karn wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

karn wrote:Anyone who doesn't recognize Obama as a mature and qualified candidate is even-odds to be a racist.

This is pure unadulterated Kool Aid.

See my above post

Camp Holdout wrote:here is a more specific example for werthless i find myself thinking about... because i think his question is really important.

on november 5th there will non-us-citizens who walk past a guy reading a USA Today newspaper (and that will be the exact paper). this non us-citizen might be a 13 year old boy in pakistan. or she might be a 10 year old girl in China. or a 15 year old boy if Iran. he/she probably wont know the name of the guy on the newspaper cover with his arms raised, but his/her parents probably will. he/she will see either John McCain or Barack Obama on this newspaper cover.

I would like for him to see Barack Obama on this cover because I would like the person holding that newspaper that he sees to have a smile on his face.

I would like for this experience to somehow factor into him/her not hating america and wanting to blow it up when he/she is 18 years old. In fact, i'd like that experience to somehow factor into him/her changing their perceptions of some things they might have heard about the kind of people who live in America and whether we are good people or bad people.

I don't know if it will.

So, is that example fair to John McCain/Sarah Palin? Probably not. But i believe it to still be important. And i believe that Barack Obama (rightfully earned or not) is the one who could make this experience possible for a lot of kids/teenagers around the world.

Werthless wrote:

Camp Holdout wrote:here is a more specific example for werthless i find myself thinking about... because i think his question is really important.

on november 5th there will non-us-citizens who walk past a guy reading a USA Today newspaper (and that will be the exact paper). this non us-citizen might be a 13 year old boy in pakistan. or she might be a 10 year old girl in China. or a 15 year old boy if Iran. he/she probably wont know the name of the guy on the newspaper cover with his arms raised, but his/her parents probably will. he/she will see either John McCain or Barack Obama on this newspaper cover.

I would like for him to see Barack Obama on this cover because I would like the person holding that newspaper that he sees to have a smile on his face.

I would like for this experience to somehow factor into him/her not hating america and wanting to blow it up when he/she is 18 years old. In fact, i'd like that experience to somehow factor into him/her changing their perceptions of some things they might have heard about the kind of people who live in America and whether we are good people or bad people.

I don't know if it will.

So, is that example fair to John McCain/Sarah Palin? Probably not. But i believe it to still be important. And i believe that Barack Obama (rightfully earned or not) is the one who could make this experience possible for a lot of kids/teenagers around the world.

I think it's safe to say that I'm not going to base my yet undecided vote on how many kids I can make cry.

mpmcgraw wrote:

Werthless wrote:Now, I don't really read newspapers much, but a few isntances come to mind, in which the US is at odds with the UN security council. Perhaps you could look at Iraq, maybe Russia?

You mean when the U.S. wanted the U.N. to go in with us in Iraq and France said no there's no evidence of WMD's and you are opening a can of worms there? They were so wrong.

And they were not trying to impose their will upon the U.S. They were not trying to stop us, they just didn't want to go in with us.

seke2 wrote:

Mountainphan wrote:

seke2 wrote:So to me, the world I live in is Earth, and part of my decision making process in picking a candidate is definitely giving "voice" to the folks who want Obama but can't vote for him because they aren't citizens. Overall that's a tiny factor, but Karn and Camp Holdout said it well already--the rest of the world already loves him and respects him as a leader, and I can't see how that is a bad thing. There are about a million other factors that are playing a bigger role in my decision, and the biggest at this point is keeping Sarah Palin in Anchorage.

Bold emphasis is mine.

I would caution that we need to be careful in assuming that "love" equals "respect as a leader".

I didn't assume equal, I assume (and believe) both are true.

dajafi wrote:
This was Andrew Sullivan's initial pro-Obama premise: Obama's face is our most effective soft-power weapon in fighting the appeal of terrorism in the developing world.

seke2 wrote:

Werthless wrote:What I find interesting is Obama's comments against NAFTA (which he later partially retracted, if I recall correctly). What message does this send to our American neighbors, and how do they feel about Obama's tough talk about protecting US jobs? While I'm a huge supporter of free trade absent any conditions, I don't think Obama's stance should be examined under the lens of foreign countries. Instead, you should focus EXCLUSIVELY on whether his policies reflect your understanding of the policies he supports, and how it affects the world you live in.

That last sentence is loaded, though. Given that many of the issues facing us in the next 10-20 years seem to be global (environmental, energy, rise of radical Islam), the scope of the world that I care about is the entire world, not just my day to day world. I probably have this perspective in part because I spend so much of my day-to-day for my job dealing with folks in Japan, Europe, and India, plus I have a vested interest in Israel as a Jew (though so far I haven't been significantly convinced either way that McCain or Obama is better for Israel, they both seem to be pretty strongly pro-Israel).

So to me, the world I live in is Earth, and part of my decision making process in picking a candidate is definitely giving "voice" to the folks who want Obama but can't vote for him because they aren't citizens. Overall that's a tiny factor, but Karn and Camp Holdout said it well already--the rest of the world already loves him and respects him as a leader, and I can't see how that is a bad thing. There are about a million other factors that are playing a bigger role in my decision, and the biggest at this point is keeping Sarah Palin in Anchorage.

...the election is very much about American exceptionalism.

This is the idea, around since the founding fathers, and elaborated on by Alexis de Tocqueville, that the United States is a nation unlike any other with a special mission to build the “city upon a hill” that will serve as liberty’s beacon for mankind.

But exceptionalism has taken an ugly twist of late. It’s become the angry refuge of the America that wants to deny the real state of the world.

From an inspirational notion, however flawed in execution, that has buttressed the global spread of liberty, American exceptionalism has morphed into the fortress of those who see themselves threatened by “one-worlders” (read Barack Obama) and who believe it’s more important to know how to dress moose than find Mumbai.

That’s Palinism, a philosophy delivered without a passport and with a view (on a clear day) of Russia.

Behind Palinism lies anger. It’s been growing as America’s relative decline has become more manifest in falling incomes, imploding markets, massive debt and rising new centers of wealth and power from Shanghai to Dubai.

The damn-the-world, God-chose-us rage of that America has sharpened as U.S. exceptionalism has become harder to square with the 21st-century world’s interconnectedness. How exceptional can you be when every major problem you face, from terrorism to nuclear proliferation to gas prices, requires joint action?

WASHINGTON, DC, Sept. 26 -- The US Senate defeated an economic stimulus bill with a provision to extend a moratorium on federal oil shale leasing by 52 to 42 votes on Sept. 26. The measure fell 8 votes short of the 60 votes necessary for passage.

It was not immediately clear whether Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) would try to insert the provision into another bill before Congress recesses.

Republicans were pleased with the outcome. "This Democrat-controlled 'do nothing and drill noting' Congress is out of touch with the people that put them in office. Earlier this week, we saw the largest single-day jump in oil prices in history. How do Democrats in Congress react? They attempt to extend the ill-conceived Udall moratorium on oil shale regulations. This places over 800 billion bbl of potentially recoverable oil out of reach; that's an energy source larger than the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia," said Sen. Wayne Allard (Colo.), who is retiring in January.

Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who is running to succeed Allard, and two other Democrats on Colorado's congressional delegation, Sen. Ken Salazar and Rep. John Salazar, said on Sept. 24 that they would try to reinstate the moratorium when Congress comes back to work.

dajafi wrote:

Camp Holdout wrote:here is a more specific example for werthless i find myself thinking about... because i think his question is really important.

on november 5th there will non-us-citizens who walk past a guy reading a USA Today newspaper (and that will be the exact paper). this non us-citizen might be a 13 year old boy in pakistan. or she might be a 10 year old girl in China. or a 15 year old boy if Iran. he/she probably wont know the name of the guy on the newspaper cover with his arms raised, but his/her parents probably will. he/she will see either John McCain or Barack Obama on this newspaper cover.

I would like for him to see Barack Obama on this cover because I would like the person holding that newspaper that he sees to have a smile on his face.

I would like for this experience to somehow factor into him/her not hating america and wanting to blow it up when he/she is 18 years old. In fact, i'd like that experience to somehow factor into him/her changing their perceptions of some things they might have heard about the kind of people who live in America and whether we are good people or bad people.

I don't know if it will.

So, is that example fair to John McCain/Sarah Palin? Probably not. But i believe it to still be important. And i believe that Barack Obama (rightfully earned or not) is the one who could make this experience possible for a lot of kids/teenagers around the world.

This was Andrew Sullivan's initial pro-Obama premise: Obama's face is our most effective soft-power weapon in fighting the appeal of terrorism in the developing world.

karn wrote:Anyone left who is undecided is, flatly, a moron. It's a shame that they can't somehow be disqualified from the process.

Phan In Phlorida wrote:

karn wrote:Anyone left who is undecided is, flatly, a moron. It's a shame that they can't somehow be disqualified from the process.

I... I... I don't even know who's running for prez today. It's Obama vs Palin now, right?

Mountainphan wrote:

Phan In Phlorida wrote:

karn wrote:Anyone left who is undecided is, flatly, a moron. It's a shame that they can't somehow be disqualified from the process.

I... I... I don't even know who's running for prez today. It's Obama vs Palin now, right?

According to some apparently.

VoxOrion wrote:

karn wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

karn wrote:Anyone who doesn't recognize Obama as a mature and qualified candidate is even-odds to be a racist.

This is pure unadulterated Kool Aid.

See my above post

When you tie to unlikes together and present a conclusion - I don't get it, your math doens't make sense.

Believing someone is or is not qualified to do a job has no relation to their race that I can percieve, yet you link them nonchalantly. Once you make the link you then conclude that if one doesn't agree that Obama is mature and qualified they must be a racist.

This makes no sense to me. Is the flip side also true, that if one is not a racist they must recognize the not-like-me as de facto qualified? What if someone is evaluating the qualifications and maturity of a person that shares their own race?

VoxOrion wrote:Cohen does a good job of turning Obama's clutching God and guns statement into an essay (makes you wonder how hard it really is to apply the clutching comment to what those on the left really think). It's solid ideological psychoanalysis and sounds pretty lame.

All the way down to the cheap shot about a passport. This guy writes like the invisible liberal boogeyman the right wing talkers are always carrying on about.

phdave wrote:

Mountainphan wrote:

Phan In Phlorida wrote:

karn wrote:Anyone left who is undecided is, flatly, a moron. It's a shame that they can't somehow be disqualified from the process.

I... I... I don't even know who's running for prez today. It's Obama vs Palin now, right?

According to some apparently.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZKQDyL5gzc[/youtube]

TheDude24 wrote:So I hear Obama and McCain both took their own private planes to the debate from Washington. The race is on.