April 14, 2020
Maybe this will help: 12 minutes of Obama.
The news is that now — after all these months — after every other Democrat has withdrawn from the race — he is endorsing Joe Biden.
I only watched the first 1/4, but I take it that out of everyone who's left in the race — Joe Biden and Donald Trump — Obama picks Joe Biden. Noted!
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242 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 242 of 242Lurker21 said...
I don't get the "honesty and humility, empathy and grace" line when it comes to Biden.
He says what he thinks will help Biden win. Your confusion is thinking his comments have any relationship at all to reality.
Exiled... @ 5:26 - I agree. Certainly there is no greater crime! Especially if modern progs can time travel and apply today's standards to the past.
Try to find a old newspaper or any source where Woodrow Wilson addressed the nation about the Spanish Flu. You can't, Because he never did.
Farmer: "Beats me. But we do know what Reagan did in response to the 1983 Beirut bombing."
Not even remotely comparable.
"honesty and humility, empathy and grace"
Biden?
LOLOLOL. The man is a stoddering old asshole.... and a crook.
and Biden is a mean fucker, too.
You lying dog faced pony soldiers.
Farmer: "We also know that he criticized calls for direct military action in Nicarauga, saying, "Those sons of bitches won’t be happy until we have 25,000 troops in Managua, and I’m not going to do it." Reagan pursued negotiations with Noriega and refused Eliot Abrams' and George Schultz's push for an invasion even after the negotiations backed down."
Again, not remotely comparable to Iraq seizing Kuwait and forward positioning its troops in Kuwait like a dagger at the Saudi oil fields in Eastern Saudi Arabia.
I asked before: Who is this "Joe Biden" guy?
That dreamy Obama is so predictable!
Think how cool it would be if he had said, "Joe was always a day late and a dollar short. Every time I gave him something to do, he messed up. Now, some say that Trump is a flamer of the first order, but I have to tell you that I won't sleep a wink if Joe Biden is elected president. You can vote for him if you want to, but I won't."
Now THAT would be newsworthy.
Biden: "They [Republicans] want to put ya'll [blacks] back in chains."
Obama: "empathetic and graceful".
@Drago:
Not even remotely comparable.
I didn't say they were comparable. I gave incidents during his presidency when there was a push for direct military engagement, and Reagan rejected it. I think we have to judge Reagan by these actions as opposed to what he would have done in some hypothetical scenario, which is unknowable anyway. Commentary magazine was full of broadsides over what they perceived as Reagan's lack of more forceful action in Central America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.
Drago, I don't think my position is seriously challenged if your only counterargument is what Reagan would have done in a hypothetical situation.
only land war he initiated was Grenada
You forgot the Beirut debacle, though we went there to "keep peace," not fight.
@Ralph L:
You forgot the Beirut debacle, though we went there to "keep peace," not fight.
I did not forget it. I didn't include it for the exact reason you identified. It wasn't initiating a land war. Their position was officially neutral, and they were under peacetime rules of engagement.
yes but we haven't learned anything about rules of engagement, as far down as 39 years later,
Nor have we learned not to confuse Israel's interests with our own.
J. Farmer said...
Carter's deregulation of airlines, transportation, and telecoms were all vastly more significant than the "humiliation" experienced from the hostage crisis.
Presidents get too much of the credit for good economic times and too much of the blame for bad ones.
Agreed that Carter does not get enough credit for deregulation. The efficiencies played a big part of the 80s boom.
"I blame Obama very very much for this."
As Buwaya said over and over, it is much more about those who put Obama into power, and very little about the man himself, that is your concern. Especially now. For God's sake.
I struggle to understand why this isn't common knowledge well understood.
It is a childish view: Oh if just this one bad man weren't in existence, think of how much better everything would have been/would be.
Very limiting in terms of persuasion or getting results, as it is based on delusion, but emotionally I can see it feeling okay, if you are one of those who likes things like that to feel okay about. Anti-hardin.
Wilson/Buchanan/LBJ.
Thank God Obama only cared about himself, and ergo wasn't smart enough to appoint judges nicely, working with the old school McConnell instead of having Reid blow shit up in the Senate.
Could you imagine Trump having to work with a 60 vote threshold instead of the mere 50 Dingy, Soiled Harry Reid demanded at Obama's insistence? That very well may have been the reason Trump said 'fuck it,' I'ma gonna with the potUS and reshape the world. Of course, maybe Obama at the corrrespondents/despondants dinner did it too. Arrogant prick.
If Obama's abuses lead to a Trump second term that cuts the balls off the anti-American hateful denizens of the CIA/FBI/NSA etc. it will have been worth it, all the struggle Trump takes on every day. He knows. I know. In that order.
BleachBit-and-Hammers said... I think Drudge sold his soul to Bloomie.
Wow!
Somebody still visits the Drudge website.
The discussion of past potUS' could start with: What matters more, the man or the time he lived?
Boom, the time he lived, is my instinctive answer although of course history is all about rarities and exceptions driving progress. And, when but a child, I was taught nature/nurture I was "like duh, it's like 90% nurture. Give me ten babies, I will give you ten doctors or criminals or, worst of the worst, lawyers.'
I certainly haven't believed that for decades after I turned 21.
It is complicated, but not more than God allowing suffering by innocents such as a newborn not born.
I have reminisced about Dick Gephart, in that he may have actually been a Democratic who cared more about the country and his family than mere power alone, screw anything else in the way.
Joe Biden represents the "screw anything but power" method as demonstrated by his ill-gotten means in addition to his lies about his first wife and child's deaths. What kind of person would lie about that? John Edwards and Bill Clinton of course.
Well, I guess most Democratic politicians would lie about anything possible to lie about, including God, in order to gain earthly rewards.
Good to know.
GOP is only slightly better, which, I hate to do, does buttress the point of the Farmers amongst.
The only reason I can think of for Obama to endorse Biden now is that he lost a bet.
So Obama sitting there with his dad shirts on for the zoom like the rest of us...
Why Trump is, at minimum great, is his election's revelations.
I should like to think great men like Buwaya took on "biblical" times nonsense, but also know if I learned anything, anything at all from the great man, it was repetition works, and for reasons both internal and external.
Everyone who ever lived, somehow mysterious unless I just haven't been told yet why the mystery doesn't exist and why, to take just one example, okay, um, and I'm not a fan, she's not a fan, it's okay, it's okay, take just Iris Dement, a child of God, like us all.
These are important challenges.
“Farmer
I am not trying to wind you up, but shouldn’t your preferences make Lincoln the worst President ever?
He's certainly high on the list, but Wilson has generally been my go to for worst president ever. I think a pretty good case could be made that had the United States stayed out of WWI, the allied powers would not have had the leverage to impose such a punitive peace on Germany. Wilson was totally ineffective at Paris, which devolved mainly into spats over dividing up spoils of war.“
My short take is that we should have stayed home for WW1 and forced the Europeans to settle their own fight and suffer for it. WW1 and W W2 should have been fought contiguously in time in Europe until the British Empire was gone and there would be no one willing to fight anyone else for 100 years. I think our US culture would have suffered for this and there is the question of how we would have blunted Japan. But I think we would have gotten through, albeit with a high risk that Europe would have gone completely red, the prevention of which is probably the only good that came of WW1. We would have been shamed as cowards as Australia and Canada were going to fight in any case.
Farmer would like to pretend that the Carter years, which many of us lived through, were not as bad as we say it was. A couple of data points refute him.
Inflation rate when Carter was elected: 4.9%
Inflation rate at its peak: 14.8% (Think about that -- your boss gave you a 12% raise and you lost money! And, yes, that actually happened to some of us. Like me.)
When the peak occurred: March 1980, a half year after Volcker was appointed.
So what should that tell us about taming inflation? I think the lesson a reasonable person, not an ideologue, should draw is that the Fed Chairman by himself cannot tame inflation without a cooperating administration.
Carter totally played Iraq wrong. He chose not to back the Shah. He ignored Iraq's threats should the Shah be treated in New York, and in retrospect he should have paid more attention. He failed to withdraw his embassy staff, despite the threats. And the reason the rescue mission failed was that Carter refused to give the go-ahead because of Cyrus Vance's squeamishness over probable Iraqi casualties until the point in time when a haboob was not merely a risk, but a near certainty.
Carter gets credit for closing down the Civil Aviation Administration, which restricted the number of airlines, the routes they could fly, and the ticket prices they could charge. And he also gets credit for slightly loosening restrictions on railroad mergers (big whoop) and allowing people to brew beer at home (bigger whoop!). But as for the rest, his entire administration was a total piece of crap. I was living in the Washington Metro area, and people who worked in that administration were thought of as being incompetent because if they had been competent there was no way Carter's people would have hired them. (You may think I am exaggerating. I am not.)
As to Obama as a "status quo" president, everything associated with Obamacare was a disaster for people who needed health insurance. Small businessmen I know tell me that they are paying three or four times as much for the same covedrage as they did pre-Obamacare. He said that we could not drill our way to lower gas prices? Turns out we sure can because Trump has done just that.
His $780 Billion stimulus package turned out not to stimulate any thing.
For me the worst part was the decline in race relations under Obama. It will take decades to undo Obama's damage in that arena alone.
No, there is no question that Carter and Obama belong among the five worst Presidents ever. The only issue is where they rank relative to Lyndon Johnson, James Buchanan, and Thomas Woodrow Wilson to round out the rest of the losers.
J. Farmer: "Drago, I don't think my position is seriously challenged if your only counterargument is what Reagan would have done in a hypothetical situation."
Your position is ridiculous.
Iraq goes into Kuwait and forward positions its troops opposite the Saudi oil fields at any time during 1981 thru 1988, Reagan pushes them out.
It's not even debatable.
@Drago:
Your position is ridiculous.
My position, just to restate, that "Reagan was extremely wary of direct military confrontation" is accurate and supported by the record. That position is not challenged by saying that Reagan would have used military conflict under certain conditions. As true as that may be, it is completely irrelevant to the point I made.
So what should that tell us about taming inflation? I think the lesson a reasonable person, not an ideologue, should draw is that the Fed Chairman by himself cannot tame inflation without a cooperating administration.
I am not sure exactly what you mean by "cooperating administration." A reasonable person could also draw the conclusion that the problem takes longer than six months to correct. Volcker continued to raise the rate following Reagan's inauguration, and it caused a recession and high unemployment before finally subsiding in 1982.
Also, if Carter deserves blame for not solving the problem, it should at least be qualified with the fact that the problems preceded his presidency and were caused by Nixon's removing us from the gold standard, instituting wage and price control, and pressuring the Fed to maintain a loose monetary policy.
Carter totally played Iraq wrong. He chose not to back the Shah. He ignored Iraq's threats should the Shah be treated in New York, and in retrospect he should have paid more attention.
I assume you mean Iran. The Shah fell because he was an incompetent leader who raised the ire of large segments of Iran's population. Given that one of the main criticisms of the Shah was that he was a western-backed stooge, it's hard to say how much backing the Shah could have helped him. Carter was foolish to admit the Shah, which was the proximate cause of the protests that led to the embassy seizure, but it's also worth remembering that people like Kissinger, Nixon, and Ford all campaigned to convince Carter to admit that Shah, a decision he had been resisting for some time.
No, there is no question that Carter and Obama belong among the five worst Presidents ever. The only issue is where they rank relative to Lyndon Johnson, James Buchanan, and Thomas Woodrow Wilson to round out the rest of the losers.
Your case for Carter and Obama does not even make them worse than George W. Bush. Bush supported permanent most favored nation for status and supported their joining the WTO. The 9/11 attacks were carried out during his tenure, and he launched two wars that we are still involved, one of which permanently moved Iraq into Iran's orbit and laid the foundation for the rise of ISIS. He also supported policies that directly contributed to the housing bubble. His record has been far more consequential than either Carter's or Obama's.
-I assume you mean Iran.
Yes, and I’ll let you put Dubya in at sixth worst, but he did basically win Iraq, only to have Obama foolishly throw it all away.
@Big Mike:
Yes, and I’ll let you put Dubya in at sixth worst, but he did basically win Iraq, only to have Obama foolishly throw it all away.
That, of course, is a ridiculous myth. Even by the surge's standards, it failed. The entire rationale for the surge was to increase security and allow space for political reconciliation. The reduction in violence was mostly due to the completion of ethnic cleansing in the more mixed neighborhoods around Baghdad and by the Sunnis in the west turning against Al Qaeda. By what criteria could you say that Iraq was "won?"
Bush attempted to negotiate a SOFA with Iraq, but it failed because Iraq insisted that US soldiers be immunized from prosecution in Iraq. You could make a case that the US won in Iraq by successfully deposing Saddam. Replacing Saddam with a democratically-elected government insured a Shia-dominated government. Dick Cheney predicted exactly this outcome in the mid-90s when he was questioned about why the coalition did not continue on to Baghdad after successfully expelling Iraq from Kuwait.
That, of course, is a ridiculous myth.
The notion that Bush winning in Iraq is a myth, is itself the real myth. Bush won in Iraq by deposing Saddam Husssin, killing his sons, and killing everyone associated with al Qaeda that was in Iraq. You win wars by destroying your enemy’s ability to continue to fight the war. By supporting the “Anbar Awakening” Bush destroyed the ability of a guerrilla operation to melt back into the civilian population.
Is there anything you can do besides parrot back bullshit academic theories?
@Big Mike:
Is there anything you can do besides parrot back bullshit academic theories?
Insulting an argument does not refute it.
If, by your own standard, the war was won by "deposing Saddam Husssin, killing his sons, and killing everyone associated with al Qaeda that was in Iraq, then how did "Obama foolishly throw it all away?" What was the point of maintaining troops in Iraq if the war was won?
@Farmer, what is the point of maintaining troops in Japan and Germany 75 years after we unambiguously won World War II? If you look at what happened when the village idiot from Hyde Park withdrew our forces from Iraq, don’t you think you answered your own question about why troops were needed despite the war having been won?
I insult you because you’re an elitist, evidently possessing no sympathy for the impact of Carter’s or Obama’s policies on ordinary working Americans. I’ve seen the pain that Carter’s economic policies and Obamacare produced. I have also seen the pain that the collapse of 2008 caused, but I only give Bush half the blame because his efforts to shore up Fannie and Freddie ahead of time were derisively brushed aside by Pelosi and her Democrats.
@Big Mike:
@Farmer, what is the point of maintaining troops in Japan and Germany 75 years after we unambiguously won World War II?
Japan and Germany both initiated aggressive wars in which they subsequently surrendered. In addition, the US remained an occupying power in Japan for several years. The occupation ended with the Treaty of San Francisco, and Japan subsequently agreed to a security arrangement which granted significant concessions to the US.
There is nothing comparable about Iraq. The US transferred sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government in 2004. The Bush administration concluded a SOFA with Iraq in 2008 that called for a complete withdrawal of combat troops by 2011. And even this was highly controversial in Iraq, as there was a lot of pressure to quickly end a US troop presence that was considered humiliating. Bush was giving a press conference in Iraq after signing the pact when the infamous shoe throwing incident occurred.
The fundamental problems of a democratic Iraq cannot be solved by a residual US troop presence. A residual US troop presence would not prevent Iraq from being in the Iranian orbit. A residual US troop presence would not solve the problem of integrating the Sunnis into a Shia-dominated government.
I insult you because you’re an elitist, evidently possessing no sympathy for the impact of Carter’s or Obama’s policies on ordinary working Americans.
You have completely misunderstood my point. I have never denied Carter's failures or the fact that he was largely ineffectual as a president. I have only argued ranking him among the worst presidents in US history. I also pointed out that if he is to be blamed for not solving stagflation, shouldn't the president who caused stagflation be even more to blame?
I have also seen the pain that the collapse of 2008 caused, but I only give Bush half the blame because his efforts to shore up Fannie and Freddie ahead of time were derisively brushed aside by Pelosi and her Democrats.
Mike Oxley sponsored the 2005 Federal Housing Finance Reform Act, which passed in the House. It was opposed by the White House and later died in the Senate. But even more consequential than Bush's push for increasing home ownership was his support for China's joining the WTO. Nothing Carter did even remotely approached that decision in terms of the economic impact on the US, which hastened the destruction of manufacturing.
@Farmer, how do you keep one of the world's largest economies out of the WTO? Wall Street pushed manufacturing off shore, not Bush.
"President Obama: "The other side has a massive war chest. The other side has a propaganda network with little regard for the truth.""
Says the guy who has ALL the "Journ-O-lists" licking his butt hole whenever he shows his pretty little face.....Somebody should ask him why they won't report on Tara Reide right now, and if she was accusing Trump what would happen. He is as delusional as old Joe.
@Big Mike:
@Farmer, how do you keep one of the world's largest economies out of the WTO? Wall Street pushed manufacturing off shore, not Bush.
While there is nothing we could do to keep them from joining the WTO, we had the option of not applying the WTO agreement to China. Instead, we enthusiastically supported it. Bush also supported granting permanent most favored nation status, which normalized trade relations between the US and China. It was this normalization that led to the exodus of manufacturing from the US and to China.
Thus Obama gets the all-important Red Diaper Baby vote for Biden.
@Farmer, you've persuaded me. Bush should be fifth-worst and Obama only sixth-worst.
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