Obamamania!

[George Gervin's Afro]

Jumping in here...

I would ask you the same question, transposed.

Prove to me he is. Show me what experience in his past, and his handling of that qualifies him to be Commander in Chief. It's difficult to prove a negative (and in Obama's case, I thing difficulty in finding negatives is by design, not accident). They guy just BURST on to the scene in '04; gets elected to the Senater, and now wants to be president! His record, other thant at winning elections, and giving speaches is unremarkable.

If I was HIRING either he, Hillary, or McCain for the JOB of Commander in Chief? His resume doesn't even get him an interview.

Gulp....Sigh..

This is my point..

[Yonivore]

Let me get this straight, because Yoni and 101A also have criticized Obama, that somehow validates your point? Look, I respect Yoni and 101A's opinions on matters, but let's be honest, they're not exactly impartial observers. That's almost like saying if boutons agrees with you about Bush, that somehow creates a consensus.

If you cut me, do I not bleed?

[Mr. Peabody]

Isn't that what your telling me? That he's ready to be President based on your opinion? What gives your opinon more weight than mine?

Nothing, but I am not trying to use other people opinions as evidence that I am correct. I base my opinion that he is ready to be president on his background. The guy is Ivy League educated; gave up guaranteed wealth to serve his community, first as an organizer and then as a civil rights attorney; was a cons utional law professor; all of that before spending 14 years as an elected official.

[Mr. Peabody]

If you cut me, do I not bleed?

I said almost like boutons....

[Yonivore]

I said almost like boutons....

Okay, I'll recover.

[SA210]

I think Obama should credit Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers for his plagirizing of, "Yes We Can"/"Si Se Puede"

[Mr. Peabody]

Jumping in here...

I would ask you the same question, transposed.

Prove to me he is. Show me what experience in his past, and his handling of that qualifies him to be Commander in Chief. It's difficult to prove a negative (and in Obama's case, I thing difficulty in finding negatives is by design, not accident). They guy just BURST on to the scene in '04; gets elected to the Senater, and now wants to be president! His record, other thant at winning elections, and giving speaches is unremarkable.

If I was HIRING either he, Hillary, or McCain for the JOB of Commander in Chief? His resume doesn't even get him an interview.

Obama's experience, limited in the Senate, is varied in the outside world

By Christopher Wills
ASSOCIATED PRESS

10:47 a.m. January 16, 2008

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – By some measures, Barack Obama has a thin record. He's a Senate newcomer who has never worked in the White House, governed a state or run a business.

Democratic presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton points to his resume as evidence that Obama is not ready for the White House. “He was a part-time state senator for a few years, and then he came to the Senate and immediately started running for president,” she says dismissively.

Obama's accomplishments are more substantial and varied than Clinton suggests. And he has a longer record in elected office than she does, as a second-term New York senator.

Obama was a community organizer and led a voter-registration effort in Chicago that added tens of thousands of people to the rolls. He was a civil rights attorney and taught at one of the nation's premier universities. He helped pass complicated measures in the Illinois legislature on the death penalty, racial profiling, health care and more. In Washington, he has worked with Republicans on nuclear proliferation, government waste and global warming, amassing a record that speaks to a fast start while lacking the heft of years of service.

The Illinois Democrat likes to quote something Bill Clinton once said: “The truth is, you can have the right kind of experience and the wrong kind of experience. Mine is rooted in the real lives of real people, and it will bring real results if we have the courage to change.”

After college, Obama moved to Chicago for a low-paying job as a community organizer. He worked with poor families on the South Side to get improvements in public housing, particularly the removal of asbestos.

“Nobody else running for president has jumped off the career track for three or four years to help people,” said Jerry Kellman, who first hired Obama as a community organizer.

Obama also fought for student summer jobs and a program to keep at-risk children from dropping out of school. More importantly, say those who worked with Obama, he showed people how to organize and confront powerful interests.

“He had to train residents to stand up for their own rights,” said former organizer Loretta Augustine-Herron, who was part of Obama's Developing Communities Project.

Obama left that job to get a law degree. Afterward, he returned to Chicago and ran Project VOTE. The organization recruited hundreds of registrars to sign up new voters, particularly within the city's black population. Registration jumped nearly 15 points between the 1992 primary and the general election.

The registration wave was credited with making Carol Moseley Braun the first black female senator and helping Bill Clinton carry Illinois in his first presidential race. It also got insiders talking about Obama as a political candidate.

Obama then spent several years focusing on the law, both as an attorney at a small firm specializing in civil rights and as a lecturer on cons utional law at the University of Chicago.

As an attorney, he was on the team that successfully sued the state of Illinois for failing to implement a federal voter-registration law. Obama also worked on case of a whistle-blower who lost her job after exposing waste and corruption in a medical research project. The whistle-blower ended up with a $5 million settlement.

Obama was elected to the Illinois state Senate in 1996, when Democrats were in the minority. He proposed hundreds of new laws, including universal health care, tougher gun control and expanded welfare, but saw most of them ed by Republican leadership.

He did have some successes, though – particularly in passing legislation sharply restricting the gifts that Illinois politicians could accept from lobbyists. Illinois has notoriously weak government ethics laws, and the Gift Ban Act was the first major new restriction since the Watergate era.

Obama also helped set up Illinois' “KidCare” program that provided health care to children in families that did not qualify for Medicaid.

John Bouman, president of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, said Obama's work helped make the program more consumer-friendly. He also said Obama was often willing to give up credit for the legislation if that helped win Republican support.

“It tells you something that as a relatively junior member in the minority party, he was an important negotiator,” Bouman said.

When Democrats gained a majority in the Senate, Obama's political mentor, Senate President Emil Jones, gave him high-profile assignments, including two contentious issues involving police – videotaped interrogations and racial profiling.

Police weren't happy about recording their interrogations of murder suspects or having to study racial bias in traffic stops. Initially, they opposed both pieces of legislation.

But Obama made clear that something was going to pass with or without their support. Ultimately, police groups endorsed both bills and they won unanimous approval in the Senate.

Obama was generally regarded as an effective and practical, although decidedly liberal, state lawmaker. One of his Republican colleagues was so wowed that he has appeared in an Obama campaign ad, but others aren't impressed by his legislative record.

“I would say it was run of the mill, honestly,” said Sen. Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, who entered the legislature at the same time Obama did.

Obama was a part-time state senator in that he served in the Illinois legislature at the same time he practiced law. He became a state lawmaker in 1997, four years ahead of Hillary Clinton's entrance into elected office, as U.S. senator.

When Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate, he said he wished to get things done rather than grab headlines, and cited Hillary Clinton as the sort of workhorse he wanted to be.

He teamed with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., to study the dangers of nuclear proliferation and pass legislation meant to keep nuclear material from falling into the hands of terrorists.

Obama also joined with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., after Hurricane Katrina to improve oversight of federal spending.

And he shared billing with a Republican presidential hopeful when he joined Arizona Sen. John McCain in sponsoring legislation that called for sharp, mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The effort failed.

[Spurminator]

I think Obama should credit Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers for his plagirizing of, "Yes We Can"/"Si Se Puede"

, now "Yes We Can" is a trademarked phrase.

[SA210]

, now "Yes We Can" is a trademarked phrase.

What do you know about it?

[101A]

Insert long article with list of accomplishments here

That's great.

But I specifically stated the job le as,

"Commander in Chief"

NOT

"Far Left Chief Executive"

Thanks for making my point for me.

[101A]

Don't know how to embed this video (if somebody knows how, do it so I can see) @ MSN; but check it out. Hilarious.

Black Congresswoman vs. White Man Senator Clinton vs. Obama

[Mr. Peabody]

That's great.

But I specifically stated the job le as,

"Commander in Chief"

NOT

"Far Left Chief Executive"

Thanks for making my point for me.

Look at two notable foreign policy decisions regarding how we use our military. First would be the decision on whether to invade Iraq, which has been poured over so much that I don't know that we'd have a productive discussion about it.

The other decision I'd point you to is when Obama, in a debate, said that he'd go after terrorist cells in Pakistan using small tactical forces, with or without Pakistani cooperation. He was blasted by Hillary, who said it showed naivete and others in the media. It was an unpopular position. I remember listening to Rush Limbaugh saying things like "Senator Obama would bomb Pakistan. Folks this shows how little he understands foreign affairs..." This was in August. Later on, we learn -

CIA Operation Similar to Tactic Obama Advocated, Bush criticized

On the front page of Tuesday's Washington Post was an article detailing how in late January U.S. forces, acting with autonomy inside Pakistan, were able to target and kill Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda commander.

The strike, which came without the Pakistani government's knowledge and helped eliminate an individual who had long eluded the spy-agency's capture, was an obvious boon in the War on Terror. But the political implications of the operation were just as fascinating.

In August, Sen. Barack Obama had made the argument that, as president, he would target Al Qaeda officials in Pakistan even without the country's acquiescence -- the type of attack that, six months later, proved to be successful.

At the time, Obama was roundly criticized for his remarks, both by his Democratic compe ors for the White House and by the Bush administration.

"We think that our approach to Pakistan is not only one that respects the sovereignty of Pakistan, but also is designed so that we are working in cooperation," said then-Press Secretary Tony Snow.

And just one week ago, President Bush himself lambasted Obama's approach to foreign affairs.

"I certainly don't know what he believes in," Bush said on February 10, about Obama. "The only foreign policy thing I remember he said was he's going to attack Pakistan and embrace Ahmadinejad."

To be sure, not everything is known about the extent and execution of the CIA's operation. But, on the surface, it carries similarities to Obama's stated approach towards Pakistan's terrorism problem, the same approach Bush trivialized.

Here is Obama's August 2 statement at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars:

"I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges... But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. ... If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will."

And here are some excerpts from Tuesday's Washington Post article.

In the predawn hours of Jan. 29, a CIA Predator aircraft flew in a slow arc above the Pakistani town of Mir Ali. The drone's operator, relying on information secretly passed to the CIA by local informants, clicked a computer mouse and sent the first of two fire missiles hurtling toward a cluster of mud-brick buildings a few miles from the town center.


The missiles killed Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda commander and a man who had repeatedly eluded the CIA's dragnet. It was the first successful strike against al-Qaeda's core leadership in two years, and it involved, U.S. officials say, an unusual degree of autonomy by the CIA inside Pakistan.

It is an approach that some U.S. officials say could be used more frequently this year, particularly if a power vacuum results from yesterday's election and associated political tumult. The administration also feels an increased sense of urgency about undermining al-Qaeda before President Bush leaves office, making it less hesitant, said one official familiar with the incident.

Having requested the Pakistani government's official permission for such strikes on previous occasions, only to be put off or turned down, this time the U.S. spy agency did not seek approval. The government of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was notified only as the operation was underway, according to the officials, who insisted on anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities.

[Spurminator]

What do you know about it?

I know that as campaign slogans go, "Yes We Can" is about as generic as they come. It's the "Go Spurs Go" of campaign slogans. If the LA Kings started making banners that said "Go Kings Go" would you accuse them of plagiarism??

I also know that "Si Se Puede" is Spanish for "Yes We Can." Obama is trying to appeal to Latinos? Plagiarist!!!

[101A]

Look at two notable foreign policy decisions regarding how we use our military. First would be the decision on whether to invade Iraq, which has been poured over so much that I don't know that we'd have a productive discussion about it.

The other decision I'd point you to is when Obama, in a debate, said that he'd go after terrorist cells in Pakistan using small tactical forces, with or without Pakistani cooperation. He was blasted by Hillary, who said it showed naivete and others in the media. It was an unpopular position. I remember listening to Rush Limbaugh saying things like "Senator Obama would bomb Pakistan. Folks this shows how little he understands foreign affairs..." This was in August. Later on, we learn -

The "decision" on whether to invade an Iraq was nothing of the sort. It was an opinion. By that standard, Boutons is more qualified than Hillary in your eyes to be President.

Regarding Pakistan; what Obama said, was he would act unilaterally in Pakistan - and did not, at all, sound diplomatic; Also, he promised to send troops, we sent a single drone - and told them it was underway. Different in scope, IMO.

[Mr. Peabody]

The "decision" on whether to invade an Iraq was nothing of the sort. It was an opinion. By that standard, Boutons is more qualified than Hillary in your eyes to be President.

Regarding Pakistan; what Obama said, was he would act unilaterally in Pakistan - and did not, at all, sound diplomatic; Also, he promised to send troops, we sent a single drone - and told them it was underway. Different in scope, IMO.

boutons wasn't running for political office and speaking out against popular support for the war. I think Barack's exact quote in 2002 was that the war would be "an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs and undetermined consequences." It turned out to be true.

On the issue of Pakistan - what we did was act unilaterally. We told the Pakistani government the attack was underway after it was underway. How is that not unilateral? Also, now we're arguing scope? Before, it was he has done nothing to show the capability to be Commander-in-Chief. Then when it turns out his plan for combating terrorists in August was the same plan the CIA used in January, the argument becomes "Well, his plan was different in scope."

Ok, you win, he's unfit to be Commander-in-Chief because he said he would send troops and he should have said drones....

[101A]

boutons wasn't running for political office and speaking out against popular support for the war. I think Barack's exact quote in 2002 was that the war would be "an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs and undetermined consequences." It turned out to be true.

On the issue of Pakistan - what we did was act unilaterally. We told the Pakistani government the attack was underway after it was underway. How is that not unilateral? Also, now we're arguing scope? Before, it was he has done nothing to show the capability to be Commander-in-Chief. Then when it turns out his plan for combating terrorists in August was the same plan the CIA used in January, the argument becomes "Well, his plan was different in scope."

Ok, you win, he's unfit to be Commander-in-Chief because he said he would send troops and he should have said drones....

Go ahead defend what he said; it sounded undiplomatic and inflamatory toward an ally of ours, naming Musharraf specifically, who has supported US policies DESPITE the fact that it is unpopular in his country. Whatever we ultimately did, apparently, hasn't had ill consequences, we can only guess why.


Again, Obama DOES NOT get full credit for not supporting the war; he was a freaking STATE SENATOR at the time; he could say ANYTHING and it didn't amount to a hill of beans. I can imagine, in HIS little, meaningless district in Illinois, it was the politically expedient thing to say! I, personally, have NO IDEA what my state senator thought about the invasion; nor do I care.

[Extra Stout]

, now "Yes We Can" is a trademarked phrase.

Unless Obama invents a completely new language and does his campaign speeches exclusively in that language, he is a phony, unlike John Edwards, who actually invented the English language, and is also the father of modern hair care.

[Extra Stout]

Bill Clinton is a plagiarist phony. He didn't invent "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow." That was Fleetwood Mac! When will Bill Clinton come up with his own ideas and stop stealing them from popular '70s musical groups?

[Mr. Peabody]

Go ahead defend what he said; it sounded undiplomatic and inflamatory toward an ally of ours, naming Musharraf specifically, who has supported US policies DESPITE the fact that it is unpopular in his country. Whatever we ultimately did, apparently, hasn't had ill consequences, we can only guess why.

101, did you read the last paragraph of the article? We had asked this ally of ours for permission to go after Al Qaeda in Pakistan and they would refuse or stall.

My point is that Obama said he would utilize such a unilateral strategy if necessary. He was roundly criticized for this statement and the strategy proved to be a successful one six months later. I think that it is evidence that he is fit to be Commander-in-Chief.

[clambake]

i just want the mccain supporters to tell me if Iran is a terrorist state.

[Holt's Cat]

Nothing, but I am not trying to use other people opinions as evidence that I am correct. I base my opinion that he is ready to be president on his background. The guy is Ivy League educated; gave up guaranteed wealth to serve his community, first as an organizer and then as a civil rights attorney; was a cons utional law professor; all of that before spending 14 years as an elected official.

And he made his career on his own.