Duck! and Gather

Nancy Pelosi before the vote today:

Do you get the sense she was hoping the bill would fail? Here’s her comments after the vote did fail:

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… is not like the others.

One of these things just doesn’t belong.

Can you tell which thing is not like the others,

By the time I finish this post?

The pick of the moron Sarah Palin as McCain’s VP — in the face of McCain’s own VP choice of Joe Lieberman — was so bold, crass, and venal, that it all but ensures an October Surprise this year. The idea is that if “they” are willing to risk they nation by putting a rank moron in the batter-up position this year, “they” are certainly going to pull another October Surprise.

My business partner brought this idea up in our walk today. The instant he said it, I realized that if there was any year in which you could bet your left nut that we’ll have one of these, 2008 is it.

But here’s the thing about surprises: if we expect them, then they’re not surprises. Instead, if we expect them, and they happen, they tell us something else entirely.

So pass it on. Expect an October Surprise this year. Get this idea blogged about.

Wait! Having said that, I just searched “October Suprise” in Google News and realized that this idea is well engaged.

Well, let’s get this idea on everybody’s lips just in case anyone hasn’t thought of it yet.

My business partner and I we’re discussing how the Obama campaign should approach Sarah Palin. He argued that the approach should not be to criticize her personally, but rather to attack her policies. His concern was that attacking Palin personally would play directly into the strategy of the people who put in her in this position.

The idea is that Palin is like an 8-year-old child who muslim fanatics place in front of a mosque from which they position snipers to shoot at us. When we shoot back at the mosque, and we hit the child, we’re accused of being baby killers.

Measured by her intelligence, Palin is an 8-year-old child. And a girl at that. Her handlers are just dying for Obama and/or Biden to take the bait, and let loose on her, and say what they really think of her.

I agree with my partner that attacking Palin directly and personally would be disasterous. But at the same, I don’t believe the approach to her should be to attack “her” positions.

The quote marks around the word “her” in the previous sentence hints at my strategy. I say the Obama/Biden strategy should be the following:

Ignore Palin. But if you feel compelled to address something she has said, say “Bush’s advisers say [blah, blah, blah]. We disagree. We think [blah, blah, blah] .”

After a few iterations of that, it will be clear what Obama/Biden are really saying about Palin. Namely, they will be saying that she’s a moron who can’t even be treated as if she has the capacity to hold positions. But of course, they wouldn’t say that out loud. Instead, they what they would be saying out loud we be something more benign.

And they could get away with that because Palin’s handlers are opening the door for this approach by keeping her away from the critical media. This approach would dovetail with this decision of Palin’s handlers. In effect, both sides would be saying (with their feet, not their mouths) the same thing about Palin — i.e. she is a moron who can’t trusted to speak her own mind.

We Americans don’t do subtlety. I mean, when the most interesting aspect about a phenomenon is a thing that is missing, we seem to have trouble understanding that. I could go on to give multiple examples. But here is a current glaring one:

Tomorrow morning is Sunday morning. In America, Sunday morning is the morning for the grand old political news shows (e.g. “Face the Nation”, “Meet the Press”, etc.).

Tomorrow, John McCain, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden will each subject himself to one of these Sunday morning programs.

That’s the whole story right there.

Anybody else find that story interesting? Any of you find that this story confirms what you’d already been thinking?

I haven’t had television in my home since 1996. I think TV is the bane of Western civilization.

That being said, from time to time, there really is “must see TV”. For me, that has included 9/11, and various sporting matches.

Right now, it’s humor on Sarah Palin. YouTube gives us the best of the DIY, home-brewed comedy, together with the best from TV.

In some ways, these are great times in which we’re living.

With Obama screwing up since June, and with the stunning announcement of Sarah Palin as McCain’s running mate, you can tell my reaction was horror. The last couple of days, I’ve been thinking: Could Obama screw up so badly that turnout in November is low, allowing the Republicans to steal a few states and sneak out yet another election, giving us a better than 50% chance of “President Palin” by 2010?  The horror!

With this disturbing question in mind, many thoughts have bubbled up. I’ve already addressed how the Republicans have succeeded in the past with morons as candidates, and I’ve also looked at the different flavors of corruption. I was going to blog next on the notion that Sarah Palin would do to affirmative action exactly what Obama is doing. That is, each is, in a completely different way, obliterating affirmative action.

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What type of corruption in high government officials do you find more disturbing ?  It is when an official uses his position to:

1. Personally enrich himself?
2. “Pay back” the industry which “brung him to the dance”?
3. Settle a personal family feud?

#1 is banal, common and well-known. Try Googling “bill clinton kazakhstan” for a recent high-profile example of this category.

#2 is core to the theme of this blog. The best example is current and on-going. President Bush is the crown prince of what former President Eisenhower called the “military industrial complex”. The Iraq war represents $10 billion per month that our dear president, with the complicity of Congress, is taking from you, me. and the rest of us individuals and small businesses who pay 90 cents of the tax dollar, and giving to this industry to which he is beholden.

#3 would seem to be rare. At least I can’t remember a modern (ie. post-Herodotus) case of this — until Sarah Palin.

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