Jim

You sound bitter. Again. Just imagine the on November 5.

I'm sure when exactly it began, maybe during the Reagan era, when the Republicans got the idea to conduct their campaigns in a devisve manner. Remember Lee Atwater - he was the best. Since then they seem to have concentrated on scaring the public, rapists, terrorists, taxes, guns, god, and gays. Maybe they have a message on how govern in there somewhere, but I can't find it. And for all the talk about joe sixpack they have been taking money out of the middle class and shovelling it to their power elite buddies. Odd. I think consevatism, in its true sense, fiscal responsibility, a subtle world view, and moral conviction, has something to contribute to how the US works. But particularly after 7 yrs of them running Capital Hill and the White House they are full of vacant slogans - and folks are thinking well, you had your chance. McCain decided not to stray from this format. Scary taxes, palling around with terrorists, Putin rearing his head. Get a grip old man. Tell us how the hell we are going to dig outta this hell hole your party put us in.

660,000 troops killed in an unnecessary war--along with an unknown number of southern civilians. Cities burned to the ground by a marauding general. Habeas Corpus suspended. Newspapers closed at gunpoint. Editors arrested. Slavery abolished? Yea right--in all but 4 northern states. Federal troops massacring civilians by the hundreds on the streets of New York. And even through all of this...still time for his troops to annihilate native Americans out west. This makes the top five in your wealth of ignorant statements.

Thats going to leave a mark. I don't think so. FW likely has the highest welt count but manages to carry on.

You've got to be kidding. Yea there's a dynamic at work. It's a rip tide pulling the Republican Party out to the middle of the ocean. No wonder you wouldn't take a bet six months ago. Hey PP - where is the pub celebration going to take place?

I have to give Mcain credit for not laughing when he was explaining Sarah's qualifications to be president if he were to have the big one while in office. You can't make that stuff up!

Jeese, you guys can't take a joke. One of his recent quotes about the GOP economic plan in general: "The republicans are becoming the party of the stupid" Hey PP - double or nothing?

This, and recent events, lends a bit of credence to his predictions about the Idiot's economic plans. Hey Peter - where are we going to have the post-election pub meal (that you are paying for)?

See you in November! Well, looks like the judgement on the Idiot's reign is in. Guess you'll be watching from the back row for a while, eh?

Yea, right. What we need is some pesticide to get rid of the friggin neo-cons who got us in this mess. Old style republicans - fiscally conservative and cautious on international adventures - have been booted out by the guns, gays, and god crowd interested only in banging the table on social issues and raiding the coffers for their elite backers.

Biden nailed it. Palin managed not to look as idiotic as her last several interviews or Tina Fey. Other than that she said little of substance. She came off as a lightweight.

This points to an interesting question. Given that most of the wealth creation in this country has been related to illusory financial acrobatics, debt, and speculative bubbles at the same time real production has either been in decline or off-shored, what are the foundations for future American economic growth? Oh dear. The facade is falling off the empire, and fast. Early in the Bush administration I said "If I were president I'd be looking around the world and thinking - that China and India will be coming on strong in the next half century, we'd better start investing in infrastructure, education, and energy innovation". Instead what do we have. A cripppled economy, 50 billion going down the toilet a year in Iraq, and an ever growing debt level. Folks, welcome to the shrinking US economic/world power.

And how! So much for the invisible hand - more like the inevitable handout.

Maybe The Idiot has finally grasped what we have all known for a while - this is a failed presidency.

Definately a good example. A private institution backed by the U.S. government - but doesn't want stricter oversight. You want the guarantee - then you have to deal with a taxpayer watchdog.

Dont htese help regulate? Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, internationa Basel accords on captial standards, state governments, Federal Reserve FDIC, Sarbanes-Oxley Act Here's several enablers! Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Community Reinvestment Act Deductible Interest only six months ago Dems were pushing for weaker capital requirements! Do you still stand by your statement? Yes! Instead of throwing the alpabet soup agency list at me come up with an argument. And I'm not saying the dems have clean hands here. The deregulation phase started in earnest with Regan and only accelerated through Bush. In your laundry list above there is no accommodation for 1) requiring verification of minimum income thresholds - with meaninful penalties for a finacial institution that does not comply or 2) requirements for financial institutions to have a minimum of capital on hand to match the risk and breath of their exposures. Both requirements were significantly reduced over the last 15 yrs. Time and time again we've had to bail out financial institutions that ignore standard business common sense while over-reaching for the golden apple. Great. Remember the S&L bailout? Lack of regulation. So here we are again.

Agreed. With some modest oversight most, if not all of this "financial crisis" could have been avoided. Insisting on stricter guidelines on loan eligibility and increased capitalization requirments for firms would have done most of this. Instead what do we have? The typical short-term greed that fuels the financial sector. If they were such Masters of the Universe couldn't these free capitial wizards have seen this coming? Check out the last year's payment for the CEO of WAMU or Solomon Brothers for instance. They earned this by driving their firms into the ground? And the fallout has much wider social implications. To pretend that our financial system is run by the invisible hand is fallacy. From government backed mortgage securities to farm subsidies government props up business continually. I'm a bit tired of socialized business. They want free reign until it's time for a government bail out. Since they can't seem to operate with normal business standards, and because the implications of the failure of such large institutions are large, more oversight is needed.

I just plain astounded how inarticulate McCain is - he really is not the sharpest tool in the shed. His inability, or refusal, to develop meaningful policies that reflect the sophistication of world realities is numbing. Folks voted for The Idiot twice and now - they're shocked over his performance!!! And his approval rating is in the 20's, lowest for a sitting president since the data collection began. So I guess there's always a chance we'll continue the trend of putting in a head of state as dumb as a stump.

Holy cow. If we elect another bumbler like this into white house we deserve what we get. By the way. The straight talk express seems to be doing doughnuts in the mud wallow with their latest ad regarding Obama's kindergarden porno program. Yea, a real straight up guy that McCain.

Well he would be the oldest fart every elected - so that's true. While trying to tie Obama to the weathermen when he was in 2nd grade, and putting millions into an ad campaign, is a bit desperate and a good reflection of the empty barrel of issues the rightwingers have to run upon. I think there are a number of legimate conservative issues that are worth discussing in the election - balanced budgets, a more conservative approach to world affairs, rebuilding our infrastructure - but we will hear none of this from the typical republican slime machine. I don't see the democrats dealing in this level of mud-slinging, say question McCain's cerebral abilities because of his age. Maybe I'm missing it - but maybe you could point to an ad campaign of similar funding with similar slimyness. But I doubt it.

Here we go. I assume you're talking about the old guy and not Obama, who was in what, 2nd grade when that was going on? This is more of the right-wingers vacant attempts to conduct the usual character assination. Damn. When we have so many serious issues to put on the table and debate it's pathetic that this kinda crap comes up every election cycle. And no, I'm not confident in the ability of Americans to filter this stuff and critically analyze the issues. Look who was voted in for two terms.

Great dodge. While a certain amount of cultural sensitivity is recommended when working in foreign countries, there were plenty of experienced white old guys in the State Department and diplomatic Corps that stood ready and willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work over there, only to be pushed aside by the Carl Rove strategy of getting right-wingers who knew nothing about rebuilding a country. I'd sugguest you actually read some of these critical books and articles. It's hard to ignore the outright incompetence. And yes, it does need to be examined and criticized. Seems that no one is ever responsible for this administration's messes.

Huh? Are you saying that rather than actually having seasoned staff and diplomats who had the knowledge and experience to address the needed political and agency structure that hiring neophytes was a good thing? What a joke. This is one of the many flawed thought processes that lead to the inevitable failures in Iraq, the continued flushing of billions of tax dollars, and the misconstrued logic that got us there in the first place. So rather than get some staff that say, actually know something about restoring public works, it's better to hire right-wingers with no experience but believe that abortion is murder because it supposedly aligns with local traditions? Too rich.

And I would suggest you broaden your reading material to include "Imperial Life in the Emerald City - Inside Iraq's Green Zone" by Rijiv Chandrasekaran. He lays out the bizzare idealogues choosen to "rebuild" Iraq - clueless and wet behind the ears, but steping to the proper tune of the right-wingers. If it weren't so sad it would be funny. Welcome to reality. The Green Zone, Baghdad, 2003: in this walled-off compound of swimming pools and luxurious amenities, Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority set out to fashion a new, democratic Iraq. Staffed by idealistic aides chosen primarily for their views on issues such as abortion and capital punishment, the CPA spent the crucial first year of occupation pursuing goals that had little to do with the immediate needs of a postwar nation: flat taxes instead of electricity and deregulated health care instead of emergency medical supplies. In this acclaimed firsthand account, the former Baghdad bureau chief of The Washington Post gives us an intimate portrait of life inside this Oz-like bubble, which continued unaffected by the growing mayhem outside. This is a quietly devastating tale of imperial folly, and the definitive history of those early days when things went irrevocably wrong in Iraq.

Their preparations made reality pale in comparison to any comedy play. When faced with an urgent need to have skilled diplomats restructure a war-torn country, what was one of the leading question asked about their experience and qualifications? How do you stand on Roe v. Wade? You couldn't make this stuff up.