George Will calls Rand Paul "frivolous." Will said Paul doesn't understand that he's running for a Senate seat. He also said morality can be legislated, which was good to hear.
The people who supported Paul will continue to support him. But will the independent voters vote for him in the general election? It seems to me Americans are so frustrated with politicians that they're grasping at straws.
Cokie Roberts has it right, voters aren't anti-Washington, anti-democrat, anti-republican, or anti-Obama. They're looking for non-phonies, even if they're wacky, or ordinary, or in Sarah Palin's case, wacky, ordinary and ignorant.
Also, if the democrats were smart, they'd find a replacement for Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Attorney General running for Senate. Is the pool so shallow that democrats can't even find someone with a bit of integrity? Tim Kaine and Michael Steele
Obama says he hasn't been paying attention to what's going on with ACORN, even though the right has duct taped Obama to ACORN. Obama tells George that ACORN isn't the biggest issue threatening the country. Thank you. I've barely followed ACORN solely because the fringe made it the center of their mad, mad world.
Here’s our FULL exchange: STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the funding for ACORN? OBAMA: You know, if -- frankly, it's not really something I've followed closely. I didn't even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money. STEPHANOPOULOS: Both the Senate and the House have voted to cut it off. OBAMA: You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated. STEPHANOPOULOS: So you're not committing to -- to cut off the federal funding? OBAMA: George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It's not something I'm paying a lot of attention to. See the full episode here.
After George's interview with Obama, the roundtable discussed whether Obama is overexposed. Peggy Noonan, whom I used to have a certain amount of respect for, called Obama "boorish." Huh? Noonan was full of herself this morning and what was with all those faces she made? The debate over whether Obama is overexposed is stupid and another example of the media falling down on the job. What's the point of that argument. It's just ammunition for the right. The truth is if tomorrow you asked people on the street if they saw Obama over the weekend, some people would say "who's Obama?" "Others would say, no, I don't follow politics." Very few would say "yes." If you asked people if they heard the controversy about Obama being over exposed, they may have heard that. That's what perks people's ears up, controversy. On the CBS Sunday News show, one woman at a tea party explained the hate coming from the right. She said people are fearful that the liberals are taking over. The rightwing, which fears government, convinced their masses, largely through a small handful of people, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, that Obama is a big government liberal and the rightwing took over from there. Some people, of course, take hate to the extreme. On This Week, George Will denied racism. I don't understand why they deny it. It may not be the driving motivator of the rightwing but it certainly is an element and it's a dangerous and ugly element.
Apparently, they're dining at George Will's house. I like George Will and often, I agree with him. The HP gathers that Obama is dining with George, William Kristol, David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer, who absolutely can't stand Obama. Could you imagine George Bush reaching out like this? UH UH.
Paul Krugman and George Will discuss the bailout. Krugman says the bailout helps save workers and bides time until a real solution can be worked out. I don't know why anyone is still arguing. It seems that Bush will step in.
That's what some republicans say. Like Phil Gramm, McCain's economy mentor, they say we're all just a bunch of whiners. Everything's just fine. Some people aren't convinced that anything bad is happening. Maybe that's because it hasn't hit their world yet or they're not paying attention. Take George Will on This Week today. He says most people are paying their mortgages and things aren't that bad. Things look different where I live. Things are different in my household. Peggy Noonan says that nothing looks different. She compares today with selling apples in the street during the Depression, which is a silly comparison to make. The cost of living is higher today. The cost to compete in today's world is way higher than during the Depression. Today, you can't just make a living as a cashier. You have to have a advanced college degree. Today, you can't retire on next to nothing. You need a cool million. Comparing today to the Depression is apples and oranges. Today isn't like the Great Depression but that doesn't mean it hurts less.
Peggy Noonan: I am thankful for something we’re not seeing. One of the weirdest, most perceptually jarring things about the economic crisis is that everything looks the same. We are told every day and in every news venue that we are in Great Depression II, that we are in a crisis, a cataclysm, a meltdown, the credit crunch from hell, that we will lose millions of jobs, and that the great abundance is over and may never return. Three great investment banks have fallen while a fourth totters, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen 31% in six months. And yet when you free yourself from media and go outside for a walk, everything looks . . . the same. Everyone is dressed the same. Everyone looks as comfortable as they did three years ago, at the height of prosperity. The mall is still there, and people are still walking into the stores and daydreaming with half-full carts in aisle 3. Everyone’s still overweight. (An evolutionary biologist will someday write a paper positing that the reason for the obesity epidemic of the past decade is that we were storing up food like squirrels and bears, driven by an unconscious anthropomorphic knowledge that a time of great want was coming. Yes, I know it will be idiotic.) But the point is: Nothing looks different. In the Depression people sold apples on the street. They sold pencils. Angels with dirty faces wore coats too thin and short and shivered in line at the government surplus warehouse. There was the Dust Bowl, and the want of the cities. Captains of industry are said to have jumped from the skyscrapers of Wall Street. (Yes, those were the good old days. Just kidding!) People didn’t have enough food. They looked like a catastrophe was happening. We do not. It’s as if the news is full of floods but we haven’t seen it rain.
People are catching on to McCain's Off With Their Heads style of leadership. From conservative columnist George Will:
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 Manichean worldview drove him to his signature legislative achievement, the McCain-Feingold law's restrictions on campaigning. Today, his campaign is creatively finding interstices in laws intended to restrict campaign giving and spending. (For details, see The Washington Post of Sept. 17, Page A4; and The New York Times of Sept. 20, Page One.)
By a Gresham's Law of political discourse, McCain's Queen of Hearts intervention in the opaque financial crisis overshadowed a solid conservative complaint from the Republican Study Committee, chaired by Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the RSC decried the improvised torrent of bailouts as a "dangerous and unmistakable precedent for the federal government both to be looked to and indeed relied upon to save private sector companies from the consequences of their poor economic decisions." This letter, listing just $650 billion of the perhaps more than $1 trillion in new federal exposures to risk, was sent while McCain's campaign, characteristically substituting vehemence for coherence, was airing an ad warning that Obama favors "massive government, billions in spending increases." Read it all.
McCain counts on the stupidity of Americans while Obama is counting on their intelligence. Everywhere Obama goes, he says the American people are smart and won't get fooled again. Which America will win out?
McCain is hoping that his blatant lies won't penetrate the minds of Americans. He hired a walking lie -- Sarah Palin -- to act as if she's a smart energy expert, who is experienced in foreign policy because she can see Russia from Alaska. She said "Thanks but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere." Anyone who believes that is stupid, or shall we say misinformed or uninformed. There's too much information out there and we should ALL know better.
McCain's camp is counting on the ignorance of racists (or those nervous that if they vote for a black man, he'll put a Big Black Agenda into place) to help lure voters his way, nudging them with ads that exploit race ever so subtley.
After the collapse of the financial markets, blame for which can be placed squarely on republican's economic philosophy -- give more to the most and hope that it trickles down -- free markets are best, they'll regulate themselves -- you'd think people would be taking a second look at Obama. We shall see.
McCain is counting on Americans not being able to connect the dots. Republican leadership = disaster, the near catastrophic economic and political conditions that we're facing now. McCain's counting on them not knowing his history with Phil Gramm and McCain's love of deregulation. McCain is counting on them never having heard him admit he's not up on economics. McCain believes that if he changes his campaign slogan, then people will believe that he's a change agent.
McCain is counting on people not knowing enough about lobbyists and how much they influence government or how his lobbyist adviser Randy Schuenemann lobbied on behalf of Georgia. He's counting on Americans equating good soldier with good leader. He's counting on them thinking that Obama is elitist while McCain, with 7, 8, or 9 houses, is not. He's counting on them not knowing that he wants to deregulate the health insurance industry like the banking sector. He's counting on them not having seen any YouTube videos, where McCain gets all hot headed, where McCain talks about how much he loves Bush, where he eats cake on his birthday with George, while people were stranded on rooftops in New Orleans. McCain's counting on people not knowing that he's always voted against clean energy and technology.
McCain hired Palin to connect with the "values voter" and the low information voter, the ones who wouldn't vote for a black man, the PUMAs, the ones who don't have enough information to make an informed decision, so they vote for the person who is like them. Palin hunts moose. I hunt duck. Palin has a pregnant teen. I have a pregnant teen. Palin believes in that the Iraq war -- fighting Islam -- is God's plan. I believe that Islam is bad, and isn't Obama a Muslim? Palin speaks with a down home charm about fightin' and fixin'. Hey, so do I. Palin's a hockey mom. I'm a soccer mom. Palin doesn't believe in abortion. Isn't Obama a live baby killer? Palin believes that children shouldn't read about gay people. I believe gay people are sinners. Palin is hot. I wish I was hot. Palin has some great red shoes. I'm going to get a pair of those great red shoes and the glasses to match. Palin is popular. I wish I was popular.
I'm sorry but after getting so much new information about Palin, you'd be a dummy not to recognize that she's clueless. Utterly clueless. McCain picked her to be second in command. What does this say about McCain? About what he thinks of Americans? But McCain's counting on Americans to be charmed. Sadly, women are being exploited by the republican party.
George Will, a big critic of Obama, disclosed yesterday on Meet the Press that his wife Mari Manseng is writing Cindy McCain's speech. Just an interesting tidbit. Cindy McCain is headlining the convention tonight with Laura Bush.
CNN: The two expressed their support for those affected by the storm when they spoke to the Louisiana delegation to the convention Monday morning, just hours after Hurricane Gustav came ashore.
"America stands with you during this trying time," Cindy McCain, wife of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, said. "And from all of us here, as you know, we have gathered together and ... we committed ourselves to making sure that we raise funds, we raise goods, anything else that will be needed on behalf of those people that are affected so desperately by this tragedy."
Bush, who traveled often to the Gulf Coast region to encourage the rebuilding of school districts damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said he hopes children would be able to return to school quickly after the storm passes.
"We can't believe that just three years almost to the date and another hurricane is coming in. We're all praying that the damage will not be that bad, that people will be able to get right back home," Bush said. "We're all praying. I know you can do it again."
