, Alberto Gonzales half a heartbeat away from the presidency.
As if the Palin pick weren’t damning enough, McCain and his team responded to the financial panic by offering their own panicky simulation of the Bush style of crisis management in real time. Fire the S.E.C. chairman and replace him with Andrew Cuomo! Convene a 9/11 commission to save Wall Street! Don’t bail out A.I.G.! Do bail out A.I.G.! Reacting to polls and the short-term dictates of 24-hour news cycles, McCain offered as many economic-policy reboots in a month as Bush offered “Plans for Victory” during the first three years of the Iraq war.
Now McCain is trying to distract us from his humiliating managerial ineptitude by cranking up the politics of fear — another trademark Bush-Rove strategy. But the McCain camp’s quixotic effort to turn an “old washed-up terrorist” into a wedge issue as divisive as same-sex marriage is too little, too late and too tone-deaf at a time when Americans are suffering too much to indulge in 1960s culture wars. Voters want policies that might actually work rather than another pandering, cynical leader who operates mainly on the basis of his “gut” and political self-interest.
The former Bush speechwriter David Frum has facetiously written that McCain could be rescued by “a 5,000-point rise in the Dow and a 20 percent jump in home prices.” But the economy, stupid, can’t be blamed for McCain’s own failures, any more than Bush can be. Even before the housing bubble burst and Wall Street tumbled, voters could see that the seething, impulsive nominee isn’t temperamentally fit to be president.
That’s where the debates have come in. There may have been none of those knockout blows the press craves, but the accretional effect has been to teach the public that McCain isn’t steady enough to run the country even if the economy were sound, and that Obama just might be.
In Debate No. 1, you could put the volume on mute and see what has proved to be the lasting impressions of both candidates start to firm up. In Debate No. 2, McCain set the concrete: he re-enacted the troubling psychological cartography of his campaign “suspension” by wandering around the stage like a half-dotty uncle vainly trying to flee his caregiver. After the sneering and eye-rolling of McCain’s “best” debate on Wednesday, CNN’s poll found the ever-serene Obama swamping him on “likeability,” 70 to 22 percent.
At least McCain had half a point on Wednesday night when he said, “I am not President Bush.” What he has offered his country this year is an older, crankier, more unsteady version of Bush. Tragically, he can no sooner escape our despised president than he can escape himself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/us/politics/20powell.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
He Just Can’t Quit W
By FRANK RICH
Published: October 18, 2008
OLD Mr. Straight Talk has become so shaky a speaker that when he does talk straight, it’s startling. On Wednesday night, John McCain mustered exactly one such moment of clarity: “Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.”
Thanks largely to this line, McCain’s remaining base in the political press graded his last debate performance his best. The public, not so much. As with the previous debates, every poll found Barack Obama the winner, this time by as much as two-to-one ratios. Obama even swept the focus group convened by the G.O.P. pollster Frank Luntz in the once-impregnable McCain bunker of Fox News.
Perhaps voters were unimpressed by McCain’s big moment because they can figure out the obvious rejoinder: Why didn’t McCain run against President Bush four years ago — as he had four years before that? Instead McCain campaigned for Bush’s re-election, cheered for Bush policies he once opposed and helped lower himself and America into the pit where we find ourselves today.
The day after the debate, McCain put up a new ad trying yet again to shake the president. “The last eight years haven’t worked very well, have they?” he asks, as if he were an innocent bystander the entire time. But no matter what McCain says or does, he still can’t quit the guy. Heading from a Midtown hotel to a fund-raiser the night before facing Obama onstage on Long Island last week, the McCain motorcade lined up right next to the New York red-carpet premiere of Oliver Stone’s “W.” A black cat would have been a better omen.
The election isn’t over, but there remain only three discernible, if highly unlikely, paths to a McCain victory. A theoretically mammoth wave of racism, incessantly anticipated by the press, could materialize in voting booths on Nov. 4. Or newly registered young and black voters could fail to show up. Or McCain could at long last make good on his most persistent promise: follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell and, once there, strangle him with his own bare hands on “Hannity & Colmes.”
Even Republicans are rapidly bailing on a McCain resuscitation. It’s a metaphor for the party’s collapse that on the day of the final debate both Nancy Reagan and Dick Cheney checked into hospitals. Conservatives have already moved past denial to anger on the Kubler-Ross scale of grief. They are not waiting for votes to be counted before carrying out their first round of Stalinist purges. William F. Buckley’s son Christopher was banished from National Review for endorsing Obama. Next thing you know, there will be a fatwa on that McCain-bashing lefty, George Will.
As the G.O.P.’s long night of the long knives begins, myths are already setting in among the right’s storm troops and the punditocracy alike as to what went wrong. And chief among them are the twin curses of Bush and the “headwinds” of the economy. No Republican can win if the party’s incumbent president is less popular than dirt, we keep being told, or if a looming Great Depression 2 is Issue No. 1.
This is an excuse, not an explanation. It absolves McCain of much of the blame and denies Obama much of the credit for their campaigns. It arouses pity for McCain when he deserves none. It rewrites history.
Bush’s impact on the next Republican presidential candidate did not have to be so devastating. McCain isn’t, as he and his defenders keep protesting, a passive martyr to a catastrophic administration. He could have made separating himself from Bush the brave, central and even conservative focus of his campaign. Far from doing that, he embraced the Bush ethos — if not the incredible shrinking man himself — more tightly than ever. The candidate who believes in “country first” decided to put himself first and sell out his principles. That ignoble decision is what accounts for both the McCain campaign’s failures and its sleaze. It’s a decision McCain made on his own and for which he has yet to assume responsibility.
Though it seems a distant memory now, McCain was a maverick once. He did defy Bush on serious matters including torture, climate change and the over-the-top tax cuts that bankrupted a government at war and led to the largest income inequality in America since the 1930s. But it isn’t just his flip-flopping on some of these and other issues that turned him into a Bush acolyte. The full measure of McCain’s betrayal of his own integrity cannot even be found in that Senate voting record — 90 percent in lockstep with the president — that Obama keeps throwing in his face.
The Bushian ethos that McCain embraced, as codified by Karl Rove, is larger than any particular vote or policy. Indeed, by definition that ethos is opposed to the entire idea of policy. The whole point of the Bush-Rove way of doing business is that principles, coherent governance and even ideology must always be sacrificed for political expediency, no matter the cost to the public good.
Like McCain now, Bush campaigned in 2000 as a practical problem-solver who could “work across the partisan divide,” as he put it in his first debate with Al Gore. He had no strong views on any domestic or foreign issue, except taxes and education. Only after he entered the White House did we learn his sole passion: getting and keeping power. That imperative, not the country, would always come first.
One journalist who detected this modus operandi early was Ron Suskind, who, writing for Esquire in January 2003, induced John DiIulio, the disillusioned chief of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, to tell all. “There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus,” DiIulio said. “What you’ve got is everything — and I mean everything — being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”
If politics strongarm everything, you end up with the rampant cronyism, nonexistent long-term planning and abrupt, partisan policy improvisations that fed the calamities of Iraq, Katrina and the economic meltdown. Incredibly, McCain has nakedly endorsed the Bush-Rove brand of governance in his own campaign by assembling his personal set of lobbyist cronies and Rove operatives to run it. They have not only entangled him in a welter of conflicts of interest, but they’ve furthered cynical political stunts like the elevation of Sarah Palin. At least Bush and Rove didn’t try to put an unqualified hack like, say, Alberto Gonzales half a heartbeat away from the presidency.
As if the Palin pick weren’t damning enough, McCain and his team responded to the financial panic by offering their own panicky simulation of the Bush style of crisis management in real time. Fire the S.E.C. chairman and replace him with Andrew Cuomo! Convene a 9/11 commission to save Wall Street! Don’t bail out A.I.G.! Do bail out A.I.G.! Reacting to polls and the short-term dictates of 24-hour news cycles, McCain offered as many economic-policy reboots in a month as Bush offered “Plans for Victory” during the first three years of the Iraq war.
Now McCain is trying to distract us from his humiliating managerial ineptitude by cranking up the politics of fear — another trademark Bush-Rove strategy. But the McCain camp’s quixotic effort to turn an “old washed-up terrorist” into a wedge issue as divisive as same-sex marriage is too little, too late and too tone-deaf at a time when Americans are suffering too much to indulge in 1960s culture wars. Voters want policies that might actually work rather than another pandering, cynical leader who operates mainly on the basis of his “gut” and political self-interest.
The former Bush speechwriter David Frum has facetiously written that McCain could be rescued by “a 5,000-point rise in the Dow and a 20 percent jump in home prices.” But the economy, stupid, can’t be blamed for McCain’s own failures, any more than Bush can be. Even before the housing bubble burst and Wall Street tumbled, voters could see that the seething, impulsive nominee isn’t temperamentally fit to be president.
That’s where the debates have come in. There may have been none of those knockout blows the press craves, but the accretional effect has been to teach the public that McCain isn’t steady enough to run the country even if the economy were sound, and that Obama just might be.
In Debate No. 1, you could put the volume on mute and see what has proved to be the lasting impressions of both candidates start to firm up. In Debate No. 2, McCain set the concrete: he re-enacted the troubling psychological cartography of his campaign “suspension” by wandering around the stage like a half-dotty uncle vainly trying to flee his caregiver. After the sneering and eye-rolling of McCain’s “best” debate on Wednesday, CNN’s poll found the ever-serene Obama swamping him on “likeability,” 70 to 22 percent.
At least McCain had half a point on Wednesday night when he said, “I am not President Bush.” What he has offered his country this year is an older, crankier, more unsteady version of Bush. Tragically, he can no sooner escape our despised president than he can escape himself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/us/politics/20powell.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
9.10.08
Sometimes when people write articles that become famous based on ideas that I've had for some time, I get irritated. Other times, I'm just glad the message is in print. The following article is in the category of the latter.
Thank you Maureen.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/opinion/08dowd.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Thank you Maureen.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/opinion/08dowd.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
5.10.08
Engagement announcement
We're in the paper!
http://www.legacy.com/DemocratAndChronicle/Celebrations.asp?Page=Announcement&PersonId=118301678
http://www.legacy.com/DemocratAndChronicle/Celebrations.asp?Page=Announcement&PersonId=118301678
30.9.08
Palin fumbles
Not to belabor the point, but I do think this movie is mandatory watching for every American.
Please pay specific attention to minute 9, when Palin discusses her views of Israeli foreign policy.
Note Palin's understanding of "the good guys" and "the bad guys."
Sorry for no posts lately, I've been trying to direct my energy towards my work. Don't worry though, the debate Thursday night is sure to bring plenty to say.
Please pay specific attention to minute 9, when Palin discusses her views of Israeli foreign policy.
Note Palin's understanding of "the good guys" and "the bad guys."
Sorry for no posts lately, I've been trying to direct my energy towards my work. Don't worry though, the debate Thursday night is sure to bring plenty to say.
26.9.08
What would Jed Bartlett do?
I'm posting this with the hope that I am not the only West Wing Junkie out there. Article is available here.
Op-Ed Columnist
Aaron Sorkin Conjures a Meeting of Obama and Bartlet
Maureen Dowd
Now that he’s finally fired up on the soup-line economy, Barack Obama knows he can’t fade out again. He was eager to talk privately to a Democratic ex-president who could offer more fatherly wisdom — not to mention a surreptitious smoke — and less fraternal rivalry. I called the “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin (yes, truly) to get a read-out of the meeting. This is what he wrote:
BARACK OBAMA knocks on the front door of a 300-year-old New Hampshire farmhouse while his Secret Service detail waits in the driveway. The door opens and OBAMA is standing face to face with former President JED BARTLET.
BARTLET Senator.
OBAMA Mr. President.
BARTLET You seem startled.
OBAMA I didn’t expect you to answer the door yourself.
BARTLET I didn’t expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a Lancôme rep who thinks “The Flintstones” was based on a true story, so let’s call it even.
OBAMA Yes, sir.
BARTLET Come on in.
BARTLET leads OBAMA into his study.
BARTLET That was a hell of a convention.
OBAMA Thank you, I was proud of it.
BARTLET I meant the Republicans. The Us versus Them-a-thon. As a Democrat I was surprised to learn that I don’t like small towns, God, people with jobs or America. I’ve been a little out of touch but is there a mandate that the vice president be skilled at field dressing a moose —
OBAMA Look —
BARTLET — and selling Air Force Two on eBay?
OBAMA Joke all you want, Mr. President, but it worked.
BARTLET Imagine my surprise. What can I do for you, kid?
OBAMA I’m interested in your advice.
BARTLET I can’t give it to you.
OBAMA Why not?
BARTLET I’m supporting McCain.
OBAMA Why?
BARTLET He’s promised to eradicate evil and that was always on my “to do” list.
OBAMA O.K. —
BARTLET And he’s surrounded himself, I think, with the best possible team to get us out of an economic crisis. Why, Sarah Palin just said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.” Can you spot the error in that statement?
OBAMA Yes, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t funded by taxpayers.
BARTLET Well, at least they are now. Kind of reminds you of the time Bush said that Social Security wasn’t a government program. He was only off by a little — Social Security is the largest government program.
OBAMA I appreciate your sense of humor, sir, but I really could use your advice.
BARTLET Well, it seems to me your problem is a lot like the problem I had twice.
OBAMA Which was?
BARTLET A huge number of Americans thought I thought I was superior to them.
OBAMA And?
BARTLET I was.
OBAMA I mean, how did you overcome that?
BARTLET I won’t lie to you, being fictional was a big advantage.
OBAMA What do you mean?
BARTLET I’m a fictional president. You’re dreaming right now, Senator.
OBAMA I’m asleep?
BARTLET Yes, and you’re losing a ton of white women.
OBAMA Yes, sir.
BARTLET I mean tons.
OBAMA I understand.
BARTLET I didn’t even think there were that many white women.
OBAMA I see the numbers, sir. What do they want from me?
BARTLET I’ve been married to a white woman for 40 years and I still don’t know what she wants from me.
OBAMA How did you do it?
BARTLET Well, I say I’m sorry a lot.
OBAMA I don’t mean your marriage, sir. I mean how did you get America on your side?
BARTLET There again, I didn’t have to be president of America, I just had to be president of the people who watched “The West Wing.”
OBAMA That would make it easier.
BARTLET You’d do very well on NBC. Thursday nights in the old “ER” time slot with “30 Rock” as your lead-in, you’d get seven, seven-five in the demo with a 20, 22 share — you’d be selling $450,000 minutes.
OBAMA What the hell does that mean?
BARTLET TV talk. I thought you’d be interested.
OBAMA I’m not. They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I’m — wait for it — the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?
BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.
OBAMA You’re saying race doesn’t have anything to do with it?
BARTLET I wouldn’t go that far. Brains made me look arrogant but they make you look uppity. Plus, if you had a black daughter —
OBAMA I have two.
BARTLET — who was 17 and pregnant and unmarried and the father was a teenager hoping to launch a rap career with “Thug Life” inked across his chest, you’d come in fifth behind Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and a ficus.
OBAMA You’re not cheering me up.
BARTLET Is that what you came here for?
OBAMA No, but it wouldn’t kill you.
BARTLET Have you tried doing a two-hour special or a really good Christmas show?
OBAMA Sir —
BARTLET Hang on. Home run. Right here. Is there any chance you could get Michelle pregnant before the fall sweeps?
OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?
BARTLET Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know ... I’m a little angry.
OBAMA What would you do?
BARTLET GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!
OBAMA Good to get that off your chest?
BARTLET Am I keeping you from something?
OBAMA Well, it’s not as if I didn’t know all of that and it took you like 20 minutes to say.
BARTLET I know, I have a problem, but admitting it is the first step.
OBAMA What’s the second step?
BARTLET I don’t care.
OBAMA So what about hope? Chuck it for outrage and put-downs?
BARTLET No. You’re elite, you can do both. Four weeks ago you had the best week of your campaign, followed — granted, inexplicably — by the worst week of your campaign. And you’re still in a statistical dead heat. You’re a 47-year-old black man with a foreign-sounding name who went to Harvard and thinks devotion to your country and lapel pins aren’t the same thing and you’re in a statistical tie with a war hero and a Cinemax heroine. To these aged eyes, Senator, that’s what progress looks like. You guys got four debates. Get out of my house and go back to work.
OBAMA Wait, what is it you always used to say? When you hit a bump on the show and your people were down and frustrated? You’d give them a pep talk and then you’d always end it with something. What was it ...?
BARTLET “Break’s over.”
Op-Ed Columnist
Aaron Sorkin Conjures a Meeting of Obama and Bartlet
Maureen Dowd
Now that he’s finally fired up on the soup-line economy, Barack Obama knows he can’t fade out again. He was eager to talk privately to a Democratic ex-president who could offer more fatherly wisdom — not to mention a surreptitious smoke — and less fraternal rivalry. I called the “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin (yes, truly) to get a read-out of the meeting. This is what he wrote:
BARACK OBAMA knocks on the front door of a 300-year-old New Hampshire farmhouse while his Secret Service detail waits in the driveway. The door opens and OBAMA is standing face to face with former President JED BARTLET.
BARTLET Senator.
OBAMA Mr. President.
BARTLET You seem startled.
OBAMA I didn’t expect you to answer the door yourself.
BARTLET I didn’t expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a Lancôme rep who thinks “The Flintstones” was based on a true story, so let’s call it even.
OBAMA Yes, sir.
BARTLET Come on in.
BARTLET leads OBAMA into his study.
BARTLET That was a hell of a convention.
OBAMA Thank you, I was proud of it.
BARTLET I meant the Republicans. The Us versus Them-a-thon. As a Democrat I was surprised to learn that I don’t like small towns, God, people with jobs or America. I’ve been a little out of touch but is there a mandate that the vice president be skilled at field dressing a moose —
OBAMA Look —
BARTLET — and selling Air Force Two on eBay?
OBAMA Joke all you want, Mr. President, but it worked.
BARTLET Imagine my surprise. What can I do for you, kid?
OBAMA I’m interested in your advice.
BARTLET I can’t give it to you.
OBAMA Why not?
BARTLET I’m supporting McCain.
OBAMA Why?
BARTLET He’s promised to eradicate evil and that was always on my “to do” list.
OBAMA O.K. —
BARTLET And he’s surrounded himself, I think, with the best possible team to get us out of an economic crisis. Why, Sarah Palin just said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.” Can you spot the error in that statement?
OBAMA Yes, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t funded by taxpayers.
BARTLET Well, at least they are now. Kind of reminds you of the time Bush said that Social Security wasn’t a government program. He was only off by a little — Social Security is the largest government program.
OBAMA I appreciate your sense of humor, sir, but I really could use your advice.
BARTLET Well, it seems to me your problem is a lot like the problem I had twice.
OBAMA Which was?
BARTLET A huge number of Americans thought I thought I was superior to them.
OBAMA And?
BARTLET I was.
OBAMA I mean, how did you overcome that?
BARTLET I won’t lie to you, being fictional was a big advantage.
OBAMA What do you mean?
BARTLET I’m a fictional president. You’re dreaming right now, Senator.
OBAMA I’m asleep?
BARTLET Yes, and you’re losing a ton of white women.
OBAMA Yes, sir.
BARTLET I mean tons.
OBAMA I understand.
BARTLET I didn’t even think there were that many white women.
OBAMA I see the numbers, sir. What do they want from me?
BARTLET I’ve been married to a white woman for 40 years and I still don’t know what she wants from me.
OBAMA How did you do it?
BARTLET Well, I say I’m sorry a lot.
OBAMA I don’t mean your marriage, sir. I mean how did you get America on your side?
BARTLET There again, I didn’t have to be president of America, I just had to be president of the people who watched “The West Wing.”
OBAMA That would make it easier.
BARTLET You’d do very well on NBC. Thursday nights in the old “ER” time slot with “30 Rock” as your lead-in, you’d get seven, seven-five in the demo with a 20, 22 share — you’d be selling $450,000 minutes.
OBAMA What the hell does that mean?
BARTLET TV talk. I thought you’d be interested.
OBAMA I’m not. They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I’m — wait for it — the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?
BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.
OBAMA You’re saying race doesn’t have anything to do with it?
BARTLET I wouldn’t go that far. Brains made me look arrogant but they make you look uppity. Plus, if you had a black daughter —
OBAMA I have two.
BARTLET — who was 17 and pregnant and unmarried and the father was a teenager hoping to launch a rap career with “Thug Life” inked across his chest, you’d come in fifth behind Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and a ficus.
OBAMA You’re not cheering me up.
BARTLET Is that what you came here for?
OBAMA No, but it wouldn’t kill you.
BARTLET Have you tried doing a two-hour special or a really good Christmas show?
OBAMA Sir —
BARTLET Hang on. Home run. Right here. Is there any chance you could get Michelle pregnant before the fall sweeps?
OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?
BARTLET Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know ... I’m a little angry.
OBAMA What would you do?
BARTLET GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!
OBAMA Good to get that off your chest?
BARTLET Am I keeping you from something?
OBAMA Well, it’s not as if I didn’t know all of that and it took you like 20 minutes to say.
BARTLET I know, I have a problem, but admitting it is the first step.
OBAMA What’s the second step?
BARTLET I don’t care.
OBAMA So what about hope? Chuck it for outrage and put-downs?
BARTLET No. You’re elite, you can do both. Four weeks ago you had the best week of your campaign, followed — granted, inexplicably — by the worst week of your campaign. And you’re still in a statistical dead heat. You’re a 47-year-old black man with a foreign-sounding name who went to Harvard and thinks devotion to your country and lapel pins aren’t the same thing and you’re in a statistical tie with a war hero and a Cinemax heroine. To these aged eyes, Senator, that’s what progress looks like. You guys got four debates. Get out of my house and go back to work.
OBAMA Wait, what is it you always used to say? When you hit a bump on the show and your people were down and frustrated? You’d give them a pep talk and then you’d always end it with something. What was it ...?
BARTLET “Break’s over.”
23.9.08
17.9.08
An excerpt from my recent hmwk, slightly embellished.
Background note: Many credit the influence of the philosophy of Leo Strauss for providing the ideological foundations of neoconservative ideology and consequently the Iraq war. I haven't done enough research on the subject to have an opinion. However, I did find the following situation ironic.
Shadia Drury comments:
"[Leo] Strauss fosters the self-righteousness that Smith shares with the neo-conservatives. Strauss called it the 'identity of the good and one's own,' and he thought it was necessary for the health and well-being of political society" (p.66 Political Theory 35-1, emphasis mine).
Sarah Palin, in her acceptance speech, mentions "small towns" six times in the following contexts:
"My mom and dad both worked at the elementary school in our small town."
"A writer observed: 'We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and dignity.' I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman. I grew up with those people. They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America who grow our food, run our factories and fight our wars. They love their country in good times and bad, and they're always proud of America. I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town."
"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening."
"It's the journey of an upright and honorable man- the kind of fellow whose name you will find on war memorials in small towns across this country, only he was among those who came home."
Transcript
Do you think this somewhat humorous somewhat disturbing proliferation of the phrase "small town" is evidence of Straussian ideology, neo-con speech writers, politics or all of the above? Does Palin recognize people from the small town as "one's own" and "the good?"
Shadia Drury comments:
"[Leo] Strauss fosters the self-righteousness that Smith shares with the neo-conservatives. Strauss called it the 'identity of the good and one's own,' and he thought it was necessary for the health and well-being of political society" (p.66 Political Theory 35-1, emphasis mine).
Sarah Palin, in her acceptance speech, mentions "small towns" six times in the following contexts:
"My mom and dad both worked at the elementary school in our small town."
"A writer observed: 'We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and dignity.' I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman. I grew up with those people. They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America who grow our food, run our factories and fight our wars. They love their country in good times and bad, and they're always proud of America. I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town."
"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening."
"It's the journey of an upright and honorable man- the kind of fellow whose name you will find on war memorials in small towns across this country, only he was among those who came home."
Transcript
Do you think this somewhat humorous somewhat disturbing proliferation of the phrase "small town" is evidence of Straussian ideology, neo-con speech writers, politics or all of the above? Does Palin recognize people from the small town as "one's own" and "the good?"
16.9.08
omg Karl Rove and I just agreed! AHHHHHHHH
The McCain campaign has "gone too far" in offering untrue attacks on Obama.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/14/campaign.wrap/
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/14/campaign.wrap/
14.9.08
so much good stuff today.
Paul Krugman's latest most emailed post.
an excerpt:
"But I can’t think of any precedent, at least in America, for the blizzard of lies since the Republican convention. The Bush campaign’s lies in 2000 were artful — you needed some grasp of arithmetic to realize that you were being conned. This year, however, the McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute, and repeating these assertions over and over again."
McCain and his staffers think the American people are stupid. And if they fall for his lies, then they prove he is right.
an excerpt:
"But I can’t think of any precedent, at least in America, for the blizzard of lies since the Republican convention. The Bush campaign’s lies in 2000 were artful — you needed some grasp of arithmetic to realize that you were being conned. This year, however, the McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute, and repeating these assertions over and over again."
McCain and his staffers think the American people are stupid. And if they fall for his lies, then they prove he is right.
Excerts from a NYT Editorial
"If he seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible."
That is how I feel.
Article
More quotes:
"But that is not what troubled us most about her remarks — and, remember, if they were scripted, that just means that they reflect Mr. McCain’s views all the more closely. Rather, it was the sense that thoughtfulness, knowledge and experience are handicaps for a president in a world populated by Al Qaeda terrorists, a rising China, epidemics of AIDS, poverty and fratricidal war in the developing world and deep economic distress at home." Emphasis mine
"This nation has suffered through eight years of an ill-prepared and unblinkingly obstinate president. One who didn’t pause to think before he started a disastrous war of choice in Iraq. One who blithely looked the other way as the Taliban and Al Qaeda regrouped in Afghanistan. One who obstinately cut taxes and undercut all efforts at regulation, unleashing today’s profound economic crisis."
"In a dangerous world, Americans need a president who knows that real strength requires serious thought and preparation. "
That is how I feel.
Article
More quotes:
"But that is not what troubled us most about her remarks — and, remember, if they were scripted, that just means that they reflect Mr. McCain’s views all the more closely. Rather, it was the sense that thoughtfulness, knowledge and experience are handicaps for a president in a world populated by Al Qaeda terrorists, a rising China, epidemics of AIDS, poverty and fratricidal war in the developing world and deep economic distress at home." Emphasis mine
"This nation has suffered through eight years of an ill-prepared and unblinkingly obstinate president. One who didn’t pause to think before he started a disastrous war of choice in Iraq. One who blithely looked the other way as the Taliban and Al Qaeda regrouped in Afghanistan. One who obstinately cut taxes and undercut all efforts at regulation, unleashing today’s profound economic crisis."
"In a dangerous world, Americans need a president who knows that real strength requires serious thought and preparation. "
Authoritarian Palin Politics
The Times published a damning article on Sarah Palin yesterday, and it quickly shot up to the top emailed story. It is a little lengthy, but it did a good job of not repeating the usual information that plagues articles critical of the governor. The overall sense that I walked away with from teh article was that Palin has more similarities to the current administration than I previously realized. My number one concern is that she has surrounded her administration with secrecy, even to the point of using private email addresses for state business (which removes information on governance from the public view). There are also repeated stories of administrators being released under suspicious circumstances. I am concerned that she is one who silences those with whom she disagrees and presents a totally different face to the public. Evidence of this is her insistance on using social issues to gain votes (even when running for mayor of a 9000 person town!) rather than discussing relevant issues to her constituents. I think she is a politician of the sickest order. Our country has suffered under bad foreign policy and diplomacy over the last eight years because of a leader unwilling to foster critical debate. This has been one of the central promises of the Obama campaign- open debate! He is made fun of for having a huge foreign policy team, but at least he is interested in including a number of people in his decision making process. Sarah Palin has sought to increase government action at the cost of representation of people. This is fundamentally opposed to the system of government put in place by our forefathers. Look for yourself!
I am distressed at her rise to fame, and concerned that the American people are not carefully enough combing her record. I encourage everyone to do some research from all sorts of sources! Contrast journalistic accounts of her with her public personae! It is truly alarming!
I am distressed at her rise to fame, and concerned that the American people are not carefully enough combing her record. I encourage everyone to do some research from all sorts of sources! Contrast journalistic accounts of her with her public personae! It is truly alarming!
13.9.08
Jumping Asian Carp
My dad says these fish are taking over all sorts of rivers and are headed up the Mississippi killing local fish populations on their way.
a border crossing, eh?
"Obama aides described the new revisions to Palin's account as part of a growing pattern of deception. "The McCain campaign said Governor Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere, but now we know she supported it. They said she didn't seek earmarks, but now we know she hired a lobbyist to get millions in pork for her town and her state. They said she visited Iraq, but today we learned that she only stopped at the border. Americans are starting to wonder, is there anything the McCain campaign isn't lying about?" Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor asked in a statement e-mailed to reporters.
"A short time later, the Obama campaign circulated a new Bloomberg story that questions whether the McCain campaign has been sending out false crowd estimates.
"On two occasions since Palin joined the ticket, McCain aides have cited law enforcement sources in claiming enormous crowds -- but law enforcement officials interviewed by Bloomberg denied having given such estimates."
see article from the Washington Post.
also may want to take a look at the Bloomberg info mentioned above.
"A short time later, the Obama campaign circulated a new Bloomberg story that questions whether the McCain campaign has been sending out false crowd estimates.
"On two occasions since Palin joined the ticket, McCain aides have cited law enforcement sources in claiming enormous crowds -- but law enforcement officials interviewed by Bloomberg denied having given such estimates."
see article from the Washington Post.
also may want to take a look at the Bloomberg info mentioned above.
11.9.08
Just in case you all didn't notice the headline, the general that McCain worships, General Petraeus, has come out publicly saying,
"This is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade... it's not war with a simple slogan." He also mentioned that the US still faces a "long struggle."
I bring this up because McCain belittles the democrats and specifically Obama for failing to talk about "victory" in Iraq. At the same time, he constantly mentions general petraeus as a trusted advisor. But it seems Petraeus agrees with Obama that this is not a situation where terms like "victory" are appropriate. I think McCain is taking advantage of mid-western pride in country and using the word victory to gain voters when he knows that "victory" in the traditional sense is impossible in the situation. If he doesn't realize this, maybe he isn't fit to be commander in chief.
See BBC for the article.
"This is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade... it's not war with a simple slogan." He also mentioned that the US still faces a "long struggle."
I bring this up because McCain belittles the democrats and specifically Obama for failing to talk about "victory" in Iraq. At the same time, he constantly mentions general petraeus as a trusted advisor. But it seems Petraeus agrees with Obama that this is not a situation where terms like "victory" are appropriate. I think McCain is taking advantage of mid-western pride in country and using the word victory to gain voters when he knows that "victory" in the traditional sense is impossible in the situation. If he doesn't realize this, maybe he isn't fit to be commander in chief.
See BBC for the article.
10.9.08
7.9.08
There's more!
One line from a provacative article.
"That ideological sellout, unfortunately, was not the worst leadership trait the last-minute vice presidential pick revealed about McCain. His speed-dating of Palin reaffirmed a more dangerous personality tic that has dogged his entire career. His decision-making process is impetuous and, in its Bush-like preference for gut instinct over facts, potentially reckless."
compliments of: Frank Rich.
Article
"That ideological sellout, unfortunately, was not the worst leadership trait the last-minute vice presidential pick revealed about McCain. His speed-dating of Palin reaffirmed a more dangerous personality tic that has dogged his entire career. His decision-making process is impetuous and, in its Bush-like preference for gut instinct over facts, potentially reckless."
compliments of: Frank Rich.
Article
Confirmation that McCain is all politics and no substance.
The below is an article on the untrue statements from McCain's speech. The article is available by clicking the top line. For your convenience, I have bolded the statements that I think are the most important.
FactChecking McCain
September 5, 2008
He made some flubs in accepting the nomination.
Summary
We checked the accuracy of McCain’s speech accepting the Republican nomination and noted the following:
* McCain claimed that Obama’s health care plan would "force small businesses to cut jobs" and would put "a bureaucrat ... between you and your doctor." In fact, the plan exempts small businesses, and those who have insurance now could keep the coverage they have.
* McCain attacked Obama for voting for "corporate welfare" for oil companies. In fact, the bill Obama voted for raised taxes on oil companies by $300 million over 11 years while providing $5.8 billion in subsidies for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels.
* McCain said oil imports send "$700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much." But the U.S. is on track to import a total of only $536 billion worth of oil at current prices, and close to a third of that comes from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
* He promised to increase use of "wind, tide [and] solar" energy, though his actual energy plan contains no new money for renewable energy. He has said elsewhere that renewable sources won’t produce as much as people think.
* He called for "reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs," but as in the past failed to cite a single program that he would eliminate or reduce.
* He said Obama would "close" markets to trade. In fact, Obama, though he once said he wanted to "renegotiate" the North American Free Trade Agreement, now says he simply wants to try to strengthen environmental and labor provisions in it.
Analysis
Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul on Sept. 4 was couched more in generalities than in specifics, offering fewer factual claims to check than we found in other speeches to the gathering. But we found some instances where the nominee strained the truth.
Insurance Claims
McCain mischaracterized Obama’s health care plan:
McCain: His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.
The claim that “small businesses” would have to “cut jobs, reduce wages,” runs counter to Obama’s actual proposal. Obama’s plan would require businesses to contribute to the cost of insurance for employees or pay some unspecified amount into a new public plan. But his proposal specifically says, “Small businesses will be exempt from this requirement.” And it offers additional help to small businesses that want to provide health care in the form of a refundable tax credit of up to half the cost of premiums. We’ll note that neither man has defined what exactly a “small business” is.
Furthermore, Obama’s plan wouldn’t “force” families into a “government-run health care system.” His plan mandates that children have coverage; there’s no mandate for adults. People can keep the health insurance they have now or chose from private plans, or opt for a new public plan that will offer coverage similar to what members of Congress have. Obama would also expand Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. His plan certainly expands government-offered insurance – and McCain’s doesn’t – but it’s not a solely government-run plan, as McCain implied. And if Obama's public plan turns out to be similar to what federal employees have, as he says it would be, we're not sure how "a bureaucrat" would stand "between you and your doctor." The possible exception would be persons covered by Medicaid or SCHIP.
McCain also made this boast:
McCain: My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance.
Fair enough. But McCain's plan wouldn't do nearly as well as Obama's. One comparison, by the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, finds Obama’s would reduce the uninsured by 18 million people in its first year, compared with a 1 million reduction under McCain’s plan. TPC made various assumptions about the plans to fill in details each proposal lacks, so those numbers aren’t definitive. We await more comparisons from other experts.
Oily Words
McCain attacked Obama for supporting "corporate welfare" for oil companies:
McCain: [I]nstead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Senator Obama passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies.
The bill McCain is talking about here is the 2005 energy bill, which actually raised taxes on the oil industry a little bit overall – by about $300 million, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Meanwhile, McCain himself proposes to cut the corporate rate for all companies – oil included – and that would result in an estimated $4 billion cut for the five largest U.S.-based oil companies, according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Obama, on the other hand, is promising that he'll strip oil companies of "tax breaks" to the tune of an amount yet to be determined.
It's true that Obama voted for the 2005 bill. He said he favored the $5.8 billion (over 11 years) that it contained in tax incentives for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels. McCain voted against it on the grounds that the $2.6 billion it contained for oil and gas incentives was too much, even though the bill also took away $2.9 billion from the industry, for a net tax increase of $300 million. Describing such a complex measure as "corporate welfare" is misleading.
More Oily Words
We found other exaggerations in McCain’s claims about his plan for energy independence:
McCain: We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much.
In fact, the U.S. doesn't pay nearly that much for oil from hostile nations. According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. imported 4.9 billion barrels of oil in 2007. At today’s prices, that works out to about $536 billion, still a hefty chunk of change, but considerably less than $700 billion. More important, that's what we pay to all exporting nations, not just those that “don’t like us very much.” We note that 32 percent of U.S. oil imports came from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
Just Wind
McCain also made sweeping claims about green energy that aren't actually backed up by his policy proposals:
McCain: We will attack the problem on every front. ...We will increase the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas. We will encourage the development and use of flex fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles.
McCain has been quite specific about his proposals to clear the way for building 45 new nuclear power plants, opening offshore areas to oil drilling and spending $2 billion a year for so-called "clean coal" technology. He has also proposed a $300 million prize for developing the first practical plug-in electric car, although General Motors already is working on that and is aiming for delivery of the Chevrolet Volt by 2010, prize or no prize. McCain has also proposed a $5,000 tax credit for consumers who purchase zero emission vehicles
But when it comes to power from wind and tide, McCain's words are blowing in the breeze. His energy plan, which he calls the Lexington Project, proposes no new spending for renewable energy programs. Instead, he proposes to "rationalize the current patchwork of temporary tax credits," but hasn't said what he means by that. As we’ve written before, spokespeople for the wind and solar industries are unsure what this actually means. Finally, we’ll note that McCain himself told supporters at a July town hall meeting that he doesn’t think that renewable energy is likely to be "as much of the solution as some people think." Perhaps not, but if McCain is right his own words are contributing to the public misperception.
Pig in a Poke
McCain repeated his vague promise to make spending cuts:
McCain: Reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs will let you keep more of your own money to save, spend and invest as you see fit.
McCain has not said which programs he considers to be "failed programs." He thus makes the spending cuts sound less painful than they will be should he fulfill his previously stated promise to balance the federal budget by 2013 while also making all Bush tax cuts permanent and adding new cuts of his own. McCain repeated his promise to eliminate "earmarks" from federal spending bills, saying "the first big-spending pork-barrel earmark bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it." That drew applause, but the fact is that earmarks amount to only $16.9 billion in the current fiscal year, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Meanwhile, the deficit is expected to be more than $200 billion in 2009. And McCain's tax cuts will add billions more to future deficits unless offset by spending cuts, which he so far has not been willing to identify. What would he cut?
A McCain adviser, former CBO chairman Douglas Holtz-Eakin, has said that McCain "will provide the leadership to achieve bipartisan spending restraint" and "will perform a comprehensive review of all programs, projects and activities of the federal government" to find programs to cut or eliminate. But that, of course, will come after people have cast their votes.
Trade Talk
McCain said, “I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them."
McCain may be alluding to Obama’s threat earlier this year to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement if Mexico and Canada won't open the deal to renegotiation. Obama said at a Democratic primary debate in Cleveland in February:
Obama, Feb. 26: I will make sure that we renegotiate. … I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced.
But that's far from a threat to "close" markets to U.S. exports.
An expert from a pro-trade group agrees. “It's a stretch to take the heated comment from the Cleveland debate to pull out of NAFTA if it wasn't revised as indicative of a protectionist policy,” Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow and trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told FactCheck.org. “In any event, the position on NAFTA has since been clarified."
In fact, Obama has said he thinks it's unwise to repeal the trade deal, because to do so "would actually result in more job loss ... than job gains." And in a June interview with Fortune magazine, he stated that he didn’t plan on pulling out of NAFTA. "Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified," he said.
It's true that McCain has been a stronger advocate of free trade agreements than Obama, who supported the trade deal with Oman in 2006 and one with Peru in 2007 but opposed the one with Central America and another with Colombia. But saying he would "close" markets is nonsense.
Planet Plans
Finally, we note that McCain and the Republican delegates applied a different standard to the Republican nominee's lofty rhetoric than they did to Obama's.
McCain drew applause with this line:
McCain: We must use all resources and develop all technologies necessary to rescue our economy from the damage caused by rising oil prices and restore the health of our planet.
The previous evening, however, McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, ridiculed Obama for using similar high-sounding words:
Palin, Sept. 3: What does he actually seek to accomplish after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?
That crack drew jeers and laughter. Perhaps Republicans see a distinction between "healing the planet" and "restor[ing] the health of our planet," but it escapes us.
–by Brooks Jackson, with Viveca Novak, Lori Robertson, Joe Miller and Emi Kolawole
Sources
Obama, Barack. "Plan for a Healthy America." BarackObama.com, accessed 5 Sept. 2008.
Office of Management and Budget. "FY 2008 Appropriations Earmarks Summary," 28 January 2008.
Congressional Budget Office. "CBO's Baseline Budget Projections," March 2008.
Congressional Research Service. Oil and Gas Tax Subsidies: Current Status and Analysis. Washington: GPO, 2007.
"The Lexington Project." JohnMcCain.com, accessed 5 Sept. 2008.
"U.S. Imports by Country of Origin." U.S. Energy Information Administration, accessed 5 Sept. 2008.
"Spot Prices, Crude Oil in Dollars per Barrel." U.S. Energy Information Administration, accessed 5 Sept. 2008.
The New York Times. "Transcript, the Democratic Debate in Cleveland." 26 Feb. 2008.
Tapper, Jake. "Obama Knocks Clinton, but Wouldn't Ax NAFTA." ABC News, 24 Feb. 2008.
Easton, Nina. "Obama: NAFTA not so bad after all." Fortune Magazine, 18 June 2008.
Obama, Barack. "Why I Oppose CAFTA." Chicago Tribune, 30 June 2005.
Elliott, Philip. "Obama says rivals have failed." The Associated Press, 9 Oct. 2007.
"Remarks for Sen. Barack Obama: AFL-CIO." 2 April 2008. www.barackobama.com, Web site accessed 5 Sept. 2008.
FactChecking McCain
September 5, 2008
He made some flubs in accepting the nomination.
Summary
We checked the accuracy of McCain’s speech accepting the Republican nomination and noted the following:
* McCain claimed that Obama’s health care plan would "force small businesses to cut jobs" and would put "a bureaucrat ... between you and your doctor." In fact, the plan exempts small businesses, and those who have insurance now could keep the coverage they have.
* McCain attacked Obama for voting for "corporate welfare" for oil companies. In fact, the bill Obama voted for raised taxes on oil companies by $300 million over 11 years while providing $5.8 billion in subsidies for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels.
* McCain said oil imports send "$700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much." But the U.S. is on track to import a total of only $536 billion worth of oil at current prices, and close to a third of that comes from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
* He promised to increase use of "wind, tide [and] solar" energy, though his actual energy plan contains no new money for renewable energy. He has said elsewhere that renewable sources won’t produce as much as people think.
* He called for "reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs," but as in the past failed to cite a single program that he would eliminate or reduce.
* He said Obama would "close" markets to trade. In fact, Obama, though he once said he wanted to "renegotiate" the North American Free Trade Agreement, now says he simply wants to try to strengthen environmental and labor provisions in it.
Analysis
Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul on Sept. 4 was couched more in generalities than in specifics, offering fewer factual claims to check than we found in other speeches to the gathering. But we found some instances where the nominee strained the truth.
Insurance Claims
McCain mischaracterized Obama’s health care plan:
McCain: His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.
The claim that “small businesses” would have to “cut jobs, reduce wages,” runs counter to Obama’s actual proposal. Obama’s plan would require businesses to contribute to the cost of insurance for employees or pay some unspecified amount into a new public plan. But his proposal specifically says, “Small businesses will be exempt from this requirement.” And it offers additional help to small businesses that want to provide health care in the form of a refundable tax credit of up to half the cost of premiums. We’ll note that neither man has defined what exactly a “small business” is.
Furthermore, Obama’s plan wouldn’t “force” families into a “government-run health care system.” His plan mandates that children have coverage; there’s no mandate for adults. People can keep the health insurance they have now or chose from private plans, or opt for a new public plan that will offer coverage similar to what members of Congress have. Obama would also expand Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. His plan certainly expands government-offered insurance – and McCain’s doesn’t – but it’s not a solely government-run plan, as McCain implied. And if Obama's public plan turns out to be similar to what federal employees have, as he says it would be, we're not sure how "a bureaucrat" would stand "between you and your doctor." The possible exception would be persons covered by Medicaid or SCHIP.
McCain also made this boast:
McCain: My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance.
Fair enough. But McCain's plan wouldn't do nearly as well as Obama's. One comparison, by the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, finds Obama’s would reduce the uninsured by 18 million people in its first year, compared with a 1 million reduction under McCain’s plan. TPC made various assumptions about the plans to fill in details each proposal lacks, so those numbers aren’t definitive. We await more comparisons from other experts.
Oily Words
McCain attacked Obama for supporting "corporate welfare" for oil companies:
McCain: [I]nstead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Senator Obama passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies.
The bill McCain is talking about here is the 2005 energy bill, which actually raised taxes on the oil industry a little bit overall – by about $300 million, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Meanwhile, McCain himself proposes to cut the corporate rate for all companies – oil included – and that would result in an estimated $4 billion cut for the five largest U.S.-based oil companies, according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Obama, on the other hand, is promising that he'll strip oil companies of "tax breaks" to the tune of an amount yet to be determined.
It's true that Obama voted for the 2005 bill. He said he favored the $5.8 billion (over 11 years) that it contained in tax incentives for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels. McCain voted against it on the grounds that the $2.6 billion it contained for oil and gas incentives was too much, even though the bill also took away $2.9 billion from the industry, for a net tax increase of $300 million. Describing such a complex measure as "corporate welfare" is misleading.
More Oily Words
We found other exaggerations in McCain’s claims about his plan for energy independence:
McCain: We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much.
In fact, the U.S. doesn't pay nearly that much for oil from hostile nations. According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. imported 4.9 billion barrels of oil in 2007. At today’s prices, that works out to about $536 billion, still a hefty chunk of change, but considerably less than $700 billion. More important, that's what we pay to all exporting nations, not just those that “don’t like us very much.” We note that 32 percent of U.S. oil imports came from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
Just Wind
McCain also made sweeping claims about green energy that aren't actually backed up by his policy proposals:
McCain: We will attack the problem on every front. ...We will increase the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas. We will encourage the development and use of flex fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles.
McCain has been quite specific about his proposals to clear the way for building 45 new nuclear power plants, opening offshore areas to oil drilling and spending $2 billion a year for so-called "clean coal" technology. He has also proposed a $300 million prize for developing the first practical plug-in electric car, although General Motors already is working on that and is aiming for delivery of the Chevrolet Volt by 2010, prize or no prize. McCain has also proposed a $5,000 tax credit for consumers who purchase zero emission vehicles
But when it comes to power from wind and tide, McCain's words are blowing in the breeze. His energy plan, which he calls the Lexington Project, proposes no new spending for renewable energy programs. Instead, he proposes to "rationalize the current patchwork of temporary tax credits," but hasn't said what he means by that. As we’ve written before, spokespeople for the wind and solar industries are unsure what this actually means. Finally, we’ll note that McCain himself told supporters at a July town hall meeting that he doesn’t think that renewable energy is likely to be "as much of the solution as some people think." Perhaps not, but if McCain is right his own words are contributing to the public misperception.
Pig in a Poke
McCain repeated his vague promise to make spending cuts:
McCain: Reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs will let you keep more of your own money to save, spend and invest as you see fit.
McCain has not said which programs he considers to be "failed programs." He thus makes the spending cuts sound less painful than they will be should he fulfill his previously stated promise to balance the federal budget by 2013 while also making all Bush tax cuts permanent and adding new cuts of his own. McCain repeated his promise to eliminate "earmarks" from federal spending bills, saying "the first big-spending pork-barrel earmark bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it." That drew applause, but the fact is that earmarks amount to only $16.9 billion in the current fiscal year, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Meanwhile, the deficit is expected to be more than $200 billion in 2009. And McCain's tax cuts will add billions more to future deficits unless offset by spending cuts, which he so far has not been willing to identify. What would he cut?
A McCain adviser, former CBO chairman Douglas Holtz-Eakin, has said that McCain "will provide the leadership to achieve bipartisan spending restraint" and "will perform a comprehensive review of all programs, projects and activities of the federal government" to find programs to cut or eliminate. But that, of course, will come after people have cast their votes.
Trade Talk
McCain said, “I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them."
McCain may be alluding to Obama’s threat earlier this year to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement if Mexico and Canada won't open the deal to renegotiation. Obama said at a Democratic primary debate in Cleveland in February:
Obama, Feb. 26: I will make sure that we renegotiate. … I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced.
But that's far from a threat to "close" markets to U.S. exports.
An expert from a pro-trade group agrees. “It's a stretch to take the heated comment from the Cleveland debate to pull out of NAFTA if it wasn't revised as indicative of a protectionist policy,” Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow and trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told FactCheck.org. “In any event, the position on NAFTA has since been clarified."
In fact, Obama has said he thinks it's unwise to repeal the trade deal, because to do so "would actually result in more job loss ... than job gains." And in a June interview with Fortune magazine, he stated that he didn’t plan on pulling out of NAFTA. "Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified," he said.
It's true that McCain has been a stronger advocate of free trade agreements than Obama, who supported the trade deal with Oman in 2006 and one with Peru in 2007 but opposed the one with Central America and another with Colombia. But saying he would "close" markets is nonsense.
Planet Plans
Finally, we note that McCain and the Republican delegates applied a different standard to the Republican nominee's lofty rhetoric than they did to Obama's.
McCain drew applause with this line:
McCain: We must use all resources and develop all technologies necessary to rescue our economy from the damage caused by rising oil prices and restore the health of our planet.
The previous evening, however, McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, ridiculed Obama for using similar high-sounding words:
Palin, Sept. 3: What does he actually seek to accomplish after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?
That crack drew jeers and laughter. Perhaps Republicans see a distinction between "healing the planet" and "restor[ing] the health of our planet," but it escapes us.
–by Brooks Jackson, with Viveca Novak, Lori Robertson, Joe Miller and Emi Kolawole
Sources
Obama, Barack. "Plan for a Healthy America." BarackObama.com, accessed 5 Sept. 2008.
Office of Management and Budget. "FY 2008 Appropriations Earmarks Summary," 28 January 2008.
Congressional Budget Office. "CBO's Baseline Budget Projections," March 2008.
Congressional Research Service. Oil and Gas Tax Subsidies: Current Status and Analysis. Washington: GPO, 2007.
"The Lexington Project." JohnMcCain.com, accessed 5 Sept. 2008.
"U.S. Imports by Country of Origin." U.S. Energy Information Administration, accessed 5 Sept. 2008.
"Spot Prices, Crude Oil in Dollars per Barrel." U.S. Energy Information Administration, accessed 5 Sept. 2008.
The New York Times. "Transcript, the Democratic Debate in Cleveland." 26 Feb. 2008.
Tapper, Jake. "Obama Knocks Clinton, but Wouldn't Ax NAFTA." ABC News, 24 Feb. 2008.
Easton, Nina. "Obama: NAFTA not so bad after all." Fortune Magazine, 18 June 2008.
Obama, Barack. "Why I Oppose CAFTA." Chicago Tribune, 30 June 2005.
Elliott, Philip. "Obama says rivals have failed." The Associated Press, 9 Oct. 2007.
"Remarks for Sen. Barack Obama: AFL-CIO." 2 April 2008. www.barackobama.com, Web site accessed 5 Sept. 2008.
5.9.08
Mc is up to more slander.
There is a new john mccain ad out chocked full of FACTUALLY UNTRUE information. I don't understand how this is not slander.
BUT... OMG!! Joe Biden is saying all the same things as me! Does that mean I can be the next VP???
BUT... OMG!! Joe Biden is saying all the same things as me! Does that mean I can be the next VP???
The movie below illustrates that I am not delusional. I have been concerned all along that the McCain campaign is trying to make this whole race about character and not policy. The problem with that is without campaign promises, you have nothing to hold your elected officals accountable for once in office. When candidates make promises, they can be judged as either successful or unsuccessful. It has political risks, but its just like making goals. If your goal is to be a nice person, you have no way of deciding if you were successful. If your goal is to not exaggerate, its easier to count the number of times that you fail to live up to your own goals. Policy prescriptions, like goals, should be measurable!
I expect politicians to make promises so that there is public pressure on them to achieve certain things when in office. This is a way of making their priorities known. Although Obama is taking a lot of slack about not being specific enough, I feel that he has made more campaign promises than John McCain. In fact, he has been criticized as making too many (in his acceptance speech). John McCain, on the other hand, has selected a running mate that makes it clear that he wants to talk about personality and character. Sarah Palin is a purely political pick. Let me repeat, Sarah Palin is a purely political pick. McCain does not know her, he had one one hour conversation with her before selecting her as his running mate. Now I know this is because his staff is really in control here, but that is also a poor reflection on his leadership. If he cannot control his staff now, how will he in the White House??? Sarah Palin was selected because she would excite right-wing fundamentalist christians. She was not selected because of her ability to lead our country, or because of what she would add to the ticket.
I appreciate that the four people running in this race are people of character, and on a personal level, I think I would be friends with any of them. But these people are not running to be friends with us, they are running to be our leaders! They are running because they think they have the best ideas on how to be president/vp (and because their party thinks they can be elected). Picking a president is about picking the person that you think has the best IDEAS for the country. They are casting a VISION. Consult any leadership book, it will tell you the role of a leader is to cast a vision AND THEN TO TAKE YOU THERE. We can all think of people in our lives who have personal vision, who inspire others. Some of them succeed, and some of them don't, because personality does not always mean you can get things done. So including personality/character in your overall selection of a candidate does make sense. BUT it cannot be the decisive factor. WE MUST KNOW THE PLANS OF OUR CANDIDATES FOR OUR COUNTRY. Ask yourself, what concrete promises have you seen made by the candidates? Let's assemble a big list, and then make educated decisions based on our view of candidates goals and their plans on how to implement them. The below video shows that the man who controls the message from the McCain campaign puts issues second, after personality. please please please put pressure on the candidates to talk about issues by being someone who talks about issues. My poor group of friends who have to listen to me rant whenever the TV is on can vouch that I spend all day bemoaning when candidates misrepresent one another in an effort to avoid the issues. and I guess you guys are familiar with that too.
I expect politicians to make promises so that there is public pressure on them to achieve certain things when in office. This is a way of making their priorities known. Although Obama is taking a lot of slack about not being specific enough, I feel that he has made more campaign promises than John McCain. In fact, he has been criticized as making too many (in his acceptance speech). John McCain, on the other hand, has selected a running mate that makes it clear that he wants to talk about personality and character. Sarah Palin is a purely political pick. Let me repeat, Sarah Palin is a purely political pick. McCain does not know her, he had one one hour conversation with her before selecting her as his running mate. Now I know this is because his staff is really in control here, but that is also a poor reflection on his leadership. If he cannot control his staff now, how will he in the White House??? Sarah Palin was selected because she would excite right-wing fundamentalist christians. She was not selected because of her ability to lead our country, or because of what she would add to the ticket.
I appreciate that the four people running in this race are people of character, and on a personal level, I think I would be friends with any of them. But these people are not running to be friends with us, they are running to be our leaders! They are running because they think they have the best ideas on how to be president/vp (and because their party thinks they can be elected). Picking a president is about picking the person that you think has the best IDEAS for the country. They are casting a VISION. Consult any leadership book, it will tell you the role of a leader is to cast a vision AND THEN TO TAKE YOU THERE. We can all think of people in our lives who have personal vision, who inspire others. Some of them succeed, and some of them don't, because personality does not always mean you can get things done. So including personality/character in your overall selection of a candidate does make sense. BUT it cannot be the decisive factor. WE MUST KNOW THE PLANS OF OUR CANDIDATES FOR OUR COUNTRY. Ask yourself, what concrete promises have you seen made by the candidates? Let's assemble a big list, and then make educated decisions based on our view of candidates goals and their plans on how to implement them. The below video shows that the man who controls the message from the McCain campaign puts issues second, after personality. please please please put pressure on the candidates to talk about issues by being someone who talks about issues. My poor group of friends who have to listen to me rant whenever the TV is on can vouch that I spend all day bemoaning when candidates misrepresent one another in an effort to avoid the issues. and I guess you guys are familiar with that too.
4.9.08
PS.
FYI: the past 7 or 8 posts are me watching the Republican National Convention and getting progressively (no pun intended :) angrier.
3.9.08
RA RA RA!
"The Republican Party is so good about making everything about character and not about policy."
someone's handsome fiance.
someone's handsome fiance.
LUCKY YOU!
Ann Wainscott, as if she hadn't ranted enough, is currently watching the Republican National Convention, and intends to update her blog regularly. LIVE!
1.9.08
Palin
The interesting thing about politics, is that sometimes issues are very clear and other times they aren't. What is ironic, is that when issues are clear for some, they're blurry for others. I'm hoping that there is one thing that we can all agree upon, regardless of party affiliation:
the vice president of the United States of America should have more foreign experience than I do, a 23 year old graduate student.
I'm also not all that thrilled, that I'm more educated than a potential vice president of the United States.
so can we all just congratulate her for her volunteer work on the PTA and her historic election as the governor of Alaska, and leave it at that? I mean, is this really something that we need to talk about, need to process?
Does anyone else need to be reminded of the last time we elected someone because we felt like he was "like us?" We need people with experience but also judgement. Someone who encourages dissent. George Bush had a nice accent but because of his lack of experience and confidence he was able to be manipulated by his own vice president.
Didn't we realize over the last eight years that the vice president could have very real power and that someone who is overly ideological and under-qualified can really cost the American people quite a bit? the lives of their daughters and sons, their reputation, the safety of their people when they travel. All these things have been compromised in large part because of the work of our current vice president.
John McCain is really really old. Sarah Palin needs to be considered not only as a VP candidate, but also as a candidate for our highest political office, the most powerful position in the world. Would she, as someone with no international experience, really be confident enough to foster critical debate among some of the most brilliant minds in America about economic, political and social issues in Japan, Russia, Bolivia, Jamaica and Angola? Could she find these countries on a map?
There is not critical debate at the white house unless it is fostered. You really want me to believe that a hockeymom will ask the right questions? will surround herself with the right people? Will give herself fully to an office that requires twenty hour days, with five children?
I just don't buy it.
But I grew up in the midwest. I know there are people sitting at their kitchen tables tickled pink that a woman with a down syndrome baby might lead our country and it really just pushes my buttons that someone could be so selfish that they would think only of their one pet issue than of the economic well being of not only their nation, but the hundred other nations supported by our foreign aid programs. Now is not a time for one issue politics.
the vice president of the United States of America should have more foreign experience than I do, a 23 year old graduate student.
I'm also not all that thrilled, that I'm more educated than a potential vice president of the United States.
so can we all just congratulate her for her volunteer work on the PTA and her historic election as the governor of Alaska, and leave it at that? I mean, is this really something that we need to talk about, need to process?
Does anyone else need to be reminded of the last time we elected someone because we felt like he was "like us?" We need people with experience but also judgement. Someone who encourages dissent. George Bush had a nice accent but because of his lack of experience and confidence he was able to be manipulated by his own vice president.
Didn't we realize over the last eight years that the vice president could have very real power and that someone who is overly ideological and under-qualified can really cost the American people quite a bit? the lives of their daughters and sons, their reputation, the safety of their people when they travel. All these things have been compromised in large part because of the work of our current vice president.
John McCain is really really old. Sarah Palin needs to be considered not only as a VP candidate, but also as a candidate for our highest political office, the most powerful position in the world. Would she, as someone with no international experience, really be confident enough to foster critical debate among some of the most brilliant minds in America about economic, political and social issues in Japan, Russia, Bolivia, Jamaica and Angola? Could she find these countries on a map?
There is not critical debate at the white house unless it is fostered. You really want me to believe that a hockeymom will ask the right questions? will surround herself with the right people? Will give herself fully to an office that requires twenty hour days, with five children?
I just don't buy it.
But I grew up in the midwest. I know there are people sitting at their kitchen tables tickled pink that a woman with a down syndrome baby might lead our country and it really just pushes my buttons that someone could be so selfish that they would think only of their one pet issue than of the economic well being of not only their nation, but the hundred other nations supported by our foreign aid programs. Now is not a time for one issue politics.
29.8.08
Interesting Resource
This chart lists and briefly describe key advisers to both the Obama and McCain campaigns. Thought that you all would enjoy!
28.8.08
Domestic Politics and China too
A Biblical Seven Years
Beijing
After attending the spectacular closing ceremony at the Beijing Olympics and feeling the vibrations from hundreds of Chinese drummers pulsating in my own chest, I was tempted to conclude two things: “Holy mackerel, the energy coming out of this country is unrivaled.” And, two: “We are so cooked. Start teaching your kids Mandarin.”
However, I’ve learned over the years not to over-interpret any two-week event. Olympics don’t change history. They are mere snapshots — a country posing in its Sunday bests for all the world too see. But, as snapshots go, the one China presented through the Olympics was enormously powerful — and it’s one that Americans need to reflect upon this election season.
China did not build the magnificent $43 billion infrastructure for these games, or put on the unparalleled opening and closing ceremonies, simply by the dumb luck of discovering oil. No, it was the culmination of seven years of national investment, planning, concentrated state power, national mobilization and hard work.
Seven years ... Seven years ... Oh, that’s right. China was awarded these Olympic Games on July 13, 2001 — just two months before 9/11.
As I sat in my seat at the Bird’s Nest, watching thousands of Chinese dancers, drummers, singers and acrobats on stilts perform their magic at the closing ceremony, I couldn’t help but reflect on how China and America have spent the last seven years: China has been preparing for the Olympics; we’ve been preparing for Al Qaeda. They’ve been building better stadiums, subways, airports, roads and parks. And we’ve been building better metal detectors, armored Humvees and pilotless drones.
The difference is starting to show. Just compare arriving at La Guardia’s dumpy terminal in New York City and driving through the crumbling infrastructure into Manhattan with arriving at Shanghai’s sleek airport and taking the 220-mile-per-hour magnetic levitation train, which uses electromagnetic propulsion instead of steel wheels and tracks, to get to town in a blink.
Then ask yourself: Who is living in the third world country?
Yes, if you drive an hour out of Beijing, you meet the vast dirt-poor third world of China. But here’s what’s new: The rich parts of China, the modern parts of Beijing or Shanghai or Dalian, are now more state of the art than rich America. The buildings are architecturally more interesting, the wireless networks more sophisticated, the roads and trains more efficient and nicer. And, I repeat, they did not get all this by discovering oil. They got it by digging inside themselves.
I realize the differences: We were attacked on 9/11; they were not. We have real enemies; theirs are small and mostly domestic. We had to respond to 9/11 at least by eliminating the Al Qaeda base in Afghanistan and investing in tighter homeland security. They could avoid foreign entanglements. Trying to build democracy in Iraq, though, which I supported, was a war of choice and is unlikely to ever produce anything equal to its huge price tag.
But the first rule of holes is that when you’re in one, stop digging. When you see how much modern infrastructure has been built in China since 2001, under the banner of the Olympics, and you see how much infrastructure has been postponed in America since 2001, under the banner of the war on terrorism, it’s clear that the next seven years need to be devoted to nation-building in America.
We need to finish our business in Iraq and Afghanistan as quickly as possible, which is why it is a travesty that the Iraqi Parliament has gone on vacation while 130,000 U.S. troops are standing guard. We can no longer afford to postpone our nation-building while Iraqis squabble over whether to do theirs.
A lot of people are now advising Barack Obama to get dirty with John McCain. Sure, fight fire with fire. That’s necessary, but it is not sufficient.
Obama got this far because many voters projected onto him that he could be the leader of an American renewal. They know we need nation-building at home now — not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in Georgia, but in America. Obama cannot lose that theme.
He cannot let Republicans make this election about who is tough enough to stand up to Russia or bin Laden. It has to be about who is strong enough, focused enough, creative enough and unifying enough to get Americans to rebuild America. The next president can have all the foreign affairs experience in the world, but it will be useless, utterly useless, if we, as a country, are weak.
Obama is more right than he knows when he proclaims that this is “our” moment, this is “our” time. But it is our time to get back to work on the only home we have, our time for nation-building in America. I never want to tell my girls — and I’m sure Obama feels the same about his — that they have to go to China to see the future."
Article27.8.08
Just another reason to lose respect for JMcC
Below is another example of why I think McCain is running a dishonest and disappointing campaign. The article discusses the distortions by the McCain staff of statements made by Obama about Iran. The article takes the quotations that are misused and places them back into context to show how the ad is misleading. And get this: The full statement was even released by the McCain staff, so they knew the context!!!! This was a blatant attempt to mislead people about Obama's stance on Iran. This leads me to ask a series of questions, including: Why doesn't McCain attack his actual stance, rather than create a new one to attack? If he can't manage the message coming out of his campaign, is he prepared to oversee our arms of diplomacy? If he can't even tell the truth about another American to the American people, what will he say in our name to others?
Please see article on McCain's latest ad.
Here is Obama's actual stance on Iran, not taken out of context. His comments on other issues are available on his website. Let's critique candidates' actual policy plans, rather than lie about them.
From the Obama Campaign Webpage (emphasis in italics is my own):
PS. Hillary, you looked great last night! I like you in orange... :)
Please see article on McCain's latest ad.
Here is Obama's actual stance on Iran, not taken out of context. His comments on other issues are available on his website. Let's critique candidates' actual policy plans, rather than lie about them.
From the Obama Campaign Webpage (emphasis in italics is my own):
"Iran
- The Problem: Iran has sought nuclear weapons, supports militias inside Iraq and terror across the region, and its leaders threaten Israel and deny the Holocaust. But Obama believes that we have not exhausted our non-military options in confronting this threat; in many ways, we have yet to try them. That's why Obama stood up to the Bush administration's warnings of war, just like he stood up to the war in Iraq.
- Opposed Bush-Cheney Saber Rattling: Obama opposed the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which says we should use our military presence in Iraq to counter the threat from Iran. Obama believes that it was reckless for Congress to give George Bush any justification to extend the Iraq War or to attack Iran. Obama also introduced a resolution in the Senate declaring that no act of Congress – including Kyl-Lieberman – gives the Bush administration authorization to attack Iran.
- Diplomacy: Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Now is the time to pressure Iran directly to change their troubling behavior. Obama would offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization, economic investments, and a move toward normal diplomatic relations. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation. Seeking this kind of comprehensive settlement with Iran is our best way to make progress."
PS. Hillary, you looked great last night! I like you in orange... :)
26.8.08
Catholic church, you piss me off!
Sorry Mom, I know you don't like it when I use the p-word. But this time, I really really mean it.
Recent articles featured in the NY Times and the Gainesville Sun have highlighted inappropriate abuses of power within the Catholic church. I'm not talking about scandals. I'm talking about priests forgetting their place. In an article titled, "Catholic heritage defines Biden," Eric Gorski (AP) reports that Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput has publicly called Joe Biden to refrain from taking communion because he is pro-choice. The same man suggested John Kerry should be denied the sacrament during the previous election.
And in Mexico City, "Even the powerful Catholic Church, which threatened legislators with excommunication last year if they approved the [abortion] law, has muted its political rhetoric. (In the end, the church did not kick any lawmakers out because of their votes.)"
I think these two articles highlight a gross abuse of power by the higher-ups in the Catholic church. Threatening to deny anyone communion should raise disgust and outrage from catholics around the world. Priests who see themselves as the arbiter, deciding who should and should not receive God's grace are walking a dangerous line. They seem to think that it is their position to decide who is and is not "good enough" to receive from the Lord, this same Lord who said "Come unto me all ye who labor and I will give you rest." In doesn't read, come to me those who agree with me or come to me those who are really really religious. Christ calls the weary to himself, does he not also call the weary to his own communion table? Scripture suggests that not only would Jesus himself serve communion to these legislators himself, HE ALREADY HAS! Communion is a symbol of Christ's death and resurrection, offered to all people, and certainly not denied to people because of their political views, moral values or private battles. Perhaps what is most important to remember is that Christ himself would offer communion to the women waiting in line for abortions and to the doctors who perform such actions.
Priests who threaten to excommunicate people should be punished, by the establishment for an abuse of power. And Catholics whose values actually do reflect the gospel ought to speak out against such nonsense. Those who would like to contact the Archbishop, may do so with the following information:
Mexico City Struggles with Law on Abortion
Catholic heritage defines Biden
Recent articles featured in the NY Times and the Gainesville Sun have highlighted inappropriate abuses of power within the Catholic church. I'm not talking about scandals. I'm talking about priests forgetting their place. In an article titled, "Catholic heritage defines Biden," Eric Gorski (AP) reports that Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput has publicly called Joe Biden to refrain from taking communion because he is pro-choice. The same man suggested John Kerry should be denied the sacrament during the previous election.
And in Mexico City, "Even the powerful Catholic Church, which threatened legislators with excommunication last year if they approved the [abortion] law, has muted its political rhetoric. (In the end, the church did not kick any lawmakers out because of their votes.)"
I think these two articles highlight a gross abuse of power by the higher-ups in the Catholic church. Threatening to deny anyone communion should raise disgust and outrage from catholics around the world. Priests who see themselves as the arbiter, deciding who should and should not receive God's grace are walking a dangerous line. They seem to think that it is their position to decide who is and is not "good enough" to receive from the Lord, this same Lord who said "Come unto me all ye who labor and I will give you rest." In doesn't read, come to me those who agree with me or come to me those who are really really religious. Christ calls the weary to himself, does he not also call the weary to his own communion table? Scripture suggests that not only would Jesus himself serve communion to these legislators himself, HE ALREADY HAS! Communion is a symbol of Christ's death and resurrection, offered to all people, and certainly not denied to people because of their political views, moral values or private battles. Perhaps what is most important to remember is that Christ himself would offer communion to the women waiting in line for abortions and to the doctors who perform such actions.
Priests who threaten to excommunicate people should be punished, by the establishment for an abuse of power. And Catholics whose values actually do reflect the gospel ought to speak out against such nonsense. Those who would like to contact the Archbishop, may do so with the following information:
Archbishop of Denver
Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
303-715-3129
shepherd@archden.org
Mexico City Struggles with Law on Abortion
Catholic heritage defines Biden
Thank you Paul, for this fine article.
Accentuate the Negative
"So the Obama campaign has turned to the politics of personal destruction, attempting to make a campaign issue out of John McCain’s inability to remember how many houses he has. And the turn comes not a moment too soon.
Over the past month or so many Democrats have had the sick feeling that once again their candidate brought a knife to a gunfight. Barack Obama’s campaign, inexplicably, was unprepared for the inevitable Republican attack on the candidate’s character. By the middle of last week, Mr. Obama’s once formidable lead, both in national polls and in electoral college projections based on state-level polls, had virtually evaporated.
Mr. Obama’s waning advantage brought back bad memories of the 2004 campaign, whose key lesson was that there are no limits to the form G.O.P. character attacks can take.
You might think, for example, that a party claiming to support the troops would shy away from attacking a war hero’s military record — but back in 2004 the Swift-boat lies were enthusiastically embraced by Republican activists, and helped neutralize the advantage John Kerry was supposed to get from his biography.
And you might think that a party committed to tax cuts for the rich, a party that routinely castigates those who engage in “class warfare,” would shy away from attacking a Democrat for his wealth. But raw class envy played an important role in the attacks on Mr. Kerry, whom Rush Limbaugh described repeatedly as a “gigolo” with a “sugar daddy wife,” and G.O.P. supporters don’t seem to have experienced any cognitive dissonance.
It was predictable, then, that Mr. Obama would find himself on the receiving end of an all-out character attack, much of it nonsensical: he’s un-American because he vacations in Hawaii, where his grandmother lives? It was also predictable that responding by repeating what a great guy the candidate is, or denouncing the attacks as unfair, would be ineffective.
So now the Obama campaign has responded with its own character attack.
Is it fair to attack Mr. McCain for having too many houses?
In an ideal world, politicians would be judged by their actions, not by their wealth or lack thereof. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born to wealth, but that didn’t stop him from doing more for working Americans than any president before or since. Conversely, Joseph Biden’s hardscrabble life story, though inspiring, didn’t stop him from supporting the odious 2005 bankruptcy bill.
But in the world we actually live in, pro-corporate, inequality-increasing Republicans argue that you should vote for them because they’re regular guys you’d like to have a beer with, while Democrats who want to raise taxes on top earners, expand health care and raise the minimum wage are snooty elitists.
And in that world, stripping away the regular-guy facade — pointing out that everything Rush Limbaugh said about Mr. Kerry applies equally to Mr. McCain, that Mr. McCain lives in a material world few Americans can imagine — is only fair. Yes, Mr. Obama vacations in Hawaii — and Cindy McCain says that “In Arizona, the only way to get around the state is by small private plane.”
The squealing from the usual suspects demonstrates how much the Obama counterattack has the G.O.P. worried. Back in 2004 Fox News described John Kerry as “one of the haves” with a “billionaire wife”; now it asks whether raising the issue of Mr. McCain’s houses is “bashing the American dream.”
And the McCain campaign, after initially mumbling something about how Mr. Obama eats arugula, quickly resorted to its all-purpose answer: you can’t criticize the candidate because he’s a former P.O.W. Maybe the campaign hopes that the Obama people will fall into a reflexive cringe, the same way they did when Wesley Clark made the entirely reasonable point that having been a P.O.W., while it makes you a hero, doesn’t necessarily qualify you to become president.
Assuming that the Obama campaign isn’t scared off by the P.O.W. thing, can it really win in an exchange of character attacks? Probably not — but it doesn’t have to.
The central fact of this year’s election is that voters are fed up with Republican rule. The only way Mr. McCain can win the presidential race is if it becomes a contest of personalities rather than parties — and if his campaign can instill in voters the perception that Mr. Obama is a suspicious character while Mr. McCain is a fine, upstanding gentleman.
The Obama campaign, on the other hand, doesn’t need to convince voters either that he’s the awesomest candidate ever or that Mr. McCain is a villain. All it has to do is tarnish Mr. McCain’s image enough so that voters see this as a race between a Democrat and a Republican. And that’s a race the Democrat will easily win."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin
24.8.08
Prisoner of World-View
the last two paragraphs of an interesting article:
"The real danger to the McCain crew in overusing the P.O.W. line so much that it’s a punch line is that it will give Obama an opening for critical questions:
"While McCain’s experience was heroic, did it create a worldview incapable of anticipating the limits to U.S. military power in Iraq? Did he fail to absorb the lessons of Vietnam, so that he is doomed to always want to refight it? Did his captivity inform a search-and-destroy, shoot-first-ask-questions-later, “We are all Georgians,” mentality?"
the beginning
The last few weeks have been a bit of an awakening for me. After spending eleven weeks traveling from Rochester to Ohio to Morocco and back again, I needed to be in my own space... not just physically at home in my apartment, but fully immersed in my own interests, priorities and quite frankly, in my own company. And I have enjoyed it.
During the trip I was physically and mentally absent from here; I did not think much of home, except to miss its comforts. And so I have returned with a fresh interest in our present state of affairs . But others have not been absent. Most have been bombarded by political advertising, disturbing economic forecasts and even more unsettling economic realities. While others' interest in current events have been dwindling in a sea of disillusionment, my own is growing. Out of compassion for my friends and family I have decided to concentrate my rants in one place. Rather than continuously subjecting those around me to my vociferous estimations, I have decided to make my opinions optional. The flip side is, of course, that I will be less politically correct, less gentle. I am going to use this place to wrestle with my own views and clarify my own opinions of religion, politics and society. I hope this spares those dearest to me of any further inconvenience.
I will make my current biases known from the beginning. Although raised in a conservative home that many would categorize as "the religious right," I became disillusioned with republican politics as many have over the past eight years. I was taught to be a one-issue voter, but have found the strategy unsatisfactory in a complex world where many issues are important. I have yet to do any major active campaigning, although some of you have received crazy emails from me about why my political views are right and yours are wrong. I'm hoping you'll forgive my audacity because of my enthusiasm.
During the primary season I supported Hillary Clinton and made my very first political contribution (hooray!). I remember being really impressed with John McCain when I was first interested in politics years ago, however his conduct during this campaign has been disappointing and repugnant, in my opinion. If you are an avid supporter I encourage you to try and change my mind about him, but I doubt you can salvage his candidacy in my mind. I have grown to respect and support Barack Obama over time. I still remember the first argument made in his defense that interested me. My friend Sara explained to me in detail how she liked his decision making style, the thoughtful way he discussed issues. Since our conversation I have also seen how he does not try to paint complex issues as black and white, nor does he sacrifice his own values for political expediency, as I feel John McCain has. I anticipate a great many of my posts will be fleshing out my thoughts on the presidency and including links that have influenced my opinions. I hope they will be of use to you. To start with, here are a few of the best political (and other) stories I've read this week:
Hoping it's Biden by David Brooks
I appreciated this article because I lack enthusiasm over the VP choice.
For McCains, A Public Path but Private Wealth by David Halbfinger
My week as a Waiter by Frank Bruni
It's always good to remember to be kind to the waiter.
Goodnight and Godspeed. :)
During the trip I was physically and mentally absent from here; I did not think much of home, except to miss its comforts. And so I have returned with a fresh interest in our present state of affairs . But others have not been absent. Most have been bombarded by political advertising, disturbing economic forecasts and even more unsettling economic realities. While others' interest in current events have been dwindling in a sea of disillusionment, my own is growing. Out of compassion for my friends and family I have decided to concentrate my rants in one place. Rather than continuously subjecting those around me to my vociferous estimations, I have decided to make my opinions optional. The flip side is, of course, that I will be less politically correct, less gentle. I am going to use this place to wrestle with my own views and clarify my own opinions of religion, politics and society. I hope this spares those dearest to me of any further inconvenience.
I will make my current biases known from the beginning. Although raised in a conservative home that many would categorize as "the religious right," I became disillusioned with republican politics as many have over the past eight years. I was taught to be a one-issue voter, but have found the strategy unsatisfactory in a complex world where many issues are important. I have yet to do any major active campaigning, although some of you have received crazy emails from me about why my political views are right and yours are wrong. I'm hoping you'll forgive my audacity because of my enthusiasm.
During the primary season I supported Hillary Clinton and made my very first political contribution (hooray!). I remember being really impressed with John McCain when I was first interested in politics years ago, however his conduct during this campaign has been disappointing and repugnant, in my opinion. If you are an avid supporter I encourage you to try and change my mind about him, but I doubt you can salvage his candidacy in my mind. I have grown to respect and support Barack Obama over time. I still remember the first argument made in his defense that interested me. My friend Sara explained to me in detail how she liked his decision making style, the thoughtful way he discussed issues. Since our conversation I have also seen how he does not try to paint complex issues as black and white, nor does he sacrifice his own values for political expediency, as I feel John McCain has. I anticipate a great many of my posts will be fleshing out my thoughts on the presidency and including links that have influenced my opinions. I hope they will be of use to you. To start with, here are a few of the best political (and other) stories I've read this week:
Hoping it's Biden by David Brooks
I appreciated this article because I lack enthusiasm over the VP choice.
For McCains, A Public Path but Private Wealth by David Halbfinger
My week as a Waiter by Frank Bruni
It's always good to remember to be kind to the waiter.
Goodnight and Godspeed. :)
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