http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/19/afghan.voter.turnout.taliban/
Experts: Voter turnout could deal blow to Taliban

Quote :

"A high voter turnout in Thursday's presidential elections in Afghanistan could help marginalize the Taliban, experts said Wednesday. Supporters of Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah campaign in Kabul, Afghanistan. 1 of 2more photos » The militant Islamist group, which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, has threatened to violently derail the war-torn nation's second-ever presidential election. Fifteen million voters, almost half the nation, are registered. "

Sounds good, I hope it works out.

8/19/2009 10:08:42 PM

So earlier, Bush was still at fault for the 95 (number keeps growing) deaths in Baghdad this morning but Obama gets credit for better elections in Afghanistan?

I only say this based on the previous page's posts, and the fact that your last post was in the Obama's credibility watch thread

[Edited on August 19, 2009 at 11:23 PM. Reason : .]

8/19/2009 11:22:26 PM

Bush is not "at fault" for those deaths, he's at fault for the boondoggle that is Iraq, of which those deaths are an extension of.

I posted that here just because I didn't think it warranted a new thread, and this was as good a place as any. But, if you want to talk about it, Obama has done more than Bush was going to do in afghanistan, and he will do more than Bush likely would have done.

8/19/2009 11:28:38 PM

maybe i'm wrong, but you seem to want to give credit some places and put blame some places, but not be very consistent in how you go about it

8/19/2009 11:32:31 PM

Quote :

"he will do more than Bush likely would have done"

top notch evidence/argument A+++ will vote for Obama again

8/20/2009 8:12:49 AM

BUSH LIED PEOPLE DIED

AND HE EATS BABIES

8/20/2009 1:19:01 PM

So, Obama's on vacation again? How many does this make after only about seven months in office?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RHTiXvELNg

8/20/2009 4:54:09 PM

*posts random reply that doesn't address obama's vacations but instead talks about how much bush traveled to crawford*

8/20/2009 5:04:26 PM

He's taking on too much! He needs to slow down!

He's going on vacation too much!!

huh?

8/20/2009 5:10:19 PM

^^ Or. . .

*The president's in command no matter where he is--except if he's Bush.*



Remember Fahrenheit 9/11?

^ Yes, trying to shove a multitude of social programs down the throats of Americans and taking multiple vacations in a seven-month period are exactly the same thing. Dude, you're an idiot.

Huh. . .wat?

[Edited on August 20, 2009 at 5:15 PM. Reason : STFU. ]

8/20/2009 5:12:33 PM

Quote :

"*The president's in command no matter where he is--except if he's Bush.*"

oopsie!

also, how can obama simultaneously be working too hard and taking too much vacation?


[Edited on August 20, 2009 at 5:20 PM. Reason : .]

8/20/2009 5:13:07 PM

I'm just gonna go into the White House through this door--wait, that's a window.

8/20/2009 5:17:27 PM

haha. you sure you want to do this? really?

8/20/2009 5:19:31 PM

push vs. pull is a little more understandable than door vs. window imo

they're both pretty petty "disses"

8/20/2009 5:21:06 PM

well yeah. that's how hooksaw rolls.

8/20/2009 5:22:43 PM

well iirc there was plenty of the same shenanigans going on regarding bush when he was in office

8/20/2009 5:23:41 PM

no argument here

8/20/2009 5:24:24 PM

Sure, we can do this. At least Bush was trying to exit through a door--not enter through a window. Obama can even walk onto a helicopter without bumping his head--he may be new, but is he new to walking?

8/20/2009 5:27:34 PM

8/20/2009 5:36:14 PM

are making me thirsty

8/20/2009 5:39:05 PM

Oops! There goes my teleprompter!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb2NW3QfonI

8/20/2009 6:00:46 PM

Quote :

"maybe i'm wrong, but you seem to want to give credit some places and put blame some places, but not be very consistent in how you go about it"

Yes, you're wrong.

8/20/2009 6:40:53 PM

Actually I'm obviously right, I was just trying to be nice about how I pointed out your hypocrisy because I didn't want to get into an argument over it.

[Edited on August 20, 2009 at 6:49 PM. Reason : .]

[Edited on August 20, 2009 at 7:12 PM. Reason : V and this is why i knew i didnt want to get into an argument over it]

8/20/2009 6:47:48 PM

I don't think "obvious" means what you think it means.

8/20/2009 7:06:39 PM

i'm appalled at how juvenile everyone on this site is.

and at how juvenile politics makes the average american, generally.

we've all choked on something before.

who says that pic is Obama mistaking a window for a door?

who says he's bumping his fucking head there? why isn't he just ducking just before walking in there?

and yes, we've all fucking mistaken a locked door for an unlocked door.

you people will do ANYTHING to be vicariously pissed off about a goddamned politician.

it IS, in fact, pitiful.

8/20/2009 7:49:02 PM

^ freshman?

8/20/2009 8:11:05 PM

I think he definitely lost some credibility with this statement:

Quote :

""There is something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up,'' Obama said"

Seriously... "wee-wee'd up" ???

8/20/2009 8:50:17 PM

Quote :

"who says that pic is Obama mistaking a window for a door? "

There was an article on it.

Quote :

"who says he's bumping his fucking head there?"

There is a video of it.

Honestly, none of it matters.

The bush photo is one of my favs.

8/20/2009 9:08:14 PM

This is the worst thread in the history of all threads ever.

8/20/2009 9:12:08 PM

^^i was unawares of its documentation. i should've known, however, that it had shown up in "news" somewhere.

Quote :

"^ freshman?"

I'm 28, and seemingly enough of an adult to understand that President of the United States of America is the very last job on earth that I would ever wish for. Ever.

[Edited on August 21, 2009 at 12:48 AM. Reason : affdddddd]

8/21/2009 12:47:11 AM

Justice Dept. Report Advises Pursuing C.I.A. Abuse Cases

Quote :

"WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/us/politics/24detain.html

Well, Obama's numbers are tanking, so it's Holder to the rescue. Nothing will push the numbers up--and distract folks--more than some good old-fashioned Bush hating.

8/24/2009 2:33:46 AM

RAWR RAWR RAWR

IM SO PISSED OFF NOW

RAWR RAWR RAWR

8/24/2009 7:50:54 AM

Obama to raise 10-year deficit to $9 trillion

Quote :

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration will raise its 10-year budget deficit projection to approximately $9 trillion from $7.108 trillion in a report next week, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday. The higher deficit figure, based on updated economic data, brings the White House budget office into line with outside estimates and gives further fuel to President Barack Obama's opponents, who say his spending plans are The White House took heat for sticking with its $7.108 trillion forecast earlier this year after the Congressional Budget Office forecast that deficits between 2010 and 2019 would total $9.1 trillion."

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE57K4XE20090821

The Obama administration is having trouble with numbers again.

8/25/2009 4:33:19 AM

oh relax, they only missed it by two trillion.

8/25/2009 11:59:02 AM

Uh-oh.

Obama White House v. CIA; Panetta Threatened to Quit

Quote :

"A 'profanity-laced screaming match' at the White House involving CIA Director Leon Panetta [Profanity?! GASP!], and the expected release today of another damning internal investigation, has administration officials worrying about the direction of its newly-appoint[ed] intelligence team, current and former senior intelligence officials tell ABC News.com. Amid reports that Panetta had threatened to quit just seven months after taking over at the spy agency, other insiders tell ABCNews.com that senior White House staff members are already discussing a possible shake-up of top national security officials. 'You can expect a larger than normal turnover in the next year,' a senior adviser to Obama on intelligence matters told ABCNews.com."

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=8398902

8/26/2009 9:39:48 AM

Socks''

Weren't you trying to say something earlier about foreign investors and "premium rates" regarding treasuries.

It seems like foreigners stopped pouring money into us a long time ago

8/26/2009 5:04:58 PM

it's really annoying when plots like ^ aren't on a log scale.

8/26/2009 5:45:12 PM

Why would that plot need to be on a log scale? Oh noes, 50 years spans so many decades.

It would be 2 bars if that were the case.

8/26/2009 6:19:37 PM

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjI5NzdhNWFlZGZlYzY2ZGQxNzQwYjMwYTUzOTIyMjc=

Quote :

"The Tingle is Gone? [Victor Davis Hanson] Many of Obama's problems are in the future. Aside from the rendezvous he has with mega-deficits, rallying support for Afghanistan, health care, selling cap-and-trade in the Senate, etc., there is a more fundamental problem with Obama's modus operandi itself. I don't think he will any longer be able to "hope and change" his way out of tomorrow's controversies with mere rhetorical flourishes, since he has already exhausted his capital of credibility, and squandered his "this is our moment" trust. Watch the faces of the press corps and the town-hall throngs when he evades, and instead starts in with the cadences: The collective expression is to roll their eyes and sigh "not this again." And yet the alternative to hope and change is off-the-teleprompter pauses, and "inflate your tires/they're taking out our tonsils" folk mythology. When Obama said he would be fiscally prudent, we got near $2 trillion deficits. When he said the debt would grow to $7 trillion over his tenure, you should nearly double that estimate. When he said Bush shredded the Constitution, he adopted most of the Bush plan from rendition to tribunals. When he said that he wished to move on, we got investigations of the CIA and the previous administration. When he said we'd have all combat brigades out by March 2008, we knew we could not. When he said anything about health care — it would save money, would not alter private plans, would not go to illegal aliens, etc — we already assumed all that was mendacious. When he says anything, we know now that it is either not true or will not be true or at best will only be partially true. And in the first seven months, there was a crass edge as well, whether measured by the jokes like ridiculing the Special Olympics or demagoguing those who go to Las Vegas or the Superbowl, or stereotyping the police who act "stupidly" and "profile." Apparently, Obama grasped (and he hints at this in his memoirs) that his rhetorical powers, and singular heritage, allowed him to achieve things not commensurate with the facts of the matter, or prerequisite knowledge and prior experience. But on a global stage, it is not so easy to wing it with just "forget the details and what I said in the past — now just trust me, since I'm young, charismatic, and different." Proof of all this is not just the waning polls and the grassroots anger of hoi polloi, but a strange and sudden end to last fall's elite-left puff pieces that used to run the gamut from women dreaming of seducing Barack, desire to change the law to allow him to begin governing almost immediately in November, worry over a Bush coup to abort the dreamy Obama presidency, and all sorts of personal testaments about how suddenly the world will be a utopia. That entire genre of liberal therapeutic Obama musings in print and on the screen has quite incredibly simply vanished. Instead, on the Left, we are seeing two common themes — Obama is in over his head; Obama is duplicitous in promising us things he never intended to deliver. When moderates and independents are leaving your cause in droves because you misled them by falsely cloaking your unwelcome partisan ideology in a moderate veneer — at the same time the fervent base is doing the same because you misled them by falsely cloaking your unwelcome moderation in a partisan ideological veneer, you know you are simply not telling the truth by saying, in cynical Nixonian fashion, irreconcilable things all the time to almost everyone. "

8/29/2009 11:27:30 AM

^^the y axis, so you could actually see the changes 50 yrs ago

[Edited on August 29, 2009 at 5:59 PM. Reason : .]

8/29/2009 5:49:47 PM

^^ wow, an opinion piece from the National Review, how meaningful.

8/29/2009 6:44:55 PM

if you can spot any inaccuracies, im all ears

8/29/2009 8:52:13 PM

says Mr.

Quote :

"SALON DOT COM"

8/29/2009 8:57:28 PM

^^ really? you're all ears? If you were all ears, you'd already know why the editorial is devoid of any real meaningful information.

The writer is just ranting blindly, he doesn't remotely offer any proposals about what to do about Obama. Therefore, it's a waste of time for me to point out the flaws, because I would just be attacking a meaningless opinionated rant, and not any particular policy strategy or ideology.

But, I found this paragraph in particular highly amusing, and exemplary of the authors general partisan hackery and delusions:

Quote :

"Proof of all this is not just the waning polls and the grassroots anger of hoi polloi, but a strange and sudden end to last fall's elite-left puff pieces that used to run the gamut from women dreaming of seducing Barack, desire to change the law to allow him to begin governing almost immediately in November, worry over a Bush coup to abort the dreamy Obama presidency, and all sorts of personal testaments about how suddenly the world will be a utopia. That entire genre of liberal therapeutic Obama musings in print and on the screen has quite incredibly simply vanished. "

Really, a picture is worth a thousand words in this case.

[Edited on August 29, 2009 at 9:23 PM. Reason : ]

8/29/2009 9:10:37 PM

Quote :

"When he said anything about health care — it would save money, would not alter private plans, would not go to illegal aliens, etc — we already assumed all that was mendacious. When he says anything, we know now that it is either not true or will not be true or at best will only be partially true."

This statement is neither accurate nor inaccurate - it's inane.

Factual information would be required in order to determine accuracy. This column is kind of just presumptive and rhetorical.

[Edited on August 30, 2009 at 10:07 AM. Reason : ]

8/30/2009 9:59:04 AM

Are you sure you aren't describing one of Obama's speeches? Presumptive.. Rhetorical.. Lacking factual information for background...

8/30/2009 11:08:03 AM

Possibly; it'd probably depend upon the speach.

I was referencing the column from above though.

8/30/2009 12:54:19 PM

it is a bit of a rant, i'll give you that. to tell the truth i'm getting to the point of just sitting back and being amazed at the simple-mindedness on both sides of the ball.

8/30/2009 1:38:43 PM

After some thought, I feel that you're owed kudos on my behalf.

Your reply both owned mine AND brought the discussion back to the topic of Obama's credibility.

Well done, Sir. Kudos.

8/30/2009 2:34:44 PM

8/31/2009 8:40:24 AM