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The American Presidency: This Thread Is 'Inartful'.
Posts
When's the last time a Democratic candidate got more donations from military personnel than a Republican candidate?
-Barack Obama says that voters are bitter.
-Hillary Clinton says white people are voting for her.
-Some McCain surrogate says that a terrorist attack would help John McCain.
-Wesley Clark says that getting shot down in a plane is not a qualification to be President.
-Barack Obama says that his grandmother's racism was embarrassing.
-Ron Paul and Reverand Wright says that a lot of the terrorist animosity towards us is because of our actions in the Middle East.
-McCain says he would not have a problem being in Iraq for 100 years if the situation became like how we're stationed in Germany and South Korea now with no combat deaths.
Does anyone else notice the pattern of these huge blunders?
Here's the problem- we don't discuss the actual issues, just these stupid quotes. Sometimes they're simply taken out of context (e.g., Barack Obama "throwing his grandmother under the bus"). But a lot of time our insistence on stupid quotes prevents us from seeing the actual truth. This Wesley Clark quote is just another example of how people can't see the underlying truth because there's a political blunder we can all get upset about.
And the Democrats are guilty of this as well. I hate how Democrats keep pulling out the line that McCain doesn't care if the Iraq war goes on for 1000 years. It earns them votes, but it prevents America from having an actual discourse about the underlying issues. The truth is that McCain doesn't want the war to continue BUT he wants to develop an American empire. He wants permanent military bases, influence in the region and a say in where the oil goes. That's what Democrats should be attacking him on, but it doesn't fit into a damn sound bite so it never gets brought up.
Argh.
Especially the 100 years thing. I agree with them that it's damning, but for your reasons rather than zomg war forever!
Check your local-listings for the time it'll reair.
Borderlands 2 PA Xbox Metatag - Bazillion Guns
Yeah uh if I can ask a stupid question, does McCain himself make the case that his military record directly qualifies him for the Presidency? I know I've heard him diss Obama about not being in the military on some policy point, but... does he actually go around saying this all the time?
That logic just works on the American public, people get carried away, they lose sight of things. We won't be able to have a sane conversation about foreign policy if there is a terrorist attack. And when that happens, you can bet your ass the Republican candidate gains 10 points.
If you need any more proof:
#3 occurred because the Democrats blocked FISA's modernization months ago, like they're doing now. How dare they endanger American lives and abloo bloo bloo. When I'm President I'll hold those surrender monkeys accountable and something.
I'm kind of surprised that, in the spirit of 'debate' over terrorism nobody mentions that there was a successful terrorist attack on US soil since 9-11 resulting in 5 deaths and whose perpetrators have not yet been caught despite DHS, Gitmo, the wars, warrantless surveillance, and other 'improvements' instituted by the Republicans over the last 7 years. It's the perfect body blow, yet everyone stays their hand.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Pffff, it only counts as a terrorist attack if foreigners are involved.
There isn't a rolleyes big enough for this hoseshit. No single party owns fearmongering. No single party owns bullheaded thinking on certain issues. If you believe that, you're simply ignorant of history or incapable of instrospection. Want to know who overreacted after 9/11? 98% of America.
We don't know if they weren't. Like I said, nobody's been brought to justice. Even though we now have a new cabinet level department for security, have been data mining and tapping phones without judicial oversight, and going to town on brown people's nuts with wires and water bottles. How come we still haven't caught anybody approaching 7 years on?
Steam PSN: DerWaffleMous Origin: DerWaffleMous Bnet: WaffleMous#1483
That's not an inconsistent response to the idea that Republicans are entirely responsible for it.
So then he's not actually "pressing the POW button" all the time - at least, not in a way that what Clark said would contradict or prevent.
I don't think McCain is saying it qualifies him to be president, just that it's an advantage he has. Here's the general idea of what's going on:
McCain: I'm running for president. Don't forgot I was a POW.
Clark: So?
Clark isn't attacking McCain's service, he's just saying that the fact that he was a POW really has no influence on his possible presidency. Clark is right and McCain isn't wrong for trying to foster votes in this fashion. The media is the villian in this equation.
It is not just a matter of our values, but of our foreign policy in general. The issue of whether we should go to war in Iraq was a matter of "we fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" and the issue of why was simple, "They hate us for our freedom". There is a constant conflagration of Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan and Muslims as one collective entity responsible for terrorism. All of these things have lead to a severely distorted picture of the conflict we currently engage in. This sentiment has been encouraged, facilitated and even created by the Bush administration.
Now all of these oversimplifications are not the fault of the permanent Republican Party, and the Democratic Party has been party to many of the same things. But the fact is that the Republican party as run by George W. Bush, which is to say the Republican party of the last eight years, has dominated these sentiments and will continue to do so at least for the entirety of this election season.
I stand by statement.
The over-reactions of the GOP-run Executive branch are both more numerous and more sweeping than the over-reactions of the bipartisan Congress. Attempting to downplay how the Bush Jr. administration has used 9/11 as an excuse for massive foreign policy blunders and a repeated skullfucking of the Constitution with the equivalent of "Well mom, everyone else was doing it" is laughable historic revisionism.
Damn it.
sebelius!
Yes, but did you hear his explanation for his favorite SCotUS gaffe? He just assumed that anybody appointed by JFK would be the best, with no forethought. With that kind of clumsiness, how is there even a chance that he wouldn't make a mule's ass of himself at least once?
Ah. I admit I haven't really followed him since the primaries. I did a bit of research during that time, but not too in depth. I knew I shoulda done a litte bit more before posting that here.
But hey, maybe he could be the comic relief of the white house, like Quayle.
...Obama wants a second term. And Richardson's foreign policy credentials only exist on his resume. Beyond that he's just meh, and arguably behind Obama himself. Either go full bore for the foreign policy experience, like a less gaffe prone Biden/Clark, or go economics.
Regardless of whether McCain frequently advertises his military experience as a presidential qualification, there's a public perception that he's going to be good on foreign policy because he is a famous soldier. That is a wishy-washy sentiment, because being "good on foreign policy" can mean a lot of things, but it's just a prevailing notion in the campaign coverage and it's supported by opinion polls. This is the idea that Clark was trying to contradict, he wasn't trying to "smack down" McCain or whatever the media is running with, by pointing out that McCain's military experience did not include a large command etc etc.
I confess myself a bitter, follow-the-money cynic.
Who benefited by the overreaction after 9/11? The hawk wing of the Republican party. Who was in charge pushing the overreaction? The same.
Okay, Morning Joe just reported that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" taught to operatives in 2002 were the same as those implemented by Red China during the Korean War. Disregarding basic human rights sure didn't take long.
Of course, my impression of Bush's torture/detainment policy is that it's similar to Henry VIII's.
"Milord, the Duke of Normandy has been seen in the young lady's company."
"Throw him into the dungeon!"
"But, milord, there's no evidence of..."
"Just do it!"
Have you seen any of his commercials?
Brilliant.
In my dreams.
Well, there's a big difference between the younger Shinra's two posts. The second contains some well thought out, specific critiques - if you think you can get away with "lol republicans think in black and white and hate muslims", think again.
"Hey, the Communists got people to say exactly what they wanted to hear; that's exactly what we're going for!"
Obama mentions biographical stuff in his commercials too. Does the fact that he mentions he was raised by a single mom mean that qualified him to be President? You can call attention to character-shaping issues without making the case they directly qualify you.
I honestly think you guys are torn over the Muslim hate thing. The smarter Republicans like Muslims because they make for easy scapegoating and fearmongering. The not so smart Republicans don't like Muslims because of scapegoating and fearmongering. I'll concede that there's a very small minority that are sensible and not trying to demonize Muslims.