If the average voter was not a moron, he/she would link the Bush - McCain era with this current economic disaster. Watching my 401K drop by 35% since October 1st has been ugly, but I praise the Lord that George II was unable to put my Social Security dollars into the market, in which case I would have lost both my 401K and my Social Security.

But the average voter is in fact a moron, and he/she will be blissfully ignorant as he/she fills out a ballot, waivering just a moment before making a random choice between that nice young black man and that attractive young woman from Alaska.

Now, where did I put the remote. It's time to check out Brittany's new figure in a bikini. I hear she is really buff again.

Watch Olberman and learn what bias.

But this is good.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/17/top-clinton-fundraiser-backs-mccain-over-obama/

Top Clinton fundraiser backs McCain over Obama September 17, 2008 WASHINGTON (AP) - A top Hillary Rodham Clinton fundraiser threw her support behind Republican John McCain on Wednesday, saying he will lead the country in a centrist fashion and accusing the Democrats of becoming too extreme. "I believe that Barack Obama, with MoveOn.org and Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean, has taken the Democratic Party _ and they will continue to _ too far to the left," Lynn Forester de Rothschild said. "I'm not comfortable there." Rothschild is also a member of the Democratic National Committee's Platform Committee. She said she would be stepping down from her position on the committee but will not switch political parties.

Looks like John McCain can't refashion himself as not a Republican, and can't run away from his record on Wall Steet, lobbyists, and the economy.

New CBS/NY Times poll- http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/17/19510/4297/932/602151 Obama over McCain 48-43 RV, 49-44 LV,

Palin's favorables are sinking like a stone, now at 40% favorable, down 11% among women. She's popular only among the fundy base, hasn't moved the women's vote at all.

" More than half of registered voters do not think Palin is prepared for the job of Vice President, and even McCain supporters cite "inexperience" as what they like least about her.

Just 17 percent of registered voters say McCain chose Palin because she is well qualified for the job of Vice President."

McCain is seen as he is, typical Republican with typical policies bringing us to the disaster we have. "By over two to one, voters think Obama would bring real change to Washington in the way things are done. McCain, with his many years in Congress, is not seen as bringing change; a majority of voters think he would not do so, while just 37% think he would. "

SOrta looks as if Hal the Troll couldn't be bothered to actually read Mr. Pyan's post before inserting the stupid item about Her Ladyship Rothschild, but what the hell, Hal, thanks for the link to the <s>Moonie</s>Washington Times.

Having a Rothschild leave his campaign bolsters Obama's street cred more then hurts it. It's so funny how the Reich attacks the Dems with their greatest weakness. You've never heard a Dem declare they could not approach Biden until they had suitable "respect and deference".

For his entire career McCain was ALL ABOUT deregulation. Graham, his top economic advisor thinks the American people are just whiners. I guess all those folks at Lehman Brothers who just lost their jobs are just whiners too. And those investors who just lost everything there are just whiners too.

Pat Ryan wrote:

Buddies of mine right here on the Big Blue have confessed their lack of fire in these the final weeks...

I hope I'm one of your buddies, Pat. If so, let me assure you that the fire is ignited. If it was not by the witness of Obama's historic nomination and the social transformation his election could inspire, it certainly was by witness of the cynical, weak and dishonest Republican campaign unfolding in nauseating clarity.

There is a lot a distance between Obama and me on important issues, but I'd be a fool to let that stop me from working to keep John McCain and the Republican machine out of the White House for the next four years.

I wonder if the certainty of war with Iran and its global explosion that a McCain presidency would bring, could provide enough enthusiasm for the fence sitters in this contest. Oh, but purity is its own reward.

"Moosolini"? Nothing like comparing your political opponents to fascists. Keep it classy, Democrats.

"'Moosolini'? Nothing like comparing your political opponents to fascists. Keep it classy, Democrats."

As opposed to right-wingers and freepers who compare Obama directly to Communists and terrorists?

Moosolini is, at least, a humorous jab - and I think it IS classy satire. Besides it could also refer to a wild game pasta dish (in a heavy w(h)ine cream sauce)

As opposed to right-wingers and freepers who compare Obama directly to Communists and terrorists?

That's funny. I didn't see any of those people posting on this site, nor do I recall defending them.

Moosolini is, at least, a humorous jab

That's a novel way of looking at it.

In any case, it's extraordinarily tiresome to watch Democrats and other "progressives" casually liken their political opponents to Nazis and fascists. Not only is it an attack utterly devoid of substance, but it's also one that reveals a pathetically shallow grasp of history.

If comparing Obama to Stalin and Osama bin Laden is so beyond the pale (and it is), how on earth can anyone defend likening Bush to Hitler or Palin to Mussolini with a straight face?

Or is "the Republicans do it too!!!!" pretty much the only justification Democrats need these days?

Grow up.

Very funny post, with many LOL gags that I enjoyed despite myself.

However, I have a couple of questions:

How can Gramm-Leach-Bliley reasonably be characterized as Republican policy when the bill had resounding bi-partisan support, passing 90-8 in the Senate? That includes about 40 “brain dead” Democrats, including John Kerry, Chris Dodd, Paul Sarbanes, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, Daniel Inouye, Diane Feinstein, Robert Byrd, Dick Durbin, Barbara Boxer, Jay Rockefeller, Frank Lautenberg, Mary Landrieu, Fritz Hollings, Pat Leahy and John Edwards. Not that I disagree with your characterization. The bill was signed into law by Bill Clinton.

Given that the single most important factor in the crisis has been bad mortgage loans, don’t the Democrats bear some responsibility for their policies supporting relaxing standards for mortgages and pressuring banks to lend to uncreditworthy risks? Are there more Republican or Democrat fingerprints on the initial securitization of bundles of these high risk loans, and which party’s policies made that likely, if not necessary? Didn’t calls for greater regulatory oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac come from Republicans rather than Democrats?

John McCain in 2005:

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

How have these Republican regulatory initiatives fared, and what has been the role of Democrats in resisting them?

Pat,

What sense does it make that Democrats’ complicity in GBL should be overlooked “in the context of this campaign” but Republicans’ shouldn’t? Do I misunderstand you? And by what reasoning do you cavalierly dismiss Fannie and Freddie as peripheral?

Mortgage securitization is at the heart of the current crisis, and Fan and Fred are at the heart of mortgage securitization.

The fact that Republicans are often for deregulation doesn’t mean that they are in favor of “indiscriminate deregulation.” The financial services industry is heavily regulated in all sorts of ways, many of which Republicans have no beef with. An unregulated financial services industry is inconceivable. The question is whether a given piece of regulation impedes competition or causes other problems unforeseen by those who advocate it. For example, consider the disastrous effects on the current situation by bad accounting rules that were supposed to prevent another Enron but in fact helped to precipitate some of the current failures, according to some commentators. These rules have tended to disastrously undervalue assets at a time when companies can't afford those assets to be undervalued (i.e., during a credit crisis).

As it happens, McCain and several other Republicans were on the right side of the regulatory issue on Fannie and Freddie. It is simply unreasonable to dismiss that inconvenient truth. I refer you to the McCain quote in my post above. Could he have been any clearer – and more prophetic?

The causal connection of Fan and Fred to the current mess is abundantly clear. In that respect, the GLB/Gramm ploy to tar MCain strikes me as a red herring. Does the breaking down of the walls created by Glass-Steagall make a crisis of the sort we’re experiencing inevitable? Or does it merely shape the course of the real mischief? Hasn't GLB also paved the way for some of the fixes that have been resorted to in the current crisis?

But, again, it’s an idle point, since GLB was a bipartisan bit of legislation. The idea that Democrats submitted to being “browbeaten” into accepting it would be unflattering to the Party, if accurate. However, if Bill Clinton was browbeaten, it was by his own Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, who favored the legislation.

I appreciate your reference to Adam Smith because it is apt. In the case of Fan and Fred and the Democratic mortgage policies I have alluded to, the government has stepped in to create perverse incentives both by pushing un-creditworthy risks and providing implicit backing to the companies (which recently became explicit).

It's not my position that the current crisis' is all the Democrats' fault or that GLB isn't problematic. However, in the light of the role of mortage securities in this crisis, focusing on GLB seems like a partisan diversion rather than a dispassionate attempt to interpret the crisis.

Idler's argument is cogent. DP complicity in our economic destruction is not "weak willed" but rather a systematic cooperation with right-wing finance.

Re: "Gramm...is the guy that's going to be guiding [McCain's] economic policy as he and his crew of Wall Street Lobbyists go after corruption on Wall Street."

Once again, you Democrats refuse to acknowledge your own mirror image: "Progressives (rightly) used the moment to point out the outrage of McCain ever appointing a top executive at a major investment bank like Gramm as his top economic adviser. Yet, almost no one bothered to question why Obama long ago appointed Gramm's boss, Robert Wolf, as his own top economic adviser." (Which Side Are We On?).

Furthermore, "As a new poll by the Drum Major Institute shows, the center of American public opinion is far different from the center of opinion in Washington and Wall Street that says 'centrism' and 'moderation' are continuing the kleptocratic financial and trade policies championed by the Goldman Sachs twins, Bob Rubin and Henry Paulson."

The single corporate party is bailing out their masters on the backs of the rest of us, and it is not a partisan matter. The issues are two: who are the economic advisors of these woeful candidates and where is all that campaign cash coming from?

Seven of the Obama campaign’s top 14 donors consist of officers and employees of the same Wall Street firms charged with looting the public and implicated in originating and/or bundling fraudulently made mortgages. Obama is connected to Chicago School, Friedmanesque, "shock doctrine" academics. He says he believes strongly in "free markets" (on CNBC: "Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market.").

Naomi Klein: What Does Obama's 'Love of Markets' Mean for Our Economic Future?

Nader says, "In late July, I wrote to U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass. to suggest that they jointly hold hearings on the FDIC’s ability to deal with potential bank failures in the next several years....The U.S. economy and the banking sector currently face a significant amount of uncertainty from ongoing housing sector problems, financial market turbulence and potentially weak prospects for consumer spending. These problems could lead to significantly higher loan losses and weaker earnings for insured institutions."

When you can't answer the facts, attack the messenger. It's Rovian/Carvillian politics, and it stinks regardless of who let the fart.

Nader is not a socialist. He has been calling for law enforcement for white collar crimes such as the ones we are witnessing daily for decades. He wants more democracy and less corporate control, unlike McBama.

"Obviously we need some kind of benevolent but firm invisible(?) hand guiding the markets going forward, and that hand would best be attached to the palsied arm of Ralph Nader" is funny and I think there's a brand in it.

And no one said there's no difference between the parties. There's a dime's worth of difference.

Pat, this was a great post. I got lost in the tasty language. You too, Civiletti. I suspect that the entire electorate is radicalized at this point. In particular, with the falling ferris wheel of the world markets, with the US as identified epicenter, the amount of energy moving around now is unbelievable. I cannot believe that even the so-called "morons" are not at least nattering amongst themselves and striving for connectors. I am disturbed by Murdoch's attack on Obama - why is it that America fantasizes that one man can be expert in all things? My experience is that you are only as good as your experts, not as good as your own expertise. Knowing how to say, "I"m not sure" or "I don't know" and using critical thinking to weed out glossy bullshitters from the substnative, these are key.

These WILL be key. I would prefer, frankly, some HONEST naivetee to the insidious "knowing" that has brought us to our knees.

Kershner: The single corporate party is bailing out their masters on the backs of the rest of us, and it is not a partisan matter.

FWIW, I have heard some say that there are "socialist" or at least "populist" arguments for the various bailouts, such as:

--The AIG bailout is not so obviously a bailout: Uncle Sam, now the 80% owner, will sell off bits of AIG, covering the government's expenditure while minimizing the damage that bankruptcy would have caused.

--Isn't radical economic intervention just the sort of thing the government ought to do? (Of course oversight and regulation would have been a hell of a lot better.)

--Greedheads at the top of the big companies would not be the ones to really suffer in a bankruptcy scenario. People with AIG stock in their retirement funds also suffer for something not of their doing (most of those folks have no say in where their retirement funds are invested).

McBama: now Mr. Kershner is doing his stand-up comic bit? OK, he's allowed, especially as he actually seemed to find some humor in the crack about Ralph Nader's palsied arm :-) What I want to really know, however, is this: Does McBama live in a McMansion?