Update: The full debate transcript is here.
In addition to the "That One" video, here's:
More...
Make a new account
What an ass.
I guess when McCain was a naval officer, they forgot to teach him how to be a gentleman.
No one familiar with McCain's personal life could have any illusions about his being a gentleman. Parent
I thought the purpose of it was to avoid talking about his history as a de-regulator of financial markets.
Mitchell says McCain didn't have the knock-out punch he needed.
KO asks Mitchell about McCain defense of "that one" by saying he's used it before on the stump!!! But Mitchell says that minorities thought it was racist, others thought dismissive.
But they probably wouldn't do that, because there's no point in calling attention to McCain's idea. After all, people might decide it's a good idea and then where are you. Parent
That would be nice because a) I still want to see him eat a tiny little slice of humble (or, at least, gracious) pie (I don't claim to be a good person) and b) it might bring some of the remaining Clinton fence-sitters home. Parent
McCain did make some news in offering his mortgage proposal. But he didn't introduce it in an interesting way. This may be bigger news in the coming days. We'll see.
Neither candidate is good at thinking on his feet, or adapting to this current environment.
Still, Obama held his position which keeps him ahead.
Anyway, I am not sure who owns those mortgages at this point. They were sold by the lending banks to the financial institutions, who then packaged them into pools and sold investment contracts based on the project revenues from the aggregate stream of mortgage payments.
That should mean the financial institutions who packaged the mortgages into pools and issued the securities still "own" the mortgages -- that is, they have been assigned all the legal rights of the original lenders, including the right to foreclose if there is a default.
But one of the problem with the mortgage backed securities is that the purchasers can no longer predict the extent to which their securities are being or will be affected. So the government could buy the mortgages that are in default now, but how would they identify the mortgages that are likely to default but haven't done so yet? They'd have to wait and see what happens, which isn't the "immediate fix" that McCain suggests it is. Parent
(It is interesting how mafioso language, "take him out", meaning "to murder", is now mainstream.)
But this statement by Obama is so open-ended and indefinite, it does not reassure anyone that he would not continue Bush's current policy of bombing "suspected" terrorists, violating Pakistan's sovereignty, and slaughtering civilians in the process. His statement does not reassure me, and it sure as hell wouldn't reassure any Pakistanis.
McCain and Obama both make me despair that either of them would significantly alter our foreign policy which alienates peoples around the world and makes them our enemies.
I suppose that McCain is the nuttier of the two... But Obama's self-righteous style of proclaiming he would not invade Pakistan and then saying in the same sentence that he would if he felt like it ("actionable intelligence"), is scary as well. He thinks we should give Afghanistan an ultimatum to do as we wish, and if they don't, bombs away.