Comments on: Dissecting a Norm Coleman Campaign Commercial

By: The Other Mike

The Other Mike — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:28:39 +0000

Why would I take the side of Galloway? Easy, he was right and Coleman was mid-guided into investigating another country’s problem.

In what way was Coleman right? Galloway was his country’s problem (and censured, clap clap, problem solved), so why out of all the things needing oversight is this Coleman’s priority?

Galloway in his testimony gave Norm a half dozen AMERICAN issues in need of oversight, why was Coleman not handling those?

Because there was another group doing oversight…you mean like a whole other country’s oversight group like in Galloway’s case?

But, that’s Norm. A windsock, not a leader, not someone rolling up sleeves getting to the source of problems, just another very able, but political hack who knows how to serve the power and do what is ‘politically correct’. After all these years, I expect more from a career politician than to just take orders.

Is Barkley better, Franken has been thoughtful on issues, who’s the guy…I’m not sure, but I know I’m ready for a change.

By: Michael Thomas

Michael Thomas — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:23:11 +0000

So why would you take the side of “Oil for Food” and Galloway (who was censured in his own country). Coleman turned out to be right on this one, and apparently you find more satisfaction on him being grand standed by an individual who lost respect in his own country?

By: Michael Thomas

Michael Thomas — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:19:10 +0000

While your agrument on this blog is better than your trolling on youtube, it is no more less “deceptive” than you allege Norm Coleman’s ad to be.
First of all, you talk about Al Franken being a nice, smart, reasonable guy. What evidence do we have that he is any of the above? Graduated from Harvard? Well Bush grauated from Yale, and Bill O’Reilley received a masters from Harvard. Oh and Jesse Ventua was invited as a fellow of some sort. Also, this is a guy who could not find a competent accountant (is this the judgement and “smarts” we are looking for) – and signed a disposition knowing that Air America took an illegal loan from the Boys and Girls club of New York.
If in fact that he was not called a “watchdog” by a Star Tribune writer and a commentator, what difference does that make? Is a commentaor’s opinion any less than Nick Coleman or Katherine Kersten?
You also talk about “riding the coattails” of Collins and Feingold. Coleman is not claiming he was the soul sponsor of the bill. Even by co-sponsoring the bill it shows more courage than Al Franken did by coming out AFTER the bailout bill passed to make his statement. Also onto deceptive Franken ads, what proof do we have that his cutesy re-creation of the Wellstone running story was not re-created frame by frame to debunk a commercial with clips of his true nature?

By: mrw

mrw — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:54:17 +0000

The Philadelphia Inquirer quote is from a 6/21/2005 editorial titled “Don’t let contractors off the hook.” Excerpt: “Is it too much to ask that contractors who do business with the federal government pay their taxes? Of course not. But the Treasury Department, responsible for enforcing this simple concept, acts as if it’s too much trouble to ensure tax cheaters are not rewarded with government contracts.

A study by the Government Accountability Office found that more than 33,000 businesses and individuals with non-defense government contracts owe the federal government more than $3.3 billion in unpaid taxes. …

A Senate subcommittee headed by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., has done a valuable service by highlighting these abuses. But more, obviously, needs to be done.”

The Star Tribune quote is from a 7/10/2008 editorial titled “Dead doctor scam is a new low for Medicare.” Excerpt: “Since 2000, scammers using the billing identities of dead doctors have bilked the federal program out of as much as $92 million. To make matters worse, Medicare became aware of the problem in 2001, promised to fix it, and then kept honoring claims from thousands of deceased physicians. In some cases, the doctors had died years before. …

Coleman, Levin and other Medicare watchdogs deserve praise for documenting yet another serious problem and initiating steps to end it.”

The Coleman campaign provided full citations for the quotes in their press release announcing the ad.

By: The Other Mike

The Other Mike — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:44:11 +0000

Deets! Excellent job digging under the fluffy statements in those TV ads.

I recommend everyone click into that Galloway link above, because it is all too easy to forget and ignore that situation even though it is only 3 years ago.

Galloway does an excellent job looking directly at the panel for 4 minutes straight, no notes, no stuttering stumbling mumbling, and rattles off one hell of an impressive statement.

The entire last minute of which is giving Coleman a list of investigative options far greater than what was being pandered about…areas that Norm completely ignored to investigate, probably because Cheney called him up following Galloway’s appearance and told him to stop immediately.

Now, you might say Norm, being a first termer who never was a real prosecutor, shouldn’t have been put into that oversight position of great importance.

My point EXACTLY.

If he refuses to and cannot do the job he was elected by us to do…
if his GOP party with its corruption and cronyism cannot put the right people in the right jobs to improve our once great country…
–then it is our responsibility to vote him/them out. And I intend to do my part.