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In Dealing With the GOP on the Financial Crisis and Bailout, Nancy Pelosi Should Take a Page From J. P. Morgan
Tweet Share on Facebook September 30, 2008 Comment (41)Somewhere in heaven, or that other place, J. P. Morgan is chuckling in appreciation at the spectacle of a Republican administration, literally on bended knee, asking Nancy Pelosi to bail out Wall Street.
And at the Republican House members, who are whining that she hurt their feelings with a well-deserved tongue-lashing yesterday.
Pelosi is a fool, Morgan would say, if she doesn't hold Bush up for all he's worth.
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GOP Lawmakers Who Voted Against the Financial Crisis Bailout Because of Pelosi? Sounds Like a Myth
Tweet Share on Facebook September 30, 2008 Comment (36)Sam seems to buy into the GOP talking point that Nancy Pelosi was to blame for the Wall Street bailout flameout on the Hill yesterday. Sam should know better.
Yes, Pelosi's speech was dumb and unnecessary, but the notion that it so wounded GOP legislators' tender feelings that they reversed their vote is insulting to the House Republicans who voted "no." It implies that on an issue of enormous national importance they were willing to either follow their party leaders and vote "yes" on a bill they thought was a politically unpopular and substantively disastrous step down the path toward socialism—or were willing to take down a historic bill that they supported because Nancy Pelosi was mean.
Here's the rub: Maybe I've missed it, but I've yet to see the GOP legislator who says they switched their vote because of Pelosi. Help me out, readers—has any such House member come forward? (Or are they hanging out in the House cloak room with the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Muslim Barack Obama?) Post your answers in the response section after the jump.
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Nancy Pelosi's Financial Crisis Bailout Partisan Train Wreck
Tweet Share on Facebook September 29, 2008 Comment (92)So the $700 billion bailout is off the table for now, as 95 Democrats and 135 Republicans in the House surprised everyone and defied what looked like a fait accompli. The bill wasn't a perfect beast, and plenty of lawmakers on the right and left had signaled their substantive opposition before the vote. Still, its passage seemed manageable. So what happened? A lot of fingers are pointing at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose prevote speech was a galling display of partisan taunts rather than serious urgency.
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Sarah Palin, the Embarrassing GOP Cheerleader
Tweet Share on Facebook September 29, 2008 Comment (98)So, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is looking forward to her debate with Sen. Joe Biden on Thursday? Really? If I were her, I'd be wishing for a major storm surge in Alaska. Perhaps the latest hurricane could slip past the Gulf of Mexico and sneak up on Anchorage unannounced, giving her unassailable reason to head home. Instead, she's keeping her pompoms and pleated skirts in tow and telling reporters she's looking forward to her confab with Senator Biden.
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Bear DNA Isn't Pork, Regardless of What John McCain Says
Tweet Share on Facebook September 29, 2008 Comment (12)Unless we want the grandkids to wonder, as they pay their $175 admission fee at Verizon Glacier Park or the Exxon Mobil National Park at Yellowstone, why there are no grizzly bears on the planet, we may want to do something about saving the big beasts now.
And the first step toward preserving and managing a threatened species, a reasonable person might suggest, is to get an accurate count.
So why, when John McCain was asked in the presidential debate on Friday how he will right the economy and bring good paying jobs to America, did he fall back on a tired joke about wasteful earmarks and mock Kate Kendall's bear count?
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White Women: The Not-So-Swing Group for Barack Obama and John McCain
Tweet Share on Facebook September 29, 2008 Comment (11)Women are important this election cycle. They are donating more money and voted in high numbers during the primaries, but they aren't changing their opinions about candidates willy-nilly as some would have you believe.
The buzz is that John McCain had captured the support of white women because of Sarah Palin. But here's the rub: white women haven't behaved any differently from the general population. They haven't been swinging as wildly as my colleague Bonnie and many others have suggested.
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John McCain's Problems With Polls Continue
Tweet Share on Facebook September 29, 2008 Comment (45)There's been little by way of good news for Sen. John McCain in the polls these past two weeks. And the bad news just keeps pouring in.
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Should Sarah Palin Drop Out of the Vice Presidential Race?
Tweet Share on Facebook September 26, 2008 Comment (176)Over the last few days, Sarah Palin started to come out of her shell. She did an interview with Katie Couric and took a question on the way out of an event. She performed less than exceptionally, to put it nicely. Robert, who was decidedly less nice, called the interview painful. After these bumbled interviews, questions about her ability to lead have reached fever pitch and now even some conservatives are calling for her to rethink her candidacy. Kathleen Parker writes on National Review Online that Palin should just drop out for the good of her party and her country. After all, Parker says, "No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first."
What do you think? Post your thoughts in the comments section.
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President Ron Paul? President Ralph Nader? Americans Split on the Need for a Third Party
Tweet Share on Facebook September 26, 2008 Comment (36)Do we need a third party? Americans are evenly split on the question, according to Gallup, with 47 percent saying yes and 47 percent saying no. What I find particularly striking is that in the middle of last year, 58 percent favored a third party and 33 percent thought the two parties were doing the job.
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Obama Widens Lead as McCain's Poll Numbers Melt Down
Tweet Share on Facebook September 26, 2008 Comment (13)Remember when Bullwinkle used to say to Rocky, "Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat"? A rabbit is just what John McCain needs about now to reverse his slide in the polls.
The Rasmussen daily presidential tracking poll has him 5 points down: "The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows Barack Obama attracting 50 percent of the vote while John McCain earns 45 percent. This is Obama's biggest lead since his convention bounce peaked with a 6-point advantage. In fact, on only two days since clinching the Democratic nomination in early June has Obama enjoyed a lead bigger than he has today." Gallup's daily tracking poll has Obama at 48 percent and McCain at 45 percent. McCain better hope he wins tonight's debate going away or helps bring Congress together to produce a bailout plan to everyone's liking (not likely) to get the numbers going back in his direction.
