[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by Ghostwriter

Sounds similar to our current occupant in the WH. Totally unqualified.

By pure experience he's now more qualified than most people alive . And as MC said, McCain could have owned that angle, and poof that went away when he picked Palin. And it's hard to counter his education on any grounds short of the people who don't believe he really went to school.

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

Drolefille, I just may not be following things as closely as I should. Which policies do you think Republicans supported until Obama embraced them?

Many of the policies in the healthcare bill. The Jobs bill. Voting against the stimulus but writing letters to get money/projects for their districts.

It's why I like Scott Brown, he doesn't seem inclined to be as caught in the "say no, no matter what" game and instead is voting for what he and his constituents want and would benefit from.

I'm not accusing you of anything I don't regard myself as also guilty of, but I think your perception that Palin gets she deserves because she's unqualified is probably at least partially a reflection of your own political bias. While today, I wish she'd just go away quietly, with the emphasis on quietly (and so I do blame her for the continued bs she gets), throughout the race I think she was subject to way beyond anything justified by her public record. There were no born in Russia rumors but there were she's not actually the mother of her child rumors.

I didn't say Palin gets what she deserves, I said I personally would make fun of the really really silly things she said. I had forgotton about the whole "it's not her kid" thing. But yeah that way crossed the line.

For me it's more, I know Obama didn't have a ton of experience. Being from Illinois I'd gotten to know him, and he convinced me he was capable. Palin never could do that, and I didn't like that she was the posterchild for female politicians either.

Anyway, I'm not that interested in talking about Palin, but my point was just that a comparable level of craziness is/was present directed at the right. We can also look at the Bush Rathergate silliness for examples of relatively relentless interest in stuff that turned out not to be true.

I don't disagree that it's been there on both sides and that it's gone back for quite a while the Swift Boat people personally offend me as there were people wearing purple heart bandaids. I have no love lost for John Kerry, but you're going to insult every wounded soldier just to make a political point?

I still can't find the graphic but essentially the claim was that within the first 1.5 years they'd debunked way more rumors/myths/etc from either Bush term. Which just makes me wonder whether it's because of this president or because of the internet, or because the opposition has encouraged and sometimes outright said the same things.

But then, I remember yelling at an anti-war protester that no matter what you think Bush is still your president. Do you think I would be wrong in saying that a lot of the opposition to Bush was over what he'd done, while perhaps an uneven proportion of the opposition to Obama is over who he is or what they think he will do? WMDs vs "taking our guns"?

Again, I think we'd be better off without this stuff, but I don't think that we're going to get there with comments from the side in power about what their guy should be entitled too. This is going to have be a lead by example kind of thing.

I'm not a fan of ideological "purity." The idea that no democrat could support Bush or any other republican candidate or idea is as silly as saying no republican can support something Obama does or supports. (or support libertarian/green/or i don't know anarchist ideas) Same with "internal" criticism, I like Obama but I think he's screwed things up.

I agree though that we need to get away from the idea that everything we disagree with is destroying America in someway or another. Unfortunately I think it takes more than leading by example. I don't really know what it will take though.