Obama '08?

Actually, the Scandinavian countries have a higher standard of living, better health care, better education, and better economy than the United States. They do have long winters, though.

BBB

I don't get your distrust of who Obama really is. He is as known a quantity as any presidential candidate in the recent past - given the way the American system has changed with time, how the primaries work in modern times and how the media practically has years to dig into anything there is about the candidates past. Just look at this thread, how long it's been running, and how people were discussing the various aspects of Obama's life, career, platform, etc.

For example, what exactly leads you to believe that he "seems to hide his true beliefs"? Is that just a vague feeling you have, or is there any kind of evidence out there that you're basing your feeling on?

I mean, going by that one example you're giving - Obama's statement about guns and religion: in what sense is that a revealing statement? And what do you think does it reveal?

Interestingly enough, I read an expose' on how the people of PA felt about the notion of bitterness, and they agreed with Obama's message mostly. The big fuss was made about his statements by everyone except who he was talking to.

T
K
O

I think this aspect of Obama is well documented, oe, who is he, it is well written about and recognized as a legitimate question, so I don't know why you don't get it. I don't think repeating alot of my previous posts, and repeating what can be read elsewhere will accomplish anything. Suffice it to say, Obama is a big question mark, and everybody knows it. His supporters know it too, but are willing to throw their support behind him because he embodies what they "feel." Its about feelings, oe.

The aspect that Obama is a big question mark is well documented? The fact that we don't know anything about him is well written about?



Maybe you're very selective in your reading material, eh? Maybe all those people who apparently spent an enormous amount of time and made a big effort to write about just how unknown Obama is could have spent the time better simply doing some research on Obama, and writing about that, eh?

Well, you see, Okie has written a lot about how nobody knows who Obama is - so it's well-documented

Cycloptichorn

It'd be nice if feelings were leavened a bit with facts. A lot to ask, I know.

What we don't know much about with respect to Obama is his behavior as a politician in a national role and in the public spotlight. Not his fault, in that he has only a few years in the Senate going for him. I don't think speeches, position papers & web site material are a substitute for that. Certainly these are not disqualifying factors, but neither are they irrelevant.

Woah woah woah, asking for facts? What's next? lol.

images like this tie in so well with the Rich old Man concept...



McCain will do everything he can to support his base, the people who he identifies with: the rich and super-rich. If he picks Romney, it's going to be a double whammy of class warfare against them.

It's an interesting question, about McCain: has he been poor, in the last thirty years? Does he understand at all having money troubles? Nope.

Cycloptichorn

Cyclo,

I'm very skeptical of the tax data in your cut & paste above. Citing the average of the category percentages as the average % cut betrays a certain deficiency in basic algebra, as does averaging the unweighted category tax cuts in dollars. Neither result is a meaningful statistic. The more important deception in the table is the omission of current tax rates and any acknowledgement of the degree to which they already penalize higher incomes. Associated with that is the lack of any analysis of the net effect on the economy and therefore any acknowledgement of the resulting net effect on employment and the real interests of those with lower incomes. Finally, I dispute the data in several of the categories themselves. Merely raising the category tax rates as he has proposed and eliminating the qualified dividend and capital gains tax rates will cost me several times more than the value indicated in the table.

It helps when you do the arithmetic right.

George wrote--



I didn't read it carelessly George. I didn't consider the "rhetorical flourishes" as having any significance.

Of course we have some rights there. We are allies. You have rights here.

I don't think there is a "reflexive anti-Americanism" in Europe. Your criticisms of the Grauniad are pale besides mine. Educated Europeans are fully aware of our ghastly past. We are trying to escape from it. If anything, it is felt that Americans don't recognise their own ghastly past.

I would say that European colonialism in all of its features was an inevitable consequence of history and in doing so have the only fact of relevance to support me. All else is speculation with almost nothing else to support any of it other than hindsight and a certain wistful romanticism ladled in.

I didn't say there were no alternatives. Millions, billions even, were possible but only on the cusp of time which, it is often forgotten, moved at the same rate, or as near as dammit, that it does now and each moment being conditioned by a myriad events, many unexpected. Luther's conception say. But then again, if a movement is there to be led it will find a leader from another conception if Luther's Daddy had done what Germaine Greer recommends.

It is true that " we have several far more fundamental disagreements involving human behavior, history and philosophy that must first be resolved before we can reach any common understanding."

Oxford dons were notorious for spending their days and evenings in attempting to reach common understandings and when they did so they were only those of the very commonest sort and reached during the night-time. To an extent it requires a familiarity with a roughly agreed appreciation of the arts, the meaner apects of life, and the consumption of a fairly narrow range of narcotic substances such as absinthe and nicotine. Not a one of them could possibly have produced Whistler's Mother or From Here to Eternity to mention just two of a large list in American art.

I don't think common understandings are possible generally. We pretend otherwise for social reasons. On the subject of European and American history it is impossible to even pretend. Except when the cameras are rolling.

Who you elect President is a matter of interest to us in the same way that a distant dust cloud was of interest to an Apache scout. How you do it fascinates some of us just as any brilliant movie does.

It'll all be in some dusty archives before all that long. They'll talk about The Materialist Revolution I suppose. Encapsulating our time here in a neat phrase.

I don't have (or seek) the right to vote in British (or German) elections, and that was the matter that old europe was implying was unfairly denied him here.

The wistful references we so often hear to excessive American power or unilateralism coming from Europeans sound very hypocritical to my poor ears. If old europe wants more direct influence on the affairs of the world then let him (and others) urge their own national governments and the much vaunted European Union to play a more serious role in international affairs. The recent spectacle of European "reaction" to the Russian occupation of parts of Georgia and the bullying way it has been going about gaining control of energy resources within and even near its borders, I believe, tells the tale nicely (as did earlier events following the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia). When it is convenient to Mr. Putin, he even hires a former German Chancellor to help him sow discord in the EU with a direct gas pipeline under the Baltic, bypassing Poland.

I believe that history will likely be kinder even to G. W. Bush than to his contemporaries in the major European Governments and the EU. While the UK, Sweden and Germany have made serious and effective efforts to meet the obligations they and the other Kyoto signatories so loudly took on eight years ago, most have done virtually nothing, and many, from Greece to Italy, Spain and even Canada have increased their emissions far more than has the United States in the intervening years. We wisely declined the offer to assist the Lilliputians with their strings and join in their organized hypocritical folly. A similar tale could be told with respect to the ICC (remember that?). These issues and the expressions of unilateral intent after 9/11 were what excited the latest round of European hand-wringing and angst with respect to the United States (the current administration certainly) , and may even have contributed to old europe's wistful reference to a vote in our elections.

I believe we (the U.S.) were right in all of these actions, and our European critics wrong. Moreover, I'm very glad they can't vote here.

Fox News says its Biden.

I thought he would be eliminated due to a medical condition, diagnosis being foot in mouth disease? But he is qualified to be vp, just ask him.

This will be fun.

Some quotes Biden would like to forget perhaps:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NGRhNzJlMWY5NjdiNzhjMTRkYjMzNjYwOGJmYzNjMTY=

And I thought he didn't want the vp job, and wouldn't take it if it was offered?
So many questions.........

You're leaving out the really big problem. Obama becoming president would amount to putting that Chicago political machine, which is the closest thing we have to Tammany Hall in our modern world, in charge of the country.

Go to Erols or Blockbusters and check out a copy of Gangs of New York, and try to picture any of those ****heads running the United States. THAT is the problem.

Again, you know you've come to a parting of the ways with Hollywood Californicatia when you find yourself rooting for the outright villains (such as Daniel Day Louis) in their movies....

Gungasnake, don't you think it's time to get your brain transplant before it's malfunction become permanent?

BBB

Is he a big question mark, because you've segregated yourself? A well educated, well traveled BLACK man, but you think all Blacks should vote for the White Person of YOUR choice? By segregating yourself, you miss out on the diversity of getting to know someone who isn't your color, but most Blacks like I assume, most whites, strive to be better educated, better housed, etc. Oh, I see, ALL Blacks come out of the ghetto, right?

The same could be said for Bush! Nobody has said, what a dunce HE is!

You are a freaking RACIST and your opinion is suspect.

George,

I hardly think that the rich are treated unfairly by our system, which serves to perpetuate their influence and money to a great degree.

There's no analysis on the 'net effect on the economy' because there is large disagreement on this issue. You Republicans will whinge and whine that it will hurt the economy, but then again, the Bush tax cuts which supposedly 'helped' the economy have done nothing of the sort, so how can you be expected to be trusted on this issue?

Forget about the averages at the bottom - the truth is that McSame proposes giving the largest tax cuts, in terms of both percentages and real dollar amounts, to the rich, his base. Obama proposes the opposite. It's a clear distinction and one that will be pivotal to Dem victory this cycle.

I'm sure that if your taxes went up, your life will still go by just fine. You may be constrained a little but you certainly won't see any significant drop in your lifestyle. The idea that this will be some sort of hardship on the rich is laughable and truly the same, boring pap recycled yet again by your party. I also think it represents a gigantic flip-flop by McCain, not a compromise, not an evolution of position: a complete change. He's sold himself out to get the votes of Rich (and aspiring to be rich) Republicans. Sad.

Cycloptichorn