Bookworm Room

Al Franken, the rude buffoon from Minnesota deserved to be taken to task, and John McCain did it. The set-up:  Joe Lieberman ran out of time to finish his talk; he asked, as Senators do, for a couple of extra minutes; and Al Franken, who was chairing, refused, something Senators have never done:

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I’m going to be working, not blogging, tomorrow morning, November 4, 2008, so feel free to consider this an open thread.  I can’t let this occasion go by without a few words, though. On the candidates: If you believe government can solve most of our problems; if you believe Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry [...]

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There’s one word that inevitably comes to mind when I think of the Paragraph Farmer:  thoughtful.  Patrick looks deeply into issues, rather than just skating over the surface.  If you scootch yourself over to this link, you will see a very thoughtful post explaining why Patrick is voting for McCain — and, if you’re a [...]

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Something weird has been happening at SNL, which has been on point, funny, and not too mean to Republicans.  Witness McCain’s appearance there last night:

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My big push in the next two weeks is to keep the focus on the two parties’ differing visions of America.  It’s much easier to get a handle on the big picture, and avoids the mud-slinging associated with the personalities lined up behind these ideological views.  I’ve pointed out that, if you like big government, [...]

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At HotAir, you can read this long, detailed and thoughtful post examining Obama’s positions on myriad issues.  As you read the post, think about what I was trying to say yesterday:  figure out what beliefs you hold, and then match them to the candidate.  We’ve been so personality driven this election, that it’s been all [...]

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I have no idea if this email, which I got from the local Republican grapevine, is true, so I offer it for whatever you think it’s worth: Good morning, I wanted to pass along something heard Saturday at a community event. As most of you may know, Zogby International is headquartered in our neck of [...]

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If you haven’t seen this video yet of McCain at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner, you’ll enjoy it:

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I’m not sure I need to watch tonight’s debate, because I already know how it’s going to play out: SCHIEFFER:  Good evening, gentlemen.  You already know the rules, so let’s start with the questions.  Sen. Obama, the first question is for you:  Please describe for the American voters the way in which your economic plan [...]

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Macho Sauce Productions succinctly explains how we can tell that McCain did, in fact, win the debate: Also, if you think the big guys — Hannity, Limbaugh, etc. — should start paying attention to this guy, you can sign a petition to make that point.

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Our world view determines how we process new data.  If your world view is bounded by race, every new bit of information is going to be run through that racial filter, and divided into “racist” or “non-racist” categories.  If you only have two intake bins, the information has to go into one of them.  For [...]

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While hustling the kids through homework, dinner and bed time, I’ve still read tons of debate live blogs — American Thinker, Contentions, Michelle Malkin, the Corner, Power Line — and the verdict from each of them is the same:  the debate was b-o-r-i-n-g, all three (Brokaw, McCain and Obama) performed badly, and nothing happened to [...]

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Charlie Martin makes a nice argument, which is that McCain has been setting Obama up for all the hits McCain is suddenly throwing at him.  I don’t know if I believe this, since it strikes me as pretty dangerous to wait until the last 30 days to launch these assaults.  Still, I like how it [...]

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At the fundraiser I attended yesterday, Palin promised that McCain was listening to the repeated request that he “take the gloves off.”  Her promise was good, and he was listening: Finally! Let’s hope that this same McCain shows up at tomorrow’s debate. Lisa Schiffren also has some good ideas about how to keep the pressure. [...]

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I did something kind of special today:  I went to a big fundraiser and heard Sarah Palin speak before a relatively small audience (1,200 of her closest friends in Northern California).  There are definitely perks to being a political volunteer. I had a wonderful time, too.  I got to check people in, and everybody was [...]

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I’ve watched almost all of the debate, but it’s bedtime now, and I’ll have to save the rest for later.  Three comments: 1.  The first, the most obvious, and the most pressing question:  How many botoxes did they kill to create that abnormally smooth, completely motionless forehead Biden was sporting?  That was creepy. 2.  Was [...]

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The polls reveal that “decideds” are swinging steadily to Obama (although Lord alone knows why), but that there are still a lot of undecideds out there.  I have a hard time comprehending the whole undecided thing in this race.  The candidates are not cut from the same cloth but, instead, stand in stark contrast to [...]

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Do you get the feeling that a lot of Democrats, having watched the first debate, are saying that their man is qualified to be in the White House merely because he managed not too drool all over himself and say anything too stupid?  That is, they’re acknowledging that, substantively, McCain was much better, but they’re [...]

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If you’re like me, the second the debate ended, you got on your computer to check whether the consensus in the blogosphere jived with your own impressions of the first Presidential debate. I discovered that the general consensus (from both liberal and conservative bloggers) was that McCain scored on points. He held his own on [...]

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In the “I wish I’d said that” department is this truly excellent post from Power Line, pointing out that this crisis (a) establishes that McCain, not Obama, is a leader and (b) that the Democrats cannot possibly be telling the truth when they try to blame McCain for the House’s inability to reach an agreement.  [...]

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IBD, in yet another of its stellar editorials, reminds us that Barack may talk about “change,” but that it’s McCain who is the real maverick, a man who repeatedly breaks away from the status quo, especially when he thinks he is called upon to do so by the nation he loves.

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I’m no Sondheim fan, but he did get the psychology of blame down well in a song from Into The Woods that has the constant refrain “It’s all your/his/her fault.”  It’s human to assign blame. Sometimes, though, assigning blame is easy, and with the current economic crisis, history shows us that the largest part of [...]

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As I said yesterday, I don’t believe McCain was grandstanding when he decided to stop campaigning for a couple of days in order to help resolve America’s current financial problem.  To me, it was a “country first” thing, with McCain putting the country ahead of his personal ambition. It turns out that his country does [...]

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I don’t know about you, but I’m impressed as all get out by McCain’s decision to stop campaigning for a while and serve his country during what may be the most significant economic crisis since 1929: Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington after speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative. I [...]

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This, directly from the McCain campaign, deserves to be reprinted in its entirety: Today the New York Times launched its latest attack on this campaign in its capacity as an Obama advocacy organization. Let us be clear about what this story alleges: The New York Times charges that McCain-Palin 2008 campaign manager Rick Davis was [...]

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