Archive for September 25, 2008

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.

Leave a Comment

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?

Comments (1)

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?”

Comments (3)