Things That Just Piss Me Off

I was just reading William Kristol’s opinion on the saddleback political forum. It’s amazing to watch how people can see the same debate or forum and come to different conclusions. It also seems that immediate responses by political pundits are usually a little more truthful.

After each side has a day or two, they start to spin the story the way they want it to go. The further it is from your memory, the easier it is for these pundits to make you believe you saw something else entirely.

Immediately after the forum, even the fox news pundits said Obama did very very well at Saddleback. Now when you listen, it seems he did not do so well. Hmmm . . . I wonder what changed from right after they heard it to now.

Showdown at Saddleback
by William Kristol

Obama made no big mistakes. But his tendency to somewhat windy generalities meant he wasn’t particularly compelling. McCain, who went second, was crisp by contrast, and his anecdotes colorful.

Obama’s windy generalities? To every quest McCain was asked, he responded, “Can I tell you a story?” or “Can I share an anecdote with you?” He may as well have started each answer with, Once upon a time.

Now I’m not entirely unbiased (!), so I don’t quite trust my initial judgment in such matters.

Don’t worry, we don’t.

So while Obama talked of confronting evil, McCain spoke of defeating it. Obama took the view that evil is generally abroad in the world; McCain focused on radical Islam and 9/11. Obama claimed that all of us must be metaphorical “soldiers” against evil; McCain paid tribute to actual American soldiers. And McCain couldn’t resist saying again Saturday night that if he has to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell to get him and bring him to justice, he’ll do so.

President Bush said basically the same thing, so I’m not holding my breath.

Now, Mr. Kristol, I notice you entirely avoided the question that McCain entirely avoided, so I’ll bring it up here.

Warren asked McCain to define rich. He asked for a specific number. The reason for the question was very clear. All politicians like to say they are for the working class, the middle class, and they want to give tax breaks to the middle class and the poor. But they never define those who are middle class, rich, or poor.

One politician, I won’t name any names, but his initials are John McCain, says he wants to give tax cuts to the middle class. However, he defines anyone making 4 million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand dollars per year as part of the middle class according to his answer to that question.

He was asked to define rich and give a number. He chose to say 5 million per year is rich. He said his answer would be misused or whatever, but it showed that he was unwilling to give a number.

The reason for that is that his tax cuts will be given to people who make a lot of money, a lot more than the real middle class that supports this country. When he says middle class in reference to his tax cuts, he raises the bar so that those tax cuts will go to the rich, just like Bush’s tax cuts.

When Obama talks about the tax cuts he wants to give, he gives a number, those making less than $250,000 per year. These are the people that need tax cuts.

McCain’s ad claims Obama wants to raise taxes. The truth is that Obama wants to repeal the tax cuts that went to the wealthy and make sure the next tax cuts go to people making less than $250,000 per year.

McCain claims this is redistribution of wealth. It is just correcting the redistribution of wealth the republicans have done in the last 8 years. They redistributed the wealth to the wealthy.

McCain = 4 more years of failed Bush/Cheney energy policies, 4 more years of the record spending of the Bush administration, 4 more years of failed world diplomacy, and 4 more years of Bush’s failed economic policy.

That is the change that Obama represents. Changing the direction of those failed policies.