No he’s not. Yet. And I hope that he never falls as a victim of violence of any sort, as I wish the rest of humanity. This is just a hypothetical question as I have heard it repeated over the last few days as it seems people are flabbergasted at the possibility of a black man becoming the most powerful man in the world. Above all of that, is the hint that that person has a relationship to Islam, distant and tenuous I grant you, but a thin familial and cultural connection to the fastest growing religion in the world, or at least, the one that was supposedly responsible to the downing of the twin World Trade towers in New York and and countless other atrocities.
I don’t particularly care for Hilary as I do not have a shred of respect for Bush – both of them – as they both have stumbled into their position, the Bushes that is, yet, they were chosen by their people; hence, I have no qualms at all with that process.
Although I believe that Hilary would actually be better for the Middle East than Barack would – simply because I have a feeling that he would be “more royal than the king” in that he will have to go over-the-top in proving that he is distant from our culture and religion – I am opposed to Hilary taking the mantle because she would create a hereditary relationship so far absent from the United States but much prevalent on our shores. Bush – Clinton – Bush – Clinton will not be a good precedence for the nation which should be emulated for their respect of their citizens and which their enemies fear. Should she actually win the toss, America would become much closer to the ways of our beloved Arab world, and that is not something I look forward to.
So it’s a toss: I am more in favour of Obama than I am for Clinton? The other way around? I must confess that I am not very sure yet. Looking at my own selfish motives; I would have either rather than that foot-in-the-grave-not-committed-to-anything-whiny-voice McCain! But what if I think that all three are bad for the world?
I guess I would vote for Obama if I could. At least he is much more charismatic than Hilary could ever be. And I would not descend to the level of others who suggested that as she couldn’t satisfy her husband, how could she satisfy a nation?
Good luck America whoever you eventually choose. But for goodness’ sake choose wisely, the person you are choosing to lead will lead the whole world and not just your own patch.
Good luck.
Comments
During the ongoing primaries Obama has proven that he can resist the force to be “more royal than the king”. He has, though being defamed as a Muslim (well, at least it was meant that way) and a friend of several Islamist organizations (Hamas, Hezbollah…) he has continued his way to preach the dialog, even with regimes like Iran’s. That’s playing with fire, as he knows that could be used against him.
Yes, of course Obama has said things regarding the Middle East one has to see as a way to calm down his critics (especially what he said in the famous “A more perfect union” speech in Philadelphia). But over all he’s talking of dialog, not of confrontation. If this would be the style of his politics as a president it would be a 180° turn in American foreign politics and the biggest step forward one can expect to be done.
obama is a good speaker. he would make an excellent insurance salesman, although i’m not really sure how far he would make it as president… i’m not really fond of hillary, she doesnt seem very sincere, and some of her prior policies i disagreed with…
as for mcaine, well, no. dude’s half dead anyway.
i would personally vote for ralph nader; now there’s a dude who is persistent, and doesn’t take no for an answer.
as for obama’s assasination; i predicted this back in January. Everyone’s eyes should be on the vice-president, as that is going to be the person taking over because obama’s out soon. not something i want to happen or wish to happen, but somehow i just believe there are going to be numerous attempts on his life.
either way, what we think really makes no difference. we dont vote, we’re not american citizens. yes, we will get affected, pretty strongly, may i add, but its not up to us. wierd how the world of democracy works.
I’m sure you’ll be shocked, shocked to learn that I’m against Hillary, who is no respecter of democracy but rather a power-mad socialist. However, I will give your eyes a rest from further denunciation of Hillary, however deserved and enjoyable, because she’s dead as a candidate unless lightning strikes.
Still, that’s the kind of luck that the Clintons have based their success on. They’re tenacious as zombies, climbing out of their political grave again and again to show up on your front porch to eat your brains. There is a certain logic to their tenacity, in that if they keep coming, their opponents will make a stupid mistake or some deux ex machina will deliver them their prize. With the Clintons, your best bet is to take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Favoring Obama for the novelty of a black American president is specious reasoning. I’m interested in the ideas rather than the package. Obama has never had an original idea in his life. He has a 100% liberal voting record, which means he has voted with the Democratic herd every time, never striking out on his own, never taking the iniative. However, his presentation of the same tired old lefty crap is fabulous. It really sounds new, even to me.
When you weigh the effect of which candidate would be best for the Middle East, you might consider that Obama is fairly ignorant of the world at large. If he makes dumb mistakes about the geography of Europe, do you think he’ll do better about the basic facts of the Middle East? If you think Americans are naive and clueless about your affairs, wait until President Obama comes blundering into your china shop asking if he can visit Mecca with you and take his dog, Bible, and crucifix with him. And Obama talking to Ahmedinejad is akin to a little old lady from Omaha dickering with a Cairo rug merchant.
McCain was not my first choice for a Republican candidate. My dream candidate was Newt Gingrich though Mitt Romney would have been good. McCain is a great man but not a great conservative. Hillary, Obama, and McCain are all economic illiterates, though McCain shows some signs of improvement and is fabulous on foreign policy.
The one thing McCain has absolutely right is the need to win the war in Iraq, especially now that victory is in sight. By contrast, Hillary and especially Obama are defeatists convinced against all evidence to the contrary that we are losing and determined to pitch Iraq back to the Baathists and jihadis. Obama would snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.
It is in America’s long term interests, the region’s, and the world’s, to establish democracy in the Arab Muslim world. They are unable to make it happen unaided, but must be dragged, kicking and screaming, into modernity. A successful, democratic Iraq with a free market, free speech, and individual liberty could be just the thing to start the tyrannical dominoes toppling in the Middle East. It is also the most effective way to fight the jihad that Muslims seek to export to the world, especially America.
Ammaro, I don’t share your admiration for Ralph Nader. He tones down his rhetoric in the media but in person he’s a raving lefty loony. I’ve heard him rant on the Mall here in DC. It’s true he doesn’t take no for an answer but that’s just proof of his insanity, seeing as it is the only answer he ever gets.
Simon Columbus, I am not impressed with Obama’s Philadelphia speech as you are, despite its soothing tone and form. If you read it and think about what he’s saying, rather than watch it, the substance is flawed. He gives cover to his pastor damning America, rather than straightforwardly rejecting it. He allows his pastor’s crazy insistence that the US government invented AIDS as a justifiable reaction, rather than simply insane. In that way, he enables gratuitous confrontation rather than disables it.
We’re still months away from the election and that time is likely to be full of crazy twists and turns. Yet, I believe McCain will win by a solid majority, maybe 55% or more. We Republicans profit from the Democrats factionalism, identity politics, internal bickering, and racism.
From what I can see, the Democrats are split along lines of race and gender. There is a minority of liberal white females devoted to Hillary who reject Obama. Obama enjoys a polarized black vote, 90% of them who will vote for him for race alone, some of whom will reject Hillary for race and gender. There is an outside chance that the Democrats will commit suicide by rejecting Obama, who has more delegates but is considered unelectable, and forwarding Hillary.
Aside from that, the Democrat convention in Denver is going to be a circus, minus the elephants. Lots of loony lefties want to recreate the madness of the 1968 Democrat convention in Chicago, complete with protests and riots. If the Dems toss Obama for Hillary, the whole convention could melt down like Chernobyl. If such a sad situation explodes, I plan to watch on TV with a glass of white wine. Something from Napa Valley would be best, I think.
One day will bring a black American president, but the odds are he’ll be a Republican. We have the advantage in that we only carry about the conservative ideas, not the wrapper they come in. If you believe in free markets and free minds, we’ll elect you even if you’re purple. Democrats, by contrast, suffer from a belief in relative morality, the idea that the messenger is the message.
Well, i don’t think that Hillary would be better for the Middle East than Obama. My only reason is that Obama has shown more willingness to talk to countries the USA considers enemies, and that is what the world needs, and that is what could save us yet another war in the Middle East.
Clinton seems more hesitant in that respect, and seems to have gone over the top to align her position with AIPAC (as have the other candidates, but Hillary more so than Obama). Add to that her repeated shakiness and weird way of running her campaign .. with all of that, i don’t think that Hillary would be as good for America’s foreign policy as Obama would.
Personally however, i still have a fear that the democrats would screw it up once again and lose this election to yet again to the war-and-oil-hungry republicans.
4za3tar: “Well, i don’t think that Hillary would be better for the Middle East than Obama. My only reason is that Obama has shown more willingness to talk to countries the USA considers enemies, and that is what the world needs, and that is what could save us yet another war in the Middle East.”
We Americans are not under some strange misapprehension that countries like Iran are our enemies. They clear that confusion up by holding mass rallies to shout “Death to America” and have their fanatic president clearly label us as their enemy. And Walter Reed Army Medical Center here in Washington is treating its share of soldiers wounded by Iranian weapons. These are important clues that help us confused Americans figure out who’s against us.
Talking will not resolve the dispute with Iran. Everyone in the world has been talking to Iran for decades with nothing to show for it. When you are part of a nutty death cult, like Ahmadinejad and the mullahs are, who believes that a nuclear apocalypse would be good for them, hastening their joyous ultimate victory in paradise, then talking exacerbates the problem. It is interpreted as weakness by the nutjob mullahs and allows the Iranians more time to work on their atom bombs.
Talk means nothing to belligerents like Iran unless it is backed up with force, force which both Hillary and Obama disdain. A strong display of force is much more likely to deter an enemy than weak words begging them to play nice and fair.
Your characterization of we Republicans as war and oil hungry is silly. America did not throw the World Trade Center at Al Qaeda as it flew by nor did we force Saddam to invade Kuwait nor did we ask him to car-bomb the elder Bush nor shoot SAMs at our jets. I can tell you that there is not a Republican alive who would not rather have our boys back in America rather than fixing another Muslim mess.
And last I heard, the Democrats use oil, too. You’re not going to find any riding around on horseback like the Amish to save gas. The Democratic environmentalists tend to spout their jeremiads against oil consumption after exiting their stretch limos and business jets, not from haylofts.
You might also notice that the whole world uses oil because oil extends human life. It helps people get to work, delivers food and medicine, is shaped into tools and toys, and delivers a thousand other benefits to mankind. Without oil, the human population would dwindle, being unsustainable. It’s fairly foolish to think of oil as the enemy.
However, you are correct to say that the Democrats are likely to screw things up and lose. It is their nature to do so.
Mahmood,
Hillary is a snake. She is a racist who panders for votes. Three good reasons not to vote for her:
1) Dubai ports: When the pentagon was telling Congress that Dubai has better security at their ports than American ones, Hillary comes along and tells us that banks in Dubai funnel money to the Taliban. Sicilians involved in the mafia funnel money to the Corleons through banks in NYC, but no one in his right mind is going to blame NYC.
2) Hillary is not running for the US presidency – she’s running for the Israeli one. Should Iran attack Israel with nuclear weapons, she would “obliterate” them with US nukes. 70 million Iranians for 5 million Zionists. I counted the stars on the US flag yesterday just to be sure they really are 50 not 51. And none of them were stars of davids either, so this is beyond me. If Iran wants to develop nukes I say more power to them. The reason the US gives us that they shouldn’t because of their style-of-government is bullshit because no other Arab state is allowed to make nukes even though some are considered “allies”, whatever that means.
3) Universal healthcare: The number of mathematical contradictions implicit in this scheme are way too numerous. Its a slippery slope. Im ok with safety nets of sorts, but not to this extreme.
Regarding Obama, what happened in the 60s is simple: Racist policies disappeared from the government. But racist outlooks persisted in peoples’ hearts. The US is still very much a culturally racist state, especially when one looks at the “Bible Belt” and traditionally conservative areas.
A fair point might be made regarding how the Left inadvertently propagates policies that effectively work against a color-blind country. And in this sense “racism” still exists. But the conservative “racism” really is based on a malicious hate of different cultures and genes. That is the key difference. And the latter is very much alive.
P.S. Mahmood, could you email me our pictures from DC please? Thanks! 🙂
-Ibn
Actually, the subject of developing “nukes” has been resolved by treaty, signed by these various governments. The countries, to my understanding, who have not “signed” the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty are Israel, Cuba, India and Pakistan, although my information is more than a few years old. I do, though, recall the occasions when North Korea gave notice of withdrawl from the treaty. Here’s a Wiki that I can’t vouch for but seems correct to me.
Interesting article AGA,
This treaty would have been a great idea before the first nuke was designed. But since that was never the case, this means that certain countries will always have nukes, and others wont.
And in this uni-polar world, that is not acceptable. Your nation state will always be at a disadvantage should a nuclear-armed state decide to start bossing you around.
No deal.
And why has Israel failed to sign it? Oh the holocaust, right. What got into me?
-Ibn
As a woman close to Hillary’s age, I will vote for her when hell freezes over – and with global warming, that won’t be anytime soon. Obama is a breath of fresh air, and he wasn’t my first choice. Our young people in the US love him. Who’s future have we (baby boomers) squandered? I say, we’ve fucked things up enough. Let the youth have a say – they seem to have it more together than we ever did. Not only do I give them credit for this phenomenon, but I’m rooting for them, all the way to the voting booth! And, let’s give Obama some credit here, for mounting the most audacious campaign ever – gathering more money, and votes than ever before.
BTW, feel free to treat Obama and Michele like royalty. They will be the first African-Americans to live in the White House. They will have two black daughters running around, hunting for Easter eggs, on the front lawn. They will have broken a wall, a ceiling, what have you, and will prove that we are truly a country where you can live the American Dream.
BTW, again, Hillary voted for the Kyle-Lieberman Act, which is the exact same act as the one passed to invade Iraq, but only this one is for Iran. Do you really think she would be better for the Middle East? She refuses to talk with anyone, except a chosen few.
Ibn:
The intent behind my comment was to bring context to the “development of nukes” issue, as you put it. The context in which you operate is one where you are free to start from scratch, rewrite matters as you see fit, without regard to what is in fact the present reality. You are not constrained by present reality in a number of ways. I am in no sense suggesting that my views, which I have not articulated, by the way, are correct, but I am suggesting that the excerpt from your comment which I quoted necessarily is incorrect except in the context of dreaming about an alternate reality. When you say “no deal,” it ignores the fact that a deal has been struck and that there are consequences for breaking the original deal. An additional complicating factor is the fact that the “deal” is between sovereigns, and the consequences for breach of the deal are incapable of resolution in a court of law. Think about it, please.
I am uncertain why you single out Israel, as I mentioned three other nations who have never signed the treaty. Only you can answer the question of “what got into” you. I know that you are seeking to be sarcastic, but in all seriousness, its a valid question – especially if you truly read the Wiki.
Thank god almost all of the commenters will not be voting in the US election.
It’s obvious that the Obama lovers have no idea of the mans past record … voting record or personal record.
His record is out there but no one, especially the media does not wants to touch it.
Now I can hear the Obama lovers saying what about the media and his chuch stuff. That’s nothing compared to the other much more damaging stuff that will come out in the coming campaign.
If you took the time to look into his voting record and personal history you might not love the man. If you did and still love the man to lead the US that tells me something about you.
Obama is only half black. He has one white parent. He’s too young, too inexperienced and too socialist to get my vote. He talks about change but it’s hard to figure out exactly what he’s going to change. The Democrats had a better candidate with Bill Richardson. True to form, they chose the wrong one. If Obama gets in, I hope he has the sense to choose people with lots of gray hair for his advisors. However, I have a feeling McCain will be the winner.
Ibn;
I just knew there was a Zionist-Racist-Hillary conspiracy involved in this somehow.
Steve;
Iraq is not going to be a successful democracy in my lifetime. Corruption is just too ingrained in Iraqi culture, the narrow tribal mentalities go too deep, and the primitive religious hatreds that have existed for centuries are still going to remain. You can’t drag a society, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century if they prefer to live in the eleventh. The only thing we can hope for is that it’s better than the Saddam era.
“the person you are choosing to lead will lead the whole world and not just your own patch.”
I wonder how many people outside America realize that this wasn’t a fate America sought, but something forced on this country by outside circumstances (Pearl Harbor, Communism, 9-11) and its own comparative economic might (from the devastation the rest of the world suffered from two world wars).
It may seem unfair to non-Americans that they don’t get any say in picking a prez, but America didn’t want to become the world’s policeman, either. Yet it is an expression of what I consider is the core resentment, even from America’s allies: that it is America that dominates this age in history, and many others feel this is unfair because they seem puny by comparison.
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I totally agree !!!..