Author Topic: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism  (Read 74205 times)

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sirs

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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #150 on: January 05, 2010, 11:16:53 AM »
To be honest Pooch, I think you may be confusing independent with a lack of principals.  Now I absoltuely respect his service and sacrifices to this country.  I'm not looking for a President willing to short change his principals.  I'm looking for a President, who I can have confidence in, to stick with his (or her) conservative pledges.  Just because one bucks with their party, doesn't automatically give them brownie points in my book.  I'm a conservative.  Worse, I'm a Christian Conservative. My president can buck the party line, all they want, so long as the decisions being made, in that bucking, have a principled conservative foundation.

No, I'm not looking for a Michael Savage to lead this country, and no, I don't think I'd have any problem with a Condi Rice as President either.  I did, at one time support a Colin Powell for president.  That would no longer be an option given his recent rhetoric and support of such a leftist, like Obama, to run this country,  But as I said before, I have no problem with a President saying "no" to the hard right.  McCain however, far too often supported leftist causes/legislation.  As much respect I may have for the man, that doesn't bode well for this country, and why Palin gave him a plausble shot at becoming President.  Alas, the economy started nose diving right at the end of the campaign, which took any chances he had down as well.
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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #151 on: January 05, 2010, 03:43:14 PM »
>>No, McCain lost because the Republican party was not behind him fully and the rest of the country had had enough of Republicans.<<

No, McCain lost because the media was successful in fooling enough people into believing Bush was Hitler. Conservatives on the other hand never liked McCain and only reluctantly voted for him because he put a fresh conservative face on the ticket.

>>Or just familiar with history.  Reagan wasn't elected because the people wanted a conservative in office.   He was elected because Carter was bitch-slapped by, in succession, inflation, the Ayatollah Khomeini and Ted Kennedy.<<

Of course they wanted a conservative, They elected one. they heard the conservative message and realized it was the best thi8ng for the country. The conservative message works every time it's tried. you'd have to be blind not to see that. History should teach you that Carter was certainly a bust however,  inflation, interest rates, and Khomeini were not seen as separate from Carter. We saw them as part and parcel to Carter and his ridiculous party. History shows us that Reagan brought a strong, positive message of renewal. that's what got him elected more that anything else. By the time 2012 comes around the country will certainly be in similar, or worse shape then Carter left it. The door will be wide open for a conservative to remind people how great America is and can be. that candidate could certainly be Palin, or someone not yet known to us.

Stray Pooch

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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #152 on: January 05, 2010, 09:25:24 PM »
>>No, McCain lost because the Republican party was not behind him fully and the rest of the country had had enough of Republicans.<<

No, McCain lost because the media was successful in fooling enough people into believing Bush was Hitler. Conservatives on the other hand never liked McCain and only reluctantly voted for him because he put a fresh conservative face on the ticket.

>>Or just familiar with history.  Reagan wasn't elected because the people wanted a conservative in office.   He was elected because Carter was bitch-slapped by, in succession, inflation, the Ayatollah Khomeini and Ted Kennedy.<<

Of course they wanted a conservative, They elected one. they heard the conservative message and realized it was the best thi8ng for the country. The conservative message works every time it's tried. you'd have to be blind not to see that. History should teach you that Carter was certainly a bust however,  inflation, interest rates, and Khomeini were not seen as separate from Carter. We saw them as part and parcel to Carter and his ridiculous party. History shows us that Reagan brought a strong, positive message of renewal. that's what got him elected more that anything else. By the time 2012 comes around the country will certainly be in similar, or worse shape then Carter left it. The door will be wide open for a conservative to remind people how great America is and can be. that candidate could certainly be Palin, or someone not yet known to us.


Then why wasn't Reagan elected in the several runs he made before?   It took the incompetence of a Jimmy Carter to get people to look at the conservatives again.  The entire decade of the seventies (I dont even want to think about the sixties) was a liberal love-fest.  You say they "wanted a conservative" and back that with "they elected one."  I guess that means America wanted a black President this year.  But I disagree.  America wanted a President that wasn't Republican and the center didn't trust HRC.  Obama was sexy.  He came along at the right moment.   The media had successfully portrayed Bush as Hitler, but Talk Radio had done pretty much the same for Hillary. 

Reagan was a conservative.  That's not why he was elected.  He had failed before, but all that talk about him being crazy enough to lead us into a war sounded pretty appealing after the Ayatollah.  It was, in the end, the kindest thing a Muslim fanatic ever did for America.
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BT

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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #153 on: January 05, 2010, 09:42:55 PM »
And yet Palin has a snowballs chance in hell of bouncing back?

That is not the pattern history presents.


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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #154 on: January 05, 2010, 09:59:20 PM »
To be honest Pooch, I think you may be confusing independent with a lack of principals.  Now I absoltuely respect his service and sacrifices to this country.  I'm not looking for a President willing to short change his principals.  I'm looking for a President, who I can have confidence in, to stick with his (or her) conservative pledges.  Just because one bucks with their party, doesn't automatically give them brownie points in my book.  I'm a conservative.  Worse, I'm a Christian Conservative. My president can buck the party line, all they want, so long as the decisions being made, in that bucking, have a principled conservative foundation.

And there's the problem.  I am not confusing Independence with a lack of principles.  You are confusing principles with conservatism.  John McCain IS a man who is willing to stand up for what he believes is right WHETHER OR NOT it comes from a conservative position.  Joe Lieberman is another man of principles, and so is Arlen Specter.   If you ask a Democrat they will claim I'm right about Spector and wrong about Lieberman - and a Republican would say just the opposite.  Yet the two are cut from the same cloth.  

Tim Kaine, here in Virginia, won my vote by recognizing the difference between a principled stand and an inability to compromise. Unfortunately, I won't vote for him again.  I've seen what national politics did to Mark Warner.  He is not, as Senator, anything like he was as one of the best governors this state ever had.  Kaine's burning ambition will not allow him to stay the Virginia Democrat he was.

I know an awful lot of highly principled men - Paul Tsongas comes to mind - who were flaming liberals.  I would never cast a vote for him, but I will always respect him.

There are true conservatives of great principle too.  Ronald Reagan stands out most in my mind.  

But there are many whose principles do not fall in one party or the other.  I have no problem with a President who compromises, reaches out to the oppositiion or sees (and applies) the merits of the opposite party.  I detest the current deliberate exclusion of the Republican party from Obama's "negotiations" about health care reform.  I have lost all respect for the man, and I did have some to start.  


No, I'm not looking for a Michael Savage to lead this country, and no, I don't think I'd have any problem with a Condi Rice as President either.  I did, at one time support a Colin Powell for president.  That would no longer be an option given his recent rhetoric and support of such a leftist, like Obama, to run this country,  But as I said before, I have no problem with a President saying "no" to the hard right.  McCain however, far too often supported leftist causes/legislation.  As much respect I may have for the man, that doesn't bode well for this country, and why Palin gave him a plausble shot at becoming President.  Alas, the economy started nose diving right at the end of the campaign, which took any chances he had down as well.

Well, that can hardly be discounted, but I don't think it would have made a difference.  I think Obama was preordained in 2004.  We just didn't know it at the time.  As for Colin Powell, I would support him immediately, even if he ran as a Democrat.  I have no problem with Powell distancing himself from the Bush administration or supporting this President.  Those are principled stands too.  And I respect Colin Powell as a military man a lot more than I do George W. Bush.  I never bought that "AWOL" nonsense but if I had to go to war under the leadership of a General, there isn't even a contest.

Bottom line, sirs, is that I do not think one has to be in lockstep with any party to have principles.  My principles say there should be no school prayer.  My principles say we are not - and were never meant to be - a Christian nation.  My principles also say we should be allowed to build manger scenes and crosses in public parks.  My principles say two men or two women should never be prohibited from making any contract they want together - and they also say that should exclude marriage.   My principles say the Constitution should be the only basis for law in this country - and that it is a living, changeable document that is subject -as all government should be - to the will of the people, be that right or wrong.  

My principles say that if the people of a state vote to change their constitution to make gay marriage unrecognized and a court overturns that, it is permissible to take up arms and forceably overthrow that government.  They also say that if the people vote to amend a constitution to allow gay marriage and a court overturns it, I would pick up my weapon and fight alongside the gays (though maybe not TOO close!)

Not all ideals are left or right, democrat or republican or libertarian.  I've seen the excess of the right and the left, and I have only to imagine (thank God) the excess of the libertarians.  I feel like Robert Ludlum:  Power concentrated in the hands of one person or group of persons scares me - not matter what their politics.  Someone who recognizes that he owes neither allegiance nor his vote to either side is my idea of an American.  
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Stray Pooch

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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #155 on: January 05, 2010, 10:02:23 PM »
And yet Palin has a snowballs chance in hell of bouncing back?

That is not the pattern history presents.



Anything's possible, BT.  I wouldn't cry if I had to eat crow where Palin is concerned.  (and just think of how pissed Hillary would be if she lost her destiny - lol!)  But at the risk of sounding like I'm "quayle-ing" her, Sarah Palin is no Ronald Reagan.

He was nowhere near as cute.
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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #156 on: January 05, 2010, 10:12:43 PM »
>>Then why wasn't Reagan elected in the several runs he made before? It took the incompetence of a Jimmy Carter to get people to look at the conservatives again.<<

You mentioned history, this would be a good place to study some. Of course Carter played a role in his own demise. He was an incompetent boob. However, the Conservative message was gaining ground long before Carter screwed things up. The momentum began with Goldwater and culminated in Ronald Reagan. The Conservative message is so popular that every time it’s tried, it wins.


>>The entire decade of the seventies (I don’t even want to think about the sixties) was a liberal love-fest.<<

Didn’t you mention Carter? Hardly a love-fest, in fact it was more of a hate-fest. Was Lyndon Johnson a liberal? Hardly. Ford? Nixon? A liberal favorite? I'm not sure you're thinking about the right decade.

>>You say they "wanted a conservative" and back that with "they elected one." I guess that means America wanted a black President this year.<<

You don’t think so? Combine the media attack on Bush with the love-fest for a Black man and you’ve got our first Black president. If they didn’t want a black guy, they could have elected a White woman. So I guess America prefers their socialist be of color.

>>But I disagree. America wanted a President that wasn't Republican and the center didn't trust HRC. Obama was sexy. He came along at the right moment. The media had successfully portrayed Bush as Hitler, but Talk Radio had done pretty much the same for Hillary.<<


Hell, I VOTED for Hillary in the primary so talk radio didn’t have much of effect on me. Down the stretch Conservatives would much rather have had Hillary get the nomination. At least Hillary isn’t a statist/communist.

>>Reagan was a conservative. That's not why he was elected.<<

Yes it was. His message got him elected. If Conservativism wasn’t appealing we would have gotten four more years of Jimma Carter.

Stray Pooch

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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #157 on: January 05, 2010, 10:38:44 PM »
>>Then why wasn't Reagan elected in the several runs he made before? It took the incompetence of a Jimmy Carter to get people to look at the conservatives again.<<

You mentioned history, this would be a good place to study some. Of course Carter played a role in his own demise. He was an incompetent boob. However, the Conservative message was gaining ground long before Carter screwed things up. The momentum began with Goldwater and culminated in Ronald Reagan. The Conservative message is so popular that every time it’s tried, it wins.

You mention Goldwater and then say "every time it's tried, it wins."  Bad form. 

>>The entire decade of the seventies (I don’t even want to think about the sixties) was a liberal love-fest.<<

Didn’t you mention Carter? Hardly a love-fest, in fact it was more of a hate-fest. Was Lyndon Johnson a liberal? Hardly. Ford? Nixon? A liberal favorite? I'm not sure you're thinking about the right decade.

Lyndon Johnson was elected - after replacing JFK - in 1964.  That's hardly the seventies - and not even well into the '60's as they played out.  He defeated a conservative and supported the civil rights bill and created the Great Society.  You're really calling him a non-liberal?  Maybe YOU don't remember that decade.  Nixon was probably the most liberal Republican president in my lifetime.  He backed away from a war we should have won (though in many ways that was bigger than him).  He opened ties with a communist regime and even, IIRC, nominated some ummm, less-than-conservative voices to the SCOTUS.  I wouldn't call him a liberal, but he was no arch-conservative either.  Ford was a non-entity. Carter was Carter.    But underlying all of that was the steady drumbeat of the Kennedy legacy, the Democrat-controlled congress, the anti-war movement, women's lib, the sexual revolution, the "ecology" movement and the start of "earth day."  1967 wasn't called the Summer of Love because God is love.  Roe vs. Wade didn't happen because conservatives controlled the court.  Madeline Murray O'hare wasn't successful because of the strength of the Christian right.

I don't need to study that history.  I lived through it.  True, for much of that time I wasn't quite old enough to get it - and years of retrospect have sharpened my understanding.  But I sure remember saying prayer in school one year and then not being allowed to the next.  I remember the anti-war protests and staying out of school for the "moritoriam."  I remember that stupid green, lower-case "e" looking ecology flag.  I made a kite with that symbol on it one year.  The string broke and it got stuck up in a tree in the park.  For weeks it shredded up there, making an unsightly mess in an otherwise lovely tree.  If only I had understood the irony at the time.

Yeah, the seventies were seriously liberal.  I suppose if you were deep enough in the south or something it might not have been as visible, but it was certainly there.


>>Reagan was a conservative. That's not why he was elected.<<

Yes it was. His message got him elected. If Conservativism wasn’t appealing we would have gotten four more years of Jimma Carter.



His message was appealing because it wasn't Carter.  Reagan  didn't get elected because the country was conservative again  He MADE America conservative again. 
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BT

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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #158 on: January 05, 2010, 11:08:44 PM »
Quote
But at the risk of sounding like I'm "quayle-ing" her, Sarah Palin is no Ronald Reagan.

No she is Sarah Palin, she doesn't need to be anyone other than who she is. And who she is is everyman in a skirt.

Do you really think she is stupid?

No more stupid than any other citizen who played a little sports in high school, took some time to get her degree, raised a family, got involved in the PTA, then a stint on City Council, then Mayor then a State Commission then a reform candidate for Governor.

You do realize that every step of the way she was vetted, tested and approved by those that mattered most, the voters.

And yet she doesn't have snowballs chance in hell because .... because she fluffed a media question, she was the target of a SNL spoof, she didn't graduate from an Ivy League College? Joy Behar doesn't like her?

 Maybe we need more people who know what aisle the Cheerios are on . Maybe we need more people who aren't embarrassed to be seen in a WalMart, who eat the food they grow or hunt or catch.

Maybe we need less Harvard and Yale and more Boise State and UGA. Maybe we need less elitism and more realism. Because we have had the law professors and the MBA's and the career politicians and how well has that served us?

Hmm? You happy with the shape we are in?

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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #159 on: January 06, 2010, 12:01:58 AM »
Quote
But at the risk of sounding like I'm "quayle-ing" her, Sarah Palin is no Ronald Reagan.

No she is Sarah Palin, she doesn't need to be anyone other than who she is. And who she is is everyman in a skirt.

Sounds like a gay dream . . . lol.   Every man can't be President, in spite of the slogan.



Do you really think she is stupid?


I've already said I don't believe that.  Furthermore, whether she is or not is  not relevent to my argument.


No more stupid than any other citizen who played a little sports in high school, took some time to get her degree, raised a family, got involved in the PTA, then a stint on City Council, then Mayor then a State Commission then a reform candidate for Governor.

You do realize that every step of the way she was vetted, tested and approved by those that mattered most, the voters.

Just like every serious candidate who ever lost a Presidential election - that would be roughly half.  The voters in Massachusetts chose Kerry and Kennedy repeatedly.  The nation never did.  Kennedy couldn't even get nominated by his own party.  Same (so far, at least) for Hillary Clinton.  What Alaskan voters did doesn't necessarily translate out to what a national audience will do.  I meant, "electorate" but I said "audience."  That was a pointed Freudian slip. 



And yet she doesn't have snowballs chance in hell because .... because she fluffed a media question, she was the target of a SNL spoof, she didn't graduate from an Ivy League College? Joy Behar doesn't like her?


Because she comes off like an amateur.  This is not the Amateur Hour - and, paradoxically, it IS American Idol.  (Nobody under 50 would get that point.)



 Maybe we need more people who know what aisle the Cheerios are on . Maybe we need more people who aren't embarrassed to be seen in a WalMart, who eat the food they grow or hunt or catch.


I don't think so.  Those are really appealing qualities in a friend.  They mean nothing when you are sitting across the table from a Putin or even a Reid or Pelosi.  I'm thinking we need people who understand current events, know how to handle themselves under pressure and appeal to more than  just partisans.  I'm not seeing that in Sarah.

Maybe we need less Harvard and Yale and more Boise State and UGA. Maybe we need less elitism and more realism. Because we have had the law professors and the MBA's and the career politicians and how well has that served us?



Better, over the last couple of centuries, than most "real" people like to admit.

Hmm? You happy with the shape we are in?


No.  I never have been.  That's part of the price of liberty - never being satisifed or having it all your own way.  OTOH I'm pretty happy the shape I myself am in (well, not physically or financially but those are my own doing).   I feel like, over five decades I have never been under a serious threat of major attack, complete loss of freedom, getting imprisoned or burned for what I believe or shot for posting my political opinion online.  Every time we have opted for the so-called "outsider" it has been a disaster.  I don't think I want Sarah Palin (at least just yet) being in charge of my freedoms, my country, my life.  I am NOT impressed with her.  I think she made the correct decision to quit the governorship, but I do not think that is a good decision of the sort I would want made by my President.   
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BT

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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #160 on: January 06, 2010, 12:17:02 AM »
Quote
Every time we have opted for the so-called "outsider" it has been a disaster.

Some examples please.


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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #161 on: January 06, 2010, 12:27:40 AM »
Quote
Every time we have opted for the so-called "outsider" it has been a disaster.

Some examples please.



Jimmy Carter
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BT

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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #162 on: January 06, 2010, 12:37:21 AM »
And not Reagan?

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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #163 on: January 06, 2010, 12:45:50 AM »
And not Reagan?


Reagan had been involved in National Politics for several years - I believe he ran twice for President - before he actually got elected.  He was not a new face.  Carter was.  After Watergate and the pardon any new face was welcome.
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Re: Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism
« Reply #164 on: January 06, 2010, 12:54:39 AM »
Reagan was no more a DC Insider than you or I. He ran unsuccessfully in 76 and then successfully in 80.

Clinton was an outsider too.

So we have two reasonably successful outsider administrations against one failed outsider administration.

I don't think your outsider bias withstands scrutiny.