Obama Vs. McCain: The Wisdom Factor

[tocco05]

Obama Vs. McCain: The Wisdom Factor

By Kyle-Anne Shiver

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[FONT=times new roman,times]As an over-50, female Boomer, I have watched, with terrific amusement, Barack Obama's arrogant strutting of his stuff on the campaign stump. He reminds me of a young bull, all pumped up with pride, ready to charge with lightning speed, not too sure where his target is, but fired up and ready to ram it down wherever his raging eye lands next. [/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]And near about every time our young, studly bull, Barack, makes one of his unscripted charges, he tends to land in a big pile of rhetorical manure. Some folks call these "gaffes." Others call them something a bit more smelly. That's Barack, all right, a young bull blinded by his own strength.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Then, there's my man, McCain.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]He's the older, wiser bull in this contest. [/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Been around, he has. Been around enough to know better than to go charging -- without thinking first.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Rarely do I repeat any of my husband's good-ole-boy humor, at least not in public, but he told me a good one recently that seems oh-so-appropriate to this campaign we've got going. So, I'll bend my rule and clean it up a bit for mixed company.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Two bulls are grazing at the top of a country hill, one young, the other getting on up there, way up there in bull-years. The two bulls are gazing down the hill at a whole herd of heifers, a mighty tempting sight to a couple of studly bulls.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Young bull says to the old guy: "Hey! Let's charge down there and sow a few oats with one of those heifers. I see one that looks like real easy picking's. Real easy."[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]The young bull is so full of himself now, stamping those itchy hooves, can't wait to start his charge.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Old bull is still just grazing, idly giving the young bull a wise, shrewd eyeful.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Old bull to young bull: "What you say we just mosey on down this hill, take our own sweet time, and sow some oats with every last one of ‘em."[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Now, things like foreign policy and meeting with terrorist dictators is quite a bit trickier than "sowing oats" with sweet young females, and I do believe, dear readers, that you get my drift here.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Two Young Bulls: Barack and Jack[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]A lot of folks are comparing Barack to JFK, another young guy who captured the imagination of America. [/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]I was ten years old that year, 1960, already more than a little interested in politics, and the grown-up conversations that inevitably centered around the contest between the young, handsome, well-connected John Kennedy and the old grouch, Richard Nixon. I still remember that [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]televised debate[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] and how my mother reacted, mesmerized by the young bull, while my father lamented the 19<SUP>th</SUP> Amendment.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]The two things I do remember so vividly about Kennedy's presidency, besides the horror of his assassination, were the fact that my mother secretly told me she voted for him (in spite of my father's insistence that she not) and the Cuban Missile Crisis.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]The movie, later made about the crisis, [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]Thirteen Days[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times], paints a decent portrait of how the young Kennedy brothers managed to finagle our way out of the threatened nuclear standoff with the USSR, but says nearly nothing about how we got into such a horrific mess in the first place.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Young bull, Jack Kennedy, was no more shy about his campaign pledge to "negotiate" than is Barack Obama today. Jack Kennedy seemed to think the USSR was going to be easy picking's for his smooth-as-silk oratory. One of the most memorable, rhetorical bits from [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]Kennedy's inaugural address[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] was this beautifully delivered nugget:[/FONT]

[FONT=times new roman,times]"Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."[/FONT]
​

[FONT=times new roman,times]And, though it is sad to say, John Kennedy actually knew a great deal more about failed efforts in the realm of "talking" to our enemies (Kennedy's thesis was entitled, "Appeasement at Munich.") than does Barack Obama. Kennedy also had military experience, actual combat experience in WWII. Still, he made a crucial blunder in his very first year that, even though nuclear war was averted, nevertheless caused enormous setbacks to the free world and emboldened our strongest enemy, the USSR.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Even though the disastrous (for the U.S.) meeting between Kennedy and Khrushchev was, at the time, not given full disclosure in the press, details have been brought to light since that make it downright ludicrous for Barack Obama, Columbia and Harvard grad, to connect his own foreign policy illusions to those of JFK.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]When even the [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]New York Times[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] deems the comparison foolhardy, you can take it to the bank. As this editorial reminds us, "Kennedy Talked, Khrushchev Triumphed." The young bull, Kennedy, remarked after the meeting, "He beat the hell out of me," he being the old bull, Khrushchev. The NYT called the face-to-face meeting "a move that would be recorded as one of the more self-destructive American actions of the cold war, and one that contributed to the most dangerous crisis of the nuclear age." [/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Not only did the Soviets, almost immediately, begin building the Berlin Wall, which arrogantly and cruelly separated families, friends and lovers for more than a generation, they started their fateful buildup of nuclear weapons right in our own backyard, Cuba, thus setting the infamous Thirteen Days into motion, and nearly causing an somewhat premature defeat in the Cold War to the most ruthless, bloodthirsty regime in modern history, the United Soviet Socialist Republic. [/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]So much for young bulls in the theatre of national security. [/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]I thought I might lose my lunch in May, when Barack Obama told a group of enthralled voters in [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]Oregon[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] that the "tiny Country" Iran, isn't a threat to America. For a man with all those fancy college degrees, he doesn't seem to know much. No wonder [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]European leaders[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] are beginning to get nervous about Obama's prospects of success, and no wonder, too, that the IslamoFascists are [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]salivating over the same[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] prospect..[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Young bull, Barack, though, isn't a bit ready to back down on his pledge to meet with all of our enemies without pre-conditions, face-to-face, within the first year of his presidency. He has even countered objections to his naiveté, comparing himself to Kennedy again:[/FONT]

[FONT=times new roman,times]"If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy led by the president of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F. Kennedy, because that's what he did with Khrushchev." [/FONT]
​

[FONT=times new roman,times]Now, I don't know what you're thinking, dear readers, but the word, "brilliant," is not what comes to my mind, when hearing this.
[/FONT]

[FONT=times new roman,times]Old Bull, McCain[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]John McCain's response to Obama's apparent diplomatic delusions concerning our enemies, especially Iran, was pretty darned swift for an old bull. First, he gave a succinct, but searing summation of the numerous threats posed by Iran under the current regime, giving special note to the fact that Iran's president routinely defames Israel as a "stinking corpse," and demands her annihilation. [/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Then McCain proceeded to remind the young bull, Obama, of the supreme challenge we face in the world today, namely keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorist regimes. Since Iran publicly defies the world community on a regular basis by steadfastly refusing to give up these nuclear ambitions, and since Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, McCain eloquently charged that the threat posed by the Iranians is "anything but tiny."[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Not bad for an old bull. Wisdom often keeps one's feet out of the figurative manure, and helps one to set his sights on the greater objective. [/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Fighting a real war against real enemies, and then being imprisoned by those enemies for five years and suffering the substantial after effects for a lifetime, has made John McCain, I surmise, much, much more mindful of the perils of speaking without thinking, and mindful too of the need for extensive "pre-conditions" before offering the international prestige of our Presidency to a little tyrant, intent upon using our good will against us.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]McCain, in his [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]remarks[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] aimed at Obama's Iranian tomfoolery, also ticked off the reasons why the young bull's approach would bring some dire consequences to the interest of peace. [/FONT]

[FONT=times new roman,times]"An ill conceived meeting between the President of the United States and the President of Iran, and the massive world media coverage it would attract, would increase the prestige of an implacable foe of the United States, and reinforce his confidence that Iran's dedication to acquiring nuclear weapons, supporting terrorists and destroying the State of Israel had succeeded in winning concessions from the most powerful nation on earth. And he is unlikely to abandon the dangerous ambitions that will have given him a prominent role on the world stage."[/FONT]
​

[FONT=times new roman,times]By the time November 4 rolls around, I suspect that nearly all voters over the age of 30, save the most leftist among us, will decide that competence and wisdom trump fancy-footwork oratory. We've all seen the bravado of young bulls here and there, throughout our lifetimes, and some get along on words and strutting for quite a while, but we all know too, that sooner or later every single one of those young ‘uns gets a mighty humbling comeuppance, usually at the hands of an older and wiser, tougher-than-nails bull, like John McCain.[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]As for me, bearing in mind what happened during those scary Thirteen Days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I would much rather Obama get his comeuppance from John McCain in a bloodless election, than from Ahmadinejad in a nuclear showdown. [/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Healthy respect and learning from historical mistakes is one of the hallmarks of maturity. It isn't fear; it's wisdom. [/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]It's 3 a.m. in the White House. Who do we want picking up that phone?[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Definitely, McCain. Some changes, we're far, far, far, far better off without[/FONT]

 

[oatmealpancakes]

John McCain a true American Hero.

 

[gtc08]

mccain is an idiot. he graduated at the bottom of his class. obama has essentially been a prodigy on the rise since the day he was born. mccain has always been a loser that just got lucky. obama actually had to work to get to where he was. and its good that the majority of the repub base agree with this.

 

[tocco05]

mccain is an idiot. he graduated at the bottom of his class. obama has essentially been a prodigy on the rise since the day he was born. mccain has always been a loser that just got lucky. obama actually had to work to get to where he was. and its good that the majority of the repub base agree with this.

Here is where your so called prodigy started out.

ACORN Is A Bad Seed
Something’s rotten in the state of New Mexico, and Ohio, and Michigan, and Pennsylvania, and Florida, and…

ACORN says it is a community group, but it is really a multi-million-dollar, multinational conglomerate. Its political agenda is driven by a relative handful of anti-corporate activists. ACORN spends millions of dollars to promote economic policies (like raising the minimum wage), but has admitted that it doesn't always want to abide by them. ACORN advocates for workers' rights and runs two unions, but has in the past fought its own employees' efforts to form a union.
ACORN's history makes for pretty interesting reading. The Clinton Administration found that ACORN was misspending government grants designed to help counsel the poor. Although it seeks minimum wage increases in cities and states across the country -- ACORN sued the state of California to get out of paying its own employees the state minimum wage.
ACORN's practices have corrupted our political process as well. It has engaged in questionable election activities for years—stretching back even to the organization's founding years in Arkansas . In recent years, as its political power has increased, so have instances of fraud.
In the past few years, it has been investigated for election fraud in at least a dozen states. Want examples?
In Florida, ACORN employees filed a false voter registration form for 68-year-old former St. Petersburg Democratic mayor Charles Schuh – amazingly, they registered him as a 30-year-old Republican woman. In Ohio , ACORN and its affiliate Project Vote submitted registration cards that had the highest rate of errors for any voter registration group. In Colorado , two ex-ACORN employees were convicted of turning in false registrations. The list goes on.
Just last year, in an effort to put a wage initiative on the ballot in Albuquerque, New Mexico, ACORN employee's forged thousands of fraudulent signatures . The group is involved in initiative efforts in a half-dozen states this year. How many thousands of signatures will they forge to forward their agenda?

 

[mr21]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/1/105054/2416/962/488209

John McCain's Mental Health

by WinSmith

Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 07:58:08 AM PDT

I think it's time we start asking whether John McCain is mentally sound or not.
This is the question of this campaign, and, if the parties were reversed, one that Swift Boat funding groups would rapidly be aligning to run ads about.
But we're too polite to raise the very real questions about whether John McCain is fully sane. I don't mean this hyperbolically, I mean it literally.


There have been rumors about McCain's mental status for decades.
And yes, it does relate to spending five years in a POW camp. This isn't to take anything away from his heroism, but when we're considering the presidency of these United States, the mental solvency of a candidate is worth debating.
McCain's occosional bouts with insanity have manifested repeatedly, to the point where George W. Bush's surrogates made mentions of it in 2000.
His lashing out. His anger issues.
His confusion over basic facts.
His absurd "Bomb Iran" song.
The fact is that John McCain's mental health state can and should be a central part of the discourse surrounding this election. And every day we refuse to raise this very valid question about this 71 year old man, is a day we fail to engage this debate with the intensity we should.
The strategy for this should be clear.
Our pundits, our personalities, our on-air media people, should ALL be raising the question of John McCain's mental health in every appearance they make.
Asking this question over and over will force the mainstream media to consider whether he's sane enough to be president.
Suspicions that the man is batshit crazy won't take very long to suss out once these questions start getting asked.
But it's up to us to ask them. We're the footsoldiers on our side, and while the other side is raising bullshit nonsense about Madrsassas, we're pointing out that McCain is wrong on the issues.
That's not enough.
McCain is someone who shows clear signs of dementia. This may or may not be due to the traumas of his time in a POW camp, but that doesn't mean we can't ask these questions.
It is vital for all of us to force the press to ask this basic question: Is John McCain mentally stable enough to be president?

 

[docmercer--banned]

McConfused cant take a shit with Lieberbush standing next to him to
wipe his ass ....

 

[mr21]

John McCain a true American Hero.

The word "traitor" comes to mind when I hear McCunt.

An american hero wouldn't pimp for Mexico to grant amnesty for 15-20 million illegals and open borders.

McCain has said repeatedly that he was afforded no special treatment while in the "Hanoi Hilton". Yet when he was first interviewed by the North Vietnamese he is shown at a hospital reserved for Vietnamese military and he was seen by Soviet Surgeons. He was drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes while being interviewed. This was a far cry from the way the rest of the POWs were treated.

His wife at the time, was a member of the National League of Families and she fought to make sure that John McCain came home. He rewarded this loyalty by divorcing her after his return.

McCain received more than $112,000 in campaign contributions from one Charles Keating (including $54,000 for his Senate campaign). Between 1984 and 1986 McCain and family had vacationed at Keating's home in the Bahamas. (Keating was a corrupt owner of a savings-and-loan empire that ended up costing taxpayers $3 billion.) For these contributions Keating hoped (expected) McCain and four other senators - John Glenn, Dennis DeConcini, Alan Cranston, Donald Riegle, would protect him from federal banking regulators. After a 14 month investigation by the Ethics Committee all McCain received was a slap on the wrist for using "poor judgment"!

 

[docmercer--banned]

Anyone voting for McConfused ... voted TWO TIMES for the biggest disaster in American Political History


ENOUGH SAID???

 

[gtc08]

mccain is an embarrassment. these repubs will no show and hope obama tanks in his first term and try to at least put up a decent candidate in 2012.

mccain running alone shows how far the gop has fallen. doesnt know what he's doing. gets confused, too old and is dumb.

 

[mr21]

mccain running alone shows how far the gop has fallen. doesnt know what he's doing. gets confused, too old and is dumb.

I do give him credit for not raping children like many other prominent repugs in recent history:

http://www.armchairsubversive.org/