Presidential D-Bait

I learned how to play the song Uninvited by Alanis Morrissette today. I recorded the first verse, but I had to hum part of it because I did not memorize the words.

The D-Bait yesterday was probably the best of all of the Presidential ones. If you see only one of them, see this one. I missed the first half hour because I was working on a project downtown, so I missed the part where McCain apparently jumped out of his seat and exclaimed that he was not Bush. I think this is the text from that part:

Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush you should have run four years ago

I'm going to watch that first part tonight. My favorite part though, was when McCain, prompted somewhat by the debate coordinator, tried to tie Obama's campaign to William Ayers, a founder and former member of a domestic terrorist group called the Weather Underground, and ACORN, a community activism group that was recently accused of perpetrating voter fraud. McCain stated, "We need to know the full extent of Senator Obama's relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." (fyi, bullshit. ACORN pays their registrars per voter signup, but as far as actual votes are concerned, the fake names that were registered by ACORN registrars might cause statistical innacuracies, but would not affect the actual voter turnout or votes cast, right?) Obama responds:

Bob, I think it's going to be important to just -- I'll respond to these two particular allegations that Senator McCain has made and that have gotten a lot of attention.

In fact, Mr. Ayers has become the centerpiece of Senator McCain's campaign over the last two or three weeks. This has been their primary focus. So let's get the record straight. Bill Ayers is a professor of education in Chicago.

Forty years ago, when I was 8 years old, he engaged in despicable acts with a radical domestic group. I have roundly condemned those acts. Ten years ago he served and I served on a school reform board that was funded by one of Ronald Reagan's former ambassadors and close friends, Mr. Annenberg.

Other members on that board were the presidents of the University of Illinois, the president of Northwestern University, who happens to be a Republican, the president of The Chicago Tribune, a Republican-leaning newspaper.

Mr. Ayers is not involved in my campaign. He has never been involved in this campaign. And he will not advise me in the White House. So that's Mr. Ayers.

Now, with respect to ACORN, ACORN is a community organization. Apparently what they've done is they were paying people to go out and register folks, and apparently some of the people who were out there didn't really register people, they just filled out a bunch of names.

It had nothing to do with us. We were not involved. The only involvement I've had with ACORN was I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department in making Illinois implement a motor voter law that helped people get registered at DMVs.

Now, the reason I think that it's important to just get these facts out is because the allegation that Senator McCain has continually made is that somehow my associations are troubling.

Let me tell you who I associate with. On economic policy, I associate with Warren Buffett and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. If I'm interested in figuring out my foreign policy, I associate myself with my running mate, Joe Biden or with Dick Lugar, the Republican ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or General Jim Jones, the former supreme allied commander of NATO.

Those are the people, Democrats and Republicans, who have shaped my ideas and who will be surrounding me in the White House. And I think the fact that this has become such an important part of your campaign, Senator McCain, says more about your campaign than it says about me.

I was sort of disappointed by Obama's response to McCain's allegations that he opposes free trade with Colombia. McCain points out that Colombia just freed three Americans and tells Obama that maybe he "ought to travel down there and visit them and maybe [he] could understand it a lot better." Obama seems to sort of sidesteps the issue in his response, or maybe just offer a weak reply when compared to his usual hard-hitting rebuttals. Part of his response had to do with America's weakening industrial complex, and he points out that while South Korea is sending hundreds of thousands of cars to America through trade agreements, we are sending four or five thousand back. He suggests that we bring the auto industry back home, because after all, we invented the auto industry.

McCain is offshore-drilling crazy. When Obama points out that we may need to look at offshore drilling, after talking about alternative energy, McCain responds:

Well, you know, I admire so much Senator Obama's eloquence. And you really have to pay attention to words. He said, we will look at offshore drilling. Did you get that? Look at. We can offshore drill now. We've got to do it now. We will reduce the cost of a barrel of oil because we show the world that we have a supply of our own. It's doable. The technology is there and we have to drill now.

Obama give a probably timeframe of about ten years for oil independence, taking into account alternative fuels and energy sources. When you think about how long it takes to build an offshore oil rig, Obama seems to make a lot more sense than McCain. Theoildrum.com has a thread in which a poster known as Prof. Goose states, "Offshore, a jackup rig will take 2-3 years and a semi 3-4 years". It does not specify whether or not that includes the amount of time it takes to contract the job out. Also, how long does it take to biuld a nuclear power plant? I really don't care to look it up right now, but I'm sure it's a long time, and McCain wants to build 50+! What?

I could go on, but instead I'll leave you with these links and a video:
The complete final debate transcript
theoildrum.com: Discussions about energy and our future
johnmccain.com: It's worth it just to watch the videos on the front page. BTW, in the long video, when McCain points out that he was on an aircraft carrier in which 164(?) people died, there is actually controversy over whether he was responsible for the incident. He claims that the next day, after being injured, he volunteered to go fight again, but I've heard that he may have been transferred due to his involvement. I don't remember, but I think a bunch of planes exploded.


This is a video by aljazeera.net in which they speak with some of McCain's supporters in Ohio. Some of these people are racist, some are scared because they think Obama is Muslim and have been convinced that Muslim is another word for terrorist, and some are just white trash assholes.