Month: September 2008

That’s how much Paulson’s plan might cost. That’s a lot of zeros. But, hey, no one said socialism was cheap, did they?

A reader writes:

On his otherwise very thorough website, Obama has no subject heading on his issues page for TAXES, despite the fact that it is the oldest and easiest attack the Republicans make in every election.  Why don’t they address it explicitly?  I’m sure it’s discussed in the context of the economy, etc., but this seems pretty stupid to me.

Me too.

Andrew Romano comments on Obama’s new strategy:

My point here is not to claim that Obama’s misleading attacks are somehow worse than McCain’s. Most of this stuff is child’s play compared to the whole McCain-sponsored "lipstick on a pig" kerfluffle, which I characterized as "idiotic" and "condescending." And I agree with National Journal’s Stuart Taylor, Jr., that the Arizona senator "has lately been leading the race to the bottom" of the barrel. What’s more, Obamans have a point when they say their man has the right to fight fire with fire. It would be political suicide for Obama to allow McCain to keep hitting below the belt without landing a few low blows himself.

But that’s precisely the problem. If you’ll recall, the general-election campaign began with paeans to the "politics of civility" and promises from both candidates that they would "break the partisan gridlock in Washington" once elected. Now, not so much. The shift to polarization and distortion was probably inevitable. But as Peggy Noonan notes in her latest column, "it invites charges of winning bad. And if you win bad in a 50/50 nation, it makes it really hard to govern."

In other words, neither McCain nor Obama should expect to find a helping hand when he "reaches across the aisle" as president. A clenched fist is more like it.

Today Obama released another misleading ad, this one responding to the Born Alive attack ad from a few days ago. Ben Smith explains:

Obama’s response blames the attacks, which comes from an independent group, on McCain, and conflates criticism of McCain’s ads with the abortion attack.

Another legitimate question: does Palin believe that the vice-presidency belongs to both the executive and the legislative branch, as Cheney did? After the Cheney years, finding out what the potential next veep would do with his extreme beliefs about his office’s role is a critical question. But as with all such critical questions, not only will Palin not answer; neither will her spokesmen. Deference is what the people owe her; not questions.

A supporter of US Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama wears a hat during a rally at the Baseball Stadium at Cashman Center in Las Vegas on September 17, 2008. By Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty.

She’s still lying – about everything. But she cannot escape the facts of her fiscal profligacy and pork-barrel insanity.

No Biblical literalist can believe in evolution. So either Sarah Palin does not hold the faith she says she does or she denies one of the core theories of scientific modernity:

Another valley activist, Philip Munger, says that Palin also helped push the evangelical drive to take over the Mat-Su Borough school board. "She wanted to get people who believed in creationism on the board," said Munger, a music composer and teacher. "I bumped into her once after my band played at a graduation ceremony at the Assembly of God. I said, ‘Sarah, how can you believe in creationism — your father’s a science teacher.’ And she said, ‘We don’t have to agree on everything.’

"I pushed her on the earth’s creation, whether it was really less than 7,000 years old and whether dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time. And she said yes, she’d seen images somewhere of dinosaur fossils with human footprints in them."

If you thought Christianism reached its apex under Bush, wait for Palin. She will, of course, lie if asked, depending on the audience. It’s what she does.

Kassia Krozser faults the New York article on book publishing woes for ignoring large sections of the industry.

A reader writes:

I just listened to the video you posted of Palin’s interview on Fox, and what is striking to me isn’t even that she repeats her lie on the bridge but that she betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what an earmark is or what she is accused of lying about:

"If its something that Alaskans really want and support, which at this point they are not willing to support to such an extent that we’ll pay for it ourselves, we better kill the project ’cause we know that the rest of the nation isn’t going to pay for it."

So Palin seems to be admitting here that the reason she eventually opposed the bridge after supporting it is that it was no longer going to be paid by the federal government. She is explicitly saying that Alaskans (and herself) would be fine with the bridge if it were paid by the "rest of the nation." But she still took the money for other projects anyway.

The logic behind it is the direct opposite of McCain’s anti-pork message. I think the best way to think of Palin is as a welfare queen, draining other people’s money in order to enrich Alaskans and get her more votes. As Kinsley put it in his must-read Time column:

Alaska ranks No. 1, year after year, in money it sucks in from Washington. In 2005 (the most recent figures), according to the Tax Foundation, Alaska ranked 18th in federal taxes paid per resident ($5,434) but first in federal spending received per resident ($13,950). Its ratio of federal spending received to federal taxes paid ranks third among the 50 states, and in the absolute amount it receives from Washington over and above the amount it sends to Washington, Alaska ranks No. 1.

And she has the gall to talk about Other People’s Money. All she has done her entire life is take other people’s money. Mainly yours.

(Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty.)

The American Psychological Association votes massively to withdraw from cooperating in any way with the Bush-Cheney torture program.