Obama's Health Insurance Reform Speech...

Here's the actual video of Representative (and moron wingnut) Joe Wilson (R-SC) heckling the President of the United States of America by yelling, "you lie."

After this moron Joe Wilson heckles President Obama make sure to notice the looks on VP Biden and Speaker Pelosi's faces. If someone makes Biden look down and shake his head in disgust then that person is truly an idiot. And apparently Wilson immediately called Rahm Emanuel after the president's speech to apologize. I would have loved to have listened to that conversation.

What if a Democrat had done what Wilson did during one of W.'s speeches when he was feeding us a pile of lies regarding Iraq? What would the GOP's reaction have been? The nation's?

Some hyperbolic, fanatical, fear mongering liars oppose health insurance reform. Apparently Joe Wilson is one of them. If you like the above cartoon and think it exposes some of those opposed to health insurance reform as lying wingnuts please email it along to others by clicking the envelope below.

(the above is featured at DallasSouthNews.org - check it out.)

- Biden's Fake Interview With the Wall Street Journal Regarding Russia

Vice President Biden gave an interesting, to say the least, interview to the Wall Street Journal. And Gibbs had to deal with it later of course.

Conan's Fake Clip of Biden Speaking to Sotomayor

*I couldn't stand mixing the sports and non-political silly stuff here on PTN, it just didn't seem to fit at all. That's not to say there isn't silly stuff here on PTN, it's just always politics related. So, all the sports and non-political silly stuff will now be located at the newly revived FYVPBlog (for your viewing pleasure blog). I'm learning as I go and just trying to figure out what works best and makes the most sense. Again, I'm sorry for the change up.

Where's Joe?

Biden, Political Cartoon

Good Job Mr. President

Biden, Obama, Political Cartoon, Rahm Emanuel, stimulus

A Terrible Campaign (for McCain)

Or, alternate title: Post Mortem

In 2000 I thought McCain was going to win the Republican nomination after New Hampshire. Then, McCain fell victim to Rove's, "dark arts," tactics (see this blog, post # 8) and lost the 2000 nomination to W. In 2008 he won the nomination and was leading in the polls immediately after his convention. But, after the economic crisis hit McCain and his camp never had an overall theme to his campaign or consistent talking points. Whereas, Senator Obama had his theme down, namely, "Change" and talking points such as "middle class tax cuts," "McCain equals Bush," "McCain is out of touch".

Why McCain lost can be summed up with the below talking points/attacks/missteps by McCain, Palin and Republicans generally, in no particular order. Keep in mind that all of these points/attacks/missteps were made after the Republican convention.

1)elite(s)

2) Ayers

3) Joe six-pack

4) Joe the Plumber

5) liberal

6) socialist

7) communist

8) inexperienced

9) we're for change

10) Bridge to Nowhere

11) Alaska Independence Party

12) reform

13) pork barrel spending

14) Barack Hussein Obama

15) country first

16) un-American

17) real America

18) Khalidi

19) national security

20) for the bailout

21) McCain got the first version of the bailout passed

22) the first version of the bailout is voted down

23) the bailout was a bad idea

24) maverick

25) fundamentals of the economy are strong

26) suspend the campaign

27) postpone the debate

28) economy in crisis

29) Obama will raise taxes

30) how many houses does McCain own

31) Palin/Couric interview

32) Gibson interview

33) Palin's clothes

34) the prank call

35) "that one"

36) air quotes regarding a mother's health

37) Reverend Wright

38) "my fellow prisoners"

40) at a rally McCain asks Joe the Plumber to stand up, Joe's not there

41) Palin is a "diva" (from a source in the McCain campaign)

42) Palin is a "whack job" (from a source in the McCain campaign)

43) Palin is going rouge

44) Palin 2012

45) Palin

46) Cheney endorsement the weekend before the election

That's alot. There are more but, that's all I could think of off the top of my head, please, let me know if you think of any others. A campaign cannot win with even a handful of the above much less all of them. Obama could essentially sit back and let McCain's campaign implode, each day was seemingly a different talking point/attack/misstep resulting in a disjointed, muddled and rudderless campaign.

Oh, and by the way, Obama ran an almost gaffe-less campaign after the Dem convention (with two big expceptions, Obama "spreading the wealth" and Biden's assurance of an "international crisis" to test Obama's mettle). And the economy (stupid) hurt McCain (especially the way he handled it) and helped Obama.

Sidenotes: Why didn't McCain learn from Hillary

How Hillary Clinton lost:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1738331,00.html

And McCain didn't learn from Hillary

What if McCain had hit hard on Wright?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15191.html

McCain's pastors would have been talked about:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/22/mccain-rejects-hagee-endo_n_103143.html

Biden: "I Made a Mistake This Big!"

Or, "D'oh! I did it again!" Biden says as he has a Homer Simpson moment.

Biden spoke of four or five scenarios where an Obama presidency would be tested by an international crisis much like JFK was. Essentially, Biden said that a new inexperienced president, like Obama, would be tested. Biden did not elaborate on the specifics of the scenarios. D'oh!

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14833.html

Obama and his camp can try to spin this all they want but, it was a stupid thing for Biden to say.

Also, it's a gift wrapped present for McCain to open and show to everyone that will listen. Unfortunately, McCain and his staff have not received quite the traction they should have because of the Palin clothing purchases by the RNC that somehow have taken up as much or more air time and print space.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14879.html

I think the Palin clothes issue is an RNC problem. I can understand why some of their donors would have a problem with their money going to buy her clothes. Does the RNC buy clothes for male candidates? I don't know. However, I think in large part it's a small story made big because or Palin's, "joe six-pack," supposed appeal. But, it is definitely not as big a story as Biden's remarks.

I think one could hear the top Obama campaign staffers yelling, "D'oh!" all across the country. Obama's camp had somehow lasted this long without letting Joe Biden say something to try to derail an otherwise smoothly run campaign. Remember, Biden has lost the Democratic nomination at twice, in 1998 and 2008 that I can think of off the top of my head, at least in part because of these types of gaffes. Again, off the top of my head, in 1988 there were plagiarism issues with some of Biden's speaches. In 2008 Biden described Obama as, "clean." Don't even ask me to start on what that last one means. Biden at times seems to have no filter. And now this.

The McCain camp should and has attempted to make an issue of this. But given their limited budget relative to Obama, the Palin clothing thing, and just the nature of the new cycle and it being negative of McCain (although much of that negativity McCain brings on himself) it'll be interesting to see if they can make any hay with this. (see blog post #4 here for more on McCain campaign budget)

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14829.html

McCain also recently started describing Obama's tax policy as socialist.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/18/campaign.wrap/index.html

I have expressed my thoughts on that description already in relation to McCain's own tax policy. (see blog post #20) However, the "socialist" talking point is strong for McCain, especially coupled with Biden's prediction of an Obama presidency's international crisis.

They're both strong talking points because of Obama's lack of a clear and concise response to either or both. We'll see if over the weekend Obama's camp comes up with some type of cogent, responsive talking points to each. Or Obama's camp may just hope to let the news cycle wash them away as they watch the clock tick down to November 4. I've never been a fan of the latter. I think Obama needs some type of response, perhaps on Sunday, a slow news day and then start the last full week of the campaign anew. Respond once to each concisely and move on. Obama doesn't want to be saying, "D'oh!" on election day because he let these McCain talking points fester and gain traction.

Have Campaign Will Travel

From the WSJ: "In the five weeks since the fall campaign officially began, Sen. Obama, his wife, Michelle, and vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden have appeared at a total of 95 separate events in states that both sides are contesting.

Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin , have appeared at 55 events in those areas, with Cindy McCain, the nominee's wife, adding only one more to the total, according to a Wall Street Journal tally based on schedules provided by the campaigns."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122383794476626615.html

If you were behind in the polls wouldn't you be trying to at least keep up with your opponent on the campaign trail? Or again, is it a money thing?

Opening Thoughts Regarding This 2008 Presidential Election

I've been talking to and emailing numerous folks about different aspects of this presidential campaign for awhile. I've been sharing links to articles or websites generally and talking about issues/opinions with friends quite a bit. I decided to centralize all that here.

For example this first post is essentially a message I sent to an old friend fleshed out some.

Why does John McCain come across as "The Penguin" played by Danny DeVito in the second "Batman" (Tim Burton's) movie?

Bottom line, these debates don't matter to Democrats. Democrats are puzzled why there are still undecided voters because if any of the following had been revealed to be true about Senator Obama or his running mate Senator Biden the campaign would be over:

1) the candidate has a teen, unwed daughter.

2) the candidate had not been out of the country or held a passport until two years ago - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/us/politics/30veep.html

3) the candidate had been personally blessed against witches and witchcraft by some type of priest on camera - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwkb9_zB2Pg&feature=related

4) the candidate's spouse had been a member of an organization that at one time advocated that their home state secede from the United States of America. - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26524024/

5) the candidate allegedly believes that the earth is literally six thousand years old and people like you and me walked alongside dinosaurs. - http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-palinreligion28-2008sep28,0,3643718.story?track=rss

6) the candidate had attended a sermon, again on camera, where a guest preacher, preached that those that follow the Jewish faith need to be converted to Christianity. - http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13098.html

7) the candidate had not been able to name one newspaper or magazine the candidate reads on a daily or regular basis, and bailed out on the answer by saying “all of them”. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9go38MgZ4w8

One has to wonder what the Republican reaction would have been had any of the above been true of Senator Obama or Senator Biden.

But of course all the above is supposedly true, as reported by various media outlets, about Vice Presidential candidate Governor Palin, picked by Republican Presidential nominee Senator McCain.