33 Comments

1. Lightnin' Hopkins:

Change. Hope. A hopeful belief in the “power of change,” etc; Heady stuff to be sure. When you’re The Messiah you can afford to be vague. The Omnipotent Master Over Space and Time is going to ride the media wave to glory just as far as it will go – wouldn’t want to break the spell, after all. Although he is just to the right of Dennis Kucinich he will keep his beliefs as light and airy as possible, even when pressed during the general election (if he is indeed the nominee).

Say what you will about President Bush – I’ve said it all, good and bad – but at least you knew what he stood for and could admire his sense of duty to the office and the country. A finely-tailored empty suit like Obama is unacceptable in a time of war, and quite frankly, hasn’t shown the slightest inkling that he understands the solemn magnitude of the responsibility he is campaigning to take over the reins of.

Feb 10, 2008 - 11:35 am 2. yag:

Here’s the part that worries me. He reminds me more and more of Jimmy Carter. Check out this old button…

http://www.campaignbuttons-etc.com/carter.htm

Leaders… For a change…

————–

I actually volunteered for Carter, to my eternal embarassment. I remember saying to people, Ford is nice, but Carter is for Change!

Feb 10, 2008 - 11:43 am 3. Barry Dauphin:

He believes in getting elected while saying as little as possible. Of course, once in office, he’d feel he has to do something. That’s trouble.

Feb 10, 2008 - 12:00 pm 4. Lem:

Obama is all inspiration and no perspiration.

Obama is to he’s ears what Anthony Robins is to his teeth.

I can described them to you, but I can’t get pass the noise to tell you what they are made of.

Actually I think Robins is more entertainingly complicated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpc-t-Uwv1I

Feb 10, 2008 - 12:06 pm 5. Lem:

You can’t trust anybody who struts.

Feb 10, 2008 - 12:32 pm 6. MacDuff:

Lem: “You can’t trust anybody who struts.”

….and when he’s in front an applauding crowd, he holds his head like he’s soaking in the adulation and he has a self righteous look on his face. I think that he’s starting to drink the “Messiah” kool-aid and it’s really creepy to watch.

Feb 10, 2008 - 12:55 pm 7. TerryeL:

Not long ago I was watching a speech Obama was giving and I was struck by the reaction of the audience. There was one young woman behind him who was weeping and wringing her hands. Before the speech was over she needed support from the woman beside her just to stay on her feet.

I watched that and I thought the man is like a cult leader, not a politician.

A lady told me he was the candidate she had been waiting for all of her life. He will put an end to war and poverty and division and blah blah blah.

So, I asked her what would he have done about Saddam Hussein and his psycho offspring. “Well, he certainly would not have gone to war or anything crazy like that”.

Fine, then what, I ask. What about the no fly zones, the cease fire agreements, the meetings in Afghanistan between Iraqi Intel people and AlQaida, the Iraqi Liberation Act, the continued intransigence of Saddam, the food for oil scandal..what would he have done in the real world about that?

She blinks, gets pissed and starts talking about change and peace and love and transcendence and blah blah blah.

There is something creepy about the whole thing.

Feb 10, 2008 - 2:12 pm 8. photoncourier.blogspot.com:

Obama reminds me of a certain kind of person sometimes encountered in business. This is the guy/gal who talks a lot about “excellence” and “passion” and “empowerment” and who knows a few strategic buzzwords, but isn’t too sure what the company makes, who it competes with, or who the customers are.

Feb 10, 2008 - 2:52 pm 9. Godzilla:

Yes, Change. When Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid tell Obama’s administration that the surge has failed, Obama will agree and pull out the troops. What does the Maha Rushie Nuclear Thinking Cap think about this? “Posh, Godzilla and your ilk, such a thing will NEVER happen! You people are starting to act like a bunch of mind-numbed robots! I thought I taught you better!”

Feb 10, 2008 - 2:59 pm 10. Barry Dauphin:

Maybe he should have played a president on the West Wing. He and Sorkin could have had some nice wrap up parties.

Feb 10, 2008 - 3:00 pm 11. Buddy Larsen:

Say what you will, folks, but remember, he’s not a Clinton. Let me re-phrase that: He’s not a Clinton.

Feb 10, 2008 - 3:13 pm 12. chuck:

True, Buddy, he’s not an armadillo either. But what, exactly, is he? Trouble comes in more than one form.

Feb 10, 2008 - 4:21 pm 13. Buddy Larsen:

True enough — but, first things first, right? If we can get the dixie mafia out of the national (& global) leadership, that’s a huge victory right there.

If BHO turns out to be between Marx & Lenin, at least he won’t be between Marx & Capone.

Feb 10, 2008 - 5:17 pm 14. MacDuff:

Buddy, don’t forget Hart Schaffner & Marx….as in empty.

Couldn’t resist that one….

Feb 10, 2008 - 7:29 pm 15. Buddy Larsen:

LOL — suits the topic!

Feb 10, 2008 - 9:30 pm 16. zefal:

I’m hoping he’s matter to hillary’s anti-matter. And they both collide and disintergrate creating enough heat to melt enough snow to flood out al gore’s basement.

He’s a socialist, just like hillary, without the ugly, narcissistic, corrupt mojo of the clintons.

It’s fun to see a clinton being knocked around by a “person of color”. People the clintons showed a lot of pretend empathy towards to advance their climb up the ladder of fame and fortune. They think they are owed to instead of owe them. You can see that belief ooze out of both of them.

Feb 11, 2008 - 1:02 am 17. Lem:

When things get complicated people like Obama do very well.

He taps into something primordial i think.

i should research this a little more.

Feb 11, 2008 - 2:29 am 18. TerryeL:

Yes, it is primordial. It is Mom telling you not to cry, everything will be all right. Mama loves you. Yes,she does.

Obama makes people see a light at the end of the tunnel. They like that. Problem is, we can’t just ignore the tunnel.

There has to be something real sooner or later. After all the guy is a politician, not Billy Graham.

Feb 11, 2008 - 3:57 am 19. dougf:

There has to be something real sooner or later. After all the guy is a politician, not Billy Graham.—Terrye

“In the long run we are all dead.”–JMK

“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people”— Misquotation attributed to PT Barnum

While there does have to be something ‘real’ eventually, that eventually is not necessarily BEFORE the election. What good, frankly, is its advent AFTER the election.

Obama leaves me cold. He intrigued me at first due to his seeming ‘honesty’, but he is a lightweight in every sense of the word and a little of the pulpit goes a long way with me. And he really is not all that ‘honest’. Merely careful. But I did say here ,way back in the day, that everyone had best hope he was not the candidate in 2008. He is just the type that appeals to the amorphous, almost mindless, mass that really is the nature of the electorate. We don’t see the mindless part in action very much in stable democracies, due to the nature of the candidates usually presented, but it’s always there. Waiting. Hoping. Lurking. Believing.

Guess we get to see it this year.

Pity.

That is the prime reason I want Huckabee on the Republican ticket. He is far better at this ‘game’, than Obama and can provide a viable counterbalance to Obama’s platitudes and still manage to remain likable and popular. But I don’t think McCain will choose him. He will seriously misread the objective situation and will be convinced that all those ‘real’ conservatives will come back into line. A great historical moment for reconstruction will be missed. And he will lose.

Pity.

Feb 11, 2008 - 7:18 am 20. In Vino Veritas:

Here is his policy doc (not that hard to find):

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf

Excerpt:

“Strong Safety Net for Family Farmers: Obama will fight for farm programs that provide family farmers with stability and predictability. Obama will implement a $250,000 payment limitation so that we help family farmers ñ not large corporate agribusiness. Obama will close the loopholes that allow mega farms to get around the limits by subdividing their operations into multiple paper corporations.”

In order to be intellectually honest, those who keep harping that he hasn’t been policy-specific should read this; let the debate on Obama be based on actual policy disagreements, not the canard that he has no policies to begin with.

Feb 11, 2008 - 10:18 am 21. Buddy Larsen:

That’s still pretty blue-sky, IVV.

What’s needed is a plan — & perhaps an admission that there’ll be an asset devaluation — to account for all the widows & orphans and 401ks that will be affected by the market ramifications of unspooling the government’s role in ag industrial development.

Feb 11, 2008 - 11:55 am 22. markus:

Sssshhh, don’t talk too loud. Democratic Party elites really believe that the candidate who threatened to bomb Pakistan would be a stronger candidate against McCain than Hillary.

And they have cover stories from the National Review and op-ed’s from people like Bill Kristol to back them up! Better to wait until the summer to disabuse them of their notions!

Feb 11, 2008 - 11:59 am 23. Buddy Larsen:

He definitely needs a foreign-policy Austin Goolsbee (search the name for more on BHO’s University of Chicago economic advisor/spokesman).

Feb 11, 2008 - 12:18 pm 24. TerryeL:

IVV:

I was in farming for years. That is the same promise every administration has made for decades. I will support the family farmer, not the big ugly corporate farmers blah blah blah.

Feb 11, 2008 - 2:05 pm 25. TerryeL:

markus:

I just can not figure out what his Iraq policy is, first he is going to boogy because the war is bad bad bad, the most horrible thing that ever happened to the United States, ever.

Then he says we might have to say.

Then he says we are out the door.

Then he says the C in C might have to “make adjustments”.

I always get the feeling that his followers imagine him going to Saddam back in 2003, Saddam falls madly in love with him…starts chanting Obama Obama Obama and immediately becomes a kind sweet charming old man who only wants peace on earth.

gag me.

Kind of the like the whole Darfur thing. We will stop the killing. How? Just stop it. Just stop it? yeah. How? Just tell them to cut it out. How? Just stop it that is all.

And on and on.

Feb 11, 2008 - 2:13 pm 26. TerryeL:

Captains Quarters has an interesting pic up from the Obama headquarters. It seems they have the Cuban flag with Che emblazoned across it, right up there for all to see. I saw a pic of the Democratic candidates standing in front a big flag at some function and the anthem was playing. Obama was the only one who did not have hand across heart.

Maybe he prefers another flag. Makes you wonder.

Feb 11, 2008 - 4:34 pm 27. markus:

TerryeL, anyone: are there any McCain supporters, Lieberman fans,conservatives, neocons, Wilsonian idealists, true liberals, zionist anti-islamofascists, or whatever you folks wish to call yourselves genuinely WORRIED about America electing Barack Obama as the next commander-in-chief, while Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi continue to lead Congress?

Aside from Roger, who confessed Obama scares him, I’m not hearing a lot of worry. Instead I’m seeing a lot of Republicans begging Dems to nominate Clinton, or talking about how refreshing and healthy and morally invigorating Obama would be for the polity if he were nominated instead. And as a Democrat, I’m wondering why.

Now I know I smoke too much crack, and I am very paranoid…but still, I think my hunch that these writers are being disingenuous remains correct. They know that Billary Hilldabeast is a sometimes formidable opponent, and they think (correctly in my view) that Mcain will open Obama up “like a soft peanut.”

Anyone here think McCain can lose to the junior Senator from Illinois? Cause as a Hillary supporter, I gotta say, he’s lookin’ like the nominee.

Feb 11, 2008 - 9:02 pm 28. TerryeL:

markus:

I don’t know if I worry about it or not, but I think Obama is a fraud, or something. I watch him strut up there with his 20/20 hindsight talking imperiously about how we will transform the war blah blah blah. But you will never hear a guy like Obama talk about rational, realistic alternatives. Never. After all, he has never really had to make the hard decisions.

For instance, if we had not invaded Iraq, would we ever have known the true state of Saddam’s plans via hidden weapons programs and missing stockpiles? No doubt if Bush could change certain things, he would {so would Bill Clinton}, but there is something creepy about the way Obama sails in and with a smug moral superiority starts to lecture us all on change. It is rather like the second wife saying that if the first wife had only understood that lovely man the marriage would have turned out so much better. Meanwhile the first wife, who put said man through medical school, is thinking …just you wait sweetheart.

I have never heard Obama speak in any detail about how he would have handled the Food for oil scam or the deteriating sanctions regime, or the fact that the Saudis wanted us out and thus an end to the no fly zones, or the refusal of Saddam to resolve the situation in any peaceful way.

I hear Obama preach about Darfur, but what does he intend to do? Send in troops? Give speeches? And if he was prepared to turn a genocidal madman like Saddam lose on his own people in spite of Saddam’s refusal to comply even with the humanitarian portions of the U.N. agreements…why strut and lecture on Darfur?

So, am I afraid of Obama becoming president? I am afraid that he will render the sacrifices of our military meaningless. I really don’t think that most Democrats at this point care about winning in Iraq, in fact I think they believe that it would be good for them politically if we lose. So, that bothers me. I also think that desire to lose is what it possible for a guy like Obama to challenge Hillary Clintont this way. I realize that most Democrats are not bothered by all this, because they gave up on winning the war or even caring if it was won about the same time they began to revise history and rewrite the 90’s.

After all, one would never know that it was Zinni who said that Saddam was our number one threat..or that it was the left leaning Guardian newspaper that wrote the story about Iraqi Intel having meetings with AlQaida…or that is was Bill Richardson giving interviews with prominent newspeople about their naming Iraqis in the indictment against AlQaida in the African embassy bombings.

No, lots of history to rewrite, lots of surrendering and pandering to do, lots of chanting mindlessly and rhythmically…Obama Obama Obama …

I am afraid that Hillary and a lot of other Democrats asked for this.

I can only hope that McCain can win the election.

Feb 12, 2008 - 4:11 am 29. TerryeL:

I should have said transform the world, not the war.

Feb 12, 2008 - 4:13 am 30. Buddy Larsen:

I can’t conjure up a feeling either way on which Dem would be easier (harder?) for McCain to beat. All I know is that the Clintonistas corrupt the political process–and even the people’s thought processes–on a very fundamental level, and that it would be a very good thing for us all, left and right, to be done with ‘em.

Feb 12, 2008 - 5:41 am 31. TerryeL:

Buddy:

Better the devil you know. They do not call Obama the most liberal guy in the Senate for nothing. Beneath all that uniter rhetoric is a Republican hating, American bashing, leftist who would make the Clintons look absolutely centrist in comparison.

Feb 12, 2008 - 8:23 am 32. Buddy Larsen:

That’s the critical knowledge gap, alright — is he still forming, evolving, toward the centrist ideal he preaches — or is all that just election-fog? Politics teaches, if nothing else, that cynicism will probably be justified. But only ‘probably’ — where what you get with the Clintonistas is ‘certainty’. I guess it’s like Bubba said — a ‘dice roll’.

Feb 12, 2008 - 10:18 am 33. TerryeL:

But Obama does not really preach centrist anything, he is an unabashed liberal.

Feb 12, 2008 - 1:55 pm

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