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P.M. Carpenter
THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter
Years ago I spent a fall season raising what's come to be known as filthy PAC money for a Democratic Congressional candidate whose campaign manager hid the true, internal polling numbers from him, since the candidate was a locally popular but blue -- pale blue -- man in one of the reddest districts in America. Which is to say he consistently trailed by several points, which naturally depressed him but also made him visibly morose. And a morose candidate is not the ideal candidate to have on the stump. So the manager simply started lying to his boss, telling him everything was just fine, the numbers looked good, etc., etc. It helped (but not quite enough). It was an act of tactical mercy on the campaign manager's part, and perhaps it's time
 Technorati Tags: P.M. Carpenter mccain palin debate
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 5:41am.
Guest Contribution
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION By Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) This country faces many serious problems in the financial market, in the stock market, in our economy. We must act, but we must act in a way that improves the situation. We can do better than the legislation now before Congress. Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Bailout Sanders Middle Class
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 5:49am.
Guest Contribution
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Jeff Fleischer After threatening to cancel on the organizers and the American people, John McCain actually showed up to debate Friday night in Mississippi. Once there, he spent a good portion of his time trying to argue that changing tactics is the same thing as creating a new strategy.
He did so while referring to the temporary troop-level increase in Iraq, but the same basic principle can also apply to his bizarre week on the campaign trail.
McCain's claim to embark on a "suspension" of his campaign -- one in which the only actual attempts at suspension involved canceling on talk shows and trying to wiggle out of the debate -- is only the latest tactic in a cynical strategy that's emerged since the formerly media-friendly McCain entered the final months of the race. Lately, the McCain/Palin ticket has done all it can to avoid answering questions or explaining the candidates' positions, and to treat even the most legitimate of queries or concerns about them as unfair. Essentially, to limit exposure as much as possible before the first Tuesday in November.
Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Jeff Fleischer 2008 race Barack Obama Sarah Palin John McCain suspend campaign Katie Couric CBS
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 9:00am.
Tony Peyser
Palin Says Media Critics Hate Her Because She Represents "Average 'Joe Six-Pack' Americans"Sarah, what we despise about you
And the reason you're doomed
Is you talk and sound like several
Six-packs have been consumed. McCain Gets Testy Talking To The Des Moines Register When Questioned About His Honesty Technorati Tags: Tony Peyser Sarah Palin Alaska Republicans John McCain
Submitted by Chad on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 10:27am.
Be-Elected
"The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight." - Dick Cheney to John Edwards during the vice-presidential debate in 2004.
Cheney's statement was an attack on Edwards' attendance records. But like a lot of things Cheney has said in the last 8 years, it was false.
But in the case of 2008, you will see two people debating over who would make the better vice president who haven't met each other.
The cynics argue that the vice presidential debates don't mean much when it comes to pulling the lever in November. But the VP debates have shown us a slice of what may be to come, and give the voters another voice to promote why their ticket is the best choice.
The most memorable moment was from 1988 when Lloyd Bentsen called out Dan Quayle over Quayle's comparison to Jack Kennedy. Quayle's point was that his level of experience in Congress was more than a lot of people had when running for VP, which is technically true. Everyone remembers Bentsen's line, but watch Quayle's reaction and Bentsen's response afterwards to get a full impression of the two men.
Technorati Tags: Be-Elected Chad Rubel 2008 race Sarah Palin Joe Biden Gwen Ifill St. Louis VP debate Dan Quayle Al Gore
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 10:37am.
Guest Contribution
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION By Sankara Saranam I’ve played and replayed, over and over, what should be an infamous segment from last week’s presidential debate. You know, the one where Obama was describing John McCain as the go-it-alone guy who wouldn’t even meet with the leader of Spain, a member of NATO. Under his breath, John mumbles "horsesh*t" twice. It takes me back to my summer camp days, at the Lake of the Ozarks. We were a bunch of rowdy teens. We could hardly sit still for a moment. Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution McCain Expletives Election
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 10:41am.
BuzzFlash Honors
BUZZFLASH MEDIA PUTZ OF THE WEEK 
October 2, 2008 Tom Brokaw For reporting that is an embarrassment to the profession of journalism, and for being beholden to corporate paymasters rather than the citizens of America. For most of us, when retirement comes around, it's good to stay retired. There are exceptions, though: Walter Cronkite retired at 65 from the anchor chair of the CBS Evening News, and that was probably a mistake as Cronkite had a lot left in him. Now in his 90s, Cronkite is still going strong. Tom Brokaw retired from the NBC Nightly News in 2004 at the age of 64. Like Cronkite, Brokaw stayed around the network, though because NBC has a cable news channel in MSNBC, Brokaw has had more airtime to practice his post-anchor craft. Then with the death of Tim Russert in June, Brokaw was named the interim anchor of Meet the Press. And Brokaw will also host the town hall meeting featuring Barack Obama and John McCain next Tuesday. But lately, there is a growing concern over a number of activities from Brokaw that leads us to wonder whether Brokaw wouldn't be better off spending time at his Montana ranch. This was how Brokaw ended a segment on this past Sunday's Meet the Press: In fairness to everybody here, I’m just going to end on one note. And that is that we continue to poll on who’s best equipped to be Commander in Chief, and John McCain continues to lead in that category despite the criticism from Barack Obama by a factor of 53 to 42 percent in our latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Gentlemen, thank you very much.
But as Crooks and Liars point out, those numbers don't exist. And to find the numbers means going back about a month, not by any standard the most recent poll. Technorati Tags: BuzzFlash Honors
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 11:34am.
Dave Lindorff
The U.S. Senate did what the Founding Fathers expected it to do when they devised the idea of an upper house of Congress. Playing the role of Britain's House of Lords to the House's House of Commons, it ignored the rabble (that's us, the voters) and voted the opposite way of the House of Representatives, which on Monday had voted down the Bush Administration's proposed $700-billion to $1-trillion giveaway to Wall Street financial companies. The Senate vote in support of the measure, which went 74-25 (the ailing Sen. Ted Kennedy missed the vote), reflects the fact that, first of all, Senators, who run representing entire states, are very difficult to unseat because of the huge cost of mounting a media campaign against an incumbent, and second, two-thirds of them even don't face voters this November, (and one third not for another four years). The House, in contrast, which defeated a similar bill earlier in the week by 228-205, while still largely an incumbent's sinecure, is still a place where every member faces the voters every two years. So now the bill goes back to the House for a second round of voting tomorrow, this time in a version devised in the Senate to try and convince 12 of Monday's nay voters to switch to yea. The sweeteners: a rise in the size of bank deposits insured by the (already overstretched) Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. from the current $100,000 to $250,000, and some $115 billion in new tax breaks, some for business, and some for wealthy taxpayers (a raising of the threshold for applying the alternative minimum tax). Technorati Tags: Dave Lindorff
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 2:51pm.
Barbara's Daily Buzz
BARBARA'S DAILY BUZZFLASH MINUTE If you thought the McCain campaign has been negative thus far, get ready, we ain't seen nothin' yet, the lies have only just begun! With his poll numbers sinking, "AP Poll: Obama takes a 7-point lead over McCain" John McCain will be on the offensive with every negative, nasty, slimy swift-boating, muddy slur his temper can dig up! Forgettabout a dignified campaign, forgettabout "Country First," forgettabout truth, justice and the American way, forgettabout honor; John McCain is a desperate man, he sees this as his time, and he simply cannot wait another 8 years! So look out world, the McCain campaign is all downhill and dirty from here on out!
Technorati Tags: Barbara's Daily Buzz
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