Cheers and Jeers: Thursday

by Bill in Portland Maine for Daily Kos

Community

Thursday, Oct. 04, 2012 Thursday, Oct. 04, 2012 at 5:20:45am PDT

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Little Gay Billy's BIG Gay Newsapalooza!

And finally, in today's must-watch, Expedia gets a gold star for this remarkable web ad:

Wow. Go, Dad!

Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, October 4, 2012

Note: Due to a massive Whirling Dervish pileup, the sidewalk between Dartmouth and Fessenden Streets is closed until further notice. Please find an alternate route.

By the Numbers:
Days 'til the general election: 33
Days 'til the Bridgeville Apple Scrapple Festival in Delaware: 8
Portion of Americans who think Obamacare will go into full effect with some tweaks: 7-in-10
Percent who expect it to be repealed: 12%
(Source: AP-GfK poll)
Percent of likely voters who believe the economy is recovering: 57%
(Source: NBC News-Washington Post poll)
Number of cars in the U.S.: 249 million
Number of cars in China: 94 million
(Source: USA Today)

Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:

Speaking of people who have trouble with the truth, here's a recent George W. line from two weeks ago I particularly prize: "There's kind of an urban myth here in Washington about how this administration hasn't stayed focused on Osama bin Laden. Forget it. It's convenient throwaway lines when people say that." How do these urban myths get started? Perhaps with GWB on March 13, 2002: "I don't know where bin Laden is. ... You know ... I just don't spend that much time on him. ... I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him." […]
We got two straight years of quotes from officials all across the Bush administration pushing the idea that Osama bin Laden is just a minor player, we're not hunting him, the war on terror is a much larger deal, and so on and so forth. You know, it's one thing to tell a whopper yourself---it's adding insult to injury to call the people who point this out liars themselves.
---October, 2006

Puppy Pic of the Day: I always thought this was a self-evident truth.

CHEERS and JEERS to Rocky Mountain hijinx. I forgot how deadly dull debates can be. Yeah, the edge goes to Mitt Romney, but it's no surprise. He's not simultaneously running for re-election and running the most powerful nation in the known universe. Incumbent fatigue in debate #1 is normal, so I'm perfectly chill this morning. These are a few of my humble observations from last night:

> Every four years I'm reminded of how much Jim Lehrer sucks at moderating debates. Or was Mitt Romney the moderator? Hard to tell.
> I came for a debate, but someone swapped it out with a city council meeting instead. For a minute I was worried they were going to get into the weeds of zoning laws and water rates.

> If smirking and lip-smacking were the only criteria, Romney owned the night. If telling the truth was the only criteria, Obama owned the night.

> Obama did fail to frame the Republican party as the bizarre gang of lying obstructionists it's become. In the next debate he should taken a page from the Gingrich playbook and spend the whole night calling Romney an extremist with a radical agenda.

> Romney was the slick huckster and Obama was the nuanced professor, mostly because Romney is a slick huckster and Obama is a nuanced professor.

> Now that it's over, doesn’t it seem rather silly that we wasted so much time thinking about all the questions that should've been asked but weren't, and all the things the debaters needed to do but didn't? Fuck---I fall for that every time.

Final overall grade for this debate: B for Bleh. Nothing about it will end up on any highlight reels alongside "You're no Jack Kennedy" or [looks at watch]. Up next: Biden and Ryan go at it next Thursday in Kentucky. I suspect there will plenty of what this one amazingly lacked: Zingers!

JEERS to glass-half-empty journalism. I'm not going to suggest that there was a conspiracy afoot [twitch twitch] when this story was published yesterday. But their headline---Forty-five percent of Americans say Obama failed on jobs, Esquire/Yahoo News poll finds---is a bit of a contradiction to the actual conclusions in the story:

A roughly equal number responded that Obama made the most of a bad economic situation, with 49 percent of the general population responding that the chief executive did "as well as he could." […] 26 percent of Americans blame George W. Bush for the current unemployment level. Another 22 percent blame Congress, while only 17 percent blamed the sitting president.

So the president is actually much more highly regarded by voters than the headline would suggest. Typical media. As Ronald Reagan would say, "There you go again." Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!! No, but seriously…there they go again.

CHEERS to not being ready for your close-up. Can't let today go by without noting that this is the two-year anniversary of the day Christine O'Donnell gift-wrapped the Delaware U.S. Senate seat she was vying for, topped it with a pretty bow, and handed it to Democrat Chris Coons on a silver platter. Yes, it was two years ago today that the most famous---and disastrous---opening ad line of the 2010 elections debuted: "I am not a witch!". Followed by the line that was almost too good to be true: "I'm you!" So, by her own standards, Christine O'Donnell is me: a gay liberal dude with a flatulence problem and a scowl that could melt steel. Hey, whatever floats her cauldron.

CHEERS to the Obama Doctrine. That would be the doctrine that says, "Shut up, neocons---let the sanctions in Iran do their thing." I think I know why Mahmud Ahmadinejahd said at the U.N. that he's eager to sit down at the bargaining table after the election: we've got the regime's nads in a bit of a vise:

Tensions over the plunging value of Iran’s currency sparked clashes between protesters and security forces in the capital Wednesday, the most significant unrest there in two years and a possible prelude to a more serious threat to political stability. Increasingly stringent U.S. and European sanctions against Iran have driven the value of the rial down for years, but its fall has accelerated dramatically over the past week, forcing a run on hard currency and anxieties over the skyrocketing prices of food and other staples.

And if that doesn't work, we go after the Mullahs' porn. Cruel, I know, but…freedom.

CHEERS to life the way it never was. On this date in 1957, Leave It to Beaver premiered on ABC. June Cleaver did housework in pearls, frilly dresses, and high heels. Or as I like to call it: Saturday morning at the BiPM household.

Six years ago in C&J: October 4, 2006

CHEERS to Josh Marshall. For summing up the next five weeks thus and so...

Is it me or is all hell breaking loose in this country's politics? We're in the last month of an election cycle and there are maybe four or five stories, each of which could totally dominate the national political news on their own. And each is flaming out of control at once. You've got the [Rep. Mark] Foley debacle. The revelations in the Woodward book. The revelations in the NIE that almost seem like old news now. A major part of the pre-9/11 story that somehow never saw the light of day and may bring down Condi Rice. And did I mention the election?

I dunno...I'm still trying to figure out if you used "flaming out of control" as a double entendre. If so, well played, sir!

And just one more…

CHEERS to Dear Abby. The original advice columnist, Pauline Phillips, is no longer with us. But her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, still keeps the advice flowing. Kudos to her for mincing no words:

Dear Readers: If you like the way things are going, VOTE. If you don’t like the way things are going, VOTE. If you have never voted before, VOTE. (Don’t be embarrassed by your ignorance---when you get there, they’ll show you how.)
If you’re not registered to vote and don’t know where to register, contact the League of Women Voters, your county registrar’s office or your secretary of state’s office for details. All are listed in your phone directory or online. The deadlines for registering vary from state to state. Don’t let anything---or anybody---keep you from voting on Tuesday, Nov. 6.

That includes the biggest obstacle to the voting booth: Republicans.

Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:

"The good news is, survey after survey, poll after poll, still shows that we are a 70/30 country. Seventy percent of Americans want Cheers and Jeers."
---Paul Ryan