US Presidential Straw Poll [Archive]

Puppycow

25th April 2007, 07:14 AM

I was surprised to see the Tom Tancredo & Newt votes.

If one of you would be willing, could you elaborate on why you support them? Just curious.

I wasn't the one who voted for Tancredo, but my understanding is that his main issue is stopping illegal immigration. A lot of people say this is xenophobia, but I think there are also legitimate arguments to be made for this position. It depresses wages in unskilled industries, for one thing, which increases inequality. I don't have a problem with legal immigration, I just think people should follow the rules. We can accomodate a certain number each year, but there are limits. It takes time to absorb new immigrants. And there is the simple matter of ettiquette. If a person came into your house uninvited you would feel differently about them than if they came in with your permission. Any mixed signals like amnesty tend to encourage more illegal immigration. So I am not without some degree of sympathy for that position.

BTW, I happen to be an American living in Japan, and I follow all their rules and jump through the appropriate hoops. I also learned the language and do not expect Japanese to speak English to me at all. If you choose to live in a country, you need to learn the language. When I visited my parents in California last year, I happened to go to a Jack in the Box, and the employees didn't seem to be able to speak English, or even to have much of an idea about what to do in general. It's hard not to notice the difference with Japan. Japan does not allow unskilled immigrants into the country (they exist, but in smaller numbers, and they have been cracking down). Of course being an island country makes it somewhat easier. The level of politeness of service employees in Japan is worlds better that I remember from the US. There are some immigrants, but they are pretty well integrated and service employees tend to make better wages than their US counterparts.

Last year's riots in France also should make us wary about letting the illegal immigration problem fester. I don't claim to know the right solution, but I do worry that something like that could develop some day.

shemp

25th April 2007, 07:15 AM

PUNY HUMANS!!! YOU WILL ALL VOTE FOR ZOD!!! (http://www.zod2008.com/)

ImaginalDisc

25th April 2007, 07:29 AM

Depends on the track record. Sometimes little to none is preferable.

I would add that I haven't made up my mind entirely on who will get my vote.

If it comes to a choice between Clinton and Obama, I know I'll vote against Ms. Video Game Censorship (http://www.senate.gov/~clinton/news/statements/details.cfm?id=249368), Banning Flag Burning (http://atheism.about.com/b/a/225217.htm) (obscene, certainly, but why make it illegal?), Pro Invade Iraq For No Reason and Not Even Regret It Later (http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/21/iraq.hillary/), Anti-Gay Rights (http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/1996/october28/6tc080.html), Pro-Death Penalty (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00EFD61F3FF935A35751C0A9669C8B 63). She's just not liberal enough for me.

ImaginalDisc

25th April 2007, 07:32 AM

PUNY HUMANS!!! YOU WILL ALL VOTE FOR ZOD!!! (http://www.zod2008.com/)

Christopher Walken (http://www.walken2008.com/) seems to poll better among the movie fan demographic. Maybe they should become running mates.

Puppycow

25th April 2007, 07:32 AM

Darth Rotor

25th April 2007, 07:33 AM

PUNY HUMANS!!! YOU WILL ALL VOTE FOR ZOD!!! (http://www.zod2008.com/)

Nope, he was not born in the US, so he can't run. Just like Ahnold.

As to Ron Paul's midgetry, that is metaphorical, rather than material, in nature but in the "political coalition behind him sense" he is a bit of a midget, being pretty much a libertarian.

DR

Darth Rotor

25th April 2007, 07:34 AM

And I also think its time for someone other than another white male to get a turn. And he just seems more charismatic to me on many levels. I suggest reading his book!
*Puts on hat of a devil's advocate:*

What does race and gender have to do with this?

More to the point, how is Obama not a While Male, or at least a "half" white male? His mom was of Caucasian extraction. His dad was from Kenya. Is this an appeal to the old racialist, and racist, theme of tainted blood? (Rhetorical question, at root.)

Who are you to classify him? (How he considers and identifies himself is another matter, of course, and far more important to what you or I would consider him. :) )

See also Tiger Woods, on the matter of people of genetic / racial / ethnic stew. Cablanasian is the phrase he coined. ;)

*Removes Devil's Advocate hat*

DR

BPSCG

25th April 2007, 07:51 AM

Nope, he was not born in the US, so he can't run. Just like Ahnold. Pah! You think a little thing like the Constitution of the United States of America will stop Our Lord Zod?

I, for one, look forward to laying down all my money, my earthly goods, even my very life, before our new ruler.

Upchurch

25th April 2007, 07:54 AM

I, for one, look forward to laying down all my money, my earthly goods, even my very life, before our new ruler.

don't forget your knees. Kneel before Zod.

Upchurch

25th April 2007, 08:02 AM

Joe Random

25th April 2007, 08:13 AM

Pardon the derail, but it appears Zod is expanding his horizons :

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5FTsCMwX5xE

Fnord

25th April 2007, 10:32 AM

Voting for the "Lesser of Two Evils" not only maintains a steady stream of evil elected officials, but ensures that they will be progressively less effective ("lamer") than the previous ones.

Would somebody please provide a GOOD candidate?

Thank you.

ImaginalDisc

25th April 2007, 10:40 AM

Well, Bush only had 5 years of government experience when he.....

oh. Good point.

Yeah, and the Bush/Obama comparison is apt because, like Bush in 1999, the major newspapers and news commentators all really like him. Remember when Bush was "folksy" and "the kind of guy you want to have a beer with?" People chatted up how great and personable Bush was as a "normal guy" because there wasn't very much of a record to examine.

Mind you, Obama's obviously better than Bush. He can speak English and he's much more consistent in his stated views. The comparison would be incredibly unfair if I didn't mean it exclusively in regards to their preliminary media coverage. I'm just saying that voting for a rookie candidates makes me feel like I'm voting for a pig in a poke.

Katana

25th April 2007, 01:38 PM

Is the fact that Kucinich is a vegan common knowledge?

I only just found that out.

Interesting.

Upchurch

25th April 2007, 02:02 PM

Is the fact that Kucinich is a vegan common knowledge?
I knew. and I think his wife, though hot, is a total woo.

Katana

25th April 2007, 02:07 PM

I knew. and I think his wife, though hot, is a total woo.

:D

How so?

Just curious.

The Atheist

25th April 2007, 02:33 PM

57 votes, Obama with exactly a third of them from a long list of candidates, Giuliani second with seven...

Can it be that USA is about to have its first black presidential candidate on the polling options?

I must find a bookie offering odds on his assassination. Be a good one for a psychic: "Barack Obama will be assassinated in ......... (whichever month is a month after the candidate selection is finalised)"

I might start a thread at Stormfront to see what people there think and compare the two.

The Central Scrutinizer

25th April 2007, 02:36 PM

At this point in time and space, I'm rooting for the local boy made good: Obama.

You're use of the term "boy" to describe Obama is offensive.

Upchurch

25th April 2007, 02:37 PM

:D

How so?

Just curious.
rowr (http://kucinich.us/node/1164)

Oh, you meant "how so a woo (http://kucinich.us/node/578)"? :o

The Central Scrutinizer

25th April 2007, 02:38 PM

I was surprised to see the Tom Tancredo & Newt votes.

If one of you would be willing, could you elaborate on why you support them? Just curious.

Mental illness.

BTW - Who the hell is Tom Tancredo?

Upchurch

25th April 2007, 02:42 PM

You're use of the term "boy" to describe Obama is offensive.
:D I wondered if I'd catch anything for that.

I'm actually making reference to Local Boy Makes Good (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022085/), which has nothing to do with race (as far as I'm aware).

Katana

25th April 2007, 02:46 PM

You're use of the term "boy" to describe Obama is offensive.

I really hope that you're kidding.

rowr (http://kucinich.us/node/1164)

:jaw-dropp

Wow. You're right, Upchurch. They could not make a more odd-looking couple.

Oh, you meant "how so a woo (http://kucinich.us/node/578)"? :o

:D

Yes. That's what I was getting at (although I was curious to see what she looked like ;)). So she, her mother, her grandmother, and her husband were all Libras. Well, now. From the link that you supplied:

From a family (grandmother, mother, me and now my husband Dennis) of Librans, the symbol for which is the scales, my mother and I always joked that we spent our lives in constant flux in search of balance but rarely finding it. Librans, in this constant seeking for justice, appreciate fully moments of beauty and opportunity in every experience that allude to balance and justice.

It is said in physics that every action causes a reaction. Similar too is the concept of Karma. These can be understood to be the material and spiritual laws of balance. When they are translated into our day to day life experiences, every action indeed causes a reaction, a karmic narrative. To awaken vision and to touch balance in Justiceâ€™s scales, we must introduce sincere reflection between the phases of action and reaction.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of 9/11, a series of events that marked a day of awakening for the people of the world to the revelation of the very real and powerful forces at play in these times. Not falling prey to the black hole of 9/11 rhetoric which highlights the evil of otherness, rhetoric into which our lives have been sacrificed, together with our freedom and liberty. No, I am speaking of the forces at play within the depths of each of our hearts and the dark side of our souls traveling the shamanic journey into the underworld and the opportunity for our transformation into beings of light.

Oh, my. Upchurch, you're right.

:wackynah:

slingblade

25th April 2007, 04:06 PM

I want to answer, but I'm scared to.

*Puts on hat of a devil's advocate:*

What does race and gender have to do with this?

What do you mean "have to do with this?" Can you be more specific?

Ha ha, just kidding.

<Obligatory Correction of Grammar to Help Me Feel Superior>
And you meant "what do," not "what does."

I know what gender has to do with it. To the best of my knowledge, a woman has never before been POTUS. I would think it's a big deal, that part of it. Which woman, though, is also important. I don't think this is the right woman. But I'm glad a woman is running, just for the symbolism if nothing else.

More to the point, how is Obama not a While Male, or at least a "half" white male? His mom was of Caucasian extraction. His dad was from Kenya. Is this an appeal to the old racialist, and racist, theme of tainted blood? (Rhetorical question, at root.)

Who are you to classify him? (How he considers and identifies himself is another matter, of course, and far more important to what you or I would consider him. :) )

See also Tiger Woods, on the matter of people of genetic / racial / ethnic stew. Cablanasian is the phrase he coined. ;)

*Removes Devil's Advocate hat*

DR

I dunno. I'm not sure he necessarily considers himself...well, anything, I guess. Racially, I mean. But he doesn't look white, and so for purposes of discussing the superficial cosmetic differences that still separate us, he's useful.

I Googled "Obama considers himself black" to see what I'd find, and I seem to be finding articles and interviews that say, "No, actually, he doesn't." How interesting!

I also found this snippet from an article: (http://www.cjrdaily.org/politics/obama.php)

Finally, Andrew Coyne of Canada's National Post suggests that debates about Obama's racial authenticity, though somewhat futile, could benefit our country's political discourse.

"It's a pointless debate, by and large: black voters, for whose benefit the arguments for and against Mr. Obama's blackness are supposedly being advanced, will decide for themselves whether and on what terms they will support him," Coyne wrote. "Still, it's fascinating that the issue should have arisen, and if it is pointless, it's useful to know why it's pointless. One of the things Mr. Obama's candidacy may achieve is to confirm, not the irrelevance of race as a political issue, but the incoherence of it -- the maddening, irresolvable undefinability of it."

Yeah. I think so, too.

Puppycow

25th April 2007, 11:11 PM

Adding to what slingblade wrote:

"Race and gender shouldn't matter"

I think that's only half-true. I suspect that symbolism matters more than we imagine. If the 44th president is yet another white male, and 45th, 46th and so on (we don't know when a better alternative than Obama will come along next) then minorities will still have reason to feel that they haven't really fully arrived yet as fully respected co-equals.

I disagree with almost everything president Bush has done, but I do give him props for putting Condi Rice and Colin Powell in high-visibility positions of importance for symbolic reasons. Especially for members of his own party to see loyal conservative african-americans in national security positions, not just the director of HUD or the like. Because I think is has an effect on a subconscious level. I read a survey that asked Americans whether they would consider voting for an African-American for president, and recently the number responding that they would not was down to something in the single digits, whereas in 1988 it was somewhere over 30% (at the time most people probably conjured up the image of Jesse Jackon when asked). To be sure, President Bush's reasons may have been political, and most of this attitude change is no doubt due to natural social progess, but I do think that people need to get used to the idea gradually, and seeing African-Americans in important jobs near the president is part of that process.

negativ

26th April 2007, 09:14 AM

I've only been legal to vote since the 1992 election. In every presidential election since, the candidates I liked not only didn't win, but also didn't even become their party's nominee.

Right now, I like both Giuliani and Obama (admittedly not necessarily for the soundest of reasons) and if my history means anything... well, I've just doomed both of their chances. :D

Fnord

26th April 2007, 10:55 AM

:D I wondered if I'd catch anything for that.

I'm actually making reference to Local Boy Makes Good (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022085/), which has nothing to do with race (as far as I'm aware).

The offense is taken because you've used two of the three "Hate Letters," which are A, G and W.

It's true!

(... not really.)

hgc

26th April 2007, 11:16 AM

Right now, I like both Giuliani and Obama (admittedly not necessarily for the soundest of reasons) and if my history means anything... well, I've just doomed both of their chances. :D

And I bet it never rains when you bring your umbrella. :)

I'd say that Obama has a decent chance of upsetting your streak, Giuliani much less so.

Upchurch

26th April 2007, 11:24 AM

I have to admit that I'm surprised at how well Obama is doing in this poll

Fnord

26th April 2007, 11:46 AM

I'm afraid that Barack Obama will by voted in, based not on his actual ability to do the job, but on fallacious beliefs in his abilities.

1) Fallacy of Appeal to Novelty (Argumentum Ad Novitatem):
"Obama is the best candidate exclusively because he is new and modern."

2) Fallacy of Appeal to Popularity (Argumentum Ad Populum):
"Obama is the most popular candidate, therefore he is the best candidate."

If this is how the outcome of the next presidential election is determined, then expect four more years of inept governance.

The Central Scrutinizer

26th April 2007, 11:47 AM

The Painter

26th April 2007, 12:07 PM

I have to admit that I'm surprised at how well Obama is doing in this poll

On this board??

Upchurch

26th April 2007, 12:08 PM

On this board??
Yeah, on this board.

davefoc

26th April 2007, 12:16 PM

I voted for Bill Richardson.

I don't know that much about him, and could easily change my mind. But he has the experience of being a governor (he was elected to governor of New Mexico for a second time with the largest margin in state history), the experience of being a diplomat (he was ambassador to the UN) and he was the secretary of Energy. All sounds like good experience to me.

I agree with the idea that Obama has too little experience. At least part of my thinking here is to avoid anything resembling Bush and taking a shot on a guy with this little experience seems like taking an unnecessary gamble on what somebody actually is.

I thought I might vote for Chuck Hagel (he was the only Republican I considered) but the vote against restoring the requirement for Senate confirmation of US Attorneys soured me on him. I think the vote in favor of that was roughly 90 to 4 with Hagel being one of the four.

I wasn't too thrilled with Richardson's comment that he would have asked Gonzales to resign except that Gonzales was Hispanic. I hope he was joking.

But the way things are shaping up neither Hagel nor Richardson are going to get nominated, so I'll probably end up voting for the Democratic candidate (probably Hilary Clinton) over the Republican candidate (probably Fred Thompson or Giuliani).

hgc

26th April 2007, 12:23 PM

But the way things are shaping up neither Hagel or Richardson are going to get nominated, so I'll probably end up voting for the Democratic candidate (probably Hilary Clinton) over the Republican candidate (probably Fred Thompson or Giuliani).

He only has 2 votes here, but I still think Newtie is the most likely GOP candidate.

Fnord

26th April 2007, 01:23 PM

It's determined that way every 4 years.

NO! Really? :jaw-dropp

Like I said, "... expect four more years of inept governance." :D

slingblade

26th April 2007, 01:28 PM

NO! Really? :jaw-dropp

Like I said, "... expect four more years of inept governance." :D

I do. Every four years. I am reconciled to it now. :boxedin:

Katana

26th April 2007, 01:56 PM

He only has 2 votes here, but I still think Newtie is the most likely GOP candidate.

I'm thinking Fred Thompson (if he decides to run).

Katana

26th April 2007, 02:02 PM

Anyone else read this Olbermann piece (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18316770/page/2/)?

Anyone have any thoughts?

Some of it resonated with me, but, then, I didn't care for Guiliani to begin with.

davefoc

26th April 2007, 02:22 PM

Anyone else read this Olbermann piece (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18316770/page/2/)?

Anyone have any thoughts?

Some of it resonated with me, but, then, I didn't care for Guiliani to begin with.

I thought the piece was a little unfair. The overall justification for the current aggressive, preemptive, interventionist US foreign policy is that US citizens will be safer. I happen to disagree, but that is the Republican argument and Giuliani just restated it in one of its permutations.

But, I did think that this was pretty good:
Which party had proposed to turn over the Department of Homeland Security to Bernard Kerik, Mr. Giuliani?

I thought this was a fair, factual, and effective shot to counter Giuliani's claims of Republican skills at making the US Safer. I'm not sure how substantive it was, but just measured by the quality of the rhetoric, I thought it was great.

Upchurch

26th April 2007, 02:34 PM

Anyone else read this Olbermann piece (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18316770/page/2/)?
This is terrorism itself, dressed up as counter-terrorism.
Technically correct and needed to be said.

eta: No, not technically correct. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism), terrorism apparently requires actually violence rather than merely invoking the threat of violence. Is that right?

Tailgater

26th April 2007, 02:40 PM

I voted planet X till I know more. I like what Obama says, but he seems to say everything in such a generic or generalized way that it's hard for me to give him a vote. I tend to vote in the center depending on the candidates, but the field of choices is all over the map at the moment.

I watched Olberman last night. He had a long rant at the end of his show about Giuliani and I thought he was going to start foaming at the mouth.

Katana

26th April 2007, 02:41 PM

I thought the piece was a little unfair. The overall justification for the current aggressive, preemptive, interventionist US foreign policy is that US citizens will be safer. I happen to disagree, but that is the Republican argument and Giuliani just restated it in one of its permutations.

I didn't think that it was entirely unfair (not saying you did). Some of it rang true with me.

But, I did think that this was pretty good:

Which party had proposed to turn over the Department of Homeland Security to Bernard Kerik, Mr. Giuliani?

I thought this was a fair, factual, and effective shot to counter Giuliani's claims of Republican skills at making the US Safer. I'm not sure how substantive it was, but just measured by the quality of the rhetoric, I thought it was great.

Here's a little info (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/30/AR2007033002425.html)about Kerik and Guiliani's relationship with him.

Katana

26th April 2007, 02:46 PM

Technically correct and needed to be said.

eta: No, not technically correct. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism), terrorism apparently requires actually violence rather than merely invoking the threat of violence. Is that right?

Well, that's an interesting question, but I do believe that even the threat of violence can constitute terrorism.

ConspiRaider

26th April 2007, 03:00 PM

Had to vote Gore, of course.

Ya got a guy here who started in on the global warming issue more than 30 years ago.

Long range thinking. Who does that anymore? Oh that's right, Stupid-Boy does. When he indicated that the next President will have to clean up after the war he started.

If not Gore (who apparently won't be convinced to run) then I like Edwards. Then Obama. Hillary - who I'd been out front with in the early going - is not impressing me.

Rest of World: If we Yanks are stupid enough to elect Giuliani, just go ahead and invade us. Just all of ya's, pile on. India, China (that's one third of the world population right there). European Union, Russia - c'mon over and knock some sense into us. We'll more than deserve your ire.

Puppycow

26th April 2007, 03:49 PM

He only has 2 votes here, but I still think Newtie is the most likely GOP candidate.

If you truly believe that and you think that such a belief is well-founded, I suggest that you head over to InTrade (http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/contractSearch/) and place a bet. If my understanding of their system is correct (which I do not guarantee--do your own due diligence), you can buy a contract for 3.3 dollars that will pay 100 dollars if Newt actually becomes the nominee.

Me, I cannot imagine Newt becoming the nominee, but then a couple months ago I thought McCain would be a shoe-in. So maybe my instincts are suspect. I still think he might have a resurgance in the future, but I don't know.

Darth Rotor

26th April 2007, 07:03 PM

Rest of World: If we Yanks are stupid enough to elect Giuliani, just go ahead and invade us. Just all of ya's, pile on. India, China (that's one third of the world population right there). European Union, Russia - c'mon over and knock some sense into us. We'll more than deserve your ire.
Fish in a barrel.

DR

FarmallMTA

26th April 2007, 07:06 PM

Ann Coulter for President with Michele Malkin for Veep. I'm voting the righteous babe ticket!

ranson

26th April 2007, 07:50 PM

Richardson here -- just wish I could vote him in the Primary, as I'm a Republican.

He seems sane, and it doesn't look like his entire political career was manufactured for a Presidential run *coughClintoncough*. He's actually done things, too, as well as apparently doing them without screwing up. I'd wager he could get through a real energy policy and regain some of our foreign policy clout. If he makes it out of the primary, I think he could take any Republican thrown at him, and, to me, that's a good thing given the field. I'm not happy with my party. The only reason I stay with it is the faint hope I can help drag it back, kicking and screaming, to some semblance of reality and sanity.

hgc

26th April 2007, 08:04 PM

Dunstan

26th April 2007, 08:18 PM

Voting for the "Lesser of Two Evils" not only maintains a steady stream of evil elected officials, but ensures that they will be progressively less effective ("lamer") than the previous ones.

And that's why I'll be wearing this shirt. (http://www.cafepress.com/buy/cthulhu%202008/-/pv_design_prod/p_storeid.86817752/pNo_86817752/id_15705158/opt_/pg_/c_/fpt_)

SezMe

26th April 2007, 08:33 PM

At the Dem debate tonight I thought Ricardson was the clear loser. Which is too bad because he has one helluva resume. I think he won't be in the race much longer.

Piggy

26th April 2007, 08:35 PM

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, IT'S SPRING OF 2007, PEOPLE!

Give it a freakin' rest.

How about we all agree to ignore the campaign for a year and demand that these so-called public servants stop trying to get themselves (re)elected for a few months and do some actual work in the meantime instead?

SezMe

26th April 2007, 08:36 PM

Can I just ask why folks seem to be so enamored of Obama?

I have the same question but about Guilliani. I just do not see what he brings to the table. Maybe one of his supporters can fill me in.

steverino

26th April 2007, 08:39 PM

At the Dem debate tonight I thought Ricardson was the clear loser. Which is too bad because he has one helluva resume. I think he won't be in the race much longer.

Wow Sez! I just now mentioned that in my new thread. It is hard to put my finger on, but Richardson seemed like he was in over his head, ironic as he clearly has lived the life of a politician and diplomat on an international scale.

SezMe

26th April 2007, 08:39 PM

Piggy

26th April 2007, 09:05 PM

But, Piggy, the early voting is really not that far off. Which is not the politicians fault. Its the early states like Iowa and New Hampshire that keep moving their prelims forward just to be first.

<sigh> I know. I'm trying to hold back the sea.

I will say this.... Please, this time, let's elect someone with some national and international experience. Haven't we bought our lessons dearly enough already?

Rudy is my worst nightmare in this race. And I'm hoping Obamania will fade -- he'll be just as smart and eloquent and savvy eight or sixteen years from now, probably moreso... so let's let him get some experience first.

Puppycow

26th April 2007, 10:11 PM

<sigh> I know. I'm trying to hold back the sea.

I will say this.... Please, this time, let's elect someone with some national and international experience. Haven't we bought our lessons dearly enough already?

Rudy is my worst nightmare in this race. And I'm hoping Obamania will fade -- he'll be just as smart and eloquent and savvy eight or sixteen years from now, probably moreso... so let's let him get some experience first.

Bush's problem was not 'inexperience' so much as incompetance and intellectual laziness. Certainly Dick Cheney had lots of experience, but he has led us into disaster.

The important question IMO is does he have good critical thinking skills, effective communication skills, leadership skill, and will he improve America's image. McCain has lots of experience, and I have a lot of respect for him, but I think he's dead wrong about what the US should do in the future.

Skeptic Ginger

27th April 2007, 12:40 AM

I'm opposed to Hillary as president on the principle that it is not a good thing for a democracy to have the executive position passed back and forth between two families over a period of 24 to 28 years. I do not want to see us go from a narrow two party system to a suffocatingly constricted two family system.No offense but what an arbitrary reason. Maybe if you really thought the Bush family had too many ties to the same corrupt influences, but just because there were 2 Bushes you don't want 2 Clintons?

Take the time to see what these guys are about, what their qualifications are and vote for the best candidate.

Skeptic Ginger

27th April 2007, 12:57 AM

Originally Posted by Puppycow: You don't even have to be a US ctizen to vote!

How is that different from real life?This is a Republican talking point myth.

I've been closely following the 04 election fraud charges and the Republican campaign to require voter ID and the biggest issue in 04 was voter disenfranchisement, not fraudulent voters voting. The fraudulent voters voting claim overlooks the fact citizenship can be checked when you register to vote and only one person can show up and vote under that registration. There is no evidence non-citizens voted in any election. In fact, it's highly unlikely that any illegal aliens are going to register to vote because it's like a sign that says come get me, I live here. Whether immigration ever would look at voter registration for illegals may not be likely, but the fear of it happening is.

For any large number of people to vote twice is unlikely as well. You'd have to register at different addresses. Your registration is then mailed to you. If the registrations come back as undeliverable, your registration would be suspect. In order to register a significant number of fraudulent voters it would be such a pain it would hardly be worth it to any major candidate. And with many people doing it, the evidence would be clear.

So while there may be some people who voted more than once and some non-citizens who voted, for an amount of such votes to actually affect an election outcome is extremely unlikely. Do you know why the federal attorney in my state was fired by Gonzales? Because he wouldn't pursue such a case in our last Governor's election. Why wouldn't a federal attorney, appointed by Bush pursue a voter fraud case where a Democrat won by less than 200 votes and illegal votes were alleged? Could it be there was no case?

Skeptic Ginger

27th April 2007, 01:00 AM

I voted for Newt....I personally am not very excited about the Rep. field, but have always thought Newt to have great ideas, and good leadership abilities. Also if you hear him speak, he does have the charisma, which is a pre-req. to be elected nowadays.

I would never vote the other side of the ticket.Heck no, your side has such a fine record....

Skeptic Ginger

27th April 2007, 01:05 AM

Given you may have college loans, your income has been damned negative for several years...

As for me...rudy...rudy...Rudy...Rudy...RUDY...RUDY!!!Rud y'd be great for the ticket. Three marriages, served one ex divorce papers while she was in the hospital (or was that Newt?), mob connections, and he's already using the Republican mantra, "elect a Democrat and we'll be attacked again".

I think the public is catching on to that last slogan and the "base" will have a harder time with Rudy's guidance from God. The perfect candidate to run against the Democratic candidate. ;)

Skeptic Ginger

27th April 2007, 01:32 AM

Can I just ask why folks seem to be so enamored of Obama? He's had a two year career as a federal legislator, and a career as a state legislator of only seven years.

Is it silly of me to prefer someone with a track record?

Mind you, I selected "Gore" on the dying hope he might run and win. Hillary Clinton gives me the heebie-jeebies.Funny you should make these two comments in the same post. On the one hand you wonder why someone is voting for an image (Obama) while OTOH you dismiss a candidate based on image (Clinton).

I just finished watching the Democratic candidate debate on MSNBC. First, I have to say there are a whole group of good candidates there. Of the viable candidates (Kucinich has the heart for it but let's face it, he only got 1% or something last time around and his ideals would be hard to put into practice), I would say Obama is now lowest on my list. He's skilled and a fine man but do we want another inexperienced President right now when this country is in such trouble from the Bush mess? Give Obama a few more years of experience and then vote for him.

Why does everyone think he's so great? Think about what you know about him really. "Well gee, everyone else likes him, the news people say so over and over."

Richardson, Biden and Clinton really came off as having the most experience, the most skill, the best qualities we need in a leader right now. Edwards was so so. He clearly had more experience than Obama. But his answers were more general, the usual political sound bites without substance.

Richardson, Biden and Clinton all had specific answers, not the usual, scripted generalizations. They all came across as good candidates. I'll wait to see more of them before deciding.

You all are supposed to be skeptics. You demand evidence for everything else. Why make this decision on media images? Find out what these candidates really have to say.

If there is something in particular about an image that is a deal breaker, fine. Rudy's claim we're going to get attacked if a Democrat is elected was enough for me to say, this guy is more of the same when we don't need it. And the words came out of his mouth directly. But Clinton is getting a a negative image from the media and the Republicans and from what I saw in the debate tonight it was totally undeserved. She was very competent, she certainly didn't give anyone watching "the heebie jeebies" that I could see.

I would wager you, ID, that you can't recall very much in particular which supports your dismissal of Clinton, or your leaning toward Obama. Out of the votes in this poll for Obama, I'd wager it's all image. Well that's how we ended up with the travesty that's running the country now. He fooled everyone with his 'marketed to us' image. Come on skeptics. Time to find out a little more about these guys than sound bites.

Skeptic Ginger

27th April 2007, 02:52 AM

If it comes to a choice between Clinton and Obama, I know I'll vote against Ms. Video Game Censorship (http://www.senate.gov/~clinton/news/statements/details.cfm?id=249368), Banning Flag Burning (http://atheism.about.com/b/a/225217.htm) (obscene, certainly, but why make it illegal?), Pro Invade Iraq For No Reason and Not Even Regret It Later (http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/21/iraq.hillary/), Anti-Gay Rights (http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/1996/october28/6tc080.html), Pro-Death Penalty (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00EFD61F3FF935A35751C0A9669C8B 63). She's just not liberal enough for me.

Well, ID, if I might take a closer look here, it's often all in how things are framed.

For video game censorship, or for stricter labeling and underage rules for buying?
Senate news (http://www.senate.gov/~clinton/news/statements/details.cfm?id=249368)
Senator Clinton was motivated to take action on this issue when it was revealed in July that Rockstar Games had embedded illicit sexual content in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. This game had received a Mature rating from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), which was unaware of the embedded content.

Senator Clinton acknowledges that video games are fun and entertaining and does not support any limitations on the production or sale of games to adults. “This is about protecting children,” said Senator Clinton.

-
For the Anti-Flag Burning amendment, or worked for a compromise bill that allowed outlawing flag burning in very limited circumstances like cross burning on your black neighbor's lawn is outlawed?

Senate roll call vote (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00189)
"Clinton, NAY"

Congressional web site (http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-printable.cfm?doc_name=lb-109-2-90)
On October 24, 2005, Senators Bennett and Clinton introduced a legislative alternative to a constitutional amendment, S. 1911, the Flag Protection Act of 2005. The bill is currently in the Judiciary Committee. Senators Bennett and Clinton may introduce an amendment to S. J. Res. 12 to strike the constitutional amendment, replacing it with the legislative alternative described in S. 1911.

Party web site (http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-new.cfm?doc_name=lb-109-2-90)
Although, a prior federal statute to ban flag burning was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, the 2003 Court decision in Virginia v. Black, upholding a cross burning conviction, makes it more likely that the Bennett-Clinton amendment would be found constitutional.

-
Pro-invade Iraq and not apologize, or the way the media twisted the questions and Hillary refusing to provide a twisted answer?

She answered this in the debate when asked about their biggest mistake and what was learned from it. While she described learning from the national health insurance move she made that failed, she said her biggest mistake was believing Bush would avoid invading Iraq if he could. And that's what I heard her say before when the press kept asking was her decision a mistake. The mistake was believing the Bush lies, the vote was the consequence, not the mistake itself. That's a far cry from how the media portrayed it as refusing to admit the vote was a mistake.

The media portrays the vote as a vote to invade Iraq. That wasn't the vote. The vote was to give Bush authority Bush claimed he needed to go after the terrorists. No one, except Bush and his inner crowd knew they had drawn up plans before taking office to invade Iraq at the first excuse. That was later revealed in both Bob Woodward's and Richard Clarke's books.

-
Against gay rights or stuck with a political reality? (By the way your link is to a comment on BILL Clinton, not Hillary though other sites say Hillary supported the bill.)

What does a gay political web site have to say? (http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-789.html)
Mrs Clinton's supporters in the gay community claim that no candidate for President will be able to declare support for gay marriage. “In the 2008 cycle, I don't think any candidate can come out and say, 'I am for gay marriage,"' said Ethan Geto, an organiser of the event. "Take Hillary Clinton and compare her to any national Democrat with presidential potential. She's staked out very progressive turf here."

Mrs Clinton supports civil unions, a similar system to the British civil partnership scheme, gay marriage in all but name. However, she continues to support the Defence of Marriage Act, enacted by her husband that maintains that marriages must be between partners of the opposite sex.

Mrs Clinton opposes moves to create a constitutional amendment that permanently rules out gay marriage

-
For the death penalty or only for the death penalty when you correct the flaws in the system?

Hillary Clinton on crime (http://www.issues2000.org/Domestic/Hillary_Clinton_Crime.htm#01-HR912), presumably accurate. Your link had a one line statement, "supports the death penalty" when there is a lot more to a person's views. Sometimes answers are completely different in context.
Require DNA testing for all federal executions.
Clinton sponsored the Innocence Protection Act:

Title: To reduce the risk that innocent persons may be executed.

Summary: Authorizes a person convicted of a Federal crime to apply for DNA testing to support a claim that the person did not commit:

1. the Federal crime of which the person was convicted; or
2. any other offense that a sentencing authority may have relied upon when it sentenced the person with respect to such crime.
3. Prohibits a State from denying an application for DNA testing made by a prisoner in State custody who is under sentence of death if specified conditions apply.
4. Provides grants to prosecutors for DNA testing programs.
5. Establishes the National Commission on Capital Representation.
6. Withholds funds from States not complying with standards for capital representation.
7. Provides for capital defense incentive grants and resource grants.
8. Increases compensation in Federal cases, and sets forth provisions regarding compensation in State cases, where an individual is unjustly sentenced to death.
9. Adds a certification requirement in Federal death penalty prosecutions.
10. Expresses the sense of Congress regarding the execution of juvenile offenders and the mentally retarded.

Also from your pro-death penalty link:
As she spoke, aides trucked in cartons filled with 400,000 eight-page leaflets, titled ''Hillary: The Real Story,'' that were to be distributed across the state starting today.

''This has probably been the biggest surprise to me in the last six months,'' Mrs. Clinton said. ''What I have found is that people don't know anything, really, about the work that I did before Bill was elected president. And know very little -- except about health care -- about the work that I've done in the White House. It became so apparent to me that in order to introduce myself to the voters of New York, I was going to have to go back and really share a lot of my life story.''
[snip]
A lot of that has been obscured, she said, by attacks on her and the president. Asked if she still believed that they were a target of a ''right-wing conspiracy,'' as she first said during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, she said: ''If you look at the mailings that all of these groups are sending out -- I don't know if they're part of a vast right-wing conspiracy. But they are certainly part of a broad network of people who are all aiming their ammunition against me because I don't believe what they believe.''

She also said many voters, particularly women, have an unfavorable view of her because they have superficial information about her. ''In the small groups I've been meeting with -- primarily of women -- a lot of women become very skeptical, because they have an idea in their mind of what I am going to be likeThe point here isn't to promote Clinton. Like I said, I like 3 of the candidates at this point. But my point is, why is everyone so involved in skepticism except for these blind spots? If I made similar unsupported claims or gave an incomplete picture of anything besides these candidates' images, you'd all be looking for more details. You'd be, I don't know, ...SKEPTICAL maybe of such sound bite claims?

EvilSmurf

27th April 2007, 03:16 AM

rowr (http://kucinich.us/node/1164)

Oh, you meant "how so a woo (http://kucinich.us/node/578)"? :o

Speaking of candidates with hot trophy wives, I present Fred Thompson:
http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/7580/saggf1.jpg

SezMe

27th April 2007, 03:35 AM

Explains the SEG on his face.

Piggy

27th April 2007, 04:27 AM

Bush's problem was not 'inexperience' so much as incompetance and intellectual laziness. Certainly Dick Cheney had lots of experience, but he has led us into disaster.

The important question IMO is does he have good critical thinking skills, effective communication skills, leadership skill, and will he improve America's image. McCain has lots of experience, and I have a lot of respect for him, but I think he's dead wrong about what the US should do in the future.

Well, if I had to vote today, McCain would probably get my mark, actually.

But yeah, I do think inexperience is one of the fundamental reasons why Bush "led us into disaster".

His argument was that he would surround himself with "smart people" who did have experience. But as he himself is fond of saying, at the end of the day, he's "the decider".

Which is the fatal flaw with the inexperienced-leader-surrounded-by-experienced-advisors approach.

At some point, the president has to choose among the various viewpoints and plans presented to him. And if he himself has no experience to speak of, he has no firm basis upon which to make that choice.

Of course, national/international experience in and of itself does not guarantee wisdom or honesty. Paul Wolfowitz, Don Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney had it, but they were all profoundly wrong about the war, and incompetent in managing it, and Cheney is still running around talking about a Saddam-Qaida connection.

BPSCG

27th April 2007, 04:40 AM

So, is it too early to start talking about the candidates for 2012?

hgc

27th April 2007, 05:18 AM

So, is it too early to start talking about the candidates for 2012?

Early leader: Fred Thompson

ImaginalDisc

27th April 2007, 05:38 AM

Funny you should make these two comments in the same post. On the one hand you wonder why someone is voting for an image (Obama) while OTOH you dismiss a candidate based on image (Clinton).

No, I reject Clinton based on her record.

Upchurch

27th April 2007, 06:17 AM

No offense but what an arbitrary reason. Maybe if you really thought the Bush family had too many ties to the same corrupt influences, but just because there were 2 Bushes you don't want 2 Clintons?
For the record, I didn't want 2 Bushes either. ;)

It's not arbitrary. It is a very principled reason that dates back to the beginning. When the country was first forming, there was a good contingent of people who wanted to refer to the executive position as "his majesty". Washington very specifically said no. They had just rid themselves one set of royalty, he did not want to replace it with a new one.

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution #History):
After Roosevelt's death, the newly Republican 80th United States Congress desired to establish a firm constitutional provision barring presidents from being elected more than twice. The rationale was a concern that without limits, the presidential position could become too similar to that of a benevolent dictator lasting not just four years but a lifetime, that the position could become too powerful and upset the separation of powers, and that he could become so powerful that elections would become dispensable. Hence, the Twenty-second Amendment was adopted.
Likewise, passing the Presidency back and forth between a very few number of families has the danger of developing a ruling aristocracy. Although more qualified than his brother, I would be opposed to Jeb Bush running for these same reasons and I am thankful that he is not.

The strength of our system of government is its diversity. There are enough qualified candidates that there is no need to rely just on Bushes or Clintons.

SezMe

27th April 2007, 11:39 AM

Although more qualified than his brother, I would be opposed to Jeb Bush running for these same reasons and I am thankful that he is not.

I wouldn't put that in the bank yet. While I think it highly unlikely, the current crop of Republican candidates is so uninspiring that I could envision a draft Jeb effort.

Upchurch

27th April 2007, 11:41 AM

Why do you hate America?

;)

Piggy

27th April 2007, 05:29 PM

So, is it too early to start talking about the candidates for 2012?

I understand Chelsea already has an exploratory committee raising funds.

Piggy

27th April 2007, 05:32 PM

Why do you hate America?

Oh, c'mon. Please!

I mean, just think about it for a moment.

"There were plants and birds and rocks and things"?

"There ain't no one for to give you no pain"?

Those guys were lame! Hate 'em. Just hate 'em.

slingblade

27th April 2007, 05:35 PM

You didn't even go for the truly bad. Muskrat Love.

Look, I like some of their stuff. But that drivel ruined the entire CD.

Piggy

27th April 2007, 05:47 PM

You didn't even go for the truly bad. Muskrat Love.

Survey says...

Five stars, baby. Five stars! (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/a/america/)

An undisclosed number of America lyric surfers can't be wrong.

And don't forget, it was covered by the great ones themselves. <Bows 5 times toward Lake Tahoe, kisses bulldog amulet>

slingblade

27th April 2007, 06:00 PM

You mean that wasn't their love child?? :eek:

Skeptic Ginger

27th April 2007, 06:16 PM

Well, if I had to vote today, McCain would probably get my mark, actually.

But yeah, I do think inexperience is one of the fundamental reasons why Bush "led us into disaster".....Inexperience and corruption. Bush has no qualms lying to the American people about everything. We, the people don't matter for ******. He installed inexperienced party or religious loyalists to key positions with disastrous results. He's been completely unwilling to negotiate or even discuss alternative views, in fact, the whole Republican Party excluded the Democrats from any and everything they could despite the fact the Republicans were elected by barely half of the voting public.

So what has McCain done to regain the trust of the people? Let's see, he supports the torture and imprisoning people without even a hint of justice or due process. He condemned the Christian religious extremists who want to abolish the separation of church and state in this country then turned around and has been courting their votes ever since. And in his interview the other night on The Daily Show he claimed Bush's "troop surge" was actually a "new strategy".

What about this man could you possibly like? (Except maybe like Guiliani, McCain doesn't stand a chance of being elected. That is OK with me.)

Skeptic Ginger

27th April 2007, 06:20 PM

For the record, I didn't want 2 Bushes either. ;)

It's not arbitrary. It is a very principled reason that dates back to the beginning. ...Well there has been 8 years in between. And none of the dynasties in the USA have been husband and wife so I'd have to say in a Democratic society, you can't compare this situation to any the founding fathers had in mind, nor do we have any evidence it is comparable.

Skeptic Ginger

27th April 2007, 06:24 PM

No, I reject Clinton based on her record.I replied to this after seeing your follow up post. See post 85. If you'd care to comment, I'd be interested.

In particular, are any of the viable candidates for gay marriage? Are any of them against the death penalty in principle?

You can be an honest Kucinich or you can get elected but in this country today, you can't do both.

Schneibster

27th April 2007, 06:56 PM

Speaking of candidates with hot trophy wives, I present Fred Thompson:
http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/7580/saggf1.jpgI dunno, I saw Kucinich's wife on the debate coverage last night and I thought it was pretty clear she's just as much of a nut job as he is.

ETA: Of course nobody held a candle to the guy from Alaska, he made Kucinich look flat friggin' normal.

Skeptic Ginger

27th April 2007, 07:13 PM

Piggy

27th April 2007, 07:18 PM

What about this man could you possibly like?
1. He does not belong to the party that currently controls the legislative branch.

2. He's Machiavellian. His current maneuvers are not necessarily indicative of what he would actually do if he were to gain the oval office.

FYI, note that I'm not arguing against the points you raise. I see those points the same way you do, but I'm not as idealistic as you are. I've made my peace with the devil. I'm here to do my bit to help destroy the world, which I do every day merely by living the American lifestyle.

Schneibster

27th April 2007, 07:27 PM

Kucinich is in no way a "nut job". He's a idealist, but he's quite rational and sensible. Maybe not realistic, but not irrational.Oh, I don't contend the man's clinically insane, just waaaaayyyyyy out there for trying to run a campaign for President like that. And while I'm sure the two of them are truly amusing people and would be very interesting to sit around and chat with, I'm equally certain that neither of them is getting anywhere near the White House.

The only irrational thing if you assume speaking your mind honestly is rational, is why impeach Cheney and not Bush as well?Well, I didn't have a problem with that; it's the old joke about what you call 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea:

A great start.

Skeptic Ginger

27th April 2007, 11:01 PM

Kucinich and Nadar both, Schneibster. But when you actually look at their beliefs and values, they do come closer to reality than the politicians hoping to get elected dare.

Skeptic Ginger

27th April 2007, 11:03 PM

1. He does not belong to the party that currently controls the legislative branch.

2. He's Machiavellian. His current maneuvers are not necessarily indicative of what he would actually do if he were to gain the oval office.

FYI, note that I'm not arguing against the points you raise. I see those points the same way you do, but I'm not as idealistic as you are. I've made my peace with the devil. I'm here to do my bit to help destroy the world, which I do every day merely by living the American lifestyle.If you watched or can find the time to watch via podcast, Bill Moyer's interview with Jon Stewart that aired tonight, there's a discussion of McCain well worth seeing.

Schneibster

28th April 2007, 12:55 AM

Kucinich and Nadar both, Schneibster. But when you actually look at their beliefs and values, they do come closer to reality than the politicians hoping to get elected dare.Yep. People don't want to believe there's no Oomphel In the Sky where you go when you die. It's too much for them. They'd rather kill the different ones.

I still haven't absolutely made my mind up to vote for Edwards and not for Obama in the primary out here. The news about him being on the Intelligence Committee and then voting for the war kinda bothers me.

The Atheist

28th April 2007, 01:05 AM

<sigh> I know. I'm trying to hold back the sea.

I will say this.... Please, this time, let's elect someone with some national and international experience. Haven't we bought our lessons dearly enough already?

If you had a President who made decisions, that might apply, but I think we all pretty much agree that Dubbya never had an original thought in his life and is the puppet of The Party, don't we?

Rudy is my worst nightmare in this race. And I'm hoping Obamania will fade -- he'll be just as smart and eloquent and savvy eight or sixteen years from now, probably moreso... so let's let him get some experience first.

I take it you're Al Gore all the way, then?

Personally, I'd think the less political experience, the better - less time to have ben corrupted.

The Atheist

28th April 2007, 01:08 AM

davefoc

28th April 2007, 01:20 AM

I still haven't absolutely made my mind up to vote for Edwards and not for Obama in the primary out here. The news about him being on the Intelligence Committee and then voting for the war kinda bothers me.

I have mixed feelings about this also. My opinion at the time was that this was one of those rare circumstances in a democracy when it was necessary to trust the executive to do the right thing with out fully understanding the issues. I saw the Democratic vote in favor of giving the president the power to go to war if he felt it was necessary as evidence of non-cynical patriotism on the part of the Democrats who voted for the authorization.

I think to some degree this view was wrong. I had no idea at the time about neocons, or PNAC or the fact that Bushco was dominated by a belief in the aggressive, preemptive use of American force as a standard part of foreign policy. But did the Democrats who voted for war understand this at the time? I don't know. Did they know that war was inevitable once it was authorized? I don't know. I believe Clinton when she says she would not have taken the country to war based on the facts as she now understands them. I believe Edwards would not have taken the country to war either on the facts known at the time. Do you think I am wrong about that? My own cut at it after the invasion and after it became clear that the case for war was much weaker than had been presented was that almost no other Republican that might have been elected president would have gone to war based on the facts known at the time. Do you think I am wrong about that?

Skeptic Ginger

28th April 2007, 02:05 AM

Yep. People don't want to believe there's no Oomphel In the Sky where you go when you die. It's too much for them. They'd rather kill the different ones.

I still haven't absolutely made my mind up to vote for Edwards and not for Obama in the primary out here. The news about him being on the Intelligence Committee and then voting for the war kinda bothers me.
Obama's claim not to have voted for the war is disingenuous since he wasn't a senator then. Almost every one of them voted to give Bush the power to invade. Everyone was in a corner not having evidence of what Bush would do in the future and the country ready to strike back. I have no reason to think Obama wouldn't have been right in there with the rest of them. Do you?

thinkingaboutit

28th April 2007, 02:34 AM

Kucinich is in no way a "nut job". He's a idealist, but he's quite rational and sensible. Maybe not realistic, but not irrational.

The only irrational thing if you assume speaking your mind honestly is rational, is why impeach Cheney and not Bush as well?

I agree with you completely on this. Social visionaries like Kuncinich are the type of leaders that humans beings in general need, in that they aspire to actualize the very best ideals and traits of humanity. In doing so, they not only help bring positive change, but they also change what we consider to be realistic.

Puppycow

28th April 2007, 04:26 AM

Just to give the Barack Obama fans a boost, my buddies at Stormfront are unsurprisingly not really that keen on Obama, but most of them expect him to win.

(If he does, I'd be investing in bulletproof vests, going by some of the replies.)

Didn't know what Stormfront (http://www.stormfront.org/forum/) was so I Googled it; now I know. Are you a White Nationalist?

Also, are you the one who voted for Tancredo?

Dr Adequate

28th April 2007, 04:59 AM

Didn't know what Stormfront (http://www.stormfront.org/forum/) was so I Googled it; now I know. Are you a White Nationalist? I'm guessing he trolls them, especially as his comment is intended to "give Barack Obama fans a boost".

Piggy

28th April 2007, 05:56 AM

If you had a President who made decisions, that might apply, but I think we all pretty much agree that Dubbya never had an original thought in his life and is the puppet of The Party, don't we?
No. That's way too simplistic. The problem is, this guy does, in fact, make decisions. And for too long, many rank-and-filers rubber stamped those decisions because Bush was a good campaigner (horrible governer, but oh so electable), because the party strategy was unity behind a simple message, and because Rove and Addington are vicious thugs who will do everything they can to destroy you if you cross them.

Personally, I'd think the less political experience, the better - less time to have ben corrupted.

That strategy makes no sense to me. Would you choose a company CEO because he had no experience in business?

We too often forget that POTUS is an executive, bureaucratic position. Knights in shining armor do not fare well in that office.

Piggy

28th April 2007, 06:00 AM

If you watched or can find the time to watch via podcast, Bill Moyer's interview with Jon Stewart that aired tonight, there's a discussion of McCain well worth seeing.

Thanks. Will do. If you find a URL, please post or PM. (I've never seen a podcast.)

I saw a snippet, discussing Gonzales, which was right on target.

Puppycow

28th April 2007, 07:06 AM

Anyone who didn't catch the debate among the democrats on TV can see it here on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euC1t7FHPwM).

I found a brief exerpt of the Moyers interview with Stewart here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEgZUpgJnqE).

Here (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/profile.html) you can watch the same exerpt of the Moyers interview with Stewart, and it says the full video will be posted on the 28th.

Piggy

28th April 2007, 09:50 AM

I found a transcript of the Moyers/Stewart interview but the string "mccain" does not appear in it.

Skeptic Ginger

28th April 2007, 11:16 AM

I found a transcript of the Moyers/Stewart interview but the string "mccain" does not appear in it.If you were looking at this transcript (http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_stewart.html), it isn't the one. This is from 2003 and from the program, Now. The interview from Friday is Moyer's new program, Journal.

Here's the correct transcript (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/transcript1.html) and it looks like you can watch the segment as well.

BILL MOYERS: You know, we watched the McCain interview you did this week. Something was going on in that interview that I have not seen in any other interview you've done with a political figure. What was going on in your head?

JON STEWART: In my head?

BILL MOYERS: Yeah.

JON STEWART: Are his arms long enough to connect with me if he comes across the table?

CLIP: THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART

JON STEWART: The American people, or at least the ones that I get on the subway with — they know there's a real threat out there. They felt like Iraq lessened our ability to fight that threat. So when they say that-that's when I — when they say the talking point is "they'll follow us home," they're trying to follow us home anyway, whether we're in Iraq or not.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: I know that, look. Bill Russell, a famous philosopher from Boston Celtics once "When things go bad, things go bad." The war was terribly mismanaged-it was terribly mismanaged.

JON STEWART: But then why not be honest about that? Why attack the people who question.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: : We are where we are now. We are where we are now. The question is: can we give this strategy a chance? I'm emphasizing a chance to succeed with a great general, and I think-

JON STEWART: Why should we? Why?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Because the architects of failure are ignoring this.

JON STEWART: If the architects that built the house without any doors or windows don't admit that that's the house they built and continue to say: "No, it's your fault for not being able to see into it," then I don't understand how we're supposed to move forward.

END CLIP: THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART

JON STEWART: I don't particularly enjoy those types of interviews, because I have a great respect for Senator McCain, and I hate the idea that our conversation became just two people sort of talking over each other, at one point.

But I, also, in my head, thought, I would love to do an interview where it's just sort of de-constructed — the talking points of Iraq — sort of the idea of, is this really the conversation we're having about this war? That if we don't defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, they'll follow us home? That to support the troops means not to question that the surge could work. That, what we're really seeing in Iraq is not a terrible war, but in fact, just the media's portrayal of it. So, I wanted to just go through-- like, is this really the conversation that we're going other be having about something as significant as this war?

CUT TO CLIP: THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART

JON STEWART: They say that if asking for a timetable or criticizing the president is not supporting the troops. Explain to me why that is supporting the troops less than extending their tours of duty from 12 months to 15 months, putting them at stop-loss, and not having Walter Reed be up to snuff. How is it? How can the president justify that? How can he have the balls to justify that?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: All I can say is that if you talk to these young men and women who are fighting, they'll tell you that they think it's a worthwhile cause, and they're fighting for freedom, and they-well, they-all I'm saying-the overwhelming majority of them do. I hear from them all the time.

JON STEWART: The majority of the guys that I talk say "The political scene is not my scene; I'm a soldier."

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: I talk to them all the time, my friend, and I hear from them all the time. They know. I know what war's like. I know what scene's like. And I'm telling you that they believe that they're fighting for somebody else's freedom. And the majority of them believe that.

JON STEWART: I don't think that...

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Now you're entitled to your views. But the view of the majority of them is that feel they're doing the right thing and their parents who have also made sacrifices, generally speaking, and their proud of the services of their sons and daughters.

JON STEWART: No one's saying that they shouldn't be proud of their service

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: and I'm proud of them too.

JON STEWART: Very unfair way to deal with this issue. It certainly is. It certainly is. What's less supportive of them is — Settle down for a second.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: No, you settle down — that they're fighting in a war that they lost. That's not fair to them.

JON STEWART: What I believe is less supportive to the good people who believe they're fighting a great cause is to not give them a strategy, that makes their success possible-

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: We now have a strategy.

JON STEWART: Adding 10,000 people to Baghdad? Add 350,000, then we might have a shot.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: I don't know that that strategy will succeed, but we do have a new strategy. That's a fact.

JON STEWART: All I'm saying is you cannot look a soldier in the eye and say "Questioning the president is less supportive to you than extending your tour three months." You should be coming home to your family.

END CLIP: THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART:

BILL MOYERS: I saw McCain shrivel. I mean, he's been on your show...

JON STEWART: He didn't believe me. I think anybody who's been in a POW camp for five years can-- take eight minutes on THE DAILY SHOW.

BILL MOYERS: But something happened. You saw it happen to him. What you saw was evasive action. It wasn't shriveling, it was merely

[I think there is an error in the transcript here and Stewart made the comment about evasive action]

BILL MOYERS: But he dropped his head, and you could you could

JON STEWART: Actually, he-- began to he stopped connecting and just looked at my chest and decided, "I'm just gonna continue to talk about honor and duty and the families should be proud," all the things that are cudgels emotionally to keep us from the conversation. But, things that weren't relevant to what we were talking about.

BILL MOYERS: So many people seem to want just what you did, somebody to cut through the talking points, and get our politicians to talk candidly and frankly. And I know you...

JON STEWART: Not that many people. You've seen our ratings. Some people want it. A couple of people download it from iTunes.

BILL MOYERS: But it was this time, this moment, this week that you decided that, what it

JON STEWART: That's right.

BILL MOYERS: Coming back to him.

JON STEWART: Well, it's also at the fore now, because the Senate and the House are working on timetables, which by the way, who knows if that's an issue, either. It's but it's again, the conversation that the Senate and the House are having with the President was very similar to the conversation that McCain and I were having, which was two people talking over each other and nobody really addressing the underlying issues of what kind of country do we want to be, moving forward in this? And it's not about being a pacifist or-- suggesting that you can never have a military solution to things. It's just that, it appears that this is not the smart way to fight this threat.

BILL MOYERS: Your persistence and his inability to answer without the talking points did get to the truth, that there's a contradiction to what's going on in Vietnam in there's a contradiction. Yeah, exactly, that there's a contradiction to what's going on in that war, that they can't talk about. [Moyers corrected himself, he meant Iraq, not Vietnam]

JON STEWART: That's right. There is a there is an enormous contradiction, and it is readily apparent, if you just walk through simple sort of logic, and simple rational points. But the thing that they don't realize is that everyone wants them to come from beyond that contradiction so that we can all fix it. Nobody is saying, "We don't have a problem." Nobody is saying that, "9/11 didn't happen." What they're saying is, "We're not a fragile country, trust us to have this conversation, so that we can do this in the right way, in a more effective way." emphasis and corrections in [] are mine

McCain was in denial, he thinks because the soldiers are patriotic that means the war is right when of course the soldiers think that, they have to or they wouldn't be there. The soldiers belief they are fighting a good fight is hardly evidence it is a good fight. But McCain wouldn't discuss the real issues with Stewart. Instead he seemed to be living the slogans, not just repeating them. In other words, if there was a real strategy and McCain had a better explanation than "because the terrorists will follow us home" then I believe McCain could have articulated that rationale and said more about just what the 'plan' was besides 10,000 more troops and a new general. But McCain could not articulate any more than the level of the slogan.

Schneibster

28th April 2007, 12:07 PM

Thanks, SG, I missed that one.

Schneibster

28th April 2007, 12:33 PM

I have mixed feelings about this also. My opinion at the time was that this was one of those rare circumstances in a democracy when it was necessary to trust the executive to do the right thing with out fully understanding the issues. I saw the Democratic vote in favor of giving the president the power to go to war if he felt it was necessary as evidence of non-cynical patriotism on the part of the Democrats who voted for the authorization.I cannot comment, since I was aware of a great deal more, the things you mention below were just the tip of the iceberg. I don't (can't) know what I'd have thought had I not known what I knew; but knowing it, my reaction was highly negative. In fact, I predicted at the time that it would be a quagmire that would make Viet Nam pale in comparison, that it would overstress the military, and that Osama bin Laden would not be caught as a result. I predicted furthermore that there were in fact no WMD, but incorrectly predicted that they would "find" some that they had planted. If they did so, it was not sufficient to alter the opinion of most folks that there weren't any, as early as nine months into the war. I also incorrectly predicted that we would not find Saddam. I predicted that Iraq would provide the springboard for justification for war with Iran; the correctness or incorrectness of that prediction remains to be seen, but it's looking wrong for reasons I should probably have predicted from my other predictions, primarily my prediction of overstress to the military. Oh, and finally, I also correctly predicted that we would be in a diplomatic quagmire that stretched far further than the Middle East as a result, and here we are.

Part of the problem is that I feel that both Clinton and Edwards should have taken the time to do the research to know at least some of what I knew; I can't tell you that I think this is necessarily a fair assessment, though I also don't think it's unfair. This is a fact that makes me waver, rather than jump on the Barack Bandwagon right away.

I think to some degree this view was wrong. I'm unclear on which view you are commenting on; whether your own perception or that of the Senators. I have to guess based on what follows that you mean your own, but actually, I think both were wrong, and for the same reason I stated above; I am not, however, disappointed in you because you are not a Senator. ;)

I had no idea at the time about neocons, or PNAC or the fact that Bushco was dominated by a belief in the aggressive, preemptive use of American force as a standard part of foreign policy. But did the Democrats who voted for war understand this at the time? I don't know. More to the point, should they have taken the time to find out before they voted on it? I believe so, and I believe that John Edwards had information that, had he considered it carefully, would have led him to do so, and to discover information that, had he shared it on the floor (which he could do since it was not classified- the classified information should have led him, in other words, to find that which was not) might have denied Bush what he needed to make this huge mistake.

And again, I don't know whether that's enough to sway me permanently away from Edwards and to Obama, but it certainly militates toward that conclusion.

Did they know that war was inevitable once it was authorized? I don't know. I sure did, but there again, I apparently knew more. I predicted when I saw the outcome of the vote that we would be at war very shortly, and we were.

I believe Clinton when she says she would not have taken the country to war based on the facts as she now understands them. I believe Edwards would not have taken the country to war either on the facts known at the time. Do you think I am wrong about that? No. I agree with you. It's my contention rather that they should have known at the time that it was going to be a mess, and that it would be a Bad Idea that would bite back come 2008 election season.

My own cut at it after the invasion and after it became clear that the case for war was much weaker than had been presented was that almost no other Republican that might have been elected president would have gone to war based on the facts known at the time. Do you think I am wrong about that?Hmmmm, I'm not so sure about that one, Darth Cheney comes to mind, and so do several others.

I think McCain is a loose cannon, and wouldn't care to predict what he might do; that interview on The Daily Show was most revealing and basically proved several things I've been saying for a while about him. To be completely fair to McCain, I'm not sure he's not stuck between the Devil and the deep blue sea, but a more creative man might strike a bargain a little closer to where the bulk of the US citizens are. What's really scary to me is that I might be wrong and for him to do so might well lose him the Republican nomination; the idea that there are enough Republicans, even after all we have seen since last summer, who haven't yet figured out what has been done to them along with the rest of us, who wouldn't vote for him if he doesn't do the "support the pResident, support the war, support the troops" dance makes me weep for our country.

ETA: Another point of evidence that comes to mind is the radical change in Giuliani's positions. Republicans, please step back from the zero-sum mentality and look at what is happening in our country. It's time to clean house. Please.

Schneibster

28th April 2007, 02:56 PM

Obama's claim not to have voted for the war is disingenuous since he wasn't a senator then. Almost every one of them voted to give Bush the power to invade. Everyone was in a corner not having evidence of what Bush would do in the future and the country ready to strike back. I have no reason to think Obama wouldn't have been right in there with the rest of them. Do you?Nope. And I agree it's disingenuous. I'll say this for Barack, though: if he was weak on foreign policy, he's looking a lot better now, and that argues that he's quick on the uptake and smart, both of which are important. My primary concern with him remains his relative youth, and at least apparent lack of experience. The President is the chief executive of the administration, which does most of the business that keeps the country going from the standpoint of actual government which affects our lives. I just don't know how ready he is to take that on.

Changing the subject, Dodd continues to impress me. I ain't voting for him yet, but that could change if he gains momentum. And Biden made a really good shot with that "Yes." I guess really the only ones extremely unlikely to get my vote in the primaries are Kucinich, Gravel, and maybe Richardson, although Richardson didn't hurt himself in the debate from my point of view and might have helped himself some; I just have trouble with some of his ideology.

Hillary has baggage, which is the biggest problem with her as a Presidential candidate in my view. I'd love to see a woman as President, but I don't think she's the one; not through any fault of her own, mind you, just circumstances. Barack may well be the first non-caucasian President, just not this time around; I'd love to have the chance to vote for him in a later campaign, as well. But his inexperience concerns me.

Among Hillary, Barack, Biden, Dodd, and Edwards, I'd vote for any of them in the general election, without hesitation, over anyone I see on the Republican side, particularly now that they're campaigning to the "Republican base" and we can see what they are having to promise to them. As far as actually being President and getting the bread sliced, I'd put Edwards, Hillary, and Biden best for that, with Dodd close behind and perhaps in that group; Barack next, similarly very close behind but just edged by Dodd; Richardson a bit behind Barack, but with better foreign policy credentials; and Kucinich rather more behind that, due to what I see as an idealism that would interfere with his ability to get the job done both when dealing with other countries and when dealing with governors and the Congress; and finally with Gravel trailing the pack by a large margin.

But a primary isn't just about which one would make the best President; it's also about which one would make the best candidate, because it doesn't matter how good a President you'd be if you can't get elected. So far I think Edwards has the least baggage, and frankly I like his healthcare plan; the one place I have trouble with him is on immigration policy. He's a little weak on education, too. I'd like to see him get questions on those, and on energy policy. But the campaign is young. From the point of view of being able to beat what I see on the Republican side, I see that as his greatest strength, and it's the reason I favor him over Hillary and Barack at this time.

Skeptic Ginger

28th April 2007, 02:59 PM

Bush also reassured those Democrats he needed the credibility he could invade in order to not have to invade.

Who knew then how hard this admin was working to grab as much power for the exec branch as they possibly could and who knew what they were going to do once they had all that power? If you are following the Gonzales/justice department scandal at all the picture is clear what they would do if they could get away with it.

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely" has certainly not refuted by the actions of this crowd.

Skeptic Ginger

28th April 2007, 03:10 PM

I have no doubt Obama's intelligent. But he's inexperienced and this is a bad time to have more inexperience in charge of the country.

I'll wait and see how Hillary's campaign goes to correct the false image that has been portrayed about her before deciding on my final choice. This may be hard to imagine for you males out there but the news media have applied the typical bias about women leaders unfairly to Mrs Clinton, and the Republicans certainly haven't missed the opportunity to amplify that image.

Chris Matthew's little off camera caught on mike chat with Tom Delay epitomized the bias when they joked about "no one likes a woman know it all". Someone has already posted broomstick jokes and the b word version of witch and none of it can really be justified. You don't hear the same category of comments about male candidates.

If Hillary can overcome that B$, she'll probably get my vote. If she can't, well there's no way I want another Republican in the White House because we put up a candidate with an Achilles heel.

In reality, they all either have baggage or inexperience. But in the debate, they mostly looked pretty good.

Schneibster

28th April 2007, 03:22 PM

I by and large agree with your assessment of Hillary. She definitely has the experience, and definitely represents many of my positions well; on the ones that really matter to me, she's where I want the person I would vote for to be. The problem is that Achilles heel.

As for your comments on Bush's justifications, I had enough information to identify them as such at that time. My only source of astonishment with respect to what the administration has tried to do has been how bold they apparently have been, not that they would try it.

The Atheist

28th April 2007, 08:35 PM

Didn't know what Stormfront (http://www.stormfront.org/forum/) was so I Googled it; now I know. Are you a White Nationalist?

Also, are you the one who voted for Tancredo?

Never even heard of Tancredo. I voted Obama, simply because he's the first US politician who has made a positive impression on me since...

since.....

(I'll get back to you on that.)

I'd be attempting to find out more if my vote actually counted, but superficially, he looks ok. I find that people whose opinion I do take notice of seem to like him as well and they're far more knowledgeable than me, so until shown otherwise, he gets my vote.

I'm guessing he trolls them, especially as his comment is intended to "give Barack Obama fans a boost".

I neither troll at Stormfront, nor am I a White Nationalist. Of every forum, I'd say Stormfront has the most stringent posting rules and trolls never even make the forum. I hardly ever post there, but I was interested in getting opinions of the far end of the spectrum from here - there maybe a racist or two here, but I'd be surprised if any KKK were members.

Stormfront is a place best visited on an empty stomach - some of their stuff is pretty harsh - both AK47s and assassination have been mentioned in connection with Obama in about 30-odd posts. Some of the people there are seriously insane. Strangely, some of them aren't, too. A minority.

knot

28th April 2007, 08:46 PM

Kind of scary. I don't know if I belong here. So many democrats. I am far from being a neo-con. However, I'm even further from being a liberal. I like being independent but it makes voting extremely difficult.

The Atheist

28th April 2007, 08:47 PM

That strategy makes no sense to me. Would you choose a company CEO because he had no experience in business?

Funnily enough, that idea has been remarkably successful on many occasions. I could come up with a large list of companies who have chosen CEOs from outside the square. You mightn't choose one because he is inexperienced, but choosing one in spite of having inexperience can be a winning plan.

See, you already touched on it with Rove and party unity - the President might be the CEO, but he has a large board behind him. If it were down to Dubbya alone, he would have died the first night.

Obama's got to be better than that.

Your elections are in November '08, right? We might be able to give you a good guide as our likely next Prime Minister is going to be a bloke with far less political experience than Obama. (And this is not my heart speaking; I won't be voting for him)

As someone noted, it does raise a worry for Obama's camp, though - those who are sick of Bush may see parallels in levels of experience and be turned off Obama accordingly.

JamesDillon

28th April 2007, 08:51 PM

Schneibster

28th April 2007, 09:48 PM

Oh, I never said he's a novice; but an experienced executive? Hmmmm. I'm concerned.

Skeptic Ginger

28th April 2007, 10:35 PM

Funnily enough, that idea has been remarkably successful on many occasions. I could come up with a large list of companies who have chosen CEOs from outside the square. You mightn't choose one because he is inexperienced, but choosing one in spite of having inexperience can be a winning plan.
....Care to name a company with an inexperienced CEO?

hgc

28th April 2007, 10:46 PM

Care to name a company with an inexperienced CEO?

Hudsucker Industries.

You know... for kids!

Skeptic Ginger

28th April 2007, 11:16 PM

I haven't read the entire thread, so apologies if this has been previously raised, but, Obama isn't that lacking in political experience. He was a member of the Illinois legistlature for about ten years, and will have been in the Senate for four if he wins the 2008 election. He was also a professor of constitutional law before entering politics. He may not have the most extensive political C.V. of the bunch, but he's hardly a novice.

Obama's experience:
undergrad deg. 1983 -> worked for one year at Business International Corporation
law degree 1988-1991
an associate attorney with Miner, Barnhill & Galland from 1993 to 1996
lecturer of constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1993 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004
8 years illinois senate, 1996-2004
In 2000, he made an unsuccessful Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives
1-4-05, us senate

I couldn't find anything in the Law Review he had written but he seems competent enough in his field. We don't know what lecturing at U of Chicago means, unless someone else tracks it down. He could have been anything from a guest lecturer to a full time professor, you know how these things are written up on resumes. A lot of this stuff overlaps and he was campaigning a bit of the time he was in the state senate.

So, all in all, intelligent, competent, seems on the right side of the issues, but I still don't see the kind of experience we really should expect of our leaders. Not that it means we won't elect another person without experience.

What you get from experience you do not get from education and intelligence. To think one can just take charge of the United States with so little experience because we elect people on sound bites and image is bad enough. But at this time, with the country in the huge mess it is in, this is no time for inexperience. And despite the fact the above looks like a lot of experience to some of you, it just isn't.

Skeptic Ginger

28th April 2007, 11:19 PM

Hudsucker Industries.

You know... for kids!Good movie for sure. Mail room to CEO, wasn't it?

JamesDillon

28th April 2007, 11:42 PM

What you get from experience you do not get from education and intelligence. To think one can just take charge of the United States with so little experience because we elect people on sound bites and image is bad enough. But at this time, with the country in the huge mess it is in, this is no time for inexperience. And despite the fact the above looks like a lot of experience to some of you, it just isn't.

That certainly makes sense, and I haven't taken a lot of time to research this, nor do I have a great degree of personal knowledge, but is there much historical support for the proposition that significant management and/or executive experience is a necessary or sufficient qualification of a good president of the United States? Just off the top of my head, I don't believe that Washington, or Lincoln, or John Kennedy had much more political or managerial experience than Obama at the time they were elected (though perhaps Washington is a bad example). While of course it makes sense intuitively that having some kind of previous executive experience would be valuable, it occurs to me that the office of President of the United States is arguably sui generis, and not really directly comparable to that of CEO of a company. That being the case, I suspect that any president is going to have strengths and weaknesses based on his prior life experience before occupying the office, but it's not immediately clear to me that someone who has spent substantial time in legal academia and the state and federal legislatures is necessarily less qualified for the position than an experienced CEO.

ARubberChickenWithAPulley

29th April 2007, 12:05 AM

I didn't see Schwarzenegger on the list.

What gives?

Skeptic Ginger

29th April 2007, 12:16 AM

That certainly makes sense, and I haven't taken a lot of time to research this, nor do I have a great degree of personal knowledge, but is there much historical support for the proposition that significant management and/or executive experience is a necessary or sufficient qualification of a good president of the United States? Just off the top of my head, I don't believe that Washington, or Lincoln, or John Kennedy had much more political or managerial experience than Obama at the time they were elected (though perhaps Washington is a bad example). While of course it makes sense intuitively that having some kind of previous executive experience would be valuable, it occurs to me that the office of President of the United States is arguably sui generis, and not really directly comparable to that of CEO of a company. That being the case, I suspect that any president is going to have strengths and weaknesses based on his prior life experience before occupying the office, but it's not immediately clear to me that someone who has spent substantial time in legal academia and the state and federal legislatures is necessarily less qualified for the position than an experienced CEO.

From Wiki:Kennedy's leadership during the USS PT-109 incident during the Second World War in the South Pacific was a turning point in his life. Kennedy represented the state of Massachusetts from 1947 to 1960, first as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and then, in the U.S. Senate. That's a lot of years in Congress, not in a state legislature and he had a command in the Navy during war. That's also a tad more than President of the Harvard Law Review.

You can't compare historical Presidents for 2 reasons. The politics and running the country were completely different 100+ years ago, and we only have history to tell us how great these guys really were. History in this case is bogus. American history texts teach about chopping down cherry trees and returning pennies by great effort. That's not history, that's hero manufacturing.

And it's a darn good thing we had an experienced person in the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Look at what having an incompetent President during the 9/11 crisis resulted in. Not that I'm equating incompetence with inexperience.

Again, it makes a bigger difference now than if we weren't in a messy war and facing huge deficits. Inexperienced presidents take time to get accustomed to the job. They don't hit the ground running. If there's one argument really going for Hillary, she knows that specific job. We can't afford to lose any time after Bush is gone waiting for the new guy to figure out the ropes. We need someone to start correcting Bush's mess right away.

The Atheist

29th April 2007, 12:51 AM

Care to name a company with an inexperienced CEO?

Fairfax Media (http://www.fxj.com.au/)

Schneibster

29th April 2007, 12:54 AM

If I was confident she could get elected, I'd be a lot more likely to vote for her in the primary. As it stands, I'm still pretty strong for Edwards.

Skeptic Ginger

29th April 2007, 01:13 AM

Fairfax Media (http://www.fxj.com.au/)Hardly inexperienced: (http://edition.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/01/05/boardroom.davidkirk/)At 46 years old he's been a Rhodes scholar, a doctor, an author, a management consultant at McKinsey, a senior advisor to a prime minister and is now CEO of the venerable Australian newspaper group, Fairfax, publisher of such titles as the Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review.Then there is all the Rugby stuff.

Puppycow

29th April 2007, 04:39 AM

I didn't see Schwarzenegger on the list.

What gives?

Schwarzenegger isn't eligible to run for president because he is a naturalized US citizen (originally an Austrian). A rule that should be changed but I don't see any liklihood that it will be anytime soon.

Piggy

29th April 2007, 10:43 AM

If you were looking at this transcript (http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_stewart.html), it isn't the one. This is from 2003 and from the program, Now. The interview from Friday is Moyer's new program, Journal.

Here's the correct transcript (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/transcript1.html) and it looks like you can watch the segment as well.

emphasis and corrections in [] are mine

McCain was in denial, he thinks because the soldiers are patriotic that means the war is right when of course the soldiers think that, they have to or they wouldn't be there. The soldiers belief they are fighting a good fight is hardly evidence it is a good fight. But McCain wouldn't discuss the real issues with Stewart. Instead he seemed to be living the slogans, not just repeating them. In other words, if there was a real strategy and McCain had a better explanation than "because the terrorists will follow us home" then I believe McCain could have articulated that rationale and said more about just what the 'plan' was besides 10,000 more troops and a new general. But McCain could not articulate any more than the level of the slogan.

I disagree with you there. I'm a big fan of Stewart -- not just his show, not just his humor, but his ideas as well -- but in this case I think he was correct that they were talking over each other's heads. In fact, at the most significant points, they weren't talking about the same things. And it was more Stewart than McCain, it seems, who kept gravitating back to his own pet subject rather than deal with what McCain was talking about.

Fwiw, I support Petraeus and the troop surge (which was in fact accompanied by new tactics, even if Bush -- for reasons I cannot fathom -- has consistently failed to articulate them), and I oppose attempts by Congress to pick arbitrary dates for redeployment.

So actually, that bit hasn't made me think any worse of McCain.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not rah-rah for anyone. I'm just saying, if I had to vote tomorrow, McCain would likely get my mark.

Thanks for following up.

ConspiRaider

29th April 2007, 10:59 AM

Schwarzenegger isn't eligible to run for president because he is a naturalized US citizen (originally an Austrian). A rule that should be changed but I don't see any liklihood that it will be anytime soon.
I think it's a great rule, that portion of Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution.

The logic is obvious: It tends to underscore the Prez's loyalty to the USA, having been born here. And, it removes a built-in bias. What if an Afghani, later naturalized as a U.S. citizen and elected President, had to deal harshly with Afghanistan? How about a naturalized Sudanese - how would that affect his or her evaluation of Darfur? And in Ahnold's case - what if Vienna got out of line over there in Austria? What if his hometown was a key bottleneck in a military operation and needed to be invaded - could he order it?

The exceedingly silly right-wing in this country wants Ahnold as Prez because he's got big steroid-pumped muscles and they think he'll kick ass on other nations that don't bend to their will.

Ain't gonna happen, Dana Rohrbacher. Not a bit of it.

Skeptic Ginger

29th April 2007, 03:05 PM

I disagree with you there. I'm a big fan of Stewart -- not just his show, not just his humor, but his ideas as well -- but in this case I think he was correct that they were talking over each other's heads. In fact, at the most significant points, they weren't talking about the same things. And it was more Stewart than McCain, it seems, who kept gravitating back to his own pet subject rather than deal with what McCain was talking about.

Fwiw, I support Petraeus and the troop surge (which was in fact accompanied by new tactics, even if Bush -- for reasons I cannot fathom -- has consistently failed to articulate them), and I oppose attempts by Congress to pick arbitrary dates for redeployment.

So actually, that bit hasn't made me think any worse of McCain.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not rah-rah for anyone. I'm just saying, if I had to vote tomorrow, McCain would likely get my mark.

Thanks for following up.

Talking past each other, on the face of it of course they were. So then let's look at what each was saying.

Stewart sees the "surge" as a slogan, a stall tactic, meaningless except to appear to be doing something different.

McCain thinks with some change in strategy the Iraq war can have a good outcome. And apparently McCain felt the "surge" was meaningfully different.

McCain could not articulate anything convincing as to how the surge was going to change a thing. Stewart said 10,000 more troops was not enough to have any real effect.

McCain thinks the Iraq war either was correct in the first place (that's enough right there to question his judgment) or regardless, we can't just leave. To express the sentiment of a just cause for being there, McCain used patriotic flag waving of the fact the soldiers believe in their fight.

Stewart correctly called McCain on the fact that soldier patriotism was not evidence we are taking the right course of action. Stewart understood McCain's statement about the patriotic soldiers. Stewart came right back saying, the soldiers he had talked to said they didn't pay attention to the politics (the why or should), only the job at hand. Faced with a legitimate challenge to the patriotic soldier evidence, McCain was not able to defend his claim there was evidence of a just cause and/or correct strategy. McCain invoked the, "I was a soldier, I know" as supporting evidence but that is really a red herring.

And Stewart's other point which he has stated before, was the claims made about how important the war is are not consistent with the actions the country (IE via our leaders) is actually taking to fight it. Either Bush and other war supporters are exaggerating the benefits of this fight, exaggerating the risk of leaving, or simply don't believe in it themselves as wholeheartedly as they claim.

I think Stewart's questions and comments were clear and McCain's answers reflected his inability to articulate those answers because McCain doesn't have the answers. McCain like most people have some general belief, a picture of what they foresee the end result to be. But the details of how one gets there are conveniently fuzzy. Why think about that until the time comes?

Since this thread is about the candidates for 08 rather than the war strategy itself, I won't expand off into that topic except where it relates to these candidates' positions. But I do think you'd be hard pressed to find the surge had or will have any impact on things. The underlying mess is not just some insurgents. And until the candidates start talking about the the war in more than just sound bites, it's going to be hard to know just what they will actually do.

Obama, "If Bush doesn't get us out of there, I will."
McCain, "We have to win."
Guiliani, (the latest), "Republicans want to fight offense against the war on terror, Democrats want to fight defense."

I do believe we are hearing something more like, you can count on the war not ending because the whole Republican campaign is going to be this theme.

Regarding the pullout dates, I need to start a new thread. If nothing changes in a year, in two years, in five, then you still want to just go on and on? It's been over 4 years now. Nothing has gotten better, things have gotten worse. We are growing terrorists not eliminating them. But I have a lot more to say about the "how do you end it" than just setting a date so that needs another thread.

Puppycow

29th April 2007, 06:14 PM

I think it's a great rule, that portion of Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution.

The logic is obvious: It tends to underscore the Prez's loyalty to the USA, having been born here. And, it removes a built-in bias. What if an Afghani, later naturalized as a U.S. citizen and elected President, had to deal harshly with Afghanistan? How about a naturalized Sudanese - how would that affect his or her evaluation of Darfur? And in Ahnold's case - what if Vienna got out of line over there in Austria? What if his hometown was a key bottleneck in a military operation and needed to be invaded - could he order it?

The exceedingly silly right-wing in this country wants Ahnold as Prez because he's got big steroid-pumped muscles and they think he'll kick ass on other nations that don't bend to their will.

Ain't gonna happen, Dana Rohrbacher. Not a bit of it.

Are you saying that the American people aren't savvy enough to correctly evaluate the importance of such facts when considering who to vote for?

ARubberChickenWithAPulley

29th April 2007, 07:21 PM

Schwarzenegger isn't eligible to run for president because he is a naturalized US citizen (originally an Austrian). A rule that should be changed but I don't see any liklihood that it will be anytime soon.

I know, I was just making a joke. You know, famous actor, California governor, Republican... :)

Plus, it was mentioned in Demolition Man!

ETA: I'm actually quite curious how many people would vote for him, in a hypothetical situation where he could run.

The Atheist

29th April 2007, 07:35 PM

Hardly inexperienced: (http://edition.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/01/05/boardroom.davidkirk/)Then there is all the Rugby stuff.

In terms of business, he was a babe in the woods.

We're not talking about snatching some baby from the cradle here - Obama is a similar age and has a similarly distinguished career behind him, just not in politics. Ditto David Kirk - he had no track record in business beyond a short-term stint as CEO of a forestry company in NZ. For one of the major media groups to pick him as CEO was staggering. Interestingly, Kirk stood for Parliament a few years back and failed miserably to win a winnable seat. His first desire had always been politics. Maybe in Oz....

Darth Rotor

29th April 2007, 07:56 PM

So, is it too early to start talking about the candidates for 2012?
Why not, though it's all a bit of wasted breath in the long term.

In 2112 the government will be the Priests of the Temple of Cyrinx. Their great computers, will fill the hallowed hallows.

DR

Darth Rotor

29th April 2007, 08:00 PM

He installed inexperienced party or religious loyalists to key positions with disastrous results.
Don Rumsfeld was inexperienced? He'd been Sec Def before . . . like him or not, like his track record or not (a bit too Silver Bullet for my taste) he was hardly inexperienced, and I didn't note him as a Fundy blowhard either. Of course, he chose to assume away a lot of matter in Iraq, with the well known result. :(

Methinks you are remembering through a fog of rage and foam, however, in your characterization of the talent search.

Colin Powell, inexperienced??

But I am quibbling. Bolton at the UN struck me as an odd choice.

DR

Skeptic Ginger

29th April 2007, 11:55 PM

In terms of business, he was a babe in the woods.

We're not talking about snatching some baby from the cradle here - Obama is a similar age and has a similarly distinguished career behind him, just not in politics. Ditto David Kirk - he had no track record in business beyond a short-term stint as CEO of a forestry company in NZ. For one of the major media groups to pick him as CEO was staggering. Interestingly, Kirk stood for Parliament a few years back and failed miserably to win a winnable seat. His first desire had always been politics. Maybe in Oz....He didn't look inexperienced to me. Why did you just include my Rugby comment in your post?

You are talking about running a corporation vs running a country. The amount and type of experience differ considerably. There are a lot of young CEOs that started their own mega-businesses like Microsoft and Google. You only need to be very talented in certain aspects of business like spotting market trends ahead of the crowd and hiring great talent.

Running a country there is hiring great talent but it is talent in many different fields and specific to the current situation. There is tricky foreign relations and working with the other branches of government.

A very special talented person could do that sometimes, but this is just not the time to test a new leader. We need someone we know can deal with the problems Bush is leaving behind, not someone who might be good.

Skeptic Ginger

30th April 2007, 12:41 AM

Don Rumsfeld was inexperienced? He'd been Sec Def before . . . like him or not, like his track record or not (a bit too Silver Bullet for my taste) he was hardly inexperienced, and I didn't note him as a Fundy blowhard either. Of course, he chose to assume away a lot of matter in Iraq, with the well known result. :(

Methinks you are remembering through a fog of rage and foam, however, in your characterization of the talent search.

Colin Powell, inexperienced??

But I am quibbling. Bolton at the UN struck me as an odd choice.

DRWhat, like Rumsfeld was Bush's only appointment? Where did I say Colin Powell and Rumsfeld had no experience?

Methinks you still haven't figured out I usually know what I am talking about.

You might want to check out the latest 150 inexperienced lawyers Bush installed who came from the Pat Robertson's fourth tier (as in lowest rank) Regent School of Law.

Scandal puts spotlight on Christian law school - Grads influential in Justice Dept. (http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/04/08/scandal_puts_spotlight_on_christian_law_school/)

All Things Considered, March 14, 2007 · When NPR Senior News Analyst Ted Koppel looks at the flap over U.S. attorneys, it reminds him of a movie and a book — and a pattern of the Bush administration. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8904380)

Then there is the Inexperienced 28-Year-Old Bush Staffer Appointed to Critical Homeland Security Post (http://thinkprogress.org/2006/03/09/homeland-security-appointment/).

And how could you have already forgotten , heck of a job Brownie the horse contest commissioner, who was appointed chief of FEMA and showed his incredible talent after hurricane Katrina?

How Reliable Is Brown's Resume? (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1103003,00.html)
When President Bush nominated Michael Brown to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 2003, Brown's boss at the time, Joe Allbaugh, declared, "the President couldn't have chosen a better man to help...prepare and protect the nation." But how well was he prepared for the job? ... Now, an investigation by TIME has found discrepancies in his online legal profile and official bio, including a description of Brown released by the White House at the time of his nomination in 2001 to the job as deputy chief of FEMA. ...Before joining FEMA, his only previous stint in emergency management, according to his bio posted on FEMA's website, was "serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight." The White House press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing the emergency services division." In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an "assistant to the city manager" from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. "The assistant is more like an intern," she told TIME. "Department heads did not report to him."

Of course Brown wouldn't be the only Bush appointee with resume padding.

A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/politics/08nasa.html?ex=1297054800&en=dc3c509d1621f5af&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss) Not that Deutsch had a managerial position, but what he did have was the ability to censor NASA scientists and their research. What kind of work did he do at NASA? Telling NASA employees not to say anything in public about the Big Bang without the caveat the Bible's Creation story was an equally viable theory.

But the worst appointees of all, even worse than the FEMA debacle, were Bush's appointees sent to reconstruct Iraq's government and infrastructure. If you want to know why the war is going so badly, just look at who Bush sent over to rebuild the government. In Iraq, the Job Opportunity of a Lifetime: Managing a $13 Billion Budget With No Experience (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48543-2004May22.html)They supported the war effort and President Bush. Many had strong Republican credentials. They were in their twenties or early thirties and had no foreign service experience. On that first day, Oct. 1, they knew so little about how things worked that they waited hours at the airport for a ride that was never coming. They finally discovered the shuttle bus out of the airport but got off at the wrong stop....more and more senior staffers defected. In short order, six of the new young hires found themselves managing the country's $13 billion budget, making decisions affecting millions of Iraqis....Put another way:Naïve young Republicans given enormous authority in Iraq (http://www.unknownnews.org/040523IraqMgt.html)

Crony Imperialism... (http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004695.php) and so starts the list. But I haven't even gotten to all the crony contracts to rebuild Iraq. Take the money, do shoddy work, overbill, and leave in good standing for the next contract.

I can't believe you thought I was talking about Rumsfeld and Powell. And Bolton wasn't an odd choice for the UN. If you read what some insiders think, it was to get Bolton out of their hair they sent him to the UN. I don't know if that's true but he certainly was not a diplomat.

And we also have Paul Wolfowitz who asked for and got his little pet dream job at the World Bank. Wolfowitz wasn't inexperienced but that was the excuse he gave after people noticed he gave his live in girlfriend a top job with a big salary.

The Bush administration never stops. Just when you can't believe they could do one more incompetent corrupt outrageous thing, they do one better.

Darth Rotor

30th April 2007, 08:41 PM

What, like Rumsfeld was Bush's only appointment? Where did I say Colin Powell and Rumsfeld had no experience?

Methinks you still haven't figured out I usually know what I am talking about.

.
Methinks you are bloviating.
He installed inexperienced party or religious loyalists to key positions with disastrous results.
The disaster in Iraq had nothing to do with those lawyers. These lawyers are the topic of another thread in this forum, or two. If you look at a century long pattern, it was a clumsy way for W to try and influence the swing of a pendulum.

Note: Wolfowitz was also no novice, his days in DoD under GHW Bush being a seasoning, if you will. His cutting and running to World Bank when Iraq soured has been noted by far better men and women than you.

The difference between "inexperience" and "stupid" or "misguided" or "bad policy based on X ideology" seems to have escaped you, yet again. That you disagreed with many of the policies of Bush's primaries is all to the good, but for you to rag on them for "inexperience leading to disaster" is a mistake in analysis.

Orders of magnitude of difference.

Disaster? The policy in Iraq.

Problems with appointees, and an agenda behind their selection? Yeah, those lawyers are hardly a catalogue of the best and brightest, but are of a lesser order of problem to deal with. Note, this "big secret" seems to be public knowledge. Mitigation, step first.

If you want to be taken seriously, lose the hyperbole.

It detracts from your message.

The World can Wait, SG, for November 2008, though there are plenty of folks who are getting busy in the meantime.

DR

The Atheist

30th April 2007, 09:39 PM

He didn't look inexperienced to me. Why did you just include my Rugby comment in your post?

??

I quoted your entire post - I wasn't about to frig around and re-copy the quote you had, the link was still there.

You are talking about running a corporation vs running a country. The amount and type of experience differ considerably. There are a lot of young CEOs that started their own mega-businesses like Microsoft and Google. You only need to be very talented in certain aspects of business like spotting market trends ahead of the crowd and hiring great talent.
Largely irrelevant compared the David Kirk's case - the ones you mention grew a company. Can you imagine Google or Microsoft picking a CEO who was a medical doctor with two years' experience working for McDonald's?

Running a country there is hiring great talent but it is talent in many different fields and specific to the current situation. There is tricky foreign relations and working with the other branches of government.

Well, I fail to see any experience which could be useful in foreign affairs in any recent US president apart from big daddy Bush. Reagan - Governor California, Clinton - Governor Arkansas, Carter - Governor Georgia; these are not jobs where the incumbent will have much contact with foreign leaders and policy. Your premise would make a lot more sense if more of the candidates had the experience you claim they need.

Skeptic Ginger

1st May 2007, 02:06 AM

You are getting off topic, Atheist. I'm not really interested in debating the merits of your example. I don't see that that particular example of a CEO was inexperienced, you do, end of discussion. It's opinion. There are no facts in dispute.

Getting back to the Obama issue, Clinton has experience in foreign affairs having been involved in her husband's government when he dealt with the Balkins war. And it had similarities in that ethnic fighting was the key problem underlying everything else.

But it isn't just foreign experience, it's all experience. One reason I have a successful business (private practice, infectious disease) is because I have had such broad experiences as I've had. Changing jobs and learning new skills multiple times now allows me to draw on a wealth of experience. And it seems something comes up from this experience, something else from that experience all the time. It does matter.

Skeptic Ginger

1st May 2007, 03:39 AM

Methinks you are bloviating.

The disaster in Iraq had nothing to do with those lawyers. These lawyers are the topic of another thread in this forum, or two. If you look at a century long pattern, it was a clumsy way for W to try and influence the swing of a pendulum.

[snip]

Problems with appointees, and an agenda behind their selection? Yeah, those lawyers are hardly a catalogue of the best and brightest, but are of a lesser order of problem to deal with. Note, this "big secret" seems to be public knowledge. Mitigation, step first.

If you want to be taken seriously, lose the hyperbole.

It detracts from your message.

DRWell if you want to be taken seriously, try reading more.

For starters, I didn't say the lawyers had anything to do with Iraq. Of course the disaster in Iraq has nothing to do with the new grad lawyers from the lowly ranked law school. Iraq isn't the only thing Bush has totally screwed up. Those lawyers are more like Pat Robertson's army working to eliminate the separation of church and state. Bush established a "faith based" section of just about every federal department from the DOD to the DOL.

Here's a sample of the encroaching church Bush has been working on in his spare time:

Here's the html link but the actual document is in Word format.
Faith-based diplomacy is a “type of diplomacy that blends religious insights and influence with the practice of international politics. (http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:RgXO0RBPEGgJ:www.usafa.af.mil/jscope/ISME2007/Papers/Wage%2520Peace%2520Final.doc+dod+faith+based&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us&client=firefox-a) This policy is claimed to be for chaplains but there's lots of evidence it goes beyond that. The idea chaplains would be involved in international politics is one hint.

WASHINGTON, April 25, 2007 – Operation Straight Up Tour is working to help military children and families become stronger through faith-based entertainment, its founder said....OSU Tour is one of the newest members of the Defense Department’s America Supports You program. (http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=32941)

The Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (CFBCI) at the U.S. Department of Labor seeks to empower faith-based and community organizations (FBCO) as these organizations help their neighbors enter, succeed and thrive in the workforce. (http://www.dol.gov/cfbci/)

On this page you can link to all sorts of faith-based government web pages. There is a page for each of the following departments. And if you follow the money, you'll find a lot of grants going to congregations that urge their flocks to vote Republican.
Agency Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives; Agency for International Development; Department of Agriculture; Department of Commerce; Department of Education; Department of Health and Human Services; Department of Homeland Security; Dept of Housing and Urban Development; Department of Justice; Department of Labor; Small Business Administration; Department of Veterans Affairs (http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/)

Note: Wolfowitz was also no novice, his days in DoD under GHW Bush being a seasoning, if you will. His cutting and running to World Bank when Iraq soured has been noted by far better men and women than you.I didn't say this either. I said Wolfowitz claimed his newness to the job was the reason he mistakenly gave his girlfriend a new job at the bank with a $60,000 raise.

You were so sure I had no basis for my statements you read your imagined meaning into them. Guess next time I'll w r i t e m o r e s l o w l y.

The difference between "inexperience" and "stupid" or "misguided" or "bad policy based on X ideology" seems to have escaped you, yet again. That you disagreed with many of the policies of Bush's primaries is all to the good, but for you to rag on them for "inexperience leading to disaster" is a mistake in analysis.

Orders of magnitude of difference. This claim is baseless, DR, and makes me wonder why you know nothing about what I posted about above. Try reading about the first year of occupation under Paul Bremer and then tell me I've made a mistake in analysis. Once again, you seriously underestimate my intelligence and how well informed I am. It isn't bloviating and you are the one taking your preconceived ideas as fact before bothering to find out what the facts actually are.

You think I'm exaggerating about the inexperienced appointees? I posted a quote about the 'kids' in charge of major tasks in the rebuilding effort. Perhaps you didn't really get the picture.

You could learn a lot from this book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/1400044871/ref=dp_proddesc_0/002-4986289-5174434?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books) but if you don't have the interest in or time to read it, just look at the editorial reviews. They reveal a lot of the book's contents.
Publisher's Weekly: ...in which an occupational administration selected primarily for its loyalty to the Bush administration routinely ignored the reality of local conditions until, as one ex-staffer puts it, "everything blew up in our faces." Chandrasekaran unstintingly depicts the stubborn cluelessness of many Americans in the Green Zone—like the army general who says children terrified by nighttime helicopters should appreciate "the sound of freedom."...

The New Yorker: ...There the Halliburton-run (and Muslim-staffed) cafeteria served pork at every meal—a cultural misstep typical of the Coalition Provisional Authority, which had sidelined old Arab hands in favor of Bush loyalists. Not only did many of them have no previous exposure to the Middle East; more than half had never before applied for a passport. While Baghdad burned, American officials revamped the Iraqi tax code and mounted an anti-smoking campaign....

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com: When President Bush announced in May 2003 that he was appointing L. Paul Bremer as the top U.S. civilian official in Iraq, I received an e-mail from one of his former business colleagues: "I just heard that Jerry will be running Iraq. And the Iraqis thought that the worst we could do was to bomb them."

At the time, I just smiled and dismissed the message. Three years later, Rajiv Chandrasekaran's extraordinary book made me realize how tragically prescient that e-mail had been. Imperial Life in the Emerald City is full of jaw-dropping tales of the myriad large and small ways in which Bremer and his team poured fuel into the lethal cauldron that is today's Iraq. He was not alone and had many eager and powerful partners in Washington, Baghdad and elsewhere. Still, by reporting on daily life and decision making inside the Green Zone, the cloistered compound that housed Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), Chandrasekaran shows how incomplete our conventional wisdom is about what went wrong in Iraq. ...

...Imperial Life in the Emerald City documents the way that an avalanche of unjustifiable mistakes transformed a difficult mission into an impossible one.

[B]Take, for example, the story of Frederick M. Burkle Jr., a Navy reserve officer and physician with two Bronze Stars whom a colleague describes as "the single most talented and experienced post-conflict health specialist working for the United States government." Burkle was ousted a week after Baghdad's liberation because, he was told by his superiors, the White House preferred to have a Bush "loyalist" in charge of health matters in Iraq. Burkle was replaced (fully two months later) by James K. Haveman Jr., a social worker whose experience as the community-health director for Michigan's former Republican governor, John Engler, had followed a stint running "a large Christian adoption agency in Michigan that urged pregnant women not to have abortions." Haveman had also traveled widely "in his capacity as a director of International Aid, a faith-based relief organization that provided health care while promoting Christianity in the developing world." [B] (That pro-life stance was not uncommon in the CPA: Two staffers report being asked during their job interviews if they supported the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling.) Chandrasekaran's rendition of Haveman's performance in Iraq makes for unnerving reading: the launch of an antismoking campaign while hospitals lacked pain killers; the emphasis on preventive medicine in a country ravaged by a bloody insurgency; an attempt to refashion Iraq's health care system with a U.S.-inspired model based on private providers, co-payments and primary care while newborns routinely died for lack of incubators.

Or take the case of Capt. John Smathers, a reservist and personal-injury lawyer charged with bringing some order to the chaotic traffic jams that ensued after U.S. authorities eliminated all import duties and the country was flooded by imported used cars. The solution? Download Maryland's motor-vehicle code from the Internet, translate it into Arabic and, after much haggling and revision, have Bremer sign it into law. CPA Order 86 included provisions such as, "Pedestrians walking during darkness or cloudy weather shall wear light or reflective clothing."

Micromanaging and emulating U.S. institutions was also the instinct of Jay Hallen, the clueless 24-year-old in charge of reopening the Baghdad stock market. His approach was to create one patterned after the New York Stock Exchange. (No, it didn't work.) Nor was Hallen the only inexperienced twentysomething CPA staffer given responsibilities for which he was utterly unprepared. Six of the "ten young gofers" that the CPA had requested from the Pentagon to handle minor administrative tasks found themselves managing Iraq's $13-billion budget. Where did the Pentagon recruit them? From the Heritage Foundation; they had sent their resumes there, looking for work in that conservative think tank.[B]

This is just a tiny sample of the thousands of similar executive decisions this incompetent administration has managed to burden us with. We'll be fixing the mess they will be leaving behind in 08 for years to come.