Ok, I couldn't really decipher what this sentence actually says, but I think I've said all I can say on the matter for now. You keep making this a "you're just dumping on Bush" point and that's not the majority of the arguments I'm making or reading in other posts.

I got the idea from the post I was originally responding too that Skylark laid it all on Bush. It was that idea I responded to.

Do you think Bush should have sent the aid without the governor of Louisiana asking for it? Do you think he knew stuff that they didn't know at the state and local level or just that he was obligated to act in a way that the mayor and the governor weren't? Can you point to a hurricane or any natural disaster for which the federal government sent in aid without being asked before the event occurred? I think it's grossly unfair to pretend that the only (or even the main) government failure with Katrina occurred at the level of the Federal executive.

^^^But that fish REEKED from the head in that situation, no doubt about it. And now I'm really done like my other "last" post said, you're starting to "discuss" by question, which I don't think will go down a productive road.

You're right, that sentence was out of control. I'm really tired. Here's what I was trying to say:

To throw all the responsibility for the problems Skylark lists onto Bush lets too many other people off the hook. It may be both inaccurate and unfair. It particularly strikes me as unfair with the issue of hurricane Katrina.

Perhaps I misread her post and she (Skylark is a she, right?) didn't intend to lay it all on him in the first place.

The hurricane reeked from the head?

You're right, follow up won't be productive in this case.

I do think it's important that we analyze where the previous leader failed so that we don't elect someone with the same traits that led us here in the first place.

Are you saying that had the tax cut not been passed we'd be all set with social security and health care?

Who was responsible for passing the tax cut into law? Who would have been responsible for making sure that the money in the federal coffers, had the tax cut not gone into effect, went to shoring up Social Security or God forbid, Federal health care benefits? What evidence can you point to of a willingness on the part of Congress to any of the things necessary to yield the results that Skylark wanted to see?

Certainly, a reasonable person can conclude that Bush provided bad leadership, but so much more than that went into it.

I agree, but I don't think that's what we're really doing in most cases with Bush. Our response isn't "what can we really do to ensure no more cronyism in Federal appointments" which is an honorable but probably quixotic venture; it's just Bad Bush Bad.

I'm not asking that we ignore all his many failures. (Harriet Myers!?! Thank God that ran aground quickly.) But let's be really careful in figuring out where the blame ought to go and where the power should rest to try to fix things.

And I know that so much of what people who hate Hillary hate her for is the same kind of "well, it's an easy target" kind of thinking.

I will say this... What bothers me about Bush, more than any one action or decision is a personality trait of his that has clearly impeded his actions and decisions. It is his inflexibility. It seems that once he gets an idea in his head (eg. "We're going to war with Saddam because he tried to kill my daddy"), there is nothing that stops him from acting on it, even if there is evidence that it is the wrong thing to do. Some people believe that it is an admirable trait (he doesn't "waffle"), but I think this is a continuum between waffling because you are just trying to please who you're talking to at the time and being so stubborn and hard headed that you won't change your mind no matter how many facts you are presented with. What I'd really like to see in a candidate is someone who has firm belief systems but will take the actual facts, process them, and act on them accordingly.

To get this back to the current election, I now dislike John McCain because I feel like he used to be in the middle of that continuum but is now completely waffling to please the most conservative in the right wing. I am not convinced that Hillary Clinton is flexible enough, although I believe Bill was (example: welfare reform, typically not something a Democrat would do but he saw that there had to be a compromise because it was out of control). As for Obama, I don't feel like I know enough about him to determine it because he hasn't been in the spotlight long enough to tell. I get a distinct impression from Huckabee that he leans toward the inflexible range. I didn't even rip on Bush #1 for the "no new taxes" thing. To me, that was an example of "I really didn't want to have to, but when the facts presented themselves, I realized we had to make a change". I admire that.

If I used the measure of "Who can I stand to see on TV constantly for the next 4 years", it's Obama. That's a pretty shallow measure, but the man is a great orator. That was a very successful trait for both Reagan and Bill.

I agree with you.
The term "waffle" has become a rather over used hot key word.
I do not see any thing wrong with a person changing their minds as information, facts, or even time changes.
I see a problem, as you said, with a person who can not process change or ignores information and facts that support it.

Just to clarify . . .
 

This is something which bothers me about Katrina. It wasn't the hurricane as much as it was THE FAILURE OF THE LEVEES which resulted in so much destruction and loss of life.

Also, let's not forget that men and equipment which would normally have been availble through the National Guard were not - they were in Iraq.

And the destruction of the natural wetlands "buffer" through ill-advised policies.

I amazed at this point that anyone thinks Bush should be off the hook regarding Katrina. Not that ANYBODY - mayor, governor, etc. - should be . . . I'm still mad about Katriana, in case you couldn't tell. AND I'm a former chairman of my campus College Republicans/election judge for GOP - hardly someone you'd expect to be a Bush hater.

Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

No, I was not saying that if the tax cut had not been passed, we'd be all set for Social Security, and I don't interpret that from Skylark's post either. Perhaps we just read that statement differently, which is fine.

Both political parties have robbed Social Security over the years to pay for lot of different things, hopefully no one denies that. I think I've heard they're estimating that Social Security will be completely depleted by what 2040?

Who was responsible for passing the tax cut bill the Bush introduced? Well, who was controlling congress back in 2004? The tax cut bill that was passed then to benefit the oil companies is being offset by tax increases for other people. Someone has to make up the $77 billion.

As for your last question about the willingness of Congress, I think Congress may very well have been willing to do some of these things, but Bush likes to veto a LOT.

Got back from caucusing about an hour ago. The turnout at my caucus was huge - around 1,000 people! Plus, I got to meet the mayor of Omaha, because he was standing in line to register to caucus behind me so that was cool. There were so many people there they had to split us up because of fire code. So they divided us into a group in the gym and a group in the hallway. There were about 450 of us in the hallway - Obama won by about 100. I don't know how the gym vote turned out, they were still counting that when I left.

Okay, so a lot has happened on this thread since I left GC last night.. and I think most of the other posters have done a good job with the criticisms thrown at my post (which I certainly didn't intend to be so controversial).

A couple explanatory things about my post:

Of course its an overstatement. I was (albeit highly unsuccessfully) trying to be dramatic in a funny way, I guess. However, there is truth in every accusation in the post, including the ones you find nutty.

And of course there are other people to blame besides Bush. I honestly don't see why placing blame on one person alleviates blame on another, but if you read that into my post then I'm sorry. That was not my intent. I don't think anyone on here (besides maybe SECDomination) is naive enough to think that one person or one party is the sole source of our problems.

On to some specific issues you raised...

1. Yes, skylark is a she.

2. Governmental branches: I work for one of the branches of government and so yeah, I'm pretty sure I understand their separate functions, but I also understand their influence over each other and the way things (like $ or religion) that corrupt one branch have a tendency to corrupt the others. Also, we may all believe that there SHOULD be limits to executive power, but how much do you want to bet that Bush (and Cheney behind him) doesn't give a rats behind about it? It has pretty much been a blatant goal of Bush/Cheney since they took office to expand the power of the executive. For instance, one of the few checks on the executive is the requirement that treaties be approved by the Senate. So what has Bush done now that he wants to create a treaty with Iraq? He simply gives it a new name without "treaty" in it so he doesn't have to ask for approval. This is just an example, but you get the picture. Bush doesn't care about what boundaries the executive branch SHOULD have.

3. Hurricaine Katrina (this seems to be the one you have the biggest problem with): (A) I've heard several analyses by climate experts that show that there may be a link between increased intensity and frequency in hurricaines and global warming. Bush didn't cause global warming, of course, but how many opportunities has he passed up while in office to try to fix it (Kyoto was the first, I think). Hell, until a year or so ago he wouldn't even acknowledge it. (B) HE is primarily responsible for the slow disaster response because HE appointed the poorly qualified crony that was in charge of FEMA and neglected to monitor the situation enough to sweep in and fix the problem once things started going haywire. Go back to my original post and you'll see my main criticism focuses on the emergency services. These are well within the President's responsibility and power in the executive branch because executive power includes direct authority over all the federal government's agencies.

4. As to health care: did you pay attention at all when Bush shot down a bill because it included national health care for lower-income children which he decided looked too much like socialism?

5. I think the tax cuts have been mostly addressed, but I think it helps to remember that with our national debt, every cut is a loan we take out from our children and grandchildren. And the tax cuts themselves are illusory in some respects because it doesn't even take into account all of the income that the economic elite make on selling stocks. Did you know that Bush cut the taxes on stock-sale income to 15%?! That's a lower rate than I'm sure most of us are getting taxed on our own income. So if you don't think that tax cuts are highly geared toward corporate CEOs and other economically fortunate individuals, I don't know what else to tell you. And I specifically mentioned energy CEOs because energy-related businesses (especially the ones Cheney has ties to) are mysteriously the target of a large percentage of the corporate bail-outs and tax cuts we dole out every year.

Oh yeah, and we should all thank Bush for trying to "fix" social security by privatizing it with all of the "political capital" he had after his reelection. Just like with immigration, if he wasn't so hard-headed and closed to compromising with dems on national policy issues, maybe we'd have at least some limited improvement instead of dealing with the status quo.

Okay.. can we talk about the election again? I'm actually pretty optimistic that a new president could motivate the rest of the country into some meaningful change!

At this point, I'm kind of over it as I'm sure many of you are as well. Everyone who has posted is in agreement that Bush wasn't a particularly good President; we just vary in the degree for which we'd blame him on different issues.

I think it's really important not to let congress off the hook. I'll offer the reminder that Kyoto was signed in a largely symbolic gesture after the Senate refused (in advance) to ratify it during the during the Clinton Presidency. It was never even submitted by the Clinton Administration for ratification. We can say the Clinton Administration had a better attitude about global warming, but we can't really say they got much done, and in this case it was the Senate with the block.

Yes, I did pay attention when the expansion of the children's heath care program was shot down. And to tell you the truth, I support it being shot down. I'm all about health care for children but I think federal programs are the least effective way to guarantee that it's delivered well. Every nice thing that we think we need isn't best addressed by a federal program, IMO, so as heartless as it might seem, in this particular instance, I think Bush acted correctly. If states need to raise taxes to offer expanded children's health services, then they need to bite the bullet and do it themselves. Perhaps they could tax the CEOs.

Although I'm not particularly pro-CEO taxcut, I again tend to think that congress bears a lot of responsibility for the issues of taxing and spending.

If you all want, we can review this issues four years from now and see if we all feel the same way when there's been someone we generally like more than Bush in office for four years. Let's mark our calendars for 2012.

Well, if they were really interested in good government, they could muster up the override.

But I'm totally with you that the last Republican Congress was craptacular and not up to the task.

So your caucus is more like the Republican one in Iowa in which you vote rather than build the consensus?

This may have been covered before, and I apologize, but what actually separates a caucus from a primary when it's a one person with one vote kind of thing? And then, if anyone is feeling up to it, what makes a state convention to decide delegates different from a caucus?

It's not on the regularly schedule thread, but New Orleans is interesting to think about.

There's plenty of blame to throw around, and your mentioning the levees is a really good example. Look at their history and how long a better system could have been implemented. I don't think I'm trying to get Bush off the hook completely, but his role is limited compared to the dysfunction and mismanagement by the elected representatives of the people of Louisianan and New Orleans over the years, for instance, and yet, we don't hear as much about that or at least I don't. Maybe it's a reflection of where one is in the country.

I think people look at the scale of the destruction and want to assign blame because it makes them think that we can control and master elements of nature in the future. We really can't and it's a lesson we've learned over and over again, usually in individual cases but here collectively.

To tell you the truth, New Orleans, as a city essentially constructed at or below sea level next to Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico, had a pretty good run before disaster struck, really, and there's probably a certain amount of hubris involved with assuming we could keep it from flooding forever.

Apparently if you live on the Mississippi Gulf coast, you just kind of have to accept that a major storm may come along every thirty or so years and destroy almost everything. And weirdly, other than complaints about the slow pace of rebuilding infrastructure like sewers, you don't hear anyone blaming the government for the destruction by the storm itself. I wonder what the difference is? (Generally, I think people favorable compare the response of the government to Katrina with the response to Camille. )

Not really, but it was a bit of a mess. Ideally it would have been run, very similar to the Iowa Democratic caucus, and it kind of was at my location - they just split us up because the fire marshall came to our location. I'm guessing because we were lucky enough to have not only the mayor but a State Senator in our caucus. From what I've read on the Omaha World-Herald's website, some of the other sites were done more like straw polls.

I admire the Nebraska Democratic party for saying, "Hey let's try this caucusing thing." Unfortunately, there were a few problems, the sites were WAY too small. And there weren't enough of them. Granted Nebraska is a very Republican heavy state, but to only have 15 caucus sites for all of Douglas County which is the largest county in the state is crazy. The county to the south of me, which picks up some southern suburbs and is the third largest county and they only had one caucus site for the whole county!

RE: your question on what seperates a caucus from a primary. I know that it was explained somewhere earlier (back when IA was doing it). Each state may have slight modifications though. I'll edit my link unless someone has already responded. I can say that states with caucuses still have state conventions. One of my co-workers is a state delegate for Huckabee in Iowa.

Ok. I spent a long time reading Obama's site yesterday, every issue and his plan for everything. While I love where he hopes to go on most issues (we differ with a few things), I am concerned about how he plans to pay for all of it, because a lot of it would cost a whole lot of money. If he can really do it without harming the economy, then yay!

Hurricane hijack
 

The Dutch have mastered the whole "land below sea level" thing. It can be done, and is no more unthinkable then sending a man to the moon. It does require modern infrastructure. The Army Corps of Engineers seems to screw up everything they touch - but others have been successful with levees.

I don't know that the Katrina/Camille comparison is valid, simply because of the difference in population and development. I'm from Texas/LA Gulf coast families on my father's side, Florida Atlantic coast on my mom's - we've been through our share of hurricanes. Carla hit my grandparents (they were two blocks from the Gulf) and my father still tells stories about Beulah. So to me, it's personal. One advantage of having a family history of dealing with hurricanes - we get the hell out of the way. After trying to sit through Carla, my grandparents learned. LEAVE.

And I'm still voting for Ron Paul.

Huckabee was just on Meet the Press and was telling about how he would squirrel hunt in college and then cook the squirrel in a popcorn popper. As an Alpha Gam, I could never ever support this man for any political office. That was a total deal breaker.

YOU DO NOT EAT SKIOUROS:eek::eek::eek:

Oh, the squirrelmanity!

It is pretty horrible to think about on so many different levels.

I think the damage to the Mississippi gulf coast during Katrina was worse because of the larger storm surge, but the loss of life and the damage from wind may have been greater with Camille, again only in MS, I mean.

If you look at Mississippi only, I think it's an imperfect but decent comparison generally although I concede Katrina was worse; they both essentially cleared the coast from Bay St. Louis to Biloxi. I can see what you mean though that recovery with Camille might have been easier to handle because it affected a smaller segment of the overall population. Interestingly, I think for some folks in Mississippi, having survived Camille made them think they could bunker down through anything. Most of my relatives, especially the older ones and the ones with children evacuated, but a few others had to stay. Looking at some of the info. online about Mississippi and Katrina presents an interesting contrast in local and state level government response, which may taint my view of how important the federal response should have been.

As far as the Dutch, they don't get hit by hurricanes typically, and that changes the picture a lot. I think it's entirely different to compare a city on a coast with a relatively consistent (or at least somewhat predictable) water flow system to something on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, essentially surrounded by large bodies of water, which can expect storms of varying strength in the area almost annually.

I mean, Venice is hanging in there too, but I don't think much would be left if it got hit by even a Cat. 2 storm.

And think about the expense and losses involved with the space program. We did get a man on the moon, but it wasn't without cost and I'm not sure that we can really say we've triumphed.

I think human beings can do almost anything in a certain number of cases or for a certain length of time, but there's something foolish about forgetting the truly awesome, brutal and often seemingly cruel power of nature. When the off-season snow storm hits when you're climbing Mt. Everest (after more than 1,000 people have successfully summited), or the Perfect Storm comes along when you're out working as you always do, to cite a few common cultural examples, human error is only a small part of what contributes to the loss of life.

What, his college didn't provide a meal plan? Why in god's name was he out hunting his own dinner like Elmer Fudd? His poor roommates. Geez, I thought the guy was a freak before. Sick sick sick.

But it might explain why he need to lose 100 pounds. I'm seeing some kind of deep fried action in the popcorn popper.

The Media Picks The Winners
 

Rather interesting op-ed article, NOT a cartoon, from Cagle:


Super Tuesday’s over and there were no absolute winners — until Mitt Romney dropped out of the race.

Nonetheless, even before Romney withdrew and McCain, in effect, became his party’s nominee, we might as well have canceled the rest of the primaries and caucuses, since the media had already decided that this year’s standard bearers would be John McCain and Barack Obama.

Yes, somewhere along the line, the role of the media has changed from reporting on the primaries to deciding the primaries. They pick their favorites, they give them preferential treatment, they tear down their opponents, and they anoint their winning candidates even before voters have a chance to go to the polls.

http://www.caglepost.com/column.aspx?c=5328&pg=1

well ins't that the media's job...to tell us what to think? ;)

I agree with that somewhat Jon, but I think the internet will make it a lot better. I think the power of the MSM is declining, but that candidates having figured out how to use blogs on online news sources as effectively as I think they will the next primary election cycle.

Right now, we all read the internet political sites that reflect our biases. (For example, one heartwarming online internet poll in January on Instapundit had Thompson up by a huge margin, but Instapundit is in Tennessee and presents an outlook attractive to the kind of people who would most like Fred, so you had to know to take it for what it was worth.)

The next level will be broadening the messages across some blog networks maybe.

Now, I don't think blogs will be a big factor as much in the general elections because I don't know that a significant portion of the American public wants to read its news and political coverage online. Some of us like our info. prepackaged and presented with lots of scrolling graphics and good looking reporters.

But for the primaries, I think it may go that way since you're kind of looking at political junkies following the primaries closely in most years without a TV writers strike.

Obama picking up Momentum after weekend voting.
 

AUGUSTA, Maine - Barack Obama defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton in Maine presidential caucuses Sunday, grabbing a majority of delegates as the state's Democrats overlooked the snowy weather and turned out in heavy numbers for municipal gatherings.

Democrats in 420 Maine towns and cities were deciding how the state's 24 delegates will be allotted at the party's national convention in August. Despite the weather, turnout was "incredible," party executive director Arden Manning said.

With 99 percent of the participating precincts reporting, Obama led in state delegates elected over Clinton, 2,079 to 1,396, with 18 uncommitted.

Obama exulted in his recent victories in Maine and elsewhere, telling a crowd of 18,000 Sunday evening in Virginia Beach, Va., that "we have won on the Atlantic Coast, we have won on the Gulf Coast, we have won on the Pacific Coast" and places in between.

Obama won 15 of Maine's delegates to the national convention and Clinton won nine. In the overall race for the nomination, Clinton leads with 1,136, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates. Obama has 1,108.

The voting came a day after Obama and Clinton made personal appeals here, and after Obama picked up wins in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington.

Organizers had expected heavy participation at the caucuses, but snow was falling and gusting winds hit as many of the gatherings were scheduled.

The weather didn't appear to have hurt turnout. Caucuses started late in Bangor and several other locations across the state because so many people showed up that they were lined up outside the doors.

In Maine's largest city, Democrats carrying "Obama" and "Hillary" signs waited to get into the citywide caucus at Portland High School in separate lines that snaked nearly three city blocks in opposite directions.

Colin Johnson, an Obama supporter in Portland, said the Illinois senator is not a typical politician. "I'm convinced he's a once-in-a-generation leader," he said.

"He's young and energetic and Washington and the White House could benefit from some fresh air," said Joe Lewis, another Obama supporter.

But Tony Donovan said Obama can use some more seasoning. Donovan was supporting Clinton because she, like him, was a baby boomer who shared similar values and because she has the experience and the team to lead in Washington.

"Obama's a great guy. He'll be great in eight years," Donovan said. "He doesn't have the experience in the Senate. He doesn't have the experience in Washington. He's not ready."

A line waited to get into Augusta's caucus as Gov. John Baldacci, a Clinton supporter, addressed the crowd of a couple hundred at the city's Cony High School. Asked why he decided to wait in line to participate, John Brandt said, "Getting rid of Republicans, once and for all."

Though Maine's national delegate count is small, Clinton and Obama, along with surrogates, came to the state Saturday as their campaigns drew tighter after Super Tuesday.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080211/...maine_caucuses

Man I can't wait for tomorrow!

Me either! I'm getting ready to be on a conference call with Obama in about 45 minutes... I can't wait to hear what he has to say about his stellar weekend! I'm really hoping his roll continues.

a tourament a tourament a tourament of lies

i decline

i feel fine

I attended a Democratic caucus in Washington this weekend, and I'd just like to say that it was truly inspiring to see SO MANY people that passionate about an election in this country. There were so many cars that I had to park about a mile away from the junior high school where my local caucus was held, and once I got to the school, there was probably 1,000 people crammed into the tiny gym and school library. My precinct, and a few others, had to go outside to conduct our business because it was simply too loud and crowded inside. The organizers were in no way expecting such a record crowd, but all agreed it was a GOOD problem to have this time.

For the person who asked about the voting that takes place at caucuses, yes, there is voting but not necessarily consensus. At my caucus, when we first got there, we signed in with our precinct, listing a preliminary candidate preference on the sign-in sheet. After a lot of reading of the rules, a person assigned to record the votes used a formula to determine the breakdown of delegates proportional to the votes casted for each candidate on the sign-in sheet. In the case of my precinct, we had 8 delegates to be assigned, and preliminary votes gave Obama 6 of those delegates and Clinton 2. We also had two people that were undecided, however they were mathematically unviable compared to Obama and Clinton. So, the Obama and Clinton groups each selected one representative from their side to speak for one minute about their candidate, trying to woo the undecideds and other candidate supporters. Then we had a few minutes of mingling with each other, after which the chair asked if anyone would like to switch sides - in our case, the two undecideds decided to move to the Clinton camp, and a couple of Obama people switched to Clinton, too. Then they re-tallied the votes at that point and used the formula again to determine how many delegates each candidate now had. It ended up being Obama=5, Clinton=3. Then the chair asked for volunteers from each side to be their respective candidates' delegates to the next convention. The end.

PeppyGPhiB,

What you described sounds like the way I understood caucuses like the Iowa Democratic caucus, and it sounds pretty cool.

But in the Republic Iowa caucus, apparently you just show up write your vote on a ballot and go, or at least that's what I understood.

And I'm still trying to figure out how a state primary convention would be different than a caucus other than being held all in one place. Do they do county delegates first, maybe?

Just a thought....
 

Something else funny happened a while ago...


I had an atheist tell me that they want to see written proof that Obama is not a Muslim........

Their belief is.....they don't like being lied to....

My questioon however...is if you don't believe in a higher power, then what difference is it going to make what religious affiliation he is?

Obama certainly has broad support. However, like Ron Paul, I've found that many of his supporters (young people) have the dedication without possessing substantial knowledge about the candidate or politics/government in general.

I suspect this is a common phenomenon for candidates where the appeal arises from character qualities, instead of substantive issues. Of course, I don't see the character qualities that drew college kids toward Ron Paul, unless you consider whining to be a quality.

I think libertarian leanings are always a hit with the college kids. Drug policy alone probably hooks a lot of them.

Often so. I told all my friends that they were attracted to Ron Paul because he has an emo, "my parents hated me" attitude just like they did.

Michelle Obama
 

anyone watching Larry King?

Whether you agree with it or not, this article (courtesy of the Washington Post) does have an interesting aspect to the Democratic race.