I'm of two minds on this aspect. On the one hand, it would be good for the people at large to hear and contrast what the candidates have to say on the matter. On the other hand, they are being paid to represent their states in the Senate, and help guide the nation. Their job at the moment, is still to serve in the US Senate, and the issue at hand is a critical one. And as movement on the bail out package is moving quickly, it could very well be that there will be a vote on it tomorrow (Friday), and with the way the Senate schedules things (talk about Byzantine), it could very well be that the vote will happen during the debates scheduled time.
Actually, in thinking about my two previous posts I contradicted myself by saying they should be taking care of senate business in one post then stating they should proceed with the debate in the next one. I am apparently of two minds on the subject also.
Re Sept. 9 Carol Strock column, “Here comes Miss Little Mooseslayer”: How can anyone use such language referring to Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska? Even joking about this wonderful person, I feel, is very much absurd. Just because the lady loves to hunt and is a member of the National Rifle Association has nothing to do with her political career whatsoever. Mrs. Palin is a highly professional candidate for vice president. She started back in the school PTA and followed through as mayor and now as governor of Alaska. Learning of her being a born-again Christian put a wonderful feeling into our hearts. I, myself, am a born-again Christian. Therefore, Christianity is by no means a ticket to the presidential field. No one should make any judgment on anyone’s personal life. Also, mocking her pronunciation of Iraq (“Eye-Rack,”) is so very insulting and and humiliating to the public. Sen. John McCain made no mistake choosing Gov. Sarah Palin for his running mate. I listened to part of her speech at the convention, which was very excellent and outstanding. I hope the very best for both. Our next president should be Sen. John McCain, along with Vice President Sarah Palin. FRANK A. BENGE JR. Scotia
A great person deserves to be honored by great poetry. A shallow or trivial person deserves bad poetry. Here is an example: Poor Palin Poem. Higgledy piggledy Alaskan governor Came down by moose to save the GOP. Learned all her expertise geopolitical By keenly staring at the Bering Sea.
Sen. John McCain’s deregulation of the financial markets has hurt America! Next he has said that he wants to deregulate the health care industry “as we have done over the last decade in banking.” He also wants to privatize Social Security, putting those monies at risk as well! I’ve come to conclude that John Mc-Cain is a risk that American families like mine can’t afford to take!
All VP's are the same.....they are a little folded piece of paper under a leg of a crooked table.........and it doesn't matter which party as wallstreet and mainstreet seem to be showing us..........
It's about their friends and think tanks.......just like Spizer and his wallstreet 'friends' had a working relationship at one time......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
During Friday night's presidential debate, Barack Obama claimed that one of John McCain's advisers, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, supported his view that the U.S. president should meet with Iran's president and other rogue dictators without preconditions.
The point made McCain livid, as he repeatedly pointed out that Kissinger, his friend of 35 years, would never back such a dangerous position.
McCain turned out to be right.
Kissinger released a statement immediately after the debate. It read:
"Sen. McCain is right. I would not recommend the next president of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the presidential level."
"Look, I'll sit down with anybody, but there's got to be preconditions," McCain said during the debate. He painted Obama's previously stated position as reckless and naive.
Why would anyone vote for Mc-Cain/Palin? Let me list a few answers to this question: You are no worse off economically now than four years ago, and you are impervious of the needs of those less fortunate. You believe it’s OK for the United States to allow racial injustice, sexual bias, tax and fair pay inequalities, Iraq war atrocities, no universal health care, deterioration of our standing in the world, deregulation of investment and energy oversight, jobs shipped overseas without penalty, criminal action on Wall Street, etc. Your holier-than-thou attitude encourages your inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism, i.e., America right or wrong, and “I’ve got mine, you get yours mentality” (Darwin wins again). You probably have not matured enough to accept the notion that negotiation is far better for all parties than tough talk and glorifying war. You base your total position on one or two issues, i.e., gun control, abortion rights, Palin as a qualified candidate, racial discrimination, Christian right. But you may be throwing the baby out with the bath water. You put too much weight on the experience factor. Experience is learned by seeing, feeling or hearing, in contrast with that which is learned by thinking. I suspect that problems presented to the president are not going to be solved by experience, but by old-fashioned analytical thinking by a select group of advisers who can create a full range of plans for comparison and decision making. You think a change in the status quo via McCain policies (he voted 90 percent with Bush) will be less harmful to yourself. Maybe you should consider your children’s future needs. So put on your thinking cap, reflect on all of the answers and avoid making the same mistake of most golfers, which is to expect improved shots while still playing with the same swing. JIM RAMSEY Schenectady
I was perplexed by the Sept. 22 letter about Sarah Palin by Patricia Levin. The information included lacked context. Where is the same concern for Barack Obama’s background and vision for America? The point is that people only hold accountable the candidate of the party they oppose. Ms. Levin isn’t responsible for incomplete information on Sarah Palin The major media controls the amount of information we receive and its interpretation. The media appears to be an extension of the Democrat Party. Over 90 percent of the national media is registered Democrat. How can a Republican or conservative get a fair shake? Unfortunately our individual “world view” shapes our interpretation of data and events. News bureaus must be balanced with liberals and conservatives, so facts are presented fairly. Barack Obama recently said “Capitalism has failed!” Capitalism had made our country the most affluent nation in history. We have the freedom to pursue our individual dreams and ambitions. Capitalism didn’t fail us, people did. Words have meaning! Does Sen. Obama want a new economic system? I will always take an inexperienced capitalist like Mrs. Palin over an inexperienced quasi-socialist like Sen. Obama. Does the press not consider what Sen. Obama’s words infer? The press isn’t bothered that two of Sen. Obama’s closest economic advisers were largely responsible for the financial failures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The only thing important is that the political leanings of “the press” come to fruition. Reporting the complete truth no longer matters. STEPHEN HAKES Glenville
Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE Admit it: Mooseslayer did terrific Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.
I’m sure you’re eager to know how I think Sarah Palin did in the great vice presidential debate the other day against Joe Biden. Not to keep you in suspense, I think she did great. She was perky she was bright, and she didn’t fall on her face. She iterated and reiterated all the talking points that had been stuffed into her, and in my opinion that alone was a major accomplishment. I mean, just figure, if she had been asked a few weeks ago the same questions she was asked on Thursday night — about Pakistan nuclear weapons and health care — she probably wouldn’t have known where to begin, but there she was, reciting facts and quoting quotes like the best prepared girl in an 11th grade social studies competition, and with the whole country watching. The question had to be on the minds of her handlers just as it was on our minds and presumably even her own mind: Can she do it? And after a 90-minute test, the answer was clearly yes. She did it. True, she squinched up her face, and her voice cracked the way it does, so she couldn’t help looking and sounding like the comedienne Tina Fey imitating her, and that was pretty funny, but doggone it, as she would say herself, she didn’t make any big darned mistakes. Very impressive! True, she occasionally trotted out a Republican talking point that seemed anachronistic, like how government is the problem and should “get out of the way” so the private sector can prosper, which was weird when the government on that very day was being called on to rescue the private sector to the tune of 700 billion taxpayer dollars. But then, conservatives have been chanting “government get out of the way” for so long it must be hard to drop. And true, she got in a lick at the “mainstream media,” that old bugaboo of the right, which I didn’t appreciate. True too, she said that nuclear weapons — which she pronounces “nukeyuler,” like George W. Bush — “would be the be-all and end-all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet,” which I got a kick out of, but I don’t hold that sort of thing against her. I participated in a debate myself a couple of years ago on the topic of evolution vs. creationism, and I know how hard it is to talk smoothly in two-minute bites when you’ve stuffed your head full of unfamiliar facts and you have to go rummaging for them in response to an unanticipated question. Doggone, it’s not easy, you guys! Biden has had 35 years of practice in the Senate, and he’s as smooth as the fatty layer of a caribou after you’ve skinned it out, if I may employ an Arctic figure, but Sarah Palin is new at it. Two years ago she was mayor of a town the size of Mechanicville and was talking to the local church about how cool it was gettin’ saved there. She got picked as a candidate for the White House — be honest, friends of Sarah — only because she is ideologically correct, that is, because she is against abortion and for guns, and not because of any other fitness for high office. She promised to deliver the guns-and-God constituency, and she did. And now here she was, Little Miss Mooseslayer, as I call her, holding her own on national television against Sen. Smooth himself. I don’t get into the substance of the debate — you can judge that for yourself — I’m just talking about style. It was impressive. But I do admit, even as I watched her do a bang-up job of saying what she was coached to say, the thought that nagged me was, can you imagine this person as president? Or would you rather have Tina Fey?
Palin attacks Obama, says he is ‘palling around’ with terrorists BY JIM KUHNHENN The Associated Press
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Saturday accused Democrat Barack Obama of “palling around with terrorists” because of an old association with a former ’60s radical, stepping up an effort to portray Obama as unacceptable to American voters. Palin’s reference was to Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the group the Weather Underground. Its members took credit for bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol, during the Vietnam War era. Obama, who was a child when the group was active, served on a charity board with Ayers several years ago and has denounced his radical views and activities. The Republican campaign, falling behind Obama in polls, plans to make attacks on Obama’s character a centerpiece of candidate John McCain’s message in the fi nal weeks of the presidential race. Palin told a group of donors at a private airport, “Our opponent … is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.” She also said, “This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America.” The Obama campaign called Palin’s remarks offensive but not surprising in light of news stories detailing the campaign’s comefrom-behind offensive. “What’s clear is that John Mc-Cain and Sarah Palin would rather spend their time tearing down Barack Obama than laying out a plan to build up our economy,” Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan said in a statement. Palin’s remark about Obama “palling around with terrorists” comes as e-mails circulate on the Internet with suggestions that the Democratic candidate is secretly a radical, foreign-born Muslim with designs against the U.S. — even though Obama is a native of Hawaii, a Christian and has no connections to Muslim extremists. Palin, Alaska’s governor, said that donors on a greeting line had encouraged her and McCain to get tougher on Obama. She said an aide then advised her, “Sarah, the gloves are off, the heels are on, go get to them.” The escalated effort to attack Obama’s character dovetails with TV ads by outside groups questioning Obama’s ties to Ayers, convicted former Obama fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko and Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Ayers is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He and Obama live in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood and served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that develops community groups to help the poor. Obama left the board in December 2002. Obama was the first chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school-reform group of which Ayers was a founder. Ayers also held a meet-the-candidate event at his home for Obama when Obama fi rst ran for office in the mid-1990s. In an interview with CBS News earlier in the week, Palin didn’t name any newspapers or magazines that shaped her view of the world. On Saturday, she cited a New York Times story that detailed Obama’s relationship with Ayers. Summing up its findings, the Times wrote: “A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called ‘somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.’ ” Earlier Saturday, Palin spent 35 minutes at a diner in Greenwood Village where she met with Blue Star Moms, a support group of families whose sons or daughters are serving in the armed forces. Reporters were allowed in the diner for less than five minutes before being ushered out by the campaign. Palin, whose 19-year-old son, Track, deployed last month as a private with an Army combat team, was overheard at one point commiserating with one of the mothers: “Any time I ask my son how he’s doing, he says, ‘Mom, I’m in the Army now.’ ” Taking one question from reporters about competing in battleground states, Palin repeated her wish that the campaign had not pulled out of Michigan, a prominent state in presidential elections where Obama leads by double-digit percentage points in recent polls.
Everytime I see Sarah Palin now on TV....all I see is Tina Fay!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Logged
The debate is on, as the Congressional types are stalled.
