Oakwood wrote:
> John, the analog to your answers to simple questions I pose to you
> would be the Bush Administration's opinions about torture:
> waterboarding is not torture.
You keep confusing me with a Republican. You've posted lengthy lists
of alleged lies by President Bush, and wonder why I wasn't criticizing
those. I responded by pointing out that Bush's "look Putin in the
eye" remark was analogous to Obama's "reset" of relations with Russia.
Admittedly that was fairly abbreviated response, but the point was
this: For each item in your list, you can probably find an equivalent
item in a list about Obama. But I haven't commented on the items
about Obama either. I haven't called him a socialist (except to point
out that he can't possibly be a socialist), I haven't criticized his
handling of the oil spill (except to point out that there's nothing he
could do anyway), I haven't criticized his mistranslation of "Reset"
in the Moscow "reset button" incident, etc., etc. This is all fatuous
political nonsense.
Even the comment that started your whole series of criticisms -- the
one about Obama healing the earth -- even in that case, I didn't
directly criticize Obama. I framed the criticism in terms of people
who could elect someone who says such a thing, and I've criticized the
credulous press that sucks up to Obama, no matter how stupid the
remark he makes.
That's the whole point, as I've said many times, but you can't seem to
get. Political lies and exaggerations are a dime a dozen. But the
important different between Bush and Obama, from the point of view of
Generational Dynamics, is the extremely high standard of honesty to
which Bush was held by the press and the people, while Obama has been
held to a nonexistent standard of honesty.
This has not been a benefit to Obama, and Democrats never seem to
realize that. I'm reminded that Democrats in general and feminists in
particular fell on their swords when President Clinton was first
charged with multiple cases of sexual harassment, when he lied to a
federal court about a sexual relationship, and when he was credibly
charged by Juanita Brodderick of being a violent sexual rapist. When
Clinton was first elected, I liked him, but by that time I was
thoroughly sickened and disgusted by him, as were a lot of other
people. Democrats insisted that he not resign, no matter how grossly
disgusting his actions were, but he insisted on staying in office. If
he'd resigned, then Gore would have become President and probably won
in 2000.
Obama has had it way too easy. He says the most ridiculous and
obvious lies, and the press just ignores it. If anyone did criticize,
they were automatically said to be "racists." That weapon was turned
against the current Secretary of State when she was running against
him, and is sitll being turned against the entire Tea Party movement.
But now that the ACLU and the NY Times and Maureen Dowd are turning
against Obama, he has no idea how to handle it, and he's flailing
around like a fish in a bucket.
By contrast, Bush was mocked from the day he took office as an
illegitimate President, and throughout 2001 he received contemptuous
remarks about his cowboy hat and his Texas accent. By the time the
REAL criticisms began, he was much better prepared to handle them.
Incidentally, this whole discussion comes just two days after it was
revealed that the Administration lied in a major way about the oil
drilling moratorium.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysi ... Truth.aspx
I'm not going to mention this in the web log either, but I'd point out
here that if President Bush had lied in a similar way, it would have
been major news weeks about a Bush administration cover-up. Instead,
since it's Obama, I didn't hear it mentioned at all in today's Sunday
news shows. Quelle surprise! That's the difference that I focus on,
because that's what's relevant to Generational Dynamics.
--
Now I'll turn to your remarks about torture and waterboarding.
The public discourse on torture has fallen to such depths of utter
stupidity that words escape me to describe it adequately.
To say that any administration would fail to use waterboarding in a
scenario where a terrorist attack was imminent and waterboarding might
provide enough information to prevent the attack and save hundreds or
thousands of American lives is the height of stupidity. And a
President who failed to do so would be subject to impeachment if the
terrorist attack took place.
President Obama made a gaffe a few months ago when he claimed that
Winston Churchill never approved torture even when London was being
bombed. The minute I heard this, I knew it was total nonsense, and
sure enough, stories soon came out contradicting his claim. I have
absolutely no doubt that there was a lot more torture going on that
nobody is yet talking about.
When a country is going through a generational Crisis war, there are
no rules. I don't blame Obama in particular for making this
incredibly stupid, naive remark, because he's just following the
nonsense from the loony left portion of the entire nihilistic,
destructive, self-destructive generation.
John