Submitted by ChiefHypocrite
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Obama’s brain was just up to par at the last “debate”. While telling why he did not think that Clarence Thomas should have been nominated for the Supreme Court, he started to say; “I, I, I, don’t think that he was an expe…a strong enough jurist or legal thinker..”, he obviously was going to say, experienced enough jurist or legal thinker. His handler’s must go over it with him daily - “don’t mention experience, never, never, mention experience”.
WEBCommentary Contributor
Author: Michael J. Gaynor
Bio: Michael J. Gaynor
Date: August 18, 2008
Saddleback Forum Exposes Obama as Unfit Hypocrite
Tellingly, Obama slipped and showed his hypocrisy when talking about United States Supreme Court Justices during the Saddleback Forum.
Have you been wondering why rookie United States Senator and presumptive 2008 Democrat presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. avoided the ten Townhall debates around the country that veteran United States Senator and presumptive 2008 Republican presidential candidate John Sidney McCain proposed?
The joint appearances by Obama and McCain at the Saddleback Forum hosted by Rev. Rick Warren showed that McCain is ready to be President of the United States and Obama is not fit to be.
Obama IS a superb tele-prompter reader.
But the position at stake is President of the United States, not news reader for NBC News.
Obama wants to substitute audacity for ability, presumption for preparation and eagerness for experience.
That’s a recipe for disaster.
Tellingly, Obama slipped and showed his hypocrisy when talking about United States Supreme Court Justices during the Saddleback Forum.
Rev. Warren asked Obama, “which existing Supreme Court justice would you not have nominated?”
Obama chose Justice Clarence Thomas.
That’s not a surprise: a conservative black man who thinks for himself, embraces constitutional fidelity and eschews judicial activism and legislating from the bench is anathema to Obama and his ardent supporters.
Wikipedia:
“From 1974 to 1977, Thomas was an Assistant Attorney General of Missouri under then State Attorney General John Danforth. When Danforth was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1976 to 1979, Thomas left to become an attorney with Monsanto in St. Louis, Missouri. He returned to work for Danforth from 1979 to 1981 as a Legislative Assistant….
“In 1981, he joined the Reagan administration. From 1981 to 1982, he served as Assistant Secretary of Education for the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education. From 1982 to 1990 he was Chairman of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission….
“In 1990, President George H. W. Bush appointed Thomas to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.”
Obama to Rev. Warren on why he disapproved of Justice Thomas: “I don’t think he was an exp . . . a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation.”
That’s right: inexperienced Obama, who aspires to be President anyway, swallowed most of the word “experienced” that he started to say.
Rev. Warren did not ask Obama that if he did not consider Justice Thomas experienced enough to be elevated from federal appellate court judge to Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, one of nine Justices, why did he consider himself experienced enough to be elevated from one of one hundred United States Senators to become the one President of the United States.
If Rev. Warren had asked the question, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s remote chance of being nominated as the Democrat presidential candidate at the upcoming convention would have increased greatly.
Lopez: “Was it that Barack Obama didn’t like Justice Thomas’s vote on the recent D.C. gun-ban case? Nope; that couldn’t be it either. Barack Obama wound up ultimately agreeing with Thomas and the majority on that one too.
“Justice Ginsburg, on the other hand, had issues with the Second Amendment in that case. But you would nominate Justice Ginsburg, Senator Obama?”
The truth is that Obama was FOR the draconian D.C. gun-ban before he was against it…and he publicly became against it after his private remark about rural Americans clinging to religion and guns out of bitterness over economic circumstances was made public.”
The truth is that Obama is a political panderer who cannot be trusted.
Lopez: “Did Obama disagree with Justice Thomas on the recent cross-burning case, Virginia v. Black? Obama’s favorite justice, Justice Ginsburg, wrote that cross-burning bans are constitutionally suspect. Justice Thomas disagreed and wrote a passionate dissent. During oral arguments he said: ‘There’s no other purpose to the cross, no communication, no particular message. . . . [It] was intended to cause fear and to terrorize a population.’ Does Obama take issue with the impassioned Thomas dissent?”
Obama is special interest Planned Parenthood’s guy and prone to lie.
Michael J. Gaynor
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Nonprofits & Activism
What are YOU going to do?
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Bush Denounces the Russian forces for invading and also denounces Chinas killings in Tibet,, Your all Hypocrites, every one in the Bush administration is a liar.
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In 2000, he told an interviewer that he would make up for his lack of attention to “those issues.” As he entered the 2008 campaign, Mr. McCain was still saying the same, vowing to read “Greenspan’s book” as a tutorial. Last weekend, the resolutely analog candidate told The New York Times he is at last starting to learn how “to get online myself.” Perhaps he’ll retire his abacus by Election Day.
Mr. McCain’s fiscal ineptitude has received so little scrutiny in some press quarters that his chief economic adviser, the former Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, got a free pass until the moment he self-immolated on video by whining about “a nation of whiners.” The McCain-Gramm bond, dating back 15 years, is more scandalous than Mr. Obama’s connection with his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Mr. McCain has been so dependent on Mr. Gramm for economic policy that he sent him to newspaper editorial board meetings, no doubt to correct the candidate’s numbers much as Joe Lieberman cleans up after his confusions of Sunni and Shia.
Just two weeks before publicly sharing his thoughts about America’s “mental recession,” Mr. Gramm laid out equally incendiary views in a Wall Street Journal profile that portrayed him as “almost certainly” the McCain choice for Treasury secretary. Mr. Gramm said that the former chief executive of AT&T, Ed Whitacre, was “probably the most exploited worker in American history” since he received only a 8 million pay package rather than the “billions” he deserved for his success in growing Southwestern Bell.
But no one in the news media seemed to notice Mr. Gramm’s naked expression of the mind-set he’d bring to a McCain White House. And few journalists have vetted the presumptive Treasury secretary’s post-Senate history as an executive at UBS. The stock of that banking giant has lost 70 percent of its value in a year after its reckless adventures in the subprime lending market. It’s now fending off federal investigation for helping the megarich avoid taxes.
Mr. McCain made a big show of banishing Mr. Gramm after his whining “gaffe,” but it’s surely at most a temporary suspension. When the candidate said back in January that there’s nobody he knows who is stronger on economic issues than his old Senate pal, he was telling the truth. Left to his own devices — or those of his new No. 1 economic surrogate, Carly Fiorina — Mr. McCain is clueless. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger, a supporter, said that Mr. McCain’s latest panacea for high gas prices, offshore drilling, is snake oil — and then announced his availability to serve as energy czar in an Obama administration.
The term flip-flopping doesn’t do justice to Mr. McCain’s self-contradictory economic pronouncements because that implies there’s some rational, if hypocritical, logic at work. What he serves up instead is plain old incoherence, as if he were compulsively consulting one of those old Magic 8 Balls. In a single 24-hour period in April, Mr. McCain went from saying there’s been “great economic progress” during the Bush presidency to saying “Americans are not better off than they were eight years ago.” He reversed his initial condemnation of mortgage bailouts in just two weeks.
Ms. Fiorina, the ubiquitous new public face of McCain economic policy, adds nothing to the mix beyond her incessant display of corporate jargon, from “trend lines” to “start-ups.” Before she was fired at Hewlett-Packard, its stock had declined 50 percent during her five-plus years in charge. She missed earning projections — by 23 percent in one quarter — much as she now misrepresents both the Obama and McCain records. This month she said Mr. McCain wanted to require insurance plans to cover birth control medications along with Viagra, when in fact he had voted against it.
Ms. Fiorina received a million payout (half in cash) from H.P., according to a shareholders’ subsequent lawsuit. With this inspiring résumé, she now aspires to be Mr. McCain’s running mate. So does the irrepressible Mitt Romney, who actually was a business whiz before serving as Massachusetts’s governor. Beltway wisdom has it that the addition of such a corporate star will remedy Mr. McCain’s fiscal flatulence.
But Mr. Romney, while more plausible than Ms. Fiorina, is hardly what America wants at this desperate time. His leveraged buyout dealings as co-founder of Bain Capital induced plant closings, mass layoffs and outsourcing. If Mr. McCain truly intends to “put our country’s interests” above politics and reach across the aisle to move the nation forward, as he constantly tells us, why not go for a vice president who’s the very best fit for the huge challenges at hand?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/opinion/20rich.html
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TRUTH!Afghanistan, the CIA, bin Laden,
and the Taliban
by Phil Gasper
International Socialist Review, November-December 2001
The U.S. war on Afghanistan is a brutal attack on a country that has already been almost destroyed by more than 20 years of foreign invasion and civil war.’ The Soviet occupation, which lasted from 1979 to 1989, left more than a million people dead. Millions still live in refugee camps More than 500,000 orphans are disabled. Ten million land mines still litter the country, killing an average of 90 people per month. At 43 years, life expectancy in Afghanistan is on average 17 years lower than that for people in other developing countries. The countryside is devastated and is currently experiencing a severe drought, with 7.5 million people threatened with starvation. The death and destruction wrought by the U.S. bombing campaign-and the cut off of food aid deliveries it has caused-have already killed hundreds and produced thousands more refugees scrambling to escape into Pakistan.
But not only is Washington attacking one of the poorest countries in the world, past U.S. government actions are in no small part responsible for the current situation in Afghanistan. The Bush administration claims to be targeting Osama bin Laden, who it says masterminded the September 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (even though it has offered no concrete evidence to back up this accusation), and Afghanistan’s Taliban government, which is sheltering him. But as the Economist magazine noted soon after September 11, ” [U.S.] policies in Afghanistan a decade and more ago helped to create both Osama bin Laden and the fundamentalist Taliban regime that shelters him.” An examination of this history will reveal the extent to which U.S. foreign policy is based on hypocrisy, realpolitik, and the short-term pursuit of narrow interests.
Before the Russians invaded
Modern Afghanistan was created in the nineteenth century as a buffer state between the Russian and British empires as they played their “great game” in the region. This historical circumstance, coupled with the country’s forbidding mountainous terrain, not only made it difficult for imperialist countries to conquer Afghanistan (it did not undergo colonial rule), but also resulted in little economic development.
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Rise Up - Raise Up - Stand Up - (Speak Out):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VaYMld1f80
Bush War Crimes: Torture and (Eventual) Justice:
The International Committee of the Red Cross sent a report last year to the CIA saying that the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo was unquestionably torture and the Bush administration officials that approved the treatment are War Criminals.
Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of War Crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.
“The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Side-Inside-Terror-American/dp/0385526393 by Jane Mayer, who writes about counterterrorism for The New Yorker, offers new details of the agency’s secret detention program, as well as the bitter debates in the administration over interrogation methods and other tactics in the campaign against Al Qaeda. Citing unnamed “sources familiar with the report,” Ms. Mayer wrote that the Red Cross document “warned that the abuse constituted War Crimes, placing the highest officials in the U.S. government in jeopardy of being prosecuted.”
Bush War Crimes: Torture and (Eventual) Justice….
Bush War Crimes: Torture and (Eventual) Justice….
Bob Cesca On Bush:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/sorry-mr-president-but-yo_b_106596.html
One Nation Under Fear:
http://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-Fear-Fear-Mongers/dp/0981453503/105-2339293-1347630?SubscriptionId=15VEWHERF6Q30X94NX82
Existentialist Cowboy:
http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com
Bush’s Supreme (Court) Hypocrisy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU_MSxCoAW4
Suing George W. Bush:
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/161617-Suing-George-W-Bush-A-bizarre-and-troubling-tale
“Not A Close Question” On Torture:
http://firedoglake.com/2008/07/15/not-a-close-question-on-torture/
Institutional Torture:
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/91408
Torture and the Rule of Law:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/12/10308/print/
No Investigations? No Impeachment?
No War Crimes? Complicity Is A Key.
Military Commissions Act:
Retroactively Cover Torture (War Crimes).
FISA Update:
Retroactively Cover Warrantless Surveillance (in the least).
Now, Mukasey Wants Congress To Cover Military Tribunals:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/22/10513/print/
In Good Faith:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/24/10586/print/
On Bush (War Crimes):
(1) If widespread acts of Torture are found to have been Institutionalized (by your direction), the sickening violations at Abu Ghraib (etc.) were not, as you claim, “just the action of some soldiers.” They would also be considered torturous culminations which originated from a “Call To Action” - a War Crime since the Nuremberg Trials.
(2) Assembling a team of sycophantic (neocon) lunatics to purposely redefine the term/word Torture so that you could claim all the following torturous actions were “Legal” (according to secret opinions) did not (actually) make the crimes “Legal.” Certainly, this was an intended cover - for the public, as well as the Supreme Court (if necessary). Yet, as some court will eventually say: The Truth is clearly proclaimed (though some tried in vein to rewrite it).
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Great amalgamation using the now famous clip from the American television show where the lawyer exposes the lies, hypocrisy and treason of the current administration and the puppet-masters who control it.
http://blog.puppetgov.com/
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Hello, Bush Administration. We are Anonymous.
Over the years, we have been watching you. Your campaigns of misinformation; your suppression of dissent; your warlike nature, all of these things have caught our eye. With the leakage of the 35 Articles of Impeachment into mainstream circulation, the extent of your malign influence, has been made clear to us.
Anonymous has therefore decided that the Bush Administration should be impeached. For the good of this country, for the good of the world we shall expel you from your unelected office. You will be held accountable for your high crimes and misdemenors.
We acknowledge you as a serious opponent, and we are prepared for a long, long campaign. You will not prevail forever against the angry masses of the body politic. Your methods, hypocrisy, and the artlessness of your organization have sounded its death knell.
You cannot hide; we are everywhere.
We cannot die; we are forever. We’re getting bigger every day–and solely by the force of our ideas, because Impeachment is neccessary to uphold the Rule of Law in this country. If you want another name for your opponent, then call us Legion, for we are many.
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.
Impeachment is neccessary to uphold the Rule of Law in the United States of America.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
Demand Impeachment.
We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.
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Obama says; offshore drilling would lower the price of a barrel of oil “a few cents” what a misguided young fool , to put it mildly. The Democrats in Congress make me sick (so do a lot of Republicans). They voted to force President Bush to stop filling the strategic oil reserve, a reserve that we will regret not having at full capacity in the event of a serious interruption of our oil supply. They contend that this will help the people by lowering oil/gas prices. It’s only 70,000 barrels of oil a day, it’s had no affect. Had Bill Clinton not vetoed ANWR drilling back in 1995, we would be producing 1 million more barrels of oil every day. We must also remember the other effect this would have on our economy. We would be importing 1 million less barrels a day and therefore reducing our annual trade deficit (at today’s prices) by over 50 billion dollars, are we stupid or what. Congress voted almost unanimously to stop filling the reserve, so unless they are hypocrites, they will vote fore “safe” drilling in Alaska, offshore and anywhere else we can possibly drill.
If the world new that we were serious about extracting our own oil reserves, the speculative price of oil would drop almost immediately.
If we drill in Alaska, off shore and any other place that we can safely drill, and add that to finding alternative sources of energy, then we’ll be able to tell the foreign oil producers where to go. This is in our power as a country to do, why aren’t we doing it.
Just in case you didn’t already know it, China and other countries are gearing up to drill off the shores of Cuber (as Kennedy would have said it). If we wait to long, they will have already drilled and sucked up all the oil in that area, and even more pathetic than that, they will probably have sold it to us, making our trade deficit go up and up and up, speaking of up, as Rep. James Traficant (D.) would have said (before he was sent to prison by Janet Reno); “Beam me up”!!!
By CARL HULSE and STEVEN LEE MYERS
Published: May 14, 2008
WASHINGTON — Groping for a quick response to rising gas prices, Congress voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to order the Bush administration to stop depositing oil in a national reserve even though lawmakers predicted the impact for consumers would be modest at best.
“Is it a giant step? No,” said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, a leading proponent of the idea of trying to influence the price of gas by redirecting supplies from the reserve to the commercial market. “But is it a step finally, at long last, in the right direction? It is.”
Despite initial resistance from the White House, the Senate voted 97 to 1 to stop putting 70,000 barrels of oil a day in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve through the remainder of this year; the House later approved a similar bill by a vote of 385 to 25. Senators of both parties said the House bill could clear the Senate within days and be sent to the president.
The rapid action demonstrated lawmakers’ anxiety about election-year howls from constituents who are straining the family budget at the gas pump. It also was a rare break between Congressional Republicans and Mr. Bush as his usual allies voted en masse for the measure even though the White House has portrayed filling the reserve as a security issue and a way to guard against supply disruptions.
The administration reiterated skepticism about the impact of the bill on Tuesday, with one spokesman, Scott M. Stanzel, saying “there is no evidence that it will affect the price of oil or gasoline in a meaningful way.” But he said Mr. Bush, who left on a trip to the Middle East, would not veto it. The margins were adequate to easily override him if he did.
In an interview conducted Tuesday for Yahoo and Politico, a Washington journal concentrating on politics, Mr. Bush said he was open to the idea of withholding oil deposits to try to encourage a price decrease at the pump. At the same time, he said, both the government and consumers must do more to address the rise in gasoline prices.
“The truth of the matter is that in order for there to be a substantial change either consumers have to change their habits — which we’re encouraging through alternative tax of automobiles — or there has to be an increase of supply,” he said in the interview.
Estimates of the impact of suspending the deposits varied. Some economists predicted the impact would be negligible, while Speaker Nancy Pelosi, citing others who have studied the issue, said prices could drop 5 to 24 cents a gallon.
But Representative Joe L. Barton of Texas, the senior Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said the measure was meaningless. “If all the members of the House would go out onto the steps and clap our hands three times and say, ‘Down prices, down prices,’ that would have as much impact as passing this bill,” he said.
![Bush's Supreme (Court) Hypocrisy: "Slander[ing] America"](http://img.youtube.com/vi/sU_MSxCoAW4/1.jpg)
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Bush’s Supreme (Court) Hypocrisy: “Slander[ing] America”
Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Rendition? “Of course if you want to slander America, you can look at it one way.” Abu Ghraib? “This is [just] the action of some soldiers.” Holy….
From http://www.crooksandliars.com :
During an interview with Sky News, Bush accused British journalist Adam Boulton of “slander[ing] America.”
Boulton: “And yet there are those who would say, look, let’s take Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and rendition and all those things, and to them that is the, you know, the complete opposite of freedom.”
Bush: “Of course if you want to slander America, you can look at it one way. But you go down — what you need to do — I think I suggested you do this at a press conference — if you go down to Guantanamo and take a look at how these prisoners are treated — and they’re working it through our court systems. We are a land of law.”
Face The Nation’s Bob Schieffer Sums Up CIA Torture Cover: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhZSlE69h9M
General-Abu Ghraib-Bush Officials-War Crimes: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/41514.html
The Supreme Court Overruled Bush (a 3rd Time), Saving Habeas Corpus: “The justices, voting 5-4, said a 2006 law unconstitutionally stripped Guantanamo prisoners of the right to file so-called Habeas Corpus petitions. The majority rejected arguments that a system of limited judicial review…was adequate to protect inmate rights.”
Bush’s Response: Threatened (more) possible legislation (forgetting that their Majority was lost in Nov. 2006). The Military Commissions Act was an override of the Supreme Court, and a retroactive cover for War Crimes. Who has slandered America, and everything it once stood for?
Habeas Corpus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIrKqlN-b7E
Sounds of Silence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fZDm1nSjAM
Bob Cesca On Bush’s Orwellian Twists:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/sorry-mr-president-but-yo_b_106596.html
Bush: “Bypassing the Constitution means that we did something outside the bounds of the Constitution.”
Yes, that’s exactly what it means.
Supreme Hypocrisy.
Supreme “Tortured” Logic.
A Different Supreme Court Awaits.
Boumediene v. Bush
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boumediene_v._Bush
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdan_v._Rumsfeld
Rasul v. Bush
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasul_v._Bush
Geneva Conventions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions
Nuremberg Principles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Principles
Torture By Music: “According to US military authorities, it was God himself who first wrote the strategy of “Torture By Music” into the field manual…. Joshua’s army used horns to strike fear into the hearts of the people of Jericho.”
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/19/9734/print/
War Crimes Committed and Justice Denied:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/18/9728/print/
Bush’s Capital Crimes:
http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/06/bushs-capital-crimes-in-his-own-words.html
Bush Administration Secret Moves Against Iran:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh?printable=true
Pretending That Bush is Not a Tyrant:
http://www.alternet.org/rights/89834/?page=entire&ses=ec3eb1a96820af89e5d710e5d2016755
Chris Satullo: A Not-So-Glorious Fourth
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/chris_satullo/20080701_Chris_Satullo__A_not-so-glorious_Fourth.html#
On Bush War Crimes:
(1) If widespread acts of Torture are found to have been Institutionalized (by your direction), the sickening violations at Abu Ghraib (etc.) were not, as you claim, “just the action of some soldiers.” They would also be considered torturous culminations which originated from a “Call To Action” - a War Crime since the Nuremberg Trials.
(2) Assembling a team of sycophantic (neocon) lunatics to purposely redefine the term/word Torture so that you could claim all the following torturous actions were “Legal” (according to secret opinions) did not (actually) make the crimes “Legal.” Certainly, this was an intended cover - for the public, as well as the Supreme Court (if necessary). Yet, as some court will eventually say: The Truth is clearly proclaimed (though some tried in vein to rewrite it).
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News & Politics
Chris Matthews (Hardball) interview
——————————————–
Oxford and traveling in Europe where Barack Obama could be elected in a landslide. I suspect that this fascination with Obama is true in many parts of the world. In fact, as I have said before, it is difficult to think of any single act that would do more to restore America’s soft power than the election of Obama to the presidency.
Soft power is the ability to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than using the carrots and sticks of payment or coercion. As I describe in my new book The Powers to Lead, in individuals soft power rests on the skills of emotional intelligence, vision, and communication that Obama possesses in abundance. In nations, it rests upon culture (where it is attractive to others), values (when they are applied without hypocrisy), and policies (when they are inclusive and seen as legitimate in the eyes of others.)
Polls show that American soft power has declined quite dramatically in much of the world over the past eight years. Some say this is structural, and resentment is the price we pay for being the biggest kid on the block. But it matters greatly whether the big kid is seen as a friend or a bully. In much of the world we have been seen as a bully as a result of the Bush Administration policies.
Unfortunately, a President Obama will inherit a number of policy problems such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea where hard power plays a large role. If he drops the ball on any of these issues, they will devour his political capital. At the same time, he will have to be careful not to let this inherited legacy of problems define his presidency. Some time between November 4 and January 20, he will need to indicate a new tone in foreign policy which shows that we will once again export hope rather than fear. This could take several forms: announcement of an intent to close Guantanamo; dropping the term “global war on terror;” creation of a special bipartisan group to formulate a new policy on climate change; a “listening trip” to Asia, and so forth. Electing Obama will greatly help restore America’s soft power as a nation that can recreate itself, but the election alone will not be sufficient. It is not too soon to start thinking about symbols and policies for the days immediately after the election.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-nye/barack-obama-and-soft-pow_b_106717.html
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662
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John Meacham (Newsweek) interview
——————————————–
Oxford and traveling in Europe where Barack Obama could be elected in a landslide. I suspect that this fascination with Obama is true in many parts of the world. In fact, as I have said before, it is difficult to think of any single act that would do more to restore America’s soft power than the election of Obama to the presidency.
Soft power is the ability to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than using the carrots and sticks of payment or coercion. As I describe in my new book The Powers to Lead, in individuals soft power rests on the skills of emotional intelligence, vision, and communication that Obama possesses in abundance. In nations, it rests upon culture (where it is attractive to others), values (when they are applied without hypocrisy), and policies (when they are inclusive and seen as legitimate in the eyes of others.)
Polls show that American soft power has declined quite dramatically in much of the world over the past eight years. Some say this is structural, and resentment is the price we pay for being the biggest kid on the block. But it matters greatly whether the big kid is seen as a friend or a bully. In much of the world we have been seen as a bully as a result of the Bush Administration policies.
Unfortunately, a President Obama will inherit a number of policy problems such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea where hard power plays a large role. If he drops the ball on any of these issues, they will devour his political capital. At the same time, he will have to be careful not to let this inherited legacy of problems define his presidency. Some time between November 4 and January 20, he will need to indicate a new tone in foreign policy which shows that we will once again export hope rather than fear. This could take several forms: announcement of an intent to close Guantanamo; dropping the term “global war on terror;” creation of a special bipartisan group to formulate a new policy on climate change; a “listening trip” to Asia, and so forth. Electing Obama will greatly help restore America’s soft power as a nation that can recreate itself, but the election alone will not be sufficient. It is not too soon to start thinking about symbols and policies for the days immediately after the election.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-nye/barack-obama-and-soft-pow_b_106717.html
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Peggy Noonan, conservative columnist for the Wall Street Journal, discusses Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Mccain, and Scott Mcclellan’s new book ‘What Happened’
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It is the most amazing thing that a young black man who was just a few short years ago unknown to most of his countrymen—really, unknown—could, this week, win the presidential nomination of one of our two great political parties. It is even more amazing that this historic news could be overshadowed by the personal drama and spite of the woman who lost to him.
I like it that she spent the campaign accusing America of being sexist, of treating her differently because she is a woman, and then, when she lacked the grace to congratulate the victor, she sent her stewards out to tell the press she just needs time, it’s so emotional. In other words, she needs space because she’s a woman
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121269958227749853.html
Scott McClellan attempts to reveal and expose what he believes, what he came to see as, an inherent dishonesty and hypocrisy within a hardened administration. It is a real denunciation.
He believes the invasion of Iraq was “a serious strategic blunder,” that the decision to invade Iraq was “a fateful misstep” born in part of the shock of 9/11 but also of “an air of invincibility” sharpened by the surprisingly and “deceptively” quick initial military success in Afghanistan. He scores President Bush’s “certitude” and “self-deceit” and asserts the decision to invade Iraq was tied to the president’s lust for legacy, need for boldness, and grandiose notions as to what is possible in the Mideast. He argues that Mr. Bush did not try to change the culture of the capital, that he “chose to play the Washington game the way he found it” and turned “away from candor and honesty.”
Mr. McClellan dwells on a point that all in government know, that day-to-day governance now is focused on media manipulation, with a particular eye to “political blogs, popular web sites, paid advertising, talk radio” and news media in general. In the age of the permanent campaign, government has become merely an offshoot of campaigning. All is perception and spin. This mentality can “cripple” an administration as, he says, it crippled the Clinton administration, with which he draws constant parallels. “Like the Clinton administration, we had an elaborate campaign structure within the White House that drove much of what we did.”
His primary target is Karl Rove, whose role he says was “political manipulation, plain and simple.” He criticizes as destructive the 50-plus-1 strategy that focused on retaining power through appeals to the base at the expense of a larger approach to the nation. He blames Mr. Rove for sundering the brief post-9/11 bipartisan entente when he went before an open Republican National Committee meeting in Austin, four months after 9/11, and said the GOP would make the war on terror the top issue to win the Senate and keep the House in the 2002 campaign. By the spring the Democratic Party and the media were slamming back with charges the administration had been warned before 9/11 of terrorist plans and done nothing. That war has continued ever since.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121209803493730619.html
John McCain had a worse time, with the famously awkward speech in front of the background whose color was variously compared to snot, puke and lime Jell-O. He was scored for not being adept with a teleprompter. The press knocked him, essentially, for not being smooth and manipulative enough. But if he were good at the teleprompter, they’d complain that he’s too smooth and scripted. It should not count against a man that he has not fully mastered the artifice of his profession. Then again, he should have nailed the prompter by now. Such things show a certain competence. Voters are slower to trust you with big things if they see a lack of skill in small things. In this vein, a suggestion. Podiums always seem to swallow Mr. McCain. He has limited mobility with his arms because of his torture in Vietnam. It restricts his ability to gesture. And he is not a big man. He often looks like he’s flailing up there: I’m not waving, I’m drowning! His staff should build a podium for him, one that fits, and take it wherever he goes. For a seal, the great state of Arizona, which he has represented in the U.S. Senate for 22 years. Let him master the podium five months out. Other masteries will follow.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121330247663568945.html
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Choose your words wisely because someday they may bite you on the ass.
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The Beatles “White Album” classic with a montage of pics of basically the neocon pundit idiots who don’t know what political science is even if it bit them in the butt, [hypocritical] congressmen and senators that were overpaid a-holes,and of course the crooked administration that now resides currently at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, only a few more months….and the American Nightmare will be over, hopefully.
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Comedy
Me, spoofing Dr. Zakir Naik in my college canteen…
Not my best imitation, but the only copy available.
Question 1: What does the Quran have to say about the earth being Spherical?
Question 2: Why is George Bush such a f**khead?
Disclaimer: Intent is only to spoof the person concerned. No pun intended towards any religion. If you are the sensitive kind, please Fuck Off.
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Viewers of this video should know where I stand vis-a-vis Islam -
I am a Muslim. I believe in Islam. I find its laws, its principles and its objectives - fascinating. I’m not an expert on the religion. I have my doubts, my questions, and my insecurities with respect to my religion, but am proud of what it stands for nonetheless.
My stand on (un)Islamic Terrorism -
I do not believe terrorism is inherently Islamic. I believe terrorism is one of the by-products of an unreasonably aggressive foreign policy.
I believe every person should be accountable for his actions.
I believe George W. Bush and his administration should be held accountable, should be tried and sentenced (if necessary) for waging a war against Iraq’s innocents — a war based on lies and deceit, for endangering the lives of young American men and women by pushing them into a never-ending battle they did not need to start in the first place or simply for misguiding a nation and in the process, providing awesome recruitment material to any Terrorist based entrepreneur.
I believe Bin Laden and his ilk should also be tried and sentenced (if necessary) for taking advantage of the miseries of ravaged Muslims, for distorting Islam to serve their interests and those of their enemies, for misguiding the youth and providing awesome recruitment material to any Western-supremacist entrepreneur, for attacking people incapable of defending themselves, for never having the balls to stand up to the enemy and exercising cowardice and backstabbing as a system of warfare.
Apart from being tried and sentenced, I believe I would get personal satisfaction if Bin Laden and Co. were shot in the balls first, before a trial and sentencing.
I do not believe in hypocrisy. I believe in ‘what applies to the other, applies to me.’
(The viewers may disagree with every word I have said above. It is a calculated, thought out view and I shall not be replying to uncivilized, irrational, unreasonable replies to the same. This forum is yours as much as it is mine. I won’t be deleting any user comments)
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People & Blogs
Hypocrisy is prevalent in our foreign policy in contemporary times, not decades ago. This is a response to a particularly rabid supporter of the Bush administration.
Yeah, I know. I didn’t think there were any of those left around, either. They’ve apparently been hiding out on YouTube.
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Music
Album: Revolutionary Vol. 2
Track 17
Title: “You Never Know” ft Jean Grae
In “You Never Know”, Immortal Technique laments a missed opportunity at love, with Jean Grae singing the chorus. Technique himself has stated that the song is not based on one true story, but rather a collection of unrelated experiences in his life.
Revolutionary Vol. 2 is the second album released by rapper Immortal Technique and is a follow-up to his debut album, Revolutionary Vol. 1.
In spite of the fact that it was released independent of major studio support, it made record sales, fueling its revolutionary concept. All of the CDs displayed Immortal Technique’s phone number. It was endorsed by Mumia Abu-Jamal, who introduces the album and also provides a speech about hip hop’s relationship to Homeland security. Apart from crude sexual imagery, Revolutionary Vol. 2 attacks the United States government, especially the Bush Administration. Immortal Technique goes as far as suggesting that there is a conspiracy that serves to divert and imprison blacks and Latinos, if not all of the peasantry. In an attempt to reveal the hypocrisy of American jingoism, he makes reference to Project MKULTRA, the Patriot Act, Acid rain, American companies with Nazi ties, the Catholic Church’s platform of non-involvement during the The Holocaust, and the Church calling Muhammad a “terrorist” amongst many other accusations.
real hip-hop
Felipe Coronel (born February 19, 1979), better known as Immortal Technique, is a Hip hop MC and political activist. He is of Afro-Peruvian and Indigenous descent and was raised in Harlem, New York. Most of his lyrics focus on quasi-political issues. The views expressed in his lyrics are largely a mixture of commentary on issues such as poverty, religion, and racism. He also focuses on the harsh resulting realities of crime in the housing projects of New York City’s slums.
Although he has been offered a deal with at least one major record label, he has never signed to any. Immortal Technique has voiced a desire to keep control over his production, and has made statements in his music that he is very aware that it is record companies, not the artists themselves, who profit the most from mass production and marketing of music and has said he “would rather make a lot of a little, than a little of a lot.”
He releases his music through, and is also the president of, Viper Records.
VIVA LA REVOLUTION
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McCain said in Florida on May 20th, 2008: “I believe we should give hope to the Cuban people, not to the Castro regime. My administration will press the Cuban regime to release all political prisoners unconditionally, to legalize all political parties, labor unions, and free media, and to schedule internationally monitored elections. The embargo must stay in place until these basic elements of democratic society are met.”
But McCain’s tough talk cannot hide his shifting positions on Cuba. Witness this exchange, for instance, in which Cuban-American Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen — a current McCain supporter and Cuba advisor to his campaign- outlined her support for then-candidate BUSH in 1999 (not McCain) because of McCain’s open-ended free trade positions. McCain at the time declared, “If I were president, I would negotiate a free-trade agreement with almost any country willing to negotiate fairly with us.”
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During an interview on This Week with George Stephanopoulos Joe Biden points out how hypocritical McCain’s statements on appeasement were, talks about what the alternatives are to not talking to enemies, points out all of the people that the Bush administration has negotiated with, and says if Bush really believes what he said about negotiating with Iran, then he should fire Condoleeza Rice and Bob Gates.