The Obama Bargain - from WSJ

[RiversideGator]

Actually, after the Rev Wrong episode, Hillary is now polling better against John McCain than is Obama.

[vicupstate]

FYI:  Shelby Steele is a black man.

The whole notion that electing a black person who is a far left ideologue in disguise will somehow bring America together is ridiculous.  There will always be divisions between right and left.  These exist all around the world in homogeneous countries and heterogeneous ones.  And, Obama has shown absolutely no talent for unity once he gets elected.  Do not fall for the smoke and mirrors.  His whole campaign is a sham.

I'm sure you like to think that, because the only way that the GOP can usually win is to divide the citizenry against itself.  Left against Right, White against Black, the overtly religious against the more secular, gay vs. straight, etc. 

Actually, both Eisenhower and Kennedy governed from the middle, and enjoyed bi-partisan support at home and abroad.  It may not happen in every generation, but such leaders do occasionally emerge.  This country has become very partisanly divided in the last 16 years.  I've had my fill of it, and that is one big reason why Obama appeals to me, although I am not commited to voting for him at this point. 

BTW, after a horrible week for Obama, Clinton has 'surged' to a 1-2% lead over Obama in General election matchups against McCain.  In my opinion that shows just how weak she is.  Now that her White House schedule has been released, we will really see just how much of a 'leader' she was during that time.  It may be her turn for a 'horrible' week or two.

As for a disguise, the 'far Left ideolugue' might be the disguise, to get the nomination.         

As for a sham, what was the 'W' adminstration, or should I say the Cheney administration?

[RiversideGator]

I'm sure you like to think that, because the only way that the GOP can usually win is to divide the citizenry against itself.  Left against Right, White against Black, the overtly religious against the more secular, gay vs. straight, etc. 

Actually, both Eisenhower and Kennedy governed from the middle, and enjoyed bi-partisan support at home and abroad.  It may not happen in every generation, but such leaders do occasionally emerge.  This country has become very partisanly divided in the last 16 years.  I've had my fill of it, and that is one big reason why Obama appeals to me, although I am not commited to voting for him at this point. 

Well, if you are concerned with bipartisan governance, the only candidate with a clear record of doing so is John McCain.  I am sure you are familiar with his many instances of this, including the Gang of 14, immigration bill, etc.  Note that I do not agree with his actions in these cases, but he has demonstrated a willingness to work with the Dems to get things accomplished.

BTW, Eisenhower and JFK were both center right leaders.  I would love it if we could get a President nowdays who would implement Eisenhower's plan to deal with illegals (which he carried out with great success) and JFK's low tax, pro growth policies which started an economic boom in the 1960s.

BTW, after a horrible week for Obama, Clinton has 'surged' to a 1-2% lead over Obama in General election matchups against McCain.  In my opinion that shows just how weak she is.  Now that her White House schedule has been released, we will really see just how much of a 'leader' she was during that time.  It may be her turn for a 'horrible' week or two.

We shall see.  It will be interesting.

As for a disguise, the 'far Left ideolugue' might be the disguise, to get the nomination.

Sure.  This must be why he has consistently been rated on of the most liberal US Senators and why he was a lefty activist in Chicago and why he attended the racist, anti-American church in Chicago for 20 years.  Now it all makes sense.   

As for a sham, what was the 'W' adminstration, or should I say the Cheney administration?

Ahh, the evil puppetmaster Cheney who controls the world from his undisclosed location...   

[Midway ®]

Ahh, the evil puppetmaster Cheney who controls the world from his undisclosed location...   

Cheney Attempting to Constrain Bush's Choices on Iran Conflict: Staff Engaged in Insubordination Against President Bush

There is a race currently underway between different flanks of the administration to determine the future course of US-Iran policy.

On one flank are the diplomats, and on the other is Vice President Cheney's team and acolytes -- who populate quite a wide swath throughout the American national security bureaucracy.

The Pentagon and the intelligence establishment are providing support to add muscle and nuance to the diplomatic effort led by Condi Rice, her deputy John Negroponte, Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, and Legal Adviser John Bellinger. The support that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and CIA Director Michael Hayden are providing Rice's efforts are a complete, 180 degree contrast to the dysfunction that characterized relations between these institutions before the recent reshuffle of top personnel.

However, the Department of Defense and national intelligence sector are also preparing for hot conflict. They believe that they need to in order to convince Iran's various power centers that the military option does exist.

But this is worrisome. The person in the Bush administration who most wants a hot conflict with Iran is Vice President Cheney. The person in Iran who most wants a conflict is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force would be big winners in a conflict as well -- as the political support that both have inside Iran has been flagging.

Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.

This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.

The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle East nations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf -- which just became significantly larger -- as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.

There are many other components of the complex game plan that this Cheney official has been kicking around Washington. The official has offered this commentary to senior staff at AEI and in lunch and dinner gatherings which were to be considered strictly off-the-record, but there can be little doubt that the official actually hopes that hawkish conservatives and neoconservatives share this information and then rally to this point of view. This official is beating the brush and doing what Joshua Muravchik has previously suggested -- which is to help establish the policy and political pathway to bombing Iran.

The zinger of this information is the admission by this Cheney aide that Cheney himself is frustrated with President Bush and believes, much like Richard Perle, that Bush is making a disastrous mistake by aligning himself with the policy course that Condoleezza Rice, Bob Gates, Michael Hayden and McConnell have sculpted.

According to this official, Cheney believes that Bush can not be counted on to make the "right decision" when it comes to dealing with Iran and thus Cheney believes that he must tie the President's hands.

On Tuesday evening, i spoke with a former top national intelligence official in this Bush administration who told me that what I was investigating and planned to report on regarding Cheney and the commentary of his aide was "potentially criminal insubordination" against the President. I don't believe that the White House would take official action against Cheney for this agenda-mongering around Washington -- but I do believe that the White House must either shut Cheney and his team down and give them all garden view offices so that they can spend their days staring out their windows with not much to do or expect some to begin to think that Bush has no control over his Vice President.

It is not that Cheney wants to bomb Iran and Bush doesn't, it is that Cheney is saying that Bush is making a mistake and thus needs to have the choices before him narrowed.

-- Steve Clemons

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002145.php

[RiversideGator]

Using liberal bloggers as a source is not a particularly persuasive method of argument.  In any event, I believe Cheney has a large role in the administration but he is clearly not in charge.

[copperfiend]

Actually, after the Rev Wrong episode, Hillary is now polling better against John McCain than is Obama.

The Republicans would rather face her, no doubt about it. However, it's going to be near impossible for her to get enough deligates at this point.

[Midway ®]

Using liberal bloggers as a source is not a particularly persuasive method of argument.  In any event, I believe Cheney has a large role in the administration but he is clearly not in charge.

Manifest apologies, Auspicious Comrade Riverside Gator, in the future, I shall only quote from publications and authors appearing on your approved list.

[RiversideGator]

Using liberal bloggers as a source is not a particularly persuasive method of argument.  In any event, I believe Cheney has a large role in the administration but he is clearly not in charge.

Manifest apologies, Auspicious Comrade Riverside Gator, in the future, I shall only quote from publications and authors appearing on your approved list.

How about using actual news sources, such as established periodicals or other newspapers or journals rather than opinion pieces.  I am not asking you to cite National Review.   

[RiversideGator]

Actually, after the Rev Wrong episode, Hillary is now polling better against John McCain than is Obama.

The Republicans would rather face her, no doubt about it. However, it's going to be near impossible for her to get enough deligates at this point.

I actually think we would demolish Obama in the general election.  He is a light weight charlatan with a racist tinge.  Hillary, on the other hand, has some personal issues from her past but these are already known and have been digested by the public.  I support Hillary because she is the more reasonable, moderate and responsible Dem candidate.  This is all.

[vicupstate]

Actually, this is why Rush and Gator support HRC....


Listen to the LAST minute of this 3 minute clip. 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23714100#23599001

AND the entirety of this 10 minute clip...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23714100#23697447


Note that but for GOP votes, Obama would have won Texas.  A win in Texas would have been the next to the last nail in hte HRC coffin. 

As for crossover voting, I don't have a problem with it per se, but for future reference, TWO sides can play that game.

Gator supports HRC because he wants her to do the GOP's dirty work and he knows he will be tougher to beat.

[RiversideGator]

Perhaps I could borrow your mind reading device when you are finished telling people what I "really" think, vic.   

Or, maybe you could take me at my word.  I want the most responsible person to lead the Dem ticket.  This is it.

[vicupstate]

Perhaps I could borrow your mind reading device when you are finished telling people what I "really" think, vic.   

Or, maybe you could take me at my word.  I want the most responsible person to lead the Dem ticket.  This is it.

I'm touched by your concern for the Democratic party. 

[Midway ®]

Perhaps I could borrow your mind reading device when you are finished telling people what I "really" think, vic.   

Or, maybe you could take me at my word.  I want the most responsible person to lead the Dem ticket.  This is it.

Here you go.  Pleased to oblige.  You can thank me later.

[RiversideGator]

 

[vicupstate]

I'm sure you like to think that, because the only way that the GOP can usually win is to divide the citizenry against itself.  Left against Right, White against Black, the overtly religious against the more secular, gay vs. straight, etc. 

Actually, both Eisenhower and Kennedy governed from the middle, and enjoyed bi-partisan support at home and abroad.  It may not happen in every generation, but such leaders do occasionally emerge.  This country has become very partisanly divided in the last 16 years.  I've had my fill of it, and that is one big reason why Obama appeals to me, although I am not commited to voting for him at this point. 

Well, if you are concerned with bipartisan governance, the only candidate with a clear record of doing so is John McCain.  I am sure you are familiar with his many instances of this, including the Gang of 14, immigration bill, etc.  Note that I do not agree with his actions in these cases, but he has demonstrated a willingness to work with the Dems to get things accomplished.

BTW, Eisenhower and JFK were both center right leaders.  I would love it if we could get a President nowdays who would implement Eisenhower's plan to deal with illegals (which he carried out with great success) and JFK's low tax, pro growth policies which started an economic boom in the 1960s.

BTW, after a horrible week for Obama, Clinton has 'surged' to a 1-2% lead over Obama in General election matchups against McCain.  In my opinion that shows just how weak she is.  Now that her White House schedule has been released, we will really see just how much of a 'leader' she was during that time.  It may be her turn for a 'horrible' week or two.

We shall see.  It will be interesting.

As for a disguise, the 'far Left ideolugue' might be the disguise, to get the nomination.

Sure.  This must be why he has consistently been rated on of the most liberal US Senators and why he was a lefty activist in Chicago and why he attended the racist, anti-American church in Chicago for 20 years.  Now it all makes sense.   

As for a sham, what was the 'W' adminstration, or should I say the Cheney administration?

Ahh, the evil puppetmaster Cheney who controls the world from his undisclosed location...   

McCain is bipartisan and if it comes down to Obama and McCain, I will have a tough (but fortunate) decision to make between potentially two good or even excellent choices.  That would be a first in my lifetime.  McCain is his own man and will not blindly follow a rigid idealogy, thereby being a decided change from the present incumbent.

Any elected official must temper, at least to some degree, his own personal beliefs with those of his constiuents. Obama has always represented a left of center constiuency, particularly in the IL senate.  He also had to vote left of center in order to be a serious contender for the Democratic nomination. 

If he gets elected, he will have a much freer hand to govern as he truly desires, because his constiuency(the entire country) will be in the middle, not on the far left.  That's not to say he will (or even could) become another Reagan, but he will not be an LBJ either.  He is obviously very intuitive and intelligent politically.  As such, he surely realizes that their is a HUGH hunger for a centrist to lead the nation, and that what happened to Clinton in '94 could happen again. 

Also, I think he understands as very few do, the incredible power that a country UNITIED behind it's president can be.  He isn't running to 'top off the resume' like Bush-41 did, he wants to be President that history will remember.  That requires substanial achievement, which only comes with the backing of a significant majority. In order to do that, he either has to move the country to HIS ideas (assuming he is in his heart a liberal), or he has to move to where the country already is at, which is the center. 

What makes him stand apart from HRC and nearly every politician of our era, is his ability to UNITE the country, ideally towards a common vision.

Lastly, GOVERNING, as opposed to CAMPAIGNING is ALWAYS a moderating factor. 

BTW, Kennedy would have been considerable more Left of Center if he had been more successful getting his initiatives through Congress.