Scripting News

It's not over until Bush and Cheney leave town

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:30:24 GMT

There are four distinct possibilities.

1. The need for a bailout is a bluff, so nothing happens and Bush finally looks wholly like the idiot asshole that he is. McCain suspended his campaign for nothing. The Republican Party loses in a landslide in November.

2. McCain votes for the bailout, providing cover for other Republicans to follow him, and enough Democrats will sign on so the bailout passes. The Republicans who vote for it blame McCain for the mess, and he loses to Obama, in a landslide, and the Republicans lose more seats, but most of them get re-elected anyway. (Democratic voters think the bailout sucks but it's not a matter of religion for them as it is with the Republicans.)

3. McCain convinces Bush & Cheney to resign, Pelosi becomes President until January 20, and a Democratic Congress and Executive passes the bailout, all Republicans who have conservative constituencies vote against it and win re-election in November. A few Democratic incumbents get thrown out because the public will hate the bailout, even if it works. Pretty good chance the next Senate has a Republican majority, maybe the House too.

4. The need for a bailout is not a bluff, Bush refuses to leave, McCain refuses to sacrifice his candidacy, the Republicans in Congress won't vote for the bailout so neither will the Democrats, and the world economy melts down.

Okay it's your choice. Which of the four scenarios do you think will prevail?

I think the hot potato lands in Bush's lap. His father comes down and tells him playtime is over, he has to leave to save the world economy, and what little remains of the Bush name, and we limp along until Obama takes office on Jan 20.

Now McCain wants to cancel the VP debate

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:15:40 GMT

Maybe this was the whole point of all the gimickry of McCain's announcements today, to provide a lot of smoke to hide the fact that they can't put Palin up in front of the country live.

CNN: "McCain supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham tells CNN the McCain campaign is proposing to the Presidential Debate Commission and the Obama camp that if there's no bailout deal by Friday, the first presidential debate should take the place of the VP debate, currently scheduled for next Thursday, October 2 in St. Louis."

Aside from the financial crisis, the candidacy of John McCain is melting down today. Never seen anything like this.

McCain to suspend campaign

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:56:56 GMT

11:55AM: Just heard an announcement on MSNBC that McCain has requested that Friday's debate be postponed so he can focus on the economic plan in front of Congress. He also said he plans to suspend his campaign until the crisis is resolved? Not clear on exactly what was said, but this is obviously a big deal.

AP: McCain calls for debate delay.

First reaction -- this is the right thing to do. Whether you like it or not, McCain's vote on this matter is pivotal, and being in debate prep is probably not the best place for him to be.

Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) says he's not so sure McCain's presence is needed in DC. He says the American people could hear from the candidates in the debate. So it's not clear that Obama is going to react positively to the McCain move.

Picture of McCain announcing the suspension of his campaign.

My first reaction was probably wrong -- this was an intensely political decision by McCain and a bit of a double-cross as Obama was trying to work out an agreement between the campaigns privately when McCain decided to go public.

Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post has background.

Lots of new stories on today's NewsJunk.

Wonkette calls McC's move a bluff-in-vain. "You could tell after seeing that new Washington Post/ABC News poll this morning that McCain would need one helluva muppet stunt to get himself a farthingworth's of non-horrendous attention."

"The debate is on," a senior Obama campaign official told ABC News.

MP3 of Obama response to McCain.

Listen to yesterday's FreshAir

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:33:59 GMT

If you want to spend 40 minutes getting a high-speed update on the financial crisis, I highly recommend yesterday's Fresh Air interview with NY Times financial reporter Gretchen Morgenson.

There's a chin-dropping number in the interview. $60 trillion. It's the dollar value of insurance purchased to back up the money market. It's as if all the neighborhoods in the world were on fire and the insurance industry is going to have to deal with claims on all of it. Obviously, they never planned for that. But there's a lot more shocking stuff in the interview, and it raises far more questions than it answers. If you're like me, and put off understanding how our financial system really works, I'd suggest clearing out 40 minutes and have a listen.

Update: Aaron Pressman, in a comment on this post, suggests (gently, much appreciated) a rewording. "The $62 trillion (not $60) is the total amount of credit default swaps, or insurance policies, that financial firms have written on all types of debt, not just money markets. So: It's the dollar value of insurance purchased to back up bond market investments. It's the amount that banks and insurers are on the hook for if absolutely everything goes down the tubes."

What if a Great Depression starts this week, part 2

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:14:05 GMT

If you love movies as I do the Great Depression was a time of tremendous growth in the art of moving pictures. Some great technology had just come online at the end of the Roaring Twenties, talking pictures, and that art matured in the 30s, when some of the greatest movies of all time were produced. So if there's going to be a Great Depression, get ready to go to the movies, a lot!

Did McCain know Davis was on Freddie's payroll?

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:14:07 GMT

The first question raised by this amazing NY Times piece:

Did McCain know his campaign manager was also on the Freddie Mac payroll?

If he knew, McCain is corrupt to the core, if he didn't -- he's a figurehead who his own people don't respect or protect.

Either way it's not a good thing for a potential future President.

My guess, and it's just my guess is that McCain didn't know, that he sold his campaign to Davis and Schmidt when it was clear he had no way to win against Obama, and in doing so guaranteed himself a ceremonial role in his own administration if they could win the election. These are the people who write the speeches for Pailin, who designed her candidacy and it's looking more and more like Frank Rich hit the bulls eye in his Sept 13 piece about Palin and Whathisname (that would be McCain). McCain is the old brand that gets this crowd of Bush/Cheney/Rove Republicans back in the White House. After the election they'll just resume doing what they were doing during the previous two Republican administrations. And it still might work. It's hard to imagine that this revelation will mean much to people already planning to vote for McCain.

McCain's blogger calls the NY Times "an Obama advocacy organization."

The real estate bubble

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 02:28:11 GMT

I wonder if a lot of people understand how the financial crisis came to be. I'm not sure I would understand it if I hadn't gone to visit a friend who in the Sierra foothills last year.

She had inherited a house at a resort 10 years ago and had been living there ever since. It's a big house, but the construction wasn't finished. There were fixtures to be installed upstairs, and the driveway wasn't paved, but for the most part it was done.

She didn't have a job, but she had been taking out loans on the property every couple of years, and at first I didn't understand how she could do that, until I realized that the property value had kept increasing so even though she was spending most of the money she borrowed on living expenses and improvements to the property, she always had equity she could borrow against. Every two years she'd take out another loan, max out her equity, but in a couple of years the value would go up and she'd be able to take out another loan.

Until the value stopped going up, then the party was over. She still had to make payments, but now she didn't have the means to. She defaulted, left the house, and the bank took over. If they could sell it, it would be at a considerable loss.

I think a lot of people were doing that.

And I think that's where the trouble started. Making those loans was a profitable business, and a lot of people wanted some of the action. At one point I even wondered how I could, but I never (thankfully) figured it out. As long as real estate kept going up, everyone kept making money. There was even a way to rationalize it. The United States is where everyone in the world wanted to live. So property would keep increasing in value as long as there was growth somewhere in the world. But it turns out that China and India, Russia and Brazil are pouring their new money into their own countries, reproducing the infrastructure we already have, building their own highways, hospitals and universities.

When real estate started going down, the value of all those mortgages went down, in some cases way way down. Then the house of cards built on the ever-increasing value of real estated collapsed. That's the part you've been reading about. Banks need to have a certain dollar value of assets to back loans they get from other banks. When the value of the assets go down, their loans get called, they have to sell these assets to pay back their creditors, but no one wants to buy them. That's when you hold up the big Fail sign and hope someone thinks you're too big to Fail.

But really, this is probably the shit hitting the fan, it's probably not a liquidity crisis as Paulson says. It's our laziness, our thinking that our superior military and nukes would guarantee us a permanent position at the top of the pyramid. We don't make enough of the things people want these days, and instead of investing in building better education, health and infrastructure, and solving the energy problem, we've been lying to ourselves.

We also fucked up by electing idiots to lead us, and letting the press get away with providing entertainment instead of keeping us informed on what the rest of the world was doing. This led us to elect ever more dishonest idiots to lead us, and they didn't like what little oversight the press provided leading to the ridiculous situation where the candidates won't even sit down for an interview, and you can hardly blame them, the reporters are such incompetent jerks.

I heard someone say that the real estate bubble isn't the problem it's the canary in the coalmine, the first financial crisis of a series of crises. I believe this is probably true. I thought we had time to solve these problems, what Obama was saying and certainly still is saying are the right things: education, health care, infrastructure, energy. And pull back from the short cuts. We can't afford boondoggles like the war in Iraq, but it may already be too late.

No matter what, as a country we have to stop looking for the quick fixes, and start thinking about our future and doing the things we need to do to have one.

Of course all this comes at an opportune moment. We can change direction on November 4. That's not actually very far away and another opportunity like that won't come for a long time. Something to think about.

Bush and Cheney must resign

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:09:38 GMT

I'm absolutely sure the economic bailout story is going to end with Bush and Cheney resigning. Or more accurately, not end, but move on to the next phase. Pretty sure they will be gone by the end of the week.

It's the only thing that will give Republicans cover, and will let the Democrats feel they are not being set up. It will get everyone's attention and remove the theory that it's more Bush-Cheney deception.

Bush and Cheney have no credibility, the only thing they can do right now to help the country, if that's really what they're doing, is to step aside.

I wrote up the idea in more detail yesterday.

It's going to shake a lot of people up, but they have to go, now.

A sure sign this idea will come up on a broader level is this story on Politico about an open rebellion among House Republicans in a meeting with Cheney earlier today.

Meanwhile OpenLeft says the Paulson plan is a sham, and former Speaker Gingrich urges Congress to reject it, saying any Rep that votes for it will lose in the November election.

Update: An alternate theory -- if McCain puts his head on the chopping block that could provide enough cover for Republicans and Democrats to vote for the proposal.

I don't use my iPhone as a computer

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:18:15 GMT

I bought my iPhone on June 29 last year, the first day they were available. A couple of months later, I realized I wasn't using my Blackberry and a couple of months after that, I turned it off. I don't miss it, even though I loved it when I was using it because it meant I didn't have to lug around my laptop to be in range of email and Twitter.

Now a funny thing has happened since I got my Asus, I've stopped using my iPhone as anything other than a phone. The Asus is a much better computer than the iPhone, and eventually I think I will come to use it as a phone too (with Skype). I won't give up much since I have an EVDO modem, so I'll be able to use it anywhere I can use an iPhone.

I won't miss using the iPhone as an iPod because that part of the iPhone only worked for the first couple of weeks, after that, no matter what I do, even after reformatting the phone several times, and using it on different computers, I can't get it to synch music or videos with the desktop computer. Never mind that synching with a desktop computer is ridiculous for a fully capable computer as the iPhone is, but that's the point -- iPhones are crippled computers, from the start, designed not to function like a computer. So why would anyone think you could happily get it to work like one?

That's the sad conclusion to the tale of Alex Sokirynsky, the developer of the Podcaster app. He built the software Apple hasn't gotten around to building and as far as we know never plans to build. HIs software works the way I always intended podcasting to work. Go listen to the early Trade Secrets podcasts I did with Adam Curry four years ago in Seattle. We talked about podcast player devices that had wifi receivers that downloaded and played your favorite programs without help from a bigger computer. Synching was never part of the vision of podcasting. You can see it as requirement #1 on my spec for a new podcast player device in the piece I wrote for the BBC last year.

Anyway, no need to wait for Apple. As Sokirynsky says, there will be other platforms, and it would be easy to make a perfect podcast player app for the Asus. It has such long battery life, and you can configure Windows to keep running when you shut the laptop cover, so there's no problem using it as a player. It's a bit overkill, but then Apple doesn't make a rational podcast player, and willfully shuts one down created by a developer, so it's the best we have right now.

And today's Asus actually costs $200 less than the iPhone I bought last June.

Yeah I think I'm beginning to move away from Apple, again. We'll see how it goes.

What if a Great Depression starts this week?

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:43:23 GMT

How do you prepare for a Great Depression? I was thinking of doing an extra backup. Ordering a few month supply of MREs from Amazon? What else?

Always thinking ahead, it's possible that by this time next week our economy will lie in ruins, people will be hungry in the streets, out of work, and we'll all be in for an incredible hardship possibly for the rest of our lives.

Last night at dinner I was musing about this subject. There still are plenty of people around who remember the last Depression. I think some people held onto their work and dignity and were able to put food on the table and stay in their homes. My house was built just before the Depression and it's still here.

I don't have a job now, I guess I'm basically retired, although I'm always looking for a new deal that I could make money with. I've basically been retired this way since I got out of grad school in 1979.

Anyway, I hope we avoid the Depression. I kind of like the way things were going there, hope we can get around this corner without electing a fascist government too.

PS: I recently saw The Dancer Upstairs, which I enjoyed, and in it there's a character, a woman, who is always asking what she should wear to this or that. At one point she asks what she should wear to a revolution. I thought of Meg Fowler, and wondered what she would wear to a Great Depression. What's the right kind of makeup? Shoes? I admit to not understanding women or Great Depressions, but am fascinated by both.

We won't get fooled again

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:59:10 GMT

There's this great Who song that you should play before reading this post. One of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time. They sang about their generation and the magic bus, told Tommy to go to the mirror, but today's song is about not getting fooled again.

Flash back to the United Nations on 2/5/03. An impressive almost Presidential Secretary of State, Colin Powell, delivering some chilling news, not coming right out and saying it, but definitely leading you to believe that Saddam has nukes and chemical weapons and stuff even more horrible and is getting ready to use all of it in some unspecified horrible way. It's the lack of specificity that makes it so chilling.

Consider the whole scenario. Powell can't tell us what the danger is because that would violate some security that he can't violate. Well, I did what a lot of Americans did that day, I sucked it up and got behind my government. And they suckered me. And I'll never forget it. I got fooled, and used, and a lot of people died, in the name of freedom, and it was all a lie.

We all paid a huge price that day, and the bill may be coming due today, because they're presenting us with the same scenario, this time about the economy. And we're not going for it. You can see it in the way things flipped around overnight. A lot of people woke up this morning, like I did, and realized -- wait I've seen this movie before.

Now we have another impressive Almost Presidential secretary, Henry Paulson, who says there's impending doom, but he can't say exactly what it is, it's not security this time, but fear of starting another level of bank runs. Senators and Representatives come out of a Thursday night meeting with the secretary (would they have believed the President) won't say exactly what he said, but they are stunned. The next day buried in a sea of press about this event is an almost innocuous paragraph in a NYT piece that talks about a flight to safety from the US Treasury money market. OMG. A point made by the secretary to the Congresspeople, a lot of your constituents have their savings in money markets. The Senators think to themselves, Fuck the constituents, that's where my retirement savings are! (And by the way, mine.)

An aside, I never realized this until recently, but Congress was very easily whipped by fear of terrorism. The fourth plane on Sept 11 was likely headed for them. We were all so busy thinking about ourselves we forgot to notice that they had a huge conflict of interest, they were targets on Sept 11, and probably many of them suffering from post-traumatic stress from it.

Anyway, back to our story...

Having been fooled once, sure there are some among us who will be fooled again, but we will not all be fooled again, as evidenced by the posts on all kinds of blogs. This is one of those amazing days that except for stylistic elements the extreme right and the extreme left are in agreement. We can't trust Paulson the way he's asking to be trusted. It wouldn't be prudent.

On the other hand, what if they're right, and don't want to speak the unspeakable for fear of provoking a run on the credit markets that would wipe out your savings and mine? If you've been conservative, as I have and many other have, do you want to be poor? Want to lose your house? Want to live on the street? No health care. No job. How long do you think you'd last? Think it might be worth $1 trillion to prevent that? I do. I bet you do too. But we can't do it on the terms that Paulson asks for. There has to be some pain and there has to be oversight and checks and balances. There's no such thing as a law passed by Congress that can't be judged by the courts. Not in the USA, not under our form of government. And no way is Bush going to get that by us.

So here's what I propose. The Republican slogan today is Country First. So let's see the Republicans do a little of that famous Country First stuff.

Bush and Cheney must resign immediately. No immunity, no pardons. Nancy Pelosi will become President, promising not to run for re-election on November 4. Her term will be one of the shortest in US history, just long enough to enact the provisions of the bill being proposed by the Republican administration. If it really is the best thing for the country and not a trick, then the Republicans, being impressed by the seriousness of it, would have to insist that Bush step aside and let the Democrats execute the plan. The entire Bush cabinet stays in office through January 20, but reports, of course to Pelosi. And that includes Paulson.

It's pretty simple. If they won't do it, we know they're bluffing.

If they will, I will give my support to the plan, even though I still don't know what will happen if I don't.

Updated: An abbreviated to-the-point version of this piece on Huff.

Quick question

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:31:09 GMT

Should Congress give the $700 billion to Bush, with no strings attached, full indeminity?

Comcast figures it out

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:19:05 GMT

Sometimes it doesn't pay to be leading edge.

First, I like Comcast's Internet service. It was fast, and stayed up pretty well. I also like AT&T's DSL service, which I use now. It's nowhere near as fast as Comcast, and it's also reasonably reliable. But Comcast hated me and shut me down, and AT&T doesn't seem to care one way or the other, which is pretty much how I like my vendors. I pay the bills, they provide the service, that's about it.

Comcast on the other hand, felt I was using too much of their service. Instead of limiting the amount I could use, or telling me what the limit was (and allowing me to monitor it) they just said "Too much and if you do it again, goodbye Dave." And they told me this by shutting off my service to get me to call them. I almost fired them as a vendor for doing that, but as I said, I liked the service.

Predictably, I crossed the line again, they shut me off. They wanted to keep me as a TV customer but I fired them, replaced them with DirecTV and every night before I go to bed I say a prayer asking God to punish them in new and innovative ways, so deep is my hatred of all-things-Comcast.

Then I read a bunch of articles saying they've come around to my way of thinking. Amazing!

WSJ: Comcast starts acting like a company that cares just a bit about their customers.

Like I said, sometimes it's better not to be so leading edge. :-(

Asus passed another test

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:56:56 GMT

Worth noting that the Asus Eee PC that I'm typing this post on passed two milestones on this trip to New York:

1. This time I didn't bring another computer with me. So if I couldn't do something on this little one, I couldn't do it. Wasn't a problem at all. And not having to lug another computer was great.

2. On the trip east I didn't have a power outlet at my seat and I didn't have an extra battery. It was a five hour flight. I watched 1.5 movies, had the computer on all the time except for about an hour or so when I ate, talked with the guy in the seat next to me, etc. When I arrived in NY it still had 1.5 hours left, so I was able to catch up on the news on my Slingbox back in Berkeley. I don't know of any other computer that could make it across the country with power to spare. I am going to buy an extra battery though when I can find someone that sells one (any clues?)

I may just sign up for the I Am A PC promotion Microsoft is doing. I don't know why Apple doesn't have a Mac in this form factor, if I were Microsoft I'd promote the hell out of this baby. No problem using Windows as long as it's XP and I can use Firefox so I don't get all loaded up with malware. It's a great fucking computer. I haven't said that about a Windows machine in a a very long time.

Also Asus has dropped the price. I paid $600 in July, you can now get one for $500.

Here's a Google search for previous articles on scripting.com about the Asus.

From Terminal 4 at JFK

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:25:46 GMT

Well, it turns out you can take the subway to the airport in NY, here's how. Take the A train toward Brooklyn. Be sure to get on the one that goes to Rockaway or Far Rockaway, there's another A train that does not go to JFK. You want to stay off that one.

Take it to the JFK station, take the escalator upstairs (it's the only way out of the station, so you can't go wrong). There will be huge signs that say JFK This Way. The fare is $5, you can use your Metrocard or purchase one there. After going through the wide BART-like turnstile, there's a big sign that says Welcome to JFK. From there, while you're waiting for the train you can find out what terminal your airline is at, then get on the train, it goes to all the terminals. It's exactly like the train that goes between terminals at SFO.

That's it. Total cost -- $6.50, compared with $45 plus tip for a cab. Might take a bit longer if there's no traffic, a bit less if there isn't. And you get the satisfaction of knowing you helped the planet.

There's a longterm parking lot at the Howard Beach station.

The Airtrain was packed. Much more so than BART to SFO. The subway ride goes through some of the most colorful parts of the city, also the poorest? Hard to tell because you're underground most of the way. The subway is clean and air conditioned.

Greetings from New York City

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:09:39 GMT

Everything's good, just been busy in meetings about new business. Heading back to Calif tomorrow after some more meetings.

The whole world is watching

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:33:05 GMT

It just occurred to me, that while we're arguing about all this silly bullshit like pigs and calling stuff sexist that's just satire, or if what's her name could run H-P, the thing we should all be worrying about is that this election the whole world can see what assholes we are and how much we lie, and do you thikn they're ever going to believe anything we say after the election?

Americans do you know that we are still the most admired country on earth, and all this crap is on the Internet and so is everyone else in the world. The people in the fly-over states are worried about the assholes on the coasts when they really should be worried about the assholes who control the North Korean nukes and the loose nukes in Russia and Pakistan..

There's a lot to worry about and no matter how much you want the world to be simple (Drill Baby Drill) it won't be that simple. You can't make it simple by hiring a VP who is ignorant of the rest of the world. I would say that it'll just catch up to you, but it already did, that's what 9-11 was about.

The whole world is watching and can see our dirty laundry and see how fucked up and stupid we are. And they don't get votes, but they have a lot more power than I think they know and pretty soon they're going to figure it out.

Being an American in 2008 is a lot like working at Microsoft in 1994 or so. Netscape is coming soon and after that Google, and while we'll still be here, the cursor will be somewhere else, and our stock options will be worthless and we'll be fighting with each other while the rest of the world builds around us. Sound familiar?

People thought I stopped writing about technology but the technology and politics are all one and the same.

Written at Cafe Centro in SF, on my Asus so excuse the grammatic errors and typos. Have a nice day, and think twice before you think your fellow Americans are the enemy, they aren't.

BTW the Whole World Is Watching is what the people who were getting beat up by the Chicago police were chanting. The world was watching.

Could Sarah Pailin run Hewlett-Packard?

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:08:46 GMT

That question came up today in a radio interview with McCain surrogate Carly Fiorina and she answered it truthfully, which I would have to say is the right thing to do, but in the bizarre logic of politics, it probably wasn't the smartest thing.

She said no, Pailin could not run Hewlett-Packard. That was her opinion. I agree, but I'm hardly an expert. Fiorina has actually run H-P herself, so she would know.

I suspect if they made the mistake of hiring her to run the company, they'd get nailed in countless lawsuits in the first week, not the least of which would be a suit to have the Board removed for making such an incredibly stupid choice.

If by some miracle she lasted any period of time, it's hard to imagine how she would make a single decision in the interests of the various stakeholders, if she had any idea who the stakeholders are and how to prioritize their interests.

I've run a tech company with 60 employees and tens of thousands of customers and I am not remotely qualified to run a company the size of Hewlett-Packard.

It's interesting to look at the bios of the executive team of the company to see how they got there.

Now it's hard to see how you could conclude that running the United States government is a simpler, smaller, easier job that requires less experience than running a company the size of Hewlett-Packard. Let's compare budgets. Last year Hewlett-Packard spent about $17 billion (not including cost of goods). The US Government spent at least $2.3 trillion. That means that US Government is very roughly the equivalent of 135 H-Ps.

The question should have been asked long ago of every McCain surrogate. What job wouldn't Sarah Pailin be qualified for? And list the possible choices. Play the game yourself if you like.

Yglesias: "I, for one, am appalled by Fiorina's sexism."

In an interview with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC, Fiorina added: "I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation."

Quote of the Day

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 01:08:16 GMT

Joe Biden: "Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, I could walk from here to Lansing, and I wouldn't run into a single person who thought our economy was doing well, unless I ran into John McCain."

Uncle Joe grows a pair even though he's still saying "ladies and gentlemen."

Everyone laughed but...

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 01:21:16 GMT

They didn't believe me when I said the Palin choice wouldn't age well, but I stand by the prediction. It might have worked had she had the depth, intelligence and curiosity of a Christie Todd Whitman or the experience and presence of Kay Bailey Hutchinson, or any number of male Republicans who would add to McCain's depth and would be genuinely good choices when viewed through the Country First lens. (Which is a very good way to look at things but not the way the Republicans are doing it.)

Imho, Palin is an empty suit. The kind of person who flunked out of pre-med at a party school in the Deep South (yes, I went to one). A person without curiosity, who doesn't read the Washington Post or the NY Times or Politico or watch Nightline or occasionally read a history book, or listen to a political podcast every once in a while. Could she name the other candidates of her own party in the Presidential race? How about in the Democratic race? Has she visited post-Katrina New Orleans?

They asked if she had ever been overseas but did they ask how many museums or monuments in Washington she had visited? Ever been to an opera or how about a baseball game? Which of the 50 states has she visited? My guess the answers to those questions would reveal that there are a lot of holes in her experience even for someone who has rarely left the United States. By age 44, if you want to lead our country, it seems there are some pretty basic things you should know and have done.

I think in their hearts Americans know that electing a President who was like the rest of us was a mistake. We need someone who is an over-achiever, not just curious, but a sponge for ideas, information, perspectives. Someone who can't stop reading and asking other people what they think. I think in the end we're going to do the right thing, and I stick by my belief that the Palin choice will start to smell really soon, not just to us elites with health insurance and education, but to the people in our country who desperately need those things for themselves and their families.