Archive for September, 2008

So Obama is mocking McCain’s recommendation that we need a commission to look at the causes of the current financial crisis, saying that we already know what caused it, and that a commission is just a way of putting off doing something about it. No argument there.

But I’m finding it odd that McCain keeps referring to this commission he wants as “a 9/11 commission.”

New York Times, 16 September:

“We need a 9/11 commission, and we need a commission to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it,’’ he said. “And I know we can do it and how to do it.”

AHN, 16 September:

Speaking from Florida, McCain said on CNN the nation had been “the victim of greed, excess and corruption on Wall Street” and that “we’re going to need a 9/11 Commission to find out what happened and what needs to be fixed.”

The Hill, 16 September:

“We’re going to need a 9/11 Commission to find out what happened and what needs to be fixed,” the Arizona senator said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

If he wants a commission, then fine — he wants a commission. But what does he mean when he says he wants a 9/11 commission? A commission is a commission. Was there something about the 9/11 commission that somehow set it apart from all other commissions (apart from the fact that it was about 9/11), thus creating a new genre of commission to be known as a 9/11 commission?

If Senator McCain bought a blue car, and referred to it as his blue car, and then bought a red car, would he then refer to the red car as his new blue car?

Last night, Obama and McCain both spoke at a forum on public service at Columbia University. There weren’t many surprises — both candidates support public service — but there was one exchange between Judy Woodruff and McCain that I found rather interesting. It’s in the video below, from about 5:10 to 6:35.

Woodruff: Senator, at the Republican convention, a couple of speakers, most notably your running mate, vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, made somewhat derisive comments about Senator Obama’s experience as a community organizer. I’ve heard you say… you haven’t taken that tone, so I guess my question is, are you saying to others in your campaign and your supporters that that’s not the kind of language you want to hear… How are you approaching that?

McCain: First of all, this is a tough business. Second of all, I think the tone of this whole campaign would have been very different if Senator Obama had accepted my request for us to appear in town hall meetings all over America, the same way Jack Kennedy and Barry Goldwater had agreed to do so. I know that because I’ve been in enough campaigns. Look — Governor Palin was responding to the criticism of her inexperience in her job as a mayor in a small town. That’s what she was responding to. Of course I respect community organizers. Of course I respect people who serve their community, and Senator Obama’s record there is outstanding. And so, I praise anyone who serves this nation in capacities that frankly we all know that could have been far more financially rewarding to individuals rather than doing what they did.

I can forgive the lack of clarity in that last sentence. I got the gist of it, and I’m a lousy public speaker myself. His excuse for Palin is bogus, but that was to be expected, as was his effusive praise for service in general and specifically Obama’s service.

What pricked up my ears was his claim that the tone of the campaign would have been different had Obama agreed to go on a tour of town hall meetings with McCain. Just what is that supposed to mean? Did the McCain campaign start putting out lies because McCain was angry that Obama didn’t want to do things his way? Is this revenge? Maybe it’s an offer of a bribe: come on tour with me and I’ll behave.

I honestly can’t think of a logical explanation for that statement that doesn’t involve anger or revenge.

Hey, is that a wolf swimming down there? Dangit, I should have brought my rifle with me! Yaaaaaaaah suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure!

McCain and Palin, “the original mavericks,” as they’re described in the video below, (I know McCain is ancient, but Palin’s younger than I am. How is she one of the “original” mavericks?) have now announced that “change is coming.” That’s right — they’re not just mavericks. They’re mavericks of change. You betcha.

I was watching MSNBC today, and they had a couple of those dueling pundits (or as Palin calls them, “pundints”) segments. The big stumper question they hit the democrats with, after pointing out how McCain and Palin had ostensibly taken that tough as nails maverick stance and bucked the established powers that be in their party, was “What examples can you give us of Obama and Biden openly disagreeing with the rest of the Democratic party?”

What bullshit.

First of all, how many of the examples of McCain or Palin being “mavericks” — really standing up to their party — are true? Of those positions, how many do they still hold? Standing up to your party and then changing your mind and agreeing with the bosses doesn’t count as maverick in my book.

Mavericks, my ass.

And they don’t really talk about what they’re going to change. They just say “change is coming.”

Considering the fact that Republicans have been in power for almost eight years now, and that for all but about a year and a half that power was absolute, “change” is represented by the other party. Who says you have to be a maverick Democrat to represent change?

So when someone points out that McCain has voted with Bush 90% of the time, and the counter argument to that is that Obama voted with the rest of the Democratic party about 90% of the time, the proper response should be that that represents voting against Bush well over half of the time.

And that represents change, whether Obama chooses to strap on a six-shooter, hop on his horse and call himself a “maverick” or not.

Thanks, agents of intolerance! If I’d been allowed to choose for myself, we all know I’d have reached across the aisle and picked some pro-choice heathen.

I remember a day more than twenty years ago, back when I was a teaching assistant in a course on European cinema at a huge state university deep in the land of white bread and mayonnaise. The professor was lecturing on FW Murnau’s Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens.

I’m just paraphrasing here, but this is basically what he said:

Don’t think of the vampire as a literal monster who can turn into a bat and who sucks blood from his victims. Instead, think of the foreigner, the other, the stranger, the alien, the carrier of unfamiliar diseases and strange customs… the Jew.

I watched him make this statement, and saw that he was making an effort to look out over the entire lecture hall, but that as hard as he tried, by the time he got to the end of it, his eyes were focused right… on… me. All I could do was smile right back at him, and that was enough to jar him into averting his gaze.

I was reminded of that incident while watching the Republican convention last night. The major speakers didn’t bother with even a sliver of subtlety. They polished up their old culture war buzz words and held them up like they were eternal truths.

Mitt Romney jumped all over the “eastern elites,” and proclaimed that the sun was getting ready to rise in the west. He left out the fact that he holds two post-graduate degrees from Harvard University, that he’s a leader of the eastern financial elite, that he has homes in Massachusetts and New Hampshire in addition to Utah (and maybe a few places I’m not aware of), that he claimed in 1982 to be a moderate who hadn’t supported Reagan-Bush, and that his own father was born in Mexico because his family had lived there in exile for a few generations due to the fact that a major tenet of their religious beliefs was deemed alien, immoral, and illegal in the US.

Mike Huckabee warned us of “European ideas,” leaving out the fact that this nation was founded by idealists who hoped to build a nation based on the ideas of a couple of European philosophers.

And Rudy Giuliani, life-long New Yorker, adulterer and three-time groom, multi-millionaire orator and security consultant to folks like Abdallah bin Khalid al-Thani, a supporter of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, further warned us that those bi-coastal elites — Hollywood and the East coast media — just don’t understand the real America.

And every time they mentioned the media, Europe, or Hollywood, I’d look in their faces and see that professor (who grew up in Los Angeles, by the way) who just couldn’t keep his eyes off the one Jew in the room when he talked about the Other.

Remember when Fox caught Jesse Jackson on an open mic expressing some disappointment with Barack Obama? Well, that ain’t nothing. Make sure you listen all the way through, after the camera cuts away. This apparently went out live on MSNBC today.

Who knew Peggy Noonan, she of the shining city on the hill, even knew the word “bullshit”?

Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of the Governor of Alaska, is five months pregnant. I honestly don’t care.

She’s planning on marrying the father. I don’t think it’s any of my business.

There had been rumors that her baby brother, Trig (or Pre-Calc, as I prefer to call him) was in fact her son. Doesn’t matter to me, except I question the sense of taking the long trip from Texas to a small-town hospital in rural Alaska after his mother’s water had broken. That sort of risk-taking makes more sense as a cover-up of a young mother giving birth and her mother pretending to. But again, even that really has nothing to do with me, and whether the crazy trip or the cover-up is the truth, I don’t particularly care.

Here’s what I care about: the Palins put out a press release on September 1.

We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us. Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.

Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates.

We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby…

Bristol Palin made a decision to have this baby? Sarah Palin is on record in support of overturning Roe v. Wade. When she was running for Governor, she responded to a questionnaire put out by the Eagle Forum of Alaska. In response to a question on abortion, she wrote:

I am pro-life. With the exception of a doctor’s determination that the mother’s life would end if the pregnancy continued. I believe that no matter what mistakes we make as a society, we cannot condone ending an innocent’s life.

In response to the question, “Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?” she wrote, “Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.”

So who believes Bristol Palin made a decision that made her parents proud? Who believes her parents think there was ever a decision to make? If McCain and Palin are elected, are they going to allow any women to make that decision for themselves?