Hello Righty's:

I don't know what you're so unhappy about. You've won. Obama is turning into Bush.

With only a couple of minor exceptions, Obama has embraced ALL of the Bush/Cheney terrorism policies. The few changes that have any substance to them (banning the already-empty CIA black sites and prohibiting no-longer-authorized torture techniques) are far less substantial than you think.

He has revived the Military Tribunals.. He will NOT close Gitmo. He has ramped up the "targeted killings" in Pakistan and Afghanistan which, has caused more collateral damage to innocent civilians. He has maintained Bush's rendition policy. He has kept Bush's domestic surveillance policies in place and unchanged.

He sucks.

excon

Oh dear ex

And he has only just begun just wait and see within the next 6 yrs he IS going to top Bush
At being the worst President
Wait until you see what he does with health care and the fuel and the smart grid and all.

Yeah I'm pretty pissed about that. Hell I was pissed before the election because of his support of FISA. But hey he is going to make cars get 35.5 MPG by 2016 (even though my car right now is getting 51.4 mpg so... ) We need to figure out how to get Ron Paul over the hump he is still my first choice.

He has made no major breaks in foreign policy beyond rhetoric. But he has added some Neville Chamberlain style panache.

The honeymoon is over?

The honeymoon is over?

In a nutshell that sums it up perfect! :D

Na speech I knew this was going to happen. I even gave Bush 2 years before I gave up on him.

"As a tool for understanding the thinking of Obama, [Saul] Alinsky's most famous book, Rules for Radicals, is simultaneously edifying and worrisome. Some passages make Machiavelli's Prince read like a Sesame Street picture book on manners. After Obama took office, the pundit class found itself debating the ideology and sensibility of the new president -- an indication of how scarcely the media had bothered to examine him beforehand. But after 100 days, few observers can say that Obama hasn't surprised them with at least one call.. .

Obama is a pragmatist, but a pragmatist as understood by Alinsky: One who applies pragmatism to achieving and keeping power.. .

Moderates thought they were electing a moderate; liberals thought they were electing a liberal. Both camps were wrong. Ideology does not have the final say in Obama's decision-making; an Alinskyite's core principle is to take any action that expands his power and to avoid any action that risks his power. As conservatives size up their new foe, they ought to remember: It's not about liberalism. It's about power. Obama will jettison anything that costs him power, and do anything that enhances it... It's not about the policies or the politics, and it's certainly not about the principles. It's about power, and it has been for a long time."
The Alinsky Administration by Jim Geraghty on National Review Online (http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTY5ZTA5NmEwMGY4MTFhNDg2ZDg4NjU2MDkxOGYyYTE=)

My only disagreement with above is that I still think his core beliefs are radical socialist .

More promises broken...

Barack Obama 'breaks four aid pledges for Africa' (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/5344290/Barack-Obama-breaks-four-aid-pledges-for-Africa.html)

... only this time he didn't follow Bush's lead African aid. I can't wait to hear the fallout from the African-American community. Nah, it won't happen.

Can't wait to here Bono about that .

Interesting . Obama is scheduled to visit Ghana next month. I wonder how he will be received ?

He will NOT close Gitmo

Nor will the Dems fund it's closing
AP Source: Democrats won't fund Guantanamo closing (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D989DFH83&show_article=1)

Yeah all talk. I warned them it was all talk about ending the war and the prison camps.

Hello again,

He's a disappointment... But, I'm a realist. No politician is going to fit my needs entirely. They ALL lie!

He's still head and shoulders above the original dufus - or not.

excon

Intelligent voters knew he was just a Politician. But like I said I gave G DUB 2 years probably a little longer then 2 years because I was all about fox news after 9/11 (then I came to my senses).

"As a tool for understanding the thinking of Obama, [Saul] Alinsky's most famous book, Rules for Radicals, is simultaneously edifying and worrisome. Some passages make Machiavelli's Prince read like a Sesame Street picture book on manners. After Obama took office, the pundit class found itself debating the ideology and sensibility of the new president -- an indication of how scarcely the media had bothered to examine him beforehand. But after 100 days, few observers can say that Obama hasn't surprised them with at least one call. ...

Obama is a pragmatist, but a pragmatist as understood by Alinsky: One who applies pragmatism to achieving and keeping power. ...

Moderates thought they were electing a moderate; liberals thought they were electing a liberal. Both camps were wrong. Ideology does not have the final say in Obama's decision-making; an Alinskyite's core principle is to take any action that expands his power and to avoid any action that risks his power. As conservatives size up their new foe, they ought to remember: It's not about liberalism. It's about power. Obama will jettison anything that costs him power, and do anything that enhances it.... It's not about the policies or the politics, and it's certainly not about the principles. It's about power, and it has been for a long time."
The Alinsky Administration by Jim Geraghty on National Review Online (http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTY5ZTA5NmEwMGY4MTFhNDg2ZDg4NjU2MDkxOGYyYTE=)

My only disagreement with above is that I still think his core beliefs are radical socialist .



That is the thing, what are Obama's core belief's?

If he said he would withdraw all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow, like he said he would on the campaign trail, I would be the first to applaud him.

If he just wants power or to be popular - and that is his only goal - well that is something to fearful of.





G&P

I've been saying that for Democrats it was all about power all along. They won congress in 2006 on a trojan horse campaign of promise, promises, trotting out blue dog Democrats and muzzling others until after the election. As soon as they gained power everything was out the window and they immediately moved to investigations and smear campaigns in preparation for this last election. Now that Obama is in office they finally have someone who understands the power game and plays it well.

Jim Geraghty pretty well nails it (http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTY5ZTA5NmEwMGY4MTFhNDg2ZDg4NjU2MDkxOGYyYTE=&w=MQ==).


Moderates thought they were electing a moderate; liberals thought they were electing a liberal. Both camps were wrong. Ideology does not have the final say in Obama’s decision-making; an Alinskyite’s core principle is to take any action that expands his power and to avoid any action that risks his power.

As conservatives size up their new foe, they ought to remember: It’s not about liberalism. It’s about power. Obama will jettison anything that costs him power, and do anything that enhances it — including invite Rick Warren to give the benediction at his inauguration, dine with conservative columnists, and dismiss an appointee at the White House Military Office to ensure the perception of accountability.

The rest of the column is worth a read.

Hello apologists:

Look. It AIN'T about one party being better than the other one. ALL politicians want power. The ones on the right aren't holier than thou, and you don't do yourself any favors by suggesting it, either.

excon

Hello apologists:

Look. It AIN'T about one party being better than the other one. ALL politicians want power. The ones on the right aren't holier than thou, and you don't do yourself any favors by suggesting it, either.

Yes they do, but Democrats want absolute power over everything and everyone.

Poor Ex. He beat the drum for Obama, and now is getting indigestion from that 'Bama Kool Aid.

I keep telling him NOT to drink that stuff. It would eventually come back to haunt him.:D:rolleyes::):D:D:D

Hello again, Righty's:

Speaking of Gitmo, I don't know what you're afraid of. As a matter of fact, I'm beginning to think you BIG STRONG righty's are scared out of your wits over damn near EVERYTHING!

The "debate" over all the bad and scary things that will happen if Obama closes Guantanamo and we put the detainees in American prisons, is so painfully stupid even by the standards of our political discourse that it's hard to put into words.

I cannot believe that we never tire of the specter of the Big, Bad, Villainous, Omnipotent Muslim Terrorist, and how they're going to wreak havoc on the Homeland, devastate our communities, even as they're imprisoned in super-max prison facilities.

I don't get it...

excon

But hey he is going to make cars get 35.5 MPG by 2016

That should be the final nail in the domestic auto industry.
Last year the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a report that said "the resources used to meet overly stringent CAFE standards . . . would better be allocated to other uses such as technology research and development, or improvements in vehicle safety."
That was in reaction to a plan to extend Café to 32.2 mpg by 2015 for cars and light trucks combined.
http://keithhennessey.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/NHTSA_analysis.pdf
(sorry it is a long report )
Not only the safety is raised in their report . They estimate a net loss of 150,000 auto worker jobs on the old proposal (not even factoring in Obama's more aggressive one) ,
And ,
That it will have a minimum impact on the envirnoment .

Oh put them in super-max ? Harry Reid was railing against them being released inside the country .
Senate Democrats won't fund Gitmo closing for now (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090519/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_guantanamo;_ylt=AqjBFou.e9w43i1TK.JBh7 SyFz4D)

Anyway... it is not hysteria on my part. We have a perfectly good facility in GITMO... inspected by all the international agencies and found to be well within standards ,already housing them . Why move them just because of some fuzzy thinking and not thought out campaign rhetoric ?

oh put them in super-max ? Harry Reid was railing against them being released inside the country .Hello again, tom:

Rather than scoff at the inane fear mongering or point out simple facts to reveal its idiocy, Harry Reid is ECHOING the rightwing fears in order to prove how serious and tough he is.

In our political debates, the more frightened one is, the more serious and tough one is. That, or he's genuinely frightened of being called mean names by Sean Hannity.

excon

As much as I hate to say this, Harry Reid and Durbin are right. It makes no sense to fund the closing of Gitmo when the president still doesn't have a plan. With the previous administration not having a plan was disastrous, with this one it's no biggie?

Tom I was being sarcastic doesn't come through that well with typing.

Hello Righty's:

I dunno what you're so unhappy about. You've won. Obama is turning into Bush.

With only a couple of minor exceptions, Obama has embraced ALL of the Bush/Cheney terrorism policies. The few changes that have any substance to them (banning the already-empty CIA black sites and prohibiting no-longer-authorized torture techniques) are far less substantial than you think.

He has revived the Military Tribunals.. He will NOT close Gitmo. He has ramped up the "targeted killings" in Pakistan and Afghanistan which, has caused more collateral damage to innocent civilians. He has maintained Bush's rendition policy. He has kept Bush's domestic surveillance policies in place and unchanged.

He sucks.

excon

Hmmmm. After all his bluster about Bush's "evil" policies regarding the war on terror, he's now adopting them as his own.

Remember all that talk about on the job learning? I think that Obama is starting to wake up and figure out that all his idealism doesn't work in the real world. Closing Gitmo SOUNDED like a good idea at the time, but this pesky little thing called "reality" keeps getting in the way. If we don't keep them in Gitmo, we don't have any place to keep them. If we treat them like criminals instead of POWs, we can't jail them for lack of evidence that can't be obtained in the middle of a firefight. If we let them go, they are dangerous. No other countries want them. So there is no option except the accept the reality that George Bush's policy was the only viable policy vis-à-vis the POWs. The reality of having the responsibility of protecting the nation from a future terrorist attack is bitting him on the butt. And if he fails in that responsibility after Bush succeeded in it for 2,688 days (from 9/11/01 until the day he stepped down from office), Obama realizes that not only will it mean the end of his political career, it means the end of the Democrats in any serious power for at least the next decade and a half.

It's the cotton candy effect. Liberalism is like cotton candy because it looks nice and seems very sweet. But when you look a bit deeper, you find that it's made up of hot air and fluff with no substance and it isn't really very good for you. Obama tried to feed the country cotton candy during his campaign and the first 4 months of his time in office, and the nation has now begun to wonder why it isn't getting any nourishment. The country is waking up and Obama is waking up.

Elliot

Spit
Thanks for the clarification although my respone was needed for those who think yesterday's dog and pony show was a good thing.

Yanks v Phillies this weekend.

The country is waking up and Obama is waking up.Hello El:

So then you'll be a supporter... That's cool, because I won't be, and we'll still have plenty to argue about...

excon

I know Tom I can not wait for this series!! The Phillies bats are starting to come alive. Raul Ibanez is crushing the ball right now!!

Hello El:

So then you'll be a supporter.... That's cool, because I won't be, and we'll still have plenty to argue about...

excon

A supporter of this? Yes. Perhaps. We'll have to see what actually comes about.

But Obama has quite a bit more to do before he makes me a supporter. His foreign policy is non-existant. His fiscal policy is bankrupting us, our children and our grandchildren. His social policy is radically to the left.

Elliot

Speaking of Dufuses, how about that JoeBidufus? As reported earlier, he just recently disclosed the previsoulsy undisclosed location of the VP's bunker and stumbled all over the Swine flu outbreak (http://hotair.com/archives/2009/04/30/video-bidens-symphony-of-stupid/). Now he's talking up his heroic exploits (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/clay-waters/2009/05/20/battlin-joe-biden-claims-he-came-under-enemy-fire-bosnia) again. His rampant lunacy has allegedly led to being rebuked by Obama (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/20/obama-distracted-bidens-indiscipline-book-asserts/).

I give you the adventures of Joe Biden (http://iowntheworld.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/obamas274panel.jpg). LOL. (click on the image to enlarge if necessary).

Spit ;yeah nice pick up... also dumping Pat Burrell on the Rays was a good move too.

This is one of the rare weekends when us Yank fans have to also root for the Mets (Mets v Red Socks )... and Met's fans have to root for the Yanks .

I liked Burell he was a good player if you ever looked the sub par fielding and the fact the he was slower then molasses.

You are right this is a very rare weekend for Yanks and Mets fans.

Obama, even more of the same? Now it's rendition lite (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/world/24intel.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all).


The United States is now relying heavily on foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain all but the highest-level terrorist suspects seized outside the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to current and former American government officials.

The change represents a significant loosening of the reins for the United States, which has worked closely with allies to combat violent extremism since the 9/11 attacks but is now pushing that cooperation to new limits.

In the past 10 months, for example, about a half-dozen midlevel financiers and logistics experts working with Al Qaeda have been captured and are being held by intelligence services in four Middle Eastern countries after the United States provided information that led to their arrests by local security services, a former American counterterrorism official said.

Instead of capturing these guys and sending them elsewhere for interrogation Obama is just telling others where they are and saying "go get 'em."

Hey Tom what did you think of the series. Second was a nightmare. I thought the phillies were going to blow the third game too.

It was the clash of 2 very good teams. Would love to see them play again this year.

The New Yankee stadium needs work .You cannot justify broken bat home runs.

The key to the Obamanon is out, the left trusts him because he's a liar (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/05/023642.php).


The idea that President Obama's supporters trust him precisely because they believe that he frequently misrepresents his own beliefs is becoming more widespread. My friend Bob Cunningham was one of the first to explicate this phenomenon. Yesterday he sent us these thoughts:


It has long been noticed that Obama's slipperiness had been accepted by the left during the Hope-and-Change campaign when He took positions, for example and notably, NAFTA and foreign trade generally, on both sides of an issue. They were willing to cut Him slack in most cases precisely because they just assumed that, of course!!...He was lying....to someone...about the issue. Since each side could reasonably assume this --- the unions that when He made free-trade noises when He assured Canada (and then lied about THAT!) that He wasn't protectionist, and the rational liberals when He pandered to the unions on NAFTA in Ohio, for example --- they could all support Him thinking He was lying....but to the other side!...."Don't worry....we can trust Him because He's lying" was, in effect, left-wing Hope.

This has been particularly noticeable with the gay marriage issue....Carrie Prejean being exactly right when noting that her position is identical to that of His Oneness. But Obama gets a pass, of course, from the homosexual activists because they just assume He is lying!!!...to the conservative blacks, for example, 70% against gay marriage in California....

Today Frank Rich in the New York Times comes as close as I've seen actually to acknowledge openly the "we trust Him because He's lying" view:


...Obama's opposition to same-sex marriage is now giving cover to every hard-core opponent of gay rights, from the Miss USA contestant Carrie Prejean to the former Washington mayor Marion Barry, each of whom can claim with nominal justification to share the president's views.

In reality, they don't. Obama has long been, as he says, a fierce advocate for gay equality. The Windy City Times has reported that he initially endorsed legalizing same-sex marriage when running for the Illinois State Senate in 1996."

In reality, Obama is always, always lying... to somebody... and often it IS the left... Sistah Souljah-ing them on renditions, Guantanamo, wiretapping, etc... but where are they to go?

"Trust me: I'm lying!" I don't know, somehow it doesn't sound like a tactic that will work over the long run.

UPDATE: A commenter on another post draws this analogy:


Many years ago, a friend of mine owned a bar in Alaska. Above the bar was a sign: "We cheat the other guy and pass the savings to you." This encapsulates the Obama profile!

I knew it really was true that to the left it's not what's being done but who's doing it. Bush lies it's bad. Obama lies it's just another good day at the office.

Sistah Souljah moments are political strategery. Obama is adept at straying from the partyline without sincerity to broaden his appeal .He threw Rev Wright under the bus and embraced Rick Warren. But does anyone doubt which Reverend's beliefs is at the core of Obama's soul ? The left knows his core so they generally don't take his walks off the reservation seriously .Oh they may grumble on Huffpo or Moveon ,but in the end they will vote for him again.

They can say that Miss California has the same beliefs about gay marriage as Obama.But she gets trashed because she actually believes it. They understand the difference.

The question is :will the swing vote recognize this ;or will they still swoon to his personality and the occasional bare chicken bone thown their way.

Well, I voted third party, so I don't have to stick my head in the sand this time.

Both McCain and Obama were a joke to me. In my opinion, both would have screwed things up worse.

A wasted vote? No- everyone knew Obama would win by a land slide. In my opinion, voting for a canidate everyone knows is going to win is a wasted vote.

A wasted vote? No- everyone knew Obama would win by a land slide. In my opinion, voting for a canidate everyone knows is going to win is a wasted vote.

Not if you wanted him to win.

Not if you wanted him to win.

I didn't want him to win, but I wouldn't have slept good that night had I voted for McCain either.

I'm not saying "I told you so" because during the campaign, I really wasn't very vocal at all.

But it does amuse me how many people who looked to Obama as the man who hung the moon, salt of the earth, walked on water, made the blind man see...

Is human after all... bummer dude!

I can see your point. Anyone whoever thought he was more than human, and a politician at that, deserves to be disappointed though.
Kind of like those who believe in the divine will be greatly disappointed in my opinion.