Presidential Politics: The Lightning Round

After reading the text of the Charlie Gibson interview with Palin I think it probably helps the McCain folks out a little as it keeps her name above the fold going into another weekend.

To say things are moving rather fast would be an understatement. Since Tuesday we have seen pigs and fish. We have seen McCain accuse Obama of being essential a child abuser with the sex
ed fabrication/ad/riff. We have seen Obama show his cool on Letterman and have lunch with Bubba. The scariest part of the Clinton lunch was listening to Clinton predict that Obama would win. After the primary season please keep your political predictions to yourself. Bill Clinton seemed to get most of his Hillary predictions all wrong and I think we all know he is doing the Obama lunch thing to punch his "I did all I could!" ticket before he returns back to his offices in Harlem to sulk/brood.

Speaking of Bill and Hillary... I have noticed have you. Some of Clinton's old allies are doing background and not so background interviews expressing their Obama doubts. These are getting a ton of play on Drudge.

For Example:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6c2f69ce-8031-11dd-99a9-000077b07658.html


They essentially second guess/write the obit for the Obama campaign and if Obama wins I hope somebody in charge is feeling vengeful and excommunicates these dead enders to the back benches for 4-8 years minimum. In a just world that would happen. Of course if Obama loses and my application for Canadian citizenship falls through I never said any of this and please pass the Moose burgers. Yummy!

A September Morning

I was getting ready for work and the radio announcer broke in to say that the TV was showing one of the World Trade Center towers on fire. One report was indicating it might have been a small plane.

I remember how the weather in the Chicago area matched the weather in NY and Washington D.C. with the cloudless blue skies. I remember driving with my wife to work and hearing radio reports that kept escalating the bad news. I remember feeling my hair stand up on the back of my neck when I learned that the Pentagon was on fire and the false reports of other explosions near the State Department and the Capital. At one point the announcer (I believe it was Dan Rather simulcast on a local CBS station) said basically let's slow down here and take a breath. The events of that day didn't let us do that. I remember pulling into work and finding all of my co-workers watching TV.

Seven years later I think of how much has changed. The world is different now (two prolonged American wars) and I am different too (two beautiful children).

The stakes for me now with a family of my own have risen. The stakes for the world have risen too.

New Job, New President... The Back To School Experience

When you leave school you imagine you are saying goodbye to so many experiences. At 38 it is clear to me that you are not so much saying goodbye to those school experiences as living them again and again in new settings. Take for example this new job I started. The first day at a new job is like heading off to a new school. Will the kids like me? Will the teacher (boss) be a jerk? As you get older maybe you get better at these experiences but regardless they keep on coming. Two weeks into this gig I find myself hoping I won't have too much "homework" and wondering if I will ever fit in with the other "kids" at work?

Presidential politics is not that far removed from the schoolyard either. Just ask McCain and Obama who have been having an epic popularity contest in the lunch room that is the modern media over the past week. Obama is all "I'm the new kid but I am cool." and McCain is all "He's the new kid you can't like him and I'm tough." It's a heck of a way to pick a president but such is life.

Not All Media Needs to be Mindless

Universities are increasingly creating academic podcasts that (in moderation) can make you a more interesting human being. I myself have yet to sample these... which may explain my struggle to be interesting.

Lost?

The recent news meme focused on various people getting lost in the wilderness or snowstorms and then getting found is interesting. It makes me wonder how this works. Are we as an audience drawn to these stories for a reason at this particular moment or is it just the news media flavor of the month? Next month will we move on to shark attacks again.