It is such a lovely Fallish feeling kind of day ... and I am traveling to Atlanta ...

I hope everyone today at IB enjoys the warmth and sunshine too - whereever you are, know I love you.

~ Kate

"When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms."
MO

Why do you do that voodoo that you do so well? Do you have any Goo Be Gone? It's at the hardware store and gets the sticky stuff off the thing its stuck to.

prophecy.me

Ref # 94 of the previous OT.

The Chopras are seeking to reach critical mass with a message of personal, social, environmental and spiritual wellness. Can we reach it without a stable political and financial world?

Some thoughts on “the bailout”:

The 700 billion to one trillion dollar emergency bailout bill reminds one of the Iraq war vote. The world will end if this is not done in a hurry. But it does not matter how much spin is put on the final bill or how many senators get cowed that this is necessary, in the end it's a huge mistake.

This bailout has to be done through a trickle up scheme not from the top down. Why couldn't there be a giant bailout bill for homeowner mortgages, or the idea Hillary Clinton mentioned on a moratorium on foreclosures. This Paulson bailout bill will delay the hard times but it won’t cure the system that created this mess. The hard times will follow, someone has to take care of the ten trillion dollars the US owes its creditors or the 53 trillion dollars debt the US government has in various other forms.

The lawmakers may be well advised not to rush to pass anything, even when urged to do so.

If you are interested in what probably is “the biggest bailout in the history of the world” please watch Bill Clinton tonight on Larry King.

Kate, you are a sweetheart. The world would be a better place with more people like you.
Skep

~~~
brothers
..lucille clifton
(being a conversation in eight poems between an aged Lucifer and God, though only Lucifer is heard. The time is long after)

1
invitation

come coil with me
here in creation's bed
among the twigs and ribbons
of the past. i have grown old
remembering the garden,
the hum of the great cats
moving into language, the sweet
fume of the man's rib
as it rose up and began to walk.
it was all glory then,
the winged creatures leaping
like angels, the oceans claiming
their own. let us rest here a time
like two old brothers
who watched it happen and wondered
what it meant.

2
how great Thou art

listen. You are beyond
even Your own understanding.
that rib and rain and clay
in all its pride,
its unsteady dominion,
is not what you believed
You were,
but it is what You are;
in your own image as some
lexicographer supposed.
the face, both he and she,
the odd ambition, the desire
to reach beyond the stars
is You. All You. All You
the lonliness, the perfect
imperfection.

3
as for myself

less snake than angel
less angel than man
how come i to this
serpent's understanding?
watching creation from
a hood of leaves
I have foreseen the evening
of the world.
as she as she
the breast of Yourself
separated out and made to bear,
as sure as her returning,
I too am blessed with
the one gift You cherish;
to feel the living move in me
and to be unafraid

4
in my own defense

what could i choose
but to slide along behind them,
they whose only sin
was being their father's children?
as they stood with their backs
to the garden,
a new and terrible luster
burning their eyes,
only You could have called
their ineffable names.
only in their fever
could they have failed to hear.

5
the road led from delight

into delight, into the sharp
edge of seasons, into the sweet
puff of bread baking, the warm
vale of sheet and sweat after love,
the tinny newborn cry of calf
and cormorant and humankind
and pain, of course,
always there was some bleeding,
but forbid me not
my meditation on the outer world
before the rest of it, before
the bruising of his heel, my head,
and so forth.

6
"the silence of God is God"
-Carolyn Forche

tell me, tell us why
in the confusion of a mountain
of babies stacked like cordwood,
of limbs walking away from each other,
of tongues bitten through
by the language of assault,
tell me, tell us why
You neither raised your hand
Nor turned away, tell us why
You watched the excommunication of
That world and You said nothing

7
still there is mercy, there is grace

how otherwise
could i have come to this
marble spinning in space
propelled by the great
thumb of the universe?
how otherwise could the two roads
of this tongue
converge into a single
certitude?
how otherwise
could I, a sleek old
traveler,
curl one day safe and still
beside YOU
at Your feet, perhaps,
but, amen, Yours.

8
"....is God"

so.
having no need to speak
You sent Your tongue
splintered into angels,
even I,`
with my little piece of it
have said too much.
to ask You to explain
is to deny You.
before the word
You were
You kiss my brother mouth.
the rest is silence.

My goodness, Bonnie. Thank you.

"One thing should be clear: the conservative era is over. The theology of market fundamentalism has proven to be a false idol once more. As Joseph Stiglitz has argued, the collapse of Wall Street is to the market fundamentalists what the fall of the Berlin Wall was to communism. It's over. The right has proved once more that it cannot be trusted to run the government it scorns. A trillion dollar debacle in Iraq. A trillion dollar bust on Wall Street. Hundreds of billions pocketed by Big Pharma and Big Oil. It is time for a reckoning."

#5 '.....the rest is silence.'
I heard the voice of Jesus say
Come unto me and rest.

Finally, a definition of globalization that I can understand and to which I now can relate:

Question:
What is the truest definition of Globalization?

Answer:
Princess
Diana's
death.

Question:
How come?

Answer :

An
English princess
with an
Egyptian boyfriend

crashes
in a French tunnel,
driving a

German
car

with a
Dutch engine,

driven
by a Belgian

who was
drunk

on
Scottish whisky,

(check the bottle before you
change the spelling),

followed
closely by

Italian
Paparazzi,

on
Japanese motorcycles;

treated
by an American doctor,
using

Brazilian
medicines.

This is
sent to you by

an
American,

using
Bill Gates's technology,

and
you're probably reading
this on your computer,

that
uses Taiwanese chips,
and

a

Korean
monitor,

assembled
by

Bangladeshi
workers

in a
Singapore plant,

transported
by Indian

lorry-drivers,

hijacked
by Indonesians,

unloaded by
Sicilian longshoremen,

and
trucked to you by Mexican illegals.... .

.

.

.

.

.

That, my friends,
is Globalization!

To All Concerned:

I believe that Kavita Chhibber deserves a great deal of admiration for all the work and time that she has invested in trying to help Troy Anthony Davis.

Troy got his "miracle" yesterday - the day he was to be put to death. The U.S. Supreme Court intervened and issued him a stay of execution.

Kavita deserves everyone's support and encouragement in attempting to get Troy's story told to the whole country. Troy needs everyone's help so that he will be given a just hearing and finally be released from prison.

Best Wishes,

"Betsy" S.

Shadows

a twilit sun slides behind silver
late
on the edge of evening's colors

shadows of things
are deeper
than they've been since I was a child

I swear I can smell the cold
on every curve and angle
edging me in

I should be scared
but
from mouth to groin
I feel the touch of you
of everything you do
and how you are

I should go
but until you tell me so
I'll stay

McCain suspends campaign tomorrow in order to take part on the bailout debate. He urges Obama to do the same.

Very interesting.

Does McCain say, “a bailout bill has to be passed before the weekend”?

Let’s hope not!

afternoon all,

just read this, John McCain suspends campaigning to work on economy, requests postponing Friday debate; asks Obama do the same."

Really, John, now, wants to work on the economy....and, wants, Obama, to help him...."let's postpone the great debates and gather together in Washington DC....to save our Nation's financial system......what do ya say Barak?....or are you too busy...because I am not....no, my Nation needs me in this time of crisis, no matter, that, I probably could have worked on the economy a bit sooner to prevent this crisis.....what is, important, is the thought...right? Come on, Barak, your studies can wait, no need to try and one-up me in the debates, let us hurry back to Washington to vote, Yes, to paying the ransom the terrorists of Wall Street are demanding, this week, next week, will be too late...if the $700 billion is not paid by friday.....they have promised to dump the corpse at CNBC....for all to grieve over in prime time. So, how bout it Barak, are you the patriot you claim to be?

Now, Bush will speak.....does he have to?....haven't we suffered enough already as a Nation under his leadership....does he have to throw salt on our bleeding wounds while the Wall Street terrorists hit us up for all we are worth?.. the gun is at our temples, and Bush saunters out to address his peeps....his, oh, so poor, peeps.

Yes, Barak, hurry, hurry, back to the scene of the crimes, Washington DC, with John....save us from the Wall St. terrorists, for this quarter, anyway....actually I am not sure what is more painful, the state of our economy or Bush addressing the Nation he quided to financial ruin.

really, both the Democrats and Republicans have nothing to be proud of in terms of protecting and serving the greater good of this Nation. In fact, they do not even stop the role playing...good guy...bad guy...routine, to check a map, in order to see if there is any high road available on this highway to destruction...

ruth

Here in the shadows
Cold comfort.
Birthings, dyings
Slither my tongue
Salival smearings
Drying crystalline
Dying for light

# 9 by ole flabsy...

whoahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaa......

Staying connected to yourself is the only key to happiness. When you know that nothing is an effort and everything is exciting, know that you are connected with love which is the foundation of everything in this world. Go out and stretch your perspectives to do something better to create, even a small difference in someone's life or some situation. The more we take up the responsibilities the more that circle expands that can encompass the whole community,city,country and the world. But remember to replenish that creative emotional energy spent in the process by taking short retreats into silence. Wish you all a very happy day at IB.
All my love,
Garima

Yeah good 1 Norm!

he-he

yo skeptisch...u think? damn!

McCain's trying to slide the rug out from under Obama.

"McCain's trying to slide the rug out from under Obama."

Hope he gets the job done...and he bumps his head when he falls!! :) hheheheeh!!

"McCain's trying to slide the rug out from under Obama."

Hope he gets the job done...and he bumps his head when he falls!! :) hheheheeh!!

"McCain's trying to slide the rug out from under Obama."

Hope he gets the job done...and he bumps his head when he falls!! :) hheheheeh!!

ooopppsss!!! 3 times the charm!

Cold.

“Hope he gets the job done...and he bumps his head when he falls!!”

No need for that, it looks like McCain bumped his head a few times before on his many trips and falls and pretty hockey mom Sarah may have gotten in-between a few hockey fights too many.

Good to have you back, Skinny.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/us/politics/25mccain.html

"...Obama appeared at a news conference in Clearwater, Fla., and said that while he agreed “there are times for politics and there are times to rise above politics and do what’s right, ” he saw no need to cancel the debate, scheduled for Friday night at the University of Mississippi.

"“This is exactly the time when people need to hear from the candidates,” he said.

"He added: “Part of the president’s job is to deal with more than one thing at once. In my mind it’s more important than ever.”

"Mr. Obama said that he and Mr. McCain had spoken for about five minutes by telephone on Wednesday afternoon, but during that conversation he said he was not left with the impression that Mr. McCain planned to skip the debate. The two men agreed in principle to issue a joint statement about the bipartisan need for a government bailout, providing it met a list of oversight conditions.

"While aides to both sides said a statement was in the works, it was overtaken by a series of behind-the-scenes maneuvers between the rival campaigns. Advisers to Mr. Obama said they were taken by surprise at Mr. McCain’s call to postpone the debate and suspend his campaign..."

...more...

"...Although Mr. McCain was the first to emerge on Wednesday afternoon and announce a change in campaign plans, Mr. Obama began the exchange with his Republican rival on Wednesday morning.

"“At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal,” said Bill Burton, the spokesman for the Obama campaign.

"“At 2:30 this afternoon,” he added, “Senator McCain returned Senator Obama’s call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement...”"

hi heath,

boy, that Johnny is slithering his way into every nook and cranny available to him....you gots to hand it to the ole white haired dude.....he can slither with the best of them.

slither and slime, slither and slime he goes and when he is stopped we all will know...November 4th 2008.

:) and a good evening to you heath and everyone, ruth

macain is afraid to get his old ass royally kicked...which is why he's using this Wall St. melt-down to chicken out a friday's debate....shame on u dino! like they say, u can run but u can't hide....

"Part of the president’s job is to deal with more than one thing at once..."

!

(still waitin' for that blog, you have it in you, your writing tells the story, dear ruth.)

yup.

......WHEN YOU SEE EVERY COLOR OF THE RAINBOW...

Once upon time, in a faraway land, an old whitehaired dude, and young black feller...

To read the rest of this article, please go to "Invent.con".....

I hear you Norm, they are phasing us out bro (Ruth commented on this before!).

peace always brother

Another "Bush Doctrine" moment for Palin.

Katie Couric promised that there would be no "gotcha" moments during her interview with Sarah Palin. But given Palin's wildly obvious lack of preparation, that wasn't a promise Couric could keep.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpb7z_PjbAs

Here's the transcript:

Below starts at 4:30 into the video, but you must see the whole thing to see how she relies on talking points, and then the cute stunt someone showed her to compare Obama to the political winds, licking her finger... then in the end it all crashes down in total bullshit. This woman is nothing short of a dangerous muppet...

"COURIC: You've said, quote, "John McCain will reform the way Wall Street does business." Other than supporting stricter regulations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago, can you give us any more example of his leading the charge for more oversight?

PALIN: I think that the example that you just cited, with his warnings two years ago about Fannie and Freddie--that, that's paramount. That's more than a heck of a lot of other senators and representatives did for us.

COURIC: But he's been in Congress for 26 years. He's been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

PALIN: He's also known as the maverick though. Taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he's been talking about--the need to reform government.

COURIC: I'm just going to ask you one more time, not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation?

PALIN: I'll try to find you some and I'll bring them to you."

As Marc Ambinder asks, "This should have been an easy question for Palin to answer, right?" And we wonder why Palin is staying away from the media -- and John McCain is running away from debates.

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/09/couric_v_palin_on_mccains_reco.php

By now you know that the initial public reaction to John McCain's move was overwhelmingly negative.

But just how important was it for McCain to make time? Apparently not so important to cancel a meeting with a very wealthy supporter this morning, as Ben Smith at The Politico reports:

"The McCain campaign's new urgency about the financial crisis didn't entirely clear his schedule this morning.

My colleague Amie Parnes reports that he made it to his scheduled morning meeting with Lady Lynn de Rothschild, a Clinton backer who recently came out in support of him.

All while Obama was waiting by the phone for a returned call."

We all know that this was a political stunt by the McCain campaign. The American people intuit this, the establishment press believe this, and the chattering class can't help but admit it. This story from Smith can't help but reinforce this meme. Tough, tough break for McCain.

****

Even Letterman called McCain out on today's show for pulling a political stunt.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/Letterman_mocks_McCain_cancellation.html

"David Letterman tells audience that McCain called him today to tell him he had to rush back to DC to deal with the economy."

Except that he hadn't run back to DC at all, in fact he was just up the street being interviewed by Katie Couric.

"Dave even cut over to the live video of the interview, and said, "Hey Senator, can I give you a ride home?"

Letterman also lambasted McCain for what he clearly feels was just a political maneuver:

"You don't suspend your campaign. This doesn't smell right. This isn't the way a tested hero behaves." [...] "What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"

When you've lost Letterman...

David Letterman really skewers John McCain on his campaign suspension, late cancellation of his scheduled appearance on the Late Show and Sarah Palin. Very devastating. Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjkCrfylq-E

As Ben Smith reports(#37), McCain broke his deep focus on Economy to meet a wealthy aristocrat.

It's not that McCain was lying about his concern for the economy, that's just what Republicans do. It's the lack of self-awareness in doing so. I mean, at least the Bushies understood the norms of the liberal democratic state they were trying to undermine.

Incidentally, North Korea is restarting its nuclear program, glad McCain wants to cancel the foreign policy debate.

Given McCain camp's reactions, I can't help but wonder if delaying, or even canceling, the VP debate was ultimately McCain's endgame here.

“I can't help but wonder if delaying, or even canceling, the VP debate was ultimately McCain's endgame here”.

Preity, if it isn’t his endgame then this surly will be:

“An ancestor of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama probably originates from the region of Berne, Switzerland, as the archivist of the Alsatian town Bischwiller explained. The ancestor left in 1749 in the direction of America.

http://www.zisch.ch/navigation/top_main_nav/nachrichten/panorama/detail.htm?client_request_className=SdaNewsItem&client_request_contentOID=293509

Makes about as much sense as many other things in this campaign!

latest EC vote standings...

macain...200

'bama...223

swing states 120

they put Penn and Micigan in the swing cat..21, 17

both went dems in 2004

colorado (9) has 'bama leading by a good margin..it went repubs in 2004..

if these states stay the same way on nov. 4th...Barack Obama will be the next prez of the United States of America.

bushman is a con man!

CBS News has an extended version of the Sarah Palin interview with Katie Couric on their website.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/24/eveningnews/main4476173.shtml

This interview is truly a trainwreck. She attempts to talk about bipartisanship and the Wall Street bailout.

I had a really difficult time following what she was saying in most of the interview. It seems to me that she is really an Eliza program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA

An Eliza program is a computer program that provides responses to questions by rephrasing the question. The answers are nonresponsive, but just enough to make it seem like there may be artificial intelligence there. If you ever took a LISP programming course in college, you probably have written an Eliza program. Usually the programmer will give the Eliza program a personality. For example, you could write an Eliza program to be an annoying room mate, or you could write an Eliza program to behave like an unprepared vice presidential candidate.

Sarah Palin is a vice presidential candidate Eliza program. It is not surprising that the McCain campaign is trying to keep her away from the press.

9/25 Daily Kos R2K Tracking Poll: Obama 49, McCain 43

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/25/72647/2983/824/609386

"Today's Daily Kos Research 2000 tracking poll has Obama up over McCain 49-43 (Likely Voters, MoE +/- 3). All trackers are data from three days prior to posting, with R2K (ours) from today and the others from yesterday.

Obama McCain MoE +/- RV/LV
Research 2000: 49 43 3 LV
Diageo/Hotline: 48 42 3.2 RV
Rasmussen: 49 47 2 LV
Gallup: 47 44 2 RV

Here are most of the most recent national polls.

ABC/WaPo 52 43 3 LV 9/19-9/22
WSJ/NBC 48 46 3 LV 9/19-9/22
Fox News 45 39 3 RV 9/22-9/23
Ipsos/McClatchy 44 43 3.2 RV 9/18-9/22
ARG 48 46 3 LV 9/20-9/22

Note that the Battleground poll, which samples 9/17-18 and then 9/21-3 (no weekend) is here if you wish to include it. It was the outlier with McCain 48-Obama 46, but they, like Ipsos, provide little internal data.

Continuing our list of party ID used for the polls (kudos to pollsters who publish!) For those who missed yesterday's post, R2K is no outlier:

Pollster D R I (Dem-Rep)
Research 2000: 35 26 30 +9
Diageo/Hotline: 41 36 19 +5
Rasmussen: 39 33.5 27.5 +5.5
Gallup: 35 26 33 +9
ABC: 38 28 29 +10
NBC/WSJ: 43 36 16 +7 (text says +8, but this is what adds up)
Fox: 41 34 21 +7

"Any way you look at it, Obama leads; it's now the CW. The only question is by how much.

Our own last three days of polling are Obama +6 Mo, +4 Tu, +7 We. These small movements are all well within the MoE, especially any one day sample (+/- 5.1). Minor fluctuations of a point or two up and down are statistical noise. however, we will have to see how the flailing McCain campaign tracks over the next few days. "Gimmicks" don't sell well. Whether it's the cancellation of the debates, running against Letterman or Palin's "I'll get back to you on that" on simple questions to Katie Couric, the McCain campaign did not have a good day (even Peggy Noonan disapproves of the gimmicky nature of McCain's actions, and McCain booster Joe Scarborough is depressed)."

Poll roundup

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/25/902/82364/127/609074

"Here's a roundup of polls released this week:

First off, the competitive Kerry states. Note that "Comp" is the Pollster.com composite score.

NH(4) MI(17) MN(10) PA(21) WI(10)

Comp: M+1.2 O+3.3 O+3.2 O+2.4 O+4.3

[...]

Hold these states, and Obama needs 18 more for victory, 22 if McCain steals away New Hampshire. Here are the tightest battleground states, with polls conducted this week:

CO(9) FL(27) IA(7) IN(11) NM(5) NV(5) NC(15) OH(20) VA(13)

Comp: O+3.7 M+3.4 O+10 M+2.5 O+6.2 M+1.5 M+3.3 M+2.9 M+1

[...]

Iowa and New Mexico are looking more and more solid every day. And look at Obama's surge in Colorado. Those three states give Obama 21 EVs, enough for victory if Obama wins all the Kerry states, and puts us at the dreaded 269-269 if McCain grabs New Hampshire.

Next up in probability of victory for Obama are Virginia and Nevada."

"Our entire economy is in danger," says an idiot!

isn't this the same cat who told us about weapons of major destruction in iraq? whoa! do u trust this genius with ur money?

Hi Gang,

Well one of the side effects of this mess on wall street is going to be the creation of a whole lot of new millionaires, all former billionaires! hehehe

Cheers
Stan

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is
strong enough to take everything you have."
-Thomas Jefferson

"Just after the September 11th terrorist attacks occurred, George W. Bush went before the nation and made the case that he needed unprecedented authority -- budgetary and military -- to take on the threats poised at the well-being and safety of the country.

Now with the current economic crisis in the United States, Bush is yet again asking for unprecedented powers and budget.

What happened after 9/11?

We saw no-bid contracts given to firms like Halliburton. We saw $9 billion of U.S. taxpayer money "go missing" through the Coalition Provisional Authority. We saw abuses of power, the expansion of secrecy, and the promulgation of norms that seemed to be the very antithesis of what America stands for." Steve Clemons.

john macain calls himself a maverick...

ok then...what is a maverick?

web def...someone who demonstrates independence of thought.

so, why should we think that because he's independent of thought? he does not subscribe to the same stupid philosophy of the dumb Republican Party that got us in this gigantic pickle?

"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday"
~~Don Marquis~~

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/26/72135/1708/656/610555

"Today's Daily Kos Research 2000 tracking poll has Obama up over McCain 48-43.

Obama McCain MoE +/- RV/LV
Research 2000: 48 (49) 43 (43) 3 LV
Diageo/Hotline: 47 (48) 43 (42) 3.2 RV
Rasmussen: 49 (49) 46 (47) 2 LV
Gallup: 46 (47) 46 (44) 2 RV

Here are most of the most recent national polls (I am not interested in Zogby internet).

CBS/NY Times 47 42 3 LV
Democracy Corps (D) 47 44 3 LV
WNBC/Marist 49 44 3 LV
Times/Bloomberg 49 45 3 LV

The last three days of polling in the R2K poll are +4 Tu, +7 We and +5 Th. The major network polls (ABC (+9), NBC (+2), CBS (+5), CNN (+4), Fox (+6), the ones that drive media narrative, have this a +5 Obama average lead, exactly where the R2K tracker is."

bushman wants to con the american tax payer out of nearly million million doallars...or $1,000,000,000,000.00...whoa!

it would be nutz to let this nutzo get his way, again...

World's oldest rocks discovered in Canada
Posted Fri Sep 26, 2008 7:06am AEST

Scientists say they have discovered the oldest rocks on Earth in Canada, giving them a glimpse at the origins of the planet.
The rocks, found in a belt of ancient bedrock in Quebec, are estimated to be 4.28 billion years old.

The find pushes back the age of the most ancient discovered remnants of the Earth's crust by 300 million years.

"Our discovery opens the door to further unlock the secrets of the Earth's beginnings," lead author of the study Jonathan O'Neil said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/26/2374780.htm

It's the thought that counts, honey!

>>>An entire French airport had to be evacuated when a British woman tried to board an aircraft with a bomb in her hand luggage.
Security guards spotted the 55-year-old had a World War Two shell, used in army field guns, in her case ahead of her Ryanair flight from Bergerac, in the Dordogne, to East Midlands airport.

The woman, from Nottingham, said she had bought the 37mm military explosive in a second hand shop as a present for her husband.

As more than 1,000 passengers and staff were forced to leave the terminal building, bomb squad officers took the shell to nearby wasteland and carried out a controlled explosion.

A French police spokesman said the woman, who has not been named, was questionned at the scene.

He said: "She told us she had no idea that taking a military shell through airport security would cause such a fuss. She said she bought the device in a second hand shop because her husband collected military memorabilia."

He added: "Checks were made with the tradesman she bought it from and her story proved to be genuine, so charges will not be brought and she was allowed to leave."

The flight finally took off 90 minutes late with the woman on board, airport officials said. <<<
uk.news.yahoo.com

don't forget!

http://www.voteforchange.com

'bama's big mistake? (on Wall St. bail out)

"If Barack Obama goes along with it in the name of post-partisan comity, he's making a big mistake. Washington is not lacking political leaders willing to go along with the flow. It's lacking political leaders willing to lead." Arianna H.

agree!

"Instead of siding with Bush and Paulson on far too many deal points, Obama should draw a line in the sand and refuse to cross it.

Voters are not looking for smiling post-partisan photo ops. They are looking for a leader willing to fight for a bailout plan that more directly protects the interests of the American people.

Barack Obama
Henry Paulson
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: bipartisanship in service of bad legislation is not a good thing. And, make no mistake, this bailout bill -- at least if the details that are trickling out...
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: bipartisanship in service of bad legislation is not a good thing. And, make no mistake, this bailout bill -- at least if the details that are trickling out." A.H.

unless u have someting to gain from it all...

u'd have to be insane, dumb and stupid to vote republican...

imagine this mainsane and scary farting eeuuhhh!

Right on brother Diablo.

Obama should have been the first person to scream aloud, NO BAILOUT!

I believe he has good intentions, but he is caving in to the powers that fund the democratic party . . .

Here is an interesting angle I had not considered . . .

a small measure...

at this moment, in the NY Time's tag cloud, Obama's typeface is a wee bit larger than McCain's.

That gives me hope.

love & have a good weekend, y'all

h

listen up y'all...

why the f... are democrats backin' nutzo for a bailout deal...when most folks don't even understand what this whole shit means? do dems still trust this yahoo after he conned them into a damaging, costly war?

like they say..."those who forget history are..............."

i don't think 'bama is doing a good debating the old dude!

They're wrapping up, but not before McCain tries to compare Obama to Bush??? Holy crap, that's chutzpah.

MissLaura at Daily Kos:

I'm not asking y'all who won. Might as well ask a surrogate in the spin room.

That said -- *ahem* -- I was apprehensive about Obama's performance, having been underwhelmed throughout the primary season, and tonight I was pleasantly surprised. I knew the facts and the policies were on his side, but wasn't confident of his presentation. I was wrong, and I'm glad of it.

Sean and Nate at FiveThirtyEight.com :

[Nate] There's almost a reversal of roles tonight: McCain's answers are contemplative and long-winded, Obama's are much more direct.

[Sean] It is striking how much Obama is looking at McCain confidently and how McCain will not look at Obama.

[Sean] Obama: "I mean, Spain!" That went under McCain's skin, comes back with "Obama seal" card. Obama is doing more initiating of these barbs.

[Nate] That Ahmadinejad sequence was the first one I think McCain has won all night.

[Sean] But McCain looked angry and unpresidential. His temper was clearly triggered. That matters more than the substance of the argument. How you sound, how you look...

[Sean] On CNN's tracker McCain is having trouble with independents in some of these answers as the dial goes under the median.

[Nate] The media who wants to cop out from picking a winner will probably just say "Obama wins first half, McCain wins second half". But the first half is likely to matter more because (i) it was about the economy and (ii) this was a boring debate that will have a lot of people zoning out by the end.

Presidential Debate Post-Mortem: Live From Oxford

9:45 CDT: [Sean] First reaction. On the "looking presidential" front, Obama clearly seemed calm, poised, knowledgeable. McCain had a couple of angry moments. Obama looked at McCain and seemed comfortable engaging with McCain. Obama looked into the camera. McCain looked into the camera but his body language was worse, and him not looking at Obama definitely didn't make him come across as confident.

9:50 CDT: [Nate] Alex Castellanos says it was a tie, and that a tie goes to the candidate who is down in the polls. I don't see how that makes any sense. Besides, I think Begala is right that Obama's confrontation of McCain on Iraq was the moment of the night -- and the one that likely breaks the tie.

9:52 CDT: [Sean] When you think back about the debate and the big moments, I think the "You were wrong" moment and the McCain getting angry about negotiating with dictators are the two that stand out.

the war in iraq has made us less safe, created new enemies all over the world, drained our collapse..in a big way

can we afford 4 more yrs. of the same?

Reaction from Kos at Daily Kos:

Obama was forceful, poised, presidential, blah blah blah blah. You can get that shit on TV.

Here's what really struck me: Obama's biggest weakness is the notion that he's not ready or experienced enough. It was the basis of many a McCain attack: "Senator Obama doesn't understand/doesn't get it..." He flat out accused Obama of not having the judgment to lead at one point.

Obama fought back by speaking at length on every issue, aided by a format that allowed him to speak beyond 30 second sound bites, and he name dropped countries and foreign leaders by the bucketful, to underscore the fact that he knows what he's talking about. It was very effective.

There were no gaffes, and no obvious YouTube moments, so if nothing else, this debate maybe reinforced Obama's fitness to be president, but I don't think that line of attack has had much salience beyond the wingnut sense anyway.

And given where McCain is in the polls (lagging and getting worse), this wasn't what he needed tonight.

And given that the status quo probably remains, in a debate that was supposed to focus more on McCain's "strength" (national security), Obama wins.

----

One other point -- Lehrer was the best moderator, BY FAR, of any debate this season. And the audience was perfectly behaved. A triumphal debate. Perfect. Kudos to everyone involved in making it happen.

"Independents in the MediaCurves focus group gave the debate to Obama 61-39. They also think he won every individual segment. Republicans gave the debate to McCain 90-10, Democrats to Obama 93-7."

http://mediacurves.com/

After all this most of us could probably agree, Obama will be an international statesman.

McCains report card will be all over the map…

debate poll check it out, go vote.

http://jeffblack.newsvine.com/_question/2008/09/26/1919787-who-won-the-presidential-debate

Results, as of this posting:

19.3%
John McCain
7,478 votes

75.7%
Barack Obama
29,305 votes

3.6%
Tie
1,413 votes

1.4%
Not sure
535 votes

Reactions

NBC's Athena Jones:

"The longer format appears to be working for Obama, who tends to be long-winded. He hasn't been forced to give a quick answer yet.

He's on message, hitting his talking points on the contrasts with John McCain on taxes, his plans for healthcare and energy independence. He seemed to cover more ground than McCain whose main points were about cutting government spending.

For several minutes, Obama was the only one to interrupt his opponent, which seemed to be an attempt to show his willingness to fight back."

***

CNN's Borger:

"real challenge" for Obama, "he had some trouble on the surge answer...but I think if John McCain is supposed to be head and shoulders above Obama on foreign policy, Obama held his own."

***

James Antle at The American Spectator's blog:

"McCain's lack of interest in economics and monomanical focus on earmarks is putting him at a real disadvantage. He cannot rebut Obama's statist arguments by offering a mushier, less coherent version of the same."

***

Ben Smith at Politico:

Obama has been uneven, but he's landed the hardest punches.

***

David Gergen on CNN:

"John McCain needed a clear victory tonight. I think a tie was not in his interest. He is behind. And this is his best subject night ... I think he needed a clear victory tonight and that eluded him."

***

More reactions via Daily Kos:

Kos: Where is Sarah Palin? Joe Biden is all over the shows, but Palin is nowhere to be found. That forces McCain to shoulder more of the burden of his campaign, while denying his side a valuable surrogate. Funny.

Jonathan Singer, MyDD:

"There's a lot of talk on MSNBC about John McCain's demeanor. He came off as mean, condescending and a jerk, not looking at Barack once the whole night, while Barack came off as Mr. nice guy. This is generally the sort of thing people judge candidates on when they make their voting decisions, so the question is, will people judge McCain harshly for acting like a dick or will they see it as strength? Will they like Barack more or will they think he allowed McCain to roll over him?"

Josh Marshall:

"I said above that McCain didn't have any freak-out moments. But he did have that sneer and there did seem to be this thing where he was so contemptuous and angry at Obama that he couldn't get himself to make eye contact. I think we'll hear more about that.

Angry, angry, angry. Part of the key here is that McCain is clearly miffed that he even has to debate or run again Obama. He thinks it's an insult."

From Bill Burton at the Obama campaign:

"Number of times John McCain mentioned:

CHANGE: 1 time

MIDDLE CLASS: not once"

Think Progress:

"McCain has already used the joke that he wasn't "elected Miss Congeniality in the Senate" twice during this debate. Ironically, Sarah Palin was Miss Congeniality."

And from the Daily Kos community:

schof: Ultimately Obama held his own but I was surprised that McCain didn't completely shit the bed.

wittg1: That was a great format. It's one of the best debate I've seen. It shows each candidate and the moderator doesn't get on the way.

churchill: when I came home from POW huge groans in OKC

VictorK: Lehrer only asked one bad question, and that's the last one on another 9/11. Favorite Moments of the Debate: Obama's zinger on bomb bomb bomb iran. Brilliant. When Obama pointed out he had a bracelet too.

plf515: I think it was mostly a draw which is not good for McCain. Obama could have been more forceful in rejecting McCain's lies, and in bringing up what is in all the spending that McCain objects to. But McCain didn't look great either. Obama finished strong. The CNN ticker seemed to indicate more support for Obama than McCain, but I am not sure how reliable that is, and the difference didn't seem overwhelming.

Markos, dKos:

"The consensus seems clear: This was McCain's turf. He needed a solid victory, and he didn't get it. At best, it was a tie. And with the next debates focusing on economic issues, McCain will be in hostile territory.

My interpretation of all of this is that Obama won via the expectations game, but was a draw on the substantive issues.

Remember tomorrow, when the daily tracking polls are released, that they were taken before the debate. It'll take a few days for the polls to reflect any reaction to this poll. My guess would be status quo. Obama's plan was to show he was knowledgeable about foreign policy issues, and he did that. No flubs."

...

CBS News has one of undecided voters:

"40% of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Barack Obama was the winner. 22% thought John McCain won. 38% saw it as a draw.

68% of these voters think Obama would make the right decision about the economy. 41% think McCain would.

49% of these voters think Obama would make the right decisions about Iraq. 55% think McCain would."

...

CNN/Opinion Research telephone poll, MoE 4.5%, reported on air (no link yet):

51-38 Obama win
52-47 O on iraq
58-37 economy

...

Digby:

"It's very hard for me to gauge this debate because to me John McCain is quite obviously a crazy, intemperate, nasty old bastard. He was sarcastic, contemptuous and patronizing. I really, really loathe him."

...

Halperin, Time:

Obama A-
McCain B-

...

Think Progress:

Fox’s Carl Cameron observed that Obama said that “I agree with John” at least eight times. Conversely, McCain said that Obama didn’t “understand” at least seven times.

...

Washington Post fact check:

"McCain seriously misstated his vote concerning the marines in Lebanon. He said that when he went into Congress in 1983, he voted against deploying them in Beirut. The Marines went in Lebanon in 1982, before McCain came to Congress. The vote came up a year into their deployment, when the Marines had already suffered 54 casualties. What McCain voted against was a measure to invoke the War Powers Act and to authorize the deployment of U.S. Marines in Lebanon for an additional 18 months. The measure passed 270-161, with 26 other Republicans (including McCain) and 134 Democrats voting against it."

Debate Reviews: Barack Obama Wins, "More Presidential," "Knowledgeable and Detailed"

Mark Halperin's Grades for the First Presidential Debate:

Obama : Overall grade: A-

McCain: Overall: B-

CNN Telephone Poll of 524 Adults:

Who did the best job tonight?

BO: 51

JSM: 38

Who would better handle Iraq?

BO: 52

JSM: 47

Who would better handle the economy?

BO: 58

JSM: 37

CBS Poll Results Suggest More Uncommitted Voters Saw Obama As Debate Winner:

Who won tonight's debate?

BO: 39

JSM: 25

Draw: 36

Who got better tonight?

BO: 46

JSM: 31

Who would make the right decisions about the economy?

BO: 66

JSM: 44

9:40pm MSNBC Chris Matthews "Barack Obama, who kept agreeing with McCain over and over again…looked more presidential."

9:43pm MSNBC Buchanan "He did what he had to do in the sense he came off as a tough fellow, a counterpuncher."

9:40pm MSNBC Chris Matthews: "Obama Looked More Presidential"

9:45 PM CBS – Katie Couric: "The issue of meeting with Iranian officials without preconditions and Henry Kissinger's position on that came up during my recent interview with Governor Sarah Palin. Now, after than interview I called Secretary Kissinger to clarify his position – he said he does support face-to-face talks with high-level officials in Iran without preconditions."

10:42 PM ABC - David Wright: "Obama, we saw him do 22 debates or so during the primary. He was much crisper tonight, he was much more on message."

10:45 PM FOX News – Juan Williams: "If we come back to the economic at the top, I'd have to give it to Barack Obama."

10:52 PM CNN- David Gergen: "I think John McCain needed a clear victory tonight. I think a tie was not in his interests. He is behind. This is his best subject night because the last night, they're going to be talking about the economy. I think he needed a clear victory tonight. I think that eluded him, even as strong as he was, I think Bill Bennett is absolutely right… but I don't think he walked out of here with a clear victory of the kind he needed."

10:48 PM ABC - George Stephanopoulos: "Barack Obama A minus, John McCain B plus….People wonder whether [Obama] has the experience to be President, to handle national security, and I think on answer after answer after answer, he showed confidence, he showed toughness and he showed he belonged on that stage."

11:51 PM ABC - George Stephanopoulos: And overall, bottom line, the winner is Barack Obama. He comes into this race where the country wants change, his number one goal was to show that he belonged on that stage…he could hold his own on national security, he did that tonight, he gets the win."

9:53 PM CBS – Myers: "Well, I think the one thing people were looking to, to see if Barack Obama could hold his own, could he sound like a commander in chief, did he have command of foreign policy issues, could he stand there toe-to-toe with John McCain and I think he passed that test with flying colors."

10:30 PM CNN-Gloria Borger- “He took it right to mccain on the tax issue and said to people out there, if you earn over 200 -- under $250,000 a year, nothing will happen to your taxes or you'll get a tax cut.”

10:51 PM PBS - Scott Horsley - "I think John McCain's conduct of economic policy over the last two days has to look a little erratic, has to look very seat of the pants, frankly."

10:54 PM ABC - George Will: "I think Barack Obama came out and looked comfortable and as though he belonged there. So, in a sense, the structure of the debate, indeed, the fact of the debate had to give a mild leg up to Barack Obama."

11:07 PM PBS-Mark Halperin - "I thought Obama clearly did better. I thought he had a chance to show that he was calm and prepared and capable of standing toe to toe with the more experienced McCain. I thought McCain spoke too much Washington jargon, told too many jokes in shorthand, made too many comments he knew what he meant but I don't think he conveyed it necessarily to the audience overall. I thought Obama was the better communicator an did what he needed to do to reassure people."

11:08 PM MSNBC-Richard Wolffe “That was the greatest contrast…the demeanor and the tone of voice that these candidates adopted where McCain was being much more pointed much more aggressive and curiously couldn’t look Obama in the eye. Obama’s tone much more straight and even keeled but ready to look his opponent in the eye repeatedly. A big contrast.”

Denver Post: Obama says he would send "two to three brigades" to Afghanistan. McCain implies that Obama is wet behind the ears on military matters. Obama retorts with perhaps his best line of the night because it critiques McCain's temperament. Obama says that McCain has previously referenced extinction for North Korea and sang songs about bombing Iran, "so I don't know how credible that is."

Washington Post (Robinson)-The Debate: The All-Important Grumpiness Factor: Here’s the politically incorrect way of phrasing one of the central questions about tonight’s presidential debate: Did John McCain come across as too much of a grumpy old man. That might not be a nice question, but it’s an important one. Americans like to vote for the nice guy, not the grumbling prophet of doom. Throughout the 90-minute debate, McCain seemed contemptuous of Obama. He wouldn’t look at him. He tried to belittle him whenever possible -- how many times did he work “Senator Obama just doesn’t understand” into his answers? His body language was closed, defensive, tense. McCain certainly succeeded in proving that he can be aggressive, but the aggression came with a smirk and a sneer.

CNN (Gloria Borger)- "I think you'd have to watch this debate, Anderson and say Obama held his own. He didn't give an inch to McCain on the issues of talking with Iran."

CBS News (Ambinder) "Knowledge Network Undecideds Give Debate To Obama": According to CBS News / Knowledge Networks' poll of undecided voters: 40% of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Barack Obama was the winner. 22% thought John McCain won. 38% saw it as a draw. 68% of these voters think Obama would make the right decision about the economy. 41% think McCain would. 49% of these voters think Obama would make the right decisions about Iraq. 55% think McCain would.

Associated Press (Liz Sidoti) A night of contrasts This debate, primarily focused on foreign policy, was supposed to be McCain's sweet spot; Obama held his own. "You were wrong" on Iraq, Obama repeated three times in succession as he pointedly looked his opponent in the eye. "John, you like to pretend the war began in 2007."

The Atlantic (Marc Ambinder) The Rumble In Oxford: First Thoughts - McCain did not filter himself, letting his frustration and contempt for Obama show; he wouldn't let himself look at the challenger.

NY Daily News – "Final Verdict on Eight Years of Failed Economic Policies." After all those months of buildup, it took exactly 106 seconds for the gloves to come off, when Democrat Obama laid the blame for the current economic mess on Republican leadership in Washington. "This is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush [and] supported by John McCain," Obama said, taking direct aim at his GOP opponent… Obama seemed at ease in the early rounds as McCain struggled to find his feet.

Philly Daily News - Will Bunch blog: McCain "Needs a Knockout" … "Didn't Get It Tonight." I think Obama held his own, which is what he needed to do. He clearly showed he was knowledgeable on foreign affairs, and made kind of silly the argument that Sarah Palin has more experience than he does. McCain was a lot more restrained than I would have expected. …McCain can't afford to win on points. He needs a knockout. He didn't get it tonight.

Denver Post PoliticsWest (John Andrews) Zinger at McCain - Obama landed a good jab with his reference to McCain "threatening extinction to North Korea" and "singing songs about bombing Iran." McCain: "I'm not going to set the White House visitors schedule before I'm president. I don't even have a seal yet." Cute line at the Messiah's expense, but it was wasted in this setting. Obama was impressive, agree with him or not, in his big picture statement near the end when he panned back from Iraq to talk about China, the economy, and the fate of empires in history. McCain for all his courage and honor didn't paint on that kind of global canvas. More points scored into the Dem's column.

Tampa Tribune (Blog) McCain's Final Judgment: "Knowledge And Experience" McCain relied repeatedly on emotional but non-substantive or factually incorrect claims: That Obama "voted against funding the troops," wouldn't declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as terrorists, wants to increase taxes on people who make $42,000. But Obama's vaunted eloquence, somewhat surprisingly, failed to overwhelm the nitpicking. The verdict: Probably a tie, which means McCain will probably hold his advantage on the issue. The future debates will be between the vice presidential contenders, and between McCain and Obama on domestic issues.

TNR Blog- Focus Groups, Undecideds For Obama: For what it's worth: The Frank Luntz and Stanley Greenberg focus groups went overwhelmingly for Obama. And a CBS poll of undecideds went for Obama 40%-22%.

john mac...is bush not so disguised!

so u are happy with the way things are? really? then go vote mac insane and scary 'pailin'for more of the same~! but dont cum back complaining when they steal ur loaf?

What a week! I think John McCain succeeded in making himself look like a complete fool with the campaign suspension, but that will probably be overshadowed by the debate reaction.

Saturday morning reaction from editorials in battleground states leans towards Obama, with most agreeing it was a good debate for both candidates. But, since McCain is down in the polls and this was supposed to be his strongest debate (foreign policy/national security), he needed a clear win. That did not happen.

Media Curves found that 61% of Independents believed Obama won the debate, while 38.89% favored McCain as the winner. On each of the eight topics, Obama was a clear winner among Independents, with his highest score coming on the Iran issue - two-thirds of Independents thought he won this question. And, it's hard to argue with these three post-debate polls at RCP - they all have Obama outperforming McCain.

http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2008/09/the_post_debate_polls.html

Battleground States' Editorial reviews:

Mary Beth Schneider in the Indianapolis Star, Hoosiers: Debate moves 4 voters toward a decision:

"Before the debate, Colleen Hoover, a 52-year-old Avon billing clerk for a physician, said she was undecided -- and not very interested, frankly, in watching this debate at all.

After the 90-minute give-and-take, however, Hoover said she was looking forward to the next presidential debate, on Oct. 7, as well as Thursday's vice presidential debate between Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. And, she added, if she had to vote today, she'd back Obama."

.

Kansas City Star (MO) Editorial, Obama has narrow victory in debate:

"Americans looking for a warrior in the White House surely warmed to GOP Senator John McCain’s scrappy debate performance Friday night.

But Democrat Barack Obama turned in the more statesmanlike effort. He was unflappable even under McCain’s often condescending attacks. While McCain went for punches, Obama scored points with sound arguments."

.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial, Clear differences:

"The topic was foreign policy, with undercurrents of the financial crisis now consuming the attentions of the U.S. Congress. This main topic, woven as it is with national security, was one in which John McCain was thought to have an edge over Barack Obama. He made every attempt to paint the Illinois senator as naïve. He mostly failed."

.

John Baer, Philadelphia Daily News:

"The much-touted, long-awaited debate that almost didn't happen was a mixed bag, but helped Barack Obama more than John McCain.

I say that because on the issue gripping the nation - the state of the economy - Obama seemed better focused, better armed and more aggressive than McCain."

.

Detroit Free Press Editorial, No knockout, but McCain shows strength in experience:

"Both candidates took some liberties with the facts, particularly in characterizing each other's statements and positions. But neither scored a knockout and the debate did not produce any of the dramatic or telling moments of debates from past campaigns."

.

CBS Channel 8 Las Vegas, Local focus group watches presidential debate:

"The war in Iraq. I agreed more with Obama on," Daniel McGuire is an independent who leans libertarian. "I actually thought McCain was a little bit better on the bailout."

Maryann Brothers went in mostly undecided and came out clearly supporting Obama, "I'm sorry to say, I expected McCain to really come out with a change and I didn't hear that."

One debate down with two to go and so much can change.

"If we were voting today, I'd vote for Obama," said Jay Needleman. This lifelong Republican is supporting Obama, for now. "It can be changed until I walked into the polling place."

Among the group of voters sampled Friday, Senator Obama won the debate."

.

Now for some non-battleground reaction, Peter Canellos at the Boston Globe calls it a Good night for McCain, better one for Obama:

"John McCain last night tried hard to make the first presidential debate a test of Barack Obama's fitness for office. McCain succeeded in his framing of the test - but Obama passed it.

Both candidates came off well. But Obama had more to gain, and he did."

.

Dallas Morning News Editorial, Debate yields White House-worthy performances:

"This debate, with its emphasis on foreign policy, was supposed to be Mr. McCain's time to shine. But Mr. Obama matched him score for score, fending off any sort of game-changer.

Mr. McCain held his own, but that may not be sufficient on his home field."

.

Joe Klein at Time gives it to Obama:

"Toward the very end of tonight's debate—which was quite a good one, I believe—John McCain laid out his rationale in this election in just a few words: Senator Obama, he said, lacks the "knowledge and experience to be President." The presidency will turn on whether the American people agree with McCain on that—but on this night, Obama emerged as a candidate who was at least as knowledgeable, judicious and unflappable as McCain on foreign policy ... and more knowledgeable, and better suited to deal with the economic crisis and domestic problems the country faces."

.

And finally, McClatchy is reporting (as published in the Miami Herald) that McCain misstates some facts in debate on foreign policy:

"McCain made the most notable misstatements and stumbled over the names of the leaders of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose name he couldn't pronounce, and of Pakistan, referring to the latter as "Qadari" instead of Asif Ali Zardari.

McCain incorrectly asserted that former Gen. Pervez Musharraf rescued Pakistan from being a "failed state" when he seized power in a 1999 coup."

This was from last night, but I had to add it. Even Dick Morris can't spin this for McCain! Via Politico:

"Unfortunately, I think Obama won this debate," said Dick Morris on Hannity and Colmes.

This is what I think on the debate performances: On merits, the debate was a draw. But the cable tv PUNDITS and the press rank and file who closely follow the campaign, I think slightly tilt towards McCain, because of the raised expectations for Obama. The EDITORIALS and blogs tilt towards Obama mainly on substance of arguments. While the most crucial constituents, THE VOTERS that matter, overwhelmingly preferred Obama.

A similar assessment from Markos:

I've been pondering those snap polls, both of which showed Obama winning tonight's debate handily. I just never would've predicted that. In fact, I've given up trying to predict how the public will react to certain things. Remember McCain's acceptance speech at the RNC convention? I thought it was dreadful, but polling suggested people loved it.

On the merits, the debate was more of a draw, so that doesn't explain the results. I wonder if there was something else at play. [...]tonight reassured them, given his calm poise and wry humor...

Given the CNN and CBS polling, the public has overwhelmingly crowned Obama the winner of the debate. It seems that Republicans spent so much time trashing Obama's "lack of experience" and "lack of judgment" on national security, that expectations were ridiculously low, and as a result, people were pleasantly (and happily) surprised.

Kind of imagine Sarah Palin, who we've all come to see as a blithering idiot, turning in a performance the caliber of Obama's tonight -- she would all the much stronger for it, no matter if on the merits, she merely equaled Joe Biden. That's what apparently happened tonight.

And those snap polls are apparently driving much of tonight's media narrative. That and McCain's inability to look Obama in the eye.

CW-meister Mark Halperin, on PBS:

"I thought Obama clearly did better. I thought he had a chance to show that he was calm and prepared and capable of standing toe to toe with the more experienced McCain. I thought McCain spoke too much Washington jargon, told too many jokes in shorthand, made too many comments he knew what he meant but I don't think he conveyed it necessarily to the audience overall. I thought Obama was the better communicator an did what he needed to do to reassure people."

Richard Wolffe, MSNBC:

"That was the greatest contrast…the demeanor and the tone of voice that these candidates adopted where McCain was being much more pointed much more aggressive and curiously couldn't look Obama in the eye. Obama's tone much more straight and even keeled but ready to look his opponent in the eye repeatedly. A big contrast."

Eugene Robinson, Washington Post:

"Here’s the politically incorrect way of phrasing one of the central questions about tonight’s presidential debate: Did John McCain come across as too much of a grumpy old man?

That might not be a nice question, but it’s an important one. Americans like to vote for the nice guy, not the grumbling prophet of doom. Throughout the 90-minute debate, McCain seemed contemptuous of Obama. He wouldn’t look at him. He tried to belittle him whenever possible -- how many times did he work “Senator Obama just doesn’t understand” into his answers? His body language was closed, defensive, tense. McCain certainly succeeded in proving that he can be aggressive, but the aggression came with a smirk and a sneer."

Marc Ambinder, The Atlantic:

"McCain did not filter himself, letting his frustration and contempt for Obama show; he wouldn't let himself look at the challenger."

So the verdict is in -- Obama won, and on the night that McCain needed to reverse his opponent's momentum. Perhaps McCain should've cut and run after all.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/27/12521/2632/94/612158

Meteor Blades at Daily Kos writes:

"A lot of pundits and commenters and [bloggers] are abuzz over why John McCain didn't look at Barack Obama even once during the debate Friday night.

Rude, say some. Arrogant, say some. Condescending and contemptuous, say others. Passive-aggressive outrage, say still others, a lack of eye contact meant as an insult to Obama - not a planned insult, but because McCain is just that kind of person who can't bear to think of others as equals, who was pissed off that this other person was even allowed on the same stage as him - a king, having to mingle with the commoners.

Probably, to some extent, all true. But none of those counts as the real reason.

The real reason is that every time Barack Obama says "...when I am President," John McCain knows in his heart that this will soon be true."

My take on this is a combination of factors. And one real factor could be that the fear of being distracted from his talking points and blunting his sharpness to respond if he had to take the visual information of watching his opponent answer (from an intimidatingly close distance) in addition to the less complex sound processing in his brain.

PS. I think heath might have some insights into the visual processing aspects.

morning all,

watched about half the debate....both Candidates were at their best....Barak did some tweeking and sounded....forceful and concise instead of hesitant and overly intellectualizing every answer. McCain sounded a bit like the McCain we knew before his Palin pick, older, but still somewhat sane and coherent of thought. Unfortuantely, all the world has experienced the Palin pick, and watched him try to use the financial crisis as a political one-uppance on Barak Obama by telling him one minute they would make a statement together and then abruptly calling all attention to himself by pretending to stop his campaign to run back to Washington and save the day.....the whole fiasco didn't fare well for him so he refused to look at Barak Obama all night long....also, his tranquilizer finally took hold...and he appeared, actually, calm, cannot say cool....he has blown that one out of the water...his cool days are gone....after his Palin pick he really just looks like a "lusty old timer." enjoying his political partner's youthful exuberance.

oh, wanted to mention last nights McCain zinger to Barak while they were talking about the wars....

McCain said that Barak didn't know the difference between a tactic and a strategy.....the old man can still throw a low one...when you get him all rieled up....

tactic.....the science or art of deploying military or naval forces and the maneuvering them in battle.....the maneuvers themselves. ...any maneuvrs for gaining advantage or success.........kind of like McCains failed tactic of pretending to stop his campaign to fly back to washington dc using the financial crisis as his excuse.

strategy...the science or art of planning large scale military movements and operations ....the use of an instance of using this science or art.....the use of a stratagem.....a plan or method for achieving a specific goal....a strategy for getting ahead in the world.............again kind of like McCain's failed tactic of pretending to stop his campaign to fly back to washington dc so he could get a political kudo for appearing...on the ball, instead of being left with the appearance, nation wide, of having fallen off his balls in picking his unqualified Palin as VP(this opinion is a national consensus, not just mine)......

so I don't really remember the context of the questioning as to how Barak used the word or words but he probably wasn't to far in meaning....

look at Donald Rumsfeld....the great Secretary of our Defense during the Iraq Invasion.....he totally threw strategy out the window once his tactical maneuverings were accomplished in the first days of the Iraq Invasion......actually, I think it would have been more correct for John McCain to say that Donald Rumsfeld and our President didn't and do not know the difference between a strategy and a tactic....since, all they seemed to really employ...succesfully, was the tactic of maneuvering our troop movements.....but then they left our troops hanging out to dry in that violent Iraqi air after the initial invasion because of the lack of
a well thought out after the invasion strategy.....so again...all they had to work with is another...tactic..the ever popular Surge...the movement of more troops into Iraq to try and save their sasses....

so I think it is okay that maybe an unmilitary type person get a tactic and a strategy a bit intertwined in conversation.....but when your Secretary of Defense and your President....are in the process of war conception and they do not know the difference between a tactic and a strategy and when and how to apply....is of the upmost importance in terms winning and losing the battles and the war itself....

So, John, since you are so smart when it comes to the tactics and the strategies you might have lent your dictionary to Bush and Rumsfeld....given them a heads up....and helped your Parties's Presdent....instead of keeping all this great military knowledge to yourself....too bad you didn't put your "Country First"....when it was a matter of actual lives and deaths our our Ameican men and women in uniform.

have a great weekend everyone, ruth

9/27 Daily Kos R2K Tracking Poll: Obama 49, McCain 43

Today's Daily Kos Research 2000 tracking poll has Obama up over McCain 49-43. All trackers are data from three days prior to posting, with R2K from today (yesterday) and the others from yesterday (day prior). Trackers will not reflect yesterday's strong Obama debate performance until tomorrow.

Obama McCain MoE +/- RV/LV
Research 2000: 49 (48) 43 (43) 3 LV
Diageo/Hotline: 49 (47) 42 (43) 3.2 RV
Rasmussen: 50 (49) 45 (46) 2 LV
Gallup: 48 (46) 45 (46) 2 RV

Obama had a +7 night on Fr to go with +7 We, +5 Th. Sarah Palin's fav/unfav are now -8.

The focus groups picked up soft, but important data on the debate, and the snap polls show an Obama win. Focus groups pick up the "likeability" piece, which polls do not. Obama won that going away. Here are the overnight polls:

CBS Insta Poll shows Barack Obama won 39% to John McCain's 25% with 36% saying the debate was a draw.

Insider Advantage reports those polled Obama won 42% to McCain's 41% with Undecided 17%

CNN reports voter opinions that Obama "did better" 51%, McCain "did better" 38%

The CNN poll showed men were evenly split, but women gave Obama higher marks 59% to 41% for McCain.

Stan Greenberg/Democracy Corps:

Of our 45 initial undecided voters, a quarter moved to Obama and a quarter to McCain after the debate with the rest remaining undecided. Moreover, by a 38 to 27 percent margin these voters said that Obama won this debate.

A look at the underlying numbers shows that Obama made important gains that could endure through Election Day. These undecided voters had a strong positive reaction to Obama on a personal level. Before the debate, just 40 percent viewed Obama positively, but this skyrocketed to 69 percent after the debate – a remarkable 29-point gain that left him more personally popular than McCain despite this group’s conservative leanings. He also made large strides on being seen as independent, from 44 percent to 65 percent. And in head-to-head matchups against McCain, Obama made significant gains on who "shares your values" and is "on your side."

McCain did not fair as well. His personal standing also improved, but not to nearly the same degree as Obama’s. And while he made impressive gains on being a "maverick," he actually lost slight ground on "offering a different path than Bush," showing that these gains were more about style than substance.

CNN:

Men were nearly evenly split between the two candidates, with 46 percent giving the win to McCain and 43 percent to Obama. But women voters tended to give Obama higher marks, with 59 percent calling him the night's winner, while just 31 percent said McCain won

CBS: THE DEBATE’S EFFECT ON OPINIONS OF THE CANDIDATES
(Among uncommitted voters who watched debate)
Obama McCain
Better 46% 32%
Worse 8 21
No change 46 47

Nearly half of those uncommitted voters who watched the debate said that their image of Obama changed for the better as a result. Just eight percent say their opinion of Obama got worse, and 46 percent reported no change in their opinions.

McCain saw less improvement in his image. Thirty-two percent have improved their image of McCain as a result of the debate, but 21 percent said their views of him are now worse than before.

Why did voters' image of Obama improve? Many volunteered that they were impressed by his poise and knowledge about the issues, that he was more knowledgeable about the issues than they thought previously. When it came to McCain, those same voters said he "didn’t control himself well under pressure," that he was "angry and bad-tempered," and that he "talked too much about the past."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wup4nsIWe8A

Remember a few things about the above:

1) This was supposed to be McCain's strong debate. A tie goes to Obama (and it wasn't a tie).

2) Obama leads in the polls. A tie goes to Obama (and it wasn't a tie).

3) McCain's visuals and optics were awful. He came across as belligerent and dismissive.

4) The undecided vote is not the general population. The demeanor of the candidates matters as much or more than substance.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/27/71646/2857/993/612252

Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up [Daily Kos]

Interesting analysis all around, but consensus about this being an excellent debate.

NY Times editorial:

"It was disturbing to see that Mr. McCain seems to have learned nothing from the disastrous war in Iraq. He talked about recent progress there, which is indisputable, and his support for the troop surge that has brought down violence. But Mr. McCain still was talking about winning, rather than how he was going to plan a necessary and responsible exit. And he steadfastly refused to acknowledge that the decision to invade Iraq was an enormous mistake.

Mr. Obama offered no details on how he plans to get out of Iraq, but he offered an important truth when he said that the United States should never have invaded and can never win in Afghanistan as long as it is tied down in Iraq.

We didn’t hear nearly as much detail as we would have liked. But the debate was a move toward a serious discussion of this country’s many problems. Americans need to hear more of that, and less of the tactical sparring, before going to the polls."
________

David Yepsen: McCain wins.

________

Joe Klein: Obama wins.

________

Roger Simon: Mcain is the best evah.

________

Andrew Ward:

"Analysis: McCain fails to land knock-out blow

John McCain delivered the punchiest lines and finished the debate on the offensive. Barack Obama was polished and, yes, presidential throughout and absorbed his opponent’s jabs without serious damage.

The result was a score draw, which, for Mr Obama, was as good as a win."

___________

Nate Silver:

"Why Voters Thought Obama Won

TPM has the internals of the CNN poll of debate-watchers, which had Obama winning overall by a margin of 51-38. The poll suggests that Obama is opening up a gap on connectedness, while closing a gap on readiness.

Specifically, by a 62-32 margin, voters thought that Obama was "more in touch with the needs and problems of people like you". This is a gap that has no doubt grown because of the financial crisis of recent days. But it also grew because Obama was actually speaking to middle class voters. Per the transcript, McCain never once mentioned the phrase "middle class" (Obama did so three times). And Obama’s eye contact was directly with the camera, i.e. the voters at home. McCain seemed to be speaking literally to the people in the room in Mississippi, but figuratively to the punditry. It is no surprise that a small majority of pundits seemed to have thought that McCain won, even when the polls indicated otherwise; the pundits were his target audience."

__________

George Harris:

"I suspect that women voters especially would be turned off by McCain's sarcastic tone because women do tend to be the conciliators in our society and saw Obama display those conciliatory qualities very well in the debate. Obama looked at McCain, and McCain wouldn't return the eye contact but rather glared or displayed a tight and angry expression.

I also suspect (but don't have the data to support) that older voters were also turned off by Senator McNasty. I believe older voters will also be reassured that, though McCain has been around longer, Obama has a good grasp of foreign affairs and can learn quickly. He impressed as a statesmen, in marked contrast to McCain's warrior demeanor.

McCain referred to Obama as naive or as not understanding on many issues when the listener probably saw a mere difference of opinion. McCain's condescenion felt annoying; to the listener who might agree or disagree with Obama, Obama nevertheless was making good points, not naive ones."

_________

David Ignatius:

"Both styles were adequate; neither was entirely compelling. If you were adding up debating points, you’d give the contest to Obama. If you were counting only the emotional highs, you’d give it to McCain. The debate reinforced each man’s strengths and weaknesses. Obama had the most to lose, and he didn’t, so in that sense, by not losing he probably came out ahead.

What was troubling was that neither man rose to the challenge of the catastrophe that has seized the financial markets. On this issue, the two were bland, non-committal, uninspiring."

__________

Added:

Jonathan Alter on MSNBC: The biggest loser? Sarah Palin. The debates set a standard she cannot live up to.

Hillary Clinton's statement on the debate:

"Tonight Barack Obama displayed beyond a doubt that he understands both the gravity of the financial crisis facing America, and the challenges we face in Iraq and around the world. Senator McCain offered only more of the same failed policies of the Bush Administration. America deserves better.

"I stood next to Barack Obama in 22 debates and tonight epitomized why millions are joining me in standing with him and working hard to ensure he is the next President of the United States."

Frank Luntz on Fox News reporting on a focus group that went overwhelmingly for Obama.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wup4nsIWe8A

"I suspect that women voters especially would be turned off by McCain's sarcastic tone because women do tend to be the conciliators in our society and saw Obama display those conciliatory qualities very well in the debate. Obama looked at McCain, and McCain wouldn't return the eye contact but rather glared or displayed a tight and angry expression."

-– George Harris, Kansas City Star Readers Advisory Panel 2008

The CNN poll showed men were evenly split, but women gave Obama higher marks 59% to 41% for McCain.

P.S. It had been my observation in the past: Obama has a very healthy proportion of feminine aspect to his personality.

Here's my take on the debate:

Both men are unseasoned as Chief Executive. Anyone who hasn't been prez for a term has no clue what's in store for him or her. Both men are smart and powerful personalities. Both men have the ability to work across party lines, and the ability and will to lead. To distinguish between them, I compare their positions and their characters. I agree with Obama's positions. I knew that before the debate. What this debate was about, for me, was character.

Stress can make the brightest leader run and hide. I think Obama can handle stress a whole lot better than McCain can. McCain's stress test took place decades ago, and he passed it with flying colors. But it also damaged his ability to respond in a healthy way to stress thereafter. Obama is our best chance for good leadership of this country.

McCain's core cynicism and ruthlessness were apparent immediately, when he tried to appear to be reaching across the aisle and showing his supposed humanity by mentioning Ted Kennedy's health in his opening comment. If he really cared about Kennedy as a person -- in a non-political, compassionate way -- he'd have asked Jim Lehrer to say something about the Senator -- he wouldn't have tried to make compassion and bipartisanship his own by mentioning Kennedy's condition. Kennedy was already out of the hospital and back home at that moment, by the way, which shows he's not such a dear friend and his campaign is somewhat out of touch, or he'd have known that, he wouldn't have said Kennedy was still in the hospital.

McCain has some sincerity going, still. But it's at war with his immense desire to win. McCain is at war with himself.

Now Obama has something other than a desire to win: he has a will to win. That's a really big difference.

Desire is emotional, it can get out of control, it's fuzzy, it's mutable. Will is about vision, controlled energy, focus and self-control. It's will that bridges the chasms of danger in a crisis. It's what keeps you from going crazy, literally, when stress seems unbearable.

McCain's war with himself is the reason I think he couldn't look at Obama. If he'd engaged Obama eye-to-eye, the sincere aspect of his character would have kicked in, and he'd have knocked down his own ego, and would have ended up being warmer, more friendly, towards Obama, which would have been conceding power of presence and focus to Obama right in front of millions of viewers, in real time. That would have spelled his demise as a possible winner.

Tiger, yes, this has to do with vision processing. We have two vision systems. The one that evolved later is also the one that does face recognition, that engenders a feeling of being safe and relaxed. For McCain to stay on target as the opponent of Obama, he could not risk feeling safe and relaxed in his presence - the only solution he had, as an emotional man, was to avoid looking Obama in the eyes.

The reason McCain's emotionality is such a powerful aspect of his character is two-fold: he's a Pisces, and he still suffers from PTSD, from his years as a military man, particularly as a result of having been wounded, captured, held, tortured and deprived of comfort for a long time. As a result, he cannot escape his volatile emotions now.

The reality of these characters is, I believe, this: Obama is stronger, brighter, more generous, more flexible, better-focused and more centered than McCain. These qualities, along with a real humbleness of ego that allows him to reach out to -- and pay attention to -- advisors, will allow Obama to lead this country with amazing strength, insight, honesty, honor and grace. I think the sincere part of McCain knows that, and he simply can't look the man in the eye on a public stage without giving that away to the audience, and he's sincere enough to know that, too. Yet the desire-to-win side of McCain is extremely fierce, so much so that McCain was willing to risk looking arrogant by avoiding eye contact. McCain's war within himself is also expressed by the whining things he does -- classic unconscious dragging-the-broken-wing tactics. For me, that spells danger. Anyone who's so emotionally needy, regarding winning, is also too emotional to handle winning properly if it's achieved. We need the winner of this race to handle his job properly. That war in McCain is the biggest signal he gives me that he's not right for prez. He doesn't know himself, and he can't handle himself. How then could he handle all the rest of us?

* * *

By the way, did you catch Obama's bit about his father trying to come to the US for his higher education, right at the end? In those few lines, Obama said about 27 different things and made some extremely solid points about this country, where it needs to go, about his own family history and character, and about his unwillingness to allow a Republican snow job to happen a third time in succession.

If Obama is elected, I believe his leadership will be on a par with the only two past presidents I revere: Lincoln and FDR.

Oh, thanks for #85, John -- you reminded me that one of the very positive visual aspects of Obama's candidacy is his wife's presence on the stage, after a speech or debate. Obama's lean height, narrow face and small eyes can make him intimidating, physically, to many. Seeing beside him a wife who's taller than he is in heels, restores him to normal size, and thus takes away any sense of strangeness we might feel about his cool, somewhat Dr. Spock-like, physical presence. Obama's wife is also less diffident in social and politcal situations than he is. Sometimes she's the first to start and handshake or hug, and she does it with warm vigor that also rebalances Obama's apparent coolness.

I actually think Obama's cool is just the outward manifestation of his control of a whole lot of inner fire.

#83 -- yes, HC! That's my girl, showing leadership through affirmative generosity, honesty and grace.

Prayers for the family and friends of Paul Newman, who just died. He seemed to me to be someone who'd never go. He was always young, in his eyes.

McCain's Eye Contact: Comments, Observations and theories so far...

"...all the world has experienced the Palin pick, and watched him try to use the financial crisis as a political one-uppance on Barak Obama by telling him one minute they would make a statement together and then abruptly calling all attention to himself by pretending to stop his campaign to run back to Washington and save the day.....the whole fiasco didn't fare well for him so he refused to look at Barak Obama all night long...." ~ruth, 80

"...yes, this has to do with vision processing. We have two vision systems. The one that evolved later is also the one that does face recognition, that engenders a feeling of being safe and relaxed. For McCain to stay on target as the opponent of Obama, he could not risk feeling safe and relaxed in his presence - the only solution he had, as an emotional man, was to avoid looking Obama in the eyes." ~heath, 86

"A lot of pundits and commenters and [bloggers] are abuzz over why John McCain didn't look at Barack Obama even once during the debate Friday night.

Rude, say some. Arrogant, say some. Condescending and contemptuous, say others. Passive-aggressive outrage, say still others, a lack of eye contact meant as an insult to Obama - not a planned insult, but because McCain is just that kind of person who can't bear to think of others as equals, who was pissed off that this other person was even allowed on the same stage as him - a king, having to mingle with the commoners.

Probably, to some extent, all true. But none of those counts as the real reason.

The real reason is that every time Barack Obama says "...when I am President," John McCain knows in his heart that this will soon be true." ~Meteor Blades, 79

"My take on this is a combination of factors. And one real factor could be that the fear of being distracted from his talking points and blunting his sharpness to respond if he had to take the visual information of watching his opponent answer (from an intimidatingly close distance) in addition to the less complex sound processing in his brain." ~Scott Tiger, 79

McCain couldn’t seem to look Barack Obama in the eye most of the night. Another related possibility/contributing factor, as suggested by the comments of Ruth and heath is ...Shame.

It has been speculated that he was so angry that he couldn’t, for fear of having a classic McCainian meltdown. Maybe that he was so incredulous that he should be facing a man with so little "time in grade". Or perhaps it was an intended insult to the "young upstart". Some have even speculated that he is afraid of Obama.

I think he couldn’t look Obama in the eye because he was ashamed. Much of his life was spent in the military, he is from a military family, surrounded by military and former military friends. Notions of HONOR really are taken very seriously by such men and women. It is a long and revered tradition. Many would and have died for that sense of honor. I believe that John McCain holds his sacred honor to be his dearest possession, his most deeply held belief and feeling.

And he has betrayed that honor. He let his ambition override his sense of honor and handed the keys to the "Straight Talk Express" to a bunch of smirking, smarmy Rove wannabes just certain of their cleverness. They drove it into the muddiest ditch they could find. McCain let these punks besmirch his sacred honor with egregious lies, covert racism, flagrant distortions and outright insults. He allowed them to do what no honorable military person would do or tolerate from anyone under their command. And he knows it. In his shame, he could not look his opponent in the eye, in a one-on-one presidential debate. One hopes that when this is over, years from now, before he dies, he can look at himself in the mirror again.

I think heath's evaluation sounds just right.

TPM have an interesting comment on this issue
from a monkey scientist:

"I think people really are missing the point about McCain's failure to look at Obama. McCain was afraid of Obama. It was really clear--look at how much McCain blinked in the first half hour. I study monkey behavior--low ranking monkeys don't look at high ranking monkeys. In a physical, instinctive sense, Obama owned McCain tonight and I think the instant polling reflects that."

And from a psychotherapist:

"As a psychotherapist and someone who treats people with anger management problems, we typically try to educate people that anger is often an emotion that masks other emotions. I think it's significant that McCain didn't make much, if any, eye contact because it suggests one of two things to me; he doesn't want to make eye contact because he is prone to losing control of his emotions if he deals directly with the other person, or, his anger masks fear and the eye contact may increase or substantiate the fear.

I noticed him doing the same thing in the Republican primary debates. The perception observers are likely to have is that he is unwilling to acknowledge the opponent's legitimacy and/or is contemptuous of the opponent."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/220226.php

There are two camps for interpretation that IMHO depends of who make it

1) High-falluting, i.e McCain felt contempt/anger/fear of Obama, pundits, pols and analyst (including you an me.)

2) Common sense, i.e. McCain was a prick/condescending/bastard, regular folks we hate when people talk about us and at the same time ignore our presence.

And then the alternative interpretations.

I think ruth and heath are right on.

I think Salina hit on something more concrete and simple: Honor and Shame

Think Colin Powell!

I think Obama's cool is that of a lawyer. His wife' warmth is that of a First Lady!
Their deeply understanding co-operation, with each other, as example and with the whole, is what the human race so badly needs.

There is huge potential. I wait to see if enough Americans are up to speed. If they can ride this wave, it's a big one, they will not be humbled, for it WILL deliver in due Season.

Cheers from Britain ;)

afternoon everyone,

hi heath,
you write, "If Obama is elected, I believe his leadership will be on a par with the only two past presidents I revere: Lincoln and FDR"

WOW...to say this about a man who really who has not lead anyone, anywhere, anytime in his political career is a true vote of confidence.....

After last night's debate....I still am left with the same feeling I have always had as to Barak Obama being the chosen Democratic Candidate for the Presidency....that the lesser of the two qualified Candidates was chosen to represent and lead this Party in these very troubling times.

That said....I feel McCain with all his baggage still has a good chance to win this race simply because Barak Obama is still the new and the unfamiliar face in this race....and, naturally, people will go with what they know even if the known is the same bad song being sung to them over and over again....willing change from the familiar to the unfamiliar.....is not that common a movement....for the many.

I do think that the oversell of Barak Obama and his character and his qualities does much more harm than good, and not just for Barak Obama but for anyone. It is much better to be upfront with what one actually knows and what one actually wishes for when it comes to evaluating the potential of persons of interest in terms of their ability to lead or govern.

and really, know one knows a whole lot, actually, as to Barak Obama......that is not to say he is completely unqualified......

we do know a lot about John McCain, and, for many, with all that is known...good and bad.....many, are more than willing to go for the change, the unfamiliar Candidate,..and give Barak Obama his chance....but others will try to play what they feel is safe and go with the known...no matter what.

I am afraid I do not see all that you do in Barak Obama but I see enough to know it is worth it to give him a hand at the wheel....afterall, we have already crashed.......he certainly is able and qualified to start picking up the pieces and laying them out a bit differently hopefully for the benefit of all...Americans.

have a great day, ruth

"Prayers for the family and friends of Paul Newman, who just died. He seemed to me to be someone who'd never go. He was always young, in his eyes." [#89]

While he will likely be remembered for being a great actor, his political activism and philanthropy cannot be forgotten.

"He was also the founder of Newman's Own, a food company from which Newman donated all profits and royalties to charity. As of May 2007, these donations have exceeded US$220 million." [Wiki]

"For his strong support of Eugene McCarthy in 1968 (and effective use of television commercials in California), Newman was 19th on Richard Nixon's enemies list.

Consistent with his work for liberal causes, Newman publicly supported Ned Lamont's candidacy in the 2006 Connecticut Democratic Primary against Senator Joe Lieberman, and was even rumored as a candidate himself until Lamont emerged as a credible alternative. He has donated to Chris Dodd's presidential campaign" [Wiki]

Never one to shy away from giving his opinions, Newman made it clear he wanted change in the country and worked towards it. He would often help with Democratic fundraising, like in a letter he wrote....a few years back:

"More than the films, more than the awards — finding out that I was on Nixon's Enemies List meant that I was doing something right.

"Nixon didn't like my campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy. But then again, he didn't much care for debate, dissent, or the Constitution either.

"I was proud to stand with Democrats against an imperial president back then. And I am proud now to stand with a new generation of Democrats against a president who poses what I believe to be the biggest internal threat to American democracy in my lifetime." [Politico]

"Paul took advantage of what life offered him, and while personally reluctant to acknowledge that he was doing anything special, he forever changed the lives of many with his generosity, humor, and humanness. His legacy lives on in the charities he supported and the Hole in the Wall Camps, for which he cared so much.

"We will miss our friend Paul Newman, but are lucky ourselves to have known such a remarkable person." [Newman's Own release]

dear ruth, my evaluation of Obama is always ready to change, according to what I see in his words and actions. As time has passed, his intelligence, heart and grit have given me confidence that he will be able to do the job. I agree with his positions right from my heart. The fact of his winning the nomination is, for me, evidence that he has the leadership abilities to be able to pull off being our prez. I don't resent or regret HC's losing. She made a number of important mistakes. The biggest mistake she made was assuming she was going to win, for quite a while. The second biggest was underestimating Obama. Mistakes of that nature -- being too optimistic, or being oblivious -- can lead to serious miscalculations as CE of the US. Obama won it. I was a skeptic. His staying strong on his message, his always keeping his focus, his usually staying cool under fire, his not losing his own fire (just keeping it low-banked, as he has to so as not to be called an "angry black man"), are things that have impressed me, and the more so because he's been consistent consistent consistent, which shows these are not just in-the-campaign-days traits, but character traits.

Strangely, two things that have made me like him a lot, in recent weeks, are the stuttering and hesitations in his speaking. He's under immense pressure, and he's sensitive to it. The stuttering and halts are evidence of that. I feel sympathy for his assailed humanness, and awe towards the courage he shows in continuing, despite the difficulties he's having to bear. This is one reason I say he may be able to match Lincoln and FDR for leadership quality if he's elected.

dear Ed, this is what I feel, too.

"and really, know one knows a whole lot, actually, as to Barak Obama......that is not to say he is completely unqualified......" [#93]

Good, ruth now acknowledges that he is qt least'somewhat' qualified.

(Let's not get into the primary flamewars about who is "better" qualified, now.)

As per heath's opinion/expectation about his potential leadership on par with FDR and Lincoln, that's her opinion from her unique experiences, observations, knowledge (about Obama's experience and attitude during the last 20 years) and her intuition. I don't know why one should find fault with that. No one is asking you to believe it. I think, Obama certainly has the 'potential' to be FDR, Lincoln or a Kennedy, or just a Reagan or a Clinton. And Just for the record, Lincoln and FDR were much maligned and equally and more ferociously demeaned by his opponents, and criticized and seen by many people as unqualified, naive, inexperienced and lacking...yes, leadership, both before and during their presidency.

PS. Get over it.

"...“We are such spendthrifts with our lives,” Mr. Newman once told a reporter. “The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.”"

... from the NYTimes.com obituary here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/movies/28newman.html

My impression in a nutshell, after watching the debates, is that Obama has loads more integrity than does McCain. An ingredient missing in soooo many politicos.

My only caveat, is that Obama still seems a little naive regarding dealing with people and countries who do not always play by the rule of ethics. Hopefully that will change.

B

"Tactic" for the next debate.

Obama should simply say to McCain, when catching him in a lie:

"John, you know that is not true. Can you look me in the eye and say that?"

Or maybe:

"John if you're going to twist the truth about me, at least have the courtesy to look me in the eye when you do it"

Home run.

"I think, Obama certainly has the 'potential' to be FDR, Lincoln or a Kennedy, or just a Reagan or a Clinton." --Irv

Or Carter, or Bush Sr. but most certainly not Bush Jr. and Nixon.

Hillary has the potential (and has a chance in 2016, if not 1012) to be a Truman, Thatcher, Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon Johnson, George Washington or even George Bush, who knows!

Obama will be Obama.

Hillary will be Hillary.

This country has many able people who can be good leaders. Hillary and Obama have potentially great future ahead.

I have to confess though, Obama's leadership skills and potential are in par with the best. Not that, it would make him a successful President in itself.

FiveThirtyEight.com electoral projection odds:

Obama 74.7% McCain 24.3 % chance of winning the race.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

Most likely route for Obama's path to 270 electoral votes for victory:

Kerry states plus Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado = Obama win.

Iowa and NM are firmly in Obama column.

Obama doing good in the Bush states of Nevada, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, NC, Florida and Missouri.

He needs to play defense in Kerry states NH and PA, Michigan and Minnesota. Only NH (4 votes) is genuinely threatened.

Obama has many paths to 270/269(tie) (In case of tie he will most, the House decides and Obama most likely wins.)

Obama has a very good ground game, and a plan.

He will most likely win it. Don't worry too much about losing because of not trying, or not playing aggressively against the very efficient GOP machine.

Late September afternoon

inside the grey
of steady rain

the patter-sound
of droplets falling from a tree
on rain-wet streets
this hiss of tires
crows in hiding
calling back and forth
a dog’s faint high-pitched yelp

someplace far away
the closing of a door

btw, don't be fooled: Palin can debate...pretty well.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/27/12441/4780/768/612477

an unsung moment of the debate

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/27/11751/6583/851/612394

A must read for Ruths, heaths and Irvines of intentblog. A great article, written from the perspective of a pro-Obama supporter in the primaries:

Peter Jukes:

My story » Flaming for Obama

"This year’s Democratic primaries weren’t just fought on the hustings and in the television studios. Some of the fiercest battles took place in the blogosphere"

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10398

In his presidential announcement speech in Springfield, IL 02/10/07, Barack Obama said this:

“Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age. Let's set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let's recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability. Let's make college more affordable, and let's invest in scientific research, and let's lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America.”

It was good to hear him mention science and technology again last night.

John, thanks for all the info.

Who are we bailing out?

Mega-Million Dollar CEO Payouts

See How Much These Big-Name CEOs Took Home Each Year.
But if you want to have a nice evening maybe you should not read it now!

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=5876413

CEO Cash SalaryStock, Other Pay Total Pay
Lehman Brothers
2007 Richard Fuld $5,000,000 $66,770,000 $71,770,000
2006 Richard Fuld $7,000,000 $55,323,679 $62,323,679
2005 Richard Fuld $14,500,000 $89,500,000 $104,000,000
2004 Richard Fuld $11,000,000 $24,300,000 $35,300,000

Morgan Stanley
2007 John Mack $800,000 $16,431,500 $17,231,500
2006 John Mack $800,000 $6,321,000 $7,121,000
2005 John Mack $337,534 $30,000,000 $30,337,534

Goldman Sachs
2007 Lloyd Blankfein $27,600,000 $15,500,000 $43,100,000
2006 Lloyd Blankfein $27,800,000 $15,700,000 $43,500,000
2006 Henry Paulson $129,087,000 $34,900,000 $163,987,000
2005 Henry Paulson $600,000 $3,363,422 $3,963,422
2004 Henry Paulson $600,000 $11,660,000 $12,260,000

Bear Stearns
2006 James Cayne $17,300,000 $14,800,000 $32,100,000
2005 James Cayne $12,900,000 $10,300,000 $23,200,000
2004 James Cayne $10,200,000 $9,500,000 $19,700,000

Merrill Lynch
2007 John Thain $15,800,000 $0 $15,800,000
2007 E. Stanley O'Neal $584,000 $161,000,000 $161,584,000
2006 E. Stanley O'Neal $19,200,000 $45,116,327 $64,316,327
2005 E. Stanley O'Neal $14,800,000 $3,120,000 $17,920,000
2004 E. Stanley O'Neal $700,000 $16,766,448 $17,466,448

Washington Mutual
2007 Kerry K. Killinger $1,000,000 $3,468,625 $4,468,625
2006 Kerry K. Killinger $5,100,000 $17,153,715 $22,253,715
2005 Kerry K. Killinger $4,600,000 $8,876,608 $13,476,608
2004 Kerry K. Killinger $2,900,000 $12,335,416 $15,235,416

AIG
2007 Martin J. Sullivan $10,200,000 $5,647,439 $15,847,439
2006 Martin J. Sullivan $16,900,000 $5,838,656 $22,738,656
2005 Martin J. Sullivan $7,750,000 $159,000 $7,909,000
2004 M.R. "Hank" Greenberg $1,400,000 $12,002,880 $13,402,880

Fannie Mae
2007 Daniel Mudd $3,200,000 $5,200,000 $8,400,000
2006 Daniel Mudd $4,400,000 $2,290,000 $6,690,000

Freddie Mac
2007 Richard Syron $5,590,000 $0 $5,590,000
2006 Richard Syron $5,150,000 $0 $5,150,000

Heath i read ur comments in # 87...damn, girl..

you have a profound, sophisticated mind...u rock, girl~!

you can write like only few here can! wow! i'm impressed!

"btw, don't be fooled: Palin can debate...pretty well." #106 John

As if on cue, "Vice Presidential Debate Expectations: Obama Camp Calls Palin "Terrific Debater""

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/27/vice-presidential-debate_n_129907.html

Re. 104

Joe Trippi, former Howard Dean and John Edwards' campaign manager posts blog on his thoughts on the debate and how the race now stands electorally, at Daily Kos:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/27/181118/115/521/612740

"And then there is the Obama campaign – far from erratic – a strong candidate and the strongest campaign organization in American political history. Obama delivered last night in what should have been his toughest debate – his campaign organization should deliver a 1 to 3 points in additional voters to the polls in get-out-the-vote operations in key states the campaign is targeting. So if these states are close in the closing days of the campaign Obama is likely to win most of them."

"A must read for Ruths, heaths and Irvines of intentblog. A great article, written from the perspective of a pro-Obama supporter in the primaries:

Peter Jukes:

My story » Flaming for Obama" #108

That is a excellent article, thanks!

Apart from being an community blog where every member can post dairies (blogs), Daily Kos is a phenomenal netroots progressive community. They also raise huge amounts of money online for better democrats running everywhere.

It gets over 2 million page hits in a single day (in 2008.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Kos

"you have a profound, sophisticated mind...u rock, girl~!

you can write like only few here can! wow! i'm impressed!"

heath suggested ruth write her own blogs, I think both of you should join Daily Kos.

You can post your blogs over there for free, and you might get over a hundred comments within an hour of posting a blog, given especially your unique views. If your blog makes it to the recommended list, you might get over 500 comments. And the comment quality at Daily Kos is excellent, not like the comments here or elsewhere.

(You can start posting comments after 24 hrs of opening an account. You can start posting diaries/blog entries after 7 days.)

If you haven't, do read the artcile by Peter Jukes:

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10398

Daily Kos community is not just about politics. The community is so diverse they care about almost everything from current events to birds and gardening.

You can join MyDD.com too. It has saner traffic than the crazy dkos. If you read the Prospect article, you will note that the MyDD community was pro Hillary during the primaries, and you will find many former Clinton supporters and their views over there.

Frank Rich doing his usual Sunday best...

"...Davis Manafort, the lobbying firm owned by McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, had received $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac from late 2005 until last month. This was in addition to the $30,000 a month that Davis was paid from 2000 to 2005 by the so-called Homeownership Alliance, an advocacy organization that he headed and that was financed by Freddie and Fannie to fight regulation.

"The McCain campaign tried to pre-emptively deflect such revelations by reviving the old Rove trick of accusing your opponent of your own biggest failings. It ran attack ads about Obama’s own links to the mortgage giants. But neither of the former Freddie-Fannie executives vilified in those ads, Franklin Raines and James Johnson, had worked at those companies lately or are currently associated with the Obama campaign. (Raines never worked for the campaign at all.) By contrast, Davis is the tip of the Freddie-Fannie-McCain iceberg. McCain’s senior adviser, his campaign’s vice chairman, his Congressional liaison and the reported head of his White House transition team all either made fortunes from recent Freddie-Fannie lobbying or were players in firms that did.

"By Wednesday, the McCain campaign’s latest tactic for countering this news — attacking the press, especially The Times — was paying diminishing returns. Davis abruptly canceled his scheduled appearance that day at a weekly reporters’ lunch sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor, escaping any further questions by pleading that he had to hit the campaign trail. (He turned up at the “21” Club in New York that night, wining and dining McCain fund-raisers.)

"It’s then that Angry Old Ironsides McCain suddenly emerged to bark that our financial distress was “the greatest crisis we’ve faced, clearly, since World War II” — even greater than the Russia-Georgia conflict, which in August he had called the “first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the cold war.” Campaigns, debates and no doubt Bristol Palin’s nuptials had to be suspended immediately so he could ride to the rescue, with Joe Lieberman as his Robin.

"Yet even as he huffed and puffed about being a “leader,” McCain took no action and felt no urgency. As his Congressional colleagues worked tirelessly in Washington, he malingered in New York. He checked out the suffering on Main Street (or perhaps High Street) by conferring with Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, the Hillary-turned-McCain supporter best known for her fabulous London digs and her diatribes against Obama’s elitism. McCain also found time to have a well-publicized chat with one of those celebrities he so disdains, Bono, and to give a self-promoting public speech at the Clinton Global Initiative..."

and so on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/opinion/28rich.html

Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

More punditry, most of it thoughtful.

Frank Rich:

"George Bush put more deliberation into invading Iraq than McCain did into his own reckless invasion of the delicate Congressional negotiations on the bailout plan."

Fareed Zakaria:

"Palin Is Ready? Please.

McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, that is simply not true."

Ron Brownstein viaMarc Ambinder:

"I've been wrong about the public reaction to debates too many times before to predict what (if any) near-term movement in the polls this will produce."

The undecideds I was with didn't move much. But I'll predict, anyway, and say it was good for McCain. Why? Because I find McCain's personal history compelling (I know other people find him creepy), I find personal history more interesting than policy, and I'm willing to overlook McCain's campaign behavior. So now you have another example of why I'm often wrong about the public reaction to debates.

Marc Ambinder:

"The news media dial groups / instant polls seem to give the night to Obama; the partisan professionals seemed to give the debate to their preferred candidate. Very little cross-over.

Hillary Clinton raised Obama's game. A lot of what McCain threw at him he's heard before, and he was ready with quick, concise answers"

James Fallows:

"When the details of this encounter fade, as they soon will, I think the debate as a whole will be seen as of a piece with Kennedy-Nixon in 1960, Reagan-Carter in 1980, and Clinton-Bush in 1992"

Clive Crook: Obama has better presidential temperament, and impeccable taste in advisers.

"This difference of intellectual temperament has often been seen as one of Obama's biggest drawbacks, including by many of his own supporters. But the complexities of the crisis are putting those traits in a much better light."

Clive Crook follow-up:

"After the last couple of days, McCain badly needed to win Friday's debate. My immediate feeling was that he didn't even manage a draw."

Michael Grunwald:

"What you did miss was an amazing week of political theater, starring the frenetic, operatic, borderline erratic McCain, the former fighter pilot who seems to have found his calling as a kamikaze politician. He might not win the election — another thing you missed this week was Barack Obama pulling ahead in the polls — but when it's over he's a shoo-in for a show on TNT. RuPaul doesn't know drama like McCain knows drama."

Mickey Kaus:

"If actual undecided voters who watched the debate favored Obama, as this CBS poll suggests, is that because, after the events of the past week, they were just looking for Obama to pass a threshold test? Add if that's the case, how would McCain now be doing if he'd just gone ahead and had this debate, and done as well as he did, without pulling The Stunt first? (Whether you think McCain's trip to Washington helped or hurt the chances of resolving the current financial crisis, it seems clear he could have gone to D.C. and had whatever influence he had without trying to delay the debate. Think how good that would have looked.)"

Chuck Todd: Skipping the Polyanna stuff,

"2. Did McCain look like someone ready to buck the status quo? It's hard to argue that he wasn't showing himself as someone wanting to shake things up. For every time Obama attempted to link McCain to Bush, the Arizona senator had no qualms going after his own party. In fact, Obama's "John is right" mantras were usually connected to one of McCain's anti-Republican establishment points.

3. Did the viewers get turned off by McCain's sometimes dismissive treatment of Obama or will they start asking themselves the same questions? While this was a very heavy and substantive debate, I do wonder if on style, McCain lost a point or two, and that may explain why he's not staying even in some of these insta-polls."

Joe Trippi:

"Picking Sarah Palin was a bold move – I urged taking her pick seriously – but her recent perfprmance is raising doubts about McCain’s judgment. The erratic behavior of his campaign over the past week – suspending his campaign – left most scratching their heads and asking what the hell was that about? Disastrous. Then in the debate last night there was John McCain ready to take anyone on – Russia, China, North Korea, Iran – all of them, and then turned and said Obama didn’t get it. In my view McCain may have sounded more dangerous to voters as he tried so blatantly to make them think Obama wasn’t a safe bet in this very "scary" world."

by DemFromCT
[Daily Kos]

9/28 Daily Kos R2K Tracking Poll: Obama 50, McCain 43

by DemFromCT

Today's Daily Kos Research 2000 tracking poll has Obama up over McCain 50-43. All trackers are data from three days prior to posting, with R2K from today (yesterday) and the others from yesterday. Trackers will start to reflect Friday's debate performance today, but fully reflect it Tuesday.

Obama McCain MoE +/- RV/LV
Today
Research 2000: 50 (49) 43 (43) 3 LV

Yesterday
Diageo/Hotline: 48 (49) 43 (42) 3.2 RV
Rasmussen: 50 (50) 44 (45) 2 LV
Gallup: 49 (48) 44 (45) 2 RV

Yesterday's polling, the first after the debate, was the strongest Obama day picked up by the R2K tracking poll. He led 51-42, and therefore, Obama had a +9 on Sa to go with +5 Th, +7 Fri (MoE +/- 5.1 for individual days.) Sarah Palin's fav/unfav are now -10 (40/50), and Obama is +27 (his improvement is via dropping his unfav to 32.)

Let's include the winner-take-all markets today (with caveats):

Intrade Obama 57.3 McCain 42.0
Rasmussen Obama 57.3 McCain 41.7
Iowa Electronic Market Obama 63.7 McCain 35.9

These all represent improvement from last week, when Obama led ~52-48.

Here's two more insta-polls. First, from MediaCurves, which along with yesterday's insta-poll and focus group summaries show the public (Dems and indies) thought Obama won the debate. Republicans do not matter, at least by themselves (take note, House Republicans.) 57 million people watched the debate.

[...]

One more thing. The Pew poll on foreign intervention, including Iraq, was covered here and was an important part of the debate. Anyone watching CNN (with their live graphs of fav/unfav) saw independent and Dem approval go up when Obama said the war was a mistake, and McCain was wrong about it.

[...]

The talking heads don't get it, but the voters do. The Surge™ is not a winning hand.

USA/Gallup:

"A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows 46% of people who watched Friday night's presidential debate say Democrat Barack Obama did a better job than Republican John McCain; 34% said McCain did better.

Obama scored even better -- 52%-35% -- when debate-watchers were asked which candidate offered the best proposals for change to solve the country’s problems."

Commentary via Ambinder on these insta-polls:

"A Democratic strategist passes along some contemporaneous notes from an instant-response dial group conducted for a major Democratic entity last night.

According to this strategist: whenever Sen. McCain leaned on Obama for being naive and repeated the phrase "Sen. Obama doesn't understand," the tracking lines nosedived.

I suppose that part of the problem was that McCain looked if he had a sharp spur in his shoe, and Obama's performance, whatever you made of it, did not sound naive. So McCain's charges were inconsistent with what viewers were seeing.

Whenever a candidate said "subcommittee," it was a net loser who whomever was saying it, so when McCain attacked, Obama answered and McCain counterpunched, the lines all went down. The lesson: don't use Senate jagon in these debates."

The state of the race is a small but significant Obama lead, just at the margins of twice the MoE in the trackers. Since McCain was unable to put Obama away in his strongest debate topic (foreign policy), and since so much structurally favors Dems, if there are no more shake-ups in the race McCain will likely lose.

There are many opportunities for such a shake-up and the race is far from over. It will take until mid-October (after the third debate) for more certainty.

morning everyone,

hi heath,

D is right your #87 is a very good piece of sophistcated writing filled what your beliefs are as to the Obama, Clinton and McCain crazy presidential race but I do not think your beliefs necessarily reflect the actual truths of the situation, I would differ on many of your points. Your style is great, very intereting.

btw...this non-poetry person....really likes your #105....

I am copying a part of Maureen Dowd's....piece from the nytimes today about Obama and McCain...tited the "Sound but no Fury." I think Barak Obama's inablity to give expression to his, I can only presume he has some, since, he really, has never gotten, even close, to exhibiting them in this campaign, strong feelings, righteous, focused, anger about any subject presented to him.
The situation in this Nation, today, more than any other in our recent history, is ripe for plenty of righteous, focused anger or in the least, powerful expressions of one's feelings as to what one is witnessing around them and to the people they are meeting while traveling this Nation trying to sell oneself as one's leader.

Now, I believe, that Barak Obama has it all over John McCain in character, and political integrity(and the only reason I believe that is because he is still to new to be as politically corrupt as McCain or Bush or even the Clinton's, but I think a term of the Presidency will change that fast, and he will be well on his way to joining the corruption's anonymous org. of washington dc, I am not one who believes that politics will ever be "lily white" and I am not talking race.)

I am not sure why Barak Obama holds back, there could be many reasons, that he doesn't have righteous anger, or strong feelings is not one of them, but for some reason he has completely shut down that aspect of his response system. We know he has the vocabulary to voice those feelings, we just do not get to see the feelings....and I am not talking ....mushy, slubbering, or rageful expressions, I am talking letting people know the heart of your feelings for the Nation you want to serve and protect....the Nation you want to stand upright.....once again.....maybe he needs to undertand that being a President, a leader, is not the same as being a Professor in the land of higher learning where it is all about the sophistication of one's intellectual expression...or where talking out your sass for hours on end is akin to a damned good lecture series.....

anyway this aspect of Obama's personality gives me pause.....a leader is not made with intellect alone.

Dowd's piece...

"Given the past week, the debate should have been a cinch for Obama. But, just as in the primaries, he willfully refuses to accept what debates are about. It’s not a lecture hall; it’s a joust. It’s not how cerebral you are. It’s how visceral you are. You need memorable, sharp, forceful and witty lines.

Even when McCain sneered, “I don’t need any on-the-job training, I’m ready to go at it right now,” Obama didn’t directly respond, but veered off into a story about his father being from Kenya and how he got his name. (Thanks, Barack, we got that from your book. It’s great for a memoir, but not a debate.)

McCain kept painting Obama as naïve, and dangerous, insisting that he “doesn’t quite understand or doesn’t get it.”

Obama should have responded “Senator, I understand perfectly, I’m just saying you’re wrong.”

On the surge, he could have said that McCain was the arsonist who wanted to be praised for the great job he’s doing putting out the fire he started.

When Obama took quiet umbrage at McCain’s attack about troop-funding, he could have pounded the lectern and said with real anger: “John, I am sick and tired of you suggesting that I would take funds away from our brave soldiers. I no more voted for that than you did when you voted against our funding proposals that would have imposed a timetable. And unlike you, I did not vote against funding increases for the troops that have come home with devastating physical and mental injuries.”

And who cares what Henry Kissinger thinks? He was wrong 35 years ago, and it’s only gotten worse since then.

Obama did a poor job of getting under McCain’s skin. Or maybe McCain did an exceptional job of not letting Obama get under his skin. McCain nattered about earmarks and Obama ran out of gas.

We’re left waiting for a knockout debate. On to Palin-Biden.

this is the thing....one has to be able to "get it up" in the world of politics...if one is going to survive.....and I am not talking sex here.

have a great day all, ruth

Re. 120, Ruth

"Even when McCain sneered, “I don’t need any on-the-job training, I’m ready to go at it right now,” Obama didn’t directly respond, but veered off into a story about his father being from Kenya and how he got his name. (Thanks, Barack, we got that from your book. It’s great for a memoir, but not a debate.)"

heath got it right in #87. Maureen Dowd doesn't. Debates are for not the already converted. Millions of people (unlike pundits like Dowd, and people like you am me) are for the first time tuning in to hear to Obama.

"By the way, did you catch Obama's bit about his father trying to come to the US for his higher education, right at the end? In those few lines, Obama said about 27 different things and made some extremely solid points about this country, where it needs to go, about his own family history and character, and about his unwillingness to allow a Republican snow job to happen a third time in succession." ~hetah #87

The focus groups and instant polls of nonpartisans and undecideds showed that McCain lost points each time he attacked Obama, and said Obama doesn't get it.

The biggest challenge for Obama is that a lot of Americans see him as a scary black guy. He can't afford to be angry...it is a thin line between passion and anger. Michelle Obama learned her lesson.

Here's an intersting observation by Markos:

"I've been pondering those snap polls, both of which showed Obama winning tonight's debate handily. I just never would've predicted that. In fact, I've given up trying to predict how the public will react to certain things. Remember McCain's acceptance speech at the RNC convention? I thought it was dreadful, but polling suggested people loved it.

On the merits, the debate was more of a draw, so that doesn't explain the results. I wonder if there was something else at play. It was like people WANTED to like the black guy but weren't sure.

And tonight reassured them, given his calm poise and wry humor, that Barack Obama was more like Will Smith than Wesley Snipes."

Also see Dailty Poll comment #119

Heather was right when she said during the primaries that Hillary is more like RFK (passionate) and not Obama that some pundits made comparisons with. His political coalation and views were more like RFK, but personality wise he is more like JFK (thinker type) than RFK.

BTW there are two more debates, and when people become more comfortable with Obama, he can perhaps afford to show his righteous anger. but the biggest challenge for me right now is to fight the GOP's (very successful) attempts all along in framing him as a scary guy.

Pundits are often out of touch, here's something from an ordinary person, to get a sense of challenge faced by an Obama candidacy, and why the debate performance was a success:

"The Pundits - some on this site included - tried to score the debate like a boxing match. They totally missed the boat. This wasn't about who played more offense or defense. This wasn't about whether McCain or Obama landed more zingers. This wasn't about Obama agreeing with McCain too many times. This was about a single night undoing the efforts of the Republican smear machine these past several months. This was about a single night where the American people saw Obama with their own eyes, listened to the man with their own ears, and realized that he wasn't the monster the right-wing made him out to be. That he seemed.... "presidential".

There’s a certain, pervasive, cultural racism working in places like rural Pennsylvania. My hometown was the only northern town burned by the Confederates during the civil war, but if you drive through Chambersburg, you will see people waving that flag like it’s there own. Last time I checked, there’s a guy up on Main Street in Fayetteville who flies one flag outside of his house: He doesn’t fly the American flag. He doesn’t fly the Pennsylvania state flag. He flies old Dixie. Some days, when I’m back home, and I drive past his house, I want to stop, knock on his door, and remind him that where he lives, what year it is, and that he might think of moving further south.

Back in 1992, we had a local runner named Steve Spence make it to the Olympics. NBC nightly news did a story on Spence and Chambersburg, where they showed pictures of old women glaring, suspiciously, out of their windows at the media crews following the runner on his daily route. As the news described it, Chambersburg was not really the type of place that took too kindly to outsiders. The town has gradually become less insular over the past two decades, but still remains a place that is long on routine and tradition, and short on change. Don’t get me wrong. My hometown is a damn fine place. And it was a great place to grow up. Houses are affordable. Local schools are pretty good. The town is steeped in history. And the place is surrounded by some of the most beautiful state forest land I’ve ever seen. But it’s a small town. And a very blue-collar town. It’s a conservative place, and most residents there consistently vote Republican. And working in the background is this subtle racist malaise. The Confederate flags. Old people who use the word "colored". Guys in the factory cracking racist jokes.

As you might be able to guess, my town is the sort of place where the right-wing smear machine gets quite a bit of mileage out of its lies, race-baiting, and attack ads. Folks stand outside the gas station talking about "Osama Obama", and how he’s really some "secret Muslim" who was actually born in Indonesia, or Africa, or some other far off place. Just this afternoon, my little brother told me about all the anti-Obama ads that have been running in Pennsylvania. If we take the McCain campaign and the Republican Party at their word, Obama is any or all of the following:

(1) An empty suit
(2) An outsider
(3) An extremist
(4) An elitist
(5) A radical
(6) A secret Muslim
(7) A radical Christian adherent to Black Liberation Theology
(8) An inexperienced novice who has no foreign policy credentials
(9) The riskier choice for president

In all fairness, they have done a good job of defining Obama and scaring lots of folks into supporting Senator McCain. Try as they might, however, they could not avoid the inevitable. Last night, millions of American people tuned in to watch the debates. Last night, millions of American people saw Senator Obama with their own eyes and listened to him with their own ears. Last night, millions of people realized that Barack Obama was nothing like the sinister, radical, terrorist-fist-jabbing, empty suit that Fox News and co. made him out to be.

"You know what, he didn’t seem like a radical to me. He seemed real intelligent. Real calm. Like he thought everything through, made careful decisions. And we need that. What, after eight years where it wasn’t sure if this president ever made a careful, intelligent decision." My buddy’s dad, Jeff, is a republican-leaning independent. He voted for Clinton once. He wasn’t happy with Bush. And he liked the old McCain, but thinks the new McCain isn’t "talking sense". Sure, he had some doubts about Obama. He wondered if he was really a radical, an elitist, or a risky choice. But after last night, those doubts seemed largely erased, "He looked real comfortable up there, answering questions. Really in command." I joke with him, "Hey Jeff, you want an Obama sign for the front yard?" He laughs, and says, "I like the guy, and I’m voting for him, but I’ll have to pass on the sign." He admits that he isn’t completely comfortable with the idea of everyone knowing that he supports Senator Obama. "You know, you’ve got to deal with stuff like stuff like people callin’ him Osama. People sayin’ how he’s secretly a Muslim. I mean, that’s a bunch a crap I don’t feel like dealing with. That has nothing to do with jobs, with the economy, with our kids’ education. But it makes you feel... uncomfortable, you know. When you’re the only one supporting Obama.... I mean... as far as I know." His neighbors have McCain signs. He doesn’t want to make waves.

We talked for a good half an hour today. About everything. The new job I might take. How he saw my little brother a few weeks back, and couldn’t believe how big he’d gotten. Whether or not he’d get to retire before he got too old to enjoy it. And politics. An old professor of mine used to say that personal experience and anecdotal evidence counts for nothing, at least not when you’re trying to be scientific about something. So in the end, that’s all this is. One phone call, and one conversation that I had with one 58 year old man, and old friend of mine, from a small town in Pennsylvania. But from that conversation, one thing about last night’s debate has become abundantly clear to me: Obama won, and Obama won big. In trying to score the debate like a boxing match, the pundits got it wrong. Of course, they want to call it a 71-71 draw. Of course they want to talk about who played offense and who played defense. Of course they want to break down every second those 90 minutes. Of course they want the horserace. But David Gregory and Pat Buchanan don’t have their fingers on the pulse of the heartland. They have no idea what the people are thinking in Pennsylvania or Virginia or Indiana. But I do, damn it. Because that’s where I’m from. Because at any given point in time, I can pick up the phone, call back home, and say, "Hey, what are folks saying about the campaign? What are they saying up at the gas station in Fayetteville about the debate? What do you hear down at the coffee house on the square?" And today, I did just that. I called home. I called the family. I called some friends. And I hear tell that Obama won, and won big. That he "doesn’t seem scary at all", that he "looked real good up there", that he – in the words of one old lady at the coffeehouse – "seems like such a nice, intelligent young man".

Jeff knows I volunteer on the campaign, and he knows I’ve been a staunch Obama supporter from the outset, so maybe he was just yanking my chain when he said, "I’ll give you one word to describe the way that man struck me last night. Presidential." I just laughed, and said, "You sure you don’t want that sign, buddy."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/27/232646/816/296/612965

You know there was a curious comment from McCain himself and his campaign when Obama spoke about Palin's VP pick (actually he was very generous to her.) an this was in response to the lipstick-gate...McCain said (paraphrase) "Obama choose his words very *carefully*...he was *disrespectful* to Palin.) That was a dog whistle...a black man disrespecting a white lady. These attitudes are ingrained in the south...

And I observed, curiously McCain campaign adviser said, post debate...said (twice) that McCain has been "respectful" to Obama in the debate, with out being provoked about McCain's attitude in the debate...

"but the biggest challenge for me right now is to fight the GOP's (very successful) attempts all along in framing him as a scary guy." #121, me

Freudian slip: challenge for "Obama"

Here's a passionate diary on the subject, please read:

NYTimes, "Uppity Nig**rs" and the destruction of Black Wall Street

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/24/53224/2400

Barack Obama, John McCain and the Language of Race
EDITORIAL OBSERVER
Brent Staples
NY Times

[...]

"Forms of eloquence and assertiveness that were viewed as laudable among whites were seen as positively mutinous when practiced by people of color. As such, black men and women who looked white people squarely in the eye — and argued with them about things that mattered — were declared a threat to the racial order and persecuted whenever possible.

This obsession with black subservience was based in nostalgia for slavery. No sane person would openly express such a sentiment today. But the discomfort with certain forms of black assertiveness is too deeply rooted in the national psyche — and the national language — to just disappear. It has been a persistent theme in the public discourse since Barack Obama became a plausible candidate for the presidency.

A blatant example surfaced earlier this month, when a Georgia Republican, Representative Lynn Westmoreland, described the Obamas as “uppity” in response to a reporter’s question. Mr. Westmoreland, who actually stood by the term when given a chance to retreat, later tried to excuse himself by saying that the dictionary definition carried no racial meaning. That seems implausible. Mr. Westmoreland is from the South, where the vernacular meaning of the word has always been clear.

The Jim Crow South institutionalized racial paternalism in its newspapers, which typically denied black adults the courtesy titles of Mr. and Mrs. — and reduced them to children by calling them by first names only. Representative Geoff Davis, Republican of Kentucky, succumbed to the old language earlier this year when describing what he viewed as Mr. Obama’s lack of preparedness to handle nuclear policy. “That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button,” he said.

In the Old South, black men and women who were competent, confident speakers on matters of importance were termed “disrespectful,” the implication being that all good Negroes bowed, scraped, grinned and deferred to their white betters.

In what is probably a harbinger of things to come, the McCain campaign has already run a commercial that carries a similar intimation, accusing Mr. Obama of being “disrespectful” to Sarah Palin. The argument is muted, but its racial antecedents are very clear.

The throwback references that have surfaced in the campaign suggest that Republicans are fighting on racial grounds, even when express references to race are not evident. In a replay of elections past, the G.O.P. will try to leverage racial ghosts and fears without getting its hands visibly dirty. The Democrats try to parry in customary ways.

Mr. Obama seems to understand that he is always an utterance away from a statement — or a phrase — that could transform him in a campaign ad from the affable, rational and racially ambiguous candidate into the archetypical angry black man who scares off the white vote. His caution is evident from the way he sifts and searches the language as he speaks, stepping around words that might push him into the danger zone.

These maneuvers are often painful to watch. The troubling part is that they are necessary."

"Mr. Obama seems to understand that he is always an utterance away from a statement — or a phrase — that could transform him in a campaign ad from the affable, rational and racially ambiguous candidate into the archetypical angry black man who scares off the white vote. His caution is evident from the way he sifts and searches the language as he speaks, stepping around words that might push him into the danger zone.

These maneuvers are often painful to watch. The troubling part is that they are necessary."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/opinion/22observer.html

the dina from zona kept saying how 'bama doesn't get it...in other words, this black dude is too stpid to run an efficient government..

well ole fart..if you are all that, that much smarter, how come you neva saw a george bush proposal u didn't like? after all, u voted with him almost 100% of the times...

how come, if ur judgement is that superior, u voted to take this country into this insane war that has cost so many lives, blew nearly a trillion dollars of our money and nothing to show for it and created a whole bunch of new enemies? some smart dude u are, dino!

dude, u and ur party have wrecked this country...just go to hell!

Here's another anecdotal evidence:

"I spoke with my father back in Ohio this afternoon. He is a lifelong Republican, though no fan of George Bush. While he could not bring himself to vote for Senator Kerry in 2004, he refused to vote to re-elect Dubya.

Four years on, he has joined the legion of disillusioned Republicans. He simply cannot abide John McCain, and over the course of the year, as he and I have discussed this election and this time in history, he has slowly come around to the Obama side. It was just last week that he surprised me by confiding that he'd decided to vote for Barack.

Today, he told me something that I think captured the essence of what Obama achieved last night. My father told me "I told you last week that I had decided to vote for your man, Obama, but after watching last night's debate, I finally feel completely at ease with that decision."

That's what Obama accomplished last night. He made independents and likely even untold disillusioned Republicans feel at ease. That, to me, is the game clincher."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/27/21377/3686/376/612885

Hi Scott,

well, you have a lot of information from the blog-o-sphere at your ready.....you must be a very energetic reader or you are a professional something or other.....

frankly, when I am having conversations, discussion, with friends, family, co-workers about the state of affairs in our Nation.....there is plenty of feeling involved, plenty of responses that are intelligent, powerful and focused as to what they are experiencing in their lives and to the lives of their fellow citizens and family members.....

so, if, your ordinary American citizen can express themselves with intelligent observations and questions delivered with the emotional urgency and importance that they are, in fact, witnessing and experiencing I do not think it is too much to ask of a Presidential Candidate to be able to express himself as effectively.....in any forum.....

He is, just like I and my fellow American citizens, are, facing serious and dire circumstances and I would think his answers and observations would actually reflect that...instead, I sense an air of emotional removal.....where there shouldn't be, where there needs to be "the connection," that is necessary to deliver us fellow Amerians from these difficult and dire circumstances....

Now, we know, that John McCain is removed, he is not in our court....he has bigger fish to fry...corporate America.....so we minnows need Barak Obama and we need him to dig is sass deeper and show Americans that he is more than Professor Barak Obama....he needs to express and expose his inner warrior.....he may, in fact, win without it but for sure his Presidency, if elected, will demand it of him. There was no question as to HC's inner warrior, imo, but I have and still question if Barak Obama has even made an introduction to his....

the stuff needed to succeed in the academic world is completely different than what is needed to succeed in the world of politics, in the world of government, in the world of "special interests," whether we like it or not......it is dog eat dog and always has been, it is not about to change this election.......

so like a lot of "spiritual spokepersons" they can make one feel better, in fact, inspire, give comfort which in an of itself is nothing to dismiss as unnecessary or important to peoples quality of life.....but what they cannot do, do not have the ability to do, is actually change the framework of one's perception, to actually, with skill and insight move a person to enlightenments doorstep......

So, even ,if Barak Obama is a political "feel good guy".....but does not have the ability to really move a government filled with special interest dogs(actually, I think HC would have that same problem also is she were elected, the republicans are a tough nut to crack without the help of a lot of ordinary Americans demanding it)....it will still be better than a McCain/Palin ticket.....

have a great day, ruth

Obama on the bailout deal:

“The breakthrough between Congress and the Administration is the culmination of a sorry period in our history, in which reckless speculation and greed on Wall Street and lax oversight from Washington led to a meltdown of our financial markets. But regardless of how we got here, a failure to deal with the current crisis would have devastating consequences for our economy, costing millions of Americans their jobs and retirement security.

“To understand how this tentative deal was reached, it's important to remember how this all began. The Bush Administration initially asked for a blank check to respond to this problem, which I strongly opposed. It would have been unconscionable to expect the American people to hand this Administration or any Administration a $700 billion check with no conditions and no oversight when a lack of oversight in Washington and on Wall Street is exactly what got us into this mess. If the American people are being asked to pay for the solution to this crisis, their tax dollars must be protected.

“That is why over the past ten days, in conversations with the President, Secretary of Treasury and leaders of Congress, I laid out the four core principles I believed had to guide any solution: oversight by an independent board; protections for taxpayers to ensure that they are treated like investors and that they receive any profits - and recoup any losses - from this plan; measures to help homeowners stay in their homes; and rules to make sure CEOs are not being rewarded at taxpayers' expense. While I look forward to reviewing the language of the legislation, it appears that the tentative deal embraces these principles.

“When taxpayers are asked to take such an extraordinary step because of the irresponsibility of a relative few, it is not a cause for celebration. But this step is necessary. Now Washington has to show the same sense of urgency in dealing with the crisis facing Main Street and the middle class by passing an emergency economic stimulus plan that would create jobs by rebuilding our crumbing roads; shore up flagging state budgets to prevent drastic cuts in education and health care; and extend expiring unemployment insurance benefits for those who've lost their jobs in this downturn and cannot find new ones.

“One final point. If elected President, I will order a thorough review of this plan to make sure that it fully lives up to the principles I've laid out. And I will also move quickly to upgrade our financial regulations for the 21st century, establishing new rules of the road and tougher oversight to ensure that the American taxpayers are never again forced to put their money and their futures at risk because of bad decisions in Washington and on Wall Street.”

“the dina from zona kept saying how 'bama doesn't get it...in other words, this black dude is too stpid to run an efficient government”.

So true, Diablo, how many more times do we have to hear?

Senator Obama just doesn’t get it!
Senator Obama just does not get it!
Senator Obama just does not get it!

But we do, John! You are all about sound bites and talking points. You hope we are too stupid to see it that way and keep repeating ad nauseam.

Hopefully the media will not repeat it endlessly this time?

Excellent article on McCain:

SuperMcCain

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/28/113240/125/410/609800

Couple of excerpts:

"Americans love their heroes. In a class of their own, they represent what humans can be in their moments of greatness. So it must be quite perplexing for the John McCain campaign when they see that America isn't embracing the Great American Hero with open arms into the White House."

...

"The prisoner of war has become a prisoner of politics as usual, so terrified of losing a campaign that he has handcuffed himself to a Rovian world where lies are effortlessly passed off as truth and where transparent stunts of risk-filled pandering become a staple of the campaign. Whatever integrity and courage that was exhibited in 1973 and that captivated the nation has evaporated, leaving behind the blandness of a politician who has wholeheartedly embraced the distasteful world of Republican politics as usual.

In this world, McCain is the Don Quixote candidate, staggering through the campaign, searching in vain for a moment which will make America see the McCain of old, the one who was revered and cheered as a hero. Seizing upon crisis after crisis--real or manufactured, big or small--he is a single-man cavalry riding a unicorn of bipartisanship, galloping towards the outrage of the day, rescuing his country in the hour of its need and causing the world to gasp and dip its head in awe of his saving leadership.

But America doesn't need saving. It needs stewardship.

It needs not a dramatic "rescue" at a given moment, but a steady management of its affairs by competent and visionary individuals. It needs not a cavalry, but common sense.

Over the next few weeks, McCain will likely persist in his search for his "Bullhorn Moment." There will be more hollow stunts, and more acts of desperation cloaked in the mantle of "political courage" as McCain tries to sell himself as a "hero" once again to the American people. But such "heroism" and drama wear thin on an electorate which has tired of theatrics and which instead thirsts for pragmatism. Even if John McCain eventually stumbles upon his magical "Bullhorn Moment," Americans are so engrossed in the realities which plague this nation and their everyday lives that I doubt America's Knight in Shining Armor will catch their eye at all."

Hi Ruth

I've just read your #120 and we agree that Obama has more integrity but your statement:

"....but I think a term of the Presidency will change that fast and he will be well on his way to joining the corruption's anonymous.org of Washington DC..."

resonates with my feeling all through the debates,
(I missed the very first of it) that Obama, if not naive, then certainly gullable to being intimidated or unduly influenced and manipulated by people who do not have any integrity. It may be innocence on his part, but there is risk there.

If he is the next president and that does happen, I think it will become apparent fairly quickly.
My hope is that the American people will not ignore it as we all did in Bush's first term. At least more of us will be watching more carefully next time.

Have a great day yourself Ruth :)

Bonnie

dear ruth

Tiger has it right in the points he makes, and shares, in #121 and #122.

If you'd ever been on either side of that equation - either giving out racial bias, or being its target - you'd see that right off.

The only reason Obama has to hold back is - right at the moment he'd really let loose, he'd be branded as an angry black and he'd be unfairly smeared nationwide. I was initially pretty ticked off with Dowd's piece. I wondered what game she think's she's playing - she's experienced enough to know exactly what he's up against, and yet she's playing provocateur, instead of supporting how the man is handling himself. Then I thought, hmmmm -- maybe her provocateur position isn't designed to make its apparent targets react differently - maybe it's designed to make ordinary readers take umbrage and define their own views and understanding more clearly for themselves.

Obama makes his points more subtly than coming out spitting fire.

He didn't veer off when he spoke of his father. He made the point that his father looked up to the US, and by making that point he reminded us implicitly that he is a first-generation mix of African and old American stock, that he has no ancient malice or anger towards ordinary Americans, that he considers himself privileged to be American, that he's proud of his father. He addressed the race and background issue without mentioning most of it directly. And he used it to segue back to where the discussion should have been in the first place - how the US has been left in the lurch by its leaders for 8 years, and has pretty much lost its way, especially economically and internationally, and how we can't afford to continue with that, and we need new thinking.

He didn't say much of what he meant directly. But plenty of people got the full message. In his ability to make a point by telling a story that seems related only slightly to the issues, he shows a great deal of human understanding, wisdom, intelligence, skill, and gentle compassion. He knows if you use your brains properly, you never need to pick up a stick, or shout. That's another reason why I've thought he may end up being a possible Lincoln- or FDR-like president. Those men used their communications skills with ordinary people, politicians, career military and government employees and the media, to bridge us through the two toughest times this nation has faced so far. We are perhaps on the edge of the third toughest time. I think Obama has the ability to act with similar skill and focus as our president.

Before the debate, I was sensing dark shadows all around. This was even before the biggest aspects of the financial crisis hit. Everything seemed somber, sober, and it wasn't because of the cool summer or the oncoming autumn. Since the debate, that dark has felt less dark. There's still a fog out there, but the light is brighter. I now have real hope that by working together, with Obama as our leader, we can do right by ourselves, our dreams, the rest of the world and its dreams. I feel this in my gut.

I was very wary of how Obama would handle himself in the debate. It was a test of character, as were the weeks and pressures leading up to it. He did good. McCain did not do good.

Btw, if my writing seems sophisticated, it isn't. It's springing from my gut, just like my sense Obama will be a good president for us. If my comments create a reaction in you, you're reacting to my visceral take on this political situation, not my words themselves. The words, their order and what they say, are entirely driven by a deep impulse to speak my mind about my sense that this is a good time to elect a man like Obama, and he will be good to and for us, and for the rest of the world, too.

And I think most of the rest of the world recognizes his quality, too, and has for some time, and they are all rooting for us to do the right thing and let him lead us.

love, h

dear ruth

Re your #128 - Obama doesn't make me feel good with his words. I feel good about him as prez because I think he can do the job.

dear Bonnie

I don't think Obama's naive at all. I think he's caring, and he's smart. I think he's strong enough to hold back on expressing his inner fire. Lots of people can feel it, though.

dear everyone

If you've never been the victim of racial bias, you may be missing a lot of what informs Obama's public style. If so, try turning off listening to your own mind head and others' words, and instead starting to observe (not think about, just watch) body language, timing, message focus - and think of playing chess, too. If you do these things for a few days, I think you will start to get the parts of Obama you may be missing currently (if you've never experienced bias).

love, h

Bush is an idiot, a better comparison of an Obama presidency would be Bill Clinton's first term.

If you think Obama is politically 'naive' then you guys have known little about Obama's politics and views which are progressive and pragmatic. Bush's 2000 campaign was not his idea, he was the establishment candidate. Obama's campaign is his. Bush doesn't have the same experience as Obama. Obama is largely a self-made politician, but not influenced by corruption and bad ideology. Harvard or Chicago didn't change him and there is no reason to believe White House would change him.

Look at how he runs his campaign, he can easily run a White House better than Bush, and have better advisers and make better decisions. Of course, people will always be there to keep an eye, and public opinion and activism will give Obama the needed consensus which makes it easier to push back against anti-populist and special interest agenda, without which a president's hands will be tied, against the easily influencible lawmakers. We need a progressive majority, not just the presidency to get lasting change. And Obama's candidacy can ensure that.

But, please don't even compare Obama with Bush, and the current republican leaders with the current democratic leaders. Make no mistake, each have their defects, but there is a huge difference.

very good points, John.

Hi Heath,

you write, "If you'd ever been on either side of that equation - either giving out racial bias, or being its target - you'd see that right off"

actually, I do not agree with that at all in terms of what Dowd is writing or myself for that matter when it comes to Barak Obama seeming to lack a force in his stance that anyone would have talking about the things that deeply concern them. I think it simply goes to his obvious very academic personality.

I also do not think that saying your writing has and element of sophistication was akin to saying it is without gut feeling.

I think being subtle is a wonderful quality in many instances and situations but can be downright wasted in other areas....political debates or questions and answers being one....

Many here in American and around the world feel as strongly as you do about Barak Obama and his character and leadership qualities, I have to say that although I do not go that far in my admiration of him or what he has brought to the actual table, so far, in his political career, I do think he will be far better for this Nation than the alternative choice.

Barak Obama has a very good chance of being our next President so we all may get the chance to experience his leadership qualities my expectations for his performance are not as high as his enthusiastic supporters.

when you write, "He didn't say much of what he meant directly. But plenty of people got the full message. In his ability to make a point by telling a story that seems related only slightly to the issues, he shows a great deal of human understanding, wisdom, intelligence, skill, and gentle compassion."..................I don't agree with you there, maybe, in a classroom that is good, but, for the most part, your average working class American will just get a bit inpatient with the "wisdom by storytelling" examples usuage instead of just being able to answers to their questions simply and to the point. Frankly, I feel Americans are looking for a strong leader, not a strong lecturer, which, imo, Barak does to much of when expressing his views and that really may be the real problem with his coming off as "sound without fury."

Hi, Bonnie.... it will be interesting to see how much Washington DC will be changed by a Barak Obama Presidency and how much Barak Obama will be changed by Washington DC......

interesting points everyone....November 4th is ever closer....ruth

Hi heath

Way back when the campaign season started, I suggested that people turn off the sound of the TV and just watch, so I have been doing that all along. I also no longer read nor listen to what the pundits say. I'm just not interested in all the competition or conflict they seem to engage in. So what I'm saying comes from my own internal assessment.

When I say Obama seems naive, I don't mean politically. I don't think he is politically naive at all. It is on a more personal level and perhaps a better way to say it is that he seems to me to be innocently gullible. Which means to me that he could be unduly influenced. I am not saying he will be but that there is a risk. And I say that because it's my gut feeling that the inner fire you sense does not seem to burn as brightly as it did when he first embarked on this
campaign.

That said, he is so much more emotionally balanced and undisturbed than McCain, there's no contest. He's got the potential. We will just have to wait as to whether or not that will be actualized.

b

dear ruth

I wasn't clear - what I meant is that there's absolutely no sophistication in my writing, it all comes from the gut.

dear Bonnie

I remember that.

Your idea about personal gullibility is interesting. Is there a possibility that he's willing to give others the benefit of the doubt, while watching to see what they really do? I'm a Leo with b'day a day from his, and a lot of people think I'm personally naive in the way you describe. But I just assume people are what they say they are to start with, and if time proves them to be liars, I step back from them. Because such people have assumed I've been being gullible all along, my stepping back always takes them by surprise -- it's only then that they realize I've seen things with clear eyes all along. If that part of his personality is anything like mine, I have no worries, he'll always see reality and act on it when he has to.

I sense his fire is hotter. It was brighter at the beginning. Now it's banked, and the coals that are its source are hotter. I can feel the heat. The light isn't as bright, but the fire is there. Sez my gut. :)

love, h

ABSOLUTELY NO TO WALL ST. BAILOUT!

IT'S ECONOMIC & POLITICAL SUICIDE!

We are our own leaders. I vote for Heath!

CAVING IN TO THE DOOM AND GLOOM CRAP TO BAILOUT WALL ST. FATCATS WILL BE ANOTHER UNWELCOME VICTORY FOR THE IDIOT WHO LIED HIS WAY INTO WAR! SHAME ON ALL DEMS WHO FALL INTO HIS UGLY, SLIMY TRAP, AGAIN...'BAMA WILL PAY A HEAVY PRICE IF HE GOES ALONG! U JUST WAIT AND SEE!

their words
like whispers
their faces fuzzy
unclear
from my tiny boat
in this water
so big i can't quite make it out
i hear the drums of politics
pulsing through the very heart of our globe
ripples reach my sleepy bow
a gentle tapping on the wood
i will save the world for you
i will save the world
for you
but i am drifting
watching
the storm brings cool relief
my creator resting
cool fresh water
from clouds
passing by so quietly
for their scale
i hear the drums
i watch the light dance
the drums
the light
i dance with the rays
so freely given
so beautiful
so alive
the drums fade
the tapping on my sleepy bow
a mantra soon forgotten
as i drift

derek

yo...doodooman...what up, dude? what floats ur boat?

Yo Diablo

Everything

derek

Yo. I understand yours floats on the power of love there at the Ranch.

peace out it's about that time.....yo

derek

mountain time that is..............

yo...my girl kristy is in love with ur man D...she whistered in my ear last in nite..."I wanna make babies with u." whoa!

that shud be last nite! yo!

yo D man
be down with the ladies
but watch out for the babies...........

she's 20, yo! works as a DJ at a radio station! sweet, sexy voice she has...damn!

it's a country station..i checked it out...she's good! damn! she's already talking about her Halloween costume...she and 4 of her hot girlfiends want to up dress as Jamaican bobsleds? yo!

'bama if u vote for bailout...i'm staying home! dude!

this rescue scam is designed to protect the filthy rich in america, not the working joe, a category bushman finds himself smack in the middle of!

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Several bombings across Baghdad killed 34 people Sunday — the bloodiest day in the capital during this holy month of Ramadan, an Interior Ministry official said.

Johnnie Mac, did u see/hear that?

john macain claims that the country is safer since 9/11! really? how so, john? don't u think u have created more enemies by attacking and killing innocents in iraq? dude, u are too F&^%*^% old...just get lost!

Hi again heath

I guess it takes another Leo to understand that Leo fire that burns hot huh :))

Just took my dogs for a walk down by the river. It is so nice out, I've lost my enthusiasm for politics as the moment.

Taking people on the merits of face value until proven otherwise is a good thing. Obama has shown his arrogance and ego on several occassions though. I think you have witnessed that too.
So, he has a vulnerability. Whether he will continue to base his judgement on that inner fire or become arrogant and officious will depend on how well he can overcome the seduction of the power of being President. I have reservations now because of that vulnerability.

But he's not President yet, so 'nuf said.

love
b

PS: You know that Saturn goes into opposition to Uranus(or something along those lines) exactly on November 4th, so surprises are in order that defy logic. Who knows. :)
Have a great evening.

Hi derek

#144 Nice

I'm with you D! If bama votes 4 bailout he is toast!

peace

Terrorism on American soil. Media afraid to talk about it?

Al Queda does anti-west propaganda in muslim countries, and you have a similar system hear in America too...

Muslim Children Gassed at Dayton Mosque After "Obsession" DVD Hits Ohio
by Chris Rodda

Sun Sep 28, 2008 at 08:50:29 PM PDT

(From the diaries -- kos)

On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West -- the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail -- were distributed by mail in Ohio, a "chemical irritant" was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain's supporters has led to -- Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.

I read the story as reported by the Dayton Daily News, but this was after I had received an email written by a friend of some of the victims of these American terrorists. The matter of fact news report in the Dayton paper didn't come close to conveying the horrific impact of this unthinkable act like the email I had just read, so I asked the email's author for permission to share what they had written. The author was with one of the families from the mosque -- a mother and two of the small children who were in the room that was gassed -- the day after the attack occurred.

"She told me that the gas was sprayed into the room where the babies and children were being kept while their mothers prayed together their Ramadan prayers. Panicked mothers ran for their babies, crying for their children so they could flee from the gas that was burning their eyes and throats and lungs. She grabbed her youngest in her arms and grabbed the hand of her other daughter, moving with the others to exit the building and the irritating substance there.

"The paramedic said the young one was in shock, and gave her oxygen to help her breathe. The child couldn't stop sobbing.

"This didn't happen in some far away place -- but right here in Dayton, and to my friends. Many of the Iraqi refugees were praying together at the Mosque Friday evening. People that I know and love.

"I am hurt and angry. I tell her this is NOT America. She tells me this is not Heaven or Hell -- there are good and bad people everywhere.

"She tells me that her daughters slept with her last night, the little one in her arms and sobbing throughout the night. She tells me she is afraid, and will never return to the mosque, and I wonder what kind of country is this where people have to fear attending their place of worship?

"The children come into the room, and tell me they want to leave America and return to Syria, where they had fled to from Iraq. They say they like me, ... , and other American friends -- but they are too afraid and want to leave. Should a 6 and 7 year old even have to contemplate the safety of their living situation?

"Did the anti-Muslim video circulating in the area have something to do with this incident, or is that just a bizarre coincidence? Who attacks women and children?

"What am I supposed to say to them? My words can't keep them safe from what is nothing less than terrorism, American style. Isn't losing loved ones, their homes, jobs, possessions and homeland enough? Is there no place where they can be safe?

"She didn't want me to leave her tonight, but it was after midnight, and I needed to get home and write this to my friends. Tell me -- tell me -- what am I supposed to say to them?"

When acting as a representative of Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), the 501(c)3 non-profit organization that I work for, I cannot engage in political activities. The distribution of Obsession, however, although a political campaign scheme, clearly crosses over into the mission of MRFF. So, I'm going to make two statements here -- one in my capacity as MRFF's Research Director, and another as an individual whose disgust at the vile campaign tactics of John McCain's supporters completely boiled over when I opened up the email about children being gassed.

My statement as MRFF's Research Director:

The presidential campaign edition of the Obsession DVD, currently being distributed by the Clarion Fund, carries the endorsement of the chair of the counter-terrorism department of the U.S. Naval War College, using the name and authority of an official U.S. military institution not only to validate an attack the religion of Islam, but to influence a political campaign. For these reasons, this endorsement has been included in MRFF's second lawsuit against the Department of Defense, which was filed on September 25 in the Federal District Court in Kansas.

My opinion as an individual and thoroughly appalled human being:

John McCain has a moral obligation to publicly censure the Clarion Fund, the organization that produced Obsession and is distributing the DVDs; to denounce the inflammatory, anti-Muslim message of Obsession; and to do everything in his power to stop any further campaign activities by his supporters that have the potential to incite violence.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/28/203016/697/536/613742

Here's a perspective from a American Muslim kossack:

"I want to thank this community for bringing attention to the Dayton Mosque terrorist incident that has received a media blackout as far as we can tell.

Except for this:
http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/09/27/ddn092608evacweb.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=16

"I am muslim.
I've been muslim all my life.
But for the most part of my life, I shared and grew up in a country that believed in equality, freedom of religion and values that I adopted and remain dear to my heart.

But for the last 8 years, for reasons that I need not enunciate amongst friends, I have grown accustomed to living in a country under constant attack for my religion. Whether itis overt, and like these chemical attacks, or vandalism of mosques or public opposition to building mosques in towns with hundreds of churches and not even one mosque...make no mistake about it, my religion is under attack in America.

Keep in mind, as many of you know, Muslims in america are well assimilated, mainstream moderate people, often times professionals who contribute greatly to the communities in which they live.

But because of Fox News, because of right wing organizations, like the Clarion FUND and their viscious attacks on islam, because of daniel pipes and ohers like him, Islam has been maligned to the extent thathate crime is an acceptable part of the rights tradition. They believe that Muslims are out to destroy America.

No matter the facts, no matter the reality, all that matters is the propaganda they listen to on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, etc....

Cal Thomas editorials are in my local paper virtually every day. The man rants against muslims all the time. And there are many others like him. Michelle Malkin. This Kathleen Parker who has recenltly called for Palins resignation has viciously attacked muslims in the past.

So many of them. And so, the regular people believe this crap, and they believe it is their duty to defend america against this Mortal enemy.

And when attacks like this happen. Nothing much is done, BECAUSE, muslims are ignored by and large. Their situation their suffering EVEN their votes dont seem to matter much.

After all, no body is going out to GET the muslim vote for this election, evn though its a substantial vote.

In this trying time in DAYTON OHIO, I just ask you, my fellow Kossacks, to remember, that we the muslim community has suffered like this many times in the past 8 years. "

The Daily Kos community has raised an incredible $ 100,000 in a single day today, and that too on a Sunday.

(They don't raise money for the presidential campaign. But only for the progressive dem candidates, both in primaries and general elections, running for House and Senate and need the money most in tough races.)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/29/01324/6023/320/613942

Daily Kos fund raising page at ActBlue:

http://www.actblue.com/page/orangetoblue?refcode=SepNewGoalPoll

#158 Yo, Bonnie ;)

You know that we celebrate Guy Fawkes on Nov 5th, of course!

The pundits are doing their thing.

William Kristol: McCain has been much too mundane and conventional with his Palin pick and campaign suspension/resumption. He should try some gimmicks and razzle-dazzle to shake things up. If he doesn't, he'll lose. The fact that people don't buy what McCain is selling is inconceivable.

Michael Barone: The socialist-loving Obama is going to win the election and end life as we know it. And did I ever tell you how much I hate unions?

Nate Silver:

"This lead might not sound like that much, but it's fairly significant: we've been through two conventions and one debate, voters have dug their heels in, and Obama's position in the Electoral College is extremely robust. Trimming away a 4-5 point lead isn't that difficult over the summer months -- in fact, McCain accomplished exactly that in July and August -- but it's a steeper hill to climb after Labor Day. And if anything, our projection may be lowballing Obama slightly, as the aforementioned national tracking data (which incorporates one day of post-debate interviewing) has Obama's lead in the range of 5-8 points; the model will need Obama to hold those numbers for another day or two before it catches up to them."

Fox News:

Analysis: Pressure Builds on Palin Ahead of VP Debate

Pressure is building on Sarah Palin to demonstrate her leadership credentials when she faces off in the vice presidential debate against Washington veteran Joe Biden next week, as Democrats and even some Republicans lob criticism of her latest latest interview performance.

Susan Estrich: I might just be the worst, least insightful pundit out there. But then there's Dick Morris. Anyway, my instincts tell me the debate was a draw. Don't ask me why the polls are all running in Obama's favor; that's just the voters. What do they know?

Boston Globe (Campaign Notebook):

"After a third major TV interview during which her performance was uneven at best, even fellow Republicans are having trouble enthusiastically backing their vice presidential nominee."

Fayetteville Observer (Myron Pitts):

"I used to be in the school that believes the McCain people have kept Palin under too tight control and that she would benefit, and the campaign, too, by being loosed. Let her go for self, this view holds: Sure she’ll make some gaffes, but she would be herself and would fight on through. I no longer subscribe to that view. I thought she could follow the advice, "fake it till you make it." But you have to know a smattering of real information beyond canned soundbites to even credibly fake it."

mlive.com (Susan Demas):

"Did Sarah Palin's nonsensical blathering to Katie Couric successfully lower the bar for her debate that all she needs to do is speak coherently to win?

I'm wondering if the McCain campaign doesn't really mind that conservatives are leaping off the Palin bandwagon in droves. (The piece from a female National Review columnist who used to be Palin's biggest champion and now calls for her to drop out for the good of the country is particularly devastating. As is a curmudgeon's rant that if a Palin presidency "doesn't scare the hell out of you, it should.")

The McCain campaign might not even mind that her poll numbers have plummeted, with only 40 percent saying she's prepared to be president vs. 64 percent for Joe Biden."

Josh Trevino:

"The larger story here is not the debate. Rather, it is the story of which the debate is merely the culminating chapter: the three-week-long implosion of the McCain campaign itself. At the end of the first week of September, that campaign boasted its first lead in the national polls, a surprisingly successful convention, and an energizing vice-presidential nominee. At the end of the last week of September, the lead is gone, the convention is forgotten, and Sarah Palin is more disaster than delight. How this happened demands exploration, and we’ll get to it next."

9/29 Daily Kos R2K Tracking Poll: Obama 51, McCain 42
by DemFromCT

Today's Daily Kos Research 2000 tracking poll has Obama up over McCain 51-42. All trackers are data from three days prior to posting, with R2K numbers from today (yesterday's numbers in parentheses) and the other trackers are from yesterday (previous day's data). LV=likely voter, RV=registered voter.

Today's trackers will have Sat and Sun post-debate data, but will not fully reflect post-debate sentiment until Tuesday. The trackers do, however, include McCain campaign suspension/resumption days.

Obama McCain MoE +/- RV/LV
Today
Research 2000: 51 (50) 42 (43) 3 LV

Yesterday
Rasmussen: 50 (50) 44 (44) 2 LV
Diageo/Hotline: 47 (48) 42 (43) 3.2 RV
Gallup: 50 (49) 42 (44) 2 RV

Times/Bloomberg 49 (48) 42 (43) 4 RV (previous data 1 week ago)

On successive days, Obama was up +7 Fri, +9 Sat and +11 Sun (MoE +/- 5.1 for individual days.) That +11 yesterday (single day polling) was Obama's strongest single day of polling, and is reflective of the debate Friday.

Other internals of note: Sarah Palin's fav/unfav are now – 9. 60+ voters are now only +5 McCain (down from +15 two weeks ago.) Obama now attracts more Dems (88) than McCain attracts Republicans (86), and Obama wins indies 49-41. McCain cannot win with those numbers.

Three of five polls have Obama up by 50% (or, if you prefer, Obama is in the 47-51% range and McCain can't break 45%.) The empirical suggestion is that McCain's "suspension" stunt failed to convince voters of its merits (click link for timeline).

Pundits give way too much credence to the idea that the aggressor in a debate wins. Partisans like aggression, but that is not what independent voters are looking for this year. They want Josiah Bartlett, not Col. Nathan Jessup. In addition to the "Obama won the insta-polls" idea (see Mark Blumenthal for Debate Reaction: What's a Win?), the LA Times/Bloomberg, Gallup and R2K improvements suggest Obama did himself some good; for those who need to see the numbers, they are there for Obama and not McCain.

LA Times/Bloomberg:

"Obama was seen as more "presidential" by 46% of the debate watchers, compared with 33% for McCain.

The difference is even more pronounced among debate watchers who were not firmly committed to a candidate: 44% said they believed Obama looked more presidential, whereas 16% gave McCain the advantage."

The bottom line from Gallup:

"But among the crucial group of independents who watched the debate -- those most likely to actually be swayed by what transpired, Obama won by 10 points, 43% to 33%."

If there's one reason Obama did well, it is, as multiple pundits have noted, the primacy of the economy. [...]

I believe the data reflects not just the debate but McCain's antics in the days preceding the debate, which were economy-centric. And while it's an indirect measure of "reach comfort threshold", Obama's performance did him more good than the already well-known McCain.[...]

Most people's minds were already made up going in, which makes it harder for McCain to catch up. And if you click the Gallup link above, you'll see that despite the right-leaning pundits' claims, Obama held McCain to a draw on foreign policy.

As Nate Silver notes,

"Here's the long and short of it for John McCain: Barack Obama has as large a lead in the election as he's held all year. But there is much less time left on the clock than there was during other Obama periods of strength, such as in February, mid-June or immediately following the Democratic convention. This is a very difficult combination of circumstances for him."

To illustrate that, as well as to demonstrate that this is neither 2000 nor 2004, Charles Franklin from pollster.com was kind enough to update this chart for me, demonstrating the Dem candidate lead this year compared to those prior years:

http://images.dailykos.com/images/user/426/CF02.jpg

One more polling note: Sam Wang has a piece here on the vanishing Bradley effect.

"A hot topic among polling nerds is the "Bradley effect," which occurs when a non-white (usually black) candidate falls short of opinion polls on Election Day when he/she runs against a white candidate. For this reason it has been suggested that support for Obama might be overstated - a hidden bonus for John McCain. Now comes a large-scale empirical study (in preprint form) by Harvard political scientist Dan Hopkins. He finds that since the mid-1990s, the Bradley effect has disappeared. His paper is a must-read."

Overall, these are positive data for Obama going into Thursday's VP debate in St. Louis.

Ed
#164

Would you send me a penny
to bail me out
for Guy's sake?
:)

b

Maureen Dowd Banned

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/288

Maybe it's part of the ongoing McCain war against NY Times for exposing McCain lies: Rick Davis's lobbyist connection of Freddie and Fannie. And their latest expose of McCain's gambling problem, his ties to the Gambling industry.

#167 Bonnie, fine lady;
My God, those pennies are vaporising on Footsie, today! This is weird, as I haven't seemed able to take them and run. Old Pluto has filled my boots with lead, but promised an Alchemist ;)

Keep in touch, for vegetables sake!

Explosive in NYT: John McCain=Capitol Hill's FREDO

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/9/28/73854/5969

"Late September afternoon

inside the grey
of steady rain

the patter-sound
of droplets falling from a tree
on rain-wet streets
this hiss of tires
crows in hiding
calling back and forth
a dog’s faint high-pitched yelp

someplace far away
the closing of a door"

great imagery...& haiku like...

#144
Yo doodle, nice one! Keep drifting ~~ ~~ ~~

shame on democrats who support the idiot and his con job...

they are talking about a crisis but can't define what that crisis is..

shame you nancy pelosi and shame on u barney frank..

u say u are protecting the tax-payer? really?

how the f... are u protecting the tax-payer when u wanna con them out of another trillion dollars and send them deeper into debt?

NO MORE REVOTE...U HEAR! IN DEMOCRACY U MUST ACCEPT THE RESULTS AND MOVE ON OR STOP CALLING IT DEMOCRACY! SHAME ON DEMOCRATS!

No bailout! Yeah baby . . .

Republicans actually stood by their principles, except for McCain of course, and voted NO!

Yeah!

A top Democratic lawmaker said there will be no new debate before Thursday as the House breaks for two days to observe the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

Wow, this all about priorities, is it?

there shud be no revote...period! it's a con job like that weapons thing in iraq...yo!

I think come November what people will remember most is not whether the bailout plan should have been passed or rejected or the reasons for voting to pass it or reject it.....what will be remembered is the feeling they have had in the pit of their stomach, for days, watching and listening to politicians talk politics while hanging a noose over every citizen's savings accounts, investment accounts, and livelihoods....like it is business as usual....and most impotantly "campaign business" as usual.......I think for the majority of working class Americans they will remember how one of their "political Parties" decided to toy with a national crisis instead of offering solutions....I think they will remember most how angry and disappointed they were by this behavior of theirs....and I think they will vote accordingly.

ruth

“there shud be no revote...” Right you are. But “should” unfortunately is not “won’t”!

To many people still think there is such a thing as a free lunch, but even a free lunch is paid for by someone.

It is human nature not to see the real world. “A bailout will fix things”, too many think. But all it will do is delay things.

I hope I am wrong, but chances are there will be some sort of a bailout.

dude...a bailout is a f......bandaid solution...and after six months they will come back to joe taxpayer and beg for another trillion...so where does it all end? put these criminal, greedy bas.... in jail for life..damn!

the republicans got us in this pickle...and now macain wants four more yrs? yeah, right!

9/30 Daily Kos R2K Tracking Poll: Obama 51, McCain 41

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/30/71920/7028/316/614987

john mac..u suck...big...

ur judgement sucks even more! look who u picked as running mate!

and quit talking down to the brother; he's much much smarter that u and btw the word smart does not apply to u and ur mentor that genius bushwacker...

Poll Dancing

derek

I'd love to change the world...............but i don't know what to do

do these kids have any idea???
Rock on guys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv3ZKGMwlb4&feature=related

Ref. 184

Those kids are pretty good Derek!

Kewl

The Ice Man (Canadian Prime Minister Harper) maybe melting, just in time!

Harper plagiarized speech from Aussie PM: Rae
Mike Blanchfield, Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Prime Minister Stephen Harper essentially plagiarized parts of his March 20, 2003, speech in the House of Commons supporting Canada's participation in the invasion of Iraq from one given two days earlier by then-Australian prime minister John Howard, Liberal Bob Rae charged Tuesday.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=6912b3dd-c229-4abb-b268-259aa01d46f0

yo 'bama...

dude...u have lost my vote!

i thought u'd show u have balls to say no to this bailout con job...but u have only shown u have no f...... clue...

so now, how does that make u dif. from the dino fom zona?

sorry dude!

the prob with u f...... politicians is that u are worried about winning an election rather than doing what is right!

how can u then tell the people, "This election is not about me, it's about u?"

Hey Diablo
Would you like to barrow my boat? A little aimless drifting might give you a new perspective.

Imagine nothing in the world having any meaning for a few minutes.

derek

Yo Criag
I did not expect them to be that good.

very kewl

derek

10/1 Daily Kos R2K Tracking Poll: Obama 51 , McCain 41

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/1/73934/0922/280/616032

granpa was a political science prof in Ireland...

he once told me that politicians are some of the best "con artists" on the planet...

is he right?

Hi Diab, let me try :)
They generally mean well to start with. (at Uni.) It's just that politics do not work, are an illusion in themselves. When that starts to dawn on the politician it is too late. He/she is committed, so from then on pretends to be important.......ya get my drift? Granpa took a look, standing back, and got the picture.

With a bail out we will have a recession.
Without a bailout we will have a depression.

What do you want?

Leaders gang up on Harper!

Fierce attacks, moments of humour mark French-language debate

"Mr. Harper's targets are dangerous, not in my opinion but in the opinion of recognized scientists who have been sounding the alarm," said May. "The climate change crisis is the greatest challenge that humanity has ever faced. We have to act, we have to act soon, timing is of the essence, but if Mr. Harper takes us down his path we are on a path to destruction. It is incredibly dangerous ... to wait is too late."

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=838b86f9-e8f2-45c9-a7d8-a0831c05f27a

Harper dangerous even with another minority government: Williams

Labels Conservative leader and Prime Minister of Canada a fraud for breaking written election promises.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams said Wednesday that even another minority Conservative government would be ruinous for Canadians.

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:_RcyiOiFqb8J:www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2008/09/10/williams-harper.html+prime+minister+harper+is+dangerous&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca

Stephen Harper, are you listening?

The official version of the US-led campaign in Afghanistan received a blow today with a leaked report that the British Ambassador in Kabul believes that US strategy is wrong and the war is as good as lost.

http://the-mound-of-sound.blogspot.com/2008/10/afghanistan-already-lost.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/afghanistan/casualties/list.html

Hilarious!
http://bushharper.com/