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October 13, 2008
To tell you the truth, after listening to this, I don’t know where he stands on Net neutrality. He does say he supports it, but I don’t get a warm feeling that he understands what he means.
For purposes of comparison:
I don’t know when either of these snippets were recorded.
October 12, 2008
Alec MacGillis at the Washington Post has a terrific, detailed look at Obama’s huge and innovative ground organization. It’s a fascinating mix of decentralization and centralized message control, and of face-to-face and Net-mediated communication.
October 11, 2008
Yeah, it’s just great that McCain yesterday tried to tamp the fire of fear and hatred he’s still stoking:
When a woman referred to Obama yesterday as “an Arab,” McCain cut her off and seized the microphone from her hands. “No, ma’am,” he interjected. “He is a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements.”
If the problem with that response isn’t clear, try replacing “Arab” with “Jew” or “Catholic.” “He’s not a Catholic. He’s decent!” Why hasn’t there been any notice of this, as far as I can tell?
October 10, 2008
Behind the scenes with the Obamas:
Here’s Obama’s response to McCain’s mortgage buy-back proposal:
Senator McCain and I had a chance to talk about this the other night in Nashville. Some of you may have seen it. In that debate, he offered what he said was a new idea to help deal with the financial crisis, and that was to have the government – meaning taxpayers – buy up bad mortgages in America.
Well, the idea wasn’t particularly new. The authority for the Secretary of Treasury to buy and renegotiate bad mortgages is part of the financial rescue plan we just passed. In fact, I proposed it myself because, if it’s properly done and limited in scope, such buybacks can be one tool to help innocent homeowners stay in their homes on terms they can afford.
But I also said at the time that this should not be a vehicle to reward banks and lending institutions that recklessly wrote bad loans. It should not be a bailout for the high-rolling real estate speculators who took those loans to make a quick buck.
We have to act to fix our broken economy and restore the credit markets. But taxpayers shouldn’t be asked to pick up the tab for the very folks who helped create this crisis.
And that’s the problem with Senator McCain’s risky idea. On Tuesday night, his campaign said that he would ask the banks to absorb some of the cost by selling the bad mortgages to the government at a discount. Then, by Wednesday morning, he’d changed his mind and was proposing to bail out banks and lenders with taxpayer money.
Senator McCain actually wants the government to pay the full face value of mortgages on the books, even though they’re not worth that much anymore. It’s a plan that would guarantee that American taxpayers lose by handing over $300 billion to underwrite the kind of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street that got us into this mess.
But it’s not just that the McCain bailout rewards irresponsible lenders, it’s that his bailout would make it more likely that those lenders keep up their bad behavior. Just yesterday, Countrywide, one of the nation’s largest lenders, reached an agreement to help homeowners refinance their mortgages. Under Senator McCain’s plan, lenders like Countrywide wouldn’t have any incentive to come forward and help homeowners – because they could just wait for the government to bail them out.
Now, this is just the latest in a series of shifting positions that Senator McCain has taken on this issue. His first response to this crisis in March was that homeowners shouldn’t get any help at all. Then, a few weeks ago, he put out a plan that basically ignored homeowners. And now, in the course of 12 hours, he’s ended up with a plan that punishes taxpayers, rewards banks, and won’t solve our housing crisis.
Well, I don’t think we can afford that kind of erratic and uncertain leadership in these uncertain times.
The whole thing will be up here in a few days, I assume.
October 9, 2008
If you love the Internet, you ought to vote for Obama.
Yes, I know I’ve shocked you with that opinion. You can find more shocks of this sort at Tech for Obama.
It’s only going to continue to go downhill. McCain’s going to get more distracted and muddled. Palin‘s just going to get nastier and nastier.
From here to November, the McCain campaign’s got nothing left except personal attacks. It’s bad for our democracy. We know everything we need to know to make up our minds. Let’s just vote now.
September 30, 2008
September 27, 2008
I hope every independent voter watches the ad the McCain campaign released even before the last radio waves of the debate escaped earth orbit:
So, McCain believes in crossing partisan lines, but when his opponent agrees with him, he takes it as a sign of weakness. Wow.
Obama could not be more clear or explicit about what he thinks leadership is and the way forward for this country: Find common ground, discuss the differences.
McCain couldn’t even look at Obama, much less acknowledge the values they share as Americans.
My hat is off to Jim Lehrer. Well done!
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