And, when it comes to matters of global importance, you can count on them to work together to screw you:
After one spectacular failure, the $700 billion financial industry bailout found a second life Wednesday, winning lopsided passage in the Senate and gaining ground in the House, where Republicans opposition softened.
Senators loaded the economic rescue bill with tax breaks and other sweeteners before passing it by a wide margin, 74-25, a month before the presidential and congressional elections.
Like the momentous 2002 decision authorizing the invasion of Iraq, Congress’ vote on a $700 billion financial industry bailout figures to reverberate unpredictably, both for the economy and for the politicians vowing to protect it.
Oh, and then there are Obamacans, that’s a whole different kettle of fish. They’ve got their own TV channel, doncha know? Michelle Malkin says she’s gettin’ letters, she gets letters, and Politico reports:
Channel 73 on the Dish Network is now The Obama Channel.
Obama’s media buying strategy has been marked by a willingness to work the angles, and to try to pick up a few votes at the margins. The decision to go to everything from extensive radio buys to odd-hour infomercials reflects the fact that the campaign media buyers spend a lot of time thinking about how much persuasion any given dollar can buy, and given a very cheap format — late night cable channels that need filler, for instance — will settle for a thimblefull of persuasion.
The satellite channel is the latest of these marginal gambits: Three readers from different parts of the country email that Channel 073-00 on the Dish Network is now labeled OBAMA. (“What is up with Sen. Obama having his own channel?” asks a St. Louis reader.) The channel plays his two-minute ad laying out his economic plan on a loop, over and over.
Yes, Virginia, there really was an Obamacrat infomercial. If anyone can find it, let me know.
Once upon a time, there was a television show called Good Times. As created by Eric Monte, (Cooley High) Good Times was a sincere attempt to tell the story of an American family’s struggles together to make ends meet. That this family happened to be black and live in the projects was both important and incidental. Yet, in the hands of Norman Lear, (All In The Family) Good Times became minstrel-esque, with exaggerated characterizations, and a de-emphasis on the positive interactions of people united in a common struggle against external forces beyond their control. In the view of the creator of the show, life was good, even in rough circumstances; in the minds of the producers, however, such a thing is not credible. If you’re black and living in the projects, life has to be bad.
I pitched ‘Good Times’ in 1971; it didn’t go on the air until 1974. In those three years we had about 20 meetings. The one note I got in every meeting was, “Get rid of the father, a strong black man in a sitcom won’t work.” All the white writers on the show wanted to do stereotypes and I refused, so we’d argue and fight. They would ignore what I suggested and take all that “Yassuh Boss” stuff to the cast, and John Amos and Esther Rolle would have a fit. Then they’d give them what I wrote and the cast would like it, shoot it and it would go on the air. Originally I pictured J.J. as a street-smart hustler who drove his honest, hard-working parents crazy. His character became a buffoon.
Why the trip down memory lane? Well, when I think of Good Times, the theme song automatically comes to mind. Purportedly optimistic and upbeat, in reality it is a put-down.
Temporary layoffs, good times!
E-Z credit ripoffs, good times!
Scratchin’ and survivin’, good times!
Hangin’ in and jivin’, good times!
Ain’t we lucky we got ‘em?
Good times!
It is this kind of perversion of racial reality that drives the Barack Obama campaign, however this not-so-subtle skewing of the truth is not limited to any one segment of society. In Obamaland, everything sucks. The past eight years have been an unmitigated disaster on every level, devastating every American’s hopes, dreams and chances, in every arena, in every aspect of life. But, there is “hope” for “change.” Vote for Obama and everything will be fine.
Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.
Good times! Without question, this view of America as a troubled nation helps Obama. But, seriously, think back. Ask yourself a variation of the question Ronald Reagan asked Americans during his debate with Jimmy Carter, “are you better off,” or worse…than you were 2 years ago, before the presidential campaigns started? Back then, were you consumed with worry about your financial future? The financial future of the country? The entire freaking world? Remember, this was 2006, the year the Democrats swept the elections. Weren’t we all just a little bit optimistic that things would soon get better? And wasn’t our primary concern back then, the war?
Don’t get me wrong, we had, and continue to have, problems and real, legitimate concerns. But, whose fault are they, really? Now, it seems that, according to Obama and the Democrats (sounds like a soul band) we’re all teetering on the brink of total collapse, and only he, like Mighty Mouse, can sweep in and save the day. Where the promise of Obamaland goes wrong, in my opinion, is not only the misplacement of blame, but, like Good Times, de-emphasis on priorities from the celebration of what we have that is good, in favor of persistent lamentation about that which is not.
Slate Magazine, which I grew to hate during the primaries for it’s incessant Obama cheerleading, has an article by Walter Shapiro claiming voters are angry, but too stupid to know why.
A Pew Research Center poll released Wednesday found that 43 percent of all voters admitted that they feel “confused” by the proposed plan to stabilize the financial markets. At the same time, voters grasp that something important is happening — 54 percent say, in response to another question, that they are paying “a lot” of attention to the bailout debate in Washington. Pollster Andy Kohut, the director of the Pew Research Center, said that it was virtually “unparalleled” to have this simultaneous level of interest and confusion in a policy debate. “It’s a tough one to get into the nitty-gritty of,” said Kohut. “It is not like gay marriage that is easy to grasp no matter what your point of view is.”
Hey, Walter, wanna buy a clue? Maybe what voters are “confused” about is the reason people who get paid to figure stuff out spend so much time looking up their own asses for answers to obvious questions. We’re “confused” by the fact that the media is so obviously trying to elect a raving lunatic, which Barack Obama is, that they applaud him for doing absolutely nothing to deal with the current economic mess but repeat, over, and over again, that he’s not the guy he’s running against, whose biggest sin, according to Obama, is that he knows the guy who’s been engineering the money train for the last eight years. The candidate who said, “call me, I got my cell,” the guy who has collected more money from the companies profiting from the restructuring of our financial market than any other, who has also taken more money in his brief tenure from those identified as the major culprits involved in this mess than just about anybody, is for some reason, the media’s fair-haired boy. Oops, I said, “boy.” I must be a latent racist, since that’s the only reason I could possibly have to use that particular phrase in that particular instance, or to criticize the Golden Child at all, at least, according to the media. Never mind that if I am a racist, I must hate myself, ’cause I’ve been black a long time, too.
We’re confused alright, Walter. It’s hard to figure out how the Democratic party could produce a bill in the House to address the crisis of the imminent collapse of our free market system, or however they framed their “fire-in-a-crowded-theater” clarion call, and then not only not push it through, deliberately sabotage it. We don’t get that, Walter. Silly us.
Then there’s David Gergen, who I find considerably more annoying than I would imagine a nest of vipers hatching in my underwear, or a swarm of bees building a hive in my ear to be, who, in a blog post for Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN, bemoans America’s lack of trust in it’s leaders, not just in government, but pretty much, across the board:
Four of the five lowest rated groups in the index were business, Congress, the executive branch, and the press. No wonder the “leaders” of these institutions had so much trouble persuading the general public about the seriousness of our financial mess.
David cites research from The Harvard Center for Public Leadership, which he claims to direct, done in partnership with U.S. News and World Report, and Yankelovich, which states this erosion of trust has been going on for a while:
In the fall of 2005, some 65% said we have a leadership crisis in the country. By 2006, the number had risen to 69%. And last fall, no less than 77% declared there was a crisis of leadership. Moreover, 79% said the United States would decline unless we get better leaders.
Gergen goes on to bitch and moan about the challenges facing Barack Obama and John McCain, as well as all the other pseudo-leaders in other fields, in the face of this growing crisis of confidence, blah, blah, blah. Maybe we’d have more confidence in “leaders” if they didn’t have to commission a stupid study to see what’s right in front of their faces. The government does a lousy job; that’s why their approval ratings suck. Both parties are full of corrupt liars. They always promise “change” in exchange for votes; they get the votes, nothing changes. “Business” wants 700 billion dollars of taxpayer money to prop up the house of cards they’ve been ripping off those same taxpayers from, and the media is a joke. Those are pretty good reasons for people to stop trusting them. And, as far as that “better leaders” thing is concerned, we had one running on the Democratic side that I would have trusted in this crisis with my future, but you guys, Walter and David, were among the worst character assassins out there helping to torpedo her chances to be an effective leader. That’s why we hate you and your kind.
No, we’re not “confused” about the inefficiency of government, or the complicity of the press, or the greed of the financiers. We’re “confused” that you seem so surprised that we don’t trust them, or you, as far as we could spit at you from.
