There's much speculation that tonight's debate will be a slug-fest with John McCain doing his best to distract the American public from economic issues by dwelling, as his campaign has done the past few days, on Barack Obama's associations with Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers. 

The question, for me, is what should Obama do with that type of frontal assault?  There are those who were irritated with John Kerry for not responding aggressively enough to similar (swift-boat) tactics.

But what my heart is really longing for is a different tactic.  Instead of responding in kind, wouldn't it be wonderful if instead Obama kept on topic, rebuffing attacks by focusing on the economy.  Wouldn't it be great if he were to say, "It seems like John's changing the subject again.  I've explained my positions on my association with these men.  I'm not going to let his campaign's focus pull my eye off the ball.  I am here to talk about the economy.  Here are four things we need to do and do now."

And then go on to enumerate them.  (Hey, if I could enumerate them off the top of my head, you'd all be voting for me.)

In this instance, agree with Peggy Noonan.  The general election campaign has turned into something very small bore.  We need serious people to solve serious issues.  I'm hoping Obama's not listening to his handlers if they're telling him to match blow for blow.

Who was it that said "an eye for an eye and the whole world's blind?"

What is a candidate to do when his poll numbers are rapidly declining, when red states are shifting to blue, when the economy--his Achilles heel--continues to tank?

Why change the subject, of course.  It's called slight-of-hand.  Where the eye is misdirected away from the real action to the fake.

Thus, Sarah Palin this weekend "took off the gloves" by making overblown claims aimed at swift-boating Obama's momentum.  Citing a New York Times article, she said, "Our opponent though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

Trouble is, the article she cited found only the thinnest of connections between former Weather Underground radical William Ayers and Barack Obama.  They sat on a few boards together having to do with education--Ayers's area of expertise as a professor of education at the University of Illinios.  Ayers also hosted one of several coffees in support of Obama's early political career.  Doesn't sound like palling around to me.

What does sound like palling around is going to the Bahamas on someone else's dime, sharing birthday parties and accepting over $100,000 in personal and business campaign contributions.  Something Palin's running mate, McCain, did with Charles Keating. 

After rebutting the claim, Obama's campaign went through the door opened by McCain's attack and released a counter-punch video reminding voters of McCain's very close association Charles Keating.  Keating, you may recall, was convicted of fraud, racketeering and conspiracy in the Lincoln Savings and Loan failure that touched of a series of S&L failures in the 80's.

There are three problems with this attack strategy for McCain:

1.  He opened the door to character attacks...and he's much more vulnerable on this front than Obama is.  Most thinking voters will draw a distinction between McCain's intimate association with a man convicted of corporate corruption and Obama's tangential association with a man who committed illegal acts when Obama was eight years old.

2.  The S&L meltdown of the 80's resulted from corporate greed and government deregulation.  Sound familiar?  So while Obama supporters can cry fowl over trumped up connections between he and Ayers, McCain will have a harder time saying that his connection to Charles Keating is irrelevant in today's economic environment.  By trying to change the topic, they just gave Obama more to talk about on topic.

3.  Palin's terrorist comment is a transparent attempt to draw on the early fears that Rush Limbaugh and Republican pundits spread by referring to Obama using his middle name, Hussein.  Any time the Republicans can say Obama and terrorist in the same sentence, they see it as a win.

Why?  Because they don't believe the American electorate is smart enough to see beyond the smears to the real issues.  I think in this political environment, they're wrong.

And, in an odd way, today's further bloodletting on Wall Street helps Obama.  Nothing will make McCain/Palin seem more out of touch than blathering on about a 60's radical while America's financial markets tank.

I haven't read the blogs or the articles about the Vice Presidential Debate last night, moderated by PBS's Gwen Iffil.  As with the Presidential Debate, I wanted to mull over my own reaction prior to reading all the spin and hype.

I suspect that many people will say that Sarah Palin did "well enough."  My question, I suppose, is well enough for what?  True, Palin didn't have any major gaffes.  And some folks might like the way she drops her "g's" on words endin' in ing...or the way she winks when she thinks she's made a connection with "regular folks."  Or even the way she says "nucular" instead of nuclear (shades of Dubya during the debates with Gore and Kerry). 

But I am not among those who find such things folksy or charming.  Call it a personal quirk, but I like the bar set relatively high for the person who may be called upon to lead our country if something should befall the president.  I'd like for that individual to demonstrate a clear understanding of the issues facing our nation's economy, the issues facing us as a nation in a rapidly shifting and dangerous world, and the longer term issue of climate change.  In each of these areas, Governor Palin showed herself to be woefully unqualified.

Starting with the economy, Palin showed absolutely no understanding of the circumstances that led to our current economic crisis.  It would be one thing if she disagreed with O'Biden (as she called him once) and Obama on the causes of the current meltdown (like Jeffrey Miron in the article I blogged about a few days back).

But no, according to Palin, those responsible are the "predator lenders."  (She couldn't even get predatory right as the modifier for lenders.)  She returned again and again to the (empty) promise that she and "John" would get government back on the side of the people and that they would "stop the greed and corruption on Wall Street."  (How does one stop greed?)  Palin seemed completely unaware that a good portion of "that Wall Street greed" ran rampant because her guy (and others like him) pushed for deregulation with a sort of blind faith in the ability of markets to regulate themselves.  Part of Palin's solution?  Strict oversight.  Oh, the irony!

In a similar way, Palin was adrift when talking about the causes of global warming.  Her first assertion was that "As the nation's only arctic state and being governor of that state, Alaska feels and sees impacts of climate change more so than any other state."

I think the folks who took the brunt of Katrina and Ike may beg to differ with her.

She then went into an almost unintelligible speech.  "I'm not one to attribute every man...activity of man to the changes in the climate."  Perhaps she meant she didn't attribute the changes in the climate to every activity of man?  She rambled a bit about cyclical changes in climate and then asserted that she really didn't want to argue about the causes, she wanted to argue about "How are we gonna get there to positively affect the impacts."  Huh?

Parsing out that she meant how are we going to deal with global climate change, I was stunned to hear her say that we, the nation who bailed on Kyoto, have to encourage other nations to come along with us.  Does she not realize that it's the other way around? 

Then she went into a positively ridiculous argument about how energy independence is critically tied to managing climate change.  Apparently, by drilling for more oil, we can help "affect the impacts" since as polluters we're less bad than the nations from which we buy oil.  She ended up by saying that she and McCain have "an all of the above approach, tapping into alternative sources of energy, and conserving fuel, conserving our petroleum products and our hydrocarbons."  Again, I'm not sure how tapping our oil reserves translates into conserving our "hydrocarbons." 

I'm belaboring the point a bit, I realize.  But there's a reason.  As she was spouting all of this gobbledy-gook, I flashed on Sarah Palin as Vice President.  Negotiating in her "area of expertise" with leaders from other nations.  And I cringed.

Her performance was not much better when it got to foreign policy.  She echoed McCain's line that we have to "win in Iraq" without delineating why a withdrawal with a timeline is "a white flag of surrender."  She gushed about how much she "loves" Israel while clearly not grasping the Bush administration's blunders in the area.  And she fumbled through a discussion of nuclear weapons policy.

Then she had the temerity to school marm Joe Biden by saying, "Diplomacy is hard work by serious people."

Indeed.

But perhaps the scariest moment of the evening came when Palin asserted that she, like Dick Cheney, believes that there's "flexibility" in the Vice President's role in the Senate and that she would be exploring that flexibility as Vice President.  Another area where we do NOT need more of the same as Bush/Cheney, consolidating or outright highjacking of legislative powers by the executive branch.

Palin lost the debate last night and lost big.  No matter what the pundits say or how loudly John McCain howls his approval, she lost.

The only good news (besides Biden restraining himself admirably and coming across as well-prepared to be second in command) came from my bingo card.  I won with a diagonal list of Palinisms: Alaska, Special Needs, Air Space (which was the free space), Hockey Mom and Terrorists.

Let's hope that's the only time I get to play.

Last night, while many of you were watching the first of three Presidential debates, Dotty, Dick, Dan and I went to the Film Noir series at the North Carolina Museum of Art. 

The film, Nightmare Alley, starred Tyrone Power and a trio of women he used (and who used him) over a seedy lifetime of manipulating gullible people with carnival tricks.  It was quite fun and quite predictable, as old film noir often are.

This morning, I sat before the television with coffee in hand and watched a DVR of the Presidential Debate.  I hadn't made the connection until I started blogging...but there, too, I witnessed the attempted manipulation of gullible folks with a collection of carnival tricks.  And a candidate perfectly willing to use a woman (in this case Sarah Palin) for his own gain.

I'm referring to John McCain, who resorted to his stump speech and "fact based" sleight of hand to accuse Barack Obama of everything from inexperience to naivet'e to being for losing the war in Iraq.

McCain made allusions to his own p.o.w. history at least three times, wrapped himself in the WWII flag on two occasions and brought out his show n' tell bracelet worn in honor of a dead soldier.  That played well to his Republican crowd but didn't do much to sway anyone else.  And I thought McCain made a huge verbal misstep when he said that the lesson of Iraq is that "You cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict."  Huh?

This is the guy who is supposed to be the experienced military leader?  For him to have a deer in the headlights response to that question in a foreign policy debate is downright incredible.

Obama, by contrast, made his only misstep of the night when he said, "I have a bracelet, too."  It played well with Democrats, but missed with everyone else.

Still, I personally score the debate as a tie.  Primarily because Obama missed a couple of opportunities.  When McCain said Obama had put in $932 million in earmark requests for Illinois, Obama should have shot back that McCain's own running mate had requested far more on a per capita basis than Obama ever did. 

He should have had one or two examples of the requests and why they were needed.  And then he should have done what he did, which is point out that earmarks account for a relatively minor component of government spending.

The other opportunity Obama missed was when McCain came up with his off the cuff idea of a "spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs."  Obama scored points with some by pointing out that a spending freeze is a hatchet when we need a scalpel, and by having examples at the ready.  But he would have scored even bigger if he'd said something along the lines of, "This type of sound-bite, reactionary thinking is exactly the type of leadership we don't need in the 21st Century.  It sounds good on first hearing, but it's completely ineffective in the long term."

Obama did extremely well in arguing foreign policy, showing his leadership ability by broadening the discussion of current economic and world situations beyond the band-aid approaches advocated by McCain.  And I believe that he came off as calmer, better informed and more of a forward thinker than McCain.

Where McCain seemed to do best was attack and belittle Barack Obama. His constant refrain was that "Senator Obama just doesn't understand."  Unfortunately, much of what he said just isn't true and the format allowed him to get away with it.  Obama batted back some of the salvos but would have looked petulant if he'd argued every misstatement and "fact based" inaccuracy.  

Today's polls show that some folks disagree with me, giving the win to Obama.  That makes me happy but doesn't sway my opinion.  The proof will be in the polling numbers next week.  If Obama gains points, he won.  If things stay tight, it was a tie.

In any case, McCain did not win (except among those already voting for him).  The next debate, Obama simply needs to be as prepared and calm as he was today.  Unless McCain's handlers are able to change an old dog in quick fashion, he will continue to come across as condescending, backward looking and peevish.

Which reminds me...some have said that McCain muttered "horseshit" under his breath during part of Obama's comments.  Here's the link.  You decide.

I traveled to Fuquay-Varina this morning for coffee with my sister-in-law, Cindy.  (Well, only in a "fact-based" way is she my sister-in-law.  In a technically true way, she is Dan's sister-in-law, married to Dan's brother, Ken.)  I had a couple of nice surprises upon arrival.  First, Ken was home so I got in a quick visit with him as well.

Second, Ken had thoughtfully "purchased" for me (as part of his health care rewards program) a self-stirring coffee mug.  This because I blogged some time back about the questionable "green-ness" of using throw away stir sticks at coffee establisments.

After coffee and a visit to the local art store, I headed home to join Dick, Dotty and Dan for an empanada lunch.  Yum!

Since then, I've been doing a bit of political research.  There was the Couric-Palin interview.  A good op-ed piece offering an opposing view on the bailout.  But nothing I really felt like writing about more than McCain's 60 Minutes interview segment talking about his ads.

I blogged about these ads a week or more ago, and how fact-checking organizations had labelled them as "misleading" or "pants-on-fire" (as in Liar, Liar). 

When interviewed by Scott Pelley about these ads, particularly the ones that say Obama will raise taxes on the middle class (the opposite of what the Democratic nominee has expressly pledged), McCain hid behind a new euphemism--"fact based."

McCain:  "I dispute that any of the spots we have run are not fact based."  Huh?  What happened to the captain of the Straight Talk Express?  Wouldn't it just be easier, if the ads were true, to say, "All of the ads we've run are true"? 

Problem is, of course, they're not.

So here's what McCain meant by fact based.  While Obama has said he won't increase taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year, he has in the past voted to raise various taxes.  Therefore, Obama is a tax raiser.  And therefore, we can say, in a "fact based" way, that he wants to raise your taxes.

So, in a "fact based" way, I could also say that McCain wants to raise your taxes.  After all, he was originally against the Bush tax cuts.  Or I could say that McCain is a flip-flopper since he's going to debate Obama tonight when he pledged not to do so unless there was a resolution to our financial crisis.

I guess the fifth commandment under McCain will read, "Thou shalt dispute that any of your assertions are not fact based."

Sheesh.  I hope this is the guy that gets exposed at the debates tonight.

Because it's getting awfully deep in the spin zone also known as the Presidential campaign.  Check out the article in the LA Times today about two non-partisan fact-checking organizations calling McCain's campaign on their recent, misleading advertisements. 

Since I've been in the Hawaiian hinterlands (and having much technical difficulty), I've missed most of the brouhaha surrounding Obama's "lipstick on a pig" comment.  I don't have audio on my pc (another technical glitch), so I haven't checked out the McCain web-ad that takes the comment out of context and, according to accounts, accuses Obama of calling Palin a pig.  It sounds like I'm not missing much.

I am surprised that McCain would allow members of his campaign to go to these lengths to smear Obama, given what he endured at the Bush/Rove campaign's hands in 2000.  McCain's reputation as a straight shooter and an "above politics as usual" maverick would seem to be at risk if he continues on this path.

The party faithful won't back away from him (or, it seems, from Palin) for lies, distortion and spin.  But it just may be that independent voters will be turned off.

Which is why it's important for Obama to avoid a tit-for-tat retaliation of spin.  He's already skated dangerously close to fabrications of his own (as noted in the LA Times article). 

There are ways to use your opponents verbal missteps to highlight their weaknesses without twisting their words.  For example, McCain's tongue in cheek statement that if you make over $5 million, you're rich. 

Instead of saying McCain literally thinks $5 million is the demarkation between rich and middle-class, Obama could say, "I know my opponent was making a joke when he said $5 million dollars in income is the definition of rich.  But what does McCain's bad joke tell us about his mindset?  We're in an economy where average Americans are struggling with high gas prices, dwindling job security and a mortgage mess of enormous proportions.  And John McCain would rather joke about what makes someone wealthy than come to the table with real tax relief for average folks.

This is a man who had to check on the number of houses he owned..."

That's the type of argument that carries weight...that convinces people rather than just being sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

Some days I wish there really was a spin-free zone.

I was thinking, once again, about Sarah Palin this morning.  As, it seems, is most of the nation.  And a lightbulb virtually went off in my head.  Intentional or not, it seems the Republicans have achieved an important goal in nominating this good ol' gal for Vice President.

What have they accomplished, you ask?

They've changed the conversation.  It's the classic tactic of misdirection.

We're not talking right now about how John McCain is Dubya Redux.  How his policy proposals are nearly word for word what Bush proposed when he was running in 2000.  Tax cuts.  Drilling for oil.  A token nod here and there to alternative energy.  Cutting spending (something Bush promised but instead delivered the exact opposite).  An "aw-shucks, I'm just one of ya'll" attitude.  We're not focused on issues.

Instead, we're talking about Sarah Palin.  Her hair.  Her pregnant daughter.  Her appeal to the right wing (read religious right) base as an ultra-conservative.  We're debating whether or not she (the VP nominee) is more or less qualified than Obama (the Democrat's Presidential nominee).

This is just nuts!

And as long as we're talking about nonsense like that, as long as we allow Republicans to usurb Obama's message of change, to claim that his (very detailed) proposals lack substance, as long as we let them control the conversation and don't call them on their hypocrisy--well, we won't be talking about what needs to be done to fix our economy, to reduce and eventually eliminate our addiction to foreign oil, to return our country to its status as leader of the world rather than pariah.

In that spirit, I will make this the last of my Palin entries.  As far as I'm concerned, the race is between Obama and McCain.

However, I'm not so high-minded that I'm above including the clip below from the Daily Show.  It may be "fake news"...but it makes a real point about how the Republicans do like their spin.

Two more items of note on Sarah Palin today.  The first has to do with her aggressive pursuit of earmarked funds as Mayor of Wasillah, Alaska and as Governor of Alaska.  It seems that when John McCain was introducing her as a fellow devotee of eliminating earmarks, he hadn't done his homework.

The LA Times reports that Palin even defended earmarking in an opinion column.  When did she write that article?  This year.  I'm all for candidates who change their minds given a good reason.  I just like for them to acknowledge the about face and give a logical argument for that change.

Instead, Palin's pretending to be a reformer.  Or, worse, she really believes that dismissing people summarily and for political (or even personal reasons) qualifies as "reform."

The second issue on Palin is the disconnect between her political views on "abstinence only" education and her daughter's pregnancy.  I am not the only one scratching my head over that.  Tim Rutten penned an astute examination of the issue in his column.  Read it.  It's worth your while.

Another thing worth your while, and to get off the topic of Sarah Palin, is a new movied called, Traitor.  Don Cheadle heads a talented cast including Guy Pierce and Said Taghmaoui.  The film is a nuanced exploration of what it means to be loyal to one's beliefs and what it means to betray those beliefs.

Not only is the film intelligent, it's also pretty gripping--full of action, mind games and suspense.  I think it's the best film I've seen in a very long time.  Go see it!

I spent entirely too much time on YouTube and comment sections of the LA Times today.  The level of discourse was beginning to convince me that the Great Experiment that is America is doomed by "them" and "us" divisions.

And then I remembered the interviews this past weekend of two men, John McCain and Barack Obama, whom I believe to be sincere in their desire to lead America to a better future. 

I was also heartened by Pastor Rick Warren, currently being vilified by all sorts of frings folks right and left, and his encouragement to those of us in the middle--to listen, to agree, to disagree--with respect.  Without name calling.  With a common love for this country and hope for its future.

In that spirit, I offer my analysis of the forum and the differences between John McCain and Barack Obama as illustrated by their responses to similar (but very different) questions.  (Rick did his best, but he did not offer identical questions.)

Due to the format, to the questions Warren asked, this analysis is more about each man's approach to the presidency than it is about policy.  (Again, if you haven't seen the program, it's a worthy investment of time given all the challenges currently facing the U.S.)

First off, I believe both men came across (and indeed are) sincere.  Let's throw out the nonsense about the cone of silence, the latter day prattle about various moral failings.  Both men admitted they were human.  Both appear by the record to have personal integrity.  Each believes he and his party have the better approach to solving our problems.

Given that both Obama and McCain seem to me to be sincere, I did note the following differences in these candidates based on their answers to Warren's questions.

Obama is thoughtful, analytical and comes at problems from a broad (occasionally global) perspective.

McCain is personable, convinced and comes at issues from a narrow (often anecdotal) perspective.

I could quote at great length here, but I think I'll spare you.  Even those who are intent on trashing Obama say that he came off as "intellectual".  And those who view McCain as the antichrist say he was "folksy."

Instead, I offer this.  Underpinning the policies each of these men propose, there is a person who will be making critical decisions in a time where the following issues loom large:

--Shifting the engines of our energy requirements

--Redeeming the barely quantifiable hole we've dug for ourselves

--Challenging the intellect and spirit of the next generation (and this one) to a spirit of sacrifice, long-term good, and increasing globalization

Given the qualities each man brings to the table and the problems at hand--I prefer a high-level thinker with analytical skills to the (to some) more personable man who is rooted in his own past, in the narrowest definitions of what's "good" for our nation, and who does it all with a twinkle and a glib response.

I will have more to say, likely tomorrow, on the contrast between the candidates as illustrated during MSNBC's Special: "McCain and Obama--Forum on the American Presidency" hosted by Rick Warren at Saddleback Church.  If you have two hours to spare and have not seen the special, click the link above because the interview-style "debate" gives a good sense of the candidates' positions and abilities.

What I want to focus on in today's blog, however, is the inexcusable bias presented during the five-minute, post-debate wrap up by MSNBC correspondent David Shuster and his two conservative commentators, Pat Buchanan and Michelle Bernard.

By way of background, David Shuster was with Fox News from 1996 to 2002 and was their lead correspondent on McCain's "Straight Talk Express" during the 2000 campaign.  Shuster's background doesn't necessarily make him biased, but it does help explain a post-debate "analysis" that began with Shuster saying:

"John McCain, of course, came across as very energetic, passionate--even seemed very comfortable in the format.  Barack Obama by contrast in his hour perhaps thoughtful, intellectual...um, maybe even more deliberate."

I've searched the internet for video of Shuster's introduction because it's even more clear that he's cheerleading for McCain and denigrating Obama when one hears the manner in which he says, "intellectual."

Pat Buchanan, by contrast, found Obama "tortured and almost tentative...like a college sophomore who had not studied theology and was now facing his orals." 

Shuster noted a few minutes later that McCain received 3 applause interruptions for every Obama applause line.  (Now there's an intellectual argument, eh?)  Of course, neither Shuster nor his conservative pundit guests bothered to contextualize the audience.  The forum took place at a conservative, evangelical church in the heart of Orange County, a Republican stronghold.  McCain got more applause than Obama because he was talking to his base while Obama was talking across the aisle.

Then Michelle Bernard joined in the love fest for McCain saying he was "comfortable" and "at ease."  "A real contrast," she added, "with Barack Obama.  With Barack Obama tonight you really saw a lot of gray areas...whereas with John McCain things were either black or white."

Shuster went on to say, "I thought the contrast was so clear.  For example, John McCain was asked what to do about evil and he simply said, 'Defeat it' and left it at that whereas Barack Obama gave this sort of winding intellectual answer."

There's that word again.

So tell me, when did being intellectual become a negative quality in a president?  Dictionary.com describes intellectual as "appealing to or engaging the intellect...possessing or showing mental capacity, especially to a high degree." 

Oh no.  We don't want that!

Seriously, a grown man said that we should DEFEAT evil.  Really?  How is McCain going to do that?  Does he have a cape and secret powers of which we are unaware?  Is he Super-McCain?  If not, how does he merit praise for his simplistic, even naive, statment?

Because McCain is not Super McCain.  He's going to defeat evil the old fashioned-way (which is to say not really) by defining it narrowly (in this case as "radical Islamic extremism') and then by announcing victory (presumably on some aircraft carrier to be named later).

Obama's answer to the question?  We are not able to erase evil from the world, that's God's job.  But evil has to be confronted.  We are responsible to do so on an individual basis.  And we are to do so humbly, mindful that much evil has been perpetrated in the name of good.

Give me the intellectual man, who acknowledges his humanity and his limits, who answers with thoughtful nuance and genuine hope.  I'll take him any day over the glib good old boy who promises no new taxes, wealth for everyone, and declares himself able to defeat evil.  (Why does the refrain, "meet the new boss...same as the old boss" run through my brain when I cover McCain's positions?)

So...two thumbs up to Pastor Warren for putting together and pulling off this forum.

Two thumbs down to MSNBC for biased coverage.

Let's hope people listened to the forum and the issues, not the post-forum punditry.