More McCain smoke and mirrors
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David R. Modny
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David R. Modny wrote:BTW, if anyone got a chance to see Palin's media outing today, it's easy to realize why they want to lock her away until the 5th of November. *Really* bad with Katie Couric and on the streets of NYC. She's not even getting the memorized talking points out coherently anymore.
No, but I saw that old video of her (now making the rounds) on youtube. Its pretty disgusting... I am not even going to link it here.
She is a liability, and now they know it.
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Bennett Cerf
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David R. Modny
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Bennett Cerf wrote:I'm pretty sure McCain will make it to the debate. I just don't know if he'll be trumpeting some breakthrough (real or imaginary) or whining that Obama forced him to show up.
It's going to be interesting to see how this all unfolds. The one thing that gives me hope is that America's polling, roughly, 2:1 that they *want* the debates to go on without interruption. That may force his hand a little - despite his intentions. Most importantly, I want the VP debate to be unimpeded in any way, shape or form.
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David R. Modny
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David R. Modny
- Posts: 333
- Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2004 8:58 am
- Location: Parma, OH
Pretty good article. Personally, I still strongly suspect the McCain on a "white horse" theory - the conflict/solution paradigm:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/whostoblam ... alsstumble
Who's to Blame for the Bailout Deal's Stumble?
By JAY NEWTON-SMALL / WASHINGTON Fri Sep 26, 9:30 AM ET
John McCain arrived on Capitol Hill early Thursday afternoon just as a bipartisan group of senators and representatives were announcing they had reached an agreement on the broad outlines of a bill to bail out Wall Street. For a moment, as the press conference broke up, members of the media traveling with McCain mingled with reporters covering the Hill. "Wait, there's a deal?" one surprised McCain reporter asked his congressional colleague.
That one question summed up the confused state of a high-stakes day in the nation's capital that only got more confusing as the hours passed. For a few hours, it looked as if McCain, who came to Washington with the stated goal of helping to hammer out a final deal, had shown up just minutes too late to speed along the once-stalled negotiations. Then McCain, his Democratic rival Barack Obama and congressional leaders from both parties went to the White House for what some billed as a photo-op, a public showing of bipartisan support for a piece of legislation that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the President himself have called absolutely vital to preventing economic collapse. Reporters waited and waited on the rainy White House driveway expecting to hear from the two candidates, only to be informed by Senator Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, that there was no deal.
With the fate of the bailout bill in peril, it's not clear whether the presence of the presidential candidates is doing more damage than good. Members of both parties emerged from that meeting accusing each other of playing politics with the crucial legislation. Both sides to some degree are right. Less than 40 days from the presidential election, this crisis has been anything but the shining moment where candidates transcend politics and come together for the good of the country - as McCain suggested it should be when he suspended his campaign and asked to postpone Friday's debate until a deal could be worked out.
Instead, as skeptics had predicted, the process is getting bogged down by a host of partisan fears: fear that one candidate could be perceived as breaking the logjam and saving the country from financial ruin, fear that one party could be blamed for passing a costly government bailout of fat cats on Wall Street, and fear of who might be blamed if nothing is done. "I'm not clear that in a very difficult situation like this that doing things in the spotlight and injecting presidential politics is necessarily useful," Obama told reporters Thursday.
So what caused the breakdown of a $700 billion rescue package that at one point seemed to have been amended to everyone's liking - with limits on executive compensation, more protections for taxpayers and homeowners, and additional oversight of the buying and selling of Wall Street's toxic mortgage-backed securities? In the simplest terms, it was House Minority Leader John Boehner's surprising declaration at the White House meeting that his caucus does not support the deal and that alternatives should be considered. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has demanded that Boehner get at least half of his caucus - or 100 members - to vote for the legislation so that Democrats are not left passing this still very unpopular bill by themselves less than two months before the election. Boehner simply doesn't have the votes and nothing that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Paulson or even Boehner has said has swayed the GOP's rank and file.
During Paulson's meeting Wednesday with the GOP caucus, dozens of members steadily streamed out of the meeting in outrage. Finally, with just 60 or so members left in the room, Paulson called for a show of support, according to Representative Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican. Only four people raised their hands. Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican who has started pushing an alternative to the Paulson plan that would not require Washington to pony up so much money, said every member has been inundated with hundreds of calls from angry conservatives.
Democrats are having none of this tale of woe. As far as they're concerned the GOP's platform of deregulation is what caused this problem, and it's a GOP President - however unpopular - who is demanding this fix. They view Boehner's stance with deep suspicion. If enough Republicans did not support the bill, why, they ask, did Republican Senator Bob Bennett and Representative Spencer Bachus, the top Republican on the House Banking Committee, stand at the press conference on Thursday announcing the agreement and voice their support? Why wait until a meeting at the White House to throw out a raft of alternative solutions that the Administration had already rejected, and which would require a whole new round of talks to get done?
In the minds of Democrats, what changed was the dramatic decision by McCain, who does not serve on the Senate Banking Committee and has rarely exhibited much interest in crafting financial legislation, to come to Washington. "This notion that somehow John McCain is going to ride to the rescue, I think, is a notion in his own mind, not in the reality of what we're facing here," said Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat. "Bringing the presidential political campaigns to the halls of Congress is not going to make this any easier."
Perhaps, the Democrats now wonder, the point was actually to make it harder. Some party members think Boehner created a problem for the Republican nominee to fix; if the House Republicans can be brought around from their initial intransigence, McCain would be seen as the savior of the bill. Even some of the McCain campaign's statements Thursday afternoon seemed to suggest as much. "We're optimistic that Senator McCain will bring House Republicans on board without driving other parties away, resulting in a successful deal for the American taxpayer," said McCain spokeswoman Kimmie Lipscomb.
House Republicans protest they are not playing politics with the bill. Bachus, they say, is a maverick who told the Democratic negotiators six times that he did not have the power to speak for his caucus. The press conference, they contend, was a staged production to give the illusion of an agreement and force it down the throats of unwilling House Republicans. Some point to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's comments Thursday morning that the deal represented what he liked to call "the Obama principles," thus handing the credit to the Illinois senator. And McCain campaign staffers point out that only a couple of days ago Democratic leaders were insisting that McCain had to get involved and help bring his party on board if the plan was going to pass.
What it has all come down to is an incredibly high-stakes game of political chicken which no one wants to lose. House Republicans late Thursday were talking up an alternative proposal for the government to help insure the bad mortgage-backed assets rather than buy them up, but that less-expensive option has little support from either Democrats or the Bush Administration. "Members are aware of the crisis situation that we're in," McCain told ABC News Thursday. "They do have concerns, which I think when you're talking about $700 billion or a trillion dollars, that need to be addressed so that this is a genuine bipartisan, bicameral agreement."
One solution being floated in the Senate, however, might work precisely because there would be no real winners. The Senate, where the bill has more support among Republicans than in the House, would take the lead and attach the bill to a resolution that continues to fund the federal government through the election. That is a measure members have a hard time voting against, and if the Senate then adjourns, the House would pretty much be forced to swallow the Senate's single bill. House members would then be forced to vote for or against the budget along with the bailout, giving them a measure of political cover. In the end such an approach may be the only viable way out of a fine mess that has left markets reeling, the economy on the brink of collapse and Washington looking once again like the dysfunctional place that both Barack Obama and John McCain have pledged to change.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/whostoblam ... alsstumble
Who's to Blame for the Bailout Deal's Stumble?
By JAY NEWTON-SMALL / WASHINGTON Fri Sep 26, 9:30 AM ET
John McCain arrived on Capitol Hill early Thursday afternoon just as a bipartisan group of senators and representatives were announcing they had reached an agreement on the broad outlines of a bill to bail out Wall Street. For a moment, as the press conference broke up, members of the media traveling with McCain mingled with reporters covering the Hill. "Wait, there's a deal?" one surprised McCain reporter asked his congressional colleague.
That one question summed up the confused state of a high-stakes day in the nation's capital that only got more confusing as the hours passed. For a few hours, it looked as if McCain, who came to Washington with the stated goal of helping to hammer out a final deal, had shown up just minutes too late to speed along the once-stalled negotiations. Then McCain, his Democratic rival Barack Obama and congressional leaders from both parties went to the White House for what some billed as a photo-op, a public showing of bipartisan support for a piece of legislation that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the President himself have called absolutely vital to preventing economic collapse. Reporters waited and waited on the rainy White House driveway expecting to hear from the two candidates, only to be informed by Senator Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, that there was no deal.
With the fate of the bailout bill in peril, it's not clear whether the presence of the presidential candidates is doing more damage than good. Members of both parties emerged from that meeting accusing each other of playing politics with the crucial legislation. Both sides to some degree are right. Less than 40 days from the presidential election, this crisis has been anything but the shining moment where candidates transcend politics and come together for the good of the country - as McCain suggested it should be when he suspended his campaign and asked to postpone Friday's debate until a deal could be worked out.
Instead, as skeptics had predicted, the process is getting bogged down by a host of partisan fears: fear that one candidate could be perceived as breaking the logjam and saving the country from financial ruin, fear that one party could be blamed for passing a costly government bailout of fat cats on Wall Street, and fear of who might be blamed if nothing is done. "I'm not clear that in a very difficult situation like this that doing things in the spotlight and injecting presidential politics is necessarily useful," Obama told reporters Thursday.
So what caused the breakdown of a $700 billion rescue package that at one point seemed to have been amended to everyone's liking - with limits on executive compensation, more protections for taxpayers and homeowners, and additional oversight of the buying and selling of Wall Street's toxic mortgage-backed securities? In the simplest terms, it was House Minority Leader John Boehner's surprising declaration at the White House meeting that his caucus does not support the deal and that alternatives should be considered. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has demanded that Boehner get at least half of his caucus - or 100 members - to vote for the legislation so that Democrats are not left passing this still very unpopular bill by themselves less than two months before the election. Boehner simply doesn't have the votes and nothing that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Paulson or even Boehner has said has swayed the GOP's rank and file.
During Paulson's meeting Wednesday with the GOP caucus, dozens of members steadily streamed out of the meeting in outrage. Finally, with just 60 or so members left in the room, Paulson called for a show of support, according to Representative Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican. Only four people raised their hands. Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican who has started pushing an alternative to the Paulson plan that would not require Washington to pony up so much money, said every member has been inundated with hundreds of calls from angry conservatives.
Democrats are having none of this tale of woe. As far as they're concerned the GOP's platform of deregulation is what caused this problem, and it's a GOP President - however unpopular - who is demanding this fix. They view Boehner's stance with deep suspicion. If enough Republicans did not support the bill, why, they ask, did Republican Senator Bob Bennett and Representative Spencer Bachus, the top Republican on the House Banking Committee, stand at the press conference on Thursday announcing the agreement and voice their support? Why wait until a meeting at the White House to throw out a raft of alternative solutions that the Administration had already rejected, and which would require a whole new round of talks to get done?
In the minds of Democrats, what changed was the dramatic decision by McCain, who does not serve on the Senate Banking Committee and has rarely exhibited much interest in crafting financial legislation, to come to Washington. "This notion that somehow John McCain is going to ride to the rescue, I think, is a notion in his own mind, not in the reality of what we're facing here," said Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat. "Bringing the presidential political campaigns to the halls of Congress is not going to make this any easier."
Perhaps, the Democrats now wonder, the point was actually to make it harder. Some party members think Boehner created a problem for the Republican nominee to fix; if the House Republicans can be brought around from their initial intransigence, McCain would be seen as the savior of the bill. Even some of the McCain campaign's statements Thursday afternoon seemed to suggest as much. "We're optimistic that Senator McCain will bring House Republicans on board without driving other parties away, resulting in a successful deal for the American taxpayer," said McCain spokeswoman Kimmie Lipscomb.
House Republicans protest they are not playing politics with the bill. Bachus, they say, is a maverick who told the Democratic negotiators six times that he did not have the power to speak for his caucus. The press conference, they contend, was a staged production to give the illusion of an agreement and force it down the throats of unwilling House Republicans. Some point to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's comments Thursday morning that the deal represented what he liked to call "the Obama principles," thus handing the credit to the Illinois senator. And McCain campaign staffers point out that only a couple of days ago Democratic leaders were insisting that McCain had to get involved and help bring his party on board if the plan was going to pass.
What it has all come down to is an incredibly high-stakes game of political chicken which no one wants to lose. House Republicans late Thursday were talking up an alternative proposal for the government to help insure the bad mortgage-backed assets rather than buy them up, but that less-expensive option has little support from either Democrats or the Bush Administration. "Members are aware of the crisis situation that we're in," McCain told ABC News Thursday. "They do have concerns, which I think when you're talking about $700 billion or a trillion dollars, that need to be addressed so that this is a genuine bipartisan, bicameral agreement."
One solution being floated in the Senate, however, might work precisely because there would be no real winners. The Senate, where the bill has more support among Republicans than in the House, would take the lead and attach the bill to a resolution that continues to fund the federal government through the election. That is a measure members have a hard time voting against, and if the Senate then adjourns, the House would pretty much be forced to swallow the Senate's single bill. House members would then be forced to vote for or against the budget along with the bailout, giving them a measure of political cover. In the end such an approach may be the only viable way out of a fine mess that has left markets reeling, the economy on the brink of collapse and Washington looking once again like the dysfunctional place that both Barack Obama and John McCain have pledged to change.
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Beatlesfan03
- Posts: 582
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Jeff T. wrote:Xenu wrote:WaMu is gone. Jesus Christ.
I know, and that is my current bank for checking account. And while I don't mean to kick a dog when they are down, they have a rep for doing dirty lying tricks concerning fees, over draft fees, and "over the limit" on credit card fees.
That's nothing. You should seen it from the mortgage side.
Craig
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Bennett Cerf
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David R. Modny
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lukpac
- Top Dog and Sellout
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David R. Modny wrote:I did manage to see that over on Huff. Though, some of the righties were claiming it's a Photoshop job.
Funny, if true...
http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/2008/0 ... y-already/
"McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said the ad posting was a mistake by the Wall Street Journal. Oops."
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD
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David R. Modny
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- Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2004 8:58 am
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My impressions:
Both candidates held their own. It's interesting - the difference in style that both candidates implemented. McCain, the angry, even dismissive approach - mixed in with sound bites. Obama, the diplomatic approach - though probably could've used a couple more zingers.
Both made mistakes IMO. Obama didn't hammer McCain hard enough (i.e. "I agree with John..." That's gotta go!), Conversely, McCain avoided quite a few answers directly, instead choosing to try and sell himself with a story. I also thought his not looking up gave the impression that he was just regurgitating these old stories. Which, of course, he was. Yet, he didn't meltdown. I'll give him *some* credit for that. Otherwise, stylistically, I wasn't impressed.
Ultimately, I still heard a lot more of the optimistic substance from Obama that appeals to me, while I heard the same crud that the 'Pubs have become so good at dealing. I also heard flat-out lies coming out of McCain's mouth. Again though, Obama should have hammered him more on those.
Of course I'm biased, but in the end, Obama's message still resonated with me a lot more. I'll be curious to see how the public perceived it all.
Both candidates held their own. It's interesting - the difference in style that both candidates implemented. McCain, the angry, even dismissive approach - mixed in with sound bites. Obama, the diplomatic approach - though probably could've used a couple more zingers.
Both made mistakes IMO. Obama didn't hammer McCain hard enough (i.e. "I agree with John..." That's gotta go!), Conversely, McCain avoided quite a few answers directly, instead choosing to try and sell himself with a story. I also thought his not looking up gave the impression that he was just regurgitating these old stories. Which, of course, he was. Yet, he didn't meltdown. I'll give him *some* credit for that. Otherwise, stylistically, I wasn't impressed.
Ultimately, I still heard a lot more of the optimistic substance from Obama that appeals to me, while I heard the same crud that the 'Pubs have become so good at dealing. I also heard flat-out lies coming out of McCain's mouth. Again though, Obama should have hammered him more on those.
Of course I'm biased, but in the end, Obama's message still resonated with me a lot more. I'll be curious to see how the public perceived it all.
Last edited by David R. Modny on Fri Sep 26, 2008 11:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Beatlesfan03
- Posts: 582
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Some of the early polls are calling it for Obama. I missed a good chunk of it, but couldn't get over how McCain would not look at Obama whereas Obama looked at McCain when he spoke. Simple courtesy.
The VP one should be interesting...or what crisis will appear in Alaska next week making Palin suggest the debate should be canceled?
The VP one should be interesting...or what crisis will appear in Alaska next week making Palin suggest the debate should be canceled?
Craig
All Obama has to do at this point is not blow it. He is ahead of the game. So that might be a reason he did not hammer away like he may have been expected to. He needs to keep up the calm cool collected good guy image and he's in.
He'll let the behind the scenes people play the tricks while he appears way above it.
He'll let the behind the scenes people play the tricks while he appears way above it.
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David R. Modny
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Yeah, I agree that I think it's important for him to continue to present himself as the measured, high-road candidate. Conversely, I think he does need to drop the hammer -- big time -- when need be. My biggest fear is that his intellectual approach will get dwarfed by the folksy, sound bite horsesh*t that people sometimes respond to.
Yet, it appears Obama resonated. He appears to be winning all the early network polls with the exception of...tadum...Fox. Big "surprise" on the latter...lol.
Yet, it appears Obama resonated. He appears to be winning all the early network polls with the exception of...tadum...Fox. Big "surprise" on the latter...lol.