Tonight I forced myself to watch the fox “news” channel for a couple of hours which included “hannity and combes” and Greta Van Sustern. I found the dialogue very interesting and I should probably force myself to do this more often. It’s just so hard to see every issue twisted in a way that is so predictable. Now, I fully understand that when I watch Keith Olberman he is totally biased (and it’s easier for me to watch because he pretty much agrees with me), but at least I can say that I don’t remember him calling his show “fair and balanced.” The truth is that whatever I watch, no matter where it comes from, I know I’m watching a “show” and not a news broadcast. There is always an agenda. That being said there were a couple interesting things said that I felt I had to comment on.

First of all, rush limbaugh apparently made some very inflammatory and racially insensitive remarks about Mexican immigrants (surprise! surprise!). Now, I know people who would probably say that rush is not a racist – but the evidence is overwhelming to the contrary. I mean he only lasted about a week on Monday night football due to a racially insensitive remark made on national television and his penchant for insensitive remarks on his radio show is legendary. He gets away with it on his radio show because there are so many people who have become totally disgusted with him and no longer listen. However, he still has a large base of “ditto heads” and he definitely has an influence on American politics, that has to be admitted whether one agrees with him or not. Tonight I found it interesting that he was trying to defend the essentially racial slur he made about Mexican Americans because Obama has taken his exact words, put them in an ad, and called out mccain on one of his many flip flops – that being the immigration issue – which has been essentially pushed under the rug because of all the other issues we’re dealing with right now. Obama is now, evidently (I haven’t seen any ads because they don’t show up where I live) giving it back to the republicans as they’ve been giving it to him. Whether or not Obama has twisted the “context” or not, I guess this proves that the republicans are correct – American politics need to be fought in the gutter. If Obama doesn’t go there, he will be labled “weak.” Now that he seems to be fighting back, he will be accused of abandoning his pledge to fight the election above “board.”

To me, Obama has no choice but to get in the mud. Tonight as I was listening to limbaugh talk about sarah palin – she is obviously the one on the republican ticket that has energized him – it was almost as if he was applauding her willingness and competence at lying. Of course, limbaugh is a famous liar and he seems duly impressed with her skill in this area. And I have to admit, she is pretty good. In fact, even after things she has claimed have been totally debunked, she continues to say them – with a completely straight face – I guess assuming that the people she is talking to don’t know any better or don’t care. Now, I realize that all politicians “spin” things to meet their needs, but the blatant outright lying coming from the palin/mccain campaign has been over the top for me. Also, palin is showing true republican credentials by refusing to allow her surrogates to answer supeonas regarding the so-called “troopergate” investigation, thereby making something that presumably was a non-issue a major one. Even the people in Alaska are wondering what does she have to hide. Why didn’t she just cooperate and therefore get the issue out of the news and behind her? If she did nothing wrong, what is she worried about? Suppposedly she has an 80% approval rating (although I believe that is inflated) in Alaska, and the commision that is investigating is made up predominantly of republicans – so doing the republican refusal to honor supeonas probably excites people like limbaugh, but to me, someone who feels he would have to answer a supeona or be jailed, it seems like a stupid choice.

The other thing I found interesting in listening to the “news” on fox, is that they are mounting a concerted organized effort to put the blame for the economic meltdown on Obama. Now, if they can pull this one off, they will be magicians! mccain has committed gaffe after gaffe this week to go along with the long line of gaffes he’s spewed out of his mouth from the beginning of the campaign regarding the economy. It only takes him a day to reverse what he said the day before – and the limbaughs and the hannitys continue to support him (although I’d guess that at this point even they would admit the economy is not sound). Tonight limbaugh reinforced in my mind why they are willing to do this. mccain’s campaign “mantra” is “country first.” However, these talking heads and their associates could never do that – they always put themselves first. 8 years of bush hasn’t affected them in any way other than to pad their net worth, they still cling to the idea that invading Iraq was wise and we need to stay there until we achieve “victory” (in fact limbaugh is now making claims that Obama has a plan to “steal” victory away from bush), the democrats ruined the economy, and I’m sure they want to “bomb, bomb, bomb” Iran. limbaugh made it clear his deepest concerns about Obama though when he said, “I can’t afford for Obama to be president, I can’t afford to pay the higher taxes.”

Now limbaugh and other republicans, including mccain, claim Obama is going to raise the taxes on all Americans – that is obvious because they know they are in the target group, those earning over $250,000 per year. limbaugh and mccain are going to have to pay a lot more once Obama is president – I can’t wait! What they don’t talk about is the way republicans raise taxes. I mean who is paying for the bailout of Wall Street? They act like no one will ever have to pay back the trillion dollars or more their failed economic policies caused taxpayers to pony up. Of course, they are famous for running up debt and then blaming it on democrats. They even rob the social security trust fund and then complain that it isn’t solvent. That’s because they have no intention of ever paying back the money they take out of it. You can’t believe a single word people like limbaugh say – they are ripping us (the taxpayers) off for billions of dollars, laughing all the way to the bank, and then convincing us that it’s the democrats fault so that they can get another four years in the “candy store.”

You know, they had a great plan – the permanent republican majority. They only need one more victory, four more years in the White House, and they will have the Supreme Court tied up for maybe 30 years. I’m sure at this point they are kicking themselves in the butt for putting gw bush in office. Watching him during this economic crisis has just shown how pathetic a leader he is. He has been invisible, with the exception of maybe five minutes to give short speeches that were written for him by people who are trying to keep him from being in a position where he has to publicly answer questions and further expose how incompetent he is. I believe the republicans are almost as anxious as the democrats to get him out of office. His incompetence is costing a bunch of them a lot of money – and, for them, that is where the “rubber hits the road.” I do hope that the democrats and republicans can work together in the next week to figure out a solution to the crisis we find ourselves in, I’m like anyone else who doesn’t want the entire economy to collapse. This whole episode just makes me feel even more frustrated that there are so many people who could vote for another incompetent politician, one who is there only because he was “born with a silver spoon,” one who looks like a toy windup doll when he’s giving a speech, and one who is totally tied into the special interests that got us into this mess in the first place. mccain is proof that the “invisible” people who are actually running the republican party just need water carriers as the politicians and they think they can win any election no matter who is on the ticket. palin/mccain (as she put it) is the epitome of the arrogance of rove and the others in the background who are really running the show. tonight limbaugh said, “we need to vote all the democrats out, you can’t work with them.” Well, I couldn’t put it better, although you might guess that I would substitute the word republican for democrat. There should be no republican voted in anywhere until they totally refute the policies of the bush/cheney/mccain crowd that got us to where we are. The republican party should be in the same category as the dinosaurs, extinct!