[quote]John S. wrote:
I personally don’t see the republican party starting to cut medicare/social security and the bases around the world…[/quote]
Well yeah, they don’t want to lose the majority of the Tea Party folks…
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]John S. wrote:
I personally don’t see the republican party starting to cut medicare/social security and the bases around the world…[/quote]
Well yeah, they don’t want to lose the majority of the Tea Party folks…[/quote]
No, the tea party as a whole will accept the cuts. Maybe not if they are the first things on the list, but they understand the need for a balanced budget. And make no mistake if they do pass a balanced budget ammendment all those things are getting cut. which is why you will see them talk about a balanced budget ammendment yet never implement it.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Now you’re talking sense. [/quote]
How would you know? You lie like a rug.
[quote]John S. wrote:
No, Scott tried pulling some shit and the tea party called him out on it. See it isn’t like the democrats who suddenly love war now that there guy is in office, the tea party actually keeps to its values.[/quote]
Oh, they called him out on it, eh? Too bad that was after they elected him.
Again, you’re assuming that the parties won’t react to this. They may be stupid, but they aren’t that stupid. They want to win elections, and they will pander to whatever the issue of the day is to the layman. These parties are too entrenched to be challenged seriously. Again, it’s possible that another party will gain significance, but I highly doubt it and I certainly doubt it will come from the tea party.
Furthermore, why are you so supportive of the tea party? I know it was somewhat started by Ron Paul, but it seems like its now a semi-conservative and GOP festival. They talk like they aren’t partisan, but who are 95% of these people voting for? Republicans.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Now you’re talking sense. [/quote]
How would you know? You lie like a rug.
[/quote]
Headhunter, get a hold of yourself man. I know I’ve hurt your feelings but there’s really no need to resort to this sort of thing. I think threatening to beat me up in the PM you sent me was enough, no?
Also, keep in mind that when you dish it out, you have to be able to take it. And you dish out plenty to me and the other posters around here, so learn how to take it like a man.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Now you’re talking sense. [/quote]
How would you know? You lie like a rug.
[/quote]
Headhunter, get a hold of yourself man. I know I’ve hurt your feelings but there’s really no need to resort to this sort of thing. I think threatening to beat me up in the PM you sent me was enough, no?
Also, keep in mind that when you dish it out, you have to be able to take it. And you dish out plenty to me and the other posters around here, so learn how to take it like a man. [/quote]
I think his reaction is normal , we all think about spanking smart mouthed kids
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Now you’re talking sense. [/quote]
How would you know? You lie like a rug.
[/quote]
Headhunter, get a hold of yourself man. I know I’ve hurt your feelings but there’s really no need to resort to this sort of thing. I think threatening to beat me up in the PM you sent me was enough, no?
Also, keep in mind that when you dish it out, you have to be able to take it. And you dish out plenty to me and the other posters around here, so learn how to take it like a man. [/quote]
I think his reaction is normal , we all think about spanking smart mouthed kids
[/quote]
Spoken by a guy who has not once defended a point that he’s made. You are a total disgrace Pit. Your hate for Ronald Reagan and republicans in general warp your logic and make your arguments sound child like. Don’t get me wrong, you’re amusing, and that’s a good thing.
Now run along now I don’t want you to be late for the Ronald Reagan statute stoning your attending today.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Now you’re talking sense. [/quote]
How would you know? You lie like a rug.
[/quote]
Headhunter, get a hold of yourself man. I know I’ve hurt your feelings but there’s really no need to resort to this sort of thing. I think threatening to beat me up in the PM you sent me was enough, no?
Also, keep in mind that when you dish it out, you have to be able to take it. And you dish out plenty to me and the other posters around here, so learn how to take it like a man. [/quote]
I think his reaction is normal , we all think about spanking smart mouthed kids
[/quote]
Spoken by a guy who has not once defended a point that he’s made. You are a total disgrace Pit. Your hate for Ronald Reagan and republicans in general warp your logic and make your arguments sound child like. Don’t get me wrong, you’re amusing, and that’s a good thing.
Now run along now I don’t want you to be late for the Ronald Reagan statute stoning your attending today.
[/quote]
Hahah Thanks for the laugh
There’s so much bullshit in this thread that I can’t properly sift through all of it so I’m jumping right in without knowing exactly where everything stands in this discussion. I apologize if I begin to sound redundant.
That being said, there are two things that I have a problem with here. One, the constant phrase “the liberal media” is “to blame” for blah, blah, blah. Look, the media really isn’t that liberal at all. What’s the biggest newspaper in the country with editorial content? The New York Times, hardly a bastion of liberal idealism. It isn’t conservative per se, but it definitely cannot be labeled as liberal by someone who reads it on a regular basis and expects to be taken seriously. It’s about as middle of the road with well-formed opinion pieces from both sides of the fence as you can ask for.
What’s the biggest cable news network in the country? FoxNews, and this one isn’t even close. FoxNews has more viewers than CNN and MSNBC put together, they’ve been kicking the shit out of every other cable news network for years now and their commentary borders on conservative infomercials. The most popular on-air personality amongst the major news networks is Glenn Beck. What are the most popular nationally-syndicated radio talk shows? Beck’s, Michael Savage’s, Rush Limbaugh’s and (before she resigned) Dr. Laura, all of whom are extremely conservative. NPR is popular, but much like the NY Times, it is not really geared one way or the other. But there seems to be this (false) assumption on the part of conservatives that if the media source is not unabashedly conservative/right wing, then it is liberal by default.
So this argument about the liberal media is something of a myth. Yes, the media is liberal in many ways, but the major sources of political news, the ones with the most visibility, are not even close to being liberal.
My second problem is this: I have yet to hear anyone clarify WHY Sarah Palin would be a good President, from a purely political standpoint. That is, based strictly on her policies. I don’t mean the same old catchphrases that she throws around like “balanced budget” or “no Obamacare” or some of that bullshit. I mean real, tangible reasons to vote for her.
It seems that a lot of people, and not just on this forum but everywhere, like Palin as the next GOP candidate for President based on what she isn’t: she isn’t Obama, she isn’t liberal, she isn’t an entrenched part of the Washington elite, she isn’t a bloodsucking lawyer, etc, etc.
But what is she? I mean what is she in a very specific way. What sort of things did she spearhead in Alaska that are clearcut examples of her political acumen? What sort of concrete, specific economic policies does she support and can she/has she explained with satisfaction how it is that these policies will bring the economy back from the brink of collapse?
What is her stance on the war in Afghanistan? What specific measures does she believe should be taken to eradicate/eliminate the Taliban and al Qaeda? What is her goal in Afghanistan and how is the U.S. (or can the U.S.) going to achieve this goal? What will she do if she takes office and Iraq still does not have a legitimate govt? What will she do if the U.S. embassy there comes under heavy, repeated attack from insurgents that the Armed Forces stationed there have a hard time suppressing? What will she do if a legitimately-elected Prime Minister in Iraq immediately demands the total withdrawal of Americans from Iraq, including the embassy?
How does she plan to handle the rampant corruption in Hamid Karzai’s administration? How does she plan to address the growing problem of insurgents coming from Pakistan into Afghanistan? What sort of experience does she have that instills confidence in her supporters that she can handle these highly-sensitive foreign policy issues?
What will she do if Iran continues to thumb their nose at the international community regarding their nuclear reactors? What will she do if Iran were to flip out and attack Israel? And what will she do if Israel pre-emptively, and maybe even without direct provocation, obliterates the Tehran reactors with a series of airstrikes that were not approved/okayed by her administration?
What sort of plan does she have to take advantage of the huge lithium reserves recently found in Afghanistan? Does she even know what lithium is? How will she try to beat the Chinese to the punch when it comes to gaining first access to many of the new resources discovered in Afghanistan? What about North Korea? What should be done if Kim Jong Il were to die during her Presidency? What if the CIA came to her with a covert plan of action to assassinate his son when he succeeds KJI? Will she pull the trigger? Will she go after the CIA for devising such a plan? What about Cuba? What will she do when Castro dies?
How will she handle the inevitably intense media scrutiny she will face 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? She hasn’t handled it well so far and has blamed all of this on the mythical “liberal media”, so how has she demonstrated that she has improved her capacity to handle this sort of unavoidable scrutiny? What sort of ability to span the huge partisan gap that exists in Washington has she demonstrated throughout her political career? If Obama’s inexperience has been a huge reason for his lack of success thus far, as many, many people have said throughout this thread and various previous threads, how is Palin’s even more glaring lack of political exposure on a national level not also going to be a millstone around her neck? What about Palin makes her lack of experience a virtue when it is clearly a fault of Obama’s?
I haven’t heard any of these questions answered in a satisfactory manner by Palin, her handlers or any of her supporters on this forum and within this thread. And these are questions that she better have some very definitive answers to, answers that convey the impression that she has a very specific, definitive, thought-out plan regarding how to approach each of these questions, because these questions will be the main issues she must deal with if she wins in 2012. It seems to me that Palin is a product of our rampant consumer-based culture. She is trying to sell herself and her image more than her plan of action. She IS the newest, most in-demand product on the market and people are buying her left and right. But why?
Although the Vanity Fair article is clearly biased, the source does have a certain amount of legitimacy and the essential gist of what this article is saying is no different than anything I’ve heard and read from a widely varied and numerous amount of sources ever since she first burst onto the spotlight two years ago. So I don’t doubt that there is a LOT of truth to this article, and when read as objectively as possible, I still arrive at the same previously-held conclusion that Palin is nothing more than a facade, a brand, a product with little substance underneath its packaging. What about her should I know so that I don’t continue to arrive at this conclusion?
So I challenge her supporters here to answer the questions I listed above and to explain to me why these answers and her policies separate her from the other GOP hopefuls who will be running for President in 2012. Because I haven’t heard these answers yet, and until some of them are answered with stunning precision and specificity by her, she deserves absolutely no credibility as a political force in this country.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
… she deserves absolutely no credibility as a political force in this country. [/quote]
Neither did Obama, but he got it anyway. Do you know why? He was the mainstream liberal media darling.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
It seems that a lot of people, and not just on this forum but everywhere, like Palin as the next GOP candidate for President based on what she isn’t: she isn’t Obama, she isn’t liberal, she isn’t an entrenched part of the Washington elite, she isn’t a bloodsucking lawyer, etc, etc. [/quote]
Dude, I certainly haven’t see “a lot” of people on this forum that think she should be the next GOP candidate for president. I have only seen two people here that are actually supportive of a Palin presidential run.
You’re right though about her supporters not being able to elaborate her “stance” on certain issues, but the same exact thing could be said about the supporters of the current president.
I think she would make as good a president as any of the previous seven. And that’s not a compliment. I certainly wouldn’t vote for her.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
What’s the biggest cable news network in the country? FoxNews, and this one isn’t even close. FoxNews has more viewers than CNN and MSNBC put together, they’ve been kicking the shit out of every other cable news network for years now and their commentary borders on conservative infomercials. The most popular on-air personality amongst the major news networks is Glenn Beck. What are the most popular nationally-syndicated radio talk shows? Beck’s, Michael Savage’s, Rush Limbaugh’s and (before she resigned) Dr. Laura, all of whom are extremely conservative. NPR is popular, but much like the NY Times, it is not really geared one way or the other. But there seems to be this (false) assumption on the part of conservatives that if the media source is not unabashedly conservative/right wing, then it is liberal by default.
So this argument about the liberal media is something of a myth. Yes, the media is liberal in many ways, but the major sources of political news, the ones with the most visibility, are not even close to being liberal. [/quote]
This
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
… she deserves absolutely no credibility as a political force in this country. [/quote]
Neither did Obama, but he got it anyway. Do you know why? He was the mainstream liberal media darling.[/quote]
And Palin is the darling of the mainstream conservative media. So how do the two really differ? What separates Palin from Obama aside from the fact that she is conservative and he is liberal? Or is it simply enough to be conservative? Are there no other standards that she must meet? To me there are, and she fails miserably at meeting them, just like I felt Obama did long before he was ever elected President.
I’m not talking about Obama. Believe me, I gave Obama little to no credit as a mainstream political force that represented “change” either. I write for a magazine that is circulated primarily amongst liberals and I continually wrote articles during the campaign season that attacked Obama for many of the same reasons I have overwhelming skepticism towards Palin’s Presidential legitimacy.
And I would argue that Obama did not have a lot of credibility from a sheer experience standpoint either. His lack of experience was perhaps the single most attacked aspect by the media. Did they go after him as vociferously as Palin has been hounded? If you listened to Limbaugh, Savage, Beck, and FoxNews in general, you bet they did. Perhaps even more so than the liberal media is going after Palin. This Vanity Fair piece is nothing compared to some of the vitriol being spewed forth about Obama’s nationality, religion, association with pieces of shit like Ayers and Rev. Wright, his place of birth, etc. I can remember plenty of times on CNN where commentators were openly and directly questioning his leadership abilities given his lack of experience. But I don’t hear the same things being discussed about Palin on FoxNews without being immediately shouted down by a whole litany of commentators.
But again, that’s neither here nor there; I’m not talking about Obama, and your response is unfortunately very similar to many of the responses I hear from Palin supporters when I ask them these sorts of questions. I don’t think Obama is a good President (although not as bad as many would say he is), I did not vote for him in '08 and I will not vote for him under any circumstance in '12. And this isn’t because I’m a member of the Green Party or some other far-left bullshit political party.
So I am not coming at Palin from a biased, left-wing angle here. But I think it is more than fair to demand of Palin and/or her supporters some answers to these questions if she expects any sort of legitimacy from anyone outside of the far-right/anti-everything-Obama-related factions of the conservatives in this country. And these questions/answers have nothing to do with Obama and whatever slack he was justifably or unjustifiably given by the liberal segments of the media. In fact, I think it’s possible to answer every single one of my questions from my previous post without once mentioning Obama, liberalism, or the Democratic Party.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
… she deserves absolutely no credibility as a political force in this country. [/quote]
Neither did Obama, but he got it anyway. Do you know why? He was the mainstream liberal media darling.[/quote]
Hang on a minute, Palin has executive experience running a state that is bigger than a lot of countries. Obama did not have any executive experience when he became president. His inexperience became very obvious when he panicked and shut down all oil exploration in the gulf for six months. Because he has no experience to guide him all he can do is turn to his Marxist leftist ideology. So based on experience she should have more credibility than Obama.
Then there is the matter of support. The Democratic party will not support use of the military unless it is for some bleeding heart left wing cause like Kosovo or something that is extraordinary and blatant like Pearl Harbor which highly unlikely to happen. Just by virtue of the fact that he is a Democrat when he entered the White House Obama credibility as a statesman was compromised. That is why the Iranians have ignored his groveling, because any negotiations he engages in with them do not have a credible threat of force for them to consider. That is why they have proceeded to produce enough enriched Uranium that they can now make an atomic bomb.
Palin or McCain would have been able to make a credible threat of military intervention that they would have had to take seriously which would have given them an incentive to negotiate. So Palin would be much more credible than Obama has been.
[quote]skaz05 wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
It seems that a lot of people, and not just on this forum but everywhere, like Palin as the next GOP candidate for President based on what she isn’t: she isn’t Obama, she isn’t liberal, she isn’t an entrenched part of the Washington elite, she isn’t a bloodsucking lawyer, etc, etc. [/quote]
Dude, I certainly haven’t see “a lot” of people on this forum that think she should be the next GOP candidate for president. I have only seen two people here that are actually supportive of a Palin presidential run.
You’re right though about her supporters not being able to elaborate her “stance” on certain issues, but the same exact thing could be said about the supporters of the current president.
I think she would make as good a president as any of the previous seven. And that’s not a compliment. I certainly wouldn’t vote for her.[/quote]
Well, where are those two supporters? I certainly have heard more than two people come to her defense on this forum, maybe not this particular thread but certainly on this forum, but where are these people? How do they answer these questions? How does Palin? Has she answered any of them?
I know PushHarder gets a cheap thrill out of haranguing me for the most trivial shit possible in this forum, so where is he now? Where’s HeadHunter? Are they supporters of Palin or do they simply pay her lip service because she isn’t liberal? Is that all it takes to gain some traction in this country’s political arena?
Just come across as the polar opposite of your opponent with zero regard to substance, and then when the media demands something more just blame it on “the liberal media’s merciless attacks on poor little Sarah?” If she can’t handle those kinds of attacks, she better get the hell out of Big Time American Politics on a National Level, because it is a cutthroat, unapologetic world out there, and it should be. It’s the only way to root out those who don’t have the stomach for the hardest, most demanding job on the planet. Is Palin ready to assume that mantle? In my opinion, and I have seen NOTHING from ANYONE to stray me from this opinion in the slightest (and I can be strayed), she is pathetically unqualified for the position.
And regarding the supporters of the current President, again, what separates her from Obama? Is the only real difference between the two the (D) next to his name on a ballot and the (R) next to hers if she runs? Does she just throw out different catchphrases than Obama does?
When I hear supporters of Palin say “well, so does Obama” (and I’m not lumping you into that crowd) all I really hear is “she has all the same faults that Obama has that we constantly lambast him for, but she has the right letter next to her name, so I’m all for her.”
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
… she deserves absolutely no credibility as a political force in this country. [/quote]
Neither did Obama, but he got it anyway. Do you know why? He was the mainstream liberal media darling.[/quote]
And Palin is the darling of the mainstream conservative media. So how do the two really differ? What separates Palin from Obama aside from the fact that she is conservative and he is liberal? Or is it simply enough to be conservative? Are there no other standards that she must meet? To me there are, and she fails miserably at meeting them, just like I felt Obama did long before he was ever elected President.
I’m not talking about Obama. Believe me, I gave Obama little to no credit as a mainstream political force that represented “change” either. I write for a magazine that is circulated primarily amongst liberals and I continually wrote articles during the campaign season that attacked Obama for many of the same reasons I have overwhelming skepticism towards Palin’s Presidential legitimacy.
And I would argue that Obama did not have a lot of credibility from a sheer experience standpoint either. His lack of experience was perhaps the single most attacked aspect by the media. Did they go after him as vociferously as Palin has been hounded? If you listened to Limbaugh, Savage, Beck, and FoxNews in general, you bet they did. Perhaps even more so than the liberal media is going after Palin. This Vanity Fair piece is nothing compared to some of the vitriol being spewed forth about Obama’s nationality, religion, association with pieces of shit like Ayers and Rev. Wright, his place of birth, etc. I can remember plenty of times on CNN where commentators were openly and directly questioning his leadership abilities given his lack of experience. But I don’t hear the same things being discussed about Palin on FoxNews without being immediately shouted down by a whole litany of commentators.
But again, that’s neither here nor there; I’m not talking about Obama, and your response is unfortunately very similar to many of the responses I hear from Palin supporters when I ask them these sorts of questions. I don’t think Obama is a good President (although not as bad as many would say he is), I did not vote for him in '08 and I will not vote for him under any circumstance in '12. And this isn’t because I’m a member of the Green Party or some other far-left bullshit political party.
So I am not coming at Palin from a biased, left-wing angle here. But I think it is more than fair to demand of Palin and/or her supporters some answers to these questions if she expects any sort of legitimacy from anyone outside of the far-right/anti-everything-Obama-related factions of the conservatives in this country. And these questions/answers have nothing to do with Obama and whatever slack he was justifably or unjustifiably given by the liberal segments of the media. In fact, I think it’s possible to answer every single one of my questions from my previous post without once mentioning Obama, liberalism, or the Democratic Party.[/quote]
Hold on DB you are being objective
[quote]Sifu wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
… she deserves absolutely no credibility as a political force in this country. [/quote]
Neither did Obama, but he got it anyway. Do you know why? He was the mainstream liberal media darling.[/quote]
Hang on a minute, Palin has executive experience running a state that is bigger than a lot of countries. Obama did not have any executive experience when he became president. His inexperience became very obvious when he panicked and shut down all oil exploration in the gulf for six months. Because he has no experience to guide him all he can do is turn to his Marxist leftist ideology. So based on experience she should have more credibility than Obama.
Then there is the matter of support. The Democratic party will not support use of the military unless it is for some bleeding heart left wing cause like Kosovo or something that is extraordinary and blatant like Pearl Harbor which highly unlikely to happen. Just by virtue of the fact that he is a Democrat when he entered the White House Obama credibility as a statesman was compromised. That is why the Iranians have ignored his groveling, because any negotiations he engages in with them do not have a credible threat of force for them to consider. That is why they have proceeded to produce enough enriched Uranium that they can now make an atomic bomb.
Palin or McCain would have been able to make a credible threat of military intervention that they would have had to take seriously which would have given them an incentive to negotiate. So Palin would be much more credible than Obama has been.
[/quote]
Really? A large state? She was a governor, which means she governs people, which means she governed about 680,000 people. That’s it. Gavin Newsom “governs” San Francisco as the mayor, a city of more than 800,000. Does that give him more executive experience than Palin because he’s done it longer and over more people? Maybe, maybe not, but it certainly doesn’t qualify him to be the next President. Wyoming and Vermont are the only two states with smaller populations than Alaska’s, so where governing is concerned, she basically acted as the glorified mayor of a medium-sized city with little racial or political diversity that simply has a huge sprawl.
Offering up her governance of a state that is a tiny, tiny fraction of the country’s population as a qualification for the Presidency is laughable, especially when taking into account that she resigned from office in the face of a massive amount of ethics complaints and investigations. If Jerry Brown or Meg Whitman wins the gubernatorial race in California, the nation’s largest in terms of people (and also extremely diverse both politically, economically and racially) are they suddenly the most qualified of all the governors to become the next President by virtue of the size of the state that they governed? Was the size of Texas, both geographically and population-wise, what gave Bush credibility as a candidate in 2000?
But again, I’m straying from the point I am trying to make and the questions I want to hear answers to. Are you a supporter of Palin and if she is on the ticket, will you vote for her? If so, why? What about her, without mentioning Obama, appeals to you on a level such that you think she would make a GOOD President, not a President that isn’t Obama or liberal, but a GOOD President period. Or is a good President’s only qualification that he/she be conservative?
[quote]Sifu wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
… she deserves absolutely no credibility as a political force in this country. [/quote]
Neither did Obama, but he got it anyway. Do you know why? He was the mainstream liberal media darling.[/quote]
Hang on a minute, Palin has executive experience running a state that is bigger than a lot of countries. Obama did not have any executive experience when he became president. His inexperience became very obvious when he panicked and shut down all oil exploration in the gulf for six months. Because he has no experience to guide him all he can do is turn to his Marxist leftist ideology. So based on experience she should have more credibility than Obama.
Then there is the matter of support. The Democratic party will not support use of the military unless it is for some bleeding heart left wing cause like Kosovo or something that is extraordinary and blatant like Pearl Harbor which highly unlikely to happen. Just by virtue of the fact that he is a Democrat when he entered the White House Obama credibility as a statesman was compromised. That is why the Iranians have ignored his groveling, because any negotiations he engages in with them do not have a credible threat of force for them to consider. That is why they have proceeded to produce enough enriched Uranium that they can now make an atomic bomb.
Palin or McCain would have been able to make a credible threat of military intervention that they would have had to take seriously which would have given them an incentive to negotiate. So Palin would be much more credible than Obama has been.
[/quote]
One other thing: what leads you to believe that Palin and McCain would have made threats to intervene in Iran with the military and what about McCain and Palin (specifically Palin) makes you think those claims would carry enough credibility to spark negotiations? In fact, what makes you think that military threats will spark negotiations at all?
Furthermore, are you aware of what sort of intricate geo-political forces are work here that cannot be attended to with an instrument as blunt as “credible threat of military intervention”? Here’s a fucking newsflash: most Iranians do not hate America at all. They do not trust America as the provider of freedom, but they certainly do not hate us. Also, Iran is not a thirdworld country whatsoever. Do they approach our level of quality of life? No, but Iran is still a highly advanced society whose culture goes back thousands of years. And they are well aware of this and are very proud of this. Long before Western Europe was of any significance to the world, Iran was the center of one of the most successful, advanced cultures/civilizations the world has ever seen, and they know this. Iran is not Afghanistan or Somalia.
The fact that Obama is tiptoeing around the whole “Iranian thing” shows that he understands very well the highly intricate inner workings of the Middle East regarding this particular issue. He is well aware that Iran has a long, storied history of revolution and that if they were to rise up and overthrow the Ayatollah, it would not be the first time in the last hundred years that they have enacted major, sweeping political change via revolution.
But he is also aware that Iran still remembers well what happened to the only truly democratically-elected prime minister in Iran’s history, Mohammed Mossadegh. Mossadegh was overthrown by the CIA in order to put the Shah back in power and maintain easy access to oil for Britain and to keep it out of the hands of Russia. The Shah’s horrific regime after Mossadegh’s departure is what inspired the Iranian Revolution in the late seventies. The Iranians remember all of this, and although they want Ahmadinejad out just like we do, they want to do it themselves. They remember what happened the last time we removed a political power for them and they do not trust us as a result.
Obama understands this and he also understands why any sort of military intervention would undermine any chances of legitimate democracy spawning in Iran. He understands that, if the example of the Ayatollah in 1979 is any sort of indicator, a military intervention could very well result in an even more hardline, fundamental, radical Islamist regime than is what is in place now.
I should give Palin the benefit of the doubt, but she’s given me no reason to. I highly doubt that Palin has any concept whatsoever of what is going on in Iran and how it relates to what has happened in Iran ever since oil was discovered there 100 years ago and how this relation will undoubtedly shape the future of Iran.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[…]
What is her stance on the war in Afghanistan? What specific measures does she believe should be taken to eradicate/eliminate the Taliban and al Qaeda? What is her goal in Afghanistan and how is the U.S. (or can the U.S.) going to achieve this goal? What will she do if she takes office and Iraq still does not have a legitimate govt? What will she do if the U.S. embassy there comes under heavy, repeated attack from insurgents that the Armed Forces stationed there have a hard time suppressing? What will she do if a legitimately-elected Prime Minister in Iraq immediately demands the total withdrawal of Americans from Iraq, including the embassy?
[…][/quote]
thanks for your thoughtful and well written posts.
I think we can answer most questions pretty confidently with:
No one knows, including Palin, and her ultimate reaction will either be something she did not come up with on her own, or, it’ll be a emotion based decision.
Of course, some posters will sell you that as a “moral compass”, you know, the one Obama lacks.