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Rudy Giuliani doesn’t think Obama loves America
I think Ol’ Rudy is doing a pretty good job of de-legitimizing himself with comments like these. Like somehow Rudy is more patriotic. How many people would know who he was if 9/11 didn’t happen.
“wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”
[link=http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/rudy-giuliani-i-do-not-believe-president-loves-america-n308886]http://www.nbcnews.com/po…-loves-america-n308886[/link] -
298 Replies
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Rudy Giuliani, wasn’t that the guy with the plumbing business in Ohio who said ‘you didn’t build that’ ?
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Republicans know these things
They know what every thinks and feels
They how everyone grew up and what molded them into the people they are
Republicans know how to think for us so we don’t have to
Education is bad
It’s morning in America
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[i]We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the [/i][i]United States of America[/i][i]. Barack Obama, [/i][i]October 30, 2008[/i]
[i]We are going to have to change our conversation; were going to have to change our traditions, our history; were going to have to move into a different place as a nation. Michelle Obama, [/i][i]May 14, 2008[/i]-
Feel the love????
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Obama hates America.
Rudy’s comments are only slightly less unhinged than Rush:
I think it can now be said, without equivocation — without equivocation — that this man hates this country. He is trying — Barack Obama is trying — to dismantle, brick by brick, the American dream.
There’s no other way to put this. There’s no other way to explain this.
He was indoctrinated as a child. His father was a communist. His mother was a leftist. He was sent to prep and Ivy League schools where his contempt for the country was reinforced. He moved to Chicago. It was the home of the radical left movement. He hooks up to Ayers and Dohrn and Rashid Khalidi. He learns the ruthlessness of Cook County politics.
This is what we have as a president: a radical ideologue, a ruthless politician who despises the country and the way it was founded and the way in which it became great. He hates it.
Obama hates America!-
Heh! The truth hurts.
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Rudy is an idiot..like who would put the emergency response center in the world trade center after it had been attacked and we won’t go into his morality issues with his women
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The earth is 4000 yrs old
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Much as I try to stay off these
Off topic partisan rants, it is hard to ignore some of the ignorance. Get off the “you didn’t build that” meme. The reference was to the infrastructure of the nation, the roads, bridges, airports, ports, etc, which no one in and of themselves built, and furthermore you damn well know that or are deliberately obfuscational, or deeply ill informed.-
Rudy is entitled his opinion
I just really hoped when he said Obama wasn’t raised like us he was referring to himself
He has no clue as to how we were raised
I was raised by a decorated World War II veteran
I’m pretty sure he loved his country and he bled for it too.
But he never thought twice about speaking up against Vietnam And Dubya’s Iraqi war
So I guess that decorated War Veteran my dad must have hated America because he dared to be critical
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Quote from uncleduke
Much as I try to stay off these
Off topic partisan rants, it is hard to ignore some of the ignorance. Get off the “you didn’t build that” meme. The reference was to the infrastructure of the nation, the roads, bridges, airports, ports, etc, which no one in and of themselves built, and furthermore you damn well know that or are deliberately obfuscational, or deeply ill informed.Kind of a dumb way of making his point. That’s what happens when he goes
without the teleprompter. Not that sharp winging it.-
Quel retorte.
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Advice for Rudy: When you find yourself deep in a ditch… stop digging.
When Giuliani was asked about whether his comments about Obama were racist he explains …. It can’t be racist because Obama has a white mother!
[link=http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/02/19/giuliani-obama-had-a-white-mother-so-im-not-a-racist/]http://www.nytimes.com/po…er-so-im-not-a-racist/[/link] -
He sees O’Reilly in trouble and is trying to get the attention of Rupert for a FauxNews show
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he has disgrace himself but as the Cardinal who looked surprised that he came up for communion then you know this man has no scruples/the moral character of a rat
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Ifm starting to wonder if he may be losing his mental faculties
This is really a bizzarre outburst by him
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you might be right time to do what Don Stirling’s wife did with his stubborn digging deeper= get him to a shrink for a mini-mental status exam
Quote from kpack123
Ifm starting to wonder if he may be losing his mental faculties
This is really a bizzarre outburst by him
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amen …did he learn anything from the Don Stirling meltdown with Anderson Cooper
stop digging deeper
and considering the past his dad had
every speech Obama gives he says God bless AmericaQuote from dergon
Advice for Rudy: When you find yourself deep in a ditch… stop digging.
When Giuliani was asked about whether his comments about Obama were racist he explains …. It can’t be racist because Obama has a white mother!
[link=http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/02/19/giuliani-obama-had-a-white-mother-so-im-not-a-racist/]http://www.nytimes.com/po…er-so-im-not-a-racist/[/link]
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Rudy is such a rude/crass/small little guy who had the nerve to receive communion given his history..tacky…he does not have an ounce of Obama’s integrity
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Conservatives/Republicans claimed that Obama hates white people too.
What can you expect from them. No statement is beyond the pale.
[link=http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/Rudy-Giuliani-Obama-Does-Not-Love-America/385647/]http://www.theatlantic.co…t-Love-America/385647/[/link]
Rudy Giuliani is developing a productive sideline in rage-baiting. Fresh off a largely incoherent comment about black-on-black crime following the Michael Brown case, America’s Mayor said Wednesday night that President Obama doesn’t love America. Here’s what Giuliani said, according to Politico, during a “private dinner” for Scott Walker “at the 21 Club, a former Prohibition-era speakeasy in midtown Manhattan”:
I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesnt love you. And he doesnt love me. He wasnt brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.
There’s an element of Dinesh D’Souza’s claim that anti-colonial thought explains Obama’s worldview, but it’s not clear what about anti-colonialism is so all-American. The nation was born out of an independence movement against colonial rule; promulgated a doctrine opposing European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere; and spent the Cold War resisting Soviet attempts to build client states around the globe.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Pattons Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. Ive gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the worlds poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveownersan inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
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Giuliani was 100% right. His big transgression was to tell the truth and call “The One” out. When the left doesn’t like an argument, they declare the other side insane. This is an old trick used by despot states to shut up the opposition. Joseph Stalin used that technique very effectively. He had many one-way mental hospitals and Siberian vacations for political opponents. Very effective way to quickly purify speech and to shut up pesky conservatives.
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Rudy is a speck imho..looks and sound like a mini mental status exam is greatly needed..he should have learned from Clint’s breakdown with the chair..it is really quite sad as the white house spokes person said to see Rudy fall so low…the gutter is where he has sunk
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I think he is racist, and not very smart.
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Obama doesn’t even know he is really is, he’s a confused person
Black folks know he isn’t one of them, it’s just that it’s a convenient ploy.
He’s a multinational experiment in diversity that has lied about a great many things. He will be exposed
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Quote from Cigar
Obama doesn’t even know he is really is, he’s a confused person
Black folks know he isn’t one of them, it’s just that it’s a convenient ploy.
He’s a multinational experiment in diversity that has lied about a great many things. He will be exposed
If Giuliani had said that, there wouldn’t be any question whether it was “racist”. The headline would be “Giuliani a Racist”. ( hint: it’s the use of “black folks” ) -
Yes he was exposed as the leader of most powerful country on this earth!!!
Oh btw, twice!!-
Well when Rudy said he wasn’t raised like I us
I for one would not like to be ncluded in Rudy’s group
He has no clue how most of us were raised
So Rudy should have just spoke for himself
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and look into Rudy’s father background..it is a joke
Quote from kpack123
Well when Rudy said he wasn’t raised like I us
I for one would not like to be ncluded in Rudy’s group
He has no clue how most of us were raised
So Rudy should have just spoke for himself
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[link=http://www.vox.com/2015/2/21/8079667/giuliani-obama-patriotism-comments]http://www.vox.com/2015/2…ma-patriotism-comments[/link]
[b]
The worst part about Giuliani’s crazy Obama comments: they have a real constituency[/b]
[size=”3″]… there are plenty of people who have long been committed to buying the story created in 2008 about how Obama is an outsider, when it comes to his feelings about the country, his religion, and even his very citizenship. Giuliani’s words simply tapped into something that many are all too happy to believe: that Obama is somehow not one of us and fundamentally different (in a way that could potentially be scary). [/size]
[size=”3″] The evidence: In [link=https://today.yougov.com/news/2014/02/12/know-for-sure/]an Economist/YouGov poll[/link] conducted less than a year ago, a full 23 percent of Americans said they still believed it was possible that Obama was born outside the United States. Fifteen percent were absolutely sure of it. This is despite the fact that he [link=http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-produces-his-birth-certificate/2011/04/27/AFFISyxE_story.html]produced a Hawaii birth certificate in 2011.[/link] Among Republicans, the numbers were even more shocking: two thirds disagreed with the statement that the president was born in the states. [/size]
[size=”3″] Bizarre as it may seem, a large chunk of Americans are committed to believing a story about Obama being foreign, when it comes to everything from his place of birth to his emotions about this country. To them, the comments about his lack of love for America probably aren’t crazy in the least. So, while commentators destroy Giuliani for his “troubling, ” “ugly,” divisive,” comments, keep in mind that while he may be all these things, he’s not dumb and he knows who’s listening. [/size]
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are u nuts..you may be board certified but what u posted makes u look like u have the intelligence of a rodent..the conspiracy rant..Here is a pearl go back and see who voted for him the second time(blacks, Asians, Hispanics and hold on to your seat whites)
Quote from Cigar
Obama doesn’t even know he is really is, he’s a confused person
Black folks know he isn’t one of them, it’s just that it’s a convenient ploy.
He’s a multinational experiment in diversity that has lied about a great many things. He will be exposed
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Quote from Cigar
Obama doesn’t even know he is really is, he’s a confused person
Black folks know he isn’t one of them, it’s just that it’s a convenient ploy.
He’s a multinational experiment in diversity that has lied about a great many things. He will be exposed
Obama isn’t one of “them” and he isn’t one of “us.”
Ah, so you are a pure-breed, cigar. You know who you are & us mixed-breed mutts don’t.
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Cigar,
So…you refer to our mixed race President as an “experiment” do you?
Just out of curiosity, do you keep your copy of Mein Kampf under your pillow or just on your nightstand when you sleep at night?
If my question offends you, take a step back for a moment and look at what you posted.-
NO ONE CARES if Mr. Obama is black, green, white, yellow, or chartreuse with cerulean polka-dots (although the latter would probably indicate the presence of some communicable disease). This country is past that, particularly most conservatives, who would readily vote for a black candidate such as Dr. Ben Carson, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Alan West, Star Parker, and a host of others. The racist label belongs squarely on the Left/Democrats for whom one’s skin color is EVERYTHING, and character doesn’t matter one bit. The Left hates anyone who disrupts their delusions of Utopian grandeur, wherein they will rule over all of those they consider inferior.
It is VERY well documented that Mr. Obama’s mentors were Communist, as in members, or children of members, of the Communist Party. The real thing. His biological father was an anti-colonial socialist, and his are the “dreams” our leader is trying to fulfill. Both of Mr. Obama’s (white) grandparents were avowed Communists. The mentor his grandfather chose to give the young Mr. Obama a black role-model, Frank Marshall Davis, was Communist, a pedophile, and even published a Communist newsletter. Iranian born Valerie Jarrett’s father-in-law was a Communist. David Axelrod’s parents were Communists, and Axelrod was mentored by another prominent Chicago communist, David Canter. Cass Sunstein (whose wife is our UN ambassador, Samantha Powers). Val Jones. Bill Ayers. Bernadette Dohrn. Carol M. Browner, White House Energy/Climate czar, was a member of the Commission for a Sustainable World Society (SWS) at Socialist International (SI). Obama associate Mike Klonsky is an unabashed Communist.
The list goes on and on and on and on. That you don’t know about the history and background of the President of the United States is a function of a news media that wallows in its own ability to obscure and distort the facts for its own socialist purposes. Too bad they never looked into what happens to journalists under a full-fledged Communist regime. That you gentlemen probably don’t CARE says a lot, too.-
Dalai
Don’t buy into the delusional
Granted you don’t like Obama. That’s all good and understandable but
…… This communist thing is going off the deep end
I feel your pain…… I have the absolute utter disdain fir George W Bush
But some talking points are just too darn crazy and the ones you are ranting about now are every bit as crazy as the bush planned 9-11 stuff
Step back take a deep breathe and climb off the ledge…….. Because in 2 years you will be able to hear the same stuff about President Hillary Clinton
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The funny thing is that I don’t [i]hate[/i] Mr. Obama. As I said to someone else, the opposite of love is indifference. I simply wish he would retire to Hawaii and disappear from the public eye.
Do your research, don’t just swallow the party line. What I have posted above is well-documented. Why is it you don’t care that we have a [i]de facto[/i] Communist-led administration?-
Since when has being anti-colonialist been a bad thing? Only the Right could make an argument like that.
Ironic considering the history of our country. -
It’s commendable that obama’s dad was anti-colonialist.
That’s not the same as supporting socialism.
Take India for example. Most people there are still anti-colonialist.
Many Indians don’t support socialism anymore.
When the economy followed socialism for four decades, there was hardly any growth. In the early 1990s, they changed to a much more capitalist economy and the economy started growing much more quickly.
So capitalism – with controls – is a good thing.
Being anti colonialist is good too.
You can be both a capitalist and an anti-colonialist – as many Indians are today.
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It’s interesting that we are all entitled to our own opinion, but not when it doesn’t agree with mine!
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We are all entitled to our own opinions, just not our own facts, to paraphrase.
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“Spent the surplus” – “Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended.” – George W. Bush, September 11th, 2001. (No better way to spend surplus money IMHO.)
“Drained the treasury” – WTF you talking about Willis? When Democrats controlled Congress and WH: federal spending as a share of GDP leapt from 18.2 percent in 2001 to 25.2 percent in 2009. The largest increase in any 8-year period since WWII.
“Did nothing to make us energy independent”-
[i]”2003: President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney back a sweeping national energy bill that includes a provision to exempt hydraulic fracturing from EPA drinking water regulation.[/i]
July 2005: The U.S. Congress passes the [link=http://doi.net/iepa/EnergyPolicyActof2005.pdf]Energy Policy Act of 2005[/link], signed in August by President Bush, which includes a provision codifying that Congress never intended for hydraulic fracturing to be regulated under the SDWA.[i]July August 2005: Citing the EPAs 2004 study, Congress passes and President Bush signs the Energy Policy Act of 2005, exempting fracking from the SDWA. Prior to this, the EPA had the authority to investigate and regulate fracking, but the 2005 law retracts the EPAs authority over fracking operations.14 This exemption for fracking is known as the Halliburton loophole.[/i]
[i]
[/i]
[i]September 2005: EPA Inspector General Nikki Tinsley stops the investigation into the mishandling of a hydraulic fracturing study, stating that the question of the EPA conducting a fraudulent study is no longer relevant since Congress had exempted fracking from the law.”[/i]
[link=http://oberlinheadwaters.com/?p=251]http://oberlinheadwaters.com/?p=251[/link]
I would say that this qualifies Bush and Cheney as the fathers of fracking…And what did Obama do? He prevented fracking in federal land. Now he’s trying to take credit for [b]private land[/b] oil production in the US -
[link=http://grist.org/news/study-links-fracking-to-drinking-water-pollution/]http://grist.org/news/stu…nking-water-pollution/[/link]
Does methane make water taste better?
BTW why was private land oil production so low under Bush’s watch?
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Quote from SadRad
So…you refer to our mixed race President as an “experiment” do you?
The origin of Mr Obama is not the experiment. The experiment started when he got plucked from obscurity, put on a national stage and installed in the whitehouse.-
Quote from fw
Quote from SadRad
So…you refer to our mixed race President as an “experiment” do you?
The origin of Mr Obama is not the experiment. The experiment started when he got plucked from obscurity, put on a national stage and installed in the whitehouse.
Sounds like Dubbya, a rich ex-drunk with no ambitions to the national stage leaving us with real messes that somehow is ignored. Except Dubbya had family connections.
Now we have Jeb.-
Quote from Frumious
Sounds like Dubbya, a rich ex-drunk with no ambitions to the national stage leaving us with real messes that somehow is ignored. Except Dubbya had family connections.
Yup.
The only difference is that when he ran for the presidency, he was a two-term governor of the second largest state in the nation. He may be a dummy, but everyone knew what kind of dummy he was and what he stood for.
Contrast that with Obama who never ran anything larger than a boy-scout troop and was a blank canvas when he was given the manuscript for a rousing speech to read at the 2004 democratic convention.-
Mr. Obama NEVER ran a Boy Scout troop.
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Quote from DoctorDalai
Mr. Obama NEVER ran a Boy Scout troop.
And it shows. -
Quote from fw
Quote from Frumious
Sounds like Dubbya, a rich ex-drunk with no ambitions to the national stage leaving us with real messes that somehow is ignored. Except Dubbya had family connections.
Yup.
The only difference is that when he ran for the presidency, he was a two-term governor of the second largest state in the nation. He may be a dummy, but everyone knew what kind of dummy he was and what he stood for.
Contrast that with Obama who never ran anything larger than a boy-scout troop and was a blank canvas when he was given the manuscript for a rousing speech to read at the 2004 democratic convention.Well, you didn’t vote for him twice. That’s just democracy. As I recall the Founding Fathers did not create a test before someone could run – or be elected. Just a citizen above a certain age.
A democracy run by the citizens & not the elite…what a silly idea, doomed to fail.
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That’s my point, yes, everyone is confused.
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I think Giuliani is starting to really lose it.
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I feel sad for him and he really needs a mini mental status exam…say you are not a fan but Rudy you are slithering into the gutter…granted you may have already been there but at least u kept the sheet on
Quote from SadRad
I think Giuliani is starting to really lose it.
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[b]”we have a [i]de facto[/i] Communist-led administration”[/b]
So we’ve graduated from Socialists to Communists. Things are getting worse in the Right-wing universe.
Paging Joseph McCarthy…
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Quote from Frumious
[b]”we have a [i]de facto[/i] Communist-led administration”[/b]
So we’ve graduated from Socialists to Communists. Things are getting worse in the Right-wing universe.
Paging Joseph McCarthy…
I don’t hear you denying anything. Do me a favor, if you would. YOU LOOK into the background of Mr. Obama and his advisors. PLEASE try to disprove what I have said. I honestly hope you can. And that you want to do so. And that you aren’t proud and happy about the situation.-
Quote from DoctorDalai
Quote from Frumious
[b]”we have a [i]de facto[/i] Communist-led administration”[/b]
So we’ve graduated from Socialists to Communists. Things are getting worse in the Right-wing universe.
Paging Joseph McCarthy…
I don’t hear you denying anything. Do me a favor, if you would. YOU LOOK into the background of Mr. Obama and his advisors. PLEASE try to disprove what I have said. I honestly hope you can. And that you want to do so. And that you aren’t proud and happy about the situation.
No. You need to show me what these Commies look like since you see them so well. I didn’t see Joe McCarthy’s either, it just looked like a witch hunt to me.
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I’ve already submitted a list above. Perhaps you didn’t stop to look at it. It is far from complete. In particular, I forgot to include Saul Alinsky, whose writings certainly influenced Mr. Obama, and Hillary as well.
Please show us that even one or two of the people on that list aren’t believers in Communism.
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And here’s a rather interesting article showing how David Axelrod lied about his father’s Party membership, which is well-documented.
[link=http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/02/david_axelrod_busted_on_lie_about_his_fathers_communist_party_membership.html]http://www.americanthinke…_party_membership.html[/link]
As a coincidence, today is Jeri Ryan’s birthday. This Star Trek actress divorced then Congressman Jack Ryan, who was about to slaughter Mr. Obama in the Illinois senate election of 2004. But magically, the Ryan’s unsavory SEALED divorce record (Jeri was accused of nastiness, not Jack) was magically unsealed, and Ryan was out. The rest, as they say, is history.-
Hillary. And Saul Alinsky
Alinsky did not join political parties. When asked during an interview whether he ever considered becoming a Communist party member, he replied:
Not at any time. I’ve never joined any organizationnot even the ones I’ve organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it’s Christianity or Marxism. One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as ‘that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you’re right.’ If you don’t have that, if you think you’ve got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.[4]
Still looks like you’re on a witch hunt to me.
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Look at the country
In 2000 when Dubya got elected
Look at in 2009 when Obama came in
Look at it today
Dalai you asked us to prove to ourselves Obama is not a communist
I ask you to prove to yourself who was the better president
Look at the country when they got elected and when the left ( or in Obamas case now)
It’s a no brainer
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The economy is cyclic, and to give blame or credit to any president is unproductive. Obama is FAR from the better president, unless your one and only criterion is the DJIA.
If anyone would bother to actually read what I posted…I said Mr. Obama’s [i]mentors and advisors[/i] are Communists or have a significant connection to someone who is. I haven’t heard anything to the contrary.
I didn’t say Mr. Obama himself is a Communist.-
So the economy is cyclic and the crash was just a normal part of the economic cycle? Or was it the crash due to a lot of bad actors? I don’t really think people that live in communist states are really communists. In communism every one shares in the wealth, look at China.
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China has discovered at least a fractured form of capitalism. They own US so let’s hope they get it.
You are quite right. The 2008 crash was a function of Democrats interfering in the normal cycling of the economy, forcing banks to make impossible loans since the Carter era. The banks responded by creating derivatives, criminal in and of itself. W. tried to put a stop to the madness by was thwarted. We’ve argued this one time and time again, and I won’t be convinced otherwise.-
We’re stuck with the feckless socialist for another two years. I just hope that the country survives.
Progressives are stuck on stupid. The Obama presidency will go into the annals of history as a disaster for the U.S. Everything from the parabolic growth in the welfare state to the geopolitical losses has been a big cluster. It is going to take a huge effort to reverse the damage inflicted to the country by 8 years of dismantling.
I’m glad people like Guiliani are pointing out the obvious. It makes the liberals like Dana Milbank at the WaPo lose their minds and explode into fits of madness. Guiliani may have to watch out. Look at what happened to those who dare criticize Obama, like Dinesh De Souza, Bibi Netanyahu, Jamie Dimon or the poor rodeo clown.
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the GOP have no right to question anyone’s love of America….Obama took over a disaster by the last administration..Brenner I am cool boy walk in the desert got rid of the Iraqi military..Iraqi oil did not Pay for the war..the lies are endless
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I think the Dems should show up and when Bibi starts to speak they should get up and walk out..that would be the slap heard around the world
GOP people who support JB actions..well ? American
so glad jOHN Legend during his Oscar acceptance speech for Glory called out the anti-American attempts to derail the voter’s right act..
Glory
I am SELMA…Hands up…I can’t breath
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The more reckless and ridiculous statement a Republican makes, the more aladoc loves it. When Giuliani and Trump speak, aladoc giggles like a little school girl.
Aladoc, everyone lost respect for you years ago when you guaranteed that Romney would win the 2012 presidential election. No one takes you seriously.
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Quote from DoctorDalai
If anyone would bother to actually read what I posted…I said Mr. Obama’s [i]mentors and advisors[/i] are Communists or have a significant connection to someone who is. I haven’t heard anything to the contrary.
I didn’t say Mr. Obama himself is a Communist.
This is a waste of time and effort for a line of discussion. I might have had a teacher who was a pedophile. I know I’ve had teachers who were KKK members – “very nice people.” It’s very possible I had an anti-Semite here or there – but now they love Israel as they are Fundamentalists looking forward to the Apocalypse & the 2nd Coming when Jews will convert – just like Jesus did.
Is the suggestion Obama knew Communists some sort of guilt by association? Or influence by association, but not saying Obama is a Communist?
What the heck is your point?
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Mr Obama’s politically compulsory declarations of America’s exceptionalism have always struck me as rote, a little less than heartfelt, even a bit grudging. Mr Giuliani, I think, has come away with a similar impression, as have many millions of conservatives. The difference is that where Mr Giuliani sees a half-hearted allegiance to the fatherland, some of us see instead evidence of education, intelligence, emotional complexity and a basic moral decencyevidence of a man not actually in the grip of myths about his country. A politician capable of projecting an earnest, simple, unstinting love of a spotless and superior America is either a treacherous rabble-rouser or so out of touch that he is not qualified to govern.
[link=http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/02/presidents-patriotism]http://www.economist.com/…/presidents-patriotism[/link]
I agree with this take from The Economist-
When Frumious gets that angry, you know we’ve hit pay dirt. No denial from any quarter that Mr. Obama’s mentors and advisors are real, live Communists. He grew up with this teaching, and surrounds himself with nothing but… not just a pedophile (as was Frank Marshall Davis) teacher here or there, but a huge preponderance. If there’s smoke….
As for the “robust” economy under Obama…I laugh at the superior intellect demonstrated around here which manifests as hypocrisy and greed. It wasn’t long ago we were having the discussion about how horrid the economy is, and how terrible it is now for the poor and middle class, who are losing ground every second to the nasty, awful rich people. NOW, you fine gentlemen wish to gloat over the rising stock market, which doesn’t benefit the poor or majority of the middle class by your own reckoning. And you wish to crow over falling (sadly, no longer) gasoline prices, which is totally a trojan horse-level gift from the Saudis, and in NO WAY due to anything Mr. Obama has done. All the while Kpack enjoys his rental income from poor folk that YOU tell me are doing very poorly in this economy.
I’m really enjoying your hypocrisy. And your blind devotion to someone not fit for the office he holds.-
[b]As for the “robust” economy under Obama…I laugh at the superior intellect demonstrated around here which manifests as hypocrisy and greed. It wasn’t long ago we were having the discussion about how horrid the economy is, and how terrible it is now for the poor and middle class, who are losing ground every second to the nasty, awful rich people. NOW, you fine gentlemen wish to gloat over the rising stock market, which doesn’t benefit the poor or majority of the middle class by your own reckoning. And you wish to crow over falling (sadly, no longer) gasoline prices, which is totally a trojan horse-level gift from the Saudis, and in NO WAY due to anything Mr. Obama has done. All the while Kpack enjoys his rental income from poor folk that YOU tell me are doing very poorly in this economy. [/b]
Ahhhhhh Dalai….just when I thought I was out you drag me back in. Woke up today looking out over the Gulf of Mexico only to get called out by dalai himself…..where should I start.
Such an anti capitalist rant from you Dalai I don’t know where to start.
The economy is good and it is getting better every quarter and has been for some time. That is a good thing Dalai…It is good for rich people and its good for poor people. The only people who it is bad for is partisan hacks who want nothing else but power. There is most certainly work to do. It took 8 years for Bush to destroy the economy and the financial sector. What do you expect everything rebuilt in a day or 2
Furthermore this ever improving economy is slowly decreasing unemployment and has for sometime. The middle class has suffered long enough but every quarter more jobs are added and the engine continues cranking. Wages are starting to increase….shoot Walmart just raised their hourly pay above Minimum wage.
If this is crowing then count me as a crow.
I guess You can crow about how Dubya started the war in Iraq….destablized the entire mideast returning it to tribal status and in the process drained our treasury and oversaw a near complete global financial collapse….Oh wait that is probably not something you wish to be reminded of let alone to crow about.
As for gas prices…… Yes that has nothing to do with Obama. It is more of a Saudi response to the threat of American energy independence from our fracking industry……An industry that right wing nuts totally missed and overlooked when they were chanting drill baby drill in Alaska.
Bush was handed a booming economy and a surplus…..look what happened
Obama was handed a financial calmaity the biggest since the great depression.
Obama is not perfect but darn Dalai he aint no com-new-ist-
kpack, the GDP input is strictly from fake/forced obamacare spending and the numbers have been clearly manipulated (to no avail) to hit political election cycles
The economy isn’t good, more people are unemployed and have stopped looking, even more are supposedly disabled and have been allowed on disability to make SSA more insolvent.
Greater disparity as corporations get richer and middle class + blacks are way worse off.
Banks are criminal and all Holder does is fine them, never goes for criminal prosecutions (HSBC and JP Morgan)
Obama’s FCC trying to vote to take away more freedoms via FCC regulation of the internet
Civil liberties have eroded 5-fold
He is a fraud and will be exposed. Stay tuned-
I don’t know if Mr. Obama is a Communist or not, but he was raised by Communists, taught by Communists, and today surrounds himself with Communists. Do the math.
The economy, on the other hand, is not all that good, and we all know it. A rising DJIA simply indicates that there is nowhere else to put the money. Growth is poor, and employment numbers look better than they are because quite a few have given up looking for work and are simply sitting home at government expense.
I can’t believe Kpack has become a trickle-down fan. I’ll need to check the ground to see if He11 froze over. And now Kpack is in favor of fracking? Seems to me it is the environmental wing-nuts, of which we have several here, who would have thrown themselves on the ground in front of the drills rather than allow fracking. Yet another convert away from the dark side, eh?
Of course, don’t miss an opportunity to mention your best buddy W. I sense a man-crush, just like one of our least-sane posters here has on Mr. Netanyahu. Can’t let a post go by without mentioning him.
And why are you reading AM when you should be enjoying your vacation!!??? -
Quote from Cigar
kpack, the GDP input is strictly from fake/forced obamacare spending and the numbers have been clearly manipulated (to no avail) to hit political election cycles
The economy isn’t good, more people are unemployed and have stopped looking, even more are supposedly disabled and have been allowed on disability to make SSA more insolvent.
Greater disparity as corporations get richer and middle class + blacks are way worse off.
Banks are criminal and all Holder does is fine them, never goes for criminal prosecutions (HSBC and JP Morgan)
Obama’s FCC trying to vote to take away more freedoms via FCC regulation of the internet
Civil liberties have eroded 5-fold
He is a fraud and will be exposed. Stay tuned
Alternate reality.
Are you going to believe your lying eyes or cigar’s & dalai’s opinions? -
Quote from Cigar
kpack, the GDP input is strictly from fake/forced obamacare spending and the numbers have been clearly manipulated (to no avail) to hit political election cycles
The economy isn’t good, more people are unemployed and have stopped looking, even more are supposedly disabled and have been allowed on disability to make SSA more insolvent.
Greater disparity as corporations get richer and middle class + blacks are way worse off.
Banks are criminal and all Holder does is fine them, never goes for criminal prosecutions (HSBC and JP Morgan)
Obama’s FCC trying to vote to take away more freedoms via FCC regulation of the internet
Civil liberties have eroded 5-fold
He is a fraud and will be exposed. Stay tuned
Dude does live in another reality… true that.
Like Alda said, it’s only the second inning! The fraud will be exposed! Obama’s Katrina moment is just around the corner!
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Quote from dergon
Mr Obama’s politically compulsory declarations of America’s exceptionalism have always struck me as rote, a little less than heartfelt, even a bit grudging. Mr Giuliani, I think, has come away with a similar impression, as have many millions of conservatives. The difference is that where Mr Giuliani sees a half-hearted allegiance to the fatherland, some of us see instead evidence of education, intelligence, emotional complexity and a basic moral decencyevidence of a man not actually in the grip of myths about his country. A politician capable of projecting an earnest, simple, unstinting love of a spotless and superior America is either a treacherous rabble-rouser or so out of touch that he is not qualified to govern.
[link=http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/02/presidents-patriotism]http://www.economist.com/…/presidents-patriotism[/link]
I agree with this take from The Economist
Blindly teaching, “America uber alles” is not American, it an old and ugly form of something that is not patriotism and when not downright ugly is superficial, like wearing a flag lapel pin [i]proving[/i] your patriotism over someone who actually does something like performing a service for their country.
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Alda hopes the country survives it…..
Don’t worry Alda actually the country is thriving
The economy is getting better every quarter. Unemployment is the lowest in a decade
The price of gas is cut in half
Once real estate comes back from the bush disaster wow!!!!!!
What Alda really wants is for everything to go south….perhaps another terrorist attack
That’s what Alda reality wants
Now you tell me who hates America
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You are basing everything on cyclic stuff and things like gas prices that the president dies not control in the least. In fact, Obama had promised to raise gas to $10/gallon or did you forget that?
Just how much does the DJIA help anyone but us rich folk, unless you now believe in trickle-down? I believe you own a great deal of real estate.. Is it going up or are you just raising the rent in your poor tenants? Nah…kpack is just another rich republican, masquerading as a loving caring democrat.
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Quote from DoctorDalai
You are basing everything on cyclic stuff and things like gas prices that the president dies not control in the least. In fact, Obama had promised to raise gas to $10/gallon or did you forget that?
Just how much does the DJIA help anyone but us rich folk, unless you now believe in trickle-down? I believe you own a great deal of real estate.. Is it going up or are you just raising the rent in your poor tenants? Nah…kpack is just another rich republican, masquerading as a loving caring democrat.
I think cyclical implies it was business as usual that caused the crash but it really wasn’t. I do think you can put blame on democrats like Bill Clinton for removing Glass-Stiegel. Really the whole shadow banking, giving bad loans, giving bad insurance on junk credit were ultimately responsible. Also I don’t think what you’re saying about Obama and the $10 gas is correct, pretty sure that was Steven Chu before he was working for Obama, and he ended up kind of walking that back. If anything the US is now producing more oil than ever. I forget who I was listening to on the radio but the bigger issue is the cost, it’s more expensive to get it via fracking and refine vs the Saudis. Even with cheaper oil they are still making mad money in the OPEC area because it’s cheap to produce. I think Steven Chu makes a good point that we should be working towards more fuel efficient cars, but it’d be nice not to have that come about via $10 gas.
[link=http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/mar/14/newt-gingrich/gingrich-said-energy-secretary-advocated-raising-g/]http://www.politifact.com…y-advocated-raising-g/[/link]-
[link=http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/02/giuliani-revealed-everything-about-scott-walker.html]http://nymag.com/daily/in…bout-scott-walker.html[/link]
[b]
[/b]
[h1][b]Rudy Giuliani Revealed Everything You Need to Know About Scott Walker[/b][/h1]
The question at issue is the right-wing conviction that Obama represents a unique and alien threat to American life. Versions of this belief have held, in descending increments of paranoia, that Obama concealed his overseas birth, that he has concealed his religious beliefs, and that he is vaguely plotting to harm America.
…
The significance of the debate is the signal it sends about Walkers relationship to the base. Other Republican candidates have distanced themselves from inflammatory questions about Obamas patriotism (or his true religious beliefs, which Walker likewise [link=http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/walker-says-he-is-unaware-whether-obama-is-a-christian/2015/02/21/6fde0bd0-ba17-11e4-bc30-a4e75503948a_story.html]declined[/link] to ascertain, before letting his press secretary issue a pro forma statement that Obama is a Christian).
While paranoid suspicions about Obama are not a direct policy issue, they serve as a proxy for positioning within the Republican Party.
Walker [link=http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/walker-says-he-is-unaware-whether-obama-is-a-christian/2015/02/21/6fde0bd0-ba17-11e4-bc30-a4e75503948a_story.html]dismissed[/link] the question of Obamas religion as a gotcha game by campaign reporters fixated on trivia. [b]It is certainly inconvenient for Republican candidates to face questions that force them to define their relationship with the most stark-raving-mad beliefs of the conservative base. But that relationship is the most important question the candidates will navigate, both during their campaign and while governing. [/b]Free-floating paranoia is not an esoteric point of trivia; it is a central feature of conservative-movement thought. Perhaps by mistake, Giuliani made the last several days the most edifying time of the campaign so far.
((bolding mine))
(( the stark raving mad component of the base well evidenced in this thread 😉 ))
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[url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/23/david-axelrod-rudy-giuliani_n_6739758.html]David Axelrod explains Rudy: A D!ck with a Bic[/url]
Axelrod said Monday he thinks the entire conversation had more to do with Giuliani’s public profile than Obama’s history of patriotism.
“This was more about Rudy Giuliani, a fading politician, kind of lighting himself on fire and trying to get some attention, and he was successful in doing that,” Axelrod said.
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[b]I can’t believe Kpack has become a trickle-down fan. I’ll need to check the ground to see if He11 froze over. And now Kpack is in favor of fracking? Seems to me it is the environmental wing-nuts, of which we have several here, who would have thrown themselves on the ground in front of the drills rather than allow fracking. Yet another convert away from the dark side, eh? [/b]
Not sure what you mean by trickle down fan but I am a fan of an improving economy
As far as fracking….I have been for fracking when you and your wing nuts were yelling drill baby drill in Alaska. Invested in pipelines and The Fracking startups back in 2006. I also saw this as a path to enrgy independence way back when the wingnuts were fixated on drilling in ALASKA.
You tend to paint the opposition with this broad brush based upon the the FOX news version of a liberal.
The base of the democratic party is actually more close to the center. You just don’t realize that because Fox news tells you so
And again Dalai
Bush was handed a booming economy and a surplus…..look what happened
Obama was handed an economic crisis….look what happened
Why is reality so difficult for you-
I WISH Democrats were oriented toward the center. You might be atypical. Look around this board, for example….
Fracking, drilling, whatever it takes to achieve energy independence, I’m for it. And that includes REASONABLE progress toward alternative sources, but no crony-Solyndras, please. We agree more than you think.
More Bush…Bush instituted the bailouts for which Obama took credit. And again, the economy hasn’t all that much to do with who’s president.
Now go back to the beach. I’ll buy you a Corona.-
[b]More Bush…Bush instituted the bailouts for which Obama took credit. And again, the economy hasn’t all that much to do with who’s president. [/b]
Dalai Dalai Dalai………………..Bush went AMA after the financial collapse in Sept of 2008
He was hiding probably sucking his thumb praying for it to be over
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[b]Jon Stewart Breaks It To Rudy Giuliani: You Do Not Own 9/11[/b]
The short video covers more; it’s pretty funny. Link to video in link below.
[link=http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/redirect-to/?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fdeadline.com%2F2015%2F02%2Fjon-stewart-breaks-it-to-rudy-giuliani-you-do-not-own-911-1201380250%2F]http://deadline.com/2015/02/jon-stew…11-1201380250/[/link]
“Jon Stewart explained to the former New York City mayor how, when you get called out for saying President Obama does not love this country, playing the 9/11 card only makes matters worse.
Giuliani said: You know, President Obama didnt live through September 11 I did. President Obama didnt almost have a building fall on him. Myself and my police commissioner and my fire commissioner did.
Stewart advises: Shut up. You know youre not the Mayor of 9/11, right? You dont own 9/11. You dont own anything but the unique willingness to crassly exploit it.
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Whats next will republicans stage a battle over who loves america more during the primary season
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Frumi and Dergon, name 1 issue of my “alternate” reality that isn’t true
Net neutrality
least transparent admin far and away all the while telling us it was honest and transparent
The stock market doing well has nothing to do with the economy. Are you guys seriously arguing the economy is better (not your retirement IRAs etc)? Talk about alternate realities …
kpack,
“Bush was handed a booming economy and a surplus…..look what happened ”
The last 2 years of Clinton showed a huge and apparent downslide, ever look at the numbers or the markets? Obviously not. Inherited? Give me a break. Then an attack on the financial capital? You must be nuts. Also, Clinton never paid down the national debt to a lower amount than it was each year, so much for surpluses …
But they all do it, that’s why the economy is such a farse. It’s based on much more tenuous (pass it on to the next guy) realities
Get a grip
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[b]Frumi and Dergon, name 1 issue of my “alternate” reality that isn’t true [/b]
[b]The stock market doing well has nothing to do with the economy. Are you guys seriously arguing the economy is better (not your retirement IRAs etc)? Talk about alternate realities … [/b]
It is a very good economic indicator. You are flat out wrong
[b]kpack, [/b]
[b]”Bush was handed a booming economy and a surplus…..look what happened ” [/b]
[b]The last 2 years of Clinton showed a huge and apparent downslide, ever look at the numbers or the markets? Obviously not. Inherited? Give me a break. Then an attack on the financial capital? You must be nuts. Also, Clinton never paid down the national debt to a lower amount than it was each year, so much for surpluses … [/b]
No it didnt. Go look at the markets from late 1998 to late 2000 they were stable. Do a little research before you yap-
I feel like I’ve heard this conversation at least once before.
Deja vu all over again…
Clinton had a surplus. Period. Bush squandered it. Bush said he was going to and he did, couched in terms like, “return the money back to the taxpayers.” So even Bush knew there was a surplus.
[attachment=0]
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Cyclic. Classic. Clinton gets credit for what he didn’t do, and no blame for what he did do. Or Whom.
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Oh, by the way…on the topic of W’s intelligence…
[link]http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/[/link]
Hennessey was one of Bush’s economic advisors and now teaches at Stanford.
Read it and think twice before you slam a good, intelligent man because he doesn’t speak like a Haaaavvaaaaahhhhd Yankee.
[blockquote]
For more than six years it was my job to help educate President Bush about complex economic policy issues and to get decisions from him on impossibly hard policy choices. In meetings and in the briefing materials we gave him in advance we covered issues in far more depth than I have been discussing with you this quarter because we needed to do so for him to make decisions.
[/blockquote] [blockquote] President Bush is extremely smart by any traditional standard. Hes highly analytical and was incredibly quick to be able to discern the core question he needed to answer. It was occasionally a little embarrassing when he would jump ahead of one of his Cabinet secretaries in a policy discussion and the advisor would struggle to catch up. He would sometimes force us to accelerate through policy presentations because he so quickly grasped what we were presenting.
I use words like [i]briefing[/i] and [i]presentation [/i]to describe our policy meetings with him, but those are inaccurate. Every meeting was a dialogue, and you had to be ready at all times to be grilled by him and to defend both your analysis and your recommendation. That was scary.
We treat Presidential speeches as if they are written by speechwriters, then handed to the President for delivery. If I could show you one experience from my time working for President Bush, it would be an editing session in the Oval with him and his speechwriters. You think that me cold-calling you is nerve-wracking? Try defending a sentence you inserted into a draft speech, with President Bush pouncing on the slightest weakness in your argument or your word choice.
In addition to his analytical speed, what most impressed me were his memory and his substantive breadth. We would sometimes have to brief him on an issue that we had last discussed with him weeks or even months before. He would remember small facts and arguments from the prior briefing and get impatient with us when we were rehashing things we had told him long ago.
[/blockquote] [blockquote] And while my job involved juggling a lot of balls, I only had to worry about economic issues. In addition to all of those, at any given point in time he was making enormous decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan, on hunting al Qaeda and keeping America safe. He was making choices not just on taxes and spending and trade and energy and climate and health care and agriculture and Social Security and Medicare, but also on education and immigration, on crime and justice issues, on environmental policy and social policy and politics. Being able to handle such substantive breadth and depth, on such huge decisions, in parallel, requires not just enormous strength of character but tremendous intellectual power. President Bush has both.
On one particularly thorny policy issue on which his advisors had strong and deep disagreements, over the course of two weeks we (his senior advisors) held a series of three 90-minute meetings with the President. Shortly after the third meeting we asked for his OK to do a fourth. He said, How about rather than doing another meeting on this, I instead tell you now what each person will say. He then ran through half a dozen of his advisors by name and precisely detailed each ones arguments and pointed out their flaws. (Needless to say there was no fourth meeting.)
Every prominent politician has a public caricature, one drawn initially by late-night comedy joke writers and shaped heavily by the press and ones political opponents. The caricature of President Bush is that of a good ol boy from Texas who is principled and tough, but just not that bright.
That caricature was reinforced by several factors:
[ul][*] The press and his opponents highlighted President Bushs occasional stumbles when giving a speech. President Obamas similar verbal miscues are ignored. Ask yourself: if every public statement you made were recorded and all your verbal fumbles were tweeted, how smart would you sound? Do you ever use the wrong word or phrase, or just botch a sentence for no good reason? I know I do.
[*] President Bush intentionally aimed his public image at average Americans rather than at Cambridge or Upper East Side elites. Mitt Romneys campaign was predicated on I am smart enough to fix a broken economy, while George W. Bushs campaigns stressed his values, character, and principles rather than boasting about his intellect. He never talked about graduating from Yale and Harvard Business School, and he liked to lower expectations by pretending he was just an average guy. Example: My National Security Advisor Condi Rice is a Stanford professor, while Im a C student. And look whos President. <laughter>
[*] There is a bias in much of the mainstream press and commentariat that people from outside of NY-BOS-WAS-CHI-SEA-SF-LA are less intelligent, or at least well educated. Many public commenters harbor an anti-Texas (and anti-Southern, and anti-Midwestern) intellectual bias. They mistakenly treat John Kerry as smarter than George Bush because John Kerry talks like an Ivy League professor while George Bush talks like a Texan.
[*] President Bush enjoys interacting with the men and women of our armed forces and with elite athletes. He loves to clear brush on his ranch. He loved interacting with the U.S. Olympic Team. He doesnt windsurf off Nantucket, he rides a 100K mountain bike ride outside of Waco with wounded warriors. He is an intense, competitive athlete and a guys guy. His hobbies and habits reinforce a caricature of a [dumb] jock, in contrast to cultural sophisticates who enjoy antiquing and opera. This reinforces the other biases against him.
[/ul] I assume that some who read this will react automatically with disbelief and sarcasm. They think they [i]know [/i]that President Bush is unintelligent because, after all, everyone knows that. They will assume that I am wrong, or blinded by loyalty, or lying. They are certain that they are smarter than George Bush.
I ask you simply to consider the possibility that Im right, that he is smarter than you.
If you can, find someone who has interacted directly with him outside the public spotlight. Ask that person about President Bushs intellect. I am confident you will hear what I heard dozens of times from CEOs after they met with him: Gosh, I had no idea he was that smart.
At a minimum I hope you will test your own assumptions and thinking about our former President. I offer a few questions to help that process.
[ul][*] Upon what do you base your view of President Bushs intellect? How much is it shaped by the conventional wisdom about him? How much by verbal miscues highlighted by the press?
[*] Do you discount your estimate of his intellect because hes from Texas or because of his accent? Because hes an athlete and a ranch owner? Because he never advertises that he went to Yale and Harvard?
[*] This is a hard one, for liberals only. Do you assume that he is unintelligent because he made policy choices with which you disagree? If so, your logic may be backwards. I disagree with choice X that President Bush made. No intelligent person could conclude X, therefore President Bush is unintelligent. Might it be possible that an intelligent, thoughtful conservative with different values and priorities than your own might have reached a different conclusion than you? Do you really think your policy views derive only from your intellect?
[/ul] And finally, if you base your view of President Bushs intellect on a public image and caricature shaped by late night comedians, op-ed writers, TV pundits, and Twitter, is that a smart thing for you to do?
[/blockquote] In the meantime, here’s a little something for you…
[image]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51bK3f7WZeL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg[/image]-
Gosh all those andover teachers were wrong
Quote from DoctorDalai
Oh, by the way…on the topic of W’s intelligence…
[link=http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/]http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/[/link]
Hennessey was one of Bush’s economic advisors and now teaches at Stanford.
Read it and think twice before you slam a good, intelligent man because he doesn’t speak like a Haaaavvaaaaahhhhd Yankee.
[blockquote]
For more than six years it was my job to help educate President Bush about complex economic policy issues and to get decisions from him on impossibly hard policy choices. In meetings and in the briefing materials we gave him in advance we covered issues in far more depth than I have been discussing with you this quarter because we needed to do so for him to make decisions.
[/blockquote] [blockquote]President Bush is extremely smart by any traditional standard. Hes highly analytical and was incredibly quick to be able to discern the core question he needed to answer. It was occasionally a little embarrassing when he would jump ahead of one of his Cabinet secretaries in a policy discussion and the advisor would struggle to catch up. He would sometimes force us to accelerate through policy presentations because he so quickly grasped what we were presenting.
I use words like [i]briefing[/i] and [i]presentation [/i]to describe our policy meetings with him, but those are inaccurate. Every meeting was a dialogue, and you had to be ready at all times to be grilled by him and to defend both your analysis and your recommendation. That was scary.
We treat Presidential speeches as if they are written by speechwriters, then handed to the President for delivery. If I could show you one experience from my time working for President Bush, it would be an editing session in the Oval with him and his speechwriters. You think that me cold-calling you is nerve-wracking? Try defending a sentence you inserted into a draft speech, with President Bush pouncing on the slightest weakness in your argument or your word choice.
In addition to his analytical speed, what most impressed me were his memory and his substantive breadth. We would sometimes have to brief him on an issue that we had last discussed with him weeks or even months before. He would remember small facts and arguments from the prior briefing and get impatient with us when we were rehashing things we had told him long ago.
[/blockquote] [blockquote]And while my job involved juggling a lot of balls, I only had to worry about economic issues. In addition to all of those, at any given point in time he was making enormous decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan, on hunting al Qaeda and keeping America safe. He was making choices not just on taxes and spending and trade and energy and climate and health care and agriculture and Social Security and Medicare, but also on education and immigration, on crime and justice issues, on environmental policy and social policy and politics. Being able to handle such substantive breadth and depth, on such huge decisions, in parallel, requires not just enormous strength of character but tremendous intellectual power. President Bush has both.
On one particularly thorny policy issue on which his advisors had strong and deep disagreements, over the course of two weeks we (his senior advisors) held a series of three 90-minute meetings with the President. Shortly after the third meeting we asked for his OK to do a fourth. He said, How about rather than doing another meeting on this, I instead tell you now what each person will say. He then ran through half a dozen of his advisors by name and precisely detailed each ones arguments and pointed out their flaws. (Needless to say there was no fourth meeting.)
Every prominent politician has a public caricature, one drawn initially by late-night comedy joke writers and shaped heavily by the press and ones political opponents. The caricature of President Bush is that of a good ol boy from Texas who is principled and tough, but just not that bright.
That caricature was reinforced by several factors:
[ul][*] The press and his opponents highlighted President Bushs occasional stumbles when giving a speech. President Obamas similar verbal miscues are ignored. Ask yourself: if every public statement you made were recorded and all your verbal fumbles were tweeted, how smart would you sound? Do you ever use the wrong word or phrase, or just botch a sentence for no good reason? I know I do. [*] President Bush intentionally aimed his public image at average Americans rather than at Cambridge or Upper East Side elites. Mitt Romneys campaign was predicated on I am smart enough to fix a broken economy, while George W. Bushs campaigns stressed his values, character, and principles rather than boasting about his intellect. He never talked about graduating from Yale and Harvard Business School, and he liked to lower expectations by pretending he was just an average guy. Example: My National Security Advisor Condi Rice is a Stanford professor, while Im a C student. And look whos President. <laughter> [*] There is a bias in much of the mainstream press and commentariat that people from outside of NY-BOS-WAS-CHI-SEA-SF-LA are less intelligent, or at least well educated. Many public commenters harbor an anti-Texas (and anti-Southern, and anti-Midwestern) intellectual bias. They mistakenly treat John Kerry as smarter than George Bush because John Kerry talks like an Ivy League professor while George Bush talks like a Texan. [*] President Bush enjoys interacting with the men and women of our armed forces and with elite athletes. He loves to clear brush on his ranch. He loved interacting with the U.S. Olympic Team. He doesnt windsurf off Nantucket, he rides a 100K mountain bike ride outside of Waco with wounded warriors. He is an intense, competitive athlete and a guys guy. His hobbies and habits reinforce a caricature of a [dumb] jock, in contrast to cultural sophisticates who enjoy antiquing and opera. This reinforces the other biases against him. [/ul] I assume that some who read this will react automatically with disbelief and sarcasm. They think they [i]know [/i]that President Bush is unintelligent because, after all, everyone knows that. They will assume that I am wrong, or blinded by loyalty, or lying. They are certain that they are smarter than George Bush.
I ask you simply to consider the possibility that Im right, that he is smarter than you.
If you can, find someone who has interacted directly with him outside the public spotlight. Ask that person about President Bushs intellect. I am confident you will hear what I heard dozens of times from CEOs after they met with him: Gosh, I had no idea he was that smart.
At a minimum I hope you will test your own assumptions and thinking about our former President. I offer a few questions to help that process.
[ul][*] Upon what do you base your view of President Bushs intellect? How much is it shaped by the conventional wisdom about him? How much by verbal miscues highlighted by the press? [*] Do you discount your estimate of his intellect because hes from Texas or because of his accent? Because hes an athlete and a ranch owner? Because he never advertises that he went to Yale and Harvard? [*] This is a hard one, for liberals only. Do you assume that he is unintelligent because he made policy choices with which you disagree? If so, your logic may be backwards. I disagree with choice X that President Bush made. No intelligent person could conclude X, therefore President Bush is unintelligent. Might it be possible that an intelligent, thoughtful conservative with different values and priorities than your own might have reached a different conclusion than you? Do you really think your policy views derive only from your intellect? [/ul] And finally, if you base your view of President Bushs intellect on a public image and caricature shaped by late night comedians, op-ed writers, TV pundits, and Twitter, is that a smart thing for you to do?
[/blockquote] In the meantime, here’s a little something for you…[image]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51bK3f7WZeL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg[/image]
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Dalai
C’mon man
He was handed a surplus…………………….He spent it………….Then he oversaw the economic collapse and 120/barrel oil which led to the rise of Russia…………………..
The Bush administration was the Worse since Hoover……………….and I know you are a hoover fan too so maybe thats why you like him so much-
I knew that post would make Kpacks head explode. His whole world view would be turned on its head if he accepted this information. Parroting John Stewart is an easy way to avoid intellectual honesty.
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The whole Bush is an idiot meme is a staple of leftist/progressive arrogance used as justification for their idiotic policies.
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This is whole Bush-is-an-idiot meme keeps coming up in every leftist argument. Consider it leftist catechism. They think that just mentioning Bush’s name followed by a churtle churtle, gets them automatic wild eyed acceptance of whatever they’re arguing.
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[b]This is white Bush keeps coming up in every leftist argument. They think that just by mentioning the name Bush and a little churtle churtle,they get some kind of automatic wild eyed acceptance of whatever they’re arguing.[/b]
When you give someone a hammer……they will use it-
To the man with a baseless argument a parrot narrative looks like a hammer.
Lets advance the argument beyond the tired and superficial “its Bush’s fault” argument, it is kind of juvenile.-
[b]To the man with a baseless argument a parrot narrative looks like a hammer. [/b]
[b]Lets advance the argument beyond the tired and superficial “its Bush’s fault” argument, it is kind of juvenile.[/b]
Well lets stick to reality and facts Alda
You want to have an argument in your alternate world
An argument of communism and birth certificates and making things up about Obama’s religious affiliations
Lets make the argument of where the country was in early 2009 and why and where it is today.
….but that is not the argument you want-
No one brought up birth certificates, or Mr. Obama’s religious affiliation. On that I have but three words. Indonesia. Reverend Wright. Not that any of you would notice or care. I’m not seeing ANY refutation concerning the fact that a majority of Mr. Obama’s mentors and advisors were Communists. Because there isn’t any refutation. It is the truth.
Please tell us exactly what Mr. Obama has done to improve the economy. I want to know which policies and executive orders has led directly to an improvement, and exactly what that particular improvement might be. You gentlemen are so enamored with the current occupant of the White House, you are making assumptions of causality that simply don’t exist.
Please tell us exactly what Mr. Bush did to kill the economy, while you’re at it. -
STIMULUS, Dalai. That’s at least 1 thing.
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Quote from DoctorDalai
Please tell us exactly what Mr. Bush did to kill the economy, while you’re at it.
started a war, cut taxes, and had no plan to fund either.
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[b]I’m not seeing ANY refutation concerning the fact that a majority of Mr. Obama’s mentors and advisors were Communists. Because there isn’t any refutation. It is the truth. [/b]
Because it is a false argument. Who says they are Mentors??????? you and some wing nut conspiracy theorists???? Is everyone that you ever crossed paths with or heard speak a Mentor?
[b]Please tell us exactly what Mr. Obama has done to improve the economy. I want to know which policies and executive orders has led directly to an improvement, and exactly what that particular improvement might be.[/b]
Oversaw the Bailout of the Auto, Insurance and the Financial Industry. Sold this to the country and Took a huge personal hit from the Right for agreeing to this, The bailout directly averted an economic collapse
[b]Please tell us exactly what Mr. Bush did to kill the economy, while you’re at it. [/b]
1. Spent the Surplus
2. Funded 2 wars after he spent the surplus and drained the treasury so we were unable to effectively respond to global economic downturn.
3. Did absolutely nothing to make us energy independent or efficient despite claims that would be his priority
WTF Do you want more….or do you choose to just sit there with your hand over your ears hearing nothing
And You want everyone to stop talking about Bush…..Then what is different in the Republican way or plan since 2009????
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Ah so, cyclical. so Clinton was “lucky” after Bush I’s downturn on the economy – in spite of the Republican predictions of failure – he earned a surplus. Then the cycle went down again for Bush II who helped the downturn down & now the luck bastard Obama is getting credit for the cycle that is going up.
Good Luck Democrats, Hard Luck Republicans.
So in 2016 when the next cycle down is coming according to Dalai, vote for Hillary so she gets the “credit” for the cyclical downturn in the economy.
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saw this on the net
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[b]”Spent the surplus” – “Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended.” – George W. Bush, September 11th, 2001. (No better way to spend surplus money IMHO.) [/b]
He spent the surplus on tax rebates before 9-11 among other things
[b]”Drained the treasury” – WTF you talking about Willis? When Democrats controlled Congress and WH: federal spending as a share of GDP leapt from 18.2 percent in 2001 to 25.2 percent in 2009. The largest increase in any 8-year period since WWII. [/b]
He was given a surplus…..and frickin spent it… and his tax cuts created deficits….. foillowed by 2 unfunded wars………that qualifies as draining the teasury
And yes Obama spent like mad on the bailouts Absolutley…….What would you have done different?
What planet do you live on????? -
Rudy Giuliani wants Obama to be more like Bill Cosby
[link=http://time.com/3744139/rudy-giuliani-barack-obama-bill-cosby/]http://time.com/3744139/r…rack-obama-bill-cosby/[/link]
[font=”arial,helvetica,sans-serif”][size=”3″]If an African-American president stood up and said I hate to mention it because of what happened afterwards the kind of stuff that Bill Cosby used to say.
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[font=”arial,helvetica,sans-serif”][size=”3″]
[/size][/font]and you thought questioning Obama’s love to America is the worst he can say in public. [image]http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif[/image]
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For a guy whose entire political career can be summed up by “Noun, verb 9/11”, Rudy suddenly has memory loss:
[url=http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rudy-giuliani-forgets-sept-11-donald-trump]
[h1]Giuliani Claims There Were No Terror Attacks On US Soil Before Obama[/url][/h1]
“Under those 8 years, before Obama came along, we didn’t have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the US,” Giuliani told the crowd. “They all started when Clinton and Obama came into office.”
It’s [link=http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jan/08/rudy-giuliani/giuliani-says-there-were-no-domestic-attacks-durin/]not the first time[/link] Giuliani has made remarks that seemed to gloss over the terror attacks that left nearly 3,000 dead and that defined him in the eyes of many Americans. While suggesting in 2010 that Obama could stand to take some cues from George W. Bush, the former mayor [link=http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/rudy-giuliani-forgets-9-11-suggesting-president-obama-cues-bush-fighting-terror-article-1.195680]claimed[/link], “We had no domestic attacks under Bush.”-
Some nice shade from the twitterverse.
“The 9/11 of never-forgetting”
[link=http://www.someecards.com/news/politics/rudy-giuliani-911-neverforget-heforgot/]http://www.someecards.com…-neverforget-heforgot/[/link]
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