There comes a time in each election cycle when even well-meaning partisans start believing their own press releases. The campaigns and the grassroots start looking for long past or far-off whiffs of corruption that might somehow be attached to the opposition candidate, policy positions that can be twisted into something that sounds bad, tenuous connections to controversial figures, and slips of the tongue that can be taken out of context and magnified into endorsements of rape, incest, and genocide. If the candidate is already in office, they aver that a failure to psychically foresee some issue and act upon it were the same thing as gross malfeasance. They claim to believe that the lies their candidate tells are true, or at least an understandable concession to an easily swayed electorate, while the lies the opposition tells clearly render him unfit for that office. What's worse, I think they really do believe this.
We have clearly reached that point in this campaign.
I am not prepared to indict people for doing this, as it seems like a nearly universal human instinct. But neither am I prepared to participate in it. And I find it irritating when people who are harping on flaws in the opposition candidate that they would easily overlook in their own side demand that I join them in their fantasy world.
Tim Burke chides me for failing to understand that the scandal at the Mineral Management Service raises deep and serious questions about John McCain's qualifications for office.
Now, as scandals go, this is actually pretty weak tea. Regulators dating regulatees, employees accepting valuable considerations from firms up to and including Toby Keith tickets, one supervisor who may have sexually harassed two subordinates. Some of the employees used drugs, which given my ideological bent just makes me applaud them for their rascally courage in flouting an unjust law. It's not exactly Watergate. It's not even on the Bush administration's Top Ten.
Nonetheless, I am more than prepared to believe that the Bush administration dropped the ball, and clearly the agency needs to be cleaned up. Where I draw the line is when people try to claim that because John McCain sits on the Commerce Committee, he could and should have stopped this:
Wow--just the sort of thing that would have called for vigorous Senate oversight during this time. If, say, the chair of one of the committees with jurisdiction over all this didn't uncover it, then you might say that such a person would be unfit for national office. You certainly wouldn't call him a candidate for change. If he was also getting millions from energy companies, you might suspect that any claim to be a change candidate might stink like fish in a newspaper--or even look like lipstick on a pig.
And who was the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee during most of this time, which has jurisdiction over (among other things) pipelines, interstate commerce, and coastal zone management?
You peeked, didn't you?
PS Commerce obviously isn't the only committee with jurisdiction, but the MMS sells oil and gas on the open market. That's an interstate commerce issue if there ever was one. And last I checked, oil goes through pipelines.
This is nonsense on stilts. The Mineral Management Service was, last time I looked, overseen by the Energy and Natural Resources committee. Sure, John McCain could have, using his commerce authority, called for an investigation. So could Barack Obama, as a member of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. And why didn't Joe Biden notice? After all, he's on the drug caucus.
Timothy Burke concedes in the comments to his post that okay, so maybe McCain doesn't actually have anything to do with the Mineral Management Service, but still, it matters, because . . . er . . . he's a Republican:
Is he taking any interest whatsoever in describing an administrative philosophy that will comprehensively break with the previous administration's policies and conduct, which WERE responsible for this scandal? No, he's not. It's not partisan bullshit to say that McCain at present gives every indication that he will govern JUST AS the people responsible for the scandal have. His vice-presidential candidate has governed in exactly that way in her limited time as an executive, using loyalty and sycophancy as her primary standards for selection of administration officials. McCain is the leader of a party that has massive numbers of these kinds of scandals to its name to show for eight years in office. It is anything but routine, banal partisanship to demand that the burden is on him to speak concretely, specifically, and clearly how he will thoroughly break with those practices on every possible level. He needs to describe how he will govern, what kinds of consultative practices he will employ, what his standards for appointment to high office are, and how or if he intends to make thorough executive oversight a part of his expectations for appointees in his administration.
Are you saying, in terms of your last point, that this specific scandal in no way reflects on the leadership of the Department of the Interior, and is in no way similar to other scandals among the Congressional Republicans or elsewhere in the Administration during the past eight years? If so, why do you think this scandal is specifically different? That is a quite specific claim that calls for specific evidence, not a generic wave-off that sometimes corruption isn't the fault of the leadership. To me, this particular scandal very much looks like a lot of the indifference to oversight practices that the present Administration has practically made an official policy commitment.
I don't even understand what most of this is supposed to mean--it reminds me of the startups I used to work for, when every time the company took another big blow, we'd be asked to sit around in a circle and brainstorm mission statements.
He's running for president, not department chair, and I am not sure what his "consultative practices" are supposed to be, or how he should describe them. Nor what, specifically, would constitute breaking with prior practices "on every level". Moreover, I don't think that most people believe that the problem with the Bush administration is too little executive control of the bureaucracy.
John McCain has said, thoroughly and repeatedly, that he thinks Washington is corrupt and run by insiders, and that he wants to change that; he has made it clear that he wants to roll back many of the Bush administration's most odious practices, like its tacit support of torture. You may not believe him when he says these things, but he has said them. It is not reasonable to expect him to stand up and deliver a three hour address on how he plans to ensure that the employees of the Mineral Management Service do not use cocaine--other than perhaps cutting their salaries so they can't afford it.
Has Barack Obama issued a statement on how he plans to pick his advisors? Or shake up the excessive coziness that the Democrats are already eagerly developing with the lobbying apparatus? And if he did, what would we learn from it? It's like those questions in interviews about what your biggest weakness is--you can expect something anodyne and thoroughly, monotonously typical.
But here's the challenge that I issue to Burke, Jonathan Zasloff, the defenders of John McCain's sex-ed ad, and other partisans who purport to be thoroughly and honestly outraged by the behavior they are discussing.
As we go through the rest of this campaign, every time one of these pseudoscandals comes up, I will note the particulars. From now on, I will watch the news cycle for the inevitable misstatements, scandals, and lies. And you will agree that if anything similar happens on your candidate's watch, you will repudiate him. So if there is, say, a scandal at the Department of the Interior under President Obama*, you will not only promise to vote Republican, but urge your readers in good faith to do the same. Similarly, if John McCain calls his wife more names in public, Republicans will vote Democratic, because after all, that's what they expect voters to do over Sarah Palin and the lipstick comment.
Of course, pseudoscandals are rarely exactly equivalent, so I will put close calls up to Julian Sanchez and Jim Henley, who I think Democrats and Republicans can both agree are not on their side.
Perhaps you will say that one scandal is not enough; it is the weight of the evidence. Fine. We'll set up a point total of all the pseudoscandals currently outstanding; when your candidate passes that, you vote for the other side. That is no more than you are asking swing voters do to right now. Hell, we can double the point total, to allow for your sheer hatred of the other candidate.
If you aren't willing to take this deal, then I have a hard time taking your protestations seriously. I don't fault partisans for doing this, because it works. But it doesn't work on me.
* Megan's sixth law of politics: there is always a scandal at the Department of the Interior
One assumes Megan's sixth law is in the singular to avoid the remotest possibility of over-statement.
Is Megan's seventh law 'However disgusting a behaviour or a view may be, there exists a partisan who will automatically justify it in his (or her) candidate while execrating less disgusting behaviour in the other candidate.' ?
Someone should note that the MMS scandal involves career employees, not political appointees.
I know that co-blogging poses challenges, but samefacts.com has both the excoriation of McCain that Megan above notes, which criticizes McCain for not using the Commerce Committee to oversee MMS, and now a new post which criticizes the McCain campaign for--you guessed it--overstating the jurisdiction of the Commerce Committee. Couldn't they wait til the first post dropped off the front page?
I'm a defender of McCain's sex ed ad. It's entirely accurate. But as someone who isn't outraged, why must I practice outrage in the future? I expect candidates to stretch, and I expect candidates to lie. I haven't been disappointed by either candidates this time through. The fact that I lack outrage doesn't mean that I can't call Obama a liar, or note that his campaign is using sexism to try to win votes. Those things are true, and there's no need to shrink from them.
If there is a repeated pattern of scandal in the Obama Administration and in the Democratic leadership of Congress in the next four years, and in particular, a pattern of putting loyalty to an executive appointee over that appointee doing a competent, ethical job in the position to which they were appointed, then yes, I won't be voting Democrat in the following election.
It's not a single scandal that we're talking about here. You seem to want to ignore the last eight years of governance, or to treat this one news story as having nothing to do with any other instance of malfeasance, incompetence and corruption in the current Administration. That's what I'm suggesting actually takes an argument on your part: why is this one scandal different, not connected to others, not part of a demonstrated pattern? The last eight years are not a "pseudoscandal". That's the trivializing, inane move you're performing here: that discussing the record of the last eight years, and John McCain's dependence upon that record, is some trivializing bit of spin.
the defenders of John McCain's sex-ed ad, and other partisans who purport to be thoroughly and honestly outraged by the behavior they are discussing
I haven't noticed the defenders of the ad purporting to be outraged and upset, rather the attackers. The ad doesn't seem to me to be dishonest, exactly; the bill does indeed seem to do what the ad claims, extend sex education down to kindergarteners (among other things, such as striking requirements to discourage sex before marriage and encourage abstinence.) Sen. Obama's original response-- which he made back in Julu 2007 as well-- seems to be that sex-education for kindergarteners is acceptable so long as it is "age-appropriate." Indeed, the bill does specify that the sex education be age and developmentally appropriate.
Of course, there will be inevitable disagreements about what is age appropriate. I tend to think that it's all a bit moot since (most studies I've read seem to indicate) that sex education in schools is like drug education-- it can do a fine job of increasing knowledge, but the increased knowledge (or moral hectoring) tends not to translate into much changed behavior when it comes to sex or drugs.
Nonetheless, I am more than prepared to believe that the Bush administration dropped the ball, and clearly the agency needs to be cleaned up. Where I draw the line is when people try to claim that because John McCain sits on the Commerce Committee, he could and should have stopped this
Normally I might be inclined to agree, but it seems to me that the McCain campaign actually made this attack feasible. You know and I know that sitting on Commerce, even chairing it as McCain used to do, does not make on omniscient nor omnipotent with regard to everything that happens coast-to-coast that might fall under Commerce's broad scope.
Alas, while you and I know it, Team McCain does not, claiming just yesterday that John McCain, from the dais of the United States Senate Commerce Committee, personally gave us the "miracle" of the thoroughly Canadian Blackberry. Now, this may be wholly ridiculous on its face, but it is no more or less ridiculous than charging McCain with responsibility for the salacious MMS scandal.
The simple answer is that McCain cannot have it both ways: if mere presence gets him credit for all that went well under his would-have-been-watchful-had-he-ever-shown-up eye, it is only fair that he willingly accept blame for all that went wrong during that same time period.
Anything else is rank hypocrisy. And I assure you that a lot more went wrong under Commerce in the past eight years than went right. So personally I think this "deal" is just swell.
Item one: I could find at least a dozen scandals of this magnitude under Clinton without breaking a sweat. These are, as these things go, pretty trivial violations of ethical rules. Did you vote for Al Gore? Will you now repudiate that vote? Al Gore was directly involved in some much more serious ethics violation, like the Iranian missile deal that seems to have violated a law he himself sponsored: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/13/world/13RUSS.html?ex=1221796800&en=30958da932e28315&ei=5070 Joe Biden, meanwhile, couldn't be more deeply in bed with the credit card industry if they moved his bedroom to the bottom of the Western Deep mine.
Item two: I am not letting the Bush administration off the hook. This scandal may be part of a demonstrable pattern, and it may just be the fact that there really are always scandals at the Department of the Interior--they control some pretty lucrative real estate. But I'm not prepared to give the administration the benefit of the doubt.
Item three: McCain is simply not part of the Bush wing of the party, nor has he been implicated in any of the major Republican scandals. He is not close to the Administration. I share your seething contempt for the man, but this particular charge does not stick.
Item four: Administrative competence is an open book on any of these guys; they don't have enough administrative experience between them to run a car wash. It is not predictible from their records. There is no "Republican" executive management style, nor a "Democratic" one; it's sui generis.
Item Five: Whatever else you think about him, McCain has played the watchdog on a number of issues. I think his instincts are terrible, with McCain-Feingold leading the pack of his hideous ideas. But he has acted, repeatedly, as a reformer within his own party. If you really can't see that, I don't see how we can even discuss this--you seem to believe that John McCain has spent the last year cozying up with Jack Abramoff in between his visits to the Oval Office for extended heart-to-hearts with Bush.
John, your carefully neutral tone belies the fact that you either do not understand the bill or are tendentiously misstating its contents. The bill sets requirements on already existing sex ed courses. Here is the typical language:
"whenever such courses of instruction are provided in any of grades K through 12, then such courses also shall include age-appropriate instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV. However, no pupil shall be required to take or participate in any family life class or course on HIV instruction if his parent or guardian submits written objection thereto..."
This was a set of regulations on existing sex ed courses. Blowing it up into "Obama wants to teach your kindergartener about sex" is a classic Rovian smear job.
[McCain] has made it clear that he wants to roll back many of the Bush administration's most odious practices, like its tacit support of torture.
What? Didn't he vote against a torture ban bill in February and then praise Bush for vetoing it?
There is no "Republican" executive management style, nor a "Democratic" one; it's sui generis.
Surprisingly, there are in fact significant ideological differences between the parties, and they have an impact on policies, events, and management styles. Whoda thunk?
Can you point us to your complete list of laws of politics? I could only think of 2.
1) Never start a land war in Asia.
2) Never mess with a Sicilian when death is on the line.
McCain's aide's Blackberry claim isn't all that ridiculous. "Telecommunications [in] the US is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, [and] comes right through the Commerce Committee. So you're looking at the miracle John McCain helped create."
The changes in telecom laws over the past 15 years WERE critical to the proliferation of mobile devices and the creation of a market for portable email. The other key part is that the aide said "helped". It is of course a ridiculous way to state McCain's involvement but it is directly on point, tying commerce committee work to changes in telecom law, in-line time wise (Al Gore "took the initiative in creating the internet" years after it was started), and more humble than Gore ("helped" vs "took initiative"). The campaign rightly smacked the aide for being an idiot but there is a good point there. Everyone made fun of Gore because it was so pompous and because Gore himself said it, rather than an aide.
I guess what I'm trying to say over the course of a whole series of posts here is that I think you have a traveling-buck problem.
Michael Lewis has a piece up today on Bloomberg entitled "Let's Start by Finding Some People to Behead". I like two things about the piece. First, he ultimately finds two people to behead: Christopher Cox, and an amalgam of Stan O'Neal, Dick Fuld, and James Cayne, of whom he finds O'Neal the worst of the lot. In each case, he acknowledges that systemic pressures ALSO pressed each man to do the unseemly and disastrous things he's done (in Cox's case, Lewis concentrates on the war against short-sellers). AND he still says these people deserve to be...caned, or something, because they willfully exacerbated even the perverse tendencies of their institutions. Which is the second thing I like about the piece: while pillorying these individuals, Lewis ALSO points to the systemic evils which have led us to this pass.
I think this is very different from the way you tend to write. I do think that it is important to acknowledge complexities. But it is also important to go ahead and ultimately make a decision.
The changes in telecom laws over the past 15 years WERE critical to the proliferation of mobile devices and the creation of a market for portable email. - Hey
What a shame that McCain voted against them.
Gore is water under the bridge, although I think he was taken badly out of context, and even Vince Cerf has credited Gore with being the elected official who really took the concept of the Internet under his wing and fought for it.
McCain's role as Commerce chair would be more noteworthy on the innvoations of telecom had he not voted agaisnt OBRA '93, which included the key wireless provisions (much more important to wireless than the 96 Telecom Act) that made the proliferation of Blackberry et al possible.
How can we have a government scandal and no mention of the Bureau of Indian Affairs?
"John McCain has said, thoroughly and repeatedly, that he thinks Washington is corrupt and run by insiders, and that he wants to change that."
The repeated part of that is plain. Could you point us to the thorough part?
Megan writes sceptically: but still, it matters, because . . . er . . . he's a Republican
The fact that he is a Republican matters because it will be a strong determinant of just who he chooses to staff a McCain Admnistration. Many of the people will come from the same pool that staff the current administration. The notion that party affiliation doesn't affect governance is not supported by the facts
Look at McCain campaign: Rovians and loobyists. That's hardly the group that I'd choose to clean up Washington.
But Megan,
If people can't concoct a villain responsible for the types of scandals bureaucrats and regulators are always engaged in, how can they continue to call for more regulation as a panacea for everything that has ever gone (and might ever go) wrong?
If their enemies aren't responsible for the failures of their schemes, then they might have to consider changing their minds.
"John McCain has said, thoroughly and repeatedly, that he thinks Washington is corrupt and run by insiders, and that he wants to change that; he has made it clear that he wants to roll back many of the Bush administration's most odious practices, like its tacit support of torture. You may not believe him when he says these things, but he has said them."
Who cares what he's said, what has he done? He hasn't been a random citizen, he's been a US Senator for decades. Why bother with his statements when you can look at his actions?
"Has Barack Obama issued a statement on how he plans to pick his advisors? Or shake up the excessive coziness that the Democrats are already eagerly developing with the lobbying apparatus? "
Same thing. No to either, but he has picked campaign advisers, we can deduce things from that. He has a relationship with lobbyists as a Senator and as a candidate and we can deduce things from that.
Actions speak louder than words, on both sides.
The fact that he is a Republican matters because it will be a strong determinant of just who he chooses to staff a McCain Admnistration.
Yeah, there are literally thousands of political appointees who are chosen in part based on their political affiliation. In a sense, the notion that we are voting for a person, rather than a party, is illusory.
The problem for someone like me is, even if I think the Republican appointees are a bunch of hacks, I don't really want competent Democratic loyalists efficiently implementing their left-wing agenda.
I think I'm going to vote based on judicial appointments; that's the one sparkling triumph of the Bush administration, once we got him to withdraw Meiers. Maybe McCain will do as well. I know some of the lawyers who did the vetting for Bush, if McCain asks for their help, he'll do OK
Right on, Megan. This kind of partisan hackery is tiresome, and it's a poor way to woo independent votes.
"He has made it clear that he wants to roll back many of the Bush administration's most odious practices, like its tacit support of torture."
No, he hasn't. He's simply said that he favors its use only by the CIA, rather than by the regular military. Not really much of a rollback.
Irony knows no bounds.
I understand that this was not the thesis of your post, but, it's hilarious nonetheless.
Hmmm, "developing with the lobbying apparatus?"
I hope I'm not being unfair by pointing out the already existing and cozy relationship between McCain and industry lobbyists.
83 Wall Street Lobbyists work for McCain campaign
But that's from Mother Jones, and they're unreliable commies.
Is the Washington Post sufficiently reputable?
The Anti-Lobbyist, Advised by Lobbyists
But I'm sure McCain is the right guy to reform Washington and Wall Street since, he's, ya know, a fuckin maverick, and the fact this his campaign is literally run by industry lobbyists, won't sway his governing style at all.
But it'd only be fair to hold Obama and the Democrats' feet to the fire on coziness with lobbyists question.
As Snoop Dogg once rhymed,"Bitch Please!"
Interesting post, but it is likely to have no effect at all. What we really need is scientific study of partisanship, aimed at finding a cure. It's not just the outrage; the passionate enthusiasm is also strange. I watched about two minutes of one of the conventions, just before or just after the presidential candidate was nominated. People who, I suppose, have lived productive lives were jumping up and screaming with joy. I think they were sincere. It was bad enough back when conventions actually chose candidates and campaigns didn't last for years. Nowadays it's like there's some weird sporting event all day, every day. Maybe hereditary monarchy wasn't so bad after all.
Brooksfoe:
This was a set of regulations on existing sex ed courses.
That isn't accurate. The bill expanded mandated sex ed classes from 6th-12th grade down to kindergarten. Obama himself isn't arguing it didn't expand the age range - he just says that he wanted to make sure kindergartners were getting "good touch, bad touch" classes, not anything more "comprehensive."
Any chance we can all agree that the most likely truth of this story is: "State Legislator votes for bill without reading it that closely; Bills fails, so no harm done." I know that will shock everyone who's ever known a state legislator...
with appologees to the Moose and Llamas and the Pythons:
Sir Bedevere: What makes you think she's a witch?
Peasant 3: Well, she turned me into a newt!
Sir Bedevere: A newt?
Peasant 3: [meekly after a long pause] ... I got better.
Crowd: [shouts] Burn her anyway!
.....
Sir Bedevere: There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.
Peasant 1: Are there? Oh well, tell us.
Sir Bedevere: Tell me. What do you do with witches?
Peasant 1: Burn them.
Sir Bedevere: And what do you burn, apart from witches?
Peasant 1: More witches.
Peasant 2: Wood.
Sir Bedevere: Good. Now, why do witches burn?
Peasant 3: ...because they're made of... wood?
Sir Bedevere: Good. So how do you tell whether she is made of wood?
Peasant 1: Build a bridge out of her.
Sir Bedevere: But can you not also build bridges out of stone?
Peasant 1: Oh yeah.
Sir Bedevere: Does wood sink in water?
Peasant 1: No, no, it floats!... It floats! Throw her into the pond!
Sir Bedevere: No, no. What else floats in water?
Peasant 1: Bread.
Peasant 2: Apples.
Peasant 3: Very small rocks.
Peasant 1: Cider.
Peasant 2: Gravy.
Peasant 3: Cherries.
Peasant 1: Mud.
Peasant 2: Churches.
Peasant 3: Lead! Lead!
King Arthur: A Duck.
Sir Bedevere: ...Exactly. So, logically...
Peasant 1: If she weighed the same as a duck... she's made of wood.
Sir Bedevere: And therefore...
Peasant 2: ...A witch!
What Gil said. The secular religion that holds as its central tenets that (1) life is perfectible, and that (2) government can perfect it, requires the corollary beliefs that if things aren't perfect, well then (3) there'snot enough government, and (4) the government we have isn't working properly because of bad people.
QED. Wait, what's that you say? Not a syllogism? Hmmm . . . you're one of them! You're evil! I'm gonna start calling you names and comparing you to Hitler!
I believe John McCain's sex-ed ad is true where it states that Obama supported "legislation to teach 'comprehensive sex education' to kindergartners." That's what the bill did.
Obama's explanation also rings false. There were already laws authorizing schools to teach "programs about child sexual abuse." (105 ILCS 5/27-13.2) You didn't need to teach kindergartners comprehensive sex ed in order to teach them about the types of concerns Obama expressed.
That said, I agree with Alex: "State Legislator votes for bill without reading it that closely; Bills fails, so no harm done." I would add that sometimes legislators pass laws out of committee without even intending that they become law.
And McCain, given the number of bills he has had to vote, is certainly more vulnerable on this type of attack.
Oops, I meant legislators pass "bills" out of committee, not laws. I regret that I have fallen far short of the expectations of the American public; I will not seek the office of the President of the United States.
"The point is, I was chairman of the commerce committee. Every part of America's economy, I oversighted." - Sen. John McCain
Gee, you mean that government by its nature tends to be incompetent and corrupt? And political ads are misleading? And partisan make up fake outrage? Next thing you'll probably say is that the President does not have his hands on the steering wheel of the U.S. economy?
Of course, he's also said the opposite. He's backed away from bans on torture, etc.
Sheesh! McCain didn't back away from his position against torture. He said that he didn't believe that all interogation should have to follow the rules as laid out in the Army Field Manual. There is no way you can torture that position to make it say that it is any sort of support, tacit or implicit, for torture. How's about we try to just stick with the facts, huh?
The secular religion that holds as its central tenets that (1) life is perfectible
Anyone believe this? Anyone?
(crickets)
I think Mormons believe that life is perfectible, or at least that human beings are. Something about how you, too, can become perfect like Jesus Christ. Christians believe you can be saved, and orthodox Jews believe you can come pretty close to avoiding sin as long as you follow the halacha scrupulously.
Not so much belief in the perfectibility of anything over here on the secular side of the aisle. A lot of belief that things can be made to work better, though, and that the fact that something can't be made perfect doesn't imply you should throw up your hands and go looking for some new utopian religion to get disappointed in, like objectivism.
I like the juxtaposition of this post and the following one in which you call Palin liar. The fact that you fail to give an actual quote of her supposed lie really ties it all together.
The fact that you fail to give an actual quote of her supposed lie
"I told Congress 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that Bridge to Nowhere." - Sarah Palin
Palin advocated completing the Bridge to Nowhere during her gubernatorial campaign. She said the state should rush to complete the bridge before the gathering public opposition to it led funding to be cut off. But Congress rescinded the earmark. Palin then took the money for the Bridge, which was designated for Alaska anyway, and used it to fund various other infrastructure projects, some of them almost as wasteful as the Bridge would have been.
That's just for starters.
Oh, wait, I guess you're referring to the lie about the teleprompter breaking.
Easy enough to find on the internet today.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/palin-and-the-t.html
“There Ohio was right out in front, right in front of me," Palin said. "The teleprompter got messed up, I couldn’t follow it, and I just decided I’d just talk to the people in front of me. It was Ohio.”
ABC reporter Jonathan Martin was on the floor following Palin's speech on the teleprompter. He says there was no malfunction.
"Has Barack Obama issued a statement on how he plans to pick his advisors?",
No, but has already picked his first important advisor, Joe Biden. John McCain has also chosen the person he apparently feels is most qualified to be vice-president. On the basis of those decisions we can judge the competence of future selections by these two candidates.
As far as Sarah Palin's statements about the bridges to nowhere, remember that bridges is plural. Sarah Palin initially supported earmarks for both the Gravina Island and the Knik Arm crossing bridges. She continues to support the Knik Arm bridge, and would be working hard for earmarks for that project if not been chosen by John McCain.
Secular religion? Is that like powdered water? It turns into water when you add water.
Sure, politics is inherently partisan. However, as Ruth Marcus recently noted, it is not necessarily symmetric.
What bothers me about Megan's post is subtle. While noting that people live in fantasy lands on both sides, she nonetheless argues that we should judge 'pseudoscandals' from partisan perspectives. What about normative judgments and indisputable facts?
The willingness to concede that there are no normative judgments in politics is troubling. This seems to be the basis for the current media coverage and leads to a lot of noise and little rational discourse. This is not healthy for a democracy that relies upon an informed electorate.
So, let's look at how the campaigns behave. McCain has clearly attempted to raise the noise level in the media (Paris/Britney, race card, lipstick, ...). In contrast, at the most precarious time of his campaign in March, Obama sought to cut through the noise by giving a serious and significant speech on race. Especially of late, Obama's campaign has also engaged in some of the 'noisy' tactics of winning the daily news cycle. However, Obama's engagement in this type of politics has been largely reactive.
Looking at the overall behaviors of the campaigns provides a meaningful context in which to assess the candidates and should be used as such. Reducing our political discourse to some exercise in partisan scorekeeping (as Megan proposes, even if tongue-in-cheek) is not particularly useful.
That said, I agree with Alex: "State Legislator votes for bill without reading it that closely; Bills fails, so no harm done."
"No harm done?" Yes.
Have we learned something about Obama because if it?
Yes, we have. Because Obama voted for this bit of Culture War bait on a straight Party-line vote.
So, if you want to see continual left-wing assaults in the Culture War, vote for Obama.
Brooksfoe:
"I told Congress 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that Bridge to Nowhere." - Sarah Palin
Hmm, let's see.
1: Congress decoupled the money from the Bridge in 2005.
2: When Palin took office, Alaska was still planning on building the bridge.
3: The Bridge has been terminated.
Now, you know all this, but you write your drivel anyway. What a surprise, the guy calling Palin a liar is, in fact, the dishonest one.
Greg, I know the research shows that when conservatives hear their beliefs being thoroughly debunked, it generally only strengthens those beliefs. But this is ridiculous.
Palin campaigned in support of the Bridge to Nowhere, even after the earmark had been rescinded. After taking office she bowed to public sentiment and, instead of building the bridge, took the money from the Feds and used it for other stuff -- like building the $27 million access road for the Bridge to Nowhere, which now leads to an empty beach.
Congress did not give Alaska money to build the Bridge to Nowhere. They specifically took the Bridge to Nowhere earmark out. They gave Alaska a bunch of money, which Palin used. Palin can say "I did not build the Bridge to Nowhere." Maybe, just maybe - I don't know the history on this - she can say she told the Alaska legislature or the Alaska Deparment of Transportation "Sorry, no way on that Bridge to Nowhere" -- though it's clear she was following public sentiment, which had been lambasting the project for years, not leading it. But she can't say she "told Congress 'Thanks, but no thanks,'" because Congress didn't give her money to build the Bridge to Nowhere. Is that clear?