The Last Debate

Just a few thoughts on the (thank God) last debate.

If Joe the plumber is going to give up on his dream of owning his own company because he doesn’t want to have to “pay higher taxes” on the $250,000 profit that the company he plans to buy makes, then there is something seriously wrong with his priorities. Many years ago, when I was injured and out of work for a while, a group of guys were discussing how much they hated paying income taxes. I embarrassed them by observing that I would be delighted to pay income tax, because it would mean that I had income to pay tax on.

This focus on lowering taxes is just plain sick. Do you think that a standing Army to “keep us free,” all of these schools, and roads and bridges and federal programs that we demand are free? They are paid for with taxes, or should be.

McCain is back to saying he can balance the budget in four years. Insane. He has been back and forth on this so many times in the past year it is creating whiplash. He cannot do it without shutting the government down in its entirety.

Neither of them has the courage to say that the deficit as a percentage of overall economy is nowhere the highest it’s ever been, nor that in a severe recession deficit spending is a necessary, even worthwhile thing to do.

Schieffer was a jerk with the way he phrased the question about the “ugly campaign” issue, trying to equate the issue between the candidates. Obama’s attacks have been on McCain’s policies and his present actions. McCain’s attacks have been about actions of 40 years ago, and have been attacks on character and patriotism. The difference is clear cut.

McCain immediately played the victim card, bringing up the remarks of John Lewis. What utter gall and bullshit. I’m delighted that Obama did not dignify that with a response. Obama gave McCain several chances to drop this ugly non-issue, but McCain continued to pound this dead horse deeper into the ground. Not one person outside of McCain’s base, who are all going to vote for him anyway, care one iota about this “issue.”

ACORN threatens to “destroy the fabric of democracy” does it? The real threat is McCain and his cronies using ACORN’s victimization by its employees as a lever to disenfranchise voters. ACORN paid people to register voters, paying them on the basis of number registered. As was inevitable, no few employees faked forms to get money without doing the work, a fact that ACORN duly noted when turning in the forms as required by law. There is no threat to democracy here. “Micky Mouse” is not going to turn up and try to vote illegally. The bogus registrations are for people who do not exist.

McCain’s party is using this “threat to the fabric of democracy” to challenge the registration of legitimate voters. I have, for instance, two middle names. Some databases cannot accommodate that, so in some places I am listed with one middle name and in others with two. On the voter rolls I am listed with two, so if McCain’s party can find a database where I am listed with one middle name they can challenge my registration and prevent me from voting for Barack Obama. (oops)

Who is the real "threat to the fabric of democracy” here?

McCain is still using the excuse that it is slandering Obama because Obama would not join him in the ten town hall meetings “as Kennedy and Goldwater agreed to do before that tragic event in Dallas.” Goldwater only said that it was an interesting idea, he never agreed to it. And McCain’s dishonorable conduct is his own responsibility, not the result of Obama’s decisions.

I’m not going to get into the health care plans. The both stink, but Obama’s stinks quite a lot less than McCain’s does. McCain accused Obama of favoring single payer health care. I only wish he did. Most of America wishes he did.

McCain became utterly incoherent on abortion. He will appoint to SCOTUS based only on qualification, with no litmus test. No litmus test is acceptable, but one of the qualifications is that the applicant favor overturning Roe v. Wade. So the opinion on Roe v. Wade is a qualification not a litmus test. The way McCain gets around problems is not by solving them, it’s by simply redefining terms.

And the sneering “fingerquoted” thing about the health of the woman when talking about the “pro-abortion” position. Pro-abortion? Fortunately, my wife was not in the room at the time, or I would have been dodging flying objects. They would not have been aimed at me, understand, but she is not that good of a shot.

McCain described the school voucher program in Washington. I think this guy is mental, because he favors this program and he described exactly why it is about as thoroughly un-American as it can possibly be. “…there's a certain number, I think it's a thousand and some and some 9,000 parents asked to be eligible for that.” So, 8000 parents were left to send their kids to crumbling, underfunded schools that you are ignoring.

The America that I live in says that all people are created equal, which implies that federal programs must treat all people equally. But you want to provide money to send 1000 kids to private schools and send another 8000 to public schools for which you will provide no funding whatever. What universe do you live in?

McCain wants to take soldiers from the battlefield and send them to our schools as teachers without any training or testing. Do they get to take a shower first, to wash the blood and battle dust off? What is that plan?

He returned to autism in the education portion. He never connected his focus on autism to Sarah Palin’s youngest child directly, but he did make that connection earlier in an indirect manner. Does he think the baby has autism? If he’s talking about autism and not about her baby, he should make that clear, because much of America seems to think that he thinks he’s talking about Palin’s baby.

And again the pundits are saying that McCain “won on points” whatever that means, and the polls are saying that Obama won by very large margins. Pat Buchanan continues to disagree with the polls, insisting that McCain won on points, on style, and that he convinced millions of voters. Um, Pat, the voters who he convinced were already voting for him. They were in bars all over the country chanting “Sarah, Sarah.”