Originally posted by KidRockWell, the only news source that call him a flip-flopper is FOX. The same news source that is way out of proportion than others and highly infavour of the GOP, calling Obama a muslim, Kerry French, and got owned by Clinton and Dean.
Are you saying hes not?
It also said Kerry was a flip-flopper, and that McCain and Romney, somehow, are not.
Originally posted by inimalist
forget obama for a second...are you being critical of someone for changing their mind in the face of new evidence?
So Obama can change his mind and its all cool..but when Bush or McCain does it, its not? Good change. I just want to know Obamas policies, and it doesnt help that he changes them every week.
Big news.
McCain has suspended his campaign for the time being to go back to the senate because of the economic crisis. He also is pressuring that the debate be postponed.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/24/campaign.wrap/index.html
Originally posted by BackFireHaha, how extremely lame and obvious.
Big news.McCain has suspended his campaign for the time being to go back to the senate because of the economic crisis. He also is pressuring that the debate be postponed.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/24/campaign.wrap/index.html
Originally posted by KidRock
So Obama can change his mind and its all cool..but when Bush or McCain does it, its not? Good change. I just want to know Obamas policies, and it doesnt help that he changes them every week.
I hadn't made any evaluation of the situation... I was asking you why you were criticizing him for changing his economic policy when it turns out it wouldn't work. I thought it odd that you would want someone to be consistently wrong, as opposed to flexible and able to admit they were wrong.
I largely don't believe anything that politicians say, and even if I did, I would be way more interested in actions rather than words. Liberal Prime Minister of Canada Jean Cretchien said he would eliminate the federal sales tax, and never did. In this instance, I would have much rather he "flip-flopped" as it was an accurate description of his future policy?
so what I'm asking is, what is wrong with a politician changing their position? It either does or does not represent what they will do, and it either does or does not take into account the world around them... Are you really saying you would rather someone lie to be consistent, even if the reality is they will have to do something different? Or you want them to stick to ideas that are shown not to be correct? I don't get this...
(and please notice that I went to the extreme not to make this partisan, even using a Canadian example, I don't need rhetoric back from you, thanks)
Originally posted by BackFireYeah, Obama should take cues from the guy who's missed more Senate votes than a Senator who had an aneurysm in Dec '06 and was in the hospital for almost a year.
Big news.McCain has suspended his campaign for the time being to go back to the senate because of the economic crisis. He also is pressuring that the debate be postponed.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/24/campaign.wrap/index.html
Originally posted by BackFire
It's obviously a political stunt. McCain just happens to decide to do this on the day he drops further in the polls?And frankly this makes it seem like McCain is scared to debate this issue, since it's his weakest issue.
I'm really not cool with suspending the debate. If they do it, it'll just be the republican setting the bar for the politics of this campaign. If Obama wants to pull his own political stun, he should show up at the debate and have his photo taken standing next to an empty podium.
Now, if they do away with the VP debates, I'll really be pissed. I want to see Biden v. Stewardess.
As the financial crisis spreads, denials on Capitol Hill grow more shrill. Blame an aloof President Bush, greedy Wall Street, risky capitalism ? anybody but those in Congress who wrote the banking rules.
A visibly annoyed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected suggestions that Democrats share blame for the meltdown. ?No,? she snapped at reporters who dared ask.
Stick to our narrative, she scolded: The bursting of the housing bubble was another story of market failure and deregulation.
?The American people are not protected from the risk-taking and the greed of these financial institutions,? she said, while calling for investigations of the industry.
Only, the risk-taking was her idea ? and the idea of all the other Democrats, along with a handful of Republicans, who over the past 30 years have demonized lenders as racist and passed regulation after regulation pressuring them to make more loans to unqualified borrowers in the name of diversity.
They were the ones who screamed ? ?REDLINING!? ? and sent banks scurrying for cover in low-income neighborhoods, where they have been forced to lower long-held industry standards for judging creditworthiness to make the subprime loans.
If they don?t comply, they are threatened with stiff penalties under the Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA, a law that forces banks to make home loans to people with poor credit risks.
The more branches that lenders put in poor neighborhoods, and the more loans they make there, the better their rating. Those lenders with low ratings can not only be fined, but also blocked from mergers and other business transactions needed to expand.
The regulation grew to monstrous proportions during the Clinton administration, obsessed as it was with multiculturalism. Amendments to the CRA in the mid-1990s dramatically raised the amount of home loans to otherwise unqualified low-income borrowers.
The revisions also allowed for the first time the securitization of CRA-regulated loans containing subprime mortgages. The changes came as radical ?housing rights? groups led by ACORN lobbied for such loans. ACORN at the time was represented by a young public-interest lawyer in Chicago by the name of Barack Obama.
HUD, in turn, pressured Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase more subprime mortgages, and Fannie and Freddie, in turn, donated to the campaigns of leading Democrats like Barney Frank and Pelosi who throttled investigations into fraud at the agencies.
Soon, investment banks such as Bear Stearns were aggressively hawking the securities as ?guaranteed.? Wall Street?s pitch was that MBSs were as safe as Treasuries, but with a higher yield.
But they weren?t safe. Everyone in the subprime business ? from brokers to lenders to banks to investment houses ? absolved themselves of responsibility for ensuring the high-risk loans were good.
The mortgage lenders didn?t care, because they were going to sell the loans to other banks. The banks didn?t care, because they were going to repackage the loans as MBSs. The investors and traders didn?t care, because the MBSs were backed by Fannie and Freddie and their implicit government guarantees.
In other words, nobody up and down the line ? from the branch office on main street to the high-rise on Wall Street ? analyzed the risk of such ill-advised loans. But why should they? Everybody was just doing what the regulators in Washington wanted them to do.
So everybody won until everybody lost, including the minorities the government originally mandated the banks to serve.
The original culprits in all this were the social engineers who compelled banks to make the bad loans. The private sector has no business conducting social experiments on behalf of government. Its business is making profit. Period. So it did what it naturally does and turned the subprime social mandate into a lucrative industry.
Of course, it was a Ponzi scheme, because they weren?t allowed to play by their rules. The government changed the rules for risk.
In order to put low-income minorities into home loans, they were ordered to suspend lending standards that had served the banking industry well for centuries. No one wants to talk about it, so they just scapegoat Wall Street. Even John McCain has joined the Democrat chorus on this.
The FBI is now investigating 24 large mortgage lenders for alleged abuses. But who will investigate the pols and the lobbyists and the community agitators who made the bad decisions that ultimately forced businesses to make their bad decisions?
Originally posted by Devil King
I'm really not cool with suspending the debate. If they do it, it'll just be the republican setting the bar for the politics of this campaign. If Obama wants to pull his own political stun, he should show up at the debate and have his photo taken standing next to an empty podium.Now, if they do away with the VP debates, I'll really be pissed. I want to see Biden v. Stewardess.
That would be funny to see, but it would probably backfire on Obama. He already stated he would be wherever he is needed in regards to McCain's call to meet him in Washington.
The Right is already spinning this McCain maneuver as: 'McCain is dealing with the most important issue(s); he's showing what it takes to be a leader, Obama is sitting this out like usual and is waiting to mimic McCain once [he] finds the/a solution.'
Not sure there are grounds to do away with the VP debates here, unless the Pres ones have to start it off.
Originally posted by Devil King
Of coarse it would backfire. Everything he does backfires thanks to the supposed liberal media. Actually backfiring is another thing though. But, the news will get out if Mr. McCain, that maverick, opts out.
Another funny side that won't be raised, if McCain can't handle running his campaign and fixing the economy at the same time, how in the hell is he going to an effective president when he's a 'focus on one thing at a time' kind of guy? Last time I checked, the war didn't get put on hold when our economy dipped South.
Ok I'm a Democrat and Obama supporter and even I think it's obvious McCain didn't suspend his campaign because he couldn't handle running both, but because he felt like it was a show of his respect to the greater problems in this country. Sure it was all a political maneuver but the spin to make it seem like it is a weakness. I actually agree with McCain though and was disappointed as an Obama supporter it took President Bush calling to drag him in there.
Originally posted by SelinaAndBruce
Ok I'm a Democrat and Obama supporter and even I think it's obvious McCain didn't suspend his campaign because he couldn't handle running both, but because he felt like it was a show of his respect to the greater problems in this country. Sure it was all a political maneuver but the spin to make it seem like it is a weakness. I actually agree with McCain though and was disappointed as an Obama supporter it took President Bush calling to drag him in there.
Don't pass yourself off as someone who "understands" the bullshit the McCain camp is shoveling. It isn't just a weakness, it's high-tailing. As Mr. Obama said in his covntion speech, he welcomes the debates. Now Mr. McCain is Ike-ing the debates? If you are really an Obama suporter, you have to have some realistic knee-jerk reaction to this bullshit. McCain is saying that the country is in too bad a shape to have an actual debate? The republican national convention had to go on hold because of a shitstorm and now the debates do as well? What is more appropriate than a debate at this point? Each candidate is going to offer his solution to it and you think it should go on hold because Herr McCain is part and parcel of the party that got us into this mess? No thanks. If you're disappointed in Obama, then you have a lot to learn. Obama was the one that said "let's work this out" and Mr. McCain was the one that rushed out the door and assumed that position as his own. The president didn't call anyone to task until Mr. Obama called for it. Shame on you pretending that this gimmick actually addresses this disaster in any way other than to be totally polically employeed. Country First, my ass! Suspended my ass.