ha!….when I heard that from Rachel earlier I thought of you!

The pundits are so busy fretting about the salacious questions they didn’t pick up on that. The average person wouldn’t know this just as I didn’t. Why are “celebrity” journalists allowed to moderate debates when they don’t have the expertise to pick up on these things? Do they just ask a list of questions but fail to understand the answers they’re given?

In a sense, I can see why they stick to the salacious things…that’s all they are capable of understanding and rebutting! They are clearly not qualified to moderate a debate for President…no wonder Obama answered testily “Because Charlie, the President sets the mission”. Maybe that was the true source of his frustration.

It’s like being a surgeon and having a chef question you about medical protocol!

Check out his connection of Obama to Nazi’s via Ted Kennedy. It is brilliant satire against white Catholics who will use Obama’s associations as excuse not to vote for him.

Then Obama appears by satellite briefly at the end.

These are redlasso clips, hope there’s no problem viewing them:

Colbert p1

Colbert p2

Colbert p3

Here’s my transcription:

Olbermann:There was a very bizarre quality to Mr. Stephanopolous’ work last night. And this again,perhaps, not getting the attention it deserved because of this obvious plant thing from Sean Hannity.

Rachel:Yeah, this was an obvious plant from Charles Krauthammer. It seems to me. He’s put forth this scenario and this proposal.

Olbermann:And we have to give mad props to our friend Pat Buchanan, who came right out of the gate last night saying, this is…what is this…she’s declared…This is AN IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY BEING PROPOSED.

Rachel: This is one of those moments when Pat takes a right turn that takes him so far right it ends up hitting me as I take my left turn, smacking into each other, in terms of being afraid of a Presidential Proposal like this.
***************************

I told y’all. Obama will end The Imperial Presidency. Hillpatine sees nothing wrong with it, as long as SHE is the President.

Pretty funny.

Exactly, you also don’t hear much from the media about the Obama Superdelegates and what kind of pressure they must be facing from the Clinton machine aside from Richardson and that quickly turned into a story about James Carville’s audacity.

good article. The thing is, I’ve never seen ANY of Obama’s White Female Superdelegates disrespect Hillpatine the way that her HHH disrespect Obama ALL THE TIME.

There’s an interesting story here about the female Superdelegates who support Obama having the sisterhood questioned: (with examples)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080417/ap_on_el_pr/women_superdelegates

Seems to me you have other standards of assessment that just aren’t using the same categories as what I was saying. Mapping your standards onto my words doesn’t make any sense to me & won’t lead to a useful discussion between us.

So, I am really sorry if I muddied up the discussion you want to have with my response — and I may have done that.

Hopefully others on the site will be better at engaging your questions on your terms if that is what people see as valuable to do.

Last night Obama pledged not to raise taxes on those making less than $200,000.

Obama admitted he would raise the cap on the payroll tax, meaning that those making more than $97,000 a year would pay higher payroll taxes. Obama said, “I would look at potentially exempting those who are in between.” But of course if he exempts all of those in between, then he’s not going to raise the payroll tax to help save Social Security. And if he doesn’t exempt all of those in between, then he’s raising taxes on those making less than $200,000.

I am in that range where my tax bill will go up.

He needs to clarify this position.

100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected by raising the rate.

He said,“I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.” Obama states that he wants “businesses to thrive and I want people to be rewarded for their success.” But he also wants to “make sure … that our tax system is fair and that we are able to finance health care for Americans who currently don’t have it and that we’re able to invest in our infrastructure and invest in our schools.” But back to the empirical evidence: when capital-gains taxes are cut, the private economy expands. So if lowering the capital gains tax led to a stronger economy and higher revenues, Obama presumably would still oppose it on grounds of “fairness” (a concept that doesn’t help you determine what the precise tax rate ought to be).

Taxes are a big issue with me, that why I bring it up.

Do you think his ‘Bittergate’ comments were inductive?

Thanks for your response.

It all sounds good and reasonable on paper. And it sounds good in broad terms. I guess I’m too cynical to take anything in politics on ‘faith.’

Before you can change the game, you need to be skilled at it. I am the same age as Obama and while I see his great talent as an orator, his intelligence, his charismatic personality, I just don’t know if he is experienced enough. There is potential, and he still has until November…

I myself can’t answer your questions specifically because they are hypothetical and I have no actual information on what is going on because it is not going on. Not saying others won’t have something to say – just that I myself don’t do well with hypotheticals.

But, in case it is relevant somehow, here is what I can say on this (sorry it turned out so freaking long):

What I know is what I have already observed of his actions in the campaign — patterns emerging from that. And also from what I see in reading Dreams from My Father, which underscores for me the strength of those patterns.

There are two different approaches to knowledge and action that I feel as relevant here.

One, deductive, starts with a tightly controlled theory with artificially limited and controlled parameters for “testing” the theory.

While there may be good uses for this approach (and I am sure I over-simplified the description, because it is not how I think), it unfortunately can feed into a much more dangerous way of approach things, that of imperial “reality-creation” as discussed in a previous thread on this site.

In contrast, the other approach to knowing and action, inductive, builds understanding from the ground up — experience, interaction, noticing what is going on before making concepts and theories about it. This approach defers to experience and ground-up reality if there is a clash between experience/ground-up reality on one hand, and concept/theory/ theory-based plans on the other.

This inductive approach allows for all sorts of complexity and even ambiguity as the process unfolds to reveal patterns and concepts to guide action.

In my experience, the inductive approach is less common in our society than deductive and its sinister cousin, reality-creation. Maybe because inductive does not rely heavily on control and so it can feel scary to people who don’t take to it naturally. I don’t know. I don’t understand why it freaks people out sometimes, but have seen that it can and does.

Anyway. From what I have seen, Senator Obama pretty consistently demonstrates inductive reasoning and action. He is responsive to what is going on and able to take in the full context of it. He has a very high tolerance for the complexity and patches of ambiguity that are part of ground-up understanding and action.

The one place where I don’t know if he is inductive is his faith in the nation.

But it is entirely possible that this, too, is inductive in his experience — my experience is just different so I have no way to comprehend where he’s coming from. But I am observing that something other than what my experience tells me should be true is actually happening — an inductive approach means I have to take that in even though it challenges my understanding of the world.

I don’t know what he will do in the future, but after observing how he approaches things, I have a high level of trust in his ability to adjust and re-adjust to what is actually going on in its full context and complexity.

I don’t agree with some of his policy stances. But while I may not always agree with where he comes out at a given point in time, I deeply trust the integrity of how he gets there. I also know from what I have already seen that that his is a process of action and understanding that is not rigid or stopped artificially in one place.

School choice
Affirmative Action reform
Nuclear Energy

That was a great find. I believe McCain also wants to have a substantive debate on issues. He has shown a willingness and an ability to be an independent thinker, hence his reputation as a ‘maverick.’

I know that McCain is criticized for ‘back tracking’ on taxes, torture and immigration in order to rally support from the base. Has not Obama played to his base as well?

But won’t Obama need to move to the center, or at least demonstrate that he is capable of breaking with the party on some issues as well?

For example, the capital gains tax has been proven to increase tax revenues. It affects over 40% of Americans who are enjoying the benefits of being part of the investor class. Many of these are black and minority investors who for the first time are able to amass wealth which they can pass on to future generations. Is this a case where the party opinion that raising taxes on the wealthy should be reevaluated?

While supporters may already believe this to be true how can he bring independent voters to his side?

For example, Do you (Obama supporters here at JJP) believe that if General Patraeus and Ambassador Crocker told him in Jan. 2009 that immediate withdrawl would not be his recommended course of action, would he, should he, continue with his plan for withdrawl?

If in Jan. 2009 the rise in food prices could be significantly reduced if the production of biofuels such as corn-based ethanol was lowered, regulated or halted altogether, would he be able alter or withdraw his support for this alternative fuel?

These scenarios are possible. Breaking from 2 major tenets of his campaign that would require him to make decisions that are wildly unpopular with the base of his support.

This would require an ability to be independent. Can he go against the party and be independent if it is required?

That’s what I’ve come to believe, in part from trying to account for my own massive misjudgment over Iraq and near-disbelief at what has happened to limited government conservatism in the past decade. I think the United States is in deep trouble. In massive debt, bogged down in a $3 trillion war in Iraq with no end in sight, its moral reputation globally in tatters, its Constitution undermined from within, America desperately needs a substantive, honest debate about the future, a root-and-branch review of foreign policy, of tax policy, of environmental policy, of torture and terror policies and of entitlements. And we do not have the luxury of using elections in this climate as a way to fight over cultural conflicts originating in this instance from the boomer civil war stemming from the 1960s. That’s why I once so feared a Clinton-Giuliani contest. But it is what the Clintons know; and it is what they have decided to turn their own primary campaign into. From flag-pins to Ayers to Wright – it’s all about re-fighting the boomer culture wars.

Yes, we can.

Breakdown:

Obama:
1. Philadelphia Daily News – 4/17 (the article says: That makes it a sweep for Mr. Obama among Pennsylvania’s major newspapers)
2. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – 4/16
3. Patriot-News in Harrisburg – I can’t find the article for the date
4. Times Tribune, based in Scranton – 4/13

Clinton:
1. Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper at the University of Pennsylvania

I particularly liked this part of the Philadelphia Daily News endorsement of Sen. Obama:

THERE IS a way to match Clinton’s and Obama’s performances on a relatively equal playing field: their campaigns.

It would not be content with eking out slim victories by playing to the narrow interests of the swing voters of the moment while leaving the rest of the country as deeply divided as ever. Instead, an Obama administration would seek to expand the number of Americans who believe that they have a personal stake in our collective future – and that they have the power to change things.

And this line which echoes a discussion that was here at Jack and Jill not long ago:

He would adjust his views to reality rather than trying to adjust reality to his views.

Exactly.

If Hillary is still contesting the nomination in August, she will most likely be asking them to overturn the will of the primary voters and make her the nominee. They will only take such a risk if they are totally convinced that Obama can’t win in Novemeber.

How many times have we heard Clinton and Obama argue endlessly over what amounts to a very minor difference in their health-care plans?

More importantly, McCain is not likely to challenge either Clinton or Obama on issues like the environment, interrogation, and health care in the general election. He will challenge them on issues like gun control, foreign policy, and taxes — the issues ABC covered — while outside groups will ensure that their personal controversies are in the public eye as November draws near.

It concludes, “This was a debate for their (superdelegates) benefit, and ABC did the right thing by testing the candidates on the issues that are bound to take center stage in the fall. On these issues, Obama might have stumbled. But he did not commit the kind of catastrophic blunder Clinton needs if she’s to have any hope of winning the nomination.”

This sounds about right to me, and will help to prepare Obama for the general election issues to come.