Vice presidential debate: A barrel of gaffes?

The problem with each candidate is just slightly different:

Joe Biden: How can someone so smart say something so stupid?

Sarah Palin: How can any human being continously sound so incredibly stupid?

Then the punchline (delivered with complete seriousness to the TV audience): “Alright, see? It’s split…”

The room erupts in laughter.

First, the bill is almost done. They are drafting the final bill tomorrow, so what exactly is McCain planning on accomplishing? Even assuming those news reports are all lies and they are nowhere close to a deal (which, again, is not true) McCain cannot help crafting the bill anyways. He is not on any of the finance committees, which are the only parties that are in on the negotiations. So he could sit there looking over their shoulder and pretend like he has some say in what goes on, but everybody knows that’s a farce.

He also suggested that they postpone the debate that is scheduled for Friday, which is an odd request in itself considering John McCain thinks debating his best strength. Granted, after the pummeling he has taken in the polls this past last week, it’s no wonder he does not want to be seen on TV not knowing what he’s talking about in front of 100 million people.

But it wasn’t until later on in the day that we learned he is proposing to move the debate to next Thursday and indefinitely postponing the Vice Presidential debate. Now the move doesn’t seem so odd. Sarah Palin is still being shielded from ANY questions from the press because she is so obviously unqualified. They are going to want to keep that a secret for as long as possible. The last thing they need right now is “Bulldozer” Joe Biden (I just dubbed him that) eating her for dinner in front of half of America next week.

Barack Obama, of course, called McCain’s bluff and raised him. “It is my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess,” Mr. Obama said. “It is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once.”

The debate is still on and from the looks of it, it might already be over.

Now I’m not trying to call these strategists names because I disagree with them. They are losers in the sense that they know nothing about winning. These are the guys that have been running losing Democratic campaigns for the last decade. There is a reason they are “unaffiliated” with the Obama campaign: Obama does not want them.

David Plouffe, David Axelrod, and the rest of the Obama team have proven they know how to win elections. They took down the Clinton political machine everyone thought was unbeatable, and that’s the reason why they could care less about all these people are whining. They beat Clinton while those same blowhards were criticizing them every step of the way back then, as well. Consequently, every time they talk about Obama’s strategy, they fail to mention the MASSIVE Obama ground operation that made the difference in those primaries and is going to make the real difference in this election.

Yes, the polls have fluctuated in the last month and for a while it looked like Obama was slipping, but watch this video of David Plouffe calmly and rationally explain exactly how they are going to win. Does he sound worried to you?

Barack Obama literally authored the bill, with Republican Tom Coburn, that makes it incredibly simple for anyone with a computer to find out.

U.S. Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) today hailed the Senate’s passage of the “Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act,” a bill that will create a Google-like search engine and database to track approximately $1 trillion in federal grants, contracts, earmarks and loans.

“By helping to lift the veil of secrecy in Washington, this database will help make us better legislators, reporters better journalists, and voters more active citizens,” Obama said.

“Every American has the right to know how their government spends their money, and then to hold elected officials accountable for those decisions. I applaud my colleagues for unanimously supporting a bill that will aid the American people in that effort,” Dr. Coburn said. “This bill is a small but significant step toward changing the culture in Washington. Only by fostering a culture of openness, transparency and accountability will Congress come together to address the mounting fiscal challenges that threaten our future prosperity.”

They called it the “Google Government” bill and you can visit the site here: http://www.usaspending.gov/

Why is no one talking about this?

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“If you don’t stop lying about me, I’m going to have to start telling the truth about you.” ~Abraham Lincoln

Palin’s Plane Rules: No AP; No Questions on the Record

She’s sticking to a greatest hits version of her convention speech on the campaign trail and steering clear of questions until she’s comfortable enough for a hand-picked interviewer later this week.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis has said that Palin will “agree to an interview when we think it’s time and when she feels comfortable doing it.”

Does anyone else think it’s weird that a majority of the American people are supporting a candidate for the second most powerful job in the country that won’t take questions from the press because she doesn’t fucking know anything?

]]> http://psa.blastmagazine.com/2008/09/09/question/feed/ 0 http://psa.blastmagazine.com/2008/09/05/joe-biden-beating-down-republicans-with-a-baseball-bat/ http://psa.blastmagazine.com/2008/09/05/joe-biden-beating-down-republicans-with-a-baseball-bat/#comments Fri, 05 Sep 2008 23:06:08 +0000 Trevor Timm http://psa.blastmagazine.com/?p=300 …figuratively speaking.

In probably the most ridiculous scene in a movie filled with ridiculousness, Borat is “saved” by members of a Pentecostal church somewhere in the Deep South.

This is the same type of church that Sarah Palin belongs to.

Unfortunately, there is no Youtube video so everyone can really appreciate the complete insanity of these people, but just imagine these church members–among other crazy shit–spontaneously yelling incoherent babble, or as they call it “speaking in tongues.” They claim it is God’s way of speaking through them. This is the norm for Pentecostals in Palin’s church, as her minister explains to Time Magazine:

Kalnins guessed that about half of the people in his church have the gift of tongues. He has it himself, he says, though he rarely demonstrates it. “It’s not meant to be shown off,” he said. “It’s not like flexing muscles. I received the gift in college, and it transformed my life.” It’s not something like from the “remote parts of the jungle,” he adds: It’s a decision.

Sadly, the article does not say whether Palin partakes in the speaking of tongues herself (nor does it mention the handling poisionous snakes, which Pentecostals are also known to do). We can only hope one day a video surfaces.

But while McCain’s pick got relatively good press over the weekend (and made him some money: the campaign has raised over $10 mil since Friday), it’s about to explode in his face, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if she is off the ticket for good by the end of September. I had to make this a bulleted list because it is extremely long and probably will need to be updated almost hourly because right now, there is an army of progressive bloggers vetting her much more thoroughly than the McCain campaign ever did.

EXPERIENCE

• According to Presidential scholars, she is the most inexperienced Vice Presidential candidate IN MODERN TIMES. This comes after the McCain campaign has been bashing Obama’s experience for the last four months.

• She has been Governor of Alaska for a total of 20 months (population 600,000), and before that she was mayor of a town of 8,000 people (where apparently, she was almost recalled). And prior to that rigorous trial for the second highest office in the land, she was a member of the PTA. Admirable, no doubt, but in no way a litmus  for being a heart beat away from the Presidency.

• As little as a month ago, she did not know what the Vice President did. And no, that’s not a joke, she actually said so on in a television interview with Ludlow and Company.

• She also thinks the founding fathers wrote the Pledge of Allegance and included the phrase “Under God.” The Pledge was actually written in 1892 and that phrase was added in 1954.

ISSUES

• She thinks man-made global warming is a hoax

• She is for teaching Creationism in public schools

• She is against teaching sex education in public schools (this will be getting big play in the next couple days, as she just announced her 17 year old unmarried daughter is pregnant)

• She is against all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest (she has previously stated if that same daughter was raped, she would be against getting her an abortion)

• She sued the federal government to make sure polar bears did not make the Endangered Species List

Now, a lot of these issues are the religious right’s wet dream, but for normal, rational non-idiots, this list is a scientific nightmare.

SCANDALS

• She is currently under federal investigation for allegedly improperly firing a Alaskan State Trooper that used to be married to her sister.

• She used to run Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens’ 527 group. Stevens is under federal indictment right now for corruption charges.

• She used to be a member of the Alaskan Independence Party. Their main goal is to secede from the Union.

The fact is, John McCain picked her without properly vetting record and her past. Before he chose her, he had only met her once, in February, and talked to her on the phone once more, last week. In fact, he made the pick so hastily, the campaign just sent a team of lawyers to Alaska today to make sure there’s nothing else in her closet.

But it might be the case that McCain knew all of this, and that he picked her solely on the basis that she was a woman and could grab disaffected Hillary Clinton voters. If that’s the case, then his decision is even more deplorable. While women might have showed some interest over the weekend, that will not last. As one Republican woman emailed me the other day, John McCain is assuming women are stupid, that they will blindly follow one of their own no matter what it means:

The choice of Sarah Palin implies that he thinks all women are stupid. Women don’t want to see someone inexperienced and completely unprepared to be vice president. The US male life expectancy suggests that John McCain may not out live his term; great respect and care needs to be given to the choice of vp. John McCain has pulled a rabbit out of his hat; he surprised everyone and the future of the US could be put into the hands of a presumably nice woman who will look great on the cover of People. The joke is on all of us if this woman ends up in office.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.