|
Obama, for the win. (pg. 101)
|
View this Thread in Original format
| The17sss |
Lebez....kov: Interesting article about McCain. I don't like him either as a presidental choice. One thing I disagree with though, is that he's using his POW experience in a manipulative manner. Obama's moronic minions, like Wesley Clark, are the ones that keep bringing that up and trying to pick fights with him about it so Obama doesn't have the heat of manning up and saying it himself. I'm not in the defending John McCain business, but Obama has no military experience, while McCain declined early release from the Hanoi Hilton because his guys were still in there. People on Obama's side know McCain has a huge edge over him militarily, so they're going after that. That speaks of character a lot... and here's a good article making such points:
"Mort Kondracke poses this as a rhetorical question in his Roll Call editorial, but he appears to be leaning towards “phony”. After all of the policy reversals and waffles Obama has served up in the past month, some of which Kondracke applauds as pragmatic, can he be trusted? If he was willing to throw the netroots under the bus on FISA reform, just where will Obama take a stand on principle?
We haven’t seen that happen yet:
'But much more dubious — in fact, raising questions of character — is his abandonment of a solemn promise to run his general election campaign with public funds if his Republican opponent did.
Obama still says he favors public financing and he even claimed with a straight face that his collection of hundreds of millions of dollars from small, private donors — along with a lot from big donors, too — actually constitutes public financing.
From this episode — which probably matters only to political insiders — we learn that Obama is a politician of … shall we say, flexible principles. Pastor Wright told us as much before Obama disowned him, although the pastor certainly deserved to be disowned.
Then there’s his position on the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he said during the primaries — and continues to say on his campaign Web site — should be renegotiated. But lately he’s said that statement was “overheated.”
It seems he wants it both ways — satisfying the anti-free-trade AFL-CIO on the one hand and a passel of pro-trade New York investment bankers on the other.
To be fair, Obama is hardly the first politician to attempt to be all things to all people. However, he ran on the explicit promise that he was not that kind of politician, and that he despised that kind of politics. That was the trade-off, Obama claimed, for his lack of experience; he was therefore not infected with the dreaded Beltway Disease. Without that immunity, Obama becomes just another politician — and a greenhorn one at that, with no track record of success as a legislator and no experience as an executive or in the military.
The reversal on public financing may be the worst, as it speaks directly to character and principle. If Obama’s main theme has been change, reform has been the largest part of that theme. Public financing, he assured people throughout the primaries, was a bedrock of that reform. Yet he abandoned it, and lied about the reasons for doing so. Contrast that with John McCain, who refused to abandon his support for the Iraq war when it appeared it would doom his presidential campaign — or when McCain refused early release from his torturers in Viet Nam to get a break over those captured before him.
Not only did that reveal a lack of character, but it may have also revealed poor political calculation. His fund-raising has dropped 20% or more each successive month since his peak in February, to the point where McCain outraised him in May. Obama now has to spend time raising money when he should be campaigning, and he also has to compete with the Denver convention committee and Hillary Clinton’s debt-retirement tour. McCain has it relatively easy, with the RNC raising ten times as much as its counterpart.'
Kondracke wonders whether Obama will change course on Iraq and complete his journey to the center. He calls it unlikely, but he believes the media has to start asking tough questions from Obama on his other course changes to determine whether Obama has the character to be President — or whether he’s a snake-oil salesman adjusting his pitch for each audience. That may be as unlikely as Obama changing party affiliation. Obama has spent the last month waffling on whether he will stick to his 16-month evacuation plan for Iraq, saying alternately that he will “refine” the policy with input from the commanders or that the commanders will take input from him, once in office. ABC News spoke to the commanders and their officer corps in Iraq and got some input first, and discovered two points Obama hasn’t taken into consideration. Not only do they not want to leave, but if they do, they’d like to take their equipment with them. 90 percent of the equipment would have to be moved by ground through the Iraqi war zone, to the port in Kuwait, where it must all be cleaned and inspected and prepared for shipment. This is a place with frequent dust storms, limited port facilities and limited numbers of wash racks.
While Anderson and his troops have a positive attitude, several commanders who looked at the Obama plan told ABC News, on background, that there was “no way” it could work logistically. This is the kind of information that policy makers usually get before formulating policy. We can rotate troops out of Iraq on the kind of timetable Obama suggests, but we’d have to leave all of our heavy equipment in Iraq. Unless Obama plans some kind of nationwide garage sale, that would be a rather large loss for the American military in materiel as well as making our exit look more like Dunkirk.
Obviously, Obama didn’t have any awareness of logistics when he made this proposal — and that’s the point. His lack of experience, combined with a hubris that he has consistently shown on the campaign trail, makes clear that he is in way over his head at this point of his career (total experience: 143 days as a Senator and he's ready to lead the free world?). He has no sense of military policy at all, and got the biggest call of the war — the surge — completely wrong. Yet he insists that he’s ready to lead this nation’s military during a time of war as Commander in Chief? The biggest question here is — what’s the rush? If casualties drop to zero, then why not take our time and ensure stability?" |
|
|
| The17sss |
One more character article I found today about the empty suit as well:
"Talking about hope and change is easy; doing something about it is hard work. The residents of Englewood found this out after Barack Obama pledged to help renovate the neighborhood in 2000, including an earmark of $100,000 for a botanic garden and raising an additional million dollars for other efforts to reclaim Englewood from blight. Neither the garden nor the fundraising ever materialized, as the Chicago Sun-Times reports:
*As a state senator, Barack Obama gave $100,000 in state money to a campaign volunteer who failed to deliver on a plan to create a botanic garden in one of Chicago’s most blighted neighborhoods.
Obama — who was running for Congress when he announced the project in 2000 — said the green space in Englewood would build ”a sense of neighborhood pride.” Instead, what was supposed to be a six-block stretch of trees and paths is now a field of unfulfilled dreams, strewn with weeds, garbage and broken pavement.
Obama’s campaign says that the execution of the project was the responsibility of Governors Rod Blagojevich and George Ryan, and that is true — in part. Legislators who pass bills rely on the state to enforce and execute them. However, Obama’s direction of the state funds to one of his campaign workers gives him additional responsibility to make sure that the funds got used properly and that the work got performed, neither of which appears to be the case at Englewood. Besides a plywood gazebo, the only evidence of a botanical garden is a large variety of wild weeds indigenous to Chicago.
Furthermore, when promising hope and change to Englewood, Obama pledged to remain at the forefront of the effort by raising a lot more money for the renovation. At the time (January 14, 2000), Obama had embarked on his effort to unseat Bobby Rush for his Congressional seat. He promised to add more than a million dollars to the effort in the launch of the project, which the Sun-Times notes was outside his state Senate district but within Rush’s Congressional district. It’s obvious what happened — Obama lost interest in Englewood as soon as Rush beat him in the primaries, and simply reneged on his promise of assistance.
Jim Geraghty recalls Obama’s failure with another big plan to assist a low-income housing project covered by the Boston Globe, and says:
*Big promises. Little follow-up. Once again, one of the problems of constantly moving on to the next promotion is that you never get to see the consequences and ramifications of past actions.*
For a man with such a thin track record, the number of failures is rather shocking — but that’s not the most significant part of this story. It’s quite obvious that Obama has a pattern of talking about hope and change, and caring less about it when it doesn’t boost him politically. As soon as Englewood stopped being significant to his electoral hopes, he turned his back on the neighborhood. That speaks to character more than competence. |
|
|
| verndogs |
you have a link? posting those articles the way you did made is unreadable
thanks |
|
|
| The17sss |
Not the exact one I was quoting from, which was a report on the acticle... the actual Chicago Sun Times article is here: http://www.suntimes.com/news/politi...arden11.article
and another
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWE1NDZkOTQ5NGI1MzVkNzI1MzBlZGE1NTJjZWQzNGU= |
|
|
| Clovis |
All Wesley Clark said was that being a POW is not a qualification to be president.
Thats it. |
|
|
| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by Clovis
All Wesley Clark said was that being a POW is not a qualification to be president.
Thats it. |
He said this: | quote: | | in the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk, it’s a matter of gauging your opponents and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands of millions of others in the armed forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, `I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it publicly? |
The reason I brought up that boob Clark is because of the rediculous hipocracy of him backing up Obama with that statement. Every argument Clark made can be applied more to Obama than to McCain because, what has Obama actually done? This quote sums it up best: | quote: | | In “the matter of national security policy making,” Barack Obama hasn’t ever done anything. In the matter of gauging your “opponents”, Obama wants to meet with them without preconditions despite having no national-security, military, or diplomatic experience. Obama hasn’t been on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Obama hasn’t had any executive experience. Obama hasn’t commanded anything, in wartime or not. Obama hasn’t dealt with diplomats in any capacity at all. |
But Clark uses McCain's military record to discount him? lol |
|
|
| Clovis |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
He said this:
The reason I brought up that boob Clark is because of the rediculous hipocracy of him backing up Obama with that statement. Every argument Clark made can be applied more to Obama than to McCain because, what has Obama actually done? This quote sums it up best:
But Clark uses McCain's military record to discount him? lol |
He's not discounting him. He's pointing out that their differences in experience are not as big as everyone is making them out to be. He's not arguing that this is why McCain would not be a good president, he's saying that this type of experience is not particularly more valuable than not having any. And I don't think it is either.
George W. Bush's experience as a governor clearly didn't save him from becoming one of the worst presidents the country has ever seen. |
|
|
| RJT |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
Mort Kondracke |
|
|
|
| The17sss |
| quote: | | Originally posted by Clovis George W. Bush's experience as a governor clearly didn't save him from becoming one of the worst presidents the country has ever seen. |
Haha... I was nervous from the start with Bush when I heard about how the Texas Rangers went into the toilet under his ownership. I remember thinking, he better hire some serious talent to guide him through his presidency, which he didn't. |
|
|
| Lebezniatnikov |
| So serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee (read: committee that approves military spending) is better national security experience than serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? Well, go figure. Let's all vote McCain then. |
|
|
| Lebezniatnikov |
In the NYTimes today, for all of you who have been bitching that Barack doesn't have any tangible plan or that he's somehow going to "flip-flop" - something I don't believe he's done on anything other than FISA:
| quote: | July 14, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
My Plan for Iraq
By BARACK OBAMA
CHICAGO — The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.
The differences on Iraq in this campaign are deep. Unlike Senator John McCain, I opposed the war in Iraq before it began, and would end it as president. I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Since then, more than 4,000 Americans have died and we have spent nearly $1 trillion. Our military is overstretched. Nearly every threat we face — from Afghanistan to Al Qaeda to Iran — has grown.
In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness.
But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and we’ve spent nearly $200 billion more in Iraq than we had budgeted. Iraq’s leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.
The good news is that Iraq’s leaders want to take responsibility for their country by negotiating a timetable for the removal of American troops. Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. James Dubik, the American officer in charge of training Iraq’s security forces, estimates that the Iraqi Army and police will be ready to assume responsibility for security in 2009.
Only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation and achieve a successful transition to Iraqis’ taking responsibility for the security and stability of their country. Instead of seizing the moment and encouraging Iraqis to step up, the Bush administration and Senator McCain are refusing to embrace this transition — despite their previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq’s sovereign government. They call any timetable for the removal of American troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government.
But this is not a strategy for success — it is a strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States. That is why, on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war.
As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.
In carrying out this strategy, we would inevitably need to make tactical adjustments. As I have often said, I would consult with commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government to ensure that our troops were redeployed safely, and our interests protected. We would move them from secure areas first and volatile areas later. We would pursue a diplomatic offensive with every nation in the region on behalf of Iraq’s stability, and commit $2 billion to a new international effort to support Iraq’s refugees.
Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been. As Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently pointed out, we won’t have sufficient resources to finish the job in Afghanistan until we reduce our commitment to Iraq.
As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there. I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.
In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.
It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.
Barack Obama, a United States senator from Illinois, is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/o...int&oref=slogin |
|
|
| XaNaX |
| Honestly, I agree with everything he said there about Iraq. I agree that we need to get out of Iraq ASAP, but in a way that insures that we won't need to go back again and that those who have given their lives there didn't do so in vain. Iraq has been a distraction that we didn't need in the war on terror and if Bush had not been plotting the Iraq invasion from the start he could have committed significant ground forces in Afghanistan and we would probably have killed or captured Osama by now. |
|
|
|
|
