Digby has an amazing / scary piece about Lisa Schiffrin and her amazing ability to use reason and logic here. I swear I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I haven't for nearly fourteen years.
Comments welcome,
Pat McGovern
It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.
I hadn't heard this line before. I have NO idea when he said it. But he apparently did say it. See for yourself:
Look, I've got nothing against WalMart. I worked for them! Their licensed professionals are good people who do a good job. But are you really going to trust them with primary care?! WTF?!
Not for nothing, but you're dreaming when you talk about "eliminating lines" and "WalMart" in the same sentence as well.
Comments welcome,
Pat McGovern
It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.
Remember when you got to bring your Dad to that followup interview at your dream college after the first interview didnt go well?:
Neither do I. I expect that it would have gone just about as badly as this did if something like that did happen, though.
Exactly what is John McCain thinking? He looked exactly like a Dad trying to get his daughter out of hot water and suddenly remembering that the only way for her to do that would be for her to do that, herself.
Well, guess what? Whatever slim notions we did still have that Sarah Palin could hold her own were just disabused. Thats all thanks to you John. No one else to blame. Although I am sure you will find some way to try to blame Barack Obama, John. It's all you have left.
Comments welcome,
Pat McGovern
Video via TPM.
It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.
"Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unneccessary partisanship into the process." - Senator John McCain
"Now is not the time to fix the blame." - Senator John McCain
Here, via TPM, is Nancy Pelosi's full speech:
Here is what, presumably, is the offending portion of Nancy Pelosi's speech:
Here is Barney Frank and Rahm Emanuel responding to the Republicans:
You really can't describe it much better than Barney Frank did: "...and because somebody hurt their feelings they decided to punish the country."
Listen to the speech. Nancy Pelosi was probably a bit more partisan than she might have been but she was attacking Bush and the administration. Suddenly John Boehner, Roy Blunt, Eric Cantor and company are going to stand up for George W. Bush? You have to be kidding me!
Really?! How do you think this is going to play on Main St.? You really think that they aren't going to blame Bush for this crap happening too? You want to defend him? Guess who they will identify you with?
The Republicans should have thought this through a little more carefully. This could turn what was a bad election for them into a landslide. And since they threw the 'you are being partisan' crap first, it's now open season.
Maybe the House Republicans have "John McCain on the brain." This stunt has him written all over it. Country first, my a$$.
Hopefully, somewhere in the midst of all of this, we find a way to avoid Great Depression II.
Comments welcome,
Pat McGovern
It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.
Here is the guy who is responsible for the bailout failure trying to spin the blame:
Nice, huh? So you get to blame Nancy Pelosi for the fact that you guys:
There are lots and lots of reasons not to like this bill. But most of those reasons are Democratic talking points. The GOP alternative proposal was borderline illiterate.
I’m writing this in haste, without a lot of reflection. But the whole way this has played out has been something of a watershed moment for me. There is only one party in Congress that thinks we are in a financial crisis, only one party in Congress with a functioning leadership.
The Republican party in the House of Representatives have secured their place in history. They have killed a bailout bill.
Yes, there were plenty of Democrats who voted against it but that was mostly because the Republicans could only produce a measly sixty-odd votes. Without more significant support, there was not going to be significant support from Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats.
Oh sure, you can try to blame conservative Republicans like Jeb Hensarling (R-TX). The blame really belongs with one particular person who could not suck it up and live up to what the moment demanded: John Boehner (R-OH).
The allegedly esteemed "leader" of the Republicans in the House of Representatives esentially said the the bill had his support and he encouraged people to vote for it if their conscience allowed it.
Note to John McCain: If you want an example of inability to lead, John Boehner is your boy!
I'll have more later but basically, my initial read is that if Boehner had pushed it there would have been enough Republican votes to attract the Democratic votes that wanted to make sure there was cover. It could have been more like 280-153 if the Reps got closer to 100 votes and the Dems who wanted to make sure of Republican support came out of hiding.
John Boehner is to blame.
The result. The Democrats will now introduce a bill that they like and that they feel they can get passed. The Republicans have lost their chance to influence this.
Yes, that means they can wash their hands of this. That means they can't be blamed for it if it fails. It also means they are on the hook if everything melts down. And they can't claim the credit if it works.
More later, I'm sure.
Comments welcome,
Pat McGovern
Update: For those who want it, here is what Boehner actually said before the vote:
“I am encouraging every member of our conference whose conscience will allow them to support this bill,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader.
Interestingly, nearly every one of them, David Gregory, Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan, Andrea Mitchell etc. qualified their assessment with the idea that 'stylistically' McCain lost points. It's the old "Well I think he won but people might have thought he looked like an old jerk." cover your a$$ excuse. The media didn't realize until the next day that Richard Nixon lost to John Kennedy in that debate in 1960. They thought Nixon may have won and certainly didn't do worse than draw. They didn't realize the reaction that people would have to his appearance. Everyone seems to be instinctively getting cover just in case they misread tonight.
I think that will have a lot to do with how people perceived John McCain tonight. He never looked at Barack Obama. Never addressed him directly, despite Jim Lehrer's entreaties to do so. He always is stiff, to some extent as a result of his war injuries, but he seems even more so at times tonight.
It was mentioned repeatedly, on many blogs and news items throughout the day, that he needed to avoid that 'gotcha' smirky laugh of his. It looks creepy. He didn't avoid it enough.
To be perfectly honest, I found myself caught up in how McCain looked saying things rather than what he was saying more than once.
Continue reading >> That isn't good. I wonder if someone with a more apolitical eye might have been so affected as well?
Beyond the appearance issue, I think Obama did, at the very least, match up to McCain on most of the questions presented. Indeed, on many of them, he kicked his butt.
McCain revealed very little of how he would govern tonight, beyond some very broad strokes. And yes, saying you will cut all earmarks, qualifies as a broad, not to mention unrealistic, stroke.
Obama actually answered the questions, at least, for the most part. Several times, he had to bring the discussion back to the point at hand because McCain tried to control the narrative and had taken a sharp left or right turn with his answer.
McCain, on several occasions, told stories instead of answering the question. I say instead of because when he was done with the story, he would invariably continue with an answer on an analogous topic which was more to his liking than the original question.
The people who had to be convinced tonight wanted to know what these two men would do when they become President of the United States of America. If they want to know who you are, that question would apply far more to Senator Obama than Senator McCain. Nevertheless, Senator McCain persisted in telling them who he is rather than what he would do.
I think that because the electorate is looking for that, this debate may have indeed been disastrous for John McCain. If you were looking for specifics, you got none from his side.
Obama was (to steal from Andrew Sullivan) commanding. He had a firm grasp of every issue thrown his way. I think he gave a few too many derisive chuckles at McCain's responses. He also needs to be more aware of his facial expressions when he is listening to McCain. The man may have said a few doozies but you need to control how you react and respond more diligently.
I think the amorphous middle/independent/undecided people liked what they saw and got from Barack Obama tonight. I don't think even those who were leaning towards John McCain got anything they were looking for. He secured veterans, neocons (with his neocon view of Russia and Ukraine), and probably reinforced the social conservatives a little. That's not a gain, that's treading water.
Even if you posit that he won the debate tonight there is the problem that he needed to win it by a lot more than he did. I don't think he won it at all. That is a big problem for his campaign.
If you take the Sarah Palin - Katie Couric interview as evidence of how the Vice-Presidential debate might go, than this campaign is in some serious trouble.
I have complete confidence that somehow, someway, John McCain will find something to 'stir up a hornet's nest' with in the next week or so. It's what he does best. Maybe, sometime, it'll actually help his campaign. But if it isn't soon, although it may be his only hope, he may bury himself deeper than it is possible to recover from.
Comments welcome,
Pat McGovern
It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.
