wfalda's Comments (18)

“I don't know who to believe any more. I don't know if these bailouts are right or wrong. I don't know if these bailouts are the only way out of this nightmare. I yearn for some solid economics certainties that I can wrap my arms around and build some sort of foundation for some hope that we are going to get out of this gawdawful mess. Does any one out there share my frustration being whipsawed back and forth by competing commentaries?”

“George reminds of the loser in high school who thinks he ran with the "in crowd." He even has the picture from 1962 to prove it. You know, the picture where - at the last minute he jumped into the group of good looking jocks and popular girls just as the photographer was saying "One, two, three."

George pulls out the picture often just as he is trying to wedge himself into the photo of great presidents who had to act boldly at a time of crisis. Democratic presidents: FDR, Truman.

"There's Bobby standing next to me. He ran 98 yards as time expired to beat Central High." I gave him room to get into the picture. "There's Tommy in front of me. Scored 58 points . . . " Mary - National Honor Society. Went to Notre Dame."

There's Franklin Delano. There's Harry. And there's me."

Cliff Claven never knew he was a loser. Gleason's Poor Soul did.”

“Yes, KarelS. The emotionally disturbed will be with us always. They have walked among us, since our species first learned to walk upright. They burned the library of Alexandria, destroyed civilizations, hacked apart Tutsis with machetes, beat Emmett Till and Matthew Shepard to death, and slammed two jets into the World Trade Center. Unfortunately, it takes a catastrophe, like 8 years of George Bush, for decent people to rise up, put aside prejudices and return America to its ideals. But, we have unfinished business to attend to. We have another election in two years in which we can pound the final nails into the coffin of the old Nixon Moral Majority coalition. The 2010 'off year' elections will take place without the racism and the bigotry that kept decent Americans from getting rid of all of the worst offenders. Yes, Elizabeth Dole was repudiated by the good people of North Carolina. She was the most obvious offender. There are more lurking in Congress as well as in city halls and town courthouses. Let's not rest now.”

“Electoral College
Obama 356 McCain 182

Senate
Dem 60 Repub. 40

House
Dem. 252 Repub. 183

Minnesota

Franken 50
Coleman 48
Barkley 2

Just for fun: Obama 70 million popular vote McCain 54 million popular vote”

“I will cast my vote for Obama/Biden on Nov 4 with pure revenge over the way Republicans have painted Democrats as anti-American. Retaliation will be sweet. For years, Republicans have called Democrats unpatriotic, godless, effete/elite, weak/wimpy and goodness knows what else. On Nov. 4, I will have my sole opportunity to strike back. Now what was that again about the Bradley effect?”

“I remember shoveling horse manure when I was 9 years old. It nauseated me. I did my job, got paid 25 cents, and got out of the barn fast. True story. I am reminded of this 51 years later because I see McCain - and Palin especially - shoveling horse manure to the adoring Republican base. If their evidence is so overwhelming and compelling that Obama pals around with terrorists or engages in surreptitious anti-American activity of some kind, then why are they not coming forth with the hard evidence of what would be a clear case of treason? Why are they instead just making stump speeches that are merely suggestive of anti-American activity? Could it be that McCain and Palin are making their indirect innuendoes before their adoring crowds because they know what they are shoveling is horse manure? It looks like McCain wants to get off the stage as fast as I wanted to get out of the barn. Sarah seems to like it though. If the evidence if irrefutable, then it should be leaked to the press. There isn't a reporter in America who would walk away from a certain Pulitzer Prize after having exposed Obama's "terrorist agenda" as they call it. In the absence of such a blockbuster, the Republican base is saying there must be a huge conspiracy on the part of the MSM to keep the truth away from the American public (their words). I just report the facts. You decide.”

“Pretty dumb post, Pepper14. Was that supposed to be an insightful commentary? Watch SNL and Tina Fey next week in the weekly "Mimic the Gimmick" installment. If you are going to go down on Nov. 4. go down laughing. I'm on tenterhooks: how will SNL use Palin's remarks yesterday that Obama will pal around with terrorists? Stay tuned.”

“I'm Catholic, Bibbo. And I am ashamed of you. First of all, please capitalize Roman Catholic. Sister would rap your knuckles with a ruler 10 times if she found out your identity. Also, it's "I guess" not quess. I could go on, but you really do represent the Republican base, the 27 % who still think highly of George W. Bush. So McCain will get that 27% and maybe 10 or 15 % more from other fringe elements of the Homo sapien species living on soil arbitrarily called "America." That gives your McCain/Palin ticket 37-42 % of the vote on Nov. 4. You are going to lose in a landslide. Do yourself a favor and remove yourself from the political arena. Go to confession. Say your penance. Ask God to make you a better person, and a better speller, too.”

“I don't agree totally with your assertion that Republicans try to "shift the political conversation from substance to frivolity." It's worse than that, Barbara, by far. Sarah Palin just told a crowd that Barack Obama would pal around with terrorists. GOP voters will no doubt pick up the chant - just as they have for years as Limbaugh would spoon feed them their talking points. When backed into a corner, they now raise their voices and try to talk over you just as O'Reilly does when somebody attempts to make a valid point. He might even shout "Shut up!!" So now McCain, Palin, Limbaugh, Coulter and O'Reilly are not only telling the blind how to respond, they are telling them how to behave. Act surly. Get dirty. Lie if you have to. Make gross distortions of your opponents record. No! Make gross distortions of your opponents character. Steal votes, if you must. Myself, I am voting for the only two adults running for president and vice president. The GOP culture of ugliness, now deeply ingrained, is disgraceful. Surely, there is something upstairs that is wrong with these people.”

“She can't get out of her cave. There is a vicious dinosaur outside trying to eat her.”

“I have been reading a fair number of comments on Arianna's "Economic Shock and Awe" column and I have noticed a complete - or near complete - absence of loony, off-the-wall diatribes by rabid Republicans. Is it just me, or is this unprecedented? Or is it because the subject matter is far deeper than Sarah Palin and requires a some knowledge of economics and understanding of what Wall St. is about?
True, this mess is a Republican-caused crisis and maybe the shallow-minded simpletons of the right are backing away from commenting with their usual hysterics. Anyway, it is a breath of fresh air that so many replies demonstrate that a good number of commenters have responded with a fair degree of sophistication to their arguments.”

“Barack Obama. Barack Obama. Barack Obama. What a beautiful, beautiful name - except to those people who fell for the Rovian ruse that his middle name, Hussein, means he is a Muslim; fell for the Rovian ruse that he wants kindergartners to learn all about coitus; fell for the Rovian ruse that Obama is the cause of the Wall St. meltdown; fell for the Rovian ruse that McCain (shhhh) fathered an illegitimate black child (oh, that was 2000. Sorry). No doubt you will be vilified in bizarre ways in this comment column by these same people who deliberately keep themselves clueless. Otherwise, they would have to face their own emotional dysfunctions. It ain't funny, girl.”

“I once joked that my local paper would one day run a story about firemen rescuing a cat up a tree. Ha Ha!! A month later . . . on the front page, no less . . . there it was. I have the morning paper in my hand right now and I am trying to compare the "news" to what I am reading in The Huffington Post (also the Washington Post, the Denver Post, etc.). Simply put: there is no resemblance. In the local paper, you would not know that the most important election of our time is entering its critical phase. Nothing about McCain's preposterous assaults on Obama. Nothing about his weird answers about Spain. Nothing about leaving health care to the 'free' market. Nothing about blaming Obama for the Wall St. melt down. So the elderly - you know, the ones who vote - who still rely on the daily newspaper for vital information are totally in the dark about this election. Every American must actually go hunting for critical election news on the Internet, unless they live in a major metro area where the last few remaining "real' newspapers still cover the election with some depth. I am a retired newspaper reporter of 32 years.”

“Not exactly "complete dolts" as you call them, DevRock. I have two friends who are brilliant and they vote straight ticket GOP. They have 75+ patents between them. They are totally different from each other, but they share a common trait: to be wrong would devastate them. I have a sister who is married to a complete bigot. Both vote GOP. She is emotionally unstable (believe me, I know her parents). For her to face up to the fact that there is something seriously wrong, would devastate her. I have a neighbor who has always voted R. Nice, congenial guy - very affable. Wonderful father. For him to admit that he is a closet bigot would devastate him and his children. I have another neighbor who voted for Bush the first time, realized he made a mistake then voted Kerry and now Obama. He admitted he was wrong. He could fess up and admit he was wrong. For the others, the floor would collapse underneath them.”

“Let's step back for a second: The Bush Administration has been a Category 5 Catastrophe. McCain ads are flat-out lies. Sarah Palin is one-inch deep. Republicans are reneging on Troopergate in broad daylight. Rampant greed on Wall Street abetted by GOP deregulation sends the country to the brink of financial ruin. A trillion dollars down the rathole in Iraq. A quagmire in Afghanistan. Bin Laden still at large. Cheney spying on Americans with tactics so illegal it provokes a revolt within the U.S. Department of Justice. Vilifying opponents with smears. On and on and on. Yet there are people who will proudly vote Republican on Nov. 4. Question: "Are they mentally ill?"”

“Paul: If you are shocked that "there really is a whole slice of the electorate for whom sexuality and race are the defining negative issues of the 21st century" then I suggest that you go campaigning door to door for Obama. I have now come to appreciate the "loser" vote as a huge factor nobody likes to talk about. If Obama opens up a 10-point lead by Oct. 31, the losers will stay at home because they - well - don't like to lose and be reminded that they are losers. But if it is dead even, then the losers will once again be emboldened and empowered - just as they were with Reagan, and both Bushes. As you know the "Bubba vote" started in the South after passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Lyndon Johnson famously said "we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come." Sure enough, the South swung radically to the GOP. It was Lee Atwater who engineered the spread the "loser/Bubba" vote to all parts of the country, not just keeping it in the South. Oops. News flash. Obama just opened a 2 pt. lead in the latest Gallup poll. If it goes to 5, the losers will begin their slow retreat and hopefully stay home on Election Day. 10 pts and you won't see a one on Nov. 4.”

“Breaking news! Breaking news! Read an astonishing piece by conservative David Brooks in today's New York Times. Brooks comes right out and tells the truth about Palin and McCain in his piece "Experience Matters." Could this be the long-awaited Palin downfall we have all been awaiting (and hoping) for?”

“Film critic Roger Ebert wrote an illuminating column today why Sarah Palin is so popular: she is the epitome of an American Idol contestant.

American Idol is popular because most people are still stuck in high school emotionally. In other words, we have 14,15 and 16-year-olds in aged bodies deciding for the world who will become POTUS. My theory is that 90% of all Homo sapiens have an emotional dysfunction ranging on a scale of 1-10, with 1s being darn near perfect people and 10s being the incarcerated and the institutionalized. 0s are those few lucky souls who have the right/appropriate emotional, at the right time, and at the right duration and intensity.

The Republicans know this. Their ploy to deceive and dupe is to keep the emotionally dysfunctional hyped up - and that is the real reason why Sarah Palin was chosen, her vast experience notwithstanding. They also use lies, deception, and deceit to emotionally rile their opponents by firing up their amygdalas in ways that produce disorientation. The same tactic - an ugly slur - will also fire up the amygdalas among Republicans voters to given them an emotional high.

One slight,problem: this is an assault on Democracy and one of Democracy's chief pillars: an informed electorate. But then, the Republicans don't seem to care much about Democracy. Just win at all costs, even if it tears the nation apart.

It's all about brain wiring Rog. And that is not going to change.”