I don’t think the moose loves it

Sarah Palin, campaigning in New Hampshire (is NH in play?), on why Alaskans are exactly like New Hampshironians: “We all love good moose hunting.”

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A John Travolta movie due to start filming in Paris was called off after ten of the production’s stunt vehicles were torched overnight. The movie’s title: From Paris with Love.

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In the 1960 presidential debates, famously, people who listened on the radio thought Nixon won while people who watched on tv thought Kennedy won. In 2008, though, we have many more options, and I’m curious about the effect of that balkanization on perceptions. I was doing the blog thing, so I was watching, writing and reading the online CNN transcript simultaneously, which meant I was listening more than watching and managed to miss most of the visuals, such as Sarah Palin’s winks during the veep debate and McCain’s air quotes last night around “health” of the mother, which make his callous, dismissive words so, so much more offensive – let’s look at that again now (20 seconds):



Wow, what a dick.

I watched the first debate on CNN but was so distracted by the constant movement of the audience reaction squiggles on the sides of the screen that I switched to uncluttered PBS for the later ones. I’m thinking now that that was a mistake, because PBS also mostly eschewed the split screen, which means I missed McCain fuming, smirking, twitching and rolling his eyes while Obama was speaking, and failed to get a full sense of just how irritable and petulant, undisciplined and unpresidential, he was being, like radio listeners in 1960 didn’t see Nixon’s flop-sweat and shiftiness. Of course there’s YouTube now, and embedded video clips like the one I just used, but it’s not quite the same as the cumulative effect over the course of 90 minutes.

But how many other versions of the 2008 debates were there? What did CBS or NBC, Fox, the BBC and MSNBC do? What other forms of “helpful” screen clutter were there, and how did they shape how viewers perceived Obama and McCain? What did Obama do while McCain was speaking – and do you think he practiced it? Share your viewing/listening experiences and thoughts in comments.

The last presidential debate: We’re talking about Joe the Plumber

Transcript.

Bob Schieffer opened with a plea to the candidates: “By now, we’ve heard all the talking points, so let’s try to tell the people tonight some things that they haven’t heard.” McCain: “My left ball is bigger than my right ball.” Obama: “My left ball is bigger than McCain’s right ball.”

McCain: “It’s good to see you again, Senator Obama.” Obama: “Dude, you didn’t see me last time. Eye contact, dude!”

Okay, I’ll stop making stuff up now. Maybe.

McCain: “Americans are hurting right now, and they’re angry.” Dude, you are so totally projecting.

Okay, I’ll stop saying dude now. Maybe.

McCain falsely blames Fannie and Freddie for the housing crisis. Wants the bailout to put homeowners first.

Obama: We haven’t seen a rescue package for the middle class.


McCain: “a couple days ago Senator Obama was out in Ohio and he had an encounter with a guy who’s a plumber.” Cue porn music. Evidently Obama wants to raise the taxes of “Joe the plumber,” but “I want Joe the Plumber to spread that wealth around.” “The whole premise behind Sen. Obama’s plans are class warfare”. And that’s not warfare you can believe in, you know, the good kind of warfare McCain likes.

Seriously, how many times can both of them say “Joe the Plumber”?


McCain deployed a statistic: 50% of small business income taxes are paid by small businesses. Er, right.

McCain: “We need to encourage business, create jobs, not spread the wealth around.” Heaven forbid we spread the wealth around.

McCain on the budget: “I would have, first of all, across-the-board spending freeze, OK? Some people say that’s a hatchet. That’s a hatchet, and then I would get out a scalpel, OK?” An angry old man with sharp objects? Um, OK.

Another thing McCain knows how to do: “I know how to save billions of dollars in defense spending. I know how to eliminate programs.” Oh, John, is there anything you don’t know how to do?


Yay, the $3 million planetarium projector makes an appearance! How we missed you, $3 million planetarium projector.

Why does Obama never defend the $3 million planetarium projector?

McCain informs Obama, “I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.”

After McCain trots out the “Obama wanted to increase taxes on people with incomes of $42,000” line, Obama says even Fox News doesn’t believe that shit.

McCain: “But it’s very clear that I have disagreed with the Bush administration. I have disagreed with leaders of my own party. I’ve got the scars to prove it.” Somebody should remind him he got the scars from the North Vietnamese, not the Republicans, before there’s an embarrassing incident on the Senate floor.


Schieffer: are you two willing to say to each other’s faces what your campaigns have been saying about each other?

McCain: well, if he had agreed to the town hall meetings... And John Lewis hurt my feelings by comparing me to George Wallace, and Obama didn’t repudiate those remarks, even though, “Every time there’s been an out-of-bounds remark made by a Republican, no matter where they are, I have repudiated them.” He’s done what now?

And the Obama campaign has had the highest spending than any time since... gratuitous reference coming up in 3..2..1... Watergate.

Joe the Plumber again. How we’ve missed you, Joe the Plumber.

McCain says that people have shouted nasty things at Obama rallies too and there are “some t-shirts that are very unacceptable.”

Obama is talking about the shouts of terrorist etc at McCain-Palin rallies, but he is completely incapable of even faking outrage, like McCain just did. Interestingly, he mentions Palin’s remark that he “palled around with terrorists,” which means he brought up William Ayers before McCain did. McCain then says that he doesn’t care about an old washed-up terrorist but darkly demands that he reveal “the full extent of that relationship.” Oo, sinister.

And ACORN is “now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” Maybe ripping a hole in the space-time continuum, creating a vortex that will consume us all.


McCain on Palin: a “bresh of freth air.” She “understands special-needs families... better than almost any American that I know.” Trig is, what, six months old?

Obama refuses to say if Palin is qualified to be president. Notes that McCain’s across-the-board spending cut would screw special-needs families.

McCain: “why do we always have to spend more?”

McCain on nuclear power: “Sen. Obama will tell you, in the -- as the extreme environmentalists do, it has to be safe.” Oh, those extreme environmentalists, always wanting things to be safe. Fortunately, says McCain, “We can store and reprocess spent nuclear fuel, Sen. Obama, no problem.” For 40,000 years. No problem.

McCain: free trade with Colombia is a “no-brainer,” but you’ve never traveled south of the border, so you wouldn’t know that.


Insurance. McCain: Joe the Plumber doesn’t want to pay a fine for not giving his employees health insurance. Obama tells Joe the Plumber he won’t pay a fine. Joe the Plumber must be very relieved.

Could you nominate any judge who disagreed with you on abortion? McCain: “I would consider anyone in their qualifications. I do not believe that someone who has supported Roe v. Wade that would be part of those qualifications. But I certainly would not impose any litmus test.” Er, right.

Obama brings up the attempt in Congress to overturn the Ledbetter ruling on equal pay. McCain: “It was a trial lawyer’s dream.”

Obama, defending his vote in Illinois: “With respect to partial-birth abortion, I am completely supportive of a ban on late-term abortions, partial-birth or otherwise, as long as there’s an exception for the mother’s health and life, and this did not contain that exception.” Dammit, he just legitimized the medically bogus concept of “partial-birth” abortions. “[N]obody’s pro-abortion. It’s always a tragic situation,” Obama says. I beg to differ.

McCain poo-poos the idea of exceptions for the health of the mother: “You know, that’s been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything. That’s the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, ‘health.’” Oh, those extremists.


On education, McCain says vouchers vouchers vouchers. Also, we should reward good teachers. Oh, and we should let people who have served in the military “go right to teaching and not have to take these examinations which -- or have the certification that some are required in some states.”

Obama thinks America’s youth aren’t an interest group, they’re our... wait for it... future.

McCain, in an unwonted display of self-control, managed to say “My friends” only once, although he did address one remark, “if you’re out there, my friend,” to... Joe the Plumber.


This, by the way, is Joe the Plumber.

A lack of confidence that must be conquered

Today Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson announced his latest plan for spending that blank check Congress gave him: buying equity in banks, including more or less healthy ones, in the hope that they’ll use the money for the greater good. What do we get for the $250 billion he’s planning to spend in this endeavour? Confidence! “Today, there is a lack of confidence in our financial system, a lack of confidence that must be conquered because it poses an enormous threat to our economy.” So it’s time for another episode of Everything You Need To Know About How Confident You Should Be In The Economy You Can Tell By the Expression on Henry Paulson’s Face.



I FEEL MORE CONFIDENT ALREADY: “Government owning a stake in any private U.S. company is objectionable to most Americans, me included.” Because the past record of Bush appointees running government programs to whose existence they have ideological objections is just so confidence-inspiring.


REALLY, JUST SO MUCH MORE CONFIDENT: “We are acting with unprecedented speed taking unprecedented measures that we never thought would be necessary.” Because having the people who never saw the problem coming beforehand acting with “unprecedented speed” in responding to it is just so confidence-inspiring.


Meanwhile, George Bush picked out an appropriate cup to fill with tequila to “build mah confidence until ah puke.”

A hundred percent sure and positive

Today, Bush has been hosting Silvio Berlusconi. Normally, as you know, I would be focusing on stupid things Bush said, but the cruise ship crooner said, “And I’m a hundred percent sure and positive that history will tell -- will say that George W. Bush has been a great, very great President of the United States of America.” And nothing even George Bush might say could be as stupid as that.

Unfortunate Metaphor of the Day

McCain told campaign volunteers that he will “whip his you-know-what in this debate”. Yes, senator, we know what. We surely do.

I can marry a princess!

Sarah Palin says the Blanchflower Report cleared her of “any hint of any kind of unethical activity there” and insisted that Todd Palin was merely doing “what the state’s Department of Law Web site tells anyone to do if they have a concern about a state trooper.” So that’s okay then.

Here’s one of the Prop. 8 (anti-gay marriage) ads running in California.



So don’t give upstart commoners like this little oik ideas above their station.

You got to read the report

The Palin position, at least as enunciated by her lawyer, is the Bushian tactic of defining the concept of “ethics” downwards, just as the Bushies did with “torture”: she did not violate ethics laws because her goal was not personal financial gain. Alaska law defines illegal unethical behaviour as “any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action.” Revenge, evidently, is ethical, unless you consider destroying your enemies utterly to be a personal interest (like stamp-collecting).

Sarah herself chose not to directly contradict the report, but to misrepresent it, saying, “If you read the report, you will see that there was nothing unlawful or unethical about replacing a cabinet member. You got to read the report.” She isn’t saying that the report says she did nothing unlawful or unethical, although she is hoping that is the implication you take away from her words (she is also hoping that even though you “got” to read the report, you won’t). Rather, she is saying that “you will see” that she did nothing unlawful or unethical if you read a report that concludes the opposite.

Hockey puck

Off the shores of our great, you know, nation (updated)

After addressing the nation this morning, calming the markets and dispelling our economic fears through the power of oratory alone, George Bush was able to wing his way down to Coral Gables and hang out with Cuban-Americans at Havana Harry’s.

BOY THOSE “ELITES” ARE JUST A PROBLEM EVERYWHERE, AREN’T THEY? “our message is to the Cuban people, you’re being repressed by a handful of elites that are holding back your great potential.”

WHAT’S SO SAD: “It’s so sad that right off the shores of our great, you know, nation that believes in human rights and human dignity exists this dungeon.” I wonder if even the most rabidly anti-Castro Cuban exile can hear that sentence without thinking, like all of you did, of Guantanamo?



(Update: He also said that after Hurricane Ike, “my government... offered aid from the United States to the Cuban people. But that aid was rejected by the Castros, which should tell the people of Cuba and the people around the world that the Castro people are only interested in themselves and their power, and not to the benefit and welfare of the Cuban people.” So what did your refusal of the Cuban offer of medical aid after Katrina tell us?

All three Republican Cuban-American congresscritters notably stayed away from the event.)

Meanwhile, at a rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, John McCain demonstrated his Yosemite Sam impression.

Some in the mainstream media are saying we’re taking the gloves off unfairly

Sarah Palin went on Laura Ingraham today.

She was curiously non-committal about what she’d do as vice president to get abortion banned: “I would just hope that my life can reflect what it is that we will do to usher in that culture of life in our government.”

She argued that Obama’s education policies are tarnished by his sitting with Ayers on that board: “It says that, I think Barack Obama’s position on that, thanks to his association with Ayers and the radicalism there with an education-- an education system that Bill Ayers, anyway, supports, I think shows you too that Barack Obama is so far out of mainstream America.” The logic is impeccable.

WHY THAT DOG WON’T HUNT (BECAUSE IT’S GONE): “Doggone it, he fails to tell the American people with candor and with truthfulness, what his associations are, and we have to know.”

AT LONG LAST, ACORN, WITH YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVES, AT LONG LAST, HAVE YOU NO SHAME? “It’s- it’s fraud that the connection there to ACORN and fraud has...I mean, that-- that too, it’s another thing that’s absolutely atrocious and you think, ‘Geez, doesn’t anybody have a conscience anymore?’” Funny, I was just wondering the same thing (although I may have used a different word than geez).

TAKING THE GLOVES OFF UNFAIRLY: “some in the mainstream media are saying well, we’re taking the gloves off unfairly.”

Unfortunate Metaphor of the Day

Manhattan Judge Larry Stephen, convicting Al Sharpton and seven others of disorderly conduct in protests at the acquittal of the cops who shot Sean Bell on his wedding day, told
them “My view is, if you decide to take a bullet for the team, you should not complain about the consequences that flow from that act.”

In this case, perhaps the phrase he was groping for was “take 50 bullets for the team.

Have fun

WaPo headline: “Military Justifies Attack That Killed at Least 33 Afghan Civilians.” I think we should all be proud to live in a country with a military that can do the impossible. Because “justifying” the killing of 33+ civilians is fucking impossible. The military inquiry determined that the air strikes that killed 33 civilians that they’re admitting to, including 12 children, were in self-defense and... wait for it... proportional. Proportional to what?

SHE’S THE REMINDERER: (AP): “‘We all need to remind Sen. Obama that Sen. McCain served our nation in uniform for 22 years,’ Palin said during a rally in the Cleveland suburb of Strongsville.”

McCain and Palin were lovingly interviewed by Sean Hannity yesterday.

What advice did they give each other before their respective debates? “Have fun.”

PALIN: And it was helpful though that you called me right beforehand, and you said those two words — you said —

MCCAIN: Have fun.

PALIN: — have fun.

McCain praised Palin: “Second, obviously, she has been a great reformer. I still don’t think a lot of Americans appreciate what it’s like for a Republican to take on an incumbent sitting governor of your own party. It almost never happens. They wait until they retire or whatever it is — so it’s clear that she’s got a great record of reform.” So it’s clear that she has a great record of reform because she... ran against a governor from her own party. See, to McCain, being a “maverick” is exactly the same as effecting reform. And he accuses Obama of being style over substance.

So what role would Palin play in a McCain administration? According to McCain, and I’m not making this up, it would be to “find what’s causing autism, find a cure for it.”

Sarah Palin recited a devastating attack on Obama which somebody got paid good money to write for he: “So, I think last night, coming away from the debate, too, one of the things that I got out of it was, I think Barack Obama was drilling for votes. I don’t think that he’s too keen on drilling for those source of energy that we need.” Get it, get it? Because he’s drilling for votes, not drill- (baby drill) -ing for oil. It’s funny because it’s true.

McCain says that Palin is “so persuasive” that if she ever got him up to Alaska, she might just convince him to drill in ANWAR. Hannity asked if they’d go moose hunting. McCain said, “moose hunting is fine.”

McCain insisted that Obama’s plan to reduce taxes for 95% of Americans must be a lie: “Well, first of all, it’s not truthful in the respect that 50 percent or 40 percent of the American people — of taxpayers — American citizens don’t pay taxes, federal income taxes.” This is a weird lie that anti-tax conservatives tell themselves to justify all their tax cuts going to the rich – you just can’t cut taxes for the poor, why they don’t even pay them. Not only does it ignore payroll taxes, but isn’t even true for income taxes.

IF SARAH EXCITES YOUR “BASE,” KEEP IT TO YOURSELF, WILL YA, FELLA? McCain: “But I saw this as a real breath of fresh air that would sweep across America, give people inspiration, which Sarah Palin has, which would excite our base.”

SERIOUSLY, DUDE, NO ONE WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR KINKY S&M ROLE-PLAY: McCain: “We are glad to be in the underdog role here. It excites and motivates our supporters. It gives independents another look at us and I’m very happy with where we are, Sean. I couldn’t be happier.”

Ana Marie Cox interviewed McCain, eliciting from him a statement I hadn’t expected to hear on the campaign trail: “A lot of those zombie movies are political, you know.”

Speaking of political zombies:

Presidential debate: There were others who took a hike

There should be more transparency in the process by which debate rules are decided. For tonight’s “town-hall” debate, who was it who insisted on no follow-ups, going so far as to require that the questioners’ mikes be cut off immediately after they ask their question, and that cameras aren’t allowed to show their faces while the candidates respond to their question? Indeed, in previous debates, did the campaigns dictate where the cameras could and could not point?

Well, let’s see how that works.

Transcript.

McCain: “Let’s not raise taxes on anybody today.”

More items on the ever-growing list of things McCain “knows how to do”: “give some trust and confidence back to America,” “get America working again”.


Who would McCain appoint treasury secretary? Not you, Tom. Ha ha. No, seriously, “the first criteria, Tom, would have to be somebody who immediately Americans identify with”. Oh good, another hockey mom.

Some black dude named Oliver asks how the bailout will help the people he knows. McCain corrects him: it’s not a bailout, it’s a rescue. And for a little extra condescension (McCain loves telling black people that they don’t understand things), he tells Oliver that he probably never heard of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae before this crisis. He adds that Freddie and Fannie (which he seems to think were responsible for the Great Crash of Ought Eight) were making risky loans “with the encouragement of Sen. Obama and his cronies and his friends in Washington... There were some of us -- there were some of us that stood up against it. There were others who took a hike.”

Obama actually tries to explain to Oliver how the bailout would affect him, answering his actual, you know, question. Oops, spoke too soon; he quickly changed to returning McCain’s fire in kind, mentioning Rick Davis’s lobbying for Fannie Mae. Then said “but, look, you’re not interested in hearing politicians pointing fingers.” Technically, pointing fingers doesn’t make a lot of sound.


McCain’s new favorite example of pork barrel earmarks, now that we’re all tired of the bear DNA, is an overhead projector for the Chicago planetarium. Who doesn’t like planetariums?

McCain keeps talking about how he reaches across the aisle to work with Joe Lieberman. Dude, if you want to touch Joe Lieberman, you just have to reach under your desk.

Asked what sacrifice they’d call for from the American people, McCain said many good projects – not crap like that overhead projector for groovy astronomy shows for stoned teenagers – would have to be scrapped. Medicare, Medicaid, that sort of thing. Okay, he didn’t specify Medicare and Medicaid, but that’s what he means. Obama suggested we need to save energy in our homes. Oh, and the Peace Corps, “so that military families and our troops are not the only ones bearing the burden of renewing America.” How exactly are our troops renewing America?


McC: Obama wants to raise taxes – just like Herbert Hoover!

Brokaw asks an alarmist question about the “ticking timebomb” of Social Security. McCain says “Social Security is not that tough”: all we have to do is just “sit down together across the table.” And it’s just “a little tougher” to fix Medicare: “have a commission, have the smartest people in America come together.” “And let’s have the American people say, ‘Fix it for us.’” See, and you thought this shit was complicated.

He’s calling for “a whole bunch of” nuclear plants, for the third time this debate. But he accuses Obama of “say[ing] that it has to be safe or disposable or something like that.”


Obama twits McC for voting against alternative energy 23 times, so McC responds about one, which was loaded down with pork, and who voted for it? “That one,” pointing at Obama. That one?

McCain insists his $5,000 tax credit will more than make up for taxing health benefits except for those with “these gold-plated Cadillac kinds of policies, you know, like hair transplants.” Somewhere, Joe Biden sheds a tear.

Is health insurance a right, a responsibility or a privilege? McCain: a responsibility, “in this respect, in that we should have available and affordable health care to every American citizen, to every family member.” How is that a responsibility? Obama: a right, except for the people my plan doesn’t cover.


Both agree that America is a force of good in the world. So at least that’s settled.

Asked about intervening in humanitarian crises where US national security is not at stake, Obama asks, “If we could have intervened effectively in the Holocaust, who among us would say that we had a moral obligation not to go in?” Pat Buchanan? Also, pretty much everyone in power in the 1930s and ‘40s.

Asked about invading Pakistan to get bin Laden, Obama says we have to change our policy to Pakistan, we can’t coddle a dictator. This is his first un-adept response, since I assume he knows that Musharraf is out of power. He adds that “We will kill bin Laden, we will crush Al Qaeda.” McCain accuses him of failing to carry a big stick like Teddy Roosevelt. “Senator Obama likes to talk loudly.” He does?

Obama says that McCain suggests that Obama is “green behind the ears,” which is an interesting image, but that it was McCain talked of annihilating North Korea, and sang of bombing Iran. McCain says that was a joke. A hilarious, hilarious joke.


Obama drops the name Gen. McKiernan, just to prove he knows the name, unlike whatshername.

Is Russia an evil empire? (Brokaw amusingly insisted this question only required a yes or no answer). Obama: they do some evil things. McCain: maybe.

Q: if Iran attacked Israel, would we invade it before or after going to the UN Security Council? McCain: bomb, bomb, bomb... Obama ignored the Israel part, and talked about the unacceptability of Iran having nuclear weapons.

Last question: “What don’t you know and how will you learn it?” Obama: ask Michelle, she’ll tell you what I don’t know. McCain: “what I don’t know is what the unexpected will be.”

Oh, I didn’t mention, Obama came with a prepared response to McCain’s predictable “you don’t understand” theme, a long thing about yes, you’re right, I can’t understand why you’re such a dick. Something like that, I’m tired.

Oh, and evidently we’re not rifle shots here, we’re Americans.

Also, my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends.

And Obama should really see a doctor about that green behind the ears thing.

And that concludes the second McCain-That One debate.

It makes you wonder about the forthrightedness

Sarah Palin chatted with reporters today. She explained that the William Ayers issue was like totally relevant, in fact the key to understanding everything there is to know about Obama: “It is pertinent, it’s important because when you consider Barack Obama’s reaction to and explanation to his association there, and without him being clear at all on what he knew and when he knew it, that I think kinda peaks into his ability to tell us the truth on, not only on association but perhaps other things also. ... It makes you wonder about the forthrightedness, the truthfulness of the plans that he is telling America in regards to the economic recovery because that is first and foremost on American’s minds. ... It comes down to one ticket’s proposal that can be trusted and another ticket’s proposal to deal with some of these issues and maybe questioning the truthfulness, the intention. I think it is very relevant.” And so on, at considerably greater length.

MORE ABOUT THEIR SEX LIVES THAN WE REALLY NEEDED TO KNOW: “You know, I’ve been in an underdog position quite often in my life and so has John McCain”.

ON TINY FEY: “She’s a hoot”. [CORRECTION: Tina Fey. I can't believe no one pointed out this typo.]

WHAT THE TROOPERGATE INVESTIGATION IS: “kind of a goat rope”.

Where will she watch the presidential debate?: “Looking for restaurant. I know I just don’t want to be in my hotel room with campaign staffers, etc.” That’s what she can contribute to the campaign: going to a restaurant.

But no question America will emerge

Today Bush went to Guernsey Office Products, Inc. and spoke about the Wall Street Bailout and Free Cash and Fur-Lined Toilet Seat Act of 2008.

WHAT’S INTERESTING TO KNOW: “It’s interesting to know that is a trusted name throughout the Washington area.”

NO QUESTION: “No question the times are tough, but no question America will emerge.”


HE HAS AN MBA, YOU KNOW: “And that’s the definition of a credit crunch: people just are not lending.”

HE HAS AN MBA, YOU KNOW: “See, when credit runs dry in one part of our economy, there’s a chain reaction.”

HE HAS AN MBA, YOU KNOW: “When you’re building desks and selling desks, you find work and you keep work.”

IN OTHER WORDS: “There’s oversight as the bill gets implemented. In other words, people in Washington will worry whether there’s too much power in the Treasury, therefore, let’s have reasonable oversight.”

AND VICE VERSA, OR SOMETHING: “We live in a globalized world.”


OH LOOK WHO’S SUDDENLY CONCERNED WITH HAVING WELL-THOUGHT-OUT AND WELL-DELIVERED PLANS: “It’s going to take time for these actions that I’ve described to you in the bill to have full effect. You want to make sure that when we move, we move effectively. You want to make sure that the plan is well thought-out and well delivered.”

SO THE LIQUID IS FREED UP AND THEN IT UNWINDS? “The federal government moved -- Federal Reserve moved to try to free up liquidity so that this credit crisis begins to unwind.” This one isn’t of Bush’s coinage (or as Sarah Palin would put it, verbage), but “freeing up liquidity” always seems like bad English to me.

BUSH AND I HAVE VERY DIFFERENT IDEAS ABOUT WHAT’S INTERESTING: “Well, interestingly enough, when you securitize mortgages and sell them, it means that the people who originated your mortgage is -- no longer owns the paper.”

NOT THAT HE WOULD KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MAKING BAD DECISIONS AND FAILING: “And I told you, I made a decision that is really opposite of my philosophy. I basically believe if people make bad decisions in the marketplace, they ought to fail.”

WHAT GEORGE UNDERSTANDS BETTER THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY KNOW: “And, listen, I understand America’s frustrations -- better than you can possibly know.”

HOW DOES HE UNDERSTAND AMERICA’S FRUSTRATIONS BETTER THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY KNOW? BECAUSE OF SOME CONVERSATION HE HAD WITH THE VOICES IN HIS HEAD: “I went home out there to west Texas where I was raised. Some old guy said, you know, hey, man, what are you doing? (Laughter.) And I said, I’m recognizing reality, that this is a serious economic situation that requires strong government action. And that’s what we’ve taken.” Really, George, isn’t it a little late in the day to try recognizing reality?

IN OTHER WORDS: “The positive news is, long-term mortgage rates are dropping. In other words, money is becoming cheaper to buy a mortgage.”

IN OTHER WORDS: “And I really suspect that when we dig into the mortgage issue that people were buying mortgages that they had no idea they’re going to reset. In other words, somebody went out there and said, here, you got yourself low interest rates, but they forgot to tell them in two or three years’ time that interest rate was going go bump up, and it caught people by surprise.”

In the q&a, the chair of a local chamber of commerce asked what he’d advise chambers of commerce to do: “I would advise the president to make sure that which you do -- that which the -- the powers inherent in the bill, when we do something, they’re effective.” So, yeah, go and do that.

Profound impact

Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati today.

“I believe in the long run this economy is going to be just fine. It’s a resilient economy; it’s a productive economy with good workers. This is a reminder that we have been through tough times before, and we’re going to come through this just fine.” Unless you count the many thousands of families who have lost their homes and/or jobs and/or retirement funds. Which he doesn’t.


Most of the speech was about the judiciary and how Congress should really confirm all of his judicial appointees. “We’ve seen the profound impact that judges can have on the daily lives of every citizen. We saw the power of judges in 2002, when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because it contained the words ‘under God.’” Wow, that’s a profound impact on the daily lives of every citizen, all right. He went on to mention Boumediene v. Bush, which rejected indefinite detention of prisoners in Guantanamo, and “partial-birth” abortion. So if you had plans to recite the Pledge of Allegiance while having a partial-birth abortion in Guantanamo, think again, sister!

All you get is another barrage of angry insults

Bill Kristol’s column reporting his phone interview with Sarah Palin could only be a satire of some sort:

As for the campaign, Palin made clear — without being willing to flat out say so — that she regretted allowing herself to be overly handled and constrained after the Republican convention. ...

Since she seemed to have enjoyed the debate, I asked her whether she’d like to take this opportunity to challenge Joe Biden to another one.

There was a pause, and I thought I heard some staff murmuring in the background (we were on speaker phones). She passed on the notion of a challenge.

No, not overly handled and constrained at all.

Kristol prodded her to attack Obama about Rev. Wright without ever asking her about her own witch-hunting pastor. Will no one ever ask her if she believes in witchcraft?

But then today was the day for the Roveian tactic of accusing your opponents of having your own faults. McCain made a speech (the quotes below are from the prepared remarks. There’s a 5-minute excerpt airing on C-SPAN as well. That smile after he thinks he’s gotten in a good one does not serve him well, does it? He also kept having his timing thrown off by the howls from the audience.)

He accused Obama of being too close to Fannie and Freddie, of flip-flopping on issues, of taking illegal foreign campaign donations (as has McCain, in larger amounts), and of being... wait for it... touchy and angry. “whenever I have questioned his policies or his record, he has called me a liar. ... My opponent’s touchiness every time he is questioned about his record should make us only more concerned. ... But ask such questions and all you get in response is another barrage of angry insults.” So if you don’t want a touchy, angry president, vote McCain.


He said that unlike Obama, “I didn’t just show up out of nowhere”. Well, I know Chicago isn’t the metropolis that Wasilla is, but it’s hardly nowhere.

WELL THANKFULLY HE HAS NO NEED OF ANY IMPROVEMENT IN THAT REGARD: “I don’t need lessons about telling the truth to American people. And were I ever to need any improvement in that regard, I probably wouldn’t seek advice from a Chicago politician.”


He accused Obama of having a cunning plan to socialize medicine: see, the fines he would impose on companies that fail to provide adequate health coverage wouldn’t really be intended to force them to provide adequate health coverage but would actually be so small that it would make more economic sense for them to drop health coverage altogether, leaving their employees “only one real option: government run health care.” Oo, that Man from Nowhere is soooo sneaky.

(Update: Larry Rohter of the NYT fact-checks the speech.)

Liar, liar, plane on fire

In the LAT report on McCain’s Navy record of crashing his planes into things (bodies of water, power lines, the ground, Hanoi), what stands out isn’t the high number of such incidents, or the fact that an admiral’s son’s career wasn’t harmed by them, but that he repeatedly lied about them, blaming mechanical failures that Navy investigators found had not happened.

I can see Afghanistan from my house!

Sarah Palin denied that she was campaigning in Nebraska today because the campaign is worried about carrying the state: “No, I’m going to Nebraska because I want to go to Nebraska.” I’m pretty sure that sentence has never been spoken before. She must have the lamest “bucket list” ever.

She was also here in California today, a state she & McCain have no chance of carrying. But then, geography is not her strong suit: she said that American soldiers “are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan.”

Oh, what the hell. CONTEST: what else is on Sarah Palin’s bucket list?

Beacon

In Colorado, Sarah Palin castigated Obama for his connections with William Ayers:

This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America. We see America as the greatest force for good in this world. If we can be that beacon of light and hope for others who seek freedom and democracy and can live in a country that would allow intolerance in the equal rights that again our military men and women fight for and die for for all of us. Our opponent though, is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.

Do you see America as Sarah Palin sees America?

poll by twiigs.com

Because it’s like, no matter what you say, you’re going to get clobbered

The Wall Street Bailout and $700 Billion Party at the Brink of Apocalypse Act of 2008 has passed. Bush says “Exercising the authorities in this bill in a responsible way will require a careful analysis and deliberation.” Because if there’s one thing the Bush administration is known for, it’s careful analysis and deliberation.

The CBS-Katie Couric Chinese water torture continues, with yet more of her interviews with Palin airing last night. Asked what the worst thing Dick Cheney has done as veep, Joe Biden said shredding the Constitution, and Palin said shooting Dick Whittington in the face. “And that I think that was made into a caricature of him. And that was kind of unfortunate.”

Indeed, according to Cheney himself, speaking today in Reno at, of all things, the White House Conference on North American Wildlife Policy, “I’ve taken a lot of grief over the years, obviously, for that hunting accident in Texas -- most of it from the President. ... I walked into the Oval Office that day and the President looked at me, and he said, ‘Dick, here I am 30 percent in the polls, and you shot the only trial lawyer in Texas who supports me.’” It’s good that they can laugh about it.

This morning Fox News’s Carl Cameron interviewed Sarah Palin, focusing on having her explain what her handlers tell her she really meant by various remarks in the debate and the Couric interviews.

RIGHT ON: “It was a great opportunity to get to speak directly to Americans. That’s how I looked at it when I walked into there saying, you know, we’re not going to be filtered. There’s not going to be the cutting and pasting and editing of any of our comments. Right on. Let me just talk to Americans.”

BUT DOES SHE GO ALL THE WAY ON A FIRST DATE? “There was a lot of eye contact [with Biden] and it was pleasant. It was, hey, you know, we’re both in this together. We both understand what each other would be going through at this time. Kind of wondering, what’s coming next, what’s Gwen going to ask us next? So, that connection, it was some good chemistry.”

Asked if she wanted to cop to any mistakes: “Oh, I mispronounced General McKiernan”. “McClellan” is not a mispronunciation, it’s a whole other general dude, from a whole other war.

Any other mistakes? No. What about saying wrongly that troop numbers in Iraq are at pre-“Surge” levels? “Just -- well, as victory’s getting closer and closer, we know that we’re going to be able to draw down those troops blather blather Afghanistan blather....”

HEH, SHE SAID “FLEXIBILITY IN THE POSITION.” HEH.: Re her comment about the role of the vice president being flexible in the Constitution: “Vice presidents will be able to be not only the position flexible, but it’s going to be sort of this other duty as assigned by the president. It’s a simple thing. I don’t think that was a gaffe at all in stating what the truth is. And that is we’ve got flexibility in the position. ... Well, again, as I tried to explain last night, our executive branch will know what our job is. We have the three very distinct branches of government. You know, we might be bleeding our authority over to the Legislative or Judicial branch to do our job in the Executive branch as administers.” So it won’t just be your authority that will be bleeding, but also the heart of the Constitution.

Sarah, Carl Cameron asked, why were you such crap in those interviews with Katie Couric? “Well, OK. I’ll tell you. Honestly. The Sarah Palin in those interviews is a little bit annoyed. Because it’s like, no matter what you say, you’re going to get clobbered.”

So, now that your handlers have had time to explain to you what a newspaper is: what newspapers do you read? “I read the same things that other people across the country read, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and the Economist and some of these publications that we’ve recently even been interviewed through up there in Alaska.” She goes on to complain that her non-answer to Couric on this question “was kind of filtered. But, I was sort of taken aback, like, the suggestion was, you’re way up there in a far away place in Alaska. You know, that there are publications in the rest of the world that are read by many. And I was taken aback by that because I don’t know, the suggestion that this was a little bit of perhaps we’re not in tune with the rest of the world.” Yeah, Sarah, imagine anyone thinking you’re not in tune with the rest of the world.

She also has a list of Supreme Court cases she’s been told she disagrees with: Kennedy v. Louisiana (banning the death penalty for child rape), which she says violates states’ rights. And that imminent domain case. And reducing the punitive damage award against Exxon for the Valdez spill.

THE WINGS ARE FLYING HERE: “And now that the debate is over, and also -- you know yes, I kind of feel like, all right. The wings are flying here. Let’s soar, let’s get out there and speak to voters and let them know what their choices are.”

Vice Presidential debate: How are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?

Transcript.

Yes, Palin performed better than in the more open-ended interviews. The format and the lack of follow-up helped her to partially mask her ignorance, and she was allowed on multiple occasions to simply ignore the question and talk about something else. Gwen Ifill actually made me wish Katie Couric had gotten the job. Yikes. In response to Biden pointing out her failure to answer one question, she snapped “I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I’m going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also.” (And her Trig record, and...) So she’ll “talk straight,” but only about the things she wants to talk about.

The “maverick” count: Palin used “team of mavericks,” “the maverick from the Senate,” “the consummate maverick”... actually only 6 times. Seemed like more. Biden came prepared with a long “he has not been a maverick on health care, he has not been a maverick on the war” thing which Obama should have started saying a long time ago.

Biden: “We’re going to focus on the middle class, because it’s -- when the middle class is growing, the economy grows and everybody does well.” Ah, the Democratic version of trickle down.


Palin: “You know, I think a good barometer here, as we try to figure out has this been a good time or a bad time in America’s economy, is go to a kid’s soccer game on Saturday, and turn to any parent there on the sideline and ask them, ‘How are you feeling about the economy?’ And I’ll betcha, you’re going to hear some fear in that parent’s voice.” They probably think you’re threatening to blow up their house unless their kid throws the game. Another way to figure out if this has been a good time or a bad time in the economy, Sarah: look at one of those many newspapers. Or talk to a, whaddayacallem? economist.

Oh, and that was the first betcha at 6:05. And the first maverick, in “team of mavericks,” at 6:08. First darn at 6:09.


6:10 “hockey moms,” in this rousing cry: “One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let’s commit ourselves just every day American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again, never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars.” You heard her, Joe Six Pack and hockey moms: band together and burn down your local bank.

6:11 first heck: “It’s not the American peoples fault that the economy is hurtin’ like it is, but we have an opportunity to learn a heck of a lot of good lessons through this and say never again will we be taken advantage of.”

Palin accuses Obama of voting 94 times to raise or not to lower taxes. Biden points out that by the “bogus standard” she’s using, McCain voted to raise taxes 477 times.

Palin disagrees that it’s patriotic for the rich to pay higher taxes.

Biden says McCain’s plan to tax health insurance benefits is the ultimate bridge to nowhere.

Palin calls herself a “Mainstreeter.”

She is dropping g’s all over the place and doing the folksy thing so heavily that she may well be doing an imitation of Tina Fey doing an imitation of Sarah Palin.


Palin: “I’m not one to attribute every man -- activity of man to the changes in the climate.”

Palin: “And I don’t want to argue about the causes [of climate change]. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?”

Biden: “Look, in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple.” Oh, but he’s against gay marriage.


Palin: “But I also want to clarify, if there’s any kind of suggestion at all from my answer that I would be anything but tolerant of adults in America choosing their partners, choosing relationships that they deem best for themselves, you know, I am tolerant... But I’m being as straight up with Americans as I can in my non- support for anything but a traditional definition of marriage.” She said “straight up” twice in that paragraph.

WHAT OUR TROOPS DON’T NEED TO HEAR TODAY, THAT’S FOR SURE: Palin: “Your plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq and that is not what our troops need to hear today, that’s for sure.”

She can pronounce “Ahmadinejad” (who she says isn’t sane or stable) but not “nuclear.”


Palin, in the middle of an Israel pander-off: “But I’m so encouraged to know that we both love Israel, and I think that is a good thing to get to agree on”.

Palin accuses Obama & Biden of “constantly looking backwards” and “doing the blame game.” Evidently, because Obama talks about change a lot, it’s impermissible to point out the mistakes of the Bush administration, you know, the things he wants to change from.

Biden responds: “Past is prologue.” I appreciate that he readily had Shakespeare in his intellectual arsenal, even if he just convinced half the American people that’s he a know-it-all smarty pants.


What should be the trigger for the use of nukes? Palin: “Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be all, end all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet, so those dangerous regimes, again, cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, period.” She says the safe, stable way to use nukes is as a deterrent. I wonder if she thinks she answered the question?

She seems to think NATO allies are involved in Afghanistan but not in Iraq.


WHAT JOHN MCCAIN KNOWS: Palin: “John McCain who knows how to win a war. Who’s been there and he’s faced challenges and he knows what evil is and he knows what it takes to overcome the challenges here with our military.”

Joe spends a lot of time in Home Depot.


Turn the hokey setting on your tv way down for this one: “Say it ain’t so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You prefaced your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let’s look ahead and blah blah blah”.

I have to say that even with all the hecks and betchas she’d previously deployed, I just wasn’t expecting a doggone it.

WHAT SARAH KNOWS: “Of course we know what a vice president does.”

For example: “I’m thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president’s policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are.” See, and you thought she didn’t know what a vice president does.

WHERE MCCAIN HAS ALREADY TAPPED HER: Palin: “John McCain and I have had good conversations about where I would lead with his agenda. That is energy independence in America and reform of government over all, and then working with families of children with special needs. That’s near and dear to my heart also. In those arenas, John McCain has already tapped me and said, that’s where I want you, I want you to lead. I said, I can’t wait to get and there go to work with you.”

That’s never going to be absolute consensus by every American

Katie Couric interviews Biden and Palin on abortion. Transcript here, video below. It’s 4 minutes. Biden is first, which you can skip because he’s boringly sensible and understands the issue and where’s the fun in that. Palin comes in at 2:00, and the part where she can’t think of another Supreme Court decision beyond Roe v Wade is at 3:00, 60 seconds of solid bullshit. “There’s, of course in the great history of America there have been rulings, that’s never going to be absolute consensus by every American.” She did agree with the proposition that there is a right to privacy in the US Constitution, but she doesn’t realize how that conflicts with her position that abortion should be decided at the state level. I don’t think she understands what a “right” is.

I have the acknowledgment and the experience of going through what America is going through

So Bush this morning was again pushing for the bailout, suggesting that “It’s very important for members to take this bill very seriously” and... ah fuck it, let’s turn to the true master of stupid, as Sarah Palin gives another interview,to Hugh Hewitt, one of the few people media people Cheney ever deigns to speak to. Almost every one of his questions is a variant of “why is everyone so mean to you?” He suggested it was because she didn’t have an abortion and because of her faith. She agreed.

She also thinks they hate her because she’s just so darned normal: “Oh, I think they’re just not used to someone coming in from the outside saying you know what? It’s time that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency, and I think that that’s kind of taken some people off guard, and they’re out of sorts, and they’re ticked off about it.” Six-Pack, is that some kind of secret Muslim name?

“I know what Americans are going through. Todd and I, heck, we’re going through that right now even as we speak, which may put me again kind of on the outs of those Washington elite who don’t like the idea of just an everyday working class American running for such an office.” Indeed, Todd’s 401K got hit by the Wall Street meltdown and “I’m thinking geez, the rest of America, they’re facing the exact same thing that we are.” Why, they might even have to sell the tanning bed. “We’ve got three teenagers. How are we going to pay for their college education?” Oh, Sarah honey, I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about that.

Now, I said a naughty word earlier, but Palin cusses up a storm to Hewitt. Just letting Sarah be Sarah, I guess. She says “geez” and “heck” (twice) (“I believe that I’m a heck of a lot better off putting my life in God’s hands, and saying hey, you know, guide me”) and invokes God, as in “thank God I don’t have time to follow [blogs].” Yeah, when you’re reading all the newspapers, all of them, it does cut into your Drudge time.

She put a brave faith on her media ordeal, being savaged by Katie Couric and all: “I’m going to take those shots and those pop quizzes and just say that’s okay... It makes somebody be even clearer and more articulate in their positions. So really I don’t fight it. I invite it.” Even... clearer... and more.... oy. She did, however, bemoan the decline in journalistic ethics since she got her journalism degree.

OH, OUR BRAVE LITTLE SOLDIER: “Those are the shots that Americans are taking, so all this political nonsense and the lies, the rhetoric that is spun out there about someone just trying to offer themselves up in the name of service to this great country, I’ll take it.”

FAIR AND BALANCED: “It’s a good balanced ticket where he’s got the experience, and he’s got the bipartisan approach that it’s going to take to get us through these challenges. And I have the acknowledgment and the experience of going through what America is going through.”

On abortion, she finds it hurtful that people think her anti-abortion position is extreme when Obama’s refusal to support a ban on “partial-birth abortion” is “so far, far left it’s certainly out of the mainstream of America. To me, that is the extreme position, not my position of just wanting that culture of life to be respected, and not wanting government to sanction the idea of ending life.” Note that she frames abortion as a “left/right” argument.