3-AND-OUT

A few observations from the final debate last night:

1. How great are those snap-polls? Used to be that the narrative re who won the debates was fashioned by the commentary from the pundits afterward. Kerry was slaughtered this way in 2004 -it didn't matter how people'd orignally perceived the debate the "opinion-makers" plowed on with their narrative anyway. The snap polls are a beautiful way to bitch-slap the chatterers back into reality, and it's a riot watching them fumble all over themselves back-pedaling from their declarations in the immediate aftermath as the snap-polls come in.
2. McCain is now 0-3 -when's the last time you even heard of that in a presidential race?
3. Debate prep 101 -let your WORDS make your arguments, and try to communicate as little non-verbally as possible. No one scores positive points for their reactions to the other guy's points as he's saying them. Textbook display last night -Grampy's eye-rolling, grimacing, and huffing made him look like the asshole he is.
4. Last night had to be a grand-slam, slam-dunk, game-changing smack-down or other mixed sports metaphors for Gramps, and it definitively was not.
5. Putting quotes around "health of the mother" probably wasn't a very smart move.
6. Don't set yourself up by asking your opponent to give "one, just one" example of anything, because if he does give one, just one, you look like a dork. McCain asked for one example when Obama bucked his party leaders and he gave three. Oops.
7. Joe the Plumber -it appears is a Republican plant. I expect to hear more of this in the coming days but suffice it to say that even if he's legit and McCain was just using him as a bullsh*t story it was a miserable failure. Maybe they should have asked Bob the Builder instead -oh wait his slogan is "Can we fix it? YES WE CAN!" bad idea, nevermind.

This isn't over folks. Can't let up, gotta keep the pressure on -and not just until the election -until the change we need happens and is chiseled into the American statutory framework. Think the GOP is just going to roll-over and let Obama skate once he's in the door? Think again. Look what happened to Clinton from the moment he assumed office. Can't rest. VIGILANCE!

CLARIFICATION (?)

I feel I should clarify my last post, because I re-read it and I think it could appear that while I think same sex marriages should be legal I somehow don't think they are valid. Personally and emotionally to the spouses and their friends, and legally in society they are valid in every way, and anything that adds more love and stability to the world cannot IMHO be invalid.

I was merely trying to point out that that the folks on the political right want to have it both ways -they want to use church doctrine to make secular civil law but would never allow secular civil law to determine church doctrine so their arguments are false.

I.e. I can comfortably assert that if the government were for some reason to ban the Catholic Church (or Mormon or Baptist or whichever) from marrying its parishioners, they'd still do so and recognize the marriages irrespective of the civil law. The Catholic Church e.g. sees marriage as a Sacrament that is both coexisting and separate from the civil contract, and will sanctify marriages based on their own principles regardless what the civil law says. Other churches may or may not consider same sex marriages a sacrament based on their own doctrine, but that is irrelevant to the issue here -which, make no mistake, is one of civil rights.

Therefore talk about "saving" marriage as an "institution" is legerdemain. The religious beliefs are not under attack and can be held regardless what the law says, and yet they want their religious beliefs to substitute for the law in this one instance, regardless whether it tramples the civil rights of others and thus contradicts the civil law.

Finally, I have to say that I find the fact that it's so easy to change the constitution of a state unsettling. There are two ways to change the CA constitution 1) if 2/3 of the state legislature propose an initiative, or 2) if a ballot initiative receives a majority vote. Doesn't that seem contrary to the protections of the minority embodied in the federal Bill of Rights because the Founders feared just such a tyranny of the majority? Scary.

Anyhow I hope the above clears up my position.


OTS: Here's some humor courtesy of the dailyKos:

"John, would you please go in the kitchen and fix me a ham sandwich?"

"Let me say this, Cindy. I know how to fix a ham sandwich, and I will fix a ham sandwich when I'm elected president. For starters, I know where the kitchen is and I know how to find it. I know where the plates are. I know where the bread is, and I will be the one to pull out the right number of slices and place them on the plate in such a way that the mustard can be spread. Yes, my friends, I know where the mustard is and as president I will have a plan to spread it effectively. I know this stuff because I am a maverick. I can do it and I will do it. Let's talk about lettuce. My opponent is inexperienced on this issue. I've been around long enough to know about Romaine, butter, iceberg, bib, Boston and celtuce, as well as loose greens like mesclun. But I promise you this: I will fight every day against the advancing red tide of commie cabbage and I'm not afraid to use force if necessary. I know how to lead this nation in these dangerous leafy times, my friends. Now, I see the yellow light on my lectern is blinking, but if I may for a moment address another critical issue facing this country today, and that is the thickness of domestic pre-packaged ham slices. When I was a POW, we didn’t have ham, my friends, or even a chair..."

"Oh fer god's sake, never mind. I'll have the butler do it."