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| 11/22 |
| 2008/9/10-14 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:51124 Activity:nil |
9/10 McCain is morally unfit to be president
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/mccains-integri.html
\_ From the guy saying we should interview Palin's OB to find out if
Trig is really her baby?
\_ So you've got nothing to respond to his charges.
\_ No, just that everything that comes out of Sullivan's face
should be viewed with healthy skepticism. I'll look into it
when I have time.
\_ Translation: Sullivan is 100% right but I'm going to
stick my fingers in my ears and say LALALALALA I CAN'T
HEAR YOU.
\_ Obama fan desperation level red!
\_ Don't your ears hurt when you jam those fingers in so
deep.
\_ No, I hadn't read it. Now I have. Wow, what a loon. He
says that McCain lacks integrity because:
1) He didn't endorse Kerry in 2004
2) He didn't vote to outlaw tortore "as bad and worse
than the torture inflicted on him in Vietnam" (which
is a joke)
3) "MTV-style attacks on Obama's virtues"
4) He "thre caution to the wind and with no vetting"
picked Palin
This is a joke. Seriously
\_ Sullivan's a Republican who supported the war at
first and then later concluded that it was a bad
idea; he endorsed Kerry in 2004. McCain's failure to
take a stand against torture is viewed by many sane
people as a political capitulation. Your reading
comprehension is suspect on the third point. Palin
opposed everything that McCain has stood for until
he adopted the part line. What, of any of the things
above, does not point to a lack of integrity? Also,
which of these is crazy? Your disagreement is not a
valid psych diagnosis.
\_ My third point is a direct quote. Sullivan may
have been a conservative at some point, but he's
gone wildly off the rails.
\_ Your "direct quote" leaves out the charge of
slime that relates directly to the charge of
lack of integrity.
\_ This is retarded. Most of his critisisms, aside from the torture
one, are stronger against Obama than McCain.
\_ Huh? Is up down? What the hell are you talking about?
\_ He seems to think Obama also thinks "lipstick on a pig" is
calling Palin a piggy pig.
\_ No, McCain's being silly there, but Obama has also done
similar things. So, it's a wash.
\_ I see a stunning lack of examples.
\_ The "equality" argument is such horeshit. This is like
equating the entirety of the Iraq WMD travesty with
a stupid comment of Michael Moore's.
\_ You're right, Obama hinting that all of his opponents
are racists was much worse. I shouldn't have tried to
equate them.
\_ You're right, Obama's repeated hinting that all of his
opponents are racists was much worse. I shouldn't
have tried to equate them.
\_ Can you give ANY examples? Or are you just making
shit up?
\_ Obama keeps playing the race card, saying his
opponents will say "his name is funny" or "he's
black". The most recent example was in the last
week or so.
\_ So no, you can't.
\_ Oh for heaven's sakes, are you living in a
cave? Have you forgotten how to use google?
Here's an old one. (Easiest to find.)
http://csua.org/u/mbc
\_ Fuck you whomever deleted my
response to this.
\_ But of course it is okay that McCain says that
opponents of Palin are sexist.
\_ I guess you've missed out on the rather unsubtly
racist ads McCain is now running.
\_ In the 2000 primary, Bush supporters push-polled
that McCain had a secret black baby out of wed-
lock; these people weren't racists, they were
politically savvy-- and morally bankrupt. For
Obama to say that he expects his opponents to
make fun of his name and try to stir up fear by
reminding people that he's black is not an
accusation of racism; it's pulling a proven
tactic out into the open before it gets used
covertly. Getting back to the original point,
there is no grand total score of Good/Evil for
you to use to "balance" the two candidates on.
Take each case as it comes and evaluate it
given its importance to you. Various Voting
Poll sites have worked this out, and so can you.
\_ I do not understand why McCain is not world's biggest opponent of
torture. |
| 11/22 |
|
| andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/mccains-integri.html Quote For The Day McCain's Integrity 10 Sep 2008 01:40 pm For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as every sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign? And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him. On core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to pick between good and evil, he chose evil. When he knew that George W Bush's war in Iraq was a fiasco and catastrophe, and before Donald Rumsfeld quit, McCain endorsed George W Bush against his fellow Vietnam vet, John Kerry in 2004. By that decision, McCain lost any credibility that he can ever put country first. He put party first and his own career first ahead of what he knew was best for the country. And when the Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to condemn and end the torture regime of Bush and Cheney in 2006, McCain again had a clear choice between good and evil, and chose evil. He capitulated and enshrined torture as the policy of the United States, by allowing the CIA to use techniques as bad as and worse than the torture inflicted on him in Vietnam. He gave the war criminals in the White House retroactive immunity against the prosecution they so richly deserve. The enormity of this moral betrayal, this betrayal of his country's honor, has yet to sink in. And when he had the chance to engage in a real and substantive debate against the most talented politician of the next generation in a fall campaign where vital issues are at stake, what did McCain do? He began his general campaign with a series of grotesque, trivial and absurd MTV-style attacks on Obama's virtues and implied disgusting things about his opponent's patriotism. And then, because he could see he was going to lose, ten days ago, he threw caution to the wind and with no vetting whatsoever, picked a woman who, by her decision to endure her own eight-month pregnancy of a Down Syndrome child in public, that he was going to reignite the culture war as a last stand against Obama. That's all that is happening right now: a massive bump in the enthusiasm of the Christianist base. Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that the surge was integral to this country's national security would pick as his veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at the time. McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president. McCain's Integrity - not pigs or fish or lipstick - The Atlantic Excerpt: Andrew Sullivan writes: For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. Lies Beyond Even Bush Excerpt: Reagan picked up where Nixon left off, with no apologies. And then George W Bush was literally a corporate coup taking on democracy itself. Lies Beyond Even Bush Excerpt: Reagan picked up where Nixon left off, with no apologies. And then George W Bush was literally a corporate coup taking on democracy itself. What If All the King's Horses and All the King's Men/Can't Put McCain's Honor Together Again Excerpt: And it's not pretty, is it? Well, at least we know the measure of the man's desperation to be president, which seems quite strange given that he seems to be pulling ahead in the polls. Pigs And Lipstick * We are being asked to believe that Obama called Sarah Palin a pig. If the people making that accusation have half a brain they know it's not true. Why Trig Matters * I do respect someone who walks the walk of their ideals - even if their career is in full swing, even if there are dangers to the pregnancy, even if her own family is unfortunately lit up by the klieg-light of attention. In this ecision, Palin was both pro-choice and pro-life, which is where I come down on this issue. She made the choice herself - with all the possible consequences. |
| csua.org/u/mbc -> online.wsj.com/article/SB121423903202896929.html?mod=Best+of+the+Web+Today Fox News reports: "We know what kind of campaign they're going to run. They're going to try to make you afraid," Obama said at the fundraiser. The crowd of supporters cheered, and Obama added: "We know the strategy because they've already shown their cards. Ultimately I think the American people recognize that old stuff hasn't moved us forward. For one thing, note how Obama conflates the entirely legitimate concern over his inexperience with prejudice against his race or "funny name." If you vote against him because he's green, you might as well be voting against him because he's black. For another, Obama is baselessly accusing Republicans of racial prejudice, or at least of cynically pandering to racial prejudice. But by wording this "accusation" as a prediction, Obama is able to cast aspersions without needing any evidence to back them up. He implicitly ascribes to the GOP the view that voters are prejudiced against blacks, then calls on voters to prove they are not by voting for Obama. The fear of GOP racism also provides black voters an extra motive to get to the polls. Of course, if Obama is right that voters reject "that old stuff," then none of this should matter. You ought to be able to choose between Obama and McCain on their merits, irrespective of race. It is Obama himself who, by calling attention to his race in this way, is employing the "old stuff": trying to take advantage of white guilt and black fear. The Post suggests that there has been a backlash against the Obama candidacy in the form of "an increase in racist and white supremacist activity, mainly on the Internet": "I haven't seen this much anger in a long, long time," said Billy Roper, a 36-year-old who runs a group called White Revolution in Russellville, Ark. "Nothing has awakened normally complacent white Americans more than the prospect of America having an overtly nonwhite president." The Post, however, acknowledges that there is very little evidence for this claim: Such groups have historically inflated their influence for self-promotion and as an intimidation technique, and they refused to provide exact membership numbers or open their meetings to a reporter. Leaders acknowledged that their numbers remain very small--"the flat-globe society still has more people than us," Roper said. org, which "drew a few thousand visitors per day in 2002," now attracts "more than 40,000 unique users each day." "Roper says White Revolution receives about 10 new applicants each week, more than double the norm." "White supremacy groups have increased by nearly half since 2000, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center." Assuming that all these claims are accurate, they still do not add up to an anti-Obama backlash. The Stormfront and SPLC numbers show an increase in the past six and eight years, respectively--not in the past year and a half (since the beginning of Obama's campaign) or even the past four years (since Obama's debut on the national stage). his figures could have "doubled" from a tiny number, as Roper's did. To compensate for its lack of statistical evidence, the Post turns to "experts" to lend credibility to its claim of a white-supremacist surge: Experts said their claims reveal more than hyperbole this time. "The truth is, we're finding an explosion in these kinds of hateful sentiments on the Net, and it's a growing problem," said Deborah Lauter, civil rights director for the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors hate group activity. "There are probably thousands of Web sites that do this now. I couldn't even tell you how many are out there because it's growing so fast." org that if they all agree on something, it must be true, right? Thus the white supremacists and the "experts" who oppose them have a common interest in maximizing the perception of the former's influence. Lauter's claim that the white supremacists' growth has swamped the ADL's ability to quantify it is dubious for the same reason that the white supremacists' claims are: because it is both vague and self-serving. The notion of a white-supremacist backlash also is self-serving to the Post reporter, Eli Saslow, because "White Supremacists as Marginal as Ever" wouldn't be much of a story. When David Duke ran for governor of Louisiana in 1991, his opponent, Edwin Edwards, trounced him, as Louisianans took to heart the campaign slogan "Vote for the crook. For Obama, we can update this to "Vote for the greenhorn. Accountability Journalism We're DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED, the Associated Press reports: Is everything spinning out of control? Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism. The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country's sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance. The headline on this journalistic masterpiece--believe it or not--is "Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control." An AP-Ipsos poll finds that "a barrel-scraping 17 percent of people surveyed believe the country is moving in the right direction. That is the lowest reading since the survey began in 2003." And if you read down into the piece you'll find that there have actually been times in the past when things seemed to be going wrong: American University historian Allan J Lichtman notes that the US has endured comparable periods and worse, including the economic stagflation (stagnant growth combined with inflation) and Iran hostage crisis of 1980; the dawn of the Cold War, the Korean War and the hysterical hunts for domestic Communists in the late 1940s and early 1950s; "All those periods were followed by much more optimistic periods in which the American people had their confidence restored," he said. Each period also was followed by a change in the party controlling the White House. Hmm, you don't think the guys at AP are trying to tell us something, do you? "The chief of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said in remarks aired on Friday that he would resign if there was a military strike on Iran, warning that any such attack would turn the region into a fireball,' " Reuters reports from Dubai: "I don't believe that what I see in Iran today is a current, grave and urgent danger. If a military strike is carried out against Iran at this time ... it would make me unable to continue my work," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamad ElBaradei told Al Arabiya television in an interview. "If you do a military strike, it will mean that Iran, if it is not already making nuclear weapons, will launch a crash course to build nuclear weapons with the blessing of all Iranians, even those in the West." Isn't ElBaradei's job supposed to be to represent the international community in its effort to force Iran to comply with its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty? It seems instead he is acting as an advocate of Iran in an effort to do away the threat of military force--a threat without which it would be harder for ElBaradei to achieve his ostensible goal. Some would argue that ElBaradei's resignation would be an added benefit of a strike on Iran. Reliable Sources Yesterday the New York Times published a long story on the interrogation of terrorist detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in which the Times defied a request from the CIA not to publish the interrogator's name. For good measure, the Times also revealed the name of his current employer. editor's note" explaining its decision: The Central Intelligence Agency asked The New York Times not to publish the name of Deuce Martinez, an interrogator who questioned Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other high-level Al Qaeda prisoners, saying that to identify Mr Martinez would invade his privacy and put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassment from critics of the agency. After discussion with agency officials and a lawyer for Mr Martinez, the newspaper declined the request, noting that Mr Martinez had never worked under cover and that others involved in the campaign against Al Qaeda have been named in news stories and... |