Explaining the Orgins of the Problem

Here is a great, simple explanation of the financial crisis we’ve been in for some time now. Show all your friends, co-workers, family … everyone!

Financial Flimflam

Congress is ‘working to solve the financial crisis’ as I write. Why is it I fear the ‘solution’ may end up being more painful than the crisis?

Congress is the primary cause of the crisis in the first place. Their ongoing interference in the market, including regulatory hijinks and politically motivated tax policies, helped put in motion a climate that others used for their own benefit at the expense of the taxpaying citizens of this country. Some on Wall Street as well as others on Main Street saw a way to gain with little risk to themselves … or so many thought.

Is the bailout now under consideration being designed to avert further blows to our economy, or is it being crafted to reward irresponsibility? Unfortunately I suspect only time will tell.

Gotcha didn’t Get’er

Sarah Palin’s first trial by fire interview with Charlie Gibson ended with her demonstrating she is intelligent, quick, and shouldn’t fall for the ‘gotcha’ tactics the MSM is attempting to use to destroy her. Gibson fell down:

GIBSON: You said recently, in your old church, “Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.” Are we fighting a holy war?

PALIN: You know, I don’t know if that was my exact quote.

GIBSON: Exact words.

Allahpundit points out what Palin actually said was:

Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God,” she exhorted the congregants. “That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”

Bright, bright woman … and she doesn’t come across as some intelect that loves to make sure onlookers see her brilliance. She is strengthening her’s and McCain’s lead every time she takes the opposition down a peg. I love it!!!!!!

UPDATE: Peggy Noonan wrote a great peice on how Palin is impacting the race.

After the past 10 days, it is not remarkable that Mr. McCain has caught up with Mr. Obama. It is amazing that Mr. Obama is still roughly even with Mr. McCain.

There is no denying that Mr. Obama is in a bad place, that he must now be considered the underdog, that he’s wearing Loser-Glo. The slide started with the Rick Warren interviews in August, just as America was starting to pay attention. Verdict? McCain: normal. Obama: odd.

Then Mrs. Palin, and the catastrophe of the Democratic and media response to her. Books will be written about this, but because it’s so recent, and so known, we’re almost not absorbing how huge it was, and is. Here was the central liberal mistake: They used the atom bomb just a few days in. They used it so brutally, and yet so ineptly, in a way so oblivious to the true contours of the field, that the radiation blew back over their own lines. They used it without preliminary diplomatic talks, multilateral meetings or Security Council debate. They just went boom. And it boomeranged.

The atom bomb was personal and sexual perfidy, backwoods knuckle-draggin’ ma and pa saying, Tell the neighbors the baby’s ours. Then the ritual abuse of the 17-year-old girl. Then the rest of it—bad mother, religious weirdo. (On this latter it must be noted that Mrs. Palin never told a church that the Iraq war was God’s will; she asked them to pray that it was God’s will. It wasn’t the sound of Republican hubris, it was the sound of Christian humility: We can’t know the mind of God, we can only pray we are in accord with it.)

I highly recommend you read the whole peice.

Waitin’ for the ‘Gotcha’

I ran across a post by Jim Teacher this evening that provides some great advice for Sarah Palin when … not if … the drive-by media tries to trap her during an interview with a question for which she doesn’t know the answer.

… her answer to hostile interviewers who want to play Pop Quiz — which is pretty much all of them — should be along these lines: “You do realize that presidents and vice presidents have support staffs, don’t you? When a vice president needs an answer to something like that, she gets it almost before she finishes the question. I can send you a box set of The West Wing if you need a refresher. What a great show. It also portrayed the importance of speechwriters in presidential politics, which apparently our distinguished opponents thought everyone had forgotten the other night. Maybe because real-life speechwriters don’t tend to look like Rob Lowe? Or maybe only Democrats are allowed to have them.

I’ll love seeing her in action these next few weeks and months!

Are You Better off … ?

George F. Will is one of the best columnist in America today … one that I read religiously. His most recent article asks the question, ‘are you better off?’ The McCain/Palin campaign is asking this question in a new twist on a question first asked 38 years ago by Ronald Reagan during his successful campaign against Jimmy Carter. While it’s interesting that McCain is asking the questing following 7+ years of a Republican administration (I suppose to politically separate himself from the Bush administration), Will comes to the question from a completely different perspective.

Will writes:

The nation considered the answer obvious. Reeling from oil shocks worse than today’s, with 52 U.S. hostages in Tehran and with the Soviet Union rampant in Afghanistan, voters resoundingly said no.

But he then he proposes that because the Soviets’ incursion into Afghanistan contributed the the ultimate downfall of the ‘evil empire,’ was it in fact a bad thing?

Today we know that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan hastened the collapse of the Evil Empire, so some things that seem to make us worse off are not unmixed curses.

In his usual, thoughful wisdom, Will draws some interesting parallels and conclusions. Be sure and read the whole thing.

Republicans got bounce

I wrote here (wrongly) about the lack of bounce for Obama following the DNC’s convention in Denver last month. I spoke too soon!

Today, the Gallup Poll came our following the RNC’s convention in St. Paul, MI last week. It shows that McCain’s polling numbers increased about the same as Obama’s did last weekend. By getting involved in this tit-for-tat game I’ve violated one of my personal rules; THE ONLY PUBLIC POLE THAT COUNTS IS THE ONE THAT WILL COME OUT ON NOVEMBER 5th!

My opinion is that public political polling is is used for one of two reasons; either to create a news story or sway public opinion. Most public polls today are done at the behest of a “news” organization.

CNN, NBC, and Fox News, and others conduct their own polls or contract with a professional polling organization. I’m sure these “news” organizations see these polls as a public service, but more useful as a way in which to generate “news.” From this perspective, the polls are worthless. What difference does it make if McCain is ahead this week and Obama moves ahead next week? The only time it matters who’s in the lead is the day after election day.

Sure … intellectually, polls are interesting. I would liken them to watching a horse race and listening to the announcer describe the events as horses change position during the course of the race. But it doesn’t matter how many furlongs a particular horse remains ahead of the other horses in the race; it only matters where that horse is when the first horse reaches the finish line.

The other public polls are done in order to sway public opinion towards one candidate or against another. These are the polls to trust the least. However, it is difficult in some cases to ascertain if a given poll falls within this variety. Some are conducted as “news” and others are done by “non-patrician organizations,” making it difficult to determine how trustworthy a given poll is without digging into each poll and read the questions the poll takers used to obtain their results. First, who has the time to devote to that much research? Second, polling questions can be crafted so as to appear ‘fair’ on a casual reading, yet actually be very leading. Polling organizations don’t retain psychologists on their staff for the mental health of their employees.

The one legitimate purpose for polling is for a candidate to determine where they are relative to their opposition. Unlike the horse race, a candidate can’t ‘see’ where they are physically running in their race, so they hire a pollster to provide them that picture. These are probably the most accurate of all polls and seldom seen by the public. A candidate doesn’t want the public to know that they are running 20% behind their rival with two months remaining in the race, nor on the other hand do they want their rival to know they are in the lead by 12%.

I promise, on my honor, hereto forth, to not report on the results of public polls! (I do reserve to right to report on bogus polls, however!!!!)

Overcoming the “Inevitable?”

Inevitable outcomes have a habit of not being inevitable. When 2007 opened, Hillary Clinton was inevitably the Democratic party’s candidate for President in 2008.

The main stream media (MSM) has been declaring for the past few months (even before Mrs. Clinton was ‘defeated’ by her rival) that Barak Obama was slated to be our next President … the Republican’s candidate, John McCain, couldn’t win as he was just an extension of Bush’s term … McCain was an old white man and the public wanted young, new, fresh … the American public was becoming more Democrat, moving away from the old, backwards Republicans … and other changes declared inevitable by the elite political class.

What a difference a week makes!

McCain’s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate began changing the inevitable a week ago,  and has exploded following her speech on Wednesday evening at the RNC convention in St. Paul, MI. The conservative Republican base has seen in Palin their new torch bearer; someone who is from them, like them, of them.

I’ve been a proponent of Palin as McCain’s running mate for a while, though I didn’t hold out much hope for it coming to fruition. I have looked at McCain as someone who was more interested in what the power brokers said of him than in how he was serving his Arizona constituents and the people of the United States. I expected him to choose a more traditional running mate, such as Gov. Pawlenty of Minnesota or former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (I didn’t figure Mitt Rommney would be selected because of the amenity between the two during the primaries).

While his speech on Thursday night was not of the caliber of Palin’s the night before, it was much more introspective and reveled to me at least,  more of John McCain than I had ever known before. His character is what drives him, not any external desire for approval or

In his closing remark Thursday evening, he said (emphasis mine);

I was in solitary confinement when my captors offered to release me. I knew why. If I went home, they would use it as propaganda to demoralize my fellow prisoners.

Our code said we could only go home in the order of our capture, and there were men who had been shot down long before me. I thought about it, though. I wasn’t in great shape, and I missed everything about America, but I turned it down.

A lot of prisoners had it much worse…

(APPLAUSE)

A lot of — a lot of prisoners had it a lot worse than I did. I’d been mistreated before, but not as badly as many others. I always liked to strut a little after I’d been roughed up to show the other guys I was tough enough to take it. But after I turned down their offer, they worked me over harder than they ever had before, for a long time, and they broke me.

When they brought me back to my cell, I was hurt and ashamed, and I didn’t know how I could face my fellow prisoners. The good man in the cell next door to me, my friend, Bob Craner, saved me.

Through taps on a wall, he told me I had fought as hard as I could. No man can always stand alone. And then he told me to get back up and fight again for my country and for the men I had the honor to serve
with, because every day they fought for me.

(APPLAUSE)

I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else’s. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency, for its faith in the wisdom, justice, and  goodness of its people.

I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again; I wasn’t my own man anymore; I was my country’s.

(APPLAUSE)

I’m not running for president because I think I’m blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need.

(APPLAUSE)

My country saved me. My country saved me, and I cannot forget it. And I will fight for her for as long as I draw breath, so help me God.

Like Muhammad Ali and his infamous pre-match chest-thumping, John McCain wasn’t talking to his audience … he was talking to his own mind. McCain’s sense of honor is such a strong component of his character that he hadn’t (hasn’t?) yet forgiven himself for allowing himself to be ‘broken.’ I’ve heard the story of his imprisonment in Hanoi before, but I’ve never heard him or anyone else mention his being broken. I can’t imagine having to carry such a burden around for 30 years!

My admiration for John McCain shot off the chart after that remark. I think I now understand what drives him. While I recognize that he will still enact policies that I will profondly disagree with (such as McCain-Feingold and Comprehensive Immigration Reform), I can now walk into the voting booth on November 4th and proudly pull the lever for him.

McCain’s Acceptance Speech

John McCain’s acceptance speech tonight was moving on some points, rousing on other points, but I think he missed by not dealing more specifically with national security and foreign affairs.He also needs to get more specific on how he intends on carrying out some of the changes he’s been talking about before the opposition starts calling him on his lack of specificity, i.e. Obama.

His speach was relatively concilitory, talking about bring Democrats and “others” into his administration. No red meat as ther was last night.

I’ll post more of my thoughts on this tomorrow.

Sarah Palin …

Just finished listening to Sarah Palin’s speech to the RNC Convention …

“Some politicians use change to promote their careers. Then there is John McCain, who uses his career to promote change.”

“Harry Reid said of John McCain, “I can’t stand the man” … I can’t think of a better reason to vote for John McCain than that endorsement.”

Update 9/4 – Seems I got the quote a bit wrong. It was actually:

A leader who’s not looking for a fight, but is not afraid of one either. Harry Reid, the majority leader of the current do-nothing Senate, not long ago summed up his feelings about our nominee.

He said, quote, “I can’t stand John McCain.” Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps no accolade we hear this week is better proof that we’ve chosen the right man. Clearly what the majority leader was driving at is that he can’t stand up to John McCain.

She was brilliant, funny, knowledgeable, down-home … her jabs at Obama and Biden were witty, sometimes deep and always on point … what else can be said?

As I said a few days ago, John McCain was brilliant selecting Sarah as his running mate!!!

Go Fred!!!!

Fred is speaking at the RNC Convention right now. I sure wish he would have put forth a preformance like this during the primaries. But he didn’t, so we have John McCain and now his running mate Sarah Palin.

Fred has done an outstanding job of presenting John McCain, going over John’s history and really focusing on John’s character and courage. We really need such character and courage in our next leader, and we certainly won’t find it in Obama and Biden. McCain is the candidate of hope and change, whereas Obama is the candidate of machine politics, higher taxes and creating a liberal court for the next generation.

I know it is said every four years … but this IS the most important election for many reasons. The only good that could come from an Obama victory is to demonstrate to the so-called “moderates” a really disastrous presidency. I liver through Carter … believe me … we don’t want to go there again!!!!!

Did he get bounce?

Seems that the DNC Convention didn’t do much for Obama in terms of increasing his lead over McCain in the polls. Kerry didn’t get much of a bonce after the ’04 convention. Many speculated as to why no bounce then, similar to what is going on now whit about as many conclusions.

This year, was it because of McCain’s anouancement of the selection of Palin the day after Obama’s speech, which I talked about here, or was it because the candidates have been campaigning for so many months most who intend on voting have already made up their minds? Or …. ?

I suspect it is a bit of both reasons … but I personnally like the Palin reason better!