quote:Originally posted by AchillesHeel: Cant we all just agree that the most slant free news show on the air is The Daily Show?
I'll agree to this, yes they have a democrat slant but they're so flabergasted at democrat incompetance that they also make fun of them as well, they're fair in their criticism.
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Mal, thanks for the refresher on the tragic year of 09. Yes there were more attacks last year than in most.
I find it a bit dishonest to say that this is due to our election of President Obama. This idea is based on the assumption that these terrorists assumed Obama was weak and planned to attack that weakness, just as the argument that Afghanistan saw its worst year ever due to the appearance that President Obama would crumple.
A more detailed look at the attacks show this was not the case.
The attacks on synagogues have been uniformly crazy Americans of European and supposedly Christian upbringing. It has not been a Islamic attack on Judiaism. We can't blame that on President Obama's apparent lack of bloodthirsty instinct. We can possibly blame that on his race, as these nuts may have seen his election as the last straw of their race losing some paranoid dream.
The attack at Fort Hood was a deranged Muslim who was making his Jihadist plans before President Obama took office, and blamed the war in Iraq--the war started by a Cowboy, for pushing him over the edge. Again, not Obama's foreign policy.
The attack on the Recruiting Center I do not have enough information on.
And the attack from Yemen was launched because a few years ago we assumed we had already destroyed Al-Queda in Yemen with our cowboy tactics, so we quit worrying about them and focused on Iraq, then Afghanistan.
The increase in deaths in Afghanistan goes against your theory as well, since by the 3rd month of the Obama Presidency he was talking nicely, but INCREASING OUR TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN. He continued and indeed increased, drone attacks into Pakistan. He upped the ante in this war, while still trying to find ways of not converting more people in that area into the enemy.
Cowboys don't prevent violence, they react to it.
Terrorists love reactions. They love to instill them and to claim responsibility for them, no matter what they are.
While I see your point that comparing presidents Obama and Bush II is too easy for President Obama in domestic issues, your argument that we both need a more Cowboy type leader followed by, don't compare him to our last Cowboy type leader just isn't logical.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: Terrorists love reactions. They love to instill them and to claim responsibility for them, no matter what they are.
One unacknowledged point underlying Zakaria's thesis is that, for all the destructiveness of the "cowboy" (or Jacksonian to use Walter Russell Mead's formulation) approach, one of the things it successfully destroyed was al-Qaida's operational ability. The fact that instead of blowing up buildings and trains and US battle ships the group is reduced to poorly executed underpants bombings is largely due to the US (over)reaction to Sept. 11.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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We need a leader who is at least willing to use the words "Islamic Terror" and "War on Terror". The current administration prefers "Overseas Contingency Operations" and "Man-made disasters". The 911 commission report highlighted the failure in treating terrorists as criminals but this administration is doing just that.
Cowboys say it as it is. We need a leader who will stand up and say that America and the free world is going to hunt down and kill radical Jihadists wherever they are. Our current administration cares more about international opinion than the safety of the American people. If we captured Bin-Laden tomorrow, this administration would declare the war over. The criminal responsible would be in custody...it goes beyond that. If they captured Bin-Laden he would be given a lawyer and told he has a right to remain silent.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Malanthrop, dear god. Stop malanthroping up my thread. Find something else to do. I am already killing myself over the brain-dead state of politics. Why are you trying to kill me fastgwqth343'1vq6oi1'p34quc
He's trying to make up for past misdeeds.
Posts: 431 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: Our current administration cares more about international opinion than the safety of the American people.
No, it's that our current administration knows that the two are reasonably intertwined goals.
please stop telling us we need a cowboy for a president. We had one. he's going to be regarded historically as one of the worst we've ever had. Certainly not a pierce or a buchanan, but he's regarded by impartial scholars as damn near close.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: I think history will view the worst as a toss up between Carter and Obama.
That's because, yet again, you have no idea what you're talking about. Obama doesn't even have a legacy yet and will probably be a second-termer so it's astoundingly premature to be guessing whether he'll be viewed as a failure ex-post-facto (it would, in fact, be just as dumb as concluding Bush would end up being one of the most loathed presidents in history, only after his first year in office), and Carter's legacy already pales in comparison to Buchanan, Pierce, Fillmore, or Harding. hell, even according to surveys of historical and political science wonks, Carter can't even match up with Grant, Fillmore, or Coolidge or Hoover in terms of negatively judged legacy.
And if you tell me that you honestly believe that either Carter or Obama is worse than Buchanan or Harding, I will.. I don't know what I'll do yet. Probably just try to pistol-whip you with my empty liquor bottles before I slide off into the blissful unconsciousness I have yet to obtain.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Mal: why do you respect Gandhi? What about him do you respect?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: I think history will view the worst as a toss up between Carter and Obama. At least they've both been awarded Nobel Peace Prizes.
I respect Ghandi but I wouldn't put him in charge of our national defense.
Ghandi had plenty of advisors willing to act tough when the moment was needed.
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Obama will be a second termer? Seriously doubt that one...the Dems are likely to lose a Kennedy seat in Mass. If Coakly is -4 in Mass you are only scratching the surface of the conservative uprising. Obama won due to independents...look at the independent vote position lately? I predicted this in Hatrack months ago. The Dems will overreach and the conservative will take a day off of work to vote them out. The senate majority leader, Harry Reid, has been in office for decades and he is a double digit loser and has no chance of reelection. The true "Blue Dog" voters are seeing the light.
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: Obama will be a second termer? Seriously doubt that one...
Yes. I know. Because you have nothing approximating a careful study of voter trends and the popularity of Obama as verified versus current frontline G.O.P. prospects, and because you personally greatly desire Obama not to be a second-termer and you let that desire completely determine your 'gut feeling' about the upcoming election.
I mean, just a post ago, you were talking about how you think history will judge carter and obama as the worst presidents. You're lost in the woods in this one.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:When he wasn't calling the president a racist, portraying progressive leaders as vampires who can only be stopped by "driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers," or pushing the legitimacy of seceding from the country, Beck obsessively compared Democrats in Washington to Nazis and fascists and "the early days of Adolf Hitler." He wondered, "Is this where we're headed," while showing images of Hitler, Stalin, and Lenin; decoded the secret language of Marxists; and compared the government to "heroin pushers" who were "using smiley-faced fascism to grow the nanny state."
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