It's all George W. Bush's fault! **politics thread**

[Toon³]

I thought last nights debate wasn't great since Biden was pretty much restricted on how he could act towards Palin for fear of being labeled a bull and/or sexist. Having said that his overall performance was pretty 'meh' whether this was a result of being restricted or not is to be seen.

Palin did well considering he performances of late but she seemed heavily coached in areas and frankly her response about global warming sounded more like a 12 y/o reading their science report than a v/p candidate.

Neither of them is what you would call likeable but Palin's sheer ignorance and inability to answer questions in the TV interviews over the previous week ment that she had effectivly lost the debate before it had started and it was more a case of damage control than a debate between two rivals.

Having said that, the whole election is hilarious with both sides pandering to voters and not actually showing what their real beliefs are.

[Russell1892]

I thought last nights debate wasn't great since Biden was pretty much restricted on how he could act towards Palin for fear of being labeled a bull and/or sexist. Having said that his overall performance was pretty 'meh' whether this was a result of being restricted or not is to be seen.

I still don't really understand this concept that if he attacks her on policy, or on viewpoint that he'll look bad. It may well be true, but FFS they're running for the vice presidency, not head of the PTA. Doesn't it support the ideas of sexism, if he's supposed to go easy on her based on her gender? If it was a similarly relatively inexperienced man he was up against, presumably he could tear him a new one with impunity? Could you see Jacqui Smith getting an easy ride in the commons (insert your own joke) in Britain because the tories "don't want to look sexist".

Although the whole thing did strike me as quite dumbed down anyway. Debate was really false advertising for what it actually was. Would love to see someone like Jeremy Paxman moderate it.

I do agree though toon3 Palin looks very coached in her answers. Definitely cramming in the "key words" like someone doing an exam. Better than a few weeks ago though, when I thought she was saying the names of world leaders because she had just learned them. Plus the way she said things like "Israel is our greatest friend... in the middle east." Yes.. who's feeding you this information, the Dept of the 'Kin Obvious?

[Toon³]

I still don't really understand this concept that if he attacks her on policy, or on viewpoint that he'll look bad. It may well be true, but FFS they're running for the vice presidency, not head of the PTA. Doesn't it support the ideas of sexism, if he's supposed to go easy on her based on her gender? If it was a similarly relatively inexperienced man he was up against, presumably he could tear him a new one with impunity? Could you see Jacqui Smith getting an easy ride in the commons (insert your own joke) in Britain because the tories "don't want to look sexist".

Although the whole thing did strike me as quite dumbed down anyway. Debate was really false advertising for what it actually was. Would love to see someone like Jeremy Paxman moderate it.

I do agree though toon3 Palin looks very coached in her answers. Definitely cramming in the "key words" like someone doing an exam. Better than a few weeks ago though, when I thought she was saying the names of world leaders because she had just learned them. Plus the way she said things like "Israel is our greatest friend... in the middle east." Yes.. who's feeding you this information, the Dept of the 'Kin Obvious?

There is a great clip on youtube of Paxman ripping that Ann Coulter bint apart. Great fun :cool:

[tigerdave]

Ummm...the debate last night wasn't like that at all.

At least, IMO. Interested in what other people think.

I turned it off before the substantive stuff happened, evidently. Was like that for the first half hour for sure.

[JaredSS07]

Palin has been really overcoached. Too many talking points, to many soundbites. It wasn't until the end that she looked comfortable and started speaking like herself. Biden had too many numbers, facts, and 10 level explanations to be approachable.

In reality, none of it matters. No one votes for VP and no one changes their vote based on how the VP debates. VP is both the most overrated (by outsiders) and loathed (by insiders) position in government. There is no real job description, other than being around if the President dies. Most are worthless party picks that are meant to shore up a ticket and very few, if any are chosen for their professional qualities.

Anyone want to start making electoral vote predictions?

[Toon³]

Anyone want to start making electoral vote predictions?

Obama will win, but it will be very close.

[tigerdave]

My gut tells me Obama could win with almost 350. Of course, my heart says McCain 270-268.

[colinh9]

In reality, none of it matters. No one votes for VP and no one changes their vote based on how the VP debates. VP is both the most overrated (by outsiders) and loathed (by insiders) position in government. There is no real job description, other than being around if the President dies. Most are worthless party picks that are meant to shore up a ticket and very few, if any are chosen for their professional qualities.


Palin is far more unqualified for Vice President than Dan Quayle or Harry Truman ever were. And that is saying an awful lot about this pick.

Give it a week and I will start making electoral predictions. Obama can get as many as 364 realistically right now.

I think the McCain camp needs to focus a lot on Ohio. It will be interesting to see what they do with PA in the next couple of weeks, whether they continue fighting or pull a MI is up in the air. CO, VA, NC, FL, MO, IN, and NV are all shaping up to be quite interesting races. In all of those except IN, Obama holds a lead (via RCP).

This electoral map is always fun to fiddle with:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/#data

I don't know if this will work but this is my prediction at the current moment:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/?map=1

Edit: Yeah not working


Obama 329 McCain 209

[JaredSS07]

Here is what I love about politics. In the same day, I get to write a mail piece about why the bailout was good and a mail piece about why the bailout was bad. Both are for Republicans (of course) and the candidates districts actually touch.

[Russell1892]

Here is what I love about politics. In the same day, I get to write a mail piece about why the bailout was good and a mail piece about why the bailout was bad. Both are for Republicans (of course) and the candidates districts actually touch.

I suppose you could argue it both ways quite easily though? I get your point though, sounds like a fun job, I hope you shower thoroughly afterwards. :p

I think it had to happen for the good of the economy, it may be morally unpalatable to bail out those who f*cked it up in the first place, but that's the way it works when you're a worker bee doesn't it? Best of the bad options and all that. You've just got to hope that lessons are learned by governments, I get the feeling most governments are way out of their depth on this though.

[tigerdave]

I suppose you could argue it both ways quite easily though? I get your point though, sounds like a fun job, I hope you shower thoroughly afterwards. :p

I think it had to happen for the good of the economy, it may be morally unpalatable to bail out those who f*cked it up in the first place, but that's the way it works when you're a worker bee doesn't it? Best of the bad options and all that. You've just got to hope that lessons are learned by governments, I get the feeling most governments are way out of their depth on this though.

Except those who ********ed it up in the first place now own the dead assets.

[tigerdave]

Two articles I found rather interesting.

Even CNN (I had to doublecheck just to make sure it wasn't a spoof site!) has concluded that the Obama campaign is lying (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/07/obama.ayers/index.html) about the nature and depth of his relationship with Bill Ayers, he of the notorious domestic terrorist group The Weather Underground.

And for those of you who want to know what the hell went wrong with our economy (admittedly from a right-leaning perspective, in the interest of full disclosure), read away (http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/16171/?ck=1). It's truly shocking to digest this, to see the extent at which our politicians (liberals, moderates and conservatives) have betrayed the American people.

(Note: The feedburner link for Obama's role in a class-action lawsuit against Citi can be found here (http://www.mediacircus.com/2008/10/obama-sued-citibank-under-cra-to-force-it-to-make-bad-loans/), as it's not direct in the report)

[Toon³]

If Bill Ayers is such a dangerous person, why is he teaching at a University?

[tigerdave]

If Bill Ayers is such a dangerous person, why is he teaching at a University?

You must not be too familiar with our university system. Most of the "prestigious" American universities espouse liberal beliefs to various extents, including many having professors on the left-wing fringe like Ayers. It's not so much that he's "dangerous" in terms of blowing up buildings now at whatever-the-hell-age-he-is, but he's an out and out Marxist, and it's pretty emblematic of what Obama stands for that one of his father figures was an avowed communist (Frank Marshall Davis, referred to only as the black poet "Frank" in his book for whatever reason), two of his biggest political influences are Ayers and Saul Alinski (both Machiavellian militant liberals), and his biggest spiritual influence is the full-fledged anti-American kook Jeremiah Wright. And Obama's excuse for each one is "he didn't know".

You can have all the soaring rhetoric in the world, but if you hang out with the kinds of people that oppose everything that the United States of America were built upon, then you're not fit to be president. If you didn't know that basically everyone you surrounded yourself with felt like this, then you're a moron. And to take Obama's platform, we can't afford four more years of a moron after the last eight. :)

[BayernWake]

Yeah, I'm sure Obama "hung out" with Ayers. Give me a break.

So they apparently worked on the same board to fund educational projects. I guess that means Obama shares the same values as Ayers and believes the Capitol should be bombed!

Don't you get how RIDICULOUS that sounds?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/05/fact-check-is-obama-palling-around-with-terrorists/

"CNN's review of project records found nothing to suggest anything inappropriate in the volunteer projects in which the two men were involved."

"There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now "palling around," or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are."

Translation: this is a complete NON-ISSUE.

[tigerdave]

Yeah, I'm sure Obama "hung out" with Ayers. Give me a break.

So they apparently worked on the same board to fund educational projects. I guess that means Obama shares the same values as Ayers and believes the Capitol should be bombed!

Don't you get how RIDICULOUS that sounds?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/05/fact-check-is-obama-palling-around-with-terrorists/

"CNN's review of project records found nothing to suggest anything inappropriate in the volunteer projects in which the two men were involved."

"There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now "palling around," or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are."

Translation: this is a complete NON-ISSUE.

And blew 150 million dollars on education with negligible effect, I might add. What good will billions of dollars do with Obama's educational views, then? :rolleyes: (This is without even noting any educational reform Obama would try to enact is a violation of the 10th Amendment, which gives that kind of power to the states and as such they would have no compelling reason to adhere to said reform...why do you think some states flat-out ignored NCLB?)

And it's absolutely an issue because these associations, professional or personal, clearly show that Obama aims to rip apart the bedrock of our country.

Do I believe that Obama shares the views about the actions Ayers took while with the Weather Underground? No. Do I believe that Obama shares Ayers' Marxist views on society? Absolutely. There's too much evidence to deny that, based on his connections to Alinsky and Davis and Wright in addition to all his work with Ayers.

Why do you think the Obama campaign pressured WLS (and engaged in ACORN-style intimidation against WGN (http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/08/obama_campaign_confronts_wgn_r.html)) to kill an interview with Stanley Kurtz? There's a reason that he's not saying anything about Ayers other than "I know him and he did that stuff when I was 8 so it doesn't matter." Obama is trying to make any suspicion about their relationship into a terrorism issue when it's not really about the terrorism at all. The reason he does so is because most people would connect the dots about their shared ideology if they weren't being obscured by someone or something.

I'm not saying that Obama is a terrorist. I think he's pretty far from it (at least in terms of blowing shit up and killing people). But he's definitely trying to fundamentally change our system, from the inside, to something that is completely the antithesis of what the United States has stood for since its inception. That, to me, is far more dangerous.

Either that or he's just a naive idiot with poorly chosen bedfellows.

[Toon³]

You must not be too familiar with our university system. Most of the "prestigious" American universities espouse liberal beliefs to various extents, including many having professors on the left-wing fringe like Ayers. It's not so much that he's "dangerous" in terms of blowing up buildings now at whatever-the-hell-age-he-is, but he's an out and out Marxist, and it's pretty emblematic of what Obama stands for that one of his father figures was an avowed communist (Frank Marshall Davis, referred to only as the black poet "Frank" in his book for whatever reason), two of his biggest political influences are Ayers and Saul Alinski (both Machiavellian militant liberals), and his biggest spiritual influence is the full-fledged anti-American kook Jeremiah Wright. And Obama's excuse for each one is "he didn't know".

You can have all the soaring rhetoric in the world, but if you hang out with the kinds of people that oppose everything that the United States of America were built upon, then you're not fit to be president. If you didn't know that basically everyone you surrounded yourself with felt like this, then you're a moron. And to take Obama's platform, we can't afford four more years of a moron after the last eight. :)

Right wing captitalist ideals are really working out for you pretty good at the moment eh?

Has Obama actually said that Ayers and Saul Alinski have been his biggest political infulences or are you just assuming this because it suits your ideals that because he has been in contact with he must share every single one of his political ideas?

You also fall under the idea that socialist and liberal = bad which just isn't true, socialist ideas and policies don't make you a communist the two things are greatly different.

[Toon³]

Also regarding you sig.

Why should it matter what colour someone is?

[tigerdave]

Right wing captitalist ideals are really working out for you pretty good at the moment eh?

Did you read the citation-laden report I posted on why we're in this shit? It's not because of capitalism. It's because Republicans deviated from their conservative principles, liberal Democrats used items like the Community Investment Act to push across their own big government agendas, socialist activist groups perverted the American dream into a promise (which it isn't), and people started worrying more about getting rich any way they could (preferably as quickly as possible) rather than playing by the "rules" and earning what they've gotten. To invert a popular cliche: Hate the players, not the game.

Has Obama actually said that Ayers and Saul Alinski have been his biggest political infulences or are you just assuming this because it suits your ideals that because he has been in contact with he must share every single one of his political ideas?

You're a big boy, you can read the reports. Obama launched his political career at the house of Bill Ayers. Obama and Ayers worked together politically before Obama was a senator, namely to establish change in education reform (which didn't work). Obama also worked with and trained ACORN (currently being investigated for encouraging voter fraud, I may note) workers in the art of Machiavellian intimidation tactics, in the style of Saul Alinsky. He led a class-action lawsuit against Citi Group because they weren't loaning in certain areas because they couldn't make money off the loan or people couldn't afford the loans, and called it racist redlining, forcing them to give loans to high-risk borrowers that had next to no chance of repaying it. You do the math on where all this came from. Certainly wasn't the "free-market capitalism" corner store.

Of course Obama isn't going to say that Ayers and Alinsky have been his biggest influences because he knows it would be political suicide. But you are the company you keep, and Obama has a well-documented laundry list of radicals who hate the United States of America in its current form. One of his father figures (acknowledged indirectly in his own book, as detailed above) was an avowed Communist that gave him insight on American values and morals. He sat in the pew for 20 YEARS and listened to an executive pastor (and countless guest pastors, certianly) spew Black Liberation Theology's hatred, racism and anti-American rhetoric.

While I'm on the subject of dubious ties, here's another one for you: Raila Odinga. Oh, wait, that's from Jerome Corsi so of course it doesn't count. (Except Kenyan authorities deported him when they found out he was going to investigate the ties -- again, you do the math.)

This goes right to the character of the man, and I may be in the minority but character absolutely matters to me. But even if Obama "didn't know" about the positions of Ayers, Davis, Wright, Flager, ACORN, etc...at the very least he makes decisions that would make Pacman Jones say "Dude. Bad idea."

You also fall under the idea that socialist and liberal = bad which just isn't true, socialist ideas and policies don't make you a communist the two things are greatly different.

I hate both (as forms of government) with a burning passion, but I never said that communism and socialism are one in the same (though they are of the same ilk). Communism needs to rot in hell. I actually agree with some tenets of socialism, on a moral level. I believe society has a moral obligation to help those in need, as they need, according to what the givers can afford to give. But I don't believe that it's any government's responsibility to enforce a moral obligation upon its people. That and I'm a pretty big fan of the Constitution of the United States of America. :)

Also regarding you sig.

Why should it matter what colour someone is?

To some it does. To me it doesn't. If J.C. Watts were running for President I'd vote for him in a heartbeat. That's kind of the whole point of the sig.(also...it's a response to Dirt's sig. :) )

[Toon³]

Did you read the citation-laden report I posted on why we're in this shit? It's not because of capitalism. It's because Republicans deviated from their conservative principles, liberal Democrats used items like the Community Investment Act to push across their own big government agendas, socialist activist groups perverted the American dream into a promise (which it isn't), and people started worrying more about getting rich any way they could (preferably as quickly as possible) rather than playing by the "rules" and earning what they've gotten. To invert a popular cliche: Hate the players, not the game.



You're a big boy, you can read the reports. Obama launched his political career at the house of Bill Ayers. Obama and Ayers worked together politically before Obama was a senator, namely to establish change in education reform (which didn't work). Obama also worked with and trained ACORN workers in the art of Machiavellian intimidation tactics, in the style of Saul Alinsky. You do the math. Of course Obama isn't going to say that Ayers and Alinsky have been his biggest influences because he knows it would be political suicide. But you are the company you keep, and Obama has a well-documented laundry list of radicals who hate the United States of America in its current form. Here's another one for you: Raila Odinga. Oh, wait, that's from Jerome Corsi so of course it doesn't count. (Except Kenyan authorities deported him when they found out he was going to investigate the ties -- again, you do the math.)

This goes right to the character of the man, and I may be in the minority but character absolutely matters to me. But even if Obama "didn't know" about the positions of Ayers, Davis, Wright, Flager, ACORN, etc...at the very least he makes decisions that would make Pacman Jones say "Dude. Bad idea."



I hate both (as forms of government) with a burning passion, but I never said that communism and socialism are one in the same (though they are of the same ilk). Communism needs to rot in hell. I actually agree with some tenets of socialism, on a moral level. I believe society has a moral obligation to help those in need, as they need, according to what the givers can afford to give. But I don't believe that it's any government's responsibility to enforce a moral obligation upon its people. That and I'm a pretty big fan of the Constitution of the United States of America. :)



To some it does. To me it doesn't. If J.C. Watts were running for President I'd vote for him in a heartbeat. That's kind of the whole point of the sig.(also...it's a response to Dirt's sig. :) )

So what makes you think that the Maverick is going to change any of this? Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't he a big supporter of Bush. He was a Republican in a position of power and he never spoke up about this or the potential problems that could arise from it. The only reason McCain will do anything to change the way these banks and investment firms work is because he has to. McCain has been in the Senete since 1987 so there is no excuse for him not seeing this coming.


Except that he did not launch his political career at Ayres house.

In fact, according to several people involved, Mr. Ayers played no role in Mr. Obama’s appointment. Instead, it was suggested by Deborah Leff, then president of the Joyce Foundation, a Chicago-based group whose board Mr. Obama, a young lawyer, had joined the previous year. At a lunch with two other foundation heads, Patricia A. Graham of the Spencer Foundation and Adele Simmons of the MacArthur Foundation, Ms. Leff suggested that Mr. Obama would make a good board chairman, she said in an interview. Mr. Ayers was not present and had not suggested Mr. Obama, she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/politics/04ayers.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

It has been well documented that the connection between Ayres and Obama has been exaggerated for the pure purpose of political smear.

And as for Raila Odinga, are you suggesting that the Prime Minister of Kenya hates America? I really wouldn't trust a book written by Jerome Corsi about Barrack Obama, especially since he appeared on The Political Cesspool which just happens to be a white supremacist radio talk show. Now call me cynical but don't you think that someone who writes a negative book about Obama and then appears on a white supremacist radio show might care about something else apart from his politics.

You hate a form of government that can provide free universal health care, social security, public schools, public highways, public transport and public parks? You really are a sad person if you hate all of them.

If colour doesn't bother you, why mention it?