Does the Shoe "Fit" ?

[denuseri]

I came accross the following whilst surfing the net.

"1. Mr. Obama is a very intellectual, charming individual. He is not to be underestimated. He is a cool customer who doesn't show his emotions. It's very hard to know what's behind the mask. The taking down of the Clinton dynasty was an amazing accomplishment. The Clintons still do not understand what hit them. Obama was in the perfect place at the perfect time.

2. Obama has political skills comparable to Reagan and Clinton. He has a way of making you think he's on your side, agreeing with your position, while doing the opposite. Pay no attention to what he SAYS; rather, watch what he DOES!

3. Obama has a ruthless quest for power. He did not come to Washington to make something out of himself, but rather to change everything, including dismantling capitalism. He can't be straightforward on his ambitions, as the public would not go along.

He has a heavy hand, and wants to level the playing field with income redistribution and punishment to the achievers of society. He would like to model the USA to Great Britain or Canada .

4. His three main goals are to control ENERGY, PUBLIC EDUCATION, and NATIONAL HEALTHCARE by the Federal government. He doesn't care about the auto or financial services industries, but got them as an early bonus. The cap and trade will add costs to everything and stifle growth. Paying for FREE college education is his goal. Most scary is his healthcare program, because if you make it FREE and add 46,000,000 people to a Medicare-type single-payer system, the costs will go through the roof. The only way to control costs is with massive RATIONING of services, like in Canada . God forbid!

5. He has surrounded himself with mostly far-left academic types. No one around him has ever even run a candy store. But they are going to try and run the auto, financial, banking and other industries. This obviously can't work in the long run. Obama is not a socialist; rather he's a far-left secular progressive bent on nothing short of revolution. He ran as a moderate, but will govern from the hard left. Again, watch what he does, not what he says.

6. Obama doesn't really see himself as President of the United States , but more as a ruler over the world. He sees himself above it all, trying to orchestrate & coordinate various countries and their
agendas. He sees moral equivalency in all cultures. His apology tour in Germany and England was a prime example of how he sees America , as an imperialist nation that has been arrogant, rather than a great noble nation that has at times made errors. This is the first President ever who has chastised our allies and appeased our enemies!

7. He is now handing out goodies. He hopes that the bill (and pain) will not come due until after he is reelected in 2012. He would like to blame all problems on Bush from the past, and hopefully his successor in the future. He has a huge ego, and Dr. Krauthammer believes he is a narcissist.

8. Republicans are in the wilderness for a while, but will emerge strong. Republicans are pining for another Reagan, but there will never be another like him. Krauthammer believes Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty & Bobby Jindahl (except for his terrible speech in February) are the future of the party. Newt Gingrich is brilliant, but has baggage. Sarah Palin is sincere and intelligent, but needs to really be seriously boning up on facts and info if she is to be a serious candidate in the future... We need to return to the party of lower taxes, smaller government, personal responsibility, strong national defense, and state's rights.

9. The current level of spending is irresponsible and outrageous. We are spending trillions that we don't have. This could lead to hyperinflation, depression or worse. No country has ever spent themselves into prosperity. The media is giving Obama, Reid and Pelosi a pass because they love their agenda. But eventually the bill will come due and people will realize the huge bailouts didn't work, nor will the stimulus package. These were trillion-dollar payoffs to Obama's allies, unions and the Congress to placate the left, so he can get support for #4 above.

10. The election was over in mid-September when Lehman brothers failed, fear and panic swept in, we had an unpopular President, and the war was grinding on indefinitely without a clear outcome. The people are in pain, and the mantra of change caused people to act emotionally. Any Dem would have won this election; it was surprising it was as close as it was.

11. In 2012, if the unemployment rate is over 10%, Republicans will be swept back into power. If it's under 8%, the Dems continue to roll. If it's between 8-10%, it will be a dogfight. It will all be about the economy."

Its from a summary of a speach given by Dr Krauthammer.

[MMI]

Not very impressive, is it? Just a display of bad bile and scaremongering.

Obama's president now and the Republicans will have to get used to it. But when they've only got the likes of Palin lining up to replace him, maybe they're lucky that the law prevents him from holding office for more than 2 terms.

[steelish]

I looked this up. Snopes has mixed review on it while Dr. Krauthammer denies ever making those statements. He does have a series of articles on Obama though:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/23/AR2009042302983.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/16/AR2009041603379.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/02/AR2009040203287.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/05/AR2009030502951.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/26/AR2009022602908.html

[steelish]

Not very impressive, is it? Just a display of bad bile and scaremongering.

Obama's president now and the Republicans will have to get used to it. But when they've only got the likes of Palin lining up to replace him, maybe they're lucky that the law prevents him from holding office for more than 2 terms.

Why is it that everything that questions what Obama is doing or is against what Obama is doing is considered bad bile or scaremongering?

In America, we are allowed to question our politicians, we are allowed to express our views. Instead of name calling, how about expressing an opposing viewpoint that supports your ideals?

[fetishdj]

I think the comment about bile and scaremongering was based more on the fact that most of this is speculation based on no evidence (how can anyone other than Obama or his close friends know what he is thinking? Yet this person seems capable of reading the mind of someone they have never met.

A lot of the accusations could be levelled at any president... Ambition, power and wealth are all part of the package. I still claim that you should never elect anyone who actually wants the job because they are bound to have some ulterior motives.

From what I have read about Sarah Palin, I cannot believe that she is as intelligent as this claims. More intelligent than some past presidents, certainly, but that is not saying much...

It is right in stating that the Republicans need to find another Reagan. By which I mean a good old fashioned capitalist Republican rather than the recent batch of religious fundies. Someone who might think carefully about the local economy rather than foreign policy by extreme prejudice. I still would not like it that the right wing had won but I wouldn't worry so much about someone who decides policy based on religion rather than common sense and intelligence having a finger on the nuclear button and control of the largest and best funded militaries in the world.

[steelish]

And my apologies to MMI. You would be surprised how many people say basically the same thing when presented with solid facts.

[DuncanONeil]

Not very impressive, is it? Just a display of bad bile and scaremongering.

Obama's president now and the Republicans will have to get used to it. But when they've only got the likes of Palin lining up to replace him, maybe they're lucky that the law prevents him from holding office for more than 2 terms.

Unlike the "bad bile and scaremongering" that occurred between 2000 and the end of 2008. Well most of it anyhow.

[DuncanONeil]

Why is it that everything that questions what Obama is doing or is against what Obama is doing is considered bad bile or scaremongering?

In America, we are allowed to question our politicians, we are allowed to express our views. Instead of name calling, how about expressing an opposing viewpoint that supports your ideals?

True! There was far more, and pervasive, calls and insistence that Bush was not President for his entire terms of office.

[DuncanONeil]

As the post by den.. said don't rely on what they say. Look at what they do. Past events can go a long way into giving insight into character. But even Obama himself said look at who I surround myself with. Appears as now that he is President that is a good thing and important, unlike before. But be it before or after election they are the same kind of radical personalities.
Almost immediately after arriving in the Illinois senate he sought out the power man and his aid to get him where he is now.


I think the comment about bile and scaremongering was based more on the fact that most of this is speculation based on no evidence (how can anyone other than Obama or his close friends know what he is thinking? Yet this person seems capable of reading the mind of someone they have never met.

A lot of the accusations could be levelled at any president... Ambition, power and wealth are all part of the package. I still claim that you should never elect anyone who actually wants the job because they are bound to have some ulterior motives.

From what I have read about Sarah Palin, I cannot believe that she is as intelligent as this claims. More intelligent than some past presidents, certainly, but that is not saying much...

It is right in stating that the Republicans need to find another Reagan. By which I mean a good old fashioned capitalist Republican rather than the recent batch of religious fundies. Someone who might think carefully about the local economy rather than foreign policy by extreme prejudice. I still would not like it that the right wing had won but I wouldn't worry so much about someone who decides policy based on religion rather than common sense and intelligence having a finger on the nuclear button and control of the largest and best funded militaries in the world.

[MMI]

And my apologies to MMI. You would be surprised how many people say basically the same thing when presented with solid facts.

You could probably count me among those people too! I'm a lefty, but the same is true of the right.

I read the first post as a call-to-arms for the Republicans, and anything that would appeal to their prejudices was trotted out. Naturally, I found it distasteful, but nothing erquires refuting: that would dignify it far more than it deserves.

To me, Obama seems much more appealing than Palin. That's my point of view, since you ask, but I'd prefer a proper liberal, or even a social democrat.

[Bren122]

it is ironic that Obama is charged with trying to rule the world when it has been quite clear that his policy objectives are predominantly domestic. I was amused to read in Le Monde that after all the moral support he garnered from Europe many of those supporters are now feeling 'left in the cold.' i think that rather than being a standard bearer for the far left, at least internationally, he is still coming to terms with his domestic role. the fact that he has repeatedly refused to be drawn into the Iranian crisis either on the nuclear proliferation or the Green Revolution would suggest that he has more than enough foriegn policy issues on his plate and does not want to add more.

[mkemse]

I think Obama has simply tried to do way to much in his first year in Office

[steelish]

I don't know that Obama is trying to rule the world. If so, he's going about it the wrong way by bowing and scraping to other country's dignitaries while also presenting them with lackluster items as a show of appreciation. I hardly think any of them feel he might "take over".

What I don't like about Obama is his views on social justice and his verbal attacks on the constitution and capitalism. He supports abortion rights but opposes gay marriage. He candidly states that he did not come into full religious faith until his adult life and he has credited the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a man who states,


"And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains, the government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton field, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America — that's in the Bible — for killing innocent people. God damn America, for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America, as long as she tries to act like she is God, and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent.

Just a few points here...

1. Indian reservations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_reservation) were established long ago and there is NO law that says they Indians HAVE to stay on that land.
2. Yes, the American citizens of Japanese descent were treated unfairly, remember, there was a war on and many of the Japanese Americans who were sent into internment camps still believed in the American way and sent their sons to serve alongside American-born soldiers.
3. Quite frankly, I'm tired of this. Truthfully, I am. Yes, slavery happened...but it happened so long ago that it is time to MOVE ON. (and I know some of you are gasping) I am horrified at the treatment our ancestors gave Africans. I am appalled that they thought it was ok to treat people like livestock. However, to grasp this and use it as an anchor is reprehensible. This is being used to weigh down African American children and rather than simply state the facts and tell stories of the past, it feels as if this is being used as ammunition against a generation that had nothing to do with it. All of this happened long before I was born and long before Rev. Jeremiah Wright was born. Instead of ranting about it, he could inspire his congregation. He could encourage them to study, to stay in school, to go to the library where it's free to read books. He could encourage kids to get jobs, even if it means sweeping floors. (that's what I told my son...he's not too good to clean toilets, sweep floors, etc.) Why incite people to rage against another race? THAT is what he is doing. He's putting a white face on the government.
4. By the way, the three strike rule applies to EVERYONE

[DuncanONeil]

Appealing is not a good manner of choosing a leader. I have no problem saying that Mr Obama is an appealing person, a very good speaker. The weakest speech I have heard from him was the latest in Ohio. He sounded like a fundamental preacher at the pulpit, even that does not make a reason to diss the man.

However, his history in politics is not one to engender confidence. His basic plan of action for leading is to take in as much money as possible, to fix what he perceives as a problem, and then for the Government to decide which arena, or business, is going to be permitted to succeed. Just about the only thing the Government is capable of executing properly is the military. And that is mostly because they keep their hands of of the minutia of running it. Unlike everything else they get into!


You could probably count me among those people too! I'm a lefty, but the same is true of the right.

I read the first post as a call-to-arms for the Republicans, and anything that would appeal to their prejudices was trotted out. Naturally, I found it distasteful, but nothing erquires refuting: that would dignify it far more than it deserves.

To me, Obama seems much more appealing than Palin. That's my point of view, since you ask, but I'd prefer a proper liberal, or even a social democrat.

[DuncanONeil]

Just a few points here...

1. Indian reservations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_reservation) were established long ago and there is NO law that says they Indians HAVE to stay on that land.

Basically what you say is correct, to a point. But Wright is totally wrong. What we actually did with the Indians was to attempt to create independent nation states for them on the continent. The reservations still exist and they still hold the benefit of being a separate state.

2. Yes, the American citizens of Japanese descent were treated unfairly, remember, there was a war on and many of the Japanese Americans who were sent into internment camps still believed in the American way and sent their sons to serve alongside American-born soldiers.

This interment is not as bad as what was done to them in the community. Think "carpetbaggers", with the Japanese being treated the same as the South after the Civil War!
There is a measure of disingenuous speak in this entire internment issue. A similar action occurred to Germans, although apparently to a lesser degree.

3. Quite frankly, I'm tired of this. Truthfully, I am. Yes, slavery happened...but it happened so long ago that it is time to MOVE ON. (and I know some of you are gasping) I am horrified at the treatment our ancestors gave Africans. I am appalled that they thought it was ok to treat people like livestock. However, to grasp this and use it as an anchor is reprehensible. This is being used to weigh down African American children and rather than simply state the facts and tell stories of the past, it feels as if this is being used as ammunition against a generation that had nothing to do with it. All of this happened long before I was born and long before Rev. Jeremiah Wright was born. Instead of ranting about it, he could inspire his congregation. He could encourage them to study, to stay in school, to go to the library where it's free to read books. He could encourage kids to get jobs, even if it means sweeping floors. (that's what I told my son...he's not too good to clean toilets, sweep floors, etc.) Why incite people to rage against another race? THAT is what he is doing. He's putting a white face on the government.

For me this is about the worst argument possible for attacking "white" America! My grandfather and Grandmother did not come here until after the Civil War. More than that My cultural ancestors on coming to this country were treated at least as bad as blacks. In fact in order for my cultural ancestors to get a job they were required to take wages less than those available to blacks. I do not believe that the Rev Wright rant is as applicable as he wants it to be. It is just a means for him to either inflame his "flock", or control them. The man is just angry.

4. By the way, the three strike rule applies to EVERYONE

Hear! Hear!

[steelish]

[QUOTE=DuncanONeil;839661]
Basically what you say is correct, to a point. But Wright is totally wrong. What we actually did with the Indians was to attempt to create independent nation states for them on the continent. The reservations still exist and they still hold the benefit of being a separate state.

Yes, and they still have separate laws governed by their own councils. BUT...they are not required to reside on the reservations. There are many American Indians who live off reservations.


This interment is not as bad as what was done to them in the community. Think "carpetbaggers", with the Japanese being treated the same as the South after the Civil War!
There is a measure of disingenuous speak in this entire internment issue. A similar action occurred to Germans, although apparently to a lesser degree.

Yes, but instead of dwelling on it, the Japanese Americans sent their sons off to fight against the Japanese along with the American-born soldiers! They still believed in the American dream/ideal, despite the treatment they received. They recognized why it happened. They set about to change opinions by setting an example of American pride and citizenship, rather than propagate racial animosity.


For me this is about the worst argument possible for attacking "white" America! My grandfather and Grandmother did not come here until after the Civil War. More than that My cultural ancestors on coming to this country were treated at least as bad as blacks. In fact in order for my cultural ancestors to get a job they were required to take wages less than those available to blacks. I do not believe that the Rev Wright rant is as applicable as he wants it to be. It is just a means for him to either inflame his "flock", or control them. The man is just angry.

I don't believe his rant is applicable at all...at least, to me it's not. Unfortunately, to his congregation it is, otherwise they would walk out on him.

[denuseri]

"A year and more has passed, yet we have not been delivered. Some believed that Barack Obama had come to restore the Republic, to return our nation to the righteous path. A new, glorious era in American politics was at hand.

If only that were true. We all can taste the bitterness now. Obama promised to end the war in Iraq, end torture, close Guantánamo, restore the constitution, heal our wounds, wash our feet. None of these things has come to pass. As president, with few exceptions, Obama either has embraced the unconstitutional war powers claimed by his predecessor or has left the door open for their quiet adoption at some later date.

Leon Panetta, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has declared that the kidnapping and rendition of foreigners will continue, and the Bush Administration’s expansive doctrine of state secrets continues to be used in court against those wrongfully detained and tortured by our security forces and allies.

Obama has adopted military commissions, once an unpardonable offense against our best traditions, to prosecute terrorism cases in which legitimate convictions cannot be obtained; when even such mock trials provide too much justice, he will make do with indefinite detention.

If, by some slim chance, a defendant were to be found not guilty, we have been assured that the president’s “post-acquittal” detention powers would then come into play. The principle of habeas corpus, sacred to candidate Obama as “the essence
of who we are,” no longer seems so essential, and reports continue to surface of secret prisons hidden from due process and the Red Cross. Waterboarding has been banned, but other “soft” forms of torture, such as sleep deprivation and force-feeding, continue—as do the practices, which once seemed so terribly important to opponents of the Bush regime, of presidential signing statements and warrantless surveillance.

In at least one respect, the Obama Justice Department has produced an innovation: a claim of “sovereign immunity” in response to a lawsuit seeking damages for illegal spying. Not even the minions of George W. Bush, with their fanciful notions of the unitary executive, made use of this constitutionally suspect doctrine, derived from the ancient common-law assumption that “the King can do no wrong,” to defend their clear violations of the federal surveillance statute. As the attorney Glenn Greenwald has argued, in his writings for Salon and elsewhere, the rule of law has not been restored but perverted; what had been outlawed but committed, the law now simply permits. Obama’s lawyers, benefiting from Bush-era litigation, can claim conformity with law, but the disgraceful policies continue largely unchanged.

Better, smarter legal arguments obtain for policies that should give any decent man nightmares. Our torturers and war criminals and illegal spies and usurpers remain at liberty, unpunished. The wars of choice continue and threaten to spread; 30,000 additional soldiers prepare to “finish the job” in Afghanistan’s graveyard of empires while our flying robots bomb villagers in the mountains of Waziristan.

This, we are told, is progress.

Admirers of the president now embrace actions they once denounced as criminal, or rationalize and evade such questions, or attempt to explain away what cannot be excused. That Obama is in most respects better than George W. Bush, John McCain, Sarah Palin, or Joseph Stalin is beyond dispute and completely beside the point. Obama is judged not as a man but as a fable, a tale of moral uplift that redeems the sins of America’s shameful past. Even as many casual supporters begin to show their inevitable displeasure with his “job performance,” and his poll numbers decline, the character and motivations of the president remain above question. He is a good man. I trust him to do the right thing. It is not surprising that unsophisticated children, naive Europeans, and Democratic partisans continue to revere the heroic former candidate, despite everything he has done and left undone.

Nor is it surprising that the broken remnants of the old White Supremacy coalition hate and fear the man and will oppose him without quarter (excepting, of course, his war policies). Puzzling, however, is the fact that Obama, until fairly recently an obscure striver in the Chicago Democratic machine, continues to inspire perfervid devotion among intellectual liberals who know their history. Even they say: Be patient. Give him time. It’s hard to change the government. Or, more cynically: He’s the best we can do. Thus, his most sophisticated admirers assume the burden of Obama’s sins, bite their tongues, and indulge the temptation to frame his shortcomings as our own. Obama is not to blame; we are to blame. Obama has not failed us; America has failed him. Perhaps I am wrong to expect a flood of thoughtful apologetics on or around the first anniversary of Obama’s rule. It may be that the bizarre spectacle of a putatively antiwar president standing in imperial glory before an audience of young West Point cadets, declaring that War is Peace even as he promises to send many of them to the grave, will jar the liberal intelligentsia from its affectionate slumber. But, as I write, the rationalizations and hagiographies have already begun to pour in, although they are not always packaged as such."

The words of R.D. Hodge