traderdave wrote:

pacino wrote:Chris Christie avoids questions on 3 separate occasions where the official schedule had him talking to the press.

Pacino - this guy has really become insufferable. Part of me hopes he is elected President so that he'll be out of New Jersey.

The sooner he is off the national stage, the better.

Dems have been too eager to destroy him. They should have let him get the nomination then let the scum be revealed.

I really wanted to like this guy - but he's not just the "straight talking" pragmatist who is Our Best Hope to reverse the nanny state -- he's a self-involved bully who stumbled onto a few good platitudes.

And - truly - the Cowboys thing alone is reason enough to detest him. By turning his back on the Giants, he's shown himself to be exactly what Eskin says - a front-running bandwagon c0ckroach who enjoys taunting his local friends because "his" team is good.

More and more, Christie seems like a NJ version of Huckabee without Huckabee's good qualities, though I supposed that's somewhat balanced by Christie's less extreme and silly views on social issues.

Huckabee has good qualities?

I continue to believe that Huckabee is personally likable... guy you'd like to have a beer with. (Does he drink?) People liked him in the debates.

Werthless wrote:I continue to believe that Huckabee is personally likable... guy you'd like to have a beer with. (Does he drink?) People liked him in the debates.

I like him - but he would be a turrbull president. He has Religious Right social views but fiscally sloppy leftish economic views. He is the opposite of Libberterriers.

He doesn't drink. He is very personable though (I've met him). And as far as governor of Arkansas, he mostly did a good job--raised taxes when necessary to confront a serious budget shortfall, took real political risks to reform public education (an effort where he fell short in accomplishing what he wanted to but there's no doubt he tried) and overall did a very good job managing state finances--we aren't one of those states facing a pension time bomb or some horrible debt thing. And remember--most of his time as governor was during a relatively weak economy nationwide.

There were little things that were admirable as well--during Katrina, when many evacuees ended up in Arkansas with nothing but the clothes on their backs, he mobilized state agencies and non-profits and dealt with that crisis effectively.

It's been all downhill since then though--his Fox show was horrific, his PAC seems to be little more than a way for him to divert donor's money to himself and his family, and he moved to Florida.

Like Christie though he can be incredibly thin skinned and does not deal with an adversarial press well at all.

"I don't know the particulars about that day in Iraq," Dan Rather told POLITICO. "I do know Brian. He's a longtime friend and we have been in a number of war zones and on the same battlefields, competing but together. Brian is an honest, decent man, an excellent reporter and anchor--and a brave one. I can attest that -- like his predecessor Tom Brokaw -- he is a superb pro, and a gutsy one."

An excellent witness to call on for honesty in reporting

TomatoPie wrote:

Werthless wrote:I continue to believe that Huckabee is personally likable... guy you'd like to have a beer with. (Does he drink?) People liked him in the debates.

I like him - but he would be a turrbull president. He has Religious Right social views but fiscally sloppy leftish economic views. He is the opposite of Libberterriers.

Never said I'd ever vote for him. But he has "good qualities."

jerseyhoya wrote:Brian Williams apologizes for false Iraq story

He could trade war tales with Hillary!

Its not clear that the apology he gave isn't just as misleading.

bummer bc i like brian williams. dont really understand the point in lying about getting shot at.

i dont really like brian williams, so no bummer other than another misreporting of the news by him

pacino wrote:Jordan hung two Iraqi militants in response to ISIS burning their Jordanian soldier alive. Jordan put out a defiant statement, they will likely work harder in the coalition.

I'm as bloodthirsty as any upstanding American, so it's easy for me to imagine the special personal delight those Jordanian fighter pilots took in raining hellfire on some of ISIS's hidey-holes today. This AP footage is ok, but better is Jordan's official release, complete with stirring martial background music. I couldn't find a youtubed version of that:



I'd like to hope they lit up a few unsuspecting Izzies inside some of those buildings, but they probably had an inkling they were going to get shitstormed on

Can someone explain to me why it is so important to some political "theorists" (kibitzers) for the president to modify his identification of middle eastern terrorists as "radical Islam" - that is, to call out this brand of terrorism as a special flavor of religious terrorism, as if doing that cues us all to the special kinds of response we should be considering?

Considering we are a secular nation, perhaps they want us to war against religion in general?

Maybe it's so people know that peaceful practicing Muslims exist?

You don't actually think the critics think that, do you?

Which political theorists are we talking about? Or are you talking about TV news talking heads? Because if that's what you think a political theorist is, we've got a problem, bud, and I'll see you outside.

TenuredVulture wrote:Which political theorists are we talking about? Or are you talking about TV news talking heads? Because if that's what you think a political theorist is, we've got a problem, bud, and I'll see you outside.

Did I, or did I not, explicitly place "theorists" in quotes (there, I did it again)?

So yes, I'm talking television bobbleheads, but also some professional politicians, not all of whom give sufficient attention to things other than vote counts, but sometimes try to make it look like they do

pacino wrote:i dont really like brian williams, so no bummer other than another misreporting of the news by him

I think we need to investigate how hair dye affects the brain. So many of these guys are ridiculous.

Fwiw, the pilot is backing his story up other than saying it was ground fire, not rpg fire