Obama Tells Men's Health About Sneaking Smokes, Bowling

Posted by Roy Edroso at 6:22 AM, October 10, 2008

The new Men's Health has Obama on the cover, and asks him questions about his men's health, including his on-again off-again smoking habit. His answers are, as usual, impeccably politic but still fascinating. He says he was "never really a heavy smoker" -- can you relate? -- but during the campaign he sometimes "fell off the wagon and bummed one," and besides, "seeing as I'm running for president, I need to cut myself a little slack." It's a wonder Bloomberg even consented to take the guy's phone calls, but many New Yorkers probably want to vote for him twice now. Also, he works out six days a week: "I'll lift one day do cardio the next." Our identification turns to admiration! He says a lot of other adorable stuff, but then moves to remodeling the White House, "The bowling alley, I understand, offers us some potential for expansion." Oh, Barry, there goes Pennsylvania again! Better follow up with an interview in Guns & Ammo.

NY's Rightwing Papers Work GOP's Anti-Obama Angles

Posted by Roy Edroso at 9:38 AM, October 9, 2008

New York's remaining rightwing dailies are doing their part to spread the Republican Party's dangerous-radical-Obama message. A New York Post reporter journeys to Cleveland for an "exclusive" report on two Ohioans who claim they were inveighed to register multiple times by ACORN, the affordable-housing group, current conservative bete noir and, as a related Post editorial calls them, "Barack Obama's favorite 'community organizers'" and "a group with which Barack Obama has proudly been associated."

The Wall Street Journal runs op-eds by Karl Rove, who says the increasing Obama lead is meaningless and that "voters haven't shaken deep concerns about his lack of qualifications," and Dorothy Rabinowitz, who brings up Bill Ayers only to insist that the real issue in the closing days of the campaign is... Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And, of course, the "media," from which organizations like the Post and the Journal are presumably exempt.

The Internet is Kicking John McCain's Ass at Internet Speed

Posted by Roy Edroso at 3:41 PM, October 8, 2008

Hadda happen.

So did this:

Lynn Yaeger's Ground Rules For a Stultifyingly Dull Debate

Posted by Lynn Yaeger at 9:41 AM, October 8, 2008

1. Call it a Town Hall Meeting, then forbid attendees at said meeting from laughing, clapping, booing, or daring to make any sound at all.

2. Don’t feel compelled to entertain questions exclusively from these prisoners condemned to silence -- instead, proffer none-too-fresh or interesting queries from mystery men and women (Joe Six Packs? Hockey Moms? Member of the “angry left?”) culled from the internet.

3. Make sure that the questions, whether procured from the Internet or from an audience member briefly permitted to talk (but no follow-ups from the peanut gallery -- their mikes were shut off the minute they finished speaking) were essentially the same query over and over, mainly: “How will you get us out of the fucked-up mess we're in?” (And they didn’t mean Iraq.)

Rival Bronx Dem Leaders Take Battle to Court

Posted by Candice M. Giove at 5:09 PM, October 7, 2008

Two is not better than one, at least in the world of local politics. Now both sides of the fractured Bronx Democratic Party –- with two officials claiming the role of party boss and two separate county headquarters –- filed two separate lawsuits to resolve the matter once and for all.

This morning election lawyer Jerry Goldfeder said he lodged a suit "to validate the election of Jose Rivera and his slate, and to invalidate the so-called election of Carl Heastie and his folks." (Rivera is pictured above, led by District Leader Eric Stevenson) Rainbow Rebellion attorney Stanley Schlein also filed paperwork seeking the opposite ruling on Monday morning.

The question of which election stands –- the wild voice-vote run by Councilwoman Maria Baez electing Rivera or the procedural one selecting Heastie to lead –- will be answered by State Supreme Court Justice Robert Seewald.

Rebel Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz feels confident that the court will decide in their favor, saying that Rivera and his allies disregarded party rules by filling the auditorium of the Utopia Paradise Theatre with people who were not legitimate Bronx Democratic County committee members.

"This is the United States of America where we have votes, we have democracy, we play by the rules and we don't give into mob rule," he said. "We don't give into ballot stuffing, which in essence is what they attempted to do by bringing in all these people who weren't members of the county committee."

Sarah Palin's "Business" Career: Car Wash, Consultancy Earned Roughly $0

Posted by Wayne Barrett at 1:58 PM, October 7, 2008

In the debate last week, Sarah Palin referred to herself twice as a "business owner" -- a part of her resume that came right after "mayor" and "governor."

In fact, she and her husband Todd once owned 40 percent of a car wash that never washed a car, and she incorporated a marketing company that went out of business without ever doing any business. Strangely enough, the media fact-checkers were so focused on policy errors they missed a very personal one.

The best source on this is Palin, who called herself "just an unemployed housewife from Wasilla" in an op-ed she wrote for the Anchorage Daily News in December 2004, eleven months after she stepped down from the state oil & gas commission. She was unemployed from January 2004 to December 2006, when she took over as governor, and it was during that period when she made her only attempts at creating a small business. Before that she'd been in Wasilla city government for a decade -- as a city councilmember and mayor.

On July 1, 2004, the Palins and Carolin and Ray Wells purchased commercial property in Anchorage, incorporating themselves as Anchorage Car Wash LLC. "When we started, we thought we were going to go ahead" with the car wash," Carolin Wells told Modern Car Care. "We just decided to disband it. It was actually just an investment for both of us over a piece of property as it turned out." They sold it for a small profit in January 2006, just as Sarah Palin was launching her gubernatorial campagn.

In 2005, Palin incorporated Rouge Cou (roughly translated, "Red Neck"), a marketing firm that got a license but, according to disclosure forms she filed with the state the next year, never did any business.

Joe Six-Pack, Hockey Moms Fail to Buy Palin Iraq Pitch, Says Treasonous Nielsen

Posted by Roy Edroso at 10:12 AM, October 7, 2008

The Nielsen blog reports that their team of dial-twisters, who recorded their moment-by-moment reactions to the Palin-Biden debate, gave their "overall most positive response" to "Biden’s discussion of ending the war in Iraq," and their least positive response to Sarah Palin’s comments on the same subject.

This suggests that the war in Iraq may be unpopular, which of course taints the results and renders them useless. More telling is the response of $1000-a-plate GOP fundraiser attendees, who greeted Sarah Palin's plea to "tell people about the real Barack Obama" with "thunder, hoots, an ovation." There's your real America, not a bunch of twiddler paid off with plates of sandwiches and tote bags.

We'll be watching tonight's debate with a bunch of Klansmen and military contractors, and will report back with a true reading of the national reaction.

Straniere Closes Hot Dog Store, Cites Rise in Price of Pig Lips

Posted by Roy Edroso at 3:51 PM, October 4, 2008

NY13 Blog digs out a July YouTube interview of GOP Congressional candidate Bob Straniere, in which Straniere says "I consider Staten Island my home," though he maintains a residence in Manhattan. Till recently Straniere maintained a business there too -- the interview takes place at Straniere's New York Hot Dog Company in Tribeca -- but the Advance announced on Friday that Straniere is closing NYHDC, citing a jump in costs. "You can't raise the price of a hot dog all that much," he told the Advance. Straniere, shown above opening the company in 2007 with Curtis Sliwa of the Guardian Angels, is being sued by a former partner in the venture.

Sarah Palin's "Main Street" No Longer Exists -- And Neither Does Ours

Posted by Elizabeth Dwoskin at 6:46 PM, October 3, 2008

Sarah Palin spends a lot of time lambasting Wall Street corruption, beltway insiders, and the urban elite. In far (even remote) contrast, she throws up Main Street, Wasilla, and during last night's Vice Presidential debate she invited all Americans to come visit to see what things are all about up there.

New York City, the veritable empire of Palin's detested urban elites, has probably only one thing in common with Wasilla: both places are out of step with the way Americans live today.

Main Street, like the "kitchen table" evoked so often in last night's debate, is one of the great and persistent myths in American political life. That is, despite the fact that for the near majority of Americans Main Street is a strip mall or a freeway, the concept continues to hold weight and political power. We're clinging to what we've lost, and Sarah Palin represents our collective yearning for a fiction; she hails from one of the last American frontiers, a place where, yes, there still is a Main Street to drive through (though from the pics, looks like Wasilla has no shortage of strip malls these days either). So maybe even in Wasilla, Main Street is a myth too.

Joe Biden also has a mythological Main Street: the Scranton, Pennsylvania of his boyhood. It's the source of his American authenticity, and in last night's debate, he used the word "dignity" to describe the people there. Main Street anchors us in what we think are our values and our sense of ourselves. It evokes a simpler time when there were jobs for people without a college education, when those who did go to college could pay for it with cheap loans, and health care was affordable. The kitchen table stands for universal concerns about the loss of those things.

But if Main Street is a symbol of community and of a prosperity that now seems unattainable, the same can be said about New York City, the bastion of Sarah Palin's liberal elite. Over the past eight years, the boom times of Wall Street have transformed Manhattan's Main Street -- from the manufacturing jobs that are no longer around, to the upscale restaurants and condos that have transformed its neighborhoods, to the people who have been displaced from them. The transformation has been just as striking here as in other parts of the country. Sure, we New Yorkers may earn a little more on average, but the explosion in rents and the cost of living conspire to make sure that we don't live so much better.

So the next time Palin suggests that liberal elites are out of touch, consider that, living in the Kingdom of Capital, we've witnessed firsthand just who has prospered -- and who hasn't. Every day, we see how both halves live, and those of us in the middle are none too pleased about it, either.

Sarah Palin, Wink Wink!

Posted by Lynn Yaeger at 9:41 AM, October 3, 2008

Pluses and Minuses of La Passionaria Palin’s Performance Last Night --

Plus: Truly excellent black dress

Minus: Tourette’s-like inability to control winks

Plus: Excellent, if robotic, command of foreign leader’s funny names

Minus: Bizarre predilection for keeping an infant up at night

Plus: Reintroducing a lexicon last heard on the Andy Griffith show (or maybe that’s a minus?)

Minus: Repeating dumb allegation that Obama voted against a particular bill aiding Iraq troops, which McCain also voted against. (Or maybe that’s a plus?)

Late breaking unrelated news: Fox Business News money-honey Nicole Petallides wearing adorable puffy-sleeved velvet jacket this morning, just said in a burbly voice, “Capitalism is still alive!” Image via danperry.com (cc)

Local Press Reactions to the VP Debate (Warning: Bullshit)

Posted by Roy Edroso at 5:06 AM, October 3, 2008

New York magazine: "Did it totally seem like these two candidates wanted to get it on, or what?" What.

New York Times: "And Ms. Palin, a former small-town mayor, was unlike any other running mate in recent memory, using phrases like 'heck of a lot' and 'Main Streeters like me' to appeal to working-class and middle-class voters who feel abandoned by Washington." In the words of Elaine Bennis, "Well, that's because you're an idiot."

"SARAH PALIN'S BIG NIGHT," bellows the New York Post. "'Biden, who has a reputation for gaffes, committed a few slips of the tongue, such as when he said Iran was close to Obama, as if his running mate were a country in the Middle East,'" adds the Post, without attributing the quote.

"Sarah Palin didn't lose debate debut; but Joe Biden didn't quite win," says the New York Daily News. Commenters are less equivocal. "what is incredible to me are the differences in the polls between FOX NEWS, CNN, ABC NEWS and some of the other national polls on this debate," said one, predictably answering his/herself, "the polls are being rigged to make it look like Obama and Biden are winning."

The Observer suggests that Palin benefited from a lack of "follow-up questions." "Palin did her reputation a service on Thursday night," the broadsheet admits. "But that’s not saying much."

The Staten Island Advance bites an inconclusive AP report, but commenters from the Republican borough make up for it: "you mean the mess that is the economy that the dems created?... Yes the president could have sounded the alarm earlier as he s our leader but look at who is the real culprit in this mess it is not the gop."

amNY takes the interesting but ultimately (and predictably) disappointing tack of inviting blog comments. Sample: "Bragg: she's no idiot. Dontre: i disagree! Bragg: she may be inexperienced, but she's no idiot."

"Both agreed that reducing emissions was an important factor in combating climate change," says WCBS.

First Reax Palin-Biden (Still Drunk!)

Posted by Roy Edroso at 11:11 PM, October 2, 2008

At NBC it's conventional wisdom without a Convention or wisdom.

Chuck Todd says Biden talked as if "he were the candidate," which is bullshit, and "You're not going to see this debate have much effect --" which would be just, but who can count on justice?

Tom "Swallowed My Tongue Again" Brokaw: "They're whooping it up in Alaska tonight... I wanna say to the Joe Six-Packs out there and the Hockey Moms," which sounds weird coming from him, and much, much weirder when he repeats the "Coldest State, Hottest Governor" bumper-sticker slogan.

All the NBC chatterers agree that Palin was just so darned cute.

Ooh, local angle, the horrible Geraldine Ferraro comments! She says she was "coming at it from two different directions" (Yeah, we bet.) She said Palin did a "good job" and that "they both walked away with a win." But the Divine Sarah "held her own... I wanted my granddaughters to see this debate," blah blah gotta wipe my mouth again. Is Ferraro a smoker? She sounds like Lucille Ball with a bad cold.

Oh, you know who gets the first commercial afterward? Exxon-Mobil. And then an ad for An American Carol.

Oops, here come the conservatives...

There is at first an eerie calm at National Review's The Corner. While editor Kathryn J. Lopez jumps up and down, hugging herself ("If Palin Becomes Veep, Joe Six-Pack would have won. It will be the Joe Six-Pack election"), Mark Levin swoons, "She is the bright light in this campaign from my perspective." Then Lopez flips out with a gigantic post into which she dumps three months worth of talking points, and adds things like "ONE PRO-LIFE ACTIVIST SAYS I’m back where I was a month ago. I wasn’t where Kathleen parker was but I was starting to waiver [sic]..." Yeah, like the Jesus freaks were going to switch to Obama.

Rightblogger fave Instapundit does his usual passive-aggressive link thing, then announces "Frank Luntz's focus group thought it was Palin by a mile. Luntz predicts a big shift in the polls toward McCain over the next few days." Luntz, to the uninitiated, is a right wing factotum who thinks 1984 is a handbook.

Michelle Malkin, with the evenhanded judgment for which she is known, said, "I would like to see all the Sarah doubters and detractors in the Beltway/Manhattan corridor eat their words. Eat them."

The Weekly Standard is enthused that Palin used "shout-out" and "back in the day" during her answers, which it says Ben Smith "compares... to the Gen-X language Obama's been using on the stump for two years." C'mon kids, vote for the anti-abortion candidate!

We'll save the rest for our weekly column. Our overview is that both candidates talked fast and delivered what they were supposed to deliver. Palin met her MDR of kitchie-koo normal-American locutions and proved she could talk about social studies topics, and Biden argued the case for the Democratic ticket. Up to you, and America, which was more important.

Obama Campaign Mind Trick: Says Sarah Palin Among "Best Debaters"

Posted by Roy Edroso at 6:20 PM, October 2, 2008

As is well known, Sarah Palin spent the past two weeks acting stupid on purpose to lower expectations for tonight's debate, so if she doesn't run crying from the stage it'll be counted a major win for the GOP.

Today David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, did some reverse-framing (or counter-spin or jiu-jitsu or whatever they call bullshitting these days) by telling reporters that "Governor Palin is one of the best debaters in American politics," says Fox News.

When the audible reaction suggested incredulity, Plouffe reaffirmed, "No, she is!"

Having thus convinced the journalists, Plouffe began to work some insidious double-reverse political magic.

Plouffe predicted "very witty, biting lines" from Palin, then told the press they'd love that because they were "like figure skating judges." To deepen the mystery, Plouffe scoffed at the Gwen Ifill controversy, saying it was just the McCainiacs' way of "trying to manufacture news to try and quote-unquote win news cycles."

The spinner spins the spun! We expect the reporters left the press muttering "These are not the Dems we're looking for" and, instead of turning their self-loathing on candidates they intend to vote for, directing it at themselves where it belongs.

Rightbloggers Express Dark Suspicions About Ifill

Posted by Roy Edroso at 10:33 AM, October 1, 2008

We noticed a late flare-up of interest in our September 5 item, "Gwen Ifill's Face Accused of Media Bias." A few recent visitors dropped comments, some of the racist-doucebag variety ("AFFIRMATIVE ACTION POSTER CHILD," "reminds me of King Kong," etc). We expect this is because the PBS anchor is moderating tomorrow's debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, and it has become a rightwing talking point that Ifill is fatally biased because she is working on a book about black politicians focusing on Obama, and (as some rightbloggers remind their readers by running Ifill's picture) is herself black. It looks like our original headline has more resonance than we imagined.

Bronx Dem Boss Storms Meeting, Declares Victory; Rebels Quietly Vote In Heastie

Posted by Candice M. Giove at 3:16 AM, September 29, 2008

photos by Candice M. Giove

The Bronx Democratic County Committee gathering last night began with a circus: elected officials aligned with party boss Jose Rivera -- and various persons unknown -- commandeered control of the election, re-anointed Rivera as county leader, and bolted out of the auditorium at the Utopia Paradise Theatre on the Grand Concourse.

Then the Bronx Rainbow Rebellion leaders, who have been working to wrest control of the Party from Rivera, declared that election a sham and held a meeting of their own that elected Assemblyman Carl Heastie as party boss.

"This was a schizophrenic evening," said Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr. "Unfortunately the first meeting was more of a show of buffoonery and they really made a mockery of the democratic system."

As Rivera (pictured above right, with District Leader Eric Stevenson) walked down the aisle of the Utopia Paradise, his supporters crowded the auditorium, waved signs and drowned the place in cheers. It remains unclear how many of them were legitimate members of the county committee.

During the Rivera session people voted by cheering "aye" or "nay" -- though there was no way to distinguish the voices of the voting members from the others.

"They tried through mob rule to try to retain control of the county organization -- even though they had the support of a small minority -- by bringing in hundreds of people who aren't eligible to vote here because they were not county committee members," said Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz.

Each committee member signed his or her name into a book, and received a yellow wristband to show his or her status as a person eligible to vote. Dinowitz's glasses were scuffed by Rivera supporters who unsuccessfully tried to wrest those rolls from people overseeing the 11 sign-in tables. "I guess they wanted to destroy the legitimate records of the legitimate meeting and so they wanted to grab the books," Dinowitz said.

As Rivera's allies began their meeting and election, a swarm of committee members were still outside of the auditorium. Councilwoman Maria Baez, a longtime Rivera friend, jumped in to lead the Rivera meeting without them –- and plowed through it with disregard for committee members who piped up a "nay" to her requests.

"She was not authorized according to the rules to conduct a meeting," said Assemblywoman Aurelia Greene, referring to Judge Robert Seewald's opinion which makes clear that Assemblyman Carl Heastie, as the executive committee's chairman, would run the election. "The chairman was present. The court ruled that he was supposed to run the meeting."

Before the show was over, Assemblyman Rivera took his spot on stage. "They wanted to have a party?" he yelled. "We are having a party."

With that, Rivera's supporters and Rivera-aligned elected officials rushed out of the doors. They took the microphones with them.

"He had a chance to leave with dignity and he chose just the opposite," said Rebel Assemblyman Michael Benedetto. "It's very sad."

When the pandemonium ended, Assemblyman Heastie (pictured above) began a more civilized meeting. The Rebels followed rules carefully. First, county committee members elected an executive slate. That slate, along with 14 of the Bronx's 24 district leaders, voted for Heastie to take the party reins.

Assemblyman Heastie said the results of that election would be delivered today to the Board of Elections.

The evening put the intense fracture in Bronx politics on display. What began as a battle over a civil court judge led to this major division of the party, and patching things up will be on Assemblyman Heastie's agenda. "It's going to be a tough task, but from what we witnessed tonight it may be a little tougher than I first thought."

Following the vote, the multi-ethnic mass of committee members filed out onto the Grand Concourse and waited to get on chartered buses to their respective sections of the borough.

Assemblyman Michael Benjamin stood outside with them, and said that now the party could move in a new direction. "We want to show that the new Bronx Democratic Party is going to serve all communities and will not be about self and family and close friends," he said. "It's about democracy in our borough."

Rebels said that the evening's election would most likely wind up in court.

Michael Nieves, a spokesman for Jose Rivera, doesn't see a need for legal action. "As far as I'm concerned we conducted a meeting and we won," he said. "If they disagree because they conducted a meeting after ours they need to go to court."

Sarah Palin for New York Tourism

Posted by Roy Edroso at 9:42 AM, September 26, 2008

"Every American student needs to come through this area, so that, especially this younger generation of Americans is, to be in a position of never forgetting what happened here, and never repeating, never allowing a repeat of what happened here. I wish every American would come through here, I wish every world leader would come through here, and understand what it is that took place here, and more importantly how America came together united, to commit to never allowing this to happen again, and to just hear and from and see these good New Yorkers who are rebuilding not just this area but helping to rebuild Americans, and very very inspiring and encouraging, these are the good Americans who are committed to peace and security, and it's been an absolute honor getting to meet these folks today." (From a brief meeting with the press near Ground Zero -- ABC video here.)

Related: Palin's parents "were on Staten Island in 2001 as part of the post-9/11 relief efforts... Their job was to make sure birds and rats did not disturb the debris from the collapsed World Trade Center towers... They used snap-traps to catch mice and rats and pyrotechnics to scare off the gulls. If the birds persisted, the couple shot them as a last resort..." -- Staten Island Advance.

Russell Harding Tells… Some

Posted by Tom Robbins at 4:44 PM, September 25, 2008

Russell Harding, the ex-Giuliani aide who was convicted of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars while serving as a high-level city housing official, is out of prison –- and blogging!

Rudyveritas.com is Harding’s name for his site where he tells some fascinating tales involving his old boss gambling in Las Vegas with John McCain -– and how he was ordered by Giuliani chief of staff Tony Carbonetti to get a city-subsidized housing developer to provide a luxury apartment for the mayor’s then girlfriend, Judith Nathan.

Harding, whose dad Raymond was Giuliani's political mentor, served more than four years in prison after pleading guilty to federal charges. The investigation came after the Voice reported that the former president of the city's Housing Development Corporation had traveled on junkets around the world on the city's dime and sent gifts to buddies using a city credit card.

"If I Have the Opportunity to Serve as President": Obama at CGI

Posted by Roy Edroso at 11:38 AM, September 25, 2008

Appearing via video feed at the Clinton Global Initiative, Barack Obama had a chance to follow John McCain's speech with one of his own. Owing to format, his address was more low key his predecessor's (though Obama was flanked by two American flags), but like McCain's it did not lack for political content relevant to the U.S. election.

First Obama told the attendees that "CGI brings pople together to take on tough global challenges" and make "concrete commitments that have affected over 200 million people," which he applauded.

Like McCain he addressed the economic crisis, saying it is "as serious as any we've faced since the Great Depression." He said it was "outrageous" that "taxpayers must bear the burden and the risk for the greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street and Washington."

Obama reminded auditors that he had been in "close contact with Secretary Paulson and our leaders in Congress," and had taken an "opportunity to speak directly to the American people" on the issue. Much like McCain, he called for an "independent board" of Democrats and Republicans to provide "oversight and aoccuntability" of the program, and said that as taxpayers were called upon to "finance the solution, they have to be treated as investors" -- though, unlike traditional Wall Street investors, they should be also assured that they would receive "every penny" of their money back. And he said the government should "not be spending one dime on the same Wall Streets CEOs" who had caused the crisis.

Obama portrayed these principles as his own and said he was "pleased that Senator McCain has decided to embrace them as well."

He reiterated his intention to go to Oxford, Mississippi for the planned debate tomorrow. "The election is in 40 days," he reminded the audience, and though "our economy is in crisis... the American people deserve to hear from myself and Senator McCain" on "the full range of issues" which he said were "too serious to ignore."

"Since CGI is about deeds, not just words," Obama offered "four specific commitments" addressing Clinton Global Initiative concerns, which he would implement "if I have the opportunity to serve as President."

In a lengthy bridging section Obama said, "We live in a time where all our destinies are shared" and "in a world more intertwined than in any time in our history... In America we have seen no dividing line between the dream on Main Street and the bottom line on Wall Street... Growth cannot just come from the top down, it must also come from the bottom up," with "new jobs with good wages."

Obama said this interconnection also meant that a student inflamed in a "radical madrassa" in northern Africa "can endanger my daughters in Chicago," and a "deadly flu" originating in Asia could be spread worldwide. "None of these problems can be dealt with in isolation," he said, "and that's why you came to CGI."

He said American dependence on foreign oil had become "an economic albatross and a moral challenge of our time," and that it was "time finally for America to lead" on the issue. Therefore, his first commitment was to "setting a goal of an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050."

Obama also committed to invest "$50 billion a year" in development of "alternative energy" (mentioning, among other sources, "technologies that can make coal clean," which we doubt Al Gore would endorse); to "increase our foreign assistance" and "cut poverty in half by 2015"; to "erase the global primary education gap by 2015," in part through a "$2 billion global education fund"; and to "ending all deaths from malaria by 2015." Funding sources were little mentioned, outside of a reference to "public-private partnerships."

Obama closed: "The scale of our challenges may be great... but we know it need not be feared... We see the potential for progress... every time a girl walks through the doors of a new school, or a boy gets to live another day because of a simple net around his bed... Now it falls to all of us to get busy... and create the kind of world that we want our children and grandchildren to grow up in."

"If I am elected": McCain at the Clinton Global Initiative

Posted by Roy Edroso at 10:07 AM, September 25, 2008

With Sarah Palin in attendance, John McCain gave opening remarks at the Clinton Global Initiative this morning. It turned out Bill Clinton was holding McCain's copy of the speech, and there was some humorous byplay between them about the mix-up.

Maybe Clinton had read the address and wished to discourage it: it was essentially a campaign speech, with a large component devoted to the financial crisis which had provided the opportunity for McCain's bold evasion of Friday's planned Presidential debate.

McCain told the audience "I know and hope you'll understand if I begin by addressing ... a crisis that began not far from here in the financial district of this city."

"History must not record," he continued, "that when our nation faced such a moment, our leadership was unable to put aside politics and focus in a unified way to address this problem."

Referring to the proposed bailout, McCain said "$700 billion is a stggering and unprecedented figure" that could "rebuild the crumbling infrastucture of every town, county, and city" in the country. "I'm an old Navy pilot," he reminded auditors, "and I know when a crisis calls for all hands on deck. The whole future of the American people is in danger."

Therefore, he said, "I cannot carry on this campaign as if a crisis had not occurred," explaining that this was why he "suspended" his part in it. "The debate that most matters right now is taking place right now in our nation's capital," where "no consensus has developed to support the Administration's proposal to solve this crisis."

McCain laid out five "principles" which he intended to promote upon his imminent return to Washington: "Greater accountability," to which end "I've suggested a bipartisan board to provide oversight" over a program which, he said, as proposed concentrates power "in the hands of one person"; "a path for the American taxpayers to recover those funds" expended in solving the crisis; "complete transparency" on details of the process, which should be made "available online"; an affirmation that it is "unacceptable for any kinds of earmarks to be included in this bill"; and a puzzling statement that he would "rather build a bridge to nowhere and put it in the middle of Sedona, Arizona" than use these funds unwisely.

He finally got around to energy, the topic of the forum, saying that "people are hurting" because "the cost of gasoline is out of control... the cost of living is rising and the value of paychecks falling... the price of oil is too high and the supply of oil too uncertain." He acknowledged that we "need to avoid the consequences of global warming" and move toward "wind, solar, biofuels, and other sources yet to be invented." He also mentioned as an alternative "clean burning coal," at which concept Al Gore had violently scoffed the day before. He suggested also that we "put the market in the side of environmental protection."

Eventually McCain acknowledged the global nature of the program, saying "today too many around the world are excluded from the benefits of globalization," a problem to be addressed because "disparity can breed resentment" and "we can can never guarantee our security through military means alone." By promoting worldwide development, McCain said, "we serve not only our strategic interests, we serve our moral interests as well."

He applauded the efforts of the Gates Foundation and other NGOs in fighting malaria, because "America is more than its government," and promised that "if I am elected, I will build on these and other initiatives to assure that malaria will be no more." He also pledged that a McCain Administration would "fight tuberculosis," "dramatically raise agricultural productivity in Africa," and help engineer "an African green revolution." He criticized "trade restrictions combined with agricultural subsidies," which he said helped "choke off the opportunity for farmers to help themselves."

He closed by telling the crowd that "I intend to be the agent of change" and thanking them for their time.

After the address Bill Clinton assured the crowd that Barack Obama, who would be heard from later by satellite, would be given "equal time in an equal way."

McCain: No Multi-Tasking

Posted by Roy Edroso at 5:34 PM, September 24, 2008

John McCain wants to delay/duck the first Presidential debate with Barack Obama scheduled for Friday because "It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem" of the financial crisis being debated in Washington.

Obama replied that "Part of the president’s job is to deal with more than one thing at once."

We have no idea how McCain's gambit -- coming as it does at a bad time for his campaign -- will play with the voters. But we take Obama's point. We were not too disturbed by McCain's alleged lack of computer finesse, assuming that Lincoln was probably not a great telegraph operator, either. But Lincoln had to prosecute a war while handling the other administrative details of his office, as has every other President, at least publicly.

Neither our bosses, nor our clients, nor our creditors have ever relieved us of an obligation because we were in the busy season and couldn't spare them the attention. Is there any good reason why McCain and/or the U.S. Government should be treated more leniently?