Flyboy Gall: Who Said "I believe God wants me to run for President"?
Issues and non-issues fly by fast as the campaign season winds up. The finale brings us bold lies, fantasy, and frankly, nausea. McCain aired an ad with Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea, inferring that Obama thought he was "the chosen one". The irony is that the current president, in whose shoes McCain proposes to step, is the one that said: "I've heard the call. I believe God wants me to run for President".
Is "Flyboy" spiraling downwards in a "festival of juvenilia" as Maureen Dowd called it"? Or is this just a swirl from the giant whirlwind of hot air sweeping us all up in its flotsam and jetsam. Just think, there we were a few months back, clamoring over science debates. McCain was probably chuckling to himself: "Stem cells? Henh? I'll be at the biker fair, Cindy in her denim shirt"
When Hilton Trumps McCain This Can't Be Good
In response to McCain's ad comparing Obama to celebrities, which many people took at face value, Bob Herbert set the record straight in Running While Black". He wrote: "Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain." As an aside, I do I think people are long past thinking McCain is "high minded". Referring to the "slimey Britney and Paris Hilton ad", Herbert wrote: "The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control." He added that it's a well honed tactic used on previous candidates by Republicans, and "[i]t was at work in that New Yorker cover that caused such a stir."
"It's frustrating", he said, "to watch John McCain calling out Barack Obama on race. Senator Obama has spoken more honestly and thoughtfully about race than any other politician in many years. Senator McCain is the head of a party that has viciously exploited race for political gain for decades." Here's the full column.
Of course unlike Herbert, Paris Hilton actually did think it was about her celebrity and promptly eeked yet another 15 minutes of fame out of it. She suggested a compromise between the Democrat and Republican energy plans, a "hybrid", where
"offshore drilling carries us until the new technologies kick in." Since it would be years until offshore drilling comes to fruition however, and new technologies are readily available, her video wasn't the IQ turnaround some people cheered -- but hey she's got her brand to protect.
The Pitch: Drilling Won't Work but the "Psychological Effect" Would be "Beneficial?"
Arguments about energy this week, shallow though they may be, far surpass last weeks campaign chatter -- McCain dissing Obamas "fame", McCain offering his wife up for country fair "beauty" contests. In response to Obama's offhand comment that we'd save more gas by keeping our tires inflated optimally than McCain would by drilling under his feet, last week McCain sent gag gifts of tire gauges. He turned around this week and said this might be a good idea.
In what has been said was a "forceful pitch for his U.S. energy strategy", Barack Obama called for $4 billion in aid to auto companies to help them produce more fuel efficient cars, particularly electric ones. His Lansing, Michigan speech came after a Detroit News poll in July found that McCain and Obama had equal support from voters in Michigan and that people were concerned first about the economy and second about gas prices.1 Acknowledging the necessity of politics, if the computer industry had been coddled as much as the auto industry over the past couple of decades, there might be no such thing as a desktop computer or an internet.
Obama also decided to soften his formerly strong opposition to offshore drilling, saying off-shore drilling might be OK as part of a more comprehensive energy plan. Democrats including Obama urge leaders to open up current reserves.
Drilling wouldn't result in petroleum until 2030 according to the Bush's Energy Information Administration, and so Nancy Pelosi has stood ground in the House of Representatives against Republicans who present drilling as a solution. Like Obama Democrats in the House of Representatives also seek compromise, although they continue to flatly oppose drilling in protected areas.
Democrats heartily refute the Bush administration's presentation of offshore drilling as a solution to the pressing energy problem. Rather they say, drilling as a solution is an oil industry con that further shackles the population to oil dependency. Democrats argue, as does Obama, that the oil companies already have access to 68 million acres of permitted federal lands in the lower 48 and Alaska that they under-utilize. People view the oil industry's current push for drilling as a campaign by the oil industry to obtain more leases on potential drilling sites. This would give them even more control over the market energy market in the face of increasing demand, and would prolong oil dependency.
McCain was also opposed to drilling, but switched his stance. McCain's reason for drilling off the coast would have a . The psychological effect on voters would be to muffle their clamor for cleaner energies, which would extend legislators vacation on the issue, and allow petroleum companies to extend their energy monopoly. Apparently McCain's campaign was promptly gifted with an influx of donations from oil companies.
The Republicans, just off their successful rally to defeat the Democrats' "use-it-or-lose-it" legislation (H.R. 6615), are making a big production of calling the Democrats back from their "recess". H.R. 6615 would have prevented oil and gas companies from obtaining new federal drilling leases if they did not meet new government standards for development on leases they already hold, prevent them for collecting leases and using them as market leverage. The oil companies, as the multi-billion dollar beneficiaries of the "oil crisis" apparently yield some clout in this election, and citizens, who protest wildly about the price of gas on one hand, are willing to give them more power with the other.
What special treats will next week bring? This season's whirlwind campaign is tough to endure but I look forward to seeing lots of Harley's outside my poling station. Yeah.
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1 Acronym Required wrote about the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car", and about the auto industry's failure to innovate in "The EPA: Mulish Days, Staring out to Pasture".
