An Interspieces Battle for Domination!

See what happens when Matt figures out how to get the dogs to play tug of war against each other...

O'Reilly's Interview with Obama: The Democrats are in Trouble

Say what you want about O'Reilly; he's a pitbull of an interviewer. Today he pressed Obama on the Surge and Iran. The results were not good for Obama supporters.

Obama acknowledged the success of the surge but claimed it exceeded the wildest expectations of even Bush and McCain. (I don't see how that's a bad thing.) He would not, however, admit that he was wrong in voting against it. In the process he missed a great opportunity for powerful rhetoric.

O'Reilly: "If we had listened to you, we wouldn't have had a surge and we wouldn't be winning the war!"
Obama (fire in his eyes): "If you had listened to me, we wouldn't NEED a surge because we wouldn't have STARTED this war in the first place!"

Now that's the Obama I love. Unfortunately, that Obama doesn't exist. Obama did not say that; there was no fire. He smiled and hemmed and hawed and said, "Well, we still are paying $12 billion a month on Iraq and..."

This remains an unpopular war among most of the American public and Obama needs to turn up the rhetoric. He would do well to remind us that we wouldn't be in this mess if he had been in the White House. (We might be in other messes, but not this one.) From what I've seen, it appears that as great as he is in a prepared speech, he isn't very good at extemporaneous speaking. Biden is amazing at it and that will help offset Obama's stilted responses, but Biden's not the guy who would be the commander in chief.

O'Reilly next moved on to Iran, and asked specifically what Obama plans to do. What happens if diplomacy doesn't work? Does he think military action is likely? Obama was quite evasive. He responded that, as a candidate for president, it's "not appropriate" for him to "tip his hand" regarding the direction he's going to go in Iran. Excuse me? You're not going to tip your hand? This isn't a Supreme Court nomination hearing, Obama, you are supposed to tell us what you're going to do. Eventually he gave his same old "all options are on the table" answer, but with no specifics.

Upon the conclusion of the interview, my first reaction was that Obama is going to lose. In any moderated debate with McCain, McCain will use forceful rhetoric about the need to use military force and confront our enemies. McCain will have fire in his eyes. Obama is, as usual, going to be very introspective, Kerry-like in his desire for nuance. It's not going to play well among the undecideds who agree the world is a very dangerous place.

Live Responses to the Palin Acceptance Speech

• Ok, I'm going to be live-tweeting the Palin speech and compiling it into a blog post later. First impressions: My oh my that is a VPILF.
• So that's what an Alaskan accent sounds like. Sounds vaguely like southern Ohio. Now she's playing the mom-of-soldier card.
• Now she's playing the ADORABLE daughter card. I still think Bristol Willow Piper sounds like a consulting firm.
• Her husband is an Eskimo fisherman snowmobile racer. Now there's a selling point.
• Ha! LIPSTICK! Hahahahahah! :-\
• Everyone's dissing Obama's "community organizing." I'm really curious how Palin is going to spin her mayoral "responsibilities."
• She's been talking for 10 minutes and hasn't said a word about her accomplishments -- just introduced family and bashed Obama.
• You do NOT want to talk about "leaving this nation better than we found it." 8 years of Dubya have not left this nation better than before.
• I'd like to show Palin my oil pipeline.
• Sorry, was overcome by VPlust. She knows about oil and I tend to agree that we should use the power we got until we get the power we want.
• Man oh man does Palin give good rhetoric.
• Palin, if John McCain were truly a maverick, you wouldn't be standing there.
• Listen, McCain is a patriot and yes he was a prisoner of war. I respect him. But that is not a major qualification to be president. Sorry.
• Good speech. MUCH better speaker than McCain. She seems pleasant enough. The American Everywoman. Not much substance though; lotta sarcasm.
• Bottom line: i like her a lot. She seems like a great person. She is not qualified to be my president.
• I'm looking forward to the debates. Obama will wipe the floor with McCain. The real exciting one will be Biden vs. Palin. Game on!

Palin is the most unqualified vice presidential pick in the history of modern elections

Okay. Even if I were still considering McCain, his choice of the most unqualified, unvetted runningmate in the history of modern presidential politics would completely turn me off.

McCain meets her twice: at a governor's conference, and on the day he offers her the job. No one in Alaska had received any calls inquiring into Palin's background. The "vetting" process was almost certainly a quick Google job. I am not confident about a presidential candidate who doesn't do any real research before picking the second-in-command.

And McCain, who has a history of skin cancer and other ailments, had a father who died at 70 -- two years younger than McCain is now. There is a significant chance he could die in office, or become incapacitated. And then what? Palin named her kids Trig, Track, Willow, Bristol and Piper. I don't trust that woman's judgment at all. And she raised a daughter whose values apparently did not preclude having unprotected sex and getting pregnant in high school. Way to go, mom! So much for conservative values (other than her pastime of hunting caribou and encouraging the teaching of Creationism alongside Evolution in SCIENCE CLASS).

What does this pick say about McCain's judgment?
And do we really think Palin is qualified to stare down Putin?

Word has it McCain really wanted Lieberman but decided against him because he didn't poll well. Yeah, real maverick.

Sorry, I'm just pretty annoyed at the direction the Republicans are going. Can someone please tell me why Palin is a good pick? I smell another Harriet Miers