“The Palin/McCain ticket will be disastrous for international relationships.”

Steph…I couldn’t agree more. If you pose the question “who would you prefer to handle the field of international relationships?”., as I have said elsewhere, McCain is by his own admission fairly impetuous and impatient by nature and Palin took great delight in desribing herself as a “pitbull with lipstick”. Not exactly complementary are they and it sounds like a potential recipe for disaster! Give me the cool, calm and collected approach of Obama/Biden any day! Wheras the pitbull with lipstick apprach may be neccesary on occasions, it surely has to be the exception rather than the rule!

With regard to Rayner’s earlier comments, I carefully observed both Obama’s and McCain’s speeched yesterday advocating that Senators should pass the revised finance bill. McCain looked edgy, stressed and very uncomfortable, not suoprising as he was advocating acceptance of a strategy that he and his party are not really meant to believe in (are there not issues of integrity there?).

Conversely, Obama did not look arrogant, merely calm, dignified, collected, measured and confident (which is not the same as “arrogance”).

Although initially I had doubts, over the last few days, I actually am becoming more of the opinion that both in terms of handling national issues eg the economy etc and in the field of international relations Obama is looking more like the one to trust. I have noticed that several contributors of a Republican persuasion here are becoming more aggressive in tone towards Obama. My guess is that there may be a feeling (borne out by more recent polls) that their man is on the verge of blowing his chances looking at his performance over the last few days.

My hunch is that this financial crisis could not have come at worse time for the Republican party, highlighting an already neutered and ineffective lame-duck President (let’s face it, he wasn’t even welcome at the Republcian convention, though of as being so much of a liability that his appearance was limited to a relatively brief videolink!) and a Presidential nominee who is on the verge of losing the confidence of some key floating voters.

Well now – that’s a piece of cross rhetoric.

Well, I wouldn’t want to take a class from Mr. Obama. What would he teach? He isn’t an expert in anything. He emits an intellectual arrogance that sees truth only in himself. Democrats have chosen their most inexperienced and unaccomplished candidate. Such a person who cannot learn from experience isn’t fit for the office.

David

I understand and partially share your concern over the “partisan politics” issue but I would contend that it is unhealthy to divorce our faith from our political thinking which helps shape both our lives and society as a whole.

What this site does when it operates at its at its best is to enable people with different theological viewpoints, and other viewpoints, to disuss, debate, disagree, listen and hopefully, respect each other more for it.

It also I hope helps us to understand each other a bit better which is surely beneficial.

If we simply live in polarised theological ghettos based on what we believe poiltically as much as theolgically, I would argue that is not a place where we should choose to dwell for too long.

I hoped this website would not become another forum for partisan politics. Apparently my hopes were in vain.

Kindly remove my name from your mailing list.

Can we afford to live under President Obama?

INCOME TAX :

McCAIN – (no changes)
Single making 30K – tax $4,500 Single making 50K – tax $12,500 Single making 75K – tax $18,750 Married making 60K- tax $9,000 Married making 75K – tax $18,750 Married making 125K – tax $31,250
OBAMA – (reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts) Single making 30K – tax $8,400 Single making 50K – tax $14,000 Single making 75K – tax $23,250 Married making 60K – tax $16,800 Married making 75K – tax $21,000 Married making 125K – tax $38,750
Under Obama your taxes will more than double! How does this affect you? No explanation needed. This is pretty straight forward.

Democrats love taxes. Liberals like to dress it up with fancy terms like social justice.

?

It’s official!! I have just read in “The Times” newspaper, a respected British broadsheet, a quote from Paul Ryan, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, who admitted that the reason why he and his colleagues voted the Bill down is becasue “quite simply we were terrified for our jobs”.

Call me old-fashioned if you will, but is not the primary purpose of an elected representative to primarily serve the interest of those who elected him/her to office? I am sure the electorate are delighted to hear that Mr Ryan’s concern is primarily with his own economic welfare rather than theirs!

If Mr Ryan had said I am prepared to vote this measure down because I object to the taxpayers of this country paying out on average $5000 dollars per head to bail out irresponsible fianciers I would have been much more assured, which appears to be the reason why some of the more liberal Democrats opposed the rescue plan.

As I mentioned previously I am in broad agreement with those who opposed the package for the reason outlined above. However, as I intimated in my previous post, this has the whiff of electioneering posturing all over it.

I sense that we may discover that the right decision has been taken, but, sadly, for all the wrong reasons ie self interest dressed up socially responsible clothing.

A very interesting report on from a BBC news correspondent last night.

The correspondent made a salient point. He stated that John McCain may have begun to lose some of his credibilty/leading in the standings in the poll.

His mistake apparently was, true to his nature, to somewhat impetuously suspend campaigning to fly to Washington with the intent of sorting out the financial crisis and virtually saying he was going to do. A risky stategy, if ever there was one. The intent was admirable, his ability to deliver on his promise less so.

What has now happened is that we have an incumbent Republican president who has been virtually totally ineffectual in solving the crisis and a Republican Presidential candidate who has been equally ineffectual in trying to persuade the many Republican opponents of the Bill to change their minds and support it. The correspondent also stated that more Americans a e beginning to feel that Barrack Obama, who has remained calm and level headed throughout the crisis may be the one to trust most with the economy rrather than a somewhat impetuous presidential candidate, who has as his running mate, in Sarah Palin, someone who told the world, in her own words, that she was the equivalent of “a pitbull with lipstick!” I bet you that approach goes down well in the negotiation process! Little wonder then to discover that the negotiations broke down and ended up in “a slanging match” according to news reports!

The next few days I feel are going to be crucial for John McCain. If he can be influential in helping to broker a deal behind the scenes (so far, there is not much evidence that he will be able to do so), then some of his credibilty may be restored. Barrack Obama also has a job to do to persuade the 95 Democrats who voted against the rescue package to accept some form of compromise.

For the record, and this may astound you, my sympathies tend to lie with those (mainly Republicans) who have rejected the rescure package. If the reasons for doing so are truly because they do not wish to bail oyut irresponsible financiers and to show them that they are need to be accoutable for their decisions, then I am all in favour and applaud their courage. My guess however is that the decision to reject the deal has been taken partly out of fear of a backlash from the electorate at the coming election who are unhappy about such an easy “way out” being given to reckless financiers.

Also I feel that a simplistic, knee-jerk rescue package is a dangerous road to travel down. A few more days of strenuous, considered negotiation will hopefully result in a more balanced, structured, thoughtful and considered rescue package which may be palatable to the majority of people, politicans and lawmaker alike.

My guess is that there is a great deal of brinksmanship going on here and that a more responsible, considered package deal will be hammered out over the next few days and ratified sometime over the coming weekend.

[...] second was from C. Michael Patton. Quite unsurprisingly he thought McCain was the most [...]