Obama on O'Reilly
 

Anybody catch it last night? It was pretty good. Obama did a pretty good job and Bill didn't let him off the hook. There will be three more days of the interview on Monday, Tuesday, and Wed next week.

Here is a transcript of last night if anyone is interested.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008...ma_interv.html

I didn't watch, but I'm suprised he did the interview considering what a partisan O'Reilly is.

He's got more balls than the 'duck and cover' attitude they're using with Palin.

I think the plan is to sneak her in during the next two months without even the press getting a chance to vet her. Any policy discussions will only be with partisan press. The only mainstream appearances will be discussing child care and cookie recipes on the view.

Obama doesn't just go to the happy places. This gives me a lot more confidence in the man.

Yeah, cuz you were really on the fence before, Rich. :rolleyes:

I would have seriously considered the McCain of 4 years ago, or even the McCain of 2 years ago. If McCain had picked Lieberman and told his alleged base to deal with it, he still had a chance for my vote.

But this hail Mary hockey mom craps just doesn't fly. Is she going to be the one who whispers in his ear to remind him of the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah and who's backing who? Exactly what kind of advice is McCain going to ask of her? What gaps in his experience does she fill?

The debates this year are going to be interesting.

Obama also had the guts to do a debate in a church filled with McCain supporters asking him about abortion. I thought that was a mistake on his part. He had nothing to gain by doing it, but a lot to lose.

It doesn't matter though, McCain will still lose. A lot more Republicans who won't vote because of his VP choice will vote for Obama than there are angry Hillary supporters who will vote for McCain.

Who exactly is that? I haven't heard a single R type show displeasure at the VP choice. If anything, they're more energized for McCain than before.

All the churchies in my homeschooling groups seem to approve of her. I'm not sure why exactly, no one has really said... personally I don't understand having strong feelings about her either way... But they're all excitedly buying up tickets to see her and McCain tomorrow at a town meeting.

The more I hear from either side of this mess, the more I want to leave the country. Tahiti would be ideal...

I though the fight between Obama and Clinton became a sad circus act. This is no different.

Why do they like her? That's easy - she's really... well, you know... and she... it's kind of hard to say, but she's never.... and we certainly know she isn't Obama or Biden.

and there you have it.

More likely they've got this idea because she is an outsider and a Christian, family oriented, not-uber rich, mother of a gazillion that she'll go to Washington and be different. and different = change. and change = good. (as long as we're talking about changes we agree with) They're so caught up in the idea of her being different that right now they can't even stop to realize that you can't clean up Washington without a wholesale eviction party.

They have as much reason to be excited about her as some people got about Obama after he started his presidential campaign approximately 38 seconds after winning his senate seat.

That is worth repeating!

for the sake of clarity, that wasn't meant as a huge compliment to her or a huge insult to him.

I really don't get it. I do like that she is an outsider who has a past (albeit short) of tossing her fellow republicans under the bus if they're corrupt, but i'm not jumping up and down and wiping tears of joy just yet. I felt the same when Obama broke on the scene. He read the word "change" from the teleprompter with greater sincerety and conviction than anyone I've seen in a long time, but but but, but I want more than "just words". ;)

Baba O'Riley.

You know you were thinkin' it.

She actually has a fair amount of experience with that. I've read a lot about all the tearing down she does. She fired a lot of people, sold off assets, etc. But I haven't heard of her building anything.

Of course not, she put the kibosh on the Bridge to Nowhere. Well, she didn't really, but she likes to pretend she did.

build? you could spend four years tearing washington down without building a single new thing and still not be any worse for wear.

I have to admit one of the things i like about the McCain/Palin ticket is that it is an obvious one term wonder. McCain will be too old to run again and Palin doesn't ahve a shot in hell of winning on her own. They could go in and push on the reform/rebuild ideas without worrying about keeping the pwer brokers in love with them.

of course, I also dreamed of a McCain/Thompson ticket for the same reason.

She's an anti-abortion creationist, perhaps? Not knowing anything about them other than homeschooling and churchies...

Could be that. Could just be that the Dems are anti-choice when it comes to schooling. Guess it depends on which single issue you choose to focus on, as irrelevant as it may be in the next 4 year....

Well like any good elected official for a state, one who was elected by popular vote, she was doing what she said she would, that is get the most she can from the Feds as she could. It was only AFTER the Feds said they were not going to give her the earmark that she changed her tune and said fine, if you ain't paying for it, then we certainly cannot afford it on our own. So she cancelled the project. Good on her. She did what was correct for her tax payers. The Fed backed out, so she did too. Show me a gov of any state that has not done that? Hey, I know! Let's go back and look at the last gov who became president and pick apart his earmarks and who he was porking. I wonder if any of them were wearing a blue dress?

Or we could just continue to attack Palin's family. Damm hussy, who would have 5 kids and run for office? She has priority problems, doesn't she?

Sort of like Nancy Pelosi, she has 5 kids too, shameless slut. :rolleyes:

Huh? (looks at self and tries to remember where I attacked Ms Morality's family.)

So "Thanks but no thanks" is a lie. It was "Please please please, OK never mind."

Flip-flopping is fine if sanctioned by TheMerc.:rolleyes:

damn politicians. now they are going to lie about past events to make them seem more decisive and desireable to their base?!? say it isn't so.

I have now investigated the thing. I bring you, my gentlereaders, the Truth. A Truth that even the nation's top newspapers have not divined. And I shall tell it in a pompous style, even though it is merely my best guess.

You see, it wasn't really about the Ketchikan "Bridge to Nowhere" bridge. It was actually about an entirely different bridge, still waiting to be built, called the Knik Arm.

This bridge had more political support. It had been planned since the 50s, and would expand the commute radius of the city of Anchorage.

Sarah Palin initially supported all projects because it would get them the money for the Knik Arm bridge. That's the one she really wanted. And the reason we know this is simple, once you turn the problem on its edge. Because the "Bridge to Nowhere" would support 50 voters, while the Knik Arm would support half the Alaskan population.

In this Google Maps capture I have added the proposed Knik Arm bridge in bright unmistakable red. You can see what it could do for them: growth up the other side of the bay.

http://cellar.org/2008/knikarmbridge.jpg

Notice too that Palin's own homestead, Wasilla, stood to gain.

Knik Arm bridge advocacy website

So the people of Alaska really want the one bridge, fought for as much funding as possible and then - once she won the Governor's office and the funding was secured, she said - oops, no money left for Ketchikan, too bad so sad. She made early statements in favor of Ketchikan, but those were a signal to her voters that Knik Arm would be fought for. Like asking for $20 when you know you definitely want $10.

Now you could say, and some have said, that if you really wanted $10 you should have given back the other $10, if you actually got $20. She kept the $20 and put it into the projects she wanted, including Knik Arm.

And that's how to win the hearts of Alaskan voters... who, at the end of this drama, applauded deeply and awarded her an 86% approval rating.

:standing ovation:

Well, I'm a republican and I think she's full of shit, but then she is a politician, so she's as full of shit as the rest of them.

But seriously, when we were at the Cape we had cocktails with a good old local boy who had been fishing the Cape for 50 something years and believed the seals were a nuisance which should be eradicated (only mentioned to give you an idea of how strongly he felt his convictions, not an attack on REpublicans as seal haters in general) Despite his taciturn nature he did manage to say he'd rather shoot himself in the head than vote for McCain/Palin.

So now you've heard of one.

i've heard a lot of republicans say they'd vote for satan before they'd vote for McCain, but I don't know that Palin is really the reason for that. I'd point towards a couple decades of reaching across the aisle and not playing the intraparty games for that part. and oh yeah, Rush spent years trashing the guy.

So perhaps she should stop saying in every speech that she said "thanks but no thanks" to congress for the bridge to nowhere, when the truth is much more complex.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...litics_4408870

Yep, she's a politician...as sneaky as the rest of them and as much as they need to be. It's this whole "look how damn virtuous she is" crap that really turns my stomach.

--snipping took place in the making of this reply

During the primaries, I heard them say the would vote for Hillary before they would vote for McCain.

I wouldn't take that too literally. A couple things were at play there. 1) For some republicans supporting a Clinton would be the ultimate sign of displeasure.

2) There was thought given to the idea that having Hillary in the WH and a dem congress would motivate the conservative base to get off their collective butts and really work hard for a Rep revival in 2 years followed by a Real republican in the white house in four.

There was a lot of "McCain's no different than Obama or Clinton going on at that time".

You know, when the guy I work with said it, I looked at him and wondered what was behind it. He is a serious conservative/republican and I sensed a bit of game playing that he wouldn't admit to because he knew I was a liberal/democrat.

There was a lot of what if, but I think most R's thought Hillary was vastly more beatable than Obama in the general election so they were hoping the D's would put her up.

I don't know but I think Hannity and Limbaugh overplayed their hands with the "stop hillary express" and all that crap.

I agree, but it may have worked. I hear Hannity or Smirk-anus sometimes in the am. I gotta admit I don't listen to them often, there are more important things like football on now.

You have to admit, this continual attack by the lefty's is beginning to backfire a bit. When is the last time you can remember an election where the VP choice is a bigger head line than the Pres pick? and it has been going on for a while.

Shooting one's self in the head being the penultimate sign of displeasure.

Not unlike the guy who comes home to find his wife banging his best friend. He goes to his dresser and takes out his Glock and points it at his temple. His wife starts laughing and taunting him for being a coward and weak. He snarls at her: "Don't laugh bitch, you're next!"