The 2008 US Election thread

[DrinknHarp]

http://www.videosift.com/video/Matt-Damon-Actually-Sounding-Smart-On-Palin

Matt Damon calls it like he sees it

Old news in the fact that the putting down of Sarah Palin as having no experience
actually flies in the face of the Democrats in trying to get Obama elected, they have backed off
on this issue in case you hadn't noticed for obvious reasons
Staying with this... Heard a good on the other day in comparing experience, "McCain has fired rockets
from war planes in Vietnam while Obama has fired staples into electric poles in Chicago, you decide"....Classic

Fire a rocket from a plane and it can go anywhere, try to do anything on the southside of Chicago and you can qualify for any military ribbon.

Miitary experience matters as much as W getting an excuse from his dad while he did coke duing Vietnam.

[DrinknHarp]

Anyway - nobody is answering the question on the dinosaur issue. I already
know she favours teaching creationism as science. Now I'd like to know whether
she believes in it herself.

I need to know how scared I should be.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

[Declan]

Embarrassing
09.18.08 -- 9:21AM
By Josh Marshall
Well, we've heard the interview http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/217792.php now. And John McCain either doesn't know who the Prime Minister of Spain is, thinks Spain is a country in Latin America, or possibly both.
In case, you haven't seen our updates from last night, yesterday John McCain was interviewed on the Florida affiliate of Spanish radio network Union Radio. And in the interview McCain appeared not to know who the Prime Minister of Spain was and assumed he was some anti-American leftist leader from South America.
After the interviewer presses him a couple times on the point and tries to focus him on the fact that Prime Minister Zapatero isn't from Mexico and isn't a drug lord either McCain comes back at her saying, "All I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the Hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not. And that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region."
Then there's a moment of awkward pause before she says. "But what about Europe? I'm talking about the President of Spain."
McCain: "What about me, what?
Interviewer: "Are you willing to meet with him if you're elected president?"
McCain: "I am wiling to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for humans rights, democracy and freedom. And I will stand up to those who do not."
At this point, the interviewer gets tongue-tied presumably because she can't get over McCain not knowing what Spain is.

This just gets better - Unreal

[heganboy]

She even applied for her passport last year...

[Gabriel_Hurl]

So McCain wants to suspend his campaign and delay this Friday's debate so that the leaders can help with the current economic crisis.

Obama has just basically called his bluff saying that a Presidential candidate should be able to concentrate on 2 things at once (the debate and the economy) and not just one thing

[heganboy]

the other thing is that it was Obama who called McCain to issue a joint statement and then McCain issued his press release- The obamites are pissed

[Gabriel_Hurl]

it was sneaky as fcuk - I'll give you that

[Gabriel_Hurl]

And anyway - what does John McCain think he'll be able to solve on a Friday Night at 9pm in Washington?

[Canalman]

Could be mistaken but I think I read that Palin has declared that she has visited Ireland.

[Lecale2]

Could be mistaken but I think I read that Palin has declared that she has visited Ireland.

Her plane touched down at Shannon to refuel on her one and only trip abroad.

[Gabriel_Hurl]

McCain was supposed to be on Letterman last night and cancelled

Dave wasn't happy

http://defamer.com/5054521/america-here-is-your-desired-letterman-on-mccain-action

[Gabriel_Hurl]

Palin's latest TV interview

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/24/eveningnews/main4476173.shtml

[Declan]

McCain just lurches from crisis to crisis. The man is an idiot and a  hypocrite.


IT'S JUST human nature that some calamities register in the brain and others don't. The train engineer texting at the throttle ("HOW R U? C U L8R") and missing the red light and 25 people die in the crash - oh God, that is way too real - everyone has had a moment of supreme stupidity that came close to killing somebody. Even atheists say a little prayer now and then: "Dear God, I am an idiot, thank you for protecting my children," writes Garrison Keillor

On the other hand, the US federal bailout of the financial market is a calamity that people accept as if it were just one more hurricane.An air of crisis, the secretary of the treasury striding down a hall at the Capitol with minions in his wake, solemn-faced congressmen at the microphones. Something must be done, harrumph harrumph.
The current occupant pops out of the cuckoo clock and reads a few lines off a piece of paper, pronouncing all the words correctly. And the newscaster looks into the camera and says, "Etaoin shrdlu qwertyuiop."
Where is the outrage?
Poor Idaho senator Larry Craig got a truckload of moral condemnation for tapping his wingtips in the men's john, but his party proposes to spend 5 per cent of the GDP to buy up bad loans made by men who walk away with their fortunes intact while retirees see their 401(k) go pffffffff like a defunct air mattress, and it's business as usual.
John McCain is a lifelong deregulator and believer in letting brokers and bankers do as they please - remember Lincoln Savings & Loan and his intervention with federal regulators in behalf of his friend Charles Keating, who then went to prison? Remember Neil Bush, the brother of the CO, who, as a director of Silverado S&L, bestowed enormous loans on his friends without telling fellow directors that the friends were friends and who, when the loans failed, paid a small fine and went skipping off to other things?
McCain now decries greed on Wall Street and suggests a commission be formed to look into the problem. This is like Casanova coming out for chastity.
Confident men took leave of common sense and bet on the idea of perpetual profit in the real estate market and crashed. But it wasn't their money. It was your money they were messing with. And that's why you need government regulators.
Gimlet-eyed men with steel-rim glasses and crepe-soled shoes who check the numbers and have the power to say: "This is a scam and a hustle and either you cease and desist or you spend a few years in a minimum-security federal facility playing backgammon."
The Republican party used to specialise in gimlet-eyed, steel-rim, crepe-soled common sense and then it was taken over by crooked preachers who demand we trust them because they're packing a Bible and God sent them on a mission to enact lower taxes, less government. Except when things crash, and then government has to pick up the pieces.
Some say the tab might come to a trillion dollars. No one knows. And McCain has not one moment of doubt or regret. He switches from First Deregulation Church to Our Lady of Strict Vigilance like you might go from decaf to latte. Where is the straight talk? Does the man have no conscience?
It wasn't their money they were playing with. It was yours. Where were the cops?
What we are seeing is the stuff of a novel, the public corruption of an American war hero. It is painful. First, there was his exploitation of a symbolic woman, an eager zealot who is so far out of her depth that it isn't funny any more. Anyone with a heart has to hurt for how McCain has made a fool of her.
Never mind the persistent cheesiness of his attack ads. And now this chasm of debt and loss and the gentleman pretends to be shocked. He was there. He turned out the lights. He sent the regulators home.
McCain seems willing to say anything, do anything, to get to the White House so he can go to war with Iran. If he needs to recline naked in Macy's window, he would do that, or eat live chickens, or claim to be a reformer.
Obviously you can fool a lot of people for awhile and maybe he can stretch it out until mid-November.
But the truth is marching on. A few true conservatives are leading a charge against the bailout. Good for them.
But how about admitting that their cowboy economic philosophy was at fault here?

[Hardy]

That's a fine piece by Keillor. And it asks the question too few have asked - where were the cops?

Unfortunately, I'm not convinced about the alternative to McCain either. I haven't seen the slightest shred of evidence of an ounce of substance in Obama's rhetoric. It's all aspiration, sound-byte and non-specific exhortation. It reads like the stuff that fella with the portentous delivery who died recently used to read out in movie trailers:

It's coming. To a rally near you. Barack Obama will thrill you with his presentation, amaze you with his stagecraft, bewilder you in trying to figure out what he's talking about.

"America cannot turn back". Turn back from what, who or where?

"We are going to change". Great. If it needs changing. What are you going to change? Silence.

"This is a movement". Well so is what happens when I go to the toilet, but I don't expect people to vote for it.

[magpie seanie]

You can say that about anyone who hasn't been in power. I think there's more than sound bytes and fluffy warm feelings. I think he has the integrity and drive to really do better for the US (and the world beyond that it impacts greatly). If he started to get into specifics at every rally there wouldn't be too many turning up now would there be?

Its in these debates where McCain should be able to point out "you can't afford to do that if you do this" etc but the man simply hasn't a clue.