Whoever is saying that is stupid.

Everyone says McCain ran a terrible campaign, but he was dead from the get-go. The only reason the race even got close for a couple minutes was because of Palin. Then people realized she was woefully unprepared.

If Ronald Regan came back from the grave - he would have lost on the Republican ticket.

I have always thought that Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and all those other guys were dolts too. They're the ones who are saying it, but yeah it makes sense -- they're dipshits.

You sure don't listen to Glenn Beck too terribly much do you? He's never really cared for McCain and actually wanted Romney to get the nod. And in the past week after the election he's actually said he's glad McCain lost because he would sully the GOP. By being a RINO and not a true conservative.
McCain was no Reagan Republican and for him to insinuate otherwise was galling. Reagan tapped into the optimism and belief that America is great and smaller government is the answer and not more government.

I too wished to see Romney, McCain seemed to be the fall guy the repub's picked to hand the election over for the democrats turn.

And yes, Sky...the blind support is a bit overkill now.

The problem is that they see it the other way around. I can't tell you the number of articles I've seen where the Republicans and their followers have decided that McCain was the problem and Sarah Palin represents the direction the GOP needs to go.

for example:



http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008 ... ove-right/

I know that particular one is an activist and not the party themselves, but I'm getting ready for work. I'll look for one of the other articles later.

_________________

Blind rejection bandwagoning just for the sake of being contrary is much the same. Now, if they had really good reasons to vote against him(as there were many good, identifiable reasons to vote against Bush in 2004), more power to them.

Though I'd argue blind rejection of political figures is safer for us them blind devotion.

Depends, but overall I'd say false. In any given race you can have tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, but one will always be better than another(statistically, there's no way they would perform the exact same job the exact same way), even if only a little. In an important race, where the issues contrast significantly and countless issues are at stake, blind rejection is equally dangerous as it also leaves you with the possibility of choosing the wrong candidate.

Regardless of that, both sides are responsible for some bandwagoning.

I'm not going to say that every person is like those maniacal ultra-bitter Hillary supporters we all saw on Youtube and elsewhere, but the more former McCain supporters I meet, the more worried about the fate of humanity I get.

Hmm. I'll retract my previous statement. I could have sworn I saw an article about the party discussing Palin/Joe as their future moving forward, but so far all I'm seeing/able to google is pundits/activists that have a vested interest in the religious conservative side, so OF COURSE they'd see those two yahoos as the direction the party needs to go.

Still, given the deference the GOP has been giving that block of voters of late, it is something to be concerned about.

_________________

I'm kind of hoping that the divisions in the Republican party, pushed front and center by the McCain/Palin ticket, have finally become deep enough that the party will split. One a true conservative party that doesn't push a religious take, and one the nutjobs who want the US to become a christian haven.

As a bonus, if it were to happen, I believe it might actually present an opportunity for smaller factions of the electorate to get a voice in government and move us away from the current two-party toxicity.

I highly doubt that is any more likely than the Democrats splitting between far left and red state Democrats. To a degree, religion splits those two factions as well.

I didn't say it was likely, just that I was hoping it would happen. I can't recall a time when the Democrats had so personified their divisions on a ticket though, so I do find it a little more likely than a Dem split.

They call themselves the green party

Yea, and THEY call themselves the Libertarian Party =p

[image]http://www.lanysboard.com/forums/download/file.php?avatar=2171_1226376293.gif[/image]

That's addicting somehow.

Fail. Let's try that again with added flare.

I'm just proud to be a democrat and I'm proud my man won the Presidency. It's not blind support. He's human, he'll make mistakes and can't do everything, but he's a good man and the right person for the job.

Replace "democrat" with "republican" and many people (not including me) said the same thing about W.

Obama and Bush are clearly not the same people. Bush is shady and his motives (GOP) are fundamentally flawed. GOPs don't work for the US. Democrats have been the ones who promote community, caring, watching out for each other, taking care of the working / middle class, etc. GOPs care about protecting the rich, promoting gentrification, tax cuts for the extremely rich, etc.

Obama, his cabinet, and Americans will fix the country. Bush was a disaster on every single front and is the worst President in the history of the United States. We knew before he was elected that he was a failure on most fronts, and he had a shady ass background. None of which Obama has.

when does world at war come out on consoles

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You're so blinded by your faith in Uncle Barry's deification. That you fail to take into account his past shady dealings.
1.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200808060012
2. His accepting of donations by anonymous donors who may have avoided campaign financing rules on donation limits.
3.
http://obama2.com/archives/tag/late-term-abortion/
4. Tony Rezko
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Rezko
5. William Ayers
6. Tied to ACORN an organization known for voter fraud in multiple states and already under Federal Investigation for voter fraud.
Now really skycrasher is our new president that clean? Not really he's like all other politicians dirty as fuck but talks a better game. So give it a rest about your blind loyalty. I'm waiting to see how he does as president and withholding any judgment until he's in office. Bush did a bunch of things I didn't care for like more spending and the Patriot Act. Bush was a terrible communicator and his over all message was not received.

This is disingenuous. He was against the bill in question as Hospitals are already under guidelines to save a baby born alive, and the language in the bill could be misused to support further restrictions.

With all the straws being grasped for, it's surprising they have enough to even make strawmen arguments.

Is this the first election you have really involved yourself in by chance? I just get that feeling, plus I think you're in your early 20's and most of us didn't care much for politics in the last 5 yrs. If so, i can understand why you are freakin pumped your first pick was the winner, kinda like finally watching a football seaosn and your choice team takes it all I suppose.

Naw I voted for Kerry in 04 but that was a big loss. I wasn't nearly as involved as in this election, emotionally at least. I feel like I have a real stake in this election, unlike in 04 where I just voted "just cuz"

Wow. Tom Daschle. That's change.

I am somewhat comforted by the fact that he values experience and is filling his cabinet with people who are familiar with governance. I just wish he'd remembered that experience matters a long time ago and stayed in the Senate a few more years. I also hope that, at some point, he brings in people who have executive experience.

Yeah, because the Clinton-era appointees and those on his advisory staff have none. Shut the fuck up about the executive experience shit already. It's not as if it's going to be total on the job training here, chief.

As to the rest, I'll start bitching about "lack of change" once his cabinet has been fully finalized. It's not like the social conservative retards have actually done much in the way helping this fucking country. I'd like to see him bring in some REAL conservatives. Ya know, actual Republicans. I can't wait until the Jesus Christ Superstar fundie-fuckos die out.

If you honestly believe that Obama is going to bring in an actual conservative (as opposed to the right wing nutjobs) you are more naive than I had thought. He will bring in Republicans, but not conservatives.

Being part of the executive branch is not the same as being the executive. And if you mistakenly believe that I'm referencing Palin's experience, I am not.

What I'm saying is that I'm waiting to see what he does.

In answer to your second statement. Yes, it pretty much is. I don't think you quite understand how the White House functions. Granted, there are many little microcosms, but they are fundamentally very similar in many regards.

So what executive experience did John McCain have?

But conservatives are right wing nutjobs.

Elessar is exactly right. Election is done. Wait and see.

saw this and thought it was right on the money:

I'm glad we have people who have been proven that they can shape the government and America for the better. Definitely reassures me, and Obama is shaking things up cabinet wise too. Lots of good change happening, and change from the Bush politics.

Hell yeah!

Well krby... The Clinton years were filled largely with peace and prosperity.
Contrast to the last 8 years.

You might argue Clinton had nothing but dumb luck, but those people definitely have a better track record than the current administration.

How many predominate dems are there that were NOT associated with the clinton years?

I mean, if you are looking for the best Dems there are, seems pretty obvious to me quite a few are going to come from the Clinton years.

_________________

Clinton had a lot of dumb luck. The economy was soaring while he was in office, mostly because of the growth of the Internet and the computer industries. He also is partly responsible for the trouble the economy is in now. The economy was doing so well they let some underlying issues slide. It was also at the very end of the Clinton presidency that Bill was passed that allowed Wall Street to basically bet on itself without oversight, causing much of the current problems.

Clinton did do some Military actions, mostly small things using Cruise Missles, though he also had to deal with Somalia and Bosnia as I recall. His administration was also when Bin Laden came up on peoples radar (1997 or 1998) but basically was ignored.

Not to say Bush has done any better and certainly has done some serious damage to the country, but if Obama really wants change ( and I know we do ) he needs to stay away from the Old guard in Washington, and bring in some new people with fresh ideas.

Well, if you say Clinton just had dumb luck, then you can't blame or give credit to any president for anything, because it was, after all, just dumb luck.

Seems to me you want to blame him (in part) for the state of the current economy, but when it comes to the prosperity that many of us enjoyed, it was all just dumb luck. Why not just call it bad luck? The presidency isn't about leadership or knowledge or decision making - it is all just blind "luck".

SO:

Democrat presidency good things happen = dumb luck
Democrat presidency bad things happen = bad president

Republican president good things happen = strong leadership
Republican president bad things happen = bad luck

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Somalia began when the U.N. agreed to send the US-led U.N. coalition to attempt to stop the civil war there. Bosnia began with ethnic cleansing, and was a full-fledged NATO effort with our allies standing by our side and everything. Somalia may not have ended well, but we stood down when the U.N. backed out and things weren't looking hopeful anyway. If there was a failure, it was probably Somalia, but it was largely out of our hands to a degree. Bosnia on the other hand I think was a moderate success. Most of the really bad fighting and ethnic cleansing stopped, and the leadership was taken out.

As far as Bin Laden is concerned, I think Clinton did what he could - but you have to keep in mind he also had his hands tied behind his back politically. There was no precedent for an invasion or perhaps even a justifiable cause(politically) for a small-scale strike team to be sent there. Like 9/11. Could he have done more? Possibly, but hardly an invasion of Afghanistan and the cruel regime which was easily capable of hiding him within their masses.

Frankly, I have to give him(and of course, the CIA etc who set it up and recognized he was a threat) a good deal of credit for even trying to take him out with that cruise missle. To many Americans, the guy was just seen as a whacko nutjob that was only capable of garnering our attention because of his fiery rhetoric and his small-scale attacks on our overseas interests. Before 9/11, he was just another nutjob America-hater along with thousands of other terrorists.

He tried. Bush tried(and I assume is still trying to do something about him). No one has succeeded in capturing him, and on top of that experts are saying Al Qaeda is near 9/11-strength now and capable of hitting targets. That is not an easy job, especially with Pakistan now in the mix.

And again as far as those other conflicts go, I would add that even without what I said they are miniscule conflicts compared to Iraq. Even the first gulf war was a more significant(and possibly more costly) conflict. Not to mention that in both those cases there was real precedent for action, where Iraq had not made a blip on the radar screen for a good 5-10 years.

Recruiting Clinton polititians IS change. That's a massive change from the last 8 years.

IIRC it was the Clinton administration that put up the walls of separation between the FBI, CIA and other agencies making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to share information with each other. That was one of the leading failures leading up to 9/11.

The first World Trade Center bombing was in 1993 and I believe that the people responsible for it were tied with Al Q

Waco

The whole FBI files thing

The biggest problem I have with bringing Clinton people in is that they ARE politics as usual and foster the whole politics of personal destruction.

Get your tin-foil hat ready. The black helicopters are coming back and they mean business this time.

http://www.azcentral.com/business/artic ... up-ON.html

What do people think of the bailouts now, post Obama as a Senator?

Has McCain supported them? Has Obama supported them?

Don't like them at all.

Giving money to failed companies to try to keep them afloat, on the backs of taxpayers.

Let them fail and let stronger companies buy up what is good.

It is the evolution theory for business, if you run a bad business you fail.

Citi has for the longest time had many issues (I used to work there, remember) and they were managing to the stock price not to what is best for the long term health of the company. Bailing out Citi is just throwing money away. A year ago the stock price was around $35 (two months ago it was around $20). Today it is $3.77. This is for a bank that had trillions in assets.

Citi has two sources of income now, the Fed and their Saudi prince who said that he is going to increase his holdings up to the 5% maximum (he is under 4% now) This is AFTER they had raised billions of dollars to try to fix their balance sheets.

Aluminum foil deflector beanies!

http://zapatopi.net/afdb/

What, no edit?

The Obama Cabinet thus far:

White House Chief of Staff: Rahm Emanuel
Secretary of the Treasury: Timothy Geithner
Director of the Office of Management and Budget: Peter R. Orszag
Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton
Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates
Attorney General: Eric Holder
Secretary of Homeland Security: Janet Napolitano
Ambassador to the United Nations: Susan Rice
Secretary of Commerce: Bill Richardson

How do you that voted on the premise of fundamental change feel about his selections?

Check back around May to June next year.

Your definition of change and mine are not the same.

We wouldn't be able to win with you anyway; if he picked people with no experience but completely different than the norm you would have jumped all over it from the experience angle. Now he picks people with solid generally centrist experience under their belts, and here are you are getting ready to jump all over it from the "omg that's not change!" angle.

I'm feeling great about it. Like I think Frib said earlier in the thread, this is a rather large change from 8 years of Bush, with a number of different left-leaning(and somewhat more centrist) folks.

In short, just because you read "CHANGE" to be "Change everything under the sun in Washington" doesn't make it so.

I think some of the picks suck, and some are fine.

Panetta as CIA chief is horrible. He's a career politician with no intelligence experience and sole qualification appears to be that he will do whatever Obama wants, which is not what we need at that post.

I've read that Obama has backed away from the pick and said "I've not made an announcement". We'll see if it holds.

Fribur...Joxur wouldn't admit it was "change" unless Obama selected two nickels and a dime.

I find myself viewing this through the lens of torture and accountability. We'll see, he hasn't announced it, and with the backlash, he may never.

Panetta is a politician with no intelligence background. AFAIK he doesn't have any criminal justice background either. This is the CIA we are talking about. You can't just put a caretaker in charge of the CIA you have to have someone that is competent and able to understand the big picture. Not being a lap-dog is a bonus. Panetta was part of the Clinton administration that put additional barriers between the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence gathering agencies which made the uncovering of the 911 plot that much more difficult.

Yeah, it's Panetta's fault that we still haven't figured out who was truly behind 9/11, and why we haven't caught the alleged mastermind.

Ok, I'll play your game.

How is Panetta a good pick under the lens of torture and accountability?

And in some of these cases, for VERY good reason. I won't say which, but I worked for two of these agencies during the Clinton era, and I applauded them for this. Now, there are many opportunities for "sharing intelligence", but usually that's slang for shitting in someone else's backyard. Or, to comply with federal guidelines on the separation of domestic and foreign spying. Ya know, back when we gave a fuck about civil liberties.

Is Panetta a politician? Yes. Is he qualified? Yes. The man has been involved in the NSA briefings as Chief of Staff, and was a member of the military. It's not like he picked "Brownie" here. You're also not picking someone with a vested interest in particular intelligence groups.

I didn't say anything about good, Sir. I just think torture accountability may be what the appointment is about(if it goes thru), and it may be why Sen. Feinstein is upset/left out of the loop.

He comes into the CIA with zero ties to torture policy, and thus doesn't have fear of what we may learn. (Sen. Feinstein/Sen. Rockefeller might though). Panetta has also come out strong against torture in the past. Obviously I'm just a schmuck who only knows what he reads and hears from the chattering pundit class, but that's the version I find myself leaning towards.

And play my game? Wtf are you talking about you weirdo.