I was riveted by last night's debate, and was thrilled to see such an exciting event with two men who, each in their own way, are knowledgeable and forceful in their ideas and communicate those ideas well.
Neither Obama or McCain tried to dumb it down or get repetitive and rattled like a certain George W. who was always painful to watch. Sure, it was a little sound-bitey, but often I felt that each was talking straight and with passion.
I give them both a win for style and relative substance in the debate. Bravo for making it a great forum for summarizing what they have been saying all along in this freakin' long campaign. I also give them points for not collapsing with exhaustion along the way.
It was not a game changer for me, of course. Obama still gets my vote because of real life observations of the candidates. McCain has a lot of positives, and I really like him, but the choice of Sarah Palin for a running mate (made even more obvious this week) was a serious lapse of judgement, or a kowtow to the far right. His overall record is as a moderate, but I am afraid he sold his soul to the far right for financial backing for his campaign. Calling off his campaign and trying to delay the debate was also a head scratcher this week, a ploy for appearing presidential, but nothing more. It was interesting gamesmanship, but easily countered.
Obama is a liberal--not an unreasonable goofball liberal, so get over it. He is not prone to bizarre behavior or for getting rattled. He appears to be a listener, and he appears to have a good understanding of political maneuvering and compromise. Joe Biden is my big disappointment in this ticket. He is experienced, but kind of obtuse and old school. I wish Obama had the guts to pick Hillary for a running mate instead. The pair would have been a slam dunk.
Overall, though, I have been excited about our choices in candidates this year. I do not have the feeling like I have to hold my nose and vote like I have in the past few presidential campaigns.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Fascination
I have professed a dislike for the cable news stations before--they are repetitive, sensational, and biased. You can count on having to tune in to CNN, Fox and MSNBC to get each take and try to figure out the story from there--if you still care. However, sometimes when something huge is actually happening, I find myself drawn to them, like a dog to chocolate.
The financial meltdown is such an event. I don't understand well enough what is happening (about as much as anyone else), and I am desperate for the latest news.
John McCain decided to suspend his campaign, which at first looked like a bold move--but then just kind of didn't make sense--he is not a finance guy, and hasn't been involved in the negotiations or even congress much this year.
What was Obama going to do? Is he going to follow? I hope not, that would be so...so..Dukakis-y. Ah, he didn't. He even made it clear it was a stupid idea.
He will not consent to canceling the debates.
The agreement is reached, McCain shows up, it falls apart. Must he keep helping?...Will Obama and the news crews be hanging out in Mississippi for a chatty news conference instead?
I am glued to the TV, my kitchen is a mess, I haven't worked out, and I just finished knitting a scarf I forgot was in my hands.
The financial meltdown is such an event. I don't understand well enough what is happening (about as much as anyone else), and I am desperate for the latest news.
John McCain decided to suspend his campaign, which at first looked like a bold move--but then just kind of didn't make sense--he is not a finance guy, and hasn't been involved in the negotiations or even congress much this year.
What was Obama going to do? Is he going to follow? I hope not, that would be so...so..Dukakis-y. Ah, he didn't. He even made it clear it was a stupid idea.
He will not consent to canceling the debates.
The agreement is reached, McCain shows up, it falls apart. Must he keep helping?...Will Obama and the news crews be hanging out in Mississippi for a chatty news conference instead?
I am glued to the TV, my kitchen is a mess, I haven't worked out, and I just finished knitting a scarf I forgot was in my hands.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
I could go for some Jeffersonian Intellectual Elitism about now...
The past few days I have been pondering the phrase, "Intellectual Elite" that has been bandied around like a pejorative by the Republicans from time to time in this freakin' long campaign. It's kind of minor stuff anymore, given the fallout of the financial market, but I was caught by the concept.
Intoning darkly about the "intellectual elite" is (was) done to cast a pall on Obama's intelligence or academic achievement in an attempt to distract the "average voter" from the current administration's folksy "by the rich and for the rich" elitism for the past 8 years. During the GOP convention, the tactic was somewhat effective in causing a shadowy contrast in the "frighteningly inexperienced or crazy fresh?" showdown of Obama vs. Palin. He's an "elitist" Harvard trained community organizer/professor of constitutional law/legislator/senator, and she's a new home- grown governor of a little ol' state with only a bachelors in journalism, but a lotta gumption and lipstick.
My first reaction was, "Don't I want the smartest, best people I can vote for in charge?" (Actually my real first reaction is to mentally scream "I HATE EVERYBODY!" but that is just campaign fatigue.) However, I also knew what they were implying.
The phrase, "intellectual elite" conjures up the image of the narrow-minded, effete academic, sneering at "common people" from their ivy covered colleges and warping the minds of youth with their uber-liberal, doubletalking, groupthinking ways. American colleges are very bad about producing insular little worlds where conforming to what your professor/peers/faculty head want gets in the way of original thinking or innovation. Academics who conform might have been brilliant, average or weak minded, and often waste their talents being vicious, backbiting infighters in their own narrow fields, expounding theories with no use in the real world. (For a wonderful article/book review on intellectual elitism of this sort by one of my favorite authors, take a look here. (He's conservative, but he is brilliant and I love his writing and analysis even when we don't agree.))
But to the founding fathers, an intellectual elite meant something quite different. Thomas Jefferson wished for the best people of all economic backgrounds to be a part of the leadership of the nation but constitutionally held responsible and accountable by the Constitution and a government for and by the people.
You can get the full article that this came from here.
Which side seems to be more in line with what Jefferson and the founding fathers had in mind? Is this not still an excellent ideal to get back to for our country? Exactly when did touting one's mediocrity become a campaign ploy anyway?
I know I would like to see a change in dynamic from the past 8 years of government fronted by a good ol' boy and run by elitists of the very worst sort with little regard for anyone but the very rich.
It's not intellectually elitist to want the very best we can get for our country. It's just plain old smart.
Addendum: Someone writing for Newsweek was thinking in the same vein/.
Intoning darkly about the "intellectual elite" is (was) done to cast a pall on Obama's intelligence or academic achievement in an attempt to distract the "average voter" from the current administration's folksy "by the rich and for the rich" elitism for the past 8 years. During the GOP convention, the tactic was somewhat effective in causing a shadowy contrast in the "frighteningly inexperienced or crazy fresh?" showdown of Obama vs. Palin. He's an "elitist" Harvard trained community organizer/professor of constitutional law/legislator/senator, and she's a new home- grown governor of a little ol' state with only a bachelors in journalism, but a lotta gumption and lipstick.
My first reaction was, "Don't I want the smartest, best people I can vote for in charge?" (Actually my real first reaction is to mentally scream "I HATE EVERYBODY!" but that is just campaign fatigue.) However, I also knew what they were implying.
The phrase, "intellectual elite" conjures up the image of the narrow-minded, effete academic, sneering at "common people" from their ivy covered colleges and warping the minds of youth with their uber-liberal, doubletalking, groupthinking ways. American colleges are very bad about producing insular little worlds where conforming to what your professor/peers/faculty head want gets in the way of original thinking or innovation. Academics who conform might have been brilliant, average or weak minded, and often waste their talents being vicious, backbiting infighters in their own narrow fields, expounding theories with no use in the real world. (For a wonderful article/book review on intellectual elitism of this sort by one of my favorite authors, take a look here. (He's conservative, but he is brilliant and I love his writing and analysis even when we don't agree.))
But to the founding fathers, an intellectual elite meant something quite different. Thomas Jefferson wished for the best people of all economic backgrounds to be a part of the leadership of the nation but constitutionally held responsible and accountable by the Constitution and a government for and by the people.
Thomas Jefferson has been called an elitist, and in a sense he certainly was. He believed that government should be run by a trained elite, that young people who possess outstanding talent should be selected from all classes, poor as well as rich, and that those young people should receive the highest levels of education possible to enable them to serve in positions of responsibility.
"By... [selecting] the youths of genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the State of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use if not sought for and cultivated." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Va., 1782.
His chief concern was with the talented poor, since the talented rich have means at their disposal to develop their talents on their own. But whatever their origin, his elite was based on virtue and talent, not merely on wealth and birth.
"Instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger than benefit to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic." --Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821.
It is this elite of virtue and talent, wherever found, that should be nurtured and chosen to run the government. But in no case was confidence to be placed in even this aristocracy of virtue and talent so as to give them unlimited powers to run the government as they pleased. No elitist group was to be trusted to that extent. The fundamental structure of government was controlled by a Constitution which bound this elite of virtue and talent to certain principles.
"It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights. Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power. Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft, Kentucky Res., 1798.
You can get the full article that this came from here.
Which side seems to be more in line with what Jefferson and the founding fathers had in mind? Is this not still an excellent ideal to get back to for our country? Exactly when did touting one's mediocrity become a campaign ploy anyway?
I know I would like to see a change in dynamic from the past 8 years of government fronted by a good ol' boy and run by elitists of the very worst sort with little regard for anyone but the very rich.
It's not intellectually elitist to want the very best we can get for our country. It's just plain old smart.
Addendum: Someone writing for Newsweek was thinking in the same vein/.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
September 11 ™
It seems like yesterday, it seems like a million years ago.
As I listened this morning to WBBM 780AM on my way to a commercial shoot, I couldn't help but tear up when they reported about the ceremonies and moments of silence being observed all over the country. I listened to parts of the ceremony at ground zero when names of the dead were called. I heard about the firefighters all over the country holding observances to remember the brave ones who died trying to save others. Heard about the new memorial at the Pentagon being unveiled today.
I was surprised as the day went on that I was not hearing more of the bombastic rhetoric that we have been getting from the Republicans, since this has been more or less turned into their "rally" day. Then I saw this from CNBC last night. I don't watch this guy much, since I am really tired of cable news in general, but he really stuck it to them. I think it may have had an effect. My friend, Rachel, said she wished she could turn it into a public service announcement. I think he is over the top, and is some places dead wrong, but he does make some excellent points:
• Current administration and current contenders are make September 11 a tacky brand name, using it not as a call for unity of purpose for the nation as a whole, but an overbearing tool for fear. "Vote for us or it will happen again!"
• The "Tribute" to September 11 at the Republican Convention was in really poor taste. It was graphic, accentuated the horror of the day instead of honoring the dead and the heroes of that day, and it brought in the 1978 Iranian Revolution extraneously to stoke paranoia. It was shameful.
• Current administration is still escaping all culpability for its transgressions against the nation and the world.
As I listened this morning to WBBM 780AM on my way to a commercial shoot, I couldn't help but tear up when they reported about the ceremonies and moments of silence being observed all over the country. I listened to parts of the ceremony at ground zero when names of the dead were called. I heard about the firefighters all over the country holding observances to remember the brave ones who died trying to save others. Heard about the new memorial at the Pentagon being unveiled today.
I was surprised as the day went on that I was not hearing more of the bombastic rhetoric that we have been getting from the Republicans, since this has been more or less turned into their "rally" day. Then I saw this from CNBC last night. I don't watch this guy much, since I am really tired of cable news in general, but he really stuck it to them. I think it may have had an effect. My friend, Rachel, said she wished she could turn it into a public service announcement. I think he is over the top, and is some places dead wrong, but he does make some excellent points:
• Current administration and current contenders are make September 11 a tacky brand name, using it not as a call for unity of purpose for the nation as a whole, but an overbearing tool for fear. "Vote for us or it will happen again!"
• The "Tribute" to September 11 at the Republican Convention was in really poor taste. It was graphic, accentuated the horror of the day instead of honoring the dead and the heroes of that day, and it brought in the 1978 Iranian Revolution extraneously to stoke paranoia. It was shameful.
• Current administration is still escaping all culpability for its transgressions against the nation and the world.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Weekend Thoughts
I think I have made up my mind about the Republican ticket. John McCain lost his ability to think independently and has chosen give in to the right wing party line. Basically, he has sold his soul for a chance at the presidency. John Stewart said it right. The Maverick for Reform in 2000 has become the Reformed Maverick 2008. Sarah Palin is anti-intellectual, unqualified and as phony as a 3 dollar bill. What say you that John McCain, if elected president, finds himself dying mysteriously in office and is replaced with this easy to control, out of her depth puppet? Then the end times can really begin...
Obama and Biden need to get their game on now.
I wonder if evangelicals realize that the more they drag religion into politics, the more people are turned off to God in droves. Souls are lost to Jesus every day because being a believer is associated with being a self righteous, narrow-minded non-thinker with a stick up your ass. Who wants a piece of that?
Obama and Biden need to get their game on now.
I wonder if evangelicals realize that the more they drag religion into politics, the more people are turned off to God in droves. Souls are lost to Jesus every day because being a believer is associated with being a self righteous, narrow-minded non-thinker with a stick up your ass. Who wants a piece of that?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Second Impression--Sarah Palin
I was trying to listen to her all-important acceptance speech on NPR as I was driving home, but her speaking style aurally is like listening to a cheesy spokesperson on a local carpet ad. She basically repeated what she said in her introductory speech, went on and on about her family, tweaked the dems with the same old party line blather, so I couldn't gleen any new substance from it. I got frustrated. I wanted her to go in for some more coaching, and a good rewrite, this time with substance over form, and get rid of the faux-sincerity! It's so faux!
Perhaps she said something important and noteworthy when I switched away for the traffic report for a minute. The audience at the convention sounded over-excited, like they were being forced to cheer next to the radio pavilion. What did it look like? I will be interested in seeing the full speech on video to see if communication was more effective visually. A transcript might be nice too, in case I can't sit through it.
Believe it or not, I really would like to like her even if I do not like her reputation as an extreme right winger and her apparent overall lack of experience. I actually think John McCain is personally a pretty okay guy and the best thing Republicans have let rise to the top in some time. But I am still scratching my head on this veep pick...I don't get her supposed appeal, and this speech as far as I could listen to it did not answer any questions whatsoever, just repeat stuff over and over as if it was an answer.
The "news" channels and all are no help. I know more about poor daughter Bristol than I do about Sarah. How incredibly inept. The manipulation by the GOP and the Dems in this "family" situation is ham-handed and highly irritating. Using the children while thumping their chests at the injustice of their exposure. My inner teen girl is highly mortified for Bristol. Poor kid.
I guess I will just have to keep wading through the muck, waiting for the real Sarah Palin to emerge from the media underbrush, fierce and proud or loud and stinky, just like the moose she likes to hunt.
Perhaps she said something important and noteworthy when I switched away for the traffic report for a minute. The audience at the convention sounded over-excited, like they were being forced to cheer next to the radio pavilion. What did it look like? I will be interested in seeing the full speech on video to see if communication was more effective visually. A transcript might be nice too, in case I can't sit through it.
Believe it or not, I really would like to like her even if I do not like her reputation as an extreme right winger and her apparent overall lack of experience. I actually think John McCain is personally a pretty okay guy and the best thing Republicans have let rise to the top in some time. But I am still scratching my head on this veep pick...I don't get her supposed appeal, and this speech as far as I could listen to it did not answer any questions whatsoever, just repeat stuff over and over as if it was an answer.
The "news" channels and all are no help. I know more about poor daughter Bristol than I do about Sarah. How incredibly inept. The manipulation by the GOP and the Dems in this "family" situation is ham-handed and highly irritating. Using the children while thumping their chests at the injustice of their exposure. My inner teen girl is highly mortified for Bristol. Poor kid.
I guess I will just have to keep wading through the muck, waiting for the real Sarah Palin to emerge from the media underbrush, fierce and proud or loud and stinky, just like the moose she likes to hunt.
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