Worth knowing

[fpb]

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/194057.php

EDITED IN, September 23: Ethan Winner admitted to being the author of the video in question, but implausibly claims to have done it on his own without any collaboration from his family's PR company - which then just decided to push it as hard as possible! Lucky boy, eh?

Comments

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

This race is about as dirty as it can get. Factcheck.org is a fascinating site which gives details of all of the lies being circulated arround by both parties and their supporters.

How did American politics get so polarised? There seems to be a 'win at all costs' attitude that permits, or at least tolerates, lying and cheating as simply part of the game.

A couple of asides, I note your warnings over Alitalia seem to be coming true and i'd be interested in your views of what the American Government's actions to save the financial markets mean for the 'free-market'?

[saturndevouring.livejournal.com]

In 1964, John Kennedy and Barry Goldwater were planning on renting one plane for the both of them so that they could travel to various spots around the U.S. and hold debates.

Can you even imagine that taking place today?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Kennedy and Goldwater were very much of one kind, in so far as a bunch of Boston Irish can be with a Western WASP. Long after his death, Goldwater (in the time that led up to Watergate) told someone how Kennedy once told him: "So you want this fucking job?" and grinned. (Goldwater's point being that he could never see this kind of frank, man-to-man exchange with Nixon, even though he should have had a lot more in common politicallly with Nixon than with Jack Kennedy.) For that matter, the Kennedys were always friendly with Joe McCarthy and have never, to this day, seen fit to condemn him by word or deed. This kind of somewhat macho politician does not seem so thick on the ground today.

[blue-sky-day.livejournal.com]

American politics have always been polarized. Look in to various 19th century races. Some of the mudslinging is as bad or worse as what we're seeing today.

[wade-scott.livejournal.com]

I do find it interesting how much effort is being put into smearing Palin, while Biden is virtually untouched in this race. Come on, the man has been in Washington forever (forgive me, the exact year tally escapes me). He's gotta have dirt and skeletons just like the rest of us.

PLUS, much of the trash I've seen about Palin has to do with her family and if she's done/doing a good job raising them. BY FEMINISTS. Last I checked, there were two parents in that household, and Mr. Palin has more than enough time in his schedule to pick up the slack while his wife governs. Bitterly ironic that the very women who champion getting a woman out of the kitchen and wearing shoes are trying to put another successful woman back there.

Three Opinions

[saturndevouring.livejournal.com]

Palin is an outsider. Biden's been a Beltway boy for over thirty years. Pretty much everything the press knows about him they know already, and I'm guessing it's garden variety corruption and snafus (in any) and thus nothing that intriguing. Scandals sell papers.

(Some people think) Palin is a token choice, selected more for his chromosomes than her career, trying to get voters who, if nothing else, appreciate a novelty candidate and are still mad about what happened to Hillary.

Palin's only been in the national spotlight for a few weeks. Just this year there have plenty of faux-scandalous stories dealing with comments made by his Reverend, rumors that he was a Muslim, that wasn't a natural-born US citizen (G. Gordon Liddy actually mentioned this as if it were somehow in doubt last week!), that he didn't visit troops in Germany because he wouldn't be allowed to take pictures, etc. Time tends to sift away the nonsense, and Palin doesn't have as much.

It's politics, and as I've heard it said, the game is the game.

Re: Three Opinions

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the the effort put into smearing Palin is proportional to the impact she has had on the race. I find it fascinating that Fox News spends much more time discussing her than it does McCain. Indeed Greta Van Sustren's show (sorry of that is mispelt) could be described as the Palin Puff Show these last few weeks. With about two thirds of its content devoted to interviews with her, her husband, her ex-boss, her newspaper boy, her ......

No matter what you think of Palin, and there are few things that disturb me about her politics, she has brought something new to the race and appears to have excited voters (one way or another) more than any of the three men. standing.

Re: Three Opinions

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I have a suspicion that what the Obama camp really fear is her star power. There are people whom you notice as soon as they enter a room, who dominate any group they are in even without trying. I call it "the look-at-me", and it is not conscious, it's inborn. Obama has it, and it has enabled him to dominate these elections so far. But Sarah has it as well, with the advantage of not having become slightly shop-worn by a year of intensive campaigning and opposition revelations. Obama's star quality, rather than his policies, were the real draw of his campaign, and they suspect that McCain may have silenced that while leaving the main actor, McCain himself, free to expose Obama's own lack of experience and (maybe) substance.

If that is the case, though, the new economic crisis has mixed all the cards as well. Obama is hardly likely to suffer by it, whereas McCain has seemed, for the first time in his campaign, fumbling and unclear - and not just angry, as people know he can get, but pointlessly angry. This is a gift of God to the Obama strategists, if they can use it. Most Americans, even if they know nothing about finance, will realize that to blame one man, even if he is the head of the SEC, is plain silly, and does not make up for the lack of a coherent plan. As someone pointed out this morning, McCain should have acted "more in sorrow than in anger", and pointed out that he himself had been warning of the dangers of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac taking up too much bad debt (which he had). Until now, I was fairly sure of a McCain victory, now I would not put my money on him.