i'm confused, how did obama....

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
i'm confused, how did obama....
242
Fri, 09-26-2008 - 9:43pm
6 years ago oppose the war in iraq? was he in senate then?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 10:56pm
I take that to mean that you can't refute anything that was presented and ignorance and denial is preferable to the truth. Oh, well...you can lead a horse to water...
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 10:59pm
With your head in the sand, you probably missed the fact that those "pretty numbers" proved you wrong.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 11:09pm
He wasn't mocking his story. As a wife of a soldiers, who has deployed to Iraq twice,

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-16-2008
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 11:10pm
No Doctor - I just don't feel like having the usual pointless drawn out argument with you today. It has been a long week and I am tired. Too many papers left to grade, too many loads of laundry left to fold. I don't think you really want to know what I - or other liberals - think you just have your own agenda to push whether you really have facts, as opposed to opinions, or not. Sometime it is just too tiresome to play the game. So just say whatever you like, my identity is not tied to your approval so I don't really need your agreement. Like the new name - it's different.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 11:31pm

>>> He was prescient in that what he predicted would happen in 2002 actually did (he was closer than most and was CERTAINLY closer than the song and dance the administration was passing off to the American people at the time).

Obama spoke from a position of ineffective leadership, useless platitudes and rhetoric, appeasement and outright cowardice...and even then he thought he might have been wrong and never supported that position staunchly when he was confronted by it...until he started running for President, of course, when he dusted off his "non-vote" and held it up like some kind of accomplishment.

>>> Also, it was NOT politically expedient to take that position against the war so soon after 9/11. Pretty much everyone was banging the war drum with gusto including the so-called "liberal media" and including all those Democratic yahoos who stupidly voted for it like a bunch of sheep - strictly to save their tails (because that's the direction the political winds happened to be blowing in at the time).

Let's not pretend that Obama jumped on a soapbox to pronounce his disapproval of the war. He never condemned the war in a speech in the State Senate or sought out the media to press his case...something he easily could have done as a Senator. But what we heard was nothing, on a matter of such great importance...not a word.

We should also remember that it was the liberal elite in Chicago, the people Obama needed to further his political ambitions, who decided to hold an anti-war rally, not Obama himself, and that he was their third choice for a speaker...certainly not chosen because of his "well known" opposition to the war. It was simply a matter of fact, as Bettylu Saltzman stated...“He was a Hyde Park state senator. He had to oppose the war!” Obama did nothing brave...he towed the line of his backers and made a low key, anti-war speech before a small crowd of anti-war protesters. It bought him the support of some very wealthy, very powerful people and cost him nothing politically...and he never gave a repeat performance until it became politically expedient to do so.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Sun, 09-28-2008 - 1:02am
You'll have to ask Obama that one. His reasoning escapes me.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 09-28-2008 - 1:23am

<<"My reply to sahasranama was sarcastic">>


Very nasty would describe it better.


<<"My family is bi-racial--I'm no bigot.">>


Your family being bi-racial is not a "guarantee" or "proof" of non-bigotry, as your response (#68) shows.

Djie

Djie

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Sun, 09-28-2008 - 1:33am
n/t
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 09-28-2008 - 1:36am
What's so funny?

Djie

Djie

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Sun, 09-28-2008 - 2:43am

< I posted several items that refute your beliefs and posted them above.

>>> Except that the items you posted don't really refute roseiern's positions (and no, they're not "beliefs").

Except that they do…and that they are.

>>> The first was a Bill O'Reilly interview with a woman who claims to know another woman in Chicago, who says that THAT woman "forced" Obama to do the speech when he really was reluctant to do so...in order to curry favor with her because she's powerful. This strikes you as proof?

So you hope to dismiss the testimony of someone known to be a Chicago political fund-raiser, who knew and worked with Obama early in his political career with “nah, I don’t believe you?” I’m sorry, but your omniscience simply isn’t that credible. Try providing a few facts next time.

>>> Hell, in the video from which you got your transcript, O'Reilly even admits that "not to say Obama wasn't already against the Iraq war" (noticed you left that part out, though, LOL).

I left it out because O’Reilly not being able to read Obama’s mind wasn’t relevant.

>>> Next up is....a different take on Obama's 2002 speech, which actually contradicts the first one! I love that. It says "In his biography of Obama, David Mendell.... not the decision itself." In other words, Obama's intent was NOT to "curry favor" with Saltzman - nor was it undertaken under duress from her.

Wow, offhandedly dismiss one uncredited source, and leap right on another if it suits your agenda. LOL! I’m sorry, but making it up as you go along doesn’t really enhance your credibility. There is no “in other words” that “proves” your point unless your point was that two different reporters have two subtly different opinions concerning Obama’s political motives for making that speech. In fact, simply on the matter of “credibility” I’d have to lean towards the perceptions of a reporter who did extensive research in order to write a biography as compared to the opinion of a reporter who did some research for a magazine article.

>>> Lizza's reporting that Saltzman herself said "he was a Hyde Park Senator - he had to oppose the war" is simply an offhand comment from Saltzman, not her considered opinion that Obama was somehow compelled or coerced or forced to oppose the Iraq war due to his constituency.

I suppose now that you’re going to say that Saltzman really didn’t mean what she said? Sorry, but mind-reading doesn’t bring you much credibility either. The comment was made by Saltzman to Lizza who included it because of it’s relevance and context. Clearly, Saltzman has the expectation that any “Hyde Park Senator” has to “oppose the war,” at least publicly, regardless of his personal point of view.

>>> Again, Obama's not stupid; if he had secretly supported the war, or at least been ambivalent about it, but felt he couldn't just turn Saltzman down, it would have been easy enough for him to make up a comfortable excuse for why he couldn't speak at that rally, in opposition to that war.

Untrue. The way to move ahead in politics is to actually align yourself with wealthy and powerful supporters, not diss them. Obama was a nobody State Senator with big ambitions, he had a LOT to gain by appeasing Saltzman and very little to lose politically.

>>> Obama had it right then, and not only did he have the clarity of vision to see where the pitfalls and problems were, but also the moral courage to stand up in public and speak those words through a PA for posterity (not to mention the press).

Then I guess his “clarity of vision” and “moral courage” waffled…as his quotes demonstrate.

>>> The rest of the unconvincing stuff you've provided consists of quotes from Obama himself, in which he points out that he's had moments where he's questioned whether he did the right thing.

So much for his “clarity of vision” and “moral courage.” LOL!

>>> None of the Obama quotes you provide are evidence that Obama actually CHANGED his mind....only that he wondered if he'd been right.

They prove that Obama took a position on the war without knowing the facts and that he questioned himself afterwards. And since Obama himself says that he is not categorically opposed to war, and since he also admits that he didn’t have the facts upon which to make an informed decision, whatever could have been the reason this “thoughtful” man made a speech opposing the war?…well that brings us back to square one and Obama’s political pandering.

>>> I call the ability to honestly entertain the notion that you might have been wrong a rare - and very valuable, especially in a President - commodity.

Then I guess you’ll be voting for McCain who has demonstrated that rare, very valuable Presidential commodity…unlike Obama who, to this day, cannot bring himself to admit that he was wrong on the surge, or any other issue. Even Kissinger had to call in and smack him around.

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