THE DEBATE

if you watched fox news after the debate you would have been told that mc cain won. if you watched msnbc then you were told that obama won. if you watched cnn, then you would have been shown polls taken of people who did indeed watch the debate and were not only repubs and dems, they were independents and in those polls it was obama in a landslide. if mc cain was hoping for a "game changer" then it was not forthcoming and he will fall farther behind. also, by overwhelming numbers the people said that obama was much more qualified than mc cain when it came to the economy. (which is what it is, stupid, it's the economy)

now, the question is why they thought that when neither candidate was specific enough in his answers as to what they would do to help average americans who are either unemployed or could be unemployed in the very near future? the answer to that question comes in a quote from mark twain: "even a dog knows the difference between being tripped over and being kicked!" try as he may to distance himself from the present administration, fact of the matter is that john mc cain is no "maverick" he is a lockstep republican and try as he may to deflect the blame to the democrats, the fact of the matter is that the republicans have been in the white house for 8 years and in control of the congress for 7 and the american people are smart enough to know that. as someone else once said, "you can run but you can't hide."

eventually it becomes clear that "trickle down economics" doesn't work now, didn't work in the past and ain't going to work in the future. every time some deficit spending republican gets into office he gives tax cuts to the very wealthy and tells us that the benefits will "trickle down" to you and me, but in reality what happens is that what we is get is not trickled down to, but pissed upon, and the fat cats get fatter and the deficit grows bigger and the republicans still give us jingoistic bromides about how great we are.

my hope is that the neo con wing of the republican party has taken its last breath and the roves and bushs and mc cains and rumsfelds of our political world will finally go into the trash heap of history and maybe then the republican party can regain its moral footing and serve as a true balance to the democrats, who will, if left unchecked themselves, do their own brand of fucking up.

the more i watch our political system at work the more i realize just how right john adams was when he bemoaned the power of the political parties and his fear that the parties themselves will be, if not the death, at least the dearth, of our "great experiment." maybe we should look at letting the other political parties join in as they do in the parlimentary system. that way, seats in congress would be awarded according to percentage of the popular vote. the greens get so many seats, the libertarians get so many, the socialists get so many and so on and so forth. that way the two major parties HAVE to compromise and HAVE to get consencus before enacting which ever of their foolishnesses they are proposing on that day.

now back to the debate: i agree with the cnn group of commentators that said this format sucked and the artificial time limits effectively limited the answers to "stump speach" format. you cannot give detailed, in depth answers to complex questions in two minutes. (hell, most of my "jokes" are over two minutes in length.) then with just a minute to rebut both candidates are ever more restricted. let's have a real debate...what do ya say?

mc cain did himself no favor when he brought up "hair transplants" because it just accentuated his age. people are looking for new answers and thus obama's age works in his favor and mc cain's age works against him. senator mc cain represents the old and failed policies of bush and company and obama represents a new age with new ideas. john mc cain not only still lives in the 20th century, he lives in almost the mid twentieth century whereas obama is the face of the 21st century.

obama's answer to pakistan and osama bin laden was very powerful. "if we know where osama bin laden is and the pakistan government is unable or UNWILLING to go take him out...we will. we will go in to where ever he is and we will kill osama bin laden and destroy al qaida." while americans are not in agreement on iraq and americans may not all be happy with how things are going in afghanistan, we are ALL in agreement on one thing...GO GET THAT MOTHERFUCKER, BIN LADEN, AND EITHER BRING HIM HERE TO AMERICA TO STAND TRIAL FOR MASS MURDER OR KILL HIM. we really don't give a fuck about what pakistan thinks or says. they won't get him....we will. time to quit pussyfooting around. mc cain, on the other hand, was very wishy washy on this question.

while palin is going around the country spouting lies and slander about obama, senator mc cain did not stoop to that in the debate and, for which, i salute him. it could be that mc cain's inner sense of decency held him back and it could be that he just couldn't bring himself to utter the kind of crap that sarah cuty pie is spewing forth. (maybe he remembers the bush campaign in south carolina).

incidently, my thanks to my attorney for the mark twain quote...he used it in another context but it fit this one as well.

well, that's all for tonight. peace be to us all.