Posts by Simon Grigg
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God, this is like going around in circles, playing Simon says: Simon says..gets rather badly shot down; Simon says again..gets rather badly shot down and so on. I'm not sure why you bother, but bother you do.
Gosh that was good Sage..did you have to think long for that..it was very witty. On yer....
If you can get the conclusion you somehow got from that interview then either you are a) fooling yourself, or b) likely didn't read it again. If you can't see that ABC did the woman a huge favour by trimming that out then I can't help you. As it was, post edit (and non live interviews are almost always edited..surely you knew that) it just made her look incompetent. Pre-edit, it made her look resoundingly stupid..a buffoon. The same can be said for several other edits done by ABC, which made her look better.
Sage says:
Paulsen has handled things pretty well. With the shareholders in Bear Stearns and Lehman completely screwed and those of Merrill Lynch mostly screwed whilst freddiefannie assets/liabilities have been protected so the average homeowner is protected this kind of makes a mockery of the capitalise the profits and socialise the losses meme.
Others (from a right of centre publication) say:
What we are seeing on Wall Street today is the result of an ideology gone amok. There was call to loosen and change the antiquated regulations governing investment back in 1980. But the Republican era has seen that loosening go to the point of near-cataclysm. Banks are failing, markets dropping. We are in the midst of a slow-motion economic crash. What happens next is an economic contraction: loans aren't available, so businesses can't expand. A crash comes at the beginning of a period of economic trouble.
John McCain, after his political near-death experience, could have made the responsible regulation of markets one of his great causes. He didn't. And today he said, once again, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." I hope he's right, but it's entirely possible that he knows as much about our economy as Sarah Palin knows about The Bush Doctrine.
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Joe Klein in Time today:
What we are seeing on Wall Street today is the result of an ideology gone amok. There was call to loosen and change the antiquated regulations governing investment back in 1980. But the Republican era has seen that loosening go to the point of near-cataclysm. Banks are failing, markets dropping. We are in the midst of a slow-motion economic crash. What happens next is an economic contraction: loans aren't available, so businesses can't expand. A crash comes at the beginning of a period of economic trouble.
John McCain, after his political near-death experience, could have made the responsible regulation of markets one of his great causes. He didn't. And today he said, once again, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." I hope he's right, but it's entirely possible that he knows as much about our economy as Sarah Palin knows about The Bush Doctrine.
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is any of those things, whilst in the real world its approval rating is 9%.
Whilst it's nothing to get excited about the figure, in the real real world, is about 100% higher than the one you tout.
With some of the stuff I read about Palin, I prefer to think that the person is saying it out of a feeling of political loyalty. People have being crying "wolf!" about Palin.
Attacking Palin is a no win, several alleged facts have been challenged successfully - that built up a precedent that makes new facts seem more doubtful. And people like the woman, she has a public profile and appears to be a normal person. And she is the Veep.
God, this is like going around in circles, playing Angus says: Angus says..gets rather badly shot down; Angus says again..gets rather badly shot down and so on. I'm not sure why you bother, but bother you do.
I can't find it now, but today the numbers today on one polling, which still had McCain ahead by a point or so, had the negatives outrating the positives on the woman by five points for the first time. A few days back she was at 59% positive. So I guess they don't like her quite so much, eh?
Just because you say these things over and over ain't gonna make them true. Really....
But all this is overshadowed today by what's happening on Wall Street. It's the economy, stupid (and that's a turn of phrase not personal BTW) and it's fucked.
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And it seems poor old Sarah now seems confused by her state's energy production levels.
Angus, old buddy, in the politest possible way, can I ask if you actually read those two stories. Because it doesn't read that way, and it does seem like you're rather grasping.....
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so when he actually asked a couple of half-decent questions, people would go hey, Charlie Gibson wasn't so bad after all.
I'm pickin' Sean Hannity for the tough questions this week..he's relentless. Thank god they opened her up to this..will really show the meat on the bones..whoops I'm being sexist now
And she got 80% rating as Governor...did you know that?
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McCain polls a 55 - 35% lead in terms of qualities.
Depends if selling your country down the river is a quality you admire. Lets face it, Americans have never been smart in picking qualities in Presidents.
But I still stand by my statement that she is a Dem asset and is more and more an indicator of how corrupt McCain has become. Regardless of whether he wins, that fact won't change. If you regard that as credible..well it rather speaks for itself.
They don't need to dig a hole for her..she's doing it herself and that will really hurt McCain.
Who really gives a toss what her rating is in Alaska. It's utterly irrelevant and a really silly thing to throw into the mix. The only question is, is she fit for the VP job, and quite clearly, taking a step back, no-one could reasonably say she was. She hasn't a clue and to introduce her to the ticket to win votes is morally corrupt.
Gallup tracking btw is down to 2% and three polls over the weekend had a draw or Obama agead. Pollster is still showing the Dems 14 EVs ahead and the Palin shit..the ABC interview, The View, the lies over the library, Iraq, crowd numbers, and the raft of criticism over the inaccurate ads haven't had any effect yet.
And then we have those two stories in the NYT and WaPo about Palin. Dear, oh dear...spite, viciousness, cronyism.
But then, again, it comes down to what you call qualities I guess.
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Got to agree with Giovanni here. They almost certainly were't there when Bush et al started their little adventure. They almost certainly are now, five years on.
Juan Cole is pretty good on this (and knows his stuff better than most)
Virtually in a class by themselves are the Islamic State of Iraq in the Sunni Arab areas of Iraq, and the Taliban, whether the Tehrik-i Taliban in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan or the neo-Taliban of southern Afghanistan. The Islamic State of Iraq and similar organizations are called by Washington 'al-Qaeda in Iraq or AQI-- but the groups themselves generally do not call themselves this since the killing of Abu Musab Zarqawi.
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Well said Sacha....Rob you are no longer undercover my friend..you need a new login....
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But it's fascinating to watch the narrative change.
Clearly the tack is now to use Palin's selection, and the corruption that implies in McCain camp, as a way to discredit McCain. You can see it in the Sullivan piece I posted earlier, and now in an increasing number of places including this Joan Walsh editorial on Salon.
It's also appearing in the mainstream media, which is I guess where it's targeted. The Palin interviews, even if the Republicans get a bump from the fact that she's simply out there, has given the argument that she should never have been chosen by a responsible candidate huge ammunition.
I think this is gonna be a core theme from hereon and it potentially has legs. It says so much about McCain that could really hurt him if it gets traction.
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PS Rob....just saw the NZ Musician thing online..nice