Obama, the Consummate Politician?

chergh said:

Clinton was 8 years ago and on top of that for the last part of his presidency the republicans had veto proof majorities in the senate and congress.

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A fact that's conveniently forgotten by the Republicans here

Alisa said:

You have completely mischaracterized Obama's position on Iraq and Afghanistan, which just goes to show that you aren't interested in his *actual* position at all, talk about not digging deeper. But just in case you are actually interested, his position all along has been that we prematurely drew down our troops in Afghanistan in order to invade Iraq, that Afghanistan is and always has been the central front in the war on terrror, and that Iraq is a distraction that actually hurts the overall mission.

I actually disagree with his position. Invading Afghanistan was never a good idea either, and none of the countries that have tried it in the past have "succeeded", whatever that means. I do think we should have gone after bin Laden, and we should still do that if it isn't too late to track him down, but I don't think adding more troops in Afghanistan as Obama proposes is going to help that situation, especially since the terrorists appear to just be moving into the border region of Pakistan to escape the troops we've already got in there. But the point is, you should criticize him on his actual position, and not your fictional version of his position.

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Actually, I never mischaracterized Obama's position since I never said why he feels we should be in Afghanistan. I simply pointed out what appears to be an inconsistency. I was also hypothesizing that Obama could be playing the game of supporting something to get elected and once elected to magically change his position on our involvement.

On Afghanistan, I believe that we have been very lucky, as we have apparently avoided the image that we are in Afghanistan to conquer it. I am assuming that the typical Afghanistani may perceive our presence there as a fight between us and the Taliban. If we increase our presence in Afghanistan and also broaden the reason for why we are there, the Afghanistani people may turn against us. (PS our involvement in Afganistan is being broadened to include a war-against-drugs. NY Times article "NATO Agrees to Take Aim at Afghan Drug Trade". A major mistake.)

Blame is like processed food. I has no "best before" date.
If we are going to blame Clinton for the fiasco in Afganistan and Iraq, why don't we blame Bush Sr. for stopping the Desert Storm campain when he did. The road to Bagdhad was wide open when he stopped that war. Sudam could have been gone by 1991.
Interesting how the same family makes the same mistakes. Bush Jr. pulled the US troops out of Afganistan before that war was over to invade Iraq. If he had done one thing at a time, maybe things would be different.
With any luck, Afganistan would have taken so long to win, he may not have had enough time to invade Iraq.

statsman said:

Blame is like processed food. I has no "best before" date.

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lolol

-dK

statsman said:

Blame is like processed food. I has no "best before" date.

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I like it.

statsman said:

If we are going to blame Clinton for the fiasco in Afganistan and Iraq, why don't we blame Bush Sr. for stopping the Desert Storm campain when he did.

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Who's not? He definitely should have kept going. It would have saved all kinds of problems, especially for Clinton.

And I blame Bush Sr. for "Read my lips: no new taxes."

His son, however, has much more resolve and has done what he said he would do.

georgedwilkinson said:

His son, however, has much more resolve and has done what he said he would do.

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Yeah kill thousands of innocent people

I read the first page of the thread, and hate posting before I've read it all but I've gotta throw my 2 pence in.

First I want to address Joe the Plumber. To my understanding, of what I've seen and what I've read, Obama's tax plan will tax small business that nets over 250k. Being that we're all educated and civil I know we understand the difference between net and gross. If Joe is netting 250k, God bless him. But even if he does, he is only going to pay $12.00 more a year in taxes. (Those so dubbed *successful* tax cuts (lol?) apparently can't stand up to the inbalance of $12.00 more dollars - wow, definitely a solid tax plan)

http://waternoice.com/wp-content/uploads/obamastaxplan.gif

Yup $12.00 more than now.

So I hope Joe does make a ton of money, but hey it's not like the plumber's union was the first union to back Obama or anything.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/01/10/plumbers-and-pipe-fitters-union-endorses-obama/


Second I want to hit on the war in Iraq. I joined the Marines a few years ago, I am currently serving in the reserve. Though I am only an MP and enlisted I can vouch that the consensus of the men and women I've met who are served and have served think being in Iraq is bupkiss. I know Fox News loves telling people and showing people saying "We're doing good here, I'm proud to be here." That has nothing to do with believing in the Iraq war. Those statements are pride, the military is doing well, we are doing awesome. We are an incredible force, we took over an entire country (albeit a 3rd world country with no military and half it's people starving) in less than a month.

The people who want Bin Laden want to goto Afghanistan / Pakistan. That's where he is. That is where we should have gone to get him.

Instead we are presented with a slew of reasons for going into Iraq - none of which have panned out into a positive and none of which will, speculation ? Yes the latter portion is, however I'll bet you a month's pay I'm right.

And finally, on the stance of Iraq vs Afghanistan, The amount of troops Obama wants to send to Afghanistan are far fewer than in Iraq. We may actually have a sane troop deployment set up with Afghanistan and, the main point - we may finally have some form of vindication against those guilty of September 11th - something that has been denied the American people yet used and exploited over and over again for the past 7 3/4 years.


I would love to go into how the Bush tax cuts were NOT a success but this is already way too long and I don't want to bore all of you anymore.

Cheers for getting this far if you did, thanks.

Thank you for the sane and reasonable post.

Steve R. said:

Actually, I never mischaracterized Obama's position since I never said why he feels we should be in Afghanistan. I simply pointed out what appears to be an inconsistency. I was also hypothesizing that Obama could be playing the game of supporting something to get elected and once elected to magically change his position on our involvement.

On Afghanistan, I believe that we have been very lucky, as we have apparently avoided the image that we are in Afghanistan to conquer it. I am assuming that the typical Afghanistani may perceive our presence there as a fight between us and the Taliban. If we increase our presence in Afghanistan and also broaden the reason for why we are there, the Afghanistani people may turn against us. (PS our involvement in Afganistan is being broadened to include a war-against-drugs. NY Times article "NATO Agrees to Take Aim at Afghan Drug Trade". A major mistake.)

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What inconsistency?

Oh, and reposting stuff from your blog on this site isn't all that impressive. If I wanted to read your blog, I would.

ASherbuck said:

First I want to address Joe the Plumber. To my understanding, of what I've seen and what I've read, Obama's tax plan will tax small business that nets over 250k. Being that we're all educated and civil I know we understand the difference between net and gross. If Joe is netting 250k, God bless him. But even if he does, he is only going to pay $12.00 more a year in taxes. (Those so dubbed *successful* tax cuts (lol?) apparently can't stand up to the inbalance of $12.00 more dollars - wow, definitely a solid tax plan)

http://waternoice.com/wp-content/uploads/obamastaxplan.gif

Yup $12.00 more than now.

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Thanks for the balanced post. And thank you for your service.

I looked at your chart and I need some explanation. You say that Joe, if he nets $250K, will pay an additional $12/year in taxes under Obama's plan. And then you give a link to a chart that was uploaded from...?

Anyway, if I'm reading the chart correctly, then Joe (if he nets $250K) will actually SAVE $12.00 a year under Obama's plan. Isn't that what the minus sign means?

Well that's not what Obama said at all. Which makes either Obama's own word that he would raise Joe's taxes (if he nets $250K/year) or this chart, suspect.

Can you expand on this and tell us which one is incorrect?

That's a really good catch George, I grabbed that off a google image search and it appears my haste has bit me in the butt.

I'd seen that image many times and figured it had to be a good representation but further inspection shows it does not represent actual tax brackets, checking my bookmarks for it I see I must have originally seen it on a site that criticized it for just this reason. A better example is here, it shows an abstracted break down by top .01% 1% and then the quintiles.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/blogphotos/Blog_TPC_Obama_McCain_Tax_Plans.gif

If I recall school correctly, McCain's tax plan, like Bush Jr, and Reagan's is effectively just a Trojan horse.

One of my close friends is working on his econ doctorate right now and though he hates all government regulation (huge free market guy) he broke down the Trickle Down system like this:

In a room of 5 people $10.00 is distributed as such:

Doug has $4.00 40%
Nate has $3.00 30%
Alex has $2.00 20%
Dan has $1.00 10%
Mike has $0.00 0%

Jose comes in and says he has $10.00 and wants to give it to Doug. Everyone is upset but Doug, so to appease to crowd Jose says he'll give everyone a dollar to allow him to give Doug $6.00. Hey, free money sounds good so they agree. The break down is now:

Doug $10.00 50%
Nate $4.00 20%
Alex $3.00 15%
Dan $2.00 10%
Mike $1.00 5%

The economy has grown. But you can see who actually benefitted from the growth, arguably you could say two. $1.00 out of $10.00 is certainly worth more than $1.00 out of $1,000.00 as wealth is not judged by how many dollars you have but by what share of dollars you have.

fun site-
http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/
site with so many facts it is a realy head banger to read- (notice the Reagan years in the graphs- no such thing as a liberal statistic)
http://mwhodges.home.att.net/nat-debt/debt-nat-a.htm

The statistic that currently has me rampant is the CEO pay statistic, in approximately 30 years the middle income pay has stayed steady. Not a steady increase or decrease, just steady. A CEO has gone from 15 - 20 times the average worker to 200 and up times the average worker.

If Joe the Plumber is upset that Obama's tax cut is going to keep him from making 200+ times his average worker I really have no sympathy for Joe, or any other CEO making that much, tbh.


Sorry I'm at work and can only post on breaks, so errant spelling mistakes and the inability to read + & - signs make me look pretty silly.

ASherbuck said:

If I recall school correctly, McCain's tax plan, like Bush Jr, and Reagan's is effectively just a Trojan horse.

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Technically, it was a Greek horse, not Trojan.

Col

ColinEssex said:

Technically, it was a Greek horse, not Trojan.

Col

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As the Greeks gave the horse to the Trojans, I think Trojan horse is correct. Possession being 9 points of the law.

I do object to the adage that arose from this exhange. Surely it should be:
"Beware of gifts bearing Greeks".

statsman said:

As the Greeks gave the horse to the Trojans, I think Trojan horse is correct. Possession being 9 points of the law.

I do object to the adage that arose from this exhange. Surely it should be:
"Beware of gifts bearing Greeks".

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It was made by the Greeks.

If I gave you a BMW car, it would not be Canadian, it would still be a German car.

Please try to think things through.

Col

statsman said:

As the Greeks gave the horse to the Trojans, I think Trojan horse is correct. Possession being 9 points of the law.

I do object to the adage that arose from this exhange. Surely it should be:
"Beware of gifts bearing Greeks".

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It's up to you how you translate "Timeo Danaos dona ferentes" as said by Cassandra in the Iliad

ColinEssex said:

It was made by the Greeks.

If I gave you a BMW car, it would not be Canadian, it would still be a German car.

Please try to think things through.

Col

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But if you gave me the car, it would be MY car, not yours.
I was speaking of who OWNED the horse, not who built it.
BTW, make it a 520i, preferred colour white and none of this left hand drive rubbish.

statsman said:

But if you gave me the car, it would be MY car, not yours.

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The car would still be a German car. The horse was a Greek horse not a Trojan horse.

Col

ColinEssex said:

The car would still be a German car. The horse was a Greek horse not a Trojan horse.

Col

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According to the legend, the horse was build by the Greeks near Troy. That would make it a TROJAN horse.
If your BMW was built by Turks working in Bavaria, would that make it a Turkish car?

You can't have it both ways. If the horse was built near Troy, that makes it a Trojan horse. If it's a Greek horse, then the same logic must make it a Turkish BMW.

statsman said:

According to the legend, the horse was build by the Greeks near Troy. That would make it a TROJAN horse.

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No, it's Greek. It was conceived, and built by Greeks, it was not under licence to anyone else.

Col

ColinEssex said:

No, it's Greek. It was conceived, and built by Greeks, it was not under licence to anyone else.

Col

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In the 1970's Volkswagon in Germany stopped making the beetle.
The VW plant in Mexico, staffed by Mexicans continued to produce it. These cars were commonly known as Mexican Beetles.
Are you trying to tell me that millions of us were wrong? If so, what would be the correct name, the Mexican German Beetle or the German Mexican Beetle. You couldn't call it just the German Beetle because they would be a misrepresentation.

Even though the term being used may not be technically correct, there is still some credit due to common parlence.
Example: In Toronto we have an annual fair called the Canadian National Exhibition. The main entrance was named for two British Princes who offically opened the fair that year. A large gate was built in honour of the visit and named the Princes' Gates. Everyone in Toronto calls them the Princess Gates. They're wrong of course but if you wrote someone an Email asking them to meet you at the Princes' Gates, they wouldn't know what you were talking about.

If you were chatting with someone about the Trojan War and mentioned the Greek Horse, same thing.