AP Headline - “McCain Reminds Biden He's Been Tested In Crisis”
Someone should remind McCain that both he and Senator Obama have been “tested in crisis” over the past several weeks: Obama has passed the test and McCain has failed miserably.
In the words of Former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell (Ret.),
…I have especially watched over the last six of seven weeks as both of them have really taken a final exam with respect to this economic crisis that we are in and coming out of the conventions. And I must say that I've gotten a good measure of both. In the case of Mr. McCain, I found that he was a little unsure as to deal with the economic problems that we were having and almost every day there was a different approach to the problem. And that concerned me, sensing that he didn't have a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had. And I was also concerned at the selection of Governor Palin. She's a very distinguished woman, and she's to be admired; but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made.On the Obama side, I watched Mr. Obama and I watched him during this seven-week period. And he displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge and an approach to looking at problems like this and picking a vice president that, I think, is ready to be president on day one. And also, in not just jumping in and changing every day, but showing intellectual vigor. I think that he has a, a definitive way of doing business that would serve us well. I also believe that on the Republican side over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party and Mr. McCain has become narrower and narrower. Mr. Obama, at the same time, has given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our people. He's crossing lines--ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines. He's thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values.
…I have especially watched over the last six of seven weeks as both of them have really taken a final exam with respect to this economic crisis that we are in and coming out of the conventions. And I must say that I've gotten a good measure of both. In the case of Mr. McCain, I found that he was a little unsure as to deal with the economic problems that we were having and almost every day there was a different approach to the problem. And that concerned me, sensing that he didn't have a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had. And I was also concerned at the selection of Governor Palin. She's a very distinguished woman, and she's to be admired; but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made.
On the Obama side, I watched Mr. Obama and I watched him during this seven-week period. And he displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge and an approach to looking at problems like this and picking a vice president that, I think, is ready to be president on day one. And also, in not just jumping in and changing every day, but showing intellectual vigor. I think that he has a, a definitive way of doing business that would serve us well. I also believe that on the Republican side over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party and Mr. McCain has become narrower and narrower. Mr. Obama, at the same time, has given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our people. He's crossing lines--ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines. He's thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values.
Republican deregulation caused this mess! Now, the American tax payer is on the hook for these failures. Deregulation policies pushed us into this debacle and now there are few alternatives – while Lehman Brothers will not be bailed out, don’t believe for a second that every last one of us aren’t going to pay for it. We are experiencing a socialization of risk.
McCain is no different than Bush or any of the other Republicans on this. None of them have called for any regulation, none warned about the housing bubble, sub-prime lending. McCain’s response: “We’re going to clean up Washington!” What exactly does that mean? To quote Robert Fanney’s article today in Associated Content:
“The blame is a massive and endemic failure of out of touch, ideological leadership. It is an ideology that glorified greed. That implies that wealth makes right. And that, unjustly, claims that if you're not wealthy then you're not working hard enough. It is an ideology that thinks it right to dodge paying taxes and blames taxes themselves for economic trouble. It is an ideology that believes in privatization of critical infrastructure -- putting vital services in the hands of those who will irresponsibly squeeze it for as much short term profit as possible without any consideration for the medium or long term. In short, it is the philosophy of looters.”
“The blame is a massive and endemic failure of out of touch, ideological leadership. It is an ideology that glorified greed. That implies that wealth makes right. And that, unjustly, claims that if you're not wealthy then you're not working hard enough. It is an ideology that thinks it right to dodge paying taxes and blames taxes themselves for economic trouble. It is an ideology that believes in privatization of critical infrastructure -- putting vital services in the hands of those who will irresponsibly squeeze it for as much short term profit as possible without any consideration for the medium or long term.
In short, it is the philosophy of looters.”
Why do members of the news media choose to call lies “half-truths”?
Merriam/Webster defines a lie as: “To utter falsehood with an intention to deceive; to say or do that which is intended to deceive another.” The continuation of the use of the term “half-truth” interjects a level of doubt as to the intention of the Republicans to deceive. As there is clearly no doubt as to their intention, lies should be called 'lies'!
This list, posted on librarian.net, shows books that Sarah Palin hoped to have banned from the Public Library while she served as Mayor of Wasilla. Among others on the list, notice the entire Harry Potter series? I couldn’t believe it! If this becomes public knowledge, people will soon realize how far right of the mainstream Palin really is. She even threatened to fire the librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, for not giving “full support” of this banning to the mayor. Unbelievable…
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess; A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle; Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden; As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner; Blubber by Judy Blume Brave New World by Aldous Huxley; Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson; Canterbury Tales by Chaucer; Carrie by Stephen King; Catch-22 by Joseph Heller; Christine by Stephen King; Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Cujo by Stephen King; Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen; Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite; Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck; Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller; Decameron by Boccaccio; East of Eden by John Steinbeck; Fallen Angels by Walter Myers; Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland Flowers; For Algernon by Daniel Keyes; Forever by Judy Blume; Grendel by John Champlin Gardner; Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam; Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling; Have to Go by Robert Munsch; Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman; How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell; Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain; I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou; Impressions edited by Jack Booth; In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak; It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me by Norma Klein; James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence; Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman; Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm; Lord of the Flies by William Golding; Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein; Lysistrata by Aristophanes; More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz; My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier; My House by Nikki Giovanni; My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara; Night Chills by Dean Koontz; Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck; On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer; One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn; One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey; One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Ordinary People by Judith Guest; Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women’s Health Collective; Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy; Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl; Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz; Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz; Separate Peace by John Knowles Silas; Marner by George Eliot; Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain; The Bastard by John Jakes; The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger; The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier; The Color Purple by Alice Walker; The Devil’s Alternative by Frederick Forsyth; The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs; The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck; The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson; The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood; The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder; The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks; The Living Bible by William C. Bower; The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare; The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman; The Pigman by Paul Zindel; The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders; The Shining by Stephen King; The Witches by Roald Dahl; The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder; Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume; To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee; Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare; Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff; and Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth.
I heard Keith Olbermann reporting tonight that the McCain ‘Celebrity’ ad included:
“…the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Washington Monument, and the Victory Tower in Berlin as Bob Herbert put it – three phallic symbols, two blonds and Barack Obama”.
As much as I would like to see journalists unravel that this was indeed somehow racially motivated and intended to diminish Senator Obama as a part of the overall smear campaign – the facts must support the allegations.
In fact, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Washington Monument never appeared in the advertisement. These were three different views of the same Siegessaule, or Victory Tower, in Berlin’s Tiergarten Park. It’s really important that we get the facts straight, especially when making allegations of this nature. There’s no room for such a mistake when the stakes are this high...we're better than that!
Happy Birthday Barack, best wishes to you today on your 47th birthday! Echoing another blogger's wishes:
May you be blessed with the wisdom, knowledge patience, understanding and humility to restore our nation; making its later glory better than the former.
In the past week, we’ve witnessed John McCain execute one of the all time biggest spotlight hijackings during a presidential campaign. It was quite a feat, considering the previous week had been all Barack’s as he met with world leaders and spoke to more than 200,000 people at Berlin’s Tiergarten Park. Nothing of substance changed, yet McCain was able to redirect the spotlight by ramping up a negative campaign, thus turning news coverage in his favor.
I think it is a perfect time to roll out the Vice Presidential choice and regain the spotlight. If it is done Monday, perhaps in the early afternoon, it will be guaranteed to change the topic for the day and will likely last throughout the week before the news focus switches to the Olympics on Friday.
It is ludicrous to suggest that Barack, in addressing the racist overtones emanating from the McCain campaign, is himself being racist.
Racism is defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “…racial prejudice or discrimination”. As outlined in Wikipedia, racism is the belief that
“…race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race”.
It’s extremely hard for me to understand how the McCain Campaign could have the cojones to say that Barack is being racist in defending himself against this barrage of negative attacks. His goal is simply to deemphasize race. Barack’s intended audience is undecided white voters who may be leery of Obama because of all of the references (some blatant, as on Fox News; others more veiled) to Barack’s “differences” with them. Millions of White Americans across this nation have had very little exposure to people different than themselves and this understandably puts Barack at a disadvantage.
There’s no suggestion from Obama that he believes Blacks are superior to Whites (which would warrant the charge “racism” as defined above). Quite to the contrary, he is making a case to millions of Americans who don’t have regular interactions with people of color that his “differences” neither diminish his value as a human being nor his potential to be our Nations leader. That would be defined as fighting against racism.
Once again, Barack is correct and McCain is way WAY off track…
Why doesn’t our Platform on Electoral Reform include doing away with the Electoral College? I can sort of understand past arguments made that the Electoral College protects the rights of smaller states, but it does seem inherently undemocratic.
I started thinking about this today when I heard Barack was going to make an appearance in Houston. I thought to myself; “…that’s strange – why would he come here since this isn’t a battleground state?”
At the risk of sounding envious, it doesn’t seem fair to me that the swing states get so much attention (of course, I’m sure to some it is considered a nuisance). Might presidents show favoritism toward swing states after an election in order to shore up the base in a given state - making it easier to win again the next cycle? Their familiarity with the needs of certain states would naturally be much greater than with others.
Bush bullied his way into our collective national disaster (with the assistance of a Conservative majority on the Supreme Court) because of this system. But this wasn’t the first time a candidate receiving the plurality of the nationwide popular votes has lost the election; it’s happened twice before.
If the candidate receiving the majority of popular votes had been elected, we would have had President Samuel J. Tilden instead of President Rutherford B. Hayes (1876), a second term of President Grover Cleveland instead of Benjamin Harrison (1888), and President Al Gore instead of George W. Bush. I’m not sure about the first two, but having a President Gore sure would have saved us all a lot of grief!
I personally believe it would be better if candidates felt free to travel all over this country to gain their support. Why not choose now to eliminate this antiquated system? I’m really curious what others might think.
I recall early in the Bush Administration when Bush told his then Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill, to convene a meeting (I believe) to address future federal budget deficits. Paul O'Neill, being the independent thinker he is, planned to invite the smartest economists from all political points of view. I remember hearing that the Bush Administration nixed that idea and gave O'Neill a list of acceptable partisan economists who would advance the Bush agenda.
This has been the hallmark of the Bush Administration: quell descent and promote loyalty. Not long after this, O'Neill resigned from his post. Looking back now, Bush's insistance on surrounding himself with loyal partisan economists doesn't appear to have been a very wise choice.
That is the part that has bothered me most about the Bush Administration, and Barack Obama is stepping up like a true leader and showing how it should be done.
Sorry Rachel Maddow, you're usually dead on but you sure missed this one. On having the courage and forethought to meet with Bush's economic advisors, Barack is doing exactly the right thing!
Article by JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama told House Democrats on Tuesday that as president he would order his attorney general to scour White House executive orders and expunge any that "trample on liberty," several lawmakers said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080730/ap_on_el_pr/obama;_ylt=AoNyZW30Yqq1ryA0AjaDk_yyFz4D
I believe Barack would be well advised to turn the tables and play the game a while. Here are just a few of the words I’d begin to associate with McCain – angry, desperate, outdated, inflexible, old, partisan.
A good start would be to include the following phrase so that it makes the evening news:
“…every American should be deeply concerned by John McCain’s willingness to participate in angry partisan rhetoric, even when the facts clearly do not support points he is so desperately trying to make.”
I’m looking forward to Senator Obama’s response to John McCain. I can imagine it going something like this:
Trolls are out in force - please remember not to feed the trolls. Report them and move on. I've already made the mistake a few times tonight.
I certainly don't want to perpetuate the right-wing rumor mill, but what's going on with the so called John Edwards scandal? I consider him to be one of Barack’s best choices for VP and am wondering whether this is an attempt to slander him or do the accusations have merit? I haven’t seen anything here on the blogs and it’s only hinted at in the news – is he really in political trouble?
John McCain was planning to visit Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal today in New Orleans but canceled due to the weather. This struck me as odd since Hurricane Dolly is moving inland in South Texas, hundreds of miles away, and is having absolutely no effect in Louisiana. Then I read about an enormous oil spill that occurred on the Mississippi River this morning, closing more than 30 miles of river down to the mouth for cleanup. What a gaffe! These two have been pushing to open our coasts up to new offshore drilling and have been insisting how significant oil spills never happen!
Please read this important Huffington Post article by Karen Dalton-Beninato, it was largely missed by the MSN today. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-daltonbeninato/oil-of-delay-mccain-cance_b_114620.html
I am amazed at how the MSM is now bending over backwards to give McCain equal time. Just in case anyone has forgotten – the Fairness Doctrine was overturned in 1984 at the hands of Ronald Regan and a Republican Congress because it was supposedly limiting the “breadth” of public debate. Funny how until now, conservatives have argued that it was an attempt to regulate and control free speech, and now these same people are concerned that the coverage is becoming one sided and unfair. The McCain Campaign is even asking people to judge between two videos they plan to air regarding this supposed “biased” coverage. http://www.johnmccain.com/video/love.htm
Cry me a river…
