We Don't Need No Water...

At the beginning of this "economic crisis" I jadedly opined, 'go ahead and let these financial institutions rape us, They want one more good stroke before we get a new president that will crack down on them". Thank goodness enough people pitched a big enough bitch to stop popular support for this. Maybe I'm being to naive and this is just political theatre to show how lazy a dog the democratically led congress is. Couldn't have played out worse for McCain but we won't go there today. It would be really cool if the government passed a bill that essentially bought most american people's houses and let the effects work their way up to wall street. That's probably too optimistic. The naysayers who want wall street bailed out sound more and more ridiculous when they keep repeating that mantra that oooh, you won't be able to get a college loan or a house loan or a mortgage if this doesn't go through. They are half truths. Better off children who's parents make too much to qualify for government subsidized loans may have trouble getting private loans for college--that is if their parents have bad credit. In most cases, you'd have to have a buyer for your house to go and look for a mortgage for a new house...and pre bailout nobody can sell their home...so I don't think mortgages are something entirely in that much demand anyway. Car loans? Again people with good credit, are not overextended and have a down payment will still be able to get a car loan still. Everybody with dinged up credit and already have too much debt? Yeah, it's going to hurt a bit. But it hurt after the housing bubble burst already. The wall street bailout doesn't help with that. It doesn't give confidence to joe blow. It does give confidence to the traders, though. If the government buys up all the houses that have people in them and renegotiates (writes down) the %/length/principal, the people in those houses will feel more confident that they aren't going under even if they have made the mistake of letting their homes value get to their heads and spent a little too much money on credit cards. Why buy the bets on a bunch of assets when you can just buy the assets? I hated econ in school so maybe there's something I'm missing, but the latter seems a hell of a much more desirable investment than the former.

Wall Street? Yeah they're americans too but they'd sell their mother to India or China if it meant an extra buck to them. Screw them.

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I wish I hadn't watched the dodgers last night

Apparently I missed a lot of great network television. How does one swing and miss at softballs from Katie Couric? I've only read articles and partial transcripts covering the interview by latimes.com and a weblog at the baltimore sun's website so I guess I can't give my opinion. Maybe the written excerpt on the question regarding the bailout legislation/economic crisis looks worse in print than it did to listen and watch. Either way, someone needs to reboot and update Palin's issue recognition programming so that her microprocessor knows with more certainty which talking point to respond with. Apparently she's been throwing out bits and pieces of multiple talking points together resulting in fractured syntax and incomplete thoughts. Maybe Palin has a personal stash of marijuana as is legal to have and grow for personal use up in alaska and decided to use some. I think there are hundreds of thousands of high school aged children today in America that know the issues better than and might have been able to articulate their knowledge better than Sarah Palin seemed to last night given what I've read so far. I'm off to make sure I am not being unfairly sexist to Sarah by finding the interview and watching it now.

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CGI

Oh there we go. CNN tells me that the annoying pauses had nothing to do with a bad teleprompter...it was the result of his speech being telecast from florida and he was in front of a crowd over there that would applause (which we cnn listeners/watchers couldn't hear).

The presidential campaigns have annoyed me to the point where I've been ignoring the news for the better part of the last three days. I'll probably have my fill in a few hours from now. What set me off was seeing McCain talking about how he had his campaign on hold and then proceeds to campaign from the cgi whatever it is conference. I'm sure I'll hear what I was thinking from Olberman or his sister...or that Stewart guy on comedy central.

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Got the Answer From Fox News

They played McCain's criticisms of Obama's policies. Then in passing they mention that Obama had a press conference today which they couldn't cover because of media availability (I might not have that quite right but something to the effect that they couldn't get or weren't given the footage) but, that Obama was going to give a "rally" later (my impression was that they were belittling Obama for going for fame on a day when hard work needs to be done) and they "might" broadcast some of that when it becomes available. We report (what we want you to see). You decide.

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Obama's Speech Is Impressing Me

He's making John McCain's comments on the economy look like one of the three stooges wrote it. Obama outlined everything. It was comprehensible. It outlined answered the who, what, where, when, and why. Obama is going to get a huge bump off of this. Obama sounds like he knows wth he's talking about. He has an opinion that seems informed. I also believe he does know what he's talking about, or he's extremely good at faking it. I wonder what CNBC or bloomberg people will say after this is over. Even more interesting, I wonder how Fox will spin Obama's speech, or if they'll just ignore it. McCain could only dream of sounding this good on the economy. He couldn't imagine McCain could do a press conference on it and make it through without sounding like a bufoon.

Now Obama goes for the throat by tying the financial crisis to the war on terror and our failing health care system. I guess he didn't need to come up with a plan to tether the moon to the earth in order to establish a base or something crazy like that. Today is the day Bush's incompitence seals the deal between Obama and the majority of the American people.

Woot!

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Is McCain Going to Admit

He was wrong on the economy a few weeks ago? All of a sudden his tune is totally different, but I don't hear any attempt at explaining away his prior statements on the economy besides blaming people Bush appointed, Congress, and ...

Nevermind. In breaking news, North Korea spells itself out by stating it doesn't care about Bush's stupid little terrorist list and that it's restarting it's nuclear program. Then they showed a picture of Kim Jong-Il sticking his tongue and giving the single finger salute. I guess North Korea read the news about us being totally impotent and broke to stop them.

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It Really Was and Is the Economy

It was an 800 pound gorilla in the room a few weeks ago. Then it became a 3 ton pink elephant. Now it's one of those black monoliths from 2010: The Year We Make Contact.

"There will be plenty of time later to debate the origins of the problem..."

Thanks for being on top of it, Bush. Remind me never to take a road trip with you in anything but a brand new car.

Maybe I'll post more blurry photos of Obama later today. I'm going to look outside my window and watch the sky falling.

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Yahoogate!

Yahoo! I was not going to post today. I was hoping to surprise my better half once she walks through the door with a little trip over to Cashman field to perhaps see the last gasps of his campaign appearance there. Then while I was googling some news (I was entering unsavory variants of Palin's name into the google to see what would come out and lo and behold, Palin's yahoo email got hacked! Then after the initial excitement cooled I got a bit pissed at the people that hacked her bungled it in their excitement. I'm holding out hope that they are dis-informing a bit...but that's hard to swallow. More upsetting is what they have released so far is just stuff that makes her look like a normal, albeit a bit unwise politician using a crappy web based email account for work purposes.

The campaign will probably figure out a way to label the hackers as sexist...

Anyways, the pictures are over here. It's probably going to be a bit busy over there at wikileaks for a while, though.

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The Investigation is only Legit/Fair if it's only Republicans appointed by Palin investigating her...

wtf ever...

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More on the Volcanic Attention on the Investigation Into Palin

Her lawyer was on CNN and pretty much refused to commit to whether his client would cooperate with the investigation into her firings. The AP report from an hour ago is here The republican response was a little too over the top with the rhetoric with the reference to McCarthy. Now, fun with recent news quotes...

Asked about her refusal to turn over e-mails to an Alaska investigator, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin looked up, smiled — and then stepped wordlessly into her waiting car.

I like that part the most because the last few days she wouldn't shut up with all the lies. hehe. Here's another funny quote:

"The American people are going to get to know Gov. Palin very well by the end of the campaign,"

Oh yes we are. But now she doesn't wanna talk so much anymore

Aides keep reporters well away from her when she is campaigning, and also protect her privacy aboard her chartered campaign plane by pulling a curtain across the center aisle to separate the Palins and her top aides from the rest of the passengers.

from a spot on article from Political Cortex by Bill Hare, I read this gem,

if Reed and Republicans have evidence of Obama's campaign hijacking the investigation, it is strange that no names are being mentioned in connection with this alleged effort. After all, these are not bashful people and generally love to hurl names about.

The fact is that this probe began before Palin was named to the Republican ticket.

This is what kills me about the spin. This whole thing started before she was even being considered for VP. The Alaskan people wanted the answer to this and her camp is crying foul like the democrats and Obama campaign jumped on this to destroy her. I hope the stuff comes out sooner than later. I don't think she'll be allowed to pull a Bush or a Cheney and just ignore the state of Alaska's subpeona to get her to be accountable for her decisions.

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The Lies Are Catching Up With Palin/McCain

The scandal-ish stuff is finally catching momentum and drowning out the fawning over Palin. Her messages (mostly a bunch of lies) are being called out. This is good. The media is questioning Palin's decision to not cooperate with the investigation and calling it a partisan, democratic conspiracy against her. Her decision on how to handle her past has had the effect of completely changing her media coverage. Now she's kind of on the run, dodging, hiding, and trying to run from her political mistakes in the past now being investigated. Pretty Cheneyesque. To cap it all off, the biggest lie is the assertion that the investigation is partisan, when in fact it isn't. Maybe this results in less repetition of the tired old lies they've been repeating day after day in the face of the obvious evidence of it being a lie. Even the word lie is finally being attached to the words of Palin and McCain. This makes me less sad about the media's ability to avoid rolling over just because someone is pretty and popular. The last few days seemed like the week before the prom or a campaign for junior high vice president. Shallow and hollow.

This is exactly the type of stuff republicans ridiculed Hillary's assertion back in the '90's of a right wing conspiracy out to ruin Bill's ability to do his job one congressional investigation at a time. They finally got him because he wouldn't admit he got his dick sucked by a woman that wasn't his wife. This pivoted into 8 years of a guy who promised to restore "honor" to the position of presidency who instead got us where we are today.

Sound 12-16 years ago familiar? Sounds a bit like the stuff the republicans used to do after Clinton got elected? I thought it would. Palin, you should call Rove and other GoP strategists and thank them for cooking your freaking goose.

It's looking up for this old gander :)

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I have an answer!

I always wondered if it was just me that can react to media events and then blog about it in an angered state. Something on the tv or internet news pisses me off to the point where I can rant for an hour or so and make long, meandering posts, that are hard to read hehe. So I googled blog rage and I didn't feel so alone. But I guess I don't have blog rage because I don't go posting angrily on other people's blogs because I disagree with them. I guess I'm just crotchety, or cantankerous. I really do feel when I'm posting on this blog like a stereotypical, bitter, old man complaining about the entire world. Once I hit post I can relax a bit and see enough of the beauty and positive things in the world. I'm not gonna look for the definition of what a rage-filled blog poster is called because...

I'm about to hit the publish button.

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Obama needs to change his strategy: When's the last time America Has Accomplished Something Awe Inspiring?

The election has now veered onto the paths of the '04 and '00 campaigns. Obama is now in the trench McCain wants him to be in, wiping mud from his brow and flinging a little back at McCain. McCain has finally been effective (I'm agreeing with the writer from today's Time's article about McCain going for people's emotions) against the Obama campaign. Obama hasn't pulled at the nation's heart strings for a long time. He hasn't done so since McCain accused his campaign of lacking any specifics. Since then Obama has been laying out the fine print since, most noticeably in his acceptance speech. Interest in him from the media has waned. He's not been as exciting.

He needs to re-incorporate the positive, emotionally uplifting and hopeful tone to his speeches. But he just can't go back to "the speech". While it's still great for the voters already committed, saying the same old speech again isn't going to sway those on the fence. He needs to bust out with something new.

I'm going to just stipulate as fact for the sake of my next point that the race has devolved into emotional appeals from McCain/Palin and now defense from Obama. If you believe the Time article I referenced in the last paragraph is bogus, you might want to stop here.

Still with me? O.K. Now, if you have watched the speeches given by Palin that it's a co-opted version of Obama's messages. What made me mad this morning was Palin's speech after the whole bank thing was announced. She repeated the same old b.s. about the bridge to nowhere and the jet. But I think she was effective because she called out the bankers and congratulated the government for not bailing out the bank. Obama needs to point out the new Palin (since she's the only person talking that gets news coverage now) messages are the exact same things he's said months ago in the campaign. He also needs to put out there the fact that the McCain campaign is flipping the ticket and in essence running Palin (unassailable because she's a woman, has the press following her around) against Obama. He needs to point out that the only reason they're are now speaking these messages is because their previous messages didn't work. In addition he needs to call out McCain to speak for himself and in a subtle fashion point out that this makes McCain weak, unlike other "strong" (I don't personally believe in this crap) Republicans like Reagan who wouldn't do such a thing.

Honestly, this campaign McCain is running, while effective at the moment, is ridiculous. McCain is campaigning from underneath Palin's skirt. Or if you like Wizard of Oz metaphors he's talking through Palin from the back of the room and once Toto pulls back the screen he speaks through the mic to tell everyone to ignore the little old man behind the screen. Fact is everyone knew the little old man was in the room and had long ago ignored him, so he had to construct this fearful and loud image to speak through to gain people's awe and respect...I'm digressing...

Even that isn't enough. Obama needs to go bigger. He's got to go beyond what he's articulated as hope in "the speech". He needs to ask America to think about when's the last time America has been in awe of an American accomplishment? He then needs to propose a radical change...more like a radical goal and throw that bombshell on the people with a 'yes we can' I guess at the end to re-remind people of the original and still great message of his campaign. Change. Hope. Something that can excite voters of most demographics.

What would this idea be? I don't know. How would he lay this out in terms of the media? I am kinda leaning towards and apple marketing strategy. Not the apple ads with pc and mac type strategy. The type of marketing strategy where you leak a rumor of a "big" idea that will be revealed at a future date. It creates buzz and people start wondering what the hell it is like a Christmas present and then everyone is listening a week or two when the "it" is revealed.

What would it be? Something that everyone can agree would be exciting for the American people to accomplish. It's got to have a bit of practical purpose, but maybe the idea of re-establishing America's dominance through whatever it is could be viewed as acceptable. It's got to be a 5-10 project. It's got to be awe inspiring. As jaded as we Americans are I find such a thing as hard to really imagine myself, but I'm not that smart of a guy. My creatively limited mind can only think of a more aggressive space program but that would draw a lot of criticism because of it's lack of practicality. Maybe it would fly with the public if there were some twist to it.

Obama probably still wins because the election still boils down to war or no war and I think that is still a deal breaker for a lot of poeple, but I think a comeback strategy of this nature shuts the door on McCain and belittles his messages without having to say negative things to do it. I don't know the words for it but it's just thinking on a higher level than McCain's campaign has outlined or prepared for from the other side.

This probably doesn't happen. I just got kinda sad at the discourse, but more sad that the Obama campaign seems to be sputtering a bit while Palin goes up and makes the same untruthful speech over and over and over to cheers. I guess my point is to stop the attacks on Palin. Ignore her. Challenge/Call out McCain to talk for himself and see how that's received by voters.

I think that's all I've got to say about that.

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The Kitchen Sink Method Part Two

The choice before us hasn't changed much from what I wrote long ago despite McCain using the kitchen sink method to try to improve his polling. His messages have changed sometimes daily, sometimes weekly. Some messages have gone away. More strawmen have emerged since Palin was announced. Increasingly negative and demagogue-ish type ads are appearing (the Obama wants to teach kindergartners about sex in school was the worst yet) while he decries sexism by Obama that doesn't exist (the pig thing was ridiculous and Obama handled it excellently by calling a spade a spade about the reaction. Joe Blow saw a week, cheap shot at calling Obama sexist by using a phrase most everyone has used)...

Maybe the McCain campaign forgot that this throw everything at the wall and see what sticks strategy caught up with Clinton when her messages changed too quickly day-to-day because nothing resonated enough to increase her poll numbers. When a candidate's message changes too much or they're saying too many things than the average person can clearly organize about their positions, people tend not to "know" that candidate as well and feel less likely to vote for them. In other words, people given too many messages catch on that they're just being told anything the candidate thinks will get their vote and lose faith in that person's promises. McCain seems to be going there as a candidate. It is really desperate. If you're too desperate and you don't have enough style/charisma points to put those messages out there in a way that makes the candidate witty/funny/intelligent/empathetic to the voter so they feel "connected" to the candidate, you can't pull off the strategy and your numbers go back down as the number of messages go up over an extended period of time.

McCain just isn't Reagan enough to pull that off. He doesn't have enough style. He doesn't have enough witticisms. He doesn't even deliver the old standards about raising taxes and expanding government well. He just looks like a cad willing to say whatever he can to get in bed with his date...oh wait! A month or so ago that's what McCain accused the Obama campaign of doing.

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GoP Messages and then I analyze

I wracked my brain for every message I could think of that's been bandied about. I then pseudo analyze them and mock them. I poke at or editorialize some of them. If you think of more messages that I forgot, please add them. They aren't in chronological order...they aren't in any order but the order that I can put them down on paper. So I guess you'd say the strongest or most repeated messages are first.

{I didn't realize there'd be that many messages. This is insane}

Various Campaign Messages over the last 3 months or so:
-McCain is experienced,
-McCain is a maverick
-McCain is a war veteran
-McCain is a proven leader due to his war experience (despite flipping on most everything that made him a maverick to run for President)
-McCain is ready to lead on day one, Obama will need on the job training
-McCain will win the war--and win it right--by winning it.
-McCin is bipartisan when he needs to be
-McCain empathizes with people that lost their jobs and wants them to be retrained
-McCain will keep us safe from terrorists
-McCain won't repeat the mistakes of Bush
-McCain is vigorous
-McCain is in great health
-McCain's cancer is under control
-McCain takes responsibility for the end of his first marriage, but won't discuss what he did wrong because it was a long time ago
-McCain is a family man
-McCain left jaw is just big-boned--a greek goddess will be born from it
-McCain likes to drill for oil
-McCain believes in global warming
-McCain likes the environment
-McCain is a straight talker
-McCain is unafraid to take bold stances on controversial issues
-McCain is not a political insider
-McCain gets along with people from both sides of the aisle
-McCain has a man-crush on Joe Lieberman. Lieberman reciprocates the affection.
-McCain will fight for lower gas prices
-McCain will fight for anything that means you will vote for him
-McCain likes euphemisms for violence in speech
-McCain would rather win a war than lose an election
-McCain is deeply religious, and fiercely personal about his beliefs--personal meaning he won't discuss his religious views at all except for a few anecdotes about other people's religious beliefs
-McCain dislikes judicial activism
-McCain is for change
-McCain is against change for change's sake
-McCain is for experienced change--the kind of changes he'll make
-McCain is against Obama's change
-McCain will quickly find and kill Osama Bin Laden
-McCain will fix the economy
-McCain empathizes with your economic hardships
-McCain will fight lobbyists and special interests
-McCain likes Hillary supporters now that she didn't get the nomination
-McCain likes the idea of businesses improving health care
-McCain dislikes the idea of a government bureaucrat getting between you and your doctor...so not true here's a link to a rant directed entirely to this false myth
-The Democratic ticket is upside down
-The terrorists will hurt us again if McCain isn't elected
-McCain will stare down Russia like Reagan did.
-To prove he likes women he got an attractive, inexperienced woman nobody knew who ran Alaska to be his running mate and called everyone that criticized his judgment in doing so sexist haters.
-The Democratic ticket is upside down (said by a talking head surrogate during dem conv.)
-The terrorists will hurt us again if McCain isn't elected (GoP 9/11 horrorfest tribute)

Analysis: McCain used to have some political credibility although I'm biased against him because my first impression of him was as a child listening to his outspoken criticism against recognizing the MLK holiday in the 80's (the maverick eventually caved into the political pressure and flip-flopped). He seemed pretty bigoted about it to me back then and I was confused about how angry he sounded about it in his speech. I didn't watch football, but I remember the big deal about the NFL boycotting Arizona and taking the superbowl away from 'em (there were also probably some other reasons, like Sun Devil Stadium is extremely hot, is entirely outdoors, and as a venue to watch football just sucks ass as we both know, hehe).

The messages seem all over the place. Some are contradictory. Some are co-oped from Obama's messages a la Clinton. Clinton was really good at that. He took his opponents idea and if he didn't improve it, he made it sound better than the original. There aren't specifics beyond what we've seen as the dysfunctional status quo the last eight years as far as economic and military plans. He does seem to want to address alternative energy with his kitchen sink approach that I forgot to add to the message list because it lasted for a couple of weeks and then he got tired of photo ops in front of oil wells I guess. I like how you can see he is critical of some of Obama's messages and when that fails to help him, he co-opts that message with the "me-too" approach that Obama ended up criticizing the GoP for.

Besides that he seems most other politicians except for a temper and a collection of a few odd friends from the other aisle like Lieberman and Fiengold. He's corrupt, but not obscenely so. He's out of touch. His loose cannon reputation hurt his ability to get enough friends agreeing he's the best nominee in his "prime". He's flip flopped on a lot of issues. He was decently moderate for a republican until he sold out his positions on abortion, the war, and caved into the evangelicals. He could have been president but he was at the right age in the wrong time. It's past his time. I mean, McCain couldn't get past Bob Dole 12 or 16 years or so ago. Now he's just too old. Reagan lost it during his second term and people don't want to see that in another president.

The GoP must be tired of trying to find things to ding Obama on. Well on to Palin messages...

-Sarah Palin is charming
-Sarah Palin's family is charming and attractive looking
-Palin is more experienced than Obama
-Palin is a "chief executive"
-Palin makes "chief executive" decisions, unlike Obama
-Palin is fiercely pro-life
-Palin has a Down syndrome child she could have aborted to prove it
-Sarah Palin is not perfect
-Sarah Palin's family isn't perfect either, just like you and me
-Sarah Palin is pro-abstinence only education in school
-Sarah Palin is like you and your family--just in Alaska shooting moose
-Sarah Palin dislikes terrorists just like you
-Sarah Palin dislikes big federal government, except when it's giving her state money
-Sarah Palin put the Mayor jet on ebay...it just failed to sell
-Sarah Palin is hot (surrogate/fan/voter message)
-Sarah Palin still flies around
(((losing objectivity...)))
-Sarah Palin charges Alaska for her living expenses while working from home instead of the governor's mansion. I guess the analogy would be if your employer rented a house for you in India to teach some Indians your job but there was a family emergency like your spouse dying and you needed to care for him or her. So you fly back to the states, care for your spouse, do your job via videoconferencing to those guys in India, and bill your employer for your mortgage payment, grocery bills, and fuel costs while you're living in your own house...did I miss something? Yes the government/taxpayers pay for you to live somewhere. That somewhere is the governor's mansion. If you don't want to live there, fine. But it's not fair to bill the taxpayers for another house, namely your own, making the taxpayers pay twice and not claiming that as income for IRS purposes. I don't think any of us could get away with that...
(((back on track)))

Analysis: She has a b.s. in communications. She jumped around 4 colleges to get it. Most of her job experience involves governing a town smaller than Plainfield in Alaska. Bizzut, you or Puck could go run Plainfield just fine. So could that guy across the street from you. I wouldn't trust the fat guy that lived next door and tried to kill your cats, though. She governed the state of Alaska for a little over 2 years. McCain couldn't find another woman with a bit more education and/or experience than Palin? I'm dissing Palin, but I'm questioning McCain's choice/judgment more. Given a choice of people to run with, he chose the pretty chick, lol.

He left his first wife because he wanted to live fast and loose when he came home from Vietnam, dumping his wife like garbage to go party. He might have committed bigamy just to satisfy the younger model's urge to mark her territory. This part of his life is so damning of him as a man he chose to lie about it in his memoir and won't discuss it in detail publicly, so it must be kind of a big deal to him. Now here he is, hand in hand with another younger woman (no I don't believe they're doing anything, but old men like that thrill you get with an attractive, younger woman on your arm). He was and still is a party boy. His character flaws prevented him from rising to the top 20-25 years ago or so and now that he's finally got his chance (because everyone in the GoP sucks because the party over-Bushified itself) he's too old and still making the same mistakes he did back then, and then some because he prostituted his political integrity away to the evangelicals and the neocons. He's now just some kind of idealogical and political amalgamation of conflicting crappy ideas that if made into a living being would resemble Jabba the Hut. But that's just my opinion.

Anyways here's messages originated by the GoP describing Obama:

-Obama will raise your taxes, McCain won't
-Obama is inexperienced
-Obama is out of touch
-Obama is "elite"
-Obama feels "entitled"
-Obama is arrogant
-Obama is a flip-flopper (I think this was the second message after the inexperienced...it's long dead now once McCain's huge record of flip flopping 6 months before the elections started to be messaged afterwards)
-Obama is a political opportunist
-Obama is unwilling or unable to stake out positions on controversial issues, evidenced by the number of "present" votes on difficult issues
-"He's not one of us"(this one is said over and over again by MSNBC)
-Obama has never made an executive decision
-Obama is corrupt
-Obama never wrote a bill in the Senate
-Obama's message of change is deceitful when claiming to bring change and new politics, the proof he is just any other politician is the purchase of his home
-Obama is unpredictable (not overtly stated, inferred by McCain stating that nobody knows what Obama means by "change")
-Obama's religious beliefs may not be mainstream, making him potentially dangerous
-Obama's religious beliefs may be dangerous because of Rev. Wright
-Obama doesn't like or respect women
-He's politically ambitious
-He's selfish
-He's not patriotic (long dead)
-His wife is not patriotic (lapel-gate)
-His wife is an angry black woman as evidenced by her "proud" speech
-Michelle Obama's personality is "aggressive" (this stopped after Obama complained)
-Obama will embolden the "enemy" and the "terrorists"

Analysis
The "He's not one of us" "elite" and "entitled" are, at least to me, covert ways at digging at racial stereotypes imprinted in the audience. The anti-Michelle Obama were even more overt but they stopped very quickly along with the anti-patriotic b.s.. These are two lawyers lol. The angry message was the most troubling to me. I really wish I hadn't watched the fox news when it was bash Michelle Obama week and heard her described the way she was. Palin becomes the vice presidential pick and the first word that comes out of the GoP when her record is question is sexism? What was the crap that went on about Mrs. Obama when she wasn't even the candidate? Mrs. Obama is probably better qualified to be McCain's V.P. than Palin....but I digress.

In the context of affirmative action dialogue anti-affirmative action opponents often refer to minorities as feeling entitled to certain jobs or college spots despite not being academically or professionally qualified and that some hypothetical white person does not get this job and that white life is ruined as a result. These kinds of words elicit that thinking underneath, maybe not even consciously, but at some level those phrases repeated over and over simmer with the other messages we receive and it ends up a strange unsettled distrust of the black person despite the guy saying and doing all the right things. The lever then gets pulled by emotional strings pulled based on the effectiveness in the messages, images, in combination with that individual's personal experiences, and present situation.

So now my explanation why I took the messages and went hogwild with analysis on only the racial implications of them and none of the other stuff...

It's funny (because it's rare that Puck would choose a news program to record), Puck recorded a 20/20 or nightline segment 2 nights ago that dealt with elites in society that are either extremely wealthy or famous and how that affects how people treat them. After that it went into how race in society still affects people. They sent a black lady and a white lady into the same store at different times but with the same lady working the department. The cameras show the worker check in on the black lady over three times and counting the number of articles of clothing. The receptionist never checked the articles of clothing on the white women nor checked up on her in the dressing room. They also sent out sets of resumes with the exact same qualifications, but one set had "white" names and the other set had very ethnic names like Shaniqua Thompson. Whites applicants got callbacks. They also showed some really old footage of whites coming into businesses with help wanted signs up and whites getting interviews while blacks being told the position is already filled. They showed older footage from what seemed like the 80's of the same thing happening with apartments. I guess that's what made me go there today to take all the messages and look for what attempts to tug at people's stereotypes.
------------
I think underneath the rhetoric and imagery, a lot of Americans fear or believe that Obama is somewhat like the african-american basketball NBA player stereotype

What attributes would one give this stereotype?

extremely gifted

more focused on style

maybe lacking fundamental skills

greedy

puts their individual performance over that of their team

entitled

arrogant

undisciplined

selfish

morally corrupt

angry, hostile, aggressive

unappreciative

White athletes are characterized by a lot of these too. You have to be competitive to be at the top levels of pro sports. A competitive personality has a few ugly wrinkles to it like outbursts of aggresiveness at coaches or teammates when the team is losing yada yada.

lacking in strategy (this point hasn't been articulated quite this way but if you take a few of the points above you could infer that a combination of some of these messages nudges/grabs at the audience's/consumer's/voter's stereotypes of african americans as threatening, unpredictable, inept at higher level thinking (i.e. lack of NFL quarterbacks until very recently, lack of NFL coaches, NBA head coaching derth, MLB--Campanis interview on nightline). That was just examples where the stereotypes slipped out in public discourse. They are old examples and no doubt things are improving, but those perceptions still float around and affect some people on differing levels. It could affect some undecided voter's "gut" when they're on the fence. I'm not trying to argue these people are racist. They are people affected by the media growing up to a small extent to be a little fearful of black people, just as blacks are affected negatively by seeing the same imagery, just they see people that look like themselves being the bad guys and wonder why that is and may be to some extent a little less hopeful about where their lives might lead to.

Enough with my preoccupation with how race may subvertly (guess I just made up that adverb) be affecting this election.

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I Don't agree with this 'The Weekly Standard'

Alright so here's the article if you haven't read it. I can't even agree with the first sentence. The phrase, "In what respect, Charlie?" doesn't indicate a request for clarification by Palin, it presumes to know what the Bush doctrine is, but asks the interviewer to specify what specific facet (yes, even shit has facets) of the Bush doctrine the interviewer is asking her about.

But anyways the question isn't answered and Gibson clarifies it and dumbs it down by asking her to define it for herself. This gave her the opportunity to state anything about Bush foreign policy post September 11'th (geez, it was slated to air just after the anniversary of it) and show herself to be somewhat knowledgeable about U.S. foreign policy and to agree or critique some or all of the decisions made in the past so the viewer could understand what she knows and where she'd like America to be going, since that's what these interviews are for.

Instead of saying anything that would have given her a passing grade on this question, she curtly defines/interprets "Bush doctrine"

as...

"His world view."

So insightful.

It's like defining the Truman doctrine as the world view of Harry Truman during his presidency. Yeah, it's technically correct, but defining a term by restating it's name is what we all did to B.S. in college because we hadn't read. It adds nothing to the class. It does no analysis. It has no opinion. It's an empty answer.

Anyways within that exchange the opportunity to show America her critique of the Bush administration's handling of foreign affairs was lost in translation. She stated there were mistakes but didn't name them so that the people listening would be assured and understand that she knew what the mistakes were and wouldn't repeat them. She missed the opportunity to specifically state a foreign policy strategy that will make us safer and the world more free. Instead there was just this empty shell of an answer,

I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership, and that's the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.

This is why some people are up in arms. Not because she couldn't define an admittedly amorphous term, but because she seemed to have no grasp at what the interviewer was even asking her about. Like she hasn't picked up a damned newspaper in 7 years.


Maybe that's because she wants to avoid Bush bashing? Watching the exchange it's hard to really see her being that calculating as she was thoroughly uncomfortable and did have the deer in headlights look. She looked like my wife does when I ask her about some current events that happened in the late 80's (doesn't remember Iran-Contra, doesn't know who Oliver North is, remembers the shuttle blowing up, doesn't remember Dukakis looking like a dork on top of a tank, doesn't remember Bush senior in the grocery store being totally amazed that there were scanners...I'll stop there). My wife dislikes politics, history, current events, but then again she doesn't have political aspirations.

That's cool and the gang. I think if you want to be a politician, it helps to have done your homework as far as knowing your history . At least the history she was asked about happened 7 years ago or so. Did Palin turn off every television set after since September 11'th?!? Was her Alaskan house not hooked up to cable and the internet?

wtf?

Did she miss all those references to Bush doctrine the weekly Standard points out?

I forgot to add that words and phrases morph or completely change meaning all the time. Foreign policy morphs and changes during a president's term due to "shit happening" as well. That's kind of the nature of foreign policy. We all remember that the first week or so post 9/11 thoughts were very fluid about what happened, the enormity, and wtf we were going to do about it. Bush doctrine is such a powerful term because it broke from every president in history. It's historically important because he's the first leader of the greatest civilization on the face of the earth to say, "Yes, we have the right and should hit people that we have reason to believe mighthit us".

Preemptive war policy is kind of a big deal--especially when you used it unnecessarily on a country not involved in talking to,harboring, or assisting the terrorists that caused 9/11. It puts most every other country on a bit of an edge. It has in some ways isolated us from receiving cooperation. We're the country that cried wolf. Critiquing the "Bush doctrine" could have eased many minds. Instead she amorphously refers to "mistakes" adversely affecting "the war". What mistakes? Which war? She gave us nothing. She got a slowly tossed beach ball her way and it went by her, bounced, and she kind of blankly stared at it after it hit the backstop and then rubbed it with her hands and looked around a bit for the valve.

The fact that the term has a bit of an amorphous meaning and many facets doesn't excuse Palin from failing to say anything remotely intelligent or meaningful about the last 7-8 years of foreign policy besides a freaking empty talking point about chasing around Islamic extremist terrorists!!!! That's what I'm steamed about. They berated Obama for having no substance for weeks and then when the GoP convention came, they offered even less substance/specifics than he in their own interviews and speeches.

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McCain's Speech

I think maybe his dog ate and he winged it. No, that couldn't be because in a few shots you could see the teleprompter off to McCain's right. McCain must be trying to co-opt his view of Obama because he delivered an amorphous, psuedo reconciliatory speech with very few specifics. I thought this is what McCain's biggest criticism of Obama was, change with no plan. Style with no substance. Sorry, McCain that I have to break it to you, but you're never going to out-style Obama in a oratory contest. Obama raised the stakes with his speech because he answered the critique of the right by providing a lot of specifics, especially on the economy. McCain's economic plan was the same rhetoric from the last 8 elections. Cut taxes, cut government spending, and warning everyone that the bad democrats will raise your taxes and create new, more useless government bureaucracies. Something Obama has repeatedly said he won't do for 95% of the people.

I couldn't have wished for a more dog of a speech to ensure that people on the fence don't fall on McCain's side.

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Will Palin Step Down?

This is pretty rumormongering, and it's only based on one guy's speculative comment on cnn's political blog that Palin would withdraw from the campaign to deal with her family issue. I don't think it will happen because people with good judgment make the correct choice the first time and anyone that listens to Rove/Cheney know you never admit to a mistake. However, it certainly would help in my opinion for her to step down and McCain to quickly make a new, drama-free but exciting pick. This teen pregnancy twist to the campaign seems to have them in such a knot that they are unable to communicate any message. The freaking speeches were all about 'John McCain is a nice guy, a maverick, and a courageous war hero. Oh, and the the repeated lie over and over the 30+ year old scare meme that the democrats will raise your taxes and waste money by increasing government spending. Oooohh! Like the republicans already did? The strategy is all well and good although none of it helps America figure how McCain is going to address problems besides standing next to oil rigs. At the democratic convention all the conservative talking heads kept saying that there was no "red meat". McCain hasn't even shown us a bone yet.

I disagree with the maverick label after all of his rather recent changes of positions to match the GoP line. He's no longer a maverick. The GOP continuing to throw out talking heads to use that word in their portrayal of him juxtaposed to the very effective ad that has McCain hugging the president and proclaiming he's voted with Bush over 90% of the time really makes the McCain campaign and the man himself appear as cheap, fake, political sellouts. Bob Dole has more speaking charisma than McCain. Al Gore is less wooden than McCain. If McCain and Bob Dole shook hands too vigorously on a dry day they may start a fire.

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Roland Martin is More Eloquent Than I Am About Palin

Martin in his commentary on cnn.com says a lot of what I said yesterday, except more thoroughly researched and stuff. More importantly he articulated some stuff I felt but didn't get around to typing out. He also put down some facts I didn't go out of my way to get like his citing the 46.8% teen sex rate from some group. The most politically damning statistic being that Alaska has one of the highest rates of teen STD transmission and taking her to task for it.

His last 4 paragraphs or so articulates how I feel about the larger issue brought up by Bristol's pregnancy. Nobody I know of would think it's a good thing to throw condoms at your teen and look the other way. Nobody I know with kids is browbeating them to never have sex until they're married else, leaving their teens ignorant about what sex is and why it's important to wait.

I would add that as long as there are people that deal with their beliefs about an issue in an entirely dogmatic way from either side of an issue we're going to have backward-ass policies in this country. We've got to get the best ideas from each side and synthesize our approaches to policies aimed to address our social problems. Maybe it will take someone politically important dying to get health care reform. If this is what it takes for "the people" to react to a current event in such a way that politicians have to deal with it, then fine. But now I'm meandering off topic, so I'll stop sounding like a bitter elderly person.

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Yesterday Morning

I woke up at about 2:30 AM on Labor day and couldn't get back to sleep. After watching the show about the guy who lived with bears until he and his girlfriend got eaten by them, then looking at his wikipedia page, then looking at the wiki list of unusual deaths that got me laughing a little too inappropriately at times, I decided on a plan to bore myself back to sleep by turning the television to C-Span. There was something good on. It was a focus group of 25 "undecided" voters who were asked tons of questions and asked to rate their emotional reactions to plenty of campaign ads, the aarp ads that have been playing, and asked to prioritize what they felt was most important in this elections, and characteristics that were most important to them in both the parties and the candidates. It was so up to date as to ask the group how they felt of the news on the GoP not holding their convention due to the hurricane. It was infinitely interesting to watch people express both unique points of view while a few people just reiterated the same things people say on television. What all people seemed to share was a frustration with government in general and a feeling of futility that either candidate would be able to implement the "change" they were unable to quite define but wanted. They also were upset at the lack of "accountability" in government and frustrated that nothing gets done to help the majority of Americans. One lady sticks out in my head because she was pretty much irrationally anti-lawyer to the point that she stated all doctors should be immune from lawsuits under all circumstances. One other guy was a bit less anti-lawyer than her and expressed the opinion that health care costs are higher in part due to doctors over ordering medical tests for patients to cover themselves from suit. I think to a small degree this guy is right. Most of the real big malpractice wins are from dead babies. Dead babies going to a jury is just so inherently emotional for the average jury that it puts the insurance company defending the doctor at a huge disadvantage in terms of a huge 1-2 million dollar jury award against their insured. So they hike the rates on malpractice insurance to put pressure on doctors and the legal system to cap malpractice damages allowed. Nevada is one of those jurisdictions that have capped malpractice damages. So the 7-9 people that got infected with HIV or Hepatitis C are limited to 350,000 for their pain and suffering. There is no cap on economic damages (expected future health care costs as a result of the malpractice). I guess I should back that stuff up too. Those stats are pretty old but it shows the problem. Insurance companies jack up rates to try to induce jurisdictions to cap, scare the jurisdictions that they will lose skilled doctors to other jurisdictions if they don't cap pain and suffering. Once successful, they then keep the rates for doctors high anyway. Nevada is a great example of that. Caps got put in and doctors that are trained here leave to other states despite no state income tax and not enough doctors. They won't stop until every doctor is as immune from prosecution as those scab warriors running around Iraq.


So I never went back to sleep, but that was o.k.

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I'm Glad

that the GOP convention is back on. It seemed to me that the GOP was using a storm that is at least 500 miles from the convention as an excuse not to be accountable for the past eight years on national television to the American people. I'm sure nothing will really change from what we all expect the major players to say, but at least they will get up there on a podium and take their disgrace like men and women. I want to hear if Bush will pretend the whole Iraq thing or acknowledge it and continue to stonewall about it being the right thing to do and continue doing, despite the Iraqi government continuing to reiterate that he wants American troops out on a timetable. I want to hear him impugn his own judgment by demonizing his former friend Vladimir Putin. I want more hypocritical ammunition from which to hurriedly type out scathing reproaches of the Bush/Cheney administration. It's kind of like road rage, something I have a bit of a problem with at times. A person is acting like an ass, but you really can't do anything to control, or let them know that you disapprove of their behavior without being as big of an ass as the uncourteous driver that pissed me off. I can't stop the Bush administration/GOP with anything but my vote and physical efforts of getting other people to get out there and vote (which sadly, I haven't manned up or gotten the stones to put my actions and free time to better uses). I wish I would.

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Alaskan Straw Men

This offensive (and I guess offensive) type of statement in both using someone's kid as a way to score political points and compounding it by accusing "secular

Evangelical leader Richard Land also backed Palin completely.

"This is the pro-life choice. The fact that people will criticize her for this shows the astounding extent to which the secular critics of the pro-life movement just don't get it," Land said in a statement.

The way I see it is that Land gets it, alright. He intends to to deflect any criticism of the hypocrisy of the evangelical right in failing to call a spade a spade while using Palin's daughter as a political football and begging Obama to kick it (insert Charlie Brown and Lucy joke here).

What's lame to me is that nobody criticized this girl for being pregnant. But that's what evangelicals like Land would have done to the likes of Britney Spears' younger sister crouched in the terms of the lack of traditional values of those "liberal Hollywood elites". With those people, the children run wild and get knocked up because the parents don't instill proper values and morals to their children.

It wasn't o.k. when Jamie Lynn did it, even though she was keeping her baby, but it's apparently o.k. if you're the republican V.P. candidate's daughter.

That's the real criticism of people that aren't so quick to judge everyone not exactly like ourselves, Land. That's the criticism of "those people" you called out for being a few pegs below on the morality pecking order because they were single, with a child, not in any way wealthy or influential, and don't believe exactly as you do--or is that did?

If this were the pregnant teen daughter of a nobody, you would disapprove of the daughter, the parenting skills of either or both parents, and would blame the lack of funding for abstinence-only programs in the schools. Sad stories like Susie Nobody wouldn't burden our welfare and medicaid programs at the cost of hard working Americans if only the platform of evangelicals were implemented.

The secular critics of the right to life movement as he calls them don't have any problem with any teen girl that decides to keep their baby. They would be critical of any person that stated one set of things to say about not-so-wealthy, unwed, teen mothers and now has something completely different to say about a wealthy, politically prominent family.


This might have started with some left blogger that dug into the private life of the Palin's and reported with the intent to hurt the GOP or whatever, but I think Joe Public Dodgers like me pretty much stick to the onion, cnn or fox but not both, maybe some bbc for more foreign junk, our local paper, and maybe some msnbc because we like Keith Olberman...the so-and-so is preggers, McCain has a black out-of-wedlock lovechild, and Obama being both the antichrist and a Muslim simultaneously just seems like really bad AOL mail forwards. No credibility is given to the content of those type of messages, and they piss you off a little bit no matter what side it helps.

One might also add that the double standard I mentioned earlier is apparent in most aspects of American life socially and economically is why the not so wealthy of us may want a bit of change at the top. Class warfare sucks. Rich people getting even richer, poorer families than mine are getting poorer, while my coasting behind gets pinched a little more, it doesn't bother me that I can't afford as much as I could 3 years ago. What gets me is the inherent unfairness of it and the lack of empathy of some people for fellow human beings if not for your fellow countrymen.

Give the beggar a coin like Jesus did (I think we can all agree that Jesus was at least a pretty nice example of how to live). Even if the guy's a faker who's going to buy booze or meth with it, at least you gave someone the benefit of the doubt. You'd want it, wouldn't you?

Zutt, you really gimme things you want to read me babble on about...too many things piss me off on the news cycle to want to post about everyday, but I don't always think I'm entertaining you, my lone, loyal reader.

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