Palin is the choice

[Bando]

Sept 2, 2008 12:28:19 GMT -5 Elvado said:

So that's the one thing he's done other than run for President. Thanks.

You only asked for one!

[rosslynhoya]

Sept 2, 2008 12:22:50 GMT -5 Bando said:

Just for fun: Let's have an Obama supporter name an accomplishment he's had as a Senator.

Safeguarding of nuclear weapons in former USSR, with Richard Luger.

Wow, now that you mention it, I don't think anyone's ever seen Batman Barack and Bruce Wayne Sam Nunn in the same room together... This changes everything!

[hilltopper2000]

I think Obama's role in pushing ethics reform is worth looking at: www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=12761

His most impressive achievement, however, was probably reforming the criminal justice system in Illinois. He was largely resposible for the law that requires taped confessions in capital cases.

[HoyaNyr320]

Sept 2, 2008 12:28:19 GMT -5 Elvado said:

So that's the one thing he's done other than run for President. Thanks.

No- he also helped push the ethics legislation through the Senate. He's also served on the Senate Armed Forces Committee and made trips to various places around the world. Governor Palin has been out of the country once in her entire life.

Barack also, btw, graduated near the top of his class at Harvard Law School. You might think that makes him an "elitist snob", but most people in America look at that as a pretty damn good accomplishment. He then went to Chicago and helped support the community there. He improved the lives of enough people to get himself elected to the State Legislature and his efforts to work across party lines there are well documented.

It is a joke to try and equate Palin's experience to Obama's. Thankfully, only hacks like yourself attempt to do so.

[Elvado]

Take a close look at his stirring refusal to protect the lives of babies who survive late-term abortions. He did it. he denied it. He demonized those who called him on it.

No less a leftist icon than William Jefferson Clinton called him a Chicago-style thug who dealt the race card from the bottom of the deck.

If that's your man, God bless you and William Ayers.

[Elvado]

P.S. Barry has spent exactly 150 days in DC since being elected and starting the perpetual campaign.

[hilltopper2000]

Just to pick up on what HoyaNyr said, I think it is worth considering the work Obama did as EIC of the Harvard Law Review and as a professor at Chicago. Both the volumes he editted and his Chicago sylabi are available for review. They speak to his manifest intelligence, engagement in major legal and policy issues of our time, and seriousness of thought. I would also recommend reading Obama's first book--even just passages--to get a sense of how he writes and thinks. This is a very impressive guy. You may disagree with everything he believes, but to call him a lightweight or thug, is absurd. Assuming arguendo that his experience and Palin's are equivalent (something I can't believe people are saying with a straight face), wouldn't everyone concede that Obama is clearly one of the most intelligent politicians to come on the national scene in our lifetime? Does that count for nothing?

[TBird41]

Interesting take on Palin from the Politico

www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13062.html

[Elvado]

I did not call him a thug. Mr. Clinton did. I did not accuse himof playing racial politics. Mr. Clinton did.

He may in fact be the smartest man in the world, but as a Senator he has achived next-to-nothing other than popularity.

As an aside, he has been less than impressive when asked to speak extemporaneously and without his teleprompter.

Having said that, should he win I will hope to God he is as smart and talented as you believe and will root for him to succeed.

I wonder how many Democrats would say the same about McCain?

[TBird41]

Sept 2, 2008 12:38:04 GMT -5 HoyaNyr320 said:

Sept 2, 2008 12:28:19 GMT -5 Elvado said:

So that's the one thing he's done other than run for President. Thanks.

No- he also helped push the ethics legislation through the Senate. He's also served on the Senate Armed Forces Committee and made trips to various places around the world. Governor Palin has been out of the country once in her entire life.

Barack also, btw, graduated near the top of his class at Harvard Law School. You might think that makes him an "elitist snob", but most people in America look at that as a pretty damn good accomplishment. He then went to Chicago and helped support the community there. He improved the lives of enough people to get himself elected to the State Legislature and his efforts to work across party lines there are well documented.

It is a joke to try and equate Palin's experience to Obama's. Thankfully, only hacks like yourself attempt to do so.

He never went to Iraq and Afghanistan until the campaign though. That might have been a good place for him to go (unlike Palin, who went to Iraq to visit AK National Guard).

She also did enough in Wasilla to get elected Governor, defeating the incumbent in the primary and then a former governor in the general, and then worked across party lines to get natural gasline legislation passed that wasn't written by the oil companies, no small feat in Alaska (or anywhere else, really--aren't the cause of all of our problems?). She also helped clean up a state legislature that was in the middle of one of the biggest bribery scandals ever. She also got her budget passed (something Obama and the Democrats have had a lot of trouble with).

[Bando]

Sept 2, 2008 13:02:00 GMT -5 Elvado said:

I did not call him a thug. Mr. Clinton did. I did not accuse himof playing racial politics. Mr. Clinton did.

He may in fact be the smartest man in the world, but as a Senator he has achived next-to-nothing other than popularity.

As an aside, he has been less than impressive when asked to speak extemporaneously and without his teleprompter.

Having said that, should he win I will hope to God he is as smart and talented as you believe and will root for him to succeed.

I wonder how many Democrats would say the same about McCain?

Your schtick is getting old. Why do you even come on these threads? Your only purpose seems to be to lie and insult everyone you disagree with. Plus, you're a dick.

[The Stig]

Sept 2, 2008 12:50:22 GMT -5 Elvado said:

P.S. Barry has spent exactly 150 days in DC since being elected and starting the perpetual campaign.

You're resorting to name calling now? At least the hacks who refer to Obama as "B Hussein Obama" are using his real names. Calling him "Barry" is even lower than that. There are plenty of rational things to criticize about Obama without resorting to name calling.

As far as experience, Obama has been a US Senator for about as long as Palin has been Governor of Alaska. I think that US Senator is better preparation for being President of the United States than Governor of Alaska. Before that, Obama was an Illinois state senator for about as long as Palin was mayor of a small town. I've been to small towns in Alaska, and there's not much going on in them. Illinois is a good cross section of America, with urban Chicago and rural downstate. So I say that Illinois state senator trumps mayor of small town in Alaska.

Of course, McCain has them both beat in the experience game by a mile. But you were comparing Obama to Palin, so that's the argument I was making.

[The Stig]

Sept 2, 2008 13:07:29 GMT -5 TBird41 said:

He never went to Iraq and Afghanistan until the campaign though. That might have been a good place for him to go (unlike Palin, who went to Iraq to visit AK National Guard).

I'm pretty sure that Obama had been to Iraq before the campaign. He wrote about a trip there in Audacity of Hope.

[Elvado]

He called himself Barry for the first 20 years of his life.

However, if the debate has devolved to Obama vs. McCain, the GOP has already won and this pick was brilliant. Obama himself took the bait today and claimed superiority to Palin. Surprising from such a genuis.

[hoyatables]

Sept 2, 2008 13:02:00 GMT -5 Elvado said:

I did not call him a thug. Mr. Clinton did. I did not accuse himof playing racial politics. Mr. Clinton did.

He may in fact be the smartest man in the world, but as a Senator he has achived next-to-nothing other than popularity.

As an aside, he has been less than impressive when asked to speak extemporaneously and without his teleprompter.

Having said that, should he win I will hope to God he is as smart and talented as you believe and will root for him to succeed.

I wonder how many Democrats would say the same about McCain?

I certainly would hope the same for McCain and would fully expect him to do so. Why do you presume that Democrats would feel otherwise? In the end, we all have to stick with the person who wins for 4-8 years, and once they're elected you have to hope for the best. Those who actually root for failure are too invested in the political gamesmanship that plagues this country and need to take a step back.

[TBird41]

Sept 2, 2008 13:11:07 GMT -5 The Stig said:

Sept 2, 2008 13:07:29 GMT -5 TBird41 said:

He never went to Iraq and Afghanistan until the campaign though. That might have been a good place for him to go (unlike Palin, who went to Iraq to visit AK National Guard).

I'm pretty sure that Obama had been to Iraq before the campaign. He wrote about a trip there in Audacity of Hope.

You're right--he went to Iraq in 2006.
obama.senate.gov/news/051208-obama_plans_fir/


He had never been to Afghanistan before the campaign.

www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/19/obama.afghanistan/index.html

[Jack]

Sept 2, 2008 13:09:41 GMT -5 The Stig said:

You're resorting to name calling now? At least the hacks who refer to Obama as "B Hussein Obama" are using his real names. Calling him "Barry" is even lower than that. There are plenty of rational things to criticize about Obama without resorting to name calling.

What's wrong with calling him Barry? That's what he went by until college. He might be doing a bit better with the "BHO is a secret Muslim" crowd if he still went by Barry. Which is not to say those people aren't completely ignorant.

[Elvado]

So he went to Iraq before he announced. Fair enough. Inasmuch as he has been running for President since the day he got to DC, if not sooner, he went for campaign purposes.

[Boz]

I have no problem with acknowledging that Obama is an extremely bright politician and even a very accomplished legal scholar. But no, if you want my honest opinion, I don't really think that counts for a whole lot. You can't be elected President without being an extremely intelligent politician (go ahead and make a W joke if it will make you feel better, but I - much like Chris Hitchens - find the "Bush is dumb" jokes completely off-base & very childish; Democrats have been calling Republicans stupid for more than 50 years - it hasn't helped them very much)

And I have read his first book. I find it very disturbing. I think he thought a lot of people would think that, hence his second book.

But first book aside, I think he is a good man, I just think he represents the wrong kind of change for this country. Take a recent ad, where the ad mocks John McCain for saying "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." Well, forgive me but I do think the fundamentals of our economy are strong. It doesn't mean that there aren't problems with it, but to argue the opposite, that we have a fundamentally weak economy? I can't get behind that at all.

As for his leadership in the Senate, I think that the bill with Coburn was very good. I have a little tougher time giving too much credit for Obama-Lugar though. It's not like that was anything that required a whole lot of guts or leadership. The issue is important, sure, but basically, it is just updating a 1991 law. I won't go as far as Karl Rove and call it "just housekeeping," but it's not like the law required any real deliberation or bi-partisan work. The bill was pretty much written, it was just updated to include more items than it had previously.

Obama is making a pretty big mistake today, I might add. He is comparing his experience to Sarah Palin's. That is called "bait" and he shouldn't have taken it.

[HoyaNyr320]

Sept 2, 2008 13:02:00 GMT -5 Elvado said:

I did not call him a thug. Mr. Clinton did. I did not accuse himof playing racial politics. Mr. Clinton did.

He may in fact be the smartest man in the world, but as a Senator he has achived next-to-nothing other than popularity.

As an aside, he has been less than impressive when asked to speak extemporaneously and without his teleprompter.

Having said that, should he win I will hope to God he is as smart and talented as you believe and will root for him to succeed.

I wonder how many Democrats would say the same about McCain?

Of course I will root for McCain to succeed if he is elected- just like I was hoping Bush would succeed when elected in 2000 and after 9/11. However, he and Karl Rove then decided that getting him elected in 2004 was more important than uniting the country to face the threat of terror- calling those that opposed his decisions on the Patriot Act and Iraq "unpatriotic." I fear that John McCain will continue these policies, so that is why I support Barack Obama. I'm glad that you'll pray for his success when he is elected despite your extremely inflammatory comments about him. Here's some more food for thought regarding Palin v. Obama on experience:

www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/2/1613/27485/447/581295