Meet your new thread, same as the old thread.

[SlaveNoMore]

sebastian_dangerfield
I like Barrack Obama because of the whole bunch of them he's the only human who has a chance of being elected. He's actually the person he is on the stump, which is amazing. I don't agree with a lot of his policies, but he is centrist if you read between the lines, more so than Hillary would be in office, I think.

You, Ty, Gatti, GGG, Hank, Spanky, myself - hell, the guy who spent that night at a Holiday Inn - have more foreign policy knowledge than Obama.

And he's a wish-washy, feel-good-but-say-nothing-empty-shirt on the stump. Is that the person you think he is, because that is hardly an endorsement?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
McCain isn't leading because people are tired of seeing him run, which is sad in this election, since he is one of the best candidates in either party.

I think McCain is well-positioned for a comeback. Giuliani, Romney and Huckabee are all so flawed that it's hard to imagine any of them winning. Thompson may be clinically dead. McCain has the stature the rest of them lack.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I think McCain is well-positioned for a comeback. Giuliani, Romney and Huckabee are all so flawed that it's hard to imagine any of them winning. Thompson may be clinically dead. McCain has the stature the rest of them lack.

McCain would win the general election. The last two would not have been close with him as the R.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
You, Ty, Gatti, GGG, Hank, Spanky, myself - hell, the guy who spent that night at a Holiday Inn - have more foreign policy knowledge than Obama.

Obama has good judgment, and on foreign policy he seems to have surrounded himself with good people, unlike -- e.g. -- Hillary.

And he's a wish-washy, feel-good-but-say-nothing-empty-shirt on the stump. Is that the person you think he is, because that is hardly an endorsement?

It sounds like you're kinda into him, actually.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
It sounds like you're kinda into him, actually.

Of course. Because Oprah is my proxy.

[Diane_Keaton]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Obama has good judgment, and on foreign policy he seems to have surrounded himself with good people

Who are the persons surrounding Obama who have foreign policy positions you know well and like well?

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by Diane_Keaton
Who are the persons surrounding Obama who have foreign policy positions you know well and like well?

Not "Not Ty" Bob likes the fact that Zbig Brezinski and Tony Lake are on Team Obama.

AoN, Slave should appreciate him because Sandy Berger has been playing the heavy, telling members of the Democratic foreign policy establishment that they had better not associate with anyone other than Her Imperial Majesty.

[Replaced_Texan]

This is fucked up.

Ted Poe is a Republican Member of Congress from these parts. He's a former district judge, and he used to be a fan of "creative" sentences, like making people wear signs in front of the stores they stole from and having abusers apologize to their wives on the steps of City Hall. He also triedo get video cameras into the deliberations of a capital murder trial, but that didn't fly. He's the colorful sort of Texan everyone loves, and if it weren't for his Republicanism, and the attendant misguided notions that go with that affliction, I'd be a bigger fan than I already am.* Alas, no one is perfect.

Anyhow, seems like being a Republican member of Congress isn't good enough when taking on the State Department in Iraq. A constituent's daughter had the misfortune of being gang raped by her coworkers. When she went to her employer, KBR, about it, they told her to keep her trap shut, threatened her job if she sought medical treatment, and to show they meant business, they locked he in a shipping container without food or water, under armed guard, for over 24 hours. Someone took pity on her and got her a cell phone. She called dad. Dad called Representative Poe, and after he made some calls, she had to be rescued by agents from the US Embassy in Baghdad. She had to be rescued from the custody of a US company.

Two years later, no criminal charges have been filed, and the news article above says they can't find anyone that's actually investigating the case. It's pretty clear, similar to the Blackwater situation, that there AREN'T going to be charges filed. DOJ and State aren't talking to Poe about it.

In the meantime, she's suing the shit out of Haliburton, which owned KBR at the time. Haliburton says me no Alamo, and the whole thing is just frustrating as fucking hell.

An American woman was raped by her coworkers, threatened with retaliation by her American employer, and then held in custody, and somehow or another there's nothing criminal about it.

Pisses me off. Especially because there's now nothing in the world preventing assholes like those who work at KBR from doing that shit again. Hell, this sort of thing encourages them.



*I suppose that's Republicans felt similarly about Charlie Wilson. I note that I, of course, was a fan of Charlie Wilson long before the book came out. Then again, I hated Bush well before the 2000 election. Call me the Cassandra of Texas politicians.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Diane_Keaton
Who are the persons surrounding Obama who have foreign policy positions you know well and like well?

See here and here for some names. But for me it's less the specific individuals, and more the sense I have that Clinton has -- for whatever reason, though I could speculate -- surrounded herself with the Democratic foreign policy establishment which got the Iraq war wrong and often seems more interested in proving its seriousness by distinguishing itself from the left. Clinton and her advisors are cautious, doctrinaire, and hawkish, in comparison to Obama. When Democrats debate foreign policy, there are two debates going on. One is for the people who vote in primaries, whom many Democrats -- Hillary foremost among them -- apparently don't think vote on foreign policy concerns. The other is for the foreign policy elite. Hillary seems to working hard to blur the differences between herself and others in the former debate, while signalling to the audience in the second that she is one of them. Obama, in contrast, doesn't seem to care what the Democratic foreign-policy elite consensus is, and for that I give him high marks.

[SlaveNoMore]

Replaced_Texan
Anyhow, seems like being a Republican member of Congress isn't good enough when taking on the State Department in Iraq.

I've been saying this for years - the GOP, from Bush on down, have no control whatsoever over State (or the CIA, for that matter). This is nothing new at all.

My question would be why hasnt the DOJ responded properly?

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
You, Ty, Gatti, GGG, Hank, Spanky, myself - hell, the guy who spent that night at a Holiday Inn - have more foreign policy knowledge than Obama.

Si expressio unius est exclusio alterius, fuck you.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
You, Ty, Gatti, GGG, Hank, Spanky, myself - hell, the guy who spent that night at a Holiday Inn - have more foreign policy knowledge than Obama.

And he's a wish-washy, feel-good-but-say-nothing-empty-shirt on the stump. Is that the person you think he is, because that is hardly an endorsement?

I agree that he's a lightweight on many issues, but among the current crop, he and McCain stand as the only two people I'd ever feel comfortable allowing around the good silverware. My admiration for the man isn't tied to any belief he'd be a great leader.

[SlaveNoMore]

Atticus Grinch
Si expressio unius est exclusio alterius, fuck you.

Mea culpa

Your extensive knowledge of the fall of Constantinople and the rise of the Turk will most definitely come in handy.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I think McCain is well-positioned for a comeback. Giuliani, Romney and Huckabee are all so flawed that it's hard to imagine any of them winning. Thompson may be clinically dead. McCain has the stature the rest of them lack.

Giuliani can beat Hillary. He has the claws to take her on which McCain lacks.

I think the race will be Hillary vs. Rudy and the social conservatives will hold their noses and vote for Rudy. And he knows this.

James Dobson and the rest of his shrill white trash brigade scream about Rudy and claim they'll start a third party, but when they're faced with a Hillary and Bill White House, they have no choice but to vote for the lesser of two evils.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Mea culpa

Your extensive knowledge of the fall of Constantinople and the rise of the Turk will most definitely come in handy.

admit it, if you ever do have to choose between shia and sunni, you'll go to atticus for the pros/cons.