what is most objectionable of obama's recent positions

voted FISA

His record with muslim supporters (not speaking @ mosques, etc)

this is bullshit too

did you see he told keith ellison not to campaign for him??

okay that sucks

i think the muslim thing is bullshit also, although im willing to believe he still plans on doing something to apologize for that??

The issues with individual Muslim supporters would actually bother me a ton, if there were any real sense that they were a coordinated top-down thing, and not a collection of really poor judgment calls at the bottom end of the campaign machine.

that's nothing, have you seen his position on this?

you almost got me, lol

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/us/politics/24muslim.html?bl&ex=1214452800&en=2188136bb97e5775&ei=5087%0A

While the senator has visited churches and synagogues, he has yet to appear at a single mosque. Muslim and Arab-American organizations have tried repeatedly to arrange meetings with Mr. Obama, but officials with those groups say their invitations — unlike those of their Jewish and Christian counterparts — have been ignored.

How many positions do you think Obama knows?

Aides to Mr. Obama denied that he had kept his Muslim supporters at arm’s length. They cited statements in which he had spoken inclusively about American Islam and a radio advertisement he recorded for the recent campaign of Representative Andre Carson, Democrat of Indiana, who this spring became the second Muslim elected to Congress.

^^^ wait i missed this

Yeah, this was released last week.

no NBA finals position, no credibility

i voted other since he thinks tha carter III is actually a classic

Where's ethanol? I guess that isn't recent enough.

"AMERICA IS A CENTER RIGHT COUNTRY!!!" is the popular opinion, and so Obama is positioning himself within this accepted mantra.

Ethanol is fucking dumb as hell, though. My god what a stupid position to take.

"AMERICA IS A CENTER RIGHT COUNTRY!!!" is the popular opinion, and so Obama is positioning himself within this accepted mantra.

-- burt_stanton, Thursday, June 26, 2008 2:21 PM (39 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

extremely reductive

but thanks for the 'truth' bomb

To be fair, Presidential candidates always move to the center once they've clinched their party's nomination, don't they?

honest question, not baiting or anything: have any other presidential candidates in the last couple elections ever appeared at mosques or met with Muslim organizations during their campaign? I really have no idea and now I'm kinda curious.

it's the "new politics"

What do you mean it's extremely reductive? What do you think Obama is doing here? He's positioned himself as staunchly anti-regulation and very pro-Bush on certain measures. He's like Clinton part 2, a Reaganite in Democrat's clothing.

and chances are he's doing it because he wants to be electable; America is Center Right, etc. etc. It's the phrase you keep hearing over and over.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_26_118/ai_79127824

xp: lol hay guyz its daria to remind us that hillary "violent video games are the only threat to america bigger than flagburning" clinton wouldnt be pandering like obama

you really expect him to speak at a Mosque when 20% of the american people think he's a muslim?

an attack on hillary =/ logical defense of obama

i was pretty disappointed about FISA and campaign finance

obama has always been relatively middle of the road on certain measures but there hasn't actually been much in the way of concrete 'moves to the middle'. Responding to a couple of supreme court decisions barely counts.

as usual he's speaking to the middle but still has pretty left-leaning policy positions, although he does tend to work in a pragmatic framework - not pragmatism in the sense of compromising principles (usually) but pragmatism in the sense of "what will get the best results," judging primarily by the advisors hes chosen throughout the campaign

notice how i'm not defending obama

i was pretty disappointed about FISA and campaign finance

-- daria-g, Thursday, June 26, 2008 2:28 PM (4 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

lol surely positions hrc would have stood up to!

anyway, for me personally that Rev. Wright thing is the worst, but objectively speaking i'd say FISA which is pretty despicable any way you slice it.

i was actually going to praise hillary on the general election thread as someone who was willing to actually defend liberal principles in unambiguous language. she's done her share of centrist bullshit but during the debates i felt proud to see a democrat actually stand up for democratic beliefs instead of vague independent-courting obamaisms

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_26_118/ai_79127824

-- and what, Thursday, June 26, 2008 3:26 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

thanks for the link, but i was asking if mosques were a typical tourstop for campaigning candidates, sitting president directly after 9/11 is kind of a different deal.

ethan, that's how i feel about it. i don't want democrats to sound like republicans.

the scotus thing re: death penalty bothers me. i think obama was asked about it & had to response, i don't know what else could have been said but maybe something. i have a lot i could complain about re: kerry in 2004 but he took the death penalty out of the dem. party platform and i completely agree 100%

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0gzTaO49Wz6Pc/340x.jpg
chris dodd at umayad mosque <3 <3

lol, the return of daria

kerry supported capital punishment, though yeah he didn't issue bullshit statements like the obama thing

xp stfu gabbneb

by the way, I don't see any press to the effect of other candidates visiting mosques, but perhaps such visits are just run of the mill stops on occasion and don't get much press - I don't know. it seems like a silly issue to be honest. not that relations w/muslims in the US aren't important but insisting that he visit a mosque, i don't know why that matters in particular.

yeah, i agree, i was just curious about the background/points of comparison.

American Muslims have experienced a political awakening in the years since Sept. 11, 2001. Before the attacks, Muslim political leadership in the United States was dominated by well-heeled South Asian and Arab immigrants, whose communities account for a majority of the nation's Muslims. (Another 20 percent are estimated to be African-American.) The number of American Muslims remains in dispute as the Census Bureau does not collect data on religious orientation; most estimates range from 2.35 million to 6 million.

A coalition of immigrant Muslim groups endorsed George W. Bush in his 2000 campaign, only to find themselves ignored by Bush administration officials as their communities were rocked by the carrying out of the USA Patriot Act, the detention and deportation of Muslim immigrants and other security measures after Sept. 11.

As a result, Muslim organizations began mobilizing supporters across the country to register to vote and run for local offices, and political action committees started tracking registered Muslim voters. The character of Muslim political organizations also began to change.

"We moved away from political leadership primarily by doctors, lawyers and elite professionals to real savvy grass-roots operatives," said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, a political group in Washington. "We went back to the base."

In 2006, the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee arranged for 53 Muslim cabdrivers to skip their shifts at Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia to transport voters to the polls for the midterm election. Of an estimated 60,000 registered Muslim voters in the state, 86 percent turned out and voted overwhelmingly for Jim Webb, a Democrat running for the Senate who subsequently won the election, according to data collected by the committee.

but insisting that he visit a mosque, i don't know why that matters in particular

Chain emailers need a good jpeg of Obama with a star & crescent symbol.

http://www.r8ny.com/blog/jerry_skurnik/muslim_voter_turnout.html

i was actually going to praise hillary on the general election thread as someone who was willing to actually defend liberal principles in unambiguous language. she's done her share of centrist bullshit but during the debates i felt proud to see a democrat actually stand up for democratic beliefs instead of vague independent-courting obamaisms

-- and what, Thursday, June 26, 2008 2:30 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

thats the thing is i dont really feel like his independent-courting obamaisms are particularly vague - if anything treating the opposition w/ respect is pretty much the extent of it, and if obama had come across as a edwards-style bomb throwing liberal i guarantee hillz would have been the candidate of reasoned Middle of the Road debate

i dont think you have to be smarmy faux-populist to be upfront and defend liberal principles honestly. the candidate of change/we can all come together stuff has never inspired me, and part of my support is that i'm hoping he'll cut that shit out and get down to business once elected

I don't want to get in an argument about the issues, but I'd like to bring to the table that, as a life-long Democrat who believes in both gun rights and the death penalty, there are a lot of us out there who hold those values.

can i ask you why you're a lifelong democrat who believes in the death penalty?

(From my personal experience, that is. I'm sure it's a smaller group percentage-wise.)

i dont think you have to be smarmy faux-populist to be upfront and defend liberal principles honestly. the candidate of change/we can all come together stuff has never inspired me, and part of my support is that i'm hoping he'll cut that shit out and get down to business once elected

-- and what, Thursday, June 26, 2008 2:48 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i dont really think he's being 'smarmy faux-populist' i think hes genuinely a nice guy who gets tired of the meaningless partisan shit talking and is kinda like "can we actually try to get some shit done."

but yeah i really think dude owes the left a bone here soon

n/h

xxxpost: I'd prefer not to get into it at the moment, as I'm just reading this thread while trying to get some work done too. I just wanted to point out that the positions he is taking - for whatever reason he is taking them - aren't totally unusual.

i was talking about edwards

re: smarmy faux populist

i didnt see "bomb-throwing liberal" or anything

oh my bad

yeah never mind then, i agree

hey lets tie hillary clinton + the supreme court decision together

Hillary Rodham Clinton often invokes her "35 years of experience making change" on the campaign trail, recounting her work in the 1970s on behalf of battered and neglected children and impoverished legal-aid clients.

But there is a little-known episode Clinton doesn't mention in her standard campaign speech in which those two principles collided. In 1975, a 27-year-old Hillary Rodham, acting as a court-appointed attorney, attacked the credibility of a 12-year-old girl in mounting an aggressive defense for an indigent client accused of rape in Arkansas - using her child development background to help the defendant.

In her 2003 autobiography "Living History," Clinton writes that she initially balked at the assignment, but eventually secured a lenient plea deal for Taylor after a New York-based forensics expert she hired "cast doubt on the evidentiary value of semen and blood samples collected by the sheriff's office."

However, that account leaves out a significant aspect of her defense strategy - attempting to impugn the credibility of the victim, according to a Newsday examination of court and investigative files and interviews with witnesses, law enforcement officials and the victim.

Rodham, records show, questioned the sixth grader's honesty and claimed she had made false accusations in the past. She implied that the girl often fantasized and sought out "older men" like Taylor, according to a July 1975 affidavit signed "Hillary D. Rodham" in compact cursive.

Oh no, a lawyer did her job, whatever is the world coming to.

Clinton did her share of pandering and such, but I still respect the fact that she wasn't all "woo, go ethanol!" when speaking at my workplace, a large agricultural company. She threw together a few great pro-science and progress lines and said something about no one fuel source being a solution.

really don't understand the constant ethanol demonizing when it's a.) not going to be made from the same shit within a few years and the current factories are more incubators than anything and b.) it was initially meant as a stopgap to get rid of excess supply

dumping Rev Wright and obsequious AIPAC speech

the way he's handled the Muslim thing is not only offensive but stupid and short-sighted. it makes him seem really afraid of the Repub smear machine. and one thing i've liked about him, and i believe a lot of people like about him, is this whole stick-your-guns attitude he projected when the Wright stuff was first going down and instead of coming out and disowning the guy he made a great speech about racism. the types of idiots who think he's a Muslim aren't going to vote for him anyway.

My problem with Obama's ethanol position is that he is proposing it as a pathway to US energy independence, which reminds me of nothing so much as Reagan's SDI - ie., crowd-pleasing science fiction.

my understanding is basically that he pays lip service to it since they have essentially paid his way into the system

and it is the least-objectionable of the many monied industries that support most candidates

SDI wasn't disturbing as much because it was crowd-pleasing but because it appeared that Reagan really believed in it.

A lot of what Obama has stated support for is essentially the floor of what he would like to do, not the ceiling.

yet still he dances on it

I don't even know what that means

deej you're making a lot of excuses here

Hello? xxp

"he has to lie because they gave him money" is a pretty shitty defense of someone you claim to support

if we could kick iowa out of the 1st spot in the primaries, now.. maybe there'd be less ethanol support? it is silly

subsidizing ethanol on top of everything else we do for fucking corn country is some dumb fuckin' shit imo

It's true; they fuck corn in Iowa

cellulose ethanol from the stalks, ok
ethanol from the part we eat, wtf

no dan that's corn fucking country, as in nebraska

i said it before, i'll say it again ...

TOMBOT FOR PRESIDENT

less corn more porn

also, obama is a POLITICIAN non-shockah.

to be fair i really love corn on the cob

though i voted "Position on SCOTUS execution for child rapists" as the most objectionable -- i mean, REALLY.

"he has to lie because they gave him money" is a pretty shitty defense of someone you claim to support

-- and what, Thursday, June 26, 2008 3:35 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

welcome to politics??? i dont know what else you want me to say. its not like his support for ethanol has been some secret surprise or something.

i mean, his energy policy is considerably more nuanced than 'ethanol is the answer!'

and it is the least-objectionable of the many monied industries that support most candidates

-- deej, Thursday, June 26, 2008 3:30 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

When I think of Archer Daniels Midland, "least objectionable" are not two words that spring immediately to mind.

"Look, I've been a strong ethanol supporter because Illinois ... is a major corn producer," he said. He went on to say that he was concerned about reports that ethanol was helping drive up food prices, and that he saw ethanol as merely a transitional option that would eventually give way to biofuels that were more efficient and has less of an impact on food prices, such as ones made out of switchgrass.

nabisco otm; the thing about the campaign volunteers shunting the bescarved girls out of the picture hurt my feelings a little, but it doesn't seem like it was really coming from Obama. i didn't know he told Ellison not to campaign for him. :( i sort of feel for him bc of all the crazy craziness about him being quasi-Muslim but on the other hand that sucks.

FISA statement sucks; that's what i voted for.

the whole "what do you expect, he's a politician" thing is kinda hard to swallow after a whole primary's worth of "the difference between these two Democratic candidates is that one of them represents politics as usual"

there is no space for me to vote for: DISDAINS COLD POPEYES FOR BREAKFAST

therefore i have no option. who cares about all that other shit.

lol write-in "refuses to acknowledge greatness of new coffins/xxx maniak split LP"

the whole "what do you expect, he's a politician" thing is kinda hard to swallow after a whole primary's worth of "the difference between these two Democratic candidates is that one of them represents politics as usual"

-- J0hn D., Thursday, June 26, 2008 4:22 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

are you that naive??? "Not only will he position himself as a hardcore progressive at every chance to speak to an issue, but he'll also totally win!"

the correct answer is the admission that he listens to sheryl crow btw

Two of the more egregious offenses -- voting for FISA, the Muslim thing -- have happened in the last two weeks. Like I said on the other thread, his decision to abjure public financing and reaction today to the SCOTUS ruling on guns are okeedokee.

the candidate of change/we can all come together stuff has never inspired me, and part of my support is that i'm hoping he'll cut that shit out and get down to business once elected

OTM!

no "missionary", no credibility

deej, your George Sanders Mr. Cynic act is getting tiresome. You can't accuse anyone on these two threads of not knowing their American history or haven't been engaged in politics the last 30 years, so cut out the "this is politics" bullshit.

are you that naive???

dude you have to ask? how long have we known each other on this board for?

I mean: fucking YES. If a dude talks a line and it turns out he is straight-up misrepresenting his actual position to curry favor with people whose values he does not actually share, fucking right, it pisses me off. If that's naive, then yes, absolutely, I am naive motherfucking guy.

As I said elsewhere, although I would like to think better of myself, the FISA thing pisses me off because I suspect that I would vote the same way if placed in that position.

lol at john's post following al's post

i dont get how the ethanol thing is 'deceptive,' for ppl like us who have been studying the candidates this information was one of the first things to surface about obama back before anyone thought his candidacy had a chance in hell. if you chose to ignore it and believe that any politician ever has a chance of positioning themselves as an outsider, sticking to hardcore liberal ideology throughout the process, and still winning the presidency, its denial! Im telling you guys right now, that if he stands up on this death penalty issues that is IT for his candidacy

well if it'd doom his candidacy then obviously taking the right stance is something he shouldn't do

wouldn't wanna hurt one's candidacy on anything like the core progressive principle that the death penalty is some bulllshit

I don't know that I agree that the death penalty is some bullshit. I do think the American courts are some bullshit, largely because of jury picking/jury duty gamesmanship.

wouldn't wanna hurt one's candidacy on anything like the core progressive principle that the death penalty is some bulllshit

-- J0hn D., Thursday, June 26, 2008 4:37 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

this i'll-fall-on-my-sword-for-my-principles thing is really praiseworthy but generally useless

thanks, Stendhal.

although im sure the republicans would love an opponent who will throw himself onto an unpopular opinion just cuz hes 'right' about it - especially when his opinion doesnt actually impact how the policy is implemented one way or another!

there are lots of Democrats, some of whom are liberals, who don't oppose the death penalty. i do, but i care a lot more about big-number issues (probability over magnitude).

deej has thoroughly memorized the chapter in The Red and the Black about The Screaming Lobster of Hope, High Vicar of Triangulation.

http://thepage.time.com/2008/06/26/jindal-backs-chemical-castration-for-monsters/

jesus christ

deej has thoroughly memorized the chapter in The Red and the Black about The Screaming Lobster of Hope, High Vicar of Triangulation.

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, June 26, 2008 4:42 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

you're borderline morbius about this dude

this i'll-fall-on-my-sword-for-my-principles thing is really praiseworthy but generally useless

if it's between "I'll fall on my sword for my principles" vs. "all my principles are malleable as long as I can get elected" give me the dumbass from the former proposition every time

but deej's link is on-point, too. obama can eat a dick for his position on this; jindal needs to start with one bag of dicks and be prepared for seconds.

xpost deej fuck off with the "compare to poster I don't like" crap, this is a decent discussion

jindal vs shrek

xpost deej fuck off with the "compare to poster I don't like" crap, this is a decent discussion

-- J0hn D., Thursday, June 26, 2008 4:44 PM (11 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

more like 'compare to a poster who would rather bitch about things than actually change them'

if you guys genuinely want change, uh, you need to actually be elected first???

'compare to a poster who would rather bitch about things than actually change them'

oh STFU

a pol who genuinely wants change, deej, has several irreducible principles over which he won't compromise, and others he will disgard. It's the difference b/w FDR and William Jefferson Clinton.

i mean try to twist my words into saying im arguing for clintonian levels of 'triangulation' if you want, but there's a major fucking difference between understanding that politics is about compromise and having the major accomplishments of your administration be welfare 'reform' and dont ask dont tell

fuckin Jindal and the dumbasses who support chemical castration. these fuckin guys. GUESS WHAT, THE PROBLEM IS IN THE "MONSTER"'S HEAD, HE'S NOT GOING TO NEED A BONER TO KEEP DAMAGING PPL.

xpost deej you're fooling yourself badly if you think the guy who'll change his positions to get votes will morph into The Guy On Our Side once he's in office; he'll just keep right on bending with the wind, this time "to ensure a 2nd term"/"for the congressional elections"/etc etc

"secure his legacy"

exactly

(except those weren't the major accomplishments of his administration just the ones he talked about while he quietly did the rest of the stuff oh never mind xxxp)

alfred, j0hn, anyone else want to explain to me how it is possible for obama to respond to that question without immediately becoming the candidate of child rapists??

I think that getting mad at a mainstream political candidate for being more mainstream than you thought he was has some large elements of fooling yourself, tbh. The list of stuff listed about Obama upthread makes me mad but there's still no way in hell I'd vote for any of the other candidates I know of who have declared themselves. The death penalty stuff can be seen as barbaric but you are looking at an extreme punishment for an extreme crime; when an alleged progressive like Nader pipes up with "Why's he trying to be all white? Why isn't he talking about ghetto crime?" it does remind me that I can forgive someone for feeling overzealous about punishing a crime more than I can forgive someone for being a fucking dipshit racist.

Who else is actually running besides Obama, Nader and McCain? Who did the Libertarians pick?

http://thepage.time.com/2008/06/26/jindal-backs-chemical-castration-for-monsters/

jesus christ

-- deej, Thursday, June 26, 2008 5:42 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

in light of the exorcism thing i was hoping this was about actual monsters

i think deej is kind of right--obama has to pick his battles. considering how popular the death penalty is in this country, even if obama is anti-death penalty, he runs a real risk of being tagged as a wussy liberal if her comes out as such. it kind of sucks, it's true.

jindal backs crucifixes, wooden stakes for vampires

alfred, j0hn, anyone else want to explain to me how it is possible for obama to respond to that question without immediately becoming the candidate of child rapists??

I'm not sure what question you're referring to, but I didn't grit my teeth when I read Obama's response to SCOTUS' ruling yesterday: it was intelligent and observant of how heinous the particular case before SCOTUS was (do you guys know the circumstances). I oppose the death penalty but know quite a few liberals who don't.

alfred, j0hn, anyone else want to explain to me how it is possible for obama to respond to that question without immediately becoming the candidate of child rapists??

"If I believed that the death penalty would prevent so much as one runny nose, I'd probably be for it for guys like these. Like pretty much every normal person on the planet, hearing about crimes such as the one this man was convicted of fills me with anger and thoughts of vengeance. But I think we're called to a higher standard than exacting vengeance, and I take the tenets of my religion seriously, and I take Romans 12:9 seriously; it's core value for me. So while I'd hope we'd lock up child rapists and ensure that they never walk free in our society again, I can't support killing them. It just goes against everything I've learned in the church."

(the Muslim thing is probably the most unacceptable to me, shocker, so it's heartening to see evidence that that is changing somewhat)

John Darnielle, '12.

^^^^ good post

castration for werewolves? I'm all for it. I draw the line at Frankenstein tho - he's just misunderstood!

x-posts

Deej, think of it not as ragging on Obama for taking a couple of stupid/centrist/whatever positions - think of it as people reacting to a pattern being set whereby the candidate of CHANGE runs to the status quo at the first sign of potential danger.

i think deej is kind of right--obama has to pick his battles.

all citizens must buy my new record or report to the reeducation camp

As long as he actually does pick some battles, amirite?

Yup.

on the plus side, the reeducation camp has water slides

As long as he actually does pick some battles, amirite? I think that's the real source of disappointment/hostility, it's getting harder to point out the position where Obama has a visible spine right now.

-- milo z, Thursday, June 26, 2008 5:54 PM (20 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

saying

its been one humilating news cycle after another since he got the nom & since that glow wore off i can't say i've been proud of him once

maybe superfan deej can point to something inspiring o has done lately

^^^^ good post

-- and what, Thursday, June 26, 2008 4:53 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

this from the dude who is all 'religion is the opiate of the masses'

maybe if obama would actually use religion to defend core liberal principles instead of taking the dumbest fucking archie bunker/o'reilly factor stance on them yeah i want more jesus talk

'superfan deej'?? eat a dick e, ive been as mad about his bullshit w/ fisa as anyone

deej perhaps you'll remember all the times I was like "fuck Xity" and ethan rang me the fuck up for being narrow-minded

i just think it would be silly for him to make a massive, extremely risky campaign maneuver about a court decision that he would have NO EFFECT ON ANYWAY - why take a risk when hes not actually going to have any sort of impact???

principle.

sufjan deej

i mean what 'battle' is he fighting here?? the good guys won, remember?

you dont have to believe in god to think that going around talking about how much you love jesus & then hating on a supreme court decision to reduce executions is pretty disgusting

on the plus side, the reeducation camp has water slides

I hate to ruin our camp for you Dan but that's not water

maybe if obama would actually use religion to defend core liberal principles instead of taking the dumbest fucking archie bunker/o'reilly factor stance on them yeah i want more jesus talk

-- and what, Thursday, June 26, 2008 9:57 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

would be interesting to see the reaction if he did this with the death penalty

btw it's Romans 12:19 not 12:9 my bad, I'm probably going to Hell now, bummer

deej if this is such a necessary & politically expedient thing for obama to do how come me & a bunch of other liberals & even conservative opponents of the death penalty (like uhh millions of catholics) feel that obama just spat in their faces when he used it as an oportunity for giuliani-style tough-on-crime posturing?

btw pretty impressive showing from arnold here:
http://thepage.time.com/2008/06/26/schwarzenegger-mccain-crist-blowing-smoke-on-offshore-drilling/

it's hard to admit that Arnold is sometimes awesome but dude'll surprise you sometimes

deej if this is such a necessary & politically expedient thing for obama to do how come me & a bunch of other liberals & even conservative opponents of the death penalty (like uhh millions of catholics) feel that obama just spat in their faces when he used it as an oportunity for giuliani-style tough-on-crime posturing?

-- and what, Thursday, June 26, 2008 5:01 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

because we are definitely in the minority on this issue, because lots and lots of left-center liberals are in favor of the death penalty, because 'spitting in your face' is nothing compared to actually doing something ABOUT the law in question, which hes obviously not going to do - complaining about a court decision that went the right way is about the most safe campaign decision you can make, right?

Adds: “America is so addicted to oil that it will take years to ween ourselves from it. To look for new ways to feed our addiction is not the answer.”

lol arnold saying "ween"

"by the way, i agree with the majority about this issue that went the minority's way and that im not actually going to do anything about!"

Ah-nold's always been a classic Hollywood libertarian. The dude used to smoke cigars with legislators behind the governor's mansion.

why didnt he just keep quiet on it? he's been happy to do that about practically everything else lately

Whoever said on the other thread that Obama was trying to avoid looking like Dukaka was OTM.

maybe superfan deej can point to something inspiring o has done lately

-- and what, Thursday, June 26, 2008 4:56 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

also said upthread (in another thread?) that dude better throw the left a bone sometime soon n/h

why didnt he just keep quiet on it? he's been happy to do that about practically everything else lately

-- and what, Thursday, June 26, 2008 5:03 PM (51 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

i dont know what yr talking about that hes being quiet about but probably because he was asked about it during a meeting w/ the press and just standing their quietly might as well be an admission of liberal pussyification

if you think opposing the death penalty is an admission of liberal pussyfication i dont know what a candidate could do to lose your support

especially since like john pointed out this would be a much better opportunity to drive home the "i'm a christian" thing than being a dick to keith ellison

Arnold also knows that allowing drilling in CA is political suicide. (which I guess may not matter since he's termed out soon anyway - maybe he aspires to a senate seat or something). I kinda hate him, especially for the way he got elected, but he's smart enough to know that there are enough people in CA like me that he has to appeal to and mollify.

x-post

if you think opposing the death penalty is an admission of liberal pussyfication i dont know what a candidate could do to lose your support

-- and what, Thursday, June 26, 2008 5:06 PM (41 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

i said 'keeping quiet about it' is a sign of liberal pussyfication TO THE PRESS but yknow keep distorting what ppl are saying mr. '60% of convicted paedos are innocent!'

the president can't do shit about the death penalty even if he opposes it. i wish we had one who'd openly denounce it, but the likeliness of a constitutional amendment banning it seems even lower than every state independently deciding to get rid of it.

I went looking for the news story re: the death penalty remarks and found the greatest headline ever:

Obama Claims To Have No Taint From Chicago Political Scandals

why didnt he just keep quiet on it? he's been happy to do that about practically everything else lately

he is trying to engage the demographic of drunk ladies at bars who say he's "too secretive, I just don't trust him"

obama has always said he's for the death penalty "in extreme circumstances" though, which is basically another way of saying "I don't wanna have to answer questions about why some guy who did something stomach-turning shouldn't be killed"

also, HI DERE otm, Obama is a smooth alien

yah the other thing is its yknow entirely possible that he is in fact in favor of the death penalty

i kinda feel that the faux-liberal "death penalty just for child rapists" position is worse bullshit than the mere rongness of straightforward "yay all death penalty all the time" advocates. it's like a rank failure to understand even your own arguments.

the president can't do shit about the death penalty even if he opposes it. i wish we had one who'd openly denounce it, but the likeliness of a constitutional amendment banning it seems even lower than every state independently deciding to get rid of it.

-- J.D., Thursday, June 26, 2008 6:08 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

yeah i dont think that 8th amendment will ever get ratified

yah the other thing is its yknow entirely possible that he is in fact in favor of the death penalty

pointing this out during the primaries was a good way to get 1) clowned and 2) fed a whole line of b.s. about how he wants to "work through the courts" to eliminate the death penalty without outlawing it

i kinda feel that the faux-liberal "death penalty just for child rapists" position is worse bullshit than the mere rongness of straightforward "yay all death penalty all the time" advocates. it's like a rank failure to understand even your own arguments.

-- ledge, Thursday, June 26, 2008 6:10 PM (55 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

thank you. "i believe the state shouldn't have the power to kill its own citizens, and the death penalty is wrongly applied... but not if a dude fucked a kid!

Obama says the death penalty "does little to deter crime" but he supports it for cases in which "the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage." While a state senator, Obama pushed for reform of the Illinois capital punishment system and authored a bill to mandate the videotaping of interrogations and confessions. Barack Obama was the drummer in Gay Dad.

"Who else is actually running besides Obama, Nader and McCain? Who did the Libertarians pick?"

http://brushfires2008.com/bob_barr_2008.jpg

"liberal pussyfication" is that phrase necessary, WTF.

n/h

pointing this out during the primaries was a good way to get 1) clowned and 2) fed a whole line of b.s. about how he wants to "work through the courts" to eliminate the death penalty without outlawing it

-- J0hn D., Thursday, June 26, 2008 5:11 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

who was making this argument?

"I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes," he said.

"I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime, and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances, the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that does not violate our Constitution."

...

This actually qualifies as "WAU THE DEATH PENALTY IS TOTES AWES!!!!" to you guys? Seriously?

xp: thx Scott, I knew I'd seen their candidate but couldn't remember his name

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/promos/politics/blog/13barrfloater.533.jpg

http://archimedes.galilei.com/stlcofcc/blogimages/bob-barr-cofcc.jpg

hey btw good debate guys yr makin me think about stuff

even if i think yr still nuts

Obama says the death penalty "does little to deter crime" but he supports it for cases in which "the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage."

I hadn't seen this quote, the death penalty just jumped past FISA for me.

I don't know if I'd be more depressed if he actually believed that the death penalty is justified if the crowds demand retribution, or if he was just saying that to appeal to people who believe that it's justified if the crowds demand retribution.

Fuck.

who was making this argument?

me, elsewhere, explaining why both clinton & obama were pretty odious to me, since I am hard fucking line about the death penalty

TalkLeft has some interesting commentary on this - noting that he mentions state's rights but this is about the 8th amendment..

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/6/25/234840/218

barr-ack obama

n/h

-- J0hn D., Thursday, June 26, 2008 5:13 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

this is to preempt ethan and u know it

The new Libertarian champion, Bob Barr, a former four-term Georgia congressman, is most famous for his poor judgment and sour temper. He led the fight to defang anti-terrorism legislation after the Oklahoma City bombing (among his achievements: preventing the government from designating foreign groups as terrorists and denying their members visas to enter the country). He championed social-conservative causes such as the Defence of Marriage Act, which he drafted, and the impeachment of Bill Clinton. His moralistic fervour faltered only when it came to his own conduct: twice divorced, he was once photographed licking whipped cream off the breasts of a particularly buxom woman. He says he was raising money for leukaemia research. (Well, he would, wouldn't he?)

and yeah milo is right here - being in favor of it because you mistakenly consider it a deterrent is one thing but to appease a bloodthirsty mob is repulsive

Bob Barr was the one who licked whipped cream off of stripper titty, right?

xp - guess that's a yes

that quote actually strikes me as another "cling to guns and religion" style botched attempt at understanding a popular mindset.... "poor people like religion, right? and they want criminals to die? ok, i'm for it!"

talkleft keepin it classy with that noose image, wtf

DAMMIT CURTIS I WAS ABOUT TO POST THAT

"poor people like religion, right? and they want criminals to die? ok, i'm for it!"

-- and what, Thursday, June 26, 2008 5:18 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

i dont think 'poor people' enters into it. 'people' across the spectrum, so i dont know who its really condescending to other than the majority

I can't count the number of people I've saved from leukemia this week alone

john d. don't know if i'd call myself hardline in the sense that i'd vote against a candidate simply for supporting it, but then.. when i took those 'pick your candidate' surveys i'd get kucinich first, then hillary and JRE pretty much equally.. the difference always the death penalty. i just don't believe that any judicial system in any nation should cross the line on that

anyway there is a line to be crossed and yeah he better pick some battles sometime, but i want them to be smart battles and i want them to be winnable battles, and i want him to pick those battles when he's actually in a position where he can do something about them.

now im off work, so im out, its been fun folx

"I'm not opposed to war. I'm opposed to dumb wars."

thank you daria

sorry but this has always been a big issue with me & while i shrugged off the FISA bullshit he picked the wrong pander here and i think it'll show

i don't know what the polling is, i think the majority's in favor but the number keeps dropping.. though maybe 9-11 changed everything never forget

deej, he created the battle on kiddie fiddlers. There was zero need to make an issue out of the decision - other than to either openly state his fucked up belief in vigilante justice, or to pander to people with a fucked up belief in vigilante justice.

You can't pretend he accidentally waltzed into that particular policy debate and everyone should just look on past.

I appreciate being hardline about an issue considering that that is how I am about racial issues, but equating a statement that says "I support an extreme punishment in an extremely limited, well-defined, qualified situation" with "I support the death penalty" is the epitome of non-critical thinking. The "consistency" argument is also a piece of shit, considering there isn't a human being alive who doesn't contradict him or herself on daily basis.

This reads like I want everyone to agree with me; I don't. I want everyone who disagrees with me to use arguments that don't make me think they're fucking dumbasses, because I know they aren't.

If you can't make your argument without grossly distorting the position you're arguing against, what makes you think you have any ground to stand on?

but seriously let's fucking look at Romans 12:19 to understand just how simple it is to take a principled stand on this with which no politician in his right mind will publicly take issue.

Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,”(Dt. 32:35) says the Lord. Therefore

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
If he is thirsty, give him a drink;
For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.” (Pr. 25:21)

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Who wants to really throw "yeah, but 'an eye for an eye' up against Paul, on whom contemporary Xity rests?

I'm with Dan on this one. As with his response to Scalia's majority opinion today, it struck the right note. It was an example of using words CAREFULLY, not to obfuscate.

I do like J0hn's response, btw.

whereas with FISA he knew damn well that there wouldn't be a chance to look at the policy again.

I don't think I understand how "I support the use of the death penalty in certain circumstances" isn't "I support the death penalty." Nothing about the latter statement means "in every felony" or "all the time."

"In certain circumstances" isn't "hang 'em all," but it most certainly is support for the death penalty.

capital punishment isnt an issue you can kinda halfway about

seems like this is several large steps away from a morality issue here. It's not worth getting all New Testament about whether the courts should have the power to POSSIBLY DECIDE whether to administer the death penalty in rare circumstances

I don't know if I'd be more depressed if he actually believed that the death penalty is justified if the crowds demand retribution, or if he was just saying that to appeal to people who believe that it's justified if the crowds demand retribution.

he's a constitutional law professor who, like lots of colleagues, including radical types, believes that the argument that the death penalty is justified as a matter of law by public opinion in favor of it is an intellectually defensible position. and he is of course referring to a serious, often multi-stage legal process, not 'crowds demanding retribution'.

i essentially don't believe in a retributive model of justice, even in extreme cases, but i don't think it's a unjustifiable approach in a society where the majority disagrees.

i haven't taken the time to consider in great detail the implications honestly, being against the death penalty no matter what, and yet expecting that any candidate likely to get anywhere in the presidential contest is going to support it..
but it does trouble me to be opening the door past murder cases into "extremely limited, well-defined, qualified situation" because.. where do we go then? i've read a news article or two about random crimes lately that have been as heinous/horrific/etc/etc as you can imagine to the point where i certainly but no child was involved at all, but do we start using the death penalty for those? once we start drawing the line outside of murder, where does it get drawn, and then how many more possibilities of wrongful convictions are there.. it's extremely disturbing to me.

there is no loophole or possibility for equivocation in anti death penalty arguments.

"it's not an effective deterrent - except for child rapists!"

"there's a possibility of wrongful conviction - oh except for child rapists!"

"we shouldn't sentence based on emotion - oh but those child rapists really rile me up!"

i also don't believe that bringing up biblical quotes in defense for/against the death penalty is the way i'd support politicians going. church and state separation, please. especially in the justice system.

argh, forgot what i was saying there to the point where i certainly wish I hadn't even come across the article.

otm, xp

yeah my reasoning is basically if i have to hear a bunch of obama jesus talk already he could at least use it for something meaningful instead of just trying to make white people less scared of him

my argument against capital punishment couldn't have less to do with religion but when you live in a country where 85% of the people worship a guy who was executed by the state that may be relevant to the political discussion

i don't care what obama does or doesn't do. i don't care how much ADM corncob he smokes. even his anti-popeyes witchhunt doesn't bother me that much. he isn't old. that's all i care about. i'm so sick of looking at old people.

entire quote:
"While the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes - mass murder, the rape and murder of a child - so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment"

Can't say that your characterization of his mindset appears accurate, gabbneb.

he is of course referring to a serious, often multi-stage legal process, not 'crowds demanding retribution'.

Crowds demanding retribution. That's why DAs and judges run "tough on crime" and jerking people off to fantasies of "victims rights."

because, look, i watch a LOT of television, and all the old people gotta go.

i don't care what obama does or doesn't do. i don't care how much ADM corncob he smokes. even his anti-popeyes witchhunt doesn't bother me that much. he isn't old. that's all i care about. i'm so sick of looking at old people.

LOL you better get used to looking at old ppl DAD

when he says "rape and murder" does he mean that? because its different to "rape or murder."

Can't say that your characterization of his mindset appears accurate, gabbneb.

no, it's what i was saying. he's saying that he personally would not impose the death penalty, but that he would be unjustified in standing in the way of the community.

no, it's what i was saying. he's saying that he personally would not impose the death penalty child rape, but that he would be unjustified in standing in the way of the community.

-- gabbneb, Thursday, June 26, 2008 6:44 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

when he says "rape and murder" does he mean that? because its different to "rape or murder."

this is the heart of his argument - that some crimes are so heinous that they demand total retribution. few crimes arouse community anger more than child rape, especially (this is going to be unpleasant so either bear with me or skip the rest of this post) if it's a very violent case - say, someone who raped a child and then beat him/her so badly that his/her brain is permanently damaged, or attempted to kill him/her, etc, as has happened many times when people were afraid the child would rat them out/testify/etc.

Now, that's a heinous fucking crime. Considerably worse to a lot of people's minds - mine included - than shooting somebody. Maybe a worse crime to ruin a life than to end one, in many cases. So, we take the only "payment" we can take, the most extreme one, and deprive the convicted criminal of his life.

I think this whole argument is bullshit, I don't think even one crime has ever been deterred by it and I don't think vengeance is good for anything and I think it's an especially stupid basis on which to construct law. But that's the argument as I understand it.

http://www.capdefnet.org/fdprc/contents/shared_files/docs/1__overview_of_fed_death_process.asp

of course, there is variation in State law and process. I understand that Texas, which has executed more people than any other state by far, has one of the poorer post-conviction processes.

Obama is not running for Governor of Texas, but he might be able to effect a big shift in voter registration and political culture there.

yes, andwhat, because Americans are for child rape

if they were, would you support a candidate who bends to the will of the people even if he opposed it?

as have been many communities throughout the history of Anglo-American law

everybody on my block thinks we should all be allowed to take as much money from the bank as we want but I don't see anybody respecting our community standards

tempted to start a "should gabbneb be executed" poll and see what he thinks about standing in the way of the community when those results roll in

everybody on my block thinks we should all be allowed to take as much money from the bank as we want but I don't see anybody respecting our community standards

If you passed a law, you could.

xp: way to be a dick

sorry but i had to say it - don't want to look like a liberal pussy

braka omaba for daeth pentlies

j0hn i agree with your take, actually, but as far as the proportionality argument goes, my understanding was that the case was dealing with case where the kid as raped but not killed, and that under precedent that is a meaningful distinction afaik. i was simply unclear as to what obama was actually saying. because if he said that rape and murder together were justifiable grounds, well, he's reinforcing the current ruling. i havent read the decision yet so forgive me if im all wrong. then obama would also be guilty of some serious parsing, too

xpost

what did he say again? cheryl crow, jay-z, and ??? i forget.

eh, what are ya gonna do?

what did the choom gang listen to, i wonder?

If you passed a law, you could.

I bet we couldn't! I bet if I got a statewide initiative on the ballot called the "Give Us Money Initiative of 2008" and everybody in the whole state agreed that we should all just be allowed to take money when we wanted it, the state would come up with a reason to deny us all our money

we are getting pretty pissed off about this btw

If you can get it on the ballot and get people to vote on it, it can become pending legislation and you can vote out everyone who tries to block and/or veto it.

it's Thursday, and I just opened the wine. Gimme cash money.

perhaps obama doesn't fetishize criminals the way you do, andwhat :D

I can't believe I only made one "lol R. Kelly fan" crack today.

you slippin Dan

like R. Kelly at a pool party

you can't read the whole obama rolling stone interview on-line. bastards. you can read the whole amy winehouse article though:

"Winehouse wants to show me her wedding pictures, but first she wants food. "I'm on a strict pizza diet," she says perkily. "I'm on a strict put-weight-on diet. I love food. I'm just stressed out." She returns from the kitchen with an oozing white-bread-and-banana sandwich, on which she sprinkles potato chips. She hands Nicole her laptop, which is caked in fingerprints and smudges, and asks her to show me the photographs of Winehouse and her husband making out, the two of them mugging for the camera like Mickey and Mallory, passing pills to each other with their tongues. Winehouse gets up for more food. Nicole continues the slide show, and suddenly the screen flashes Winehouse's blurry face, taken from above with a phone in one hand and a gigantic penis in her mouth. Nicole and I both look away. "I've never been to rehab, I mean, done it properly," says Winehouse from the kitchen. "I'm young, and I'm in love, and I get my nuts off sometimes. But it's never been like, 'Amy, get your life together. ' "

OH YES IT HAS

if R. Kelly isn't mentioned soon, I'm taking my bizness to the Steely Dan thread.

he's against people peeing on their underaged lovers except when it's as a full measure of their outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment

pooping?

he's against people peeing on their underaged lovers except when it's as a full measure of their outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment

"The Royal Scam"?

I don't think even one crime has ever been deterred by it and I don't think vengeance is good for anything and I think it's an especially stupid basis on which to construct law.

^^^OTM. there is no rational defense of the death penalty. the only purpose it serves is bloodlust/revenge, which should have no place in the sphere of civic authority.

Why?

"This court is appalled by the defendant's actions and sentences her to be peed on by R. Kelly. Would the bailiff please bring Mr. Kelly into the courtroom."

because its irrational and serves no legitimate public need.

x-post

"Trapped in the Penal System"

So, you're saying bloodlust and revenge aren't legitimate emotional responses for people to feel?

I guess you could argue that human nature is such that we require human sacrifice on a subconscious level and thus that need must be satisfied. I would counter that civic life should aspire to raise man above our lower impulses like murder and greed and whatnot but that's just me.

x-post

So, you're saying bloodlust and revenge aren't legitimate emotional responses for people to feel?

they may be legitimate to feel - they aren't legitimate to act upon.

Certainly not outside of the legal system, I agree.

We are talking about something within the legal system, though.

I think SMC meant that they should not be authorized by a state. Either that, or we're getting confirmation of Vulcan tendencies.

^^^what he said

So, you're saying bloodlust and revenge aren't legitimate emotional responses for people to feel?

this is the point of my give-me-money argument. of course they're legitimate things for people to feel. I can think of several motherfuckers I want dead right now. I also don't think the state should be given the power to kill anybody on my or anybody else's behalf except possibly in cases of immediate grave danger and even then it's shaky - take the dude who shot Dimebag in that club. Why couldn't the cops have shot him in the knee? guarantee you that unlike in the movies if you take a couple shots to the kneecap, you're not about to raise your gun and shoot anybody else.

I mean come on dan are you really gonna argue that the state should act in an irrational and emotional manner, that those are appropriate legal foundations? That the state act like a victim's crazed, grieving relative?

x-post

i agree john this planit is fucked up and its like god is a crul ringmaster

"I mean come on dan are you really gonna argue that the state should act in an irrational and emotional manner, that those are appropriate legal foundations?"

only in iraq. because what happens in iraq, stays in iraq. i know, i know, "war" is different.

the whole point of the state is to mediate humanity's crazed and dangerous impulses, not validate them. in a perfect world, the state would not be necessary and those impulses wouldn't exist - but we're stuck with this shitty world unfortunately.

(and no scott I don't consider war "different")

x-post

i agree john this planit is fucked up and its like god is a crul ringmaster

man e if I had your memory for shit I would be a lawyer, for real

(especially THIS stupid war we're in right now - the initiation of which WAS completely irrational)

x-post

Why couldn't the cops have shot him in the knee? guarantee you that unlike in the movies if you take a couple shots to the kneecap, you're not about to raise your gun and shoot anybody else.

I used to say things like this until I learned to shoot, at which point it becomes kind of obvious why everyone who straps for a living aims at the center of mass. If you're a threat and I have a limited chance to stop you the fuck I'm going to be trying to shoot the gun out of your hand or some other blazing saddles bullshit

^^^sad but true

My point is more that I would rather face my violent tendencies than suppress them, because whenever I suppress them the smallest thing causes me to lose my shit in the most terrifying manner possible. I am not a proponent of the death penalty but I understand why it's there and I understand cases where its application is emotionally justified. I do have a severe problem with states like Texas, where (as far as I can tell) an adherence to some vestigial romanticized Wild West bravado has executed more than 4 times as many people as the next bloodthirstiest state since 1976 but, on balance, its existence doesn't bother me. I am fully aware that there are inherent contradictions in this position but that doesn't really bother me.

The wrongful conviction issue is a massive problem that makes me far more anti-capital punishment than anything else but I'm not convinced that human life is valuable enough for it to be banned outright as a sentencing option if that is what the majority of the people living in that state want.

(I say this having lived all but one year of my life in two states that, to my knowledge, don't have capital punishment statutes; I've never lived in a state where being in the wrong place at the wrong time would make this an issue for me.)

your blase self-absorption never disappoints

I used to say things like this until I learned to shoot, at which point it becomes kind of obvious why everyone who straps for a living aims at the center of mass. If you're a threat and I have a limited chance to stop you the fuck I'm going to be trying to shoot the gun out of your hand or some other blazing saddles bullshit

Have you used the Force?

n a perfect world, cops would carry blowdarts tipped in curaré, and accurate drinking straws, but we're stuck with this shitty world unfortunately.

The wrongful conviction issue is a massive problem that makes me far more anti-capital punishment than anything else but I'm not convinced that human life is valuable enough for it to be banned outright as a sentencing option if that is what the majority of the people living in that state want.

Bearing the Eighth Amendment in mind, this is how I feel. I'm not Ethan or John D on this (much like Ethan wasn't so gung-ho on FISA). It's abhorrent and against our better principles, but I feel less Jeffersonian as I get older.

Shakey, you never fail to not comprehend something I've written.

the older i get the more i feel that wrongful conviction/deterrent arguments are just icing, and really state sanctioned killing is just barbaric and fucked up. xp.

^^ Given the slim chance of wrongful-conviction issues transforming into a perfect-world lollipopland during our lifetimes, this tends to work out into a position that's basically "okay I guess we can technically have a death penalty but never, ever use it, ever."

Sorry, that was an xpost upthread

Shakey, you never fail to not comprehend something I've written.

hugz

lol

i think pro/con arguments always degenerate into barbaric/naive arguments in a quick and boring fashion. since neither view is particularly accurate (the middle-ground of u.s. judicial policy hews to neither of these extremes, as a rule and guiding principle), the more interesting and vital question should, i think, be to proposing alternatives.

or: what nabisco said.

many xp to the cop shoot cop comments - Police only hit with like one out of every ten rounds fired in the first place - asking them to aim for very small, non-critical areas to wound is basically so not gonna happen.

I have never accepted that strapping someone to a chair and melting their brain and/or giving them excruciatingly painful injections are not "cruel" - certainly they're "unusual"

It was the glibness with which Governor George W. Bush openly boasted that he didn't read Alberto Gonzalez's memos on death-row inmates that told me the system was inherently fucked.

remy, our media isn't interested in broadcasting alternatives. Whenever you tell relatives of victims that the convicted killer of their daughter will serve life without parole, and they see shots of said killer playing hoops in the pen, there's no way you can mitigate their understandable frustration.

Given the slim chance of wrongful-conviction issues transforming into a perfect-world lollipopland during our lifetimes, this tends to work out into a position that's basically "okay I guess we can technically have a death penalty but never, ever use it, ever."

This is my position 99% of the time.

OK, can we return to dissing Obama?

I hear he's a muslim

and a jew

http://www.extrememortman.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/Barack%20Obama%20basketball%20from%20xmlgrrl.jpg

could stare at that page all day...

still trying to make everything out on the bottom there...

is that a bottle of Presidente?

laters indeed...

we go play hoop

monkey skull sitting on turntable = my candidate

Ha, I'm not even sure what I meant by that. I think I mean that I'd prefer that no one were ever executed, ever, but if the public honestly believes on principle and in theory that it should be okay to execute people, and feel it's an important expression of our national identity that we would (if it were fair and convenient, which it's not), then who cares, I won't argue with you.

The Supremes' state-count ratcheting approach to public standards about what merits death looks to this non-lawyer like the dumbest and most obviously flawed thing in the universe; is there something I'd have learned in law school that would make me think otherwise? (There's certainly something from science class about observations changing results that the justices don't seem to have adequately taken into account on this one.)

yeah reread this thread, still don't get ethan and j0hn's argument that this is a particular battle that is worth fighting now, over this particular issue; if you're going to have a serious fight about the death penalty it should be

1. on grounds where you will actually have some kind of impact, not in a generic response to an already-settled court case in the middle of election season

2. in a case where you are likely to win sympathizers, i.e. not one where you can be easily tied to defending pedophiles

think about what was said about how in 2001 suddenly most people were in favor of a moratorium - it was because innocent ppl were being executed!

i dunno it seems to me that trying to rail against the death penalty at any and every opportunity when public support is against it is a good way to never actually get the death penalty overturned; instead you entrench the partisan nature of the debate and it turns into a smear campaign

If you have a strong moral objection to the death penalty in all forms and all cases and you don't want to vote for someone who advocates it under any circumstance (although I personally am hesitant to ascribe the word "advocate" to a position that essentially states "if a community wants to impose it on a particularly heinous crime, they should be allowed the option"), there is no way that statement will come across as anything but craven pandering.

at my last job i had to research the life of one of the attorneys who was heavily involved in brown v. the board of ed and i remember being absolutely amazed at how much planning went into making the change that was required happen - the way the entire case was designed, how it built on past cases, how the strategy was figured out based on precedent so that they would make the most effective systematic change ... i have an almost incomparable amount of respect for that type of thoughtful, smart, disciplined effort. sometimes just standing for the right thing really isn't enough

sorry thats so poorly written but i did the research nearly a year ago so im kinda flakey on the details now

the point was though that i agree that the death penalty is loathsome, but thats the kind of change that i dont expect obama will be able to make in office, even if he was a fierce opponent of it and somehow still managed to be elected. he might help us take steps in that direction, with the right supreme court appointments etc, but i cant see what good his standing for an unpopular decision is really going to do or how it helps us in the long term to actually affect things

History tends to ignore the legwork that goes behind monumental legal paradigm shifts, so it's very easy to jump straight to end result you want without thinking very hard about the work you need to do to get there.

at my last job i had to research the life of one of the attorneys who was heavily involved in brown v. the board of ed and i remember being absolutely amazed at how much planning went into making the change that was required happen - the way the entire case was designed, how it built on past cases, how the strategy was figured out based on precedent so that they would make the most effective systematic change

hell yeah! The Robert Caro biography of Johnson spends some time discussing how much Thurgood Marshall and dozens of others prepared. It wasn't just learning how to challenge precedent -- it was anticipating how the legislature might try to undercut SCOTUS if it ruled in their favor.

yeah reread this thread, still don't get ethan and j0hn's argument that this is a particular battle that is worth fighting now, over this particular issue

yeah but I hope you won't take this the wrong way man, I don't mean it in my usual I'm-a-dick way, but supporters of candidates are always bringing the "this discussion is valid but not now" argument. It's just never the right time for important discussions - there's always something more important (winning the election, passing this or that bill, etc) that'll give people an out like "important discussion, but not now." In my opinion, if the issue is of grave moral weight - as is certainly the case with the death penalty - then the time for the discussion is permanently now, no matter what effect the discussion has on other concerns.

even if he was a fierce opponent of it

and also, yeah, he's not, so this is just an opportunity for some of us who plan on voting for him but are still pretty sickened by how sorry an excuse for a left-leaning party the Democratic party is to do some issues-focused kvetching

choom gang 4evah

I suspect that Obama's iPod might include more songs from The Royal Scam than any other Steely Dan album because, in his words, it's more "representative" of the "acidic vision of the world inseparable from Steely Dan's L.A. lifestyle."

you really expect him to speak at a Mosque when 20% of the american people think he's a muslim?

-- The Brainwasher, Thursday, June 26, 2008 3:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

That 20% is going to keep thinking it and they're never going to vote for him, and if it seems like he's making a point of NOT speaking at mosques it will just make them more suspicious. He has more to worry about by pissing off potential voters, not least, Muslims, by avoiding mosques. If he is in fact doing that.

but yeah i really think dude owes the left a bone here soon

Does this count?

Mrs. Obama Reaffirms Husband's Support to Gay Community

that reminds me, I was having this conversation with a gay friend of mine who said he doesn't trust Obama/doesn't like him and he cited some quote where Obama disputed the similarity between civil rights/mixed-race marriages and gay marriage, said they weren't the same, etc. I was always under the impression Obama had a pretty good track record with the gay community - interviews with the Advocate, etc. Andrew Sullivan's support did not sway my friend (which is understandable, Sullivan's kinda a douchebag). Is my friend under some erroneous impression, one that I can disabuse him of...?

Secretly I think his resistance to Obama is due to some not-so-covert racism on my friend's part but I didn't wanna go there right away.

And I could never trust the Clintons, but I was a minority. The reaction of some gay men I know to HRC was...disturbing.

He wants to overturn DOMA; this may be enough. Also:Obama talks LGBT.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/alexokrent/gGggJS

Unlike Senator Clinton, I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
– a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate.

i love how totally balls-out and unafraid that speech is

http://lesbianlife.about.com/od/lesbianactivism/p/BarackObama.htm

Although Barack Obama has said that he supports civil unions, he is against gay marriage. In an interview with the Chicago Daily Tribune, Obama said, "I'm a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman."

Barack Obama did vote against a Federal Marriage Amendment and opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.

He said he would support civil unions between gay and lesbian couples, as well as letting individual states determine if marriage between gay and lesbian couples should be legalized.

"Giving them a set of basic rights would allow them to experience their relationship and live their lives in a way that doesn't cause discrimination," Obama said. "I think it is the right balance to strike in this society."

I also believe that the federal government should not
stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and
lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage.

?

distinction between religious wedding and civil wedding

or rather marriage, not wedding; anyone can have a wedding

(I kind of don't see how you can get mad at someone who says, "This is what the word 'marriage' means to me but I can't impose my definition on people who don't agree with me, ergo I support your cause because you should have equal rights.")

basically his position 'against' gay marriage is entirely semantics

semiotics?

he is a lawyer after all

Barack Obama is Tracy Jordan as Star Jones!

lets him have his cake and eat it too.

"im against gay marriage, definitely!"
(applause)
"And im in favor of everything gay marriage would represent"

Um, no.

It is a clear delineation of a personal belief from a public policy issue.

but hes not just arguing for a hands-off policy on states favoring gay marriage, hes arguing for equal rights across the board which requires some federal action right?

But I also believe that the federal government should not
stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and
lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage.

to me this sounds like a clear-cut case of "i dont give a shit what you call it, if they want to get married theyre getting married"

It's an essentially conservative position -- true conservatism.

http://pewforum.org/newassets/dpsupport.gif

Did anyone disagree that support for the death penalty was widespread?

did i post a gif that says 'support for the death penalty is widespread'?

i think what is most interesting to me about it is that 41% of self-id'd 'liberal dems' are pro-death penalty

xp - yes

no i believe i posted a gif w/ demographic breakdowns showing to what degree it is widespread

naivety alert: I still find it weird how many alleged Christians support the death penalty, but I guess as usual lol America.

with evangelicals the most likely to support it

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

umm why not? Each and every Christian government in history has had the death penalty for various crimes.

The problem is most Christians try to read the Bible but their brains start to hurt around Leviticus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_talionis

http://rawstory.com/news08/2008/06/29/whistleblower-fisa-compromise-advances-police-state-agenda/

“[ Wednesday ]’s vote by Congress effectively gives retroactive immunity to the telecom companies and endorses an all-powerful president,” Klein said. “It’s a Congressional coup against the Constitution.”

“This cynical deal is a Democratic exercise in deceit and cowardice,” he went on. “Congress has made the FISA law a dead letter–such a law is useless if the president can break it with impunity. Thus the Democrats have surreptitiously repudiated the main reform of the post-Watergate era and adopted Nixon’s line: ‘When the president does it that means that it is not illegal.’ This is the judicial logic of a dictatorship.”

those scumbag democrats

they did a decent job in putting the screws to Yoo though, credit where due

"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," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

wtf, because unpacking clark's actual criticism is too hard for most americans?

note: i dont believe its very hard obv

wait where is that quote from

okay fuck you Obama

Gore Vidal seems to have inspired the last part of Clark's remarks, but, wow, isn't it commen sense to think that being a prisoner of war does not adduce your readiness to be commander in chief?

*common

(Vidal has said recently that he doubts McCain was even a POW)

srsly I get where he's coming from intellectually but COME THE FUCK ON YOU NAIVE DOUCHEBAG

vidal vets for the truth

we don't have common sense in this country, we have a democracy, and free markets

rejecting clark's comment is some bullshit by me but it should be obvious to all and sundry that obama is just riding the straight-and-narrow all the way to november; let others sling mud and take challenging positions on shit, he's not going to say one thing that means jack shit from here until the tally

(Vidal has said recently that he doubts McCain was even a POW)

people around my office have been mumbling this was a cover for working for the cia

4,000 members since Friday on the VOTE NO ON FISA group on MyBarackObama.com

aside from FISA, most of the stuff being complained about her - public statements, concurring with SC decisions, etc. - are completely inconsequential

attempted aikido moment

"The important thing is if that's the kind of campaign Senator Obama and his surrogates and supporters want to engage in, I understand that. But it doesn't reduce the price of gas by one penny. It doesn't achieve our energy independence or make it come any closer. Doesn't make any American stay in their home who's at risk of losing it today. And it certainly doesn't do anything to address the challenges Americans have in keeping their jobs, homes and supporting their families."

aside from FISA, most of the stuff being complained about her - public statements, concurring with SC decisions, etc. - are completely inconsequential

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, June 30, 2008 12:46 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

^^^this

it is completely fucking stupid to expect obama to get involved in trying to parse an extremely awkward and politically fraught wes clarke faux pas on principle alone

Seriously if 'staying to the left' means he needs to defend every single easily-misinterpretable statement someone on the left says then fuck the left

deej it doesn't mean that, it means that this is the fucking umpteenth thing in two weeks that seems to make him feel like actually leaning left is gonna give him hives

"oh no, all that shit I was saying before was just to win the primary, you sillies!"

what is the point of getting wrapped up in a stupid debate about wes clarks stupid statement?? that has nothing to do with principle and everything to do with defending the ability of the left to take meaningless, non-issue-related pot shots at the right

like, what has wes clark done to forward the debate by saying that being a fighter pilot doesnt neccessarily make you qualified to be a president? i dont hear ppl on the right putting mccain's former fighter pilot/war hero status as an example of why he would make a good pres any more than i hear the left saying that obama's muslim dad would make him better able to relate to the middle east, both of which are pretty suspect statements

do you want a debate about issues or do you want a bunch of grandstanding and shallow zings

do you want new wave or do you want the truth

I guess what's at stake is what counts as meaningless and non-issue-related.

It would be a lot better to convince people living near you that FISA is fucked, than to bitch at Obama for that. Change comes when people's minds and actions change, and this rarely (ever?) happens from above (a lesson the anti-abortion folks haven't yet learned either).

what I want deej is for Obama to continue posing like a progressive the way he did in the primaries instead of continuing this cowardly don't-wanna-offend-anybody-but-if-I-do-let-it-be-progressives-'cause-they-have-to-vote-for-me-anyway fucking garbage. all primary long he was the candidate who was different. now he sounds like a Clinton every goddamn time he opens his mouth. fuck this guy.

do you want a debate about issues or do you want a bunch of grandstanding and shallow zings

yeah, exactly. I appreciate good rhetoric as much as the next guy bt when it comes down to how I rate a legislater or president it is all about POLICY.

Yeah, I'm starting to despise Obama more and more each day. Nader, you sure are lookin real good right now

But there isn't significant popular opposition to FISA cuz no one quite 'gets it' - there is significant support for 'keeping us safe' and there is significant support for civil liberties, FISA is a debate that could easily be won w/ proper framing plus he would have actually been able to impact the law directly on the issue, which is why i remain extremely disappointed in his decision to play it safe on that one

what I want deej is for Obama to continue posing like a progressive the way he did in the primaries instead of continuing this cowardly don't-wanna-offend-anybody-but-if-I-do-let-it-be-progressives-'cause-they-have-to-vote-for-me-anyway fucking garbage. all primary long he was the candidate who was different. now he sounds like a Clinton every goddamn time he opens his mouth. fuck this guy.

-- J0hn D., Monday, June 30, 2008 2:11 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

he's always spoken from the center dude. he was never a crazy commie leftist in his rhetoric, he just voted that way

Yeah, I'm starting to despise Obama more and more each day. Nader, you sure are lookin real good right now

-- burt_stanton, Monday, June 30, 2008 2:12 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

u remain an utter cornball no matter how much self awareness creeps into your posts

you guys - santa claus isn't real

J0hn you really gotta take a step back from the media narrative/image control stuff. OMG a national politician made a statement specifically designed not to offend anyone the Republic is doomed fuck this guy yeah whatever

^^^ my first and last post to an ilx politics thread

yeah he didn't make a point of saying "hey, these righties have a real point here" every five minutes until about 2 weeks ago

deej srsly get a little bit off dude's jock, he sounds completely pathetic these days, it's one thing to wanna vote for him and another to lambaste ppl who wish he wasn't quite quickly revealing himself to be just another goddamn Democrat

xpost I didn't say the Republic was doomed, SMC. I said he's being an asshole. 'Cause he is.

xpost

J0hn that's bullshit, part of the attraction has been his ability to tell people, even "his people", that they're wrong. So naturally progressives get heat, just like the Republicans. This is gonna sound shitty if you think most progressives stances are correct now and need no change.

Yeah, I'm starting to despise Obama more and more each day. Nader, you sure are lookin real good right now

-- burt_stanton, Monday, June 30, 2008 2:12 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

u remain an utter cornball no matter how much self awareness creeps into your posts

-- deej, Monday, June 30, 2008 8:13 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

A cornball!?! Just wait a second while I throw on a 1940s movie so I can counter zing that one

yeah he didn't make a point of saying "hey, these righties have a real point here" every five minutes until about 2 weeks ago

-- J0hn D., Monday, June 30, 2008 2:15 PM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

hes been talking about how john mccain is honorable and how reagan created massive significant change since he began running, you apparently just havent been paying attention. one of the biggest narratives hes pushing is that he actually gets along with legislators on the other side of the aisle and if hes spending his time saying 'john mccain was a prisoner of war but that dont mean shit' then it contradicts that narrative dont you think???

you party-line-totin' Democrats please be a little understanding with those of us who were kinda hoping to vote for somebody decent instead of somebody not-as-bad k cool? thank you, most of us are gonna vote for him anyway so fucking chill and grant us that he is being an opportunity cynical fuck

Euler it'd be one thing if the heat was worth throwing here. It really does look like "hey, maybe I can curry favor with conservatives if I give a little burn to these people who have to vote for me anyhow LOL PWN3D"

deej how much righty pandering is O gonna have to do before you'll call it pandering? wanna set a benchmark so when he reaches it we can agree about it?

J0hn its important to remember that the only real valid reason to care about politics is because of how it directly impacts your daily life. Obama saying he agrees with a recent Supreme Court decision, or that he thinks McCain deserves credit for surviving being a POW or whatever - these things have no impact on anyone anywhere whatsoever. they are just media noise resulting from reporters needing to post something on Obama every day of the week - its just bullshit.

I was watching an interview with Osama Obama in May and he was giving an interview on FOX 666 NEWS and he said the one thing he thinks the Republicans did right was doing away with regulation and oversight. I mean, dude, those are the two things which have led us to the shit hole we're in now.

i would just prefer you wait til he actually sells out rather than jumping on him for admitting that sometimes he thinks liberals can be condescending

J0hn its important to remember that the only real valid reason to care about politics is because of how it directly impacts your daily life.

Yeah I disagree with you on this at a very deep core. After all, plenty of BushCo shit didn't impact my daily life one bit; I disagreed with all of it because it was repellent, not because of its impact on me.

I mean you don't even mean this, do you?

i mean j0hn look who u have agreeing with you right now - burt 'osama obama' stanton

saying vs. doing

of course I mean it. I perhaps have a different idea of what the scope of my daily life encompasses than you do.

oh well deej the sellout came with FISA and that fucking bullshit "it is not all we had hoped for" statement, the rest is just bonus outrage

also deej I think the "look who agrees with you" tactic is b.s. adolescent gotcha-ism & you're a lot better than that

I mean I consider people being killed in a foreign country with my tax dollars as impacting my daily life. cuz it does.

Shakey, so when Ashcroft draped the naked statue, you didn't give a shit about that, because any "direct impact" would actually be pretty abstract - right?

I'm just annoyed that he's backing off a legitimate criticism that cuts through the bulk of McCain's platform (ie, being a POW doesn't de facto make you qualified to run the military). He didn't need to denounce or acknowledge the comment because it didn't come from him; in fact, unless Clark actually IS going to be his VP pick there's no reason for him to take a stand on it one way or the other.

i lolled at the statue thing

definition of pander: gratify or indulge

so if Obama actually believes the shit he's saying re. FISA/guns/whatever, is it righty-pandering? Dude was on the faculty of the Chicago law school, which is a pretty conservative place. He probably believes some (all?) of this stuff! So I don't think it's pandering.

FWIW I don't think Clinton pulled much of the righty-swing until after the 1994 midterms and the health-care debacle, aside from the Sister Souljah thing I guess.

HI DERE otm. Obama is just going out of his way to say lame shit now.

Shakey, so when Ashcroft draped the naked statue, you didn't give a shit about that, because any "direct impact" would actually be pretty abstract - right?

I thought it was silly but no I didn't really care about it.

OK yeah we're just different then. I get pissed off about shit that seems wrong to me whether it has any effect on me or not.

i think where i disagree dan is that i think hes really going for a conciliatory style and saying "being mean is not nice" about ppl who make these comments fits in w/ his general narrative and is very ON MESSAGE

yea,h I'm beginning to think Obama wasn't all that lefty to begin with. We just assumed he was because of all that Change CHANgER CHANGrgt reshit. Dude pulled a real three card montey on us (get it???? HUHH????? yeah you do. and I don't feel an ounce of shame about it. yeah, what're you gonna do about it? huh?)

yea,h I'm beginning to think Obama wasn't all that lefty to begin with. We just assumed he was because of all that Change CHANgER CHANGrgt reshit. Dude pulled a real three card montey on us (get it???? HUHH????? yeah you do. and I don't feel an ounce of shame about it. yeah, what're you gonna do about it? huh?)

-- burt_stanton, Monday, June 30, 2008 2:25 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

i think u still dont know what you are talking about

OK yeah we're just different then. I get pissed off about shit that seems wrong to me whether it has any effect on me or not.

ah admit it you just like boobies

the new message from Obama faithful is 'LOL you believed that CHANGE stuff, what are you, naive?'

xpost I believe my record on boobies is clear & speaks for itself

the new message from Obama faithful is 'LOL you believed that CHANGE stuff, what are you, naive?'

xpost I believe my record on boobies is clear & speaks for itself

-- J0hn D., Monday, June 30, 2008 2:26 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

obama has had the most consistent messaging of this campaign so if u are having problems and see 'contradiction' i dont know what to say

We all have the same conversation in some form every week.

It's funny: I don't consider myself progressive, but the Clinton experience has made me (and I imagine John D and others) petrified that we won't see what progressivism might look like.

I'm just annoyed that he's backing off a legitimate criticism that cuts through the bulk of McCain's platform (ie, being a POW doesn't de facto make you qualified to run the military).

^^^i dont really think this is the bulk of mccain's platform, which has to do more with (probably-accurate) toughness + (inaccurate) honesty/forthrightness. Honesty is more of the lie

you guys have no idea how hard it has been to control my urge to edit a "mollify lingbert" into this thread title for old times sake

It's funny: I don't consider myself progressive, but the Clinton experience has made me (and I imagine John D and others) petrified that we won't see what progressivism might look like.

more like "more convinced"

I'm mainly just pissed that all the primary posturing of Obama's supporters (probably not pinnable on O himself) about change etc. was just tactical and now they all wanna toe the "hey, he's a politician, gotta win elections" line

shirts v skins

now they all wanna toe the "hey, he's a politician, gotta win elections" line

for shame!

when he pulls the 'gotta win' line on shit that actually matters, i get mad (ie fisa)

but i really dont care beyond that. like i said before picking your battles is as much a part of being a candidate of change as being the right side of them when they come

if obama cant do "mccain is a hero, and yet has terrible foreign policy ideas that have put us in a quagmire, broken our military, and cost us blood and treasure," i dont know what all that speechifying is for.

This thread's direction as of late has certainly done much to soften the inevitable blow when everything Morbs has been saying all this time comes to fruition.

lol

if obama cant do "mccain is a hero, and yet has terrible foreign policy ideas that have put us in a quagmire, broken our military, and cost us blood and treasure," i dont know what all that speechifying is for.

-- Hunt3r, Monday, June 30, 2008 2:42 PM (23 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

that is what he is doing? wes made a distinctly different statement

Sorry, This thread's direction as of late

picking your battles is as much a part of being a candidate of change as being the right side of them when they come

wut

"change" = "not being like every other cowardly Democrat" = "having the balls to at least not jump out and attack ppl who're on your side just to win points with ppl who aren't going to vote for you anyway"

i heard the mccain's a hero part, the account i read didnt pivot to part two at all, but it was a fairly short report.

xpost

"having the balls to at least not jump out and attack ppl who're on your side just to win points with ppl who aren't going to vote for you anyway"

yeah im sure that swing voters are totally cool with bashing war heroes

how is this even a thing? the point was made (by clark), and obama looks like the bigger man by not condoning it. everybody wins, and it's hardly an important matter of principle.

yeah im sure that swing voters are totally cool with bashing war heroes

things in which I don't believe: 1) Santa 2) "swing voters"

3) asshole Dem candidates who have to be pushed to lean left

I wouldn't be surprised if Clark and Obama got together and planned out Clark's remarks, and Obama's reaction to them, to go exactly like this. Clark makes the pertinent and fairly irrefutable criticism (that is also a political lightning rod), Obama stands back, says "Clark doesn't speak for me on this issue", but the criticism has been made and put in the public sphere regardless. And in fact, if Obama says nothing about it, the criticism doesn't register to the degree that it has now. Obama's rejectening of the criticism gives it more air. Isn't this just classic campaign tactics? You don't make the controversial slams, your bulldogs do.

^^^ this

swing voters like:

a. strong principled candidates
b. being teabagged
c. false choices

i heard the mccain's a hero part, the account i read didnt pivot to part two at all, but it was a fairly short report.

xpost

-- Hunt3r, Monday, June 30, 2008 2:45 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

hes been pretty regularly bagging on the iraq war thing and how mccain is no different than bush for months

"i will not condone any remarks that try to suggest McCain is a hermaphrodite"

i want to know what j0hn thinks of moveon's 'general betray-us' ad

I hope Tracer is right because if so that's fucking awesome.

Meanwhile, some of those in the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties reacted not merely by criticizing particular government policies, but by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself -- by burning flags; by blaming America for all that was wrong with the world; and perhaps most tragically, by failing to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day.

Yes, I would believe it – I'm reading Nixonland now – but we only found shit like that years later, when it's historians' turn. It doesn't matter now.

sistah fondah moment

i want to know what j0hn thinks of moveon's 'general betray-us' ad

I haven't really thought about it much 'cause I don't give half a shit, you know? they're not running for president as far as I know

or being touted as agents of some seismic change in politics by anybody except themselves

yeah but he specifically spoke out against the ad, i thought maybe you would see it as further evidence of his distancing himself from 'the left,' or maybe you would agree w/ me that sometimes 'the left' should be told to stfu

quotes on 'the left' important there

gotta really love "the so-called counterculture" in the odious little excerpt above - get 'em, O, slam those big phonies with their naive idealism! show the righties that you, too, hate those damn hippies!

xpost yes deej but obama seems to think now that anybody who leans even slightly left should be told to stfu

"they oppose wiretapping? whatever you hippie fucks, shut up and vote for me, I'm your candidate now!"

obama seems to think now that anybody who leans even slightly left should be told to stfu

L O L

no fair i agree with you about fisa

i still plan on rallying to him when hes tryn not to be jimmy carty with all the flaming bags of poop on his porch.

I love pretending that winning the general election is exactly like winning a democratic party primary

or that obama should just be resting on his left-wing laurels like that's all he needs to win (it almost is, but almost did jack of shit for us the last two go 'rounds)

deej: yeah but FISA's just the biggest head on the hydra now. what the fuck is "so-called counterculture" supposed to mean? he sounds like a fox news anchor w/that shit

xpost fair enough Tom and I end up saying this on every political thread I jump into: I have naive and childish expectations of candidates & their supporters. and in the present case it's like everything obama does is like 'wait, you guys hated that shit from clinton & were totally vicious about it, why are you defending it now?'

what is the so-called counterculture quote from?

a speech he gave throwing more lefties under the bus

i just dont want obama to win the presidency but lose his soul in the process.

xpost

something that remains a national shame to this day.

see, this is what we must get the fuck over. hey, watch me pick this scab!

unless you think everyone in the counterculture -- only some of which equates to the (mainstream) left, and im pretty sure obama doesn't mean those bits -- was a righteous dude, it's not that bad a quote.

well, politicians are soulless creatures to begin with, but the great ones (Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR) find common ground at the intersection of their convictions and their ambitions.

(xxpost)

this thread is like a people's history of why we can't win a fucking election.

http://amadeo.blog.com/repository/330130/2900350.jpg

JD is right tho, it is the 'so-called' that really sends that quote into the gutter. its old white man talk. if its pure condescension, & it probably is, i dont see why obama has to stoop to that kind of shit to win.

its old white man talk.

well played, sir.

classy.

i mean remind me why saying something thats intentionally devisive as fuck is politically expedient

Might be dumb of me but I read "the so-called counterculture" as him saying "the people in charge at the time called them the counterculture".

surely he means there was a good counterculture (liek tom hayden) and a bad counterculture (like the yippies), rather than 'there was no good counterculture'.

no - "some of those in.." etc

the 'good guys' in the so-called counter 'culture' were the ones who criticized the govt w/out resorting to the 'bad' stuff

can we take a moment to remind ourselves that picking apart nouns in presidential candidates' speeches made in June is typically the purview of up-your-own-bung overpaid pundits who suck at life

im aware of that & its a fair point but its also fair to point out that its a pretty shitty, disappointing quote

"oh boo hoo hoo I was born in the eighties and he made a remark which I interpret as disparaging of the people in my parents' generation who didn't get drafted and acted like jerks about it"

where's this motherfucker on the space program

can we take a moment to remind ourselves that picking apart nouns in presidential candidates' speeches made in June is typically the purview of up-your-own-bung overpaid pundits who suck at life

"Watch your mouth, sonny!"

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2006/12/07/PH2006120701299.jpg

wtf deeznuts you are so wrong

DNFTT

the "good" ones called for the nomination of Archie Bunker and Adolf Hitler at the '72 convention.

stfu ET & Mr Gay

where am i wrong deej?

how is it shitty and disappointing that he said some people on the left disrespecting former soldiers are shameful

thats not, & thats not what either i or JD was saying at all - he was pretty clearly disrespecting the entire leftist movement of the 60s for reasons i said upthread

how is it not clear what "so-called counterculture" means in the context of that quote? and yeah, its just one quote, but its a really shitty quote! thats all im saying.

I think it's fair to point out that history and perspective makes the 60s counter-culture movement not seem very far removed from popular culture, particularly when so much of its imagery has been co-opted into the mainstream.

I refuse to vote for McCain, btw.

tell about incidents of soldier disrespect? i hope the soldiers kicked hippy ass, that always gets a rise.

My concerns here aren't simply personal, however. After all, throughout our history, men and women of far greater stature and significance than me have had their patriotism questioned in the midst of momentous debates. Thomas Jefferson was accused by the Federalists of selling out to the French. The anti-Federalists were just as convinced that John Adams was in cahoots with the British and intent on restoring monarchal rule. Likewise, even our wisest Presidents have sought to justify questionable policies on the basis of patriotism. Adams' Alien and Sedition Act, Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, Roosevelt's internment of Japanese Americans - all were defended as expressions of patriotism, and those who disagreed with their policies were sometimes labeled as unpatriotic.

In other words, the use of patriotism as a political sword or a political shield is as old as the Republic. Still, what is striking about today's patriotism debate is the degree to which it remains rooted in the culture wars of the 1960s - in arguments that go back forty years or more. In the early years of the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War, defenders of the status quo often accused anybody who questioned the wisdom of government policies of being unpatriotic. Meanwhile, some of those in the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties reacted not merely by criticizing particular government policies, but by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself - by burning flags; by blaming America for all that was wrong with the world; and perhaps most tragically, by failing to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day
.
Most Americans never bought into these simplistic world-views - these caricatures of left and right. Most Americans understood that dissent does not make one unpatriotic, and that there is nothing smart or sophisticated about a cynical disregard for America's traditions and institutions. And yet the anger and turmoil of that period never entirely drained away. All too often our politics still seems trapped in these old, threadbare arguments - a fact most evident during our recent debates about the war in Iraq, when those who opposed administration policy were tagged by some as unpatriotic, and a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal.

or he COULD be saying "so-called counterculture" in the sense that there can never truly be a "counterculture" in an inclusive nation which embraces the right of assembly and freedom of speech!! HMMMM SCRATCH CHIN SCRATCH CHIN HMM HMM.

oh holy shit look at that what's that called again it's like "kontechs" or something right

Hippies then were a lot better than hippies now because they actually stood for something beyond spending other people's money to stay as high as possible.

i heard he also did that air quote thing in his speech

J0hn's "OMG every Obama utterance is a betrayal of the left" routine is reaching comical levels. there were actual assholes who called themselves the counterculture, y'know.

that being said I am all for flag burning.

Still, what is striking about today's patriotism debate is the degree to which it remains rooted in the culture wars of the 1960s - in arguments that go back forty years or more.

i think its striking that today's patriotism debate got you wearing a flag pin

as long as said flag is wrapped around a celebrity

xpost

id just like to quickly & sincerely say since im unbanned & all that i really do appreciate it when dudes like que & deej & et actually engage w/ me rather than act like assholes - reading the full paragraph i agree w/ you guys!

as long as said flag is wrapped around a celebrity

esp. Carlos Mencia and Larry the Cable Guy

John Adams would have been a Yippie.

I am also pro-Pentagon levitation

STORIES ABOUT spat-upon Vietnam veterans are like mercury: Smash one and six more appear. It's hard to say where they come from. For a book I wrote in 1998 I looked back to the time when the spit was supposedly flying, the late 1960s and early 1970s. I found nothing. No news reports or even claims that someone was being spat on.

this furthering my earlier comment. im sure some hippies disrespected vietnam vets, but you know what? so did my naval officer dad who thot they were a bunch of feckless losers who contributed to a loss. so...

(he certainly didnt spit on them of course)

dudes like que

is it que, or Mr. Gay?

I thought I was Mr. Gay.

J0hn's "OMG every Obama utterance is a betrayal of the left" routine is reaching comical levels. there were actual assholes who called themselves the counterculture, y'know.

this is a great defense Mo - that way, every other day, as Obama's pandering centrism grows more and more embarrassing and disappointing, you can just say "oh do shut up, it's already been pointed out that he sucks"

shit, my bad.

ive always heard thats a myth too hunt3r - at the same time, its one loads of people believe & its one tied to vietnam not iraq, so it seems like fair play. i missed the beginning of this argument i guess, so if it was initially 'there wasnt anything negative anywhere about the counterculture' or something, yeah obv i disagree there. its perfectly reasonable for obama to point out that thats not what the left stands for.

xp it depends que - at the moment, its que

i am pretty sure he's given those remarks before re: the counter-culture of the 60's. pissed me off just as much the first time around.

West Virginia, 5/12
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0508/Obama_keeps_on_repudiating_boomers.html

i heard he also did that air quote thing in his speech

-- Hunt3r, Monday, June 30, 2008 4:33 PM (Monday, June 30, 2008 4:33 PM) Bookmark Link

lol

hates boomers; can't truss 'im

where have i heard that message before?

in other news, Barack Obama may recruit defence chief Robert Gates

so are you two (daria & JD) essentially attacking a future president of the united states for speaking out against flag-burning, people blaming america for all that is wrong with the world, & failing to honor war veterans?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4232070.ece

deeznuts, you're essentially an idiot.

^^^this

however much you paid for that debate technique deez you should go demand yr money back

"Fox News, it's deeznuts - could I have the refunds department?"

thats what he's doing in that speech that you two are so up in arms about!

like I said before J0hn yr just harping on/aggressively parsing inconsequential statements that have nothing to do with policy (or as deej says "saying vs. doing") so until Obama invades some country or imprisons dissenters or gives away all my tax dollars to corporate assholes or lets an entire city drown I am pretty much okay with him saying whatever.

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http://thecurrent.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/06/gates-and-obama.php

I don't know that I have an opinion on the Gates thing yet.

like I said before J0hn yr just harping on/aggressively parsing inconsequential statements that have nothing to do with policy (or as deej says "saying vs. doing") so until Obama invades some country or imprisons dissenters or gives away all my tax dollars to corporate assholes or lets an entire city drown I am pretty much okay with him saying whatever.

Yeah man I just cannot understand this for the life of me. Why give a shit at all, if anything he says is "it helps him get elected so it's all good"? This makes my cynicism, which I usually think of as pretty severe, seem paltry.

i'm not OK with him saying whatever. how else are we to tell what he'll do on policy?

seriously J0hn a lot of this backbiting sounds like sour grapes comin from you and daria

and for the last time, you guys are complaining about things that are NOT POLICY RELATED. THEY HAVE NO BEARING ON LEGISLATION OR GOVERNING.

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like omg why didn't he come out in favor of flag-burning and spitting on vets?!? Oh the horror of his spineless equivocating

remind me again about how obama was the candidate for "change"?

poster 1: OMG I DON'T TRUST OBAMA!
poster 2: OMG YOU DON'T TRUST OBAMA!
poster 3: You know, I kinda trust Obama.
poster 4: OMG YOU TRUST OBAMA!

he's not saying 'whatever', he's saying 'guess what people, things are complicated' - if thats wrong i dont wanna be right. daria as long as were using fox news i punching bag i submit left hook right hook left hook 2 u

personally I never took his "change" rhetoric to be any more than just that - every politician says that kinda shit (cue "we're gonna send a message to all those bureaucrats in the capital" Mr. Burns for Governor speech). There is an undeniable symbolic value to electing a president from a formerly enslaved ethnicity, and there's undoubtedly going to be some serious policy changes, but my support for Obama has always stemmed from some pretty basic things: 1) he was the only major candidate with a chance of getting elected who opposed the war from the start; and 2) he was not part of the Democratic establishment that has fucked things up so badly since oh, '96 or so. And I took some online survey that indicated his public policy positions matched mine more than any other candidate (8 out of 10).

Do I care whether he gets into some stupid war of words with McCain over the definition of patriotism, or whether or not baby boomers were wrong to burn flags, or whether or not he agrees with a SC decision he has no chance of impacting, or whatever? not fucking AT ALL. these things do not matter.

guys it is really sad when gabbneb's dismissive reductionist characterizations of us start sounding incisive and accurate

rofl

glad to be of ser-vice

obv it would be ridiculous to trust him, which is why JD should keep on piling on him, & why he's right that the projection is less on his end that of devoted obama supporters - but at the same time, i think that speech as quoted by Mr Gay is pretty great

poster 5: dn;dr

seriously J0hn a lot of this backbiting sounds like sour grapes comin from you and daria

yeah the grapes are quite sour because all y'all who were v. v. concerned about ppl not being run-of-the-mill asshole politicians a month back are now apologizing for & cynically explaining much of the same! it's like, remind me again how clinton was gonna be somehow more bullshit than this?

xpost LOL gabbneb how has my sorry ass somehow dodged that filter

Hoos will wait with caution optimism. And then raise hell if necessary.

cautious optimism

yeah the grapes are quite sour because all y'all who were v. v. concerned about ppl not being run-of-the-mill asshole politicians a month back

this was never my complaint

it's like, remind me again how clinton was gonna be somehow more
bullshit than this?

voted for the war. failed with healthcare the first time around. unimpressive senate voting record.

yeah the grapes are quite sour because all y'all who were v. v. concerned about ppl not being run-of-the-mill asshole politicians a month back are now apologizing for & cynically explaining much of the same! it's like, remind me again how clinton was gonna be somehow more bullshit than this?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I mean I dunno how many times I've gotta say this but the who is/is not "typical politician" rhetoric goes nowhere with me - I just tune that stuff out, by and large. I care about results, policy, and who voted for what.

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can we get back to why JD & daria hate on that speech instead of this politicians be politickin bullshit? that way at least there might be some kind of substance

then again, some of us figured out that obama was as much -- if not MORE -- of a mealy-mouthed weenie as hillary or any other DC insider running long before this past month.

oh speaking of guys here's my landlady's new blog check it out

http://www.lynettelong.com/

(xpost re "why clinton was supposed to me more bullshit than this")

will someone explain to me how obama's statement re: clark & mccain is 'throwing lefties under a bus'? given that it doesnt have anything to do with, like, redistributing wealth, or taxation, or social services?

I think the argument is that it's holding up the military as good guys who should be revered for the fact of their service rather than the nature of their service. That's problematic.

But that's also not what he was saying.

it's problematic because in this country hardly anybody knows a veteran. we're an increasingly tiny tiny part of the population. actual real former members of the armed services all know that there are shitty people in uniform and that nobody is a hero for doing their job, cf Clark's comments.

Right I mean the idea of the vet as the unquestionable DEFENDER OF YOUR FREEDOM TO QUESTION HIM came right out of Vietnam, it was a backlash against vet-hating anti-war people. Dude isn't talking garbage. This is where it comes from.

tom otm

no, the pro vet stance dates back before vietnam, vietnam is simply the point where it was first strongly questioned.

xpost

pro vet meaning unquestioned public support

Right I mean the idea of the vet as the unquestionable DEFENDER OF YOUR FREEDOM TO QUESTION HIM came right out of Vietnam,

this idea dates back to at least WWI

I steen corrected.

i think it actually dates back to the time of the roman legions

whats NOT problematic is pointing out that all of these guys are fighting & dying for their job due to machinations far beyond their control & this makes them kind of different from say the average steelmiller

I'd grown up taught that the degree of angry backlash was unseen before Vietnam, that it took the left's skepticism to bring about the reactionary anger we see now anytime a civilian raises the spectre of dishonorable service.

Immaterial though, just covering my ass.

don't think there was anything like the level of "questioning" pre-nam.

i think its more like people used to respect our soldiers until vietnam, then they started spittin on em when they came back from war! so dont be like that!

which is BS & yet sort of true in that what they were fighting for was no longer more or less universally honored

still not sure how obamas 'rejection' of clark's statement, whatever that means, constitutes a fucking-over of the political left

lol though i guess draft riots have a pretty long history... kind of different.

xpost

who among us has never worshipped at the altar of that bastion of leftist idealism, Wesley Clark?

^^^sarcasm

I wouldn't be surprised if Clark and Obama got together and planned out Clark's remarks, and Obama's reaction to them, to go exactly like this. Clark makes the pertinent and fairly irrefutable criticism (that is also a political lightning rod), Obama stands back, says "Clark doesn't speak for me on this issue", but the criticism has been made and put in the public sphere regardless. And in fact, if Obama says nothing about it, the criticism doesn't register to the degree that it has now. Obama's rejectening of the criticism gives it more air. Isn't this just classic campaign tactics? You don't make the controversial slams, your bulldogs do.

-- Tracer Hand, Monday, June 30, 2008 7:48 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

also fwiw I have no doubt that some variation of this is what actually went down.

I mean I gotta admit I got a thrill hearing Clark say that cause he's one of a handful that can get away with it in the public sphere. O distancing himself is like seeing Tony Hawk pull the 900 and then ESPN is like "but we don't condone these kinds of reckless sporting events"

yeah kind of the point here SM - Obama to the right of General Clark

Because as a civilian he couldn't get away with that criticism!

on the hot-button issue of dissing sliming opponents or more generally?
xpost

/

yeah kind of the point here SM - Obama to the right of General Clark

-- J0hn D.

jesus christ do you really believe essentially disparaging or downplaying the service of veterans + his own opponent would in any fucking way be a good idea? i mean, youre barack obama, do you take this opportunity to convince the american people of what he said or say 'you know what, these guys really are doing something special & heroic, & its ok to disagree with the cause, but not the service?'

yeah kind of the point here SM - Obama to the right of General Clark

in what universe is Obama defending McCain's stint as a POW "right wing"

I mean come the fuck on J0hn, Obama saying that disparaging the other candidate is a no-no is NOT a goddamn ideological position. Its called being polite.

Don't obfuscate, dude. J0hn said 'to the right,' not 'right wing.' We're already misrepresenting each other's arguments enough.

i try pretty hard not to misrepresent ppl outside of calling them corny names & i have no idea what jd is on about lately!

whatever, neither Obama nor Clark's statement reflects an ideological position.

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not yr posterboy vet

Obama saying that disparaging the other candidate is a no-no is NOT a goddamn ideological position. Its called being polite.

this isnt even the issue, its whether he disparaged mccain's service, which he DID NOT do. as far as "disparaging the other candidate," its pretty mild at that if at all.

xpost

hoos your obfuscating by arguing semantics

hi doggie i'm first in line up in this

yeah kind of the point here SM - Obama to the right of General Clark

-- J0hn D., Monday, June 30, 2008 10:11 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Because as a civilian he couldn't get away with that criticism!

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, June 30, 2008 10:12 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

CMON FUCK A GUY

Clark didn't disparage McCain's service and I don't see Obama's distancing from Clark as a choreographed move, because it's kind of stepping on whatever speech he gave today, and because it's fitting into a pattern of Obama doing this to people. He took a swipe at MoveOn.org today in that speech as well. I'm not really a fan but regardless, they endorsed him and used their mailing list to raise a hell of a lot of money for his primary campaign.

anyone running for pres should take a swipe at an ad entitled "gen. betray-us"

what clark said about mccain is not a "right-wing"/"left-wing" issue

McCain: Obama's word cannot be trusted

I'm a member of moveon.org and even I think they deserve to have some swipes taken at them.

saying that clark is wrong doesn't make one right NO PUN INTENDED

major lols at daria getting captain save-a-moveon.org

McCain: Obama's word cannot be trusted

-- gabbneb, Monday, June 30, 2008 5:38 PM (14 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

theyre trynna make it clear that what tracer said is otm

what clark said about mccain is 100% true

but also not on message

while its 100% true, its also 100% irrelevant

x-post

OK, so what did we learn today?

I should drink more iced tea

Clinton supporters are bitter

and cling to guns and religion

just to get by

I'm not at all surprised that O distancing himself from these comments raised some hackles. Sure as shit grated in my ears. But it was also the right move for him to make.

Obama supporters stand by their man.

BIG HOOS, working across the aisle

it grates my ears to hear you agree with any of j0hns points, but, well, if it has to be done to build consensus so be it

so what's the scorecard today? Who here supported Obama's "distancing"?

i would pedantically disagree that it was 'distancing' and argue that he was disavowing off-message statements that contradict his congenial approach to the presidential race

seeing as how its completely inconsequential, I neither support nor condemn

THE REAL BELTWAY BOYS

re: MoveOn, he certainly didn't need to bring them up in the speech today, the event in question is long past, and yet he did, and this after they'd done a lot to support him. they ran the (stupid) ad last fall and caused the controversy, and he was happy to take their money this spring, and now he's bringing up that ad out of the blue..

That backstabber, calling them out for over-the-line ads they shouldn't have run to begin with, and just because he's making a speech about the relationship between being anti-war and being patriotic.

How dare he.

It was backstabbing, you're quite right.

About Clark, though, I was disgusted at how the media (I know, why even bother expecting any better) stupidly piled on after the McCain campaign distorted his remarks.. I saw the first report on it last night on CNN and thought, what was so offensive exactly? And so.. I'm disappointed..

I also don't think it's a good plan to just back away instantly when McCain plays the "you're not respecting my service" card, which he will undoubtedly do, again and again, it's going to get really tedious.

why not? then he seems like a whiner

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

JOHN MCCAIN: My friends, I respect him, my friends, and I expect him to keep his word, my friends, and respect his word, and friends, and respect, and this has no place in our politics, my friends

JOE LIEBERMAN: My friends I am so disappointed

arrrrggh

MITT ROMNEY: I'm Mitt Romney! The biggest issue in this election is Islamic Jihad™! Barack Obama does not understand Islamic Jihad™! I'm Mitt Romney!

Position on SCROTAL execution for child rapists 6

Obama supporters stand by their man.

OTM

this poll actually pretty well reflects the importance i place on the choices. although the more i think about the campaign finance flip flop, the more it irks.

fuck Wright in his eye, though.

PINO
Mookie is not to be trusted. No
Moulan Yan can be trusted. The
first time you turn your back,
boom, a knife right here.
(Pino gestures)
In the back.

VITO
How do you know this?

PINO
I know.

VITO
You really think so?

PINO
I know so. He, them, they're not
to be trusted.

OTM

-- J0hn D., Monday, June 30, 2008 6:25 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

yah well not all of us are ready to throw our vote away to an unelectable idealist at the first sign of a politician being a politician

SCROTUS

OTM

-- J0hn D., Monday, June 30, 2008 6:25 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

yah well not all of us are ready to throw our vote away to an unelectable idealist at the first sign of a politician being a politician

-- deej

no offense to either of you but - as im sure you both know - this debate is gonna get (is already getting) real circular real fast if you dont start honestly debating & analyzing the candidates actual language - thats all we can really do, right?

yah well not all of us are ready to throw our vote away to an unelectable idealist at the first sign of a politician being a politician

what are you even talking about? I'm going to vote for the fucking dude no matter what, OK? it's just kinda shameful and gross to hear "let's give the man a chance, now" about his bullshit, which, were it coming from his opponent, you'd be calling straight bullshit instead of jumping through hoops to rationalize it.

I was gonna say, I'm pretty sure it's only ladiesandgentlemanburtstanton who's talking about voting for The Unelectables.

grrr can we talk about obama & what obama says & why he says it on an obama thread?

jd everyone gets yr position! politicians suck & obama is a politician! i pretty much agree! and im also voting for the dude no matter what. so i say lets try to get a handle on where the fuck he's going instead of beating our respective ideological horses you know?

No snark intended: how do you, John and deeznuts, define voting for Obama "no matter what"?

your standards are impossibly high for someone trying to be elected, and they're also extremely confusing. apparently, not wanting to be a dick = being a centrist?? Nah. His job in running for president isnt to push broad change at every single opportunity. your positions here make no sense - throw himself on any sword that comes his way from the right? I dont think so. What fucking good does that do?

You say yr gonna vote for obama but i dont get it - why? Yr only gonna be disappointed by anyone who possibly COULD be elected, apparently

i dont see any possible way that mccain could be a better option - i guess yr coming from a 3rd party/abstinence angle? the past 2 elections have pretty much hardened me against that xp to alfred

What is if McCain repents and calls for ending war, taxing the rich and subsidizing the poor?

he gets my vote! i dunno what i was saying about that no matter what garbage

lol what if my computer exploded into a ball of flames right now but i survived because my skin turned into a kevlar suit

http://content.ytmnd.com/content/0/3/3/033c93434a6f1c4a4c2d2af7cd41fd29.gif

deej it's your "let's just be cool" arg that is winding J0hn up in the first place, if i'm not mistaken - specifically, a Certain Other Candidate didn't get that kind of "hey we're all friends here, right" kind of treatment from many people on this thread at any point

what i really want to say though is the previous post IS OTM

i would vote for a pizzone

Great Thread.

deej it's your "let's just be cool" arg that is winding J0hn up in the first place, if i'm not mistaken - specifically, a Certain Other Candidate didn't get that kind of "hey we're all friends here, right" kind of treatment from many people on this thread at any point

what i really want to say though is the previous post IS OTM

-- Tracer Hand, Monday, June 30, 2008 9:38 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

a 'certain other candidate' had a long history of being a part of the dlc, a centrist voting record and voted for the iraq war

obama signifying that he is a moderate on a few, impact-less issues during pressers is not even close to comparable

oh wait i guess im 'rationalizing' his non-decisions there

TH/JD its your 'a certain other candidate that is no longer a candidate at all' bullshit that is winding everyone else up

ding ding ding ding

xpost