A thoughtful look at a man now poised to seize the Democratic nomination through the sheer force of earnestly expressed empty platitudes;
Attempting to discern true meaning from Obama’s speeches gives one the feeling of having been trapped in a sort of verbal quicksand. Hair-pulling levels of frustration await any effort to find any specific meaning. A sensation of lethargic sinking into an abyss of abstract gibberish awaits the mind looking for specifics..
Obama’s public statements, his speeches, even his “present” votes in the Illinois legislature leave one dangerously unsure of his true intentions.
Whatever Obama’s concrete plans are, they ought to aligned with his political mentor, Saul Alinsky, and his spiritual mentor and liberation theology specialist, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Trudeaumania. Saw it first time around. No reruns please.
In the history of the United States,has *any* White male/female with such a scant political or professional career, EVER gone as far towards the White House as this LESS THAN 1 Term JUNIOR SENATOR from Illinois?
he’s a beautiful balloon, just waiting to meet a sharp republican pin
he’s a beautiful balloon, just waiting to meet a sharp republican pin
Obama revealed some of his platform in his stump speech in Virginia last week. He is more Socialist than Tommy Douglas and his foreign policy is right out of Taliban Jack’s playbook.
Obama is trying to be JFK revisited. Neither was/is a Messiah and neither did/will accomplish anything. If I were a Muzzie terrorist, Jan 2 would be a good day for a “come to Mohammed” meeting.
“his plans need to be aligned with ….his spiritual mentor and liberation theology specialist, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.”
Yikes! Maybe Maureen Dowd was right all along when she said “the White House is turning America into a theocracy”. Only MoDo’s timing and the party was off; close enough, for the fake but accurate media.
The most disconcerting thing about all of this is not Obama’s politics (or lack, thereof) per se so much as it is his popularity. The due diligence that should be being done by the electorate is not being done. The MSM has so convinced the left that Bush has been so bad that the many are convinced that the one promising the most change must be best for the country. One almost wonders if his popularity would go up further if he promised to train America’s military upon certain groups seen as favourite targets by the left.
Dictionary definition. Demagogue.
A leader who attempts to gain a following by appealing to the emotions and prejudices of people in order to avance his or her political purposes.
Well, there was a man called Pierre Trudeau.
A video clip made the rounds last week showing a number Obama supporters being asked to name ONE thing he had accomplished. Not one of them could name a single thing Obama had accomplished.
Obama is the prototype empty-suit; but he has charisma, and he aint a Clinton or part of the establishment.
“BARACK OOOOOOO BAMAAAAAAA!!”
Oprah Winfrey
And then they all open the boxes under their seats at the same time.
Surely it’s a free car, like on Oprah.
Well said, Nemo2. I couldn’t agree more.
As far as a comparison with JFK is concerned, that is utter and total BS. Although Kennedy was a Democrat, Obama bears absolutly no similarity to him. Remember this is no longer your grandpa’s Democratic party. I well remember 1960 and watching the Democratic National Convention on TV.
Kennedy had balls and it showed. It also showed when he confronted Khruschev in the US and it also showed when he went head to head with the Commies during the Cuban missle crisis. His only faux-pas was when he declared he was a doughnut in Berlin.
Obama doesn’t deserve to even be in the same room with his memory, let alone the same party.
On the other hand, I would prefer him to Clinton.
Obama is a wholly owned muppet of the CFR foundations network who run an establishment friendly minority candidate network through the affirmative action educational grant systems…it is CFR managers running his campaign and their foundations washing funds into the campaign.
Black Americans have NO leaders…Obama is a product of the American eastern establishment not the black inner city culture/underclass…and the eastern establishment ( AKA American aristocracy and old money) is a totally white bread progressive cult who keep salable (non threatening to white establishment america) “negros” on the Dem leadership palntations maintained by much of the Rockefeller trust organizations (CFR-network)….I bet even his college funding was a CFR foundation gift.
This is a Dem “token” politician that was groomed for work at the state senate level to kept the state revenue taps open to fund the Dems inner city welfare plantations… he got a jump off the Dem’s Metropolitan plantation staff to the congress by paling up with some local CFR gurus in the U of C and state policy tanks…let’s be frank, where could Obama find the organization and money to run this slick high profile campaign if he relied on grass roots nickel and dime funding from passing the hat at inner city Black Dem constituencies??? Not likely!
This is an establishment token candidate …he will carry the CFR agenda and let CFR appointed flunkies in the cabinet run foreign policy, the economy and trade while he plays with band-aid social welfare programs that will go nowhere.
Thank Gawd Americans can write in a candidate if none of the establishment candidates are suitable.
The collapse of the Democrats already happened but another smooth talker Bill Clinton put it on life support. It has not died out yet because the War causes voters to hanker for an option to conservatives.
The difference between a liberal and a conservative is the liberal thinks government has the answer and a conservative knows the government couldn’t possibly have the answer because there is no answer. Only competition will give you a better solution over the existing one and conservatives prefer that chaotic creative destruction process over Hilary Care or Obamania
We have Obamania because this emotion , like Trudeaumania, is what is required to sell the insane idea that government would have the answers instead of government getting out of the way and letting trial and error determine better solutions.
It’s scary to think this big empty suit could be leading the free world for the next 4 years. I’m also not a fan of Hilary but at least she’ll have Bill to guide her and she has a clue how government works.
To think these two represent the best leaders the world’s only superpower could produce makes me shake my head.
brent weston and nomdeblog – very nice comments.
Yes, Obama is totally bereft of policies and agenda; he has no knowledge, no experience, he’s essentially a creation of the Media, tired of America being hated, tired of all their hard work on the international scene, and simply wanting Time Out. And it is indeed frightening to see the young people swarming around him in mindless devotion.
What about the fact that the Democrats could only come up with a young untrained and inexperienced American Idol, singing about hope and change in some far off land and time – and a hardcore cutthroat New York Businesswoman linked to a ne’er do well previous regime.
I’m not looking forward to a rerun of Jimmy Carter in the good old USofA.
Did you happen to see the flag on the wall of an Obama office somewhere? Why it’s their favorite hero – old Che Guevera on a commie Cuban flag! Not good news if Mr. Happy Face/Empty Suit gets his mitts on the power button. Loony socialists and their bankrupt system will ruin the country!
Awe c’mon….. we all owe Barack a debt of thanks for at least one thing.
Anyone who gives the Klintons indigestion is OK in my books.
Give him the chance to prove otherwise.
Of course ….. the whole Jimmy Carter thing could be dangerous to the civilized world……
Prospector “Bill guide her”. I know you are shaking your head when you say that , we’re all shaking.
Bill will guide? Like the attack of the USS Cole? On October 12, 2000, terrorists in a small boat filled with explosives blew up alongside the USS Cole, blowing a 40-foot hole in its side. Seventeen of the USS Cole’s crew were killed and 39 were injured.
Bill, was fighting mad, so he lobed a cruise missile into a local aspirin factory. The USS Cole attack was an act of War, which should have been declared on Oct 12 2000.
Bill just kicked the ball down the road for the next guy.
What IS scary is that Hilary may actually do stuff. Like Hilary Care; paid for by raising corporate taxes which are already the highest in the world. Time to rebalance the RRSPs?
I can’t help thinking Democrats are making a big mistake if they nominate Obama. Apart from his fawning groupies, the guy is unknown. I’m sure he is a nice earnest man, but he doesn’t seem to have developed policy formation skills and, “there’s a big change coming” rhetoric only gets so far, and never to the White House.
No, this has nothing to do with him being black. I just think he lacks the maturity and toughness for Americans to give him the keys to the presidency. Maybe Hillary Clinton lacks those tools to, but she can create the perception of toughness and competency, and is well known to Americans.
John McCain is the right Republican at the right time, since he is basically a centrist who represents a change from Bush conservatism (which he actually isn’t). McCain, with his experience, reputation and cool approach, will be a formidable, if not overwhelming, challenge to an Obama presidency.
Democrats have this uncanny ability to select losing candidates; they seem to be at it again.
Obama’s popularity is not so much a comment on him as on the lack of a palatable alternative on either side of the political spectrum.
The sad thing is that I can’t even think of any important politician I actually admire in the US. They all seem so flawed. It seems that at some point in the past, there had to have been great leaders to create that great nation, but where have they gone?
Either the people of merit have been chased away by the ugliness of politics today, or the fact is that politicians have always been scum but the laundry machine of history has washed the dirt off some of the ones in the past.
I suspect that even great men like Jefferson and Washington, if subjected to the character assassination that the opposition and the media carry out continuously these day, might have been whittled down to mere mortals or less.
It’s sad.
Oh, I guess I kinda admire Arnie. Sorry. Embarrassing to admit that. I did admire Reagan greatly of course.
Politically, down here in the States it’s time to get out the butterfly nets.
Obama only became a US senator because of a rooky-do. The Republican party in Illinois got into a scandal, and it spilled over and tainted the Republican candidate. Obama took advantage of this opportunity, and Republicans had to drag in Alan Keyes from another state to run against him.
So the fact is that Obama has never actually won a serious election in his comparatively brief career.
But I might surprise some of you when I say that our real threats are because of internal problems in the Republican Party.
After Reagan and the rise of talk radio, and after Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America, we should be in pretty good shape, right? I mean, we’ve got a dozen forecful, syndicated conservative talk show hosts blasting out the message every day of the week. We’ve got conservative publications and conservative web sites all over the ‘net.
In fact we’ve got louder and more multi-fold and more forceful conservative than have ever existed in my lifetime, so things should be peachy keen.
Well, here’s what’s happened. Over the decades moderate Republicans and RINOs have infiltrated into the conservative movement. Right-leaning policy wonks have gathered influence and the old blue-blood Republicans prefer them over grassroots conservatism.
Think of the characters Richard and Emily Gilmore. She (like my wife) qualifies to be a member of the Daughter of the American Revolution. They’re both Republicans.
But when Rory Gilmore starts to date real people in Stars Hollow who do real work, think about maybe going to a state-supported university, want to get married and have a family, Emily and Richard are appalled. They do not want to be seen with or associated with the people (and ideas) who are not members of the social and economic elite. They are Republicans, but they don’t like us. They are embarassed by us.
Next, we have discovered that right-leaning apparatchiks are as bad as left-leaning apparatchiks. They want to grow governement too. They simply want big-government Republicanism instead of big-government Democratism.
And then I’m disappointed to have to echo Peggy Noonan. I know that all of you Canadian lefites like to think of Bush as a “neo-con”, but the fact is that outside of being a hawk on the war and lowering taxes a little bit, he has been one of these big-government Republicans I mentioned earlier. He never met a Republican program he didn’t want to fund. Although he is conservative in his private life, he is a moderate Republican in other ways.
So now we’re just about down to McCain, a guy who has betrayed the Republican Party in so many ways that you can’t count them. (He almost became a Democrat twice.) And conservatives simply cannot stand him. Ann Coulter has said that she will support Hillary Clinton if John McCain gets the nomination. We presume this is hyperbole, but you get the point.
In short, the conservative movement in the US has been treated the way Democrats treat blacks. Endless promises while trying to contain our votes by small measure and making the bitter pill a little sweeter. However, unlike blacks in the Democratic Party, we’re not stupid. And we’re almost at the point of rebellion.
The fur is going to fly. And it’s hard to know what the outcome will be. We want serious tax relief. In fact a whole different tax system. We want a continuation of a strong defense and the completion of our military mission in the Middle East. We want whole departments defunded at the federal level, like the Department of Education. We want illegal aliens out of the United States yesterday. And we want strict constitutionalist judges who make rulings based on what the Constitution says and not their point of view at the time.
Hang on, it’s goind to be a damn rough ride.
Wait until America sees his voting record:
http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=9490
This guy would make Jack Layton look like a Conservative.
“A wise man told me not to argue with fools; because people at a distance can’t tell who is who.”
Jay-Z
Even I can get sucked into the MSM BS. I said to myself “Self, EVERYONE you speak to can’t be wrong all the time, can they?” So I decided to watch a Democratic debate on CNN. I was ready to throw in the towel after 25 minutes.
I watched the whole thing and I can’t recall a single issue except how they were not going to play the gender or race card in their campaigns(from now on). If that wasn’t bad enough, the next day both campaigns did the very thing they said at great length the evening before they were not going to do.
The two things I have learned from this experience are: Never watch a Democratic leadership debate, and Jay-Z nailed it.
To expect anything different than what we get from the Liberals(oops, I meant Democrats) is like arguing with a fool. In the end it is US who is foolish because we expected something different, like substance and truth.
Hey nom de blog–
Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. But not their own facts.
The Cole was attacked in October 2000. It was not until 2001, when Bush was in office, that it was established it had been attacked by Al Queda.
Bush’s reponse? Nothing. As Rice explained “The President doesn’t want to swat at flies.”
This emboldened Al Queda to further action, and combined with Bush’s dismissal of a PDB warning of it in August 2001, enabled 9/11.
Which was just the sort of ‘Pearl Harbour-like’ event needed to launch the invasion of Iraq – as the neo-con grup PNAC had written in their manifesto several years before.
History books are your friend, Nom de Blog.
Quote:
“Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. But not their own facts.”
After making a point goes on to say ….
“Which was just the sort of ‘Pearl Harbour-like’ event needed to launch the invasion of Iraq – as the neo-con grup PNAC had written in their manifesto several years before.”
What’s that about your own facts?
The conflation of fact with fantasy … the hallmark of the moonbat!
Shreeeeek………
Where’s the conflation, OMMAG?
PNAC did say that a ‘Pearl Harbour-like’ event would need to happen to galvanize public opinion in favour of the invasion of Iraq.
9/11 certainly did prove to be that sort of event since in its aftermath they were able to push forth with the invasion of Iraq and people were receptive to it.
These are all simple, indisputable facts.
Where’s the fantasy?
Bsides the fact that that an analysis provided a scenario that Happened to come about as opposed to the idea that it was planned and intended to happen?
I’d say the Neo-con and manifesto parts….
But you apparently are entitled to liberties in these matters….
He’s a liberal all right, says all the right things and will accomplish nothing.
OOMMAG
Right, okay: all I did was quote what they said they needed to launch an invasion. And then I said what did happen.
You’re free to infer from that that it was ‘planned and intended to happen’.
But that’s not what I wrote. So your criticism makes no sense.
As well: the Neo-con thing – PNAC is known as a neo-con think tank.
And: if the word ‘manifesto’ strikes you as wrong, feel free to substitute ‘paper’, ‘study’,’blueprint’, whatever.
But these aren’t really your true criticisms of what I wrote.
You were all “conflation of fact with fantasy!” and “Moonbat!”-bashing with glee.
Till you found out you had no basis on which to make those statements.
So you circle around and try to come up with pedantic criticisms of nomenclature…
So sad.
Mr.g: In the history of the United States,has *any* White male/female with such a scant political or professional career, EVER gone as far towards the White House as this LESS THAN 1 Term JUNIOR SENATOR from Illinois?
Abraham Lincoln — 1 term in the US House of Reps.
volik if you were Clinton’s advisor ( not wearing anything blue) what would you say to your Commander in Chief in this scenario:
“Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organizations claimed responsibility for the bombing of the USS Cole. A prime suspect for the bombing is considered to be Saudi Arabian terrorist Osama bin Laden the mastermind of the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing more than 224 people”
Just to give you some context volik because it is easy to lose it on a thread … we’re talking about Obama or Hilary leading the free world and having Bill Clinton around for “guidance”.
It was becoming clear to bin Laden that America was becoming the “weak horse”. It was time to make his move because all these terrorist events on American property were barely noticed by the President … who seemed preoccupied.
Let me remind you that my conservative friend Prospector had commented that he would take comfort that Bill was around to guide Hilary .. he was not aware you were around too … now Prospector knows he’ll have you and Bill .. so tell us volik, what advice would you offer the President if you could role back the clock here?
Gee, a politician running for office makes vague statements to win over voters. That’s just simply unheard of!
And really, when it comes to vacuous Presidential statements, can anyone ever top this:
“All of us in America want there to be fairness when it comes to justice.”
Or this:
“I don’t particularly like it when people put words in my mouth, either, by the way, unless I say it.”
Or this:
“We understand the fright that can come when you’re worried about a rocket landing on top of your home.”
Or this:
“The question is, who ought to make that decision? The Congress or the commanders? And as you know, my position is clear—I’m a commander guy.”
Or this:
“Some call this civil war; others call it emergency—I call it pure evil.”
Or this:
“You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war President. No President wants to be a war President, but I am one.”
Dear Siczela,
**Abraham Lincoln — 1 term in the US House of Reps.**
Nice try, but no Cohiba. Yes, Lincoln was a one-termer in the House, but he was also had one of the most lucrative law practices in Illinois during the 1850’s. Lincoln furthermore practiced law for 25 years and handled cases at nearly all levels (justice of the peace up through federal) before he entered the White House. Lincoln also served in the Illinois legislature and (unsuccessfully) ran for the Senate in 1854 and 1858. Indeed, during the 1858 campaign, Lincoln more than held his own in a series of tough, substantive debates with Sen. Stephen A. Douglas–one of the most respected and saavy Democratic pols in American history. He lost that election, but it put him on the national map and even his political foes realized they ignored him only at their own risk. In short Lincoln, unlike Golden Boy, paid his political dues before he entered the White House.
That’s Lincoln’s record. Now, try matching Prince Charming’s record–such as it is–against Lincoln’s. Here’s my two cents: be careful comparing Lincoln with Obama because the Great Emancipator could have legally kicked Obama’s ass in any courtroom, at any time, before he knew what hit him.
Capisce, paisan?
OK, back to Obama.
I got a little involved outlining the Republican situation and drifted away from the intention of the thread.
Right now in the US, the parties are picking candidates and so Democrats and Republicans have yet to enter into the confrontation that will exist in the general election.
As Obama is speaking strictly to Democrats, he is momentarily getting away with vacuousness and blue sky, because he has fans, not political oppostion.
He spouts a lot of high-minded platitudes with absolutely no substance, as has been mentioned several times. However, because there is no substance he invites messianic projections from the unconcscious of his uncritical fans.
Irrespective of who the Republican candidate will be, when the general election arrives he will be scrutinzed and challenged very critically by the Republican establishment, whether conservative or RINO.
Right now part of his popularity is because he has not given anyone something to be against. As soon as it is insisted that he outline his policies, a large part of the US population will begine to see him in a different light.
He is what some black intellectuals have called a “bargainer.” His appeal to white audiences is that he does not play the guilt card when speaking to them. The white population is grateful not to be dragged over the coals by yet another black criticizing our ancestors, and so whites are inclined to give him a pass.
But the pass only exists until he begins to talk about what he really believes and what his policies actually are.
Should a Democrat manage to seize the White House, the entire Republican establishment will take off the gloves that we have been forced to wear in order to support Bush and the war effort against Islamofascist Nazis. All of our politicians and talk show hosts and civilian population will become a rabid, angry animal opposing the Democratic president publicly with every breath.
Rest assured that whatever happens, no Democrat in the White House will get a free ride.
I got home tonight, and asked my daughters how “Billary” had done in today’s primaries. My 10 year old looked up at me, and said “Shouldn’t that be Hillbilly, dad?”.
Just thought I’d share that..
KevinB, please give your smart 10 year old kid a High Five from me! 🙂
Greg:
Thanks for your thoughts. Actually, I thought your first post is quite accurate, even if it is somewhat demoralizing.
My sense if that if McCain wins the GOP nomination that the Dems stand a good chance to take the WH. It’s his temper. One seldom can predict when a volcano blows but when it does, it tends to burn those around it.
One more thing. I think that there is less difference between Hillary and McCain than there is between Hillary and Obama. I may change that opinion as events unfold but that is my opinion at this time. However, that is more a comment on the leftiness of Obama as opposed to the degree of moderation of Hillary.
Geez- OOMMAG
I already handed you your ass once.
Now you want to approach it from a different direction and have the same thing happen again?
Alright: it was only agreed upon that the Cole was attacked by Al Queda in 2001 – when Bush was in power.
Therefore the onus was upon him prove the US wasn’t a ‘weak horse’ and attack Al Queda.
He didn’t. Perhaps he was busy with Jeff Gannon.
By contrast, when Clinton heard that a ‘Millenium Bombing’ was in the offing with plans to blow up LAX, he gathered the FBI and the CIA in his office and ‘shook the trees’ so that the dirtbags were arrested at the border.
Now that’s the kind of “guidance” I can live with!
(As opposed to Bush when he received his PDB in August 2001 warning of an attack… he told the agent who read it to him “Alright, you covered your ass” and stayed on vacation…)
ET at 6:40 – “Yes, Obama is totally bereft of policies and agenda; he has no knowledge, no experience, he’s essentially a creation of the Media“.
There can be 2 reasons why it is so difficult to find specific meaning in what Obama is saying; either 1) he is an empty suit, without any substantive policy as ET and others suggest or 2) he is trying to hide his true intentions. A $100 million funded presidential campaign precludes the first alternative from consideration.
Obama was an intern in Chicago for 4 years to acolytes of Saul Alinsky. That association should scare the living hell out of any right thinking American voter. Jonah Goldberg in his current tome “Liberal Fascism” devotes several pages to Alinsky. Here are some of the things he has to say: “.. there’s no disputing that vast swaths of his writing are indistinguishable from the fascist rhetoric of the 1920s and 1930s. His worldview is distinctly fascistic. Life is defined by war, contest of power, the imposition of will. Moreover, Alinsky shares with the fascists and pragmatists of yore a bedrock hostility to dogma. All he believes in are the desired ends of the movement. ‘Change means movement, movement means friction. Only in .. an abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict’.”
volik – the fantasy is the fallacies you are making, called petitio principia (begging the question). This means that there are unargued assumptions in your argument, which we have to accept, if we accept your argument.
So, because 9/11 happened, and then the Iraq War happened, it does not mean that in order to have the second event, the Iraq War, it was necessary to have 9/11. The fallacy is to assume and expect us to accept that there was a separate agenda to move into Iraq War, separate from any terrorist causality. You state that they “needed to launch an invasion”. Why?
This suggests another unargued assumption, that 9/11 was an action caused by or carried out by the US, so that they could use it as their excuse for war against Iraq. You are asserting that their original agenda was to attack Iraq, and they had to ‘find a cause’. I think you’d have to prove this assumption.
You can try to get out of being responsible for this fallacy by saying that you didn’t ‘say’ that they wanted 9/11: “all I did was quote what they said they needed to launch an invasion. And then I said what did happen.”
You haven’t argued the case for an agenda prior to 9/11 to invade Iraq, and linking the two is therefore fallacious.
Brent,
that’s a good point about Hillary and McCain having fewer differences than Hillary and Obama.
I don’t know whether this will lighten your spirits at all, but here’s what will happen if a Democrat wins the White House.
Conservative grassroots will become ferociously energized to recapture the majority in the Senate and House.
With a majority in either of those chambers, the Democratics government can virtually be brought to a standstill. With Obama or Billary as president, absolutely no effort will be spared to regain those chambers.
You may recall that during the Clinton White House, Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House. Clinton won the publicity war, but Newt won the political war. As you know, down here the House of Representatives is known as the people’s chamber, and the elections for these positions are voted on every 2 years. We have a lot of influence on the House.
We will begin to move some of out most conservative state senators and representatives into campaigns to take the Senate and House.
In the thread above this one, about Dion going to Afghanistan, ET once again mentions the desirability of an elected Senate in Canada. I think it would be wise, because it is our ability to vote directly for these candidates that gives us the kind of power that we have to have to pull off something like the takeover that we will be trying if a Democrat wins.
Greg in Dallas said:
Next, we have discovered that right-leaning apparatchiks are as bad as left-leaning apparatchiks. They want to grow governement too. They simply want big-government Republicanism instead of big-government Democratism.
EXACTLY Friedrich Hayek’s point in the postscript to The Constitution of Liberty called Why I Am Not a Conservative. He mentions the Libertarian label but dislikes it as sounding artifical and contrived, but settles on Old Whig (classical liberal). As one example, he mentions the Conservatives general distate for government subsidies EXCEPT in the case of agriculture. In fact, some sda posters here have taunted Kate with this valid point.
He also observes that when socialists see the light they usually become conservatives not classical liberals/whigs.
Another recent epihany for me was the shocking discovery that neo-cons — especially the second wave — are really disappointed marxists. And it makes sense when you consider the “end of history” delusion — that the world is naturally evolving toward democracy. NOT.
Greg:
This is not meant to be sarcastic but I think we will need that scenario in any case because of the big government philosophy that McCain would also bring to the WH.
FYI, I am a Canadian but currently reside in PA. My wife and I worked on the Republican 2006 campaign (nothing much – just phones). We got to hear Senator Rick Santorum speak and we had a cameo appearance from Laura Bush – live in West Philadelphia. However, I do appreciate the summary lesson on Congress.
Richard Saunders:
Thanks for the notes on Saul Alinsky. I understand Obama considers Rev. Jeremiah White to be a mentor and apparently there is a connection somehow to Louis Farrakhan. Do you have any details?
Richard Saunders: I read that very passage from Liberal Fascism this morning. This book is an absolute must read, no excuses.
You make one hell of a good point: there’s a big agenda hiding behind that kinda dough.
Et
Thanks for weighing in, but you’re using a lot of fancy, preening words to say nothing.
9/11 happened and the Bush gov’t. tried to connect it every which way to Iraq in order to invade Iraq. That’s indisputable fact.
If they’d thought they didn’t have to do it in order to get the invasion happening, they wouldn’t have. But they did.
It is fact that PNAC advocated for the invasion of Iraq years before, in 1998. Many members of PNac were in the Bush cabinet; there are also reports that the administration was looking into invading Iraq from its earliest days in office.
Anyway, I simply have presented the facts. I didn’t present as factual something which we can only conjecture about.
It is not fallacious to link several facts together which concern the same subject: Iraq. It is true many influential members of the Bush cabinet had long agitated for the invasion of Iraq; it is true that a group of them had argued only a “Pearl Harbour-type” event could galvanize public support for such an invasion; it is true that when such an event happened they were quick to use it as a springboard for the invasion.
These are all documented facts. It isn’t “fallacious” to link the past history of someone who worked in the government to their present actions within the government.
In fact, the subject deserves serious scrutiny.
volik: Yes, the Bush admin were chomping at the bit to go after Saddam. Yes, they even opined that it would take something like Pearl Harbour to provide the cover (something the troofers have fallaciously cottoned on to as proof of an inside job).
HOWEVER, remember: official policy of regime change in Iraq was set by Clinton and that Clinton was convinced right up to his last day in office that Saddam had WMD. I heard him say it on Larry King Live.
Me No Dhimmi,
I appreciate your point of view. You know, down here many of us are what the press sometimes calls libertarian Republicans. Our former majority leader, Dick Armey (an economics professor) was frequently referred to in this way.
Incidentally, for these trolls who keep bringing up this “neo-con” word, down here “neo-cons” are understood to be liberal who have become conservaties, i.e., “new conservatives.” For example, a lot of Democrats changed position because of Reagan.
Those of us who have been conservatives a long time are sometimes called “paleo conservatives.”
Brent,
we love Rick Santorum. We’ve got to get him back into office.
I can see that actually you were a player, and so you were aware that our strategy is to re-take the House and Senate, as much to protect ourselves against McCain as against a Democrat.
The problem is that if a Republican wins, we will all have to sit on our hands and keep our objections muted to cooperate with the Republican president. Even though we would try to create a Senate and Congressional firewall against many of the president’s initiatives.
However, should a Democrat win there will be no reason for a Republican to remain subdued. Obviously, we don’t have the kind of party loyalty that you do in Canada, but we do have to keep it down with a Republican president. With a Democrat, it’s full-blast obstructionism and public denunciation 24 hours a day in full throat.
Geez, I’ll have to check on this thread tomorrow.
‘Night, all.
Brent Weston,
This might be of interest, also from the American Thinker.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/obamas_alinsky_jujitsu.html