DEBATE #1

OBAMA AND MCCAIN FACE OFF

Friday's debate was no decisive showdown. But for undecided voters watching, did Obama look too green or McCain too mean?

By Walter Shapiro for SALON


Sept. 27, 2008 | Forty-eight years ago when John Kennedy and Richard Nixon faced off for an hour in a television studio in Chicago, the idea of two presidential nominees meeting on the same stage for a clash of ideas was electrifying. Friday night in Oxford, Miss., when Barack Obama and John McCain stood at dueling lecterns for the first time, both candidates sometimes found it difficult to ignite.

The debate went 97 minutes by the clock, but at times it played longer. For most of the evening, both cautious and well-programmed candidates conducted the debate as if it were the opening salvo of a long war, not a conflict that would be decided by a lightning thrust of a sudden breakthrough. It was almost as if the whole thing was a rehearsal for the two more presidential match-ups to follow, not to mention next Thursday night's land-of-contrasts debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. It is tempting to split the difference and call the imperiled-until-the-last-moment Miracle in Mississippi debate a draw. But what is almost impossible to assess (and, please, do not regard the overnight polls, the focus groups and the instant analysis from the pundit pack as definitive) is how this eagerly anticipated telecast played with undecided or persuadable voters.


For a candidate who claimed that he had spent the prior 48 hours concerned only with the future of the American financial system (and almost did not make the odyssey to Oxford), McCain certainly had a steel-trap memory for attack lines. Especially when the topic turned to foreign policy in the second half of the evening, McCain was like a bantam-weight fighter trying to win a bout on points by peppering Obama with tiny jabs (some of them wildly misleading). Obama -- who could frequently be observed shaking his head and quietly saying, "That is not true" -- tried to be both resolute and reassuring without losing his composure. The back-and-forth details of the debate may have mattered less than the first-term Illinois senator's ability to say with conviction, "That will change when I'm president of the United States."

Obama's weakest moments may have come when he tried too often to be a consensus builder even there onstage wrestling for possession of the Oval Office. "Sen. McCain is absolutely right" seemed to have been Obama's mantra for the evening. McCain, even though he began the evening with a hymn to bipartisanship, did not return the favor. Playing Nixon to Obama's Kennedy, McCain repeatedly tried to portray his rival as untested and unready. As the two men sparred over Obama's belief that rigorous pre-conditions should not deter America from negotiating with nations like Iran and North Korea (an issue that had been a point of contention with Hillary Clinton in the primaries), McCain snapped, "This is dangerous. It isn't just naive; it's dangerous." Stressing Obama's purported inexperience, however, may be a risky tactic for Republicans less than a week before Palin (who governs a state smack-dab between Russia and Canada, thank you) debates Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.


Both Obama and McCain were much crisper when moderator Jim Lehrer toured the world's trouble spots (Iran, Afghanistan, Georgia) in what was originally supposed to be a national-security-only faceoff than during the first half of the debate when the topic switched to the American financial crisis. The difference between the two halves of the debate was an illustration of the virtues of rehearsal (they both had mastered their foreign-policy briefing books) versus the fuzziness of spontaneity (neither candidate ever mentioned Washington Mutual, whose collapse this week was the biggest bank failure in American history).

The 72-year-old McCain did little to gloss over his age, boasting at one point that Henry Kissinger has "been my friend for 35 years," which would date the relationship back to 1973, the year of Obama's 12th birthday. But while McCain never became lost in his prepared remarks (as the then-73-year-old Ronald Reagan did during his first 1984 debate with Walter Mondale), there were a few times when the Republican nominee might have said, "Stop me if you've heard this one before." McCain, for example, twice said that he had not been elected "Miss Congeniality in the United States Senate." More tellingly, though most voters presumably missed it, old national-security-hand McCain stumbled over the pronunciation of a series of names of world leaders, struggling to master Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Iran) and Asif Ali Zardari (Pakistan).

Chad Hanging Important Whatnots

SPREAD THE NEWS

Please, please, please advise everyone you know that they absolutely can NOT go to the polls wearing any Obama (or whoever you are voting for, but it BETTER be OBAMA, muh fuh) shirts, pins, hats, etc. It is AGAINST THE LAW and will be grounds to have the polling officials to turn you away. This is considered campaigning and no one can campaign within X amount of feet of the polls. They are banking on us being overly excited and not being aware of this long standing law that you can bet will be ENFORCED THIS YEAR. So please just don't wear ANY gear of any sorts to the polls. Share this information with as many people as you can.
See you at the polls on November 4th.


also last election the county threw out 3000 votes because the signatures on the absentee ballet and the registration didn't match, simply because the signature went outside the box where you sign, or was slightly off - so be careful in your voting....

Garrison Keillor on McCain and Wall Street

It's just human nature that some calamities register in the brain and others don't. The train engineer texting at the throttle ("HOW R U? C U L8R") and missing the red light and 25 people die in the crash -- oh God, that is way too real. Everyone has had a moment of supreme stupidity that came close to killing somebody. Even atheists say a little prayer now and then: Dear God, I am an idiot, thank you for protecting my children.

On the other hand, the federal bailout of the financial market (YAWN) is a calamity that people accept as if it were just one more hurricane. An air of crisis, the Secretary of the Treasury striding down a hall at the Capitol with minions in his wake, solemn-faced congressmen at the microphones. Something must be done, harrumph, harrumph. The Current Occupant pops out of the cuckoo clock and reads a few lines off a piece of paper, pronouncing all the words correctly. And the newscaster looks into the camera and says, "Etaoin shrdlu qwertyuiop." Where is the outrage?

Poor Larry Craig got a truckload of moral condemnation for tapping his wingtips in the men's john, but his party proposes to spend 5 percent of the GDP to buy up bad loans made by men who walk away with their fortunes intact while retirees see their 401K go pffffffff like a defunct air mattress, and it's business as usual. Mr. McCain is a lifelong deregulator and believer in letting brokers and bankers do as they please -- remember Lincoln Savings and Loan and his intervention with federal regulators on behalf of his friend Charles Keating, who then went to prison? Remember Neil Bush, the brother of the C.O., who, as a director of Silverado S&L, bestowed enormous loans on his friends without telling fellow directors that the friends were friends and who, when the loans failed, paid a small fine and went skipping off to other things? Mr. McCain now decries greed on Wall Street and suggests a commission be formed to look into the problem. This is like Casanova coming out for chastity.

Confident men took leave of common sense and bet on the idea of perpetual profit in the real estate market and crashed. But it wasn't their money. It was your money they were messing with. And that's why you need government regulators. Gimlet-eyed men with steel-rim glasses and crepe-soled shoes who check the numbers and have the power to say, "This is a scam and a hustle and either you cease and desist or you spend a few years in a minimum-security federal facility playing backgammon."

The Republican Party used to specialize in gimlet-eyed, steel-rim, crepe-soled common sense and then it was taken over by crooked preachers who demand we trust them because they're packing a Bible and God sent them on a mission to enact lower taxes, less government. Except when things crash, and then government has to pick up the pieces.

Some say the tab might come to a trillion dollars. Nobody knows. And Mr. McCain has not one moment of doubt or regret. He switches from First Deregulation Church to Our Lady of Strict Vigilance like you might go from decaf to latte. Where is the straight talk? Does the man have no conscience?

It wasn't their money they were playing with. It was yours. Where were the cops?

What we are seeing is the stuff of a novel, the public corruption of an American war hero. It is painful. First, there was his exploitation of a symbolic woman, an eager zealot who is so far out of her depth that it isn't funny anymore. Anyone with a heart has to hurt for how Mr. McCain has made a fool of her. Never mind the persistent cheesiness of his attack ads. And now this chasm of debt and loss and the gentleman pretends to be shocked. He was there. He turned out the lights. He sent the regulators home.

Mr. McCain seems willing to say anything, do anything, to get to the White House so he can go to war with Iran. If he needs to recline naked in Macy's window, he would do that, or eat live chickens, or claim to be a reformer. Obviously you can fool a lot of people for awhile and maybe he can stretch it out until mid-November. But the truth is marching on. A few true conservatives are leading a charge against the bailout. Good for them. But how about admitting that their cowboy economic philosophy was at fault here?

Garrison Keillor is the author of a new Lake Wobegon novel, "Liberty," published by Viking. © 2008 by Garrison Keillor.

Who the WHAT the WHY the???

From THE NATION posted by Ari Melber on 09/24/2008 @ 3:19pm

After calling for debates all summer, John McCain is cutting and running from the first one.

In one of the weirder political ploys of a long campaign season, McCain says he will "suspend" his campaign on Thursday. He is also pushing for a postponement of the first presidential debate. McCain says he is taking these dramatic steps because he wants to focus on congressional negotiations over the bailout. It's not clear how a national presidential debate -- the ultimate bully pulpit in this political season -- would detract from any effort to build national consensus on solutions for the economic crisis.

The debate, scheduled for 9pm EST on Friday, would have provided the first direct, extended exchange between the nominees on foreign policy, and presumably would have included economic discussions as well, given the current crisis. Both candidates could travel to Washington the next morning -- Obama is already scheduled to do so -- so McCain's decision to bail on the debate as his polling slips is odd. Today's Washington Post/ABC poll showed Obama taking a national lead, powered by voters flocking to him on economic issues.

The Obama campaign just released a statement describing their collaboration with McCain, though it did not directly address his debate gambit:

At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal. At 2:30 this afternoon, Senator McCain returned Senator Obama's call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details.

That's nice. Here's a better idea: Lay out those details in public, in a transparent, free-wheeling televised the debate this Friday, after officially changing the topic from foreign policy to the economy. Good leaders can change course to meet a crisis, but they don't run from public scrutiny. John McCain may hope his Beltway trip looks presidential, but you don't need to be in Washington to rally the American people to a solution to these problems.

from THE NATION

LIPSTICK ON A WING NUT
by Katha Pollitt

John McCain chose the supremely under-qualified Sarah Palin as his running mate partly because she is a woman. If you have a problem with that, you're a sexist. She talks incessantly about being a mother of five and uses her newborn, Trig, who has Down syndrome, as a campaign prop. If you wonder how she'll handle all those kids and the Veep job too, you're a super-sexist. "When do they ever ask a man that question?" charges that fiery feminist Rudy Giuliani. Indeed, Palin, who went back to work when Trig was three days old, gets nothing but praise from Phyllis Schlafly, James Dobson and the folks at National Review, who usually blame all the ills of modern America on those neurotic, harried, selfish, frustrated, child-neglecting, husband-castrating working mothers. Even stranger, her five-months-pregnant 17-year-old, Bristol, gets nothing but compassion and respect from Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and others who have spent their careers slut-shaming teens for having sex--and blaming their parents for letting it happen. If there were an Olympics for hypocrisy, the Republican Party would have more gold medals than Michael Phelps. And Palin would be wearing quite a few of them. It takes chutzpah for a mother to thrust her pregnant teen into the world's harshest spotlight and then demand the world respect the girl's privacy. But then it takes chutzpah to support criminalizing abortion and then praise Bristol's "decision" to have the baby. The right to decide, and privacy, after all, are two of the things Palin wants to deny every other woman, and every other family, in America. Palin's even said she would "choose life" if her daughter was pregnant from rape. Can't you just hear Bristol groaning, "Mo-om...!"

The Republicans bashed Barack Obama as a "celebrity," but now they've got a star of their own, so naturally the rules have changed. Nothing would suit them better than for the media to spend the next two months spellbound by the wacky carnival on ice that is the Palin family: Todd, aka the First Dude, the kids, Levi the hunky bad-boy dad-to-be--well, maybe not him so much after his expletive-adorned MySpace page briefly came to light ("I'm a fuckin' redneck"; "I don't want kids"--whoops). The snowmobiles, the moose burgers, the guns, the hair, the glasses that are flying off America's shelves (starting at $375 a pair, and she has seven). Fretting over the work/family issue alone should take up enough column inches to employ all the female journalists in America from now to next Mother's Day. And don't forget that op-ed staple, What Does This Mean for Feminism?

Well, I'm not playing. I don't care about Sarah Palin's family. I don't care if she's a good mother. I don't care if she's happily married, or who shops and who vacuums, or who takes care of the kids while both parents are at work. I don't want her recipe for caribou hot dogs, either. Life chez Sarah and Todd might make an adorable sitcom (Leave It to Jesus?) or a scathing tell-all a decade or so down the road (Governor Dearest?). Either way, so what? This is an election, not The View. As for feminism's meaning, what can you say after you've said that her career shows that even right-wing fundamentalist women have taken in feminism's message of empowerment and that's good, but that Palin's example suggests women can do it all without support from society and that's bad?

Count me as a feminist who never believed that being PTA president meant you could be, well, President. The more time we spend on dippy ruminations--how does she do it? Queen Bee on steroids or the hockey mom next door? how hot is Todd, anyway?--the less focus there will be on the kind of queries that should come first with any vice presidential candidate, and certainly would if Palin were a man. Questions like:

§ Suppose your 14-year-old daughter Willow is brutally raped in her bedroom by an intruder. She becomes pregnant and wants an abortion. Could you tell the parents of America why you think your child and their children should be forced by law to have their rapists' babies?

§ You say you don't believe global warming is man-made. Could you tell us what scientists you've spoken with or read who have led you to that conclusion? What do you think the 2,500 scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are getting wrong?

§ If you didn't try to fire Wasilla librarian Mary Ellen Baker over her refusal to consider censoring books, why did you try to fire her?

§ What is the European Union, and how does it function?

§ Forty-seven million Americans lack health insurance. John Goodman, who has advised McCain on healthcare, has proposed redefining them as covered because, he says, anyone can get care at an ER. Do you agree with him?

§ What is the function of the Federal Reserve?

§ Cindy and John McCain say you have experience in foreign affairs because Alaska is next to Russia. When did you last speak with Prime Minister Putin, and what did you talk about?

§ Approximately how old is the earth? Five thousand years? 10,000? 5 billion?

§ You are a big fan of President Bush, so why didn't you mention him even once in your convention speech?

§ McCain says cutting earmarks and waste will make up for revenues lost by making the tax cuts permanent. Experts say that won't wash. Balancing the Bush tax cuts plus new ones proposed by McCain would most likely mean cutting Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Which would you cut?

§ You're suing the federal government to have polar bears removed from the endangered species list, even as Alaska's northern coastal ice is melting and falling into the sea. Can you explain the science behind your decision?

§ You've suggested that God approves of the Iraq War and the Alaska pipeline. How do you know?

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Buy Some Shit

Hey Folks,
Head on over and buy/sell some shit

Wall Street Bail Out

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

in Sarah Palin's honor

We may have thought we wanted a woman on a national political
ticket, but the joke has really been on us, hasn't it?
Are you as sick in your stomach as I am at the thought of
Sarah Palin as Vice President of the United States?

Since Palin gave her speech accepting the Repuplican
nomination for the Vice Presidency, Barack Obama's
campaign has raised over $10 million dollars.
Some of you may already be supporting the Obama campaign
financially; others of you may still be a little honked
off over the primaries.  None of you, however, can be happy
with Palin's selection, especially on her positions on
women's issues.  So, if you feel you can't support the
Obama campaign financially or even if you can,
may I suggest thefollowing fiendishly brilliant alternative?
Make a donation to Planned Parenthood.  In Sarah Palin's name.
And here's the good part:
when you make a donation to PP in her name, they'll send her
a card telling her that the donation has been made in her
honor.  Here's the link to the Planned Parenthood website:

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/

You'll need to fill in the address to let PP know where to
send the "in Sarah Palin's honor" card.  I suggest you use
the address for the McCaincampaign headquarters, which is:

McCain for President
1235 S. Clark Street
1st Floor
Arlington, VA 22202