McCain vs Obama
Obama has been refusing to go head to head with McCain, despite earlier areeing to do so. This editorial may give an idea why:
The stark differences between the two came through the most on the question of whether there is evil in the world. Obama spoke of evil within America, “in parents who have viciously abused their children.” According to the Democrat, we can’t really erase evil in the world because “that is God’s task.” And we have to “have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil.”
For McCain, with a global war on terror raging, there was no equivocating: We must “defeat” evil. If al-Qaida’s placing of suicide vests on mentally-disabled women and then blowing them up by remote control in a Baghdad market isn’t evil, he asked: “You have to tell me what is.”
Fair point.
Asked to name figures he would rely on for advice, Obama gave the stock answer of family members. McCain pointed to Gen. David Petraeus, Iraq’s scourge of the surge; Democratic Rep. John Lewis, who “had his skull fractured” by white racists while protesting for civil rights in the 60s; plus Internet entrepreneur Meg Whitman, the innovative former CEO of eBay.
Bland answer No 2.
When Warren inquired into changes of mind on big issues, Obama fretted about welfare reform; McCain unashamedly said “drilling” — for reasons of national security and economic need.
Always a good question.
On taxes, Obama waxed political: “What I’m trying to do is create a sense of balance and fairness in our tax code.” McCain showed an understanding of what drives a free economy: “I don’t want to take any money from the rich. I want everybody to get rich. I don’t believe in class warfare or redistribution of the wealth.”
Again Obama gives a bland response.
To any honest observer, the differences between John McCain and Barack Obama have been evident all along. What we saw last weekend was Obama’s shallowness juxtaposed with McCain’s depth, the product of his extraordinary life experience.
The question is will Obama be able to go all the way to election day with bland generalisations about fairnness and change. Possibly he will.
August 21st, 2008 at 8:34 am
“…McCain showed an understanding of what drives a free economy: “I don’t want to take any money from the rich. I want everybody to get rich. I don’t believe in class warfare or redistribution of the wealth.”…”
hehe, you could get on the ITM Fishing Show with berley skills like this. The fish finder says a large school of Left-fins is just rising now…
August 21st, 2008 at 8:45 am
This is why Obama can’t break the 50%, because hes a political wet behind the ears and many Americans are not comfortable with that massive capacity for screwing up that he represents. Not “race” that the Dems keep thrashing.
August 21st, 2008 at 8:47 am
Candidates top 10 songs list.
You gotta love a guy who loves Abba – definitely not from the PC brigade.
Obama’s song list looks like it has been put together by his campaign strategists.
I watched the documentary last night on McCains with actual war footage – boy this man has character
forged at the but of a gun while in a Vietnam prison. He really deserves the term war hero!
Barack Obama’s top 10:
1. Fugees – Ready Or Not
2. Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On
3. Bruce Springsteen – I’m On Fire
4. The Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter
5. Nina Simone – Sinnerman
6. Kanye West – Touch The Sky
7. Frank Sinatra – You’d Be So Easy To Love
8. Aretha Franklin – Think
9. U2 – City of Blinding Lights
10. will.i.am – Yes We Can
John McCain’s top 10:
1. ABBA – Dancing Queen
2. Roy Orbison – Blue Bayou
3. ABBA – Take A Chance On Me
4. Merle Haggard – If We Make It Through December
5. Dooley Wilson – As Time Goes By
6. The Beach Boys – Good Vibrations
7. Louis Armstrong – What A Wonderful World
8. Frank Sinatra – I’ve Got You Under My Skin
9. Neil Diamond – Sweet Caroline
10. The Platters – Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
I wonder what our candidates top songs are?
August 21st, 2008 at 8:49 am
The polls are starting to say he won’t.
August 21st, 2008 at 8:58 am
Surely substance can’t win over style? After all the Europeans love Obama so.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:01 am
Yeah, Obama will hose in once the European vote gets counted.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:02 am
I think that the world will be better off in the long term if Obama won. After all, look what Jimmy Carter made possible- eight years of Reagan.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:10 am
As I recall from the last election a lot of Americans get VERY pissy about Euroweenies telling them who to vote for.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:12 am
After all, look what Jimmy Carter made possible- eight years of Reagan.
I like your thinking!
August 21st, 2008 at 9:12 am
“Murray, I think you should vote for Labour”
“(&#$^@*)&^$)*& off!”
I think it’s true of all nations – they hate external people telling them how to vote.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:16 am
Obama is a flake, the fact that he has managed to con so many people is a testimony to the people running his campaign, I almost suspect the hand of Dick Morris in his campaign team.
He (Obama) constantly hammers home the “change” message without actually saying what he will do, his speeches are nothing more than one would expect from an idealistic 17 year old.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:22 am
Sushi I’d never say any such thing, I’d use the word fuck.
Much in the same way that I’d describe the Euros attempts to sway the last US election with a letter writng campaign as a “clusterfuck”.
bb, Obama’s campaign is actually run by Karl Rove. Didn’t you get the memo? This is what happens when you miss a VRWC meeting.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:36 am
Of course, according to this link (from Best of the Blogs – TGIF) Obama doesn’t have a valid US (Hawaiian) birth certificate anyway. This guy (who is an active member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, American College of Forensic Examiners, The International Society of Forensic Computer Examiners, International Information Systems Forensics Association ) has done extensive research on the online version of the cert (which Obama’s campaign says is a genuine) and found it to be a fraud. The guy who examined it was threatened and had dead animals put on his porch etc, but released the information despite the threats.
So, if Obama doesn’t have a legal US birth certificate, he can’t be running for US President.
It will be interesting to see how this develops – whether his campaign will come out with a totally different cert, even though they said this online one is supposed to be genuine.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:47 am
“…and many Americans are not comfortable with that massive capacity for screwing up that he represents.”
Good point. The last eight years would have been enough for anyone in that regard.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:50 am
According to the Democrat, we can’t really erase evil in the world because “that is God’s task.” And we have to “have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil.”
For McCain, with a global war on terror raging, there was no equivocating: We must “defeat” evil.
Good luck with that. Say, how’s that war on drugs working out? Won that yet?
August 21st, 2008 at 10:01 am
Yes radar, a lot of Americans are pissed off that bush was too soft on terrorists in Iraq and spent money like a demorcrat domestically.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:02 am
Lol, it’s ‘PC’ not to like Abba? Anyway, Obama is a black guy in his early-mid 40s, can’t say any of those songs surprise me. McCain is an old fuddy duddy – no surprises there either. Campaign strategists my arse.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:07 am
The latest RCP poll average put Obama ahead by just 1.3 percent. And yesterday (when he was ahead by 3.0%) the RCP roundup of state polls showed McCain winning the electoral college 274-264 despite his deficit in the popular vote.
(See http://www.realclearpolitics.com/)
August 21st, 2008 at 10:14 am
Now, if McCain was born in the US, you might have something to go on … you think neither can run?
[DPF: Maybe this is Hillary's secret plan
]
August 21st, 2008 at 10:26 am
If Americans are dumb enough to elect a geriatric Republican after 8 years of Bush one can only say they deserve what they get.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:44 am
If Americans are dumb enough to elect a nappy wearing infant who thinks they have 57 states they deserve him.
Jesus you lefties just write the script for us these days.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:50 am
I agree with Bill Maher’s points on Larry King: http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2008/08/bill_maher_on_p.html
The Obama McCain talk in front of the Christian fundamentalists showed a contrast alright. Obama was subtle, whereas McCain played up to the bible bashers. Yes, we can defeat Evil! We’ll whip Evil’s ass! Obama was portraying evil as less glamorous, more domestically based. Evil is waterboarding, evil is Americans beating their kids. Evil is not just foreigners.
McCain, the anti-intellectual, non-computer savvy geriatric that he is, sucked up to the flat-earthers like a god-fearing president should. Jesus freaks love certainty. Doubt is evil, eh.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:51 am
“The question is will Obama be able to go all the way to election day with bland generalisations… ”
You’d better hope he can….. it’s the same strategy John Key’s relying on….
August 21st, 2008 at 11:02 am
# Murray (1155) Add karma Subtract karma +3 Says:
August 21st, 2008 at 9:10 am
“As I recall from the last election a lot of Americans get VERY pissy about Euroweenies telling them who to vote for.”
Yeah, Murray, I loved the story about a whole lot of Poms and Euros bombarding US e-mail addresses at random with pleas not to vote for Bush, and replies coming from some along the lines of “Dear Limey Asshole……….”
August 21st, 2008 at 11:09 am
Who the hell would choose a song written about themselves with quotes from their speeches in it as one of the top ten songs?
It the height of arrogance if you ask me
August 21st, 2008 at 11:15 am
# radar (92) Add karma Subtract karma +1 Says:
August 21st, 2008 at 9:47 am
“…and many Americans are not comfortable with that massive capacity for screwing up that he represents.”
“Good point. The last eight years would have been enough for anyone in that regard.”
Yeah, there is a book making waves in the USA now, called “The Case Against Barack Obama”, by David Freddoso.
Here is “Amazon”:
“Freddoso says John McCain’s campaign and Republicans at large are making the wrong case against the Illinois senator.
“I don’t think you beat Obama by saying that he’s Paris Hilton,” said Freddoso, a reporter for the conservative magazine National Review, referring to McCain’s latest advertising campaign. “The more important thing is really to look at is he who he says he is? Is he really this great reformer?”
Freddoso’s book, released today by the conservative publishing house Regnery and provided exclusively to Politico by the publisher, occupies a small island in the often-shrill sea of criticism of Obama. As a range of conservatives suggest that Obama is a closet radical, and as McCain’s campaign aims to disqualify him from the White House on the grounds of his international fame, Freddoso makes a case that conservatives should look at the presumptive Democratic nominee’s record.
His thesis: “It’s not that Obama is a bad person. It’s just that he’s like all the rest of them. Not a reformer. Not a Messiah. Just like all the rest of them in Washington. And just like all the other liberals too.”
Freddoso’s is one of two new books harshly attacking Obama. The other, by Jerome Corsi, reportedly covers some of the same territory as the viral emails that have plagued the Democratic candidate, making much of his slender connections to Islam and his teenage drug use.
Freddoso opts largely for a fact-based critique, and writes that the viral and overt smears have allowed Obama to evade substantive criticism.
“Too many of those criticizing Obama have been content merely to slander him,” he writes. False rumors about Obama’s religion and ancestry have produced, Freddoso writes, “an intellectual laziness among the very people who should be carefully scrutinizing Obama.”
His book comes with Republican popularity at a historic low, amid widespread disenchantment with Republican ideals of limited government and hawkish foreign policy. Many – including, apparently, McCain’s strategists – doubt a Republican can win a policy face-off. But as the real campaign hones in on the character of the candidates, Freddoso’s book attempts to build an alternate case against Obama. Freddoso’s argument begins in Chicago….Though Obama’s first political steps were in Hyde Park’s reformist politics, Freddoso focuses on the smooth accommodation he made to the machine….
Book Description
He’s the media’s darling, the fresh face of the Democratic ticket. But what does Barack Obama really stand for–and will his extreme liberal agenda and complete inexperience in global affairs endanger the country? That’s what David Freddoso, investigative reporter and National Review Online columnist, examines in The Case Against Barack Obama. In this shocking exposé, Freddoso explores the reality behind the rhetoric, the plans behind the promises, and the faults behind the façade, revealing:
* Why Obama’s inexperience and extreme left-wing voting record is more dangerous than any threat we face today
* Why the Rev. Wright debacle reveals Obama’s poor judgment of character and deceitful nature
* Why it won’t be politics of change with President Obama–it will be liberal politics as usual
Freddoso exposes the real Barack Obama: a typical big-government politician, the #1 most liberal U.S. senator, and–if he were commander in chief–a serious threat to our national security.”
August 21st, 2008 at 11:19 am
There is also a good Wall Street Journal Op-Ed on this Rick Warren interview: “For Obama, Taxes are about “Fairness”", by William McGurn.
Excerpts:
“……..Mr. McCain’s fuller explanation. “I don’t want to take any money from the rich,” he said, “I want everybody to get rich.”
Mr. Obama, by contrast, started out much more directly, suggesting that if you make $150,000 or less you may be poor or middle class. A family with an income above $250,000, he went on to say, is “doing well.” And if you find yourself in that category, he’s going to target you for a tax hike — all in the name of creating “a sense of balance, and fairness in our tax code.”
In fact, the idea of fairness is at the heart of his whole economic argument. And he goes back to it in almost every public appearance.
He talks about it as a general theme: “It is time for folks like me who make more than $250,000 to pay our fair share.”
He invokes it as a solution for Social Security: “[W]e will save Social Security for future generations by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.”
He points to how it guides his energy policy: “The first part of my plan is to tax the windfall profits of oil companies and use some of that money to help you pay the rising price of gas.”
And he stuck to it on capital gains, even after ABC’s Charlie Gibson noted that the record shows increased taxes on capital gains — which would affect 100 million Americans — would likely lead to a decrease in government revenues: “Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.”
Translated into ordinary English, what that means is that it doesn’t really matter whether a tax increase actually brings in more revenue. It’s not about robbing from the rich to give to the poor. Robbing from the rich will do, especially if it’s done in the name of fairness.
Now there are good reasons Mr. Obama is not likely to pursue the revenue side of the fairness question. As this newspaper noted in a recent editorial, the latest data from the Internal Revenue Service does not show to Mr. Obama’s advantage. As we come to the end of the Bush administration, the top 1% of American taxpayers already pay 40% of all income taxes — the highest level in 40 years. The top 10% of income earners pay 71% of the taxes.
Mr. Warren, a man of the cloth, has done us a great service by asking the candidates to answer a pretty secular question: What kind of income makes an American “rich”? Maybe in the more secular setting of an upcoming debate, one of our nonpastor moderators could ask the candidates the moral question: What specific rate of individual taxation would it take for the rich to be paying their fair share?”
August 21st, 2008 at 11:21 am
LINK to Wall Street Journal, “For Obama, Taxes are about “Fairness””, by William McGurn.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121910117767951201.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
August 21st, 2008 at 11:24 am
Note the massive disconnect between what the most leftwing Senator in the US calls “rich”, and what our weaselly Finance Minister thinks………”Mr. Obama, by contrast, started out much more directly, suggesting that if you make $150,000 or less you may be poor or middle class. A family with an income above $250,000, he went on to say, is “doing well.””
Yep, when it comes to small mindedness, politics of envy, and tall poppy syndrome, the USA’s MOST LEFT WING senator could come to NZ to take lessons……
August 21st, 2008 at 11:27 am
THIS, too, from the Wall Street Journal. PINGGGGG!!!!!!
August 18, 2008
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Obama on Clarence Thomas
August 18, 2008; Page A14
“Barack Obama likes to portray himself as a centrist politician who wants to unite the country, but occasionally his postpartisan mask slips. That was the case at Saturday night’s Saddleback Church forum, when Mr. Obama chose to demean Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Pastor Rick Warren asked each Presidential candidate which Justices he would not have nominated. Mr. McCain said, “with all due respect” the four most liberal sitting Justices because of his different judicial philosophy.
Mr. Obama took a lower road, replying first that “that’s a good one,” and then adding that “I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas. I don’t think that he, I don’t think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation. Setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of a lot of the Constitution.” The Democrat added that he also wouldn’t have appointed Antonin Scalia, and perhaps not John Roberts, though he assured the audience that at least they were smart enough for the job.
So let’s see. By the time he was nominated, Clarence Thomas had worked in the Missouri Attorney General’s office, served as an Assistant Secretary of Education, run the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and sat for a year on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation’s second most prominent court. Since his “elevation” to the High Court in 1991, he has also shown himself to be a principled and scholarly jurist.
Meanwhile, as he bids to be America’s Commander in Chief, Mr. Obama isn’t yet four years out of the Illinois state Senate, has never held a hearing of note of his U.S. Senate subcommittee, and had an unremarkable record as both a “community organizer” and law school lecturer. Justice Thomas’s judicial credentials compare favorably to Mr. Obama’s Presidential résumé by any measure. And when it comes to rising from difficult circumstances, Justice Thomas’s rural Georgian upbringing makes Mr. Obama’s story look like easy street.
Even more troubling is what the Illinois Democrat’s answer betrays about his political habits of mind. Asked a question he didn’t expect at a rare unscripted event, the rookie candidate didn’t merely say he disagreed with Justice Thomas. Instead, he instinctively reverted to the leftwing cliché that the Court’s black conservative isn’t up to the job while his white conservative colleagues are.
So much for civility in politics and bringing people together. And no wonder Mr. Obama’s advisers have refused invitations for more such open forums, preferring to keep him in front of a teleprompter, where he won’t let slip what he really believes.”
August 21st, 2008 at 12:25 pm
We can see which way my Farrar looks with his one eye.
There are plenty of ‘evils’ in the world being inflicted on one human being by another that are on par with al-Qaida’s placing of suicide vests on mentally-disabled women and then blowing them up by remote control in a Baghdad market. McCain sure isn’t invading every country where this happens – only the ones where it furthers the US oil supply.
But yeah that’s your Republicans; fighting terror and evil wherever it is found. So long as you find oil there too. That’s why McCain’s point is such a “fair point” i guess!
August 21st, 2008 at 12:30 pm
To some degree the Democrats may not have set themselves up very well for the post-Bush Presidential election by having had two such polarising figures competing for the nomination. While Obama won that battle, he has the most liberal voting record of any in the Senate and lacks the gravitas of experience. To some degree he is the right candidate for the Democrats for a 2012 or 2016 contest rather than ‘08. Hollow speeches and ‘inspiration’ can only go so far. As the campaign intensifies he is going to have to show more substance, especially since he didn’t win many of the big key states during the primaries.
For McCain the problem may be his age and the fact that he’s probably going to be a one-term President should he win. He needs to present himself as aware of conservative issues and concerns, and take a VP running-mate who can appeal to that sector and perhaps be a viable candiate to step up into the big job in the event of a ’significant medical event’ befalling McCain or be his successor in ‘12. While conservatives wouldn’t vote Obama, they may stay home. In a nation that has a voting turn out of c.50% that could cost McCain big. However, by all accounts he did well with the Jeffs Q & A and the contest with Obama is going to be closer than many think.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Yes Murray, the Republicans have been such a triumph. You sure know how to back a winner.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:41 pm
E Campbell
Do you really think Obama has won the Democratic battle just yet?
There is a strong school of thought that Billary and her people are still pushing for the nomination, you only have to see that the way the Democratic convention has been set up, the first day (a Thursday I think) is highlighted by a speech from Chelsea Clinton, Bill speaks on the Friday and Hillary on the Saturday.
The Clinton’s feel they have a god given right to hold power, while they might be down at the moment they are by no means beaten.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:41 pm
McCain cleaned Obama’s clock at the Saddleback Forum. McCain wanted to debate Obama proper that night – Obama settled for the ’same questions – 1 hour separated’ format. Of course Obama said soon after his nomination that he would debate McCain anywhere anytime and when McCain offered a schedule of 10 townhall debates, Obama ran for cover. On Sunday night we saw why. Obama rambled, obfuscated, parsed and nuanced his way through the same questions that McCain was asked. McCain was relaxed, unequivocal and succinct.
The abortion issue is starting to bite Obama in the bum. After his poor performance at Saddleback, he tried to appeal to Christians by being interviewed by David Brody on the Christian Broadcasting Network. In that interview, Brody raised his series of negative votes for the IL State version of the Infant Born Alive Protection Act. Obama lied and said he couldn’t vote for it because the IL version lacked the Roe v Wade neutrality clause that was in the Federal IBAPA that led to its unanimous passgae through both Houses of Congress. Trouble was that the IL version was amended in the very committee Obama chaired in the IL Senate with AN IDENTICAL neutrality clause to the Federal Act. Despite this amendment, Obama continued to oppose the law. His campaign 24 hours later had to fess up to Obama’s lie. This story is finally breaking into the MSM with the WaPo running with the story. Obama has two problems – 1st the obvious lie he told to try and cover his vote for a law that was passed almost unanimously across all states and 2nd – his extreme position on abortion and being seen to oppose a law that required IL abortion providers to resuscitate any infant that survived a late term abortion, a law that the most vocal pro-choice legislators in America all supported.
This duplicitous conduct married to Obama’s weak and shifting response to the Georgian crisis, lies behind his slump in the polls – and the GOP have barely begun to define him. The Messiah should be leading McCain by 10 (as most of the previous Democrat nominees have) – the fact that he isn’t is testament to his radical associates, skinny resume and shifting positions.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:02 pm
KIA’s right about Saddleback. A youtuber has edited the footage so you can see both men responding to the same question in sequence – a video “side by side”. Great stuff. nz.youtube.com/watch?v=LaW2s4An-tw&feature=related
August 21st, 2008 at 1:29 pm
We can see which way my Farrar looks with his one eye.
Yet you look past Obama’s many many flaws.
McCain sure isn’t invading every country where this happens – only the ones where it furthers the US oil supply.
Steady on there slick, he aint even the President………………… yet.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Big Bruv: In essense, yes. If the Clinton camp are intending on ’stealing’ a nomination victory at the Convention, the schism will destroy the party and set up certain success for the Republican candidate come early November. The majority of delegates recognise this. Those die-hard holdouts for Hillary are a forlorn hope. If Hillary doesn’t want to go down in history as one of the most hated figures in Democratic politics among Democrats, she will won’t be making a move. Besides, I think she has one eye on a Cabinet-style post or some such plumb job should Obama win or be in the box seat as the Democrat nominee in 2012 should Obama fall to pieces and goes down to McCain. Her nominating campaign’s motto would be: “Told you so”.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:34 pm
This might be of interest to some:
Why I Will Not Vote For John McCain, by a co-POW of his.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:39 pm
E. Campbell
I think you might be right about 2012, the only Democrat who would be happy to see Obama lose would be Billary.
When you think about all three of the main candidates (Obama, McCain and Billary) it is bloody depressing to think that the greatest power and arguably the greatest nation on earth can only come up with this lot to choose from.
McCain would have made a great President 10-15 years ago and while he is still a better bet than the other two options he is clearly the best of a bad (or past it) bunch.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Thanks for the link Ryan, I’m pro-Obama but I have to say that article felt a little too much like the Swiftboat campaign for my liking.
It was more focussed on his war record than on much he’s done lately.
It amazes me that McCain is even within a bulls roar of Obama and as one the other pundits said, if they vote in McCain then they get the Government they deserve.
If Obama won, and even if he turned into a lame duck president, just the symbolism it would send to the world of electing him would be worth bazillions in PR
August 21st, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Ryan, let me summarise what this guy says for you:
1. Sure, McCain was in the war, he was a POW, he was tortured, he didn’t accept ‘early release’ because to do so would dishonour his country and those left behind, he won some medals. But so did other guys, and they aren’t being elected President.
2. I don’t like his policies, because I’m a leftwinger, so I don’t see why I’d vote for him.
I’d have to agree entirely with this guys point of view. If he is a left winger he’d be bloody stupid to vote for John McCain. I note amongst this guys credentials “After his repatriation in 1973 he earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at San Diego and became a Navy Organizational Effectiveness consultant….He is now a peace and justice activist with Veterans for Peace.”
So, in short, tells us nothing. He agrees that McCain had a distinguished war record, he just points out that other people did as well. Of course, none of those people are standing for President, so really the question is whether this record is relevant in comparing him to Obama, not whether this record is more or less than some 600 other people who aren’t standing for President. And then tells us that he doesn’t agree with the Republican position on lots of things, and so he won’t be voting Republican. Well, shit. That’s amazing news. Is this all they can come up with against him?
August 21st, 2008 at 2:31 pm
You’re probably right that the guys a lefty PaulL, but would it would do to be aware of ‘groups’ like the ‘Obamacons’…
Shit, Milton Friedman’s son is for Obama on the grounds that “he sees Obama as the better vessel for his father’s cause”!
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=46a816dc-f843-41ec-9fe4-fbeac17bcfca
and below, but this Novak guys discounts there more as just ‘anti-bushies’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/25/AR2008062501942.html
August 21st, 2008 at 2:42 pm
RRM (943) Add karma Subtract karma –4 Says:
August 21st, 2008 at 12:25 pm
“We can see which way my Farrar looks with his one eye.
There are plenty of ‘evils’ in the world being inflicted on one human being by another that are on par with al-Qaida’s placing of suicide vests on mentally-disabled women and then blowing them up by remote control in a Baghdad market…….”
NAME SOME evils that you see as on par with “placing of suicide vests on mentally-disabled women and then blowing them up by remote control in a Baghdad market”; for us, RRM, would you please? Show us how accurate your moral compass is…….
August 21st, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Stephen:
“Friedman is convinced of Obama’s sympathy for school vouchers–a tendency that the Democratic primaries temporarily suppressed…….”!!!!!!!!!!
HECK if that’s true, it could cost Obama the support of most of his base……..you don’t think this is deep psy-ops warfare being conducted by the US Hard Right?
August 21st, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Phil/Stephen – Friedman is supporting because he’s a libertarian and wants out of Iraq, and the Patriot Act gone. At least one of those is a laudable aim. The thing about the US political system is you don’t get to pick and choose policies. I’m sure he’d like Obama’s social policies with McCain’s economic ones, plus some free trade and school vouchers thrown in. That doesn’t exist, so you gotta work out which of those things is most important to you.
He’s basically saying getting rid of the Patriot Act is more important to him than keeping the free trade agenda rolling. That is a legitimate position, but it’s hardly going to change my mind – because the Patriot Act is not more important to me than free trade. I don’t like the Patriot Act and would rather it were gone, but the result of that Act is a few Americans get eavesdropped on and lose some civil liberties. The effect of the lack of free trade is thousands of starving people in poor parts of the world. I think my priorities are straight.
As for school vouchers – vote ACT. Nobody else will give them to you, and certainly not Obama or McCain.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Big Bruv: Yes, I agree. I’m still surprised that the contest for the greatest democratic prize in the world came down to these contenders. I guess one of those big ‘what ifs’ would be what could / would have happened if the Bush camp hadn’t mortally wounded McCain in the 2000 primaries and he’d gone on to win the nomination and presidency.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Haha, well yeah, Obama and McCain can’t give vouchers to me, true!
Philbest, vouchers would probably look a bit better (to a lefty – or even quite a few righties i’d bet) coming out of a lefty’s mouth – would overcome the ‘right = bad’ bias perhaps.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:24 pm
er, do vouchers allow a school to freely charge fees on top of the one-off voucher?
August 21st, 2008 at 5:04 pm
It is interesting, stephen, that the TEACHERS UNION in Sweden has been IN FAVOUR of school choice…………the experiment is going very well apparently.
August 21st, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Not sure why they would oppose it Philbest, but as you can see from my comment above i’m not completely in the know.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Well they must be the ONLY teachers union in the world that DOESN’T oppose school choice, stephen. What planet did you say you were from again?
August 21st, 2008 at 6:57 pm
PhilBest – My moral compass?
A lot depends on your definition of ‘evil’ I suppose, but here are some examples of other nasties going on in the world, all but one (or possibly two, we’ll never know) of which involve people killing other people who haven’t done anything (much) wrong:
*Egyptian Border guards on the Israel-Egypt border routinely shoot Refugees from Darfur & the Ivory Coast as they attempt to cross into Israel.
*4 Foreigners have been murdered in Kiev this year because locals did not like the colour of their skin.
* In July the UK Ministry of Defence agreed to compensate the family of Iraqi hotelier Baha Mousa, who English armed forces tortured to death in Basra over a period of 36 Hours in 2003.
*About 60 people were killed by terrotist bombs in Jaipur in India during May.
*Widespread killings of Somali civilians by Ethiopian troops – (cutting the victim’s throat is the preferred technique here as bullets can only be used once.) In April they did 21 at a time, in a Mosque.
*Saudi Arabia still conducts public executions in the tudor English style, with a sword to carry out the beheading but without what you or I would call a Trial or a Defence Counsel.
*In Colombia, people don’t just dislike trade unionists, they murder them! 22 so far this year…
*Patrick Okoroafor still in jail in Nigeria (sans several teeth). Read this one, it’s not very nice! http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/free-patrick-okoroafor
*Russian cluster bombs (and their unexploded bomblets) have killed at least 14 civilians in Georgia so far.
*Leftie guerilla fighters in Colombia blew up 7 people including children at a party last thursday.
In Bangladesh the elite cops are called the “Rapid Action Battallion”. They don’t rapidly arrest people and hold them for trial, they just kill them! 50 victims since June.
*Various armed bands in Congo have killed at least 200 people this year (chopping them up into pieces with machetes is how they roll in the Congo) and raping the local womenfolk is as widespread as taking a dump in the morning by some accounts.
All of these should be Googleable.
As I was saying, heroic US intervention follows the oil, not the evil.
August 21st, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Well there isn’t really a register of Teachers’ Union stances on school choice for me to refer to Philbest – no kids so it’s not really top of my research list.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:56 pm
stephen, usual teacher’s union position on vouchers is that they are evil and bad. Equally, usual teacher’s union position on any form of performance pay is that it is evil and bad. Some of us on the right think this is because they are an entrenched special interest that would prefer that the consumers (in this case, parents) not go questioning the chosen way to teach children – clearly teachers are in a better position to know. Others of us on the right think this is because the unions, like many unions, are protecting the dullards, not the good teachers. Many on the left think this is because teachers actually do know better how to teach kids, and letting parents make decisions they are qualified to make is a bad idea.
As for vouchers, the argument really comes down to things like zoning, additional costs on top, and selection of children.
The position on the right is basically that the current policies disadvantage the poor, and don’t really stop the rich. The rich get their kids into good schools by simply buying a house in the right school zone. They get to send their kids to good schools on the public purse. This also becomes self-fulfilling, as more and more rich people turn up in the neighbourhood they have more time to invest in the schools, more money, their kids tend to be better behaved (chicken or egg I don’t know, but I think statistically proveable), these schools draw in good teachers, good teachers provide more educational choice, so on in a virtuous cycle. If they really want to they send their kids to private schools – to do this you have to pay once in your taxes and again on the school fees, but they’re rich so they do this.
Poor people get stuck in their local schools. These schools are in poor areas of town, so they tend to have lower achievement. Teaching is harder, teachers try to get out. Unfortunately for these poor people, zoning forces them to go to their local school – they cannot get their kids into the good schools in another zone. They have no money to go private, and certainly couldn’t afford to pay the full cost.
Vouchers allow poor people to send their kids to any school that will take their voucher. If so desired, the voucher can be used in a private school – probably with a top-up, but that top-up is way less than paying the full school fees. The schools that are in demand can expand, the schools nobody wants their kids at will basically shut. Schools that offer non-standard service will spring up – schools that run from 8-5pm so you can have a job, schools that specialise in sports or arts outside the standard curriculum, schools with non-standard teaching methods such as Montessori schools etc. Diversity is good, because not every kid needs the same teaching style, and generally parents know what sort of teaching style might suit their children.
In short, the argument is that vouchers are good for everyone, but especially good for the poor. They appear to have worked in Sweden, but for a variety of reasons the experience in Sweden isn’t necessarily able to be extrapolated everywhere. They haven’t really been tried anywhere else, usually because of teacher’s union resistence, despite many on the right having campaigned vigorously for them for decades. Unfortunately the VRWC must have had a few bad decades there – I’m sure we used to rule the world and do whatever we wanted.
Those on the left, conversely argue that vouchers are wasteful. All public schools give a good education, and the education department carefully plans what schools go where. If some schools close and others open, we end up with unused assets. And the parents with half a brain will move their kids, stripping the brightest kids out of the lower decile schools. All the idiots who vote Labour are too stupid to move their kids to another schools, so they will be still worse off because their kids are now in a failing school that all the halfway decent kids will leave. And schools would become culturally and socially stratified, as parents choose to send their kids to schools that have people “like them”. Further, the kids in the schools that are in the process of failing are much worse off, because their school will eventually fall apart – and what happens to them then? What’s more, the market is known to be imperfect, so whilst we can trust it to do things like feed and clothe us, it is inconceivable that we could leave something important like education to the random actions of the people to decide.
(I sort of tried to be unbiased, but not really. But you can probably see the outlines of the argument from the left)
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:21 am
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:51 am
Thanks Paul – I was indoctrinated/realised the craziness of the zoning system while at Auckland Grammer (they *hated* it). Am suspicious of the ‘top up’ you mentioned too, but otherwise. Be interesting to see what Obama does with this, assuming Friedman’s son is on to something. Maybe a ‘half way’ version…
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:21 am
stephen – it has been on many ballots in the US. It has never come to the top – the teacher’s unions go feral on it. If Obama wants to lose, he’ll propose vouchers.
The top-up is typically only permitted by private schools, not by public ones. But of course we have top ups by stealth now, so they’d probably continue.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:40 am
I guess he’d lose votes, depending on what McCain’s education policy is…but then of course it has to go through a few layers of the US legislative and judicial(?) system too, which is vulnerable to lobbying I guess, (can’t imagine the teachers union has THAT much money to fling around there thogh), so they might not even bother putting it out there..
I would think it’d be REALLY hard for someone to go from Obama to McCain seeing as how often McCain is characterised as ‘Bush III’ which is much more plausible than the crap people have come up with for Obama.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:37 am
stephen, in the US there are typically three options. Vote democrat, vote republican, or stay home. If you drift too much to the centre then your core voters stay home, because they don’t like you enough to be worth getting out of bed. For the left, promising vouchers has that effect. And, btw, the teachers unions have a lot of money, but they also have enormous publicity power. Posters in every school opposing Obama, which every mother sees every day when she drops her kids off? That is about as bad as pissing off pharmacists or doctors in terms of the PR impact it has on you.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:58 am
Yeah, lots of Republicans staying home this time. Bizarre spectacle of Ann Coulter announcing she’ll be campaigning for Hillary over McCain…not that I would want her on my side.
Yeah I guess pissing off teachers is always going to backfire on you, considering with the pay/conditions/hours they have to put up with, not to mention the crucial nature of their job.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
No problem with that list of evil, RRM, but I think the detonation of a handicapped woman still beats the lot.
And I have pointed out before, it is OIL MONEY that makes dictators like Saddam dangerous. Mugabe is dictator of a busted-arse country. THAT is the difference. If the USA was really the evil imperialist that radical leftists like to make out, they could have easily invaded and occupied the entire middle east decades ago and had ALL the oil for themselves, and no-one could have stopped them, either.
This is not “letters to the editor” in the MSM. Intelligent argument is allowed here.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Yes but doesn’t it make a mockery of the US justification “we’re doing it for people’s freedom”, when they could so much more easily have taken out Mugabe of Busted-arse Zimbabwe or whoever of busted-arse Darfur to give some people a chance of some freedom; but they DON’T, instead they take on a harder target like Saddam’s Iraq which – lo and behold – has plentiful oil to supply the west?
But no, it’s not about oil, it’s about FREEDOM; it really, really is!
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:28 pm
If the US invaded the middle east, the Soviet Union might’ve done, i dunno, something or other…
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:31 pm
You know what stands in the way of UN action over Sudan and Zimbabwe, RRM? It wouldn’t even require US participation to knock them over, the Eurowimp nations could do it on their own if they wanted to. But a UN veto by China all the time is something to be “respected” by them eh? No “illegal” invasions allowed, eh?
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Christopher Hitchens puts it very well in a column titled “Maintained in China”:
“………President Bush was quite correct in listing his least favorite regimes during his address to the United Nations last week and in trying to ramp up the international pressure on the goons in Rangoon. The governments that he singled out were the uniquely repellent ones that consider the citizen to be the property of the state and the uniquely boring ones that have remained in power until their citizens are positively screaming for release. I do not need to specify these senescent gangster systems individually, except that they all have one thing in common. They are all defended, from Cuba to Zimbabwe, by the Chinese vote at the United Nations.
Those who care or purport to care about human rights must start to discuss this problem in plain words. Is there an initiative to save the un-massacred remains of the people of Darfur? It will be met by a Chinese veto. Does anyone care about Robert Mugabe treating his desperate population as if it belonged to him personally? China is always ready to help him out. Are the North Koreans starved and isolated so that a demented playboy can posture with nuclear weapons? Beijing will give the demented playboy a guarantee. How long can Southeast Asia bear the shame and misery of the Burmese junta? As long as the embrace of China persists. The identity of Tibet is being obliterated by the deliberate importation of Chinese settlers. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a man who claims even to know and determine the sex lives of his serfs (by the way, the very essence of totalitarianism), is armed and financed by China. It was this way when President Bill Clinton wanted the United Nations to take on Slobodan Milosevic and was stymied (by China, among others), and it was this way when President Bush asked the United Nations to live up to its resolutions on Saddam Hussein. And now I hear human rights activists bleating about Burma and our inaction and simultaneously complaining about the only time that any U.S. president had the nerve to break the hold of China (and Russia, and sometimes France) on the possibility of any international rescue…..”
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:20 am
He’s onto something, old Hitch.
August 23rd, 2008 at 10:14 am
Of course this was exactly the same argument made by left-wingers in the wake of the First Gulf War. That the US did not really give a shit about freedom in pushing Iraq out of Kuwait. If they had really cared about freedom they would have gone all the way down the highway to Baghdad and taken out Saddam. But they did not because all they really cared about was keeping the oil flowing, allowing a dicatator some measure of control – not too much, but not so little that the true Voice Of The People could triumph and …….. well, you know the rest. The following comment on US and British decision makers by Dr Eric Herring (University of Bristol) is a good example:
What’s the bet that Dr Herring was a vocal opponent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq? And I’d be willing to bet further that a US armed force going into Darfur or Mugabeland would get exactly the same reaction from the RRM’s of this world after all the “if they really believe…. they’d …….” pieties.
Perhaps I should have filed this under the Anti-American thread?
Still, if McCain does pull off a miracle and win the Presidency there could be at least one more “busted-arse”, anti-freedom outfit the US takes out – they’re close too – a single building in East Manhattan.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I really really doubt that tom. But didn’t McCain say something about creating a ‘league of democracies’ or some such thing?