Stealing the Election?

Yesterday, my Dad who has voted for both parties but lately has been voting a Democratic ticket received a letter in the mail stating that his signature has changed (bs). He had to make a copy of his driver's license and mail it to the Department of Elections in order to make sure his vote will count? He received the notice only 2 working days before the election in the traditional Republican enclave of Maple Valley - A place which has lately been turning purple.

Is this the Republicans game plan for wining? Steal the election (Again)?

What do you all think?

BA

Rumors vs. Facts

Nice article from Politico summing up all of the rumors and innuendo surrounding both Obama and McCain. Some I had never even heard of until now. Guess I haven't been scouring through the blogs enough. One telling figure: 20-to-1 Obama rumor email to McCain rumor email, according to what Politico alone has received. Gives some perspective on the assumption that "both sides do it." Or just that the right wingnuts are more active and eager, I suppose. Enjoy.

Cover this! Inside the nastiest ’08 rumors

Last Minute Election Predictions?

Okay, people... Who will win and by how much? Which states will go for McCain, or Obama?

I want to see your predictions.

-Brian A.

Great Last Minute Election Links (Entertainment)

My American Prayer (song):
My American Prayer

Oppie, Andy and the Fonz, supporting Obama?
Ron Howard's Call to Action

The Vet Who Did Not Vet:
The Vet Who Did Not Vet

Powell vs. the Religious Right

[Backlogged post...]
I obviously can't attest to the accuracy of the story, but it certainly sheds some light on why Powell endorsed Obama. From The Daily Beast:
The Man Who Helped Drive Powell Away From His Party

Re-re-making of McCain

[More backlogged post]
NYTimes article on the McCain campaign:
Re-re-making of McCain

$150,000 to put Lipstick on a Pig?

Okay, how much does it cost to put Lipstick on a pig? $150,000 dollars, that's how much the RNC spent to accessorize Sarah Palin and family in less than three months.

Donating hard earned money to the Republican party during times of economic distress? The look on his face, when he learns how his money was spent, PRICELESS.

L.A. Times Article (Posted by Patt Morrison on October 22, 2008 in Campaign 2008 , Patt Morrison , Public Shaming , Sarah Palin | Permalink):

Bill Clinton and John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore -- you can thank Sarah Palin for showing us what pikers you are.

Multi-hundred dollar haircuts? Earthtone clothing consultations? Four-figure hair styling sessions? So '90s. So downmarket.

Now here's real makeover money: ''Politico'' reports that the Republican National Committee has evidently spent more than $150,000 in less than three months to dress and style Sarah Palin and her family. Whoever came up with the nickname ''Caribou Barbie'' got it more right than he knew.

Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York got a combined $49,425.74 from the RNC, and they don't sell Arctic hunting gear there. There were a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis --one of them for $75,062.63 in early September! I feel so stupid -- I was at the St. Paul convention, and I didn't even KNOW there was a Neiman Marcus in the vicinity! Not that there might have been anything left for me after La Palin's Grande Shoppage.

And there are costs for what looks like just one month of hair and makeup. There were no hair and makeup expenses reported in August, so the $4,716.49 reported through September had to be just September, and the only difference between August and September for the RNC was the appearance of the Wasilla Family Palin.

The First Dude has been wearing a really nice suit, and Levi Johnson, Bristol Palin's newly affianced beau, appeared for his command performance at the RNC in spiffy new duds.

By contrast, the people of Alaska got the Palin family for a bargain. The AP is reporting that Palin charged the state for her children's travel expenses, including those to events the kids hadn't been invited to, and that expense reports were later changed to declare that it was official business. The tally for 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights for her three daughters: a comparatively cheap $21,012.

That kind of change would buy about 40 pairs of John McCain's favorite Ferragamo loafers, $520 a pair at Neiman Marcus. The difference -- you just know that McCain wouldn't be charging the RNC for his footwear.

LOL.

B.

Let's Take a Breather...

Having somewhat immersed myself into the blog world, I've tried my best to create some good copy for us, whether my own or inspired by what others wrote, probably with the misconceived notion that our blog is actually being read by more than just the four of us. Admittedly, we were hoping to have more dialog, but I now realize that maybe I have been taking the wrong approach.

Don't get me wrong; I've been thoroughly enjoying this experience, and I'm not trying to be apologetic. I'm just trying to figure out how to get you guys to jot down some thoughts on this election, politics and current events in general. Is it a matter of time for an Obama presidency? What will be the next move for McCain? Might he unload Palin at the last minute? Is there still an October Surprise in waiting? So many questions, so little time.

In trying to encourage or incite comment from you, I think I may have done the opposite--creating yet another wordy blog to sift through the blogosphere. Perhaps I made my posts too long and verbose to digest quickly in our busy schedule, and maybe I unintentionally placed an undue expectation on what should be posted. I can understand that you may be tired of talking politics on a regular basis. One thing I discovered through this is that I LOVE reading, talking and writing about politics more than I thought (maybe it's my calling). I think you guys do, too, and it's fine to do it in your own style and pace.

Whatever the case, I hope that you will take a bit of time to join the dialog, however short or long. This blog is for us to do as we please, and I'm just saying that I think we have forgotten that we started this as a flurry of email. Feel free to change the subject with a new post or comment on a post; do whatever that strikes your fancy. I miss the vibrant and furious back-and-forth dialog it was. Anyway, here I go getting verbose again. Thanks for reading and look forward to your thoughts.

P.S. On the right column of our blog, I've assembled what I believe is a fairly good (but by no means an exhaustive) list of political news, op-ed and blog sites. I have attempted to cover the spectrum of biases and opinions from left to center to right. I hope you enjoy them. Below each site link is the most recent article or post at that site, so you can refresh the page to see what the latest posts are.

Report from the Socialist International Conspiracy

Such joy to find a great piece of writing to share with you all, in the tradition of Swift, Wilde and Twain. Nothing that I've read so far in the blogosphere has more wit, humor and bite than this, and you'd be hard pressed to find one. Enjoy.
Report from the Socialist International Conspiracy

The Pattern of John "I screwed up" McCain

On the day when the most eligible-and-qualified-to-be-president statesman of our time announced his official endorsement of Barack Obama on "Meet The Press", a new take on the reasons why Obama is better suited to be president over McCain congealed and solidified in my mind. They are based in McCain's past history and pattern of poor judgments, choices, missteps, decisions and circumstances which add up to serious doubts regarding his aptitude for being a responsible and steady president who will lead us in these dangerous and uncertain times. Colin Powell made the points of questioning McCain's judgment and the necessity of a "transformational figure" for our nation and the world. McCain does not score well on both points.

Let's start with McCain's class rank at the Naval Academy--sixth from the bottom. From what I've read, most of that was intentional by being one of the Bad Bunch--screw-ups. Next, I've heard that as a pilot he crashed his plane five times. The last one of which led to his imprisonment by the North Vietnamese. OK, I'm not saying that the crash was entirely his fault, but I am alluding to a pattern in his life, albeit this one may be a stretch.

Soon after he came home from captivity in the Hanoi Hilton, he divorced his wife who waited for him while he was a POW. His ex-wife was quoted as saying that McCain did not want to grow up and be mature. His own memoir unequivocally places the blame on himself for why his first marriage failed--yet another screw-up.

Only a few years into his senate career, McCain was involved in the Saving and Loan scandal as one of the Keating Five. Senate Ethics Committee specifically mentioned that he "exercised poor judgment." He apologized for his conduct saying essentially that "I screwed up; please forgive me." To his credit, his senate career since the scandal earned him his now-questionable "maverick" moniker.

It is well-known that his 2000 presidential campaign lost steam due to unethical tactics by the Dubya supporters in South Carolina primaries, but before folding his campaign he accused the extreme left and right wingers as the "agents of intolerance," naming Farrakhan, Sharpton, Robertson and Falwell. A screw-up and a political miscalculation for which he would eat his words, after he agreed to speak at Falwell's Liberty University. He realized that he has to kowtow to the extreme conservative base in his party if he is to become the leader of GOP, and it took a while for that base to warm up to him and some still do not like him at all.

McCain announced his 2008 run on the Letterman show in February 2007. He neglectfully embarked on a bloated, money-leaking campaign that relegated him to a non-factor even before the 2008 primary season began. Once again McCain took full responsibility for not overseeing his campaign more closely--a screw-up. But he ended up winning New Hampshire and the maverick was back, even earning the tag "Comeback Kid."

Through belt-tightening campaign strategies, town hall meetings and a certain amount of luck, McCain became the GOP nominee, but then picked an unknown Sarah Palin as his VP running mate. Both liberals and conservatives have stated how unqualified Palin is to be VP, let alone president. He has yet to apologize and take full responsibility for the pick, but I would guess that that will come in a matter of time.

Then comes Powell's point that McCain's economic policy approach was unstable and erratic. "The fundamentals of the economy is strong" to "We're facing an economic crisis" to "Fire the SEC chairman" to "Let's halt our campaigns and postpone the debate to workout the rescue plan" to "The government shouldn't just bailout Wall Street" to "The government needs to buy up all the bad mortgages." During the financial crisis, he cancelled the Letterman appearance and just recently came back on the show and said, "I screwed up." Calling this a screw-up doesn't fully describe his roller coaster approach and thought process to his policies and intentions.

I realize that what I've laid out is a mixture of McCain's personal, public and professional lives, but they all count especially to conservatives who love to harp on character. His pattern reminds me of a Steve Martin routine many years ago when he said that there are two words that can get you out of any trouble, like poor performance on the job or an IRS audit: "I forgot. Just say, I forgot." And if that doesn't work, then he would tie it into his patented line, "Well, excuuuuse ME!" In McCain's case it's three words: I screwed up. "I'm the one at fault. I hope you can forgive me, again and again." How many screw-ups will it take before the country turns him away?

If the electorate will not accept his apology this time, then perhaps his infamous temper will fire back, "Excuse ME!" (ironically, he did jokingly say "excuse me" at a Wisconsin rally when an angry supporter wouldn't sit down and told him sternly, "Please let me finish." You can find it on YouTube) No, I suspect he will again say, "I screwed up." Is this the quality we want in our president? Can we afford to accept this pattern of behavior in our president at this time? No way, no how, no McCain. Didn't mean to end with a Hillary line, but I like that one. Oops, I don't mean "that one." I screwed up.

Letterman Grills McCain

For one night at least, The Late Show turned into Meet The Press. Good ol' Dave really dug into McCain, and I fighting my own sleepiness was not the only one who sensed it. I feel it's necessary to link to all of the cyber reactions to the program on Blogrunner:
McCain gives Letterman his biggest audience in years

The blog headline doesn't do justice, I'm afraid. I think it was on the caliber of Murrow vs. McCarthy--ironic that it's another McPolitician. All right, don't go knee-jerking now, saying that I'm comparing McCain to McCarthy, but I'd be remiss if I didn't say that there are some echos of McCarthyism in the Ayers accusation, wouldn't I? "Are you or have you ever been associating with terrorists?"

More Conservative Dissent a la CTB

Kathleen Parker's column defending Christopher Buckley and other dissenting, thinking conservatives in the Rep party. Will the real conservatives please stand up and take back the GOP? The days of the ignorant, anti-intellectual, intolerant extreme right calling the shots cannot end fast enough:
WFB Would Be Proud

Parker writes:
"The truth few wish to utter is that the GOP has abandoned many conservatives, who mostly nurse their angst in private. Those chickens we keep hearing about have indeed come home to roost. Years of pandering to the extreme wing -- the "kooks" the senior Buckley tried to separate from the right -- have created a party no longer attentive to its principles.

Instead, as Christopher Buckley pointed out in a blog post on thedailybeast.com explaining his departure from National Review, eight years of "conservatism" have brought us "a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance."

I'm telling ya, that last line from CTB has staying power.

John McCain's Rage is a National Security Concern

The George W. Bush Presidential Library

The George W. Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages.

The Library will include:

The Hurricane Katrina Room , which is still under construction.

The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you won't be able to remember anything.

The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't even have to show up.

The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in.

The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don't let you out.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one has been able to find.

The National Debt Room, which is huge and has no ceiling.

The 'Tax Cut' Room with entry only to the wealthy.

The 'Economy Room' which is in the toilet.

The Iraq War Room. After you complete your first tour, they make you go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth tour.

The Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclosed location, complete with shotgun gallery.

The Environmental Conservation Room, still empty.

The Supremes Gift Shop, where you can buy an election.

The Airport Men's Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators.

The 'Decider Room' complete with dart board, magic 8-ball, Ouija board, dice, coins, and straws.

The museum will have an electron microscope to help you locate the President's accomplishments.

Joe the Plumber (Rumor Control)?

Okay, who the hec is Joe the plumber, anyway? A Republican plant? Lot's of rumors floating around the internet. What kind of Plumber makes $250,000 dollars a year? Or, put in another way, what kind of plumber can afford to pay the million plus dollars it would take to buy a business that he claims would earn him $250,000-270,000 dollars a year? Joe the plumber, that's who.

So, what do we know?

Well, apparently he does not have a plumber's license. He considers himself a Republican. He owes back-taxes. Other unsubstantiated rumors include, his connection to the Keating Five. He is not listed in the phone book (probably not good for business). He is not registered to vote. He has been convicted of domestic violence on multiple occasions? And yes, he is a single dad-what a surprise.

SAT Question - Politicians:Voters::

Full of shit:Getting shit on
Courtesy of BRM. Where do PACs fit in this picture? ;-)

Real McCain?

Want to share a perspective I had not really considered which occurred to me while watching "Frontline: The Choice 2008", and it has to do with why McCain picked someone like Palin. Obviously, the pick is to appease the extreme right, but I think it also shows his disdain for the right as well. Remember his "agents of intolerance" line, referring to Farrakhan, Sharpton, Robertson and Falwell?

McCain is trying to shore up the right-wing conservative base, but he really is a moderate, especially on social issues. Instead of looking at Palin as his final conversion to the right, I think it says more about his actual opinion of the extreme right; i.e. “I don’t agree with you, my friends (as he likes to say), but here’s someone to make you feel better and support me during the campaign." If McCain becomes president (God forbid and that’ll be the day I look for work in Canada), I would bet that Palin will become your typical VP, hard to locate and seldom heard from, much like Dan Quayle was to Bush 41 (see, he wasn’t really a social conservative, either. Quayle was just there for window dressing and that’s what she is--a Quaylin). I'd also bet that Palin will have ZERO influence on any administration policies or initiatives; she'll practically be the Second Lady. Am I being sexist? Perhaps, but I'll leave it to the Reps to herald the first uninfluential, token female VP ever. Clarence Thomas, anyone?

Unfortunately for McCain, I believe his best chance to win is if he acts more like a moderate than an angry conservative, and it’s too late because the battle for the center is most certainly going to Obama.

McCain Rally "Fear and Trembling" and the Conservative Backlash

It is rather fascinating trying to understand where the extreme conservative anger is coming from. For what it's worth, I do commend McCain for wanting to keep the campaign dialog "respectful" in this Minnesota "town hall meeting" and the associated TPM article (Hey, our first embedded YouTube video!):



The unfortunate reality is that he should be telling his campaign operatives and the more extreme Reps to keep things respectful. Apparently, there have been letters sent out that says Obama is an Arab. I do feel sorry for the woman who called Obama an Arab, Gayle Quinnell, as she should not be the focal point of this campaign exchange; she is only relaying the fear and misinformation coming from the McCain camp, given her limited knowledge and comprehension ("He's got Muslim in him"), but it is frustrating how some people just can't let go of false information: Post-rally conversation with Gayle Quinnell

Then, there's this from a Michelle Malkin, apparently a regular on Fox. Here's her defense of the McCain rally rage, basically that the left wing crazies do the same or worse about McCain/Palin/Bush all the time. Somehow that justifies the name-calling from the McCain supporters and the right in general, justifying intolerance with more intolerance, hate with more hate; has she heard of "two wrongs don't make a right"? Seems to me a typical conservative rebuttal, not exactly denounce the attacks from your side but point out the equally abhorrent venom from the other side, albeit none of them from an actual campaign rally or a town hall meeting.

Fair warning that some images on this blog are very crude and offensive; I did not bother to verify that they all came from the left wing extremists and are valid. Take a gander at some of the comments to the post, also (kinda my homage to Palin's frequent "also"). It indicates how far apart many of us are in how we view the world and how we should go about changing it:
Crush the Obamedia narrative: Look who’s “gripped by insane rage”

Why such vehement opposition to even a hint of socialist policy? That typifies the knee-jerk conservative reaction, doesn't it? Is free-market capitalism what makes America great? Is that why we're having a global financial crisis? The Europeans and Canadians have instituted socialist policies; are their societies crumbling because of socialism? Do they have people who must go bankrupt to pay for cancer treatments?

What is THE conservative creed? Isn't it really about "I get to keep what I make" because those liberal, hippie nutjobs have no respect for the money that I earn and the personal property that I possess? I saw an image on a conservative blog of two stick figures; a red figure holding a gun to the head of the blue figure holding a bag of goods/money, with the caption "Socialism". That attitude is the ugly root of class warfare, not the liberals looking for redistribution of wealth for the greater good of the nation. This is how conservatives incite class warfare, but then blame the liberals for starting it. Tax the crap out of the rich! Karl Rove was quoted as saying that under Obama's plan the top 5 percent will pay an increase of $131 billion in taxes, according to the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. And the bad news is? I say that's friggin' patriotic; they should be happy to pay more taxes because, as Palin would put it, "America has so blessed and privileged us"!

And, what is the point of laundering all of the mugshots of leftist activists/extremists, let alone whether they were justly arrested in all cases? That the liberals should be marginalized as rabid America-haters, like Limbaugh, Hannity and their ilk brainwash their audience every single day? That there are crazies of equal numbers on the left and right? That America has become a fascist state where dissenting opinions cannot be tolerated? That the status quo is indeed biased to the right so that only the leftist actions are criminalized? Who holds the trump cards in this society? Is a fascist oppression preferable over a socialist one?

There's so much to glean from the Malkin blog, especially this comment that somewhat reflects our earlier discussion on how conservative opinion can be dismissed, except that the writer misses the point that prejudice goes both ways (copy/pasted as posted):

On October 12th, 2008 at 1:52 pm, feebiebabe said:
THE GREAT HYPOCRACY OF OUR TIMES: Anytime a conservative enters into a debate with a liberal the first given is when said liberal realizes you are conservative…liberal will find some way to throw out any one or ALL of these tired phrases;”White Trash, Uneducated, Ignorant, Racist, Warmonger, Neocon or Redneck”. This happens to me ALL the time in California, and most often times I have done absolutely zero to warrant it, most times all I say is, “I’m a conservative” – and let the tongue lashing begin. Its creepy. I live in a blue state and work for a company where most people are unabashedly “Socialist”.

The other day I had a man walk up to me because he overheard my conversation I was having with a co-worker about a Herman Melville novel (Bartleby) and Atlas Shrugged by Ann Rand. When he approached me later he said I must “NOT be voting Republican because you are obviously an elitist who reads”. AND he meant this as a compliment - creeeepppyyyyy!!! My answer, “Why I do read, but what do you mean by elitist?” “Oh, Republicans are so uneducated; people who read literature I most often find to be liberals and intellectuals and are never ever Republicans”. I imagine I am the ONLY red vote on the floor (as usual) so I bit my tongue and just said “Is that so?” Does anyone else see the absolute irony in his thinking?!

Oh yes, and then there is the violence. Yes, the “Peace, love and happiness hippies” are only spreading “Peace Love and Happiness” selectively, to those who agree with them. And their Love-O-Meter always seems to go off the charts the more someone bashes this country or says they want to kill us. Talk about an abusive relationship!!!

Now, Madonna (“Hi, I name myself after the Virgin Mary to be irreverent, feed my delusions of grandeur, because I suffer from inadequacy and because I think no one will notice I have no talent”) . “Im gonna kick Palin’s ass!?” ROFLMAO. This coming from a woman who has been living full time in England and developed the WORST fake Brit accent next to her pal Gwennie –She couldn’t look Palin in the face let alone kick her ass (aside from the fact I am pretty sure one of her brittle body parts might just fall off her crusty frame by the impact of such an event). This woman is insufferably arrogant, ignorant and is bitter- she has NO talent and has to show her boobs to sell her records. Give me a break….what is Madonna three years old? What a loser. I think it really gets to Madonna that Palin is a REAL Woman and comfortable with herself, while Madonna is a hateful, malnourished, washed-up, ex-pat who has absolutely zero talent.
Rant off/
Happy Sunday.

------------
It's rather amusing but sad how her anecdote/argument quickly deteriorates into a rant bashing Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow. This is an example of why I would not want our blog to be open to the Internet public for comment (actually, I did open it up to registered users of the blog world, but obviously we're not exactly in a high-traffic area nor worthy of it, and that suits us just fine all the same).

My hope is that our small speck in the blog universe can provide a more thoughtful dialog and work to achieve a better understanding and a common ground in the midst of the left-vs.-right, liberal-vs.-conservative echo chamber noise.

Finally, a sane conservative case on doubts about Obama

Looks like my trolling for views from the right has paid off, since BRM hasn't been gracing us with his conservative posts. Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, makes a good case of conservatives' doubts about Obama: Who is the Real Barack Obama?

Crux of the column, if you can get past the not-so-subtle condescending remarks, seems to be, "Is Obama a leftist radical or a cautious pragmatist able to reach out to the center and the right?" My personal opinion is that he is a mix of and capable of both, and given the current state of the nation, the economy and the world, I hope that he is more of a pragmatist in the tradition of FDR. My liberal preference also hopes that he will bring much needed socialist policies to reign in the runaway-greed capitalism, to enforce a loophole-less progressive tax code and to institute a healthcare system closer to a universal, single-payer model. Without a pragmatic approach, he will not get much done through legislation or achieve much in military objectives and diplomatic initiatives, if/when he is president.

Unfortunately, given McCain's campaign I have no confidence in how he would run the country as president. In other words, the liberal case on doubts about McCain will take some time to write down, so I'll save it for another post. To be fair, I have yet to find a good case for the McCain presidency that explains his policies and tendencies, beyond direct attacks and negatives on Obama.

Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama

Just after reading and seeing how McCain did his best to stomp out the flames of anger and fear against Obama fanned by him and his campaign, I came across this article. Christopher Buckley says that he's voting for Obama. Yes, Virginia, there are sensible and reasonable conservatives out there in America. Come on, this has got to move BRM to action and post something here, don't it (Buckley even sprinkles in some choice Latin like rara avis)? We are sorely missing the right-of-center viewpoint on OUR blog.

From The Daily Beast:
Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama

Some choice excerpts:

I am—drum roll, please, cue trumpets—making this announcement in the cyberpages of The Daily Beast (what joy to be writing for a publication so named!) rather than in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column. For a reason: My colleague, the superb and very dishy Kathleen Parker, recently wrote in National Review Online a column stating what John Cleese as Basil Fawlty would call “the bleeding obvious”: namely, that Sarah Palin is an embarrassment, and a dangerous one at that. She’s not exactly alone. New York Times columnist David Brooks, who began his career at NR, just called Governor Palin “a cancer on the Republican Party.”

As for Kathleen, she has to date received 12,000 (quite literally) foam-at-the-mouth hate-emails. One correspondent, if that’s quite the right word, suggested that Kathleen’s mother should have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a Dumpster. There’s Socratic dialogue for you. Dear Pup once said to me sighfully after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.” Well, the dear man did his best. At any rate, I don’t have the kidney at the moment for 12,000 emails saying how good it is he’s no longer alive to see his Judas of a son endorse for the presidency a covert Muslim who pals around with the Weather Underground. So, you’re reading it here first.
......

John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?
......

As for Senator Obama: He has exhibited throughout a “first-class temperament,” pace Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s famous comment about FDR. As for his intellect, well, he’s a Harvard man, though that’s sure as heck no guarantee of anything, these days. Vietnam was brought to you by Harvard and (one or two) Yale men. As for our current adventure in Mesopotamia, consider this lustrous alumni roster. Bush 43: Yale. Rumsfeld: Princeton. Paul Bremer: Yale and Harvard. What do they all have in common? Andover! The best and the brightest.
......

Obama has in him—-I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—-the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.

-----------
Not exactly a glowing endorsement, but "we are all in this together" and "God save America", indeed. Unfortunately, some of the comments on his column at the website still show that bipartisanship has a long, long way to go.

Laughing at America - - A European Perspective

Hi, All--

This is perhaps the last thing that needs to be said about the Biden/Palin debate. I think the British Press has nailed it!

Flirting her way to victory Sarah Palin's farcical debate performance lowered the standards for both female candidates and US political discourse
Friday October 3 2008, The Guardian

At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable, preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience. Had a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have universally noted, discussed and mocked. Palin, however, has single-handedly so lowered the standards both for female candidates and American political discourse that, with her newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences, she is now deemed to have performed acceptably last night.

By any normal standard, including the ones applied to male presidential candidates of either party, she did not. Early on, she made the astonishing announcement that she had no intentions of actually answering the queries put to her. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also," she said.

And so she preceded, with an almost surreal disregard for the subjects she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy authenticity.

It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely described as such is that too many American pundits don't even try to judge the truth, wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a mythical mass of "average Americans" who they both venerate and despise.

In pronouncing upon a debate, they don't try and determine whether a candidate's responses correspond to existing reality, or whether he or she is capable of talking about subjects such as the deregulation of the financial markets or the devolution of the war in Afghanistan . The criteria are far more vaporous. In this case, it was whether Palin could avoid utterly humiliating herself for 90 minutes, and whether urbane commentators would believe that she had connected to a public that they see as ignorant and sentimental. For the Alaska governor, mission accomplished.

There is indeed something mesmerising about Palin, with her manic beaming and fulsome confidence in her own charm. The force of her personality managed to slightly obscure the insulting emptiness of her answers last night. It's worth reading the transcript of the encounter, where it becomes clearer how bizarre much of what she said was. Here, for example, is how she responded to Biden's comments about how the middle class has been short-changed during the Bush administration, and how McCain will continue Bush's policies:

Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced [sic] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I'm glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? ... My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary Schoo l , you get extra credit for watching the debate.

Evidently, Palin's pre-debate handlers judged her incapable of speaking on a fairly wide range of subjects, and so instructed to her to simply disregard questions that did not invite memorised talking points or cutesy filibustering. They probably told her to play up her spunky average-ness, which she did to the point of shtick - and dishonesty. Asked what her achilles heel is - a question she either didn't understand or chose to ignore - she started in on how McCain chose her because of her "connection to the heartland of America . Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how
are we going to pay those tuition bills?"

None of Palin's children, it should be noted, are heading off to college. Her son is on the way to Iraq , and her pregnant 17-year-old daughter is engaged to be married to a high-school dropout and self-described "fuckin' redneck". Palin is a woman who can't even tell the truth about the most quotidian and public details of her own life, never mind about matters of major public import. In her only vice-presidential debate, she was shallow, mendacious and phoney. What kind of maverick, after all, keeps harping on what a maverick she is? That her performance was considered anything but afarce doesn't show how high Palin has risen, but how low we all have sunk.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008

If you have any questions about this email, please contact the guardian.co.uk user help desk: userhelp@guardian.co.uk.

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Also, in this months Reader's Digest, there is an article on if the world could vote. To list a few for Obama: Netherlands 92%, Germany 85%, Taiwan 81%, Brazil 78%, Australia 76%, Spain 76%, France 75%, Finland 71%, Mexico 70%, Poland 65%, Canada 64%, etc.

NYT's blogrunner

Say what you will about the New York Times, but I am thoroughly enjoying their Politics site and their blogrunner. The blogrunner especially displays a long list of both left and right-wing blogs plus other non-political topics. Hope you enjoy them. The Yahoo election site is a good place to get a broad range of news and op-eds from left, center and right, also.

blogrunner|Politics
NYT Politics
Yahoo 2008 Elections

Reinhold Niebuhr

Call it synchronicity or whatever, but I have come across the name Reinhold Niebuhr more than once this week, first from the PBS American Experience program on Jimmy Carter (with whom I share the same birthday, BTW) and now today from David Brooks who asked Obama about him in an interview. Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a progressive Christian thinker. I'm still learning about him myself. From Wikipedia:

Reinhold Niebuhr
Reinhold Niebuhr Quotations

You have probably come across different versions of his prayer in many circles; I just didn't know until now that it was from him:

The Serenity Prayer (ca. 1942)
This has often been attributted to others, including St. Francis of Assisi but without sources. Though similar prayers may have existed, the work seems to be Niebuhr's. He never copyrighted the prayer and it has been used in many variants.

One of the most famous variants:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Niebuhr's preferred form as declared by his widow:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed, courage
to change the things which should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Full version of the original (c.1942):

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

Post Turtle Joke; Down-home humour

Subject: Post Turtle

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Sarah Palin and her bid to be a heartbeat away from being President.

The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Palin is a post turtle."

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was.

The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle."

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain. "You know she didn't get up there by herself, she doesn't belong up there, she doesn't know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with."

Obama Has Won Every Debate; But, will it matter?

Okay, Obama and Biden have won every debate hands-down, not even close. McCain and Palin have only excelled in clichés. Unfortunately, clichés are enough for many people. The debates remind me of the wife who finds her husband in bed with another woman and the man says, "What, are you going to believe what I tell ya, or what your eyes see?" Republicans want us to belive what they tell us, not what we know to be true, and what we can check as facts. McCain says something like, Americans are the best workers in the world. What a load of crap. The only question now is, Are Americans going to believe what they can see? Or, are Americans going to believe what the neo-cons tell them to believe?

Remember, September 15, 2008:
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Addressing today’s news of upheaval in America’s financial markets, McCain said this morning that, despite fears over the "turmoil" on Wall Street, “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

No Gaffes? How about "that one"?

I feel your pain, Sen. McCain (henceforth referred as "This One"), and your frustrations (in my best Bill Clinton voice).

Despite all of his efforts to win the election--picking Palin, accusing That One of lying and associating him with radicals and terrorists--This One has to continue to debate That One. How outrageous! Don't people know that This One deserves to be president over That One? Why don't they realize that That One is not like This One or Us? I can hear This One saying, "That One is one of Them, not Us. Come on, America! Pull your head out of That Butt. Real change is coming. I'm a reformer and a maverick. I'll get Osama bin Laden. I'll get him. I know how to get him. I'll get him no matter what. But I have to get That One first." Such poetry in prose.

Stick a fork in McBush, or at least a thermometer. I believe he's done. How long before we hear "you people" coming from This One? Some Reps are even happy to use "That One" to refer to That One, saying that This One came up with a great line in the debate. Incredible! This is what "grasping at straws" looks like in political campaign terms, but I'm not even close to celebrating until all the votes have been counted.

-----------
Here's a post from the Huff Post and our panelist Mike's response:

TruthSpeaker (wrote:)
John McCain has shown us what kind of conciliatory figure he would be - making dismissive derisionary comments like "that one" whenever he disagrees with someone. I think McCain put it best when he said "I'm not the most popular person in my own party let alone the Democrats." If you've alienated yourself from both sides, how exactly is it that you are going to bridge divides and get things done?
Posted 02:16 PM (ET) on 10/08/2008

MisterB46 (replied:)
Anyone else remember that old McDonald's TV ad with the boxing trainer trying to get his guy fired up to win the bout?

The trainer says (words to the effect), "Remember when you were seven years old...and someone stole your French Fries and you never found out who it was?" Well, it was him (gesturing to the opponent on the other side of the ring)."

After two debates, I'm convinced that someone told McCain that Obama stole his French Fries.
Posted 02:43 PM (ET) on 10/08/2008

-----------
Were those Freedom Fries that That One stole from This One? Sorry, Mike, I wish I could remember the commercial so I could enjoy your comment more.

H.L. Mencken "Bayard vs. Lionheart"

Some wisdom from the pre-Great Depression era, as we are now mired in the second one. Here's the full Mencken article (and the link) that contains the famous quotation "As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." I'm pasting the entire article in case the link stops working at some point. Enjoy!

BAYARD vs LIONHEART

July 26, 1920

One discerns in all the current discussion of MM. Harding and Cox a certain sour dismay. It seems to be quite impossible for any wholly literate man to pump up any genuine enthusiasm for either of them. Each, of course, is praised lavishly by the professional politicians of his own party, and compared to Lincoln, Jefferson and Cleveland by the surviving hacks of the party press, but in the middle ground, among men who care less for party success than for the national dignity, there is a gone feeling in the stomach, with shooting pains down the legs. The Liberals, in particular, seem to be suffering badly. They discover that Harding is simply a third-rate political wheel-horse, with the face of a moving-picture actor, the intelligence of a respectable agricultural implement dealer, and the imagination of a lodge joiner, and that Cox is no more than a provincial David Harum with a gift for bamboozling the boobs.

These verdicts, it seems to me, are substantially just. No one but an idiot would argue seriously that either candidate is a first-rate man, or even a creditable specimen of second-rate man. Any State in the Union, at least above the Potomac, could produce a thousand men quite as good, and many States could produce a thousand a great deal better. Harding, intellectually, seems to be merely a benign blank—a decent, harmless, laborious, hollow-headed mediocrity perhaps comparable to the late Harrington, of Maryland. Cox is quicker of wit, but a good deal less honest. He belongs to the cunning type; there is a touch of the shyster in him. His chicaneries in the matter of prohibition, both during the convention and since, show the kink in his mind. He is willing to do anything to cadge votes, and he includes in that anything the ready sacrifices of his good faith, of the national welfare, and of the hopes and confidence of those who honestly support him. Neither candidate reveals the slightest dignity of conviction. Neither cares a hoot for any discernible principle. Neither, in any intelligible sense, is a man of honor.

But it is one thing to yield to virtuous indignation against such individuals and quite another thing to devise any practicable scheme for booting them out of the synagogue. The weakness of those of us who take a gaudy satisfaction in our ideas, and battle for them violently, and face punishment for them willingly and even proudly, is that we forget the primary business of the man in politics, which is the snatching and safeguarding of his job. That business, it must be plain, concerns itself only occasionally with the defense and propagation of ideas, and even then it must confine itself to those that, to a reflective man, must usually appear to be insane. The first and last aim of the politician is to get votes, and the safest of all ways to get votes is to appear to the plain man to be a plain man like himself, which is to say, to appear to him to be happily free from any heretical treason to the body of accepted platitudes-to be filled to the brim with the flabby, banal, childish notions that challenge no prejudice and lay no burden of examination upon the mind.

It is not often, in these later days of the democratic enlightenment, that positive merit lands a man in elective office in the United States; much more often it is a negative merit that gets him there. That negative merit is simply disvulnerability. Of the two candidates, that one wins who least arouses the suspicions and distrusts of the great masses of simple men. Well, what are more likely to arouse those suspicions and distrusts than ideas, convictions, principles? The plain people are not hostile to shysterism, save it be gross and unsuccessful. They admire a Roosevelt for his bold stratagems and duplicities, his sacrifice of faith and principle to the main chance, his magnificent disdain of fairness and honor. But they shy instantly and inevitably from the man who comes before them with notions that they cannot immediately translate into terms of their everyday delusions; they fear the novel idea, and particularly the revolutionary idea, as they fear the devil. When Roosevelt, losing hold upon his cunning at last, embraced the vast hodgepodge of innovations, some idiotic but some sound enough, that went by the name of Progressivism, they jumped from under him in trembling, and he came down with a thump that left him on his back until death delivered him from all hope and caring.

It seems to me that this fear of ideas is a peculiarly democratic phenomenon, and that it is nowhere so horribly apparent as in the United States, perhaps the nearest approach to an actual democracy yet seen in the world. It was Americans who invented the curious doctrine that there is a body of doctrine in every department of thought that every good citizen is in duty bound to accept and cherish; it was Americans who invented the right-thinker. The fundamental concept, of course, was not original. The theologians embraced it centuries ago, and continue to embrace it to this day. It appeared on the political side in the Middle Ages, and survived in Russia into our time. But it is only in the United States that it has been extended to all departments of thought. It is only here that any novel idea, in any field of human relations, carries with it a burden of obnoxiousness, and is instantly challenged as mysteriously immoral by the great masses of right-thinking men. It is only here, so far as I have been able to make out, that there is a right way and a wrong way to think about the beverages one drinks with one's meals, and the way children ought to be taught in the schools, and the manner in which foreign alliances should be negotiated, and what ought to be done about the Bolsheviki.

In the face of this singular passion for conformity, this dread of novelty and originality, it is obvious that the man of vigorous mind and stout convictions is gradually shouldered out of public life. He may slide into office once or twice, but soon or late he is bound to be held up, examined and incontinently kicked out. This leaves the field to the intellectual jelly-fish and inner tubes. There is room for two sorts of them—first, the blank cartridge who has no convictions at all and is willing to accept anything to make votes, and, secondly, the mountebank who is willing to conceal and disguise what he actually believes, according as the wind blows hot or cold. Of the first sort, Harding is an excellent specimen; of the second sort, Cox.

Such tests arise inevitably out of democracy—the domination of unreflective and timorous men, moved in vast herds by mob emotions. In private life no man of sense would think of applying them. We do not estimate the integrity and ability of an acquaintance by his flabby willingness to accept our ideas; we estimate him by the honesty and effectiveness with which he maintains his own. All of us, if we are of reflective habit, like and admire men whose fundamental beliefs differ radically from our own. But when a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental—men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack, or count himself lost. His one aim is to disarm suspicion, to arouse confidence in his orthodoxy, to avoid challenge. If he is a man of convictions, of enthusiasm, of self-respect, it is cruelly hard. But if he is, like Harding, a numskull like the idiots he faces, or, like Cox, a pliant intellectual Jenkins, it is easy.

The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by the force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

Worse Than The Republican Great Depression?

Why This Could Be Worse Than The Republican Great Depression

By Thom Hartmann

Flickr: Creative Commons by Tony the Misfit

At its core, the problem with the banks today is twofold. First, we don’t make anything anymore. Which means we don’t “create real wealth.” More on that in a minute, but the bottom line is that we don’t have any sort of bottom line – there’s nothing to catch us as we fall, because we don’t have a manufacturing base to fall on like we did in the 1930s.

Second, all our cash is either gone or in a very, very few hands. If the former, we’re really screwed. If the latter, and those people decide their interest trumps that of the nation, we’re also screwed, but probably not quite as badly. It looks, though, like all our cash is gone.

Let’s take these one at a time. The British knew that manufacturing was the core strength of a nation, which is why they forbade the Colonists in 1770 from manufacturing most items that could be imported from Britain, and famously forbade the good people of India from even turning their own cotton into cloth and clothing (those processes had to be done with Indian cotton shipped to England, woven and sewn, then sold back to India as finished clothes).

The colonists of America overthrew the economic tyranny of the British, and in short order (1791) Alexander Hamilton presented to Congress a detailed and specific plan to turn America from an agricultural backwater to a manufacturing giant. We should discourage the import of foreign made products and promote the manufacture of American made goods by taxing imported finished goods (a tax called an “import tariff”). We should encourage the import of foreign raw materials, and the export of finished goods, with low tariffs on these items. We should invest government money – extensively – in infrastructure that would build our monetary and industrial base. We should be protectionist, hard-working, and refuse to cede to anybody our right to make whatever we damn well wanted.

Hamilton was so successful that 100% of the income of the federal government from our founding to the Civil War came from tariffs – and we learned to manufacture just about everything we needed in this country as a result. His policies were continued after the Civil War – tariffs represented two-thirds of all federal revenues from Reconstruction to WWI, and as government exploded in size to fight WWII still represented a third of all federal income.

Import tariffs on manufactured goods averaged – from 1791 until the 1980s – around 35-40 percent. As a result, we made things here. The benefit of “making things” is that you add value more rapidly than is possible in any other way. You get richer – both individually and as a nation – faster than by any other means. Turning a $50 ton of raw cotton into $5 million worth of designer clothing can be done with only a few tens of thousands of dollars worth of labor and a million dollars worth of machinery/factories. Turning a few dollars worth of iron ore into millions of dollars worth of luxury cars is incredibly profitable.

But the Reagan Revolution changed all that. Conservatives didn’t think making things was the most important consideration of an economy – instead the goal should be for “individual incentives” and “greed” to drive companies and individuals to “maximize profits” regardless of the impact on the nation as a whole. Labor was cheaper in China and India, so after a few hundred dollars worth of lobbying and a few cheerleading (but deeply flawed) books like Thomas Friedman’s “Olive Tree and the Lexus,” we dropped our average import tariffs into the realm of 2 to 3 percent, where they remain today.

The result was easily predicted. Most of our manufacturing was shipped overseas, while the profits from the sale of foreign-made goods concentrated in a few hands (think the Walton family and General Electric, the respective companies that first and most proudly drove China and India respectively into our manufacturing and service sectors).

While we didn’t make anything here any more, we still had a lot of cash and other “real assets” – real, physical wealth – left over from the two centuries when we made everything here. The share of that wealth in the hands of the middle class was mostly in the equity in our homes, cars, and pensions/savings.

And so the predators among us turned their sights on these last reservoirs of wealth in America. Phil and Wendy Gramm (he is McCain’s chief economic advisor) pushed through both a deregulation of banks and investment companies, but also a deregulation of how commodities (real things) were traded on margin (using money borrowed against the value of the commodities).

Alan Greenspan enthusiastically jumped into the game, dropping interest rates so low they were below the rate of inflation for the biggest institutional borrowers – giving the Masters Of The Universe all the cash they needed to gamble with, thus driving up the cost (but not the value) of commodities from houses to oil to food.

In the process, the American middle class got into the act by borrowing in a slightly similar fashion, but instead of billions they only borrowed against the value of their houses and cars and the line of credit on their credit cards.

But then we began to run out of wealth – real wealth. Because we didn’t make anything any more, about all we could sell to the world were IOUs, debt-based “instruments” made up of bundled mortgages. And when the world stopped wanting to buy them, looking instead to put their money into real assets like gold or oil or manufacturing plants, it all began to unravel.

The last time things unraveled like this was during the Republican Great Depression of 1929-1938. That, too, had followed a series of Republican administrations that had radically deregulated banking and securities rules, leading to wild speculation and asset bubbles, starting with a real estate explosion in Florida in the early 1920s. That Florida real estate bubble burst in 1927, and by 1929 it had spread to Wall Street. What we are witnessing today is the death of neoliberalism (e.g. Friedman/Greenspan/Thatcher/Reaganomics), although few in the corporate media will call it out.

The recent semi-nationalization of Freddie and Fannie were, in fact, clear demonstrations of the failure of privatization of institutions essential to the commons (a primary purpose of government), but at the time it seemed that none of the corporate media would dare refer to it as such.

Today we're seeing the logical culmination of deregulation; steps recommended by Friedman/Greenspan and started in the last years of the Carter administration, put on steroids by Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush, reaching a peak with Phil and Wendy Gramm's rollback in 1999 of Glass-Steagall allowing "investment" companies to behave like "banks" without regulation (making them, in reality, neither, but instead merely financial schemes).

"Roosevelt is dead," Limbaugh famously intoned at the appointment of GW Bush as President, "but his programs remain, and we're in the process of doing something about that, as well." Indeed.

Let's start calling this what it is - the total discrediting of the economic theories of Von Hayek, Milton and Thomas Friedman, Alan Greenspan, and borrow-and-spend Reaganomics/Bushnomics. The failure of "globalization," deregulation, and privatization. And let's begin to honestly identify today's events as a clear and clarion call for a return to the common-sense policies FDR put into place that saved capitalism from itself and its predators (and led to four decades of sustained growth of both the economy and the middle class) three generations earlier.

Now we are again "rediscovering" the lessons of the last Republican Great Depression...and if we don’t QUICKLY begin to move manufacturing capacity back into this country (and have it owned by American companies so the profits don’t just end up in Japan or Germany) we will be, within five years, far worse off than Americans were in 1934.

Obama & McCain in Reverse

I guess everyone's busy these days, but kinda disappointed that there's not that much posted after a presidential and a vice presidential debates already. Come on, guys. I am working on some posts...

Mike forwarded me this thought-provoking, albeit pro-Obama, set of questions that allude to the various issues regarding how the electorate views these two candidates:

What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said 'I do' to?
What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama were a member of the Keating-5*?
* The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

What if McCain were a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election
numbers would be as close as they are?

With America facing historic debt, 2 wars, stumbling health care, a weakened dollar, all-time-high prison population, mortgage crises, bank foreclosures, etc.; which team would you hire?

Educational Background:

Obama:
Columbia University- B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Biden:
University of Delaware- B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor(J.D.)

vs.

McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho- 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College- 1 semester
University of Idaho- 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Now, which team are you going to hire?

Whither Tolerance

Don't know if you guys recall my anecdote about sending office email about the 2000 election, but maybe I was just ahead of my time. ;-) An interesting NYT article given our past discussions on tolerance, etc.

Talking Politics in the Office