Ramblings and Ruminations

As soon as I hear this story on the news this morning, my Spidey senses were tingling.

Sometimes people suck

Just one little bit tonight because it is late and I am beat. 

McCain was a nasty, rude SOB and Obama was far too gracious.  He needs to stop saying "I agree with John" and point up the differences between them more.  And he needs to NOT let McBush get away with crap like saying he loves veterans and will take care of them when it is well known that he has a lousy record when it comes to veterans affairs.

I guess it was a draw.  I'll think on it more and write tomorrow.  Now, to bed.

There is a crisis on Wall Street.  Banks are failing, major financial institutions seem suddenly to be ready to go the way of the dodo.  Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson throws together a quick, short proposal that basically says "Give me $700 billion, more if I want it, don't ask any questions about what I'm going to do with it and give it to me NOW!" and Congress huddles to figure out what to do.  Just as they come to a bipartisan agreement, John - I can only handle one thing at a time! - McCain rides his white-haired horse into Washington and says "Whoa there!  I haven't given this my blessing!" and suddenly all is chaos again.  Our President sits quietly for the most part, not saying much of anything, seemingly having already passed the torch to McPalin.

So... am I being cynical if I think that maybe - just maybe - this whole thing was engineered by the White House and the demonic powers that be to make McBush look like a maveric again?  Send Congress a proposal that they KNOW will be rejected - no oversight, bailing out the fat cats with no thought for Mr. and Mrs. Joe Main Street - JUST so that McCain can rush in and look like a white knight battling the stalwarts of his own party once again to bring justice and joy to the common folk?

But then some would say I am a cynic.

From Maureen Dowd's column on Sarah Palin:

Even if she [Palin] blows off the First Amendment — and lets McCain’s Rove, Steve Schmidt, demonize the press even though she disdains women politicians who whine — Bill Clinton is still a fan.

Besides talking about what a great man John McCain is on “The View” and “David Letterman,” Bill praised Palin at his Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York and will receive her there on Thursday.

“I come from Arkansas. I get why she is hot out there,” he said authoritatively, adding: “People look at her, and they say, ‘All those kids. Something that happens in everybody’s family. I’m glad she loves her daughter and she’s not ashamed of her. Glad that girl’s going around with her boyfriend. Glad they’re going to get married.’ ” He said voters would think: “I like that little Down syndrome kid. One of them lives down the street. They’re wonderful. ... And I like the idea that this guy does those long-distance races. Stayed in the race for 500 miles with a broken arm. My kind of guy.”

On “The View,” he said he understood that some women might vote for Palin on the basis of gender, even if it was against their economic interest.

“You can’t tell someone else that the ground on which they make their voting decision is irrational,” he said primly.

Well, actually you could, if you weren’t still sulking and plotting for 2012.

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Count renowned documentarian Ken Burns as someone who isn't enamored of GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

The maker of "The Civil War" and "The War" didn't hesitate to criticize GOP presidential candidate John McCain and Palin when asked about them at a panel discussion Monday at Fordham University's law school.

"He (McCain) selected someone who is so supremely unqualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, and he has turned the selection process into a high school popularity contest and an 'American Idol' competition," Burns said. He said that McCain made a "cynical" pick in what he said was the most important decision of his presidential candidacy.

Burns, whose body of work has focused on American history, said that "in the whole history of the republic there has been no one with as thin as a credential" as Palin. He said it was, for McCain, a "Hail Mary pass" that will be decided in November.

Burns was being honored, along with CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer, with lifetime achievement awards at Monday night's News and Documentary Emmy Awards. The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, along with Fordham, sponsors a panel with the winners the morning before the ceremony.

Schieffer didn't take a stand like Burns did, but he did defend the mainstream media's coverage of Palin after she was named McCain's running mate.

"Sarah Palin is a 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency. The presidency is the most powerful office in the world," Schieffer said. "It seems to me that some would suggest we should just accept on faith that Sarah Palin is qualified."

Schieffer paid tribute to Palin and her remarkable and compelling life story but said that the mainstream media didn't mistreat her. Schieffer called Palin's selection a "true game-changer" that allowed the GOP to seize the momentum coming out of the major-party conventions earlier this month.

"But the game-changer that Wall Street presented last week has trumped that, and now this campaign is no longer about Sarah Palin," Schieffer said. "It is about which of these candidates is going to come up with the right answers on what has happened on Wall Street."

Reposted from an online community I belong to, which has been having a hotly contentious thread ever since Palin was selected by McBush.  One of the women in the community lives in Alaska and she appears to be slavishly devoted to Ms. Palin and can't understand why many others are not so besotted.  So the Admin on the site - who rarely ever posts ANYTHING - put this up, I suppose of out extreme frustration at how stupid the arguments were getting.

Let me see if I have this straight:

If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."

Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, you're a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.  Oh, and if you also were pregnant when you got married.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now!

Keeping tongue planted FIRMLY in cheek, I now return you back to our normally scheduled bickeri.... err, programming.

Admin was brilliant.

From today's Washington Post:

"Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he's president, he'll take on the, quote, old boys' network in Washington," Obama said in Elko.

"I am not making this up. This is someone who's been in Congress for 26 years - who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign - and now he's the one who will take on the old boy network?" Obama continued. "The old boy network? In the McCain campaign, that's called a staff meeting."

I'm liking Obama more and more.  Now he just needs to come out with sound bites like this on a near daily basis.

From Al Gore's amazing speech tonight, when speaking about McBush's slavish adherence to the policies of the current administration:  I beleive in recycling but this is ridiculous!

We cheered.

At least in my book she does.  She ran a lousy, mean-spirited campaign and can't stop griping about a nomination that was hers to lose.  Well, she lost it and it is about time she stopped whining and being coy about her support for Obama.  Her "stop the roll call" speech today had all the enthusiasm of someone calling for another root canal.

She went after Obama like a house afire rather than go after McCain and has now given the asses in the republican party plenty of ammunition to use in their ads.

I can't stand her and I'm not liking her husband much anymore either, which is something I never thought I'd say.

I have rice pudding.  Really really good creamy homemade rice pudding.  And in spite of my cold, I can taste the comfort.  I think I have discovered a replacement for chicken soup.

In other news, the fact that Edwards has dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination saddens me a little.  Not that he was "my" candidate, but that I think he gave up too soon.  I think he had a shot and should have at least hung in there until after Super Tuesday.

I am totally thrilled that Rudy (*cough* asshole *cough*) has finally dropped out.  I couldn't stand that man while he was mayor of our fair city, I positively HATED him all through the aftermath of 9/11 and the idea of him getting any closer to the White House than the reflecting pool at the Washington Monument scared the stuffing out of me. 

Did anyone else think that the picture all the papers (seemingly) ran of McCain this morning looked a bit too toothy for comfort?  He looked like he was going to eat people!