BS: Popular Views on Obama

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 09:18 AM

"Now that it turns out Barack Obama and Bob Dylan share a mutual admiration, the analysis can be the beginning of what all this means and how Dylan's oracular, obscure lyrics might shed light on Obama's candidacy. After all, the two men are among the most highly analyzed of their times. Dylan's songs have prompted a talmudic literature so extensive as to constitute an entire field of study, with every utterance and offhand lyric studied as though it were a scrap of the Dead Sea Scrolls. And analyzing Obama's significance has become an equal obsession in some quarters. Put the two together and you get a sort of harmonic convergence of delphic inquiry, a perfect storm of over-analysis. You can picture a group of geeks in a room somewhere--the sort of people who would otherwise be arguing about the finer points of Klingon grammar, or who used to believe that Paul was dead--cross-referencing Dylan's lyrics with Obama's speeches.

An interesting element of Obama's musical preferences, by the way, as described in the issue of Rolling Stone out today, is that they track some of the candidate's key demographic support groups. For instance, the candidate says he likes the rappers Jay-Z and Ludacris, and so do many of the young, hip and/or African-American voters who have lent so much energy to his campaign. Obama also cites among his favorites some of the well-worn staples of classic rock radio--songs by the Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder--likely to resonate with the educated, upper middle-class voters that form the other key pillar of Obama's support."

Baltimore SUn

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 10:05 AM

My guess is that the interest in Dylan's lyrics and uterrances will considerably outlast the same in Obama's... ;-)

Meanwhile the great American election soap opera lurches on interminably toward November, consuming vast amounts of money in an unnecessary fashion, trashing lives and personal reputations, and providing constant manipulative entertainment for the befuddled masses.

In the latest riveting episode the formerly bitter rivalry between Obama and uber-badgirl-Hillary is miraculously transformed into a warm, supportive, loving relationship between loyal friends who have always loved and respected one another deeply! This stunning turnabout has viewers transfixed in their seats, and chowing down on popcorn and soft drinks as they breathlessly await THE FINAL CONFLICT!!!

Yes, we are (very) slowly but steadily approaching the climax of our show as the Silver Warrior John McCain, the mad leader of the dark forces of the Sith, marshalls his evil minions to take the White House and dominate the Galaxy!

Will Obama and Hillary be able to stop him and defeat the Dark Side once and for all? We'll know in about 5 months from now. That's enough time for one hell of a lot more spending and HooHah...so prepare to eat a whole lot of popcorn.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: beardedbruce
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 10:33 AM

Washington Post:

The Ever-Malleable Mr. Obama

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, June 27, 2008; Page A17

"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."

-- Obama spokesman Bill Burton, Oct. 24, 2007

That was then: Democratic primaries to be won, netroot lefties to be seduced. With all that (and Hillary Clinton) out of the way, Obama now says he'll vote in favor of the new FISA bill that gives the telecom companies blanket immunity for post-Sept. 11 eavesdropping.

Back then, in the yesteryear of primary season, he thoroughly trashed the North American Free Trade Agreement, pledging to force a renegotiation, take "the hammer" to Canada and Mexico and threaten unilateral abrogation.

Today the hammer is holstered. Obama calls his previous NAFTA rhetoric "overheated" and essentially endorses what one of his senior economic advisers privately told the Canadians: The anti-trade stuff was nothing more than populist posturing.

Nor is there much left of his primary season pledge to meet "without preconditions" with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There will be "preparations," you see, which are being spun by his aides into the functional equivalent of preconditions.


Obama's long march to the center has begun.

And why not? What's the downside? He won't lose the left, or even mainstream Democrats. They won't stay home on Nov. 4. The anti-Bush, anti-Republican sentiment is simply too strong. Election Day is their day of revenge -- for the Florida recount, for Swift-boating, for all the injuries, real and imagined, dealt out by Republicans over the past eight years.

Normally, flip-flopping presidential candidates have to worry about the press. Not Obama. After all, this is a press corps that heard his grandiloquent Philadelphia speech -- designed to rationalize why "I can no more disown [Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown my white grandmother" -- then wiped away a tear and hailed him as the second coming of Abraham Lincoln. Three months later, with Wright disowned, grandma embraced and the great "race speech" now inoperative, not a word of reconsideration is heard from his media acolytes.

Worry about the press? His FISA flip-flop elicited a few grumbles from lefty bloggers, but hardly a murmur from the mainstream press. Remember his pledge to stick to public financing? Now flush with cash, he is the first general-election candidate since Watergate to opt out. Some goo-goo clean-government types chided him, but the mainstream editorialists who for years had been railing against private financing as hopelessly corrupt and corrupting evinced only the mildest of disappointment.

Indeed, the New York Times expressed a sympathetic understanding of Obama's about-face by buying his preposterous claim that it was a preemptive attack on McCain's 527 independent expenditure groups -- notwithstanding the fact that (a) as Politico's Jonathan Martin notes, "there are no serious anti-Obama 527s in existence nor are there any immediate plans to create such a group" and (b) the only independent ad of any consequence now running in the entire country is an AFSCME-MoveOn.org co-production savaging McCain.

True, Obama's U-turn on public financing was not done for ideological reasons, it was done for Willie Sutton reasons: That's where the money is. It nonetheless betrayed a principle that so many in the press claimed to hold dear.

As public financing is not a principle dear to me, I am hardly dismayed by Obama's abandonment of it. Nor am I disappointed in the least by his other calculated and cynical repositionings. I have never had any illusions about Obama. I merely note with amazement that his media swooners seem to accept his every policy reversal with an equanimity unseen since the Daily Worker would change the party line overnight -- switching sides in World War II, for example -- whenever the wind from Moscow changed direction.

The truth about Obama is uncomplicated. He is just a politician (though of unusual skill and ambition). The man who dared say it plainly is the man who knows Obama all too well. "He does what politicians do," explained Jeremiah Wright.

When it's time to throw campaign finance reform, telecom accountability, NAFTA renegotiation or Jeremiah Wright overboard, Obama is not sentimental. He does not hesitate. He tosses lustily.

Why, the man even tossed his own grandmother overboard back in Philadelphia -- only to haul her back on deck now that her services are needed. Yesterday, granny was the moral equivalent of the raving Reverend Wright. Today, she is a featured prop in Obama's fuzzy-wuzzy get-to-know-me national TV ad.

Not a flinch. Not a flicker. Not a hint of shame. By the time he's finished, Obama will have made the Clintons look scrupulous.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: beardedbruce
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 10:35 AM

A Tactical Leap of Faith

By Michael Gerson
Friday, June 27, 2008; Page A17

The latest findings of the Pew Forum's massive and indispensable U.S. Religious Landscape Survey reveal some intriguing confusion among Americans on cosmic issues. About 13 percent of evangelicals, it turns out, don't believe in a personal God, leading to a shameful waste of golf time on Sunday mornings. And 9 percent of atheists report that they are skeptical of evolution. Are there atheist creationists?

On the relation of faith to politics, two points stand out in the survey:

First, there is a clear connection between piety -- praying often and attending worship services frequently -- and political conservatism across nearly every religious tradition. Seventy-three percent of evangelicals who attend services at least once a week believe abortion should be illegal in most or all cases; among more loosely affiliated evangelicals, the figure is 45 percent. Jews who pray daily are twice as likely to call themselves political conservatives.

Second, religiously conservative people have more in common with the general public on political issues than some liberals and conservatives assume. Fifty-seven percent of evangelicals agree that "government should do more to help needy Americans, even if it means going deeper into debt." More than half of evangelicals believe that stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost. And though 50 percent of evangelicals still identify themselves as Republicans, that number has declined amid the broader trend of political alienation and restlessness.


Barack Obama's campaign looks at this political diversity and sees opportunity. His advisers report to me that the candidate's evangelical outreach is deeply in earnest -- a long-term personal goal, not a political ploy. Obama is as comfortable with the language of personal religious commitment as was Jimmy Carter -- a facility that usually comes with sincerity. His recent meeting with 30 major religious leaders in Chicago was, by most accounts, a constructive success. His staff has conducted more than 200 American Values Forums -- faith-based town halls -- and plans to hold house parties and dorm meetings on similar themes.

But along with these advantages, Obama has challenges, particularly when it comes to evangelical outreach.

As James Dobson has inartfully pointed out, Obama is not a traditional evangelical when it comes to biblical interpretation and certain moral issues. But this should hardly surprise us, since Obama has never claimed to be. He came to faith in the United Church of Christ, one of America's defining liberal denominations -- the first to ordain women (in 1853) and to endorse same-sex marriage (in 2005). Obama is properly understood as a man of the religious left, in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. According to a recent poll by Calvin College's Henry Institute, Obama has expanded his appeal among mainline Protestants (who, it is often forgotten, are traditionally Republican). But he also seems determined to call an evangelical bluff: Since you now praise King as a model of religious involvement in politics, you need at least to consider me.

The greatest obstacle to this consideration is abortion. I've seen no good evidence that evangelicals are becoming less pro-life (a previous Pew poll indicated that young evangelicals are actually more pro-life than their elders). To blunt this issue, Obama calls attention to his views on adoption, teen pregnancy and the sacredness of sex. He insists he is open to late-term abortion restrictions, if they are accompanied by broad exceptions for the health of the mother. But when the up-or-down political decisions came, Obama would not support a ban on partial-birth abortion or even legal protections for infants who are born alive after the procedure.

An evangelical vote for Obama requires a large mental adjustment: "I like his views on poverty or torture or climate change, even though he cannot bring himself to oppose the most brutal form of abortion." This may work for some, particularly more loosely affiliated evangelicals. But for most pro-life people, the protection of innocent life is not one issue among many, it is the most basic, foundational commitment of a just society. And John McCain has his own appeal to these voters -- remaining pro-life while opposing torture, addressing climate change and championing human rights in places such as Burma and Sudan. So far, McCain's support among evangelicals is holding up -- a recent poll shows McCain with a three to one advantage over Obama.

In today's environment of discontent and reassessment, a Democratic presidential candidate might achieve a historic political breakthrough with religious voters. Obama has great advantages in this attempt -- except on the issue that matters most.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: beardedbruce
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 10:36 AM

Trivial Pursuits

Enough sniping. Barack Obama should accept John McCain's offer on town hall meetings.

Friday, June 27, 2008; Page A16

"WE'VE HAD about as positive a presidential campaign that we've seen in maybe a generation," Barack Obama told Fox Business Network yesterday. Perhaps, but that's not saying much. The gravity of the issues -- war and terrorism abroad, an economy struggling with soaring energy prices and mounting foreclosures at home -- is belied by the triviality of the campaign debate. The political discourse is dominated by misleading sound bites and blistering e-mail accusations. Each campaign pounces on a misstep -- or alleged misstep -- by the other, or someone loosely associated with the other, and seeks to inflate it into the telling faux pas of the day, or at least the hour. In this, the campaigns are aided and abetted by a 24-7 news mentality that needs fresh, and easily digestible, material to keep the audience entertained without taxing its attention span.

This is not, as Mr. Obama's comments suggest, a new development, yet the velocity, ferocity and constancy of the assaults have intensified in this cycle. The uproar over Obama vetter James A. Johnson gives way to the uproar over John McCain adviser Charles R. Black Jr. Neither faux scandal offers particular insight into how either candidate would handle the weighty issues facing the next president. Little matter. No shot remains untaken, no derogatory adjective goes unused. Why debate health-care policy when you can attack a surrogate? The theory seems to be that the victor is whichever campaign can yell "flip-flop" the loudest.

The sad part is that the country will be choosing between two presidential candidates who can do better -- and who, as Post reporter Dan Balz correctly noted the other day, have said they want to run a different, more civil and more substantive campaign. Indeed, underneath the volleys of vicious triviality, the candidates are engaged in serious discussion, and serious disagreement, about important issues, from tax policy to treatment of detainees to health care. On energy, for instance, Mr. McCain wants to lift the ban on offshore drilling; Mr. Obama does not. Mr. McCain pushes for an expansion of nuclear power; Mr. Obama is more skeptical of nuclear energy and attacks Mr. McCain's support for a storage facility at Yucca Mountain. Both men support a cap-and-trade regime to address climate change, but there are important differences between their approaches.

The sooner the sniping stops and the serious discussion starts, the better off the country will be -- and the best way to achieve that would be for the candidates to meet, one-on-one, as often as possible. Mr. McCain's proposal to hold weekly town hall meetings was -- as the Obama campaign said -- "appealing." That was more than three weeks ago. Since then, the Obama campaign has countered with the offer of a single town hall meeting, on nobody-will-be-watching July 4, and a second debate on foreign policy -- this in addition to the three traditional fall debates. Mr. Obama has written that "one of my favorite tasks of being a senator is hosting town hall meetings." He launched his campaign decrying "the ease with which we're distracted by the petty and trivial." Now, he should seize the opportunity to practice the change he preaches.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: frogprince
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 10:43 AM

"About 13 percent of evangelicals, it turns out, don't believe in a personal God"

I would love to see the wording on the survey question, or questions, from which that was derived. Or, the definition of "evangelical" that the pollsters were using. Something there doesn't make a lick of sense.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Emma B
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 01:49 PM

From "the most-quoted college professor in the land"

"He ran to the left to get nominated, and he is running back to the centre in the general election," said Larry Sabato, a politics expert at the University of Virginia. "You can call it flipflopping, or you can call it readjusting, or you can call it determined to win."

'Candidate's stance at odds with former position'
as reported in today's Guardian.

'In the latest in a series of policy reversals for the Democratic presidential candidate, Obama came out in support of yesterday's supreme court decision overturning a gun ban in the city of Washington that had been a model for fighting urban crime.'

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 01:59 PM

You can get the original report from thweir website, frog. Google Pew Forum and "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey ".

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 11:20 PM

Sparks are flying in the 2008 culture wars.

The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, leader of the largest Methodist congregation in the country, launched a website yesterday titled "James Dobson Does Not Speak For Me." The site is a jab at Dobson, a stalwart of the religious right who this week called Sen. Barack Obama's interpretation of the Bible in a 2006 speech distorted "to fit [Obama's] own world view, his own confused theology."

Caldwell's site launched a day after Dobson's Focus on the Family radio program aired a harsh assessment of Obama's speech on faith and public policy and encourages readers to sign a statement declaring that Dobson does not represent them.

"I think it's a crime and a shame that Senator Obama has had to explain the fact that he's a Christian," Caldwell said in a recent interview. "Criticize his politics. Criticize his stance on whatever, but don't question his faith. Never in the history of American politics has someone said that he is a Christian and someone came back to say, 'No you're not.'"

If Rev. Caldwell's name sounds familiar, it may be because he is the same Rev. Caldwell who introduced President Bush at the 2000 Republican National Convention and last month officiated at Jenna Bush's wedding ceremony at the presidential ranch in Crawford. This election Caldwell is firmly in the Obama camp and doggedly trying to help the campaign bring other pastors and parishioners along.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 12:08 AM

Nobody even has to say they are a Christian in the first place in Canadian or British or French political campaigns. Why should they have to say it? What has it got to do with whether or not a person should be elected???????????????????????

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 12:21 AM

It didn't used to mean that much, LH, until Rove got the bright idea of turning the Christian right into a huge voting machine.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 12:53 PM

Boy, talk about a sad situation. The rest of the western world watches it in amazement.

You know what it really is? It's a mixing of the affairs of church and state. In that sense it is somewhat comparable to places like Iran or Saudi Arabia.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 12:56 PM

LH--

I can only surmise you have not been following the conversation...You are perfectly right of course, but I think this issue was raised about eight years back....





A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 01:07 PM

Yes, I've gone off on a bit of a tangent here.

Feel free to resume your normal programming.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 08:31 PM

Obama has never been elected on a level playing field. He was fast-tracked because of skin color and is being touted now because of skin color. The man voted for the PATRIOT Act and the REAL I.D. Act. So much for his concern for "the people."

Obama reminds me of GWBush. When the teleprompter is running he's fine, but he stammers when he has to address a substantive question extemporaneously. Both men are brain-damaged drug abusers.

Clinton knew he'd been seen somewhere, sometime with a joint in his hand, so he said he held one at a party but never inhaled. Obama said he had his arm tied off, ready to shoot heroin, but he didn't. He doesn't recall who saw him shooting up where, so he did a Clinton. And Larry Sinclair says Obam's gay. So.....we have a homosexual junkie black fascist with a wildly racist wife poised to be inserted into the white house. Man o man. All because of a phony ad campaign taking advantage of flouride/mercury-damaged Americans. Your TVs put you into trance states so you'll buy Frankenfoods peddled as "healthy," so of course they'll sell you a Frankencandidate they claim is the "alternative." Then you have to decide whether to blow your head off with your right hand or your left.

And then you people get all misty over "the environment" and want to give Gore/Obama their Green Army to protect the environment, while they support the aforementioned Frankenfood industry and all the other things environmentalists are supposed to be against:

"Occidental's planned drilling of the Elk Hills doesn't only threaten the memory of the Kitanemuk. Environmentalists say a rare species of fox, lizard and the kangaroo rat would also be threatened by Oxy's plans. A lawsuit has been filed under the Endangered Species Act. But none of that has given pause to Occidental or the politician who helped engineer the sale of the drilling rights to the federally-owned Elk Hills. That politician is Al Gore.

Gore recommended that the Elk Hills be sold as part of his 1995 "Reinventing Government" National Performance Review program. Gore-confidant (and former campaign manager) Tony Cohelo served on the board of directors of the private company hired to assess the sale's environmental consequences. The sale was a windfall for Oxy. Within weeks of the announced purchase Occidental stock rose ten percent.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=468

That was good news for Gore. Despite controversy over Dick Cheney's plans to keep stock options if elected, most Americans don't know that we already have a vice president with oil company stocks. Before the Elk Hills sale, Al Gore controlled between $250,000-$500,000 of Occidental stock (he is executor of a trust that he says goes only to his mother, but will revert to him upon her death). After the sale, Gore began disclosing between $500,000 and $1 million of his significantly more valuable stock...."

The Obama/Gore Green Army will be the Hitler Jugen. They will take everything you have because that Obama sticker on your bumper is made out of toxic plastic.

Nader's running again. So, it's either Nader or the nadir for the tree huggers. Vote Nader.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 09:57 PM

I do believe we have an asshole logging in as a Guest!! What a remarkable thing.

I am always interested in the facts behind these tirades, but I often find them to be fallacious, often bitterly malicious and invented.

But I am not arguing with someone too paranoid to adopt a regular handle.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 11:18 PM

Yeah, that Gore Oil thing always gets to the tree huggers. And then there's this:

"ON THE MORNING OF THE ATTACKS on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon, along with a million other readers of the New York
Times including many who would never be able to read the paper again, I opened its pages to be confronted by a color photo showing a middle-aged couple holding hands and affecting a defiant look at the camera. The article was headlined in an irony that could not have been more poignant, "No Regrets For A Love Of Explosives." The couple pictured were Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, former leaders of the 1960s' Weather Underground, America's first terrorist cult. One of their bombing targets, as it happened, was the Pentagon."

http://www.rightmindsforum.com/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi/rightminds?cmd=get&cG=131383030353&zu=313138303035&v=2&gV=0&p=

So, Dohrn & Ayers support Obama. They should have been executed decades ago. Foul individuals, haters of America, like Michelle Obama. They all worked for Sidley Austin, too, which is involved in a September 11 lawsuit:

Our research has linked Sidley Austin associates, including Michelle Obama to the use of `poisoned' QAT tax shelters and the extorted war-game insiders who wittingly or unwittingly were duped into helping Airbus guide a droned Boeing 767-200ER tanker into the South Tower on 9/11.

Abel Danger warns that Sidley and IRS associates have responded to our published work with a desperate attempt to `paralyze' the 9/11 investigators, including Emperor Clients 1-9, with '9' being Eliot Spitzer....

http://www.scoreboard-canada.com/cin-spitzersqat.htm

The above is in reference to a lawsuit that contends a "military-industrial" attack took place on 9/11. The man pushing the case is a forensic economist and has patent records, buisiness records, etc. showing what technology was used in the attacks, and who owns the patents. Al Gore's name comes up again (misc. patents), and the Bushes and lots of the other usual suspects. Michelle Obama probably didn't know she was helping with the attacks (compartmentalization), but the evidence is there. She DOES hate America, but just how much?

And Obama's slum lord history. That's a bog. Taking advantage of the downtrodden. I hope we see some good ads featuring the people he "helped." lol

And then the gay thing:

Three openly homosexual black men, once members of Rev. Jeramiah Wrights Trinity United Church, all murdered within 40 days of one another starting in November 2007.

Donald Young, The Church Choirmaster
Nate Spencer
Larry Bland

Was someone trying to keep these men silent? Before he died, Donald Young contacted Larry Sinclair via email and telephone. Sinclair is the man who has said Barack Obama supplied him with cocaine which they did together as part of sexual romp in a hired limo.

http://www.scoreboard-canada.com/cin-spitzersqat.htm

In the tome, published in 1995, Obama writes that he once entered the freezer of a delicatessen with "my potential initiator," a junkie who "pulled out the needle and tubing" for Obama.

"Right then an image popped into my head of an air bubble, shiny and round like a pearl, rolling quietly through a vein and stopping my heart," recalled Obama.

(Translation: "I didn't inhale". Sounds like he was high on heroin when he had that image floating through his head...stopped his heart...oh, wow, man. Far out)

http://bigheaddc.com/2007/12/10/book-obama-tried-to-inject-heroin/

Obomber's been selected and fast-tracked. He and his wife hate America. He was shoved into the primary process at the last minute and has only got to where he is because he cheated in Florida and Michigan (he allowed each vote to count as half a vote, when the Constitution originally allowed blacks something like 5/8 human status. So Obama believes people in Florida and Michigan are worth less than the old black slaves).

He's dirt. He's detritus. Skeletal dope fiend with a rig hanging from his arm, a rictus of death on his face. That's how I'd draw him for a political cartoon.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 11:23 PM

Al Gore inherited the oil stock from his father, by the way, Al Gore, Sr. Gore's a bigger "oil man" that GWBush, who failed in the business.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 11:29 PM

GUest:

Your opinion of Obama is so far divorced from actuality that it hardly supports discussion.

Ricochet shots that go wild, inuendo, snide overtones intended to cause knee-jerk hatred...it's a sorry lot of piss in an oatmeal bowl. You can tie strings from any chosen target to the wickedest people in the world and try to make the case that doing so makes the target wicked, but it won't wash. You know why? Because it's paranoid and stoooooooooopid.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 12:25 PM

Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn did not hate America. They, like other protestors against the Vietnam War hated imperialism and considered it to be the antithesis of what IS American, and they chose a foolish and immature way of fighting against it. That's the kind of thing that young and passionate and foolish patriots do. A similarly young and passionate Serbian patriot named Gabriel Princip assassinated two Austro-Hungarian royals in 1914 and he started a world war which killed millions of people. He didn't do it because he hated any nation, he did it because he LOVED his own nation, as did Ayers and Dohrn...and he was under the impression that he was defending his own nation.

To say that Ayers and Dornn hated American is asinine. They were under the impression that they were defending traditional American values when they took on what they saw as "the Establishment", a ruling elite that they felt was betraying America.

To not realize this is to be as blindly caught up in your own passion and anger as they were in theirs.

The same goes for your remarks about Michelle Obama. She doesn't hate America...she hates what she sees as entrenched racism existing IN America. That does not equate to hating America, it equates to loving America, and feeling that there is something gone way wrong that needs to be corrected in order to restore America to the land of her own dreams.

Nobody hates their own country. They may, however, very well grow to hate something that is going on in their own country...or someone who is running the government of their country.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 01:09 PM

Michelle Obama (I hate whitey) said recently that for the the first time in her life she was proud of America. The pastor in her church said, from the pulpit, God damn America. Bad, bad racists. Bad, bad Americans. They hate the country.

Dohrn and Ayers blew things up. That's how you show love of your country? I don't think so.

You people have been mesmerised by the news media fine tuning the color control on your TV sets. Uncle Obomber's black(ish), and that's all that matters to you. He has the backing of the CIA/FBI spook organization (their dossiers caused the ruination of 2 of the 3 candidates he's run against), he has Foundation money backing him (Ford foundation funds his racist church too), he chooses to remain married to a raving racist, his homosexual past dalliances are dropping dead like flies. Shades of Bill Clinton.

Sad thing is, the money backing Obama is the same money that backed Hitler. The ultimate Aryan joke, using the Anglo-American banking system to install a black, junkie, racist homosexual. He, in one package, is a cross-section of most of the groups Hitler hammered. He's associating with known terrorists, too, while he voted for bills that can designate YOU a terrorist for breaking a state or federal law (Section 802 of the PATRIOT Act). Obama's the worst of the worst.

But...Hitlary has more popular votes. And their fortifying Denver for the convention, so maybe the system will work as designed and Hitlary will get the nomination. The 20% contingent of superdelegates was originally set up because of the Mondale defeat (he lost 49 of 50 states). Mondale waltzed in out of nowhere and stole the nomination at the last moment, so the superdelegate system was implemented...the plan being to let cooler heads prevail in the final selection. And since no one's committed yet to vote for Obama, there could be an upset. There'll be riots of course, because television has convinced you koolaid drinkers Obama is the chosen one, but after that passes at least we'll have a real choice. Continue the neocon agenda of Bush or go with Hitlary. Not much better as a choice, but preferrable to what the koolaid drinkers want.

And Obama's being handled by Z. Brezinski. Obama wants to talk to Iran rather than bomb them, but as Brezinski has written, Iran needs to be developed as a formidable foe of Russia/China. So, if Obama is installed in the white house, you'll all be happy that the rhetoric on Iran dies down, and you'll deny what Brezinski has TOLD you is going to happen. In 4 years we'll be preparing for war against Russia. You think things are bad now...

The rest of the world knows what's coming. It appears Obama's about to be installed. Bush, Hillary and McCain did not want to bomb Pakistan, but Obama did. We're now bombing Pakistan. The Polish missile shield is a Brezinsky gambit...nothing Bushian about it. The top two Air Force people (military and civilian) were just fired on the same day. Bush wouldn't do that in a runup to war with Iran...another move preparing for Obama (the 2 were probably fired for the Minot incident, where Dick Cheney tried to steal a bomber full of nukes...they were fired as a signal that rogue nuking in the middle east won't be tolerated). So a gigantic shift to the Brezinski/Obama world policy is taking place. Putin sees all this going on and knows the ultimate goal is the destruction of Russia, and he recently called the U.S. a "monster."

Obama's just another GWBush, but at least GW thinks he's acting in the best interest of the U.S. Obama hates the country and wants to destroy it with nuclear conflict. Probably a satanist. I should look at some of his speeches and see how often he uses the word "sacrifice." That's a giveaway...talking about literal human sacritice. His desecration of the presidential seal already has the Illuminati all-seeing eye on it.

You folks need to support Hitlary. At least when she starts her mass murdering we'll know she and Bill have a history of it and might be able to stop it. But Obama will get you to sip a little more koolaid while you're standing in line at the guillotines.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 01:25 PM

"Dohrn and Ayers blew things up. That's how you show love of your country? I don't think so."

George Washington and his generals and commanders blew things up too. The British saw them as terrorists at the time and would have hanged them if they had caught them. Washington and his people saw themselves as patriots. And so did the British loyalists who were fighting them! They ALL saw themselves as patriots. Dohrn and Ayers saw themselves as patriots too. Otherwise they would not have been strongly motivated at all to take such extreme political action. These young and passionate people, wrongheaded and foolish though they may be, ALWAYS see themselves as patriots, and your refusal to recognize that shows your own inability to empathize with other people. You lack the kind of compassion which understands why another human being does the things he or she does, you only read the outer cover of the book, you never look past it. This makes you the fanatic and the hater, just as much as those you castigate. Perhaps more so.

To interpret Michelle Obama's remark about being "proud of America" for the first time as meaning that she hates America is just patently ridiculous. It doesn't even deserve the energy it would take for me to type out a rebuttal.

Does she have some racist tendencies? Oh, probably so... If so, she is in good company, because about 99.5% of Americans, both Black and White, have some racist tendencies, and those will evidence themselves now and then when people are under stress.

You don't judge a human being on the basis of every idle word that leaves their mouth in every moment of their lives...unless you are an unscrupulous opportunist who is only looking to tarnish other people's reputations...

You judge them by the overall sum of ALL the things they have done in the course of their lives....and you take into account WHY they did those things.

That would demand a little patience, a little perception, a little humility, and a little ability to put yourself in another's shoes.

Let's see some of that for a change from you.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 01:32 PM

Guest:

The spin that needs control here, thou nameless poltroon, is the spin of parnoia and half-baked ideas inside your own skull, I am afraid.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 01:37 PM

There you go again, dribbling koolaid. I expect to be locked out at any moment, by the way. I get whipped with the fasci whenever I sneak in here.

Sympathize with Ayers and Dohrn? Nah. They were on the losing side. They should've been executed. Only because they were connected to money did they survive. Their compatriots are still serving time, aren't they? You've been duped, Little Hawk, which is no mean feat. You've always posted well-considered things, so to me this is just further proof of the brainwashing the media is using to sell Obama.

Obama has said his past is not releveant. He's mumbled about national security even...what a joke. A freakin' junior Senator who already views himself as Ceasar. He's sold you on the idea that he is the only choice, he is inevitable, and to question him demands censure. Like I say, I guess they've sold that attitude well if they can whip you into such a frenzy.

Let me look around for some mad-bomber terrorists to put in charge of Canada, and let's see how you like it. Maybe we can make Dohrn the ambassador to Canada...take a few bombs with her...get you folks up to speed.

Best wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 02:18 PM

I'm well aware that the media is up to their usual tricks pushing Obama, Guest...just as they do with all the candidates they push. I did not post what I did because I particularly support Obama. I did not post what I did because I support what Dohrn and Ayers did. I posted it because I am encouraging you to see other people as complete personalities with complex motivations and people who imagine themselves doing "the right thing", not as cardboard stereotypes of evil monsters to be served up as a human sacrifice on your emotional firing line.

Like you said, Dorhn and Ayers were on the losing side. That made them criminals in the public eye. On the winning side they would have been seen as patriots and heroes...or possibly as martyrs. That's how fickle people are in their judgements of others.

ALL those people who do things like Dohrn and Ayers did see themselves in their own eyes as patriots and they all love their country and imagine that they are fighting FOR it. That's the part that you apparently don't get and will never get it. It doesn't mean they were RIGHT, but that's how they felt at the time.

You don't respect your enemies, and you don't see them as fully human like yourself. You hate them. You want to see them all executed. That's your error, and it is a quality natural to all fascists to think in those terms, so you might make a very good fascist if you were so inclined, I'm thinking. Fascism wears many hats, but it is always driven by a ruthless form of righteousness that sees evil EVERYWHERE...except for the evil hidden in its own breast.

You're right that my posts are usually well-considered. That's because I am fueled more by genuine idealism about humanity's possibilities rather than by sheer hatred of others and a deep sense of personal grievance.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 02:51 PM

Hey guys--let's take a little rational perspective into account. Forty years ago, when they were in their early twenties at best, and Obama was nine, was the period in which they played with bombs. Seems to me you're collapsing things together in order to make histrionic statements.

If your damn idealism is so pure and genuine, why not advise on pragmatic courses of action for the future instead of caterwauling about the conspiracies and impossible evils in the world?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 11:44 AM

Der Spiegel ponders an Obama visit to Europe. The article discusses the political tightrope for the German chancellor and the delicate balance of considerations in supporting Obama (who is madly popular in Europe) too overtly:

"Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom Obama will definitely meet, is well aware of his radiance. But she can't afford to give him an over-exuberant reception because that could alienate President George W. Bush, who only just visited her a few weeks ago during his European farewell trip and whose father, former president George H.W. Bush, is due to attend the July 4 opening of the new US embassy in Berlin.

Besides, too much cheering for Obama would be an affront to McCain. Merkel can't afford to be as outspoken as her government's coordinator on trans-Atlantic relations, Karsten Voigt, who said recently that Berlin welcomed any US presidential candidate -- especially Obama.

One conservative US foreign policy expert smiled at the thought that such considerations might make Merkel refrain from meeting the Democratic candidate. He recalled the controversy caused last year by her decision to meet the Dalai Lama. "If the Chancellor can meet the Dalai Lama, she should be able to meet Barack Obama." ".

Grin for the day.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 12:16 PM

Amos, my pragmatic courses of action for the future can pretty well all be found in Dennis Kucinich's campaign platform and his continued rhetoric in Congress, so look up his speeches on YouTube and there you will find my pragmatic courses of action.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 12:52 PM

LH:

Well good--my remarks were not aimed so much at you as at Guest the fearful, the anonymous, the covert, the secretive.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: beardedbruce
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 01:27 PM

Washington Post:

Obama's Dodge on Handguns

By Robert D. Novak
Monday, June 30, 2008; Page A11

After months of claiming he had insufficient information to express an opinion on the District of Columbia's gun law, Barack Obama noted with apparent approval Thursday that the Supreme Court ruled that the 32-year ban on handguns "went too far." But what would he have said had the high court's 5 to 4 majority gone the other way and affirmed the law? Obama's strategists can only thank swing Justice Anthony Kennedy for enabling Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion to take the Democratic presidential candidate off the hook.

Such relief is typified by a vigorous supporter of Obama who advised Al Gore in his 2000 presidential campaign. Believing that Gore's gun control advocacy lost him West Virginia and the presidency, this prominent Democrat told me: "I don't want that to happen with Obama -- to be defeated on an issue that is not important to us and is not a political winner for us." He would not be quoted by name because he did not want abuse heaped on him by gun control activists.

This political reality explains the minuet on the D.C. gun issue that Obama has danced all year. Liberal Democrats who publicly deride the National Rifle Association privately fear the NRA as the most potent conservative interest group. Many white men with NRA decals on their vehicles are labor union members whose votes Obama needs in West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. That is why Obama did not share the outrage of D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, an Obama supporter, over the Supreme Court's decision.


What may be Obama's authentic position on gun rights was revealed in early April when he said at a closed-door Silicon Valley fundraiser that "bitter" small-town residents "cling" to the Bible and the Second Amendment. That ran against his public assertion, as a former professor of constitutional law, that the Constitution guarantees rights for individual gun owners, not just collective rights for state militias. But his legal opinion forced Obama into a political corner.

Arguments before the Supreme Court defending the D.C. handgun ban were based entirely on the view that the Constitution's rights applied only to state militias. During oral argument March 18, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked whether the Second Amendment has "any effect today as a restraint on legislation," since such militias no longer exist. Walter Dellinger, a former solicitor general representing the District of Columbia, replied that "it doesn't," and added, "You don't make up a new use for an amendment whose prohibitions aren't being violated."

Obama's dilemma was that his reading of a Second Amendment that "means something" made it difficult for him to say the D.C. law was constitutional. His public pronouncements were so imprecise that the Associated Press mistakenly reported that he "voiced support" for the handgun ban at a February news conference in Milwaukee.

In March and April, I tried for weeks to get a simple yes or no from Obama on the D.C. law's constitutionality. When the question was put to him directly for the first time at ABC's presidential debate in Philadelphia on April 16, he answered, "I confess I obviously haven't listened to the briefs and looked at all the evidence." On National Public Radio on April 21, the day before the Pennsylvania primary, Obama said, "I don't know all the details and specifics of the D.C. gun law." He had not been asked and had not volunteered his opinion before Thursday's decision.

The issue will return when Chicago's handgun ban, modeled after the Washington law, is challenged in the courts. As a Chicago lawyer, Obama can hardly plead ignorance as he did concerning the D.C. ban. But with the case wending its way back to the Supreme Court for the next year, Obama will not have to answer the question before November.

While Scalia's opinion for now saves Obama from defending a court that had emasculated gun rights, one inconvenient truth confronts the candidate. He has made clear that as president he would nominate Supreme Court justices who agree with the minority of four that the Second Amendment is meaningless. Would he want a reconstituted court to roll back the D.C. decision when the Chicago case gets there?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: beardedbruce
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 02:30 PM

Obama rejects Clark's statement
Posted: 01:45 PM ET

From CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Mooney


Obama rejects Clark's comments, his campaign said.

(CNN) — Barack Obama formally rejected Gen. Wesley Clark's recent comments Monday that questioned whether the John McCain's military experience qualified him to be commander in chief.

"As he's said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain's service, and of course he rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement.

The comments came in an interview on CBS Sunday when Clark suggested McCain's experience as a prisoner of war did not alone provide the necessary experience to set the country's national security policies.

"I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces as a prisoner of war. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn't held executive responsibility," said Clark, a former NATO commander who campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis told CNN the comments were "the lowest form of politics," and the Arizona senator himself expressed disappointment with the comments on Monday.

"I know that General Clark is not an isolated incident but I have no way of knowing how much involvement Sen. Obama has in that issue," he told reporters. "I know he has mischaracterized some of my statements in the past including our involvement in Iraq but I'll let the American people decide about that. "

Responding to the Obama campaign's rejection of Clark's comments, McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said, "We've learned we need to wait and see what Senator Obama actually does, rather than take him at his word."

Meanwhile, in what appeared to be an attempt to soften Clark's comments, Obama said in speech Monday that "no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters of both sides."

"We must always express our profound gratitude for the service of our men and women in uniform. Period. Full stop," Obama said.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 02:37 PM

Bruce:

Your boy Novak is a bit over the top. I doubt you can find a single Supreme Court justice who believes the 2d Amendment is meaningless, and for sure you will find none who have said so. So Novak is putting ideas into their mouths and claiming that Obama agrees with these ideas...when neither the Supremes not Obama have such ideas in the first place? How disingenuous can you get?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: beardedbruce
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 02:42 PM

"So Novak is putting ideas into their mouths and claiming that Obama agrees with these ideas...when neither the Supremes not Obama have such ideas in the first place? How disingenuous can you get?"

What, you mean like the editorials in the NYTimes you were always quoting to "prove" how evil Bush was? Are you that worried that the NYT might lose it's monopoly on defining what people say?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 02:53 PM

Novak, Klodhopper and Meyerson are the 3 Rightie Amigos at the Post, Amos... They will never say one nice thing about anyone who is not a Republican... Period... The are the Post's Swiftboaters...

As for GUEST??? She either has no life or is highly dependent on some rightie blog for the stuff that drolls outta her in ream and reams of utter diaria of the keyboard...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 02:56 PM

Bruce:

FIrst of all, if you think my postings were illogical, how dare you perpetuate the error and use the earlier wrong to justify the later one?

Second of all, I never used the NYT to prove anything. I collected opinions and reports from a variety of sources. The Times writers usually say things clearly and well. In addition to that they have some sensibility for the larger issues of the liberal tradition, such as the value of the Constitution, the importance of civil rights, and the unspoken duty of leaders to let their decisions be informed by a fundamental regard for humanity. All three of which standards I saw frequently being ignored or trampled in Bush's rush to war.

Third of all, if you had some diagreement with some writer I posted for the kind of meretricious abuse of logic that I just accused Novak of, I would probably have agreed with you. I do not like rhetorical dirty tricks. Believe it or not. But that is not the same as believing folks should speak truth to power and voice their considered and honerst opinions.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 11:11 AM

And now, Oh Bummer wants to expand the Office of Faith Based Initiatives. I suppose if he's elected he'll put Reverend Wright in charge of the whole thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 11:21 AM

Oh, bull shit, RIginslinger. Cool your buttons and pay attention to what he is saying instead of lashing out at your private demons and blaming him for stirring them.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 11:30 AM

They aren't just my demons, Amos. You've got to wonder what the Daily.Kos readers are thinking now. Maybe they'll get behind the Green candidate, that's probably their next best chance.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 11:47 AM

"But Obama's support for letting religious charities that receive federal funding consider religion in employment decisions could invite a protest from those in his own party who view such faith requirements as discrimination.

Obama does not support requiring religious tests for recipients of aid nor using federal money to proselytize, according to a campaign fact sheet. He also only supports letting religious institutions hire and fire based on faith in the non-taxypayer funded portions of their activities, said a senior adviser to the campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe the new policy."...

---

"...Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) plans to slam President Bush's faith-based program as "a photo op" and a failure on Tuesday, and says he would scrap the office and create a new Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that would be a "critical" part of his administration.

Obama, unveiling a plan to overhaul and expand Bush's faith-based program during remarks at a community ministry in Zanesville, Ohio, said the White House Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives — which Bush founded during his second week in office — "never fulfilled its promise."

"Support for social services to the poor and the needy have been consistently underfunded," Obama says in prepared remarks. "Rather than promoting the cause of all faith-based organizations, former officials in the Office have described how it was used to promote partisan interests. As a result, the smaller congregations and community groups that were supposed to be empowered ended up getting short-changed."

Obama was referring to accusations by John J. DiIulio Jr., the office's first director, and David Kuo, his former deputy, that White House support for the program was driven more by swing-state politics than by compassion for the needy.

The White House views the office as one of the cornerstone's of Bush's legacy, making Obama's vow a very personal one.

Reaching out to evangelicals who are nonplussed by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Obama declared: "I still believe it's a good idea to have a partnership between the White House and grass-roots groups, both faith-based and secular. But it has to be a real partnership — not a photo op. That's what it will be when I'm president. I'll establish a new Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships."

"The new name will reflect a new commitment," he continued. "This Council will not just be another name on the White House organization chart — it will be a critical part of my administration."

Anticipating criticism from the left, Obama said: "I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don't believe this partnership will endanger that idea — so long as we follow a few basic principles. First, if you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them — or against the people you hire — on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples and mosques can only be used on secular programs. And we'll also ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work."

The Obama campaign released plans saying his new President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, working within the White House, "will work to engage faith-based organizations and help them abide by the principles that federal funds cannot be used to proselytize, that they should not discriminate in providing their services, and they should be held to the same standards of accountability as other federal grant recipients."

The campaign listed four goals:

—Train the trainers to enable local faith-based organizations to learn best practices, grant-making procedures and service delivery so that they can better apply for and use federal dollars.

—Partner with state and local offices so that federal efforts build on successes made at the state and local level.

—Hold recipients responsible by conducting rigorous performance evaluation, researching what works well and disseminating best practices.

—Close the summer learning gap by focusing faith-based and community-based efforts on summer learning programs for 1 million children.

"

What aspect of these positions in particular is it that starts your arm-waving going there, Rig?

I agree the world woudl be better if everyone took personal responsibility for their spiritual states, but that ain't the way the human race has organized itself, for whatever sorry reasons. Given the real politik of the situation, this sounds like a reasonable approach IF his caveats are duly respected.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 11:55 AM

Arianna Huffington slaps Obama around for sliding center-wards:

"From that point of view, and taking nothing else into consideration, I can unequivocally say: the Obama campaign is making a very serious mistake. Tacking to the center is a losing strategy. And don't let the latest head-to-head poll numbers lull you the way they lulled Hillary Clinton in December."


Her rationale is interesting.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 12:47 PM

It just seems to me, with all of this going on, it's hard for the voters to know what the candidate really does think.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 01:30 PM

Riginslinger, Obama did that specifically because I called up Michelle Obama the other day and told her to tell Barack: "Look, Barack, make an announcement that you want to expand the Office of Faith Based Initiatives. It'll get you some votes and it will also drive Riginslinger out of his tiny mind."

They know about you, man, and they really, really enjoy annoying you. ;-)   Trust me. Obama is going to do more things like this, and it will be mainly just to ruin your day and give you something to bitch about on Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Bee
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 01:34 PM

I've avoided this huge thread, but thought to take a look-in in honour of Canada Day. This last page alone reflects much the same conversations being had elsewhere on the internet, particularly in various science blogs. The campaigns are monstrous engines throwing up all sorts of dirt and detritus, most of it from deep in the candidates' pasts and likely irrelevant to what they think, believe or plan now. The latter is what is important, IMO.

From the looks of it, though, Obama will be the next American president, and it looks as if he will continue the current practice of pretending religiously based organizations will use government money in a positive secular manner, and therefore continue to support such doomed initiatives.

How his government will relate to Canada is a mystery. I'm not sure Canada has ever crossed the man's mind, barring that little NAFTA eyebrow raiser. Obama is still right of centre, AFAICS, on many issues settled leftishly years, if not decades, ago in Canada, despite our current God-bothering PM (who knows he'll lose the next election if he lets any of his religious lunatics off-leash).

Good luck, neighbours.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 01:35 PM

Sounds about right to me, Bee.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 01:37 PM

Rig:

I gotta tell ya, I feel your pain. Knowing what someone really thinks in the parlous waters of national politics is about as sure as knowing exactly where lightning is going to hit.

Like many people who are denied a decent rasher of honest information, I have to fall back on my sense of how rather than what as person thinks. This is a reflection on their character, their analytical skills and methods, and their sense of importances. I am persuaded on this criterion to support Obama.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 01:48 PM

Little Hawk - I'm flattered that the presidential candidate would go to so much trouble just to irritate me. But when you go back and look at what's really come down here, the only two candidates who were actually willing and eager to tell you what they really thought were Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. Frankly, I'd be happier with either one of those people in the White House than anyone who is still left running.


               I will certainly admit that Obama isn't throwing up any more smoke than his competitor.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 01:48 PM

Yeah, I like how Obama thinks too. I can't stand how McCain thinks. That in itself would be the decider for me if I had to choose between them.

I'd rather have Bush as president than McCain. Seriously.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 02:49 PM

Hey Rig, How do I write in the Dennis/Ron ticket?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 03:22 PM

I would much prefer Kucinich or Ron Paul too, Riginslinger.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 04:50 PM

Hell, we have as much chance of that as we do of getting Tom Jefferson back into office, guys. Politics is not just a flow of ideas good and bad, whichi s what we tend to focus on. It is also a flow of huge, massive intersecting classes of sentiment, emotion, force, effort, money and several billion egos. As such, it grinds exceeding slow.


A