No, HaricotVert. Just BELIEVE. Clap your hands. BELIEVE.

Lol, in fairness, I guess you could say it's unfair to take that sound bite. But unless you take fundamentals to mean 'a capitalist, free-market economy', I think it's completely fair game.

But seriously, when McCain talks about the 'fat cats' and 'old boys' that he's going to bust up, it's laughable. If not for the sheer hypocrisy considering his party, than simply his lingo. Why not go after the 'hooligans in Iraq' and the 'islamic roustabouts'. He may as well tell the terrorists 'Get off America's lawn !'

I am an Obama supporter, can't wait to get rid of the Republicans.

But enough already with jumping on McCain for saying this. What does he mean by the "fundamentals of our economy", folks?

The stock market and the dollar REQUIRE confidence in their basic fundamental use. That is what he is talking about and has always talked about when he has said this phrase. He is actually trying to do a GOOD THING -- to calm the waters so we can gain confidence in the BASICS. Otherwise, we really are in deep doo-doo.

This sound bite political gotcha sickens me. I also know it is the lay of the land these days.

We can be smarter than the average bear, though, and not perpetuate it.

As much as I want to see Obama elected, he is wrong to attack McCain on the phrase "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

First McCain always follows with "we do have some problems".

McCain is trying to calm the waters -- the dollar and the stock market REQUIRE that we BELIEVE in them.

Obama is not doing the American economy any favors by saying that he is wrong.

This is sound bite politics, taking comments out of context.

I don't think that Obama can do anything but jump on this. His job right now is to get elected, not calm the economy.

Still, I wish that we weren't so easily... manipulated.

CFR Candidate propaganda, and fekkin' mind-numbingly dull......Rhetorica Politica-

"absorbed in its world it's so hard to find us
it shapes our mind the most
maybe the mother of our nation
should remind us that we're sitting too close tooooooo..the Television, the drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and feeeding radiation....

T.V. is the stomping ground
for political candidates
where bears in the woods
are chased by grecian formula'd bald eagles
T.V. is mechanized politic's
remote control over the masses
co-sponsored by enironmentally safe gases
watch for the PBS special
it's the perpetuation of the two-party system
where image takes precedence over wisdom
where sound bite politics are served
to the fastfood culture
where straight teeth in your mouth
are more important than the words
that come out of it
race baiting is the way to get elected
Willie Horton or will he not get elected on...the goddamn tv

"Defeat it," said McCain.

He learned never to pass up a chance to make a good sound bite.

Evil as a concept is pretty subjective. We'd consider space aliens who came to earth and started eating us to be evil, but we don't consider ourselve evil for eating other animals.

It's nice to see these clips from that "debate" but the thought of questioning a candidates religious or spiritual views kind of turns my stomach. It smacks of pandering. It's framing our politics in a religious way, and I find that distracting.

Objectivity is not something highly valued among religious nuts.

I've heard it too, and it changes nothing. The entire speech only serves to make the sound bites even more damning. This is a man that preaches politics from the pulpit, preaches racism, has preached conspiracy theories about the government infecting the black population with AIDS, and was reffered to as a mentor by Obama. You cannot be a member of a church like this for *20 years* and not know what is going on.

"Ugh, damn this coollld weather... where's my hat? oh there it is."
*Gwugh-hem!*
"Who are you people? WHAAT? I'm giving a speech? What for? Oh i'm running for president? I'm old and scared..."

Better sound bites of McCain: Grandpa Simpson.

I've made bad decisions regarding loans, and now I'm paying dearly for them. But I don't blame anybody but myself. I certainly wouldn't blame the loan officers for preying on white, lower class lazy fucks who should know better but still act on impulse anyway.

It's too bad lead balloons can't fly.

>> ^muddro:
>> ^thinker247:
I had a hard time listening to the audience member talk about how the subprime mortgages were intentionally focused upon the black community.
Yeah, points for Obama on that. He sounded a little flustered when I originally heard the sound bites (on the radio), but seeing the video and the larger context makes it pretty clear that he's contending with his own supporters as he tries to respond.
Given that accusation especially, I would have said something to the effect of "if the ignorant would read their promissory notes before signing for a loan then maybe we wouldn't have a problem, and if 'the ignorant' includes blacks, then so be it." and obviously, that would have flown like a lead balloon, but it's the truth.
Obama manages to avoid calling him out and instead basically just takes his primary argument away from him politely. Nicely done.

>> ^thinker247:
I had a hard time listening to the audience member talk about how the subprime mortgages were intentionally focused upon the black community.

Yeah, points for Obama on that. He sounded a little flustered when I originally heard the sound bites (on the radio), but seeing the video and the larger context makes it pretty clear that he's contending with his own supporters as he tries to respond.

Given that accusation especially, I would have said something to the effect of "if the ignorant would read their promissory notes before signing for a loan then maybe we wouldn't have a problem, and if 'the ignorant' includes blacks, then so be it." and obviously, that would have flown like a lead balloon, but it's the truth.

Obama manages to avoid calling him out and instead basically just takes his primary argument away from him politely. Nicely done.

Deceptively out-of-context sound-bites. What was the first half of the sentence in #1? She's almost certainly talking about somebody else, not herself.

I find it amazing how much you missed the point Aemaeth. They are taking the worst parts of what she said, quoting it incorrectly and out of context, and repeating until it becomes the truth in the minds of viewers. "Reasonable logic" would be to disagree with what she said and then move on to critique the overall speech. But they know that sound bites are better persuaders.

By all accounts, Bush and his administration of incompetence and cronyism should be impeached for violating their legal, moral and representative duty; and note, this is coming from someone who well and truly understands the political impracticality of such an action, and why unless push comes to shove this will never come to pass.

In light of this failure of legal due process, and in light of the fact the media has time and time again being shown to be either controlled or at the very least influenced to a varying degree by top executives, corporate financiers, and the government; all the while being hemmed into reporting mainstream opinion in the fear that viewers, confronted by opinions too radical and progressive for them to be willing to cognitively process or too complex to be sufficiently elaborated on between commercial breaks, will forsake them for another news organization that merely reinforced their bigoted and one-sided views filtered through a sieve of anaesthetising political correctness - as a result encroaching on their precious ratings, market share and advertising revenue.

Given this, I am very much beyond the idealistic notion of propriety in expressing opinions. As garish, frankly immature it comes off, and as much as it may ultimately damage their cause and credulity, if getting simplistic sound bites of emphatic disapproval across for split seconds on network television, the unfortunate major source of information of this age is one of the few ways you can get the honest goddamn truth across, than so be it.

you know why you stop reading books? Because books require a certain amount of carefree attitude and free time that can become in short supply as you get older. I struggle to read too, but not because I am turning into a babbling cretin who needs sound bites but because I have a baby and every 2 minutes I have to stop what I'm doing to deal with her. The internet can accomodate me easier than a book; I don't lose it, I choose how intense or slow it works for me and I can switch back and forth as needed. WHen I am reading a book and have to put it down every 2 minutes, I'm not going to get very far before I give up in frustration.
But it isn't just having a child that can do that. You get older, your life gets more hectic or full of responsibilities and you just can't seem to sit yourself down and block out the world like you used to. When I was ten years old, I could spend literally 24 hours reading a book if I wanted to. I don't have the stamina to do that anymore really, but its not because my mind has been melted by the freakin internet!

I'm not so sure if Ron Paul's lack support is due to the media or the herd mentality. I think a lot of people just rally around whoever their chosen party seems to support, and whether Ron Paul embodies true republican values or not, his party doesn't support him, at all. I think there have been enough videos on the sift to show people will just spout off whatever slogans or sound bites or floating around. They want politics to be easy, and they don't want to be alone in 'their' opinion.

While I admire Ron Paul's stance on the war, and also feel we really need to dial back on our military presence in a lot of areas I don't agree on his economic or social policies.

Ron Paul supports a true free market, a lot of people feel by having government completely out of the market the corporate structure and monopolies will break down. I see just the opposite happening, once the government is out there is no mechanism to regulate business practices, which will allow the large corporations to freely manipulate the market in their favor. There may be short term benefits in certain areas as companies compete, but once one company gains the market share they can use a cavalcade of 'unfair' business practices to kill competition and keep any from starting up. As the market stands now there are several huge corporations that own most of the infrastructure in certain areas, and competition only exists because the government is forcing them to share that infrastructure with their competition. Even if the playing field were even, eventually some business would rise above the pack and gain control.

For social policies Ron Paul supports state and local level control. I think that would be just fine if everyone had a live and let live attitude, but they don't. And those that don't actively push their vision of how others should believe and act, which is much easier to do on a local level, and often comes at the detriment of the minority population. He himself has stated he didn't think the Supreme court should have ruled in favor of cases like Brown vs Board of education, nor should the civil rights act have been passed. You may disagree, but I see issues like that as reasons why it is important for the federal government to have some say in social matters.

I think the interviwer is uninformed as well. Under Obama's proposed plan health care is optional, and under both Obama and Hillary's plan a person may choose to enroll in any insurance plan they want and opt out of the government insurance. Choice isn't being taken away, its about giving people who have no health insurance an option. As far as the pharmaceutical companies go Obama supports allowing the importation of cheaper priced drugs. From what I understand pharmaceuticals sold in other countries, by the same companies, are heavily marked up in the US. He's also mentioned trying to stop the practice of large pharmaceuticals paying generic drug makers not to make a generic of their drug. If you want to call him a liar and say he wants to force everyone on the same government based health care plan so it'll stuff billions more into the pockets of the health care industry fine, but preface it with what he actually said he was going to do, then call him a liar and a tool.

As far as voters who don't really have a clue what their candidate stands for, well they're in every camp, they support Obama, they support McCain, Hillary and even Ron Paul. They just hang onto slogans and sound bites, and repeat them as if they had substance. What're you gonna do, that's people for ya.

I would also like to point out sticking a camera in someone's seems to have a stupefying effect on many people. Give them a few moments to compose their thoughts and they'll give a better answer. Of course, some people are just stupid.