I want to preface this by saying that what I am about to say actually has the effect of furthering the GOP strategy of distracting from the substance of health care reform, but I think it is important to understand.

Rep. Joe Wilson's insists that what he did was spontaneous. This is interesting. This insistence of spontaneity is suspiciously similar to the GOP leadership's insistence during August that all of the madness at the town-hall meeting was just "grassroots anger". August wasn't spontaneous and neither was Joe Wilson's outburst.

How do we know? Joe Wilson didn't say "You Lie" once. He said it twice. The second utterance occurred just moments after the first, and is the one that can be heard loud and clear because everyone else is silent. The first utterance, however, occurred while many other GOP congressmen were shouting and making other noises. If you listen closely you can hear it.

This was a stunt. It was a conscious effort either by Joe Wilson himself or by the GOP leadership to change the subject. It is classic media strategy. Everyone knows that outrageous accusations or statements will create "news", and the media (especially cable news) loves controversy. So instead of talking about the substance of the President's proposal, we are talking about this loser Congressman from South Carolina who made an ass of himself. This is what the GOP wants, and the media is happy to help because they get to dissect a controversy instead of talking about the effects of new taxes on insurance companies or whether or not insurance companies will be forced to provide 100% reimbursement for preventive care. Oh yeah, and by the way, Wilsongate gets better ratings on cable and doesn't require any policy knowledge or research to cover it.

So why point this out if it will just make the story last longer? Because the media at large needs to finally realize how their inability to escape manipulation is hurting our country. The main reason we don't already have healthcare reform is the media's inability to cut through the b.s. and spin and present the American people with the facts.

Someone should force one of these voter fraud alarmists to explain exactly how the supposed voter fraud would actually be perpetrated.  The more people know the details, the more they will realize that this is nonsense.

The only solution is for the government to buy all of the mortgages that they don't already own, mark the principle down in a uniform way based on regional and temporal considerations, and then sell them back to the banks.

This is how this would work:

The government already owns the majority of the mortgages, so they just have to buy the rest of them on the open market.  Then they develop a formula for determining how much to reduce the principle of mortgages.  The idea is to lower the mortgages to approximate what people would owe if home price had not been inflated by all of this garbage that Wall Street was doing.

The formula would include considerations such as time of origination and location.  The key is that the regions that had the more inflated prices would get more relief.  Obviously this would have to be studied very closely in order to come up with the formula that was most equitable.

The key to this plan is that it rids us of the moral hazard that threatens to completely ruin the housing market, which is that right now, people who cannot afford to pay get help and people who can don't get any.  If everyone got the same type of relief, most everyone would be able to stay in their homes, and people would not be compelled to not pay their mortgage.

Your thoughts and/or support are encouraged!

He ruined the country because his basic governing philosophy is that governing is the creation of problems, not the solving of them.

I'm someone who believes that sexism goes both ways.  A double standard is a double standard.

Now think: What would the MSM be saying about Governor Palin's and the interview with ABC if she were a man?  Imagine if Senator Obama had displayed such lack of knowledge of foreign policy in his first interview as a candidate.  I suspect the MSM would have immediatly written him off and he would have had little chance of being President (and rightly so I might ad).

Your thoughts, and please recommend if you think this is an important discussion.

I'm someone who believes that sexism goes both ways.  A double standard is a double standard.

Now think: What would the MSM be saying about Governor Palin's and the interview with ABC if she were a man?  Imagine if Senator Obama had displayed such lack of knowledge of foreign policy in his first interview as a candidate.  I suspect the MSM would have immediatly written him off and he would have had little chance of being President (and rightly so I might ad).

Your thoughts, and please recommend if you think this is an important discussion.

The next Obama advertisement should say:

"We already have a President who lies to the American people.  We don't need another one."

The next Obama advertisement should say:

"We already have a President who lies to the American people.  We don't need another one."

The next Obama advertisement should say:

"We already have a President who lies to the American people.  We don't need another one."

The Survey USA poll is not a representative sample.  The sample is 35% Republican, 33% Democrat, and 27% Independent.  Does anyone really believe that this is who the electorate looks right now?

I find the MSM coverage of these campaign conference calls absolutely abysmal. All they do is report what the crazy people from the campaign say, and never question whether it is actually true.  Typically the more untrue a statement is, the more coverage it gets throughout the day.  But of course they never mention that the statement is false (aka "a lie").  I'm sure many people who are not paying close attention actually think that the MSM is reporting these statement as fact.  Of course maybe that is what they want.

I think that the MSM should be considerate enough to have their own conference calls so that actual journalists can drill them on how pitiful a job they are down informing the public.  That is still their function right, informing?

Hillary is desperately playing the race card by insinuating that she is more likely to win in November because she has won a higher percentage of less-educated white people.  This assertion on its face is absurd, but the purpose of the comment is clear.  Hillary want us to react by calling her a racist or race-baiter in an attempt to be perceived as the victim.  Please do not take the bait.  Please react to this in a manner that is equally calculating.  This is what Obama supporters should be saying:

"Hillary is not winning African Americans and college educated people.  Don't you have to win these people to win the presidency?  She is only getting 10 percent of the African American vote.  Democrats in recent history have never won the Presidency with only 10 percent of African American support.  And the college educated.  These are the "liberal elites".  Hillary will never get elected if she loses these voters in droves to John McCain."

John McCain thought that the stated preferences of terrorist organizations were important campaign issues until Osama bin Laden posted a video on the internet late today.  In the video, bin Laden declared his endorsement of John McCain for President of the United States.  McCain's responsed by criticizing the Democrats for legitimizing Al Qaeda by insinuating that this endorsement means anything.  A reporter then had to remind Senator McCain that he felt it necessary to bring up Hamas' stated preference for Obama at a campaign event just the day before.

I thought the debate was disgusting.  I threw up in my mouth a little bit while I was watching it.  It was more than an hour before they asked a substantive question, and even when they did, the premise was always that the Republican position was the correct one, and 'how could you possibly disagree?'.

Hillary jumped in with misleading comments on top of already meaningless questioning, and Gibson repeatedly jumped in with follow-ups before Obama was finished giving his answer.  I think he only cut Hillary off once.  Plus the format was such that the person who went second almost always got the last word.  The standard formula was: meaningless question, then Obama responds and appears annoyed at the stupidity of the question, then Hillary chimes in with her fake outrage and occasionally a misleading skewer. 

Obama gave Hillary a pass when he was asked about her exaggeration about her Bosnia trip (as he has since it first surfaced), and she responds to the questions about his misstatement with fake disgust.  It was as if she believes that she is entitled to the benefit of every doubt, and Obama deserves to be skewered for not only every word that comes out of his mouth, but all deeds and words attributable to everyone that he has ever come in contact with.  If you applied this standard to her and Bill, they would be a laughing stock.  Like this charity board with this Weather Underground guy.  This is like saying that Hillary is a communist because she once worked at a law firm run by communists.  Its just sad.

I think that Obama was shocked that Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos (senior political adviser to the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign of Bill Clinton and later became Clinton's communications director) could be so ruthless in their attacking of him.  "Do you think that Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?"  Come on!  How is that even remotely relevant?

The summary is that I am pissed about the debate, and so are a lot of people, including some very prominent nonpartisans.