The view from here

I taped The View today because Bill Clinton was on and I just watched it. I miss him, even if he did go a little nuts on the campaign trail and may have cost Hillary the nomination.

His suggestions about the economy were: go ahead with the bailout (what choice do we have) but allow people all over the country to re-finance their mortgages with payments they can afford, so that we could actually make some money. That's what they do in Iowa, by the way, where farmers have had to re-finance their mortgages for years and it is one of the only states that routinely does that.

It was great to hear him talk about the issues (although he wasn't tremendously enthusiastic about Obama - maybe some sour grapes?) Anyway, I can't wait until the debate this Friday night. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high (remember Gore vs. Bush?) Clinton did say that he thinks Obama will win the election because: a) more than two thirds of the country is struggling financially and the Wall Street crisis is certainly leading to deep distrust about the Republicans, b) diversity is increasing - racial, religious, cultural, etc., and that is the Democratic demographic, c) Democratic registration is up and Republican registration is flat. Of course, we still don't know what's happening with the voting machines.

Frank Rich said in his column that Joy Behar was becoming the new Edward R. Murrow. You go Joy! I loved the way she confronted John McCain last week and I like her. I would love to see Sarah Palin come on the show. She wouldn't dare. I also appreciate Campbell Brown's criticism of the McCain camp and their chauvinistic treatment of Palin, keeping her "safe" from the press.

And this is one of the best things I've read lately. Aaron Sorkin's imagined scene between Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and Obama in Maureen Dowd's column yesterday in the NY Times, this is the final speech:


"BARTLET GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!"