What? No VP debate thread?

[Vampyr]

Originally Posted by thatmariolover

I enjoyed the debate a lot. I have not seen Joe Biden speak much in the past, and it was a very pleasant surprise.

Palin clearly showed a marked improvement, but everything she said felt memorized. She used the same phrases over and over, which is a common speech technique to imprint something, but in this case felt like more of a way of dissembling with rhetoric.

Biden on the other hand seemed very genuinely passionate about his answers. Not only did he explain how he felt about issues, he explained why he felt that way. It was very refreshing, and I felt like he was somebody I could vote for to be President. Which isn't something I've felt about past VP's.

All in all, I think a lot of ground was covered.

Rather than actually answering most of the questions, she did have a couple of things she continuously fell back on, even if they had nothing to do with what the question was asking. When asked what her weakness was, she rambled about something totally incoherent. When asked if she would pull back on anything because of the economic crisis, she also went off on a tangent, and only said "No" when the moderator asked her again.

Also thought that the civil unions thing was funny. I disagree with both of them, I don't think civil unions are good enough and I think marriage should be available for homosexuals. However, Biden at least did say he supported civil unions, and that is a step in the right direction, and is a nice thing to stick with, since it loses them more votes than it gains. I loved Palin's reaction when the moderator pressed the issue about if she would support a civil union.

[thatmariolover]

Sorry that I misspoke regarding who he caved to.

The principle arguement still stands. He's opposed to the bill, yet he voted for it. How does that make any sense? And how is it commendable or deserving of respect? He's an elected official. He was elected to vote for what he believed, and he didn't.

[Teuthida]

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by thatmariolover

Sorry that I misspoke regarding who he caved to.

The principle arguement still stands. He's opposed to the bill, yet he voted for it. How does that make any sense? And how is it commendable or deserving of respect? He's an elected official. He was elected to vote for what he believed, and he didn't.

Please read my posts and watch the interview I posted in its entirety. I've already explained why this is a commendable act on his part. he acted out of what he thought was right, and didn;t care that those like you would try and twist his value's for partisan reasons. This conversation is getting very frustrating because of everyone's refusal to react to a situation with any kind of thoughtfulness, and just chalk it up to "Gotcha!".

1) McCain has always opposed pork in spending and has NEVEr accepted or asked for pork in exchange for his vote.

2) Economy about to collapse, congress needed to act in most economist's opinions, OTHER representatives push all kinds of pork in the bill but it still needs to pass out of fear that weeks of quibbling over pork will lead to the end of American as we know it. McCain chooses to lesser of two evils.

3) McCain is instrumental in pulling Republicans to vote for the bill.

4) McCain helps to pass the bill, and points out pork in the interview, and explains his nuanced stance on this issue, and why voted for the bill in this case but also how the pork almost ruined it.

What is there not to understand? Do you not recognize this bill as an extraordinary case that was very time sensitive? If you WANT to find all kinds of serious contradictions and "flip-flops" in this series of events, I'm sure you can, but that would make you no better than Keith Olberman who spends his career twisting words to fit his world view (like Rush on the right). The way you are behaving you would think McCain is the one who asked for pork or is receiving it. He isn't, and never has. It also ignores the fact that he has called for a line item veto for years, and that would have made this entire discussion moot and there wouldn't have been a series of events to overreact to if McCain's values had been put in place.

If you want to have a thoughtful opinion on this, you can do that, but you haven't. Everyone on the left wants to blow this out of purportion, and paint McCain as being something that he obviously isn't, and its shameful. Its up to you to decide how tot hink about this election, but to bring this up as some egregious case of McCain acting against his values is silly and extraordinarily partisan.

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by Professor S

If you want to have a thoughtful opinion on this, you can do that, but you haven't. Everyone on the left wants to blow this out of purportion, and paint McCain as being something that he obviously isn't, and its shameful. Its up to you to decide how tot hink about this election, but to bring this up as some egregious case of McCain acting against his values is silly and extraordinarily partisan.

I notice you switched gears and kinda ignored the last thing I said, though the last post you made was the closest thing to a responce I could see. The truth is, it still doesn't make sense how its commendable. I've noticed you put a lot of words into Mccains mouth when it comes to the issue, but the truth is Mccain failed to give an good explanation to why he votes yes even though he's against the pork.

He had a good platform here to criticize the government about it. He could have pointed out who added the pork, and made the famous in an attempt to start cleaning up washington one bill at a time, starting with this one. You make a change by not giving into fear, and pointing out this kinda crap is what got us where we are in the first place.

I would have gladly waited another week for another bill if it helped clean up the government starting NOW.

But no... he voted for it, and wasn't even trying to defend his reason for voting for it, just simply stating that its the kind of crap he'd veto if he were the president. He didn't say aything about the special circumstances, or say anything to the effect that "This time I had to let it slide for the safety of the country, but next time when I'm not scared of the results of NOT passing a bill, I'll vote no or veto it."

But I think we're both very aware how he came across on that interview was not very good. You can get on Olberman for making things sound different then they were, but there is no exert of the speech to speak of that he could have played in which Mccain really defended his choice. Mccain made >himself< sound bad by not explaining his actions and why he is against what he just voted for 24 hours ago.

[thatmariolover]

I saw that flowchart earlier. And it is relatively accurate to how I felt the debate went.

[Bond]

The real question is why is Washington University allowed to host so many debates? The campus is nice, but it's not that nice.

[Fyacin]

I don't think Mcain should have voted for the bill.
*edit: And not just because it had tons of pork in it. I'm not sure how more insane goverment spending or beggaring my future children helps.

I also think the debate was dull. I was expecting either a hilarious gaffe from Biden or a more "Barracuda" performance from Palin. Both were just very solid. I did like how Palin asked if she could call Sen. Biden, Joe.

[Vampyr]

Originally Posted by Fyacin

I don't think Mcain should have voted for the bill.
*edit: And not just because it had tons of pork in it. I'm not sure how more insane goverment spending or beggaring my future children helps.

I also think the debate was dull. I was expecting either a hilarious gaffe from Biden or a more "Barracuda" performance from Palin. Both were just very solid. I did like how Palin asked if she could call Sen. Biden, Joe.

You should actually be more worried about yourself than your children, over time this bail out would pay off, it's just a huge chunk to spend all at once, at this point in time. I think McCain has handled the bail out fairly well. Anyone is 100% for it or 100% against it obviously doesn't know enough about it.

[Professor S]

Game, there is no point to debating this any further. I look back on 30 years of fighting pork and trying to get a line item veto, and you look at one mis-statement. There is no amount of explanation I or McCain could give that could satisfy your unreasonable demands on McCain when it came to this bill, and your simply acting hawkish for Obama, IMO.

Once again, 30 years of fighting against something, and one vote in extraordinary circumstances negates it all for you. There is no point in arguing further.

By the way, Obama voted for the bill, but since he's never fought against pork it makes it somehow better or not worthy of mention? Thats like Obama supporters attacking Palin's experience and not recognizing Obama has about two seconds more, and less executive experience. And no, I don;t count campaigning as experience, thats rhetoric and tests your ability to be a politician, not a statesman.

The more I hear arguments against McCain and for Obama, the less I understand the logical leaps of faith taken on behalf of Barack.

We've seen two crisis during this election, and in both of them one candidate came out and led, for bettre or worse, and that was McCain during both Georgia and the economic crisis, while Obama was fine to sit in the background and let McCain take all the risks during an election while Obama filled empty space with the beautiful language of empty equivocation. One candidate has shown that they want to lead this nation, and the other has shown that they want to be President. I'll vote for the leader.

[TheGame]

There's a little thing out there called setting expectations. If one fights against something for so long, then suddenly has a change of heart for one bill a month before they become president, its a bad thing, period. I'd just like Mccain to explain it in his own words why he did it. I have a fairly good idea why he did, but I just want him to say it.

As for dragging Obama in, if Obama was openly fighting against something and suddenly changed his mind (Or even acted against what he believed) mid September/October I'd be worried about him too. So I think tossing him in there is completly irrelevant. They both voted the same way, so there's no way to put them on opposite sides of the fence here, its just one happend to vote the way they expected and the other didn't.