Bin Laden Dead?

2) it doesn't seem they were 100% sure they'd find OBL there

― by another name (amateurist), Monday, May 2, 2011 10:54 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah this is kinda troubling isnt it? not surprising tho. they sent a big ol helicopter to a mansion with no real intent of seizing their target alive. this couldve turned out way worse!

― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Monday, May 2, 2011 10:58 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well i mean...he'd evaded them for 9 years so even if they had an idea he might be there i can see why they weren't totally sure. i'm guessing they at least knew there was some al qaeda guys in there if not the big cheese and that they weren't just storming in on some innocent bystanders.

Partisan people are partisan. People spouted as much shit about GWB and Clinton. I'm sure lots of people are racist too but I don't think it's fair to stick that label on any conservative who criticises Obama, no matter how stupidly.

It's racist. These are the kind of people who delude themselves through virtual micromanagement that they're superior to any black person and I would invite every single one of them to bend over and kiss Barack Obama's butt. But I was kind of inviting them to do that before this news.

I still think the vitriol pales beside what Clinton endured in the nineties.

― My mom is all about capital gains tax butthurtedness (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, May 2, 2011 10:10 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

i was in HS at the time, but, really?

also wrong to excuse racism as just partisanship, there are cases the other way too

both this and Saddam's capture seem to buy into the Darth Vader/single-evil-lord paradigm. The beat goes on.

also plz kick Pakistan to the curb.

anyway, dare i say it, but steyn sorta otm! that speech was a little odd. obama's in the middle of a poetic retread of sept. 11 imagery and there's a weird gleam in his eye like he just wants to jump around and kick the podium over.

No, Clinton abuse was mostly partisan with maybe a touch of classism thrown in.

i was in HS at the time, but, really?

Oh yeah -- it only seems worse NOW cuz of the internets. But right wing radio and the Beltway press (our friend the late David Broder: "He trashed the place and it's not his place") hounded him for years over HRC's lesbianism, her involvement in Vince Foster's suicide, the ring of drug murders in Arkansas, the Travel Office files, Arkansas State Troops, etc.

There are some calling out libs for their reaction to Saddams capture but the two aren't even remotely comparable

I have honestly forgotten what the liberal reaction to Saddam's capture was. And I'm a liberal! How did we react?

I didn't excuse racism. I don't see what's racist as opposed to partisan in criticising Obama's speech. There are conservative people who will criticise every speech he makes, just as there were with GWB who could do no right in liberal eyes.

xxxxp

DJP-i'm surprised to see that handwringing from conservatives - I'd expect that more from my fellow bleeding heart liberals.

Ultimately partisan politics are getting mixed into a huge odd gumbo atm

The "poetic" flourishes were out of character, and apparently Obama wrote most of this speech himself. When he's on, he's closer to Lincoln than Jefferson in the rhetoric dept.

I didn't excuse racism. I don't see what's racist as opposed to partisan in criticising Obama's speech. There are conservative people who will criticise every speech he makes, just as there were with GWB who could do no right in liberal eyes.

there's a difference here

Clinton got a lot of vitriol through the '90s. I think Obama's had worse, but it's close.

well i mean...he'd evaded them for 9 years so even if they had an idea he might be there i can see why they weren't totally sure. i'm guessing they at least knew there was some al qaeda guys in there if not the big cheese and that they weren't just storming in on some innocent bystanders.

― Osama Wig Wooden (some dude), Monday, May 2, 2011 11:13 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

from what i can tell basically all they "knew" was that there was a big secure mansion that an al qaeda courier visited sometimes

There was a good blogging heads between John McWhorter and Glenn Loury the other day--Sullivan linked to it--that contrasted the vitriol directed at Clinton and Obama.

it really is "you are black; I will find fault with everything you do."

No, this is ridiculous, it's like you didn't live through the last 8 years of the Bush administration where Democrats, bloggers, and several news stations blasted pretty much every single thing the guy did, this is just the way the media works and sadly the way politics are in this country. I thought all those "white priviledge" emails that went around in 2008 were the dumbest shit imagineable, but these people really do exist who think that the idea of a half-black president is such a mind-blowing issue that anyone who takes exception with the president is obviously expressing some deep-seeded racist impulse. Not saying racism doesn't exist or that people don't hate on the president because he's half-black but it's such a lazy argument to assume that of anyone

For those two young to remember, Clinton regularly withstood accusations of rape and murder. Like, literally rape and murder.

there's a difference here

Too young, that is, of course.

one of them was literally the worst president in this nation's history

xp to frog

Greenwald shits in everyone's punchbowl: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/05/02/bin_laden/index.html

For those two young to remember, Clinton regularly withstood accusations of rape and murder. Like, literally rape and murder.

Yes. Hitchens still repeats as often he can the Kathleen Willey rape charges.

I don't think democrats hated bush because he was a 'republican' - we hated him because he was literally the worst president in this nation's history

Xxxxxxxpost The main difference between Saddam and Osama are circumstances. Both were captured long after having any active role in said conflict.

Both were mostly psychological bogeyman victories, which by no means signaled the end of anything.

However, Saddam was captured in the midst of a war, and many (incorrectly) deemed this event the beginning of the end of this war.

Being that I opposed the war, my reaction was "Who gives a fuck?". Osama had orchestrated a terrorist attack on our towers and here we are parading around some other dude. It was like having the Son of Sam murders occur and the cops arresting John Gotti.

Dude was a monster and I by no means mourned his death, but it didn't mean anything, and signified potential problems down the road.

I don't know many people who opposed fighting Al Qaeda, even if we disagreed on the methods to fight it. And while some might have disagreed on the magnitude of Osama's capture, I doubt many people were ambivalent to it.

I would have been happy with it happening during Dubya. My partisanship flew out the door temporarily when I was terrified that more attacks were on the way.

So, it's not a particularly apt comparison by those making it.

Osama dying doesn't signify the end of terrorism but it still feels gratifying, to me at least. Even though it's mostly just killing the monster in the closet.

frogbs you can just say "black" you know; calling him "half-black" makes you sound like an asshole

xp i don't think "literally" means what you think it does

so it's okay for people to hate on a president you think is bad but if it's a president that's only kinda bad it constitutes rascism?

What would Clarence Thomas have to do for the right to turn on him, if race is the defining issue (or is a Supreme Court Justice a different issue).

xp i don't think "literally" means what you think it does

no I do, that's why I used it shithead

What would Clarence Thomas have to do for the right to turn on him

Abort one of Ginni's babies with his bare hands, laughing jovially.

xxxp I used "half-black" because I'm trying to show how race is almost certainly a non-issue when it comes to critiquing his speech, I don't really give a shit what that sounds like to you TBH

hmmm youre not really showing that at all

i guess at this point i hope that UBL really was still the mastermind behind a lot of shit in 'af-pak'

because, if he's dead, then maybe things will be a little calmer or more tractable there, and we can finally gtfo.

i had assumed for a long time that he was basically meaningless to the movement/organization. which would make today sort of sad and pointless.

i'm two-thirds white btw

Not saying racism doesn't exist or that people don't hate on the president because he's half-black but it's such a lazy argument to assume that of anyone.

Well I never really expected to say this but I sort of think Frog is OTM.

DJP-i'm surprised to see that handwringing from conservatives - I'd expect that more from my fellow bleeding heart liberals.

This is the Christian Conservative response; it really can be boiled down to "wtf Americans, stop acting like godless Muslims".

(I was very happy to see a common Christian Conservative friend point out that scripture notes the celebration of the Isrealites at the death of Goliath, and another person I didn't know said "this really goes to show how much we ALL have to learn, as people")

wth is up with "it's not necessarily racist" guys on this thread - it fuckin' is - the whole "arrogance/narcissism" meme, the #1 most popular one when Obama speaks on any subject whatsoever, is your classic "shut up, black man" biz - partisanship we've seen, with Clinton, no question, partisan hate is common & constant. this is several layers deeper than that, the spasms of instinctive racial hate & fear we see every time Obama does anything. it's perfectly possible to find fault with Obama and not be doing so from racial animus; huge swathes of the left do so. it's not possible to be riding the "arrogance/narcissism" deal without a hefty chunk of racism underneath it, and the reaction to his speech about the US succeeding in its counter-terror mission is exactly that, racist hate cloaked in partisanship.

Not saying racism doesn't exist or that people don't hate on the president because he's half-black but it's such a lazy argument to assume that of anyone.

It's only half-lazy.

yeah but john he's only half black so

tbrr I don't think huge swathes of the left are actually immune to this bias based on race

right they hate the half of him that is white

aero I think the thing is, the partisan is so deep and omnipresent that it's pretty hard to pick out what bits *are* racist

"all these people who circulate pictures of the President as a cannibal - they're not really racist"

stfu, yes they are.

xp that's true too

no I do, that's why I used it shithead

ummm both Bush and Obama have made some bad decisions, I think the situation really made Bush look worse than he is, not to say he's not the worst president in recent memory, I'm just saying that doesn't really help your argument as all especially since obviously the people hating on Obama don't believe that; you know your opinion doesn't = fact but whatever you knew that

I mean I could start shit about how many people hate on Will Smith movies and how racist they must be while people hating on Larry the Cable Guy hate him only because he's "literally the worst", it doesn't matter how right you think you are, it's a dumb opinion to take

right but will smith is 100% black

lol

that was @ DJP but goes @ iatee too - there's some complexity but anybody who doesn't see the "he's arrogant"/"what about credit to Bush" biz as straight-up white privilege trash is kidding himself imo

k I'm not gonna argue with you because you're literally one of the worst posters on this board, not just half-one of the worst posters on this board

xp to frog

frogbs this is fucking simple. if you hate a will smith movie cause it's a shitty movie cool enuf. if you hate will smith because he's "arrogant," you're a fucking cracker. the end