finknottle

What if you are straight and never find anyone to marry? You'll have all the rights of a citizen, but never be a real one. Should the government provide spouses in the name of civil rights? I'm pro-gay marriage, but arguments like that put me off. A gay person is not prohibited from entering into a straight marriage just because they are gay. True, they may not enjoy it. But that is no different than, say, becoming a doctor. I wouldn't want to be one. Maybe it's environmental, maybe I have a genetic predisposition against it. But it does bother me that I cannot enjoy the financial, social, and medical advantages enjoyed by those in the profession. So should we make sure that I get the same trappings in whatever profession I choose instead? Perhaps we should address everyone as 'Doctor'?

Touche!

I'm not defending the Church - indeed, I'm generally hostile to organized religion. I'm just clarifying what I understand to be the issue. There is a Bishop circular (or something with some fancy name) which say's you are not supposed to honor those at odds with the key tenents of the Church. *Whether* abortion should be considered one and the death penalty etc should not is a separate question - the Church is free to decide for itself which issues it considers important. But one thing that it is *not* is some kind of quasi-public club, where everybody gets a vote on the issues by virtue of their attendance.

Except that's not the issue. The issue is whether they should honor the speaker (ie with a doctoral degree). What you call a 'much-debated subject' is one in which the Catholic Church has a very clear position. And intrinsic to the Church is the rejection of dissent - on basic issues, it is not up to the individual to interpret God's will. There is a mandate (dictate? Request? I'm not Catholic and don't care enough to follow it) that Catholic organizations only honor those who are in agreement with the basic tenents of the Church. Engagement and discussion is encouraged with all, regardless of their views. But honors are supposed to only go to those who are worthy and in-line with Church teachings. So the issue is not whether Obama should come speak, but simply whether he should be honored when he does. It's kinda like this: when Putin comes to the White House and gives a speech about cooperation in the 21st century, do we give him the Medal of Honor?

GE is Obama's Halliburton.

Here is how it works: ACORN is contracted by a union to do a signature drive. The collect signed sheets and turn them in - you know ACORN, they are remarkably good at that. Thanks to card check, the union is automatically formed and considered to be representing the employees as of that moment. You look at the list (don't ask me how you get your hands on it) and see your name there - hey, you didn't sign! Looks like ACORN had another 'oops!' moment. Ok, who do you go to? Your union rep? So maybe you brave the retributions of your new shop steward and complain to management. They file a complaint with the NLB. The NLB considers the accusation and decides whether or not it is worth investigating - it is their decision. If they do, you'll have the national union actively taking up the case against you to preserve their inroad. That can get ugly for you - they know where you live and are permitted to 'lobby' you outside of the workplace. On the other hand, the NLB may implicitely take ACORN's side and set it's sights on management instead, investigating whether they are coercing employees to disavow their signatures. But I'm guessing they will do nothing. Remember, this is organization whose funding was slashed in order to account for all of the Department of Labor's cuts under Obama's line-by-line budget dictum. Their marching orders are clear.

The media spends so much energy congratulating its reporters and patting itself on the back for its investigative journalism - it makes me sick. Where is it on the matters where we need it? Case in point: the illegal immigration debate. In recent years, it has qualified as an issue of great interest to the public. A recurring question has been: how much of our over-burdened prisons are filled with illegal aliens? How much of our public services are being consumed by them? Some activists give wildly high numbers, others say it is no worse than the population at large. The government declines to weigh in, saying it is prohibited from collecting that data. Sounds to me that this cries for the kind of four-issue investigative story usually reserved for, say, the decade old murder of Chandra Levy. Who else is going to give us the information we need for a knowledgable debate, and break the ground on whether or not there really is an problem? Instead we get crickets and stories about Palin's daughter and Susan Boyle's makeover. I look forward to dancing on the grave of the newspapers.

I'll go even further. Not only did Bush definately want it, Clinton would have liked it too when he was president - remember, we were only in a 'cease-fire'. and there were regular combat incidents including the four-day bombing Operation Desert Fox. The difference is that 9/11 changed the political landscape and made a resumption of full hostilities a real possibility. Clinton couldn't. Bush could, and was strongly motivated to go the extra mile to take advantage. In fact, I'd bet that if Obama were elected in 1992 and had dealt with Hussein through the nineties, he'd be wishing to himself that he could send the troops in too.

I think we do. Isn't that why we elected 'Yes We Can'?

Fair enough. You may not like that argument or find it compelling, but that isn't the issue. Had the administration successfully made the case that Iraq would ultimately be a threat, and that that justified going to war - note, those are hypotheticals - instead of letting one guy make the case that they had AQ links and another make the case that they had WMD and another make the case that there was genocide and another talk about creating a democratic Middle East etc... had they gotten consensus for action on that single argument instead of getting a consensus by cobbling together disparate arguments of varying accuracy, then they would have been much better off politically.

What, this statement? Nice reading comprehension. I'll make it accessible even to you. 1. Lose-lose situations are often an unfortunate part of being President, something critics forget in looking over the past decade. 2. I fully expect that you will demand a pass for Obama in all future lose-lose crisis on the base of it still being Bush's fault. That is regardless of this situation, which of course happened under Bush. My prediction is based on your body of work, such as it is.

And this reply is supposed to convince me that in the future Obama (or any other president, for that matter) will face no difficult lose-lose situations? Well done!

The problem with Iraq is that different people had different reasons for justifying the war. The Bush administrations greatest blunder was in letting these myriad justifications go forth at the time, letting the critics use the stupidest (eg AQ ties) as a strawman for attacking those who supported it. IMO Clintons support was based on something different: She saw first-hand during the Clinton administration that Saddam was a long term danger. That Iraq was circumventing the trade sanctions and aggressively targeting UN patrols. That the UN sanctions were regularly flouted by the Europeans, being demonstrated against by the left, and with French, German, and Russian security council opposition would not survive more than 2-3 years. And that *once* sanctions were lifted and the Gulf War I terms ended, Saddam would resume his WMD efforts. His experiences manipulating the UN and world opinion, far from chastening him, would only embolden him in the future. In other words, it wasn't because of WMD claims in the here-and-now (though the claims made justification easier), but rather the realization that Iraq would become another North Korea within the decade. And Hillary also saw first-hand exactly what that meant: an aggressive trouble-maker who could neither be trusted nor negotiated with, whose behavior, blackmail and transgressions the international community was powerless to effect. You ask why Bill Clinton didn't do anything, given these same facts: his administration already had it's hands full stopping (along with UK) the other security council members from lifting the sanctions and ending the no-fly patrols. Remember, this was the time of the 'wag the dog' accusations. Right or wrong, his administration didn't feel politically they could do more than the already-criticized occasional message-via-missile attack without a change in the political landscape. As it was, Congress did pass authorization for regime change in Iraq, and allocated something like $100 million to that cause. As for the insinuation that they were 'lying,' do you really think that most of the Bush adminstration didn't believe it themselves? Curious thing to choose to lie about, since there is a clear-cut resolution. Why did they spend millions in a highly-publicized search for WMD? Was is some right-wing plot, where they decided in advance "we'll lie about WMD, and after the war we'll have a high-profile search for it, and when we find nothing we'll say 'opps, my bad' and all will be forgiven"? You don't think highly of Rove as a strategist. More generally, is every mistake a 'lie'? Was Obama lying when he said the billions he gave to the automakers would keep them out of bankruptcy? I'm no defender of Obama, but I'd like to think that he believed it and was simply wrong.

Gee, being president means having to make hard often lose-lose decisions. I'm glad the left is finally aware of that, even if making tough decisions isn't exactly Omaba's forte. (Though blzrul will no doubt continue to paint all future lose-lose situations as having been caused by Bush.)

I dunno, didn't Obama chair the working group on Afghanistan for six months before showing up for a meeting?

I'd differ slightly here. Yes, it is what they were warned about. Presumably they are ok with that. Some degree of nationalization is not neccessarily evil, it's a question of economic policy. Sometimes it may be a good idea, sometimes not, and each may have their opinion on where, what, and when. The issue is what the legal framework is for nationalization or quasi-nationalization. It's a little like exercising emminent domain. It is one thing to nationalize while playing by clear and fair rules. It is quite another when you don't pay a fair price, ignore existing law, and strong-arm people into it. I suspect the reason the left is uncharacteristically quiet on the matter is not because they disapprove of the outcome, but rather because they recognize the means this administration is employing to get it. Their methods look Chavezesque, and nobody wants to defend them.

I did a quick search and I think you are right: for every dollar we spend, we are borrowing 50 cents of it. http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/may/...gures-released/

Same defense they had when the administration railroaded the Chrysler negotiations. Deafening silence.

If the public sees it as a bad thing they can and will reverse course. The problem is that such a reversal notwithstanding, we will still be crippled financially. Realistically, his expanded entitlements cannot be reeled in once granted, and the all money will already have been spent. America waking up in five years and deciding to (for arguments sake) reduce the public sector and let the economy grow naturally won't alter the fact that our debt will have tripled. With this budget, for every three dollars the administration is spending, one is borrowed. We are going to owe a crippling abount of money very very quickly.

That's ok, the government will lean on the institutions to buy the debt. TARP and vehicles like it are proving quite usefull to this administration. I'm really excited economic system we are building. Look out, Asian Tigers, we are going to Kick Some A$$!

I'm glad we finally agree - Bush and Obama might as well be the same guy. Empty vessels selling visions of being uniters, not dividers, and claiming to transcend partisan Washington politics, all the while backed by ruthlessly effective campaign managers and special interests. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Having intervened and run roughshod over the law in the case of Chrysler, the Obama administration now turns to GM: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...id=opinionsbox1

I think we can cut him some slack on this point - he *is* a child in the sense that he has not had any exposure to or formative experiences in nearly everything he is dealing with, from business to foreign affairs. Chrysler and Gitmo are just shiny blocks to play with right now, and he is only now discovering that playtime has boundaries. We may not like it, but we're going to have to live with it for a year or so while he grows into the job.

One day they are drooling at their prospects, and the next they are frothing... who can tell the difference?

Gee, the FBI has a lot of credibility. An organization which isn't in charge of the detainees, is historically a bitter rival of CIA, and which is obligated to use only traditional interrogation techniques... To think that a career FBI guy would come out and bad-mouth CIA's approach before Congress is quite surprising! I think we need to break the tie by getting a Department of Motor Vehicles investigator to testify.