On 10/22/2011 9:34 PM, Hawke wrote:

And hand a difficult and often overwhelming job to what amounts to some
housewife?

Or, for instance, a local community organizer?

How does that make any sense? What in the hell would make you
think someone with so little experience could do such a difficult job
worth a darn?

And community organizers seem to do no better than a housewife might.

You might as well just draw a name out of a hat.

And, in 2008, both parties seem to have had few names to put in the hat.
Sad that the likes of Obama and Palin are taken seriously as candidates.

David

On 10/23/2011 6:54 AM, David R. Birch wrote:
On 10/22/2011 9:34 PM, Hawke wrote:

And hand a difficult and often overwhelming job to what amounts to some
housewife?

Or, for instance, a local community organizer?

How does that make any sense? What in the hell would make you
think someone with so little experience could do such a difficult job
worth a darn?

And community organizers seem to do no better than a housewife might.

You might as well just draw a name out of a hat.

And, in 2008, both parties seem to have had few names to put in the hat.
Sad that the likes of Obama and Palin are taken seriously as candidates.

David


All one has to do is put your opinion of Palin and Obama in perspective
with how they are seen all over the world. Except for the rabid right
wingers and conservatives, nobody holds Palin in very high regard, and
her leaving her only serious office half way through caused her to be
disregarded by most people. So she's only held in high regard by a small
group of right wingers.

Obama, on the other hand, is respected and admired all over the world.
There is no doubt who is more highly regarded and by far more people.
You dislike him and love the housewife. You're the man out of step with
the rest of the world. Keep that in mind next time you go bashing him.
You've got the odd ball view. You show that when you try to portray him
as nothing but a "communtiy organizer" when in fact he was a law
professor and an author too. You have to leave out a lot of his
achievements to try to make Palin look in his league. She's not, you
know it, I know it, everybody knows it. But you're clearly into living
in a fantasy.

Hawke

On Sun, 23 Oct 2011 15:16:44 -0700, Hawke
wrote:

On 10/23/2011 6:54 AM, David R. Birch wrote:
On 10/22/2011 9:34 PM, Hawke wrote:

And hand a difficult and often overwhelming job to what amounts to some
housewife?

Or, for instance, a local community organizer?

How does that make any sense? What in the hell would make you
think someone with so little experience could do such a difficult job
worth a darn?

And community organizers seem to do no better than a housewife might.

You might as well just draw a name out of a hat.

And, in 2008, both parties seem to have had few names to put in the hat.
Sad that the likes of Obama and Palin are taken seriously as candidates.

David


All one has to do is put your opinion of Palin and Obama in perspective
with how they are seen all over the world. Except for the rabid right
wingers and conservatives, nobody holds Palin in very high regard, and
her leaving her only serious office half way through caused her to be
disregarded by most people. So she's only held in high regard by a small
group of right wingers.

Obama, on the other hand, is respected and admired all over the world.
There is no doubt who is more highly regarded and by far more people.
You dislike him and love the housewife. You're the man out of step with
the rest of the world. Keep that in mind next time you go bashing him.
You've got the odd ball view. You show that when you try to portray him
as nothing but a "communtiy organizer" when in fact he was a law
professor and an author too. You have to leave out a lot of his
achievements to try to make Palin look in his league. She's not, you
know it, I know it, everybody knows it. But you're clearly into living
in a fantasy.

Hawke

I suggest that you are a victim of the popular media, or at least I
can see no evidence in the countries here in S.E.A. that Obama is
respected and admired by anyone.

Primarially, of course, because locals have their own problems and
just as U.S. politicians are far more interested perpetrating their
own regime then the antics of anyone in America... other then anyone
who will give them money or trade advantages.

Given the U.S.'s standing in the world's education systems - somewhat
behind Poland, if I recall - the fact that one was hired as a
"professor" is hardly evidence of capability to run the largest
business in the world. It might also be noted that neither Bill Gates
nor Steve Jobs graduated from collage and their career suggests that
being called "professor" may well not be an achievement that means
much in real life.


--
John B.

On 10/23/2011 5:16 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 10/23/2011 6:54 AM, David R. Birch wrote:
On 10/22/2011 9:34 PM, Hawke wrote:

And hand a difficult and often overwhelming job to what amounts
to some housewife?

Or, for instance, a local community organizer?

How does that make any sense? What in the hell would make you
think someone with so little experience could do such a
difficult job worth a darn?

And community organizers seem to do no better than a housewife
might.

You might as well just draw a name out of a hat.

And, in 2008, both parties seem to have had few names to put in
the hat. Sad that the likes of Obama and Palin are taken seriously
as candidates.

David


All one has to do is put your opinion of Palin and Obama in
perspective with how they are seen all over the world.

Really? From what I've read in the European press, he's seen as an empty
suit.

Except for the rabid right wingers and conservatives, nobody holds
Palin in very high regard, and her leaving her only serious office
half way through caused her to be disregarded by most people. So
she's only held in high regard by a small group of right wingers.

Which doesn't include me, therefore.

Obama, on the other hand, is respected and admired all over the
world. There is no doubt who is more highly regarded and by far more
people.

The Europeans I've talked to got over their own version of "anyone but
Bush" pretty quickly when they saw how poor he was at basic diplomacy
and statesmanship. I guess the Chinese and Muslims appreciate all he's
done for them.

You dislike him and love the housewife.

I don't dislike him, he seems to be a nice enough and well meaning guy.
Not qualified to be POTUS, though, any more than Palin, who seems quite
a bitch and just as unqualified to be POTUS.

You're the man out of step with the rest of the world. Keep that in
mind next time you go bashing him. You've got the odd ball view. You
show that when you try to portray him as nothing but a "communtiy
organizer" when in fact he was a law professor and an author too.

Somehow that doesn't increase my respect for him. Teaching law when he
hasn't actually practiced? An author? My sister has had books published,
too, they work well when I have trouble falling asleep, a page or two
and it's snooze city.

You have to leave out a lot of his achievements to try to make Palin
look in his league. She's not, you know it, I know it, everybody
knows it. But you're clearly into living in a fantasy.

The only fantasy I ever had about poor Sarah was when she had a chance
of becoming VPILF and her general incompetence made that wilt.

I agree that her incompetence is not in the same league as Obama's,
though, now that we've seen how little he's done.

David

On 10/23/2011 6:16 PM, John B. wrote:

I suggest that you are a victim of the popular media, or at least I
can see no evidence in the countries here in S.E.A. that Obama is
respected and admired by anyone.

I would suggest that your view from S.E.A. is not one that gives you
much understanding of how the rest of the world regards the current U.S.
president. Maybe you should check Europe. We have polls on these things.
We've also seen his reception by people all around the world. Every time
he goes to another country people come to see him in droves. They didn't
do that when Bush was the president. So maybe you're not seeing things
as they really are.


Primarially, of course, because locals have their own problems and
just as U.S. politicians are far more interested perpetrating their
own regime then the antics of anyone in America... other then anyone
who will give them money or trade advantages.

So if people locally are too busy with their own problems and lives to
care about a U.S. president, why even bring them up?




Given the U.S.'s standing in the world's education systems - somewhat
behind Poland, if I recall - the fact that one was hired as a
"professor" is hardly evidence of capability to run the largest
business in the world.

Sorry but you're wrong on two points. America has a great educational
system. It has problems, of course. But we still put out a huge number
of highly educated people in all kinds of fields. You can't just look at
high schools or elementary schools and say our system isn't as good as
such and such. I'll put our top students up against the best Poland has
to offer any day of the week.

The USA is not a business by any means. It's a nation state not a
corporation or any kind of enterprise created to earn profits. So our
president's job is not to run a business. That's far easier than being
president of a country. The fact that Obama is qualified to teach law at
an Ivy League University merely shows he's capable of doing many things
that require he be highly educated and highly intelligent. Which some
partisans would like to pretend he isn't.


It might also be noted that neither Bill Gates
nor Steve Jobs graduated from collage and their career suggests that
being called "professor" may well not be an achievement that means
much in real life.

It may also be that singling out two people who were in at the ground
floor of emerging technologies that never before existed proves nothing.
Going to a top flight school in this country and getting advanced
degrees is a very high achievement in its own right. Most people can't
do it. Just like most people can't make it through law or medical school.

To some in the business world I'm sure being called professor means
little or nothing. Let me assure you that in other places being called a
businessman arouses negative feelings much worse. Not only that, if you
were to go around this country now you would still find that professors
receive a lot of respect and people called bankers, businessmen, or
politicians, do not.

Hawke

On 10/24/2011 8:12 PM, David R. Birch wrote:
On 10/23/2011 5:16 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 10/23/2011 6:54 AM, David R. Birch wrote:
On 10/22/2011 9:34 PM, Hawke wrote:

And hand a difficult and often overwhelming job to what amounts
to some housewife?

Or, for instance, a local community organizer?

How does that make any sense? What in the hell would make you
think someone with so little experience could do such a
difficult job worth a darn?

And community organizers seem to do no better than a housewife
might.

You might as well just draw a name out of a hat.

And, in 2008, both parties seem to have had few names to put in
the hat. Sad that the likes of Obama and Palin are taken seriously
as candidates.

David


All one has to do is put your opinion of Palin and Obama in
perspective with how they are seen all over the world.

Really? From what I've read in the European press, he's seen as an empty
suit.

Compare that to Palin. Anywhere you go in the world she's seen as an
empty skirt.



Except for the rabid right wingers and conservatives, nobody holds
Palin in very high regard, and her leaving her only serious office
half way through caused her to be disregarded by most people. So
she's only held in high regard by a small group of right wingers.

Which doesn't include me, therefore.

Obama, on the other hand, is respected and admired all over the
world. There is no doubt who is more highly regarded and by far more
people.

The Europeans I've talked to got over their own version of "anyone but
Bush" pretty quickly when they saw how poor he was at basic diplomacy
and statesmanship. I guess the Chinese and Muslims appreciate all he's
done for them.

You dislike him and love the housewife.

I don't dislike him, he seems to be a nice enough and well meaning guy.
Not qualified to be POTUS, though, any more than Palin, who seems quite
a bitch and just as unqualified to be POTUS.

At least you are able to see that Palin is unqualified and incapable of
a lot of things. I would also suggest that having been president for
nearly three years Obama is now qualified for the job. You may not like
what he does but he knows the job now far better than anyone who has
never had the job.


You're the man out of step with the rest of the world. Keep that in
mind next time you go bashing him. You've got the odd ball view. You
show that when you try to portray him as nothing but a "communtiy
organizer" when in fact he was a law professor and an author too.

Somehow that doesn't increase my respect for him. Teaching law when he
hasn't actually practiced? An author? My sister has had books published,
too, they work well when I have trouble falling asleep, a page or two
and it's snooze city.

So you hold authors in low regard as well as law professors? So what
does it take, being a pro football player, or a rich man to earn your
respect? Your values seem rather low brow to me.



You have to leave out a lot of his achievements to try to make Palin
look in his league. She's not, you know it, I know it, everybody
knows it. But you're clearly into living in a fantasy.

The only fantasy I ever had about poor Sarah was when she had a chance
of becoming VPILF and her general incompetence made that wilt.

I agree that her incompetence is not in the same league as Obama's,
though, now that we've seen how little he's done.


Given that it's the job of republicans to prevent any legislation from
passing, what exactly do you think any non republican president could
have gotten done that Obama hasn't? I guarantee you Obama would have
done far more had it not been for the house tea party and the senate
filibuster. It's not that Obama is not competent to get things done.
It's that his opposition is in such a strong position that they can stop
him from doing anything. That's not exactly what the word incompetence
means.

Hawke

On Oct 26, 2:52*am, Hawke wrote:

Given the U.S.'s standing in the world's education systems - somewhat
behind Poland, if I recall - the fact that one was hired as a
"professor" is hardly evidence of capability to run the largest
business in the world.

Sorry but you're wrong on two points. America has a great educational
system. It has problems, of course. But we still put out a huge number
of highly educated people in all kinds of fields. You can't just look at
high schools or elementary schools and say our system isn't as good as
such and such. I'll put our top students up against the best Poland has
to offer any day of the week.


Hawke

Really faulty logic. First if the U.S. had a great educational system
it would not be ranked behind Poland. The U.S. is ranked about 15th in
public education. Second the number of highly educated people is in
spite of our public education system, not because of it. And what is
this comparing a nation as large as the U.S. to a small country like
Poland. It is like saying you can assemble a all star football team
from 49 of the states that can beat any team produced by Rhode
Island.


Dan

On 10/26/2011 2:03 AM, Hawke wrote:

Really? From what I've read in the European press, he's seen as an
empty suit.

Compare that to Palin. Anywhere you go in the world she's seen as an
empty skirt.

So? That doesn't make Obama look good by comparison.

I don't dislike him, he seems to be a nice enough and well meaning
guy. Not qualified to be POTUS, though, any more than Palin, who
seems quite a bitch and just as unqualified to be POTUS.

At least you are able to see that Palin is unqualified and incapable
of a lot of things. I would also suggest that having been president
for nearly three years Obama is now qualified for the job.

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

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.

Yet.



You're the man out of step with the rest of the world. Keep that
in mind next time you go bashing him. You've got the odd ball
view. You show that when you try to portray him as nothing but a
"communtiy organizer" when in fact he was a law professor and an
author too.

Somehow that doesn't increase my respect for him. Teaching law when
he hasn't actually practiced? An author? My sister has had books
published, too, they work well when I have trouble falling asleep,
a page or two and it's snooze city.

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 what does it take, being a pro football player, or a rich man to
earn your respect?

I don't follow sports much since they stopped feeding Christians to
lions. If the pursuit of wealth produces such as Soros and Trump, no
idols there.


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.



You have to leave out a lot of his achievements to try to make
Palin look in his league. She's not, you know it, I know it,
everybody knows it. But you're clearly into living in a fantasy.

The only fantasy I ever had about poor Sarah was when she had a
chance of becoming VPILF and her general incompetence made that
wilt.

I agree that her incompetence is not in the same league as
Obama's, though, now that we've seen how little he's done.


Given that it's the job of republicans to prevent any legislation
from passing, what exactly do you think any non republican president
could have gotten done that Obama hasn't? I guarantee you Obama would
have done far more had it not been for the house tea party and the
senate filibuster. It's not that Obama is not competent to get things
done. It's that his opposition is in such a strong position that they
can stop him from doing anything. That's not exactly what the word
incompetence means.

Yes, in politics, incompetence is being unable to recognize that you
sometimes have to give to get. This is something both sides of the aisle
seem to have forgotten and a lot of people are sick and tired of this
paralysis. This fuels both the tea parties and the OWS crowd.

David

On 10/26/2011 6:07 PM, David R. Birch wrote:
On 10/26/2011 2:03 AM, Hawke wrote:

Really? From what I've read in the European press, he's seen as an
empty suit.

Compare that to Palin. Anywhere you go in the world she's seen as an
empty skirt.

So? That doesn't make Obama look good by comparison.

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. 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.


I don't dislike him, he seems to be a nice enough and well meaning
guy. Not qualified to be POTUS, though, any more than Palin, who
seems quite a bitch and just as unqualified to be POTUS.

That is pretty much how I see her as well. So at least you can see some
thing for what it is.

At least you are able to see that Palin is unqualified and incapable
of a lot of things. I would also suggest that having been president
for nearly three years Obama is now qualified for the job.

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.


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. 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.


Yet.



You're the man out of step with the rest of the world. Keep that
in mind next time you go bashing him. You've got the odd ball
view. You show that when you try to portray him as nothing but a
"communtiy organizer" when in fact he was a law professor and an
author too.

Somehow that doesn't increase my respect for him. Teaching law when
he hasn't actually practiced? An author? My sister has had books
published, too, they work well when I have trouble falling asleep,
a page or two and it's snooze city.

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.

Okay, it's just you have a strange way in what you see as merits. Simply
writing a best selling book or being an Ivy League graduate invited to
teach law at the school you graduated from doesn't imply merit in your
book. I'd say that makes your view very odd.


So what does it take, being a pro football player, or a rich man to
earn your respect?

I don't follow sports much since they stopped feeding Christians to
lions. If the pursuit of wealth produces such as Soros and Trump, no
idols there.


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.



You have to leave out a lot of his achievements to try to make
Palin look in his league. She's not, you know it, I know it,
everybody knows it. But you're clearly into living in a fantasy.

The only fantasy I ever had about poor Sarah was when she had a
chance of becoming VPILF and her general incompetence made that
wilt.

I agree that her incompetence is not in the same league as
Obama's, though, now that we've seen how little he's done.

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.


Given that it's the job of republicans to prevent any legislation
from passing, what exactly do you think any non republican president
could have gotten done that Obama hasn't? I guarantee you Obama would
have done far more had it not been for the house tea party and the
senate filibuster. It's not that Obama is not competent to get things
done. It's that his opposition is in such a strong position that they
can stop him from doing anything. That's not exactly what the word
incompetence means.

Yes, in politics, incompetence is being unable to recognize that you
sometimes have to give to get. This is something both sides of the aisle
seem to have forgotten and a lot of people are sick and tired of this
paralysis. This fuels both the tea parties and the OWS crowd.

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.

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.

Hawke

On 10/28/2011 1:45 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 10/26/2011 6:07 PM, David R. Birch wrote:
On 10/26/2011 2:03 AM, Hawke wrote:

Really? From what I've read in the European press, he's seen as
an empty suit.

Compare that to Palin. Anywhere you go in the world she's seen as
an empty skirt.

So? That doesn't make Obama look good by comparison.

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?


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.

I don't dislike him, he seems to be a nice enough and well
meaning guy. Not qualified to be POTUS, though, any more than
Palin, who seems quite a bitch and just as unqualified to be
POTUS.

That is pretty much how I see her as well. So at least you can see
some thing for what it is.

At least you are able to see that Palin is unqualified and
incapable of a lot of things. I would also suggest that having
been president for nearly three years Obama is now qualified for
the job.

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.


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.

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?


Yet.



You're the man out of step with the rest of the world. Keep
that in mind next time you go bashing him. You've got the odd
ball view. You show that when you try to portray him as
nothing but a "communtiy organizer" when in fact he was a law
professor and an author too.

Somehow that doesn't increase my respect for him. Teaching law
when he hasn't actually practiced? An author? My sister has had
books published, too, they work well when I have trouble
falling asleep, a page or two and it's snooze city.

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.

Okay, it's just you have a strange way in what you see as merits.
Simply writing a best selling book or being an Ivy League graduate
invited to teach law at the school you graduated from doesn't imply
merit in your book. I'd say that makes your view very odd.

Daniele Steele writes best selling books.

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 what does it take, being a pro football player, or a rich man
to earn your respect?

I don't follow sports much since they stopped feeding Christians
to lions. If the pursuit of wealth produces such as Soros and
Trump, no idols there.


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 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.



You have to leave out a lot of his achievements to try to
make Palin look in his league. She's not, you know it, I know
it, everybody knows it. But you're clearly into living in a
fantasy.

The only fantasy I ever had about poor Sarah was when she had
a chance of becoming VPILF and her general incompetence made
that wilt.

I agree that her incompetence is not in the same league as
Obama's, though, now that we've seen how little he's done.

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?


Given that it's the job of republicans to prevent any
legislation from passing, what exactly do you think any non
republican president could have gotten done that Obama hasn't? I
guarantee you Obama would have done far more had it not been for
the house tea party and the senate filibuster. It's not that
Obama is not competent to get things done. It's that his
opposition is in such a strong position that they can stop him
from doing anything. That's not exactly what the word
incompetence means.

Yes, in politics, incompetence is being unable to recognize that
you sometimes have to give to get. This is something both sides of
the aisle seem to have forgotten and a lot of people are sick and
tired of this paralysis. This fuels both the tea parties and the
OWS crowd.

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.


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?

David

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.



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. 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.



I don't dislike him, he seems to be a nice enough and well
meaning guy. Not qualified to be POTUS, though, any more than
Palin, who seems quite a bitch and just as unqualified to be
POTUS.

That is pretty much how I see her as well. So at least you can see
some thing for what it is.

At least you are able to see that Palin is unqualified and
incapable of a lot of things. I would also suggest that having
been president for nearly three years Obama is now qualified for
the job.

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.


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.


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. 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.

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.


Yet.



You're the man out of step with the rest of the world. Keep
that in mind next time you go bashing him. You've got the odd
ball view. You show that when you try to portray him as
nothing but a "communtiy organizer" when in fact he was a law
professor and an author too.

Somehow that doesn't increase my respect for him. Teaching law
when he hasn't actually practiced? An author? My sister has had
books published, too, they work well when I have trouble
falling asleep, a page or two and it's snooze city.

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? 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?

Okay, it's just you have a strange way in what you see as merits.
Simply writing a best selling book or being an Ivy League graduate
invited to teach law at the school you graduated from doesn't imply
merit in your book. I'd say that makes your view very odd.

Daniele Steele writes best selling books.

Anything else?

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?



So what does it take, being a pro football player, or a rich man
to earn your respect?

I don't follow sports much since they stopped feeding Christians
to lions. If the pursuit of wealth produces such as Soros and
Trump, no idols there.


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? 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 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?


You have to leave out a lot of his achievements to try to
make Palin look in his league. She's not, you know it, I know
it, everybody knows it. But you're clearly into living in a
fantasy.

The only fantasy I ever had about poor Sarah was when she had
a chance of becoming VPILF and her general incompetence made
that wilt.

I agree that her incompetence is not in the same league as
Obama's, though, now that we've seen how little he's done.

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.

Given that it's the job of republicans to prevent any
legislation from passing, what exactly do you think any non
republican president could have gotten done that Obama hasn't? I
guarantee you Obama would have done far more had it not been for
the house tea party and the senate filibuster. It's not that
Obama is not competent to get things done. It's that his
opposition is in such a strong position that they can stop him
from doing anything. That's not exactly what the word
incompetence means.

Yes, in politics, incompetence is being unable to recognize that
you sometimes have to give to get. This is something both sides of
the aisle seem to have forgotten and a lot of people are sick and
tired of this paralysis. This fuels both the tea parties and the
OWS crowd.

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



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. 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. It ain't that big a deal. 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?



Hawke

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

On 11/5/2011 5:45 AM, David R. Birch wrote:
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?

They call that a figure of speech. In this case it means the majority.
I'm surprised that you missed an easy one like that.


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.

I'll agree she would have been totally incompetent to be president. I
don't agree the current president is incompetent. See, I just saw an
incompetent president in action. His name was George Bush. There's no
comparison between Bush and Obama in the competency dept. You may not
like what Obama does but he's not incompetent.


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.

That's just one of the ways the pros rate presidents. Not that many are
elected twice. When one is that usually puts him a lot higher in the
rankings. Not in Bush's case though.


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.

By successful that means he's gotten a large part of his agenda passed
and that he's moving the country in the direction he wanted to. You can
also ask the right wing what Obama has done that has ****ed them off.
They will cite a lot of things. Those are usually successes for Obama too.

Here's an example. Obama wanted to pass card check so it would be easier
for people to form unions. It didn't pass congress. But it's being
implemented anyway by the NLRB. The EPA is doing things Obama wanted
done too that he couldn't get passed by congress either. So just because
these kinds of things get by you doesn't mean they get by me or others
who are more on the ball than you are.


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.

Palin is a source of humor for me. She was a joke from the get go. I
never bothered with her because it was clear she was only put on the
payroll to entice a certain element of the right wing. She was never a
serious anything. She means nothing to me except that the media won't
let her go away. I just heard from her in Orlando yesterday. As hard as
I try to forget about her they keep bringing her and her dumb statements
back again and again. I suppose you aren't aware of her like a lot of
things.


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.

I find your assessment of Obama to be pretty far off the mark. I agree
about Reagan though, and having had him as governor for eight years and
president for eight more, I know a lot about him. He was as they said at
the time, the "acting president". He wasn't very good at the job but
somehow was very popular. I'd say he's a lot like Justin Timberlake,
he's very successful but not really very good at anything.



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.

Yeah, remember when the Tobacco executives did it and said they didn't
believe tobacco was addictive, and remember when all the baseball
players on steroids said they never touched them? They all lied to
congress and it was nothing. Besides, I don't think Clinton lied to
congress, he lied in a deposition in a lawsuit.


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.

So what does one unknown man's opinion count for? Not much from what I
can tell. Do you have any kind of reputation of expertise in anything
political or do you have any specific training or education in the
field? If not why would your opinion be worth any more than anyone's?
At least if you had a political science degree that would mean
something. But you don't even have that.


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.

What do you mean Obama has not won a lot so far? From my perspective
he's won at just about every level he's competed at. He's also won a lot
politically. Just lately he orchestrated bin Laden's death and he got
Khaddafy out of power in Libya and into a casket as well. Those are not
wins in your book?


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.

Quit kidding around. No one has even heard of your sister let alone
bought any of her books. Obama is as famous as anyone in the world and
he's made millions from his books. Did I mention he's the president too?


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.

Nice. You're just discounted winning the presidency down to barely an
achievement at all. That's not easy. In your view Obama is president
just because some vague oligarchs wanted him to be there. By any stretch
that is a far fetched claim. Not only that, when I vote I choose anyone
I want, not what some oligarchy tells me to. Why do you vote as they
want you to?


Daniele Steele writes best selling books.

Anything else?

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

So are Obama's. But he's got a day job too.


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.

Which are you saying is a general principle? That you find it odd that
the right seems to respect only the 2nd of the BoR, while the left
respects all but the 2nd, or that sentence fragment about you and your
shooting friends?


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.

So you're not aware of where Libertarian has traditionally been placed
on the political spectrum. Why am I not surprised.

Did you actually attend some school for your alleged degree, or did it
come in the mail? If so, you were overcharged.

I got what I paid for. But it's clear you don't have a political science
degree.

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.

Only a Libertarian can tell you that he's not just a very conservative
republican. To everyone else you're the same. My statement that I have a
degree in political science isn't a claim. It's a statement of fact. It
means nothing that you are not aware of it or whether you believe it or
not. The only thing that matters is that you seem to think you earned
one, when you didn't.



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.

My vocabulary is excellent. I hardly need to look up a word like
oligarchy. Anyone with any political science expertise would know that
one. Funny you wouldn't know that.

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.

Right, you're such a tiny minority that you don't even recognize others
of the same group. Like any group of individuals with nothing in common?


Interesting that you view minority opinions as jokes, though.

That's what happens when your group gets so small that it invites ridicule.

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.

I would expect that even right leaning Ph.Ds would tell you that Obama
has accomplished a lot too. If they are the least bit able to be
objective that's what they would say. They wouldn't like what he's done
but they would admit it has been a lot. Too bad you can't prove I'm just
a Democratic partisan as you would like.


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.

Plenty has been done in DC in the last administrations. Most of the rest
of can see the results of what they have done all around us. You don't
see it though? What are you just insensitive or are you disengaged from
the real world?


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?

That's not what it is intended to mean. Although you could look at it
that way. It would be wrong.


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?

Do you not understand what a compromise is? What do you call a
compromise where one side gets almost everything it wants and the other
side gets almost none of what it wanted? An unfair compromise? A bad
compromise? Whatever you call it Obama has been getting those kind of
compromises with republicans. He gives up a lot be gets very little from
the opposition.


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.

And I would say in most things.

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?

Your lack of awareness is noted. The result is I have to explain a lot
to you. In this case, something like Fast & Furious is too small scale
for the president to even be apprised of it. Chances are he wasn't. Odds
are Holder wouldn't know much about that kind of ATF operation either.
They have bigger fish to fry than that just about every day.



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.

Libertarians have always been far more critical of Democrats than
republicans. You say you're different. I'll look for the proof of it.


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.

I can sure understand why we didn't do this operation with the Mexican
government's knowledge. Same reason we didn't mention to Pakistan we
were coming to get bin Laden. I'm sure there was an attempt to track the
guns in this program too.



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?

Not really. Gun running between Mexico and the U.S. has been going on
for years. So have efforts to stop it. Border agents get killed
sometimes too. I can't see a big difference when one of them gets killed
with a U.S. weapon. They have been flowing into Mexico as freely as
drugs flow to the U.S. In other words, everything involving this program
is pretty common.


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

I'd say so.


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.


You mean the republicans in congress care about F & F, don't you?
Because they're making the fuss about it all by themselves. Just like
they did with Clinton's impeachment. But then this is what they do when
in power. Diddle around with unimportant things while the important
things fester and get worse.

I can tell you what they will do with this if you want to know. They
will try to make this into something really big so they can smear their
opponents with it. When that doesn't work they will drop it and move on
to something else. In the mean time all the important things we need to
get done will sit untouched.

Hawke

On 11/5/2011 3:15 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 11/5/2011 5:45 AM, David R. Birch wrote:
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?

They call that a figure of speech. In this case it means the
majority. I'm surprised that you missed an easy one like that.

I'm just not deluded enough to think your "rest of us" was more than a
lunatic fringe.

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.

I'll agree she would have been totally incompetent to be president. I
don't agree the current president is incompetent. See, I just saw an
incompetent president in action. His name was George Bush. There's no
comparison between Bush and Obama in the competency dept. You may not
like what Obama does but he's not incompetent.

I'm sure he was fine as a community organizer.

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.

That's just one of the ways the pros rate presidents. Not that many
are elected twice. When one is that usually puts him a lot higher in
the rankings. Not in Bush's case though.

So the rules change if you don't like the two term POTUS?

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.

By successful that means he's gotten a large part of his agenda
passed and that he's moving the country in the direction he wanted
to.

That seems to be down, is that what he wants?

You can also ask the right wing what Obama has done that has ****ed
them off. They will cite a lot of things. Those are usually successes
for Obama too.

Here's an example. Obama wanted to pass card check so it would be
easier for people to form unions. It didn't pass congress. But it's
being implemented anyway by the NLRB.

Yes, the workers wanted a secret ballot, the nerve of them!

The EPA is doing things Obama wanted done too that he couldn't get
passed by congress either. So just because these kinds of things get
by you doesn't mean they get by me or others who are more on the
ball than you are.

More willing to drink the KoolAid, in other words.


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.

Palin is a source of humor for me. She was a joke from the get go. I
never bothered with her because it was clear she was only put on the
payroll to entice a certain element of the right wing. She was never
a serious anything. She means nothing to me except that the media
won't let her go away. I just heard from her in Orlando yesterday. As
hard as I try to forget about her they keep bringing her and her dumb
statements back again and again. I suppose you aren't aware of her
like a lot of things.

Aware only as an irritant. Is that why you keep bringing her up?


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.

I find your assessment of Obama to be pretty far off the mark. I
agree about Reagan though, and having had him as governor for eight
years and president for eight more, I know a lot about him. He was as
they said at the time, the "acting president". He wasn't very good at
the job but somehow was very popular.

Another similarity to Obama.

I'd say he's a lot like Justin Timberlake, he's very successful but
not really very good at anything.

JT is low on the horizon for me, beyond exposing Janet's saggy tit and
showing up in "The Social Network." His acting wasn't too bad, but that
may be because the film set a low standard.


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

Yeah, remember when the Tobacco executives did it and said they
didn't believe tobacco was addictive, and remember when all the
baseball players on steroids said they never touched them? They all
lied to congress and it was nothing. Besides, I don't think Clinton
lied to congress, he lied in a deposition in a lawsuit.

This seems a bit vague, are you saying you also admire these others
because they lied to Congress?

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.

So what does one unknown man's opinion count for?

Like yours?

Not much from what I can tell. Do you have any kind of reputation of
expertise in anything political or do you have any specific training
or education in the field? If not why would your opinion be worth
any more than anyone's? At least if you had a political science
degree that would mean something. But you don't even have that.

Thanks for reminding me, I wanted to ask which diploma mill you bought
your poli sci rag from? I want to know which I should avoid.

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.

What do you mean Obama has not won a lot so far? From my perspective
he's won at just about every level he's competed at.

I don't have that perspective, I'm still on Earth.

He's also won a lot politically. Just lately he orchestrated bin
Laden's death

Well, he watched it on TV.


he got Khaddafy out of power in Libya and into a casket as well.
Those are not wins in your book?

Not his, though. NATO and the people of Libya had at least a small part.

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.

Quit kidding around. No one has even heard of your sister let alone
bought any of her books. Obama is as famous as anyone in the world
and he's made millions from his books. Did I mention he's the
president too?

Do you think Obama would have sold even 1% of his books if he HADN'T
been POTUS?

Nice. You're just discounted winning the presidency down to barely an
achievement at all. That's not easy. In your view Obama is president
just because some vague oligarchs wanted him to be there.

Have you REALLY studied political science? Do you have any awareness of
how campaigns and votes are bought and manipulated in the US?

By any stretch that is a far fetched claim. Not only that, when I
vote I choose anyone I want, not what some oligarchy tells me to.

Yes, for POTUS, for instance you can choose either candidate they have
chosen for you. When they want a specific tool more than usual, we get
the election of '08, where the Reps were presented the ridiculous slate
of McCain/Plain.


Why do you vote as they want you to?

Because, as Canada Bill Jones said, "I know it's crooked, but it's the
only game in town."

Daniele Steele writes best selling books.

Anything else?

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

So are Obama's. But he's got a day job too.

Which, as I said, is the only reason anyone bought his books. I said
bought, not read.



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.

Which are you saying is a general principle? That you find it odd
that the right seems to respect only the 2nd of the BoR, while the
left respects all but the 2nd, or that sentence fragment about you
and your shooting friends?

The former.

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.

So you're not aware of where Libertarian has traditionally been
placed on the political spectrum. Why am I not surprised.

I'm not surprised you believe as you do when you don't know the
difference between Libertarian, which is a libertarian right party and
libertarian, which is a belief opposed to authoritarianism.

Did you actually attend some school for your alleged degree, or did
it come in the mail? If so, you were overcharged.

I got what I paid for. But it's clear you don't have a political
science degree.

Again, which diploma mill did you buy your poli sci rag from?

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.

Only a Libertarian can tell you that he's not just a very
conservative republican. To everyone else you're the same.

Who are you referring to? I'm about as conservative as Theodore Roosevelt.

My statement that I have a degree in political science isn't a claim.
It's a statement of fact. It means nothing that you are not aware of
it or whether you believe it or not. The only thing that matters is
that you seem to think you earned one, when you didn't.

Nah, I took some poli sci at Madison, but soon realized they were smoke
and mirrors. I think you got better value when you bought yours.

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.

My vocabulary is excellent. I hardly need to look up a word like
oligarchy. Anyone with any political science expertise would know
that one. Funny you wouldn't know that.

"Anyone with any political science expertise would know that one."

Exactly the reason I wasn't sure you would know it.


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.

Right, you're such a tiny minority that you don't even recognize
others of the same group. Like any group of individuals with nothing
in common?

We have in common the disdain for authoritarianism as represented by the
Reps and Dems among others.


Interesting that you view minority opinions as jokes, though.

That's what happens when your group gets so small that it invites
ridicule.

Only from the small minded. Do you also ridicule children with Down's
Syndrome?


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.

I would expect that even right leaning Ph.Ds would tell you that
Obama has accomplished a lot too. If they are the least bit able to
be objective that's what they would say. They wouldn't like what he's
done but they would admit it has been a lot. Too bad you can't prove
I'm just a Democratic partisan as you would like.

You seem to be replying to something I didn't say.

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.

Plenty has been done in DC in the last administrations. Most of the
rest of can see the results of what they have done all around us. You
don't see it though? What are you just insensitive or are you
disengaged from the real world?

Nope, just smiling and grinning at the changes all around.

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?

That's not what it is intended to mean. Although you could look at it
that way. It would be wrong.

So can you restate it in a way that doesn't expose your ignorance?


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?

Do you not understand what a compromise is? What do you call a
compromise where one side gets almost everything it wants and the
other side gets almost none of what it wanted? An unfair compromise?
A bad compromise? Whatever you call it Obama has been getting those
kind of compromises with republicans. He gives up a lot be gets very
little from the opposition.

Yes, that is called capitulation.

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.

And I would say in most things.

Like the Dems, wrong in most things, but they sometimes get something right.

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?

Your lack of awareness is noted. The result is I have to explain a
lot to you. In this case, something like Fast & Furious is too small
scale for the president to even be apprised of it. Chances are he
wasn't. Odds are Holder wouldn't know much about that kind of ATF
operation either.

Although Holder is on record as knowing nothing about it after he was
given a report on it. Maybe he doesn't have time to read it, like
Congress before they passed the Health Care (sic) bill.

They have bigger fish to fry than that just about every day.

Why would the US Attorney General have time for constitutional issues?

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

Libertarians have always been far more critical of Democrats than
republicans. You say you're different. I'll look for the proof of
it.

For one thing, I'm not a Libertarian, I'm libertarian left. Oh, that's
right, the poli sci grad doesn't know the difference.


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.

I can sure understand why we didn't do this operation with the
Mexican government's knowledge.

So how did the BATFE expect to track the guns without cooperation from
the Mexican govt and therefore no legal authority to do anything in
Mexico? At least under Bush, they tried.

Same reason we didn't mention to Pakistan we were coming to get bin
Laden. I'm sure there was an attempt to track the guns in this
program too.

The one of the main complaints of the BATFE agents who testified before
Congress was that there was no mechanism set up at any time for tracking.

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?

Not really. Gun running between Mexico and the U.S. has been going on
for years.

Not by the US govt.

So have efforts to stop it. Border agents get killed sometimes too.

Not by guns allowed to go into Mexico by the BATFE.

I can't see a big difference when one of them gets killed with a U.S.
weapon. They have been flowing into Mexico as freely as drugs flow to
the U.S. In other words, everything involving this program is pretty
common.

Except for that whole govt involvement problem.

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

I'd say so.

Of course, it couldn't be bad if a Dem administration did it.

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


You mean the republicans in congress care about F & F, don't you?

So you say the Dems don't have a problem with govt criminal activity?
Oh, right, it's no big deal.

Because they're making the fuss about it all by themselves. Just like
they did with Clinton's impeachment. But then this is what they do
when in power. Diddle around with unimportant things while the
important things fester and get worse.

I can tell you what they will do with this if you want to know. They
will try to make this into something really big so they can smear
their opponents with it. When that doesn't work they will drop it and
move on to something else. In the mean time all the important things
we need to get done will sit untouched.

More likely, the media will play it down because it makes their Anointed
One look bad.

David

On 11/5/2011 3:37 PM, David R. Birch wrote:

I'm just not deluded enough to think your "rest of us" was more than a
lunatic fringe.

You got it backwards. The lunatic fringe are the ones who think Palin is
something really special. Most people don't. That means for most of us
it is "we" that don't think Palin is anything to get excited about. The
majority is never the lunatic fringe. That's always the minority who
holds unusual views like the Palin brigade.


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.

I'll agree she would have been totally incompetent to be president. I
don't agree the current president is incompetent. See, I just saw an
incompetent president in action. His name was George Bush. There's no
comparison between Bush and Obama in the competency dept. You may not
like what Obama does but he's not incompetent.

I'm sure he was fine as a community organizer.

You mean like he's been fine as a student, a lawyer, a family man, a
senator, an author, and now the president? Meaning fine means he
excelled at it. Because that's what the facts show.


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.

That's just one of the ways the pros rate presidents. Not that many
are elected twice. When one is that usually puts him a lot higher in
the rankings. Not in Bush's case though.

So the rules change if you don't like the two term POTUS?

The rules are the same. It's just when everything screams out this guy
stunk at being president it doesn't matter that he got elected twice.
His horrible job while in office negates the fact he got elected twice.
That doesn't happen often, by the way.

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.

By successful that means he's gotten a large part of his agenda
passed and that he's moving the country in the direction he wanted
to.

That seems to be down, is that what he wants?

You don't understand that the country was down and out when he took over
and he's spent the better part of three years doing one thing, trying to
bring us back from the brink of disaster. He never has had time to put
in an agenda of his own. He's still busy putting out the fires that were
left after the Bush administration did a number on the country. Or did
you think Bush left Obama a country in fine shape?


You can also ask the right wing what Obama has done that has ****ed
them off. They will cite a lot of things. Those are usually successes
for Obama too.

Here's an example. Obama wanted to pass card check so it would be
easier for people to form unions. It didn't pass congress. But it's
being implemented anyway by the NLRB.

Yes, the workers wanted a secret ballot, the nerve of them!

Says who? It's the management that was using the secret ballot issue as
an excuse to deny card check. Besides what is so great about the secret
ballot? They don't use it in the Iowa caucuses and they don't use it in
Congress either. So obviously it's not necessary in all elections, is it?

The EPA is doing things Obama wanted done too that he couldn't get
passed by congress either. So just because these kinds of things get
by you doesn't mean they get by me or others who are more on the
ball than you are.

More willing to drink the KoolAid, in other words.

I mean more aware. Obama is moving his agenda ahead even as the
republicans put one road block after another in congress to stop him.
That's what I'm talking about. Did you forget? It was about Obama
accomplishing things you said he wasn't doing. But as I just pointed out
here's two examples where he is. There's plenty more too.

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.


Aware only as an irritant. Is that why you keep bringing her up?

I don't bring her up Fox News does. Then they quote her on other shows
and next thing you know I'm hearing from her again. I wish she would
shut up and go away. That woman's an idiot.


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.

I find your assessment of Obama to be pretty far off the mark. I
agree about Reagan though, and having had him as governor for eight
years and president for eight more, I know a lot about him. He was as
they said at the time, the "acting president". He wasn't very good at
the job but somehow was very popular.

Another similarity to Obama.

Give Obama two years and let's see how bad he is at his job. He needs
two terms to get us out of the hole and back on our feet again. A
country doesn't come out of it's worst recession ever in just a couple
of years. Throw in a wrecked real estate market to boot and that takes
even longer to turn around. Give Obama two terms and my prediction is he
will do very well.

I'd say he's a lot like Justin Timberlake, he's very successful but
not really very good at anything.

JT is low on the horizon for me, beyond exposing Janet's saggy tit and
showing up in "The Social Network." His acting wasn't too bad, but that
may be because the film set a low standard.

To me he's a good example of someone without much in the way of looks or
talent that is still extremely successful and very popular. He's okay
but is treated like he's great. There are a few people like that.


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

Yeah, remember when the Tobacco executives did it and said they
didn't believe tobacco was addictive, and remember when all the
baseball players on steroids said they never touched them? They all
lied to congress and it was nothing. Besides, I don't think Clinton
lied to congress, he lied in a deposition in a lawsuit.

This seems a bit vague, are you saying you also admire these others
because they lied to Congress?

No, not at all. Where do you get that? I didn't say anything about
admiring anyone. I said lying to congress isn't a big deal and gave you
examples of people doing it without any penalty.


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.

So what does one unknown man's opinion count for?

Like yours?

Not like mine. Mine's an educated opinion. There's a difference.


Not much from what I can tell. Do you have any kind of reputation of
expertise in anything political or do you have any specific training
or education in the field? If not why would your opinion be worth
any more than anyone's? At least if you had a political science
degree that would mean something. But you don't even have that.

Thanks for reminding me, I wanted to ask which diploma mill you bought
your poli sci rag from? I want to know which I should avoid.

California State University, and I earned it. Since you're asking about
what school to avoid I take it that your degree is not from a diploma
mill either or from any accredited institution of higher education?
Maybe you're a Phoenix.


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.

What do you mean Obama has not won a lot so far? From my perspective
he's won at just about every level he's competed at.

I don't have that perspective, I'm still on Earth.

I just look at the facts. I can't imagine where you get the idea Obama
is not a winner at everything he's tried. I don't see a failure
anywhere. So pray tell, what's he done badly at?


He's also won a lot politically. Just lately he orchestrated bin
Laden's death

Well, he watched it on TV.

Nice discounting the fact that not only did he watch it on TV but he's
the man who ordered bin Laden be killed. A light decision in your view
so it seems. But then everything Obama does seems like nothing to you
unless you can characterize it as a mistake like F & F, then it's really
huge. But hey, your fair in your assessments, aren't you?


he got Khaddafy out of power in Libya and into a casket as well.
Those are not wins in your book?

Not his, though. NATO and the people of Libya had at least a small part.

Again not Obama who gets credit. Bet you would have blamed him if things
had not turned out well though, wouldn't you? Seeing a pattern here?

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.

Quit kidding around. No one has even heard of your sister let alone
bought any of her books. Obama is as famous as anyone in the world
and he's made millions from his books. Did I mention he's the
president too?

Do you think Obama would have sold even 1% of his books if he HADN'T
been POTUS?

That's beside the point. He did sell the books. He did graduate cum
laude from Harvard. He did get elected to the senate and the presidency.
Only someone totally biased against him could underestimate those things
like you do. You cut him down at every opportunity whether it's fair or
not. That's what republicans do. But you're not one of them, eh?


Nice. You're just discounted winning the presidency down to barely an
achievement at all. That's not easy. In your view Obama is president
just because some vague oligarchs wanted him to be there.

Have you REALLY studied political science? Do you have any awareness of
how campaigns and votes are bought and manipulated in the US?

Sure, and far better than you do. After all I studied all that kind of
thing in college. How do you think you would know more than I do without
doing the work I had to do? You think watching TV is as good as a
college degree perhaps?


By any stretch that is a far fetched claim. Not only that, when I
vote I choose anyone I want, not what some oligarchy tells me to.

Yes, for POTUS, for instance you can choose either candidate they have
chosen for you. When they want a specific tool more than usual, we get
the election of '08, where the Reps were presented the ridiculous slate
of McCain/Plain.

I don't know what you're talking about. I can vote for anyone I want to
for president including myself. There are always more than two people on
the ballot running for president. You're free to vote for anyone. Just
because we have a system where one of two parties wins every election
doesn't mean you can't vote for anyone you want to.


Why do you vote as they want you to?

Because, as Canada Bill Jones said, "I know it's crooked, but it's the
only game in town."

It is the only elections we have, that much is true.


Daniele Steele writes best selling books.

Anything else?

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

So are Obama's. But he's got a day job too.

Which, as I said, is the only reason anyone bought his books. I said
bought, not read.

I would tell you that all the books written by Sean Hannity, Bill
O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, Oliver North, and a lot of other
right wingers only are bought because of who they are. Does that mean
they aren't best selling authors?

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.

Which are you saying is a general principle? That you find it odd
that the right seems to respect only the 2nd of the BoR, while the
left respects all but the 2nd, or that sentence fragment about you
and your shooting friends?

The former.

Then I wouldn't say you finding it ironic that one party only supports
the 2nd amendment and the other supports all but that one is a general
principle of logic. It's just a comment on something you believe is
true, and may well not be.


Did you actually attend some school for your alleged degree, or did
it come in the mail? If so, you were overcharged.

That's the thing about the uneducated. They never understand how much
more educated people know than they do. You actually think if you got a
degree in political science from a reputable college you wouldn't know
that you are talking about the vertical axis with authoritarian on one
end and Libertarian on the other? That's basic. But not having taken the
courses to get a degree in poly sci, how would you know that?

I got what I paid for. But it's clear you don't have a political
science degree.

Again, which diploma mill did you buy your poli sci rag from?

I told you California State University.

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.

Except it's not a claim. It's a statement of fact.


Only a Libertarian can tell you that he's not just a very
conservative republican. To everyone else you're the same.

Who are you referring to? I'm about as conservative as Theodore Roosevelt.

Yes, I remember, you're a left Libertarian. Big deal. So am I.

My statement that I have a degree in political science isn't a claim.
It's a statement of fact. It means nothing that you are not aware of
it or whether you believe it or not. The only thing that matters is
that you seem to think you earned one, when you didn't.

Nah, I took some poli sci at Madison, but soon realized they were smoke
and mirrors. I think you got better value when you bought yours.

Smoke and mirrors, huh? You mean they were too tough for you to pass.
Believe me, I know how difficult some of those classes are to pass. It's
not like getting a degree in P.E. or theatre.


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.

My vocabulary is excellent. I hardly need to look up a word like
oligarchy. Anyone with any political science expertise would know
that one. Funny you wouldn't know that.

"Anyone with any political science expertise would know that one."

Exactly the reason I wasn't sure you would know it.

Like now you're the expert who is checking up on me. That's a good one.


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.

I don't know how you know what you think. Do you have a newsletter
stating your positions?

Right, you're such a tiny minority that you don't even recognize
others of the same group. Like any group of individuals with nothing
in common?

We have in common the disdain for authoritarianism as represented by the
Reps and Dems among others.

Me too, I'm anti establishment. Always have been.

Interesting that you view minority opinions as jokes, though.

When they don't amount to anything and don't have any real organization
you can't take them seriously. In politics it's power that determines
everything. Tiny groups without any power are pretty irrelevant. You
need to join up with the big boys if you want to achieve anything.

That's what happens when your group gets so small that it invites
ridicule.

Only from the small minded. Do you also ridicule children with Down's
Syndrome?

Most people find you not even worth ridiculing because they don't even
notice you. You're like a fruit fly. You're too small to even bother with.

What's the deal with Down's Syndrome? You mean you don't joke about
them? What's your problem? No sense of humor. They can be very funny.

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.

I would expect that even right leaning Ph.Ds would tell you that
Obama has accomplished a lot too. If they are the least bit able to
be objective that's what they would say. They wouldn't like what he's
done but they would admit it has been a lot. Too bad you can't prove
I'm just a Democratic partisan as you would like.

You seem to be replying to something I didn't say.

You were saying I wouldn't give credit to right wing Ph.Ds, but I said I
would if they made a case built on objective facts and not just because
they hate Democrats.

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.

Plenty has been done in DC in the last administrations. Most of the
rest of can see the results of what they have done all around us. You
don't see it though? What are you just insensitive or are you
disengaged from the real world?

Nope, just smiling and grinning at the changes all around.


That's for sure. Things have changed a lot since we finally got Bush out
of here.

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?

That's not what it is intended to mean. Although you could look at it
that way. It would be wrong.

So can you restate it in a way that doesn't expose your ignorance?

I might be able to do it so that someone on your level can understand it
but I can't guarantee it. Never mind. It's too complicated to explain to
you.


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?


Yeah. But it's clear you miss a lot of what was meant. When you
compromise with someone it doesn't mean it's always a 50/50 deal. Lots
of times you get more than the other side and the same for them.
Sometimes you compromise and get the worst end of the deal. That's not
the same as defeat, which you ought to know if you're as smart as you
think you are.


Do you not understand what a compromise is? What do you call a
compromise where one side gets almost everything it wants and the
other side gets almost none of what it wanted? An unfair compromise?
A bad compromise? Whatever you call it Obama has been getting those
kind of compromises with republicans. He gives up a lot be gets very
little from the opposition.

Yes, that is called capitulation.

Go back to your dictionary because you don't understand the difference
between making a bad deal and capitulating. They are not the same.


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.

As about 80% of the public believes. But that doesn't phase the
republicans one bit because all they care about is the 1%, and getting
reelected.


And I would say in most things.

Like the Dems, wrong in most things, but they sometimes get something
right.

I would say the Dems get things right WAY more than the republicans do.


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?

Your lack of awareness is noted. The result is I have to explain a
lot to you. In this case, something like Fast & Furious is too small
scale for the president to even be apprised of it. Chances are he
wasn't. Odds are Holder wouldn't know much about that kind of ATF
operation either.

Although Holder is on record as knowing nothing about it after he was
given a report on it. Maybe he doesn't have time to read it, like
Congress before they passed the Health Care (sic) bill.

Holder gets hundreds of memos that cross his desk every single day. He's
not going to pay attention to most of them. My guess is he let this go
by because it was of little importance to the Atty Gen of the U.S.,
that's more something for the agencies to deal with.


They have bigger fish to fry than that just about every day.

Why would the US Attorney General have time for constitutional issues?

That's not a constitutional issue. It's a gun running issue and that has
been a problem all the way back to Clinton's presidency. It's hardly a
big fish. No president has treated it as such either.

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

Libertarians have always been far more critical of Democrats than
republicans. You say you're different. I'll look for the proof of
it.

For one thing, I'm not a Libertarian, I'm libertarian left. Oh, that's
right, the poli sci grad doesn't know the difference.

Hair splitting to a level or irrelevance. Sorry we didn't notice you
son. You're so small we never knew you even existed.


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.

They meant to track the guns in F & F too. Why else have the program? To
just give weapons to Mexicans for free? If they are giving away free
weapons to anyone let me know where, okay. I'll be right there.


I can sure understand why we didn't do this operation with the
Mexican government's knowledge.

So how did the BATFE expect to track the guns without cooperation from
the Mexican govt and therefore no legal authority to do anything in
Mexico? At least under Bush, they tried.

Just like you I don't know exactly how the program was run or what they
intended other than they were trying to stop or at least slow down the
flow of weapons to the cartels. Obviously, this was a ****ty program and
didn't do any of what they wanted it to. All that means is people made
mistakes. That's all.


Same reason we didn't mention to Pakistan we were coming to get bin
Laden. I'm sure there was an attempt to track the guns in this
program too.

The one of the main complaints of the BATFE agents who testified before
Congress was that there was no mechanism set up at any time for tracking.

They should have noticed that shortcoming right away. I'd blame it on
whoever came up with the program and ran it not the Atty Gen or the
President.



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?

Not really. Gun running between Mexico and the U.S. has been going on
for years.

Not by the US govt.

It wasn't this time either. It was a SNAFU. It was a bungled program. No
one meant to run guns to the cartels. Hardly. The intention was to stop it.


So have efforts to stop it. Border agents get killed sometimes too.

Not by guns allowed to go into Mexico by the BATFE.

Just by guns bought in Az and taken to Mexico. I don't think the BATF
ever condoned that did they?


I can't see a big difference when one of them gets killed with a U.S.
weapon. They have been flowing into Mexico as freely as drugs flow to
the U.S. In other words, everything involving this program is pretty
common.

Except for that whole govt involvement problem.

The only govt. involvement was for law enforcement to try to halt the
flow of guns to the south.

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

I'd say so.

Of course, it couldn't be bad if a Dem administration did it.

I don't blame any administration for the bungling by career people in
the agencies.

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


You mean the republicans in congress care about F & F, don't you?

So you say the Dems don't have a problem with govt criminal activity?
Oh, right, it's no big deal.


More likely, the media will play it down because it makes their Anointed
One look bad.

They will play it down because in comparison to all the other stories
that come up in the next year this one is going to rank near the bottom
in terms of importance. The republicans are looking for ways to smear
Obama and this is just the latest trick. It's not really working for
them so they will probably drop it and look for something better. Their
problem is that as for legitimate things Obama has done wrong they can
go after there isn't much there. So they have to make it up. But that's
what they always do.

Hawke

On 11/6/2011 12:23 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 11/5/2011 3:37 PM, David R. Birch wrote:

I'm just not deluded enough to think your "rest of us" was more than a
lunatic fringe.

You got it backwards. The lunatic fringe are the ones who think Palin is
something really special. Most people don't. That means for most of us
it is "we" that don't think Palin is anything to get excited about. The
majority is never the lunatic fringe. That's always the minority who
holds unusual views like the Palin brigade.

Again with your Palin fetish. Yawn.

I'm sure he was fine as a community organizer.

You mean like he's been fine as a student, a lawyer, a family man, a
senator, an author, and now the president? Meaning fine means he
excelled at it. Because that's what the facts show.

No, I mean he was fine as a community organizer.

So the rules change if you don't like the two term POTUS?

The rules are the same. It's just when everything screams out this guy
stunk at being president it doesn't matter that he got elected twice.

I think he was an adequate POTUS, not one of the greats, but not as bad
as Nixon or Clinton.

His horrible job while in office negates the fact he got elected twice.
That doesn't happen often, by the way.

Horrible = not acting like a Dem.


By successful that means he's gotten a large part of his agenda
passed and that he's moving the country in the direction he wanted
to.

That seems to be down, is that what he wants?

You don't understand that the country was down and out when he took over
and he's spent the better part of three years doing one thing, trying to
bring us back from the brink of disaster.

Gee, I see it as pushing us further toward the edge.

He never has had time to put
in an agenda of his own. He's still busy putting out the fires that were
left after the Bush administration did a number on the country. Or did
you think Bush left Obama a country in fine shape?

Nope, the last few administrations of Dems and Reps have left us in poor
shape.

Here's an example. Obama wanted to pass card check so it would be
easier for people to form unions. It didn't pass congress. But it's
being implemented anyway by the NLRB.

Yes, the workers wanted a secret ballot, the nerve of them!

Says who? It's the management that was using the secret ballot issue as
an excuse to deny card check. Besides what is so great about the secret
ballot? They don't use it in the Iowa caucuses and they don't use it in
Congress either. So obviously it's not necessary in all elections, is it?

Card check means the unions know who supported them and who didn't,
which is none of their business in a free society. I support a secret
ballot to avoid union intimidation of the workers.

The EPA is doing things Obama wanted done too that he couldn't get
passed by congress either. So just because these kinds of things get
by you doesn't mean they get by me or others who are more on the
ball than you are.

More willing to drink the KoolAid, in other words.

I mean more aware. Obama is moving his agenda ahead even as the
republicans put one road block after another in congress to stop him.
That's what I'm talking about. Did you forget? It was about Obama
accomplishing things you said he wasn't doing. But as I just pointed out
here's two examples where he is. There's plenty more too.

Those samples won't endear him to those of us who support civil rights.

Aware only as an irritant. Is that why you keep bringing her up?

I don't bring her up Fox News does. Then they quote her on other shows
and next thing you know I'm hearing from her again. I wish she would
shut up and go away. That woman's an idiot.

Agreed, but she has no place in this discussion, yet you can't stop
mentioning her.


Give Obama two years and let's see how bad he is at his job. He needs
two terms to get us out of the hole and back on our feet again. A
country doesn't come out of it's worst recession ever in just a couple
of years. Throw in a wrecked real estate market to boot and that takes
even longer to turn around. Give Obama two terms and my prediction is he
will do very well.

FDR couldn't do it in 8, WWII saved him.


I'd say he's a lot like Justin Timberlake, he's very successful but
not really very good at anything.

JT is low on the horizon for me, beyond exposing Janet's saggy tit and
showing up in "The Social Network." His acting wasn't too bad, but that
may be because the film set a low standard.

To me he's a good example of someone without much in the way of looks or
talent that is still extremely successful and very popular. He's okay
but is treated like he's great. There are a few people like that.

Good, we're off Palin and back to talking about Obama.


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

Yeah, remember when the Tobacco executives did it and said they
didn't believe tobacco was addictive, and remember when all the
baseball players on steroids said they never touched them? They all
lied to congress and it was nothing. Besides, I don't think Clinton
lied to congress, he lied in a deposition in a lawsuit.

This seems a bit vague, are you saying you also admire these others
because they lied to Congress?

No, not at all. Where do you get that? I didn't say anything about
admiring anyone. I said lying to congress isn't a big deal and gave you
examples of people doing it without any penalty.

That's somewhat clearer, so lying to Congress is OK if you get away with it.

So what does one unknown man's opinion count for?

Like yours?

Not like mine. Mine's an educated opinion. There's a difference.

You still haven't told where you bought your diploma from.

Thanks for reminding me, I wanted to ask which diploma mill you bought
your poli sci rag from? I want to know which I should avoid.

California State University, and I earned it. Since you're asking about
what school to avoid I take it that your degree is not from a diploma
mill either or from any accredited institution of higher education?
Maybe you're a Phoenix.

Is this "I've shown you mine, now let's see yours"?

Not a phoenix, the cinnamon singed my socks.

My credentials aren't the issue, I'm just curious about how you got a
poli sci degree when you know so little about it.

I don't have that perspective, I'm still on Earth.

I just look at the facts. I can't imagine where you get the idea Obama
is not a winner at everything he's tried. I don't see a failure
anywhere. So pray tell, what's he done badly at?

Getting a real health care act past Congress instead of that pathetic
stack of uselessness.


He's also won a lot politically. Just lately he orchestrated bin
Laden's death

Well, he watched it on TV.

Nice discounting the fact that not only did he watch it on TV but he's
the man who ordered bin Laden be killed. A light decision in your view
so it seems. But then everything Obama does seems like nothing to you
unless you can characterize it as a mistake like F & F, then it's really
huge. But hey, your fair in your assessments, aren't you?

From what I read at the time, he dithered about giving the order so
long that the military were concerned that they would lose the opportunity.


he got Khaddafy out of power in Libya and into a casket as well.
Those are not wins in your book?

Not his, though. NATO and the people of Libya had at least a small part.

Again not Obama who gets credit. Bet you would have blamed him if things
had not turned out well though, wouldn't you?

No, its a Libya/NATO issue.

Seeing a pattern here?

Not really.


Do you think Obama would have sold even 1% of his books if he HADN'T
been POTUS?

That's beside the point. He did sell the books. He did graduate cum
laude from Harvard. He did get elected to the senate and the presidency.
Only someone totally biased against him could underestimate those things
like you do. You cut him down at every opportunity whether it's fair or
not.

Not really, I think he's a nice enough, well meaning guy who's in over
his head. I'm sure he was a fine community organizer.


That's what republicans do. But you're not one of them, eh?

Nope. When I sometimes vote for a Rep as the lesser of two weasels, I
hold my nose and wish the Dems would select better candidates.

Have you REALLY studied political science? Do you have any awareness of
how campaigns and votes are bought and manipulated in the US?

Sure, and far better than you do. After all I studied all that kind of
thing in college. How do you think you would know more than I do without
doing the work I had to do?

But you repeatedly show that you learned so very little.

You think watching TV is as good as a college degree perhaps?

As good as your degree, probably, but I don't watch that much TV.

Yes, for POTUS, for instance you can choose either candidate they have
chosen for you. When they want a specific tool more than usual, we get
the election of '08, where the Reps were presented the ridiculous slate
of McCain/Plain.

I don't know what you're talking about. I can vote for anyone I want to
for president including myself. There are always more than two people on
the ballot running for president. You're free to vote for anyone. Just
because we have a system where one of two parties wins every election
doesn't mean you can't vote for anyone you want to.

Sure, you can vote for whoever you want, but a DEM or Rep will win. I'm
surprised you noticed that "we have a system where one of two parties
wins every election ".


Which, as I said, is the only reason anyone bought his books. I said
bought, not read.

I would tell you that all the books written by Sean Hannity, Bill
O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, Oliver North, and a lot of other
right wingers only are bought because of who they are. Does that mean
they aren't best selling authors?

No, but it also doesn't mean anyone would buy their books if they
weren't media celebrities.

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.

Which are you saying is a general principle? That you find it odd
that the right seems to respect only the 2nd of the BoR, while the
left respects all but the 2nd, or that sentence fragment about you
and your shooting friends?

The former.

Then I wouldn't say you finding it ironic that one party only supports
the 2nd amendment and the other supports all but that one is a general
principle of logic.

I did not say anything about a general principle of logic. Try to
respond to what I did say.

It's just a comment on something you believe is true, and may well not be.

Which is why I said "it seems...".

Did you actually attend some school for your alleged degree, or did
it come in the mail? If so, you were overcharged.

That's the thing about the uneducated. They never understand how much
more educated people know than they do.

But you continually demonstrate how little you know about politics that
its very hard to take you seriously.

You actually think if you got a
degree in political science from a reputable college you wouldn't know
that you are talking about the vertical axis with authoritarian on one
end and Libertarian on the other? That's basic. But not having taken the
courses to get a degree in poly sci, how would you know that?

So why do you misidentify libertarianism as being only conservative?

I got what I paid for. But it's clear you don't have a political
science degree.

Again, which diploma mill did you buy your poli sci rag from?

I told you California State University.

Yes, that was earlier in the message I'm replying to, do you expect me
to reply in an earlier message to something you said in a later message?


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.

Except it's not a claim. It's a statement of fact.

It may be a fact that you have a degree in poli sci, yet you continually
show that you are not well educated in poli sci.


Only a Libertarian can tell you that he's not just a very
conservative republican. To everyone else you're the same.

Who are you referring to? I'm about as conservative as Theodore
Roosevelt.

Yes, I remember, you're a left Libertarian. Big deal. So am I.

No, once again you fail in reading comprehension, I'm libertarian left.
Study the difference between what you wrote and what I wrote. If you see
none, if I were you, I'd ask for a refund on what you paid for your diploma.

Nah, I took some poli sci at Madison, but soon realized they were smoke
and mirrors. I think you got better value when you bought yours.

Smoke and mirrors, huh? You mean they were too tough for you to pass.

Got As, they were easy as soon as I realized the were BS so I just had
to write BS for the papers and exams.

Believe me, I know how difficult some of those classes are to pass. It's
not like getting a degree in P.E. or theatre.

Actually, unlike poli sci, PE and theater require a certain level of
talent to do well.

"Anyone with any political science expertise would know that one."

Exactly the reason I wasn't sure you would know it.

Like now you're the expert who is checking up on me. That's a good one.

Yes.

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.

I don't know how you know what you think. Do you have a newsletter
stating your positions?

OK, now you have to go look up "anarchy".

We have in common the disdain for authoritarianism as represented by the
Reps and Dems among others.

Me too, I'm anti establishment. Always have been.

Yet the Dems embody the Establishment. How do you deal with this
contradiction?

Interesting that you view minority opinions as jokes, though.

When they don't amount to anything and don't have any real organization
you can't take them seriously. In politics it's power that determines
everything. Tiny groups without any power are pretty irrelevant. You
need to join up with the big boys if you want to achieve anything.

You don't seem to notice that you already replied to this. Please try to
keep up.

Only from the small minded. Do you also ridicule children with Down's
Syndrome?

Most people find you not even worth ridiculing because they don't even
notice you. You're like a fruit fly. You're too small to even bother with.

I do enjoy the privacy of anonymity.


What's the deal with Down's Syndrome? You mean you don't joke about
them? What's your problem? No sense of humor. They can be very funny.

I'm not surprised you find them so. Odd that you accused me of being low
brow a few messages ago.


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.

I would expect that even right leaning Ph.Ds would tell you that
Obama has accomplished a lot too. If they are the least bit able to
be objective that's what they would say. They wouldn't like what he's
done but they would admit it has been a lot. Too bad you can't prove
I'm just a Democratic partisan as you would like.

You seem to be replying to something I didn't say.

You were saying I wouldn't give credit to right wing Ph.Ds, but I said I
would if they made a case built on objective facts and not just because
they hate Democrats.

So being objective means drinking Dem KoolAid?

Nope, just smiling and grinning at the changes all around.


That's for sure. Things have changed a lot since we finally got Bush out
of here.

Yes, I just wish those changes had been improvements.

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

That's not what it is intended to mean. Although you could look at it
that way. It would be wrong.

So can you restate it in a way that doesn't expose your ignorance?

I might be able to do it so that someone on your level can understand it
but I can't guarantee it. Never mind. It's too complicated to explain to
you.

That condescending attitude is telling me that you can't restate it in a
way that doesn't expose your ignorance.


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?


Yeah. But it's clear you miss a lot of what was meant. When you
compromise with someone it doesn't mean it's always a 50/50 deal. Lots
of times you get more than the other side and the same for them.
Sometimes you compromise and get the worst end of the deal. That's not
the same as defeat, which you ought to know if you're as smart as you
think you are.

Once again, you are replying to something you have already replied to.
Please try to keep up.


Do you not understand what a compromise is? What do you call a
compromise where one side gets almost everything it wants and the
other side gets almost none of what it wanted? An unfair compromise?
A bad compromise? Whatever you call it Obama has been getting those
kind of compromises with republicans. He gives up a lot be gets very
little from the opposition.

Yes, that is called capitulation.

Go back to your dictionary because you don't understand the difference
between making a bad deal and capitulating. They are not the same.

Go back to your dictionary because you don't understand the difference
between making a bad deal and compromise. They are not the same.




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.

As about 80% of the public believes. But that doesn't phase the
republicans one bit because all they care about is the 1%, and getting
reelected.

Once again, you are replying to something you have already replied to.
Please try to keep up.



And I would say in most things.

Like the Dems, wrong in most things, but they sometimes get something
right.

I would say the Dems get things right WAY more than the republicans do.

Of course, I would expect you to say nothing else, KoolAid drinker.

Although Holder is on record as knowing nothing about it after he was
given a report on it. Maybe he doesn't have time to read it, like
Congress before they passed the Health Care (sic) bill.

Holder gets hundreds of memos that cross his desk every single day. He's
not going to pay attention to most of them. My guess is he let this go
by because it was of little importance to the Atty Gen of the U.S.,
that's more something for the agencies to deal with.

So he's not even competent to review what crossed his desk later so he
doesn't say he was never informed of it? This sure fills me with confidence.


They have bigger fish to fry than that just about every day.

Why would the US Attorney General have time for constitutional issues?

That's not a constitutional issue. It's a gun running issue and that has
been a problem all the way back to Clinton's presidency. It's hardly a
big fish. No president has treated it as such either.

That's because earlier versions of the program actually tried to track
the guns.

For one thing, I'm not a Libertarian, I'm libertarian left. Oh, that's
right, the poli sci grad doesn't know the difference.

Hair splitting to a level or irrelevance. Sorry we didn't notice you
son. You're so small we never knew you even existed.

My existence is firmer than your alleged education in poli sci if you
can't tell the difference between stating a political stance and
belonging to a specific political party.

Are all democrats members of the Democratic Party?

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.

They meant to track the guns in F & F too. Why else have the program? To
just give weapons to Mexicans for free? If they are giving away free
weapons to anyone let me know where, okay. I'll be right there.

No, they were being sold by FFL dealers who complained to the BATFE that
the purchases were illegitimate, but they were to let the sales go
through. The local BATFE officers testified that they were never given
any means of tracking the guns once they crossed the border.

The reason for this version of the program was that the DOJ wanted to
show that US bought weapons were being used by the cartels. Of course.
the cartels already had lots of real machine guns bought on the
international market.


I can sure understand why we didn't do this operation with the
Mexican government's knowledge.

So how did the BATFE expect to track the guns without cooperation from
the Mexican govt and therefore no legal authority to do anything in
Mexico? At least under Bush, they tried.

Just like you I don't know exactly how the program was run or what they
intended other than they were trying to stop or at least slow down the
flow of weapons to the cartels.

By selling weapons to the cartels? Do you read what you write?

Obviously, this was a ****ty program and
didn't do any of what they wanted it to. All that means is people made
mistakes. That's all.

Yes, and for mistakes that get Federal agents killed, people are fired
or they are asked to resign. First in line, Holder.

The one of the main complaints of the BATFE agents who testified before
Congress was that there was no mechanism set up at any time for tracking.

They should have noticed that shortcoming right away. I'd blame it on
whoever came up with the program and ran it not the Atty Gen or the
President.

The local BATFE agents did notice the "shortcoming" and when they
pointed it out to their superiors they were told to shut up.

You haven't read any of the Congressional testimony on this, have you?

Not really. Gun running between Mexico and the U.S. has been going on
for years.

Not by the US govt.

It wasn't this time either. It was a SNAFU. It was a bungled program. No
one meant to run guns to the cartels. Hardly. The intention was to stop it.

"By selling weapons to the cartels? Do you read what you write?"

Not by guns allowed to go into Mexico by the BATFE.

Just by guns bought in Az and taken to Mexico. I don't think the BATF
ever condoned that did they?

Yes.

"The local BATFE agents did notice the "shortcoming" and when they
pointed it out to their superiors they were told to shut up.

You haven't read any of the Congressional testimony on this, have you?"


Except for that whole govt involvement problem.

The only govt. involvement was for law enforcement to try to halt the
flow of guns to the south.

We can continue this after you have researched this issue enough to know
what you're talking about.

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

I'd say so.

Of course, it couldn't be bad if a Dem administration did it.

I don't blame any administration for the bungling by career people in
the agencies.

We can continue this after you have researched this issue enough to know
what you're talking about.

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


You mean the republicans in congress care about F & F, don't you?

So you say the Dems don't have a problem with govt criminal activity?
Oh, right, it's no big deal.


More likely, the media will play it down because it makes their Anointed
One look bad.

They will play it down because in comparison to all the other stories
that come up in the next year this one is going to rank near the bottom
in terms of importance. The republicans are looking for ways to smear
Obama and this is just the latest trick. It's not really working for
them so they will probably drop it and look for something better. Their
problem is that as for legitimate things Obama has done wrong they can
go after there isn't much there. So they have to make it up. But that's
what they always do.

Yes, they're making up that dead Fed just to make Obama look bad.

Please don't bother replying until you've researched the issue.

David