On 11/4/2011 1:33 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 10/30/2011 5:56 PM, David R. Birch wrote:
On 10/28/2011 1:45 PM, Hawke wrote:

Just because you are not able to distinguish that there is a wide
margin between the abilities of Obama and Palin doesn't mean the
rest of us have any problem seeing it.

"the rest of us"? Is this a little bipolar multiple personality
thing going on?

What is means is that the rest of us is everybody except those on
the right wing. You see, that's the only group that sees Palin as
being worth a darn. Everybody else sees her as an unqualified quitter
and an opportunist only out to get rich. That's how most people see
Palin.

I still don't have much use for Palin, she would have made an
incompetent POTUS, but differently incompetent from our current POTUS.

After all Obama was elected president by a wide margin. Palin
could never get that job. So lots of us see who is good and who
is not.

Nixon & Clinton were both elected POTUS twice, tskes more than
that to make them good in my eyes.

There is not connection between Nixon & Clinton and Obama & Palin.
So there is nothing to be gained by comparing them. Nixon and
Clinton were both successful politicians who were twice elected
president. Obama is also a successful president.

I was paying attention, but I missed that successful part.

What is Palin? A once elected and less than a term as governor of a
state of under 300K people. Those are not comparable. Most people
see Palin for what she is and most people know what Obama is too.
They don't see them as equals. The point being most people see Obama
is way beyond Palin in capability.

Is Palin your fetish? I didn't mention her above and don't have much
interest, dead issue unless you need to keep it alive.

How does experience at doing something badly lead to being now
qualified?

That wouldn't lead to being qualified. But then bad is not how
Obama has done as president despite what you may think.

Not so much an opinion as an observation, but I suspect none of
those looking for the nomination in '08 would have done well.

Given the circumstances that were in effect in January 2009, it is
hard to see how anyone could have done well in the White House. Too
many things were just stacked against any president who followed
Bush. But I see Obama as doing as good a job as anyone could have.

I don't. I see him at best as another Reagan, not much on his own, but
lots of advisers to tell him what to do.

You may not like what he does but he knows the job now far
better than anyone who has never had the job.

And far worse than most who've had it. At least he isn't as
bad as Nixon or Clinton.\\

The fact you would put Nixon and Clinton in the same group tells
me a lot about your judgment. Nixon was a criminal and was
booted out of office. Most experts think Clinton was one of our
better presidents.

Yeah, that whole impeachment thing was just so silly. The
acquittal was a monument to partisan politics.

We've only had two impeachments in our history. Both were monuments
to partisanship. So it's no surprise that Clinton's turned out as it
did. The surprise was that the republican house was so crazy that
they would actually impeach a president over virtually nothing and
that they should have known it would not lead to his removal. So why
do it? It made no sense. So it was pure partisan politics.

Lying to Congress is nothing? I'll remember that.

You place them both as being bad. Clearly you are not seeing
things all that well if you judge one of the worst and one of
the best as being equals.]

So all it takes to have bad judgement is to disagree with you? But
I must have good judgement because I also don't like Palin?

Disagree with me? No, because if you don't know that Nixon is held
in the worst regard of any president then you know nothing. So it's
not me who says Nixon sucked. It's just about everyone. Clinton has
a high rating as a president.

Not by me.

Those ratings have nothing to do with me other than I know what they
are. I also know how Palin is regarded by most Americans. So it's
not disagreeing with me that shows your judgment is bad it's the fact
you disagree with the consensus view on those things.

Palin again. Can't you get over her rejection of you?

Here's an example. The New England Patriots are regarded as a very
good football team by the experts and most people who know anything
about football. If you were to say they were no good I would say
your judgment isn't any good. Your views on Clinton, Nixon, and Palin
look the same to me.

Sports metaphors. Yawn. When I hear them, I have to remind myself that
the source may be otherwise intelligent. Not you so far.

The Patriots win a lot. Not Obama so far.

So you hold authors in low regard as well as law professors?

Once again, you demonstrate your poor reading comprehension. I
don't automatically hold authors or law professors in high or
low regard, I judge them by their merits.

So how much merit do you give to a person who has graduated from
Harvard Law School and taught constitutional law, and who has
written best selling books too? You think that is about on par with
your sister's achievements?

No, less than my sister's.

Actually if you don't hold someone in high regard that has
achievements like Obama's it shows something is wrong with you. Why
wouldn't his achievements merit your regard? If his don't do it,
what in God's name does it take? Becoming president! Oh, yeah, he did
that too, didn't he? Is that minor too?

Sure, it was time for another empty suit and he was the right size, as
decided by the oligarchy that tells us who we get to choose among when
we vote.

Daniele Steele writes best selling books.

Anything else?

At least she sells books that are read. Not by me, though.

When Obama said "I was a constitutional law professor, which means
unlike the current president I actually respect the
Constitution," was he being ironic? Whimsical? He certainly
respects the parts he likes.

I've always found it odd that the right seems to respect only the
2nd of the BOR, while the left respects all but the 2nd.

So you're saying you're ignorant of the fact that there are plenty
of people on the left who support and defend the second amendment?

Like me and most of my shooting friends. Dems, socialists, libertarian
left, all shooters, mostly hunters, too.

You need some sort of remedial logic course, although it's probably too
late. I stated a GENERAL principle, which you incorrectly inferred to be
a UNIVERSAL principle.

Your values seem rather low brow to me.

Other than that I am neither liberal nor conservative, you know
nothing of my values. OTOH, yours are all too transparent since
you seem unable to question anything from the DNC.

Sorry bro, it don't work like that. You don't get to tell me my
values are transparent but I know nothing of yours. I know as
much of yours as you do of mine, probably more. Everything
coming from you is right wing/libertarian. That's view is as easy
to understand as pie.

Which is it, right wing or libertarian? Are you so ignorant that
you don't know that libertarian is a different axis from left/
right? Wasn't your degree in poli sci? Were you asleep at the
lecture where the authoritarian/libertarian divide was discussed?

I know all about politics. The question is don't you know that
Libertarianism has always been considered just an offshoot of far
right political ideology, and that only recently has it been
considered different from simple conservatism?

First I heard that, and I still haven't heard it from anyone credible.
Did you actually attend some school for your alleged degree, or did it
come in the mail? If so, you were overcharged.

As far as I'm concerned there still is no difference between a
libertarian and a far right conservative. Maybe you can find some
kind of distinction. I can't.

I'm not surprised that you can't tell the difference, I'm only surprised
that you still claim to be educated in poli sci.

I see myself as libertarian left and see little difference between
the Dems and Reps in their tight little oligarchy. Maybe you
better look that up, too, while you're researching libertarian
left.

Well, I actually did that in college. I didn't just look up those
definitions on Wiki so I don't need to research things I know far
better than any layman does. As for Libertarian left that's a joke.
What are there like 20 people in the country that fit that category?

How would I know? The ll is a lot less organized than the lr, especially
the Libertarians, we of the ll type think anarchy is too well organized.

Interesting that you view minority opinions as jokes, though.

If you knew what you were talking about you would know that in
comparison to other presidents at this point Obama has
accomplished a lot. Don't take my word though. See what the
experts say. If you do they will say Obama has a good record of
accomplishments already.

Got any that don't have (D) behind their name?

They do have "D"s behind their names. As in Ph.D.s, these are people
who are experts in evaluating presidents. But if you don't believe
them how about listening to the right wingers. I hear them saying
all the time that Obama is ruining the country. He couldn't do that
if he wasn't getting things done they don't want to see done. So by
all accounts from people who know, Obama is getting a lot done. He
could do a lot more but his republican opposition has more or less
shut down the government from doing anything.

So the left PhDs praising Obama are wise and learned because the
represent the left, but the right PhDs who differ can have no
credibility because they represent the right. So simple.

There are also times when you have people to deal with that are
intractable. Would you blame the Israelis because they can't
make a deal with the Palestinians? When you have to bargain with
people who won't compromise then deals are not made. It's like
buying a house from someone who wants more than it's worth and
won't take any less. You don't do the deal.


In case you haven't been paying attention, the Dems are just as
partisan as the Reps, which is why not much has been getting done
in DC for the last few administrations.

The Dems are as partisan as the republicans but they are far more
willing to compromise than they are, and you find Dems voting with
republicans frequently. It's rare for a republican to vote for
anything the Dems are for.

Doesn't Dems voting with Reps also mean Reps are voting with Dems?

Obama also has done many things where he compromised with the
republicans and they haven't compromised on anything.

How can Obama compromise with Reps if they don't compromise with him.
Its a two street. If Obama is "compromising" when the Reps aren't, he's
not compromising, he's conceding defeat.

Do you read what you write?

Like the tax increases. Obama has done spending cuts but they won't
allow even a penny in tax increases, even on the top 1%. So they are
different.

Yes, the Reps are wrong here.

Obama has the most ideological congress maybe ever. They don't
compromise. This has happened many times in the past. When it
does it means things stall until a new congress comes in.
There's nothing a president can do in this case but wait it out.
Or he can do what Obama is doing, which is trying to accomplish
as much as he can without dealing with the congress.

Yeah, that Fast & Furious attempt to show how the drug cartels are
getting evil guns from the US is working out so well. Oh wait,
Holder didn't actually know about it, so he couldn't have
mentioned it to POTUS.

Wanna buy a bridge?

Funny how your side always brings up every mistake made and never
lets go of it and forgets everything the republicans do wrong
instantly.

No, I'm an equal opportunity nag. I like Reps as little as I like Dems,
two sides of the same coin.

Do you think that this is the first time the Mexican
cartels have gotten guns from the U.S.? News flash, there has been a
flow of guns from the U.S. to Mexico for decades now. The Bush
administration tried to do something about it unsuccessfully. Now
the ATF tried again and it was not successful.

The difference is that the earlier attempt was done with the cooperation
of the Mexican Govt and there was an attempt to track the guns involved.

It ain't that big a deal.

The US Attorney General and the head of the BATFE involved in illegal
arms dealing that led to the death of US federal police officers isn't a
big deal?

I guess we define the term "big deal" differently.

It doesn't mean Obama is corrupt or crooked and neither does a
solar company given loan guarantees either. Things the government
tries go wrong all the time. An error is not the same as being
crooked. But when your goal is to smear someone you don't care about
anything except being successful. Too bad that the public doesn't
care about the Fast and Furious. Now what are you going to do?

Congress seems to care about F&F, I'm watching to see what they do.

David