Tonight's VP debate

Thanks, Cicerone, interesting and lively discussions. I might fit in here.

Mary- Don't let CI tease you. He has been radiated so he is really off his form lately.

Of course, you have uncovered my secret. I have been unmasked. By the way, your wit and inventiveness is really special. How did you come up with such a novel response?

Welcome to A2K, Mary. I think you'll fit in just fine. If any posters become too annoying, simply click their name, then click "Ignore"... and you'll be able to tailor your experience.

They have politics in common, but that's about it. I'll grant you Finn can be highly provocative and has been off a bit lately, but nothing that compares to the utter idiocy and lack of integrity demonstrated by this latest incarnation of the ultimate troll. Spendi said it best when he said "you give trolls a bad name". That sure as hell aint Finn-ish.

Mary, Occom Bill has given you some good advice. You can tailor your experience. It wouldn't do you any good to read something that doesn't fit your world view or your prejudices.

As for Occom Bill, he is so afraid of being proven wrong that he shuts out any post which offends his sensibilities. I have heard that once he urinated on himself, but that may just be gossip.

If you read my post, I hope you did, I think you might have learned something.

You see, intellectual fascists like Ocome Bill do not want you to learn anything else.

Go to the Labor Statistics site for complete information on Unemployment!

I am honored. I did not know that you feared my posts so much that instead of showing how superior your intelect was by smashing my arguments, you burn the books. How Fascistic of you!

darn right, ya betcha.

i've had a feeling from get street that the gop, being unhopeful of keeping the white house, has given mccain a mercy f*&k for long service while simultaneously offering him up as a sacrificial lamb. i've said it before, but i see even more reason to feel that way now.

a small evidence is that rather than use a credible veep nominee like tom ridge or rudy, who arguably have wider appeal, they toss in sarah. not ready, but that's not a big deal if the belief is that she won't have to be this time.

but what it does do is give her an intro on a national and international level.

in the mean time, bush and friends cook up one last stinker like the loan and banking b.s. (which btw has provided an excellent opportunity to allow a few friends to further shrink and consolidate control of the financial sector. ask wachovia...), and leave it atop the existing steaming pile as they helo off the white house lawn for the dems to deal with. shades of bush sr.

country first... what a farce.

no... that's what evangelical christianity is for.

nice to meet ya, mary. have fun with it.

Your idiocy is self evident and needs no illumination from me, troll. I regard you as I would a mosquito… an essentially harmless pest, whom one need not fear to prefer to avoid. Hell, even the rapist has highlighted your idiocy.

What? I thought you had me on ignore. Please do so so I can continue to clean your clock!

There is no evidence of that having taken place.

Good afternoon, Mary Homemaker, from Johnboy in Virginia.
You are certainly correct that the "official" unemployment number understates the real number. In order to account for the discouraged unemployed or the under-employed, you need to multiply by 2. Or maybe now it should be 2.2 or something. I don' t know what the multiplier is.
But here is what I can tell you as the owner of a small chain of retail stores (32 or so employees). I get a a lot of job applications, and some of them are from older folks offering to work for minimum wage IF I will put them on the company's health care plan. That is what they need. Health care.
I have no positions available. The folks who I have are hunkering down. Happy not to be going back to waiting on tables.

How do you know, You have me on ignore, don't you? But if you don't try one of your non-sequiturs. Then I will clean your clock. The left wing shows that it is does not accept any heresy. They merely burn the books and instruct the populace not to read them. You showed your Nazi colors in your instructions to Mary. Like most Fascists, you probably don't think she has any brains to think for her self and she has to salute you and say--Heil to the Minister of Propaganda, Herr Ocome Bill.

(As a side note, the previous page contains a post by synron which verifies that he is massagatos/possumfartbubbles...and ain't this ignore feature delightful)



There are some puzzles in all of this. First, I think we have to acknowledge the diversity of opinions within the Republican party/conservative movement re how to win/salvage the election and how to move forward given the prospect of large electoral defeat and the coincident discreditation of conservative governance/philosophy. McCain was and remains, for many conservatives, a quite imperfect candidate. But for others, the "pragmatic" sorts like Rove, McCain provided the possibility of dissociation (conceptual if not real) with Bush/Republicanism in significant portions of the electorate. At the same time, they understood that there was simply no chance of preventing electoral disaster with an unmotivated base. Palin filled that role.

So far as I've been able to establish, the campaign itself did minimal vetting of her. The probable reason is that she wasn't seriously considered until threats of a floor revolt (by the culture crowd) forced McCain to name her. She's been in their sights for a while though, with Limbaugh and Gingrich, for example, pushing her forward through the summer.

For movement people, Reagan comes close to equaling christ. If an exaggeration, that's a very small one. He's become a sacred object and his words are treated as revealed truths. No candidate can hope to advance in the party/movement now without the same sorts of bows and allusions to Reagan as must be made to christ. The parallels are broad and profound. Pelosi's speech, before the first bailout vote, gained the response we saw from the movement people not merely because it was convenient scapegoating but also because it profaned Reagan's memory.

These folks want Reagan to arise again. They really want that. But no one on the scene fit the description, until Palin. She will be the hope for 2012, of course. But I'm betting that Gingrich (who I deem an actual psychopath) will move to gain any power she achieves for himself.

Blotham- Hasn't your doctor advised you not to strain yourself? Even with a bypass, you must really not let your blood pressure get too high. I'm concerned about you.

Thank you!

I've been trying to remember the previous names, and couldn't quite get any of them!

And yes, it is.

Sorry, meant to add one other thought in that last post.

Josh Marshall at TPM has been wondering aloud why McCain has recently become such a grumpy old bugger (debate, recent interviews). Everyone can have their pet theories on this, of course, and here's mine...

After years of kissing the necessary asses and saying things he does not believe and dealing with people he does not like, and then after actually winning the nomination, he was (it appears) coerced into choosing Palin over Lieberman. He's boxed in. He knows, surely, that his reputation for honesty and integrity is in tatters (he may even suspect how he has dragged others like Lieberman and Graham down too, even if they are complicit).

He would probably be in a better mood if he assumed he was going to win. He could, then, at least hope or plan to proceed as President in a manner that would bring about redemption (I don't need these bastards any more and I'm now going to do things my way). But unless he and the close friends around him like Graham are completely delusional, they know things aren't going their way.

Thus the final prospect must loom that he will not achieve his goal and has, in the pursuit of it, given up far too much of the stuff that counts.

Will he, say two years up the road, come on Jon Stewart's show again? What will he say?