The VP Debate Expectations

As I await the Vice Presidential candidates debate, it has been asked among the news agencies, "What do you expect?" To my surprise, the Republicans have spun their position to the point of don't expect Sarah Palin to show much knowledge on issues. They are claiming this is a good thing because it shows she is just like the average American. After her recent interviews with Katie Couric, in which she shows she knows absolutely nothing about what's going on in the world outside of Alaska, her Republican supporters are touting this as refreshing and honest commentary and that the media was asking trap questions to show her lack of knowledge. This is basically the same approach they used for Gov. George Bush eight years ago, saying he was an honest man with no knowledge of Washington politics and he would change the way things were run when he is elected. Boy did he ever change things!

Although Gov. Palin is not running for president, there is that strong possibility that she could assume the position at any moment considering John McCain's health issues. While trying to be funny, she joked about debating Joe Biden, a 65 year old man who's speeches she had listened to since she was a child, forgetting that the man that selected her as a running mate is 72 years old. Now it is obvious that she never listened to any of Joe Biden's speeches as a child, or John McCain's for that matter, and the more she is allowed to talk, the more the American public is learning that she doesn't know. She tried to say she has foreign policy experience because she can see Russia from Alaska. Well the truth is, you can see Russia from Alaska, and you can also see Canada. In fact, the United States and Canada share the longest international border in the world, so you can see Canada from numerous states. You can also see Mexico from several southern U.S. states, mostly from Texas, but that didn't help George Bush.

Now let's not forget about genius Joe Biden, who just this week stated during the financial crisis that President Franklin Roosevelt came on TV during the depression to explain to the American people how he was going to fix the financial crisis of that time. Now let's study this statement, as it has been suggested that Biden was completely off-base. The depression first started in 1929 with the stock market crash on Wall Street, much like we are seeing today, and lasted all the way through the 1930's until the start of World War II in 1939. Roosevelt was elected to his first term in 1932, so he did inherit the depression during his terms as president, and he was the one who helped bring the country out of the depression. Second, about watching him on television. Well Joe Biden was born in 1942, after the depression was over, so I don't think he was talking about he saw Roosevelt on television during the depression. At least Palin was alive when she claimed to hear Biden's speeches. Although television had been invented, it had just been introduced to the American public in the late 1930's, so there couldn't have been too many people that saw him on television during the depression, and I don't think many people were buying TV's. What he was probably referring to was when people would go to the movies and watch the newsreels that would play before the start of the movies. Still, Joe was too young during Roosevelts presidency to remember seeing these clips, or even here him speak on the radio.

So what am I expecting to see tonight during the debate? Well, I'm looking forward to seeing who makes the dumbest statements. The Republicans have already taken a shot at the moderator Gwen Ifill because she has written a book about Black politicians past and present that have had an effect on the American political scene, which naturally includes Barack Obama. They are crying potential bias and that she should be replaced. Even though she suffered an injury in her home earlier this week, Ms. Ifill will be the moderator for this event, as she was the moderator for the same event in 2004 between Dick Cheney and John Edwards. Ms. Ifill also has her own show on PBS, "Washington Week in Review" and also is the senior correspondent on "Newshour with Jim Lehrer." She has appeared often as a regular guest panelist on such Sunday morning news magazines such as "Meet the Press", so she is definitely qualified as moderator.

The debate is still not a test of Palin's ability to be a leader though, as she will still dodges the media's hard questions and toughest interviewers. After the debate there will be many questions about the responses given by both candidates that the people of America will need clarification on. The problem so far has been everyone explains Palin's goofs for her, while the other candidates speak for themselves. No one has faced tougher questions about his past than Barack Obama, especially during the Rev. Wright controversy. But Sarah Palin has been recently linked to some very controversial religious personalities herself, including someone that some people have referred to as a witch doctor! Obama still faces people that refer to him as being Islamic, even after the Rev. Wright issue proved he had been a member of Wright's Christian church for at least twenty years.

The main issue of the debate is supposed to be who is best qualified to lead the country in the event they have to assume the office if something happens to the other candidate, but from what I've been hearing, the debate is going to be more about what their running mates policies are, in other words, attack the opposing presidential candidate. This is not what the American people want to know, the presidential candidates should handle that themselves. So my main focus tonight will be first, the substance and relevance of the questions regarding their ability to lead this country. Second, if asked these questions, how do they respond under pressure. Finally, who is most in control and most knowledgeable. Let's see what happens.

The Debate (Round 1)

Last night's debate was kind of interesting. I felt each candidate held their own without giving the other an edge. There really wasn't much of anything new said by either candidate, but I think the main difference was the way things were said While Barack Obama tried to remain cool, calm and gracious, John McCain displayed an air of disdain and lack of respect. Despite numerous attempts by moderator Jim Lehrer to get McCain to direct his comments to Obama's face, he refused to look at him the whole ninety minutes of the debate. This was very disturbing as it showed what kind of a man McCain is and will be if elected president.

There was a question asked about talking to leaders of nations with which we currently have differences. Much like George Bush, McCain subscribes to the theory that we, The United States of America, are better than you and I, as the president, am too important to talk to you personally, because if I talk to you, you become my equal. At times during the debate, this attitude showed as McCain resorted to making claims about Obama's record or policies to which Obama disagreed and tried to get a word in edgewise to clarify his position. The one thing that seems to fluster Obama is when someone misrepresents him or the facts because he has such an honest nature about himself.

Obama seems to have no problem admitting that his opponent is right on certain issues or even that they agree. This is his weak point because the man truly wants to be an honest politician and run a gracious campaign and he expects his opponent to do the same. It is actually easy to see Obama talking to world leaders comfortably without showing any signs of weakness because there will be an air of mutual respect. For example, while watching the interview with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Larry King the other night, his main beef with the United States is George Bush's air of superiority and his inability to talk to him. But McCain can't help it because the Republican Party is the party of war without diplomacy. They only know how to talk about war and republican presidents have always had this country involved in wars. Now before you call Viet Nam John F. Kennedy's war, remember that we first got involved while Dwight Eisenhower was president and Richard Nixon was his VP. Nixon was heavily favored to become president and was looking forward to running that war.

All during Bush'a first campaign in 2000, he talked about building up the military and preparing the country for war. The United States was at peaxe with the world, so he needed an excuse to go to war. Well now it is McCain's turn and just listen to how perturbed he gets at the thought of pulling out of Iraq, Much like Nixon did after he had laid the groundwork for invading Viet Nam, Bush and McCain are trying to convince us that Iran is a nuclear threat and that we should invade them because they are developing weapons of mass destruction. So getting back to the subject of the debate, McCain was in his comfort zone and he felt like he didn't have to acknowledge Obama's presence by looking at him. In fact, at the very beginning of the debate, when Lehrer asked Obama to look at McCain while making a point, McCain said "What you don't think I can hear him?"

Idiots At Work

There is just no way to separate these two idiots. I'm talking about George Bush and John McCain. Let's start with the current idiot in charge, excuse me, holding the office of president. It is quite obvious he has no clue about leading this country, but what's worse is it took the people who voted for him eight years to figure this out. Remember, this guy was the Governor of Texas, the second largest state in America in size (only Alaska is bigger you Sarah Palin fans) and population. His main claim to fame as governor was recording the highest number of death row executions in history, killing 152 prisoners starting from the first day he took office. But that's not the subject for today.

I'm more concerned with his plea to the American people to help bail out his rich friends who have been screwing us economically for the past eight years. Beginning with Enron, a Houston, Texas based utility company that filed for bankruptcy after being found guilty of corporate fraud in 2001. Then there was WorldCom, who filed for bankruptcy in 2002. Ir was after the failure of WorldCom that Bush decided to go to war with Iraq to distract the country from the failure and bankruptcy hearings of these two companies. Most people don't know that both of these companies are still operating. WorldCom is better known as Verizon. In May 2003, the company was given a no-bid contract by the Dept. of Defense, headed by Donald Rumsfield, to build a cellular phone network in Iraq. Could that be another reason Bush wanted to go to war with Iraq? Let's not forget about Cheney's company, Haliburton, who has the contracts to help rebuild Iraq. This is another Houston based company with offices in Dubai and get this, Anchorage Alaska. Which brings me to the second idiot.

How in the hell can you run this country if you can't handle more than one task at time. In other words, you feel you can't keep up with your campaign and help work on the economy at the same time, and you want your opponent to quit campaigning with you? You are definitely not qualified to run this country, and neither is your running mate who you sent to class at the United Nations this week to meet some of the world leaders. From what they allowed the media to show, none of them see her as anything other than a pretty face. One guy was so aroused he had to restrain himself from grabbing her and hugging her. No telling what he would have done if there had been no cameras present. But back to idiot number two.

Just about a week ago, he proclaimed that the American economy was sound. His poll numbers have been dropping ever since. As I reported previously, he sent Gov. Palin out on her own to help him campaign and after two days, he realized that he better get back with her because no one was coming to hear him talk. In fact, at a rally in Cleveland, Ohio, as soon as Palin finished speaking, the crowd was seen dispensing in huge numbers, not waiting to hear what he had to say. His numbers at the polls have been dropping ever since he made that statement about the economy. They've dropped even more since it was revealed that Palin needed a course in foreign relations and would not be allowed to speak to any of the foreign dignitaries she was scheduled to meet. So now he wants to suspend his campaign so he can be briefed on the economic situation facing the country, and at the same time wants to cancel the debate with Barack Obama this Friday, as well as the debate between Palin and Joe Biden next weekend because he can't concentrate on more than one issue at a time.

This job is proving to be too much for John McCain. There is a reason we don't elect people his age to run the country, in fact, most companies force people to retire at age 65. If we were to elect someone that age into office it's because they know what they are doing, not someone that needs to be given on the job training. For the past nine months, everyone has been following Obama's lead and trying to make it their own, including George Bush. When you think about someone handling the economy, just look at how Obama has financed and run his campaign. Hillary Clinton went $20 million in debt and McCain is running out of campaign finances after having a huge lead to start with. Think about that when you decide who you want to handle the economy.

So Bush wants us to give the companies that have put most of us in debt, overcharged us for insurance, raised utility costs, hiked gas prices and denied us credit money to keep operating and continue to screw us without any compensation to us. He says we will lose any chance of obtaining credit, student loans, be able to buy cars or houses and lose our life savings if we dont bail them out. Well I say they should wipe everybody's slate clean because they have made enough money off of us already. If they should be allowed to get out of debt, then so should we, the American public. So I ask YOU George Bush, deal or no deal?

Bush Screws America Again

I have been following this so-called gas shortage and realize that once again the American public has been intentionally taken advantage of by the Bush Administration. It is clear that this gas shortage was planned in advance. They are trying to tell us this is a result of Hurricane Ike, but actually it is a well conceived plan to use the hurricane as an excuse to gouge the American public at the gas pumps. For at least a week before Hurricane Gustav hit Louisiana, we were warned about the approach of Hanna and Ike right behind them. Yes, I know that hurricanes can change paths as we saw Hanna do, but even with the threat of these hurricanes coming into the gulf area, there was no planning to relieve any hardship on the oil industry that they might cause.

Instead they chose to do nothing and use this as an excuse to once again hike the gas prices by creating a false shortage. They had a minimum of two weeks to start increasing gasoline production to accomodate the huge number of people that would need to be evacuated ahead of the storms. Don't be fooled by the prospect of offshore drilling solving this problem either. It has been reported that there is no shortage of crude oil, just that the refineries located in Texas have not increased their production to meet the alleged increase in demand. Now because of the rising cost of a gallon of gas, consumption decreased over the last few months since June. People cancelled and shortened their summer vacations due to the cost of filling up the tank so I'm sure that created some surplus. But regardless of that, there is still no excuse for not increasing production ahead of the storms.

I don't know what's going on across the country, but here in the Atlanta area, gas stations started running out of gas Friday morning. That was before Ike hit land. By Saturday evening, it was impossible to find gas in certain areas, causing panic to people who were getting off from work and unable to get gas on their way home, praying they would make it. As I ventured out this Sunday morning, there are very few cars on the road and no gas stations pumping gas, only open for convenience sales. How can a city 1000 miles away from a storm be affected before the storm hits unless this was pre-planned? Can we really take another four years of this nonsense? Do we really want another Governor from an oil producing state in the White House?

Gas Gouging

Since when has it been OK to raise gas prices due to the threat of a hurricane? The cost of crude oil has gone down to almost $100 a barrel, but gas prices jumped between 50 cents and $1 a gallon due to Hurricane Ike threatening the State of George Bush! The storm hit the coast of Texas just above tropical storm intensity, yet gas prices rose. Why does this country feel the need to take advantage of people who are in desperate need of assistance? These prices rose as people were buying gas to evacuate from what was deemed a life threatening situation. The same thing happened when Gustav was headed toward New Orleans, but their price hike was moderate in comparison. Well take a look at the picture above and it may explain why. With oilmen Bush and Cheney running the country, gas has skyrocketed from $1 a gallon when Bush was elected in 2000 to over $5 a gallon in some parts of the United States.

I can remember when the first fake gas crisis hit in 1974 when Republican president Richard Nixon was in office. Gas rose from 25 cents a gallon to a whopping 75 cents a gallon, allegedly due to an "oil shortage" when Iraq and Iran went to war. OK, let's assume that was the case. Then from 1974 to 2000, when Bill Clinton left office, gas prices rose an average of 1 cent a gallon over those 26 years. What's even worse, when I relocated to Atlanta in December 2005, a year into Bush's second term, gas was only $1.29 a gallon as I traveled from Ohio to Georgia. Then it started climbing constantly until it had reached $2.49 a gallon just before the Congressional and Senate elections of 2006. The day these elections took place, gas had dropped to $1.85 a gallon as the country was in an uproar over the Republicans failure to control prices. Well as you see, the Democrats have been able to do nothing to change this trend.

But once again, with the threat of the Republicans also losing the White House, we have seen a moderate decline again in gas prices. That was until Sarah Palin hit the scene and the polls started showing John McCain gaining and overtaking Barack Obama. You don't think so? The first increase started Labor Day weekend, the same weekend that Hurricane Gustav hit just outside of New Orleans. As you recall, McCain named Palin his running mate the Friday before the start of the convention, which was stalled a day due to Gustav hitting the west side of New Orleans. Gas went up 10 cents a gallon as people were ordered to evacuate and Palin became a person of interest. Now with Ike hitting Texas, gas has jumped all the way up to where it was at the end of the Democratic primaries when it was deemed that Barack Obama was declared the presumptive nominee over Hillary Clinton. As Barack gained a bigger advantage in the polls, the price of gas slowly declined, much like it did when the Democrats were about to take over the Congress and Senate.

As I stated earlier, gas rose 10 cents a gallon as Palin became a person of interest, and they rose at least 20 cents a gallon now that the Republicans have taken a lead in the polls. CNN has asked all viewers to report increases in gas prices in your neighborhood because there is no excuse for raising the price of gas. They are composing a map of the nation showing all of the price gouging going on. Can somebody tell me where this offshore drilling is supposed to take place? We know they want to drill in Alaska, and Sarah Palin is all for that of course, but didn't I hear something about the Gulf of Mexico where at least six hurricanes a year hit? We are seeing an example as to how this will help. By the way, that is an actual picture of the oil tanker above, not a fake. They removed her name after George Bush stole the first election and named Condoleeza Rice to her first position as National Security Advisor. America, it's time to end our addiction to oil.