So does a flat tax.

That is an angry, bitter man who I would not want to cross

SI

To make that statement, you have to assume that the current tax system is not flawed. Does it help the wealthy or just adjust previous flawed tax law? The overwhelming amount of taxes will still fall on the higher income taxpayers. The flawed assumption is that the higher tax bracket individuals pay more taxes because they are taxed at a higher rate. I can tell you without question that is not even remotely the case. The amount of tax avoidance in the 28%+ tax brackets is ridiculous. People would be shocked how much more the wealthy would have to pay if they just tossed out the loopholes and put in a flat percentage with no exceptions.

Instead, our legislators toss in a new credit here and a new deduction there and call it reform of the tax code. What usually results is a net increase in income for the wealthier classes while the lower tax classes get excited about the $300 bone that they got tossed to keep them happy.

Eliminating credits and deductions and creating a flat federal income tax don't have to go together. If the issue is credits and deductions, get rid of those.

I agree with that. Removing all credits/deductions/etc. would be a great first step. At least we could then see how taxpayers in the various brackets would react when they're taxed at their true rate.

My only point related to KWhit's post was that the assumption that the wealthiest taxpayers actually pay 28% or 35% of their income to taxes is highly flawed. Their actual rate is several points less than that due to the loopholes in the code.

While I will not argue the point that Stewart is not exactly "news media", I would argue that it is hard to find any "news media" on TV these days. I watch quite a bit of cable and broadcast news, but I don't think they are as willing to light up a political figure as Stewart is. I found Couric's interview of Palin to be refreshing, I just wish she would have gone after Biden the same way.

Mizzou, I am guessing you were a Ron Paul fan? I really think it would have been interesting to see him get the nomination. Honestly, I think Obama and McCain are somewhat close on a lot of issues. A Ron Paul/Hilliary Clinton debate would have been very interesting to watch. :)

Im not sure I agree with ALL Liberal Policy so that's just not true....again. Im actually more moderate than you'd think (the test I took on here someone posted confirmed that thought) however I am hung up on hypocrisy and lying, perhaps to a fault, but that doesnt mean I have to lower my standards to be 'ok' with it.

Some liberal policies I do agree with, no involvement in State and abortion rights, rights for gay marriage (if they want them), less taxes on the middle class. However I am also pro-death penalty (although I cringe every time someone on death row is found to be innocent later via DNA), not for raising capital gains taxes above where they were under Clinton, pro fair free trade, anti-illegal immigration, and I was for the war in Iraq and for a smart withdrawal from there only to go clean up the remaining mess in Afghanistan. So painting one in Blue or Red is BS, however accepting hypocrisy or dishonesty is not in the cards. This should not have to be defended in any way.

Oh and about the Kouric interview? Perhaps not having Huckabee come out and cream the press at the RNC convention wouldve not got their ears up. that being said, an interviewer like you said should absolutely chase the question so when Palin didnt answer it, it's the interviewer's duty IMO to go after it.

oh, the horror, how dare the press treat him so bad.

/sarcasm

That's where I'm at. I'm voting for some state initiatives, local candidates and that's it. The rest will be left blank.

I'm struggling to think of a single thing the federal government has done in my lifetime to make my life better.

And once again, that has nothing to do with the argument. I stated that there was nothing inherently wrong with the interview. I just have a big problem with the fact that Couric put away the flamethrower and brought out a Super Soaker for the Biden interview. Grill 'em both.

As far as the media grilling, they had that coming for some time. It must have raised a few eyebrows, because after 'NBC' was chanted by the crowd, Matthews and Olbermann were removed from the anchor seats. That's not a coincidence by any stretch of the imagination.

but IMO it's also not left/right bias. Its a ratings bias. the issue du jour is whether or not Palin's 'ready' so as a reporter if the interviewee leaves a door open that would be in line to touch on that issue you need to go after it.

If youre talking to Obama about his experience and he says something that opens the door you bet your ass theyre going to go into that.

Why didnt they go after biden with the FDR TV stuff? Cuz it doesnt play well on TV or in the paper's since it's not his issue du jour. Now if he flies off the handle and says something patently aggressively stupid in a way that could possibly offend a bunch of people, I guarantee it'll be on news at 11.

Well, it's certainly not a ratings bias. That's spin on a large scale.

Perfect example is the question about the payments to the McCain advisor from the mortgage companies. That's a perfectly legit question to ask. So why wasn't Biden asked about the connections of two of Obama's advisors to the same companies? Or the $3.9M that Obama personally received from those companies?

How about the question about naming one thing that McCain has done/reformed in 26 years? While I don't agree with asking the question 4 times, it's a legit question. Why wasn't Biden asked to name one thing that Obama has truly reformed in his short time in office? Couric was willing to attack with Palin with those topics......why not Biden so we could compare their answers?

In the grand scheme of things, I think the media is almost doing the Democrats a disservice by giving them these cupcake interviews. If the Dems actually felt attacked during an interview, maybe they'd come out swinging more often and we'd actually get a better idea where they stand on a lot of the issues. I like Biden and I think he'd do extremely well if they put him in that kind of arena.

I'm biased, sure, but the Couric interview mostly reads as a softball interview gone wrong when Palin couldn't even hit the fluffy pitches out of the park. When you listen to Couric (and Gibson last week, for that matter), she's almost pleading with Palin to give her a reasonable-sounding answer so she can go on to the next question and not look dumb herself.

President Clinton weighs in on McCain's idea to delay the debate:

YouTube - Bill Clinton: McCain Acted On "Good Faith" In Debate Delay

My response to that, regardless of the strength or lack thereof of the questions, would be that she can look dumb all on her own. When Couric or Gibson ask the question over and over again, it puts the focus on them as being in attack mode rather than interviewers. A good interviewer doesn't need to do that. There's plenty of pundits out there who rehash the interview and will note that she looked dumb or smart.

BTW.....if you want another comparison, look at the Hannity interview of Palin and just how toothless that interview was. It was just as embarrassing as the Biden interview.

Exactly. And Obama says that he will bring about change if he's elected. So a perfectly legit question much like the Palin question would be to ask Biden what major legislation he has passed in his brief career as a senator and press Biden if he couldn't come up with anything specific. I'll even grant you that Biden may come up with a better answer than Palin did, but by not asking those questions and allowing Biden to shine on his own, Couric is robbing Biden of an opportunity and is taking the focus off Biden and putting it on Couric.

It's not difficult to see why the Palin interview seemed so much tougher than the Biden interview. To begin with one was more of a biopic interview and the other one about a subject any Republican would have found difficult. But it was also the way the questions were answered.

Couric began with a searching question in both interviews. With Biden she went for his Achilles heel with a question about his "foot-in-mouth" disease. Biden answered confidently, honestly and was even a little self-depricating. He disarmed the question and prevented any follow up.

The same happened with the question about misleading advertising. Again Biden took charge by accepting the criticism and even volunteered that the Democrat ad on McCain and computers was a disgrace. Again he disarmed the question by accepting that there was some justification in the interviewer's criticism and sympathising with it. Again, it defuses the follow up.

He did what every good interviewee should do - take charge of the interview and turn it into a conversation, preventing the interviewer from getting any negative traction. He even flirted with her and put her off guard.

Palin, by contrast, showed her inexperience and lack of preparation. She struggled, waffled, didn't answer the question directly and at times seemed to be repeating some previously rehearsed answer. That allowed Couric to come back with follow up questions and that's where the 'toughness" came in. Palin tended to repeat herself, still didn't offer definitive answers and let Couric take the interview where she wanted. Couric was able to dictate the interview.

Palin showed her inexperience and allowed the interviewer to take charge. Biden, used his experience, disarmed the interviewer with his (apparent) honesty and controlled the interview himself.

For an excellent example of how to take charge of an interview see the Iranian president wrap Larry King around his little finger the night before while talking the utmost garbage :)

I'd agree with the first point, but I would also note that it shows just how poor of an interview it was by Couric that she'd be that easily 'disarmed' by that kind of an answer rather than following up on the response. Especially the humor pointed at himself. A good interviewer would have dismissed that humor as trying to get around the issue and then provided other instances that further showed his tendancy to slip up and say different things on an issue depending on which day he was talking. At least that's the pressing tactic that was used in the Palin interviews.

Larry King is a shell of his former self. It's difficult to find any interviews where he doesn't get man-handled by the person he's interviewing when it comes to political figures.

I bolded the weird part for me which is that I find it weird that the McCain camp hasnt seen everything prior to her selection. I wouldve thought that really deep looks at her/their financials wouldve been part of the vetting process but, oh well. Hopefully for them, and all of us, it's all on the up n up and nothing to see here.

Palin won't reveal her finances until after debate - Yahoo! News

I don't disagree with that at all, Mizzou B-ball fan. Biden simply took over. There was no way she was going to embarrass him. He has too much experience for that. I was very impressed in a cynical way :)

Palin clearly struggled and showed her lack of experience. Presumably the hacks at The Frontiersman in Wasilla have some way to go yet to get even to Couric's level :)

And therein lies my problem with Biden. As far as a person outside of politics, I find him to be a likeable guy and very approachable. As a politician, I find him to be very manipulative much the same as a car salesman. Have I ever said how much I loathe going to a car lot?

I find Palin to be similarly likeable and approachable outside of politics. I don't disagree that she's inexperienced, but that has never inherently bothered me. It's much like Obama. As much as I think it fair to ask about experience regarding Obama and Palin, I don't even use that as a reason to not vote for Obama. I have more policy-driven reasons for my vote.

The Couric interview shows the strategic flaw in the campaigns game plan to hide Palin from the media. It was only the second legitimate interview she’s given since being announced, and no press conferences. Couric has to ask hard follow ups, and follow ups to the follow ups if need be, because if she doesn’t who will?

For the 4th time in this thread, there was nothing inherently wrong with the Palin interview. The problem was the total lack of balance between the Palin interview and the Biden interview.

She's a morning show anchor out of her element. If you want to argue that she's not a good reporter I'm with you.

And as much as that's a fair point, the skill differences between Biden and Palin in handling such questioning were obvious. The interviews started the same. Think that had anything to do with the person being interviewed?

Let me rephrase then; The McCain campaign invited this double standard. And they were forced to do so because they picked an unqualified running mate.

How was it obvious? Biden was not asked those kinds of questions. It had a lot more to do with the total lack of interview skills displayed by Couric as JPhillips correctly pointed out.

Don't you think that the imbalance that you're talking about is at least partly attributed to the experience difference between Palin and Biden? I mean, Biden could've slipped up on the questions asked as easily as Palin did.

In the post listing the questions last page or so, I think the last two questions for Biden are much, much tougher than anything Palin was asked. The Palin questions appear to get tougher because she flubbed the answers to softballs. McCain as a mavrick (sic) is a central talking point of their entire campaign. Citing examples of that is an absolute lay-up.

On the other hand, asking a question about who approved an ad is designed to either cause a rift in the campaign or make Biden look like he has no input. In my mind, that's a question with much harsher consequences than asking for examples of why your running mate is a reformer.

That was funny, but as a point of reference: Barreta does make shotguns, and Rifles as well.

I absolutely agree. My only point is that they both get similar treatment. I agree that Palin didn't perform terribly well. You say he could have slipped up as well. All I'm saying is that they should have that equal opportunity. As I said, I think he would have done substantially better with similar questions, but was never afforded that opportunity.

Received this in my e-mail. I will Flaschetize it:

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight...

If you grow up in Hawaii , raised by your Kansan grandparents, you're "exotic,
different, not like us."

Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, shoot wolves from planes, ban books, lie about a bridge, you're a quintessential All American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

Name your kids Willow , Trig and Track, you're a maverick.


Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.


If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience--you are woefully inexperienced.

If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people and can see Russia from your house, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.


If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.


If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.


If you are a Democratic male candidate who is popular with millions of people you are an "arrogant celebrity" "uppity".

If you are a popular Republican female candidate you are "energizing the base".


If you're a minority and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "token hire."

If you're a conservative and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "game changer."


Black teen pregnancies? A "crisis" in black America.

White teen pregnancies? A "blessed event."


If you're a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fully vetting the individual you're "reckless."

A Republican who doesn't fully vet is a "maverick."


OK, much clearer now.

To be fair, that question never would have been asked had Biden not had a 'Biden' moment all on his own. He created the perceived rift through his own comments.

I'd also mention another thing about political interviews. The public penalty for making the slightest comment out of line with policy or their running mate is far too severe. I think far too many politicians go into these kinds of interviews hoping to NOT screw up rather than just being honest and forthright. I think McCain and Biden do especially well in this regard whereas Obama and Palin tend to dance and duck a bit more.

Looks like the political game continues in Washington. Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd had a brief appearance stating that they have reached an agreement on final verbiage of a bailout bill and that they'll be heading to the White House with a finalized agreement with nothing to discuss.

Only one problem.......Republican leaders say that if there's a final agreement, they sure haven't signed off on it.

So in translation, the Democrat leadership, hoping to avoid any perception that McCain had some effect on the negotiations, announce that an agreement is in place that had nothing to do with McCain. On the other side, the Republicans, regardless of whether they've agreed to a final bill, say that no agreement has been reached so that they can enter the meeting, come to a 'final' agreement in the Oval Office, and give credit to McCain for his involvement.

Sound about right? :)

What about Obama gives him a rock star aura ? I really don't understand that statement.

Anyway, Bidens slip up to me was not all that aggregious. I bone-headed statement, yes, but not all that earth shattering. It's not like he lied about something HE had said or done or drastically destorted the truth regarding the sentiment. I can't quite say his screw up falls in the same category with "I told them thanks, but no thanks" which has been repeated some many times its not even funny, despite it having a completely different implication as compared to what really happened. If he had distorted something attributed directly to himself then have at him, but this is not the case.

I admit, the media tends to be much harder on Palin/McCain but honestly, when they dropped Palin into the mix the way they did it just sparked more attention. I don't think she is treat the same as Romney would have been treated by the McCain camp which only generates more and more questions.

To me, when she is allowed to speak she comes across like she is unconfident, nervious and not prepared. She more she talks, the more questions people come up with all because she was dropped into the situation and does not appear to be ready.

If I'm Obama, I do not want Clinton campaigning for me. First, he was praising Palin and now defending McCain. I think it is pretty clear who Clinton would like to see in office. Hillary in 2012.

Well, it appears to me that when McCain was saying that Hillary and him were friends (or was it Hillary that was saying it, I can't remember), they were telling the truth.

When I saw that this morning, thats exactly what I thought. Bill's had a chance to help Obama out but pretty much thumbed his nose at him. So much for him helping. Obama should tell Bill "thanks, but no thanks"

hmmm, the Right's comments about Obama being the 'god' of the Libs.



The perception that having hundreds of thousands of Germans at a pseudo-concert for him.

Katie Couric - Sarah Palin


Not a softball question, and I can't fault Palin here as much as I can the McCain campaign for not preparing her with a better denial answer. Since she sounds so unsure, she gets this follow-up:


A flat-out denial of a conflict of interest would have been better here. Just be clear and move on. Instead, she makes her answer worse by sounding like she's spewing a memorized quote. And the 2nd sentence makes no sense (and sounds even worse on tape than it does on paper).


Softball question, in the sense that it's so general and open-ended that it just invites a "say something that means nothing" answer. Instead we get some pretty confused thoughts up front and then a wide-eyed appraisal of her running mate's involvement in the solution. The first half sounds like she doesn't know what she's really talking about, and the 2nd half sounds, frankly, naive. Not even partisan, just naive.

Worse, it digs her into this hole:


Gets back on track here, and for the first time actually seems to be saying something she's actually thought about and in which she believes. Note that since she's clear, understandable and straightforward, it finally closes off this line of Couric's questioning.


Softball. The obvious answer is "Depression is too serious a word at this time, I think. I'd rather look to Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke to make that kind of assessment and work with them to avoid that possibility, which is what Senator McCain is doing right now."

Instead, her response is essentially incoherent.


Softball. An A+ opportunity to show they're thinking about the average American. And she does so well until....


Say what? First of all, the meme of the week is that it's Wall Street that's made the bad decisions and shouldn't be rewarded. Emphasize that and Couric moves on. Secondly, a "pros and cons" question is a total setup for a quick laundry list that then ends the conversation. Every politician should be able to do this in his/her sleep.

And then the piece du resistance:


A softball ("one or two examples") that descends into a farce because a) she's been caught in a lie of her own making (John McCain has never been a fan of regulation) and b) she has no idea what she's talking about.


Honestly, if Palin was ever interviewed by Tim Russert (RIP) or Jeremy Paxman, I think there's a good chance she'd end up crying.


Then there's Biden:


Softball.


Not too tough a question, but there are a couple of traps in there. First of all Biden could have said something about females that would have alienated Clinton supporters. Likewise, he could have said something equally problematic about the "less educated". Instead Biden defuses the question in a way that doesn't really invite a follow-up.


Softball.


Not a softball, but again Biden defuses it by using a non-committal answer, which is all this question really deserves. He gives away nothing, which doesn't really leave Couric a lot of room for a follow-up.


Not the hardest series of questions in a row, but not total softballs, but here again Biden quickly pulls the conversation onto his turf with his answers and also manages to insert an attack in there.



The key difference I can see is that Palin's answers by-and-large give you the impression that she's either a) not sure of her subject matter, b) not sure what she really thinks about something, c) is regurgitating a talking point from her campaign or d) trying to get a point across and failing badly due to a lack of elocution (to be charitable) or lack of thought (to not be charitable).

Biden, on the other hand, gives the impression that he knows exactly where he stands on each question, and is able to get his opinion across with a minimum of confusion.

That difference, more than anything, is why one interview looks "harder" than the other.

Yup, I have lost what little respect I had for either of the Clintons back stabbers.

jeezus flere - thanks for posting that. i hadn't really realized just how incoherent most of her answers to every question are!

And it's frightening to me that someone who can't even put a coherent answer together (let alone one that actually has substance, but even just one that's coherent) is someone that is being pushed to be the 2nd most powerful executive in this country.

Honestly, the whole Sarah Palin thing to me says a great deal about the ignorance of most Americans, or the dumbing-down of genuine intellectual discourse.

Really...we're going to take somone who says "Guys and gals," in a prepared speech and say they should be V.P.?? We don't have any more qualified candidates than that?

And on a non-partisan note: how come we can vote in primaries for a presidential candidate but not for their VP? Wouldn't it make much more sense if we could vote for both? Say 1a and 1b?

that's my favorite part right there. she doesn't even try to close off the question couric asked (if i was couric i'd be pissed). Instead she starts babbling some mumbo-jumbo jingoistic crap about leadership and pragmatism instead of ANSWERING THE DAMN QUESTION.

not to mention: "...things that John McCain has done, that has shown his foresight..." UMMM...come again?? LEARN TO SPEAK ENGLISH!!!!! GODDAMN!!!!

On September 9th, 2003, the following document was issued by the Republican Policy Committee.......

http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/erik.h...ig_to_fail.pdf

On September 10th, 2003, the following comments came from John Snow during a committee hearing on the mortgage industry......

The committee had two members who responded to those comments, Barney Frank and Melvin Watt............

In 2005, John McCain issued the following statement concerning possible legislation in the mortgage banking industry.........

http://tinyurl.com/5t3jts


I found this stuff online after doing some digging. I'm REALLY surprised that we haven't heard more about these comments. I think it's ridiculous that Barney Frank thinks he can lay complete blame at the Republican party's feet with these kinds of comments on public record. Lou Dobbs called out Barney Frank last night about assigning blame and Frank got pretty fired up about it (Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com.

Republicans at this point take the fall for the Iraq War as it was obviously a misstep in hindsight. I think time will show that the Democrats will be the ones that missed the bus when it comes to this financial snafu. It'll be interesting to see if McCain focuses on this point during the economy debate. Obama is free and clear of it for the most part since he wasn't in the U.S. Senate until the point after the damage was already done.

devil's advocate: it's pretty easy for McCain to say "for years I have been concerned" -- but his record doesn't show he ever acted on that concern.

Any discussion yet on the fact that Biden and Obama both voted to maintain funding for the Bridge to Nowhere?

600 more posts and we surpass the Maximum FB thread boys and girls

Previews of Part II of Couric's interview with Palin (on foreign policy!) are now up on CBS' website.

Clip One:


Clip Two:



From Clip One I gather that she has foreign policy because if Putin decides to attack the U.S., he'll do so through Alaskan airspace. Oh, and trade missions. I learned something here, too, and that is that the Bering Strait is apparently a hotbed of international trade.

Clip Two is great, actually. It's pretty much a compilation of every one-sentence or one-phrase justification uttered in defense of the War on Terror by the GOP for the past 7 years.

Those flash cards are really paying off.

i don't put a lot of stock in this - this seems likely to have been one of those "the earmark for the bridge money was buried in a totally unrelated bill" type of situations. one of those "well i could vote against that bill to try to get that earmark removed, but that'd mean i'd be voting against a bill funding XYZ and then I'd politically be toast for that."

to be fair - I don't put a lot of stock into those "this person voted against this type of thing" attacks from either side though, and neither should any intelligent voter, because a high % of the time that's what actually is going on. The thing they're accused of voting against is buried as an earmark in a bill funding VA hospitals or something completely unrelated. that being said, i recognize that not everyone in this country is smart enough to realize that.

IMHO for that to have significant traction though you have to go back and find the bills that the funding for the bridge was in and see what else was included on those bills. because it's quite likely they were actually voting FOR something else and the bridge was just an earmark that they did not feel was a battle worth fighting at that time.