Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

You've got a firm grasp of the obvious. I believe if you reread my posts you'll see I made the same points, only more elegantly. What you object to is my analysis that this matter was hurting him politically. What reason could there be for him releasing this document now, after two years? Possibly because the "conspiracy by a bunch of loons" was gaining some traction? Why do you think he caved today?

Maybe he wants to keep Donald in the race as long as possible? Naaah, that couldn't be it.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Maybe he wants to keep Donald in the race as long as possible? Naaah, that couldn't be it.

Spin away. Even when he's wiping the puke off his shoes, the "smartest guy in the room" is way ahead of all of us? Doubtful. Either way, Trump's gonna do what he's gonna do. Obama's his punching bag under any circumstances because he's POTUS. Trump's not going to be nominated. And isn't going to be president. But his constant pounding on BHO was clearly hurting, that's why Obama ran up the white flag today. The relevant question is: if BHO's objective here is to keep Trump in the race "as long as possible," then why take a step that had the potential to take the wind of Trump's sails? The object is not to get Trump to stay in or get out, the object is to get him to change the subject. This was a self inflicted wound and the president looks weak, indecisive and like he has something to hide. Two out of three ain't bad. Our president today said he didn't have time for this "silliness," what with all the serious problems confronting the country, then headed off to Chicago for some fund raisers and an appearance on Oprah. Got it.

 

[joecct]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

...Every culture should produce what it's best at. The Swiss or the Japanese will inherit the stars. We will create the first ICBM made completely of bacon.

Kepler

Larry Niven thinks it is the Russians. So do I, or the Chinese. When it comes to space, we'll be history's Spain to somebody else's England.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Kepler

Larry Niven thinks it is the Russians. So do I, or the Chinese. When it comes to space, we'll be history's Spain to somebody else's England.

"That's one small step for (a) man. One giant leap for mankind." In English, by an American. Forever, baby.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Kepler

Larry Niven thinks it is the Russians. So do I, or the Chinese. When it comes to space, we'll be history's Spain to somebody else's England.

Brazil FTW.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

"That's one small step for (a) man. One giant leap for mankind." In English, by an American. Forever, baby.

Yuri Gagarin called. He said "that and 30 rubles will get you a sausage."

The Chinese had stolen a march on everybody until they burrowed inwards, literally burning their fleet at its moorings in 1433 because they lost interest. Gretzky was right: you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Yuri Gagarin called. He said "that and 30 rubles will get you a sausage."

The Chinese had stolen a march on everybody until they burrowed inwards, literally burning their fleet at its moorings in 1433 because they lost interest. Gretzky was right: you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Gagarin might be the biggest hero of all, given the, uh, flexible Soviet safety "standards." What was the phrase from The Right Stuff? "Spam in a can."

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Gagarin might be the biggest hero of all, given the, uh, flexible Soviet safety "standards." What was the phrase from The Right Stuff? "Spam in a can."

I think he would have done anything not to go back to farm labor. But come to think of it, that was the story of a lot of our guys, too.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

I see where Bob Schieffer of CBS has declared it "racist" to want to know if BHO was an affirmative action admission to either Columbia or Harvard Law. Perhaps. But when Clarence Thomas was up on capitol hill, I don't recall anyone being accused of racism for discussing his position on affirmative action. In fact, one of the charges leveled against Thomas (repeatedly and prominently) was that he was a hypocrite, having "benefitted from affirmative action" as a young man and opposing it later in his life. I don't know if Thomas benefitted from affirmative action, but I do know his opponants weren't accused of being racists for bringing the matter up. IIRC, Bob Schieffer was silent on the matter. Oh no, not another dual standard. Quelle surprise.

 

[unofan]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

I see where Bob Schieffer of CBS has declared it "racist" to want to know if BHO was an affirmative action admission to either Columbia or Harvard Law. Perhaps. But when Clarence Thomas was up on capitol hill, I don't recall anyone being accused of racism for discussing his position on affirmative action. In fact, one of the charges leveled against Thomas (repeatedly and prominently) was that he was a hypocrite, having "benefitted from affirmative action" as a young man and opposing it later in his life. I don't know if Thomas benefitted from affirmative action, but I do know his opponants weren't accused of being racists for bringing the matter up. IIRC, Bob Schieffer was silent on the matter. Oh no, not another dual standard. Quelle surprise.

I guess the question in my mind is, so what if he was? He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law and was President of the Harvard Law Review. That kinda negates the whole point that he wasn't otherwise qualified; maybe if he had finished middle of the pack or lower, there might be a point in there somewhere.

 

[pirate]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Well, most obviously, everybody knows liberals prefer cats and conservatives prefer dogs.

Also, as my wife will tell you, just because I'm the epitomy of rational objectivity doesn't mean I don't have occasional hyperbolic rhetorical excesses.

I don't think "southern conservatives" are stupid because they've been extinct since the 19th century. The ugly thing that uses that name is a weird strain of rural redneck politics that goes back at least 150 years to some very creepy populist roots, it's home base is now the old slave states, and yes, I have no use for them. For the record I doubt anybody on a college hockey forum is representative of it, although there is a cottage industry on the right to coddle it as a way of provoking resentment against a variety of boogymen.

There's an analagous, glaringly obvious, Joe Rockhead constituency in the Democratic Party that pulls the "D" lever with the same zombie mindlessness of the "Real Amurka" types. The main reason why the right's idiots come up more often than the left's is the latter are historically bad at voting.

The 1990-2010 right's basic MO isn't stupidity, it's the Constant Drumbeat of Victimization. Everybody's out to get them: judges, science, the gummint, the teevee, college boys, nancy boys, women who wear pants. They live in a paranoid fantasy of Constant Existential Threat where anything they say or do is self-defense and anything said about them is Oppression. Today's right is exactly like the Hippie Left -- thin-skinned and navel-gazing. And from their demographics they will be as sterile as the Hippie Left. Their line ends with them. Something else will assume the right's mantle after them - something optimistic and active rather than just snarling and reactive. I'm sure it's already happening, since like music by the time you see it on a major label it's already been percolating for ten years.

fair enough...I would add that lack of intelligence and/or victimization isn't only what drives the far right to their unenlightened positions any more than those same traits drive minorities to the left...there are some pretty smart people who believe in things that other smart people don't believe in.

I personally am more concerned when smart people adhere to a position because it is the party thing to do. We all talk about being patriotic with the appropriate amount of sarcasm when it comes to litmus test issues...but most think it is ok to have a party patriotism measuring stick..."how can a good republican be pro-gun control or a good democrat be anti-abortion??" Black conservatives aren't the most popular people amongst their race.

is it a stretch to suggest people are actually more loyal to their party than to their country?

 

[amherstblackbear]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

is it a stretch to suggest people are actually more loyal to their party than to their country?

Not at all. But as others have noted, people like that have convinced themselves that the two things are one and the same.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

fair enough...I would add that lack of intelligence and/or victimization isn't only what drives the far right to their unenlightened positions any more than those same traits drive minorities to the left...there are some pretty smart people who believe in things that other smart people don't believe in.

I personally am more concerned when smart people adhere to a position because it is the party thing to do. We all talk about being patriotic with the appropriate amount of sarcasm when it comes to litmus test issues...but most think it is ok to have a party patriotism measuring stick..."how can a good republican be pro-gun control or a good democrat be anti-abortion??" Black conservatives aren't the most popular people amongst their race.

is it a stretch to suggest people are actually more loyal to their party than to their country?

well said. the whole mentality that people who don't agree with me are by definition stupid is one of the most immature things I've seen in a long time.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

I guess the question in my mind is, so what if he was? He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law and was President of the Harvard Law Review. That kinda negates the whole point that he wasn't otherwise qualified; maybe if he had finished middle of the pack or lower, there might be a point in there somewhere.

I agree. And I don't care about his grades (college or high school), student activities (law review) or his health records. WFB's brother, Jim, refused to release his taxes when he was a senator, arguing that the editorial board of the NYT had at least as much influence as any senator, and they steadfastly refused to release their taxes. I think these guys deserve a measure of privacy if they want it. However, most of them (John Edwards) go to great lengths to share their secrets when it serves their purposes. As a believer in Occam's Razor, I think BHO didn't release the long form document because the state issued document is the only one that qualifies him for a pass port. He was probably just being stubborn. And the probability that what he released yesterday has been doctored is about zero. However, he gave the impression that he had something to hide. Compared to others in his business, he's secretive. Not exactly a felony, IMO, but it goes against the standard practice. My post was directed primarily at the dual standard Schieffer was applying. It's racist to talk about BHO's potential affirmative action status but not racist to hammer Clarence Thomas about his, even though no one ever confirmed that he had been.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

If BHO was an AA admit and BHO is an advocate of AA (just guessing, there), then he should be trumpeting that fact from the mountaintops. He would be exhibits 1 through 538 why it might be a good idea to let someone with lesser credentials from a disadvantaged background into a university occasionally.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

If BHO was an AA admit and BHO is an advocate of AA (just guessing, there), then he should be trumpeting that fact from the mountaintops. He would be exhibits 1 through 538 why it might be a good idea to let someone with lesser credentials from a disadvantaged background into a university occasionally.

To me, that's a "general vs. specific" argument. Take the riots at Florence and Normandie. From a broad perspective you can see how outraged some folks would be that the cops who put a beat down on Rodney King were acquitted. But, from a specific view, it's hard to justify a guy who wakes up and decides to set the only grocery store in his neighborhood on fire because of the verdict.

I don't know or care if the president benefitted from affirmative action, but like you say, if he did, he's a pretty good advertisement for the concept. And we can just overlook the problem of sample size. And that other, more qualified young people from impoverished backgrounds may have been denied their chance at success because of his race or theirs.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

If BHO was an AA admit and BHO is an advocate of AA (just guessing, there), then he should be trumpeting that fact from the mountaintops. He would be exhibits 1 through 538 why it might be a good idea to let someone with lesser credentials from a disadvantaged background into a university occasionally.

While this is a good argument in the abstract, Obama went to Punahou School in Hawaii, which is where you go if you're a little too snobby for Phillips Academy.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

But when Clarence Thomas was up on capitol hill, I don't recall anyone being accused of racism for discussing his position on affirmative action.

Wrong. Thomas' supporters were never shy about the "racism" charge -- they banged that gong all the way through his confirmation hearings, to the tune of Dems are supposed to be for equality but in reality they're racists when a black person goes up against (Chris Rock accent on) the Liberal Man." They used the race card constantly in saying welfare was some Matrix-like conspiracy ("the liberal plantation,") or on abortion ("Margaret Sanger eugenics blah blah blah.") It's one of the right's greatest hits. Alan Keyes used to hide behind it all the time, and when a conservative like Thomas Sowell called them out on it all of a sudden he wasn't allowed in the Echo Chamber anymore.

Dropping the racism card is almost always the mark of rhetorical desperation, but the right embraces it just as much as the left. And that's not even going into the whole "reverse racism" canard they love to trot out.

It's a push.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Wrong. Thomas' supporters were never shy about the "racism" charge -- they banged that gong all the way through his confirmation hearings, to the tune of Dems are supposed to be for equality but in reality they're racists when a black person goes up against (Chris Rock accent on) the Liberal Man." They used the race card constantly in saying welfare was some Matrix-like conspiracy ("the liberal plantation,") or on abortion ("Margaret Sanger eugenics blah blah blah.") It's one of the right's greatest hits. Alan Keyes used to hide behind it all the time, and when a conservative like Thomas Sowell called them out on it all of a sudden he wasn't allowed in the Echo Chamber anymore.

Dropping the racism card is almost always the mark of rhetorical desperation, but the right embraces it just as much as the left. And that's not even going into the whole "reverse racism" canard they love to trot out.

It's a push.

I'll make the point again. Thomas opponants sneered constantly that he "was a beneficiary of affirmative action," while he opposed it in his professional life. The charge was hypocricy, with no evidence ever adduced that he had been a beneficiary of affirmative action. Now you're a pretty smart guy, so please don't try to peddle the notion that any black who turns out to be conservative isn't invariably described as being inauthentic. You do remember Harry Belafonte describing Colin Powell and Condi Rice as being "house n*****s" don't you?

You responded to an argument I didn't make. And your points don't refute what I said about the MSM, and Thomas, and affirmative action. And for the second time, my primary focus was on the alleged journalist Bob Schieffer, who suggested any mention of BHO in the same breath with "affirmative actiion" was, ipso facto racist. I don't know that it is. And I don't recall Schieffer getting his panties in a wad when his liberal pals brought up affirmative action during the Thomas hearings. It's a narrow point. But as always, right on the money.

The rest of your argument here is just liberal boiler plate. Charming and erudite, but boiler plate nonetheless.

 

[walrus]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

I see where Bob Schieffer of CBS has declared it "racist" to want to know if BHO was an affirmative action admission to either Columbia or Harvard Law. Perhaps. .

CBS might as well be Obamas media relations firm. They're such shills its unreal