Pangloss

Oh dude you are so looking at this the wrong way. Congress's approval rating has fallen something like 20 points, to single digits, since Democrats took over. Do you really think the convention would have generated 38 million viewers had it been Biden accepting the nomination instead of Obama? Seriously? I think very few people see Democrats as rescuing American from Bush & Company. That's very much the purview of haters and ideologues and Democratic partisans. What Americans are doing is looking for salvation from politicians. And Obama is the one and only glimmer of hope in that department, regardless of his party affiliation. The reason he can't put this thing away in the polls is because he keeps falling back on standard political methods and forgetting the headway he made when he talked about unity and getting over our differences. In short, he keeps sounding like a politician. He's got to do better than exaggerations and misrepresentations of Republican/conservative/McCain positions. My two bits on it, anyway.

Yeah, Republicans could never lie like that. They all smell like roses. Ted Stevens does my gardening on weekends, you know.

It will be, but will you call it nitpicking then? I don't think there's a single thing in that speech that wasn't deliberately put there, bascule.

This is why I hate political conventions. Over 38 million Americans watching and nobody bothers to call him on his facts. Misleading people should not be a path to public office. Yeesh. Fortunately the reliable, non-partisan Anenberg FactCheck organization leaps to the rescue. Some highlights: Full, detailed analysis can be found here: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_obama.html (I wonder if they'll get over 38 million hits. Somehow I doubt it.)

Excellent, an actual reason to look forward to a VP debate.

Incidentally, we had local government elections here in Florida this week which implemented new optical-scan voting systems with paper trails. Some districts still have the touch-screen systems, and those systems will still exist in November, used in particular for handicap booths, but they'll all be gone by 2012. There were minor issues but no big ones.

In whose favor?

Quite a surprise, but not hard to see why. Conservative to help with the base, female to help nail down the Clinton defectors, far from the beltway to help with those wanting to see change.

Things to do in Denver when you're desperate: - Tell reporters how badly the Democrats are going to mess up America (check!) - Have all the potential running mates show up and bad-mouth the opposition (check!) - Have one or two of the potential running mates suddenly and mysteriously cancel all their interviews and stop returning phone calls just before the Democratic candidate makes his acceptance speech (check!) - Have a press conference just before your opponent's acceptance speech to officially announce that you would never interfere with your opponent's acceptance speech and therefore won't be announcing your running mate today (check!) - Declare that you're "closely watching" a minor tropical storm that may or may not threaten New Orleans, site of the worst public relations disaster in your party's history (check!) - Tease reporters ruthlessly by ending every anti-Obama claim with "... some people say." - (I got nothin' else.) (hehe)

This is a false analogy, because South Ossetia isn't part of Russia. It's either independent, or part of Georgia, depending on whom you ask. A more apt analogy would be for you to ask me how I would feel if Mexico bombed and killed 160 US citizens who were visiting Venezuela following a long-standing dispute between Mexico and Venezuela over control of certain bordering oil fields, and assuming for the sake of argument that Venezuela had to ship its oil through Mexico.

Well you're certainly entitled to your opinion, but it's a shame you can't seem to put up any evidence of that, and can only offer us stereotypical anti-western catechism. Meanwhile Russia's claim that genocide was occurring in South Ossetia has been disputed by the United Nations. But I guess the UN is just a tool of those American corporations, right? Odd how UN inspectors didn't find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before that war, though. You'd think if they were in the corporations' pockets they would have promised WMDs left and right, and then been just as surprised as the Bush administration when they weren't found.

Actually it's well over ten trillion now (see earlier thread here), but hey, what's half a trillion dollars between friends. (grin) But of course the last couple trillion came didn't seem to meet with a whole lot of objection from the other side of the aisle. The real question is whether Obama will be able to stop profligate spending within his own party, since that's who will be in control. But perhaps Dems will find a way to continue to blame the whole problem on Repoobies. After all, they were in charge for 8 years, and it takes a while to turn things around, ya know! Never mind the fact that a new budget comes out each and every year. Pay no attention to the partisan-attack-dogs-posing-as-objective-economists behind the curtain! Don't think I won't be looking at those debt numbers a year from now.

Last week bascule posted an interesting chart showing the two tax plans from McCain and Obama. Well someone put together a little Web app that allows you to input your marital status, number of dependents and income level and see which one would tax you more. http://obamataxcut.com/ This is the chart they used, which Bascule posted earlier: (Edit: Found bascule's original thread on this, and linked it above.)

That's exactly right, IMO. One cannot just dump all this at America's doorstep (or anybody else's). International politics is complex. Interesting comparison between your apartment and Spain & Portugal.

Thanks, I appreciate your agreeing on our common ground. Yes, that's what I'm saying. I'm not suggesting that we can't vote for politicians because we don't know enough about them, all I'm saying is that we need to resolve these civil liberties and executive power issues and not allow them to languish once a Democrat is "safely" in the White House. Otherwise they'll just come up again, sooner or later.

Thanks iNow. And you're right, Phi, and I'd forgotten how much I hate this part of the election cycle, but I should have remembered from the last time around. Oh well.

That last line is a pretty obvious photochop.

I don't foresee you expressing the same sentiment next week when Democrats do the same thing to Republicans. This thread would be more appropriate for your blog. Please don't tell me we're in for a week of partisan enemy-bashing from you and iNow just because the Dems are all a-goggle over the spectacle in Denver. Party conventions aren't politics, fellas. They're marketing.

And you're actually okay with that? The fact that the issue would be completely unresolved, and any further abuse would be based solely on the quality of the person we elected? Do you actually believe that that will continue to be okay so long as we vote for Democrats instead of Republicans? Have you forgotten which party put us in Vietnam? And the thing is, you can't tell me you knew Bush would do that before he was elected. You might have disliked the guy because he was a Republican, but you could not have foreseen these specific, 9/11-derived abuses of power. You are not prescient. And frankly I think even you will agree with me when I say that there are good Republicans and bad Democrats.

Rofl. Yeah I saw the link, I'll definitely be checking it out. Edit: Wait, I'm confused, that link seems to be a live feed. I don't see Kucinich's comments available?

And you're actually okay with that? The fact that the issue would be completely unresolved, and any further abuse would be based solely on the quality of the person we elected? Do you actually believe that that will continue to be okay so long as we vote for Democrats instead of Republicans? Have you forgotten which party put us in Vietnam? And the thing is, you can't tell me you knew Bush would do that before he was elected. You might have disliked the guy because he was a Republican, but you could not have foreseen these specific, 9/11-derived abuses of power. You are not prescient. And frankly I think even you will agree with me when I say that there are good Republicans and bad Democrats.

I think if Americans better understood what was happening politically in the country in 1796, in particular the struggle of Federalists and Democrats and how it played out over the first few administrations, it would improve their understanding of what's happening in the country in 2008.

Cool, I didn't know that was the origin of phat! Thanks!

God I hope so, because I had to turn the TV off after a few minutes of the nonsense last night and tonight. That's probably not too surprising -- you know I hate the Bush-bashing -- but even aside from that the conventions tend to be pretty awful, full of exaggerations and outright lies and the worst sort of back-patting imaginable. Not to rain on anyone's parade or anything; I guess it's just not my cup of tea. Good on Ken Burns for a lovely tribute to Ted Kennedy, though. Never been a big fan of the guy, but it was a nice gesture and the right thing to do.

John I thought that looked interesting but I'm afraid I got kinda lost in the legalese. Do you think you could maybe boil it down for us? It's a good point to keep in mind, and one I think we all basically agreed on here (but well said!).