Tell that to the good doctor in Pakistan now serving a 33 year sentence for helping us in that op. If Obama hadn't said anything they would very probably not have known anything.
One could argue that by authorizing the drone attacks he is a political and moral coward. Why? 1) The killings with drones do not endanger U.S. troops, meaning President Obama does not have to pay a political price for the loss of U.S. lives. 2) Killing terrorists instead of capturing them and interrogating them while it deprives the U.S. of intelligence data, it makes it unnecessary for President Obama to have to take responsibility for authorizing their interrogation or be responsible for their treatment while imprisoned.
Or it could be because Pakistan is a corrupt shithole run by murderous thugs who harbor terrorists. Nah, gotta be Obama's fault.
I voted for Obama in 2008, not because I believed he was the best candidate (Kucinich was my pick) but because the existing Republican Party (which I belonged to for many years) has become an overt threat to the middle class and a latent threat to democracy. I will vote for Obama again and for the same reason. He is the lesser of two evils. While Obama has been a vast improvement over Bush in every way his performance as President has been a major disappointment. First, he failed to appoint an Attorney General who would have and could have effectively investigated and prosecuted the Bush Administration for its major crimes. The ultimate effect of this obvious patronage will be repetition of similarly brazen criminal conduct by future administrations. Next, although he admitted to frequent marijuana use in his past Obama has utterly failed to address the War on Drugs, the most destructive element of which is the absolutely unnecessary and burdensome, utterly destructive and counterproductive prohibition of marijuana. Obama's overall performance has convinced me that, because he is a young man with a young family, his primary concern is his future upon leaving Office, whether in this November or in four more years. So he is unwilling to step on the toes of those who could cause him problems. I believe that consideration is the reason behind each and every one of Obama's failures to live up to the image he projected as a candidate. Obama's strongest aspect is his skill as a political orator, complete with an inspiring skyward gaze and almost flawless rhetorical flow. He is an artful bullshit artist with a likeable, inoffensive, unimposing manner.
Yes, they are a corrupt shithole. However, of Obama hadn't made any details of the raid public, the corrupt shitholes would never have known this doctor helped us and he'd still be a free man. So tell me how this is was not caused by Obama shooting his mouth off.
If you consider what I posted to be "massive" you've assumed the posture of a Lilliputian addressing Gulliver. And that's your basic problem.
Aw, gee, I was hoping for something more along the lines of... "No, Dicky, Republicans are friends to the middle class, and democracy, because...(answer that doesn't involve "the Demcrats are worse !!"). Guess I was dreaming....
Skin didn't say the Demmunists are worse than the Re-pube-icans, you salad fork. How can "X Brand bullshit" be worse than "Y Brand bullshit"? They're both bullshit. From whence stems Skin's objection to all this, "Mmnneehhhhh, the Republicans! Mmmmnehhhhhh!" They're the same goddamn thing as those Democrats you love so verra verra much. Republicans want to stick their noses in the bedroom, Democrats want to stick their noses in the kitchen, but invasion of personal business is invasion of personal business and intrusive busybodies are intrusive busybodies regardless of which letter comes after any given drone's name.
Yep the First Lady encouraging kids to eat a healthy diet is exactly the same as using the power of the government to tell someone they can't get married. How did I miss that? Say...isn't it a Republican mayor who wants to use the power of government to keep you from ordering whatever size soft drink you want?
I guess I'm taking it for granted that a wealthy, nuclear-armed nation has an intelligence service comprised more of guys sitting around waiting for Obama to say stuff.
Pakistan is by no means wealthy, but it's intelligence service ISI is one of the most powerful organs of the state many believing it to be more powerful than the civilian government. This why it is impossible to buy that the Pakis didn't know OBL was there, but it is possible to believe that their President or other civilian figures were unaware. Between the Military and the ISI they really don't have much power.
That is a lame excuse and you know it. Look, I approve what Obama has done with the WoT for the most part. I think he has some balls we don't want to give him credit for, but he HAS been too open about what the SpecOps community is doing. SEALs would NEVER come out in public and tell him to STFU but they did.
Sorry, I don't consider it lame. Your mileage may vary. Considering that I do have friends who are special operators and have worked closely with that community I can say that I am sensitive to protecting their interests. I will also say that they may not like Obama but I also don't think they really like any politicians. Politicians talk for a living, Special Operators don't. However, without politicians willing to do the right talking to get them the funding they need and the willingness to use them properly they wouldn't exist or they'd be just play soldiers running around doing public exhibitions. Special Operators would like to do their job silently and without any acknowledgement, but there is a lot of complaining in that community about how they are not appreciated and not enough is done for them. (I'm not talking about special operators specifically, but the people around them) Well, we can't have it both ways.
It means both parties have gone off the rails, just the Dem's are a little worse at the moment. I think you'd be very hard pressed to find any middle class folk that feel better off after three years of Obama (2 with him having total control of Congress) that they did after 3 years of Bush. Obviously to blame him for all that would be foolish, but the fact remains that the two years the Dem's controlled DC, the economy got worse and the deficit got vastly worse.
And if you're inclined to hate democrats in general and Obama in particular, it's easy to dismiss the possibility that things were so bad they couldn't be fixed overnight.
I agree with the fact that they couldn't be fixed overnight, hence the first sentence of my last paragraph. However, I don't expect him to make things worse, which IMO he did. His policies slowed down the recovery and his energy policy combined with the European crisis make a double dip a very real possibility. With our deficits rising and energy costs headed that way (as a trend, not week to week) we're not in good shape.
Go pull up your retirement account statements from Jan 2009. Now go pull your recent ones. Oh, wait, I think I see what you are trying to do. Are you only trying to compare the first three years of Obama with the first three years of Bush? No consideration taken for the conditions each came into office with (projected budged surpluses v near economic collapse). Wow talk about stacking the deck!
I believe the term wimpy better describes Obama than ruthless. The guy tries to compromise with himself, offering to compromise with his own compromise.
