Being There

The debate is over and the writing is on the wall for McCain’s increasingly negative and erratic campaign for President. The first two debates were concievably a draw; Obama’s campaign likes to spin this hard, but it’s true that the debate format is not his strongest suit. He can get wordy and his answers are too long sometimes. McCain also held the advantage on the big issue of foreign policy and his supposed “maverick”ness and relateability to veterans, the common man, etc.

There is no question that Obama won the third and final debate. Check any insta-poll on CBS, CNN, ABC (the scientific ones that don’t allow multiple voting). Not only did Obama meet expectations of those already voting for him, he swung people his way from that middle group of undecideds and independents.

Let’s do some direct subjective comparisons:

Obama was calm, collected, and polite. McCain was snarky, agitated, and rude.

Obama carefully and clearly outlined the specifics of his policies when asked. Look at his answer to the question of whether we can reduce reliance on foreign oil within four years. McCain spoke generally with phrases like “I know how to bring down defense spending” and “we can do this with the job creation of energy independence.”

Obama laid the traps. And McCain walked into them. The negative ads and comments from the McCain campaign about Obama’s links to William Ayers and ACORN have been coming fast and furious without much direct hitting back from the Obama campaign. Wondering why? Tonight was Obama’s best venue for repudiating those ridiculous claims (that every internetter has already debunked multiple times through their own research). McCain took the bait and said it to Obama’s face. And he got destroyed on the topic when Obama easily pointed out that he never “palled around with terrorists” and gave a simple explanation of what the ACORN controversy is all about.

Every attack McCain made was swiftly parried by Obama, making McCain look like a desparate fool attempting to throw anything against his opponent to see what would stick. The fact that anyone could expect Obama to be anything but supremely  prepared on every possible issue is almost unbelievable. In comparison, McCain seemed to struggle with rebutting accusations against his policies and was very repetitive when Obama did shoot down his attacks.

I think that some people may mistake McCain’s desperation tonight for passion or conviction. But to me it was very clear. This campaign is on its last legs and Obama just weakened them almost to the point of breaking. In two weaks there won’t be much left beyond a defeated, aging Senator and his inexperienced VP pick gathering up the remnants.

P.S. Just to be clear, I STRONGLY disagree that Sarah Palin is a role model for American women. ;)

(Sorry for the prolonged absence. Job searching takes a lot out of a person, you know?)

Last night the American public got to witness the highly anticipated debate between Democratic VP nominee Senator Joe Biden and Republican nominee Governor Sarah Palin. Oh what fun. This one entertained me far more than the first Presidential debate, which was boring and tedious by comparison (though I still appreciated the foreign policy questions and thought the answers given revealed a lot about both candidates). But let’s confess. Most of us tuned in to see if Sarah Palin would screw up. And also to see if anybody would get rickrolled. (Chris Matthews was the first victim!).

I’m going to keep this analysis short and preface it by saying I’m an Obama/Biden supporter. You can some more in depth commentary from MSM outlets. Here’s what I thought.

I thought Biden did a pretty good job. Many said beforehand that he had to be very careful not to appear too intellectual or condescending, yet avoid sounding patronizing, while also avoiding a “bulldog” moment. As much as the man could, I think he fit that bill last night. He answered questions more directly than Palin did, and even if he was guilty of question dodging at times it was because he wanted to return to his core message of the non-difference between McCain’s policies and George Bush’s policies. I think his most powerful moments were when he choked up speaking about his experience as a single father and when he called out Palin for continuously using the “maverick” term in her answers. Overall he sounded intelligent and experienced. As an old white guy, though, he lacked a certain relateability to the common viewer (though I think the single dad thing and the constant shoutouts to Scranton may have helped).
Palin, on the other hand, had about zero expectations going into this thing. If you haven’t seen her terrible answers in the Couric interview I suggest you go check them out on youtube. As a result of the week of bad press she’s had, all Palin had to do last night was not make a big mistake. To me, there were a couple hugely terrifying things she said, but I don’t think these things will register with the greater American public or the mainstream media. I don’t think it’s appropriate in any measure to tell a man whose first wife died in a car accident that his second wife (a schoolteacher) will have “her reward in heaven.” I also didn’t appreciate the fact that Palin repeatedly painted herself as a mother in an average American family, when she has refused to release her tax return reports on time (as required by the Federal Election Commission). I find it terribly convenient that her campaign worked out a deal with the FEC to delay the release of those reports until after this debate. I have a feeling they will reveal her income is nowhere near “average.”

Rherotically, I thought it was clear that Palin had a shallow base of knowledge and talking points that she felt comfortable with, and she was terrible at segueing back to those points. She openly asked Gwen Ifill a couple times “Can I talk about X unrelated thing now?” She hammered “energy independence” like she invented the phrase and couldn’t stop saying “team of mavericks!” I’m not sure that most viewers will particularly care about her not answering questions or blantantly changing the subject, but it really bothered me.

It’s obvious that Palin’s strong point is relating to the American public and her down-home, country style. Her answers were littered with colloquial phrases like “darn right” and “heck of a” and “say it ain’t so.” I don’t have a problem with this style in particular, though personally I consider it a bit unprofessional in a nationally televised debate for the second highest office in the land. The problem is that Palin has no substance behind the style. She failed to distinguish her ticket’s policies from the policies of the last eight years that almost no one in this country wants to repeat. And often she failed to even give specifics about the plans McCain had on certain issues, instead giving a broadstroke answer along the lines of “we’re going to clean up this mess!”

In the end, then narrative is goign to be that Palin “won” due to not screwing up and restoring some faith in her mental capacity after the horror of the Couric interview. But I think the debates were still very telling. She is a little fish in a big pond, and she’s not adapting fast enough or well enough to be considered ready for the position she’s running for. This is on top of all the problems with her governancy of the State of Alaska (a few of which will come to more light very soon). I think Biden really showed the country that he is ready to lead and is knowledgable on all issues, not just the two or three that Palin can claim to be an expert on.

Regardless, I look forward to the next debate on Tuesday. The political atmosphere is really charged up this year, and it makes watching and getting involved in the political process a lot more fun.

So I guess someone must have linked me somewhere important, because I’ve started to receive a lot of spam comments. They are all gibberish with weird html links, but apparently this is the way they test the system to see if they can get through - then they start to send the real spam.

Rest assured, I’ve been zapping them pretty easily with the Wordpress comment moderation system. You should see no change in your regularly scheduled (sporadic!) service round these parts.

Is it weird how cats and cat memes and cat videos are so huge here on the Interwebs? I mean, I Can Has Cheezburger started as this funny little site and now it’s a full blown blog/message board with several spinoffs - including a lolspeak dictionary for crying out loud.

But for some reason cats are extremely capturable in cute and funny positions. So in the spirit of lolcats and cuteoverload and the Japanese obsession with Scottish Folds, let me show you my top five Youtube cat videos. My videos. Let me show you them.

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On Friday September 12th I found out that I passed the Oregon Bar Exam. Yes. My friend arranged for a pub crawl type dealy for that afternoon and evening, starting in the Pearl district (where I live). She even made a laminated map! That, my friends, is how you celebrate.

We started with some early dinner at Deschutes Brewery’s Portland Pub. It’s a very nice restaurant style pub with large open spaces and cool wooden sculpted artwork lending a real Northwest theme to the former warehouse building. They serve their lunch menu until 5 PM, so if you don’t mind being an early bird you can save a couple bucks. My friend and I split a veggie burger (pretty good, a little fall-aparty) and a caesar salad (average). I’m not a beer person so I just had your standard Mirror Pond Pale Ale, but beer people who don’t know about this famous Oregon brewery (second largest in the state!) should remedy that fact as soon as possible.

Next up: Vault martini bar. Kind of a fancy place, but we walked in with jeans on anyway because hey, $4 martinis at happy hour! Heck yes. If you like fruity drinks, chocolate drinks, Habenero infused vodka…they’ve got it. The bar was populated by young and old professionals alike (at least at 6:30ish on a Friday night). The bartender accidentally made an extra drink so we got a free drink, hooray! My other friend who works for FedEx met up with us still wearing her uniform, which amused me - the Pearl needs to loosen up sometimes, for real. We sucked down some grapefruity drinks and headed off to try the next happy hour.

We walked into Oba’s bar side but unfortunately we’d missed the happy hour prices and $8 margaritas were not palatable at that point in the evening. I can’t recommend this bar enough though if you do happen to catch the happy hour (4-6:30 and after 9 weekdays, like all day Sunday). The food is realllly good and a pretty good deal as well, and the margaritas are bomb.

So we trekked it to Tube because we wanted to go to a nearby arcade afterward. There were only a few people at the bar when we walked in; Revenge of the Nerds was playing on the tv screens and the DJ was blasting some semi weird music, so it took a bit for us to settle in. But we collected a few more friends, and purchased a few more $2 (!) well drinks, and acheived relaxation. Tube is a great place to hipster-watch, and I hear they have some good themed music nights. Plus you guys. $2 well drinks!

We diverted to the fancy Saucebox to grab some more food because some of us drunkies were hungry again. Really good food and specialty drinks, but warning, NOT cheap. You just might need to hop three bars beforehand to muster up the courage to order the $12 coconut drink and $11 sushi. And of course they put us all on one check, added 19% gratuity automatically, and refused to split the check. As the new lawyer I felt obligated to front the rather hefty bill - bring cash if you’re in a group and want to go here.

Finally we meandered over to Ground Kontrol where much DDR and pinball was played. They don’t have covers anymore on Thursday and Friday (they used to have live bands those nights) and there’s a bar inside with cheapish drinks. Whee! They also have Rock Band Tuesdays if you’re into that sort of thing. Personally I think I need to go back and whoop up on that Pirates of the Caribbean pinball machine some more (I almost defeated the Kracken dammit!)

Portland is a pretty awesome happy hour town, and the Pearl is no exception if you know where to look and aren’t afraid to wander into Old Town as well. And with that, I raise my glass (of OJ!) to all those who studied for and passed the bar this July, and pour it out for those who just missed joining the expensive attorney’s club.

Being in bar results limbo land can be a good thing sometimes. Besides occupying my time with organizing my apartment, selling off old AFI paraphernalia from college, playing indoor soccer and going to jits class, this past week I’ve gotten to go adventure in the Northern Cascades and down in Southern-Central Oregon. There’s something about being outside (hiking, camping, fishing, rock climbing!) that’s really satisfying when you live in an urban environment most of the time. Plus I get to take pictures.

Sun breaks through the cloud cover on Mt. Baring, as seen from Barclay Lake.

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Hood to Coast is a Nike relay race that goes 197 miles from the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood down to the beach at Seaside. Despite a lifelong general dislike of distance running, I totally participated! My legs are officially drained of energy. More info about this incredible fun time below.

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Well, the true blog post killer wasn’t the time before the bar exam, it was the time afterward. I was in my friend’s wedding and I learned to rock climb and I spent some time in Bend, etc etc.

Back in action faster than you can say Michael Phelps has funny lookin’ ears. (Note: NOT faster than Michael Phelps actually swims.)

This post is inspired by another similarly situated law graduate’s rant about the various stupid things people in our practice questions do on a regular basis. Probably not so funny for people not studying for the bar, but hilarious to my friends and me.

Onward to my own list, which shall enlighten you in various unexpected ways, I’m sure…

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So today the FCC got the smack down on a large fine they imposed on CBS after the infamous “wardrobe malfunction” of the 2004 Superbowl. (I’m reviewing administrative law right now, so that’s my excuse for taking a few minutes to make this post).

Basically, a federal court decided that the FCC, a federal agency authorized to regulate the airways and keep our children safe etc. etc., acted in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner when it told CBS to fork over $550,000 for the indecent image (a woman’s breast, OH THE HORROR) appearing on airwaves between 6 AM and 10 PM. I’m guessing most readers know basically nothing about administrative law. Trust me, you’re better off this way. But for your benefit, here’s the big deal with this case. The “arbitrary and capricious” standard is very hard to violate. This standard of review pretty much lets courts approve lots of agency actions that are downright dumb or ill-informed, as long as they aren’t arbitrary.

The big problem the court had with the FCC’s action was that it was totally inconsistent with what the agency had been doing for decades, with regard to “fleeting instances” of nudity or profanity. Up to the Janet/Justin incident, these fleeting instances weren’t fined or disciplined, because they were so small that they didn’t really do anyone any harm. After “nipplegate,” the FCC (urged onward by the Bush administration, I have no doubt) cracked down on all those scary things like accidentally blurting out “shit!” or revealing parts of the human body that are “indecent.” And at least with regard to the particular discipline of CBS, this federal court says no way Jose. An agency has to be consistent in its regulations, or else regulated parties will have no idea what is and what isn’t a violation of the rules.

This case is going to the Supreme Court, so we’ll see what the eventual ruling on this issue actually turns out to be. For now, CBS gets to have a party and the FCC gets a taste of what may be a major smackdown to come in future years regarding the ever increasing strictness of its rules and policies.