And what a week it was:
McCain’s Week From Hell
First McCain said that the economy was “fundamentally strong.” Then he said that he would fire the head of the SEC if he were president. Then someone gave him a civics lesson, so he decided to call for the resignation of the head of the FEC by the end of the week. He wouldn’t bail out AIG, but then he agreed with the bailout. And, drum roll please, the best Freudian slip of the campaign yet:
Sarah Palin says that that’s how it would be in a “Palin/McCain administration.”
Give the woman some props. She’s actually ready for this VEEP stuff after all. Seems she’s been studying the Cheney playbook and knows exactly how to be vice president in a Bush-like White house.
What’s The Tip on Half a Trillion Dollars?
So, at last count, the bailout of AIG and the rest, added to the national deficit could top us out at $700 billion dollars. That’s a lot of black boots in my closet. Am I being irreverent? No. I just cannot comprehend that many zeroes. But I can say that I am not at all surprised by the housing bust. Sub-prime loans to put people in McMansions that they couldn’t really afford? We’re surprised by this? Really?
When I was working for a realty company, I watched the home values skyrocket. People were begging to pay $100,000 more for a house with vinyl siding and no yard that they wouldn’t have looked twice at a year before. It was as if you couldn’t build and sell fugly houses quickly enough. No one stopped to consider what would happen three, four, five years down the road. It was almost like the 80’s had returned. Sell, baby sell.
So who do I make out my bad check to for my share of Paulson’s plan?
Where’s Waldo?
By the way, before this past week, I thought that perhaps Cheney had finally succeeded in packing up W for the duration. Anyone but me notice that the incredible shrinking president hasn’t been sighted since the opening of the Republican convention?
Obama the Comedian
Seems that Barack Obama might be feeling the pressure a little more. At least that’s what I’m attributing his recent bursts of sarcasm to and not a latent streak of McCain meanness. I can understand Obama wanting to get a few jabs in this week. I mean, how could the man resist? But I would like for him to go back to the high road. It’s what has separated him all along from the fray, and it’s what marks him as a man of conscience in my book. I’m not a starry idealist—we all know that. But this man is different; he doesn’t need to resort to the politics as usual playing field.
And Now, a Word From Our Sponsor
Last night, I had an uber cool dream. I was covering the campaign trail as a reporter for the local newspaper. I was on the phone, trying to get a quote for a story that I was working on. I knew that this story was the one that was going to get me noticed, finally noticed. I don’t remember if I got the quote, but it was a great dream nevertheless.
I think my dream may have been an offshoot of watching the movie “Bobby” earlier in the evening. I’ve put off watching this movie for a while. The movie itself is not bad. It’s written and produced by Emilio Estevez (son of Martin Sheen, brother of Charlie Sheen, hard acts to follow, seriously under appreciated). It’s a series of characters at the Ambassador Hotel on the day and night of Bobby Kennedy’s California primary, on the night that he is assassinated. The stories themselves are really not that touching, with the exception perhaps of the illegal alien who works in the kitchen, but the movie got to me as I knew that it would. Kennedy’s speech is interwoven into the end of the movie, and his shooting is dramatized. That shooting changed so much in American history, maybe even more so than JFK’s assassination. As a result of RFK’s death, the democrat’s were derailed, and Richard Nixon won the election. We had Cambodia, Kissinger, and Watergate. Everything changed. Socially. so much changed. And so, at the end of the movie, I cried. Not for the movie.
I cried for lost dreams. Lost hopes. Lost chances. Lost choices. And ultimately, the lost generation that followed.
Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings 