Gibson: Do you feel in any way responsible for what’s happening?

Bush: You know, I’m the President during this period of time, but I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived in President, during I arrived in President.

It was only a few years ago that President Bush gave a video tour of the Oval Office during which he said, among other things:

 

The other paintings on the wall are from Texas. This is…Onderdonk…a man named Julian Onderdonk painted these paintings…a man named Julian Onderdonk was the artist.

 

*****

 

This also is a Texas painting by a man named Tom Lee. he’s a personal friend of Laura and mine. He passed away unfortunately this year…th..this painting here [same painting -- ED] is by Tom Lee he was a personal friend of Laura and mine. He was from El Paso, Texas.

 

*****

 

And finally, um, the final painting is also a Julian Onderdonk.  Its a beautiful setting of Texas bluebonnets which is the Texas fla…uh, th…th…the painting is a setting of Texas bluebonnets…its done by Julian Onderdonk.

 

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Listening to this Ivy League smartypants for the next four to eight will take some getting used to. But we’re Americans – somehow I think we’ll manage.

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Rendell also said that Arizona Governor and Homeland Security Secretary-nominee Janet Napolitano is perfect for the job because she has no family, “no life” and can devote “literally 19, 20 hours a day” to it.  CNN’s Campbell Brown took umbrage because, she said, Rendell’s comment was sexist:

It may be personally insulting and impolite for Rendell to point out that Napolitano “has no life,” but sexist? No.

Brown also seems to believe that nobody mentioned Napolitano’s predecessors’ personal lives and suggests that the reason is because they were men. Actually, Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff’s personal lives went unnoticed because they had traditional families. Men without traditional family lives haven’t gone unmentioned:

Like other aspects of his life, the unmarried Souter’s social activities resemble those of an 18th century gentleman, when an unmarried relative was often the backbone of the community, with the leisure to do what those with children did not have time for. Like Henry Higgins, Souter may be happiest spending “his evenings in the silence of his room; ((in)) an atmosphere as restful as an undiscovered tomb.”

There are a lot of reasons people have discussed Justice Souter’s status as a confirmed bachelor. None of them have to do with the fact that he’s a woman.

There’s plenty of sexism in the world. CNN obviously wanted as many excuses as possible to play the embarassing Rendell clip, but it ought to find an excuse that doesn’t involve falsely accusing him of gender bias.

Barack Obama sat down for an interview with MTV’s Sway that aired today, and one of the questions he was asked concerned a ban on sagging pants.

“Do feel like people should be penalized?” Sway asked.

“Here is my attitude: I think people passing a law against people wearing sagging pants is a waste of time,” Obama responded. “We should be focused on creating jobs, improving our schools, health care, dealing with the war in Iraq, and anybody, any public official, that is worrying about sagging pants probably needs to spend some time focusing on real problems out there. Having said that, brothers should pull up their pants.”

He continued: “You are walking by your mother, your grandmother, your underwear is showing. What’s wrong with that? Come on. There are some issues that we face, that you don’t have to pass a law, but that doesn’t mean folks can’t have some sense and some respect for other people and, you know, some people might not want to see your underwear – I’m one of them.”

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Both Senator Obama and I promise we will end Washington’s stagnant, unproductive partisanship. But one of us has a record of working to do that and one of us doesn’t. Americans have seen me put aside partisan and personal interests to move this country forward. They haven’t seen Senator Obama do the same. For all his fine words and all his promise, he has never taken the hard but right course of risking his own interests for yours; of standing against the partisan rancor on his side to stand up for our country. He is an impressive man, who makes a great first impression. But he hasn’t been willing to make the tough calls; to challenge his party; to risk criticism from his supporters to bring real change to Washington. I have.

In a new ad released today, McCain dug into the archives to find a great example of Obama putting aside “partisan and personal interests to move this country forward.”

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‘Take that,’ says John McCain to….John McCain.

The ratings will be what depresses Team Obama, though. Despite having a near-monopoly on broadcast television and no particularly compelling competition, only one-fifth of the nation bothered to watch. That doesn’t exactly scream enthusiasm, and the crashing waves of a landslide may just be imaginary.

The depressing ratings say

Barack Obama’s campaign “infomercial” was the most-watched telecast in U.S. prime time on Wednesday, drawing an “American Idol”-size audience that easily eclipsed even the climax to baseball’s World Series.

More than 33.5 million viewers tuned in to watch the Democratic presidential nominee’s paid 30-minute message, aired on three major broadcast networks and four smaller channels, Nielsen Media Research reported on Thursday.

The three big networks alone, CBS, NBC and Fox, accounted for 25.5 million viewers combined — 1.2 million more than they drew in the same half hour a week ago, Nielsen said.

Citing critics from the New York Post, Morrissey says

The Obamamercial gave viewers tons of gloom and doom, with people talking about the tough economy (from their own houses and driving their own cars) to such an extent that the solution – Obama – hardly seems appropriate to the task involved.

Whether the show was good TV is, of course, subjective. Republicans have the review they want in the Murdoch-owned Post. Here’s what others are saying (as accumulated by the conservative US News):

The ad is receiving very positive coverage this morning. The Politico called it a “smoothly produced infomercial” that “weaved together American iconography — images of amber waves of grain, pickup trucks and American flags — with portraits of iconic voters, testimonials from politicians and one business figure, footage of Obama speeches and direct appeals from the candidate.” The Los Angeles Times says the spot “offered even the swiftest channel-flipper the chance to see Obama looking presidential.” The New York Post says “the heavily hyped piece let Obama — whom Republicans have tried to paint as ‘different’ and ‘foreign’ — reinforce the notion that he’s an everyman.” The New York Daily News reports, “From its opening image of a rippling field of golden grain to shots of small-town U.S.A., Obama’s epic echoed the style pioneered by Ronald Reagan’s famous feel-good ‘It’s Morning in America’ ads from his 1984 re-election campaign.”

Speaking on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360″, CNN analyst David Gergen, conceding that there were some elements of the video he could criticize, said, “At the risk of gushing, I must tell you overall it was extremely well done.” On its website, ABC News reported ABC News’ Chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos said the infomercial “was worth ‘just about every penny.’” In the Washington Post, television critic Tom Shales writes, “Somehow both poetic and practical, spiritual and sensible, the paid political broadcast…was a montage of montages, a series of seamlessly blended segments interweaving the stories of embattled Americans with visions of their deliverer, Guess Who.”

Denial: It ain’t just a river in Egypt.

Aren’t anti-abortion voters already sure who they’re voting for? They’ve got fetuses on their signs for god’s sake.

Are there undecided or swing voters on whom this kind of idiotic thing works? Are there rational people in this county who believe that Obama wants to kill babies?

It’s probably this just meant to motivate religious freakazoids — who know everything, including what you ought to do and not do with your genitals — get out and vote.

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I guess the point of this ad is to give whites “permission” to vote against Obama, even if voting for McCain doesn’t feel politically correct. I would think, though, that people who feel a historic obligation to support Obama because of his race aren’t inclined in large numbers to vote for McCain in any event. Who knows. It smells desperate.

And speaking of smells: who took they food stamps to get them some pork chops, collards and cornbread?

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Note that he never mentions John McCain. Janice’s question:

Do you think John McCain could talk for 30 minutes without mentioning Barack Obama?