Once again, it’s so nice to have a President who is a real adult, and who speaks to us citizens as adults.
The Mahablog
Politics. Society. Group Therapy.
Once again, it’s so nice to have a President who is a real adult, and who speaks to us citizens as adults.
There has been no “change” and he has disillusioned 45 percent of dems into proclaiming they will stay home next election cycle.
Its just better sounding hollow rhetoric – perhaps to some an improvement, but it results in just more of the same.
I have not read any of the wing-nut opinions of Obama’s remarks (except maybe this dumb fuck joe that posted here, 45 percent, where do these numbers come from, maybe the FAUX news number factory). I was proud that Obama got through the entire speech and I don’t believe he used the word terror. That will give the hysterical media and teabagging crowd something to talk about for a week or so.
Did you know the opposite of terror is calm?
That certainly was refreshing and it was really laughable that Cheney tried to slam him for flaws in the system left by Cheney.
Still, I wish Obama would talk Geithner and maybe that hair-trigger, defensive Janet Napolitano (defending “the system” as if it were one entirely of her making that needs no improvement) into being adults.
I’m still waiting for the dust to settle on this one. We seem to be inching towards the type of safeguards that the Israelis have in place — the same ones that the Bush administration rejected. The appearance of searching Grandma with equal likelihood as heavily perspiring Islamic males with one way tickets paid in cash is simply foolish.
Computers can easily deal with a half million names on the no-fly list so that known, a priori reasons for scrutiny coupled with beahvioral trigger can prevent the type of things that happened. The ease with which the system can hadle situations like this leads me to wonder whether the problem isn’t internecine squabbling, ownership issues and information hiding. Somewhere, somehow heads should roll — not out of need for a scapegoat but rather for a fundamental lack of understanding of the problem at hand…one that should be easily resolvable with technology at hand. It’s kind of like that old remark about how cars aren’t dangerous but the nut behind the wheel is. If they fail to grasp the problem no amount of technology can be assembled to deal with the situation.
I do agree that his candor was refreshing and I do not doubt his veracity nor his will or capacity to fix this flaw. His comments were far removed from any “war on terror” (you can’t have a war with a tactic) or “crusade”. Some commentary likened his remarks to “speaking softly but carrying a big stick”.
…leave the braying, chest-thumping and hair-on-fire paranoia to Cheney and the rest of the little men and chicken-hawks from the Bush administration.
“The appearance of searching Grandma with equal likelihood as heavily perspiring Islamic males with one way tickets paid in cash is simply foolish.”
The problem here is that as soon as the system becomes non-random, it becomes predictable. And when it becomes predictable, it becomes beatable.
All terrorists would have to do is a bit of analysis on who gets searched and who doesn’t, and just send somebody through that doesn’t trigger any of the markers.
So yah, a non-random system would probably stop Abdul Hassan from Yemen who is muttering ‘death to america” … but it would completely fail to catch Joe Smith, originally from the US, a bit swarthy perhaps but wearing a nice business suit and being nice and polite to everybody.
A truly random system, on the other hand, would have a chance at catching that guy … and because guys like that, able to project a “safe” front while at the same time being willing to blow themselves up, are so rare, they would probably be too valuable to risk on an op that will at most take out one single airplane.
The problem with a truly random system is that it sometimes looks bad. Sometimes granny will get searched while Abdul strolls on through. You’ve gotta remember, tho, that the vast, vast, VAST majority of people that look and act like Abdul are NOT terrorists, they just have a need to get somewhere far away without spending a week doing it, like everybody else on the plane.
As for those no-fly lists … I question the usefulness of those lists. There are at this point hundreds of thousands of names on names on those lists, the vast majority of which are just people that have names too close to somebody “of interest” or such-like. There are so many stories out there about ordinary people who find out they’re on a no-fly list at the actual airport… Any time you’ve got a data set that has so very much noise in it, the actual information tends to get lost. Perhaps if the various agencies were able to coordinate a bit better to ensure that the ONLY people on the lists are people who are genuinely “of interest”…
-me
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/poll-dems-planning-to-stay-home-nov-3.php
But here’s a few more – despite campaign to the contrary:
*Wall Street got the bail out, not mainstreet.
*Obama’s “race to the top” is something out of the repug playbook for education
*Despite proclaiming “You can take that to the bank” we have escalated endless wars in Middle East and now rattling swords for yemen.
*Virtually all of dur chimpfurher’s spying and secrecy has been continued. The US still tortures.
*Obama sold out his base on healthcare reform, capitulating to big pharma and the insurance industry. A central point of his campaign has degenerated into a bail out of the insurance industry. There are well-placed reports that obama/rahm were behind the elimination of the public option.
But I don’t expect obamabots to listen to the truth anyhow.
By Brad Reed, Commonweal Institute. Posted January 7, 2010.
http://www.alternet.org/politics/145007/white_house_scorecard_for_2009%3A_why_obama_gets_at_best_a_%27c%22_grade
This was posted today at one of the “advertise liberally” blogs on maha’s blogroll.
Not being bush is should not enough to earn the mindless support of self-proclaimed progressives/liberals.
But obamabots will never agree.
Joe — A “C” is average, not Absolute Evil.
Joe, you might actually read that TPM link, and check your calendar. The link is datelined:
TPMDC
Poll: Dems Planning To Stay Home Nov. 3
Evan McMorris-Santoro | October 21, 2009, 11:18AM
The “Nov. 3” refers to the off-year election that occurred on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2009. Your subsequent points are similarly riddled with essential errors. Based on your two comments, you currently have a credibility rating of zero.
Then you should probably not have given him the MA on the last one Maha.
Anyhow, to the topic at hand. Well it might feel nice but I don’t think it will work, just like every other time it’s fallen on deaf ears. The only time it didn’t was in the throws of the economic collapse and that was before he came into office. Only absolute crisis breaks the narrative and not for long.
So I think he’s wasting his time.
The question is I guess, if he demagogued a little could it help the party and his agenda? I honestly don’t know, maybe.
Correction, Joe: based on your three comments, and your continual name-calling, your credibility is now in the negative numbers. Clearly you have no idea of the regular comments and posts on this blog, or you wouldn’t keep using the grossly misapplied term “Obamabots.”
And what is your reckless disregard for facts, if not “mindless”?
Joe,
I’m sorry, I didn’t know that only YOU held the truth. My apologies.
And I guess you haven’t been reading this site for too long, or you’d know that we aren’t “obamabot’s.” We’ve criticized him long and hard. But, if you want to stand out in front of the park screaming epiphets, instead of working to move something along, by all means, that is your right. Just don’t classify “us.”
Still, in the overall scheme of things, I think I’d rather be classified an “obamabot,” than as a cerified ‘dingbat.’ Check your fact’s, Dude. Check your fact’s…
And when you do, you’re welcome back to discuss what you’ve learned.
One thing I’ve learned in all these years of being a public blogger — you absolutely never know what’s going to set somebody off.
I saw a 3-year-old laying in the aisle of the supermarket kicking and screaming because mommy wouldn’t buy him ice cream. Sounded a lot like Joe.
The Obama order on torture was that we adhere to the ‘Army Field Manual’, and not just the Army but the intel agencies. It’s a far cry from conducting torture in black sites which were doing. We are still holding people we have no intention of charging with a crime. I disagree with that, but we have moved the right way.
A year ago, we were bleeding 750,000 jobs per month – Wall Street/Finance was in free fall. My wife lived through the meltdown of the Soviet Union – a complete collapse – economic – political – social – everything. We avoided that here – barely – and a bunch of fat cats have taken advantage. Perfect justice exists only in your head – but chaos and starvation at the bottom should be a scary thing. If you live in the real world.
We are keeping a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Obama is going to try something to salvage the effort in Afghanistan, but it’s pretty obvious that Congress is in no mood to let it drag on forever. A new conflict in Yemen or Iran is NOT something anyone in the administration is pushing for and Congress would not sign off on. Most Americans don’t like the Afghan war, but a clear majority are willing to let Obama try. So far in those conflicts (Iraq & Afghan) he’s done EXACTLY as he promised in the election.
If you can’t source your ‘well-placed reports’ about the public option, I can tell you where to put them. Unless you have noticed an extra 3 (or so) liberal Senators from a state I never heard of, I would like to know HOW we were ever going to get a Public Option? I wanted it, but the votes aren’t there. If we had given Obama a more liberal Senate, we would have a public option. Blame it on who we elected in the Senate – not on Obama.
I do have a racial question for you, Joe. Did you assume because Obama is black, he’s a radical progressive, despite what he said on the campaign trail? If you engaged in racial stereotyping, and Obama didn’t live up to your false projection of him, is the fault his – or yours?
In 2 years the GOP is going to put up a candidate to run against Obama. It will be Obama for the Democrats, and ALL the GOP candidates stand just to the right of Attila the Hun – trying to out-teabag each other. Now if you read my post (or previous posts) I will disagree with the POTUS on policy or decisions, but I will NOT try to weaken Obama as a candidate in 2012 because I don’t want any of those knuckle-dragging troglodytes in the Oval Office.
Barbara left your crap up, possibly as an example for dissatisfied progressives – how NOT to argue. The GOP is a fragmented mess with only one hope of regaining control – if we democrats will become even more fragmented and disfunctional than they are. Joe, you aren’t 3 years old any more. Start acting like it – the stakes are too high.