It’s very hard for me to gauge this debate because to me John McCain is quite obviously a crazy, intemperate, nasty old bastard. He was sarcastic, contemptuous and patronizing. I really, really loathe him. But then, I loathe Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck too, who are also domineering, macho pricks. (On the other hand Barack said “I agree with John” about 832 times, so perhaps I’m misjudging him.)
The early consensus seems to be that they both did well but that McCain exceeded expectations so he won. Who could ever have predicted that?
Did I mention that I really, really loathe that creepy, fascistic jackass John McCain? Ugh.
Update: Whew. The early polling suggests that people think Obama won by pretty large margins. I thought so. But I don’t trust myself on these things ever since George W. Bush won two elections and people compared him to Winston Churchill with a straight face. I’m relieved to see that I haven’t completely lost my judgment.
The Frank Luntz and Stanley Greenberg focus groups went overwhelmingly for Obama. And a CBS poll of undecideds went for Obama 40%-22%.Update: The CNN polls goes to Barack, 51%-38%.
I’m watching this maniac Chris Matthews and his courtiers trying to analyze this upcoming debate, and the consensus seems to be that the winner will be whoever has that “zinger” moment (it’s really come to who has the best stand-up writers), and Obama has to act like a regular guy instead of giving these complicated answers that reflect the complex nature of the world. Because he can’t be seen as too good or too smart, which would be seen as “elite” and “cool”. You know, like Chris Matthews.
I’m not sure I disagree totally with this analysis, but it does reinforce my belief that 1) America has the stupidest system for choosing a President as any in the industrialized world, so mind-bogglingly inane that picking a name from the phone book would be more rigorous; and 2) these so-called pundits should be forced to gag themselves inside the 30-day election window for the good of the country.
Tonight we are going to hear at least something about foreign policy. And John McCain is going to preen and prance and take credit for the great and glorious victory in Iraq. And I, for one, would cheer if Obama replied, “Taking pride in the fact that people are still dying in a war that never should have happened in the first place is the strangest definition of patriotism I’ve ever heard.”
… the failure to get a deal reflects the betrayals of the Bush years. Democrats weren’t going to trust Henry Paulson, because behind him they see the ghost of Colin Powell (and Paulson’s “all your bailout are belong to me” proposal, aside from being bad economics, showed an incredible tone-deafness.)
And after the way the Bushies and their allies double-crossed the Democrats again and again in the aftermath of 9/11 — demand national unity, then accuse you of being soft on terrorists anyway — there’s no way Pelosi and Reed will do the responsible but unpopular thing unless the Republicans agree to share ownership.
So what we now have is non-functional government in the face of a major crisis, because Congress includes a quorum of crazies and nobody trusts the White House an inch.
I don’t actually know that the responsible thing is the unpopular thing, but if it is, John Mccain and the Republican Party need to be super-glued to the Democratic majority as they all go sailing over the cliff together. No way, no how, no punk’d. How many times are they supposed to put their heads in the lion’s mouth?
For another view, here’s Thomas Frank in the WSJ, suggesting that if McCain want’s to understand ‘what went wrong” all he has to do is call upon the people staffing the Straighttalk Express: they were among those responsible, including the candidate himself
Here’s just one example:
Mr. McCain could call Kevin Hassett, one of his senior economic advisers, who declared back in March in the Bangkok Post that the blame for the current crisis could be laid at the feet of “out-of-control government regulation,” mainly in the form of municipal smart-growth initiatives. (That’s right: The man whispering in the candidate’s ear seemed to once believe that not-in-my-backyard suburbanites caused the worst financial collapse since 1929.)
National Review’s Mark Krikorian notes that (1) Washington Mutual became the largest bank to fail in American history yesterday and (2) its last press release touted the fact that it was named one of America’s most diverse employers, having been “honored specifically for its efforts to recruit Hispanic employees, reach out to Hispanic consumers and support Hispanic communities and organizations”; for being “named [one of] the top 60 companies for Hispanics”; for “attaining equal rights for GLBT employees and consumers”; for having “earned points for competitive diversity policies and programs, including the recently established Latino, African American and GLBT employee network groups”; and for being “named one of 25 Noteworthy Companies by Diversity Inc magazine and one of the Top 50 Corporations for Supplier Diversity by Hispanic Enterprise magazine.”
While juxtaposing these two facts — (1) WaMu has a racially and ethnically diverse workforce and (2) WaMu collapsed yesterday — the National Review writer headlined his post: “Cause and Effect?” He apparently believes that the reason Washington Mutual failed may be because it employed and was too accommodating to large numbers of Hispanics, African-Americans and gays.
When you’re on the ropes, blame the blacks, browns and homos. What else have they got?
Meanwhile, a few Democratic senators have put forth a new plan that sounds at least a little bit more responsible. This item sounds like common sense to me:
Second, the funds requested by the Treasury Department should be released in installments. A ‘tranched’ approach would permit the Congress to properly fulfill its oversight role and to monitor the implementation of a new regulatory structure.
Now, that may not accomplish what Paulson and Bernanke think that the big whopping 700 billion dollar confetti drop on Wall Street will accomplish, namely a “slap in the face” but that may actually be a good thing. The markets may be hysterical but they aren’t likely to be calmed down by the Treasury Secretary throwing around piles of money for sheer effect.
Update: Someone should send this to Sarah Palin so she can put it on her crib sheet.
REP. ROY BLUNT: Clearly, yesterday, his position on that discussion yesterday was one that stopped a deal from finalizing.
Republicans certainly want to reconstitute their party, but I don’t think they want to do it with John McCain at the helm. We’re starting to see rumblings from conservatives feeling uneasy about Sarah Palin and even calling for her to be dropped from the ticket. In many ways they’d be thrilled with McCain voting the other way on this. Republicans are BETTER in the opposition, and it would be a cleaner way for them to reconstitute themselves.
Watch this pivot. I just heard Roy Blunt say that while he hopes there is a bipartisan bill, everyone should remember that “Democrats can do whatever they want to do here.”
As many of us noted days ago when Paulson presented the bill, this is the big play for the Republicans. Ed Rollins said it last night: they need to revive their party and the way they do that after a typically disastrous GOP presidency, is to throw the president overboard as not being a “true conservative.” (I’ve been talking about this principle literally for years.)
Do they care about the country? Sure, in their own way. They think that the most important thing for the country is for Republicans to win the election. I am sincerely hoping that Democrats feel the same way. If the problem with the markets is a lack of confidence, electing more Republicans is only going to exacerbate the problem.
Even though McCain and Palin have revealed themselves as the Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan of politics and they’re both running around without their panties, it’s not obvious to me that this will ultimately work against them. In this freak show of an election anything can happen. The Dems should take no chances.
I’ve been getting emails about this topic for a few days and meant to write about it. It’s exploded into the blogosphere today: the Army has decided that it needs to deploy a unit here in the United States. (I thought that’s what we had the National Guard for …)
The discussion centers around Posse Comitatus and how the long standing legal prohibition against this has suddenly changed. I’ll let the experts weigh in on that.
But there’s another angle that has me spooked. The Army Times:
The at-home mission does not take the place of scheduled combat-zone deployments and will take place during the so-called dwell time a unit gets to reset and regenerate after a deployment.
[…]
In the meantime, they’ll learn new skills, use some of the ones they acquired in the war zone and more than likely will not be shot at while doing any of it.
They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.
[…]
The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.
[…]
“I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered,” said Cloutier, describing the experience as “your worst muscle cramp ever — times 10 throughout your whole body.
“I’m not a small guy, I weigh 230 pounds … it put me on my knees in seconds.”
So men who’ve been fighting in Iraq will now be armed with tasers on the streets of the United States. You can be fairly sure that after what they’ve been trained for they’ll believe that tasering someone is completely benign. After all, you get up again.
But as bad as putting more tasers on the streets, there’s an even worse possibility. The article says:
The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.
I think you have to wonder if this is what they might be talking about:
The US military has given the first public display of what it says is a revolutionary heat-ray weapon to repel enemies or disperse hostile crowds.
Called the Active Denial System, it projects an invisible high energy beam that produces a sudden burning feeling.
[….]
How the heat-ray gun works
The prototype weapon was demonstrated at the Moody Air Force Base in Georgia.
A beam was fired from a large rectangular dish mounted on a Humvee vehicle.
The beam has a reach of up to 500m (550 yds), much further than existing non-lethal weapons like rubber bullets.
It can penetrate clothes, suddenly heating up the skin of anyone in its path to 50C.
But it penetrates the skin only to a tiny depth – enough to cause discomfort but no lasting harm, according to the military.
A Reuters journalist who volunteered to be shot with the beam described the sensation as similar to a blast from a very hot oven – too painful to bear without diving for cover.
[…]
It would mean that troops could take effective steps to move people along without resorting to measures such as rubber bullets – bridging the gap between “shouting and shooting”, Col Hymes said.
A similar “non-lethal” weapon, Silent Guardian, is being developed by US company Raytheon.
I tested a table-top demonstration model, but here’s how it works in the field.
A square transmitter as big as a plasma TV screen is mounted on the back of a Jeep.
When turned on, it emits an invisible, focused beam of radiation – similar to the microwaves in a domestic cooker – that are tuned to a precise frequency to stimulate human nerve endings.
It can throw a wave of agony nearly half a mile.
Because the beam penetrates skin only to a depth of 1/64th of an inch, it cannot, says Raytheon, cause visible, permanent injury.
But anyone in the beam’s path will feel, over their entire body, the agonising sensation I’ve just felt on my fingertip. The prospect doesn’t bear thinking about.
“I have been in front of the full-sized system and, believe me, you just run. You don’t have time to think about it – you just run,” says George Svitak, a Raytheon executive.
Silent Guardian is supposed to be the 21st century equivalent of tear gas or water cannon – a way of getting crowds to disperse quickly and with minimum harm. Its potential is obvious.
[…]
This machine has the ability to inflict limitless, unbearable pain.
What makes it OK, says Raytheon, is that the pain stops as soon as you are out of the beam or the machine is turned off.
[…]
But there is a problem: mission creep. This is the Americanism which describes what happens when, over time, powers or techniques are used to ends not stated or even imagined when they were devised.
With the Taser, the rules in place in Britain say it must be used only as an alternative to the gun. But what happens in ten or 20 years if a new government chooses to amend these rules?
It is so easy to see the Taser being used routinely to control dissent and pacify – as, indeed, already happens in the U.S.
And the Silent Guardian? Raytheon’s Mac Jeffery says it is being looked at only by the “North American military and its allies” and is not being sold to countries with questionable human rights records.
That’s funny …
In fact, it is easy to see the raygun being used not as an alternative to lethal force (when I can see that it is quite justified), but as an extra weapon in the battle against dissent.
Because it is, in essence, a simple machine, it is easy to see similar devices being pressed into service in places with extremely dubious reputations.
There are more questions: in tests, volunteers have been asked to remove spectacles and contact lenses before being microwaved. Does this imply these rays are not as harmless as Raytheon insists?
What happens when someone with a weak heart is zapped?
And, perhaps most worryingly, what if deployment of Silent Guardian causes mass panic, leaving some people unable to flee in the melee? Will they just be stuck there roasting?
It sounds that way. Have you ever seen a stampede?
Silent Guardian and the Taser are just the first in a new wave of “non-lethal” weaponry being developed, mostly in the U.S.
These include not only microwave ray-guns, but the terrifying Pulsed Energy Projectile weapon. This uses a powerful laser which, when it hits someone up to 11/2 miles away, produces a “plasma” – a bubble of superhot gas – on the skin.
A report in New Scientist claimed the focus of research was to heighten the pain caused by this semi-classified weapon.
And a document released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act talks of “optimal pulse parameters to evoke peak nociceptor activation” – i.e. cause the maximum agony possible, leaving no permanent damage.
Apparently, the new operating principle really has become that any level of pain is fine as long as it leaves no marks. When did that happen?
Perhaps the most alarming prospect is that such machines would make efficient torture instruments.
They are quick, clean, cheap, easy to use and, most importantly, leave no marks. What would happen if they fell into the hands of unscrupulous nations where torture is not unknown?
They already have
The agony the Raytheon gun inflicts is probably equal to anything in a torture chamber – these waves are tuned to a frequency exactly designed to stimulate the pain nerves.
I couldn’t hold my finger next to the device for more than a fraction of a second. I could make the pain stop, but what if my finger had been strapped to the machine?
Dr John Wood, a biologist at UCL and an expert in the way the brain perceives pain, is horrified by the new pain weapons.
“They are so obviously useful as torture instruments,” he says.
“It is ethically dubious to say they are useful for crowd control when they will obviously be used by unscrupulous people for torture.”
We use the word “medieval” as shorthand for brutality. The truth is that new technology makes racks look benign.
There was a time when I would have thought this whole thing was hysterical and paranoid. Not any more. We are living today under a government that has legalized torture and which sees absolutely no problem with shooting people full of electricity on the streets of America every day in order to force compliance.
This isn’t some dystopian future we’re talking about. It’s already here. Now they are going to empower the Army to use these non-lethal torture devices right here in America as well.
Near the end of the Army Times article comes one of the most Orwellian quotes I’ve seen in a long time:
“I can’t think of a more noble mission than this,” said Cloutier, who took command in July. “We’ve been all over the world during this time of conflict, but now our mission is to take care of citizens at home … and depending on where an event occurred, you’re going home to take care of your home town, your loved ones.”
Y’know, he’s been going around acting like a jerk the past umpteenth days/weeks/months/years/millenia and we’ve been hearing alllllllllllllllllll about it. Meanwhile, scooting under the radar, Barack Obama has very calmly gone about his job. We all heard that McCain hardly said a word during the Most Historic Photo-Op Ever but buried in the back of some articles was the report that Obama “peppered Paulson with questions.” Bad alliteration to one side, that’s what a president’s supposed to do: bring an informed, inquiring mind to a complex discussion. Obama doesn’t look cool in this. He simply looks like he knows exactly what he’s doing.
One of these days, we need to confront the experience issue in an honest fashion. Let’s face it, crashing five jets and spending five years in hell is not any kind of experience that is relevant to the job of being president of the United States. A compelling story it may be, but far more relevant to the job of running the country (and the world) is the amount of careful thought and intelligent action a person has given to the problems we confront. By that metric, which I submit is a real metric of relevant experience, Barack Obama in his forties has far more experience than McCain. All those things held against him by the Neanderthals – like authoriing two books, mediating disputes, working as a community organizer, his work in the Senate, serving as an inspiration – are, in fact Very Good Things for a potential president to have in his resume. McCain has his ancient bravery, a financial scandal, some campaign reform he’s doing his best to circumvent, support for the stupidest war in America’s history, and a cave in on the issue closest to him: torture.
UPDATE: Another thought. For all the drama queen histrionics, the real agenda, the one McCain is following, is Obama’s. Obama refused to compromise on the debate and McCain was forced to concede. Now that’s impressive poltiicking and don’t underestimate the skill that took.
UPDATE: During the debate, will McCain’s back show signs of a wireless receiver, like Bush in the ’04 debates? Be on the lookout.
UPDATE: Incredible. As I watch, the blow-dried creatures inside my tv set are rewriting history a la 1984. Yesterday:
His campaign has said he wouldn’t participate unless there was consensus between Congress and the administration, and a spokesman said the afternoon developments had not changed his plans.
‘There’s no deal until there’s a deal. We’re optimistic but we want to get this thing done,’ McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said.
Obama still wants the face-off to go on, and is slated to travel to the debate site in Mississippi on Friday.
Today we learn, he didn’t want to go to the debate until a deal was set.
According to one GOP lawmaker, some House Republicans are saying privately that they’d rather “let the markets crash” than sign on to a massive bailout.
“For the sake of the altar of the free market system, do you accept a Great Depression?” the member asked.
“At the end of the day, there’s a lot of people thinking about how to rebuild this party,” said GOP strategist Ed Rollins on CNN, “and do we want to rebuild it with John McCain, who’s always kind of questionable on the basic facts of fiscal control, all the rest of it, immigration. And I think to a certain extent this 110, 115 members of this study group are saying, here’s the time to draw the line in the sand.”
“That’s pretty scary stuff that they’re thinking about party right now and not country, is that what you’re saying?” responded host Anderson Cooper.
“I think they’re, yes, they’re thinking about themselves,” said Rollins. “I think they don’t think that the threat is as great as a lot of other people do.”
What surprises me is that people are surprised. Have they not been paying attention? The Republicans started a war for no good reason. They literally killed a whole lot of people for their own political and ideological agenda. Why in the world would anyone doubt for a moment that they’d play politics with an economic crisis?
At what point to progressives put away the kumbaaya and recognize that we are not dealing with people who act in the nation’s best interest?
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the lead House Democrat on the issue who had been in close talks with Paulson for days, accused Republicans of refusing to negotiate.
‘At this point, we have absolutely no participation or cooperation from House Republicans,’ Frank said.
While talks are set to resume Friday morning, any hopes of a clean, bipartisan legislative effort have broken down and the prospect of emergency weekend work on Capitol Hill looms large.
In other words, what we need is someone to make everyone sit down and cut the bullshit. Just like St. John McCain says he is prepared to do with the real Shia and Sunnis. And don’t for a minute think this September Surprise won’t work with the hoi polloi.( Or that there won’t be an October surprise even more grandiose and dramatic than this one.)
What to do? If they are truly serious about solving the financial crisis – which has the unfortunate aspect of actually being really real – then first, Congress should adjourn until that narcissistic idiot McCain is safely out of town. The second step? Blame McCain for any and all delays. The third step? Blame McCain. Get it?
This isn’t about obstreperous Republicans blocking a needed financial bailout because it doesn’t fit some whacked ideology. This is about a campaign bailout. McCain’s campaign bailout. The focus must remain entirely on his manipulativeness and his deeply unserious meddling in affairs he has not the slightest ability to understand. Once he slinks away, the very serious business of what to do can be addressed.
And then it’s time to blame House Republicans for being ideological dingdongs.