Author: COB6

Skye sent the link to a side by side comparison of what Chris Dodd and Barney Frank proposed to what Blunt says is the final bill.
It’s certainly an improvement.

Skye further noted:

It shows how much influence the house GOP had on the final draft – for that you can thank John McCain.

If McCain had anything substantive to do with this, he needs to start taking credit for it. Right now Obama is taking credit and McCain has not responded.

McCain needs to specifically address the slush money to community organizers like ACORN that Obama gave $800K to and the proposed union takeover of corporate boards.

McCain should make an ad to communicate “Leadership is not just a list of what a bill must contain, it is also the work to make sure what a bill must not contain!”

I have seen several comments here, emails and posts around the blogs pointing out how the MSM would have picked at least 10 overt lies from Obama in the latest debate and ran them on page one had McCain or Palin said the same thing.

While this is no doubt true it is important to note the why. The press is a frighteningly liberal institution so they clearly have a dog in the fight.

On policy there was never a distinctive difference between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. So why did they all seem to jump on the Obama wagon so quickly?

The simple answer is the narrative. A black president “feels” so good to guilt ridden liberals that it was irresistible to the press. Obama is adored around the world (including the terrorist who want to kill us). This is particularly true in Europe where liberals look for approval.

Not all Europe is on the Obama train as Melanie Phillips points out. No responsible media outlet that has endorsed Obama can explain why a man running for president is getting such a free pass.

Barack Obama appears to sit on a nexus between Marxist revolutionary activists, unrepentant former terrorists, Black Power racists, Chicago mobsters – oh, and a Saudi who is trying to buy up America. If you were to turn up at US immigration control with a background of such associates, it’s a fair bet they wouldn’t let you off the air-bridge. Yet this man may well become President of the US! If any other candidate had had merely a fleeting relationship with William Ayers, his candidacy would have been terminated before it was even articulated — let alone what we now know about Obama’s key role in Ayers’s CAC and its funding of radical groups; let alone the fact that Obama had been mentored during his formative years by a Communist Party plant; let alone his work for organisations modelled on the seditious philosophy of Saul Alinsky; let alone his two-decade membership of a Black Power church; let alone his relationship with fraudster Tony Rezko.

And yet despite all of this, virtually no-one in the mainstream media is asking any questions. Has there ever been a more staggering, surreal and scary race to the White House?

The ever-eloquent Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler points to over a dozen issues that are well known about Obama; any of which would cause a media storm if he were a Republican.

1. Occidental College records — Not released
2. Columbia College records — Not released
3. Columbia Thesis paper — ‘not available’
4. Harvard College records — Not released
5. Selective Service Registration — Not released
6. Medical records — Not released
7. Illinois State Senate schedule — ‘not available’
8. Law practice client list — Not released
9. Certified Copy of original Birth certificate — Not released
10. Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth — Not released
11. Harvard Law Review articles published — None
12. University of Chicago scholarly articles — None
13.Your Record of baptism — Not released or ‘not available’
14. Your Illinois State Senate records — ‘not available’

It’s not so much that the press is made of enormously liberal people, it is that they want this man and refuse to discuss anything that distracts from the narrative.

I have come to the conclusion that I am dead set against any kind of government bailout.

I have obviously not read the final proposal but it is a joke and we are getting soaked.

Why am I so convinced that this is little less than overt thievery? Because if it was really a crisis that could introduce the next great depression, no patriotic American would include language like this:

d) TRANSFER OF A PERCENTAGE OF PROFITS.-
(1) DEPOSITS.-Not less than 20 percent of any profit realized on the sale of each troubled asset purchased under this Act shall be deposited as provided in paragraph (2).
(2) USE OF DEPOSITS.-Of the amount referred to in paragraph (1)-
(A) 65 percent shall be deposited into the Housing Trust Fund established under section 1338 of the Federal Housing Enterprises Regulatory Reform Act of 1992 (12 U.S.C. 4568); and
(B) 35 percent shall be deposited into the Capital Magnet Fund established under section 1339 of that Act (12 U.S.C. 4569).

First of all if it was really a crisis then the very men that brought it would not be writing the prescription. Remember there were no Waffen SS on the jury at Nuremburg; and there was a damn good reason for that.

The language above was inserted by Senator Chris Dodd who is so dirty in this whole mess that he probably should be investigated for corruption and fraud instead of writing the bailout.

When Democrats use the cover of “crisis” to work all weekend and insert loopholes to funnel millions, if not billions, to corrupt Democrat front machines such as ACORN, this is not a crisis. This is nothing less than a grand scheme to achieve income redistribution and funnel a ton of money that will be either stolen or used exclusively to push the Democrat socialist agenda.

This is not a financial crisis; this is an open bank vault.

If this is really a crisis then anybody supporting language like Dodd’s is 100% un-American. Yes, that is questioning your patriotism.

This is the kind of thing that McCain should be attacking loudly. And by loudly, I mean…

IT’S TIME TO MAKE THESE PUNKS FAMOUS!

And frankly Senator McCain failure to do so makes you just as dirty as these thieves!

Keeping in mind that the vast majority of Americans who will actually get off their ass and vote have already made up their minds, I watched the debate from a different perspective.

I’ll have to give round one to McCain, actually a fairly solid victory.

McCain came out slow but finished well; not too much surprised me from McCain. McCain lacks a killer instinct and missed several opportunities to crush the neophyte senator with a clue bat.

What surprised me most was how clearly flustered and frankly amateurish Obama came off. He failed to defend his near-trillion dollars worth of pork, his no-no-no energy policy and his tax policy which would be disastrous.

That was on the economic part.

On the national security/foreign policy part….

McCain stomped a mud hole in his puny ass and then walked it dry.

“Let me get this straight, we’re gonna sit down with Ahmadinejad and when he says he wants to wipe Israel off the map; we’re gonna say No you’re not”. Oh please!”

Then McCain caught Obama lying about Kissinger’s position and called him on it.

That’s the “inside baseball” view of someone who stays on top of politics.

None of this matters to the target; the undecided/independents. These voters look at these things much differently.

From this perspective, I agree with Charles Krauthammer, it was pretty much a non-event.

McCain did a poor job of talking to the camera (the folks) while Obama did a fairly good job of that.

McCain came across energetic and did not lose his composure or sense of humor while Obama appeared to get visibly angry at least once.

The end state was no great sound bites or huge gaffes, thus non-event.

I don’t think this debate will boost the polls either way.

The careful, measured tone of both of the candidates last night was likely viewed by most undecideds as boring. The viewership of the next McCain/Obama debate will struggle to achieve 50% of last night.

The October 2nd VP debate is now the game changer.

If Palin doesn’t vastly improve over her interview with Katie Couric, McCain is in big trouble.

On the other hand, Obama has to be terrified that his entire campaign could be in the hands (or mouth in this case) of Joe Biden.

It is likely that the most nervous people in America in October 2nd will be McCain and Obama.

His teleprompter is screwing up and his is flailing badly.

You will see more of this.

UPDATE: In fairness I’m now told that Obama had an earpiece in and was pausing for applause. That’s probably true but it was fun to watch.

Well, I’ll give McCain credit, this took some serious eggs!

Ace has more details and updates.

He wants the debate on Friday delayed.

McCain says will suspend campaign to return to Washingon Thursday to help with bailout negotiations, asks that Friday debate with Obama be postponed so bailout negotiations can continue 2:51pm EDT
Thanks to DrewM and a host of morons.

Coming in through the comments: Obama is claiming it was his idea to suspend campaigning, but also that he’s not suspending campaigning.

I guess he was for the idea before he was against it.

Obama’s camp just announced that they want to do the debate.

This will consume the news cycle for a few days as both sides posture back and forth.

As for me, I could make an argument either way. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I really feel bad for Clay Aiken; you know his big announcement will be buried by this.

Roger Simon asked whether or not Joe Biden is trying to sabotage Obama.

I don’t know if it’s conscious or unconscious, but it sure seems that way. First there’s the flip-flop on AIG, which seems to have caught his running mate’s attention, and now there’s the senior moment of senior moments, implying FDR was President when the stock market crashed in ‘29 and went on television (???) to calm the public. [I thought McCain was the geezer candidate.-ed. It’s all in the mind… or mind-less.] If Palin had said something like that, the MSM would have sent her back to Alaska and frozen her in an iceberg with the wooly mammoths.

So what’s going on here? Is Biden trying to sabotage Obama? We all know that during the primary campaign he said McCain was prepared to be President but Obama wasn’t. Maybe that’s what he really thinks. And, as we all know, Biden has a high IQ – at least he says so.

I like Roger Simon and value his insights but when I read this I was reminded of an incident that occurred several years ago and it seems relevant here.

Years ago I was the Installation Training Officer at Fort Benning. In spite of the huge workload overseeing everything from OSUT Infantry training to Ranger School, it was a great assignment…usually.

The biggest downside was supporting some really strange research projects and then sitting through “Death by Powerpoint” briefings on the results of said study.

My favorite is still the finding that providing winter Ranger students with Yak fat could reduce cold weather injuries. I kid you not, Yak fat.

In this case however, a platoon size element of psychologists and psychiatrists landed a big federal grant to study why some young soldiers who volunteered for service will still misbehave even desert while in basic training.

The head shrink was briefing the findings and as usual myself and several old school Infantry NCOs (All of the different school CSMs) were grudgingly sitting through the psycho-babble.

The head shrink put up a slide of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and stated:

“It is possible that the sudden and significant change in environment going from civilian to military influences can jumble his cognitive understanding of his internal needs.”

One of the CSMs immediately said, quite loudly:

“Or maybe he’s just a dumb ass.”

Sometime this morning the talking points memo from Camp Obama to their loyal morons around the country creaked through fax machines and blipped on computer screens.

This Wall Street crisis was fully manufactured by corrupt Democrats and particularly in the cases of Fannie and Freddie, Obama has a very real problem.

Knowing that an ad is coming soon to expose Obama and his Democrat buddies as the architects and beneficiaries of this whole mess, it was time change the narrative.

Axelrod’s attempt to smear Sarah Palin with a proven false attack by astroturfing the internet ran off the tracks before it got started. (You can probably expect an ad in that as well.)

Well, if one false smear won’t stick, we’ll just toss out another one.

Every Democrat talking head I heard today mentioned the “Keating Five”.

I found this a little strange but it kept coming. All day, every surrogate parroting “Keating Five” to anyone with a camera.

Note to David Axelrod: The Keating Five is not Watergate.

Trying to attach a political opponent to a scandal is a fairly old practice. But two rules apply, (1) people have to know what the scandal is and (2) it is very unhelpful if the target of your attack was actually cleared of any wrong doing.

The problem is that most people don’t remember the details of the K5 scandal. Trying to pin it on McCain just makes folks look it up. Looking it up is not what Camp Obama wants you to do.

Remember that the Keating Five was four Democrats and John McCain.
Alan Cranston (D-CA)
Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ)
John Glenn (D-OH)
Donald Riegle (D-MI)
John McCain (R-AZ)

Oh yeah and McCain was cleared.

Democrat Robert S. Bennett, who was the special investigator during the scandal, suggested to the Senate Ethics Committee that it pursue charges against neither McCain nor Glenn, saying of McCain, “that there was no evidence against him.” The Vice Chairman of the Ethics Committee, Senator Warren Rudman of New Hampshire, agreed with Bennett, but the Chairman, Senator Howell Heflin of Alabama, did not agree.

McCain and Glenn were cleared but the chairman of the investigation said they used poor judgment.

You see, when you actually look into what happened, it actually reflects worse on Democrats.

Way to go Axelrod, maybe you should try astroturfing more lies because this has no legs at all.