Observing Oxford

In response to this:

Bev said...
I think your next blog should address the no-debate logic. It's crazy out there.

I say this: Not everyone has a BFF with the same first name! But I do. And I will say this Bev Blair--the no debate brouhaha was drama to distract. About the time his campaign manager's enormous retainer from Freddie Mac hit the fan, it was time to fake a "suspension of the campaign."

A sidebar-every once in awhile I think, maybe Barack should have asked Hillary to be his running mate. I think Bill Clinton's comments this week demonstrate why Barack could not ask her and risk the baggage of Bill lurking around the campaign.

How about the WSJ's online version running an ad claiming victory for McCain before he declared that he would debate after all?


9:17 p.m. Friday, September 26, 2008

McCain and Obama are facing off in the debate in Oxford. The moderator asks the two men to look at each other and talk. They are not looking . I don't think they like each other much.

Jim Leherer is trying again to get them to look at each other, but they won't. Maybe it's because debaters are trained to look at the judges and these folks have been practicing for a long time to NOT look at each other.


10:30 p.m.
I don't think I managed the live blogger thing very well. Maybe I could have twittered.

What I know for sure is: McCain didn't manage to ever look at Obama.

What's up with that?

What does that say about McCain?

Palin makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero

Conservative blogger Rod Dreher's observation on Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric says it well. "Palin makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero."

She needs to withdraw.

George Will Asserts Temperment Trumps Years in Office

George Will continues his analysis of John McCain's response to the economic crisis in terms of leadership, in particular, temperment. Will is no liberal. Will is not overwhelmed with Obama's resume, but he sees a contrast in temperment as a measure to consider. In today's Washington Post Will asserts, "McCain Loses His Head."

"Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?"

Temperment, talking points, and trouble-McCain's very bad week

During Barack Obama’s convention speech he said, "If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have.”

A look and listen to John McCain this week gives us all insight into his temperament and judgment.

Check out these observations of highly regarded conservative observer, George Will, ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopolis,”

"I suppose the McCain campaign's hope is that when there's a big crisis, people will go for age and experience," said Will. "The question is, who in this crisis looked more presidential, calm and un-flustered? It wasn't John McCain who, as usual, substituting vehemence for coherence, said 'let's fire somebody.' And picked one of the most experienced and conservative people in the administration, Chris Cox, and for no apparent reason... It was un-presidential behavior by a presidential candidate."

"John McCain showed his personality this week," said the writer and pundit, "and made some of us fearful."

John McPain's Healthcare Solutions

Recently John Goodman, the person purported to be most influential in McCain's healthcare plan suggested that the category of "uninsured" be removed from the census because after all, these folks use the emergency room.

Paul Krugman's column today brings to light an article published for the American Academy of Actuaries by John McCain. Here's the paragraph Krugman highlights:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

It is a dreadful thing what McCain would like to with healthcare because he wants to take away one of the few things that works for middle class people, the tax advantage of paying for healthcare premiums.

It’s not correct to say that healthcare would be provided by the government. Do you know any federal employees? Why not have the structure they have for healthcare? They don’t go to government clinics, believe me.

When the last attempt at a major healthcare reform went down, the critics railed against losing their choices in healthcare to the government. I don’t know about you, but my healthcare choices have limited a great deal since the 1990s by the insurance companies. The Obama plan does not have the government provide healthcare. It makes goverment a visible hand in providing a basic human need--where the invisible hand sometimes fails to deliver.

If there is regulation, at least it should be done by entities designed to work in the public interest.

How about electing an honest, accountable government that understands the concept of public interest?

The government that governs well may be much better than the governement the governs least.

A Conservative for Obama

“It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.” from "A Conservative for Obama," by Will Allison , Editor of D, and a former publisher of the National Review.


To my bright thoughtful and truly concerned conservative friends, I say give a look to this essay

Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. (In fact, I made the maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still hope he might come to his senses.) But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.

Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened.
Read more of A Conservative for Obama

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Hatred sickens NRO commentator

I find it ironic.
As a liberal among conservatives, I have found hatred of Hillary Clinton irrational. As a liberal Christian among conservative Christians, I have found Hillary Clinton hatred disturbing.

In Jay Nordlinger’s blog “Something about Sarah,” he recounts a sick feeling over the hatefulness of a friend towards Sarah Palin.

Nordlinger, a conservative in New York, says, “And I never, ever bring up politics (with pretty much anyone — not worth the trouble) (and, of course, I do it professionally).”

Over the years I have considered it prudent to avoid political conversations with most people in my day to day activities-work and church-because of the hateful tone that some take.

He considers Sarah Palin hatred sick. I consider Hillary hating* sick.

Strangely, some people think it's rational to hate the person they hate and sick for others to hate those whom they support.

Maybe hatred sickens because it’s sin.

_________________________________________________________
*An example of Hillary hating.
In 1998, a dear friend of mine was awaiting test results for a form of cancer. I sat in the waiting room with her preacher. It seemed the wait for results was taking too many days. It was a holiday weekend. I remarked, "I'll bet if this was Hillary Clinton, they would get the results right away."
"If it was Hillary Clinton," the preacher said, "I wouldn't care."

Like being a yankee--only worse

"Mom, Bev is a yankee."
"Why son, I wouldn't say that about anybody." 1972, when I first visited Huntsville, Alabama.

From Tuesday, September 16, the National Journal Online

As well organized and impressive as the Denver convention was, it's pretty clear that viewers knew little more about Obama on the Friday after the convention than they did on the Monday morning before it began. The ball was not advanced.

The choice of Palin capped the summer of McCain's resurgence, effectively turning the race from change versus the status quo to two competing visions of change, a necessity if McCain is to win.

Conservatives who have never been enthusiastic about McCain might get energized over Palin. Suddenly, McCain was back on top and Republicans had a bit of a spring in their steps.

Someone please explain to me what is meant by this statement “viewers knew little more about Obama.” This expression used by Charlie Cook in the National Journal reminds me of Pat Buchanan’s mantra about Barack Obama this summer—Americans are saying “We don’t know this guy, Barack Obama.”

We don’t know him, so we can’t be expected to support him, right?

Yet Sarah Palin walks on the stage and all of the sudden, we have someone we know?

This is about race.

It is about the other.

It’s like the family who lived in a New England town for 2 generations, but they are still outsiders. It’s about the Yankee or the Westerner who marries a Southerner and decades later is still not quite one of us.

Only worse.

Vote Choate Dowdy

I think I should have run for President.

My friends from way back know of my executive experience beginning with a term as President of the Lincoln Elementary Student Council in 6th Grade.

I am pretty sure the speech I made in 5th grade on November 22, 1963, put me in running. The title was, “Why Totalitarianism is Inferior to Democracy.” It was my first major foreign policy address, given in Miss Worley’s 5th grade.

The papers didn’t cover it, but if they did, they would have noted that I was wearing a green and white checked dress with an emerald rhinestone circle pin.

My fellow students were allowed to ask follow up questions and a discussion ensued about the nature of democracy and communism. Shortly afterwards, we read our Weekly Reader which highlighted the election of the new German Chancellor, Ludwig Erhard.

If the above isn’t enough to show my foreign policy credentials, let me add that I lived less than twenty miles from the Canadian border and remind the reader that the French had settled Detroit in colonial times.

After lunch, on the day of my now famous address, we heard the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated. We worried briefly that the totalitarian Russian Communists might have been behind it.

By the time the next student council presidential election came up, the speech had propelled me on a path to victory.

In my tenure as president, I oversaw a great Lincoln Day Celebration in which I won the essay contest. I was also the emcee of the program. My leadership credentials were honed as I made frequent announcements on the public address system.

Upon arrival at Lincoln Junior High, I began eyeing the presidency of the junior high student council. I researched the path of the sitting president. She had been a 7th grade class representative, served as secretary in 8th grade, and then was elected president in 9th grade. I followed her strategy.

It was a tight race between me, a greaser, and a jock. In my speech, I touted experience as the key to a great student council presidency. My female greaser opponent played a very interesting gender card. I remember she strutted up to the microphone and said in a very sexy voice, “Some people say the student council president should be a guy, but I say ‘hey, what’s wrong with girls?’” This brought howls from the boys on the football team who should have been cheering on their teammate who wore his letter sweater for his speech.

My faculty sponsor said the greaser girl would probably be "going down with troops tonight." I didn't know what she meant, but thought it probably wasn't a very nice thing to say.

The press didn’t report this, but if they had, they would have noted that I wore an orange sleeveless shift with a large yellow and orange metallic sunburst broach.

The dress was classic Aunt Sadie Arbuckle.

I prevailed in a close election and served as student council president in the volatile 67-68 school year.

That year my essay, on the rising tide of Stokely Charmicheal and violence in the civil rights movement, was presented weeks before the assassination of the Martin Luther King, Jr.

Okay, so maybe I didn’t make editor of the Harvard Law Review or have a best seller, but I know for sure that the teachers passed it around the teacher’s lounge.

In 1968, I got my first passport and headed to Europe, hitting Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, and England on tour with the Metropolitan Detroit Youth Chorus.

While I was there Joan Baez led an anti-war rally against the US involvement in the Vietnam War interrupting our choir’s activities in Frankfurt Germany.

I would have visited the troops there, but I didn’t want to be seen as too political.

Space will not allow me to list all the achievements of that year, but suffice it to say, I said thanks but not thanks continuing to that expensive trip to Edgewater Amusement Park in spring and replaced it with a field day on campus.

These two terms as a student council president gave me an executive resume, foreign policy panache, and a fire in my bones for politics.

So what happened after this mercurial rise? Well let’s just say that the politics of personal destruction were a bit much for me. I moved to another school and found out that sometimes people can just be real, real, ugly to you and it—well-it just hurt my feelings.

So, I have taken a brief 40 year hiatus from politics, but as I examine the current state of the election, I now say--write me in.

I am ready.