Archive for September, 2008

Pelosi’s partisan snipe + GOP’s faux protest = dead bailout

September 30, 2008 at 5:33 pm · Filed under domestic policy, Economy, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Wesley Pruden, over at the Washington Times, is one of many conservatives across this land to blame Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker from San Francisco, for the failure of the bailout bill in the House yesterday.  Pruden goes on to make the best suggestion Sarah Palin has gotten all month: she should use Thursday’s debate with Joe Biden to whack the heck out of Nancy Pelosi for killing the bailout package with that pesky partisanship that Palin will end to if the American people so bless her and John McCain with the privilege to serve them.

It’s a great idea, considering there really aren’t any live ones out there to improve Governor Palin’s image of late.  I look forward to seeing how Joe Biden fields direct assaults from Palin.  But seriously, can we really blame Pelosi’s speech for the failure of the bill?  Here is what she said:

“When President Bush took office he inherited President Clinton’s surpluses — four years in a row, budget surpluses on a trajectory of $5.6 trillion in surplus. And with his reckless economic policies within two years he had turned that around and now eight years later the foundation of that fiscal irresponsibility, combined with an anything-goes economic policy, has taken us to where we are today.

“They claim to be be free-market advocates when it’s really an anything-goes mentality: no regulation, no supervision, no discipline. And if you fail you will have a golden parachute and the taxpayer will bail you out. Those days are over. The party is over in that respect.”

She added: “Democrats believe in a free market. We know that it can create jobs, it can create wealth, it can create many good things in our economy. But in this case, in its unbridled form as encouraged, supported by the Republicans — some in the Republican Party, not all — it has created not jobs, not capital, it has created chaos.”

The thing is, the prepared version of that speech was not nearly so direct a condemnation of the Republican party.  I feel for the poor staffer who wrote that speech and had to sit and listen as the boss went off message.  Yes, Pelosi’s comments were clearly not helpful, and they were not in good taste.  She should have waited until after the vote to deliver her stinging condemnation of Republican economic policies.  But was it enough to tank the bill?

One has to ask the question, why were the dozen or so Republicans – who John Boehner and his Republican whip (vote counter), Roy Blunt of Missouri, claim were spooked by the partisan rhetoric – why were they going to hold their nose and vote for a deal they didn’t like and that they thought would certainly hurt them politically?  They were prepared to do it, one can only surmise, for the good of the country, for the good of the economy.  What other reason could there have been?  Moreover, why didn’t all of the Republicans protest?  Why only twelve – the magic number needed to pass the bill?

Nancy Pelosi comes off looking idiotic for her gratuitous GOP-bashing on the House floor before the big vote.  But I cannot accept that her poorly-timed partisan jabs would give those 12 members license to throw the good of the country overboard.  Those members who objected to Pelosi’s partisanship actually succumbed to that very vice by rejecting the bailout bill at the last minute.

Barney Frank, the famously grumpy chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, wasn’t buying it either.

“Here’s the story: There’s a terrible crisis affecting the American economy. We have come together on a bill to alleviate the crisis. And because somebody hurt their feelings they decide to punish the country . . . And there are 12 Republican members who were ready to stand up for the economic interests of America but not if anybody insulted them . . .

“I’ll make an offer,” he added. “Give me those 12 people’s names and I will go talk uncharacteristically nicely to them and tell them what wonderful people they are and maybe they’ll now think about the country.”

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Palin brings her dad to Couric rematch

September 30, 2008 at 3:18 pm · Filed under foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Last week I stated with utter certainty that, given the horrible week the Republican ticket had over at the CBS network, McCain and Palin would surely never take another question from Katie Couric.  I was wrong.  Over the weekend, Sarah Palin took a question from a voter on the subject of Pakistan, gave the wrong answer (she sounded more like Barack Obama than John McCain), and it landed both her and McCain back in the studio with Katie Couric.

McCain has been pounding Barack Obama for publicly stating his willingness to launch a surgical strike – without the sign off from the Pakistani government – against high value Al Qaida targets operating in Pakistan if he gets actionable intelligence.  Pakistan is an incredibly difficult nut to crack.  The more we cozy up to its government, the more the people seem to hate us.  And yet, it is the government that (we hope) maintains control over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.  But the new Pakistani President, Ali Azif Zardari, has no more popular mandate to maintain his government’s stability, nor any more handle on extremist groups in the mountainous region bordering Afghanistan, than did Musharraf.  So the place is a tinderbox.  Maybe refraining from endorsing particular tactics is a good idea, but if the roles were reversed, and it was Obama who thought we should hold our cards closer to our vest, and it was McCain giving voters the kind of tough talk they clamor for, you can be sure that McCain would be bludgeoning Obama with his pansy tactical secrecy bit.  Recall, from Friday night’s debate:

“He said that he would launch military strikes into Pakistan,” McCain said of Obama. “Now, you don’t do that. You don’t say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government.”

“And I guarantee you I would not publicly state that I’m going to attack them,” McCain added.

Obama responded that “nobody talked about attacking Pakistan,” saying his speech last year on Pakistan endorsed the idea that “if the United States has al Qaeda, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out.”

“This is not an easy situation. You’ve got cross-border attacks against U.S. troops,” Obama added. “And we’ve got a choice. We could allow our troops to just be on the defensive and absorb those blows again and again and again, if Pakistan is unwilling to cooperate, or we have to start making some decisions.”

So, at an unscheduled stop in Philadelphia (for cheesesteaks of course) over the weekend, a customer in the shop asked Palin about how to deal with attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan by terrorists operating in Pakistan.  He asked her whether she would support cross border raids into Pakistan, and she said: “If that’s what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should.”

When McCain and Palin returned to CBS last night, Katie Couric asked both of them about Governor Palin’s response to that voter, as it seemed to contradict McCain’s insistence on not talking about such tactics in public.

COURIC: Is that something you shouldn’t say out loud, Sen. McCain?

McCAIN: Of course not. But, look, I understand this day and age “gotcha” journalism. Is that a pizza place? In a conversation with someone who you didn’t hear … the question very well, you don’t know the context of the conversation. Grab a phrase. Gov. Palin and I agree that you don’t announce that you’re going to attack another country.

COURIC: Are you sorry you said it …

McCAIN: …And the fact …

COURIC: Governor?

McCAIN: Wait a minute. Before you say, “is she sorry she said it,” this was a “gotcha” sound bite that, look …

COURIC: It wasn’t a “gotcha.” She was talking to a voter.

McCAIN: No, she was in a conversation with a group of people and talking back and forth.

What is remarkable about this clip is not the substance of the discussion.  It’s the fact that John McCain willingly sat with Sarah Palin for a Katie Couric rematch.  Why in God’s name would they do that?  The interview manages to make Palin look even more infantile – for bringing her dad with her to the interview  – than she already does.  McCain goes so far as to even answer the question for Palin, whose body language throughout the exchange was very telling.  The back and forth really makes McCain look like a hair-splitting grumpy old man who now equates a voter asking a question of his vice president with the media playing “gotcha” journalism.  Smells a lot more like gotcha politics to me.

Want more?  The internet is buzzing in anticipation for the other footage CBS has ready to release this week – Q and As with Sarah Palin and then also with Joe Biden.

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Sarah Silverman’s new video (this one ain’t about Matt Damon)

September 29, 2008 at 8:24 pm · Filed under Politics ·Tagged , , , , ,

Sarah Silverman, the foul-mouthed Jewish girl next door (you might remember her from the confessional video hit, “I’m f*cking Matt Damon”), is putting her comedic talents to work in the political sphere:

My favorite line: “Yeah, Barack Hussein Obama.  It’s a super f*cking sh*tty name.  But you’d think someone named Manischewitz Gooberman would understand that.”

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Who’s going to bail out the bailout?

September 29, 2008 at 8:01 pm · Filed under Economy, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Wow.  Maybe John McCain should have skipped the presidential debate on Friday afterall.  Because whatever progress he deemed there to be on the bailout legislation under negotiation, it was not enough progress to pass it today.  The measure just failed by a vote of 228 – 205 (65 Republicans and 140 Democrats voted for it).  While it would have passed with 12 more votes, more likely is that 20 more members would have needed to support the deal, so that no 1 member sealed its fate.

What can we learn from this vote?  First, neither John McCain, nor Minority Leader John Boehner, leads the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives.  And if John McCain loses this election, watch for the results of another election – leadership elections in the House next year.  Fiscal conservatives have been growing bolder in the waning years of the Bush presidency.  This vote, above all others, shows that their resurgence is all but certain.  If Barack Obama wins, he’ll have a devil of a time passing tax hikes on the wealthy.

We also learned that Democrats and Wall Street make for strange and ultimately uncomfortable bedfellows.  The liberal wing of the party just wasn’t willing to reward what they consider to be Wall Street fat cats.  In this, they have more in common with the conservative Republicans.  But more importantly, Pelosi wasn’t enforcing party unity on this vote on purpose; the Democrats were bent on a balanced vote – which they did not get, and for which they were willing to let the bill fail, for now.

Meanwhile, the Dow drops five hundred points in less than an hour, following the House vote.

Ben Pershing discusses why the bailout failed, starting with the fact that the Bush administration never should have let the “Bailout” label stick.

Poor Salesmanship. Did you know that the general consensus is now that this bill will not cost $700 billion? If you didn’t, it’s because the bill’s proponents did a poor marketing job. From the start, the Bush administration did not do enough to emphasize the point that taxpayers would get at least some of the money back, and that gigantic price tag got stuck in the head of the public (and the media). The administration was also too eager and ambitious with its initial proposal, alienating many lawmakers right from the start by seeming to ask for the moon — give us everything we want, with no oversight . . .

Vulnerables Scared. If you have a difficult reelection race, what was your motivation to vote for this bill? “I voted in favor of a bill that I didn’t really like, because I had no choice,” doesn’t make for a particularly snappy campaign slogan. “I stood up to my party and Wall Street,” sounds much better . . .

No Center of Gravity. Who’s running Washington right now? Bush is the lamest of lame ducks, with a miniscule approval rating and no clout or political protection left to offer . . .

Ideological Problems. The simplest explanation of all for the loss was that a lot of members just didn’t like the bill. Capitol Briefing outlined last week all the reasons why House conservatives balked at the initial proposal, and the basic point still stands: A massive expenditure of taxpayer funds and intervention in the free market, combined with tough new regulations, simply offended too many conservatives’ most basic principles. And Republicans, being in the minority, feel no responsibility to govern. They calculated that the bill’s failure will be blamed on Bush (so what?) and the majority Democrats.

On the liberal end of the spectrum, most members believe this really does represent a “bailout” of Wall Street and a power grab by the Bush administration, and that the current crisis vindicates their longtime warnings that the financial system was riven by greed and insufficient regulation. For those members, the final package didn’t have nearly enough help for struggling homeowners.

Oh, and then there was ‘partisanship’.  The House Republican leadership claims that Pelosi’s pre-vote speech (which, among other things, blamed the Bush administration’s policies for this disaster and promised a “New Direction” next year . . . ) so deeply offended swing Republicans that they swung the other way.  Maybe she could have held off with the blaming, but can you really imagine some Republicans switching their vote on a subject of such vital importance to the nation’s economy over that?

So, what now?  Apparently the House will vote on the bill again shortly (today).  The sad fact is that the bill is now more likely to succeed after the first failed vote.  The ensuing panic on Wall Street this afternoon, painful as it was, was probably just the bailout this bailout needed.

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Skewing the polls: cell-phone-only users vs. the Bradley Effect?

September 29, 2008 at 6:28 pm · Filed under Politics

A Pew study just released suggests that this year’s presidential polling data could be skewed by as much as 2-3 percentage points, because the polls don’t sample a unique group of potential voters: cell-phone-only users.   This could be because people who opt out of landline phone service tend to be lower-income, more transient and in the 30-or-younger age bracket.

The study found that, contrary to a Pew report two years ago, under 30 cell-phone-only respondents trend more heavily Democratic in their political views, than do their landline counterparts.

Combining polls it conducted in August and September, Pew found that of people under age 30 with only cell phones, 62 percent were Democrats and 28 percent Republicans. Among landline users the same age that gap was narrower: 54 percent Democrats, 36 percent GOP.

Similarly, young cell users preferred Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama over Republican nominee John McCain by 35 percentage points. For young landline users, it was a smaller 13-point Obama edge . . .

. . . According to federal figures, 16 percent of households had only cell phones during the second half of 2007, and another 13 percent had cell phones and landlines but seldom used the landlines to take calls. Cell-only households have been growing by 1 or 2 percentage points every half year.

Typically, pollsters have to weight their polls based on a number of different respondent factors (such as age or political affiliation).  But the Pew study shows that the science of polling is still adjusting to the cell phone age.

Interestingly, the issue of including cell phone users could well help to offset the uncertain degree to which the so-called ‘Bradley Effect’ will play. The Bradley Effect is so named for the African American candidate for governor of California who performed significantly worse in his election than the polls had predicted.  Pollsters have attributed the discrepency to latent racism; that some voters are unwilling to admit to a pollster their true racial bias, which only manifests itself inside the voting booth.  Unfortunately for the Obama campaign, there is no scientific method to determine how much effect the Bradley Effect will have in this election.

On the bright side, the Pew Research Center’s new study could have just found a couple extra percentage points the Obama campaign may desperately need come election day.

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You call that a breakthrough?

September 28, 2008 at 2:12 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged ,

Given the brouhaha House Republicans started last week over the bailout plan that was emerging in bicameral negotiations, you’d think that the deal that was just announced this weekend would look quite a bit different than it did last Thursday. But you would be wrong.

Officials said they had also agreed to include a proposal by House Republicans that gives the Treasury secretary an additional option of issuing government insurance for troubled financial instruments as a way of reducing the amount of taxpayer money spent up front on the rescue effort.

The Treasury would be required to create the insurance program, officials said, but not necessarily to use it. Mr. Paulson had expressed little interest in that plan, and initial cost projections suggested it would be enormously expensive. But final details were not immediately available.

Then, another bitter fight on how to pay for any losses:

Among the last sticking points was an unexpected and bitter fight over how to pay for any losses that taxpayers may experience after distressed debt has been purchased and resold.

Democrats had pushed for a fee on securities transactions, essentially a tax on financial firms, saying it was fitting that they contribute to the cost.

In the end, lawmakers and the administration opted to leave the decision to the next president, who must present a proposal to Congress to pay for any losses.

If this is what they ended up with, what was all the kicking and screaming about?  That’s not a breakthrough; it’s the agreement they had on Thursday.

And, why exactly would Republicans oppose making financial firms pay for any losses the taxpayers incur, when it was their opposition to taxpayers footing this bill that nearly killed the bailout in the first place?

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Who won the debate?

September 28, 2008 at 2:10 pm · Filed under Economy, foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

If the debate were judged on the opening “lead” question alone, then Barack Obama won handily. But John McCain recovered from a shaky, unfocused beginning, and went on the offensive during the foreign policy portion of the debate.  He did very well, despite such a tumultuous week for his campaign.  He was surefooted and detailed oriented.  But his obvious condescension toward Obama was unattractive, as were his satisfied grimaces (McCain has an uncanny ability to look tense and angry when he is pleased) and his inability to turn and dialogue with his opponent.

While Obama did not turn in the knock out punch performance his supporters wanted, he did what he had to, and he did it well.  Obama was confident and concise.  The most important thing he had to do was to stop rambling like a professor you tune out halfway through a lecture.  His answers were meaty, purposeful and reassuring.  In fact, it was McCain who would dive into language that means nothing to people beyond the beltway, and never really channeled the anxiety of the middle class voter.

McCain did an excellent job of reminding viewers that he has years of experience dealing with foreign policy, but Obama also effectively reminded viewers about the candidates’ judgment.  He scolded McCain for talking as if the war in Iraq started last year, with the surge, when in fact it started 5 long years ago.  McCain beat on Obama for his willingness to meet with foreign leaders; a statement I am sure Obama wishes he could just plain take back, because there is never a response that closes the door on the discussion.

Yet, Obama did land a good hit on McCain, making him seem way out of touch on dealing with friends and foes when he said this: he would not meet potentially with the Prime Minister of Spain.  “I mean, Spain,” he repeated for incredulous emphasis.  “Spain is a NATO ally.  If we can’t meet with our friends, I don’t know how we are going to lead the world in dealing with critical issues like terrorism.”

One of the most compelling moments of the debate was when John McCain showed a bracelet he wears in honor of a fallen soldier.  His mother gave it to Mr. McCain and asked him to finish the mission in Iraq, and make sure his death was not in vain.  Obama countered, “I have a bracelet too,” from a mother who told Obama she didn’t want any more mothers to feel the pain she has suffered.  It was a powerful contrast.

All in all, it was a very balanced debate.  I am not sure that McCain brought any fence-sitters to his side, but Obama’s confidence just might have.  A CBS poll showed that more people felt better about Obama after the debate than they did about McCain.  Both the CBS poll and a CNN poll of viewers gave Obama the edge (51% to 38% in the CNN poll).  Obama walked away with a double-digit lead on the economy, and even edged out McCain on handling the war in Iraq.  And while more people thought John McCain was ready to be president, Obama gained 16% points on that score.

More good news for Obama – LA Times/Bloomburg just released a post-debate poll:

Though more voters still see McCain as more knowledgeable, Obama was seen as more “presidential” by 46% of debate-watchers, compared with 33% for the Arizona senator.

The difference is even more pronounced among debate-watchers who were not firmly committed to a candidate: 44% said they believed Obama looked more presidential, whereas 16% gave McCain the advantage.

The Republican candidate also has lost ground on several measures of voter confidence, including trust.

After the debate, 43% of registered voters who saw the event said Obama had more “honesty and integrity,” compared with 34% for McCain. A week ago, the same voters were evenly divided, with each candidate winning the trust of 40% of respondents.

Voters are also less confident than a week ago that McCain will strengthen the economy and less convinced he cares about voters like themselves.

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Washington’s game of chicken on Wall Street crisis

September 26, 2008 at 2:41 am · Filed under domestic policy, Economy, Politics, Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

First there was agreement – in principle – on a bailout package, and now there is not.  Why?

Secretary Paulson delivered his sweeping three page proposal to Congress last Friday.   Congressional leaders on both sides of the capitol (and the aisle) began negotiating the parameters of a retooled deal. They debated priorities like, does Paulson really need this much money upfront?  How do we know how much is needed?  Will taxpayers be left holding the bag, or is there a way to structure potential buyouts in such a way that taxpayers get any profits and Wall Street CEOs get chastened (with limited compensation packages).  And is there a way to help stop more home foreclosures?

All the while that the bipartisan, bicameral negotiators defined and addressed these questions, John McCain was refusing to take any clear position on the deal.  On Tuesday he claimed to not have read the Paulson proposal yet.  By Wednesday, a deal was in sight.  Word was most Senate Republicans would support it, thus Senator Bennett’s comment today that they had an agreement.

But while McCain waffled, House Republicans, led by the most conservative of them, were balking. They are up for re-election and a taxpayer bailout fundamentally violated the absolutist free market principles to which they adhere.  So even if John Boehner was open to the agreement taking shape in negotiations, it doesn’t mean the caucus is with him.  And even though Paulson reportedly reached out to McCain on Wednesday (the excuse to suspend the campaign), it’s not clear McCain can bring the caucus along either.  Speculation was (and still is) rampant that the rank and file GOP want to oppose the deal, while the Democrats grudgingly sign off.  It could pass, just barely, Bush would sign the bill, and Republicans would bludgeon Democrats over the next month as the party that used taxpayer money to rescue an unrepentant Wall Street.

And so that is the dynamic that took over in today’s meeting in the White House, in which John McCain reportedly took no stand and said little at all.  Neither House Minority Leader John Boehner nor John McCain can deliver the party, or afford to break with it.  And Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid aren’t willing to risk being backed into a corner and locked into a deal with Washington’s least popular Republican, when $700 million dollars are at stake.  The question arises, should they just hold their nose, do the right thing and hope to talk taxpayers through why this was this right thing to do?  I’m not holding my breath on that one.

So what we have here is a game of chicken.  The upside to McCain will be if he and his renegade Republicans can force some of their alternative ideas onto a deal that gains bipartisan consensus. But no one has explained these ideas and McCain hasn’t backed them.  As I understand it a group including Eric Cantor (R-Va) and Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) want Wall Street “to pay for its bailout” by offering them government backed insurance, sort of like a homebuyer might buy mortgage insurance.  But if it is government backed – whatever that means – it still sounds a lot like our tax dollars at work, and I don’t see any potential profit at the other end, either.

So, could this all fall apart?  McCain has staked — rather, suspended — his campaign on getting a deal.  If he really wants a deal, can he force Republicans to move to the middle?  After the White House meeting with the candidates and congressional leaders, it wasn’t looking good.  Paulson later pleaded – reportedly on one knee?? – to Democrats, “Please don’t blow this up!”  To which Pelosi said, ‘We’re not the ones trying to blow this up; it’s the House Republicans!” “I know, I know,” Paulson sighed.

Maybe it will turn out that Paulson, Democrats and Senate Republicans were being too easy on Wall Street and the sky won’t really fall without this bailout.  Maybe there is a better way to restore confidence without the government footing or fronting the bill.  No one is crazy about the idea of buying “toxic waste,” especially with Ben Bernanke admitting in Q and A on Capitol Hill, he can’t guarantee this will work, and that he’s “been wrong quite a few times before.” If there is a better way, I’d sure like to hear it.

It is equally possible that the Republican party (minus, unbelievably, President Bush), with a little help from the Democrats, gambled the stability of our capital markets today — and thus ordinary Americans’ access to home, car, construction or school loans for the forseeable future — for the sake of this election.  What else could we have expected them to do?

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And that’s why we don’t talk to reporters

September 26, 2008 at 1:33 am · Filed under foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sarah Palin’s disastrous interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric proved Campbell Brown quite wrong. McCain isn’t shielding Palin from press scrutiny because she is a woman; he is shielding her from press scrutiny because she handles it no better than he does.  Clive Crook at the Financial Times had this to say:

Was this the same Palin who gave the convention speech – or even the less-than-stunning Palin of the Charles Gibson interview? She was simply awful. In response to straightforward questions, she was scared, rambling, incoherent, and at times completely unintelligible. She looked stupid. She gave her critics everything they could have wished.

The two part interview revealed several points of weakness:

1. Palin had no answer to Couric’s questions about revelations that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis’ firm (in which he continues to hold an interest, pointed out Couric) has continued to receive $15,000/month payments from Freddie Mac until last month.  When Couric pressed on whether Davis’ interest in the firm isn’t a clear conflict of interest, Palin was literally at a loss for words.

2. When asked by Couric for a specific example of how John McCain had pushed for more adequate regulation of Wall Street, Palin stumbled, and when Couric pressed the point for a third time, Palin had to admit she couldn’t think of an example, but would “try to find one and bring it to ya.”


3. Couric gave the governor another shot to frame her foreign policy credentials vis a vis Russia.  Palin was wobbly, trying to finish out a sentence describing a maritime border with Russia and wandered into talking about the land border with Canada.  As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where do you think they go?”  And it gets worse, you can view it below, in part two of the interview.


4. Couric asked Palin her opinion about the bailout package under negotiation in Congress this week, and whether the country could face another Great Depression if something isn’t passed. Rather than sounding a reassuring and confident note, Palin took the bait, and said that yes, we could be headed for one.  Worse, though is that she was completely incoherent – despite repeatedly looking down toward, presumably, her notes, when defining why a bailout needs to be passed.  I would paste the text here but CBS didn’t provide it; you have to watch the clip.  Her answer begins at 2:20 minutes in the Part II interview.  Then between 4:00 and 4:45 minutes she seems unable to decide whether homebuyers should bear any responsbility for home foreclosures.

5. Katie Couric asked Palin about when U.S. efforts to promote democracy backfire, such as when Hamas won control of the Palestinian government several years ago.  Palin did not seem to understand the question, and just rambled on about how important it is to promote those who seek democracy.   Not surprisingly, her diplomatic approach to Israel and Iran comes down to not secondguessing “the good guys” in “their fight” against “the bad guys.”  Time to take cover, folks.

5. Palin’s fumbles on the economic crisis led John McCain to skip a taping with David Letterman and sit down with Katie Couric, in which he avoided referring to a Great Depression but rather warned of consequences “of the utmost seriousness” if action is not taken.  Then, David Letterman skewered McCain for begging off the show to rush back to Washington, and showed live tape of McCain getting powdered for the Couric interview.

I think it’s clear that even if John McCain and Sarah Palin take any more questions from the press over the next forty days, they surely won’t take any more of them from Katie Couric.
But wait- I left out one other important video that the unholy media dug up this week.  A visiting pastor visits Palin’s church (during her gubernatorial campaign) and prays against witchcraft, and for, among other things, that God should take over the media, our schools, the financial system, our government and politics. He prays for her success, and that church members will involve themselves in her campaign.

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Bill: Get over it, will ya?!

September 25, 2008 at 7:02 pm · Filed under Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

I know that some people have speculated that Clinton lost the ability to contain his seething temper tantrums in public after undergoing bypass surgery 4 years ago.  (Note: the link above has a quick and dirty post-mortem of Bill Clinton’s behavior in the primaries) That might explain little crazy hiccups like yelling at a reporter on the campaign trail for Hillary.  I’m not sure it explains this:

Seriously?  Has Bill Clinton never seen the clip of John McCain’s meanspirited Chelsea Clinton joke, that should, given Bill’s demonstrated ability to hold a grudge, make his blood boil even today?

And is he really A-okay with Sarah Palin calling Hillary a whiner in the primary and then turning 180 degrees to claim the torch – and to “break that glass ceiling” – that he, Bill, as in President, Clinton worked so hard to pass to his hand-picked successor, Hillary?

When Bill Clinton gets started, you never know where he’ll end up.  So, naturally his performance on Letterman the other night was just what the Democratic party ordered.  It was nothing apocalyptic, just eerie.  He mostly talked mostly about Hillary, and as little as possible about the Democratic nominee for president, Barack Obama.  “Is it me, or did he not want to say the words ‘Barack Obama?” cracked comedian Chris Rock, who followed Clinton on the show.

Paul Slansky over at the Huffington Post calls on Clinton to put aside his obvious grudge against the Democratic nominee, arguing that if it hadn’t been for Clinton’s misbehavior with a certain intern, “we would never have had the odious George W. Bush in the White House in the first place.”  So, Slansky argues, Bill Clinton owes it to all of us to work his heart out to elect Barack Obama.

We see you petulantly rooting against him even as you go through the motions of doing the barest minimum on his behalf to avoid being blamed if he loses. You’re not fooling anyone, Bill. You’ve gotten so caught up in yesterday that you’ve stopped thinking about tomorrow. You have the power to influence millions of voters and you’re spitefully sitting on it . . .

. . . If Obama loses a close election — one in which even one state where you could have made a difference goes for McCain because you sat home and pouted — it will be on you. We will remember that you couldn’t be bothered to rise above your petty resentments for something as trivial as saving your country from the enemies of everything you profess to believe in. We forgave you for Monica, Bill, but we won’t forgive you for this.

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That’s it; I’m through blogging about Sarah Palin

September 25, 2008 at 4:39 pm · Filed under foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ok, maybe not.  But I am beginning to actually feel for Governor Palin.  Something in the way Garrison Keillor just ripped the bandaid off – courageously, I might add – in his searing commentary earlier this week has affected me.  Keillor admonished Senator McCain for “exploiting a symbolic woman, an eager zealot who is so far out of her depth that it isn’t funny anymore. Anyone with a heart has to hurt for how Mr. McCain has made a fool of her.”

It’s a sort of moral dilemma.  If Palin is in over her head, do you just set down the gloves and let this thing play out?  Do I really need to say anything when these are the snippets we have to work with?

“I am honored to meet you,” Ms. Palin said [upon meeting the new Pakistani President, Ali Asif Zardari.]

“You are even more gorgeous than you are on the (inaudible),” Mr. Zardari said.

“You are so nice,” Ms. Palin replied. “Thank you.”

“Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you,” Mr. Zardari continued. At which point an aide told the two to shake hands.

“I’m supposed to pose again,” Ms. Palin said.

“If he’s insisting,” Mr. Zardari said, “I might hug.”

This one:

Earlier Wednesday, Ms. Palin had met with Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraq, and other Iraqi officials.

As the meeting began, Ms. Palin made small talk with Hiro Ibrahim Ahmed, the first lady of Iraq. “Plenty to do here, isn’t there?” Ms. Palin remarked, presumably about New York. “Plenty to see.”

With a bit of nationalist pride, or perhaps the irritation of a spouse not thrilled about being dragged along on a business trip, the first lady replied, “I have plenty to do at home, also.”

Or this one:

COURIC: But he’s been in Congress for 26 years. He’s been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

PALIN: He’s also known as the maverick, though. Taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he’s been talking about — the need to reform government.

COURIC: I’m just going to ask you one more time, not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation?

PALIN: I’ll try to find you some, and I’ll bring them to you.

This one, which you have surely heard over and over again:

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?

PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush — well, what do you — what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view.

GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.

PALIN: 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.

GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us.  Do you agree with that?

PALIN: Charlie, if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend.

The Bush administration made countless false and exaggerated claims to go into Iraq, but they never claimed there was an imminent attack.  And, Saddam Hussein was many ugly things, but he was not an ally to Islamic extremists.

And now this from Laura Bush, who is a pretty straight shooter, to her credit:

In an interview on Wednesday with CNN, the first lady, Laura Bush, was asked whether Ms. Palin had enough foreign policy experience. “Of course she doesn’t have that,” Mrs. Bush said.

“You know, that’s not been her role,” she said. “But I think she is a very quick study, and fortunately John McCain does have that sort of experience.”

If Sarah Palin, self-described hockey mom with real-life family crises just like the rest of us, had the national and international experience of Hillary Clinton and Condoleeza Rice (neither of whom I am wild about), well, she’d be a force to be reckoned with.  But Garrison Keillor is right: it is painfully obvious that Palin is out of her league.  And while she deserves a certain amount of our respect as would any other working mother (or father) in this world, I was put off that she “didn’t blink” at the VP offer from John McCain.  If she isn’t informed enough to know she isn’t informed enough to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, it either takes some hubris, or else a lack of intelligence and critical thinking.  Being a quick study does not bestow sound judgment.

I appreciate the fact that many Americans, especially women, like being able to relate to this candidate.  She seems like many of us.  But ask yourself, do you have what it takes to be president?  Does your neighbor?

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Will they, or won’t they debate?

September 25, 2008 at 2:33 pm · Filed under domestic policy, Economy, foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday, John McCain suddenly announced he would be suspending his campaign, and returning to Washington to help broker agreement on the rescue/bailout package that congressional leaders and Secretary Paulson have been negotiating.  He also called to cancel tomorrow night’s debate.

David Letterman was miffed that McCain blew off a scheduled appearance on his show last night, in his “race to the airport,” but sat for an interview with Katie Couric instead.  So, Letterman rolled live footage of McCain getting his face powdered before the interview.  “Hey, I’ve got a question for you,” Letterman yelled at the onscreen image of McCain.  “Need a ride to the airport?!”

For his part, Barack Obama wasn’t having any of it.

“With respect to the debates, it’s my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess. And I think that it is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once . . .”

“I think there’s no reason why we can’t be constructive in helping to solve this problem and also tell the American people what we believe and where we stand … So in my mind, actually, it’s more important than ever that we present ourselves to the American people and try to describe where we want to take the country and where we want to take the economy.”

President Bush went on the air last night to calm us all, and to explain why we won’t be able to get a car, home or school loan next year, even with a great credit record, if we don’t act now to stabilize our capital markets.  He’s right, actually.  But George Bush isn’t exactly someone most Americans feel confident in.

We are looking to the guy who, just over a month, is going to inherit this mess.  So, as Obama said, there is no better time to hold a nationally televised debate than now.

Senator Lindsey Graham, McCain’s debate negotiations pointman, had this to say yesterday: “We need a solution on this crisis more than we need a foreign policy debate.”  Oh, really?  I wonder what Mr. Graham had to say today, after Pakistani and American troops exchanged fire — with eachother — and Pakistan’s Prime Minister had this to say:

“We will not tolerate any act against our sovereignty and integrity in the name of the war against terrorism,” Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, told reporters on Wednesday. “We are fighting extremism and terror not for any other country, but our own country.”

And that’s not all.  Terrorist violence in Pakistan has been escalating,  and there are now reports that a “grim” new National Intelligence Estimate on the situation in Afghanistan is ready, but that it won’t be released until after the election.  Iran’s nuclear development activities aren’t on hold while Washington works to rescue Wall Street.  The North Korea deal still hangs precariously on the cliff of failure.  A new Israeli Prime Minister may or may not be able to hold a coalition government together to continue peace talks with the Palestinians, and with the Syrians.  Hugo Chavez gallivants off to see his new BFFs in Moscow every other month.  But hey, no biggie.  All that stuff can wait.

I agree with Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (never one to mince words) that McCain’s announcement was “the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of football or Marys.”  The negotiations include Senate and House leadership and the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committes.  John McCain will not be in the room at 10:00am this morning when the negotiators hammer out their remaining differences.  In fact, the negotiators will have to take a break from the actual business of negotiating to troop over to the White House and have a meaningless photo op with the President.  The president has little juice left for effective arm-twisting, and whatever lines in the sand he wants to express, are obviously represented for him by Hank Paulson.  The only thing that meeting could be good for is if Congressional leaders and Paulson have reached an agreement by the time they all arrive at the White House, and President Bush announces the deal when the “meeting” wraps.

At this stage, the arms that still need twisting are those members who don’t want the government, and thus the taxpayers, to have to front this money for Wall Street.  They are understandably angry, but they need to realize that things will only get far worse if we don’t act to stabilize the markets.  So the parameters really are around how much money truly needs to be fronted (Paulson is erring on the side of as much as he can have the authority to move around), what measures will be taken to penalize those at fault (limiting CEO pay, for example), what measures can be put in place to increase the likelihood and the amount of profit the taxpayer, and not the bailed out companies, will get later for fronting the money now, and, is there anything Congress can do to prevent more homes from being foreclosed (I have read about a proposal to allow bankruptcy judges to reset mortgage terms, but I doubt that would fly).

If John McCain wants to be useful, he should march over to Jeb Henslaring’s (R-TX) office and twist his arm.  “Jeb, I don’t like this anymore than you do,” he should say.  “But I need the caucus with me on this one.  I don’t want to be responsible for the deal failing, and Reid and Pelosi are threatening not to move if the GOP sits back on this one.  It sure would be nice to all buck the president, vote no and let the Democrats pass a socialist government takeover of Wall Street, but Harry and Nancy aren’t going for it.  So, I’ve come back to save the deal, right?  Seriously, I need you to shut up and fall in line.  You know, as if I were the leader of the Party now and I carried some real sway with you jerks?”

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Free Sarah Palin!

September 24, 2008 at 9:36 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , ,

I guess Hillary Clinton was right – sexism in the presidential election really is rampant.  Campbell Brown, a CNN anchor, weighs in with this hard-hitting commentary:

Frankly I have had it, and I know a lot of other women out there who are with me on this. I have had enough of the sexist treatment of Sarah Palin. It has to end.

She was in New York on Tuesday meeting with world leaders at the U.N. And what did the McCain campaign do?

They tried to ban reporters from covering those meetings. And they did ban reporters from asking Gov. Palin any questions.

I call upon the McCain campaign to stop treating Sarah Palin like she is a delicate flower who will wilt at any moment.

This woman is from Alaska for crying out loud. She is strong, she is tough, she is confident. And you claim she is ready to be one heartbeat away from the presidency. If that is the case, then end this chauvinistic treatment of her now. Allow her to show her stuff.

Allow her to face down those pesky reporters just like Barack Obama did today, just like John McCain did today. Just like Joe Biden has done on numerous occasions. Let her have a real news conference with real questions.

By treating Sarah Palin differently from other candidates in this race, you are not showing her the respect she deserves.

Free Sarah Palin.

Free her from the chauvinistic chains you are binding her with.

Sexism in this campaign must come to an end. Sarah Palin has as much a right to be a real candidate in this race as the men do.

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McCain tries to ice the kicker

September 24, 2008 at 8:46 pm · Filed under Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

We’ve come to that point in the game.  There’s 7 minutes left in the 4th quarter, and team Obama is up by 10 points.  It’s Obama’s ball, fourth down.  It’s a little long, but a field goal is within his reach.  If Obama makes the points, the game is pretty much over; it’s just not that likely that McCain could come back with TWO touchdowns, let alone one.  So, stopping the Obama momentum is key.  So what does John McCain do?  He does the only thing he can–calls a time out, to ice the kicker.

Today McCain magnanimously announced he planned to stop campaigning as of tonight, urging Senator Obama to cancel Friday’s big debate, and to join him in a Kumbaya with President Bush and congressional leaders to get agreement on the stalled out bailout package, and get it through Congress this week.  [Nevermind that Senator Obama called Senator McCain at 8:30am to (according to the Obama campaign) seek a joint statement from the candidates, outlining principles and must-have’s to get the bailout package moving, or that Senator McCain didn’t call Senator Obama back until 2:30 this afternoon, minutes before announcing his bold new idea.]

On the face of it, this seems like classic McCain- in a good way.  When he sets his mind to it, he gets in there and brokers a deal.  Notably, he was one of the Gang of 14 in the Senate in an endrun around then-Majority Leader Bill Frist, who was threatening to change longstanding Senate rules to ram judicial nominations through the chamber (without the 60 votes normally necessary).  McCain likes a good fight, which is why he can be an effective negotiator.  Of course, he doesn’t win every battle (immigration reform), and he infuriates a lot of people with his belligerent manner (Senator Thad Cochran once said it sent a “cold chill” up his spine to imagine McCain with his finger on the nuclear button).

But classis McCain behavior is shaping up to be something other than the morally uncorruptible (since repenting his role in the Keating Five scandal) maverick the media loved so well eight years ago.  As loyal Reaganite conservative commentator George Will put it in yesterday’s Post:

For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are “corrupt” or “betray the public’s trust,” two categories that seem to be exhaustive — there are no other people . . .

. . . the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either . . .

. . . It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency.

You might extend Will’s Queen of Hearts metaphor and call him a drama queen.  But his drama schtick didn’t stick over the last 10 days.  In fact it has backfired.  He’s come off as bobbing, weaving and raving, while his opponent, in comparison, kept a cool head.  After McCain ran an ad that falsely describes former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines as an Obama advisor, his sudden offer of a bipartisan truce during the financial crisis rings hollow.

Senator McCain wants to drop everything for a couple days because he doesn’t want millions of Americans to turn on that television Friday night and take the measure of the men on a stage together at the end of what has to be McCain’s worst week since the near-death of his campaign last summer.  As Jonathan Capeheart writes, McCain desperately needs to change the subject.  Obama is up by 9 points in the Washington Post/ABC poll released today.  And while his campaign has, predictably, been trying to raise expectations that McCain needs to deliver a knockout punch on Friday to gain back the momentum, camp McCain might be worried about taking that punch itself.

UPDATE: According to Ole Miss officials, the show will go on.  Around 4pm today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid waded in (after which Obama also made a brief statement and declined to postpone the debate, noting that now more than ever, Americans need to hear from the candidates who will inherit the crisis just 40 days from now):

This is a critical time for our country.  While I appreciate that both candidates have signaled their willingness to help, Congress and the administration have a process in place to reach a solution to this unprecedented financial crisis.

“I understand that the candidates are putting together a joint statement at Senator Obama’s suggestion.   But it would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation’s economy.   If that changes, we will call upon them.   We need leadership; not a campaign photo op.

“If there were ever a time for both candidates to hold a debate before the American people about this serious challenge, it is now.”

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“McCain Loses His Head”

September 24, 2008 at 1:14 am · Filed under Politics ·Tagged , , , ,

McCain Loses His Head

By George F. Will
Tuesday, September 23, 2008; A21
The Washington Post

[Excerpts of today’s commentary below.  The entire piece is here.]

“The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. ‘Off with his head!’ she said without even looking around.”

— “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.

Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that “McCain untethered” — disconnected from knowledge and principle — had made a “false and deeply unfair” attack on Cox that was “unpresidential” and demonstrated that McCain “doesn’t understand what’s happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does.”

To read the Journal’s details about the depths of McCain’s shallowness on the subject of Cox’s chairmanship, see “McCain’s Scapegoat” (Sept. 19) . . . 

In any case, McCain’s smear — that Cox “betrayed the public’s trust” — is a harbinger of a McCain presidency. For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are “corrupt” or “betray the public’s trust,” two categories that seem to be exhaustive — there are no other people. McCain’s Manichaean worldview drove him to his signature legislative achievement, the McCain-Feingold law’s restrictions on campaigning . . . 

On “60 Minutes” Sunday evening, McCain, saying “this may sound a little unusual,” said that he would like to replace Cox with Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic attorney general of New York who is the son of former governor Mario Cuomo. McCain explained that Cuomo has “respect” and “prestige” and could “lend some bipartisanship.” Conservatives have been warned.

Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?
 

George Frederick Will (born May 4, 1941) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author.

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