change

I heard the republicratic theatrical event from Long Island - hosted by a real journalist instead of a meandering mumbler for a change - on the scratchy radio driving through Nebraska. The FM stations there didn't carry the "debate". They played preachers and twangy country clones instead. Had to go to AM.

Pretty much the same petty bickering as the last two times. Pretty much the same avoidance of the elephants in the room as the last two times. McCain is still insisting (insulting the rationality of us all) that he won't raise taxes, that he will fix Washington corruption, that he will fix schools and health care and that he will straighten out the economy while (apparently) still leaving totally unaddressed a deficit of global and historic proportions.

Pretty much the same as last time, Obama tried to tell us that he is not a liberal. That is just as insulting.

However. There were differences between the two.

Obama was realistic and fiscally conservative enough to acknowledge that stuff MUST get paid for. And Obama did a much better job than McCain of outlining how he would rely on job-creation in infrastructure and energy to get the American economy going again. In spite of McCain's constant misrepresentative howling about overbearing government, Obama really has inserted a lot of private enterprise into his solutions.

In the context of billions (and later perhaps trillions) of dollars of Republican bailout for Wall Street, it is dishonest for McCain to bitch about Obama being a fan of govt programs.

McCain's pitiful effort to distance himself from Bush was insulting too. McCain got to where he is in the Republican Party by kissing Dubya's ass. He is the Republican nominee and with him hundreds of card-carrying Bushite Repubs would take offices in the White House. As the standard bearer of the party, and as one of the most vocal deregulators of the past three decades, he must shoulder the blame of a failed economy and a foreign policy that has destroyed America's reputation and power. He picked a VP nominee who turns out to be just as partisan, just as venal, just as unethical, just as unconstitutional and just as egotistical as the Bush-Cheny gang.

The word "change" may be devalued by its sloppy bandying in this presidential campaign. But at least there is ONE meaning to the word that still has substance.

Don't vote for incumbents. The Republicans are incumbent.