pundits

This could prove to be some real entertainment:

As Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan comes to a final decision about running for president, several top national conservatives are encouraging him to join the race. Ryan, who has been seriously but quietly considering a presidential bid for several months, is expected to decide on a run in the next two weeks

Indiana governor Mitch Daniels hopes he runs. “If there were a Paul Ryan fan club, I'd be a national officer,” Daniels said in a phone interview Wednesday morning.

One issue with Ryan is his age:

Daniels also dismisses concerns about Ryan’s age. “It didn’t stop the last guy,” he says, laughing. “This president would have a hard time arguing that Paul wouldn’t be a serious candidate.” When asked if that might be an object lesson, Daniels says no. “It’s a natural question but I think people would be reassured both by hearing him talk and by the people he’d put around him.”

Ryan is 9 years younger that Obama, which would make him 5 years younger at the time of a Presidential run. But I don't really view age as a big deal. The only ones who really seemed concerned about that was the Republicans in 2008, when they were talking about Obama. It does make for an interesting argument though - is a white man mature enough to run for office, when a black man, 5 years older, wasn't? 

But let's consider the real issues here, not the typical faux issues manufactured by politicians and pundits. 

A new poll by the New York Times finds very bad news for Congress:

A record 82 percent of Americans now disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job — the most since The Times first began asking the question in 1977, and even more than after another political stalemate led to a shutdown of the federal government in 1995.

More than four out of five people surveyed said that the recent debt-ceiling debate was more about gaining political advantage than about doing what is best for the country. Nearly three-quarters said that the debate had harmed the image of the United States in the world.

A poorly rated Congress was one of the key talking points of the 2010 mid-terms. Republican candidates and pundits constantly talked about the poor ratings of Congress and how they would work harder for the people and turn that around. Well guess what? We have another broken promise. While the public views both parties very unfavorably in the debt crisis, the GOP does get more of the blame:

Republicans in Congress shoulder more of the blame for the difficulties in reaching a debt-ceiling agreement than President Obama and the Democrats, the poll found.

The Republicans compromised too little, a majority of those polled said. All told, 72 percent disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress handled the negotiations, while 66 percent disapproved of the way Democrats in Congress handled negotiations.

But the biggest part of this poll gives bad news to the Tea Party:

The U.K. is pissed. They are tired of U.S. lawmakers and pundits insulting them to gain political points in the health care battle, and now the U.K. is fighting back:

The fractious British political classes have united in defence of the UK’s healthcare system after it has become a byword for the failings of universal, state-funded provision among the US Republican right.

Gordon Brown, prime minister, and David Cameron, leader of the Conservative opposition party, on Friday both declared their commitment to the National Health Service.

What does it say about our political system when our lawmakers can go out and flat our slander our allies in order to gain political points?

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and I think I have a solution. President Obama should have a prime time town hall meeting covered by all the networks. He should also have a guest with him. That guest should be Gordon Brown or another high ranking U.K. official to dispute all the lies put out by Republicans. Give them a chance to defend their system against our poisoned political dialect.

Now that would be must see T.V.

And this is really her:

MONTREAL — A Quebec comedy duo notorious for prank calls to celebrities and heads of state has reached Sarah Palin, convincing the Republican vice-presidential nominee she was speaking with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. In the interview, which lasts about six minutes, Palin and the pranksters discuss politics, pundits, and the dangers of hunting with current vice-president Dick Cheney.

Classic!

We have just endured eight years of "cowboy diplomacy" by George Bush. This has given us such zingers as "bring it on" and "we are going to conduct a crusade". Bush's mentality has further alienated this country from the rest of the world and extinguished our status as the shining city on the hill.

One thing you do have to admit though is that Bush can pull off these stunts and still maintain some appearance of likability. Disagree with him 100% on policy, but he is still the guy you would want to have a beer with.

Now enter John McCain. Josh reminded me this morning of a very testy exchange between Obama and McCain back in 2006. McCain was upset that Obama wouldn't support his plan for a bipartisan commission to come up with lobbying/ethics reform, instead choosing for such reform to go through normal committee. This led to McCain firing of a very nasty letter to Obama for not supporting him.

While refreshing my memory on this little exchange, I noticed something that sounds very familiar:

"That's why I am not going to win Miss Congeniality again this year in the Senate."

As you can guess, John McCain said that. It's something he repeats on the campaign trail still and even brought up in the first debate.

There are a couple of issues here that should be taken up by the media and pundits. First off is John McCain's admission that he isn't congenial. We need someone who can lead our country by understanding and working together, not someone who wants to strong arm any objections into submissions. No matter how you slice it, the Democrats will retain control of Congress this year and probably end up with a more solid majority. Having a President McCain, who admits to not being congenial, is a perfect recipe to have a Congress less effective as we do now.

They are going crazy trying to spin away the mountain of new polls showing Obama breaking way out in the lead. Chuck Todd is a major player in this spin game. But it's funny when you think back a couple week ago when McCain had his post-convention bounce. Then all we heard was that Obama should be way out ahead with the change atmosphere. Like I have said in the past - Obama's dammed if he does, dammed if he doesn't.

Cenk has come up with a real good reason that McCain wants the debate moved:

Then I realized why they didn't want to have this debate now. The first debate is on foreign policy. Conventional wisdom and the McCain camp believe this is their strong suit. But the news cycle is dominated right now by the economic problems, which plays to Obama's advantage. There was already news out that some of the questions would have to be about the economic situation at hand. And those are the questions that would naturally make the most news.

It's not that the McCain campaign doesn't want to have this debate; it's that they don't want to have it now. They think it is terrible timing for their side. They want people to focus on the foreign policy debate and this would be the worst possible time for that.

This makes perfect sense. McCain stood losing the one debate he was predicted to dominate. That prediction was by all pundits and even Democrats, but since the subject of the debate will most likely be changed or truncated, McCain has to rush to change the debate.

Everything in politics is calculated. I have spent enough time in politics to understand this. Before a decision is made, advisers get together and decide the pros and cons of any decision. To the McCain campaign, the pros outweighed the cons.

Let's look at some of those pros and cons real quick:

It seems like the general consensus amongst the pundits regarding John's big moment is the same feeling I had watching it - yawn. He didn't lay out a single policy, and instead stayed on his "change" platform. Funny - it seems like every Republican has said that since I can remember.

As matter of fact I didn't hear any policy come out of this convention. Instead it was a bunch of promises, with no roads on how to complete them. Something else I noticed missing - immigration. I guess that problem has been solved, because the Republicans sure seem to be ignoring it now.

It was just another Republican convention. Palin was the big winner of it, but as the media reminded us so well when Biden was picked, you're not voting for the vice-President, you are voting for the President.