Maybe so...

Bored, man decides to hold
up convenience store.
In the nude.

There certainly are a lot of complaints about last night’s “debate.” ABC is catching a lot of flack as are the two moderators, Stephanopoulis and Gibson. People are upset because the first 51 minutes were taken up with useless questions about Obama’s past relationships with his pastor and an ex-weatherman, and so on. Only in the last few minutes were any substantive questions asked. This is true. It was pretty pathetic. It did put Obama on the defensive which, I gather, was what it was designed to do. Some say Obama had a horrible night. I watched the stupid thing. I didn’t think he had a horrible night. It’s true he might have become somewhat peevish, but he handled it well, didn’t lose his cool, and demonstrated he could stand there an take it no matter how absurd it became. Some say Hillary was vicious and “turned the knife” every chance she could. Interestingly, still others say she was showing her more gentle side. I did think it was a more or less waste of time. I thought Hillary was basically okay. She did admit that yes, Obama could win the election against McCain (she sort of had to say this whether she meant it or not). Anyway, there is a big fuss over how bad this 21st “debate” was. My question is: where was everyone during the first twenty debates? I remember remarking time after time that they were a complete waste of time. In fact, there was only one I can remember, I think it was the first one between only Clinton and Obama, that seemed to have any substance at all. These so-called “debates” have been nothing but useless from the beginning. If this last one was perhaps a little worse than others, I don’t think it was that different from the others. It’s true that Gibson was an overbearing lout, and it’s true that Stephanopoulis slipped in a question suggested to him by the far right, but how much worse was that than Tim Russert asking Kucinich about unidentified flying objects? The more they seem to try to stop Obama the stronger he seems to become. If he wins Pennsylvania, which he might, it’s mostly because his opponents, including Hillary and the MSM deserve to lose. She has certainly lost all credibility of late and of course the MSM hasn’t had any for at least the past eight years. Hillary has not set a good example as the first serious female contender for President. Too bad, because in many ways she is a fine candidate.

There was only one thing of importance last night, Hillary’s unexpected announcement of a dramatic change in American foreign policy in the Middle East. Rachel Maddow seems to be the only one who picked up on this absurd pronouncement, or perhaps the only one who was willing to “out” it. Hillary literally committed the U.S. to attack Iran, not only if Iran went after Israel, but if Iran went after anyone else in the Middle East. Happily, this has never been part of our foreign policy before (and hopefully will not become so either). But it didn’t stop Hillary from blurting it out. I don’t know if this was a spur of the moment thing or if it has some basis in the dim, dark secrets of the present administration, but we better hope it was the former and can be soon forgotten and put to rest. Please, let’s get the silly season over with quickly and allow Obama to expose McCain for the Bush clone he is.

I don’t have much faith in the polls as it is fairly easy to get the responses you want, depending upon the questions you ask, and who you ask, and when, and so on. There is one fairly consistent polling result we keep hearing about that indicates McCain is running even, more or less, with either Obama or Clinton. As McCain is running on the failed Bush policies, and as 81% of Americans think this is a wrong track, and as Bush’s ratings are lower than any President in history, I do not see how McCain could possibly be doing that well. Perhaps it is because the democrats are still pretending to fight over the nomination. If these poll results stay the way they are after a democratic candidate emerges, it will indicate to me they are media driven and meaningless.

LKBIQ:
“An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.”
Thomas Jefferson