Tune in tonight at 8 and you’ll see two candidates for president in an increasingly aggressive campaign try to answer questions. But tune in with my live blog, and you’ll get that, plus mockery and a drinking game.

Tonight’s Drinking Game Buzzwords:
Maverick
Change
Middle-Class
Reform
Bush
Reagan

Predictions: Both candidates need to give direct, specific policy answers to win tonight. I expect Barack will continue to call his opponent “John” and McCain will call his oppenent “Senator Obama.” Further, I doubt either one will mention their running mate by name, but Obama is more likely to reference Palin. McCain might bring up examples of Biden voting differently than Obama (or Obama’s rhetoric, if the vote was before 2004). I’m hoping that the questions are confined to the economy, the war on terror, and energy. Everything else is secondary, but Iran and Pakistan are both likely to make an appearance.

See you at 8 (bring a beer).

7:58 MSNBC has a countdown clock to the debate in the corner that says “Obama McCain Face Off.”
I think we can all agree that Obama is Nick Cage and McCain is Travolta.

8:05 Obama: … that essentially said that we should strip away regulations, consumer protections, let the market run wild, and prosperity would rain down on all of us. It hasn’t worked out that way. And so now we’ve got to take some decisive action.

(Bush) Trickle down economics don’t work. Check mate, Ronnie.

8:06 McCain: Now, I have a plan to fix this problem and it has got to do with energy independence. We’ve got to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don’t want us very — like us very much.

(Middle class x3) John McCain is great at these style of debates, at least partially because he addresses the person who asked the question.

Now then, the popular claim that we send $700 billion to foreign nations that don’t like us for oil:
try $536 billion and a third of it to Mexico, Canada, and the U.K.

McCain’s plan to revalue the mortgages was first presented as a solution to the mortgage crisis was proposed originally (to my knowledge) by Bill Clinton.

8:08 Brokaw: Who would you have as treasury secretary?
McCain:But the point is it’s going to have to be somebody who inspires trust and confidence

Who inspires more trust than Obama supporter, Warren Buffet?

8:10 Obama: Well, Warren would be a pretty good choice…Prosperity is not just going to trickle down. We’ve got to help the middle class.

(middle class) Obama is going to avoid the question of who to appoint as treasury secretary (because it’s a dumb question, and answering questions about potential cabinet appointees in general is) and continue to attack trickle down economics.

8:12 McCain:I left my campaign and suspended it to go back to Washington to make sure that there were additional protections for the taxpayer…

McCain calls all the questioners by their first name, but insists on saying “senator Obama.”
McCain is going to bring up suspending his campaign (quitting) as an example of leadership despite the fact that most people think it was a political stunt.

Fannie and Freddie are sponsored by the government to encourage home ownership, they were overzealous in this pursuit. And if McCain’s going to bring up campaign contributions, let’s talk about the savings and loan crisis, or Rick Davis (McCain’s campaign manager) being on the payroll for Freddie.

8:13 If Obama stays specific in his answers, instead of attacking McCain directly, he will win this debate.

8:14 McCain’s assessment that Fannie and Freddie were the problem is flawed, as Obama is arguing (not too professorially, thank God) that they were a problem because of deregulation. And deregulation is the real root cause. Obama didn’t name Rick Davis but brought him up. This style will make his attacks seem softer.

8:17 Recent polls suggest that the only major issue where the general public favors McCain is dealing with the war on terror.

8:19 It’s too bad that Clinton had to go and get blown that time, because his presidency was great for our economy, and Democrats can’t mention him by name anymore.

8:20 We don’t borrow from the Chinese, we offer our debt for sale, and the Chinese just happen to be the ones who buy it.

8:21 McCain: I have advocated and taken on the special interests, whether they be the big money people by reaching across the aisle and working with Sen. [Russ] Feingold [D-Wisconsin] on campaign finance reform, whether it being a variety of other issues, working with Sen. Lieberman on trying to address climate change.

(Reform) The one area where McCain has really gone bipartisan (and the only one he could name just now) was campaign finance reform.

8:22 McCain: Do you know that Sen. Obama has voted for — is proposing $860 billion of new spending now? New spending. Do you know that he voted for every increase in spending that I saw come across the floor of the United States Senate while we were working to eliminate these pork barrel earmarks?

Yes, John. I have heard every distortion and exaggeration that your campaign has produced about Obama.

8:23 McCain: When you have to look at our proposals for our economy, not $860 billion in new spending, but for the kinds of reforms that keep people in their jobs, get middle-income Americans working again, and getting our economy moving again.

I feel compelled to remind John about John Maynard Keynes, the noted economist. If there’s a recession coming, government should spend more. Keynesian economics were discredited when they went to extremes, but the fundamental principal that increasing government spending to create jobs when the economy is losing them, works. Also, that our current financial crisis is (all too frequently) compared to the Great Depression, which was finally overcome by unprecedented spending by the government on preparations for war.

8:25 McCain: We can work on nuclear power plants. Build a whole bunch of them, create millions of new jobs. We have to have all of the above, alternative fuels, wind, tide, solar, natural gas, clean coal technology. All of these things we can do as Americans and we can take on this mission and we can overcome it.

Energy solutions take time, and the problem in Washington and Wall street has been an inability to commit to the long view. When they say that they want to end dependence on foreign oil, they never talk about how long that will take.

Obama just said 10 years, which seems a reasonable conjecture. (It’s anybody’s guess).

8:28 Brokaw: All right, gentlemen, I want to just remind you one more time about time. We’re going to have a larger deficit than the federal government does if we don’t get this under control here before too long.

Tom Brokaw is a funny motherfucker.

8:29 McCain:And I recommend a spending freeze that — except for defense, Veterans Affairs, and some other vital programs, we’ll just have to have across-the-board freeze.

The freeze of spending is an idea that McCain proposed in the senate before. It was defeated, handily.

8:29 McCain:I saved the taxpayers $6.8 billion in a deal for an Air Force tanker that was done in a corrupt fashion.

The 6.8 billion McCain saved us was on a boeing contract. That could’ve generate 44,000 jobs by Boeing’s estimate. They were corrupt, but they would’ve made jobs.

8:30 McCain is saying that America can do absolutely anything. This is nice, but not true.

8:32 I love Barack, but the fact is his line about how we need to make the cars of tomorrow made here and not in South Korea or Japan is flatly jingoistic. The only way the “cars of the future” will be built here is if American car companies pull their heads out from up their asses, and the President, while powerful, may not be able to do that.

8:33 Brokaw: Sen. Obama, as we begin, very quickly, our discussion period, President Bush, you’ll remember, last summer, said that “Wall Street got drunk.”A lot of people now look back and think the federal government got drunk and, in fact, the American consumers got drunk.

Tom Brokaw is a really funny motherfucker.

8:35 Obama ought to put the earmarks in terms of a percentage of overall federal budget. I don’t know why he keeps saying$18 billion, instead of less than five percent. (18 billion out of 540.1 billion of discretionary, non-defense spending).

8:36 McCain: But he wants to raise taxes. My friends, the last president to raise taxes during tough economic times was Herbert Hoover, and he practiced protectionism as well, which I’m sure we’ll get to at some point.

The last president to raise taxes during hard times was Herbert Hoover? Try FDR, McCain, when the upper tax bracket was 94% to pay for WWII. By the way, Hoover? The original free-market, deregulatin’ Republican type.

8:38 John McCain wants to leave taxes low, cut spending, and make jobs. Which all sound nice, but aren’t fundamentally what the federal government is geared towards. Especially since, even if he won, he’d have a Democratic congress.

8:41 McCain: Sure. Hey, I’ll answer the question. Look — look, it’s not that hard to fix Social Security, Tom. It’s just…Social Security is not that tough. We know what the problems are, my friends, and we know what the fixes are. We’ve got to sit down together across the table. It’s been done before.

McCain started the answer by saying “I’m going to answer the question,” and then said, “We’re going to make a committee to find the answer.”

8:44 McCain: And I introduced the first legislation, and we forced votes on it. That’s the good news, my friends. The bad news is we lost.

John McCain takes a lot of credit for bills he introduced (but never passed) and attacks Obama on bills that he supported, like the bill to “cut off funding to the troops” (but never passed). Apparently, in McCain’s political ideology, close counts in more than horseshoes and hand grenades.

8:46 Obama is quite clearly the greener candidate. If it weren’t for the mortgage crisis, voters might actually give a shit about that.

8:47 Brokaw: Gentlemen, you may not have noticed, but we have lights around here. They have red and green and yellow and they are to signal…

That Tom Brokaw is one bad motherfucker.

8:48 McCain:You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one. You know who voted against it? Me.

McCain just pointed to Obama and said “that one.” He’s starting to look desperate.

8:51 Obama:We’re going to do it by making sure that we use information technology so that medical records are actually on computers instead of you filling forms out in triplicate when you go to the hospital. That will reduce medical errors and reduce costs.

Mandating “paperless” insurance is something that government must do because the companies will never do it themselves due to inertia. They are moving towards it, but painstakingly slow.

8:53 The most effective health care systems are at least partially government run.

8:54 McCain: If you’re a small business person and you don’t insure your employees, Sen. Obama will fine you. Will fine you. That’s remarkable. If you’re a parent and you’re struggling to get health insurance for your children, Sen. Obama will fine you.

What McCain calls “Cadillac” health care plans include the health benefits offered to UAW workers.
And he keeps saying that if you don’t have healthcare Obama is going to fine you for not having insurance. That would sound crazy if it wasn’t the exact same way that auto insurance works.

Essentially, the plans break down to this. McCain: Everybody shops around, prices go down. Obama: Employer based healthcare can work, if we make it work. Neither idea is really sure to work.

8:57 Obama: Now, it’s true that I say that you are going to have to make sure that your child has health care, because children are relatively cheap to insure and we don’t want them going to the emergency room for treatable illnesses like asthma.And when Sen. McCain says that he wants to provide children health care, what he doesn’t mention is he voted against the expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program that is responsible for making sure that so many children who didn’t have previously health insurance have it now.

Obama is staying specific on healthcare, and that’s what he needs to do on every issue.

9:00 Questioner: Yes. Sen. McCain, how will all the recent economic stress affect our nation’s ability to act as a peacemaker in the world?

Our economic woes will not affect our military significantly, we’ll always add to the debt if there’s an issue we feel justifies military action. Next question.

9:02 McCain: But the challenge is to know when the United States of American can beneficially effect the outcome of a crisis, when to go in and when not, when American military power is worth the expenditure of our most precious treasure.

“When to go in and when not?” Like not in Iraq. That would’ve been good.

9:05 “We’re not going to be able to be everywhere all the time.” Didn’t McCain tell me that America could do everything?

9:06 McCain: f we had done what Sen. Obama wanted done in Iraq, and that was set a date for withdrawal, which Gen. [David] Petraeus, our chief — chairman of our Joint Chiefs of Staff said would be a very dangerous course to take for America

If we had set a date for withdrawal in Iraq, we would’ve left Iraq by now. Ask the 150,000 dead Iraqis how great a force for good we are, John.

9:09 Brokaw: let’s see if we can establish tonight the Obama doctrine and the McCain doctrine for the use of United States combat forces in situations where there’s a humanitarian crisis, but it does not affect our national security.

McCain’s War on Terror - “We’ll just keep doing it, until it’s done.” Obama’s “We’re only going to do it where we’ll win.(READ: NOT IRAQ).”

9:13 Brokaw: I’m just the hired help here, so, I mean…

Tom Brokaw is a badass.

9:15 McCain:I’ll get Osama bin Laden, my friends. I’ll get him. I know how to get him.I’ll get him no matter what and I know how to do it.

Just like Nixon’s secret plan to end the war in Vietnam and it was expand it to Cambodia.

9:18 Obama: We’re also going to have to work with the Karzai government, and when I met with President Karzai, I was very clear that, “You are going to have to do better by your people in order for us to gain the popular support that’s necessary.”

I wish our government was more responsive to local citizenry.

9:18 Won’t admit the surge worked? Except the time he said it was successful beyond our wildest dreams?

9:23 Obama: hat’s part of what happened in Afghanistan, where we rushed into Iraq and Sen. McCain and President Bush suggested that it wasn’t that important to catch bin Laden right now and that we could muddle through, and that has cost us dearly.

Obama is tying McCain to the decision to go to Iraq, which most of America agrees was monstrously fucking stupid.

9:24 McCain: It’s not just a threat — threat to the state of Israel. It’s a threat to the stability of the entire Middle East.

Iran will not attack Israel. Not directly, it might act through terrorist groups supported by the government, but never through direct government action. All this stuff about not allowing a second holocaust makes it sound like Israel is helpless (I think America must support Israel, just not blindly so). Israel needs our political support in many ways, but it often sounds like McCain is suggesting that we go to war on Israel’s behalf. Let’s not underestimate the Israelis. They invented the Uzi submachine gun, after all. Jews kick ass, even without our help.

9:26 McCain: Now, Sen. Obama without precondition wants to sit down and negotiate with them, without preconditions. That’s what he stated, again, a matter of record.

McCain always brings up this “without precondition” thing without ever saying what preconditions he would insist on.

9:28 Obama: And that’s why I have consistently said that, if we can work more effectively with other countries diplomatically to tighten sanctions on Iran, if we can reduce our energy consumption through alternative energy, so that Iran has less money, if we can impose the kinds of sanctions that, say, for example, Iran right now imports gasoline, even though it’s an oil-producer, because its oil infrastructure has broken down, if we can prevent them from importing the gasoline that they need and the refined petroleum products, that starts changing their cost-benefit analysis. That starts putting the squeeze on them.

Obama’s details on Iran are strong. Ahmadinejad is a fucking nutbag, and when he’s gone we still have a powerful country in the Middle East to deal with, which is part of why a comprehensive view is necessary.

9:35 My Debate analysis

Economy: Obama still wins
Taxes: McCain hates taxes, Obama loves job creation. Point jobs.
Iraq: McCain wins (not for me personally, but that’s what he is perceived as). Doesn’t matter especially, this has always been McCain’s issue.
Iran: America doesn’t care.
Pakistan: Obama wins.

Overall, Obama won the debate, McCain won Colorado, but probably not Florida off this debate.

Side note on recent dirty campaigning: I believe that the real reason that the Bill Ayer’s - Obama and Keating 5- McCain issues were not mentioned is because both attacks are fundamentally character attacks. And neither is actually relevant to the question of who should be the next president.

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?

Isn’t the news exciting? I’ve been watching more of it lately and boy is it thrilling. I watch CNN and MSNBC mostly, who pretend to be the most serious.

However, these days, being the most serious televised political program in America seems a lot like having the biggest dick in your kindergarten class.

The easiest way for me to explain why I miss watching the BBC is this: Every day, on every political channel, at least once a day, one of the tittering heads says this sentence:

“The Republican brand is in trouble.”

The brand. The fucking brand.

People talk about the bias of media all the time, and it’s all bullshit. It’s not political slant, it’s a bias towards the stories (and the method of telling them) that gets the most viewers. They’re all whores to various degrees. They read whatever story comes up on the teleprompter, written by whatever unpaid journalism intern was assigned to the story by an editor hired by a producer who’s job is to make sure they cut away from Wolf Blitzer in time to show the advertisements for pills to make your stool softer and your dick harder.

I watched Wolf Blitzer do an extended feature on Britney Spears’ custody battle, and knew then that journalism had been poisoned to a point of no return.

As I watch the current “political” news I see that truth itself is under attack. Lewis Black says the problem is that the way stories are spun now, for every issue there is a set of Democrat facts and a set of Republican facts. And that there aren’t any more “Fact facts.”

Just two different sales pitches.

Which is what is truly disturbing to me about the “Republican brand” comment that gets repeated over and over. That’s the direction that politics is moving in American culture. It’s just another consumer decision. Just a battle for market share, instead of the struggle to convince voters that the right they have to choose their elected officials is sacred and that the men who vie for them present their plans for the challenges ahead of this country and the world, and display their character as a way of judging how they would handle the challenges that lie ahead, waiting in ambush and unknown to all of us.

Instead it’s two different spokesmen, with marketing departments (press secretaries and speech writers), production staff (policy “advisers”), and all the other dressings of the modern American corporation. I believe that the presidency of the United States is a sacred trust that imbues one individual with the power to change the world, and it should be taken very seriously and we should discuss it in a manner befitting it’s importance.

Instead, all I hear is “analysis” from “experts” on how the candidates are being “perceived by the American voter.” And that’s not a testament to decisions or leadership, it’s a ratings test, just like the ones that have ruined televised journalism. Political news is a series of people (typically uninvolved in any current political campaign) playing eight second clips of John McCain saying “Czechoslovakia” And then they say things like:

“McCain’s strength is that he appears more experienced in foreign policy, and this gaffe will hurt that perception.”

Just like when I think of Buick’s I immediately connect it with reliability.

And this is separate from what the candidates are actually doing or saying, it’s in the coverage of it. I’ll be addressing the candidates at a later time.

It’s not the Race to the White House anymore.

It’s the fucking Pepsi challenge.