Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

final debate, once again, goes to Kerry. Bush's anger and antagonism was toned down quite a bit, but the smirk was back in action.

it amazes me that Bush is running solely on the basis of "Kerry's a flip-flopper who'll sell our national security to France!!!11". his debate answers were him defending his policies, attacking Kerry with value judgements (Massachusetts liberal! out of the mainstream! remember the Ted Kennedy!), and shirking all the blame for the economy's problems (it was the stock market! no, it was 9/11! no, it's uneducated workers!). has Bush actually outlined any plans for what he'd accomplish in a second term, aside from the fictitious "cut the deficit in half" thing?

I thought he was running solely on the basis that he was already the president, and being such, he is supposed to run for reelection...

Ok, enough snarkiness. But this quote (and I've heard it from pretty much every Kerry supporter) drives me nuts.




The impact that the President, any President, has on the economy is like somebody blowing on a soccer ball. You might get it to move a bit, but when you compare the other market forces that drive it, you aren't doing much. 9/11 had a small impact (it basically kicked the economy when it was already down), the stock market is nothing more than an indication of what educated people believe is going to happen 6 months from now, and as such, it doesn't bring the economy down, it goes down when the economy goes down. So what brought the economy down this time? Overvaluation of pets.com and myriad other e-companies? Not really. That had an effect, but the biggest cause was the Federal Reserve Bank and Alan Greenspan. Hoping to preempt inflation he thought would come, they raised interest rates a number of times through 99 and 2000, causing companies to stop building and stop buying, causing the recession.

And the lack of jobs is accounted for in higher productivity. During the recession, companies learned to do more with less people. Because of this, with the economy improving, they haven't had to hire new people, because their current workers are more effecient. Both presidential candidates have to promise to improve the economy to get elected, but in reality, neither of them hold the reins or have the power to make that happen. (Can you imagine the public response if one of them admitted that? )

Oooh, I'm just feeling warmed up. Let's look at Iraq. Can somebody explain to me just what Kerry will do to clean up that mess? "I'm going to go and ask the nations of the world to pay more money and donate more troops." Let him try! If that's the keystone of his Iraq plan, he's going to be very dissappointed when he finds that all the additional support he gets is no more impressive than Bush's "Coaltion of the Willing" or whatever it was called. Don't forget Poland.

And as far as cutting the deficit in half goes, that's both a promise from both of them. And though economists may disagree about who is more likely to succeed, none of them think that either of their plans have a good chance. And really, the National Debt has the lowest interest rate of any loan on the planet (except for 0% financing for 72 months with 0 down and no money till April of 2005 on all 2004 Mitsubishis), and wisdom says we should pay off our highest interest debt first. So if the debt goes up because I pay lower taxes, so that I can pay off my student debt faster, that's good for everyone. "Oh no, we're going to leave our kids with a huge national debt!" They're going to be richer than us anyways. Find any generation since the renaissance where the next generation wasn't at least a little richer than the last. And I'm not talking about inflation. Our kids will be richer than we will be, and their kids will be Bill Gates. If we have no problem with taxing rich people today more to pay it off, then we should have no problem making our rich kids pay it off. a couple of sources = http://slate.msn.com/id/2036 and http://slate.msn.com/id/89303

I'm not saying here that Bush will make a great president (No really!) It has just been bugging me that half the things that he's being attacked on are just crap. There are still plenty of other valid issues to pick a president on. Abortion, Stem Cell reseach, Gay Marriage, the guy whose personality you most like, Health Care, Education, Terrorism, and whether you think the current president did well or not at those things the last for years. The list goes on and on. But the economy, the debt, Iraq are things neither of them will measurably be better at improving. (Especially when you look at the way the President's actions on those 3 fronts will impact you personally.)

My personal biggest problem with George W. Bush is not Bush himself, but his cabinet. He's surrounded himself with idiots. Rumsfield needs to go, but the person who MOST needs to go is Condi Rice. She's less qualified for her job than Bush is qualified for his. Her ineptitude puts all of us in more danger every day she's at work.

if Bush was running on his record, he'd be losing badly.

I think that's the understatement of the year.

Here's something for those of you still drinking the "Kerry voted to increase taxes a bajillion times" kool-aid. From the L.A. Times, an article called George Bush, Tax Hiker:



The article says, "The point is that any tax bill, even a big giveaway, is going to be a rococo combination of tax increases and decreases. That's one reason Bush's "98 tax increases" jab at Kerry is so dishonest." For some reason I just like the fact that the writer uses the word "rococo".

_________________

I would also point out that Kerry's accusation that Bush gave a big honking tax break to the rich was also deceptive. The rich pay such a hugely disproportionate amount of their income in taxes (in excess of 35%), coupled with their drastically larger income. Any tax break at all will just by the sheer numbers effect them in a much larger amount than it will effect us (and I was thankful for mine, believe me).

But overall, I do think Kerry is a much more articulate and intelligent person than Bush; I just disagree with him on some key topics. But even in those cases, he does tend to take opposing viewpoints seriously. Am I comfortable voting for him? No. But I'm not comfortable voting for Bush either.

Incidentally, does anyone remember Forbush Man from Marvel Comics? The phonetic sound of the name and the quixotic nature of his character just came to mind for some reason.

_________________

Look at my sig for all the income tax figures...

I thought its was real low of Kerry to bring Mary Cheney up, I'm getting annoyed at the way Kerry talks down to us like he's better and that were just a bunch of morons. Anyone eles notice that?

I agree to that..although I'm not American I've watched the debates for one of my classes at school. I support Kerry over Bush for obvious reasons, but I do completely agree with the "talking down to" thing. Bush does seem to relate more on a personal level with the people, Kerry talks like he's superior.

_________________
"well, I'll just uh, put these pants on." ~Homestar

I don't see what the fuss about Mary Cheney is about. it's not like he outed her, and it's not like he said anything bad about her. it was an offhand comment. wow, big deal.

also, I don't get the sense that Kerry is "talking down" to people. he's being himself, unlike Bush with his "oh, ah'm jest a reg'lar guy!" schtick, which I find offensive.

Yeah. Regular guys actually have a clue what is going around them. What I don't get about Bush is that he says that being president is a hard job. Could you find that out before running for president? COME ON! I'm 13 and I know that being president is hard. Did it really take him that long to figure that out?

I'm not saying I like how Bush talks per se, I know he has the IQ of a vegetable. But I find it much more appealing than how Kerry speaks...although he might be being himself it just doesn't really appeal to me the way in which he delivers his points.

_________________
"well, I'll just uh, put these pants on." ~Homestar

Why? Kerry's mention of Miss Cheney was in an entirely positive light. Go back and read those links I provided. If Bush had mentioned Kerry's wife in a positive light when talking about immigration, would you call it "real low" of him?

What's "real low" is for the Republican party to pretend that Mary Cheney doesn't exist (remember the RNC, when she and her partner weren't invited to stand on the stage with the rest of the Cheney family?) and to freak out every time someone reminds us that she does.

_________________

You know, I'm not saying this is a good idea, but you think they WOULD have included her and her partner, to try and garner votes from the gay/lesbian population. But I guess that's just not a "Republican ideal". Then again, maybe she didn't want to be there - as a generalization, the Republican party isn't exactly supportive of homosexuals...maybe she's voting Democrat and would have felt like a hypocrite if she was up there with her Dad's party!

_________________

I would certainly understand that, but in fact Mary Cheney campaigns very actively for her father, and when her family went up on stage without her, she and her partner were both in the building.

_________________

Ahh...I wasn't aware of that....then it was, indeed, a very sad thing. I wonder who decided that she shouldn't be up there with them....

_________________

That is sad. Regardless of whether or not she is gay, she is still part of their family and should be included.

_________________

There is nothing wrong with mentioning someone as gay. It's wrong to antagonize Kerry for doing such.. Mrs. Cheney is still homophobic if she thinks Kerry was wrong to mention Mary C being gay.

Hey, did anyone see Jon Stewart blast Crossfire? That was hilarious! I freakin' love that guy.

_________________
Hot!

It was awesome. He needs his own two-hour show on CNN. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, I have lots of download links on my site here.

_________________

Nader finally got his debates, but I think he went off the deep end to get them. Picture that says a thousand words: