Mr. Obama, Your Job Is to Ruthlessly Protect the People
Having watched President Obama’s weird 100th-day-in-office press conference celebration, it is becoming increasingly self-evident that this young man is in over his head. Mr. Obama began his speech by reminding Americans to “cover your mouth when you cough” and “keep your hands washed” — silly recommendations more apt from the mother on Lassie than the commander-in-chief. Then he was asked about torture and things got interesting.
The question came from Mark Knoller of CBS and the transcript goes as follows:
Knoller: Thank you, sir. … Did you read the documents recently referred to by former Vice President Cheney and others saying that the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” not only protected the nation but saved lives?
And if part of the United States were under imminent threat, could you envision yourself ever authorizing the use of those enhanced interrogation techniques?
Obama: I have read the documents. Now they have not been officially declassified and released. And so I don’t want to go to the details of them. But here’s what I can tell you: that the public reports and the public justifications for these techniques, which is that we got information from these individuals that were subjected to these techniques, doesn’t answer the core question.
Which is, could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques? And it doesn’t answer the broader question, are we safer as a consequence of having used these techniques?
So when I made the decision to release these memos and when I made the decision to bar these practices, this was based on consultation with my entire national security team, and based on my understanding that ultimately I will be judged as commander-in-chief on how safe I’m keeping the American people.
That’s the responsibility I wake up with and it’s the responsibility I go to sleep with. And so I will do whatever is required to keep the American people safe. But I am absolutely convinced that the best way I can do that is to make sure that we are not taking short cuts that undermine who we are.
And there have been no circumstances during the course of this first 100 days in which I have seen information that would make me second guess the decision that I have made.
There are a few things worth noting here. First, the only reason these documents have not been “declassified and released” is that President Obama refuses to declassify and release them. Obama released the memos that described the methods used, but blacked out the pages that describe their effectiveness. Who’s politicizing intelligence now?
Second, Obama does not “want to go to the details of them” because they would likely prove precisely what Dick Cheney is saying they would prove: that these methods saved American skyscrapers and American lives.
Third, when Obama says these memos do not answer “the core question” of whether or not “we got information from these individuals” and then contends the core questions are whether or not we “could … have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques” and whether or not “[we are] safer as a consequence,” he is wrong on three counts: 1) the core question is what information we received from these individuals and it is frightening that he doesn’t realize this; 2) the memos explain in great detail that waterboarding was done to three people as a last resort; and 3) the answer to the true “core question” — what did we learn and what did we thwart? — already answers Obama’s “broader question” of whether or not these methods made us safer. This is the height of disingenuousness.
Yes, Obama’s mothering is a little patronising and it raises uncomfortable questions about his upbringing. Is he going to tell Americans to leave the toilet seat down? Probably.
President Obama knows. President Obama will protect us. President Obama will give us hope and change. President Obama is so smart. President Obama is hot stuff. President Obama will provide. President Omama will save us. President Obama is the man. President Obama…
This article should be accompanied by Weigel’s Moral Clarity in a Time of War, which argues from the obligation of the government to protect the governed. It is this obligation that must provide the moral basis for action.
Barack Obama threw his own white grandmother under the bus. It is evidence that the man has issues with white people that have yet to be resolved. On a gut level, if not even explicitly, Obama perceives the White whites of the Western world as the primary cause of violence in the world. Our darker skinned foes are supposedly justified in hating us. We imperialistic scum bags crapped on them royally. It therefore behooves America to cut them a lot of slack. “Soft power” responses are preferable. More violent responses will result in only getting them angrier. Appeasement policies will increase the safety of the citizenry.
Mr. Guariglia:
“…1) the core question is what information we received from these individuals and it is frightening that he doesn’t realize this; ”
Absolutely correct about the core question, but I disagree that he doesn’t realize this.
He realizes this quite well, which is why he won’t release the rest of the information, and instead wants to lead us all in an extended session of navel-gazing about how morally superior we all are now that he’s President…and by implication, how criminal the BushCoHalliCheney regime was,(although he’s balking at actually…you know…prosecuting those he’s set up as “criminals”.
Give Dick Cheney his due…his challenge to the Alleged Hawaiian to release the rest of the information was a masterstroke.
It is crystal clear that The One is more interested in remaining politically correct and in the good graces of the ACLU and its ilk than in protecting the American people. His press conference was a series of lies: about Churchill, about water-boarding, about not wanting to run American businesses, etc. The bottom line is that the terrorists know we now have a weak leader who is more concerned with his own popularity and image than in protecting our country. Big Mouth Biden said the new President would be tested within his first 6 months. Three months down and three months to go to see if Joe’s right. Will it take another 9/11 for the people to wake up to the danger this Presidency poses to the survival of our country? Be sure to read Frank Fleming’s article on The Superior Moral Position on Torture. It will give you a good idea of how the current administration thinks – better to die virtuously than to be thought of as being overly harsh to our would-be killers.
You are dead wrong Mr. Guariglia.
Obama was elected to be “Joe Cool”, the dude that discards, tears up, throws out and punishes everything and every person that the spoiled rotten, feel sorry for themselves, forever armed with smart-ass cuts and remarks liberal left want with blood-in-their-eyes blind passion.
And, if for no other reason, on their behalf Obama will smirk and tell you where to stick it every time the opportunity presents itself.
Now bring forward Obama’s childhood years of Muslim Islamic training and 20+ years of incensed hate America, hate white people, hate Jews Black Liberation Theology indoctrination and you should begin to see the real monster that our nation chose for their leader.
In short, “Let me make it as clear as I can. I won!”
Bottom Line: You loose!
“I am President Obama…and I…because I…but I…therefore I…I said…I consulted…so I say…and then I….”
You hit the nail on the head and pounded it into the wood. How in the hell did we allow this argument to spin around so that the people who attacked and planned attacks on us, are to be protected more than the people they attacked and plan to attack?
We have to be prepared for how cunning these people are, twisting and turning words and pharsses to suit their purposes of keeping us off balance.
The execrable John Stewart chattering as Cliff May asked questions, and the President’s “we could have got the same information through other means” are examples of people who refuse to decide whether there is such a thing as evil in the world. And they do so for entirely self-referential and narcissistic reasons. Paraphrasing Stewart, “If we do that, I am bad.” Well, “All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.” Bishop Fulton Sheen was once called to the bedside of a prostitute in New York, late at night as she lay dying. He offered to hear her confession but she said “Oh Father. No, I am the worst woman in New York.” Bishop Sheen said, “Oh no, you are not. The worst woman in New York tells herself that she is the best woman in New York.”
“IHS”
I think that if we capture an al-qaeda terrorist, we should automatically torture the crap out of him until we have extracted all possible information from his worthless hide and then behead him with a dull knife before dropping his dead carcass from a predator drone on his village of birth. And we should use real torture, not caterpillers, waterboarding, or making him listen to Madonna for 8 days in a row. A few bits of glass up the old urethra or a few bamboo spikes under the fingernails would suffice.
A question: How can Obama possibly justify using predator drones in Pakistan (read extrajudicial assassination/murder) while castigating a program that has undoubtedly saved Americans’ lives.
Chief HonestJon say, “Him speak with forked tongue.”
regards
The President’s answer to the question was simply the ramblings of a college professor bent on molding his students minds to his academic point of view. Most of his students are currently all open ears. He is our nation’s most popular Professor in Chief (PC for short). This PC President is certainly not involved in the search for truth you are seeking Nicholas.
The President discusses the question out loud with himself – and comes right back to his own answer. Armchair professors are never wrong. He is on the verge of getting all of us to bite on his circular arguments.
I fear that in the kidnapping scenario he would teach, reason with, discuss options, threaten, plead, beg, and otherwise act in a high and mighty way, while finally collapsing in a heap of emotional goo. The sounds of heads hitting the floor would not dissuade him. He would apparently become our Great Leader, the One willing to sacrifice even his own family for the cause. The press would marvel at Him, the student’s would raise Him on their shoulders and…..and I am becoming a cynic. He’s winning.
No, we the people are going to have to win this one for the interrogators and their legal team. If Bush and Cheney are the Dark Side, I’m going over. We can’t let the poor bastards who formulated the legality of the interogation methods to be persecuted for protecting us. We are going to have to demand the release of the documents! I’ll write my useful idiot Lindsey Graham if you’ll write your own useful idiot. It’s a start. I think. There goes my cynicism again.
As a Vietnam-era Navy Pilot, I have witnessed men being waterboarded as part of the survival training. In my opinion, it is torture.
This debate is, like so many of the liberal tirades, focused on the straw-man issue at the expense of the broader picture. The broader picture is this: The more effectively we gain accurate and TIMELY intelligence, the more surgical can be our reaction to capture or kill the enemy.
It is the “high-road” to classify waterboarding as torture and refuse to participate. However, we sacrifice the “timely” component when we do so. If we are insist on adopting this footing then we must:
- Be comfortable with broader combat activities with US military casualties and innocent civilian casualties at home and on the battle field.
- Clamp down on civil liberties in the US to catch as many of the bad guys as we can to reduce the number of successful attacks.
- Vastly increase the size of our military to support a state-of-war footing,
- Be prepared for a 50-year war,
- Be prepared to act alone.
There is no possibility these things will be palatable to the left. That leaves the alternative:
- Create a huge Federal clean-up crew who will go in and paint happy faces on the remaining hulks of destroyed buildings after the enemy successfully attacks us.
When you are at war, your objective is to destroy your enemy’s will-to-fight by whatever means you can. There is no room for political-correctness. There is no “nice” way to kill. Those who do not understand these things simply stretch out a conflict and increase the body count on both sides.
Since The Left has no will-to-fight from the start, the enemy starts with an advantage. Not a pretty future….
I notice the libs are all still abed.
Obama confuses safety with popularity. If our enemies can be made to like us, we’ll be out of danger. With our charming president making nice to terrorist regimes we can all sleep soundly.
Obama’s contempt for gun-toting Bible-spouting yahoos raises questions about who he imagines the “American people” to be. His rejection of American exceptionalism belies his fundamental commitment to the America of the Founding Fathers.
Obama is an internationalist who imagines himself a world leader rather than an American leader. Americans share his sympathies equally with Persians and Afghanis. Our president is absent petty prejudices and above silly patriotism. His commitment is to all the people of the world.
“This is the height of disingenuousness.”
That is how our bold-face-liar in chiefdom works though. Everything is a political move for his own benefit and for the benefit of those who helped put him in power.
-And, his apologist attitude sickens me. Zero claims he was too young to be guilty of any ‘sins’ of America, well, I’m younger than YOU, Mister Prezzy-Dent and I don’t appreciate you apologizing for an America that *I* happen to love. You know, the AMERI-KKK?
His cousin Dick Cheney was right about releasing the rest of the documentation that proves waterboarding actually worked and helped saved American lives. The dishonesty in cherry-picking what to release to the public/WORLD is just one more way to throw the USA under the bus. Thwump!
One thing is painfully evident; 0bama only cares about 0bama.
Q. Father, exactly how does their cowardice correlate with their self-esteemin’?
A. Not a hard question, my child: the more wunnerful Master Narcissus Dexter accounts himself, the greater the tragedy for all the world ever to be deprived of Narky D.
Why, even a *partial* eclipse of the effulgence of Narky’s self-wunnerfulness would be a disaster worth payin’ any price and bearin’ any burden to avoid!
Unfortunately the technical name that moral scientists have always applied to the ‘relentlessly’ selfocentric brand of burden-bearin’ and price-payin’ happens to be _ignavia_, ‘cowardice.’
Q. Couldn’t their Rupert Lord Murdoch or their Mr. Roger Ailes do somethin’ about this semantic pickle?
A. Probably not. But God knows best.
We don’t know where he was born, but we do know that his formative years were not spent in America or surrounded by American culture, values and ideals. It shows.
President Obama wants the shred our very Constitution for his own naked power play; he only cares about himself & try to turn the United States of America into a Communist Banana Republic. Ultimately, Obama will fail since Capitalism cannot be destroyed. However, by 2011, Obama will be the one destroyed by his own narcissism & ego.
It is obvious Obama is very proud and pleased with himself ,he will be our Chavez,Ortega and Castro if he is not challenged. Hopefully the Republicans will gain control of Congress and the Senate in 2010 ,but that will depend how well Acorn does its job again,they outsmarted us in the last election.
If the question is how will this president respond in a true crisis take a look at what he has already done. Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, all we have heard is silence. The true enemy is talk radio, tea parties, and returning vets.
As to the question of “what would he do if…” I think that “I have a gift” Barry would throw anyone and anything under the bus without so much as a backward glance…good grief, even the first dog is named after him:
B. O.
The only thing missing from this administration is gold teeth and tattoos.
To Obama, and to most if not all on Congress, the goal of their office is to GET RE-ELECTED and that is all. He does whatever is politically ‘correct’ and ‘popular’. At least George Bush stood by his convictions even when they were not ‘popular’ (note I did *not* say wrong). Bambi has shown time and time again that he would throw anyone ‘under the bus’ as long as it serves *HIS* ends (not the nation’s ends).
May God have mercy on us for what we have done to ourselves in electing this fool.
Am I the only one sick and tired of our elected officals (on both sides!) playing politics instead of, you know, GOVERNING.
TeleBama’s refusal to declassify memos that would show that the CIA was right, the Military was right and Bush was on the right track smacks of political partisanship. He does nothing if it does not further his administration. He’s already campaigning for 2012.
He threw out the term “torture” when releasing the few memos he deemed worthy for political gain to give the Left a bone. Being the minions they are, they have taken hold and run the ball for TeleBama. No need for him to sully his hands when the sheeple will do it for him.
The safety and security of the US citizens is not a top priority for Dear Leader. Political gain obviously is. I await the day the sheeple awaken to this. Then the Constitution will once again be safe.
Mr. Obama, your job is to ruthlessly protect the people–NOT JUST YOURSELF.
Yawn, he is such a bore. He talks on and on and on and on and never gets to the point. With all due respect to Professors everywhere, the highest rank he achieved was law Lecturer, right? A dozen years and never made it to Assistant Prof?
Not to start a battle of another type but a quick shout out to the ladies who read this board–let’s talk about men that get my blood racing. Men in uniform who take an oath to protect and serve. Men who do hard, physical labor. Men who know how to fix things. Men who are really smart and make me feel smart too. Men who listen. Oh gosh, pardon me, I had to have a non-Obama moment.
Ooo, sorry about all the bolded text. Need more coffee. But I still love and treasure that type of man.
In his Holocaust Day remarks, in his comments a week after 911, in his remarks yesterday relative to picking a Supreme Court justice, Barack Obama emphasized “empathy”. (per Barack, the 911 attackers lacked it…)
That’s the core of the man’s notion of his own mission on Earth, restoring empathy to the human condition. The main tool for empathy restoration is, in his view, his own personal version of fairness.
Notions of empathy and enchantment
are highly emblematic of the modern metrosexual man. Lacking any experience of real threats in real trenches with assassins, the wisdom of “speak softly and carry a big stick” is lost on them.
In your hypothetical situation with a very personal threat to his family, it’s a good question to what extent this self- proclaimed pristine, “empathetic” individual would be philosophizing with their captors. My understanding is that all airy notions of being a higher being (as Obama entertains about himself) go flying out the window when push comes to shove.
This president knows exactly what he is doing. He’s destroying this country and the people in it that don’t agree with him. He is an immature,narcistic Marxist hellbent on a mission.
Give Dick Cheney his due…his challenge to the Alleged Hawaiian to release the rest of the information was a masterstroke.
There is no reason I can imagine to not release the whole enchilada when it comes to this information.
Obama’s release of only partial information relative to enchanced interrogation must be assumed to be part of his total campaign to manipulate the dialogue along lines of his idea that “they’s (his predecessors) the bad guys, we’s the good guys”. If you notice his frequent references to…hey, I was 3 months old when that happened or I was 8 years old when that happened, his psychology is such that he seems to want to constantly attest that all the evil in the world preceded His Coming.
It’s a personal weakness to need to subtly (and not so subtly) denigrate your predecessors and all history prior to your arrival. He can use presidential powers to tweak the nation’s consciousness along lines that suit his own psychological make-up.
George W. Bush approved a government-run torture program.
Loyal Bushies know this, but they can’t admit Bush was wrong. So they now defend Bush by defending torture and insist that Obama should also be a torture President.
And Cheney is running around saying “We didn’t torture, but it worked!”. So we now have the Right claiming that President Obama is a fascist tyrant, who considers right-wingers to be his enemies, but they want him to secretly use torture on his enemies.
That’s a fine mess you conservatives have gotten yourselves into.
(Hint: When you’re in a hole, stop digging.)
I wonder what will be his response and the American peoples’ response when Al Qaeda hits us again.
Mister Hannnniiiiitttty? We’re standing by here. All set up for your charity waterboarding. Whenever you’re ready. Take your time. OK then.
We have been promoted to childhood by our mother-in-chief. If we are attacked again, he will explain how to apply the band-aids,
31. trapper:
“I wonder what will be his response and the American peoples’ response when Al Qaeda hits us again.”
~
More bowing, scraping and endless apologies for being the big, bad, ‘Great SATAN’ infidels that we are.
Mr. Obama certainly does have a “gift,” as he told Harry Reid. He speaks nonsensically and can obfuscate more eloquently than the next fellow. I, however, will choose the unpopular and inelegantly spoken fellow who actually did keep us safe so that even those who abhorred and condemned him remained free to do so.
“I wonder what will be his response and the American peoples’ response when Al Qaeda hits us again.”
1. “hey, I was only 18 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and the seeds of Al Qaeda (with the help of the American CIA !) were planted”
sloan (30):
Excuse me, but how would you differentiate between “Loyal Bushies know this, but they can’t admit Bush was wrong” and “Loyal Bushies know that Bush was right”? To begin with, you need to understand where the conservatives (not “Bushies”) are coming from. (We don’t care about any one particular president per se, except as he exemplifies our core positions – as opposed to “Obamaites” who follow the person and don’t care about his positions or problems).
sclemens (13) got it right. We don’t care what you call it, the issue is keeping American safe. Fine, call it “torture” if you wish, even if if shows your own ignorance. In that case, torture – under certain conditions, up to a certain level – is called for.
Let me ask you, sloan, then directly: what are your objections to the enhanced interrogation techniques other than that they are distasteful? Other than your hatred of President Bush, what are your arguments against their use?
Liberals bring up two and only two arguments against using these techniques: 1) They don’t work, and 2) They’re immoral and make us look bad. To which conservatives respond: 1) Yes they do, and 2) So what – we would much rather be disliked (but respected) and safe than liked and hurt.
To chris in Toronto:
Yup, and they hold their manhoods cheap too!
In case anybody thinks that the liberal attitude is new, take a look in the New Testament at the Pharisees that Jesus tangled with. The Parisees were scrupulous in their observance of the Law, especially the ceremonial law. They had rules to make sure that they didn’t come anywhere close to breaking the Law, to the point where they condemned Jesus (who was an orthodox rabbi, BTW) for healing a man on the Sabath because in doing so He “worked”. A pretty good chunk of Jesus’ words in the New Testament consist of Him castigating them for their inverted priorities.
In short – as the parable of the good samaritan illustrates – the Pharisees would much rather have been considered “pure” and been liked, then actually help somebody in need. Not much has changed in 2000 years.
I wonder what will be his response…when Al Qaeda hits us again.
2. “those poor fellas who just detonated suitcase nukes in Manhattan, Chicago and LA have had such rotten existences under those nasty sheikhs*, all they need is LOVE & UNDERSTANDING !”
*on whom America will continue to be dependent as I’m against common sense exploration for new oil in North America…
3. “These new attacks would not have happened had it not been for the Bush/Cheney cabal and those guys PO’ing the terrorists by subjecting them to enhanced interrogation techniques…and WE COULD have obtained the exact information from KSM without waterboarding him so often, I KNOW WE COULD HAVE !” (just can’t tell you how, oh well…)
3. “anyway, all those civilian deaths in American cities are not my fault, not my fault, not my fault…”
sloan wrote
“George W. Bush approved a government-run torture program.”
“Barack H. Obama approved the murder of black teenagers”
Which statment is true?
It’s not important if Obama protects us. It is obviously more important that Obama is popular.
…the Pharisees would much rather have been considered “pure” and been liked, then actually help somebody in need. Not much has changed in 2000 years.
Apparently not.
Modern Liberal*=Pharisee
*talks talk, does not walk walk
With regard to projecting weakness: I do not believe President Obama understands how dangerous it is to Americans, and more importantly to world stability, when the world’s single hegemon does projects weakness. Projecting weakness never results in anything good, and liberal evolutionists should understand this well enough.
However, there is a remote possibility (admittedly this is more fantasy on my part) that President Obama is in fact truly worthy of this office, and does in fact understand that his obligation is to protect first, and ensuring America fits his moral system is a secondary and more personal policy goal. This may be true even as he says and does things exactly as he has so far. Because it is possible that despite his public admonitions against “torture” and his pronouncements on the character of our nation, it is highly possible that he is still in fact authorizing torture to get information. Wouldn’t that be a hoot. He knows it’s out that we water-board, notice how he’s explicitly banning water-boarding, but not explicitly banning anything else, oblique references to the Army field manual notwithstanding. Use soft power and diplomacy as cover to remove recruiting tools on the part of our enemies, and at the same time, continue to make people talk by whatever means necessary. I would respect the heck out of that. I would respect that as much as I would have respected, say, that W successfully dispatched Bin Laden years ago but has taken no political credit and has implied he’s still out there so as to remove his capacity to function as martyr and the subsequent emergence of a replacement.
Those are the kinds of efforts I expect out of our commander-in-chief.
40. tanstaafl: . . . “I wonder what will be his response…when Al Qaeda hits us again.”
One thing he won’t do is invade Lichtenstein.
#30 sloan:
“George W. Bush approved a government-run torture program.”
Yeah on foreign terror suspects and possibly unlawful enemy combatants…so what?
“Loyal Bushies know this, but they can’t admit Bush was wrong.”
Bush wasn’t wrong, because those methods of torture got the information that was needed before further Americans were hurt or killed.
The fellow who claims to have been born in Hawaii knows this…which is why that information will NEVER see the light of day.
“(Hint: When you’re in a hole, stop digging.)”
Go tell that to the Alleged Hawaiian, he’s the one who has dug himself into a hole…and unfortunately there’s a lot of room in his hole for many thousands of innocent Americans.
Well sheesh baby (#45)…
In the same spirit that (select) democrats & republicans, 2002-2006, were consistently briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques in use…
I would remind you of endlessly long and repetitive statements by and from democrats as to the terrorist threat posed by Saddam Hussein, throughout the 90′s, up to and including the 2002 invasion of Iraq, which invasion was approved by Congress (71% in the Senate (including Hillary) & a substantial majority in the House)
When it comes to interrogation or when it comes to Iraq, you can’t go around many years later saying what was known and approved at the time, in the highest offices, is now illegal.
Unless you’re a Modern Liberal of somebody at “The UN”, that is.
The sad thing about all this is that regardless of his, BHO’s, upbringing or his moral stand against torture, he was elected by a bunch of ignorant fools who wanted someone who would have empathy for them, for the losers of the world, for the despots ruling the countries that were drained of all their wealth and left poor by the USofA, and any other malady that would cause pain and suffering in the world.
He read the Oaff of Office from the teleprompter without thinking about the words, the meaning, the obligation he was supposedly undertaking. Why – because he “The One with a gift” was not elected to protect this country, or assure it’s citizens an opportunity to pursue life, liberty and happiness, but to redistribute wealth from robber barons to the oppressed, to make life fair, easy, simple enough that Darwin’s law would no longer apply.
In the case of what would he do should his children be taken captive by terrorists, I’m sure he would do what any father would do … WHATEVERITTAKES!!! And then he would lie about it so as not to spoil his pristine moral stature.
As Tom Hanks said in the movie “BIG”, “I DON”T GET IT.”
We are told he is a young man … 47 is mature, not old but certainly not young.
We are told he has a gift for speaking. I shake my head at this. What comes out of his mouth is a bunch of crap. Maybe it is the way his voice sounds. But it is obvious the guy has never even participated in Toastmasters with the extensive “ah, uh, pause, uh, well, ah, ah …” He is a speaking embarrassment when no tele-prompter is available.
We are told he is a smart guy. Yup, I guess so but some of the world’s worst criminals have been geniuses in their own twisted ways.
So now that he is doing his dirty deeds, I shake my head at the illiterate fools who voted for this clown and tell myself “I don’t get it!” Well, that’s part of the cycle of life. And we are in for a hell of a future before he even gets the boot out of the “People’s House.”
I’ve run into people like him in my professional career. People who sell big ideas and stay just long enough to get credit and promoted up before the proverbial stuff hits the fan. Then when the melt-down happens, they are off somewhere else planting another ticking time bomb. There are people like that who for some reason (maybe they have a gift) never seem to be caught up with. My fear is that by the time this clown leaves, the ticking time bomb will go off somewhere down the line while his aura keeps shining because he did his best to make things fair. Empathy. Feel good. Posers. Losers. Robbers. Looters. It’s someone else’s turn to enjoy a fair life. What a bunch of whiners! Disgusting!
If the president’s job is to “ruthlessly” protect us then why don’t we just nuke any country where we thing terrorist may exist? Would that be “ruthless” enough for conservatives? And please stop this “enhanced interrogation technique” bullshit. At least be honest to called it torture.
We are so ignorant, we don’t understand that the real threat to America is
the flu.
(Besides the right-wing extremists, of course).
(And CO2).
We sorely need re-education.
(And we could even get it…Obavez is so compassionate !)
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Here, sheesh…
A little taste of the democrat mindset up to and including the invasion of Iraq…
Oh come on guys and gals. He’s only been in office for a little over 100 days. Heck, Michelle hasn’t even had a chance to break in her brand new $540 tennies at more soup kitchens. Besides, how can he go about protecting the nation, he has yet paid my mortgage nor filled up my gas tank. I want my “Obama” check, darn it.
/sarc off
According to an “anonymous source” in the administration, O may just re-institute the tribunals. (late Friday afternoon) It seems that is the correct way to proceed, rather then bringing them into civil courts which do not seem to cover unlawful combatants. Cracks me up!! Another instance of BDS down the tubes.
What will his response be when we get hit again? Announce state of emergency and suspend elections of course. The man may be short of a clue, and the committee that calls him when it’s time to play some solitaire may have been a bit over its collective heads, but this must have gotten wargamed.
Lenin got a ride from Germans to foment revolution in Russia and then ceded a big chunk to the Axis (yes, only to turn around a few years later; Hudaybiya, anyone?)
Attacks on the US serve socialists and allow them to usurp more power. To say that this administration relaxes our defenses out of simple PC cluelessness is to miss the most dangerous tactic of their ideology.
Part of the core issue IS obtaining information that saves lives. The other part is doing so legally and in a way that best promotes America’s safety.
I don’t like the argument from either side that this is an issue that transcends the law.
However, I do agree with the author’s characterization of Obama regarding his ability and commitment to America’s safety. The question of America’s image is not as simple as Obama would have us believe. It is true that America should be seen as ‘in the right’ in their conduct, but it is also important to give the appearance that America is will ACT to protect itself. Also, if Obama’s interest was primarily to protect America he would not condemn the conduct of previous administrations, especially when it is not certain that their conduct was illegal, and if anything his propaganda should be aimed at supporting the conduct of those who are still active in the field.
54. BobNweave: “What will his response be when we get hit again? Announce state of emergency and suspend elections of course. ”
After 8 years of listening to leftist fools predict imminent martial law, suspension of elections and the inevitable fascist/theocratic coup d’etat, I’m glad to know that lunacy crosses all political bounds. Just don’t fire the first shot, Bob, and we’ll all be okay.
The President increasingly demonstrates that he thinks he is more of a dictator than president of a republic. The Congress is compliant. What he is doing raises grave concern that he has an agenda of his own, inconsistent with his oath of office. Why has he demonized holders of $2,000,000 of Chrysler debt for asserting their legal and constitutional rights? A contract represents an obligation enforceable in the courts of this country. Holders of such debt have an absolute right to recourse to our court system to seek enforcement of their rights. Instead the President has denounced them for doing so.
What strikes me as funny is the fact [you know it's true] that the Libs would be ripping John McCain to shred if he’d done half of the crap 0bama has done in his first 100 days and the Repubs would have just as furious!
When is it going to get through the thick skulls of the left that WRONG is WRONG no matter who is behind the green curtain?
56. Chris,
That was a hyperbole I was using (as I hoped the Manchurian solitaire reference conveyed). To put it more carefully, weakening our economic and defence structures allows the central government usurp more power, hence such moves may not be mistakes of judgement but rather self-serving.
13. sclemens:
When was this?
What SERE school?
This torture issue has been brought to absolutely ridiculous dimensions by liberals whose rationality has for long beaten Swift’s Laputa scholars.
Time and again – of course that in extreme situations torture is warranted! If the lives of a town of 100k people are in mortal danger and waterboarding is the only solution for defusing the situation, of course that procedure should be expeditiously applied!
Hasn’t been any trace of rationality left in the liberals’ minds? Heavens! It’s simply scary to think that people who are hypnotized by issues like this are in the WH, in charge of national defense!
And I also say: we must respect the left for the complete win over the dis-rationalisation of the US education system -I’m sure we’ll hear more about this, and not good things.
RE #35/talkischeap: [...] Obama certainly does have a “gift,” as he told Harry Reid. He speaks nonsensically and can obfuscate more eloquently than the next fellow. I, however, will choose the unpopular and inelegantly spoken fellow who actually did keep us safe so that even those who abhorred and condemned him remained free to do so. [...]
Perfectly right – unfortunately you are just one of the few who have resisted the liberal position that takes appearance as essence. There is no objective truth, reality is fluid, everybody has a narrative and no narrative is better than another one, etc. All cultures are equal – except four legs are better than two legs.
And since I just put an egg betwen Jared Diamond’s eyes “all cultures are equal” I’ll further quote late Pat Moynahan’s talk to some UN delegates from some professionally oppressed countries (think of Chavez and Ortega): “Food growing is the first thing you do when you come down out of the trees. The question is how come the United States can grow food and you can’t?”
“Two legs bad, four legs good!” – now a documentary about how Rhodesia became Zimbabwe would fit nicely here.
11. HonestJon:
I think that if we capture an al-qaeda terrorist, we should automatically torture the crap out of him until we have extracted all possible information from his worthless hide and then behead him with a dull knife before dropping his dead carcass from a predator drone on his village of birth. And we should use real torture, not caterpillers, waterboarding, or making him listen to Madonna for 8 days in a row. A few bits of glass up the old urethra or a few bamboo spikes under the fingernails would suffice.
~~~~
The Brit’s had remarkable success in curbing the enthuiasm of jihadi’s nearly a century ago, simply by burying them in pig skins. (they became “unclean”, and no longer worthy to “receive” their 72 virgins) But the we-mustn’t-insult-their-belief’s-crowd would have a fit.
31. trapper:
I wonder what will be his response and the American peoples’ response when Al Qaeda hits us again.
~~~~
He’ll be cowering in a bunker. we’ll be on our own.
We are told he is a young man … 47 is mature, not old but certainly not young.
~~~~
It’s past middle age – unless he lives to 95.
People seem to be having as much trouble defining torture as they have defining genocide or terrorism.
The UN wrestled ad nauseam with declaring what was going on in Darfur “genocide”, at which point all kinds of sanctions and junque are supposed to kick in, once you officially get the genocide label (Darfur/Sudan officially got theat label while Colin Powel was still SOS)
Well, we all know how any BS outrage from that Paper Tiger idiotic organization has gone in terms of halting “genocide”.
I’m not sure whether “The UN” has yet agreed on a definition for terrorism. They’ve been wrestling with an official designation for years, I imagine more than a single room is full of tomes documenting their deliberations.
The delicate little dance of whether or not we terrorized the beheader of Daniel Pearl and the “mastermind” of 911 (KSM loves the label, it’s the only thing about the infidel he approves of) and any and all individuals completely dedicated to the destruction of this country is beyond pathetic.
I consider all this idiocy to be “man caused disasters” in a sea of “overseas contingency operations”.
Actually, I consider Obama, Napolitano, Emanuel, Axelrod, Geithner, Holder, Sebelius et al. and etc….to be authentic, Grade A man caused disasters.
It is a comon misconception by the right-wingers that Obama is a weak leader, who does not understand the world and who wears rosy glasses when looking at American enemies. Read the rest on my blog:
http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/
The United States has an anti-torture statute which gives a definition – one which, it turns out doesn’t clarify the issue here.
That isn’t surprising, since the lawyers guiding the interrogations tried to define how far things could be pushed without violating that law. Naturally, that puts it in the realm of controversy.
obma keeps saying that the enemy will respect us! Well these are the guys who cut off heads for fun! Stone women who have male friends, kill their daughters who are raped! Sure they respect us. Obama is the biggest joke.
I don’t think he ever was a Christian. It was politically expedient and he went for it. No Christian would bow to the Saudi King. And don’t tell me that Bush did the same thing, no he kissed the cheeks which the europeans do and which obamb did to sarkozy (?). As someone said above, he hates the American white man and G-d help our country under his presidency.
No controversy, Moore, to anyone who hasn’t completely abandoned their common sense.
The link to your name goes nowhere, somewhat like your point.
Charvakan (49):
And you would burn down your neighbor’s house if he robbed you? There’s ruthless, and then there’s ruthless. How about thinking a bit before you toss stuff like this out.
Better yet, how about if you and “sheesh” (45) go and actually study history and find out the real reasons for why things were and are done. Then you might be qualified to comment. I’m getting very tired of hearing that “No Al Qaeda in Iraq” crap from ignorant liberals for every argument.
Mike Blackadder (55):
Ok, one more time using small words: President Bush went out of his way to check legal opinions to verify that the enhanced interrogation techniques that the U.S. agencies and military were using was not illegal. Repeat: not illegal. What part of “not” do people not understand? The argument is based on the liberal’s wanting to change the definitions mid-stream.
“His solemn responsibility and obligation is to sacrifice his reputation, his career, his job, his political ambitions, his values, his preferences, his inclinations — even his life — to protect the American people. That is what we trusted him to do.”
Really?
I never “trusted” or assumed or predicted or believed that he would do anything of the sort, based on the self-revelations with which he had favored us during the campaign.
HIM? Sacrifice his political ambitions? (Just to take one of the assumptions mentioned) You’ve got to be kidding.
If you really believed that about this person, I have to say that I cannot begin to understand how on earth you arrived at that place.
There is absolutely nothing in his public or private life that indicates he will sacrifice anything for anyone at any time or any place unless it simply has to do with advancing himself.
And now it’s being floated that he might appear on “American Idol”. (Does that mean he’s giving up his god-role to step down to just being an idol of a god??)
America is leaderless at the moment.
These are my comments. If anybody doesn’t like my comments, deal with it.
What
Obama has no intention of protecting us. He thinks whatever happens to us, we’ve got coming anyway.
Meryl, you are correct in your description that the USA is leaderless since President Obama wants to be a celebrity instead of govern the nation. But he wants to be the celebrity dictator instead of President. He reminds me of an actor playing a role while David Axelrod (aka Teleprompter) & the MSM provide the script & context respectively.
President Obama is a narcissistic maroon. Ultimately, I hope, the joke is on Obama…
What is the big deal about torturing these people?
It doesn’t matter whether waterboarding or whatever works or not.
These people are out to kill us, so they have got coming whatever we can dish out and the worse the better.
What is the difference between torturing them in an attempt to get information to save your life vs attempting to kill them in self defense?
Torture is worse? These people have their heads where the sun doesn’t shine.
I did not know until the other day that Obama lost a congressional seat primary in 2002 by 30 points. You would think with a defeat like that he would have given up on politics. No such luck.
74. Alana: . . . “Obama has no intention of protecting us. He thinks whatever happens to us, we’ve got coming anyway.”
Yeah, that’s right. In fact, I think he wants to out and out kill Americans. Innocent hardworking church going Americans. He wants them dead. He wants terror and anarchy in the streets. He wants a class war, a race war, and a media war. He wants to create as much anger and violence and death and destruction and despair as possible because, hey, that’s the world he wants to create for his children.
Alana, I don’t know who you are or what technical college you just flunked out of, but it’s brain-dead half-skank white trash trailer cows like you that make it so damn wonderful to be smart and successful in this country. You get pushed into dark corners by raging right wing lunatics like Limbaugh and Hannity. They know you’re ignorant, that you can’t or won’t think for yourself, so they tell you what to think and you buy into it. How do I know? Because of that post of yours – it boggles my mind to think that you could grow to the point in life where you can navigate a keyboard and not have accumulated even the slightest bit of insight into human nature or politics or your own culture.
I hope you’re all proud of Alana. Invite her to your next tea party. Tell her that Nancy Pelosi wants to use the flesh of babies secretly aborted by Mormon incest victims to feed the homeless gay Mexicans in San Francisco. Tell her that Newt Gingrich was caught getting blow job from his mistress in a car as his school-aged daughter walked by. (Oh, wait, that one’s true.) Hey, there’s an idea – Tell her that her taxes are going to go down thanks to Obama, and that health care will be more affordable, and that it won’t be only rich fat white men who get all the breaks. Tell her the truth.
But you can’t, because you people no longer know the truth. All you’re interested in is destroying any success that doesn’t come from your own failed and narrow philosophy. And you don’t even have a grip on that anymore – stick to abortion, abandon abortion, stand up for traditional marriage, soften our stance on gays, push the social issues, forget the social issues, attack the Democrats, get angry, stay cool – you have no idea what to do or how to act. You are adrift.
I wish I could say I was glad about that, but I just can’t. Even though your sorry excuse for a world view will keep you in political exile for years to come – which is exactly what you deserve – I just can’t be happy about it. In fact, for the first time in my adult life, I am really disgusted by my country. This display put on by you full-blown half wits is proof that there is no god, because he wouldn’t allow such a great and noble country to be charred and smeared and dumbed down by the likes of the American conservative.
And I blame you, Alana. You specifically, you generally, you metaphorically, I blame you, Alana.
Now, you may commence with your assorted baby talk and anonymous tough guy fantasies and self-aggrandizing victimhood to further prove of my assertions.
Paul @72: “Ok, one more time using small words: President Bush went out of his way to check legal opinions to verify that the enhanced interrogation techniques that the U.S. agencies and military were using was not illegal. Repeat: not illegal. What part of “not” do people not understand? The argument is based on the liberal’s wanting to change the definitions mid-stream.”
Thank you Paul. I don’t doubt that Bush followed the rules. I thought Congress also approved the enhanced interrogation techniques.
The progressives have skipped the whole legal argument thing, and are happy to carry on with their Bush-bashing. And here, we miss the point a bit if we limit the discussion to tough guy arguments.
How odd to have some label me a Bush-hater. That should improve my street credentials.
Osama did his thing to bring America down. Now it is Obama’s turn.
#54 Bobnweave:
“What will his response be when we get hit again? Announce state of emergency and suspend elections of course.”
Easy one!
He’ll increase taxes on booze, tobacco and ammunition.
He’ll shove through and sign a “Post Terrorist Attack Recovery Act” full of deficit pork for his political allies.
He’ll cut subsidies and tax breaks for his political enemies.
And he’ll go on Oprah’s couch to call for “Empathetic dialogue” or some other such hogwash while Oprah’s “vajinya” gets so wet that she’ll need to wrap her bottom in saran-wrap to keep from staining the cushions.
The Obots will eat it up like a handful of chocolate bars thrown into a kindergarten class.
just for fun,ask your favorite lib where we are going to send the detainees we capture in the future.um,well the same places we sent them before 9/11.ask them what they think about us handing over detainees to say jordon,or the saudies.people that know about extracting information with no squimishness at all.the irony is that more people will be tortured far more viciously than at gitmo.oh,and no docters or redcross to moniter it of course.when i confront them on this the usual response is;well at least americans aren’t doing it.(but being done at our behest,the same thing in my book)or my favorite response so far; we should just kill them on the battlefield!yeah…execute combatants after they have surrendered or are injured.they.have.no.clue.
sheesh, sheesh you really wound up on Alana’s point.
Was it just time to download the rant into PJM and you used Alana’s sentence to get off ?
Considering this President’s background, who he surrounds himself with, now and in his previous life, the kind of people, & consider his 2 very recent Apology Tours (main theme: America sucks) & Alana’s impressions don’t seem too far off the mark.
Fantom,
I’m thinking you’re a lefty imposter.
Either way, get a life.
Also, sheesh, for the record, I’d say any President responding to ACLU/Soros/Left pressure to conduct a witch hunt against the previous administration and chooses the tactic of selectively leaking parts of formerly secret memoranda is a a rather weak President and, even, a rather sleazy guy.
And doesn’t inspire trust, particularly in these shaky times when there is such a range of higher priorities.
And so I will do whatever is required to keep the American people safe. But I am absolutely convinced that the best way I can do that is to make sure that we are not taking short cuts that undermine who we are.
Such self-righteous tripe.
From Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal. She is a conservative, but she is smart and honest not like Guariglia
“President Obama’s news conference Wednesday night was a bit of a masterpiece. The Obama Thinking Look was back, as he parsed questions, took notes, and offered up rehearsed answers in a way that made them seem not written by the Committee on Soundbites but natural to him, as if he were formulating answers in the here and now. On torture, he cited Churchill. He spoke of pro-lifers not with any of the appellations the left prefers but as pro-lifers. He dispatched the culturally radical Freedom of Choice Act as “not a top priority”; he said he doesn’t want to run auto companies and banks and would prefer, in fact, a smaller portfolio. His presentation was low-key, authoritative, and had the look and feel of moderation. When you can give this impression while some of your decisions—for instance, on the legitimate cost and reach of government—are not, actually, moderate, you are demonstrating a singular political talent.
Corbis
He is subtle and likes to kill softly. As such, he is something new on the political scene, which means he will require something new from his opponents, including, first, patience.
I am wondering once again if Republicans in Washington fully understand what they are up against.
They have had a hard week. Someday years hence, when books are written about the Republican comeback, they may well begin with this low moment, and the bolting of Arlen Specter to the Democrats. It is fine to dismiss Mr. Specter as an opportunist, but opportunists tell you something: which side is winning. That’s the side they want to be on.
And so the latest round of What Should the Republican Party Do?
If it is alive, and it is, it will evolve, as living things do. Beyond that, a thought.
A great party needs give. It must be expansive and summoning. It needs to say, “Join me.”
A party that is huge, vital and national, that is truly the expression of the views of a huge and varied nation, will, by definition, contain within it those who are more to the right, and more to the left, and more to the middle. This creates a constant tension, a constant fight, but no matter. As Ronald Reagan said in China, in front of students at Fudan University, we are “a great disputatious nation.”
Great parties are coalitions, and coalitions contain disparate and sometimes warring pieces. FDR’s coalition contained Southern Democrats from Birmingham and socialists from the Bronx. They didn’t agree on much, but they agreed on some essentials, such as “the New Deal is good” and “government should be harnessed to help the little guy.” It was imperfect and in time evolved but its success demonstrated that a great party needs give.
More Peggy Noonan
Read Peggy Noonan’s previous columns.
And click here to order her new book, Patriotic Grace.
The argument over the Republican party now always devolves into the question: Should it be less conservative? I say devolves because it is Democrats and the left who frame the question that way, and they do so because whatever the answer, yes or no, it will damage Republicans.
Another way to put the question is: Can the party, having accurately ascertained its position, and recognizing shifting terrain, institute a renewed and highly practical tolerance for the many flavors of Republican? Can it live happily and productively with all its natural if sometimes warring constituent groups?
It must.
All the metaphors here are tired, so let’s stick with the big tent. A big tent is held up by tent poles. No poles, no tent. No poles, all you have is a big collapsed canvas.
The poles that keep up the tent are the party’s essential beliefs. Republicans over the next few years should define what each of their tent poles stands for—a strong defense being an obvious pole, a less demanding and intrusive government being another, a natural affection and respect for tradition and for life being a third—and how many poles there are.
But also, the people inside can’t always be kicking people out of the tent. A great party cannot live by constantly subtracting, by removing or shunning those who are not faithful to every aspect of its beliefs, or who don’t accept every pole, or who are just barely fitting under the tent. Room should be made for them. Especially in those cases when Republican incumbents and candidates are attempting to succeed in increasingly liberal states, a certain practical sympathy is in order.
In the party now there is too much ferocity, and bloody-mindedness. The other day Sen. Jim DeMint said he’d rather have 30 good and reliable conservative senators than 60 unreliable Republicans. Really? Good luck stopping an agenda you call socialist with 30 hardy votes. “Shrink to win”: I’ve never heard of that as a political slogan.
Is it fully mature, and truly protective toward America, to be so politically exclusionary?
It is true that Republican unity would benefit now, or soon, from a great man or woman who can by the force of his presence, by the provable support of the people of his home state, by his ability to persuade, by his ability to seem somehow inevitable (as FDR and Churchill, Thatcher and Reagan all did), emerge and win the support of a plurality of the American people.
That is a wonderful and exciting thing when it happens.
But such a person may or may not emerge. People who resolve history just by showing up are few and far between.
We say of a great one, “That’s the sort of person who comes along once a generation,” but in fact when you look back on history you realize it’s a lucky nation that yields one up even that often. A lot of history is just making do, muddling through. A lot of history goes unmarked by conspicuous greatness.
Right now, Republicans have to muddle through and do their best. They are up against a talented and charismatic leader whom people want to succeed. His party is with him. Certainly it is hungry, and grateful to him for getting them back in the game.
Republicans are also up against themselves. On Capitol Hill they are up against the Bush era, when through fear of the White House or mindless opportunism they supported things they now decry. It will take them a while to seem credible again. The smarter of them know this. They’re waiting for time to pass and a new cliché about them to take hold. Old cliché: “They’re not a credible alternative.” Future cliché they hope for: “They’ve learned a lot in the wilderness.”
Republicans are trying to find themselves during a time of dramatic, rolling change, demographic change, younger voters who seem embarrassed to be associated with them, an aging and contracting base and, perhaps most ominously, what appears to be a new national openness to a redefinition of the relationship between the government and the governed.
The ground is shifting. It’s hard to get your footing in an earthquake. As Republicans on the Hill try, they must also try to steady their party. It needs a greater sense of realism about its predicament. It needs less enforcement and more encouragement. It needs to inspire the young and the politically unformed not with bloodlust but with ideas.
A great party allows everyone in, and allows prospective members to self-define. If they say they’re Republicans, they should be welcomed and helped to find a place where they fit. A great party has a lot of such places. A great party is expansive. A great party has give.”
78. sheesh-a-sham-wow,
So, Alana who wrote one small sentence is your ‘metaphorical’ target for a full fledged rant?
Child, seek therapy, detox from the kool-aid and get some de-programming whilst your at it.
Meanwhile, keep coming up with new monikers and personalities to ram your narrow opinion home because none of us see through you at all…nope…we are all stupid cattle grazing on your latest and greatest rhetoric that has been ingrained in your whole single brain cell from Huffpo, DK, MSNBC et al.
Have fun deluding yourself and trying to hijack threads when you’ve made it clear that you’re one helluva lefty nutter.
When your city is bombed and ‘one of your own’ are killed by some whack job jihadi…maybe, just maybe you’ll take a different stance on things. I hope and pray that never comes to pass but after 9/11 and the apologist-in-swimming-trunks doing everything he can to undermine our security both abroad and on our home-front… Well, it ain’t lookin’ good, child.
As Gen. Patton, after winning a battle in North Africa, muttered to a distant Rommel: I read your book.
Those of us who wish to counter the terror and intimidation tactics of ACORN need to read the playbook: Saul Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals.
Everything subsequently will make sense. A light bulb will go on when you dwell on all those disrupted meetings and organized protests that somehow didn’t ring true and were larded with outsiders. Also coming into focus will be the endless character assassinations that aim to destroy even the best of people.
The left’s hard-core tactics need to be understood to be countered successfully . Their rules are cold-blooded and ugly. The most insidious of the rules instructs the faithful to ridicule and marginalize anyone who represents a threat.
And if Alinsky doesn’t do it for you, read some Marx and the Communist Manifesto. The current occupant of the White House takes a page straight out of the Manifesto and lines from Dr. Zhivago every time he demeans and threatens business people.
Conservatives are being whipsawed around because we believe people cannot possibly be that malevolent. Well, yes, they can. It’s time to get tough and realistic. Time to be on the offensive.
78, has your mother put you to bed yet?
78. sheesh: Wow, you started drinking early tonight. Put down the Koolaid and whatever else you are drinking and turn off MSNBC.
63. ked5: I’m with you, pardner. I’m also (tongue in cheek) with Ann Coulter who said after 9/11, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”
74. Alana: I think you stirred up some sort of severe case of hateful and belittling animus from 78. Sheesh. Maybe you should respond to his hate-filled diatribe. (I used to go with a girl named Alana a number of years ago so I sympathize with you.) Knock it off, Sheesh, you flaming jackwad!
Why not fill a few B-52s with pig blood and rain it down on the Paki/Afghan border?
Or just expatriate Sheesh to Paki for a few months?
regards
69. Ex Canuck:
obma keeps saying that the enemy will respect us!
~~~~
Yeah. Just like the Iranian Students “respected” Carter.
When I was a young man and joined the U.S. Navy we swore an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the United States. Obama has done that as well. The difference is that I believe in the constitution and Obama does not. He believes that he was granted a mandate by that portion of the voting public that went temporarily crazy and gave this neophyte the power to run the mightiest military and economic machine the world has ever know. Obama is not interested in the people or the country, he is interested in Obama, in his glory, his greatness, his magnificence. If we are lucky and enough people wake up soon enough, even with the press and the media lap dogs leading the cheering sections on, we can put him out of office after only one term and hopefully repair the damage this idiot has done in only 100 days.
Let’s face facts. BHO will ruthlessly provide for the looters, while ruthlessly attacking all he decides are domestic enemies. Our real enemies abroad are only props for “The One” to build his world image. He is Machiavelli come back to life … with a chip on his shoulder about the “white” side of his family. I personally think he suffers from “mutt” syndrome.
No Mr. Obama… your job is to ruthlessly protect Israel.
sheesh @78, you’re the prisoner of your own fantasies. As overfond of hearing yourself type.
You get an A+ in name-calling, though, fantasy-driven though it may be.
RE #78/sheesh:
sheesh, the qualifications for being a soeterotroll are not that high, yet you blew it again. All what Ploufe asks you is to be on welfare and be sober when you’re the keyboard and while the job is to obfuscate a thread or other, to do so wuith a semplance of rationality.
And now you came again with a long rant about Alana, pouring in any possible idiocy!
Oh, by the way sheesh, you forgot to mention that the current financial crisis has been caused by blond people with blue eyes, “we know who they are, all we need now is to identify them”, notion dear to comrade Soetero.
sheesh, can’t you do it better?
74. Alana: . . . “Obama has no intention of protecting us. He thinks whatever happens to us, we’ve got coming anyway.”
sheesh 78 regarding Obama:
“Yeah, that’s right. In fact, I think he wants to out and out kill Americans. Innocent hardworking church going Americans. He wants them dead. He wants terror and anarchy in the streets. He wants a class war, a race war, and a media war. He wants to create as much anger and violence and death and destruction and despair as possible because, hey, that’s the world he wants to create for his children.”
I could not have said it better myself, sheesh. I think this is what he wants.
How much more proof is needed that Obama is committing treason, ignoring the Constitution, and his Oath of Office?
http://www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-02-04-E9-2488
As I said . . . “baby talk and anonymous tough guy fantasies and self-aggrandizing victimhood”
Not a single refutation.
Here’s the best part (and I say “best” because you all know it) . . . This economy is going to turn around, not tomorrow or next month but soon. Soon enough. And when it does, the additional good will and confidence generated among the majority of people in this country (who, by the way, support and respect Obama) are going to crush all remaining 21% of Americans who now self identify as Republicans. Then it’s gonna be you and Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin standing in the rain with 147 other real Americans decrying the impending death of George Washington’s last direct descendent. (Wait, I forgot Alana. Make that 148.) And Michael Steele . . . 149. (Have you heard his latest? He says Republicans need to re-brand their re-branding effort, perhaps with a new description that doesn’t make it sound like they’re searing human flesh with a hot poker. Ah, a voice for the future! Fear not, though, because Sarah Palin just got a Twitter account! Yay! . . . “That’s “off the hook” . . . . he-he-he . . . you know, like the kids say? Actually, if we’re being truly “phat we’d say “off DA hook” . . . he-he-he.” I think maybe you folks should all get together over at Cybergeezer’s house for a strategy session . . . you know, have some coffee and pastries, watch Arthur Duncan dance up and down some steps on the Lawrence Welk show, then prioritize your goals and some organizing principles followed up quickly by key action steps. It can all be accomplished quite easily with a cable subscription and a flip chart. If you can’t afford or navigate such high-tech A/V support, just refer to Glenn Beck, he should be clean and sober . . . again . . . by then.
Here, let me help: You see, your problem is cycles. The economy goes in cycles. Political power goes in cycles. Here’s the tough part: the economy is going to recover long before the Republicans do. That’s going to push the conservative recovery back to square one . . . again. Fuk Snooze knows this, which is why they’re spending all their time trying to whip you all into a lather, trying to create as much discord as soon as possible in the hopes that it will carry over into the next two elections. Then again, what choice do they have? Report the news? They don’t have it in them.
Oh, silly me, there I go again, ranting and raving. I swear it must be the Irish in me. Of course, I’m not Irish, but I’ll claim it anyway. Faith and begorah, twas a nice thing being in the land of the little people, but sure’n it’s a bunch of blarney.”
Shadow/sheesh. You’re either one and the same…the identical mindset, tortured logic, misplaced elitism, style of prose and all…or you were indoctrinated in the same English 101 classes run by the same progressive community college adjunct professor. The whiff of sameness to a lot of other asshats that I have noticed run through periods of commenting drivel here is also marked.
Be that as it may, it should occur to you that a lot of people like myself read the posts on Pajamas Media and sometimes visit the comments without commenting themselves. They don’t do so because they are necessarily or always in agreement with many or the commenters you so poorly fence with. It’s the posts that bring people here, but the food for thought after seeing the openly embraced inanity of the talking points you pretend are positions in your comments is there too.
You two (or one as the case may be) really do epitomize the truly vacuous asininity that so many of the marching morons on the far left exhibit and any converts you make are not joining your side. That isn’t to say that a lot of people on the far right aren’t just as appalling in their ignorance and just as difficult to comprehend when you see their comments here or elsewhere. But they aren’t spouting scripted, usually confounded, and mostly long debunked talking points like you do. Which makes all the difference to a casual reader.
As time goes by, I do find encouragement in the rants and namecalling posts of the lefties.
Apparently, they really don’t have anything else to go with.
Most of them have never seen the conservative movement, fueled by Americans, in action. They didn’t know that we actually do have a strong foundation under us which is not going to be shattered by namecalling.
The Constitution that their god wants to destroy is the Constitution that we will stand on.
The United States of America that their god wants to see defeated is US. We will not be defeated.
If namecalling is all they have, look for it to get louder. Won’t change, just get louder.
Interesting that the deaths and violence in Iraq are at an 8 month high. Nothing much being said about it in the obama media, is there? Gee, I wonder if the violence is increasing because the terrorists (“who were never in Iraq”) are encouraged by the schedule that “I-hate-America-bambi” has given them.
I feel awful for using the word “terrorists”. Can’t remember what this week’s moniker is. Probably something like “those who through major life disappointments have no alternative to tummy pain but to kill everyone they see with great hope of change wherein they get to go to virgins”? Is that it? Who knows.
Maybe obie will appoint himself to the Supreme Court. Wanna bet it’s crossed his mind?
#100 sheesh:
“Here’s the tough part: the economy is going to recover long before the Republicans do.”
A very simple question for a very simple person:
What effects on said economic recovery is increased income and sales tax rates and vastly greater amounts of government deficit spending going to have?
Since you will no doubt have a killer hangover by the time you read this, the answer is that it will kill this fantasized recovery you’re so badly hoping for a-borning.
“…the additional good will and confidence generated among the majority of people in this country (who, by the way, support and respect Obama) are going to crush all remaining 21% of Americans who now self identify as Republicans.”
Why do you see fit to keep bringing up the Alleged Hawaiian’s supposedly favorable poll numbers?
Are you trying to remind us…or yourself?
101 Gee, Dan . . . If I were concerned by the opinions of narrow-minded critics spouting feigned discernment, I would agree with you. But you see, I’m not. It’s clear that you don’t possess the level of understanding nor the distinction of style to generate that elusive curiosity that so attracts the active mind. Maybe you should have taken that English 101 class instead of database management. You might be more interesting.
RE #100/sheesh: [...] As I said . . . “baby talk and anonymous tough guy fantasies and self-aggrandizing victimhood” Not a single refutation. [...]
Sheesh, da’lin’, I can’t see a refutation in your tirade, either, it’s just a long rant of wishful thinking items, with no support of concrete evidence.
Get concrete, buddy – and also, do some anticipative work – by the time people will enjoy the phenomenal prosperity generate by the printing of trillions of dollars (hey, you can learn something from Robert Mugabe and Slobodan Milosevich, yes we can!), maestro Soetero will be in the Court having to explain:
a) why, how and with whose help he managed to hide the fact that he is not eligible for the US presidency (neither for Kenya’s, as a matter of fact), then,
b) to defend himself for having rised under false pretense (see (a) above) more than $ 700 million dollars for electoral campaign purposes, and,
c) how will he refund that amount of money, how many stones he plans to break with a mallet in a labor camp a day for making up that embezzlement.
So, my da’lin’, we’ll sure have a nice show soon on TV, while padding our rooms with $100 Obama bills. Nice!
Best regards -
ANTI-WAR CANDIDATE OBAMA LIVES UP TO BILLING
Doctrine comes first, national security somewhere thereafter.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/05/iraq-obama-takes-his-eye-off-ball.html
104, gee sheesh, I’m sorry I don’t interest you, asshat. Because what I’ve seen you post here in all your various incarnations certainly meets anyone’s interest in comic relief.
And just so you know, as I doubt the community college adjunct professor who formated your politics covered it in his evening Eng101 and Intro to Creative Writing classes, an asshat is someone with his head so far up there he wears his own ass as…well, as his hat.
The image one gets from that…from your sort online or elsewhere who try to impress by figuratively strutting around in that configuration…certainly does help service the public need for comic relief in these tough times.
Commercial free too.
“Crush,” huh. Leftists often seem to use this violent term, apparently looking forward to the “crushing” with relish.
107. Dan . . . you like “asshat” don’t you. Kinda like a trademark of yours. Reminds me of the way grandpa used to talk . . . his favorites were “piss ant” and “shit for brains”. I’m trying to decide which one to call you. Any preference?
Sheesh, put down the Kool-Aid & clear your brain of the liberal rot. Right now, you’re nothing more than an organic robot parroting what has been lectured to you. Do you ever think for yourself?
The theory is that once ALL nations are Socialist, then we will have a Socialist world state and there will be no more conflict. The far left actually believes that, sort of like Christians and the Christ_on _a_cross thangie. Or Muslims and the Two Houses theory.
Every religion has it’s less rational beliefs. The Socialist belief in a world state ending conflict ignores history, which is full of examples of Socialist nations waging war on one another. Germany and the Soviet Union is 1941 springs to mind. Somewhere between 60 and 100 million died in that one.
Anyway, if we all just one big happy socialist family, then there is nothing to fight over, right? RIGHT?
Ok, boys and girls, if I don’t hear a great big RIGHT, I’m sending the secret police over to reason with you. A few minutes after they get started, you will be praying for a waterboarding.
sheesh:
“101 Gee, Dan . . . If I were concerned by the opinions of narrow-minded critics spouting feigned discernment, I would agree with you. But you see, I’m not. It’s clear that you don’t possess the level of understanding nor the distinction of style to generate that elusive curiosity that so attracts the active mind. Maybe you should have taken that English 101 class instead of database management. You might be more interesting.”
Sheesh, if this is how you have been taught to write, you really shouldn’t be boasting about it.
“spouting feigned discernment”? WTF?? I have vague visions of something like this being said on perhaps a Monty Python sketch, or maybe by Niles Frazier, but I can’t think of anywhere else such a ridiculous string of words could exist in English.
“It’s clear that you don’t possess the level of understanding nor the distinction of style to generate that elusive curiosity that so attracts the active mind.”
A masterpiece of prose, Sheesh! A “distinction of style” is almost as good as “discernment of feigned distinction”, but you’d already used those words.
Well sheesh, I wouldn’t say I LIKE asshats. I just find them comic. In your particular case, since the hat fits you so well…risible certainly. But likable? Not necessarily. I believe I was clear on the risible part at least.
I could use assclown instead if you prefer that moniker. Ass collar might work. Certainly a closer descriptive of how far up there your head is. On the other hand, lacks the panache of asshat. Misses that image of you that I mentioned and if you can’t provide comic relief…well…you’ve no purpose at all.
I think your grandpa hit the nail on the head in one of the things you remember him saying. I suppose he figured being an asshat, you must have had shit for brains. Bet that hurt. Shame you didn’t learn from it.
shaui-jan @ 82: Very true. These lefty arguments that support Obama for ending ‘torture’ are centered around their massive egos, not any true moral principle or high standard. That’s why they are perfectly satisfied with a policy that doesn’t even include a plan to deal with the problem (let alone being satisfied that it is the best plan or that it is consistent with the laws of the United States).
Mike Blackadder: “Very true. These lefty arguments that support Obama for ending ‘torture’ are centered around their massive egos, not any true moral principle or high standard. “
No, the “lefty arguments”, as you say, focus primarily on the fact that torture is illegal under United States law. Yes, the morality, integrity and judgment of our country are at stake, but that is not the crux of the argument. The crux of the argument is that torture is a crime, and that the president cannot just use some fancy lawyering to make torture legal because he feels like it. At our very core, we are a nation of laws and not of men.
When right wing reactionaries on this board try to cover for Bush and his stooges by arguing that the president can do anything he wants to safeguard us, you are essentially arguing that we should be a country of men and not of laws; i.e. a banana republic in which the president is an elected king who can trample laws at will under the guise of national security.
It’s very disheartening the depths to which the right wing will stoop to C their A’s and avoid responsibility for anything. Even the betrayal of the founding principles of this nation is not beneath them.
I don’t know, Pastor.
I have a hard time getting all worked up over a terrorist beheader getting waterboarded in order to extract timely information needed to prevent American deaths.
After all, there is a moral argument, too, in whether it is right to let Americans die needlessly, just so some discomfort and fear won’t be visited on those who are trying to kill us.
Obama has said that foregoing these methods “will be difficult,” but necessary, due to “who we are” and what “our values” are. He means – we’re gonna die.
But those are just his values, and one-sided ones at that. His values are that any number of Americans can and should and indeed must die, rather than ever extract information from those who would kill us through waterboarding.
Personally, I think the greater moral argument is on the side of keeping us safe from those who would kill us. In addition, I don’t consider waterboarding to be torture.
And in any case, how can Obama or anyone else who believes in late-term abortion and leaving babies born alive to die in closets get on a moral high horse over this?
How can a person believe that things like that are morally acceptable, as Obama does, yet dare to insist that waterboarding a terrorist in order to save American lives is wrong and can never be done?
“Who we are,” according to Obama, is apparently a people who will strike scissors into a half-born baby’s skull and gouge its brains, and leave a newborn to die in a closet, with not a single moral qualm.
But who won’t lift a finger to interrogate a terrorist during a national crisis, beyond pleasant conversation, because that would be “wrong.”
Obama’s moral contrast on those two issues is one reason why your “moral” argument just doesn’t work at all.
The other is that not everyone agrees we should die, rather than use any harsh interrogation techniques on killers – techniques which themselves are nothing but laughable to our enemies – in order to prevent our own deaths.
In short, neither you nor Obama has any monopoly on moral rectitude, or the final, sanctimonious word on the subject.
In fact, Obama presents a sick, sick version of morality and expects us all to buy it.
RE #115/Pastor of Muppets: [...] Yes, the morality, integrity and judgment of our country are at stake, but that is not the crux of the argument. The crux of the argument is that torture is a crime, and that the president cannot just use some fancy lawyering to make torture legal because he feels like it. At our very core, we are a nation of laws and not of men. [...]
My, how superior you are, cicerone! I totally blinded by your splendid aura!
1) At the crux of the matter is a much simpler fact than your contortion, that is, whether the athleticism required for acquiring some information from a potential wrongdoer outweights as ugliness the potential consequences of that person’s intended act – and this is not the case, since generally the acquired information through intense methods was in our cases instrumental and the consequences of its use have vastly outweighted in terms of protecting lives and property the bruises or crumpled dignity of one or another fredom fighter.
2) … as far as “a nation of laws and not of men”, I am not surprised that a vacuous liberal like you goes for this ancient bumper sticker – it’s a silly joke.
3) … and now, buddy, get some education for y/self – walk to a library and get JP Sartre’s “The Prisoner of Altona” (a stage play), read it (if can), then think it over (if you can). Also you can rent the film adaptation, w Frederich March, Maximillian Schell and Sophia Loren.
Cicerone, but you will not do this because the essence of liberalism is grandstanding in front of some bleating associates, gesticulating, braying in the wind, and discharging unrequested loads of inexistent enlightenment – the Johann Galtung, MoveOnOrg and other cews making for the bleating audience.
Sorry lot you are, liberals -
“The crux of the argument is that torture is a crime”
No it isn’t. That is the specious and over reaching position that the left takes when addressing water boarding. It is specious because it conveniently begs that underlying question of whether water boarding as used by the CIA is torture. Basically, it is a red herring position. It is an attempt to distract from the inability to substantiate an argument by encapsulating it as a given into a larger theme that does not need to be proved.
No one argues that torture is wrong. The argument is whether water boarding is torture. That argument can’t be made without increasing the scope of the definition of torture to the point where it is meaningless.
As for me I don’t feel a bit safe with Barak Hussein Obama as commander and chief. He’s just another puppet controld by liberal billionaire king George Soros and his Marxist friends.
Alana: ++++++++++++++1
You nailed it.
Imagine he refused to let drs administer to a child born alive during an abortion, but gee whiz we can’t frighten a poor little terrorist who would cut your head off as look at you.
RE #120/Ex Canuck: [...] Alana: You nailed it. Imagine he refused to let drs administer to a child born alive during an abortion, but gee whiz we can’t frighten a poor little terrorist who would cut your head off as look at you. [...]
And you nailed it too, Ex-k – liberals have an overwhelming capacity of accomodating conflicting notions in their wacky minds. I just sat a few hours ago in a deli in LA near a crowd of punks, all heavily mutilated, nose rings, lips, eyebrows, tongue pins, tatoos, some with some three inches wide wooden pulleys in their ear-lobes – while I can’t say that they were some heroic victims of torture at Gitmo, anyone seeing them would acknowledge that they all are/were some severely abused humans.
And, to top this, their conversation (loud) when not twittering was also political, praising the One and, guess what… talking about the Gitmo abuses!
121, I think I would have walked up to them. Let them know that The One insures they are a short lived abortion of freedom.. useful fools for The One.
I would also tell them, that as a Conservative… they make a compelling argument for abortion.
Then when they say they want change.. I would reply ..”Great.. change your diapers”.
“One must wonder: how far would Mr. Obama go to save Sasha and Malia? What if, by some devastating travesty, President Obama’s daughters were to fall captive to al-Qaeda neck-slicers and an operative already in our custody knew the precise location of the two little girls? How far would Barack Obama — the man himself, as a terrified father — go to extract information from the detainee before him?”
Haven’t read all the comments yet, but I have to say I don’t think relying on his sense of parental duty to protect is going to get us anywhere. He’s said he would never want his daughter’s denied an abortion for a kid they didn’t want. he seems to see kids more as accessories than human beings. One doesn’t kill to protect a pair of shoes, and I think if they were somehow inconvenient to him he’d let them die.
Paster of Muppets @ 115:
“The crux of the argument is that torture is a crime, and that the president cannot just use some fancy lawyering to make torture legal because he feels like it.”
So the crux of the argument is a legal one, and I’m supposed to be swayed by the Democrat’s position when:
1) They don’t offer a convincing legal argument to suggest that the enhanced interrogation methods at GMO meet the LEGAL DEFINITION of torture.
2) Actual legal opinions that address the question of torture you refer to as ‘fancy lawyering’.
That’s a good one! Thanks.
118. Dan: Time for English 101
I almost hate to do this to you, Danster. Do they call you Danster? Dan the Man? Danny Boy? It doesn’t matter. Let’s focus.
First, the operative statement prompting your analysis is:
“The crux of the argument is that torture is a crime”
And off you go:
“No it isn’t.”
We’re in trouble already, Dango . . . No, WHAT isn’t? Torture isn’t a crime? Or is it that the criminality of torture is not the crux of the argument? Brevity is useless without clarity.
You continue:
“That is the specious and over reaching position that the left takes when addressing water boarding.”
Beyond repeating the lack of clarity established by your first three words, this sentence “has issues.” First, the word specious may not mean what you think it means. It does imply a lack of merit, but at the same time does not wholly dismiss the matter at hand as untrue. Moving on, “overreaching” (1 word) is a judgment that can be made about any side of any issue in debate. That is kinda sorta the nature of debate – the presumption that my truth is truer than your truth – you know, overreaching. Finally, tossing gerunds around shows a lack of crafting. Not to worry. It’s a burden only if you’re a right-brain word fetishist. You’re off the hook. (Just like Michael Steele!)
Shall we?
“It is specious because it conveniently begs that underlying question of whether water boarding as used by the CIA is torture.”
You’re doing a little begging of your own, Danforth, implying that waterboarding as practiced by the CIA is not torture but that waterboarding done by others is or can be torture. It’s this kind of false pretense that does in most conservatives.
Next:
“Basically, it is a red herring position. It is an attempt to distract from the inability to substantiate an argument by encapsulating it as a given into a larger theme that does not need to be proved.”
Is it or isn’t it a red herring position, Danskin? First, let me hopscotch around all the distracting and substantiating and encapsulating going on in that Gordian Knot you call a sentence. Whew! That’s better. So, it’s like saying that waterboarding ISN’T torture because terrorists want to kill us. Hope you like herring.
Onward:
“No one argues that torture is wrong.”
Simply not true. Lots of people think torture is just dandy. And if you visit North Korea or Saudi Arabia or Burundi you’ll find plenty of smiling sadists who consider it a grand and reasonable thing to feed your Dannads to a marmot. Worse than being flat out wrong, your presumption is nothing more than a transparent attempt to establish some moral standing. If you were Catholic you would be feeling shame and guilt right now.
Almost home:
“The argument is whether water boarding is torture.”
Not really, Danomatic. Not much of an argument there. An average of polls show that about 75% of Americans think waterboarding is torture (a percentage that skyrockets outside the U.S.) John McCain thinks it’s torture. President Obama thinks it’s torture. The American government thought it was torture when the Japanese did it to our military personnel. Christopher Hitchens thinks it’s torture. (We’re waiting for Sean Hannity to check in on the matter – for charity.) There are quite a few people out there who would say, “The argument is whether the world is or isn’t flat.” Sometimes the things we think are obvious to everybody remain a mystery to some.
Big finish:
“That argument can’t be made without increasing the scope of the definition of torture to the point where it is meaningless.”
I know you want this to be the case. But it’s not the case. Waterboarding lived happily for decades in its rightful lair inside the scope of torture. Then along came Dick Cheney who wasn’t satisfied with the world, so he dispatched his feckless minions –Ashcroft, Gonzalez, Yoo and Bybee – to narrow the scope of torture to the point where it was . . . what’s the word . . . meaningless. Your assertion that the scope of torture needs to be broadened to the point of irrelevance to include waterboarding is testament only to the raging penis envy of the conservative right.
As I’ve said many times . . . First you think, THEN you type.
Now, you were saying?
sheesh: I thought that progressives were supposed to be the enlightened ones who question strict judgments of right/wrong, good bad, (maybe east/west), and try to be more sophisticated by seeing things for what they are, and avoid categorization of ideas.
It’s peculiar that so many of you have such strong convictions about what qualifies as torture. Is it torture to listen to annoying music for hours in the car? Is it torture to be imprisoned in a cell? Is it torture to have someone smash your kneecaps with a sledgehammer? Is it torture to have someone fart next to you on the bus? Is it torture to be threatened that if you do not give information that you will be killed? Is it torture to be humiliated in public? Is it torture to watch your family get killed?
How would an objective person decide what should qualify as torture and illegal in the context of America’s treatment of illegal combatants? “75% of Americans think waterboarding is torture”. Sheesh, you seem to be satisfied with a majority rule decision (it’s funny how often we hear that from progressives these days). Which of course proves that there IS a God since something like 90% of Americans hold that opinion. I suppose you’ll be suggesting the remaining 10% should be charged with heresy or the more modern term ‘denial’. It’s a damn good thing that the law isn’t normally decided in such a way.
Now I can’t be sure that you follow what I’m saying here, so I’ll try to spell it out for you. Saying ‘torture is illegal’ doesn’t really mean much on its own. This is not a substantial statement. You need to make a case that is based on a legal definition of torture, that takes into account the context of the law (that torture is illegal) not a ‘gut feel’ personal opinion criteria. And normally such legal definitions are DESIGNED to achieve the objectives of the law. In this case, you would want to establish a limit on how far to go to effectively extract information while maintaining humanitarian standards (even for the most despicable people imaginable).
But since we’re sharing our non-legal opinions on the subject I will provide my own. I can accept the practices at Guantanamo Bay, even water-boarding, because I would accept similar practices on the part of our enemies. I would accept an enemy who will use some force to extract information to try to save lives, if, like America, they do so with similar discipline and limits of escalation, with medical professionals present and with concern for the permanent health of prisoners.
Also, I think that the Bush administration went the extra mile to seek legal advise and then mandate methods of interrogation that followed those guidelines (which were designed to not cross the threshold into illegal torture of detainees). Seeing Democrats second guess and split hairs about their decisions reveals only your lack of integrity, and that you value your political ambitions over national security. But what else is new?
Asshat, (I’m just going to call you that in case there’s another sheesh posting somewhere so you know it’s you)
Where do I start?
Just as a blanket indictment, you have the reputation of tossing out figures without citing. You get challenged to cite and ignore it, or get shown that your assertions are lies, and ignore it. So we can dispense with any statements where you toss out facts and figures and just assume you pulled them out of your ass…past your ears…right off.
So let’s just concentrate on the point at hand. The question, shit for brains, is not that torture is a crime. That is not in dispute no matter how stupidly you insist that it must be because that’s what you’ve been told by your handlers. The issue, and even Obama understands this, is whether waterboarding is torture. I shouldn’t have to repeat that, but…you being an asshat and all…it seems to be necessary.
Just so I don’t have to continuously qualify the staement, try to understand that when I refer to water boarding, I am referring to the the way it was approached by the US as applied to the 3 gentlemen who experienced it (and, asshat, did not require tracheotomies). Not the manner in which the Japanese etc., but the method that was bought off after careful consideration by the previous administration…and by Pelosi and company.
That out of the way, I’d ask you to show any proof that people here or conservatives as a whole maintain that torture is not criminal, but given your reputation of tossing out delusional references, and facts and figures made up out of whole cloth…not much point in asking.
Now, as much as I and other folks here appreciate the comic relief that an asshat like you provides, it does get tiresome when you conflate the position that water boarding is not torture with saying that torture is not a crime.
It’s a matter of head shaking amazement that you continue not only to comment here despite the obvious and well-founded disdain the other commenters hold you in, but also that you believe you are effectively representing an alternative view. Your net effect…only effect actually…is endorsing the belief that so many of Obama’s supporters are absolute jackasses without a coherent argument. Not all certainly, but the ignorant sheep types that you epitomize.
127 Piss ant (Thanks for choosing that one. It’s my favorite.)
Clearly you’re disturbed. I’m willing to conflate your confusion with a recent deconstruction (no, let’s go straight to destruction) of your flimsy opinions. And that’s all they are is opinions. You should cite something – maybe a link to Little Green Footballs or a quote from Bilgeman. So here’s a test for you . . . show me where I said conservatives don’t think torture is criminal. I didn’t. Don’t let the ass-whipping I gave you shame you into silence. Others here have suffered the same and disappeared forever. I’d hate to think you’d shy away from your stance that there is good torture and bad torture. Thanks for that, but the way. That’s the type of colossal rhetorical blunder that drives conservatives deeper into exile every day. Check with Rush, he’ll tell you (in secret, of course). As for the disdain of other “commenters” on this board, I’m surprised you think I would be concerned. That alone shows your lack of insight and a desperate need to have your ill-formed and self-righteous world view propped up by the similarities of idiots.
First you think, THEN you type.
RE #125/ sheesh: [...] Dan: Time for English 101. I almost hate to do this to you, Danster. Do they call you Danster? Dan the Man? Danny Boy? It doesn’t matter. Let’s focus. [...]
Yo, Sheeh ibn Derrida, then off in the deconstructivism’s wilderness you romp.
And you close: “First think, then type” – and sure you illustrate time and again the liberals’ mental flaws, this time the tendency of ratiocinating themselves in the gluons’ realm.
What Dan said was pefectly correct, no matter how unacceptable for your enlightened sensitivity – and no normal society should accept a lefty’s or a liberal’s warped perceptions as yardstick.
As far as you penchant for deconstruction, this is part and parcel of the liberal (absurd) rhetorical equipment, now heavily used by the Soeterotroll everyehere on the web, out there to obfuscate and distract those who haven’s fall in the Soetero hypnosis.
Deconstruct, baby, deconstruct – after all weren’t you a few years ago guarding Shmucko’s swollen codpiece while Shmucko was enlarging for an enthusiastic audience: “Well, it depends on what do you mean by IS – it can mean, WILL, WAS, HAS BEEN, SHALL, SHEESH and so on.”
With such a magister, no wonder that differently mentally abled people like you, lefties, have fallen for Soetero who is a major issuer of nonsense and academy gobbledygook.
Obfuscate, baby, obfuscate -
so sheesh,pastor whom ever…i guess what you are saying in a nut shell is that torture is okay as long as we are not doing it?because this you can sure of,we will take prisoners and they will be interagated.that is a fact,no gitmo means rendering them.oh,and please no long winded b.s.simply state why you think turning prisoners over to sociopaths to do our bidding will some how be morally superior to what was happening at gitmo.the truth is, that facility was built in part so we wouldn’t have to turn to the egyptians and the jordanians because the administration knew very well how they operated.and so did kennedy,johnson,carter,reagan,clinton,etc.
128: asshat
Um, asshat, it was pastor of muppets that said it. Unless he is one of your many alter egos…getting crowded up there?…you answered for him by generating a confused soliloquy and miserably failing to deconstruct a short statement addressed to him.
Push aside a little and see if you can fit a few of your strawmen up there. Have a baseball team soon. Start with the asinine straw man that guffawing at your obsessive delusion that water boarding is torture equates to saying it is good torture.
How about this, shit for brains. Hannity submits to water boarding under the rules the CIA used and gives us his opinion on it’s efficiency as an interrogation technique. Then we put you, along with all the other asshats of the left who think water boarding as an interrogation technique is so offensive, on the 90th floor of some building. Then slam a plane into the 90th floor. Then you can give us your opinion.
You’d think you’d learn. You do not impress, asshat, you amuse. You are challenged in every aspect you show here…reading comprehension, logic, veracity, morality… and you’re probably a very short weak little twerp physically to boot. On top of all that, you have your head up your ass.
And pissant is a widely used phrase in the military. Not sure where it came from…your grandpa?…but it was in wide use in the military in the mid 80′s when I was in. Your representation of yourself is an astoundingly good fit for the term. You would have earned the title within days of being in any branch of the service. Or blivey.
I invite any ex-service personnel to chime in with whether they agree with me that asshat would have owned the pissant name..
131 Dabn . . . It hurts, I know. You’ve been shown to be shallow and inconsistent. As for Hannity, I’m all for him following through on his pledge. I’ll give you odds he doesn’t. Why not? Because he’s a weak-kneed smoke-filled poseur just like the rest of the right wing chickenhawks who point to flagpins and magnetic yellow ribbons on their cars as proof of their courage. They don’t have it in them. You know what “it” is, Pissant?
As for me, I know waterboarding is torture. I don’t need to experience it. But you seem to think it’s just an “enhanced interrogation technique”. Fine. You go through it. Worried? Don’t be. As Ann Coulter says about waterboarding, “I am with all normal people who have — who have ever had an older sibling, who have been through a fraternity hazing, who have been on a sports team or who have misbehaved as small children.”
If that’s the case, why bother?
Show Obama, Reid and Pelosi the tea party protests were not “astroTurf” but they were the beginning of a massive movement against massive Government growth and the control that comes with it. Tell them to Empower Individual Americans to take responsibility for their own lives and for the individual to have control over the direction of our country Sign the petition for Individual Empowerment!!! http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Indv1776/petition.html THE ONLY WAY THIS WILL WORK IS IF YOU COPY AND SEND IT TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT HAVE THE SAME OPINIONS AS YOU. ALSO COPY AND POST IT ON OTHER NEWS SITES, BLOGS, EMAIL IT TO ORGANIZATIONS ETC
asshat,
Really? You “know” waterboarding is torture? No, you have to believe it’s torture. Otherwise, you can’t posture in front of the other asshats opining about the evils of the past administration and congratulate each other on how morally superior you are.
Like I said, asshat, gather your marching morons, stand grinning vacuously on the 90th floor of some building like the utter jackasses you all are, and shout your moral superiority at an incoming plane.
Because, asshat, the only thing that stood…or still…stands between you and that eventuality, are the adults able to make the moral distinction between legal methods of interrogation and torture without needing to impress the kos kiddies.
I’ll poke into other threads now and again if and when your asininity of your comment offends me more than it’s comedic value entertains me. Won’t matter what personna you comment under, I’ll recognize your particular style.
Re #132/sheesh: [...] You’ve been shown to be shallow and inconsistent. [...] As for me, I know waterboarding is torture. I don’t need to experience it. [...]
Sheesh, hope this kebob through you will hurt, too – sheesh, crappy lot as you are, you Soeterotolls, you sure went beyond anything I saw as non-sequiturs & obfuscation amongs your cohorts.
Your latest indiocy is towering: “As for me, I know waterboarding is torture. I don’t need to experience it.”
Sheesh, you gnoseologist profound, how can you know that? But then, we’re back at liberals’ fundamental postulates: what’s personal is political, what I experience is definitive and definitory, Soetero is a god, indivisible and in all manifestations, four legs good, two legs bad, etc., etc.
Your posts on the torture matter on this thread should go in a repository as illustrations of the chronic imbecility all liberals are afflicted with.
imbecility
“And so I will do whatever is required to keep the American people safe. But I am absolutely convinced that the best way I can do that is to make sure that we are not taking short cuts that undermine who we are.”
That’s sheer gobbldegook. The best way to keep americans safe is, self-evidently, to take concrete steps. Not pious and empty statements like “to make sure that we are not taking short cuts that undermine who we are”.
Be afraid.
First I’ll dispense with 135 misanthropicus . . . a perfectly stated comment on something, I can only hope someone will tell me what it is.
Now to 134 Pissant . . . .Sorry, Mr. Pissant.
Resigning to defeat comes easy to you. I’m disappointed. You have more oomph than most of the clowns around here. But you’re not the first person I’ve driven down one level below anonymous, back into the shadows of self doubt. I don’t need to stand “on the 90th floor” anymore than I need to stand in a rice patty in Vietnam or the funeral of an Iraqi farmer’s family blown to bits by an errant smart bomb. I don’t need to get waterboarded anymore than I need to see the earth from space to know it’s round. Morally superior? I would never claim such a thing. Intellectually superior?
By all means, check back in. You might not recognize the name, but like you say, you’ll recognize the style. It’s a gift.
Another doofus goes down for the count.
……still waiting fo an answer on #130 how about it sheesh?you don’t usually seem at a loss for words.oh please,one of you highly enlightened wordsmiths help me out on this one.my under educated constrained intellect cannot grasp this paradox!trading water boarding and the red cross for pliers and electodes.are you waiting for me to insult you?don’t hold your breath,i hold no ill will.i have read enough chomsky,zinn and counterpunch to pretty much understand where your coming from.
RE #37/ Sheesh-kebab -
Buddy, I sent you several posts before to the library to get Jean-Paul Startre’s “Prisoner of Altona”, either the stage play or the film, since even a cursory read or view of them would have brought you into the reason’s realm in the matter this thread deals with, i.e. torture (not that I am such a great fan of JPS, but still, he did a good job a few times).
You still have the time to do this, then so empowered return to the discussion – otherwise, no matter how much you obfuscate here, you will look & quack like the “paid by post” sad Soeterotroll you are.
Do it buddy, get Sartre (after all he was a lefty like you), quote him, heck – be different. Your supervisors at MoveOnOrg will be impressed.
asshat,
Defeat? Nope. Wasn’t any contest. Just done laughing at you for a bit.
Odd thing. You focusing on the pissant thing. Seems I got under your skin a bit? Sorry, shit for brains, it doesn’t bother me. Doesn’t bother me a bit. Because where I first heard the term anybody could be called it daily. And depending on your mood and inclination, you were annoyed or laughed it off. Because…and pull your head out of your ass a bit and figuratively listen close…you KNEW when someone actually was a pissant. Everybody KNEW who the pissants were. No discussion, you just KNEW. Didn’t trust him, didn’t respect him, couldn’t depend on him, didn’t like him…sound familiar? It should, because you are the poster boy for the term. Not every asshole in the service was a pissant, but every pissant was an asshole….not every guy with shit for brains was a pissant, but every pissant had shit for brains..sound familiar?
Your granddad though, he had you pegged as a shit for brains pissant. He just KNEW. Should have explained why he called you that…might have done you some good…but he probably felt you weren’t worth the effort.
I’m not done with you. Like I said, asshat, when the asininity of one of your comments in this forum offends me more than it’s comedic value entertains me, I’ll pipe in and we’ll have a nice discussion on how you’re an asshat, and your delusions of intellectual competence. And we’ll see what the prevailing opinion is about whether or not they share your grandad’s opinion of you as a shit for brains pissant.
what is a “soeoterotroll”?
140 Dan the Fan . . . Gramps never called me anything other than my name. You’ll have to find a new approach, one that doesn’t involve you transferring the insult used against you when you were in the military . . . I’m guessing the navy. Mister Pissant, as you say . . . “Because where I first heard the term (pissant) anybody could be called it daily. And depending on your mood and inclination, you were annoyed or laughed it off.”
I’m sorry you had to go through that. Those aren’t very good choices . . . be annoyed or laugh it off. Those nasty seamen can be very mean, it sounds like. Don’t carry that shame around with you. You have alternatives – counseling, your priest (maybe not), WebMD. Please, please, as a friend I beg you . . . get some help. Life is too short to live in the past, especially when the past was filled with people calling you pissant. Sure, you say you laughed it off, but did you? Did you really? I’m just being honest with you, it sounds like you still have “issues.” I don’t mean the kind you have at night asleep in your undies, I’m talking about “matters of your past that need to be dealt with.” Ask the counselor.
sheesh,how about it?post 130,138.anyone…..bueller….bueller?
shaui-jan, sate a clear question and I’ll be happy to answer it. For now, I don’t believe in torture . . .anywhere, anytime. Does that help? sheesh!
i did state a clear question,twice.saying you do not believe in torture anywhere,anytime is meaningless.i do not believe in torture either.the goverment has in the past and will continue to do so in the future engage in these acts.reality being what it is,do you prefer our methods,or the methods of our client states to whom we relegate that responsability?there is no third choice.
145. shaui-jan: . . . “saying you do not believe in torture anywhere,anytime is meaningless”
It’s not meaningless to me, chowderhead. Do I support the US torturing people? No. Do I support anybody else torturing people? No. Do I think you’re a moron? Yes.
sheesh;touchy fella……im not surprised.i have stated the case clearly enough.the fact that you have chosen to repeat your tired,vacuous statements and manage to throw in two insults in a single sentence is telling enough.the facts are irrefutable.when you figure out a way for us to stop bombing,torturing and killing people you let me know.because like you, i also am against these things.but,unlike you i cannot allow myself the luxury of living in a fantasy world where i do not have to make hard choices.it’s one of the main burdens of being a “chowderhead”.