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George Nemeth · Roldo Bartimole—McCain Gives Us Distraction instead of VP Candidate
September 2nd, 2008
John McCain’s choice of Alaska’s 20-month governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate is right out of the Machiavellian Karl Rove’s playbook, meant to distract.
The unusual choice is meant to play “head games” with the opposition and the gullible news media. It’s intended to divert. It is meant to confuse. Nothing more.
I don’t believe McCain’s choice has anything to do with pilfering Hillary Clinton’s primary voters. No one could be so stupid as to think women would fall for such a silly maneuver. It’s insulting.
So why would you choose a running mate with literally no experience when your main attack has been that your Democratic opponent lacks experience? Why this obvious twist? Could there be a reasonable explanation?
Yes, in Rove’s topsy-turvy political gaming. It’s Rove at his most amusing. If this isn’t a Rove decision it must be his team’s doing. They’re advisors to McCain.
The line prepared as Republican talking points – expecting the inexperience question to be tossed against Palin by Democrats and questioned by pundits – will be that she’s as experienced as his opponent Barack Obama. It thus diminishes Obama. It couldn’t diminish Palin whose record is thin as the melting Arctic ice.
It’s a clever trick - if truly cynical move - by the lackluster McCain. He tries to play the maverick he once was but has decided that his only chance to be President now is to play the Rove way – cynical, dirty and deceitful.
The only thing that is making this race close – given the real disaster we’ve been left by the Republicans, President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney – is the issue of Obama’s race. You can expect it to be played subtly and not so subtly by the Republicans in the next few weeks.
Obama’s race is the only thing that is keeping this from being a total Democratic landslide, which it may be anyway since voters know that the last eight years have been a pure and historic disaster.
Four more years of this should trump even racism.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:01 am
Does this link to any of Roldo’s material someplace else?
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:51 am
Or perhaps it’s a brilliant move, selecting both a woman and someone with actual executive experience, to highlight the lackluster choice of Washington insider, blowhard, and proven liar Joseph Biden as a limp noodle Democrat Vice Presidential nominee, and the very thin resume of rhetorician Barack Obama.
People will see the McCain choice for what it is–a surprisingly good move.
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Yes, Sarah Palin is clearly more qualified to assume the presidency than Joe Biden. Any conservative ideologue can see that.
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Yes, Barack’s skin color distracts us from retreating from Iraq, raising taxes, and socializing medicine.
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Would anyone be surprised if McCain now is forced to dump Palin.
He apparently choose without any real test of her test except she was a right-wing zealot.
Most important in new revelations is the information that before becoming a Republican she belonged to the Alaska Independence Party that wanted Alaska to secede from the U. S. That seems to questions her allegiance to the U. S. might be rather soft.
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
John, Biden’s experience is all in pontificating and legislating. What makes him qualified for executive office?
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:03 pm
But whose racism? The Democrat party rejected Obama here in Ohio and in Pennsylvania. How is it Republican racism that is making this a close race when there’s no broad support in the Democrat party in key electoral states?
I think we’ll find that racism within the ranks of the Democrat party is the reason this is a close race.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:49 pm
There is a significant executive component in chairing crucial Senate committees such as the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs, both of which he has overseen for many years. More importantly, or at least equally importantly, he’s got decades of familiarity with the issues and the players on the domestic and world stages. But then, I think you knew all that. If she had another four or five years as governor, that might blunt some of that chasm in their experience. As it is, it’s a pretty stark contrast.
And I should note that I say all this as someone who until this weekend was strongly tilting toward voting for McCain, precisely for these same reasons: the stark contrast with Obama in their experience level. But with this pick, he’s really raised a huge concern for me about his judgment.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Recall, for instance, the difficult task he had as Judiciary Committee chair during the Clarence Thomas hearings, balancing the ferocious fight between left and right while also trying to give the nominee a fair shake. As you probably remember, he was criticized intensely by the left for failing to protect Anita Hill sufficiently. Even though I didn’t like the results, I thought it was among his finest hours, given the impossible task he faced.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:15 pm
John, fair enough in its characterization of Biden’s abilities to chair meetings. That’s a far cry from executive experience, though. Executives are the people who ultimately have to say, “we are going to do this,” and “we are not going to do that” and then stand by those decisions no matter how much heat they take.
For instance, “we are going to support the surge in Iraq,” which President Bush said against significant opposition within his own administration, against the overwhelming opinion of the media and Congress (I lump them together as one, here, the way they typically operate), and against the “experts” of the Hamilton Commission. Remember that last year Biden was actively advocating the breakup of Iraq into three loosely federated entities separated by ethnic group.
President Bush was, ahem, right on the surge decision, but he was almost alone when he made it. (This weekend’s NY Times had a detailed article on this subject.)
It’s not necessary to point out, but I will anyway, that Biden was wrong about the surge and, by the way, so was Obama.
I don’t think Biden has the backbone for that kind of tough decisionmaking. I also have serious questions about his character. He lied about his resume, he received military deferments for “asthma,” and he is known in the Senate as “Captain Blowhard.” I suppose he would be no worse than Al Gore…what am I saying?
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I’m always fascinated by the phrase “right about the surge.” What does that mean? It worked?
I think there are facets of the US Military Policy that began with the so-called “surge” that worked. But to say “right about the surge” is a GOP phrase that means to distract from all the things that still don’t work in Iraq…things that also have to fall at the feet of Mr 25-percent; President Bush.
The much beloved General Petraeus just said that everything there is still “fragile” meaning it could fall apart at any minute.
In the end, the surge was an escalation of a war that had already lost most of its support back in the USA.
And if there’s one truth to be said about war it’s that a lack of domestic support means you’ve already lost…period.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I covered Dennis Kucinich from the time he was a copy boy at the Wall Street Journal, where I was in 1967, through his mayoral period and have watched him since, a more than 40 year period.
What strikes is that Sarah Palin has a very similar confrontational approach as Kucinich, though politically at another pole.
I admire much about Kucinich’s ability to spotlight ills in our governing, and I suspect that Palin had has political success with similar tactics and political strategy. A willingness to take more radical stances.
However, I wouldn’t want Kucinich to be President any more than I would want a Palin to be a heartbeat away from the same office.
Palin has, it seems, the same spunky reformist attitudes and willingness to do battle as Dennis has shown. It is a certain quality that we need as a goad to others who would rather play it safe on all levels.
We need it but not too much of it and not in executive office.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I meant to add that I agree with E. Simon that the Republicans are after some Democratic voters who will vote based on race, not the qualities of the candidates.
That’s essentially the target, having Republicans who will vote against a non-white candidate.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Rod, “right about the surge” means both that it was the right decision to take, and that it worked. The other choices at the time were “do nothing,” which would have perpetuated a bad situation; to unilaterally withdraw from Iraq, which would have led to a sectarian bloodbath such as what happened in Indochina in 1974; or to follow the advice of the Hamilton Commission and Joe Biden and break Iraq up into three loosely federated separate nations. Of those choices, the surge was the “right” choice. Therefore, President Bush was “right about the surge.” I hope that clarifies your uncertainty.
And, I’ll point out, it has been a characteristic of Mr. Bush’s critics that when something he has done has “worked,” the critics ignore that, and find another subject about which to complain. Instead of acknowledging that the surge has worked, and admitting their own error in judgement, they turn their attention to (or cling to the straw of) General Petraeus’ statement that Iraq is still fragile.
Just as throughout the years when the Bush economy and reduction in tax rates was supporting economic growth and job creation, his critics kept screaming “tax cuts for the rich.” Notwithstanding the FACTS that the wealthy pay a higher percentage of taxes now than they did under Clinton.
Or more recently, ignoring last quarter’s 3.3% growth in GDP and the FACT that the economy has escaped a recession. Yet, we still hear whining about the economy and comparisons of it to the Great Depression.
The reason these tactics are perpetuated is because they, unfortunately, work. Witness the poll numbers you cite. All too many people are willing to take their opinions from Chicken Little, instead of looking up themselves.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Again, it’s a convenient phrase to forget why the surge was needed in the first place. It’s pretty obvious that, when it comes to selective amnesia, it’s conservatives who carry the expertise.
The real issue is this: can the country afford another four years of a party that requires so-called “surges” to ease the effects of their craptastic foreign policy?
And if you think that the GDP numbers are indications of a recession, then you haven’t been paying any attention to what goes into those numbers anymore. The GDP number you cite is a political number for the party in power…nothing more.
Are you in Cleveland? If so, then I will assume you are blind because it really takes only a pair of eyes (and a sense of decency) to see the suffering that’s going on across your metro area.
And why do the wealthy pay a greater portion of taxes? Because they’ve gained an obscenely greater portion of the national wealth over the past 8 years. But their tax as a proportion of income has dropped while it’s gone up for the poorest tax payers which is what’s known as greed pure and simple.
President Obama is the only one who even has a chance of saving this country, to return it to a progressive path where life, get better for folks across the board.
President McCain means, more unneeded war, more suffering for the poor, more money for those who already have money.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:01 pm
No, I’m certainly not downplaying Biden’s character flaws, which Slate.com highlighted last week, and which it called particularly creepy because of how he adopted not only British Labor Secretary Neil Kinnock’s words but portions of his bio. But they still strike me, and I think a lot of people, as relative misdemeanors given a very long career in the public eye (I’m far more concerned about his questionable ties to MBNA, for which his son lobbied). And Sarah P. is a reminder that even a short career in public service inevitably tends to lead to at least a few eyebrow-raising actions.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Rod, in any economy some do better than others. Parts of Cleveland are experiencing the dying spasms of the post-WWII economy on which the region depended for so long. Other parts of it, the parts in which I operate, are growing significantly: high tech; services, medical. That’s the future of the city, region, nation, and world.
It’s interesting to me that you do exactly what I talked about: you dismiss the FACT that GDP growth last quarter was 3.3%, and point to some other unquantifiable factors to support your beliefs. Well, we have been using GDP to describe economic growth for a long time, and despite its imperfections, that’s what we use to describe it now. The FACTS may be inconvenient to your argument; sorry, that’s not the fault of the FACTS.
Economies are not moral entities. They assign resources to places of opportunity, and reward innovators and hard workers. Some people lack the skills to take advantage of the opportunities presented in an economy. This is true in any economy, not just the current one. If we regressed to the Stone Age, as some would have us do, you might find your skills as a hunter to be lacking, and you might go hungry as a consequence.
We are experiencing a period of dramatic and rapid change. During such periods, there is a great opportunity for upward mobility and for wealth accumulation. Many of the people who have accumulated wealth recently are entrepreneurs who create jobs and opportunities for others–such as Sergey Brin and Larry Page at Google. That company alone has created 1,000 or so millionaires. These people were not “wealthy” before that, before they created billions of dollars in value for customers, shareholders, and yes, themselves.
As to the assignment of the moral term “greed” to hardworking people who have created value and, yes, benefitted from it, that’s a simplistic and moralistic way to distort how economies work. Economies do not operate by moral values.
And Heaven help us if Obama “return(s) it to a progressive path,” because that’s what we had under Jimmy Carter, and things did not get better for most people, but worse. The current popular usage “progressive” is meant to imply that the policies advocated by adherents of that philosophy lead to “progress,” but they in fact lead us backwards.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Economies do not operate by moral values.
You’re not kidding…
As to the assignment of the moral term “greed” to hardworking people who have created value and, yes, benefitted from it, that’s a simplistic and moralistic way to distort how economies work.
And you are not implicitly assigning a moral stature (let’s call it “good”, although you can suggest another word if you wish) to those same “hardworking” people in the above statement?
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Roldo said “That’s essentially the target, having Republicans who will vote against a non-white candidate.”
Are you sure you didn’t mean “having Democrats who will vote against a non-white candidate” ?
I believe, at least in the context of the argument you are making, that is what you meant, that the Republicans will be targeting racist Democrats.
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:41 pm
BP Beckley, yes, hardworking people do have the moral stature of being “good,” and I think it would be difficult to craft a philosophical argument to the contrary that would be reasonably defensible. Nobody would, I think, be able to argue with a straight face that it is “good” for people to be “not hardworking,” or that those people should be rewarded for being that.
Hard work is the minimum needed to participate in an economy though it is not, by itself, enough to prosper. To prosper, somebody who is hardworking also needs to work hard at something that creates value to others to such an extent that the hardworking person is rewarded above and beyond subsistence.
A hardworking ditchdigger, by this measure, would not be highly compensated, because he could only dig one ditch at a time, and the ditch would have limited value. A hardworking software entrepreneur, alternatively, could create a program that could be used by millions of people that saved these millions of people time or money or improved their lives or work in some way. The software entrepreneur could earn millions of dollars from this invention, because the work output got to scale. That would be “good,” and it would also make the entrepreneur wealthy, and there would be nothing wrong or greedy about that.
E.Simon, thank you for pointing out that racism is not party affiliation. The Republican Party was formed at the time of Lincoln to combat slavery. It was under Republican Party stewardship that the Union fought and defeated the Confederacy and abolished slavery. The Southern Democratic Party was, for most of the 20th Century, a bastion of John Crow. It was only when Lyndon Johnson fought his own party that Civil Rights legislation that had been bottled up in the Senate by Democratic filibusters was finally passed.
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:53 pm
E. Simon: Yes, you are right. I did mean to say Dems there.
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Jonathan, you are fated to be forever outraged by a simple fact of life that’s no less likely to change than the law of gravity: any normal, healthy, reasonably well-running (and yes, moral) society is going to impose some moral values on its economy, which is, after all, society’s vehicle for producing and distributing its collective wealth. You don’t have to like that, but I suggest you get used to it as a fact of life, because it will never change.
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:01 pm
John, I’m not outraged at all by the inclination of societies to regulate their economies, which is what happens when moral values are imposed. I’m just pointing out that economies are not, in and of themselves, moral entities.
What I do object to is people who would have us distort economies based on unproven and foolish political philosophies, and who moralize about it to invalidate the legitimate arguments of their opponents. I much prefer a discussion of the facts and a weighing of opinions based on observable data and proven outcomes.
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Fine. Then we’re perhaps not so far apart on this issue. Obviously, we still disagree on what constitutes reasonable and unreasonable distortions of the markets.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:05 pm
When politicians invoke class warfare against successful citizens to fuel the envy of ordinary citizens, the policies that emanate from that philosophy must constitute unreasonable distortion of the markets. What happened to the day when we extolled the virtues of hard work and success?
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:22 pm
We’ve strayed from the thread of the post again. As much as I’m tempted topoint out that J. retreats to the “class warfare” canard whenever he runs out oof logic (it’s not class warfare to discuss economic disparities any more that it was class warfare for my grandfather to fight for livable working conditions in the mines), and even more eager to point out that J. has now completely adopted my point the economics is fundamentally amoral and that societies always make moral decisions in confronting the effects of their economic systems, like deciding it’s immoral to fuel an economy on child labor or (as at least one party is reminding us) soil the air and water iur children will need to survive. No, the iriginal thread was sarah Palin. I am simply amused by the GOP effort to paint what was really a sop to the religious right (you can’t tell me that McCain didn’t really want to pick Lieberman or Ridge, but since he’s put his political manhood in a blind trust run my the Dobsons and Vigurries, he caved on picking really experienced options)and instead picked a woman who ran a town of 7,000 (where she fired a librarian because she wouldn;t ban books - but later rehired her when she got pushback), hired a lobbyint to get almost record per capita “earmarks” by hiring a former aid to that crook Ted Stevens, then became governor and supported the bridge to nowhere before being against it and still decided to spend the pork money to build the road to where the bridge to nowhere was going to be, and who didn’t even posess a passport until this year, and wants to teach creationism as science, can you really point out to real experience, real things that she did as an executive instead of saying that she sat in the chair? Everything that’s touted as experience is a myth, and sitting in a governor’s chair when oil royalty windfalls roll in hardly shows tough executive decisions.
She seems like a wonderful person with a real family and an admirable life. But esperience? No, not really. J., you’re so hungry for your guys to retain power after messing things up so shamelessly that you’ll repeat what you know, in your heart of hearts, is ludicrous. Question Obama’s experience, that’s fair game, but get real when it comes to Palin.
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Tom, it really galls you and the Dems to be outplayed by the Republicans, doesn’t it? For them to have picked a woman, and to have her be against abortion, against pork, and against the old boy network is a triple play.
Too bad there’s nobody like that in the Democratic Party, huh. You had to rely on Captain Blowhard, the liar, with a bad-looking hair implant front and center, a Washington good-old-boy-insider with NO accomplishments but longevity to show for 30 years in Washington.
The weakness of that choice, and the timidity of judgement it shows about Obama, must be really irritating to those in fruitless hope of a return to the 1970’s when Dems ran Washington (and ran us into a hole). I think someone here called that hope a return to a more “progressive” time. I would call it “regressive.” And, it’s not going to happen. Say hello to President McCain, and Vice President Palin.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:39 pm
J:
You took the bait! You are so easy. Your return to the ideological rant was just too predictable. Anti-pork? Right. Sje was Ms. Pork Quees as Mayor of Wasilla (remember, her “executive experience”) and is still spending the mney earmarked for the bridge to nowhere. And for anyone to think that women will vote for her simply because they share the same reprodictive organs is insulting to women. Let’s be clear, Palin was a sop to the religious right, and the nimbers show that the Clintonistas are continuing to move to Obama on the issues.
Biden has been a leader on both the Judiciary and Foreign Relations Committee, so he knows of what he speaks. You guys had the desparation to claim that Palin has foreign policy cred because Aaska is so close to Russia!
You;re just in denial because McCain (1) used a pathetically inept vetting procedure in making his most important decision to date and (2) because the choice was so blatantly political pandering.
What galls me is that someone who supposedly puts country before politics would suggest someone like Palin to be a heartbeat away just to energize his base. Maverick my tusch.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Anybody with eyes can see this was a disastrous choice McCain made, impulsively, and from an overreaction against the Christian right. The great common sense center of opinion in this country will reject it. Already has, in fact.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:13 pm
The country, John and Tom, doesn’t even know this candidate yet, just the media’s elitist take on her. She has yet to speak publicly to a wide audience, as she will have the chance to do this week. The media-kicked-up-dust which made up the story about her vetting has yet to settle.
The facts about Governor Palin are clear. As a two-year governor, she has more executive experience than both Obama and Biden. She fought against the old-boy network within her own party, against pork, and against political corruption.
To Washington, she is an unknown outsider with a record of true reform, which explains the media’s reaction to her. The media likes it’s cozy insider role in Washington, and is dominated by “more government is better” types. The media detests gun-toting conservative, anti-abortionists.
Unlike Obama, Governor Palin represents true “change.” And as much as Washington and its media lackeys pander to the concept of “change,” what Obama really represents is Democrats in control, so that he can give us more government, more taxes, more penalizing of the successful and more wealth transfer to those who haven’t earned it. That’s not “change.”
Washington and the media don’t really want true “change.” They just want a change of parties in control.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Obviously, after eight years of massive damage to the country caused by a Republican cabal, change does include a change of parties, yes. As for fighting against the old boy’s network, perhaps you missed the story about how she accepted $4,500 from the same folks who are now the subject of an FBI investigation of political corruption in the state.
She is an appealing person with an appealing story. But if you think that means she belongs a heartbeat from the presidency when that heartbeat is attached to what would be the oldest person to ever take the office of President, I think you’re in denial. If not, perhaps you’d care to let the gardener at Early State Partners try his hand at making venture capital decisions later today? After all, experience is a fungible concept…
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Disastrous for who? The growing avalanche of Dem sound bites lambasting Palin are a gift to Republicans who now have an endless supply of “Obama lacks experience” material for television spots and online videos running up until the election. It’s right up there with the spot where Hillary rips on him.
This morning I saw Obama on television attempting to demean Palin by comparing his executive experience running a presidential campaign to her’s serving as mayor. First, he is actively comparing himself to the VICE presidential candidate. Second, he is admitting that his most notable executive experience to qualify him for the office of president is running for president. How will the “great common sense center” react to that?
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
The main point, Tom, is that her inexperience neutralizes McCain’s most damaging critique of Obama–his relative inexperience, relative to him, of course. The common sense center can instantly understand that for him to continue to push that point, by far his biggest selling point against the younger, more energetic and charismatic guy, would require an extreme level of hypocrisy on his part.
To his credit (and as I said earlier, I was one center left person fully in his corner until this decision), he’s never been one to be able to pull off hypocrisy very convincingly (he’s too quick to say what he’s really thinking), even if the rest of his party does it with great elan.
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:06 pm
John, nice try, but Governor Palin’s selection as the Republican vice presidential candidate in no way alters the fact that Obama has no executive experience, and precious little legislative experience either (mostly consisting of voting “present” whenever anything remotely controversial was up for vote in either the Illinois legislature or Congress). Obama’s inexperience isn’t “relative,” either, it’s “absolute.”
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Doesn’t alter those facts, but it makes it damn near impossible for McCain to press his biggest selling point. Face it, he probably just lost the election with this stupid, stupid decision, which was no doubt deeply influenced by that Karl Rove protege in cynical black ops, Steve Schmidt, now a senior McCain aide. Rove’s reverse magic continues.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:18 pm
John, Gee, I don’t know. Rove got George W. Bush elected twice. That’s a pretty significant accomplishment.
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:45 pm
You’re right about that half of the story (or more accurately, one quarter, since the Supreme Court really selected him the first time, after he lost the popular vote). The second half is that his advice and positioning genius (always focused on pure political microadvantage rather than any reference to underlying policy) also turned him into one of the most unpopular, widely reviled presidents in U.S. history, with a presidency that will be remembered for its serial disasters. Which is why Rove left the White House in disgrace, his vaunted reputation for political genius in tatters, after having predicted a Republican win in a Congressional election that delivered solid Dem majorities
September 4th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Best lines from last night’s RNC speech.
Barack Obama, the man who wants to lead this country, and make important executive decisions for all Americans, facing a legislative vote, “130 times couldn’t make a decision. He couldn’t figure out whether to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ It was too tough. He voted ‘present.’”
“I didn’t know about this ‘present’ vote when I was mayor of New York City. Sarah Palin didn’t have this vote ‘present’ when she was mayor or governor. You don’t get ‘present.’ It doesn’t work in an executive job. For president of the United States, it’s not good enough to be ‘present.’ You have to make a decision.”
Rudolph Giulani
“I’m not a Republican because I grew up rich, but because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life poor, waiting for the government to rescue me.”
“I’m so tired of hearing about Sarah Palin’s experience. She got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for President of the United States.”
Mike Huckabee
Barack Obama “is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate.”
“In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change. “
“Harry Reid, the Majority Leader of the current do-nothing Senate, not long ago summed up his feelings about our nominee. “He said, quote, “I can’t stand John McCain.” Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps no accolade we hear this week is better proof that we’ve chosen the right man. Clearly what the Majority Leader was driving at is that he can’t stand up to John McCain.”
Sarah Palin
September 4th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
According to Andrew Sullivan’s blog today Obama sponsored 820 laws in the Ill. Senate and authored 152 bills and co-sponsored 427 in Washington, including a major role in the 2007 Ethics bill.
I guess that adds up to zero in Palin’s math book.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Sponsoring and co-sponsoring is nothing more than agreeing with the bill’s true authors, who do all the hard work, to let your name be on it. That’s a numbers game that legislators play to make it look like they really did something when they just stood around and pontificated.
Which of these bills you cite did Barack Obama roll up his sleeves and truly develop? Which were passed, and which were “major”, as in they meant something to a significant number of citizens?
I can’t think of one…
September 4th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
J: No one would expect you to THINK rather than spout.
Does the word “authored” mean anything to you?
I’d say that the ethics bill was a major bill. But I haven’t studied the matter and was going by Sullivan - who is a conservative - and his assessment.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Roldo, the word “authored” in normal context means to me: sat a computer and typed the words, as in written. That involves gathering and organizing information in a coherent way for effective communication. For a bill, that would also mean building a constituency for it. I can assure you that Barack Obama didn’t even author his own two autobiographies, by that definition, much less 152 bills in Washington. I would be interested to know if he can even type.
Bills in Washington are typically written by interest groups adjudicated by Congressional staffs. My guess is that that’s how the bills Obama supposedly “authored” were developed. If he typed even one word of them I would be astonished.
The ethics bill was a piece of theater. It had all the flash and noise of ethics reform, but none of the substance. No sooner were Pelosi and Reid in power than they began to back away from true ethics reform. They were too busy shaking down various business groups for campaign contributions by hauling them up on the Hill for widely publicized “hearings” at which Democrats mostly pontificated, browbeat, and grandstanded. Business as usual.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
And J as usual. Do you mean “authored” by Obama is not really so but if done by McCain or another Republican, it is legit. That’s what you seem to imply.
And to say that Obama didn’t write his first book, in particular, is merely an unknowing opinion of yours.
There is absolutely no basis for your declaration.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
The point, Roldo, is that Obama has accomplished NOTHING legislatively during his meager tenure in state and federal office. Indeed, his 130 “present” votes seem to indicate that he was avoiding going on the record on controversial issues, probably with an eye to higher office all along (kind of the way judges looking for higher appointment don’t publish much anymore).
I made no mention of Republicans or implied any double standard. You read that into the dialogue.
All these guys use ghost authors for their books. Didn’t you know?
September 4th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
“All these guys use ghost authors for their books.”
That’s your proof.
You get an F.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:15 am
That’s right, distract people from the important issue, that Barack Obama has done NOTHING in his years in the legislature. Maybe he was too busy, hunched over his keyboard, scribbling.
September 5th, 2008 at 3:24 am
“Bills in Washington are typically written by interest groups adjudicated by Congressional staffs” Huh? Bills are researched and during that process may or may not be influenced by lobbyists info, but they are written by staff. And what does this have to do with whether or not McCain presented a distraction?
Ok I’ll bite. He DID present a distraction. One that speaks well before a crowd and allows the topic to be ‘omg he picked a woman’ instead of the definite differences in the candidates approaches and opinion on issues. Roldo is right, no matter who you are voting for.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Potaytoe/Potahtoe, Carol, lobbyists and staff provide the substance of the bills. If you research it, you will find that much of the language is actually written by lobbyists, as well as staff.
It’s a bit glib to call Sarah Palin a “distraction,” don’t you think? She has as much substance as Barack, and a lot more executive experience–as uncomfortable as that is for Obama supporters to admit.
And I’m still waiting for someone to point to anything of substance that Obama has done–not just said–during hs tenure in office.
September 5th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
From the booklet, “How Our Laws Are Made” by Charles W. Johnson, Parliamentarian, U.S. House of Representatives
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/lawsmade.toc.html
I. Introduction
II. The Congress
III. Sources of Legislation
Sources of legislation are unlimited and proposed drafts of bills originate in many diverse quarters. Primary among these is the idea and draft conceived by a Member. This may emanate from the election campaign during which the Member had promised, if elected, to introduce legislation on a particular subject. The Member may have also become aware after taking office of the need for amendment to or repeal of an existing law or the enactment of a statute in an entirely new field.
In addition, the Member’s constituents, either as individuals or through citizen’s groups, may avail themselves of the right to petition and transmit their proposals to the Member. The right to petition is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
In modern times, the ‘executive communication’ has become a prolific source of legislative proposals. the communication is usually in the form of a message or letter from a member of the President’s Cabinet, the head of an independent agency, or the President himself, transmitting a draft of a proposed bill to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of Senate.
IV. Forms of Congressional Action
The work of congress is initiated by the introduction of a proposal in one of four forms: the bill, the joint resolution, the concurrent resolution, and the simple resolution. The most customary form used in both houses is the bill. During the 107th Congress (2001-2002), 8948 bills and 178 joint resolutions were introduced in both Houses. Of the total number introduced, 5767 bills and 125 joint resolutions originated in the House of Representatives.
V. Introduction and Referral to Committee
Any Member, Delegate, or the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico in the House of Representatives may introduce a bill at anytime while the House is in session by simply placing it in the ‘hopper’, a wooden box provided for that purpose located on the side of the rostrum.
To accurately determine legislation introduced by Senator Obama and Senator McCain:
goto > http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d110query.html
Choose Senator Obama or McCain from the dropdown list
Choose the radio button marked ‘Sponsor’
Under Date of Introduction, choose ALL
Under Type of Legislation, select ALL
if only we might get this sort of fervor for our local elections, where it REALLY matters!
is it possible that the similarities between mccain and obama outweigh the differences?
September 10th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
greetings,
As to the networks and the Republicans saying that Palin gave a “great speech”:
How does a “great speech” get defined? All she did was recite 3 sentences, wait for the applause, and recite 3 more. The shots of her speaking, and the camera shots of the old, white, and rich crowd was really eerie. “Stepford Wives” eerie. Was it a religious revival or a convention?
Posts about religion are all of a sudden starting to percolate. Please see this one:
http://thefranchiseking.typepad.com/the_franchise_king/2008/09/should-you-mix.html
Joel Libava
{Usually leaning Right. Not now.}
Cleveland
September 10th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
J Murray, with all due respect, the facts are staring you in the face and you are still saying they are not correct. How to discuss like this? I have no idea.