[quote]lixy wrote:
sherekahn wrote:
Lixy,
Without completely sidetracking the thread.
Tell me/us why you think Obama is “a gaping asshole?” What is it about him that you find so objectionable?
He’s a lying power-hungry scumbag, with no more integrity than a toaster. He wouldn’t know what a principle is if it hit him in the face.
The man is a lawyer turned politician. What else do you need to know?[/quote]
Barack Obama has a law degree, yes. He worked at a law firm for 3 MONTHS as a SUMMER ASSOCIATE while he was still in law school. That is the equivalent of being a lifeguard at the local pool during high school summer break.
Before attending law school, Barack Obama worked at “a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman and Riverdale) on Chicago’s far South Side. He worked there as a community organizer from June 1985 to May 1988.[28][30] During his three years as the DCP’s director its staff grew from one to thirteen and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000. He helped set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants’ rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.[31] Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.” The man worked for nothing but scrapes in one of the most notorious project communities in America. Does this not speak to his integrity?
After graduating law school, “From April to October 1992, Obama directed Illinois’s Project Vote, a voter registration drive with a staff of ten and 700 volunteers; it achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state.” Then for twelve years, he “served as a professor at the University of Chicago Law School teaching constitutional law. He was first classified as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996 and then as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004.[43] He also joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a twelve-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development.”
Obama was a law professor, then practiced CIVIL RIGHTS law. Does this not speak to his integrity?
“He served from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project, and also from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Joyce Foundation.[28] Obama served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1999.[28] He also served on the board of directors of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Lugenia Burns Hope Center.” Obama spent the prime of his money gaining years workin for community boards, philanthropic organizations and civil rights committees. Are you catching the pattern yet?
What part of this makes him a scumbag? Building on this, the only way to make real, nationally sweeping, reform would be to turn to politics. He is barely a career politician, he only served four years in the Senate. Furthermore, the length of his total political career lasted him 12 years, a minuscule amount of time to be a politician if you want to run for president.
Disagree with his policies if you like, I have no qualms with that. But to debase his integrity and principles? Bullshit.
Now if you dislike him simply because he is involved in the government, then your argument is the equivalent of a little turd. I do not want to get into an argument about the pros and cons and philosophical origins of government because I don’t doubt most of it would fly over your head if your arguments revolve around the integrity of toasters.
[edit: all quotes taken from wikipedia (duh) ]