Late Night: The Heat is On

post from TalkLeft on 05 May 2008 10:44:00 PM. © TalkLeft

Thanks to all who contributed to our TL Appreciation Days. We've had a great response and we thank every one of you. We'll bump it a few times until early afternoon tomorrow and then it will fade into the archives.

Here's an open thread for you. What haven't we covered? What more do you have to say?

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Bernanke, the genious

post from AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth on 05 May 2008 10:33:00 PM. © AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth

No, you don't say?

"High rates of delinquency and foreclosure can have substantial spillover effects on the housing market, the financial markets, and the broader economy," Bernanke said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Columbia University School of Business in New York.

Naturally none of this prevents him from a strict whatever-Wall-Street-wants policy of cushy bailouts and rate cuts. What next? Is Bernanke going to boldly state that interest rate cuts to banks don't transfer to individuals or that when the dollar goes down, gas prices go up with each rate cut?

Where the heck were Bernanke and Greenspan, the Fed, and the Republicans when this fragile system was being built up? They're all supposed to be so smart, so how did they honestly think that real estate would always increase? Have they never studied bubble economies before? How did we get stuck with such an incompetent bunch?

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Indiana and North Carolina Open Thread

post from Open Left - Front Page on 05 May 2008 10:32:14 PM. © Open Left - Front Page

Obama had an impressive rally in Indianapolis with huge numbers, while Ben Smith twitters "Last[...]

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Oh, Happy Day!

post from Moue Magazine on 05 May 2008 10:27:32 PM. © Moue Magazine

So I wrote this ridiculously long post in which I prattled on and on about how great music was back in the day when 120 Minutes was still relevant and before NME was a nostalgia magazine and blah blah blah, but I just sounded like a crabby old man, so[...]

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Beer, Bowling and Bull Virus Strikes Again

post from TPMCafe on 05 May 2008 10:27:00 PM. © TPMCafe

So now Hillary Rodham Clinton, educated at Wellesley and Yale Law, earner (with her husband) of $100 million in the last seven years, is talking about the "elitist" Barack Obama, formerly of the Harvard Law Review and possessor of a much smaller pot of money. Newsweek is out with a cover story on Obama's "Bubba Gap," and is mocked for eating "designer salads."

In the words of a former president, "There you go again." The fake elitist meme that travels like an infection through the body politic is now working its ill ways. Drinking liquids and taking aspirin won't cut it. What we need here is something to restore memories that have apparently been wiped out on a large scale, principally in the elitist media, but also with others in the political world.

For the record, I like the fact that Hillary Clinton is a well-educated, accomplished woman. I like the fact that Barack Obama is a well-spoken, accomplished man. They shouldn't hide what they are. They should be proud of it. I've always been amazed by this cultural phenomenon of pushing our children to be the best and brightest they can be, but that those same kids are insulted as "elitist" if they do make it to the best schools, earn money and want to enter public service.

Remember the great question from the past two elections - which candidate would you want to have a beer with? Al Gore wasn't likeable, the media declared. Too stiff. John Kerry, God help him, ordered the wrong cheese on his cheesesteak. He couldn't possible identify with the common man, the media declared. He went windsurfing. How soon we forget.

Now we've had eight years to figure out how the bar-tab test has worked. Gasoline is near $4 per gallon, whether our drinking buddy president has heard of it or not. Our kids are getting killed and maimed in Iraq and will be for the foreseeable future. Our economy is in the pits. Our government has been trashed from the inside by a cadre of incompetent, corrupt loyalists. Our standing in the world is at rock bottom. Goodness gracious, that will make for some interesting chat over some brewskis, won't it?

I don't care if Hillary Clinton throws back shots of Chivas, or if Barack Obama can't bowl. I care, and so should you, and so should the reporters covering the campaign, about which direction the country will be led during a Clinton or Obama presidency. (And during a John McCain presidency as well. Cindy McCain has managed to hide her income as Theresa Heinz Kerry couldn't. John McCain comes from an elite military family. Cindy McCain comes from an economically elite family.)

We were fed the superficial for the last seven years, we were pandered to by the media and by the government for the last seven years, and we are worse off for it. A politician can be formal and reserved, as is Gore and as is Kerry and, frankly, so is Obama. That's not the fatal character flaw that it's made out to be. Why should a candidate who has good ideas about how to lead the country out of Iraq, or out of this economic morass, be forced to be someone he or she does not fit the image that reporters demand?

Is this really Hillary Clinton saying she won't pay attention to economists and experts? She has to, because she got trapped in a shallow pander to appear to be doing something for people when in reality her gas-tax holiday won't do a thing. She has to appear to care because she's expected to appeal to the "common man." There are lots of better ways to do that. Cheap tricks may help in the short run, but they won't do anyone much good over the long term. I'd be willing to be a Clinton Administration would have more than a couple of economists, some of them from Ivy League schools, around.

Why not promise to reverse the last seven years trend of ignoring facts and ignoring science? Why not promise to restore the integrity and quality of our government by bringing in dedicated, smart people to clean up the mess and set new policies that, horrors, abide by scientific and economic facts, rather than by guided by ideology or cronyism?

If I want reality, I'll watch "Survivor" or "Project Runway." What I want to see in a campaign is authenticity. Candidates who aren't ashamed or afraid of who they are, reporters who will focus on what's important and, just maybe, an electorate that will see through all the garbage and vote based on who a person is and what he or she will do, rather than what sport they pursue or whether are good for a drink.

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A Classic In The Double Standard Genre

post from TalkLeft on 05 May 2008 10:24:00 PM. © TalkLeft

Somerby reminds us today of Richard Cohen's classic example of double standards:

[RICHARD] COHEN (2/5/08): [. . . [I]n 2005, [Clinton] co-sponsored a bill that would make flag-burning illegal. . . . I was not alone in suggesting that on the flag issue, Clinton was readying herself for a presidential race and trying to blunt her image as a harridan of the political left.

. . . Look, I know what Obama was doing when he refused to confront his minister about the latter's embrace of Louis Farrakhan. . . . He will not get my Profiles in Courage award for this, but the rest of his record overwhelms this one chintzy act. Not so with Clinton. In the first place, you don't get to pander with the First Amendment. It is just too important, too central, not merely an amendment but a commandment: Thou Shalt Not Abridge Speech.

In his column the next week, the following correction:

COHEN (2/12/08): My Feb. 5 column was critical of Hillary Clinton for supporting a bill to make flag burning illegal. I have since learned from a reader that Barack Obama also supported that bill.

Heh. That is a classic.

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Final Candidate Appearances

post from TalkLeft on 05 May 2008 10:20:00 PM. © TalkLeft

Hillary:

2:30 p.m., Appearance in Merrillville, IN.
7:30 p.m., Rally in New Albany, IN.
9:45 p.m., Rally in Evansville, IN.

Here's Obama

7:30 p.m., Rally in Indianapolis, IN.
9:15 p.m., Appearance in Gary, IN. (Spouse)
Time N/A, Appearance in Evansville, IN.

More...

Bill Clinton:

7:30 a.m., Rally in Elizabeth City, NC.
9:15 a.m., Rally in New Bern, NC.
11:15 a.m., Rally in Jacksonville, NC.
1:30 p.m., Rally in Smithfield, NC.
3 p.m., Rally in Zebulon, NC.
4:30 p.m., Rally in Louisburg, NC.
6 p.m., Rally in Henderson, NC.
8 p.m., Rally in Roxboro, NC.
10 p.m., Rally in Raleigh, NC.

Michelle Obama met this morning with military wives in Fayetteville, NC. and in the afternoon held meetings in Fayetteville and Charlotte. She will appear tonight in Gary, IN with Obama.

This morning, Hillary did a rally at 8:45 a.m. in Greenville, NC. and at 11:45 a.m. in High Point, NC. Obama met with workers in Durham at 12:45 p.m.

Pretty light day for Obama, one lunchtime appearance in North Carolina and nothing until 7:30 pm in Indiana.

For the results tomorrow night, Hillary will be speaking from Indianapolis at 6:30 pm. I suspect Obama will be in North Carolina, but haven't seen a link yet.

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Its Official (Again): Clinton Wins Indiana

Guest post by GreyFOX, CNN and MSNBC finally call it.The Clinton campaign has released a memo on Indiana:In April, Barack Obama called Indiana a -??tie-breaker-?? for the Democratic nominating process: -??You know, Sen. Clinton is more favored in[...]

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Vice President Jindal

The headline on Bill Kristol?s NYT column today reads, ?McCain-Jindal?? It suggests to the reader that the column is about John McCain considering Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal for the Republican presidential ticket, as has been rumored elsewhere. As it turns out, the first three-fourths of Kristol?s column was actually about Jeremiah Wright and Barack [...]

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Obama Campaign and WVWV

This is interesting.Voters and watchdog groups complained about the calls, and North Carolina[...]

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