Fixed.

And I don't remember calling anyone sheep, but that's beside the point. I don't expect anyone to be a sheep to the current administration. I think criticizing your government IS patriotic. I would never, for example, call someone unpatriotic for questioning Obama's policies, unlike what happened the previous 8 years when I was apparently unpatriotic for criticizing a president during wartime.

Fair enough but there are a couple of reasons. First, everyone seems to be doing a good job going after the one right-wing idiot here (MBBF). As far as Jon, not much I can do there. Arles I like. Second, if you look at my sig, the opposite of libertarianism is socialism. That is probably my inherent bias. Ron Paul is considered conservative, constitutionalist and libertarian, but not a partisan (I don't think). Third, JPhillips does rub me the wrong way since he tries to mask his significant partisanship (unlike others who are more open), but that's my problem. Fourth, I called McClellan a douchebag too but I also tried to call all PS one too. I just don't like that position and the amount of press and importance they give to what the PS said on the various websites. Fifth, you can call me a partisan if you like, I do have some right-wing views (anti-union), some left-wings (civil liberties) and some that simply attacks everything going on in Washington DC. Sixth, my views have solidified over the past few years and certainly after 2004. That was when I started focusing much more on things locally. Seventh, I come out of the times of Tip O'Neill and that has forever soured me on a Democratic Congress. It was not until after the mess of the Republican Congress in 2000s that I have soured on them. All I can hope for now is a few outspoken individuals like William Proxmire, Congressman Harris (don't think I got the name right) and Paul. Eigth, I have been stuck at home due to the storm and sometimes it's fun to throw in the shit for entertainment purposes.

(EDIT: I was typing this as you were making your response so I hadn't see it and there is some similar ground tread)

I don't know what prompted larrymcg421 to say this today. But, c'mon, Bucc- I've said this in the past quite a few times- it's not like this is new news. You're a libertarian (lower case "l")- no one debates this- and you do make a lot of those, as he called, "holier than thou attitude" smug posts about how you're above it. I belive I've used the cliche of enjoying things from the "cheap seats".

To his point- you definitely make a lot of posts decrying both sides and "being above the fray". But if you go after one party- and this has been true for as long as I can remember: it's not something new to the last couple of months - 9 swipes out of 10 go after the Democrats or liberals or whatever.

A good argument would be that Democrat policies run counter to your own much more often than GOP policies but especially with the last 8 years- you can't say that with a straight face. Balloning deficits and spending with drastically increased government intrusion in all facets of life- I know those aren't libertarian policies. But if you make a cheap shot, it's almost always towards one side.

You honestly don't see this?

SI

Tony Snow was great. Probably the best I can remember and I disagreed with most of the crap that came out of his mouth but he truly was artistic.

Fuck you too, larry! :)

Hell, since I haven't thought you've had anything productive to add in years...

Buc: I'll admit I'm much more inclined to support Democrats, but at the end of the day I'm much more concerned about policy. The strategies and tactics of campaigns interests me in the same way sporting events do, but just electing any Democrat over any Republican or third party candidate doesn't interest me. My policy preferences will almost always be more likely under a Democratic leadership, but more Democrats won't necessarily lead to what is IMO better policy. Personally, I'd argue I'm much more ideological than partisan, but YMMV.

Your problem is that you can't see anything said by a liberal as honest. From what you typed above we have the exact same view of the WH press operation, yet you're honest and I'm somehow lying. That says more about your biases than mine.

This is very interesting, shouldn't it be in reverse? I could get down with the right if it wasn't for the whole religious angle. The left has one too many people who are well out there for me. I am in favor of a new party for people in the middle call them moderates or Panda Bears I don't care.

Hey now, I thought our role reversal during the election was a very productive discussion.

I do, always have. I do find it funny though, that after staying out of the "debates" in the past month, I make one comment about the WH PS and all hell breaks loose. But you do have to admit that nearly all of the discussions are your typical internets political stuff, like a competition.

The Democrats turned a lot of this around in the last election, but I think they've been viewed as the party of Hollywood and urban intellectuals on the coasts who look down on those in the "flyover states".

I think they've improved their image more recently though (though they should still ease up a little on mocking values they don't share).

But I sense a subtle difference. You tend to sweep stuff like this under a rug (i.e., not being importance) instead of calling Gibbs a douchebag directly, as you did McClellan. I wasn't claiming to be honest, just a generalized cheap shot against all WH PS. But as we have said before, you and I do view this as a sporting event except that I do not want the spoils belong to any victors.

I think it's a misnomer to think the Democrats have the rich and the Republicans have the poor. Look at this breakdown of 2008 exit poll data.



First, you need to remember that Obama won by a large margin, so pay attention to the percentage difference as opposed to who won each category. Obama only outperformed his overall number among those making 49,999 and less. He did match his overall among the 200,000+ bracket, but based on the exit data he won by racking up big majorities among the lower middle class and poor.

Screw the politics, I just like the comment considering the source :D

OUSTED Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek says he was inspired by rock group AC/DC when he mocked Barack Obama's economic stimulus plans as a "road to hell".
Mr Topolanek criticised Washington's anti-crisis spending in a speech to the European Parliament on Wednesday.

"AC/DC played here (in Prague) last week. And their cult song Highway to Hell might have led me in that very improvised speech to use the phrase 'road to hell'," Mr Topolanek was quoted by daily Lidovy Noviny as saying.

AC/DC &squo;inspired Obama criticism&squo; | Herald Sun

But you did the same thing by calling out Gibbs, but not McClellan.

Obama blew up a lot of the old trends though, that's why he won so easily. I'd be curious to see a similar chart for Kerry.

You can't count income as a single factor. One would also have to qualify it by socio-economics. The "poor" (under $15k) includes some urban/rural blacks, which all went for Obama, but also includes many college students. I look more at the demographics of those voting one way or the other, with income being a derivative (i.e., not to driving factor).

I can't find a similar chart, but the data shows the same pattern. Kerry number first, Bush second.

<15,000 63-36
15-30,000 57-42
30-50,000 50-49
50-75,000 43-56
75-100,000 45-55
100-150,000 42-57
150-200,000 42-58
200,000+ 35-63

Obama outperformed Kerry across the board, and significantly among the 200+ category, but still followed the pattern of significantly outperforming the average among the 50K and under groups.

That's not true unless there was miscommunication. In my first post, I said "whomever the current press secretary", meaning at any given time, the current PS. I followed up in my second post by putting McClellan in with Stephenapolous and Gibbs as far as attitude and demeanor. Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - The Obama Presidency - hopes and predictions

Would you say the same?

I'd agree, but the point was made above that Democrats are getting the rich and Republicans are getting the poor and the data doesn't show that to be true.

Of course. Haven't I made it clear that the press operation, regardless of party, is nothing more than a spin machine masquerading as news? You can line up as many press secretaries as you'd like Gibbs, McClellan, Snow, Myers, whoever was press secretary for Bush1, etc. The problem, though, isn't them so much as the design of the office. They're there to spin and deflect while making sure as little news as possible breaks through the bullshit. I understand why the WH wants it that way, but I don't understand why the press plays along. I'd be all in favor of the entire press corps boycotting the daily briefings and making the press secretary little more than the person who posts press releases on whitehouse.gov.

Haven't seen much discussion on this yet.

Here is the Obama administration's proposed budget:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...y10-newera.pdf

And here is the Republican counter proposal:
http://www.gop.gov/solutions/budget/...recovery-final

Both are direct links to Acrobat files.

Is there a link to the actual GOP budget proposal that I'm just missing? That document just basically is a giant political document and has no numbers unless it's in the context of "Dems propose spending $X and it's stupid".

The only real numbers I see are "Republicans propose a simple and fair tax code with a marginal tax rate for income up to $100,000 of 10 percent and 25 percent for any income thereafter, with a generous standard deduction and personal exemption." which drastically cuts budget receipts. However, nowhere do they address spending or anything about what they would be cutting.

That's not a budget- it's a propaganda piece.

SI

A wide margin in what way? Electoral votes? Yes. Popular vote? No.

I'm not sure if the 2008 elections are the best judgement of how people lean.

You had a president, in GWB, who went way off track and turn a lot of people against him even among a lot of voters on the right side of politics (and the state of affairs we were in). Throw in the two tickets you had, it was pretty easy not to vote against the GOP.

Rep. Boehner's direct quote when presenting the counter-proposal yesterday:

"Two nights ago the president said, 'We haven't seen a budget yet out of Republicans.' Well, it's just not true because -- Here it is, Mr. President."

GOP leader on budget: 'Here it is, Mr. President' - CNN.com

Later, Rep. Ryan said more details would be announced next week. Why not just wait until then? I don't know.

Oh seriously- that's what they call their budget. What a joke. Budgets are supposed to have silly things like "details" and "numbers". Then again, that's why Obama's is a 146 pages long and Boehner's is a 19 page joke.

SI

I've been over this before, but by a historical standard Obama did win by a large margin. Look at first term victories by a candidate of a non-incumbent party and he recieved a larger percentage of the vote than did Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush

The republicans definitely dropped the ball by not having something more concrete sooner. It had a chance to be influential even with moderate Democrats, and all we have is an outline. What they hell are they doing over there?

The story I've read is that there was going to be a rollout of a detailed budget next week, but Boehner and Pence got anxious and rushed out this outline prematurely. This is from Politico

I think overall the new president had a rather successful g20 trip so far considering the other world leaders seemed to be lining up to take shots at him afew days ago and now they are praising his consensus building skill. Also, impressive is the agreement with Russia for decreasing the nukes if it holds true.

I was very impressed by the outcome. No one expected very much so it didn't take much to exceed expectations but it does seem everyone came away reading from the same relatively positive page.

It remains to be seen whether they all go away and instantly forget what they agreed :rolleyes:

I thought he gave a great speach on US-Europe relations during the town hall. For the most part, it reflects what I believe also. Saw the clips at the airport and found some of the text below.
U.S., Europe need to drop attitudes, Obama says - CNN.com

Some misc notes:

1. CNN, please stop drowning me with the same clips every half hour. Try mixing them up!
2. Way too much exposure for Michelle and Bruni (sp?).
3. I would like to see poll/survey results of the town hall attendees.
4. I understand the issue with GWB was how he presented. However, I am beginning to think it was his speechwriter(s) also. I don't remember reading GWB's speeches with so much "craft".

Looks like North Korea launched it's rocket.

North Korea launches rocket over Japan - North Korea- msnbc.com

ouch.

to Launch the rocket over another country is pretty F'd up I'd think.

To be fair, they are in North Korea, maybe they didn't get the news that Bush is no longer President.

And by Bush, Bush 41 not Bush 43

SI

Some pretty heavy-handed criticism of Obama's words and deeds of late from the left. The criticism over at the Huffington Post of his economic moves that mirror what Bush was so heavily criticized for. Note that those criticisms of Dubya were well-warranted, but it's surprising that the same coverage isn't being levelled against Obama's latest end-around.............

Ian Welsh: I'm Sure There's a Difference Between the Bush/Paulson, Obama/Geithner Approaches to Bailouts


This liberal blogger noted his surprise at which media outlet was painting Obama in a bad light and who was not.........

Most schizophrenic administration ever? | Comments from Left Field

This is very hard for me to follow. When did liberals go from blindly following the messiah to blindly hating him?

By the way, I'm disappointed with the change in the Cuban travel law by Obama. The restriction on travel should be completely removed. The argument that democracy won't come to Cuba if we lighten the restrictions is a load of hogwash. The quickest way to get the Cuban people to move towards a less restrictive form of government is to give them the ability to interact with Americans and learn from our people, not vice versa.

Additionally, remember that for most of GWB's administration, most of the key people in his cabinet didn't think that Europe was that valuable, or that relevant of a partner. I think that was reflected in a lot of GWB's scripted comments about diplomatic relations between Europe and the US.

I just checked with my fellow liberal pinko-hippies and aside from the one guy who's still pissed about Obama's Final Four picks, we're still all ga-ga about our guy Barry O.

So you must be talking about some other "left".

WSJ

WSJ

So today I've learned that Obama wants to control the banks and force them to accept pay limits which he will then undermine.

As for the merits of the story, I don't trust single, anonymous sourced stories. Even if they are willing to repay TARP, I bet they're still getting Fed money and AIG money that's in essence the same thing. I'd bet they still need access to bailout funds, they just want to choose what rules they have to follow.

Okay, I have a BIG problem with this administration's approach to Islamic Terrorists.


Problem is, I never hear any of these so-called moderate Muslims condemning the actions of the so called radical Muslims. Show me those throngs of Muslim people protesting the terrorists, then I'll buy it.


After all the terrorist activity associated with its religion, one would think that Islam would be trying to mend fences with the rest of the world, and not the other way around.


Yeah, let's get those uppity western women back into burkhas and have them walk behind their men like they should.


Yeah, they shaped our country all right. A few smoking holes and some large piles of rubble to mark where Americans died.

I wonder what other parts he appreciates? a. denial of education to women? b. Allowing a spouse to divorce his wife on a whim? c. the history of pedophilia with young women, (child brides)? e. concept of Jihad? f. Cutting off hands? g. repression of other religions? h. death penalty for homosexuals?

Also didn't like how deeply he bowed to the Saudi King. Damn...for a minute I thought he might be picking something up off the floor....especially since all he gave the Queen of England was a perfunctory nod -- and after she said she had all his speeches on her Ipod too.

YouTube - Obama Bows to Saudi King

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...

Islam has not contributed to shit since, oh about the 13th century other than what you have mentioned above. Islam used to be some of the best at astronomy and science up until the 1200s. After that, it's all been down hill for them since, in my opinion.

sorry for the horrible quoting format...

Can't you say that about religion in general?

great song

Well...we could fill a whole 'nother thread for that debate. :)

I guess my biased opinion (in regards to Obama trying to reassure the islamic world) is, if you (islam) want to play on the world stage, you're going to have to make concessions, period. The problem is, islam is known very well, for its agressive and over zelousness of protecting its dogmatic beliefs regardless of where and when its applied and who it affects, and in the last 45 years or so, with deadly results.