The Glade 4.0

They did, actually, and Fox reported more favorable news about Obama than any Republican in any race during the 2008 cycle. He was given a free pass by his most antagonistic media outlet, and continues, by and large, to still get that free pass, except from a handful of their contracted pundits.

Barack Obama is a bad President; he may even be the worst President the United States has ever had. He has no respect for the rule of law; he has no respect for the Constitution; and he has no respect for the American people, its Armed Forces, and our Allies.

Why don't we talk about why Benghazi was attacked? Why aren't we discussing the fact that the White House, and our President, maintains that a primarily peaceful demonstration erupted into violence when every other government on the planet KNOWS it was a planned terrorist attack? Why isn't anyone calling him on providing arms to Al Qaeda Syria? Why isn't anyone mentioning that the Syrian government did not gas those civilians? Why don't we discuss the fact that Obama is quickly eroding every bit of goodwill and allegiance we have with the Israeli state?

No one cares that Obama is a Democrat. No one cares that he's Black, African American, Biracial, or whatever today's politically correct term for his by and large immaterial ethnicity is. Everyone cares that Barack Obama is a deluded, self-important nitwit hellbent on demagoguery and his own vision of how the United States should be.

He's a bad President and a horrible politician that's harming your country, your family, and you; and it's time to stop defending him; it's time to stop making excuses.

Barack Obama walked into the White House with a shovel, and instead of cleaning out decades of ****, he intentionally breached the sewer lines below the Oval Office.

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Oh, and that reminds me, I haven't even gotten into his economic policy in this thread. I'm still waiting for any Democrat to answer this question:

How do you borrow your way out of debt? You know, I swear there's some joke about Petyr Baelish and the Iron Bank of Braavos in here, but it eludes me.

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Shhh.... he moved the goalposts. Now the target is what has historically been referred to as flip-flopping.

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Well, that's alright with me actually. Obama supporters can move the goalposts all they want; we're using 20 megaton footballs to kick field goals and most of the ball still gets through the uprights.

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Hm, I'm skeptical, but I'll check it out when I have some more free time. If you have a link handy, I'd appreciate it.

On the other points:

Why don't we talk about why Benghazi was attacked? Why aren't we discussing the fact that the White House, and our President, maintains that a primarily peaceful demonstration erupted into violence when every other government on the planet KNOWS it was a planned terrorist attack?
There's just no "there" there. Yeah, the Administration spun the story a bit and left ample wiggle room to recharacterize things as needed, but none of that post hoc p.r. bullshit was a factor in causing the attack, determining how we responded to it, or revising our general security practices since. So who really cares at the end of the day?

Why isn't anyone calling him on providing arms to Al Qaeda Syria?
Because it was/is a chaotic and unclear situation with no good or easy answers, and most of the people who would be inclined to complain actually support even more vigorous support for the rebels.

Why isn't anyone mentioning that the Syrian government did not gas those civilians?
That debate was publicly aired, and the outcome was inconclusive. And either way, Obama didn't send in the troops anyway, so we ended up with at least a partial policy victory (Syrian agreement to give up their WMDs) for the price of some diplomatic egg on our face. Seems a fair trade.

Why don't we discuss the fact that Obama is quickly eroding every bit of goodwill and allegiance we have with the Israeli state?
Because **** Israel. Seriously. If they're so hellbent on achieving some self-deluded "destiny" as an ethno-nationalist apartheid state, they can deal with the resulting shit-storm themselves.

How did I move the goalposts? And what I'm talking about isn't related to flip-flopping.

Because it was/is a chaotic and unclear situation with no good or easy answers, and most of the people who would be inclined to complain actually support even more vigorous support for the rebels.


No, just no.

If you don't know to whom it is you are giving arms then you don't do it. If its a chaotic jumbled mess - that means the checkbox goes in the "No".

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Oh agreed. Personally, I think we should have just rammed a cruise missile up Assad's backside and called it a day, but yeah, arming the rebels is a no good, very bad idea. But it's just not outside the realm of what "serious people" consider a reasonable option, so there's no major pile-on about it.

A lot of policy wonks are just really wanks.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Because you moved away from, "Conservative media was not critical of Bush" to "Conservative media was not critical of Bush regarding Conservative programs that they supported and then decided sucked"?

Then you went on to define a war as a signature policy:

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True, but I wonder: will a wonky wank wank Willy Wonka's wang?

I never said conservative media wasn't critical of Bush generally. My initial comment was that conservative media didn't criticize Bush over Iraq the way liberal media is criticizing Obama over PPACA:


People then gave a bunch of examples of conservative media criticizing Bush over (mostly) other things, and I replied by explaining why those things weren't analogous to PPACA the way Iraq was in terms of evaluating media partisanship. No goal-post moving at all.

So then you meant just this?

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And yet, Iraq IS NOT ANALAGOUS to PPACA. Iraq was a source of legitimate controversy - there were two sides to the debate which itself was many-faceted. PPACA is not 2 sided. The web-based site does not work, period - there is no legitimate room for debate on that (whether it can be made to work might be, but that's another issue.) The fact that people were told, unequivocally that they could keep their plans and those plans are now disappearing by the millions is not up for debate. It's already happening.

Being the "signature issue" is irrelevant. Your position amounts to complaining that conservative outlets didn't criticize Bush enough just for the sake of criticizing Bush, while pointing out that liberal outlets are criticizing Obama when they basically have no choice other than to do so, or look like complete fools in the face of the undeniable situation. This somehow, in your mind, demonstrates less partisanship on the part of the liberal outlets, but the only thing its demonstrating is your own partisanship.

As for your comments about Israel, the only "destiny" they are trying to achieve is to not be overrun by hostile neighbors, either through force of arms or through allowing a larger population to simply vote them into second-class status in their own country. Given that their enemies want to have Islamo-Arab nationalist apartheid themselves, and Israel having a policy that can be expressed that way (if one is into prejudicial language) is a matter of self defense, this pretty much reveals that you really don't care about the actual situation, and are only interested in jumping on the moralistic bandwagon of the Europeans.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The text you struck before the words "disastrous mismanagement" was intended as specific critiques arising out of that disastrous mismanagement of Iraq/Afghanistan, not separate issues unto themselves. Sorry if that was unclear. Not sure why you struck the text at the end of the sentence.

I disagree. I think it was pretty damn obvious by 2005 that the Bush Administration had royally screwed the pooch in Iraq.


Again, I disagree. The importance of the policy being critiqued is very relevant to whether or not that critique demonstrates lack of partisanship. Criticizing your guy for something few voters care about or something that's only a minor aspect of his policy agenda is basically cost-free. The real test is whether you criticize him for things that will actually be electorally damaging.


Zionism is, by definition, ethnic nationalism grounded in a religious belief that the lands of Israel are the rightful homeland of the Jewish people, and it is the founding principle of the modern Israeli state. Moreover, the ultra-Orthodox, greater-Israel (i.e. no return to pre-1967 borders, no two-state solution) movement is increasingly powerful in Israeli politics, so the country has become much more blatantly ethno-nationalist and apartheid oriented in the last 10-20 years. Don't get me wrong - their neighbors are infinitely worse, but in my opinion, Israel doesn't have much in the way of moral high ground left either. More and more, they're turning into the lesser of two evils instead of the good guys. And I see no reason why the US should give them a free pass on that ****, particularly when it harms our own national interests, rather than condition our support on better behavior, more respect for human rights in the occupied territories, and a genuine commitment to a two-state solution in the conceivable future.

I'm not really a Democrat, but I'll take this one anyway. Paying off the debt is not a goal for most Democrats. They aren't trying to borrow our way out of debt, they're trying to borrow our way into a better economy.

For those that do actually want to pay off the debt, the line of thinking is usually more like "borrow during a recession to get the economy moving again, then pay off the debt in times of expansion." It's kinda like borrowing money to go to college so you can get a lucrative job and pay off all your debts.

Now, I'm not saying that will work, or that it's a good idea. But you make it seem like it's just outright impossible/ridiculous, when in theory it could work.

Another example: When interest rates fall, borrow money and use it to pay off existing loans that have a higher rate.

That's because it is outright impossible and inordinately ridiculous. You cannot borrow your way out of debt; more importantly, as Somalia, Zimbabwe, the Weimar Republic, Japan between the Wars, and any number of other failed states over history have shown, monetizing your debt is always a losing proposition.

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Which doesn't do anything but extend your debt; you're not borrowing your way out of debt, you're only obligating more valuable dollars to the same debt. Seriously, where do you guys get this nonsense? Who taught you basic finance and economics? They need to be clubbed like Baby Seals at a Michael Vick puppy party.

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I think there has been one time in US history where we had debt and in good times repaid the debt to nothingness. Usually its spend in bad times because we need to jumpstart the economy (which just creates a bubble) and in good times its SPEND SPEND SPEND (because these good times will never end or at least we might not be in office then).

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I don't think this means what you think it means...

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Eh, sometimes the absurd works; sometimes it doesn't. Point is, trusting whoever told them to borrow when dollars are cheap and repay when dollars are high is about as useful as Michael Vick's dog-sitting service; especially if you want the animal back alive.

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So, just to be clear, do you think refinancing existing debt at a lower rate increases, decreases or does not affect the amount of the obligation over the life of the loan?

Not only have you moved the goalposts from "lied" to "screwed the pooch" but you've moved them to a meaningless point. What is "screwed the pooch" supposed to mean? I guarantee it being "obvious" that the pooch was indeed screwed assumes agreement with liberal ideas about what not screwing the pooch would look like.



It's irrelevant because the liberal outlets have no choice but to criticize him. It's not like they are going to be able to argue the website works, or that people didn't lose their plans, or convince anyone that losing their plan after being promised they could keep it is somehow a good thing.



That would assume that A) a 2-state solution is even viable, given that the other side wants a one state (that state being "anything run by Arab muslims") solution and rejected 2 states back in 1947. It also takes the questionable position that it is somehow harming our interests to support Israel, and makes a lot of highly questionable assertions about Israeli politics, especially in light of the untrustworthiness of those they are supposed to be dealing with. It's entirely too easy for us or the Europeans to sit over here and be critical of the Israelis just because the Arab states have given up on major armed conflict and let the Palestinians take the role of underdog.

To the degree Israel is ethno-nationalist it is because their opponents have made it clear that being anything else will be used as an inroad to end the Israeli state as it presently exists, wither through conquest or through the weight of numbers were they to hand out citizenship and franchise. This is a perfect example of why "human rights" as an international issue is a complete fraud.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."