- Michelle Obama
And if you refuse....there is always plan B.
Posted on 06/18/2008 9:29:57 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
By this point in the presidential campaign, the public knows that a charismatic Barack Obama wants sweeping "change." While the national media have often fallen hard for the Illinois senator's rhetoric -- MSNBC's Chris Matthews said he felt a "thrill going up my leg" during an Obama speech -- exactly what kind of change can Obama bring if he's elected in November?
FOREIGN POLICY
Take Obama's foreign-policy pronouncements, which promise a break with the unhappy past. Two doctrines are most prominent. One is to engage our enemies and be nicer to our allies. The other calls for leaving Iraq on a set timetable.
The problem with the first is that key allies like the conservative French, German and Italian governments -- unlike the days of rage in 2003 -- now embrace pretty much the same policies that we do. Britain and the European Union just called for imposing tougher sanctions on Iran, while both France and Britain promise to send more troops to Afghanistan.
In Feb. 2007, Sen. Obama called for American troops out of Iraq by March 2008. But in the last four months since that proposed final departure, violence is way down as the U.S. military and Iraqi army have stabilized much of the country.
The world in January 2009 will not be the same as it was in February 2007. So would a President Obama really engage Iranian President Ahmadinejad just as the Europeans are isolating him, or give up on Iraq when the American military may well gradually draw down in victory, not defeat?
ENERGY
Gas prices are soaring. Americans are frustrated (and a bit ashamed) that we continue to beg the Saudis to pump another half-million barrels a day on their soil and off their shores to ease global tight supplies, when we could pump much more than that in Alaska, off our coasts and on the continental shelf -- and thus save hundreds of billions of dollars.
Yet Sen. Obama's change probably wouldn't include more drilling; more nuclear power plants; or fuel extraction from tar sands, shale or coal. Instead, his strategy emphasizes more conservation; mass transit; and wind, solar and alternate green energy. All that is certainly wise and could be a winning combination by 2030, but right now it won't fill our tanks.
TAXES
Sen. Obama also wishes to raise trillions in new taxes by upping the capital gains margins, restoring inheritance taxes, raising the income rates on the upper brackets and lifting the income caps on Social Security payroll taxes. Such an old-fashioned soak-the-rich plan will please a strapped public tired of overpaid CEOs and Wall Street jet setting.
Yet forcing the affluent to pay even more won't necessarily reduce annual deficits of the last eight years or pay down the huge national debt -- not when Obama promises more vast entitlements in health care, education and housing and current aggregate federal revenues were increased by past tax cuts that spurred economic growth.
Sen. Obama promises a new style of politics that is issue-based, rather than attack-dog. But so far, he has campaigned in conventional fashion: He's tough on his opponents and as prone to overstatements and mischaracterizations as any other candidate.
The take-no-prisoners Moveon.org, which gave us the "General Betray Us" ads, is now an ally running third-party hit pieces on John McCain. Such outside help is customary in an election but seems inconsistent with Obama's disavowals of the hardball politics of the past.
Sen. Obama has promised a new dialogue on race and tolerance. His own impressive personal journey may make that possible. But his 20-year intimate relationship with the racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright suggests that for years he was heavily invested in the rather tired and predictable identity politics of grievance rather than a vocal advocate of novel racial transcendence.
Overall, Obama's announced policies are sounding pretty much the same old, same old once promised by candidates like George McGovern, Mike Dukakis, Walter Mondale, Al Gore and John Kerry. Of course, a return to the standard big-government nostrums of the past may well be what the angry voters want after 20 years of the Bushes and Clintons. But it is not a novel agenda, much less championed by a post-racial, post-political emissary.
So what are the Democrats thinking? That a mesmerizing, path-breaking African-American candidate -- coupled with Bush exhaustion -- will overcome past public skepticism of Northern presidential Democratic candidates, traditional liberal agendas and Obama's own relative lack of experience.
In other words, we should count on hope rather than change.
Change. Hope.
A tradesman spends more time as an apprentice than obama has in federal government. I sure as heck wouldn’t want someone with 143 days experience building my house.
- Michelle Obama
And if you refuse....there is always plan B.
mark
Here’s my “Plan B”: http://www.livinginthephilippines.com
Similarly, you would want the pilot of an airliner to know what all those little "thingies" do; and also you might want your heart surgeon to have a good decade experience.
Also, you might want your Commander-in-chief to know the difference between, say, a Chief Master Sergent, a Chief Petty Officer, and a Chief Warrant Officer, (and also between Navy and Marine lieutenants and captains.)
You might even want the President to know how many states comprise the United States, but perhaps that's asking too much.
Better than 50% chance..... Not even the leftist polls are saying that.
Intrade is...
JPOST.com - THE JERUSALEM POST: "Malik Obama says his brother will be good president for the Jews" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Barack Obama's half brother Malik said Thursday that if elected his brother will be a good president for the Jewish people, despite his Muslim background.") (June 12, 2008, 12:15) (Note: Article not found. -June 16, 2008)
Change?
What kind of chage?Most of the lunatic dems don’t know and don’t care...Some of them are hysterically ready to follow the flute player.
For Osbama “change” is a slogan,not a program,which hides his socialist-pacifist disastrous agenda
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/
NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
Pajamasmedia: http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/
Excellent idea.
Reporting for my slap sir. (” I would like to *itch slap every single one of them.”)
In California I had no choice - I had to register either as a Dem or Rep in the Primaries.
Wise smart suggestion as to what I should do next please.
>>>I have noticed in my lifetime that the population seems to be getting dumber by the decade. When I engage people in conversations, it seems that the average person knows less and less. What is wrong here I ask myself? Am I brighter or does it seem that every other person seems really dumb? These are the people who push the “D” button every election. Have any of you out there who have been around for more than 4 decades noticed this? I’m serious about the next question. Do most Americans really even deserve to live in this country? It is a brutal question to be sure. But do they?<<<
I’m in the middle of my fifth decade. I also teach English at a local high school. On top of that, I’ve been keeping a journal since I was in junior high, so I have access to my little brain as it was way back in the day.
In answer to your questions, here are my opinions.
There’s a reason why the Founders decided that one of the two qualifications for president is age. Only after I passed the age of 35 did I understand that my outlook about myself and the world had changed, in some ways dramatically.
I don’t think I’m unusual in my state of mind reflected in my journals. When I read my writing from the early 1970s, my focus was mostly girls, friends, various sports teams, and girls. Did I mention girls? This slowly matured into a shallow desire for sex and material accumulation. Did I mention sex? When I started my career (not the one I have now, by the way) most of my writing is about gaining prestige and position. I slowly learned about all sorts of things which no one really taught me along the way - balancing my budget, mortgages, car repair, and, yes, a lot of history, politics, and philosophy which I had brushed over in my pursuit of girls and sex.
Right now I have a job in which I’m in a room 90 minutes at a time with people between the ages of 14 and 18. They are mostly interested in themselves and their friends - even the gifted ones and the ones who have an uncanny understanding of history and politics. Many of them like Obama. Their reasons are shallow beyond words. They like Obama because he’s black. (I kid you not - it’s that explicit.) They like the way he talks. They think he’s hot. When these kids get to be my age, they’ll look back and shake their heads and wonder what the hell they were thinking, in the same way that I wonder why the hell I didn’t vote for Reagan in 1980 and instead pulled the lever for John Anderson. In retrospect, I was stupid. At the time, I’m sure, I could have come up with some sort of clever reason.
The vaudeville joke here is that youth is wasted on the young.
I also understand that there are people my own age who have decided, for whatever reasons, not to develop their own wisdom and knowledge over the years. Fortunately, we have a representative republic, and hopefully those representatives will exhibit that wisdom and knowledge.
People are people. You’ve changed. God bless you on life’s journey. Maybe your insight is a small nudge from your creator to lead others. Just a thought, bud.
Of course, Intrade also said he had a 95% chance of winning New Hampshire as late as the night before the primary.
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