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Jon Stewart Rips Obama on Daily Show
New York, 6:39 PM
Thu Dec 17
60 posts in the last 24 hours
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Jon Stewart Rips Obama on Daily Show |
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05/15/09
"Changes" are going to be slower, smaller, less effective and even hollow.
The reason I always preferred Hillary was because she had been in the game for so long that she knew how to play it. The devil you know vs. the devil you don't.
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However, I have never labored under the misapprehension that he lacks political calculation--indeed, he is possibly one of the shrewdest politicians we have ever seen in this country, which is why comics are still struggling to find ways to make fun of him and one of the reasons why the GOP is currently falling all over itself.
The photos and "Don't Ask/Tell" are political calculations pure and simple, and they both have the same root: Obama does not want to be seen by Middle America as unsupportive of the military.
He will happily sign a repeal of "Don't Ask," but he wants the initiative to come from Congress. He wants the courts to resolve the issue of the photos.
And while he is no doubt quite sincere in his desire to see some form of universal health care, this is also partly a political calculation, as securing real reform will cement a huge block of voters (i.e., those depending on it for their health care) to the Democratic party for years to come.
His immediate concern is to avoid tossing red-meat to the Right and giving them easy fodder for the charge that he is against the military or soft on defense.
Bill Clinton was elected on the promise of universal health care, and his administration was quickly sidetracked over the entire gays-in-the-military issue. While Obama may roll his eyes in private over the prejudices in Middle America and grit his teeth when he finds himself bending to them, he has lived there long enough as a black man to understand the political dangers inherent in stepping on the cultural tripwires.
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Would that the GOP and the vast majority of conservatives had had the cojones to speak up against Bush/Cheney at any point during their sad, slow fucking up of America.
@htotheomo: I'm willing to suspend judgment on change that needs to happen incrementally, but firing Arabic translators anytime after 9/12/01 is criminally stupid. I thought at least the criminal stupidity would end last January.
Personally, I don't think the danger is for Obama, I think it's for us. Obama's worst decisions have come in the realm of privacy and secrecy.
05/15/09
Stupid syntax.
05/15/09
@son of spam: That's bullshit. Of course the problems are complex, but Obama was a senator and had the entire brain trust of the Democratic Party during the campaign to consider these complexities, and with all that he took some positions cast as moral imperatives (e.g., closing Guantanamo). How much new information could he have heard after getting elected that would make him do a 180 on a moral issue?
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Staying home & watching television instead of voting is now "speaking up"? Does that make setting the table a "cotillion"?
05/15/09
Jesus, guys, some perspective here. Not voting for the Republican doesn't mean we didn't vote. Also, there were plenty of Republicans in Congress who were on the ballot again, so Bush not being there is hardly relevant.
What many financially conservative voters did this election was vote for a guy who we feared would spend us into oblivion (and so far he's certainly doing his best on that) because of the social and moral issues on which we thought he was right. And he's done NOTHING on those issues. He's not closing Guantanamo, he's restarting the tribunals, he's done nothing about don't-ask-don't-tell, he's not even willing to outlaw waterboarding. Yet you parse through the "complexities" and the political calculations to somehow explain that he's right to do nothing, that somehow when Bush allowed the government to do those things it was awful but when Obama allows them it's smart politics. That's bullshit.
If he wants to do one thing, take one little step in the direction of his campign promises, why not order the Armed Forces to cease their cashiering of gay soldiers pending a review by Congress of the current policy? That way he can take credit for doing something but insulate himself from blame for what Congress does. It wouldn't be nearly as craven as writing Lt. Choi a condolence note.
05/15/09
Right now, all most observers can do is watch, raise objections (like young Mr. Stewart up here) and write strongly worded letters. A year and change from now we'll vote. Or, if the Republicans keep showing their staunch resistance to proposing anything new) not.
05/15/09
Failing to release detainee photos - same as Bush.
Keeping military tribunals for the "enemy combatants" - same as Bush.
Public stance on Gay Marriage - similar to Bush (although the last time I heard him talk about this was on the campaign trail.
Don't ask don't tell - same as Bush and Clinton.
Deficit Spending - more than Bush.
The first two, I can excuse by saying that there may be reasons of which we are unaware. Truthfully, I support his decision on the first two, but I wanted the list to be longer so I included them.
The final three were wrong then and are wrong now. This is where I would have preferred to see the trademark "CHANGE" of the Obama Administration take effect.
05/15/09
But as for Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Stewart and you are spot on. The actual change may not happen overnight, but Obama still has to keep his intentions clear on the subject.
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A lot people believed he'd shut down Gitmo pronto, end military tribunals for enemy combatants, stop wiretapping, pull us out of Iraq ASAP, draw down our military actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan, legalize pot, soften "don't ask don't tell", and bring some sanity back to budget spending.
Is anyone disappointed?
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Does that seem farfetched? One only needs to hear very small samples of the two men's speeches to consider this conclusion.
It's a thing that always amazed me about GWB's reign -- so many people voted for him for president, even though in their personal lives they wouldn't have trusted him with their health or car or checkbook or the education of their children, based solely on the way he expressed himself.
05/15/09
You are correct that I wouldn't trust GWB w/my health, car, checkbook etc.. and yet I still voted for him. Not because of the way he expressed himself, but rather because he appeared to be the lesser of the two evils in each election. Many people I know voted against the other candidate versus for GWB.
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