Obama is like a “too big to fail” bank

He failed the stress test but the party heavy hitters feel obligated to save him no matter how badly he f^&*s up and can’t make the case.

We all know that left to his own devices, he’s going to screw up again and put all our economic lives in jeopardy.  It’s just that the party is so invested in him.

So, we see the spectacle of Joe Biden spending a good portion of the debate propping Obama up on foreign policy.  At some point, he ditched the script and just defended his party.

He scored on abortion.  It’s perfectly fine if you have a religious objection to it as long as you don’t seek to impose that religious doctrine on others.  He was a little vague on social security.  I would have liked to have heard a definitive stance against raising the retirement age.  It’s unclear if that is Obama’s policy speaking or Biden’s.

Afghanistan was a wash.  We should be out of there by now.  Otherwise, Biden owned foreign policy.  He smiled and laughed to mock Ryan but he could have been just funnin’ with the young’un.  Biden excels in this area.

I think he kicked Ryan’s ass on the economy and how Ryan’s plan would hurt the middle class.  He was very good at selling the pitch, addressing the camera, and by extension, us, directly.

It would be great if we could just declare the Obama presidency insolvent and nationalize the office for a better candidate.  I’d vote for Biden in a pinch.  Too bad he’s not on the top of the ticket.

The Vice Presidential Debate: Loose Lips vs Howard Roark

Let’s just hope that Ryan’s concluding statement doesn’t go on for 20 pages.

I’m looking forward to this debate.  You can  watch it here on C-span if you’ve cut the cord like I have. Joe Biden’s not a bad guy. If he ever had a chance, he might even be able to rise to greatness. You never know. But what’s fascinating about Biden is his inability to keep a secret. That quirk of his personality could make this an interesting debate.

Paul Ryan just reminds me of one of the business majors in college who I never wanted to go out with. I suspect I would be too weird for him anyway and he would bore me to tears. To Ryan, it’s all about money: acquiring it, controlling it and keeping everyone’s hands off of his stack. Conservatives like Ryan use moral arguments in order to defend some very immoral behavior of the money guys. For the record, it is immoral to lie to 20 somethings in the 80s about prepaying their social security benefits and then reneg on any social contracts in 2012 because it means that some rich people have to give up the tax cuts they’ve benefitted from while the government borrowed against our trust fund. That’s called fraud and theft and it’s immoral. It doesn’t matter how the recipients intend to use their money. They worked for it, they paid for it, they deserve it. It’s not an “entitlement”. It’s a social insurance policy. Don’t let Ryan tell you anything differently.

So, without further moralizing, here is the first live blog thread. See how many times Ryan says “free market” and “market forces”. See Biden take on foreign policy with mastery and let’s count how many times he says “unemployment”. (my guess is none)

Have at it!

Home Improvement Horror Stories: faucets

Here’s the before:

and here’s the after:

I now understand why it costs so much to call in a plumber.  Replacing a 25 year old faucet is a disgusting pain in the ass.  I was breezing right along until I hit the dreaded “stuck drain flange” which prevented me from installing the new pop-up drain assembly.  Now, I know way more plumbing terminology than I really wanted to. At the next party, I’ll be out in the garage, hanging around the keg and debating silicone sealant vs plumber’s putty.  It’s a scary thought.

Thank gawd for youtube videos.  There are all kinds of mansplainers on youtube who take you through the process step-by-step.  Anyone can do it given nitrile gloves, the right tools- and a hacksaw.

Unfortunately for me, there are three more of these bears waiting to be done and I have no expectation that any of them will be easier than the first.  Now I know where all the potential trouble spots are and am destined to hit them, some of them more than once.  {{shudder}}

What’s on your to-do list?

VP debate tonight and stray thought from 2008

Tonight is the Vice Presidential debate between Joe “the cop between my brain and my mouth is at the donut shop” Biden and Paul “Ayn Rand is my goddess” Ryan.  We should do another live blog but since the body language thing has become chic this year, maybe we should watch and listen this time.  OR, we could turn off the visuals and just listen.

Anyway, it just occurred to me that maybe one of the reasons Barack Obama did so poorly in his first debate appearance this year is because in 2008, he was actually running against Sarah Palin.  Oh sure he was.  That’s all the general campaign was about, how much smarter and more qualified Barack Obama was compared to Sarah Palin.  John McCain hardly entered the picture at all.  I think I noticed it back then too but it didn’t occur to me that this might be why his debate performances in 2008 were not a fiasco.  He was all confident and cocky about beating Sarah, that was the real race that his campaign had set up in everyone’s mind.

Plus, he was running a game of “whack a racist”.  ANY criticism of Obama was twisted to be a racial slur.  It was quite effective.  Combined with his race against Sarah, how was a liberal supposed to effectively evaluate Obama?  Any legitimate criticism of him was muted and he was running against a woman who the left had dehumanized and characterized as the stupidest person on the planet.

This year, it’s different.  Visually, Mitt is very presidential.  He’s a big, tall man with presidential hair and an engaging vital manner.  He’s also a Republican, which in my humble opinion, is unforgivable.  But that’s not the point.  As Obama supposedly believes, debates are sideshows.  From a policy perspective, they’re meaningless.  But I think they serve a purpose that can’t be underrated.  In the modern debate, we get as close as we can to hand to hand combat between chieftains of competing clans.  It *is* physical.  That’s why it was important that Michael Dukakis looked short, that Richard Nixon sweat and that Barack Obama looked like he didn’t want to be there.

It might have also done in Hillary because at 5’7″, she had to look feisty to compete with his taller frame and longer limbs. He took up more space and with a female opponent, he strut his macho stuff and acted dismissively when she talked. It might not have been enough that she was the smartest person in the room who had done her homework and could whip up a policy in 30 seconds flat.  To the liberals and progressives who were afraid of losing again, she had to look more like Boudicca than Hermione Granger.

Boudicca, ass-kicking queen of the Britons
(bears striking resemblance to Julia Gillard)

Nevertheless, she took him on and won her debates with him to such an extent that he refused to debate her again during the primaries after she beat him in Pennsylvania. He sought out a friendlier crowd in NC the next day to lick his wounds, flip her the bird and brush the dirt off his shoulders.  It has often been said that he doesn’t like confrontation and that NC appearance showed that he was much better at acting like the mean BMOC when he was with his adoring fans than taking her on and losing to her again.

It’s been awhile since I read MoDo but I dropped into her column yesterday and she seems to have matured ever so slightly.  She’s not so flip these days, probably because her mancrush in 2008 turned out to be far worse for women that the woman she mocked for two decades.  Maybe she’s learned her lesson.  She also seems more than a little alarmed.  Oh sure, Obama will do better next time.  Someone will have figured out how he’s supposed to debate a real general campaign opponent.  But MoDo suggests it’s more serious than that:

Just as Poppy Bush didn’t try as hard as he should have because he assumed voters would reject Slick Willie, Obama lapsed into not trying because he assumed voters would reject Cayman Mitt.

The president averted his eyes as glittering opportunities passed, even when Romney sent a lob his way with a reference to his accountant.

Obama has been coddled by Valerie Jarrett, the adviser who sat next to Michelle at the debate, instead of the more politically strategic choice of local pols and their spouses. Jarrett believes that everyone must woo the prodigy who deigns to guide us, not the other way around.

At a fund-raising concert in San Francisco Monday night, the president mocked Romney’s star turn, saying “what was being presented wasn’t leadership; that’s salesmanship.”

It is that distaste for salesmanship that caused Obama not to sell or even explain health care and economic policies; and it is that distaste that caused him not to sell himself and his policies at the debate. His latest fund-raising plea is marked “URGENT.” But in refusing to muster his will and energy, and urgently sell his vision, he underscores his own lapses in leadership and undermines arguments for four more years.

The debate was an uncomfortable window into Obama’s style in all things presidential.  What is urgent to you is not an emergency to him.  He’s smaller than we thought, less secure, confident and sure of his experience.  He doesn’t look like the alpha male commanding his clan.  He’s the guy who seeks assistance from the moderator with ingratiating comments.  That Obama doesn’t stand a chance against a real presidential candidate and not the carefully crafted illusions his campaign spun for him to do battle with four years ago.  And that is the weak prince we have had in office for four years while the barbarians knocked down the gates.

In a way, a strong showing by Joe Biden this evening might just do Obama in.

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And here’s another quote from that MoDo column that I find deeply disturbing:

Once during the 2008 campaign, reading about all the cataclysms jolting the economy and the world, Obama joked to an adviser: “Maybe I should throw the game.”

Can someone confirm whether he really said that?
Unbelievable.

White and delightsome??

Mr. Deity has a message about Mormonism.  Do Mormons running for political office really believe that dark skinned people were cursed by god?  Actually, you can apply all kinds of tests to politicians who also claim to be religious.  Is the Adam and Eve story true or is evolution true?  How should we evaluate people who believe that God cursed women to be in subjection to men?  This idea seems to be extremely important to a lot of Christians.  They need to be asked if that’s what they truly believe.  This is why I keep saying that God needs a major rewrite.  The old versions just don’t make sense anymore.

But anyway, here’s a message from Mr. Deity who was raised Mormon:

Thank You!

Thank you for helping me save my basement by contributing to the cost of a generator.  You’re contribution is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Kim