posted on September 18, 2008 01:05:37 PM new
Subject: FW: Obama v. McCain/Palin
Let's see if I have this straight ...
* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic,
different.'
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.
* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well
grounded.
* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the
first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter
registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a
Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator
representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the
state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the
United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while
sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and
Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real
leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council
and 6 years as the mayor of a town with fewer than 7,000 people, 20 months
as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified
to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2
beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real
Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your
disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a
Christian.
* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the
proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no
other option in sex education in your state's school system while your
unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.
* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a
prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city
community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't
represent America's.
* If your husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI
conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age
25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska
from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
_____________________
posted on September 19, 2008 03:27:40 AM new
Bill,
Could you explain your first statement? Maybe I'm being dense - but I really don't get what your point you are trying to make.[ edited by cherishedclutter on Sep 19, 2008 03:31 AM ]
edited twice because I'm having trouble this morning writing a sentence!
[ edited by cherishedclutter on Sep 19, 2008 03:32 AM ]
posted on September 19, 2008 04:52:51 AM new
It's not clear to me either, Cherishedclutter.
Sometimes in order to interpret such an unclear message it's helpful to understand the political position of the writer. But in this endeavor we have a problem. Kozersky has stated that he is a Democrat while he supports Republican policy...sort of like Lieberman, I suppose.
So maybe he has a conflicted opinion and is asking the questions to clarify his thoughts?
posted on September 19, 2008 05:19:37 AM new
I'm puzzled too but really wish the country's focus (repubs + dems alike) could shift away from "who lives the Harriet + Ozzie lifestyle" and look at what the candidates are planning to do with our economy, our health care, education, the war, global warming, surviving the oil crisis. (Not necessarily in that order).
posted on September 22, 2008 04:39:32 PM new
Obama’s answer on experience: But I’m such a great campaigner! Update: McCain response — “Desperate, laughable”
posted at 7:25 am on September 2, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
Anderson Cooper asked Barack Obama last night to answer the claim that Sarah Palin has more applicable experience than he does. In response, he completely ignores Palin’s status as governor, and then makes the claim that a campaign counts as executive experience:
AC: Some Republican critics say, you don’t have the experience to handle a situation like this [Hurricane Gustav]. They’ve in fact said that Governor Palin has more executive experience as mayor of a small town and as governor of a big state like Alaska. What’s your response?
BO: Well, you know, my understanding is that, uh, Governor Palin’s town of Wasilly [sic] has, uh, 50 employees, uh, uh, we’ve got 2500, uh, in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. Uh, uh, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. Uh, so I think that, uh, our ability to manage large systems, uh, and to, uh, execute, uh, I think has been made clear over the last couple of years. Uh, and certainly, in terms of, uh, the legislation that I’ve passed just dealing with this issue post-Katrina, uh, of how we handle emergency management. The fact that, uh, many of my recommendations were adopted and are being put in place, uh, as we speak indicates to extent to which we can provide the kinds of support and good service that the American people expect.
Let’s take the last point first. Did Barack Obama pass legislation bearing his recommendations for emergency management? A list of “actions” taken by Obama in the wake of Katrina compiled by a supporter doesn’t exactly lend itself to that conclusion. Once one strips out all of the speeches, the actual legislative actions appear to mostly consist of adding his name as co-sponsor to the bills of others, and it’s unclear whether any of the bills Obama did introduce ever passed.
Even if they did, it gives him no experience at managing disasters. Governors and mayors have to manage disasters, and when they succeed, they save lives. When they fail, as we saw in Katrina, it costs lives. Legislators have no role in disaster management itself, although honestly, disaster management isn’t usually a resumé point when voting for mayor, governor, or President. Whatever impulse exists now to make it one stems from the irrational blame heaped on George Bush for the failures of Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco in Katrina, although FEMA certainly had its failures as well.
But the main point here is that Obama didn’t really answer the question, and he set up a straw man argument in response to Cooper. Governor Palin is, well, governor, and not currently the mayor of Wasila. As Governor, Palin operates a $9 billion budget, and manages $13 billion in revenue. Furthermore, she runs a government that employs 25,000 people.
Obama blithely pretends that she’s still the mayor of “Wasilly” in order to boost himself. However, running for office isn’t executive experience, for one good reason: Obama isn’t the campaign manager. He has a CEO actually running the campaign, handling the budget, and managing the people while Obama makes the speeches.
If this is Obama’s best response on the experience question, the attacks on Palin’s experience will have to stop, unless the campaign wants Obama to keep embarrassing himself while making it.
Update: The McCain campaign has responded to Mark Halperin at Time:
“For Barack Obama to argue that he’s experienced enough to be president because he’s running for president is desperate circular logic and it’s laughable. It is a testament to Barack Obama’s inexperience and failing qualifications that he would stoop to passing off his candidacy as comparable to Governor Sarah Palin’s executive experience managing a budget of over 10 billion dollar dollars, and more than 24,000 employees.” —Tucker Bounds, spokesman John McCain 2008
By that standard, anyone who ever ran for any public office has executive experience — and that also kills their own experience argument against Palin anyway. It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.George S. Patton
posted on September 22, 2008 05:26:25 PM new
really, written by Ed Morrissey?
"Edward Morrissey is the second ex-husband of Rev. Mary Manin Morrissey who pled guilty to money laundering and using funds from his wife's New Thought church, Living Enrichment Center, for personal expenses. Edward Morrissey was sentenced to federal prison for his crimes."
posted on September 23, 2008 07:43:52 PM new
"You're all as pitiful as ever, especially those of you that have SO little experience posting on the VD board."
I'll ask again. What the heck does having experience posting on this board have to do with brains or intelligence? Even someone who posts for the first time can express an intelligent opinion, just as someone who has thousands of posts can have difficulty in posting anything of substance.
[ edited by kozersky on Sep 28, 2008 12:03 PM ]