Posted on October 6, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 74 Comments
Looks like the McCain campaign picked the wrong day to try to make its talking points about something other than the economy.
Discuss, whilst I am still toiling with the offline writing.
Taunting the tauntable since 1998
John Scalzi, proprietor – JS
Athena Scalzi, contributor – AMS
About the site
What's the Big Idea? Authors explaining the the big ideas behind their latest works, in their own words. See the latest Big Ideas!
Authors/Editors/Publicists: for information on how to participate, click here.
Mmmm…. Operation: Footbullet. Many have spoken of it, many have wondered when it would happen. McCain executes it with a panache and sense of timing unrivaled in modern history.
Apparently Iceland is having an even bigger bank meltdown than we are — they’re talking about a $100billion bailout in a country whose GDP is $14billion.
I like to read Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture. His post from this morning:
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/10/plan-b.html
The markets have farther to fall. Housing isn’t going to turn around until late 2009 at the earliest. Credit is going to be harder to get and that is a good thing in the long run.
$700B is *nothing*. Global markets will erase at hundreds of trillions before the recovery begins. All the rate cuts and bailouts will do is make the ride down bumpy.
No one likes the hangover, but the day after a bender is unavoidable.
Despite this reality, I’m not pessimistic on the future. We’ll pick ourselves up, delay retirement another decade and in 30 years the Dow will hit 36,000. Just don’t be surprised when the next bubble (biotech) pops in 2017.
If another great depression comes, I’m setting up a tent on your lawn. I know you won’t mind.
McCain’s FUD strategy — just what the country needs as we watch the economy go down the toilet…
Boy, that bailout bill really worked well, didn’t it?
Dammit Damon, stop using the time machine… And if you are going to use it, No Spoilers please!!!
If you want to know what the McCain strategy actually is going to be, I wouldn’t recommend getting your news from the Washington Post or the New York Times. FWIW, it appears that the new “fiercer tone” is, in fact, going to be going after the Democrats in general, and Obama specifically, for their roles in causing this financial disaster, specifically with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
It’s been a long time coming, IMO.
Wait…
You mean this *isn’t* the historical-recreated Internet ARG of 2032? Damned aethetically-designed, hard-to-read, temporal co-ordinate displays!
Rest asssured that my previous diatribe is merely the rantings of a TwenCen noob weaned on the irrational exuberance of the 1990’s.
And remember there is no reason to stockpile Little Debbie snackcakes. They *do not* placate zombies.
Those darned Democrats were so clever that they were able to crater the economy despite having been out of the White House for 8 years, a minority in the House from 1995 to 2007, and a minority in the Senate most of the last 14 years. And they did it while giving the appearance of being virtually powerless. Man, they’re like ninja politicians.
Skip:
“FWIW, it appears that the new ‘fiercer tone’ is, in fact, going to be going after the Democrats in general, and Obama specifically, for their roles in causing this financial disaster, specifically with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.”
Uh-huh. Which is why Palin has already mentioned Ayers in her stump speeches and the latest batch of McCain attack ads say nothing about the economy at all. Yep, they sure are hitting the Democrats on this financial mess, yes sir they are.
I suspect the Democrats and Obama specifically would be delighted to make this last month about which party is more trustworthy with the economy, Skip.
I see this less as the morning after hangover. No, this is more like how crappy you feel while you’re on chemo, hoping to god that you’ll feel better after you’ve killed off the cancer cells.
My 403(b) [ a 401(k) for the public sector ] is about totally worthless right now. Thank god I’ve got thirty years for it to turn back around.
Damon – Are you trying to profit from the Great Little Debbie Shortage of 2013? DAMN YOU!
Not wanting to prove Godwin’s Law, but Democrats are not like ninja politicians, Bob, they’re like Jews – scapegoats.
Loud shouting blowhards, politicians and pundits alike have found that blaming someone else is easier than actually thinking things through. And why bother? This strategy has been proved to work in the past. Where working is defined as winning you the election.
It’s regrettable that our brains thrive so much on fiction. Well, not for Scalzi, but you get my drift.
-m
Hmm! I dunno John. After all the wall to wall doom and gloom about the economy lately, I can see some people perking up at a change of pace.
When Bush took office on January 20, 2001, the DOW was at 10587 and my 401k was on the verge of taking a hit from the dot com bubble burst.
As I look it is passing 9621.38 … I really don’t want to look at my 401k right now.
Skip: …going after the Democrats in general, and Obama specifically, for their roles in causing this financial disaster, specifically with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
One minute the dittoheads are saying Obama has no experience, the next that he is the evil mastermind behind the worst financial disaster in our lifetimes. Can you say DESPERATION? — I knew you could…
Don’t come off so noble, Patrick! Here in 2008, your zombie minions have only managed to replace 30% of key powerful figures.
We both know this will peak at 51% in 2015, vote to convert all Asian-buffet restaurants to Brain-Buffets (minimal signage change) and then fade to obscurity.
Your real secret plan will take another two decades to mature, but be preempted by the Doublelarity.
If McCain is going after Obama’s character and reputation, the only thing I can really think of is that saying about stones and glass houses, and the throwing therein.
/sigh
Some people are saying the market plunge is a direct response, by Wall Streeters, to growing certainty that Obama has the White House locked up.
Something to make yah go, “HMMMmmmmm…”
HMMMmmmmm…those people sure are stupid.
Well, I think we’re at the point where we should either take the market out of the hands of the politicians or hand it over to them completely. I’m for trying out the hand it over completely route, simply because I all ready have a nice ushanka with the old trusty hammer and cycle predominately displayed. We’ve all seen how well centralized planning has worked in the past, so let’s just keep doing more of it.
Guess I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue!
Oh, McCain is about to talk about the economy in a BIG way. Specifically, he’s going to lay out exactly who caused the present crisis…that would be the Democratic Party in general, and Barack Obama in particular.
Here’s the details.
FINALLY, McCain seems to have found his balls!
And, in response, the mainstream media (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party) are probably going to scream, “RAAAAACIST!” Which means precisely bupkis at this point, because, basically, no matter what McCain and the GOP do (short of outright surrender, that is), the MSM and the Dems will scream “RAAAAACIST!”
It was Michael J. Fox’s character, in The American President, who pointed out that, “in this country, it is not only permissible to question our leaders, it is our responsibility.” And I don’t see any exemption from that statement just because one of said leaders happens to have a different skin color.
Wow. Erbo can write over three paragraphs of structurally sound sentences and still have absolutely none of it make any sort of comprehensible sense. That’s impressive.
@24:
…that’s the gloves off, Erbo?
It’s a baseless, badly reasoned attempt to lay all blame on a party that has been out of control of at least one house of congress and the presidency for the last EIGHT YEARS.
It’s the minority Democrats’ fault that the majority Republicans and Republican president didn’t keep a closer eye on banks, short selling, and junk securities? Its the fault of Obama, who wasn’t even in Congress when the bright sparks on Wall St worked out how to package sh*tty mortgages into securities?
Yuh. Good attack, McCain. I agree that that isn’t racist, but maybe he’d have done better calling Obama a terrorist and starting to repeat his middle name ad nauseum. Oh, wait…. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/222196.php
Look I’m not saying Barack Obama is a saint or McCain is the devil. But thinking that McCain has sufficient moral highground to criticise Obama on economic management is borderline insane.
1.) I won’t even go into the matter of ‘who has the more solid, integral and recent ties to fanny/freddy’ much less the point about which avowed “deregulator” has done more to help F/F avoid oversight. The point is simply that if F/F was the problem, the problem would *already* be solved.
2.) Erbo @ 24
“wholly owned subsidiary”? Are you blind? Which 5 corporations/families own 95%+ of the media in this country? Hint: they’re not democrats.
Question anybody you want (and I sure as hell wish there had been some real questioning the last 8 years) but be sure of your facts or you will be hammered over them. The dogwhistle codes of the fundies and the ‘Southern Strategy’ rethuglicans are well known outside the ranks of the faithful by now and most of those not in the ranks are not going to be politely ignoring them anymore.
Yeah, and here’s the context for McCain’s pathetic lies about Obama and the economy.
To Mary’s point, the quote McCain referenced was Obama saying the subprime mortgages started off as a good idea — “helping Americans buy homes who couldn’t previously afford to” — that was exploited by the crooks due to deregulation and lack of enforcement of those regulations that still existed…
And it only takes Lisa 18 minutes to write a completely uninformed critique of my post. That’s equally impressive.
Perhaps your time would be better spent looking to find the truth about what’s been going on, rather than relying on Obama’s pravda. Look up “Community Reinvestment Act,” a law passed under the Carter Administration and vastly expanded under the Clinton one. See how it basically mandated that banks write more subprime loans, contrary to their own business interests and to any reasonable standard of fiduciary prudence, with the goal of creating more minority homeowners. (“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”) Read exactly how much campaign money Barack Obama has gotten from Fannie and Freddie…that is, more than any other Senator in history, except for the chairman of the committee responsible for their oversight (also a Democrat). Look up how Senator McCain, three years ago, sponsored a bill that would have reined in the excesses of Fannie and Freddie, and might very well have had some positive effect on this present crisis…but saw it blocked by Congressional Democrats, who, as recently as last year, still thought subprime loans were “a good idea.” (From a statement by Sen. Obama)
Here is a video that sums up the whole crisis and its causes in a nutshell. Better watch it quick…YouTube’s already made it “disappear” once. It’s about 10 minutes in length, and everything it says is backed up by publically-available references.
Don’t believe what the mainstream media feeds you. They’re so far in the tank for Obama right now you’d need a DSRV to find them. And they’re not even pretending not to be anymore.
Community Reinvestment Act
Ooo!! Me, me, I know this one Sir!
These would be the loans that are actually out performing the bulk of sub-prime loans!
The CRA has nothing to do with this, really, it’s a red herring. The problems really stem from the neat idea that Michael “I’m not a crook, honest gov'” Milken and a few others came up with to securitise debts and, theorectically make them safer and easy to trade.
The toxic stuff started when people saw an asset bubble – the one that picked up after the end of the last stock one, and found that they could game the banking system to loan people too much money for assets that they thought would go up in value. It had the side effect of staving off the 2001 recession by propping up unsustainable consumer spending with, yes, more unsustainable consumer spending.
You’ll find, if you were interested that the real asset headaches and upset stomachs are not in poor areas but in areas where rich, formerly middle class people lived.
Fanny and Freddie got caught up in this but the roots were sown in the early/mid-90s after the stock market was deregulated and the Savings and Loan fiasco.
The problem now is how to get people off debt without crippling the economy. If you’re used to consumer spending getting you out of trouble but most of your consumers have to pay off thousands in personal debt first you’ve a long long long haul.
Unless you go back to some seriously old school economics.
Maybe not quite the place to ask this – but I will anyway:
Finally caught some of the ads going out for the respective candidates, we don’t get anything like them in the UK! (For which I am very, very grateful).
Given the insinuations, false information, black propaganda and outright lies going out, how does this campaign rate for filthy tactics?
Is it normally like this? Or am I right in thinking this time round it’s significantly worse?
(“Obama associates with terrorists”????!!! Anyone coming out with that one outside parliamentry privilege here is going to be hauled into court faster than you can say “My wife’s a judge”).
All the debate about who is better or worse assumes that our elected officials could find a principle with both hands and map. These guys are all brainstem. They’re just zombies who feed on power. Would McCain cut our foreign adventurism to offset the $700B bailout? Nope. Is Obama turning loose any social programs to offset? Nope. Who needs to prioritize when you can just print more money?
But at least we got our wooden arrow tariffs fixed.
Feh. I’m voting against the incumbent in every legislative position — local, state and federal — I get to vote for. I’m writing in against anyone running unopposed. A pox on all their houses.
The “Obama associates with terrorists” is about Obama’s two decades with William Ayres, who is a proud, self-proclaimed terrorist, even though he hasn’t been convicted.
The market goes up, the market goes down. Political manipulation for good ends usually brings unintended (but predictable) undesired consequences.
If someone trying to sell you something tells you that the something is sure to go up, or has always gone up, do not buy!
Erbo: You know, it’s kind of hard to argue with someone who, when presented with evidence they don’t like, resorts to claiming those digging up the facts (journalists) are in the tank for the campaign he opposes. The only ‘facts’ you wish to allow are the ones favorable to your argument — all other ‘facts’ are dismissed out of hand.
Andy @32
This is about par. In America you can say anything that you want in politics. They might get around to slapping down a fine in January. I’m kinda surprised that no one’s accused McCain of trolling airport bathrooms w/ Sen. Craig.
More CRA fantasies? You suggested before that criticisms of Obama might per se be seen as racist. Well, they’re not, but a lot of the right wing critiques of the CRA ARE racist – those nasty low income blacks and latinos crashed the banking system for us nice middle class folks. They’re also bullsh*t. See here: http://www.businessweek.com/investing/insights/blog/archives/2008/09/community_reinv.html
Also, John McCain was indeed a co-sponsor of legislation to reign in Freddie/Fannie lending… he signed up to co-sponsor 16 months after the legislation was introduced and made one speech on the issue in May 2006 – when the house and senate were both republican controlled. Its a long bow to blame Democrats for the mess on that basis.
Erbo, you need much less than 18 minutes to recognize a right-wingnuts’ talking points collection… “Liberal Mass Media Bias”, “CRA”, “Senator McCain tried to sponsor a bill but the evil Democrats blocked it”, for fuck sake, at least try to be a bit original, we’re not all idiots here and we didn’t live in a cave until yesterday.
htom @ 34:
What association? Working at the same place? Living in Chicago? Give me something other than “had an event with him once and worked with a charity associated with him”. Are they friends? Close professional associates? Major donor?
Cos if we’re going to play that game, there’s the whole issue of Palin’s husband belonging to a political party that advocates treason (succession is treason), and then the Keating 5 thing with McCain… Of all of the above, I really think that only the Keating 5 is relevant.
Mmmh, maybe I should’ve said “we haven’t been living in a cave”?
I haven’t personally noticed the press being in the tank for Obama. Must be that they like to be on the winning side.
Brett 36: I’m kinda surprised that no one’s accused McCain of trolling airport bathrooms w/ Sen. Craig.
Ooo! Ooo! *scribbles in notebook*
(I AM JOKING. Everyone knows that while McCain is a total slut who can’t keep his dick in his pants,¹ he goes after the women, not the men. He won’t be poaching on Craig’s hunting grounds anytime soon.)
¹Is that relevant to his qualification to be President? Why no, no it isn’t. But a) turnabout is fair play and b) it IS relevant to his false reputation for integrity.
I will not let the awful market or the nasty campaigns depress me today. For two very good reasons:
1) My copy of HATE MAIL came today, and it will take my mind off the world
2) Shameless plug–I found out that one of my short stories will be published in Spinetingler Winter 09.
The McCain camp is showing an almost unparalleled ineptitude. No one cares about William Ayers at this point.
The voters didn’t care that B. Obama spent 20 years listening to a pastor who claims that the U.S. government invented the AIDS virus to oppress African-Americans. Compared to that, serving on a board with William Ayers is nothing. Obama’s diehard fans are not just infatuated: they are in love. And love, as we all know, is blind.
Obama is, however, part of the ideological wing that encouraged the government to underwrite risky mortgage loans as part of the notion that “everyone should own a home.” McCain would do better to pick apart the big-government social engineering that has been part and parcel of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac activity in recent years.
The problem, of course, is that the Bush Administration also had a hand in that mess. And to make matters worse, the Bush Administration encouraged the deregulation that made it possible for banks to securitize high-risk mortgages…and pass them on to other institutions. Both the Republicans and the Democrats have a hand in the current economic mess.
The McCain campaign is in very deep trouble. Short of a war with Russia in the next four weeks, he is almost certain to lose this one.
Good god, despite being knocked down every time, the trolls come back spewing the shame shit every time!
Somehow the wicked, wicked brown people not only mindcontrolled the *American* investment banks into securitizing and leveraging shit loans, despite this being utterly unrelated to CRA, they mindcontrolled the Brits! And the Icelanders! And everyone else!
Er, that should be same, not shame. Shame being what wingnut trolls never have.
Obama is, however, part of the ideological wing that encouraged the government to underwrite risky mortgage loans as part of the notion that “everyone should own a home.”
As I understand it, the government of the US has been underwriting loans for a good deal longer than Mr Obama has been alive. The idea that home owners make better (i.e. more conservative) citizens is pretty common across many Anglosphere countries.
And, once again, the loans made to poorer communities under the CRA are still performing reasonably well.
The problem wasn’t lending to poor people in poor communities. The problem was lending to richer people in rich communities where the house prices were going up and you _just couldn’t lose_! Those loans weren’t just to buy homes but were huge swathes of home refinancing to pay for boats, flat screen TVs, holidays and a bunch of other stuff that involved taking bubble induced equity and turning it into consumer spending to prop the economy up post the collapse of the dot com bubble.
The real problem now is fixing the mess. Going back to 20% down, 30 year fixed mortgages for amounts less than X is going to mean a significant devaluation of the housing market and a prolonged consumer credit squeeze.
Money has to come from somewhere and I don’t think a few percentage points off the income tax rates is going to cut it this time.
Welcome back to the 30s ladies and gentlemen. I think I’ll go and buy a hat.
Lisa @#25: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
This is completely OT at this point, but Damon @18: the idea of “the Doublelarity” is totally awesome. Headlines for July 8, 2035: “Computer breakthrough: simulation of entire planetary population achieved! Also, for entirely unrelated reasons, magic works now!”
This American Life on NPR did a great hour explanation of the mortgage crisis last May. It’s still available on their website.
The truth encompasses both greed and good intentions, I think.
Andy W, libel laws are much weaker in the US than in the UK (and it’s mostly a good thing, to my mind, though opinions differ). Public figures have almost no recourse against statements like that, especially if they constitute political speech.
I just think it’s funny that the associations with Ayers are being pushed by somebody whose husband once belonged to an Alaska secessionist party whose founder died in a botched plastic explosives deal, and who is the running mate of a guy who counts as a close friend a cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs Watergate burglar who has publicly advocated shooting federal agents.
This American Life’s program can be heard:
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355
Wiliam Ayers: White, 64 year old, professor of education, married with two adult children. No convictions for terrorist activies. Was a leader of the Weather Underground about 40 years ago.
Now, That’s not what I call “palling around with terrorists,” That is palling around with history.
Does this mean that after Bush’s chasing Osama Bin Ladin “to the gates of hell,” Homeland Security will finally catch up with him about 2040?
I’m more concerned with Senator Maverick-hates-dem lobbyists- McCain palling around with the 170-plus Campaign HQ staffers who, in fact ARE lobbyists.
And Erbo–I am sure there are some twelve-step recovery programs for addicts to AM radio and Ann Coulter. look into it.
Daveon @ 31
Is this the same Michael “Junk Bonds” Milken from the S&L epoch? I thought that after he got out of jail, he would be barred from the financial system.
So the hot shots in the financial world let the same idiot create *two* nifty-new methods to let unprincipalled greed and corruption screw over the public for the profit of the ‘insiders’. He was McCain’s buddy back then and I would be suprised if there wasn’t a linkage of some sort now.
The quote from the insider on the McCain campaign says it all:
“”We’re going to get a little tougher,” a senior Republican operative said, indicating that a fresh batch of television ads is coming. “We’ve got to question this guy’s associations. Very soon. There’s no question that we have to change the subject here,” said the operative.
Why change the subject to things that are irrelevant? It’s already been said here, but I’ll restate for emphasis: this move reeks of desperation.
Is this the same Michael “Junk Bonds” Milken from the S&L epoch? I thought that after he got out of jail, he would be barred from the financial system.
It is indeed, although he didn’t have to go back into the financial system. He’d already let the genie out of the bottle. This mess goes back to Reagan/Bush I, Clinton didn’t necessarily help too much, but people were too busy with the dot com boom to think too much about property.
The trouble is, if you’re a devotee of trickle down economics and you need consumers to pay for economic growth then you need something to keep the consumers happy…
bumper sticker seen Monday in Atlanta…
Bush’s Third Term = McCain
how fitting to see it today as the markets tanked. Again.
Thanks for that Matt and Brett – I guess it’s my exposure to the intawebs that’s letting me see more of the campaign this year than in previous elections.
Really, really weird – but then our politicians just don’t tell us what they are going to do in office so pretty much the same end result.
That’s the problem with democracies – whoever you vote for, a politician always gets in.
Obama is, however, part of the ideological wing that encouraged the government to underwrite risky mortgage loans as part of the notion that “everyone should own a home.”
Look, you silly person, when the US government started underwriting mortgage loans, Barack Obama was two years old. That’s Barack Obama Senior. It was 1938.
But, of course, the US government’s mortgage business is still Younger Than John McCain ™.
Cassie @49
The truth encompasses both greed and good intentions, I think.
The truth? Your trying to peddle the truth? Here?
The Obama partisans will not listen to that broadcast or if they do, they will forget it immediately and revert to the talking points.
The McCain partisans don’t listen to NPR.
And no one will ask Obama what he thinks about Marxism
ajay@58: it doesn’t say Obama personally encouraged it. It says he’s part of the same ideological wing. Thus implying that with Obama there will probably be more of the same.
Frank, I read the article you linked to.After reading it I did a small scale search, and saw a couple of facts that it fails to mention:
1)The last time Obama saw Ayers, according to his own testimony(and I couldn’t find a person countering that one) was sometime last year during a bike ride.Hardly the way a close political adviser is treated.
2)Even when Ayers and Obama met regularly it happened about once every 3 months, during the quarterly meeting of a directors’ board to confirm grants.Hardly the frequency and kind of meeting where people engage in any deep discussion and exchange of ideologies.
3)Ayers himself is now endorsed by more then one Chicago conservative, exactly the people i would expect would burn extreme lefties, and any democrat connected with them, at the stake given an opportunity.
These facts make the article suspect at best.
Disclaimer:I don’t live in the US and had extremely limited time to do research on this subject.
Antongarou @61
These facts make the article suspect at best.
I will point out only that the author of the article I reference, Steve Diamond, is a Socialist and not a McCain or Republican apologist by any stretch of the imagination.
And if you want the complete story, don’t stop at the one piece I reference, read all of the research he has done on the story.
His evidence is quite compelling.
He may be a socialist, but he is not a Communist of any flavor. And he has serious concerns about Obama and his ideology.
Take it for what its worth.
This really is laying the fiddle while Rome burns. the greatest economic meltdown of the century, and the most important thing to Republicans is one associate of Obama’s on an educational fund. They can’t convince the public of anything else.
McCain supporters are starting to scream “terrorists” and “kill him” at rallies where Obama’s name is mentioned. McCain seems to smile and nod at it all.
As for McCain him self, he actually is a friend, and I mean current friend, of right wing hero G. Gordon Liddy, who’s terrorist past is a right wing mirror of Ayers. Liddy was convicted, is unrepentant, has proposed shooting police, firebombing democrats, kidnapping anti war protesters, and killing journalists. He also found listening to Hitler an erotic experience. (Yay! I Godwinize the thread !)
If it’s a seriously important thing to claim that Ayers reflect on Obama, you’d have to be a schmuck of the first water to somehow claim that Liddy does not reflect on McCain.
So, Frank, if it’s fair to ask what Obama thinks of Marxism, it’s got to be fair to ask McCain why he’s friends with someone who gets a boner when listening to Hitler. Right? Let’s get Liddy and Ayers on the same talk show, and dial in Obama and McCain.
That is the sort of politics you want to play, isn’t it? Fine then. Let’s play. After we’re done, we can get into McCain’s early history of racism. I mean, he *says* he renounced it now, but if you think it’s important to have the conversation you’re having about Obama, it’s only fair to have one about McCain. Right?
Josh Jasper @63
if you think it’s important to have the conversation you’re having about Obama, it’s only fair to have one about McCain. Right?
Right.
Character is important. We need to ask “who are these people?”
And the questions need to be answered.
And the voter needs to take these answers and make a decision.
But avoiding character as an issue should not be acceptable to voters.
And this is not something new for me. I’ve been pointing out the curious connection between Obama and Ayers since August.
So you also agree that Liddy is pretty much the equivalent of Ayers, only right wing? I mean, he was trying to use terror tactics against the Democrats. He’s unrepentant.
He’s just as relevant to McCain’s character as Ayers is to Obama’s.
Personally, I don’t think the Obama campaign even needs to bring him up. Even by surrogate.
But avoiding character as an issue should not be acceptable to voters.
I’ll let other voters who’re undecided figure that out. I personally think Obama’s character is just fine. I don’t think his past association with Ayers makes him a commie, or even much of a socialist. I do think that when Americans use the word “socialist” they’re talking about something radically different from the entirety of the rest of the world.
But really, if you want to tar Obama with Ayers, you have to tar McCain with Liddy. Liddy is a huge hero to the Free Republic crowd, but not to sane human beings. Sane people won’t glorify someone who gets sexually excited by Hitler.
Personally, I don’t judge McCain by his association with Liddy. I judge him based on his economic stance, his stance on the war, and his stance on social issue, almost ll of which, I’m opposed to him on. I think those are vastly more important than the “character” issue. If I did think that character was that important, I would be judging McCain by his association with Liddy.
Josh Jasper
Personally, I don’t judge McCain by his association with Liddy. I judge him based on his economic stance, his stance on the war, and his stance on social issue, almost ll of which, I’m opposed to him on.
But that’s mostly because McCain has a record and we know who he is.
But we don’t know much about Obama.
Is he the guy that would pull out of Iraq immediately or is he the guy who will pull out of Iraq responsibly?
Is he the guy who will talk with our enemies without preconditions or the guy who will only talk to our enemies after adequate preparation?
Is he the guy who is opposed to the Second Amendment or the guy who approves of the Heller Decision?
Is he the guy who is against nuclear power and off-shore drilling or or the guy who is for “responsible” nuclear power and off-shore drilling?
Is he the guy who is going to renegotiate NAFTA or the guy who won’t?
Is he the guy who is for an undivided Jerusalem or not?
Is he the guy who is for the ending of the embargo of Cuba or the guy who thinks it is important to keep it in place?
Is he the guy to supports protecting survivors of abortion or the guy who voted against supporting the survivors of abortion?
Does he consider “the Surge” a success and considers it a viable strategy for Afghanistan or not?
Is he the guy who worked with Ayers on race-based education programs or is he against such things?
Is he an advocate of Black Liberation Theology or is he the guy who disavows it?
We don’t really know who this guy is. He is not fully vetted.
But he will be in the next 4 weeks.
Maybe…..
You know what, even if the answer to most of those questions weren’t obvious, at this point I’d be inclined to roll the dice on Obama. He’s obviously better than Bush, whereas the best you can say about McCain is that it’s not obvious he’d be dramatically worse.
Frank – We don’t really know who this guy is. He is not fully vetted.
I don’t remember you having that problem with Palin. Double standard much? Your guy is tanking. Learn to cope.
Come on Frank. There’s no way you’d accept this guy Diamond’s unsupported assertions if they didn’t fit so nicely with what you wanted to believe. Of the 20 posts on his blog, 17 of them are attacks on Obama. No wonder you’re willing to believe his claim that the Chicago Annenberg Challenge supported race-based education with zero supporting evidence.
If you really wanted facts about the Annenberg Challenge, you could go here. But you’re looking for smears, not facts. Methinks there’s a touch of desperation in the air…
Jon – your “here” link is broken. Can you re-post please.
Xopher -Personally, I’d say someone who’d start a war with Iran *and* Russia is worse.
Frank, we don’t really know who McCain is. He’s a maverick; gotcha. Other than that, I’m not so sure. He’s flipped on Roe v. Wade, he’s flipped on the Bush tax cuts, he’s done a mini-flip on waterboarding and torture (which I find particularly sad), he’s flipped on the Confederate Flag (he had the decency to admit that it had been a weenie, calculating move), he’s flipped on gun control, the estate tax, and social security privatization.
He hasn’t flipped on Iraq, but I don’t agree with him on Iraq so that doesn’t help.
Which McCain are we going to get?
Ed @#43:
The McCain campaign is in very deep trouble. Short of a war with Russia in the next four weeks, he is almost certain to lose this one.
“Please don’t even joke about that.
Ed @#43:
The McCain campaign is in very deep trouble. Short of a war with Russia in the next four weeks, he is almost certain to lose this one.
Please don’t even joke about that.
Sorry about the doublepost, John. Still jetlagged, didn’t catch the typo.