So, is this audience full of "uncommitted" voters? It kind of irks me how they get all the attention.
Tom Brokaw sounds like a parody of himself.
What was that? "Retired antholder citizens"?
Two "my friends" so far. Drink! Drink!
Uncommitted to either candidate, or not sure about voting at all?
I wish that he would just say Phil Gramm or Carly Fiorina. Is Meg Whitman bad enough to pillory?
John McCain: The eBay candidate.
FFF---- WOULD NOT ELECT AGAIN!
I just turned it on. Who is John McCain's pick for Treasury Secretary?
McCain's stool is too high. Awkward looking.
The background is terrible.
Holy shit -- McCain's mortgage proposal is to the left of Obama's, and replicates exactly what Roosevelt did in the New Deal.
The guy is so unpredictable, he's got a leftist streak somewhere in there on economics.
McCain is talking about how he suspended his campaign. Does he really want to remind people about that?
McCain's stool is too high
Castor oil, or Drill, baby, Drill!
crawler showing its good old pattern - notch of death whenever McC speaks, steady rise for Obama (with the women in the sample apparently cranking the dial up to maximum for nearly his entire chat).
McCain's stool is too high.
Old people constipate easily.
17: I missed that. But he just blamed the crisis on Fannie and Freddie. Jeez, he lies a lot.
McCain's getting out of breath walking around.
McCain's mortgage proposal is to the left of Obama's, and replicates exactly what Roosevelt did in the New Deal
except that he's going to do it with a balanced budget, and a tax cut - it's almost as if he thinks we're idiots!
is Brokaw's desk purple?
I'd say it's a shout-out to the gays, but it's obvious that no one with any aesthic sense was let anywhere near that stage.
Meg Whitman was the genius who paid six bazillion dollars for Skype without a plan for how eBay was actually going to use it.
23: CNN. (Maybe there are others also?)
26- It's so they can superimpose ads over it.
McCain is talking about how he suspended his campaign.
I assume that by "suspended" he meant "raised to lofty heights, above the day to day fray of petty campaigning, the better to watch over what's best for the country, and let it hang there." Then he called off the suspension and without a net it fell below the ground.
Now he's pinning it all on Fannie and Freddie again, let's see if Obama slams that Republican talking point.
McCain is just this promiscuous mix of Republican bullshit talking points and random economics plucked out of thin air, sometimes left wing.
Come on, can't Obama mention the Keating Five?
random economics plucked out of thin air, sometimes left wing
The word is "populism" dude. Remember the gas tax holiday?
Obama can't mention the Keating Five until McCain mentions Billy Ayers. Its in the rulebook.
Ha! The crawl dips when Tom Brokaw starts talking.
Is Brokaw slurring? Or am I drinking too quickly?
Ooh, they let a crazy hick woman ask a question!
(I know, I shouldn't judge people so quickly by their accent. But....)
God, comes to something when the dude can't even get so much as a blip on the crawler from saying "the American worker is the best in the world". This race is done. PS: uncommitted Ohio voters apparently see through the mortgage buyup gimmick as clearly as anyone.
McCain looks like a pitiful old man who can't keep a train of thought. The more so if you know what he's talking about, but even if you don't.
Ha! I was talking about owing money to the Chinese and the Saudis years ago!
27: The story was that even a monkey could run eBay. Whitman set out to prove it wrong.
Fuck, the last thing we want to do is cut spending now.
exactly what Roosevelt did in the New Deal
except that he's going to do it with a balanced budget, and a tax cut - it's almost as if he thinks we're idiots!.
Except that Roosevelt was a deficit hawk. He nearly killed the New Deal in 1938 because of it. where's ari when you need him?
This whole thing looks (and is) horribly fake. The regular folks asking questions schtick is BS, and the small audience just trows that into even starker contrast.
Earmarks !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously, is he going to have a heart attack? He keeps leaning on his chair, the railing, and wheezing.
What is this bullshit about a million-dollar overhead projector?
I thought MCCAIN liked taking questions from regular joes. I think he wishes that the questioners were allowed to ask followups so he could feel the sense of actually interacting with the audience.
this crawler action is brutal for McCain (btw, are there still really people not watching CNN? You're missing the crawler!). Even Yglesias can't misread it, surely.
PS: My big takeaway from this debate is that Ohio women love Obama even when he's talking obvious gibberish. I'm certainly going to advise my mate Rodney, who looks a bit like Obama, to get himself over to Ohio.
The number of bald men in the audience has been widely noted.
Talk about fiscal responsibility is an homage to Eisenhower, back before you people were born. Rightly ot wrongly, he really cared about that.
Energy independence!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
McCain knows how to sit at a table and reach across an aisle!
Entitlement reform. That should kill McCain if he's not already dead.
Roosevelt ran on a balanced budget platform.
Yes, we need to keep spending up, though I'd be fine with cutting certain areas to expand other stuff.
Rub it in. I have no parental authority, so I have to watch online so my daughter can watch Good Eats on Tivo.
The crawler goes up for McCain's talk of alternative energies.
uncommitted Ohio voters apparently see through the mortgage buyup gimmick as clearly as anyone.
it's not a gimmick -- it's a pretty straightforward bottom-up way to address the mortgage crisis -- I'd rather have seen that then the $350/$700 billion top-down bailout we just got.
I'm glad McCain put it on the table. When Dodd pushed the same plan it was generally seen as too far to the left.
Brokaw: Would you guys fucking pay attention to the timer?
what station has the focus group trackers? i am on the nbc-hd seeing john's liver spots and i'd rather see some nice geometric stuff instead.
55 to 50, and what's with the italics, idiot?
Brokaw is on that same stupid "what are you going to give up" kick Lehrer was. Feh.
Women love going through budgets line-by-line!
And women like McCain when he takes on defense contractors, apparently.
Obama next to two old men helps him A LOT.
Waste, inefficiency, and earmarks. A trillion dollars a year. Enough to balance the budget and give every American $10,000 a year.
At the beginning with Trust, etc., McCain was setting up a character attack on Obama Hussein Ayers.
Obama can't mention the Keating Five until McCain mentions Billy Ayers. Its in the rulebook.
48: It's called a planetarium. It's how the stars get on the ceiling. And it is a motherfucking awesome planetarium, so McCain can suck it.
Ohio voters don't like to hear politicians talking about sacrifice. Clever Ohio voters.
McCain keeps wheezing. He sounds like he's going to keel over any minute.
Doubling the Peace Corps! Woohoo!
FUCK PLANETARIA AND FUCK PLANARIANS
63: we don't have to give up a goddamn thing we need....deficits as percent of GDP are still lower than the peak levels they reached under SAINT RONALD REAGAN. (Well, we should cut military spending way back, but Obama is on record calling to increase it, so so much for that).
The "sacrifice" and "what program will you give up" are really the "What is your greatest weakness?" of this debate cycle.
57: it would be a sensible plan in the context of an explanation about how it would be paid for. In the context of someone promising a balanced budget and tax cuts, it's a gimmick. A child of three could see that this isn't going to be delivered.
71: Is it the Adler? That's what McCain is calling an "overhead projector", like it's something a schoolteacher shows transparencies with?
48: Planetariums use a fancy projector to show the sky in its totality. They are expensive. Also, they last for a long time, like 20 years. The total cost per person who sees the show (and hopefully is inspired by it) works out to a penny or so. I worked at a science museum and can confirm that it's a good investment. Plus the same infrastructure can be used for the Pink Floyd Laser Show.
80: It doesn't seem that implausible as an alternative to the current mainstream grey-eminence-approved status quo of giving infinite money to Henry Paulson with no explanation of how it would be paid for.
Wasn't it Clinton who raised taxes at the end of a recession?
Also, McCain is banned for a fucking awful analogy.
DD, your Attila and Lucrezia are preternaturally quick. American voters aren't.
I want McCain to explain how exactly a counter-cyclical spending freeze will get the economy moving again.
I should think that it would be rather difficult (as a human, grandma or otherwise) to fuck a planarian!
81: Yep. I saw a really cool "astronomy of ancient Egypt" show there last summer with CA's nephews.
WAIT WE NEED THAT LASER SHOW
Did you see that! There was the Brokaw-speaks, dial-normalisation notch, then there was, clear as day, another, separate McCain-starts notch. Roll it back in your Tivo if you can, it's stunning. Also NB that when Obama flatlines, he flatlines at the middle of the scale; McCain has this habit of flatlining a little below the middle, which suggests that there are some people in the focus group who are just dialling down to -100 whenever he comes on.
72: right on. Fuck the rhetoric of sacrifice. No one has to sacrifice -- the rich have done so damn well over the last decade that they won't even notice it when we raise taxes on them. They'll be happier with less money to take care of.
Also, the last President to raise taxes in tough economic times was Clinton...1993 was the hangover from the early 90s recession.
$4 MILlION DAMN DOLLARS FOR PLANARIAN DNA IN THE GREAT STATE OF OKLAHOMING. YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT I'M MAD AS HELL.
Unfunded entitlements.
Obama is agreeing, I guess.
FUCK SOCIAL SECURITY CRISIS TALK! TOTAL BS! FUCK "ENTITLEMENT REFORM"! Those are code words for raiding your retirement.
Too much money makes rich people unhappy. We should try to help them.
IEM has DEM WTA at 75.7, REP WTA at 25.0; slight move toward McCain during debate so far.
What makes 'entitlements' any more 'unfunded' than anything else? They're funded by tax revenues.
Fuck the rhetoric of sacrifice. No one has to sacrifice
Because the same infrastructure can be used to show Pink Floyd laser shows! It all fits together.
Those are code words for raiding your retirement.
Have McCain's people walked back their stunningly forthright admission that they were going to pay for his terrible health insurance reform plan by pithing Medicare like a frog?
A Blue-Ribbon commission? You can't beat that!
Social security is simple and medicare is complex.
Hit him with the 430 times voting for tax increases.
Obama should have pointed out that the tax increase on the top 1% he wants (which will just reverse the Bush tax cut on the top 1%), will provide enough revenue to fully fix the social security funding gap. Not that a SS funding gap in 2040 is really a problem.
To his credit, McCain doesn't really seem to care about "entitlement reform" either.
McCain isn't really a Republican. I did not know that.
He, kids, let's have a commission! Across the table!!!!
X has voted Y times to raise your taxes.
Goddamit I can't even listen to McCain. Literally can't stand his voice. O, sweet partisanship, sometimes you make things so hard.
boom bang! see that? McCain criticises Obama by name (on tax) and watch the crawler dive! This, rather than the average levels, is what you look out for in focus groups.
So this is like a pretty serious reimagining of the legislative process he's proposing, right? Between that and "buy all the mortgages!" I'm getting a sense he'd go in for a Year Zero approach in a minute if somebody offered him another beach house.
Oh, fuck you, John McCain. You do not understand what has to be done about climate change.
McCain: "Let's be like the French." That will go over well with the base.
I missed the beginning, but what I've seen McCain is clearly doing worse. But I thought that McCain smoked the first debate, so we can safely assume that McCain is winning this handily (outside of Ohio, of course).
112 - Complete with having eyeglass-wearers brutally executed as intelligentsia?
This one is worrying me less than the last one. Last debate, Obama looked unimpressive and McCain looked smooth to me. This time, while Obama could still be doing better, McCain looks and sounds terrible.
This debate is like a rerun of the first half of this debate, which was itself a rerun.
CNN Will Eat Itself.
The computer was invented by government scientists? What was that, Obama?
Damn right nuclear power is at best one part of a mix.
23 times against alternative fuels. A valid yet effective point.
108: I greatly prefer McCain to Bush. I cannot listen to or watch Bush at all.
McCain seems noticeably older than usual tonight.
The dsquared tracker commentary enthusiasm is certainly the most enjoyable part of this debate. It may be the most enjoyable part of October.
personal hobbyhorse - do you see how nobody likes even the word "nuclear"? They know a thing or two do these uncommitted Ohio voters.
124 - no shit. The only way he could do worse is to use a cane.
A hundred thousand garages to solve the energy problem? WTF, Tom Brokaw?
As soon as something isn't losing money, my friends, we should give it away.
Brokaw is a dickhead.
Silicon Valley was totally developed by government R&D, Jesus, you understand nothing about the history of the computer, the transistor, the internet if you don't understand that.
does mccain think that "I'm against bills that are full of goodies" is a good slogan?
IEM now has DEM_WTA at 77.8, REP_WTA at 23.5. If Yglesias et al dare to write this up as other than the one-sided arse-kicking it was, I will write a letter of complaint.
123: I am howling with laughter whenever I see Josh Brolin as Bush in the W. commercials.
When I watched the Obama campaign Keating Five filmlet, I was struck by the fact that McCain didn't look all that tremendously young nineteen years ago, either.
The answer to whether health care should be treated as a commodity is NO. Please, please, could you sound left-wing for a moment, Senator Obama?
Also, you should DESTROY McCain's horrible health care plan right now, this instant -- don't spend your time describing your plan.
129: It seemed pretty clear that he said "computer" when he meant "Internet", if I heard it correctly. (There was something about it being invented by government scientists for communication in the defense industry? I don't know, I'm drunk now.)
138: he looked young when he got off the plane from wherever it was he spent seven years (where was that, anyhow?).
Oooh nice biblical reference big O.
140 - the origins of the computer as we know it are in the attempts to break the German Enigma code during WWII.
I don't know, I'm drunk now.
My friends, my friends, my friends!
When I watched the Obama campaign Keating Five filmlet, I was struck by the fact that McCain didn't look all that tremendously young nineteen years ago, either.
He's really old. He hasn't looked even young-ish since the 70's.
140: yeah, but, still more-or-less true, so who cares.
What's up with McCain's shoulders? He moves like a marionette.
"Going across state lines" = eliminating all state regulation of insurance = being raped by the insurance companies. It seems like in a democracy one should be able to have a moment to explain this.
Hair transplants as the cause of high health care costs...love it.
The appropriate hair transplant joke is to refer to Biden.
144: he got shot down in Reno just to watch his campaign die?
Government. Mandates. Taxes. $5,000.
"Across state lines". Does he have a problem with the Dyer Act and the Mann Act? I say we should take state lines seriously. In 1776 we fought a war for states rights!
Making a joke to an audience is a specific skill that McCain lacks.
mccain sounds like he's reading a bedtime story.
143 isn't true, but that's probably a deeply tangential conversation to have. See the link in 129.
Eh, the computer has a long and complicated history. There was also some sort of early computing machine used in the Manhattan Project, no? I remember some story about Feynman and punch cards.
Then there was Charles Babbage's analytical engine, never built but still important.
Health care "a privilege, a right, or a responsibility"? STFU, Brokaw. STFU.
fuck, that hair transplants joke went down badly.
McC has not got above the 70% mark at all during this bit, when Obama was above it nearly all the time.
PS: STOP MUMBLING GODDAMMIT MCCAIN!
"Going across state lines" =
Not a great line. Makes me think of Bonnie and Clyde.
WTF, is Brokaw drunk? Is the next question "If you had to be a tree, what kind of tree would you be?"
the man line tanked on the screen when mccain made the balding joke.
Don't play defense, Obama. Rip apart McCain's plan -- it's subprime health insurance! McCain was saying a year or two ago that we need to deregulate health care provision just like we deregulated the banks.
DEM WTA now at 78 flat, which I think might be a contract lifetime high.
McCain's shoulders were damaged in captivity.
Obama's mother died young of cancer?
156: they were calculators, really. ENIAC was the first Turing-complete device, and I believe the first with RAM.
But yeah, it is a complicated story.
Von Neumann probably deserves a lot of the credit for the theoretical underpinnings, but he was totally gay, so.
Obama is talking about how all the banks go to Delaware? Is that a good idea, with Biden as running mate?
I believe the size of the fine was zero, old man.
So tracker trackers... Does Obama take a hit at all when he goes over time?
It's such a pleasure listening to all the old Republican red-baiting standards about government fall flat with people. REALIGNMENT IS COMING, BITCHES!
I'm not watching this, but McCain's health care plan is so appallingly, obviously terrible that I cannot help but think that it really should be possible to make that terribleness evident to the world.
how many people know biden is from delaware?
Is Brokaw's moderation as bad as Josh Marshall is saying it is?
"America is the greatest force for good in the history of the world." Jesus, hubris much?
My friends, for a stupid person McCain is amazingly condescending.
Jesus was a greater force for good than America, John. Epic Fail. The election is over. The Armageddonists will not stand for that.
165 - I knew about Turing, but Von Neumann? Sheesh! Is there some kind of pole smoker mafia behind computer science?
Oh, we're back to "does not understand."
On the contrary! Misconceptions about the origins of the computer are the very face of Republican intellectual bankruptcy.
176: It is a male-dominated field.
(von Neumann wasn't gay, togolosh; he just wanted to pre-emptively nuke the Soviets. Sifu always gets those mixed up, which caused some real embarrassment last Pride Day.)
Is it just me, or is this debate really, really, boring?
Fuck it, let's have the election tomorrow. Poll numbers are certainly good.
165: Really? Someone who "persistently gazed at the legs of young women (so much so that female secretaries at Los Alamos often covered up the exposed undersides of their desks with cardboard)"?
McCain only able to register on the crawler by sounding vaguely anti-war. Still not doing as well as Obama (another notch of death when he started criticising him, but so many of those tonight it's not worth counting). These Ohio voters just don't like war, particularly the women.
They've got their heads screwed on, these Ohio birds, I like 'em.
176: er, I think?
Maybe I'm wrong.
(so much so that female secretaries at Los Alamos often covered up the exposed undersides of their desks with cardboard
For a minute I read this as meaning that he was so horny that even furniture legs were arousing. How Victorian!
Ah, pwned on the pointing out of the wrongness of my facts. Male domination in all its sweetness.
McCain seems to think invoking the name "Petraeus" will win people over, but the crawler belies that.
"A cool hand at the tiller"????
von Neumann was a colorful character. But not gay.
small but material tick down whenever McCain mentions Reagan, presumably from the "it was twenty five fucking years ago, dammit" crowd.
180: Kind of staggeringly, this Wikipedia-scraping project shows that there are nearly as many "famous M-to-F transsexual programmers" as "famous born-women programmers".
182: Josh Micah Marshall agrees.
"Cool hand at the tiller"? Did Obama smirk?
Bush sent the troops to Somalia, not Clinton.
Reagan was an idiot.
When's McCain going to shoehorn in Ayers?
I still think that we should be discuss proposed new Holocausts carefully before accepting or rejecting them, rather than being unreasonably rigid.
193: total shrinkage.
Speaking of: arthegall!
Is it just me, or is this debate really, really, boring?
Really, really boring. Which is a big win for Obama.
The part where McCain said "fixing Social Security is SUPER EASY!" made me yell stuff. Then why the fuck hasn't any politician been willing to touch it with a ten-foot pole?
You're WRONG that knowing what to do is easy, and you're a fucking idiot if you don't think that the major problem with social security is getting the POLITICAL WILL to do something in the face of what will be a shitload of angry seniors.
That shit was just insulting.
198: the game changer is that half the electorate will be too sleepy to vote!
Without a cool hand on your tiller, your polity might become overly aroused and destabilize prematurely.
Wait, I thought your hero was Reagan. Now it's Teddy Roosevelt? Make up your mind, McCain!
"Afghan freedom fighters drove the Russians out of Afghanistan."
Yeah, those brave Afghan freedom fighters, like, uh, whatshisname, Osama bin Laden! Great people.
I still think that we should be discuss proposed new Holocausts carefully before accepting or rejecting them, rather than being unreasonably rigid.
We must be incremental about this. First the LOLodomor has to gain acceptance before we can talk about the LOLocaust.
Dude, way to fuck up your hero's most famous quote ever by a lot.
Walk softly?
Teddy Roosevelt: "slippers and a two-by-four, that's my advice."
199: Fixing Social Security *is* super easy. Minor adjustments to the tax code. Medicare is the difficult problem.
You know the debate is full of shit when the sexuality of computer scientists begins to take over the thread.
I prophesy that when I refresh there will be at least a dozen comments on McCain's stunning hypocrisy in that little lecture on "not saying you're going to invade somewhere because that turns public opinion against you". Suffice to say that the crawler called "bullshit" on that one too.
Wow. Well isn't Brokaw just a punk.
Big stick diplomacy? Come up with your own aphorisms, asshole.
More like sing softly, sing sweet lullabies about bombing Iran.
Also, this Pakistan shit is SO annoying. Why do we keep going OVER and OVER and OVER this hypothetical?
The "bomb bomb bomb Iran" cool hand on the tiller!
Hanging curve ball, but Kerry would have whiffed it.
And Dukakis, and Mondale, and Gore.
195: doesn't their definition of "famous programmer" seem like a bit of a stretch?
As my hero Teddy Roosevelt once said, Walk tall, and carry a slow hand. And rock me like my back ain't got no bone.
Dance old man. Dance.
Wish I had a big stick to whack McCain over the head with.
Listening to McCain is too frustrating, so I've been turning the sound of: my friends, if my read on body language is indicative, there is no deaf person in America who will be voting for McCain.
That was a serious Palin moment for McCain. I supported those where we went in and didn't those where I thought we shouldn't?
"I know how to get Osama, but it's a big secret!"
199: Fixing Social Security *is* super easy.
It is? Huh. Seems to me like the problem is that too many people are getting money. To "fix" the problem, don't we have to--not give some of those people money? And won't that make them unhappy?
I know how to handle these crises because I've crashed five planes.
I'll attack Pakistan too, but I'm not going to say that I'm going to attack Iran.
I do have to say that if McCain said, "Tom, you're not the hired help. You're just a little bitch," that I'd have to reconsider my vote come November.
Brokaw is awful as a moderator.
209: It's known as Hilbert's Entschaftungsproblem...
Dammit. I can understand why Obama's getting frustrated with the relentless misquoting and persistent jabs, but this is getting really annoying. They're just coming across as whiny little snots. Four year olds who got caught fighting and are now arguing in front of America as to who started it. Obama's still looking more presidential to my eyes, but he's not standing above the petty attacks like he managed in the first debate.
"I'll attack Pakistan too, but I'm not going to say that I'm going to attack Pakistan".
Fuck.
Fuck it, Bush should just invade Pakistan now so that they'll talk about something else.
I just hope they don't have to share a shower afterwards, because [ PRISON RAPE JOKES ARE DEPRECATED ].
McCain always sounds like he's talking to Sunday School kids.
Why is Brokaw bad? I'm not really paying attention except for when Obama starts talking.
227- Didn't that already happen? We already fired on some sites in Waziristan and were fired upon by the Pakistani army.
Seems to me like the problem is that too many people are getting money.
Social Security is in surplus until 2040.
Sorry, 228 was about Brokaw, or nothing, depending.
A K, a G, and a B. Again. Is it funnier this time?
he's not standing above the petty attacks like he managed in the first debate
Can he afford to ignore them?
Oh shit, the crawler shows people strongly support McCain when he starts going on about the evil Russkies!
a K, a G, and a B!
Clearly they had some focus group that loved that line, even though the CNN ticker couldn't give a shit. They seem to like the rest of his answer though.
230- He keeps cutting off Obama but not McCain, and I think on most questions McCain has gotten a follow up and Obama hasn't. He's gotten two speaking periods for every one for Obama.
Demagogging against Russia seems effective.
I hate this one minute answer format.
Re: 238
He's been highly critical of Obama in the past and seems to like McCain. And, yeah, he's totally dropping the ball tonight. Whatever happened to journalistic integrity? Wait. That's been dead for far too long.
"Waziristan"
*giggle*
Is that from the Simpsons, South Park or Beavis and Butthead?
Soooooo tired of this election. Even the financial crisis hasn't given us much new rhetoric.
I have to admit I find Obama fantastically boring as a debater.
Shame it has to be ending with McCain's best answer and Obama's worst (per crawler, but also my view). But nonetheless, an absolute rout. Both IEM quotes finished basically in the middle of the spread (DEM 77.0, REP 23.5), unmoved during the debate.
Evil Empire question is just moronic.
What the fuck is this "evil empire" question? Tom Brokaw reallllllly wants there to be a cold war.
And John McCain's teeth look old.
McCain thinks he can single-handedly re-start the cold war by calling Russia evil, although two seconds ago he was certain another cold war was impossible.
Can he afford to ignore them?
I don't know. I guess McCain's attacking far more openly in this debate, so he might have to. But still, it's definitely coming off very poorly for both of them (even if I think McCain's getting the worst of it, I would say that).
At this points I demand that someone mention Ayers.
McCain's America is firm! Tumescent, even.
I demand that Terry Schiavo address Ayers.
251 No doubt, but I think the mud slinging is hurting McCain more than it is Obama- although it really does nothing for either man's integrity.
245: Racist. If, like me, you thought his stadium orations were overpraised, too, that would be fine. But just the debating...pretty suspicious, Walt.
McCain bitching about "Obama wants to meet without preconditions" tanks the tracker.
Pretty amazed that we might go an entire town hall debate without any questions about abortion / gay marriage / stem cells / etc.
"It's a threat to the stability of the Middle East."
Like the Middle East is soooo stable right now.
Yeah! No more Holocausts! Those suck!
"What is your position the abortion of married gay stem cells?"
There's a ticking time bomb in Israel, and you have Ahmadinejad in front of you, but the UN says you'll have to wait two hours to get that warrant... What do you do? What DO you do?
Do McCain's people not look at the tracker? Why do they let him keep using lines that don't test well from debate to debate?
Almost forgot..."Green behind the ears"? That's a coded antichrist reference isn't it?!?!?!?!?!?!?
261: Thank God someone finally had the courage to come out against that.
I think that we should give free nukes to Iran. Please quit fucking with my head, candidates! I'm also cautiously in favor of a second Holocaust. Also, another Depression might counterintuitively be a good thing. Also, screw the homeowners losing their homes.
259: I was in hopes women's rights would come up during the VP debate. Apparently shit like that isn't relevant when choosing the next president.
259: I think it's unfair to assume that either candidate would abort the child of their gay union just to harvest the stem cells, Becks.
Pop quiz, hot shot. You have Ahmadinejad in a headlock and your beer drinking buddies are offering to pile on. And yet you let him go, because you're green behind the ears. Do we want your finger on that tiller?
Ooop, no, there was one more q, and Obama hits it out of the park (incidentally, giving the answer he should have given about Russia). There you are. Off to check out the pundits, with the strong presupposition that anyone who thinks this was "about even" is clearly a cunt.
"Zenlike quality"? "What don't you know, and how will you learn it?" WTF?
After a boring-ass debate, Obama becomes interesting again in the last question.
"What don't you know, and how would you learn it?" Worse than I could have imagined. Also, a box-elder tree.
269: John McCain wouldn't just harvest the stem cells -- he uses all parts of the child.
As Carl Wilcox once said, you can't learn what you don't know.
Does dsquared live in the future? Here in the present they're still going on and on and on.
The guy behind Obama has an awesome wild west 'stash and hairdo.
Oops. Flubbed the "anwhere else in the world" line.
I stupidly thought this was a 90 minute fucking debate.
I honestly cannot remember such a boring debate from Bush v Gore or Bush v Kerry.
McCain doesn't know where the important countries are on a map! I think that's what I just heard, anyway.
"What is your position the abortion of married gay stem cells?"
I'd use a handgun, fired from a Bald Eagle's ass, ricocheting off of a single crystal tear falling from the Baby Jesus' eye. 'Cause I'm a maverick.
Oops. Flubbed the "anwhere else in the world" line.
Still refuses to end it with "except Canada"?
Oh, you didn't just try to take Obama's line that he was raised by a single mother.
And the gents favor McCain. Film at 11.
Does dsquared live in the future?
It's called the United Kingdom.
Actually, I bet what's going on is that things here are on a time-delay in case Barack decides to flash a nipple.
When I was young, my father was at sea most of the time -- and so am I!
I'd like to thank Tom Brokaw for being a tool and a total dick of a moderator.
269: John McCain wouldn't just harvest the stem cells -- he uses all parts of the child.
This reminds me of the theme song Snark and I composed for John McCain some months ago. It's to the tune of the "doodle oodle oodle" bit of "Bushel and a Peck": "Bitin' on a baby, bitin' on a baby, bitin' on a baby, yeah." That's just what John McCain likes to do. Because he's a maverick.
you're in the way of my script - today's media in a single soundbite.
I blame Brokaw, to a very great extent. He chose the boring questions, and he seemed determined to drain the event of all interest or energy.
Wolf Blitzer thinks McCain and Obama have differences! He's a clever guy.
I'm pissed about not hearing about Ayers.
David Brooks, on PBS, thinks Obama seemed "more confident" and "fluid." It's like I'm living in an alternate universe, one where David Brooks isn't an infuriating moron.
David Gergen on CNN says Anderson Cooper was wrong when he called the debate "fascinating."
Gergen: No, Anderson this was actually a boring debate.
Talking heads! They are totally bored. "This is not my beautiful debate."
Brokaw and the neos have gone from being all misty-eyed about WWII to being all hot for the good old days of the Cold War.
Those would be the three year-old children.
max
['And they just can't tell the difference!']
On CBS they're discussing whether McCaine calling Obama "that one" was insulting or not.
The people on CNN said they thought people were going to remember that.
The last time I was this drunk was in May. I'm sure that says something politically important.
Maybe they should talk to the voters instead of the effete Washington fops. I bet they would have more things to say. It is odd that this whole infrastructure is set up for the viewers to only receive the opinions of actual voters in a form devoid of content, words, body language, or even individuality.
Also, "that one" was no doubt another antichrist reference.
My guess is that they'll call it a win for Obama after getting it wrong last week, and then the polls will show that it was a tie.
309: I honestly don't think he meant it *that* way, but it was the very first expression that came to mind when he said it.
my conclusions from watching the talking heads on CNN.
1) good god the "nonpartisans" are such cowards! They clearly would do anything to avoid saying what they think until they'd had a chance to tap on their laptops and find out which way the wind was blowing.
2) CNN ought to have the crawler under *all* of their programming. I for one would love to see the dials plunging every time Blitzer's fat fucking head popped up.
Donna Brazile is on ABC saying that she doesn't think McCain has even read the bailout bill.
I just saw a clip of the "that one" moment, and while I don't know what he meant, he sure came off as a giant creepy weirdo.
Charlie Gibson thinks economic plans have to be more "concise".
I can't watch these "debates", it just angries up the blood.
I could have met Bill Ayers once, 'cause he and Bernardine Dohrn were at the preview screening of the Weatherman documentary that came out a few years back, and the theater manager owed me a favor. But they were so mobbed by antediluvian radicals after their talk that I just left. I imagine it probably would have been somewhat of a letdown anyway, when we didn't immediately rush out onto Lagoon Ave. and erect a barricade and throw molotovs at the pigs.
There's a good late-night comedy show sketch in all this kerfuffle, where Barry and Bill are sitting around in polo shirts and top-siders, drinking chablis and being chummy, and then Bernardine shows up waving an NLF flag and wearing an army surplus helmet and screaming something about power growing out of the barrel of a gun, and suddenly Obama's in the twilight zone.
2) CNN ought to have the crawler under *all* of their programming. I for one would love to see the dials plunging every time Blitzer's fat fucking head popped up.
A phenomenal idea.
Whoah... Marshall reporting that McCain may have declined to shake Obama's hand? What a dick!
You know who has been to Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn's house?
ME. It was a pretty house, full of zillions of pictures and books and food and love.
And Dohrn cooked food, and she was damn good at it too. Ayers wasn't there.
I'd love to have a little LED-crawler attached to my shirt, Star-Simpson-style, to register my response to everything I'm hearing. It'd be fun to watch the little dial plunge every time my advisor's head pops up...
Oh wow, they're interviewing moronic Ohio students on ABC. "Oh noes there will be no moar Americaz wut can we do!"
318: Ayers wasn't there.
Do go on. Don't mind us ...
I don't know where he was. It was me and like 20 other people for dinner. Also, their kids are hot (via pictures).
it's time to revise the nonpartisan binary framework in a way that respects reality while still keeping an interesting storyline for the msm: will Obama kick the living shit out of McCain on November 4th, or will it simply be a standard ass-kicking?
317: I saw that. Obama stuck his hand out and McCain smiled weakly; then Obama shook hands with Cindy.
Shit, in my whole life I've never met a single terrorist.
These people are so fucking stupid. So fucking stupid. Jesus. Can't we institute an intelligence test at the polls? "They don't have fundamental differences"? WTF?
318: It's a bit like Ice-T's being condemned to play cops for the rest of his life, innit? The two most infamous enemies of the Chicago political nomenklatura have now become part of it.
The Ayers-Dohrns are not here to create disorder, they're here to preserve disorder.
Apparently, I sat at a table with Dohrn and my mom at a benefit dinner we went to several years ago. This would be more fascinating if I personally remembered it.
327: I'm not really sure what you're saying. I do know that I had the distinct impression that they have become a basically normal professor-couple, just like many I have met throughout my education. Very liberal, close with their kids, into books, comfortable and getting sweet in their middle age.
325: And I was like 3 feet from Gerry Adams at a St. Patrick's Day thing a couple years ago. That I actually do remember, because I knew who he was. I also remember wondering if I was a bad person for thinking it was pretty cool.
Not even lyrical terrorist KRS-ONE, Walt? What a benighted life you must live.
325 -- I don't think I have either. George Bush and I have a fundamental disagreement about that.
(not responding to the thread, just the debate)
Obama gave two straight answers this evening. When asked if health care was a right, he said yes, and when asked what his priorities were, he said energy first, then health care, then education (and then somewhere after that Brokaw's pet issue about reforming entitlement programs.)
The closest McCain came to a straight answer was when he said health care was a responsibility. He addressed the question, but really, what the fuck does that mean? Whose responsibility? The government? (and if so, doesn't that make health care a right?) The individual? (and if so, doesn't that mean that it is not a right, since you have no claim on anyone else?)
A clear Obama win.
Electionwise, I'll be happy if Obama keeps McCain under 200 votes. 538 has him at 192 right now, so that's possible.
Policywise, I'm not too cheerful. I hope Obama figures out that they're going to try to sabotage him.
Dude, okay, watching this? What a petualant, spoiled grumpy-old-man of a child! Geez.
Electionwise, I'll be happy if Obama keeps McCain under 200 votes.
Electoral votes or popular votes? Either way I hope for less.
Policywise, I'm not too cheerful. I hope Obama figures out that they're going to try to sabotage him.
Didn't they already sabotage him? And he assisted in doing it? There is now no money in the budget.
So exactly how many "my friend(s)" were there? I'll guess 27.
I heard most of it on the radio and Brokaw really did sound like an exasperated dick and moderately partial to McCain. The Social Security/medicare question was particularly infuriating. I AM TOM BROKAW AND I DEMAND ACTION IN THE FIRST 2 YEARS. (And jamming the two together is one of the top 3 warning signs of a closeted wingnut.)
I can never run for president. Not only have I had dinner at Dohrn's house, but I took her class and she gave me the best grade of my law school career (which I did not deserve and I'm really not sure why I got it).
Nevermind the fact that if you asked her today she would have no idea who the fuck I was. I'm clearly a terrorist sympathizer!
Health care is an option, folks. An option some freely choose, and others freely let pass. Because America is freedom.
329: Well, you know, it's like, ironic, and stuff, because of "Days of Rage" and whatever. Or, maybe, it's not ironic, 'cause of how America is all about reinventing yourself, and, you know, the yuppies and the evil Bowie character in Velvet Goldmine, right?
325: I have. It was in Stone Town, Zanzibar in October 2001. Dude was wearing an Osama bin Laden T-Shirt. I gave him a very dirty look, and departed before getting my ass kicked...
(which I did not deserve and I'm really not sure why I got it)
Clearly, because you are a raging terrorist, too.
CNN snap poll: 54 - 30 Obama
301: Gergen: No, Anderson this was actually a boring debate.
Yeah, that was great.
What's going on? Anyway. "That one." Huh.
I see that watching the crawl, or feed, or meter thing on CNN is both extraordinarily entertaining and distracting. Should have done it ages ago. The debate itself, well, not enough time to clarify a few points, just a few points I would like to clarify.
Obama was solid, (not enough time!), McCain looks like he might have trouble walking in a few years.
335: Handshakegate.
My caption has McCain saying, "Show some respect to this here lady, boy."
Please, I don't want the debate discussion to be about the handshake or the "that one" remark. McCain lost on content. We can ignore the bullshit.
335: No hands that have ever touched a terrorist's hands will ever touch mine. Take the John McCain Pledge of Digital and Manual Purity today!
M/tch & I watched the debate in a big auditorium with about a thousand people. They had the closed captioning turned on. Right at the end, Brokaw called on McCain and for some reason McCain's name came out as "Soopul" on the closed captioning. This is what I will be calling him from now on.
We can ignore the bullshit.
You're kidding, right?
The bullshit v. content battle was over decade ago, and content lost. I blame Susan Sontag.
Is Meg Whitman bad enough to pillory?
Ebay just announced layoffs of (IIRC) 2,000 people.
For family reasons, I missed virtually all of the debate, but that's fine - I just hopped from one D^2 comment to the next, getting both the crawler info and the snarky metacommentary. Awesome.
Almost the only part I caught was Brokaw's SS/Medicare question, and I nearly lost it. Fucking Beltway assholes.
PS - Whoever suggested leeks in place of fennel, I say "right on" - it worked out great.
Sarah Vowell on the Daily Show is cheering me up.
Obama won. A tie is a win for him. I've almost completely switched from worrying about the general to worrying about the first term. And Great Depression II -- don't think it will fully happen, but a bad economy truly sucks for everyone. Hate seeing pundits intoning about how it will "require sacrifices for all". Not for them.
I'll admit to not being a big fan of Bill "kill your parents" Ayers or Bernadine "Dig it! Manson killed those pigs" Dohrn.
Ebay just announced layoffs of (IIRC) 2,000 people.
Well, she's not in charge of eBay any more. But it was under her watch that the management direction of "raise listing fees, it's not like our users can go anywhere else anyway" was instituted and the massacre of October 2005 took place.
I would imagine that the eBay seller base is largely Republican; it's possible that she pissed them off enough to swing them Democratic.
There is now no money in the budget.
There's no money in the budget, because they haven't decided to tax/borrow it. There's plenty of money (or 'money') to be had; just ask the Fed Reserve.
Hate seeing pundits intoning about how it will "require sacrifices for all".
The well-off are trying to come up with ways to hang onto their cash and make everyone else pay somehow. Shocking.
max
['There's not a snowball's chance in here we get through the next year without blowing immense holes in the budget.']
Another bit I caught that annoyed me: McCain trying to ding Obama for wanting to raise taxes in a recession. Dude! You're trying to cut spending on fucking social programs in a recession!
Near as I could tell, Obama didn't get to say that.
354: Almost the only part I caught was Brokaw's SS/Medicare question, and I nearly lost it. Fucking Beltway assholes.
That was his Tim Russert Tribute Question.
You're WRONG that knowing what to do is easy, and you're a fucking idiot if you don't think that the major problem with social security is getting the POLITICAL WILL to do something in the face of what will be a shitload of angry seniors.
The main problem with Social Security is getting the political will to resist the hordes of "nonpartisan", "responsible" beltway jerks insisting that you "reform" Social Security. Have the courage to do nothing!
359: The fundamental Keynesian lesson that you need to spend your way out of a recession seems lost on both candidates.
361: I wanted to hear Obama say that solving the problem of rising health care costs would eliminate any problems with Social Security & Medicaid. (The Government Accountability Office backs me up on this.) That would be a quick way to strike the whole issue off of Brokaw's list.
I quit about an hour in ... sometime after McCain started yammering about the greatest force for good in the history of the world. But, one has to say, Jesus H. Christ on a stick. Brokaw: hopeless. McCain: peevish and doddering. Obama: intermittently effectual.
359: The fundamental Keynesian lesson that you need to spend your way out of a recession seems lost on both candidates. everybody, particularly the public and the various debate moderators.
Oh yeah, also: Free World: totally fucked.
362: I suspect that Obama knows the Keynesian lesson but doesn't want to risk actually saying it because he doesn't need to and its hard to explain. McCain probably doesn't even know it.
362: not so much lost on the candidates as lost on the voters. Politicians certainly get that they can borrow money. But it pays to talk piously about deficits during elections, then ignore the talk when in office. Hopefully this pattern will continue for the near future at least.
Bush only forestalled a much more serious recession in his first term by running huge deficits. All the guys in his admin had been around during Reagan, those deficits were even larger and it got them reelected then.
McCain probably doesn't even know it.
As I recall, McCain knows American workers are the best exporters and the best importers in the world.
Can the press now just admit that McCain is a really old man? And there's nothing wrong with that, by the way. Some of my best grandfathers were old men. But McCain is old how they were old near the end of their lives: creaky, easily annoyed and distracted, not quite able to keep up with the pace of a digital age. The idea that he could be president has begun to scare the crap out of me. The idea that when he dies, some time early in February by the looks of things, Palin would then be president is truly terrifying.
Also, these things are boring because we're not the target audience. The target is undecided voters, aka the lowest-of-the-low-information voters; we've heard it all before.
McCain probably doesn't even know it.
you do have to wonder about him. But I question whether anyone can actually be stupid enough to believe that "earmarks" have anything to do with macroeconomic problems. I mean, maybe Sara Palin, but McCain is a clever old fox in his way, right?
I didn't find the debate boring (not a barrel of fun, but not boring), but I guess that's because we were in a big crowd of cheering people and Lynda Bird Johnson gave a relatively kick-ass speech to start things off.
I was glad to see Obama giving specifics in a good number of his answers -- I think that will impress some undecideds.
In other news, we registered 16,000 voters on Monday, the last day to register.
Goddammit, I talked myself into watching this thing because people said it would be interesting. McCain did not put his heels on, take his gloves off, and flip his lid as advertised. Bo-ring.
Also, these things are boring because we're not the target audience. The target is undecided voters, aka the lowest-of-the-low-information voters; we've heard it all before.
Yeah, you elitist insiders.
374: And I was going to congratulate you on registering so many voters. Instead, I'm going to sick the FEC on you, fraudster.
356: I'll admit to not being a big fan of Bill "kill your parents" Ayers or Bernadine "Dig it! Manson killed those pigs" Dohrn.
Oh, we resolved that one last night to everyone's satisfaction....
What I didn't say then but should have (but which some comments in this thread have demonstrated), it is the "palling around with", "best friends" part that really is irksome in the attacks whatever one thinks of Ayers. Obama probably had no more nor less to do with Ayers than would be possible for any politically active person from that part of Chicago. And that is one part of the "attack", his being (in his political life) from that "part of Chicago" or from within the city of Chicago period.
375: Wait, huh? I was totally backing you up. I, too, am an elitist insider.
I'll admit to not being a big fan of Bill "kill your parents" Ayers or Bernadine "Dig it! Manson killed those pigs" Dohrn.
Yep. I recommend the documentary that came out a few years ago.
Obama probably had no more nor less to do with Ayers than would be possible for any politically active person from that part of Chicago.
In fact they've interviewed a bunch of Chicago Republicans saying, "Everyone knows and works with Ayers on various community issues; Obama is no different. Cut this crap out." That may not be a direct quote.
We have in fact discussed the suckiness of the Weather Underground before. IIRC, only Bob had anything to say in their favor.
Oh yeah, also: Free World: totally fucked.
No, no, no.
The Free World will face many exciting opportunities in the coming quarters as we all work diligently to maintain our track record of global success. We will continue to manage for the downturn and take aggressive action to be well-positioned when the market recovers*.
*Last sentence taken verbatim from a recent earnings report.
For god's sake, who cares about Ayers and Dohrn.
377: Um, I don't know what you're talking about. And congratulations on registering so many voters.
Also, we did another fundraiser last week and brought in about $11,000. Overall, I've raised a bit less than $30,000 this year. Give that, do you think, coupled with my phone banking, that I'm likely to land an ambassadorship somewhere warm? If not, this whole thing was a waste of time.
Donna Brazile is on ABC saying that she doesn't think McCain has even read the bailout bill.
I believe it. But then, I doubt Obama has read it either. What worries me is, I very much doubt that most of those who voted for the bill actually did read it.
As to Sifu commenting earlier about how it's hard to listen to McCain speak: has anyone noticed a sort of whistle on his "S" sounds? I know it must have a name (dental fricative annoy-the-fuck-out-of-me, perhaps?).
do you think, coupled with my phone banking, that I'm likely to land an ambassadorship somewhere warm?
Siberia. Just wait a little while.
So, is this audience full of "uncommitted" voters? It kind of irks me how they get all the attention.
It drives me out of my mind. This race has been in full swing -- and in the news -- for A YEAR. If you inexplicably haven't managed to make up your mind by this point, go read their websites and watch their speeches on YouTube and leave the rest of us out of it.
OK, I think I'm done now responding to comments from like 3 hours ago.
Holy shit! McCain's going to socialize homeownership!
But wait...how is he going to do that on top of a spending freeze? Is he only going to buy up VA mortgages?
389: You just don't understand, my friend. He'll reach out across the aisle. We know what to do after all; form a commission!
He's going to cut spending on "gold-plated" health insurance plans. You know, the ones that pay for your doctor's care when you get sick? Those are right out.
385: Yes; it's more noticeable when you just hear him on the radio. But my understanding is that many of us have this, and that it's actually test number one for whether you can be a radio dj.
385: sibilant S
Thanks, Sifu! I suppose I could've just asked eekbeat, come to think of it.
"I know how to get Osama, but it's a big secret!"
That was my favorite part.
388.2 was a lie.
(Or do I mean 388.3? Is it house style to include the thing you're quoting in the decimal system? How have I never asked this crucial question before?)
I assume the answer to 395 is "no," but I had a sudden bout of insecurity.
395.last: I think the decimal notation was traditionally deprecated in house style, but fuck them.
Donna Brazile is on ABC saying that she doesn't think McCain has even read the bailout bill.
Back when Henry Paulson announced his original "give me $700 billion dollars and I swear I won't spend it on smack" proposal, McCain admitted he hadn't read it, and it was three goddamned pages long.
Obama: intermittently effectual.
Bumper sticker!!!
Searching the transcript, I get 22 "my friend(s)". (I had guessed 27.)
I think the decimal notation was traditionally deprecated in house style
Really? I never saw such deprecation, and have always admired the decimal notation for its precision and elegance.
Not that I think that house style has anything to do with either of those concepts.
401: best post-election headline (knock on wood): "AMERICA TO MCCAIN: WE'RE NOT YOUR FRIENDS"
The "world's most manly leader" has a new DVD.
402: I forgot why, but somebody complained about it in the last house style thread. I think comment numbering (to the exclusion of quoting) might have been the problem, but it was ogged's problem and he left so, you know, woo! Baseball!
Give that, do you think, coupled with my phone banking, that I'm likely to land an ambassadorship somewhere warm?
Nauru, maybe. Still has a few years left.
209: It's known as Hilbert's Entschaftungsproblem...
This prefix considered harmful.
209 never really hurt anyone that badly, though.
Sitting in Project Management training at the health insurance company I work for today. Discussion around the table after finishing our stupid role playing scenario was that, yup, eventually all the employers are going to shift into Consumer Directed Health Plans as a mandatory thing.
Which basically sucks for anyone who has chronic conditions. Or ever, you know, gets sick.
Well, she's not in charge of eBay any more. But it was under her watch that the management direction of "raise listing fees, it's not like our users can go anywhere else anyway" was instituted and the massacre of October 2005 took place.
Christ am I glad I got out of there. The looming, obvious problems that were totally ignored/grossly fucked up by upper management boggles the mind.
Christ am I glad I got out of there. The looming, obvious problems that were totally ignored/grossly fucked up by upper management boggles the mind.
Amen. The constant refrain among my coworkers at the new employer is "at least it's not eBay." I didn't know they had an office in SLC - did you work for them somewhere else?
In Draper, a suburb of SLC. They've got a center out here with a lot of employees in various aspects of customer service and "trust and safety". About 1200 employees or so. There's also a similar sized center in Vancouver.
Ah, like what PayPal had in Omaha? The fraud guys are always fun to have some beers with, in my experience.
Damn, we're dead. Earlier this week I made the following comment:
Palin's nomination was an insult to Americans (in italics)and to women. read objected, but most of you knew what I was talking about. But, sweet Jesus, I think it is insulting to one woman in particular. I know I speak heresy, but I think Condaleeza Rice might have been a half decent POTUS. And she'd have been a hell of a debater against Biden. Thanks, GOP, for crippling yourselves with your prejudices.
My prediction is that, on election night, when they call it, decisively, for Obama, McCain turns to the live camera and says, "America? My friends? Fuck you. Fuck you, too."
When Bush I gave his concession speech in '92, I was sure he was drunk.
That's nothing to finish an election drunk; one of our (NZ) PMs called a snap election drunk.
Yesterday, I was at the sleep doctor, and we were discussing whether something other than CPAP should be tried, because I also wake up a lot for unexplained reasons, i.e. no hypopnea.
He was generally anti drug, but we discussed the older treatments, and I said that I'm sure that my insurance doesn't cover the new ones, and anyway the stories I've heard about Ambien kind of freak me out. And he said, yeah sleep eating and walking blah, blah. And he said that Tylenol could do damage.
But then I said, that I knew people who felt that John McCain's taking Ambien was reason enough not to elect him president. And he said, well I know about the statistics on malignant melanoma survivorship and John McCain is not going to make it through the next four years, which means that we'd be electing...Well, i shouldn't say this; it's unprofessional. And I said, it's okay, I won't tell anyone.
In retrospect, reading the debate reviews, McCain was far less negative than I expected. Someone speculated that he just conceded. With no plausibility on any of the issues, weighed down with the Bush record and the financial disaster, his only long-shot hope was character assassination. But if he lost that way his own reputation would be runed, and he would have been responsible for bringing the most demented part of his base into an unstable state of paranoid anger.
Maybe Palin's creepy demagogy got bad reviews and the wiser heads within his campaign prevailed. Maybe McCain himself said no mas.
I'm sure he had plenty of operatives encouraging him to go into the gutter, though, because the way it works, his reputation was on the line and theirs wasn't. Consultants cannot be disgraced by anything. Look at Shrum (serial loser) and Dick Morris (serial slimebucket).
Condaleeza Rice might have been a half decent POTUS
Good God, man, have you paid any attention to her at all? She only looks good in comparison with Rumsfeld and Bush. Stand her up next to even Powell and Gates, and she looks the incompetent she is.
That said, it would be fun to listen to her explain how she missed the impending Soviet collapse in the late 80s.
And I said, it's okay, I won't tell anyone.
BG, I think your pants are on fire.
I know jack about the reliability of this poll, but it claims that Palin's attacks are lowering McCain & Palin's favorability ratings.
421: This is charmingly naive, Emerson. Who knew that underneath that cynical exterior lay just another Democratic sucker waiting to be sucker-punched?
A debate isn't the place to try to land a really low blow - the candidate can't get caught with his fingerprints on the knife. The Swift Boaters, remember, were supposedly unaffiliated with the Bush campaign.
You watch, the filth will return momentarily. This is what modern Republicans do, and McCain - maverick though he is - is, at root, a Republican.
Only one man can save John McCain now. He lives in a cave in Pakistan, though, and may not have watched last night.
Rice's primary problem wrt running matehood is that she's not a politician, and she doesn't really have political skills - she's very tense and prickly under tough questioning, and doesn't show much ability to come across as warm or personable. You don't nec. need a lot of that, but you need some.
The secondary problem is that a ticket of McCain/Rice would drive the base to Canadawherever the fuck rightwingers threaten to go when liberals ruin America. And I don't mean the racial/closet thing; I just mean that she represents the non-insane (but still stupid and dangerous) wing of the party, and the base hates that wing practically as much as it hates liberals.
South Africa? Not any more. Saudi Arabia? Perfect in many ways, but no. Taiwan? Ching chong, half an hour later you're hungry again. Israel? Sinned against the light, vulnerable to seven-headed dragons.
Paraguay, I think. The natives are docile and the rulers are exiles themselves.
A debate isn't the place to try to land a really low blow - the candidate can't get caught with his fingerprints on the knife.
But I think the point is that, for McCain to really change the game, he had to brandish, if not actually apply, the knife in this debate. Three reasons: 1. Time's running out - SBVT came out in August and had 2+ months to harm Kerry's rep; the really nasty stuff is really only being pushed now; 2. The character assassination stuff isn't going to get enough traction without taking advantage of a high profile event like this - TV ads are washing over viewers now without making much impact; 3. If McCain doesn't have the guts to say it to Obama's face, it makes the attacks look even more scurrilous/makes McCain look weak.
I don't nec. buy the "better angels of his nature" claim about McCain, but I do think that the failure to even hint at the nasty attacks prevents them from rising to the level that McCain needs them to reach.
427 is right on the money.
Osama bin Laden desperately needs a McCain presidency in order to execute his quicksand strategy. I predict some high profile activity from him in the week before the election.
427: I've been wondering what Obama's plan is for that - you know that he's got one.
I have this theory (okay, fantasy) that he's holding Colin Powell's endorsement in his back pocket for just that occasion.
Anyway, it's nice to see that Richard Clarke is on the case.
Even more likely is the possibility that al Qaeda would hope the attack would benefit John McCain. Opinion polls, which, as noted above, al Qaeda reads closely, suggest that an attack would help McCain. Polls in Europe and the Middle East also suggest an overwhelming popular support there for Barack Obama. Al Qaeda would not like it if there were a popular American president again.
Fascinating little vignette from Andrew Sullivan.
wherever the fuck rightwingers threaten to go when liberals ruin America.
They just fortify their compounds in backwoods Arkansas.
max
['And buy extra guns.']
Keeping up my role in finding the good stuff from the paleocon/Ron Paul conservatives, the following was a comment on the debate from the American Conservative blog:
The only well-put question came from the woman named, Katie Hamm: "Should the United States respect Pakistani sovereignty and not pursue al Qaeda terrorists who maintain bases there, or should we ignore their borders and pursue our enemies like we did in Cambodia during the Vietnam War?"Her tone seemed to say: are you a wimp or a Nixonian war criminal?
Both answered: war criminal
Come on, that's way better commentary than the Corner. Way better than most liberal blogs.
Only thing he should have added was that Pakistan, unlike Cambodia, has nukes and well-traveled terrorists.
Oh man, it is totally unfair to have a great computer history debate inside the Presidential debate comment section.
I am SO sorry I missed it. Let me know the next time, k? Cause I know no one in real life who is impressed by my computer knowledge, and I swear to God I knew the answer to the 'original computer bug' question on 'Who wants to be a Millionaire.'
424: I meant that I would tell any doctors or people who worked at the hospital. Also, you people are on the internet and don't count. Plus, you don't know the doctor's name.