Either way, however, it would tend to indicate that Obama is already bouncing back from Wright, if he's back to being tied or slightly ahead of Hillary again.
If you want to judge it all by a couple of polls sure. I think it's a bit quick to leap on them unless it fits your agenda somehow.
Remember those words, my friend, the next time you make your arguments about Hillary, electability, the potential popular vote and Obama's supposed fall.
If you want to judge it all by a couple of polls sure. I think it's a bit quick to leap on them unless it fits your agenda somehow.
Remember those words, my friend, the next time you make your arguments about Hillary, electability, the potential popular vote and Obama's supposed fall.
Listen , this is exactly what bugs me about this Wright thing. You MEM to me seem to be absolutely happy if this controversy continues t ohurt Obama because you're so committed to Hillary that even if she doesn't win the nomination, you want Obama hurt bad enough that he doesn't win the election.
it sort of reminds me of Hillary herself when she was trying to play on Obama's book title and said that he had audacity all right. Yeah, the audacity to challenge her coronation. And I think there lies all this hostility and spin. The fact that she was supposed to have been some foregone conclusion until a candidate that not only stepped up and filled the anti-Bush slot as Hillary was supposed to, but that he did so much more, he actually inspired people in a way not seen since JFK and Ronald Reagan.
You know Hillary can NEVER be that person. The right hates her. The progressives hate her. the "center" voted for her because they were familar with her and she wasn't a Republican. And then they saw and heard Obama. So of course what else is there to do but to try to destroy that which Hillary can never hope to compete against. Not with her old style politicking and flat tired oratory.
so if you want Obama to be so hurt that he goes down so she can challenge McCain in 4 years. That is 4 more years you're essentially giving the far right agenda. That's 4000 dead soldiers now on account of lies. That's an economy in ruins. That's the privatization of the Government. That's more tax breaks for the rich. It's not like if McCain is stepping up to challenge any of that anymore. I myself think this country has suffered enough and doesn't need any more of this just so Hillary can have a chance next time.
And that's pretty much what always bugged me about Republicans these past few years. Any abuse of the Constitution, of truth, of facts, and even morality, was excused and apologized and rationalized away because party was more important than country. With you, I see that a cult of personality is more important than party or country.
About seven in 10 voters said Obama did a good job addressing race relations and explaining his relationship with Wright. On the downside for Obama, only half of voters told the pollsters he could unite the country as president
So, if this poll is to be believed, anywhere from half to seventy percent of people are "that stupid."
Obama's speech called for a conversation that not everyone wants.
By Stephanie Simon and Richard Fausset March 23, 2008
How do we start a national dialogue on race?
Charlotte Griffin was at a restaurant one evening when a white woman complimented her on her children's behavior. The stranger may have meant to be kind. But Griffin wondered if she heard a note of condescension -- an assumption, perhaps, that black kids aren't usually so polite.
How do we navigate that minefield?
As a teenager, Stan North went to work on the assembly line at Ford. He made good money. But he noticed that he -- like all the other white guys -- always got the dirty jobs. Seething, he concluded that the boss wouldn't dare give a black man heavy lifting, for fear of being tagged a racist.
How do we acknowledge that anger?
In his recent address on race relations in America -- prompted by his minister's explosive sermons on that topic -- Sen. Barack Obama declared that whites must understand the black experience in America and blacks must appreciate the white perspective. Otherwise, he said, we face a grinding "racial stalemate."
His remarks struck a nerve: More than 4 million people watched the Democratic presidential candidate on live TV, and the speech is now a top video on YouTube, viewed nearly 3 million times.
Preachers and teachers across the country have been trying to figure out how to leverage that interest to launch deep, authentic discussions about race. In some quarters, there's strong interest.
"This is a very good time to put everything on the table," said Abdullah Robinson, 64, a black man who lives in suburban Atlanta. "We don't know nothing about each other, and we've been living together for hundreds of years."
But others don't want any part of a dialogue that starts from the premise that there is a black America and a white America. They don't want to hear about victims and oppressors. It's past time, they say, to move on.
Blacks "bring up the enslavement card way too much," said JoAnna Cullinane-Halda, 64, who just opened a home decor boutique in rural Colorado. "I'm Irish. My people were enslaved as well. But it's far enough in our dark past. We've gone beyond that. Let it go."
The complexities of opening a dialogue on race were evident after a day of long conversations with African Americans in Lithonia, Ga., a suburban haven for black professionals outside Atlanta, and with whites in Franktown, Colo., a working-class town in the hills southeast of Denver.
Carmen Van Kerckhove, co-founder of a diversity consulting firm in New York, described the dynamic this way: "Human beings tend to be really focused on their own oppression, and tend to be less interested in hearing about the oppression of others."
Old resentments
North, 50, grew up in integrated Detroit. He went to school with black friends. He played ball with them, swam with them. Every now and then, fists would fly over a racial insult. Then they'd all go back to hanging out together.
As far as North was concerned, everyone was equal. If anything, he said, blacks were better off because affirmative action gave them a boost into college. His own grades weren't good enough for a scholarship; he ended up building engines at Ford.
A few years in, he tried to get shifted off the heavy jobs -- but his boss, he said, dismissed him with a curt: "You're a white boy. What're you crying about?" North looked around. He noticed that when minorities complained, "they got moved to a different job, because [the supervisors] were afraid of the race card."
Now North has a good job repairing tractors and trailers in Franktown. But when he reflects on his days at Ford, he feels the old resentment.
"I kept hearing: 'Minority this, minority that. Blacks aren't getting this, blacks aren't getting that.' I'm disgusted with it," he said. "OK, fine, they've gotten stepped on for 400 years. Let's give them something [to make up for it] and be done with it, the way we did with the Indians."
He's had enough, he said, of identity politics: "If you're born here, you're an American. Period. Act like an American." A fellow mechanic began listing racial and ethnic groups: African American, Hispanic American, Chinese American.
"It's tiring," North interrupted sharply. "These people had the same opportunities I did. . . . And they want everything handed to them."
Same opportunities? Same schools, same sports teams, yes.
But Wayne Sledge, who is 48 and black, went to an integrated school in Georgia -- and he doesn't remember everything being so equal. Sledge said it was clear that "the white people didn't want the black people in the school." There were bloody brawls. A pep rally was interrupted by a student in a Ku Klux Klan hood. "It was pretty rough," said Sledge.
Pam Miller also went to an integrated school in the mid-1970s, in suburban St. Louis. Her most vivid memories are of terror:
Two white men chasing her with crowbars.
A white boy trying to throw her over the banister at school.
A white girl -- someone she'd thought her friend -- standing by, laughing, as Miller ran down the street chasing a truck carrying two of her white tormentors. Miller slapped the girl.
Today, age 47 and settled in Georgia, Miller says she wouldn't be so quick to strike. Her grandfather carried a sharp anger against whites all his life -- an anger that came from years of minding his place, years of "yes suh, yes suh, yes suh," Miller said.
She doesn't want such resentment to cloud her own life, so she has worked deliberately, with the Lord's help, to shake free. She holds two jobs, at JCPenney and a coffee shop, and she serves up the same smile for all customers, black and white.
Still, her memories shadow her, shaping her perceptions.
The other day, a white woman shopping at Penney's commented on a stuffed monkey for sale. Miller heard something in that remark. The woman made "monkey" sound like a racist innuendo. Maybe she didn't mean a thing by it.
But Miller felt certain she did.
'In this day and age?'
Lithonia is anchored by big new houses, upscale shopping and a gleaming, prosperous mega-church so big it has its own gym. It also happens to be nearly 80% African American.
So one of Ora Hammond's white co-workers freely refers to the suburb as "the ghetto." Another of Hammond's colleagues in the operations department at Delta Air Lines complains that affirmative action amounts to racism against whites.
"We've said things to each other that hurt," said Hammond, 49, who is black. "But the bottom line is: They're still my friends."
Hammond says he and his white friends talk about race all the time. The conversations can get dicey. People get mad. But it's worth it, he says, because it brings them all closer.
In her small beauty salon in Franktown, Charlotte Britton, 65, serves white and black customers. But Britton, who is white, wouldn't dream of talking with them about race. Part of that is business: She likes to keep chatter in the salon light -- no politics, no religion.
But the deeper truth is this: She never dreamed that anyone would want to talk about race. Until she saw video clips of Obama's pastor sermonizing about black oppression, Britton said she had no clue that anyone other than a few hard-core white supremacists thought much about skin color.
"I thought we were past that," she said. "I didn't realize this was going on in the United States. In this day and age? I was shocked."
In renouncing his pastor's remarks, Obama urged blacks and whites to reach out to one another. He asked blacks to recognize that "most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. . . . No one's handed them anything. . . . They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped."
For whites, he explained that the roots of black anger trace a bitter path from slavery through segregation through legalized discrimination that kept generations of blacks from buying homes and working their way into the middle class.
Whites, he said, must acknowledge "that what ails the African American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination -- and current incidents of discrimination . . . are real and must be addressed."
Britton, in her Country HAIRitage salon, finds that argument unconvincing.
"They're bringing up slavery," she said, bewildered. "I had nothing to do with slavery."
'This is America'
Over lunch with two friends at the Grill on the Hill in Franktown, Pat Millsap expressed unease about her mother's views on race, especially Latino immigration. "I don't like the way she talks about it," she said.
Then Millsap, 52, looked down at her plate.
"You know," she said, "I've been looking for jobs in environmental education. A lot of them require that you speak Spanish. It sounds so awful to say this, but it's very frustrating. Shouldn't they learn English? This is America."
'Even I want to move'
As she put the finishing touches on a client's look in a Lithonia beauty salon, Griffin -- the woman with notably well-behaved children -- talked about her home in Conyers, a racially mixed suburb a few miles to the east.
She'd always thought of Conyers as a nice place to raise a family, with a slow-paced lifestyle and some pretty good schools. But lower-income blacks have begun to move in from central Atlanta, Griffin said, bringing crime and blight.
Whites have started moving out. Griffin, 36, blames that on racism.
Then she admits she's not comfortable, either, with what Conyers is becoming. The new black arrivals are dragging down the quality of life. Sometimes, she said, "even I want to move out."
The challenge of unity
"If we simply retreat into our respective corners," Obama said last week, "we will never be able to come together."
But coming together is hard.
It may require owning up to uncomfortable prejudices.
It may require seeing pain we don't want to know exists.
Lorry Schmitz, who is white, was married for seven years to a black man. She says he chose to be oblivious to racism, but she saw and felt every slight -- starting on their honeymoon cruise, when passengers kept assuming her husband was a ship worker, even when he wore a suit and tie. Schmitz saw racism in the black community, too; her in-laws made clear that they wished their son had married a black woman.
Such attitudes disturbed her deeply.
"We're stronger and smarter when we mix," said Schmitz, 52. "This is supposed to be a melting pot."
But Schmitz is an anthropologist by training, and she knows how tough it is to bring people together. "We are genetically set up to preserve our tribe," she said, "so anyone who looks different or sounds different is isolated."
She sighed, frustrated.
"It's so complex," she said.
A friend at her table interrupted, laughing: "It's not black and white."
Schmitz giggled. Then she repeated, more soberly: "No. It's not black and white."
This was funny to see Matthews besides himself in laughter over O'Reilley's comments about a black restaurant. That's what this article reminded me of. The complete divide and ignorance in this country over race.
A lot of black people do talk like that. Just like a lot of white people talk about neighborhoods not being nice anymore if a minority moves in.
Originally Posted By: thedoctor
And when a white man says it in public, he's demonized. The left attack and want him fired, humiliated, and ostracized. Don't be whiny when the other shoe finally drops.
Originally Posted By: whomod
Wel then that's fine. Take your pound of flesh with Pastor Wright. but you want to tar Obama by association. That's be like me calling YOU a racist because you like hanging out here and agreeing with Wonder Boy and Pariah a lot of them time. So naturally that must mean you agree with Pariah saying Mexicans are worthless and blacks were too stupid and lazy to save themselves during Katrina.
Or not. Which is my point. You can hang out with people who hold racist tendencies and not necessarily be a racist just because you do so.
The problem, whomod, is that you keep trying to minimize the Obama/Wright relationship into something much less than it is.
Even if we assume that WB and Pariah are racist, your analogy fails. Doc hasn't hung out with them for twenty years and he doesn't (as near as I can tell) treat them as long time advisors.
Obama did that with Wright. Their relationship is much closer than Docs and WB/Pariah's. And it's surely closer than yours to Axl Rose.
Furthermore, while I've said there was a lot of good in Obama's speech, the fact that he's still trying to have it both ways on the race issue is starting to make him dig a big hole for himself. Because he's afraid to flatly reject Wright (as if he could after twenty years of close contact), in order to justify Wright's rantings, Obama is coming dangerously close to Sharptonesque race baiting more and more, as he makes comments about whites and about injustices in our society that make him sound whinier and whinier.
If you want to judge it all by a couple of polls sure. I think it's a bit quick to leap on them unless it fits your agenda somehow.
Remember those words, my friend, the next time you make your arguments about Hillary, electability, the potential popular vote and Obama's supposed fall.
Well G-man if it's a case that more polls come in over the weak reflecting the same thing for Obama I would give them more weight. I'm not sure you would be so accepting of a poll if the circumstances were different.
Listen , this is exactly what bugs me about this Wright thing. You MEM to me seem to be absolutely happy if this controversy continues t ohurt Obama because you're so committed to Hillary that even if she doesn't win the nomination, you want Obama hurt bad enough that he doesn't win the election.
I don't know if I would go so far to say I would be absolutley happy. I like & respect McCain so it's not like if Bush Jr was running again. I won't have any problem at all voting for him especially if my party changes the rules & gives Obama half the delegates from FL & MI.
[quote}it sort of reminds me of Hillary herself when she was trying to play on Obama's book title and said that he had audacity all right. Yeah, the audacity to challenge her coronation. And I think there lies all this hostility and spin. The fact that she was supposed to have been some foregone conclusion until a candidate that not only stepped up and filled the anti-Bush slot as Hillary was supposed to, but that he did so much more, he actually inspired people in a way not seen since JFK and Ronald Reagan. [/quote]
Didn't JFK & Ronald Reagan actually do things before they inspired? Obama supporters are very good at digging up the dead of anyone who earned their greatness & slapping it on Obama. I'm not impressed.
Hillary isn't entitled to be President but I think you need to remember that works both ways. She has every right to stay in the race & compete!
Quote:
You know Hillary can NEVER be that person. The right hates her. The progressives hate her. the "center" voted for her because they were familar with her and she wasn't a Republican. And then they saw and heard Obama. So of course what else is there to do but to try to destroy that which Hillary can never hope to compete against. Not with her old style politicking and flat tired oratory.
I think you can take a quick scan of headlines & see that both of them are quite busy saying negative things about each other. Hillary however also finds time roll out an economic crisis plan in the midst of it all.
[quoteso if you want Obama to be so hurt that he goes down so she can challenge McCain in 4 years. That is 4 more years you're essentially giving the far right agenda. That's 4000 dead soldiers now on account of lies. That's an economy in ruins. That's the privatization of the Government. That's more tax breaks for the rich. It's not like if McCain is stepping up to challenge any of that anymore. I myself think this country has suffered enough and doesn't need any more of this just so Hillary can have a chance next time.[/quote]
If he had more experience & McCain was more like Bush you wouldn't have to worry about my vote. I don't want Obama hurt btw. Your reading to much into a post I think.
Quote:
And that's pretty much what always bugged me about Republicans these past few years. Any abuse of the Constitution, of truth, of facts, and even morality, was excused and apologized and rationalized away because party was more important than country. With you, I see that a cult of personality is more important than party or country.
It's a bit of a stretch to say it's a cult of personality. I find that to be more of a case with Obama supporters. After all it was Obama who claimed he could get more of Hillary voters than she could get of his. Who's really for the issues? I see alot of people willing to throw not only Hillary under a bus for the new guy but also whole states.
Didn't JFK & Ronald Reagan actually do things before they inspired? Obama supporters are very good at digging up the dead of anyone who earned their greatness & slapping it on Obama. I'm not impressed.
I don't know about Reagan but I do know about Jack Kennedy. In the words of Theodore Sorensen, who worked with John F Kennedy for 11 years, first as his senatorial assistant and then in the White House as his special counsel and adviser.
At first glance, the Democratic nominee for president in 1960, John Fitzgerald Kennedy - the millionaire Caucasian war hero for whom I worked for 11 golden years - seems notably different from the most interesting candidate for next year's nomination, Senator Barack Obama. But when does a difference make a difference? Different times, issues, and electors make any meaningful comparison unlikely. But the parallels in their candidacies are striking.
Fifty years ago, Kennedy and I embarked on a period in which we travelled to all 50 states in his long, uphill quest for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination. He was, like Obama, a first-term US senator. But he was not yet 40 years old, making Obama, already 45, a geezer by comparison.
At the time, Washington pundits assumed Kennedy had at least two insurmountable obstacles. The first was his lack of experience, especially compared with the senior statesmen also seeking that nomination - Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Adlai Stevenson and Stuart Symington. Kennedy acknowledged that his age and inexperience would turn away some voters. Obama, though older than Kennedy, is similarly dismissed by some today. But Kennedy noted in one speech that "experience is like tail-lights on a boat which illuminate where we have been when we should be focusing on where we should be going".
Kennedy's second major obstacle was his heritage. Some said he had lost his chance to be president of the United States the day he was born - or, at least, the day he was baptised as a Roman Catholic. No Catholic had ever been elected president of the United States, and the overwhelming defeat suffered by the only Catholic nominated for that position, Governor Al Smith of New York in 1928, had persuaded subsequent Democratic leaders that it would be hopeless ever to risk that route again. The conviction that no Catholic could win was greater, in that less enlightened era 50 years ago, than the widespread assumption today that a black presidential candidate cannot win. The subtly bigoted phrase most often repeated in that election year - by former president Harry Truman, among others - was that 1960 was "too early" for a Catholic president, that the country was "not ready," and that Kennedy should be a "good sport" by settling for the vice-presidency. No doubt Obama will hear - or has already heard - similar sentiments about the colour of his skin.
Even some Catholic religious leaders - who thought Kennedy was not Catholic enough, having attended secular schools and expressed disagreement with the Catholic hierarchy on church-state separation - opposed his candidacy. So did some Catholic political leaders, who thought his candidacy might raise unwanted controversies or produce an unwanted rival to their own positions (much as Al Sharpton and Vernon Jordan may not initially welcome an Obama candidacy). But, in time, Kennedy's speeches and interviews strongly favoring traditional church-state separation reassured all but the most bigoted anti-Catholics. In the end, despite his ethnic handicap, Kennedy proved to be less divisive than his major opponent, fellow senator Hubert Humphrey. Obama may prove the same.
In addition to their similar handicaps, Kennedy and Obama share an extraordinary number of parallels. Both men were Harvard-educated. Both rose to national attention almost overnight as the result of starring roles at the nationally televised Democratic convention preceding their respective candidacies: Kennedy in 1956, when he delivered the speech nominating Stevenson and subsequently came close to winning an open-floor struggle for the vice-presidential nomination with Estes Kefauver; Obama in 2004, by virtue of his brilliant speech to the convention that year in Boston.
Both also gained national acclaim through their best-selling inspirational books - Kennedy's Profiles in Courage, published in 1956, and Obama's The Audacity of Hope, published in 2006. Both men immediately stood out as young, handsome, and eloquent new faces who attracted and excited ever larger and younger crowds at the grassroots level, a phenomenon that initially went almost unnoticed by Washington leaders and experts too busy interviewing themselves.
Kennedy's speeches in early 1960 and even earlier, like Obama's in early 2007, were not notable for their five-point legislative plans. Rather, they focused on several common themes: hope, a determination to succeed despite the odds, dissatisfaction with the status quo, and confidence in the judgment of the American people. In sprinkling their remarks with allusions to history and poetry, neither talked down to the American people. JFK was so frank about his disagreements with the leadership of his Catholic "base" that one Catholic journal editorialised against him. Obama was equally frank and courageous with the Democrats' organized labor base in assessing the competitive prospects of the American auto industry in Detroit. Both were unsparing in their references to the "revolving door" culture in Washington.
On foreign policy, both emphasised the importance of multilateral democracy, national strength as a guardian of peace, and the need to restore America's global standing, moral authority, and leadership. Both warned of the dangers of war: Kennedy motivated by his own harsh experience in world war two, Obama by his familiarity with suffering in all parts of the world. Both were cerebral rather than emotional speakers, relying on the communication of values and hope rather than cheap applause lines.
Perhaps most tellingly, both preached (and personified) the politics of hope in contrast to the politics of fear, which characterised Republican speeches during their respective eras. In 1960 and earlier, cynics and pessimists accepted the ultimate inevitability of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, much as today they assume a fruitless and unending war against terrorism. Hope trumped fear in 1960, and I have no doubt that it will again in 2008.... and it goes on
When John F. Kennedy won the 1960 U.S. presidential election, one major issue Kennedy raised was whether the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the U.S. As Kennedy took over, despite warnings from Eisenhower about Laos and Vietnam, Europe and Latin America "loomed larger than Asia on his sights."[38] In his inaugural address, Kennedy made the ambitious pledge to "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty."
Kennedy's policy towards South Vietnam rested on the assumption that Diem and his forces must ultimately defeat the guerrillas on their own. He was against the deployment of American combat troops and observed that "to introduce U.S. forces in large numbers there today, while it might have an initially favorable military impact, would almost certainly lead to adverse political and, in the long run, adverse military consequences."
Kennedy increased the number of U.S. military advisers from 800 to 16,300 to cope with rising guerrilla activity.
In a conversation with Nobel Peace Prize winner and Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, Kennedy sought his advice. "Get out," Pearson replied. "That's a stupid answer," shot back Kennedy. "Everyone knows that. The question is: How do we get out?"
Wow we can only hope that if elected Obama will be the next Kennedy
I'm sorry, but how exactly was Kennedy one of our great presidents? Vietnam. Bay of Pigs. Much like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, Kennedy's legend outweighs his actual deeds simply because he died 'young', so to speak.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
I'm sorry, but how exactly was Kennedy one of our great presidents? Vietnam. Bay of Pigs. Much like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, Kennedy's legend outweighs his actual deeds simply because he died 'young', so to speak.
Well Eisenhower actually started our involvement in Vietnam and Johnson was the one who escalated into what it became. The blame for the Bay of Pigs depends on whether you think we should've used military action in Cuba to overthrow the government, if not then the CIA is to blame. Ultimately it was their mess, Kennedy just refused to send in air support. He did manage to pull us away from WWIII during the missile crisis, fighting the hardline rightwingers in the military who wanted a war. He desegregated the Federal Government after Woodrow Wilson (a Democrat) re-segregated it. He was the first to start the ball on the Civil Rights legislation, at least on the level of the President. For those acts he deserves credit as a great president. I do agree that dying young, especially being murdered, does add to the legend.
Which is why John Lennon is more of a legend on his own than the other Beatles, even though his solo career never was commercially successful.
Kennedy also built up the military, took a hard line against communism and cut taxes. In fact, his record in those areas was closer to Reagan's than the records of Johnson, Carter of Clinton.
Didn't JFK & Ronald Reagan actually do things before they inspired? Obama supporters are very good at digging up the dead of anyone who earned their greatness & slapping it on Obama. I'm not impressed.
I don't know about Reagan but I do know about Jack Kennedy. In the words of Theodore Sorensen, who worked with John F Kennedy for 11 years, first as his senatorial assistant and then in the White House as his special counsel and adviser.
So who did Kennedy supporters liken Kennedy to before he was elected?
MEM. You dismissed outright Obama's credentials as compared to Kennedy [when he ran for President] and I showed you that they almost mirror each other, comparison-wise.
You almost sound mad that it isn't Hillary that can tout that comparison.
I really don't know anyone in the history of our country that took up one position publicly to score points with her parties constituents and then routinely voted in the exact opposite way though, for comparison's sake.
Kennedy also built up the military, took a hard line against communism and cut taxes. In fact, his record in those areas was closer to Reagan's than the records of Johnson, Carter of Clinton.
Yup and honestly the missile crisis alone is enough to make the Presidency a great one......would I consider him one of the greatest I don't know if I'd go that far. But there were far worse presidents than him. He was at the very least above average you could give him a B+.
Didn't JFK & Ronald Reagan actually do things before they inspired? Obama supporters are very good at digging up the dead of anyone who earned their greatness & slapping it on Obama. I'm not impressed.
I don't know about Reagan but I do know about Jack Kennedy. In the words of Theodore Sorensen, who worked with John F Kennedy for 11 years, first as his senatorial assistant and then in the White House as his special counsel and adviser. ...
Originally Posted By: whomod
...
um.. you were saying?
So who did Kennedy supporters liken Kennedy to before he was elected?
MEM. You dismissed outright Obama's credentials as compared to Kennedy [when he ran for President] and I showed you that they almost mirror each other, comparison-wise.
You almost sound mad that it isn't Hillary that can tout that comparison.
I really don't know anyone in the history of our country that took up one position publicly to score points with her parties constituents and then routinely voted in the exact opposite way though, for comparison's sake. [/quote] My point was that I think Kennedy ran as himself while Obama is using other people's greatness to run on. You give him credit that he hasn't earned.
Didn't JFK & Ronald Reagan actually do things before they inspired? Obama supporters are very good at digging up the dead of anyone who earned their greatness & slapping it on Obama. I'm not impressed.
I don't know about Reagan but I do know about Jack Kennedy. In the words of Theodore Sorensen, who worked with John F Kennedy for 11 years, first as his senatorial assistant and then in the White House as his special counsel and adviser. ...
Originally Posted By: whomod
...
um.. you were saying?
So who did Kennedy supporters liken Kennedy to before he was elected?
MEM. You dismissed outright Obama's credentials as compared to Kennedy [when he ran for President] and I showed you that they almost mirror each other, comparison-wise.
You almost sound mad that it isn't Hillary that can tout that comparison.
I really don't know anyone in the history of our country that took up one position publicly to score points with her parties constituents and then routinely voted in the exact opposite way though, for comparison's sake.
My point was that I think Kennedy ran as himself while Obama is using other people's greatness to run on. You give him credit that he hasn't earned. [/quote][/quote]
Kennedy's own advisor was giving him credit in that one piece I posted. But I suppose giving unearned credit is a bit different than giving oneself a heroic record that never happened and opposition to NAFTA that never was..
My point was that I think Kennedy ran as himself while Obama is using other people's greatness to run on. You give him credit that he hasn't earned.
You ignored M E M's point, Whomod.
Even though other people like Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy, and now Ted Sorenson, are calling Barack Obama the Second Coming of JFK, it's still making a false comparison to JFK, casting Obama falsely as the ghost of JFK, rather than as himself.
Hillary at least has some actual policy she asserts in detail, rather than vague plattitudes and misleading comparisons to JFK.
Like I said a few days ago:
Originally Posted By: Wonder Boy
And Anna Nicole Smith was compared to Marilyn Monroe (I mean, geez! Not even close!)
Just 'cause the media hypes it doesn't mean it's true.
Originally Posted By: Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man
Well Eisenhower actually started our involvement in Vietnam and Johnson was the one who escalated into what it became. The blame for the Bay of Pigs depends on whether you think we should've used military action in Cuba to overthrow the government, if not then the CIA is to blame. Ultimately it was their mess, Kennedy just refused to send in air support. He did manage to pull us away from WWIII during the missile crisis, fighting the hardline rightwingers in the military who wanted a war. He desegregated the Federal Government after Woodrow Wilson (a Democrat) re-segregated it. He was the first to start the ball on the Civil Rights legislation, at least on the level of the President. For those acts he deserves credit as a great president. I do agree that dying young, especially being murdered, does add to the legend.
Which is why John Lennon is more of a legend on his own than the other Beatles, even though his solo career never was commercially successful.
LBJ was the bastard that threw us head long into Vietnam, but Kennedy helped escalate our presence and involvement there.
As for the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy not only canceled the airstrike; but he also changed a lot of the CIA's plan, including the landing site, which cut off the rebels from other anti-communist groups that would have assisted, resupplies of food and guns, as well as the mountains that they could have retreated and hid in had shit gone wrong, as it did.
I agree that Kennedy was great in the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it must also be noted that the Crisis came about due to Castro's reaching out to the USSR after the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
His participation in the Civil Rights Movement and creation of the Space Program are other big boosts to his legacy; but I still feel that we look more admirably on him than we would have had be not been assassinated.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
MEM. You dismissed outright Obama's credentials as compared to Kennedy [when he ran for President] and I showed you that they almost mirror each other, comparison-wise.
While Kennedy was a first term Senator during the 1960 election, he'd been in that seat for almost the whole duration of his term. Not only that, but he'd also held a full term in the US House of Representatives. Obama's mere three years he's racked up doesn't quite compare to the decade plus that JFK had under his belt at the time.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
A Senate term is six years. A house term is only two.
If (and I don't know this, I'm just guessing based on what you wrote, doc) Kennedy held a house seat for only a "full term" and his senate for "almost" his full term then we're talking only eight years experience (tops), not ten.
Of course, that's still more federal experience than Obama.
Originally Posted By: Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man
Well Eisenhower actually started our involvement in Vietnam and Johnson was the one who escalated into what it became. The blame for the Bay of Pigs depends on whether you think we should've used military action in Cuba to overthrow the government, if not then the CIA is to blame. Ultimately it was their mess, Kennedy just refused to send in air support. He did manage to pull us away from WWIII during the missile crisis, fighting the hardline rightwingers in the military who wanted a war. He desegregated the Federal Government after Woodrow Wilson (a Democrat) re-segregated it. He was the first to start the ball on the Civil Rights legislation, at least on the level of the President. For those acts he deserves credit as a great president. I do agree that dying young, especially being murdered, does add to the legend.
Which is why John Lennon is more of a legend on his own than the other Beatles, even though his solo career never was commercially successful.
LBJ was the bastard that threw us head long into Vietnam, but Kennedy helped escalate our presence and involvement there.
As for the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy not only canceled the airstrike; but he also changed a lot of the CIA's plan, including the landing site, which cut off the rebels from other anti-communist groups that would have assisted, resupplies of food and guns, as well as the mountains that they could have retreated and hid in had shit gone wrong, as it did.
I agree that Kennedy was great in the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it must also be noted that the Crisis came about due to Castro's reaching out to the USSR after the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
His participation in the Civil Rights Movement and creation of the Space Program are other big boosts to his legacy; but I still feel that we look more admirably on him than we would have had be not been assassinated.
yeah but if Castro had had a better pitching arm, the whole thing would've gone down differently. and ifs and buts were candies and nuts, then we'd all have a merry christmas.
My point was that I think Kennedy ran as himself while Obama is using other people's greatness to run on. You give him credit that he hasn't earned.
You ignored M E M's point, Whomod.
Even though other people like Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy, and now Ted Sorenson, are calling Barack Obama the Second Coming of JFK, it's still making a false comparison to JFK, casting Obama falsely as the ghost of JFK, tather than as himself.
But you make a great point. Obama himself isn't running on comparing himself to kennedy. Kennedy's own family and political advisor, among others, are doing that. That's pretty much 1st person comparisons rather than say, the times when people compare Bush to Truman when trying to vindicate him and excuse his and the war's deep unpopularity.
It'd be stupid of me to criticize Bush for that as he's not running around comparing himself to Truman (that I know of). And that's just GOP pundits that generally make that comparison. it's not Truman's own family and confidants. Get my point?
"Kennedy's policy towards South Vietnam rested on the assumption that Diem and his forces must ultimately defeat the guerrillas on their own. He was against the deployment of American combat troops and observed that "to introduce U.S. forces in large numbers there today, while it might have an initially favorable military impact, would almost certainly lead to adverse political and, in the long run, adverse military consequences."
" Kennedy increased the number of U.S. military advisers from 800 to 16,300 to cope with rising guerrilla activity. "
A Senate term is six years. A house term is only two.
If (and I don't know this, I'm just guessing based on what you wrote, doc) Kennedy held a house seat for only a "full term" and his senate for "almost" his full term then we're talking only eight years experience (tops), not ten.
Of course, that's still more federal experience than Obama.
Actually, I'd forgotten that the House had only two year terms. That means that JFK served three full terms (six years) as a US Rep. for the state of Mass.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
My point was that I think Kennedy ran as himself while Obama is using other people's greatness to run on. You give him credit that he hasn't earned.
You ignored M E M's point, Whomod.
Even though other people like Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy, and now Ted Sorenson, are calling Barack Obama the Second Coming of JFK, it's still making a false comparison to JFK, casting Obama falsely as the ghost of JFK, tather than as himself.
But you make a great point. Obama himself isn't running on comparing himself to kennedy. Kennedy's own family and political advisor, among others, are doing that. That's pretty much 1st person comparisons rather than say, the times when people compare Bush to Truman when trying to vindicate him and excuse his and the war's deep unpopularity.
...
Remember that ceremony where Ted Kennedy (the brother to the good ones) endorsed Obama? That was set up & paid for by Obama's campaign. It look liked he was promoting the idea that the Kennedy torch was being passed to Obama.
Remember that ceremony where Ted Kennedy (the brother to the good ones) endorsed Obama? That was set up & paid for by Obama's campaign. It look liked he was promoting the idea that the Kennedy torch was being passed to Obama.
What are you insinuating?
That Kennedy was paid off?
That Kennedy was dragged there by force to 'pass the torch' against his will in a manufactured ceremony?
What?
Now on a lighter note....
Obama Girl Tells Hillary to Quit
Sure beats the Clinton endorsing Chilean Hillary cross dressing midget.
An anticipated appearance in a Tampa, Fla., church by Barack Obama’s former pastor and spiritual adviser — his first since his inflammatory sermons drew national scrutiny — has been canceled due to security concerns, according to the senior pastor at the church.
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. had been expected to speak at the Bible-Based Fellowship Church of Temple Terrace for three nights starting Tuesday evening.
Rev. Earl Mason, senior pastor at the church, said he canceled Wright’s appearance because the local sheriff’s office would not agree to provide the necessary security without charging the church extra, and that he had concerns about escorting Wright and maintaining crowd control.
Mason said the church was under no pressure from the Obama campaign to cancel the appearance.
Remember that ceremony where Ted Kennedy (the brother to the good ones) endorsed Obama? That was set up & paid for by Obama's campaign. It look liked he was promoting the idea that the Kennedy torch was being passed to Obama.
What are you insinuating?
That Kennedy was paid off?
That Kennedy was dragged there by force to 'pass the torch' against his will in a manufactured ceremony?
What? ...
No, just that he put out basically a whole show on the Kennedy mantle being passed to himself. I don't blame him for working anything he can but lets not pretend that the Kennedy thing just happened to Obama.
