Richard Cohen, a man not known for his conservative beliefs, asks a important question in his editorial today at The WaPo:
“Just tell me one thing Barack Obama has done that you admire,” I asked a prominent Democrat. He paused and then said that he admired Obama’s speech to the Democratic convention in 2004. I agreed. It was a hell of a speech, but it was just a speech.
We’ve heard this kind of question before and each time its quite amusing to listen as the Obamamites hem and haw. Great speaker they utter. He’s a uniter they sputter. Nevermind the man has no experience other then being a community organizer. Nevermind the poor judgement he has shown in befriending terrorists, racists, and corrupt politicos. Nevermind his oft stated beliefs that are just an inch or two away from Marxism on the political philospophy dial.
John Gibson asks the question regularly. Most recently yesterday when he got into the fact that most Obama supporters are supporting him for no other reason other then his race?
[audio:https://floppingaces.net/Audio/gibson072808.mp3]That last caller towards the end of the audio is classic. He supports Obama over Hillary because he is more informed in foreign policy! Yeah….
One thing Obama seems to hang his hat on policy wise is his opposition to the war in Iraq. Cohen tackles this subject in his editorial:
Obama argues that he himself stuck to the biggest gun of all: opposition to the war. He took that position when the war was enormously popular, the president who initiated it was even more popular and critics of both were slandered as unpatriotic. But at the time, Obama was a mere Illinois state senator, representing the (very) liberal Hyde Park area of Chicago. He either voiced his conscience or his district’s leanings or (lucky fella) both. We will never know.
And we will never know, either, how Obama might have conducted himself had he served in Congress as long as McCain has. Possibly he would have earned a reputation for furious, maybe even sanctimonious, integrity of the sort that often drove McCain’s colleagues to dark thoughts of senatorcide, but the record — scant as it is — suggests otherwise. Obama is not noted for sticking to a position or a person once that position or person becomes a political liability.
All politicians change their positions, sometimes even because they have changed their minds. McCain must have suffered excruciating whiplash from totally reversing himself on George Bush’s tax cuts. He has denounced preachers he later embraced and then, to his chagrin, has had to denounce them all over again. This plasticity has a label: pandering. McCain knows how it’s done.
But Obama has shown that in this area, youth is no handicap. He has been for and against gun control, against and for the recent domestic surveillance legislation and, in almost a single day, for a united Jerusalem under Israeli control and then, when apprised of U.S. policy and Palestinian chagrin, against it. He is an accomplished pol — a statement of both admiration and a bit of regret.
Granted, Cohen wrote about his support of McCain because of issues that most conservatives don’t support him, but when liberals like Cohen are wondering just what Obama stands for, it doesn’t bode well for the Democrat party.
Karl at Protein Wisdom has some issues with Cohens editorial, specifically some of Obama’s “experience” that he overlooks:
As previously noted here, Obama’s public record is almost entirely undistinguished, so it is not as though Cohen could discover the same. Cohen might also have looked at Obama’s ineffectual efforts on public school reform in the 1980s and 1990s, especially given that Obama manages to get the issue of school choice exactly backward and is clinging to the failed policies of the past in this current campaign.
Cohen could also have looked at how Obama, as an ambitious pol, was so busy plotting his ascent that projects in addition to those education plans were not given follow-through or oversight. As a “community organizer,” Obama’s work at a housing project called Altgeld Gardens left a potholed trail of boarded-up buildings. As a state senator, his housing policies enriched donors like Valerie Jerrett and Tony Rezko, but spawned uninhabitable slum properties and homelessness in and around his district. As a Congressional candidate, his proposed Englewood Beautification Plan left “a field of unfulfilled dreams, strewn with weeds, garbage and broken pavement.” During his short tenure as a US Senator, Obama has failed to honor the pledges of assistance that he made to a Kenyan school named in his honor when he visited there amid great fanfare two years ago.
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One of the most important qualites of leadership is the abilty to motivate and inspire others, and then understanding the use of efficient organization to apply that enthusiasm.
Even though I don’t like GWB, he is a leader.
As much as I do like McCain, he is not a leader, he is a legislator.
McCain’s a HERO and Obama’s a ZERO!
‘Prominent Democrat’?
Joe Lieberman?
Hussein O stands for the liars of the world and he is qualified to be president of that organization. Hussein O isn’t black to meet the requirements of a black American. He can meet the white or Arab part but not the black. Why is he playing black? Oh, that’s right. 95%+ of the blacks will vote for him because they want him to be black, not because he’s qualified to even pump a sewer, but because he’s black. They are never allowed to call a white person a racist again. Never mind Hussein O’s failure to honor promises to a country, he doesn’t even honor promises to his Arab Islamic grandmother.
By the way, Hussein O talks good but it has to be someone else’s words. A lot of people can do that, but it doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about. Words are just words and someone else’s words read from a piece of paper are someone else’s work.
And what is Obama motivating us to do other than give the government our money and give money to the UN. He has not had a new idea, it is all the same old liberal stuff from years past. Inspiring us to give up our national identity to a corrupt UN is not going to go well with most of America.
And it does help to actually done something, unlike Obama that has been given a padded resume from the Chicago Machine, McCain has actually accomplished much , even to the chagrine of much of his own party.
Has Obama done anything other than toe the party line while in office?? Or try and tak credit for things he has never done? Just ask some of his fellow Democrats about that.
And you on the Left call Bush dumb, Obama makes as much sense as a cartoon character if he has no speech in front of him.
people say that obama is charismatic, umm…yeah, sa was hitler. you can be a great speaker, inspire people, get them to believe in you and then power turns you ugly. just like hitler. obama is already so heady with the power that he assumes will be his that he isn’t seeing how he is turning off life long democrats.
i used to think i was a liberal, then i got to seeing who stood where on what issues, and guess what? i am so freakin conservative it is funny.
obama may sound good and look good, but he is an empty suit speaking someone elses words.
Lemme see…Obama stands for a jumpshot from the key?
McCain was in the military. So was Hitler.
John Bolton has a mustache. So did Hitler.
Scrapiron is a white supremacist. So was Hitler.
My daughter wears black leather boots. So did Hitler.
Amish people speak German. So did Hitler.
Angela Merkel is German. So was Hitler.
Bill O’Reilly hates the French. So did Hitler.
Hey, you guys are right: this is fun!
When you get right down to it, who was the most charismatic President we’ve had in my lifetime? Which President was renowned for his speechifying skills–speeches, which he did not (note to Scrapiron) write himself? Reagan, of course! Luva the scissors, does that mean that Reagan was Hitler? You might have to clear that one with Mike Hussein’s America.
Someone who says it much better than I could…
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=302137342405551
WHAT OBAMA “STANDS” FOR
But, seriously, he a nothing. He goes to Israel for a photo-op with G-d, and attempts to control the outcome. He sets up Jews to be slandered in order to generate sympathy for himself by appearing to be a victim. (a tactic common among Islamic fascists, btw). He’s a sick twisted cynic who cares nothing for anyone but himself.
A few other links on Obie the religious parasite…
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/07/me-2-the-shtunc.html
http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2008/07/obama-prayer-scandal-is-fraud.html
And a nice well rounded piece on a number of aspects of how parasites multiply by feeding off the damage the others do…
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2008/07/friday-afternoon-roundup-obama-mobama.html
His friends and supporters are terrorists (foreign and domestic), crooks, loons and liars. That says a lot about him.
dw 5000, seeing as how this is my opinion, i am allowed to have it. hitler had the whole mind twist thing down pat, so does obama. poeple get glassy eyed listening to him, not sure if that is brainwashing or boredom…could be brain damage.
LuvaTheSicors appeared to be attacking FitFit’s fallacious argument that because Obama speaks well, he is a leader. And he does this by giving an example of an undesirable leader who also spoke well, was a leader, but was about is immoral as they come, and therefore not a desirable leader. I.e., speaking and leadership abilities, while necessary, are not sufficient in themselves to be the basis of a choice of a leader.
DW (stands for “dip wad?”)-40, childishly attacks LTS by implying he’s saying something else: that he’s saying that because Obama speaks well (he doesn’t, but even if he did) that would make him like Hitler. Talk about “straw men!”
It is oh so clear from his latest trip that Obama stands for the Europeaning of America. Oh yes, that means less freedom, less opportunity, and a new world order. Wake up america. usawakeup.org
Obama stands for [fill in the blank].
He certainly doesn’t know or can’t/won’t articulate it, so someone might as well tell him.
The trick will be to get the megalomaniac to listen and agree.
Guys!! let cut bull-**** .. just look at the both campaigning…and tell me which one is organized better….McCane had several shack-ups since his announcement…so tell me who will be better as President?
Oh, really? That’s not what Loofah the Sisters was saying? Let’s review the bidding, shall we?
Oh, wait; that’s precisely what Loofah was saying, yonason. How can we tell? Because we have the flippin’ quote to prove it. Bonus goodness:
Loofah doesn’t even bother denying my interpretation; rather, he/she reaffirms it and tries to bolster it with the old, “It’s my opinion, so nobody can say it’s wrong, because opinions can’t be wrong, since they’re opinions!” and then goes on to expand on the idea with “proof.”
Loofah has specifically disavowed your spin, preferring instead to go with the quotes as they stand.
Epic fail on your part, my friend.
If you think Obama is an only an empty suit whose only talent is delivering speeches written by others, then you’ve fallen into the foolish trap of believing your own hype.
Ridiculing his supporters for their enthusiasm doesn’t change the fact that for every paid staffer he has dozens and dozens of devoted volunteers.
It’s probably not in your best interests to underestimate the man who booted the Clintons from the Democratic party.
I thought McCain was a pretty good candidate back in 2000. Part of my beef with Bush was the slimy things Bush did here in SC primary. McCain’s skills as a legislator came through leading the Gang of Fourteen to successful compromise. However, managing a senate staff is quite different than running the country. It’s obvious he does not have the abilties needed for managing a national campaign, which makes the idea of him trying to lead the country… unsettling.
I am still trying to figure out why anyone would say Obama is agod speker. He only sounds good with a speech in front of him. Ifhe doesn’t have the speech or answers on paper in front of him, he stutters and sounds worse than Bush.
Wow he booted his poltical patrician also in Chicago. He got the lady that introduced him to be taken off the ballots to tak over her spot. And he got a free pass to the Senate because of the idiot Ryan’s piccidillos that came out in his divorce trial. And all of his accomplishments from Illinois were given to him over the objections of senior politicians in the Democrat Party in the Illinois legislature.
He is nothing but an empty suit that has no substance.
And I am not priasing McCain,he is not good at campaigning, but Obama is a joke and it is amazing that the Democrats have fallen for his Messiah Aura
There are times he lets loose a barage of stammering “ums”. But again you’re believing your own hype if you think that’s how he always speaks without a script. I’m not under the illusion that I’ll ever convince you to vote for the guy. But if you want to keep your head in the sand, then by all means enjoy the view…
At times, how about whenever he is asked a question without the telepromter in front of him??
And I know that I am never going to change your mind tha the is the Annointed Liberal candidate that is already elected.
Just look at some of the news from Chicago about what kind of politician Obama is and who his friends are. NYT and the rest are not informing people about the real Obama.
It’s not BECAUSE of their speaking ability, but of their MISUSE of it.
DW-40 desperately tries to twist that so out of recognition by trying to mislead us to believe it is similar to things like…
…to imply that it’s ridiculous to make a connection between wearing black boots and fascism. Well, I don’t know why your daughter wears black boots, but if she does it because she so admires the way her dad looks in them when he goes to those neo-nazi rallies, then yeah, they would be connected.
And DW-40 knows that, which is why his misleading “logic” is so malicious.
Hezbullah salutes gives one arm salute, so did Hitler
http://www.seraphicpress.com/images/Hizbulllah%20Nazis.bmp
http://vwt.d2g.com:8081/Hizbollah%20nazi%202.JPG
Obama lies, so did Hitler
http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:cd3e-cARxMMJ:www.freedomsenemies.com/_Obama/ObamaLies.htm+Obama+lies&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
Arab Cartoons vilify Jews, so did the Nazis
http://www.adl.org/main_arab_world/arab_media_portrayal_jews.htm
Hitler wrote “Mein Kampf”, and apparently, so did Obama.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25831
And you’re saying that it’s not ridiculous? Case closed.
And that list at the end? Thanks for making my point for me. You seem to have no idea what you’re up to here.
Another good one. They’re like twins!
WD-40’s CONTORTIONS, Ooooh, puh-leeeeze!
One way to “prove” oponents wrong is by taking quotes out of context, or cropping them until they appear to support the propagandist’s point.
So, Wd-40 is saying that even . . .
. . . if [WD-40’s] “…daughter wears black boots … because she so admires the way her dad looks in them when he goes to those neo-nazi rallies,…” . . .
. . . that would not be connected? (my post#23, right above WD’s). IS THAT WHAT YOU ARE SAYING, SLICK? If so, then, . . .
NO SOUP FOR YOU!
==================================
In Context… (with some added emphsis for clarity)
Looks like hes still twisting, like I showed him to be here.
Obama emphasized withdrawing American troops from Iraq, energy independence, decreasing the influence of lobbyists, and promoting universal health care as top national priorities.
O Hole08 said:
And he’s either lied or flip flopped on ALL FOUR!