I have defended Republicans here before and this time I am left speechless. Brian, you are dead on with this blog and that is hard for me to admit!

This entire thing was a political play by the McCain camp to somehow make them look strong with the economy. And tonight all I hear are talking points about how "strong" McCain was today. Rove and company have taken the game to a new pathetic level.

Tax cuts and less regulation? They can't be serious (and I'm fiscally conservative)! They are throwing Bush and Paulson under the bus to make McCain look like the change agent. Incredible.

And Palin, she must have taken a few too many hockey pucks to the head.

LAMBERT: I expected that Bush would have a tough time with Congress -- the Democrats AND the renegade Republicans -- but what does it say when McCain doesn't even dare take them on?

RE: the Palin/Couric interview. I thought when Williams ran the interview portion, maybe it was some kind of editing error or playback problem because I really had trouble following Ms. Palin. She was all over the place. And because Katie got the elusive grab on this one she had to appear more 60 Minutes on the take with Palin which maybe Palin thought they were going to talk about something less relevant like kids and car pools. In the same fashion, McCain seemed flummoxed as well at the top of the NBC broadcast with Williams. I wish we wouldn't have had to cut our cable to save money to see more of the talking heads grabbing this one and shaking it or maybe those 5 minutes of my life was enough.

LAMBERT: Just for fun ... leaf through this morning's Strib for any sense at all of Palin's incoherence with Couric. Newspapers are terrified of "characterizing" behavior that any of us (well almost any of us) recognizes immediately for what it is.

Is that why we see so little on Obama / Rezcko or Obama / Ayers?

Or Obama's half siblings?

Or Obama's father / mother?

I got it now.

Palin's performance was frightening, far worse than Dan Qualye ever was. Couric reminded me of a teacher questioning a slow student, hesitant to make her look too ridiculous in front of the class. I read a lot of the responses to the interview on the CBS website and very few came to Palin's defense. This is a big change from the ABC website after the Gibson interview. Even her most vociferous supporters have to feel uncomfortable with her as the V.P candidate. How about it, Bertram. Is she qualified?

LAMBERT: For bertram she's qualified if she drools out of thye right side of her mouth.

Its time to reinforce or adjust the aluminum foil inside your helmet, bertram jr.

I think some of those invisible rays and getting through are radiating your brain causing you to get agitated into a frenzy. It must be difficult for you when nobody else can see your delusions but you've got to maintain a grip. Do you have any other hobbies?

"Whatever she was saying she would have been more coherent and credible had she wrapped her head in aluminum foil and walked up Pennsylvania Avenue chanting, "Klaatu barada nikto!"

You know, with John Kerry's resemblance to Michael Rennie, maybe he should have opened his acceptance speech with that instead of "reporting for duty" ? Oh well...4 years too late for him; nine months too late for John Edwards.

Four years too late for him. The space ships, swift boats, and John Edwards have all departed.

In her case, it's "GladTo Barracuda Pelosi". (i'd pay to see that cage match.

LAMBERT: Pay-per-view, or Saturday nights on the CW.

A credible source assures me that one of the sticking points for conservative Republican House members is that President Bush refuses immediate exile to Haiti.

Two brief comments:

1) John Boehner DOES look like a tanner. But only the governor of Alaska has been identified as having actually purchased a tanning unit for installation inside a governor's mansion.

2) It took a week but I now think I understand the application of Shock Doctrine theory to the banking crisis. If you saw Michelle Bachman's commentary in the Strib this morning, it appears that the Congressman from the 6th believes the cause of the problem has been the mandatory provision of house loans to poor people -- those bankers were forced by Clinton and Co into putting up those dancing cowboy mortage banking banner ads: PICK YER PAYMENT, PARDNER!, and RE-FI WHILE RATES ARE SHAKIN THEIR TAILS! -- and that there are no mortgages going south in, say, White Bear Lake. But Naomi Klein becomes a prophet in the closing graphs, where Bachman casually says the cure to the crisis is to stop taxing businesses and the rich altogether! (Business taxes and capital gains. That will reassure the foreign banks.) That would pretty near perfectly fall under principle one of TSD: capitalize upon shock to hoover wealth upward. It won't work, of course, because everyone knows that an enormous percentage of American businesses paid no tax last year anyway.

LAMBERT: My "tanning bed pitchman" line is self-plagiarization.

Watch this Fred Armisen bit from SNL:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/politics/video/play.shtml?mea=229107

... then watch Palin again with Couric from the link above.

Pretty amazing similarity eh?

I'm just sayin'.

LAMBERT: The woman is a gift to every satirist.

Reading all the comments about Paulson's trillion dollar bail out of his financial brethren on Wall Street, not to mention Midtown Manhattan houses, I got very confused. Paulson and the Bush Administration essentially are socializing the debt and failure of these banks and investment firms.

And the one guy in these comments who is being critical of the massive government bailout and federal centralization of power and authority is Robb. And they call him a BOLSHEVIK??? That is positively Orwellian.

Paulson is the person who should be called the Bolshevik.

LAMBERT: We have descended through the rabbit hole.

what's the big surprise? Pallin's answers are straight out of the beauty queen manual - sounds like coached pageant speak to me.

LAMBERT: I noted the LA Times story this weekend about her "intelligent design"/creationism proclivities. Not that Tim Pawlenty would have been much different, there.

I know as good patriots and shining object americans, we are all supposed to shrug and move along to the next gossipy news story...but this bailout as rewritten STILL stinks and should not be supported.

Anyone voting for this is at serious risk come several Novembers to come...and taxpayers need to make that known now, not come up next April with the bright idea that is needed today.

Least that is my thought on this. Sorry if it seems like I'm warming up last week's old pizza.

LAMBERT: Obviously, what do you and I know, if the barons of Wall St. and all the smart kids following this derivatives casino couldn't explain it, much less foresee it? I do NOT find it reassuring that this is essentially a self-policing action, with Henry Paulson's "team" cleaning up the mess of his peers and club members. But I have some small hope that enough oversight has been built in to avoid the most nightmarish of excesses. Still though, I say nothing really changes unless a few of the highest flyers at Lehman Brothers and elsewhere are indicted.

Heard about this Friday from a friend when discussing Palin. I couldn't believe it was true, you'll have to decide for yourself. Very troubling that anyone would have done this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/opinion/26fri4.html?bl&ex=1222574400&en=cd491cbff8aac3b9&ei=5087%0A

LAMBERT: Palin really is enough to take your breath away. She's like a "Big Brother" contestant, flirting and conniving her way to victory.

You really can't make it up. The fact that Palin's comments on the bailout could be used essentially verbatim in a satirical sketch on SNL tells us something: A McCain/Palin administration would be really funny! But I kid. After eight years of bleak comedy, I think we're ready something completely different.

Also...tell that "frogster" person to knock it off. There is only one true green voice here. If it happens again I'm calling in the pith helmets from Amphibian Ark and having him/her confined to a zoo for captive breeding.

LAMBERT: I will "suspend my blog" to resolve this issue of captive breeding.

So, Robb the Bolshevik's idols in Congress actually tried to "earmark" ACORN into the bail-out!

It's so very, very rich!

Oh, I can hardly wait for Bri to start lifting the lid on Obama's half-sibling story (there's at least 8)....

And D'nesh DeSouza's fund raising effort for his hut living half brother in Kenya.

C'mon Bri - you can do it!

The Eagles tomorrow night.
And Palin wipes the floor with "Plugs" (he's clean and articulate) Biden on Thursday!

What a week!
What a week!

Robb the Bolshevik is fully aware of who pushed homeownership on those who aren't home owner material.

He is also aware of who blocked reform.

He SHOULD also be aware that redistributing wealth is not a good idea, but he's not.

Now he wants to be "critical" of the adults stepping in to save the economic system.

Beautiful. Beautiful....

Bri - while you're out breathlessly interviewing naughty housewifes, here's what the big kids re discussing:
_________________________________________________
Love the Financial Crisis? Thank Your Local "Community Organizer"

And yes, the one running for President has his hands all over it:

IT would be tough to find an "on the ground" community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama.

When Obama was just a budding community organizer in Chicago, Talbott was so impressed that she asked him to train her personal staff.

He returned to Chicago in the early '90s, just as Talbott was starting her pressure campaign on local banks. Chicago ACORN sought out Obama's legal services for a "motor voter" case and partnered with him on his 1992 "Project VOTE" registration drive.

In those years, he also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN's up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott's drive against Chicago's banks.

More than that, Obama was funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago's Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation's board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers - and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift.

That committee's report on strategies for funding groups like ACORN features all the key names in Obama's organizer network. The report quotes Talbott more than any other figure; Sandra Maxwell, Talbott's ACORN ally in the bank battle, was also among the organizers consulted.

MORE, the Obama-supervised Woods Fund report acknowledges the problem of getting donors and foundations to contribute to radical groups like ACORN - whose confrontational tactics often scare off even liberal donors and foundations.

Indeed, the report brags about pulling the wool over the public's eye. The Woods Fund's claim to be "nonideological," it says, has "enabled the Trustees to make grants to organizations that use confrontational tactics against the business and government 'establishments' without undue risk of being criticized for partisanship."

Hmm. Radicalism disguised by a claim to be postideological. Sound familiar?

Oh, it sounds all too familiar.

The one constant of Barack Obama's rise to power is his ability to funnel money to radical groups without drawing undue attention to himself.

As chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama directed educational monies meant for elementary and secondary school improvement into a series of grants to radical organizations bent on activism and ideological indoctrination. You'll be shocked—shocked!—to find out that those millions were directed to groups identified by the Chicago School Reform Collaborative—headed by domestic terrorist and Obama fundraiser Bill Ayers.

Obama has also used the Woods Fund (as noted in the article above) and the Joyce Foundation to launder money from grant-giving organizations into funding for radical groups and causes that were too politically controversial to directly raise funds on their own. He's great for the economic welfare of radicals.

And don't you love the mess he's helped get us all into now?

Read it and weep:

“Under [Bill] Clinton, the entire federal government put massive pressure on banks to grant more mortgages to the poor and minorities. Clinton’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Andrew Cuomo, investigated Fannie Mae for racial discrimination and proposed that 50 percent of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s portfolio be made up of loans to low- to moderate-income borrowers by the year 2001. Instead of looking at ‘outdated criteria,’ such as the mortgage applicant’s credit history and ability to make a down payment, banks were encouraged to consider nontraditional measures of credit-worthiness, such as having a good jump shot or having a missing child named ‘Caylee.’ Threatening lawsuits, Clinton’s Federal Reserve demanded that banks treat welfare payments and unemployment benefits as valid income sources to qualify for a mortgage. That isn’t a joke—it’s a fact. ... In 1999, liberals were bragging about extending affirmative action to the financial sector. Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein hailed the Clinton administration’s affirmative action lending policies as one of the ‘hidden success stories’ of the Clinton administration, saying that ‘black and Latino homeownership has surged to the highest level ever recorded.’ Meanwhile, economists were screaming from the rooftops that the Democrats were forcing mortgage lenders to issue loans that would fail the moment the housing market slowed and deadbeat borrowers couldn’t get out of their loans by selling their houses. A decade later, the housing bubble burst and, as predicted, food-stamp-backed mortgages collapsed. Democrats set an affirmative action time-bomb and now it’s gone off.” —Ann Coulter

Oh, this is when you start name-calling Coulter.

LAMBERT: As always, an unimpeachable source.

I take that as an agreement, since you didn't deign to argue the facts.

Ann Coulter, now there is an ideological lying propagandist worthy of being a commentariat for the Soviet PRAVDA in its heyday.

You read what Bertram, Jr. posts and what Rep. Bachman actually says out loud on the House floor and you have to start to wonder if the country's even worth bailing out.

BJ, honestly, stop this. This approach to elections is counterproductive and meaningless.

If you have the perfect candidate...then you are allowed to cast the first stone. All humans, even you, have skeletons making you less than perfect. Stop focusing on these problems and focus on the issues and solutions.

I care less about Obama's brother than I do Billy Beer. I care less about McCain's gambling than I do his adulterous adulthood.

What I do care about is this bailout--that is what should be discussed here and in the public discourse.
--Iraq, Iran, breaking the spiral of gluttony displayed by Big Oil and Big Pharma and all the bigs.
--Taxes, you love to hate taxes, then where are you on this bailout?

Focus your brain on what matters! If McCain has the answers, he had better focus on them now AND YOU HAD BETTER START TALKING ABOIT THEM, because no one gives a rat's ass about your minor issues...haven't you heard--it's the economy stu.

LAMBERT: Bertram is kind of the Billy Beer of discourse. Cheap, gimmicky, kind of a flat taste and as soon as you're done with it you have to go to the bathroom.

The very point being the hilariously hypocritical and vapid Obama.

A candidate proffered by the brain trust of the far left extremists.

"Minor issues"?

He's up for the Presidency and there's a press black out on his entire FAMILY background(no pun intended), while vicious, terrible attacks are made on an honorable woman like Sarah Palin and her family.

It's absolutely beyond belief.

This is America.

Let's put all the cards on the table, shall we?

Or do we continue to let the left give passes to "certain" people, for "certain" reasons?

I don't think Frogman of Grant has any standing to criticize me, much less threaten me. But threaten me he did, so I'll point out the obvious: If his name - Frogman - accurately reflects his origins, he's the product of some bizaare form of inter-species miscegenation. My parents, on the other hand, were both purely green. Who does this mongrel think he is to threaten me? I'm sure he's overcome a lot given his murky parentage, but it's also clear the evolutionary obstacles I've hurdled dwarf his. (I love my parents as much as anyone, but they were both just ordinary frogs.) I'm the only pure amphibian on this forum, and one of only a handful in the world with language skills. I belong here. Quite frankly, I think Frogman of Grant owes me an apology.

LAMBERT: It'll be a cold day in the swamp before that happens.

The blatant hypocrisy of the left, and the tanking of the MSM for the most unqualified candidate in American history, are THE crucial issues of the day.

You can bellyache all you want to about the housing crisis that Clinton and his minions started (see A. Coulter's rather succinct summary).

But it's incompetent buffoons like San Fran Gran Nan who want to play partisan politics while the economy melts down.

Checked the Congressional approval ratings lately?

BJ = "Let's put all the cards on the table, shall we?"

EXACTLY! And the issues like Iraq, Iran, the Bailout...those are Aces, Kings, Jacks.

And issues like Palin's babies, McCain's adulteries, and Obama's brother...those are 3s, 4s, and 5s...for chrissakes, these cards are tossed out in most serious card games. Please BJ...wake up and focus on serious issues that can cripple the economy and screw up your precious TAX RATE. FOCUS!!

There is room enough to discuss both conservative and liberal sides of issues...but not if we get distracted by your truly minor issues. Throw that can of Billy Beer away...it is flat.

LAMBERT: Bertram likes his suds skunked.

Again, my point would be that the left refuses to examine some pretty glaring aspects of the origins of the sub-prime meltdown, while ramping up it's blatantly vicious attacks on Palin, and while tanking for the most unqualified candidate in American history.

LAMBERT: Uh huh.

TOM: please address the following:

1. As a "transcender of race", how does the fact that Obama's white mother and her white family are completely unexamined by the same media that seeks to excoriate Palin square with you?

2. If Obama sought and then directed ACORN money to radical activist groups, is he qualified to address the issue of sub-prime bailout, caused by Clinton's outlawing of lending standards for minorities?

3. If Obama ignores his half brother living in a hut in Kenya on $1 a month, can he realistically address tax issues for the middle class?

4. What experience exactly qualifies Obama to be Commander in Chief?

5. Why doesn't the MSM examine the racist content of the supposedly "post-racist" Obama's book(s)?

LAMBERT: Why do you think anybody would bother "addressing" this nonsense?

Try this: "Address why ferrets emit gas."

No problem Brian, I'll address BJ's comment here--

"TOM: please address the following:"

Here are my responses--
1. This issue is a 3 of hearts
2. ...7 of spades
3. ...2 of diamonds
4. ...8 of clubs
5. ...4 of spades

What would you bid/bet on that hand BJ? If I was you and bluffing on those cards, I don't think you would fool anyone for long.

How about you trying to play with the big cards, the face cards, eh?

You are a GOP guy, right, so you favor character-based issues--

1. Where do you stand on McCain's stance on the bailout? What policy or regulatory stance has he demonstrated to you that I have missed and should consider?

2. What about his judgement in selecting Palin as a VP choice? Why should I vote for a 72 year old who has had 4 cancer bouts, knowing that Palin is his backup?

3. What about reducing government spending--will it include the hugely out of control military spending? How will reigning in the 18 billion dollars of earmarks each year do anything to reduce our trillion dollar deficit?

4. We have heard where Palin stands on the Bush Doctrine, but where does McCain stand on unilateral attacks on other countries?

5. We have heard of Palin vindictively firing several employees in her short career, and McCain is widely acknowledged to have a fierce temper; how comfortable should a voter feel with these prominent characteristics being in control of our country?

Care to play this hand? Seems like all face cards to me, and a skilled player could make some serious headway if they could handle these cards, no?

Take a day, think it over...I want good answers, not pandering. This is an important election and I'd like to hear from an expert.

LAMBERT: Bertram is trying to through on Hugh Hewitt's 800 number as we speak.

TOM:

All I can say is Coulter has it right - liberalism is a mental disease.

Good luck with that.

If the McCain / Palin ticket, rife with actual governing, military, and policy experience, isn't enough for you when compared to the racial guilt based ticket offered by the non-experienced or even minimally competent B. Hussein Obama, then all I can say is, again, good luck.

As a fellow cancer "survivor", shame on you and your cancer scare-tactics. Right up there with John Edwards pimping his wife's cancer for political gain - truly disgusting.

Deplorable, but easily within the capability of the deranged.

Face cards BJ, focus please.

I'm waiting for your game addressing these face cards.

LAMBERT: Long wait.