Gutless Wonders

During today's press conference, President-elect Baracj Obama brushed off a question from Chicago Tribune reporter John McCormick about the Blagojevich scandal, and what interaction any advisers had with the Illinois governor.

"I don't want you to waste your question," Obama said.

McCormick asked another Blago-related question, and Obama said he wouldn't confirm a report in the Tribune from this weekend. Obama also said that the U.S. attorney's office asked his team to withhold an internal review until next week.

After a few attempts, the reporter finally followed up by asking who had the better jump shot: Obama or incoming education secretary Arne Duncan?

This guy is awesome

Are the refs blind?

Media bias was more intense in the 2008 election than in any other national campaign in recent history, Time magazine's Mark Halperin said Friday at the
Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election. "It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war," Halperin said at a panel of media analysts. "It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage."

So is Obama a make up call?

The refs can't get fired fast enough.

Well that’s a mandate

While I do honestly wish Obama the best and will wait to judge him on his actual actions as President, his Reagan-esqe margin (330+ electoral votes? wowza!) of victory could embolden him and quasi-Marxists in the Democratic Party to abandon the pragmatism that made Clinton so politically successful and move directly on:

1.) Withdrawing from Iraq without appropriately considering security implications.
2.) Implementing confiscatory tax rates on the “rich” (is that 150k or 250k?) that will cause a flight of capital into tax shelters limiting economy sustaining investment and tax revenue.
3.) Implementing carbon cap ‘n trade that will slow the economy, produce negligible environmental benefits and vastly subsidize a poorly understood and poorly regulated carbon market.
4.) Begin to transition private 401k assets into the Social Security Administration.


Well that’s all that comes to mind right now. Off to my sure to become workers paradise!

In the Tank

Just 14 percent of the stories about John McCain, from the conventions through the final presidential debate, were positive in tone, according to a study released today, while nearly 60 percent were negative — the least favorable coverage of any of the four candidates on the two tickets.

The study, by The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, a nonpartisan journalism watchdog organization, examined 2,412 stories from 43 newspapers and cable news shows in the six-week period beginning just after the conventions and ending with the final presidential debate.

[...]

Obama’s numbers, in fact, are in line with past presidential candidates around the same time periods in the 2000 and 2004 races. It’s McCain’s coverage that has been extraordinarily negative in tone.

On the plus side this election has pretty much revealed mainstream "journalism" for the fraud it is. The argument moves from whether the institution is in the tank to what newsources are most dishonest about their motives.

This is damning:

If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.
That isn't Sen. Obama's fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.
Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?

Racial Preferences in Education

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.

Gahhhhh!

GIBSON: All right. You have, however, said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, "I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton," which was 28 percent. It's now 15 percent. That's almost a doubling, if you went to 28 percent.
But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent.
OBAMA: Right.
GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent.
OBAMA: Right.
GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down.
So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?
OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.

egads

“Do you believe in the American dream?” a local plumber asked.

Obama said he did.

"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" the plumber asked, complaining that he was being taxed "more and more for fulfilling the American dream."

"It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success too," Obama responded. "My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody ... I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

The wagons are circled

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?

Godwin’s Law Bait

Must resist!

Why the next 2-4 years are going to suck

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.

Are they throwing this?

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.

Which begs the real question: Can anyone in Obama’s campaign use the internet?

Change I believe in

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".

There has been a distinct lack of coolness at all levels of government for at least the last 230 years. Thank god Obama has decided to take on this pressing issue! Many have tried, and failed but they were probably not cool enough for the task at hand.

I can only hope that when Obama's done changing our current uncool government into a cool government I will be cooler by association.

Ruh Roh

(Is his emo/hippy army scaring donors away?)

Obama’s decision to be the first candidate to ever turn down public financing may turn out to be a huge strategic blunder.

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.

Could this be why he’s now gone back on his pledge against coordinating with 527 groups?

Update: Obama has record $66 million dollar August! But only nets about 16% of that.

I realize he had his convention in August but a lot of that was covered by the DNC. What on earth is he doing to burn through 50 mil in a month? I didn’t think emo’s cost that much? Do they?

Time to pass the hat.

The Real Sullivan

You would think someone who was publicly outed as an aficionado of unprotected gay group sex with complete strangers and proceeded to present himself as a victim of “Sexual McCarthyism” would have some qualms about being party to exposing someone else’s (particularly a child’s) embarrassing private sexual affairs.

Nope.

This speaks volumes about his character not to mention his judgment/intellect for letting this rumor pass through his BS filter.

What a douche.

The Speech

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.

The Lightworker

Pray to him*:



Here (4:48):


*Prayers are apparently most effective when using the Cher effect.

Obamanomics

Well this clarifies things:

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.

Antioch

Living up to type:

To bad the man did this:

Greatest...show...ever