 |
Add to My Group
Political Jabs, Sarah Sinking, and the Bailout Opera
By Bernard Weiner (about the author) Page 1 of 3 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Bernard Weiner - Writer
There's been so much happening politically -- the daily scandals, flippity-floppities, hypocrisies, lies -- that it's hard to know where to begin. Let's start with quick reactions to Obama vs McCain, Round 1, then move on to the upcoming Palin-Biden debate, McCain's theatric diversions, and on why the Democrats were pushing for the Wall Street bailout.
1. A WHOLE LOT OF JABBING
The Obama/McCain debate was less substantative in its impact, since both candidates' views on the various subjects were well-known by now, but more revelatory in its visual context: body-language, eye-contact (or lack thereof), physical strategy.
Both Obama and McCain clearly had their strategies worked out before they went into the debate. Obama was going to be polite and deferential to his senior Senate colleague, whereas McCain was going to be distanced from and aggressive toward the junior senator from Illinois. McCain, who has just about run out of change-the-momentum options, felt he had nothing to lose by displaying his hard edge, which might play better with white males in the toss-up states.
I don't know how the two approaches played to those who heard the debate only on radio, but those millions who watched it on television were able to see how each of those strategies played out. I experienced the debate both ways, in a living room and in my car, and, for what it's worth, I thought it pretty much a draw.
Obama often delivered his charges and responses in McCain's direction, and gave him credit when Obama agreed with him ("John was right about that") before he added the "but" language or went into a broader discussion. In some ways, Obama was too deferential, backing away from direct confrontations when McCain left himself open for attack. For example, in the opening financial-crisis section, Obama could have quoted McCain back at himself endorsing deregulation of banks and/or could have reminded voters that McCain (one of the so-called "Keating Five") was admonished by the Senate Ethics Committee for conduct surrounding his vote deregulating banks and savings & loans back in the late-1980s. In other words, Obama was doing a goodly amount of jabbing, but didn't deliver the uppercuts when he could have.
McCain looked like a coiled, angry old man who resented the fact that he had to deal with these charges from a wet-behind-the-ears junior senator. The result was that McCain came across as condescending and patronizing to Obama ("you just don't understand," "you're naive"). This tactic would have worked just fine if he had confined those epithets to one or two specific issues and if Obama hadn't been in the room to speak (quite intelligently) for himself. In so doing, viewers could see that most of the time what McCain charged was lack of "understanding" was really just a difference of principles or opinions.
If McCain hoped to demonstrate that Obama wasn't at all prepared to serve as President/Commander-in-Chief, it didn't work. Obama clearly was presidential-enough in his comments, his calm demeanor, his ability to think on his feet, his well-grounded opinons (even if, like me, you disagree with some of them).
Obama needs to win by a landslide in state after state so as to make it much more difficult for Rove and his minions to fraudulently manipulate the vote totals. If Obama's poll lead remains within the "margin of error" -- i.e., separated by just a point or two -- Obama and the country are in big trouble. I guess what I'm saying is that in order to gain enough separation from McCain in the pre-election polls, Obama needs to be more assertive, sharper in his critiques of his opponent, putting McCain on the defensive, framing the issues rather than responding to McCain's language and constructs, etc.
2. PALIN EXPECTATIONS ARE IN THE BASEMENT
I am astonished that I'm typing these words: I'm starting to feel sorry for Sarah Palin, especially as she prepares to face real questions in her debate with Joe Biden. Regardless of which candidate you thought won the McCain/Obama debate, they both spoke with intelligence and knowledge; Biden likewise is a fount of information. Palin clearly is not in that same league, and she will be demonstrating her appalling ignorance in public in the next debate on Thursday. Indeed, the expectations for her are so low that if she somehow can manage to stumble her way through the 90 minutes, one can predict that the corporate press will declare her the "winner" because of her mere act of survival.
She is being prepped by McCain staffers in mock interviews and debates, which, under normal conditions and with a normal nominee, probably would suffice to get her through the ordeal. But, as was noted in a recent story, ( www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/26/report-mccain-aides-compl_n_129618.html ) those McCain staffers reportedly told their superiors that the try-outs were "disastrous." Palin is "clueless," they said, as she's made clear in her recent interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric. Palin gets that glazed look in her eyes and to cover her lack of knowledge, she revs up the lip motor and expels a torrent of disconnected words and phrases in the hope that somewhere along the line some intelligent thread might emerge.
In fact, her recent performances under questioning have been so bad that she's starting to show up on polls as a drag on the ticket. As a result, at least two far-right conservative commentators, Kathleen Parker and Kathryn Jean Lopez of the National Review ( click here ) have urged her to resign; if that were to happen, McCain could appoint someone with more brain-matter and political smarts. Even Fox "News" took notice of the anti-Palin rumblings inside the rightwing ranks and put up this story online ( www.bradblog.com/?p=6438 ), only to quickly scrub it from the site.
I don't think McCain will do anything because, by replacing his choice, he would implicitly be admitting that his judgement had been faulty, that he made a bad mistake. Since he's already on the defensive about other judgements he's made (such as voting for going to war in Iraq, to voting for torture, etc.), my guess is that McCain will try an implied variation of the G. Harrold Carswell Defense.
www.crisispapers.org
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
 Contact Author |
Contact Editor |
 View Authors' Articles |
by Haynes Johnson
$29.95
Lowest New Price $16.98
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Viking Adult
by James W. Ceaser
$24.95
Lowest New Price $14.99
Number of pages: 234
Publisher: Rowman
by Michael Nelson
$29.95
Lowest New Price $18.00
Number of pages: 204
Publisher: CQ Press
by John A Clark
$15.95
Lowest New Price $11.49
Number of pages: 28
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing
| No comments |
Want to post your own comment on this Article? 
|
||||
|
||||||||||||||
Must Read (0) 
Well Said (0) 
News (0) 
Touching (0) 
Funny (0) 
Supported (0) 
Interesting (0) 
Inspiring (0) 
Valuable (0) Tell a Friend:
|
Copyright © 2002-2009, OpEdNews |
