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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 11:42 am Post subject: |
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| daskalos wrote: |
| It's not blind Obamaphilia. It's wisely pragmatic Obamaphilia. I rejoice that the man I voted and campaigned for is not half so doctrinaire as his detractors on the left or right. History will bear me out on this. |
History is going to make Obama a 21st century LBJ if he doesn't wake up and get our troops out of Afghanistan. |
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itsjustverbs
Joined: 05 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Obama did sucha huge thing by winning. Astounding. But he can't end a war 'cause he would look weak. Asian wars are losers for most outsiders. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| Bacasper, why did you post that article twice? |
It is relevant to this thread, and also worth a thread of its own. |
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The Happy Warrior
Joined: 10 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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It's Obama's White House, but it's Bush's World
| Julian E. Zelizer wrote: |
First, consider the strengthening of presidential power. Every president since Richard Nixon has fought to restore the authority of the executive branch that was diminished as a result of Watergate. No chief executive was as successful as Bush, especially since he had the help of Vice President Dick Cheney, who had dedicated much of his career to criticizing the 1970s reforms that he thought had emasculated the White House. Bush relied on signing statements and executive orders to implement initiatives such as warrantless wiretapping without having to get approval from Congress.
Obama has not done much to reverse the trend. While he has worked harder to court Congress, allowing legislators to craft the details of the health-care legislation, for example, he has not stepped back from Bush's robust use of executive power. He has relied on it to strengthen environmental programs and agencies that had been weakened since the 1980s. On national security, the pattern is more striking. Obama's Justice Department has turned to Bush's sweeping interpretation of the "state secrets" privilege to battle lawsuits involving the rendition and torture of terrorism suspects, and the president has defended the right of the government to conduct intrusive domestic wiretapping programs.
The second enduring legacy of the Bush presidency is the sprawling counterterrorism infrastructure created after Sept. 11, 2001. The Bush administration vastly strengthened the government's ability to fight terrorist networks by collecting information, tracking and closing down financial and nonprofit organizations, and interrogating detainees. Although Obama was a critic of this program on the campaign trail, much of it remains in place -- most notably, the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Early in the Obama presidency, Jack Goldsmith, a former lawyer for the Bush administration who had become a vocal critic of its counterterrorism policies, criticized Cheney for exaggerating the differences between the two White Houses. "The new administration," Goldsmith wrote in the New Republic, "has copied most of the Bush program, has expanded some of it, and has narrowed only a bit."
And in a blistering report on the administration's national security record released last month, the American Civil Liberties Union warned of the "very real danger that the Obama administration will enshrine permanently within the law policies and practices that were widely considered extreme and unlawful during the Bush administration. There is a real danger, in other words, that the Obama administration will preside over the creation of a 'new normal.' "
The report praised Obama's decisions to release the Bush administration's "torture memos" and to outlaw secret CIA prisons overseas, as well as his prohibition of torture, but criticized the administration for, among other things, failing to eliminate military commission trials and targeted killings of terrorism suspects. ACLU Director Anthony Romero declared himself "disgusted" with the president's policies. |
All in all, a 'juvenile' article, you'll see. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 8:35 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney08102010.html
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2010/08/whitney-obama-is-public-relations.html
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As you know I have been trying to 'figure out' Barack Obama and his mysterious background and equally mystifying rise to power, without having done anything notable, either in business, or civil service, or even military service. Granted, he talks one hell of a game but always seems to fall short. He seems to have less substance, far less accomplishments than his fellow actor in the White House, Ronald Reagan, who had been a governor before becoming President.
Perhaps the answer is as simple as this.
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| "It's hard to believe that a two-year senator from Chicago with a background in 'community organizing' presides over this elaborate and opaque system of imperial rule. He doesn't, of course. The real leaders remain hidden behind the cloak of democratic government and all of Washington's phony institutions. Obama is merely a public relations hologram, a friendly face that conceals the machinations of a global Mafia. Other people--whoever they may be--control the levers of power moving the pieces as needed to assure the best outcome for themselves and their constituents." Mike Whitney, Kill Hugo? |
Well, unlike his predecessor, at least he has not tortured anyone that we know about. |
I think torture is still happening at Bagram, no?
A "public relations hologram" is absolutely the best description of Hope and Change I've ever read. |
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2016973,00.html
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| Campaign Manager for Barack Obama, David Plouffe gives a speech during the 'DDB Worldwide Audacity of Successful Brands' Seminar as part of the 56th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival on June 25, 2009 in Cannes, France. |
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The Happy Warrior
Joined: 10 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2010 8:35 pm Post subject: |
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9/11 plus nine; Barack Obama�s expected advantages are turning into handicaps in the war on terrorism
| The Economist wrote: |
And yet Mr Obama�s programme of Muslim outreach is already faltering. The Pew Research Centre reported in June that the percentage of Muslims expressing confidence in him had declined in a year from 42% to 33% in Egypt and from 13% to 8% in Pakistan. The reason is not hard to fathom. Whatever expectations the Cairo speech aroused in the Muslim world have yet to be fulfilled. Like Americans waiting for economic recovery, Muslim countries have been waiting for Mr Obama to match his words with deeds, and have so far been disappointed.
Under Mr Obama America no longer waterboards detainees, but that stopped on Mr Bush�s watch. Mr Obama promised to close Guant�namo, but so did Mr Bush�and it is still in operation. Mr Obama has withdrawn combat troops from Iraq, but sent more to Afghanistan and used drones to kill far more suspected terrorists in Pakistan.
To his credit, Mr Obama affirmed last month that in America Muslims had the same right to practise their religion as anyone else. But it was a muted statement, tempered a day later by an insistence that he was taking no position on the wisdom of the Manhattan mosque. In the war on terror, as in much else, this president�s pragmatic search for the middle way is in danger of satisfying nobody. It is turning into the recurring pattern, and may become the ultimate tragedy, of his presidency. |
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