On Monday there will be a third and final presidential debate. And that sounds like a good excuse to get together for a pint and an opportunity to watch and discuss the debate with a veritable binder-full of fellow liberals. So please join us for another Debate Edition of Seattle’s Drinking Liberally at the Montlake Ale House on Monday evening.
Important Note: We will have sound and video for the debate. But the bar and restaurant has other customers, so the sound may not be as loud as you want, especially with the background of a busy tavern and peripheral conversations. If you are intent on hearing every word, I recommend you bring an FM radio and headsets or earbuds. Additionally, the Ale House has free WiFi for streaming audio. Ask your server for the password.
We will meet at our usual place, the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.
The Montlake Ale House opens at 5:00pm, and the presidential debate begins at 6:00pm.
I’ll be liveblogging the debate here.
We’ll still have or regular Tuesday evening gathering of liberals this week, as well. I hope you can make it to one or both events.
Wisconsin Shooting Update
The shooter has been found dead. Three of the seven victims also have died. Police say the shooting arose from a domestic dispute.
The dynamics of the third debate are interesting. This debate will focus on foreign policy. Most voters care more about the economy, so you can’t win an election with a strong performance on foreign policy, but you can lose an election from a weak performance in this area. Expectations are higher for Obama because he’s expected to know this stuff after four years in office. But while less is expected of Romney, he would suffer more from a major flub because he has to build his credibility on the subject. Romney’s biggest vulnerabilities are likely to be the temptation to politicize things that should be above politics and over-eagerness to opt for military responses in Iran and Syria. I expect Romney to come into this debate well-coached and well-rehearsed, so I’m not looking for a knockout or TKO, but if Obama is on his game he should win on points.
@2 Roger,
I agree with you.
I’d add that President Obama has at least one ace in the hole; the vast majority of Americans are fed up with war and are desirous of peace.
There’s a huge distinction between the two parties on this issue. Biden made the point in his debate. Obama can seal the deal in his.
@3 “Obama can seal the deal”
I assume you’re referring to wavering swing voters. I read an NBC article today that said the debates won’t change a significant number of votes, and the main effect of the debates is on turnout of party bases. So, Obama’s best bet is to try to motivate Democratic voters by reminding them that a Romney victory could result in the return of Republican militarism. He should also point out the ill effects for the economy if Romney leads us into another costly military adventure, i.e. money spent on wars can’t be spend on education, health care, or Social Security. and it wouldn’t hurt to mention that the world is actually more peaceful now than it has been in decades and suggest that 4 years of Obama’s leadership have helped make it so.
Here’s the question I would ask the candidates:
How will you combat piracy in the Horn of Africa region?
This is an especially good question for Romney, because it’s his opportunity to invade a small and defenseless country. And, one might add, get bogged down in an unwinnable urban guerilla war.
It’s also a tough question for Obama, because it puts him on the spot as to whether we can solve this problem with nation-building efforts in the region, and if not, what the alternative is to doing nothing about failed states and lawless societies that provide a sanctuary and breeding ground for piratical enterprises that prey on seaborne commerce. (Cheat sheet: Doing nothing is not a viable option, because the pirates are getting more sophisticated and acquiring great capabilities, and are now operating throughout much of the western Indian Ocean, up to 2,000 miles from their land bases in Somalia and other countries.)
Gay Republican about to trounce scandal-tarred Democrat for Congressional seat in Boston area.
http://www.wbur.org/2012/10/19.....ted-to-win
Though Tierney is an eight-term incumbent, the Sixth Congressional District race has become unusually competitive — and personal — due largely to the legal issues swirling about Tierney’s family, as well as Tisei’s reputation as a moderate Republican in 26 years in the state Legislature.
Tierney’s wife, Patrice, last year served a one-month prison sentence and five months of house arrest after admitting “willful blindness” to an illegal gambling enterprise run by her brothers and agreed to plead guilty to tax fraud for handling bills and taxes in the United States for one of the brothers. The issue has been the subject of ads on both sides.
http://www.boston.com/metrodes.....story.html
Barney who?
@ 2
Expectations are higher for Obama because he’s expected to know this stuff after four years in office.
Er, shouldn’t expectations be higher for Obama because he’s supposed to have something to show for four years in office insofar as foreign policy is concerned?
I do agree with you that it’s the economy that counts in this election. Obama may have won debate #2 on points and yet the polls haven’t stopped moving in Romney’s favor. If Obama wins debate #3 on points it may still not make a difference.
Latino and youth turnout isn’t looking very good, women are deserting Obama in droves, and he’s doing very poorly with less-educated white men.
Oh, and the economic numbers that come out on November 2 will not be pretty. Coffin, nail.
@6 Is anything there besides guilt-by-association (a favorite Republican smear tactic)?
@7 “something to show for four years in office”
How about a more peaceful world?
Here’s George Packer writing on foreign policy in The New Yorker:
“Often, foreign policy—which by definition is largely out of American control—is simply a matter of not doing the wrong thing, the unwise thing. On that count, I trust Obama more than any politician in my lifetime.
(And on that count, he’s more like J.F.K. than any other President.)”
Think about that. Not doing the wrong thing. There are so many traps, so many ways for Mitt Romney to make things worse for us, so many times our last Republican president did make things worse for us.
”
Think about how much Obama has done well that could have gone very badly. He withdrew from Iraq after eight years of war in a way that left the U.S. with almost no influence—but he could have tried to force matters with the Iraqis and left behind far more bitterness. He tried to reverse the erosion that he inherited in Afghanistan, and he had to try, but once that failed he prevented his military from trapping him into an indefinite ground war and outlined a plan for withdrawal (which will be better for America than it will for Afghanistan). In Libya, the grounds for intervention were initially misleading, and the result will not be a happy place, but the NATO campaign went a lot better than skeptics expected, and Libya without Qaddafi is a better thing for Libyans and the rest of the world. On Syria, the Administration was too slow in isolating Assad, but no one has made a case for intervention that has a plausibly good outcome.
“On terrorism, he’s devastated the top ranks of Al Qaeda, and if legally dubious drone attacks are his means for doing so—well, life and foreign policy are full of unpleasant trade-offs, and this is one I’m willing to take. …
“The best example of Obama’s success in foreign policy is Iran. … Obama has done a masterful job of putting the maximum pressure on Iran while holding back the dogs of war: Proving that engagement won’t work by trying it for a year, then isolating the regime, showing the world that Tehran, not Washington or Jerusalem, is the problem; winning international support for truly painful sanctions; waging a form of cyber warfare that hurts Iran’s nuclear program without getting America stuck in a quagmire; even using Israeli war threats to force Iran to the table, while (so far) keeping Israel from giving in to its own irrational impulses. Just imagine Mitt Romney pulling off anything like this.
“On foreign policy, Obama has talked softly and carried a big stick. The coolness and reasonableness that are sometimes weaknesses at home—and have been exploited as such by his opponents—have served him and the country extremely well abroad.”
http://www.newyorker.com/onlin.....ction.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: How about that, Cereal Bob? Here we have the best foreign policy president since JFK, and you have to ask what he has done in foreign policy? What does that say about you?
More lies from the Mittster.
The real common denominator is mental illness and access to a firearm.
Meanwhile, historians and academics from around the globe agree that George W. Bush was a terrible foreign policy president.
http://globalpublicsquare.blog.....president/
So why would we take a chance on another Republican so soon, especially one who knows nothing about foreign policy?
“By any reasonable standard, Obama’s first-term foreign policy record is nothing short of astounding. On issue after issue, Obama has shown a … resolve that has earned him major kudos from foreign policy specialists in both parties. Consider, for example, the following:
•Two major U.S. land wars, both started by George W. Bush, are winding down. Obama … stared down his top generals and resisted their demand for a prolonged counterinsurgency and nation-building campaign. The Taliban is reeling, and the American pull-back, starting this summer, is real. Obama also resisted pressure to reverse the Iraqi withdrawal and wisely brought in members of the Bush-era negotiating team to help seal and bless the deal.
•Obama boldly intervened in Libya to oust dictator Muammar Gadaffi … and he did it with minimal financial cost and no U.S. troop casualties. Moreover, … he didn’t act unilaterally but weighed in behind Europe and NATO. Republicans who charged the president with reckless ‘adventurism’ have ended up with egg on their face. In fact, respect for multilateralism is back — and under Obama, it’s no longer just the ‘soft’ option.
•Obama has forged the closest American defense ties with Israel of any recent U.S. president, … while continuing to push for Israeli concessions on a Palestinian homeland. Obama has moved deftly, even winning strong support from the Israeli public, which says it wants its leaders to consult with Obama before taking future military action. Support from American Jews, despite concerns over friction between the White House and the Israeli Prime Minister, is holding steady.
•Obama has also made China a key strategic priority, confronting Beijing on human rights, trade warfare, and economic spying, while bolstering America’s military presence in the Pacific. Donald Trump may think America is getting snookered but most Americans, it turns out, see Obama’s actions as judicious. In fact, leading foreign policy conservatives, including Robert Kagan, who was a national security adviser to John McCain, and has periodically advised Romney himself, have strongly praised Obama’s entire Asia policy.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....50219.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Why would any thinking voter trade away the best foreign policy president in decades for an ignoramus amateur like Romney?
Does that answer your question, Cereal Bob?
@7 where Kap’n Kornflake opines in the area he is a certified expert:
[Obama]’s doing very poorly with less-educated white men.
Bob, this is the first and only comment of yours which rings close to true.
After all, being a stupid white guy is the only thing you can speak about with authority.
[Deleted — see HA Comment Policy]
Right now Obummer is doing poorly with a whole bunch of people FlubScout.
Romney 51
Obummer 45
Hey old lawyer on the verge of SENILITY… Puddy having fun so Puddy went back into the PUDDYArchives to revisit some stuff Obummer did politically earlier this year…
So here we go…
Politicizing China cars actions before Obummer visited Ohio TWO TIMES… and Obummer has the audacity to accuse Romney of that!
@11
Michael
Gunman Robert A. Hawkins fits your description. He killed 9 (including himself) at the Westroads Mall in Omaha in 2007.
He was apparently suffering from mental illness since age 6, and at the time of the shooting was not living with his parents, a heterosexual couple who were divorced and at least one remarried. He was a ward of the state and had been under treatment and supervision for many years.
He did have access to a WASR-10.
@15
MBS…
Dr. Robert is quite well educated, but nonetheless quite stupid, but mostly very very greedy.
@16 Here’s puddy in fine Republican form:
War! War! War!
How many wars have you fought in, putz? Yeah, I didn’t think so. How many of your kids do you plan to donate to the ideology of armed belligerency? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
@16 (continued) “Since Puddy just delivered two stinging rebukes …”
Now that’s downright goddamned funny!
I can’t find words to express the utter contempt I feel for warmongers who didn’t serve in the military and whose kids won’t serve in the military. If you won’t risk your own life or your family members’ lives in our country’s wars, you haven’t earned the right to send anyone else to war. It’s that simple.
BULLSHITTIUM ALERT Star Trek Klaxon Horn Sounds
BULLSHITTIUM ALERT
BULLSHITTIUM ALERT
BULLSHITTIUM ALERT
BULLSHITTIUM ALERT
BULLSHITTIUM ALERT
Where did Puddy claim War! War! War! you idiotic SENILE moron?
Where?
When?
Is this what people look forward to in their old age; SENILITY? If so please Lord come quickly!
You R an IDIOT! Reread the post you moron! The New Republic posted the article not some right thinking e-rag.
Once again you prove there is no adult behavior left in that SENILE shriveled brain! It has nothing to do with a WAR you idiot! This is across all political spectrums SENILE Wabbit.
Man, you lose the argument, then you make up BULLSHITTIUM! The Klaxon horn is still sounding!
And it’s very telling which on you chose to attack in response. Proves your post was as worthless and your thoughts are today!
So Roger SENILE Wabbit… you failed to answer the question…
TRY AGAIN! BULLSHITTIUM! The Klaxon horn is still sounding!
Rarely has a troll been so profoundly infatuated with himself.
There… Post #23 has been fixed!
Hey Roger stop looking in the mirror and playing with yourself! That’s the best you can do in #25?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Since this person is a Obummer co-chair… Ann Coulter nails Eva Longoria right in her lady parts!
It really is remarkable, isn’t it, Roger?
I’m still not sure if it’s a bizarre act, or if there actually is someone so dumb, so self-absorbed, so deluded by a hateful, hate-filled, ideology as the Faux Christian, puddl.
Time for another session of Puttybutt’s all night drunken rants.
@30 The liquor is innocent. Leave the liquor out of this.
Notice MarkS never brings factual links as rebuttal, just ad hominem attacks! Puddy guesses the S is for stoooooooooooopid!
Well Roger SENILE Wabbit… been waiting for a response. Oh wait… you have no response… it wasn’t about Republicans wanting war in TNR… You made that up as another of your useless strawmen!
So Roger SENILE Wabbit… you failed to answer the question…
TRY AGAIN!
Poor dunceman,
His preznit ain’t doing well in da polls so he has nothing… Living vicariously on Roger SENILE Rabbit’s comments!
Always listen to Russell Crowe!
@35
It’s a complete mystery why you’d post that…but googling the quote takes one straight to the right-wing fever swamp…with Brietbart at the top.
You’ve such a formidable mind, Faux.
@35, ad nauseum….
Faux, does it bother you that no one here respects you, despite the hours and hours and hours spent posting here?
I imagine the rest of your life is similar…normal people at work, in the neighborhood, maybe even at church, recoiling from the penetrating insanity, the relentless condescension, the bizarre third-person voice, the strident assertions devoid of content or logic.
It must be very lonely for you, with just the voices for company….
Romney SEX TAPE.
so tell me, what is Obama’s military experience?
army? navy? anything? Bueller?
I agree with you – so maybe its time to support a constitutional amendment that requires the president and congress to have served at least 3 years in the military.
@39 “what is Obama’s military experience”
A red herring, because Obama isn’t a chest-beating warmonger itching to commit other people’s children to combat.
On the other hand, if you asked this question of Romney, it would be pertinent because he’s of Vietnam age — and spent the war living in a French chateau while on a deferment. It’s also pertinent because — as I suspect you’ll hear in tonight’s debate — he’s an itch-trigger-finger Republican who thinks military force is the solution to most (if not all) foreign policy problems.
Romney is as ill-suited to lead our military as he is to make economic policy for the 99 percent.
@36 Puddy is a bell jar in which intelligent thoughts try in vain to travel through a vacuum space.
@39
You (conveniently) failed to quote the preceding line…
If Roger’s position is that military service is a prerequisite for elected office, then I disagree with him.
However, the bigger thrust of Roger’s post was that the warmonger party – the Republicans – led by an incredible cadre of military service avoiders (also here) – relentlessly beats the drums of war, and fetishizes buying more guns and bombs to the exclusion of nearly all else. The evil of claiming ‘patriotism’ and ‘strength’, blithely sending others’ kids to war and using their phoney macho as a political cudgel is hallmark Republicanism.
I assume you served, Piltdown Man, yes? Which branch?
BTW, how do you reconcile the Republican fetish for war and violence and guns, with “Do not kill” and “Love your neighbor”?
ICU Sanctions Lance Armstrong For Cheating
Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace accelerated as the International Cycling Union, cycling’s world governing body, stripped him of his Tour de France titles and banned him from the sport.
“Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling,” the ICU said. “Today’s young riders do not deserve to be branded or tarnished by the past or to pay the price for the Armstrong era.”
Organized cycling’s frantic response to doping allegations against Armstrong seem to suggest the sport’s survival is on the line in the wake of findings that Armstrong cheated his way to fame and wealth.
Meanwhile, Armstrong continues to maintain his innocence, but no one seems to be buying it. He’s already been dropped by big-name corporate sponsors like Nike, Anheuser-Busch, Radio Shack, and Trek.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/22/.....?hpt=hp_t1
A fourth person has died from Milwaukee latest mass shooting.
Campaigning in Iowa, GOP veep candidate Paul Ryan said he was “shocked and saddened” by the gun deaths in his home state — but did not suggest we need any controls on who can buy or possess firearms.
About a year ago, GOP legislators in Wisconsin proposed a bill that would enable anyone in that state to buy guns and carry concealed guns without a permit or background check.
How can any sane person vote for these idiots?
Dingbat young-earth creationist (YEC) Arizona legislator….pushing state constitution amendment that seems to grab all Federal lands in Arizona – including Grand Canyon – and would lay the groundwork for not having to follow the Clean Air Act and other environmental regulations.
Lovely, just lovely. Ignorance and myth-worship in the service of environmental destruction and profit. Republicans, gotta love ’em.
Interpreting The Polls
The latest WSJ/Gallup poll has the presidential race at a dead heat, 47%-47%. But that poll is based on “likely” voters, and Obama still has a 5-point lead among registered voters, so Democrats can pull this off with a strong GOTV effort — if they can neutralize or rein in GOP vote suppression efforts, such as Maricopa County, Arizona’s issuance of Spanish-language voting information cards informing Hispanic voters the election is on Nov. 8 instead of Nov. 6.
And the electoral map still favors Obama, who plausibly could win without Florida’s and Ohio’s electoral votes. Romney has to win at least one of those states, and it’s much tougher for him if he doesn’t win both.
It’s not hard to figure out what’s happening: The debates are working in Romney’s favor. He didn’t have to win the debates; simply coming across as someone who could be president is enough, and he pulled it off by abandoning GOP positions and talking like a Democrat. Low information voters don’t understand that if they vote for him, once in office he’ll flip-flop again and they’ll get policies they didn’t bargain for.
This wouldn’t be possible if people weren’t frustrated with Obama. Despite his solid record of accomplishment in office on economic and foreign policy issues, his base is less enthused because of broken promises on issues like closing Gitmo (he didn’t), and the broader elected is deeply anxious about the tough economy and their own uncertain economic futures (which is beyond the control of any president, but has been made worse by the GOP’s relentless partisan warfare).
With the race this close, it may yet come down to undecided swing voters in key battleground states. And those voters are in play only because Romney has deliberately distanced himself from the craziness that has taken over the entire GOP. In other words, Romney has a shot only because he’s pretending he’s not a Republican. The more voters connect him with the party he represents, the more likely he is to lose. And should he win, trying to govern after repudiating his own party on the campaign trail will be interesting, to say the least.
#26 tells us everything we need to know about puddy’s character.
Roger Rabbit version: “I can’t find words to express the utter contempt I feel for warmongers who didn’t serve in the military and whose kids won’t serve in the military. If you won’t risk your own life or your family members’ lives in our country’s wars, you haven’t earned the right to send anyone else to war.”
Puddy version: “I can’t find words to express the utter contempt I feel for the mind I am losing because of my old age! There… Post #23 has been fixed!”
That’s a crystal-clear assertion of disagreement with my statement, if you ask me. When puddy mocks what I said in the manner he just did, well, that tells you everything you need to know about puddy.
The Vietnam War was one of the most controversial eras in American history. (Although, like everything else in U.S. history, it doesn’t come close to the controversy over slavery that preceded the Civil War, and the Civil War itself.) My own thoughts about it are mixed: The decision of our leaders to fight the spread of communism into Southeast Asia was understandable, but mistaken; nevertheless, I hold our Vietnam Veterans in highest regard. (For that matter, I have considerable admiration for the soldiers of the Confederacy; great soldiering, wrong cause.) And LBJ, the Democratic president who took us into Vietnam, never resorted to the Gestapo-like assaults on dissent resorted to by Nixon, the president who kept us there after promising voters he’d get us out, and his unsavory crowd of hangers-on.
Vietnam not only scarred the baby boomer generation but also defined us and shaped our political thinking. The Vietnam generation, like the rest of the country, is divided of course. Some Vietnam Veterans have joined the flag-waving wingnut chorus. But their legitimate military service cred doesn’t reflect on the many Republicans of the Vietnam generation whose own personal record of patriotism and military service extends no farther than finding ingenious ways to avoiding serving with their peers and risking their butts in the jungles and elephant grass of Southeast Asia. Those people earned no cred whatsoever, and don’t deserve to be listened to by anyone, much less elected or appointed to responsible policy-making positions in our government.
I’ve met Puddy, and I’m pretty sure he’s too young to have faced the fight-or-flee dilemma that confronted my generation. He simply enjoyed lucky timing of his birth into this world. But that doesn’t give him a license to make fun of others’ aversion to war, of those of us who did have to make that choice and did so in an honorable way. By doing so, he doesn’t denigrate me; he merely diminishes himself.
I wonder if he understands that?
The most striking thing from the RealClear poll of polls is that Obama is under 50% in every swing state…and 49% or less in all but 2. Swing voters will break against the incumbent folks. Romney can seal the deal tonight by painting Obama as a naive, incompetent fool who truly believes if we treat terrorists nicely they will stop being terrorists. It shouldn’t be too difficult.
The most interesting part will be how Romney presents the indictment of Obama on Benghazi. I expect him to take his time and clearly lay out the timeline and what the obama regime alleged. I’m sure it will be painful for you leftists.
Stocks are down slightly today, following Friday’s selloff, but I’m up for the day. True, I’m only making $16 in stocks today (so far; capitalism works better some days than others), but it’s free money I don’t have to work for. No commuting or boss hassles for me!
People who don’t have investments to watch (or don’t watch their investments) might not know this, but the S&P 500 is up 15% since June 1, reflecting an improving economy. The economy is improving. Just not fast enough to suit some voters, but it has in fact gotten substantially better on Obama’s watch.
Despite all his alleged business credentials, I wonder whether Romney knows what he’s doing when he talks about the economy. Managing an economic recovery isn’t as simple as figuring out ways to profitably flip companies. I flip stocks all the time, and trust me, it’s much easier than actually running a business.
There has been a symbiotic relationship between government and business since long before anyone now living was born. It probably started before the founding of the Republic. A century-and-a-half ago, which marks the dawn of the railroad-building era, the Robber Barons were able to build the nation’s first rail networks only because of generous gifts of vast land grants from the federal government. Fast forward to today, and you see Republicans campaigning against Obama with (spurious) complaints that gas is expensive at the pump because the president hasn’t made enough gifts of federal lands to oil drillers. Coming from the free-enterprise crowd, it sounds weird.
I really don’t think Romney understands how our economy works. He doesn’t seem to grasp the importance of public education, public infrastructure, public investment in basic research, and the significance of publicly-funded safety nets in the lives of ordinary Americans who perform the nation’s work on shop floors, in retail stores, and out in the rain and snow (visualize e.g. the linemen who restore your power in winter storms). I don’t think Mitt Romney grasps what it means to work for a living. I don’t see how he can make rational decisions that will help our ravaged economy work better for the people who most need it to work well — America’s working classes who depend on jobs and employment to pay the rent or mortgage and feed their families.
That’s why, despite my own frustrations with some of the Obama administration’s economic policies, I find it so hard to vote for a silver-spoon Republican who neither understands nor empathizes with ordinary Americans.
@48 “Romney can seal the deal tonight by painting Obama as a naive, incompetent fool who truly believes if we treat terrorists nicely they will stop being terrorists.”
Only naive fools believe the man who killed Osama bin Laden and most of Al Qaeda’s other top leaders, extricated us from the bottomless pit of quagmire wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was effective in helping to topple the terrorist Ghadafi regime in Libya, and is presiding over the most peaceful world in a hundred years is “incompetent.”
Americans have much to lose in this election from making the wrong choice about who will manage our foreign policy over the next four years. The last thing we need is another Republican drumbeating psychopath warmonger in the White House; and if that’s how Romney comes across in tonight’s debate, as he is likely to, he will lose.
doesnt matter if he is a “warmonger” or not.
If you are going to wield the kind of power to put our armed forces into battle(IE, the prez and congress), then it would only seem logical that they would have at served in those same armed forces.