Ken's Comments

The link below is to an interesting story about President Obama. The gist of the Politico article is that there are some themes or "storylines" developing about the Obama Administration. If more than one of catches firm hold in the minds of the public it could damage President Obama's chances at re-election. Now you might say, give me an example - last year, the Democrats developed a story line that John McCain would be four more years of President Bush, it was not true, but it was a prospect no one really wanted. The Obama campaign picked up on that and was very successful in getting people to believe the story line and it had a lot to do with President Obama getting a significant number of votes from independent voters and conservative Democrats. Here is the link to the article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20091130/pl_politico/29993 Comments on a couple of the story lines: 1. One story line suggests President Obama is over-exposed. Interestingly, President John...

Rush Limbaugh got fooled by an internet scam but his handling of the matter afterwards concerns me. Rush was fooled into thinking that a phony document on the internet was President Obama's college thesis. What concerns me is how Rush handled the matter after learning the truth. For someone who was badly treated due to internet lies, Rush apparently did not do unto others as he wanted done unto him. Apparently Rush Limbaugh got hold of a document that was on the internet which supposedly was President Obama's college thesis. The President's College thesis was never released by the Obama campaign and seems to have disappeared. The paper and the mysterious circumstances around it were things many conservative talk show people spent a lot of time discussing. After receiving the document alleging to be the President's thesis, Rush Limbaugh read the document on the air and spent time analyzing it. Later Rush Limbaugh found out that the documents were fakes. Hey that h...

As the Bush Administration's term in office winds down we get to see who is interested in doing what is right for the Country versus who is interested in doing what is right for their party on display. President Bush, by all accounts, has been extremely gracious and helpful to the incoming Obama administration. On the other hand, we see actions that indicate Speaker Pelosi will consolidate her control of the House of Representative so that all dissenting opinions will be pushed down. The Country has not benefitted from the extreme partisanship of the Democrats during the last two years of the Bush Administration and the country will not benefit if the Democrats continue this behavior during the Obama Administration. During the post-election period, President Bush has allowed President-elect Obama to move to center stage on economic issues. A political commentator described it as the U.S. having two Presidents -- one on domestic policy (Obama) and one on foreign policy (Bush). Presi...

Gov. Palin's performance in tonight's debate changed the election -- at least for a little while. The momentum has been going against Sen. John McCain for the last few days. Gov. Palin's performance has changed that, at least for a few days. The Fox News Channel had a focus group of undecided voters -- half voted for Bush four years ago and half voted for Kerry. EVERY SINGLE PERSON said Sarah Palin exceeded expectations. EVERY SINGLE PERSON save two or three said Sarah Palin won the debate. Now... let's be honest, as a person who very much has liked Sarah Palin since I learned about her after her nomination, I had some trepidation about this debate. So I have to be honest and say part of the reaction of that group was driven from lower expectations. But that does not take away from the very, very positive impression she made. The most important impression she made on that focus group is that she spoke to us and like us. Sen. Biden is talking Washington and talkin...

I watched Sen. Barack Obama give a presentation on Friday, around mid-day. He was speaking on the Bush Administration's actions to help bail out the banking situation. I have to give credit to Sen. Obama. He did not politicize the situation, when he could have. Rather he said that he has been in contact with the Secy. of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and he, Sen. Obama, was just going to monitor the situation to wait for the specifics of the plan being developed. That was a very statesmanlike position on his part. I think it was appropriate, given all the panic that had been happening and the uncertainty. It would have been easy for Sen. Obama to try to score points, but that would not have been good for the U.S. during a time of real uncertainty. I did not see or hear any reaction from Sen. McCain, so I cannot comment on what he did or said. However, I think we need to give credit when credit is due.

Here's my first substantive post. I saw a piece in the paper today and just have to dissect this. The story is an AP story, no author attributed, it appeared in the 9-19-08 Morning Call, page A5. I don't want anyone saying I did not attribute this. :-) Small headline in the paper -- "GOP Sen. Hagel says Palin isn't qualified." The article is quoting Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as saying Sarah Palin lacks foreign policy experience and it is a stretch to say she is qualified to be president. The article also says that Sen. McCain and other Republicans have defended Gov. Palin's qualifications and cite Alaska's proximity to Russia. Now let's go through this story. First, if lacking foreign policy experience renders one unqualified to be President then shouldn't Sen. Hagel also be saying that Sen. Barak Obama is not qualified to be president? After all Sen. Obama actually is running for President. Gov. Palin is just a Vice Presidential nomi...