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Originally posted by Snobby Robby:
How pathetic did Daddy John and Sarah look on that Couric followup "gotcha" interview?

Daddy kept coming in to the rescue, stepping in to answer questions directed at Sorry Sarah, making her look more and more incompetent by the moment. You can see how uncomfortable he is - it's quite visible - when she decided to speak on her own.

If she considers such simple, direct questions from the voting public as "gotcha" tactics, then she is clearly unqualified for the office and we will suffer if this duo is voted into office.

McPOW will stoop to anything to win this election and his choice for VP has backfired on him. The initial excitement and fawning over her has waned as she's been exposed as an incompetent. She either doesn't understand or in incapable of answering the questions asked of her. Subsequently, she babbles on incoherently.

Has anyone else noticed that her biggest and perhaps only strength is her ability to demean and attack others in her typical, sarcastic, biting, sophomoric way? Am I the only one who finds that silly inflection in her voice; that gravelly tone - usually when she's on her childish attacks - annoying?

What a sad state of affairs. It's an insult to all halfway intelligent Americans and an embarrassment to the rest of the world. Unfortunately for us, the only other option is Obama and Biden, but they seem to be the lesser of two evils. America truly is in bad shape if the voters deem Obama and McCain as the cream of the crop.

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Originally posted by RicoX:

Seriously Snobby a clear chauvinist such as your self was never going to vote for a women even if she was Madame Curie. Unless of course if she ran as a Democrat.

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Originally posted by RicoX:
Yeah Snobby you are about as Independent as Markle.

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That probably explains why I'd favor Mitt Romney over McCain. Oh wait a minute. He's Morman and I can't stand those sons of bitches.

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I will vote for the candidate that will most piss off al-Qaida

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So extreme is the government's credibility shortage that even dire warnings of economic collapse failed to stir popular support for a taxpayer rescue of the financial industry. One poll last week found only 25 percent of voters favored the bailout plan. 

Members of Congress didn't need to consult the polls to know how unpopular the bailout was -- their phones were ringing off the hook with calls from citizens angrily opposed to the plan. California Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman said calls were running 300-to-2 against the bailout. Ohio Republican Rep. Steve Chabot's office reported 350 e-mails opposing the bill, and only 10 in support.

Many of those denouncing the bailout did so in libertarian terms that would have warmed Ayn Rand's heart. "Privatizing profits and socializing losses on a scale we have never seen before in our lifetimes," Michelle Malkin said in reaction to the Sept. 19 press conference where Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced the plan. "The fundamentals of capitalism have been sabotaged."

House conservatives in the Republican Study Committee offered their own market-oriented plan, beginning with an immediate suspension of the capital gains tax. The RSC's chairman, Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling called for ending the monopolistic authority of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, "financial Frankensteins -- created in a government laboratory -- [that] are not creatures of the free enterprise system."

The bill had its liberal detractors, too, but for every voice declaring that the Paulson bailout proposal ceded too much to capitalism, there were many more voices declaring that it ceded too much to government. FreedomWorks -- the free-market think tank led by former Republican Rep. Dick Armey -- issued a list of "Ten Reasons to Oppose the Wall Street Bailout."

PERHAPS NO ONE EMBODIED the opposition as much as Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, whom the Wall Street Journal described as "a Democrat-turned-Republican who espouses free-market principles with a populist streak."

"I think we're going down the road of France now," Shelby told the Journal in expressing his opposition to the bailout.

Despite such opposition, congressional leaders in both parties announced early Sunday morning that a deal had been reached, and it looked as if the plan would be rammed through Congress quickly. Even as the House prepared to vote, however, Barr sounded a warning.

"The leaders of both the Republican and Democratic Parties are rushing ahead with their $700 billion bill," Barr said in a statement. "Without a single hearing and without considering other solutions, Congress is preparing to put the typical American family on the hook for more than $8,000. Legislators in both parties need to stand up for the American people and say no."

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So.



What did Katie Couric know when she was assigned to cover the Pentagon?



Who will be investigating Chris Dodd and Barney Frank?



Why is the government in the mortgage business in the first place?



These three questions go straight to the heart of the new world that is emerging in the aftermath of the economic crisis, of the Palin nomination and the advent of the New Media. It is a world of paradigms lost. You know paradigms, that collection of pesky "assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them" as the online Free Dictionary has it.



Assumptions such as the notion that a multi-millionaire television anchor gets to ask snooty questions of a female vice-presidential nominee while being forgetful of just what got the said anchor on the road to being that anchor in the first place. Assumptions such as the idea that those in Congress who created the crisis at Fannie Mae, which in turn set off the Wall Street implosion, are somehow invulnerable to everything from Congressional hearings to federal investigations. Assumptions such as the concept that the New Deal must still reign supreme and that the federal government simply must be engaged in the mortgage business or run your health care or God only knows what else.



The world has changed, the old paradigm is gone with it. So let's see how things look anew in a 21st century paradigm.

ASSUMPTION ONE: For those who heard the Couric CBS News interview of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin it is perhaps best to start with Couric herself. The not-so subtle message Couric was sending in her interview was that Palin, a sitting Governor, is unqualified to be vice president.



OK. Got it. Couric disdains putting unqualified people in important jobs.



So let's turn to the new paradigm that allows us to question the credibility of mainstream journalists. When, exactly, did Katie Couric begin to dance on the national mainstream media scene and what qualified her to do so? Well, to start, Katie is a public school product, including Yorktown High in Arlington, Virginia. She was a cheerleader there. Then she moved on to the University of Virginia, a state school as was Palin's University of Idaho, where our Katie was an English major. Then Ms. Couric headed into journalism, starting at the bottom with perhaps the journalistic equivalent of Palin's PTA -- a lowly desk assistant at a network. After a couple more rungs on the ladder she made it to general assignment reporter at a Miami TV station, where she doubtless covered every street festival and homicide there was to be had in the big city. Then it was back to Washington for a reportorial stint at the local NBC affiliate.



Here's where the new paradigm kicks in. Having been through the journalistic equivalent of politics in Wasilla, Alaska, Katie suddenly is appointed -- are you ready? -- Deputy Pentagon Correspondent for NBC News. Whoa, Nelly! What just happened here? Are we to understand that this young woman -- the cheerleader from Yorktown High, the English major, the "general assignment reporter" in Miami -- is suddenly qualified to be covering the Pentagon for NBC News? Can it be that the network of Huntley and Brinkley was sending someone to cover the headquarters of the United States Armed Forces -- in the middle of the Cold War -- who had never had a nano-second's worth of experience with the military? Well, yes. That's exactly what they did. Our Katie had evidenced not a scintilla of experience in this area anywhere in her career. Did she know the difference between an F-14 and a B-52? How many military bases had she visited? Did she have a clue what the Navy's SLEP program was?

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The fact that government bears such a huge responsibility for the current mess means any response should eliminate the conditions that created this situation in the first place, not attempt to fix bad government with more government.

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The obvious alternative to a bailout is letting troubled financial institutions declare bankruptcy. Bankruptcy means that shareholders typically get wiped out and the creditors own the company.

Bankruptcy does not mean the company disappears; it is just owned by someone new (as has occurred with several airlines). Bankruptcy punishes those who took excessive risks while preserving those aspects of a businesses that remain profitable.

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In contrast, a bailout transfers enormous wealth from taxpayers to those who knowingly engaged in risky subprime lending. Thus, the bailout encourages companies to take large, imprudent risks and count on getting bailed out by government. This "moral hazard" generates enormous distortions in an economy's allocation of its financial resources.

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Thoughtful advocates of the bailout might concede this perspective, but they argue that a bailout is necessary to prevent economic collapse. According to this view, lenders are not making loans, even for worthy projects, because they cannot get capital. This view has a grain of truth; if the bailout does not occur, more bankruptcies are possible and credit conditions may worsen for a time.

Talk of Armageddon, however, is ridiculous scare-mongering. If financial institutions cannot make productive loans, a profit opportunity exists for someone else. This might not happen instantly, but it will happen.

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Further, the current credit freeze is likely due to Wall Street's hope of a bailout; bankers will not sell their lousy assets for 20 cents on the dollar if the government might pay 30, 50, or 80 cents.

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So what should the government do? Eliminate those policies that generated the current mess. This means, at a general level, abandoning the goal of home ownership independent of ability to pay. This means, in particular, getting rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with policies like the Community Reinvestment Act that pressure banks into subprime lending.

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The not-so subtle message Couric was sending in her interview was that Palin, a sitting Governor, is unqualified to be vice president.