On the Debates

I wrote this on my other blog during one of the debates. I forget which one; they all blur together in one anger-inducing mass. Because there are those who focus on the wrong points and argue with points I never made, I would like to elaborate on my Obama crush. When I first heard of Obama, I honestly thought he was goofy looking. I actually put him in the category of people I feel sort of bad for: those people who would almost be good-looking, but didn’t quite make it. (I myself am in that category. I would be pretty if I weren’t so fat.) It was only after reading about him and listening to him speak and watching him work and seeing how he interacts with that wonderful family that I developed a crush on him. I am not voting for him as a result of my crush.

Now, on with the point.

You know what candidates turn into when they’re debating? Those really old-fashioned help programs that huge companies used to have, the ones that were really bad at guessing what you really wanted and there was no human to help move things along in a more precise direction. You might write, “Dear Huge Corporation: I am having trouble paying with a Visa credit card even though you say you accept them. My MasterCard works, but I would like to pay with my Visa.” And the big huge corporation’s program notices the words Visa and Mastercard and responds with a list of accepted payment methods and thanks you for your interest.

We would get the same information we’re getting now–without the frustration of having to scream, “ANSWER THE QUESTION, MOTHERFUCKER!!” every three minutes–if the moderator would just point at a candidate and say, “Foreign policy. GO!”

But Obama is so fucking dreamy.

Joe the Plumber

I’m post heavy today, but I keep finding interesting things.

Apparently Joe the Plumber, the latest Republican hero, isn’t all he’s cracked up to be. Among the things that have recently been exposed:

• He owes over a grand to the state of Ohio for unpaid back taxes–and his publicized comments to Obama are the reason officials were able to locate him.
• He does not have a plumber’s license.
• His goal of purchasing the business he mentioned are “more aspirational than firm.”
• His current business income is “not even close” to the level that would receive a tax increase under the Obama tax plan.  In fact, according to a representative from a nonpartisan organization, he would probably be eligible for a tax cut. In fairness, I will point out here that his cut would probably be larger under McCain’s plan.

Most interesting, in my mind, is this quote from McCain’s senior adviser, explaining that none of these facts bother him. “He’s a guy who asked a question that needed to be asked. He’s not a campaign staffer, he’s not a surrogate. He’s not someone who was vetted, and this wasn’t something orchestrated by the campaign.”

Really. Because when Katie Couric repeated a voter’s question to Governor Palin, she was accused of gotcha journalism. So tell me, when are voter questions OK and when are they a trap?

Information gleaned from this article from the Seattle Times.

Racism in the McCain Campaign

Not voting for Obama does not make one a racist.

Referring to Obama as “that one” does not, in my mind, prove racism. I’ve said it about many people I didn’t like, and most people I know well enough to dislike are white.

Telling an African American that he’s probably never heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is condescending (especially when we find out that he has more education than McCain), but it doesn’t prove racism.

Hearing Obama called a terrorist–not friends with a terrorist, but a terrorist–and not shooting down the comment RIGHT THEN, is at the very least compliance with racism.

Hearing someone in the crowd yell, “KILL HIM!” and not saying anything about it RIGHT THEN is at the very least compliance with racism.

When a person has such a position of leadership and they comply with racism, are they really any better than racists? Yeah, yeah, I know, McCain finally stepped up. And he was booed. And he didn’t shoot the booers down RIGHT THEN. Furthermore, he didn’t step up until polls showed his support rapidly dropping. Uh, not that they look at polls.

I’m really disappointed.