Saturday Night Live has now come and gone for Sarah Palin.  I'll put some video clips down at the bottom for those of you that missed her.

Today's NY Times has a column by
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I nearly cried for joy when I read and saw Gen. Powell's endorsement of Obama for President.  It wasn't one of those wimpy, sneaking, on-the-sly statements.  It was as solid as a general's word can be.   What is the RNC gong to say about Powell?  He pals around with terrorists?  He's a has-been who really doesn't have anything to say?  No, they won't be able to pussy-foot around this one.  As the pundits like to say, "This is a game changer."



A couple of points that Powell made should have a real effect on what a lot of people are saying.

"He's not a Muslim."  OK...wingnuts???  You get it now?? He isn't a Muslim.  I really liked what Powell said next, "If he was, what would it matter?"  Powell knows what America really stands for

I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian.  He's always been a Christian.  But the really right answer is, what if he is?  Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America.  Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?  Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

His take on Ayers was equally enlightening. 

This Bill Ayers situation that's been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign.  But Mr. McCain says that he's a washed-out terrorist.  Well, then, why do we keep talking about him?  And why do we have these robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that, because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow, Mr. Obama is tainted.  What they're trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings.  And I think that's inappropriate.

Here's a retired US Army officer saying that the whole Ayers thing is bogus.

Finally, he says what many Republican have been saying:

And I was also concerned at the selection of Governor Palin.  She's a very distinguished woman, and she's to be admired; but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president.  And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made.

The job of the Vice President is to be President...and she doesn't have the chops. 

Here's the full transcript of the interview.

I'm sure the RNC knew what was coming and has their spin machine cranked up to say something.  If they are even thinking about saying something bad about Powell, they are asking for more trouble than they can even imagine.

Here's a CNN interview after the MSNBC interview:

And now, a break from the usual.  Here's the speeches from the annual Al Smith Dinner.

McCain's main speech:



McCain's closing speech:



Obama's main speech:



Obama's closing remarks:




Enjoy!

Remember Joe the Plumber from last night?

Turns out he owes the state of Ohio $1,200 in back taxes.

Oh... and he's not licensed either.

*sigh*
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Well, that's that.  Round three.  No knock outs from either side, but if you ask me, I'd say McCain is looking a little unsteady on his feet.

Let's get this out of the way first:  overhead projector and planetarium projector.  After all that's been said about this from the last debate, McCain said last night:

While we were working to eliminate these pork barrel earmarks he (Senator Obama) voted for nearly $1 billion in pork barrel earmark projects. Including $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?

I am suppose to be trusting this guy with his finger on THE button?  OK, I got that off my chest.

What was very apparent last night was the difference in demeanor between the two.  McCain was again speaking "high" and just about sputtering when he'd say something bad about Obama.  Barack would respond with a nice, even, tone of voice countering whatever John had just said...and then follow up with a counter statement.  The biggest difference, though, was in the use of personal pronouns.

John was always "I will this" and "I will that".  Barack, on the other hand, was "Your home" and "Your taxes".  He was making the debate sit in the home of his listeners while John was all about himself.  Any salesman will tell you that you talk about the customer first and foremost! 

The other thing was the way Barack looked the audience in the eye and said "the plan will contain X, Y, and Z".  It was clean, it was concise.   People don't want mavericks, they want solutions, and Barack was giving them just that.

MSNBC's poll has Obama at 81% to McCain's 17%.  What can I do but concur?

Not so much a stone wall as a black-hole-in-front-of-you-sucking-all-the-logic-out-of-the-room kind of wall.  (And I bet THAT wrapped nicely on your screen, eh?)

I got back last night from giving training to a customer in Columbus, Ohio.  I've worked with a gal down there for ages and a day.  Love her dearly, but talking to her about Obama was like yelling in an anechoic chamber.  The words came out of my mouth and just seemed to dissipate into nothingness.  I rolled out my best arguments, but I fear for naught. 

Is it because Barack's black, but she just doesn't want to say that she's never going to vote for a black guy?  Is it because he's a Democrat and by-God, she's never going to vote for one of them?  Even the "Can you really say 'President Palin' and not shudder??" had no effect. 

Maybe it is the whole idea of change.  Not change in the way Barack means it, but any change.  McCain is that solid old uncle in the other room that represents the way things are.  Sarah, God bless her (!), is the mom down the street.  Maybe they just look so "normal" that they are the comfortable choice.

Perhaps that's it...  the "comfortable choice".  You get to turn off your BS detector, you can shut down your scare detector, and just be "comfortable".   You don't have to think about Barack's "change we can believe in".  You don't have to think about change at all.

I suppose she thinks I'm some kind of lefto long-hair nut case...maybe I am...but at least I think about it.  And I think I'm going to have an upset stomach until election day ends and Barack and Joe and on their way to the Executive Branch. 

Have you ever wondered how those nasty "truths" about Obama (and others) get started?  Well, here's the font of a lot of those nasty tales:

MSNBC Story on Andy Martin

Here's a guy who's been denied admittance to the Illinois bar for:

“moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.”

and how does his rants get out there?  High quality news organizations such as Fox do a "documentary" on him.

What's even more insidious is the self referencing magnitude of the slurs.  He publishes a slur, it gets out, people start passing it around, and then he shows that "See... everyone is saying what I told you in the beginning"...and the cycle goes on.

Read more about him at: Andy Martin at Wikipedia

By the way...  he's not a trombonist.  We trombone players have enough trouble already!

Just a short note that entries may be a little sparse over the next couple of days.  I'm off to Ohio to train in some of my customers.  I'm going to be wearing, of course, my Obama button.  It will be interesting to see what reactions I get.

For the nonce, folks are directed to the op-ed pages of the New York Times. 
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It's a lot easier to get on the tiger than off the tiger.  If you find you can't get off, it's a pretty good sign that when you do get, or fall, off, you're probably going to get eaten.  Here's what happened at a McCain rally the other day:

A couple of supporters parrot the old "He's an Arab" "He's a terrorist" line.  McCain, to his credit after a week of letting Palin spout the same nasty rhetoric, comes to Obama's defense.  What does he get for his efforts?  He gets booed.  Booed by his own people.  I'm heartened.  It shows McCain may actually have a conscience.  Unfortunately for McCain, he's come out with a condemnation of the smears a little be too little, and a little bit too late.  In short, he can't get off the tiger.

Where does this leave him?

He can keep speaking up when people start attacking Obama's character, but how does he jibe that with the hateful talk that comes out of his running mate's mouth?

He can say nothing, losing his honor and what modicum of respect wavering voters may have had for him.

He can grab the tiger's fur even tighter and ramp up the smears, endearing himself to the right-wing nut cases but truly alienating himself from even some Republican supporters.

Let's face it.  By taking the low road John's gotten on the tiger.  100% of McCain's ads of late have been negative. No matter what he does getting off that beast he's going to have big chunks taken out of his hide by the left, right, or both.  Obama's run his share of negative ads, but he's never gotten dirty about it.  McCain should remember the race he was in where his daughter Bridgette was pulled into the race as "McCain's black daughter".  He should be ashamed of what he's doing this time around.

Just because you can see Russia from Alaska doesn't make Sarah a foreign policy expert.

Just because they pull a lot of oil out of the ground in Alaska apparently doesn't make you an oil policy expert either.

A questioner in a Wisconsin town-hall style meeting (which really don't resemble an town halls I've ever seen) asked Sarah whether the government blocks oil exports (see:
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