Obama finally gets it

Trying to credit Bush with a success because the surge has reduced violence is a real stretch. That is like try to make the guy guy who ran over you with his car look good because he managed to stop the bleeding after he severed your leg.
 
Trying to credit Bush with a success because the surge has reduced violence is a real stretch. That is like try to make the guy who ran over you with his car look good because he managed to stop the bleeding after he severed your leg.
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Well, I would appreciate it if the guy who ran over me stopped and got the bleeding in my leg stopped. He could have just done a hit and run.

Trying to say the surge hasn't worked because we should never have invaded Iraq in the first place would be like saying that the body shop was a failure for fixing the rust on your car because you should never have driven the car on salt laden winter roads in the first place.

We can't go back and change the fact that we invaded Iraq. That cow left the barn. We can argue about whether it was a smart thing to do or not, but it won't change a darn thing as far as Iraq is concerned. The surge, however, was very much responsible for turning a pile of lemons into lemonade if you want to say that the decision to invade Iraq was wrong.

When you make the wrong decision in your personal life, do you:

A. Walk away.

B. Sit and complain endlessly about it.

C. Ignore it and hope it will go away.

D. Do something to rectify the mistake.

IMHO, the surge was the "D" answer. Barack wanted the A and B answer. In the Chicago public schools, all quizes are multiple answers, multiple choice. This means the "kids" have a better chance of hitting the right answer. As a matter of fact, any answer they feel good about it the right answer, but I digress.

Obama said the "D" answer was not a solution and would make the situation worse. I guess he was making that judgement based upon all of the time he had spent in Iraq talking to the commanders on the ground.

Bush, in my opinion, has not been a great president. But I do give him credit for eventually listening to his commanders on the ground in Iraq and allowing the surge to be implemented by Gen. Patreaus. That was a good move in my opinion. Also, for all of Bush's faults, I give him credit for a spotless record on any additional attacks on US soil (including our ships and embassies in other parts of the world) since 9/11. Some people will claim that he doesn't deserve any of that credit and that the terrorists are still planning on hitting us. That may very well be the case. However, if you substituted Bill Clinton in there, the press would be singing his praises from the highest broadcast tower for a spotless record like that. Like Bush or not, he has presided over no more hits. The hit on 9/11 was all planned out on Clinton's watch, but that fact seems to be conveniently forgotten by the left.
 
Bush, in my opinion, has not been a great president. But I do give him credit for eventually listening to his commanders on the ground in Iraq and allowing the surge to be implemented by Gen. Patreaus.
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To give him credit for that you have to ignore the whole fact that he refused to listen to them in the first place. He has simply done what he was forced to do because of his own incompetent actions. He is simply trying to salvage a disaster that he created.
 
To give him credit for that you have to ignore the whole fact that he refused to listen to them in the first place. He has simply done what he was forced to do because of his own incompetent actions. He is simply trying to salvage a disaster that he created.
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His first problem was that he listened to the intelligence that the CIA was shovelling and he believed them regarding WMD's. The whole world believed that Saddam was swimming in WMD's and there are many statements by prominent world leaders and former world leaders which demonstrate this belief. That includes both of the Clintons, and Gore, among other prominent democrats.

His second problem is that he let Rumsfeld run the show in totality, early on.

I still give him credit for changing his philosphy on the situation and allowing Patreaus to conduct the surge against a total political onslaught from the democrats, including Obama, Pelosi, and Reid, who said that the war was lost, and the surge could not work because there was no military solution to Iraq. The military solution was to implement the surge in order for the political solution to take place. That is exactly what is happening. I give our troops a ton of credit. I give Patreaus a ton of credit. I give Bush some credit for realizing that his previous strategy wasn't working. I give leading democrats no credit because they laughed at the idea and mocked everyone, including Patreaus when he went in front of them. Hillary Clinton said it would take the willing suspension of disbelief to believe that Patreaus was telling the truth about the surge and how it was working. Remember the lefties and the media with their "General Betray Us" add? This was a full one pager run in the NYT. Pathetic it was.

Again, we can sit and argue about Bush and the decision to go to war in Iraq. We'll never reach total agreement on that topic. However, the surge has worked. Obama and the democratic leadership was wrong about that. Bush let Patreaus run that show, to his credit. Arguing to no end about the reasons to go into Iraq in the first place no longer has any real meaning as far as the situation in Iraq is concerned. It's for the history books alone. But, the surge will go into the history books as a success, if those books are written truthfully. I don't know how anyone can argue that the surge has not worked. Even Obama had to give a little on that one, even though he played footsie with Katie Couric's questioning him about the surge.
 
Bush, in my opinion, has not been a great president. But I do give him credit for eventually listening to his commanders on the ground in Iraq and allowing the surge to be implemented by Gen. Patreaus. That was a good move in my opinion. Also, for all of Bush's faults, I give him credit for a spotless record on any additional attacks on US soil (including our ships and embassies in other parts of the world) since 9/11. Some people will claim that he doesn't deserve any of that credit and that the terrorists are still planning on hitting us. That may very well be the case. However, if you put Bill Clinton in there, the press would singing his praises from the highest broadcast tower for a record like that. Like Bush or not, he has presided over no more hits. The hit on 9/11 was all planned out on Clinton's watch, but that fact seems to be conveniently forgotten by the left.
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Those commanders on the ground that initially said we needed more troops in Iraq were soon found without jobs.

One big problem I have is that Patreaus literally wrote the book on fighting an insurgency which indicated that more troops would be needed. He then proceeded to go in front of the Congress and say that no, more troops were not needed.

Which was it that the General believed?

What the White House believed is clear from this interview with Rumsfeld in 2003:

Schieffer: Let me ask you one other thing, and that is this intense criticism that seems to be boiling up on Capitol Hill. This story this morning is filled with it, and basically it comes down to that Don Rumsfeld, and I'll just put this straight to you, is stubborn, and that's the reason he won't admit that he made a mistake when he said we have plenty of troops there, and that that's one of the reasons you're having problems on the Hill and within the Pentagon. I just want to give you a chance to respond to that.

Rumsfeld: Sure, I'm glad to. How do you respond to whether or not you're stubborn. I guess you respond this way, we have General [John] Abizaid who is in charge of the Central Command, [Lieutenant] General [Ricardo] Sanchez, who is in charge of Iraq, and then a series of division commanders, good ones, [Major] General [David] Petraeus, [Major] General [Raymond] Odierno, and they meet regularly, and they ask that question, do we need more U.S. troops, and they say they don't. They do not feel that we ought to bring in more additional troops, why?

Schieffer: But, you don't feel‑

Rumsfeld: Just let me respond. Now, should I be stubborn and say, you're wrong? What I do is I say, why do you or don't you need something, and I go and discuss it. And they come back consistently and say they do not need more additional troops, you need more force protection, you need more combat support people if you're going to have more troops. We're managing the skill mix of the troops, because they're not doing a lot of combat, they're doing a lot of presence and a lot of construction, and a lot of assistance, and a lot of forming city councils, 90 percent of the people in Iraq are now living in an area that's governed by a city council, or a village council.

Schieffer: So you do not feel that you made a mistake‑

Rumsfeld: If I felt I'd made a mistake I'd change it.

Schieffer: Misestimated, or underestimated.

Rumsfeld: My problem is the people who are saying we need more troops are not giving any good reasons. There's no substance to their arguments, they're just saying we don't have enough. Our military people say we do, and they then explain why they think they do, and why they want the effort on increasing the Iraqi capability. So I listen to the two sides of the argument. I would increase the number of troops in five minutes, if people would come to me and make a decent argument, but all I see is critics saying, you need more troops. Something has to be wrong.
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Now granted things changed from September 2003 through the final acceptance of needing more troops.

Either Patreaus was lying to Congress or Bush/Rumsfeld was lying to the American people. Which is best?

Don't think my questioning the decision process in any way indicated I am anything less than thrilled there haven't been more attacks on US civilians.
 
If you were to be consistant with your standard of critisizm you would also be equating the Democrats wrong-headedness about failing to take out Bin Laden when they had the chance, failing to follow through in Somalia which by Bin Ladens own admission is what emboldened them with the 'give them enough trouble and they will quit' paper tiger imrpession. And Obama and the Democrat leadership for working very very VERY hard to hobble the surge. It was poor judgement by those no? VERY bad....

In contrast Bush SOLVED the problem by utilizing McCAIN'S good judgment while the above group is STILL unable to acknowledge the error let alone DO anything to rectify it.

The real topic here isn't trying to mend the Bush Derangment Syndrone of the left but that OBAMA has demonstrated a profound lack of judgement and in the face of it is trying to pawn that off as coinciedence or worse that it would have gotten better on it's own.

It has become clear that McCain has the fortitude and judgement to lead. Lead when it's not popular to boot. That he is willing and able to put the United States above his Party and even above his own political standing. THAT's Presidential.
 
In contrast Bush SOLVED the problem by utilizing McCAIN'S good judgment while the above group is STILL unable to acknowledge the error let alone DO anything to rectify it.
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Exactly what problem can be labeled "solved"?
 
You may not have heard but about two years ago there was an entrenched insurgency in Iraq that was working to incite an Iraqi civil war. This threw the progress taking place in Iraq into what was termed by the left as a 'quagmire'. This was a PROBLEM.

McCain had been insisting since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom that more ground force be sent and his worries manifest as the above insurgence was beyond the ability of the current troop level to contain let alone counter.

At that time the Democrats ran of the promise to end the war since it was impossible to counter an entrenched insurgence and Bush was just feeding their sons and daughter to a 'meatgrinder, and return financial responsibility to the Congress.

During this time McCain was insisting that a surge could provide room for the tribal strife to be dealt with before an actual civil war broke out. Petraeus was selected to replace the failed Generals that had been in charge.

After working diligently to keep Petraeus from succeeding after having UNANIMOUSLY confirming him in full knowledge of his plan he succeeded despite the new Democrat leaderships work against him and while facing the ridicule of Democrat leaders that called him in front of them to report to them on the progress of Operation Iraqi Freedom. (Obama wasn't listening as he thought that the tribal leaders coming together was a coincidence).

Bush solved the problem but firing the Generals, selecting Petraeus to replace them with the intent of implementing McCain's long held judgment that more ground forces were needed.

It worked and at this point the problem is dealt with and Iraq is now more secure then at any time since OIF began. Surge troops are back home and further troop reductions are happening as projected in 2007 by Petraeus. Petraeus has been promoted and the plan is to reproduce what worked in Iraq in Afghanistan.

Problem solved: Insurgency reeking havoc in Iraq

Exactly what problems have the Democrats that rode into office on the negativity that insurgencey caused solved??
 
It is just a (bad) joke.

Obama is like an English car. He is built to drive on the left side of the road. That he has veered right is a momentary function of a lack of traction if he had stayed where he wants to. He will, as soon as conditions improve, go back to his side of the road and stay there unless it is impossible to promote himself further.

Obama's interview with Katy Couric shows he is getting nothing he didn'talready know.

IMO he is so ignorant and programmed he simply cannot take in new information that conflicts with his current opinions. Utterances which indicate the contrary are pablum for the gullible and merely promotional actions.

Various correspondents have called out the fakery in his "press conferences" on this trip, fake questions and interviews just arranged for broadcast, not real stuff. Right out of the FEMA playbook of some years ago.
 
B. Hussein Obama ran solidly to the left to become the presumptive nominee of the Democrat party. Now, to try to win the general election, he is trying to move to the center.

The question he will have to answer to the American electorate is, if elected, where will he govern from? His record as an Illinois senator and US Senator are clearly left, very left. Will the American public trust him? Will he be able to stand up to the scrutiny of the 527s. Will the main stream media get out of the tank, or will they continue to worship BHO?

BTW, don't bother sending me private emails about using the B. Hussein Obama name. It is his name, as J. Sidney McCain III is the name of the other Democrat running for president.

Stay tuned! Should be interesting!
 
The surge worked, and it worked because of more ground troops, and I agree McCain had been saying that all along.

Now Obama agrees with McCain it seems.

Big deal though. If and when we ever pull out, we will learn that the Iraqis have reverted back to their old ways, and we will have accomplished nothing.

Admitting that the Surge worked does not mean the overall strategy will be successful.

I am not going to vote for Obama because he will raise taxes and hurt gun rights. But the one silver lining I could see in an Obama presidency was that he would get us out of Iraq quickly. Now that seems to be fading.

I think we should just accept that we are now essentially a world empire, and will continue to have soldiers in foreign lands maintaining our economic interests indefinitely.
 
And how is it that for either years, we hear all these charges made against Bush, and it's only now all of a sudden that McCain is allegedly in on it all too?
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Not to mention Congress (which was Democratic majority) unanimously voted to move into iraq. Now they want to act like they had nothing do do with it.

There IS a reason that Congressional approval levels are on the lowest point in history...
 
I think we should just accept that we are now essentially a world empire, and will continue to have soldiers in foreign lands maintaining our economic interests indefinitely.
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Not that logic has much place in a political discussion, but we are not an empire, nor have we ever had empirical aspirations. Over the history of this country, the only lands we ever occupied that remained part of the United States, did so voluntarily, like Puerto Rico, Guam the Virgin Islands and Hawaii. Others, like the Phillipines, Cuba, most of Europe, and Japan, were set free when they were ready.

The problem in Iraq is that our traditional allies, like the treacherous French (which we liberated TWICE), used the Iraq war as a tool to undermine the US. We are essentially alone in Iraq because the socialist nations of the EU, most of whom were indeed empires in the recent past, cannot compete with the U.S. on equal terms, so they fight us at every turn. They are not anti-war as much as they are anti-freedom.

Freedom, and free markets, are under attack as never before. If you think democracy and socialism can co-exist, go read the French laws and you will see.
 
Its really simple, Obama has no idea what to do as President, Not clue one.
He is simply saying whatever he thinks any audience he stands in front of wants to hear. He has gone from being the Anti Bush to being 98% in agreement with Bush's policies overnight.

He has gone from wanting to ban all semiautomatics, registering all guns still legal, and outlawing concealed carry via federal law, To being a staunch supporter of the second amendment.:barf:

He is a Liar with no integrity, and is totaly full of crap.:)

And folks on this forum and otherwise are swallowing his BS hook, line, and sinker.
 
You don't feel a chill run up your leg when he speaks?
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only up my spine when I hear people supporting him...

I occasionally listen to Hannity, who wears on me, and his "Man on the Street" interviews. These are done in Penn Station NYC at rush hour. EVERY SINGLE PERSON I have heard has supported Obama. Almost always it is because they think we need "CHANGE."

Their knowledge of his positions though is abysmal... It is like a parade of the stupid as they fail to answer question after question and are continually surprised to hear the truth. Most at the end though admit they are ignorant on most of the issues but think it is more important that we have change...
 
Their knowledge of his positions though is abysmal... It is like a parade of the stupid as they fail to answer question after question and are continually surprised to hear the truth. Most at the end though admit they are ignorant on most of the issues but think it is more important that we have change...
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But it's really the folks who listen to talk radio that are the mind numbed robots, according to the left. Sheesh. :mad:
 
Master Blaster

You don't feel a chill run up your leg when he speaks?
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No I stand far enough away from the liberals to stay dry while they are peeing their panties with excitement.:p

In my minds eye I see hitler standing in front of the Reichstag while thousands of adoring liberals wave the Nazi flag, and chant Obama, Obama :mad:
 
Obama finally gets it

No, he said something to try to make you think he gets it, or at least sees it your way. As near as I can tell from what he says, he shares every last American's opinion about everything.
 
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