One article was saying that the Obama campaign tried to blame the Pentagon on this revelation. Here he was scheduled. He wanted to go visit this military hospital. It was on the campaign sheet to go visit the military hospital in Germany. And everyone finds out that the only restrictions the Pentagon wanted to impose was their rule against turning visits by politicians into campaign events.

A media reprsentative said: “And, by the way, you know, I know for a fact because I talked to these kids when I went to Walter Reed and Bethesda, that literally the president would sneak on over often to go see these, kids — you never heard about it, it was never reported. As a matter of fact, I remember I was out there with Ollie North and they said, yeah the president was just here, two days ago, whatever it was. And you know, same thing with Donald Rumsfeld. Donald Rumsfeld used to go over there all the time, but he didn’t turn it into a campaign event."

Anyway, so Obama has it on the schedule. The Pentagon says, look, you can come but they’re going to impose their rule against turning a visit by a politician into a campaign event. All the Pentagon said is they advised Obama’s staff — yeah of course he can visit the hospital and injured personnel in Germany but only in his capacity as a Member of Congress, in other words without the trappings of a political campaign, which by the way, it’s unfair to use sick soldiers who risked their lives as a political prop.

Obama apparently cancelled the visit and went to work out instead. He went to work out and then said it would be inappropriate as part of a trip financed by his campaign. Well, as John McCain said, it’s never inappropriate if you are a United States Senator to visit a sick soldier. It’s never inappropriate. There’s not one taxpayer in the country that would have any opposition to this nor is there any rules against this. The only difference is the only restriction that was placed is that they don’t want to have candidates, you know, using the appearance for some type of political benefit. That wasn’t enough. He had to bring along of course the entourage and the multiple 10,000 media press secretaries along with him.

IF YOU WANT TO REMEMBER ONE THING ABOUT THIS TRIP IS THAT BARACK OSAMA CHOSE TO WORK OUT RATHER THAN SEE THE WOUNDED TROOPS BECAUSE HE COULDN'T BRING KATIE COURIC, CHARLIE GIBSON, AND BRIAN WILLIAMS WITH HIM.

Look, if he had gone, it was going to be reported in the news, so in other words, if he had gone, it was going to look like a campaign event whether he wanted it or not, and people like you would be writing it now. He realized, rightly, it would be inappropriate.

If he visits, you'll say it was a campaign event. If he listens and decides that, yes, it's inappropriate and does something else, then you say what you say now. Heads McCain wins, tails Obama loses.

Even worse, how do you know he didn't sneak a visit to it later? Making the "appropriate" stealth visit that President Bush does?

BTW, "Dark Truth" sounds like a horror movie about a book that raises zombies from the dead.

9-man, 7/26/2008 7:20:53 PM
BTW, "Dark Truth" sounds like a horror movie about a book that raises zombies from the dead."


 I never took note of the similarity between the new Obama voters, and zombies rising from the dead.Good point.
 

It is nice to know that you think your hero candidate is an idiot, and even nicer knowing that you don't even realize that you think Obama is an idiot.

So you say, and the Obama camp says as well, that Obama cancelled the trip because he didn't want to politicize it, and he knew it would be all over the news if he went. But wait a second, lets think about this. Are you saying that Obama is too stupid to realize that the minute the planned visit went on his schedule, it was going to be reported by the media?? So when it went on the schedule, he wasn't concerned about the story being reported. He only became concerned about it when the Pentagon told him to leave the cameras at home.

A simple print headline of "Obama spent an afternoon visiting wounded troops" is far from politicizing a visit. Only an idiot would think that was a stunt. The reason Obama decided he needed to go work out instead was because he couldn't bring all his reporters, and cameras with him. No film, no photo ops buddy. God knows Obama can't sneeze without looking first for a camera so he can sell his rant about healthcare. The idea of being trapped with soldiers without a camera to ham it up for must have horrified him.

Oh top of that, soldiers have a nasty habit of being honest, especially when they're in a hospital recovering from combat wounds. Maybe Obama had that in mind, or at least his handlers did.

WTF? damned if he did, damned if he didn't?

i'm Obama-skeptical, but why not bitch about him not being able to walk on water while you're at it?

this Presidential race is probably te best amateur hour since Ford-Carter in 1976.  Whoever manages to avoid making the last effup before electoion day squeaks in?

If he were an idiot, Republicans would be beating him already. The polls would look like Bush vs. Dukakis.

People come up with bad ideas and change their minds all the time. For scheduling it, it's probably that his staff scheduled it.

Yes, I think "Obama spent an afternoon visiting the troops" would look political no matter how it was represented. And IMO, you honestly can't think you wouldn't have seen it that way. You would be posting right now at how political it was after somebody leaked it to the press (and somebody would). Obama couldn't do it during a presidential campaign without making it look political. Since he can't get away from the press, he couldn't really do it secretly right now, either, except by waking them up in the middle of the night. That would be welcomed.  

If you don't think it's true, look at the original post. George Bush visits the troops IN SECRET. Why? He doesn't want it to look political. It's one thing he has done that actually shows he isn't an idiot.  

As historian Shelby Foote in "The Civil War" said about Abraham Lincoln: "Everything he did and said was calculated for effect." This is true of Obama. It's true of the best politicians. The main reason why Republicans are going to lose the White House is that they underestimate him. He is not an idiot, an empty suit, nor a power hungry demagogue. You don't realize that your interpretation of his actions not only isn't the only one but isn't even the likely one.

No, I'm not going to complain about him not being able to walk on water because that would be putting him on the same level as Christ, and I ain't about to do that. There are enough people out there doing that already.
jhb

Many don't realize what a feat that was...He beat the most formidable name in politics, certainly on the Democratic side anyway...

On top of that, Obama is raising amazing amounts of money, mostly from small donors in a sluggish economy....His worst fundraising month is probably higher than McBush's BEST month....

Now some will say Obama won alot of caucus states, & in November it's no caucus & Clinton won all the big states- blah, blah, blah, but make no mistake, Obama is going to win all those big states HRC won in the primary (CA, NY, NJ, MA) without question...McBush has ZERO chance in the aforementioned 4 states - absolute zero....


"Only one poll today, in California. Obama is comfortably ahead and will win the state easily. Neither Obama nor McCain is likely to campaign much here. It is one of the ironies of the electoral college system that a state with 10% of the country's population will basically be ignored".
State       Obama McCain Start End
California 50% 38% Jul 24 Jul 24 Rasmussen


-- Modified on 7/27/2008 12:18:44 PM

You would have to admit that Bush is much smarter than you libs give him credit for. He beat the "best" you libs had to offer not once, but twice. It hasn't stopped you from calling him an idiot for years.

You just keep on drinking that koolaid Moose, and I'll keep on being amused at your misguided attempts to make your guy look like he has any substance whatsoever.

"it’s unfair to use sick soldiers who risked their lives as a political prop."

Isn't this exactly what Bush has been doing since 2001, using the military as props in campaign appearances and photo ops? Remember "Mission Accomplished" when the White House commandeered an aircraft carrier so Bush could put on a show? So I guess it's only unfair if a Democrat does it.

I know you said you voted for Clinton in 1996, but you probably did so under protest, so you've voted once in your life (whether it's presidential, senate, house races) for the Democrat..I've never voted for a Republican, so you lead 1-0....You're as anti-left as anyone on this board...A true independent would encompass BOTH beliefs of liberal & conservative viewpoints...

And, as far as "He beat the "best" you libs had to offer not once, but twice".

Well, Bush didn't win 2000 - the Supreme Court & that bitch Katherine Harris handed him that one on a silver platter...

And in 2004, people voted against their own self interests, what can I say...Sometimes Rove's scare tacitcs will work, they did in 2004, but didn't in 2006 mid-terms..

You can fool SOME of the Democrats all the time, you can fool ALL the Democrats some of the time, but you can fool ALL the Republicans ALL of the time....

at least when it comes to liberal politicians.

As far as my "right wing" opinions, lets see:

I can't stand the religious right, or religion at all for that matter.

I support a woman's right to choose.

I believe the Patriot Act was a horrible piece of legislation.

I obviously believe the hobby should be legalized,

I believe the war on drugs is a complete waste of time and money. Marijuana and most other recreational drugs should be legalized or at the least possession for personal use should be decriminalized.

I could not care less about Gay marriage, I don't believe in any laws that create any special "class" of people, whether by race or sexual orientation.  I don't think they should have any special rights or any different treatment of any kind. Equal means equal.

I think Bill Clinton was a pretty good POTUS and yes I did vote for him against Bob Dole, and I blame the Ken Starr investigation for much of the vindictiveness from the left, but two wrongs don't make a right.

I could go on and on, but I think even you should get the point by now. I am an independent, I do my own thinking, unlike the koolaid drinkers on both sides of the aisle.

Now Moosie you OTOH, when was the last time you broke rank with the Democratic party? You are the quintisential partisan kool aid drinker. that's why I make fun of you.

It's a question of injured soldiers vs. soldiers "on duty". If you check your facts again you'll find that Bush regularly "sneeks out" to visit recovering soldiers. There's no video or pictures for public consumption. Addressing the military while they are on duty and deployed is not the same thing as while they are recuperating. I don't know why, but it just is I guess.

BTW, there was plenty of coverage (video and pictures) of BHO visiting with troops during his recent trip. When he was told no pictures with the wounded he cancelled his visit to the hospital in Germany.

-- Modified on 7/27/2008 3:30:16 PM

you still think McBush is a better candiate than Obama....Is it just the 2nd. Amemdment?...If he takes Clinton as his VP, would you vote for him?....Given your current list of beliefs, you probably have more in common w/Obama than McBush...

What does Obama have to do to get your vote?..

And i agree with some Republican views; i support the death penalty, in the recent Sirius-XM merger, it passed 3-2, Republicans voted for it, Democrats against it..I think the merger should happen, so i sided w/the Republicans on that one...

Why don't you start with, "Yes GaGambler you are indeed an independent and maybe I like to call anyone who doesn't drink the Democratic party's koolaid a rightwinger" That would be a good start.

Your idia of breaking with your party of choice is to support the death penalty? Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to talk to partisans, your minds are so closed it's like talking to a wall.

There is nothing Obama could do at this point to get my vote. Where did you ever get the idea that I had anything but loathing for Hillary? Bill I liked, the only praise I can muster for Hillary is  the fact that she is not as bad as Obama. They both believe in wealth redistribution to the point that they border on socialism.

The list of issues on which I disagree with Obama are too numerous to list so I will just point out one as an example. If Obama is allowed to implement his tax increases to fund his socialist agenda it will cost me hundreds of thousands directly at a minimum due to his tax increases, and quite possibly in the millions of dollars indirectly over the term of his administration. The man believes that it is perfectly ok to reach into the pockets of small business owners and tax us into oblivion. I want him and the rest of the loser liberals to stay the fuck of my wallet.

At least 30% I think, due to his promise to double the capital gains tax.

No, I'm saying YOU think he must be too stupid to realize that his planned visit to the troops would be publicized the moment it went on his schedule. Maybe you aren't aware that the press always gets an advance copy of the candidate's schedules each day. So the moment the planned event showed up on his schedule, the press was going to know about it. According to Obama though, at that point, when it went on his schedule, he wasn't concerned about it looking like a stunt. He didn't become concerned about that until the Pentagon told him no politicking, no cameras, no photo ops.

So ok, the guy isn't an idiot, just a hypocrite. The idiots are the ones who are dumb enough to buy his spin.

I loved how you said of the media that he "can't get away" from me. My oh my have you romanticized this guy. You are talking about a guy who finally, after taking heat over his lack of foreign policy experience, and his indifference to our troops, scheduled a visit to Iraq and Afghanistan, and took a trip abroad. But he certainly couldn't go alone. No, he only took the anchors from the three leading nightly news show with him. Yeah, this is definintely a guy who spends his private time bemoaning the fact that he can't get away from the pesky media who treat him like some sort of dime store messiah.

Hillary beat herself by not taking Obama as serious as a smart Queen would... If she had a better camapign staff Obama would have left with Edwards.. Plus when she started telling lies like the sniper fire in Bosnia  and her parents naming her after someone who wasn't famous yet Sir Hillary...that lost her a lot of votes.

So, you've studied the exact timing of this. You know:

1) It was on the schedule. You know this.

2) That he was then told no photo ops, no cameras, no politicking, after it was on the schedule;

3) You could read his mind and see that he didn't care for the troops, rather than thinking, oh, that's right, it would be wrong to do that.

4) You could read his mind and see that he's not interested in the troops, that is rather than realizing a visit during the campaign, it would be politicized.

Numbers 3 and 4 seem difficult to me.

And I'll tell you the truth, the cold, inhumanity it would take for Obama to simply not care at all about wounded veterans would mean he had such a crippled personality that he could never, ever advance in US politics. Not as a liberal, not as a conservative. Forget it. People would have been too creeped out to work for him. He wouldn't have the sense to hide his coldness so long. People would have recoiled from him long before this and he'd be on the streets, committing crimes or in prison, not in politics in the US. Maybe in Russia after the fall of the czar, which turned Stalin from a prisoner eventually into a statesmen.

That's why I can't even start to believe what you think of him. If I opened up a novel about a character running for president named Barrack Obama and read the description you give, I'd quit reading it as unbelievable. If he were anything like that, he'd be Carl Rove helping somebody run for office, not a presidential candidate himself.  

BTW, I didn't say he spent his private time bemoaning the fact that he couldn't get away from the media. I don't think Obama bemoans anything. One quick second thought on his part told him what was what. He nixed that plan, and went to work out.

I also didn't say he didn't like the media attention, only that he couldn't go to a veteran's hospital without considerable notice.

And he probably didn't want to remind people of George Bush, who might have the decency to visit troops in secret, but he has used photo-ops with the troops.

Trade in currency will be forbidden, anyone with a high school diploma or more will be executed, and everyone in the cities will be marched into the countryside to work on collective farms.

And worst of all, he'll raise taxes on the rich.

-- Modified on 7/28/2008 8:55:45 AM

Taxing the people more is not the solution to our economic crisis. And BO is one stubborn SOB.

I don't think Hillary is going to run as VP. She wants to be able to run as prez in 2012.

Moosey, do you really think that Obama is the better candidate? Have you read his tax policy?

SBO will get taxed the most when BO gets elected. Small Business is the core of our economy. I'm a SBO myself, and I really can't afford BO's tax plan.

Blood money that BO received from Rezko, Cecil Butler, and the likes has a hand on this little kid's death. So you don't think BO is cold? I do.

I don't have to give you a link. Just research it. I have a post about it, too.

. . . a 400 billion dollar National Police Force. Nevermind that it is unconstitutional, what the hell is does he plan to do with it? March us out to the coutryside maybe?

BTW, after he's done raising taxes on the rich, who do you plan on working for? Some average guy?

And oh yea, "I" was talking about capital gains tax (a doubling thereof). That has as much to do with "average" people as it does with the rich.

-- Modified on 7/27/2008 10:20:19 PM

If you're more comfortable spinning the story that way, more power to you.

Isn't this exactly what Bush has been doing since 2001, using the military as props in campaign appearances and photo ops? Remember "Mission Accomplished" when the White House commandeered an aircraft carrier so Bush could put on a show? So I guess it's only unfair if a Democrat does it."


 Bush was president in 2001 ...Obama is campaigning for President..Big difference

Do you know what blaming him is like? That's like you being blamed when you sell something to somebody and THEN they commit a crime, and  one that has nothing to do with what you sold them.

So, if I give $200 to the Obama campaign and get busted for seeing a provider, Obama then secretly supports prostitution.

Somebody donates to the Obama campaign, and then a child dies. Therefore Obama is responsible. That's a fallacy: after this, therefore because of this.

I said I thought it was a case of Obama's supporters letting him down, as well as derelicting their obligations. I'll repeat that I think he was honest about trying a new approach to public housing (a pro-business approach even!), but the problem is that Chicago has a shortage of honest contractors and sub-contractors.

However, it isn't "blood money" unless:

-If Obama obstructed oversight on public housing;

-If he gave Rezko and such no-bid contracts, then possibly it's blood money;

-If he knowingly took money from Rezko, et al. after the fact, then it's blood money.

In the article you posted, it never got into those questions. Only that a few donors to Obama later did bad things.

Compare this to Kenneth Lay and Enron, for instance, where you could see that laws were changed for him, and deals were cut in the executive branch while shit was going on. I was looking, and I couldn't find that in the article you posted. Believe me, my opinion would have changed.

When I look at the fact that Obama was an outsider, and that Chicago is very hostile to outsiders, and he won people over anyway. That he was in the faction that traditionally opposed the Daly machine. You don't do that with an empty suit, ordinary skills and a crippled personality. This isn't Clinton in Arkansas, where he was a native, and a big fish in a small pond. (Clinton had a damaged, not a wrecked, personality.)  

Also, how do you know he doesn't feel bad about it? How closely can you observe him?


-- Modified on 7/28/2008 10:06:28 AM

BHO DID see plenty of troops during his trip. Video and pictures are all over the place. But they were NOT in hospitals. Injured vs. non-injured WAS the distinction made by the Pentegon, by BHO, by the Press, by EVERYONE but YOU.

I don't know what the hell you're talking about with the new toy $400 billion police force. Are you saying you're afraid he will turn into Pol Pot, or maybe some lesser police state? I take 5 psychiatric drugs a day, and I'm worried about your mental health.

BTW, if you're worried about how much power he will have as president, it's because of how much George Bush has extended executive powers in his reign of shame. If you're that afraid, you better hope Congress impeaches Bush before Obama takes office, because it certainly won't be inclined to reduce executive powers afterward.

Wall Street had pretty high capital gains taxes all the way through the Reagan era, until they were reduced by the first Bush (and we know how the economy worked for him after that.) If capital gains are raised to a degree, it won't change the fact that investors still want to make money, and that Wall Street is a convenient place to do it.

I don't see Obama as being that impetuous. He's hardly a centrist, but it's liberals who might just lose patience with him.

of equal strength and capability as the military. How can that be accomplished without having a comparable budget? i.e. $400+ billiion/year. Nevermind that it would most likely be illegal.

Certainly the market will come back, but huge numbers will take their profits BEFORE the rates DOUBLE (that's slightly more than "raised a degree" on my calculator).