TBird41
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
"Roy! I Love All 7'2" of you Roy!"
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Post by TBird41 on Jan 22, 2009 10:53:33 GMT -5
I expected Reagan to be the closest. I also heard two lines of his speech as hopefully marking an end to the big versus small government BS argument of the last 30 years--an argument that Reagan very effectively lived on: "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end." I will believe that promise from a politician (and I mean any politician--Dem, Rep, Lib, Communist) when they follow through on it. |
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Boz
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
123 Fireballs!
Posts: 10,355
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Post by Boz on Jan 22, 2009 11:17:49 GMT -5
Agree. Nice words, to be sure, but if Obama A) actually identifies significant government spending programs that he will eliminate and B) can actually eliminate those government programs, then I really WILL believe he's the Messiah.
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Cambridge
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Canes Pugnaces
Posts: 5,306
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Post by Cambridge on Jan 22, 2009 14:52:05 GMT -5
Apparently CJ John Roberts attended the Providence game. At least that's what Chris Matthews said during his ramblings while covering the inauguration. www.slate.com/id/2209405/ |
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EasyEd
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 7,272
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Post by EasyEd on Jan 23, 2009 13:29:20 GMT -5
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TBird41
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
"Roy! I Love All 7'2" of you Roy!"
Posts: 8,740
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Post by TBird41 on Jan 23, 2009 13:35:21 GMT -5
Great thread with the recollections/observations. A couple thoughts and experiences of my own... I think it was reasonable to expect that the arrangements/plans that were made would not be executed perfectly. Not the least among the reasons for this is that the planners are human and they are dealing with human variables. My sense of this was only strengthened by the ever-changing estimates of crowd sizes in advance of the event. How can we start at 4 million and move to 2 million without much of an explanation. The effort beyond that to pinpoint things exactly appeared to be minimal (i.e. no analysis of 2.3 million vs. 2 million or 1.7 million vs. 2 million. One hundred thousand here or there makes a difference. While I wish that we could expect people to do their jobs well, it, unfortunately, is not always accepted as a reasonable expectation. Beyond that, I think it was reasonable to expect that ticketing would not go as planned given that the unticketed masses would vastly outnumber the ticketed crowd according to all estimates. So, rule of the road would be that the unticketed folks would dictate things in the event of a security error or something not going according to plan. Chris Van Hollen disagrees with you (as does Sen. Feinstein). They issued the same number of tickets as 4 years ago, and they failed in processing people with tickets. |
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Jack
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 3,423
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Post by Jack on Jan 23, 2009 14:22:52 GMT -5
Ed, having a "liberal" position does not make one partisan. Unfortunately there is no compromise position on this subject- if Obama's decision to fund these groups is partisan, it is no more so than Bush's decision not to. |
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rosslynhoya
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 2,595
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Post by rosslynhoya on Jan 23, 2009 17:53:13 GMT -5
Ed, having a "liberal" position does not make one partisan. Unfortunately there is no compromise position on this subject- if Obama's decision to fund these groups is partisan, it is no more so than Bush's decision not to. The Mexico City Policy was originally a bipartisan triumph, but that was back before the Democrat Party purged pro-life politicians from its ranks. So yes, partisan now, partisan in 2001, and hell of partisan in 1993 when BJC first torpedoed the consensus. |
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Jan 23, 2009 21:31:54 GMT -5
Great thread with the recollections/observations. A couple thoughts and experiences of my own... I think it was reasonable to expect that the arrangements/plans that were made would not be executed perfectly. Not the least among the reasons for this is that the planners are human and they are dealing with human variables. My sense of this was only strengthened by the ever-changing estimates of crowd sizes in advance of the event. How can we start at 4 million and move to 2 million without much of an explanation. The effort beyond that to pinpoint things exactly appeared to be minimal (i.e. no analysis of 2.3 million vs. 2 million or 1.7 million vs. 2 million. One hundred thousand here or there makes a difference. While I wish that we could expect people to do their jobs well, it, unfortunately, is not always accepted as a reasonable expectation. Beyond that, I think it was reasonable to expect that ticketing would not go as planned given that the unticketed masses would vastly outnumber the ticketed crowd according to all estimates. So, rule of the road would be that the unticketed folks would dictate things in the event of a security error or something not going according to plan. Chris Van Hollen disagrees with you (as does Sen. Feinstein). They issued the same number of tickets as 4 years ago, and they failed in processing people with tickets. I am not arguing against the idea that the ticketing issue here is a major problem for which people should be held accountable. There are obviously Hill staffers, transition staffers, campaign staffers, and the like who missed out. My point, however, is a little bit different - that it was reasonable for a member of the public to expect, not necessarily accept, that there would be significant problems given the dynamics in play - ticketed and non-ticketed members of the public. Regardless, I could care less what Van Hollen and Feinstein have to say about it. Feinstein, for example, endorsed the Iraq War Resolution, one of the most poorly executed plans of this generation. |
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Post by strummer8526 on Jan 24, 2009 8:51:59 GMT -5
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HoyaNyr320
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 1,233
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Post by HoyaNyr320 on Jan 25, 2009 17:21:44 GMT -5
Considering how the 2008 Election inspired me to up my post count this year, I figured it would only be appropriate for my 500th post to be a simply belated:
CONGRATULATIONS PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
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