Empire of the Iguanadons

So the deed is finally done. Barack Obama is now officially our president. While I can sympathize with how wonderful a thing it must be for him, what I can't stomach is the incessant need of the media and liberals in general to fawn over the guy so much. He's a person last time I checked. You know, one of those human beings? Instead, the media has become enthralled by Obama. To the point of reaching a fever pitch. Yes, I dare say a new religious movement has begun in earnest. Obama Maniacs have risen.

Seriously, it all started out as a small bunch of loyal but obsessive supporters. They got him into the primaries. They fawned over his every word and eventually managed to win the nomination. Soon it got to the point where every word uttered by the man was treated as Gospel. He could do no wrong. Then the election in November came around, and his cult followers went to the polls in droves. No, it wasn't normal every day Americans who elected this man, it was religious zealots enthralled by their new Obamassiah. They pushed aside those of us with common sense who attempted to warn of what the man's policies would do. How destructive they'd be. Like the Spanish Inquisition, we were branded as heretics and called all sorts of foul names. Sure, there was no bodily torture, but that's only because that would have landed them all in jail.

Granted that yesterday was Inauguration Day and all, but for God sake. You couldn't turn on a single channel without running into Obama this or Obama that or Obama is the new hope. Change we can believe in. A new direction. All the horseshit that's been shoved down our throats by the liberal lefties for the last 18 months as though it's just normal. Obama can't sneeze without someone drooling over getting a hold of the snot filled handkerchief. He can't fart without someone wanting to capture the gas and sell canned Obama farts like people once did with canned smog. Every major station ran nothing but their sniveling drivel all day long. All of the radio stations have been talking about nothing else for two whole weeks. It's like they all collectively rammed their heads up the guy's ass and think it smells like roses in there. I can assure you, Obama's ass would smell as nasty as any other ass and one day these gibbering slobber brained worshiper will realize it and wonder how the hell this all happened. The real topper was the chanting. Yes, entire crowds chanting "O-BA-MA" in some kind of sick and twisted mantra like tone. It was utterly disgusting.

When the shine wears off in a few months, people will begin to wake up to the reality of what's happened. They'll suddenly realize that Obama is just a man. Instead of a great man like Lincoln they'll soon realize he's just a black Arab Jimmy Carter and wish they could go back in time to correct a terrible mistake. Such is the fate of cult worshipers. The President Obama Cult is no different.
.........................
"It is pointless to resist, my son." -- Darth Vader
"Resistance is futile." -- The Borg
"Mother's coming for me in the dragon ships. I don't like these itchy clothes, but I have to wear them or it frightens the fish." -- Thurindil

Well. I guess that's that then.

While I certainly can't/won't disagree with most of your sentiment, it often amazes me just how strongly you're willing to post some of these blogs. In my own blog I always hesitate to post anything I really feel that strongly about because I worry who's going to eventually see it and how they'd react to it. What can I say, I don't like losing friends and, even more importantly, I worry over possibilities of our nation's governmental reach, especially in times like these when the Homeland Gestapo (particularly the branch known as TSA - does that stand for Terrorist Strike America, or are they really just that zealous in their belief that we can't be subject to terrorism if they terrorize us first?) has more or less free reign endorsed by our entire government. Anyway, I'm still not at home (in fact, things are getting pretty crazy around here now that the wedding is only a few more days away on Saturday) but I did manage to take a few minutes out during some driving between errands yesterday morning to listen to Obama's inaugural address. Mostly it sounded like the same rhetoric he'd been spouting since his campaign began to me, though I was mildly pleased to hear him thank Bush and offer what sounded like a very vague but thinly veiled threat toward those other governments who might stand against us. I suspect foreign government specialists will be analyzing that speech for the next few weeks pretty thoroughly. Otherwise, it all remains to be seen if his actions in office can speak nearly as loudly as his words, let alone in even half as positive a manner.

For far too long in my younger years I kept silent and failed to tell people how I really felt about a great many things. I think that ended up costing me greatly along the way. To this day I still tend to hold far too much back in person than is probably good for me. So when it comes to blowing off steam and letting everyone know exactly how I feel, the one place that seems to work best is right here. The Homeland Gestapo can kiss my ass.

And with Obama now in charge, they will truly be a Homeland Gestapo. Bush meant well in forming the Department of Homeland Security, but as with all government waste pits eventually it will be perverted into something it was not meant for. There were far too many hints along the campaign trail in many of his speeches. The media has done an excellent job of covering it all up. But you and I and anyone who read things here back then knows exactly what I'm talking about.

As for anyone else who stumbles by and reads this, well, there you go. If you had no idea what I thought about Obama before, you can't claim ignorance now

I hear you man, I guess I just worry too much, but it can't really be all bad to do so. *shrug*

I definitely agree with you about Obama's apparent intentions though, and I think Bush was thinking only good thoughts when he created Homeland Security, but I was already seeing signs of eminent corruption within its domicile long before he left office, TSA is just the most easily visible arm of the beast.

If anyone else is reading this and still unclear about the stance of anyone here, just check some of the older blogs and the discussions that ensued from them.

LOL Samson, in Australia we take the "Tall Poppy Syndrome" (where you knock down whomever is on top) pretty seriously, but man you take it to a whole new level.

I guess, that if the other team won, you would not be lamenting how enduring it is to have to sit through 127 stations all playing the same inauguration footage, you would be singing the praises of how great your team is and how wonderful your president is.

As someone who is a swing voter and non aligned to any political persuasion or movement, i don't really understand the one eyedness of party politics. It made no difference to me, if one or the other won, as they would have both been a change of direction for the better.

For me, if i was to vote, it would have been for Obama, because to me, he represented the greatest change from the politics of Bush, with whom i had no affinity for and whose policies i mostly disagreed with and also because Obama is a much more inspirational speaker when compared to McCain. Palin on the other hand, seems like she might possess that natural gift of being able to reach out and relate to people, and Biden, well he is as boring as dish soap.

I just hope that the media stops trying to portray Obama as the Black Jesus, the Saviour of Mankind. So that he can be judged on merit and not on the expectations that are slowly being heaped on him.

Peace all, came to your mud Conner to say hi, but your away, enjoy man.

The Fury

Yep, quite right, because if McCain had won the liberal press here wouldn't have been enthralled by him. They wouldn't have spent the last 3 months building media temples and placing him on pedestals and cloaking him in an aura of godliness. Nope. Quite sure that they'd instead have cast the poor man as the second coming of Satan and been doing everything they could to make his life as miserable as they could and I'd probably have been here posting something to the affect of "just leave the guy alone already".

McCain was not Bush. Just because the great Obamassiah says otherwise doesn't make it true. No matter how the liberal media wants to doctor the news up today, or back then.

If anyone needs proof that Obama is indeed a fallible human being and not an all perfect deity, one need only look as far as his VP choice. Joe Biden? I mean, seriously, why not partner with Barney Fife? That would have been less of a disaster.

This whole "change" thing. Change we can believe in. It's change alright. Your pocket change. My pocket change. Dwip's pocket change. Conner's pocket change. Yes, I do in fact believe in that kind of change too. I believe it needs to remain in my pocket and be spent how I see fit. Not spent on Obama's grand second coming of The New Deal. That said, I have a feeling in a few short months people are going to wake up and realize there's nothing new or different about Obama. Not after he's stacked his entire cabinet with Clinton cronies from the mid-90s. Everything bad that the Clintonistas did will soon come back to haunt him.

Your most likely right, McCain just does not have the mass appeal that Obama does, however, they might have been cooking up a storm over the first woman VP, which in itself would have been something astounding. Sure its not as big as the first black man as president, but it is a pretty good second.

Do you think that Hillary (assuming she got the primary) would have had enough mussel to defeat McCain in the election. Or would people have gone, Oh no, we had a 2nd Bush and look where that got us, we are not having a second Clinton? Personally, i think it would have been a lot closer, maybe more like 1 or 2 states deciding what could have gone either way.

As far as I'm concerned both the Democrats and Republicans are total failures. McCain ranks even lower than Obama to me, I don't trust either of them.

The two party system has the nation divided by voting groups that whine for ice cream like a bunch of spoiled kids. The Democrats flirt with the Mexicans by hinting at amnesty, the Republicans flirt with the religious nuts about the right to own a coat hanger, and so the list goes on. It's disgusting, and only strengthens my believe that democracy is an instable system that will eventually self destruct. The current political parties don't care about doing what is right, they just want to remain in power.

He isn't Jesus?

Oh.



Yeah, I agree with you about the media, Samson. I think, though, that the problem is really in the colleges where the hippies superliberals have embedded themselves.

Actually.. I really don't think Obama will be that bad. Not quite as bad as some of the right-wingers make him out to be.

Particularly this surprised me:

Regarding terrorist targets in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region, Obama told The Associated Press Thursday: "I think it would be a

( ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=3441342&page=1
Random Blog:http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/obama_and_nuclear_weapons.php )


He's not a weak-minded fool. And by no means does he misunderstand the need for a powerful military.


/opinion

It would have been much closer and I think in the end McCain would have won out on that contest, though by a hair.



This statement belies your own bias in favor of the Democrats. You phrase it in such a way as to suggest that the Republicans are out to take away the rights of the people when the opposite is demonstrably true. Just look at California and all its restrictive laws that have been passed by the state legislative bodies. A good many get vetoed, some get overridden, but some end up getting signed. Usually by spineless left leaning Rinos like Arnold.



I remain unconvinced. His talk of invading Pakistan whether the Pakistanis like it or not is simply crazy. His talk of cutting defense spending to free up more money for things "we need at home" belies his true intent. A welfare state cannot field a powerful military. The irony here is that Bush himself proved this. Though he fielded one larger than Clinton, he did so while also spending like a drunken sailor here at home and as a result helped to push the economy over the edge when the housing market collapsed. Had he stuck to conservative values the housing crisis would not have had enough power behind it to destroy the rest of the economy along with it.

Far from, a general pardon for illegal immigrants would be disastrous. Arnold is a republican, so I don't quite understand your argument. The Democrats probably win in the 'taking away the rights of the people' department, but I hate to have to choose between the lesser of two evils.

Rino: Republican In Name Only. It's a term we conservatives coined to describe liberal Republicans who hide behind the party name thinking they're fooling us with an (R) next to their names in the news. Arnold is a Rino. He's not a true conservative, never has been, never will be, but as you say, he was the lesser of two evils when the Gray Davis recall was mounted. It was either him, or Cruz Bustamante. Bustamante is one of those Mexican Reconquista types who thinks California should be retaken by invasion. People like him run rampant through our government here and it shows in all of the policies we have in this state that grant benefits to the illegals and in most cases preferential treatment in getting them.

So sometimes a choice between the lesser of two evils has to be made. We made it with GWB in 2000 vs Al "global warming" Gore. We made it again in 2004 with John "I voted for the 80 billion before I voted against it" Kerry. And sadly I think we just made it again this time in 2008, only folks unfortunately chose the greater of two evils. Maybe that's the change people were looking for?

Funny you should mention those election battles. As a science student and someone who is concerned about scientific issues and specifically environmental issues, i would have loved to have seen Gore in office, as he was someone who was going to put environmental issues on the world stage. Kyoto would possibly not have ended up as a joke, greater efficiencies would have been made in energy uses and real investment would have been made into renewalbles.

Earlier you talked about how Obama has stacked his staff with Clinton cronies. I cannot speak for many areas, but one area of the Obama team that does not have this problem is his science team. When it comes to science he has picked some of the brightest minds on this planet, people who will put science above politics. This alone is something that should be commended.

In just the few days he has been in office, changes have been made in stem cell research and abortion laws, so far in areas that matter to me, Obama has made true on his election promises as well as show he is a man who stands by his convictions, one of which is strong science.

Here in Australia, i voted last election for Rudd, purely on science issues alone, Rudd is someone who cares for the environment and environmental issues, ratifying Kyoto was a bonus as was the apology to The Stolen Generations, which was a huge local issue.

These sorts of things are what set him apart from Howard, in much the same way as similar things set Obama apart from McCain.

Sorry for the double post, just decided to add in these extra points.

The Fury.

Man made global warming is junk science, so if that's where Obama is heading he's proving himself to be a colossal dumbass, just like many of us expected he would. His stance on abortion and stem cell research has also proven he's as far over on the left as we figured and that he values human life about as much as a tennis ball.

I guess on that we will have to agree to disagree, the evidence is there and the science is sound, that global warming is a real issue, that water management and air quality are real issues, that environmental degradation, habitat and species loss as well as loss of diversity are real issues, the over exploitation and collapse of fisheries are real issues, extreme weather, drought, cyclone and hurricanes are real issues, soil degradation and salinity are real issues. All of these problems are either man made or made worse by the actions of man. Weather global warming is or is not man made is ultimately totally irrelevant to the debate, managing the impacts of humans on the planet, however is of extreme importance, as it effects us all as well as our kids futures.

Global warming is a real issue. I never disputed that. What I am disputing, and what hundreds of reputable scientists also dispute, is that we caused it. The global climate is a force entirely beyond our control to affect. We simply don't have the ability, regardless of what Al Gore and his carbon offset cronies have told you.

In fact, man as a species has global warming to thank for its existence at all. Were it not for global warming, the last ice age would never have ended and we'd all either have frozen to death or still be stone age nomads.

I'd also like you to answer how we caused the current global warming that's going on on Mars. If you can answer me that, then I'll be far more likely to agree that we could have done the same right here on Earth.

Quite obviously, any fluctuations in temperature on Mars are not being caused by humans. Something that first year science students are taught is that the earth is a closed system, where only energy may enter and leave, and that the effects of a flux on 2 separate systems does not mean that both systems will experience the same effects caused by the flux.

The effect of an increase in solar luminescence on mars is going to be minimal when compared to earth as mars as little to no atmosphere to trap and retain the energy flux input. Where as earth does have an atmosphere that is able to retain the energy.

Venus also has experiences the same amount of solar luminescence, but due to the nature of its atmosphere, it retains much more of the energy that it receives. It should also be noted, that there has been no reported increase of average temperature reported happening there.

If there was an actual link between temperature fluctuations on mars and earth due to solar luminescence, then we would also see a corresponding rise on Venus also, this is not occurring, so i think that the link is unfounded. Aslo, comparing the effects of a flux on 3 separate and isolated systems is fraut with danger, we just do not know enough about how the systems work to be able to make those comparisons.

In many ways it would be like comparing the effects of beer on you, me and the guy next door, 4 beers each would have every different effects on each of us, to some 4 beers is a lot, like me, and 4 beers to the guy next door is nothing, because he drinks 10 every day.

In the same way, the effects of solar luminescence on the 3 planets will be vastly different even tho they are receiving the same amount of input, Venus is extremely hot, not because of it proximity to the sun and not because it gets more solar energy, but because it has a different type of atmosphere, Mars is cold and frozen, not because it does not get enough solar energy, but because it has no atmosphere to retain what energy it receives.

Another thing, the suns luminescence has been on the decline since the early 90's and will reach its peak low somewhere about 2040. How do you explain the rise in average temperature on earth over the last 15 years and the shrinking of frozen Co2 on Mars? Something that is happening despite a decline in solar radiation.

For mars, its shrinking Co2 caps can be easily explained by a natural shift in its orbit and tilt, as well as natural occurring planetary wobble. Earths current temperature rise cannot be explained away with the same.

On fluxes sinks and equilibrium, the Earth is pretty good are keeping things at a relative state of equilibrium. It has numerous interlocked systems that work together to keep the planet livable. Putting Co2 into the atmosphere changes the balance of equilibrium, deforestation further changes it by removing on of the biggest sinks of Co2. Now you don't have to be a brainiac to see what the effects of this are, its going to push the equilibrium equasion to the right and put things out of balance. This is not to say that this is the only cause of the current rise in global tempretures, but is is certainly playing a roll in it, and its one that we have direct control over.

As for Mr Abdussamatov's theory linking temperature rise on earth and mars with solar luminescence, it has been debunked by plenty of highly qualified people.

"His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion," said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University.

"And they contradict the extensive evidence presented in the most recent IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report." (Related: "Global Warming 'Very Likely' Caused by Humans, World Climate Experts Say" [February 2, 2007].)

Amato Evan, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added that "the idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations."

Peace, The_Fury.

I think, in your overly elaborate way, you answered the question just fine. We didn't cause global warming. And therefore since we did not cause it, we also cannot fix it.

Somewhere in there I think you lost sight of exactly what I was getting at. In that man has had insufficient influence over the climate to cause a rise in temperature that's not supported by any sort of valid hard science whatsoever. And before you trot out the tidal gauge study, know that it's been refuted as having a data flaw for being dependent on a single gauge which is situated on geologically unsound land.

Venus' average temperature is not rising because it is already well above what solar input alone would bring it to. Venus also has at present an atmosphere that is many times thicker than our own. Mostly due to intense volcanic activity. Which, incidentally, is identified as a primary cause for climate alteration right here on Earth too.

Also, given that man had no influence over Venus and its runaway global warming and that we have no influence over the current warming on Mars, I think I'm more than safe in saying my case was rested before it ever began.

No, thats not what i said, what i have said was, that we most defiantly have played a roll in the current warming trend, but the jury is still out on weather we are the primary cause. And even if we are not the primary cause, we can still mitigate the roll that we have played.



The point with Venus is that different systems react differently to the same inputs. So that you cannot link Earths climate change, with Mars's climate change and say that they are caused by the same thing, 2 vastly different and isolated systems will react in 2 totally different ways.

From an climate perspective, Earth and Venus operate in similar ways in how they respond to inputs and the feedbacks they contain. Mars has next to no atmosphere that can retain energy, and an atmosphere is needed to have solar radiation as the sole cause of the melting of the Co2 caps.



LOL thats some crazy logic you have there, and i wish you well and will leave you with it. Im just thankful that real scientists do not think the same way and look at the evidence with an open mind, not preconceived notions of reality.

Peace out,

The Fury.

Oh and one last thing, your basing your opinion on the ideas of 1 person, Mr Abdusamatov a Russian whose idea has not been published in a peer review journal, and has not had its claim tested by other scientists to see weather the results are repeatable. These are his thoughts and thoughts alone, they are not a theory, just pure conjecture, maybe from a few too many nights on the vodka.

If you don't wish to believe what main stream science thinks on the subject, at least pick a competing theory that has been published and whose science has been put under scrutiny, tested and has been held up.

This one, unfortunately is up their with astrology, auras and any other crack pot sudo-scientific idea that has not stood up to testing.

No. I'm basing my opinions on plenty of other peoples' ideas. Not just some random Russian I don't even know. The number of reputable peer reviewed scientists who say that global warming is caused by increased solar output during the solar cycles is far higher than you're obviously willing to accept. Bringing up Venus and Mars as examples were simply to show the complete stupidity of those who say man had anything at all to do with it.

I haven't even gone into the whole bit about how there are times in recorded history where it's been much hotter than it is now, and how data from 2008 shows we've been in some of the coldest temperatures on record since reliable records of that sort of thing began in the late 1800s.

Mainstream science is far from any sort of universal agreement. The "mainstream" scientists you talk about come to the conclusions that will keep their grant money flowing because the government won't fund someone who is a "crackpot global warming denier". Even if they have solid evidence that we had nothing to do with causing it.

Wow, you guys sure were busy here over the last couple of days..


Saw that the other day (in my channel history), sorry that I'd missed you, things have been pretty crazy the last week or so but the wedding was yesterday (well, this past Saturday anyway) and now Dragona is my wife in real life too finally.

Gratzies to the two of you.

Thanks Superman!

Grats you guys, thats awesome. My partner is also on my back to divorce my ex-wife so we can get married also. Have only been separated for odd 7 years, i think i should spend come more money on the bitch and pay for the divorce.

Conner - congrats!

As to the subject at hand, since I was prodded by our host to say something, I shall, albeit briefly because I have the mental energy of a particularly slow chihuahua right now.

Two areas of thought: What Obama's actually done, and what he's percieved as having done/is doing/will do/will do in alternate universes with resurgent Soviet communism and mind control lasers.

I pretty much said what I needed to say on the subject on my blog a while back, but the gist of it is that, in absence of Obama's having had the time to do much of anything, every little thing is getting hyped and blown out of proportion and twisted to suit the ends of whichever pundit is talking at that particular moment, and there seem to be three main schools of thought:

1. The "OMG Obama first black president omg everything will be ok the utopia is coming very soon now and Obama will fix everything and kittens ooo" school of thought, which ranges between believing that AIDS will get cured tomorrow and that in about a week we'll be living in the magical happyland free of war, poverty, and injustice.

These people will ultimately be disappointed, since on the one hand there's a distinct limit to how much you can project your fantasy world onto what the president actually does, and this limit is very sharply defined by what the president actually wants to do; and on the other hand because it turns out that there is, Democratic majority aside, only so much the president CAN do. I realize that Air Force One, Independence Day, and Tom Clancy novels of the mid-1990s may have colored our perceptions on this, but reality is nevertheless reality.

2. The "OMG librul fascists hide yer guns and git yer rashuns ready!" conservative apocalypticists, and yes I just made that word up, which is a slightly unfair characterization of our host among others, but the view appears to be that Democrats are Democrats.

These people will...sort of be disappointed, insofar as a non-trivial amount of what Obama has signaled he wants to do isn't actually all that far from what, up until Obama said he wanted to do it, conservatives themselves were in favor of. Here I am thinking primarily of the sketchy plans for Afghanistan, which seem pretty close to what I thought I heard a bunch of conservatives screaming about needing to be done ages ago. That aside, I suspect any particular agreements with Obama will be swept under the rug in favor of bitter partisan anger, at least among apparently non-trivial sections of the Republican party. There's a further question here about what said party will look like next time it goes up against the Democrats, but I'm going to shrug and say that we'll know in 2010 or 2011.

3. The people, and it should be pretty obvious by now that I'm in this camp, who seperate Obama from his supporters and his collective team, look at his proposals and the little he's done thus far, and conclude that the chief executive we've elected ourselves appears to be a depending on issue slightly left or right of centrist, and in any case seems to be a rationalist who appears at first blush to be less interested in ideology than getting shit done, and in any case appears to take seriously enough his mandate to be a leader of all Americans, and not just Democratic Americans or Republican Americans.

Which is a long way of saying that, having paid close attention to what Obama's said and done, I think that he's a fairly non-ideological guy who's more interested in running the government than in Making A Point, in a way that we haven't really seen in at least 15, maybe more like 20 years, going back to the first Bush and the first Clinton term, although even the last is a bit iffy, and it may be even further back than that.

In the event, he's definitely making the noises to be reasonably non-partisan in a way we haven't really had the experience of in at least that long. And I think that's interesting. I'm not entirely hopeful that this whole post-racial, post-partisan Second Era Of Good Feelings thing is going to work out ultimately, but we'll see.

In the other event, he actually truly seems to believe this stuff he keeps saying, and he's gone far enough on this whole hope and change platform that if he was doing it for political expediency he's either very stupid and calculated badly, or he actually believes it. Considering the history of the man I'm inclined to believe the latter, which is a long way of saying that I think Obama doesn't particularly give a shit about your particular partisan beliefs, whoever you may happen to be, and if you're thinking about this in terms of pure politics as usual, you're thinking in the wrong terms.

Which is not to suggest that his particular set of beliefs about policies and government will actually work, but I examined most of them about the time I voted for him, and they seemed to be sane, so I'm moderately optimistic. Certainly his initial steps have been good.

I think we'll ultimately know the answers to all of this in about two or three years, but until then, let us continue to wildly speculate by all means.


Now, as to the inauguration. I caught about 90% of it, save for the Bush sendoff and a brief moment where C-SPAN was apparently replaced with some kind of Christian station, and for the most part, it was what it was and I appreciated it for being that. Poet kinda sucked. Obama chanting was indeed a bit creepy as it always is. The jeering of Bush was, at best, undignified, rude, and unbecoming of the occasion.

In a bit more detail, and I'm pretty firmly in historian mode here, the chanting and the general public reaction I found pretty understandable (although I'm not claiming I necessarily agree with any of it) in a couple of contexts:

1. General relief at the end of the Bush presidency for the one, which seems to transcend several earlier ends of presidencies, because let's face it, Bush is pretty loathed right now, and the Bush era has come to mean certain things that we've got a promise to move away from by way of Obama's platform of ideas. I wasn't really there for them, but I imagine the general mood is akin to what it felt like post-Nixon, or post-Carter. Our long national nightmare is over sort of a deal, and in fact I'm somewhat surprised we never heard that phrase uttered by somebody. If Obama actually transforms anything is open to question, but this isn't about reality so much as perception, here.

2. Obama himself is extremely charismatic as a politician, agree or disagree with him though you might, in a way that's immediately and closely comparable to JFK, although people of a certain stripe probably think more of Reagan in that mold, which is fine. And as such he attracts a certain level of personality cult, which is the sort of thing I find moderately ridiculous, but it's one of those things that masses of humans apparently seem to need, and one of those things that we as the American collective seem to be great at taking to ridiculous levels, so here we are.

3. All of which ultimately boils down to America apparently wanting somebody to step up and be a leader, dammit, which rightly or wrongly Bush wasn't really ever percieved as by a lot of people. And we'll see how he actually does, but Obama at least projects the image, which appears to be enough.

I think I may have lied about attempting brevity. Oops.

Oh yes, I say, remembering that other bit I wanted to add, which is:

4. And let us not forget the historic nature of the moment, although considering the hoopla around it I'd be very surprised if you had, but there IS a certain something to be said for the whole "first black president" thing. Leaving aside racial politics as a whole for a second, and never mind that post-racial business, and in any case I'm white and so don't really get to get speak with any authority on it, but when you look at the history of black people in this country, the symbolism of Obama getting elected in the first place is a really really huge deal, especially when you consider that the time when you could get lynched for walking while black isn't all that far out of living memory, and the time when black people didn't have a whole lot of rights most certainly is within living memory.

All of which is to say that we as Americans have a certain national mythology about all men being created equal and liberty and justice for all and whatnot, and Barack Obama definitely feeds into that pretty well, no matter what you think of the man. And so I guess I can understand why people would get excited at that.

I expect I shall now be disagreed with vigorously.

Item #1: The media are the ones propagating the "OMG Black Jesus" mentality. They will however never be ultimately disappointed with Obama because they'll just blame the Republicans, Bush, racism, or my big toe. Whichever is convenient for them at the time.

Item #2: You apparently have no idea who you helped elect. Or you do and you're in denial. 48% of us knew damn good and well who the other 52% of you were ramming down our throats with the help of the liberal press. Obama himself has already admitted he's out to institute socialism. Remember Joe the Plumber? The guy who caught him red handed? Remember the speech from July of 2008 where Obama himself describes a "civilian security force the size and power of the US military"? Yes. It's things like that that us "conservative apocalypticists" are using to form our opinions of the man. It remains to be seen if he will indeed turn out to be []that[/i] evil, but it's already crystal clear he's an Arab Jimmy Carter. And yes, I refuse to call a man "black" when his heritage is a mere 6% in that direction.

Item #3: I don't know who this mystery group of people is you refer to. You appear to be speaking solely for yourself. Every sane political expert I've heard from on the issue clearly identifies Obama as liberal. He's no centrist in any sense of the word. He is the very definition of an ideologue. He's just got the silver tongue to trick people into thinking otherwise. Some of us are immune to that

Item #4: I'd agree with you. If the man were actually black. Go look into his heritage and you'll find he's actually an Arab-White mix. 44% Arabic, 50% Whtie, and a 6% smattering of Black. Don't ask me how that worked itself out, but the information is definitely out there. The liberal press being the ignorant slobs they are simply looked at his skin color and labeled him Black. Something Obama simply failed to challenge, which may or may not have been a shrewd political decision on his part.

Re #3: Would the phrase "sane political expert" include anyone who isn't a Fox commentator or Drudge?

Re #2: Obama has also admitted that he's out to change US practices with regard to the war on terror and detainees, increase ground troops in Afghanistan, change the tenor in the DoJ, set up talks with problem countries, and pass a giant stimulus package. As he has currently taken concrete actions towards all these things, they're what I'm paying attention to. I'll worry about the Homeland Gestapo when I see him actually doing something in that direction. Meanwhile, he appears to be concentrating pretty hard on detainee treatment, Geneva, and the economy. The economy appears to be trending towards socialism lite, I won't deny that, though I would ask you to please remember which administration approved the ideas of a giant stimulus and buying government stakes in banks.

Of course the man is a liberal. I submit to you, however, that there is a crucial difference between (on the one hand) seeking to enact a program that is a pure expression of an ideology and (on the other) having beliefs while being flexible and pragmatic about how well those beliefs can be translated into reality, especially when one is trying not to entirely lose the goodwill of the other democratically elected party with which one must govern. Erik and I think he's the latter, and such a position is commonly called "centrism," regardless of the holder's other positions. You seem to think not only that he is of the first type, but that it is impossible that he (or any other politician) could possibly be otherwise, which is interesting - do correct me if I'm wrong.

Re #4: I find the emphasis on pinpointing racial makeup to precise percentages a little disturbing. Whatever his racial makeup, if he's lived his life thinking of himself as black or half-black, and if that's how everyone else has perceived him and treated him, that is going to affect his experience of life and thoughts and conclusions than will what a DNA sequence actually says. James Watson himself has DNA that says he's likely 16% of African descent (that is, he had a great-grandparent of African descent.) Do you think he really thought of himself as, acted as, or was perceived by others as anything other than 100% white?

#3: Yes. It would include a number of people who aren't from Fox. And as far as I know, Drudge himself never weighed in. He may have, but I'm unaware. You do know Drudge simply aggregates links to other news sources, most of which actually aren't Fox News, right?

#2: Yes. Obama has admitted to wanting to change policy on the Gitmo detainees. He's already signed the executive order to close Gitmo and have the detainees brought to the US, specifically to South Carolina. I vehemently disagree with any plan to bring them on to US soil as that means we then need to waste taxpayer resources on giving them all trials. They were caught on the battlefield, engaged in acts of war against the US. They should not be treated like average everyday street criminals.

If he plans to increase ground troops in Afghanistan, then I have no issue there. It remains to be seen whether he'll continue to follow the Bush plan there. And yes, that's a Bush plan. Not an Obama plan. Do remember which president stated the intent to "surge" in Afghanistan.

I have no idea what "change the tenor of the DoJ" is supposed to mean. That sounds suspiciously like vague propaganda that has no solid meaning behind it, other than to say "see, hope and change!" or something.

As far as concrete actions, I find it extremely disturbing that there's now evidence suggesting he contacted Hamas before the Israelis in this last conflict of theirs. And his first formal TV interview was with an Arabic TV station that's known to not like us much, if at all. That's not the kind of concrete action I'm looking for in a president who is sworn to protect *US*. Getting in bed with your enemies is bad. Any other time in history it would have been called for what is is: Treason.

Obama is a liberal in every sense. Raise taxes, dole out government money to deadbeats, punish the rich for being rich. All of which he's enacting into reality as we speak. The so-called stimulus package is the first step. It's a trillion dollar economic mega-disaster in the making. It's also something you'll recall I disapproved of when Bush put forth the same idea, and McCain supported it as well. The conclusion was out of my hands though since they all wanted it and there wasn't a candidate on the ballot who didn't. So we got stuck with it despite the massive protest against it. From all sides as I recall. So you guys can think what you want, and I'l continue to observe the fact that Obama is indeed trying to translate his liberal beliefs into public policy at the expense of anyone who disagrees with him.

He's also not doing much if anything to preserve the "goodwill" between Democrats and Republicans when statements like "I won" and "stop listening to Rush Limbaugh" are his only means of addressing Republicans thus far.

#4: Lets not let facts get in the way of a good argument! I mean, we can't possibly call the man what he really is, right? He's an Arab-American. Although the "American" portion is very much in dispute despite the media's success at covering up his illegal alien status. So we'll go with Arab-White, although as I understand it the correct term would be White-Arab given his 50% "whiteness". Race is not determined by how you're brought up. It's determined by your DNA, period. Nationality is most definitely Kenyan as all records of any value point to him having been born in a hospital there. Not in Hawaii as he continues to insist.

Sarah said most of what I was going to say, I think, but I'll say it anyways.



I don't necessarily disagree with this, although I don't think it necessarily goes deep enough. The MSM bears its part, yes, and I think to some greater or lesser degree your new media does as well, although I would also add in other traditional things such as being influenced in your ideas by your parents/peers/whatever.

But I think there's something more, here, at least on the rabidly pro-Obama left, which has to do with layering all sorts of expectations onto him, regardless of what he actually may or may not believe on whatever matter, and which I don't think is necessarily so much anybody influencing people as people telling themselves things and wanting to believe them for whatever reason.

That having been said, and I'll admit I can't really quantify this concretely, but I get a feeling that if Obama disapoints some of these people too badly, it's going to go really badly for him. I think we'll see, and so far he's done things essentially right as far as they're concerned, but.



Considering how much of what the man's said that I've read and heard, yeah, I think I have a reasonable idea.

Yes, I remember Joe the Plumber, and I'm also pretty aware of the mockery he's made of himself since.

I seem to recall us going around on this civilian security force thing before, but either way, when he does it, let me know, and we'll see about it. Until then, the things he's actually done, namely



Also torture, and a couple other things that I'm too zonked at 1:40 am to remember, but which are generally reasonable things to do by most any standards, and which do not appear to be heralds of our new Soviet masters.



A lot of that's me, a lot of it's bits and snippets of stuff I've picked up from various commentators, some left, some right. I've been marinating in blogosphere commentary since November, so. It's not just me, though.



I will apply the Ta-Nehisi Coates theory to the thing, and say that Obama wants to be what he wants to be, and that's cool with me. He also happens to be a symbol of a certain sort to millions of Americans who really need that particular symbol, and as far as I'm concerned, as a collective they've the right to that, and the whole of us can simply be happy that, yknow, we're that one step closer to that whole all men are created equal ideal of the founders thing.

Which, I might add, doesn't particularly negate the fact that I and many others don't particularly give a damn if he's black, white, Arab, Asian, Ewok, Muslim, Christian, pagan, or what have you. What matters is that he can do the job, and we'll know in a time if he really can or he can't.

But it's a pretty good symbol to have, one way or atother. Although success at the governing thing will make it even better still.

As to the other post:



The South Carolina thing comes from where, exactly? All the speculation, none of it governmental, is talking about one Leavenworth, Kansas prison or atother, or the Florence, CO Supermax facility. None of which are precisely geared towards street criminals.

I'm also under the impression that, yknow, he just signed the order, and there's going to be some time to work out the details and all that. Trials, and what have you. Won't happen tomorrow.



Seemed more of a military consensus plan to me than a Bush plan, but it seems likely Bush would've gotten to it had he still been around. That aside, the main difference is the change in focus between theaters, which is ultimately non-trivial, considering how long Afghanistan languished as the backwater theater of the war.

In either case, I think Obama would tell me, and he's made this plain a few times, that it's not so much where the idea comes from or who takes credit, but that it's a good idea that should get done.



Actually curious about what DoJ tenor was getting changed myself, although definitely there has been some. I was a little bewildered watching the video of Hillary going to work at State and getting treated like a rock star, and apparently it was about the same at Education. Both of which go back to my previous points about perception, I guess.



I think I know what you're talking about with the Hamas thing, but would like a cite anyway, and if it is what I'm thinking of, the man in question isn't actually Hamas, and in any case both it and whatever TV interview I didn't hear about are great diplomatic moves, insofar as they signal to the Arab world we might actually do more with them than just blow them up, which is the commonly held perception there, to oversimplify a bit.

Which is to say that I have no idea how to really respond to that treason thing than to ask you what the hell you're smoking. And I guess we'll probably get here on Iran eventually too, but that whole talking to your enemies as well as your friends thing? All presidents do this. Long history of it with the Russians, among others. Nixon and China was what, precisely, insofar as he got on an actual plane and flew over there?

And, yknow, I dunno. I thought he was pretty clear about the whole chasing down AQ and bin Laden and all that, and we've got the missile strikes in Pakistan to prove it. Which is, frankly, in terms of keeping me, personally, safe, more of an issue than Hamas.

That aside, the whole George Mitchell as peace envoy thing suggests that he'd like to try giving the peace negotiations thing another shot, which certainly can't hurt, although I'm sure we'll just have to agree to disagree on the subject.



Indeed, although I'd phrase most of it differently, but then I agree with the man mostly. Then again, I don't really see a whole lot of serious alternatives to what they're doing now that aren't even more socialist. Not thrilled with what we've got, but it seems to beat the alternatives.

I'd briefly suggest that his foreign policy, especially wrt Afghanistan and Pakistan, is most definitely not classic liberal policy, here, although you can torque Iraq to fit that mold, sort of. When's the last time you heard a liberal president talking about raising the size of the military, though?



Context would help, here. The first is fairly innocuous, as it happens to be true, and the second, which I don't remember him actually saying and so would love a cite on, well, Rush does provoke that reaction, especially insofar as Rush also wants Obama to fail.

OTOH, contrast with the rest of Obama's rhetoric, and his actual cabinet appointments and the like, although it's a little too early to tell the true scope of this just yet.

I've covered the race thing as much as I'm going to.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/01/president-ob-10.html - The Arab interview thing got no more press than this. Even though I consider it a pretty damning indication of who Obama is really out to cater to.

Can't locate the page I saw the Hamas thing on, but it was a legit news source reporting that he contacted them before the Israelis and the results of that conversation are why Israel caved in again this time. Personally I wish Israel would just give us the finger and go carpet bomb Gaza and the West Bank and get it over with. To hell with what Europe and the UN want. They're not the ones being firebombed. Hamas doesn't want peace. The 1 year truce they're now calling for is only going to be used to repair their tunnels and restock their arsenal for the next go around 18 months from now. It's been a wash rinse repeat cycle there for decades and Israel caves every time.

Rush Limbaugh - Which of the numerous cites would you prefer I use?



As you're fond of saying, cite please. I've not heard Rush say he wants Obama to fail.

I won: Google has other hits too but this was the top result and looked like the most useful.



No, you're quite correct, but given that he also didn't initiate the Afghan war he can't now claim credit for much of what goes on there. He is somewhat of a paradox when it comes to keeping Gates on as defense secretary. I haven't quite figured that one out yet other than the very real possibility that GW had him over to look at the real info and not the NY Times propaganda he was going by before.

His stated policy in the past on Pakistan is also certainly not classic liberal either. Suggesting that you'll bomb an ally sounds more like classic German foreign policy from the 1930s to me, but then, I'm supposed to ignore his radical statements on Pakistan.



You mean like a treasury guy who hasn't paid his taxes in 4 years? Great leader by example. I'd love to tell the Feds I'm not paying. But I get refunds, so who am I to complain?

Clinton? I mean, come on, Hillary of all people? He couldn't find someone with more qualifications for the job? And shame on the Senate for denying the Republicans the opportunity to ask about Bill's financial dealings he now stands to benefit from with her in there.

We'll ignore the fact that most of the other departments rarely get much press other than the Attorney General and right now I honestly can't tell you who he appointed there. It made so little news. I'm more of a Reagan guy anyway. Department of Education? No thanks. Lets abolish that. Along with Homeland Security and a few others I can't even think of right now. Stuff that only exists to give liberal politicians something to bitch about.

Why is it more likely that this implies "he agreed to help out Hamas if Israel wouldn't agree to a ceasefire" than "he told Hamas to ask for a ceasefire now or he'd back further Israeli bombings of Gaza?"

Also, why is it bad exactly that Obama gave an interview to an Arab news station? Right now, the Arab world knows the following things about him: a) He's not George Bush, who has shown a tendency to invade their countries in the past, b) He has dark skin, c) His middle name is Hussein, d) He's not George Bush. Many of them are (guardedly) optimistic about these things. Given these circumstances, I'd imagine Obama wants to see if he can capitalize on the (likely temporary) goodwill to help out American policy interests.

In answer to your above question, yes, I do know that Drudge is a news aggregator, as I read him from time to time. I was being sloppy.

I think, though, in the end we must all defer to the political commentator with whom none of us can possibly disagree, and that is Dave Barry:



Also, Conner, mazel tov! I wish you all the best in your new life together.

NYT has a report on the interview with Al-Arabiya front and center on its homepage. Drudge has a link to a Yahoo news report. I imagine the other sites will have more up soon.

Version of Sarah's NYT link that works here.

The President Abbas phone call story here, although I'm fairly sure there was some quibbling elsewhere about who he called first. Either way, the main points are that:

- Obama is interested in a peace between Israel and Palestine;
- Abbas is, as best I've ever known, moderate Fatah, not Hamas, and one of the guys we want to be working with over there. Factions, you understand.

As to Israel, the Wikipedia summary believes that they announced the ceasefire on the 18th, before the inauguration.

The entire Rush Limbaugh thing works like this:

1/16 - Limbaugh says this, saying in so many words that he wants Obama to fail.

1/23 - Obama makes his remarks, both "I won" and "stop listening to Limbaugh" to Republicans. Since there's utterly no context there I find it a bit hard to really make a judgement. Intemperate? Justified, considering Limbaugh's rhetoric? Justified, considering Cantor is a whiny fuck who deserves to get slapped down? Beats me. I don't know enough. Probably not what I would have said, however.



I think we're essentially in agreement here, although Obama's Afghanistan policy hasn't changed overly much to me in the last 4-6 months, but then, you've had a lot of people saying these things for years now, so.



I'm slightly curious as to your reaction towards our invasion of nominal US ally Panama in 1989, considering. Or, for that matter, what this all means in the context of assorted US GWOT actions under Bush, starting with Iraq, over the objections of several of our allies.

That aside, what the hell do you want the man to do? We need to fight the Taliban/AQ. We know for a fact that they're swarming all over the goddamn place in NW Pakistan. The Pakistani government, stretching back years at this point, seems unwilling or unable to help. Granted that he could have tried the phone call approach at least once, but seriously, what's our alternate strategy here?



I am unsure as to what to think of Geithner, exactly, but he did pay the back taxes last I heard, so fair enough, although it still doesn't look quite so hot.

All things considered I'd think Bill would make a better SecState than Hillary, insofar as most of the world seems to love the man, but I'm willing to chalk this one up to being mostly political. Although, let's be fair here, Hillary is no fool.

And I don't know if we were watching the same confirmation hearings, but there WAS significant issue with Bill's financial dealings, and new rules were created to deal with the issue.



AG nominee is Eric Holder, whom we've heard a fair bit about where I'm watching/reading, although I admit I've tuned most of it out. Also State and Defense always get a lot of press.

Pass on the rest of it.

Thanks, The_Fury, after 7 years of separation you'd think one of the two of you would've decided to move on already but that it's pretty clear that you're not getting back together either way.
Thanks Dwip & Regina! I really appreciate it, but have to wonder where you guys are finding the time for all these huge posts of late.
(I have to assume the Erik mentioned more than once is Dwip and that the Sarah mentioned repeatedly is Regina.)

...got nothing better to do while installing all the stuff to get my comp working again, really.

And yes, Dwip = Erik and Regina = Sarah. Bad habit, that whole real name thing.

I have no such excuses. I have Greek and Latin to translate, magazine articles to edit, cover letters to write, doctors' appointments to go to, and a bunch of other stuff that will probably make me go insane if I try to think of all of it at once. As usual. This is what I do when I'm pretending I don't have any of that on my plate.

Interesting, I hadn't caught that one. But I have to say I entirely agree with what he's saying there. Obama is liberal, and he wants liberalism and liberal policies to fail. So I guess that inherently means he needs or wants Obama himself to fail. I get that, and for all the reasons Rush laid out, I agree. Obama's response to it all makes a lot more sense now in that he's aware that Rush called him out for being a Marxist wanker and he doesn't want people to be reminded of that. Poor Obama. Maybe if you weren't a Marxist wanker we wouldn't need Rush to say bad things about you. Boohoo.



Complete waste of taxpayer resources, time, etc. Noriega was a drug dealer. Drug dealing isn't international terrorism, and although being a drug lord is a really bad thing, it doesn't warrant a military intervention unless the Panamanian people asked for it. Much like the Columbians DID ask for us to intervene. Now, if Noriega had been an Osama bin Laden and had carried out bombings against US interests, that changes things. Acts of War and all that. At that point I would have fully supported carpet bombing Panama into submission, and further, I would have revoked the treaty handing control of the canal zone back to them and turned it into a military fortification.

Don't get me wrong about Pakistan. I think eventually we'll need to nuke them or something. Or let India do it for us so we can have deniability or something. But Obama has gone and made a huge stink over how we invaded Iraq ( legitimately might add ) and how we shouldn't have done that and all this crap that he made mountains of campaign press out of, only to turn around and say he'll bomb Pakistan. And he said it so casually as to make me wonder if he's not simply insane.

Re: Cabinet. Ah yes. Eric Holder. How I managed to forget that is beyond me considering his scumbagness. All the bitching and whining about Ashcroft and Gonzales and what does Obama do? Appoint Holder? Ugh. Hypocrisy.

While I wait on another multi-gigabyte download...

I think we're just going to need to not agree on Rush, since I don't think there's a way for me to phrase my "WTF?" reaction in a way you'll agree with, so.

I think I see where you're coming at on Pakistan, except where I don't. So, ok, we all seem to agree that we need to be doing something in Pakistan. Apparently this is the best way to do so, and for that matter it's not all that different than what Bush was doing.

Iraq, though. Obama's whole point, and I thought he was pretty clear about this throughout, was not that we shouldn't be fighting in Iraq because fighting guys is bad, his point was that we were fighting the wrong set of guys for the wrong reasons, and that we ought to stop fighting the wrong set, and go fight the right set, who happen to be in Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Which is a point that's pretty debatable, and I think we both take a fair amount of issue with it, but it is pretty logically consistent, which makes me puzzled as to how you're not seeing that.

I admit to knowing nothing about Holder particularly, although IIRC the drug people are pissed at him because he was a big drug war guy back when, which ok, but otherwise, nada.

Going back to the Al Arabiya interview, the English transcript of it is here, and I gotta say, I thought the questions were pretty softball, considering, and I had a really hard time detecting things that were treasonous, of which I found none, as opposed to things that were probably a reasonable enough idea, which were many.

Heh. What fun is trying to phrase your WTF reaction in a way I'll agree with? And in case it wasn't 100% clear, Obama is liberal and Rush wants liberalism and liberal policies to fail. You'll find that about 48% of us out there completely agree with that btw. Having been through Carter and Clinton I think it's pretty clear liberalism is a dead horse waiting to be buried but Obama hasn't figured that out yet.

No, Obama's whole point on Iraq was that we shouldn't have invaded, it was wrong, blah blah blah. He completely ignored all the intelligence pointing at how Sadaam was busy building up a dangerous arsenal of WMDs ( yes, facts are facts, it happened, they were there, let's not rehash this again ) and Bush decided to act rather than wait on the UN to eventually cave and give their Blessing of the Gods or something. Not to say he didn't try, but he soon realized they'd never show the backbone. He also realized we were already in a legal state of war with them. A cease fire does not a peace treaty make, and since no other formal declaration of the end of the war in 1991 was ever made, that war never ended. At least not until Sadaam was deposed anyway. But I wouldn't expect Obama to grasp the legal argument involved in that. He was more interested in politically capitalizing on "Iraq bad. Bush bad." If by logically consistent you mean "Bush bad" then sure, Obama has been entirely consistent in spewing forth that rot for the last 2 years or so.

Iraq was not the wrong set of enemies. They were the enemy. We had perfectly good reasons. None of the bullshit stuff the liberal media put forth over the last 5 years was ever true. It wasn't a war to steal oil. It wasn't about revenge for trying to kill daddy It wasn't about making sure Haliburton got shitloads of money. It was about making sure we didn't get nailed by a madman who had very clear and demonstrable ties to terrorist organizations around the world who wanted to harm us. I think that was an entirely worthy goal, and one our military was perfectly capable of executing. The Democrats did all they could to try and hamstring command execution though, just like they pulled with Vietnam. Fortunately for us all Bush had more backbone than Johnson or Nixon combined.

The treasonous aspect is that Obama is bending himself over backward to aid the Arabs, Hamas, and Fatah when it's been pretty clearly demonstrated that they hate us. Irrationally so even. Bush was bright enough to realize you can't negotiate with religious fanaticals who want you dead because you are who you are. Obama will either realize the same, or plunge us off the edge of the abyss trying to appease them. The guys in Dubai may be reasonable people, but Obama wasn't trying to win them over. He was trying to win over the ones who flew planes into our buildings and attacked our assets overseas just because we support Israel - and indeed probably out of revenge for when Jefferson kicked their asses 200 years ago after they told us we needed to die because we were infidels. It isn't going to work. And Obama's total lack of foreign policy experience is going to prove a serious problem if he keeps this crap up.

To continue being slightly off-topic, I must say that it's a pleasure to meet you both thusly.
Personally, I'm out of state and have been for the last month (or so) so I've just been visiting once or twice a day as time (and internet) become available to me so I can try to stay up-to-date with you all. *L*

BTW, Conner, if I haven't said it yet, congratulations on the marriage and hope everything continues to go well for you in the future

Conner - Good luck with that. We seem to have started one of those threads.

Let's talk Iraq here for a sec, then do Rush.

I don't really think we're in disagreement about Iraq, me and you, and we've certainly been over that enough times. Obama thinks differently, of course, and as best I can figure his thought process, it goes thusly:

1. Our reasons (removing WMDs) for going into Iraq were wrong.
2. They were also a distraction from the real fight, which is against terrorists.
3. Said terrorists are in Afghanistan and Pakistan primarily, and we ought to be focusing there.
4. In any event, Iraq is tying down vast chunks of our military that need to be doing other things, and it's costing us a lot of money we could be doing other things with.

Hence, goes the argument, we should leave Iraq, and shift resources to Afghanistan.

Which is a mostly reasonable argument, and while I think it's got a few holes, it's a fair bit more defensible than most of the rhetoric on the left. I have my quibbles with it, but as a strategic argument it's mostly sound. It also has the benefit of being based in a desire to, you know, fight our enemies as opposed to run the other way yipping like small and terrified dogs, which is a good thing.

It further has the unexpected bonus of coming at essentially the right time, insofar as Obama is basically just following what Bush set up in his final months, and taking credit for it - we did the SOFA stuff, we're mandated to get the hell out sooner or later anyway, the Iraqis think they can take care of things, and ok, fair enough.

Note that I think there's a distinction that needs to be drawn here between what the anti-Iraq war partisans seem to mostly believe, which is along the lines of "Get out of Shrub's war right now because of the oil/babies/Halliburton/aaaaaaaa!!111one!" and what Obama believes, which is grounded in actual reality and is borne of a sincere desire to protect the nation.

I just think his argument sucks.

Now, as regards Rush Limbaugh. I think a lot of things here, the first and most visceral of which is that the man is being a perniciously malicious fucktwat, but then it's his job to do precisely that, so ok.

On a more serious note, though, his saying that is extremely self-defeating and actively harmful, and here's why:

Two main things, here. The first of which is, look. Obama won the election, and pretty much carried the Democrats right along with him, to the point that they're just shy of being able to do whatever they damn well please. Last I checked, Obama had something like a 75% approval rate. Man's right - he won, and won by the biggest percentage spread in 10 years, and by higher percentage than anybody in the last 20. Folks had their taste of Republicans running the government, and didn't seem to like it, and it seems pretty probable that what Obama wants he's going to get for the next while. That's part one.

Part two is, we've got not just the one crisis to deal with, but many at the same time. Economy's fucked. Social Security and health care are fucked. We're fighting a two+several smaller theater global war for the 7th straight year. Can't really deny any of that. More than any other time at least in my lifetime, we need good, strong, bipartisan leadership by government to right the ship and sail it onwards.

And you can't claim Obama doesn't recognize that. He's been trying to reach out to Republicans ever since he was campaigning, and since becoming President-elect and President, he's gone well out of his way - hosting dinners for conservatives, including Rick Warren of all people in his inauguration, making conciliatory gestures to Republicans in his planned legislation, the list goes on, but almost everything the man says is about how we need to come together to face the crisis. His whole inaugural speech was pretty much on that very subject.

Which is to say that by the parlance of an earlier President, he wants to be a uniter, not a divider, and he's apparently taking the steps to do just that.

Way I see it, Republicans pretty much have two choices available to them right now:

1. Actually work with the President and the Democrats to pass some legislation to try and fix the country. Isn't going to necessarily be the legislation they dream of seeing, but they'll at least have the chance to influence it and moderate it more towards what they want.

2. Circle the wagons, throw up a big "Fuck you!" banner, and await the 2010 Ragnorok where they can once and for all sweep away the Democrats and use their crushing majorities to Make Things Right while in the meantime making every single bill a vicious battle to the death which they will ultimately lose one way or the other.

Which is basically what Rush Limbaugh wants, and, well, it makes him a damn fool on the one hand, because in you forgot, Republicans had 8 years of Presidency and I can't even remember how many years of Congressional control, and look where we are - Good luck on that 2010 thing. On the other hand, it makes him needlessly and maliciously destructive, because once you throw up that big "Fuck you!" banner, you're impossible to work with.

And ok. We've been here before, under almost exactly the same set of circumstances, only it was the Democrats during the last 8 years who circled the wagons, bitterly hacked and sniped and threw up that banner and refused to work with the other side, and would you look where that got us. Yeah, not really very far. Lots worse than it could've been, and had the added bonus of making them look like, well, malicious fucktwats, to borrow a phrase.

And to be sure, just because it's Republicans in the minority doesn't make that sort of behavior any better at all. One of Obama's main points during this whole thing is that by God, we've got to get past this petty partisan sniping that's been going on for the last 15 odd years and work together to make the country right. What I think he's also been very plain about is that "working together" does not mean "lay down beneath the Democratic jackboot." He seems genuinely interested in Republican cooperation and input, and it would be very nice if they gave it to him. Because I'd sure like Pelosi moderated in some fashion.

Oops, missed a bit.



You have a funny definition of both treason and aid, but ok, let's work this out.

1. Diplomacy is one the President's jobs, insofar as it is in our national interest to have ourselves and our allies at general peace.

2. It is in the national interest of the United States to attempt to obtain general peace with the Middle East and the Islamic world in general, If they don't hate us, we are safer, and we can do more and better business with them, among other benefits.

3. There is a significant portion, which can likely be made larger, of said Islamic world that doesn't actually hate us and wouldn't mind doing business with us.

4. President Obama has a pretty unique opportunity to do some things about that, considering who he is and where he comes from.

These things seem fairly reasonable to me, as I do not wish to be fighting wars in the region for the next hundred years.

Obama's strategy here appears to be twofold - talking to moderate leaders in the region, of whom Abbas is one (look up his rep), and talking directly to the people, which is frankly what he needs to be doing, because with the exception of Iran and possibly Syria, it's not the governments who'll fly planes into us, it's the people, and the people have a couple of main issues:

- They percieve the United States as being a colonial power out to conquer them;
- They definitely percieve the Israelis as being evil thugs who stole (and continue to steal via settlements) their land, and who furthermore want to kill them.

And you can pretty much see that in the Al Arabiya interview. And Obama seems to understand that. Not being parked in Iraq will help perception. Being seen as trying to implement a reasonable Palestinian peace will help. He'll probably get a pass on Iran, because nobody likes Iran anyway.

Note that nobody, thus far, is talking to Hamas, although if you're going to get any sort of real settlement out of the thing you'll eventually need to at least talk to and coopt the moderates in Hamas, and do something about the bombers.

Way I figure, we've got a shot at it. Doesn't hurt to try.

Sorry, but I've no interest in working with a bunch of Marxists and socialists who have spent the last 8 years pointing the finger at Republicans and calling them every foul name in the book and branding us as evil incarnate. Compromising with the devil only creates more problems. This is what Rush is trying to tell you. You seem to be more than willing to let partisan fuckheads like Pelosi and Reid run the show. You can't deny that they're the most disgusting examples of human filth on the planet outside of our enemies. George Bush bent over backward many times to try and work with these people and every time he did so, they turned right around and stabbed him in the back. Over and over again. No thank you. Obama can take his false promises of bipartisanship and shove them out his ass. Am I being clear enough for you yet? If not, consider that your #2 option is precisely what the Dems did to the country for 8 years by blocking or otherwise attempting to interfere with every last little thing we wanted done.

As far as Hamas, no. It's not in our interest to make peace with those people. It's not in Israel's interest to make peace with those people. It's in both our interests to wipe them off the face of the Earth the way Iran wants to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. Abbas is no different. He's just smart enough to lay low for now and wait for his opportunity. Fatah's goal is the same. They seek the destruction of Israel. If you haven't figured out yet that you cannot negotiate with these people you're plain hopeless. Obama is a hopeless moron if he thinks talking to them will do anyone any good. All it does is buy more time for Iran to funnel in more weapons to restock Hamas with. Diplomacy can fail. It has failed. The time for diplomacy and appeasement is over. The time for action is now.

And I can do nothing but laugh at the very thought of a moderate Arab state in regard to Israel. They all want to see them gone. They've all wanted the Jews exterminated for thousands of years. You don't want to fight wars there for the next 100 years? Ocean of glass. That's the only way you'll get that wish. So you'll excuse me if I consider it treasonous to negotiate with someone who wants me dead. I'd much rather shoot them first. And moderates in Hamas? That's worth at least 3 belly laughs alone.

Way I figure it, we have the shot. Take them out.

Thanks, Samson!

I think you might be right about that, Dwip, and I really feel sorry for the folks who don't check in often enough for the rss feed to show them how many new posts they've missed since their last visit.

You do realize that you sound exactly like every bitter elitist liberal partisan I've heard over the past 8 years, only with different words plugged in?



Way I see it, the problem is that humans are so very rarely the devil. That's what's so pernicious. At their vilest, they became utterly vile humans. Which is a lot tougher and more complex to deal with than a devil. Saying that someone is evil and human is not a way of making them less evil. It just makes them more complicated.

So basically the Ragnorok option, then. Right. Good luck with that. Going to be a pretty frustrating 4-12 years for you, I suspect.

Essentially what Sarah just said - you seem to want the Republicans to behave just like the Democrats did for 8 years, namely pulling petty little partisan stunts to block every damnfool thing to ensure that nothing gets done. We all railed against it when the Dems did it, so why is it suddenly ok for the Republicans to do the same thing?

And, for that matter, what do you think you're accomplishing by having them do so? How is having the Republicans stonewall and sabotage everything going to help the country in any concievable way, considering the issues at hand? I'm failing to see how anybody at all gains from this, satisfying as giving the finger to Pelosi may be. How do you expect to obtain effective government if you refuse to participate in it?

Insofar as I think your ideas wrt to Israel/Palestine are completely divergent from reality, all of them, I think we're pretty much done with that discussion.

Certain irony to that I suppose. Not unlike how we bitterly opposed much of Clinton's policies while he was president and flushing the country down the toilet. Not unlike how the liberals bitterly opposed Reagan's policies. Or Bush 1's policies. Not unlike how libs bitterly opposed everything Nixon and Ford stood for. Going so far as to frame Nixon with the whole Watergate thing. So you'll forgive me if the roles reverse once again and we bitterly oppose Obama's policies. If that means Obama himself must fail, so be it.



Yes, quite likely, but don't choke on your own giddiness at having ousted sanity from the government while you're at it. It's awfully arrogant of you to assume Obama will get reelected or that Biden will go on to replace him in 8 years. It's far more likely we're about to repeat the devastation of another Carter style government and Obama will be gone in 4 at the most.



Call it petty, call it insane, but what's good for one side is good for the other. What the Dems want to do to this country is complete insanity and there's only one way to stop that - oppose it. The difference here is that we'll be attempting to do so within the bounds of the rules.

Of course, it's pretty obvious by now to anyone with a halfway objective viewpoint that our government is hopelessly broken and the only real solution now is a revolution.

As far as Israel, if you can't see by now that Hamas isn't interested in peace, you never will. They just violated the cease fire arrangements yet again and killed yet another Israeli soldier and once again the world is demanding that Israel show restraint and stop bombing Gaza for it. The stupidity can never end as long as Hamas is allowed to continue existing.

Now I'm curious. A revolution of the "put them all up against the wall and get new people in government" variety, or of the "trash the Constitution and write a new one" variety?

Revolution as in trash the system as it exists now. Get rid of all the turkeys in office that are there now. Come up with a new Constitution, or at the very least amend the one we have to prevent the kind of divisive partisan asshattery that's taken over the government as it is now. As much as I'm not a huge supporter of the idea of term limits, perhaps at the very least we could amend the Constitution to limit senators and representatives to two terms each. People making a career out of being a politician is 95% of what's wrong with what we have now.

Jeez, guys, I was really trying to limit this thread for myself to mostly just watching for a change..

I really have to agree with Samson that another revolution "of the "trash the Constitution and write a new one" variety" is overdue in my mind too. I think Reagan did a great job of salvaging what he could out of our government at the time, but that it was really pretty much beyond hope long before he came along and has just been suffering a slow deprecation ever since.

I also have to agree with Samson that it's really pretty clear, despite the media's "coverage" of the whole affair, that Hamas will never settle for peace of any sort, but then, after almost 6000 years of fighting, would you really expect to be able to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians?

Can't say that I fully agree that the Republicans should be blatantly opposing everything the Democrats or Obama push for at this point, but mainly because I still rather expect Obama will eventually start to show his party roots enough that they'll all hang themselves in the public eye if given enough rope.

Well that is called party politics. I am always left with the feeling that those with extreme party alignments do not really want democracy in all its forms, but rather would me much happier with a 1 party system built around their beliefs. A sort of nice mans communism, or Islamic revolution in the name of Democrat or Republican.

The issue in the middle east is simple, everyone wants to blame the other, Palestine says its the Jews, Israel says its the Arabs. Personally, i think they are both to blame, and while i disagree with Samson that we should nuke the arabs, i think he has part of the idea, if you want to fix the problem and get get tough and make peace, both Israel and Palestine should be told to STFU and cut out the crap or we will turn all of the holy land to salt. Until both sides recognize the futility of their actions, there will be no peace, until fundamentalist ideology is destroyed, there will be no peace..

Some say money is the root of all evil, its not, its religious fundamentalism and party politics. You cannot reason with an ideologue as they are blind to all but what they want to see as reality, no matter what the truth of the situation.

If anyone did not realize the above post was made be my, changed OS and forgot to change the posters name.

The Fury.

Actually, I hadn't realized that it was you, but I can't say that knowing that would've changed my decision to just not comment.

I do agree that the whole "bitter elistist liberal partisan" thing is just your run of the mill party politics overall. I also agree that the whole "holy land" conflict will only end if one side or the other is totally obliterated or some third party forces them to work together, but I don't think the folks like Hamas will ever agree to anything short of one side being totally obliterated either, no matter what the stakes became. On your third point, I disagree only slightly, I think organized religion is the fundamental root of all evil and politics are just another form of organized religion in which a group of people band together to worship something they feel slightly less than metaphysical about.

One reason..."And my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives."

Like WE are ignorant and don;t know that. Obama is an arrogant prick.

You know, The_Fury, you could just register an account and not have to worry about being anonymous

And Tyche, you about sum the whole thing up. Obama is an arrogant prick.

Oh there's more...

Okay so he cranks the heat up to 80 in the white house.
"He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?" said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. "He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there."

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say 'OK.' ... That's not leadership. That's not going to happen." - Obamamessiah

Typical arrogant limosine lib. Oh but Obama grew up in Indonesia though Axelrod not Hawaii. Now I don;t really care if he cranks it up to 90 and opens the windows because he grew up in Chicago's Cambrini Green, but please STFU about American's sacrificing..

I'm not sure arrogant is quite the right word.. hypocritical sounds more appropriate to me, but then I think I could equally apply a few other choice words as well, so I suppose that arrogant works for now.

We are kind of ignorant when it comes to Muslims. Compared to Muhammad Jesus was a pacifist, and the New Testament is a fundamentally different religious work than the Koran. There's an argument to be made that Islam cannot go through an enlightenment, and looking at the Islamic world it shows. The way the Western media reports on the Middle East makes it difficult to truly grasp what is actually going on. Few people know for example that possession of a bible is a crime in most Middle Eastern nations. Imagine a Western nation banning the Koran, there would be riots, boycotts, and violent protests. They're firmly grasping us by our political correct balls - and they know it.

This whole image of Muslims as peaceful people is a joke, they increasingly become oppressive jerks as they gain the majority, and the countless civil wars involving nations with large Muslim populations prove it.

Sorry to have to disagree with you, Superman, but many of us do know that already very well and it is rather arrogant of Obama to make it sound like he just needs to educate Americans [wholesale] about Islam.

Well, the only Americans I've known to understand what I'm saying (not necessarily agreeing with it) were people who had spend significant time in the Middle East, Europe, or had studied the subject. It's hard to really concern yourself with it if you only see a headscarf twice a year at Walmart.

Also pay close attention to what Obama is saying:

""And my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives.""

He might have well said:

"And my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with small business owners who just like us have two arms and legs."

I've noticed how nothing of real substance comes out of the guy's mouth, he's like those AI chat bots that generate quasi plausible responses, and Obama's theme is political correct liberal nonsense. Needless to say that most politicians do this.

Be that as it may, there are still plenty of us who do understand much of Islamic/Muslim society, especially over the last few years of having info about it shoved down our throats by the media.

Yeah, I'd noticed that too, I'm just not sure why so many Americans bought his non-speeches lock, stock, & barrel such that he became our newest president to begin with. *sigh*

Charles Krauthammer nails it...
"In these most recent 20 years — the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world — America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them. It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved — and resulted in — the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq. The two Balkan interventions — as well as the failed 1992-93 Somalia intervention to feed starving African Muslims (43 Americans were killed) — were humanitarian exercises of the highest order, there being no significant U.S. strategic interest at stake. In these 20 years, this nation has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any nation, Muslim or non-Muslim, anywhere on Earth. Why are we apologizing?"

In the same said 20 years it has also contributed a lot of harm, the deaths of more than 100K civilians in Iraq, CIA programs to undermine legitimate and illegitimate regimes alike, foreign policy agendas that are about controlling natural resources, business and foreign policy that is about Americafying the Arab world. Political embargoes on sovereign nations that refuse to cow tow to American policy. The Arab would would hate the US much less if it stopped meddling in their affairs and left them to run their own lives and to live how they see fit.

So yes, Obama is somewhat right, there are many Americans who are ignorant of the policies and agendas of their government in relation to Arab nations and the impact that is has on the free peoples of those countries.

Which pales in comparison to the millions Sadaam killed while in power. Through the use of chemical weapons on his own people. And before you grieve for those fallen civilians be aware that what the UN and Human Rights Watch are calling civilians were really insurgents fighting with no designated uniform and who were most definitely violating every treaty in the book. First rule of engagement: defend yourself and your unit from attack. Those insurgents made the fatal mistake of attacking US soldiers who came as liberators and were asked to remain by the new Iraqi government.

The rest of your spew about foreign policy based on natural resources is nothing more than Democratic propaganda blown up into a non-issue that Obama the wind bag used to campaign on. If you'd stop and think for 2 seconds you'd realize that every nation on Earth bases at least part of their foreign policy on natural resources. It's what governments do.

There's also one policy of the Arab world that we are not ignorant of. The Koran spells it out in no uncertain terms: Kill all infidels.

It has all to do with perceptions, that is the ignorance of Americans. You fail to accept that a great majority of the world thinks and sees you in a light much different to how you perceive yourselves and your place in the world. Your right, everyone else is wrong and that's all there is to the story. Well i'm sorry, but you just invalidated the experiences, lives and rights of billions of people, including my own.

Tyche is right, the US has done untold good for certain parts of the Muslim world, but it has also done a whole lot of harm too. Funding Bin Laden, Cia operatives being captured in Tehran attempting to overthrow the elected government, shooting down an Iranian passenger plane killing 160 civilians, helicopter raids into Syria where women and children are killed. These are just the things i can think of off the top of my head, where the USA has either meddled in the affairs of another state, either directly or indirectly or has made mistakes of judgment that make you look bad.

And that is just one part of the world, lets not even go into places like Cuba and all the CIA attempts to kill and over throw Castro, or supporting terrorists and terror organizations who are also plotting against Castro, or harboring said terrorists in Florida. Or other South American countries where the US government has been propping up 1 dictator to get at another.


Wrong on the Obama part, if you did not notice, when the USA invaded Iraq, all the anto war protests around the world, were clearly aimed at the heart of the issue, NO WAR FOR OIL. On the second part, Googles policy is Don't Do Evil, i think thats the difference between the USA and many other countries, the US does not care about anything or anyone other than its huge corporate consumption machine.

One day you might be able to see and admit that your government has done a lot of wrong and is also to blame for how the world perceives Americans, until that day i will continue to read your Republican Yankee doodle dandy propaganda that the media organizations spoon feed you for breakfast.

Hitler blames all his troubles on the Jews, Republicans blame it all on Democrats. Playing the blame game gets us all nowhere. At some point you have to at yourself and accept that your not perfect, your government is not perfect and your country is not perfect, and that alone seems to be a very American trait, not seen in other counties.

Does that make it right then for the US to kill more civilians? Your arrogance means you cannot accept that you country has killed innocent children and women.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/press-releases/12/ <-- read it, it might open your eyes to whats actually happening.

For the period 2003-2005
Women and children accounted for almost 20% of all civilian deaths.
30% of civilian deaths occurred during the invasion phase before 1 May 2003.
US-led forces killed 37% of civilian victims.
Air strikes caused most (64%) of the explosives deaths.
At least 42,500 civilians were reported wounded.
The invasion phase caused 41% of all reported injuries.

If you cannot accept that that is wrong, then you have a problem. And Sadam has nothing to do with anything, we are not debating his actions, if we were i would agree with you that he caused the deaths of many more innocent people. But we are not, we are talking about the innocent people who have been killed by US invasion forces.

The Fury, you're amazing me with your anti-American stance here. Do you honestly believe that any country out there, including your own, is completely innocent of determining their foreign policies based on their own interests? Or that any country out there, including your own, is completely free of having ever engaged in espionage (regardless of the intent or the outcome/publicity)?

Sure, Obama is right that there are many Americans who are ignorant of the policies and agendas of their government in relation to Arab nations and the impact that is has on the free peoples of those countries. But there are plenty of us who aren't and there are also plenty of Americans who are illiterate, or drunk, or using drugs, or.. but I personally take offense at anyone lumping us all together based on those individuals with those problems as they are not representative of the rest of us or even the majority of us. How would you feel if we declared that all Australians must be forest dwelling tribal ignorant natives because we've heard of some Australians who were? (I'm not really trying to imply anything of the sort, obviously, just making the point... we're not all ignorant rednecks here either.)

Even if we go with your statistics, the US has caused a whole one third of the "civilian" casualties that have occurred during this war in which battle zones were very carefully delineated and controlled throughout. Yes, that's a shame, but those "civilians" had absolutely no business being in the line of fire to begin with. It's not like Israel's last incursion into Gaza in which the enemy was using civilians as shields and hiding among crowded residential areas, these were "civilians" who were out on the "battle field" and more often than not actually armed and shooting first. Most of us who've ever served would call those enemies rather than civilians.

As for our being able to see that our government has done a lot of wrong, sure they have, which government hasn't? Maybe you're right, we should just let the rest of the world live their own lives their own way and immediately abort all our humanitarian aide missions, call off all our attempts to quell insurgencies that we've been asked by the respective governments to help with, recall all military, financial, and other "gifts" and loans we've ever made, then finally the rest of the world might remember how much "good" we've done them despite their desire to label everything we do for the world at large as "wrong".

The thing is Conner I am not anti American, all i have done is provide a counter view point on the actions of US in relation to its foreign policy agenda and the reality is that this is a viewpoint shared by a lot of people throughout the world, so there has to be some credence to those arguments. I am also not saying that those arguments are all right, some will be very accurate others not so, but i think it is very arrogant to suggest as Tyche and Samson have, that the US is perfectly innocent.



I think the difference with Obama and a lot of other politicians and other public figures, is that he recognizes the US has done a lot of good and a lot of harm as well, combine with his Messiah complex and you have someone who wants to do good for all mankind.



Hamas was hiding, or were they just going about their daily lives, driving to work, going home to their families, when the bombs rained down. One mans battlefield is another mans house, car, workplace. Sad as that may be, when your picking out enemy leaders from residential areas you would want to make sure that you get things right. Sadly, Israel killed way more civilians than Hamas.



Or you could continue to do all those good things it does and less of the evil things that make you hated by a lot of the world. There is a lot to be said for leaving people to live their own lives and to have their own dreams and not to have an American dream thrust upon them. This is something my own country s just starting to learn in relation to the Aboriginals, some of them, just want to live their way, with their language and culture and be forced to live a British way.

The_Fury, the disgusting nature of your anti-American stance is only overshadowed by your complete ignorance of how these bastards like Saddam and Hamas operate. Both of them took to deliberately using civilians as human shields. Both have committed unspeakable atrocities upon the very people they claimed to be protecting. Both have even paid the families large sums of money to willfully send their sons and daughters ( yes, daughters too ) to blow themselves up attacking purely civilian targets. Assholes like you who spew this stuff out without even bothering to look into it are why the world thinks we're the big bad evil Americans.

They don't bother to look further to see the over all good we've done. They don't bother to stop and consider that in order to defeat an enemy who uses civilians as shields, civilians must necessarily die in the process. They don't bother to look at why Saddam or Hamas or Fatah or Hezbollah or Castro or any of them hide out inside hospitals and schools. They only see the "evil" of attempting to root those people out, sometimes by having to bomb what they've effectively turned into a military target.

Then there's the sanctimony of people like you who sit in their countries utterly oblivious to the fact that their own government is helping to eradicate these terrorists. Willing to overlook their own role in it just to throw another dagger at the back of America. Well one of these days our people here at home in the USA are going to make good on the world's perception that we only give a shit about ourselves. We're learning the world's lessons well since that's all places like Australia and Europe give a shit about is themselves. One day somewhere in the not too distant future, you'll get attacked, and we'll sit up here and simply say "not our problem, we're not getting involved" because every time we do, we have to go home and have daggers pulled from our backs.

But, in reality, not really, because you all know we'd never stand by and let our allies be destroyed. Or at least we wouldn't have before electing an Arab ass-kissing dick brain like Obama. Reagan knew what needed to be done and he did it. So did Bush. Neither of them gave a damn what the world thought. In the end, the world came to appreciate what Regan did for them. One day they'll appreciate what Bush has done. I just hope that when that happens, Australia is still a peace loving free country able to sit there and thumb their collective noses at their neighbors to the northeast.

Sadly enough, in 1939 the same could be said of Hitler's stance as well... in fact, there are still factions throughout the world that think he had the right idea, here we generally consider them dangerous crazies rather than possibly having credence due to their shared ideas.


I'm not nearly as sure as you seem to be that they were trying to suggest that the US is perfectly innocent but rather that we're nowhere nearly as bad as you had suggested.


I don't know what news you heard/read at the time, but every indication I'd read was that the Israeli bombs were a direct retaliation and Hamas had plenty of warning that it was coming and they were definitely not just going about their daily business except for the daily "training" for their attacks on Israel.


Just as often as not in the past those "evil things" were either outright mistakes or just things that other countries were engaged in too where we were the ones who managed to become public. And quite a few were also, like the Iraq war currently, engagements at the request of the respective government at the time. As for just letting folks live their own lives rather than accept the American dream, the American dream has worked reasonably well for us and an awful lot of foriegn countries seem to be trying pretty hard to adopt it even without our help, even Russia. But we could certainly simply tell folks that we don't want to push our ideals and beliefs upon anyone else and thus we're not going to interferre with their lifestyles even when they beg us to come help overthrow the Sadams, Hamas, Castros, etc.. on the other hand, when those leaders attack us, we can't exactly just turn the other cheek either.

.....

Um, wow, Samson.. I can't argue against your position, but is The_Fury really the problem directly? Just saying... that was a little harsh even if what he's said is out of line, no? I mean, I wouldn't have called him an asshole..

Actually Conner, yes, The_Fury and people like him are the problem. Ideas such as "we hate the USA" don't just spring up from nowhere. Someone has to think that up. Someone then has to propagate it to others. Enough people like him and you end up with whole media organizations who hate the USA ( or other countries, but we're not discussing them ), and add just a bit more to that and you have political parties formed with those anti-American opinions. It's happened right here at home with the Democrats. So it comes as no surprise that other people around the world have also bought into the same kind of anti-American rhetoric. That's precisely the kind of hate and malice the Dems want to capitalize on.

The only way The_Fury's view on this could be excused as him not being the problem is if he's simply one of the brainwashed masses, but his statements here don't lead me to believe this to be the case. He seems more like one of the agitator types than someone to be led around by the nose. But he's free to correct that perception if it happens to be wrong.

You are correct Samson, the "we hate the USA" ideals don't spring up from thin air. People do think these things up, and people do propagate it. What you really need to consider is what makes these people "think it up".
Are you suggesting that the Democrat party was "formed" with anti-american opinions? I serious doubt that Thomas Jefferson, James Madison or Andrew Jackson had anti-americanism in mind when forming the democratic-republican party or it's more modern rendition. In actuality, I think it's VERY American to question and criticize the actions of our leaders, isn't that what got us here in the first place?
I also think that comparing Reagan to Bush is just about the most offensive thing I've ever heard said about Reagan. They have absolutely nothing in common, have not performed similar actions nor hold similar beliefs. The context in which you made the comparison isn't nearly as bad as it could have been, but if you have any respect for him you should refrain from making those comparisons in the future.

The Democrats of today are not the ones from the days of our forefathers. Then again, neither are the Republicans. Things changed right about the beginning of the 1960s. Kennedy was the last of the Dems of old. Up to him, there was very little difference between the two parties. Both were staunchly patriotic. Both were more rooted in their Christian origins. Both of them believed strongly in fiscal responsibility except for FDR. Kennedy was even a tax cutter who took the highest rate from 90% and dropped it to 75%. He should have gone farther but didn't. His assassination marked the end of the true patriotic America loving Democrats.

Starting with Johnson, the party was taken over by radical elements from the uber-left. AKA liberals. We know them better today as hippies, peacenicks, and appeasers. For all they wanted to do was get the USA to lay down its arms and join the rest of the globe in campfire songs of peace, love, and flowers. So no, the Democrat party was not formed with anti-American opinions. It's simply been overrun by people with such opinions. The same people who took an active role in engineering our surrender and withdrawl from a war in Vietnam we had actually won are still in power today. And they're still acting directly against our better interests by trying to make us fail in Iraq and cosying up to our enemies. And yes, one of these radicals got himself elected president because the media - who is now run by the same 60s appeasers - went out of their way to prop the guy up like he's some sort of messiah. Hence why he's been called the Obamassiah. The Democrats simply think he can do no wrong, that no matter how alarmingly bad something he says is, he said it, therefore it's good for the country.

So yes, I am questioning our leader. Vigorously. And look at the reaction I get by doing it. I get called a bigot, a racist, ignorant, dangerous, etc. Y'all on the left simply assume I'm the problem instead of one voice who refuses to play along with what's become the problem. I didn't come down anywhere near as hard on Bush as you think I should have because quite frankly I don't think he was that awful a president. Sure, his border policy sucks ass and many of his fiscal decisions stunk, but his foreign policy was solid and right on the mark. He clearly understood who it is we're up against and exactly how they should be dealt with. Knowing when negotiations are futile is a good quality, it's not a weakness. It doesn't make you a warmonger. It makes you a savvy player in the world game. Knowing when to tell the UN to shove it out their asses is a good thing for the US. Not a bad thing. The UN does not run this country and never will and I'll go to my grave to keep it that way if necessary.

Re: Comparing Reagan to Bush. Get a life. One day history will vindicate Bush as a visionary leader who knew where we stood on the world stage and who had the guts to stand up against the Evil Empire of our day. They may not have held similar beliefs when it comes to domestic policy, but in the end on national security and foreign policy they held very similar beliefs and those are what I value most.

If you want something truly offensive, I am deeply offended by any suggestion that Obama is anything like Lincoln ever was and yet the media has been trying to shove that one down our throats since before the election. Obama is the polar opposite of everything Lincoln believed in and to try and pass it off as anything else is an insult to the American people.

Personally i don't see myself as any of those things, if anything i am a questioner. I understand that you mistakenly take my position in this debate as being that of an antagonist, merely all i am doing is giving you an opposing viewpoint, one that questions your own and one that is held by a lot of the very peoples talked about in this thread.

The reality remains, that through out the world, there is a lot of hate towards Americans, try telling the mother of a dead baby killed by a US bomb that her grief and experiences are not important because Sadam has killed more of her people than the US have. People like that don't see the good things that the US does, their only experience is that of pain and misery caused by the US.

I think that is the point i have been trying to get across to you, your experience of the USA is a lot different to someone else's experience of the USA, imagine those feelings you felt when 9-11 happened, that's the same feelings that some have had to endure for years and years due to embargoes on medicine and food, because of wars and occupation, because of to be overly simplistic the foreign policy of the USA. Sure there are reasons for many of these things happening, but those reasons are not going to outweigh the pain and suffering of these people.

I think maybe because i have direct experiences in these things that i am able to be a little more understanding of the impact that government and its policy's can have and how they shape the world view of people on the receiving end.

As for my political position, i have been very clear that i am a swing voter and am not party aligned. I tend more to the left than the right, however my views have been shaped by people on both the left and right. I am a strong believer in the Aussie ideal of "A Fair Go", i think people should be able to choose their own destiny without outside interference. If people want to live in the bush and eat bark, then Kudos to them, or if they want to live under a communist dictator, more power to them also. There needs to be less fear of things that are different in the world and more accepting of others rights, religions and cultures. Idealistic yes, never going to happen, yes, but it would be nice to see a little more tolerance in the world, something Obama looks like he might deliver. We will see.

Everything you just said about a US bomb killing a baby, take that and multiply it by 10,000 and then go ask the Israeli mothers who have had to endure that for their entire lives at the hands of Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad. Then explain to me why I should give a flying rat's ass that some Hamas soldiers were wounded during the retaliatory operations that the Israeli army engaged in trying to defend their people from rocket attacks and homicide bombings. And I dare you to come to New York and try and pull that grossly insulting analogy to 9-11 and walk away with your limbs intact. Even the liberals here would consider your disgusting comparison enough justification to hurt you for it.



I realize you'll never go along with this, but what you just described sound an awful lot like true conservatism here in the US. Freedom of expression, religion, the right to choose your own destiny without the government butting their noses in. Racial tolerance and equality. Smaller government. Strong national defense. Hell, most Americans who might stumble in and read this would assume I'm on crack for saying it. But it's true nonetheless. Your views hold more in common with our conservative wing of the Republican party than they ever will with the Democrats. You certainly don't seem to have much if anything at all in common with Obama. You didn't mention fiscal and personal responsibility either but I'd wager you're not opposed to such things either.

You'll find that the liberal wing of the Democrat party believes in quite the opposite. They think government is the answer to everything. From welfare to family life. There's no bureaucracy too big for them. No agency with enough funding. No military action is ever justified. They think we should lower our standards to that of the rest of the world instead of wanting to help the world raise their standards to our own. They sew the seeds of racial divisiveness and propagate the ideals of Marxism and socialism. They think capitalism is a disease that needs to be eradicated instead of a system that needs to be fixed and allowed to grow. The don't believe in national borders and think national security is synonymous with Hitler's death camps. They think corporations are a plague instead of the engine of our economy and the source of financial stability. They consider personal income a resource to be plundered rather than something the people should be allowed to invest on their own. In short, liberals are pretty much everything our media accuses the conservatives of being.

Oh, and btw: Guess who's once again firing rockets over the border into Israel? Yep, that's right, Hamas. After they begged the world to push for a cease fire and got it. This is what they do with the time. Find more rockets to fire. This cycle has been washed, rinsed, and repeated so often that it may as well be a broken record or a looped video. Hamas is not interested in peace. Obama fails to understand this.

Nice speech, Samson.. I still think calling our friend The Fury an asshole was more than was needed... and, "peacenicks" ??? you're totally too young for that word. *L*

I don't recall being called an asshole at all, but hey, politics can be a touchy subject for some people, with debate being more about winning and loosing an argument than about open and frank discussion of ideas. So i'm not offended if i was called names, its just part and parcel of these sorts of topics.