Paul Krugman: Blizzard of Lies

What does McCain's campaign style, the "blizzard of lies," tell us about how he is likely to govern?:

Blizzard of Lies, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: ...Dishonesty is nothing new in politics. ... But I can’t think of any precedent ... for the blizzard of lies since the Republican convention. The Bush campaign’s lies in 2000 were artful — you needed some grasp of arithmetic to realize that you were being conned. This year, however, the McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute, and repeating these assertions over and over again.

Take the case of the Bridge to Nowhere... Ms. Palin ... was all for the bridge, even though it had already become a national scandal, insisting that she would “not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative.”

Oh, and when she finally did decide to cancel the project, she didn’t righteously reject a handout from Washington: she ... spent it on something else. ... So the whole story of Ms. Palin’s alleged heroic stand against wasteful spending is fiction. ...

And then there’s the claim that Mr. Obama’s use of the ordinary metaphor “putting lipstick on a pig” was a sexist smear, and on and on.

Why do the McCain people think they can get away with this stuff? Well, they’re probably counting on the common practice in the news media of being “balanced” at all costs. You know how it goes: If a politician says that black is white, the news report doesn’t say that he’s wrong, it reports that “some Democrats say” that he’s wrong. Or a grotesque lie from one side is paired with a trivial misstatement from the other, conveying the impression that both sides are equally dirty.

They’re probably also counting on the prevalence of horse-race reporting, so that instead of the story being “McCain campaign lies,” it becomes “Obama on defensive in face of attacks.”

Still, how upset should we be about the McCain campaign’s lies? I mean, politics ain’t beanbag, and all that.

One answer is that the muck being hurled by the McCain campaign is preventing a debate on real issues — on whether the country really wants, for example, to continue the economic policies of the last eight years.

But there’s another answer, which may be even more important: how a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern.

I’m not talking about the theory, often advanced as a defense of horse-race political reporting, that the skills needed to run a winning campaign are the same as those needed to run the country. The contrast between the Bush political team’s ruthless effectiveness and the heckuva job done by the Bush administration is living, breathing, bumbling, ... proof to the contrary.

I’m talking, instead, about the relationship between the character of a campaign and that of the administration that follows. Thus, the deceptive and dishonest 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign provided an all-too-revealing preview of things to come. In fact, my early suspicion that we were being misled about the threat from Iraq came from the way the political tactics being used to sell the war resembled the tactics that had earlier been used to sell the Bush tax cuts.

And now the team that hopes to form the next administration is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class. What does that say about how that team would run the country?

What it says, I’d argue, is that the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse.

Comments

[Winslow R.]

I heard on NPR this morning a reference to 'tribal voting'. If you get confused enough about the issues, or have no clue what the issues even are, you vote for your tribe.

[RW]

Doubtless the usual suspects will assert that Krugman is talking outside his area of expertise and should stick to economics but one would hope by this time that most people realize this is a red herring: The issue is what should a citizen in a free democracy under assault do and Krugman is clearly doing it, crying alarum; the bigger question appears to be are we ready to respond.

Time to wipe the lipstick off the pig: The McCain campaign and its protagonists, McCain and Palin, are liars.

[Richard H. Serlin]

All of this frighteningly shows what an enormous problem the press is.

There are two big problems:

1) So many people in the press think it's their job to be equally nice to both sides, regardless of what the truth is. The goal should be as well as possible to convey important truths in a non-misleading and accurate way. Until there's a change in press culture and morays greatly towards this, there will be serious problems, and the country will be at great risk of making disastrous decisions like they did in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

2) There are enormous positive externalities to serious quality news reporting. Thus, we can greatly increase welfare and efficiency by subsidizing it, for example, with a well constructed program making expenditure on serious investigative reporting tax deductible. Without subsidizing it, corporate organizations will have an extremely strong incentive to only do what maximizes profit which is a great deal of fluff and sensational reporting and very little serious and expensive investigation and analysis. Just look at what's happening at the Los Angeles Times right now.

says...

I once worked with a metallurgist who went to work for a gold company outside a town of 8700 folks in Idaho.

He was elected mayor after a year on the job. He definately was qualified to be president of the USA. Obviously. Gomer !

[Ronald Rutherford]

Elected officials are there to help their constituents. What is so difficult for Libs to understand {I guess} is that she was fiscally responsible with her people's money. If the Federal Government is handing out money, should not a state or City try as hard as they can to get all the money for their constituents?

Hell in Santa Barbara, every council meeting has to talk about how much money they get from the state or Federal. They make decisions based on this instead of what is most efficient. If Libs believed in fairness then what logic is that Republican Mayors and Governors can not receive funds from other sources?

[CBBB]

Ronald Rutherford what the HELL are you talking about?
The big issue with the federal earmark lie given by Sarah Palin is not that she accepted the money from the government but that the Republic campaign has continued to lie by saying that she told the government "thanks but no thanks" in regards to federal money for Alaska.

If Sarah Palin shouldn't be ashamed for accepting federal money for a bridge to nowhere - then why is she constantly lying saying that she refused the offer?

[turquoise]

Mrs. Palin lied in her very first appearance on national television. That’s quite something.

[Sarah]

Elected officials are there to help their constituents.

And I'm sure the town of Wasilla is duly grateful for her 'help', which left them with a debt of some $20 million dollars. That's around $3000 for each man woman and child. Wasilla resident Anne Kilkenny's story is here.

[hari]

If the media is the message - recall who said that and when! - then what's happening in American body politics today is a true reflection of Brad De Long constantly calls for *why can't we have a better (media)*.

Is this a cyclical media problem or is it pernicious, and more a reflection of the power of Plutocracy in America?

In countries like Geermany and Scandinavia generally morality plays a significant role in how serious media runs its business - inspite of tabloid-sheets - and there is what's called accountability to the public for their misdemeanours and whatnots.

For some (good) reason, American media is apparently immune to morality-check?

[Bruce Wilder]

I watched Robert Rubin and Larry Summers on Charlie Rose a couple of nights ago, and there was Robert Rubin going on and on about how important it was to get bipartisan consensus on doing the responsible thing, with regard to the deficit and fiscal policy, etc.

I'm thinking, "does he even know it is an election year?"

I don't know that there's anything you can do with James Carville or Robert Rubin or Larry Summers or Charlie Rose, to wake them up.

I do think the Obama campaign is doing pretty well . . . so far. Palin is subject to the thousand cuts -- mostly deserved, richly deserved -- and all the little lies and betrayals will add up at the end. Palin, the fiscal conservative losing money selling the State's plane to a campaign supporter (if any State ought to provide its governor with a friggin' plane, it is Alaska! Would good sense have a place?) Oh, but wait, Palin didn't like to travel, so she stayed home in the Anchorage suburb of Wasilla , . . . collecting a per diem for staying home (is this a case of not clear on the concept?)

In the end, though, the Democrats are campaigning against the Media as much as they are campaigning against McCain.

There are three (3) Parties in American politics, not two. And, Party number 3 never assumes responsibility for governing: they are the "independents", who rarely pay attention, but arrogantly pronounce "a pox on both your houses".

These American "third Party" independent voters are the objects of solicitation from the likes of Robert Rubin. He knows they hate politics, hate "the partisan bickering" which independents adamantly refused to understand. They dream of a man(?) on a white horse, who stands on principle, and for "principle" will sacrifice all, opposing his own Party and the popular will. (JFK appealed shamelessly to this demographic with Profiles in Courage, the most unrealistic book on politics ever authored by a politician -- surely a category in which it met steep competition)

The principle reasons for this sad state of political affairs being 1.) that neither Party, by itself, can muster a majority; and 2.) that journalists, as a class, are compelled, by law and custom, to become members of this third Party, of disinterested Spectators.

Politics is a team sport, but, in this team sport, win-or-lose is in the hands of players, who refuse to play for either team. As journalists or voters, they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge politics for what it is, a struggle over resources and power. Instead, it must be made into a drama, the drama of "a horse race" and "a horse race" of a drama, so that people, who are fundamentally disinterested in, and ignorant of, politics, can wield power they neither want nor need.

John McCain may well qualify as one of the worst candidates for the Office of the Presidency ever. He's a fool. He's stupid. He's irresponsible, uncooperative, belligerent and tempermentally unstable. What more can one want in a President?

Wait! I have the answer! Advanced age, a history of cancerous malignancies and the bad judgement to pick as his Vice-President an ignorarmus religious bigot.

But, journalists must pretend that they are "neutral" between the two Parties, and, so, they join the Third.

The best scenario for Democrats is an election year, like 1992 and 1996, when there is an actual third Party candidate like Perot. But, this year there is no such person. The Democrats must win an actual majority. And, so the Third Party -- the Independents, including the Journalists -- become a strange sort of enemy. The "Independents" must be defeated, by being persuaded . . . or failing positive persuasion, encouraged to vote randomly, if at all.

I, personally, favor War Against the Media, and I am really glad to see so many in the Left Blogosphere take up the cause of Bob Somerby of Daily Howler fame. The growing conviction that the corporate Media is a genuine threat to effective Democracy must advance, if the Republic is to survive.

But, the fact remains, that a great many political journalists assume the third Party worldview of ignorance and indifference, and provide models for the large number of "independent" voters in the country. And, politicians and their surrogates feel, apparently (from the example of Rubin) compelled to praise "bipartisanship" "in getting (always unspecified) things done".

It become a vicious circle of ignorance begetting ignorance. Any journalist, who actually reported that the Parties had different goals for the country, would risk losing his "neutral" detached, authoritative voice. Thus, the "independ ent voter" is deprived of learning anything about politics. Instead, they learn fourth-hand semiotics from the trivialized errors and omissions of the candidates' public statements. The idea that the two (2) actual political Parties are engaged in a struggle over the distribution of income, and related "social issues", (such as how much [euphemism]sushi[/euphemism] blacks and gays and women amd wage-earning workers must eat and how often -- well, that just escapes their notice, when they are dissecting and parsing and generally distracting.

[Linda]

Speaking of NPR and lipstick on pigs, I was quite pleased that every report I heard from NPR of McCain's accusations regarding the Obama remark included the fact that Obama had used the phrase before, long before Gov. Palin entered the race, before he had the nomination even. Likewise, McCain used the phrase himself last spring, referring to Hillary Clinton's health care plan.

I've also noticed them giving background to the Bridge to Nowhere story and the E-bay plane sale story. How refreshing!

Better yet, I've even seen some background given on the local TV news reports which have a wider audience, I'm sure.

Of course, it wouldn't be so "refreshing" if it wasn't so unusual.

As for how to deal with the "blizzard of lies," it seems to me it requires more than denials, or even dismissal. How about running with Krugman's point that the character of the people telling the lies reflects what the character of their administration will be? How about taking the opportunity to question why the Republican ticket wants to distract attention with school yard bickering over made up affronts? Is that how they plan to handle foreign policy? Could it be that they have no argument for Obama's real point?

[Lafayette]

RHS: Until there's a change in press culture and morays greatly towards this, there will be serious problems, and the country will be at great risk of making disastrous decisions like they did in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

This is a good perception. Or, rather, the way the press perceives "news" is perhaps warped by the exigencies of making profit.

News has exigency and therefore immediacy. News five minutes old, in today's media mangle of 24/24 TV and Internet reporting, requires immediacy. Immediacy precludes any forethought or, worse, the hallmark of good reporting, corroboration and balance of opinion.

We wanted 24/24 hour news, we got it. We've got also, as a consequence, news that is based upon sensational immediacy. "You saw it here first!"

What to do? Create a parallel News Channel based upon objective reporting. The ONC: Objective News Channel.

How? It takes lotsa money at first to get it up and going. But, if it does its job well enough, public subscription could probably make it permanently viable.

Such a channel would not base itself upon a 24/24 format. It would report the news and combine it with expert opinion in debate format. That means, at least an hour per subject with texting questions on-line from the watching public submitted to the debaters. The debaters would never more be than four around the table and nary a politician.

Who are the "expert opinions" and where do they find them? They mostly come from think tanks, government research entities, but also universities and just about anyone who has demonstrated expert opinion by writing a book. Several economics professors have attained national media notoriety as a result -- just as those who are interviewed on American TV.

This last point is essential. If you want a balanced debate on Global Warming, you need experts (both pro and con) on the subject. These people know how to go into the details, where dwells the devil, but also elucidate the essentials of a subject. Ditto Foreign Policy or Economic Policy or whatever subject.

Why will it be a success? Because just such a daily debate program runs on French TV and, it is said, even the highest ranks of government ministers watch it. The mini-format of news items combined with debate needs to be carefully managed, because if over-employed it creates spectator shut-off.

Of course, politicians debate as well. But, the French spectators are so fed up with political waffling, that the politicos don't get all that much credit nowadays.

The French took a lonnnnngggg time to come around to 24/24 news reporting. But, with the advent of terrestrial digital TV (and its 18 channels) it has changed the news media landscape. They altered the format by innovating France's national pastime, debate, into a daily news format.

One news anchorman, a nightly icon for more than 25 years, has already bit the dust.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Not to defend McCain, but Senator Obama is promising to save the Big 3 auto makers, put an impossible number of high tech cars on the road by 2015 (I think that is the year, feel free to fact check) and create 5 million "green" manufacturing jobs, whatever that means. Every visit to Michigan he seems to up his promises.

Exaggerating, spinning or lying?

A pox on both their houses.

[Cyrille]

"If you want a balanced debate on Global Warming, you need experts (both pro and con) on the subject."

Precisely not, and this is the tragedy of the illusion of blanced reporting, so often mentioned by Krugman.
If you have "experts both pro and con" on Global Warming, you are not having a balanced debate at all, since there is pretty much NO honest (I know there are some people recruited by Exxon, usually from a different field actually) expert claiming that there is no warming, and hardly any doubting that man-made warming is the main explanation (not that it matters. Even if we were not the cause, should we not try to mitigate it?).

So having more than 1 per thousand of the time given to denialist is already not balanced. OK, in the US it's close to 50%, but that's because there are so many nuts.

[Andrew Hartman]

I can't wait to read the comments here if McCain wins. It
will also be fun to read Krugman. Can you froth at the mouth
in print?

[Lafayette]

Quacks like a duck

RR: If the Federal Government is handing out money, should not a state or City try as hard as they can to get all the money for their constituents?

When that state already taxes BigOil to extract a mineral resource that belongs to the American people? When oil windfall taxes are a national issue? (McCain does not support them, Obama does. And so do most oil producing nations.)

So, Palin gets it both ways in Alaska - newly become a Nation-state. You may think that serves Alaska's interests, but it doesn't serve America's interests as regards its energy sources, already far too costly.

Oil taxation puts into the pockets of Alaskans $3200 a year ... for doing nothing but breath. How do oil companies recuperate that tax? From jerks in the "lower 48" who are already paying state taxes at the pump.

When's the last time an Alaskan said to you, "Hey, thanks! ... Sucker."

As I mentioned earlier, perhaps in another thread, Alaska's Federal earmarked spending is already more than 70% above the national average. Sarah Palin is not responsible for all of that -- she replaced a Dem Governor. But, she IS responsible for passing a new windfall tax law increasing the taxation of a mineral resource. And, then turning around and increase the handout to Alaskans by $1200.

Yep, she did this all by her little self. Sarah Palin, the tax-and-handout Queen of Alaska.

Typically, mineral resources are considered property of the nation. In America, evidently, they belong to those who sit on them. (Oh, OK, I'll just go sit on Fort Knox. ;^)

Palin takes Alaska to be a nation-state, since (usually) only nations tax the production of oil, considered to be a national resource. So, yes, I guess she IS ready to be PotUS.

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck -- it must be a pig with lipstick ...

[kotzabasis]

Paul Krugman’s “blizzard of lies” turns out to be a summer breeze. His article is a treatise in intellectual disingenuity. Palin never said she did not support the bridge in the beginning in a different political context-which would be a lie-but she rejected it when it was found to be a boondoggle project, which was the truth. And what politician, professor Krugman, would refuse a government “handout” or for that matter your ‘boss’ the NYT refuse an advertisement even in the case of being pro-war, when that is the reality of the ‘game’? And when you say her claim to be against “wasteful spending is a fiction” you fabricate your own fiction as the clear implication of your argument is that the funds she received for the bridge she spent on another wasted project which you don’t IDENTIFY and let it stand as a fairy tale.

And you know very well that it was not an “ordinary metaphor” but a retort of Obama directly aimed at Palin’s metaphor of...pit bull...and therefore related to her (Like mine above, “summer breeze”, which is a retort to yours, “blizzard of lies.), and it was worse than a “sexist smear”, it was a dehumanizing one, if you make an in-depth analysis of Obamas riposte you might have found it to arise unconsciously from the latter’s early origins as a Muslim for whom “pig” denotes the dehumanization of human beings.

In your litany of McCain’s campaign of lies you don’t even provide one example of them. So your fictional lies are covered by your own real lies about McCain and Palin. Lastly, what politician would have continuous 80% support among her electorate if she did a huckava of a job or do you consider the Alaskans to be so stupid?

[cantab]

Krugman accuses republicans of lying to try to convince people to tune them out and not consider their arguments. This tactic should be obvious to all intelligent people.

And no, I did not hear the one about Barak Obama wanting sex education in kindergarten. On his lipstick on a pig comments if anyone can spend 1 minute on the internet and find another speech where he used this metaphor then I’ll accept that there is a chance that the comment was not a result of Palin’s pitbull with lipstick comment. If nobody can find a reference then I think one has to conclude that Obama used it consciencely or it just jumped out in a subliminal way but certainly is was triggered by Palin’s comments.

On the bridge to nowhere, I have a news flash for Krugman – it was never built. The governor cancelled the project because she thought it did not bring value to Alaskans. And of course she kept the money for her state – as governor that’s her job and to do anything else would have been negligent on her part. As Vice president her constituents change from just Alaskans to the entire country.

[Richard A.]

What $700 Billion?

by Charles Peña

In accepting the nomination as the Republican candidate for U.S. president, Sen. John McCain proclaimed that if elected, "We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much." One can't help but wonder what $700 billion the good senator is talking about.

The complete article can be found at --
http://antiwar.com/pena/?articleid=13435

[Lafayette]

About the Oil Windfall Tax Controversy

From the Seattle Times (August 2008): Tax imposed by Carter

The oil industry has long fought windfall-profits taxes. Officials cite a congressional study that indicated a windfall-profits tax imposed by President Carter — and later repealed in the 1980s — appeared to discourage U.S. oil-field development.

"It was a bad idea in the 1980s, and it is an even worse idea today," says an American Petroleum Institute statement on windfall taxes.

The industry's arguments held sway in the U.S. Senate in June, where Republicans defeated a Democratic proposal for a windfall-profits tax that would have raised an estimated $10 billion to $12 billion.

The debate has spilled into the presidential campaign.

Obama supports a federal windfall-profits tax, with the proceeds used to provide rebates of $500 or $1,000 to taxpayers. "Increased domestic oil exploration certainly has its place," Obama said last Monday in Michigan. "But it's not the solution" to America's energy problems, he added.

McCain has blasted the idea, saying it would "increase our dependence on foreign oil and hinder exactly the same kind of domestic exploration and production we need."

In Alaska, the willingness of Republicans to tax the oil industry reflects unusual political developments.

Last year, as part of a major federal corruption investigation, an oil-services executive — former VECO Chairman Bill Allen — pleaded guilty to bribing some state legislators as he sought to limit the size of an oil-tax increase approved in 2006.

In the fall primary of 2006, Palin upset Republican incumbent Gov. Frank Murkowski, whom she criticized for giving too much of a break to the oil industry.

Then last year, Palin introduced a graduated tax pegged to increased oil prices. The state Legislature modified her proposal to increase the state's take even further.

[Alex Tolley]

I was talking about the Palin lies to a McCain supporter friend of mine just a couple of days ago, and he hadn't heard a word about it. On the contrary, he "knew" that Obama was blowing smoke and Biden was attacking McCain and Palin. I don't know whether that was a MSM failure or whether he was just listening to the right-wing echo chamber. If the latter, then no amount of carping about the MSM is going to help change perceptions.

My sense is that the fragmentation of society that is going on will only make "alternative reality" perceptions easier to achieve.

[Laser]

The Obama team and Democrats in general are falling for the McCain/Republican red herring – Palin.

STOP ATTACKING HER, SHE’S A WELL-CONSTRUCTED TRAP!

The bottom line is that the Democrats have stumbled since their convention while McCain has played his losing hand like a card shark. Obama made a mistake picking Biden and he’s made a mistake going after Palin. Democrats need to get back on message before McCain and company steal the “change” mantra entirely.

We need to go after McCain, not his VP. Wait until she really stumbles on the campaign trail or in the debate before going after her. Until then, keep sticking it to the Air Pirate. He’s the weak link on the Republican ticket.

Krugman’s article, and even the comments here, make us look silly talking about Palin this and Palin that… get over her already!

Obama proved in the primaries that you can’t afford to be overly aggressive toward a minority/woman candidate. Obama kept killing Hillary and Bill when they were seen as being too aggressive towards him. Now, he seems to be making the same mistake with Palin.

Attack McCain!

[ken melvin]

Krugman sure brings out the right wing nuts, he does. A sure sign that he's bang on.

Arnold had this set, lights and all, he trucked around with him. He'd set up, do his dog and pony (never answered any questions), pack up and move to the next town. People love glitz and glamor. John McCain hired the guy that managed all this for Arnold. Not being glamorous or an actor, he found himself the 'blond lead singer' for his band.

[ken melvin]

RR, STR, AH, Kotzbaby, ..., do you consider yourselves the 'Truth Squad'?

[swells]

Bruce, there are really good reasons to be an independent, or at least to try to be. For example, in the Political Brain by Drew Weston a study of self-identified democrats and republicans revealed bias in the members of both parties when confronted by inconsistent statements from party leaders and did not show bias when confronted with inconsistent statements by politically neutral figures. Neural imaging during the study went a long way toward explaining the bias as a response to distress at being confronted with information that wasn't consistent with the individuals political gestalt.

This result makes sense in evolutionary terms. We evolved in an environment where group cohesion was so crucial that mechanisms to reject information that would threaten cohesion could actually maximize fitness.

Is that still the case today? Well, one could argue it is but I think you would have an awfully hard time showing how the fitness maximization function would not favor a more objective stance that didn't lead one to dismiss inconsistencies irrespective of the source of the inconsistency.

Bottom line, it's not who says it that's important, it's what is said and evaluating what is said accurately is helped by keeping an arms length distance from the entanglements of group membership that party loyalties give rise.

[kharris]

If there was any doubt that Krugman is right about the effectiveness of the kind of lying he describes, the comments from cantab and whoever it was who declined to offer a name should dispell that doubt. Instead of offering the hypothetical "if anyone could" why not spend the minute and find that, yes indeed, Obama has used that phrase many times before? Two possible answers come to mind. Either the desire to leave the impression that looking is unnecessary ("please don't bother learning the truth"), or a unwillingness to personally learn the truth ("I'm too busy saying Obama insulted Palin to hear the fact that he didn't").

I would like to amplify Krugman's point about this being a distraction from real issues. Distraction from real issues is the intent. Endless debate over prayer in schools and abortion and "librul media" has the advantage of keeping much of the public from having time or energy to think about who is winning and who is losing in US politics. Fighting a war of choice serves the same purpose.

We are at war. Our economy is in bad shape. Real incomes have fallen for the majority of households during the Bush presidency. Our financial sector is imploding and tax payers are being put at risk as a result. Those are issues we should be considering, but if lipstick and Islam can take up all of our time, that's just great for McCain. And it's working. There are comments in this section to prove it.

[Lafayette]

Pray, do tell

kotza: Palin never said she did not support the bridge in the beginning in a different political context - which would be a lie-but she rejected it when it was found to be a boondoggle project, which was the truth.

Truth, me arse. Palin changed her mind after she was elected into office, when she then nixed the bridge.

She took the money and spent it elsewhere, after having told her constituents that she didn't think that "their island was nowhere". If she did not believe this afterwards, why did she believe it (and say it) before? Unless of course ... she was lieing to get elected.

Just what is your mysterious "different political context". Her successful election? Yeah, right.

OK, so the lady is not for lying. She flip-flopped. Not quite as bad as outright lying, I suppose, but not much better either if considered against today's metrics of "political character". Or, is "political character" a genetic attribute of only the Replicants? Is it pre-programmed at birth.

if you make an in-depth analysis of Obamas riposte you might have found it to arise unconsciously from the latter’s early origins as a Muslim for whom “pig” denotes the dehumanization of human beings.

Wow! I'd like to see your arm ... it must be two miles long. You certainly are overreaching for this nonsense.

Obama, in his sleep, so distraught with Palin's nomination, went looking for the Muslim pig metaphor as a rebuttal and, to make its target perfectly unambiguous, put some lipstick on it.

You shouldn't be in this forum. You should be a Hollywood scenario writer with such an eccentric imagination.

This thread demonstrates the massive wave of bullsh*t that is descending upon us in a presidential campaign, the intent of which, likely, is to obfuscate the issues and enhance the character assassination as prime determinate of the winner.

Character assassination is the last refuge of a political party bereft of any cogent idea to propose.

[S. J.]

I'm inclined to believe Obama's "lipstick" statement was purely innocent. Then again there is the stunning display of animosity for white women, directed expressly at Hillary Clinton, by Obama's confidants Father Pfleger and Reverend Wright that complicates the picture.

[ken]

Blizzard of lies?

That was the technique Obama used to win the primary. He used a blizzard of lies accusing the Clintons of racism. It worked just barely good enough. He squeeked by with a narrow win.

Lies work. They seem to be an accepted campaign technique to be used when really needed.

Obama will do it again. He just hasn't discovered what lies will work against McCain. As soon as he does it will be used.

[cantab]

Laser says...

The Obama team and Democrats in general are falling for the McCain/Republican red herring – Palin.

STOP ATTACKING HER, SHE’S A WELL-CONSTRUCTED TRAP!

I doubt that it was actually a well constructed trap but the results are as if it were. The attacks on Sarah Palin have been a distraction and it would be nice if we could get back to the issues. The nation wants change and you get that automatically with a change of administrations so the election should be about which candidate's version of change is the right change according to the individual preferences of the voters.

[anne]

What is bothering is the failure to notice the immediate and continual belittling pounding of Governor Palin after she was chosen as the Vice Presidential candidate. The pounding was unlike anything I have ever been aware of, and from sources that would otherwise have bragged of treating women with respect. Of course these same sources had treated Senator Clinton to a belittling pounding for so many months before, almost to the very moment of Governor Palin's selection, but I was still surprised and saddened and angered.

[RW]

It is not as simple as who gets to claim the mantle of change or hijack the topic of the thread if it comes to that. The real topic and the money quote from Krugman is simply this:

I’m talking, instead, about the relationship between the character of a campaign and that of the administration that follows. Thus, the deceptive and dishonest 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign provided an all-too-revealing preview of things to come. In fact, my early suspicion that we were being misled about the threat from Iraq came from the way the political tactics being used to sell the war resembled the tactics that had earlier been used to sell the Bush tax cuts.

Just as we did before we are getting a clear preview of how McCain/Palin will approach governance vs. how Obama/Biden will approach governance. The differences are rather clearly not confined to differences in policy and anyone who wishes to assert those differences in approach are a mere matter of opinion should be willing to account for how a mere matter of opinion led to the disaster of the last eight years.

It is not just progressives and liberals who will be frothing at the mouth when President Palin, fully exercising the imperial presidential powers she inherited from the previous administration after the unfortunate early demise of her beloved running mate, honors his memory and removes all social spending from her budget while doubling military expenditures to support the unilaterally initiated war on Iran and Russia.

Think that's hyperbole? Then you haven't really paid attention to the history of either McCain or Palin.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/us/politics/12obama.html?hp&pagewanted=print

September 12, 2008

Obama Plans Sharper Tone as Party Frets
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY

Barack Obama is planning more forceful attacks and new TV ads as he confronts an invigorated Republican ticket.

[I thought the attacks were too forceful already, and keep on waiting for, say, discussion of foreign policy issues that are not more hawkish than those of President Bush or universal health care insurance plans that make nearly as much sense as those of Massachusetts. I am waiting for policy development, not more forceful attacks on Governor Palin.]

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/opinion/12krugman.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

September 12, 2008

Blizzard of Lies
By PAUL KRUGMAN

"In fact, my early suspicion that we were being misled about the threat from Iraq came from the way the political tactics being used to sell the war resembled the tactics that had earlier been used to sell the Bush tax cuts."

My suspicion that we were being misled about the threat from Iraq came from carefully reading the accounts of the supposed threat in the New York Times, which made clear the supposed threats were actually impossible. I am still astonished that so many leading Democrats or liberals supported war against Iraq, while somehow failing to read the detailed reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency to the Security Council in the New York Times showing threat after threat to be impossible.

[anne]

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/no-laughing-matter/index.html

September 11, 2008

No Laughing Matter
By Judith Warner

"You can stand on my wagon, if you want."

I tend, when I'm not in big crowds, to forget that I'm short. In Republican crowds, I find, I feel particularly small.

And dark. And unsmiling. And uncoiffed, unmade-up and inappropriately dressed.

For the McCain/Palin rally in Fairfax, Va., on Wednesday, the organizers had asked people to wear red. I – unthinkingly – had dressed in blue, which was somewhat isolating.

I was isolated, too, because, unable to find the press area in the crowd of about 15,000, I was out with the "real" people. Which meant that I could hear everything from the podium and from the onlookers around me, but could see nothing, not, at least, until the mom beside me stopped struggling to balance atop her Little Tikes wagon with two toddlers in her arms and another screaming at her feet, and offered me a go at the view.

("It's Sarah. Sarah's going to be the vice president," she had told the little girls, clad in their matching polka dot dresses. "Sarah Palin.")

She was a nice woman. She told me history was in the making. She told me where to get lunch. She handed me back my reporter's notebook when one of her almost-two-year-old twins, fixing me with a dark look of mistrust, took it away. "Liberal media, eh?" her solemn eyes glared. "Well, watch what you say about my mommy and Our Sarah."

Do not think for a moment that I was being paranoid....

[Cyrille]

Anne, stop pretending that the attacks on Palin have anything to do with the fact that she is a woman.
They have everything to do with the fact that she is an apalling choice for a ticket. Stop putting feminism ahead of reason.

[Eric Dewey]

Continually fascinating to me that the comments about the media on this economics blog are generally political complaints that don't mention the underlying economic motivations of the media: to make money by selling headlines to the public, regardless of whether the information in the stories are true or false.

In my untrained economic mind, this is exactly where the classical economics breaks down: it needs to explicitly recognize and address the empirical observation of the commenters which strongly suggest that political demand curves can be moved by deceptive marketing practices in the same way as every other consumer product, and that there the resulting fundamental distortions in the political culture has direct, measurable, structural impacts on the economic state of the nation.

In other words, when enough micro-economic actors fail to recognize lies when they hear them, their resulting decisions tend to significantly undermine both their own micro-economic position and the macro-economic status of their country.

There is a tipping point - and the US may have gone beyond it...

[anne]

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/no-laughing-matter/index.html

September 12, 2008

No Laughing Matter
By Judith Warner

"My daughter asked me, 'Mom, would you do that if you had the opportunity?,'" she recalled, as the six-year-old in question looked on. "I said 'I don't know. Maybe she was born to do that. Maybe that's the sacrifice she has to make to serve her country.'"

The daughter lifted high her hand-painted, flower-adorned Palin sign.

"She'll really be a big step forward for women," the mother said.

No, it wasn't funny, my morning with the hockey and the soccer moms, the homeschooling moms and the book club moms, the joyful moms who brought their children to see history in the making and spun them on the lawn, dancing, when music played. It was sobering. It was serious. It was an education.

"Palin Power" isn't just about making hockey moms feel important. It's not just about giving abortion rights opponents their due. It's also, in obscure ways, about making yearnings come true — deep, inchoate desires about respect and service, hierarchy and family that have somehow been successfully projected onto the figure of this unlikely woman and have stuck....

[Patricia Shannon]

Alex Tolley says...

I was talking about the Palin lies to a McCain supporter friend of mine just a couple of days ago, and he hadn't heard a word about it. On the contrary, he "knew" that Obama was blowing smoke and Biden was attacking McCain and Palin. I don't know whether that was a MSM failure or whether he was just listening to the right-wing echo chamber. If the latter, then no amount of carping about the MSM is going to help change perceptions.

True. I don't listen to radio stations that run programs by people such as Rash Limburger, because then I would be supporting (indirectly) these lying scumbags, whose rhetoric puts me at risk in various ways from those who believe them. Those who profit from this garbage bleat about "censorship" at suggestions that we boycott enemy media, which is nonsense. I'm not advocating making them illegal. (The same would apply to TV stations, of course, but I seldom watch TV).

Liberals need to learn that being firm is not being mean.

[anne]

Who could have imagined 15,000 people coming to listen to John McCain in Virginia, were this a month ago, no matter the regard for McCain? Something happened however, and even whether the result is election or none matters minimally. What matters is that McCain met and liked the Governor of Alaska and asked he to run and chose her to run with him for Vice President and all sorts of people, women and men, understood this to be symbolic of respect and even humility could not have been more pleased when the Governor seemed to them empathetic and capable enough for an international news anchor to comment after the convention address that the Republicans has a future Presidential candidate.

Surprised me, that's for sure.

[anne]

I remember when Segolene Royal was running for President of France, and the most conservative friend I have suddenly told our table how much she hoped she might be President. I realized at once, that I hoped so as well.

[Cyrille]

That's completely different. Any sensible person will always prefer Royal to Sarkozy, even though Royal was a rather poor candidate (there were many better qualified women around, but none worked the gossip press as well as Royal -only Sarkozy could trump her in that, and that's probably what made him win). But that's not because she's a woman, just because she would have made a far better (or more precisely a much, much less awful) president.

[Cyrille]

"What matters is that McCain met and liked the Governor of Alaska and asked he to run and chose her to run with him for Vice President and all sorts of people, women and men, understood this to be symbolic of respect and even humility "

Yeah, right. They had met exactly once, months before. It was a purely political choice to strike the nutcase chords while getting the possibility to claim that any criticism was sexism.

Why do you have to turn yourself into a troll so often?

[Lee A. Arnold]

Palin is not ready to take over on national security on Day One. That should be evident to anyone who saw last night's interview by Charles Gibson.

Anybody who puts national security first would not vote this ticket. Several big names in the Republican Party are noticeably quiet about it.

Palin's story on the Bridge to Nowhere appears to be incorrect -- but on its own, the story doesn't matter. The Republicans are aiming at a personal, folksy response from voters, and she energizes enough fundamentalists and picks up enough independents to win the election. They are likely to discount what appears to them to be a mere foible.

If the new North Carolina opinion polls are an indication, the Democrats have lost the south again.

You might be able to make a campaign issue out of general lying in the campaign, and I agree with Krugman there is a case to be made that it is connected to bad governance after the elections. There is a moral failure in the purchase and employment of negative advertising, and, with the advent of the Administration-as-permanent-re-election-campaign, it now propagates beyond cynicism to an intellectual degradation in the understanding and manipulation of information in governance. The Bush administration is a primary example.

Since politicians from both parties are known to lie, it doesn't immediately cause a change in party ID. But if you can connect the lying to the bad governance we are seeing, it might work.

The press too ought to be gutted and displayed for all its stupidity and vulgarity, but it is hardly the cause of our troubles. The real problem is that the entire United States is in intellectual decline.

The election? It could turn around again. McCain's lead bounced in a week to top-off at around 2-1/2 to 3 points, and, with seven weeks to go, there's a scheduled emotional fatigue coming with the man.

The only thing that matters now is the candidates' performances in the first, and perhaps the second, debate. If Obama makes the sale, if he can go in detail through issues domestic and foreign, show how the other side is wrong or lying and how this is connected to their governance, and people decide that he is ready to lead, then he can win the electoral college.

The funniest thing of all is that if McCain wins, the Republican Party isn't going to admire his presidency. "Maverick" means "voting with Democrats." He has traded the future of the Republican Party to people he doesn't vote with, for the chance to be President. Among other astonishing calculations in this election, the fundamentalist Republicans appear to be betting, in return, that the old ticker conks out.

[anne]

No; I wanted a woman President of France and I wanted Royal President of France and I intend to model after her when I am her age, especially on the beach, and I do not care whether she was the best of women for she was enough for me when my friend mentioned that she was enough for her. Not that there have been so many women Presidents of France, but who's counting?

[Cynthia]

Noam Chomsky is somewhat right in saying "the choice between Democrat vs Republican is about the same as the choice between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola, not much to get hot and bothered about." But he's far from right this time around...

Unless you're profitting mightily from the war machine, unless you're at the very top of the fiscal food chain, or unless you believe public policy should be shaped by what the Holy Scripture says, instead of by what the US Constitution says, you'd have to be out of your mind not to be hot and bothered if the GOP retains the White House!

After all, about the only thing America gains by having a mammoth war machine is a runaway debt. About the only thing America gains by having a fiscal food chain skewed towards the top is a huge gaping hole between rich and poor. And about the only thing America gains by having public policies shaped by the Holy Scripture is a theocratic police state!

[John V]

What bothers me about Krugman's political rants is not that there isn't truth to them but rather that he is so one-sided about it. He combs through statements/glosses them over leniently depending on who is talking about to forward his agenda. We all know this...or at least we should. Krugman may be a good economist when he leaves politics aside but when it comes to matters like this, he is no different than any other partisan journalist/pundit who filters what he reads to reach and affirm foregone conclusions.

Krugman would be much more interesting to read if stayed above the fray and remained true to his economist credentials and simply lambasted both Obama and McCain at any whiff of impropriety, sophism, equivocation, embellishment, double talk or outright falsehood. But he doesn't do this.

Rather than illuminating his readers by judging both candidates to a high economic standard based on his area expertise, he simply behaves like his readers and nobody learns anything other than that partisanship is like being in love: Objectivity goes out the window for the sake of the prize.

[Lee A. Arnold]

Then you haven't been reading Krugman for very long.

[Ronald Rutherford]

CBBB says...

Ronald Rutherford what the HELL are you talking about?
The big issue with the federal earmark lie given by Sarah Palin is not that she accepted the money from the government but that the Republic campaign has continued to lie by saying that she told the government "thanks but no thanks" in regards to federal money for Alaska.

If Sarah Palin shouldn't be ashamed for accepting federal money for a bridge to nowhere - then why is she constantly lying saying that she refused the offer?
Yes, she is stretching the truth to some degree but be sure and read the exact statements. Also note that she did do her part to stop the so called "Bridge to Nowhere". She decided that her constituents did not fully support spending the extra 230 million more at the time. Thus used the money that the other Porkers from Alaska got {ie Ted Stevens...}.

[Lois]

Anne: I consider myself a feminist, but I feel insulted that anyone would think I would be happy to see a woman president who is opposed to all my views and values. If I had been British I wouldn't have supported the Conservatives just to see Margaret Thatcher become prime minister. Would you?

Bruce: A very informative post; I hadn't thought of Independents and the media in just that way. I will recommend your post to all my friends.

Time to get back to the real issues: the unstable world financial system, the loss of good jobs, the lack of affordable health care, finding new energy sources and global warming to name a few.

[Lies, plain and simple]

Wow, dude, that's a seriously biased interpretation of Palin's bridge stuff. Go read Factcheck.org who says, flat out, she is lying (and not just on this).

Those defendig it are just hacks who can't see past partisan biases, or who are intentionally distorting (and then they try to accuse Krugman of bias to justify their own dishonesty).

You don't have top take Krugman's word, go read any of the various fact checks - the are lying, there is no argument about that (only hackery).

[Ronald Rutherford]

Sarah says...

Elected officials are there to help their constituents.

And I'm sure the town of Wasilla is duly grateful for her 'help', which left them with a debt of some $20 million dollars. That's around $3000 for each man woman and child. Wasilla resident Anne Kilkenny's story is here.I guess they should be grateful since they voted those measures in. I am sure you are using the Liberal Logic of both sides are wrong. If she had refused the will of the people then what would you have said???

You do understand between investing in their community and just non-productive debt. Anchorage put in a convention center and of course took on a lot of debt but since Mark Begich is a Democrat then that is OK. The citizens passed a hotel bed tax to pay for most of this bond measure. Seems reasonable to me as long as we use the same standards.

[Lee A. Arnold]

And then occasionally they tell the truth -- McCain's economic advisor, Douglas Hotz-Eakin, says that Obama's plan would reduce taxes for most people, and that the next President is going to have to raise taxes "whether you're a Republican, [or] a Democrat..."

The McCain Tax Increases, Continued
by Joe Klein, September 12
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/09/the_mccain_tax_increasescontin.html

[James]

Why not? We seem to be having a Blizzard of Bailouts. Now JPM is reported to be in 'advanced talks' to buy Washington Mutual. Don't use bailout, no public money will be involved in any of the deals. :)

Could be a deals traffic jam before the markets open in Asia on Sunday evening.

[macburger]

We are at war. Our economy is in bad shape. Real incomes have fallen for the majority of households during the Bush presidency. Our financial sector is imploding and tax payers are being put at risk as a result. Those are issues we should be considering, but if lipstick and Islam can take up all of our time, that's just great for McCain. And it's working. There are comments in this section to prove it.

Bread and circus. Bread and circus.

You seem to think that the commenters here are deceived by the lies.

Think this way. The Hartmans, STRs and the JohnV crowd here are not deceived. They are part and parcel of the deceiving apparatus. They are not innocents. They are the crooks.

Let them be. They are the 28% who will fight to the end for their looting masters for a pittance of the spoil.

Obama winning is not important. The real deal for Obama is to present an alternative, and fight.

I will quote Josh Marshall form TPM here

...And let's be frank. He might win it. This is clearly a testing time for Obama supporters. But I want to return to a point I made a few years ago during the Social Security battle with President Bush. Winning and losing is never fully in one's control -- not in politics or in life. What is always within our control is how we fight and bear up under pressure. It's easy to get twisted up in your head about strategy and message and optics. But what is already apparent is that John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest and race-baiting campaign of our lifetimes. So let's stopped being shocked and awed by every new example of it. It is undignified. What can we do? We've got a dangerously reckless contender for the presidency and a vice presidential candidate who distinguished her self by abuse of office even on the comparatively small political stage of Alaska. They've both embraced a level of dishonesty that disqualifies them for high office. Democrats owe it to the country to make clear who these people are. No apologies or excuses. If Democrats can say at the end of this campaign that they made clear exactly how and why these two are unfit for high office they can be satisfied they served their country...

The people make their choice. They will live with it.

[ken melvin]

RR - what are the quals for this 'truth squad'?

[anne]

Josh Marshall:

"But what is already apparent is that ---- ------ is running the sleaziest, most dishonest and race-baiting campaign of our lifetimes."

I will and have made the choice to live forever without resorting to the disgraceful, dishonest words of Josh Marshall.

[anne]

"But what is already apparent is that ---- ------ is running the sleaziest, most dishonest and race-baiting campaign of our lifetimes. So let's stopped being shocked and awed by every new example of it."

The only shock and awe comes from such a disgrace and dishonest comment. Shame, shame, shame.

[Cyrille]

Lois, I too consider myself a feminist. I too am apalled at the insult made to women to suggest that one should be chosen just for her gender, or that because of their gender, they should be spared criticism, like would a small child trying his hand at an adult job.

[macburger]

I will and have made the choice to live forever without resorting to the disgraceful, dishonest words of Josh Marshall.

Talk about missing the forest for the trees.

No need to be upset that good choices are not being made. There is no need for anyone to make good choices. History is replete with bad public choices [Tuchman?]. Which is why we say "people deserve the govt they get."

So anne, go ahead and choose to your heart's content.

[erewhon]

The large Hadron collider has in fact already destroyed the earth. We are each floating in our own separate universe. Even before it started up, the LHC had destroyed Americans' faith in the media (somehow we all know that the media are working against us and what few friends we have in our own universe). As the LHC increases its energy level, we will soon realize that the daily polls (yes, there are daily polls and many newspapers put them on the front page) are also working against us, no matter what we believe; they are an invention of the devil. Mark thinks that he is running an economics blog, when in fact he's running a "Take a few tokes and let it all hang out" blog. Paul Krugman thinks that he is separate from the media.

The radio in my tooth filling tells me that the human experiment is coming to an end. Evolution gave humans strong aggressive genes (look how many kids were fathered by Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan) flexible intelligence and a need for short term gratification. Dopamine rules!

For me, curbing US militarism is job one. I don't want new or expanded wars. I don't think that our high tech military, even if theoretically following Petraeus' counterinsurgency writings, can make things better in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I don’t want any wars unless we are attacked as we were at Pearl Harbor. I know that all politicians are prideful; they all lie to some extent. I don't want war with Russia or US to continue arming Ukraine and Georgia. I see that McCain and Palin are impulsive warmongers. McCain's record leaves no doubt about that. I want to keep them as far from power as possible. My friend John is rabidly anti-abortion and will automatically vote for anyone who claims to oppose abortion. Anne wants to be sure that nobody is unfair to women. Who is on the right side of history?

[macburger]

Obama's claim that he would lower middle class tax rates or lower taxes at all is also not technically a lie. But again, it is misleading. Obama's plan would raise taxes for all but a segment of the tax bracket compared to the taxes we currently pay.

McCain vs Obama tax plans. Simple, easy to understand picture.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/09/ST2008060900950.html

What were you saying again?

One thing for sure - you are not even technically misleading, you are outright LYING.

[Memory]

The always incisive Bruce Wilder quotes:

" and there was Robert Rubin going on and on about how important it was to get bipartisan consensus on doing the responsible thing, with regard to the deficit and fiscal policy, etc."

Rubin said that?! He's gone soft in the head. Who should know better than he that Clinton's 1993 budget, which raised taxes and started the US on an all too short period of fiscal prudence, passed without a single Republican vote. Trent Lott (IIRC) said that if there wasn't a huge job loss he'd turn Democrat. Lying, as usual.

[Ronald Rutherford]

BJ Feng says...

Palin's claim is not technically a lie, though it may be misleading. Opposing the Bridge to Nowhere while running for governor would have been political suicide. So she doesn't have the courage of a Ron Paul, not many do. It's politics as usual.I would just like to point out that Ron Paul also puts in ear marks just like the rest. His "shtick" is that he does not vote for any pork and thus votes no on almost all budget requests. His constituencies also get the pork when the bill passes. Honest?

[Sarah]

Ronald Rutherford said...You do understand between investing in their community and just non-productive debt. Anchorage put in a convention center and of course took on a lot of debt but since Mark Begich is a Democrat then that is OK.

Do I think there is a difference between a state's largest city putting in a convention center and a town of 5,000 putting in a sports center? Yes. And the fact that the voters approved it (by a 20-vote margin) hardly means that I am not entitled to make my own judgment of how wise a use of tax-payer money that was-- and whether I want someone in national office supporting similarly misguided use of public funds. Furthermore I very much doubt that the town voted for her to so bungle the land acquisition that it is still in litigation 9 years later and will probably end up costing an extra million dollars. Here's the link on that story: http://www.adn.com/matsu/story/474934.html

[anne]

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/the_weird_war_on_earmarks.php

September 12, 2008

"Is Sarah Palin, who promised to be an advocate for special-needs families when she’s in the White House, really going to slash earmarks for special-needs schools?"

-- Matthew Yglesias

[Simply a touch of the shamefulness that is continual; this from a writer who had already falsely accused Governor Palin of cutting special needs funding for Alaskan children.]

[anne]

About war, we should at least be perfectly clear that Barack Obama has continually promised to broaden the war in Afghanistan and to fight in Pakistan. Obama has been as hawkish as I can imagine, and has taken the same hawkish stance on Russia-Georgia as President Bush.

From Obama's convention speech:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/opinion/31safire.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

August 31, 2008

"John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell — but he won't even go to the cave where he lives."

[Cyrille]

Oh my...

We get the picture, Anne. Any woman is deified, just for being a woman (and any criticism of any woman is just shameful slander).

Apart from making you the most polytheist ever (hell, 3 billion godesses), this also makes you borderline insane. Unless you are just pretending. But I fail to see how such a puerile and ridiculous stance could do any good to the cause of women.
On top of that, your constant posting means that there are literally thousands of pages showing you express the very opposite opinions, with a sudden change just as Sarah Palin was made candidate for the vice-presidency. This is as blatant as it gets.

[Don Stuva]

To Mr. Krugman: I wonder where you have been. The Democratic Convention was absolutley filled with hate speaches. All directed at their opponents. That should tell a lot of the story. Perhaps you should listen to some of the other Democratic condidates and listen to the lies and hate coming from that side. the Republican side is basically the only one that acknowledges the Lord who is basically the one that can and will if we let him keep us in freedom and prosperity. Don

[anne]

Forgive me, but I was not the attacker of Senator Clinton and I find no reason to continue the attacks on Clinton to Governor Palin. Forgive me, though for forgetting my place.

[lonesome moderate]

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/the_weird_war_on_earmarks.php

September 12, 2008

"Is Sarah Palin, who promised to be an advocate for special-needs families when she’s in the White House, really going to slash earmarks for special-needs schools?"

-- Matthew Yglesias

[Simply a touch of the shamefulness that is continual; this from a writer who had already falsely accused Governor Palin of cutting special needs funding for Alaskan children.]

What is shameful about this? The Yglesias article simply makes the point that earmarks are used to fund all sorts of laudable things, and uses this as one of many examples.

[ken melvin]

Aha, DS, alas the truth will out and truth and attack on rethugs be one and the same. I heard from a reliable source that the lord don't like dumb.

[BJ Feng]

My point is that Ron Paul takes unpopular stances and is willing to stick to them. He didn't try to whitewash his positions to make them more palatable to the public during his presidential run.

As for Obama's tax increases, the American Enterprise Institute's analysis shows that marginal tax rates would increase for all but a small portion of the populace.

http://www.american.com/archive/2008/august-08-08/the-folly-of-obama2019s-tax-plan

Carpe Diem summarizes quite nicely, "Note that for tax year 2006, the median Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) for American taxpayers was $32,000. Since median income is the statistical definition of "middle-class," that group will experience a whopping increase in effective marginal tax rate from about 20% to 35% under the Obama tax plan (see chart above)."

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/09/obamas-tax-plan-folly-middle-class-tax.html

Anne, you are quite right that Obama's foreign policy stance is extremely hawkish. He's even perhaps moved to the right of McCain. I'm glad that after further thinking, Obama understands the need to secure Afghanistan by way of offensive action. Now only if he would think some more and move to the right of McCain on government spending, I think he would win this election in a landslide. He has to make concrete stances and pledge to uphold them though, to overcome his bad spending record in the past.

[realist]

way back when i posited that the main stream media,msm
and the money behind it were pushing obama to be the
dem candidate. but then when push came to shove yuall
would vote for the old white man.
now the msm giving great play to the GOP's manufactured
outrage are pushing a lynching of an uppity black man
for calling a pig a pig.
you get a government that you deserve.

[Lee A. Arnold]

Obama's tax plan may send the DISTRIBUTION of the tax burden back, closer to where it used to be -- so most of the people will pay a proportional less, over time. For a picture of the distribution of the tax burden, see
Bush Tax Cuts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA1f2MefsMM
drag controller to minutes 5:21 to 7:14

[Patricia Shannon]

realist,
I've been thinking the same thing

[ken melvin]

Someone else has read Uncle Remus.

[Patricia Shannon]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26663043/

Hurricanes deplete Red Cross relief fund
Agency plunges deep in debt as it prepares for latest in tring of storms
Associated Press updated 5:46 p.m. ET, Thurs., Sept. 11, 2008

NEW YORK - The wave of storms battering the U.S. has plunged the American Red Cross deep into debt as it rushes to prepare for Hurricane Ike, prompting a searching look at how to stabilize its finances.

Gail McGovern, who became the embattled charity's president in June, said even a request for federal funding is under consideration as the Red Cross seeks to become less dependent on spontaneous donations that arrive only in the wake of huge disasters.

"We are going to explore every avenue we can to ensure we have a healthy Red Cross," McGovern said in an interview Thursday as her organization deployed 1,000 out-of-state volunteers to Texas to await menacing Ike.

As of last week, when Ike was still a distant threat, the Red Cross said it has raised only $5 million to cover costs from Hurricane Gustav that will total at least $40 million, possibly more than $70 million. It has borrowed money to meet those bills, and now is incurring more expenses as it shifts response teams to Texas and readies its shelters.
...
McGovern said Red Cross officials were calling Gustav a "silent disaster" because it entailed sizable costs for sheltering displaced people, yet did not trigger the flood of donations that often follows more deadly and destructive storms.

[Lee A. Arnold]

And in today's news, the stereotypical voter will now have to deal with Our Alaskan Idol teasing Obama for not picking Hillary as VP. Because Sarah would never push anyone's buttons!

But of course Obama, to be credible, requires the most solid national security credential on the ticket -- and got a credential better than McCain. Hillary could not be on this ticket -- she might have counseled that it wouldn't work.

Of course, she may do more good than any of the candidates now, by writing universal health care in Congress. Compare Gov. Palin, unstudied and clearly unready to be a heartbeat away from leading the country -- and who said "Yes" in what may be a monumental case of self-deception.

[anne]

"And in today's news, the stereotypical voter will now have to deal with Our Alaskan Idol teasing Obama for not picking Hillary as VP. Because Sarah would never push anyone's buttons!"

"Our Alaskan Idol?"
"Our Alaskan Idol?"
"Our Alaskan Idol?"

Who???

[anne]

"Compare Gov. Palin, unstudied and clearly unready to be a heartbeat away from leading the country -- and who said 'Yes' in what may be a monumental case of self-deception."

More rottenness???

[Lee A. Arnold]

Would you have said Yes?

[kthomas]

Take a chill pill, ms anne.

[Bruce Wilder]

swells: "evaluating what is said accurately is helped by keeping an arms length distance from the entanglements of group membership that party loyalties give rise."

I seriously doubt that this is true. While I would acknowledge that joining in a group identity (such as identifying as a Democrat or a Republican, conservative or liberal, Lakers fan or Yankees fan, carries with it several kinds of bias, it doesn't follow that there's any gift of objective knowledge that comes with refusing group identity.

"Independent voter", I would argue is a group identity (or, possibly a single name used in common for several related identities.

Independent voters in the U.S. constitute third and fourth Parties, with distinct views and prejudices associated with them.

[Bruce Wilder]

anne: "More rottenness???"

Yes.

[Patricia Shannon]

I think Anne and BJ Feng are caricatures created as jokes

[Patricia Shannon]

I don't understand how people can be posting this silly stuff during the time when a hurricane almost the size of Texas is in the process of devastating a wide section of the Gulf coast.

[kthomas]

Patricia, LOL. They are not caricatures, but real and dedicated people. You and I are in the center, so we get a little perturbed.

I'm in Dallas now, lot of evacuees coming in now. You can feel the barometer changes. They expect heavy showers and a few ole-fashioned tornadoes! I can't wait!!!

peace and happiness, girl!

[Patricia Shannon]

kthomas

Thank you. Good luck to you and everybody in that area of the country.

[BJ Feng]

The center of what, the hard left? It's funny to see Democrats so shaken when they get hit by the same playbook they've been using for decades. If you don't support Obama, you're a racist right? Well now if you don't vote for the McCain/Palin ticket, you're a sexist. Unfortunately, a whole bunch of Democrats just aren't ready for a woman vice-president. The Democrats have made a lot of progress over the years, but their reluctance to elect Palin shows that they've a long ways to go before their sexist attitudes are completely eliminated.

No one sees the irony?

[lonesome moderate]

BJ:Unfortunately, a whole bunch of Democrats just aren't ready for a woman vice-president. The Democrats have made a lot of progress over the years, but their reluctance to elect Palin shows that they've a long ways to go before their sexist attitudes are completely eliminated.

The vast majority of Democrats showed themselves ready to elect a woman vice president back in 1984, and I know of no reason to think that things have changed since then.

I gotta hand it to McCain though--he needed to change the subject from the disastrous Republican record, and he has certainly done that. I only wish the Republicans were half as good at serving in office as they are at running for it.

[Lee A. Arnold]

One eye cast sinister, the other goggle ogling dexter.

Hurricane!

[Lafayette]

BJF: Unfortunately, a whole bunch of Democrats just aren't ready for a woman vice-president.

And why should ALL the male sexist pigs be Democrats? There are none on the righteous Right?

Stick to the election issues, where Replicants haven't a leg to stand on. Your posts limp rather les awkwardly.

[ilsm]

Mc Cain "broke" and collaborated with his North Vietnamese captors while in Hanoi.

What kind of national security will come from a man raised as a professional sailor who broke, shunned his diuty and broke faith with his country, and fellow Americans servicemembers fighting, engaged in deadly combat throughout Southest Asia?

Next time Mc Cains breaks the consequences will not be "worrying" about being courtmartialed when he got out of Hanoi.

He was not court martialed.

One law for the rulers another for the soldier.

[anne]

"------ 'broke' and collaborated with his North Vietnamese captors while in Hanoi.

"What kind of national security will come from a man raised as a professional sailor who broke, shunned his duty and broke faith with his country, and fellow Americans servicemembers fighting, engaged in deadly combat throughout Southest Asia?

"Next time ------ breaks the consequences will not be 'worrying' about being courtmartialed when he got out of Hanoi."

[Wow, wow, wow.]

[ken melvin]

"I think Anne and BJ Feng are caricatures created as jokes...

Can i add kotzbaby, then say that I think it has to do with their relationship with reality?

[anne]

There is an interesting difference, the difference is that I never ever have demeaned or slandered in any way any candidate for President or Vice President. That the difference is not understood is telling but not new since the problem was there during the primaries and has continued. What has happened especially through these months is that the 2 candidates who are women have been treated in ways wholly apart from the ways in which men are treated, but since these candidates were not properly favored there is evidently no regard for the ways in which they are treated. There is no understanding of what that tells about our regard for women.

[anne]

"This indifferent nonchalant attitude of ----- toward the fallen alone should cost him the election."

This sentence along with every sentence in the comment is of course the essence of slander, the essence of character destruction, but slander and character destruction are the purpose of the comment and there is no surprise there.

[bakho]

To turn this conversation back to the issues, we might examine what Bush lied about and the consequences.

Bush lied about his tax cuts being affordable. Congress passed a laughable tax cut with sunsets, ignoring the AMT and other Enron accounting. So now we have doubled the national debt, still not fixed the AMT problem on a permanent basis. McCain tells the same lie and supports the same irresponsible, unaffordable, trickle down (life under the urinal) Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

Bush lied about Iraq and started a stupid and costly war. McCain lies about success in Iraq. McCain pretends that Iraq is a stable when Iraq is just as dangerours as it was in 2004-5 when the level of violence and troop deaths were considered unacceptable. McCain lies about the military ability to fix the political problem in Iraq.

Bush lied about SS being broke and private SS accounts. McCain tells the same lie.

McCain lies about offshore drilling lowering gas prices. It won't.

McCain lies about being anti-lobbyist. His whole campaign is run by special interest lobbyists. His economic advisors are people like Phil Enron Gramm who is the poster child for crony special interests and turning the predatory loan sharks and financial scam artists loose on the public.

Bush lies about the Soviet Union expansion. McCain takes the lie one step further and wants to restart the Cold War and Bring FSU states like Georgia into NATO.

McCain has embraced the worst of the Bush policies and brings even more certainty and disdain for professional advice (Maverickkiness) than Bush.

[bakho]

What Anne is trying to communicate is better said by DD Myers:

Dee Dee Myers, former press secretary for President Bill Clinton:

The first thing you have to do is stop running against Sarah Palin and start running against John McCain. She's sort of bullet-proof, so the best thing to do in my opinion is to use her enormous popularity to contrast with John McCain. I mean, I think of them as Sonny and Cher. You know, what was Sonny without Cher? He was nothing, right? And once she left him, she went on to stardom and he disappeared. He was a successful entrepreneur, he's not an idiot, but he has no star-power. She's the talent, she's the excitement, she's the draw.

What Sarah Palin has done, and this is something I like about her, is that she's a women who has succeeded very much on her own terms. She talks about motherhood as a training ground for leadership; she manages and balances her family and her work in her own way. It's very hard to see where her family ends and her work begins. I think a lot of women see their lives that way. Not everyone's going to go out and shoot a moose and put their hair up in a bun and put on their sexy open-toe shoes and go to dinner. ... But does everybody have to be lock-step on every issue? Or can somebody who's outside--in Sarah Palin's case, very much outside--the traditional feminist agenda still move the ball forward for women? I think the answer is yes. When I hear Pat Buchanan on TV, decrying sexism in the media, you know? This is not all bad. ... I don't know where abortion rights are going to end up in all this, and honestly that concerns me, but I think we need to find a different language to talk about it. I think that there are more women who identify with Sarah Palin than Gloria Steinem right now. Even if they don't agree with 100 percent of her agenda, her life looks more like their lives.

Some people--it wasn't the Obama campaign, but they're suffering the consequences--came out against her so hard on such a broad range of topics, including her family, that I think the public reacted viscerally. So now everything negative that's said about her--whether it's true, as in charges about the bridge to nowhere, or not true, as in rumors about her baby--people discount it. And so, on some level, we could argue all day whether it matters or not what her qualifications are, the public has decided that that's not how they're judging this. They know she doesn't know anything about foreign policy and they don't really care.

The main thing about Sarah Palin is what she says about John McCain. He couldn't have possibly won this campaign by talking about his ideas--you know, his plans for the future, his record in Washington. That was about as attractive as day-old bread. If she's the future of the party, he's the past. ... You have to get back to Sarah Palin, what a phenom, isn't she a remarkable person, what a great story to tell, and doesn't she make John McCain the most boringest, most yesterday guy in the world? And let's remember, he is, because his policies really stink. I mean, let's use her to point out his weaknesses instead of shielding him from his weaknesses. Let's remind people why she's there, because he can't get three people into a hotel ballroom without her. No one's hearing a word he says. No one wants to hear about his policies. You've got to be a little careful because I don't remember the last time when a national campaign was decided purely on the basis of policy. But who's going to be running the show? Who's the real agent of change here? Who's the person who's talking about tomorrow?