bloviators.net BloviBlog

So much has happened again this week, so much that it’s been hard for The Bloviator to keep up with things.  Obama’s ads popped up in XBox games, we had the third and final Presidential debate – starring Joe the Plumber, the New York Times trashed Cindy McCain, the Supreme Court upheld a decision making it easier for voter fraud to occur in Ohio, and Sarah Palin makes an, albeit short, appearance on SNL.  Topping all of that, The Bloviator has been busy in his real life too (you know – the Clark Kent stuff), so there have not been that many posts this past week.  So, let’s get to the Wrap-Up…

Presidential Debate #3 and ‘Joe the Plumber’

First things first, The Bloviator wants to know where the John McCain we saw on Wednesday night has been for the last few months.  Senator McCain was fired up and, while he could have hit Obama harder on topics like his tax-cut that isn’t really a tax-cut, McCain did a pretty good job of hitting Obama where it counted.  For the first 45 minutes of the debate it looked as if McCain had Obama on the defensive, hitting him over and over again on taxes and even scoring a great hit when he told Senator Obama that if he “wanted to run against President Bush” he “should have run 4 years ago.”  That was a good line, but it may be coming at a point too late in the race to matter.  With under 20 days until election now most voters have already made up their minds…and those who were still undecided will likely pull that lever for Obama out of nothing more than pure hatred for President Bush.

Senator McCain pushed Senator Obama on his response to ‘Joe the Plumber’ earlier in the week where Obama said, among other things, that he wanted to “spread the wealth around” in his administration.  That sounds a lot like socialism to The Bloviator, and McCain attacked that as nothing more than a welfare program.  McCain brought up Joe more than 20 times through the course of the debate, and at this late point in the game, if anything is going to resurrect McCain’s campaign it is Joe the Plumber – or more appropriately Obama’s response to his question.

Aside from from pointed questions and responses about the negativity in both campaigns, and McCain’s constant attacks using Joe the Plumber as a “Joe six-pack” metaphor, the rest of the debate was pretty much just the same old talking points we’ve heard from the candidates for the past many months now.  While McCain came out strong and kept on hitting, Senator Obama more or less kept his cool and just let McCain punch himself out.  By the end of the debate Obama was back on his game and just spouting the same old lines we’ve heard from him for over a year now.

Can we no longer ask candidates tough questions?

If you’ve heard any newscast since Senator Obama dropped the “spread the wealth around” response on Joe Wurzelbacher, you’ve likely been subjected to the smears of this ordinary America.  Joe, whose real name is Samual Joseph Wurzelbacher, did not go out of his way to see Senator Obama.  He did not seek to crash a campaign rally or anything of the sort.  Senator Obama was in Joe’s neighborhood so he decided to ask him a question…and it was a good question.  In fact, as Senator McCain said recently, Joe managed to get more honesty out of Senator Obama than all the mainstream media and press have been able to for the last 20 months.

It is because of this honest question, and the honest answer Obama gave him, that the media have systematically scoured through Joe’s personal life.  They have uncovered that Joe is really named Samuel (Joe is his middle name…big deal), that he is not actually licensed as a plumber (he currently works under someone else’s license…call the FBI), he owes around $1,200 in back taxes, the list just goes on.  In 48 hours the liberal media managed to uncover more about Joe the Plumber than they have found about Barack Obama in 20 months.  This is a scary thing to The Bloviator.  All Joe did was ask a simple question, and he got a simple answer.

Senator Obama’s answer reeks of socialism, and for that the media attacks and attempts to discredit Joe rather than asking Obama about his position.  The moral of this story seems to be that if you intend to ask Obama a question that makes him look bad you’d better make sure there is nothing in your past that can be used against you, because Obama’s Gestapo will be coming for you in the night.

Colin Powell Endorses Obama

In a move that is no big surprise for anyone in politics, former Bush Secretary of State and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell announced on Sunday morning that he is endorsing Senator Obama for President.

The Bloviator really could care less who endorses who for what, as I do not think endorsements mean anything and policies and track records mean everything, however I feel I must ask a simple question.  Powell was for the Iraq war in a way that almost no one else was back in 2003.  It can be argued that without his testimony in front of the UN holding that vial he claimed was filled with WMD agents from Iraq, the US would have never gone into that war.  On the contrary, Senator Obama claims to have opposed the war from the start.  Do you think you’re going to hear Obama come out and denounce Colin Powell for his role in bringing the US into this war?  The Bloviator isn’t holding his breath.

Now, I should also say that I admire and respect Gen. Powell a great deal, but in his press conference this morning he claimed that the recent negativity from the McCain campaign was part of his reason for deciding to support Obama.  Powell went so far as to say that McCain had called Obama a muslim.  I feel I must point out this could not be further from the truth, and in fact Senator McCain stopped to chastise someone at a recent rally for suggesting that fact.  One would think that Gen. Powell could have at least had his facts straight.

Sarah Palin Appears on SNL

This Saturday evening there were two Sarah Palins on Saturday Night Live, the character played by Tina Fey and the real deal, Governor Palin herself.  I should preface that I have not paid one bit of attention to SNL for many years now as it has been many moons since that show was anything close to funny.  However, it still gets Tivo’d in my house, so I happened to see the two short skits the Governor was in this week.

I have only one comment about the appearance.  What was the point again?  Governor Palin did herself no service by appearing on the show, except perhaps to look Tina Fey and Lorne Michaels in the face behind the scenes.  Her skits were not funny, and she had about 60 seconds of total speaking time.  The only thing of note Palin managed to accomplish was to deliver the “live from New York, it’s Saturday night” line.  Perhaps I’m just biased against SNL as I truly hate that show now, but I just do not see what Governor Palin gets out of a deal where she in turn validates the jack-asses on SNL by proxy of her presence.

Security Clearance Shopping Season Starts Earlier and Earlier

It was announced on Sunday morning the the government has approached both Senators McCain and Obama to determine who will have potential seats in their respective cabinets so they can begin the initial research portion of the security clearance process.  This is reported as a needed step due to potential terrorist activity immediately following the election, however The Bloviator wonders if this is actually a move to vette some of Senator Obama’s potential cabinet members before he has a chance to take office as President (as it does look more and more like Obama is going to the White House).  No, I am not a subscriber to the “right-wing conspiracy” mentality, but seeing as how Obama would not even qualify for security clearance in his own administration this may be a prudent step to take while the government still has the power to do so.  More on this story as it develops over the coming days…

In the interest of time…

Other events of note this week included the fundraising Al Smith dinner at which the candidates both appeared and gave very funny speeches, the roller-coaster that is the Dow, and the horrible article in the New York Times attacking Cindy McCain, however The Bloviator is out of time in this week’s Wrap-Up, so analysis of those items will be forthcoming in the next few days.

Tags: 2008 Presidental Election, barack obama, bloviate, colin powell, Financial Crisis, joe the plumber, john mccain, sarah palin, the bloviator, Weekly Wrap-Up

This entry was posted on Monday, October 20th, 2008 at 12:23 am and is filed under Weekly Wrap-Up. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.