repost for page 43:

I wasn't sure if this belongs in this thread or the Iran thread. As you can see I picked this thread.

Quote :

"French Atomic Pique Sarkozy unloads on Obama's 'virtual' disarmament reality. President Obama wants a unified front against Iran, and to that end he stood together with Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown in Pittsburgh on Friday morning to reveal the news about Tehran's secret facility to build bomb-grade fuel. But now we hear that the French and British leaders were quietly seething on stage, annoyed by America's handling of the announcement. Both countries wanted to confront Iran a day earlier at the United Nations. Mr. Obama was, after all, chairing a Security Council session devoted to nonproliferation. The latest evidence of Iran's illegal moves toward acquiring a nuclear weapon was in hand. With the world's leaders gathered in New York, the timing and venue would be a dramatic way to rally international opinion. President Sarkozy in particular pushed hard. He had been "frustrated" for months about Mr. Obama's reluctance to confront Iran, a senior French government official told us, and saw an opportunity to change momentum. But the Administration told the French that it didn't want to "spoil the image of success" for Mr. Obama's debut at the U.N. and his homily calling for a world without nuclear weapons, according to the Paris daily Le Monde. So the Iran bombshell was pushed back a day to Pittsburgh, where the G-20 were meeting to discuss economic policy. Le Monde's diplomatic correspondent, Natalie Nougayrède, reports that a draft of Mr. Sarkozy's speech to the Security Council Thursday included a section on Iran's latest deception. Forced to scrap that bit, the French President let his frustration show with undiplomatic gusto in his formal remarks, laying into what he called the "dream" of disarmament. The address takes on added meaning now that we know the backroom discussions. "We are right to talk about the future," Mr. Sarkozy said, referring to the U.S. resolution on strengthening arms control treaties. "But the present comes before the future, and the present includes two major nuclear crises," i.e., Iran and North Korea. "We live in the real world, not in a virtual one." No prize for guessing into which world the Frenchman puts Mr. Obama. "We say that we must reduce," he went on. "President Obama himself has said that he dreams of a world without nuclear weapons. Before our very eyes, two countries are doing exactly the opposite at this very moment. Since 2005, Iran has violated five Security Council Resolutions . . . "I support America's 'extended hand.' But what have these proposals for dialogue produced for the international community? Nothing but more enriched uranium and more centrifuges. And last but not least, it has resulted in a statement by Iranian leaders calling for wiping off the map a Member of the United Nations. What are we to do? What conclusions are we to draw? At a certain moment hard facts will force us to make decisions." We thought we'd never see the day when the President of France shows more resolve than America's Commander in Chief for confronting one of the gravest challenges to global security. But here we are."

From today's WSJ.

9/29/2009 5:05:50 PM

so now we care what the french think?

9/29/2009 6:21:00 PM

what resolve is france showing other than bitching?

9/29/2009 6:41:00 PM

screw what the French think, but if you really want multilateral support against Iran, whytf not bring it up at the UN? You're already there with leaders from all over the world. You need their support to confront Iran. What better place to bring it up?

9/29/2009 7:50:32 PM

so now we care about UN support?

9/29/2009 9:44:23 PM

^^maybe because they'd rather figure out a cohesive strategy with their allies behind closed doors. at a meeting to occur later that week perhaps.

[Edited on September 29, 2009 at 11:55 PM. Reason : .]

9/29/2009 11:55:29 PM

^^So Obama is just as unilateral and closeminded as Bush? Is that what you're conceding? Forgive me, I thought Obama was trying to handle this different than Bush handled Iraq. You know, present his findings to the UN to get multilateral support against Iran, actually listen to what other countries have to say, etc. But I guess its just more of the same.

^So...they haven't come up with the strategy for the 2-3 years that they knew about this...but somehow they come up with the strategy and present it the next day???


[Edited on September 30, 2009 at 12:50 PM. Reason : .]

9/30/2009 12:47:16 PM

9/30/2009 2:02:08 PM

Quote :

"Iran and six world powers put nuclear talks back on track Thursday at a landmark session that included the highest-level bilateral contact with the U.S. in years…"

- http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jJ066MCWygVF3a2QqiAzzhzxijZgD9B2JD6O0

10/1/2009 8:12:58 PM

good to hear...lets hope Iran honors their word

10/1/2009 8:14:53 PM

Quote :

"On Thursday, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei accepted an invitation from Tehran to go to Iran on Saturday to work out the logistics of the inspections, officials said."

- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125444482868158131.html

10/1/2009 10:24:23 PM

oops wrong credibility thread

[Edited on October 2, 2009 at 12:15 PM. Reason : .]

10/2/2009 12:15:32 PM

10/2/2009 11:08:54 PM

Is there a single economist out there who's arguing that the stimulus package is increasing unemployment in this time frame?

10/3/2009 12:04:33 AM

Yes. By increasing short term borrowing and therefore sucking all the capital out of the system, and by giving everyone an expectation of future tax increases.

But, as anyone will say we cannot run this experiment over again, so we will never know for sure. But there does seem to be a correlation between "massive stimulus spending" and "longer than average recession", but correlation does not prove causation. What we do know, however, is that massive stimulus spending does cause massive debt, that link is fairly proven.

10/3/2009 6:31:58 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL3QeUF6CKQ


pretty funny

10/5/2009 8:57:52 PM

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003216413

He's beginning to lock out the lobbyists in Washington.

I'm sure many Republicans and Democrats will ultimately have problems with this, it's just a question of whether or not they have the guts to go against the popular tide against lobbyists.

10/6/2009 8:05:29 AM

Quote :

"You Can't Say That At the UN, the Obama administration backs limits on free speech. The Obama administration has marked its first foray into the UN human rights establishment by backing calls for limits on freedom of expression. The newly-minted American policy was rolled out at the latest session of the UN Human Rights Council, which ended in Geneva on Friday. American diplomats were there for the first time as full Council members and intent on making friends. President Obama chose to join the Council despite the fact that the Organization of the Islamic Conference holds the balance of power and human rights abusers are among its lead actors, including China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia. Islamic states quickly interpreted the president's penchant for "engagement" as meaning fundamental rights were now up for grabs. Few would have predicted, however, that the shift would begin with America's most treasured freedom. For more than a decade, a UN resolution on the freedom of expression was shepherded through the Council, and the now defunct Commission on Human Rights which it replaced, by Canada. Over the years, Canada tried mightily to garner consensus on certain minimum standards, but the "reformed" Council changed the distribution of seats on the UN's lead human rights body. In 2008, against the backdrop of the publication of images of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper, Cuba and various Islamic countries destroyed the consensus and rammed through an amendment which introduced a limit on any speech they claimed was an "abuse . . . [that] constitutes an act of racial or religious discrimination." "

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/043ytrhc.asp

Full text of the resolution:
http://tinyurl.com/y89sgzx


Text of the portion in question:

Quote :

"3(bis) Expresses further its concern that incidents of racial and religious intolerance, discrimination, and related violence, as well as of negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups around the world, continue to rise, and condemns, in this context, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, and urges States to take effective measures, consistent with their international human rights obligations, to address and combat such incidents."

Truthfully, the resolution itself is possibly the least effective and least elegant defense of the freedom of speech I've ever read, descending at one point into babbling about HIV / AIDS information.

10/6/2009 3:39:48 PM

^^

Quote :

"K Street sources describe a process they say was completely opaque and undertaken without their input. Several lobbyists who sit on the panels said they were not consulted and don’t know of anyone who was."

Should the White House have consulted with lobbyists to determine whether they wanted to limit consultation from lobbyists?

10/6/2009 9:22:42 PM

I personally don't think so, but I'm sure that the various members of congress who have received many benefits from involvement with lobbyists will be informed that they should have a different opinion.

10/6/2009 10:00:12 PM

The question is which lobbyists. The unions and Goldman Sachs have no need for advisory panels to be heard, they have the keys to Obama's office. It is the rest of the establishment that is being thrown out.

10/7/2009 2:47:12 PM

^don't forget about GE.

10/7/2009 3:14:28 PM

Quote :

"Though aides stress that the president's final decision on any changes is still at least two weeks away, the emerging thinking suggests that he would be very unlikely to favor a large military increase of the kind being advocated by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. McChrystal's troop request is said to include a range of options, from adding as few as 10,000 combat troops to — the general's strong preference — as many as 40,000. Obama's developing strategy on the Taliban will "not tolerate their return to power," the senior official said in an interview with The Associated Press. But the U.S. would fight only to keep the Taliban from retaking control of Afghanistan's central government — something it is now far from being capable of — and from giving renewed sanctuary in Afghanistan to al-Qaida, the official said."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091008/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_us_afghanistan_112

10/8/2009 6:38:55 PM

10/8/2009 8:58:40 PM

IS THE MEDIA HONEYMOON OVER?!??!?!!??11

10/8/2009 10:04:24 PM

So yeah... Nobel Peace Prize...

I can't wait to see a full logic behind it, it should be interesting to see Obama as they see Obama.

10/9/2009 7:49:37 AM

to his credit, he seems just as surprised as everyone else.

10/9/2009 8:37:22 AM

You're giving him credit for not expecting a Nobel Peace Prize months into his presidency? I don't get it.


This award has nothing to do with his credibility and anybody hating on him for it is stupid. But I know I'll just love hearing all his supporters talk about all the great work he supposedly did to win this.

I say next year, we give the Heisman to somebody the second week of the season and hope it propels them to an awesome season.

10/9/2009 8:50:12 AM

10/12/2009 1:36:41 PM

Hopefully if the WH keeps going on the offensive instead of letting it's critics control the discussion those numbers will creep back up a little, or at least level out.

10/13/2009 8:22:05 AM

Quote :

"But I know I'll just love hearing all his supporters talk about all the great work he supposedly did to win this."

No one, not even Obama is saying this.

It’s at least comforting to see that you still reject reality though.

10/13/2009 9:21:00 AM

You're kidding, right? Here's a few people doing exactly that.

http://www.theroot.com/views/why-obama-deserves-nobel-peace-prize

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/10/column-obama-peace-prize-not-without-some-merit-.html

And I never said Obama would say anything about great work he's done...

10/13/2009 10:55:57 AM

.

[Edited on October 13, 2009 at 2:42 PM. Reason : wrong thread]

10/13/2009 2:13:12 PM

^^ The majority of the left is saying Obama doesn't really deserve it. Sure there are people who are going to try to argue otherwise, but I don't know of anyone on TWW who feels he truly deserves it, and even Slate has been mocking his winning of the Prize.

10/13/2009 3:20:16 PM

I guess I shouldn't have used "all his supporters" because I didn't mean for it to be taken literally. Just as I assume you didn't mean "no one" in your reply.

Yeah, everybody on the left who isn't being a hack won't try to argue that he deserves it. Just like everybody on the right who isn't a hack doesn't think he should be boo'ed or criticized for winning it.

My point was that it was still going to be annoying to listen to those few that tried to defend it. The idiots are on both sides of the aisle, the right's just been a lot louder lately.

10/13/2009 3:29:25 PM

I have been actually impressed with most of my lib friends reaction to the NPP.

However, I do have a few that immediately went to the race card/hate america when I simply asked what has he done?


Boone, he would have my support if O passed the Fairtax or balanced the budget. So dont count on it.

10/13/2009 3:40:49 PM

10/13/2009 3:43:59 PM

^thats pretty funny

10/13/2009 4:09:33 PM

Quote :

"For President Barack Obama, it's almost as if the election campaign never ended. Just look at his travel schedule. The same states that Obama targeted to win the White House are seeing an awful lot of the president, Vice President Joe Biden and top Cabinet officials. Only this year, the taxpayers are footing the multimillion-dollar tab for the trips, and Obama officials are delivering wheelbarrows of economic stimulus money — also compliments of taxpayers. An Associated Press review of administration travel records shows that three of every four official trips Obama and his key lieutenants made in his first seven months in office were to the 28 states Obama won. Add trips to Missouri and Montana — both of which Obama narrowly lost — and almost 80 percent of the administration's official domestic travel has been concentrated in states likely to be key to Obama's re-election effort in 2012. While similar data hasn't been compiled for previous administrations, new presidents traditionally have used official travel to shore up — and add to — their political base. Consider President George W. Bush's travel record, for instance. "When we were trying to build support for key policy initiatives, it made sense for President Bush to travel to states with persuadable citizens," says Scott Stanzel, a former White House spokesman who was the press secretary for Bush's 2004 re-election bid. "That meant visits to 'purple states' where people weren't as likely to already support or oppose the president's plans.""

http://tinyurl.com/yjhutdr

10/13/2009 6:30:43 PM

Whiner-in-Chief posted
by John Nichols on 10/12/2009

Quote :

"The Obama administration really needs to get over itself. First, the president and his aides go to war with Fox News because the network maintains a generally anti-Obama slant. Then, an anonymous administration aide attacks bloggers for failing to maintain a sufficiently pro-Obama slant. These are not disconnected developments. An administration that won the White House with an almost always on-message campaign and generally friendly coverage from old and new media is now frustrated by its inability to control the debate and get the coverage it wants. But before the president and his inner circle go all Spiro Agnew on us, they might want to consider three fundamental facts regarding relations between the executive branch and the fourth estate: 1. Since the founding of the republic, media outlets (the founders dismissed them as 'damnable periodicals') have been partisan. White House communications director Anita Dunn was not exactly breaking news when she told CNN's 'Reliable Sources' that Fox was neither fair nor balanced. 'What I think is fair to say about Fox -- and certainly it's the way we view it -- is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party,' grumbled Dunn. 'They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that's fine. But let's not pretend they're a news network the way CNN is.' Fox hosts do go overboard in their savaging of Obama and the Democrats -- sometimes ridiculously so. But their assaults on the president are gentle when compared with the battering that Benjamin Franklin Bache's Philadelphia Aurora administered to John Adams (appropriately) or the trashing that Colonel McCormick's Chicago Tribune gave Franklin Roosevelt (inappropriately). To suggest that Fox is not a news network simply because Sean Hannity echoes RNC talking points would be like suggesting that the Aurora was not a newspaper because it took cues from Tom Jefferson or that the Tribune was not a legitimate member of the fourth estate because it was sweet on Alf Landon. 2. Presidents are supposed to rise above their own partisanship and engage with a wide range of media -- even outlets that are hard on their administrations. In fact, presidents should go out of their way to accept invites from media that can be expected to poke, prod and pester them. The willingness to take the hits suggests that a commander-in-chief is not afraid to engage with his critics. It also reminds presidents, who tend to be cloistered, that there are a lot of Americans who get their information from sources that do not buy what the White House press office is selling. When Dick Cheney kept giving 'exclusive' interviews to Fox 'personalities,' there were those of us who ridiculed both the personalities and the former vice president for going through the ridiculous exercise of lobbing softballs and swinging at them. Obama should be better than Cheney. But aides are not helping the president prevail in what ought to be an easy competition. Cheney saw newspapers such as The New York Times and news channels such as CNN as little more than branches of his Democratic opposition. When Dunn was asked whether the president refused to accept interview requests from Fox because the White House sees the network as 'a wing of the Republican party,' the communications director responded: 'Is this why he did not appear? The answer is yes.' That is such a radically wrong response that it calls into question the whole communications strategy of an administration that has somehow managed to take a man who was elected with a mandate and lodge him in a corner where there are now serious questions about whether a Democratic president and an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress can enact basic elements of the Democratic agenda. Obama should sit down with Fox reporters and anchors and do interviews. That does not mean that the president has to put up with the emotional wreckage that is Glenn Beck. But there is no reason why he shouldn't go another round with Bill O'Reilly (as Obama did during the 2008 campaign) or sit down with Chris Wallace (as Bill Clinton did). If the Fox interviewers are absurdly unfair, the American people will respond with appropriate consternation. On the other hand, if they are aggressive and pointed in their challenges, Obama will rise or fall on the quality of his responses. His aides, if they have any faith in their man's abilities, should bend over backwards to accept some Fox interviews. They should also accept an invite from PBS' Bill Moyers, who would pose tougher – and, yes, more informed -- questions than the Foxbots. 3. The worst mistake a president or his administration can make is to try and 'whip' relatively like-minded writers and reporters into line. Yet, that appears to be what the Obama team was trying to do with the silly 'policing action' of having a White House 'adviser,' speaking on condition of anonymity, encourage liberal bloggers to 'take off their pajamas' and get serious about politics. On Sunday, when gay rights marchers challenged the Obama administration to make real the equality rhetoric of the president, NBC White House correspondent John Harwood: For a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn't take this opposition, one adviser told me today those bloggers need to take off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely-divided country is complicated and difficult. Harwood told Huffington Post: My comments quoting an Obama adviser about liberal bloggers/pajamas weren't about the LGBT community or the marchers. They referred more broadly to those grumbling on the left about an array of issues in addition to gay rights, including the war in Afghanistan and health care and Guantanamo -- and whether all that added up to trouble with Obama's liberal base... The bloggers took offense. The White House tried to 'disassociate' itself from the comment. But that's standard operating procedure: toss the bomb and then avoid the fallout. The bloggers shouldn't be worried. They should take the criticism as a compliment -- as Fox's ratings show, White House griping harms the White House more than it does the target of the complaint. The bloggers should also take the criticism as confirmation that they are right when they suggest that this administration is increasingly out of touch with the progressive base that secured Obama the Democratic nomination and ultimately propelled him to the White House. The fact is that the results of the 2008 election did not reveal 'a closely-divided country.' Obama arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with the most muscular mandate accorded any Democrat since Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide. The bloggers are right when they argue that the Obama administration can and should be doing more with that mandate. As for the Obama administration, whether the grumbling is about Republicans on Fox or bloggers in pajamas, there's a word for what the president and his aides are doing. That word is 'whining.' And nothing -- no attack by Glenn Beck, no blogger busting about Guantanamo -- does more damage to Obama's credibility or authority than the sense that a popular president is becoming the whiner-in-chief."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/483551/whiner_in_chief

10/15/2009 6:25:21 AM

Obama makes first trip to New Orleans as president (AP) – 1 hour ago

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jyNegREI4mBG_aZVAc6lxxKbiBtQD9BBJ54G0

I guess everything's totally cool down there--since Obama hasn't been in about nine months.

10/15/2009 12:27:18 PM

Yeah it's not like there was a hurricane or anything.

Because there wasn't.

10/15/2009 12:42:12 PM

Quote :

"Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, has credited Obama's team with bringing a more practical and flexible approach to the reconstruction process. "There's a sense of momentum and a desire to get things done," he said in August. When Obama became president, FEMA said there were more than 120 Louisiana reconstruction projects stalled in federal-state disputes. Since January, 76 of those have been resolved. But there's still much to do."

Caught my eye from the linked article. That seems like a pretty large % of resolved disputes in 9 or so months, especially dealing with FEMA.

Not sure that this deserves a bolded sentence and underlined word though. I mean, I'm sure he hasn't gone to a lot of places so far that have issues.

[Edited on October 15, 2009 at 1:05 PM. Reason : x]

10/15/2009 1:04:49 PM

so Anita Dunn's two favorite political philosophers are Mao Zedong and I'm not supposed to consider the Obama administration favorable to socialist ideology?

10/15/2009 5:21:06 PM

^You were just watching Glenn Beck, weren't you? Lol, its already on wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Dunn

10/15/2009 5:56:51 PM

Yeah, he usually uncovers interesting shit like that, but I bounce when he starts crying.



Yes TSB, I occasionally watch Glenn Beck. What?

10/15/2009 6:01:16 PM

Hey, I was watching too, but only because he was being particularly ludicrous when I flipped the channel.

10/15/2009 6:03:50 PM

Quote :

"so Anita Dunn's two favorite political philosophers are Mao Zedong and I'm not supposed to consider the Obama administration favorable to socialist ideology?"

Is it so much that as it is the natural employment of the otherwise unemployable that comes standard for every administration?

In other words, it's the left's equivalent of the Liberty University graduate. Unqualified, otherwise unemployable, generally batshit insane, but basically elevated through patronage.

10/15/2009 6:06:26 PM

I'd also like to point out, on the Katrina / Louisiana thing, that New Orleans' corruption and incompetence lead to a large portion of their problems. Southern Mississippi bore much more of the brunt of Katrina and continues to be ignored.

10/15/2009 7:49:38 PM

I dig it.

10/15/2009 8:39:22 PM