Max

LMAO at Obama. I'm just shaking my head at how inept this guy is as a leader... It's a sad for Americans that this guy is probably going to be re-elected by default.

Although I give Obama some credit for his ability to come to a compromise (see below), I do agree that he is a very weak leader. I also agree that he'll probably get re-elected next year, simply because I have every confidence that the Republicans will screw it up and nominate a Bachmann/Palin/Perry type.

I guess I won't be listening to anything by Randy Travis anymore.

Carl, you're entitled to like or dislike anybody you want, but I personally can never understand why somebody would chose to like or dislike an entertainer (and the products he sells) based on his political belifs. To me, it's irrelevant (unless that entertainer is running for public office).

The problem is that Obama would rather throw a lot of long-held programs under the bus in order to appear bipartisan. There is no real effort to talk to the public about how vital these programs are. Instead he has just gone along with this "let's cut waste" story, when what he knows, and what many people don't, is that those in power see "waste" as things like Social Security, Medicare, and, likely, retirement pay.

Most people--aside from partisan Democrats--concede that cuts in Social Security and Medicare are necessary in order to (1) balance our budget and (2) keep both programs solvent in the long-term. (This is not the same thing as throwing those programs "under the bus.") On the other hand, most people--aside from partisan Republicans--concede that tax increases on the rich are also needed in order to balance the budget. (In other words, neither tax increases nor Social Security and Medicare cuts alone can get rid of our deficit.) This mixture of entitlement cuts and tax increases on the wealthy is what the highly respected Bolwes-Simpson commission recommended to the president last year. For once, it seems as if the president is actually choosing to listen to that commission.

I haven't poured through this thread to see if this topic has already been discussed, but it always suprised me that NBC never chose to expand The Doctors to 60 minutes. (The surprise is even more striking when you consider the fact that DOOL expanded to an hour just three months after AW did.) The Doctors was still doing well in the ratings in 1975, so an expansion was certainly merited. Does anybody know why The Doctors never expanded?

Breaking news: Congressman David Wu (D-OR) is resigning as a result of allegations over having made sexual advances towards a fundraiser's daughter.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/07/26/wu.resigns/index.html?hpt=po_bn1

Wu's district consists of the northwest corner of Oregon, including a portion of Portland. Because it is very Democratic, there is no danger of Wu's successor being a Republican.

I am at the point where I don't even know if I'm going to vote in 2012.

Carl, if neither Obama nor the GOP nominee deserves to win, then not voting is the smartest possible choice. Like I stated before, we should not be forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.

I also may decide to vote for nobody in 2012.

Michael, I'd be willing to increase taxes on the rich in exchange for cuts in Social Security and Medicare. (It is disingenuous for some Democrats to suggest that tax increases on the wealthy will alone be enough to solve our debt problem; we'll also need to cut entitlements as well.)

The problem is that the far right (excluding Coburn) will not stand for any tax increases, while the far left is unwilling to cut Social Security and Medicare. Obama and the Congressional GOP leadership are afraid of the extremists, and consequently we are finding ourselves in the situation we're currently in.

The mainstream Boehner is just letting himself get shoved around by the very conservative Cantor. It is as if Cantor is the de facto Speaker.

Carl, thank you again for posting info about this soap opera.

Thank you so much for posting that! That opening was absolutely awesome, like all of AW's other openings.

While I've done a lot of pissing on Obama's presidency lately, the fact of the matter is that I'm also extremely disappointed in the Congressional GOP leadership. I'm starting to realize that neither political party is looking out for the common man.

There is often a stigma associated with not voting, and many state that those who don't vote have no right to complain. However, I could not disagree more: since it almost always comes down to a choice between a lesser of two evils, a voter is still forced to choose evil. The fact that about fifty percent of all Americans don't vote speaks volumes as to the current dysfunction of the political process.

How did you guys like "You Take Me Away" with the '81-'87 opening? I thought it worked, although a bit strange. Perhaps the only instance in daytime the music changed yet the opening remained the same aside from SFT. When SoapNet began airing the reruns, this was the opening:

I always wondered why there was that period from March to October of 1987 when AW had that opening you mentioned. Perhaps it was because it took that many months to perfect the glizty new computerized opening, and AW was unable to postpone Crystal Gayle's appearance on the show past March.

The same thing happened here (Canada) in the late 60's-1970's when Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister. He was worshiped by millions for his charisma and very non-traditionalist approach. Sure, it coincided with the era of free love and peace for all and he definitely played into that, but he was made out to be nothing short of a political god, much like Obama is. Now I did not live through the Trudeau era, I am basing my opinion purely on research and talking to my parents, but I can honestly say Trudeau for as many supporters as he had, he probably has 2x the detractors, and not just detractors. He's been out of power for over 25 years, dead for a decade and in certain parts of the country just mentioning his name incites anger in people.

Adam, this is such fascinating information of which I was completely unaware. Thank you so much for sharing it.

There's one more thing in regards to the whole Obama worship thing: it's equally sickening when conservatives behave the same way towards Ronald Reagan. Honestly, I don't recall ever watching a Republican presidential primary debate (in recent times) when each candidatate failed to kiss Reagan's a$$ at least once. The bottom line is that politicans are just human, and to make them out to be anything more than that is delusional and possibly even dangerous.

Going back to the topic of just how much people (and the media) used to love Obama, below is the funniest parody of this love affair that I have ever seen:

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xMZKNYaIdvs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Obama is a friggin coward so I totally agree with this viewpoint. He was never ever going to be able to come close to the pedestal he, his campaign and his mob of supporters put himself up on.

I totally agree as well, and both Adam and Qfan should be commended for speaking truth to power.

I never understood Obama's appeal, and found it beyond disgusting how so many worshipped the man and kissed the ground that he walked on. The only possible explanation for his huge popularity was that Obama was a blank slate that people could project their hopes and dreams onto. Unfortunately, voters completely overlooked the fact that he was dangerously inexperienced to become president (with a resume consisting of four years in Congress and being a "community organizer").

I think it makes a STRONG case for the democrats to go against popular conmvention and run a legitimate candidate in the primaries.

Obama should be challenged in the primaries, and many Democrats deserve to have somebody better as their standard bearer in 2012. I think that the main reason why no challenger has come forward is because Obama's huge popularity in the African American community (where his approval rating still must be at least 90%) would make it just about impossible for another Democrat to topple him in the primary. (I apologize if that past comment is perceived as racist, but it is a political reality that Obama is still so beloved by most black people.)

If the Republican Party itself wasn't in such shambles and divided and actually had a candidate worth getting behind he'd easily be a one-term president. I think Obama may set a precedent here because usually when the economy is bad, and its BAD right now and probably only going to get worse, that usually spells instant death for an incumbent... probably not.

At this point in time, I believe that any one of the three mainstream Republican candidates--Romney, Pawlenty, and Huntsman--would have a strong chance of defeating Obama. However, it is extremely scary that Bachmann's campaign has caught so much fire. If she were to actually capture the nomination, I would not be surprised if a serious independent candidate enters the race.

All I gotta say is that it ain't workin' now, friends... Obama is NOT performing well at all. His economic policies are failures... the stimulus was an outrageous waste of money that tremendously accelerated growth of the debt... foreign policy is in shambles... a trail of broken promises to every special interest group out there.

Clearly, this country is NOT in better shape today than when he took office.

Brian, you're wrong! If not for our beloved president--who has been working tirelessly to fix our economy ever since the day he took office--the unemployment rate would be at 25% right now! Clearly, even after two and a half years of Barack in office, our entire economic mess is still the complete fault of Bush (that idiot who can't string together a complete sentence and yet still managed to steal the 2000 election).

It's truly a party of evil. On the one hand they want tax cuts for the rich and create the debt from Clinton surpluses, and on the other they complain and want the poor to pay more to finance their tax cuts and debt which was created from their tax cuts and wars of choice based on lies. It's sickening, they are sickening, and anyone who votes for them is sickening too.

Qfan, your statemant that anybody who has ever voted for a Republican is sickening is way out of line. For argument's sake, even if everything in the Republican Party platform is pure evil, there are still thankfully people in this society who base their voting decisions on the quality of the particular candidates in any given race, as opposed to basing those decisions on whether said candidates simply have an "R" or a "D" next to their names.

Whatever happened to Prince Ali? (I've seen the final episode, and he is not in it.) How did his relationship with Sloane end? It's unfortunate that these two never became a supercouple.

Based on the tiny bit of Capitol that I have seen, it is way superior to B&B. For a California soap, Capitol had a very strong cast. And if it had B&B's timeslot, I have little doubt that Capitol would have been a much bigger hit than it was.

I really wish AW did crossovers with other P&G soaps back in the 80's & 90's. (The only pre-cancellation AW crossovers occurred in the 60's.)

And it was beyond stupid for AW and ATWT to have shared the same time slot from 1987-99. Why on earth did executives at CBS, NBC, and P&G agree to this? (This is especially puzzling when you consider that P&G once forbid its soaps on opposite networks to compete against each other.)

Carl, since the New York Times is a liberal paper, it's no surprise that they would have an editorial that focuses on what's wrong with Texas' economy. To counterbalance the editorial you posted above, please refer to this piece from the conservative Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304259304576375480710070472.html

Amoung the facts cited in this editorial are the following:

*37% of all new jobs in the U.S. (since the recovery) were created in Texas.

*Since June 2009, Texas added about 265,000 new jobs (out of a nationwide total of 722,000). New York comes in a distant second in this measure, adding only 98,000 jobs, followed by Pensylvania at 93,000.

*Texas is one of only three states to have experienced a net increase in jobs since December 2007. (North Dakota and Alaska are the others. DC, while not a state, also has experienced a net increase in jobs.)

It's very rare for a campaign to crash and burn so spectacularly the way Newt's has. Off the top of my head, the only other comparable presidential campaign was that of Joe Biden (in 1988), where he was forced to immediately withdrawl after he plagarized that British politician's speech.

Some speculation that the new favored son will be Rick Perry, who has spent the last decade destroying Texas.

While Perry is very far to the right, I have to give him credit for being a competent executive. I fail to see how Perry spent the last decade destroying Texas (could you please elaborate on your opinion, Carl?), given that the economy is in much better shape in Texas than in most other places in America. (Throughout the last decade, Texas' relatively strong economy and low cost of living has been responsible for massive population growth; this growth, in turn, has resulted in the state gaining four additional House seats.) While it's debatable if Perry is responsible for this, Democrats have wasted no time in giving Arnold sole responsibility for California's especially dreadful economy.

Regarding 2012, I have to reconsider my previous statement that no Republican (other than Huntsman) has a chance to defeat Obama. What has caused me to change my mind was the especially horrendous economic data released in the last couple of weeks: (1) unemployment over 9%, (2) the number of jobs created last month were three times lower than what was estimated, and (3) housing prices are still in the gutter. (Of course, it's amusing to watch Democrats "spin" the overall economic picture by taking some good piece of economic news--like the successful auto bailout--and act as if Obama's done a masterful job on the economy as a whole.) If numbers like this continue over the next seventeen months, then Obama will lose to any Republican who's not on the far-right, even to a dull and boring candidate like Romney or Pawlenty.

To further support my assertion that Obama is in danger, his approval rating (according to a recent CBS News poll) is at 48%. (This approval rating would be much lower were it not for the Bin Laden killing and the perception that Obama is so "likeable.") As a general rule, if an incumbent's approval rating is lower than 50%, he loses re-election. Now, Democrats have been comforted by polls showing Obama ahead of each of his potential Republican rivals. But this is a false sense of security, because (aside from Palin) the general public knows little or nothing about the GOP field. (In fact, because Clinton was still little known back in the spring of 1992, he was beind President Bush in the polls, despite the fact that--by then--Bush's approvals were poor.) In actuality, these polls (that show Obama ahead of the Repbulicans) shold be worrysome to Democrats because Obama (in most of these polls) is garnering less than 50% support.

I'm surprised that nobody else has brought this up (especially Carl, who loves to talk about current events and post news articles), but I have to say that I am very disappointed that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie took a state government helicopter to his son's baseball game. This action is extremely hypocritical on Christie's part, given that he has built a national reputation on being a fierce opponent of wasteful spending. (Let me make clear that despite Christie's hypocrisy, I still support the deep budget cuts that he has proposed, because I feel they are necessary in a time of deep recession. The only other alternative would be to raise taxes on individuals of all income levels, since a tax increase for the very wealthy would not bring in enough revenue to sustain NJ's massive government budget.)

Now, Christie maintains that these helicopter flights cost the state no extra money. (I forget his reasoning behind this statement.) However, even if that is true, Christie's actions create the preception of wasteful and unnecessary spending, and any smart politican knows that perception equals reality. Since Christie is asking so many others to do more with less, he--by virtue of being a leader--should follow suit. The fact that Christie did not do so shows that he is not yet ready for prime-time, and seriously hampers his future presidential ambitions.

Max, even quite a few Republican strategists have said, albeit anonymously, that the Medicare ads worked. So did Paul Ryan. Jack Davis is a gadfly. He likely took from both sides. The GOP spent months attacking him because they assumed when his numbers went down, his supporters would go to Corwin. Instead, many went to Hochul. In order for Corwin to have won, she would have needed just about every single Davis vote. That was unlikely.

Carl, I never said that those Medicare ads didn't work; instead, what I said was that Davis' presence on the ballot--as opposed to those ads--was the primary reason why Corwin lost. (However, in a district that is not so heavily Republican, such Mediscare tactics may very well be the primary reason for a Democratic victory.) As I stated before, the facts bear this out: the number of votes that Davis got was more than double the margin of Democratic victory. It is extremely hard for one to believe--as you are suggesting--that Davis took equal numbers of votes from both sides, given that he ran under the Tea Party mantle (despite once being a Democrat-in-name-only).

Democrats know Edwards is scum. The difference which you always fail to acknowledge or even admit begrudgingly is the republican party bills itself as the party of family values, social conservatism and morality to the point they once claimed they had the moral majority. So while its true when democrats screw up--and they do--it is bad, when a republican screws up the hypocrisy is off the charts. We just saw this recently when the great thinker, the man with the supposed 100 ideas a day, claimed he was right to persecute Bill Clinton because his own infidelities informed him just why Clinton was wrong. So yeah, a democrat cheats on his wife, he cheats. A republican cheats on his wife, well he cheats too, so why was he on TV just the night before voting to protect marriage and family values from the evil fags that are out to steal all good little christian boys and do immoral acts Jesus would not approve of? And we know Republicans are the party of Jesus and family and the commandments because Republicans say this on a weekly basis it seems.

It isn't the democratic party that tries to legislate against sin as it breaks every commandment in the book. That is strictly a republican thing.

Quartermainefan, I agree that as a general rule, it is very hypocritical when a Republican engages in immoral behavior, given that many of them constantly bill themselves as the party of social values. (If I've failed to state this before, I apologize.) However, in Arnold's case, it is quite different, because he always presented himself as a Republican-in-name-only, especially on the social issues. Rather than running as the candidate who "held the mantle of Jesus," Arnold was always despised by social conservatives. Therefore, to suggest that Arnold's affairs (as despicable as they were) show the same level of hypocrisy as Gingrich's affairs is very disingenuous on your part.

Carl, in the special election that you are referring to, the Tea Party candidate (Davis) garnered 9,500 votes, which was more than double the number of votes of the Democratic margin of victory. While the Democrats "MediScare" tactics no doubt helped Hochul, it is nothing more than partisan spin to suggest that those tactics--as opposed to Davis' presence on the ballot--were the primary reason why Corwin lost.

So long as we're sharing news articles, here's one I'd like to post, about the Justice Depatment lauching an investigation as to whether John Edwards illegally used campaign money to pay Rielle Hunter (his mistress):

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/25/edwards-investigation-appears-close-to-an-end/?hpt=T2

You know, it's funny: while the Democrats are now having so much fun trashing Arnold for his out-of-wedlock child, they apparently feel no regret (or hypocrisy) for voting for a man who did exactly the same thing.

Carl, Daniels is not running because his family was strongly opposed to the idea (and this is according to something that I heard on Lawrence O'Donnell's show, which of course airs on ultra-liberal MSNBC). The fact that he is hated by social conservatives has nothing to do with it. (Furthermore, one can still be hated by social conservatives and wind up winning the GOP nomination, as witnessed by McCain in 2008.)

It is so very rare for a politican to put family over one's own ambitions, and for this Daniels should be applauded. Of course, it a real shame for the Republicans that he declined to run, since the GOP field is now weaker than ever. (I can only hope like hell that Huntsman will run.)

MichaelGL, I just don't see Romney winning the GOP nomination due to (1) his long history of flip-flopping on social issues and health care and (2) anti-Mormon prejudice (which means that he'll likely never win a primary in a southern state). Outside of the Mormon community and individuals who make over $100,000 (and support among both of these groups is not nearly enough to win the nomination), Romney just doesn't appeal to a whole lot of people. One thing that has always puzzled me about Romney was his decision to move to Massachusetts and establish a political career there: if he had just stayed in Utah and ran for that state's governorship, he wouldn't have had to take issue stances that were so outside the GOP mainstream (that were necessary to take in order to win a statewide election in Massachusetts), and therefore would not need to be currently doing all this flip-flopping.

Prior to last week's debate, I had never even heard of Herman Cain. Although he has an interesting personal story, I don't see him lasting very long in the race. (I'm guessing he'll drop out well before the Iowa caucuses.)

In my last post I had said that Daniels is the only potential Republican candidate who has a chance of beating Obama in a general election (now that Huckabee is not running). I'd actually like to now revise this statement, because I had forgotten (back when I wrote that post) about another potential candidate: former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman would also have a reasonable chance of defeating Obama. Huntsman would be an attractive nominee not only because he is a moderate, but also because he served as Ambassador to China. (The foreign policy expertise that Huntsman has would help to negate the advantage Obama now has in that area as a result of Bin Laden's killing.) Unfortunately, I feel that Huntsman has almost no chance at winning the nomination precisely because he is a moderate and because he served as Ambassador to China under Obama. (In addition, he would have to deal with the same issue of anti-Mormon prejudice that Romney is facing.)