In addition to mis-categorizing health care as a “right,” BRCK BM made another serious gaffe in last night’s debate:

In fact, just today business organizations like the United States Chamber of Commerce, which generally are pretty supportive of Republicans, said that this would lead to the unraveling of the employer-based health care system. That, I don’t think, is the kind of change that we need.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce seems to think that it is:

A government-run or single-payer health care system with government mandates is the wrong answer to our health care problems. The U.S. Chamber believes that employers drive innovation in health benefits, thereby making market-driven health reforms the best approach to reducing costs, while promoting efficiency, wellness, and quality of care.

See also this:

McCain’s plan steers away from mandates and instead offers a $5,000 tax credit for families and a $2,500 credit for individuals who purchase insurance. He is more focused than the Democratic candidates on reining in escalating costs…

McCain shouldn’t have mentioned Warren Buffett; Obama shouldn’t have mentioned the U.S. Chamber.

Bob Krumm live-blogged tonight’s debate. This part stands out:

McCain’s “Maybe” response to a yes or no question was very good. He explained why yes was wrong and so was no. Very effectively. He was the one who came across with good foreign policy nuance.

Nuanced, maybe, but fundamentally flawed for any voter who doesn’t believe Ronald Reagan launched the Cold War by referring to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.” The Cold War began about four decades before President Reagan made the comment in 1983.

That’s as stupid as his idea to have the feds buy the junk mortgages he criticized in the next breath, or his failure to reconcile his vote for the pork-laden bailout bill when discussing corrupt Washington spending, or his naming of BRCK BM supporter Warren Buffet as a possible Treasury Secretary.

Still, none of these are as blatantly stupid as classifying health care as a “right.” Nothing can be a right that must be taken by force from somebody else. BRCK BM also lied saying President Bush told people to go shopping, lied about American income (again), couldn’t name a single program he would cut (again), and refused to identify anything he doesn’t know.

At least on that last question, McCain knocked it out of the park. McCain said what he didn’t know was the future, and that we need a steady, experienced hand to guide the country through the rocky and uncertain terrain ahead. Without question, McCain outperforms BRCK BM on that count. Unfortunately, mavericks aren’t known for having steady hands, either.

UPDATE: While looking for a test for my “right” definition above, I realized that the “right to counsel” in the Sixth Amendment can be (and is) interpreted as requiring appointed representation when a defendant cannot afford his own, and thus would be a right “taken by force” from somebody else, in this case an attorney. This is a right that seems to have evolved over time, beginning in the 1930s, to the point where it is now represented in the Miranda warning. But at least it can be traced back to the Constitution. Can the same be said of health care?

There have been rumors that gaffe machine Joe Biden would be dropped as the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, and we can now confirm that these rumors are TRUE. The only surprise is that Biden is not being replaced by Hillary Clinton; instead, BRCK BM has chosen his faithful apostle, Rep. Steve Cohen:

Rep. Cohen, as you’ll recall, recently compared BRCK BM to Jesus Christ, and the Republican VP candidate to Pontius Pilate.

Rep. Cohen has apparently been rewarded with a slot on the presidential ticket. That is, unless this is just a silly sign produced by Cohen, who faces no Republican challenger, and who recently said “it’s just me and Obama,” when asked which other candidates he would be helping this election season.

Also: this sign was spotted well inside the 7th District; Cohen represents the 9th District.

In an editorial billed as “The Cold Hard Truth about Sarah Palin,” Memphis Liar circus barker Marty Aussenberg assails what he considers protective, fawning treatment of John McCain’s “mean” running mate by Republicans, and tepid criticism or indulgence from Democrats and the media. What he fails to offer, however, is even one “cold hard truth” about the Alaskan Governor. Once again, the “Gadfly” offers little more than innuendo, supposition, personal insults and conjecture.

Aussenberg preemptively attacks what he assumes will be a “kid gloves” conversation with “journalist” Charlie Gibson (scare quotes included in the original), followed only by other sycophantic interviews and superficial investigations:

If the press and the public (and especially the Democrats) don’t do the job of seriously examining who this flash in the pan the Republicans are trying to foist over on us really is, then we’ll deserve having her be a “heartbeat from the presidency.”

Of course, we should note that such an examination of the “cold hard truth” appears to be above Aussenberg’s pay grade, not to mention his apparent lack of interest in the “flash in the pan” the Democrats “are trying to foist over on us” as President.

Aussenberg also submits the size of Palin’s family as evidence of her lack of judgment:

[W]hy it isn’t fair game to ask Palin herself why, in a world of diminishing resources, four children weren’t enough, and why, at the age of 44, she subjected her child to the known risks of a pregnancy with a substantially increased incidence of genetic defects? Isn’t judgment always an issue for a candidate?

Finally (and, yes, that’s basically all the editorial says), Aussenberg predicts that Palin will be dropped from the Republican ticket and mocks religious prayer:

While I don’t think “Flailin’ Palin” will even survive on the ticket to election day, I am implementing a contingency plan of praying (something I am really not used to doing). I do earnestly entreat any and all deities that, should the GOP succeed in fooling the American public (or worse, stealing this election), like it has so many times before, her sponsor should turn out to be neither as senile nor as sickly as he… seems… right… now.

Failing to include any “cold hard truths” in the editorial, Aussenberg makes a follow-up attempt in the comments:

Now that they’ve removed the muzzle from the pit bull (i.e., the first part of the Charlie Gibson interview) what did she do? Bite herself on the butt, of course. She lied about Alaska being responsible for 20% of the country’s energy production, she didn’t have a clue about the policy that her mentors (Bush and McCain) have implemented (the “Bush doctrine”), she actually repeated the pathetic rationale for her foreign policy experience (i.e., she lives next to Russia—I was fully expecting her to say next that she stayed at a Holiday Inn Express one night), and, worst of all, she’s apparently ready and willing to start a war with Russia. Can you imagine this woman with her finger on the nuclear button? It’s a scene straight out of “Dr. Strangelove.” Someone, please save us from being “imPalined.”

Taking this “cold hard truth” line by line:

1. “She lied about Alaska being responsible for 20% of the country’s energy production…”

To be exact, Gov. Palin said her state, “produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy…”

The Huffington Post, in criticizing John McCain for flubbing the same line, supports the truth of Palin’s statement, which means Marty Aussenberg is the liar.

2. “She didn’t have a clue about the policy that her mentors (Bush and McCain) have implemented (the “Bush doctrine”)”

Actually, what Palin did was attempt to clarify the question, saying “In what respect, Charlie?” This clarification was necessary because the “Bush doctrine” can and does refer to multiple concepts: the policy of pre-emption, the policy of treating harboring states as enemies, the policy of spreading freedom in the Middle East as a means to defeat terrorism, the policy of facing terrorism on the battlefield rather than the courtroom, and the policy of staying on offense against Islamic terrorism until it is defeated.

Once again, the person who doesn’t “have a clue” is Marty Aussenberg.

3. “She actually repeated the pathetic rationale for her foreign policy experience (i.e., she lives next to Russia—I was fully expecting her to say next that she stayed at a Holiday Inn Express one night)”

I’m confident Sarah Palin wasn’t selected for her foreign policy experience, as was the rationale for picking Joe Biden, given the vast disparity of foreign policy experience between the two respective Presidential candidates. But there’s no reason to deny her what little experience she does have. One would expect Alaskan leaders to be far more attuned to Russian activities than politicians from Illinois.

4. “She’s apparently ready and willing to start a war with Russia. Can you imagine this woman with her finger on the nuclear button? It’s a scene straight out of ‘Dr. Strangelove.’”

All Palin did was answer a hypothetical question about an attack on a NATO ally. In response, she simply referenced Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which states:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

5. “Someone, please save us from being “imPalined.”

That’s the radical Left for you, still treating BRCK BM as a savior.

SEE ALSO: Fore Left!, Tennesseefree, Bill Hobbs, Byron York, Glenn Reynolds

I can’t imagine how BRCK BM can be telling the truth that he wasn’t intentionally alluding to Gov. Palin with his “lipstick on a pig” comment, especially given his audience’s amused reaction. I thought it was a clever jab, but if BRCK BM maintains that he simply stumbled upon an untimely cliche, that’s his loss. We certainly can’t prove otherwise without further information only BRCK BM and his handlers would know.

I also laughed when I heard part of BRCK BM’s defense: “What their campaign has done this morning is the same game that makes people sick and tired about politics in this country.”

I laughed because I first thought that I’m certainly not sick and tired of politics, then I remembered this line from Monty Python:

I think that all good, right thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that all good, right thinking people in this country are fed up with being told that all good, right thinking people in this country are fed up with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am.

We’re sick and tired of being told that we’re sick and tired of politics, and that somehow right thinking people in this country should be adopt the new politics of Obama, which is actually the old politics of the Chicago machine, writ large.

Is Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) comparing BRCK BM to our Lord and Savior?

There’s an interesting comment over at the Commercial Appeal article on Cohen’s ridiculous statement:

Wow, quickest headline change I’ve seen here. “Cohen compares Obama to Jesus” almost immediately disappeared and became “Cohen: Jesus was a Community Organizer.” Guess Otis must’ve figured the headline would hurt his boy.

There’s no Google cache of the old headline, but the url still reads:
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/sep/10/cohen-compares-obama-jesus/

UPDATE: I understood the last line of the comment excerpted above as a benign, colloquial reference to the CA’s endorsement of Steve Cohen, who the editorial staff would not want to “hurt.” Others apparently interpret it as an unambiguous, racially-charged reference to BRCK BM. I had briefly considered leaving that line out simply because it’s speculative and unnecessary to the issue I wanted to call out — the CA’s revisionist headline. But now I’m sorry that I didn’t, because the peanut gallery will claim it as evidence of veiled racism on my part. That’s sad and pathetic, but true. But I won’t remove it now, because I don’t subscribe to revisionism myself. I will only point out that the peanut gallery apparently ignored Steve Cohen’s comparison of BRCK BM to Christ, his comparison of Gov Palin to Pontius Pilate (the man who condemned Christ to death on a cross), and the CA’s revisionism, in order to focus on an ambiguous comment somebody else made, in order to smear me. Such is the current state of the radical Left.

Earlier today I caught part of a BRCK BM stump speech being broadcast live on MSNBC. He repeated the lie we spotted earlier; now the official Fact Check is finally in, and it ain’t pretty for BRCK BM:

Obama said “average family income” went down $2,000 under Bush, which isn’t correct. An aide said he was really talking only about “working” families and not retired couples. And – math teachers, please note – he meant median (or midpoint) and not really the mean or average. Median family income actually has inched up slightly under Bush.

And “inched up slightly” means the median income has risen $1,149.

So BRCK BM is off by a mere $3,149. But let’s be generous and only hold him to the first $2,000.

Back during the Democratic primary, all we heard about was change and experience.

The two finalists selected these generic tags as surrogates, since there were no essential ideological differences between them, and since both were freshmen Senators with equally thin resumes.

It was Change (embodied by a doctrinaire Leftist who wouldn’t alter a single plank of the Democratic platform) vs. Experience (represented by a carpet-bagging one-term legislator whose most vivid telling of her experience involved dodging runway sniper fire — otherwise known as a typical airport greeting ceremony).

Change spat upon the very notion of experience and said it was a corrupting agent, while Experience belittled change as being insufficiently capable of bringing about itself.

Experience started out on the defensive, saying it was she who had the requisite experience to bring about change. Sensing weakness, Change countered that change wouldn’t come from Washington, that in fact we were the ones we’ve been waiting for. Then with her back up against the wall and facing impossible odds, Experience decided to attack Change head-on, drawing on her own assumed strengths and questioning whether Change was prepared to take phone calls at 3 a.m. But Change had reserved a knock-out blow, explaining that instinctive judgment, not experience, was the real prerequisite for change.

This back and forth was not lost on the Republican candidates, who jumped at the opportunity to ride the change bandwagon, each of them claiming to be the true representative of change, while simultaneously chiding the triteness of the term’s usage. America’s Mayor said his proven conservative leadership would really change Washington, the Mormon Governor replaced his full-movement conservative rhetoric with slogans hinging on populist change and political reform, and the Governor from Hope staked a claim on change by logical extension.

But it was the Maverick — a term already synonymous with change — who was endorsed by Experience as its Republican standard-bearer. The Senator from Arizona essentially came to represent both terms, brilliantly alternating between his dual reservoirs of change and experience, drawing from one or the other, depending on the given audience or circumstances, and thus surging ahead of the Republican field.

Upon assuming the official status as the Democratic nominee, Change pinned the defeated Experience label on the Republican winner and tied him to the current administration — casting him as the continuation of the last eight years and saying he could thus not represent change. So the Maverick’s age became a larger issue, as did his recent voting record.

The Maverick hit back with the now-familiar Experience jab, knocking Change as a vapid celebrity and pounding him with questions about his readiness to lead the country.

Bloodied and dazzled by the onslaught, Change undercut himself when it came time to pick a running-mate. Change defensively selected an old Washington insider who could help solve his experience problem, even though he too had once questioned Change’s experience.

With the title in sight, the Maverick took a chance on delivering a knock-out punch, choosing a running-mate who would reinforce the change side of his combination attack.

Change fell into the trap, attacking the Maverick’s running mate for her lack of experience, thus abandoning his safety zone and entering unfriendly territory. You can call it bad judgment, but that’s just what happens when you have absolutely zero experience. (more…)

I don’t agree with BRCK BM that family matters are completely off-limits, particularly if those family members are making political stump speeches. It also extends to spouses, siblings, children and extended family who don’t project themselves upon the public stage, to the extent it reveals something important about the candidate’s character or ideology.

It’s important that we know how serious BRCK BM is when he quotes the Bible on “whatever you do to the least of these, my brothers…” Does his charity start at home, with his own half-brother, living in a shack off a dollar a month? It’s important for us to know why MCHLL BM is only recently proud of her country, and why she and her husband chose Jeremiah Wright to marry them, advise them and mold their socio-religious views.

It’s perfectly fair for us to talk about how Sarah Palin’s socio-religious views play out in her own family. What does it mean for her husband? What does it mean for her children, and her children’s children? Does Gov. Palin advocate abstinence-only education both at home and in public schools? If so, what is the product of that ideology, and how does she personally deal with the benefits and consequences of those views? Further, how practical is that ideology when contrasted with more liberal sex education, and what are the comparative statistics on pregnancy, birth and STDs?

That discussion should in turn bring us back around to BRCK BM — why he thinks it’s “above [his] pay grade” to determine when human life begins, and why he’s willing to gamble with destroying human life in the absence of that assurance. And we should be asking what he meant when he said he didn’t want his daughters to be “punished with a baby.”

I’m not saying minor children of politicians should be over-exposed, exploited or kept under constant news surveillance. Children should be allowed to be children, and we shouldn’t expect perfection from political families. For the most part, all family members should be left alone. But when their lives, actions and public statements tell us something important about the candidate, the public cannot be expected to ignore them.

You have to give John McCain props, because we knew it was an impossible task from the outset — to find a running mate who could rival BRCK BM in youth and inexperience. We can’t blame McCain for only meeting the first part.

Meanwhile, since McCain’s poor sense of humor would indeed be carried over from the current White House, I’d wager five smurfs that McCain will go green and recycle Reagan’s joke during the debates: (more…)