bloviators.net BloviBlog

Ok, so yes, it’s been a little while since The Bloviator has, well, bloviated.  So sorry, all that jazz, but I will try to find the time to make regular updates again.  There is so much going on right now, too, we’ve got the swine flu, a sorry ass government, a gargantuan debt, and a race to determine who the next Supreme Court justice will be.  There is no shortage of things to be pissed off about, that’s for sure.

We will also be restarting our weekly wrap-up column in addition to the random postings related to the stupidity of the day.

Just remember, until I get my next post up in a day or so, don’t pay attention to anything Joe Biden says!  Just because he’s a moron and tells the country that he intends to avoid all travel, wear a gas-mask, and dig an apocalypse bunker in the backyard of that massive compound he lives in doesn’t make things unsafe!

Earlier this week Senator and Vice-Presidential nominee Joe Biden said of Barack Obama:  “Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. . . . I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate. And he’s gonna need help.”  Biden even added that the Democratic base “would have to stand with them because it wouldn’t be apparent that Senator Obama would have the right response.”  Too bad they cannot seem to give the same benefit of the doubt to President Bush and the Iraq war, which now seems to be headed towards victory when everyone wrote the effort off as a lost cause more than a year ago.

Biden was trying to speak about the world testing an Obama presidency in some way, however whatever his intention was the words just did not come out right, and since then John McCain and Sarah Palin have been pounding the Obama campaign for it.  Biden’s comments seem to fit right into McCain’s claim that Senator Obama is simply not ready to lead, and that the American people should not elect someone who will need on the job training during such a crisis as Biden seems to be promising us.

One would assume such a statement would be big news, but assuming that would also require an assumption that the mainstream media was not already in the tank for Barack Obama.

The NY Times buried Biden’s quote in an article on page A18 under the headline “Obama Briefly Leaving Trail to See Ill Grandmother.”  Similarly, NBC and MSNBC News both have refused to run the full text of Senator Biden’s quote.  If there were any remaining doubt that these organizations were not in the tank for Obama this act should resolve those questions.

The Bloviator finds himself agreeing with Sean Hannity in that 2008 is truly the year that journalism died.  My last remaining hope is that once Obama is elected…and that is the way things are headed right now…the media will turn on him and start to report on the issues of the day again rather than spending their time covering up their candidate’s mistakes.  Who does the press think they are, anyway, to decide what the American people should and should not know about?  Their job is to tell us everything – it is our job to decide what is important and what is not.

 
Last night was the first, and only, debate between Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joe Biden, and what a show it turned out to be.  About half of the audience was tuning in to watch what they expected to be the last stop on the Palin train-wreck of the past week while the other half tuned in to (hopefully) watch the Governor redeem herself after what appeared to be disastrous interviews, specifically her performance with Katie Couric late last week.  It became obvious after the first few minutes of the debate that Gov. Palin was not going quietly into the good night.

The Bloviator will post a more in-depth analysis of the debate once I have had a chance to review the transcript in detail, but I could not resist posting a few comments this morning.

Wait – you mean George W. Bush is NOT really running again in 2008?

My favorite moments of the debate surround one of my own rants of late – that George Bush is not running for re-election in 2008.  There are no shortages of comparisons between John McCain and George Bush on policy, practice, ideals – you name it.  The only problem with that argument, at least to someone who has actually been paying attention to the political process all along and not just during the election season.  Senator McCain has worked across the aisle with Democrats and independents on important legislation more than any other senator, and in many cases he has taken strong positions against his own party.  This has created a lot of waves over the years.  Some specific examples include the McCain-Feingold bipartisan campaign reform act of 2002, the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform act, and the McCain-Lieberman bill that imposed caps on greenhouse gas emissions.  None of these measures were popular with the Republicans, and in some cases, were not popular with the Democrats either.  The point is that Senator John McCain is fully capable of marching to the beat of his own drum when it comes to what he believes in.  Anyone who attempts to call John McCain a “third Bush term” is either just plain ignorant, or is trying to distort the record.

But I digress – I think that Governor Palin did an excellent job of calling attention to Senator Biden’s constant rhetoric surrounding the policies of the current administration.  At one point, and I am paraphrasing, Governor Palin told Senator Biden that she thought the Obama-Biden ticket was supposed to be a champion for change…looking ahead to the future.  She added that for a ticket that is so forward-looking, they sure seem to be living in the past.  Perhaps those efforts from Governor Palin will wake up some of those angry Americans who are voting for change out of hatred for President Bush alone.

What McCain Should do Now:

After his running mate’s performance in last night’s debate, John McCain should clearly see that his campaign staff – those who have wanted to sequester Governor Palin and keep her away from the media – deserve to be fired.  Anyone who would consciously prevent someone who can perform like that away from the media, town hall meetings, and the American people just does not get it.  Governor Palin demonstrated her unique ability to connect with the average American last night, and when you are running against two elitists that connection with the regular folks is a must-have.

For weeks now I have been hearing the call from everyone who knows Sarah Palin to “let Sarah be Sarah.”  After last night’s performance there should no longer be debate on the issue.  Send Sarah Palin out there.  Send her often…and send her out with no purse strings.

If John McCain wants to win the election in November he needs to learn some lessons from Gov. Palin’s performance last night.  He needs to go on the offensive and speak his mind rather than getting lost in the details of politics.  The American people do not want to hear “Washington Insider-Speak,” we want that “straight talk” that McCain claims to enjoy so much.  McCain needs to stop telling us who voted for what on bills no one has ever heard of and start speaking directly to the American people about how his administration will help us – the regular folks.

The Bloviator is tired of hearing about “tax cuts” that are really tax increases, health-care reform that will only make it harder for all of us to get care, and who is (or is not) to blame for the current mess on Wall Street.  If Senator McCain doesn’t get his act together we may have a situation where the election is not his to win, but only Obama’s to lose.  We might already be at that point, which is a very unnerving thought to The Bloviator.