Comments on The Morning News

Hannity and Stepho? After watching the reel I believe it...

Yeah, that "debate" really helped people make up their mind about who to vote for.

It doesn't matter. McCain can beat either Dem. Dems are jumping ship and voting for the winner, per a Yahoo poll. Can't say that I blame them. Hillary can't be trusted, and Obama isn't fully vetted.

I kept wanting Obama to do a "I paid for this microphone" gambit by unleashing a little anger at Gibson and the Stephanopolous. Something like "Before I answer another one of your 'gotcha' questions, I have to say this: I think the voters of Pennsylvania would like to hear you tell them when you are going to let us address issues that actually affect them and their families and that they actually care about. We're 45 minutes into this debate, and you haven't started. American deserve better than this sort of news coverage, this sort of politics." And maybe even: "I'm going to go back into the green room now. You let me know when you are ready to start this debate."

Could he do that? Should he do that? What would be the reaction?

Apparently Pennsylvanians are dumb as rocks. Having been to Philly and Pitt, I'm not saying I'm surprised. Everything in PA outside those two cities may as well be in Mississippi.

jesus christ we're doomed.

Isn't "lapidary" a compliment?

Obama and Clinton are essentially tied in head to heads against McCain. And Obama is way behind in head to heads in OH and FL. IOW looks like he's going to lose the general election or at least there is a huge risk of that. When he said all the polls shows he is more electable, that was a stretch, a fib, or what we'd all call a damn lie ("she'll say anything to win!") had HRC said the same in similar circumstances.

All the drivel Obama supporters complain about is what decides presidential elections. Dukakis in a tank, Kerry windsurfing, Gore invented the internet and changed his suits, and guess what, we're not above it either, viz. GWB not knowing the price of bread and befuddled by a grocery scanner. The coastal, culturally elite liberal Democrats (us!) weren't sreaming then that "hey that's not fair, that's not about the issues, that's a low blow!"

We need the Archie Bunker Dogpatch voters to win. They care: if Obama doesn't wear a flag pin, hangs with a terrorist dude who said he wished he'd bombed America more (said it after 9-11 -- not 40 years ago as Obama lamely tried to suggest) and they care if Obama thinks they cling to guns and religion, and if he has a pastor for 20 years who says God damn America.

Crying this is dumb and low is just another way of giving up. These are the issues that swing swing voters.
Used to be, the argument was Obama could master this game. Now that the evidence is he's not -- see below -- the cry is the game is unfair and Obama and the Obama supporters can barely restrain their disdain at being forced to play in this game, in this country, in this universe.

If Obama's schtick were working, he'd be the one 6 points up ro 14 points up in Pa. He'd be winning there not about to lose. He'd be winning in Ind. not a few points behind, and he'd be winning in Ky. too.

He's got the money. Why is he losing in so many states?
Why is he blown away by McCain in Fl. and OH?

Why is he behind HRC in the head to heads in those states --f ar, far behind?

Why is he behind her in Pa., too?

Answer: swing voters don't like ultra out of touch urban ultra-lefties like him who hang with even more ultra-lefties and who fail to display basic respect and udnerstanding for how most Americans feel about America and some of the other more traditional values.

Deal with it. Crying about it doesn't help.

Penis.

re: Oil. Is it news if it hits a record high every day?

What unPC said.

On the bright side, this debate should put a further damper on the idea of the liberal media bias.

That debate montage was truly disgusting and sad. I think I am going to puke.

I love this catch-all phrase "stick to the issues", as if somewhere there were a list of the "issues" and the "non-issues". Magically, I am back in high school and my english teacher is warning me about the "real world" as opposed to apparently fabricated world i was then inhabiting. It's a bullshit distinction.

What do you mean "we", Max? Every one of the Democratic voting blocs has preyed on one another for forty-odd years--you didn't expect it to self-destruct? Allow me to give you a few examples:
1. Second-wave feminists ignore the problems of women of color and those of the lower class. They lose ERA and then Roe v Wade begins to look a little shaky. All of a sudden, they begin to notice these "flyover" women's strength. 3rd-wave, or corporate, feminism is born.
2. The gay rights movement, shifting seamlessly from AIDS activism to marriage and all of its associated consumer products, gaining corporate sponsorship in the process. Diversity vanishes. Also, each and every gay publication begins to get bought up by the same holding corporation...middle-to-upper class whites get what they want, blacks die of HIV in droves, but since they are closeted, that doesn't have to show up on statistics...the AIDS rate looks to be going down and everything looks rosy. But '04 comes and surveys indicate a large proportion (18% or so) of black voters voted for Bush over 'moral issues'. So all of a sudden, you get 'diversity' in gay advertising and media...no more "Gay as Volk".

The same thing happened with the two main minority blocs for the Dems: blacks and women. The corporations take a hit on this faux-diversity, but it gets the votes necessary to get the white people's dollar. Think of it as an Identity Politics accounting shift. The problem is that in elections, carefully crafted coalitions take some pretty hard hits, and DemCorp didn't expect both minorities to make it to the final stretch at once. Meltdown. Meanwhile, RepubliCorp runs on the organic unity of Nativism, Racism, and Militarism. I knew McCain was going to bag it as soon as Hillary and Obama were the finalists. Sad but true.

As a matter of fact, the grownups do know the difference between an issue and a non-issue. Grownups know also that there is nobody who is invulnerable from these slimy attacks on non-issues. Any more than you can give your kid a name that nobody will make fun of on the schoolyard.

Those of you who think elections turn on this petty shit are relics of the past. You need to be reminded that if the Democratic voters wanted to keep doing business this way they would not have nominated Obama in the first place.

What's strange is that the unPC types actually think that prodding at Obama's particular weaknesses amount to an argument to nominate Hillary Clinton.

They'll pretend that if Clinton was the one in the lead, we somehow wouldn't be spending more time talking about Tuzla and Annie Oakley, instead of "bitterness".

They'll ignore the polls that show Obama outperforming Clinton relative to McCain nationally in favor of this poll and that in particular states. And when they do that, they'll conveniently leave out her failings in polls in other states.

They'll talk about how disenfranchising Florida and Michigan will have serious repercussions, but pretend that overriding the primary vote with superdelegates won't offend anyone of consequence.

I don't know how they keep all this straight in their head without the cognitive dissonance blowing a fuse.

Some of what 15 says is true. ...Faux diversity is killing the Democratic Party. What you really have are factions that hate each other. Maybe it's time for African Americans to split their support among parties. That's the only way any real progress will be made in that community. Hillary getting the nom will hasten the process. I'm sure unPC, 5280 & others agree with me.

If you heard the debate last night and didn't find it at least somewhat shameful, then you have lost your way, I'm afraid. You are part of the problem.

The reason Obama is losing is because he's getting attacked by both McCain and Clinton...do you ever wonder why McCain is attacking Obama, but not Clinton? Who do you think he wants to run against???

Aislinn and I only caught the last 40 minutes or so of the debate, and other than Clinton's incessant habit of not really answering the question posed to her (was Obama doing the same thing too? I was distracted by how tired he looked), I thought the issues covered were at least mildly interesting: gun control, affirmative action, taxes. Of course there were some lame questions like "How would you use Bush?" and the ultra-softball closing argument setup "Why should superdelegates vote for you?"

The interesting thing, re: Hannity/Stephanopoulos, is we were watching Hannity & Colmes before we switched to the debate, and right before we switched I heard Hannity give props to ABC and I think Stephanopoulos for "finally" asking tough questions or something like that. Anyone else know what I'm talking about? I can't find a transcript.

FLAG PINS FLAG PINS FLAG PINS!

I didn't need to watch this crap to realize how mindless the idea of a national debate really is. Watching it only reinforces the pathetic truth. No one wants a genuine discussion of policies that are affecting our lives and our world. They want to reaffirm their petty prejudices, and woe to the candidate, commentator or vodka advertiser who fails to do that. Patriotism is a scam, the election is a sham, the government is completely corrupt and most of our fellow citizens are simple dumb asses. Time to face facts: the age of thoughtful debate is over. The liberal ideas on which this country was founded are dead and buried.

I say give the presidency to McCain, load up Iran with nuclear weapons, get the rednecks stinking drunk and give them heaping handfuls of fertility drugs, and lets call this whole game over.

Obama's a statesmen. The rest (McCain, Clinton, Gibson and Stephanpoopoulos) couldn't carry his jock.

I've come to believe that if making positive changes requires dumbing everything down and moving futher to the right, then the country doesn't really deserve them. If this nation really needs political and social issues boiled down to flag lapels and leftover 60s bullshit, the country as a whole deserves to decline. People who advocate continuous compromise, lying and patriotic rhetoric in the name of short term ideological gain are seriously hurting this country. The reason Demcorats lose is because they keep trying to play by Republican rules. Apparently most Democrats and progressives haven't figured that shit out yet. Too bad.

I think the only thing left to do is get completely drunk for the next seven months, stagger to the voting booth, then go home and sleep it off until January. That's my plan, anyway.

brain hurt. can't take any more.