LOLOL!!

Um... what?

His quote was:

Incorrect, but don't let that get in your way. In the first instance, I cited that the lack of leadership was troubling. That has nothing to do with the second comment I made, where JPhillips assumed that I was OK with the 6 years that the Republicans were in power. I was not. There's no contradiction there.

In the second example, I said that Pelosi and Reid were the worst leaders I had every seen in Congress. Given that I was born in 1974, I certainly see no contradiction in saying that anything before my kindergarten years in 1980 is likely something I wouldn't have seen. There's no contradiction there either.

I would say having read about something or watched a documentary counts as 'seeing'.

For the record, as one of the resident liberals, I don't see Obama as a saviour. I agree that his resume is a bit light. But I like his intelligence, and I think his thoughtful nature and measured responses will be a breath of fresh air after 8 years of the "let's just do this without worrying about consequences or planning ahead" attitude that Bush has given to us. Surely, Obama will at least surround himself with bright people and listen to what they have to say, rather than appointing people who are unqualified to do their jobs because they are his friends.

And honestly, if Obama ends up being merely an average President, that will still be a huge step up from what we've had.

I remember when I was in kindergarten, there was a lot of talk in congress about a pretty restrictive crayon ban. A bunch of us made signs and pretended that the jungle gym was a courthouse to stand outside of. Those were wild times.

Tip O'Neill & Robert Byrd are the pair I like to bring up when someone suggests that GOP White House + Democratic Congress (or vice versa) = gridlock. Sure, great leaders if you like pork.

How about this cast of winners:

1997 - 1999: Trent Lott (Senate Majority Leader), Dick Armey (House Majority Leader), Newt Gingrich (House Speaker) - also known as "The Lewinsky Three"

2003 - 2005: Bill "I can diagnose people on TV" Frist (Senate Majority Leader), Dennis "I hope people don't notice I'm not doing anything" Hastert (House Majority Leader), Tom "Corruption" Delay (House Speaker)


Pelosi and Reid aren't the greatest, in terms of statesmanship, but as partisan operators they aren't bad. And let's face it, our future leaders in Congress are going to be nothing but partisan. The days of these roles being filled by great statesman are gone.

I don't disagree with you (yay, double-negative!). Frankly, what concerns me (and I'll admit that this is only my perception and I'm hoping it's way off base) is Obama is all about "change". The last president who used that podium was Jimmy Carter. Mind you, they come from different areas of the country, but I think there are a few parallels between the campaign, experience, party, etc. I'm 5 yrs older than MMBF, but my political ideologies owe a great deal to my remembrance of the Carter years (just as this this generation's will remember Bush as a "you-know-what") and the craptastic economy, gas shortages (remember odd and even gas days?), Iran hostage fiasco, etc. He was a "good guy", just like I think Obama is. He has proven himself as a great negotiator for peace (referring to Carter) and that's great. Unfortunately, the whole country got hosed in the process.

As I mentioned earlier on this page, I can certainly agree with you on Frist/Hastert/Delay. I'm a fan of Newt, so I'll disagree with you on that first one. O'Neill wasn't that bad, but Byrd is someone I didn't like as a leader. I still don't think any of those as a group reach the level of Pelosi/Reid. Let's be honest here. If Obama wins the presidency, the true winners are Dodd, Frank, and Schumer. They will be the defining face of the next 4 years because they will be the ones pulling the strings. If that is the case, you won't see all that much change.

Yeah, good times. I'm amazed you even knew what recess was given how many times you had to stand on the line all recess long. :D

Since there hasn't been an Obama/Pelosi/Reid combo yet, it HAS to be an assumption that it will turn out the way you say. You are basing your statement on the ASSUMPTION that a Pelosi/Reid Congress will function the same way under an Obama administration as it has under the Bush administration. It might be a strong assumption, but still an assumption.


Maybe you need to expand your knowledge outside of 10% of American History then.

Here's a list of the Speakers during the timeframe:

Tip O'Neill
Jim Wright
Thomas Foley
Newt Gingrich
Dennis Hastert
Nancy Pelosi

And Majority leaders in the Senate:

Robert Byrd
Howard Baker
Bob Dole
George Mitchell
Bob Dole
Trent Lott
Tom Daschle
Bill Frist
Harry Reid

O'Neill, for one, was able to work with the person from the other party in the WH. He and Reagan had a very good partnership from all that I've read. I also like Gingrich, and think he got a lot of good things done (committee chair term limits being one that comes to mind immediately), even though he was at loggerheads with Clinton the whole while. Frist/Hastert/Delay has been horrid though.

Quote of the thread so far.

By what measure?

Reagan: I want tax cuts.
O'Neill: I want lots of pork.
Reagan: I can live with that.
O'Neill: Sounds good. Where do I sign?
Reagan: Can you do anything about Byrd?
O'Neill: Sorry, we don't like him either.


That's putting it mildly. He, Lott and Armey spent the better portion of two Congressional sessions doing little else than trying to find ways to zing it to Clinton. Retributive politics at its best. To be fair, of course, Clinton did little else during this period as well.

I expect a 'leader' to make bold moves. Pelosi and Reid have had no bold moves in regard to legislation. In addition, they can't even play the game of politics very well, often having to backtrack on statements that they made without thinking about the ramifications of those statements.

I would note in regard to leadership that I'm STILL pretty pissed off about McCain's decision to vote for the bailout bill last week. To pay all that lip service during the campain about earmarks needing to be called out only to vote for that bill full of earmarks was disingenuous at best. He painted himself in a corner IMO with that vote. His only choice now is to go heavily negative, because he lost a lot of campaign leverage with that last vote.

Media's circling the wagons for Obama. Tough criticism on Obama? Play the race card:

OK, so because Palin is bringing to light Obama's "potential" relationship with Ayers and McCain didn't support a state holiday 20 years ago, the McCain-Palin campaign is racist. Makes perfect sense and a great example of the quality reporting we can expect from the associated press around election time. :rolleyes:

Arles,

so one article = the media?

Is this the same biased organization that wrote this?

AP already has a "questionable" reputation when it comes to fairness down the stretch in political elections and this article doesn't help that cause much. You can post articles in support/opposition of a candidate, but resorting to the race card when nothing is there is silly and hurts the AP's credibility.

It makes me sad when people think that these kind of ads are substantiated. It's truly disgusting (and not surprising that McCain doesn't do it himself, but sends his new semi-popular crony) that somebody who has attempted to serve his country is being called un-American and dislikes his country so much that he pals around with people who try to destroy it from the inside.

You can't blame Obama that Ayers is free, or even for what he did in the 60s. But when all evidence shows that the two are barely even acquainted except for a few chance meetings and you insinuate that it's a meaningful relationship and shows how unpatriotic he is...truly gutter politics. I'm not even a fan of Obama, but these kind of tactics strike me as truly disgusting, glad to see people like Arles just think it's the media and still defend these.

God bless the information age... when 13 minutes is so long that we need to have it summarized for us.

Not only that, but it appears that we're entering similar territory to what Hillary Clinton had to deal with during the primary season. She and her campaign tried to steer clear of the race issue when it was brought up by the Obama camp and the media rather than attacking it. McCain's campaign has already created a release sharply attacking the injection of race into the campaign. The AP isn't doing Obama any favors in this situation, which is the opposite of what the writer was trying to do, which was portray Obama as the victim.

It goes beyond that.

There have been psychological studies that prove that the damage done by a negative ad (or a forwarded e-mail, or a rumor, etc) will stick with the listener even if they later find out that the allegation was false, in cases where the listener was already leaning towards the viewpoint in the first place.

In other words, if you tell a Republican that Obama is a secret muslim, the damage will stick to him even if you later tell the same Republican that it was a lie. Not that it was unsubstantiated or that there's some dispute over the facts -- you can straight out reveal that you lied, and the damage still sticks. Same with telling a Democrat that Palin wants to burn books, etc.

They don't run ads like this because they think they can get away with it. They run them because they know they work even though they won't get away with it.

Depressing.

:D

SI

Chance meeting? Michele Obama invited Ayres to speak in a forum that she organized. Is that now considered a chance meeting? Also, she didn't appear to have any problems to his inflammatory comment regarding racism, which were on display even in this article promoting that forum way back in 1997..........

Close-up on juvenile justice

Somewhat off-topic rant...
So does every media organization, because these days everyone plays the "biased media" card. It's generally BS and most people know that, but it works. And the right wing is the worst offender by far (although they learned the trick from the Clinton era left).

Not only does this anti-media crap cause even deeper divides between partisans, but its resulted in a US media that's so terrified of being called biased that they water everything down to the point where they're practically useless. And they still get accused of bias.

It's at the point where one candidate could say the sky was green, and the other could say it was blue. CNN would have a campaign hack from both parties on to recite sound bites, then Anderson Cooper would turn to the camera and say "well, we've given you both sides, that's all we can be expected to do because we're certainly not biased".

How about opening the window and looking outside, and then telling us who's lying? You know, like real journalists used to?

Yes, it quite obvious this makes him un-American and blatantly buddy-ing up with Ayers, perhaps to strike again. I bet they even secretly went to dinner and had a slumber party to plan the revolution. Let's all fear him and vote McCain, otherwise he may make Ayers his secretary of wrecking havoc.

The problem as I see it is that the liberal-leaning media is dishonest in that they refuse to admit any political leanings when their work indicates otherwise. I'd be floored if you could find a Conservative/Republican support who won't admit that FOXNews leans right and the network itself is pretty open about those leanings. The left-leaning media tries to mask their bias rather than embracing it. As I said before in this thread, the liberal media would be a whole lot better off if they just came out of the closet. Denial just furthers the media conspiracy card play.

Feel free to overexaggerate, but you made the claim that it was no more than a chance meeting, which simply was not even close to accurate.

Seems like Michelle Obama just picked people that would have some expertise on that subject, and he had written a book on it. It's still quite a reach to say that Obama had a relationship with Ayers, and it's a flat out lie to say he "pals" around with him in the present tense.

But maybe you can tell me why John McCain think it's patriotic to tell people to shoot federal agents in the head.

I haven't asserted any of that. You'll have to chat with the people that made those assertions. I merely pointed out that it was more than a chance meeting as miked asserted.

I'm not over exaggerating, it's clearly the implication that the McCain camp wants to get across. It's fear 101 and just as bad as the swift boat people. He is also a distinguished professor at Univ. of Chicago, so does anyone who takes his class also fit the bill of not liking America?

I don't think any of that personally. With that said, it was more than a chance meeting and it's obvious that this was not the only meeting between the Obamas and Mr. Ayres. At best, it was a poor choice of connections by the young Obama family. My guess is that Barack probably regrets it in hindsight.

The media, in general, does tend to lean to the left when it comes to social issues. For whatever reason, it's a job that seems to attrach more lefties, and I think you could make a good case that social reporting tends to drift left. Bernard Goldberg's "Bias" was a good exploration of this.

But when it comes to political reporting, it boggles my mind that right-wingers can argue with a straight face that they're getting a rough ride. The media has become so weak-kneed post-9/11 that Bush has had a practically free ride. A real media would have torn this guy apart, but with a handful of exceptions the media has embarassed themselves over the past seven years.

That may not be a pro-right bias -- it may be a pro-government bias that will be just as bad when/if Obama is president. But as someone who doesn't have a dog in this fight, right-wingers sound ridiculous when they complain about the media.

Chance was a bad word, and I'm sure Obama regrets it 100%. That being said, it's clearly not a case of him being un-American and paling around with terrorists.

I'd agree in regards to the 2-3 years after 9/11, but I'd totally disagree after that. There's been nothing even remotely weak-kneed about their coverage since then. Some criticism was warranted, some was not.

My problem lies not with those assertions, but his judgement in regards to any association with this guy (Ayres). Had their only meeting been this forum organized by Michele Obama, there wouldn't be much of a story.

Why isn't your problem with the assertion that he pals around with terrorists? Don't you think that is a rather forced and disingenuous claim to make, given the evidence?

I may have not stated it clearly. I don't buy into those assertions. I agree with you. My problem with the situation is that he continued a relationship, personal or not, with this guy. Obama should have steered clear of this guy, and I'm sure he regrets that decision.

I feel the same as NoMyths. I am not surprised with the fact that Obama has gone negative now. He's been pretty much pushed into a corner by Palins latest verbal non-sense. They have put out some very distasteful ads that have been very incorrect. He can't spend all his time defending himself against false ads.

It always amazes me that in a country of 300 million people, we can't find any truly great leaders.

:) OK.

I'm just saying its funny saying you are voting for someone because he won't run a negative campaign when the big political story of the day is that that candidate is going to get into the muck and go negative big time.

Wow. Not only has this thread passed the Maximum-Football thread, it's [edit]over 10% ahead of it.

If no one here actually buys into those assertions, then why is it even a topic worth discussing?

It's amazing how much attention in this thread is given to the media-generated non-issues. (e.g. how many homes McCain has, Palin's verbal gaffes, Obama's radical friends). After 138 pages, how many posts have actually focused on the candidates real issues?

I don't follow politics at all, and consider FOFC to be populated with the smartest people around; so I have this vague hope that I can use fofc to educate myself on these political topics. But this thread doesn't deliver in this regard.

(*...now 3..2..1 for the post chiding me for trying to get intelligent political discourse on a sports messageboard*)

Did you read his entire post? It's a pretty spot on synopsis of the type of coverage we get these days.

Why would a truly great leader want to be president? Half the country will hate you based on which party you choose and the 4-8 years in office will make you a shell of the person you once were. Plus, you have about a 5% of chance of doing anything meaningful given the state of congress and who they bow to.

Most of the great leaders are smart enough not to get involved with the bullshit we call politics and are great leaders in endeavors other than politics.

Your first mistake is trying to seperate media and blog-created issues from the campaigns. Both sides generally latch onto those bits of information and quickly create ads surrounding those issues. If you want to know their policy choices, you're much better off going to their sites and reading them for yourself.