“Over the course of the campaign against Hillary Clinton and now McCain, Obama has elaborated more and more the ideas that would undergird his foreign policy as president,” columnist Fareed Zakaria wrote. “What emerges is a world view that is far from that of a typical liberal, much closer to that of a traditional realist. It is interesting to note that, at least in terms of the historical schools of foreign policy, Obama seems to be the cool conservative and McCain the exuberant idealist.”
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3/18/03, Fox, “O’Reilly Factor”
O’Reilly: “All right, Senator, if you were president, what would you have done differently in the run-up to this war?”
McCain: “Nothing.”
O’Reilly: “Nothing?”
McCain: “The president has handled this, in my view, skillfully.”
6/11/03, Fox News
Neil Cavuto: …many argue the conflict isn’t over.
McCain: Well, then why was there a banner that said mission accomplished on the aircraft carrier? Look, the — I have said a long time that reconstruction of Iraq would be a long, long, difficult process, but the conflict — the major conflict is over, the regime change has been accomplished.
3/7/04, ABC News
“I’m confident we’re on the right course. . . .
10/24/04, ABC News, “This Week”
“We’ve got to stay the course and I believe that’s what President Bush is committed to.”
6/28/05, Fox News
“And what the president did tonight is the most important thing. He laid out an articulate vision for victory in Iraq and why we need to stay the course.”
12/8/05, The Hill
“Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course.”
Welcome to the Wichita Eagle Obama Campaign Headquarters.
Well, Regular, we’re all ears for all the good news you have to spread about any other candidate. I see two names in the intro to this thread. If Obama isn’t a candidate of your choice, who is and why?
Over the course of the campaign I noticed that Obama seemed the more conservative of view on foreign policy than McCain. The change in McCain was like suddenly going from the darkness of night to the sun coming up. Though McCain’s change was not that of a new day and its hopes and possibilities of better then yesterday.
John’s changes showed his acceptance of the Neo-conservative ideology. The use of they see as the mindless military to farther the control of the U.S. on the world stage. That being the last super power in the world entitles the U.S, to invoke our will on the world. McCain’s recent claim that he was right about the time line of the surge and the Sunni awaking and that there was a secret surge that no one else knew about. Is the classic “Noble lie”, lying is acceptable if it gains your end goal for the betterment.
Perhaps lindainks if Brownlee would stop quoting from the most Liberal new sources he can get his little progressive fingers on, then I’ll make an objective comment. Quoting from a liberal news rag like Newsweek doesn’t leave much room for an objective view.
Obama should make his rejection of the neo-con foriegn policy crystal clear by pre-announcing Patrick J. Buchanan as Secretary of State.
How is McCain’s wanting to slaughter every Persian a form of idealism?
Any excuse is as good as another. If criticism is all you’ve got, it’s all you’ve got. (shrugs shoulders and shakes head as reads same ole same ole from person who runs around every thread talking about people without original thoughts…)
#
lindainks55
Posted July 26, 2008 at 7:52 am | Permalink
Any excuse is as good as another. If criticism is all you’ve got, it’s all you’ve got. (shrugs shoulders and shakes head as reads same ole same ole from person who runs around every thread talking about people without original thoughts…)
============================
So Brownlee constantly quoting from the most Liberal sources he can obtain may not be a problem for you, but it doesn’t lend to much objectivity.
As far as the original thought comment goes, it still stands.
I noticed you didn’t make a comment on the story, but another poster.
That all you got?
It is all I’ve got this morning. I agree with the lead in so found no need to offer a counter argument or an opposing opinion. I thought since you disagreed you might want to offer such. I was wrong.
#
lindainks55
Posted July 26, 2008 at 7:58 am | Permalink
It is all I’ve got this morning. I agree with the lead in so found no need to offer a counter argument or an opposing opinion. I thought since you disagreed you might want to offer such. I was wrong.
———————
Of course, you’re wrong, it goes without saying.
Dog, You’ve nailed what I’ve watched too. I do wonder and am interested in your thoughts — does McCain understand the neocon philosophy? Is the shift more political in that he is being used without knowing it in exchange for support from influential people in the party? I think it’s the later. He wants to be president (that’s NOT a criticism! I wouldn’t want someone applying for that job that didn’t want it!) and I think he might have embraced a philosophy he doesn’t understand fully. What do you think?
And, I don’t get the impression he couldn’t understand if he took the time to study it fully. I just think he hasn’t taken that time and has let some people lead him in a direction they want him to go.
“Obama should make his rejection of the neo-con foreign policy crystal clear by pre-announcing Patrick J. Buchanan as Secretary of State“.
:> gee bjb I like Buchanan’s at times and I use to think of him as the extreme right. He was spot on in his book “ Where the Right went wrong”. But as SOS he would be interesting, though I would suspect if the goal is to improve the standing of the U.S. in the world. He might be as successful as Bush has been.
Linda McCain is not G.W. Bush he has been awake in the Global world while G.W. had to be tutored that there was a world outside of his video games. That is not a cheap shot at Bush, seriously Daddy Bush arranged for a series of friends to school Jr. on who’s who and where on a map the countries were.
The scholars later said of G.W, that he seem totally disinterested in world events and learning the subject.
McCain is awake and aware of the world outside and should be better prepared, so no I did not think it is simply a desire for the Presidency. He has been converted is seems as no one whom is aware what spout what McCain has been saying. It takes a life in a bubble to be so ignorant of the reality to believe in the Neoconservatives ideology. McCain’s courting of the Religious Right is a Political trick but his foreign policy is a conversion to the Neo-Con mindset.
Well, I was giving him too much credit! I know McCain isn’t stupid like bush but he has been really busy applying for this new job so I thought maybe he hadn’t actually wrapped his understanding completely around that rule the world thing. Most people haven’t researched and come to understand what is happening. There are so many areas to keep well informed of and until you actually get “into” this mess there isn’t any way to conceive of such evil actually happening in broad daylight. I’m sorrier if you’re right! I also find it impossible to wrap my mind around how anyone could support such stupidity as the neocon agenda.
Morning linda! Morning dog!
I think don’t think McCain is a neocon. In my opinion, McCain wants to repair the damage done by Augustus Stupidus to US power internationally. We are a much, much, much, infinitely weaker nation today than we were in early 2003. I think McCain wants to remedy that (so obviously does Obama).
Neither candidate differs on the end, just the means. I think both candidates realize fully that the US is like a huge aircraft carrier in that turning it on a dime come inauguration day is impossible. In other words, there are some Bush policies which must be followed as a matter of function. In 2003 this was, to my mind, one of the most profound tragedies of Augustus Stupidus’s decision to invade Iraq, knowing that at that moment every US citizen’s fate, at least in some significant way, was committed to carrying through on the consequences to this horrible decision no matter what.
For me, it really, really sucked to be an American in March 2003. It was extremely painful for me to watch our country make a huge mistake and not be able to affect the outcome. To add insult to injury, we who were sickened on that day were also mocked, at best, and accused of treason, at worst (and all too often).
In my opinion, McCain is trying to prevent another display of the kind we saw in Saigon in 1975. I imagine he remains as seared by images of US military personnel pushing South Vietnamese civilians off US helicopers atop the US embassy in Saigon as I was sickened in 2003 by images of Augustus Stupidus announcing that the time had come for UN inspectors to leave Iraq.
Either way, one thing is true. The wing of the GOP behind Iraq, the neocons, were consigned to ash heap of American history when the GOP nominated McCain. In that sense, we have won the election already!
Obama, the “cool conservative”.
I hope you’re right, Pedant! If the neocon movement won’t have a U.S. president to further their agenda NO MATTER which of the two candidates is elected, I feel safer and more optimistic about America’s future.
But even then, we must be vigilant! bushco have a few months left and are dangerous.
“So Brownlee constantly quoting from the most Liberal sources he can obtain may not be a problem for you, but it doesn’t lend to much objectivity.”
Bullsh*t. Way to dismiss one of the most insightful foreign policy analysts without having to deal with what he says.
“As far as the original thought comment goes, it still stands.
“I noticed you didn’t make a comment on the story, but another poster.
“That all you got?”
Notice the content of these words and his previous post, verses the accusation of what Linda is doing. The only appropriate response to this provocation is…
Re: Regular
DNFTT
Thanks for the excellent advice, Agnatha. I will take it to heart for the future. I gave him credit where it wasn’t deserved in thinking there could be mature discussion.
I agree with Writerdog and Pendant.
McCain is no Bush the III, and to call him McSame is, well, also bullsh*t. McCain’s call to “stay the course” was a pragmatic response (I am not saying it was a good response, or even a particularly ethical response, but politically at the time it was smart to preserve his standing within his own party). One of the dirty little secrets people forget is that the Iraq war was actually politically popular (disenchantment set in later, and it was predictable).
I do think that McCain would have been and would be more pragmatic in his foreign policy.
One of the things that Obama seems to get, however, is that we are in a propoganda war as well as shooting war and an intelligence war when it comes to terrorism. We are faced with Islamism (as opposed to Islam), and we need to be more open about that issue than we have been.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamism
You libs are so gullible! I cannot believe the potency of the koolaid.
Obama, with less than two-years experience in the federal government as a Senator, absolutely ZERO documented experience in foreign affairs goes on a one week whirlwind “tour” of EU giving speeches (not working issues): AND SUDDENLY HE HAS EXPERIENCE?!?!?
Sooo MUCH experience that Brownlee, Joseph Goebbels junior can state as factual – that Obama is now an expert on world affairs to the point of being conservative. No. Scratch that. Not JUST conservative – MORE conservative.
The media is in it’s finest hour.
To be more clear, the disaster of the Bush Administration is less that it was conservative (although I think that the pendulum really needs to swing back the other way now) but that it was run by one person (Bush) who really wasn’t interested in the hard work and preparation that goes into governance, and two others (Cheney and Rove) whose primary goal was to win political fights both within and without the administration rather than to consider the long term implications of their policies. Bush, for the most part, did not appear to be really interested in learning about issues before acting on them. To Bush, I believe, the presidency was a prize to be won rather than a calling. I would not say that about either candidate this election.
“Sooo MUCH experience that Brownlee, Joseph Goebbels junior can state as factual – that Obama is now an expert on world affairs to the point of being conservative. No. Scratch that. Not JUST conservative – MORE conservative.”
I call Godwin’s Law fulfillment here.
And some of you guys’ characterization of Phillip Brownlee as a lib is, I am sure, unintentionally hilarious.
Pedant,
Wow. A civil, insightful piece of writing. McCain isn’t my choice, but it is good to see someone look at a situation in a mature manner, something often missing on this blog. And I admit to more than a little snarking, myself.
Good work. Keep it up.
Dennis
And I can tell, American_Way, that you did not bother to read the actual source, Fareed Zarakia to a) actually understand what was said and b) because you shallowly attributed the argument to Brownlee.
Typical knee jerk unexamined coalition conservative reactionism.
Where did I attribute the article to Brownlee?
You may disagree w/me Agnatha, but your put downs do not change the merits of my post. You may even make things up along the way.
Response to me from American_Way:
“Where did I attribute the article to Brownlee?”
Previous post from American _Way (the one I responded to):
“Sooo MUCH experience that Brownlee, Joseph Goebbels junior can state as factual – that Obama is now an expert on world affairs to the point of being conservative.”
Cerebral inertia. Remarkable.
I stand by what I said. You clearly attributed the viewpoint to Brownlee, because you didn’t even bother to mention Zarakia. You also casually lurched into Godwin territory.
This country is fukt.
No, I implied that Brownlee is part of the propaganda campaign of the liberal media to get Obama elected – at all costs. Even if it means taking an editorial by another writer – and restated it as if it is true.
Brilliant propaganda. They have learned from the best!
I see the jawless fish is back with its mucous filled commenting.
As a subscriber to Newsweek I can say with certainty that it is a left wing rag. Out of the last 13 covers, 10 have been of Obama. And the articles just made me feel warm and tingly over the big ‘O’. I got a tingle up my leg, oh wait that wasn’t me that was Chris Matthews. Well I did learn why he called himself Barry until he wanted to find his black side. I learned that he used illegal drugs to fit into the black culture. I learned that he was a child raised by a well to do grandma – the same one he threw under the bus – in Hawaii. I learned he suffered by going to the best universities in the states.
But I haven’t learned much about McCain except that he left his wife after returning from being a prisoner of war. I haven’t seen his pictures on any cover.
Yes it is a liberal rag and even though I subscribe I take very little of what is printed there as gospel. A liberal rag looks for liberal writers to support their positions. Just as liberal Phillip looks for left wing articles to bolster his viewpoints.
Newsweek? I gave it up years ago. Not only is it liberal, but over the years substance has been replaced by advertising. The last issue I bought, I had to flip to page 10 before I found an actual “news” article. Why pay for all that advertising?
What really hurts is giving up my Consumer Reports. It has become a champion of socialized medicine. Instead of rating medical care as a product – they simply push a government takeover and bailout.
And August Money magazine? Pat Regnier in the last page editiorial actually bashes the rich – by stating that the Treasury has LOST money, by not socking it to the rich. This, a magazine which promotes financial planning and the building of wealth.
Oh well, paper news is going to be a thing of the past before long.
The media must be liberal because they didn’t have hundreds of reporters covering McCain’s campaign stop in a German restaurant talking with three people. Nor was there much mention of his following a woman and her two kids in a supermarket trying for a photo-op.
On the other hand Obama goes to foreign countries where hundreds of thousands of people cheer and wave American flags.
“hundreds of thousands of people cheer”
Yes, they came for a rock concert by bands before and following the events. And probably free beer.
It’s all propaganda.
Obama is as liberals as you can get.
Look at Obama’s voting record, what little record he has.
Pay absolutely no attention to what Obama says, as Obama is able to hold, and state, conflicting views at the same time.
“Franklin” (aparently on drugs) posted –
“…Obama is able to hold, and state, conflicting views at the same time.”
Do you really think John Sidney McCain the Third (for Shrub’s 3rd term) wants to make flip-flops an issue?
“Obama is as liberals as you can get.”
So he’s more liberal than Senator Sanders and Rep. Kucinich. Once again Paul has been playing in the mushroom patch.
“Obama more conservative than McCain on foreign policy?”
Told ya.
There is still the convention. Progressives are NOT stuck with this candydate poser.
“…Obama is able to hold, and state, conflicting views at the same time.”
His views are conflicted because he lacks experience. Obama makes statements, and either finds out his statement won’t work, or he sees popular opinion doesn’t support the original comment/view. He is learning as he goes along, trying to catch up with an opponent with decades of experience in national and international affairs.
MCCAIN: 16 MONTHS A ‘GOOD TIMETABLE’
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/25/1225053.aspx
“BLITZER: So why do you think he said that 16 months is basically a pretty good timetable?
MCCAIN: He said it’s a pretty good timetable based on conditions on the ground. I think it’s a pretty good timetable, as we should — or horizons for withdrawal. But they have to be based on conditions on the ground.”
Someone needs to tell McCain to stop stealing Obama’s ideas.
“His views are conflicted because he lacks experience. Obama makes statements, and either finds out his statement won’t work, or he sees popular opinion doesn’t support the original comment/view. He is learning as he goes along, trying to catch up with an opponent with decades of experience in national and international affairs.”
But McCain already said Obama dictates world oil prices. How can someone so inexperienced and so ineffective dictate the world’s largest traded commodity?
“hundreds of thousands of people cheer”
Reminds me of Hillary Clinton on her EU trip. All the cheering was muted behind the sounds of bursting machine gun and mortar fire. Now she had experience!
Maggotpunk every statement or opinion posted about Obama you turn it around and post about McCain.
Can’t Obama be evaluated on his own merits and people discuss them?
Here’s the McChange List.
National Security Policy
1. McCain thought Bush’s warrantless-wiretap program circumvented the law; now he believes the opposite.
2. McCain insisted that everyone, even “terrible killers,” “the worst kind of scum of humanity,” and detainees at Guantanamo Bay, “deserve to have some adjudication of their cases,” even if that means “releasing some of them.” McCain now believes the opposite.
3. He opposed indefinite detention of terrorist suspects. When the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion, he called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”
4. In February 2008, McCain reversed course on prohibiting waterboarding.
5. McCain was for closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay before he was against it.
6. When Barack Obama talked about going after terrorists in Pakistani mountains with predators, McCain criticized him for it. He’s since come to the opposite conclusion.
Foreign Policy
7. McCain was for kicking Russia out of the G8 before he was against it.
8. McCain supported moving “towards normalization of relations” with Cuba. Now he believes the opposite.
9. McCain believed the U.S. should engage in diplomacy with Hamas. Now he believes the opposite.
10. McCain believed the U.S. 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 and a bad idea.
16. McCain was against additional U.S. forces in Afghanistan before he was for it.
17. 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.”
18. 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.
19. McCain was against expanding the GI Bill before he was for it.
Domestic Policy
20. McCain defended “privatizing” Social Security. Now he says he’s against privatization (though he actually still supports it.)
21. McCain wanted to change the Republican Party platform to protect abortion rights in cases of rape and incest. Now he doesn’t.
22. McCain supported storing spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Now he believes the opposite.
23. He argued the NRA should not have a role in the Republican Party’s policy making. Now he believes the opposite.
24. In 1998, he championed raising cigarette taxes to fund programs to cut underage smoking, insisting that it would prevent illnesses and provide resources for public health programs. Now, McCain opposes a $0.61-per-pack tax increase, won’t commit to supporting a regulation bill he’s co-sponsoring, and has hired Philip Morris’ former lobbyist as his senior campaign adviser.
25. McCain is both for and against earmarks for Arizona.
26. McCain’s first mortgage plan was premised on the notion that homeowners facing foreclosure shouldn’t be “rewarded” for acting “irresponsibly.” His second mortgage plan took largely the opposite position.
27. McCain went from saying gay marriage should be allowed, to saying gay marriage shouldn’t be allowed.
28. McCain opposed a holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., before he supported it.
29. McCain was anti-ethanol. Now he’s pro-ethanol.
30. McCain was both for and against state promotion of the Confederate flag.
31. In 2005, McCain endorsed intelligent design creationism, a year later he said the opposite, and a few months after that, he was both for and against creationism at the same time.
32. McCain opposed gay adoption before his campaign concluded he didn’t really mean it.
33. In the Senate, McCain opposed a variety of measures on equal pay for women, and endorsed the Supreme Court’s Ledbetter decision. In July, however, McCain said, “I’m committed to making sure that there’s equal pay for equal work. That … is my record and you can count on it.”
34. McCain was against fully funding the No Child Left Behind Act before he was for it.
Economic Policy
35. McCain was against Bush’s tax cuts for the very wealthy before he was for them.
36. John McCain initially argued that economics is not an area of expertise for him, saying, “I’m going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues; I still need to be educated,” and “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.” He now falsely denies ever having made these remarks and insists that he has a “very strong” understanding of economics.
37. McCain vowed, if elected, to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term. Soon after, he decided he would no longer even try to reach that goal. And soon after that, McCain abandoned his second position and went back to his first.
38. McCain said in 2005 that he opposed the tax cuts because they were “too tilted to the wealthy.” By 2007, he denied ever having said this, and falsely argued that he opposed the cuts because of increased government spending.
39. McCain thought the estate tax was perfectly fair. Now he believes the opposite.
40. McCain pledged in February 2008 that he would not, under any circumstances, raise taxes. Specifically, McCain was asked if he is a “‘read my lips’ candidate, no new taxes, no matter what?” referring to George H.W. Bush’s 1988 pledge. “No new taxes,” McCain responded. Two weeks later, McCain said, “I’m not making a ‘read my lips’ statement, in that I will not raise taxes.”
41. McCain has changed his entire economic worldview on multiple occasions.
42. McCain believes Americans are both better and worse off economically than they were before Bush took office.
Energy Policy
43. McCain supported the moratorium on coastal drilling ; now he’s against it.
44. McCain recently announced his strong opposition to a windfall-tax on oil company profits. Three weeks earlier, he was perfectly comfortable with the idea.
45. McCain endorsed a cap-and-trade policy with a mandatory emissions cap. In mid-June, McCain announced he wants the caps to voluntary.
46. McCain explained his belief that a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax would provide an immediate economic stimulus. Shortly thereafter, he argued the exact opposite.
47. McCain supported the Lieberman/Warner legislation to combat global warming. Now he doesn’t.
48. McCain was for national auto emissions standards before he was against them.
Immigration Policy
49. McCain was a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to illegal immigrants’ kids who graduate from high school. Now he’s against it.
50. On immigration policy in general, McCain announced in February 2008 that he would vote against his own bill.
51. In April, McCain promised voters that he would secure the borders “before proceeding to other reform measures.” Two months later, he abandoned his public pledge, pretended that he’d never made the promise in the first place, and vowed that a comprehensive immigration reform policy has always been, and would always be, his “top priority.”
Judicial Policy and the Rule of Law
52. McCain said he would “not impose a litmus test on any nominee.” He used to promise the opposite.
53. McCain believes the telecoms should be forced to explain their role in the administration’s warrantless surveillance program as a condition for retroactive immunity. He used to believe the opposite.
54. McCain went from saying he would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade to saying the exact opposite.
Campaign, Ethics, and Lobbying Reform
55. McCain supported his own lobbying-reform legislation from 1997. Now he doesn’t.
56. In 2006, McCain sponsored legislation to require grassroots lobbying coalitions to reveal their financial donors. In 2007, after receiving “feedback” on the proposal, McCain told far-right activist groups that he opposes his own measure.
57. McCain supported a campaign-finance bill, which bore his name, on strengthening the public-financing system. In June 2007, he abandoned his own legislation.
Politics and Associations
58. McCain wanted political support from radical televangelist John Hagee. Now he doesn’t. (He also believes his endorsement from Hagee was both a good and bad idea.)
59. McCain wanted political support from radical televangelist Rod Parsley. Now he doesn’t.
60. McCain says he considered and did not consider joining John Kerry’s Democratic ticket in 2004.
61. McCain is both for and against attacking Barack Obama over his former pastor at his former church.
62. McCain criticized TV preacher Jerry Falwell as “an agent of intolerance” in 2002, but then decided to cozy up to the man who said Americans “deserved” the 9/11 attacks.
63. In 2000, McCain accused Texas businessmen Sam and Charles Wyly of being corrupt, spending “dirty money” to help finance Bush’s presidential campaign. McCain not only filed a complaint against the Wylys for allegedly violating campaign finance law, he also lashed out at them publicly. In April, McCain reached out to the Wylys for support.
64. McCain was against presidential candidates campaigning at Bob Jones University before he was for it.
65. McCain decided in 2000 that he didn’t want anything to do with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, believing he “would taint the image of the ‘Straight Talk Express.’” Kissinger is now the Honorary Co-Chair for his presidential campaign in New York.
66. McCain believed powerful right-wing activist/lobbyist Grover Norquist was “corrupt, a shill for dictators, and (with just a dose of sarcasm) Jack Abramoff’s gay lover.” McCain now considers Norquist a key political ally.
I may be a bit too harsh on McCain so let me pay him a compliment. Nobody can crash five planes the way McCain could.
June 26, 2008 7:35 AM
ABC News’ Teddy Davis and Alexa Ainsworth Report: With the Supreme Court poised to rule on Washington, D.C.’s, gun ban, the Obama campaign is disavowing what it calls an “inartful” statement to the Chicago Tribune last year in which an unnamed aide characterized Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as believing that the DC ban was constitutional.
“That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator’s consistent position,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News.
The statement which Burton describes as an inaccurate representation of the senator’s views was made to the Chicago Tribune on Nov. 20, 2007.
In a story entitled, “Court to Hear Gun Case,” the Chicago Tribune’s James Oliphant and Michael J. Higgins wrote “. . . the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said that he ‘…believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.’”
Flip Flop
Viewing his statements, it’s striking how forcefully he argued in the past that the choice between civil liberties and safety is a false one.
If we’ve left out any of Obama’s FISA statements, please let us know and we’ll add them. Check out our time-line after the jump
Obama comes out against a proposed FISA bill granting retroactive immunity, October 18, 2007:
Obama: “It is time to restore oversight and accountability in the FISA program, and this proposal — with an unprecedented grant of retroactive immunity — is not the place to start.”
Bill Burton issues a statement, October 24, 2007, reaffirming Obama’s position and pledging to support Chris Dodd’s filibuster:
“To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”
Campaign statement, December 17, 2007, further elaborating on this point in regards to a particular upcoming Senate vote on Dodd’s filibuster:
“Senator Obama unequivocally opposes giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies and has cosponsored Senator Dodd’s efforts to remove that provision from the FISA bill. Granting such immunity undermines the constitutional protections Americans trust the Congress to protect. Senator Obama supports a filibuster of this bill, and strongly urges others to do the same. It’s not clear whether he can return for the vote, but under the Senate rules, the side trying to end a filibuster must produce 60 votes to cut off debate. Whether he is present for the vote for not, Senator Obama will not be among those voting to end the filibuster.”
Obama issues another statement on the FISA bill, January 28, 2008, saying that the dichotomy between civil liberties and security is a false choice:
I strongly oppose retroactive immunity in the FISA bill.
Ever since 9/11, this Administration has put forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand.
The FISA court works. The separation of power works. We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight, and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend.
No one should get a free pass to violate the basic civil liberties of the American people — not the President of the United States, and not the telecommunications companies that fell in line with his warrantless surveillance program. We have to make clear the lines that cannot be crossed.
That is why I am co-sponsoring Senator Dodd’s amendment to remove the immunity provision. Secrecy must not trump accountability. We must show our citizens – and set an example to the world – that laws cannot be ignored when it is inconvenient.
Obama issues a statement endorsing the bill, saying that security needs are more important this objections, June 20, 2008:
“It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives — and the liberty — of the American people.”
Obama speaks at a press conference after announcing his support of a FISA bill containing retroactive immunity, June 25, 2008 — and says that phone company issue doesn’t override the need for security, in blatant contradiction of his January 28 statement:
Well, the bill has changed. So, I don’t think the security threats have changed. I think the security threats are similar.
My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people.
What the Post left out is that Obama has also shown himself to be an unscrupulous master of the politics of calculation and expedience. Whether on public finance, NAFTA, Iran, Iraq, Jerusalem, special interests, Cuba, illegal immigration or the decriminalization of marijuana, Obama has demonstrated a propensity for flip-flopping that could embarrass the grandmaster himself, Sen. John Kerry.
But here’s what’s scary: For all of Kerry’s reputed smoothness and Eastern intellect, he often tied himself in knots trying to reconcile his absurdly opposing positions. Obama can flip and flop with unmatched alacrity and facility and with the absence of self-consciousness and accountability of an accomplished sociopath. This guy doesn’t even acknowledge he’s changing positions; he does it without breaking a sweat and never looks back.
Of course, Obama benefits enormously from a favorable press, one that, in furtherance of his electoral cause, will tolerate almost any degree of preposterousness from him.
In addressing Obama’s stunning position shift on public financing, the Post gropes for the best possible spin. The flip, says the Post, reveals Obama’s “determination to press his financial advantage, even at the cost of handing his Republican opponent the opportunity to raise questions about the sincerity of his rhetoric on reform.”
We are to accept Obama’s change on public finance as a positive because, according to the Obama supporters the Post favorably quotes, it dispels the myth that Obama is naive and proves he is tough enough to take heat for his change.
I get it.
We should be grateful for Obama’s willingness to reverse himself on the issue of money and corruption in politics, which he led us to believe involved a nonnegotiable core principle, because it shows he’s got courage — courage enough to stare down the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Unbelievable.
But if pressed, even the slick Obama will have trouble squaring his new stance with his September 2007 statement that he would agree to public financing if his GOP opponent would and his February 2008 statement to Tim Russert that he would sit down with Sen. McCain and try to agree to a system fair for both sides.
But his shift on public finance is hardly shocking when taken in the context of his many other major (and some minor) flip-flops.
I just ask you to consider the common thread underlying all of these turnarounds (though just a partial list):
a) his condemnation of union contributions to the Clinton and Edwards campaigns as “special interest money” but his eager acceptance of such money for himself as coming from representatives of the “working people”;
b) his flip on ending (January 2004) then retaining (August 2007) the Cuba embargo;
c) his March 2004 statement that opposed a crackdown on businesses hiring illegal immigrants, compared with his Jan. 31, 2008, debate statement endorsing such a crackdown;
d) his advocating the decriminalization of marijuana in January 2004 versus his Oct. 30, 2007, position opposing its decriminalization;
e) his jaw-dropping same-day flip on having Jerusalem remain the undivided capital of Israel;
f) his shameless reversal on NAFTA;
g) his nearly immediate backtracking on whether Iran poses a serious threat to America;
h) his progressive position shifts on Iraq — as documented by Peter Wehner and Michael Barone — from “don’t go in, stay in, and get out”;
i) and his vigorous defense then abandonment of both his pastor and his church.
The common thread, in a word, is expedience. It is not toughness; it is not savvy; it is not gravitas; and by all means, it is not admirable.
Barack Obama is every bit as politically calculating as Bill Clinton but twice as smooth. And if that doesn’t jolt you, you’re sleeping.
Does McCain support Bush’s foreign policy of aiding terrorist groups that are on the State Department’s Terrorist List?
http://www.truthout.org/article/preparing-battlefield
If you are opposed to terrorism then vote Democratic. Republicans have a long history of supporting terrorist groups.
Yes, I want to make Obama’s flip flops an issue.
This link tries to keep up with Obama’s gaffes:
http://obamawtf.blogspot.com/
Here’s some photos of McCain foreign policy experience:
http://www.truthout.org/article/over-4000-us-combat-deaths-just-a-handful-images
Over 4,000 dead American soldiers on what McCain admitted was a war for oil. If you’re a McCain support then why aren’t you signed up to die for oil? What are you doing over here cowards?
Hence Obama has been espousing positions anathema to the left on several issues.
On Iraq, Obama said Thursday that his upcoming trip there might lead him to refine his promise to quickly remove U.S. troops from the war.
He now supports broader authority for the government’s eavesdropping program and legal immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in it, after opposing a similar bill last year.
After the Supreme Court overturned the District of Columbia’s gun ban, the handgun-control proponent said he favors both an individual’s right to own a gun as well as government’s right to regulate ownership.
Obama became the first major-party candidate to reject public financing for the general election after earlier promises to accept it.
He not only embraced but promised to expand Bush’s program to give more anti-poverty grants to religious groups, a split with Democratic orthodoxy.
He objected to the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the death penalty for child rapists, even though he has been anti-capital punishment.
Obama also said “mental distress” should not count as a health exception that would permit a late-term abortion, saying “it has to be a serious physical issue,” addressing a matter considered crucial to abortion rights activists.
“I’ll … continue to refine my policy” on Iraq, particularly after he visits and makes what he said would be a “thorough assessment.”
How can you say that columnist Fareed Zakaria is promoting liberalism when he puts down liberals with a statement like this: “What emerges is a world view that is far from that of a typical liberal, much closer to that of a traditional realist.”
For those who support McCain’s foreign policy of more wars here’s a website where you can show your true support, and not just lip service.
http://www.army.com/enlist/
Careful on this one American_Way, “He not only embraced but promised to expand Bush’s program to give more anti-poverty grants to religious groups, a split with Democratic orthodoxy.”
This is a trojan horse to get to control religious groups and who they hire.
“I call Godwin’s Law fulfillment here.”
Not at all Agnatha. Goebbels was brilliant with the media and controlling what went into print. His methods have been copied by dictatorships and communist the world over.
His technic’s have been copied and used by a myriad of political systems.
That doesn’t make every post in comparison to his propaganda procedures a declaration that the writer is a Nazi or Hitler like.
Hmmm, “Franklin” –
You have 65 McC*nt flip-flops to address first.
Isn’t it interesting that the libs cannot stick to the topic of a thread about their candidate?
They cannot post on the merits of the thread. They resort to changing the subject every time (except for Bluejays’ post).
It’s an admission of defeat or acknowledgement that the fundamental thread is correct.
Twist and shout libs. Twist and shout.
Obama’s Laundry List of Lies
http://www.audacityofhypocrisy.com/fashion-shows/
76 lies and counting.
AmWay
Great series of posts today.
“I see the jawless fish is back with its mucous filled commenting.”
Gee, you cut me to the quick there.
I said: “I call Godwin’s Law fulfillment here.”
American_Way responds: “Not at all Agnatha. Goebbels was brilliant with the media and controlling what went into print. His methods have been copied by dictatorships and communist the world over.”
You really don’t know what the meaning of Godwin’s Law is, do you? You just engaged in it. Again. Goebbels has been synonymous with propoganda for evil purposes, just as Hitler is synonymous with government for evil purposes.
“His technique’s have been copied and used by a myriad of political systems.”
Including, presumably, Phillip Brownlee.
“That doesn’t make every post in comparison to his propaganda procedures a declaration that the writer is a Nazi or Hitler like.”
Bullsh*t, and you know this is bullsh*t. Your purpose was plain. Now you are trying to weasel out of it.
Sort of like the amusing spectacle of you claiming that it is somehow dirty pool or off topic red herrings that when you attempt to point out that Obama flip flops, others point out that McCain flip flops. They’re the two contenders for the presidential race. Of course any comparison is on topic. If you want to criticize one candidate on a behavior, make sure that the criticism is contrastive with the opponent. If it is not, it is really pointless.
If I may be so audacious as to attempt to post once again on the thread subject,
This latest propaganda campaign to portray Obama not just as an experienced and respected leader in international affairs, is not geared to the hard left. The hard left really has no interest in world affairs. Remember – they want us to stay home and worry about home.
This tactic must be to sway the middle of the road liberals, and possibly those just on the other side of the fence. Conservatives who feel disenfranchised by the republican party may feel more “comfortable” knowing Obama is really a conservative in sheeps clothing.
To put it another way, those pis sed off conservatives who are big on national defense, may now feel more secure in voting for Obama.
But only if they fall for the media spin.
With the split between blue and red nearly 50/50, there is no limit to the hypocrisy to gain an advantage.
Obama doesn’t give a shi t about EU.
Obviously Agnatha you cannot see the difference in professional techniques of propaganda and political preference.
The press is imploying the “methods of using” propaganda to fulfill an end. Which is entirely different than “the message” of the media spin.
Goebbels message was Nazi and Hitler.
He got his message across using his skill at propaganda.
Go fish.
“Of course any comparison is on topic.”
The topic as I read it was Obama being more conservative than McCain on foreign policy.
No, the flip-flop and redirecting is NOT on topic.
It is much like children claiming their daddies are bigger than your daddy.
There is no discussion of the first daddy when you change the subect matter.
“Obviously Agnatha you cannot see the difference in professional techniques of propaganda and political preference.”
Because I don’t agree with your example. Which is laughable. I don’t think your insight is better than mine. Quite the opposite.
And when you leave out my closing sentence, you purposely (or ignorantly) change the context of my initial post.
“The media is in it’s finest hour.”
Go fish.
Your insight may be better than mine. But no amount of insight will ever enable you to decide what the opinions posted by others mean something other than what the writer intended.
that the opinions posted by others mean something other than what the writer intended.
“The media is in it’s finest hour.”
The “context” of your original post. Please. All you did was extend your ad hominem at that nasty liberal MSM that is out to get all right thinking Republicans.
Look, here is the reality of it.
1) Brownlee started this thread on a discussion BLOG.
2) The purpose of this blog is to engender debate.
3) Zarakia’s statements about Obama were certain to be controversial.
4) Brownlee was obviously correct. Look at the number of posts he elicited, including from you and from me.
Your responses were part of the purpose of Brownlee’s opening post. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t have been here.
To claim that Brownlee is engaged in Goebbels type propoganda is ludicrous. Propoganda isn’t designed to elicit discussion and controversy, it is designed to try to convince people of a POV.
Your Godwinian accusation is so ludicrous precisely because it ignores the purpose of this blog in the first place. Brownlee’s intent, given that this is a blog, was to elicit responses, not to convince people that Zarakia was right, and that Obama is a foreign policy conservative. If you are truly incapable of discerning that, then I would indeed say that my insight as to intent is better than yours.
“What emerges is a world view that is far from that of a typical liberal, much closer to that of a traditional realist.”
Hey, Fareed, get with the program.
Liberals have been the realists ever since Worst. President. Ever. stole the office.
Even the Bushistas call us the ‘reality-based community.’
“Zarakia’s statements about Obama were certain to be controversial.”
Make that Zakaria’s.
Even if it means taking an editorial by another writer – and restated it as if it is true.
Brownlee & Co. have been doing that on various subjects here for about 3 years. For my part, I think that a question mark indicates, ya know, a question.
The marriage of fundamentalist Christianity and the conservative movement has been a powerful force in world affairs. It has been the best smoke screen the archpriests of supply-side economics could possibly have had, giving Wall Street a populist in with the very people victimized the most by their union-busting, deregulatory policies. It turned out, for decades, that Bible-thumping Americans didn’t mind having their jobs shipped to China, so long as someone was worrying about the air supply to Terri Schiavo’s brain lump. As political cons go, this was the ultimate gift that kept on giving.
It all had to end sometime, though, and that sometime might be now. Nervous, white, sexually inhibited Protestants with fourth-grade educations are becoming a smaller and smaller share of the country’s population, and the Christian right is increasingly frustrated with the Republican Party’s failure to transform America into a fundamentalist caliphate. (Forget about abortion: After eight years of Republican rule, Christians can’t even put up the Ten Commandments in Alabama without someone bitching about it.) But the last straw just might come down to one Republican politician’s personal idiosyncrasies. All the party needed was one more pious, Scripture-quoting, hair-spray-soaked whore to hold this thing together for another four years, and instead they got John McCain. And John McCain may break up three decades of GOP Jesus-flogging simply because he is too afraid to get his forehead wet. Wouldn’t that be something?
In a way, this scene says everything you need to know about McCain’s dilemma. The man is a relic from a previous era of conservatism, when privacy was sacrosanct and public expressions of religiosity were considered vulgar and in bad taste. McCain comes from a generation of American men for whom religion was a ticket you punched once a week, a low-effort symbol of conformity to go with your two-car garage, your sorority-girl wife and your weekly golf game with the fellas. The whole braying-to-the-moon, born-again Promise Keeper act perfected by the Bushes and Huckabees of the world is as alien to his sensibility as an Iron John man-poetry retreat. Sitting here in the North Phoenix Baptist pews, he has a look on his face like he’d just as well suck a cock as do an altar call. It’s one of his most likable qualities.
Watching these once-united wings of the Republican juggernaut devolve into frank mutual suspicion and distaste along the runway to almost certain electoral disaster is, of course, a delicious development. The Moral Majority Christians and the supply-side neocons always represented two of the worst and most vile impulses in the American character — mass, willful ignorance and total, shameless greed. In one wing of the ruling-party mansion they housed preachers who transformed the religion of “turn the other cheek” and “go, give away all your possessions to the poor” into a “Christianity” that celebrated shock-and-awe bombing and assault-rifle ownership and decried the progressive income tax as unfair to the propertied class. In the other wing they housed “conservatives” who turned the party of limited government into a giant snooping apparatus, one that borrowed trillions against the future earnings of ordinary taxpayers and sacrificed thousands of lives to snatch a few Middle Eastern oil wells for companies that were rich as hell to begin with.
It was at this low point in the Christian-corporate marriage that John McCain stepped into the breach to wreck the demographic even more. At this critical moment, the party needed a turbocharged con man to revive the old religion, and what they got was an old man with doubts who can barely bring himself to go to church on Sundays. The worst possible scenario. Or the funniest, depending on how you look at things.
Powerful, powerful piece of analysis, killer.
Let’s hear some more from you.
Dennis
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/21896154/without_a_prayer/print
It was very entertaining and right on, KillerP.
Don’t forget to credit your source, though (we don’t want to post like the CONs do, you know):
Matt Taibbi of the Rolling Stone.
For those of you who actually read the article (both of you!), I think this is an interesting section:
Obama’s response to McCain’s proposals on Russia and China could have been drafted by Henry Kissinger or Brent Scowcroft. We need to cooperate with both countries in order to solve significant global problems, he told me last week, citing nuclear-proliferation issues with Russia and economic ones with China. The distinction between Obama and McCain on this point is important. The single largest strategic challenge facing the United States in the decades ahead is to draw in the world’s new rising powers and make them stakeholders in the global economic and political order.
Obviously, we shouldn’t ignore or (worse) start a new Cold War with either of these 800-pound gorrillas. But since, as Zakaria acknowledged, Obama’s line on trade is (thankfully) quite different, I rather wonder what sort of foreign policy will ultimately come out in the wash.
His focus on bread-and-butter issues makes a certain amount of sense (freedom to remain alive is probably the most fundamental), but I part company with the notion that economic progress in other countries will somehow magically transmute them into enlightened democracies.
Indeed, here in the good ol’ USA, the relative prosperity we’ve had in even the darkest times has led a lazy class of television addicts who apathetically sit back and watch as our freedoms are attacked on a daily basis.
George HW Bush’s may have been the only administration to actually take an evenhanded approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but they also ensured–via the very type of emotion-laden manipulative image-driven actions that Obama opposes–that the first Gulf War was inevitable. I wouldn’t be citing them as any admirable example, particularly when they’re approach was only calm and focused compared to Junior’s administration.
Bottom line: At this point, I’m not sure what to think. BTW, I fully expect that this man will be our next president, so rather than join in the usual poo-flinging, I’m looking ahead to next year.
Obama is in the back pocket of Iran:
http://obamawtf.blogspot.com/2008/07/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-obamas.html
Obama
The Senator from Iran:
“4) Obama, who rarely shows up for work since his campaign began and misses 89% of Senate votes in the last quarter of 2007, goes out of the way during that last quarter of 2007…despite the overwhelming support for the passed Kyl/Lieberman amendment …to show up in DC, and propose a new resolution on November 1 which would reverse Kyl/Lieberman and “coincidentally”satisfy Hussein Fadallah’s concerns about the US declaring War. To provide cover, Obama claimed he was doing it to constrain President Bush, but the following AP story reveals that he was trying to nullify the Kyl/Lieberman amendment.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama introduced a Senate resolution late Thursday that says President Bush does not have authority to use military force against Iran, the latest move in a debate with presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton about how to respond to that country’s nuclear ambitions.
Clinton’s campaign accused Obama of playing politics instead of taking a leadership role from the outset.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the Illinois senator drafted the measure in an effort to “nullify the vote the Senate took to give the president the benefit of the doubt on Iran.”
Burton was referring to an amendment sponsored by Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, that passed 76-22 on Sept. 26 and designates Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
Here’s the official record of the resolution from the Thomas Library of Congress
Notice Obama could not find a SINGLE OTHER SENATOR to COSPONSOR. His resolution of course died.
S.J.RES.23 : A joint resolution clarifying that the use of force against Iran is not authorized by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq, any resolution previously adopted, or any other provision of law.
Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 11/1/2007) Cosponsors (None)
Committees: Senate Foreign Relations
Latest Major Action: 11/1/2007 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
Why would the Senator that is best known for 140+ “present” votes in the Illinois State Senate, and for failing to go out on a political limb on many key issues, go out of his way to introduce a resolution to a US Senate to overturn a resolution that only 37 days earlier that Senate had overwhelmingly passed. It had also passed the House of Representatives one day earlier. What had changed in that 37 days? Obama had already established for the record that had he been present on September 25 he would have voted against the Kyl/Lieberman amendment. There was certainly no significant action by Iran in those 37 days to justify a softening in US posture. But something had happened …publicized outrage from Sheik Mohammad Hussein Fadallah, Hizbullah’s spiritual leader.”
http://obamawtf.blogspot.com/2008/07/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-obamas.html
Course will train you how to spot Iraq and how to read the opposite effectively. This is the best and safest way to the vote. It will pay off down the detention facility.
Franklin,
That’s a big accusation, calling the next President of the United States a traitor. Considering all the powers now invested in the Presidency because of the support of folks such as yourself, Franklin, you may want to watch your words more carefully now that the shoe is going to be on the other foot.
Convenient, isn’t it, Franklin, that Barack Obama has a name that’s easy for you to slander by association with Islam. It protects you from having to use overt anti-black racist language to stoke knee-jerk Republican fears of anybody who isn’t a white American.
It must really frighten you to death, Franklin, that a black man will inherit an office of Chief Executive that you’ve tried to put above the law. The stink of desperation coming from you is almost as heady as that coming from the McCain campaign. And it’s not even August.
If this is the tone of your rhetoric, and of John McCain’s, I wouldn’t be surprised if racist Republicans like you, Franklin, turn to election violence as your defeat comes closer. You’ve already shown that destroying the Constitution is preferrable to surrendering political power.
Is that where this is headed, Franklin? Because if you’re calling Barack Obama a traitor, you’re legitimating violence against him. And if that’s what you’re doing, folks on this board will not sit idly by and tolerate it.
Heh, this is great!
I have my own serious doubts about Obama, but leave it to Franklin to attack Obama by reminding us of a position he took that was actually intelligent, gutsy and made sense!
Keep it up Franklin: You’ll have me sending a check in no time! :)
The obamawtf blogspot is obviously there to provide gist for the mill for bullsh*tters like Franklin.
And it is interesting. This action WAS gutsy.
CF
Try to refute what I posted, would you?
And, have you gone even more tyranically fascist on us?
Why should I “watch my step”?
Regardless of who is in the White House, I will say whatever I want to say.
CF
We have already had 5 “Black Presidents” not counting Bill Clinton:
http://www.computerhealth.org/ebook/5blkpres.htm
At the time that Obama did Iran’s bidding, by being the SOLE supporter of his pro-Nukes in Iran legislation, the Eagle and all of you liberals were telling us that Iran was reversing or haulting its nuclear ambitions.
Remember that?
Now, Iran has nearly twice the number of centrifuges needed, for a full blown nuclear weapons program:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080726/D925PJJG0.html
Obama is a “useful idiot” used by radical Islam.
I am not ready to call Obama a traitor, but I am ready to say that Obama does not belong in elected office. Obama absolutely does not belong in the White House.
Gutsy?
The ONLY time that Obama has taken much of a stand, on anything, it is in support of Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions?
That is not gutsy, that is crazy!
Franklin,
Don’t try to play word games: you aren’t smart enough. You said that Barack Obama was “in the back pocket” of Iran. What would it mean, Franklin, for him to be in the “back pocket” of Iran and NOT to be a traitor? Your obtuseness renders you ineffective at playing the semantics game. You said what you said and the implication was clear. Don’t try to puss out of it now. If John McCain is willing to try to rescue his Presidential ambitions by trying to baselessly denounce Barack Obama as some sort of traitor, you, Franklin, as the most hackish of Right-Wing hacks, ought to be man enough to follow your boss and go there.
Regarding the second point, Agnatha nails it: putting a limit to the unilateral ability of the Administration to initiate military action against Iran was quite an act of political courage on the part of Barack Obama, and one that shows a considerable respect for the rule of law. For you to impute to him the motive of placating Sheik Mohammad Hussein Fadallah, Franklin, which is as serious an accusation as you could possibly make, you need proof. Got any proof, Franklin, other than the mindreading of some right-wing hack on some right-wing hack blog? No? Then I’m within my rights to rudely tell you to shut your fat, lying, stupid mouth.
Finally, Franklin, you SHOULD watch your step because you’re getting very close to libel. In particular, the reliance of your extremely serious accusation on third-hand information gets you very close to “actual malice.”
“And just what is malice when it comes to proving libel? Retired Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., who wrote the Sullivan decision, defined it as “knowledge that the [published information] was false” or that it was published “with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/press/press08.htm
Given the seriousness of these accusations and your glibness in expressing them, I (who am not a lawyer, obviously) would say that the “reckless disregard” line has been crossed.
And as I said, you can’t bear the thought of being governed by a black President. Makes you crazy, Franklin, doesn’t it?