The Senator and the Talking Point Robot

kcr

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Friday October 03, 2008 · 7:43 AM PDT

2008/10/03 · 07:43

I don't know who won the debate, or at least I don't know how the press is going to play it and how that is going to affect the eventual common wisdom (Biden did win all of the post-debate pols, but so did Al Gore after the first debate in 2000. It wasn't until after the press and SNL got through with him that he"lost"). But I do know a couple of things.

First, that cutesy "I am just a regular joe six pack look at me wink at you!" nonsense Palin reveled in was a real turn off for me. And it infuriated my wife. She said she was reminded her of every woman she had ever met who tried to impress the men around her with her boobs instead of her brain. If the little dial things at the bottom of CNN's screen were any indication, my wife was not alone. Time and time again, the women's line plunged when Palin went into her "little ol' me?" routine.

Second, I really think Palin is a bad person.

kcr

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Thursday October 02, 2008 · 7:56 AM PDT

2008/10/02 · 07:56

Apparently, Sarah Palin said that she is being attacked because the press is not comfortable with the idea of a hard working average American in the White House. Conservatives apparently believe that the attacks on Palin’s qualifications means that “elitists” and liberals no longer believe in the notion that anyone can grow up to be (Vice) President. But they are getting that entirely wrong. Sarah Palin is no more qualified to be Vice President than I am qualified to be the starting center for the Blackhawks. Stating the simple fact that Palin is not qualified is not an attack on egalitarianism or the American ideal that anyone can one day achieve their dreams. The key word, the word that conservatives seem to be forgetting, is "achieve".

kcr

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Friday September 26, 2008 · 6:58 AM PDT

2008/09/26 · 06:58

<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; white-space: pre-wrap">So the McCain, in all of his Mighty Maverickness, appears to have thrown his lot in with the House GOP on the economic bailout plan. And what, pray tell, is the House GOP plan? It appears to be nothing more than a gigantic giveaway to the very people who got us into this mess

kcr

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Wednesday September 24, 2008 · 7:26 AM PDT

2008/09/24 · 07:26

I would really, really like someone to answer that question for me before we go giving Wall Street what it wants. The problem, as I understand it, is that largely unregulated financial institutions used sometimes shady deals to sell people mortgage products that they probably could not afford. Other largely unregulated financial institutions then sliced and iced those mortgages into financial products that were then sold almost like stocks or other securities. Now, those unaffordable mortgage products are collapsing in value so the people who own pieces of them no longer know how much those pieces are worth. Since they no long know how much those pieces are worth, they no longer have a good sense of what their balance sheets look like and no one has any idea what those pieces should be bought and sold for. And that means that a large chunk of financial capital has such an uncertain value that its value might as well be zero, so there is an understandable reluctance to use those pieces as collateral or to deal with the financial institutions that have large stakes in those mortgage pieces. And that has lead to what the Fed is calling a credit crisis.

kcr

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Wednesday February 13, 2008 · 6:33 AM PST

2008/02/13 · 06:33

Clinton apparently skipped all the FISA votes yesterday. In and of itself, thats not such a big deal, as her vote just would not have tipped any of the outcomes. But it is a symbol of a larger failing that undermines her very rationale for her run for the Presidency. Clinton emphasizes her years of very real experience fighting for causes she believe sin. According to her, that experience, that ability to get things done, means that she will be able to accomplish far more than Obama will once in the White House: She knows how to get things done.

Except she didn't get FISA done.

kcr

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Tuesday November 13, 2007 · 5:52 AM PST

2007/11/13 · 05:52

David Brooks seems to think that Reagan is being unfairly portrayed as a racist and he seems to think that he has that reputation because of his infamous campaign kick-off in 1980:

kcr

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Monday November 12, 2007 · 7:05 AM PST

2007/11/12 · 07:05

Cass Sunstein is back, this time with a new book claiming that the Internet is bad for democracy because it allows like minded people to hang out with other like minded people, and thus they all become partisan zombies and thats bad, because, umm, because people aren't supposed to have strong positions on things? The meta-argument kinda loses me there, as you can probably tell. I haven't read the book so I cannot speak to its in depth argument, but Mr. Sunstein is blogging at TMP Cafe this week and his first post is not a particularly impressive one.

kcr

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Tuesday November 06, 2007 · 6:44 AM PST

2007/11/06 · 06:44

Rumor has it that telecom amnesty is working its way back into the telecom bill in the Senate. People who support the amnesty like to claim that the companies should not be punished for doing what the government asked of them. That is a terrible notion.

kcr

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Tuesday October 30, 2007 · 6:28 AM PDT

2007/10/30 · 06:28

Has any candidate seen their stock fall so far so fast in recent times? I don't mean their ability to win a contest, I mean their entire image. Obama promised a new beginning, a politics of hope and reconciliation. But in the last week, he has thrown all of that away with two really bone-headed decisions, the first of which was the deliberate choice to involve a horrible bigot in his gospel tour.

kcr

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Friday April 13, 2007 · 10:58 AM PDT

2007/04/13 · 10:58

One of the most fascinating thing to me in this story is how it intersects with sports. Don Imus has said much worse about politicians and reporters and gotten away with it for years. Indeed, there are precious few reporters and public figures who dared to ignore his show because of its place in the insider media food chain. But this first time — as far as I can tell — he personally attacked sports figures in this way he gets fired. Much of the discussion and the news I heard about Imus I heard through sports shows and sports talk radio. I don’t think its an exaggeration to say that millions more people heard his comments and about the uproar because of sports talk. I have to believe that it had an effect on the outcome. The more people who hear about the affair, the more people there were to put pressure on the sponsors. Rush Limbaugh went through a similar event. He made a racist comment about Donovan McNabb on ESPN and was fired. That comment was mild compared to some of the racist remarks he has made in the past, but it was that remark that caused him to lose a job and that remark that is the one I hear most often when his racist past is brought up.

What does this tell us about sports and our country?

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The Senator and the Talking Point Robot

Hard Working Americans And Palin's Silver Platter

McCain: Rewarding Bad Behavior

Why Does the Bailout Start At the Top?

How Clinton's Actions On FISA Undermine Her Campaign

Reagan: Racist is As Racist Does

Is the Internet Bad For Politics? Or Why Cass Sunstein Doesn't Yet Impress

Outsourcing the Death of the Bill of Rights

The Fall Of Obama

Imus and the Intersection of Racism and Sports