Sunday editorial: Now comes the hard part
Sarah Palin’s hunting skills are marvelous. Joe Biden’s mom is a hoot. John McCain’s wisecracks are hilarious and Barack Obama’s three-point shot is deadly. So stipulated.
Also stipulated: Ms. Palin may have over-reacted to in-law troubles. Mr. Biden was at times too free in borrowing others’ words and ideas. Mr. McCain’s real estate portfolio is impressive, and Mr. Obama’s former pastor is a kook.
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We are under no illusions: In the era of the 24-hour news cycle, hyper-partisan bloggers and talk radio, attack ads, tabloid newspapers, trash television and the blurred line between news and entertainment, stories like these are going to dominate the next two months.
But the issues facing this country are too serious and the presidential election tooimportant to get lost in trivia and gotcha stories. Here are some of the issues and questions that must be addressed by the McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden campaigns before Nov. 4:
For Mr. McCain: Your health care plan calls for taxing employer-provided health insurance worth more than a certain amount. That would amount to an enormous tax hike on millions of middle-class voters who get insurance through their jobs. It also would weaken, perhaps fatally, the existing system of employer-provided health insurance that covers most Americans. Why do you think this would increase access to health insurance?
• You have called for making permanent all of President George W. Bush’s tax cuts, now set to expire at the end of 2010. Economists say this would reduce federal tax revenue by more than $5 trillion over 10 years. On a yearly basis, that’s about a fifth of everything the government spends outside of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, defense and interest on the national debt. Since all of those fixed costs will be going up, too, where’s the money going to come from to pay for things like the FBI, air traffic control, Homeland Security and education?
• As you know, there is a debate within the Pentagon over whether the United States should focus on counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism warfare or rebuild its strategic arsenal for major conflict. Given the need to rebuild and resupply the Army after the devastation of Iraq, where should the focus of military be directed?
For Ms. Palin: From 2000 to 2003, when you were mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, your town received $11.9 million in federal earmarked funds. As Alaska governor, this year you wrote, “The federal budget, in its various manifestations, is incredibly important to us, and congressional earmarks are one aspect of this relationship.” Have you had a change of heart?
For Mr. Obama: You have touted your “comprehensive energy plan” that you claim will create 5 million new jobs over the next 10 years by “catalyzing private efforts to build a clean-energy future.” That is 10 times more workers than currently employed in the U.S. automotive industry. Where will those 5 million new workers be working and at what kind of salaries?
• Health insurance premiums increased by 78 percent between 2001 and 2007. Even as the number of people covered by private health insurance decreased slightly, insurance company overhead soared. Why do you think insurance companies could play a productive role in solving the nation’s health care crisis?
• In your eight years in the Illinois Senate, you maintained excellent relations with Democratic power brokers from Chicago, including U.S. Rep. (and now Gov.) Rod Blagojevich, Mayor Richard Daley, state Sen. Emil Jones and Tony Rezko, a businessman and fundraiser who has been convicted of bribery and corruption. Have you ever spoken out about Illinois’ culture of political corruption?
For Mr. Biden: You supported the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act which passed Congress in 2005, making it harder for individuals to get out from under their credit card debt. Because many credit card companies operate in your home state, you were under great political pressure from them. But you also have said you think the bill was a good idea. Do you still believe that, or would you support revisiting federal bankruptcy laws?
Ask McCain about Czechoslovakia, eh?
Ask MCain about the difference between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, eh?
Ask McCain which sect is in al Qaeda, eh?
Ask McCain why he and the Bushies were completely surprised when the Russkies invaded Georgia, which they claim to support, eh? Where was our vaunted post-9/11 intelligence community, and has anyone been fired because they didn’t see it or make the call? Like Condi Rice, our Cold Warrior expert Secretary of State?
McCain’s speeches consist of a noun, averb, and “POW” and he claims foreign policy expertise, based upon what?
McCain is STILL too ignorant to be President!
http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/08/04/15-reasons-john-mccain-is-too-ignorant-to-be-president/
You could have asked more intelligent questions of all the candidates and not in the negative way you did, I only personall y know one candidate and if you had written a letter to her, would have have gotten a reply.
I really don’t understand the purpose of your editorial.
These are good questions for all the candidates although the list is certainly not exhaustive. I hope to hear the answers them during the rest of the campaign now that the convention posturing is out of the way (I hope). In some cases, I don’t think that the candidate will be willing to answer honestly for what are probably politically valid reasons.
For instance I would assume that Joe Biden supported the Bankruptcy Act you note above because much of the credit card industry is headquartered in his state and provides a disproportionate share of jobs to his constituents. However, I don’t expect he will defend himself by bluntly stating that it would have been political suicide for him to do otherwise.
I thought everything you question is fair. However, I’ll start w/ McCain - none of it matters because it’s a democrat-controlled Congress - he won’t get anything done that he wants except possibly drilling under duress if the Dems don’t cave before Nov. Does anyone recall what happened to Bush’s promise to fix social security? Shot down by the Dems.
Does anyone remember Clinton promising tax cuts for the middle class and when he got in office said, too bad, we can’t afford them. Hillary has promised all sorts of jobs to up state NY’rs and they have sustained enormous job losses there due to high taxes. Someone should hold her feet to the fire.
As for Biden, why have you still not mentioned the earmarks he and Obama have secured for his son Hunter as well as he was a lobbyist for the credit card company. Biden is in this for self-enrichment and I would rather have a guy like McCain who doesn’t need to enrich his bank account and can’t be bought like the Biden family. Does anyone recall the Clintons?
Why don’t you ask Biden about his 5 draft deferments during the height of the Vietnam War. This was a very important question during the 2000 and 2004 election for VP. And yes, Biden, unlike Cheney, voted for the Iraq War.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/09/one_unlikely_vp_debate_questio.html
Why don’t we ask Obama about Percy Sutton and Dr. Khalid al-Monsour?
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=305508174916939
Or how about how about Nadhmi Auchi?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2035927/posts
Or I’d like to know Obama’s position on China’s cheap goods poring into our country since his brother George is a cheap goods exporter in China.
How much influence did Frank Marshall Davis have over him and what was their real relationship?
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-communist-mentor/
McCain’s proposal to tax health insurance would be DOA and I will give you four letters why: AARP. Insurance costs more the older you get, so the tax burden would be on older workers. The guy who figures out why healthcare costs go up so much faster than everything else can then get to work on why colleges can’t figure out how to control their costs.
jjk–it is irrelevant whether or not a particular proposal would be “DOA” since what is interesting is how and why McCain thinks that this is the way to address an ailing healthcare system. I would like to hear him defend this seriously, without slogans, but with reference to the facts and figures as well as to what we know by looking at successful healthcare systems in Europe and Asia. I want to know how a man who might be president thinks about the issues and how fully he grasps the issues.
As an older American, I find it very interesting that politicians think they can balance the healthcare deficit on the backs of workers over 50 and the sick, who would be the ones who would be taxed the most as their coverage costs their employers the most, if they can even get it. I still maintain that someday, there will be Socialized system enacted with the option for a private system to co-exist at the taxpayer’s expense. This is how it works in all those European systems you seem to love. I’ve done business over there and I can tell you, they don’t work very well. 40% of the UK is enrolled in a private system without which, the NHS could not survive. You can call it what you want, private pay, whatever, either way it is a new tax. That’s how I think it will end up someday. I don’t favor it, but eventually, the libs will get their way. When it happens, you will see a true two class system emerge and you won’t like that, either.
jjk–I have lived and traveled out the U.S. as well consensus from people I know there as well as from of surveys and studies seems to be that that the majority of the people in these countries are reasonably happy with their healthcare system. No system is perfect, but although you can find critics of various aspects of these systems, in recent years I haven’t heard from one European, Canadian or Japanese I know who would exchange their system for ours. Most are actually rather smug about the whole issue.
But the point is not that these countries are perfect, or that their systems would work in the very different social environment in the U.S., but that we need to be willing to use them as experiments that allow us to evaluate whether or not a particular strategy might work here.
ADULT TALK
I just watched Joe Biden on Meet The Press
He answered some very difficult questions.
Powerful, articulate, specific answers
Without any hateful viscous attack words - none.
I thought of Sarah Palin sitting in the same chair fielding same questions.
and I smiled.
5 DRAFT DEFERMENTS
-A Centrist
“Why don’t you ask Biden about his 5 draft deferments during the height of the Vietnam War. ”
Maybe somebody could ask Dick Cheney at the same time
Cheney’s Five Draft Deferments During the Vietnam Era
http://tinyurl.com/36624
SOCIAL SECURITY
-A CENTRIST
“Does anyone recall what happened to Bush’s promise to fix social security? Shot down by the Dems.”
Nope.
Bush never submitted it to the Republican controlled Congress.
Not well received by either Democrats, Republicans or AARP
TAX CUTS
-A CENTRIST
“Does anyone remember Clinton promising tax cuts for the middle class and when he got in office said, too bad, we can’t afford them.”
Clinton took over in 1993.
“Most taxpayers did not see their federal taxes increase. The 1993 tax increase, however, applied overwhelmingly to high-income taxpayers. The vast majority of American taxpayers saw no increase at all in their income taxes and were touched only by a 4.3 cent increase in the gas tax, which costs a typical household $38 per year.”
http://youdebate.com/DEBATES/clintons_tax_increase.HTM
Significant tax cuts came under Clinton in 1997
IreneK–you can get used to anything and if you have nothing to compare it to, you might be happy. I remember once bringing over a British guy to work for us and when he saw Schnucks he almost cried, but he’d been very happy with what he had until he saw it. You have generations of Britons and Canadians who’ve never known anything else. You make the switch here and you will have chaos. I agree we should use these socialist systems as examples,,,of what not to do.
STL. You compared Joe Biden on a TV talk show to Sarah Palin’s convention speech. Perhaps, had you compared his convention speech to hers you would have seen the same childish partisan attacks. Apples and Oranges.
SPEECH COMPARISON
-jjk
“You compared Joe Biden on a TV talk show to Sarah Palin’s convention speech. Perhaps, had you compared his convention speech to hers you would have seen the same childish partisan attacks. Apples and Oranges.”
Was Joe’s a partisan speech? - Yes
Was Joe’s a viscous, hateful, demeaning, trash talking speech? - No.
I watched all the speeches given by the P & VP nominees at both conventions.
You must have been watching a different Biden speech than the rest of us. Biden made numerous attacks against McCain and Bush (he couldn’t insult Sarah as she hadn’t been picked at that time). Perhaps it was the post-game analysis by MSNBC that skewed your opinion.
Here is a video of Obama on This Week this AM calling himself a Muslim.
Don’t blame me for this. He said it, not me!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zQK_EhDhZQ
STL- that is exactly why I brought up Biden’s deferments. The media were all over Cheney like white on rice about his. Biden? Not so much - and that was in 2000 BEFORE the war in Iraq.
-jjk
“Perhaps it was the post-game analysis by MSNBC that skewed your opinion.”
I watched the conventions on PBS and C-Span because I feel they are the least biased.
Also C-Span because their call in numbers are ID’d with different sides of the issues.
Both networks presented the best I could fine in “Fair and Balanced” convention reporting.
Perhaps you watched The FOX network
EQUAL TIME
-A CENTRIST
“exactly why I brought up Biden’s deferments. ”
Except you did not mention anything about Dick Cheney in your post.
I simply wanted to make sure those reading this board remembered that Dick had 5 deferments.
YOUTUBE
-A CENTRIST
“Here is a video of Obama on This Week this AM calling himself a Muslim.
Don’t blame me for this. He said it, not me”
I did not see the show but there is a high likelihood that Obama talked for much longer than that 13sec YouTube excerpt at your link, so maybe it was taken out of context.
Let’s watch the evening news tonight and see if the video is included in the excerpts from today’s news shows.
-Tim Hogan
“McCain is STILL too ignorant to be President!”
He’s not my candidate of choice but I doubt this statement is true.
“I did not see the show but there is a high likelihood that Obama talked for much longer than that 13sec YouTube excerpt at your link, so maybe it was taken out of context.”
NOW your concerned about context? I dont remember, were you as concerned about context when McCain mentioned being in Iraq for 100 years?
Anyway, we should all know The Chosen One is not a Muslim, he is an apostate to that religion. His father and step father were both Muslims, his family in Africa is Muslim, but he has chosen a different religion, so according to Islam, he is an apostate, punishable by death.
I swtich between Fox and MSNBC. (PBS isn’t biased? Give me a break). I don’t want to miss it when Matthews and Olbermann kill each other. Its sort of a political addict’s NASCAR.
MISQUOTE
-jjk
“PBS isn’t biased? Give me a break”
You misquoted me.
I wrote
“I watched the conventions on PBS and C-Span because I feel they are the least biased.”
The evening news hour on PBS always presents both sides of each topic. During the conventionS PBS’ regular analysts David Brooks of the NYTimes and syndicated columnist Mark Shields performed their typical top notch analysis.
— Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum
“NOW your concerned about context? I dont remember, were you as concerned about context when McCain mentioned being in Iraq for 100 years?”
I have not posted about McCains comment on Iraq and 100 years.
You are confusing me with some other poster(s).
YOUTUBE FollowUp - NO NEWS HERE
“-A CENTRIST
“Here is a video of Obama on This Week this AM calling himself a Muslim.
Don’t blame me for this. He said it, not me”
-STL
I did not see the show but there is a high likelihood that Obama talked for much longer than that 13sec YouTube excerpt at your link, so maybe it was taken out of context.
Let’s watch the evening news tonight and see if the video is included in the excerpts from today’s news shows.
— STL”
The exchange the 13sec YouTube videos came from is about 80% into the interview.
Full transcript of the show is here: http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002944990
I would be very surprised to see anything on tonight’s news about the exchange.
STL - you are funny. I thought my involking Cheney made the comparison to him obvious. As for the clip, I can guarantee the “slip” won’t appear on the lamestream media. In case you haven’t heard, which is my point about not pointing out Biden’s deferements, the lamestream media is totally in the tank for Obama.
Look what was just posted on Drudge from St. Louis:
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/07/obama-verbal-slip-fuels-his-critics/
I hope the PD Edit Page writers learn to use Google before the election.
I was watching a CNN bio on Obama tonight and noticed how black his hair was earlier in the year. If you watch the ABC video, notice how incredibly gray his hair has gotten in the last few months. Heck he might look like Biden in two months. Won’t that be funny. Also notice the fake “scene” to appeal to hicks with the flag and the hackstacks and a wagonwheel like he is at some hoe down. What a tool!
DEFERMENTS
— A CENTRIST
“STL - you are funny. I thought my involking Cheney made the comparison to him obvious. As for the clip, I can guarantee the “slip” won’t appear on the lamestream media. In case you haven’t heard, which is my point about not pointing out Biden’s deferements, the lamestream media is totally in the tank for Obama.
I reread your post of 2:03pm and I still do not see where you mention Cheney having 5 deferments, however, you do mention Biden.
As for the press coverage here are some links that show the mainstream press did report on Biden
Seattle Times: http://tinyurl.com/5bpvur
CBS News: http://tinyurl.com/69ujbm
Washington Times: http://tinyurl.com/6m8dzr
-A CENTRIST
“Look what was just posted on Drudge from St. Louis:
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/07/obama-verbal-slip-fuels-his-critics/
I hope the PD Edit Page writers learn to use Google before the election.”
Your link is to the Washington Times.
They link back to the YouTube video you linked to.
A reference that references itself.
The transcript shows the video takes something grossly out of context.
Here is the link again: http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002944990
Read it this time - 80% into the interview.
I respect your opinion enough to read the links you provide.
Give me the same respect.
Drudge is reporting NBC (under orders from GE) has pulled Olbermann and Mathews from the anchor chairs of the election coverage. David Gregory will replace them.
Ask McCain why he’s such a flip-flopping tool and wrong on values and culture of life issues.
http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/09/07/why-practicing-catholics-should-vote-for-barack-obama-not-for-john-mccain/
You mean the billions of dollars the stupid American consumers are sending overseas, along with our jobs, don’t come with a health insurance policy?? D’OH.
Thank you STL for putting up the transcript. I thought that it would be too much to ask of Acentric to actually put up a unbiased post. Or even a biased one with substantiated facts.