First Draft

First, what Mr. A swears made him finally understand what in the unholy blue hell is going on in the economy and why what looks to outsiders like a bunch of banker schmoes losing their shirts has become a problem for everybody. My opinion remains that action at any point in the past two decades to unfuck this country of ours might have averted the current crisis, and thus I have little patience for the present sense of urgency, ie, welcome to the partywhere the HELL have you been? As I said in comments to another post a few days ago, I am willing to believe that something should be done to repair our economy. I am not willing to believe that the current crop of fascists and fools in Congress has any idea what it is, or can carry it off successfully. Reassure me on the latter, and you’ll have me on the former, but good luck with that, really.

Digby offers something else that makes me profoundly tired:

The congress is going back to the drawing board. And maybe they’ll hammer out another plan. But the political question is who is in the driver’s seat this time. Clearly, the country is operating without a president right now — he has absolutely no juice to get anything done and his administration is so discredited that they can’t rally the public. Leadership on this is left to the Democrats. ( Republicans are going to go on strike just like the bankers and leave the whole thing in their hands.) If that’s the case, then the Democrats should set forth a real progressive plan — a New Deal for the 21st century.

Because I’m sorry, but we have seen this before. We have seen world event after world event after domestic horror after domestic horror offer the party the opportunity to stand up and say, “Not this time. Just this far, and no farther, and it stops right now.” We saw it in 2004 with Kerry and we saw it in 2005 with Katrina and we saw it in 2006 with the new majority and we saw it this year with FISA, the turning point at which no one turned. The place to make a stand, at which everyone remained sitting right where they were. I mean, I’m sorry, I know he’s a wacky little elf and all, butDennis Kucinich has been screaming this shit since 2003, when I first became aware of him:

Yet the most impassioned applause of the day was reserved for Kucinich. Introduced by Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers of America, as “the only vegan in Congress,” Kucinich took the stage to John Lennon’s “Imagine” and proceeded to conjure the heyday of American progressivism by promising a new version of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. “We’re gonna rebuild America’s cities, and we’re gonna do it with America’s steel,” he roared, his voice far larger than his elfin frame. In his spellbinding speech, Kucinich laid out a lefty’s dream platform: Medicare for all, money pulled out of the Pentagon budget to pay for schools and other domestic programs, and “total nuclear disarmament.” He spoke to the crowd’s fury over the war in Iraq, getting a screaming standing ovation when he cried, “This war was wrong! This war was fraudulent! We must expose this administration!”

And you couldn’t pay the Bush Dogs and the other ten-a-penny hacks to listen, much less care.

I wrote thisback in 2005:

I think we run by saying we are going to physically, with our hands and with hammers and nails, put right what went so wrong. I think we start right now, today, by calling for a comprehensive reconstruction program, with deadlines, goals, benchmarks to be met, with a built in Truman Commission to prevent no-bid contracting to companies like Halliburton. I think we start calling for that, as one, with one voice. I think in the face of terror and tragedy we become the people who say, you can overcome this, we will help you, have courage, have hope. Have hope.

The room for action has been there over and over and over again. For years now. Years. We are arguing with ourselves about something so completely self-evident that it should be classified a sin, that we can’t recognize it by now.

That I am supporting Obama, is in the hope that with a White House in their control, they’ll be less cowed. That with the example of what someone can do to inspire Americans to move, they might realize we’re all here, we’re all ready, we’re all hungry for it. We’re listening. All they have to do is speak. That I am supporting Obama, it’s in the belief that the simple “whoa, holy, shit, look at all those people who arefucking pissed off at stuff” will finally sink in.

Let’s not kid ourselves, though. This isn’t exactly the first big opening they’ve had to do something. This isn’t their first chance to fail. They’ve had chance after chance, and they’ve never missed a single one yet.

A.

Both theWall Street Journal’sJames Taranto and Powerline’sScott “Big Trunk” Johnson have complained about me referring to the president as “Chimpy” in this blog.

I feel I owe them an explanation.

AFP/Saul Loeb

If you’re not here on Thursday night for the Palin/Biden smackdown, this is the kind of thing you’ll be missing. Seriously. You wanna be here. Where else can you find analysis like this?

When McCain declared that he was once called “sheriff” for his supposed policing of Congress:

chuckago: They called him “shithead.” He heard “sheriff”

thomas_w: John McCain invented being sheriff. Look it up: Nottingham, 1716.

Foreign policy, illuminated by Crimean War references, because you are all a bunch of nerds. AWESOME NERDS:

Doc5307: Yea because we’re all thinking: “Hey my mortgage is fucked, my job is gone, Mexico looks like a step up, but what I really need to know about is your position on POLAND.”

skippy7418: tom clancy rears his ugly head

Bad_Elspeth: Come to Sams Wholesale Club for bargain packs of wars!

thomas_w: A: McCain invented the letters K, G, and B. Previously, they only had 23 letters.

Sorcha: Wait, are we going to invade Poland now?

joejoejoe7427: first we have to retake Milwaukee Avenue

Athenae: We can retake Milwaukee Avenue only if the pierogi lines remain clear.

joejoejoe7427: it will be tough…I’m in favor of direct talks with Milwaukee Avenue

Doc5307: Mr. Putin, REBUILD THIS WALL SO WE CAN FUCK WITH YOU…

The_Kenosha_Kid: when i was a POW in the crimean war…

leinie: A, did he lead the charge of the light brigade?

BuggyQ: McCain thinks the Charge of the Light Brigade was a glorious victory.

Douglas_Watts: This debate is volga

Nine out of ten Crack Van focus group members favored furniture:

BuggyQ: Hit him! HIT HIMMMMMMM!!

virgotex: please

Bad_Elspeth: SMACK DOWN!

leinie: WITH THE CHAIR

Bad_Elspeth: NOW

The_Kenosha_Kid: YES

Bad_Elspeth: with TWO CHAIRS

Bad_Elspeth: hell, with the lectern!!!

BuggyQ: Oh, baby! Yeah, baby!

sent sound: slap

And now for some porn:

A.

Posts in the van belong to their posters. NO VIOLENCE. Be nice to each other. Be rude to McCain.

Update: Van closed. We’ll have a best-of up later. Thanks for riding along; so far the pundits don’t seem to know what to talk about, so they’re waiting for the spin dudes to tell them how to behave.

A.

I found myself seeing all the cracks. I found myself wishing he’d say this, say that, do this, do that, but I swear to God on earth, if McCain so much as mentions earmarks again, and Obama doesn’t say the words “Seal DNA,” I will start breaking fools.

But here’s the thing. McCain needed a knockout punch. He needed to use his awesome to pre-empt the disaster that is going to be Sarah Palin, he needed to blow Obama away. Instead he sounded old, tired, pissy, and frankly out of touch. Obama didn’t need to pound him into the dirt. I wish he would have, because it would have been satisfying to me on a level that a fresh ripe peach or a glass of chianti is satisfying to me, but in the end? McCain had stuff to accomplish tonight. McCain had a case to make. And he didn’t do it.

A.

FromCBS News:

UPDATED WITH NEAR-FINAL NUMBERS CBS News and Knowledge Networks
conducted a nationally representative poll of approximately 500
uncommitted voters reacting to the debate in the minutes after it
happened.

Thirty-nine percent of uncommitted voters who watched the debate
tonight thought Barack Obama was the winner. Twenty-five percent
thought John McCain won. Thirty-six percent saw it as a draw.

Forty-six percent of uncommitted voters said their opinion of Obama
got better tonight. Thirty-one percent said their opinion of McCain got
better.

Sixty-six percent of uncommitted voters think Obama would make the
right decisions about the economy. Forty-four percent think McCain
would.

Forty-eight percent of these voters think Obama would make the
right decisions about Iraq. Fifty-eight percent think McCain would.

Following up on the post below (no, not the ferrets, the one below that) I no longerbelieve this kind of thing. I don’t believe she can’t have a press conference. I believe she doesn’t want to, or think she has to, but that shecan’t? George W. Bush can, and he’s so dumb you could smack him in the face with a bag of nickels and he’d just look at you. Come on.

I believe she’d be a so-so debater, because … I mean, it’s possible, but I don’t believe this is anything other than ramping down expectations for her debate, just the way McCain is doing for his. I am being deliberately pessimistic today. She was elected governor of Alaska, she clearly knows how to campaign, she’s a grownup, and this is just more bullshit from a campaign that’s elevated bullshitting into the kind of abstract art that hurts my head.

I am willing, as always, to be proven wrong, and I do so hope I am. I hope she gets up there and sucks her thumb for an hour and a half. I hope she really does boycott her own debate. I hope she really does get eaten alive by Joey the Shark. But … I mean, is it me or does this seem like just a little too much?

A.