Is Barack Obama the right leader for America?

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

I have a little list, they never will be missed...

I suspect we all have a little list - but none of us are allowed to hand our little lists over to a friendly hit squad. Giving anyone a convenient staff willing to erase the little list is probably a very, very very bad idea. The more you think about it, the more little problems you find with the thought.

Sad, really. It's a very little list and they never would be missed...

[dai bread]

I can't really find any historical reference confirming that "Wanted, Dead or Alive" posters actually existed. It was highly unlikely that the photo posters we see on TV shows existed since even the most expensive forms of printing technology was incapable of printing photos (other than expensive one-of-a-kind woodcuts) until the 1890s.

I am beginning to think that Hollywood might have misled me all those Saturday mornings in theaters across the country.

It seems the first photo printed in a newspaper was in 1880. [1880: First halftone photograph (Shantytown). Inventors.about.com] I'm vague about the dates for the "Wild West," but I think 1880 is included. If photos could be printed in a newspaper then, they could possibly have been printed on handbills and posters earlier.

I think you're right about the "Dead or Alive" posters though. The only ones I could find were either movie-related, tourist-oriented, or joke (insert friend's face here).

[Shapley]

I'll have to admit defeat. I've been unable to find any evidence that any President has signed a 'death warran't on any U.S. citizen in history, at least while serving as President. (I didn't check to see if I could find any record they may have done so as a territorial governor or provincial marshall or other possible duty, as that would stretch my limited Googling skills).

I did find some photos of 'Wanted: Dead or Alive" posters that claim to be authentic reproductions, even though they don't give a date. They are mostly for Indians (err, Native Americans), and are posted by a Native American group, so they are suspect, IMHO. I forgot to save the link, since they didn't confirm what I was seeking.

One site does claim as 'authentic' two 'dead or alive' posters, offering reproductions for sale. These do not include photos, only text. One for Jesse James is signed by the St. Louis Midland Railroad. The other, for Sam & Belle Sarr by Thomas Crail, a Major in the eighth U.S. Calvary.

http://www.thelastbestwest.com/authenti ... m#500Jesse

[OperaTenor]

I was told I need to come here and usher in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by agreeing with Shap and Haggis.

I complained when it seemed to me GWB was wiping his butt with the Constitution, and I'm complaining now that Obama's doing it. If it's law, it's bad law and needs to be stricken from the books. The Constitution affords due process, so they need to by-God give it to him. The rule of law and all that...

[Haggis@wk]

OT!! The rumors that Piq finally killed you and buried you in the backyard were false!! Hooray!!


BYRON YORK: How Clinton Exploited Oklahoma City For Political Gain.

What Clinton and his supporters do not talk about is the way in which Clinton, aided by pollster/adviser Dick Morris, exploited the bombing to make a political comeback from what was the lowest point in Clinton’s presidency to that time. (The Lewinsky scandal was still three years in the future.) In the days after Oklahoma City, Clinton and Morris devised a plan to use the bombing to discredit and outmaneuver the new Republican majority in Congress. . . .

It was a political strategy crafted while rescue and recovery efforts were still underway in Oklahoma City. And it worked better than Clinton or Morris could have predicted. In the months after the bombing, Clinton regained the upper hand over Republicans, eventually winning battles over issues far removed from the attack. The next year, 1996, he went on to re-election. None of that might have happened had Clinton, along with Morris, not found a way to wring as much political advantage as possible out of the deaths in Oklahoma City. And that is the story you’re not hearing in all the anniversary discussions.

Yes, there’s some good stuff in George Stephanopoulos’s memoir, All Too Human, on this, too. A lot of people had forgotten this, and the shameful incompetence that led to the Waco massacre that — unlike the blamed Limbaugh, etc. — actually inspired Timothy McVeigh, but by bringing it up again Clinton is reminding people, and undermining the elder-statesman role he was trying to carve out. Bad move. Either he’s losing his touch, or they’re getting desperate. Probably desperate, Rasmussen Presidential Approval Index, Obama Drops Nine Points in Three Days.

[analog]

Clinton is reminding people, and undermining the elder-statesman role he was trying to carve out. Bad move. Either he’s losing his touch, or they’re getting desperate. Probably desperate,

i think Clinton's lost it.

There's a little discussed after effect of bypass surgery, i noticed it after mine but initially dismissed it.

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

and
http://www.democrats.com/node/16450

By Dave Lindorff

Is America at the mercy of an invasion of the pumpheads?

The bizarre behavior of Bill Clinton during this campaign season, which has seen this once smooth-talking and politically uber-sophisticated campaigner repeatedly stick a foot in his mouth and undermine his wife’s struggling campaign, raises the issue of whether he is suffering from postperfusion syndrome—a now recognized cognitive impairment common in patients who have undergone heart bypass surgery.

Referred to in hospital jargon as “pumphead syndrome,” the condition, thought to be caused by debris and bubbles that are created and released into the bloodstream by artificial pumps used to circulate blood while hearts are being operated on—material that can block blood flow in smaller vessels in the brain, causing neurological damage--this recognized condition has been demonstrated in some studies to lead to significant cognitive impairment that can show up in as many as 42 percent of heart surgery patients even as long as five years after surgery.

it's real, and I feel for him.

a.

[Haggis@wk]

Press corps amnesia

Bush was also constantly ridiculed and criticized for playing golf, most memorably by Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11. In August 2003, Bush gave up the game, believing it sent the wrong message to
grieving parents of soldiers killed or wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, he was ridiculed for that as well.

Obama was criticized by foreign press recently when, unable to travel to pay respects to the president of Poland who was killed in a plane crash, he went golfing.

But there was not a critical peep from the American press.

On Memorial Day last year, the press reverently reported that Obama placed a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknowns in the morning, and then observed a moment of silence that afternoon—on the golf course before teeing off. (I can only imagine how this would have been reported if Bush’s moment of “silent remembrance and solemn prayer” was on the green.)

[analog]

If President Bush had walked on water across the Potomac, swept a drowning baby up in his arms and carried it to safety the headlines would have read "Bush can't Swim".

I hated the spin and became a fan of Fox news because they were generally positive about the President.

Now they''re playing the same negative game, exaggerating silly little things.

.. i'm starting to appreciate Jon Stewart.

a.

[OperaTenor]

.. i'm starting to appreciate Jon Stewart.

a.

You and me, A.

[jamiebk]

I hated the spin and became a fan of Fox news because they were generally positive about the President.(A)

Now they''re playing the same negative game, exaggerating silly little things. (B)

(A) That's because he was a Republican President! (Bush)

(B) That's because he is a Democratic President (Obama)

[analog]

One needs to watch a variety of news.

See also Thom Hartmann, Amy Goodman and Lara Flanders on LINK and FREE SPEECH tv channels, around 9415 on Dish network..
Names of shows are Big Picture, Democracy Now, and Grit.

[Haggis@wk]

The Washington Post reports:

In the video message to his supporters, Obama said his administration's success depends on the outcome of this fall's elections and warned that if Republicans regain control of Congress, they could "undo all that we have accomplished."

"This year, the stakes are higher than ever," he said, according to a transcript of his remarks provided by Democratic officials. "It will be up to each of you to make sure that young people, African Americans, Latinos and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again.

White males need not apply

[piqaboo]

White males and young people have become non-overlapping categories? You sure bout dat?

[dai bread]

The Washington Post reports:

In the video message to his supporters, Obama said his administration's success depends on the outcome of this fall's elections and warned that if Republicans regain control of Congress, they could "undo all that we have accomplished."

"This year, the stakes are higher than ever," he said, according to a transcript of his remarks provided by Democratic officials. "It will be up to each of you to make sure that young people, African Americans, Latinos and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again.

White males need not apply

That passage alone would ensure that I voted Republican.

[Haggis@wk]

White males and young people have become non-overlapping categories? You sure bout dat?

Picture the reaction if a Republican president said "It will be up to each of you to make sure that white people, Seniors, and the better educated folks who powered our victory in 2001 stand together once again."

[piqaboo]

They do, they're just smarter about how they phrase it.
I'm not defending Obama, just wondering about your Venn diagram.

[Giant Communist Robot]

This country has always been run by rich, middle-aged white males. Now we have a rich, middle-aged minority male as leader.

[dai bread]

Cutting through the humbug and adulation in the press is difficult, but the impression I get is that the Middle-aged Minority Male isn't doing any better than the Middle-aged White Males who preceded him.

This doesn't surprise me. If Obama was different enough to rock the boat he wouldn't be where he is.

[Haggis@wk]

If Obama was different enough to rock the boat he wouldn't be where he is.

Not really, he was able to convince a large group of people that he wasn't what he had always been; a far left big government nanny state Liberal who despises anyone who doesn't think like him and firmly convinced that Europe is an appropriate model for the U.S.

[analog]

Eric Hoffer wrote a lot about mass movements and the appeal of the left.

In Hoffer's view, rapid change is not a positive thing for a society, and too rapid change can cause a regression in maturity for those who were brought up in a very different society than what that society has become. He noted that in 1960s America, many young adults were still living in extended adolescence. Seeking to explain the attraction of the New Left protest movements, he characterized them as the result of widespread affluence, which, in his words, "is robbing a modern society of whatever it has left of puberty rites to routinize the attainment of manhood." He sees these puberty rites as essential for self-esteem, and notes that mass movements and juvenile mindsets tend to go together to the point that anyone, no matter what age, who joins a mass movement immediately begins to exhibit juvenile behavior.

Hoffer further notes that the reason working-class Americans did not by and large join in the 1960s protest movements and subcultures was they had entry into meaningful labor as an effective rite of passage out of adolescence, while both the very poor who lived on welfare and the affluent were, in his words "prevented from having a share in the world's work and of proving their manhood by doing a man's work and getting a man's pay" and thus remained in a state of extended adolescence, lacking in necessary self-esteem, and prone to joining mass movements as a form of compensation.

from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer

Or as Robert Bly put it, part of a young man's growing up should include helping his Dad wash pistons in gasoline.

Thomas Sowell quotes Hoffer a lot in his daily columns.

Much of our social trouble stems from fading of self-reliance. Used to be an American trait.

a.