Train Wreck

I don't want to watch, but I can't help myself. Yep, it's once again time for me to talk about politics and the economy.

Did anyone out there watch the Vice-Presidential debate? I certainly did. I wanted to see if Palin is as clueless as Tina Fey made her out to be in her SNL skits. The answer? I think Tina Fey went easy on Palin. After the debate, the political pundits -- apparently trying to appear neutral -- said that she held her own against Joe Biden. I can't help but wonder if we watched the same debate. I had three jokes that I had considered turning in to SNL for this week's inevitible skit. One was how Palin kept referring to Alaska as an energy-producing state. If you didn't know that going in to the debate, you sure knew it afterwards. The second joke was how Palin said that she may not answer the questions to the moderator or Biden's liking... 'In fact, I won't answer the question at all if it doesn't discuss Alaska's energy producing prowess.' The third joke was her frequent reference to McCain as a maverick, and how she somehow earned the right to use that term as an accurate description of her own record.

Biden impressed me. He kept his answers short... and they were answers... a stark contrast to the Tina Fey look-alike. I was specifically impressed with Biden's willingness to point his finger at the camera for emphasis. This has historically been a no-no, which is why Bill Clinton always did that annoying thumb-point thing. I also liked Biden's comment that Cheney was trying to re-write the Constitution in order to make himself a member of the Senate. Biden struck me as someone who attempted to answer questions in a forthright manner, backing his statements up with facts as he understood them. (Yes, I know that some things were twisted for partisan gain.) Palin came across as a talking head.

This is horribly disappointing. I've long been a McCain supporter. I long considered him to be a good presidential candidate. After the democratic election, McCain started a mud-slinging campaign, and that made me pause. When he chose Palin as his running-mate I remained neutral about the decision... until she spoke. Now, I just can't see myself voting for McCain. Obama and Biden have impressed me, and McCain has disappointed me.

Let's talk about that economic stimulus package for a little bit... you know, the $700 billion bailout. I'm not sure what to think about the whole thing. Part of me realizes that I'm not the expert, so I should take the word of people who actually have a little authority on the subject. They say we need this, so we need this.

But why now? We've been heading down this road for years... why is it so suddenly such an emergency that the president screamed the sky is falling, and congress acted so swiftly that the measure was passed in two weeks? And for those of you who don't remember, the last time our illustrius leader said that, we ended up invading Iraq.

And why should the fat cats get all of this money? A friend of mine -- who's a hard-core democrat -- summarized things beautifully when he said 'Look, politicians scream about handouts that help poor people pay their rent and put food on their table, but now that the super rich are demanding a handout, it's a done deal.' That's a great point. A couple of days later, I got an email that said 'Hey, instead of bailing out Wall Street with that $700 Billion, why don't you give to the American people?' Another great point. Taking the email at face value, that works out to about $250,000 per adult -- after taxes. If there are two adults in the household, that would be a cool half a mil! Imagine what we could do with that kind of money... pay off our homes... pay off our credit cards, student loans, automobiles... If the government wanted to stimulate the global economy, I can't think of a better way... but no, they gave it to Wall Street. And wouldn't you know it, the street is already saying it's not enough.