The presidential debate, which I had on as I was working on a paper on “Classical Liberalism, Poverty, and Morality” for a volume in the Ethikon series, was rather depressing. But I do work best when there is meaningless white noise in the background, so it helped my writing.
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Heh…yeah. My favorite moment came toward the end, when Obama sounded like he was setting up a haymaker regarding Iraq…then, in just a few seconds, he was babbling cheap, focus-grouped, pseudo-populist nonsense about the Chinese, the latest group of brown people we should all be scared of because they’re holding so much of our debt and with their superpowerful economy can buy New York City…oops, wrong decade.
My least favorite moment was within a minute of that, when he said he gave McCain “great credit” on the torture issue, even though he voted against banning the CIA from waterboarding (for all intents and purposes) whomever it wants.
Small men both–with big guns.
Neither man is thinking about how to competently run the exectutive branch; both are fixated only on acquiring power.
Both dodged as much as they could Tom Lehrer’s perceptive questioning on how the bailout will affect their spending plans. Both were blindsided by this obvious issue. McCain finally proposed a spending freeze, but I’ve not heard any subsequent discussion of it; it’s was simply cheap talk.
These two are in complete denial of reality. Both are proposing tax & spending plans that increase our national debt. Now that Paulson is apparently getting permission to let his banking cronies sell toxic waste to taxpayers, the McC and O’B budget plans are as realistic as proposals to have the seas turn to lemonade.
Charles, I think you meant Jim Lehrer.
Tom Lehrer would probably have asked perceptive questions too (but, he’s already announced that he’s voting for Obama).
http://tinyurl.com/22ubew
I did indeed mean Jim Lehrer.
But Tom Lehrer is almost always on my mind, or his songs, rather.