Month: September 2008

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Election 2008 Foreign Policy McCain National Security Politics Russia

“We are all Georgians!”: Fantasy as Foreign Policy


[Photo by World Economic Forum licensed under Creative Commons.]

[digg-reddit-me]Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times reported yesterday on Cheney’s visits to former Soviet states:

Mr. Cheney, who visited Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine this week to express American support, offered no new proposals either, but he described the conflict as a new test for NATO that required a unified response.

This has been the baffling and fundamental flaw of the neoconservative approach to foreign policy. How America responded to 9/11, how America endured the occupation of Iraq, how America responded to the Iranian’s development of nuclear weapons, how America responded to Russian aggression in Georgia – each of these represented – in the words of Bush, Cheney, McCain, and other neoconservatives – a “test” of America’s and our allies’ resolve.

Yet – the neoconservatives only offer a single way for America to pass each of these tests: Escalate matters until America can plausibly threaten to use military force.

That was America’s justifiable response to 9/11. It was the Bush administration’s strategy with Saddam Hussein. It has been Cheney’s strategy for containing Iran. It is McCain’s strategy for confronting Russia. The reason neoconservatives are so eager to use military force – instead of diplomacy, containment, alliances, creating and living by systems of rules for international affairs, or economic pressure – is that they believe America’s military might can solve any problem. They are correct that our military superiority ensures that we can defeat any other military on the planet. But what they do not acknowledge is that the military is a blunt weapon and that without a draft, it can only be deployed under limited circumstances and for limited periods. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate these lessons – yet McCain, Bush, Cheney, and company do not seem to have noticed.

Thus, McCain invoked Kennedy’s defense of Berlin when Russia invaded Georgia – saying, “We are all Georgians!” Kennedy had proclaimed, “Eich bin ein Berlinier” to demonstrate our resolve to the Soviet Union – that if they tried to take Berlin, we would protect it as if it were our own home. McCain, by saying that we are all Georgians, was committing the United States to take military action against Russia. Yet, if that is his plan, he has not admitted it. If it is not his plan, then he has not been following the advice given by his hero, Teddy Roosevelt:

Speak softly, and carry a big stick.

McCain talks a good game – but if he means half of what he says, we’ll have more than one new war on our hands by the time he’s through. Either way, he’s not the president I’m hoping for.

Categories
Election 2008 Foreign Policy McCain National Security Obama Politics The War on Terrorism

Will Bin Laden Endorse McCain?

[digg-reddit-me]Do you remember when the Bin Laden tape in 2004 was spun by Fox News and the right-wing as a Bin Laden endorsement of John Kerry?

If – as Charlie Black, a top Washington lobbyist unti McCain put him on his payroll, admitted – it is the conventional wisdom that a terrorist attack before the election would “be a big advantage” for McCain in the election and help get him elected…

And as McCain’s policies of military over-extension, fiscal irresponsibility, and continued occupation and war in the Middle East fit nicely into Al Qaeda’s master plan…

Wouldn’t that logically make any terrorist attack on American soil, or any surprise videos putting Bin Laden front-and-center, an effective endorsement of McCain?

Just asking…

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Domestic issues Election 2008 Libertarianism National Security Obama Political Philosophy Videos

Jesse Ventura vs. The Black Swan

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[Jesse Ventura, former professional wrestler and governor of Minnesota, speaking at Ron Paul’s Liberty Rally in Minneapolis last week. For the rest of this Jesse Ventura’s speech, check out Fora.tv.]

You certainly didn’t see this in the mainstream media.

I don’t agree with Ventura’s points completely – but he makes a very compelling case for libertarianism. He does it by avoiding subtlety and going for the jugular – which is what you’d expect of gladiators in either politics or professional wrestling.

He speaks to the tremendous anger at our current political and economic system – the anger tapped by Ron Paul in his presidential run.

Barack Obama stands for the hope that our current political and economic system does not need to be overthrown in a revolution, but instead can be ameliorated through gradual and focused change. For example, if the middle class is being squeezed – then give them tax cuts, and ensure that they can get health insurance, and attempt to create new green collar jobs in America.

Ron Paul (and Jesse Ventura) both stand for the anger and revolutionary impulse to overthrow the existing order. Revolution is a word both Ron Paul and Jesse Ventura use in their respective books prescribing what we need to do. Ron Paul for example preaches the reinstitution of the gold standard, the abolishment of the Federal Reserve, and other revolutionary measures. These men have little time for such tinkering as Barack Obama proposes within our current system. As such, they see him and John McCain as equally part of the problem.

That’s where I have to part ways with these two men. I admire them and their passion. But I mistrust any ideology to give me all the answers. As for tinkering – I think, in many ways, that is the best we can do.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a scholar who predicted the latest financial crisis, speaks of “tinkering” as the ideal form of change because we shouldn’t “disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time [as w]e don’t understand their logic.” As Brian Appleyard described Taleb’s views in the Sunday Times:

Taleb believes in tinkering – it was to be the title of his next book. Trial and error will save us from ourselves because they capture benign black swans. Look at the three big inventions of our time: lasers, computers and the internet. They were all produced by tinkering and none of them ended up doing what their inventors intended them to do. All were black swans. The big hope for the world is that, as we tinker, we have a capacity for choosing the best outcomes.

“We have the ability to identify our mistakes eventually better than average; that’s what saves us.” We choose the iPod over the Walkman. Medicine improved exponentially when the tinkering barber surgeons took over from the high theorists. They just went with what worked, irrespective of why it worked. Our sense of the good tinker is not infallible, but it might be just enough to turn away from the apocalypse that now threatens Extremistan.

By this logic – revolution is dangerous because it fully commits us to a change, a change which can result in enormous negative consequences. The American Revolution was a kind of beneficial black swan – that ended up producing a unique, stable, and free form of government. The French Revolution on the other hand unleashed a Reign of Terror and totalitarianism – all justified with the same values as the American Revolution. Tinkering allows us to experiment and see what works best and to adopt those measures that work best. It is precisely this determination to tinker that imbues Obama’s plans – from health care to energy policy to education. It’s why Obama’s health care plan works with the current system, creating incentives to fill gaps, rather than mandating an overhaul as the Clintons attempted in 1992 or attempting to push everyone out of the current system as McCain proposes now.

I admire Jesse Ventura for his inspiring rhetoric – and we always need scourges who point out how our society fails to live up to it’s ideals. But if there is anything redeemable in America, if there is any hope that through some determined tinkering we might make things better, then revolution is not yet the answer. Barack Obama and John McCain are not equally part of the problem. Obama seeks to tinker with our economy and government to protect the middle class and to soften the jarring forces of globalization; John McCain seeks to double down on Bush’s policies based on an ideological faith that markets will, on their own, produce goodness and light.  Although Jesse Ventura doesn’t know it, he’s fighting the Black Swan – that knowledge that we do not understand the world as well as we think we do, and revolutions fail far more often than they succeed. That’s why we need a tinkerer in the White House come January 2009 – and not yet another ideologue.

Continue reading “Jesse Ventura vs. The Black Swan”
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Domestic issues Economics Election 2008 McCain Obama Politics

Obama v. McCain on Health Care

Obama sees his health care plan as part of an attempt to soften the effects of globalization.

His plan calls for every American who wants to preserve their health insurance plan to be able to keep it. His plan even includes incentives that reward employers that do provide health insurance and penalizes employers that do not (with exceptions for small businesses.) In addition to this, Obama’s plan will open up the government health care plan used by members of Congress to allow consumers – in a free market – to opt into it. Obama’s plan is designed to create incentives within our current system to gradually close the huge holes in insurance coverage and over time bring down costs. It’s a conservative plan, in the best sense of that word.

John McCain’s health care plan is radical. McCain says he wants to:

Reform The Tax Code To Offer More Choices Beyond Employer-Based Health Insurance Coverage

In other words, McCain wants employers to stop providing health insurance coverage. He proposes to include the cost of health care in each employee’s taxable income – and to offset this by offering a $2,500.00 tax rebate for individuals and $5,000.00 for families. This isn’t enough to purchase health insurance coverage in many states, so in addition, McCain proposes to effectively deregulate the insurance market and allow insurance to be sold across state lines – eliminating the consumer protections states provide, including protections for those with pre-existing conditions.

The theory behind the McCain plan is that we already have too much health insurance coverage and are going to the doctor too often because we don’t have to pay every time we do. So he proposes that every individual – or family – purchase individual or family health insurance – a radical change, and one that places much greater power in the hands of the insurance industry. As a matter of fact, it would be accurate to say it is exactly what the health insurance industry is asking for.

Categories
Economics Foreign Policy National Security Politics The Opinionsphere

Selling Tom Friedman

Stephen Kotkin reviews Thomas Friedman’s new book, Hot Flat, and Crowded, for the business section of the New York Times today. Friedman himself has a bi-weekly column in the opinion section of the Times, which makes Kotkin’s review all the more pleasurable. Kotkin captures the formula Friedman inevitably uses to write his columns – and his books:

The content and method will be familiar to Mr. Friedman’s legions of readers: source, anecdote, pop metaphor. Repeat point. In italics. The unfamiliar reader should prepare for hyperbole, neologisms and aphorisms. “Affluenza.” “Code Green.” “The new Energy Climate Era (E.C.E.).” “We’ve already hit the iceberg.” We’re “the proverbial frog in the pail on the stove” (boiled to death after failing to jump out because the temperature rose only incrementally). “We are the flood, we are the asteroid. We had better learn how to be the ark.”

I have to admit that I have a bit of a soft spot for Friedman. I generally read his column and have read several of his books. I read them with the same attention I give to reading a Grisham thriller – as both authors take big ideas and make them entertaining. (Grisham is a far superior entertainer however.) I find that reading Friedman forces me to think – because he describes great changes that are going on and then attempts to explain and solve them by using simple, salesmen’s terms: “The World Is Flat!” or “Obama-Cheny 08!” He takes interesting ideas and then trivializes them before their gravity sinks in. The New Republic, in an article written in 2004 or 2005, criticized Friedman for being a salesman for globalization rather than an analyst of it’s effects. And while Friedman certainly is enamored with globalization, I think the real issue with Friedman’s work is how he so crassly simplies every issue. However, it is probably this skill that has made his work so palatable and popular to those who shy away from serious writing on economic and foreign policy issues.

For all my criticism of him, I have to give Friedman credit for having been consistently pushing – for the past dozen years – what has become the obvious next step to achieve a greater measure of national security, to drain the funding of our strategic adversaries around the world, to stop climate change, and to establish America as a leader in a new worldwide industry. Again, from Kotkin’s review:

Mr. Friedman has an unabashedly American-centric solution: the United States can regain its national purpose and save the world via green innovation. This can happen, he says, if Americans recognize — in the words of John Gardner, founder of Common Cause — “a series of great opportunities disguised as insoluble problems.”

Friedman told the story on Meet the Press this morning of what he says to young Chinese who justify China’s increasing pollution:

Friedman: You know, I was just in China a week or 10 days ago, Tom, and you know, young Chinese, you know, whenever I go here, they say to me, you know, “Mr. Friedman, you guys got to grow dirty for 150 years, now it’s our turn.” To which I always say to them, “You know what, you’re right. It is your turn. Take your time. Grow as dirty as you want. Because I think we just need five years to invent all the clean power technologies you’re going to need before you choke to death and then we’re going to come over and we’re going to sell them to you and we’re going to clean your clock in the next great global industry.” That’s when I see the headsets of the translators adjusting, “What is he saying?”

Clearly, Friedman has become a salesmen for green technology. He’s not analyzing – he’s advocating. Even if his presentation rankles, it’s worth listening to – and hopefully, he’s changing some minds.

Categories
Domestic issues Economics Election 2008 McCain Obama Politics Videos

McCain Ad Echoes Smear Emails

[digg-reddit-me]Is it just me, or is it a bit eerie how closely McCain’s ad (just released today) mirrors the Obama smear email that started going around a few days ago – based on it’s earliest posting on the internet?

Breakdown of the Ad

It starts with the “Celebrity” attack that worked so well a few weeks ago.

This time, the image of the Obama crowds with blue banners morphs into old white men with a red Capitol Building in the background. The image is reminiscent of Communist propaganda posters of the 1940s or 1950s. Over this image, and the text appears – “Old ideas” while the narrator intones: “Old ideas masquerading as change.” This is the same charge a co-worker of mine made more crudely, and the right-wing talk radio bloviators make repeatedly day after day – Obama is just the same old liberal ideas packaged with a brown face and nice words.

Next in the ad, the actual claims come:

“Obama and his liberal allies promise higher taxes on your income.”

Not true if you’re making less than $250,000 a year. In fact, if you make less than $111,000 Obama promises higher tax cuts than McCain does – because he believe the middle class has been hurting in the Bush economy. Obama is actually promising higher tax cuts for 90% of Americans than McCain is – so McCain’s ad is deliberately misleading those 90%. McCain has made this claim in several of his ads before – and continues to despite it’s inaccuracy.

“Your life savings.”

Even less true than the claim above. Obama does not plan on changing the law to further tax life savings – but he does propose this measure to encourage individuals and families to save:

Obama will ensure savings incentives are fair to all workers by creating a generous savings match for low and middle-income Americans. His plan will match 50 percent of the first $1,000 of savings for families that earn less than $75,000.

“Your electric bill.”

Partially true for both McCain and Obama. This ad again directly echoes the smear email by saving that Obama plans on taxing your “electric bill”.  The only “tax” that this could be referring to is the “cap-and-trade system” proposed by both McCain and Obama which would impose a cost on businesses’ carbon emissions. Although neither McCain nor Obama call these costs “taxes” they can reasonably be called that. Further, Obama, though not McCain, plans to offset any potential increase in costs for consumers with a refund from a windfall profits tax.

“They oppose offshore drilling.”

False. Obama does not oppose offshore drilling – but he does not believe the small amount of oil we have in those few protected areas off of our coasts will significantly effect either gas prices or our dependence on foreign oil. As he has been saying for over a month, he is open to offshore drilling – but only as part of a package that tackles the real issues. Since the 1970s, McCain and other Congresspeople have been saying that we need to end our reliance on foreign oil – and they have done nothing to accomplish that. Obama believes we need to create incentives and push for federal funding in concert with market forces to establish a green energy industry in America. This is the only solution that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil. “Drill, baby, drill” is a chant for morons.

“It’s not change. It’s more of the same. Obama and his liberal allies: Not Ready to Lead.”

The final claim is obviously meant to echo the Democratic attacks on McCain – pointing out that he supported Bush more than 90% of the time, professed his fealty to Bush on all “transcendent issues”, and advocates doubling down on Bush’s disasterous economic and foreign policies. McCain is charging that Obama does not offer anything new – which is a hard charge to rebut because while Obama claims that McCain and Bush have similar economic and foreign policies – a position that can be checked – McCain is not specifically linking Obama to anyone. What is true is that Obama is supporting an emerging Democratic consensus on a number of issues – a consensus that has only gradually emerged as the Bush administration exacerbated long-term trends that are destabilizing the country. In addition, Obama’s campaign does have some new ideas – with Samantha Power, Lawrence Lessig, and Cass Sunstein acting as key advisors to the campaign, and influencing his foreign and economic policies.

Categories
Domestic issues Economics Election 2008 McCain Obama Politics

Lies About Obama’s Tax Plans

[digg-reddit-me]I just received another one of those mass emails being used to spread lies about Obama. I’ve interspersed the text of it with data contradicting the claims:

INTERESTING DATA JUST RECEIVED ON TAXES

Spread the word…..

This is something you should be
aware of so you don’t get blind-sided.
This is really going to catch a lot
of families off guard. It should
make you worry.

Proposed changes in taxes after 2008 General election:

CAPITAL GAINS TAX

MCCAIN
0% on home sales up to $500,000
per home (couples) McCain does not
propose any change in existing
home sales income tax.

OBAMA
28% on profit from ALL home sales

How does this affect you?
If you sell your home and make a profit, you  will pay 28% of your gain on taxes.
If you are heading toward retirement
and would like to down-size your
home or move into a retirement
community, 28% of the money you
make from your home will go to taxes. This  proposal will adversely affect the elderly who are counting on the income  from their homes as part of their retirement income.

This claim about Obama taxing profits on home sales comes from nowhere. Any gains on the sale of one’s principal residence is not taxed under section 121 of the Internal Revenue Code. Neither McCain nor Obama has proposed to amend this section.

DIVIDEND TAX

MCCAIN 15% (no change)

OBAMA 39.6%

How will this affect you?
If you have any money invested in stock
market, IRA, mutual funds,
college funds, life insurance, retirement  accounts, or anything that pays or reinvests dividends, you will now  be paying nearly 40% of the money earned on taxes if Obama become president.
The experts predict that ‘higher
tax rates on dividends and capital gains would crash the stock market yet  do absolutely nothing to cut the deficit.

As for Capital Gains taxes in general, Obama is proposing to raise the capital gains tax rate from 15 percent to 20 percent for those American families making more than $250,000.00 per year or singles making over $200,000.00 per year. Those families or singles making less than these respective amounts will not have a tax increase. Further, IRAs and college funds are exempt from taxation entirely – and neither candidate is proposing to change this.

INCOME TAX

MCCAIN (no changes)

Single making 30K – tax $4,500
Single making 50K – tax $12,500
Single making 75K – tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K – tax $18,750
Married making 125K – tax $31,250

OBAMA
(reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts)
Single making 30K – tax $8,400
Single making 50K – tax $14,000
Single making 75K – tax $23,250
Married making 60K – tax $16,800
Married making 75K – tax $21,000
Married making 125K – tax $38,750

Under Obama your taxes will
more than double!
How does this affect you? No explanation needed. This is pretty  straight forward.

This claim is worse than all those above – because Obama is actually proposing to lower taxes for all of these groups listed. Here’s a site which provides an Obama tax cut calculator. I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but it seems to be based on the Tax Policy Institute’s analysis of both candidates’ plans. The email also inaccurates states that Obama plans to revert to “pre-Bush tax cuts” which is only true for those making over $250,000.00. As Obama said in his speech on Thursday night:

I will cut taxes for 95 percent of all working families. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.

Sarah Palin in her speech this past Wednesday made the same claim the Republicans keep making:

Taxes are too high, and he wants to raise them. His tax increases are the fine print in his economic plan. And let me be specific: The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, and raise payroll taxes, and raise investment income taxes, and raise the death tax, and raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars.

As Politifact.com writes – Palin’s claims are deliberately misleading. This email is worse than misleading – it is entirely fase.

This little list conveniently does not include those making over $125,000.00. It is this group of people – especially those making over $250,000.00, and even more, those making over a million dollars a year – to whom the profits of the past eight years has gone. The economy has been growing for eight years while the income of those in the middle class has decreased by approximately $2,000.00 when accounting for inflation since Bush took office.

INHERITANCE TAX

MCCAIN 0% (No change, Bush repealed this tax)

OBAMA Restore the inheritance tax

How does this affect you? Many families have lost businesses,  farms and ranches, and homes that have been in their families  for generations because they could not afford the inheritance tax.
Those willing their assets to loved
ones will not only lose them to
these taxes.

As for this section – again, falsehoods galore. According to FactCheck.org:

The claim that Obama proposes to “restore the inheritance tax” is also false, as are the claims that McCain would impose zero tax and that Bush “repealed” it. McCain and Obama both would retain a reduced version of the estate tax, as it is correctly called, though McCain would reduce it by more.

The tax now falls only on estates valued at more than $2 million (effectively $4 million for couples able to set up the required legal and financial arrangements). It reaches a maximum rate of 45 percent on amounts more than that. It was not repealed, but it is set to expire temporarily in 2010, then return in 2011, when it would apply to estates valued at more than $1 million ($2 million for couples), with the maximum rate rising to 55 percent.

Obama has proposed to apply the tax only to estates valued at more than $3.5 million ($7 million for couples), holding the maximum rate at 45 percent. McCain would apply it to estates worth more than $5 million ($10 million for couples), with a maximum rate of 15 percent.

Again – this email is counting on people accepting its’ allegations without checking them and hoping that stereotypes about liberals are strong enough that people will accept these charges.

NEW TAXES BEING PROPOSED BY OBAMA

* New government taxes proposed on
homes that are more than
2400 square feet

* New gasoline taxes (as if
gas weren’t high enough already)

* New taxes on natural resources
consumption (heating
gas, water, electricity)

* New taxes on retirement accounts
and last but not least….

This section is even more fanciful than the rest. Obama has never proposed taxes on water. He isn’t proposing to increase gasoline taxes. He isn’t proposing to increase taxes on retirement accounts. The taxes on homes with more than 2400 square feet – neither the number nor general idea can be found anywhere aside from in references to this email.

The one thing that is partially true is that Obama – and McCain – are proposing to create a “cap-and-trade system” which would impose a cost on businesses’ carbon emissions. Although neither McCain nor Obama call these costs “taxes” they can reasonably be called that. Further, Obama, though not McCain, plans to offset any potential increase in costs for consumers with a refund from a windfall profits tax.

* New taxes to pay for socialized medicine so we can receive the same  level of medical care as other third-world countries!!!

This final claim is way over-the-top. Obama’s plan calls for every American who wants to preserve their health insurance plan to be able to keep it. His plan even includes incentives that reward employers that do provide health insurance and penalizes employers that do not (with exceptions for small businesses.) In addition to this, Obama’s plan will open up the government health care plan used by members of Congress to allow consumers – in a free market – to opt into it. Obama’s plan is designed to create incentives within our current system to gradually close the huge holes in insurance coverage and over time bring down costs. It’s a conservative plan, in the best sense of that word.

John McCain’s health care plan is radical. McCain says he wants to:

Reform The Tax Code To Offer More Choices Beyond Employer-Based Health Insurance Coverage

In other words, McCain wants employers to stop providing health insurance coverage. He proposes to include the cost of health care in each employee’s taxable income – and to offset this by offering a $2,500.00 tax rebate for individuals and $5,000.00 for families. This isn’t enough to purchase health insurance coverage in many states, so in addition, McCain proposes to effectively deregulate the insurance market and allow insurance to be sold across state lines – eliminating the consumer protections states provide, including protections for those with pre-existing conditions.

The theory behind the McCain plan is that we already have too much health insurance coverage and are going to the doctor too often because we don’t have to pay every time we do. So he proposes that every individual – or family – purchase individual or family health insurance – a radical change, and one that places much greater power in the hands of the insurance industry. As a matter of fact, it would be accurate to say it is exactly what the health insurance industry is asking for.

Conclusion

So, there we have it. An email full of lies deliberately designed to mislead those Obama’s plans are designed to help. Obama’s plans – which are the fruit of a kind of Democratic consensus that has emerged in the past ten years on how to deal with the destabilization that has come from globalization. Obama is asking that those individuals who have gained the most from our society and economy should give a bit more in this time of need. All McCain and Palin and the Republicans offer is more tax cuts for the richest indivudals and the biggest corporations (tax cuts that go further than Bush’s tax cuts in favoring the wealthy) – for which their only defense is to make the false claim that Obama is planning on raising everyone’s taxes.

Continue reading “Lies About Obama’s Tax Plans”
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Humor Life

Google Maps Mistake

[digg-reddit-me]
View Larger Map

Do you think the Google Maps team might have taken a quick break for lunch while traveling down Wantagh Avenue?

And notice how the line indicating Wantagh Avenue jumps about 50 feet to the side before and after this view?

Categories
Domestic issues Election 2008 McCain Politics

The Complicated Business of Judging Sarah Palin

Emily Bazelton and Dahlia Lithwick explain the complicated business of judging Sarah Palin (which “like it or not, in whispers and sometimes shouts…is what women do when they talk to each other”):

We don’t begrudge Sarah Palin her decision to run for vice president, or her decision to have a baby with Down syndrome, or even the act of doing both at the same time. Under most circumstances, that kind of ceiling-cracking would have us burning our nursing bras in solidarity. But oh how we wish we didn’t have to hear about her pulling off all these feats without household help—and without, or so she’s determined to make it appear, breaking a sweat or gaining a pound. Most of us mommies wish we could tote our kids to the office and work uninterrupted as they macramé quietly in their Pack-‘n’-Plays. It never worked for us, though. Does this woman sleep? Do conservative feminists really have to be the kind of larger-than-life working mothers who make every pro-family policy or job-based concession the rest of us require, and have finally demanded, seem like self-indulgence?

Think of the family-friendly policies Palin’s example would seem to brush aside. No need for child care subsidies or universal preschool if a mother of five can run the state without a babysitter. Who really needs family leave laws that protect women’s jobs if a governor can go back to work a few days after giving birth? And no need, it would seem, for employers to make any kind of concession to the complications that working parents bring with them to the workplace. Feminism, to the GOP, appears to mean never having to say you’re exhausted.

Categories
Election 2008 McCain Politics

McCain’s Speech

Am I the only one who noticed a strange disconnect between McCain and the audience at the convention?

They cheered loudly and for a long time in the beginning, and throughout the speech. But McCain was never ready – and they were a beat behind him when he paused for cheers. Obama, Clinton, and other politicians usually “ride” the applause and cheers. McCain seems discomfited. And the crowd seemed determined to follow McCain’s lead. It was just that McCain was an awkward partner, and the crowd was too eager.

Of course, McCain did say that Governor Palin worked with her “hands and her nose”. So, it’s always hard to figure out what to do with that.

Worse were the ham-handed attacks on Obama that had nothing to do with the plans Obama is actually proposing and everything to do with the stereotypes of what liberals do. How would Obama’s health care plan prevent patient from keeping their doctors and socialize medicine if it allows everyone to maintain their current coverage? McCain’s health care plan is the one that would force people to change health care plans because it would remove incentives for employers to offer health care. McCain said that Obama would raise “your taxes” – yet Obama would cut taxes for 95% of Americans – and would cut taxes more than McCain for 90% of Americans. McCain says that Obama will be fiscally irresponsible – yet McCain’s proposals, when evaluated by independent tax policy experts, are deemed to leave America with a greater deficit.

And those are just the false attacks on policy.

On a positive note, McCain did have some gracious words for Obama and only called into question his character a few times. Compared with Giuliani and Romney and Palin, McCain was a model of class.

Overall, though, the Republican convention was much more focused on Obama than the Democratic convetion was on McCain – and the Republican convention had many more personal attacks on Obama than the Democratic convention had on McCain.

We’ll have to wait to see how all this plays out.