[lbo-talk] Barack Obama

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Sat Nov 6 21:05:48 PST 2004


Let's go to war on our closest allies, that's a great idea. The main enemy is on the Democratic party left! All one of it in the US Senate, that is. Death to Progressive Democrats! Who needs to fight Karl Rove, Bush, Chgeney, et al when we can hammer at Barak? Who, btw, is tremendously impressive (for a Democrat), Michael. I expect we can have four years of this, Yoshie? I'm looking forward to it, really. It will be SO much fun. jks

--- Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:


> >m I the only one who was not particularly impressed
> by him? He
> >seemed nice. He had a nice story. He had nice
> credentials. And maybe
> >he was good in Illinois politics? I don't know.
> >--
> >Michael Perelman
>
> Barack Obama appealed to rich educated white voters
> by boasting of
> his responsibility for the welfare reform and
> placated working-class
> constituencies by emphasizing that he softened its
> blow:
>
> <blockquote>Candidates address drug prices, welfare
> law
> By CHRISTOPHER WILLS
> The Associated Press
>
<http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/emaf.nsf/Popup?ReadForm&db=stltoday%5Cnews%5Cstories.nsf&docid=5DA1BA9DBD874A7586256F3C004DC627>
> Friday, Oct. 29 2004
>
> . . . Obama said he had "been responsible, in this
> state, for one of
> the most successful welfare reform programs in the
> country."
>
> Obama, a freshman senator when the welfare reform
> package passed, was
> a key Democratic negotiator on the issue, but Sen.
> Dave Syverson,
> R-Rockford, was its lead Senate sponsor. Keyes said
> Obama did sponsor
> a bill to track the progress of the Illinois
> program. . . .
>
> Obama said the two bills were separate, and his
> statements about
> helping shape welfare reform in Illinois refer to
> his role in the
> negotiations.
>
> "I've never claimed that I single-handedly passed
> welfare reform,"
> Obama said. "What I said was I was the Democratic
> lead negotiator for
> the welfare reform bill we eventually
> passed."</blockquote>
>
> Obama will be an obstacle in bringing the troops
> home and ending the
> occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan:
>
> <blockquote>Alan Keyes and Barack Obama debate,
> hosted by Illinois
> Radio Network
> October 12, 2004 . . .
>
> MODERATOR: Senator Obama, you were against the war,
> no doubt about
> it, before the war began. But now you're in favor of
> keeping troops
> there. How long?
>
> BARACK OBAMA, (D) ILLINOIS U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE:
> Well, let me first
> of all say thank you for hosting this debate.
>
> Ambassador Keyes and I agree on one thing, and that
> is that the War
> on Terror has to be vigorously fought. Where we part
> company is how
> to fight it, because I think Afghanistan in fact was
> not a preemptive
> war, it was a war launched directly against those
> who were
> responsible for 9-11. Iraq was a preemptive war
> based on faulty
> evidence--and I say that not in hindsight, or
> Monday-morning
> quarterbacking. Six months before the war was
> launched, I questioned
> the evidence that would lead to us being there. Now,
> us having gone
> in there, I do think we now have a deep national
> security interest in
> making certain that Iraq is stable. If is it not
> stable, not only are
> we going to have a humanitarian crisis, I think we
> are also going to
> have a huge national security problem on our
> hands--because,
> ironically, it has become a hotbed of terrorists as
> a consequence, in
> part, of our incursion there.
>
> In terms of timetable, I'm not somebody who thinks
> we can say with
> certainty that a year from now or six months from
> now we're going to
> be able to pull down troops. I think that we have to
> do three things.
> Number one, we have to rapidly advance the speed
> with which we are
> training Iraqi troops and security forces so that
> they can stabilize
> the country, and that's going to require our help.
>
> But it's also going to require the help of the
> international
> community, which is why we have to internationalize
> this process. I'm
> under no illusions that the Germans and the French
> are going to be
> sending troops in any time soon, but I do believe
> that we can get
> them to put more resources into the training and
> infrastructure
> required to secure the Iraqi borders and the Iraqi
> streets.
>
> And finally, I think it's important that we get our
> reconstruction
> moving. I think it is undeniable that the
> reconstruction process that
> has taken place has been completely inept. And
> that's not simply my
> estimation, that's the estimation of the two ranking
> Republican
> Senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
> Chuck Hagel and
> Dick Lugar, who issued a blistering attack on this
> administration six
> weeks before the presidential election. Highly
> unusual--and I think
> it indicates how badly botched this job has been.
>
> MODERATOR: Senator Obama, Afghanistan has just
> conducted the first
> elections in its 5,000-year history. They appear to
> have gone very
> well--at least, up to this point. The Bush
> administration is pointing
> to that as a suggestion of the way the elections
> might proceed in
> Iraq. Is that not a hopeful sign for Iraq, and for
> the elections that
> we may be seeing there in January?
>
> OBAMA: I think it is an absolutely hopeful sign for
> the people of
> Afghanistan. And as I have stated unequivocally, I
> have always
> thought that we did the right thing in Afghanistan.
> My only concerns
> with respect to Afghanistan was that we diverted our
> attention from
> Afghanistan in terms of moving into Iraq, and I
> think would could
> have done a better job of stabilizing that country
> than we have in
> providing assistance to the Afghani people.
>
> But I think that all of us, Republican and Democrat,
> should be
> rooting for the Afghani people and making sure that
> we are providing
> them the support to make things happen. With respect
> to Iraq, I think
> it's going to be a tougher play. But, again, I don't
> think any of us
> should be rooting for failure in Iraq at this point.
> This is no
> longer George Bush's war, this is our war, and we
> all have a stake in
> it.
>
> But, you know, the analogy that I use is that, you
> know, if a driver
> of a car, your car, drives it into a ditch, there
> are only so many
> ways to pull it out. And so, John Kerry is going to
> be doing many
> similar things to what George Bush is doing in terms
> of making sure
> that we do the best we can in Iraq.
>
> That doesn't mean we don't fire the driver, and it
> doesn't mean that
> we don't examine carefully what lead us to be in
> this ditch in the
> first place. I think it was a bad strategic
> blunder--and as I said,
> that's not simply my estimation. That's the
> estimation of a number of
> Republicans.
>
>
<http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/media/debates/04_10_12irndebate.htm></blockquote>
>
> On big-ticket items, he is a typical Democrat.
> --
>
=== message truncated ===

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