[Rhodes22-list] For Ed, from Maine - political

[Bill Effros]

Ben,

Here's the response, copied from unknown source:

"From the time Barack Obama was sworn in as a United State Senator, to 
the time he announced he was forming a Presidential exploratory 
committee, he logged 143 days of experience in the Senate. That's how 
many days the Senate was actually in session and working.  After 143 
days of work experience, Obama believed he was ready to be Commander In 
Chief, Leader of the Free World, and fill the shoes of Abraham Lincoln, 
FDR, JFK and Ronald Reagan. 

143 days.

I keep leftovers in my refrigerator longer than that!"

Bill Effros



Ben Cittadino wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16brooks.html?hp
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16brooks.html?hp 
>
>
> Robert;
>
> The above link is to today's NY Times column by David Brooks, who you may
> recognize as the William F. Buckley protege' and conservative commentator. 
> It concisely sets out the problem with Palin that those of us who represent
> the dying breed of "Rockefeller Republicans" (the political philosophy of
> your Susan Collins and Olympia Snow) have.  
>
> As the Party falls away to the anti-intellectual wackos and fundamentalist
> nut cases (and they know who they are) we can only hope that the
> overwhelming support of the new politics of hope among the youth (under 40)
> folks will bode better for the future.
>
> Even though I hail from the Great State of New Jersey, home of John Basilone
> (hero of Guadalcanal), I still consider the greatest American hero to have
> been Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (teacher, Governor, and hero of the 20th
> Maine).  
>
> Fair winds and following seas.
>
> Ben C. , s/v Susan Kay. Highlands, NJ
>
> Robert Skinner wrote:
>   
>> Ed,
>>
>> Since you persist in making snide comments about the great
>> state of Maine, this is to let you know that you have real
>> opposition in Maine -- perhaps neither as bombastic,
>> prevaricative, nor monomaniacal as you might find among
>> your neocon fellow traveler comrade dittoheads, but at
>> least equally valid [understatement].  As a professional
>> musician once reminded me, volume is no substitute for
>> quality.  And, by the way, repetition is no substitute for
>> logic.
>>
>> I, for one, am paying attention to the issues, primarily
>> the gone-to-hell-in-a-handbasket state of the nation while
>> in the care (using the term loosely) of the Grumpy Old
>> Patriarchs, and the fact that a good house-cleaning could
>> not produce any worse results.  As I see it, any group
>> of teen-age mutant turtles could do better and cost a hell
>> of a lot less.
>>
>> It doesn't make a lot of difference who is the master of
>> the ship of state when it is on the rocks.  The question
>> is who can get it off in one piece.
>>
>> OK, now that I've had my turn, you can have the soap-box
>> back, Ed.  Please clean up after you are done, and put
>> the seat down.
>>
>> /Robert
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/
>> Wednesday 10 September 2008
>>   by: Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic
>>
>> Editor's Note: Historically a John McCain supporter, conservative
>> journalist
>> and blogger Andrew Sullivan takes on the issue of John McCain's integrity
>> as
>> he strives to win the presidency. - vh/TO
>>
>>       For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past
>> ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish
>> or lipstick. It's about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew
>> about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as
>> every
>> sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that
>> Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Did he come out and say so and end
>> this charade? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless
>> Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign?
>>       So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do
>> so.
>> And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him.
>> On
>> core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had
>> to
>> pick between good and evil, he chose evil. When he knew that George W.
>> Bush's war in Iraq was a fiasco and catastrophe, and before Donald
>> Rumsfeld
>> quit, McCain endorsed George W. Bush against his fellow Vietnam vet, John
>> Kerry in 2004. By that decision, McCain lost any credibility that he can
>> ever put country first. He put party first and his own career first ahead
>> of
>> what he knew was best for the country.
>>       And when the Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to condemn and
>> end
>> the torture regime of Bush and Cheney in 2006, McCain again had a clear
>> choice between good and evil, and chose evil.
>>       He capitulated and enshrined torture as the policy of the United
>> States, by allowing the CIA to use techniques as bad as and worse than the
>> torture inflicted on him in Vietnam. He gave the war criminals in the
>> White
>> House retroactive immunity against the prosecution they so richly deserve.
>> The enormity of this moral betrayal, this betrayal of his country's honor,
>> has yet to sink in. But for my part, it now makes much more sense. He is
>> not
>> the man I thought he was.
>>       And when he had the chance to engage in a real and substantive
>> debate
>> against the most talented politician of the next generation in a fall
>> campaign where vital issues are at stake, what did McCain do? He began his
>> general campaign with a series of grotesque, trivial and absurd MTV-style
>> attacks on Obama's virtues and implied disgusting things about his
>> opponent's patriotism.
>>       And then, because he could see he was going to lose, ten days ago,
>> he
>> threw caution to the wind and with no vetting whatsoever, picked a woman
>> who, by her decision to endure her own eight-month pregnancy of a Down
>> Syndrome child in public, that he was going to reignite the culture war as
>> a
>> last stand against Obama. That's all that is happening right now: a
>> massive
>> bump in the enthusiasm of the Christianist base. This is pure Rove.
>>       Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things
>> about
>> him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who
>> cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who
>> knows
>> nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's
>> safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because
>> she
>> polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that
>> the surge was integral to this country's national security would pick as
>> his
>> veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at
>> the time.
>>       McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have
>> the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is
>> more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next
>> president.
>> The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain - no one else - has proved
>> it.
>>
>>
>> http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/1156080,091008ebertpalin.article
>>
>> Roger Ebert on Sarah Palin: The American Idol candidate
>>
>>
>> September 11, 2008
>>
>> BY ROGER EBERT Sun-Times Movie Critic [How appropriate!]
>>
>> I think I might be able to explain some of Sarah Palin's appeal. She's the
>> 'American Idol' candidate. Consider. What defines an 'American Idol'
>> finalist? They're good-looking, work well on television, have a sunny
>> personality, are fierce competitors, and so talented, why, they're darned
>> near the real thing. There's a reason 'American Idol' gets such high
>> ratings. People identify with the contestants. They think, Hey, that could
>> be me up there on that show!
>>
>> My problem is, I don't want to be up there. I don't want a vice president
>> who is darned near good enough. I want a vice president who is better,
>> wiser, well-traveled, has met world leaders, who three months ago had an
>> opinion on Iraq. Someone who doesn't repeat bald- faced lies about
>> earmarks
>> and the Bridge to Nowhere. Someone who doesn't appoint Alaskan politicians
>> to 'study' global warming, because, hello! It has been studied. The
>> returns
>> are convincing enough that John McCain and Barack Obama are darned near in
>> agreement.
>>
>> I would also want someone who didn't make a teeny little sneer when
>> referring to 'people who go to the Ivy League.' When I was a teen I
>> dreamed
>> of going to Harvard, but my dad, an electrician, told me, 'Boy, we don't
>> have the money. Thank your lucky stars you were born in Urbana and can go
>> to
>> the University of Illinois right here in town.' So I did, very happily.
>> Although Palin gets laughs when she mentions the 'elite' Ivy League, she
>> sure did attend the heck out of college.
>>
>> Five different schools in six years. What was that about?
>>
>> And how can a politician her age have never have gone to Europe? My dad
>> had
>> died, my mom was working as a book-keeper and I had a job at the local
>> newspaper when, at 19, I scraped together $240 for a charter flight to
>> Europe. I had Arthur Frommer's $5 a Day under my arm, started in London,
>> even rented a Vespa and drove in the traffic of Rome. A few years later, I
>> was able to send my mom, along with the $15 a Day book.
>>
>> You don't need to be a pointy-headed elitist to travel abroad. You need
>> curiosity and a hunger to see the world. What kind of a person (who has
>> the
>> money) arrives at the age of 44 and has only been out of the country once,
>> on an official tour to Iraq? Sarah Palin's travel record is that of a
>> provincial, not someone who is equipped to deal with global issues.
>>
>> But some people like that. She's never traveled to Europe, Asia, Africa,
>> South America or Down Under? That makes her like them. She didn't go to
>> Harvard? Good for her! There a lot of hockey moms who haven't seen London,
>> but most of them would probably love to, if they had the dough. And they'd
>> be proud if one of their kids won a scholarship to Harvard.
>>
>> I trust the American people will see through Palin, and save the Republic
>> in
>> November. The most damning indictment against her is that she considered
>> herself a good choice to be a heartbeat away. That shows bad judgment.
>>
>> __________________________________________________
>> To subscribe/unsubscribe or for help with using the mailing list go to
>> http://www.rhodes22.org/list
>> __________________________________________________
>>
>>
>>     
>
>