Obama and "The Audacity of Vanity", or - Who IS this guy?

[tiff90]

<p>Too bad obama didn’t drive a tank
I like how obama revised his middle east strategy right before he left for his trip. He probably should have waited until he returned to announce his plan.</p>

[parent2noles]

<p>There were simply more of Obama’s actions and statements for McCain to criticize during the recent overseas Presidential tour. ;)</p>

<p>I like how Senator Obama thought it was unseemly to visit wounded and injured American soldiers in Germany but thought it fine to meet with foreign leaders before he is elected.</p>

[bz2010]

<p>I’m currently reading this muli-part article about Obama:</p>

<p>[Curtain</a> Time For Barack Obama - Part I By Evelyn Pringle](<a href=“http://www.countercurrents.org/pringle150508.htm]Curtain”>Curtain Time For Barack Obama - Part I By Evelyn Pringle)</p>

<p>It’s a long, convoluted & very detailed investigation. Doesn’t get too interesting until Part II, but it may be worthwhile reading in order to understand our candidates & who they really are.</p>

<p>Here’s one interesting paragraph:</p>

<p>

After Rezko was indicted in October 2006, Obama claimed Rezko only raised $50,000 or $60,000 over his political career. This is the story he gave in the media for more than a year. But the total amount revealed during interviews with the Chicago Sun-Times and Tribune on March 14, 2008, added up to a quarter million.</p>

<p>Several of the people who led Obama’s corrupt finance committee for the US senate race with Rezko, and collected all the contributions from the people involved in the pay-to-pay schemes, are now running the show for his presidential campaign.

</p>

[Newjack88]

<p>

I like how obama revised his middle east strategy right before he left for his trip. He probably should have waited until he returned to announce his plan.

</p>

<p>That’s simply not true. Cute try though.</p>

<p>

I like how Senator Obama thought it was unseemly to visit injured American soldiers in Germany but thought it fine to meet with foreign leaders before he is elected.

</p>

<p>Another cute try. Obama’s not stupid. In my opinion, he would have crossed the line had he used a hospital as a campaigning venue. Besides Obama visited the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.</p>

<p>

“We learned from the Pentagon last night that the visit would be viewed instead as a campaign event,” the adviser, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, said in a statement. “Senator Obama did not want to have a trip to see our wounded warriors perveived as a campaign event when his visit was to show his appreciation for our troops and decided instead not to go.”

</p>

<p>[Obama</a> scraps visit to wounded US troops in Germany | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle](<a href=“http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/5906189.html]Obama”>http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/5906189.html)</p>

<p>Also, look at one of his surrogates said:</p>

<p>

“I noticed that Obama had plenty of time to shoot hoops … but he didn’t have the time to stop by (the Ramstein base),” he told FOX News.

</p>

<p>Now they’re going to rag on Obama for accepting a soldier’s request to have a 3-point shooting contest?</p>

[momof2inca]

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/us/politics/25mccain.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/us/politics/25mccain.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>

“McCain is having a disastrous week,” said Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist who led Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign this year. “It would have been better if he had just kept a low profile and stayed out of the limelight. He got dragged into making a lot of stupid comments about Obama, and there’s been this tremendous contrast with the visuals, which is what a lot of people pay attention to.”</p>

<p>Campaign advisers to Mr. McCain say that the mood is not good at headquarters in Arlington, Va., and that the week got off to a bad start when Mr. McCain was photographed in a golf cart with the 84-year-old former President George Bush in the resort town of Kennebunkport, Me. It was the same day that pictures of Mr. Obama in sleek sunglasses alongside Gen. David H. Petraeus in a helicopter in Iraq were beamed all over the world

</p>

[Newjack88]

<p>BZ:</p>

<p>Countercurrents Article Submission Policy:</p>

<p>

Countercurrents.org welcome articles from writers, activists, journalists and our readers who have no prior experience in writing, on topics that we deal with regularly or on topics that you think need a wider circulation. We are most likely to publish those articles which are well-written, concise, offer a unique progressive perspective and have appeal to national and international readers.

</p>

<p>

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</p>

<p>Hmmm…?</p>

[bz2010]

<p>He could’ve gone w/out media. </p>

<p>And I read that the military were quite prepared for him, even planning to have their own photogs present.</p>

<p>If he really cared about visiting the troops, it could’ve been accomplished & he would’ve garnered much respect if he HAD done it privately.</p>

[bz2010]

<p>NJ - So what? Did you even look at the article? It’s FULL of info that could be easily disputed if necessary.</p>

<p>The author, Evelyn Pringle, is an “investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in government and corporate America”. She has also written about Bush & “The Money Trail in Iraq”. Pretty objective & credible it seems.</p>

[parent2noles]

<p>So Senator Obama should act as if he’s President of the US in terms of sharing tea with heads of state on a campaign junket, but visiting wounded members of our armed forces still afield is abusive? </p>

<p>Maybe he could have switched back to Senator mode for a few minutes to comfort his constituents? Even in private? No?</p>

<p>See, this is what I find quite unbecoming of the Senator from Illinois - he’s apparently such a politician he only cares about getting elected, not comforting the very people who permit such behavior. McCain was correct when he said about Obama that Obama would prefer to “lose a war in order to win an election”. :(</p>

<p>Even President Bush (we can call him “President” since he won two actual presidential elections, right?) gave up golf out of respect for the sacrifice of our troops.</p>

[calmom]

<p>McCain was meeting with foreign leaders when he traveled to Colombia and Canada, and he met with many of the same leaders when he traveled to the mideast in March.
See: [Peripatetic</a> McCain takes campaign abroad - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/07/03/peripatetic_mccain_takes_campaign_abroad/]Peripatetic”>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/07/03/peripatetic_mccain_takes_campaign_abroad/)</p>

<p>[McCain</a> in Jerusalem - March 13, 2008 - The New York Sun](<a href=“http://www.nysun.com/editorials/mccain-in-jerusalem/72881/]McCain”>http://www.nysun.com/editorials/mccain-in-jerusalem/72881/)</p>

<p>…</p>

<p>I know that its hard for you guys to keep all your right-wing talking points straight when Fox news keeps coming up with new ones … but it really isn’t convincing when you attack Obama for doing the same thing that your candidate has already been doing.</p>

<p>…</p>

<p>The damned-if-he-does, damned-if-he-doesn’t strategy of the GOP is pretty obvious right now. If Obama had ended his trip with a visit to the military hospital, you’d be ranting about how crass it was for him to use injured soldiers as a backdrop for his campaign.</p>

<p>Despite the mock-hysteria of the right, Obama has in fact visited wounded soldiers, and also has been consistent about avoiding making a big scene over it. See: [url=<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost]Barack</a> Obama Quietly Visits Wounded War Veterans<a href=“at%20Walter%20Reed,%20about%203%20weeks%20ago”>/url</a></p>

[BCEagle91]

<p>You guys seem to be talking past each other with your candidates.</p>

[StickerShock]

<p>“He ventured Forth to Bring Light to the World”</p>

<p>[He</a> ventured forth to bring light to the world | Gerard Baker - Times Online](<a href=“http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article4392846.ece]He”>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article4392846.ece)</p>

[mammall]

<p>^ StickerShock - How hilarious . . . but also fundamentally depressing.</p>

[parent2noles]

<p>^Great find! </p>

<p>Charles Krauthammer joked the other day that Pope (nee Senator) Obama would be holding Mass in Germany for the adoring throngs. (oops, except wounded US soldiers - that would be abusive…)</p>

<p>Excerpted from the above link…</p>

<p>The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

*And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.</p>

<p>From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet. *</p>

[StickerShock]

<p>

^Great find!

</p>

<p>Don’t tell Kluge, but I found it on Drudge.</p>

<p>I do love the image of the network anchors waving palm fronds & cheering Hosanna! If I were skilled in photoshop, I’d create a great image.</p>

[parent2noles]

<p>Yes…and President Kennedy (we call him “President” since he actually won a presidential election) almost caused WWIII because he figured the Soviets were ignorant fools whom he could persuade through the magic of his personally delivered foreign policy rhetoric.</p>

<p>I can hardly wait.</p>

[mapesy]

<p>calmon, Thought you would be interested in these two articles that give some insight into Maliki’s recent moves:</p>

<p>

Maliki’s endorsement of Obama’s withdrawal plan is probably worth all of his trade union, women’s organizations and Democratic governors’ endorsements together. And it is hardly surprising. Maliki faces growing pressure in the run-up to this fall’s (or, more likely, next year’s) Iraqi elections to come out against the despised U.S. occupation that in fact maintains him in power, and he was desperately seeking a way to juggle those realities. Endorsing Obama’s plan allowed Maliki to call for “an end to occupation” even though the last thing he wants would be an actual end to the U.S. troop presence. Maliki, unlike too many U.S. supporters of Obama, certainly knew that Obama’s plan to withdraw troops over 16 months would leave behind somewhere between 35,000 and 80,000 U.S. occupation troops (his advisers say 50,000) in Iraq for an indefinite period, to carry out a wide range of military tasks including training the Iraqi security forces and unspecified counter-insurgency operations.</p>

<p>[Phyllis</a> Bennis - US strategy in Middle East under new pressure: talks, at least about talking, take hold - Transnational Institute](<a href=“http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=18534]Phyllis”>http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=18534)

</p>

<p>The following article discusses Maliki’s weaknesses, the threats he faces, and the fact that many Iraqis consider him a puppet of the US government. Maliki would undoubtedly be removed from office if the US withdraws all troops (recently, there have been rumors of a coup.) And who do you think would take his place? A pro-Iranian, I presume. The US can’t have that.</p>

<p>

Said a Sadrist at the meeting in Syria: “Maliki is an agent for the Americans and the occupation. He and his government are only there because of the Americans and if the Americans left they know they would be kicked out of office.”</p>

<p>[Maliki’s</a> Balancing Act](<a href=“http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/336962/maliki_s_balancing_act]Maliki’s”>http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/336962/maliki_s_balancing_act)</p>

<p>

</p>

[calmom]

<p>

And who do you think would take his place? A pro-Iranian, I presume. The US can’t have that.

That’s the situation that Bush created when he decided to topple Hussein and end Sunni rule of Iraq. A majority-ruled, elected government in Iraq will invariably be Shiite and therefore sympathetic to Iran. Which, by the way, is the reason that Bush #41 opted to leave Saddam in power.</p>

[ilsa_belter]

<p>[End</a> of the Affair](<a href=“http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=6e9f4a42-9540-4d99-aba2-25adc276c25d]End”>http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=6e9f4a42-9540-4d99-aba2-25adc276c25d)</p>

<p>“The End of the Affair”</p>

<p>It appears Andrea Mitchell is not the only journalist distressed about Senator Obama’s attempt at control:</p>

<p>“Reporters are grumbling more and more that the [Obama]campaign is acting like the Prom Queen. They gripe that it is “arrogant,” and “controlling.””</p>

<p>“I had never had an experience like this…I thought they crossed the line. If you have a problem with a story I write, call me first. I’m a big boy. I can handle it. But they never called. They acted like I’m a political opponent.”</p>

<p>"Reporters who cover Obama these days grouse that Obama’s flacks shroud the campaign in secrecy and provide little to no access. “They’re more disciplined than Bush people. There was the idea of being transparent but they’re not. They’re total tightwads with information.”</p>

<p>“They’re an arrogant operation. Young and arrogant. They don’t believe in transparency with their own campaign.”</p>

<p>“They’re terrified of people poking around Obama’s life. The whole Obama narrative is built around the narrative that Obama and David Axelrod built, and, like all stories, it’s not entirely true.”</p>

<p>“Another reporter notes that during the last year, Obama’s old friends and Harvard classmates were requested not to talk to the press without permission.”</p>

<p>Why am I not surprised by this article?</p>

[mapesy]

<p>

That’s the situation that Bush created when he decided to topple Hussein and end Sunni rule of Iraq. A majority-ruled, elected government in Iraq will invariably be Shiite and therefore sympathetic to Iran.

</p>

<p>Unfortunately, so true.</p>