Roosveltrepub

as did the republicans on defense apprpriation, raising the debt cieling and actually returning our balance sheet to the red. Like I said it's become dysfunctional. It seems both sides care more about political power and frustrating the opposition than serving us.

Silent Hunter

I was never a cheerleader for Obama and while he's not been brilliant (he's compromised in a lot of ways), he's not Carter. Yet.

Julie

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, the guy who once got a tingle up the leg at the mere thought of Barack Obama now suggests the President may be “Carteresque.” And there’s no way to interpret that as a compliment.

Here’s a transcript of Matthews conversation with David Ignatius and Anne Kornblut of the Washington Post:

For the last two years Chris Matthews has acted as if Barack Obama is the second coming of Christ. Now even Matthews seems to recognize that he’s the second coming of Jimmy Carter.

Chris Matthews calls Obama "Carteresque" Is the tingle gone? | I Hate the Media - Fun with Liberal Media Bias

We’re conflicted. We don’t know whether to laugh or laugh really hard.

Gun Grape

Never gave an opinion one way or the other if I think he is worse than Carter.

Just correcting some of the discrepancies in the articles reasoning. It argues that Obama is worse because of X,Y and Z. But Y and Z are false then the author needs to reevaluate his outcome.

For the record, I'm not an Obama supporter. I disagree with about 95% of the things that he has done. But I will correct lies and distortions against him, as I would any other President. He deserves to be judged by the truth.
Many on the right wing nut job side are doing what those on the left wing Bush-Hitler" groups did.

I thought we were above that

Is he worse than Carter. With almost one year into a 4 year term, its too early to tell.

Countezero

That's a great post.

As far as the whole ending the War on Terror bit, I don't have a problem with it. Paul Pillar, the CIA's former CTC chief, wrote that dubbing the struggle against terrorism would be a mistake. He did so in a book he wrote BEFORE 9/11. So far as I know, his opinion has not changed. Paul Pillar, believes the expectations for any campaign against terrorism must be realistic in both its scope and its aims. “If there is a ‘war’ against terrorism,” he writes, “it is a war that cannot be won.”

Such criticisms return us to the question about whether the so-called “war-footing” is appropriate for this political, economic and military undertaking. Specifically, by dubbing the conflict a war, the Bush administration has unconsciously established an unrealistic expectation for how victory against radical Islam and transnational terrorism will be achieved. Unlike the previous wars fought between states, Philip H. Gordon tells us that victory in the War on Terror “will not come when foreign leaders accept certain terms but when political changes erode and ultimately undermine the support for the ideology and strategy for those determined to destroy the United States.” According to J. Martin Rochester, in practical terms, this means that the “war” itself “will consist of the management of terrorism so that what incidents do occur are isolated and relatively minor in their lethality and destructiveness.” For Gordon and Rochester, terrorism is “like violent crime, deadly disease, and other scourges … it can be reduced and contained. But it cannot totally be eliminated. … The goal of eliminating terrorism entirely is not only unrealistic but also counterproductive.”

Officer of Engineers

For those who argued such, they ignored the historic lessons of the Mongols against the Assasins and British India against the Thugees.

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Chimo

Roosveltrepub

If the terrorists had an impregnable fortress they gathered in I'd agree

Officer of Engineers

Tora Bora.

Cactus

The Thugees were spread over a wide section of Central India (forests, scrublands, numerous small villages). The Chinese Triads in Malaya were spread out in both rural and urban areas and had international contacts. However British officers of those times, like Col. Sleeman and Capt. Spears, had extraordinary legal powers and their law was enforced by ex-Indian Army men who had nearly unlimited staying power.

S-2

I think Troung and Gun Grape have done a fine job diminishing some of the beef here. There's nothing spectacular about the guy yet nor impossible to overcome.

I have great faith in the system's ability to defeat the endeavors-good or bad-of any temporal entity such as a measly president. The monster is bigger than us all, even our pillars of checks and balances pale before the Washington protocol.

Everybody and everything is buffered to palatable levels by "advise and consent".

Remember that we're a country that managed to elevate Dwight Eisenhower to president but somehow missed on George C. Marshall. Go figure...

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"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski

TopHatter

I am so sick to death of hearing about Obama bowing to the Emperor of Japan. And like you said, what about Nixon and Bush Sr bowing to Hirohito of all people?? The one former Axis power ruler still living and still in power.

Another example of "Let's pillory him for anything we possibly can, who gives a damn if it's the truth or not.

Exactly.

I recall when Hillary Clinton was running for the Democratic nomination. My e-mail inbox was always full of lies and nonsense and outright bullshit accusations against her.

I'd always fire back a "Reply All" (usually quoting Snopes) about how it was a lot of bunk...and then asked "Why, with all that's factually objectionable to her based on your political stance, would you have to spam people's inboxes with hoaxes and urban legends?"


I always shudder at that blunder. I shudder even more when I think of Gordon England's blunder of ordering that the "Don't Tread On Me" navy jack be flown from all USN ships until the end of the War On Terror.

Brilliant move Gordo. Planning on staying SecNav indefinitely to enforce that order? Or maybe thinking that another Administration will say "Well, Gordon ordered it...better keep it in place because gosh he said so"

Was he thinking it'd never get removed after he left office?

Now when that happens, it'll either be a bald-faced lie that War is over/won or just a quiet admission that you shouldn't have ordered something so impossible in the first place?

Bigfella

Unfortunately there are more than a few folk about (perhaps even on this board) who have gorged heavily enough on the more unhinged commentators on American life to consider Marshall a 'fellow traveller' at best, a 'traitor' at worst. A poor tribute to perhaps the greatest American of the C20th.

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Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

Bigfella

In furious agreement. If Obama's critics need to resort to hysterical hyperbole or outright invention they simply aren't paying attention. He has done or failed to do enough to keep any critic fully supplied with ammunition. Exaggeration & fantasy are not required.




Wanna bet that if it is done under Obama he will either be accused of claiming a false victory or 'giving up'.

Tarek Morgen

George Marshall? The guy who transformed an amateurish 200.000 men sized army into a million strong professional fighting force? The man behind the Marshal Plan and first 5 star General? Why would any American consider him a traitor?? The only negative thing I ever read about him was criticism about the replacement system he used in WWII, though that was rather a political decision iirc.

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uh I might be wrong

TopHatter

Of course!

Although it'll be said of anybody - to one degree or another - who does it...thus proving the idiocy of ordering it in the first place.