Korean Job Discussion Forums

ManintheMiddle · Joined: 20 Oct 2008

Ya know, bruddahs, it's getting harder and harder for me to convince myself that the Obama Administration is willing to air its dirty laundry. All that talk about greater transparency and bipartisanship seems to have been swept away with the confetti from the inauguration.

First this flashback: just before his first inaugural address, Obama proceeded down the aisle giving casual handshakes to White politicians but vigorous brother shakes to his Black brothers--all but with the notable exception of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who he didn't even look at.

Cases in point:

1. During the campaign, Obama accuses both O'Reilly and CNN's Lou Dobbs of stirring up the xenophobic pot regarding Mexican immigration, a calculated but grossly unfair charge. He then makes the same charge this week in pressing for immigrant amnesty legislation.

2. The American C-C bows almost to the point of kow-towing to that misogynist pig, the King of Saudi Arabia, doing Bush one better, only to have his damage control team at the White House insist he was only trying to reach down to a shorter leader. But seeing is believing and, believe me, he bowed. So what was his excuse when he met Queen Elizabeth II a few days before? (Of course, it couldn't possibly be that he was ill-informed on protocol).

3a. Obama commits a gaffe in Vienna by referring to Austrian as a language. The White House explains that it was just a slip of the tongue caused by jet lag.

3b. The press and the White House Briefings Room heralds Obama's fence-mending in Europe as a great success despite the fact that he didn't get them to increase economic stimulus in their own countries nor the troops he wanted in Afghanistan.

4. And then we've got the White House Press Secretary, with half the class and brains of his predecessor, Dana Perino, obsessing on Rush Limbaugh yet again as if focusing attention on a blowhard radio DJ was worthy of commentary in the West Wing.

and last but not least:

5. Once again our steadfast VP Joe Biden manages to outdo himself, no small accomplishment for the 1988 presidential candidate who plagiarized a British Labor Party leader's speech while misrepresenting his own family. No, this time, Joe Blow didn't embellish but outright lied, claiming he not only had hours of private meetings with the former president but disparaged him too. Never mind that Karl Rove, Andrew Card, and the House of Rep liaison, who would have been within earshot of any such occurrence, immediately and emphatically denied it.

Yes, the Obamarama Laundry is already on the perpetual spin cycle. Deny, deny, obfuscate, and jab, accuse and then blame some more.

Not only is it beneath the dignity of the Office but shows a general lack of class. In all his time in the White House, at least Bush never resorted to these cheap tricks.

But now we have Chicago's Smooth Operator (Colt 45 malt liquor style) calling the shots, or letting his subordinates call them for him.

Meanwhile, most of the mainstream media sits idly by, watching the spin cycle, with glazed over eyes.

endo · Joined: 14 Mar 2004 Location: Seoul...my home

You really need to get laid.

That weak ass argument reeks of bitterness and racial/sexual insecurity.

Get a life.

ubermenzch · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Location: bundang, south korea

i would say obama has been disappointing when it comes to transparency, and his efforts at bipartisanship have seemed disingenuous at times. but he did set the bar awfully high during the campaign, and i think most of the more seasoned political watchers expected to be disappointed when it came to these things. i was irritated to see that his "damage control team" have been trying to convince everyone that he didn't bow. of course he bowed, anybody who watches the video can see that. so yes, there is spin, and i am disappointed that the administration feels the need to be less than honest.
but i am confused about much of the OP. why do you bring up his inaugural, and the alleged handshake discrimination? You are trying to make an argument that Obama's sympathies do not lie with we the whites, but rather with his "bruddahs"? the poor silent majority Sad

hence the bowing and the attacks on o'reilly and dobbs against their heroic struggle to protect america from the scourge of illegals.

Kuros · Joined: 27 Apr 2004

mises · Joined: 05 Nov 2007 Location: retired

On the other hand · Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Location: I walk along the avenue

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

mises · Joined: 05 Nov 2007 Location: retired

Gopher · Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Diplomatic protocol with a close, allied govt, no more no less. People should not be so rigid and force this or that interpretation onto that.

Relax.

endo · Joined: 14 Mar 2004 Location: Seoul...my home

On the other hand · Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Location: I walk along the avenue

Gopher · Joined: 04 Jun 2005

I have been reading Saudi foreign relations lately. And it seems to me that the Saudi govt is a staunch American ally, just as it was a staunch British ally as early as the British Mandate in Palestine following the First World War. You ought to read the Saudi correspondence that sits in the British govt's archives from the Palestine War 1948 -- or at least read Madawi al-Rasheed's article. You can probably find it online somewhere.

More to the point, House Saud has been involved in at least three covert wars on the Anglo-American side: it backed the Yemeni monarchy when it retreated to guerrilla warfare against those Yemeni nationalists G. Nasser supported; it funded the contras after the Democratic Congress denied the Reagan administration funding; and it contributed at least as much as the American govt did to the antiSoviet jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It provided strategic basing rights before and after Desert Shield/Desert Storm. And it almost certainly contributes vital intel to the so-called war on terror and also intel against Tehran.

C. Hitchens is a political child who throws temper tantrums in print, and not worthy of your time, On the Other Hand. I know you must be interested in far more sophisticated analyses than the simplistic nonsense Hitchens peddles.

Gopher · Joined: 04 Jun 2005

"War with Islam" is so childish I do not know where to begin.

What about Shi'ia, Sunni conflict? What about Arab-nationalist, Hashemite conflict? What about House Saud? What about moderate Arab govts and their decades-long balancing act with Islamic-identity politics and Islamic fundamentalism -- from the Muslim Brotherhood forward? What about Tehran and the apprehensions it creates in its neighbors?

Why are you listening to anything that C. Hitchens has to say about any of this?

On the other hand · Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Location: I walk along the avenue

Gopher · Joined: 04 Jun 2005

As usual, I offer no moral or value judgment at all on the Saudi-American alliance. I merely point to its longstanding existence and the fact that it seems to exist because House Saud and Washington's interests coincide more than they conflict. And I also remind you that House Saud has always told the British and American govts one thing in private correspondence, and then told Saudis something else via proclamations, history textbooks, etc. So we must always look beyond mere superficialities when apprehending, describing, and explaining this alliance.