Obamanomics? Oh boy.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/08/31/colby-cosh-obamanomics-oh-boy.aspx

Posted: August 31, 2008, 2:29 AM by Colby Cosh

About three-quarters of the way through Sen. Barack Obama's Thursday 
speech accepting the Democratic nomination, he started reciting a list of 
political problems that he believes can be magically solved by appealing 
to Americans' "sense of higher purpose" -- which, as it turns out, 
translates to "making a trite statement of principle and then running away 
from the actual issue as fast as possible." A sample: "We may not agree on 
abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted 
pregnancies in this country." Real profound, Senator, but the actual 
problem is that (loosely speaking) about half the people explicitly favour 
reducing unwanted pregnancies by permitting abortion, and about half 
explicitly don't.

Stating the fact that everyone's in favour of fewer unwanted pregnancies, 
ceteris paribus, does less than nothing to help. Should a woman running a 
gauntlet of protesters outside an abortion clinic tell them "Surely, 
ladies and gentlemen, we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted 
pregnancies in this country, and if you'll excuse me I'm about to go 
reduce them by precisely 1.0"?

I was so head-clutchingly irritated by the evasiveness of Obama's "higher 
purpose" litany that it took me a little while to notice that the last 
item was not only an appeal to the stupid, but stupid in itself. "Passions 
fly on immigration," the senator pronounced, "but I don't know anyone who 
benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or *an employer 
undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers*." One of the reasons 
Obama has been praised by party-independent observers is that he has an 

The Old Man and the Presidency

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/gordon/24791

John Steele Gordon - 08.31.2008 - 1:10 PM

John McCain is 72 and actuarially has a higher risk of dying in office 
than a younger man. But he is in good health (he's released over 1,000 
pages of his medical records; Obama, with typical parsimony, has released 
one page) and 72 is a good deal younger than it was in earlier times. He 
is hardly likely to shuffle off this mortal coil immediately after the 
inauguration.

Out of 43 presidencies, only two ended in the very early days of the 
administration. William Henry Harrison, age 70, took the oath of office on 
March 4th, 1841, gave the longest inaugural address in the history of the 
Republic, caught pneumonia as a result, and died a month later. (Joe Biden 
might want to note this example of the hazards of oratorical prolixity.) 
James Garfield, age 49, took the oath on March 4th, 1881, and was shot by 
an assassin on July 2 that year. He lingered for two and a half months 
until his incompetent doctors finally managed to kill him.

With modern medicine, both Harrison and Garfield would have been back at 
work within two weeks.

The fact is, if John McCain were to die after only a year in office, Vice 
President Sarah Palin would have more foreign policy experience, by far, 
upon entering the presidency, than four of the last five presidents, who 
were, like her, all governors and had never held federal office.

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Out of control

Peter,
Your out of control man...take a walk, read a book or something.   I  
don't have the stamina for this.

Regards,
-Lance

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 31, 2008, at 7:24 PM, "Peter T. Chattaway"
<petert@... 
 > wrote:

> http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/08/31/colby-cosh-obamanomics-oh-boy.aspx
>
> Posted: August 31, 2008, 2:29 AM by Colby Cosh
>
> About three-quarters of the way through Sen. Barack Obama's Thursday
> speech accepting the Democratic nomination, he started reciting a  
> list of
> political problems that he believes can be magically solved by  
> appealing
> to Americans' "sense of higher purpose" -- which, as it turns out,
> translates to "making a trite statement of principle and then  
> running away
> from the actual issue as fast as possible." A sample: "We may not  
> agree on
> abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted
> pregnancies in this country." Real profound, Senator, but the actual
> problem is that (loosely speaking) about half the people explicitly  

Re: Out of control

On Sun, 31 Aug 2008, Lance McLain wrote:
> Your out of control man...take a walk, read a book or something.  I 
> don't have the stamina for this.

Yeah, I've been thinking my blogging has suffered ...

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Re: The Old Man and the Presidency

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/gordon/24841

The Old Man and the Presidency, Part 2

John Steele Gordon - 08.31.2008 - 8:50 PM

Jay Hogan, in the Comments section on my previous post, points out that 
William McKinley and Franklin Roosevelt both died early on in their second 
and fourth terms respectively, leaving the presidency to newly minted vice 
presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, in office only six months, and Harry 
Truman, in office less than three.

Neither had much in the way of foreign-policy experience when he inherited 
the presidency. TR had been assistant secretary of the navy for a year and 
Truman a United States Senator who rose to prominence investigating waste 
in the World War II defense program. Being briefly vice president didn't 
add to their resumes much, as in those days vice presidents were the 
ultimate Washington nonentities. ("There once were two brothers. When they 
grew up, one went to sea and the other became vice president. Neither was 
ever heard of again.")

But both Roosevelt and Truman became very successful foreign-policy 
presidents. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an end to 
the Russo-Japanese War and Harry Truman crafted the strategy that 
eventually led to victory in the Cold War.

This reveals a dirty little secret about foreign policy: experience 
actually counts for very little. It's a bit like the game of chess. Anyone 
can learn the rules of the game in ten minutes flat. But if they don't 
have the right instincts for the game they will never be any good at it no 

Re: What kind of Christian is Sarah Palin?

On 8/30/08, Lucas John <jklucas51@...> wrote:
> Maybe that's it Peter.  Can you use it in a sentence?

"The vice presidential candidate may be a reconstructionist."

;)

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Re: What kind of Christian is Sarah Palin?

On Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 2:15 PM, Bruce Geerdes <bruce@...> wrote:
> On 8/30/08, Lucas John <jklucas51@...> wrote:
>> Maybe that's it Peter.  Can you use it in a sentence?
>
> "The vice presidential candidate may be a reconstructionist."
>

Over on dailykos someone used the word "dominionist"

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Andrew Irwin
http://cant-think-today.blogspot.com

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Re: What kind of Christian is Sarah Palin?

On Sat, 30 Aug 2008, Lucas John wrote:

> > Reconstructionist, maybe?
>
> Maybe that's it Peter.  Can you use it in a sentence?

Um, I never *have* ...  :)

    http://www.answers.com/reconstructionist&r=67

    # Christian Reconstructionism, a controversial religious and 
theological movement within Protestant forms of Christianity that seeks to 
enforce private and public (civil) enforcement and general normalization 
of moral commandments as interpreted from scripture into overall society.

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Re: Stay classy democrats

Thanks, that was really pathetic.

To be fair the first few comments were pretty much of that opinion, and
restored my faith in humanity.

Mike F.

-----Original Message-----
From: dadl-ot-bounces@...
[mailto:dadl-ot-bounces@...] On
Behalf Of Peter T. Chattaway
Sent: August 31, 2008 5:23 PM
To: DADL (off topic)
Subject: Re: [DADL-OT] Stay classy democrats

On Sun, 31 Aug 2008, Peter T. Chattaway wrote:
> And one site links to the Daily Kos on this topic, as well, but *that* 
> link seems to have gone dead, too.

Oh, wait, here it is:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/30/121350/137/486/580223

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Dominionist

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