Obama's second term through the White House will prove to be much more fatal than the first. Obama may have removed a *few* troops from Iraq, but our wallets are still highly invested in other foreign countries, and it will only be a few more months till reelection when Obama can go balls to the wall and start his war with Iran and Syria. And of course when I say Obama, I'm referring to the strings he dangles from.

1. What makes you think he'd got to war with Iran, when if anything Obama's been criticized for being too peaceable with hostile nations?

2. Syria's in a civil war right now, and I somehow doubt Obama wants to take sides militarily in that conflict, all it will do is cost is more American lives, home support, and alienate the large base of whatever side loses.

3. I don't think thousands out of Iraq counts as only "a *few"...er, Mr. Hitler.

4. Strings he dangles from...please, enthrall us with more conspiracy paranoia, we don't have quite enough of that on the forum, no, not at all...

And the republican ticket couldn't give a fuck about you, obi. You are a liberal just this side of putin33 and wouldn't vote Republican even if the Governator were on the ticket. So they aren't wasting their energy and money on you and you should really not waste your's on them.

So which Ayn Rand books have you read obi....?

Or Ayn Rand essays....?

Paul Ryan is no Ayn Rand, just look at Reason.com (Libertarian Magazine and Ayn Rand devotees) they have been bashing him since Saturday.

Whether or not you agree with him, Paul Ryan deserves kudos for being willing to talk about issues that need to be talked about but are ignored because of the risk of alienating voters. You may believe he is throwing granny off a cliff, but the unaddressed fiscal health of entitlement programs threatens to throw my children off a cliff.

I read all of atlas shrugged, and the fountainhead. she actually is shit, but I dont appreciate the ignorant people who just toss her name around without having read anything by her or actually knowing what objectivism entails. And so far obi has mostly written things i could find in a text book, or a generic blurb about authors, so i wouldn't be surprised if he isn't above being that person.

Nice trolling obi.

It's your children who are going to left with nothing once Ryan is through, if the hack ever gets elected.

I don't get why Obi hates Rand. Rand is a dumbed down version of Nietzschean ethics, without the perspectivism.

"I read all of atlas shrugged, and the fountainhead"

My condolences. I couldn't get through chapter 1 of Atlas Shrugged. I did read her essay on Selfishness and listened to enough Randroids drone on about her in my classes to get the gist of it.

Anyway, Obi. Don't fret. Ryan, for political expediency's sake, has rejected his former master, because he has to pander to the psycho religious base of the GOP, and Rand was an atheist. Nobody said Randroids weren't Machiavellian.

Usdebtclock.org. can't argue with math. Bryan's plan was tame compared to what really needs to be done. Slash all govt. spending 50%.

Stupid kindle. Ryan's plan.

Why do conservatives always make such facile arguments? Did it occur to you that tax receipts decline by leaps and bounds in times of massive economic crisis, which was the state of the economy when Obama came to power, losing 800,000 jobs a month from Dec-Feb? Did it occur to you that had not Obama stimulated the economy, our debt & unemployment would be even higher? Did it occur to you that the house of reps, despite being in power for nearly two years, has done absolutely nothing on the jobs & economy front, instead preoccupying themselves with obstruction and restricting the rights of women?

"Slash all govt. spending 50%."

Right, and triple our unemployment. Have you bothered to look at what austerity has done for the UK? Where's that economic growth again? Oh right, they're in a double-dip recession.

Why worry about detail, we need phrases and slogans
USA USA USA constantly repeated is very good
Just randomly saying 'God Bless America' (preferably with right hand over left breast) is just awesome
Way to go is suitably inane and inoffensive
This could be the slogan that will appeal to a cross section of the community
I shout 'Can you dig it'
You Shout 'If we've got shovels' (don't say spades......)
genius

Wow Putin....so many leaps in your last one. Obama and the Democrats had complete control of both the Executive and Legislative Branch for two years and we still have had no recovery.

@ Nigee, LOL all I have to say is "HOPE" and "Change"

"And the republican ticket couldn't give a fuck about you, obi. You are a liberal just this side of putin33 and wouldn't vote Republican even if the Governator were on the ticket."

Well, first--given the amount of times I've disagree (and rather markedly) with Putin, I don't think I'm quite "just this side" of him, with due respect to both our positions; while it's true he and I are both more apt to be classified as liberals, I think he would agree the direction and degree to which I take that differs rather sharply than where he would see it taken.

So some shared soil, but very different crops, to stretch a metaphor.

I'd also like to ask why "liberal" here, it seems, is used a pejorative?

I simply do not understand that, any more than--to be fair--I understand the demonization of the world "conservative" to people on the Far Left (I might cite Putin here, but I'll let him speak to that if he wishes rather than put words directly in mouth.)

There are some virtues to both liberal and conservative stances and, indeed, areas and cases where either might be the better course (or indeed, even a blending of the two.)

When it comes to social reform and ideals of that matter, I'm certainly more liberal...
When it comes to the prison system, say, while I'm opposed to the death penalty (in large part due to the cost and the fact I don't think it works a deterrent, you may cite facts both ways, but people will and have still killed with death penalties in place for thousands of years) I'd say my view there is probably more conservative than liberal...

I may be liberal about ideals and change, but if you break the law, there may be some instances where circumstances might mitigate, but in the vast majority, the law is the law and punishment is to be handed out equally and accordingly.

So I'm not sure why, when so many great things have come about through liberal leaders and action, that "liberal" is a pejorative--there have been bad instances (I'm the first to denounce Marx and communist ideals, and here you'll find me sharply and in a way irrevocably diverge from Putin, as I said) of it, but bad instances of conservatism to go with the good that it's produced as well.

So why shun an entire view? Seems rather closed-minded...indeed, nearly as extremist and closed-minded as Rand's embracing greed, self-reliance (I'm sorry, but this is an inter-dependent country and an inter-dependent world at that) and capitalism gone amok and, on the flip side, Marx's equally extremist views in denouncing capitalism altogether and, indeed, I find Marx's idea of a "zero state" as distasteful as Rand's overly-capitalistic and greed-run society.

And I've said before I WOULD vote Republican...

I vote for the man and the ideal, NOT for the color, Red OR Blue.

Obama, for the things he has done that I've liked, has disappointed me to a great extent, and while to what extent his shortcomings are his or solely his fault, the fact remains that, if the Republicans had trotted out a moderate, someone close to the center who didn't utterly disgust me, I'd have considered it.

But I got Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Ron Paul (though to be fair to the GOP and Paul himself he IS far more his own animal than a Republican, he's still a detestable animal in my view, but his own detestable animal nonetheless) and ultimately Romney instead.

NONE of these are the sort of Republican I would be inclined to vote for.

Give me a "Republican" with the ideals of a Teddy Roosevelt--in other words, someone who takes from the Left as well as the Right for his ideals, who has roots in both tracts.

THEN I will consider voting for a Republican candidate, Registered Democrat that I am.

"but Paul Ryan...

It's not only Vanilla on Vanilla...at a time when Congress is (for good reason) as vilified as the President...we get another Vanilla conservative white male."

Superficial moron alert! It's shit like this that has made this electoral cycle so stupid. Stop pretending to be concerned with the actual issues if you're going to make inane comments like this. Every single marginalized class in America should be insulted by the implication that every presidential ticket needs a member of those classes, as though the marginalized classes only vote by skin color or sex. Gimme a break.

The Ryan pick was obviously intended to cater to the Republican base. Please stop putting on pretenses of moderation and acting like you'd vote for Romney if he'd picked, say, Condoleezza Rice. You wouldn't have, you know you wouldn't have, and the sooner we can get past the obfuscatory BS the sooner we can get to the actual issue-driven discussions.

(And for the record, no, I don't think Ryan is the pick to allow for that. The issue at which Romney best drives with the pick is tackling the budget deficit, but the Ryan plan sparked a vitriolic mud-slinging fest on all sides, not a reasonable effort to fix anything. Not to mention that Ryan is pretty much the personification of the corruption of the Tea Party movement from a legitimate libertarian grassroots protest against the fiscal policy of the 2000s to a laughable, embarrassing group of partisan hacks fronting for the Republican establishment. The guy pleaded for the bank bailouts, and whatever your views on that, it's pretty obvious that the Tea Party faction kinda failed hard if the VP pick intended to spark their involvement was the guy who called for the bailouts that triggered the initial TP protests in the first place.)

"I don't get why Obi hates Rand. Rand is a dumbed down version of Nietzschean ethics, without the perspectivism."

You hit the nail on the head WHY I hate Rand, Putin...or at least one reason why--

She essentially does try and take from Nietzchean (and I'd argue perhaps some Hobbsian) roots in terms of her ideals on ethics...

And dumbs them down and twists them.

In honesty--and I know this is a statement that leaves me wide open for an obvious reason, but I'll make it anyway--Rand and her extremism smacks of a college student masturbating to Nietzsche and Hobbes and taking them to the absurd extreme, to the point where even a figure such as Nietzsche would be shaking his head.

(Everyone's ready to write in about my Nietzsche fandom, haha...in my own defense, I'd simply say that while I loved Nietzsche a couple years ago--and still like him quite a great deal--I was and do like his ideas where they already lie, NOT taken to the perverted extreme, and I never wrote something a la Rand expressing my undying celebration for a fanatical, radical, exclusive devotion to a twisted form of Nietzschean ideals...and if I DID, everyone here--RIGHTLY--would have pointed out what a teenaged pubescent prat I was being.)

What's more--Rand not only twists and runs to the radical end of Nietzsche's ideas, but does so with the subset of his ideas I like the LEAST, even when my adoration of the man was at his zenith:

His political views.

I love Nietzsche's approach to literary criticism--I still cite it regulalry.
I love Nietzsche's scathing attacks on organized religion and the idea of God in general.
I love Nietzsche's Master/Slave morality distinction.
I love the fact Nietzsche gives a reason WHY oppressed Jews may have opted for the latter.
I love the fact Nietzsche recognizes this reason no longer applies, and is degrading.
I love his criticism on the Christian dogma in particular; I think it's still one of the best.
I love his idea of a Superman (though admittedly Nietzsche too enigmatic about it.)

I DO NOT like Nietzsche's political views--almost without fail.

The same way I love Shakespeare (an Obi post, you knew Shakespeare was coming) but I maintain that "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and "The Comedy of Errors" are really not very good plays at all, and if they didn't carry Shakespeare's namesake we'd never be hearing their titles 400 years later...

The same way I like Plato but find his totalitarian view of a Republic abhorrent...

The same way I like Milton, but would agree his views were a bit sexist...

The same way I like T.S. Eliot but disagree with his "Hamlet and His Problems" essay...

The same way I like all these heroes overall, but all were flawed men and I acknowledge that fact and disagree with what I perceive as character or textual flaws...

I love Nietzsche, but given its contradictory, muddled, and ultimately rambling and often incoherent stance, I dislike Nietzsche's political views, and find his attempts there rather piddling.

About the most coherent thing he can muster is a call for a sort of pseudo-anarchism and the idea that a state is a sort of poison...but as I dislike the concept of anarchism expressed in this fashion (and really in general) and not only do I disagree with the idea that a state is a sort of poison.

What's more, Nietzsche, as colorful a writer as he is, seems to often contradict himself in his aphorisms, or at least write ambiguously enough to not have be able to drive the point he wants to make home. Sometimes--his critique of literature and of the Master/Slave perceptions of religion come to mind--his colorful style is held in check by his NEED to address a set issue, and so he comes across as coherent AND colorful...or when he writes the whole book in the form of a parabolic story ("Thus Spoke Zarathustra") and embraces that style whole-heartedly, and it's THEN Nietzsche is at his best, THAT is the Nietzsche I came to and still do admire.

But it's equally true Nietzsche had a tendency to try and be too colorful and enigmatic in his writing for his own good, and in these cases--as exemplified with his fumbling with concrete political stances that require a coherent, set argument, NOT a random assortment of aphoristic ramblings--Nietzsche simply doesn't deliver.

All he does is ramble (a bit like I'm doing now, only with more talent.) ;)

And THOSE poorer sections of Nietzsche are what Rand often tries to draw upon, so it's drawing upon the worst dreg-worthy ramblings of an otherwise-talented and often-brilliant man, twisting those to fit your own agenda, and then running with them to their absurd extreme, which is saying something when the ideas she's borrowing were ALREADY inconsistent and incoherent at best and absurd and even nonsensical at their worst.



Simply put, on the Rand/Nietzsche matter, I despise the way Rand tries to reinvent Nietzsche...not the fact she tries to reinvent him so much ITSELF (many others, such as H.L. Mencken, have tried to work to do this before in order to forward ideas or else systematize Nietzsche's separate aphorisms into something more consistent and coherent, with varying success) so much as HOW she tries to reinvent him, which parts she chooses to try and reinvent, and the fact that she reinvents him badly and, at that, in a poorer pallor of light.

Ayn Rand strikes me as the sort of person I might have read and enjoyed straight out of high school...

A few years removed from that posh setting and a few years wiser (if only marginally so) I evaluate her as I see her now--an opportunistic radical with thin characters and thinner plots to express a thinly-veiled and highly-flawed agenda that she wishes to claim is derived from a great mind in order to grant her legitimacy, when in fact it's from the poorest wells of a rich mind and poorer still for her tampering with an already defective idea, as it were.

The same way I'd like to think that those who read "Twilight" in high school realize what utter dreck and anti-feminist, melodramatic crap it is a few years down the road...

I'd like to think young readers of Rand would grow out of that phase and grow up personally and intellectually in a way Rand was either incapable or unwilling to do herself.

Rand IS the philosophic and political equivalent to what The Twilight "Saga" is to literature...

And I'd like to think a prospective Vice-President of the United States would be beyond such childish ramblings (and if you believe my ramblings in the past have been at times immature, I could probably look back a couple years and agree with you in cases--but that's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, as it were, NOT the portrait of someone you'd expect or want to have a heart attack away from running the most powerful nation on Earth.)

@President Eden:

"Superficial moron alert! It's shit like this that has made this electoral cycle so stupid. Stop pretending to be concerned with the actual issues if you're going to make inane comments like this. Every single marginalized class in America should be insulted by the implication that every presidential ticket needs a member of those classes, as though the marginalized classes only vote by skin color or sex. Gimme a break."

No, you're right--not all tickets need a minority or multi-class platform.

I'm saying Romney's DID.

When your candidate is a white upper-class, wealthy-as-all-hell Republican candidate from New England...

Unless said candidate has a JFK-like charismatic ability to connect to different classes and age groups or, to be fair, the outstanding communication skills as someone like Reagan possessed...

You've selected a candidate who is NOTHING like the sort of person many minorities and middle-to-lower class white Americans can relate to.

Can you honestly tell me Romney's someone minorities and the poor and the hard-hit middle class can relate to?

For all his faults--and there are plenty--that's one area where Obama DOES work well, in connecting to certain minorities and not seeming like a WASP...as he's not one.

In fact, for as much as I despise his politics, RON PAUL WAS BETTER HERE, HE, for whatever reason, does seem to be able to connect to a youthful base and to certain subsets of the working class.

Romney simply does NOT--he is a New England WASP, and that's not someone the electorate can relate to in 2012, not when America is so much more diverse and certainly not in the middle of the worst recession in our recent history.

So no, not every ticket needs minority support, but Romney did need that.

He's already largely alienated the Latino vote...how is he going to win Florida, which HE WILL NEED if he's to win this election...he'd have to just about run the table of battle ground states and then hope a leaning-blue state or two goes his way to win the election and not win Florida--and his chances at doing that are not good at all.

I WILL credit the fact that yes, picking Paul Ryan puts Wisconsin in play and takes what was a leaning-Blue state and makes Obama and his campaign spend more time and money there and thus stretch resources and give him a better shot at that state...

But at what cost?

I was honestly shocked it wasn't someone like a Marco Rubio that was picked, someone to try and close that immense gap in regards to the Latino vote, or else a governor, white, black, green or turquoise, WITHOUT a Congressional Voting Record (you KNOW the Obama Campaign will have fun rifling through Raul Ryan's voting record and seeing what they can use, that's free ammunition Romney's given Obama and his campaign.)

It's two white wealthy men on the ticket--on a ticket that with Romney at the top already had problems in getting people to connect.

'Please stop putting on pretenses of moderation and acting like you'd vote for Romney if he'd picked, say, Condoleezza Rice."

Again, PE--

I WOULD consider a Republican...
I WOULD NOT consider Romney, so they already lost my vote in choosing him...

I'm just saying, for the reasons I gave above (and the ideological can of worms they've potentially opened) this was NOT a smart pick by the Romney campaign. At all.

(1) I asked you to stop putting on pretenses. That means stop pretending you would vote Republican in this cycle or indeed almost any other when we're all well aware you wouldn't.
(2) Funny that you describe Romney as a WASP; last I checked he was a Mormon, which was actually (amazingly, to me, quite honestly) a sticking point for his own base (which also could help to explain the Ryan pick, although on those grounds almost anyone would have been an 'improvement,' so to speak).
(3) You're still doing the whole "But marginalized classes are too stupid to vote for anyone who doesn't have a member of their own on the ticket!" thing. Latinos aren't some Zerg hive mind that are programmed to vote for the guy who has the most Spanish-sounding name or tannest skin, you know.

I'm late to the party, but obi, it is quite funny that you considered a republican ticket but none If the candidates:)

And Romney is probably the closest thing to a democrat you are going to find.

I vote for a republican, too, If they fielded a candidate that agreed with me on most major issues.

"(1) I asked you to stop putting on pretenses. That means stop pretending you would vote Republican in this cycle or indeed almost any other when we're all well aware you wouldn't."

And I said I would have considered it they ran one that spoke to my values--none of them did.

"(2) Funny that you describe Romney as a WASP; last I checked he was a Mormon, which was actually (amazingly, to me, quite honestly) a sticking point for his own base (which also could help to explain the Ryan pick, although on those grounds almost anyone would have been an 'improvement,' so to speak)."

True enough he's a Mormon, but still, he's pretty much the stereotypical white upper-classman from New England with a religious background...WASM does't have quite the same ring to it. ;) (As for his Mormonism being a sticking point...I can definitely see that, given how different Mormonism is from other forms of Christianity, and the sort of press and attention it gets...it explains why Ryan might be on the ticket, but again, I maintain, it's NOT a pick that helps demographically, it doesn't bring in working class people, doesn't shed his wealthier-than-thou image, doesn't help to repair the damage that's been done to his chances at connecting with ANY base besides upper-middle class whites and and above...)

"(3) You're still doing the whole "But marginalized classes are too stupid to vote for anyone who doesn't have a member of their own on the ticket!" thing. Latinos aren't some Zerg hive mind that are programmed to vote for the guy who has the most Spanish-sounding name or tannest skin, you know."

They're not a hive mind, but you're being equally disingenuous if you think for a moment that MOST Latinos would vote for a man with Romney's immigration stance and given his past stances on issues regarding the Latino community.

I'm not for a second saying that they all will vote for the first Rodriguez or Santana on the ticket, as it were...

I AM saying that they'll vote for someone who speaks to their issues and their community--that's not too outrageous, now, is it?--and Romney does neither, and you KNOW that he has alienated this base.

What's more, when I say "the Latino base" or "the Latino vote," you know I'm addressing a general bloc of voters and the majority of a large group, so don't pretend to take my words as if you think I mean every last Latino in America when I phrase it that way and you know I mean the generalized base (hence my term used) and not the sort of hive mind.

Would they vote for Romney with Marco Rubio?
Many still would not.
But would it perhaps help for a candidate who has alienated that base more than any other?
I maintain that it would...

Or, between the Latino base largely being alienated against Romney and the Medicare debate that Paul Ryan brings to the table...

Would you like to explain to me how Romney will win Florida now WITHOUT key support from those groups?

Because, again--

If Romney does NOT win Florida, he has to basically run the table of swing states and them hope a leaning-blue state or two such as Pennsylvania or Michigan swings his way as well...do you think that's likely, that EVERYTHING will break just right for Romney?

I don't.

It was a stupid, stupid pick for Romney--not only does it not help with the existing base problems that he has (and to address your point completely, a white candidate who was perhaps more well-liked by the Latino community would have helped, I'm NOT suggesting it had to be a Sanchez or Hernandez or someone with a Latino background, just someone who could help get Latino support, or at least someone who had some rapport with that group of voters) but introduces a whole new debate that the Obama campaign is all too ready to take up.

AGAIN--if Romney can get Florida, he has a fair chance.

I do think that winning Florida looks optimistic for Romney right now.

A pick from Florida, a pick such as Marco Rubio, a pick of someone who has a rapport with groups Romney is distanced from and is not connecting to right now, a pick from one of the state governors and thus someone who DOES NOT have a voting record that can now be used by the Obama campaign as ammunition for a whole new slew of ads...

ALL those would have made sense.

Paul Ryan does not--can you honestly say it does when Ryan's biggest contributions are shoring up a base (Christian right-wingers) that Romney would likely have won anyway (if only because the Solid South and Heartland trends red and even more so against Obama, they'd largely take Romney as the lesser of two evils, he wouldn't have as much support as previous GOP candidates, but he'd have more than enough to win the states) and putting Wisconsin in play when it was leaning blue, which DOES help, but is not nearly the game-changer Romney needs to tip the electoral scales in his favor when Obama can afford to lose Wisconsin and still have a decent chance at winning enough other swing states and leaning-blue states to take the election?

Can you honestly see Paul Ryan as a good choice?

I can't imagine Rand having anything to do with Paul Ryan.

@smcbride:

"And Romney is probably the closest thing to a democrat you are going to find."

I don't want or need a Republican that is a Democrat.

I would have wanted, again, a Teddy Roosevelt-style Republican who might have some conservative leanings, but liberal leanings as well, and have the conservative leanings either match with those I have or not tread too terribly on my toes (ie, I can live with a God-believing candidate who says he draws strength from the Bible if his political message is in tune with my political beliefs--we're not getting an atheistic or even non-Christian president in this nation for a long, LONG time yet, but if said candidate also wanted to push for Creationism to be taught in schools, that'd be a step too far for me) and have the liberal leanings speak to values that I hold as well.

In other words...I'd want a Republican who spoke to my ideals and issues.

No more, no less.

That's not unreasonable, I think.

Romney does not speak to anything I want--

He does NOT speak to the minority I want care most about in this country.
He does NOT even come close to my views on immigration.
He does NOT share an economic vision I like (neither does Obama, really, to be fair.)
He does NOT mesh with my view on abortion (I disagree with it being a state-by-state decision)
He does NOT seek to appoint justices I would care to see on the Bench.
He does NOT have a foreign policy that I would leap at.
He does NOT in particular have a view of Latin American relations that I approve of.
He does NOT have a stance on the LGBT community and their rights I favor--AT ALL.
He does NOT have a personal ideology I agree with (I'll be honest, I know very nice Mormon people, but while I am willing to accept that for the foreseeable future the President must and will always have a Christian connection, not all sects are, I suppose, in conflict with what I'd want to see than others, and quite simply, I do not agree with Mormonism as a religion and I find it largely abhorrent; TO BE CLEAR, SO IT IS NOT SAID OTHERWISE--if this were Romney's *ONLY* major conflict with my ideals, I would still strongly consider voting for him, as religion is, however much it might impact one's views, still a personal privilege and a private matter, and if he really spoke to my political issues, so long as he kept his religious faith to himself, I could still easily vote for him, as much as I dislike Mormonism...his Mormonism isn't a necessary disqualifier, just a significant strike against him...if he spoke to my issues I would still likely vote for him, he does not, so it is simply one more large reason I am not inclined to vote for the man.)

In short, Romney is not at all the sort of candidate I would care for.

A more recent example of someone I'd have considered for Presidency as a Republican, someone more recent than TR?

BEFORE Obama was the choice in 2008 for the Democrats...

If it was Hillary/McCain, I'd have considered McCain, as much as I loathe his own personal stance towards the Latin American community and as much as I disagree with other aspects of his views...in that race, if it had been Hillary/McCain, I would honestly have given McCain and Hillary about an equal shot, 50/50, it'd probably come down to whoever articulated their message best and who in the end matched most with my views, such as they were in 2008.

Today...I'd take Hillary over McCain in a heartbeat and I'd no longer consider the man, but in 2008, I would have, and wouldn't have been utterly dismayed if he had won...I was glad Obama won when he did, but I wouldn't have wrung my hands and cried if it had been McCain.

There were things that I liked and disliked with McCain.
There is next to nothing I like about Romney, and I dislike nearly every facet of his platform.

1. What makes you think he'd got to war with Iran, when if anything Obama's been criticized for being too peaceable with hostile nations?

A. Explain what you mean by criticized? By who? Media pundits? Also explain peaceable in your definition. I don't care how the fuck you look at it but Obama is anything but a peaceable leader. He may be a little LESS militaristic than Bush or Clinton, but than we are talking about the lesser of two evils... not peace.

2. Syria's in a civil war right now, and I somehow doubt Obama wants to take sides militarily in that conflict, all it will do is cost is more American lives, home support, and alienate the large base of whatever side loses.

Are you kidding? War = Money. When has that EVER stopped the U.S. from entering a conflict zone? Alienating a large part of his base? Most of his base apparently already thinks he's a peaceful candidate, so....

3. I don't think thousands out of Iraq counts as only "a *few"...er, Mr. Hitler.

4. Strings he dangles from...please, enthrall us with more conspiracy paranoia, we don't have quite enough of that on the forum, no, not at all...

sorry didn't finish.....

3. I don't think thousands out of Iraq counts as only "a *few"...er, Mr. Hitler.

A. Maybe I exaggerated when I said a few, but really, in all honestly... I highly doubt if it changed the amount of money the DoD is spending overseas. Thank God for the few lucky soldiers that got to come home without severe trauma or a fucked up psyche after being trained to shamelessly kill "the enemy"... which too often turned out to be kids and women or people completely uninvolved.

4. Strings he dangles from...please, enthrall us with more conspiracy paranoia, we don't have quite enough of that on the forum, no, not at all...

A. Again... do you think Obama has made a single decision yet to piss off his superiors? Big Pharmaceutical is happy. Big government is really happy. Big corporations are happy. Oil Industry is happy. Welfare recipients are stoked. Big government thrives while the middle class disappears. Try to call that conspiracy all you want, but Obama is just another president in a long line of presidents ushering a further decline if civil liberties while trying to keep people complacent.

Obi, do you argue every single point of every conversation you have in real life, or only on the Internet?