Obama's rating: Strong. But Average. And Way Divided.

[Frigidus]

Recent polls show 28% of women who supported Clinton now support Mccain/Palin.....I can't believe they use the "woman thing" to cover up their racisist thoughts.

I guess 90+% of blacks voting for Obama should not be a race concern huh?

Well, considering 88% of blacks voted for Kerry, that isn't a huge aberration.

kapow!

I love statistics.

[bedub1]

M E R I D I A N M A G A Z I N E

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
By Orson Scott Card

Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.

This article first appeared in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, North Carolina, and is used here by permission.

Orson Scott Card: Born in Richland, Washington, Card grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He lived in Brazil for two years as missionary for the Church. He received degrees from Brigham Young University (1975) and the University of Utah (1981). He currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. He and his wife, Kristine, are the parents of five children: Geoffrey, Emily, Charles, Zina Margaret, and Erin Louisa (named for Chaucer, Bronte and Dickinson, Dickens, Mitchell, and Alcott, respectively). To learn more about Orson Scott Card please click here.

[Frigidus]

M E R I D I A N M A G A Z I N E

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
By Orson Scott Card

Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.

This article first appeared in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, North Carolina, and is used here by permission.

Orson Scott Card: Born in Richland, Washington, Card grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He lived in Brazil for two years as missionary for the Church. He received degrees from Brigham Young University (1975) and the University of Utah (1981). He currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. He and his wife, Kristine, are the parents of five children: Geoffrey, Emily, Charles, Zina Margaret, and Erin Louisa (named for Chaucer, Bronte and Dickinson, Dickens, Mitchell, and Alcott, respectively). To learn more about Orson Scott Card please click here.

I don't think we're suggesting that the Democratic party isn't a collection of assholes. Indeed, nearly every politician we have is a scumbag. That, however, has very little to do with Obama and McCain. Perhaps we could start another thread to discuss the evils of both parties (a genuine question)?

Edit: Also, this was written by the guy who wrote Ender's Game. Wild.

[bedub1]

I think this youtube video is about obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW2iZ1pD2G4

[Frigidus]

I think this youtube video is about obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW2iZ1pD2G4

So...bad Obama supporters=bad Obama?

[bedub1]

how about obama saying he's not experienced enough to be president?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BnLozS- ... re=related

[PopeBenXVI]

So you guys are talking about a few percent making a difference in race against Obama but a few Pecents from what Kerry got and what Obama got is ok? You also leave out that 56% of Blacks were registered to vote 4 years ago and almost 70% this year so far. That makes the percent voting for Obama just because he is Black much larger and more questionable.

Well, maybe they just care more now than 4 years ago right?

[bedub1]

apparently obama is so stupid he can't even push a button.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKhzqG3_ ... re=related

[Backglass]

apparently obama is so stupid he can't even push a button.

Apparently, you can't follow a simple TV show as that isn't what they said.

[bedub1]

apparently obama is so stupid he can't even push a button.

Apparently, you can't follow a simple TV show as that isn't what they said.

yeah...he pushed the wrong button 6 times.

You gotta ask yourself this: Why do the terrorists support obama and want him to win and not mccain?
Given that they do support him, why do you?

[pimpdave]

So you guys are talking about a few percent making a difference in race against Obama but a few Pecents from what Kerry got and what Obama got is ok? You also leave out that 56% of Blacks were registered to vote 4 years ago and almost 70% this year so far. That makes the percent voting for Obama just because he is Black much larger and more questionable.

Well, maybe they just care more now than 4 years ago right?

Completely illegitimate, and it's good to know the Pope is a racist.

How many people are voting for McCain just because he's white? Are you?

[Backglass]

You gotta ask yourself this: Why do the terrorists support obama and want him to win and not mccain?
Given that they do support him, why do you?

You are so easily lead by the nose. Why would Terrorists announce who they want to win, full knowing that American Lemmings will freak out and do the opposite. Hmm?

"Oh PLEASE don't throw me in the Briar Patch!"

Osama Bin Laden appeared four days before the last election and announced his support for John Kerry...and you see what happened. I fully believe a Bin Laden tape will magically surface again this year.

[bedub1]

So you guys are talking about a few percent making a difference in race against Obama but a few Pecents from what Kerry got and what Obama got is ok? You also leave out that 56% of Blacks were registered to vote 4 years ago and almost 70% this year so far. That makes the percent voting for Obama just because he is Black much larger and more questionable.

Well, maybe they just care more now than 4 years ago right?

Completely illegitimate, and it's good to know the Pope is a racist.

How many people are voting for McCain just because he's white? Are you?

Personally I don't care about the color of your skin. It's irrelevant and meaningless. What I thought was funny, I think it was on SNL...somebody said something about the "average black man" has more in common with mccain than obama.....anybody know what i'm talking about? can we get a link to the clip?

[PopeBenXVI]

What? Those stats can't be true. Obama is going to lower all our taxes and save the world!

Well I will still vote for him because I don't want to be a racist.

[Backglass]

Obama is going to lower all our taxes and save the world!

If you make under $250,000 a year, you are correct. Congrats...you will get a much bigger tax cut under Obama then with "Angry Man".

[PopeBenXVI]

Only 40% of them did not pay taxes to begin with and will be getting a check from the government. That my friend is called wellfair.

Also known as Socialism and redistribution of wealth.

[Backglass]

Only 40% of them did not pay taxes to begin with and will be getting a check from the government. That my friend is called wellfair.

Also known as Socialism and redistribution of wealth.

Yet when Republican Bush sent everyone in the US a check for $1200 a few months ago...it was a "Stimulus package".

I see how it works.

[mpjh]

What? Those stats can't be true. Obama is going to lower all our taxes and save the world!

Well I will still vote for him because I don't want to be a racist.

You will not get a tax decrease, you are still earning more than $250,000 a year on the interest from the gold you stole from Jewish people during the inquisition alone.

[Pedronicus]

Is this graph for real? how in the world can either candidate contemplate reducing the amount of tax it gets from the public, after borrowing 700 billion for the bail out, on top of the over national USA debt? I'm no mathmatican or economist, but surely the way to reduce the national debt is to stop giving away money that you don't have.

[PopeBenXVI]

First - Everyone did not get a stimulus check.

Second - This was not rich people taxed really high to give that money to lesser income people. This was money given to most of American families from the Government to stimulate the economy with buying as opposed to punishing people who work hard by taking their money and turning it into welfare.

Also, are you confusing inquisitions with Germans in WWII stealing Jewish property, because you have your historical timeline way off - not to mention who did what. Not to change the subject, but In case you didn't know, the Nation of Israel itself recognized Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church for having saved over 800,000 Jews hidding them in monestaries, convents, churches, rectories & seminaries around Europe. If you were referring to something else - maybe you could clarify, but either way I am sure it is a stupid comment.

[mpjh]

No I am not confusing the Dominicans and their plundering, and murder, of jews during the inquisition. This happened long before the nazis were even a gleam in Gobble's eye, or an itch on Hitler's testicle.

[Gregrios]

You gotta ask yourself this: Why do the terrorists support obama and want him to win and not mccain?
Given that they do support him, why do you?

That's not true. It's been reported on a terrorist web site that Al Quita actually wants McCain to win because they feel he's the most aggressive out of the two candidates when it comes to fighting the war and therefore would result in further draining of US funds. This doesn't surprize me at all as I've suspected this tactic for a while now. They want the US to keep spending money and sending troops over inorder for the US to run itself right into the shiter.

[Ditocoaf]

Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

"Orson Scott Card is a Democrat"?
From all that I've read from him (before this article) he has a very low opinion of all democrats... he must be self-hating?

[PopeBenXVI]

If you want to start a new thread to debate 2000 years of church history topics we can do that but if you want to answer our points on Obama turning our country into a wellfare state then you should say something more intelligent and on that topic.

He is promoting the same economic plan that ruined France and most of Europe but maybe I'm just racist.....Mmmm no I'm a Capitalist.

[mpjh]

France is not ruined, it just doesn't collect your tithe for you anymore. The French are smart.