Friday, October 03, 2008
I'm watching the debates closely, like 20% of my country
Like the Republican presidential candidate John McCain only worse, last night their VP candidate Sarah Palin was scattered, rambling, unspecific, and focussed on a few flag-waving talking points, even to the point of ignoring direct questions and repeating herself over and over again. Often winking and striking cute poses and using folksy vernacular, she offered no plans, with no consistency of platform to suggest any. But hey, she can't break any campaign promises she told the moderator, because she's only been at this for five weeks now and hasn't made any promises, except to do what is right, which remains vague.
She alternated randomly between saying Wall Street is greedy and needs massive regulation and John McCain will do things differently because he's, gosh, such a maverick and I'm going to go be a maverick with him too... then back to saying the standard Republican mantras which got us into this mess, like government is the problem and we need to cut revenues and cut spending and let business thrive. At one point she made this horrific Freudian slip, saying "It's a toxic mess, really, on Main Street that's affecting Wall Street."
She also says global warming is real but people didn't do it, so all we need to do is drill baby drill because we're all so hungry for energy. She's supposed to be strong on energy policy, so I guess that's her policy, even though it won't get us a drop of new oil for ten years. She even made another ridiculous mix-up (reversals like these are called spoonerisms) saying that she doesn't "attribute every activity of man to the changes in the climate". Well it may be true, that we can't attribute anything she says to the surrounding reality. She's too busy bluffing and remembering party slogans and pretending to be just like joe six-pack and all the other hockey moms who are governors and have a million dollars in personal worth.
I won't even go much into Palin's foreign policy, which is filled with patriotic provocations like quoting that Iranian (who isn't even in charge of Iran) that said Israel is a stinking corpse. She kept saying that we can't set any goals for leaving Iraq, because it's the most important place to fight terrorism, and the generals will tell us when it's time to leave, and all the Democrats want to do is wave the white flag of surrender. Even though the terrorists are based elsewhere, and Iraq has more surplus money than we do, and the Iraqis just want their own country back. Her whole approach was not only stubbornly narrow minded, but also insensitive to both Biden and herself, since they both have sons in Iraq.
What's amazing but true, is that people are saying Sarah Palin looked good because at least she did so much better at this debate than in her earlier interviews. I didn't see them, but apparently she was so completely incomprehensible and lost that they had to cut the worst parts (some are now on youtube I hear). This is the woman who would become President if that hot-headed McCain, who likes to routinely curse out his colleagues and even his wife, ever had a serious health problem while being the oldest US President in history. I'd be crazy to trust my future and my children's future to the team of McCain/Palin.
Like Barack Obama only better, Joe Biden was direct, competent, concerned about the middle class, and offered lists of actions to be taken. He was a gentleman who showed maturity and feelings, as when he choked up about being a single dad after his first wife and daughter were killed in a car accident, and then stayed focussed on his talking points and made plenty of sense without being shallow or evasive.
The context for this debate was that the Dow went down 777 points on Monday. That is traditionaly a most holy number that signals divine intervention. The country is waking up to a harsh reality, and that's a good thing if people come together in a serious way. Initial anger is giving way to sober responsibilities, including today Congress finally passing a version of the Paulson economic rescue plan which John McCain and his Republicans derailed last week.
I'm proud to see the polls changing rapidly, as Americans discern the real issues and the leaders who have the vision, experience, and skill to fix the system. Obama/Biden are way up. It's looking like this election could be a landslide, or at least far more a mandate than the one Bush claimed when he won his first election by losing the popular vote, and his second election by one of the closest margins in history. The era of problem fixing that could have begun with Al Gore, who's been on a crusade to warn the world of global warming for the past forty years, will at last begin with the extraordinary leadership of Barack Obama and his trusty sidekick Joe Biden. I just have to trust that there will be some country left to save by the time they start office.
She alternated randomly between saying Wall Street is greedy and needs massive regulation and John McCain will do things differently because he's, gosh, such a maverick and I'm going to go be a maverick with him too... then back to saying the standard Republican mantras which got us into this mess, like government is the problem and we need to cut revenues and cut spending and let business thrive. At one point she made this horrific Freudian slip, saying "It's a toxic mess, really, on Main Street that's affecting Wall Street."
She also says global warming is real but people didn't do it, so all we need to do is drill baby drill because we're all so hungry for energy. She's supposed to be strong on energy policy, so I guess that's her policy, even though it won't get us a drop of new oil for ten years. She even made another ridiculous mix-up (reversals like these are called spoonerisms) saying that she doesn't "attribute every activity of man to the changes in the climate". Well it may be true, that we can't attribute anything she says to the surrounding reality. She's too busy bluffing and remembering party slogans and pretending to be just like joe six-pack and all the other hockey moms who are governors and have a million dollars in personal worth.
I won't even go much into Palin's foreign policy, which is filled with patriotic provocations like quoting that Iranian (who isn't even in charge of Iran) that said Israel is a stinking corpse. She kept saying that we can't set any goals for leaving Iraq, because it's the most important place to fight terrorism, and the generals will tell us when it's time to leave, and all the Democrats want to do is wave the white flag of surrender. Even though the terrorists are based elsewhere, and Iraq has more surplus money than we do, and the Iraqis just want their own country back. Her whole approach was not only stubbornly narrow minded, but also insensitive to both Biden and herself, since they both have sons in Iraq.
What's amazing but true, is that people are saying Sarah Palin looked good because at least she did so much better at this debate than in her earlier interviews. I didn't see them, but apparently she was so completely incomprehensible and lost that they had to cut the worst parts (some are now on youtube I hear). This is the woman who would become President if that hot-headed McCain, who likes to routinely curse out his colleagues and even his wife, ever had a serious health problem while being the oldest US President in history. I'd be crazy to trust my future and my children's future to the team of McCain/Palin.
Like Barack Obama only better, Joe Biden was direct, competent, concerned about the middle class, and offered lists of actions to be taken. He was a gentleman who showed maturity and feelings, as when he choked up about being a single dad after his first wife and daughter were killed in a car accident, and then stayed focussed on his talking points and made plenty of sense without being shallow or evasive.
The context for this debate was that the Dow went down 777 points on Monday. That is traditionaly a most holy number that signals divine intervention. The country is waking up to a harsh reality, and that's a good thing if people come together in a serious way. Initial anger is giving way to sober responsibilities, including today Congress finally passing a version of the Paulson economic rescue plan which John McCain and his Republicans derailed last week.
I'm proud to see the polls changing rapidly, as Americans discern the real issues and the leaders who have the vision, experience, and skill to fix the system. Obama/Biden are way up. It's looking like this election could be a landslide, or at least far more a mandate than the one Bush claimed when he won his first election by losing the popular vote, and his second election by one of the closest margins in history. The era of problem fixing that could have begun with Al Gore, who's been on a crusade to warn the world of global warming for the past forty years, will at last begin with the extraordinary leadership of Barack Obama and his trusty sidekick Joe Biden. I just have to trust that there will be some country left to save by the time they start office.
