Why should I vote for him?
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Why should I vote for him?
Paul Rogers on Global security
Li Datong on China from the inside
Fred Halliday on Global politics
Mary Kaldor on Human security
Danielle Archibugi on Cosmopolitan democracy
1. He's a Maverick politician that is not beholden to the right or left.
2. He's NOT Clinton.
3. He's NOT Obama.
4. He has more foreign policy experience than all the others combined.
5. He's the one with most promising ability to unite Left and Right to meet the common challenges of the economy and global jihadist enemy.
Those are pretty good credentials, don't you think?
Sounds like a rather ridiculous list to me.
The lady asks a serious quesiton and that's how you respond?
The question is wide-open and no offense intended to Candace, but I think I treated it with as much seriousness as it was worth and probably more serious than many people who will cast a vote. How many people will vote racial or gender identity instead of the issues? A vote is a vote and motivation runs the gamut. For a starting point in discussion, my list is as good as anyone elses.
On the other hand, if the question is so "serious" that you didn't care for my list, where's the "serious" list that you offered? Hmmm? I must have missed it.
Too soon Mike, let's wait until both parties have a nominee then we can properly evaluate their policies.
Too Soon?
How long should we wait -- until the night before the election? John McCain IS the Republican nominee. And as for Hilary vs. Obama, there doesn't seem to be much to separate the two, as far as substance goes. People will be choosing on style, it seems, and whether they like young, African American Obama, with his hackneyed message of change, or staid and stodgy Hillary, with her people skills and baggage-laden presumptive First Husband.
HH
I say we wait until a week after the election has passed. Then we'll be able to put forward the name of a good candidate who everyone who didn't vote could have voted for.
Sounds fair to me
Why Change Custom Now?
JB:
"I say we wait until a week after the election has passed. then we'll... put forward the name of a good candidate"
Second guessing is the custom on OD. Haven't you noticed?
a maverick with a socialist agenda?
America has been blessed with a rich and diverse natural heritage. In the tradition of his hero, Theodore Roosevelt, John McCain believes that we are vested with a sacred duty to be proper stewards of the resources upon which the quality of American life depends.
John McCain believes that America's economic and environmental interests are not mutually exclusive, but rather inextricably linked. Our economic prospects depend greatly upon the sustainable use of ample and unspoiled natural resources. A clean and healthy environment is well served by a strong economy. History shows that poverty is a poor steward.
link
I believe it was an intelligent man - or maybe you - who said once: 'Hindsight is 20/20'...
Let's face it tt: The only reason why we're here bitching about current or past events is because we're bored with our day-job ;-)
Why would you say that?
The Audition
BigC(RAP);
A reference from Radio Hanoi? Sure
McCain passed his auditon for Radio Hanoi after two years solitary confinement (during which his hair turned white) and weekly torture which left him unable to raise his arms.
At least he's not as bitter as you.
Yes. I'm confident the medical records WILL confirm that, along with the fact both arms were broken in the high speed ejection from his aircraft when it was shot down. McCain's treatment as a POW is well documented and so is his heroism. Whatever political differences people may have with him, he is a man of courage and conviction, tested in ways you (and I) have never been. He deserves your respect. Your failure to show it says more about you, than him.
McCain stated that his medical records will be released in May after the results of his cancer check-up at the end of April.
Negative Waves;
BC;
You really should learn to acquire a more positive attitude. To paint a former POW's health problems derisively says more about you than the man.
Apples And Oranges
BC;
You're father was a POW who did not broadcast for the Nazis? The questions are obvious.
1) Was your father an officer?
2) Did they ask him?
3) How long did they torture him?
4) Which camp was he in?
5) Why would the Nazis have wanted you father to broadcast for them when they had Lord Haw Haw?
5) What were the life long physical effects of his confinement?
Perhaps you are projecting your own likely response onto McCain. If that's the case, McCain is a much better man than you.
If he wanted better treatment, he would not have declined his captor's offer of an early release. Instead, he refused an early release unless his fellow POWs were released as well. That does not sound like the opportunistic McCain you choose to protray.
Comparing the treatment of POWs by two very different enemys is patently fallacious. These are much different wars, different cultures, and different circumstances.
Duck and Weave
IM;
BigC(RAP) is pointblank avoiding scrutiny about his father being a POW. I wonder why.
Something In Common;
BigC(RAP);
You father and John McCain have a few things in common in addition to being POWs ( You still haven't said if your father was an officer, what camp he was in, or if the Germans wanted him to replace Lord Haw Haw).
1)They both went to aid an ally unwilling to fight for their own country. For McCain it was the Vietnamese. For your father, it was the French.
2) Both men fought an aggressor. Hitler started WWII in Europe. Ho started the war in South Vietnam.
2) Both men were proud to serve their countries (at least I hope your father was).
Bombing Defenseless Civilians?
You are confusing the US with your own country.
McCain flew fighter bombers with precision munitions. The rules of engagement over the North forbade bombing Hanoi and Haiphong. It was still an air war but Johnson interrupted it on more than one occasion to try and make peace.
Targeting defenseless civilians was a British specialty
British bombers couldn't drop bombs within five miles of a target in WWII. YOUR GOVERNMENT adopted a policy of mass bombing of German cities at night to break civilian morale. The US opted for daylight precision bombing of military targets. I don't recall Americans gaining nicknames like "Butcher Bomber" Harris.
"A Peasant People Gaining Their Independance"?
Sounds romantic, but it's nonsense.
Vietnam's peasants had no say in the war. The war was a power struggle on an international scale (North Vietnam, China, USSR vs. South Vietnam and the US). It was way past their understanding.
South Vietnam was a rural country and very poor. The average Vietnamese peasant cared more about his village than his country, or independance. They gained nothing from either side. They didn't like the Saigon government abusing them; but they didn't dance in the streets when the VC took food and men either.They were victimized as much by the VC as Saigon. Even the communists made no bones about indoctrination of the peasants.
As for peasant loyalty to one side or the other, more Vietnamese served with the ARVN than the Vietcong. Much of the VC was wiped out in 1968 during Tet.
Peasants Gaining Their Independance?
More romantic nonsense.
Vietnam was not "liberated" by a peasant uprising, in l975. It was conquered by a mechanized army from the north which rolled over an exhausted South like Hitler rolled over Poland. It was not an oxcart that broke down the gates of the presidential palace in Saigon. It was a T34.
Before, during and after "Independance" those Vietnamese who could flooded out of the country, many at the risk of their lives. I have met many of them in California. They felt anything but liberated. Just a few years ago they rioted when a shop owner tried to place a picture of Ho in his store.
I always sigh when people talk about "gaining indepence" with the fall of Saigon as if that was the end of the story. I wonder why they ignore the aftermath.
If "independance" under communism was so great, why have the Vietnamese been jumping with both feet into capitalism in the last decade? The youth of Vietnam don't care about the war. Veterans have become bitter.
Your posts are based more on hysteria than facts.
The only truth BigC knows about his father's experience is what he's been told. Chances are BigC's father was not a high profile POW like McCain who suffered extra as the result of his family connections. It was more important to the enemy to exploit him.
I'm confident his father whould be much more charitable in his assessment of McCain's experience as a POW. One thing I know about those who've been unlucky enough to have been in this position is their common empathy and bond of brotherhood that would make criticism such as BigC unthinkable and dishonorable. Unlike BigC, they understand that when you serve your country, you don't have the luxury of picking your wars.
I suggest they would confine their disagreement to the issues, since his heroism as a POW is already well documented.
TT's questions are not 'impertinent' at all. YOU brought up the topic of your father and what he did or did not do, so it is quite legitimate for TT to ask more questions and to comment upon what you have said.
If you don't like TT and IronMike asking those sorts of questions then perhaps you should not have used your fathers experiences (of which you merely know what he has chosen to tell you) to justify your attack on John McCann.
To be blunt, 'Put up, Shut up or withdraw the remarks'. Simple as that.
BigC,
You want something that bears on the argument? How about this American Hero who was McCain's cell mate for 5 years as a POW.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3868124.ece
When George “Bud” Day first set eyes on John McCain in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp, he doubted his new cell-mate would survive until the following morning, let alone return to America to become a senator and eventually a presidential candidate.
“He was emaciated and puny and although he was a young man his hair had turned white,” Day recalled last week. “He had obviously been starved. I was positive he’d die.”
Day was in no great shape himself. A US air force pilot, he had been shot down over Vietnam in August 1967 and badly injured when ejected from his plane. He was captured, then escaped, was caught again but refused to surrender. The Vietnamese shot him and later bayoneted his left leg to discourage further escapes.
Yet somehow, against overwhelming odds, the two cell-mates survived monstrous torture, nursed each other through agonising injuries and forged a lifelong friendship that added an intriguing twist last week to the 2008 presidential campaign.
While McCain’s experiences as a captured navy pilot during the Vietnam war are scarcely a secret, the Republican candidate rarely discusses in public the details of his wartime captivity. Nor does he ever talk about the military service of his son, a US marine who has fought in Iraq.
McCain’s reticence, born of both a natural modesty and a fierce determination to protect his family’s private life, has begun to worry prominent Republican strategists, who believe the endless Democratic feuding between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has opened the White House door to McCain – provided he opens up his own life to the kind of intimate scrutiny that presidential voters have come to expect.
Those worries were aired last week in a striking commentary by Karl Rove, President George W Bush’s former campaign manager, who has often been accused of masterminding the vicious campaign of character assassination that knocked McCain out of the 2000 presidential race.
Day has many other stories of unimaginable stress and stirring comradeship. The point, Rove argued, was that these were stories Americans should hear. “I have heard things about Senator McCain that were deeply moving and politically troubling,” he said. “Troubling because it is clear that Mr McCain is one of the most private individuals to run for president in history.” American voters “want to know more about a candidate than policy positions”, he continued.
McCain’s aides have been politely keeping their distance from Rove, who is seen by some to be either looking for a job in a McCain administration or, at the very least, trying to ensure that he would not be shunned by a new Republican White House.
Last week Day, who is still sprightly at 83, was happy to oblige with tales of derring-do from the Hanoi Hilton and other prison camps. “John has always felt on all kinds of issues a strong determination to do things on his own terms,” Day said. “That got him through Vietnam and I don’t think it will change. His son Jim saw combat in Iraq, but he has always refused to use his children in his campaign. Personally, I find that admirable.”
To Rove, the calculating strategist, it may be admirable but it makes no political sense. “Candidates who are uncomfortable sharing their interior lives limit their appeal,” he warned.
Yes. Here's an opportunity for you to trash one American hero supporting another.
Who's Being Impertinent?
BigC(RAP);
You throw out wild accusations about John McCain and then call scrutiny "impetinence"?
Sheesh.
Skipping lightly over McCain's suffering as a POW when your own father was one is impertinent and sad. I have the right to disagree with you and I will exercise it.
You left the veracity of your father's plight open to question when you dodged simple questions about him. You still haven't answered them.
Vietnam?
It is your privilege to maintain romantic notions about simple peasants fightng the US to "gain their freedom". It simply isn't accurate.
Your only piece of scrutiny in my text about the war is Ho Chi Minh's decision to start the war in the South. It is true.
Ho and the leadership in the North ordered the war at the moment they thought the government in the South was ready to fall. There was communist network in the South waiting.
The war went from a peasant revolt, to a guerrila war, to a mechanized war. I am surprised you ignore the NVA, the Ho Chi Mihn Trail, the Cambodian sanctuaries and the mechanized invasions in l974 and l975. It must be the romantic in you.
The US first supported the South with weapons and advisers and later with troops. The Russians and Chinese supported the North with weapons and advisors. Recent histories have revealed the Chinese stationed 30,000 troops in the North to help man the SAM missles.
The North controlled the war, not the peasants in the South.
So John McCain says he would be Hamas' worst nightmare...
I am not convinced that we need to maintain a foreign policy that promotes interacting with any part of the middle east in a threatening way. It should be the opposite.
It's bizarre how so many people think that John McCain--due to his supposed Maverick status that has nothing to do with his foreign policy- would be anything other than a more violent version of Bush.
To make matters worse we are having difficulty achieving stability in Iraq, so of course crazy neocon logic says we make a policy of antagonizing the surrounding countries governments and the terrorist groups they support- for (I can only guess) some persistent fascination with watching the chips fall where they may.
We are advertising for all of the groups and governments that we claim to be against, giving them legitimacy. It is outrageously irresponsible.
Out of my country's election! Frikkin frakkin....
Candace;
Hamas' Worst Nightmare?
McCain is correct about Hamas. It would be a slap in the face of our allies in the Mideast to suddenly treat terrorist organizations like Hamas as legitimate entities. They are not.
At best, they prevent their own people from negotiating peace. At worst, they are just hired guns for Syrian and Iranian adventure in the Mideast.
More Violent Than George Bush?
It is extremists in Iraq who are violent. They have been attempting to throw the country into Chaos since the fall of Saddam. I am surprised you overlook that while easily critizing US efforts at democracy. It is not an easy job as we all know.
The UN does not agree with you. Every year it reauthorizes its mandate for the US and Britain to stabilize the country, not throw it into convulsions.
Charges of instability belong to those carrying it out. They are external influences (like al Qaeda, Syria and Iran) and internal ones (like sectarian hit squads, Sunni rebels and common criminals). Efforts by the US and Iraqi government have reduced violence considerably in the last year.
Giving Legitimacy to Terrorists and The Governments That Support Them?
Hardly. Terrorists have lost their appeal in Iraq due to their mass murders. Even the Sunni tribes have joined the US and Iragi government against them. Palestinian rocket attacks into Israel have gained them nothing but world contempt.
Why should the US suddenly kowtow to these scum?
If Obama cannot understand who our friends and enemies in the Mideast are, he should not be President.
TT,
Popular opinion is not in favor of us or Israel and we know that, so why should we have our soldiers involved in establishing democracy in Iraq or anywhere in the Middle East.
talking is not kowtowing.
Painting Your Own Picture
BigC(RAP);
McCain made tough decisions regarding incendiary remarks by ranting preachers? What was so tough?
McCain rejected the endorsement of John Hagee for his remarks stating that God sent Hitler to the Jews to help them to the Promised Land. Not a hard thing to do. He rejected the endorsement of another pastor with similar ideas.
He did not take twenty years to do it.
Do try to come up with concrete criticisms, not made up ones like "the mad bomber".
Thank you.
Phobias Rule!
BigC(RAP);
Bomb,.bomb,bomb...?
Get a grip BigG.
McCain has not advocated attacking Iran. No one has.
Polictical Savy (chuckle) dictates the Christian Right is anti-semitic?
Get another grip.
. Perhaps certain individuals are anti-semitic. Don't paint millions likewise.
Are all African Americans anti-semitic just because of Rev. Wright's rants?
Are all Brits anti-semitic because of you?
You Tube Evidence?
Edited footage can paint anyone in any light. The recent dismissal of the al Durah libel suit points that out. Rosalyn Carter photographed years ago posing with Wayne Gacey (who sodomized and murdered 27 teens in Chicago) does not mean she was a serial killer too.
Comments today by Hillary Clinton about Robert Kennedy are spun to infer Obama should be assassinated. That is not true either.
Learn to question what is thrown at you.
Perception is BigC's Reality
BigC(RAP)
John McCain, Iran and Youtube?
If you cannot tell the difference between petty "gotchas" posted on Youtube by anti-McCain groups and the actual positions of John McCain the candidate, you should excuse yourself from serious debate.
Obama and Clinton have had similar gotchas posted on Youtube, or have you overlooked them? They don't represent the candidates, just their opponents.
What counts are the stated policies of the candidates themselves.
Still Contending That all Christians Are Anti-Semitic?
As I said before: Phobias Rule!
Do you believe the Elders Of Zion too?
BC's Struggles With His Own Anti-Semetism?
Are you anti-Semetic? Of course not. You just make anti-semetic statements.
Perception is reality as you are trying to prove with McCain.
Take Another Look;
Candace;
"Popular opinion is not in favor of us, or Israel..."?
We are only unpopular with our enemies.
Iran and Syria have been creating mayhem in the Mideast for years. Do you really want to support them and what they stand for?
The rest of the Mideast remains pro-US and pro-West. Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, UAR are all friends of the US.
Lebanon appluaded US and French success in getting Syrian troops out of their country. They now suffer from Syria's surrogate, Hizbollah.
Even less "popular" are al Qaeda in Iraq and Palestinian terrorists in Gaza.
Sunni tribes have turned against al Qaeda because of their heavy handed tactics and mass murders and now support the US. Violence in Iraq has dropped as a result.
You don't have to believe me. Click to "The Human Security Report". International terrorism dropped 40 percent in the latter half of 2007. It dropped 55 percent in Iraq. Thanks US.
The HSR for 2006 reported that wars since the end of the Cold War have dropped 75 percent. Thanks again US.
"Talking (to terrorist states) is not Kowtowing"? Yes it is.
Talking to terrorists and those who support them is to acknowledge them and give them legitimacy. It would be a slap in the face of our allies in the Mideast who suffer the most.
It is for terrorists states and their surrogates to ask our terms, not the other way around. Those terms have been stated.
If Barak Obama has the same opinion as you about legitimizing terrorist states, he should not be President.
TT,
We are only unpopular with our enemies.
So then anyone who is against democracy that we install is a terrorist?
...and Saudi Arabia
Did we install democracy in those countries?
You're talking about Hamas? That democratically elected bunch?
The HSR for 2006 reported that wars since the end of the Cold War have dropped 75 percent. Thanks again US.
What's with the 'Thanks US' routine? Are you implying that attempting to install democracy in Iraq has caused international terrorism to drop?
Talking endlessly about terrorists and making aggressive foreign policy based on [i]the threat[/i] of terrorist organizations gives them legitimacy.
No it wouldn't. And anyhow, Why should I support our current macho posturing towards Iran instead? What can it accomplish that talks can not?
What the Bush adminstration has been saying is very similar to what was said prior to invading Iraq. Our allies in the Middle East just might find that offensive. I know that many people in this country do. If Bush (or McCain) doesn't have the same intent for Iran then they should use different language to communicate what they want from Iran. It might be a little difficult to get at least one of those points across now, though...
Strengthening Diplomatic Ties with Saudi Arabia
United States And Saudi Arabia Improve Peace And Stability In The Region Through Nuclear Cooperation
Aint nothin like a little hypocrisy to complicate the issue.
http://tinyurl.com/5x3hvg
BC Needs A Chill Pill;
BigC(RAP);
I see someone is getting your goat.
Refer to any of your comments about Israel if you want evidence of anti-semitism.
Refer to your own ranting post about the supposed Christian right and the Coming for evidence of Christian anti-Semitism.
You are the one who is big into turning perceptions into reality. Now it is in your face.
Enjoy.
BigC Gets A Wrong Number
BigC(RAP);
"Terrorism in Iraq would be NIL if the US had not invaded it!"
The 300,00 victims of Saddam discovered in mass graves after his downfall would disagree with you if they could.
The number of wars in 1914 and 1939 was one each?
The Chinese would disagree with you. They had been fighting the Japanese since l931 and each other before that.
The Spainish were still fighting their civil war in l939.
Albania was conquered in l939.
Ghandi was fighting a peaceful war against British Imperialism in l939.
Jews and Arabs were sniping away at each other in l939.
The Balkans had just wrapped a fews wars by l914.
War was brewing in Ireland in l914.
Those are just a few of the ongoing conflicts in l914 and 1939.
I have lost count of all the big and small wars the British and European powers had been fighting for decades before and after.
You can't find the HSR for 2006? Just click Human Security Report and scroll down. The 2006 report is an update of the original 2005 report which stated the dramatic decline in wars since the end of the Cold War.
Don't be afraid to read it. It is good news.
Britain and other European powers made a mess of the world when they ran the show. Hundreds of colonial wars, regional wars and two world wars are a disgrace.
US leadership in world affairs since the end of British and European butchery has been far less bloody.
BC Backpeddles;
BigC(RAP);
The Vast Majority Of Saddam's Victims?
They were the victims of Saddam. He ordered their deaths. He murdered them. To try and fob the blame on someone else is dishonest.
The Sanctions?
They were approved by the UN as part of the truce Saddam agreed to following his expulsion from Kuwait. He circumvented it as the Oil For Food Program Scandal revealed. He built 8 super luxury palaces while his own people suffered. (No, George Bush did not approve the architecture.)
Britain and Europe honored the sanctions. To ignore Saddam's role and fob that exclusively on the US is again dishonest.
The number of wars in l914 and l939?
You were flat out wrong about the number of wars ongoing at both times. To try and categorize them an anything but wars is for a third time dishonest.
The world was not perfectly at peace when both world wars started.
Iraq, WW1 and WW2? As with everything else you have written so far, you were either wrong, or so pent up with dislike for the US you were willing to bend facts to espouse your bias.
The Human Security Reports verify the declines in war and terrorism. That is something which British and European leadership failed to do when they ran the world. Thanks US.
if John McCain wins the election, I'm moving my family to Canada.
Sure...promises, promises. We've been teased with the great flight of the Liberal Left in the past. Funny how it never materializes.
oh you just wait and see big fella!
Mr. Mike I am not a liberal, I am probably more conservative than you are.
Horse Hockey!
If you were truly more conservative than me, you would never be seriously considering Obama instead of McCain. Real conservatives stay and fight, not flee to the great white socialist neighbor up North.
how [i]dare[/i] you !. ;-)
I am basing my decision on my thoughts about our involvement in the Middle East, how it is affecting us and them and my feeling about what I think is going to happen to this country if we have another confrontational leader.
I'm also tired of our presidency being a freak show, which is what I think Mr. Crankiness and his wife would be.
Actually, I think McCain has given up on the election. I can't believe some of the crap he's been saying.
I might just write in a candidate.
I guess you missed this provocative article?
The 2008 Presidential election could be a landslide victory for John McCain.
I'm basing my assessment here on 3 factors: Time, the Anti-Obama vote and Obama's own arrogance.
Time
It's only July 13th, folks. There are 113 days remaining until November 4th. In this internet era, when news travels around the globe faster than a speeding bullet, 113 days are long enough for even the most polished, eloquent orator in American history to put both feet in his mouth dozens of times.
And every time Obama has one of his infamous verbal slips, it's recorded for profit or just plain fun, and spun into enough YouTube entertainment to last into the next decade. Every gaffe, every misstep, every flip-flop, turn-around and attempted take-back that the candidate utters, every single day for the next 113, will be viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, who then take their impressions to the office, the diners, the bus stops, the hairdressers and the assembly lines. The NYT could only ever dream of such influence.
Americans tend to be a forgiving lot, but each one of us has his own personal limit to the number of take-backs he is willing to allow a single person. I'm predicting that as Obama continues to morph into new positions nearly every day, that a great many voters are going to reach the limit, the point where they stop listening to this candidate because they simply stop trusting his word.
Trust is usually proffered generously, but once lost, disillusionment rarely permits its return, at least not within the confines of 113 days.
How many voters will still trust Obama by November 4th? Perhaps far less than the conventional wisdom is predicting. Time is not on Obama's side.
The Anti-Obama Vote
Discouraged conservatives and Republicans, even those who say now that they will stay home on Election Day, are at the end of the day, responsible citizens. They will, I predict, see well in advance of November 4th, just how much damage could be done by Obama, especially if he gets a filibuster-proof Senate majority and an even larger majority in the House of Representatives.
The Republican anti-Obama vote, I believe, will hinge on two issues, namely, the Supreme Court and our war against IslamoFascism. Forward thinking Republican voters will vote for treading water with McCain for 4 years over letting the whole American ship go down to defeat.
Disillusionment among loyal Democrats has already begun and is mounting rapidly. In the wake of Hillary Clinton's concession, a great many disgruntled Democrats started a grassroots groundswell under one banner group, PUMA, which stands for: Party Unity My A**. There are already more than 200 separate groups that are uniting under the PUMA banner, with only one thing in common. They vow that, no matter what, they will not support Barack Obama. There is already "Democrats for McCain" gear and all the hoopla that goes with it.
Add to these renegade groups the fact that Obama currently has a web mutiny on his hands, occurring on his very own networking site. The largest of these mutinous web supporter groups only formed the last week of June and already has more than 22,800 members. This particular group, "Please vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA right," formed over the latest Obama flip-flop, reneging on his October FISA promise to "support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies." Obama voted for the FISA bill, with immunity still in it.
As I've said already, trust is a fragile commodity. Once a person loses it, disillusioned followers can get mighty angry and even vindictive. With 113 days to go, and this many folks already vowing that the Obama they see now is "not the Obama they knew," with some even demanding returns on their campaign contributions, the emotional winds that have carried Barack this far may turn on him.
And I'm predicting that they will. By November 4th, we could even see hurricane-force passions blowing against Obama and at McCain's waiting back.
Obama's Arrogance
There are few things in this life as satisfying to more experienced people than to see haughty pride get its comeuppance.
How many working people in this Country have not had at least one experience with a young upstart, walking right out of college and into a position without a lick of hard knocks or humbling pragmatic necessity to be his guide? He's the guy who's got the whole business figured out because he read a book about it, or the gal who thinks raising great kids is no harder than summarizing the mistakes of others. And Barack Obama fits this stereotype to a perfect T.
He's 47 years old, but has spent the bulk of his adult life either coddled in an out-of-touch academia or perennially running for one office after another. He has not even had to stare down or discipline teenage children, for goodness' sake.
Yet, he's got it all figured out, down to the nuts and bolts of exactly why the rest of us "bitter" folks "cling to" our "religions and our guns." His two books are little more than summations of what other people think, their motivations and their difficulties. Reading his two autobiographical books leaves one with the uneasy impression that although Obama thinks he knows everything there is to know about us, he has yet to even figure out himself.
So, this is the man who has all of life and everything about American politics so well mastered, that he thinks he is ready to be President?
The vast majority of American voters are over 30, and in the voting booth, a candidate gets no extra points for excitement. No matter how thrilled some will be to vote for Barack Obama, their votes will count not one whit more than the old-fashioned, responsible votes cast for John McCain.
We've already witnessed Obama's highly fortuitous, completely unpredictable rise.
I'm betting we may also witness his fall before November 4th, and that his fall from grace will be every bit as phenomenal as was his rise.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/07/could_2008_be_a_mccain_landsli.html
Ah crud... not a provocative article! Do you have any cartoons? ;-)
McCain is having the same problem, and is less likable.
While I agree McCain is less likable, I don't base my vote on how likable a candidate is--only how well he could potentially do the job for which he is considered.
McCain is having the same problem? Yes...but not to the same degree because he has a significant track record and with a few exceptions, his message has been pretty consistent with his history. He's more trustworthy and ultimately, THAT will be Obama's undoing.
http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/
• After vowing to eschew private fundraising and take public financing, he has now refused public money.
• Once he threatened to filibuster a bill to protect telephone companies from liability for their cooperation with national security wiretaps; now he has voted for the legislation.
• Turning his back on a lifetime of support for gun control, he now recognizes a Second Amendment right to bear arms in the wake of the Supreme Court decision.
• Formerly, he told the Israeli lobby that he favored an undivided Jerusalem. Now he says he didn’t mean it.
• From a 100 percent pro-choice position, he now has migrated to expressing doubts about allowing partial-birth abortions.
• For the first time, he now speaks highly of using church-based institutions to deliver public services to the poor.
• Having based his entire campaign on withdrawal from Iraq, he now pledges to consult with the military first.
• During the primary, he backed merit pay for teachers - but before the union a few weeks ago, he opposed it.
• After specifically saying in the primaries that he disagreed with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) proposal to impose Social Security taxes on income over $200,000 and wanted to tax all income, he has now adopted the Clinton position.
Obama’s breathtaking flips and flops are materially different from McCain’s. While McCain had opposed offshore oil drilling and now supports it, the facts have obviously changed. Obama’s shifts have nothing to do with altered circumstances, just a change in the political calendar.
As a candidate who was nominated to be a different kind of politician, Obama has set the bar pretty high. And, with his flipping and flopping, he is falling short, to the disillusionment of his more naïve supporters. One wag even called him the “black Bill Clinton,” a turnaround of the “first black president” moniker that had been pinned on Bill.
Meanwhile, McCain and the Republicans have finally found an issue - oil drilling - exposing how the Democrats oppose drilling virtually anywhere that there might be recoverable oil. Not in Alaska. Not offshore. Not in shale deposits in the West. The Democratic claim that we “cannot drill our way out of the crisis in gas prices” begs the question of whether, had we drilled five years ago, we would be a lot less dependent on foreign market fluctuations.
The truth is that the Democrats put the need to mitigate climate change ahead of the imperative of holding down gasoline prices at the pump. If there was ever a fault line between elitist and populist approaches to a problem, this is it. In fact, liberals basically don’t see much wrong with $5 gas. Many have been urging a tax to achieve precisely this level, just like Europe has done for decades.
Obama said that he was unhappy that there was not a period of “gradual adjustment” to the high prices, but seems to shed few tears over the current levels. After all, if your imperative is climate change, a high gas price is worth 10 times a ratified Kyoto treaty in bringing about change.
Republicans can drive a truck through the gap between this elite opinion and the need for ordinary people to afford the journey to work in the morning. And, with a 16-state media buy, the Republican Party and the McCain campaign are doing precisely that.
If Obama softens his aversion to drilling, it may be the final straw for some of his liberal supporters. Where would they go? Nader is still a possibility. But McCain can attract liberal votes. He doesn’t need to bleed Obama only from the right. His own stands against drilling in Alaska and torture of terror suspects and for immigration reform make him suspect on the right, but quite acceptable to the left. If moderate liberals are disgusted by Obama’s obvious attempts at chicanery and repositioning, they might just cross the aisle.
Yeah, I know its terrible. these are scary, yet, shallow times. ;-)
I can think of many reasons why I dont like McCain and I can't think of only a few reasons why I like and dislike Obama. But of those few I like, they are more important to me then the fact that McCain has experience.
Why is it today we seem to get so many politicians who have never done a days work ?? Here (in the UK) the government benches are stuffed with people who have either been public servants, trade union wallers or perpetual students. On the Tory benches there seems to be rather a lot of bankers and lawyers.
http://www.alternet.org/election08/90956/?page=entire
8. McCain supported moving "toward normalization of relations" with Cuba. Now he believes the opposite.
9. McCain believed the United States should engage in diplomacy with Hamas. Now he believes the opposite.
10. McCain believed the United States should engage in diplomacy with Syria. Now he believes the opposite.
11. McCain is both for and against a "rogue state rollback" as a focus of his foreign policy vision.
12. McCain used to champion the Law of the Sea convention, even volunteering to testify on the treaty's behalf before a Senate committee. Now he opposes it.
13. McCain was against divestment from South Africa before he was for it.
Military Policy
14. McCain recently claimed that he was the "greatest critic" of Rumsfeld's failed Iraq policy. In December 2003, McCain praised the same strategy as "a mission accomplished." In March 2004, he said, "I'm confident we're on the right course." In December 2005, he said, "Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course."
15. McCain has changed his mind about a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq on multiple occasions, concluding, on multiple occasions, that a Korea-like presence is both a good idea and a bad idea.
16. McCain said before the war in Iraq, "We will win this conflict. We will win it easily." Four years later, McCain said he knew all along that the war in Iraq war was "probably going to be long and hard and tough."
17. McCain has repeatedly said it's a dangerous mistake to tell the "enemy" when U.S. troops would be out of Iraq. In May, McCain announced that most American troops would be home from Iraq by 2013.
18. McCain was against expanding the GI Bill before he was for it.
[b]When McCain opposes his own legislation[/b]
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14447.html
Wow!
Now that is really an impressive list. While I take issue with some of those, as a whole it does show a variety of opinions. Of course, Obama's staff would call his flip-flops as "evolving policy positions." The sites devoted to Obama flip-flop are legion. I'll post some if you like, but didn't see the point of getting into a discussion of who has the MOST flip flops.
I suppose the real issue is where ultimately either of them will evolve or refine? I'm still hoping McCain will "evolve" away from "Cap and Trade" and toward drilling anywhere and everywhere as part of an overall energy strategy that includes nuclear and alternative energy.
It doesn't look like McCain the flip flopper has conviction about much of anything, except for his unwavering support of neocon foreign policy and cutting taxes in order to pay for his plans to increase military spending. I don't know how anyone could support this guy.
It doesn't look like Obama the flip flopper has conviction about much of anything, except for his unwavering support of Liberal foreign policy and raising taxes in order to pay for his plans to increase entitlement spending. I don't know how anyone could support this guy.
Substantial comment for a substantial comment.
Awesome! I could use the help.
I also like the idea that a lot of you people who supported the invasion into Iraq, and the mindbogglingly irresponsible rhetoric towards Iran while [i]supposedly[/i] trying to stablize/reconstruct Iraq are going to get taxed silly. I hope it happens. You all obviously haven't learned a thing if you actually try to help get a neocon get into office. Unbelievable. Words cannot describe how much I loathe neocons and their asshole supporters.
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