2008 Primaries Thread

gabbneb seriously stfu

gabbneb have you not kind of figured out yet that the real reason a lot of people on ilx hate you and the reason you hate hillary are basically the same?

I assumed "actionable intelligence" just meant "we know where Bin Laden is" or something like that.

i don't know that she'd be worse vis-a-vis McCain specifically than Obama would; the opposite might be true. i'm just buying the line that obama's better in general regardless of who's on the other side. this is, though, why it may be a good thing to play chicken with the other side as i said way back at the beginning of the other thread.

We ask London to take action, but for internal political reasons, it refuses and objects to our taking any unilateral action.

Let's get real. If England knew where and how to eliminate a group with the intention of gaining nuclear weapons that was in the city center of London, they'd act accordingly.

gabbneb have you not kind of figured out yet that the real reason a lot of people on ilx hate you and the reason you hate hillary are basically the same?

duh. i was almost gonna use me as an example here.

but thanks for helping me make the argument

ok being that i work with/in the IC can I just go ahead and let you guys know that "actionable intelligence" means information which has been processed, evaluated (corroborated) and summarized in such a way as to be readily applicable in the decision making process by the people tasked with a given decision

but once again, i don't hate hillary, if you'd bother to listen

Madeline Albright on Leonard Lopate, paraphrased: "Foreign Policy is really just about how you get other countries to do what you want them to do. You use diplomacy, you use economic carrots and sticks, or you use force. That's about all there is."

Bush's foreign policy has been overreaching and stupid. Neither Obama nor Hillary are likely to be as stupid, but I'm guessing both would have a similar approach to using force, regardless of voting history. All I was trying to say.

like "should we blow up where osama lives?" actionable intelligence: osama is living in the ritz carlton downtown --> no

Yeah, I hear you, Hurting. OBL is such a unique figure I think we have a lot more options when it comes to him personally. Still, it's tougher when you change the unwilling actor from Pakistan to, say, England (even with OBL as the target).

And you're right, Johnny, it wouldn't happen with England. But changing the hypothetical actor to an ally refocuses the question in important ways, so the debate (is Obama's position similar to the Bush Doctrine) can be examined in a different -- maybe clearer -- light.

Sorry, I meant a Western ally.

hey guess what guys

she would repeal the bush tax cuts
she would put pro-choice judges on the supreme court (she voted against roberts & alito)
she would support stem cell research (voted for it every time)
she supports net neutrality
she has a 100% rating from NARAL and a 0% from the christian coalition

its not that bad unless youre purposefully being a dick about it

-- and what, Thursday, October 18, 2007 1:40 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Link

^^ posted this when hillary was the inevitable future prez & still agree with every word of it but telling me im a misogynist for preferring a more liberal less nixonian candidate is not really helping

ok can someone explain to me superdelegates? and will hrc and obama continue to split the delegates at 9 each or one more go to her once all the votes have been counted?

The thing is that Pakistan is only Pakistan on a map. Those national borders are completely arbitrary and the rural parts of the country itself are still based in tribal tradition. Throwing a hypothetical Western location into the discussion is just a big, ugly red herring.

Many of the upcoming states are "winner take all" re: delegates.

gabbneb's advisors are dumbfounded at the failure of their 'gabbneb is the greatest poster of all time' message in the early rounds. a chief strategist asks, "don't these people understand who they want at the top of the statscock month after month?" advisors complain privately that voters don't perceive the "real gabbneb" known to friends and associates.

one staffer hints darkly of anti-yuppieism

still, the question remains - will gabbneb cry?

Gothamist: based on our rudimentary lipreading skills, it looked like Bill Clinton told her, "I'm really proud of you, I really am."

...because of the wang.

telling me im a misogynist for preferring a more liberal less nixonian candidate is not really helping

aye. especially when the new line against obama will probably be "he's too liberal to win!" i've already heard the mcgovern thing a few times. the boogeyman of centrist democrats: "he's another mcgovern!" great, thanks. nice to see someone's still getting milage out of old george. (who meanwhile is trying to impeach the president.)

mileage. i always drop the 'e'.

gabbneb have you not kind of figured out yet that the real reason a lot of people on ilx hate you and the reason you hate hillary are basically the same?

"Well, that hurts my feelings," he replied. "But I'll try to go on."

it's very personal

i have a habit of misunderstanding foreign-policy issues but...

it's my sense that bombing some site in waziristan -- which only might result in killing some major al qaeda figures -- would create many more problems than it solved. the chances of doing real damage to al qaeda versus killing civilians and in general inflaming muslims across the world...?

i have problems with adam curtis' the power of nightmares (i'm not convinced that al qaeda was really just a construct of western politicians and media) but think he is right in terms of a basic if convenient misunderstanding of islamism (if not human history) by american politicians.

my read is that obama has to retain a degree of hawkishness to seem viable. i'd like to think he actually wouldn't strike pakistan as president. but of course i can't count on this.

as for hillary, her response to the same question invoked bill's bombing of the sudan, as though this was a proud accomplishment and not an embarrassing fiasco.

<I> the chances of doing real damage to al qaeda versus killing civilians and in general inflaming muslims across the world...?</i>

or rather, doing all of these things at once. the net result still = bad

i don't know, sometimes i feel like the usa is like pavlov's other dog, who just couldn't figure it out

re deej's surgical strike fantasies -- a guy with al-quaeda links in london got sent down yesterday in a british court for planning terrorist activity in pakistan, in a coals-to-newcastle stylee.

he only got 13 months. does pakistan have the right to bomb london, though -- surgically, of course -- in cases like this?

similarly american donors funded the IRA, but weirdly enough the british didn't bomb boston.

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2008/POLITICS/01/08/primaries.main/hillary.nh.win.ap.jpg

I CAN HAS MY NEW HAMPSTER NOW PLZ?

halp

http://www.dccc.org/stakeholder/archives/body_snatchers.jpg

deej's defense of the united states' right to bomb whatever country it wants has been the most surprising thing about this thread so far. (i guess this means he's in favor of israel's helicopter strikes on hamas leaders too?)

daily howler --

A new opportunity: With the presumptive defeat of Candidate Clinton, a 16-year story will come to an end. This gives Democrats a new chance to take control of the narratives told about its leaders. By now, it’s abundantly clear that a Nominee Clinton would be subjected to endless nonsense throughout the campaign, as was the case with Candidate Gore all through 1999 and 2000. These attacks would be based on sixteen years of mainstream demonology -- and it’s clear that many Dems and libs believe many parts of these RNC tales. (Let’s not pretend that we don’t.) Obama’s nomination [would let] Dems start again. And, with new, more aggressive liberal institutions in place, it will be harder -- much, much harder -- to assemble the welter of Demon Tales that were used to trash the Clintons and Gore. The defeat of Clinton will let Democrats and liberals at long last start over again.

on c4 news yesterday even syd blumenthal seemed to have basically conceded.

I hate to trot this out because it's so obvious, but...
Did anyone else notice that the moment the networks started calling NH for Clinton, every other political writer started explaining why OF COURSE HILLARY WON, etc, etc, when only six hours earlier they had an entirely different narrative spin on the evening? (She won because she cried! She won because the women of NH came out for her! She won because Bill was tough on Obama!)
Maybe after a surprise like that the pundits should be like: oops? I guess we don't really know what is fueling the votes at the moment? Our bad?

Also, I've got a primary question for someone who is brighter than me:

Romney came in second place in Iowa and second place in NH.
McCain came in third place in Iowa and first place in NH.
Huckabee came in first place in Iowa and third place in NH.

Isn't the candidate who came in second both times the better (more consensus generating) choice than the one who came in 3rd in one and 1st in the other? Why are people calling Romney a double-loser instead of a compromise candidate?

regarding the MSM's misogyny towards The Inevitable, it should be mentioned that some of these pundits were just as gleeful tonight at her comeback. Tim Russert looked like someone was tickling his asshole. At the end of the day, a lot of em are just sports junkies. They want a great game. They want the momentum swinging like a pendulum and they want the underdog to smash the juggernaut. Dems are coming through.

http://thepage.time.com/theories-to-explain-clintons-nh-polling-behind-obama/

Mordechai at this point the votes are more reflective of how much money and time people spent in those places. For instance, McCain didn't spend anything on Iowa -- he conceded it from the get-go. On the other hand, Romney outspent everyone in both Iowa and NH and came in second. There are a lot of ways to interpret it.

I listen to BBC's "Newspod", a 30-minute roundup of the day's radio news, and it's always a day late by the time I listen to it. It's not that surprising that so many people were wrong about the Democratic results in NH, but it's fascinating listening to the explanations people were already spinning about WHY Obama was going to win -- they were already writing the first draft of history before anything had even happened yet.

The dynamics of Hillary vs McCain scare the shit out of me for two reasons.

1) The press has been in love with McCain for years, and has hated Hillary even longer.

2) Despite being Bush's butt-boy for years and basically running on the SAME POLICIES as Bush, McCain stands a very good chance of painting himself as the agent of change and Hillary as the candidate of the past.

I wish we could vote for candidates in the primaries without worrying about their electability. There's no reason, outside of MSM narratives and whatever, that Hillary couldn't beat McCain. She wins of policy, and hell, she wins on personality too. I'd much rather watch her speak than McCain (who bores me).

Actually, on that note: I've watched so many speeches these last two weeks (mostly on CSPAN) that I'm ready to rank speakers from my favorite to least favorite:
Obama > Romney > Clinton > Richardson > Paul > Guiliani > Huckabee > Edwards > McCain

I LOVE listening to Romney speak. Even though I disagree with every blessed word that leaves his lips.

She wins on* policy

I'm ready to rank speakers

Didn't I read that Obama's speech writer is this 24 (26?) year old dude who worked for the Kerry campaign in 2004, when he was 20 (22?) ?

I read that Obama wrote his own speeches?

Obama wrote his keynote speech at the 2004 DNC. this guy is writing for him now.

lol at George Stephanopolous analyzing the "semiotics" of HRC's onstage antics last night.

Link?

I’m seriously hung. I worked nearly 11 hours on the phone yesterday. I could only estimate how many people I called. My prize? Cheering for the winner in Manchester (and apparently being on television)!

I am a bit bummed I didn’t get waste time here. Maybe I’ll slog through the thread this afternoon.

Daria's right about that ''You're likable ENOUGH'' line by Obama. I think it hurt him. It made him look petty and frat boy-ish, not high-minded and transformative.

To me the line and delivery were anything but frat boy-ish; he sounded cool and distanced, much better than McCain's pandering "candidate of change" one-liner.

Anyway, this is minutiae.

I’m seriously hung.

take it to the crush thread.