Palin’s new duds

Sarahpalin_2

This from someone claiming so adamantly that she and her family are part of the middle class (I suppose it depends on how you define the middle class, but regardless) …

Credit: The Dish Rag by Elizabeth Snead

Sarah Palin says she’s just “your average hockey mom.” But she sure doesn’t dress like one.

Seems the RNC coughed up a whopping $150,000 to outfit/accessorize Palin and her family for the campaign trail.

The tally included included a $75,062.63 visit to Neiman Marcus and two Saks Fifth Avenue pit shops totaling $49,425.74, according to Jeanne Cummings at Politico. That’s a lot more than the $1,874 spent by average Americans, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Click here to see how Sarah’s clothing has changed since her VP nomination.

According to our intrepid political reporters at Top of the Ticket, the RNC’s financial disclosure records for September and October show that the RNC did charge those purchases as “campaign accessories.”

Charged were Bloomingdale’s ($5,102.71), Barney’s ($789.72), Atelier men’s boutique ($4,902.45) and two baby clothing and accessory stores.

Apparently, it’s totally legal — albeit not normal — for campaigns to buy duds for their candidates. Politico checked records for Barack Obama’s campaign and the Democratic party: No similar fashion expenditures. …

And these gems from the Hugh Hewitt Show (I don’t know who he is either, but Palin interviewed with him in late September):

HH: Governor, you mentioned the people who are struggling right now. Have you and your husband, Todd, ever faced tough economic times where you had to sit around a kitchen table and make tough choices?

SP: Oh my goodness, yes, Hugh. I know what Americans are going through. Todd and I, heck, we’re going through that right now even as we speak, which may put me again kind of on the outs of those Washington elite who don’t like the idea of just an everyday working class American running for such an office. But yeah, there’s been a lot of times that Todd and I have had to figure out how we were going to pay for health insurance. We’ve gone through periods of our life here with paying out of pocket for health coverage until Todd and I both landed a couple of good union jobs. Early on in our marriage, we didn’t have health insurance, and we had to either make the choice of paying out of pocket for catastrophic coverage or just crossing our fingers, hoping that nobody would get hurt, nobody would get sick. So I know what Americans are going through there. And you know, even today, Todd and I are looking at what’s going on in the stock market, the relatively low number of investments that we have, looking at the hit that we’re taking, probably $20,000 dollars last week in his 401K plan that was hit. I’m thinking geez, the rest of America, they’re facing the exact same thing that we are. We understand what the problems are. It’s why I have all the faith in the world that John McCain is the right top of any ticket at this point to get us through these challenges. It’s a good balanced ticket where he’s got the experience, and he’s got the bipartisan approach that it’s going to take to get us through these challenges. And I have the acknowledgement and the experience of going through what America is going through.

Palin and the VP pick

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFrZD0IRDEY

Answering a third-grader’s question on a Colorado TV interview about the role of the vice president, Palin again repeated that the VP is “in charge” of the Senate, that “they can really get in there with the Senators and make a lot of good policy changes …”

I know Palin was probably trying to simplify her response slightly given the questioner (we can only assume), but as Joe Biden said, the Constitution is explicit about the VP’s role:

Article 1: The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

I don’t know that I’ve ever explicitly said this, but John McCain is an able leader. If he were president, I would at least feel confident that the wheels of our country would stay on the track (although most of the world would continue to dislike and distrust us and think we were pompous and obnoxious freedom crusaders, meddling in every world theater, and setting up little democracies around the world to people who may or may not want it). I would have felt comfortable with Mitt Romney or certainly with Rudy Giuliani, but McCain and his campaign have put the free world in jeopardy by his VP pick. Make no mistake. I credit Palin with these qualities (most will serve her well on the world stage): intelligent, cagey, pleasant, folksy, adept at public speaking, has the ability to cram a lot of information into her head, loving parent and ruthless. But experienced enough to juggle enormous, world-implicating issues she is not. It says something significant about McCain and his staff’s decision-making. Were something to happen to McCain, can we really picture Palin staring down people like Putin or Ahmadinejad? I mean, it’s terrifying to think about. For real. No jokes. It’s not funny. At all.

Should newspapers endorse candidates?

As the election draws near, the question has again been raised this year: Why do newspapers, in this supposed era of news objectivity, endorse presidential and other candidates for public office?

As early as February, Time magazine’s managing editor, Rick Stengel, asked this question in the form of a column titled “Should Newspapers Still Be Taking Sides?” In it, one quickly finds Stengel’s answer.

Says Stengel: I confess that I’ve never quite understood why newspapers endorse presidential candidates. Sure, I know the history and the tradition, the fact that newspapers in the 18th and 19th centuries were often affiliated with political parties, but why do they do it now? Why do it at a time when the credibility and viability of the press are at all-time lows? More important, why do it at a time when readers, especially young readers, question the objectivity of newspapers in particular and the media in general?

First, for newspapers to have an opinion section of their paper is not only crucial for readers to chime in with letters to the editor on issues they feel are important, but it’s critical for the free exchange of ideas in the public forum. This creates an open dialogue, a back and forth. If a newspaper isn’t receiving letters to the editor or opinions in some form from its readers, either that paper or that community is dead or nearly dead. The pulse of a community can be found on a newspaper’s opinion page(s).

For instance, suppose a local county council imposes strict zoning regulations on its constituents. If the local newspaper receives an overwhelming flood of letters and opinion pieces on the measure (regardless of whether folks are yay or nay on an issue), that’s a sign of a healthy newspaper and healthy community. If the newspaper receives sparse reactions, that community is either lethargic about their governance or apathetic toward the local government, the newspaper or both.

While the rest of the newspaper is devoted to objective accounts of local and national news reports, the opinion page sets aside a small forum for commentary on those happenings. Some, however, don’t understand, or find it hard to separate, a newspaper’s opinion pages from the rest of the newspaper. Some newspapers attempt to make the distinction clear by using an editorial staff (separate from the newsroom staff), which works solely on opinion-page content. At large papers, this editorial board usually consists of up to 10 or more members who meet each day and talk about what position the paper will take on certain issues. Often, particularly regarding endorsements, voting takes place and the majority wins out.

Thus, editors and publishers typically have enough faith in the public that it can separate what takes place in the standard news reporting pages versus what happens on the editorial pages. Political endorsements, then, are not much different than any other element in the opinion page. Large newspapers every day offer their collective perspectives (that is, the collective opinion of the board) on any number of community, state or national issues. It happens every day. Why then, regarding some of the most important decisions Americans make each election cycle, should the paper be silent? The paper uses a vast majority of its resources objectively covering the to’s and fro’s of political candidates. Why is it not then qualified — again, as a well informed body of editors — to offer its collective opinion on the single most important issue, as it has done throughout the year on other topics, facing its readers?

I suggest those still curious read this: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D01E3D91439F936A35752C1A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
The job of newspapers is not to be an aloof monolith, but to be an active and engaged member of its community and country. Endorsements are not offered to persuade anyone or tell someone how to vote (Column-writers and editorial writers are disillusioned if they write solely to change someone’s mind. More times than not, they won’t.), but to inform readers of the collective opinions of numerous well informed people who simply want the best for their community and country. Thus, newspapers offer their opinion, take it or leave it, let the chips fall where they may. Offering an official “opinion” of the paper on the editorial page does not dictate what reporters do day in and day out. Moreover, studies have shown that newspaper endorsement don’t have a large-scale impact on how elections turn out nationally.

Now, back to Stengel. He says:

It’s certainly the prerogative of newspapers and their owners to endorse candidates, but in doing so they are undermining the very basis for their business, which is impartiality. It’s a recipe for having less influence, not more.

First, Time magazine is in direct competition with the major newspapers, so, of course, it’s in Time’s best interest to go after newspapers as agents of bias. But Stengel’s argument comes from, either A) from a lack of understanding of opinion sections (Time magazine has opinion pieces and clearly editorialized pieces within their covers which may or may not be marked as such, while in newspapers, they are always marked as such) or B) a direct attempt to put a dagger into the newspaper business. For aforementioned reasons, it could be either of the above. Regardless, that credible, renowned newspapers are biased in their reporting of the news is a myth. There is no bias. Perceptions of such a bias are based on ones own ideology. (What seems too right wing for you might seem spot-on for me and vice versa).

That said, here’s a good resource for sorting out which newspapers endorsed which candidate thus far:

http://www.demconwatchblog.com/2008/09/presidential-newspaper-endorsement-list.html

Comments on the presidential debate

First, let me say that just hearing the final presidential debate Wednesday was a challenge all by itself. My wife and I, at the time, were traveling between Allentown, Pa. and New York City (en route to Boston on a very long, one-day trip) and mostly depended on AM radio stations to tune in. I suppose this was the case because we were in the boondocks for much of the debate. A station would be mostly clear for a few minutes, usually three, and then begin to fade into a white noise. I would hit “search” again, and we would listen to that station for another few minutes until the white noise rattled back. This carried on for nearly the entire span of the debate, with us missing a word here and there for lack of reception. As I commented to my wife at the time: the sports stations broadcasting the MLB playoffs came in crystal clear, but trying to tune into something that truly mattered (I know some will disagree) — only 75 miles outside of the world economic hub, no less — seemed out of our grasp. That said, Go Sox!

Now, as I didn’t have the ability to see the debate (and haven’t watched the video yet), I can’t comment on Obama and McCain’s body language (Most assuredly, Bill O’Reilly has already summoned the obligatory body language expert onto his show.) or how they appeared particularly uneasy sitting right across from each other. But by their words and tone of voice, mostly McCain’s, one could grasp a certain standoff-ishness, especially McCain’s quite correct statement:

Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.

That line gave me a good laugh, and I agree with McCain wholeheartedly. Clearly, though, for folks paying attention to the other two debates, much of the content was the same from both candidates. McCain sought to distance himself from the last eight years under Bush, he attempted to talk to the Joe’s of the country (and Joe the Plummer, who became a recurring character for some bizarre reason. According to factcheck.org, this particular Joe has given different accounts of whether the company he wants to purchase will make more or less than 250k per year, a number which is critical to Joe’s argument, given the amount of Obama-railing he’s been doing on TV). Also, McCain continued pounding the notion that Obama is somehow sleeping with known terrorists, turned coffee-sipping college professors (One can only assume Bill Ayers enjoys a nice brew now and then).

McCain: Mr. Ayers, I don’t care about an old washed-up terrorist. But as Senator Clinton said in her debates with you, we need to know the full extent of that relationship.

Obama: Forty years ago, when I was 8 years old, he engaged in despicable acts with a radical domestic group. I have roundly condemned those acts. Ten years ago he served and I served on a school reform board that was funded by one of Ronald Reagan’s former ambassadors and close friends, Mr. Annenberg.

Other members on that board were the presidents of the University of Illinois, the president of Northwestern University, who happens to be a Republican, the president of The Chicago Tribune, a Republican- leaning newspaper.

Mr. Ayers is not involved in my campaign. He has never been involved in this campaign. And he will not advise me in the White House. So that’s Mr. Ayers.

Of note is this link: http://www.republicansforobama.org/?q=node/3027

Also, McCain’s response to the question of why he thought Palin was fit to lead was woefully inadequate. While Obama pointed to Biden’s long record of public service and looking out for the little guy, McCain said Palin was a reformer, a role model for women and experts in special needs kids and energy. While perhaps Palin as a reformer and an energy guru help in her ability to lead the country, her perceived status as a role model and expert in special needs does not and is terribly off the point. Unless, of course, the point is to play the heartstrings and throw the topic far away from Palin’s woeful inexperience and frightening lack of knowledge in international affairs. In that, McCain was spot-on.

As for Obama, in a seemingly more even-tempered way and continuing to look more presidential in his responses, he attempted to align McCain’s with Bush’s policies and slam McCain for his negative campaigning. I think numbers estimate that about 90 percent of McCain’s ads have been negative versus about 35-40 percent of Obama’s. A word on Obama: We shouldn’t have watched these debates wondering how he was going to awe us as he has done many in his stump and convention speeches. Obama merely got through these debates largely unscathed and did what was expected of him quite ably. Though it was evident his strengths lie elsewhere, I think he did an adequate enough job to maintain his lead and win the election come November.

On the flip side, I’m not sure that McCain gained enough ground on undecided voters to make a difference. He continued playing to folks that he likely already has in the bank, rather than attempting to sway those who are still on the fence. From both candidates, we generally heard the same talking points, with the exception of a brief introduction to McCain’s energy plan during the second debate, and I think McCain failed to wow us either (if “wowing” means to snatch some undecideds away from Obama.)

It’s noon Friday, and I’m sitting my friend’s Burlington, Mass. apartment ready to go eat bagels, so forgive me if my prose here was a touch helter-skelter. I’ll wait for my Flowing Prose muse to light once again sometime soon.

On economy, bailout plan

In my view, we created and nurtured this free-market, thriving-, and often-, rampant economy, where gigantic institutions are allowed to become so and are largely unchecked and unregulated. Thus, we should be prepared — and not surprised with the train goes off the track — to deal with its consequences.

The latest is that world leaders this week are huddling up in an attempt to rescue the global market, which has been hampered by the demise of such colossal institutions here at home. Henry Paulson is not expected to make an announcement until Monday (which is today, but later today), but the crux of this entire issue is regulation, point blank. And frankly, greed and pride are the obligatory step-children.

First, we are a country bent on eating, drinking, buying as much as humanly possible before the Grim Reaper calls our number. And that only describes the middle class of America. (A brief note: Sarah Palin in her debate with Joe Biden continually described herself as part of the middle class. With her six-digit salary, we should know better than to believe that.) Now, what kind of damage can truly well-off people do armed with the weapons of lax regulations, greed and pride? We are witnessing it today. We, as a country, are as much at fault. We allow companies to grow to colossal sizes (Microsoft, Fannie/Freddie, AIG, Morgan Stanley, etc etc), to amass vast influence in government and worldwide and to hold so much sway that their very nonexistence ripples throughout the national economy. That is absurd.

It’s impeccably dangerous to allow corporations to grow to the size that we allow them. The free market is a beautiful thing when not taken advantage of. See here. It’s a disastrous thing when greedy men use it to build empires that, upon their own collapse, send the national economy into a tailspin.

It is understandable why many were outraged that we were bailing out these folks. We daily view images from The Associated Press of traders clinching their teeth as the market plunges, of disillusioned businessmen. But forgive me if I’m not sympathetic. Many people around the world are living on pennies a day. They don’t have the luxury to invest, and definitely not the luxury to live in a country not wrecked by disease, poverty and famine. When gas was $4 per gallon, did we in America slow down? Some did, most didn’t. Meanwhile hundreds, if not thousands, every single day, die because of the consequences of no health care of poverty or famine. And what do we do? We treat the free market as if its a vine of luscious decadence. We treat the market and the economy as if they hold the fountain of youth. As if through their veins flow everlasting life.

Bill O’Reilly goes nutso on Barney Frank

Bill O’Really short-circuited recently when talking with Congressman Barney Frank on the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac debacle. Here is the video:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrfPMa3lONU

Now, O’Reilly, blinded by his seeming anger (Did he personally invest in Freddie and Fannie after Frank’s projection?), O’Reilly didn’t want to talk about Frank’s success in getting a regulatory bill passed after becoming head of the House Financial Services Committee. O’Reilly only wanted to focus on this statement by Frank:

“I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They’re not the best investments these days from the long-term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward. They’re in a housing market. I do think their prospects going forward are very solid. And in fact, we’re going to do some things that are going to improve them.” — CNBC interview, July 14, 2008

O’Reilly, again and again, accused Frank of telling people to invest in Fannie and Freddie, when he did not make that statement. As the quote states, Frank expressed optimism about the future of the company but stopped short of telling people to invest in that company’s stock. Obviously, Frank’s projections were off target.

“That’s great,” O’Reilly said about Frank’s work for more regulation, “but you still went out in July and said everything was great, and off that, a lot of people bought stock and lost everything they had.”

Frank: “Oh No.”

O’Reilly: Oh yes, oh yes!”

This was the point in the interview where O’Reilly began to unravel. Regardless, after reading up on this, Frank and O’Reilly’s boss, Rupert Murdoch, have an interesting history. From Wikipedia’s entry on Frank:

Amidst the 2008 financial market turmoil, billionaire Rupert R. Murdoch has repeatedly pointed blame at Frank and a few others as the root cause of the recent housing crisis. In a recent interview, Murdoch claimed that Frank’s plan in the early nineties pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make “bad” loans to “underprivileged” families. An anonymous opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal (owned by Murdoch’s News Corp) on September 9th 2008 further describes Barney Frank as the Patron Saint of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

As late as 2003 Frank rejected Bush administration proposals for increased oversight of Fannie Mae. The market at the time was reaping great profits and further regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would have opened the very lucrative sub-prime mortgage products to Wall Street firms. As sub-prime loans started to falter a year ago, the administration worked to move the loans back. According to the New York Times, “The White House also pitched in. James B. Lockhart, the chief regulator of Fannie and Freddie, adjusted the companies’ lending standards so they could purchase as much as $40 billion in new subprime loans. Some in Congress praised the move.”.

I find it interesting how so many of these companies , politicians and pundits are intertwined: O’Reilly continuing the argument of his boss and Frank possibly in a conflict of interest with Fannie and Freddie:

Frank, like many elected Representatives, has collected tens of thousands of dollars from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in campaign contributions — $42,350 since 1989. Also, Frank’s former lover, Herb Moses, was an executive at Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998, where he “helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs.” The relationship ended around the same time Moses left the company to start a pottery business, and Frank continued support of the companies after the relationship ended. Fox News reported that in 1991, “the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively.”

Palin calls out Obama on terrorist association

Palin hits Obama for ‘terrorist’ connection

ENGLEWOOD, Colorado (CNN) — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday slammed Sen. Barack Obama’s political relationship with a former anti-war radical, accusing him of associating “with terrorists who targeted their own country.”

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin lashed out at Sen. Barack Obama’s ties to controversial figure William Ayers.

Palin’s attack delivered on the McCain campaign’s announcement that it would step up attacks on the Democratic presidential candidate with just a month left before the November general election.

“We see America as the greatest force for good in this world,” Palin said at a fund-raising event in Colorado, adding, “Our opponent though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

Palin made similar comments later at a rally in Carson, California.

Obama’s Chicago, Illinois, home is in the same neighborhood as Bill Ayers, a founder of the radical Weather Underground, which was involved in several bombings in the early 1970s, including the Pentagon and the Capitol, and the two have met several times since Obama’s 1995 campaign for a state Senate seat.

Palin cited an article in Saturday’s New York Times about Obama’s relationship with Ayers, now 63. But that article concluded that “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.'” — CNN

In short, this is a desperate tactic that holds no weight in reality. Obama, at one time, knew Ayers, but currently has no association with him and as The New York Times article points out, seems to haven’t been on common grounds with Ayers views.

But I’m sure the erroneous comments received swelling praise, given the willful ignorance of many, blinded so by their own precious party that they can’t see the bright wall of deceit in front of them.

On Sarah Palin/Joe Biden debate

First, let me say I listened to the vice presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden with much anticipation, especially in light of Palin’s recent abysmal, and frankly, hard to watch, interviews with Charles Gibson, Katie Couric, etc.

One point: Couric during that interview asked Palin for one example of where, in his 20-plus years of service in Congress, McCain had supported more regulations, rather than few, regarding the “way Wall Street does business” other than the tightening up on regulations on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae two years ago. Couric asked this:

Can you give us anymore examples of his leading the charge for more oversight?

Palin then reiterated how important that particular McCain measure was two years ago. Couric said:

He has almost always sided with less regulation … not more.

Palin:

He’s also known as The Maverick, though, taking shots from his own party and certainly taking shots from the other party, trying to get people to understand what he’s been talking about, the need to reform government.

Couric then interrupted:

I’m just gonna ask you one more time, not to belabor the point: specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation.

Palin:

I’ll try to find you some and bring ’em to ya.

So with that nugget, I continue. After watching the Gibson and Couric interviews with Palin, I was a touch anxious about this person being vice president, much less president, if something should happen to McCain. OnThursday, Palin, I thought, did quite well. There were no 10-second pauses from Palin as we have seen in said interviews. She, while frequently diverting questions to whatever she wanted to talk about, at least fielded the questions without too much rambling and addressed Biden and called him and Obama out on what she felt were inconsistencies.

Biden was a bit tame, but I would assume, he worked carefully on toning it down a bit for this debate. To look at him during his vice presidential acceptance speech in Illinois, one would have thought he was a twin brother of Ric Flair. He was a fire ball. But in this debate, he was quite tame. He was also much more specific in his points, rather than supplying sweeping claims.

I was quite offended by the couple instances where Palin described herself and her family as “middle class.” For sure, both Biden and Palin are far from the middle class. Palin wants to paint herself as just a regular old, run of the mill soccer/hockey mom, but with a salary well into six-digits, that a ridiculous notion. Folks looking on at this debate should recognize it as such.

Overall, I think Biden clearly has the expertise and experience to be president. He could, in fact, be running for president, if he had been better known months ago, if there wasn’t an Obama, etc. We all know that whoever winds up as the head guy on either ticket is largely based on our own prejudices, biases, and interests. We like novelty. Obama and the Democrats have given us that after eight years of painful and disastrous policy. Obama, Biden and McCain are all learned and know policy and the Constitution in and out. Palin, while down-home and likable with a certain amount of rhetorical talent, isn’t one of them. When cornered on specifics, she is stunted and can offer few. Conclusion: The debate will not cause a remarkable shift in the polls, but Palin did change the minds of a few. As I’m writing this, the talking head, Paul Begala, said Biden’s goal was to hammer McCain, while Palin’s goal was to repair her image. Shouldn’t Palin’s goal, had she not screwed up her most recent television interviews, been to hammer Obama? Begala said Palin succeeded in her goal, but, doesn’t that give Biden a one-up? Regardless, Biden was effective in holding down the fort for Obama. He could have laid down the gauntlet, but was restrained, yet supplied enough specifics to, on an intellectual level, make the case that he was vastly more knowledgeable. Bottom line, this wasn’t a game-changer, as the talking heads have dubbed it, but it at least didn’t destroy the McCain-Palin ticket.