I'm sad to see grown up Chelsea looking like her parents together nowadays; like a truck stop waitress in Mississippi. Cooooommmmoooonnn...as in common.
Posted by daviss45 at March 26, 2008 03:18 PMthank you for making my point about derangement.
Posted by Turkana at March 26, 2008 03:33 PMturkana...the first comment has no business in this thread...really it added nothing at all.... I'm all for free speech but I'm for on topic info too...and speaking of off topic commentary ...I expect that Bushminder any minute. I think I can almost predict what he's gonna say here...but I'll leave him to do the job he's been assigned.
But mainly that is an excellent point you raise and I'm off to read the post. I just think that if the scenario plays out in that manner with SEnator Obama it will just disappoint a whole lot of newcomers he's brought to the process that now think he's gonna be a different kind of politician. (which if you were really paying attention you'd know he's just mots.) I think if that really happen then it will aid in ruining brand democrat...with an eager assist of the republican/corporate media machine who love nothing more than building a democrat up in order to tear them down and bury them.
I have no doubt that if Clinton is elected, and pursues such an incomplete policy, that we will be unified in condemning her for it. We will hold her feet to the fire. We will put policy over politics, no matter our partisan allegiances.
In other words, she could be swayed by the polls?
Say it ain't so Turkana.
Good post BTW, (I say that speciously).
I will hold Obama's feet to fire just as well, no "rationalizing and making excuses".
The big thing is I will vote for Hillary if she is the nominee.
7 o 6,
i'll vote for either of them, and i'll hold either's feet to the fire, until the occupation truly ends.
Posted by Turkana at March 26, 2008 04:09 PMThom Hartman keeps making the point that FDR didn't run as a reformer. He was pushed into it by events and his supporters.
Having been accused of being a terrible person and an 'obamabot', I must say that I will and have always intended to vote for the nominee.
I realized back in my Deaniac days that we not only had to fight the Republicans, we had to fight the entrenched powers in the Democratic party too.
Its a bone wearying fight, but no one ever said fighting the good fight was going to be easy.
There is not, nor will there ever be any down time in the vigilance it will take to keep our Democracy.
Blind loyalty to either of the potential nominees is not helpful, and watching certain frontpagers waste their hard earned credibility by indulging in it has been painful to watch.
Josh has a post up that shows why all the 5 year olds who will take their ball and go home if their particular Idol isn't picked won't matter.
I do have a clearer understanding of why up till now, politicians would never talk to us like adults.
Hopefully that dynamic will change before it becomes too late for us as a country and as a species.
Posted by SnarkyShark at March 26, 2008 04:20 PMHillary will be the Democratic nominee.
In this case, I do think woman-identity trumps african-american-identity.
Posted by Bagley at March 26, 2008 04:26 PMAt least I feel better about being so hard on both of them last weekend.
Obama and Clinton are not liberals, whatever the hell they are. A liberal would Get Out Now.
It's simply baffling: people hate the war. Us or your defense money, you've been letting us know, god damn it.
Posted by paradox at March 26, 2008 04:30 PM"When asked why they aren't expressing their anti-war opinions through the anti-war movement, many say they have simply lost faith in the power of protest. They marched against the war before it began, marched on the first, second and third anniversaries. And yet five years on, U.S. leaders are still shrugging: "So?""
Therein lies the ultimate fallacy and lies of Ralph Nader, that handing power over to a wingnut pug like Bush would somehow unify the left...
Not so long as television and media is controlled by these folks, they can ignore whomever they please until the masses grow weary of protest.
Thank you, Ralph. I voted for you in 2000 and I'm still ashamed of myself.
Well, I am supporting Obama, but I'm too old and cynical to be a true enthusiast, and I have to say that you're right. Of the original candidates, only Kucinich and oddly, Ron Paul had the temerity to question the entire premise of American Empire, which is the underlying dysfunction here, and no one in the press would treat them seriously. I'm afraid the United States is going to have to fall a long way before most people will even consider what really needs to be done.
Posted by Delia at March 26, 2008 05:41 PMI watched Hillary Clinton that day she voted "yes" on the Iraq War Authrization, you asked if it would have changed anything if she voted "no".
Lets broaden your question to,"what if she had voted no and given the reasons why, the intellegence she was aware of, and the enormous amount of written information contained in newspapers across this country. The many other Democratic Senators who took the Senate floor and gave passionate,informed, patriotic speeches against this authoization, to go into a preemptive war for the first time in the history of the United States.
Senator Robert Byrd held the Constitution in his hand, held himself up and spoke with passion and intellegence against this war. What would have happened if the powerful Senator from NY, ex first lady, wife of the powerful Bill Clinton had stood up and voted NO??????
You tell me, I for one wish she had done just that, what a different campaign this would be!!!!
Posted by rm forsyth at March 26, 2008 05:52 PMamericans have not yet become alert to obama's really exceptional political intuition and his rhetorical skills, which include evasion and misrepresentation.
those latter two are not, i would argue, personal defects of obama. they are merely essential political skills he possesses (i'm thinking of lyndon johnson, for whom i have the greatest respect).
my problem with obama is a function of these skills,
i have no idea where this guy is coming from and no idea where he might be going - on iraq or any other issue. he plays his cards very close to his vest.
is he cozying up to the american right-wing, in order to disguise his liberalism?
or does he believe the right-wing crap?
is he really a sentimental "all-hold-hands-kumbaya" democrat, like joe liberman and?
is he a fan of democratic "centrists" and democratic neo-cons (zbig, for example)?
is obama skillfully weaving his way around corrupt chicago politics involving syrian-born antoin rezko, one of whose pals is iraqi-born billionaire british businessman nahdmi auchi?
or is he part of that corruption?
i don't know.
one of my arguments to the super-delegates about obama's campaign
would be just that - i really don't know where this guy is coming came from -
AND NEITHER DO YOU.
i don't know why he suddenly generated tremendous and persistent media interest after his 2004 demo convention speech,
and why he has been elevated by the media and his well-positioned supporters to the status of a serious candidate for president.
in contrast,
hillary clinton has spent thirty years working in the democratic "trenches" - as a governor's wife and a presidential first lady.
obama has not spent a fraction of similar time doing similar "good works".
doesn't doing good works count for something in the democratic party?
should the super-delegates take into consideration who has worked hardest, longest for the nation and the party - clinton or obama?
and who just showed up at the party lately?
obama's insistence that he can be a competent president of the united states
reminds me of the wall-street and corporate ceo's in the last few years -
very bright guys with very large egos who believe that if you can grab the power and the money, grab them -
whether you are personally ready or not,
whether you have a plan or not,
whether you have sufficient experience or not,
in brief, whether you are competent for the job not.
Posted by orionATL at March 26, 2008 08:20 PMAs a corrective to all the equivocating, we might consider George McGovern's suggestion for "how" to leave Iraq:
Leave the same way we went in. Load up the trucks and head for the border.
and why he has been elevated by the media and his well-positioned supporters to the status of a serious candidate for president.
Because he put together a hell of a machine that employed Deans 50 state strategy that has beat the party insider machine that Hillary enjoyed. Because if you pull your starry eyed fangirl head out of your ass, you would hear him speak plainly about where he is coming from. You could even go to his website and read his policy positions, but you wont.
I know where Obama is coming from, just as I know where you are coming from.
Hillary is toast. Get over it. Hillary's rabid supporters do her no credit.
To me they sound a lot like the GWB fanclub.
Posted by SnarkyShark at March 26, 2008 10:10 PM"One of the reasons I have a hard time getting enthused about either of the Democratic candidates is that I find both of their Iraq withdrawal plans lacking."
And what, exactly, is it that they are lacking?! Why, an actual withdrawal, of course! Their "withdrawal" plans are nothing but plans to continue the occupation but with a lower profile. They are hoping, I suppose, that by lowering the profile they can continue what Hillary refers to as the "military as well as political mission" in Iraq without as many people noticing and objecting to it.
"...neither of the Democrats offers a plan that I consider to be complete."
What they offer is a plan to continue the "military as well as political mission". It is as simple as that.
Posted by Shirin at March 26, 2008 10:24 PMUm, is it permissible to post from other blogs (MyDD?) This absolutely floored me. Sad how the MSM is reporting this as if Hillary has already lost the race. Will we ever learn that the MSM doen't like Obama as much as it doesn't like Clinton. They decided long ago to maanipulate this election. They have done a good job of corrupting the process and having their way.
Nothing to see...
by Jerome Armstrong, Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 09:46:09 PM EST
I was so mistaken. I thought the slide of Obama vs McCain that's happened the last half of this month actually could be understood without having to spell out more than one of the lopsided results without claims that it was cherry-picking.
Here's six more, from the past few days, besides Missouri's poll out today where McCain is bothering Obamamania by a margin of 50-41, that show that mighty Red State power of Obama at work:
Arkansas (rasmussen)
Obama 27
McCain 43
Alabama (susa)
Obama 35
McCain 62
Missouri (susa)
Obama 39
McCain 53
Kentucky (susa)
Obama 28
McCain 64
Ohio (susa)
Obama 43
McCain 50
North Carolina (susa)
Obama 42
McCain 51
We're gonna be working over the coming month to instituting some measures to make it more difficult to have an account here at MyDD. I'm sure there's many places on the web where people that having nothing better to do than attack other users will be welcome, but not here.
These are just red states, of course, Obama is doing fine in blue states like CA and NY and others... And yes, he can turn it around, this is only March! But this is not a cheerleading blog for either of the candidates, its a political junkie site that doesn't flinch to relay the reality of what's happening. If you can't deal with that and discuss it like an adult, you don't belong here.
And yes, Clinton's numbers, in most of these states are poor as well (though she's ahead in that Ohio one), but haven't tanked as bad as Obama's have the past two weeks. Yu can go to the link and see her numbers. The point of the post though, was to show that Wright has done damage to Obama. Much deeper than anything previous that has been done to him. This isn't "concern trolling", it's reality. Obama didn't deal with Wright correctly (if he possibly could have), and its hurt his standing vs McCain, especially in Red and purple states. If you want to ignore it, go someplace else.
Thank you for this post, Turkana. I absolutely understand the American public cynicism about our ability to make the powers that be listen to our voices.
The reason I found Darcy Burner's get out of Iraq plan so refreshing is that it has been the first credible plan coming from the politicians that I've seen since the start of the surge. I began to despair that we would be stuck for decades because no one who could actually set a real plan was interested in doing that. Darcy and the people she worked with are to be commended. They have not lost sight of the ball.
And I must say, I want to see our prospective leaders doing more leading. They've missed on taking on a real plan for Iraq, on whether torture was completely wrong (it's not enough to give one speech), on what should happen with FISA and what should be done for Global Warming. (Al Gore has been much more forceful on all of these issues for a lot longer.) But our candidates haven't yet turned off the power elite. It's a sad statement about the state of our country that on not one of these issues have our presidential candidates been real leaders.
Posted by Mary at March 26, 2008 11:02 PMWell, 5,500 "deserters" are doing something about this Occupation. They left and went to Canada, just as others have done in protesting a war they saw as morally wrong.
Posted by Judith at March 27, 2008 02:10 AMRepublican or Democrat, doesn't matter. We are in Iraq for a very long time, and neither candidate will tell us the truth. Now we are being told that more troops are needed in Afganistan.
Democratic Party leaders will only support vague and delayed timetables for bringing home US troops. Clinton and Obama won’t promise that all US combat troops will be out of Iraq by 2013.
Top Democrats limit their criticism to Bush’s strategic military mistakes in Iraq. They won’t talk about how the war itself is a crime — an invasion of a country that posed no threat to the US, based on manipulated intelligence and lies to the American people.
Democratic & Republican Party Leaders want to plunder Iraqi oil. Democratic & Republican leaders have endorsed the Iraqi hydrocarbon law “benchmark” that would place 2/3 of Iraq’s oil resources under the control of major US and UK energy companies. This would require continued US military presence in Iraq to protect the investments of corporations like ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, and BP. The same oil
companies that contribute to Republicans also give campaign checks to Democratic candidates.
Top Democratic & Republican Party Leaders also take money and orders from the pro-Israeli-government lobby (AIPAC), which demanded the invasion of Iraq and now demands an attack on Iran.
No, we are not going to leave anytime soon. As far as I am concerned neither candidate has given me any reason to believe their talk of bringing our troops home is nothing more than political rhetoric.
Posted by Judith at March 27, 2008 02:39 AMTurkana,
Is there any way that you could either delete certain comments and/or ban certain commenters based on some very basic rules of civility? It makes my skin crawl that you are addressed by some commenters with statements such as "Because if you pull your starry eyed fangirl head out of your ass, you would hear him speak plainly about where he is coming from". This is just the tip of the iceberg, of course, just one example. Simply, I don't think you need to take this kind of abuse.
Could there possibly be some fundamental rules of human decency established here for commenters? Yes, I know the faux libertarians will cry "censorship" but please. No reasonable adult wants to hear you insulted in these childish and profane ways.
Thanks for considering.
Posted by Anon at March 27, 2008 05:28 AMOne of the reasons I continually criticize certain elements of Obama's Netroots support is that I find in those elements a lack of rationality and honesty that I don't find as lacking in supporters of Clinton.
Yeah, like dodging sniper fire or claiming all of the good and none of the bad and 8 years of executive experience from your husband's presidency. It's rational.
Posted by phidipides at March 27, 2008 06:16 AM"...Reading such is usually particularly galling to Obama supporters, because he gave such a pretty speech in 2002...."
nope, not biased at all
Posted by Gay Veteran at March 27, 2008 11:27 AMDeanOr (8:39)
i like that mcgovern quote;
i like it a lot.
that's just how i feel about iraq.
blow up the ammo, pull out the equipment, put the troops on the plane.
and get the hell out of what the marines call "the sandbox".
then,
let arab, european, and american diplomats have at the problem.
you know what, i bet if that happened, neither the middle east nor the world would fall apart.
and we would have a chance to try to steal Iraqi oil fair ans square, but using economics rather than warfare.
more dollars
less bodies
both iraqi and american.
Posted by orionATL at March 27, 2008 01:50 PMOne of the reasons I continually criticize certain elements of Obama's Netroots support is that I find in those elements a lack of rationality and honesty that I don't find as lacking in supporters of Clinton.
Yeah, like dodging sniper fire or claiming all of the good and none of the bad and 8 years of executive experience from your husband's presidency. It's rational
turkana, there are always those who will make your point for you. i seem to recall this post being about iraq and what either candidate would or would not actually do there should they become president (i totally agree with you btw, i know that regardless of what they say, we'll be in iraq longer than what either candidate proposes). still, rather than discuss the actual topic, you get obama talking points. classic
Posted by kacey at March 27, 2008 03:47 PMJust to be clear Turkana, by "very pretty speech" you actually mean, "prescient" and/or "courageous" and/or "wise"? (And anyone who doesn't think it was courageous for anyone to speak out against the war at the time probably doesn't remember Bill Maher losing his tv show or any number of other critics being castigated as treasonous).
Posted by balthus at March 28, 2008 10:12 AMThought I might help out a previous poster who admits to being uninformed about Obama:
i have no idea where this guy is coming from and no idea where he might be going - on iraq or any other issue.
ANSWER: He came from Illinois and he is going to the White House.
he plays his cards very close to his vest.
ANSWER: That's not a vest, that's a dashiki. Get used to it.
is he cozying up to the american right-wing, in order to disguise his liberalism?
ANSWER: No, on the contrary the American right-wing is cozying up to him, as they do every African-American Democratic presidential nominee, in order to disguise THEIR liberalism. (You need to spend less time reading conspiracy-theorist blogs, and more time outside).
or does he believe the right-wing crap?
ANSWER: Yes, he believes it, whereas you see through it, because you are so much more intelligent than he is. Which begs the question of why YOU aren't running for president? The country is crying out for someone with your brain power!
is he really a sentimental "all-hold-hands-kumbaya" democrat, like joe liberman and?
ANSWER: More like "and" than Joe Liberman. Though arguably more like Joe Lieberman than Joe Liberman. As for "all-hold-hands-kumbaya" Democrat, just guessing now, I'd say he's more likely a "don't stand so, don't stand so, don't stand so close to me-what's goin' on" kind of guy.
is he a fan of democratic "centrists" and democratic neo-cons (zbig, for example)?
ANSWER: If you mean "fan" in the sense of, "people who support Hillary are likely to be 'fans' of Barry Manilow and/or stock car racing, you might be overstating his enthusiasm just a bit. After all, he's not standing in line for tickets to a Mets game, he's going to be the next President of the United States and the most powerful person on the planet.
is obama skillfully weaving his way around corrupt chicago politics involving syrian-born antoin rezko, one of whose pals is iraqi-born billionaire british businessman nahdmi auchi?
ANSWER: Yes, with a heavy emphasis on skillfully - something Hillary really needs to brush up on. (btw, just between us, next time you pose this question you really should use the term "dancing his way around..." instead of "weaving his way around..." As you surely know, dancing, along with jumping high, is a gift unique to people with dark skin. Referencing it in your post will be a SUBTLE reminder of the fact Obama is scarily black, a far more effective approach than your heavy-handed reference to Rezco being Syrian-born and Auchi Iraqi-born - though I must agree anyone born somewhere other than here in our own U.S.A. is someone to be watched closely, perhaps even wiretapped!)
or is he part of that corruption?
ANSWER: No. Not just part of it. The instigator. The flames-of-corruption-fanner. The Grand Mullah of Everything Evil, if you will. Unlike Hillary, who is as pure as the sniper fire that whizzes past her head when she's fighting off the ninja army hired by Sinbad to silence her for good and ever.
Hope that helps!
Posted by balthus at March 28, 2008 11:04 AMbalthus
your comment at 11:04 above is about a shallow and about as inanely sarcastic as any i have read in a long time.
i always try to guess the age of folks who respond like you responded above. for you, i would guess maybe sophomore, but maybe a very bright 9th grader.
where is obama coming from?
and
where is he going?
are both very good questions to ask of any presidential candidate, particularly one in the public eye for so short a time.
this primary and the upcoming election are about the presidency of the united states
you smart-mouthed little shit,
not about which team, the one you support or its opponent, "wins" in the primary.
presidential politics isn't just a game.
when you grow up you will come to understand that,
assuming that adolescent brain of yours hasn't been too severely damaged by a clear deficiency of human growth hormone,
and, based your dumb-assed comment above, that is a big assumption to make.
Posted by orionATL at March 28, 2008 11:26 AMThanks for trying to guess my age, I'll take "very bright 9th grader" any day!
One hint though...if you're going to accuse someone of not having "grown up" - just because they expose how shallow your thinking is - you might want to watch your potty mouth! Kind of undermines the ol' credibility!
Posted by balthus at March 28, 2008 11:49 AMOne more thought -
Since, upon reflection, I feel I probably was a bit hard on you, and most likely you are truly mystified as to Obama's appeal and are honestly considering which candidate to support - why not go to Obama's website and judge for yourself what he has to say?
Also, try to catch him speaking, with an open mind. You might be surprised how clearly he addresses many of your concerns, and how substantive his positions actually are.
In any case, I apologize for my sarcasm. The Clinton talking points that - perhaps unknowingly - permeate your initial post do get pretty tiresome for a die-hard Obama supporter.
Tell you what - I'll overlook your name-calling if you overlook my snark. Shake?
Posted by balthus at March 28, 2008 12:04 PMbalthus
i wrote above (at 8:20P):
" i have no idea where this guy [obama] is coming from and no idea where he might be going - on iraq or any other issue.
your very cute, and very insubstantial, response to that comment of mine was (11:04):
"ANSWER: He came from Illinois and he is going to the White House."
i think most folks,
other than you and your mom,
would consider this a shallow, smart-aleck response to my questions.
the tactic of turning a criticism of yourself around on your critic
" ...if you're going to accuse someone of not having "grown up" - just because they expose how shallow your thinking is ..."
is pure playground argumentation, e.g.,
"your one too"
"so's your old man"
etc.