what are barack obama's flaws?

well, as various commentators have pointed out, Pakistan has been fixated on India as its mortal enemy for pretty much its entire existence, pivoting to address an internal problem has them a bit befuddled.

especially when that internal problem has been actively helping them annoy india for decades

the alliance between the pakistani army and various mujahadeen sub-factions might be stupid, but it's not crazy

I cannot believe that I live in a world where the Taliban is within spitting distance of capturing nuclear-armed Pakistan, and my government can’t even get serious enough about peace in the Middle East to show some real security guarantee carrots and foreign aid sticks to its client state in the region, forcing it to end an illegal and deeply antagonizing annexation masquerading as a forty year occupation.

this is a really fucking funny paragraph. its like pacifist colonialism or something. how exactly do carrots and sticks 'force' things to happen? isnt that the opposite of the idea behind 'carrots and sticks'?

When you understand the amount of money the USA sends to Israel each year, you will understand how the author you quoted might believe that the USA has sufficient leverage to "force" Israel to change its policies. This could be a mistaken belief, but it is not entirely unrealistic.

btw, a stick is very much a symbol of force.

force as a verb not as a noun, deej

I cannot believe it took 4 paragraphs to blame Israel.

a carrot is a symbol of force too, inasmuch as the carrot bequeather has the power to withhold it; that this particular metaphor construes the subject of these blandishments to be a donkey has lessened its appeal somewhat amongst people who give a shit about such things

isn't the carrot ON the stick? like you're holding out the stick and the carrot is hanging off a string at the end?

s1ocki = Fudd

fudd on the low

if you want a donkey to find its giddyup you've got two basic tools: a carrot to entice it forward or a stick with which to smack its ass from behind

but you're right, if you yourself are riding the donkey then yeah, a stick and a piece of string would be a good system of carrotage. you'd need two sticks in that case because it could get tedious untying the string each time you wanted to use the stick as a whip. though i guess you wouldn't need to. you could just whip the donkey with string, carrot and all, running the (slight) risk that the force of your whipping caused the carrot to slip out of its probably not-too-well-tied knot. it would get messy. two sticks would be far better.

Kneecapping Party Boss Obama helps clear the NY senatorial decks for Appointee Gillibrand:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-05-27/columns/obama-the-political-fixer-works-new-york-s-senate-primary

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0509/Obama_clears_field_for_Gillibrand_in_New_York.html

Prior to Obama's intervention, at least five veteran public officials were actively considering running against Gillibrand. Most, like Long Island congressman Steve Israel, who got the warning message directly from the White House, thought they could present themselves to voters in a state primary as a viable alternative to Gillibrand on several issues that Obama himself championed in his own race: gun safety, fairness to immigrants, the economy. That was the plan, that is, until the president told them not to bother.

...His heavy-handed politicking is a surprise only to those of us who know him solely from his inspiring campaign. It is old news to those in Chicago who watched Obama's steady rise. I admit to warnings received from Windy City friends who said Obama had taken lessons in kneecapping from his ward-heeler pals in City Hall and the state legislature. This complaint sounded like a petty gripe resulting from a family squabble. Even if true, it was a tiny blemish on a magnificent canvas. This notion held right up until the moment when the White House invoked Chicago rules—one of ours to the hospital, one of yours to the morgue—on any Democrat seeking to challenge Gillibrand.

why do you think he prefers gillibrand

That he can't lock up people like the ones in this video is a pretty big flaw of his job, IMHO.

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/max-blumenthal-feeling-the-hate-in-jerusalem-on-eve-of-obamas-cairo-address.html?

yah its pretty flawed that we cant imprison people we disagree with

We need another Wilson.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/125/415992114_f67c203d6c_o.jpg

BLACK POWER!

http://ryanpez86.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/woodrow-wilson-008.jpg

why do you think he prefers gillibrand

because she's an appointed incumbent, ie might as well use our funds try to buy a Dem Senate seat somewhere else in the country. ie, democracy-for-sale as usual, the Schmuck Schumer-Rahmbo Emanuel way.

morbs id vote for you if you ran

rahmbo emmanuel << next level name-gaming

dunno, leaving "emmanuel" untouched is pretty lazy

rahmbo escamuel

this is harder than it looks

he-scams-you-well

He-ram-you-well

rahmbo fuckface

lol

yeah i invented Rahmbo, right

way to focus on the scummy Obama gaming too.

honestly I don't give a shit

wait are you saying you plagiarize these nicknames? ur breakin my heart over here

I mean this is standard operating procedure for a smart political party - its not like he's disseminating misinformation a la Karl Rove or assassinating political opponents or something

x-post

There is this bit of unpleasantness.

I mean this is standard operating procedure

ding ding ding ding

what do u all make of the explanation that the moves toward photo suppression are a big favor to maliki? "baghdad will burn" etc. i don't much care, myself.

it seems, i dunno, just natural -- the executive always jealously defends any and all prerogatives of the executive, no matter who or what he is or what they are. if the GOP were to suddenly turn on Obama on these issues and hammer him as an "imperial president", it would be a feature and not a bug of the american system, but they don't have two ideals to rub together anymore. it'd be nice if the teleprompter jokes and "government motors, morelike!!" gags became uh operationalized to something constitutionally useful, but that whole corner of america is just beyond hope.

i've said this all before, but i see no compelling reason for photos to be released to the public--filed in court as part of criminal charges? absolutely.

well there's the rub though, because the ACLU clearly wants these photos so they can build a case that torture was an institutionalized practice and then they can bring criminal charges against the Bush administration.

but they can't file those charges until they get the photos, and the only way to get them released is under the FOIA

Weird pre-moustache.

on gillibrand:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/new-yorks-gillibrand-has-become.html

"with very few exceptions, electoral considerations bear far more firmly on a Congressperson's voting record than any sort of deep-seated personal convictions."

So yeah, she makes me feel so good

serious question

this qualifies as a flaw. ffs.

He's taking us down for his own benefit.

I don't see how Obama benefits from this, which is why I also don't understand why he's taking this particular legal tack (also that blog post totally overstates the DOJ's legal argument being made, but that's just a rhetorical issue....)

Holy shit.

that is some serious bullshit

although seeing it is Holder and not Obama slightly lowers my urge-to-kill reflex towards Obama and redirects it towards Holder

still: serious bullshit

i'm not defending this, but AmericaBlog is lying when it says Obama is lying about what it's doing. the fact that the four previous Presidents had their DOJ oppose the law on the books does not mean that Obama has to believe that's an appropriate use of the DOJ. it's not news that the dude thinks change comes legislatively.