Decisions

Just about every McCain supporting commentator that I’ve seen has had a response to Obama’s VP pick of something along the line of “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” But I’ve got to say, I’m really pretty disappointed. Sure, from a strategic perspective, it’s a great pick (for those who don’t support BO), but we aren’t opposing teams here, we’re all for America. Barack Obama has a very good chance of becoming the next US. President, and, regardless of whether or not I want him there, if that happens, I wholeheartedly plan to support him (not necessarily support his policies or decisions, but I will respect him and the office that he holds). I want him to make good decisions. This was quite possibly the most important decision that he will make throughout this election, and it was not good. If he is to become the president of the United States, I would like to see more evidence that he can make good decisions.

Obama and Free Speach

I don’t know this paper very well, so maybe this is off, but it’s certainly worth considering. Apparently an independent group developed a television ad about Obama’s relationship with weather underground bomber Bill Ayres, who has a history of bombing government buildings and a few years ago stated that he was not the least bit sorry and feels that they did not do enough.

According to the DC Examiner:

Obama’s campaign has encouraged supporters to flood television stations with
protests whenever they see the ad. Nothing wrong with that, but the other thrust
of the Obama response was to ask the Justice Department to intervene to stop
further airing of the ad. That’s where Obama crossed the line and raised a
question of fundamental importance — does he or does he not believe the First
Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech?

Now, if the information was libelous, I could see trying to get the law involved, but there is no real indication of this, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

The Obama campaign describes the ad as “false, despicable and outrageous,”
according to The Associated Press. If the ad is false, the Obama campaign
should have no trouble refuting it, which would likely be sufficient to
persuade stations to decline the ad. Yet we’ve seen no such
refutation.

If it is false, he should state what is false about it. But he has not, leading me to believe that there is nothing demonstrably false stated in this ad.

I want Barack Obama to be a good candidate, I really do. This is not a sport where one side benefits if the other screws up, this is a real decision about who will make vital decisions that will affect the entire world. Things like this scare me.

Obama's VP

So, Obama will announce his VP pick tonight, most likely. The conventional wisdom seems to be that he will pick Joe Biden. I do not think that this is a very good idea. It seems to me that this would 1) be an admission of his own lack of experience, particularly in foreign policy, by making it appear that even he knew that he had to balance the ticket; 2) be asking for trouble from all of Biden's past and future gaffes (he's sure to make a few more given this kind of national attention); 3) really hurt Obama's chances with the disaffected youth vot by completely undermining Obama's selling points of change and post-partisanship.

We'll see what happens

The Georgian President Speaks

here:

"If Georgia falls, this will also mean the fall of the West in the entire
former Soviet Union and beyond," he wrote. "Leaders in neighboring states --
whether in Ukraine, in other Caucasian states or in Central Asia -- will have to
consider whether the price of freedom and independence is indeed too high."

I’m very concerned.


Additionally: I think its too soon to accuse the world of anticipatory capitulation- yet, but don’t think that I don’t expect it.

Waterboarding on Display

Seems to me that this sort of thing is likely to be counterproductive (to the artist’s goals) -

Seems like seeing it would take some of the mystery away to make it seem "not that bad" (like desensitization), and the fact that the artists themselves are willing to do it just reinforces that it's not quite worth getting too worked up about.

Death threats and other thoughts

Interesting story here about CNN and CBS running a story about a nutjob who wanted to kill Obama, but editing out the part where he also wanted to kill Bush.

I was at dinner the other day with a friend who’s a bit of an uber-liberal- in a discussion about the Supreme Court, he asserted that he would like to shoot a certain outspoken conservative Supreme Court justice in the head, and at another time, he asserted that he would like to run over a prominent radio talk show host with a truck. Now, I know that he was mostly joking, and I’m sure that if he actually had an opportunity to do something like that, he wouldn’t take it, but I have to say, I don’t know any conservative-types who would make similar statements about democrats. None. For example, when Senator Kennedy got sick, every person who I heard discuss it said something nice about him and indicated that they hoped he would be OK- I remember hearing the same when former President Clinton had heart surgery.

Why is this sort of language acceptable to the left, who generally claim to be more peaceable, than the right? Is this just anger over being out of power? Extended Bush Derangement Syndrome? Or do I only listen to smart, emotionally controlled conservatives? I don’t know.

That also got me thinking- if I had the opportunity to stop someone who was attempting to assassinate, say, Barak Obama, I would certainly take it. I probably wouldn’t take that opportunity if they were attempting to shoot, say, Kim Jong-Il, one of the Castros, or Hugo Chavez, but are there any politicians (or other public figures) here in the states who I would be OK with letting an assassination happen? I can’t think of any (barring, of course, some nut who was an immediate threat to others, like a bomber).

Obama gets rick-rolled!

Enjoy some good, clear, non-mean spirited candidate fun:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65I0HNvTDH4