Posts Tagged ‘Obama’

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December 10, 2009

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

I have a nasty cold. I tried hard not to catch it last weekend, and put it off until this week it seems but it finally caught up with me. I really do just want to have my body thrown onto the plague cart; “Bring out your dead!” I’m way too arrogant and self centered to believe I’ve got anything like a “common” cold. It has to be something special, you know?
Anyways, I’m using every scientific nostrum I can lay hands on. Chicken soup, check. Zinc cough lozenges, check. Heavy doses of Vitamin C, check. Blow nose, wipe nose, cough, repeat. And repeat. And repeat. I’ve reached that place where I no longer can wipe my nose, I have to blot since I’ve rubbed my upper lip raw.

Blogblah

Blogblah

YUK! I took a shower but kept my hair dry, and never put on clothes Wednesday, just bummed around the house in my PJs and robe. Like many American men, I’m a real crybaby about being sick. I had to stop writing this post here to heat up some Theraflu powder, which I used to slug down another 1500 mg of Vitamin C. Oh, how yummy. ::snark::
***
I want to say a word here about the politics of the health care debate in Congress.
Yes, I know all the papers and blogs and Fox talking heads can’t quit bringing you the latest breathless commentary. It’s bull. I mean it’s bull if it is coming from Hannity on the right or Jane Hamshire at FireDogLake on the left.
Here’s why: (more…)

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December 2, 2009

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

shut up, he explained

shut up, he explained


Obama’s speech at West Point yesterday left me with nothing, really, but cognitive dissonance. A Nobel Peace Laureate wants to put 100,000 American troops into Afghanistan to kill brown people for peace. Right. No, wrong. Uhm…

Just about 40 years ago today, I think I was carrying a sign that read “Killing for peace is like f***ing for chastity”. Obama said this isn’t like Vietnam and maybe he’s right, but some things sure seem to be the same.

The only thing I know for sure is that my Red State Republican friends who tell me they don’t like this president because they are birthers or some other form of craziness are going to be told by me that anyone who doesn’t support my president in a time of war is an unpatriotic traitor. Been waiting to do that for a while.

Do we know yet whether the troops that are going to Kabul will be troops we are pulling out of Bagdhad? Do we have any iron-clad guarantees that the wall of troops we will put in Kandahar will be part of a Pakistani effort on the other side of the border?

Sure hope that Rep. David Obey, who proposed a war tax on the superrich to pay for this, holds the GOP feet to the fire on what they want to cut to pay for this, etc., so at least we have some exposure of Republican perfidy.

What does the real presidential power think? You know, Sen. Joe Lieberman. Has he told us how the world is shaped yet?

Obama mentioned that there will be support civilians also going to Kabul, but do we know how many and of what kind?

One thing that does seem to advance the ball from the Bush Administration is a clear committment by us to withdraw on some timeline from both Iraq and Afghanistan, I’m just not sure that the getting out part is as clear as the getting in deeper part.

I know this: when the enemy is stateless, attacking any nation is just an illusion. Somehow, the warlords in Waziristan, the Northwest Territories of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen and other “failed” states, all have to get the idea that it’s a bad idea to let Al Qaeda have a place to rest their heads. I don’t think it takes 100,000 Marines to get that idea across, but we seem too stupid and clumsy to figure that out.

Colbert seems similarly confused:

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
U.S. Army Chain of Command
www.colbertnation.com
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November 11, 2009

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Today, President Obama spoke at a memorial at Ft. Hood. Of those killed, wounded, and those who ran to help in the emergency, he said:

“We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes.”

Here is John Dickerson’s summary of Obama’s speech in Slate online:

It was a song of America’s values, sung by a man who has been questioned, since the Democratic primaries, for being, as Hillary Clinton’s strategist Mark Penn put it, “not fundamentally American.” During the campaign, he had to make television ads insisting he shared American values. As president, he has contended with opponents who compare him with Hitler because of his … health care plan. Today’s speech is unlikely to mollify his most ardent foes, and it won’t make health care reform any easier. But it should make it harder for anyone to question his patriotism.

Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic Online thought it was “Best Speech Obama’s Given Since … Maybe Ever”:

Today, at Ft. Hood. I guarantee: they’ll be teaching this one in rhetoric classes. It was that good. My gloss won’t do it justice. Yes, I’m having a Chris Matthews-chill-running-up-my-leg moment, but sometimes, the man, the moment and the words come together and meet the challenge. Obama had to lead a nation’s grieving; he had to try and address the thorny issues of Islam and terrorism; to be firm; to express the spirit of America, using familiar, comforting tropes in a way that didn’t sound trite

If you have not heard or read his 15 minute address, I believe it will be a speech quoted and read for decades to come. It brought tears to my eyes.

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October 11, 2009

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

Blogblah

Blogblah


Harry Truman integrated the armed forces with a stroke of the pen and Obama could do the same for gays in the military. Instead, he gave his 2007 campaign speech to the Human Rights Campaign dinner last night, once more promising he would do something great, but just not now, just not yet, wait some more.
The fierce urgency of the end of my projected second term, you might say.

* * *
In a column in today’s New York Times, Frank Rich writes about a topic that’s been really bothering me lately: why the hell are the discredited neocons — who have been consistently wrong for more than a decade about everything foreign policy — still on the Sunday talk shows?
When does Stephanopolous look William Kristol right in the eye and say: is this like when you said the Iraq war would be over in 6 weeks? Is this the same as when you told us we’d be greeted as liberators in Baghdad? Is there any part of the “robust” assertion of American military power you advocate that has actually succeeded in doing good for us?
And, yes, I would include Sen. McCain, who has a foreign policy that is based on nationalistic fighter pilot chutzpah and not any serious and in-depth study of global issues, and who, I will remind you, lost the presidential elections rather badly.
They aren’t foreign policy experts, they just play one on TV. (more…)

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October 10, 2009

Friday, October 9th, 2009

its-not-fascism
For some people, Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize will never be as good as the one Bush deserved after invading Iraq.
There was an incredible amount of commentary on the event in the punditocracy today. Look at Memorandum and be amazed. Josh Marshall gathered up the sleaziest and Andrew Sullivan looked for the most witty.
I Twittered a little bit about it, as you can read on the right hand column of my feed.
I had a personal reaction to news he won the prize: I felt like all of us had won it by turning our backs on the past four years of the neocons. It’s a big reason why I voted for him.
You had to know that his election with his proletarian background and Muslim name would make the world see us as more grown up and less like trigger happy cowboys. People who care about peace worldwide must have breathed a sigh of relief at his election. Think about it. He may not yet have ended the two wars he was handled, but he’s darn less likely to start any elective wars and that must seem like a blessing from Norway’s point of view. (more…)

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