Conservative columnist George Will hits the nail on the head
But the McCain-Palin charges have come just as the Obama campaign is benefiting from a mass mailing it is not paying for. Many millions of American households are gingerly opening envelopes containing reports of the third-quarter losses in their 401(k) and other retirement accounts — telling each household its portion of the nearly $2 trillion that Americans’ accounts have recently shed.
I got mine yesterday. -11% for the quarter. -30% for the year. And that was before this week’s round of losses. Now, I’ve got (knock on wood) about 35 years to ride the market out, but many voters don’t. If you are at or near retirement years the global economic collapse has devastated your future in a way we haven’t seen for a long time. And somehow a politician talking about an obscure ’60s radical won’t quite cut the mustard.
For almost 30 years, we’ve seen anger building against entitlement programs as wasteful and unnecessary because, I believe, people said “I’m doing well enough that I don’t need this, will never need it and don’t care if other people do.” They had investments or believed they would, they had a decent job or expected they would and they did not want dollars out of their wallet for a safety net they couldn’t imagine needing.
It was that feeling that Republicans tapped into since the Reagan years, and on a day like this we see exactly why such a safety net was needed. Without Social Security – or with the privatized version the Republican party pushed in 2004 – imagine how much worse this all would be.
Yeah, it sucks to have money taken out of your paycheck. Yeah, we need to make sure those getting taxed are not being taxed an unaffordable amount. Yeah, we need to ensure those tax dollars are not being wasted. But without those tax dollars, without a government invested in protecting its citizens from war, famine and a greed-and-irresponsibility inspired economic crisis, we end up in a John Steinbeck novel when things fall apart.
Eric Sipple
Hope Obama takes the time next week at the debate to remind Americans that McSame wants to privatize Social Security, which would have left many people destitute in the wake of this years declines.
George Will has been really good through most of this year. He believes that Obama is too inexperienced for the presidency, but he has the intellectual honesty to say that Palin is much worse in this respect. He also has been highlighting McCain’s failings in temperament — particularly his inclination to self-righteousness, in which political opponents become seen as not just wrong but actively immoral — for a long time. I think he is one of the last standard bearers for a Republican Party that was worth respecting: the Edmund Burke conservatives who prize intellect, knowledge and caution.
Meanwhile, Charles Krauthammer has decided to throw down the gauntlet:
“Would you even shake hands with — let alone serve on two boards with — an unrepentant terrorist … Most Americans would not, on the grounds of sheer indecency.”
Let’s see, who were all the folks who voluntarily have worked with William Ayers or Bernadine Dohrn through the years:
Admissions committees at Bank Street College and Columbia University’s ed schools – indecent.
Hiring committee at Sidley & Austin (NY office) – indecent.
Robert W. Bennet, dean of Northwestern Law – indecent.
Faculty hiring committee at the U of Il (Chicago) – indecent.
Everyone who has worked on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge since 1995 – indecent.
Everyone who has served on the Woods Fund board since 1999 – indecent.
Every person who has been involved in Dohrn’s Children and Family Justice Center – indecent.
The folks who decided to award Ayers the 1997 Chicago Citizen of the Year award – probably the most indecent of all.
I just keep wondering why none of these folks’ association with former Weathermen has been called out. Why isn’t Krauthammer assailing Maria G. Valdez, the Woods Fund’s Board Vice Chair in 2001, who is an attorney at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund? or Cynthia M. Campbell, president of McCormick Theological Seminary? Doris Salomón Chagin from BP America? Patrick M. Sheahan from UBS Investment Bank?
McCain says he likes to call people out by name for their misdeeds. I can get him a great rollcall of Ayers’s associates to read out at the last debate.
PG, I hope you have pointed this out to Krauthammer.
It’s a perfect example of the difference between the candidates: McCain thinks he can shame people by repeating “greed and corruption on Wall Street and Washington” over and over; Obama knows we have to enforce laws and regulations.
“I got mine yesterday. -11% for the quarter. -30% for the year.”
You got to learn to use the internets for more than partisan crap slinging chief.
Just wondering if Krautie had a comment section, PG. Keep on.
will.i.am not, what doesn that even mean?
I think will’s suggesting Oliver start a porn business. Surely those are still booming.
I’m sure they are if wee willie wanker has anything to do with it!
Whoooaaaa Nelly!
“I got mine yesterday. -11% for the quarter. -30% for the year.”
You got to learn to use the internets for more than partisan crap slinging chief.
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Yeah, I don’t understand that kind of performance when you guys all saw it coming. Surely you had to know Bush’s economic policies would be detrimental to the stock market.
There seems to be some sort of a disconnect here. What gives?
I think PG is Paul Krugman’s sock puppet.
And I’m definitely among George Will’s liberal fans. Definite non-party man, argues ideas before anything else.
Hah, I only wish I’d been smart enough to get more than a BA in economics. One of the most frightening things I realized about the federal government was when I got a job offer from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after taking an application exam where I had an epic fail on regression analysis. If they’re taking people as bad at math as I am, I no longer trust the BLS numbers.
Palinites think they’ll be raptured before cashing in their 401k
Okay, so doesn’t this mean that the investor class(which increasingly means almost all of us) matters?