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sweet tea

i'm not looking at a transcript or anything, but didn't ifill specifically ask her to address the deregulation comment in her follow up? maybe i'm remembering wrong.

anyway, i thought that, from a strategy perspective and given the events of the past 2 weeks, biden had a lot of scare-value points when he brought up the notion of deregulation vis-a-vis health care. so no matter what the question, i'm surprised palin didn't try to neutralize that point, which is seems she could have done easily.

slappy mcbluelips

Is anyone else appalled at the news reports today? They're all touting Palin for "holding her own." I thought she was horrible. Her presence in this race is one of the more frightening things the US has faced in a while.

To me, all she did was duck, dodge, wink, and pronounce "nuclear" the same way Bush does about 100 times. How about when she was asked a question and she asked back "Can I talk about Afghanistan?"

What was she talking about with the "breaking up a monopoly" in Alaska and standing up to the oil companies? Was any of that true? If there was a monopoly, to me that implies only one company but I don't know anything about this.

daver

Slappy McBluelips wrote: To me, all she did was duck, dodge, wink, and pronounce "nuclear" the same way Bush does about 100 times. How about when she was asked a question and she asked back "Can I talk about Afghanistan?"

Er, first she answered the current question directly, then she returned to address a comment Biden had made previously regarding Afghanistan. Not seeing an issue.

Slappy McBluelips wrote: What was she talking about with the "breaking up a monopoly" in Alaska and standing up to the oil companies? Was any of that true? If there was a monopoly, to me that implies only one company but I don't know anything about this.

I suspect this would be a reference to her position on the oil and gas regulation board, but I don't really know what she did there. If anything.

MOD

daver wrote:
And why you gotsta call people "FUCKING BITCH"? That's not very nice.

What the hells your problem? she is a fucking bitch!

daver

sweet tea wrote: i'm not looking at a transcript or anything, but didn't ifill specifically ask her to address the deregulation comment in her follow up? maybe i'm remembering wrong.

Given the moderator's comments, I don't believe that she was asking Palin specifically to address the health care deregulation comment that Biden made, but rather acknowledging that Biden had gotten off topic and allowing Palin the official leeway to go that way, should she choose. Which the moderator did on other issues in other questions for both sides. *shrug*

IFILL: Now, let's talk about -- the next question is to talk about the subprime lending meltdown.

Who do you think was at fault? I start with you, Governor Palin. Was it the greedy lenders? Was it the risky home-buyers who shouldn't have been buying a home in the first place? And what should you be doing about it?

PALIN: Darn right it was the predator lenders, who tried to talk Americans into thinking that it was smart to buy a $300,000 house if we could only afford a $100,000 house. There was deception there, and there was greed and there is corruption on Wall Street. And we need to stop that.

Again, John McCain and I, that commitment that we have made, and we're going to follow through on that, getting rid of that corruption.

One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let's commit ourselves just every day American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars. We need to make sure that we demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings and we need also to not get ourselves in debt. Let's do what our parents told us before we probably even got that first credit card. Don't live outside of our means. We need to make sure that as individuals we're taking personal responsibility through all of this. It's not the American peoples fault that the economy is hurting like it is, but we have an opportunity to learn a heck of a lot of good lessons through this and say never again will we be taken advantage of.

IFILL: Senator?

BIDEN: Well Gwen, two years ago Barack Obama warned about the sub prime mortgage crisis. John McCain said shortly after that in December he was surprised there was a sub prime mortgage problem. John McCain while Barack Obama was warning about what we had to do was literally giving an interview to "The Wall Street Journal" saying that I'm always for cutting regulations. We let Wall Street run wild. John McCain and he's a good man, but John McCain thought the answer is that tried and true Republican response, deregulate, deregulate.

So what you had is you had overwhelming "deregulation." You had actually the belief that Wall Street could self-regulate itself. And while Barack Obama was talking about reinstating those regulations, John on 20 different occasions in the previous year and a half called for more deregulation. As a matter of fact, John recently wrote an article in a major magazine saying that he wants to do for the health care industry deregulate it and let the free market move like he did for the banking industry.

So deregulation was the promise. And guess what? Those people who say don't go into debt, they can barely pay to fill up their gas tank. I was recently at my local gas station and asked a guy named Joey Danco (ph). I said Joey, how much did it cost to fill your tank? You know what his answer was? He said I don't know, Joe. I never have enough money to do it. The middle class needs relief, tax relief. They need it now. They need help now. The focus will change with Barack Obama.

IFILL: Governor, please if you want to respond to what he said about Senator McCain's comments about health care?

PALIN: I would like to respond about the tax increases. We can speak in agreement here that darn right we need tax relief for Americans so that jobs can be created here. Now, Barack Obama and Senator Biden also voted for the largest tax increases in U.S. history. Barack had 94 opportunities to side on the people's side and reduce taxes and 94 times he voted to increase taxes or not support a tax reduction, 94 times.

Now, that's not what we need to create jobs and really bolster and heat up our economy. We do need the private sector to be able to keep more of what we earn and produce. Government is going to have to learn to be more efficient and live with less if that's what it takes to reign in the government growth that we've seen today. But we do need tax relief and Barack Obama even supported increasing taxes as late as last year for those families making only $42,000 a year. That's a lot of middle income average American families to increase taxes on them. I think that is the way to kill jobs and to continue to harm our economy.

sweet tea wrote: anyway, i thought that, from a strategy perspective and given the events of the past 2 weeks, biden had a lot of scare-value points when he brought up the notion of deregulation vis-a-vis health care. so no matter what the question, i'm surprised palin didn't try to neutralize that point, which is seems she could have done easily.

*shrug* OK. Yes, Biden lied, and she could have conceivably nailed him on it. Although, there are a number of lies Biden failed to nail her on as well...

whatchuwant

I'm voting for Ifill.

sweet tea

i have to go, but i do want to say that i don't think biden lied per se; i think he used a big scary word to describe a small, possibly less-scary idea. (i.e., he talked like a politician.)

now, i'm not so sure i like the mccain idea, but my point is that biden's word did its job for me -- made me gasp -- and i'm surprised palin didn't try to neutralize it.

i see that you're right that she didn't have to answer that, but i'm still surprised that she didn't say something to undercut biden's word.

i'm hopelessly partisan and therefore glad that she didn't, but i think it was a tactical error.

boygabriel

daver wrote: I suppose that becomes a question of what you measure _competence_ by for yer utmost importance. Offhand, I would question less than a single term in the US Senate being the sum totally of high level experience. FWIW.

I'm happy to debate what qualities one might want in a president. I'll argue that Obama is qualified enough to run. And that Palin's platform of "I'm a soccer Mom" is a joke.

daver wrote: Yah, soccer moms should stay in the kitchen! Barefoot!

:roll:

I don't think W got "elected" due to his fabulous fun/nice personality...

Really? 'Cause I seem to remember the country/media knocking Gore for being too wonky, and liking Bush for being 'real'.

And the pitbull with lipstick? Please. Fun/nice? I must have missed that newscast.

Look, I haven't seen Palin speak that much. But last night was no pitbull. "You Betcha!"

boygabriel

Palin's open refusal to answer some questions was callous and wildly unprofessional.

"And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also."

-Palin last night, refusing to answer one of many questions

daver

Boygabriel wrote: I'm happy to debate what qualities one might want in a president. I'll argue that Obama is qualified enough to run. And that Palin's platform of "I'm a soccer Mom" is a joke.

Her platform, such as it is...

PALIN wrote: My experience as an executive will be put to good use as a mayor and business owner and oil and gas regulator and then as governor of a huge state, a huge energy producing state that is accounting for much progress towards getting our nation energy independence and that's extremely important.

Go Alaska. But ya. She has qualifications other than "I'm a soccer Mom," which you can discount or minimize.

I don't think W got "elected" due to his fabulous fun/nice personality...

Really? 'Cause I seem to remember the country/media knocking Gore for being too wonky, and liking Bush for being 'real'.

OK, there is a difference between "fun/nice" and "man of the people," which I think would more accurately reflect what you are getting at.

Look, I haven't seen Palin speak that much. But last night was no pitbull. "You Betcha!"

Well, "Darn!"

whatchuwant

Boygabriel wrote:

I don't think W got "elected" due to his fabulous fun/nice personality...

Really? 'Cause I seem to remember the country/media knocking Gore for being too wonky, and liking Bush for being 'real'.

OK, there is a difference between "fun/nice" and "man of the people," which I think would more accurately reflect what you are getting at.

God lovin' Alcoholics all!

daver

Boygabriel wrote: Palin's open refusal to answer some questions was callous and wildly unprofessional.

"And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also."

-Palin last night, refusing to answer one of many questions

Oh come on! That was about the health deregulation thing above. Biden was lying about that anyway. And he threw it into a discussion about a totally different topic, and then tried to steer discussion towards his unrelated point. Which she refused to do, and kept on the original topic.

He banged her (lol!) on the taxes again, and _then_ threw the health dereg AGAIN. She said "I'm still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again." And _then_ the quote you posted, and then addressed the tax thing that was most of his response.

It is like me saying Boy Gabriel is a child molester. He molests children. Sometimes, four, five times a day. And he molests animals too. Sometimes he even molests inanimate objects that can't defend themselves, like trees and apple pies. He just goes to town on them. He molests everything he sees. Pokey pokey pokey. I can hardly believe all the stuff he molests. And by the way, he has outstanding tickets.

And then expecting you to NOT address the molestation thing, and only respond to the outstanding tickets. Yeah, right!

But yeah, that particular one would have been a _really_ good one for Palin to have addressed, like sweet tea said, since Biden could have been easily strung up on it. The fact that she didn't string him was a serious gift. Albeit unintentional, I would suspect.

daver

Whatchuwant wrote: [quote=daver]OK, there is a difference between "fun/nice" and "man of the people," which I think would more accurately reflect what you are getting at.

God lovin' Alcoholics all!
I heard Hillary can throw them back....


While Obama answer's with a manly beer...


Of course we all know McCain's wife's holdings...

MOD

MOD NOTE:Let's watch it with the whole molestation BG thing, that's obviously meant to start shit. Let's keep it to politics and not start personal fights with each other. This is a preemptive note.

daver

Mamacita wrote: MOD NOTE:Let's watch it with the whole molestation BG thing, that's obviously meant to start shit. Let's keep it to politics and not start personal fights with each other. This is a preemptive note.

That was TOTALLY _not_ "meant to start shit." WTF? I said he liked to pokey pokey pokey apple pies and trees. That is obvious not a serious charge. Lol.

You could just delete it like my other posts you've nailed lately...

Now _that_ was meant to start SHIT!

Yer just mad because you apparently have NO IDEA who the president of Iraq is!

MORE SHIT!!!

MOD

I said cool it. You've already had one warning.

boygabriel

daver wrote: Oh come on! That was about the health deregulation thing above. Biden was lying about that anyway. And he threw it into a discussion about a totally different topic, and then tried to steer discussion towards his unrelated point. Which she refused to do, and kept on the original topic.

you're giving her an unreasonable benefit of the doubt. it's not like she had any plans whatsoever to come back to the many questions she refused to answer.

it was clearly a filibuster tactic.

daver

Mamacita wrote: I said cool it. You've already had one warning.

Lol.

I take it back. And apologize. Boy Gabriel pokes neither apples pies, nor innocent trees.

Those ones that drop the shit on yer cars though, those aren't so innocent. I might just fuck over some of those myself.



Funny people.

daver

Boygabriel wrote: [quote=daver]Oh come on! That was about the health deregulation thing above. Biden was lying about that anyway. And he threw it into a discussion about a totally different topic, and then tried to steer discussion towards his unrelated point. Which she refused to do, and kept on the original topic.

you're giving her an unreasonable benefit of the doubt. it's not like she had any plans whatsoever to come back to the many questions she refused to answer.

it was clearly a filibuster tactic.
I really don't think that one was. I do think that she was unaware that she could nail him on the health dereg thing, true, but I also think that she was dogged single tracking on the tax thing. Probably a coached thing would be my guess. Lord knows she isn't to spry on her feet with the whole *thinking* thing.

daver

Boygabriel wrote: it's not like she had any plans whatsoever to come back to the many questions she refused to answer.

BTW, what are some of the many questions she refused to answer? I definitely saw political backspins that went _around_ questions, but those seemed to be coming from both sides.

I believe we've sufficiently covered my opinion on the health dereg, the other one sweet tea mentioned was the Achilles' heel, which I wouldn't say that she _refused_ to answer, instead she addressed what her perceived heel was, namely the lack of experience. From her answer, I would would take it that she believes the perceived Achilles' heel is the actual one. Or at least _I_ would believe that.

carnivore

Chris Mathews was rickrolled at the debate last night.

bullyboy

Bosniacs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosniaks

carnivore

bullyboy

Exactly.

daver

bullyboy wrote: Bosniacs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosniaks

Yah, when Biden said Bosniaks, he meant Bosniaks. 'Cause he is smart like that.

BIDEN wrote: Look what we did in Bosnia. We took Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks, being told by everyone, I was told by everyone that this would mean that they had been killing each other for a thousand years, it would never work.

Bosnians = all three of the groups he mentioned combined, each of which is distinct, and anyone else that is of Bosnia.

My opinion is that Biden doesn't always think before he speaks, but that it generally works out OK for him because he is pretty damn sharp guy.

scott s.

bullyboy wrote: Bosniacs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosniaks

Interesting, and more kudos to Biden. I never heard this term before.

daver

Lol, love the flow chart.

That website has a decent rant on it as well:

So, I’ve been quiet thus far, but I figure it’s about time I went moose hunting. So let me start off nice and big for ya, in case there’s any doubt as to where I stand. Sarah Palin is a stupid, self important, ignorant bitch who I wouldn’t put in charge of wiping her own ass

Amusement.
http://www.adennak.com/blog/wordpress/

daver

boygabriel

daver wrote: I really don't think that one was. I do think that she was unaware that she could nail him on the health dereg thing, true, but I also think that she was dogged single tracking on the tax thing. Probably a coached thing would be my guess. Lord knows she isn't to spry on her feet with the whole *thinking* thing.

except she never came back to answer the question, which is my point.

If I have time I'll look through the transcript, but something tells me you'll have justification for her not answering the questions.

boygabriel

alafairnadia wrote: I have to say I'm not so sure I really want either of them in the VP seat.

Really? Biden's sharp, experienced, and has vast foreign policy acumen. He's clearly a competent politician. What about him doesn't make him a good VP?

alafairnadia wrote: Biden was incapable of truly nailing her on ... anything. Totally confusing.

I disagree. I think Biden played it right. Show his strengths, and let Palin 'speak' for 'herself'. She did nothing to change some people's perception of her as inexperienced and a political gimmick, and she certainly didn't change the direction of this election (her ticket losing).

Erza Klein says it better than I do:

THE AUDACITY OF DISCIPLINE.

One more point worth making on last night's debate: Give Joe Biden props for restraint. Again and again, Palin would say something atrocious enough that the room I was in would quiet. Here it comes. "White flag of surrender." Here it comes. "She'll get her reward in heaven." Here it comes. "I respect your experience, but I think people want new energy." Here it comes. But it never came. Biden just smiled, looked down, and quietly choked a puppy or something. He'd leave the attack sitting there, twitching before the audience.

This was clearest when, in one answer, Palin accused Obama and Biden of waving the "white flag of surrender," called Biden was a McCain supporter "at least until you became the VP pick here," and said that when it comes to treating the military with honor, "Barack Obama though, another story there."

Here it comes.

But what was supposed to be Palin's crowning line -- what would have been a powerful attack for a Republican to make in 2004 -- was her lowest moment. And Biden let her keep ownership of it. He didn't fire back, or accuse McCain and Palin of being the real surrender-monkeys. He just...let it go. Let the mayor of Wasilla accuse the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of betraying his country and deserting our troops. It was a part of his performance that only came clear in the aggregate, but was probably harder to master than all the other answers and soundbites and rejoinders combined. The discipline on display -- particularly for someone with Biden's character traits and self righteous tendencies -- was really remarkable. He followed the plan rather than listening to his own instincts. In a way, last night he proved more than that he was a good choice for VP. He proved himself willing to earn the spot.


Posted by Ezra Klein on October 3, 2008 10:45 AM