October 5, 2012
Back on track
The Barak Obama we know and love was back yesterday. For reasons unknown, Mr. Obama was not himself in the debate with "pants on fire" Mitt Romney. We used to argue over the number of angels that could dance on the head of pin. With Romney the question has been altered: "How many lies can a candidate tell in his share of 90 minutes?" "A lot" is the correct answer, but some were real whoppers.
The one I like best is the assertion that he does not have a tax plan calling for 5 trillion dollars in cuts favoring the wealthy. He has been campaigning on that doozie all year, but his spinsters say it could be less-say--$4.8 trillion!
My second favorite lie? Easy. It is the promise that if Obamacare is repealed "those with pre-exiting conditions will still have coverage." Pardon me, but that is bull-poop! Paul Krugman summed it up: "He simply lied about what his policy proposals would do."
So Mitt will say anything to win. Anything!
So what happened in the debate? Possibly the best explanation is that we all have off days and Obama had one. Another is that he was stunned by Romney's lies. Does this mean he is giving up? No! Does it mean he has lost his confidence? No. What does it mean? Not much.
The early polling gives Obama one point up after the debate and Romney gets two. It is hard to imagine a Romney victory given the big lead in Ohio and Wisconsin for Obama, when polling shows tremendous gaps between African Americans, Hispanics, women and students. I don't think he can close those gaps by lying about his program.
The good news is that Obama is back! I am not worried about the next debate--the vice-presidential debate and the next presidential debate. We will begin with a wake-up call. Obama and Biden will respond to the bell.
Obama was great in Madison yesterday. The crowd was with him and he loved it. Equally important, he was part of the crowd.
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What happened in the debates is that Obungle showed us his least attractive side. He seems to think he is too good for this sort of thing, and it shows. Also showing was his near pathological refusal to fight, to land a punch, even a rhetorical one. Compromise and cheek turning is his first impulse. That may give him a lot of moral satisfaction but look around. Banksters still in the drivers seat, war still going on, congressional Republicans still rolling him, and a public with less and less hope for the future. And a president who has yet to take any of the malefactors to the woodshed. Truman is rolling over in his grave!
I didn't understand Obamania the first time and I sure as hell don't get the Obamapologists this time. Talk about running around with your eyes wide shut. He may be book smart, but he is street stupid.
-Griebnotz Doerkpfester | (Glad) I Escaped, WI. | October 5, 2012
Back on track Ed? Haha!! We all know he can stack BS higher than anyone else in front of his adoring fans. It seems its a little harder when he actually has to defend his failures.
-SW | Waukasha WI | October 5, 2012
Indeed, Mitt will say anything to win, including today's comment about the 47% quote. Mitt now says he was completely wrong about that, which is quite hard to swallow given the emphatic way in which he made those comments less than half a year ago!
-Bob Franze | Beloiter by birth! | October 5, 2012
I thought that Obama was prepared to debate Romney on his platform points. When Romney simply denied his own platform, Obama was rattled.
Of course, those of us in Wisconsin are used to the Tea Party spin and would have expected it. For example, Walker values public employees, he REALLY does.
I know many battle-hardened activists in our state who would have been willing to prepare Obama for the next debate. Too bad he couldn't hang around. Why not start out with a full-throated defense of government? Government is where we put democracy into practice and the method we use to raise those barns we couldn't build without the community's help.
-Wisconsiana Victoria | Madison, WI | October 5, 2012
If we were to sit down and play a game of Monopoly with Mitt the Twit, you can be assured he would change the rules with every cast of the dice.
We really need to work harder to get a Democratic majority in both the house and senate. Those in congress do the most harm. Republicans have outlived their usefulness. We need legislators who no longer feel it is their duty to obstruct.
-Pietr Haikuu | Hurley, Wis | October 5, 2012
Wisconsiana Victoria: Farmers that need government help to raise barns probably should drop the pretense of being farmers of the land. They are really farming the government and might just as well get a government job. For example, the USDA employs a hundred thousand dudes that administer welfare programs such as the farm bills.
-Ernest Martinson | Hayward WI | October 5, 2012
(For E Martinson) Subsidies or, at least decent opportunities, to small farmers or future retirements or benefits of average Americans, are much more appealing than welfare subsidies to HUGE corporations....like oil companies who turn over HUGE profits daily... unless of course, you silver spoon that gas into your SUV tanks? GOP Congress has got to go....they took their marbles out of the game when their "boys" left DC in 2008, except for the casino housing scam...that they left in. It's time they follow their marbles home.
-hmj | Madison, Wi | October 6, 2012
There will never be a level farming field for small farmers in the subsidy game. The big pigs will hog the public trough.
Even the subsidy to oil companies are a part of the subsidy to big farmers and agribusiness. So subsidies should be shot down. Fossil fuel subsidies should be replaced with a carbon tax that would eventually rise above the polluted skies. You boys from Madison then would be forced to transition to a tourist train to the northwoods as in days of yore.
In order to transition from the welfare economy to a sustainable economy, both the current Democratic and Republican Congresses have got to go. The problem is how can we dissuade welfare recipients from reelecting their benefactors. This is only exacerbated by the fact that we are all welfare recipients in a race to the bottom. Some, of course, are already at the bottom but they are still a minority and can be taken care of by exclusionary zoning or put away in prisons.
-Ernest Martinson | Hayward WI | October 6, 2012
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