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Posted on September 17th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News, Politics.
You knew it had to happen. As soon as Barack Obama started to slip in the polls I thought aloud, “It’ll be blamed on racism.” Now let me say that I have no delusions, I understand completely that some people will vote against Obama because of race. It’s just the way it is, just like I know that some people are voting against McCain because he’s old. I have heard, “He’s a creepy, mean old man,” more than once from friends of mine and even my kids. To this day, I have no idea how the girl is going to cast her first vote for president. She relates to Obama’s youth and there is little that I can do to offset that by way of a reasonable argument. People bring baggage and their own perspectives to the voting booth. What irks me about the sudden “racism” outcry of the media and the Democrats is that it completely ignores the fact that Barack Obama has made SERIOUS miscalculations in the last couple of months.
The biggest error that Obama made was in not selecting Hillary Clinton or another woman, to be his Vice President. You can tell me he did the right thing in selecting an experienced Joe Biden until the cows come home and it won’t matter a lick. Barack Obama has been intimidated by Hillary Clinton since the beginning and he grew to dislike her. He knew in the end that if he selected her as the Veep she would invariably be looked upon as the stronger member of the team. How petty, no? I mean, all I hear from Democrats is how McCain opted for a neophyte Palin in order to secure disgruntled Hillary voters. What’s worse, exploiting that angle or the fact that Obama overlooked the most qualified person for the job because of personality conflicts and a shallow ego? Who is Barack trotting out now though? Old Hill and Bill… even after he and his wife savaged the former President by warping his words and making him seem a RACIST. I think it’s hilarious that the first folks to use race were the Obama’s and now their surrogates in the party and in the media are looking to it as an excuse.
Barack Obama ignored a woman that got 18 million votes in favor of a man that got 9000. John McCain selected a woman that got not one vote, but who has a personality that Americans relate to. I can hear the cries already, “SHE HAS NO EXPERIENCE!” Well, to those partisan critics that launch into such drivvle I offer up the fact that the Democratic Party and their electorate chose INEXPERIENCE over EXPERIENCE during the primary and nobody seemed to care. Hillary Clinton was torn to shreds by the likes of Ed Schultz for not rolling over and dying. It was as if she had not earned the right to fight the good fight to the bitter end, critics be damned. Obama was the most inexperienced candidate that the Democrats offered up and he is their candidate… but woe is John McCain for his selection of Sarah Palin? It makes no sense.
Why even bother with all of this though? Why should I even waste my time trying to point out the most serious blunder of Obama’s candidacy? In the end it won’t matter. It won’t matter that some of us in this country recognize the fact that Obama is inexperienced to a fault. It won’t matter that others recognize that he engaged in a vile campaign against Hillary Clinton. It won’t matter that in not even pretending to consider Hillary as a running mate, he slapped the women of this country across the face. Hell no, it’s just easier to cry, “Racism!” and to bury the truth under the slime of such an assertion.
If Barack Obama loses, it is because of Barack Obama. It’s because of the poor choices he has made, the stupid attacks on middle America that he has engaged in when in more “evolved” company and the arrogance of a run at the highest office in the land after three years in the Senate (two of which he spent CAMPAIGNING for PRESIDENT). Racism exists, racism is real, but in the case of Barack Obama and his implosion, racism is the scapegoat. Jack Cafferty, Governor Sebelius and all of the rest of the folks crying racism can bury their heads in the sand… but the facts are, what they are. Barack Obama screwed up. He pissed off a lot of women and he has only himself to blame.
Posted on September 15th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News.
The financial markets are in tatters. Will this usher in a modern day depression? Who knows, all I can say is that for all of the talk of an end to the bleeding over the last two years, it hasn’t stopped. What we are seeing is an escalation in the financial downturn as companies burn through what resources they had squirreled away to weather the storm. The big three automakers face similarly dire circumstances as GM basically had the cash to survive a year… that was six months ago… who will be left to extend them credit when they run out of cash?
Why is it that I believe that people on Wall Street and even lowly investors had this coming? Well, it’s simple really. Investors don’t give a hoot about reasoned stewardship. Any of these companies that were engaged in extending risky credit should have known better. You don’t give people loans at 125% of the appraised value of the collateral. it just makes NO SENSE. Then you have other bankers engaged in bundling and trading these things across the board. Madness. Still, what is the CEO to do? When you have companies offering these deals and they’re making money hand over fist and their stocks and dividends are up, your investors are looking for similar performance. Even if a CEO went before the board and the investors and said, “I just don’t think this is a sane business practice,” he/she would have likely been sent packing within a week. People want to chase a quick buck, they want to see that portfolio expand, they want to see dividends being paid.
Now there is no credit to save the likes of a GM. Insurers are slowly being pulled down into the swirling vortex of the credit crisis. The far reaching effects are just now starting to be felt. People are clamoring to find a means to make back the money they GAMBLED and LOST. I’m sure that investors will be hiring attorneys and launching lawsuits to hold anybody but themselves accountable. From top to bottom, this has been about greed. Hopefully, the real change that will come from this mess is that people will choose corporate leadership that isn’t afraid to be responsible. The kind of iconic old school leaders that were not afraid to tell their boards and their shareholders, “NO!” It’s a tough pill to swallow right now… but then I’m sure everything was peachy keen when the checks were rolling in. Hopefully you lot have squirreled some of it away? No? Ah, well then… it seems the corporate mentality that is costing the taxpayer in this country so much was epidemic then, wasn’t it?
Posted on September 9th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News, Politics.
Yick! You have to practically take a shower after watching an hour of these 24 hour cable news nets. It’s disgusting and senseless banter about one thing… the election. Talking head after talking head comes out and tries to put the hard sell on you where it concerns “their” candidate. It’s like going to a used car lot, night after night. Obama he’s got low miles. McCain he’s old but gets you from point A to point B. Sarah Palin, vavavroom… flashy, new and with a nice set of rims. Joe Biden… uhrmmm… hey, come to think of it… we don’t hear a lot about Joe. Okay… he’s the minivan on the lot.
Seriously, there’s no reporting any more. There’s no news. It’s just show, after show, after show… discussing the election. Rarely do you actually hear what the candidates have to say. No, instead you get a well washed, spun, and neatly folded interpretation of the facts. There’s no need for you to think… we’ll do all of that for you. You just sit there and watch salesman after salesman come forth to negotiate a deal with you for the management. Well, me… I’m going straight to the manager. I am swearing off of the cable news nets for the next 8 weeks. I’ll watch the debates on C-Span and immediately turn off the television when they’re through. I don’t need to be told who won and who lost. I don’t need to be educated as to who had the night’s “zinger”. I’m a fairly competent cat… I think I can manage to determine who it is that spoke more to me and who it was that took the night.
I used to hear people say, “Reality television has run amok.” Ladies and gents, the news is the new reality television… and it’s just as fake and clichéd as anything produced in Hollywood.
Keep your used car salesmen… I’ll walk.
Posted on September 8th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, Entertainment, News, Politics.
Finally, MSNBC has succumbed to the pressure, or perhaps managed to catch up with the rest of us that have realized for a long time that Matthews and Olbermann are partisan hacks. I would no sooner see Pat Buchanan hosting “coverage” of political events than I would these two guys.
The move, confirmed by spokesmen for both networks, follows increasingly loud complaints about Olbermann’s anchor role at the Democratic and Republican conventions. Olbermann, who regularly assails President Bush and GOP nominee John McCain on his “Countdown” program, was effusive in praising the acceptance speech of Democratic nominee Barack Obama. He drew flak Thursday when the Republicans played a video that included a tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, saying that if the networks had done that, “we would be rightly eviscerated at all quarters, perhaps by the Republican Party itself, for exploiting the memories of the dead, and perhaps even for trying to evoke that pain again. If you reacted to that videotape the way I did, I apologize.”
Matthews, who has criticized politicians in both parties, drew less criticism for his convention role but became a divisive figure during the primaries when he described how he was inspired by Obama’s speeches and made disparaging remarks about Hillary Clinton, for which he later apologized.
These two guys are pundits for the left and it was about time that somebody did something about the way they’d run amok at MSNBC. It’s been disgusting display after disgusting display with Olbermann. On the other hand Matthews’ treatment of Hillary Clinton during the primaries was both brutal and blatantly biased.
Olbermann and Matthews will remain as analysts during major political events, and officials at both networks, who declined to be identified discussing personnel moves, said Olbermann had initiated the discussions to clarify his role. They said Olbermann’s influence at MSNBC would in no way be diminished and that the shift would enable him and Matthews to offer more candid analysis during live coverage. Olbermann confirmed yesterday he had initiated the discussions.
See, this is how these people think. Okay, let’s take them out of the anchor chairs and set them loose without any kind of leash. That’s fine, at least they won’t be pretending to be impartial JOURNALISTS, which they aren’t… they’re left wing carnival barkers. Now if they could just do something about that punk Shuster.
Posted on September 8th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News, Politics.
McCain/Palin are leading in various polls this morning, and it has the Obama camp in a frenzy. A usually cool and collected David Axelrod sounded harried, nervous and winded as he went through a littany of anti-Palin talking points. If this is how these guys are going to react to a couple of polls, I can’t imagine how they’ll handle a legitimate crisis. I can understand the nerves, there is blood in the water. Obama ignored a woman that got 18 million votes, while McCain took on a woman that didn’t get one. Women are angry and they should be. Obama didn’t even try to vet Clinton, people see that as disrespectful. Those Americans that were going to vote for the black guy because we have to make amends and it’s time, can find a similar circumstance now with McCain and his female veep. Oh my… it seems the Obama camp is back on its heels and they’re terrible when they’re behind (especially in the gloves off blood sport of party vs. party politics). If the rest of the Obama team is taking their cues from the top aka Axelrod, I think we’ll see a lot of breathless rants on Palin in the coming days. Will it help? Probably not. Obama’s team needs to stop the bleeding and I don’t know that smearing Palin is going to do it for them.
Posted on September 6th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News, Politics.
It’s official, Randi Rhodes is a pig. She is a disgraceful human being that speaks to the issues (or at least her version of them), until her back is against the wall… and then it’s bring on the smear. The latest case in point? I’m driving home yesterday and I have to hear this garden gnome of a person start besmirching John McCain in a way that was repugnant. In the speech before the RNC, McCain spoke about his time as a POW. He candidly spoke about a moment in which he’d been beaten and he said, “they broke me”. What does Rhodes do with that? She starts babbling on about how McCain isn’t a hero, and how he gave the Vietnamese information and appeared in propaganda pieces that ran in Cuba, Vietnam and who the hell knows where else. Her contention, the man is a liar and a fraud and he made up these more heroic sounding accounts for the benefit of his political career. Evidence of this? Cindy McCain said she was proud of what her husband did in Vietnam, but she didn’t elaborate… “because she knows the truth”. It was repulsive and then it was laughable. Why? It’s obvious, Randi Rhodes like most of the liberal left is afraid that AMERICANS, REAL AMERICANS, are going to vote for McCain and Palin.
Rhodes also went into a rant on Palin, talking about the dopey jet that she spoke about in her speech to the RNC. Rhodes’ contention, PALIN IS A LIAR! Why? Well, Palin said she sold the jet on eBay, but the truth is, it didn’t sell on eBay! OH MY GOD! I listened to Palin’s speech and I’m sure this fact checking troglodyte Rhodes also listened (likely in a rage as she came to realize that this woman is going to help McCain crush Obama) and what Palin said was, “That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay.” Hmmm… I thought Randi said, that Palin said, that she sold it on eBay. Surely Randi wouldn’t misrepresent “facts”… right?
I think Randi Rhodes has a lot of nerve calling people liars and going out of her way to twist the words of McCain. Considering this woman concocted a total fabrication when she fell onto her face outside of a bar, I wonder how the hell she comes off with the holier than thou attitude. She lied to her co-workers in an email saying that she had been MUGGED, when she really blacked out and fell, knocking out her teeth. Let that be a lesson to you Randi… eat something while engaged in whatever it is that you were doing (to excess) at an Irish Pub. Her lawyer said she was walking her dog and was mugged, or fell, or was abducted by right wing aliens, HOW DID HE GET SO MANY VERSIONS OF THE STORY? The story changed again and again, why? Why not just tell the truth? Hey Randi, to quote you, “YOU’RE A LIAR!” So please, by all means… keep smearing people that admit their errors and their shortcomings while concocting dramatic nonsense to cover-up your own. I hope you’re getting proper care for whatever it is that afflicts you… I’d speculate, but you’d probably sue me.
Posted on September 4th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News, Politics.
Finally, John McCain was … John McCain. I thought the speech he gave was adequate. He’s never great off of a prompter or off of paper… he is much better off the cuff (Obama’s weak area). Unlike Palin who started off strong and then meandered a bit, McCain took an even approach. In the end though, his tales of youth and arrogance within the scope of a lesson learned in war, were undeniably moving. The pundits and hacks like Jeff Tubin and Keith Olbermann wanted one liners and angry banter. They wanted the placating rhetoric of that Obama delivers. McCain didn’t deliver that, he was even handed. He stated a case as to how it was that government (both parties) have failed this country, and I found that compelling and HONEST. He isn’t this country’s savior, he is this country’s agent.
In the end the speech reached a crescendo, with McCain asking people to stand with him. He did not come off as the messianic ego that is Obama. He did not make himself the road to righting every wrong. He said it like it is, WE AS A COUNTRY MUST OVERCOME OUR TRIALS, no man, no matter how well meaning can stem the tide and change this nation. McCain is wisdom, where Obama is rhetoric.
The fact that McCain delivered the good (despite some quirks and glitches) came in the menace etched on the faces of the liberal pundits and their media cohorts. As I said, Tubin looked shell shocked, offering some ridiculous critique in which he compared the speech to Jimmy Carter’s and called it the worst acceptance speech he’d ever heard. Surely this guy must have been inhaling helium. On MSNBC, Olbermann was busy stressing that while McCain never mentioned Bush by name… he did exit the stage and shake the hand of Bush Labor Secretary Chao first. HUH? The woman just had a seat right next to the stairs off of the stage. If THOSE are the observations that political enemies of McCain are making, that says it all.
McCain will be leading this time next week, as the bounce settles in. That will be huge and signal a tide shift that Obama will have to try to overcome. Unfortunately for Obama, when he goes aggressive he tends to alienate and to bungle… and that might just add to his woes. Here’s hoping anyway!
Honorable mention of the night goes to… the idiot with the “mavrick” sign. Oh my.
Posted on September 3rd, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News, Politics.
Wow, the gloves came off tonight. First up, Rudy Giuliani who delivered a couple of jabs and bolstered McCain’s resume while defining Palin’s. It was a rousing warm-up for what was to come. Palin took the stage to a thunderous ovation that went on and on… and on. What followed, was a first rate, well worked and effectively delivered indictment of the Obama candidacy and an affirmation as to what it is that McCain must have seen in his running mate. Half way through Palin’s speech I was wondering if theres a mercy rule in politics. The lady is a hell of a speaker and she is going to be able to hold her own against Biden. If I were Obama, I would count myself lucky to have to debate McCain, because this woman is no slouch.
Peggy Noonan and all of the political pundits that have called her a poor choice and an unknown quantity will be rewriting their opinion pieces and giving Palin her proper respect. The political unknown has proven herself to be at the very least as capable as Obama… she speaks well too… and she’s “clean”. Sarah Palin blew the roof off of the joint, and I think she’s got the opposition quaking in their boots. This lady is no joke. Whether or not McCain/Palin wins this year, Sarah Palin is going to be a viable and dangerous threat to the democratic establishment for a LONG, LONG, time to come.
Best line of the night? The deal where she said, being mayor is like being a community organizer except with real responsibilities. Priceless. I think McCain is likely to come out of this convention ahead of Obama… just so long as he doesn’t blow his part of the deal!
Posted on September 3rd, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News, Politics.
There is nothing that will stand in the way of MSNBC as it continues to press its bias against the Republican Party. Why else would this network put an anchor desk smack dab in front of a dozen morons that are waving “9/11 was an inside job” signs? How sad that the Democrats managed to erect pens for demonstrators at their convention, while it seems that the unwashed maniacs of the left are allowed to spew their venom in full public view and with the benefit of MSNBC’s airwaves. One of the dizzy news babes (Norah O’Donnell) even screamed to these idiots, “You’re on television!” as they stood silent with their mouths agape during a commercial break and then missed their cue when the cameras were back on! Poor Kay Bailey Hutchison (of whom I’m not much of a fan) even had to sit there and try to conduct an interview as the imbeciles behind her bellowed unintelligibly. It makes MSNBC unwatchable and I usually tune in now and then just to get my blood pressure up.
I will say, O’Donnell is a hell of a lot easier on the eyes than Olbermann. Another bright side, maybe later on tonight the droning of the crowd will mute the squabbling between the anchors. Lord knows they’re all going to be tripping over one another to take their shots at Palin and tempers are likely to flair. God help the poor Republican that has to sit there and try to be professional in the wake of the bias and the vitriol. If Palin does well Olbermann is likely to be swallowing his tongue as Matthews chokes on his own spit!
Posted on September 3rd, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, Politics.
As Rod Stewart sang, “tonight’s the night” Sarah Palin is set to speak at the Republican National Convention, and I’m pretty excited to hear and to see how she handles it. After a week of relentless media assault, it will be a real tell to see how she deals with it all. Anybody that can withstand, or more importantly overcome the brutality of the media barrage this woman (and her family) has had to endure displays at least the “fortitude” necessary in a leader. The media has tied itself to an anchor. Their negativity where it concerns this woman is now recognized by America. Should Palin actually hit a homerun tonight, there could be a serious backlash. Imagine, the media undermining their candidate (Obama) by sickening Americans. Have we never seen this before? Some people never learn.