Oh Ashley, Ashley, Please Tell Me You Didn't Do That!

(Sent by Arthur last Friday night. He again mentions someone named "John" with whom he seems to be obsessed. At least now he says he's kidding. This remains to be seen.)

Little Ashley Todd seems to have a problem with the truth. Does that seem harsh to say? Am I being one of those big brutal liberals when I say something mean like that? John thought so. John is a wuss. John has always been a wuss. I haven't wanted to tell anyone that, but it is true. He likes to be abused by conservatives. It is kind of a sickness with him. Just kidding.

Okay, now to some facts.

Here is a saved cache of young Ashley's myspace page.

On her personal page we learn, in the first entry:

"Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off, but its better if you do".

So we learn that young Ashley (who claims to be 23 but seems according to the police to be 20) seems to really enjoy adding a little "fantasy" to life.

Ashley seems to have taken some time off to work as a Young College Republican volunteer for the McCain campaign, first in New York State and more recently in Pittsburgh. Wednesday something happened to Ashley, but exactly what happened remains a mystery. Ashley contacted Pittsburgh police from a friend's home to tell them that something awful had happened to her. She said that a large African-American gentleman accosted her and relieved her of $60, which she had just withdrawn from an ATM machine in a busy mall, then he had noticed that she had a McCain sticker on her bumper, or that she was wearing a McCain button, and he became enraged and knocked her to the ground and savaged her, then (in one account) he groped her breasts and sat on her and wrote the letter "B" on her cheek. Backwards.

And then the man ran away. The Pittsburgh police took her statement and went forth to try to find out what the story was. When she was offered medical assistance young Ashley refused it, saying she was okay, though she claimed that he carved an initial into her face with a "dull knife", which could reasonably have caused an infection. From the photos Ashley appears to have a black eye and a letter is scratched on her cheek, but the letter was applied so carefully that is abraded the skin without drawing blood. Why it all matters to the national press is that she described her assailant as a six foot four inch tall black man, dark skinned, medium build. In short, a generic large scary black guy. Like "rounding up the usual suspects", right? When in doubt, arrest the scariest looking black guy that can be found close by. But the twist to the story is that the perpetrator, not content to steal her money, according to Ashley became enraged when he found out she was a McCain volunteer and decided to make a political statement by beating her up and scratching the letter "B" in her cheek, all the while saying that now she would support Barack Obama.

To their great credit the Pittsburgh Police listened politely to her story, checked their notes and spotted a series of inconsistencies in her story and called her back in to take a polygraph test and tell her story over again, down at the Central Office, presumably to their crack interrogators. Interestingly, while all this was happening, the local communications director of the McCain campaign wrote a colorful account of the alleged incident and sent it out to the local newspapers and televisions, from which it went national with the intercession of the always-reliable Matt Drudge, who dresses like a film noir obsessed newshound of about 1940 and appears to have the journalistic ethics of a tapeworm. Where the story went from there was to nearly 1400 news organizations and television shows and networks across the country. 1400. Think about that for a bit. Little Ashley's imaginative story really had legs. Crooked legs, as it turned out, but let's not quibble. It is very, very rare for any such story to take off like a rocket, unless... unless there is something that strikes a chord. In this case I would argue that the chord it struck was the "big scary black guy" myth.

This is not to say that there is no such thing as a dangerous black man. Anyone who watches the regional warfare in Africa would dispute that. There certainly are dangerous fellows of a dusky persuasion in the United States and dangerous neighborhoods. EPRush and I managed to get ourselves punched as green behind the ears youngsters when Rush offered an awkward pleasantry to a young fellow of such a dusky hue and since he had a cohort of his homies around he took the opportunity to throw some punches, which we took in good grace so as to not escalate the situation. Stuff happens. I have been hit far harder by white sociopaths in Eugene, and in knocking around the world I have been threatened by Europeans, Muslims, Tibetans and even Hindus. But in our country the myth of the scary black guy is by far our most popular folk tale. Statistically the most danger to life and limb that most of us will face is either an auto accident or risk of violence committed by a family member, particularly if one has easy-to-grab firearms around the house for "self-protection". The National Rifle Association discourages discussion of such statistics, as to dwell on those inconvenient facts might erode membership in the NRA. By coincidence I have been involved in a three-year lobbying effort centered on an obscure sub-department of the State Department. I will not bore you with the details, other than to say it has something to do with my livelihood. As part of that effort we cast around for allies... and we found the NRA. Seriously, we hooked up with the leadership of the NRA, as they had a very small dog, really sort of Chihuahua size, in this same fight. Calling in the NRA is like calling in the Marines. The head Lobbyist of the NRA wears endangered alligator cowboy boots and has his own custom-fitted 727 to help him visit his constituency, like rural doctors used to have a horse and buggy. I mention this to explain that the NRA executives really like their jobs, their very large salaries and their perks a whole lot. They prefer for you to keep thinking about the dangers of Scary Black Guys far more than they want you to dwell on the risk of crazy Uncle Fred dropping by, particularly when Fred has been drinking and he knows where the gun cabinet is and someone in the family said something mean to him at Thanksgiving Dinner.

Thinking about the Scary Black Guy is far more appropriate.

So when a boffo story like "Scary Black Guy Assaults Little Ashley" comes along, particularly when it has a political twist to it, making it "Scary Black Obama Supporter Assaults Little Ashley the McCain volunteer" the press is off to the races. Whooey, look at 'em go! It's like watching a greyhound race!

Look, we have made an enormous amount of progress, and we are about to make a ton more, but it is going to take some time before our culture will be able to let go of our thirst for stories like this one. Ashley Todd clearly had no idea what she was stepping into when she spun this fantasy. According to one account she expressed outrage that the news media went wild over the story. Is Ashley Todd a victim of circumstances? or is there more to the story that we've not stumbled over yet? First of all, let's stipulate that while she is currently claiming to be emotionally unstable, according to her myspace page she just really enjoys being a liar. She could be crazy as well, but we are certain that she is a chronic liar. She wants us to think that she just had a brain seizure and made it all up, just, oh, just for the heck of it, she's not sure why, shucks, she had no idea people would get so uptight about it all. Right? But there are a couple of problems with that explanation: (1) Young Ashley has a black eye, and (2) instead of blaming it on a Vietnamese television repairman, Ashley blamed it on a towering black mugger who was also a fanatic Obama supporter. Coincidences? I don't think so.

I can readily believe that Ashley could scratch her own cheek while looking in a mirror (thus the reversed letter) but could she give herself a black eye? I have my doubts. Would she permit an ally to do so? Again, I doubt it. So where did she get the shiner? It is possible she ran into a doorknob, but isn't it more likely she got in from a fight with a colleague or acquaintance? It comes back to who is statistically more likely to shoot you. Someone you know. I am inclined to think young Ashley got into a physical fracas with someone she knew, and got a black eye. Maybe in fun, maybe one of the other McCain volunteers had an amorous impulse towards her that she did not welcome, and thinks took a bad turn. Whatever happened, she had a nice shiner, or not so nice, depending on the circumstances. She could have seen it as an opportunity for mischief, or it could have struck her as something she wanted a generic explanation for... while getting in a dig at those damn Democrats at the same time. Will we ever know? It strikes me that the Pittsburgh Police have done a very effective job of finding out that no assault took place. They are not amused. The issue, particularly given the publicity the McCain local office gave it, had the potential to darken the reputation of Pittsburgh and the police department. Police really, really hate fake police reports. It is impossible to track down the perp... if there is none. So who gets the blame? Not the person who makes the false police report, the police do, for not being able to solve a crime that never happened. The police hate being put on the spot like that, particularly when the matter has a racial element with the potential to cause a secondary racial incident, leading to further criticism of the police for not resolving the first "crime" in a timely fashion, thus averting the second incident. When people report something like this, a modern police force approaches it like it is a paper bag with an angry rattlesnake in it. Very, very cautiously.

I know Pittsburgh fairly well, since that's where my dad grew up. My grandfather Charlie was a paymaster in a steel mill. He routinely carried a revolver, even on visits to the west coast, which made my parents very nervous. For him it was like having his hat on when he went out. He was a really nice guy, a nice guy with a gun in his pocket. There are no steel mills in Pittsburgh anymore, they've all moved overseas where labor is cheap and workers can be more easily abused. As a result the air in Pittsburgh is wonderfully clean these days and one can enjoy the two rivers that meet there to flow on down to the Mississippi. The air is good, the people are nice and there are a lot of great old mills and factories that can be converted into lofts and museums and studios. Pittsburgh is a great place and lots of fun to visit. It also is racially mixed and does not have a lot of racial tension, thanks to the efforts of those who live there. A Pittsburgh police spokesman noted that Pittsburgh certainly has its share of thieves, but they generally just grab the money and run, so it surprised him that one stopped to make a political statement. And all the while the McCain campaign was busy sending out press releases describing the terrible encounter, that the Drudge Report described as a "mutilation". The Pittsburgh Police would have preferred no press releases and more uninterrupted time for them to review the ATM machines security camera footage and question those in the area that night, including the young woman. After steady questioning young Ashley suddenly cracked and said that she had a sort of blackout, and "thought" that she must have scratched her own face, though "she could not recall doing so", so she just made up the rest of the story. Right. Meanwhile the colorful original story got picked up by 1,400 news outlets. But hey, voters, don't let this story influence you, okay? Just vote your paranoia, okay? Surprise, it's October! Be very, very afraid.

In the end the Pittsburgh Police Department cracked the case and are investigating it further to try to gather all of the facts. Young Ashley Todd could be charged with several counts, one a felony. In the meantime she is being held in protective custody, purportedly to ensure her personal safety, since she said that she has a history of psychiatric problems. That could also be a lie, but in the meantime it earned her a nice hotel stay in a carefully-supervised wing of the city jail. I don't know if Ashley thought up this bright idea all on her own, or whether she did this in consultation with someone in the McCain campaign. If so, we are likely to know in about a day. Ashley seems to be finding this whole "fibbing" thing to be a lot less fun than it used to be. Oh, and they don't grant bail when there is concern for a person's well-being and mental stability.

The Rachel Maddow Show tackled the story tonight and their take on it is that in the deep south it used to be the case that such racially-tinged accusations used to set off a search for a scapegoat, often to tragic effect. The interviewee noted that the professional handling of this incident argues that while such a charge still titillates the public, that in recent years the professionalism of modern police forces cuts through to the facts, without letting racial charges distract them. Rachel Maddow thought that was grounds for celebration. I concur. I also think I am going to write a letter to the Police Commissioner of Pittsburgh, complimenting his force on an impressive show of professionalism.

As a nation we don't have time to waste on junk like this, do we? There are real problems, real challenges, real opportunities. We can accomplish far more if we work together, than if we waste time bickering and sniping at each other and trying to turn Americans against each other over race, ethnicity or color of skin. To dwell on differences, rather than unity, should be seen as "Un-American" and unacceptable. To my delight that seems to be an idea that is catching on.

Here, in no particular order, are some links to the Ashley Todd story: Here, and Here, and Here.

Arthur

Weekend Update - October 18th

• We apologize for this picture. But it does look like John McCain is happy to see Sarah Palin.


• It's almost over. Mark Morford tell us nine perfect ways to prepare for the end of Bush. Can you believe it?


• For the first time, The Chicago Tribune endorses the Democratic nominee for President.


• Here's a not-quite-so-flattering NYT article about Cindy McCain. And, by the way, the McCain campaign doesn't like it.


• Sarah Palin said something odd the other day (gasp): "We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation." Joe Biden takes her to task for it.


• This article from Rolling Stone Magazine by Robert Kennedy, Jr., and Greg Palast is a must read. "Block the Vote."


• Want to hear some of those horrible McCain "Robocalls?" Check this out.

In The Last Debate, McCain Blinks

I am amazed that many saw this last debate as McCain's best of the three. Did you watch it?

I watched it on a 42" HDTV screen and it was not a pretty sight. I probably saw more than was wise. McCain seemed to have practiced "looking at" Obama, but he maybe should have practiced with an actor that really looked like Obama, instead of one of his cohorts like preppie Tucker Bounds. Oh, I am sorry, I forgot he only hires white Lobbyists, or is it that they hire him? In the actual debate McCain sat with a fixed smile fixed rigidly on his face, while his eyes shown like glowing black Opals firing bolts of hatred. And what was with all the blinking?

I swear that I have never seen anyone blink that rapidly unless they were on a witness stand trying to take their way out of a murder charge. Have McCain and Palin become Blinky and Winky? A neighbor, who has thrown herself so completely into the Obama campaign that she says she may go broke and have to move, said that McCain's serial blinking reminded her of Inspector Clouseau's deranged superior officer in the "Pink Panther" who grew to hate Clouseau so much that in the end he tried to kill him. We pointed out the similarity to Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, in hopes that one of them can pull together a "split screen" comparison of the Pink Panther movie actor and the anguished candidate, doing some synchronized blinking. Stay tuned.

The contrast with Obama could not have been more clear. Obama seemed cool and at ease, McCain seemed tightly wound and about ready to physically attack Obama. Okay, so the election is not trending well for McCain, but he telegraphed his anger and resentment that he thinks a young punk is winning, instead of him. And all of McCain's talk of Obama's "eloquence"? Hey, McCain is a very, very smooth talking dude, able to bob and weave and extricate himself from trouble very adroitly. What drives McCain crazy is that Obama is just a whole lot better than McCain, at his own game, and on top of that, Obama is not prone to fits of public rage. That makes Obama a far, far more effective candidate... and negotiator. He just keeps making his points, listening to his opponents, showing respect and sticking to his own agenda. That's the guy I want negotiating on our behalf, not someone with anger management issues and a short fuse. McCain, by contrast, is legendary on Capitol Hill for losing his temper and cursing his colleagues when they do not give him with what he wants. I somehow doubt that telling President Putin to F---- himself will work all that well as a negotiating technique.

Astoundingly, even David Brooks, who I believe is a complete tool, has written a piece that does an interesting job of addressing the issue of demeanor differences between Obama and McCain. He came perilously close to gushing, so he had to save himself by adding in a couple of disclaimers, but in general it looks as though he thinks the odds of Obama becoming one of our great Presidents looks fairly high. Stop and think how difficult it must have been for a reliable Republican apologist like Brooks to write those words.

And McCain's gambling habits? I can understand why he prefers craps. He has a lousy "poker face", with his rate of blinking being his "tell". By comparison Obama is a legendary poker player, steady, incremental and the despair of his opponents.

So while McCain may have kept his cool, verbally, visually he was difficult to watch. McCain was like someone who is pretending to be calm, but whose body language is giving them away. I suspect that he believes that he has already lost, but was manfully working to try not to let it show. By contrast, McCain's wonderful comedy turn at the Al Smith Dinner gave us a preview of the post-campaign McCain. Oddly, my impression is that losing this election may be the best thing that ever happened to John McCain. Being elected would probably have been a disaster for McCain, the country and very possibly his marriage, whereas coming through this hard-fought campaign, working to end it on a high note, may resound to his credit. But to achieve that McCain has to cancel his creepiest ads and his dreadful robo-calls. I HATE robo-calls, even if they are positive ones. If I ever got a negative robo-call it would send me through the roof in anger at someone calling me to insult my intelligence and spew hatred at me over the phone. To make negative robo-calls is the dangerous and desperate ploy of a failed campaign.

Here is my favorite section from this article:

Mr. McCain’s advisers said that in his speeches, television advertisements and mailings, he would seize on a remark Mr. Obama made in an encounter with an Ohio voter, Joe Wurzelbacher, who had pressed him to explain his support for a tax increase for upper-income filers. Mr. Obama responded by saying he wanted to “spread the wealth.” Mr. McCain repeatedly invoked that encounter with the man, whom he called “Joe the Plumber,” during the debate on Wednesday.

“Spread the wealth around: We will focus acutely on that,” said Steve Schmidt, Mr. McCain’s chief strategist. “Spread the wealth around is a big mistake.”

Seriously? Is that something the vast majority of the American people are going to be horrified at the thought of? Are you? There could not be a more telling sign of what complete morons the McCain campaign staff are. Steve Schmidt's comment tells us that he believes "wealth" to be something that he, and the privileged few, must lie and cheat and steal to get hold of, while the vast majority of Americans work as servants or field-hands, laboring long hours without complaint, singing plaintive Spirituals while they work.

Gosh, I wonder why the American people aren't just rushing out to sign on to that vision of our future? What IS the matter with all these people? Don't they realize their true place in the big scheme of things? They are peons, they will always be peons and their children will always be peons. Right? Wrong. The idea that our society ought to be stratified into "haves" and "have nots" is morally bankrupt. Further, the more economic gains that the middle, lower-middle and lower economic groups in our society are able to make, the more education that they and their children are able to get, the better their health and healthcare, the stronger we are as a people, as a nation. What is so complicated about that basic idea? And since many Republicans claim to be devout Christians, doesn't that ideal, that goal, tally very well with Christ's teachings? What did Christ say? In Matthew 25:40 we read:

"...Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me."

What does that mean? It seems to mean that a charitable act toward someone who is struggling is the equivalent of doing a good deed to God. So if it makes sense, economically as well as in Biblical terms, to aid those who are (a) struggling economically (b) struggling to get healthcare (c) struggling to keep their families together (d) struggling to keep their kids in school and help them value and gain an education, what is the McCain campaign thinking when they seize on the phrase "spread the wealth around" as a rallying point for their "base"? Who is their base? Modern day robber barons? The entitled, the enfrancised, the inherited wealth-holders? That is such a small part of the overall voting public that while it might help McCain raise money (though this year it does not seem to be) it is not likely to snooker many people of average means into voting for him. In a year when things are feeling pretty upbeat and larger numbers of people can harbor the illusion that they might get lucky and win the lottery, or score big on a real estate deal, or get a hot stock tip... or something, there is a greater percentage of people who ASPIRE to be in the upper economic classes. Americans are a wonderfully optimistic people, and fairly delusional as well. But somehow this year things are not feeling very upbeat. The problem? The Bush administration. Bush and his advisors had to have known that the economy was very shaky as long as six months ago, but did they want to take any corrective actions? Noooo, it would look like weakness. Instead they hoped, really hard, that if they just closed their eyes and thought about Kansas that it would all just stay together until after the election of John McCain. And then it would be his problem. This administration made this economic mess happen, then they purposely delayed to correct it, thus making it far worse. Is there anything this administration can't screw up? Let's see. There are still three months to go before the Obama administration takes over. Just think of the mischief they can accomplish in that time!

Whatever they do, unless they manage to start a nuclear war, we will survive. Compared to the Civil War this is child's play. What a slogan!

"The Bush administration: almost as bad as the Civil War, but not quite!"

Arthur

Weekend Update - October 12th

• "The bar has been raised. Or rather, the bar has been lifted out of the cave where it was dumped eight years ago; it's been polished up, reinstalled." Or so says Mark Morford.


• Well, after the latest debates we knew Obama was doing pretty well, but Steven McClatchy dares to use the "L" word in describing Obama's campaign.


• You KNOW things are going bad when the ultimate "Hockey Mom" gets soundly booed at a hockey game.


• If you've been reading the papers, watching the news (even on FOX), reading the blogs - you know, keeping yourself up on this campaign - and you still believe McCain-Palin is the best choice for this country, then you've got nothing left but hate and bigotry, and I've got nothing more to tell you.


• There's enough blame to go around twice, but President Jimmy Carter lays the current market crisis directly at the feet of George W. Bush.


• BBC-TV is preparing to air a documentary on the 2008 election, and how the "fix" is already in. Are they going to steal it again? Greg Palast reports.


• "The Terrorist Barak Hussein Obama." Frank Rich editorial.

Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail

I am not sure whether you heard about Senator Norm Coleman, currently trailing Al Franken? He announced today he is pulling his negative ads and re-tooling his campaign. The McCain campaign seems to be doing something similar today, faced with rising negatives and the impending investigative report on Sarah Palin. Which is that she abused her power as Governor, in the scant twenty months she was in office, to fight a pointless battle against a former brother-in-law. In a court decision setting terms for alimony the judge refused to grant Palin's sister a 55/45 split, noting that she chose not to work and that her family's lengthy and vicious efforts to get her ex-husband fired was like "killing the goose that laid the golden egg". And that their own vindictive actions served to threaten his future earning power, ruling out the grant of anything more than a 50-50 split.

The Republicans will do everything in their power to discredit the report, but they know that most Americans will not buy their story. Just as most Americans hear and know that Bush's wiretaps were used to eavesdrop on soldiers having phone sex with their wives and girlfriends, while other wiretap operators were called over to listen in, too. Not to guard our nation, but to enjoy eavesdropping on the troops.

Oh, and Obama's "dangerous associations"? Here is another. A distant cousin on the Dunham side (his grandfather's) was the first soldier in the Iraq war to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, for falling on a grenade to save the lives of his companions.

There is a lot more about that family as well. A long, long history in the United States. When McCain rather grudgingly said today that Obama is "a citizen" he could also have said "native born citizen" which carries more weight. But McCain is on the wrong side of history this election and is realizing that if he takes the high road, he loses, if he takes the low road he loses and will be disgraced for life. And McCain is a proud man. To become the butt of jokes and a metaphor for bad decisions and poor judgement would be almost more than he could bear, even if he remained a hero among ill-informed Republican stalwarts. McCain wants far more than that and my sense is that he is coming to terms with the realization that he is going to have to settle for something less than he aspired to. All of us can relate to that feeling, can't we.

I think we will need to give him some time to grieve, then come to terms with what the heck he is going to do with the rest of his life. It will not be easy for him.

And Sarah Palin? I have fewer worries that she will remain a conservative darlin'. There is something about being found to have violated State Ethics laws that takes the edge off a candidate, though of course she could still have a career as a guest on the rightwing talk radio circuit, but I'm not sure that's what she aspired to.

This should be an interesting debate next week. My guess is that the viewership will be enormous. History is happening before our eyes. Actually, about four or five types of history, one of them being the whole skin-color hoohaw, but an equally important one being the transfer of power from one generation to another.

Arthur

The Obama Knife

(Arthur requested this article to be posted on Wednesday, the 8th. We didn't find it amongst the mail clutter until this afternoon, the 10th. We post it now with apologies to Arthur, and are currently flogging the drunken transient we hired to slog through the spamandcrap. Party on Wayne.)

Okay, so you are going to ask, can the Obama Knife also cut through b.s.? We all know that it can smile, charm, inspire, engage and collect massive sums of money, but you will ask, "Roger, can it cut to the chase?" Yes it can.

It can recite a song that John McCain sang at a meeting, forcing him to desperately blather that it was something he said when he was "joking with an old friend" even though the actual campaign event is captured on one of those new-fangled video thingies, something that John McCain should be painfully aware of because of how popular that video clip has become on youtube. The problem is, John McCain is too out of touch to really have a clue. The extent of McCain's awareness of the real world seems to be that he vaguely understands that his backer Meg Whitman started something called eBay that the underclasses can use to sell their possessions to help stave off eviction and pay for their healthcare costs. Healthcare costs? Tom Brokaw asked if it should be seen as a right, a privilege or a responsibility. McCain thought it should be a "responsibility", but his answer was so rambling that I defy anyone to tell me WHOSE "responsibility" he thinks it is. Society's? Government's? Individuals'? McCain has no idea what he is talking about, no clear plan, no sense of what a burden healthcare costs can become for the American people.

He is talking through... well, let's say "his hat". I'm not. Due to a family illness our family had out-of-pocket healthcare costs of $27,500 one year and $28,000 the next, for a family of four. We have those costs under control now, but that hurt during that five year period when we had a lousy insurance policy, due to a pre-existing condition. When I say "out of pocket" I mean, that was the total of our insurance premiums and co-pays. We could handle it, other families could not. John McCain wants to give everyone a five thousand dollar tax credit? What does that even mean? Here is a link to Wikipedia: Click Here

Does anyone have any idea which meaning of the term "tax credit" McCain was talking about? Does he? Okay, let's be charitable and say that he meant the second, more generous use of the term, which means that those who are employed will get a $5,000 payment, to help them buy health insurance and pay their co-pays. But what if it is a two-income family? Will they then get two $5,000 checks? And what if two children live at home and work? Would each of them get a $5,000 check to apply toward a family insurance policy? Gosh, this could get expensive, couldn't it? or not. Since we know little or nothing about the McCain "Plan" I think we can safely assume the benefit will be $5,000 per family. In some parts of the country that might be helpful, in other parts of the country it would not. But McCain is just going to send out checks and let the taxpayer "do the right thing". With many families living paycheck to paycheck, my guess is that many of those checks would find other, more immediate uses, while a McCain administration would argue that government did its part, that it was the fault of the taxpayer that they did not purchase an insurance policy. Wonderful. Yes, there is "responsibility" but McCain does not feel it is a social value to work to unravel the health care nightmare. And if a $5,000 credit is given, but the employer-paid insurance benefits are to be taxed, then what is the net effect on small businesses and individuals? $5,000 would not have gone far towards paying our $28,000 costs that one year, would it?

One estimate is that the cost of providing corporate healthcare coverage for their employees and retired workers adds roughly a thousand dollars to the cost of making every car built in the United States... which is part of the reason that Detroit is moving manufacturing to Mexico and Canada. Our government's horror of enacting anything resembling universal healthcare, our government is helping to hobble our manufacturing base and send it overseas. And to put it bluntly, John McCain is either too much of a conservative ideologue to understand, or else he is too dumb to understand. You decide. Myself? I think he probably is a bit of both, which is the same lethal mixture that George W Bush represents: just smart enough to get elected, but to dumb to govern. Oh, and that Sarah Palin line about Ronald Reagan talking about "waving the white flag of surrender" and losing our freedoms? that was an antique quote from before Reagan was even Governor of California, and the subject? He was talking about how horrible Medicare would be. McCain is cut from the same cloth. He told us that we should not expect "the same level of benefits" that current retirees enjoy. Oh really? So this is all about hobbling Medicare and Social Security, because they are Socialist? Think about it for a minute. To get the Bailout package passed, Congress inserted $150 Billion in pork to bribe some stubborn members of Congress. No problemo. But does anyone remember the "crisis" in Social Security? The crisis so terrible that the only hope to save it would be to privatize it? Or else we'd have to find the staggering amount of $75 billion to fully fund Social Security, as it exists? That was simply impossible! No can do! But when it comes to blowing up Iraq we spend that amount every seven months and when we needed to bribe some Congressmen, suddenly without any public discussion an amount TWICE as large appeared. Like magic. If anyone ever needed proof that Bush administration has a strong resemblance to a pack of lying weasels, they should think of those two events and what they really tell us about this ideological and dishonest administration. Bush is a lot like Nixon, except he doesn't break a sweat when he tells a lie.

Oh, and the debate? That's it. You saw John McCain at his best. That's the best he's got, that's the sarcastic and homicidal codger that you will be electing if you vote for him. There are no uncertainties left in this election. I voted yesterday before watching the debate. For me the election is over, except for sending in donations. My youngest son who is far from being a political wonk told me yesterday he re-registered in Austin, Texas where he is in school because he thought his vote was more important there than in California. What is happening on college campuses this year is astounding. Passion is back in style.

If I am right, it is downhill from here on out. The only question is how slanderous the McCain campaign is going to get before it is over and how large the margin will be, how much of the Senate we take control of, and what a new President will discover when they take office. My guess is that when he takes office the new President will be told about a host of financial problems that no one knows about, that the Bush administration has been keeping a lid on to try to keep things looking rosy until after the election. Did anyone else wonder how the financial crisis that necessitated the bailout/rescue package seemed to sprout up like a mushroom? How come there was almost no advance notice? My guess is that the Bush administration tried to keep it all quiet, hoping that it would (a) go away, or (b) not collapse until after the election. It didn't work out and instead of having time to make good policy and explain the need for it, the legislation had to be done in a panic. That's not responsible governing, that's incompetence. Rather than taking more measured and intelligent steps earlier on, this administration kept talking up the economy as "fundamentally strong" (a Greenspan era term that has been tainted forever) while it was sliding into what we are now told is the greatest financial crisis since the great depression. Is it that bad? Who knows? Do you trust ANYTHING the Bush administration tells you? I don't. My assumption is that anyone Bush speaks well of is most likely a co-conspirator, someone whose name will show up on the January 19th Presidential Pardons List.

Arthur

Weekend Update - October 5th

• Arthur discovered this wonderful web site called Fivethirtyeight. Here's an article from it that talks about the "ground game." Good stuff.


• With the party already struggling to generate enthusiasm for its brand, Republican strategists fear that an outpouring of public anger generated by Congress's struggle to pass a rescue package for the financial industry may contribute to a disaster at the polls for the GOP in November. Can you say Runnin' On Empty?


• Halloween is rapidly approaching, and Mark Morford talks about things that scare small children, mainly witches. And Sarah Palin.


• Apparently the Russians are preparing for a McCain-Palin administration.


• Rolling Stone Magazine takes a closer look at the life and career of John McCain and reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty. "Make-Believe Maverick."


• You know what's missing from this election? The late, great Molly Ivins. Mygawd, just imagine what she could have done with Sarah Palin.


• Best News of the Week Award goes to O.J. Simpson, who was finally found guilty of something other than offensive pass interference. O.J., you're a sleazy, murdering, scumbag and I hope they put you away for the rest of your miserable life. No offense.


• More than a million people have lost their homes in the past two years. And because voter registration is based on people’s residences, they could face politically motivated challenges at the polls. From the New York Times.

Reruns of the Last Debate

(Arthur comments on tonight's debate between Biden and Palin, and strangely feels compelled to mention someone named "John," as if that mattered to anyone. But, as usual, he speaks the truth.)

While I was trying to watch the Biden/Palin debate tonight I kept getting calls from John, who clearly was falling down drunk, unable to hear or see clearly what was on the television screen six feet in front of his eyes.

This debate was an exact rerun of the Obama/McCain debate. The only difference was that McCain snarled a lot, Palin was her irritating and pointlessly perky self. On substance, there was no a whit of difference. Both she and McCain emphasized the importance of "not looking back" but instead looking forward. One could translate to "Forget what we did for the last seven plus years, we've decided not to do that anymore. Honest.

The debate was essentially a draw, in terms of energy and oomph. Sarah Palin certain is the "Oomph Girl", isn't she? Perky, little winks, funny way she screws up her mouth, irritating voice, willingness to make things up and repeat discredited lies... in short, she is a wonderful Republican candidate.... for Governor of Alaska. Dip-lo-macy? with Ackdemina-jad? Bad, bad, bad and Ba-Rack O-Bama wantstuh do that thing. Bad, bad Ba-Rack. You don't actually TALK with bad people, instead you demonize them and turn them into boogey-men so you can scare and control the American people. Who wields power in Iran? the President or the religious leaders. The answer is (b) the shadowy guys who control Iran and have since the Revolution. McCain should know better, Palin doesn't have a clue. We saw the sum total of her world knowledge tonight, and what a sad little display of colored rocks and shiny shells it was.Wait for the polls. AT BEST it was a draw. I suspect, as in the case of Obama/McCain, on substance and on revulsion to the Bush record, Biden will come across as the winner. He was careful, respectful and he let Palin hang herself. Just like Obama did with Gramps McCain. You can't beat the stuffings out of an old guy or a lady and come out looking good. It takes a lot of diplomatic skill to hold your tongue, hold your temper, not rise to the bait, even when Palin began raving about the "white flag of surrender". In diplomacy you need to deal with some pretty tough customers, with powerful personal skills. What we saw in Palin was ego, what we saw in Biden was seasoned professionalism. Let's face it, Palin is a cracker. Not a nice person, not a thoughful person, prone to personal vendettas and histrionics.

Is that too harsh? Wait. On October 10th (eight days from now) the Alaskan special prosecutor is going to release his initial report. That will include documentation that Todd Palin followed his ex- brother in law around with a camera to try to gather incriminating photos to prove he was not disabled. Palin also pressured the review board to pull his disability, which they did. The bro in law appealed, supported by the Union, he WON and received disability and support to send him to California for a back operation. Now he is back on the job and Palin is about to be pilloried in public. In eight days. Union members all across America are not going to like what they hear.

But mostly, Sarah Palin is a gimmick. She panders ceaselessly, but no one is buying it anymore. She is playing to her imagined audience of Cracker Women, but women are turned off by her. Many of them may have read the recent National Enquirer that detailed her affair with Todd's business partner. Now that is a principled politician!

But in the end, though Palin was determined to tell us that up was down and mavericks are bitchin' and she is so excited don'cha know, that we can just trust her, she sounds nothing more nor less than an updated and sex-changed version of George W Bush, complete with the bad grammar. Been there, done that. We now know that talking like a hick is not a qualification for high office. We know that being clueless and determined is not a substitute for knowing her ass from a hole in the tundra.

Biden won. 57% to 38% with the rest either drunk or undecided.

And I am 110% confident that Uncle Bob agrees with me.

Arthur