This election has been dominated by one angle more than others: stories.

Obama’s story (mixed race marriage, distant father, single mother, active grandparents, out of poverty into excellence, etc).

McCain’s story (POW, POW, Maverick, POW, POW, straight talk, POW, Maverick).

And then when unknown Sarah Palin popped up, her story (Alaska, dead moose, pregnant daughter, kid with down syndrome, oil and gas, ebay the plane, “reformer”).

The one story we don’t hear much of is Joe Biden’s.

Joe was a stutterer at a young age. Because of the latin classes at his school, he was nick named Joe “Impedimenta,” the latin root for impediment, as in his speech impediment. Kids are mean, and apparently they’re even mean in Latin.

He was elected to the senate in classic underdog style. His sister was his campaign manager, his brother was his fundraiser, and they distributed newsprint position papers in neighborhoods around the state, ousting a Republican incumbent by a narrow margin.

About a month after the election, Joe’s wife and daughter died in a car crash, and their two sons where severely injured.

Joe contemplated leaving his life of politics before it began. He said later that it was during that time that he came to understand why some people don’t just consider suicide an option, but a rational option.

He was persuaded by a Democratic congressional leader to go to work. Joe was sworn in as a senator at his son’s bedside.

For most of his first term, it didn’t seem like Joe would make it. He commuted every night back to his home in Delaware to be with his sons, and left orders with his staff that if his boys called, his staffers were to immediately get him from the Senate floor.

Joe remarried and had another child, a daughter. To this day, Joe does not work on December 18th, the anniversary of his first wife and daughter’s death.

He has been rated as the second poorest member of congress. Remember that when they pitch that “liberal elite” bullshit your way.

Joe has earned a reputation for occasionally putting his foot in his mouth, and that’s part of what derailed both of his efforts in the two Democratic presidential primaries he’s entered.

I watched Joe in the debate, and what struck me most was that supremely human moment when he choked up talking about how he lost his wife and daughter. We don’t often let our politicians be too human, and I think that this particular moment is going to work well in Joe’s favor because it was genuine, but not excessive.

What was shocking to me about it is that I’d never heard about that before. I live and breathe politics most days, and I’ve never heard much of anything about Joe as a man, just Joe as a long-winded Senator.

I think perhaps that’s because Joe doesn’t want to talk about it. Undoubtedly, talking about his experiences trying to raise his two sons after his wife and daughter died while serving his first term as senator for those years before he remarried, that’s a story that would “play in Peoria.” It would undoubtedly gain a great deal of sympathy, and appeal on a personal level to the electorate.

I keep hearing people talk about how “Real” Sarah Palin is, and sometimes it’s used to directly juxtapose her against Joe Biden, the policy wonk.

I think Joe just doesn’t think it’s right to use his dead wife and daughter for political gain. Or his son, who’s an army attorney, sent to Iraq this weekend. Sarah Palin seemed more than happy to talk about her son’s service, and people knew all about it.

In business terms, we would say that Joe isn’t fully “leveraging” his family for political purposes.

I have always been a Biden fan, I think he makes a better candidate for VP than he did for President, but I always had a lot of respect for his stances on policy. As I read more about who he is as a man, I find that I have a much deeper respect for him personally.

The way I interpret the hidden story line of Joe Biden then, is this: Joe is one of those figures who come to Washington, reverential of America. Someone who knows the office he holds is something much greater than he, as a man, is. The kind of person who actually believes that politics is a noble profession (maybe not the most noble, but let’s be realistic).

His 2007 memoir, “Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics,” uses a line from Frost’s “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” for the title. (One more point for Democrats in the Literary Allusion category).

When he writes in the memoir about how he overcame his severe stutter, Joe says that he had a lot of support from his family and his teachers. And that he would recite poetry to himself in a mirror.

I imagine Frost would’ve been among the sort of classic American poetry he would’ve read to himself.

Biden consistently has used the lesson of his father, “You get knocked down, you get up.” He used it in the debate and it was another moment where he was able to relate on a more basic level. The part of the lesson that I think is implied, but that he never seems to mention, is that you get up, because you’ve still got more to do.

I imagine the young Joe Impedimenta in front of the mirror, unaware of the personal tragedy that began Joe’s political career and made him think about abandoning it.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Stay tuned, I’ll be live blogging tomorrow night’s presidential debate. Hope you’re all watching and deciding to vote for Barack Obama (this blog is neither fair, nor balanced).

I was going to write a celebratory, non-political blog today to celebrate my 100th post on the217.

Then, I saw this.

Rep. Barney Frank authored and pushed HR 1427 in March of 2007, two months after he became chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, a bill which would’ve provided all of the oversight that was obviously needed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It passed the house, went to the Senate, was referred to the senate banking committee headed by Chris Dodd, and there, the bill quietly died.

Which didn’t stop Bill O’Reilly from shouting at Frank about how he was responsible for the money investors in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost. Which is absolutely preposterous. People don’t invest in Fannie and Freddie because of Barney Frank, they invest because they feel that the government support of the institutions protects them against a loss, because they knew when they invested that even if things went wrong, the government would step in to protect them from financial ruin. (They were right about that).

The interview, where O’Reilly let Frank talk for less than a minute before Bill O started just shouting inanities, and absurd claims.

Culminating in O’Reilly calling Representative Barney Frank a coward.

Now, like I said, Barney Frank had, and as Frank tries to explain in his Factor appearance, within two months of taking leadership of the house committee, authored and passed a bill to radically regulate the failing Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs).

Now if O’Reilly had Chris Dodd come on to talk about how H.R. 1427 stalled in his committee, that would’ve made sense.

So why is O’Reilly picking on Barney Frank, particularly, why is he picking on Frank instead of Chris Dodd?

Simple, Barney Frank is a liberal, gay Jew, and Rupert Murdoch has it out for Frank.

One of only two openly gay members of congress, and O’Reilly brings him on to berate him.

Let me repeat that, O’Reilly called one of two openly gay members of congress a coward.

Bill O’Reilly is a manipulative cunt, and that statement is neither hyperbole, nor crass enough to capture how vile a man Bill O’Reilly really is. He has made a career of fear-mongering. He says to his viewers:

“Be Afraid! Be Angry! Hate These People!” And then he points at whomever he disagrees with.

When he’s not calling them liars or cowards, his favorite accusation is to say that someone is “unAmerican.”

Which brings something readily to mind for those of us who pay attention to the history of American fear-mongering: Senator Joseph McCarthy.

From wikipedia:

“The term “McCarthyism,” coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy’s practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist pursuits. Today the term is used more generally to describe demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.[2]”

Yes, I am comparing Bill O’Reilly to the fascist witch-hunter McCarthy. Not in the way that O’Reilly “wasn’t making a comparison” of Nancy Pelosi to Adolf Hitler recently. I’m making a serious comparison.

Of course, Bill O’Reilly isn’t as powerful as Joe McCarthy was at his peak. But he uses an uncomfortably similar set of tactics, using facts as a support for his agenda, but not the foundation of his agenda. And he will do whatever he can to suggest that the people who he attacks are trying to destroy America.

His low point in my eyes, was this interview with a member of Iraq Veterans Against The War where he suggests as subtly as necessary that Geoffrey Millard (a veteran of nine years) is anti-military and unamerican.

Edward Murrow said of McCarthy

“No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.

This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”

But I must say this for Senator McCarthy: he may have used immoral manipulation, fear-mongering, lies, and hatred to increase his personal and political power and influence. By manipulating the fears of Americans. But he did not then use this increased power and influence to personally enrich himself on a material basis. Bill O’Reilly gets paid a whole lot of money to call Barney Frank a coward.

Tonight I’ll be blogging live during the VP debate. With fact checking, witty remarks, and the occasional tally of points in the VPRO debate drinking game. Keep looking to see my by the minute or so updates.

Let’s get drunk and pick the second most important member of the federal government.

8:03 Palin’s in a lovely black evening suit. Like a funeral. A funeral for the dignity of the office of the Vice President.

8:05 Biden: “Barack Obama laid out four basic criteria for any kind of rescue plan here. He, first of all, said there has to be oversight. We’re not going to write any check to anybody unless there’s oversight for the — of the secretary of Treasury.”

Everybody wants oversight except for Sec. Paulson, so the idea that either candidate is taking credit for the oversight provisions is ludicrous.

8:07 Palin: “Two years ago, remember, it was John McCain who pushed so hard with the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reform measures. He sounded that warning bell.”

It’s been a bad time Gov. Palin. A very bad time. McCain did push for reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so that’s not a lie. The very rhetoric of the McCain campaign about McCain’s leadership is absolute bullshit. It always goes “Democrats suck. McCain is above of partisan politics.” In the same fucking breath.

8:08 Biden: “Two weeks before that, [McCain] said George — we’ve made great economic progress under George Bush’s policies.”

Biden will continue to tie McCain to Bush throughout this thing.

8:08 Palin:”John McCain, in referring to the fundamental of our economy being strong, he was talking to and he was talking about the American workforce. And the American workforce is the greatest in this world, with the ingenuity and the work ethic that is just entrenched in our workforce.”

This doubleback about how McCain meant the ingenuity of the American worker when he said “the fundamentals of the economy are strong,” is absolute bullshit. When he said the “fundamentals of our economy,” he meant the fundamentals of our economy, which are the banks and financial services.

8:09 Palin: “Darn right it was the predator lenders, who tried to talk Americans into thinking that it was smart to buy a $300,000 house if we could only afford a $100,000 house. ”

This was not predator lenders, the whole argument behind corrupt lending practices is COMPLETELY FUCKING RETARDED, because the implication is that banks made bad loans to an excessive extent on purpose. Banks make money when loans are repaid, to say that this crisis was malicious is totally retarded. There was a faulty incentive structure associated with the mortgage-backed-security problems, but to reason that large banks are inherently evil and corrupt is a lie. Banks are value neutral, their job is just to make money, and that doesn’t necessarily mean greed.

8:11 Biden “As a matter of fact, John recently wrote an article in a major magazine saying that he wants to do for the health care industry deregulate it and let the free market move like he did for the banking industry.”

McCain did say that he wanted to deregulate the healthcare industry in “Contingencies” magazine and used the financial services deregulation as an example of success.

8:12 Palin: “Now, Barack Obama and Sen. Biden also voted for the largest tax increases in U.S. history.”

Palin claims that Biden and Obama voted for the largest tax increases in American history. This is one of those conservative logic moments where voting against tax cuts is the same as voting to raise taxes. These are not the same thing.

Biden’s response? “…the vote she’s referring to, John McCain voted the exact same way. It was a budget procedural vote. John McCain voted the same way. It did not raise taxes.”

8:14 Biden keeps repeating that Governor Palin “did not answer.” Apparently this is his strategy for showing Palin’s inexperience.

8:15 Ifill: “Sen. Biden, we want to talk about taxes, let’s talk about taxes. You proposed raising taxes on people who earn over $250,000 a year. The question for you is, why is that not class warfare…”

Gwen Ifill just said that a tax hike on people who make $250,000 or more per year might be “class warfare.” Didn’t Bill O’Reilly tell me last night that Ifill wanted Obama to win so she could sell more books? Or was that just bullshit so that when Palin falls on her face, conservative pundits can blame it on a “bias” that they invented for the moderator?

8:17 Palin: “But when you talk about Barack’s plan to tax increase affecting only those making $250,000 a year or more, you’re forgetting millions of small businesses that are going to fit into that category. ”

Businesses are taxed on profit, not $250,000 worth of revenue. Also, Palin’s reported household income for 2007 was less than $250,000. Even Palin herself would not be hit by this tax hike on the wealthy.

8:20 Palin: Obama wants a trillion of new spending.

Both candidates spending plans were analyzed by the independent Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Both candidates plans were about equal on the projected effects of their respective spending plans. Read it here.

8:24 Palin “And that’s why Tillerson at Exxon and Mulva at ConocoPhillips, bless their hearts, they’re doing what they need to do, as corporate CEOs…”

Palin just mentioned the names of two different energy company’s CEOs to demonstrate that being Gov. of Alaska makes her an energy expert. She’s also implying that she deserves credit for the fact that Alaska naturally has natural gas and oil deposits.

8:25 More than 3/4ths of Alaska state revenue is tied to oil.

8:26 Palin: “…has been more and more revelation made aware now to Americans about the corruption and the greed on Wall Street.”

Corruption and greed again! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Is McCain Palin actually suggesting that they are going to destroy the profit motive?

8:27 Palin is a millionaire, don’t forget it when she says that she’s “main street” or “joe six pack.”

8:29 Palin is going to keep hammering energy, the goal is to change the tone of the conversation and to say that Palin is an energy expert. Also, we rely on foreign oil because it’s cheapest. If we subsidize the oil industry, it will end up being cheaper at the pump, but then covered with tax dollars, which means that it will actually cost Americans more to drill domestically.

8:31 Is it just me, or does Palin bring up Alaska’s oil and natural gas as a qualification more often than McCain brings up his POW status?

8:32 The “all of the above approach” is another example of where Republicans are making a complicated issue and presenting it as something with an easy, intuitive response. “What should we do about energy?” America asks. “Everything,” Republicans respond. Well that must be the best choice, right?

8:34 Palin: “The chant is “drill, baby, drill.” And that’s what we hear all across this country in our rallies because people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy to be tapped into.”

Drill baby, drill. That is the chant of Americans. Because they don’t understand that exploratory drilling takes ten years to make a noticeable impact on fuel prices, and I’m hoping that in ten years we no longer have regular unleaded at the gas station, or Hummers for that matter.

8:36 YAY GAY MARRIAGE! (I never claimed to be an unbiased observer. Although I think I could argue that Gwen Ifill was setting up Biden by asking the question). Both candidates dealt with this issue as much as was necessary in an election that ought to be about the Economy, Iraq, and Energy.

8:37 Palin’s promise against gay marriage is a direct appeal to the hard core republican base. It’s what she’s on the ticket for. They might not want to “prohibit” rights for visitation by gay partners, but she certainly won’t fight for it.

8:39 Palin said that the war in Iraq was “a mission from God.”

8:40 Palin ” Barack Obama voted against funding troops there after promising that he would not do so.”

This attack on Barack Obama as voting against funding the troops (he voted against a funding measure because it had no timetable for withdrawal) is totally stupid. McCain also voted against funding the troops (in a bill that did have troop withdrawal timetables, as Biden just pointed out). The idea that Americans can’t understand the nuance of this is totally insulting.

8:43 Palin: “You guys opposed the surge. The surge worked. Barack Obama still can’t admit the surge works.”

The surge “worked” in the sense that it reduced violence. It didn’t make Iraq more ready for us to leave. Further, the idea that a timetable to leave is the same as surrender is completely fucking idiotic.
Republicans keep saying that if we pick a day to leave Iraq, then everything will go to shit.

So what’s their plan? Leave in the middle of the night and the Iraqi people will wake up with a fucking note on the fridge?

Dear Iraq,
Sorry we didn’t say goodbye.
Good Luck!

8:45 Pakistan is best controlled by increasing the relative power of India, which we could do if we focused more on trading with India (currently our sixteenth largest trading partner behind Belgium) instead of China (currently our number two trading partner behind Dan Akroyd… I mean Canada). Neither candidate has even really mentioned India in the entire campaign to my knowledge. You know, where one sixth of the world population exists? World’s largest democracy? Am I the only one who cares about India? (Me and Fareed Zakaria). By the way, India’s recent economic growth? It’s the same type of “bottom up” growth that Biden and Obama are talking about. And it’s working.

8:47 Palin: “when we’re dealing with Ahmadinejad as a leader of Iran. Iran claiming that Israel as he termed it, a stinking corpse, a country that should be wiped off the face of the earth.”

Ahmadinejad is not the leader of Iran. The leader of Iran is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader. And Ahmadinejad talks a big game on the world stage, but he is not dangerous unless Khamenei turns against us. Further, if we wanted to remove Ahmadinejad, we should be really, really friendly with him. The more pictures there are of him with an American president, the faster he’ll lose popularity in Iran.

*** Later in the debate: “The fact of the matter is, it surprises me that Senator McCain doesn’t realize that Ahmadinejad does not control the security apparatus in Iran. The theocracy controls the security apparatus, number one.”***

8:50 Palin: “Barack Obama has said he would be willing to meet with- without preconditions being met first.”

By the way, the way that Caeser was able to politically position himself to make war with Pompeii even though Pompeii had accepted Caeser’s offer of truce (thereby swinging public opinion against war)?

Pompeii refused to meet Caeser (without preconditions).

Thus fell the Republic of Rome forever.

8:52 Palin: “…an ally like we have in Israel…We will support Israel. ”

Palin’s dick sucking of Israel through the campaign is not only stupid; it’s pandering to the Jewish voters of (must-win) Florida, it’s absurd. Remember when Israel bombed the living shit out of Lebanon and strengthened Hezbellah? And then Palin recently said that we should “never second guess Israel.”

8:56 Biden: “the issue is, how different is John McCain’s policy going to be than George Bush’s? I haven’t heard anything yet.”

Biden ties McCain Palin to Bush again. The real loser of this debate so far is George W. Bush.

8:57 Palin: “Our nuclear weaponry here in the U.S. is used as a deterrent. And that’s a safe, stable way to use nuclear weaponry.”

Palin just said that the US nuclear arsenal is used responsively, to protect the world.
Our 14,000 nuclear weapons.

8:58 Biden: “We need to spend more money on the infrastructure in Afghanistan.”

Afghanistan is the central front on the war on terror. I personally agree. The Republican line that Al Qaeda said that Iraq is the central front of the war on terror is completely stupid. It means that if we agree with Al Qaeda that Iraq is the central front of the war on terror, THAT WE ARE LETTING OUR ENEMIES CHOOSE OUR BATTLES. Fundamental strategy: pick your battles. Don’t let your enemies. Al Qaeda wanted us to fight in Iraq, because they thought a war of attrition on public opinion would eventually force a vietnam type defeat, destabilize the region, and train a new generation of terrorists.

9:02 Darfur is the greatest current travesty in the world right now, and involvement their could drastically improve the reputation of this country on the national stage. Our reputation that George Bush has horrifically tarnished.

9:04 Palin: “Oh, yeah, it’s so obvious I’m a Washington outsider. And someone just not used to the way you guys operate. Because here you voted for the war and now you oppose the war. You’re one who says, as so many politicians do, I was for it before I was against it or vice- versa.”

Palin is saying that politicians who change their minds are feeble, and attacks the kind of “flip-flopping” that she’s accusing both Barack and Biden of. Kind of like how she sought the Bridge to nowhere, and then turned against it when it turned out that it might be politically dangerous. Besides, the work of a great mind is to adapt to the way the world changes, not pick a position and myopically defend it. In his recent foreign policy and economic moves, even W. seems to have learned this lesson.

9:05 They’ve been talking about Darfur for like five minutes now and neither of them has had the balls to say that the biggest supporter of the Sudanese government is China.

9:06 Biden: “John McCain said exactly what Dick Cheney said…”

The only thing worse than being associated with George W. Bush is being associated with Dick Cheney leading up to the Iraq war.

9:07 Palin: “John McCain knows how to win a war.”

Why, because of his experience, of course. In our greatest military failure ever.

9:09 Biden: “And a policy that would reject the Bush Doctrine of preemption and regime change…”

Biden brings up the Bush Doctrine. Let’s see if Palin has learned what it is yet.

9:10 Palin: “Just everyday working class Americans saying, you know, government, just get out of my way.”

Yeah, ask the middle class if they’re better off now then they were when Bill Clinton was president. (They’re not).

9:11 Palin: ” Say it ain’t so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again.”

Palin keeps saying that the Democrats are focusing too much on George W. Bush. If there’s one thing to learn from the Bush administration, it’s that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. With Sarah Palin as their Vice President.

9:14 Palin: “Of course, we know what a vice president does. And that’s not only to preside over the Senate and will take that position very seriously also.”

Palin has learned the responsibilities of the VP. Hurrah! Oh, and Palin is going to be our energy Czar apparently?

9:15 As Biden describes what he thinks he’ll do as VP, he’s really saying “Not be Dick Cheney.”

9:17 Biden: “Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history.”

Biden is right, Cheney is essentially Darth Vader with the voice of the Penguin from the original Batman TV show.

9:21 Biden: “Look, I understand what it’s like to be a single parent. When my wife and daughter died and my two sons were gravely injured, I understand what it’s like as a parent to wonder what it’s like if your kid’s going to make it.

I understand what it’s like to sit around the kitchen table with a father who says, “I’ve got to leave, champ, because there’s no jobs here. I got to head down to Wilmington. And when we get enough money, honey, we’ll bring you down.”

Biden just choked up talking about how his wife and daughter had died, and that means he wins. I don’t mean that cynically, but we haven’t seen this much humanity out of Biden in the campaign so far, and this is going to give him a serious push.

9:22 Palin: “We have got to win the wars.”

Palin just said that McCain is the man to “win the wars” which most Americans agree with, still. But when it comes to economy, Obama has a 14 point lead. McCain has also said repeatedly, in various forms, that the war on terror will expand to other countries, “There’s going to be other wars.” Just like the secret plan to end the war in Vietnam, and that plan was to expand the war into Cambodia.

9:23 Biden: “Look, the maverick — let’s talk about the maverick John McCain is. And, again, I love him. He’s been a maverick on some issues, but he has been no maverick on the things that matter to people’s lives.”

Biden is right, the area where McCain is a maverick has always been in his spitting upon the religious right (which he stopped doing) and on campaign finance reform, which most Americans aren’t directly affected by in their day to day lives.

9:25 Biden: “That’s why I led the fight against Judge Bork. Had he been on the court, I suspect there would be a lot of changes that I don’t like and the American people wouldn’t like, including everything from Roe v. Wade to issues relating to civil rights and civil liberties.”

Biden is bringing up the court since Palin couldn’t name another supreme court decision besides Roe v. Wade.

9:26 Palin refuses to say that she has changed a deep seated belief in response to changing circumstances. The fact that she’s proud of not compromising is frightening. But then that’s part of the Republican platform, that they never change their mind.

Except for all the times that they do, and just pretend like they didn’t.

9:29 Palin: “Or you support a ticket that supports policies that will kill jobs by increasing taxes. And that’s what the track record shows, is a desire to increase taxes, increase spending, a trillion-dollar spending proposal that’s on the table. That’s going to hurt our country, and saying no to energy independence.”

Democrats are not saying “no” to energy independence, they want new technologies to make oil obsolete. Also, 70% of Americans describe themselves as “middle class.” So this pandering that both sides are doing with their “direct” appeals to the middle class is really just plain populism.

9:32 I’m pretty sure that what Biden just said “Woza America.” Oh, no he said “get up.”

9:33 The first words out of Couric’s mouth after the debate, that the headlines might be that Palin didn’t embarrass herself.

Conclusions and predictions:

Palin performed far beyond expectations. Well done. That’ll be the story for the next two days. Three days from now, when updated polls include the three day rolling average that includes this debate and a day of coverage, it’ll turn out that although the image of Palin improved, Biden won the debate anyway.

The two clips that will get a lot of play are going to be Biden choking up about his family tragedy, and Palin’s response to what she thinks her role would be as vice president. This debate might cut into Obama’s lead in Virginia, but widen it in Ohio and New Hampshire.

Guns didn’t come up, so Colorado probably won’t move much. The gay stuff might pull on the Democrats, but hopefully their “we’re for Gay rights but against gay marriage” will fully deflect the side track that was the election of 2004.

Overall, this debate made Palin look significantly less retarded, but I don’t think it’ll make a strong impact on the way undecided voters swing in the final two weeks.

And tomorrow I’ll wake up to the the shit storm of spin that actually decides what happened.

I know it may seem late in the day, Senator. But I think that I would make a significantly improved Vice Presidential candidate. I’m an eloquent public speaker, young and energizing, with new ideas, and unlike your current VP choice, actual knowledge of history and politics.

Now, I’m a registered Democrat, but I’m fundamentally pro-business, and hell, I can pretend to be a Republican and still look smarter than Sarah Palin.

In the continuing saga of Buffalo Palin as Couric’s wild, wild guest: Last night, Palin was asked if there were any supreme court decisions that she disagreed with, other than Roe v. Wade. She said yes. Then she was asked to name one, and she couldn’t.

I knew, without a moment’s pause, that the answer was: Kelo v. New London. The most unpopular Supreme court ruling since Bush v. Gore.

For those of you are not familiar, the Kelo decision set a precedent whereby a city can seize property from anyone, if they can prove that whatever else would go there would generate increased tax revenues.

In the case, a developer wanted to buy a residential area to put in some fancy condos (probably for the Liberal Elite), and the city used eminent domain (the right of government to take possession of private property and put it to “public use”), and sold to the developer. When the whole thing went to court, the Supreme Court said that since the new development would bring in increased tax revenues to the town, that was a form of “public use.”

Principled conservatives (read:everyone who doesn’t make a living in construction) and all liberals, hate this case. And it’s easy to rail against. Your city government shouldn’t be able to force you to sell your property, unless the property is being used for a demonstrably necessary public good. Historically, this meant roads, bridges, water treatment facilities, hospitals, etc.

So is it that Sarah Palin is just a fucking idiot and doesn’t even know the name of any Supreme Court ruling since 1973?

Nope. It’s so much worse than that. It’s because Sarah’s hometown wanted to build an ice hockey rink, got caught in legal trouble buying the land for it, and right after she was elected governor, used eminent domain to get the land back and sidestep the courts that had ruled against the city.

Read the full story here.

That’s right. Sarah is for limited government and wants to cut spending. Which is why she offered a municipal bond sale of $14.7 million when her city’s annual budget was $20 million.

For a hockey rink.

Reminder: Illinois’s voter registration deadline is October 7th (next Tuesday). Register now to vote in Champaign County, and then call your friends in Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado, Virginia, and Florida.

Also, did you know that John McCain’s campaign headquarters are in Arlington, Virginia?

You know, where old soldiers never die, they just fade away?

I’ve been planning on writing a piece about the recent financial crises, but things keep changing ten times a god damn day, and nobody seems to have a straight answer about what the fuck is going on, including people elected or appointed to positions where they are supposed to know what the fuck is going on.

This piece, whenever I finally complete it, will be painstakingly researched and crafted with care.

What I mean is, it’s not done yet.

Luckily, Sarah Palin keeps giving me things to respond to.

In the much lauded Tina Fey parody of Palin’s incompetence, when Tina Fey isn’t cribbing lines directly from Palin (because even one of America’s foremost female comedy writers can’t improve those punch lines), Tina Fey at one point says in the sketch:

“I’d like to use one of my lifelines.”

Which was funny.

Until Monday, when Palin appeared on Couric’s evening news with McCain.

As her lifeline.

Senator McCain then said that Palin’s recent misstep was really the result “Gotcha journalism.”

Someone asked “Should we cross the border into Pakistan to fight terrorists?”

And she said, “Absolutely.”

The exact opposite of McCain’s recent position on foreign policy minutia.

The “Gotcha Journalism” horse shit aside, what was embarrassing about the whole thing was that Palin couldn’t explain it herself. Luckily, her high school U.S. history teacher was available to comedown to the office with her to vouch on her behalf.

Then in another Couric interview on tonight, Palin was asked multiple times by Couric what newspapers, magazines, or other news sources she read. Her response?

“Oh, all of them.”

And with that aside, I now present the first part of my coverage of the Vice Presidential Debate:

Enjoying the VP Debate: Be Drunk

Thursday night’s vice presidential debate will be a circus.

In this corner, Joe Biden. Joe has extensive experience in foreign policy as a senator, even if he does have a habit of occasionally scratching the back of his throat with his big toe.

And in the opposite corner, Sarah “Embarrassment to the Country” Palin.

Of course, expectations are very low for Palin. Apparently, in an un-aired portion of one of the Couric interviews, Palin was unable to name a single U.S. Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade. So if she comes on stage Thursday night, and can correctly recite the preamble of the constitution (just like I had to when I was 12), her performance in the debate is likely to receive rave reviews.

Here’s my breakdown of the debate, and then we’ll get back to the whole “drunk” concept.

Palin: If the first thing she says in her opening statements goes like this, Biden would be totally fucked, not that I expect her to do it, I’m merely demonstrating that I’m a better political strategist than Sarah Palin-

I’d like to thank the university of where ever we are for having me. I’m excited about this opportunity to address the American people and to engage in a real discussion of the issues with Senator Biden. You know, I’ve been preparing for this debate heavily for the last week or so. And while I’m excited for tonight, there were times this week in debate prep where I just wanted to say, “Why don’t we just have Tina Fey do it?”

Biden: You are very competent. You must not step out of Barack’s policy lines, you must always know more than Palin (Republican pundits would love nothing more than to point out some single minor incident where Palin seemed to know more about any single subject than you do). And further Joe, you must act as if Palin were a legitimate choice for Vice President of the United States.

Now then, I’ve consulted with several experts on this topic, and have been able to develop something for myself and my fellow political junkies:

The Vice Presidential Debate Drinking Game: 2008

I personally recommend playing with beer or a mixed drink, but depending on how worried you are about this election, you may want to hit the harder stuff.

The rules are simple, they follow what I expect will be the buzz words of the debate. Some of the words have different weightings depending on which potential VP says them.

Where it says drinks, put it in whatever terms make sense for the booze you use. For me it means seconds chugging.

Every time you hear the word:
Alaska - Palin, 4 drinks - Biden, 5 drinks

Fail, fails, failed, failing or failure - Palin 2 drinks - Biden 2 drinks
* BONUS * If the “failing” is a reference to the Bush administration, take an extra 8 drinks to try and forget the Bush White house.

Pakistan - Palin 7 drinks - Biden 7 Drinks

“doesn’t understand” (or equivalent) - Palin, 3 drinks - Biden 5 drinks
* Bonus* If Palin says it in reference to herself, finish your drink in celebration of her honesty.

Iraq - Palin 3 drinks - Biden 3 drinks, also, pour one out for your homies if you know people in the service. If Palin mentions Iraq and her recently deployed son, finish your drink.

Any of Palin’s kid’s weird names - Palin 5 drinks, one for each kid - Biden 10 drinks, because what the fuck is he bringing up her kids for?

Now those are the rules of the official game, but if you’re no amateur to the politics and drinking scene, you can add the two rules below to make this game the VPro edition, but note here that Illini Media and I don’t recommend these rules for anyone, because it could result in alcohol poisoning:

Biden says something that demonstrates he is clearly more capable of being Vice President

or

Palin says something utterly stupid

1 drink.

That’d knock you flat on your ass.

Political news is going to be moving too fast over the next month for me to split up posts to single, coherent posts. I will try to put in updates along with longer commentary to cover as much news as I can.

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (Califonia’s 8th, Dem) is being painted as responsible for the failure of the bailout bill on the house floor today, and Republicans are trying to make it seem like it’s her fault (she voted in favor of the bill), that democrats are playing politics with the economy (they are, but so are the Republicans), and that therefore, Democrats are responsible for the largest drop in the history of the Dow Jones in a single day.

This is typical bullshit spin. They’re arguing that since Pelosi framed the bailout as proof that the economic policies of the last eight years have failed (which isn’t entirely true, they did keep inflation low), and this “partisan” speech drove Republicans to vote against the bailout in an extraordinarily childish political protest.

Nancy Pelosi got up and said to hard line economic conservatives:

“You’re stupid.” (sticks out tongue)

And then these Republicans decided to vote against the bill because of the speech (which isn’t true, but I’m just trying to follow the Fox Logic) as if to say:

“No, you’re stupid.”

Great job, Congress, way to be totally fucking embarrassing to your constituents.

Update: Sarah Palin is an idiot. Anyone who says otherwise is not paying attention. Also, she prefers texting to calling people, possibly because she is incapable of human speech. Also, I would like to point out that George Bush’s foreign policy has been horrifically disastrous for the last 8 years. But before he became president, he met with Vincente Fox, the president of Mexico. Sarah Palin doesn’t even have as much foreign policy experience as George W. Bush.

John McCain has been attacking someone very interesting in the wake of recent financial crises: Greed. He calls it the corruption and greed of Washington and Wall Street. In his minds, there is some sort of connection in combatting wasteful government spending, and the failure of deregulated financial institutions (for those of you playing at home, there isn’t one).

He keeps saying it, that he’ll change the culture of greed, and that if elected, end the reign of greed.

And hey, greed is bad. It’s also the foundation of a free market economy, unfortunately.

And how will he do that? How Senator McCain? How will you put an end to one of the most basic flaws of the human condition? How? Increased regulation? I thought you were a deregulator, you’ve said so before on multiple occasions. In 1995 you proposed a moratorium on increasing federal regulations.

Of course, when you were in prison, you didn’t even have a chair. Somehow I’m certain that you’re going to end greed by being such an American hero.

I do not mean to denigrate McCain’s service, I think that he does so himself when he uses his war record as a shield from legitimate questions about policy.

So then what? The impeccable character of John McCain is going to end the TOTALLY FUCKING INSIGNIFICANT spending of earmarked legislation, which by the way, doesn’t need a president, it just needs a resolution in both houses that gets a lot of media attention, that each congressmen with aspirations of higher offices or continued reelection will sign out of political necessity.

And then he’s somehow going to stop financial institutions from seeking 6.25% returns?

How exactly?

The argument that either candidate can somehow put an end to greed, reminds me of another of the seven deadly sins: Pride.

Final thought for the day:

In Nancy Pelosi’s “partisan” speech, she said that she was disappointed with the guardians of the economy’s inability to see this crisis coming. She said that it crept up “on little cat feet.” Which is, of course, a line from Carl Sandburg’s poem “Fog.” Proving that while both parties maybe struggling on the “Congressional Leadership” angle, Democrats are winning the all important “Literary Allusions” category.

If you are not registered to vote, you must go do it right now.

http://www.justvote.org/registration

And then you must email, call, text or facebook everyone you know and say, “Hey, have you registered to vote yet?”

Especially if they live in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Nevada or Florida. See here.

The next President will appoint new supreme court justices, shape America’s role in a rapidly evolving geopolitical landscape, and I believe they will preside over the most important political event of the last 22 years, a rewrite of the Federal Tax code, which hasn’t been done since 1986. They will also either end or continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and shape the way they are fought, likely change the fundamentals of the American healthcare system, and have strong effect on the economic future and stability of the world economy.

The tone of political debate since the “Contract with America” Republican ascendence in 1994 has been the most adversarial political discussion since the Civil War. It has grown so divisive, that we don’t even want to know anymore. More people are following political news today than have been since 1995, according to a recent gallup poll. They seem to have stopped watching (with the exception of late September 2001) because the political news is presented as two talking heads, with talking points, talking to themselves.

By the way, Larry Hunter, who wrote the Contract with America and helped to get the Newt Gingrich congress in session, endorses Barack Obama.

And Gallup also have Barack Obama up by a margin of 8 points. Woot.

I’m unabashedly partisan, and have been since 1999, when a very personable idiot beat out a very distinguished and respected senator to clinch the Republican nomination for president.

I rail against President Bush, who I think history will show as the worst President of the United States, ever. Partially because of the powerful “Respect Warren G. Harding” lobby in Washington.

But the truth is, there are a lot of people who voted for president Bush that I not only respect; I honor them because of their conviction as Americans.

There are a good number of voters who always vote, and never stray from their party. A lot of people who voted for Bush did this, his two elections were driven by the force of the party base.

People who are pro-life, anti-gay marriage, think the place of America on the world stage is one of forceful leadership, that good government is done by the individual upon himself, and that the safety of Americans requires sacrifice of troops and freedoms, but that it is justifiable.

Now I personally disagree with all of that, and will argue against any of it.

But I will never denigrate those who vote their conscience. Americans who vote for what they think is right, even when it’s what I think is wrong. They take their duty as citizens seriously, and I have the utmost respect for that.

Unlike the people who don’t vote.

What I will never respect, is people who don’t vote. There are good reasons to vote for Senator Obama, and good reasons to vote for Senator McCain. There are even (though more philosophically based) good reasons to vote for third party candidates (although everyone in the state of Florida who voted for Nader owes the Democratic party one now).

But there is no good reason to not vote.

I went to the Rock The Vote website earlier today, and it basically just pissed me off, because everything sort of suggests, “Vote, because it’s cool.”

2004 did see a marked increase in youth voter turn out, and in 48 states it was above 50%, so I can say that voter registration drives are rhetorically condescending, but I can’t say they don’t work.

Personally, my marketing isn’t “vote, because it’s cool.” It’s not even “vote, because it’s important.”

It’s this:

Vote.
Because that’s what you’re supposed to fucking do.

Especially if your 18-21. Because we are the most recent suffragettes, and ought to take the right seriously.

Signs now are suggesting that this election will have the highest voter turnout of young voters since 18 year olds were first allowed to vote. Especially in Illinois, where we’re young, liberal, and likely to vote for our state’s senator in the first place. But in Illinois youth voter turnout was 17% lower in 2004 than in 1972.

My parents were among those involved in getting the right to vote from 21 down to 18 years old, and I’ll vote this november for the second (and final) time where that three year difference in suffrage matters. It was a popular amendment, ratified in less than 100 days from it’s proposal in the senate.

The 26th Amendment, which grants that right for both national and local elections, was introduced by Jennings Randolph, a senator from West Virginia. Who was also the driving force behind the creation of the US Institute of Peace, which sponsored the Iraq Study Group.

Who recommended phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and direct diplomatic talks with Syria and Iran. Otherwise known as Obama’s foreign policy plan.

Thanks again, Senator Randolph. Your legacy just keeps on giving.

And here’s one really great reason to vote if you’re 18-24.

In 2000, voter turnout in the 18-24 bracket reached an historic low. 36%.

And George W. Bush became president in the closest election in a lifetime.

Now do you wanna register?

This post is long and rambles, it lacks coherent structure, and it will focus on disparate topics without any seeming unity. In short, it’s based on the presidential election process.

I was not always the enlightened, patient, wise political observer I am today.

In 2005, my father and I tried very hard to watch the State of the Union address. As I recall, we made it less than five minutes in before we were both reduced to barking like caged wolves on angel dust at the television screen.

Every now and then, when we feel particularly embarrassed by our myopic fool of a leader, my father will exhale deeply through his nostrils with his lips clenched tightly shut, and then he’ll admit with a great deal of shame,

“That’s my president.”

Which by the way, is absolutely true. As much as part of pop culture, especially in my generation, is making a lot of jokes about how stupid George Bush is, the fact is, he is our president. The office he holds is sacred (which is the real reason I hate him, not because I disagree with him but because he has denigrated what I hold to be a sacred public trust).

I am giddy at the the thought that he’ll be leaving office in the near future, and you’ll be hearing about that a lot from me in the next few months. Giddy. Like, I’m planning on watching election night with a bottle of Cristal. (That is not a joke).

I am lucky that I got interested in politics at an absurdly young age, because I was able to enjoy a little of the Clinton Presidency, the greatest president since John F. Kennedy. Of course, Clinton pissed all over a lot of his legacy with his personal problems, but quite frankly, I don’t actually care that much about his qualities as a man, because discharging (no pun intended) the duties of the office of the president well eclipses personal deficiencies. I am only disappointed by this aspect of the Clinton presidency, because it prevented him from doing more as president.

I don’t hate Nixon for being a paranoid, crazy bastard. I hate him for his expansion of the vietnam war. People died needlessly because of Nixon, he failed in his responsibilities as president. He was a fuckhead on top of that, but it’s really a lesser issues in my eyes.

An election looms, and so soon we’ll change who our president is.

John McCain is a fine man. And a good manager. Sometimes I feel like he’s running to be America’s grandfather, and I’m embarrassed to think about his policy reversals. But like I said, he’s a good manager. He’s fundamentally running a campaign of reaction, he displays no clear vision of the future. Of course, the future is terrifying, and so people are drawn to him because they think he can handle whatever comes his way, even if he presents no real understanding of what’s coming.

George Bush, by the way, is also a manager. He’s a profoundly bad one, but fundamentally, his leadership style is one of reacting to the environment (just incorrectly).

Barack Obama is not a manager. He is clearly capable of management, his primary candidacy demonstrated that. But he is not a reactionary. He is a leader. He presents a vision of the future (commonly mocked by Republican pundits), and his campaign is one of looking forward to create change (commonly parodied by everyone: Hopechange cocktail, anyone?).

A manager keeps you stable when things are changing. A leader accepts that things are changing and moves you towards stability. It’s a fundamental difference in the assumptions that each candidate has on the role of a president.

Which is why I’m voting for Barack Obama, because a changing world only frightens me when American leadership is afraid of it, and tries to minimize its effects, rather than maximize our effectiveness within that new world.

As an important side note, there’s a serious possibility in this election that Sarah Palin might be our president: An actuary I know took John McCain’s recently (partially) disclosed medical records and calculated that “McCain’s probability of death in the next four years at 18.45%, and in the next 8 at 36.44%.” Let me clarify, this information is from a guy who gets paid a great deal of money to calculate when people will die.

Sarah Palin is neither a manager, nor a leader, she’s an ignorant political opportunist with no understanding of the world or America’s place in it.

She has what I call the “America: Totally Fucking Awesome (if it weren’t for the faggots, atheists, and liberal intellectuals)” world view.

It’s characterized by: a desire to indoctrinate (she was a champion of teaching ethics, patriotism, and creationism in public schools), she’s in favor of guns (which is different from support the right to bear arms), being part of a cult (check out the youtube videos of her connection with Wasalia), and like I said, ignorant of America’s place in the world.

Which means:
1. A lack of understanding of history (she praised Reagan for ending the Cold War, like a lot of conservatives who don’t understand the collapse of the Soviet Union).

2. A lack of understand of the current situation of international affairs (said that the Iraq war was God’s idea, and also said that we should never interfere with Israel’s right to defend itself against Iran (read: Bomb the shit out of Iran and intensify regional conflict in the Middle East)).

And the occasional, bland stupidity.

(From ontheissues.org)
Q: Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance?
Palin: Not on your life. If it was good enough for thefounding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

[Bold mine].

“Under God” was added to the pledge June 14, 1954.

I apologize for losing focus, but the thought of Sarah Palin as president scares the shit out of me.

The point is, for a while now, I’ve had to look at George Bush and say, “That’s my president.” And it embarrasses me. It makes me want to cry to think of how he has betrayed the American people, American ideals, and the dignity of his office.

We are swept up in the great movement of our time. People don’t feel like they have a great deal of efficacy in the political future of this country, and they’re typically right about that. We are disconnected from it by various degrees. So then the primary measurement of politics in America is this:

When we look at the candidates, we see a manager and a leader

The question is which one will we say, “That’s my president” about with pride?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how people categorize and define themselves. What groups they identify with, what groups they are part of (which aren’t always the same thing). I find this kind of shit fascinating.

Earlier this week, one of my professors asked my class, “what is the culture of the university?”

And I had no fucking idea. Still don’t.

He asked specifically about the culture of the college of business. Now I ought to be the perfect candidate to understand that, because I’m in the college, but I’ve never really felt at home in it. So I have access to the group and psychological distance from it. This was exactly how De Tocqueville developed a lasting, effective analysis of the American political culture.

By being a silly, French poofter.

So I’ve been looking around trying to figure out: what makes U of I U of I, and not IU or Iowa or Madison.

Culture is really made up of underlying basic assumptions, things that members of a group all believe to be unquestionable. I like to question as many of my beliefs as possible, which could be why I never feel like I really belong anywhere.

The problem is, I’m lousy as an organizational theorist. I can’t readily analyze a collective. A culture is a collection of individuals, and I can’t see the forest for the trees. Or more accurately, I can’t see the people for the persons. (Well that’s a fucked up grammatical construction. Deal with it).

The girl who sits behind me in Business Strategy loves to draw, but she erases all her sketches by the end of class. There’s a girl in my finance class who always sits in the front row, because she’s too self-conscious to wear her glasses. How human. How wondrous.

So I’m not able to see the utilitarian, ambitious culture (which my classmates informed me that the college of business is known for). I mean, I guess it’s there. But when I look for it, all I see is: guy who didn’t sleep last night because he was finishing a season of 24 on DVD, or girl who recently became an aunt to her brother’s first born child, the guy who’s majoring in finance and hates my finance professor because he’s actually personable and funny (forbidden in finance).

All groups are designed to magnify similarities between members, and differences against non-members. Which is why I’ve never really gotten into school spirit, because I think that the emotion is manufactured out of a need to define ourselves by where we went to college.

We try so hard to separate ourselves, Greeks and non-greeks, business, LAS, Engineers, sophomores, seniors, grad students, races, religions, and it’s all just artificial constructions that we use to make ourselves and the world a little easier to grasp.

I went to Ohio last weekend to stay with my buddy Mitch. His group of friends is all majors, grades, hometowns, etc. The only thing that unites them is that they can all out drink me. But I was really struck by how their extremely clannish social circle wasn’t really defined by any of the “group” variables. Most of them met because they all lived on the same floor in a dorm, a nearly random sample of kids, who then banded together.

I tried to understand the group while I was there, because I love Mitch so damn much, and I wanted to understand what his life in Ohio is like, but I couldn’t get it.

I didn’t see the group. I just saw a bunch of humans.

I went fishing when I was about eight years old with a friend. His family had a condo out by Lake Geneva in Wisconsin, and they took us fishing. They explained to me that the part of skin where the hook goes in a fish’s mouth doesn’t have pain-sensing nerves, which of course, is bullshit, but I didn’t know that then. Although, I guess a lot people believe it. So we went out to the end of a dock where there weren’t any swimmers around, and sat on the peeling white paint with our lines in the water. My friend’s older brother was trying to explain to me different methods of casting, catching, lures, and other fishing things that I didn’t understand then, nor have I retained now. I caught bluegill that day, and quite a few of them as I remember, though it’s a strictly catch-and-release breed.

But I remember when I caught my first fish that day, first ever, and reeled it in and said, “Now what?” They explained to me that you have to grab the fish in such a way as to go with the grain of his spiny fin bones, smoothing them back as you grab him so that you can remove the hook. I did this, got the hook out, and was so excited about the whole, first fish thing, that I dropped the slimy bastard right there on the dock and he flopped around until I kicked him off the side.

I’ve since learned that fish do actually feel pain where the hook goes in, even in expert hands, much less eight year old amateur nearly retarded coordination hands. And when I think back to the little guy, I imagine in the sharp smacking sound of his attempted escape on the dock, a little staccato voice, saying:

“Fuck you. Fuck you, kid. Fuck you. Hey, kid. Fuck you.”

I was on Facebook yesterday when I saw that ridiculous feature: “People You May Know,” which are people you aren’t “friends” with that are “friends” with your “friends (sarcastic end quote). Normally, pointless. But on this particular occasion, it was Girl I Liked From Choir Who I Never Really Knew That Well, But Always Thought We Got Along. Or Gilfcwinrktw,batwga. Wait, let’s call her, “Angela.” So I said, “Yes, facebook algorithm. I do know Angela.” And off went my digital friend request. And I thought, my what a useful feature. I haven’t seen Angela since the day we graduated (which I was right about, but we’ll revisit that in a moment). I always liked her, because she was a talented singer, but not as pretentious as a lot of the girls I knew in choir, and she won solos on the basis of talent alone, because she was most certainly not a favorite of our choir director. She smiled a lot. She was (and is still, thanks again facebook) dating a guy I’d known since we were eight years old.

I received a message later in the day from Angela. She had not accepted my friend request. The message said that the last time we spoke, I was a huge douche-bag.

First, I immediately accepted the proposition. I’ve been known to engage in douchebaggery from time to time. So I sat and thought. I was certain I hadn’t seen her since the day we graduated from high school. What did I do two and a half years ago that she’s still pissed about it? I had to know, so Angela and I sent messages back and forth a few times. Finally, it turns out that I was right, the last time I’d seen her was the morning of the day we graduated. At senior breakfast, where she had come to sit at the banquet hall table where I was, and I had (and although I still don’t remember this, I feel confident that she’s not exaggerating here) very rudely said she couldn’t sit there because I was saving the seats for someone else. Angela had often felt like groups and cliques that I was associated with were rude to her, and excluded her, and this was just another nail in the coffin. She was so mad at me that she didn’t even stay for senior breakfast, and just went someplace else for pancakes.

Earlier this week, I read a book called The One Minute Manager which is a classic book on effective management technique, based largely around B.F. Skinner’s behavioral training techniques, but without the stupid communes. (B.F. Skinner joke on behavioral psychology? Anyone? Anyone?). The basic principle of the book is this: Praise the person, berate the behavior. When someone does something good, tell them they done good, and tell them they, as people, kick ass. If they do something wrong, tell them what they did was a no-no, but that they, as people, still basically kick ass. A person stays the same, but you can alter their future behavior in a positive way if you use this model.

Back to me, the day I spoke at my high school graduation, pissing off a totally nice person who I always respected. I was upset when I got the first response back from Angela, because I’m a good person (I’m pretty sure). I do behave badly sometimes, this particular incident was one such occasion. And I was upset because I didn’t want to be characterized by my own bad behavior. In this case, it really bothered me because it was my accurately perceived behavior. I was being a dick, and she was still angry about it two years later, because I never gave her a reason not to be.

What I do can change, because who I am, wants to do better.

Things ended well with Angela, due as much to her apparently forgiving nature, as to my sincere attempt to apologize. It got me thinking about fishing. Part of why fish get caught over and over again is because they’re too stupid to resist bait. The other reason is that fish, in general, have a short memory. That first bluegill I caught certainly had an unpleasant time at my hands, but if I’d met him again, he wouldn’t remember to hold a grudge.

People are not fish. And bad behavior is easy to remember for us. I don’t think Angela would have remembered me like she did if we had known each other better, like I talked about in my previous post, she would have known more of the story. Instead, she remembered my douchebagosity.

Good behavior is easily forgotten. The guy who needed a light earlier this week, the person I gave directions to today, a lot of that gets forgotten. But our minor inconsideration for one another, our little jibes, our rudeness, they live a whole lot longer in the minds of people who don’t know us. Which is why we ought to be careful.

“I do a lot of stupid things, but my heart’s in the right place. And this I know.” -The Eels