Presidential Hopeful ...

[happy accident]

[...] If he'll sell that out, what won't he sell out? On the other hand, global affairs ain't beanbag. If we're going to have a president who is going to go toe to toe with the likes of Vladimir Putin, maybe it is better that he should have a ruthlessly opportunist Fast Eddie Obama lurking inside. All I know for sure is that this guy is no liberal goo-goo. Republicans keep calling him naïve. But naïve is the last word I'd use to describe Barack Obama. He's the most effectively political creature we've seen in decades. Even Bill Clinton wasn't smart enough to succeed in politics by pretending to renounce politics.

ut, Obama has never pretended he's renouncing politics - it's just us that are perceiving him to be doing so...

[saysesame]

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's scheduled visit to Charlotte for a campaign stop this afternoon was postponed after the plane carrying the Democratic Party presidential candidate experienced mechanical problems. Instead, the Illinois Senator and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee spoke by telephone to a crowd gathered at James Martin Middle School in Charlotte's University City area. "I'm heartbroken that I won't get to see you today," Obama said by phone to the crowd of about 150 people gathered in the media center at Martin Middle School. "But I will get back to Charlotte." Charlotte was to have been the first stop in a four-state trip to discuss the troubled U.S. economy. In his 10-minute-long remarks to the group at Martin Middle School, Obama said he picked Charlotte as the starting point because it is an example of an area that has experienced strong economic growth "but is now experiencing tough economic times."

This was determined to have been an emergency

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/08/15/obamas-emergency-landing-more-serious-than-faa-suggested/comment-page-2/

[le mains sales]

In a blistering new ad, John McCain's campaign accused Barack Obama of passing over Hillary Clinton as his running mate because she pointed out his flaws during the Democratic primaries. Obama announced Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his vice presidential pick Saturday, following reports that Clinton was not even vetted for the job. McCain's ad capitalizes on the lingering tension between Obama and Clinton's supporters, with just one day remaining until the DNC in Denver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NrQ36Djf2E

"She won millions of votes. But isn't on his ticket. Why? For speaking the truth," the narrator in the ad says.

The ad then quotes Clinton criticizing Obama for being vague and "increasingly negative."

"The truth hurt. And Obama didn't like it," the narrator says.

WELL, I can tell you Clinton was never a real VP candidate (not that she really wanted to be in Obama's ticket, for that matter). It was all over when she conceded the race to him at the beginning of June.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has no intention of becoming a Sarah Palin attack dog — but has no qualms going after John McCain, people close to the former first lady say. "She's not the answer when it comes to winning conservative women — she never was — and we're not going to be anybody's attack dog against Sarah Palin," said a Clinton insider. "To be fair to Obama's people, they haven't asked us to do that."

[u s ehe r n a m e]

In a blistering new ad, John McCain's campaign accused Barack Obama of passing over Hillary Clinton as his running mate because she pointed out his flaws during the Democratic primaries. Obama announced Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his vice presidential pick Saturday, following reports that Clinton was not even vetted for the job. McCain's ad capitalizes on the lingering tension between Obama and Clinton's supporters, with just one day remaining until the DNC in Denver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NrQ36Djf2E

"She won millions of votes. But isn't on his ticket. Why? For speaking the truth," the narrator in the ad says.

The ad then quotes Clinton criticizing Obama for being vague and "increasingly negative."

"The truth hurt. And Obama didn't like it," the narrator says.

WELL, I can tell you Clinton was never a real VP candidate (not that she really wanted to be in Obama's ticket, for that matter). It was all over when she conceded the race to him at the beginning of June.

Here it is am interesting article

How To Debate a Girl, and Win



Joe Biden can beat Sarah Palin by pretending she's a man. And that he's not Joe Biden.
By Dahlia Lithwick

Dear Sen. Biden:

You have a problem. In less than a month, you will face off against Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in a vice-presidential debate in St. Louis, and were you anyone but Joe Biden, it would likely be a rout. Last week, Palin proved herself a charming, confident, and gifted reader of speeches. But that doesn't change the fact that two years ago she was the mayor of a town of 6,000, crusading against dirty books at the local library. You are a six-term senator and chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee. World leaders routinely friend you, unbidden, on Facebook ("Wait ... Is this the Angela Merkel?"). World leaders had never heard of Gov. Palin until last Friday. That's your problem, Joe. Everyone expects you to win the debate, and to trounce her on the substance. But the rules for debating Gov. Palin are different. If you lecture her, you'll be seen as a sexist bully. If you act too smart, you'll be seen as a sexist bully. If you condescend to her, you'll be seen as a sexist bully. So this longtime parliamentary debater (and longer-time female) is going to humbly offer you a few tips on how to debate a girl.

Sen. Biden, let's be clear. Great Supreme Court oral advocates will tell you that a flawless oral argument will never win a case, but a bad argument can lose one. You have a similar problem. If you engage, fight, bicker, or bluster, you can lose this debate. Think Rick Lazio. So my advice, in a nutshell: Don't lose it. Your real problem with Palin is not actually going to be her gender. Assuming you don't gaze fixedly at her breasts or ask her to fetch you a coffee, you probably won't do anything truly career wrecking on the sexism front. Your real problem is that Palin is not a serious candidate. I don't mean to suggest that she is not a serious person or even a seriously impressive first-term governor with real potential to shake up national politics. Nor do I want to imply for an instant that Palin is not a serious competitor. I just want to state here what you will be unable to say out loud at the debate: That by every obvious metric—experience, knowledge base, decades of public service, policy experience, understanding of the world—Palin is an unserious candidate for the vice presidency of the United States. And as any college debater will tell you, it's far harder to beat a clumsy opponent than a good one. (That's why you do better in your judiciary committee hearings with John Roberts than with Alberto Gonzales.) But if you even hint that Sarah Palin may be opining on the Israel-Palestinian peace process with something Piper pulled off Wikipedia that morning, you will look like a snotty professor lecturing an undergrad. And if you look like a snotty professor, you will come across as a sexist bully.

There is no easy way to tell you this, Joe Biden, but the surest way for Joe Biden to lose a debate against Sarah Palin is by being Joe Biden. If you are windy, pompous, unctuous, or pushy, you will come across as patronizing and condescending—the guy who puts the "boy" into "old boys' network." If you flirt and smirk and flatter (Did you truly tell an Ohio crowd you thought Palin was "good-looking"? Did you really introduce us to your wife, Jill, by leering that she is "drop-dead gorgeous"?), you're going to sound like the creepy guy in the trench coat at the back of the porn theater. If you can manage to be your warm, amiable self, even if you're going batshit on the inside, you will do fine. And that's why the best way for you to approach Sarah Palin will be to forget that she is a woman. Tell yourself that she is a machine in 3-inch heels that has been programmed to make you look brutish and aggressive. She will attack, and you will smile. She will make jokes, and you will laugh. Do whatever you need to do—take four Percocet, deploy Zen breathing techniques—to prevent yourself from attacking this woman. And do just as much not to pay attention to her. Even if she pulls out her breast pump during commercials, keep your eyes glazed over on the middle distance. No compliments. Don't say you like her shoes. Just the facts, Joe.

You will need to match Palin point for point in the blue-collar-off. If she invokes her sister's gas station, bring up your cousin's Laundromat. (Try to locate one in the coming days, if you aren't in possession of one already). If she mentions the threshers, you need to see her the threshers and raise her the bailers. If she mentions the Washington media elite that hate her, you can truthfully tell her they've been calling you a blowhard for decades. Caution: Sarah Palin is funny. And it's the kind of jeering Ann Coulter-funny that's assuredly going to irritate the heck out of you. She'll suggest you are a coward and unpatriotic and also (heh heh) that you are corrupt and dishonest. Keep your poker face. Poker face when she says you plan to raise taxes on the middle class. Poker face when she says she has plans to sell Barack Obama's next celebrity memoir on eBay and give all the money to special-needs children. Don't lunge (a la Lazio). Don't sigh (a la Gore). Don't roll your eyes (a la Where the Wild Things Are) or look longingly into the camera as if to plead "This is the best they could find for me?" Just nod sagely and refute logically. Get off a zinger if you can. ("You're nice enough Sarah" does not constitute a zinger.) But you are not going to beat her at the victim game, or the regular-folks game, or the humor game. You have to beat her on the fact that you are qualified to be a heartbeat from the presidency and that in 10 years she may be, as well.

Take a page from Campbell Brown's book and ask politely (and like you really want to know the answer and not just hear yourself say the question) what she learned while leading the Alaska National Guard into that war against Saskatchewan. But play to your strengths. Know stuff. Say it briefly. Don't accuse her of not knowing things. Just know more. An insanely successful college debate friend told me recently that the way he won against women was by always behaving like they were men. My senior year in college, I debated in Glasgow, Scotland, against men who all stood up when I entered the room. One guy called me a "little flower" in the quarterfinals. Welshmen asked me to fetch coffee. What I learned from that experience was how deeply glad I was to live in a country where, for the most part, a woman can argue, tell jokes, kick ass, or get her ass kicked, just like a man. In 2008, in St. Louis, against a charming, cocky Alaska governor, that will only be truer. Thank goodness we live in a time and place in which nobody expects you to pull the chair out for your opponent or compliment her brooch, and nobody will be offended if you shake her hand firmly and pound her on national security. My best advice to you for dealing with Gov. Palin? Fight like a man. She will.

Sincerely,
Dahlia Lithwick

http://www.slate.com/id/2199363/

[BIR]

Dahlia, b i t c h, I don't think Palin needs you this bad you think she does... why don't ya go back to your m u t h a @ # ! * i n' Scotland?

[cosinger]

Because the thought of the unstable John McCain in the Oval Office with his stubby fingers just inches from the Big Red Switch is too much to bear. So, they throw their support behind Obama and hope for the best. But Obama has done nothing to earn their vote and there's nothing to indicate that he has any interest in restoring the republic or putting and end to US adventurism. He's just a one-term senator with 0 foreign policy experience who doesn't want to rock the boat. That's it. He'd rather keep his position on the issues blurry and rattle off lofty-sounding platitudes than state plainly how he feels. Unfortunately, when he's pinned down and has to give a straight answer, he quickly swerves to the right where he feels most at home.

Obama could turn out to be worse than McCain, much worse. No one doubts that he is brighter and more charismatic than the irritating senator from Arizona. And no one underestimates his Pied Piper ability to galvanize crowds and stir up national pride. But what good is that? Obama works for the same group of venal plutocrats as Bush; a fact that was made painfully clear just last week when he voted to approve the new FISA bill that allows the president to continue spying on American citizens with impunity. Obama is a constitutional scholar; he understood what he was voting for. He was sending a message to his supporters that they don't really matter; that what really counts is the small gaggle of powerful corporatists who run the country and believe the president is above the law. That's what his vote really meant.

[re hear se]

As the rest of the country struggles with a housing crisis, reports surfaced that Obama has reaped the benefits of his "up-and-comer" status. According to the Washington Post, when Obama purchased his 1.65 million dollar mansion in Chicago, he locked in a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with an interest rate of 5.625% from Northern Trust, well below the average Chicagoan's rate. This loan was discovered following reports of questionable housing deals given to Democrats in Congress that may constitute illegal gifts from lenders.

It has long been suggested by now that if Obama's political career was created in what is believed to be the most politically corrupt city in the United States, then his background must be thoroughly checked in order to protect the people from possible corruption. The press must thoroughly investigate his political career in Chicago and Obama must disclose his Senate records. Although he started out in Chicago he is presented to the nation as not truly being of this place, as if he floats just above the political corruption of Chicago, untouched by the stain of it or by any sin of commission or omission. It is all so very mystical.

Obama Slams McCain for Not Knowing How Many Homes He Owns

After Republican presidential hopeful John McCain couldn't specify the number of homes he owns, Democratic opponent Barack Obama slammed him for not having "a very clear sense of what ordinary Americans are goin' through." Obama told the CBS Early Show Friday that McCain's comment and his policy positions "indicates that you're out of touch, you don't get it." On Wednesday, McCain was asked by Politico.com how many homes he owns with his wife Cindy, heir to the Hensley & Co. beer distribution company. "I think – I'll have my staff get to you," McCain replied. "It's condominiums where – I'll have them get to you."

The remark set off a rapid-fire response from the Obama campaign and its surrogates. The DNC distributed an Architectural Digest feature on one of the McCains' estates. Within hours, the Obama campaign released a new TV ad that ended with a shot of the White House. "It's 7, 7 houses, and here's 1 house Americans can't afford John McCain to move into," the narrator said. The Washington Post reported that the McCains have 8 homes: a $1.1 million ranch in Sedona, AZ; a $4.7 million condo in Phoenix; a $847,800 condo in Arlington, VA; an oceanfront condo in La Jolla, CA; a $500,000 loft in Phoenix for their daughter; an additional $830,000 condo in Phoenix; and 2 beachfront condos in Coronado, CA, one valued at $2.7 million. In a recent Vogue interview, Cindy – whose 2006 income was over $6 million – remarked that the family purchased the second condo in Coronado because their family outgrew the first.

Republicans shot back by linking Obama to Chicago businessman Tony Rezko, a convicted felon. "Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses?" asked McCain spokesman Brian Rogers. "In terms of who's an elitist, I think people have made a judgment that John McCain is not an arugula-eating, pointy-headed-professor type based on his life story," he added.

[klepsi]

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac takeover expected



The two mortgage finance companies doled out $174-million over the past 10 years to Washington lobbyists, report says.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- When it came to buying influence in Washington, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were among Corporate America's biggest spenders. The two mortgage giants paid $174 million to lobbyists over the past 10 years to ensure the political climate would remain friendly to growing the mortgage business - even as the housing bubble began showing signs of bursting, according to a report by the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group. "They tied up almost every lobbying firm in Washington, whether they used them or not, over the past several years," said Joshua Rosner, a financial analyst with Graham Fisher & Co. and long-time critic of both companies.

Freddie Mac spent over $94.8-million on lobbyists since 1998, making it the nation's 12th-largest lobbying client, while Fannie Mae bought $79.5-million of influence, the 20th biggest spender, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. "They wanted to fend off regulation of their enterprises," said Massie Ritsch of the Center. Until recent months, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac largely succeeded in that effort - functioning with relatively little oversight as they aggressively grew their portfolio of mortgages to try to increase earnings.

Campaign contributions bought influence as well, including donations to the presidential candidates. Obama is the No. 3 recipient of Fannie and Freddie campaign dollars, having collected $123,000 from the companies since he first ran for the Senate in 2004, according to the Federal Election Commission and the Center for Responsive Politics. The former chief executive of Fannie Mae, James Johnson, was the original head of Obama's vice presidential search team. Johnson resigned from Obama's campaign amid controversy over discounted home loans he had received. McCain has received $19,000 from the two companies in the past ten years. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, formerly led the Homeownership Alliance, an advocacy group for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's mortgage businesses.

"We had the Keating 5" said Rosner, referring to McCain and 4 other senators who had supported the head of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association nearly 20 years ago. "This is closer to the Keating 535," added Rosner referring to all members of Congress. "Those legislators who have cost shareholders, preferred shareholders and taxpayers potentially hundreds of billions of dollars, I think we ought to hold them accountable." Regulators, in taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are suspending the companies' efforts to buy influence. "All political activities, including all lobbying, will be halted immediately," said James Lockhart, head of the new Federal Housing Finance Agency that will oversee the companies. While Fannie and Freddie are now in a government conservatorship, it will remain for Congress to decide the companies' ultimate fate.

One of the few critics of Fannie and Freddie, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., called Monday for the mortgage companies to be restructured and lose their government backing. "For years, these two mortgage giants have used taxpayer guarantees to gain enormous profits and lobby Congress to look the other way while they failed homeowners," said DeMint. "These mortgage giants must be broken up and forced to survive in the marketplace without taxpayer guarantees," he added. "Allowing them to survive into the future with explicit government backing will only bring more harm to American homeowners and greater debt to American taxpayers."

[shall]

[...]

But he's been giving us an education, for anybody who cares to pay attention. Just try to imagine Mister Rogers playing the agent Ari in "Entourage" [...]

Who's Ari of "Entourage"?

[n o r m an]

[...]

But he's been giving us an education, for anybody who cares to pay attention. Just try to imagine Mister Rogers playing the agent Ari in "Entourage" [...]

Who's Ari of "Entourage"?

Ariel "Ari" A. Gold is is a character on the comedy-drama television series Entourage. He is played by Jeremy Piven.