There is a new documentary by Alexandra Pelosi that is to be shown on HBO starting Monday 2/16 about the conservative reaction the 2008 US elections.(check your time and channel in your area).
Here is the blurb from HBO:
On the day Barack Obama was elected the 44th President, more than 58 million voters cast their ballots for John McCain. In the months leading up to this historic election, filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi (HBO’s Emmy®-winning “Journeys with George”) took a road trip to meet some of the conservative Americans who waited in line for hours to support the GOP ticket, and saw their hopes and dreams evaporate in the wake of that Democratic victory. These voters share their feelings about the changing America in which they live. Premieres Monday, February 16 at 8pm (ET/PT) on HBO2.
I did a post about on my Secular Left blog that includes an interview the filmmaker did on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC on Friday night.
Sarah Palin gave a stump speech at the University of Findlay in Findlay Ohio on Wednesday. It was her standard stump speech tweaked to give the Findlay faithful a shout out. Unfortunately, many of the items she pointed out weren’t truthful but the crowd responded as if it were true. It’ss ironic because back in June much of Findlay were up in arms when a Washington Post reporter did a story about some people who believed the various false rumors about Barack Obama. I guess McCain and Palin think Findlay people are stupid.
“He got our opponent to state his intentions in plain language. Senator Obama says now he wants to spread the wealth. What that means is government takes your money and doles it out however a policitian sees fit,” Mrs. Palin said to big cheers.
“Barack Obama calls it spreading the wealth. Joe Biden calls it patriotic. From right here in Ohio, Joe the Plumber said to him it sounded like socialism,” Mrs. Palin said.
She claimed that Mr. Obama wasn’t happy about the encounter.
“It seems their staged photo op got ruined by a real person’s question,” she said.
Both John McCain and Palin have been hammering on this “share the wealth” mantra even calling Obama a Socialist.
What is failed to be reported is that in the exchange with “Joe the Plumber”, Obama didn’t say he would take Joe’s money and give it away or redistribute it. Here is the transcript from the video of the exchange in Holland, Ohio:
Obama: And I do believe that for folks like me who are, you know, have worked hard but, frankly, also been lucky, I don’t mind paying just a little bit more than the waitress who I just met over there, who’s … things are slow and she can barely make the rent. Because my attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. If you’ve got a plumbing business, you’re gonna be better off if you’ve got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you. And right now, everybody’s so pinched that business is bad for everybody. And I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody. But, listen, I respect what you do and I respect your question. And even if I don’t get your vote, I’m still gonna be working hard on your behalf ’cause I want to make sure … small businesses are what creates jobs in this country and I want to encourage it. All right.
Here is the actual video of the encounter. The part I quoted above begins about the 4 minute mark of the 5 and half minute video.
Now if one understands English, the context is quite clear. Obama believes, as many people do that when everybody has money to spend then everyone benefits and that the foundation of economics in the US is the small business. This is the opposite view of people who favor the trickle down idea – giving tax breaks to the rich in the hopes their spending will trickle down to the rest of us. Obama’s view is the bottom up idea. Cutting taxes for those below the $250,000 income level would free up money for a large portion of people.
Cutting taxes for the rich and those who invest doesn’t put money in people’s pocket quick enough to help small businesses – if at all. It isn’t socialism just a different idea on how to fix the economy.
Of course Palin and McCain knows all this. Back in 2000, John McCain said much the same thing that Obama said to “Joe”:
Just another example of how indispensable Jon Stewart and the Daily Show are, catching things the media don’t. McCain and Palin (indeed, the entire GOP establishment) have been bashing Obama as a “socialist” the past few days for having the audacity to propose raising the top tax rate from 36% to 39% while giving working folks (95% of the rest of us) some relief. The only problem: Stewart dug up footage of McCain making the exact same argument a scant eight years ago.
Stewart: “Now you can argue that this country has dabbled in socialism ever since the income tax was introduced, and that calling Obama’s plan ‘socialist’ is a cynical ploy that even McCain realizes is a bankrupt tactic. Or, should I say, realized.”
Audience member: “Why is it that someone like my father who goes to school for 13 years gets penalized in a huge tax bracket because he’s a doctor.”
McCain: “I think it’s to some degree because we feel obviously that wealthy people can afford more.”
Audience member: “Are we getting closer and closer to, like, socialism?”
McCain: “Here’s what I really believe: That when you reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more.”
Stewart: “That, of course, is the late socialist leader John Mccain. I believe he passed away during the Republican primaries. He will be missed.”
McCain and Palin are counting on Findlay citizens to be stupid and based on the cheers during Palin’s speech, it seems they might be right – or they are hypnotized by her flashy wardrobe.
Well it seems Sarah Palin knows how to cram for an exam. Her debate with Senator Joe Biden lacked any “moose in the headlight” moments, mainly because there were no follow ups, but her folksy question avoidance didn’t win her or her ticket any help in the election. Tactically she did a good job but she lost the war. Her effort was a white flag of surrender for McCain-Palin.
The people have spoken:
CNN vote of debate watchers: Biden 51, Palin 36 CBS poll of undecideds: Biden 46, Palin 21
Most scary moment:
IFILL: Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?
PALIN: Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president’s agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we’ll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.
Yes, she wants more power than Lord Cheney. Did you feel that chill?
In the lead up to the debate the right punditry went nuts about the fact that the moderator, Gwen Ifill, had written a book about blacks in politics – as if this some how made her biased. The right also complained about Palin mucking up her Katie Couric interviews – blaming the bad old liberal media and its “gotcha” journalism.
It is a the usual classic conservative attack mode – attacking the media.
Glenn Greenwald in Salon magazine summed this up perfectly:
Go pick whatever right-wing journals or polemicists you want and (with some isolated exceptions) what you will find is this simultaneously self-loving and self-pitying worldview permeating virtually everything they say, think and believe. You can reduce most of their arguments, and all of their group-based drives, to a rudimentary logical proposition: “I am X, and X is both superior and treated with deep unfairness.” It doesn’t matter what “X” happens to be for any one of them — conservative, male, Republican, Christian, Jewish, religious, white, Western, American — that is the formula that expresses how they perceive the world and their role in it.
Petulance and self-pitying grievance is what fuels them. This endless need to self-victimize would be one thing if the groups to which they belonged were small minorities targeted by a hostile and more powerful majority. But the exact opposite is true. By and large, the groups to which they belong (and therefore see as oppressed and treated with unparalleled unfairness) are the most numerous and the most powerful in the country and always have been. Yet still — nothing is their fault; they face hopeless obstacles imposed by Evil and Omnipotent Forces which hate them; “I am X, and X is both superior and treated with deep unfairness.”
They have run the country for the entire decade. For the last 14 years, they’ve controlled the House for all but 20 months. They spent substantial parts of the last eight years in control of all branches of government simultaneously. They’ve won 7 out of the last 10 presidential elections. The country’s largest and richest corporations — including the ones owning the most powerful media outlets — pour money into their party and perceive, correctly, that their interests are served by the Right’s agenda. But still — they can’t get a fair shake; everything is deeply oppressive to them; it’s all so unfair.
So as we get closer to the election – including the next 2 presidential debates – look for more whining from the right as they assume their place on the victimhood mantle.
Sarah Palin has many things going for her. She is attractive, has a decent family, and is ambitious. She also had to be able to influence and develop personable skills any good politician needs to get to the next level. After all she went from local town politician to governor of Alaska.
The problem with Sarah is what is wrong with a majority of Americans. She doesn’t have any good knowledge of things a Vice President of a country needs to have to be qualified for the job.
It is pretty sad when someone like me, who is extremely interested in politics, knows more than the chosen candidate for such a prestigious job as Vice President of the United States.
You know the job held by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, founders of this country, Teddy Roosevelt who built the Panama Canal and created the National Park system, and Lyndon B. Johnson, who improved civil rights for minorities and helped the poor.
Palin is like most Americans who have no clue what goes on outside our borders and knows little of important history like Supreme Court cases.
I don’t think she’s stupid or uneducated only that she is ignorant of the stuff a high elected official ought to know before they get the job.
The proof is she doesn’t have pat concrete answers to basic questions like what newspaper or books she reads. She also couldn’t name another Supreme Court decision she disagreed with besides Roe v Wade. Knowing her evangelical religious background one would think she could instantly name Abington Township School District v. Schempp (1963) which ended state sanctioned school prayer.
Then when her ignorance is saved on video tape and in print she excuses it as an attack on her by the “elite liberal media”.
Right. Showing your ignorance is their fault. Yep that is also an average American response – “It’s not my fault its their’s.”
Bob Cesca wrote in his article on The Huffington Post:
The presidency, as we’ve learned the hard way, matters. An incompetent chief executive, no matter how he or she has been packaged, tends to breed disaster. There was a time when we could rest assured knowing that, even if the president wasn’t all there, he was surrounded by competent people who could grab the wheel if he blacked out. But those who are supporting the Republican ticket based on superficial appeal need to ask themselves: since when has the word “competent” been used to describe the current batch of operatives surrounding John McCain and Sarah Palin? These are the same handlers who camp up with the laughable “Alaska is right next to Russia” line. Put it another way, the man who first coined that line was Steve Doocy.
In the real world — a world in which America needs serious people making our most serious decisions — Alaska’s proximity to Russia has less to do with national security experience than a ’78 Nova without its back windshield has to do with a truck. It’s just not. Likewise, Joe Six-pack, while qualified for many decent jobs (governor of Alaska, too, I guess), is simply not qualified for our highest national office. Sorry, Joe! And sorry, Sarah. You’re just not up for this, regardless of what you’ve tricked yourself into believing.
I got a good chuckle out of the Moose cooking tips she shared with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.
A few years ago I had the pleasure to meet race car driver Bobby Rahal, so catch me driving in the Indy 500 next year. Since I live near a bank, the government will let me deal with the massive Wall Street bail out.
