OPEN LINE SATURDAY: the bridge back to where she came from

Charles M. Blow
Mr. McCain, on Monday you repeated your delusional notion that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. Now, the federal government is working on a deal to save that economy from collapsing. You have admitted that the economy is not your forte, so you could have used a running mate with some financial chops. (Remember Mitt Romney?)

But no. Who did you pick? SnowJob SquareGlasses whose financial credentials include running Wasilla into debt, listing (but not selling) a plane on EBay and flip-flopping on a bridge to wherever. In fact, when it comes to real issues in general, she may prove to be a liability.

Tim Egan
And let’s not talk about voodoo infrastructure without one more mention of the bridge that Palin has yet to tell the truth about. The plan was to get American taxpayers to pay for a span that would be 80 feet higher than the Brooklyn Bridge, and about 20 feet short of the Golden Gate — all to serve a tiny airport with a half-dozen or so flights a day and a perfectly good five-minute ferry. Until it was laughed out of Congress, Palin backed it — big time, as the current vice president would say.

Why build it? Because it’s Alaska, where people are used to paying no state taxes and getting the rest of us to buck up for things they can’t afford. Alaska, where the first thing a visitor sees upon landing in Anchorage is the sign welcoming you to Ted Stevens International Airport. Stevens, of course, is the 84-year-old Republican senator indicted on multiple felony charges. He may still win re-election thanks to Palin’s popularity at the top of the ballot.

Alaskans will get $231 per person in federal earmarks — 10 times more than people in Barack Obama’s home state. That’s this year, with Palin as governor.

Comments

[sparky]

The Death of Republican Philosophy
We are the party of small government
Under Bush II, discretionary spending has increased from $640 billion to $1.040 trillion dollars. And that doesn’t include our new trillion dollar bailout.

We Support Free Markets
Last week the SEC banned short-selling in financial shares.

We Are the Party of Fiscal Responsibility.
No Republican president has ever balanced a budget.

We are the Party of Personal Responsibility
When companies make really stupid decisions the Federal government bails them out. In fact, when the going gets tough, the Republicans become socialists.

[Bert]

The Tim Eagan article is the best thing written about Palin. She is a fake. I agree in the long run, she is a mistake for McCain. Where I disagree with Michael is that she isn't going away, she will be around for a long time. She is a Republican and religious right heroine in the vacuum of such leaders of her generation. She can do no wrong in their eyes. Unless she stumbles badly we're stuck with her.

[Chauncey Gardner]

"She is a Republican and religious right heroine in the vacuum of such leaders of her generation. She can do no wrong in their eyes."

THAT SPEAKS VOLUMES ABOUT CONSERVATIVES AND THE RELIGIOUS RIGH, DOESN'T IT?

[Caleb]

Sarah is the most honest politician in the country, she has a moral compass, and she has a nicer ass than that old sack of greasy cookies, Nancy Pelosi. Eat your heart out. She will be president some day.

[KS]

Sparky - Newsflash - Bush isn't running.

Bla'M - Judgment under Obama's name - you are joking - right ?

More half truths in this post - readers should know that Tim Eagan is in the tank for Obama. The contents of your posts are your call, of course, but the bias is getting ridiculous and starting to degenerate into that similar to MSNBC or the Daily Kos.

[sparky]

Bush is not physically running, no. But McCain has a voting record to bear, and its a 90% pro-Bush policy record. There has been no evidence that he will do anything differently than the Bushites did.

You didnt address the points..just snarked the messenger.
But what else is new??

[joanie]

And you're in the tank for McCain. So get over it, klueless.

Tim Egan provided facts. That's all. Take 'em or leave 'em.

Nice satire, Caleb. I like parodies on the religious right. And you're right on about the sex. That's what it is usually about with the base. Well, that and money.

Can't you all just see another SNL rendition of "Vote for Sarah - she's got a great ass!" I hope Michaels is reading...

(Is Lorne Michaels still producing? That tells you how long it's been since I've watched that show!)

[joanie]

BTW, your proof please that Egan is in the tank for Obama?

I'll be waiting, Mr. half-truths and innuendo. I'll be waiting...

[sparky]

Not necessarily, Bert. If you read the Alaskan newspapers and blogs, people are pissed up there. Most of them paid little attention to her because she replaced an unpopular governor. The scrutiny brought upon her by this VP race is waking up a lot of people to background they were not aware of before. There are no guarantees that when she returns to Alaska that she will retain any future power. Troopergate is being very actively pursued, regardless of the pressre the McCain campaign put on the state legislature. Her story definitely is not over quite yet, but the outcome is still unknown.

[Gay Gary]

Sorry I should have clarified that better; the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast is about the size - in terms of population - of metropolitan Los Angeles. You're correct, the municipal district of Nizhny Novgorod is not.

Probably nobody else cares, but it gets on my nerves when someone gets their geography wrong, more so when they then cluck about other peoples' ignorance of geography. Cheers!

Thank you for your the fact-check. It sounds like this is an issue you choose to be very passionate about.

When fact-checking it's always important we temper our statements to avoid the appearance of point-making trivia if the point can be easily explained through a typographic error. Don't you agree? I'm sure you do.

Cheers and Best Wishes to you, as well!

[Gay Gary]

Sorry - wrong thread!

[joanie]

"Mr. Bernanke, the reserved former Ivy League professor, and Mr. Paulson, the hard-charging former Wall Street deal maker, launched what would be the government’s largest economic rescue operation in modern times, one that rivals the Iraq war in cost and at the same time may redefine Washington’s role in the marketplace for years.

The plan to buy $700 billion in troubled assets with taxpayer money..."

Well, tells it all, doesn't it? Privatize those profits and socialize the losses.

Another half-truth and innuendo, KLUELESS?

[KS]

FYI - Obama voted with Bush over 60% of the time. This renders that as a meaningless statistic. To you there is no evidence that he will not do anything different than Bush because you don't want to research it because it would prove your talking point to be wrong - you choose to be ignorant.

Caleb was speaking the truth - something you can't handle Joanie baloney.

"BTW, your proof please that Egan is in the tank for Obama?"

Eagan writes for the NY Times and the article below from him is evidence enough. Want me to spell it out again ? He is in the tank for Obama...

http://seattleforbarackobama.blogspot.com/2008/02/obama-shock-of-red.html

I stand by my earlier comment about the ridiculous bias of this particular post (not a reflection though on the quality of this blog).

[joanie]

Attention-seeking, Gary?

Leaving out a defining word is a "typo?"

My, aren't we pleased to be noticed?

(I love to laugh!)

[Bert]

The wicked big government sure comes in handy when the free market takes a shit on the country - love that socialism! Even a free market capitalist can use it once in a while. Nice to know it's there when you need it

[joanie]

I love it! Finally, the truth: FACTS = IN THE TANK FOR OBAMA.

At least you're honest, Klueless. I'll give you that!

[KS]

"Mr. Bernanke, the reserved former Ivy League professor, and Mr. Paulson, the hard-charging former Wall Street deal maker, launched what would be the government’s largest economic rescue operation in modern times, one that rivals the Iraq war in cost and at the same time may redefine Washington’s role in the marketplace for years.

The plan to buy $700 billion in troubled assets with taxpayer money..."

Well, tells it all, doesn't it? Privatize those profits and socialize the losses."

Nice try Joanie, but BULLS**T - your candidate is OK with the above plan so you stepped in it there. McCain stated that we need to stop baling out these companies now and rewarding the CEO's with the lucrative severance package. Neither McCain or Obama are in a position to affect these policies now - so what was your point besides the one from your tinfoil hat ?

[joanie]

Tell me, Bert. Where do you put corruption and recklessness into the equation?

BTW, I've seen good arguments for and against the notion that we have a "free market." Free for whom? An awful lot of "gumment" subsidies out there...sorry, I have taken to using a word that the right on this blog seems to like.

[KS]

Finally, the truth: FACTS = IN THE TANK FOR OBAMA.

That's Ph(Jo)aniespeak - want to interpret that comment ?
There seems to be a breakdown in communication from you - am not a mindreader.

[Gay Gary]

C'est Fin

I awoke this morning to a furious pounding at my door. Outside was a fat, middle-aged man in a blue speedo and feather boa. Verily, it was none but the neighbor of Oculus Blue and me: Baron Harkonnen. He was in a state of shock, madly waving “The New York Times”, that paper which I can not be bothered to read.

The Times had reprinted the draft legislation for the federal bailout but the rock-dumb reporters at that paper had offered neither insight nor analysis to the actual text of the measure. Even this glaring section escaped their gaze:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Yes, the courts of the United States are been ordered closed to the question of any future decree-laws issued by the Secretary of the Treasury.

Some time ago, when declaring center-rule in Bangladesh, Gen. H.M. Ershad proclaimed that – the civil courts will remain open and functioning, however, are cautioned not to take any action or make any ruling in contravention to this order.

And so, in a few weeks, the Republic will be at an end.

[joanie]

You know, klueless, that was posted only a few posts ago...did you really need to move us further toward the "next" page by reposting it?

Use some common sense next time. K?

Now, to answer: Obama be damned. All of them be damned. But the most damned of all is your reckless Republicans who did this to all of us because they've been in charge most of the time since Reagan and deregulation started. And Clinton be damned for Nafta and dereg as well.

They can all go to hell as far as I'm concerned. But the Repugs are responsible for starting it and doing most of it. Just like before.

And it will take a Dem to clean it up just like before. And it will take about forty years for those selfish Republican genes to get the American people thinking "greed is good" once again and we'll go through it all over again.

That is the way of this country, isn't it? And you're on the side that starts it - over and over and over. And I'm on the side where there is some caution . . . but it always goes disregarded because MONEY is so important to people. And it corrupts eventually almost everybody.

And that is what we are looking at today.

Where oh where is Eleanor? Perhaps Obama will be our Eleanor. I don't really think so. But he'll be a whole lot better than McCain.

[Gay Gary]

Joanie - I was going to respond that LA city and LA county are used interchangeably without a qualifier, ergo, the same with Nizhny Novgorod, but, why bother? You don't even know what an oblast is (though I know you'll look it up and post the answer here now) and came across, quite simply, as dumb as a rock the other day when you didn't even know basic Eurasian geography (despite the fact you later claimed - as I predicted - you were just joking and actually did).

Joanie the Anti-Semite - helping America's children be bottom of the shit-heap as per world geography standards.

[sparky]

But Bert, you notice that KS and the others are ignoring those points both you and I have made. It is easier for them to try to trash Joanie's comments.

According to the Congressional Quarterly ( waiting for some one to say this is a liberal publication) Senator John McCain has voted with President Bush 100% of the time in 2008 and 95% of the time in 2007.

[joanie]

And finally, klueless, my post was succinct and truthful: Egan wrote facts which you call half-truths and inuenndo without backing it up at all.

That is why you are klueless. And you will rarely get me to explain my posts. I expect your brain to do the thinking for you. Not mine.

[Gay Gary]

Oh God, all of you people are morons with your "Obama said this" and "McCain is polling that" and "Obama voted for this" and "McCain supports that" back and forth.

Each of you deserve what's coming.

[joanie]

Gary, you ceased to be interesting or entertaining some time ago.

You resort to the same narrow thinking as your cohorts on this blog. Is there anything more to be said?

I could care less what an oblast is or what you think of me. You are out of material, my dear. And that's a fact.

[Gay Gary]

Joanie - you were never interesting or entertaining.

[joanie]

Sparky, they are not trashing my comments. Klueless is trashing the article by Egan and the NY Times information on Bernake and Paulson and their proposed bail out.

And as for Bush and McCain voting together 90% plus of the time, we've posted and read it over and over. It is not new news.

Yes, they are also trashing my comments. That is because they have always and do continue to trash everything and everybody (including you and Bert) who try to make any specific comment or put out any factual information at all.

You of all people should know that. You try the most to make sense with them.

[joanie]

Peevishness has replaced your wit. Please ask Oculus Bleu to return to you...

[KS]

Suggeston for a future post - Talk about Saul Alinsky & Obama's attraction to his writings and/or BHO's connections with ACORN - you know the community organizers that promote voter fraud..
(that would be revealing, especially to the Obamaphiles)

"that was posted only a few posts ago...did you really need to move us further toward the "next" page by reposting it?"

Huh ? Speak English - what in the hell are you talking about?

Sparky - Shrug...I paid atteniton and am just getting bored by that same old argument and meaningless stats, when I know McCain is different and your points are irrelevant. Why don't you google and check out the real truth and see for yourself the differences between Bush and
McCain ? You and your leftist ilk are being intellectually dishonest here. McCain has fire in the belly and disagreed with Bush about numerous things - Bush does not and partly because of it, he was incompetent.

[sparky]

Hey Joanie..did you see where McCain thinks the country's health system should be run like its financial system?

[KS]

"They can all go to hell as far as I'm concerned. But the Repugs are responsible for starting it and doing most of it. Just like before."

That's a lie - there you go again... The Democrats also voted in favor of deregulation (Congress was controlled by the Republicans) and it was signed by a Democrat President, Bill Clinton. Democrats are additionally implicated here by the fact that they did nothing over the last two years and why ? Chris Dodd and Barack Hussein Obama were the two biggest recipients of campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie and Dodd was in a position to enact legislation to stop this, but he did nothing ! Obama has done nothing but give this lip service. McCain brought up this problem in 2005 - a known fact, but Congress failed to act and both parties are at fault.

Do you not care about facts or are you just out to try and undermine them in the case of Republicans ?

[Gay Gary]

Peevishness has replaced your wit. Please ask Oculus Bleu to return to you...

Joanie, there was never wit. There was me feeding you little scraps of titilating silliness and you lapping it up like a hungry dog. Then I tired of that schtick and changed the drumbeat.

[Gay Gary]

Someone go back through old blog posts and repost some of Joanie and my interactions with her giggling flirtations with my silly and outrageously scandalous comments.

What a rube.

[KS]

Tim Eagan has written other pieces besides the article I posted. I could tell there was a pro-Obama bias in it and if you can't, you need to sharpen your discernment skills.

Could it be that you don't see Obama as the 2nd coming as you used to, but again that is because he has been pulling the wool over everyone's eyes including yours. I see him as more of a threat to the future of this country than before. Answer me this: Have you voted for a Republican in the last 3 elections ? or ever ?

With that said, I am tired of having to address your twisted interpretations of my posts for one day.

[joanie]

Yes, Sparky, I did hear that. I don't remember where. So, Klueless, what do you think? Shall we run the health care system like the financial system?

Sparky, when the bail outs come, should we prioritize hospitals, doctors, patients or doctors, hospitals, patients?

[joanie]

Feeling lonely, Gary? I think rereading the posts would be very constructive if you have nothing better to do.

Have fun!

Sorry, trashers, but I'm leaving now as well. I leave you to a sane and extraordinarily competent Sparky to do the good work on the left.

Hope you enjoy revisiting old posts, Gary.

[joanie]

Quickie before I go:

Jay Inslee is on Ring of Fire now talking about oil regulation and the partying and sex that's been going on!

A third of the Denver office have received gifts and sex...I love it! So Republican!

[redrachel]

Hey Gary, we always knew you were a faker!

[Vera Smalls]

Sure wish Bush had been successful in putting a quarter of my Social Security fund into the stock market! I'd have been truly broke today, instead of just losing most of my 401K. Am I bitter? yes.

[KS]

Here is an opposing viewpoint to the theme of this post. FACT: Sarah Palin scares the left with her potential. There is a new condition called Palin Derangement Syndrome (PDS), similarly there is the Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) that affects many leftists. The earlier related conditions is the Clinton Derangement Syndrome (CDS) in the '90's by the conservatives and the Reagan Derangement Syndrome in the '80's for the leftists.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/591xzuuj.asp?pg=2

[joanie]

Weakly Standard? Isn't that William Kristol's rag? You know, the guy who said said how peachy keen everything would be when we raided Iraq?

That guy?

Oh klueless, you're hopeless.

[KS]

William Kristol, the neo-con did not write that article. Byron York is another editor there and is one of the most reliable reporters around when it comes to dispensing the truth. Ph(J)oanie- your middle name is "part of the problem". No wonder your opinions are so out of the ballpark, it appears that you ignore conservative websites - while I view both conservative and liberal.
John Edwards was right; there are two Americas - the mainstream press and the truth which often lies in the middle.

All - to be more informed of what the truth is, because there are a lot of lies and half truths that Joanie likes to read - try these bullshit detectors:

http://www.mediaresearch.org/
http://www. urbanlegends.com

I left out www. factcheck.com, because they have been found to have a leftist bias.

[KS]

Correct to my last comment -
http://www.factcheck.org should be checked, but checked along the other two. They report - you decide.

BHO has started to resort to more sleeziness and lies in his ads because he knows that no one in the mainstream will call him on it, so I believe that speaks volumes about his character or lack of.
The trolls will swallow these ads with their kool aid chaser, whether they have been analyzed as totally or partly false. These websites probably won't change many minds, but the adage of "can't say you weren't warned" holds true here. This is a good thing.

From what I know now, I can confidently say that the financial crisis is going to get worse and is about 67% Democrat and 33% Republican fault.
Obama is more like 75% of the problem due to his connections with Raines and Johnson and the amount of campaign contributions he has received and has sat on his thumbs. John McCain is less than 33% because he co-sponsored a bill for more regulation here back in 2005, but the Democrats in the Senate blocked it.

McCain lost points last week though for shooting from the hip, when suggesting that Cox get fired and would have been better off to say less. Obama smugly gave a half-baked excuse that was a flaccid solution which would involve more government control - typical of a socialist. The Government is between a rock and a hard place and they brought it on themselves.

[joanie]

Where did you get these percentages?

And you think more deregulation is the answer? Why don't more economists agree with you? Why haven't I heard that anywhere else?

Disclose your sources so that I can get informed. Please.

I'd say the government brought it on us. Wouldn't you?

[KS]

"I'd say the government brought it on us. Wouldn't you?"

I'd say the lending institutions, who were aided by the Government's deregulation - beginning in 1999.

More food for thought...from last week -

by Ruth Marcus at the Washington Post (politically - a moderate Democrat)

Obama has descended to similarly scurrilous tactics on the stump and on the air. On immigration, Obama is running a Spanish-language ad that unfairly lumps McCain together with Rush Limbaugh -- and quotes Limbaugh out of context. ... Obama has been furthest out of line, however, on Social Security, stooping to the kind of scare tactics he once derided.

"If my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would have had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week," Obama said Saturday as he campaigned in that retiree-heavy state. "Millions of families would've been scrambling to figure out how to give their mothers and fathers, their grandmothers and grandfathers, the secure retirement that every American deserves."

This is simply false -- even leaving aside the incendiary language about "privatizing" Social Security. As the invaluable FactCheck.org noted, the private account plan suggested by President Bush and backed by McCain would not have applied to anyone born before 1950. It would not have changed benefits by a single penny for current retirees like the nice Florida folks that Obama was trying to rile up. ...

Obama's ads on Social Security are equally misleading. "Cutting benefits in half, risking Social Security on the stock market," it warns. "The Bush-McCain privatization plan. Can you really afford more of the same?"

Cutting benefits in half? As FactCheck notes, "this is a rank misrepresentation." ...

To Democrats who worry about whether their nominee is willing to do whatever it takes to win: You can calm down.

[Puget Sound]

KS
Good to remember all this when they start to cry 'Rovian Tactics'
Hope you've been following the story on the Plain crap. Looks to be coming from the Obama campaign people and they got it nailed.

[Ben]

So you think this is the only time in the history of man there will be problems in the stock market? You think that just because someone is 25 now and starts playing the stock market with what would have been SS funds will be guaranteed money when he or she is old?

[joanie]

Somehow, Ben, I don't think you'll get a response from these guys.

Anybody who makes sense or poses thought-provoking questions rarely gets answers.

Wish you all had heard Randi tonight. She had Naomi Klein on and put this whole fiasco in a new light for me. They both made a case that this isn't really a worst case scenario at all but a way that the failed companies and CEO's can still have their cake and eat it too.

The public is in shock but it is not grounded in fact. She made a fascinating case for this whole debacle being super-sized and sold for the price of getting the tax payor to put up even more to keep the rich rich.

As Tom Hartmann and Bernie Sanders said, if it's too big to fail, it's too big.

Let 'em fail.

[Duffman]

Can't say enough 'bout them Teachers !!! WOW!