Today's Debate

Parent Cafe
61

<p>How do you think we ended up with the Taliban or Osama bin-Laden anyway? Note: we paid them a LOT of $ and gave them LOTS of weapons because they were anti-Soviet. Without the help of the CIA, bin-Laden would never have gotten anywhere! </p>

<p>I didn’t see the “almost hitting her” or “invading her space.” I saw something else–which the CNN commentators mentioned. (I noticed it during the debate; the CNN commenators then mentioned it too.) Obama LISTENED to Hillary and looked at her when she spoke. (He’s gotten much better at doing this without telegraphing his exasperation than he was in earlier debates, but at times you can tell what he thinks. ) Hillary avoided eye contact with Obama until that “I am proud to be here with Senator Obama” handshake deal. The rest of the time she not only didn’t look at him, she went into what I think of as the “botox mode” --just frozen, until he said something she thought was going over too well with the audience. When he did, she did what my kid refers to as the "booble head doll nod. "</p>

<p>On the flip side, when Hillary answers a question, she looks at the camera, which is very effective. Obama still tends to look at the reporter who asked the question when he answers, instead of at the camera. </p>

<p>I don’t think anyone is “going to eat Obama for lunch.” I mean seriously, would you ever have predicted when this whole process began that anyone could give Hillary this good a race for the Democratic nomination?!!! He is winning the caucuses because he has put together an AMAZING grass roots organization. </p>

<p>And do read the Wikipeda article about him. (I know it’s not a recognized authority, but you can check what it says and it just has a good summary.)
He actually has done a remarkable number of things in his brief time in the Senate–in fact, I think he’s accomplished as much as if not more than Hillary did during the same years. </p>

<p>And, if Obama is the nominee, I think some conservatives may want to vote for him. That may sound nuts, but in terms of personal morality, give me Obama over McCain any day of the week. </p>

<p>No matter how you slice and dice it—this is a man who walked out on his crippled wife and 3 kids for a blonde 24 year old with POTS of $. Her trust fund is what enabled McCain to win his first political race. That’s not “anti-McCain nonsense”; it’s fact. Oh, McCain says now the marriage was “over”–but if you were around back then, you know that while they obviously had “problems,” he was NOT separated or divorced when he got involved with Cindy. </p>

<p>I really don’t care who he sleeps with–but conservatives do. The Keating 5 stuff is going to come back to haunt him. Lets not forget that CINDY had a real estate investment with Keating–which McCain claims he knew NOTHING about. (Her family insisted on a pre-nup, and McCain claimed he had no knowledge of any of her investments. Sure, Keating got Cindy involved without taking into account what her husband did as a living and Cindy never told her husband about the investment. However, when it comes to HIS finances, he couldn’t find the records for his trips with Keating because CINDY was the “family bookkeeper” and SHE couldn’t find the receipts! So much for separate finances! )</p>

<p>I think there is more dirt to find on the allegations that he did favors for the lobbyist. I do not care what their romantic involvement was–I do care when he starts writing letters to the FCC chairman for her clients. </p>

<p>And Cindy is a convicted felon–even if McCain managed to get a plea bargain that kept that conviction secret for a while. Again, his wife admits to having been addicted to pain killers for 3 years. She STOLE drugs from a charity. When an employee blew the whistle, her parents arranged an intervention. Both McCain and Cindy claim that she then called him in D.C. and told him that she was addicted and had to go into rehab and he was “stunned.” </p>

<p>Have you ever been around anyone with an addiction to prescription pain-killers? Please note: I am somewhat sympathetic to Cindy. I’ve suffered excruciating back pain myself; I can understand that she used the drugs for legitimate purposes and then developed a problem. (My own pain specialist refuses to prescribe Vicodin for back pain because he says that there’s too much of a risk of addiction when you have to take pain medication for a long time.) I AM criticizing McCain. I cannot FATHOM the idea that in THREE YEARS, he failed to notice that his wife was living on percocet and vicodin. IMO, either he had basically checked out of the marriage by then or he is lying. </p>

<p>Back to Hillary: she has REFUSED to release her tax returns unless and until she is the nominee. Just GREAT!! So if there’s anything in them that the Republicans can use to destroy her, we won’t ever find out about it unless she gets the nomination–in which case it will be too late! And she’s not going to be able to talk about the Keating 5, because there’s Whitewater, Travelgate, Refco, the Iranian oil deal, the refusal to release the names of the donors to the Clinton presidential library (a la McCain, she’s says it’s Bill’s decision and has “nothing to do with her.” Another bridge for sale! ) And the uranium oil deal hasn’t been thoroughly investigated either. But yeah, his using a couple of lines from Deval Patrick is horrible, but HER use of John Edwards’ words in her closing last night is a-okay! And have any of you see Huffington’s analysis? Hillary has used LOTS of other people’s words too. In fact, how much do you want to bet that Hillary didn’t personally dream up that line about “xerox” herself? </p>

<p>And Bill’s refusal to release any Clinton adminstration papers involving communcications between him and Hillary makes me queasy too. Her answer: That’s Bill, it’s his decision. Sure…</p>

<p>And on the war Obama may eat McCain for lunch…but the Shrub is trying to stop that from happening by trying to the US’s course of conduct in Iraq so that the war will be “over” by Election Day. He will declare “victory” just as he did with that phony stunt in a flight suit.</p>

62

<p>“If she looks threatened by Obama’s body language, how do expect her to stand up to national threats?”</p>

<p>I never said she looked threatened, I said I saw the bullying behavior in Obama. The whole reason the guys at my S’s school are starting to like Hillary is they think she’s getting beat up on, but that she CAN take it. They see her as tough and capable now, like McCain. They respect her now, whereas they didn’t before. High school boys recognize bully behavior when they see it.</p>

63

<p>zoosermom, fundingfather: Yes, at the core of the terrorist movement is a group of Islamic theologians, clerics, etc., who would like nothing more than a worldwide Islamic caliphate.</p>

<p>But they aren’t the ones doing the suicide bombing. They aren’t the ones carrying out the groundwork. They are the ones doing the organization, and providing the money. If you take away their easy access to willing sacrificial victims, their ability to commit terrorist acts drops away entirely. So that is where we should be focusing - how can we most effectively counteract the large numbers of gullible (young) Muslims who are falling under the sway of these evil men?</p>

<p>And I postulate that much of the reason so many are falling into this pit of vipers has to do with economic circumstances, and in some cases, directly because of US foreign interference, including propping up dictatorships.</p>

<p>So if we made nice to the ME, would the masterminds, the insane clerics who run these organizations, disappear? Certainly not. But the ground soldiers largely would, I think. And I think that is a better place to be than where we are now.</p>

64

<p>The only thing I noticed about body language was how Obama seems to be looking down his nose at Hillary all the time, and as he got more frustrated, his head tilted back more and it became more pronounced.</p>

<p>She totally gets bit*h faced when she gets frustrated.</p>

<p>They both started the pointy finger thing, like, “Let me interrupt here, because you are full of it.” I don’t think either one looks very good or presidential during the debates. I think Obama comes off so much better during a speech, he seems more relaxed and less like an arrogant jerk (I can’t stand the looking down the nose business). Hillary is just looking more and more desperate.</p>

65

<p>Thank you 1 of 42 for that post. Needless to say I agree. </p>

<p>I would also add that the more innocent muslims we kill, imprison and torture, the more young muslims fall under the sway of the Bin Ladens of this world.</p>

66

<p>“So if we made nice to the ME, would the masterminds, the insane clerics who run these organizations, disappear? Certainly not. But the ground soldiers largely would, I think. And I think that is a better place to be than where we are now.”
1of42, I do agree with you, believe it or not, but I do think there is a group of religious extremists who really are about the religion. Would it be a smaller number if we were able to get to the people and make nice? I think so, but how would you do that? The rulers of those countries really don’t want a free, prosperous population and we go back in that circular route to being unable to impose democracy. By the way, I very much enjoy “talking” with you.</p>

67

<p>

That is a nice theory that is not backed up by reality. Look at the at hijackers that killed 3,000 people on 9/11. These were not society’s cast-offs that for the want of a better job they decided to fly airplanes to attack innocent civillians. For the most part they were middle class men, some with college backgrounds. Likewise look at middle-class Americans who have fallen prey to the sick message of al Qaeda. </p>

<p>It is not an issue of poverty but one of religious zealotry. As 9/11 shows, it doesn’t take an army of such zealots to cause great death and destruction. Obama can speak with all the eloquence that he wants and gain all the respect from people around the world that he can, but it will not stop al Qaeda from plotting the deaths of anyone who stands in his way. The only way to stop this will be to aggresively obtain intelligence of upcoming plots. Obama wants to back off from this endeavor. Sadly, should he be elected, more Americans will die as a result of his naive thinking.</p>

68

<p>“I would also add that the more innocent muslims we kill, imprison and torture, the more young muslims fall under the sway of the Bin Ladens of this world.”</p>

<p>Don’t have to kill, imprison or torture them either, and they don’t have to be muslims. Just “ethnically cleanse” them as been done to 600,000 of them - MANY of them Christians - by General Betrayus between July and October. </p>

<p>Meanwhile, Obama and Hillary’s plans for the two plus million refugees created by the U.S. now living in Syria, Jordan, Iran, etc. are virtual non-plans, and I don’t think McCain even acknowledges that they exist.</p>

69

<p>kbaloney,
You have your facts wrong. Obama wants to prevent legislation that is intended to provide intelligence in a constitutional manner.</p>

70

<p>ZM: We don’t have to impose democracy. But we can do a lot to force those rulers to watch out for their own people. We choose instead to protect our own narrow interests of extracting as much oil as we can from these countries. Turns out the pursuit of those narrow interests is coming in the way of our broader interests. </p>

<p>Huckabee has coined a great term (unless he ‘plagiarized’ it from someone else): Bunker mentality.</p>

71

<p>Here’s the Clinton spin on her emotional conclusion. The emotio-meter must have indicated that she should stay on this theme this week. Who wants to bet that we see some tears at the next rally? </p>

<p>"Aides insisted the remark was not an admission that she believed she would lose the race but rather an attempt to refocus the campaign from the drama of the two compelling and historic candidates battling for the nomination to the struggles of ordinary voters.</p>

<p>“You know I made it very clear that this election is about all of you,” she said at a morning rally on a chilly street corner in Dallas Friday morning. “It’s about your futures, your families, your jobs.”</p>

<p>“For me,” she added a moment later, “it really is about what we can do together.”"</p>

<hr>

<p>:eek: Sounds a little bit like “YES WE CAN”. :confused: Xerox??</p>

72

<p>“ZM: We don’t have to impose democracy. But we can do a lot to force those rulers to watch out for their own people.”</p>

<p>I respectfully don’t think we can do that.</p>

73

<p>Mini, there are over 4 million refugees (2mil since the surge).</p>

<p>The UNHCR says around 2.2 million total abroad - the rest are “internally displaced people”. I expect that some of them, over the long term, will make Al-Qaeda in Iraq look like children in a playpen.</p>

74

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</p>

<p>Both…poverty makes religious zealotry more appealing. </p>

<p>Q. Why do some small boys in the ME atttend a “madrassah” (religious school that, in some countries, also introduces terrorist ideology as the curriculum proceeds)? </p>

<p>A. They are fed 3 meals per day there, unlike at home competing with siblings for scarce resouces. </p>

<p>It’s not just Madrassahs where negative propaganda poisons young minds. How do entire populations come to hate foreigners they’ve never met? A public school textbook found in the Palestinean territories, probably published elsewhere in the ME where there are resources to publish, included this Math word problem for primary grades: “If there are 5 Jews and I shoot 3, how many are left?” </p>

<p>This kind of math education plants seeds of hatred in a wider range of the young population, even those attending “secular” schools.</p>

<p>I wrote all of this just to nuance the discussion of how to undercut the development of “footsoldiers” for the terrorists.</p>

75

<p>kbaloney,</p>

<p>He was in the 1/3 minority who voted against the Protect America Act. Without this law we have less surveilance capability than we did even before 9/11. It used to be that only calls to someone in the US required a warrant. Now, even calls from such places as Pakistan to Afghanistan requires warrants. Hence, we have granted terrorists the same rights as US citizens. Sure makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?</p>

76

<p>I recognize manipulative behavior when I see it. Your son should save his sympathy–Hillary doesn’t need it, although she will call foul whenever she’s behind. Every kid I know backs Obama. I don’t, he’s way too left. But I’d rather see Obama than Clinton, Inc., in the White House. I’d say the serial sexual predator AKA Bill Clinton has a track record of being the biggest office bully around.
Why anyone would want these two back in power stuns me. Remember FALN? Remeber the other pardons? And where’s her tax returns?</p>

77

<p>andjoe,</p>

<p>Every kid doesn’t necessarily like Obama.</p>

<p>My kid liked Romney (and voted for him). He thinks Hillary and Obama and McCain are too liberal. ;)</p>

<p>Since he will be commissioned as an officer in the army (now leaning toward National Guard) after he graduates from college this spring, he speaks as a member of a somewhat unique group of young people. I know one thing. He does NOT want Hillary as Commander in Chief !</p>

<p>I don’t know who he will support in the General Election now. His away message says “Ronald Reagan for President”. :confused:</p>

78

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<p>Alas that is not true. Mine is a huge fan of Ron Paul.</p>

79

<p>“He was in the 1/3 minority who voted against the Protect America Act.”</p>

<p>If the President wants the Protect America Act he can have it anytime he wants. He just can’t create a NEW immunity that didn’t exist before.</p>

80

<p>My kids are Ron Paul fans also. </p>

<p>I would be too if I felt he had a chance to win, but we aren’t ready for a multi party system. I wish we did, because I sure don’t feel passionate about voting for any of the ones that are in the mix:(.</p>