Here's an interesting interview segment discussing the aftermath of the elimination of racial preferences in the UC educational system. I was in school when a lot of overheated rhetoric was flying around motivated by fears similar policies may come to pass in other states. Like welfare reform this now seems like a relatively consequence free policy change.
It’s clear the MSM is going to fight to the last man to see their guy gets elected.
This AP "news" piece alleges Palin’s recent comments pertaining to Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers “was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.”.
1. It is documented that Obama was recruited by Ayers to Chair the Annenburg challenge where the two collaborated for several years. Obama kicked off his political career with a party at Ayers home. Palin's "paling around" comment may very well be rhetorical excess but it's hardly "unsubstantiated".
2. Is there some codex that everyone else has that I don’t? How does anything in Palin's remarks have anything to do with Obama’s race? Does any criticism of a black man implicitly have a “racial tinge”?
If Obama doesn't win by landslide with an unpopular war, bad economy and Pravda-like media he could quite possibly be the worst politician of all time.
Obama isn't exactly courting the press either:
If so, I would love to have someone from Obama's campaign explain why the entire press corps, the Secret Service, and the local police idled for two hours in a Miami hotel parking lot recently because there was nothing to do and nowhere to go. It was not an isolated case.
The national headquarters in Chicago airily dismisses complaints from journalists wondering why a schedule cannot be printed up or at least e-mailed in time to make coverage plans. Nor is there much sympathy for those of us who report for a newscast that airs in the early evening hours. Our shows place a premium on live reporting from the scene of campaign events. But this campaign can often be found in the air and flying around at the time the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" is broadcast. I suspect there is a feeling within the Obama campaign that the broadcast networks are less influential in the age of the internet and thus needn't be accomodated as in the days of yore. Even if it's true, they are only hurting themselves by dissing audiences that run in the tens of millions every night.
The McCain folks are more helpful and generally friendly. The schedules are printed on actual books you can hold in your hand, read, and then plan accordingly. The press aides are more knowledgeable and useful to us in the news media. The events are designed with a better eye, and for the simple needs of the press corps. When he is available, John McCain is friendly and loquacious. Obama holds news conferences, but seldom banters with the reporters who've been following him for thousands of miles around the country. Go figure.
The McCain campaign plane is better than Obama's, which is cramped, uncomfortable and smells terrible most of the time*. Somehow the McCain folks manage to keep their charter clean, even where the press is seated.
*Wow and with an army of emo-hippies too. Who woulda thunk it?
Everything is dependant on the efficient flow of capital and from everything I’ve read it’s probably going to be at least 2 years for the markets (yes that’s markets not self-important halfwits that need glossaries for basic financial terms) to discover the actual values of mortgage backed securities so confidence can be restored. There are financial halfwits on both sides of the aisle but after what has happened in the last year democrats should be banished to the financial kiddie table permanently.
Why? Despite all the vagueness and allusions to vast complexity by the media (Are they stupid? In the tank for Dems? Both?) when describing the origins of this crisis it’s really pretty simple. Very much like today, in 1938 there was a glut of housing inventory of the market. Banks didn’t want to take them as collateral because they were essentially worthless. FDR nationalized this risk by creating Fannie Mae to buy up these risky loans and repackage them as risk free securities. Concerned about little more than appearances of his vastly growing government (war on poverty/war) LBJ turned Fannie Mae into a semi-private, for profit, “special purpose entity”. It was little more than a shell game which simply converted real liabilities into implied liabilities (think Enron). In 1977 the Carter Administration signed the Community Reinvestment Act which threatens banks with delays in regulatory approval if an insufficient number of loans are not made to poor (high risk) borrowers. In the early 90’s with the stated objective of “expanding lending to low-income, minority communities” the democratic congress passed bills that allowed Fannie Mae to only keep 2.5% of assets in reserve against liabilities (all banks are required to have at least 10%) and in 1994 the Clinton administration further expanded the Community Reinvestment Act forcing lending institutions to demonstrate they were actively engaged in finding subprime borrowers to lend to. Comparatively unburdened by oversight and asset requirements Fannie Mae purchased and bundled the vast majority of this risky loans. By 2007, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac owned or guaranteed nearly half of the $12 trillion U.S. mortgage market.
All the while was happening Republican Congressional members and the Bush Administration repeatedly tried to bring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under control only only to be repeatedly resisted by Democratic house members.
My cautious but growing glee at the apparent meltdown occurring in the bucolic realm of “hopey changey” is being replaced with confusion and pity.
Surely there must be better arguments to be made against McCain than this:
I mean that ad seems to say little more than McCain’s old and he doesn’t do technology.
The worst part is that this line of attack will backfire horribly for the Obama campaign if they continue pressing this:
Boston Globe, 2000:
McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain’s encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He’s an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can’t raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.
Barack Obama addressed the wide distaste for government -- and the fact
that he and John McCain are running against Washington -- at the forum on
national service at Columbia University.
"Our campaign from the beginning has been about changing government," he
said, recalling some great accomplishments of American government: Civil rights
legislation, the interstate highway system, and the National Park
system.
Obama would, he said, "transform Washington" and "make
government cool again".
Pushing a fund-raiser later this month, a finance staff member sent a sharply
worded note last week to Illinois members of its national finance committee,
calling their recent efforts “extremely anemic.”At a convention-week meeting in Denver of the campaign’s top fund-raisers, buttons with the image of a money tree were distributed to those who had already contributed the maximum $2,300 to the general election, a subtle reminder to those who had failed to ante up...
But the campaign is struggling to meet ambitious fund-raising goals it set for the campaign and the party. It collected in June and July far less from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s donors than originally projected. Moreover, Mr. McCain, unlike Mr. Obama, will have the luxury of concentrating almost entirely on campaigning instead of raising money, as Mr. Obama must do.
A spokesman said that August was its best fund-raising month yet and that the campaign’s fund-raising was on track. But the campaign finished July with slightly less cash on hand with the Democratic National Committee compared with Mr. McCain and the R.N.C. The Obama campaign has also been spending heavily, including several million more than the McCain campaign in advertising in August.A California fund-raiser familiar with the party’s August performance estimated that it
raised roughly $17 million last month, a drop-off from the previous month, and
finished with just $13 million in the bank.
I watched a good deal of Obama’s big speech last night and have to say I was generally impressed. I was skeptical about whether the venue would work but it turned out to be pretty spectacular. I liked the bits about “trimming unnecessary government programs”.
The one line I thought was particularly cringe-worthy was Obama’s suggestion that if people are questioning whether his judgment is suitable for the presidency “he’ll take that debate”.
Well to date he’s clearly done the opposite. He’s rejected all but the minimum 3 debates (and the idiotic Rick Warren faith “debate”) this fall, his campaign has threatened boycotts of TV stations airing critical ads, his campaign is attempting to silence a 527 through the justice department, his campaign recently instructed supporters to interfere with a Chicago radio station interviewing a researcher looking Obama’s chairmanship of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.
To date when challenged Obama has not responded with anything resembling a “debate” but instead has resorted to litigation and bullying tactics.
Maybe Michael Klonsky taught him too well.
Pray to him*:
Here (4:48):
*Prayers are apparently most effective when using the Cher effect.
If you talk to Warren [Buffet], he’ll tell you his preference is not to meddle
in the economy at all — let the market work, however way it’s going to work, and then just tax the heck out of people at the end and just redistribute
it,” Obama said. “That way you’re not impeding efficiency, and you’re
achieving equity on the back end.” He continued by saying that he thought there
was some merit in Buffett’s argument.
Here’s a pretty good breakdown of this NYTimes summary of Obama’s professorship at the University of Chicago by a current law professor at UW Madison.
The take-away sentence:
Obama either sought to avoid making a record of what he thought or he actually lacked opinions.
Obama may actually have an ideology but it's unlikely we’ll never see it. Instead we'll get months (or years!) of the political equivalent of the color beige; reasonable sounding reasonableness coated in illiterative prose and preachers cadence.
Ideas are apparently secondary to Obama's long held political apirations.
Nope, it's not a quote from either of our presidential candidates. It's something I've never heard before.
Listen to the included clip a few times in a row. It's what's called a Shepards Tone. "A tone that continually ascends or descends in pitch, yet which ultimately seems to get no higher or lower."
Weird and awesome at the same time.
Speaking of which, I'll be in Indiana on Wednesday. We land at 9:40 am and purchase a sampling the best tamales in the world shortly thereafter.
Hat tip: Boing-Boing
During the ‘04 campaign I remember a lot of sympathetic media lamenting how damaging charges of “flip-flopping” were to Kerry; that the differences in position changes were actually small, that his words were taken out of context, that “everyone does it” and that his position changes suggested an “open mind”. I recall thinking that if this line of thought was taken to its logical conclusion the necessity for having an executive branch may have passed and that governance through referenda may ultimately be what people desire.
Do we really want a president who is simply better at researching and reacting to public opinion or do we want a president that leads with conviction?
Has communication technology given us the ability as a society to collectively know what policies are sound? Do we no longer need the leadership of an individual?
These aren’t rhetorical questions. Are our choices ultimately between another Clinton or another Bush?
This is just additional context to the discussion in the previous post moved here per Ben's request.
Position 1:
Hawkish rhetoric recognizing the threat of Iran and the ongoing need from troops in Iraq:
A reduced but active presence will also send a clear message to hostile countries like Iran and Syria that we intend to remain a key player in this region…Make no mistake, if the Iranians and Syrians think they can use Iraq as another Afghanistan or a staging area from which to attack Israel or other countries, they are badly mistaken. It is in our national interest to prevent this from happening.
But what about the withdrawal?
Position 2:
Campaign commercial intended to subtly attack Hillary for supporting the Kyl-Lieberman amendment; a bipartisan measure that urged the U.S. government to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. This allowed the US greater ability to apply sanctions and tighten restrictions through the global financial system.
It passed this spring 76-22. Obama strongly opposed it with his signature rhetorical restraint:
Obama today also penned an op-ed in The Manchester Union-Leader warning that Congress -- including, notably, rival Hillary Clinton -- has given Bush the pretense to invade Iran by approving a recent Senate amendment. "When you give this president a blank check, you can't be surprised when he cashes it," Obama writes. "I strongly differ with Sen. Hillary Clinton, who was the only Democratic presidential candidate to support this reckless amendment.
But perhaps aware of his fickleness he again opted not to record this position and just didn’t vote because he couldn’t make it.
Position 3
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/23/1218024.aspx
It was remarkable in terms of the strong language Obama used repeatedly to demonstrate the depth of his support for Israel, saying at one point that he had an "unshakeable commitment to Israel's security." His message appeared to be directed at American Jewish voters, an important voting bloc and one that has been wary of Obama's commitment to Israel.
On Iran, Obama said he would take no options off the table in dealing with the potential Iranian threat.
"A nuclear Iran would be a game changing situation not just in the Middle East but around the world," he said. "Whatever is- remains of our nuclear non-proliferation framework, I think would begin to disintegrate."
The senator argued that as other Middle Eastern countries, some with ties to terrorist organizations, sought nuclear weapons of their own that would increase the likelihood that loose nuclear materials could falling into the hands of terrorists.
"That is our single most important threat to Israel but also to the United States of America. So this is something that we're going to spend a lot of time working on," he said.
Obama said his goal was to mobilize the international community to offer big sticks and big carrots to Iran to end its nuclear program, urging the country to take advantage of what he called "the shift" in Bush administration's approach to direct talks.
Obama made a mistake when he began to list legislation he's supported to show that "vote after vote" he had been a friend to Israel.
"This past week we passed out of the US Senate Banking committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don't obtain a nuclear weapon," Obama said
There are lots more of these: FISA, NAFTA, Gun Control....
