“He is speaking today about his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan before he’s even left, before he has talked to General Petraeus, before he has seen the progress in Iraq, and before he has set foot in Afghanistan for the first time. In my experience … fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around: First you assess the facts on the ground, then you present a new strategy.”

Obama wants to meet the President of Iran for "talks", but is willing to assert "pressure" on Pakistan, an ally in the war on terror.

Obama is a fucking liar. This week we're in, next week we're out and in again and out.... hahaha.

OBAMA IS LYING TO AMERICA !!!

Meanwhile, the New York Daily News reported that the Obama campaign altered its Web site to remove a statement that Bush’s surge of troops in Iraq “is not working.” Over the weekend, the site was changed to describe an “improved security situation” at the cost of U.S. lives.

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.....lying to yourself. Doesn't seem to bother you much.

Your daily diatribes about Obama offer exactly why it is not wise for candidates to set their policies in concrete despite all the people yelling at them to do so, then yelling at them for doing so.

KnotaFrayed:

.....lying to yourself. Doesn't seem to bother you much.

Your daily diatribes about Obama offer exactly why it is not wise for candidates to set their policies in concrete despite all the people yelling at them to do so, then yelling at them for doing so.

What's this shit? Some off-the-cuff defense of Obama flipping around like a barracuda out of water?

It's weak as green tea.

TickleBob:

KnotaFrayed:

.....lying to yourself. Doesn't seem to bother you much.

Your daily diatribes about Obama offer exactly why it is not wise for candidates to set their policies in concrete despite all the people yelling at them to do so, then yelling at them for doing so.

What's this shit? Some off-the-cuff defense of Obama flipping around like a barracuda out of water?

It's weak as green tea.

Have done what?

Poor man. You need a new hearing aid--or maybe it's the batteries. Or are you smoking that funny stuff again with it's easy availability south of the border? Or maybe it's too much sun.

Obama's comments in Washington today - ahead of his trips to Iraq and Afganistan to meet with the military commanders seems to be little more than "political posturing" to appease his base.

Ron

shirley:

Poor man. You need a new hearing aid--or maybe it's the batteries. Or are you smoking that funny stuff again with it's easy availability south of the border? Or maybe it's too much sun.

I can probably get that funny stuff where you live easier than where I live.

KnotaFrayed:

TickleBob:

KnotaFrayed:

.....lying to yourself. Doesn't seem to bother you much.

Your daily diatribes about Obama offer exactly why it is not wise for candidates to set their policies in concrete despite all the people yelling at them to do so, then yelling at them for doing so.

What's this shit? Some off-the-cuff defense of Obama flipping around like a barracuda out of water?

It's weak as green tea.

Have done what?

I'm going to assume those you voted for have just gone on with life and done near nothing. Well, I give Al Gore credit for picking up a million bucks on a fluke.

Then by the same token McCain's eight or nine taxpayer trips to Iraq were the same--photo ops, a batallion of Marines and choppers flying overheadand he still gets it wrong.

When you go on a "fact finding mission" you are supposed to gets some "FACTS" before you issue a "FINDING". I have no problem with Barack going to Iraq and Afganistan - I think his trip is long over due. And, as a "high profile" visitor, I would expect him to get whatever protection is necessary.

Ron

TickleBob:

KnotaFrayed:

TickleBob:

KnotaFrayed:

.....lying to yourself. Doesn't seem to bother you much.

Your daily diatribes about Obama offer exactly why it is not wise for candidates to set their policies in concrete despite all the people yelling at them to do so, then yelling at them for doing so.

What's this shit? Some off-the-cuff defense of Obama flipping around like a barracuda out of water?

It's weak as green tea.

Have done what?

I'm going to assume those you voted for have just gone on with life and done near nothing. Well, I give Al Gore credit for picking up a million bucks on a fluke.

.......The stock market is a good indicator of people changing their minds.

It's easy for those that depend on the collective ignorance and herd instinct of some others to manipulate thinking with the unqualified suggestion of "flip flopping", but investigation into why someone might be changing their mind, offers further insight for those who care to look and those who are not too lazy or gullible to simply follow the herd when someone at the front says go here, go there, jump off this cliff, everything's alright.

This is not to say that a change of heart or mind is always based in good logic or reason or should not cause us to consider it as a caution or warning about those that do so in the same way "staying the course" should also be scrutinized.

It seems to me elections seem to have fads develop around them and many of those fads or trends end up being tit-for-tats, so and so did this so it becomes popular to then hold their opposition accountable for the same. I don't see anything wrong with holding people accountable for their actions, but I do see something wrong with baseless tit-for-tats.

This has bearing on all contests and thus on the one going on for president now.

As I said, the candidates are put into constant and consistent positions of damned if the do, damned if they don't by the voters. It's a game of musical chairs right up until all the votes have been cast. Despite and in spite of the best run campaign in history, a candidate may win or lose based on words and acts made the very same day as the election and even right up until the last ballot is cast. If they don't grab that last chair first, their campaign is in vain regarding any of the promises (flipped or flopped) they have made and any of the policies they have laid out or "flip flopped" on, from any executive leadership position.

So many of us hate the politics, we demand that candidates play.

As Jim Webb pointed out today, neither one of them needs to leave DC. Obama is on the goreign relations committee, has access to in-depth questioning of all sorts of experts including the Pentagon. Such a trip, however, does give an opportunity to meet with boots on the ground, individual commanders.

With as many times as McCain has been there, isn't it sorta obvious how flawed his positions are in light of Mullen's and Gats' comments? They diatmentrically opposed. And they're all in DC.

Torture

BEFORE

McCain 11/16/07: "One of the things that kept us going when I was in prison in North Vietnam was that we knew that if the situation were reversed, that we would not be doing to our captors what they were doing to us"

"I want to tell you. Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney all think it is O.K. They have one thing in common. They don’t understand the military and the culture of this nation. If they did, they could never condone such behavior." [NY Times]

AFTER

McCain votes against a ban on CIA torture. [NY Times]

Special Interests

BEFORE

McCain: "I'm the only one special interests don't give any money to." [YouTube]

AFTER

McCain's campaign manager and many key campaign officials are telecom lobbyists, who have given at least $765,000 to his campaign (and that's just one special interest) [USA Today]

Campaign Finance Laws

BEFORE

McCain author of McCain Feingold amendment, limiting use of soft money in campaigns. [Wikipedia]

AFTER

3/21/08: McCain likely in violation of campaign finance laws. [WashPost]

Jerry Falwell

BEFORE

McCain 2/28/2000: "I am a pro-life, pro-family fiscal conservative, an advocate of a strong defense, and yet Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and a few Washington leaders of the pro-life movement call me an unacceptable presidential candidate. They distort my pro- life positions and smear the reputations of my supporters. Why? Because I don't pander to them, because I don't ascribe to their failed philosophy that money is our message."

McCain 2/29/2000: calls Robertson and Falwell "agents of intolerance." [IHT]

AFTER

McCain gives commencement speech at Falwell's Liberty University, cozies up to Falwell. [ABC]

Iraq

BEFORE

McCain 9/29/02: “We’re not going to get into house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. We may have to take out buildings, but we’re not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies.”

McCain 1/22/03: “But the point is that, one, we will win this conflict. We will win it easily.” [ThinkProgress]

AFTER

McCain: 1/4/07: "When I voted to support this war, I knew it was probably going to be long and hard and tough, and those that voted for it and thought that somehow it was going to be some kind of an easy task, then I’m sorry they were mistaken. Maybe they didn’t know what they were voting for." [ThinkProgress]

Abortion

BEFORE

McCain 8/24/99: "But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations." [WashPost]

AFTER

McCain 2/18/07: "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned" [MSNBC]

Bush's tax cuts

BEFORE

McCain 5/26/01: "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle class Americans who most need tax relief." [McCain's Senate website]

AFTER

In 2006 McCain votes to extend Bush tax cuts [MediaMatters]

Ethanol [hat tip Carpetbagger]

BEFORE

McCain 11/03: "Ethanol is a product that would not exist if Congress didn't create an artificial market for it. No one would be willing to buy it. Yet thanks to agricultural subsidies and ethanol producer subsidies, it is now a very big business - tens of billions of dollars that have enriched a handful of corporate interests - primarily one big corporation, ADM. Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality." [CNN]

AFTER

McCain 8/06: "I support ethanol and I think it is a vital, a vital alternative energy source not only because of our dependency on foreign oil but its greenhouse gas reduction effects." [CNN]

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I do not demand that politicians play a game.I want the truth from them.

My understanding was that this was going to be a different campaign, but look how you all personally insult each other,rather than sticking to the facts. Then get all huffy when the one attacked gets angry.

When you cut through all the hype and spin being generated by each candidate and the media, both candidates seem to have almost the exact same position regarding Iraq and Afganistan. What troubles me about Barack is that he always makes sure that he has enough "wiggle room" in what he says that he is able to emphacize different parts of his position, depending which group he is speaking to.

That's not a "flip-flop" - it's being intentionally ambiguous so that he can later claim that he was "misquoted" or taken out of context.

Ron