For those of you that remember talks about the estate tax, which is called death tax by Republicans (their frame which is very effective), there was an attempt by liberals/progressives to call it the Paris Hilton tax cut. Sadly that never really took off.
So when we talk about letting the Bush tax cuts expire on income that is higher than $250,000 (those wealthy folks still get the same tax cut as everyone else on the income below $250,000), we need a new frame. I suggest we go with the Fox News/Republican/Tea Party bogey name to get us there, it is time to call it the George Soros tax cut. I want to hear John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, not to mention Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin to defend the George Soros tax cut.
Do you know why there will never be Republican Jeopardy? It isn’t because the may not have the IQ to provide questions to the answers. The problem is every answer is “tax cut” and they never know which question that answer applies to.
Moderator: the answer is tax cuts. Moderator: Yes, Grover Norquist. GroverNorquist: what to do when the economy has slow growth? Moderator: that is not the answer we are looking for this time. Moderator: Yes, Newt Gingrich. NewtGingrich: what is the best way to share sacrifice during a war? Moderator: also not the answer we were looking for. Moderator: Yes, Samuel…I mean Joe the Plumber JoethePlubmer: what I need to have the tax lien removed from my house? Moderator: No, that is not the answer we are looking for, but if you
happen to win you might be able to pay off that lien. Moderator: Yes, Sarah Palin. SarahPalin: what will make me able to see Russia from my house? Moderator: not the answer. How the heck would you be able to see Russia from your house because of a tax cut?
What does Sarah Palin consider the $1305 check she will receive from the Alaska Permanent Fund for just living in the state? Welfare? Socialism? Or her right as a resident of Alaska?
On Fox News Sunday’s roundtable segment, Bill Kristol defends Sarah Palin’s supposed lack of knowledge of which countries are in NAFTA. He defends her by saying which countries are in North America, which is a fair point, after all some people only say Mexico, USA, and Canada, describing those countries south of Mexico to Panama as part of Central America.
That point being said, NAFTA was passed in September 1993 and came into effect on January 1, 1994. So for 14 years we have been in this agreement with only Canada and Mexico. Since the state of Alaska, the state she is governor of, has only a land border with a foreign country, Canada, which happens to be one of the NAFTA partners, you would think she would know this.
So as Colin Powell pointed out Obama has an intellectual curiosity, and I feel that he thinks that Sarah Palin has a lack of intellectual curiosity and this is proof in my mind that she doesn’t really want to understand things.
The more I listen to the talking points coming out of the Republican party, the more it seems that they cry foul at any perceived slight, or sometimes even pre-empt slights. Usually this is directed at the supposed liberal media and its unfair treatment of conservatives.
You may remember back during the Republican National Convention, that right wing pundits were on message complaining about the sexist critical coverage of who the heck is this new political person on the national scene, Sarah Palin. I mean I didn’t know much about her, so it makes sense that the news organizations would go looking and let the public know about her.
Not exactly consistent on their opinion of the media’s treatment of female candidates. But hey, why let consistency stop you from calling foul, crying that the big bad liberal media is being unfair to conservatives when it allows you to intimidate that media to treat you more favorably due to your whining.
More recently we have the conservatives complaining that the LA Times won’t release a videotape of a party for Rashid Khalidi that Obama attended. As the AP reports,
Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin accused the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday of protecting Barack Obama by withholding a videotape of the Democrat attending a 2003 party for a Palestinian-American professor and critic of Israel. The paper said it had written about the event in April and would not release the tape because of a promise to the source who provided it.
McCain and Palin called Rashid Khalidi a former spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, a characterization Khalidi has denied in the past. Both candidates said guests at the party made critical comments about Israel.
So that is the situation, this is the whining that is going on,
McCain and Palin cited the paper’s position as evidence of media bias. The Times has endorsed Obama.
“If there was a tape of John McCain in a neo-Nazi outfit, I think the treatment of the issue would be slightly different,” McCain said in an interview with Hispanic radio stations.
Palin said the Times should win a Pulitzer Prize for “kowtowing.”
“It must be nice for a candidate to have major news organizations looking out for their best interests like that. Politicians would love to have a pet newspaper of their very own,” she said.
Apparently Republicans are a little forgetful of the withholding of a story that can only have helped their candidate in 2004. As a blog on Wired pointed out,
The tale is an odd one. There seems to have been at least two meetings between the Times and the White House about the story, but Lichtblau’s Slate excerpt confusingly jumps between the two.
He also doesn’t explain who at the Times was persuaded in 2004, at the tail end of a presidential election, to withhold a bombshell story about the president secretly wiretapping inside the United States in plain contravention of federal law.
His book, Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice, comes out Tuesday, April 1.
Here’s hoping that the book explains much more about the 13-month hold on one of the most important stories of the post-9/11 era, instead of skimming over embarrassing details and relying on passive constructions (“It was a difficult decision for everyone.”).
The sentence “The editors were not persuaded we had enough for a story” is not enlightening nor does it ring true. Nor does it explain at all how the nation’s most respected newspaper nearly spiked, for eternity, the warrantless wiretapping program story.
Why should the debate at the Times over the NSA’s warrantless targeting of Americans be more of a secret than the spying?
In the world of unintended consequences, the push to find out about Rashid Khalidi shows that McCain may have more extensive ties to the professor as the AP reports.
Khalidi is a professor of Middle East Studies at Columbia University and a longtime friend of Obama’s. Khalidi has publicly criticized Israel, but he and Obama have both said they hold very different opinions on Israeli issues.
McCain also has ties to Khalidi through a group Khalidi helped found 15 years ago. The Center for Palestine Research and Studies received at least $448,000 from an organization McCain chairs.
If Khalidi is so bad, so anti Israeli, why did an organization McCain chairs give him $448,000? Think Progress has a great write up on this embarassing (well if you weren’t a rampant hypocrite) situation for McCain.
It would be nice if the Republicans didn’t cry foul at every perceived slight in the media, and learned to show a little spine. Sadly the mainstream media more often than not enables this behavior, as I personally think that the suppression of the warrantless wiretapping demonstrates. It is as bad as professional athletes taking dives in games to get a foul called.
John McCain said that Barack Obama is the most eloquent politician he has ever known. Take that Ronald Reagan!
Chris Wallace did a nice job of challenging John McCain on the issue of public financing. McCain complained about Obama’s opting out of public financing for the first time since Watergate. He also complained about the non-disclosure of small donations. Wallace challenged McCain on whether Obama is doing anything wrong? McCain said that large amounts of money corrupt, but no, nothing wrong. He did allude to multiple small donations which may be problematic. But in terms of the going back on his word on taking public finance, McCain is far from innocent, because in the primaries he did his best Hokey Pokey imitation on public financing.
Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama. McCain counters with four Secretaries of State.
McCain defends Joe the Plumber by saying that people shouldn’t be investigated for asking a candidate a question. First of all, Joe asked a question that was reported on television, the question had a political agenda since it was about a future that doesn’t look to be to close for Joe. And it was McCain’s obsessive focus on Joe in the final debate that brought the media scrutiny. Wallace made the point that it was the media.
Wallace challenges McCain’s use of robo-calls, which in the past he derided and even stated he would never use. Wallace also points out that Senator Collins has asked McCain to end the calls. McCain’s response is that the statement is true and it doesn’t sound like he will cancel them.
Wallace challenges McCain on the issue of calling refundable income tax credits, when he is proposing a refundable tax credit for health care.
I don’t know that I would describe Sarah Palin in terms of arousing enthusiasm in America when there are criticisms about her attractiveness as being one of her few positive attributes.
In general I would say Wallace did a decent job of challenging McCain on real issues, so kudos to him.
-Josh
Update: Bill Kristol describes a tax cut that would help Joe the Plumber right now as a handout. So tax cuts are handouts when they are not structured to your liking.
Palin comes across better throughout based on her style. But if you pay attention long enough, you realize it is like that old Wendy’s commercial:
Sarah just is saying a lot of the same sort of empty non-answerrs over and over. Where is the beef?
Joe Biden started with some coughing, he stumbled to get to his points as he seemed to want to say so many things in response. An issue that Palin did not struggle with, after all she often avoided the question.
Biden’s strongest moment was the personal, talking about losing his wife and not sure if his child would live. That seemed very sincere to me, and I think will provide some sympathy for him, in contrast to his mostly policy focused answers.
Joe is struggling to focus his comments. To me it seems he knows a lot, but he can’t figure out what line of answering he wants to take and so jumps around a little, seeming a little muddle in his answer.
Palin just pulled the before it before against it regarding the Iraq war, I am waiting to see Biden takes the bait and calls her on the bridge to nowhere.
Joe has to stop counting, no more number 1, and number 2. It sounds like a kid explaining having to go potty.
If you liked the kid in class that would evade the teacher’s question and try to get the class to laugh. Then Sarah Palin would be a good choice for you. Of course, that makes a class fun for kids. It is not exactly what you want from leaders.
Sarah Palin is showing her disdain, even stated it, for directly answering the questions. Gwen Ifill has tried to rope both candidates to answer the questions she is asking, talk about a tough job.
Sadly the plan to have Palin answer her own internal questions may work to her advantage, as I think Biden actually attempting to answer the question comes over a little worse sometimes, not because he is sticking with it, but it gets to the long detailed answer which may not go over as well as her folksy demeanor.
Raising the invisible line between states, that sounds like taking away state rights? Think about it, most insurance is regulated at the state level. Remember how states will lose their doctors because of the cost of medical malpractice (tort reform) premiums are going through the roof. Hmmm…
End the Echo weblog 