I already said that both sides were out of line. I said that no one was using the will of their voting base as the primary decider of their vote, which results in a total disconnect in this case that will hurt the incumbants up for election this year, no matter what they voted. There's nothing 'noble' about either side.

The assumed 'train wreck' was that he would spend most of his time solely blaming the Democrats for this vote. I was surprised to hear him attack the Republicans as well for playing politics. But as I mentioned earlier, he did slowly go downhill after that, so I downgraded my shock level and turned him off. :)

i feel like this is pretty much par for the course for congress though. they do this all the time. the will of the actual voting base is VERY rarely the primary concern of any politician.

Here are my thoughts on the matter:

*The bill should pass.

*Simply voting against it is unacceptable. Those voting against it need to explain their alternative proposal. Doing nothing is not an option. (Well, it's an option, but not a good one.)

*The bill should be worked out in a bipartisan manner.

*Pelosi's speech was not a good idea. Doesnt make sense to broker a 50-50 compromise so you havea bipartisan solution and then attack the people you just made a deal with.

*Blaming Pelosi's speech doesn't make the Republicans look good. Makes it sound like theyre putting hurt feelings above the good of the country.

*Every challenger candidate across the country should have to answer the question on how they'd vote. It's chickenshit to stay mum now and then attack whichever way the incumbent votes. I have a feeling we will have alot of challengers "deciding" on how they feel about the bailout after the final vote.

Then what is your explanation for the more Democrats voting for the bill than Republicans? If both were equally and only concerned about losing their re-election then we would expect an equal number of "nos". Clearly there is a greater antagonism to this bill in the Republicans and I would suggest that is their ideological opposition to government interference.

Agree completely with all the above. The house republicans should explain their alternative (which is a much better bill, IMO) and argue for that. At worst, pass a small bill for the initial amount as a loan.

+1

lol - so i know i'm like the only one still cracking on Palin, but i just saw this line by someone commenting on the AC360 blog about the island in Alaska.

Jim W.

September 30th, 2008 12:02 pm ET I can see the moon from my house. I have space traveller experience!

made me LOL

I think everyone is in such shock over our government actually working the way its supposed to for once no one knows how to react. That's certainly the case for me.

I agree, but in the opposite direction. Absent the election, I don't believe the vote would have been anywhere near as close as it was so quickly. Instead of a plan eventually approved on the next week or so as I expect we'll see, I imagine we'd be looking at 2-3 weeks of wrangling instead. Both sides would have taken more cracks at finding some political hay in the situation if they had more time.

Doubtfull. My bet is if this crisis would have happened the week after the elections, a lame-duck congress would have passed it very quickly.

Quoting Scherer:

"Nearly every major political leader in America supported the bailout bill. The President of the United States. The Vice President. The Treasury Secretary. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Democratic and Republican nominees for president. The Democratic and Republican leadership of the House and the Senate. All of them said the same thing. Vote yes."


If there wasn't an election next month, this sails through with no problem.

As stated in the paragraph you quotes above:

Now, if you want to argue that being in a GOP dominated district means they have to vote one way ideologically to not get thrown out on their ass, then you'd be right.

SI

He is also up 64 to 35 in the head to head markets. Someone posted that during the debates it had dropped to a 7 point margin, so it seems the money has really gotten behind Obama the past few days.

If Obama is leading by five or six points after the next debate, the election is over with.

There's a surprising poll on the Senate race in Georgia. SurveyUSA has Saxby Chambliss up by only two points over Jim Martin. Definitely an outlier at this point, so we'll wait and see what other polls say. I almost want Chambliss to lose more than I want Obama to win.

Quik pointed me to 538 which shows Chambliss very safe. His approval rating is actually over 50% and he's barely advertising here (at least I haven't seen too much). Amazingly, he and Purdue have high-ish approval ratings. I'm waiting for the gas prayer at the capital.

All Obama has to do is to play it really safe. Just go to rallies in certain places, keep a low profile in the DC mess and let the DNC et al do the dirty work. He should be president by default and then he'll let those around him tell him what he should do and say while president. That's better than what we have now.

and i have faith that Obama will do that - listen to those around him, where I don't have that same faith of McCain...I think he'd get carried away with his "maverick" image or get headstrong and not listen to anybody else. And that's what worries me.

The problem is that he is going to get conflicting advice and will succumb to analysis paralysis.Plus some of the people around him will not be smart enough to give good advice, some will be mavericks in their own accord. That will happen no matter who's there as Potomac Fever and the media will wear anyone down. Like I said, I would be keeping more of a wary eye on Congress and what punitive legislation they will force.

Wait...Isn't that what happens now? :)

I trust that Obama will hire better people. I do wonder if Obama wins the election, if the bar will be set too high for what people will expect.

I have no doubt whatsoever that that's true, sterlingice, but the House Republicans don't need that motivation - the bill is antagonistic to everything they've believed in all their political lives. It would be no problem opposing the bill without any push from their districts.

Yeah, that's why I was surprised by the SurveyUSA poll. There's a Dem poll that confirms this one, but I'd like to see what Rasmussen says before I get excited.

dola...

This was new information to me, having not given much thought to her education. In light of the apparent lack of it, though, here is the text from Wikipedia:


Potential President of the United States, ladies and gentlemen.

Any hard sources, besides Wikipedia?

Sure thing: here's an AP article, for one.

The Wiki article is pretty well footnoted.

yeah - i'm not necessarily an educational-snob, but that is amazingly weak as far as a college-resume and course of study

Thanks....I just don't fully trust wikipedia (sometimes they don't have footnotes).

It's good to treat Wikipedia with caution and double-check the info.

Bush went to Yale, look at him. It's a good question that springs to mind. Do the choice of college matter in politics? Bill Clinton went to the University of Arkansas, a respectable public school (but not as selective, competitive, and "cache" of the Ivy League pedigree). Do you think you learn more from the more diverse demographics of a school like Arkansas, than an exclusive school like Harvard or Yale, that will benefit you in politics in life?

I think I'm more concerned that her B.S. was in communications/journalism from a number of relatively unknown schools, which isn't really the educational preparation I'd like to see for the potential leader of the free world.

Communications/Journalism? Oh well (throws his college degree in Communication Arts out into the trash)

Also, how do you respond like this:


...when your degree is in communications/journalism?

I really think a lot of people are under estimating what role Obamas background (yes, primarily race) will play in the voting booth the day of the election. Minority candidates usually see a drop from poll numbers to vote numbers, and if battleground states remain close...

While I don't think it matters much, Clinton went to Georgetown.

Why am I thinking of University of Arkansas (I know he was gov. of Arkansas, or course)?

Georgetown, Oxford and Yale Law.

A quick google search says he taught at the University of Arkansas.

She's clearly out of her league at this point, but she's had a very inspiring career.

Extremely successful people tend to find themselves in positions before they're ready for them.

Wow, she didn't remember the name of a few newspapers or magazines that she had recently read off the top of her head. What a travesty! How can we have a president who doesn't state off the bat they read Newsweek, Time, the Washington Post and New York Times.

I'm betting she was referring to some local papers and didn't want to look like a hick and say "well, last week I read the anchorage gazette and Wasalla times". So, instead of lying and say she reads the New York Times every day, she decided not to answer. I don't see the big issue here. It was a stupid question that was made even more insufferable by Couric asking it 10 times in a row when it's obvious Palin didn't think her newspaper basket was all that important given the other things going on.

i don't even know where to start with your response.

1. i don't think we should have a president (or VP) who while on the campaign trail is reading the anchorage gazette and the wasilla times (or whatever) over the NYT, the Washington Post, and Time magazine.
2. She is a hick. By all accounts she's proud of the fact, so why not look like one. That seems to be her sweet-spot in terms of voters she's attracting too.
3. Not a stupid question at all - it demonstrates that she's up-to-date on current events and engaged with the world outside of Alaska
4. Even if couric asked her about the other things going on her answer would not have been coherent and intelligent (as she has shown time and time again)

I agree with this. She's in a position where every slip up she has is magnified by 10 and put on the front page of every paper. If she says there are 57 states or FDR was on TV in 1929, SNL has material for 3 weeks and every comedy show, columnist and new program is hammering her. Obama says something like that and it's "well, he's just tired from the campaign and you have to give him some slack." Biden or even McCain say something like that and it's "well, it was just a slip of the tongue - can happen to anybody."

In football terms, Palin is basically Eli Manning from 3 years ago and Obama/Biden are Brett Favre. No matter what Palin does, the media will report it in the worst possible light. With Obama/Biden, they circle the wagons. Palin has made plenty of mistakes and mis-statements, but so have the other three candidates.

For whatever reason (you can choose from she's young and pretty, not schooled in the right university, a pro-life woman, has a weird accent, from Alaska, she's undeserving in many people's mind), a ton of people (esp on the left) just flat out despise her and are giddy at every mis-step she makes.

The truth is that Palin has gotten to this point a little quicker than maybe she deserves, but you can say the same thing for Obama. While Obama got a good 20 months to ease into this situation with a mile of slack and lionizing media articles off the bat, Palin has been thrown in with no margin for error and a ton of criticism. At this point, she should just realize that she will be made fun of no matter how she handles things, be herself and hope enough people relate to her that she can help McCain.

This comment is exactly why she fumbled the response. She knew the truth would draw even more ire. I guess papers in Alaska are incapable of picking the AP wire like the NY Times does for most of it's articles.

When you're made fun of being who you are for 3-4 straight weeks, it probably gives you pause when you feel like you are overly playing into your own stereotype - especially when you are not a season vet of national coverage.

So, again, you aren't up to date unless you read the NY Times or Washington Post? This isn't the 30s, 80% of real reporting is done through AP and syndicated across the country to even "hick" towns in Alaska, Idaho and Montana. Even those cattle ranchers in Wyoming read in their local paper about that there war down there in EYE-RACK.

It's just experience in dealing with a critical media. It takes people some time to adjust to it. Obama had 20 months to adjust to a mostly friendly media, she has 20 days to adjust a firing squad. She's going to look a little rough at times.

It really wouldn't matter who was saying it or when, that is just a hilarious clip. It basically boils down to:

Person A: "What newspapers and magazines do you read?'
Person B: "Ohh, you know... most of them"


Its a response that borders on incoherent and seems totally worthy of ridicule to me!

Are you serious? She could read "Redneck Weekly" and you'd probably consider it intellectual reading. I thought Palin was actually a wonderful wildcard pick by McCain, but the more I see of this, the more JIMGA (of the top of my head) and others who decried it are turning out to be right. This woman is not ready for the stage.

I don't have a problem with people having fun with her on the bumbling. The end result is she just needs to relax a bit as she looks very tight in every interview. At the end of the day, she will be mocked not matter what. If you're going to be mocked, atleast be yourself. Hopefully that's the advice she's getting for the debate.

I've heard and seen some pretty pathetic Palin apologists on TV in the past week, but Arlie, this is just sad.

It's simply a different perspective. I understand many won't agree, but it's nice to know that once again dissent from the right is treated with respect in this thread.

I think I'll let the 90% of the Obama lovers pat each other on the back for the rest of this thread and check in from time to time. But, I lack the determination and patience required to respond to the 10-15 angry/belittling comments made for everyone I make at this point. It's just not worth the time (and I have other things to work on now ;) ).

So, Barack Obama is having is having success despite being inexperience. Arles says that is because Obama had many months of lionzing media press.
i
Sarah Palin is being bombarded because of her inexperience.....and she was thrown into it without being able to adequately prepare.

Sounds like John McCain's/McCain's advisors' fault to me.....Maybe he should have chose someone a little more fire-retardant than Palin.

Too bad..your candidate made a horrific decision, and now he's getting roasted over the coals for it by the media.

Thankfully for you, there are many people that will just vote conservative no matter the circumstances.

Okay, okay...there are many people that you would assume to vote liberal no matter the circumstances, and that's true. However, a lot of bad things have happened during this last 8 years. Hell, a lot of bad things have happened since the re-election. Sometimes people need a multiple break-ups before finally discarding a terrible spouse. How many women go back to their boyfriends/husbands after being hit by them?

2000: Okay, I'm falling in love

2004: That was bad, but maybe he only did this because he truly, truly loves me.

2008: You worthless piece of shit....you promised to make things better, but really were only looking out for yourself. You don't care about me at all! Goodbye!

McCain will probably get elected anyhow...because of the FreeMasons....or something.