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George Will: A Few Questions for Obama
Newsweek ^ | April 29th, 2008 | George Will

Posted on 04/28/2008 4:23:39 PM PDT by The_Republican

Senator, concerning the criteria by which you will nominate judges, you said: "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old." Such sensitivities might serve an admirable legislator, but what have they to do with judging? Should a judge side with whichever party in a controversy stirs his or her empathy? Is such personalization of the judicial function inimical to the rule of law?

• Voting against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts, you said: Deciding "truly difficult cases" should involve "one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy." Is that not essentially how Chief Justice Roger Taney decided the Dred Scott case? Should other factors—say, the language of the constitutional or statutory provision at issue—matter?

• You say, "The insurance companies, the drug companies, they're not going to give up their profits easily when it comes to health care." Why should they? Who will profit from making those industries unprofitable? When pharmaceutical companies have given up their profits, who will fund pharmaceutical innovations, without which there will be much preventable suffering and death? What other industries should "give up their profits"?

• ExxonMobil's 2007 profit of $40.6 billion annoys you. Do you know that its profit, relative to its revenue, was smaller than Microsoft's and many other corporations'? And that reducing ExxonMobil's profits will injure people who participate in mutual funds, index funds and pension funds that own 52 percent of the company?

(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: capitalism; georgewill; obama; socialism
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To: The_Republican
Obama's comments about Exxon show how clueless he truly is.

To address Exxon's profits by looking ONLY at the aggregate profit number is absolutely ridiculous. What about the size and scale of the company?

Would he feel better if Exxon was broken up into 20 companies (so you could then divide their total profit number by 20)?

Obama's ignorance on economic matters is astounding.

21 posted on 04/28/2008 5:12:54 PM PDT by stockstrader (Obama's "I HAVE AN EXCUSE" speech on race most certainly was "Eloquent, but Outrageous".)
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To: The_Republican
Obama must be channeling a 13 year old girl..
O.K.. and WHAT will he do about World Hunger?..
OH! and eliminating WAR?...
22 posted on 04/28/2008 5:14:57 PM PDT by hosepipe (CAUTION: This propaganda is laced with hyperbole....)
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To: IM2MAD
From the end of the article: But coming next, questions for John McCain.

I suspect that the one is coming after McCain.

23 posted on 04/28/2008 5:50:10 PM PDT by paudio (Michelle Obama: a Typical Black Woman)
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To: The_Republican
Image and video hosting by TinyPic

What, me worry? After all the "typical" voter doesn't read George Will.
24 posted on 04/28/2008 5:50:43 PM PDT by newheart (The Truth? You can't handle the Truth. But He can handle you.)
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To: kromike
It's only about the feeeeeewings...

This is pretty much the motif operandi of the liberal judges, forget the law, go with your feewings...

25 posted on 04/28/2008 7:08:57 PM PDT by Know et al (Everything I know I read in the newspaper and that's the reason for my ignorance. Will Rogers)
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To: InterceptPoint
It's only been five months. And given the following, I don't know why anyone would waste the time.

I've already read your link to RealClimate as well as a few other blogs that critique both the original paper and the RealClimate analysis.

The answer to your question is that only a peer reviewed paper in a legitimate technical journal will carry any weight with the the scientific community. That's just the way it is. This is a highly controversial topic and potentially very damaging to the the GW advocates position. There is no doubt that this is recognized by the GW community on both sides of the issue. So a failure by the advocates to publish a paper contradicting Douglass et al is very telling.

It is noteworthy also that the author of the RealClimate analysis is "group". Who is group? Why won't they sign their names to their own work? Why don't they publish their analysis? It seems to me that these are pretty important questions.

Personally I don't find the RealClimate critique nearly as persuasive as the Douglass paper and the critique has been picked apart pretty thoroughly by Cristy and others.

26 posted on 04/29/2008 5:53:22 AM PDT by InterceptPoint
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To: InterceptPoint

Ignore the above - posted to the wrong thread. Sorry about that.


27 posted on 04/29/2008 5:57:24 AM PDT by InterceptPoint
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