Well good golly Ms. Molly
Posted By: gourdpainter on 2008-10-28
In Reply to:
must we always be doom and gloom? Or nonstop reading about the fearsome Obama. Like now he's being accused of being a "savior." Well I for one hope he is a savior of this country, something I'm sure good ole McCain is NOT.
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Good article by Molly Ivins
AUSTIN, Texas -- While it's still an open contest for Worst Legacy of the Bush Years, the destruction of goodwill for America around the world is definitely a contender.
In the days and weeks following Sept. 11, the United States enjoyed global sympathy and goodwill. All our old enemies sent regrets and offers of help. The most important newspaper in France headlined, We Are All Americans Now. The most touching gestures and offers rolled in, wave and after wave -- nations offered their teams of rescue dogs to search for bodies; special collections were taken up by D-Day survivors in Normandy; all over the world, American embassies were surrounded by long lines of people coming to offer sympathy, write notes, leave flowers.
You could make a pretty good case that one root of the Bush administration's abysmal diplomatic record is simply bad manners. We don't need any help was certainly a true response. But, Thank you would have been better.
You recall that George W. went on to make a series of unpleasant statements. You're either with us or with the terrorists may have sounded like a great macho moment, but no one likes to be verbally shoved against a wall and given no choice. There was the whole world asking, What can we do to help? and our response was, Our side or else. Why? Why coercion, rather than invitation?
Bush's State of the Union speech in January 2002 remains a monument to gracelessness. None of the language is worth remembering, but it contained a great deal of crowing about our defeat of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. As Barry Bearak of The New York Times observed before that war, if you wanted to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, you didn't have far to go.
The trouble with Bush's graceless provincialism on that occasion is that the invasion of Afghanistan was an international effort -- NATO, for the first time in its history, responded under its an attack on one is an attack on all clause. French, Germans and Canadians not only served in Afghanistan, but continue to do so. And, as we noticed increasingly is important, they shared the cost, as well.
You see, one beauty of building an international coalition is that you don't have to pay for the whole thing by yourself. Bush the Elder built a coalition for the Gulf War in 1990 that covered about 90 percent of the cost. By contrast, the financial burden of the Iraq War continues to be almost entirely ours -- with special thanks again to the British.
The colossal ineptitude of Bush's diplomacy, if it can be called that, leading up to the Iraq war was somewhere between ludicrous and nuts. Bullying, bribing, threatening -- and these were our allies. The insanity of our approach to Turkey, one of America's oldest democratic allies in the Middle East, is textbook -- to be studied in international relations schools for years. In the name of bringing democracy to Iraq (actually, at the time we never mentioned that as a reason), we threatened to end it in Turkey. Good grief.
The administration's open contempt for the United Nations did us incalculable damage. It wasn't just the ugly, clumsy pre-war diplomacy, but the petty, vindictive attempts at revenge afterward against those who were right all along. Trying to get Mohammad ElBaradei fired as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency -- how small and wrong. Making John Bolton ambassador to the United Nations -- oh, please.
So, a lot of cleanup is needed. Cards and letters (well, OK, e-mails) have rolled in from the Beloved Readers. We are getting gems daily. People are full of dandy ideas about how to fix this mess -- any and all parts of this mess -- but the foreign policy suggestions are especially interesting.
What the people seem to grasp that the Bush administration doesn't is the link between the Middle East, energy policy, defense policy, the environment and the economy. Again and again, readers point out that oil is at the root of the knot of problems and we can give ourselves much more flexibility to deal with the Middle East if we are not so dependent on it for oil. Ergo, we need an energy policy that emphasizes conservation and alternative energy sources.
The geopolitical problems that stem from our dependence on fossil fuel are the most difficult part of our relations with the rest of the world right now, and they look ever more ominous in the future. Reader Jim Schmitz observes that oil is a limited resource -- if you accept the idea that we've already hit peak production and have nowhere to go but down -- and we're addicted to it. If we kick the oil habit, we not only solve huge chunks of our biggest national security problem, we are also positioned to take part in the incredible boom in the alternate energy industry.
The beauty of thinking long-term is that when you look at a problem like illegal immigration, your first thought is not building a fence on the border, it's helping economic development in Central and South America. This not only makes us more friends, it's a much better solution to the problem. Lots of folks have dandy ideas on how to have more friends and fewer enemies -- for example, convert the money we spend in this hemisphere on the drug war to economic development. We should set up clean drinking water systems in all Third World countries -- that suggestion comes from a reader who thinks the total cost would be less than we spend in Iraq in a month.
More ideas on How to Fix This Mess coming soon.
To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2005 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Originally Published on Thursday November 3, 2005
Another good Molly Ivins article.
Posted on Thu, Dec. 29, 2005
Undermining our country to save it
By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
AUSTIN - The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
Thirty-five years ago, Richard Milhous Nixon, who was crazy as a bullbat, and J. Edgar Hoover, who wore women's underwear, decided that some Americans had unacceptable political opinions. So they set our government to spying on its own citizens, basically those who were deemed insufficiently like Crazy Richard Milhous.
For those of you who have forgotten just what a stonewall paranoid Nixon was, the poor man used to stalk around the White House demanding that his political enemies be killed. Many still believe there was a certain Richard III grandeur to Nixon's collapse because he was also a man of notable talents.
There is neither grandeur nor tragedy in watching this president, the Testy Kid, violate his oath to uphold the laws and Constitution.
The Testy Kid wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it because he is the president, and he considers that sufficient justification for whatever he wants. He even finds lawyers like John Yoo who tell him that whatever he wants to do is legal.
The creepy part is the overlap. Damned if they aren't still here, after all these years, the old Nixon hands -- Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the whole gang whose yearning for authoritarian government rose like a stink over the Nixon years. Imperial executive. Bring back those special White House guard uniforms. Cheney, like some malignancy that cannot be cured, back at the same old stand, pushing the same old agenda.
Of course, they tell us we have to be spied on for our own safety, so they can catch the terrorists who threaten us all.
Thirty-five years ago, they nabbed a film star named Jean Seberg and a bunch of people running a free breakfast program for poor kids in Chicago. This time, they're onto the Quakers. We are not safer.
We would be safer, as the 9-11 Commission has so recently reminded us, if some obvious and necessary precautions were taken at both nuclear and chemical plants -- but that is not happening because those industries contribute to Republican candidates. Republicans do not ask their contributors to spend a lot of money on obvious and necessary steps to protect public safety. They wiretap instead.
You will be unsurprised to learn that, first, they lied. They didn't do it. Well, OK, they did it, but not very much at all. Well, OK, more than that. A lot more than that. OK, millions of private e-mail and telephone calls every hour, and all medical and financial records.
You may recall that in 2002 it was revealed that the Pentagon had started a giant data-mining program called Total Information Awareness (TIA), intended to search through vast databases to increase information coverage by an order of magnitude.
From credit cards to vet reports, Big Brother would be watching us. This dandy program was under the control of Adm. John Poindexter, convicted of five felonies during Iran-contra, all overturned on a technicality. This administration really knows where to go for good help -- it ought to bring back Brownie.
Everybody decided that TIA was a terrible idea, and the program was theoretically shut down. As often happens with this administration, it turned out that they just changed the name and made the program less visible. Data-mining was a popular buzzword at the time, and the administration was obviously hot to have it. Bush established a secret program under which the National Security Agency could bypass the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court and begin eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.
As many have patiently pointed out, the entire program was unnecessary because the FISA court is both prompt and accommodating. There is virtually no possible scenario that would make it difficult or impossible to get a FISA warrant -- it has granted 19,000 warrants and rejected only a handful.
I don't like to play scary games where we all stay awake late at night, telling each other scary stories -- but there's a reason we have never given our government this kind of power. As the late Sen. Frank Church said, That capability could at any time be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capacity to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide. And if a dictator took over, the NSA could enable it to impose total tyranny.
Then we always get that dreadful goody-two-shoes response, Well, If you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about, do you?
Folks, we know this program is being and will be misused. We know it from the past record and current reporting. The program has already targeted vegans and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals -- and if those aren't outposts of al Qaeda, what is? Could this be more pathetic?
This could scarcely be clearer. Either the president of the United States is going to have to understand and admit that he has done something very wrong, or he will have to be impeached. The first time this happened, the institutional response was magnificent. The courts, the press, the Congress all functioned superbly.
Anyone think we're up to that again? Then whom do we blame when we lose the republic?
Molly Ivins, based in Austin, writes for Creators Syndicate. 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Molly Ivans
Why New Orleans Is in Deep Water
By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
Thursday 01 September 2005
Austin, Texas - Like many of you who love New Orleans, I find myself taking short mental walks there today, turning a familiar corner, glimpsing a favorite scene, square or vista. And worrying about the beloved friends and the city, and how they are now.
To use a fine Southern word, it's tacky to start playing the blame game before the dead are even counted. It is not too soon, however, to make a point that needs to be hammered home again and again, and that is that government policies have real consequences in people's lives.
This is not just politics or blaming for political advantage. This is about the real consequences of what governments do and do not do about their responsibilities. And about who winds up paying the price for those policies.
This is a column for everyone in the path of Hurricane Katrina who ever said, I'm sorry, I'm just not interested in politics, or, There's nothing I can do about it, or, Eh, they're all crooks anyway.
Nothing to do with me, nothing to do with my life, nothing I can do about any of it. Look around you this morning. I suppose the National Rifle Association would argue, Government policies don't kill people, hurricanes kill people. Actually, hurricanes plus government policies kill people.
One of the main reasons New Orleans is so vulnerable to hurricanes is the gradual disappearance of the wetlands on the Gulf Coast that once stood as a natural buffer between the city and storms coming in from the water. The disappearance of those wetlands does not have the name of a political party or a particular administration attached to it. No one wants to play, The Democrats did it, or, It's all Reagan's fault. Many environmentalists will tell you more than a century's interference with the natural flow of the Mississippi is the root cause of the problem, cutting off the movement of alluvial soil to the river's delta.
But in addition to long-range consequences of long-term policies like letting the Corps of Engineers try to build a better river than God, there are real short-term consequences, as well. It is a fact that the Clinton administration set some tough policies on wetlands, and it is a fact that the Bush administration repealed those policies - ordering federal agencies to stop protecting as many as 20 million acres of wetlands.
Last year, four environmental groups cooperated on a joint report showing the Bush administration's policies had allowed developers to drain thousands of acres of wetlands.
Does this mean we should blame President Bush for the fact that New Orleans is underwater? No, but it means we can blame Bush when a Category 3 or Category 2 hurricane puts New Orleans under. At this point, it is a matter of making a bad situation worse, of failing to observe the First Rule of Holes (when you're in one, stop digging).
Had a storm the size of Katrina just had the grace to hold off for a while, it's quite likely no one would even remember what the Bush administration did two months ago. The national press corps has the attention span of a gnat, and trying to get anyone in Washington to remember longer than a year ago is like asking them what happened in Iznik, Turkey, in A.D. 325.
Just plain political bad luck that, in June, Bush took his little ax and chopped $71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers, a 44 percent reduction. As was reported in New Orleans CityBusiness at the time, that meant major hurricane and flood projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now.
The commander of the corps' New Orleans district also immediately instituted a hiring freeze and canceled the annual corps picnic.
Our friends at the Center for American Progress note the Office of Technology Assessment used to produce forward-thinking plans such as Floods: A National Policy Concern and A Framework for Flood Hazards Management. Unfortunately, the office was targeted by Newt Gingrich and the Republican right, and gutted years ago.
In fact, there is now a governmentwide movement away from basing policy on science, expertise and professionalism, and in favor of choices based on ideology. If you're wondering what the ideological position on flood management might be, look at the pictures of New Orleans - it seems to consist of gutting the programs that do anything.
Unfortunately, the war in Iraq is directly related to the devastation left by the hurricane. About 35 percent of Louisiana's National Guard is now serving in Iraq, where four out of every 10 soldiers are guardsmen. Recruiting for the Guard is also down significantly because people are afraid of being sent to Iraq if they join, leaving the Guard even more short-handed.
The Louisiana National Guard also notes that dozens of its high-water vehicles, Humvees, refuelers and generators have also been sent abroad. (I hate to be picky, but why do they need high-water vehicles in Iraq?)
This, in turn, goes back to the original policy decision to go into Iraq without enough soldiers and the subsequent failure to admit that mistake and to rectify it by instituting a draft.
The levees of New Orleans, two of which are now broken and flooding the city, were also victims of Iraq war spending. Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, said on June 8, 2004, It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq.
This, friends, is why we need to pay attention to government policies, not political personalities, and to know whereon we vote. It is about our lives.
Molly Ivins rocks! nm
dont ya just love Molly Ivins?
Blame Game, Race Card
By Molly Ivins
The Daily Camera (Boulder, CO)
Friday 09 September 2005
George W. Bush has come up with his worst idea since he decided to have the military investigate torture by the military at Abu Ghraib prison. He, George W. personally, plans to investigate to find out what went right and what went wrong in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
It's hard to guess where Bush will look first, but maybe he should start with the appointment of Brownie to head FEMA, the federal disaster relief agency. Brownie is Michael Brown, who was appointed by some president.
At the time, Brownie was deputy director of the agency under Joe Allbaugh - because he was Joe Allbaugh's college roommate, you see, and Allbaugh was Bush's campaign manager in 2000, you see, which made both of them qualified to manage disasters.
The FEMA press release announcing Brownie's appointment started with his other obvious qualification, From 1991 to 2001, Brown was the commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. It's unclear whether Brownie was fired or resigned from the organization in the wake of financial mismanagement and lawsuits.
Hours after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Brown wrote his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, to ask permission to send 1,000 FEMA employees to the scene to support rescuers and to convey a positive image about the government's response. Brownie said he expected the workers to be there two days later. This apparently inspired Bush's comment, Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job.
FEMA was once considered one of our better federal agencies (those in the government-is-the-enemy camp may not believe this, but some government agencies are actually known for effective performance). Exactly why the right-wing Republicans chose to make FEMA a political football was never clear - but at any rate, going back to the Reagan administration, conservatives have been hacking away at FEMA. They mostly just under-funded it, one of their favorite tactics, unless a hurricane hit Florida just before an election. Sorry to sound boringly partisan, but that is the record, and the Clinton administration did work hard at rebuilding the agency.
So now those on the liberal side are saying: See, that's what happens when you starve government in order to give rich folks tax cuts. Government agencies can't do the jobs they were set up to do.
Silly liberals see this as vindication that they have been right all along. But the Bush administration officials are in full blame-shifting mode: First, they announced repeatedly they don't want to play the blame game. Then, they start blaming everybody else.
According to The New York Times, Karl Rove and Dan Bartlett, White House communications director, began a campaign this weekend to blame local and state officials. The woefully inadequate response, said sources close to the White House, was the fault of bureaucratic obstacles from state and local officials.
The bottom line is they're playing the race card. As many of you have noted, it IS a racial issue that poor people suffer most in any natural or economic disaster. Because Katrina hit the Deep South, a great many of the poor people affected are black, especially in New Orleans - both hit hardest and majority black to begin with.
I'm not sure what to say about a cable news station that plays a loop of black looters over and over - about 20 seconds of actual footage, replayed for four minutes, while the voiceover dwells on the looting problem. Obviously, there are some looters in New Orleans and elsewhere, and equally obviously, there are lots of people who were without food or water for days.
The exhausted and desperate black mayor of New Orleans begged for help in an interview late last week. They're feeding the public a line of bull and they're spinning, and people are dying down here, Mayor Ray Nagin said, talking about the feds. It's politics, man, and they are playing games. ...
Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here! They're not here! It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamned crisis in the history of this country. People are dying.
The mayor was in tears. I heard two nice, white American ladies deploring this interview. Well! He should remember there might be children listening! Children still without food and water. What happens to people when they talk about race? Of course, most of us don't actually talk about race any more, we refer to it only indirectly, we talk those people.
Watch carefully, listen carefully - minority groups have always been blamed after natural disasters, since the days when the Hungarians were supposed to have cut the fingers off bodies to get the gold rings in the wake of the Johnstown Flood. Dirty Bohunks.
Golly...
sounds a little bit like the old-school Catholicism I grew up with. Just substitute Latin for Arabic.
Golly, looks like you sure had fun....
Too bad you don't have a conscience but if you did you wouldn't have so much fun tearing people apart on an anonymous forum.
I can champion Lurker if I please. Nothing you say will change my mind on that. This is the liberal board, although I'm beginning to wonder about that.
By golly...she's onto something. nm
nm
What about Golly Bum?
.
Gee, golly! My bad!
The way you take it upon yourself to dis' who othes prefer to listen to, I figured explaining the theory and practice of community organizing would be well within your pay grade. My error.
Golly....I though this thead would be...
funny. Because, you know, like, Seinfeld is funny.
But truly, you guys have no facts to back this stuff up. You really should stop dumping on sam. She gives you tons of info to back her point of view.
You just give crapola with no basis in fact.
Well golly jeepers....
The reason they aren't touching the whole Rev Wright thing is because they are trying to stay away from anything racist and if McCain would happen to attack Rev. Wright.....they may just start a big ole racist feud. I personally believe that both Barrack and Michelle are raging racists and that does concern me a lot.
I would truly like to know the truth about the whole Rezko issue and why Rezko's wife bought those two lots and then sold that one lot to Obama at a significantly cheaper price than it was valued at.
As for Ayers....I agree....he should be behind bars. What was it that he said....something like loving this country because he was guilty as sin and free as a jay bird. I personally don't believe that he should be teaching at a college either. As for Obama and Ayers.....Obama is extreme left and I could see him sharing similar ideas and if Ayers was really no big deal and there was nothing to hide there....why didn't Obama just say look....we were on a committee for education....blah blah blah....instead of ........he is just a guy in my neighborhood. Whether there is more to the story or not....his not so completely honest answer leads me to believe there might be since he wasn't honest from the get go. If you have nothing to hide....be up front and honest.
Well shucks and golly gee - see message
Here are just a few of the masses I'm talking about (remember, this is just a few)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha5HEc-vOJs
One of the people who believes in the freebies is Peggy Joseph who states "I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car, I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage". She is just but one of thousands who have been promised by the O that they will be getting some of that wealth from those "nasty rich white folks (you know the ones who cling to their religion and guns) who don't deserve it, so we'll just have them work more then take it from them and give it to you (in the form of a welfare check) because after all that will only be fair".
The O is not a thinker. You really believe that??? The O reads the speeches given to him. He does not write his own speeches. They said that about Clinton and Bush too. HA! The only thing the O thinks about is how can he make the speeches written for him sound like they are his own ideas. Anybody (and that goes for other people besides politicians) who are about to give a speech to a group of people practice how their speech will come off. He is not thinking, he's remembering how he practiced it before hand. We've all see when something is not written for the O he stumbles and does the um, uh, uh, er, uh, um.
I just tell it like I see it. What I am upset about this character is that he has been perpetually lying to America from the beginning. And I am upset that I was so "duped" by him that I voted for him in the primaries.
Unfounded insults? I call it like I see it. They guy is a slick lawyer who has lied his entire way to get where he is. His aquantaces, his b/c, his background, his non-citizenship, his "Ayers was just a guy who lived in my neighborhood", his lie about Larry Sinclair, his lie about ACORN, his lie about his past aquantances, who he has been accepting money from, etc, etc, etc. Lie after lie after lie after lie.
Good post....truth doesn't always sound good
@
Good for you! Most people would not recognize good...sm
character if it hit them over the head, just sheep who follow along without thinking for themselves, believing the political pundit spitting out garbage.
Good post - good research (sm)
History does repeat itself at times. I had forgotten about the 50s and Russia.
Very scary times we live in and so many new enemies. This is definitely not a scare tactic but a very clear warning. You can't ignore facts, they are there.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
rasberries
Good point, good post. Thanks.
Good One!!!
 especially since I have four cats and no dogs....I did have a pit bull once, but he was the sweetest thing and rather lick you to death than bite!!!
Good
Great, we have something in common. *BIG HUG*. Bye, Brunson.
Well, good, cuz I am not following you at all. SM
An analogy was made and you are making it sound like a Bible verse? Please. Give it up.
LOL! That's a good one.
Contact the administrator so that you can give her more than just your ISP to use against you. Why not give her your email, so she can report back to your employer with your name, too?
Thanks, good to see
a fair sampling of papers. There are so few independent papers anymore; and they all put out the same spin due to being owned by the The Powers That Be, it is good to hear people speaking out again but my God, what it took to have that happen.
LOL! Good one!
I can't stop laughing at the row v wade line!
As far as everything else you said, I couldn't agree more. Thank you for posting your honest feelings. It helps a lot to know that all those who are born again aren't of the radical mindset that is usually shown on these boards. 
good vs bad
That is the trouble with radical right wingers..they think the world is evil or good..black or white..you are either with us or not..axis of evil..LOL..simple thinking for complicated times, if you ask me..
Good ones...sm
Especially staying the course, 911 and ownership society.
These are good :) nm
Good ones..nm
This is another good one.
This is about the power of dissent and the duty of the TRUE PATRIOT to exercise it.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0704-21.htm
Good for him...sm
(off topic: A 17-year old deputy. That's kinda young for the job I would think.)
Booze does amplify the personality. You do and say things that you would not have if you weren't 'under the influence.' I can't overlook the fact that Mel's father says the the Holocaust did not happen, and is fiction. The same father who moved his family to Australia so that his older brothers would not have to go to Vietnam mind you. What's that saying about apples?
I've learned to separated the man from the movies. Passion of the Christ, I loved.
Pol Pot...not a good example. sm
Pol Pot would have never been allowed his free reign had we stayed the course in Vietnam. The left got their wish. We withdrawn. Millions died. But the left never talks about that.
As far as *we* killing blacks and American Indians. I never killed anyone. Africans were caught and sold by their own people to the slave traders. We can sit and assign guilt until now to kingdom come. To read posts like this further illustrates the people in this country who think of the U.S. as the great Satan.
This is very good to know.
This seems to diametrically oppose what Marylandgal is saying, too.
Good for you and good for him!
I think he is going to go a long way and I think he would make a very deliberate and thoughtful president that could just lead us out of this quagmire the country is currently in, and I think he has the better national healthcare proposition on the table. I hope he maximizes on his momentum. New Hampshire may not be so quick to endorse though.
Well seeing as none are very good...
I think that because none of them are the perfect choice, I want a good speaker to represent us. I'm not in love with Obama, some of what he does is a little unnerving. What Hillary is about just downright scares the you know what out of me (as does McCain - that relic should be in some sanitarium somewhere) - how he made it I don't know because I believe there were a lot of other more qualified candidates on the repubs side. Anyway...seeing as none of them is the "ideal" candidate I at least want someone in who is a good speaker and who can represent our country in a dignified and intelligent manner. Hillary does not. I've listened to her speeches with an open mind hoping (I mean really really hoping) that I would feel differently about her because there was a possibility she could be chosen. But every time she speaks it just brings my hopes down. Her thoughts are not together. She cannot read without constantly looking at her notes, and most of what I hear is "women, women, women. We've been done wrong to and now its payback time. We're going to make them pay for what they did to us, etc, etc (of course not in those exact words - but that is the implication of her speeches). I've not once heard her give a speech of hope and promise. What she does say is more of the same retoric. More of "I'm going to give you this or that - which is what they promised when Bill was campaigning years ago, but never filled their promises back then. That is why I do not believe any of what she says. False hopes.
So yes....candidates are not all that great, but I want a great speaker to talk to other countries and not make us look like fools which is what George Bush & Bill Clinton did when they were in. I also want our leader to talk to our allies AND enemies. Everyone needs to live together in peace and if there is a slight chance that Obama can do it I'm for it. This whole idea that Clinton and McCain will "threaten" other countries with "obliteration". Well how would they feel if our enemies said do what we want or we're going to "obliterate" you. So yes, I'm for someone who is a good speaker and good negotiator.
That is all well and good, but....
I still don't agree. I hear "most Muslims don't agree with," but you never hear the Muslims themselves saying so. Why don't they? Why don't they write articles, get published, come out publically against extremism? Now I know that there are Muslims who are not prone to violence and yes, they abhor it...but a personal feeling means nothing if those who feel that way don't unite and make themselves known. Of course Muslim countries denounced the attack...what would YOU do if you thought you might come into the crosshairs of the US military? Who knows what they were saying to their own people. I seem to remember footage of your regular Muslim folks dancing in the streets over there and saying we got what we deserved. They were not members of AL Qaeda, just everyday Muslim citizens. So...sorry....I don't think this gentleman gets it and I don't think Obama gets it either.
There will always be fundamentalists, and I believe more Muslims than not are fundamentalists; just will not say so, and just a few of them can do great damage and frankly, I want a President in the White House that I think those people will have a grudging respect for; I want them to think he/she will train down misery on them if they attack us again. Because, frankly, that is all they understand, and for all Bush's failures (and he has many in my books, including spending like there was no tomorrow), I believe that is one thing he HAS done and the way he reacted to 9-11 is exactly what has kept them from attacking us like that again. They don't want American boots on the ground in anymore Muslim countries. Because Bush gets it. He knows who and what he is fighting.
Just as an aside....what makes you think Obama is in favor of free trade? His votes in Congress and many of his statements are in direct contradiction to that...? I have read up on it, and while he has made statements that he is "for" free trade, all his actions speak otherwise.
Bottom line...I don't trust him, I don't think he understands Muslim extremism, and I know he is way further to the left and has rampant socialist tendencies that I don't agree with...and if he is elected, look for taxes to go up no matter what he says, because to do everything he wants to do is going to cost a lot of money. And when he starts with the taxing the "rich" and people start to jump on that bandwagon...they need to look at the income thresholds for those "rich" and realize that it will hurt the small businesses who employ a great many people in this country. If he does that, look for more jobs and companies to go offshore. A major contributor to offshoring is companies trying to get out from under the huge tax burden Democratic congresses have put on them.
As a side note...violence associated with the Muslim religion is not new...their rampage across Europe killing Christians on the way to trying to take over Jerusalem...that was many hundreds of years ago, leading to the crusades. Muslim extremists (although they were all pretty extreme in those days) were about world domination then and they are about it now...they are just more clever in how they seek to bring it about.
And look at Sharia law...how much more violent can you get? Stonings, cutting off limbs, honor killings...sorry...I don't think they get it at all...just my opinion. If you put in Sharia law in this country we would have a gazillion stonings a day and a good portion of the populace would be limbless...if even alive. And there are American citizens (though Muslim) who have participated in and fully condoned honor killings...sooo I don't think it is wise to assume that free markets and capitalism will change minds and hearts. Nice thought...just not a realistic one, in my view. While there ARE those Muslims who are not extreme in how they interpret the Koran...I do not think they are in the majority. Nothing about the world today makes me come anywhere close to believing that.
Both of those men are good men....
I was impressed with Duncan Hunter during the primaries. I really have no idea where McCain is going to go. Another real interesting aspect of this race. I have to say Obama surprised me choosing Biden. Especially when they have Biden saying on tape he would be proud to run with McCain. Now he is going to have to turn around and attack McCain. Slight loss of credibility there. Oh well. Friendships often get thrown under the political bus...on both sides.
good one!
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Good. nm
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Good one!
.
That was a good one!
Bullseye.
and we could all use a good
laugh -- breaks the tension of the past couple months.
That's a good one!
That Sarah Silverman is ignorant!
Good one... :) (NM)
xx
Good one. nm
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Good job?
Not so good.
Constant attacks on one's opponent is not a good strategy in a debate; it backfires. Obama was better, no attacks here, only one rebuttal.
Okay, that was a good one!
No, Mickey Mouse votes in Florida, silly! The point is that no one is checking the forms so when Joe Smith comes in to vote 16 times, no one even bats an eye because there he is, all 16 times, registered to vote.
not looking good sm
What I meant was that others seem to like to make her look bad, i.e., the Couric interview. I am not on either side, I am just interested in the presentation of each side, trying to be fair to all. Undecided!
Good for you. I am sure you are a lot more...sm
organized than I, but it doesn't make me any less an American citizen because I don't have my original. Apparently my certified copy was good enough to get an American passport.
That's a good one......sent it on to everyone
@
Woo hoo! SAM!! Good to see you!
*doing my happy dance*
You too...have a good one! nm
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