General Thoughts

I'm going to try and have a substantive post later tonight after the debate, but there's a lot to discuss and it's making my poor head hurt. So here's some drive-by thoughts.

For instance, last night the Senate passed the bailout bill-- after loading it up with pork-- and the House will vote again on it tomorrow. I still think this is a bad idea because a) it's literally the very definition of throwing money at a problem, b) it's based on the same type of top-down economic theories that got us here to begin with, and c) spending this $700B ensures the next President will have no fucking money to accomplish anything of substance on health-care, climate change/green jobs, infrastructure development, etc. It's a short-sighted panic reaction to a serious, complicated problem (aka- the Bush years in a nutshell). But with the economy exploding all around them, its passage by Congress was inevitable and now we wait for the fallout. America... fuck yea!

And don't even get me started on the right's attempt to pre-spin tonight's debate by using a book by moderator Gwen Ifill to imply that the liberal media is conspiring to destroy Palin, and who is of course a helpless victim of her own stupidity (the few conservatives actually speaking out about Palin have been greeted with vitriol by their kin). The bar has been so lowered for Palin at this point that she almost wins just by showing up. The bottom line is McCain picked a gimmick candidate for VP and now he's seeing the consequences of that. I'm sure his prep team has helped her memorize a decent amount of answers and talking points tonight... what remains to be seen is whether Ifill, or Biden, dare to call them out.

As for polls showing huge Obama leads? I'm psyched, but it's October 2nd. Long way to go.

Feel free to chime in yourself with any thoughts on any of these topics.