Horror writer living in the southwest
Another shameless plug for the mudflats live chat tonight that can be joined, here: http://themudflats.blogspot.com/ at 5:45 PM PST. I’ll once again be one of the moderators, and it should be a lot of fun.
Sharp readers may notice, that it’s a different site, than what I’ve posted inthe past. While www.mudflats.net gets some bugs worked out, blogspot is the only place that can utilize the chat program. As always, I’ll be posting my thoughts on the debate here, once it’s over.
Now that the first debate has taken place, get ready for a weekend of talking heads analizing and making pronouncements over the winner or loser. Whoever said McCain won is wrong. Whoever said Obama won is wrong, also.
Let me explain my view on this. This was the first time in many years that I saw a real debate. I saw stark contrasts in the positions (despite Obama continuously saying John is right), saw the different type of leaders both men would be, and saw how serious they both were and how deep their convictions were. I’ll break this down by giving my own take on each candidate.
Barack Obama
you can’t get around his issue of inexperience in elected office. 6 years vs 24 in the Senate is an uphill battle for any candidate, let alone the first African American up for President. If all Obama did was hold his own, that would be seen as a success for him, yet I think he did manage to do that and a bit more. He was a bit too deferential, and if I heard him say he agreed with John, I’d have pulled what little hair I have left, out. He remained calm, precise in his answers and stayed on point. He displayed knowledge of economics and foreign affairs that surprised even me. He was able to refute every grenade McCain lobbed at him with a grace under pressure, which I find comforting. He also was forceful in how he would deal with Iraq, Pakistan and Russia. This was not going to be the easiest debate for him, and the fact he did as well as he did, speaks volumes about his intelligence and capacity for learning. After some prodding from Jim Lehrer, he spoke directly to McCain and looked at him, but Johnny Mac never looked at him once. Not once.
John McCain
The veteran in every sense of the word, has a long history to draw on, and he did. Many times. That was his strength and drawback. He repeated oft told stories, but never delivered a fatal blow, which was crucial for him. There was a point about an hour and 10 minutes in, when Obama pointed out the Kissinger said he thought a meeting with Iran’s President without conditions would be a good idea. Mccain kept hammering home that Kissinger had never said that, even though he had. When you poll the best based on a lie, you’re in trouble. McCain came off cranky, condescending and at times near the end snarky. He refused to back down on remaining focused only in Iraq, despite the resurgence of the taliban and al queda in Afghanistan. Did not want to discuss any military options regarding Pakistan, in spite of the fact bin Laden keeps crossing the border there. Yes, I’m sure he was too busy grandstanding to practice, but come on-he crows about being a POW, boasts of his experience, and he can’t land a knock out?
I’m not trying to make it sound like Obama had an edge, but I view these brief critiques as a reflection of their personalities. Barack performed as he always does, calm cool and on message. MCCain takes a scattershot approach and gets irritated quite easy. I think that more than anything will decide this election.
Mccain’s that is. Seems his campaign committee has already decided he won tonight’s debate with an ad placed in the Wall Street Journal online edition. Thanks to mudflats for this screenshot.
Seems to me that seeing into the future like that would be considered witchcraft to some; maybe Rev Muthee prayed over the wrong person.
This also goes to prove how desperate the McCain campaign is right now. He tries to worm his way out of the debate, in order to play the savior of wall street, and instead makes things worse. with a sharp drop in the polls, and Palin proving to be a rock around his chicken neck, McCain then decides to proclaim himself a winner in a debate he didn’t want in the first place.
It’s been one misstep after another for this campaign, and I applaud Obama for sticking to the important things, staying on message and being an intelligent, thoughtful candidate in the midst of a crisis. I was not an Obama supporter during the primaries, I liked Hillary. however when it became clear she would not get the nomination, I kind of lost interest in the race.
When Palin was picked for the VP slot, I got interested again. I started reading about Obama and watching his speeches on youtube. I’m impressed with him, and admit I may have been wrong in giving him short shrift in the primaries.
We’re past needing a Rambo mentality in charge. We need intelligence, and grace under pressure. Obama has shown this week, he has both, and Mccain has shown nothing but the receipt he got for selling his soul to the devil.
I mean seriously, WTF?
When Americans blame Republicans for the financial crisis by a margin of 2-1, a VP nominee whose approval rating dipped 10 points in a week, when a neck and neck race is suddenly breaking out-but not in your favor, what do you do?
If you’re John McCain, you suspend your campaign and say you need to be in DC to work on the financial crisis. I might give him the benefit of the doubt on this but for one thing. Obama called McCain’s campaign at 830 this morning, asking to issue a joint message about the need for bipartisanship in order to move past the crisis.
See, when you offer more of the same, with no ideas of your own, you do anything you can to win, whether you deserve the win or not. The problem for Johnny Mac is that people are beginning to see through the charades, and they’re pissed off. With this new stunt, McCain may as well give his concession speech.
Last week over on the mudflats blog, as the financial industry imploded on its bought out, greedy carcass, I said Obama would take over as leader in the polls with over 50%. In the latest poll from abcnews and the Washington Post, Obama is up 52-43%. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/24/83-percent-of-americans-t_n_128822.html Much of that can be atributed to the ties McCain has the financial industry, and the fact that 8 years of Bush policies has not only failed, but dug a hole so deep it will be a long while before the country can climb out.
I also think it’s something else. For all their talk of change and reform, of transparent government, McCain/Palin are showing it’s all talk. McCain is still guilty of voting with Bush 91% of the time. Palin with help from the McCain team is still stonewalling the troopergate investigation. They talk about issues with no idea of how to fix them. Palin isn’t allowed to talk to the press, was ushered through meetings with minor world leaders for photo ops, and yet the republicans still claim she’s fit.
Physically fit, perhaps, but was there ever a more vacuous, shallow VP nominee? Not in my lifetime. The truth express McCain is so proud of hass derailed.
Not that it was ever on track to begin with.
As if this election couldn’t take any further odd twists, comes this little tidbit from the NY Times.
At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.
McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.
It’s not enough that they’ve run some of the sleaziest ads in campaign history; blocked an investigation with troopergate; limited or denied access to Palin by the media, now they feel the need to change the rules of the debate because they’re worried she won’t do well. If she can’t even hold her own in a debate without her handlers changing the rules, how in hell is she ready to become a VP?
We all know the answer, she’s not qualified. And the more they shield her from the press, run ads based on slogans, and continue to hide her dirty secrets, the more the public will catch on. For all their rhetoric about being Mavericks and reformers, they seem to barely know the definition of those words, let alone act in that way.
Thanks to STNY over on the mudflats blog for posting this.
I’m a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight…..
· If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re
“exotic, different.”
· Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American
story.
· If your name is Barack you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
· Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you’re a maverick.
· Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
· Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well
grounded.
· If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the
first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter
registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years
as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator
representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of
the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years
in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people
while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs,
Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you
don’t have any real leadership experience.
· If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city
council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000
people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people,
then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking
executive.
· If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while
raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re
not a real Christian.
· If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your
disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a
Christian.
· If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including
the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
· If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no
other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your
unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you’re very responsible.
· If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in
a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city
community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values
don’t represent America’s.
· If you’re husband is nicknamed “First Dude”, with at least one DWI
conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until
age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession
of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
The alarm clock was set to wake me up with the radio. Bleary eyed and barely conscious I heard something about a plane crashing into the WTC. They didn’t mention anything about it being an airliner, and I didn’t give it much thought. I turned on CNN and was in time to see the second plane crash. I was stunned. In spite of what I was seeing, my mind just wouldn’t register what was happening. These were buildings I’d witnessed being built as a kid growing up in New York.
Then there was talk about planes being flown into the Pentagon, the white house, you name it. There was pandemonium as reporters scrambled to find the latest tidbit of information.
Meanwhile George Bush read a children’s book.
I dressed, caught my bus to work and watched the tv in the break room. Things were getting worse, as (all false it would turn out) report after report began to filter in about what was happening. Nobody could work. All we could do was watch in horror as something so unimaginable suddenly became a reality.
I’ve witnessed and expreienced many things in my life, but I don’t think anything ever scared me as much as that morning. I started crying and couldn’t stop. It took me several attempts to get my mom’s phone # right. All I could say was that I loved her.
For that one brief moment, I thought it could be the end of the world. We were sent home, and a coworker offered to drive me. We sat in silence listening to the news on the local talk radio station. every now and then we’d both wipe tears from our eyes.
I ran up the stairs o my apt and turned on CNN again. A tower had collapsed and the footage of that wall of smoke, debris, dust, dirt, paper and who knew what else, rushing down the street, covering and comsuming people in its wake stunned me.
7 years later, it all still seems like a bad dream, something I’ll wake up from eventually, but I know it will never go away. I saw the footage of people jumping from buildings to their deaths 90 floors below. Reporters asking where the President was. Where the VP was. Where the hell was anybody?
CNN was my constant companion over the following days and weeks. I tried to wrap my head around how this could happen. Yet, what kept popping into my mind was how much worse it could have been. As a country we’ve been fortunate enough to be spared some of the worst terrorist attacks that have plagued Europe and the middle east over the centuries. We’ve been lucky.
But that day, our luck ran out…and an era of Bush strong arm tactics began. now I’m no pascifist, but I believe in fighting for a reason. When we went into Afghanistan, to root out AL Queda and the Taliban I agreed with that. The hunt for bin-Laden? Get the bastard. Go into Pakistan? If that’s where bin Laden is, go get him.
sadly Bush and co. used this tragic, horrendous attack to wage war without so much as a peep. As they trample on the Constitution, eye Iran and use everything at their disposal to seat their puppet MCCain, they want to continue their wars.
That can’t happen. Obama/Biden provide the only choice to restore this country. McCain/Palin are a gruesome twosome of more of the same. More war, more death, a further degraded economy, an assault on Roe v. Wade, more tax cuts for big business, while real people like you and meean continue to get the shaft.
To honor those who perished in the attacks, to make their deaths even more meaningful, stop the war, and vote against those who would keep us in eternal conflict.
John McCain picked his running mate, AK governor Sarah Palin, and in doing so, showed what he really cared about was himself. He chose someone for the votes they could bring, not what they could bring to the country. McCain’s pandering is at once reprehensible and all too obvious.
Were there no candidates that were any more qualified than her? Or is McCain so arrogant that he thinks he doesn’t need a VP for anything other than vote grabbing.
Critisize Obama for lack of experience, I’ve had my doubts about him, but at least he brought someone to the table with experience,; he brought someone credible, and like McCain didn’t pander to the swing states, yet didn’t succumb to pressure to pick anyone other than who was best for the job.
McCain proved once again that with him it’ll be more of the same.
Scott Colbert 