Larry @ Large

Obama criticizes McCain on Wall Street banking collapse, when he and Dems were responsible

McCain tried (along with Republicans Sen. Charles Hagel [R, NE], Sen. Elizabeth Dole [R, NC], and Sen. John Sununu [R, NH]) to get this bill : Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 passed but Dems blocked it.

McCain said in trying to get his bill through, "if Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole. I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation."

When the bill was defeated, Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee said:

"These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

Among the groups denouncing the proposal were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

The Dems have been in bed with Fannie and Freddie for years. They pressured these organizations to make loans to people who didn't qualify (especially minorities) in return for votes. Chris Dodd and Barrack Obama received the most campaign contributions from these organizations. John McCain received none.

Saturday Night Live Tears Up Sarah in Jest

Alright, I watched it... and it was funny. I liked the Sarah/Hillary sketch, and I knew going in that these far left comics were going to have a field day with Gov. Palin. I just kept waiting for something else, and it became clear that pretty much everything was going to be a one-dimensional attack on her (My God, you could do a whole show on Joe Biden!).

In the news segment, I think they were trying too hard with the deranged Alaskan guy pleading with the elitist media (who use indoor plumbing), not to go too hard on her. For me, they cross the line when they try so hard to be political, that they cease being funny. I can take the shots at my candidates WHEN THEY'RE FUNNY! The first sketch was funny, the news segment... humorless political posturing. Come on guys... we know you're all left of Mao Tse Tung, and we give you your podium, and we're not thin skinned, but you still have to be funny. Remember... funny, is why we watch.

The Obama Media Machine - Some call it CBS and NBC

According to information on the website opensecrets.com, at CBS, of over $111,000 given by network employees, just two $1,000 contributions went to Republicans. This is shocking... that there were actually 2 contributions that went to the right!

NBC's records were similar. The list of employees included producers, attorneys on-air hosts, writers and executives. NBC's contributions totaled $146,585, none of which went to Republicans!

Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews Booted From (P)MSNBC Political Anchor Desk

Finally... these two Obamamaniacs have been put in their place. Of course we all did it by refusing to watch them get tingly feelings while trying to anchor the news.

Keith Olbermann may be the “voice” of MSNBC, but network executives have decided to yank the talkmeister off its political anchor desk after the cable channel finished dead last in the Nielsen rankings of all news coverage during the two weeks of political conventions.

The network announced Monday that Olbermann and Chris Matthews have both been booted as co-hosts on political night coverage in favor of David Gregory, whose White House press corps experience may make him better suited to deliver sober and less opinion-driven assessments of the news.

Enough With The Bush Doctrine! Charles Krouthammer Who Coined The Term, Explains:

THIS IS LONG BUT WORTH READING:

Charlie Gibson's Gaffe

By Charles Krauthammer
Saturday, September 13, 2008; A17

"At times visibly nervous . . . Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of 'anticipatory self-defense.' "

-- New York Times, Sept. 12

Informed her? Rubbish.

The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong.

There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration -- and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.

He asked Palin, "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?"

She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, "In what respect, Charlie?"

Sensing his "gotcha" moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, Gibson grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine "is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense."

Wrong.

I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. In the cover essay of the June 4, 2001, issue of the Weekly Standard entitled, "The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism," I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush doctrine.

Then came 9/11, and that notion was immediately superseded by the advent of the war on terror. In his address to the joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11, President Bush declared: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." This "with us or against us" policy regarding terror -- first deployed against Pakistan when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave President Musharraf that seven-point ultimatum to end support for the Taliban and support our attack on Afghanistan -- became the essence of the Bush doctrine.

Until Iraq. A year later, when the Iraq war was looming, Bush offered his major justification by enunciating a doctrine of preemptive war. This is the one Charlie Gibson thinks is the Bush doctrine.

It's not. It's the third in a series and was superseded by the fourth and current definition of the Bush doctrine, the most sweeping formulation of the Bush approach to foreign policy and the one that most clearly and distinctively defines the Bush years: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world. It was most dramatically enunciated in Bush's second inaugural address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

This declaration of a sweeping, universal American freedom agenda was consciously meant to echo John Kennedy's pledge in his inaugural address that the United States "shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." It draws also from the Truman doctrine of March 1947 and from Wilson's 14 points.

If I were in any public foreign policy debate today, and my adversary were to raise the Bush doctrine, both I and the audience would assume -- unless my interlocutor annotated the reference otherwise -- that he was speaking about the grandly proclaimed (and widely attacked) freedom agenda of the Bush administration.

Not the Gibson doctrine of preemption.

Not the "with us or against us" no-neutrality-is-permitted policy of the immediate post-9/11 days.

Not the unilateralism that characterized the pre-9/11 first year of the Bush administration.

Presidential doctrines are inherently malleable and difficult to define. The only fixed "doctrines" in American history are the Monroe and the Truman doctrines which come out of single presidential statements during administrations where there were few other contradictory or conflicting foreign policy crosscurrents.

Such is not the case with the Bush doctrine.

Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.

Readers questioned whether the Philip Berg lawsuit was a hoax... IT IS NOT!

Philip Berg's first interview was with famed host Roger Hedgecock. Hedgecock is widely known as "The Radio Mayor" because of his term as Mayor of the City of San Diego, which he served after six years on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors and, before that, as City Attorney for Del Mar. He also fills in for Rush. You can hear the interview with Mr. Berg at www.liveleak.com.

Here is the link to the audio: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8a2_1219648382

Here is the link to the PDF's pertaining to the case (about halfway down the page:

http://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/

The Pastor Thing... Finally Questions About the Pastor... No not him! Sarah's Pastor!

The smear left-wing main stream media found a church sermon made by Governor Palin's former pastor in which he stated something like "those who vote for John Kerry won't go to heaven..." First of all it was meant to be a humorous remark, and second, it was made a number of years after she had left the church. So much for accuracy... but then, as we all know, this is not about news reporting or accuracy. This is about smearing the woman who may very well bring down the "Anointed One."

As far as Reverend Wright (whose church Obama sat in for 20 years) the divisive racist comments he has made, as well as all of the anti-U.S. rhetoric, was never reported on by the media, and Obama was never asked to explain it. If it wasn't for talk radio and Fox News, it would never have been brought up.

Yes they're both brave and serving their country, but...

"Joe Biden's son and Governor Palin's son going off to war." the lame stream media reported. Of course they left out that Palin's son will actually be fighting in a dangerous part of Iraq, while Biden's son goes over as an attorney! While the service by both is to be commended, only one will be going into harms way. Small point... should have, however, been mentioned.

Nobody used the term "Fake Pic"

This doctored photograph put Sarah Palin's head on the body of a 23-year-old woman photographed outside Athens, Ga.

CNN reporter this week didn’t seem to know or care that a fake photo showing a bikini-clad, rifle-toting Sarah Palin had been widely debunked days earlier as a fraud, the latest in series of incidents involving apparent misstatements or inaccurate reporting by the news network.

“(John) McCain has been really good about painting (Barack) Obama as this lightweight … They don’t want that to come back on Sarah Palin, and people say, yes, she looks good in a bikini clutching an AK-47, but is she equipped to run the country?” CNN’s Lola Ogunnaike said in response to a question on the network’s “Reliable Sources” show, which aired Sunday.

Ogunnaike’s remarks, which came in response to a question by host Howard Kurtz about whether Palin’s status as a political celebrity might undercut Republican efforts to portray the vice presidential nominee as a serious, reform-minded governor, were posted on CNN’s Web site and have since been reported and discussed on numerous other independent sites.

CNN correspondents and analysts have also recently misrepresented Palin’s stance on incorporating creationism into Alaska’s school curriculum and falsely reported that she cut funds for people with special needs in the state budget.

Regarding the doctored “bikini” photo, neither Kurtz, a “Washington Post” columnist, nor anyone else on the “Sources” discussion panel ever corrected Ogunnaike by pointing out that the picture was a fake.

If you think Bush is unpopular...

The Pelosi / Reid Congress' popularity is now at 9%. Just slightly ahead of Bin Laden and Funeral Directors.