The Final McCain-Obama Debate: Small-Idea Republicans, Narrow Minds, and Big GOP Government for the Wealthy Come Out the Loser
I intentionally watched this debate without taking any notes, and with a female friend who, although she supports Obama, has a small business that serves mostly white, middle-class clients, only one of whom actively supports McCain. I wanted her small-business-owner perspective, as well as how she thought her clients would react to McCain and Obama’s final go-round before the election.
What follows, then, is an ‘emotional’ reaction to the debate and, keep in mind, all quotes are paraphrased from memory, so they may not be verbatim:
Right out of the box, McCain didn’t do well, looking somewhat confused as he repeated some form of the word ‘anger’ about eight times – was he describing the electorate or himself?
McCain’s only good line of the night — the thing about “I’m not George W. Bush – if you wanted to run against him you should have run four years ago” – will be replayed endlessly by the Punditocracy but, overall, had little impact. Far more important were the typical ‘Republican honcho’ attitudes he displayed about women’s health care and jobs. (More about that later.)
Will McCain finally put the Ayers nonsense to rest? He seemed to be saying he didn’t care about ‘washed-up ’60s radical’ Ayers, but will he tell Sarah Barracuda to stop inflaming crowds with Obama’s tenuous connection to the man? At this point, if he continues to use Ayers to bash Obama, he’s going to look like the biggest jerk in the country, but that doesn’t seem to faze him anymore, so perhaps he will. Throughout the debate, McCain just couldn’t keep McNasty from emerging from the depths of his psyche, which is going to cost him this election.
McCain also veered into Captain Queeg territory several times, and we were waiting for him to produce metal ball bearings from his pocket. As well as repeating ‘anger’ robotically, later he also puzzlingly started trashing Obama for something having to do with vets and their families at his rallies – neither Obama nor his campaign ever said a word about vets or their families at McCain events, so what was he babbling about? Then there was his attempted slam of Obama over Supreme Court nominees wherein he seemed to say that Obama voted against Justice Stephen Breyer, although Obama wasn’t in the US Senate when Breyer was up for the Court. In these lapses McCain just appeared to be a confused old crank, if not actually senile.
The Tattlesnake – Odds and Ends from the Week’s News Edition
…With No Particular Place to Go But Here
If This Were in a Book, You Wouldn’t Believe It: It’s been hilarious watching various members of the GOP hierarchy criticizing the Rush monster, and then scurrying hat in hand to apologize or ‘clarify’ their comments, the new Republican euphemism for kneeling at the ‘flabulous’ bloviator’s altar and seeking forgiveness. (Michael Steele’s ‘clarification’ – “Really, I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about!” – was worthy of a Monty Python skit.) Doubling the fun is watching some of the same humbugs deny the bleeding obvious — Limbaugh is the 500-pound elephant in the middle of the Republican Party’s leaky punchbowl and he’s calling the shots now. This is killing the GOP and there’s nothing they can do about it – welcome to your self-made hell, neocons.
Speaking of the Mouth of the Wingnut South, Limbaugh recently challenged Obama to debate him on his show, knowing full well, naturally, that the president has much more important things to do than goose Lard Lad’s ratings. If Rush really wants to debate Obama, here’s something he could do, if he has the guts: Run for president in 2012 and, if he’s the Republican nominee, he’ll get his debate with Obama, probably even two or three. Don’t bet on that happening, though – Limbaugh would never face the people that way – he only talks to Dittoheads and other psychotics. (Incidentally, the Radio-Dazed Monarch’s assurances of 20 million weekly listeners may be as exaggerated as his bulbous torso – it also doesn’t confirm how many are tuning in to laugh with him and how many to laugh at him.)
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