Sunday, September 03, 2006

get off the stage, pt II (both of you)

atrios has it right...between santroum and casey, no matter who gets the senate seat from pennsylvania, the state ends up with an idiot for senate representation.

in the debate this morning on meet the press, i hear ricky conflate (or confuse?) iraq and iran multiple times, switching rationales and falling back on tired and discredited arguments. casey was all over the place, showing himself to be rather thin on ideas. his tactic of turning to santorum to address him directly was certainly designed to be unnerving, but casey overused and oversold it to the point where ricky had him figured out, like a batter onto a pitcher who's tipping his pitches.

particularly galling were casey's answers on social security -- given the chance to nail santorum on the private accounts policy that santorum openly favors, casey talks about growth being the way out of the crisis. he could have also blown wide open tim russert's shoddy phrasing of the question and half-assed attempt to move the discussion to the flawed premise of how private accounts will grow rather than shrink the social security problem.

also, as a few other bloggers have pointed out, santorum was pretty smarmy to bring up casey's dead father during the plan b segment.

and i know it's their job to play uncritical cheerleader, but the dscc press release is laughable even by the rose-colored glasses standard. santorum did, however, provide the casey campaign with a great soundbite that should be the center of the campiagn from here on out -- santorum calling bush a "terrific president". just replay that clip in commercials from now until election day.

all in all just a putrid hour. i can't believe casey's the best that the pennsylvania dems could come up with. i mean, i hope he wins...a dem controlled senate is vital to holding the bushies accountable for the corruption, lies and incompetence...but casey has got lots of work ahead of him to grow into his job.

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