GOP Using Reid's Comments to Derail Healthcare

I'm already so sick to death of hearing about Harry Reid's comments. The GOP, which attracts very few minorities to its party, but plenty of bigots, doesn't care about Reid's comments. Republicans are only desperate to throw healthcare off the rails. They don't care about anything except for party politics and climbing out of the hole they threw themselves down. Republicans still have no ideas.

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Obama is No Ideologue

On Washington Week with Gwen Ifill, John Dickerson of Slate answered the question: Obama decided against releasing the detainee photos, does this mean he's moving to the right?
Dickerson said, correctly, that Obama handles each case as it comes.
In other words, he doesn't adhere to a rigid ideology, which is why he's keeping the left and the right on their feet. The left believes that Obama should always agree with them and the right is always surprised when Obama agrees with them. It's also why people have a hard time figuring out his ideology. He's flexible. He thinks on his feet and he doesn't put every problem into a box.

Washington Week Extra March 22

I don't care if republicans have anything good to say. I'm tired of their shrilly, constant, hypocrisy:

Washington Week Extra March 7

Washington Week Extra Feb. 28

The news of the week with Gwen Ifill:

Washington Week Webcast Extra Discuss Geithner

Ifill, Todd, Mitchell Could Be Next Meet the Press Host

Meet the Press is close to getting a new host. I'd pick Gwen Ifill. 

LAT: NBC executives are closing in on a decision about who will take over "Meet the Press," its venerable Sunday morning political talk show, with the announcement coming possibly on Dec. 7.

According to network sources, that may be Tom Brokaw's last day on the air as interim moderator of the program, a post he assumed after the sudden death of longtime host Tim Russert in June.

People close to the process said that they did not yet know who would be ultimately named to the job, arguably Washington's most powerful journalistic perch. The deliberations have been closely guarded by NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker and NBC News President Steve Capus, who have not yet made a decision, said spokeswoman Allison Gollust.
Barring a last-minute surprise, network insiders and television news observers expect the new moderator -- or moderators -- will be drawn from a short list of candidates that include NBC chief White House correspondent David Gregory, PBS anchor Gwen Ifill, NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell and NBC political director Chuck Todd. Dark horses include CBS anchor Katie Couric, whose name was floated in internal discussions, according to two sources, but is apparently not interested.

Veteran ABC anchor Ted Koppel has also been mentioned as a contender. But Koppel, who announced Tuesday that he was leaving his post at Discovery Channel, said he had not spoken with NBC and had little interest in getting into "a weekly grind again."

Luke Russert talks to the Buffalo News:

“Some children of famous people have real difficulty because they feel they have to live up to expectations,” he said. “I just try to live up to my own, which are very high. I’ve often said I can be one-eighth of the man who my father was and would have accomplished a great lot. So I’m really not worried about trying to outdo him, trying to be better than him. I’m very comfortable just being me.”

He appreciates the opportunity that NBC News gave him to be its youth reporter after he was so impressive during TV interviews following his father’s death.

“NBC took a lot of criticism for hiring me, saying that was just straight nepotism,” Russert said. “But they put me in the position to be successful, and I’m eternally grateful.”

Russert may follow the youth vote this weekend to Chippewa Street. “It is refreshing to pay those Buffalo beer prices when you live in Washington and spend a lot of time in New York and Boston,” he said. “You can actually get a beer for less than $7.”

McCain Was Against Tax Cuts for the Rich

He used to be against tax cuts for the rich, said it was unfair, until he embraced George Bush.

What a grump

Palin Punctuates the Bush Administration

Imagine if Palin wasn't attractive. 

Just sit there and imagine her looking homely. Does anyone think that Palin would be getting away with a lack of intellect? The answer is clearly no. She wouldn't be getting away with anything. She knows she is beautiful (she is a former beauty queen participant) and she knows how to use it to compensate for what she lacks. Her visual appeal is as shallow as McCain's judgement.

And here's Bob Herbert with another great observation:

Sarah Palin is the perfect exclamation point to the Bush years.
We’ve lived through nearly two terms of an administration that believed it could create its own reality:

“Deficits don’t matter.” “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.” “Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere.”

Now comes Ms. Palin, a smiling, bubbly vice-presidential candidate who travels in an alternate language universe. For Ms. Palin, such things as context, syntax and the proximity of answers to questions have no meaning.

In her closing remarks at the vice-presidential debate Thursday night, Ms. Palin referred earnestly, if loosely, to a quote from Ronald Reagan. He had warned that if Americans weren’t vigilant in protecting their freedom, they would find themselves spending their “sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.”

What Ms. Palin didn’t say was that the menace to freedom that Reagan was talking about was Medicare. As the historian Robert Dallek has pointed out, Reagan “saw Medicare as the advance wave of socialism, which would ‘invade every area of freedom in this country.’ ”

Does Ms. Palin agree with that Looney Tunes notion? Or was this just another case of the aw-shucks, darn-right, I’m-just-a-hockey-mom governor of Alaska mouthing something completely devoid of meaning?

Here’s Ms. Palin during the debate: “Say it ain’t so, Joe! There you go pointing backwards again ... Now, doggone it, let’s look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I’m glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and God bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right?”
....
Where is the evidence that Governor Palin even understands these complex and enormously challenging problems? During the debate she twice referred to General McKiernan as “McClellan.” Neither Ms. Ifill nor Senator Biden corrected her.

But after Senator Biden suggested that John McCain’s answer to the nation’s energy problems was to “drill, drill, drill,” Ms. Palin promptly pointed out, as if scoring a point, that “the chant is ‘Drill, baby, drill!’ ”

How’s that for perspective? The credit markets are frozen. Our top general in Afghanistan is dialing 911. Americans are losing jobs by the scores of thousands. And Sarah Palin is making sure we know that the chant is “drill, baby, drill!” not “drill, drill, drill.”

Palin Holds Her Own

Palin did well. Biden did well.
It was civil and Gwen Ifill was totally fair, even softball. There were no questions about dinosaurs and humans walking the Earth together, religion and government or seeing Russia.
I was hoping for some drama on Palin's end, but it didn't happen. She is a smart debater, but lacks substance. She successfully avoided questions she didn't want to answer. As a watcher, it was easy to lose track of the question. I'm sure she connected with people who enjoy that cutesy talk. I don't know why. That talk does nothing for me. It's all performance.
Her pat answers to everything: lower taxes and drill, drill, drill, or rather "drill baby drill" and the surge worked.
She was wrong on Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai has criticized the U.S. for killing too many civilians and has made a special request to be more targeted and thoughtful. 
Biden held back big time. Good move, no harm. He also was to the point. Thanks Joe. But truthfully, I didn't pay as much attention to Joe. He didn't need to sell me. I think Joe's great.
Palin came out looking better because we thought she'd fall flat. Guess Obama's advisers were right.
I doubt Palin moved any independents, only rallied her base. Republicans have died and gone to heaven. 

I'd say she lost any undecided voters on the Mavericky One's position on the Iraq war. I think most of us, except for diehard war fans, want to move past the war in Iraq. She made it clear that McCain wasn't done -- he wasn't going to wave the white flag of surrender. 

I also think undecided voters will be able to see through the maverick charade. It's stale.
It will be interesting to see the polls tomorrow. I'm betting no change or an uptick for Obama.

Transcript
Link to debate polls. Cast your vote.
Fact check on Palin's claim that Obama voted to raise taxes 94 times.
More fact checking
Some analysis:
CNN
NYT
WaPo

Expect Palin the Pit Bull

Palin will be in beauty pageant mode with her lipstick on and her pit bull.

That's what I'm hoping: She attacks Joe, while Joe speaks substance to the people who are struggling to make ends meet. Zingers are cute but Americans are getting impatient and tired of performances and games.

A wise Palin would leave her zingers at the hotel. Independent voters don't seem interested in the kind of mean-spiritedness she unloaded at the convention. Only republicans seemed to have appreciated it.

If she goes on the attack and stumbles or has a few dull moments, people will know that she's plenty confident, but doesn't have the substance to back it up. She just needs one brilliantly dim moment to derail the McCain-Palin ticket for good. People will realize that Country First is just a slogan.

If she cracks on an energy question, an area where McCain's promoted her as an expert, then they're really done for.

Politico: ST. LOUIS — Sarah Palin plans to go on the attack in tonight’s debate, hitting Joe Biden for what she will call his foreign policy blunders and penchant for adopting liberal positions on taxes and other issues, according to campaign officials involved in prepping her for tonight’s showdown.

The Palin camp is projecting surprising self-confidence in the pre-debate hours, despite the vice presidential nominee’s uneven — and, at some points, peculiar — performances in recent television interviews, the officials say. Top advisers to John McCain privately say Palin’s recent CBS interview was a borderline disaster, especially since it played out in several segments over several days. Tonight will be different, they say.

“This is going to finally put her back into a position where we see her like we saw her the first couple weeks,” a McCain official said. “She was herself. She was authentic, and people related to that. ... Tonight, she’ll get into a rhythm. You’re going to see her in a way that you haven’t seen her yet.”

Look for Palin to have a pat answer when she gets flustered or doesn't know an answer. If she responds too many times with the pat answer, she'll be in trouble. She'll be better off admitting she doesn't know an answer, especially if Ifill asks about foreign policy. People will forgive her if she doesn't try to bluff. Throughout the debate she'll probably say over and over that she's a Washington outsider and she'll try and paint Joe as the old, Washington insider. She'll give us that down home accent and play up her values and try to turn the debate toward social issues, where she's strongest.

As for Joe, Im hoping he rattles her early on. She could use a humbling experience. But he'll probably tread lightly at first, and apparently, he's going to keep the focus on McCain. I'm hoping he speaks succinctly and allows Palin enough babbling time. Joe has said dumb things in the past, but everyone knows he's a bright man. It's Palin's intelligence that's in question. Is she really dim? Or just over her head? I think we'll learn that tonight.

Moderator Gwen Ifill just needs to be fair. She doesn't need to be anything else. She's a great moderator. I wish she would take over Meet the Press. Republicans are whining, though. They say that she could be biased because she is writing a book (Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama) that republicans have spun as pro Obama. The book is about the new generation of black politicians. It focuses on four people, including Obama. See Ifill talk about her book in the video below.

The Obama camp continues to tout Palin as a great debater:

"Governor Palin is one of the best debaters in American politics," Plouffe told the press corps traveling to St. Louis for tonight's event.

"I've watched all of her debates; she is an extremely good debater," Plouffe said. "We expect she'll have very, witty biting lines that she'll get off tonight. All of you that are like figure skating judges will give her some credit for that. But we think the American people who are watching at home tonight who are economically challenged who are fundamentally unhappy with the direction of this country, Joe Biden will do a very good job speaking to them."

One was tempted to ask whether Biden should show up at all.

In other words, Plouffe was saying that the press and the public shouldn't be distracted by the zingers.

"But our focus is on the person sitting at home, in Kent Ohio tonight, in Akron Ohio tonight," Plouffe said, "if he is struggling economically, who is delivering the message about an agenda that will most positively impact their lives and deliver the kind of change the country so desperately needs?"

McCain's pre-debate attack on Joe

Presidential Debates Include Town Hall

Poster at obamaartreport.com

Of the three presidential debates there will be one town hall style, one table style and a traditional podium debate.

Politico:
THE CAMPAIGNS THIS MORNING RELEASED A JOINT STATEMENT ON DEBATES:

Summary Of McCain-Obama Debate Agreement:

The two campaigns agreed today on a framework for four General Election debates, to be sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Key elements of the agreement are:

1. First Presidential Debate:
- Date: September 26
- Site: University of Mississippi
- Topic: Foreign Policy & National Security
- Moderator: Jim Lehrer
- Staging: Podium debate
- Answer Format: The debate will be broken into nine, 9-minute segments. The moderator will introduce a topic and allow each candidate 2 minutes to comment. After these initial answers, the moderator will facilitate an open discussion of the topic for the remaining 5 minutes, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment

2. Vice Presidential Debate
- Date: October 2nd
- Site: Washington University (St. Louis)
- Moderator: Gwen Ifill
- Staging/Answer Format: To be resolved after both parties' Vice Presidential nominees are selected.

3. Second Presidential Debate
- Date: October 7
- Site: Belmont University
- Moderator: Tom Brokaw
- Staging: Town Hall debate
- Format: The moderator will call on members of the audience (and draw questions from the internet). Each candidate will have 2 minutes to respond to each question. Following those initial answers, the moderator will invite the candidates to respond to the previous answers, for a total of 1 minute, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment. In the spirit of the Town Hall, all questions will come from the audience (or internet), and not the moderator.

4. Third Presidential Debate
- Date: October 15
- Site: Hofstra University
- Topic: Domestic and Economic policy
- Moderator: Bob Schieffer
- Staging: Candidates will be seated at a table
- Answer Format: Same as First Presidential Debate
- Closing Statements: At the end of this debate (only) each candidate shall have the opportunity for a 90 second closing statement.
All four debates will begin at 9pm ET, and last for 90 minutes. Both campaigns also agreed to accept the CPD's participation rules for third-party candidate participation.

Hillary is Not the End of the Road

hillary is the beginning of the road, not the end of the road for women in the white house. i wish i said that but it was gwen ifill on meet the press. women have got to open their eyes to that. just like obama quickly rose, on his merits, a woman will rise too. obama's presidency will help in that regard because his cabinet could be one of the most diverse ever.
hillary's supporters are so distraught that she's not going to be the first woman president that they've pulled out all the stops just like hillary. they probably haven't given a moment's thought to supporting obama at any time during the nomination process. but the not so die-hards already have begun the switch. the thing that i don't get is that the hillarys say, in protest, they will vote for the republican man but not the democratic man. i don't think that is ultimately what would happen though. that would be highly selfish of them. this nation that needs to get back on track. ultimately, hillary will come around. there's talk that hillary is staying in for the good of the campaign, that her staying in to the end will help rally her supporters to obama.