Panic? Ain't Seen Nottin'

Think this Presidential Campaign season has been hot and noisy? We ain't seen nottin' yet.

After a nice post-Convention bounce, McCain had a little edge in the polls nationally. That, plus a possible Bradley Effect election-day tip and he'd be smiling all the way to January (where he'd head-crash hard dealing with the crap that awaits our next President).

Then, reality struck, again. No, not the hurricanes (which found McCain attempting a Presidential-looking Perch somewhere in Missouri to be 'kept advised' about Gustav). No.

It's the Economy (yup, the one Obama has been talking about since whenever). Wall Street finally lost two wheels over the Banking Deregulation railroaded into law by John McCain's very tight buddy Phil Gramm (as the Nation held its breath in 1999 over the outcome of the first Bush election). Fittingly, when someone authors such legislation, it usually bears their name. This deregulatory piece of work bears Gramm's name :). You like?

Then McCain's camp accidentally let be published this week an article in "Contingencies" magazine which bears McCain's name as author - and a wonderful FULL-PAGE (did I say FULL-PAGE) picture of him as a lead-in. The big Whoops arose from the fact that the author of this piece put in McCain's mouth these words -

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

- John McCain - September, 2008

As I've lamented here before - how do these guys get it SO WRONG!?!

To my point, the polls are tipping in Obama's favor - starting with a 9-point lead today for Obama in Michigan (home to a couple automotive firms who's losses recently have rivalled the banking industry - with consequence jobs impact).

Now earlier this week Obama correctly observed that McCain was acting a little panicked -

“This morning, Senator McCain gave a speech in which his big solution to this world wide economic crisis was to blame me for it,” Obama said to boos from the crowd of about 8,000 people at a South Florida rally. “This is the guy who spent nearly three decades in Washington and after spending the entire campaign saying I haven’t been in Washington long enough he apparently now is willing to assign me the responsibility for all of Washington’s failures.”

“I think it’s pretty clear that Sen. McCain is a little panicked right now,” he added. “At this point he seems to be willing to say anything or do anything or change any position or violate any principle to try and win this election.”

I'd have to agree with Obama. What does Panic look like for McCain?

So, next comes the Race Card from McCain (silly me - I thought all along that it would be easier for McCain to smear Clinton as a Woman than Obama as a Black Man ... and maybe it would have been but McCain has tossed out his Honor and Integrity now making anything possible). The Race Card is juxtaposing Obama with 'scary' Black men and following with elderly females.

Shezzz. This McCain stuff will be playing in Poli Sci classrooms around the world for 50 years.

But, we ain't seen nottin' yet. How, and When, will it get worse?

'When' is Easy

The first National Debate is this coming Friday night (11/26/2008). Obama's intellect and clarity, and calm sincerity will swamp McCain - whose presentation skills are poorer, yes, but more importantly whose tired rhetoric and stereotypical generalizations will be laid bare against the razor-sharp recitation of case-history Obama can recall in the moment, and his genuine intent to lift Americans out of these depths in which we find ourselves.

The challenge for Obama will be to avoid the situation Gore faced in 2000. In citing abundant facts and figures to support his superior points of debate, Gore was rebutted by a lost and fuzzy-headed George Bush who merely retorted "You're using Fuzzy Math!" And that was all it took - America went with the put-down and we got what we deserved - a Village Idiot in Washington, more unqualified Federal Appointees nationally, hundreds of deaths as evidence of it all in Katrina, thousands more in Iraq, and now a Trillion dollars more in bailouts on Wall Street.

At the risk of redundancy, HOW can these guys get it SO WRONG?

So, that will be Obama's challenge on Friday - to present an accessible story based on facts. (Fortunately, this time, the Media are not going to be as willing as in 2000 to let a dumbed-down presentation stand as "A Helluva Job!" for America's future - oh, silly me - they might. We'll have to see.)

So that's WHEN it begins - after McCain gets Gustav'd on Friday night.

'How'?

Not sure how but you, me, and Dupree can see it coming - more Lies, more Race Baiting, more blaming Obama, more feigned Outrage at whatever. Oh, and more trying to deny Americans their right to vote. My friend Rich thinks that should be Treason and vows to work for this after the election settles (either way!). Contact me to get aligned with this Patriotic Goal.

Look, everyone knows McCain cannot compete with Obama as a Candidate - it is that lost Republication Ideology, fickle as it may be in McCain (and only lent some direction by Palin's "You bet your six-shooter I'm certain" views), that moves anyone to admit to agreement with McCain. He is a Dyed-in-the-Wool Deregulator in today's reality-show of a woefully under-regulated world (about a Trillion Dollars Short and a Decade Late).

McCain's backed the wrong policies for 95 of the last 96 months.

He's always been a World War III RISK! (Says McCain - "I know how to win wars!" - having never won one, it might be noted.) His Republican colleagues, our Retired Admirals and Generals, and the Media all agree - he does NOT have the temperament for the Oval Office. Sarah Palin-Bush makes it worse.

America is waking up to this. Even people that dislike Obama recognize the RISKS of McCain. Like Bush there will be -

• Lobbyists running our White House,
• Nudging us toward War from Day One,
• More "Make the Wealthy Wealthier and we'll all be better off" policy,
• Continued lying in office (didn't they Used To Impeach for that offense?),
• Squads of lawyers advising McCain/Palin to refuse to obey the rule of law.

America, we are not Slow Learners - Eight Years is Long Enough to figure this out. But it'll get worse before it's over.

JT

How to say "Liar"

The News Media has been wrestling with a new problem in 2008 - how to call someone a "Liar."

See, there's a time-honored tradition that the Press does not cast this sort of judgment toward anyone. Say there's a criminal with a line like "I wasn't committing a burglary, I was attempting to disarm a nuclear warhead", well, they can just cite that quote, and then say that "the authorities have him in custody."

The point about the lie is clear.

When it comes to Politics, people are used to a little twisting of the arm and stretching of the truth. In these cases, the Press has another technique that has worked pretty well until recently. That was to recite the questionable statement, and then to say that the 'opposing party' disputes that remark.

In that way, the Press doesn't assume any risk of getting in between the parties, nor have to try to discern where the truth actually lies (pun intended).

Trouble is, the lies flying around in this year's campaign are posing a new challenge for the Press. It seems innumerable statements have been made which are so obviously false that the Press itself is now taking hits for failing to state the obvious (it's a lie), as well as hits in its reporting and presenting 'the opposing party's point of view' as merely a differing position.

Keith Olbermann (MS-NBC) has finally hit upon a way to tell a Liar that they appear to be lying. Here it is: in citing conflicting remarks VP Candidate Sarah Palin made between her first and second press interviews he said:

"Sarah, you're coming across like an out-of-control liar!"

Clever, Keith! You DIDN'T call her a liar (yet). You merely warned her, in a very friendly gesture, that she may be soiling her own integrity! Clever.

That will work for now.

JT

Tagged and Bagged a Dead Moose

BB-Gun for Christmas at five. Fiberglass recurve bow the next summer. Touched off my first deer rifle at seven. Poured molten-lead into hand-held bullet molds in the basement, and reloaded brass there at the bench.

So I know a little bit about hunting. I know you better have your permit. You'd better have your tag. You'd better have your dates right. And you'd better NOT touch off a round before that early morning season start opening day.

I know something else you NEVER do - you DON'T represent a trophy as yours WHEN IT'S NOT.

And that's what Sarah Palin has done. She Tagged and Bagged a Dead Moose (shot by someone else), threw it in the back, and hauled it home. She mounted a BIG RACK and now she continues to call it her shot.

Bull Moose!

That's lying to the American people. Time Magazine thinks so; CNN thinks so. In fact, nearly every major journalistic outlet is entirely baffled by what has been thoroughly debunked as a bald-faced lie.

Yet she keeps shooting off her mouth, and her foot, with this story.

Sarah's made a huge mistake with this Bridge to Nowhere - the Bridge she was FOR before she was AGAINST. You see, this Bridge was a DEAD MOOSE long before she turned against it. By the time her "No Thanks" came out, the flies where thick around its rotten corpse.

The only thing that she shot, and she hit this one square on, is her own integrity.

Sarah Palin - now, about that cute Corp Jet eBay Lie that Johnnie is telling ... please tell me he did NOT hear that from you!?!

JT

Pssst. John! "What She Said"

When reporters pressed McCain in November, 2007, whether the government should provide contraceptives or counseling on contraceptives, he replied,

"You've stumped me."

More inquiry, and, "Ahhh, I think I support the president's policy," McCain said.

His agony is over. Now he can drop "What the President said" and just go with "What she said."

- JT


About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

A Woman Who Knows Her Job

A woman who knows her job, and a man who can't quite do his.

In her own words "I'm gonna just give it to ya, baby. We'll leave it there."

Never did get what she asked for; never really got anything for her time.

JT

Winning on a Hail Mary Bad Call

There's a BIG difference between Winning on a Hail Mary and Winning on a Bad Call.

In a play dubbed "The Miracle at Michigan" on September 24, 1994, in a game between Colorado and Michigan, 100,000 stunned fans watched CU QB Kordell Stewart (later of Pittsburgh Steelers 'Slash' fame) fling a no-time-left ball 70 yards to Michael Westbrook in the Michigan end zone for the winning score. (What's more, the ball was tipped in the end zone.)

Years later, my Dad (from Big 10 Country) and I (CU Alum) were watching Colorado play and I realized he was silently rooting for the other team.

"Why?" I asked him (I'd left Madison, WI - aka Big-10 Country - 30 years prior for Colorado).

He responded "I guess because I'm still mad about that CU Hail Mary pass that beat Michigan."

He was mad. And I understood (though what skin he had in that game with Michigan I wasn't sure, being a UW Badger, himself). But really, you have to let go of a Hail Mary that works.

Bad calls are something else. The Blogosphere is rich with rants over NFL Bad Calls. The Seattle-Pittsburgh Superbowl XL (2006) seems to be a lightning rod for such posts.

And, though bad to lose on a bad call, no one but NO ONE wants to be defending their win ad infinitum due to an officiating gaff. Yet, they'll cling to that win. A Bad Call is all "Gotta' go with the call on the field." "It's just part of the game."

So, how does this tie in to our November Election? Couple ways:

First, hats off to Sarah Palin for netting the VP call.

"To serve as vice president beside such a man [McCain] would be the privilege of a lifetime, and it's fitting that this trust has been given to me 88 years almost to the day after the women of America first gained the right to vote," Palin said.

An aside: I'm not sure why it's so 'Fitting' (a) after 88 years, or, for that matter, (b) that it took the GOP 24 years to catch up to the Democrats with their nomination of Ferraro in '84. But, okay, she says 'Fitting'.

What's troubling me is more than the choice of words she uses. It's the Bad Call in her win. See, for her, this is a "Privilege of a Lifetime" - like winning a big game. So, who lost this time?

Folks, it's not Hillary. No, McCain (and Limbaugh, and Hannity, and Savage) worked hard to see Mrs. Clinton was not in the game at all. So, who lost because Palin won? How about:

Jodi Rell (R), Governor of Connecticut - (honorary law degree, U of Hartford 2001)

Like Obama, Rell served in the State Legislature (but in the lesser House, not Senate as did Obama), then she served as Leutenient Governor for three terms, THEN became Governor. Then was RE-ELECTED Governor.

Rell received more votes in that re-election than there are PEOPLE (plus Polar Bears) in all of Alaska.

Olene Smith Walker (R), Former Governor of Utah - (Bachelors, Masters - Stanford!, and PhD)

Walker also served in the State Legislature including a term as Majority Whip. Unfortunately, her party trashed her re-election bid and she was not on the ballot for the next election.

Linda Lingle (R), Governor of Hawaii - (Bachelor of Arts, Cum Laude)

Since Lingle is only sitting Governor (for two terms) of the state of Hawaii - just twice the population of Alaska - I'll move along.

There's Judy Martz - former Lieutenant Governor, and Governor of Montana (and former Olympic Speed Skater).

And then, there's Christine Todd Whitman - former Governor of New Jersey, and former Administrator of the EPA under George Bush (2001-2003). While at the EPA, she produced a report, later dismissed by President Bush, itemizing the anticipated effects of Global Warming on the United States. This puts her more in line, we're told, with McCain than Palin (who disclaims the scientific consensus of man's influence in Global Warming). Whitman is also a Director of Texas Instruments and of United Technologies. She is deeply involved in Energy Consulting and is a Nuclear Power advocate (now that's not Big Oil, John!). She even worked on Nelson Rockefeller's campaign. Can you say Blue Blood (or Red Blood, as the state may be)?

I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to look at our nation's fine female Senators and Representatives, present and past, and those women who may be past or present mayors of the 16 cities in the US bigger than the state of Alaska.

Some of these women have an "issue" hanging in their closet (as do many public figures).

To their detriment, these issues were not played out in a Jed Clampit-sized political arena as were Palin's 'Trooper-gate', her 'Bridge-to-nowhere support flip-flop', her 'with Stevens before I was against him' plays, and her mini-Pork Barrel funded Hockey Arena as Mayor of a town a little bigger than my High School.

So, if this "Lifetime Privilege" is her big win, Sarah Palin has won by Bad Call. And I'm not referring to her decision to leave for Washington with the nagging family responsibilities of a 4-month old Downs Syndrome baby, and her pregnant, unwed 17-yr old daughter. (Apart from those details) this Bad Call was not her decision. Really, it's "Just part of the Game", a "Call made on the field." And she's clinging to her victory.

Enough about the Bad Call - it's still McCain's Hail Mary. And that's something that's NOT been duplicated in Sports, or ranted upon in the Blogosphere - a Bad Call on a Hail Mary.

JT