South Park Tackles the 2008 Election

On the day after the election, South Park aired an episode where Obama wins the elections. This isn't too shocking considering that they could make it in advance (even though an episode takes less than a week to make), but because it had parts of Obama's speech in it! Though the episode had Obama winning the election, South Park creator Trey Parker said that they would have aired it anyway if McCain had won. As the Los Angeles Times points out:

The episode still wasn't completed on the eve of its air date. They needed to replicate the stage on which Obama gave his acceptance speech, and record voice-over excerpts from the transcript for the episode's cartoon reenactment of the oration. They finished production on the episode Wednesday morning, about three hours after they normally wrap.

Here is a clip of the speech:


What is hilarious about this episode is that it is equally critical of supporters of each side. In a fashion that South Park tends to do better than anyone else, the writers were able to mock both sides in such a way that you can't get mad because it attacks the stereotypes of each reaction. Just look at Randy Marsh's excitement in that clip! And yet, take a look at the reaction of the McCain supporters:

or this clip:

Ike reminds me of the few Republicans I know. Maybe it is because I supported Obama, but I still tend to find the Obama crowd's reaction more appropriate (as if the world would end if Obama became President...how stupid can you be?!). Then again, I have been accused by more than one Republican of having "drank the Obama Koolaid." Which is funny to me, since I spend a good portion of my day studying politics and world affairs, and I think Obama is too right wing...but he stands for something much greater and that's what matters most! (Besides, I would rather have someone supporting the right {ahem...correct} side for the wrong reasons that support the wrong side.)

Much like I experienced here in Seattle, South Park also covered the celebration in the streets afterward.

People were getting pretty ignorant in the streets, breaking bottles and whatnot, but nothing like turning over a cop car. And, shockingly, when the cops told people to leave, all the sudden people busted out brooms and started sweeping the streets...it was pretty fantastic.

The episode runs off on tangents from there, but is still pretty great. You can watch the whole thing at the South Park Studios website.

Celebrating in the Emergency Room (a.k.a. How I Spent Election Night 2008)

So, it is not very often that I write stories of personal trials and tribulations on this blog. Sure, you get opinionated political rants and movie endorsements, but you rarely get a story about something going on in my personal life. Yet, I figure this is a story worth telling. Here is my story of the night we elected Barack Obama!

I had been running behind all day...people were going to start showing up around six pm for the joint election results watching party I was having with my neighbors across the hall. Other than a sink full of dishes, my apartment looked pretty damn clean. People were already arriving. James (my best friend growing up) and Saku (my law partner) were already at my place, and Arrendt and Jake had at least 10 people in their apartment (including a super cute girl named Lauren who I only got to talk to for a few minutes because of the events about which you will read), when news broke that Obama had won Ohio. We were giddy. A bunch of us took celebratory shots of whiskey! That pretty much meant Obama was going to win the election. It somehow seemed fitting that I was with two of my closest friends, who are both black, when we knew we were likely to have our first black president. I was literally jumping up and down with glee.

Shortly thereafter my parents arrived. My dad was still parking the car, and I took my mom over to meet the neighbors. My mom had brought over gourmet lasagna she had prepared, to add on to the Tofu Yakisoba Stirfry I had made, and I started to cut pieces of cheese from a tin of Cougar Gold to put with crackers. Somehow, in the process, my hand slipped and the serrated edge of the can nearly sliced off the top of my right index finger. Luckily it stopped a few centimeters short of taking the entire piece of skin off, and just missed my knuckle, but I had to be rushed to the E.R. after it became apparent that the bleeding was not going to stop and that the cut was pretty bad. Here is a picture I took in the emergency room (hence the low quality):

Once I got to the E.R. they asked me all sorts of questions and then I got to go sit in the waiting room and watch the CNN election results show (the MSNBC coverage I had been watching at home was so much more enjoyable!). Then at 7:53 pm, I had to go back into a room to be evaluated...yeah that's right...SEVEN MINUTES BEFORE THEY WERE GOING TO OFFICIALLY CALL THE ELECTION.
So there was no celebration for me, just text message after text message of people expressing their joy. The calls started to roll in too (me having to say time and time again that I was sorry I could not talk but I cut myself and they don't allow phones in the E.R.). Then I got a tetanus shot. Ow.
Luckily, right before Obama made his speech, the nurses started streaming CNN. So, at the nurse's station we all stood, watching his speech. All of the nurses, me, my mom, the guy who broke his ankle because he missed a step while canvassing for Obama, a cute gay couple who were holding hands, and a disgruntled doctor who wanted to be watching the speech and not working. About half way through the speech they took me back to clean my wound and stitch it up. (At the end of the speech, apparently all of the nurses and patients out there hugged). Once that was all said and done, it looked like this:


Seven stitches and four hours later I was out the door and headed back to my apartment. I was very happy, but at the same time I was feeling pretty down about Prop 8 passing in California. On the way back we ran into a giant parade of what must have been a thousand people celebrating, but my mom wouldn't let me get out of the car. Everyone had left my apartment but Saku, (my co-dj on KGRG) Nicole, and my dad. People had continued to show up at my party who never even got to see me, let alone celebrate with me. I was super bummed. I was in a ton of pain, but luckily the two whiskey drinks I had (and the vicodin I took) tempered it a bit...so after Nicole left, Saku and I headed out into the streets of Capitol Hill;. Stupidly, in my haze, I forgot to bring the memory card for my camera, so I will have to rely upon other people's videos to show you what went down.

First, we caught up with a small parade of about 50 people heading downtown. But right when we got on the cusp of downtown, Saku and I decided to head back up the hill to Broadway to see what was up. And, once we got there, everything was OFF THE HOOK! Here is a video of what it was like:

Obama Election Celebration in Seattle from Ray Lucke on Vimeo.

It was even crazier before I got there...this was the scene:


and here are a couple videos of the crowd singing the national anthem:

and


I have never seen anything like it before in Seattle. People were laughing. People were crying joyfully. I was just kind of in awe. I was in pain and the gravity of everything hadn't hit me yet. I was excited though. And I ran into a bunch of friends up there. I think I am still kind of in shock. In 2004, I cried tears of sorrow. This time around, it is tears of joy. What a momentous day in American history! I am sorry that I missed a lot of it, but hey...I have a story to tell and we can now begin healing from the past 8 years. 8 years of civil rights being set back 150 years. 8 years of war. 8 years of agony. Thank god it is almost over!

Grendel Election Endorsements & Voter Guide: Washington State & Federal Elections

That’s right friends, here is my voter guide for this upcoming election. While I will focus primarily on Washington State, don’t you worry California, some of your three billion propositions (don’t foget to vote maybe on Prop 12,963 to make Jim beam the official drink of Wednesdays!) will be covered. Now, to avoid getting too long winded, here we go…

FIRST AND FOREMOST…VOTE YES ON PROP 1 TRANSPORTATION! Enough of Seattle being a backwards, no mass transit having, hick town. JUST DO IT FOR CHRIST SAKE!

President: John McCain vs. Barack Obama vs. Third Party Candidates
This one was harder than you may think. And, no, I would never consider voting for John McCain (frankly, if you aren’t making over $1 million and you vote for McCain, then you probably voted wrong). In short, the Ralph Nader/Matt Gonzalez ticket is very intriguing to me…it has nothing to do with Ralph Nader though. Sure, he may be one of the best citizen activists we have had. And no he did NOT cost Gore the 2000 election…Gore did. But Matt Gonzalez is extremely appealing to me. He was a member and president of the San Francisco County’s Board of Supervisor’s, and narrowly lost defeat as a Green against Gavin Newsom in the 2003 SF Mayoral race. But, in the end, this election is too important, and I am not about to tell my kids that I didn’t vote for the first Black President (barring another stolen election).

Governor: Dino Rossi vs. Chris Gregoire
This is easy. Sure, Rossi has a handful of good ideas. But we’re saying, like, four! He opposes funding for women’s health care, says he will veto any bill legalizing gay marriage, and Rossi says things like “I will not lower minimum wage,” meaning, also, that he will not RAISE it! Sure, I do not particularly like Gregoire, but Rossi would be a fucking nightmare.

U.S. Congressional District 7: Jim McDermott vs. Steve Beren
How can you not vote for Dr. Jim?! He is one of the few great Congressmen in this country.

Secretary of State: Sam Reed vs. Jason Osgood
There was a time where Sam Reed was a respected, non-partisanesque Secretary of State. Then he had to go and show his true colors as a Republican hack when he applauded a court decision to allow Rosi to run as GOP instead of as Republican, so he could distance himself from McCain. Ridiculous. Find me on the next election’s ballot as the candidate of the “Liberal Whiskey and Music Party.”

School Superintendent: Randy Dorn vs. Terry Bergeson
Terry Bergeson, the champion of the WASL, seems to not even understand the significance of her own test. Is it good? Bad? Who knows…she sure hasn’t taken a stance on it, and without proper funding e may never know. Dorn is Executive Director of the Public School Employees of Washington and wants to fix WASL. Vote Dorn.

Initiative Measure 985
Oh man. On first blush, this seems great. But, knowing it is a Tim Eyman bill, you KNOW you have to look deeper. That douchebag is always trying to fuck something up. This time, it is our transportation system. Sure, opening the HOV lanes after hours sounds great. They do it in California. Yet, it is the other aspects of the bill that are bad. Opening up carpool lanes 18 hours a day may be good, but it also (as the stranger points out) takes local funds for transportation and puts it in a statewide pool, takes money away from education and health care/public safety, and prohibits tolls that will be required to retrofit the decrepit 520 Bridge. Just vote no. Please.

Initiative Measure 1000
Death with dignity. I have the right to die if I want to. And the best way is for me to consult with two doctors who can help me do so pain free if I have less than 6 months to live. The scare tactics the opposition use have proven unfounded in Oregon, where they have the identical law. I understand if you don’t want this ability for yourself, but don’t use your morals to tell me what I can do with my life. Vote yes.

Initiative Measure 1029
Requiring further certification for home health care workers is a great idea. But it is expensive, will drive up public and private costs, and almost doubles the training required. This is a good idea, but a poor outcome. Let the State Legislature do it. Vote no.

King County Charter Amendment 8
Nonpartisan County Council elections?! Hell no!

City of Seattle Propositions
Prop 1: Yes for Pike Place Market.
Prop 2: Yes for Seattle’s Parks and it will barely cost you anything.


Here are some other races that you’ll just have to take my word on:
Attorney General: John Ladenburg
Lt. Governor: Brad Owen
State Auditor: Brian Sontag
State Treasurer: Jim McIntire
Commissioner of Public Lands: Peter J. Goldmark
Insurance Commissioner: Mike Kreidler
King Country Superior Court-Positions 1, 22, & 37: Holly Hill, Tim Bradshaw, Jean Rietschel.

The Presidential Campaign Goes Comedy

Every four years since 1960 (save for 1996 and 2004), the Presidential Candidates speak at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, a fundraiser for Catholic charities. Al Smith was the four-time Governor of the state of New York, and failed Democratic Presidential Candidate of 1928, losing to Herbert Hoover because of his Catholicism (as they feared he would answer to the Pope) and his perceived anti-Prohibitionism. He was the first Catholic to be a major party nominee (the first Catholic Candidate overall being Charles O'Conor of the Bourbon Democrats in 1872).

This time around, both Candidates spoke at the dinner, after neither candidate was allowed to in the last election due to the spat between John Kerry and the Catholic Church on the issue of abortion. First, it was John McCain's opportunity to wow the crowd with his comedy...



If your reaction was the same as mine, you are wondering why McCain hasn't been showing this side of himself the entire campaign? I was literally on the floor I was laughing so hard. This must be why they say he is so good in Town Hall meetings (although he was pretty horrible in the sole Town Hall Debate). After McCain came his Democratic counterpart, Barack Obama...



Obama was pretty funny, too. I do not think his comedy rose to the level of that of McCain's, but I was still highly impressed nonetheless. In a time when the smear campaign (especially from the McCain/Palin ticket) has been in full force, it was good to see some good natured, and yet sometimes vicious yet funny, blows be thrown at the opponent. And the self-deprecating humor, especially from Obama, is always a favorite of mine.

Presidential Debate No. 3: Eye Rolling Spectacle

There is so much I can say about this debate...and I know you, my loyal readers, have come to expect me to comment. However, every single issue in the debate I could write for pages on. So I will simply say these three things:

1) McCain was strong in the beginning. I was impressed by his poise considering the way he acted in the previous two debates. Then, at some point, it was like he lost his mind. He got fed up and grumpy and the crotchety ol' McCain we have come to expect came out. Much like the Nixon/Kennedy debate, those people I have talked to that only listened on the radio thought McCain won. But it isn't telelisten...it is television!

2) In my opinion, and I have actually been very critical of Obama in the debates despite the fact that I think he won the first two, Obama also won this one. His answers were more effective and he was able to brush of McCain attacks and set his own vision. Every poll on every news network of undecided voters agreed with this opinion. Enough said.

3) This sums up the entire debate:



Sorry for the sort coverage, I just have a lot of other things I would like to cover coming up soon. Expect some information on ACORN, Palin, and I each day starting next week I will cover two issues on our local ballots here in Washington, and one of interest from another state...if you have any suggestions for sommething you would like me to go over, just let me know!

Why is the Right so Angry?!

After 8 years of Bush, and the way every part of our society has been utterly devastated (even Jimmy Carter is now attacking Bush on the economy), you would think that it is us on the LEFT who should be angry. I mean, maybe we are. I am angry. I cannot believe that even this many people would support McCain and am sick of this country moving further and further to the right. There are parts of the Obama platform which, under a Kennedy administration, were considered so far-right wing that candidates who advocated such things lost in landslides (but we can get into the whole Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush fleecing of the electoral system another time). And yet, it seems like us on the left, when we are angry, use intellect and go out and try and make a difference, not just spew angry, hateful rhetoric.

THAT'S RIGHT!!! I AM MAD!!! I am angry that McCain can continually state that the surge in Iraq was successful, and that Obama tacitly agrees with this, when a recent UCLA study showed very clearly it was in fact not the surge that has lessened violence in Iraq. As the study itself states, "the surge has had no observable effect." Using nighttime light signatures, it was shown that it was in fact ethno-
sectarian neighborhood homogenization that led to a decrease in violence. As one ethnicity was essentially killed or driven out of a neighborhood, leaving the majority ethnicity to "rule" the neighborhood, the violence would, understandably, lessen in that neighborhood. So why doesn't Obama say this? Why doesn't he fight back? This would shore up his position on Iraq, and would give McCain no legs to stand on with this issue.

So, while the Left uses logic and strong arguments to defeat the nonsense on the right (and yes, 90% of it is nonsense), the Right yells and screams and, you guessed it, turns into an angry mob, or so says McCain's former top strategist, John Weaver. Weaver has even called upon McCain and Palin to stop stoking the flames of hatred and anger, and to control the crowds (since such crowds would be unattractive to a swing voter). Obviously they are not doing their job...watch this:


And another thing, I am tired of people on the right calling Obama socialist...there is NOTHING remotely socialist about the policies of the Democratic party. Health care, you say?! ummm...no! Obama is not calling out for health care for all, he wants health INSURANCE for everyone. Big difference. Speaking of socialists, shall we talk about Wall Street bailouts? Enough said. Now go forth and (try not to) be angry!

The Simpsons and the 2008 Election: A Sign of Things to Come

The Simpsons have always been political. As many of you out there know, the writers of the show have a knack for dissecting American Politics, in a humorous yet oftentimes extremely cynical way. Who can forget the 1996 episode Treehouse of Horror VII in which the aliens Kang and Kodos kidnap Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, placing them in suspended animation tubes, and then impersonating them in order to win the 1996 Presidential Elections (and thus enslave humanity for their alien race). This speech by Alien Dole sums up American Politics so very nicely:

And let us not forget, this is also the episode where the earthlings threaten to vote third party when they discover what has happened, and Kang tells them to go ahead and throw away their votes (confounding Ross Perot)!

There have also been numerous Presidential appearances. Here are a few examples:




Yet, as FOX has moved more to the right, the show has begun to criticize the media and mock the right wing notion of the so-called liberal media, flying in the face of its parent network. This has been matched by calls on the right of a liberal bias, and yet if you listen to the DVD commentary Matt Groening makes it clear that although there are people on the writing staff who are extremely liberal, there are many conservatives, including the main writer of episodes, John Swartzwelder.

Why do I bring all of this up? Well...news has broken that on November 2, the Simpsons episode that airs will have Homer going to his polling place to try and cast a vote for Barack Obama. And here is the madness that ensues:

Pretty scary, huh?! It hits a little too close to home with all of the dirty tricks Republicans are already pulling, from caging lists to using foreclosures to bar voters. This is why people need to turn out in record numbers to vote for Obama...there will be many who experience what Homer does here, and those that get their votes through need to outnumber the Homers of the USA.

Delving into the Debate: Looking Further at the CBS Poll

As I noted in my last entry, CBS has what it believes a very accurate polling process that follows undecided voters and their opinion of the debate. It was this poll that initially caused people to proclaim that Obama won the debate...but delving further in the poll it looks as if Obama may have won over voters while McCain lost people with his demeanor. Check out these numbers from the poll.

What we see in the poll is that when the undecided voters were asked what their presidential preference was pre-debate vs. post debate, Obama held a 36-34% advantage before the debate, while he held a 41-29% advantage following the debate.

Furthermore, it appears as if Obama made himself more of a known quantity. Only 44% of undecided voters thought Obama was prepared to be President pre-debate, while 53% said he was unprepared. Post-debate, 58% of these same undecided voters declared Obama was prepared to be President, compared to 40% that felt he was unprepared. John McCains numbers on the same question remained virtually the same.

Even more interesting, prior to the debate only 58% of undecided voters polled felt that Obama understood their problems (with 40% saying he did not). Following the debate, that number stood at 79% saying he understood and only 21% saying he did not. That is a net gain of 21%. McCain also saw a modest gain in this number, as his number grew by 5%.

Finally, it appears as if John McCain's cantankerous attitude made many of the undecided voters have a less favorable opinion of him following the debate. While 32% of undecided voters polled said they had a better opinion of John McCain, an astounding 21% said they had a worse opinion. For Barack Obama, 46% of these same undecided voters had a better opinion of him, while only 8% had a worse opinion of him. What was their qualm with McCain? According to the poll, it was that "he 'didn’t control himself well under pressure,' that he was 'angry and bad-tempered,' and that he 'talked too much about the past.'"

Apparently, this was a more resounding victory for Barack Obama than even I thought. As this story is relayed in the media, it is inevitable that people will start to have their opinion reflect what is being reported, and Obama will be considered by most to have won. All that is left is to see if the polls reflect this.

CBS Releases Initial Poll on Debate

CBS has teamed up with Knowledge Networks to create highly accurate polls as to how the debate plays out with Uncommitted voters. And, surprisingly, Obama was viewed as the victor! Here are the results from the initial poll:

39% of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Barack Obama was the winner. 24% thought John McCain won. 37% percent saw it as a draw.

46% of uncommitted voters said their opinion of Obama got better tonight. 32% said their opinion of McCain got better.

66% of uncommitted voters think Obama would make the right decisions about the economy. 42% think McCain would.

48% percent of these voters think Obama would make the right decisions about Iraq. 56% percent think McCain would.

These results actually surprise me somewhat because I thought the way Obama attacked McCain on Iraq was extremely effective. The way he laid out every way that McCain was initially wrong on Iraq was very strong. But apparently it was the economy that played in Obama's favor.

Elitist vs. Folsky: My Initial Response to the Debate

For me, watching this debate, it was a pretty strong victory for Obama. His ability to hang with McCain on the issues of foreign policy, when McCain is supposed to have a ton of experience on foreign policy, shows clearly that Obama can stand with the big boys. Time and time again he would wade through McCain's mischaracterization of his stance, and then restate his own stance.

And, yet, the media is likely to spin this as a victory for McCain. Obama's inability to take control of the conversation when McCain would misrepresent his view (simply because McCain would keep talking), thus forcing Obama to try and talk over the moderator, makes Obama look bad. McCain's sniveling comments, funny faces, and mis-speaks show me why he is not someone we want to lead our country...for those that are small town, he comes off as folksy. Obama, with all his facts and plans comes off as elitist. How do I know this? My one Republican friend, who claimed the other day she was likely going to vote for Obama, said Obama came off as all holier than thou and his tone was disgusting. That's likely to be the reason small town America will connect with McCain in this debate. Even though Obama thrashed McCain on Iraq laying out clearly every issue in Iraq that McCain was wrong on. And McCain came off as lecturing Obama on foreign policy simply because he claims to have "more experience." He said, and I quote, "I honestly don't believe that Sen. Obama has the knowledge or experience and has made the wrong judgments in a number of areas, including his initial reaction to Russian invasion...uh...aggression in Georgia." Wow. Just wow.

Let's also note that McCain made a huge gaffe on the issue of Pakistan, stating that it was a failed state when Musharraf took over...and yet I bet the media finds a way to spin that as a possibility since he did come into power during a coup.

All in all, a failure by McCain to win this debate (pundits seem to be calling it a tie), is likely a long term victory for Obama.

The Presidential Debate #1: BLOGGING LIVE!

Debate is over.

7:35 PM: McCain goes after Obama, saying he is like Bush..."I honestly don't believe that Sen. Obama has the knowledge or experience and has made the wrong judgments in a number of areas, including his intial reaction to Russian invasion...uh...aggression in Georgia." - John McCain

7:30 PM: Candidates are discussing the likelihood of another 9/11 attack. Obama says we need to go deal with terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that we need to fix our standing in the world. McCain says Obama wants to forget about Iraq and that signals victory to Al-Qaeda. Obama says we need a broader strategic vision.

7:25 PM: Thanks to HuffPost for noting that Obama is wearing a flag pin and McCain is not!

7:16 PM: Lehrer asks about Russia.

Obama says their actions in Georgia were unacceptable and lays out what Russia must do in that situation.

McCain says Obama is naive. Lays out that the Russia attack on Georgia had to do with energy and the pipeline. Obama agrees with the McCain assessment other than his portrayal of the Obama response.

7:12 PM: McCain makes a joke about being President. Nobody laughs.

7:03 PM: Lehrer asks about the threat of Iran.

McCain says that if Iran gets nuclear weapons, they are an "existential threat" (wtf?! he needs to learn the meaning of that word) to Israel. He says sanctions on Iranian could have a beneficial affect and says that they have a lousy government! Wow! I can't believe he would say that out loud (to quote his own phrase).

Obama talks about Iran funding Hezbollah and Hamas, and that our policy over the last 8 years on Iran has not worked. That we cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran.

McCain struggles with the President of Iran's name (ACK ACK ACKMIN ACKMINDINADINADINADINADINADINAJAD)

6:57 PM: Lehrer asks about Afghanistan and the candidates spar over Afghanistan and Pakistan. They re throwing one liners back and forth. McCain tells a sob story about a mother of a fallen soldier giving him a bracelet to wear for her son. Obama says "look, i have a bracelet too." McCain accuses that Obama didnt go to Afghanistan so he must not care about it either. McCain then says Pakistan was a failed state when President Musharraf came to power and anyone who went there would know that. (While Musharraf did take over in a coup, to call them a failed state at that point is a fucking joke).


6:50 PM: The candidates are arguing over Obama's plan in Afghanistan. Literally talking over each other. I don't know why either of these candidates are saying that the surge in Iraq worked. A UCLA study that came out this week said that that wasn't the case, that sectarian violence lessened because of ethnic cleansing in neighborhoods.

6:44 PM: McCain goes after Obama saying he never visited Afghanistan and that the surge worked. Obama retorts by saying it wasn't his committee that would deal with that. Says that, "John, you like to think the war started in 2007, when it really started in 2003," and then goes after McCain for all the things he was wrong about at the start of the war.

"I'm afraid Sen. Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy" - John McCain

6:39 PM: Lehrer asks about the lessons of Iraq.

McCain says our initial military success disappeared because the war was badly mishandled. That he went to Iraq in 2003 and came back and said we needed a new strategy. He claims the current strategy has succeeded and we will win in Iraq.

Obama says this war was wrong. That we shouldn't hesitate to use military force but we need to use it wisely.

6:35 PM: Obama says we are spending $300 billion in tax cuts for people that don't need it, and we are not funding health care, then our values need to be reanalyzed.

McCain says the Obama health care plan take choice away from families and gives it to the government. Then rails on and on about spending. Apparently he has "plans" to reduce unnecessary spending.

6:33 PM: McCain calls for a spending freeze on everything but caring for veterans, national defense, and several other vital issues. Obama responds by saying that's using a hatchet when we need a scalpel. ZING!

6:28 PM: Obama says to eliminate the programs that don't work and to bolster those that do. McCain retorts by saying we need to cut subsidies for ethanol, attacks Obama for having the "most liberal" voting record in the Senate (and Obama responds with a sinister laugh like he is going to tear him apart), and then McCain goes on to talk about defense spending. The debate seems pretty even to this point (although Obama's answers are more to the point).

6:25 PM: Obama and McCain are sparring over taxes. It is somewhat humorous. They accuse each other of misrepresenting the numbers. Obama seems scholarly. McCain seems folksy (although I think he is just acting like a child). That is probably good for McCain.

6:18 PM: McCain retorts by going after Obama saying he didnt start cutting spending until AFTER he was running for President and says Obama will raise spending.

Obama responds that by ending tax loopholes, as he plans to do, will pay for all the tax cuts. He says his plan will help the middle class and McCain's does not.

McCain lays out specifically what he is thinking in terms of the business tax cuts, saying he wants to cut it so businesses will remain in the USA and not go abroad. He then again says Sen. Obama is a "recent convert" because he requested pork barrel funds prior to running for President. Asks what Obama's definition of rich is...

Obama lays out what his tax plan is, saying that 95% will get tax cuts but the top 5% wont see a rise in their tax rates. He then goes after McCain saying that although business taxes are high, there are so many loopholes that they pay way less. He then says McCain wants to tax health benefits.



6:15 PM: Jim Lehrer asks specifically what each candidate would do as President to fix the economy.

McCain says he would cut pork barrel spending and would veto all spending bills.

Obama agrees spending limits are good...but attacks McCain for his tax plan that includes tax cuts to the rich, with CEOs getting $700,000 in tax cuts. He then lays out his plan (tax cuts for 95% of working families)

6:10 PM: Obama says he is likely to vote for the bailout plan but says he has yet to see the language. In an otherwise excellent retort about wall street vs. main street, McCain misleads by saying he called for the resignation of the head of the SEC. He in fact said he would fire him if he were President (a power the President does not have).

Obama goes after McCain on saying the fundamentals are strong. McCain responds by saying he has faith in American workers to get by. Non-responsive, yet an excellent answer.

6:02 PM: Obama open the debate with an excellent answer about the economy. He seems to be on a roll. He even attacks Mccain. McCain responds initially by mis-stepping (not knowing Sen. Kennedy is out of the hospital and forgetting where he was), but powers on to an excellent answer, making him come off as extremely likeable.

Lies Lies Lies: Why Does Barack Obama Want Our Kindergarteners to Start Fucking?!

It has taken some time, but the so-called “Liberal Media” is finally reporting on some of the misleading advertisements and statements that the McCain/Palin campaign has been disseminating since the RNC. The most notorious of these misadventures in stretching the truth is one of the latest McCain attack adds that declares that Obama wants to teach our kindergarteners to learn about sex before they can even read. Wow! Here is the ad:


Okay, this is just ridiculous. Without even looking at the facts, HOW CAN ANYONE BELIEVE THAT BARACK OBAMA WOULD WANT KINDERGARTENERS TO BE TAUGHT COMPREHENSIVE SEX EDUCATION?! Unfortunately, not all Americans are so smart…they tend to believe the lies spread about him (remember that whole Muslim thing?). But, instead, let’s step into a time machine and travel back to 2004, and look at the fact that Alan Keyes made these same allegations in Obama’s Senate Run. His attempts to attack Obama on this issue weren’t successful then, and McCain’s attempt to do it now is down right misleading. And what is the basis for this accusation? Illinois S.B. 99.

First off, the ad implies that Barack Obama was somehow responsible for the legislation (his “one accomplishment”). And yet he was not even one of the sponsors of the Bill. Furthermore, the bill never even passed.

That being said, let’s look at the Bill itself. The text of the Bill is long, but there are two significant parts to look at:

Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV…[but] shall emphasize that abstinence is an effective method of preventing unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and HIV…

and

Course material and instruction shall teach pupils to not make unwanted physical and verbal sexual advances and how to say no to unwanted sexual advances and shall include information about verbal, physical, and visual sexual harassment, including without limitation nonconsensual sexual advances, nonconsensual physical sexual contact, and rape by an acquaintance.

So, the text of the bill does state that comprehensive sex education could be extended to those in K through 12. But, as Barack Obama has stated ad naseum, it is the latter provision that is significant for elementary school aged children…to teach them how to avoid sexual predators and what to do when sexual advances are made against them. The whole idea is to teach age appropriate sex education

However, for those that may have been concerned that the “comprehensive sex education” might be extended to kindergarteners, the Bill, itself, ensures IN THE VERY FIRST CLAUSE that objecting parents do not have to allow their kids to learn sexual education at school, as it starts out:

No pupil shall be required to take or participate in any class or course in comprehensive sex education if the pupil's parent or guardian submits written objection thereto…

In short, it would have given parents the right to prevent any such lessons from being taught to their children. In the text, they are even given the right to go over the materials and ensure that they are acceptable. All in all, a pretty misleading advertisement by the McCain/Palin team.

And that is just one example…let us not forget other such inaccuracies as Sarah Palin’s stance on the “Bridge to Nowhere,” the statement that Barack Obama wants everyone’s taxes to be raised, or that Obama’s “Lipstick on a Pig” comment was gender based, amongst many others (each of those could encapsulate a single blog entry and I do not have the patience or wherewithal to go through with each statement right now).

As Huffington Post reports, the media sources now calling into question McCain’s “gutter politics” and/or mistruths include The New Republic, CBS, MSNBC, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chicago Tribune, Slate, Washington Post, The American Prospect , and even the McCain championing Associated Press. It is about time the media started wising up to such misdeeds! Now, let’s hope they keep it up!

Obama vs. McCain: A Picture Is Truly Worth A Thousand Words

So I will leave it at this:

Campaign Advertisements: Now This is Just Getting Silly!

It started way back in the primaries...who can forget Hillary Clinton's 3 AM ad accusing Barack Obama of being soft on National Security. Way to chalk up points for the other team, Hillary. Then again, that is not so surprising considering the leaked Clinton internal campaign strategy memos showing that she intentionally sought to portray Obama as a foreigner and bring up Rev. Wright as often as possible.

Then we moved on to the General Election and the McCain ad calling Obama a celebrity, putting him next to images of Brittey Spears and Paris Hilton.

Awesome come back there, John. "Don't vote for Obama, he is popular in Europe. He is like a rock star. I may be boring and can't inspire a single person with my speeches, but I'm no celebrity! I'ma leader." Okay, whatever.

But now there's this: Obama's ad flipping the issue, calling McCAIN the celebrity.

Now...this ad is very well put together. It is funny and extremely clever. It's flashy. It implies that McCain would be another four years of Bush. It turns the tables back on McCain on the whole celebrity issue. And, in reality, it is pretty dishonest.

I do agree, McCain would be (in a lot of instances) more of the same when it comes to Bush policy, and we certainly cannot afford another four years of a Republican in power (especially with two looming Supreme Court vacancies), BUT...to use images of McCain on various talk shows to imply that he is the one that is in fact the celebrity is pretty misleading. I mean, after all, hasn't Barack Obama appeared on late night and talk show programs? Yup, he sure has:
The Colbert Report (2008)
The Daily Show (2005, 2007, and 2008)
The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2008)
Late Night with Conan O’Brien (2006 and 2008)
Late Show with David Letterman (2004, 2007, and twice in 2008)
Jimmy Kimmel Live (2008)
The Oprah Winfrey Show (2006 and 2006)
Real Time with Bill Maher (2005)
Saturday Night Live (2007)
The Today Show (2007 and 2008)
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (2006)
Tavis Smiley (2004 , 2005, 2006, and 2008)
WWE Monday Night Raw (2008)


Well, there you have it. They must BOTH be celebrities. They are both running for President and are both super famous. Obama is just more captivating. It is time for the Obama team to go a new angle, and get back to the policy attacks (which the ad nicely contains in the middle there...they just simply get lost with the celebrity message!)


Either way, at least we don't have any commercials with fun images like this from the Olympics:

Way to hold the flag the proper way King George II.

The Myth of the Liberal Media: Obama Edition

No matter where you turn these days, someone is talking about how Barack Obama is the media darling. How he gets all of the coverage and is being treated like the President when the election hasn’t even occurred yet. This notion that Obama gets all the media attention was a favorite talking point of Hillary Rodham Clinton when she was refusing to drop out of the race (never mind the fact that the Media kept her in it but talking about how it was a race down to the wire even when it was all but impossible for her to get the nomination). Unsurprisingly, it seems as if John McCain’s team has taken up the Clinton motto and now cries foul at the coverage that Obama is getting.

The Liberal Media scare tactic has been one the right has been using for years. And yet, the Neoconservative mouthpiece himself, Bill Kristol, has declared ”The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures.” So what can we make of the latest effort by the right to proclaim a liberal media bias in its coverage of Obama? Pure lies and spin (what Fox News does best)!

Last week, the Center for Media and Public Affairs released a study showing that, in fact, the major news networks have been harder on Barack Obama than they have on John McCain. As the press release on the study declares:

These results are from the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) 2008 Election News Watch Project. They are based on a scientific content analysis of 249 election news stories (7 hours 38 minutes of airtime) that aired on ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Fox Special Report (first half hour) from June 8, 2008 to July 21, 2008. Previously we analyzed 2144 stories (43 hrs 30 min airtime) during the primary campaign from December 16, 2007 through June 7, 2008. We report on all on-air evaluations of the candidates by sources and reporters, after excluding comments by the campaigns about each other.

The study showed that of all on-air coverage of Barack Obama since the end of the primaries, seventy-two percent (72%) of it was negative. During that same time, however, John McCain has only received fifty-seven percent (57%) negative coverage. This is a huge turnaround from the primaries where the media coverage of Barack Obama was only thirty-eight percent (38%) negative (and although the Clinton coverage was a balanced 50/50 for the most part, much of the so-called negative coverage she received had to do with the performance of Mr. Clinton, who received a whopping seventy-six percent (76%) amount of negative coverage).

What the Right would like you to believe is that more coverage in terms of time spent discussing a candidate will show a liberal bias. Afterall, since June 8th,Obama has been the subject of 120 stories on the big three’s evening news programs, while McCain has only been the subject of 80. Hazzah! The media must favor Obama then…but look at the numbers, it doesn’t work that way. If Obama is receiving one and a half times the coverage of McCain, and yet 72% of that coverage is negative, it would follow that OBAMA IS RECEIVING BY FAR MORE NEGATIVE COVERAGE. That is roughly 86 negative stories on Obama, more than the McCain’s total number of stories. Delve further into the numbers and you see that McCain had roughly 45 positive stories to Obama’s 34. Needless to say, more coverage doesn’t necessarily mean a bias in any candidate’s favor.

If the numbers aren’t enough for you, let’s look at an anecdote. After goading Obama to travel abroad, the McCain team began attacking the presumptive Democrat nominee for leaving the country during campaign season. Then they released this ad claiming that Obama only gives a damn about the troops when the media is around:


If the media had some sort of pro-Obama slant, they certainly would have taken McCain to task for this commercial. Let’s forget for a second most of the false claims in the ad, like the notion that he is against troop funding, and focus upon the idea that the troops are merely a photo op for Obama. The claim in the commercial is that because Obama had time to go shoot hoops for the troops in front of the cameras, but canceled his visit to an Army base in Germany, that he is not for our troops. However, as a Pentagon spokesperson has clarified, officials at the Pentagon told the Obama camp after Obama was already en route that he could not visit the Army base with campaign staff in tow, stating that “[w]e informed the Obama staff that he was more than welcome to visit as Senator Obama, with Senate staff. However, he could not conduct the visit with campaign staff.” Thus, Obama had no choice but to cancel that specific visit.

Upon this realization one might think the so-called Liberal Media would go after McCain for such tactics. While the networks did comment upon the fact that Obama responded to McCain’s attempt to paint him negatively, they all (initially) failed to mention that the ad was in fact FALSE. MSNBC did eventually note that the ad was false, but the networks in general did not jump on McCain the way they would any other candidate who makes such a false statement.

So, the next time someone tells you there is a liberal bias in the media, tell them to get their facts checked. It shouldn’t take astute observations by the likes of Jon Stewart for people to start getting that the media goes after Obama. Then again, he does it better than anyone else:

Hillary Clinton has gone TOO FAR!

So, the new Hillary Clinton ad is Alarming. And it is meant to be.


Seem familiar? Yeah, it is the same kind of scare tacics LBJ used in the 60s!

And it is just disgusting. I expect such dirty tacticts from republicans, but thus far McCain has actually refrained from it. Leave it to Hillary play this card.

Next thing you know this will be her campaign theme song:

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UPDATE:
Turns out a McCain Supporter made the same argument for McCain over a month ago. Language is too similar for it to be using a common theme (a scene a faire if you will).