You dirty plagiarist!

you just wrote:

"There seems to be too much Elmer Gantry about all of this to be healthy for any country."

and just TWO days ago I wrote:

"It must be so painful for you to watch all these young and idealistic people rallying behind a politician...after all only you can really see that he's an Elmer Gantry, life must be tough. Wednesday, February 20, 2008 12:17 PM"

and nowhere did I see you crediting me! I'm the originator of the "Elmer Gantry" reference! You should have your posting privileges revoked! Of course if you can provide me with the footnotes to your previous post wherein you rightfully credit me with creating "Elmer Gantry" as an Obama barb, you'll be forgiven and hopefully chastened.

(i'm teasing of course...just wanted to lighten things up here in the boiler-room :)

@Maureen: You can use more than two paragraph breaks when replying in the Salon letters column. While I'm not sure it would make your arguments any more coherent, it wouldn't hurt.

@BenSen: Nice points, and I agree.

@Baby Boomers whining because we'd like to move beyond you someday: Please. You've dominated government and our political discourse for years, your retirement and the health costs of your later years are going to be a huge load on our national resources, and you're still whining because one commenter is happy you won't get to completely dominate our politics forever? That's why we call the other generation The Greatest Generation.

...and rejoice Dems. Despite drawing far fewer voters throughout the primaries, despite raising far less money, despite failing to ignite passion even among the most hardcore reactionaries in the party, despite recognizing a demographic shift that will leave them on the dustbin of history.... despite all this, they believe that the "Real America" will come rushing to their rescue come November.

The sallow, malicious, schmelly dick-breath gentlemen you see surrounding McCain at every post-primary podium are the relics of Saltypappy's "real america". Welcome to Maccacca-ville, assholes.

What with being a lifelong Democrat. I live in a country where Ronald Reagan was considered a great president. Why? Because he had charm and charisma and made us feel all warm and fuzzy. So yes, it will be Obama who gets the nod because we don't want to have to think too hard.

Guess I'll be voting present.

I have to say, the debate was about as boring as most Floyd Mayweather fights, with both sides staying technical and hitting light. It did not devolve, thankfully, to the kind of slugging match that-- though totally non-constructive-- would at least have provided some soundbites. The meeting, I think the eighteenth or nineteenth, was unnecessary.

The problem is with the way these debates are structured, and the result is that they can only reveal the half-baked ideas of Presidential wannabes. I say this as a strong Obama supporter, who has defended his viability since he first announced that he'd be making a bid, but it applies equally to Hillary Clinton (even more so, in fact, since she presents herself as a person with "thirty five years of experience", and claims to have more solid ideas). Neither candidate has a chance, in these fora, to elaborate their proposed policy solutions or to answer in detail to real intellectual critique. Instead, they speak in platitudes or gross generalities with an essence that is meant to please, to exude an aroma of something good cooking.

Here are some questions for Senator Clinton, who has made an issue of Barrack's lack of substance:

What will be the macroeconomic consequence of fixing interest rates for five years? Who will end up holding private debt? Should the government undertake engineering our economy like this? What would this do to credit supply? Is a ninety day moratorium on foreclosures likely to be effective, especially since most forecasts see a slew of foreclosures well after three months. Will this even still be relevant next January?

Or this: How additionally expensive will it be to add another tier to a proposed Universal Health Care system, one that is responsible for pursuing and collecting from people who don't comply with "mandated" insurance? What would you do as President (hypothetically, of course) if it became apparent that the previous administration had committed all sorts of war crimes (or covered them up)? When is the invocation of Eminent Domain okay? When you speak of creating "green, clean jobs", this sounds nice, but what types of jobs do you have in mind, how much of a tax incentive will be required to encourage growth of these jobs, and how will you finance this?

Many of these questions could be asked of Senator Obama, too. I fear neither candidate, at this point in time, could stand up to academic scrutiny in detail. They simply have no idea, nobody really does, and ultimately would study these issues with the help of teams of advisors-- Economists, Attorneys, Engineers, etc. In fact, the real interesting debates would take place between these people, not between the candidates themselves.

The debate between the candidates becomes, by necessity, a clash of ideas, and when ideas aren't that different, boils down to differences of philosophy. This is certainly not unimportant. Such a difference, for me, is vitally important and is the factor that allows me to strongly support Obama and to strongly reject Hillary. But haven't philosophical differences been well-known from the beginning? Do we really need more debates?

Mark W

Some letters here assert that because Clinton usually got to answer first, Obama's answers were often the same as hers.

First, the latter premise is not true. Obama repeatedly made points that Clinton did not. Take immigration: Only Obama made the important point that we should do more to discourage hate crimes against Hispanics based on unfounded suspicions of illegal status. Only Obama made the point that the war in Iraq has distracted money and attention from problems in Latin America. He also mentioned the DREAM Act; she did not. He mentioned the "stop-loss" program of the DoD; she did not.

These are but a few examples; I noticed time and again that while Obama started his answer by expressing basic agreement with Clinton's answer, he went on to point out some deeper aspect or some important overall point she had missed.

It's true that much of what they both proposed is the same. But that's because much of what they both propose is the Democratic Party platform: expanding healthcare coverage, ending the war, closing tax loopholes for the super-rich. If Obama had spoken first most of the time, then people would have said Clinton was parroting him instead.